Fallout: Equestria - Common Ground

by FireOfTheNorth

Rating: teen
Tags: Violence, Death, Alternate Universe, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Science Fiction, Fallout, Adventure
Length: 183600

After being expelled from Equestria, Doc travels to the Commonwealth, a land of griffins. But even in a place sheltered from the megaspells, the dangers of the Wasteland are far from gone.

Over a hundred years ago, the War raged between the Kingdom of Equestria and the Zebra Empire, but these two great powers were not the only players on the world's stage. Lying in a position both advantageous and perilous between the two warring nations was the Griffin Commonwealth, which miraculously managed to maintain its neutrality while selling technology and soldiers to both sides. They would be spared the worst of the Last Day, when the megaspells fell and burned the world, but were not safe from the side effects of their trading partners' deaths, nor even from the spellfire entirely. The Commonwealth, like the rest of the Old World, died.

Cast out from his homeland, it is in this place that Doc finds himself, among the griffins. Yet even if this place, unfamiliar as it is, he seeks to find a way to live in a post-megaspell world and to find some common ground with his new neighbors.

Published 2021-09-04 00:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2024-12-31 13:27:23 UTC

Prologue

Prologue

The sea sprayed against my face as I piloted the boat down the coast. The engine sputtered, and I checked the fuel gauge before giving the contraption a swift kick. Once it resumed its disquieting puttering, I returned my focus to navigation and bailing out the salty water pooling around my hooves. It wasn’t much in the way of boats, but it was all I had to work with; also, it was the only thing I’d gained from my stint in the Grittish Isles.

After leaving the familiar cities of Vanhoover and Stalliongrad, I’d traveled east to a place I’d only seen before via simulation. Things had gone well in Flankorage at first, when nopony knew me for who I was. Some of the Storm Guard mercenaries who’d abandoned the Northern Lights Coalition at the Battle of Burnside knew of me, but none of them recognized my face from the battle, when I’d still had my power armor to protect me. The mercenaries who did know me as Doc weren’t openly hostile, just cold or rude; they’d taken a job, and just because I was their enemy then didn’t mean I was their enemy now. I realized this tentative peace couldn’t last when ambassadors from the North Equestrian Alliance started to arrive, attempting to recruit the settlements of Flankorage to join them. The NEA leaders had no love for me, even after all I’d done to form the alliance in the first place. It was inevitable that they’d spill the beans to the Storm Guard sooner or later that I was also Lord Lamplight, and I suspected they’d be less accepting of me once they knew I’d both hired them to fight (indirectly) and fought against them. So, less than a year into my exile, I left Flankorage and continued east.

I wandered farther and farther to the east, until I reached the sea. I stayed close to those radioactive waters longer than I should have, considering my next course of action. I knew that if I followed the shoreline south, I would reach the ruins of Manehattan, where the mare I loved now lived. When I’d gone into exile, she’d gone south to fulfill a great responsibility. Sage was DJ Pon3 now, the voice of Radio Free Wasteland that gave hope to ponies across the Equestrian Wasteland. One day, hopefully, we’d be able to reunite—once she found somepony else to adopt the mantle of DJ Pon3 or the memory of Lord Lamplight had faded enough for me to join her; whenever that day would be, it wasn't here yet, so I had to suppress my desire to head to Manehattan.

Instead, I managed to hire a boat to sail me across to the Grittish Isles. Whatever I’d been expecting there, it wasn’t what I found. Nopony had thought to inform me that the Grittish Isles were ruled by the Steel Rangers. They weren’t like my late friend Rare Sparks, or Elder Manticore’s Fury after he’d led the Vanhoover contingent; they were even more zealous than the Vanhoover Steel Rangers under Elder Sagebrush or the Stalliongrad contingent. The moment it was discovered that I had a PipBuck, I was immediately imprisoned and had all my technological possessions taken from me. My PipBuck was secured to my foreleg with a biometric lock so only I could remove it, and the Steel Rangers fortunately drew the line at sawing off my foreleg or killing me in order to get the PipBuck. Instead, they kept me imprisoned for five years in the Tower in Trottingham, attempting to force me to give up my PipBuck using methods that were usually unpleasant. Eventually, my continuous refusal to cooperate convinced the Elder Council to give up and release me. None of my weapons or gear were returned except for my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat, and I was given a rickety, leaky boat and commanded to leave the Isles and never return.

From there, I continued east, to the few remainders of Equestrian civilization past the Celestial Sea. There wasn’t much there in way of settlements, but I was able to secure enough petrol to keep the boat moving down the coast. There were rumors of settlements in the griffin lands, so I made it my mission to reach them. After puttering along for days, I finally spotted the ruins of a city in the distance.

The engine sputtered alarmingly, and I checked the fuel gauge again. The fuel was running out now, and I’d already emptied the last of my petrol canisters. Yanking the steering wheel sharply to the left, I directed the boat toward the beach, trying to stretch out the last of the power until I reached dry land. The boat ran aground a distance off the shore, and I grabbed my saddlebags filled with provisions before jumping into the shallows and wading to the sandy strip.

From the beach, I looked back out at the sea. Beyond the abandoned boat slowly tilting as the waves washed against it and silt shifted beneath, the sea stretched out to the horizon. In the distance, I could faintly spy the edge of the ever-present layer of clouds blanketed over Equestria, generated by the Single Pony Project towers. It had been a strange experience since I’d moved beyond the veil and could see the sky stretching on to infinity, something that still gave me unease even years after leaving the close confines of a Stable. I was getting accustomed to it, though, as long as I didn’t look up.

The ruins I’d spotted from offshore weren’t far away now, and I began to make my way toward it. A sniper shot shattered the quiet, and I didn’t even have time to cast SATS before the bullet hit me. It wasn’t a killing shot, but the bullet did pierce the next-worse place: right through my PipBuck and foreleg, causing the electricity and magic contained within the device to strike out at me. I’d experienced this once before in simulation, and even the realism of Operation: Flankorage hadn’t prepared me for the intense amount of pain inflicted as my PipBuck was destroyed and I blacked out.

Chapter 1: A New Start

Chapter One: A New Start

When I awoke, I was lying prone on my back in a familiar situation. Beneath me was a firm surface with just enough give to be more comfortable than a floor. The smell of antiseptics and gauze permeated my nostrils. It appeared that I was in a clinic of some sort. Why did this keep happening to me? It occurred to me that perhaps I was still in Stable 85 and the last seven years had all been a dream. When I opened my eyes, the fluorescent bar lights above me were not the same style as in a Stable; also, the ceiling was not utilitarian steel, but cracked and stained plaster. So, not Stable 85 then. Still, my first impression was correct; I could see other hospital beds like the one I was stretched out on, as well as medicine and surgical equipment.

I attempted to roll over but was held back by my left foreleg. It was heavier than I remembered it being, and it also didn’t want to move. I realized with a shock that I couldn’t feel anything in it at all and slowly rolled back over to look. My foreleg ended in bandages about a hoofspan from my shoulder. From there on, the limb was mechanical and ended in a four-taloned claw balled into a fist. What was this, and who had done this to me? The second question was answered as a ghoul wearing a faded shirt that had once depicted vibrant flowers trotted into the room.

“Ah, yer awake,” he drawled as he trotted over to my bedside. “Didn’t think that’d knocked y’ out forever, though ah can’t be sure it didn’t scramble y’ up a little. Can y’ understand what I’m sayin’ t’ y’?”

“W-what happened?” I asked, unable to fully tear my eyes away from my missing foreleg.

“Bad luck, ah’m afraid,” the ghoul replied as he changed the bandages around what was left of my foreleg. “Y’ were shot in the PipBuck, and the magic messed y’ right up. Ah couldn’t save yer foreleg, but ah did the best I could t’ make sure y’ll still have full mobility.”

“But … my foreleg … what is this?” I asked as I continued to stare.

“Don’t worry, some shock is normal when losin’ a limb. I’ve seen it plenty b’fore. Y’ll adjust t’ it in time. Just be glad y’ weren’t conscious before or durin’ when it was bein’ amputated,” the ghoul said as he finished unwrapping the bandages, exposing where my leg was fused to the prosthetic. “All ah had on hoof in the way o’ prosthetics was a griffin one, but it should do for y’. It’ll take some getting’ used t’, but y’ll get the hang o’ it eventually.”

“So … you found and saved me? Where am I? Who are you?” I asked, starting to get ahold of myself.

“Yer in the Hope Drive Clinic, Pleasure Coast,” the ghoul replied. “Ah’m the resident sawbones, pharmacist, an’ all-around fixer fer the sick an’ broken. Name’s Summer Sunrise. A scavenger found y’ in the wastes outside town an’ brought y’ in. Musta taken y’ fer an associate o’ mine, given th’ coat y’ were wearing.”

I automatically ran my remaining forehoof over my body--which was, of course, naked, given that I’d been stripped for surgery. The absence of my clothing wouldn’t have bothered me so much had it not reminded me of my recent incarceration in the Tower.

“Don’t worry, I managed t’ save most o’ it, as well as yer jumpsuit. They’re both missin’ a sleeve, but y’ can always replace it if y’ want. Now, down t’ business,” Summer Sunrise said as he finished rewrapping my leg, and he pulled over a stool and sat down. “I dunno if it was th’ scavenger who brought y’ in, or whoever shot y’ who robbed y’, but y’ didn’t have anythin’ o’ value on y’ when y’ got here. I take it yer not from around here, either, so there ain’t no stash o’ caps or gold fer y’ t’ dip into an’ pay me for yer treatment an’ prosthetic.”

“Uh, no,” I replied.

“That’s what ah thought,” Summer said with disappointment. “Well, can y’ at least practice medicine, or was that coat just scavenged?”

“I can do some,” I told him. “Nothing too complex, but I know the basics.”

“Perfect,” Summer said as he rose. “Y’ can work here fer me until y’ve paid off yer debt. Fer th’ moment, focus on recoverin’ an’ gettin’ used t’ that leg—or arm, however y’ want t’ think about it—so y’ can be o’ use. Ah’ll have plenty o’ work fer y’ soon.”

“Thank you,” I told him as I laid back down, trying to adjust to my new situation.

***

Though I recovered fairly quickly from my injuries, it took me longer to get used to my prosthetic griffin foreleg. For some time, I had to move it with my magic whenever I needed to get out of bed and trot around. Eventually, however, it began to respond to my impulses and behave as if it were the leg I’d been born with. I even began to experiment with moving the talons at its end, something that was incredibly bizarre. Just as I was able to communicate with the leg and move it, I was able to receive feeling back from it, albeit in a muffled way. The mechanical talons were much more sensitive than the rest of the leg, and I was able to feel the extremely alien sensation of holding objects in a claw rather than in my mouth or with my magic.

Once I was well enough to be out of my bed, Summer Sunrise put me to work around the clinic. At first it was just cleaning the badly decayed medical center and organizing his stock of medicines and bandages, but once I had my prosthetic leg in working order enough to get around without tripping into patients, he put me to work healing as well. It turned out that I’d received a broader education than Summer had, but he had much more experience. During the War, he’d been a combat medic in the Equestrian Army and had only received the training needed to treat battlefield wounds (something more common now than it would have been back then). The unicorn had been on leave in the Pleasure Coast on the Last Day, when the megaspells fell. No megaspells had hit the city, but one had struck in the sea nearby and turned most of the city’s population into ghouls. For a long time, he’d been the closest thing to a doctor the Pleasure Coast had, and he’d learned how to deal with injuries and ailments beyond his army training. That included treatment of ghouls, something I was unprepared for and needed his help to learn.

In Vanhoover, non-feral ghouls had mostly all resided in Tartarus and were in the minority everywhere else. Here, things were reversed. There were a few non-ghouls, but the majority of the Pleasure Coast’s population were of the ghoulish variety. The Griffin Commonwealth had been neutral during the War, but they had done business with both Equestria and the Zebra Empire. While they hadn’t expected to be attacked by megaspells, they also hadn’t discounted the possibility completely. Stable-Tec was exclusive to Equestria, so a local company had built a prototype Lockbox in the city to house residents and vacationers in case of a megaspell strike. The constructions had been cheap, unlike the Stables, and the city’s Lockbox had offered little to no protection to those who’d made it there before the megaspell struck offcoast; its occupants were turned into ghouls, just like the rest of the city. The only ones spared were the griffin business owners who’d had private bunkers built beneath the city, where they’d retreated until the radiation on the surface died down. The griffins were now the ruling class in most of the city, but they were in the minority of its population. In total, eight-tenths of the Pleasure Coast’s population were pony ghouls, one-tenth griffins, and the other tenth split between non-ghoul ponies and griffin ghouls.

A couple weeks into my labor, Summer Sunrise called me up from where I’d been working with the alchemistry kit in the clinic’s back. Alchemistry was the bizarre fusion of alchemy and chemistry used to create potions and medicines. In Equestria, the Ministry of Peace and the pharmaceutical companies under its banner had tightly held the secrets to drug and potion production, but that hadn’t been the case in the Griffin Commonwealth. Here, anyone could concoct whatever they needed, provided they had the proper equipment and raw materials. Summer Sunrise had a small library of books (banned in Equestria by the Ministry of Image) on the subject he’d used to teach himself, and I quickly devoured them. In Equestria, you’d have to scavenge in a hospital if you needed healing potions, buildings that were often filled with all kinds of nasty things; but here, you could brew your own. It was fascinating to me, and Summer Sunrise was happy to hand over yet another of his responsibilities once I knew what I was doing. I made sure to turn the burners down before leaving the equipment and joined Summer in the front of the clinic. There was a griffin waiting there who eyed me skeptically.

“Y’ can set bones, right?” Summer asked me.

“I’ve set my own plenty of times,” I answered.

“Good,” Summer said with a nod. “Ah’ll send ‘im over within the hour. Jus’ keep Mottle comf’table, an’ don’t give ‘im any healing potions.”

“If you say so, doc,” the griffin said, and he tipped his hat to me before leaving the shop.

“What was that all about?” I asked Summer as he got up and trotted past me.

“Oh, one o’ his griffins broke their wing. Ah don’t feel like leavin’, so ah’m sendin’ y’ t’ fix it.”

“Outside the clinic?” I asked. Until my debt was paid, Summer Sunrise hadn’t wanted me to leave the clinic, probably out of worry that I’d run away.

“Yeah, so ah’m gonna give y’ summin’ t’ keep track of y’,” Summer said as he scrounged through bins of equipment. “Ah, here it is, a genuine PipBeak 300.”

The device he produced was incredibly similar to a PipBuck, yet just different enough to avoid being mistaken for it. All the components were there—screen, radiation meter, radio, and tape deck—but in a different configuration than I was used to. The cuff was also too narrow to fit on a pony’s foreleg, though it would do just fine on a griffin’s leg or my prosthetic. Summer Sunrise set the PipBeak on a workbench and pulled out a box filled with what remained of my PipBuck. There wasn’t much left, and though I’d fiddled with the scraps some, I hadn’t been able to coax any life out of it even if its memory was intact. Summer managed to jury-rig a connection between the PipBeak, the PipBuck, and a terminal, and the intact screens sprung to life.

“Ah’m gonna transfer over anythin’ ah can, so hopefully the PipBeak’ll recognize y’ immediately an’ Mottle won’t have t’ wait around fer y’ t’ set it up,” Summer announced as he tapped on the terminal’s keyboard before strapping the PipBeak to my prosthetic leg.

boot pipBeak --cleardata --import st3k
\Erasing data ...
\All userdata deleted
\Import device recognized: Stable-Tec(c) PipBuck 3000
\Import format: RoBronco(R) PIP-M(R) v7.1.0.8.91
\Importing userdata ...
\Import done
\Imported userdata:
\ Level: 50
\ Attributes:
\ STRENGTH:5
\ PERCEPTION:5
\ ENDURANCE:6
\ CHARISMA:9
\ INTELLIGENCE:8
\ AGILITY:7
\ LUCK:5
\ Skills:
\ Barter:93
\ Big Guns:85
\ Energy Weapons:100
\ Explosives:100
\ *Lockpick:100
\ Medicine:100
\ Melee Weapons:100
\ Repair:100
\ *Science:100
\ Small Guns:100
\ Sneak:100
\ Speech:100
\ Unarmed:81
\ Perks (58):
\ Infomaniac,Thick Skin,Egghead,Battlefield Medic
\ Next Time Can I Carry the Balloons?,White Death,Healthy as a Horse
\ Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick,Second Chances,Pyromaniac,Sharp Eyes
\ Paranoid,Wasteland Couture,Nuclear Winterized,Sapper,Quiet as a Mouse
\ Straight from the Horse's Mouth,Power Armor Training (1),Paralyzing Buck
\ Pod Pony,Flight over Fight,Pumping (Scrap) Iron,Back in Black,Dead or Alive
\ You Touch It, You Buy It!,Exterminator,Quick Draw,Flame-Resistant
\ Aftereffect (1),Pack Rat,Improvised Locksmith,Strong Swatter
\ Light on Your Hooves,Aftereffect (2),The Tinkerer,Energizer,Fortunate Pony
\ Ears Like a Bat,Aftereffect (3),Like They're Wearing Nothin' At All
\ 'Tis But a Scratch,When All Else Fails,Get the Hay Out of Dodge
\ Burn, Baby, Burn,I'll Sleep When I'm Dead,The Replicant
\ How Do You Like Them Apples?,The Fast and the Furious,Shining Armor
\ Who Dares, Wins,The High Ground,The Old Soldier,Steady Hoof,Charge!
\ Size Matters,Check Out These Guns,Power Armor Training (2),The Operative
\Converting imported userdata ...
\Userdata converted
\Maximum level increased to 70
\Maximum skill increased to 150
\Evaluating skills with no data (5) ...
\Evaluation done
\New Skills:
\ Alchemistry:31
\ Athletics:17
\ Electronics:31
\ Pilot:19
\ Survival:17
\Due to race [UNI] additional skills available
\Evaluating additional skills (4) ...
\Evaluation done
\Additional Skills:
\ Alteration Magic:16
\ Enchanting:16
\ Illusion Magic:16
\ Manipulation Magic:16
\Boot done. Launching GroverCorp(c) gOS(R) V3.19.1.9 for GroverCorp(c) PipBeak 300Y

“That should do it for y’,” Summer said as he disconnected the cable from the PipBeak. “Let me just add Franz’s shop t’ yer map, an’ y’ can be on yer way. Now, don’t try runnin’ off on me or ah’ll know. Not that ah don’t trust y’, but I know what ah’d do in yer situation.”

“Not like I have any idea where I’d go anyway,” I said with a shrug as Summer added Franz’s Fish & Salvage to the PipBeak’s map.

I didn’t have any time to check if the PipBeak had some equivalent to the PipBuck’s Stable-Dweller’s Survival Guide that would tell me how to operate it before Summer Sunrise shooed me out the door. There was a patient waiting for me, and waiting any longer than it had taken for him to fire up the PipBeak and grab me a doctor’s saddlebags was apparently unacceptable.

Stepping out of the Hope Drive Clinic’s doors, I trotted out into a place I’d only gotten glimpses of through the few intact and incredibly grimy windows of the clinic. The clinic was built on the Pleasure Coast’s grand plaza, a semicircular open area surrounded by shops that looked out upon the harbor to the west. Streets branched out from the edge of the plaza like spokes on a wheel. On the map of the city, this formed the core of the Pleasure Coast; other districts had been built onto it, spreading up and down the coast and following a more conventional grid.

The Pleasure Coast’s skyline was like a toybox of embellishment with no sense of restraint. Buildings of every shape and size reached toward the heavens, covered in unlit neon lights and illustrations meant to draw attention (some rather scandalous, despite being faded by centuries). The Pleasure Coast had been built as a resort and escape for Equestrians, catering to all the vices that had been banned or restricted in Equestria. A large billboard looming over the northern edge of the plaza featured ponies gambling, taking narcotics, and engaging in bawdy acts. Upon it was the city’s motto, though it had been altered by the ghouls after the megaspells had fallen.

Eat, Drink, and Engage in All Forms of Pleasure,
for ~~Tomorrow We Die~~ We’re Already Dead

Following the marker Summer Sunrise had placed on the PipBeak, I trotted across the plaza, getting a few looks from the ghouls lounging around it who looked bored out of their minds. In the middle of the plaza was a defunct fountain. Speakers placed around it projected music out into the gathering place, playing the live broadcast of Radio PC. It was the only radio station Summer ever listened to at the clinic, and as far as I knew, the only radio station available in the Pleasure Coast. The music cut out as I passed the fountain and was replaced by the suave voice of the Commonwealth Crooner, the station’s griffin host.

“Hello, Pleasure Coast. Thank you for tunin’ your dials to Radio … PC, the Commonwealth’s premier entertainment broadcast. Where would I be without all of you lovely folks listening?” the Commonwealth Crooner said. As he spoke, a hologram of a griffin standing in front of a microphone sprung up atop the fountain, projecting his image as he made his report. “It’s going to be a warm, p-leasant afternoon, gliding s-moothly into a cool, clear evening. And now, News from the Wastes. I have a report here from beyond the walls of Pleasure Coast. Unless you’re well-armed and well-armored, steer clear of Castoway. The city’s warlords are havin’ a bit of a tiff at the moment, so give ‘em some distance. If you’re of the … non-flying type, forego any plans to visit the Iron Valley until things have … cooled down. In politics, Grand Marshal Gide-on is in a standoff with the residents of Lockbox 17, who have holed themselves up in their shelter after refusing the grand marshal’s demand that they recognize him as the rightful leader of the Griffin Commonwealth and the authority of the Hookbeak government, set up in their absence. Knowing Gide-on’s proclivities, this can only end badly for the griffins of Lockbox 17. Closer to home, Mayor Gastón Delgado has issued a bounty of one hun-dred caps for any raider brought in alive. Both Family Head Gerald and the Council of Immortals have protested this act, arguing that Delgado has no au-thority to use the mayoral war chest to buy participants for his gladiatorial games. That’s all the news for now, but stay tuned for more music and more of y-ours t-ruly. This is the Commonwealth Crooner, reminding you to stay classy, Pleasure Coast.”

The hologram flickered out as the Commonwealth Crooner finished his monologue, but by then I was already across the plaza. Franz’s Fish & Salvage was located along the coast in the north of the city, and I followed the boardwalk that swung out from the coast in a perfect arc to reach it without having to follow the streets. The shop was a large warehouse with several boats moored at docks, a large electronic sign over the entrance proclaiming its name. I trotted in, and the griffin who’d just been at the clinic was waiting for me.

“Right this way,” he said, crooking a claw towards the back and gesturing for me to follow.

There were several more griffins in the back, standing around a tarp-covered pile of pallets upon which another griffin was laid. The griffin lying on his side had one wing tucked close to him and another splayed out crookedly, blood matting the mottled gray and white feathers. I unfastened my saddlebags as I trotted over to Mottle to examine his injury.

“Did you give him any painkillers?” I asked before I administered any to the wounded griffin.

“We had to to shut him up. He’s so high on tranqs right now, I doubt he even knows what’s going on anymore,” one of the other griffins said.

I lifted Mottle’s injured wing with magic and he flinched, but only involuntarily, nothing like the reaction I’d expect had he been able to feel the pain more than distantly.

“What happened to him?” I asked as I examined the injury.

“We found him on the loading dock,” another of the griffins said as she pointed. “Screamin’ that he’d fallen off the crates and landed wrong. He always was a clumsy one.”

“Can you give me some space?” I asked as I drew potions, bandages, and splints from my saddlebags.

All the griffins other than my patient left the room, heading back toward the front of the shop, and I got to work. I cleaned away all the blood I could before cradling the broken bones in my magic. Griffin wing bones were hollow, so I had to be careful how I reset them. Once they were in place, I splinted and bandaged them before force-feeding Mottle a healing potion. It was a very mild one and his bones slowly became whole again, flesh forming over them to repair the wound.

While the potion was doing its work, I trotted back into the loading dock. The explanation for what had broken Mottle’s wing didn’t sit well with me, even if the griffin who’d told me the story had seemed to believe it. The break in Mottle’s bones didn’t look like it had been caused by a fall, but rather by a pony’s buck. I investigated the loading dock’s stacks of crates filled with fish and salvage until I found where Mottle had presumably been found. There were bloodstains on the ground, but looking around, I found a crate that had had blood wiped from it haphazardly. I followed similar signs past that crate until I came to a stack of crates that looked like they had been recently disturbed by someone crawling over them. I crawled over the top, revealing a hatch in the floor on the other side with blood on the edge.

I grasped the wheel sealing it with my griffin claw and unsealed the hatch. A ladder led down into darkness, and when I reached the bottom, I fumbled with the PipBeak until I found a flashlight on it. Swinging the beam around, I found a bloody light switch and flipped it, illuminating the space beneath the shop. All throughout the damp basement were clusters of makeshift beds, upon which were laid pony ghouls with helmets and visors upon their heads. Cables ran from the helmets to the ceiling and then in bundles across it to a maneframe in the center of the room, attached to which were several memory orbs. I’d seen something similar to this, but on a much larger scale at Strategic Arcane Solutions in Vanhoover. All these ghouls were in a simulation of some kind—willingly or not, I didn’t know. Unlike at SAS, the ghouls had no feeding tubes, because they didn’t need them, and they weren’t strapped down in place. It was clear how Mottle had been injured as some of the ghouls moved their legs in response to artificial stimulus.

“You shouldn’t be down here,” a voice said from behind me, and I turned to face Mottle.

He still looked slightly bleary, but the healing potion, in addition to repairing his wing, had also lessened the effect of the tranquilizers. The griffin looked a little unsure of what his goal was, but it was clear he didn’t intend to let me leave with the real reason he’d been hurt. Making up his mind, Mottle charged toward me, wings outstretched. I ducked under his wing and bucked toward his side. He staggered a bit but came back at me with his talons. I used my magic to wrench a pipe from the frame holding up one of the ghouls and held it in front of me, catching Mottle’s claws. I tried to batter away his attacks, and eventually he got the hint and retreated. He drew a pistol from the holster at his side, deciding he was done playing around with me. He fired several times as I dove behind a cooler with a ghoul on top. Peeking out, I saw Mottle advancing and threw my pipe at him, knocking the gun from his claw.

I lunged forward, punching with my prosthetic balled into a fist, and struck Mottle in the face, knocking him back. I swung again, with my hoof this time, at his wing. Mindful of how recently it’d been injured, he backed away, right into where I shot out my griffin arm, grabbing him around the neck. Mottle tried to claw at me as I lifted him up, but I held up his claws with my magic.

“What’s going on!” the griffin who’d come to the clinic demanded, and I saw that he and the others had found their way down here, drawn by the commotion Mottle and I had been causing.

“Franz … I can … explain,” Mottle choked out.

“I don’t think so,” Franz replied, “I can see clear enough what’s going on. You thought you could run a side business using my space and my electricity without cutting me in? That was a bad idea, Mottle. Much as I’d love to see the life choked out of you, we have some business to take care of, so I’d appreciate it if your caregiver would set you down.”

I took the hint and let Mottle drop to the floor. Either he was unable to do anything more than gasp his breath back or he’d also seen the futility of fighting back, because he stopped trying to claw at me.

“Here’s Summer’s fee for services rendered, and … a little something extra for you for exposing this,” Franz said as he tossed me two pouches of bottle caps. “Now, Mottle, I need to know exactly how long this has been going on. And don’t lie to me, because I can wake some of these fine folk up and ask. Same for how much you been charging them. You’re going to repay me for all the money you made, as well as the electricity you costed me. Let’s get started on the figures …”

Level Up
New Perk: Crash Course – Any Skill Books read for a skill whose level is below 50 will convey double benefits.
New Quest: What’s Up, Doc? – Return to Summer Sunrise to finish paying off your debt.
Alchemistry +6 (37)
Athletics +1 (18)
Manipulation Magic +1 (17)
Medicine +8 (108)
Melee Weapons +1 (101)
Sneak +1 (101)
Unarmed +2 (83)

Chapter 2: Family Matters

Chapter Two: Family Matters

“Good morning, Pleasure Coast, this is your R-adio PC DJ; the one, the only, Commonwealth Crooner. But, of course, I owe it all to you fine griffins and ponies who’ve invited me into your homes by tunin’ that dial to my station. I will gladly take you up on that invitation and pop by for dinner sometime. Just some humor, folks. Now, on to the reports clutterin’ my desk here at the studio. The Weather Corps is directing some surplus rain our way tonight, so stay inside after sunset and plug your leaks if you’re not particular to getting wet. Still no resolution to the Lockbox 17 standoff, but rumors have it that Grand Marshal Gi-deon has authorized attempts to cut open the shelter’s door or bore in from behind. More news to come whenever it arrives. In Economics, the Family has announced wedding-slash-merger with R-edd’s R-ifles & Ammo. The wedding between Charlotte Van Griff and R-edd III is scheduled for the sixty-third of Q1. Mark your calendars, folks. Now we’ll return to the music, but coming up, look forward to a special n-ature segment. Behemoths and Leviathans: do they exist; and were they caused by the megaspell fallout, or do they predate it? All this and more on R-adio PC.”

The PipBeak’s radio switched to an upbeat song abundant in horns and drums. I was still getting used to the device, and I read up on its features every chance I got. Functionally, it was equivalent to a PipBuck, except that it had been manufactured by the griffin company GroverCorp instead of Stable-Tec as a rip-off of the PipBuck that was available to the common griffin, not just military personnel and Stable-dwellers. It had some very similar built-in spells that even a non-unicorn could cast. Instead of Eyes-Forward-Sparkle (EFS), the PipBeak came with a Friend/Foe Identification and Tracking Spell (FITS). And in place of the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell (SATS), the PipBeak had the cheekily abbreviated Enemy at Range Selection and Time Dilation Spell (ERSaTS). There was no lamp spell, as I’d discovered in the basement of Fritz’s Fish & Salvage, but the flashlight was in good condition and had several adjustable settings. The PipBeak also allowed for more user customization than the PipBuck, including the ability to write custom programs and the addition of permanent hardware modules. I would have to keep an eye out for any of those, since several modifications had apparently been manufactured and sold during the War, according to the advertisements that accompanied the guide on how to use the PipBeak.

My reward from Franz was enough to pay off the rest of my debt to Summer Sunrise, but the PipBeak wasn’t included in that deal. I was missing my PipBuck, and Summer agreed to let me keep the PipBeak so long as I paid him for it as well … which meant paying off another debt. I didn’t really mind, and I got the feeling I would be spending a lot of time working to pay off debts at the Pleasure Coast. Here I was, far from Equestria, but was the Pleasure Coast the place I wanted to stop and put down roots? If so, I’d need to consider finding a place to live; if not, then I’d need to think about buying equipment to keep me alive as I explored the rest of the Griffin Commonwealth or beyond looking for a home. All my possessions had been taken by the Steel Rangers or whoever had shot me outside the city, so I’d have to work for anything I wanted or needed.

It was easy enough to find work at the Pleasure Coast, since there were few individuals looking for it. The ghouls that made up the majority of the population had things they wanted and would work in order to pay for them, but they didn’t have the same needs as the flesh-and-blood ponies and griffins that lived there. They didn’t need food, purified water, or shelter, so they carried on their unlives without having to do quite as much to pay for the entertainment the city still offered. It also helped that many of them had raided the cash registers of businesses throughout the Pleasure Coast in the early days after the megaspells fell, enabling them to have stashes of gold and gems they could draw on; both kinds of wealth were still accepted as hard currency by griffins that had emerged from their private bunkers and reestablished business. According to Summer, there had been an early attempt to seize those funds back, but it had failed horribly since it was impossibly complex to return the correct amounts to the businesses that had been raided. In the end, the griffins had chosen the long game of earning it back through their casinos and substance sales. It fit with the griffin political and economic ethos—which were one and the same in their minds—that government existed only to resolve disputes, facilitate trade, and offer nationwide contracts; and it was entirely on individual businesses to succeed or fail in the market and cope with adverse conditions. What this had led to at the Pleasure Coast was the dominance of three major factions known as the Three Families that had consolidated businesses through a variety of methods and now each controlled roughly a quarter of the city.

I was on my way to do a job for one of these Three Families, and the only one not run by griffins: The Immortals. The Immortals were a group of pony ghouls who had managed to maintain control of a portion of the city after the griffins had emerged. With the sudden ascendancy of flesh-and-blood griffins, it hadn’t been a hard sell to convince them to band together for the greater good. The Immortals controlled most of the southern part of the Pleasure Coast, and their headquarters were a group of derelict cruise ships beached or partially sunken offshore from the docks that had once welcomed Equestrian visitors during the War. Scrap cable bridges constructed in the intervening years linked the different ships together, and I trotted down one that tethered the ships to an outcropping on the mainland. There was a ghoul in a battle saddle waiting at the top, but she didn’t make any comment as I trotted by, though she did eye my prosthetic limb.

The ship’s deck was canted slightly under my hooves, but not enough to throw me or any of the ghouls trotting around me off balance. Following the instructions of the “help wanted” ad I was answering, I entered the upper casino deck of the ship and trotted between the gambling tables, across red carpet that had been worn down nearly to the decking. Many of the tables were empty, even those with ghouls attending to them. There was one that had ghouls crowded around it, but I couldn’t make any sense of the game being played. That was probably the reason for the excitement coming from the ghouls gathered around; when one has lived for nearly two centuries, novelty must be difficult to find. An office missing its door was located at the end of the gambling hall, the sole occupant a ghoul in a faded pinstripe suit who looked up as I trotted in.

“You come to answer the ad asking for a softskin?” the ghoul asked as he looked me up and down.

“Yes, I’m Doc,” I said.

“Good for you,” the ghoul replied sarcastically, and he paused before introducing himself. “I’m Rubymane. You have any idea what this job entails?”

“No, not really,” I told him.

“There’s a scavenger tribe—the Irradiated Pinions—who refuse to do business with ghouls in person. That’s where you come in,” Rubymane explained. “They’re on their way to Pleasure Coast with a delivery. You’re going to meet them, look tough, exchange cash for scrap, and bring it back here. Understand?”

“Yes, I think so,” I replied.

“Do you have any barding or weapons?” Rubymane asked, eyeing me dubiously.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Before you leave, see Pellets about some armor and weapons, and don’t forget to take this with you,” Rubymane said as he passed a set of saddlebags filled with paper bills across the desk to me. “Give the scavs however much they ask. This stuff is worthless, but they don’t seem to care.”

I took the saddlebags filled with cash and left Rubymane’s office. Another ghoul directed me to where I could find Pellet, the Immortals’ quartermaster. He issued me a combat shotgun and some basic barding, enough to appear as more than a pushover, and made it very clear that if I didn’t return it, he’d hunt me down and kill me himself. Now equipped to at least appear ready to handle the Wasteland, I left the Pleasure Coast, following the train tracks south.

Near the ruins of some homes was a titling flagpole driven roughly into the ground, a crudely sewn-together flag hanging from the top. In the distance to the east and west, I could see other flagpoles marking where other scavenger tribes could camp outside the city. A rumbling slowly grew in volume as a dust cloud appeared in the south. Soon the source of it became visible: a pack of wheeled vehicles. Many of them were different than the auto-carriages I’d seen in Equestria, as they had an inline configuration of wheels rather than parallel.

The pack of driven vehicles pulled to a stop around the ruins I was in, and I raised a foreleg to shield my eyes from the dust that rolled around them. The griffins that dismounted from the machines were wearing clothes thoroughly caked in dust, but they were all wearing outfits that covered their bodies completely. Sturdy dusters were worn over barding with lots of pockets, boots covered their hindlegs, gloves on their claws, wraps over their tails, and their faces were obscured by masks with air filters or hoses that snaked back to tanks on their backs. One of them brushed the dust from his mask’s goggles as he approached me.

“We are the Unsullied range-riders, those who pick through the ruins of the Old, the clan of the Irradiated Pinion,” he announced before coming to a stop before me and making a curt bow. “I am Pathfinder Chan. Were you sent by the Rotted Ones?”

“Yes?” I answered tentatively, since he was probably referring to the Immortals, though it wasn’t a very polite way to refer to ghouls.

“This way,” Chan gestured, and I followed him to where a cart was attached to the back of one of the vehicles. “We know what kind of things the Rotted Ones are interested in.”

Chan pulled back the tarp covering the cart, flinging a thick layer of dust into the air. Inside the cart was a pile of datatapes, film reels, books, comics, vials, flasks, and weapons. The griffins standing around the cart looked proud of their haul, which I detected even though I couldn’t see their faces. Or maybe they were just feeling superior for being “Unsullied.”

“How much?” I asked Chan as I gestured toward the cart.

“Forty-seven million Commonwealth Guilders,” he replied, and I passed the saddlebags filled with bills over.

Chan draped the saddlebags over the back of the nearest vehicle, and he and two other griffins quickly counted out their payment before returning the saddlebags to me with a few stacks left over.

“Out of curiosity, what do you use these bills for?” I asked as the griffins unhooked their cart, remembering Rubymane’s attestation that the paper money was worthless.

“We trade with other clans, and we purchase gasoline for our road-beasts,” Chan said as he gestured proudly to the scattered vehicles.

I gathered that the bills truly were worthless to all but the scavenger tribes, who still believed they had worth, as well as whoever they were getting petrol from to fuel their vehicles. I suppose the same could be said of all currencies in a way, but I would stick with bottle caps and Equestrian Bits, the latter of which the griffins and ghouls of the Pleasure Coast lusted for and hoarded as much as the scavenger tribes hungered for Commonwealth Guilders.

Once the cart was detached, I had to haul it back into town. The contents were acceptable to the Immortals, and they set ghouls to work sorting through the entertainment portion of the shipment immediately, searching for anything they hadn’t already seen or read. The longing for anything new was strong in these ponies who’d lived one hundred-sixty years in a resort town. Once I returned the borrowed armor and shotgun to Pellet, I was paid handsomely for my efforts and left one large step closer to paying off my PipBeak.

***

A few days and a few jobs later, I was on my way to meet with another of the Three Families. It seemed strange at first that I should be interacting with the big players so soon after arriving at the Pleasure Coast, but it was inevitable, given how much of the city they each controlled. In retrospect, the same had been true in the Equestrian Wasteland as well; I somehow always found my way to the leaders of any settlement.

Today, I was answering a work offer from the Family. Unlike the other two “families” that ran the Pleasure Coast, members of the Family were actually related to each other through a complicated set of marriage alliances. It had all begun when two of the more powerful griffin families that had emerged from their bunkers decided to marry and unite, and they had continued the trend since. Whenever a new operation was added to the Family, someone in the leader’s family would marry an existing Family member, securing the alliance. The upcoming wedding between Redd III of Redd’s Rifles & Ammo and Charlotte von Griff was just such an arrangement, bringing the weapon’s dealer into the fold by bringing him into the family.

The majority of Family territory was in the north of the city, but their headquarters was located in the central area of the Pleasure Coast, where the roads radiated out from the plaza. Lucky Shard Casino had been built in the triangle formed by diverging streets, and it kept with the theme of triangles as it soared to the sky with sharp edges that ended in a point. The surface was all straight, shiny beams and glass, most of the panes of which were still intact, though there was a clear patchwork pattern showing where they’d been replaced.

The guards at the doors let me through with no more than a quick glance inside my saddlebags. I was getting used to that. Unlike in the Equestrian Wasteland, where it might be impossible to enter the home or headquarters of a major faction without express permission, here it was easy to enter without any fuss. The reason was obvious; these weren’t warlords’ fortresses or government offices—they were businesses. Lucky Shard Casino was still operating, allowing pony ghouls to fritter away their possessions trying to win big and continuing to enrich the Family, which would in turn support their other efforts at controlling the Pleasure Coast.

A unicorn with a coiled red mane suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of me in the middle of the casino floor.

“Whoa! How did you do that?” I exclaimed as I looked for a PipBuck and StealthBuck, neither of which she seemed to have on her.

“A teleportation spell. Anypony with enough magical ability can learn to cast it,” she replied as she looked at me disparagingly.

“Where did you learn that?” I asked, and her expression changed from derision to surprise.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” she asked.

“No, the Equestrian Wasteland.”

“That explains it, then,” the mystery mare said. “The Equestrian government forbade the sale and possession of spell books except by the Ministry of Magic and those vital to the war effort. The Commonwealth, however, freely sold them up until the day the megaspells fell. I have a private collection, but there are plenty of books on lower level spells in the Pleasure Coast Library of Arcana.”

“I’ll have to check it out,” I said, and the mare’s evaluation of me seemed to rise slightly. “I’m Doc. Who are you?”

“The name’s Lurk,” she said as she took my extended hoof.

“Lurk?” I asked.

“Yeah, my folks were terrible at names,” she said defensively.

“No, I was just surprised,” I said. “I came here to meet with you, but I was expecting someone … different.”

“Oh, you’re here for the job offer, are you?” Lurk asked, and I nodded. “Sorry, but it’s already been taken. Although … I do have another matter that you might be able to help with.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“If you’re coming here for a job, you must have been at the Pleasure Coast long enough to know about the upcoming wedding between Charlotte von Griff and Redd. Family Head Gerald wants this to go off without a hitch, and that means the best food and drink at the wedding. The Cleariwine supplier has turned the boss’s generous offer down. I want you to convince him to reconsider,” Lurk said.

“You want me to rough them up?” I asked dubiously.

“How you do it is up to you, just so long as you get it done,” Lurk said.

“No offense, but isn’t this a job for your own goons?”

“Do you want this job or not?” Lurk asked, her eyes narrowing. “I’m the Family’s fixer, and I’m given a wide degree of freedom on how to fix the Family’s problems. I choose to pass that freedom on to you, so solve this however you think best. If you can achieve it without hurting anyone, then all the better. And for your information, I could send Family griffins, but it would be a death sentence to send them through Dragon territory. You’re far less likely to be shot. Now, are you going to take the job or not?”

“Good, now let me just mark the location of the distillery on your map …”

***

The Cleariwine distillery was located in the small gridded area east of the city center in what had once been the offices of the Pleasure Coast Circular. I rapped on the door with my griffin arm, the sound of metal striking metal making quite a racket. Eventually my knocking got results and the door opened halfway, an earth pony ghoul looking out at me with annoyance and caution.

“What do you want?” he rasped. “I’m not selling.”

“Yeah, about that,” I said. “The Family sent me to try to convince you otherwise.”

“No way!” the ghoul said, and he tried to shut the door on me, but I grabbed the side with my prosthetic.

“Can you at least tell me why?” I asked as I wrestled to keep the door open. “Maybe I can help somehow.”

“I don’t have Cleariwine to sell!” he exclaimed as he stumbled back from the door and I stumbled in.

“You look like you have plenty to me,” I said as I observed the crates filled with bottles stacked against a wall.

“Those are reserved for Mayor Delgado’s birthday in four months. He’s already contracted for them,” the ghoul said. “You need to go!”

“You can’t make more for the mayor by then?” I asked.

It had been a genuine question, since I had no idea how long it took to make Cleariwine, but it visibly flustered the ghoul. He gibbered and sputtered before finally looking defeated.

“Do you know anything about fixing printing presses?” he asked wearily.

“I could give it a shot,” I offered, happy that I was finally getting somewhere.

“Fine, but I need your assurance you won’t tell anyone what you’re about to see. That’s the only way the Family is going to get their Cleariwine. Understand?” the ghoul asked.

“Yes,” I said, and the ghoul continued to frown at me. “I promise not to tell anyone else what I’m about to see.”

“Right this way,” he said.

The ghoul led me through the makeshift distillery he’d set up, past vats, pipes, and alchemical equipment. There was a stairway in the back leading down, and we took it to the basement. The space belowground had been mostly stripped, apart from the old printing presses, most of which had been robbed of parts as well in order to repair a single functioning printing press near the center of the space. That press was partially disassembled at the moment while the ghoul had tried to repair it, apparently to no avail. The press wasn’t exactly in the same state it would have been during the War. At some point, someone had jury-rigged the press to use printing plates other than the ones intended. The reason was clear as I got closer: this ghoul had been using the press to print paper money.

“So?” the ghoul asked. “Only the scavs can get me the ingredients I need to make the Cleariwine, and they want Commonwealth Guilders for them. No money, no Cleariwine. It’s as simple as that.”

“Couldn’t you just ask the Family to be paid with guilders?” I asked skeptically. “I’m sure they’d give them to you since they’re worth nothing to anyone but the scavs.”

“Give up my secret and my profits? Are you mad?” the ghoul asked. “Can you fix the press or not?”

I sighed and got to work. Had the printing press been in its original state, I was sure I could have fixed it in no time, but that would probably be true for a lot of ponies. Instead, this press had been rearranged and repaired haphazardly for centuries, which made it difficult to fix the press without jeopordizing or invalidating some other fix. As I worked, the ghoul warmed up to me surprisingly quickly and was soon talking my ear off. It seemed now that I’d promised not to spill his secrets, he needed to share his entire life story with me.

“Yeah, that’s the reason why I came here at first, ‘cause of the plates,” Trusty—which turned out to be the ghoul’s name—said. “When I found those plates, I thought I’d found a prize even greater than Von Plume’s Treasure, but how wrong I was. Printing my own money was fine at first, but ponies stopped accepting it pretty quickly, and even the griffins wouldn’t take it when they reappeared. Only the scavs still want the stuff. Well, I found a way to make that work for me.”

“Von Plume’s Treasure?” I asked with my head buried in the guts of the printing press, only the light from my horn illuminating the space, hoping to hear something interesting and not just more about the long years since the megaspells had fallen in which Trusty hadn’t done much but make Cleariwine and print money.

“Oh, yeah,” Trusty drawled, “Griselda von Plume’s the griffin who built the Pleasure Coast, or at least laid the foundations for it. Some real rich griffin who wanted to get even richer, so she had the city built to attract Equestrian tourists and convinced other griffins to build their businesses here. She died before the War was even over, after amassing even more wealth than she’d started with, but all her money vanished when she died. In her will, she said she hid it, and that whoever finds it will inherit it and her right to 5% of the income from every business at the Pleasure Coast. Griffins were going crazy trying to find it for a few years, but eventually most gave up. Far as I know, no one’s ever found it, but I imagine most outside of the Pleasure Coast have forgotten the treasure’s even out there somewhere. Assuming Von Plume didn’t just dump it in the ocean or spend it all right before her death, and then leave that storh in her will just to drive everyone crazy.”

“All right, I think I’ve fixed things now,” I said as I crawled out of the printing press, before Trusty could launch into another story. “Give it a try.”

Trusty fired up the press, and it rattled and shuddered to life. I thought at first that it wasn’t going to work, but then it began printing. Large sheets covered in Commonwealth Guilders rolled off the press, landing in a pile where they’d need to be cut apart into individual bills later.

“Well, I’ll be. You fixed it,” Trusty said in appreciation. “All right, I’m a ghoul of my word. You can go back and tell Family Head Gerald or whoever sent you that they’ll have Cleariwine for their wedding.”

***

For any enchantment, the enchanter must know 3 spells: (1) the spell whose effect they wish to bind to an object, (2) the appropriate spell to prepare an object for enchantment, and (3) the spell to enchant the object. This makes enchanting the most flexible of the magical disciplines and the most immune to changes in both technology and other magical disciplines. Take, for example, the common desire to bond a flame spell to an object. Once, this would have been done with swords, arrows, or sling stones, but the principle applies equally well to creating immolation bullets (which are not even considered a separate object class, so the ritual is precisely the same in all the listed cases). In this book, I will cover the basics of preparation for some of the most common object classes, and the enchantment spell itself. As for spells to use with these, you will need to look elsewhere.

In between jobs, I was checking out a book entitled Practical Magic: The Art of Enchanting in the Pleasure Coast Library of Arcana. Ever since Lurk had tipped me off to this place, I’d come here multiple times and read a couple different books on different kinds of magic. The library required a fee to read and wouldn’t let you remove the books from the building, but that was still miles ahead of what had been available in Equestria.

“Are you Doc?” a unicorn ghoul asked me as she approached, and I looked up from my book.

“Yes, I am,” I replied. “Do you need something?”

“Mayor Delgado requests your presence at Le Grande Resorte,” she replied before turning tail and leaving.

I had no idea what this was about, but an invitation from such an important griffin was not to be easily ignored. I’d barely started my book, so I forewent renting a bookmark to keep my place and left the Library of Arcana. There was no town hall or other official government building at the Pleasure Coast, and since its mayors were invariably the heads of the Three Families, government was run from the headquarters of whichever one held the office at the time. Mayor Gastón Delgado was the leader of the Sunset Strip Dragons, and their headquarters was the resort and hotel complex known as Le Grande Resorte. The Dragons controlled much of the city center and most of the territory in the south that hadn’t come under the control of the Immortals. Le Grande Resorte wasn’t very deep in their territory, since it had been built along Sunset Strip, the street that ran directly east from the plaza and divided the city center exactly in half. Raucous music came from the building and geysers of flame shot up from perfectly spaced emitters along the building’s front as I approached.

“In you go,” a griffin in sunglasses gestured me in as I arrived, and he followed me, pointing the way to go whenever I was unsure.

Like the Immortals’ cruise ships and the Family’s Lucky Shard casino, Le Grande Resorte was packed with gambling ghouls. The ubiquitous bars were also popular, though I had no idea what most of the substances— served from bottles, vials, and packets—being sold were. The griffin guard directed me up to the fourth floor via a circuitous route, so that I saw a good deal of the Sunset Strip Dragons’ operations. The section of the fourth floor I was on had a good deal more griffins wearing sunglasses indoors and no patrons. A worn red carpet that didn’t exactly fit with the walls led to a set of polished double doors. A pair of griffins opened them for me as I arrived.

The space through them was a cozy sitting room decorated in some hotel manager’s idea of tasteful. At least, that was how the original bits of the room seemed, where they hadn’t been usurped by more modern griffin sensibilities. Trophies of Wasteland creatures were scattered around the room, many of whom I didn’t recognize, and I assumed they were unique to the Griffin Commonwealth. A gold-plated, diamond-studded PipBuck was displayed on the foreleg of a pony statue that had been allowed to remain. One wall was dominated by sections of a billboard that advertised Le Grande Resorte, transported here from wherever it had been scavenged.

In the center of the room was a cluster of plush chairs and sofas, assorted small tables placed near them conveniently. A griffin in a fine suit lounged on one of the sofas, a glass of alcohol grasped in his talons. Both his fur and feathers were a deep chestnut, unusually identical for a griffin. He looked up at me as I trotted in and gestured for me to take a seat as the other griffins shut the door behind me.

“So, you’re Doc Silverarm?” the griffin asked.

“Just Doc, actually,” I corrected him, suddenly much more self-conscious about my prosthetic limb.

“You’re not the one with flair or showgriffinship,” he accused me. “Doc by itself is not a name that would catch on.”

“Well, back in Equestria I was known as the Wasteland Doctor,” I told him, before realizing it might not be wise in the long run to reveal that.

“Hm, better, but not good enough to draw a crowd,” the griffin said. “Doc Silverarm is much better, much more intriguing.”

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“I want you to fight in my arena,” Gastón Delgado said, for it was clear now that that was who I was talking to.

“This is … unexpected,” I said. “How do you even know I can fight?”

“Franz of Franz’s Fish & Salvage had good things to say about your scrap with a dishonest employee of his,” Delgado said. “You also can’t be too bad at defending yourself if you made it here all the way from Equestria. And your griffin arm will make for a great draw, regardless.”

“But I don’t have any weapons to fight with,” I protested.

“That’s fine; we can provide you with everything you need for your debut today.”

“Today?” I asked in surprise.

“You don’t think I had you brought here for nothing, do you?” Mayor Delgado said. “I need a new event in the arena, and I think you might do. I know you’re saving up caps to pay off a debt to Summer Sunrise. I can give you whatever you need to finish paying it off. What do you say?”

I mulled over Mayor Delgado’s offer. Through odd jobs, I was slowly making progress on paying Summer Sunrise for my PipBeak. My jobs with the Immortals and the Family had each taken a big bite out of that debt, and working for the third Family could very well clear it out completely. The Sunset Strip Dragons had a bit of an unsavory reputation, though, since they were willing to sell and do anything to make caps or Bits. I’d have to set some boundaries.

“Are these fights to the death?” I asked.

“Of course,” Pleasure Coast’s mayor replied.

“Then I won’t fight any other ponies … or griffins,” I demanded.

“That can be arranged,” Delgado said after a pause.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I’m in.”

“Excellent,” he purred. “Head on out the way you came in, and my griffins will get you all set to fight.”

***

“And that’s another victory for The Whip!” the arena announcer declared as an armored griffin with a spiked whip that ended in sawblades used her weapon to disembowel her opponent. “Undefeated in a hundred and ninety-eight matches! Come back in three days to see her hundred and ninety-ninth match, and provided she survives, come back next week for bout two hundred!”

The griffin emerged from the arena near me, holding aside the chain-link fence to let herself through. Her whip, coated in blood and gore, was coiled at her side, and her fans tried to get a glimpse of it as she strode through them.

“Up next, a new competitor from across the Celestia Sea. Introducing, Doc Silverarm!”

I didn’t get nearly as many cheers as The Whip as I entered the arena, but a few ghouls did so just because of their desire to be involved in any entertainment. The Le Grande Resorte’s arena had once been the resort’s swimming pool; it had been drained long ago, and an angled chain-link roof had been built over it to protect bystanders and keep winged competitors from leaving the arena. The pool’s tiles were long-gone, leaving only blood-stained concrete. Across the arena, a team of ghouls was finishing up removing The Whip’s unfortunate competitor’s remains. Once they were out, a tower crane swung around and lowered a cage down toward the arena. Once it was near the chain-link barrier, the griffin riding on the cage jumped down and opened a hole in the arena’s top. The cage came to a stop, its bottom slat flush with the chain-link barrier.

“Today he’ll be facing off against … The Cazador!” the announcer pronounced dramatically.

The griffin by the cage pulled a pin, and the bottom of the cage opened up. Out of it fell a griffin-sized wasp, buzzing angrily, and the crowd cheered. The Cazador charged me stinger –first, and I jumped to the side, avoiding a sting that would surely kill me. In my magic, I wielded a ripper similar to the one I’d possessed in the Equestrian wasteland, and I triggered it on, sending the blade whirring, which seemed to enrage the giant wasp. It flew toward me and I stepped aside again, using ERSaTS to help me move quickly enough. The Cazador had already lost a leg in another fight, and I swung my ripper down and cut off two more as it flew past.

The Cazador swung around toward me, and this time I aimed for the wings. It fell from the air as my ripper tore them apart, but the tattered wings temporarily jammed the weapon. While I was picking wing membrane out with my magic, the angry wasp charged me on the ground. I jumped out of the way as it tried to sting me, narrowly avoiding a jab, but dropped my ripper. It came for me again and I dodged, but it was pushing me back toward one of the arena’s walls. Focusing my magic in a way I’d learned in one of the books in the Library of Arcana, I increased the temperature in The Cazador’s abdomen until it burst.

The giant wasp squealed piteously and tried to come at me with its mouth-pincers. With my griffin arm, I grabbed The Cazador and held it back while the crowd cheered. I retrieved the ripper with my magic and used it to push away the remains of The Cazador’s stinger on the ground before turning it on. Holding the wasp in place with my griffin arm, I chopped away the rest of its kicking legs before decapitating it. Dropping The Cazador’s head, I was met by cheers from the assembled ghouls. Another job done.

***

“Welcome back my l-ovely listeners. This is the Commonwealth Crooner bringing you … the news. Grand Marshal Gi-deon has put out a call for mercenary companies to come to Shearpoint for work. Sources close to the Grand Marshal report that this was brought about by clashes between the Air Corps and the Grand Pegasus Enclave. More to come as more word arrives. The big event in Pleasure Coast today is the marriage between Charlotte von Griff of the Family and R-edd III of R-edd’s R-ifles & Ammo. If you see the happy couple, wish ‘em a happy and pr-osperous marriage. Let’s keep it brief this time around and get back to … the music.”

As the music played on, I swept up the front room of the Hope Drive Clinic. My fight in the arena had provided me with enough caps to pay off the last of my debt to Summer Sunrise, but I was still living in the clinic for the time being and was expected to contribute in some way. I was beginning to think about buying or renting a place of my own, but I would need to save up a fair number of caps to make that a reality; this suited me for now. My sweeping was interrupted as a griffin burst through the clinic’s front door.

“You’re Doc?” he asked urgently.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come with me right now,” he ordered and immediately exited the clinic.

I had no idea what was going on, but I set the broom aside and followed the griffin out the door. For all I knew, he was here to trick and kill me; that probably wouldn’t happen in the Pleasure Coast’s plaza, thankfully, so I was safe for a little bit. He was waiting for me outside and took off to the east once he saw I was following. I didn’t have any opportunity to ask him what was going on, but it didn’t take long to figure out where he was leading me. The Lucky Shard Casino loomed up ahead, and he led me inside. There were quite a few griffins standing around the entrance and flying around the casino’s upper levels, all heavily armed. It must’ve been for the wedding.

The gambling tables and bars of the casino were abandoned at the moment, all the ghouls who’d been at them now corralled off into groups by griffins who were questioning them. I didn’t get much of a good look, as my griffin guide urged me to keep up. He led me up to a large reception hall on one of the casino’s higher levels, whose wall of windows looked out east on the mountains. The hall had been decorated for the wedding I’d been hearing about on the radio, and bottles of Cleariwine I’d helped procure were scattered on the tables. At the end of the room, a ragged hole had been blown in the ceiling, leaving the head table beneath it a wreck.

“Lurk, I brought who you asked,” the griffin I’d been following announced as the unicorn approached us.

“Good,” Lurk said to the griffin and waved him away before fixing her attention on me. “How good are you at investigating?”

“Um, fine I guess. I don’t know,” I said, taken aback by the question.

“Franz of Franz’s Fish & Salvage swears you’re a regular Griffs McGilly,” Lurk said skeptically.

Griffs McGilly was a fictional griffin private investigator featured in a series of comic books that had been popular during the War, especially in the Griffin Commonwealth. It was especially notable in that it was the only Equestrian comic series to feature a griffin and not a pony as its main character. I’d seen a few of the comics around in the Commonwealth since I’d arrived. Unlike in Equestria, such things could be found here in decently readable condition rather than as pulpy detritus.

“Franz sure seems to talk about me a lot,” I noted.

“Well, maybe you made a good impression on him,” Lurk said distractedly. “It doesn’t matter. We need all the eyes on this that we can get. Listen, nothing you see here can leave the Lucky Shard. Someone tried to assassinate the Family Head. Before we enact retribution, we need to find out who.”

“You want me to figure out who did it?” I asked, taking another look at the hole in the ceiling and the griffins swarming around it.

“I want someone to,” Lurk said. “Whoever it does will be well rewarded, so apply yourself and use whatever methods you need. I don’t care.”

Lurk didn’t even let me respond, she rushed away so quickly. With a hundred different things to deal with, and now the attempted assassination of her boss on top of it, she was a busy mare. I didn’t know what I would be able to do in the way of investigation, but I’d try my best. First, I’d need to check out the floor above.

***

My sweep of the space over the reception hall didn’t turn up any answers. I was far from the first or the last investigator to look over things, and the crime scene had been thoroughly disturbed. It was clear that someone had built a bomb on the floor above where the wedding was being held and had intended to kill Family Head Gerald with it, but that was about it. Gerald had only been saved by his new nephew-in-law Redd III, who’d detected the munitions in time to get him and Charlotte out of the way. I’d only managed to find one possible clue to who had tried to assassinate the head of the Family: a vial that had rolled beneath a cabinet on the floor above the wedding.

I had no idea whether the vial was actually a clue or just junk that someone discarded at some point in the past. It wasn’t as dusty as the underside of the cabinet, however, which made it a little suspicious. It was empty now save for a few purple-pink droplets that clung to the sides, but it had clearly been meant for the quick injection of whatever it had contained, based on the stubby needle stuck one end and button on the other. But, had it contained something for an individual to inject into themselves, or a component of the bomb? I took the vial back to the Hope Drive Clinic in an attempt to analyze it using Summer Sunrise’s alchemical equipment.

“What are you doing there?” he asked me from behind as he walked in on me.

“Just … running some tests,” I told him.

“Mm-hmm,” Summer Sunrise said skeptically. “Well, make sure y’ don’t contaminate my equipment. Ah don’t need to give any griffins jitters ‘cause y’ got neuregen in a healin’ potion.”

“Wait, you know what this is?” I asked as I turned around and abandoned my tests. “What’s neuregen?”

“It’s a drug that regrows nerves at a rapid pace. Neuregen is short fer neural regenerator an’ long fer NRG. I used a small concentrated local dose t’ regrow the nerves in yer foreleg needed to graft on that prosthetic, but otherwise I steer clear o’ the stuff. A full dose one’a them vials holds’ll increase yer sensations t’ dangerous levels. It works on ghouls, too, an’ there’re some who use it t’ regrow the nerves in their rotted flesh.”

“Wouldn’t that be painful for them?” I asked as I winced.

“Oh, incredibly,” Summer Sunrise said. “O’ course, fer some not being able t’ feel anythin’ fer so long means any feelin’, even a painful one, is better’n nothin’. Where’d y’ get that stuff?”

“Lucky Shard Casino,” I answered after weighing whether sharing it would violate the secrecy of my investigation.

“Huh,” Summer said, “That’s not the Family’s style. They’ve always taken pride in not gettin’ involved in drugs, prostitution, or bloodsports. Ah wonder what changed.”

“Well, I didn’t buy it there,” I admitted, “I found it the way it is.”

“Somebody musta snuck it in, then,” Summer said. “There’s no way they’d allow nueregen use in their casino.”

“Thank you,” I told Summer.

“What fer?” he asked, but I couldn’t tell him he’d just given me a real lead to follow in my investigation.

***

Despite having something to actually work on, it didn’t feel like I’d made much progress by the next day. Neuregen was a pretty common drug in the majority-ghoul city of the Pleasure Coast, even if the Family didn’t deal in it. Despite this fact, I was convinced it was a clue that could help me in some way. Anything out of the ordinary had to help, and this was certainly out of the ordinary if Summer Sunrise was to be believed.

My investigation had taken me to Le Grande Resorte, where I inspected the bars while The Whip fought her 199th bout in the arena. The Sunset Strip Dragons didn’t have any of the moral hang-ups of the Family, and they sold neuregen along with plenty of other substances. There was some variation in their vials, but none of them matched the one I’d found at Lucky Shard. It wasn’t conclusive evidence, but it did suggest that the Dragons weren’t involved in the attempt to assassinate Gerald. It would have been a bold and risky move for them, even if they did hold the mayorship at the moment.

I was wandering around the arena trying to think of what to do next when a cheer went up from the crowd. The Whip had just removed the limbs of her opponent with her choice weapon before slamming its end down onto their head and ending the bout. Over the exultant crowd eager to see her try for 200 wins in a few days, a single gunshot sounded. There were screams on one of the balconies, and I looked up to see guard griffins grabbing at the lifeless form of Mayor Delgado before he fell over the railing. Armed griffins spread out to try to maintain control as the crowd went into a panic, but none of them seemed to have seen what I had.

Pushing my way through the crowd, I forced myself to the building from which I’d seen the flash of a sniper shot a mere instant before it rang out. If someone was trying to assassinate all the leaders of the Three Families, this was my opportunity to find out who. I realized belatedly that I was still unarmed, but there was no time to go back for one of the arena weapons; even if I could manage it, I would probably get detained or shot by Delgado’s bodyguards. I would have to make do with raw strength and my magic if I encountered the assassin.

After ascending the abandoned stairs, I burst into the hotel room from which the shot had been fired. The window was still open, but there was no sign of the shooter. FITS wasn’t any help in identifying a possible direction in which they had fled, with so many ghouls and griffins crowding the area and in an uproar. As I trotted over to the window, my hoof knocked something across the floor; I looked down to see a spinning, empty vial with purple-pink droplets clinging to the inside. I picked it up with my magic and confirmed that this neuregen vial was identical to the first. I was onto something with this, but what?

***

Apart from structural decay, ghouls, and the distant cloud ceiling, my experience up to this point with the Pleasure Coast could’ve convinced me it hadn't changed much from before the megaspells, remaining an ordered and peaceful city. All that changed once word of Mayor Delgado’s assassination got out. According to the Pleasure Coast’s narrow panel of laws, death of the sitting mayor immediately triggered a mayoral election to be held in one week. This resulted in chaos throughout the streets as the Three Families tried to shore up their voting blocs and intimidate their opponents from going to the polls. Now going outside seemed comparable to venturing into the ruins of Vanhoover or Stalliongrad, cities where you could be shot by raiders at any moment for no reason. Thankfully, at least the Family and the Sunset Strip Dragons knew who I was by now. That meant I was less likely to be shot be them, but there was still a possibility.

Summer Sunrise was kept busy patching up wounded griffins and ghouls and seemed miffed that I didn’t help him much. I lent a hoof when I could, but getting to the bottom of these assassinations was more important than ever, and I was often out investigating leads. I still didn’t have a weapon of my own, so I stuck to the strategy of running and hiding in order to stay alive whenever I left the clinic. I slowly picked through the city and began stringing things together, building a better picture of what had happened, but I still needed one more piece of evidence to bring it all in. This is what brought me to the Pleasure Coast’s black market.

This black market was different from a black market in any other settlement or city, since the goods and services being sold weren’t technically illegal. The Griffin Commonwealth and especially the Pleasure Coast were very lax on laws (something that had drawn Equestrian businesses and tourists here), but sometimes it was best to be discrete about your business and not do it out in the open. This was the function the black market served, though it did so openly. What had once been a sports stadium had been turned into a warren of stalls filled with shady griffins and ghouls selling services such as theft, sabotage, and assassination.

Slipping behind the stalls, I found a service entrance and stealthily approached. The black market had a unique feature to it that was kept well hidden. Beneath the stadium was a massive and highly secure set of maneframes that stored all transaction data safely so that it could resolve potential disputes but wouldn’t jeopardize the black market’s clients. It was also not networked to the Pleasure Coast Central Operating System, unlike most other maneframes in the city, which meant the only way to access it was to plug into one of the maneframes in the market or access it directly. For me, the only way was the latter.

Putting my lockpicking skills to good use, I unlocked the service entrance and let myself into the dark corridors that tunneled beneath the black market. I kept my ears pricked as I trotted through the hallways, but there didn’t seem to be any guards down here. Another locked gate barred the way to the maneframes, but I made quick work of it and entered the rows of humming towers.

I found a terminal and jacked my PipBeak in to begin hacking. The security was just as strict as I’d been led to believe, with layers of new protection added on over the centuries providing a thick cocoon around the data I was attempting to steal. It was a tough job to pierce it, but eventually I succeeded and had access to the maneframes. I only had a limited amount of time to find what I needed, though, since there had been no way through without triggering a timed alarm that would go off unless I backed out within a minute. Luckily, thanks to my preparations, I knew exactly where to look.

Asking questions around the Pleasure Coast had yielded some probable suspects: a griffin ghoul assassin couple who called themselves Mayhem and Havoc. They were known to inject themselves with neuregen before every job and accept the drug as payment. The assassination attempts also fit their style. Mayhem had a penchant for explosives, and Havoc was a skilled sniper. I navigated to their segment of the maneframe and quickly cracked the security there. Within was a list of contracts dating back 120 years, with the latest just a day before the Redd wedding. Opening the file confirmed what I’d expected to see: Death of Family Head Gerald and Mayor Gastón Delgado in exchange for 12 cases of neuregen. I copied the file to my PipBeak and backed out of the system before I could be caught. Now that I had enough to prove who was behind the assassinations, I had to bring it to the griffins who needed answers and hope they would listen.

***

Lurk wouldn’t take her eyes off me, and it was really starting to freak me out. When I’d shared my plan with her, she’d been far from happy about it (threatening to flay me alive), but she had gone along with it. Her fears weren’t unfounded, since there was a very real possibility that in trying to solve the attempted assassination of her boss, I would actually end up getting him killed. I felt it was important that I show my findings to all interested parties at the same time, however, especially given the implications for the election in two days.

We were meeting in an old movie theater that had been cleared and swept thoroughly by Family Head Gerald’s bodyguards before he had arrived. Gerald stood before me now, bodyguards hovering protectively around him. He too was wont to stare at me, but he’d actually looked away a few times as we awaited the final party.

She arrived in a flurry of activity, surrounded by her own griffin bodyguards. Gloria Delgado, the new head of the Sunset Strip Dragons, had the same feather and fur coloration as her father, in contrast to Gerald von Griff’s white head and black hindquarters. She was dressed in studded black leather and stared daggers at Gerald as she sauntered down the aisle of the theater with a confidence that covered up worry that this was a trap for her. I wouldn’t be surprised if both of these griffins thought the other was responsible for the assassinations in their respective camps, but I was here to clear that up. Lurk cleared her throat as she continued to stare, urging me to begin explaining before the heads of two Families began attempting to kill each other instinctively upon being in such close proximity.

“Family Head Gerald, the assassin who tried to kill you,” I said, and Gloria struggled to conceal her surprise at that news, “And the assassin who killed Mayor Delgado were working together. Are you familiar with Mayhem and Havoc?”

“They’re behind this?” Gerald asked. “Who hired them? How do you know?”

“I found these at Lucky Shard Casino and in Le Grande Resorte where the assassins attacked from,” I said as I produced the empty neuregen vials and levitated them over to each griffin boss.

“Neuregen,” Gerald sneered. “It’s their trademark all right.”

“Yes, at first I thought it may have come from the Sunset Strip Dragons,” I said, and Gloria frowned angrily. “But the design of the vials doesn’t match any of the ones sold by them. Note the unique housing and injector design. This led me to the Pleasure Coast patent office, where I was able to find record of the patent for this design, which was held by only one company and was filed just weeks before the Last Day.”

Both the griffins were giving me their full attention now, and Lurk, while she hadn’t stopped staring at me, had let up on the intensity of her gaze.

“They were never sold before the end of the War, so these vials should only exist in the factory that produced them, which is far from the Pleasure Coast,” I continued to explain. “ I went to the scavs outside the walls and questioned them about this, and one tribe recognized them. They told me that they recently scavenged in that factory and brought the vials back here to sell to the Immortals. I checked on the streets and was unable to find any other vials of neuregen using this design. The Immortals are the only ones with these, and they haven’t begun distribution yet.”

“And the way that Mayhem and Havoc got ahold of them?” Gloria asked, anticipating the answer.

“They were the payment for the assassinations,” I said. “If that’s not enough, I was able to obtain this from the black market’s maneframes.”

I pulled up the file I’d stolen on my PipBeak, and the two griffins reluctantly learned in to read it. It confirmed that the assassins had been hired for the neuregen and the identity of the hirer: Black Rust – a member of the Council of Immortals.

“The Immortals …” Gerald said before swearing under his breath. “They couldn’t wait their turn to lead the Pleasure Coast, so they decided to take out the competition and trigger an election. Well, they can’t be allowed to get away with this.”

“I agree,” Gloria said and hesitated a moment before extending her claw to Gerald. “We can’t let them win the mayorship for the next three years like this. I’d rather throw my support behind you than let that happen. Truce?”

“Truce,” Gerald said as he grasped Gloria’s claw.

Level Up
New Perk: Private Eye – You notice out-of-place things more quickly than the average pony. +1 to Perception.
New Quest: What Now? – Find your purpose in the Griffin Commonwealth.
Perception +1 (6)
Alchemistry +3 (40)
Alteration Magic +6* [Skill Book] +3 (25)
Athletics +2 (20)
Enchanting +6* Skill Book
Lockpick +1 (101)
Medicine +3 (111)
Melee Weapons +2 (103)
Repair +2 (102)
Science +1 (101)
Sneak +1 (102)
Speech +1 (101)
Unarmed +1 (84)

*Crash Course

Chapter 3: Radio Free Commonwealth

Chapter Three: Radio Free Commonwealth

“Welcome back my lll-ovely listeners to Rrr-adio PC. Pleasure Coast: there’s no place quite like it. I have a special treat for you today, listeners; an interview with the pony who uncovered the plot to assassinate former Mayor Gastón Delgado and current Mayor Gerald von Griff. Doc, is that right?”

“That’s right,” I replied to the Commonwealth Crooner’s question.

The mayoral election had ended in a landslide victory for the head of the von Griff family, once the Sunset Strip Dragons threw their weight behind him and shared what I’d learned about the plot to seize the mayorship. In the aftermath, I’d received an invitation to the Radio PC studio for an interview with the Commonwealth Crooner. I was currently sitting in a room with a microphone and a technician adjusting my sound levels while hearing my host through a headset. According to the staff here, the Crooner seldom left his recording studio or even let anyone else in to visit. It wasn’t totally unusual, since DJ Pon3 in Equestria had done the same thing before Sage had taken his place. However, he’d also had good reason to be worried about somepony attacking and killing him—a little more so, perhaps, than the Crooner did here in the heart of the Pleasure Coast.

“You went to a lot of trouble to identify who was behind the assassinations,” the Commonwealth Crooner said. “Why is that?”

“Curiosity?” I said lamely. “The Family hired me to help find out who tried to kill Family Head—er, Mayor Gerald, and I wasn’t going to give up without doing everything I could to solve the case.”

“You’re a newcomer to Pleasure Coast and haven’t yet established yourself. Do you intend to begin a career as a private investigator after this?” the Commonwealth Crooner asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. “As intriguing as that sounds, I don’t know if it’s what you would call steady work.”

“Well, it’s certainly ex-cep-tional work. You not only managed to track down who was be-hind the assassinations, but also brought the Family and the Sunset Strip Dragons together. That’s something that’s never-ever happened before. Tell me, do you foresee future cooperation between the Families? Could we be seeing a marriage in the future that brings the Family and the Dragons together?”

“I can’t say, but I wouldn’t hold your breath,” I told the Crooner. “It’s one thing to band together against a common enemy that’s gunning for both of you, but that’s not always a solid foundation to build a relationship on. I’ve seen stranger things in the Wasteland before, though, so I can't absolutely discount the possibility.”

“And what about the Council of Immortals, and their expulsion and execution of Black Rust? Do you believe she was a rogue agent acting alone when hiring Mayhem and Havoc?” the Commonwealth Crooner asked.

“That’s not for me to say,” I said. “She was the one who signed the assassination order.”

“Thank you, Doc, for your time today. I’m sure the eyes of the entire Pleasure Coast are upon you now, anxious to see what you do next. I myself am eager to both hear about it and report on it. That’s what we do here at Radio PC. Now, back to the music.”

“Commonwealth Crooner, can I stay on and ask you some questions during the break?” I asked as the music began.

The griffin technician with me scowled as he switched off my microphone and reached for my headset.

“Sure, I don’t see why not, as long as you can keep things brief. You have five minutes and twenty-six seconds,” the Crooner said, and the griffin stopped and switched my mic back on.

“Thank you,” I told the Crooner, “I’m curious—”

“As we established in your interview.”

“Yeah. I’m curious how wide of a region you broadcast to.”

“Alas, the transmitter here in the Pleasure Coast does not have the widest of ranges. My broadcast covers the whole city, of course, and the wastes surrounding it, but it doesn’t reach much farther than the first of the coastal mountains. It was never dee-signed for much more than that, but there are times I dream of reaching a larger audience.”

“Aren’t there any other radio stations in the Griffin Commonwealth?” I asked.

“Oh, there are always tiny radio stations with hardly any range run by hobbyists or raiders. For large stations, though, there’s only the Commonwealth Emergency Buh-roadcast System in the Roosts that the Grand Marshal uses whenever he wants to announce something, so it’s dead most of the time. There’s New Pegasus Radio in the south, but that’s very local in its interests. No, I’ve heard tales of stations in Equestria like Radio Free Wasteland, but we have nothing like that here. I’m the closest thing you’re going to get, and I don’t have all that much in the way of range.”

“I see,” I said.

“You know, I might have a job for you,” the Commonwealth Crooner said. “How’d you like to ex-pand the broadcasting range of Radio PC? I’ve offered the job before and haven’t had any takers. But you seem like a real go-getter of a pony, ready to jump into the jaws of danger.”

“Um, thanks, I guess?”

“There’s a distribution station near the edge of my broadcast range, designed to pick up radio signals in order to repeat them and extend their range. It’s currently occupied by a nasty raider gang, but if you can clear them out and set up the station to rebroadcast Radio PC, I would be much obliged.”

“I could give it a look,” I offered.

I’d been looking for some excuse to see the Griffin Commonwealth outside of the Pleasure Coast, and this could be my chance. It wasn’t that I didn’t like this city, but I wanted to see what else there was before I decided to try and settle down.

“Excellent. Let any of my staff know, and they should be able to point the way. Until our next interview, Doc.”

***

Before I headed out into the Griffin Commonwealth, I needed to rearm myself. While going about unarmed in the Pleasure Coast had been fine, it would be suicide if I ventured too far from the city. The Commonwealth hadn’t been ravaged by megaspells as badly as Equestria, and its government was actually still functioning (in a very limited and truncated way); even so, it was clear that society had still largely collapsed. Plenty of griffins had turned to raiding and slaving, just like ponies, making the space between settlements as unsafe as in my homeland. On top of that, I was on my way to oust some raiders from a distribution station, and I very much doubted that I would be able to accomplish that by sweet-talking them. I had no difficulty locating a shop selling weapons, and, as luck would have it, that store was Redd’s Rifles & Ammo.

“Ah, the pony who solved the attempted assassination of my uncle-in-law at my wedding!” a griffin with red plumage and fur greeted me as I trotted through the door. “Just for you, today only, 50% off on everything.”

“Oh, well, thank you,” I said.

I’d been debating what was most important to buy, but this would help me stretch my limited caps even further. I’d acquired a handsome sum of bottle caps from odd jobs and as a token of thanks from the Family; but I’d already spent some of it on saddlebags, healing potions, a bedroll, and food for my journey to the distribution station. With Redd III’s discount, I might have enough left to purchase two weapons and their ammunition. Even with his generous deal in mind, however, I’d have to be choosy as I browsed the wall of weapons.

“Do you have any magical energy weapons?” I asked.

“None of that here,” Redd said with a frown. “Just good, reliable, gunpowder firearms.”

Apparently I’d touched on a sore spot, and I turned back to browsing. For something close-range, I picked up a combat shotgun. This one couldn’t hold the same number of shells as my old gun that had been confiscated by the Steel Rangers, but the handling was familiar, and I was experienced with such a weapon. For fights at a greater distance, I picked out a battle rifle. It wasn’t a weapon I’d used in the past, but Redd allowed me to take a few practice shots in the shooting range behind the shop to get accustomed to it. After buying both guns and enough ammunition to get me to the distribution station and back, I still had enough left over to purchase a couple of fragmentation grenades—equivalent explosives to the metal apples I’d used in Equestria, but without the stylization that made them resemble a piece of fruit.

I could have used some more armor to complement my armaments, but the protection provided by my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat would have to do for the time being. I prayed the raiders at the distribution station wouldn’t be too dangerous and that this would be sufficient. I didn’t know exactly what I’d gotten myself into, but what else was new? Heading back out into the wastes, there were sure to be some surprises in store.

***

The distribution station I was aiming for was located about a day’s journey from the Pleasure Coast. As I moved inland, the desolate wastes began to change. It took a while, but eventually the empty, dusty expanse showed signs of life as I neared the mountains. At first, it was no more than scraggly scrub brush here and there, but the plant life increased dramatically the closer I got to the mountains. The flora was far from what anypony could call lush, and these plants were clearly stunted when compared to their depictions on the billboards that dotted the wastes. But, unlike the blasted forests I’d seen in Equestria, these plants were alive. The Griffin Commonwealth had taken a far lighter hit from the megaspells, which meant its soil wasn’t nearly as poisonous as in Equestria. This allowed plants to grow outside of environments like the carefully cultivated and detoxed fields of Equestrian settlements. My PipBeak helped me to identify some of the fruit growing on the foliage, and I picked some peppers and spiked mangoes to add to my stock of canned food to eat later.

Perched in the nearest mountain in the range that stretched off to the north and east was the distribution station. I could see it from a distance as I approached, a complex built into the side of the mountain and jutting off from it. Atop a cantilevered platform sat a compound of buildings with a tall radio spire rising from the center. Various dishes and smaller antennae jutted from the platform, as well as another tall radio spire atop the mountain’s peak. I realized belatedly that there might be places in the Commonwealth that I couldn’t reach since, unlike the creatures who’d built everything here, I couldn’t fly. Deciding that the Commonwealth Crooner probably wouldn’t send me on a fool’s errand, I continued on toward the facility.

A chain link fence surrounded the patch of ground at the base of the mountain beneath the station, festooned in faded signs warning against trespassing. Having fallen apart a long time ago, however, it was no obstacle. There was a way for non-griffins to get to the station, but it looked like it had been out of commission for a long time. An industrial elevator car sat on a platform, but the cables that had once connected it to the station above were now strung out in a tangled pile nearby, the ends showing signs of explosive damage. Thankfully, there was an alternate way up to the station via a rickety back-and-forth emergency staircase that hugged the side of the mountain. Before heading up that way, I decided to check out the one building at ground level built next to the defunct elevator.

Its door had been torn off and the windows shattered, and the interior wasn’t in much better state. File cabinets had been smashed open, their contents strewn across the floor. A wrecked terminal had been tipped off the desk and its connection to the network entirely destroyed, so I couldn’t even hack in with my PipBeak. A gun cabinet against one wall had been thoroughly looted, leaving nothing behind. Across one wall, in letters that stretched floor to ceiling, was spray-painted a single world: ARISE!

I left the surface building no richer nor wiser and headed to the emergency staircase for the distribution station. I had to follow a tunnel into the mountain to reach the staircase’s base, protected by a gate locked on the outside that I had no trouble picking. I didn’t have to trot very far into the mountain before I began ascending stairs. The staircase emerged from the stone after only a few flights, ascending the rest of the way either against the mountain or suspended out from the side.

I was about two-thirds of the way up before FITS detected another creature around me—or, rather, above me. They weren’t marked as hostile yet, but I kept my shotgun ready anyway. I slowed my steps as I neared them, wishing I’d looked in the Library of Arcana for a spell to quiet one’s hoofsteps so I could silence the clanking against the metal stairs with every step. They came into view as I rounded a corner: a griffin in stereotypical raider attire (erratically stitched poor-quality armor with hooks jutting from wherever the wearer could affix them) was sleeping on the stairs, a sniper rifle lying beneath him. I could easily shoot the guard in his sleep, but it seemed wrong, especially if things weren’t as they seemed. Tentatively, I nudged the griffin with my shotgun’s barrel, prodding him awake.

“Hi there, I’m Doc,” I said as the griffin blinked awake. “Could I talk to you about the distribution station above us?”

“Gah! A groundbound trying to get the Sky Keep!” the griffin exclaimed as he jolted awake and reached for the revolvers holstered beneath his wings. “You’ll make a fine trophy, slime!”

Well, at least I’d tried.

My shotgun came up and I shot one of the revolvers out of the griffin’s claws, crippling his arm in the process. Fighting through the pain, he managed to get his other revolver out and fired at me. Using ERSaTS, I slowed time and managed to get out of the way. I unloaded my shotgun into the griffin from my position beside him, and the blasts tore through his wings and armor. The force also threw him back and he pitched over the safety railing, plummeting down until he struck against the lower segments of the staircase. His pip disappeared from FITS before he was out of range, letting me know he had died.

I could hear shouts drifting down from above, so I hurried up the remaining levels of the staircase, jumping gaps wherever the stairs had broken away or been removed. A griffin with a hammer grasped in her claws met me coming down the stairs, and I stepped back down as she swung the hammer over me. I fired the rest of my shotgun’s shells into her from beneath, taking her down, and hurried on past her body. I could tell from FITS that there were enemies waiting for me at the top of the stairs, but there was no way to go except forward. After I charged ahead and jumped up off the final stairs, I was immediately struck by gunfire from all sides. My doctor’s coat protected me from most of the hits and my other injuries didn’t feel critical, so my gamble had paid off. I dropped one of my grenades as I cleared the circle of raiders, removing the pin with a prosthetic claw. Once I’d landed, I rolled and ran as far as possible to escape the blast. The path I was on took me toward the mountain’s face, and I spun around to examine the griffins who’d sought to ambush me. Six of them had been torn apart by the blast, but there were others rushing to take their places.

I jumped into the alcove around a door and downed a healing potion to knit up my wounds before peeking back out at the approaching raiders. A couple of them were in the air winging their way around, and I cast ERSaTS as I unslung my battle rifle. The spell slowed time and guided my shots to the flying griffins as they tried to flank me. I managed to take three of them down before I had to focus on the others approaching my cover on foot. One was nearly on top of me and tried to bowl me over, but I slashed at his eyes with my metal talons, causing him to reel back into one of his companions. I was still levitating my battle rifle and fired a burst at each of them before emerging from cover.

There was nowhere to run to from my current position except straight through the raiders, so I went for it. I dodged past their close-range attacks and dropped my other grenade, playing the same trick as before. It worked once again, taking out another four of the raiders and giving me some space to wheel around. I managed to shoot one of the flying stragglers with my battle rifle before continuing to the main area of the station, where the radio towers were located.

Besides the main building that I’d emerged next to after climbing the stairs, there were two other buildings in the complex that made the station, each with antennae and dishes galore adorning them. Graffitied on the buildings were more spray-painted slogans like “Drown the World,” “Salvation Above,” and “The Strong Survive.” I didn’t have much time to read them, though, as more griffin raiders swarmed from the buildings to converge on me.

Using the radio towers as cover would’ve been ideal, but I didn’t want to risk damaging them in the fight since I needed to use them to spread Radio PC. Instead, I opted to seek cover behind the scattered containers filled with raided loot and trophies. It didn’t provide shelter from all my attackers, especially as they took to the air, so I focused my energy on those who could best take advantage of my vulnerability. There was one griffin holding onto a radio tower, and I used ERSaTS to line up shots on him before he could fire the rocket launcher he was aiming at me. A rocket fired off anyway as I took him down, but it ended up clearing me and took out a couple of the raiders advancing from behind for good measure.

I tried to keep moving around from cover to cover as I fired my battle rifle as often as I could, trusting that my doctor’s coat could soak up any shots as I exposed myself. It wasn’t a perfect system, but I was so outnumbered that I had no choice. I’d been on my own for years now, but I hadn’t attempted a lone full-on assault on anything in a very long time. It reminded me how much I missed having my friends around to help. There was a very real chance that I’d bitten off more than I could chew here; if I survived this, I would need to be more careful in the future. At the moment, however, it was too late to turn back.

There was no time to bandage my minor wounds as I kept moving, shooting at whatever griffin got in my way. I ducked into one of the smaller buildings as more of them took to the air, and I downed half a healing potion. My eyes darted back and forth watching FITS as the griffins swarmed both entrances of the dormitory in which I’d found myself. The first one I encountered entered through the door I hadn’t yet gone through, and I blew her away with a shotgun blast before she could bring the pipe in her claw to bear. A grenade bounced into the room from behind me, and I frantically galloped ahead.

I was struck by a shotgun blast as I entered the next corridor. It threw me back a bit, but I still managed to keep from falling into the room with the grenade before it exploded. I levitated my shotgun around the corner and fired repeatedly while downing a potion to close up my wounds, watching hostile pips disappear from FITS. I was more careful as I trotted around the corner this time, but there were no griffins still standing to attack me. One on the ground reached for a shotgun lying nearby, and I finished her off with a last blast.

I ran back outside, where the one griffin left perched at the top of the building shot me from behind. She appeared stunned that the bullet glanced off my coat, and I took advantage of the opening to pepper her with battle rifle shots until she died. I quickly checked FITS, and it showed two more griffins in the building I’d just exited and one approaching from the radio tower cluster. That last one was clearly the leader of the gang, covered in clunky armor and wielding a flamethrower.

“You don’t deserve to survive!” she bellowed as she ignited her flamethrower, the headdress of plumage from a hundred griffins shaking atop her head. “This Sky Keep is for strong griffins, not groundbound weaklings!”

I managed to avoid getting crisped by her gouts of flame, but the other raiders just emerging from the dormitory weren’t so lucky. I fired my battle rifle at the raider leader as I circled her, but her armor repelled my attacks. ERSaTS helped me line up a few shots, but most of them missed striking flesh as well. Coincidentally, her armor was her greatest strength and weakness; it weighed her down and stopped her from flying or moving very fast. Even so, she was able to turn surprisingly quickly, and I couldn’t seem to get behind her.

When she paused to keep from melting down her flamethrower’s barrel, I saw my chance and charged in, ready to pry open her helmet and fire my shotgun into her face if necessary. She swung her flamethrower back around, and I used ERSaTS to put on the extra burst of speed needed to reach her before she could roast me. I didn’t have the reach to grab her arm before she fired, but I could grab the flamethrower with my griffin arm. That’s exactly what I did, wrapping the metal talons around the blisteringly hot barrel and pushing it away from me as she let loose another gout of flame. She tried to claw for my face with her free arm, but I held if off with my remaining foreleg and my magic. Her talons grasped angrily at my face but could never quite reach it.

Now that I was close to her, I realized she was wearing a PipBeak on her arm, though it was a little different than mine. A modification was attached to it, and I found out just what its purpose was as she curled her claw back on itself and pulled a lever on the PipBeak’s wrist strap. A blade shot out from beneath her PipBeak and into my cheek. I was staggered by the agonizing pain, and she pulled her arm free of my magical grasp, slicing my cheek entirely open. Blood gushed profusely, but I had the clarity of mind to do one last thing before staggering backwards. My shotgun hovered around behind the griffin and fired into her flamethrower’s fuel tank, causing it to explode and throwing me back forcefully.

My vision was dark and blurry as I pushed myself up. I was burned badly, but the most egregious wound was still the one in my face. I fumbled in my saddlebags for a healing potion and managed to pour a couple down my throat, swallowing a fair bit of blood in the process. I forced myself to keep my jaw still as the flesh recovered, filling in the hole and stitching my face back together.

The raider leader’s armor shifted as she burned within, having mercifully died in the initial conflagration. I trotted past the body, having no interest in going anywhere near it. FITS was clear, so I made my way to the main building of the distribution station. As I did so, I examined my shotgun, which was in rather bad shape. I’d need to get a new one when I returned to the Pleasure Coast or find a replacement around here. None of the weapons the raiders had dropped looked to be in decent condition, though, so I resigned myself to shilling out more caps to Redd.

The raiders had done the typical raider job of decorating the inside of the station, using copious amounts of body parts and safety hazards. There was plenty more graffiti in here, referring to the same things as the graffiti outside and what the raiders had been shouting. There were many calls to drown the world below or the weak alongside commands to arise and be safe in a Sky Keep, which I now thought likely to be synonymous with a raider den. I’d have to ask someone when I got back to the Pleasure Coast if they had any idea what this was all about. The devotion to these ideas seemed to be religious, though I’d seen no evidence that the griffins of the Pleasure Coast worshipped anything—unless it was profit.

The control room of the distribution station was still sealed up and safe from the raiders, for which I was grateful. I would prefer not to work surrounded by body parts and ominous slogans. I picked the lock and let myself in to a room filled with monitors, keyboards, and dials. It wasn’t too difficult to figure out how to use the distribution station, and I set it up to rebroadcast Radio PC once I determined the frequency from my PipBeak.

As I got ready to leave, I spotted a map on the wall of the Griffin Commonwealth with several points marked, one of which was lit up in green with the three nearest points glowing amber. Each of the points was a distribution station, and they covered the Commonwealth, allowing any station to broadcast to the entirety of the region so long as the distribution stations rebroadcast them. There was even one in the far northwest, within the broadcast range of the Grittish Isles’ SPP tower. A plan quickly formed in my mind to use the network of distribution stations to bring Radio Free Wasteland to the Commonwealth. Even if I couldn’t see Sage or hear her voice, I could still hear her as DJ Pon3 and keep up to date with what was going on in Equestria. Maybe I hadn’t figured out my role in the Griffin Commonwealth yet, but I had at least figured out what to do next. I was going to bring the griffins DJ Pon3.

Level Up
New Perk: Slow Down and Smell the Roses – ERSaTS and other time-dilation spells last 20% longer.
New Quest: Good Morning Commonwealth! – Bring Radio Free Wasteland to the Griffin Commonwealth.
Basic Saddlebags added: +20 carrying capacity
Alteration Magic +1 (26)
Athletics +1 (21)
Barter +1 (94)
Explosives +2 (102)
Lockpick +1 (102)
Manipulation Magic +2 (19)
Medicine +2 (113)
Small Guns +7 (107)
Survival +1 (18)
Unarmed +2 (86)

Chapter 4: The Past Submerged

Chapter Four: The Past Submerged

“Good morning Pleasure Coast, and a go-od morning it is indeed! Some of you fine griffins inland may have already discovered this in the past couple days, but Radio PC is now available in a much w-ider area. So I say not only good morning Pleasure Coast, but also good morning Commonwealth! We owe our sudden expansion to the efforts of a single unicorn new to the Commonwealth, the one known as Doc Silverarm. Be sure to thank him on my behalf if you see him around Pleasure Coast. And for those of you in the greater broadcasting area who have been terr-or-ized in the past by the raiders of Distribution Station Seven, also give the good doctor your thanks that you’ll no longer be facing attacks from that par-ticular direction. You’ll recognize him when you see him. Now, on to other news …”

Radio PC had begun broadcasting to a greater region the moment I dialed it in at the distribution station, but the Commonwealth Crooner didn’t have the resources that DJ Pon3 had access to that let her see everywhere in Equestria at once. I let him know that the deed was done right after I’d returned to the Pleasure Coast, but he’d held off until today to make the announcement to his listeners. Just how those in the broadcast range would know to tune in when the announcement to tune in was made over a previously dead signal, I didn’t know, but I wasn’t the one running a radio station.

While I listened to Radio PC, I was also busy brewing healing potions using Summer Sunrise’s alchemistry set. The fight with the raiders at the distribution station had taught me that I needed to keep more potions on hoof than expected if I planned to stay alive out in the Commonwealth. It was cheaper to create them from scratch than to purchase the potions already created or looted from hospitals, so I’d acquired the raw materials and was now working to build up a healthy supply. My saddlebags were going to be bursting once I’d finished up with these potions and added them to the other items I’d purchased to help me I explored the Commonwealth.

With my reward from the Commonwealth Crooner, I’d gotten my clothes and shotgun repaired, restocked on ammunition, and purchased survival gear. While a bedroll was fine, it didn’t offer much shelter out in the open, and the Griffin Commonwealth seemed to have plenty of open spaces between settlements. I’d acquired a tent to remedy that problem and offer some additional shelter from the elements and curious wildlife. I’d also gotten tools to set up a campfire and cook over it, which was a skill I'd need to prepare some of the mutated fruits and vegetables I’d harvested. It would require some creative packing, but I was confident I could stow all my equipment in or on my saddlebags.

Studying my PipBeak’s map, which was now dotted with the locations of the radio distribution stations, I had a plan for how to spread Radio Free Wasteland through the northern stations. There were twelve in the northern half of the Commonwealth, and I would only need to activate two more to bring RFW to the Pleasure Coast. However, I intended to activate as many as possible and spread Radio PC at the same time. I’d told the Commonwealth Crooner that last part of the plan and he’d been happy to offer me a reward for every new station I added to his network.

Judging from the elevation markings on my PipBeak’s map, a valley spiraled through the northern Commonwealth in a counterclockwise direction, and I intended to strike out east and follow it around to get to the far northwest station. That was the one I’d need to activate to bring RFW to the Commonwealth in any capacity, and I’d activate any distribution station I came across along the way. Fortunately, my radio presets had been copied over from my ruined PipBuck, so I still had the frequency for Radio Free Wasteland in my PipBeak. That meant I could preemptively activate the distribution stations; they would then appropriately rebroadcast the station once it was broadcast to them, which was what I’d done at the distribution station I’d already hit. It seemed to be a good plan, but I knew that plans often went awry, so I was preparing myself for anything. What I didn’t expect was Franz bursting into the clinic as I was preparing to leave to pick up some food containers.

“Good, you’re here,” he said to me. “I need you for a job, now!”

“Me, specifically?” I asked. “Why?”

“There’s no time to explain,” Franz replied. “We need to go!”

I was about to follow him, assuming something terrible had happened like the assassination of an important griffin, when Summer Sunrise clopped his rotted hooves on the clinic’s reception counter to steal my attention.

“Ah haven’t seen y’ this worked up in a long time, Franz,” Summer Sunrise said as he stared at the griffin with a knowing expression. “Is the Red Harvest back in port?”

“Well … yes,” Franz hissed with an exasperated sigh.

“The Red Harvest?” I asked Summer. “What’s that?”

“It’s an old zebra submarine that visits from time t’ time, and every griffin with a boat falls over themselves tryin’ t’ trade with ‘em,” Summer explained while Franz glared daggers at him. “Y’see, they trade in gold an’ silver—old zebra imperial denarii, t’ be precise. Catch is, they’ll only trade with one griffin per visit, an’ they require them to provide two things: repair material fer their sub, an’ someone in t’ fix things up.”

“Why do you need me?” I asked Franz skeptically.

“‘Cause no griffin wants t’ do it,” Summer chuckled, and Franz’s glare deepened. “The sub’s underwater an’ heavily irradiated.”

“Shouldn’t this be a job for a ghoul, then?” I asked.

“Most of the pony ghouls, alas, still harbor wartime prejudices against zebras,” Franz said before Summer could speak. “I thought that, perhaps, a pony as distant from that war as yourself might feel differently.”

“Well, it is distant history at this point,” I said. “And I was friends with a zebra ghoul.”

“Perfect!” Franz said excitedly. “That’s what the sub crew is, the original crew from the Pony-Zebra War, ghoulified! Come on, we’ve not a moment to lose.”

“Okay,” I conceded as I looked at Summer, who was glancing sidelong at me. “But you’re going to pay for the Rad-X and RadAway I have to use for this. We can negotiate a fair wage on the way over.”

“You’re learning fast,” Franz sighed, disappointed; he wasn’t going to take advantage of my newcomer’s naiveté as much as he’d hoped. “But you’ve got me over a barrel. Fine, but we need to go now! If we’re not the first ones there, there’ll be no profit for either of us!”

***

The radiation meter on my PipBeak was clicking softly before we even reached the sub. A megaspell had gone off in the ocean not far from the Pleasure Coast, and balefire radiation still lingered in the water of the city’s bay. That bay was normally empty of watercraft apart from a few fishing boats heading out to catch blightfish or hunt larger prey. At the moment, though, it was swarming with boats circling a small rocky island in the middle of the bay. Some of these boats tried to cut us off, but Franz’s pilot was good at her job, and we made it safely through to the submarine’s tower. Through the murky water, I could just barely make out the massive shape lurking beneath the surface. The submarine was long and slender, and entirely submerged apart from the rusty metal trapezoid jutting out of the water that we approached.

“I have what you need!” Franz announced excitedly as he waved a large duffel bag in front of a periscope, “And someone to install it!”

He pulled me toward him, and the periscope turned lazily as it regarded us. A hatch opened at the tower’s top, and a ghoul swiftly emerged. He looked basically the same as the pony ghouls I’d encountered, other than the shape of his head and his ratty military uniform. The ghoulish zebra crew member waved me over, and Franz draped the duffel bag around my neck and urged me on. A set of holes were helpfully cut into the tower to be used as hoofholds, which I used to climb up. The ghoul vanished down the hatch once I reached the top, and I followed him down the ladder which the tower was wrapped around.

PipBeak’s radiation meter immediately began to click alarmingly, and I stopped to silence it before continuing my descent. The substantial dose of Rad-X I’d taken before setting out would keep me from absorbing too much radiation, and if I absorbed a serious dose, the PipBeak would warn me that I needed to down some RadAway.

The submarine’s control room awaited us at the bottom of the ladder—a cramped compartment filled with currently unattended stations, apart from one. I couldn’t make out any of the script over the control consoles or the pipes that ran along the walls and over my head, as it was written in the zebra language. The crewmember who’d let me in had disappeared, but there was a new zebra ghoul standing before me. His uniform was still mostly intact, though the badges of rank were tarnished. On his head was perched a hat with another badge, canted off to the side due to a missing ear.

“It has been a long time since they sent a living one,” the ghoul remarked in accented Equestrian. “If I may ask, what did you do to deserve such a punishment?”

“I’m not being punished,” I replied, and the ghoul grunted. “I volunteered for this job.”

“Hmm. I am Captain Zaliski of the Red Harvest. I was once the enemy of your kind. Does that concern you?”

“Are you my enemy now?” I asked.

“No,” Captain Zaliski replied.

“Then I don’t have any problems with you,” I said with a shrug. “I was once good friends with Zherana, a zebra ghoul who guided a megaspell into Vanhoover. Whatever you did in the past, I doubt it could be much worse than that.”

“We did not have the chance to partake in the final bloodbath as the megaspells fell,” Captain Zaliski said. “But … perhaps that was a blessing. To see the destruction of the world from afar has made us all reconsider the pointless violence of that war. If we were a part of that destruction ourselves, could we tolerate our own existence?” The captain frowned, almost unconsciously, and his gaze slowly drifted down toward the floor.

“So …” I said, breaking the silence, “I’m supposed to fix something?”

“Yes, our electrical systems always need repairs,” Zaliski said, snapping out of his contemplative trance. “Come, follow me.”

Turning sharply, the captain guided me through one of the corridors leading out of the control room. The submarine groaned and shifted as we trotted along, and I glanced around with concern.

“Nothing to worry about,” Zaliski assured me. “We are surfacing to take on the goods from your griffin friend.”

“What do you do with them?” I asked curiously.

“We trade,” Zaliski replied. “There are other settlements that trade with us, and there is also what remains of our homeland.”

I’d never really considered before that the Zebra Empire was still out there, at least as a physical place if not as a functioning nation. Something that had dominated Equestrian thoughts for decades no longer seemed important when all one’s energy went toward surviving in the Wasteland. Equestria hadn’t been the only nation ravaged by megaspells on the Last Day, and I wondered if the zebras had fared any better. Surely the Equestrian response for the destruction of Cloudsdale would have been greater than what had befallen the Griffin Commonwealth—but was the Zebra Empire as totally annihilated as Equestria?

“Here, time to work,” Captain Zaliski said as he gestured to a wall panel.

Removing the duffel bag from around my neck, I popped the panel open and took a thorough look inside. Cables and fuses were easily accessible here, the former snaking away through different conduits in the wall to other sections of the submarine. A guide was printed on the inside of the panel, but it was badly faded and difficult to comprehend even when I shone my PipBeak’s flashlight on it. On top of that, it was impossible to read since it was written in the zebra language. I unzipped the duffel and examined what was within. Franz had provided all the materials the zebras had specified on their arrival and the tools needed to install them, leaving it up to me to piece together what went where. I’d done some minor work on electronics in the Clinic back in the Equestrian Wasteland, so I put my little and distant experience to work as best I could to repair the Red Harvest.

I had a lot of questions for Zaliski as I worked, since I couldn’t read any of the labels on zebra equipment. Fortunately, most of the original hardware had been previously replaced by griffin goods with labels in Equestrian, so I wasn’t totally reliant on the captain. He seemed to have a very intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Red Harvest, which I suppose was bound to happen when you’ve spent one hundred and sixty years living in and maintaining it. Honestly, he or one of the other crewmembers probably could have repaired the submarine themselves, so I wondered why the zebras demanded someone come aboard to install the components they required. Maybe he just wanted conversation with someone whom he didn’t have to see every single day.

We moved around the submarine to fix the various problems that had developed since its last time in port, and our journey gradually led us forward. At one point, I was following Zaliski through a large, open compartment with a single catwalk down the middle. Goods were piled up and strapped down around the space, and more were being lowered from above, guided into place by crewmembers. Ceiling hatches were open in several places, and I caught glimpses of Franz’s employees scrambling around to pass trade goods off to the zebras.

“Did this once hold—” I tentatively started to ask.

“Missiles, yes,” Captain Zaliski cut me off before I could finish my thought. “Tipped with megaspells, but we disposed of those long ago to make cargo space.”

He didn’t seem inclined to say any more about it, so I didn’t push him. I continued to work on repairing the sub’s electrical systems, the materials in my duffel bag growing scarcer with each stop. When we reached the nose—where the torpedoes still sat, waiting to be fired at Equestrian battleships that had run aground or were sunk long ago—we turned around and doubled back to the aft of the submarine.

I was chewing through my Rad-X and RadAway faster than expected, so I tried to keep things moving quickly; soon, I was installing the final fix. I jumped when a heavy thud suddenly emanated very nearby. It was a different sound from when the submarine had been surfacing, but since Captain Zaliski appeared completely unfazed, I went back to work. Then, it sounded again, followed by a few smaller thumps. It went on long enough that I could identify the source as a nearby hatch.

“What’s that?” I asked Captain Zaliski.

“The brig,” he responded.

“You have prisoners?” I asked.

“Our crewmembers who have gone feral,” Zaliski replied. “We take them with us because it is our responsibility to care for them. One day, each of us will join them, until the last survivor scuttles the Red Harvest.”

“Seems kind of grim,” I commented as I got back to work.

“It is the way things are,” Zaliski said stoically. “There are some things that cannot be changed, and to fight against them is madness. Besides, through good and bad, I am content with the path of my life. I have seen the world burn down, but I have also observed the beginning buds of new life. I have lost a wife and children but have been allowed to spend many years with my second love, the sea, traveling across the world. Weighed on the great scales, I am satisfied with what I have received. I would not change it, even with its hardships and pain, even if such a thing was achievable.”

“If you say so,” I said as I replaced the panel I’d been working on. “Well, I think that’s the last of the repairs. I suppose once you’ve finished loading, you’ll be taking off again.”

“Yes,” Zaliski replied. “We do not stay in port for long.”

“I’ve been wondering something. You’ve traveled around the world, but have you ever sailed to Equestria?” I asked.

“We viewed it from a distance, long ago, but close enough to see that little remains,” Zaliski said. “I do not think we would find a warm welcome in your land.”

“Maybe not,” I admitted. “But, the War was a long time ago. You might be able to find somepony at least who won’t shoot you on sight. To be straight, I was hoping you might be able to bring a message for me to friends in Equestria, to let them know I’m here and I’m safe.”

“Hmm,” Captain Zaliski said, his brows furrowed and cracking. “I believe you to be an honest pony, Doc. Yes, we will make an attempt to deliver your message.”

“Really?” I said, excited and a bit surprised. “Thank you, that’s great news! If you can, get it to Sage or Violet Night. They should be in Tenpony Tower in Manehattan. Oh, and let them know I’m planning to spread Radio Free Wasteland’s broadcast to the Griffin Commonwealth.”

“Everything that can be done will be done,” Zaliski said with a slight nod. “When next we visit the Pleasure Coast, I will let you know if we have succeeded or failed.”

“Thank you,” I told the ghoul again, “Truly.”

Not only was I going to be able to hear Sage through Radio Free Wasteland very soon, but I may have just found a way to communicate with her. Things were starting to look up.

Level Up
New Perk: Trust Me, I’m a Doctor – Bonus to all persuasion attempts.
New Quest: Inland – Travel into the interior of the Griffin Commonwealth.
Alchemistry +6 (46)
Athletics +1 (22)
Barter +2 (96)
Electronics +9 (40)
Medicine +1 (114)
Speech +1 (102)

Chapter 5: Life After the End of the World

Chapter Five: Life After the End of the World

My shears snapped together as I picked a squash, catching the bumpy vegetable in my magical grasp. Another snip removed the remainder of the stem, and I walked away from the cluster of vegetable plants before checking my selection’s radiation levels with my PipBeak. I registered hardly any radiation at all—good news, especially since I was still recovering from the massive dose I’d absorbed on the Red Harvest. I was reminded again that even the best of old-world medicine and magic couldn’t fix everything; I was still feeling exhausted even after taking copious amounts of RadAway. I’d taken a sample of the squash before picking it to confirm its edibility once it was cooked, so I tucked it into my saddlebags to chow down on later.

As I finished fastening up my saddlebags, I noticed a small rustle in the tall grass nearby. FITS revealed that there was something alive among the stalks. However, it couldn’t yet identify whether it was friend or foe, and I cautiously drew my shotgun. A low grunting rumbled from the grass, right before an aggravated boar came charging out toward me and FITS switched the pip representing the hog to red. I fired my shotgun at the beast, but it merely shrugged the hit off of its thick hide and lunged at me with its tusks. Using ERSaTS, I jumped out of the way and fired again, the pellets managing to tear off one of its ears. The boar swung around with surprising speed and then started pawing the ground, preparing to charge at me again.

A brilliant beam of red light suddenly shot through the side of the boar’s head before it could charge. It fell over, the new hole in its head smoking. I looked around for the source of the shot and spotted a town in the distance. I managed to fuzzily make out a figure atop a tower, only visible because they were gesticulating wildly. My PipBeak chimed to notify me that a new radio station was available; checking it, I found a low-power short-range signal with no name.

“—lllooooo! Heeelllloooo! Give me a wave if ya hear me!” a voice emnated from the PipBeak as I dialed into the station and I waved lamely. “Hellllooo! Helll—oh! Good, ya can hear me! Bring that boar on over here, will ya?”

The figure atop the distant tower was no longer waving, so I assumed they had been the one to contact me and were keeping an eye on me. I trotted over to the boar’s carcass and hefted it over my back before setting off in the direction of the town. I’d traveled a little over two days from the Pleasure Coast at this point, and I was amazed by the transformation of the landscape as I moved farther into the Commonwealth. Life began returning to nature as I neared the distribution station, and the restoration continued as I moved past the cluster of buildings. Now, a traveler was more likely to see punctuations of burgeoning flora instead of a barren waste. Trees, bushes, flowers, and vegetables were a common sight, sprinkled throughout the spindly grasses that had overtaken the valley wherever they hadn’t been flattened or eaten by wildlife. This was not the first boar I’d seen on my journey, though it was the first that had decided to pick a fight with me. At the start of my trip, I’d kept to the highway that followed a mostly non-irradiated river emptying out into the ocean south of the Pleasure Coast. That route worked well, until I’d realized that raiders liked to placing land mines along the road. Keeping this in mind, I decided to move into the brush alongside the highway. Not only did my terrain change promise more safety, it also provided opportunities to encounter strange plants and foods, like the squash I’d just picked.

The town where the mysterious sniper resided was starting to become more defined. It was a fairly small town that had obstensably become even smaller in the years since the war. Many of the buildings on the outskirts were overgrown or had been demolished, leaving a core around which a moderate barricade had been erected. It didn’t look like it would keep out much more than the local wildlife, but I suppose that was to be expected when the local raiders could simply fly over any wall the townsfolk built. The tower upon which I’d spotted the sniper turned out to be a movie theater’s sign, the words GRAND IMPERIAL displayed vertically upon two sides of the triangular prism. A griffin with a gray coat and black feathers unlatched the town’s gate, which was no higher than a fence, and swung it open as I approached.

“I thought my eyes must’ve deceived me, but no, I was right. You are Doc Silverarm, aren’t ya?” the griffin asked.

“Well, yes, but I prefer just Doc,” I replied as I trotted into the settlement, and the griffin shut the gate behind me.

I didn’t know why the Commonwealth Crooner had chosen to use this stage name the late Mayor Delgado had decided to bestow upon me instead of the one I’d gone by for years, but I was going to have to get used to it the same way I’d gotten used to DJ Pon3 calling me the Wasteland Doctor. Why did radio personalities always seem to have a penchant for bestowing titles upon ponies without asking? I dropped the boar in front of the griffin, who I noticed had a magical energy sniper rifle on her back like nothing I’d ever seen. The scope attached to the weapon was practically a telescope; no wonder she’d been able to kill the boar from so far away.

“Alright then, ‘Just Doc’,” the griffin said, and she laughed at her own joke. “I’m Gina. Welcome to Grand Imperial. When the Commonwealth Crooner said we might see ya out here, I never expected it to be so soon. I also didn’t understand before why he called ya Doc Silverarm.”

“So, I take it you found Radio PC, then,” I said as Gina hefted the boar carcass onto her back.

“Oh yeah, it’s way better than the raider stations or anything ‘Grand Marshal’ Gideon has to say,” Gina said with a snort. “And we can finally listen to more songs than just Roscoe’s collection.”

I walked beside Gina as she led me into town, and I caught the eyes of other griffins. I was bound to stand out, not only because of my prosthetic arm that identified me as “Doc Silverarm,” but simply because I was a pony in a griffin world. A couple of the residents came up to thank me while I followed Gina to a butcher’s counter, where a burly griffin was chopping and packaging meat.

“The usual, Gaspard,” she said as she triumphantly threw her boar onto the counter.

“It looks like you’ve more than just a boar this time,” Gaspard commented as he peered over Gina’s shoulder to get a better look at me. “Is that who I think it is?”

“Yeah, this is Doc,” Gina said excitedly as she pulled me forward, closer to the piles of raw meat.

“Well, we owe you a debt of gratitude, it seems,” Gaspard said. “Those raiders out of DS-7 have been relentless in attacking us.”

“It certainly makes my job easier,” Gina said happily.

“I wouldn’t let your guard down too much, Gina,” another griffin said as he pushed his way through the small crowd that had formed around me. “It’s only a matter of time before another raider gang moves into it. It is a prime position for a sky keep, after all.”

“Way to bring things down, Grant, ya stick-in-the-mud,” Gina complained with a scowl, but I was more interested in what he had said than Gina’s reaction to his pessimism.

“‘Sky keep’? The raiders kept yelling something about that. Do you know what they were talking about?” I asked Grant.

“Of course,” Grant said, perking up. “The raiders who inhabited Distribution Station Seven were, like most raiders, mythologists.”

“Grant’s half a mythologist himself,” Gina cut Grant off, and some of the nearby griffins laughed at his expense.

“Not in the same sense of the word. I simply find them fascinating,” Grant objected with a frown. “Mythologism is a religion that grew out of hyper-capitalism and a mythology manufactured by the advertising and entertainment industry. Somehow, they’ve managed to take old-world media and turn it into a belief system—one that revolves around survival of the fittest and destruction of the unfit. It also speaks of a coming flood that will wipe out the unworthy below, allowing those who inhabit sky keeps to inherit the world in the aftermath.”

“Sounds grim,” I said. It wasn’t surprising that raiders would be drawn to a religion that emphasized might making right, and Grant’s exposition helped explain the taunts and graffiti I’d encountered.

“Oh, without a doubt,” Grant said enthusiastically as some of the other griffins began to back away. “But it’s fascinating, that a remarkably coherent religion could arise from billboards, newspaper advertisements, comics, and movies! I have quite a collection in the theater if you would like to take a look.”

I couldn’t deny having a decent interest in seeing relics from a world before the megaspells, but Gina was silently shaking her head and mouthing ‘no’, and I decided to take her advice. Grant seemed to be a bit of a black sheep in Grand Imperial (a bit ironic, since his feathers and fur were both white). Although I’d like to talk to him at some point about the old world and this new religion, it would be prudent to establish a relationship with the core of the town first.

“Thanks, but maybe another time,” I told him. “I really should get back on the road before too long.”

“Oh, I see,” Grant said, a little bit dejected, but he quickly perked up. “If you ever encounter any old-world media that looks intriguing, could you bring it to me? I’ll give you a good price on it.”

“I’ll keep an eye out,” I promised, which seemed to pacify him.

“Gina, could you give me a short tour of the town?” I asked as Grant left. “It’ll be nice to at least know where I can lay down my head if I ever come through again closer to sundown.”

“Why, of course,” the sniper said sweetly. “Let me show ya all that Grand Imperial has to offer.”

***

Despite Grand Imperial appearing to be a fine settlement, I didn’t stop there very long. I wanted to stay on the road and bring Radio Free Wasteland to the Commonwealth as quickly as possible. After Gina showed off the typical amenities every lasting settlement had, I was back traveling up the valley again. I had places to be, but that didn’t keep me from resting every so often to take in my surroundings, as I was doing now, about a day’s travel from Grand Imperial. Crouched among some spindly bushes, I watched a grazing herd of deer, ones with vines and flowers growing on their backs and intertwined around the stag’s horns. Someday, perhaps, the wildlife of the Commonwealth would cease to fascinate me, but I doubted that day would come anytime soon.

The deer startled as I forced myself up to move on, and they galloped away, darting around an old roadside convenience store. I approached the abandoned building, scanning around for loot if the place hadn’t already been stripped. It didn’t look promising; the store’s windows were completely devoid of glass and it was entirely overgrown on one side. Sometime after the Last Day, someone had affixed a sign over the door bearing a diamond with a downturned wing attached to either side. The store’s interior looked like a cyclone had torn through it, flinging everything every which way. Unsurprisingly, all the shop’s goods for travelers on the nearby highway had been looted already, and I almost left without searching any farther.

A book crumpled in the corner caught my eye at the last second, and I trotted over to pick it up. It was in terrible condition and clearly missing many pages, and the spine twisted as I levitated the dilapidated object. Inspecting the cover, I discovered that it was crudely embossed with the same symbol I’d seen over the door outside. I carefully flipped the book open and paged through the text. The pages were yellowed and were often water-damaged beyond legibility, but I managed to read a few of the pages that hadn’t fallen out. The book appeared to be part journal and part advice on life in the Wasteland. There were some useful tips about survival and trade, and I was always interested in reading about someone else’s life, so I carefully tucked the book into my saddlebags for later perusal and didn’t give it another thought.

***

Another day of travel along the riverside highway brought me to a second settlement, this one built around an old roadside motel; the old “Rest ‘n’ Go” sign was still lit up above the settlement’s gate. The mood here was quite different from the carefree attitude I’d encountered in Grand Imperial. The griffins here looked worried, and their gazes often went to the sky.

“What are you doing here?” an elderly griffin demanded as I trotted past where he was seated under a blanket.

“Just passing through,” I told him. “Do you listen to Radio PC?”

“Nothin’ good on the radio these days,” he complained in reply and shook his fist at an unremarkable point in the sky.

The younger griffin lounging next to him didn’t contradict him or add anything to her elder’s opinion, though her attention was on me. I took this to mean that this settlement hadn’t learned about Radio PC or the distribution station yet.

“Well, I bring some good news. The Commonwealth Crooner out of the Pleasure Coast is broadcasting out to this area now through Distribution Station 7. I cleared out the raiders who were living there, so you shouldn’t have problems with them anymore,” I said.

“Well, good for you,” the elderly griffin said mockingly. “Now at least we can starve in peace!”

“Oh, grampa, don’t be so melodramatic,” the younger griffin said. “It’s not as bad as that … not yet, anyway.”

She uncoiled herself and rose to shake my hoof with her claw. Her fur and feathers were both a dark navy blue, except for patches of white feathers around her eyes and beak.

“I’m Gladys. And this is my grandfather, Hans,” she said, and Hans grunted as she shared his name. “We are appreciative of you taking care of those raiders, but as you might imagine, that’s not the only problem a settlement can face.”

“I’m Doc,” I said as I shook her claw. “What’s this about starving?”

“Oh, we’re still weeks away from being in danger of that,” Gladys said. “Though we need to figure out what we’re going to do. Usually, we get our food from the greenhouse complex up the mountain, but a Dog of War has moved in. Last time this happened, we hired Greta’s Grenadiers to take care of it, but we’re still paying them for that job. The town council’s arguing whether we should hire them again and go deeper in debt, or give up on the greenhouses and look for food elsewhere.”

“What’s a Dog of War?” I asked. “I’m kind of new to the Commonwealth.”

“A mecha-hound,” Gladys suggested, and I shook my head in nonrecognition. “Hmm, a cyberwolf? Basically, it’s a big, nasty robot that’s keeping us away.”

“I seen it in the night, prowling around outside the settlement!” Hans swore as he shook a fist in the air.

“Dogs of War don’t attack settlements unless they’re provoked, and we’ve left it alone since Shaffer saw it prowling around up there,” Gladys told her grandfather.

“I could try to take care of it for you,” I suggested.

“Well, you did take out a whole raider gang on your own. But Dogs of War are a real threat,” Gladys said with concern.

“It can’t hurt to try, can it?” I asked. “Even if I can’t take it out, I won’t lead it back here.”

“Well, okay,” Gladys said, “Just … be careful.”

***

Why was I doing this? Was I compelled by some suicidal force that made risk my life, or did I get some thrill from it? I wasn’t a psychologist (or any kind of doctor, really), so I couldn’t say, but I did know that I had missed this. Maybe I was just driven to help others, heedless of the threat to myself; at least, that was the answer I liked best.

The “greenhouse complex up the mountain” turned out to be a massive facility. It had a tall, blocky central building with “Greenbush Agriculturium” stenciled on the side, surrounded by rows of greenhouses. At least it was accessible by mountain roads and didn’t require me to ride a long elevator or climb rickety emergency stairs to reach it. I had no idea what to look for to find the Dog of War, so I started by picking my way around the facility’s perimeter, keeping an eye on FITS.

The spell detected plenty of contacts, but none of them popped up as hostile. The greenhouses were stuffed with rows upon rows of planters filled with fruit, vegetable, and grain plants, which were tended by hovering robots. I almost shot the first one I’d seen, certain it would attack me, but it didn’t seem concerned with anything other than watering and pruning. The robots went about their tasks unbothered, even altering their courses to hover around me in order to get to their tasks as I moved through the greenhouses.

I was beginning to think that the Dog of War might have left and it was safe for the settlers to come here for food again; that was when I spotted it. It hadn’t seen me yet, but it soon would as it stalked through the rows of planters. It was larger than either a pony or a griffin, but roughly the size of them combined. A faint clanking came from it as it padded along, swinging its head left and right to scan its surroundings. The eyes in its head glowed brightly, shifting between blue and green rings around the cameras, and its ears swiveled independently of each other to take in sounds all around it. Its exterior looked to be composed almost entirely of interlocking metal and ceramic plates, their sharp edges sticking out in places where they overlapped, giving the appearance of a wolf’s spiky fur.

“Warning! Unauthorized access detected!” speakers in the Dog of War’s mouth blared in an electronic voice as it turned its head toward me and revealed long metal teeth lining its mouth. “Reveal yourself and present – Greenbush Agritech – identification in 30 seconds.”

Cautiously, I stepped out from behind the planters where I’d been unsuccessfully hiding. The Dog of War was staring me down, eyes flashing rapidly between blue and red. The other robots, I noticed, were hovering out of the greenhouse. Had they finished their tasks, or had the Dog of War somehow given them orders? If Gladys was to be believed, this Dog of War was new, so it shouldn’t have been able to communicate with the local robots, nor should it know anything about the company who’d built the agriculturium.

“15 seconds!” the Dog of War blared.

I pulled a grenade from my saddlebags; yanking out the pin, I tossed it at the Dog of War and dove behind a row of planters. The grenade went off and I peeked over my cover, already knowing from the red mark on FITS that I hadn’t succeeded in destroying it. In fact, it didn’t seem damaged much at all. There were some plates missing from one of its forelegs, but others were already shifting to take their place and protect the metal skeleton beneath.

“Attack on facility registered! Requesting authorization of deadly force!” the Dog of War said. For few seconds, I thought it might be stuck just like that, until the voice resumed, “Deadly force authorized!”

The Dog of War began to transform before my eyes. Plates and structure shifted to redistribute weight as the automaton shifted from a quadrupedal to a bipedal stance. Through faded and chipped paint, I could make out “Prj.DOW/19” stenciled in bold lettering across a large plate on its chest. The Dog of War’s forepaws shifted into claws capable of grasping, and gun barrels appeared in the wrists. Its snout split open, revealing four magical energy weapon barrels mounted tightly together on a rotating drum to act as an automatic weapon. The robot’s eyes were now glowing a steady red.

I fired my battle rifle at the Dog’s head, but the bullets pinged off the sloped armor and the robot seemed entirely unfazed. I threw another grenade at it, which it kicked back toward me with a swipe of a hind paw. Entering ERSaTS to gain some time and precision, I grabbed the grenade in my magic and threw it back before jumping over a row of planters. The grenade landed at the Dog’s hind paws, but it had already launched itself into the air by the time the explosion went off, landing where I’d been a moment before with a heavy clang.

I was ridiculously outmatched, and all I could do was run and hope for two things: that I could lose the mecha-hound, or that it would lose interest in me. Magical energy beams and bullets struck my doctor’s coat as I retreated, and I altered my course to stay out of the line of fire and put some obstacles between the Dog of War and myself. I crashed through the glass wall of the greenhouse and galloped between the rows, glancing over my shoulder to spy the Dog of War still chasing after me, the red lights of its eyes burning into my brain. Its firing ceased as it jumped into the air and ran along the roofs of the greenhouses on all fours, quickly overtaking me. It leapt over me and landed ahead, shifting quickly back into its bipedal form for combat. It had cut off my escape to the road down the mountain, so I fired my shotgun into the greenhouse next to me and jumped through the falling shards of glass.

Trying to directly reach to the road seemed out of the question while the Dog of War was still in pursuit, so I had to take it somewhere I might be able to lose it. The cyberwolf followed me into the greenhouse, weapons ablaze, some shots catching me but none doing serious enough damage to slow me down. I was all adrenaline, and an intense drive to survive kept pushing me on.

I was relying on the map of the facility in my head, and I zigzagged my way through the greenhouses as best I could until I reached the central building of the Greenbush Agriculturium. With no time to pick locks or hack security, I shot off the door’s lock with my shotgun and shoved my way into the building. Hallways and cubicles blurred past as I ran for my life and came upon a staircase. The Dog of War was still pursuing me through the hallways, having reconfigured its body to better fit the new environment. I ran into the stairwell and slammed the heavy fire door shut behind me before rushing to sabotage the lock. The Dog of War wouldn’t be able to open it without pounding the door down, which it promptly got to work on as I fled up the stairs.

I was four flights up by the time the door was battered down and the mecha-hound began its rapid ascension of the stairs after me. I chucked a grenade down before moving to the window on the landing and carefully prying it open. As the grenade went off, I jumped out of the window and cast ERSaTS so I could close the window with my magic. When the spell wore off, I was still in midair and falling fast. I cast a spell I’d learned in the Library of Arcana to slow my fall, which thankfully worked. I could see the Dog of War rushing up the stairs as I fell; fortunately, it didn’t seem to see me falling. I hit the ground much more lightly than I would have without the spell and ran for the road away from the agriculturium.

I dove into the brush as soon as I felt safely out of range and watched the Greenbrush Agriculturium for signs of the Dog of War. It emerged onto the roof shortly and darted back and forth in its search, but it didn’t seem to have spotted me. Eventually, it raised its head and gave a long howl before transforming back into its four-legged form and stalked out of sight.

***

The whole way down the mountain, I was a little worried that the Dog of War might still be hunting me. By the time I reached its base, though, I was convinced that I’d truly managed to lose it. That had been a terrifying altercation I should have taken Gladys’ advice on, and I didn’t intend to ever repeat it—at least not without a rocket launcher or power armor. Gladys was disappointed with my failure, but not surprised. Word of my attempt had apparently reached others in Rest ‘n’ Go in my absence, including the town council. My lack of success had convinced them to make a decision. They settled on hiring Greta’s Grenadiers to deal with the problem again, and they asked me to take the request to the mercenary company since I was already headed in that direction. It was the least I could do.

That was how, two days later, I found myself at the headquarters of Greta’s Grenadiers, an old mountain lodge only accessible to griffins or via a single cable “elevator.” It appeared that some of these griffins listened to Radio PC since a few of them recognized me, and I was allowed in to speak to their leader.

“I hear you’ve arrived with a job for us,” Gabby said as she gestured me to take a seat across from her as I entered her office.

She was already resting in a plush chair, and I took a seat in an identical chair on the opposite side of the fireplace. Gabby was not exactly what I’d expected from a mercenary company commander. The griffin did have a firearm at her side, but the rest of her attire was more high-class. She held a cup of tea in a claw and sipped from it as she waited for me to give her my proposal.

“The settlement of Rest ‘n’ Go needs help with a Dog of War,” I said.

“Another one?” Gabby asked. “They still owe us for the last job.”

“Yes, they told me to tell you they’re willing to put up collateral for another loan,” I said.

“Well, that’s that then,” Gabby said flippantly. “We’ll take the job.”

“Really? Just like that?” I asked, unfamiliar with things being so simple.

“Just like that,” Gabby said as she took another sip of tea.

“Well, okay then. I guess my job here is done,” I said. “Unless it wouldn’t be too bold to ask you some questions?”

“I hope you will, and that you can answer some of mine. You’re a remarkable pony,” Gabby said as she looked at my prosthetic leg. “I’ve heard of you from the Commonwealth Crooner, but I want to know more straight from the horse’s mouth, if you’ll pardon the expression. First, though, you had some questions for me.”

“I was a little surprised to find you still here,” I said. “Why didn’t you answer Grand Marshal Gideon’s call for mercenaries?”

“If the rumors are true, and it’s to fight against the Grand Pegasus Enclave, I have no desire to lead my mercenaries into battle against them,” Gabby replied.

“You like the Enclave?” I asked. She’d be the first individual I’d met who did.

“Far from it,” Gabby grunted. “But I don’t want to suffer the kind of casualties they inflict. My mother was just a fledgling during the Enclave Rebellion, but she always spoke with dread about the suffering they brought with their power armor and aerial tanks. If Commonwealth and Enclave could just leave each other be, that would be for the best. It’s not our fault their defectors decided to settle here. It’s probably not them that ‘Grand Marshal’ Gideon is looking to fight, anyway; the Enclave has mostly left us alone since the Battle of New Pegasus. Mostly, I’m following my mother’s rules from when she founded her Grenadiers, one of which was to remain an independent mercenary company. Getting too comfy with Gideon is an easy way to get absorbed into the Air or Land Corps.”

“No griffin I’ve met seems to like the Grand Marshal,” I noted.

“I doubt any griffin but Gideon likes Gideon,” Gabby said drily. “Though he’s managed to maintain and increase his power despite that fact, for what it’s worth.”

“Why do you dislike him so much?” I asked.

“All griffins dislike others interfering in their business, and government is the ultimate form of nosiness. While Gideon is the face of that reality, the greater reason he’s despised is that he actually embraces and loves it,” Gabby said. “All the grand marshals since the megaspells fell have been power hungry to a certain extent, but Gideon has been exceptionally good at expanding the Commonwealth’s—and by extension, his—powers. Not that it really matters to most griffins, since the only territory the Griffin Commonwealth’s government controls is the scattered roosts and their environs and a few settlements. The old Griffin Commonwealth united us all but interfered as little as possible. In contrast, Gideon’s government is trying to control everything without having anything to back up its actions. Maybe that’s why he’s so unpopular; he acts like he’s grand marshal of all of us when most of us don’t even care he exists. We might not hate him so much if he didn’t interrupt our lives with obnoxious radio broadcasts.”

“Well, soon the Commonwealth should have something else to listen to,” I said. “Did you hear on Radio PC about my plan to spread the station’s broadcast area?”

“Yes, I did. I suppose that means after you leave here, you’ll be continuing east,” Gabby said, and I nodded my confirmation. “That takes you through Brittle Pass. Be careful—the pass is patrolled by Dogs of War. I’d recommend flying, but that’s not an option for you, so stay hidden as much as you can. The Dogs are most active at night, so travel during the day as much as possible. You can stay the night here and head out again when it’s light.”

“Thanks for the warning, and the hospitality,” I told Gabby. “Are you sure there’s no other way through?”

“I’m afraid not,” Gabby said with a shake of her head.

That was unwelcome news, given how my last altercation with a Dog of War had gone. At least this time I knew to avoid rather than engage.

“Now, I have some questions for you,” Gabby said. “What is it like in Equestria, and what’s the market for mercenaries down there?”

Level Up
New Perk: Tactical Retreat – You’ve mastered the art of getting out of scraps safely and are less likely to be hit while fleeing from combat.
New Quest: Beware of Dog – Make it through Brittle Pass alive.
Athletics +3 (25)
Explosives +2 (104)
Manipulation Magic +2 (21)
Medicine +1 (115)
Sneak +2 (104)
Survival +10 (28)

Chapter 6: The Pass of Death

Chapter Six: The Pass of Death

Gabby prodded me with questions so late into the night, I was reluctant to arise the next morning. She was fascinated by everything I could tell her about the Equestrian Wasteland, a place so different from the Commonwealth—and usually not in a way I’d consider favorable. Empty, blasted, irradiated landscapes and crumbling, raider-infested cities were something I’d left behind for snowcapped mountains and increasingly green and vibrant valleys; not to mention Equestria's surplus of dangerous government offices and factories. Though come to think of it, the danger was very real here as well, given my latest run-in at the Greenbush Agriculturium. As far as I knew, there were no Dogs of War in Equestria. One thing I did know, however, was that hadn’t seen the last of them here.

Brittle Pass was said to be crawling with the cyberwolves, but traveling that way was necessary for going farther into the northern Commonwealth. (That, or grow wings, which didn’t seem likely, no matter how much radiation I’d absorbed on the Red Harvest.) When I left the headquarters of Greta’s Grenadiers, they were busy preparing for the expedition to Rest ‘n’ Go and the Greenbush Agriculturium, setting out to finish what I couldn’t. There were an awful lot of missiles getting packed into saddlebags; the mercenaries would need as many as possible to take out that Dog of War. Unfortunately, this wasn’t an option I would have in the Brittle Pass. I’d need to be sneaky and hope my journey through the pass went unnoticed by the mechanical canines.

It wasn’t far to the entrance to the pass, and I was there before midday. Alongside the highway leading into the pass was a faded sign.

Welcome to Scenic Brittle Pass
Pay Entry Fees at First Right
Standard: 461,500 cɢ or Ƀ45 / Vehicle
High-Occupancy: 102,500 cɢ or Ƀ10 / Passenger
Freight: 154,000 cɢ or Ƀ15 / Axle

I noted the information as I trotted over the invisible border to the stretch of the pass that griffins had monetized many years ago. It looked to be just as scenic now as it might have then, but now there was no need to pay for the pleasure (unless one counted risk as payment). I’d need to keep my eyes sharp for Dogs of War as well as places to camp once the sun started to set. The Dogs of War were supposedly more active at night, so I’d have to hole up during the dark hours and pray they didn’t sniff me out.

There were ticket-taking booths and a welcome center to the right off the road. They appeared to be devoid of life, but FITS identified something in the ticket booths. Once I got a closer look, I surmised that the vague life forms were robots; I decided to give them a wide birth, since I didn’t want to find out if they’d ask me for money I didn’t have. If possible, I wanted to avoid getting ambushed by a Dog of War among the more harmless automatons like I had at the Agriculturium.

Brittle Pass certainly was scenic, even with the remains of billboards dotting the slopes. There were also structures on mountainsides above, previously reachable by cable car but now inaccessible to anyone without wings. Some cables were still strung across the landscape, though they were now largely overtaken by plant growth on the lower reaches. Once or twice, I thought I saw a griffin flying in or out of the buildings high above; probably raiders who’d declared them as their sky keeps without having to worry about the Dogs of War down below. I hadn’t seen any of them yet in my first day of travel, but that was fine by me. I kept eyes and an ear out for them as I moved cautiously through the pass. I didn’t dare listen my PipBeak’s radio openly in case it alerted anything hostile to my presence, but I did pop in one earbud and tune in to Radio PC. The signal was getting weak as I neared the edge of the distribution station’s range, but I could still make out the voice of the Commonwealth Crooner.

“… In business news, the Immortals remain isolated ever since the attempt by one of their members to assassinate the other Family heads and create a power vacuum for them to step into and assume the mayorship. The r-epercussions of their actions continue to hinder them and do not look likely to fade for some time. How-ever, though the Family and the Sunset Strip Dragons both continue to block them, the Immortals have redoubled their efforts at consolidating power in the south of Pleasure Coast and on the fringes. In r-elated news, I’ve received reports that the assassins responsible for the emergency mayoral election—Mayhem and Havoc—have been spotted by Scavengers traveling south, apparently seeking to wait out Mayor von Griff’s anger at their attempt to kill him. Perhaps they’ll lend their services to the warlords of Castoway and bring that conflict to a swift end. And, while we’re talking about missing griffins, I’ll take this moment to let you all know that there has still been no news on the whereabouts of the pit fighter known as “The Whip.” Her two-hundredth fight at Le Grande Resorte, which many had been anticipating, was canceled due to the sudden turmoil at the death of Mayor Delgado, and she has not reappeared to reschedule since. I reached out to the new head of the Sunset Strip Dragons—Gloria Delgado—and she told me that she has not been contacted by The Whip, nor has she found any way to contact her. As always, Radio PC relies on our listeners to bring us the news, so if you know anything, let us at the station know immediately …”

Letting my attention wander for a bit, I soaked in the impressive views as I traveled along. I remembered to scan for danger every few minutes, but at least I didn’t have to worry about landmines placed along the highway. The Dogs of War scared off raiders from placing them, so I could travel along the road without fear of being blown to bits if I placed a hoof in the wrong place. Flocks of birds, some of them quite frighteningly large, scattered whenever I neared their perches. As one flock took off with a great cacophony of cawing and chirping from atop a ridge, I dropped to my belly. Clanking sounded distantly as a Dog of War, in its quadrupedal patrol mode, came into view over the rocky edge. Its gaze swept across the land below, and it stood sentry for a few minutes more before retreating back over the ridge. After enough time had passed that I felt it wouldn’t return, I rose from among the grasses and continued on my journey.

Near the end of the day, I found shelter in the form of an abandoned settlement constructed from travel trailers grouped around a mostly intact brick building. I approached the structure cautiously, but the only life that was setting off FITS were scattered radroaches, which I made quick work of with my hooves and claws. In the fading light, I examined the remnants of the settlement, which told a gruesome tale. The exterior trailers had been shredded in many places by gunfire and claws, suggesting that one or several Dogs of War had torn through this place. There were no bodies or skeletons, but many signs of blood and struggle. The griffins that lived here must have either cut their losses and flown or returned for their dead after the Dogs had left. I didn’t really want to consider the alternative—that the Dogs had dragged the griffins’ bodies away after slaughtering them.

The building at the settlement’s center was still mostly intact, though the door had been torn off its hinges, taking some of the brickwork with it. I worked to remedy that problem before bedding down for the night, using a toolbox I found in a corner among some shredded fliers. (I also added some of the tools to my saddlebags; they might come in handy in the future.) After looking around some more, it appeared that this building was once a visitor center for those touring Brittle Pass. Once some abandoned possessions were cleared away from the large table in the main room’s center, it revealed a map of the pass. The walls were plastered with advertisements for the different services in the area, though many of them were faded, torn, stained, or obscured by abandoned laundry. Diners, resorts, scenic tours, and thrill-seeking expeditions could all be bought for a price (or looted for free, now that the world had come to an end).

Off the main space were several rooms with beds (sans mattresses), and one of these included a desk and terminal. It looked to be in questionable shape, but given enough time, I was confident I could fix it up. Letting my insatiable curiosity get the better of me, I spent more time fixing it than I probably should have. At last, the screen came to life, and I obtained access to the system once used to record visitors and transactions. It seemed that the settlers here had once used it to keep records, and these were the only files that weren’t corrupted beyond reading. The early records of the settlement’s creation were interesting in that I got a look into the day-to-day life of such a process, but I was still hoping for something meatier and checked out the most recent records as I downloaded the rest to my PipBeak.

1407.Q2.41
[With more beaks to feed this year, we’ll need to plant a wider range. I sent Bertram out to get another couple ‘bots to convert from the old park entrance. I was a little hesitant about sending the lad out on his own, but he’s got a good head on his shoulders and he’s a good shot. He’ll do fine if any raiders show up to harass him. Brunhilda is complaining again about water rationing. I told her if she wants it so badly, she can trek out and replenish it herself, but I fear she may do just that and hoard it. Doesn’t she understand we can’t just magically purify our own water, not without one of those pony talismans? And good luck getting those away from a Roost.

1407.Q2.42
Bertram returned today with the ‘bots for cultivation and irrigation. He claims to have seen some strange ‘bots at the old park entrance prowling around that looked like big wolves. I’ve never seen anything like that before, but we’d better keep an eye out. It’d be good to at least know their capabilities in case we can convert them to help us out around here. He said they were quite large; maybe they could be used to haul supplies and water?

1407.Q2.46
When Brigham went out to get water today, he said he saw ‘bots running along the roads outside of their normal routes. Now, what could that be about? I had Bailey take a look at the ones we got around, and she didn’t find anything out of the ordinary about them. Maybe it’s because of our reprogramming and the rest in the park are finally starting to go haywire after being at the same task for decades. Might be best to round them up and shut them down until we need them.

1407.Q2.51
We found Brunhilda’s body today, finally. It took a lot of circling, but eventually we found her near the old diner. It looked like she’d gotten halfway through removing the bolts securing the server to the floor before she was attacked by something. Not even Doc Braun could say what did it, she was so torn up, shot up, and burned all. I’ve seen some depravity from raiders, but nothing so excessive just to leave the body.

1407.Q2.53
I know what killed Brunhilda now. Blitz just barely made it home. He was attacked by one of those metal wolves Bertram saw entering the park. It’s a miracle he made it out alive. We have to do something about them, I think, but given Blitz’s description and the state poor Brunhilda’s body was in, I don’t know what.

1407.Q2.56
The cyberwolves have us completely pinned in. They’re patrolling just out of our range, watching, waiting. What are they waiting for? They could easily wipe us out if they wanted to, given their firepower. There’s a town meeting tonight to decide if we should abandon this site and relocate. Even if the wolves don’t attack, they can starve us out.

It probably wasn’t a wise thing to read before going to sleep in a place said to be teeming with Dogs of War (which were clearly what had attacked the settlement). I thought I could hear distant howls, but they may just have been in my head. Disconnecting my PipBeak, I set up my bedroll and bedded down to get some sleep before the following day, when I’d need to trek through the open landscape again.

***

Some hours later, I woke to the sound of clanking metal and scraping ceramic plates. I almost didn’t dare to breathe as I cast FITS. The spell revealed a hostile entity circling the building. I caught a brief glimpse in a window of a Dog of War’s glowing eye, dully illuminating the metal plates around it. My heartbeat suddenly seemed far too loud, but at least that was all in my head, unlike the hum coming from the reactivated terminal. I rolled across the floor as quietly as I could, stopping in a panic when my hoof brushed against an empty Sparkle~Cola bottle and nearly sent it scraping across the ground. Keeping clear of the bottle, I rolled the rest of the way to the terminal’s power cord and carefully unplugged it.

Outside, the Dog of War stopped moving the moment the terminal was unplugged. I thought for certain it was going to crash through the wall and tear me to shreds, but then it resumed its pacing around the building, doing a single lap before departing. Even when its mark disappeared from FITS and I could no longer hear it, I was still terrified it might come back to kill me. It took me some time to fall back asleep again, and visions of the automatons plagued my dreams.

***

The remainder of the night was relatively peaceful, and dawn brought a morning with no sign of Dogs of War, other than great footprints in the ground. As I scrounged one last time through the settlement before taking off, I discovered a trap door I’d missed before. It led down into a shelter beneath the main building, where the maneframe was located along with some empty shelves. Either the settlers had also never found this place, or they had cleared out all the supplies here before or after the Dog of War attack.

As I set back off on the second leg of my journey, I kept an even sharper eye out for the mechanical hounds. The two sightings I’d had were already two too many, and I didn’t need more close calls. Radio PC was now out of range, and I had nothing to listen to on my PipBeak to keep me company until around midday, when I picked up another radio station.

“Hope you all enjoyed that little tune!” a peppy female voice spoke through my earbud at the end of a song. “If you want to hear more, then come on down to the Rockfall Hotel! We have live shows every night, a full bar and restaurant, automated room service, and luxurious suites all for a reasonable price! Don’t miss the Rockfall Hotel! The Brittle Pass’s best place to stay! And now, another classic from way back when; it’s Gustav Kruener with “Nowhere to Go But Back to You!’”

I stayed tuned into the station as I followed the river upstream through Brittle Pass. It was hard to determine whether it was merely a recording or a live broadcast, and the answer remained elusive as I continued to listen. The announcer was clearly doing an advertisement for the Rockfall Hotel, promising warm beds and full service, something that was hard (or rather impossible) to come by in the world after the megaspells. At least, that was the case in Equestria, but I hadn’t considered if things might be different in the Griffin Commonwealth. The Pleasure Coast had certainly been familiar with its rundown-and-destroyed motif; but it was a functioning city nevertheless, not just a broken hive of scattered raiders, monsters, and the occasional settlement. As I’d traveled inland, I’d seen the return of life. Even if there were still raiders and small settlements on the other side of Brittle Pass, maybe here and further on there would be true signs of functioning civilization hardly touched by the War. After all, the Commonwealth hadn’t been a priority target for Equestria or the Zebra Empire, and the only reason a megaspell had struck near the Pleasure Coast was because of how many Equestrians lived there.

By the time the Rockfall Hotel came into sight at the end of the day, my anticipation had reached its zenith. From the outside, it didn’t look to be a hotel equal to the glory of the old world, but at least the lights were on. Though the exterior was weathered and one of the corners had fallen away, the rest of the hotel appeared to be intact. Sandbags were piled near the entrance in defensive positions, but those spots were empty and looked like they hadn’t been used in a long time. Perhaps they’d been placed during some (understandable) unrest immediately after the megaspells had fallen; there were bullet holes and magical energy burns near them, which suggested they may not have been surrendered without a fight.

FITS was full of contacts as I entered the building and I kept my rifle at the ready, but none of them were currently marked as hostile. I was able to identify some of them as I stepped into the foyer: robots docked at stations against the walls. There were no living beings to be seen, but as I neared the reception desk, the pedestal set into it whirred to life and projected the holographic image of a griffin.

“Welcome to the Rockfall Hotel!” she said in the voice I’d heard over the radio. “I’m Gabby, the hotel’s concierge system! If you have any questions during your stay, please address me by name wherever you are, and I’ll do my best to answer! It’s been a long time since we’ve had any Equestrian visitors. I don’t appear to have a reservation for you in the system. How long will you be staying with us, Mister?”

“Doc,” I answered automatically before considering the situation I was in. “I’ll be staying for one night.”

“Excellent! Please, take your key,” Gabby said as a compartment opened in the base of her pedestal with a key in it. “The restaurant and bar are open all night, and give me a call if you need anything. We hope you enjoy your stay at the Rockfall Hotel!”

“Thanks,” I said absently as I took the key and checked the number on it.

I was intrigued by ‘Gabby’, but I figured I could investigate more once I located my assigned room. She’d been upfront about what she was, like the similar system I’d encountered back in Equestria at the Bubble Springs Resort. However, this system seemed much more advanced—or much less corrupted—than that one. The holograms seemed to be prerecorded footage, but they must have recorded the original model in many different positions, given how the system had been able to follow me nearly perfectly with its gaze as it spoke. It hadn’t felt manufactured, though I was convinced it had to be. Gabby was just a system still trying to keep the hotel running over a century since it had had any guests.

My room was easy enough to find and seemed to be a standard suite with a dresser, clean bed, and attached bathroom with working water and lights; all things that were ironically non-standard in my experience. I hadn’t seen accommodations of this level since I’d first woken up in Stable 85 seven years earlier with no memories of who I was. It almost felt like a trap, but everything seemed to be on the level. I made a mental note to check the hotel’s perimeter for signs of Dogs of War before turning in for the night, then left my room to do some snooping and looting.

There were plenty of other rooms in the hotel—all locked, of course; luckily, I was a master of lockpicking. I ended up only breaking into a few rooms, giving up after it turned out most were empty and identical to my own, but I did manage to bag a few things. I found some ammunition (unfortunately, not of a make that would work with the weapons I had) as well as a contraption left behind on a dresser that attached to my PipBeak. Once I had the mod strapped on, I was able to emit and retract a hidden blade from beneath the PipBeak with the flick of a claw. I experimented with it on a pillow and bedpost before tucking it away and heading out to explore more of the hotel.

I didn't come across any other guests during my investigations, and all the marks on FITS were the robots scattered around the place, most just waiting for orders. Out of curiosity, I decided to check out the restaurant and bar that Gabby had spoken of both “in person” and on the radio. I was surprised to find that it truly was in operation and not just left over from a Wartime advertisement. Automatons behind the bar stood ready to pour out the mostly full stock of alcohol behind them, and when I sat down at a table, a waiter-bot trundled over. It took my order from a menu displayed on a screen where its face might have gone, had it been a living creature. It brought me a salad as requested, and I confirmed with my PipBeak that it was edible. The plants used were of the mutated variety, but they were prepared and cooked by professional machines instead of over a campfire by an amateur. Other than being completely alone apart from robots in an empty room, I could pretend I was living in a time before the megaspells had fallen. The one thing that Gabby had been incorrect about was that there was no live show on the stage around which the restaurant was built.

“Gabby?” I asked as I headed back through the foyer after my meal, and the hologram flickered to life. “How many visitors do you normally see in a year?”

“Until 1350, the Rockfall Hotel saw thirty thousand guests a year,” Gabby replied in a chipper tone. “After that, records corrupted. Since 1407, we have had no guests. Trespassers in Brittle Pass are shot on sight!”

“Is that so?” I asked, curious how Gabby could know such a thing. “What about me?”

“You have not been shot, so you must not be a trespasser!” Gabby said cheerily.

“Makes sense,” I replied. “Are you in charge of all the robots in Brittle Pass?”

“I am the concierge system for the Rockfall Hotel! My duties extend to caring for this hotel and its guests! If you have a complaint or question, please do not hesitate to let me know!”

“Thanks, Gabby. Goodnight,” I said as I left to return to my room.

“You are welcome!” Gabby replied perkily, “Goodnight, Mister Doc!”

She was certainly an advanced system, but she seemed privy to information a hotel concierge system shouldn’t know. There was also the food provided by the bots in the restaurant; where had it come from? Surely they hadn’t been programmed to forage while this place had functioned during the War, so who had reprogrammed them or was supplying them? I hadn’t turned up any signs of living griffins here. Perhaps I’d missed them, but I couldn’t stay around here, not when there were Dogs of War patrolling the pass. There was something fishy about Gabby, but I couldn’t yet put my hoof (or prosthetic claw) on it, so I went to sleep instead.

***

The following morning, I awoke alive and unbothered by Dogs of War or the hotel’s robots, so that was something in the establishment’s favor. After throwing on my saddlebags, I stopped by the hotel’s restaurant for breakfast before heading out. As long as I didn’t encounter any unexpected complications, today’s leg of travel should take me out of the Brittle Pass and let me leave behind the constant dread of being ambushed by Dogs of War.

“Mister Doc!” Gabby called out as I neared the foyer’s exit. “You’ve forgotten to pay for your stay! Please return to the reception desk and make your deposit!”

“How much do I owe for the night?” I asked, curious as to what answer Gabby might give.

“For your accommodations, meals, and service, the total comes to 1,475,110 Commonwealth Guilders or 145 Equestrian Bits, however you would prefer to pay,” Gabby informed me with a smile.

“Interesting,” I said as I continued out of the building while Gabby persisted in calling after me.

***

The day was brisk but bright, and I made good time through Brittle Pass. It was a solitary journey, without even mutated wildlife to encounter. I wondered if they’d been hunted in the area by the Rockfall Hotel’s robots; I had seen meat on the menu, after all. Fortunately, there were no signs of Dogs of War, or any other automatons, until the end of my journey.

With the sun nearing the mountainous horizon behind me, I spotted the exit from Brittle Pass. There were tollbooths set up here, identical to the ones at the west end of the pass, and FITS registered the robots within them. However, something different from the west entrance was the wall of wrecked vehicles erected across the pass, presumably to keep the Dogs of War from spreading east. It wasn’t a complete wall, since it didn’t span the river, but maybe the griffins were counting on the metallic hounds being unable to swim without malfunctioning.

As I passed the tollbooths, one of the robots within chirped sharply and emerged from its booth, much to my surprise. I stopped and turned to face it as it hovered toward me, my shotgun unslung and at the ready in case it decided to try anything. It didn’t look like it had any weapons on it, but the propellers holding it aloft could probably be lethal against unarmored flesh. The robot’s body was an orb, attached to which were several cameras that functioned as eyes and four equally spaced arms that ended in propellers.

“Sternly. You cannot leave Brittle Pass until you have paid the expenses you’ve accrued,” the robot said with an emotionless synthetic voice. “You are found to be in arrears of 2,020,500 Commonwealth Guilders or 199 Equestrian Bits. Impatiently. Pay what you owe now or await detention.”

“I think I’ll pass,” I said.

“Scarily. Unacceptable,” the robot replied and began to whirr toward me.

I opened up with my shotgun, aiming for the propellers, and the robot crashed to the ground. It continued to demand money as I headed for the wall and exit of Brittle Pass. I was nearly there when I turned to look back and froze in my tracks. First three, then four, then five Dogs of War came into view, stalking from different directions. One approached the robot I’d shot and nosed it like a dog, before turning its head to stare me down just like the others.

I broke into a sprint just as the Dogs did the same. There was no way I could outrun them, not over flat land with no obstacles and no cover. If I could make it to the wall, though, I might be able to use it as its builders had intended. Shots rang out from behind me as one of the Dogs of War ceased its pursuit to gun me down. Bullets rang against metal as I reached the wall and dove into a bus.

The Dogs were right behind me, and their claws and metallic teeth shredded through the vehicle as if it were made from wet paper. I clambered over seats and out a broken window onto an auto-carriage and kept running. The wall was layers of vehicles thick, but the Dogs didn’t seem to care. It was slowing them down, but I didn’t know if it would be enough to save me. Creaks and groans came from the structure as two of the Dogs clambered up the side of the wall and onto the top. One of them climbed all the way over and landed on the other side. I rolled away through a tight crevasse as it fired at me through the structure.

There was no way I was going to make it through the wall, so I focused my efforts on climbing downward and toward the river. If I could wedge myself in a tight enough place, perhaps the Dogs would be unable to get to me without bringing the whole wall down around their ears, convincing them to give up and let me be. If that didn’t work, I could throw myself into the river as a last-ditch effort, try to swim upstream, and pray they couldn’t swim across to the other bank after me.

As I struggled between two vehicles that had been flattened before being added to the wall, I realized that the sound of the Dogs trying to break through the wall had stopped. I checked FITS and noticed that they were all stationary. Craning my neck, I could see one of them; its frozen jaws were opened to bite through an auto-carriage’s frame, its eyes flashing in a regular sequence. As the flashing stopped, the Dog of War turned its gaze to the east. Looking in another direction through the wreckage, I could see that another one of the cyberwolves was doing the same. Suddenly, they all scrambled off to the east, seeming to forget me. I waited until they’d disappeared from FITS to be sure it wasn’t a trap before I emerged from the wall, befuddled as to what could have called them away.

Level Up
New Perk: Hardy Stomach – 50% less chance of contracting an illness from eating mutated vegetation.
PipBeak Mod added: Hidden Blade
New Quest: Deeper In – Find more distribution stations in the North Griffin Commonwealth.
Athletics +4 (29)
Lockpick +2 (104)
Repair +1 (103)
Small Guns +1 (108)
Sneak +2 (106)
Survival +8 (36)
Unarmed +2 (88)

Chapter 7: Myths, Legends, and Big Bugs

Chapter Seven: Myths, Legends, and Big Bugs

To neutralize the venom of a stingwing, combine one part gunpowder with six parts guava juice and apply the mixture directly to the wound. This will result in a fever, but your body will burn the venom out before it can kill you so long as you keep yourself warm and you were struck in an extremity rather than in the head or near your heart. If that’s happened, poor luck for you.

I followed the instructions and gritted my teeth as I applied what was probably an unbelievably bad idea to the wound on my hindleg, but this book hadn’t steered me wrong yet; and going off what I could glean from the torn illustration at the bottom of the page, I was reasonably sure the creature that attacked me had been a stingwing. I was dubious about the book’s instructions on how to cure a stingwing strike, but given that I had no other ideas about how to cure it, I decided to trust in the written word. The badly damaged book I’d picked up back in that ransacked shop over a week ago had proven quite useful with its tips about how to deal with the dangers of the Griffin Commonwealth. My scrounging had also yielded me a good campfire cooking kit, and I was learning how to make medicines from scratch rather than relying on finding them in abandoned hospitals.

The one complaint I had about the book—other than its missing or damaged pages and worrying it was going to fall to pieces every time I moved it—was that it wasn’t organized in any recognizable manner. The author seemed to have simply jotted things down whenever she or he had thought of them, which included not only survival tips but also general thoughts and journal entries. On the page across from the instructions on how to cure stingwing strikes was what appeared to be a shopping list (mostly obscured by ink that had bled through the page) and a short narration.

We’re in Jubilee Park tonight, or rather near Jubilee Park. They didn’t want to let us in, so we’re camped outside. Grimm wanted to fly me in, but Ginny managed to talk him out of it. Funny; I don’t think Grimm really would’ve done it unless I was okay with it, but he played out the argument with her nonetheless. How’d I get to have other griffins following me? What am I, the main character of some story? Or maybe some game like what the so-called seers of Conexo play, trying to divine the right way to live from a program another griff’ made for fun? That’s a thought. Young as I am, I could probably tell those old, balding vultures a thing or two about living, learned from actually doing it rather than staring at a screen, obsessively repeating the same actions with small changes and looking for the best outcome. If only they’d let me back in to talk.... They threw me out pretty sharpish, protecting their games. What are the griffins of Jubilee Park guarding? Can’t be much of value—what use are carnival games and rides in a post-megaspell world? It’s none of my business, I guess, though somegriff’ outa tell them they’ve got a better chance of surviving if they band together with some of the other settlements around. We’ll make our way down to Worrytown tomorrow. What a lovely name for a place—sarc. Gotta remember to stock up on bullets. Grimm’ll be off looking for bits and bobs, but I’ll see if Ginny can find some paper. The moon reflected in the lake sure looks nice. Wonder if it’ll ever fall outta the sky?

There were entries like that scribbled throughout the entire book; they gave me glimpses into the world of the author but were full of names and references of which I had no understanding. The only thing I was sure of was that, at some point, the author had had two companions called Grimm and Ginny, and they had unexpectedly become the leader of their little group—much like my own situation in the Equestrian Wasteland.

I pulled a blanket from my bag and wrapped it around myself as the fever started, and I walked my way over to the edge of the distribution station’s platform. I’d made it to the station marked DS-10 on my PipBeak’s map and set it up to broadcast Radio PC across the Griffin Commonwealth. Currently it wasn’t distributing anything, since I was out of the range of any broadcasts of the station. After I’d activated some more on the other side of the mountains to the north, however, the signal would be able to spread. I’d also set it up to rebroadcast a frequency I’d chosen for Radio Free Wasteland, once I’d managed to pick it up on DS-18 far to the north. There was no point coming back here if I didn’t have to, especially if the place might not be abandoned whenever I returned.

In order to reach DS-10’s control room, I’d had to fight my way through a swarm of stingwings. The oversized, mutated scorpionflies had been a real pain, not least because one of them had managed to get through my doctor’s coat and Stable barding to sting me. Just from reading my tattered guidebook and traveling around, I’d realized there were quite a few overgrown insects in the Griffin Commonwealth, particularly flying insects—which was just fitting, wasn’t it? It was only flying creatures that posed a real threat to griffins, since they could easily fly away from landbound creatures like the ones in Equestria. However, I didn’t have that luxury and had to face the land creatures head-on and the flying creatures from below. Lucky me.

After giving the railing a test shake to make sure it was secure and not rusted through, I leaned against it and looked out across the valley below. Once you traveled east of Brittle Pass, the space between the mountains opened up even more widely than the valley leading down to the coast. I’d had to depart the river and its road to reach this distribution station, but I could still see the river in the distance, Celestia’s sun glinting off the ribbon of water that wound its way through the center of the valley. A vast greenness was spread out below, but I didn’t see any definite signs of surviving civilization; there were ruins from the old world scattered around, but the ones I’d passed through on the way here had been just that: ruins. There was no smoke rising from any of the distant structures suggesting that someone was living there. I could be wrong, of course, and a settlement to rest in would be welcome, especially if I kept having to fight dangerous wildlife and deplete my ammunition stock.

I’d head back down into the valley tomorrow and continue my quest to the east, further up into the northern Griffin Commonwealth; but for tonight, I’d sweat out this venom and pray for the best. Maybe I’d even try to decipher a few more passages from the ruined book.

***

In the following days, I kept on trekking through the valley, seeing no signs of life on my journey. Well, no signs of intelligent life; there were plenty of boars, bears, deer, and of course bugs, but no griffins. The more I thought about it, though, the more it made sense that I wouldn’t be stumbling across griffin settlements every few minutes. Griffins preferred the higher altitudes; that was where all their great cities (“roosts”)were located. Fortunately, I’d managed to add the locations of these roosts to my PipBeak’s map from some of the surviving maps back in the Pleasure Coast. There was an additional point I’d found on every map that wasn’t considered a roost but was what I believed to be a city—and that was Griffonstone.

Griffonstone was located south of the valley I was traveling through, and for the past day and a half, I’d been able to see what I assumed to be it, given its prominence. Rising above all the other peaks was a steep mountain that looked like it had been sheared in half. A dark aura hung over the sharp rocks, and unlike the surrounding peaks, no snow clung to its sides.

As I tore myself away from staring at the peak for the umpteenth time, I saw a wagon in the distance ahead of me, sitting alongside the road. Peering through the binoculars I’d picked up in an abandoned hunting lodge, I spotted a griffin in the harness at the front of the cart, though it’d currently come to a standstill. It didn’t seem to scream ambush, so I resumed my journey while keeping an eye on FITS. The spell didn’t detect any hostile intent from the griffin, and that was good enough for me for the moment.

When I neared the wagon, I saw that the griffin was no longer in the harness, though I hadn’t seen her fly off anywhere, and FITS showed one creature in the wagon. As I approached to investigate further, the side of the wagon popped open, revealing an elderly griffin with a shotgun held in each claw. My first instinct was to reach for my own shotgun, but FITS didn’t show her as hostile; and even using ERSaTS, I didn’t know if I’d be able to draw and get out of the way of her shot in time.

“A pony, huh?” the griffin said, her voice tinged with caution. “Can I assume you’re not here to rob or kill me?”

“No, ma’am,” I replied as courteously as I could, considering I was looking down four barrels. “I’m just a traveler … like yourself.”

“Well, that’s different, then,” she said cheerily as she withdrew her shotguns and pulled upon a cable within the wagon.

Panels flipped and banners fell, transforming her wagon into a mobile shop before my eyes, with goods and prices listed beside the seller’s counter she now stood at.

“What can I get for you?” she asked.

The supplies I needed most desperately were ammunition, and luckily, she had plenty to sell. She was also willing to take any ammunition I’d picked up that I had no use for; and bullets, shells, and bottlecaps traded places across the countertop. From deep within her stash of goods, she also produced a book on magic. Given the indentation in the cover, I suspected she’d been using it to prop up some piece of furniture, but I eagerly paid top price for it. I wasn’t one to turn down the opportunity to learn more magic merely because of minor aesthetic damage.

“Are there more traders like you out on the road?” I asked when our transactions were concluded. If I was going to make it all the way to my destination, I needed to either find a way in between settlements to restock or carry much more ammunition with me. (That, or the Griffin Commonwealth would need to be nicer to me, which didn’t seem likely.)

“Oh, there are a few, but not many,” the griffin said as she carefully dropped stacks of bottlecaps into pill bottles, a smart counting practice that I noted. “Most traders prefer to set up shops in settlements or roosts, but there are some of us who risk the roads. There are griffins—and ponies, apparently—who’ll buy out here and pay a premium for the convenience. Even the raiders, if they have the wits not to mess with me.”

“You sell to raiders?” I asked in disbelief.

“Sure, why not?” the griffin said as she finished her counting. “Someone’s going to sell to them, so why not me? Where do you think they get all their weapons and ammo?”

“Well … raiding, I suppose,” I said lamely.

It hadn’t really occurred to me before, but simply scrounging through ruins probably wasn’t enough to keep raiders supplied. Even back in Equestria, somepony must have been selling to them. But even though it made sense from an entrepreneurial perspective, that didn’t mean I had to like it.

“None of my business. Besides, I don’t seek them out. That’s a good way to get swarmed by a whole gang instead of just a raiding party, in case they turn out to be some of the nasties,” the griffin said. “That’s why I didn’t go to ground or shoot you right away, you know. You didn’t look focused on hunting me down or waiting in ambush. Distracted by Griffonstone, were you?”

“Yeah, actually. Do you know what happened to it?” I asked eagerly, curiosity leading my thoughts away from questions of morality.

“Of course! Every griffin knows the story of Griffonstone. Although, if you want the full story, you’d have to find a Remember—just a warning that they tend to do it in a musical fashion, though,” the griffin said, leaning forward conspiratorially and placing her claws alongside her beak as she made her aside, even though we were the only living beings within sight. “It’s a tale of the folly of our ancestors in attempting to play both sides in the war between you ponies and the zebras.”

“Both sides?” I interrupted. “I thought the griffins fought on the side of the zebras.”

“It’s true that our mercenaries fought mostly for the Zebra Empire, but what choice did they have?” the griffin said with a shrug. “You Equestrians were already prejudiced against both griffins and soldiers-for-hire, so they went where the jobs were. We had plenty to do with Equestria in other ways, though. If you came from the west, surely you saw Pleasure Coast and all the signage showing prices in both guilders and Bits. During the War, we acted under the Godfeather Doctrine, named after one of the Grand Marshals; we’d stay neutral but contract out to both sides. Fat lot of good it did us in the end, since we still got hit by megaspells—just they came from both sides instead of one.”

“Anyway, Griffonstone. I guess it used to be our capital a long time ago, back when griffins had a king, but it was in ruins long before the War. Some Grand Marshal decided it’d be a great idea to build an advanced superweapon in Griffonstone and encourage a bidding war between Equestria and the Zebra Empire for it. The plan fell through when both assumed the other had bought it, and on the Last Day, the mountain was struck by two megaspells. It’s a real cursed place now. I don’t know a single sane griffin who’d consider looting it, even though it must have some pretty rare treasures.”

“According to Grand Marshal Gideon,” the griffin said with an eye roll, “it’s a lesson that the Griffin Commonwealth should’ve kept from getting involved in the War. If we’d done that, we could be ruling the world now instead of just scraping by, albeit better than most places. He’s no merchant, though, and I doubt he’s ever left Shearpoint. If the Commonwealth would’ve kept out of the War, sure we’d have avoided getting hit by scattered megaspells, but we’d also still be living in hovels strewn throughout the mountains. All the infrastructure we’ve got was built with Equestrian gold and zebra silver. All in all, I think the cost was worth the payoff.”

“Wow, that’s certainly … informative,” said, though I wasn’t sure I agreed with her assessment. “So, nobody’s ever gone to Griffonstone, huh?”

“Sure they have,” the griffin snorted. “They’ve just never come back alive. Don’t you be getting ideas about breaking into Griffonstone, not if you have any desire to keep on living. If the radiation or the poisonous air or the ancient curses or the mutants don’t get you, then the security system will. Take that as a free piece of advice. Oh, and you should stay away from the road. Raiders east of here like to set up ambushes.”

“Thanks for the warning,” I said, “And for the supplies.”

“Oh, it was my pleasure,” the griffin said with a cheeky wink. She tugged on a cable within her wagon and it shut itself up, becoming nondescript once again.

***

I eyed the underside of Distribution Station 9, carefully weighing my options. If I wanted to spread Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC across the Griffin Commonwealth, I’d need to get inside the distribution station. Unfortunately, there was a fairly serious obstacle blocking my path; halfway up the access staircase was a massive insect nest. By the look of it and according to the notes in my damaged guidebook, it was home to cazadors, giant wasps like the one I’d fought in the arena back in the Pleasure Coast. The smart thing to do (short of marching in the opposite direction as quickly as I could) was to sneak past and leave them undisturbed. That didn’t look like it would be an option, though, given how the nest swallowed up the stairs. I could try crossing over the surface of the nest, but I liked that idea even less than fighting them. If I chose that plan, I was liable to fall to my death, break through into the nest and become trapped, or awaken the swarm and be forced to fight in treacherous terrain. No, the best—and still altogether bad—option I had was to destroy the nest from below and take out any survivors before they could sting me to death. What I wouldn’t give for a suit of Steel Ranger armor right about now.

I spent a lot of time examining the nest (and even more time dithering and putting the act off) until I had a thorough idea of how it was attached to the cliffside and stairs, and how I could possibly dislodge it. I studied the book I’d bought from the griffin trader a few days ago, which contained instructions on how to perform teleportation spells. I’d been trying it out around the campfire on rocks, which gave me somewhat of a starting point. I didn’t know just how different it would be to teleport grenades across a long distance, but nothing ventured meant nothing gained. Before I could overthink my plan, I scrunched my face up in determination and pulled the pins.

Reaching out with my magic, I caused the live grenades hovering in front of me to disappear and reappear somewhere else. From the detonations going off above me, I had been able to pull off my plan correctly, give or take a bit of a shift in position. Apparently they still hit closely enough, and the cazador nest began to pull away from the mountainside, its own weight dragging it down now that it didn’t have enough support to stay in place. Cazadors began to crawl from holes in the surface as it plummeted, disoriented and struggling to right themselves. As the nest struck the ground, it landed upon mines I’d recovered from the road (another trick I’d picked up), and an explosion tore through it. Pieces of nest and cazador geysered upwards in a spume that struck the descending cazadors.

FITS was covered in hostile contacts as the surviving cazadors pinpointed me as the source of their destruction and, buzzing angrily, winged their way toward my position. As those in the air flew my way and I used ERSaTS to snipe them with my battle rifle, more emerged from the ruins of the nest. Whenever it looked like there were enough clustered together, I chucked in another grenade, but I was soon out of the throwable explosives and had to rely on my firearms alone.

The cazadors fanned out into a crescent as they regrouped, and I focused my shots on the left wing. One insect from the right wing managed to close in, and I bucked it back with a kick. As it came at me again, its stinger got caught in my doctor’s coat and I wheeled on it with my shotgun, blowing its head off. That wasn’t enough to kill it instantly, and it kept struggling for a few seconds before going still. I sighted my shotgun down the row of cazadors closing in from the right and repeatedly pulled the trigger, turning them into bug paste.

I turned my attention back to the left, where more cazadors were rapidly approaching. As the leader of the group was almost on top of me, I extended the blade on my PipBeak, slamming it into the cazador’s thorax. It struck out with its stinger at my prosthetic arm, but the metal was unaffected. Spinning around, I launched the cazador off my blade into another before firing my shotgun into the pair.

The bugs were all around me now, and I pulled the shotgun trigger wildly as I spun around, guaranteed to hit at least one. Whenever I could, I used ERSaTS to avoid strikes that would kill or maim me, like stingers headed toward my eyes. I couldn’t keep it up forever, however … and there were a lot of cazadors.

They swarmed me with a vicious intensity, and one maneuvered a stinger through my Stable 85 jumpsuit and into a thigh. The pain was excruciating as its venom coursed through me, but I kept fighting for survival, for a way out of the swarm, reloading my shotgun desperately and swinging the blade on my PipBeak around trying to clip wings or antennae.

Another strike managed to pierce both doctor’s coat and jumpsuit and inject venom into my shoulder, and I found my vision becoming hazy and my motions sluggish. FITS was looking clear, though; only a few cazadors left. I just had to get through them, and then I could find a way to neutralize the venom. Surely that tattered and smudged guidebook had some recipe for this. Suddenly, I was struck in the stomach by a cheeky cazador that had its head sliced off a moment later. I fired at one, then another, until FITS said there was a lone survivor.

Its stinger struck the back of my neck, and I felt the fourth dose of venom doing its deadly work. I reached back with my prosthetic claw and grabbed the cazador, dragging it forward. Once it was on the ground in front of me, I fired point blank through the pulsing haze at its blurry shape with my shotgun. I spun around and confirmed FITS was clear, right before falling to the ground and blacking out.

***

When I awoke, my head was still fuzzy and slightly throbbing, but at least I woke up. At least, I was pretty sure I wasn’t dead; I’d be really disappointed if heaven smelled like this and didn’t have comfier beds. My senses returned slowly, and I felt something warm and damp on my forehead. That sensation disappeared for a moment before I felt something cold and damp take its place. I opened my eyes, and it took a minute before my vision adjusted to its usual clarity.

Above me was a utilitarian ceiling with caged lights set into it. I briefly wondered if I was in a Stable, before remembering that there was no such thing in the Commonwealth. A Lockbox, maybe; that’s what the griffins called them. Though, I could swear I’d seen this style before, and not in a Stable. A griffin with black feathers, except for her all-white face, blocked the light as she looked down at me.

“Oh, good, you’re going to be okay,” she said with relief. “We weren’t sure there for a while if we’d given you the antivenom in time, and a large enough dose. You took a lot of stings.”

“Right … the cazadors,” I said, my head still kind of fuzzy. I tried to prop myself up to get a better look around. “Where am I?”

“You’re in Hope Springs, an independent griffin settlement,” the griffin said as she helped me up, rearranging the pillow under my head against the bed’s frame so I could sit. “I’m Gretchen.”

Now that I was able to get a better look at my surroundings, I was able to make out better where I was and why it felt so familiar. I was in the control center of a distribution station, though it no longer looked like it was being used for its original purpose. The chairs against the consoles had been removed, and most of the space was taken up by benches or sectioned off with dividers to form transitional rooms. There were a couple other griffins in the control center, either sitting around or talking to each other. Directly across from the main door was a sculpture created from scrap that looked like a diamond with two downturned wings. It was the same symbol on my tattered guidebook and the shop where I’d found it.

“Hello Gretchen, I’m Doc,” I introduced myself absently, reaching out a hoof that Gretchen took in her claws. “Are we in the distribution station above the cazador nest?”

“That cazador nest was beneath Hope Springs, yes,” Gretchen said. “The town really does owe you debt of gratitude for that. We didn’t know it was there at first. By the time we did, it was too large to safely remove. We’ve been doing all we can just to protect against the cazadors or stay out of their way, but now we don’t have to worry about them at all anymore, thanks to you.”

“What is this place?” I asked, looking around.

“Why, this is the Church of Rok. Aren’t you a Rokkist, Doc?” Gretchen asked quizzically. She reached into my saddlebags beside the bed and pulled out the badly damaged guidebook. “When we found this in your saddlebags, we assumed you were.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I just found that in a ruin and thought it was interesting.”

“Well, that does explain why it’s in such poor shape,” Gretchen said as she looked at the book forlornly. “No matter; we’ll get you an intact one before you leave. I’m sure the priest’ll allow it. This is The Book of Rok, or How to Live in a Post-Megaspell World. You’ve really never heard of it?”

“No, I’m, uh, new to the Griffin Commonwealth,” I said. “I only recently left Pleasure Coast. This is your … holy book, then?”

“Yes, the sacred writings of Rok,” she said with adoration. “He was born over a hundred-fifty years ago, in the first generation after the megaspells fell. Though a griffin, he was unable to fly, which gave him a perspective no other living griffin had. He traveled the Commonwealth, writing down the wisdom he learned, and collecting followers into a town. After he died, they spread his message with the rest of the Commonwealth: that in order for griffins to live in a post-megaspell world, we couldn’t just carry on as if nothing had happened and go back to the way things were before the War. We needed to help support each other, seek peace, and strive to build a better Commonwealth instead of fighting over the scraps.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Gretchen said. “I guess I got a little carried away there with preaching. I’m training as an acolyte here, and I’ve been practicing my proselytizing for when I go on pilgrimage someday. You should read the Book of Rok and discover the wisdom inside for yourself.”

“No, it’s okay,” I said. There really wasn’t much else I could say, given that she’d taken me here and nursed me back to health. “This whole place used to be a distribution station, you know. It can repeat radio stations to spread them to more of the Commonwealth. I’ve been traveling in order to activate them. I don’t suppose you’d mind if I did so here, would you?”

“You can ask the priest when he’s done speaking with Riker, but I’m sure it’s okay,” Gretchen said sweetly. “After all, Rok would want us to help you.”

Level Up
New Perk: Look to the Skies – In the Griffin Commonwealth, looking up once in awhile is crucial. All penalties to Perception of things above you are removed.
New Quest: Good Tidings – Convince the priest of the Church of Rok to let you reactivate Distribution Station 9.
Alchemistry +1 (47)
Barter +1 (97)
Explosives +3 (107)
Lockpick +1 (105)
Manipulation Magic +6* [Skill Book] +2 (29)
Medicine +1 (116)
Small Guns +3 (111)
Speech +1 (103)
Survival +6 (42)
Unarmed +1 (89)

*Crash Course

Chapter 8: Civilization, or the Best We Have

Chapter Eight: Civilization, or the Best We Have

To call Laketown a city would be too generous, but to label it as merely a settlement wouldn’t do it justice. Most settlements began with preexisting Wartime structures, around which more shelters and a defensive perimeter could be built. That was no less true here than anywhere else; Laketown had begun, in fact, with several older buildings—in this case, mostly cabins built against the lake—and had grown out from there. Multiple settlements had cropped up near each other, and as they’d grown, they evolved past being defined by their original structures and had combined into a single large settlement, one who’s only defining quality was the lake against which it was built. Most of the structures in Laketown had been built post-War, but they were also mainly of the “slap what we have together and hope it doesn’t fall over” variety. In its scope, it rivalled the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad; thankfully, it was far easier to get into Laketown than the PRS.

I got plenty of stares as I entered the town, but I was getting used to the griffins of the Commonwealth finding me odd. Living beyond the Brittle Pass, none of them had probably ever even seen a pony before. I too was getting used to the wholly griffin settlements that existed out here beyond the Pleasure Coast. Hope Springs had been of the same ilk and would likely remain so for some time yet. given that their lift was broken and remnants of the cazador nest still blocked passage up the stairs. When I left Hope Springs, I’d needed to be carried back down by griffins, due to my lack of wings. At least Laketown was accessible without having to fly or climb the face of a mountain.

Since Laketown had once been multiple settlements, there was no consistent street planning going on, and I wandered around for a while before managing to find my way to one of the markets. The stalls and shops were congregated near the lake, probably making it easier to transport goods back and forth from the barges I saw docked against the ramshackle piers. The river that drained into this lake from the north (and later drained out through the south) curled its way through most of the northern Commonwealth, so this location must’ve been awfully convenient for transporting wares. As I watched a couple of the barges, I saw manufactured goods from the griffin roosts upriver being offloaded and fruits and vegetables being onloaded for the trip back up to them.

“When are we going to get some more rain, already?” I heard another griffin ask nearby as I was wrapping up my transaction at another stall.

“The weather crew’s missed the last four scheduled drizzles. It’ll be a real deluge when it does come,” another griffin replied.

“If they ever get around to doing their job and it does come,” the first griffin complained. “I’ve a mind to fly up to DS-4 and tell them off. We can’t irrigate our crops forever, or for free!”

“Maybe if we stop sendin’ ‘em, then Gideon’ll get the picture,” the other griffin said as they started to walk away. I stopped listening as the shopkeeper I’d just bought from cleared her throat in annoyance that I hadn’t moved away to let other customers have their turn.

“Sorry,” I apologized as I trotted after the two complaining griffins. The one had mentioned DS-4, the next distribution station on my list, and I needed to know more.

“That’s a pretty picture, isn’t it?” the first griffin snickered. “Grand Marshal Gideon staring down at an empty plate and chewing out the weather marshal ‘cause of it.”

“Of course, he probably wouldn’t go straight there,” the other said. “First he’d berate his chef, then the suppliers, then the barge captains, then the dockworkers, then the mayor, then the weather marshal. Down the chain and up the chain.”

“That’s business,” the first griffin huffed discontentedly.

“Excuse me,” I said as I caught up to them, and the griffins turned with annoyance that shifted into surprise upon seeing me: a pony in a bright blue jumpsuit, a yellow doctor’s coat, and a prosthetic griffin leg. They didn’t seem to know what to make of me. “I couldn’t help but overhear you saying something about DS-4 and a weather team?”

“‘Couldn’t help but overhear,’” the first griffin said under her breath. “You could’ve helped it if you hadn’t followed us. What’s it matter to you?”

“I’m headed to DS-4 myself and was curious what’s awaiting me there.”

“You’re heading somewhere but you don’t know anything about it?” the first griffin asked, cocking a feathery eyebrow.

“It’s the local base for the Weather Corps, only they haven’t been doing their jobs lately, as I’m sure you overheard,” the other griffin decided to indulge me. “You planning to go tell them off?”

“Maybe,” I replied, which seemed to surprise her. “I could at least check things out. What if something’s happened to them?”

“Well, I doubt they’ll listen, but nobody’s gonna stop you from tryin’,” the first griffin said, holding back a chuckle. “More power to you, strange pony nobody’s ever heard of.”

She had a point. If a random griffin had walked into a settlement or guard post in Equestria and tried to tell ponies off for not doing their job, the reception would be icy at best. Not to mention that there was no Radio Free Wasteland or Radio PC out here, so there was no way for these griffins to have heard DJ Pon3 or the Commonwealth Crooner hyping me up. To be fair, even that probably wouldn’t carry much weight, since my celebrity here in the Commonwealth was restricted to solving an attempted assassination in the Pleasure Coast and spreading another radio station for the griffins to listen to. I’d need something else backing me up … something the griffins at DS-4 would respect, especially since I couldn’t activate the distribution station without their permission.

“Where’s the mayor’s office?” I asked the griffins before they resumed their walk.

“The mayor’s office? You’re planning to speak to the mayor now?” one of them asked incredulously. “Well, you’ve certainly got a boldness to you, for whatever that’s worth. Head north to Jubilee Park. You can’t miss the castle.”

After quickly thanking the dumbfounded griffins, I followed their directions and headed north through Laketown. Jubilee Park was a name I recognized from the Book of Rok, and I wondered if the section I was currently in had once been known as Worrytown. As I made my way through the tangled streets of the town, the impossible-to-miss castle gradually came into view above the post-War construction. It was a very pointy castle, with lots of spires, but also much smaller than it first appeared. As I reached the entrance to Jubilee Park, I could see that it was a scaled-down version of what had possibly been a real castle in the past, study stone walls replaced with concrete wrapped around a steel frame that had begun to break off after years of abuse. A mostly demolished fence separated Jubilee Park from the rest of Laketown, but the entry arch remained, complete with a sign covered in currently unlit fluorescent lights.

Jubilee Park
A Griffin Heritage Experience
41,250 cɢ | Ƀ4 | Ӿ51

It appeared this had originally been an amusement park modeled after griffin history, although how much was fact or myth was debatable, given what I’d heard from Grant at Grand Imperial about the origins of Mythologism. The “castle” was the centerpiece of the park, which stretched out into the lake on an artificially constructed peninsula. A tarnished sign hanging in the midst of overgrown greenery at the front of the castle read “Griffonstone Castle in King Grover’s Time.” I let myself in through the front door, headed up the staircase just within the entrance room, and was immediately greeted by a guard with a shotgun.

“What’s your business here?” he asked in a deep, gruff voice as he blocked my path into what looked like it had once been a giftshop.

“I need to speak to the mayor,” I told him.

“Do you have an appointment?” the griffin asked sternly. “I think I’d remember a unicorn being scheduled to meet with His Excellency.”

“No, I don’t have an appointment,” I told him, and the griffin’s eyes narrowed. “I’m willing to wait to speak with him if he has an opening, though.”

“Fine, just stay out of the way. You can sit here,” he grunted as he pointed to a chair just within the giftshop. “I’ll see if Mayor Galen has any openings for you.”

The guard seemed reluctant to leave me alone, even after I’d taken a seat, but he eventually broke eye contact and headed through a door just off the gift shop-turned reception room. There was a place set for a receptionist, but nobody occupied the spot. However, since I might be incorrectly assuming things, I got up to investigate while the guard was gone. Peering behind the counter, I spied a locked terminal and several memo pads covered in doodles. Leaving that mystery aside, I headed back to my chair.

Before I could make it, a griffin shot through a nearby window and collided with me, sending the papers he’d held in his claws flying into the air. He frantically grabbed at them with his claws before they hit the ground, and I lent my magic to gather a few near me, especially those that looked ready to flutter down the stairs. I caught a glimpse of one, whose header read “Scheduled Radio Broadcasts for the Edification of the Commonwealth,” before the griffin snatched them away. Only after he’d gathered all his papers up did he seem to realize who (or rather, what) I was.

“A pony? What are you doing here?” he asked in a reedy voice.

“I’m Doc. I’m here to speak with Mayor Galen,” I replied. This griffin seemed very jumpy, so I tried to assume a calming presence.

“A doctor? Did something happen to Mayor Galen while I was out?” the griffin asked worriedly as he hurried around behind the reception counter and deposited his papers.

“No, only my name is Doc,” I tried to reassure him.

“Oh, oh, of course,” he said as he tried to smooth the chestnut-colored feathers on his head only to make them stick out more (though I had no idea what he meant by ‘of course’). “I’m Gareth, Mayor Galen’s aide. Did you make an appointment with the mayor to speak with him?”

“No, but I’m waiting,” I told Gareth, and he looked up at me in confusion. “I wanted to speak with him about DS-4 and the weather team there.”

“Oh, that’s outside the mayor’s jurisdiction,” Gareth said definitively. “You’ll need to speak with the weather captain in Brinkfall about that. He’s in charge of the Weather Corps in the area, including the base at DS-4.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“Absolutely!” Gareth replied, “It’s-it’s the roosts’ job to maintain the Weather Corps and provide a place for local weather captains to administrate. Laketown is-is no roost. We have no marshal on the Council and no control over the weather.”

“Oh. Okay, then,” I said disappointedly. “Sorry for wasting your time.”

“I told you to stay put!” the guard bellowed as he returned and saw me out of my chair. “The mayor has no openings for you.”

“I was just leaving, actually,” I told him, but he insisted on escorting me out anyway.

***

Distribution Station 4, unlike the previous stations I’d been to, was located high up in the mountains. It took me a week of travel from Laketown once I’d skirted the lake, crossed the valley, and found a way up and through the range. Luckily, some paths still remained from when supplies had to be brought to the station during its construction and operation, and I was able to find my way among the peaks that rose continually higher. The roost of Brinkfall was nearby but farther to the north, and it didn’t make much sense to go there first and then backtrack to DS-4. If I had to get permission from the Brinkfall weather captain before the team at the station would let me reactivate it, then I’d do it. However, there was no point making that trip before I’d even tried approaching my main goal directly.

As it turned out, I wouldn’t need to get permission. I was now pretty confident the weather team was no longer at DS-4, at least in a living capacity. As I walked up the access stairs, I spotted griffin bodies hanging from the edge of the platform after being cruelly eviscerated—typical raider decoration. I figured the contacts FITS was picking up above me were raiders, not another weather team.

My fears were confirmed once I reached the top. Griffins in brutal armor lounged around burning barrels. One was spray-painting Arise upon a wall. A flag flew from one of the antennas, and I remembered seeing one like it in Laketown: eleven horizontal stripes of different colors, one for each of the eleven roosts. This flag had a cloud over the stripes, though that was hard to see through the blood and viscera the raiders had used to deface it, painting the Weather Corps flag with the innards of the Weather Corps’ members.

I checked my ammunition before formulating a plan. I didn’t know if I’d have enough to fight all the raiders here, not after using up some of what I’d restocked in Laketown fighting beasts and other raiders along the way. The smart thing would be to head to Brinkfall and have them send a force down to deal with this, but I’d never been much for that approach. That plan was ruined anyway when one of the raiders squinted in my direction. A second later, he pointed toward me as he yelled something to his comrades.

The marks on FITS flipped to hostile, and the fight was on. Immediately casting ERSaTS to buy a little extra time, I pointed my battle rifle at a fuel tanker (whose presence up here, quite frankly, had me stumped). It took a few shots to pierce it but then it ignited, exploding in a fireball that consumed all the raiders in its vicinity. Those on the fringes of the fireball were knocked over by the blast, and those between were set on fire and began frantically trying to put themselves out.

Shots rang out behind me as I kept on the move, firing back at the staggered griffins with my battle rifle. FITS told me there weren’t many inside the main building of the station, so I headed there. A raider was trying to run out, and we met in the doorway. Scuffling ensued as we both tried to aim our respective weapons at each other, her with pistol and I with my battle rifle. I reached out and grabbed her pistol arm, my prosthetic claws closing tight around it, and she let go of my battle rifle to claw at my face with her other arm. I got my rifle in against her throat and fired off a burst, but not before she managed to rake her claws across my face. She missed my eye, fortunately; but hot, salty blood began to flow down into it, obscuring half my vision.

As bullets nipped at my tail, I switched to my shotgun and continued into the station. There were two raiders in wait, one on each side of the entrance. As I ducked down, I fired to the left and tossed a grenade to the right. The raider hit by the grenade went flying backwards, right into another raider trying to come at me, and I rushed over to fire my shotgun repeatedly into them.

One raider managed to get in behind me, and I turned around and fired an ERSaTS-aided shot between her eyes, dropping her in the doorway and blocking the way to others. I ran to a side door and exited the main compound. Another raider had thought to cut around and flank me, and she came at me with a knife. She managed to catch the blade beneath my battle rifle’s scope and flicked it out of my magical grasp before knocking me to the floor. I tried to hold her back with a hoof and her blade with my claws, but she kept pushing it down toward me. Quickly, I released her knife and hit her arm with my foreleg, causing the blade to jab down into my shoulder instead of my jugular. I sank my claws into the feathers at the back of her head and held on until I could deploy my PipBeak’s blade into her throat.

The shouts of raiders grew nearer, and I pushed her off before pulling the blade from my shoulder and slapping an enchanted bandage on it. The raiders were mostly coming through the main compound, and I tossed a grenade through the door as soon as it opened. With a very wet and unpleasant noise, a swath of pips disappeared from FITS.

I rushed back around to the main open area of the station and shooting bursts at the raiders still clustered there, before turning back to where those within the main building were retreating. An assault rifle was lying nearby, and I slotted a magazine in before firing it at the raiders as they emerged. The last of them felled, I spun around, keeping an eye on FITS to detect any I might’ve missed.

There was one near the edge of the platform, but it wasn’t just a raider alone that was facing me. A giant bipedal machine was squatted near the station’s lift, and it roared to life and stood up as I turned and stared, smoke billowing from stacks on its back. At least now I knew why the raiders had brought a fuel tanker up here. The main body of the machine had a cockpit, where a raider now sat pressing buttons and pulling levers that caused the machine to move forward and raise miniguns mounted on stubby arms.

I took cover behind a sizeable stack of ammo crates as the miniguns let loose. Bullets tore through the crates like they were made of cardboard, shredding them in seconds; but there were just enough for me to survive the onslaught until the guns overheated and the firing stopped momentarily. Casting ERSaTS, I faced the mech down and fired my battle rifle directly at the cockpit. The glass, however, was too hardened to allow my shots to do more than scratch the surface.

I ran for the sturdier shelter of a building as the miniguns started up again, and I managed to make it in time. (The end of my coat wasn’t so lucky; bullets had ripped through and torn the end to shreds.) I could track the machine on FITS, so I knew it was advancing toward me; unfortunately, the pilot also seemed to have some version of FITS onboard, and she turned around the moment I came close to looping the building and attacking it from behind. Hastily aborting that plan, I ducked into the building and looked at what resources were inside.

The griffin was too impatient to let me hide forever and began to fire the minigun again, but the structure was sturdy enough to take a pounding for a while before I would be in trouble. This building had once been living quarters, and I could see places where either the crew (when DS-4 had been operational) or the weather team stationed here had made some changes to give it a homey touch: treasured photos affixed to the walls and claw-knit blankets on the beds. Most of those things had been defiled by the current barbaric occupants, but still, they might be redeemable someday. Like most raiders, these had liked to have all their weapons and ammunition out where they could see it, but they’d also stashed a few choice pieces in here. There was a stack of single-use rocket launchers, and I grabbed a couple and slung them over my back before exiting the building.

I came out through the back, and the mech pilot moved to check me as she realized what was going on. As soon as the machine came in sight, I fired the rocket. Unguided or not, the projectile moved too quickly for the clanky mech to get out of the way. The rocket struck the cockpit’s canopy, sending cracks through the glass but leaving the pilot unharmed. As I fired my second rocket, the mech prepared to fire its miniguns at me. The rocket veered off course in midair and struck a shoulder, which didn’t appear to impair the mech at all.

With the miniguns spinning up, I took the chance that my first strike had been enough and cast ERSaTS. I peered down the scope of my battle rifle at the raider in her cockpit and fired. My first burst shattered the glass along the cracks the rocket had produced. My second burst struck true, killing the pilot and stopping the miniguns before they fired. My third and fourth bursts were unnecessary, but I couldn't be sure of that until after I’d fired them.

With the last of the raiders neutralized, I walked through the carnage, plugging my nose against the smell of burned flesh and feathers, and entered the main compound. Looking at the results of my fight, the Weather Corps was going to have to do a lot of cleaning and renovation to make this place habitable again. The control room was locked, but I managed to hack in and activate the station. Another chain in the distribution stations link had been added, and I’d cleared out the station for the Weather Corps. They’d certainly have reason to be grateful when I reported this in Brinkfall.

***

Brinkfall was only a few days travel away from the distribution station. Even so, it was no walk in the park; the route was along treacherous paths high in the mountains, and I encountered several strange and vicious birds along the way. Brinkfall was the first real roost I’d seen in the Griffin Commonwealth, and it was certainly something to behold. While nowhere near the size of Equestrian cities like Vanhoover or Stalliongrad, it was a city that had stood throughout the War and hadn’t been destroyed by megaspells. It still bore signs of decay, but that was due to time and neglect instead of a sudden blast of destructive magic. The mountain upon which Brinkfall was built had one side that fell away vertically, forming a precarious cliff; this was where the griffins had chosen to place a city, albeit one that stretched back and up toward the peak. Still, I couldn’t imagine who’d actually want to live on the cliff edge, especially considering how some pieces had fallen away over the years and left some buildings hanging out over the abyss.

The city was impressive from a distance, and it still was once I’d entered it and gotten a closer look. However, it wasn’t hard to see that the roost was obviously diminished from its past self. Though it hadn’t been hit by a megaspell, many griffins had ridden out the early post-War years in Lockboxes, only emerging later to reinhabit and repopulate their cities; and recovery appeared to be an ongoing process.

If I’d felt like an outsider in Laketown, I felt it even more so here. There wasn’t a single griffin I passed on the streets that didn’t stop and stare at me. Had they ever seen a pony in their roost, high up in the mountains? I doubted it—which made me proud and nervous at the same time. What would they make of me? How would they react?

At the very least, they were willing to take my caps, and I purchased a room for the night at an old hotel before heading out to search for the Weather Corps’ offices. It wasn’t all that hard to find, once I asked for directions, and I discovered that my destination was a converted old restaurant. Out front hung a non-defaced flag of the Weather Corps, assuring me that I was in the right place.

When I tried the door, it didn’t budge. Peering through the glass, I could make out a griffin sitting inside, leaned back in her chair, paws up on her desk and magazine in her claws. I banged on the glass to get her attention, but she just made a rude gesture in my direction without even looking up. I continued to bang insistently, and she continued to make foul signs. She eventually became too annoyed to ignore me and looked up. She did a double take before frowning and setting her magazine down.

“You lost?” she asked as she unlocked the door and opened it, standing in the doorway to block my entrance. “I don’t know how you flew in here, but you should scram.”

“Are you Brinkfall’s weather captain?” I asked.

“No, I’m Princess Celestia,” she replied sarcastically, and it irked me to hear her use the Goddess’s name so flippantly. “Weather captain’s out.”

“Do you know where?” I asked in annoyance.

“None of my business,” she replied. “Or yours, for that matter.”

“Do you know when they’ll be back?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Do you know anything?”

“Well, nothing you’d be interested in hearing, I’d wager,” she replied with a smirk.

“I just wanted to report that your base at DS-4 was overtaken by raiders, and I killed them all for you,” I said.

“Is that so?” the griffin replied without a hint of sincerity in her voice. “I’ll be sure to pass it on to the boss.”

This conversation wasn’t going anywhere, so I decided to let the snarky griffin alone and search for the weather captain myself; I certainly didn’t trust to her to bring the news to them. She’d been wearing a sky-blue uniform, so I started searching the city for anygriffin wearing the same uniform. Either I’d find the weather captain, or I’d run into another member of the Weather Corps who might be genuinely helpful.

Just as I started to consider heading back to the hotel and trying the Weather Corps offices again tomorrow, my wandering finally paid off. Walking past yet another alley, I spotted that distinct shade of sky blue in the distance at the last second. I immediately backtracked and headed down the alley. As I approached my quarry, I could hear voices and realized there were two griffins standing in the darkness.

“We’re relying on total mist coverage to make the hit. You’ve got everything in position, yes?” one of the griffins asked, a dark cloak obscuring their face.

“Of course … unless the von Hunt’s paid me more than you have to keep the skies clear,” the uniformed griffin said.

“Have they?” the other griffin grumbled.

I had the feeling I wasn’t supposed to be hearing this and ducked down behind a trash bin.

“Purely theoretical, mind you,” the uniformed griffin said as he waved his claws nonchalantly. “Remember, paying the Weather Corps for favorable conditions is a criminal act.”

“So you keep telling me,” the other griffin grumbled, and he produced a sack from within his cloak. It clinked like coins when he passed it over.

“Hmm, yes, I think it’ll be a very foggy morning tomorrow,” the uniformed griffin said as he weighed the sack in a claw.

“Good to hear, and … contact me if there are any more … negotiations,” the other griffin said before stalking off.

The uniformed griffin opened the sack and counted the money within before tucking it into a pouch at his side.

“You there,” he called in my direction. “Come on out.”

Hesitantly, I emerged from behind the trash bin, keeping an eye on FITS to make sure he didn’t turn hostile.

“A pony, eh? Now, I never would’ve expected that. What are you doing here?” he asked. “Come to spy on me for the von Hunts? Or maybe the Callagas?”

“No, I don’t know anything about that,” I professed my innocence. “Are you Brinkfall’s weather captain?”

“That’s right; Captain Gottlieb. Why do you want to know?” he asked as he adjusted his hat.

“I … wanted to report to you that the weather team at DS-4 was wiped out by raiders, but I managed to kill the raiders there,” I said. To be honest, I was surprised at how nonchalant he was being, considering he probably thought I’d caught him engaging in corruption.

“Interesting,” Gottlieb said, rubbing his beak. “Well, good on you, I guess. I’ll send another team out to take their place, soon as I can get approval from the Weather Marshal.”

“Oh, good. Is … is that it?” I asked.

“Expecting some kind of reward?” he asked mockingly. (I had been, in fact.) “Or maybe you think you can blackmail me. How much did you hear?”

“Well …”

“Better question,” Gottlieb said, snapping his claws together. “Are you going to remember anything you overheard going on in this alley?”

“No,” I said, uncomfortably. What was I supposed to do? If I reported him, he’d probably have me thrown off the edge of Brinkfall.

“You took out an entire gang of raiders because they’d killed griffins you never even met,” Gottlieb said thoughtfully. “I think you’re a do-gooder, which means you probably won’t be able to keep your mouth shut. Guards!”

“What are you doing?” I asked as I heard flapping coming from the main street in answer to the weather captain’s call.

“Listen, don’t do anything stupid,” Gottlieb said as he leaned in close. “Keep your mouth shut and you won’t be harmed. I just need to put you on ice until things boil over.”

Two griffins arrived, wearing security armor and holding shotguns in their claws.

“Detain this pony. Lock him up for twenty-four hours, have him cool his heel—hooves,” Gottlieb commanded as he turned away.

“Yes, sir,” one of the guards said as the other restrained and disarmed me. Gottlieb walked away into the darkness, his sky-blue uniform vanishing in the gloom.

Level Up
New Perk: Big Game Hunter – You get a bonus to damage in all types of combat when fighting an animal larger than yourself.
New Quest: Lockup – Wait out your prison stay, then get out of Brinkfall before Gottlieb decides prison wasn’t enough.
Barter +3 (100)
Explosives +1 (108)
Medicine +2 (118)
Science +1 (102)
Small Guns +4 (115)
Sneak +2 (108)
Speech +1 (104)
Survival +5 (47)
Unarmed +1 (90)

Chapter 9: Same Stories, Different Ending

Chapter Nine: Same Stories, Different Ending

I still can’t believe how close we came to death. What was Grand Marshal Gallus thinking? Is he so determined that nobody else discover von Plume’s treasure before him that he was willing to destroy her manor, forever eliminating the chance of discovering any more clues? It must have been because of me. There’s no other explanation. If I was able to sneak in, then any griffin could. The Commonwealth government’s occupied the manor for years; surely they were able to see what I saw—the map in the main hall. Then again, maybe they hadn’t. It’s pretty nonsensical, and it was only sheer luck I was able to recognize it for what it was. It’s not going to point me directly to the treasure, of course. That would be too easy. No, there’s definitely more to this. If I follow the clues, I could find the long-lost fortune of Griselda von Plume and win Pleasure Coast all at the same time. But what would I do after that? What’s the purpose of owning a horde like a greedy dragon when you could never spend all of it? Could I spend all of it? Nobody really knows how rich von Plume actually was. Is this even worth pursuing? If I find the treasure, my life could become immeasurably more comfortable . . . but will that change who I am? Griffins know me as a traveler; how could I travel with such a huge amount of wealth weighing me down?

I tucked a crinkled 100,000-guilder bill into the Book of Rok as a bookmark and tucked it back into my saddlebags. This was the pristine, freshly (within the last half-century) printed copy that the griffins of Hope Springs had gifted me before I’d left; though I still kept the tattered, beat-up copy I’d found with me, wrapped up to keep it from getting even more damaged. Gretchen had claimed that all copies of the Book of Rok were identical in their content, but I found that hard to believe, considering large portions of it had to be copied over manually in order to preserve Rok’s illustrations and charts, rather than printed using a press. I hadn’t found any major discrepancies so far, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something in my old copy that had missed making its way into the newer one and could prove useful.

I was skipping around through the book’s pages instead of reading them in order, so this was the first I’d read about Rok’s interest in the treasure of Griselda von Plume. I’d have to look back and see if he’d written any more about the heist into her manor and what he’d found there. Unfortunately, given what I’d just read, I wouldn’t be able to check out the manor myself. The idea of finding that treasure intrigued me, but if Rok had written down how to find it, surely some griffin had beaten me to it. Perhaps Grand Marshal Gallus had recorded it somewhere secret, but that was still a gamble; I had about as much luck of finding that as locating von Plume’s treasure.

Anyway, I had no idea what I’d do with the treasure if I did find it—something that hadn’t really occurred to me until I’d read Rok’s ponderings on the subject. Was chasing wealth just for wealth’s sake a worthwhile endeavor? Most griffins both during the War and up to the present day seemed to think so, but that still didn’t fully convince me. When I’d accumulated a fortune of bottlecaps back in Equestria, I’d used it to purchase shelter and protection for me and my friends, but a large part of that wealth had simply sat in Burnside until the Regulators had confiscated it upon learning I was Lord Lamplight. Here, in the Griffin Commonwealth, I had no friends, no home, and no cause. Well, no cause beyond bringing Radio Free Wasteland to the Commonwealth, but that dream couldn’t sustain me forever.

“We’re comin’ t’ the end o’ your journey,” the griffin behind me on the barge announced, and I acknowledged him with a nod.

I got up to stretch my legs and trotted to the edge of the barge, looking out over the river water that buffeted the vessel’s sides. After spending an unpleasant day in a Brinkfall cell, I’d been released and swiftly hightailed it out of the city before the weather captain could change his mind about merely detaining me. Apparently there’d been a foggy morning when some important griffin was assassinated recently . . . but I doubted anyone wanted to hear what I had to say about that. A cable car brought me down from the heights of the mountain, and I resupplied at the shops conveniently located in the foothills (and charging a premium for the convenience) before I headed back down into the valley. I’d reached the river a couple days later, right on time to meet a barge carrying food upriver. For a reasonable price, the captain had agreed to let me ride along until we reached the point where the river forked. He’d be heading northwest, deeper into the valley, whereas I’d be following the northeast branch of the river, to Distribution Station 5. The river I’d be following from here on swung past as the captain piloted the barge toward the bank, and he pulled up alongside a pier that looked like it hadn’t seen much upkeep in the last one hundred-fifty years. He didn’t bother to tie up since I was his only passenger, and I hopped off the barge as soon as it came to a halt.

“Thanks for the ride,” I told him as I looked back.

“My pleasure,” he said as he tipped his hat to me. “You said you were headin’ up t’ the ol’ distribution station, right?”

“That’s right,” I replied.

“After that, were you plannin’ t’ head up t’ Moonraze?” the griffin asked.

“Most likely,” I replied, turning around completely since it felt like this wouldn’t be a brief conversation. Moonraze was a roost located in the peaks over DS-5, and it looked like a good place to stop for supplies before heading on west.

“I’d advise you against that, ‘specially since I saw you readin’ a Book of Rok,” the captain said. “Moonraze ain’t a friendly place, ‘specially for Rokkists. The place is run by a bunch o’ Mythologists.”

“Raiders?” I asked. I’d never heard anything about roosts being anything other than bastions of civilization, though my experience in Brinkfall had taught me how much that was worth.

“Not as such, but savages still,” the captain said. “‘Civilized savages,’ if there is such a thing. The one thing that matters is Grand Marshal Gideon recognizes them as the rightful government of Moonraze, so there’s no fightin’ them. They’re fervent in their beliefs an’ cruel t’ boot, so I’d stay away if I were a pony, ‘lest you want to be dropped from a great height.”

“Thanks for the advice,” I told him, mentally adjusting my plans.

“My pleasure,” the captain said again as he tipped his hat and began piloting the barge back out into the river. “You take care o’ yourself, y’hear? I want t’ hear the tale o’ the pony that made it all the way t’ Shearpoint!”

***

It was a slippery trek up to Distribution Station 5; not only was it was built at the top of a cliff next to a waterfall, but some griffin had had the bright idea to build the access stairs behind the waterfall. Decades upon decades of water had caused some parts of the stairs to rust away, but others remained intact, and I assumed they were protected by magic of some sort. The erosion of the cliff above by the waterfall had also caused it to creep inward, which meant I got considerably wetter ascending the stairs now than I would have when they’d first been built. Worried that my books would be damaged and my weapons would become too waterlogged, I stepped back several times and waited until I was moist instead of soaked before continuing up.

As I neared the top of the stairs, FITS informed me that the station was far from abandoned, and I cautiously took a peek before charging in. There were no flags to be seen, so while it was doubtful that this station was controlled by the Commonwealth government, it wasn’t a certainty. And given what I’d learned from the barge captain, the grotesque decorations created from maimed corpses hanging around also didn’t rule out that the government wasn’t somewhat involved; raiders, after all, were included in a civilization. The idea hadn’t seemed so strange to me years ago, when I had been Lamplight, but I’d rejected it since then. Be that as it may, if I was going to continue interacting with Commonwealth settlements—which was getting more common as I headed up into the valley—then I couldn’t go around killing Commonwealth citizens, no matter how much I abhorred their actions.

The contacts all appeared to be congregated in one place, out on the platform, so I stealthily made my way in that direction. They were undeniably raiders, decked out in spiky armor (which I’d only just realized was not purely for the aesthetic but could be helpful when wrestling with other griffins) and lots of guns. The crowd was gathered around a griffin who was not like them at all. He had snow-white fur on his hindquarters and black feathers, except around his frightened eyes, where the feathers matched his fur. Instead of raider armor, he was clad in simple protective garb which had clearly taken a recent beating. One raider held the griffin still while another held the victims wing extended, and a third wielded a ripper-axe, preparing to cut it off. I couldn’t stand by and let this happen, but I also couldn’t step in without knowing if these raiders were part of the Commonwealth and the griffin about to be rendered flightless was being punished for some crime.

“Hey!” I called as I stepped out from behind a stack of crates, drawing all the raiders’ attention to me. “Are you with Moonraze?”

In response, all their pips in FITS flipped to hostile. I took that as a negative confirmation.

“Kill him!” a griffin wearing armor with skulls impaled along the spine yelled, which solidified my guess.

The raiders began to fire at me, and I instinctively cast ERSaTS. I had the opportunity to get out of the way, but my attention was drawn to the captured griffin as one of the raiders raised their ripper-axe and the one holding him pulled out a pistol to end him quickly. I targeted the three raiders nearest the captive with my battle rifle and fired. The axe-wielding griffin dropped his weapon, and the blade’s safety shutoff didn’t kick in before it had gnawed through his face. The one holding the captive dropped her pistol and fell to the ground, clutching at her shoulder wound with one claw and reaching for her pistol with the other. The raider holding the griffin’s wing was thrown back as my rounds blew through his face, blasting a mess out the back. The captive, as soon as he realized he was free, grabbed a set of saddlebags from the ground nearby and ran.

As the captive flew off, never to be seen again, the other raiders’ shots struck me. I flopped backwards and crawled behind a stack of crates as I frantically searched around in my saddlebags for a healing potion. As my wounds closed up, I looked down at my chest, and all the holes in my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat. The apparel has already been patched and mended and modified so many times even before I’d left the Equestrian Wasteland, and now it was on its last leg. I didn’t know how much longer I could maintain my iconic look and still consider myself adequately protected from the dangers of the Commonwealth.

While I was musing over the state of my wardrobe, likely delirious due to the multiple wounds I’d taken and my forced magical healing, the raiders had wasted no time in their advance. Rising from my hiding spot, I ran toward the door to the main building of the station; the raiders were flying, so any of the low cover outside wasn’t going to protect me for long. Once I was through the doorway, I grabbed a nearby rifle and wedge the door shut. The raiders outside banged and tugged on the door, but it wasn’t budging. I kept an eye on FITS, and when enough raiders had clustered up outside the entrance, I pulled the pin on a grenade and teleported it among them. The door shook as the grenade went off, wiping out most of the raiders.

Already running down the hall away from the main room, I ducked to the floor as the remaining raiders began firing at the door directly, some of their shots passing through and whizzing overhead. I crawled along until I was able to get out of the line of fire and prepared my shotgun for close quarters fighting. The raiders soon managed to burst through the door and charged down the hallway, so I threw another grenade their way, which FITS let me know killed all but one of them.

The last raider came around the corner—the leader with the skulls on his spine, holding the ripper-axe from his dead companion. My arm went up to block the swing, but I wasn’t prepared for the chain-blade, and it ground against the prosthetic, throwing off sparks. I dropped my shotgun and focused my magic entirely on holding onto the ripper-axe and pushing it away from me. The raider leader fought back, even as I pushed the weapon away from my arm; eventually, I couldn’t push it back any farther. He began to buffet me with his wings, trying to distract me. My mind desperately searched for a plan, and suddenly one came to me … but it was risky. If I moved my arm too slowly and the axe came down, its blade would be buried in my face, but I was out of other options. Before I could hesitate any longer, my prosthetic claw let go and my magic alone grabbed the ripper-axe and jerked it around into the griffin’s wing. He screeched in pain as the spinning blade tore through muscle and bone, letting up on his grip enough for me to grab my shotgun with my magic and fire it at him. The blast tore the top of his head off and he fell to the ground, axe grinding to a halt a second or two after he dropped it.

I fell back and rested a bit before moving on to activate yet another distribution station. It was only spreading static for now, but soon it would broadcast the sounds of Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC.

***

Heeding the barge captain’s advice, I ignored Moonraze, headed back down to the valley, and followed the river road north. None of the few barges I saw on the river responded to attempts to wave them down, so it looked like a long walk the rest of the way was in order. A few days after leaving DS-5, on the day I realized I’d spent as much time outside of the Pleasure Coast as within it since arriving in the Commonwealth, I came upon a factory near the road. The sign over the building said Stalwart Steelworks; judging by the lights and sounds coming from it, it was still in operation. There was no fence surrounding the factory, but that didn’t surprise me much anymore; fences were useless against trespasser when they could fly. Most of the griffin ruins I’d come across had relied solely on signs warning against trespassing, and presumably a private security force back when they’d been in operation. The factory’s security force seemed to be composed entirely of robots, which patrolled the grounds. I avoided them as I approached, in case they were authorized to use deadly force—or at least thought they were after decades of degradation.

The factory’s doors were unsurprisingly locked, but that was nothing a screwdriver and bobby pin couldn’t fix. (I did happen to notice that my supply of bobby pins was getting rather low. Without manes, the griffins of the Commonwealth had little need for them, so I’d either have to find a substitute or return to the Pleasure Coast to restock. FITS was illuminated with contacts, all neutral, and I passed by quite a few robots going about their business keeping the foundry running. Machines clanged as the factory worked on, but I saw no sign of griffins in the place. After crossing through the steelworks twice, I concluded it was just the robots here, running this place in absence of living beings telling them what to do. How they could possibly still be producing anything after a century and a half was a mystery, but one I managed to solve after observing the factory some more. The steelworks were producing steel beams and girders from molten metal. Once they were done, the products were piled up on trucks outside. Other robots then retrieved these beams and returned to them to the foundry, melting them down to repeat the process. It was a pointless cycle, but none of the machines seemed to realize that.

There was an overseer’s office in the back of the factory, and I broke into it, looking for something to make my trip here worth the time and effort. I managed to jimmy some desk drawers open and retrieve a snow globe from Jubilee Park and a few cartons of cigarettes, which I knew some griffin vendors would pay top price for. However, the real treasures were in a safe behind the desk: a revolver inlaid with gold in a fancy pattern, and a two small gold bars. Like Equestria, the Griffin Commonwealth had accepted bottlecaps as the new currency, but griffins still had an insatiable lust for gold. This could buy me almost anything I wanted, so long as I didn’t get mugged before I could spend it.

As I was rearranging my saddlebags to hold my new possessions, I heard a thumping from outside the office distinct from the regular noise of the presses and machinery. Looking up, I spotted a Dog of War stalking by the office window, and it turned its gaze toward me. Its mark on FITS lit up hostile at the same time its eyes changed color, and it began to transform into combat mode. I stuffed my possessions into my saddlebags and ran to the only exit from the office that wouldn’t take me past the Dog of War: the executive elevator. The doors slid open as I pressed the button and the deadly robot crashed through the office’s doorway, tearing the door from its hinges. I jumped in and frantically pressed the “Close Doors” button, watching as the Dog charged toward me.

Its claws tore into the door and I looked for another way out, spotting the emergency exit above me. It was a leap without wings, but I managed to push the panel open and pull myself through into the elevator shaft. As the Dog gleefully ripped into the elevator car, I crawled into a ventilation duct and pulled myself along. The duct groaned under the stress after going so long without maintenance and deposited me onto a crossbeam just under the ceiling high above the foundry, giving me a good view of the entire complex. After realizing I was no longer in the elevator, the Dog of War charged out of the office and began searching the foundry. I stayed as motionless as I could, hoping it would leave me be.

After several minutes of tearing through the factory, the Dog of War ended its pursuit and returned to patrolling, just as I’d hoped it would. Watching it, though, I doubted I could get back through the factory without running into it again. I’d need to find another way out of the steelworks, so I made my way along the beams until I found a vent that led up to the roof.

From the roof, I could see all around Stalwart Steelworks, and I discovered the Dog of War hadn’t completely given up on me yet. The security robots that had been patrolling the grounds around the foundry rather loosely now tightly patrolled the perimeter of the factory itself, keeping a close eye on it and all its exits. There was no way I could escape through the factory and no way I could climb down the outside. The only way would be to take down the security robots, which would first require confronting the Dog of War, since I had no idea where the foundry’s maneframes were located and couldn’t afford to search for them while the Dog was still active.

I headed back into the foundry through the roof and began to formulate a plan. It would require using a couple tricks I’d learned or roughly remembered from reading books on magic in the Pleasure Coast’s Library of Arcana; but if successful, it could allow me to overcome the Dog of War. It would be the first time I came even close to pulling this strategy off, but at the moment, what other choice did I have?

It was a long way to the highest catwalks in the factory, let alone the other levels, so I used a spell to slow my descent. The journey down was wobbly, but I arrived safely and timed it so that the sound of my impact with the floor coincided with the slamming of the machinery. I snuck through the foundry and set up my trap, careful not to interfere with any of the robots’ duties. They didn’t seem overly perturbed that I was here, but I didn’t know what capacities they had to communicate with the Dog of War, given that it obviously had some way to communicate with the security bots outside.

Somehow it eventually cottoned on to my presence, and I heard its lumbering patrol gait switch to combat as it charged toward me. I watched its pip on FITS as it slid around a corner and started to pursue me. The Dog of War opened up with the weapons in its mouth and wrists as I galloped away and up a staircase. Looping around, I ran down a catwalk between robots and machinery. The Dog of War forewent stairs altogether and leapt up onto the catwalk to continue its hunt.

I zigged and zagged my way through the foundry, leading it on a merry chase and trying to keep it from having a clear shot or keeping up with me. Yet, I knew it was impossible to outrun the Dog, and my body would give out long before it did. The air grew hot as I galloped along the catwalks over the vats of molten metal and I concentrated my magic. I’d teleported grenades before but never a living creature, much less myself. I was going to make the attempt, though, and hope that the pressure would give me the extra bit of power I needed to pull it off.

With the Dog of War nipping at my tail, I cast the spell and vanished from one location to reappear in another, farther along the catwalk and out of reach of the cyberhound. I didn’t pull it off perfectly, materializing with my hooves off the ground, and I stumbled forward and faceplanted. Crawling away, I looked back as the Dog of War continued to pursue me and plummeted through the illusory catwalk I’d just teleported over. The illusion vanished as it passed through and fell into the molten metal below. It tried to thrash its way out but soon succumbed to the immense heat and sank below the surface to melt away.

Sweating from exertion and heat, I waited to make sure it wouldn’t find some way to resurrect itself before doing a thorough search of the foundry to locate the maneframes. I found them beneath the factory (only accessible through a hatchway in the floor), connected my PipBeak to them, and turned the security robots off. Even though I was now free to leave, I stayed a little longer to poke around. Greenbush Agriculturium, Brittle Pass, and now Stalwart Steelworks: wherever there were Dogs of War, there seemed to be something peculiar going on with the robots in the area. How had they managed to keep up their work for so long, and how had the Dog of War controlled the robots outside? I started digging through the maneframes.

There were logs on the foundry’s activity, and for the first fifty years, it was what I had expected. The robots had kept up their work without griffin supervision until they had run out of raw materials to forge, and then errors had begun to appear. The machines left without a job to do had begun to malfunction. However, roughly a century ago, the errors had trailed off and vanished the same time that production had resumed and, after a bumpy patch at the start, reached a steady level. That level had remained consistent for the last century, with a minor drop-off due to less than 100% efficient conservation of materials. If I asked around, I’d bet that the Dog of War had arrived around the time work had resumed.

There were other peculiarities as well, with the code that ran the foundry and controlled the robots. Most of it was standard stuff I would expect for a foundry and had seen before in the Griffin Commonwealth . . . but there was also a foreign code that had clearly been injected into the system. It didn’t match the style of code written for systems designed by GroverCorp, like my PipBeak; instead, it was more closely related to the RoBronco systems I’d become familiar with in Equestria. There was no way to check the Dog of War now that it was melted, but I wondered if the cyberhound had some kind of marking on it that would indicate it as coming from RoBronco. But what was a RoBronco war robot doing in the Griffin Commonwealth? It seemed that somehow the Dogs of War were taking over robotics networks throughout the Commonwealth—but for what purpose?

Level Up
New Perk: And Now, For My Next Trick – You’re a natural at creating illusions. +15 to Illusion Magic.
New Quest: The Final Stretch – Only 3 more distribution stations to reach the broadcast area of Radio Free Wasteland. Keep pressing on and finish the job.
Athletics +2 (31)
Barter +1 (101)
Explosives +2 (110)
Illusion Magic +17 (33)
Lockpick +1 (106)
Manipulation Magic +3 (32)
Medicine +1 (119)
Science +1 (103)
Small Guns +2 (119)
Sneak +2 (110)
Survival +3 (50)

Chapter 10: At the Fringes

Chapter Ten: At the Fringes

I craned my neck up toward the sky as a flight of griffins passed overhead. Getting a closer look with my binoculars, I was able to make out that they were flying in a formation and wearing uniforms. Whether they were weather patrol or combat patrol for the nearby roost, I didn’t know, but they were certainly on the move. Perhaps the rumors in the south about conflict with the Grand Pegasus Enclave were more than just hearsay. Tension with the Enclave was most acute in these northern lands, where the artificial cloud cover over Equestria was nearest and not separated by leagues of ocean.

After leaving Stalwart Steelworks, I’d made my way to Distribution Station 20, which I’d found thoroughly looted and stripped of everything valuable. Fortunately, the griffins who’d pilfered the station hadn’t seen any value in destroying the relay equipment. (That, or the Grand Marshal had forbidden demolishing the tech so it could still be used to spread Commonwealth broadcasts). I'd needed to jury-rig a connection between my PipBeak and the control room’s remaining systems, but I finally managed to set the station up to repeat Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC once the signals reached it.

Since then, I’d been moving through the valley and following the river. After the waterway split, I continued traveling north. The road wound its way up into the mountains, approaching a roost named Starhold. My last encounter in a griffin roost had been unpleasant and I’d been warned off the one after that, so I decided to avoid Starhold entirely and go straight for the nearby distribution station once the road reached a suitable point. It had required some precarious climbing to even get close, but the most dangerous part was yet to come.

Distribution Station 6 was in sight, but reaching it was going to be far more difficult than any of the other distribution stations I’d encountered. The cliffside beneath the station had entirely fallen away, taking with it the access stairs and many of the supports that kept the station level. For a griffin, it would be relatively easy to reach the station—all they had to do was flap their wings and fly up—but for a pony, it was much harder. The cliffs around the station were almost sheer, and the wind didn’t show any signs of letting up. I clung to the cliff as securely as I could while cautiously inching along the narrow lip that ran along it to the distribution station. There was barely enough space to place my hooves side-by-side, and often not even that. I would have looked ridiculous to any griffins who might fly past: a pony pressed against the cliff face, hooves in a row, prosthetic claw reaching and grasping across his body at any protrusion or growth to keep him from plummeting to the ground below.

By some miracle, I eventually managed to reach the distribution station, but my situation wasn’t much better even then. The loss of supports was causing the station’s platform to stretch out from the cliff at an odd angle. I had to be very careful to keep my footing, especially since some pieces of the platform had fallen away completely. It seemed possible that the damage done to the station wasn’t merely due to erosion or natural forces—with Starhold nearby, perhaps a megaspell or some lesser attack had also contributed to the decay.

I made it into the main complex and clambered around missing floor panels to the control room, which was missing its entire floor. Gingerly, I made my way around the edge of the control room, stepping over dials, switches, and displays until I reached the main control panel. The station’s microspark reactor was miraculously still functional, and the transmission equipment showed green across the board. It was odd looking at the panel upside down, but with some trial and error, I figured out how to set things up appropriately; soon the station would be spreading radio signals across the land to countless settlements. This was especially promising because DS-6 was the penultimate link in the chain of stations leading all the way back through the north Griffin Commonwealth. I only had one more to activate to reach Radio Free Wasteland. But first … I’d need to find a way down.

***

After managing to retrace my steps without breaking my neck, I headed back down into the valley before heading west and back up into the mountains. From scrounging through abandoned griffin cabins and offices, I’d found a map of paths through the mountains as well as topographical maps that would be of use in finding my way up to the final distribution station: DS-18. It was a long and twisted path through backcountry that was crawling with hostile wildlife, so I made sure to resupply from a traveling trader before leaving the main road. I’d purchased more than enough supplies with a single gold bar pilfered from Stalwart Steelworks, and the other still rested comfortably in my saddlebags. Now that my saddlebags were almost busting with provisions, I felt good to go.

As I was cresting a ridge, the lip gave out beneath me suddenly, and I found myself sliding down the side, scree bouncing along with me. When I finally stopped sliding, I found myself near the bottom of the slope, which turned out to be merely one side of a sizeable crater. An organic mass of some size had been constructed in the crater’s center, resembling an insect nest of a kind I hadn’t seen before. FITS showed quite a few contacts within. Whatever it was, it probably wasn’t a good idea to look too closely, so I continued on my way.

As I was climbing out of the crater, a giant dragonfly zipped over the lip and headed straight for me. Its mark on FITS instantly switched to hostile as it dove, buzzing angrily. It was coming in fast, so I pulled out the revolver I’d picked up at Stalwart Steelworks, which my PipBeak had affectionately dubbed “Big Iron.” The shot echoed off the crater as the bullet tore through the dragonfly’s head and abdomen, killing it instantly. It fell out of the air and slammed right into me, covering me in bug goo before I could push it off.

An ominous hum started rising from behind and I got up quickly, spotting numerous hostile marks on FITS in the direction of the nest. My shot had spooked whatever was in there, it seemed, and I didn’t want to be around when it came after me. I resumed my climb up the crater’s rim with newfound urgency, but I still wasn’t fast enough. More giant dragonflies emerged from the nest and flew toward me with a vengeance. I pulled a couple grenades from my saddlebags and teleported them into the nest’s exits, blowing it apart and killing the dragonflies as they tried to emerge.

While I’d killed quite a few with that trick, I’d riled up the rest even more than before, and the insects assembled into a massive swarm. I checked to make sure my shotgun was fully loaded before firing at the bugs as they approached. I knew my shot was mostly ineffective at long ranges, but I didn’t want to wait for them to get closer, or risk missing them with my battle rifle or revolver. At the very least, I managed to shred some of their wings to keep them from arriving too quickly.

Even with this hindrance, there were many dragonflies left—so many that I had trouble seeing the horizon behind them. Whenever I took one down, two more took its vacant spot. I tried retreating up the crater rim, but that turned out to be impossible if I wanted to keep firing at the advancing dragonflies. They had me cornered, backed against the slope, with no way out. When they inevitably reached me, I struck out with hooves and claws and hidden blade … but it was no use. They buffeted me with their tails and nipped at me with their mandibles. I could feel my limbs growing heavier as they injected me with toxin until I could no longer stand. I collapsed to the ground, my vision vacillating between clarity and fuzziness.

Surprisingly, though, they didn’t kill me. Once I was immobile, one of them picked me up with its legs and carried me around with the swarm. It hovered over the destroyed nest for a moment with the others before the group of dragonflies split up, spreading out in all directions, possibly searching for a new nesting location.

I had trouble keeping track of where the dragonfly was taking me, but we seemed to be headed northwest. It was the direction I wanted to go—just not the means of conveyance I’d hoped for. The dragonfly flitted around over trees and peaks and ridges, never staying in one place for long. Gradually, feeling began to return to my torso, and then to my limbs. I remained limp, especially as the dragonfly flew high over the ground, lest it decided to drop me. I didn’t know what its plans for me were, but I didn’t intend to stick around and find out.

As the dragonfly crested a ridge, I struck my PipBeak’s blade into its abdomen, slicing it open and drenching myself in the bug’s innards. I dropped to the ground, driving the air from my lungs and inadvertently breathing in some of the ichor as the dragonfly’s corpse fell on top of me. I coughed and gagged until I’d expelled most of the gunk and attempted to wipe myself off before getting my bearings.

Although my PipBeak’s map told me exactly where I was, that unfortunately didn’t count for much in the rough wilderness stretching out all around me. I had my maps and the path I’d plotted, so I tried to set out for that; but there always seemed to be a mountain, gorge, or some other natural feature in the way. I was stranded in the mountains, and without wings like a griffin, I didn’t know how to get out. Making the best of my predicament, I kept an eye on my compass and headed in the direction of my destination, taking whatever detours were required. I didn’t know if I’d be able to make it, but at least I had plenty of supplies. Besides, there had to be some way out eventually.

***

It was a couple days after the encounter with the dragonflies that I spotted the first sign of civilization in a long time, and also the first bit of shelter. (And given the rumbling of thunder in the sky overhead, I’d soon have need of it.) Built on top of a rise was a log cabin, with light in the windows and smoke streaming from the chimney. Surrounding it were old, abandoned pieces of junk, and I picked my way through the maze of detritus on my way to the door. It was obvious that someone lived here, so just barging in would be rude, and I rapped on the door with a hoof. I stood waiting for a minute before the door was pulled open, revealing an elderly griffin who was completely white apart from grey speckles among his feathers.

“Hmm, a pony,” the griffin said curiously. “How’d you get up here?”

“Giant dragonflies,” I said, and the griffin smirked. “I’m Doc. Could I take shelter here with you?”

“Hmm, yes, it seems like you’d better,” the griffin said as another peal of thunder rolled overhead. “You can stay the night and head out again in the morning for wherever it is you’re going.”

The griffin pulled the door all the way open and stepped out of the doorway to let me enter. The inside of the cabin was dimly lit apart from the space near the hearth. Piles of things, many covered in tarps and cloths, filled the rest of the room.

“Pardon my mess. I haven’t had visitors in …” the griffins said, and he paused to think, “Ever.”

“You live up here all alone?” I asked as he led me over to the hearth, where I could take off my saddlebags.

“Yes, it’s a hermit’s life for me. But not involuntarily, I assure you,” he said as he took a seat in a plush chair. “I came up here to get away from other griffins. I suppose a pony with a griffin’s arm is alright, though.”

He quietly chuckled at his own joke as I lowered myself onto a worn couch. It was a cozy place to stay as the rain began to beat down outside. The hermit had a pot of vegetable stew boiling, and I partook of it as we talked. It was nice to finally rest and work out the soreness that came from constantly trekking through the mountains over the last couple of days. My host never told me his name, and when I asked him about it, he only ever replied that he was a hermit. I didn’t press the matter, and it didn’t hinder our conversation much. Eventually, talk turned to what I was doing up here, so far from any place a pony ought to be.

“I’m headed to the distribution station north of here,” I told him as I sipped on a mug of after-dinner coffee.

“Not to join the station, I hope,” the hermit said as his expression darkened.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

In reply, he reached over and turned on the radio next to his chair before tweaking the knob.

“—and the Great Flood will come and wash away all the weak! Secure for yourself skykeeps! Take from those who are weaker than you and the Invisible Claw shall preserve the righteous from Destruction! Ascend! Ascend! The End is coming, so seize for yourself all that you can! Leave nothing behind and—”

The hermit switched the radio off. At least now I knew what to expect when I arrived: raiders who’d taken to the airwaves to spread Mythologism. I could think of much better uses for the station’s power than that.

“I’m planning to use the station to spread Radio Free Wasteland from Equestria to the Commonwealth,” I told the hermit, and he seemed to relax. “And I’ll stop these broadcasts in the process.”

“Well, that’s all right then,” the hermit said. “A new radio station to listen to, huh? Just for me, unless you know how those stations work.”

“Oh, I know,” I assured him. “I’ve been doing the same in stations all throughout the north Griffin Commonwealth.”

“Really?” the hermit asked, “You must be some kind of important pony.”

“Maybe I was, once,” I said, thinking back to my time in the Equestrian Wasteland and all I’d done there. “Now, though, I’m just trying to survive and add a little something to the world, if I can.”

“And what if you’re still destined for great things?” the hermit asked ominously over his cup of coffee.

“I don’t know if I’d want to be,” I answered honestly.

“I don’t know if ‘wanting’ has much to do with it, sonny,” the griffin laughed before setting down his cup and rising from his chair. “Come with me.”

Curiously, I rose and followed the old griffin as he led me among his piles of junk. He reached into the tangle and lit a lamp before pulling an old canvas tarp off what looked like a peculiar slot machine. After the hermit had wrestled around behind it for a bit, some of the lights that covered the contraption lit up.

“Now, let’s see if you’re still destined for greatness,” the griffin said cheerfully.

“What is this thing?” I asked as I set my mug down on an old bar stool and inspected the machine before me.

“They used to have these in Jubilee Park and Pleasure Coast,” the hermit said. “A tug of the lever, and it’ll tell your fortune. I used to be quite good at deciphering it. ‘Course, it wasn’t very popular in Pleasure Coast, since ponies aren’t great at grasping levers, so they got rid of them all. That’s where this beauty came from.”

“You think a machine can tell my future?” I asked skeptically.

“A magic machine,” the hermit said mystically, though I couldn’t sense anything magical from the box of cogs and wires. “Listen, just humor an old griffin who offered you shelter from the storm.”

I decided to comply and reached out with my magic to pull the lever, but the griffin held up a claw and tut-tutted me before I could pull it.

“Grasp it with your griffin claw,” he said. “If you use magic, it won’t work right.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “I have to use a mechanical claw that’s not part of my body to pull the lever so this machine can tell my fortune, a magic machine that won’t work if I use magic?”

“That’s right,” the griffin said with a smile. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”

I sighed and reached out with my claw, grasped the lever, and clamped down around the trigger at the end before giving it a firm tug. Distorted bings sounded from the machine as some of the lights on the exterior flashed in an incomplete patten. From within, I could hear old machinery grinding and what sounded like cards being shuffled. After a minute of theatrics, a panel on the bottom of the machine’s face flipped open, showing a message:

Your lucky numbers are:
5 6 6 9 8 7 5

“That’s it?” I asked, “I could have gotten that from my PipBeak. Those are my SPECIAL attribute stats.”

“Clever, isn’t it? And not something the average pony or griffin would’ve realized back during the War,” the hermit said. “But no, that’s not all there is to it.”

There were four more shutters on the face of the machine above the lucky numbers that had to be opened manually, and the hermit reached across to open the one on the far left. It revealed a slightly-off-center card which depicted golden coins falling from a cloudy sky toward a lake at the bottom of the card. In the margins was printed “DELUGE OF COINS.”

“Deluge of Coins,” the griffin said. “You’re due a great amount of wealth.”

“Am I?” I asked.

“Yes, but see how they fall toward the lake?” he pointed out. “You will have great wealth for a short time, but it will soon slip through your claws. Or, your hooves? Magic? The metaphor doesn’t work so well for non-griffins.”

A great wealth that I would lose? That had already happened to me back in Equestria, with all the caps I’d earned in Burnside that had later been taken away from me. Maybe there was something to this—but it seemed to be the past the machine was telling about, not the future.

The hermit revealed another card. This one depicted a wave of water rushing through a valley, debris tumbling in its wake.

“The Broken Dam,” the hermit said. “You will be broken so that you cannot be what you once were.”

I looked down at my prosthetic limb. Again, it seemed this machine was telling me about my past. Even if it didn’t refer to my missing foreleg, it could have referred to how I’d been remade from Lord Lamplight to Doc through surgeries that had completely changed my physical appearance and erased my memories.

The next card the hermit revealed showed a unicorn in ancient robes, light emanating from her horn. She had one foreleg wrapped around a wooden staff, which also emanated light from between the points at the end.

“The Mage,” the hermit named it.

“So, I’m a unicorn,” I said, growing impatient with this so-called fortune-telling. “I already know that.”

“The Mage does not represent a unicorn, though it is one of the few cards in the deck that features a pony. The Mage represents change and leadership,” the hermit said. “And see, look in the background behind the Mage. The ruins from the Broken Dam. I’d never noticed that before. Whatever change you will bring, it will come after you are broken.”

“One more, right?” I asked, getting tired of this game.

The hermit flipped up the panel over the last card, revealing a griffin with many items gathered on his back. It was impossible to tell just what those items were, but they were all distinctly different shapes and colors. The griffin was bent over, picking up a feather from the ground with great enthusiasm.

“The Collector,” the hermit said. “You will gather together many different things into one. And see him reaching down with delight? You will find something precious that was lost to you.”

“Is that it?” I asked, unimpressed.

“It’s your fortune,” the griffin said with a shrug. “If you’re disappointed with it, that’s your fault.”

“Maybe I’d be impressed if it wasn’t showing me things I’ve already done,” I said. “All the things you spoke of have already happened to me.”

“Does that mean they can’t happen again?” the griffin asked with a wry grin. “Maybe you think you’ve already fulfilled your destiny, but have you considered that you may be wrong? Maybe your story’s not done yet.”

“Maybe,” I conceded, more to bring the conversation to an end than anything else, and the griffin humphed cryptically.

“It’s late,” the hermit said as he pulled the canvas back over the machine. “You should get some sleep if you’re to be off in the morning. You can take the couch tonight.”

***

In the morning, the hermit gave me directions on how to reach Distribution Station 18, along with directions on how to get back out of the mountains once I’d finished my work there. I was grateful for the help but still didn’t know what to make of the strange griffin. Had he gone through the whole rigamarole of telling my fortune because he thought I might be the only one he’d ever get to do it with? What was I to make of his predictions, when they all seemed to be looking to my past instead of my future? What weight did an old carnival game even have? I decided to put it behind me for now, with the rest of his interpretations.

I reached the distribution station after a few days, meeting only a handful of hostile creatures on the way. There were no access stairs up to DS-18, but there was a path that wound its way around the peak upon which it had been built. As I ascended, I got a good view of this patch of the Griffin Commonwealth, on the very fringes of griffin territory. It mostly just looked like mountains, and I wondered how I’d ever made it all the way out here.

These raiders hadn’t bothered to post any sentries on the path, and why would they? Any attacks were bound to come from the air—from other griffins, not some insane pony much higher up than he had any right to be. I was able to walk to the platform and get them in my sights with no trouble. FITS showed a surprisingly small gang, given how much game they’d talked on the radio. A group was out in the open, watching as one of their members practiced throwing knives at a set of targets suspended from a radio tower. One of them had a sniper rifle strapped to her back, so I zeroed in on her with my battle rifle and disturbed the (mostly) peaceful scene.

Chaos broke loose as the griffins saw their comrade fall with a neat cluster of holes in her head. It didn’t take them long to spot me, and they grabbed their weapons while sending up shouts that they were under attack. As they came my way, I managed to take out one carrying a hunting rifle, clipping her wing and sending her spinning into a fellow raider before finishing her off. One of the raiders threw a grenade my way, and I ran from my position toward a stack of barrels.

As the griffins fired at me, some of their shots hit the barrels, revealing them to be empty. When I reached the stack, I tipped it over and rolled them in the griffins’ direction, forcing them to move away or over the wooden containers and giving me a chance to take shots at my assailants. I knocked down three more with my battle rifle, assisted with ERSaTS, before switching to my shotgun and going on the offensive.

The griffin who’d been throwing knives chucked one my way, but it glanced off my prosthetic arm. She had a look of confusion on her face as I reached her and fired my shotgun at her point-blank. I kept moving as the ruin of her body collapsed to the ground, running around behind the other raiders. They weren’t going to let me encircle them so easily, though, and took to the sky. I pulled a grenade from saddlebags, making sure they saw it, and they flew higher. Then, I pulled the pin and teleported it above them. They tried to scatter once they realized what I was doing, but it was too late, and they were blown out of the sky.

A knife struck me in the flank, thrown by a reinforcement coming from behind, and I turned to face this new group of attackers. I didn’t turn very fast thanks to my newest wound, but this proved to be to my benefit; the next knife just missed my head, since the raider had anticipated a quicker spin. I ducked out of the way and finished off the last of the original raiders behind me with my revolver before pulling the blade out of my flank. The stab bled profusely, but I managed to apply a bandage under my doctor’s coat in time to staunch the bleeding. For good measure, I took a sip of a healing potion to stitch the wound up enough to keep fighting. I could see a griffin running around toward me on FITS, and I had an idea. I teleported the knife away, and the raider’s body thumped down beside me, knife embedded in her neck.

A grenade landed near me and I galloped away, the ground shifting slightly under my hooves as it went off. As I stumbled forward, I cast ERSaTS and zeroed in on the remaining raiders. There were three approaching me, and before time returned to normal, I took two of them down with well-placed revolver shots to their heads. When ERSaTS wore off, there was only one raider left standing, facing me down.

She was wearing a headdress of bloody feathers and looked like she meant business. Held in her claws was a staff with a ripper on the end, the chain-blade grinding menacingly. Even with the extension, she was too far away to use her weapon on me, so I pointed my revolver at her and fired. With supernatural speed, she swung her staff down and parried my shot, catching the bullet on the ripper. The machine ground to a stop and she discarded it, drawing a machete with each claw from her belt. She rushed toward me, far too fast to be normal, and I realized she was wearing a PipBeak as well. There was a beauty to it, I’d thought, that the device allowed even non-unicorns to cast spells … but I was regretting that thought now as she used ERSaTS against me.

I backed away, firing my revolver as she advanced and dodged every shot. She couldn’t keep it up forever, as I knew from personal experience. ERSaTS only lasted so long before it had to recharge, and at the rate she was using it, the spell was going to run out quickly. Her plan was to reach me before it could run out, but I wasn’t going to let that happen if I could help it. Unfortunately, I couldn’t help it, and her blades were swinging at my head before I knew it. I cast ERSaTS myself and she returned to normal speed (from my perspective). I was able to dodge and get under her while her surprise lasted. Her ERSaTS ran out before mine did, and I placed my revolver barrel against her stomach and fired.

With the raider leader lying on the ground bleeding out, I headed into the distribution station and made my way to the control room, where the last raider awaited.

“—if you die in battle, you are unworthy, but not so unworthy as if you die in your sleep or are taken unaware!” he was yelling into the microphone in front of him as I entered the control room.

The announcer had heard me enter even through his headphones and reached for the pistol on the control panel next to him, turning to face me. His claws never reached his weapon as I unloaded my revolver into him and he fell from his chair, pulling the headphones’ cord out of the control panel as he hit the ground.

I pushed the last raider aside before digging into the system for repeating existing radio signals. It had been so long since I’d heard it, but I still knew the frequency to search for. I scrolled through until I found it, and a familiar voice burst from the control room’s speakers.

“Goooood evening chiiiildren! This is your hostest with the mostest—the one, the only, the inimitable, DJ Pon3! I wanna tell you all about a very important thing today: propaganda. You see it everywhere, in the ‘Wipe the Stripes’ and ‘MoM is Watching You’ posters still clinging to crumbling walls. And you can hear it if you tune into that awful ‘Enclave Radio.’ The problem is, none of the promises you hear from it are true. You’ve only got to listen to Enclave Radio—not that I’d recommend that, dear listeners—to discover they’re playing the same messages from President Snowmane over and over on a loop. He promised to come save us in the Equestrian Wasteland over a hundred years ago, but where is he? Dead, that’s where, and the Enclave just wants to keep feeding us the same nonsense over and over until we believe it. Keep an eye and an ear out, children. If somepony insists on something over and over, something that seems too good to be true, it probably is. That’s your little tip for today. Nooooow, back to the music!”

It was so good to hear Radio Free Wasteland again, even if the news didn’t apply to my surroundings. The voice was DJ Pon3’s dulcet tones, but I knew it was really Sage speaking the words. I longed to see her again, but that wouldn’t be possible for some time, so I had to be content with this for now. I set the station up to repeat the signal to its fellow outposts, spreading Radio Free Wasteland across everywhere I’d been in the Griffin Commonwealth. I couldn’t see Sage, and I couldn’t hear her real voice, but I could at least hear her again through DJ Pon3. That was good enough for now.

Level Up
New Perk: I Make My Own Luck – 10% chance on every level up of increasing your Luck attribute by 1.
New Quest: How Do I Get Down from Here? – Find a way back to terrain more suitable for ponies.
Athletics +2 (33)
Barter +1 (102)
Explosives +2 (112)
Manipulation Magic +3 (35)
Medicine +1 (120)
Melee Weapons +1 (104)
Small Guns +3 (120)
Sneak +1 (111)
Speech +1 (105)
Survival +4 (54)
Unarmed +1 (91)

Chapter 11: Locked Away

Chapter Eleven: Locked Away

“And now … the weather. Clouds. Endless clouds. So, no different from the past hundred-and-sixty years. You know, they used to move around all the time. Not on their own, of course; that’d be preposterous. Pegasi—and occasionally even a griffin or two—would move them about all over Equestria. But what are the pegasi doing now? They sit above the horrors of the Wasteland like warlords, hoarding all the good food and sunlight for themselves. Is that who you want to be like, children? Our lives down here are dreary and difficult, but to hoard everything we have, to keep it all to ourselves while our neighbors starve, why, isn’t that just what the pegasi are doing to us? Think on that one, why don’t you. And, while you do, we’ll be playing ‘Little Ray o’ Sunshine’ here on Radio Free Wasteland with your one and only host, DJ Poooooooon3!”

Reluctantly, I switched away from Radio Free Wasteland and began to program the next station into the distribution station’s maneframe. It had been a treat to hear Radio Free Wasteland again on the way south to the next station. Leaving DS-18 had been much easier than getting to it; a road stretched off from it to the south, and I had an easy time following it. Instead of heading back down into the valleys when the opportunity presented itself, however, I continued following the roads that wound through the mountain heights to the distribution station I was currently in. Judging by the amount of natural detritus piled up against the walls and the plants beginning to grow over the exterior, DS-3 had been abandoned for a long time. It still worked just fine, though, and I had no problem spreading Radio Free Wasteland even farther abroad. From here, the broadcast range would even reach the very first distribution station I’d activated three months earlier, and from there, it would cover the Pleasure Coast (once I returned to that station and tuned it). Because I was finally in range for the first time in ages, I had one other task to complete here.

“-unless somegriffin loves you, and that griffin … is me. You can trust me to look out for aaaaalll you fine listeners out there, and keep you appraised of all the goings-on in Pleasure Coast … and in the greater Commonwealth,” the Commonwealth Crooner crooned, his voice now going out across most of the northern Griffin Commonwealth now that the chain of distribution stations I’d activated on the way here were all in range. “A special thanks goes out all my love-ly correspondents who bring me stories from far and wide, as we turn to the news in the Commonwealth. Things seem to be quieting down in Castoway, as the warlords finish their periodic shuffle on the to-tem pole and go back to licking their wounds and preparing for … the next fight. Don’t plan your trip to the Iron Valley just yet, though, unless you intend to on-ly fly directly to the roosts there. Rumors have filtered back to me about full settlements disappearing, and New Pegasus has even gone so far as to lock down their city and sh-oot on sight. We don’t know exactly what’s happening down there j-ust yet, but rest assured I’ll keep you appraised as more information becomes a-vail-able. Back in the north, the standoff between Hookbeak and Lockbox 17 continues, faaaar longer that this host thought it would. L-atest reports state that Grand Marshal Gide-on has withdrawn his forces from the roost, leaving the local militia to deal with the problem. No word on a reason for why the Grand Marshal would recall his troops, but l-atest news has the griffins of Hookbeak attempting to drill into the Lockbox. This … could end poorly. Keep listening for my speculation on Grand Marshal Gide-on’s ultimate objectives, but first … some music.”

I’d passed Hookbeak on the way here but had avoided it due to my poor experience in the last roost I’d visited and how I’d been warned off the next one. For bastions of the pre-War Commonwealth, they didn’t seem to have a very good reputation. All I knew about Hookbeak was that they were trying to impose their will on Lockbox 17 by force, which didn’t reflect well on them. I knew it was different here than in Equestria, but Stable 85 hadn’t been too pleased to have the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad try to bring them under their control. As much as I disagreed with the Stable’s government, I could understand them, and Lockbox 17 was now in a situation that seemed terribly similar. Perhaps I could do something to help or at the least check things out, since I was in the area. Now that I’d brought Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC to the northern Commonwealth, I didn’t really have any other plans or goals. Maybe this was something to occupy my time.

***

Hookbeak, like all griffin roosts, was high atop a mountain. This mountain ended in two nearby peaks, and the majority of the griffin structures resided between them or on the slopes of the shorter one. The taller one, I assumed, contained Lockbox 17, given the sight that met my eyes as I climbed the narrow, guardrail-less paths up to the city. Clinging to the slope was a massive, spider-like machine. Eight mechanical legs held it in place, their ends driven into the mountain’s stone and a drill extended from its “body;” this device had stopped just short of the mountain, where a hole had already been drilled. When the Commonwealth Crooner had said that Grand Marshal Gideon was trying to drill into the Lockbox, I hadn’t pictured anything like this. It looked like I might be too late to help resolve the confrontation, but I continued up the slope anyway. I could use some fresh supplies, and Hookbeak was likely the best place around to get them.

I had to pass through Hookbeak to get to Lockbox 17, so I took the opportunity to get a good look at the place. Other than the wear of time, Hookbeak seemed unchanged from its glory days during the War. Almost every building along the main street shared a style with beveled edges, sometimes multiple ones that formed the appearance of layering. Graceful lines streaked skyward along the edges and facades of the buildings, drawing one’s gaze upward until they crooked out away from the building like the top of a wave or a griffin’s beak. They appeared to have been gilded once upon a time; some of that gold still remained, but much of it had been worn off or removed by griffins for other uses. This decorative style permeated the city, both on the buildings’ exteriors and interiors. The shop in which I stocked up on bandages and ammunition seemed far too posh for such crude transactions (and naturally, the shopkeeper felt the plush accommodations deserved a price hike for the privilege of doing business within them).

As I left the shop, the lights overhead flickered, and the shopkeeper looked up worriedly. I had seen other shops on the way here that had been closed and dark although they didn’t appear abandoned, and I saw even more as I continued through the city. Tram tracks ran along the streets, but I saw no such vehicles on my journey—though I did notice large posters plastered to the announcement boards at each tram station. Alongside weatherworn smaller announcements informing that tram service was temporarily suspended were much larger sheets depicting a lock being clipped open by bolt cutters. The text on the posters read: “Do Your Part Until the Lock Breaks Open. Conserve Your Power.” Beneath the large letters was a thick pile of addendums that had been plastered over each other repeatedly. The latest to be added to the growing stack read: “190 caps/kGh”. Thismeant nothing to me, but I assumed it was some kind of rate charged for power. Hookbeak, it seemed, was experiencing a power shortage, and their intent toward Lockbox 17 suddenly made a lot more sense. If Lockboxes were anything like Stables—and as far as I understood, that was basically what they were—then they would have a working microspark reactor that could provide more than enough power to satisfy Hookbeak’s needs.

The streets of Hookbeak were relatively empty, compared to the only other roost I’d been to; as I neared the entrance to Lockbox 17, I discovered why that was the case. A large crowd of griffins had assembled about a stone’s throw from the door, held back by griffins wearing police barding. Some were in the air but most were on the ground, some even seated in chairs, having made themselves comfortable for a long wait. The crowd was abuzz as I tried to insert myself into it, successful only because the griffins were too surprised at seeing a pony to put up a real fight to keep me out.

“What’s all the commotion?” I asked a griffin in a leather jacket.

“They stopped tryin’ t’ get inta tha Lockbox,” she said, once her initial shock at the sight of me had worn off. “Tha Lockboxas claim they got a megaspell an’ they gonna set it off if wa keep drillin’.”

“As if,” the griffin next to her scoffed. “Evragriffin knows we sold alla ah megaspells t’ tha zebras yeahs ago.”

“ ‘cept tha ones in Griffonstone,” an older griffin butted his way into the conversation.

“Ya, if youse one-a tha schmucks that believes that,” the second griffin retorted with an eyeroll.

As the argument progressively heated up, though somehow in a good-natured way, I tried to get a better look at the entrance to Lockbox 17. Griffins were tall compared to ponies and more than a few had their wings extended, so I had to balance on my hindlegs and really crane my neck to see over the crowd. Beyond the crowd was an open space cordoned off by the police-griffins, where a chunk had been carved out of the mountain’s slope to make a level pathway to the Lockbox’s entrance. A large rectangular door was set into the mountain, a badly faded lock visible only from a distance painted on it. Around the door were several griffins that did not look to be part of the police force.

“Hey you, pony!” a griffin called out, and my eyes were drawn skyward to a police-griffin pointing down at me with one claw and holding a radio in the other. “Get t’ tha fronta tha crowd!”

All eyes were now on me, and seeing no other options, I began to move forward through the crowd of griffins. They didn’t make my passage easy, but I found my way out to where the griffin who’d been hovering overhead had landed near the others holding back the crowd. Now that I was closer, I realized that their uniforms were not from a police force as I’d previously thought and instead were marked as security for HPWS: Hookbeak Power, Water, and Sewage.

“You know how t’ work that thing?” the griffin asked as he gestured to my PipBeak.

“Yeah, sure,” I replied.

“Come on,” he said with an abrupt jerk of his head, indicating I should follow him up to the entrance of Lockbox 17.

Several tables had been set up near the entrance; most were covered in recently drawn blueprints, but one table had a massive arcano-magma cutting rig on it, along with an equally massive albino griffin inspecting and polishing it. He eyed me with curiosity as we passed but didn’t seem to bear any malice … at least toward me. Two griffins were stationed at the massive doors to the Lockbox, looking at them with consternation. On the left, near a terminal with a hazardous amount of cabling running to the door’s control panel, was a portly griffin whose feathers were beginning to fall out of the top of his head, probably not helped by him scratching at the bald patch in thought. On the right, eyes glazed over, was a skinny griffin in a flowered shirt and sunglasses, a cigarette that had burned out hours ago hanging limply from his beak.

“Branson! Angelo! I gots a present for yuhs,” the griffin who’d lead me here announced, and the griffin on the left turned around.

“Holy smokes, that’s a BV-890T prosthetic ahm!” he exclaimed as he hurried over to examine the replacement for my foreleg, paying me no mind at all. “Tree times tha grip strength of an average griffin, but delicate enough t’ pick up a grain-a rice! Angelo, youse gots t’ see this!”

“Not tha ahm,” the security griffin said, “What’s attached t’ it.”

“Tha pony?” Branson asked skeptically.

“No, tha otha thing attached t’ it,” the security griffin said frustratedly.

“Oh, you mean tha PipBeak!” Branson finally realized. “Hey Angelo, check it out, this pony’s got a PipBeak 300Y.”

“PipBeak … Tree hun-” Angelo repeated distantly to himself before snapping out of his trance and snapping his head around. “Wham bang, that’s just what we need t’ get inta tha Lockbox!”

“Yah welcome,” the security guard said sarcastically.

“Hey, pony,” Angelo said as he approached.

“Doc,” I offered my name.

“Doc, how much t’ part with yah PipBeak, huh?” Angelo asked.

“It’s … not for sale. I need it,” I said hesitantly. The griffins of Hookbeak seemed desperate to get into Lockbox 17. If my PipBeak was the key to get in, I didn’t know if they’d take no for an answer.

“Ah, naturally,” Angelo said with a snap of his claws. “Fine, keep it, but maybe youse can help us out ‘fore ya skip town. We need t’ get tha schematics-a tha Lockbox, but we ain’t got anythin’ compatible.”

Angelo gestured to the mass of cables running between Branson’s terminal and the Lockbox control panel, and the balding griffin sheepishly shuffled over to obscure them.

“Yah PipBeak, tho’, that’ll do tha trick,” Angelo continued his pitch. “So, whaddaya say? Alls we need is t’ get in an’ find out how thick this here doah is.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” I said.

“Puhfect,” Angelo said. “Branson, clean that mess up!”

“Ey, at least I was tryin’ somethin’!” Branson shot back as he began disassembling his mess of cables. “What’ve you done? Stared at tha doah hopin’ it’d fall down outta sheer embarrassment?”

“You knows I gotta focus. I gotta knack fuh these things,” Angelo replied.

They continued to bicker, but it didn’t seem to harm their friendship at all. Angelo even pitched in and helped disassemble the tangle of cables. Arguing appeared to just be a natural pastime for the residents of Hookbeak. Once there was no longer a potential electrical fire-starter blocking my way, I hooked my PipBeak into Lockbox 17’s door panel.

It was chaos once I was in the system. With Stables back in Equestria, everything had been uniform and easily accessible, even in the strangest system. Here, however, it was an adventure just to find what was and wasn’t accessible through the door port and where it might be located. There had been no company like Stable-Tec in the Griffin Commonwealth to standardize fallout shelters. Instead, whenever someone wanted a Lockbox, they contracted it out, usually to the lowest bidder. The hired party would then build something that conformed to the idea of a Lockbox, which—having no standardized form—was quite broad. Whoever had built Lockbox 17 had done better than the creator of the leaky Lockbox in the Pleasure Coast, but they wouldn’t win any points for style or user friendliness. Eventually, I managed to dig up the schematics for the door, filed under an archive named To Delete Later.

“The doors,” I reported, for there were actually several layered over each other, “Are 3.7 passus thick.”

“Is that too thick t’ cut through?” the security griffin asked, and the albino perked his head up.

“I’ll have t’ do some figurin’,” Angelo said thoughtfully before finally realizing that his cigarette was out. “We can do it, fuh suh, but if they do got a megaspell, then it’s a mattah-a time. We gotta be able t’ cut through before they can set it off.”

While Angelo did his “figurin’,” I used my PipBeak to convert the units on the schematic from zebra measurements into something I could understand. After converting to Equestrian units, it turned out that the doors were just under thirty-six pasterns thick. That’s when inspiration struck; I’d been practicing my teleportation, and I’d managed to get my range to a little over that. Perhaps there was another way into the Lockbox that didn’t involve drilling through the mountain or cutting through the doors.

While Branson, Angelo, and the security griffin were busy trying to figure out how to break Lockbox 17 open, I disconnected my PipBeak from the door and began to channel my magic. It was only at the last moment that the guard realized my horn was glowing, after it was too late to stop me. Shouts of surprise were abruptly cut off as I teleported past the doors of Lockbox 17 and emerged inside. I immediately began to feel lightheaded and was alarmed that I might have messed the spell up and left part of me behind, but a quick inspection revealed I was still in one piece. That relief was the last thing I felt before I slumped into unconsciousness.

***

When I awoke, it was abrupt and unpleasant. I was soaked with freezing water and tied tightly to a chair. In front of me stood a stern-looking griffin holding a recently emptied bucket. It was difficult to make out details in the darkened room, but her coloration appeared to be burnt umber, apart from her starkly white facial feathers that transitioned to a fiery orange at the tips.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded threateningly.

I could’ve been glib and told her that I had no idea since I’d just woken up, but I felt that wouldn’t go over very well. Best to just be straight with her.

“I thought maybe I could help you with your problem with Hookbeak,” I replied, but her expressing didn’t soften.

“A negotiator to wear us down from the inside? Is that their ploy? Or did you have more sinister motives and just screwed up, so now you’re changing tack?” my captor asked as she hefted my saddlebags and multiple weapons. “That trick of teleporting in here was real cute. I gotta admit, we never saw that coming. We did anticipate your bosses would try to cut through, however, and the sleeping gas we had prepared for them worked on you just as well. What do you have to say to that, pony?”

“I’m not here on Hookbeak’s behalf, honest,” I insisted. “I knew you were in a jam, so I came here to see if I could help you.”

“Even if I did believe that, how could you possibly help?” the griffin scoffed.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve helped out in similar situations before. There must be some way to reach a resolution that doesn’t involve the griffins of Hookbeak breaking in and killing you.”

“Oh, there is,” the griffin said with a wicked glint in her eye. “They can leave us alone, or we’re all gonna die and Hookbeak’s gonna be no more. You see what’s behind you there?”

I craned my neck as best I could to see what was behind me. What was first no more than a slightly darker shape in the shadows revealed its true nature as colorful lights fitfully appeared and disappeared within it. I’d seen something similar in the Republic of Rose years ago, worshipped by cultists as a saving god. The Lockboxers hadn’t been bluffing with their threat; they really did have a megaspell.

“I have half a mind to let you go back out there just so you can let them know we’re serious,” my captor said. “If they try to break into our Lockbox, then we’ll take out the whole mountain before we let them drag us out.”

“W-wait, that won’t accomplish anything,” I said. “There has to be another way to resolve this where both your Lockbox and Hookbeak can come out ahead.”

“So, you show your true colors after all. Just another stooge of Hookbeak come here to intimidate us. Well, I won’t have it! We’ll show you what we do to bullies and trespassers when—”

The fiery griffin was cut off as a door opened behind her and another stepped into the room, flicking on the rest of the room’s lights with a claw.

“I think that’s enough for now, Gisebella. I believe this pony’s story,” the newcomer addressed the stunned griffin who’d been threatening me a moment before.

“P-President Roselynn, I had no idea you’d come down yourself to observe,” Gisebella said deferentially.

“Not to worry,” Roselynn said as she placed her claw comfortingly upon Gisebella’s shoulder. “I commend you for your zeal in wringing the truth from this interloper, but I think you’ve drawn quite the wrong conclusions. This pony bears us no ill will, so let’s not berate him any further.”

“Of course,” Gisebella said as she produced a knife, and I was worried for a heartbeat until she used it to cut my bonds.

“Now, let’s talk,” Roselynn said as she sat in a chair Gisebella fetched without being asked. “I am Roselynn, nineteenth president of Lockbox 17. And you are?”

“Doc,” I replied as I wrung out my mane with my prosthetic claw. “From Equestria originally, though now, I suppose, the Pleasure Coast.”

“You’ve come a long way, Doc,” Roselynn said with a maternal smile. “Well, in this whole nasty business with the griffins outside our Lockbox, it seems neither side has the full picture, but perhaps you can help with that. Tell me, what is it like outside, in Hookbeak?”

“Gladly,” I replied.

***

Self-sufficiency is good. There, I’ve written it down. I won’t deny it’s good to be self-sufficient, but as I look at what the Pony-Zebra War left of the Commonwealth, I also can’t deny that it’s not always achievable. I was never expected to be self-sufficient with my wings the way they are, not in a griffin society. I found a way to claim self-sufficiency, but can I really make such a claim when I didn’t get here on my own? I wonder sometimes how different my life would have been without Grimm and Ginny. We look out for each other—it’s not a one-way street—so let no griffin think this is me pitying myself. We’ve had our fallings-out, but that only makes me surer that we’re stronger together. The same, I think, is true on a greater scale. Looking out for one’s own self-interest is all well and good, but that cannot be the only thing one looks out for. We all need help at times, and when we can, we should be as willing to give it as receive it. I guess what I’m trying to put into words is that we should all strive for self-sufficiency, but if we can’t achieve it, we should be willing to accept help from others; and when we overachieve it, we should use our bounty to help others, not just keep it all for ourselves. Griffins have long been quick to take advantage of any success they find to help only themselves to more of what they desire, be that coin or—like Grand Marshal Gallus—power. How different could the Commonwealth be if griffins who were truly blessed looked at their hoards and realized they could be put to a greater purpose? I don't know if I'll ever see that, but one can hope. It’s a post-megaspell world. Not a bad time for things to change.

After my talk with President Roselynn, I’d been given a room to stay in (away from the megaspell) while she thought about what to do. My possessions had also all been returned, so I’d taken the time to read more of the Book of Rok. Being a copy of a journal Rok had written with no stated intention of becoming holy writ, it was a patchwork of many things, and it was always a mystery what I would find in the next passage. Would it be a mundane recounting of a day’s events in the Griffin Commonwealth of over a century ago? A recipe for organic bandage adhesive? Hints of hints of clues how to find von Plume’s treasure? Random scribblings and doodles? Or, perhaps, Rok’s thoughts on society and how it ought to function. In this last passage, I’d found the core of the Rokkists’ beliefs, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find it repeated throughout the pages. Rok had written life as he saw it as a flightless griffin living in a post-megaspell Commonwealth; I wondered what he would have thought about the religion that had grown up with only that as its seeds.

The book fell from my magic as an alarm klaxon sounded and the light over my room’s door flashed amber. Scuffling and flapping sounded through the not-particularly-soundproof walls, and I hurried to the door, poking my head out to see what was going on. Security griffins flew through the air while the ordinary citizens did just what I was doing: standing in their doorways and wondering what was going on.

“What’s happening?” I asked between klaxon blasts as I spotted Gisebella darting past me.

“They’ve resumed their drilling,” she replied hastily as she rushed through a nearby door and reappeared with a machine gun. “So much for negotiating a peaceful resolution.”

I darted over to the nearby railing as Gisebella hopped over it and plummeted down. The core of Lockbox 17 was a long, narrow open space stretching down sixteen stories, ringed on every floor by rooms and hallways leading off to other parts of the Lockbox. It made sense for a winged race like the griffins who got around by flying, but since I wasn’t blessed with such mobility, I made for the quickest way down my hooves could take me: stairs. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to help defend Lockbox 17 from the Hookbeakers—this wasn’t my fight—but my body moved of its own volition before my mind could catch up. It was the same reason I’d come here in the first place; if there was a problem, I needed to be involved. I seemed drawn to crises, first in Equestria, then in the Pleasure Coast, and now here. I’d fight for the Lockboxers, though that might mean becoming trapped in here with them.

By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, Gisebella was long gone. There were other security griffins flocking to the source of the invasion, though, so I followed them. None of them questioned what I was doing, though I did get some strange looks. Signs blatantly added as an afterthought by the Lockbox’s residents after construction was already done pointed the way to the reactors, and the sound of gunfire grew louder as we got nearer.

The source of the power that kept all the lights in Lockbox 17 running was nearly pitch-black. Muzzle flashes lit up the cavernous room with a near-constant flickering, revealing the dark, hulking shapes that were the microspark reactors. A dim light came from a hole in the wall on the far end of the room, out of which griffins were trying to advance. I would have thought the smart thing to do would be to fly, but any griffin that tried this feat was quickly shot down due to the lack of any cover in the air. On the ground were pipes, crates, forklifts, and plenty of other objects that provided ample protection against the security team’s bullets. The griffins putting up the defense covered themselves in much the same way, but they moved around the room far more naturally than their attackers; they’d trained for a fight like this and familiarized themselves with the layout of the room.

I unslung my battle rifle and tried to stay out of the way of the security team, using FITS to tell friend from foe in the dark. I let off a burst at the tunnel entrance, which caused the advancing griffins within to back up. I didn’t particularly want to kill the Hookbeakers, but they were the ones who had started the shooting. As one managed to break free and fly around one of the reactors, I drew the revolver I’d picked up at Stalwart Steelworks. The bang of it firing was deafening, but it dropped the griffin even at range. More attempted the same maneuver, but I held them off, and eventually they gave up.

The floor was becoming littered with employees of Hookbeak Power, Water, and Sewage—enough that I wondered just how many they had—by the time the situation changed. A quartet of griffins shouting loudly came charging into the room, Lockbox 17’s megaspell upon their shoulders. Upon seeing that the Lockboxers did indeed possess a megaspell and were preparing to set it off, the invaders hesitated for only a minute before retreating.

“All clear! All clear!” Gisebella shouted after all the Hookbeakers had vanished back up their tunnel.

Lights switched on, flooding the room with brightness and nearly blinding me. President Roselynn swept into the room to survey the aftermath of the attack, looking much sterner than the last time I’d seen her.

“Get that hole sealed up!” she ordered, and security griffins and technicians hopped to the task. “Why won’t they just leave us be?”

“It’s because of these,” I said, gesturing to the microspark reactors as I approached the president.

If I was being too forward, it probably wouldn’t get me killed. Probably. Gisebella looked very cross and ready to do so at a word from President Roselynn, so my life was in the president’s claws now. I had to convince her to listen to me.

“They need your electricity, and they’re not going to stop until they get it,” I said.

“Do you suggest we just give it to them?” Roselynn asked with a bite to her words.

“No, because that’s not fair to you. You’ll be absorbed into Hookbeak and I know you don’t want that. However, there may be another way to resolve this,” I said, and paused for dramatic effect (but only long enough that Gisebella didn’t look too annoyed about it). “These reactors can easily generate enough power to sustain both Lockbox 17 and Hookbeak. Sell them the excess. It would mean opening up the Lockbox to the outside world, but you could reorganize yourselves and incorporate Lockbox 17 as a power company to compete against HPWS. Hookbeak’s government can’t deny you a contract without causing an uproar among their citizens, and they can’t infringe upon your independence without breaking your contract.”

“You know, Doc, there may be more griffin in you than just that arm,” Roselynn said thoughtfully.

***

Lockbox 17 was already half-corporate anyway (I hadn’t realized before that Roselynn was president of a board of directors and not an elected official), so it didn’t take long for them to draft the appropriate paperwork and present their offer through the Lockbox’s door. As I’d predicted, the Hookbeak government, despite pressure from powerful HPWS lobbyists, had no choice but to accept Lockbox 17’s terms. The doors were opened, papers were signed, and the work began to connect the Lockbox’s reactors to the city’s power grid. Hookbeak’s government wasn’t happy that their wings had been publicly twisted; and Hookbeak Power, Water, and Sewage was even more unhappy with a deal that would see them lose their monopoly over, and ultimately all part in, the power sector of Hookbeak; but what did I care? I’d saved the day and prevented Lockbox 17 getting slaughtered or subjugated; that was enough of a win in my book. I left Hookbeak without considering that my actions might come back to bite me someday—or that someday might be sooner rather than later.

Level Up
New Perk: Mountain Goat – You’ve learned a bit about getting around in mountains. Reduced penalties to movement when on difficult terrain (and less chance you’ll fall and break your neck).
New Quest: Homecoming – Return to the Pleasure Coast.
Barter +6 (108)
Manipulation Magic +5 (40)
Science +6 (109)
Small Guns +4 (124)
Speech +4 (109)

Chapter 12: The Capital

Chapter Twelve: The Capital

“… on the roster today: buh-lightfish. Can you season them enough to make them not only edible, but … enjoyable? Joining me today to answer that question is the Family’s chief chef. Wel-come to the program,” the Commonwealth Crooner said as I activated Distribution Station 2.

I’d achieved a good coverage of the north Griffin Commonwealth with all the distribution stations I’d activated thus far, but there were still gaps to fill. Before I headed back down the river to the Pleasure Coast, I figured I’d fill in some of those gaps—including the one left by DS-2, which included Brittle Pass. I knew nobody lived there, at least not at ground-level, but it would give me something to listen to on my way back through other than the Rockfall Hotel announcements. There was a nearby griffin roost that I debated visiting before heading back, but since my record with roosts so far was about 50/50 for success, avoiding it unless I needed something was probably the best course. The riverside road I’d followed most of the way here did loop around to one other griffin roost that I was considering visiting, though. Shearpoint, the capital of the Griffin Commonwealth, was at the heart of the area, and I’d been slowly circling in on it for a while now; it seemed inevitable that my journey would end there. There was also, according to my PipBeak’s map, a distribution station near it that would plug the last big gap in the north Griffin Commonwealth without access to Radio Free Wasteland or Radio PC.

I locked in my changes in the distribution station before leaving. I still had some time to make up my mind before I had to decide where to go. First I’d have to descend the stairs beneath the distribution station and make my way back through the valley below to the road. When I exited the distribution station’s control room, there was a flock of six griffins waiting for me outside, and they didn’t look very happy. None were aggressive, but their readied weapons made it clear that they weren’t going to let me just trot past. All were wearing full sets of green combat barding with the eleven-striped flag of the Griffin Commonwealth on the shoulder pads, GM XV overlaid on the left flag.

“You must be Doc,” the griffin standing at the center of the formation said accusatorially.

Judging by the winged skulls accompanying the flags on his shoulder pads, I gathered he was the one in charge here—a sergeant or commander of some sort. He also didn’t have any weapons at the ready, confident that the other griffins would be able to take care of me if it came to shooting. His reasoning was astute, seeing as how the PipBeaks built into each griffins’ armor denied me my biggest advantage. I noticed with surprise that he too had a prosthetic arm very nearly identical to mine, though it looked less out of place on him.

“I am,” I answered. Probably unwise, but I didn’t see any point in lying; the likelihood of there being another unicorn in a yellow doctor’s coat with a prosthetic griffin leg in the Commonwealth was incredibly slim. I was just too conspicuous.

“You’re coming with us,” the griffin leader announced, as if it were an undeniable fact. “Grand Marshal Gideon wants to have a talk with you.”

“I suppose saying ‘no thanks’ really isn’t an option?” I asked as I shifted into a ready stance.

“No, it isn’t,” the griffin leader said, his face hard.

“Okay then,” I said, resigned. “Let’s go.”

***

They didn’t make it as simple as just accompanying them to Shearpoint, of course. The griffins, who I’d later learn were the grand marshal’s personal squad of enforcers, treated it as an arrest and stripped me naked of everything I had. They took turns carrying me to Shearpoint and kept me restrained when camping at night, ensuring no chances to escape. When we did reach Shearpoint, I wasn’t taken to Grand Marshal Gideon. Instead, the grand marshal’s troops took me to a prison where I was locked up and made to wait for the grand marshal.

During my sojourn there, it occurred to me more than once that the griffins had never actually said that I was to be taken to the Grand Marshal Gideon for an audience—only that they were taking me to Shearpoint because he wanted to speak with me. I had no idea what crime they had incarcerated me for. Since the jailor refused to answer any questions, I was stuck in a cell trying to puzzle out what steps had led me to this point. The grand marshal might be upset about my interference with his plans for Lockbox 17, but would that really be considered a crime? Apparently, I still didn’t fully understand how things worked in the Griffin Commonwealth; this was the second time I’d been thrown in jail, both times without legal reason.

I spent a week in that prison cell and became acquainted with every corner of it. It was underground, built into the rock of the mountain upon which Shearpoint was perched, and without windows of any sort. The only light source was a dull bulb in the corridor outside. Not that I needed better light for reading, since the Book of Rok was among my confiscated possessions. My PipBeak had suffered the same fate, which meant I couldn’t listen to the radio or even track the passage of time. The bulb outside was constantly lit, and I soon went astray from a normal sleep schedule. All I could do was pace a small circuit within my cell and think, clueless about what this internment was meant to accomplish.

The leader of the group who’d hauled me in reappeared once they’d decided I’d waited long enough. He was in a dress uniform now, similar to what I’d seen members of the Weather Corps wearing in Brinkfall. The main difference was the color: instead of sky blue, this uniform’s fabric was the same green as the barding he’d been wearing when we’d first met. There was a patch on the collar that read “Strake,” accompanied by an insignia of rank that meant nothing to me.

“Come on, don’t keep the grand marshal waiting,” he said as he waved me out of my cell.

I bit back the desire to retort that he’d kept me waiting long enough. Irritated as I was, I had no desire to be locked back in the cell. Strake followed me through the corridors of the prison, directing me where to turn whenever there was a junction, until we reached a door flanked by griffins in combat barding. One opened the door to allow me access, and I stepped into a narrow, low-ceilinged room.

Within was a wall-to-wall polished metal table with chairs on either side. I approached the uncomfortable looking one bolted to the floor on my side while observing the griffin sitting in the chair across the table. Grand Marshal Gideon had a tawny coat and russet feathers with a layer of white where feathers met fur. I had been around griffins long enough now to assess that he was middle-aged—not quite an elder yet, but nowhere near his prime either. His bright emerald eyes stood out in the dimly lit room, watching me as if I were the mouse to his hawk.

“Thank you, Master Sergeant,” Gideon addressed Strake while I took my seat without taking his eyes off me. “You may leave now.”

“Grand Marshal,” Strake said sharply behind me before leaving the room.

“Grand Marshal Gideon, I presume?” I said when he remained silent, and the grand marshal nodded enigmatically. “You wanted to speak to me?” Again, a nod. “I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve being treated the way I have. I was taken and locked up without any reason given to me.”

“You haven’t figured it out?” Gideon asked, his speech low and deliberate. “I thought surely I’d given you enough time.”

“I wasn’t aware helping a Lockbox under attack was a crime,” I said before he could have me taken back to my cell to think some more.

“Ignorance of the law is no excuse,” Gideon said pedantically. “In this case, however, you are correct. There is no law against what you did, but why should that matter? Are you a griffin?”

“Well, no,” I said, “But—”

“Then why should you be allowed to interfere in griffin politics?” Gideon asked angrily, placing his claws on the tabletop to boost himself up into an intimidating stance. “The rule of the Griffin Commonwealth must be restored, and every griffin must submit to the authority of the marshals. There is no room for noncompliant Lockboxes that find ways to remain outside the Commonwealth. Your Equestria and the Zebra Empire were both destroyed by megaspells, but the Griffin Commonwealth just … fell apart. Without the prospect of commerce with the warring superpowers, there was nothing to keep griffins together, and the weak government could do nothing to stop the Commonwealth from disintegrating.”

“I, like my predecessors, won’t let this affront continue. Griffins should be the ascendant power, but instead, we live in ruin. I know what must be done; I have spent my whole life learning this. You, a pony, have been in the Commonwealth for only a few months, and you think you know better than me, better than the roost governments? I assure you, you know nothing!” Gideon spat before calming himself, smoothing his feathers, and sitting back down. “When I release you, what are you going to do?”

“Return to the Pleasure Coast,” I answered honestly.

“Good. And?” Gideon asked.

“I’ll stay out of Commonwealth politics,” I said.

It seemed the sensible thing to say, even to try. However, if I came across another situation like Lockbox 17, I honestly didn’t know if I could stop myself from trying to help. That was a bridge to cross later, though doing so would surely enrage the grand marshal and bring down the wrath of his enforcers. It would have to be a calculated risk.

“Very sensible. I advise you not to make yourself a problem, because my problems always disappear, one way or another,” Gideon threatened. “And one more thing. I know you’ve been tampering with the Commonwealth radio distribution stations; don’t even think about going near Shearpoint’s.”

Gideon stood and straightened his suit, his head feathers brushing against the ceiling, but when I made to stand as well, he raised a claw to halt me.

“Guards!” he called loudly, but not with any distress in his voice, and one of the griffins outside opened the door behind me calmly. “This prisoner is free to go. Standard procedure.”

The guard entered the room and stood beside me as Gideon departed for his exit door.

“I don’t want to see your name come across my desk again,” was the last thing he said before striding through the door and slamming it closed.

***

“Standard procedure” wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, although I truly was released and not just taken out back and shot. Most of my possessions were returned to me, but the grand marshal had confiscated all my money—caps, coins, and even the few paper guilders I’d collected—which was problem enough. On top of that, he’d taken all my ammunition, making the guns I got back next to worthless. I had no money to buy more ammo, and I couldn’t earn money the way I usually did (by killing things) without it. It was a viscous cycle that I needed to escape, but at least I had some other potentially useful skills for earning my way out of Shearpoint. Until then, I was effectively stuck in the city.

There were worse places to be trapped, but I’d still rather be out of the sight of Grand Marshal Gideon. I didn’t want to risk raising his ire by doing something innocuous he’d categorize as interfering with griffin politics. Shearpoint had once been the glittering capital of the Griffin Commonwealth, its luxury bought with Equestrian gold and zebra silver. Some of that glitz still lingered within the multi-tiered city of soaring skyscrapers, spacious theaters, and complex parks, but there was a sense that something had been lost. The roost had experienced multiple population booms and declines since the megaspells had fallen, but it had never quite reached the same level as the Wartime years. The city felt half-empty, but this didn’t seem to bother its citizens; just like in Brinkfall and Hookbeak, they went about their lives as normally as they could.

As I walked through the streets and down the precarious stairs of Shearpoint, looking for work or a place to sleep for the night that would take credit, I noted that quite a lot of buildings in the city had flags of the Commonwealth flying from them. Not just that, but they were some of the best-looking buildings, clearly corporate offices for wealthy companies in the past. Now, however, they’d been converted. The old logos and names had been removed, leaving unevenly weathered spots on the buildings’ exterior, and replaced with the names of different governmental agencies that the grand marshals of the past had created. I passed the Department of Broadcast, the Hall of Records, the Tribute Collection Service, and the Office of Business Registration, among others. Shearpoint’s government offices were scattered throughout the city, unlike the major corps (Air, Weather, and Land), which resided directly beneath the grand marshal. His offices had all been clustered at the top of the city, and I’d passed them immediately after being released. With a little exploration, a possible reason became clear: by spreading these offices throughout Shearpoint, Grand Marshal Gideon was making the statement that he was in command of the roost. If pockets of opposition formed anywhere, he’d squeeze them all out with his own offices.

Another sight that caught my eye was the pervasiveness of posters affixed to various walls and notice boards. There were plenty of other advertisements made in a similar style, but it appeared that griffins had gone out of their way to avoid pasting over or overlapping these particular ads, even on a corner. Like in Hookbeak, these were propaganda posters, but rather than calling for reduced power consumption in preparation for breaking into a Lockbox, these advocated for unity against a common enemy: The Grand Pegasus Enclave. Frightening pegasi in insect-like power armor torched a roost with lances of power from above in one poster, and the theme was repeated in different ways throughout the series. Unity between griffins was called for—under the grand marshal, of course. An independent-minded race, griffins had never been particularly good at unity, but perhaps a threat like the Enclave could bring them together. I’d wager that was exactly the thought of Grand Marshal Gideon when he’d ordered these posters printed up. Given what he’d said to me about knowing what needed to be done and how the Commonwealth should be an ascendant power, I was beginning to doubt that the Grand Pegasus Enclave really was the threat to griffins it was made out to be. I’d never known them to interfere in Equestria, and I doubted they did here, either. What they did do was make a mighty good boogey-mare. Perhaps it would even work, and Grand Marshal Gideon would get a unified Griffin Commonwealth. I highly doubted that, though, given my experience with griffins so far.

After a few hours of searching, I managed to find a potential place to stay while I got back on my hooves. The proprietor, a griffin named Gaddage, agreed to hold a room in her boarding house for me, but if I didn’t have the caps to pay for it by the end of the day, I wouldn’t be allowed in. The price was reasonable—something I should have been able to scrounge up with an odd job or two—so I set out to find work. It wasn’t as easy a proposition as I’d hoped.

Finding work in a roost turned out to be harder than it had been in the Equestrian Wasteland, the Pleasure Coast, or in the less-settled parts of the Griffin Commonwealth. In those places, everything had the general feeling of just getting by with pre-megaspell leftovers. There was always something that needed to be done, always an opportunity for someone to step in to help or lend a skill that was in short supply. Not so in Shearpoint, a city with a population large enough to fill the gaps (even if it didn’t fill the city) in terms of both bodies and skills. My doctoring skills weren’t in demand because most griffins already had a doctor they regularly saw. The city had been fully explored, and there were no closed off buildings or terminals for me to crack with my PipBeak, computer skills, or lockpicking aptitude. In fact, I was pretty sure I’d get arrested if I tried.

My search descended through the different tiers of Shearpoint, feeling more futile with each section I traversed. Eventually, I’d gone as far as I could without leaving the city entirely: the skydocks. The mountain upon which Shearpoint was settled briefly leveled off before dropping sharply again, and the griffins had built upon and out from this level bit to create docks like one would see in a harbor. The biggest difference was that the skydocks projected over air instead of water. I was initially hesitant to step out onto any of them, as some of them looked to be in poor repair, but once I set hoof on them, I found that they were plenty sturdy.

Two of the berths had airships in them, though only one looked capable of flight. The other craft was only kept from plummeting downward by the many cables wrapped around it. I’d seen an airship only once before, during my imprisonment in the Grittish Isles. The Steel Rangers had kept one tethered to the Tower, but it had been a big brutish thing: steel skin stretched over steel girders, with a steel command center bolted securely beneath. It was nothing like the airships before me. They were sturdy, to be sure, and made of more advanced materials than the wood and canvas of the illustrations that appeared in old advertisements, but there was a quaintness and elegance to them that had been lost on the Equestrian airship. The body of the airships resembled old sailing vessels, and they were slung beneath the gas envelopes by cables that caused them to sway slightly in the wind.

Griffin dockworkers eyed me cautiously as I approached the edge of the skydocks, where massive cranes were set to haul up platforms from lower altitudes. I ventured a peek over the edge to catch sight of the road far below that ended where the platforms and a long switchbacking stairway began. It was a way for me to leave Shearpoint without falling or riding a platform down, but one that didn’t look like very much fun. Retreating from the edge before I was blown off by a wayward gust, I backtracked up the skydocks to trot among the warehouses and shops that lined the platforms.

A low brick building with several cranes jutting up behind it soon caught my attention. As I trotted around it, I noticed a “Help Wanted” sign in the window; hopefully I could provide the help they wanted. When I entered the shop, there was no griffin to greet me, and I wondered if perhaps I’d just wandered into a building abandoned decades ago. Everything looked run-down, and I could barely make out the gondolas hanging from the cranes out back through the grimy windows. The sign had looked like a recent addition, though, so I cautiously approached the counter and pressed a button labeled “Ring for Service.” Just as I was moving to leave after a couple minutes of waiting, a griffin appeared through the swinging doors to my right. White-furred and black-feathered, he took a break from wiping his claws on a grimy rag in order to size me up.

“Who are you?” he asked while staring at me as if I had a second head. It was a look I was used to at this point.

“I’m Doc. I came in to ask about the sign in your window,” I said, crooking a claw in the general direction of the store entrance in the way a griffin would.

“You have any experience with gondolas or hoppers?” the griffin asked skeptically.

“No,” I answered honestly. At least I didn’t make my prospects worse by asking what a “hopper” was.

“You any good at fixing things?” the griffin asked.

“Now that,I do know,” I told him.

“Hmm,” he said as he ran his not-quite-clean claws through his feathers. “Eh, why not? I could use any help I can get. I’m Guthrie.”

I took his proffered claw without hesitation and shook it.

“Thanks, Guthrie,” I said. “If it’s not too much to ask, would it be possible to get paid daily? I’ve kind of got a bed riding on it.”

“We may be able to work something out,” Guthrie said, but his eyes narrowed. “Let’s see how good you are at the job. Come on, you can work on the gondolas first.”

I followed Guthrie out back to the gondolas. It was clear that none of them were functional—most probably hadn’t been in years—but this was what I’d signed on for. Anything for a meal and a bed. I found some tools and got to work.

Chapter 13: Moonrazed

Chapter Thirteen: Moonrazed

Taking the handle in my teeth, I gave the cord a sharp pull, and the engine of the hopper roared to life. After a week of working with Guthrie, I was becoming quite adept at fixing up these flying machines. A hopper was a single-seat open rotorcraft, and I’d been spending most of my time getting familiar with them. After I’d fixed up a couple cable cars, Guthrie decided he had a good read on my abilities and moved me to the other half of his business. During the War, hoppers had been primarily used by flightless races when they visited the Griffin Commonwealth and hadn’t felt like climbing mountains to get to the centers of griffin civilization. Nowadays, they were mostly used whenever griffins wanted to get somewhere without flying or had something to transport that would be easier to toss in a basket or sling underneath the craft than carry on their person. There wasn’t much to some of them: just a seat, controls, a motor, propellors, and a minimal frame holding it all together in some cases; but they were like nothing I’d ever worked on before. I’d also experimented a bit with flying them, but never out over the edge of the skydocks or up toward the city buildings—the griffins living or working there probably wouldn’t appreciate my test flights.

Between my job fixing cable cars and hoppers for Guthrie and doing some alchemistry work on the side, I was starting to get back on my hooves. The price of my lodgings consumed most of my income, but with what was left, I’d been able to restock on ammunition and supplies; soon, I’d be equipped to head back out into the Commonwealth. I’d settled into a comfortable groove, though, and despite my worry about being so near to Gideon, I stayed in Shearpoint and kept working on hoppers. I engaged the hopper’s prop, and it tugged against the clamps holding it to the floor of Guthrie’s workshop, bobbing slightly. When I turned the engine off, I found Strake inside the workshop, staring me down.

“Doc,” he said, “Grand Marshal Gideon wants to speak with you.”

“What did I do this time?” I asked, guardedly.

My saddlebags and weapons were across the shop, more than fifteen paces away. There was no way I could get to them before Strake got to me. ERSaTS would be no help here, since he could just cast the spell himself with his own PipBeak.

“Nothing,” Strake said. “The grand marshal is not cross with you … yet.”

“What if I don’t want to speak with him?” I asked.

“Then he would become very cross with you,” Strake replied with a frown.

“I’m not going to end up in the dungeons again, am I?” I asked, and Strake’s frown deepened.

“Not unless you keep this up and refuse to come with me,” he said.

There wasn’t really anything to do but comply. There was nowhere in Shearpoint I could run from Strake, and even in a hopper I wouldn’t be able to leave the city faster than he could overtake me by flying. One small relief was that he didn’t stop me from grabbing my saddlebags and weapons before following him, but he was still leading me to Grand Marshal Gideon’s residence. He and the rest of Gideon’s enforcers could easily overpower me together, weapons or no. As we ascended the tiers of the city, Strake waited impatiently at the top of each flight of steep stairs, while I laboriously climbed up after him. The grand marshal’s residence (technically the seat of the Council of Marshals) was at the very top of Shearpoint, built against and into the mountain’s face. I’d seen it once before, after being released from prison, and had been eager to get as far away from it as possible. Strake didn’t lead me in through the way I had left last time—a good sign—and we ended up in a room completely different from a prison cell.

It was not dissimilar to the lodge where I’d met Gabby of Greta’s Grenadiers. The walls were lined with wood paneling, and a fire was crackling away in a fireplace built into one of the walls. Elaborate rugs covered the floor and banners were hung around the room, one for each of the Commonwealth’s roosts. A newer banner hung prominently on the wall, less faded and larger than the others, that bore Gideon’s crest: the silhouette of a griffin’s head crossed by lightning bolts with “GM XV” over it. Gideon himself sat in a plush high-backed chair behind a fancy wooden desk piled with all manner of bric-a-brac.

“Ah, Doc, thank you for coming,” Gideon said far more warmly than the last time we’d spoken. “You seem to be adjusting well to a life in Shearpoint. Were you planning on putting down permanent roots?”

“No,” I replied as I took a seat across from him, suspecting a trap. “I’ll be moving on soon.”

“How about now?” Gideon asked. The warmth hadn’t left his voice yet, so I didn’t think he was threatening me. With the grand marshal, it was hard to tell.

“It’s as good as any other time, I suppose,” I said.

“Good, because I have a job proposition for you,” Gideon said as he leaned back in his chair.

“What kind of job proposition?” I asked suspiciously.

“I want you to go to Moonraze and help … ‘reform’ the government there,” Gideon said.

“I thought you didn’t want me interfering in griffin politics anymore,” I reminded him.

“As an independent party, yes,” Gideon said, “but I see no reason why you couldn’t be useful under my direction. You’ve already proven how much mayhem you’re capable of bringing to a system, and this talent of yours would serve us well in a roost called Moonraze. Tell me, do you know anything about it?”

“I was warned away from it because it’s ruled by mythologists,” I said, thinking back to the barge captain’s warning two months earlier.

“Quite right,” Gideon said with a nod. “All roost governments are, of course, entitled to run things as they see fit. However, the situation in Moonraze has gotten out of claw. I did not fight to make the Griffin Commonwealth a respectable civilization only to allow barbarism within its own roosts. You will go to Moonraze, enter it, and wait to be contacted by my agent already within the city. From there, do what you can to topple Moonraze’s government and replace it with something more … agreeable.”

“Hold on,” I objected, “I haven’t agreed to do your job yet. Don’t I have a choice?”

“You always have a choice,” Gideon said smoothly, in a way that made it clear I really didn’t. “This way, however, you will be rewarded. Handsomely.”

“All right,” I said, “I’ll do it. But I don’t want to end up in your dungeons again just because I didn’t do things exactly the way you wanted.”

“In this situation, there are many acceptable outcomes. I’m sure you can tell the difference between a good or bad one,” Gideon said ominously. “Welcome aboard, Doc.”

***

I was out of Shearpoint before night fell. Gideon provided me with a sky-chariot to fly me to Moonraze, so instead of spending weeks meandering down the road and through valleys, it took only four days to reach the roost’s outskirts. Gideon was in a hurry to topple Moonraze’s government, though I had my suspicions that his sending of me to help that effort might serve a dual purpose; if I died in the process, that would suit Gideon just fine. Despite this grim inference, I’d agreed to the job and couldn’t very well go back on my word, at least not until I was out of sight of the griffin who’d flown me here.

Besides my transport, Gideon had also provided me with some clothing and equipment to help me blend in with the locals of Moonraze: raider attire. I traded my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat for leather barding (decorated with far too many spikes to lay down comfortably in) over top of a baggy jumpsuit that concealed my PipBeak. The disguise had clearly been intended for a griffin, so I’d made some alterations during the flight; they weren’t perfect, but the task had helped keep my mind off how far away the ground was. I’d also been given a ripper to defend myself in close combat and had kept my shotgun on me. Once we arrived, I wrapped up my other weapons and gear in my doctor’s coat and stashed them inside a defunct refrigerator in an abandoned general store outside the city.

I could tell where Moonraze was before I even saw it, tipped off by the smoke diffused in the air over the mountain peaks between which the roost was nestled. As I got closer, the general haze resolved into distinct columns, some rising from industrial chimneys, others from within the city’s streets. A narrow pass led to Moonraze, and a scrap metal wall had been constructed across it with guard shacks on the slopes to either side. A griffin in raider armor flew down from one of them and landed in front of me, fingering the trigger on her shotgun.

“A pony!” she said in surprise. “What in Ishtva’s name are you doing here? I thought you were all dead.”

“Not quite,” I replied. “I’ve been moving through the Commonwealth, and when I heard about Moonraze, I knew I had to come here.”

“Oh really? Why’s that?” the griffin asked.

“Is it true there aren’t any laws here?” I asked, hoping Strake’s advice before sending me out had been good.

“Strength is law,” the griffin said like a mantra.

“Good,” I replied quickly.

“Well, I suppose I could let you in,” the griffin said as she scratched the feathers under her chin, where the strap of her helmet had ruffled them. “I’d have to open the gate for you, though, and nothin’s free.”

Her shotgun was no longer pointed at me, but I had no doubt she could have it ready again in seconds. I could probably kill or maim her in that time with my ripper and these mythologists respected strength alone, but I didn’t think I should start attacking them before I was even inside the city. Instead, I acknowledged her hint and fished some caps out of my saddlebags, tossing them to her with my magic. She quickly snatched them out of the air with a claw and flashed me a grin before flapping over the wall. A second later, the door in the scrap wall screeched open and I entered Moonraze at last.

During my time in the Griffin Commonwealth, I’d become accustomed to its differences from Equestria. There were still differences in Moonraze’s architectural style that marked it as a city for flying creatures rather than ponies … but there was something familiar about it, too. The other roosts I’d visited, while they hadn’t been equal to their heydays, hadn’t been mostly in ruins. Moonraze looked like it had been hit by a megaspell, even though the radiation level here wasn’t much different than elsewhere in the Commonwealth.

It hadn’t been a megaspell that had torn down Moonraze: it had been the griffins living in it. Since the megaspells had fallen, raider gangs had fought over the roost until they’d been subdued by “civilized” griffins, who really weren’t all that different at heart. Raiders had eventually been allowed to filter back into the system if they promised to reform, promises that lasted only as long as it took to pass through the gate. The depravity of raider pseudo-culture, with flayed bodies and grotesque examples of violence, wasn’t on display here. However, one could easily believe those things still existed in isolated alleys and the dark places of the city. Every griffin I passed on the street looked ready to kill at a moment’s notice—and yet, they didn’t. Somehow, their society here among the ruins still functioned, at least for the time being. Grand Marshal Gideon was worried what would happen when the façade broke. That was why I’d been sent here.

Gideon had said that his agent would contact me, so presumably he’d had some way to notify them I was coming. For the time being, I tried to fit in as best as a pony could in a griffin city. Wandering around might look suspicious and could make it more difficult for my contact to find me, so I entered a shop that looked out on to a prominent square and ordered some food. The noodles I got from the vending bot were overly greasy and salty, but they were something to occupy my mouth and my stomach as I waited for somegriffin to find me. I assumed I was the only pony in the city, so it shouldn’t be too hard a task for them.

“Hey! Fresh meat!” a griffin called as I rose to take away my empty bowl.

It took me a moment to realize he was talking about me and not that somegriffin had dragged in a recent kill.

“What do you want?” I asked as he sauntered over confidently, backed up by several other griffins following in his wake.

“You’re not from around here,” he stated as he came to a halt a mere pace away.

“What gave you that impression?” I retorted. “Is it perhaps the fact that I’m a pony?”

“Real funny. How ‘bout I fly you up nice and high and see how well you float?” the griffin said as he scowled at me.

“I’ll pass,” I said as I moved past him to take my bowl away, hoping that would be the end of it. Naturally, it wasn’t.

“Hey!” the griffin shouted at me. “I challenge you to a duel!”

Slowly, I turned around to face him. His shouting had caused quite a commotion, and every griffin in the plaza was watching us. I’d been warned that something like this could happen. Apparently, duels were common in Moonraze, which only stood to reason since mythologism was founded on the idea of survival of the fittest. Strength was law and defined everyone’s position in the hierarchy, so it was inevitable that a newcomer would have to fight in order to determine where they fit. I had been hoping to wait until I’d at least had a chance to meet Gideon’s agent before getting pulled into this kind of situation, but I didn't see a way out. If word spread that a pony was in a duel, it might even draw in my contact more easily, so this wouldn’t be a complete loss—assuming I won, that is.

“You and me, groundbound. Borghan’s Pit,” the griffin set the terms of the duel.

“Lead the way,” I told him as I threw my bowl back on the table.

He did so, though his friends formed a rear guard to make sure I didn’t shoot him in the back on the way to the duel. Some of the griffins in the square followed as well, while others left hurriedly, presumably to fetch friends in other parts of the city. This duel with a pony was going to draw quite a crowd, even if they were all betting against me. The path I was led along took me through collapsed buildings and skirted the city’s factories, the gaps between which were all blocked off with high fences and fields of razor wire. Our destination was an old sports stadium that had been converted into an arena. There was another battle going on as we arrived, held between a griffin with a long spear and several shambling, long-necked creatures with webbed feet.

The griffin who’d challenged me took care of all of the formalities, and I was led to a position overlooking the fighting pit where “Challengee” had been crudely painted. The griffin already within the arena continued their fight, spearing the creatures below while avoiding their snapping jaws. As their fight dragged on, the arena began to fill with griffins flying in from around the city to witness my duel. The griffin in the arena noticed and paused, looking around, before looking up to a private box at one end of the stands. Within reclined a griffin in a heavy suit of mismatched power armor, his beak replaced by a mechanical one. If not for the feathers of his face, he could easily be mistaken for a griffin-shaped machine. The power armored griffin slammed an armored claw down upon his throne as a signal to the fighter. The spear-wielder gave a curt nod before darting around the arena in a dizzying display, the creatures below vainly snapping at her, until finally she swung around and impaled all three survivors through their heads with her spear. A cheer went up from the crowd and she took a bow before retrieving her spear and leaving the arena. While a team of griffins rushed out to remove the corpses, another griffin flew up over the fighting pit, holding a microphone in one claw.

“Hens and cockerels! You’ve all come to witness a duel unlike any other we’ve ever had here in the great and terrible Borghan’s Pit!” the griffin announced dramatically, hyping up the crowd. “In a few moments, you’ll witness a fight between Gavyn, bloodsworn warrior of the great Lord Galen Imsmaeleon Ripper—”

The crowd erupted in cheers, but not for my opponent. The power armored griffin rose from his throne and extended his forelimbs up, mechanical claws outstretched before clamping them swiftly shut with an audible clank.

“The skies are ours!” he yelled, and the griffins in the arena echoed the mantra while mimicking his movements.

“And a pony, if you can believe it!” the announcer continued her introduction. “Let’s see how this dirteating outsider fares! No guns! No magic! Fight!”

Those last rules caught me off guard, but I understood why Gideon had given me a ripper. It was a weapon I could wield with my griffin claw and still have a chance of beating my opponent. I still couldn’t use ERSaTS, since even though it wouldn’t use my magic directly, I didn’t want to let the griffins know I had a PipBeak.

Gavyn jumped from his perch into the arena, and I followed suit. It was a farther drop than I’d anticipated, and the impact jarred my body. I had no time to recover from the jolt, for Gavyn was nearly on top of me in an instant, wielding a long knife in each claw. I backpedaled and drew my ripper with my griffin claw, flipping off the safety and engaging the blade. The chainsword roared to life, and I swung it in front of me to keep Gavyn at a distance.

I was in a nonideal situation with my back to the wall of the arena, so I tried to circle around my opponent. Gavyn had driven me back aggressively at the start of the fight for a reason, though, and wasn’t willing to let me get around him. He kept me against the edge of the arena as we circled, and I soon had to give up on that plan or end up forced down a corridor. I used my forehoof to kick up a cloud of dust into Gavyn’s face and charged toward him. My ripper’s spinning blades didn’t strike their target, but they did catch one of his knives and send it spinning away. His other blade struck my prosthetic claws and bounced off the metal.

I had the momentum now and pushed Gavyn back by threatening him with my ripper. He responded by spreading his wings and launching into the air. He circled in the air above me, trying to disorient me, before pulling throwing knives from pouches at his side and flinging them down at me. It was difficult to stay out of the way of the knives while craning my neck upward without becoming disoriented, but I somehow managed it.

His knife supply couldn’t last forever, and eventually he gave up on the idea of puncturing me from a distance. Gavyn began to swoop down toward me, slashing with his long knife while I reached up with my ripper. Neither of us managed to make any contact with the other, each out of the reach of his opponent's weapons, but we kept up the dance for several minutes.

Suddenly, Gavyn gave up on harassing me from above and swooped away, and I realized this had been his plan the whole time. In swinging our weapons at each other as he passed, I’d moved away from where his throwing knives were embedded in the arena’s ground. Now Gavyn was darting straight toward them, and I was too far away to stop him before he could pick them back up. Or was I?

I stretched my prosthetic limb back and then threw it forward with as much force as I could muster, releasing my ripper at the right moment that it went tumbling end over end toward Gavyn’s backside. He slowed momentarily to grab his knives and the ripper closed the distance. He looked back over his shoulder, alerted by the chugging motor—soon enough to see the handheld chainsaw coming at him, but not soon enough to get out of the way. He dodged, but the ripper struck his left wing. The ripper’s blade had begun to slow as soon as I’d let go of the trigger, but it took several seconds to come to a complete halt; it was still spinning when the blades chewed through Gavyn’s wing. With a sudden loss of flightworthiness, he skidded across the ground with the ripper still embedded in him.

I rushed to close the distance and wrapped my prosthetic claw around the ripper’s handle. The blades were clogged with bloody feathers, but they spun again as soon as my grasp depressed the trigger and Gavyn’s wing separated completely from his body. The griffin swore and threw a knife at me, but it embedded itself in my barding without going any deeper. I kicked aside the long knife he’d dropped and circled around to stand in front of him, pointing my ripper at his baleful stare.

“Fi-nish him! Fi-nish him! Fi-nish him!” the crowd’s chanting sounded over the putter of my ripper.

I looked down at Gavyn lying pitifully in the dirt, the remains of his wing bleeding profusely. He was beaten, so was it necessary for me to kill him? Surely all duels in Moonraze didn’t end in death, otherwise there’d be far fewer griffins left alive after the process to decide who was the strongest.

“Yield,” I told Gavyn, and he looked up at me with a mixture of surprise, relief, and disgust.

It took him several long seconds to war with his pride and decide what to do, but eventually he bowed his head and raised his open claws to me, apparently a sign of submission. I turned off my ripper and the blades spun to a halt. Almost immediately, boos and jeers erupted from the crowd that had been so enthusiastic a moment earlier.

“The pony … has won,” the announcer said hesitantly, looking confused before flying over to Lord Galen Imsmaeleon Ripper’s box.

While they conferred, the crowd continued to boo at me, and I was getting a very bad feeling.

“Cages! Cages! Cages! Cages!” they were chanting now, and they slowly fell silent as Lord Galen stood and the announcer held her microphone up in front of his beak.

“The pony has won, but hasn’t the guts to finish the job, as expected from a groundbound!” Lord Galen boomed and the speakers placed around the stadium shrieked and crackled. “Take him to the cages!”

Before I knew what was happening, griffins were swarming me so quickly that I had no chance to fight back.

***

Everything I had was stripped from me, other than my jumpsuit—a small mercy, as it allowed me to keep my PipBeak hidden. The cages I was taken to were in the industrial part of the city, past the fences I’d walked by on the way to Borghan’s Pit. On this side of the fences, the vibe of Moonraze was different. There were fewer griffins in raider armor, more of them unarmed and wearing jumpsuits like mine. As worn down as they seemed, they still gave me disdainful looks as I was led away between the factories whose stacks spewed smoke up into the air. It reminded me of the Stacks of the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad, a desolate and depressing place of industry closed off from the rest of the city. The cages I was brought to were in an abandoned sofa warehouse and assembled from spare pipes. Several other cages were occupied by sullen griffins who watched me get locked up without much in the way of reaction.

The griffins that had brought me here left as soon as I was locked up, almost as if I no longer existed. Shortly after they’d filed away, other curious griffin workers arrived to gawk at the only pony they’d ever seen. I took to examining my prison while they watched. There was barely enough space to turn around as I closely looked at the joints of the cage. It was well-assembled despite being constructed from scrap, so there would be no breaking through the bars. Conversely, the lock appeared trivial to crack even without a proper pick, but I left it alone for the time being. Even if I did escape my cage, I had no idea how I would escape Moonraze, whose only exit by hoof was guarded and on the other side of a city that had just called for my imprisonment.

After a little while, I noticed that one of the gawkers had stuck around while those that arrived before him had left. There was nothing distinguishing about him, yet he seemed familiar, although I couldn’t place him. Gradually, griffins grew tired of staring and left and no new onlookers arrived. Only then did the griffin who’d stuck around approach my cage.

“Hey, I know you,” he whispered through the bars, but the griffins in the other cages didn’t seem to care we were having a conversation. “You saved me from raiders outside the roost a couple months ago.”

With this new context, I was finally able to pinpoint when I’d last seen this griffin. The closest I’d been to Moonraze prior to today was when I’d purged Distribution Station 5 of raiders, and this griffin had been there, about to have his wing cut off by a ripper-axe until I’d intervened. Why he’d come here after he’d escaped those raiders, I couldn’t puzzle out.

“I’m Rael,” he introduced himself, “Don’t worry. Like you, I’m not one of … them. I’m here in secret, on a mission.”

Of course, it made sense now. Rael was Gideon’s agent in Moonraze.

“I’m Doc,” I said, though he probably knew that already. “I’m glad you found me. Do you have a plan for how to get the mythologists out of power?”

“Not a plan, per se,” Rael said. “So far I’ve just been observing and carefully spreading the word.”

Not only did Grand Marshal Gideon want me to assist in overthrowing Moonraze’s government, apparently he also expected me to do the work of planning it out. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Everyone always expected me to figure things out for them.

“How much of the city would be willing to rise up against the current government?” I asked.

“Well, most of the griffins here in Downtown, probably, so three-quarters of the population,” Rael said. “A lot of them are still mythologists, though, even if they’re not quite as radical as Galen’s followers.”

“It may be the best we can hope for, at least to start the roost changing,” I said, and Rael hesitantly nodded. “Do the griffins Downtown have any access to weapons?”

“Of course not,” he said. “Do you really think an armed revolution will be necessary to change Moonraze?”

“I can’t think of anything else that’ll work,” I said. “Galen’s raiders have to either be destroyed or fought off. Violence is the only thing they understand and respect, so we have to play by those rules, at least until we push them out.”

“I suppose that’s the practical thing to do,” Rael said, though he seemed uneasy.

“I can’t do much from in here,” I said, looking at the bars, “But it shouldn’t be difficult for me to escape. If you start spreading the word of revolution and bring me more information, I’ll try to think up a plan.”

“They should let you out to work,” Rael said as he looked anxiously over his shoulder to see if any other griffins had come to gawk at the captured pony. “I’ll find you then.”

Rael disappeared, running off between the factory blocks, and I sat down to think about how a gang of ragtag griffins, weary and unarmed, could overthrow an entrenched, well-equipped raider ruling class.

***

Rael was right about one thing, at least: the raiders did let me out of my cage to work. The work I was assigned to—hauling carts along tracks within the city’s forges—was long, hot, and exhausting, but not mentally taxing. It gave me plenty of time to formulate and discard plans for how to bring down the mythologists. Rael often walked alongside me, carrying bundles of materials or tools so that any passing overseers wouldn’t have reason to complain. He shared what he’d gleaned on the situation in Moonraze and his progress in recruiting other griffins to the cause.

Progress was slow but promising; as Rael spread the word, other griffins continued the work by spreading it farther. Fortunately, snitching was something that mythologism actively discouraged, seeing it as weak and cowardly, so the chance of our plans leaking to Moonraze’s government was minimal even as our numbers grew. Within a few weeks, most of Downtown was ready to rise up against the Uptown griffins. The remaining problem was how they were going to do it without the revolt becoming a massacre.

Weapons seemed a dead end for a long time. Makeshift weapons such as clubs were as easy to obtain as in any ruined city, but they couldn’t fight the mythologists with clubs alone. Any armories and stashes in Downtown, including the abandoned Lockbox, had been emptied long ago, so we wouldn’t be finding anything there. There were factories in Downtown that produced firearms, but a close eye was kept on these by overseers whenever workers were in the building. Everything was carefully counted, so any guns that went missing would quickly be discovered.

There was, however, one source of firepower that the raiders had neglected to consider a threat. A week into my incarceration, I learned about an old hangar at the skydocks that was housing a far-from-flightworthy airship. It would take a lot of work to make if functional, but it still had its weaponry; the raiders hadn’t even bothered to remove the ammunition from it, since it was incompatible with any other weapons they had. That was the good news—the hard part would be making it airworthy. The repairs would take time, but I started planning around it as the rebels got to work fixing the ship up whenever they had spare time or were able to slip away. It would be too dangerous for me to try going to the hangar personally, but I lent my knowledge of mechanics and electronics however I could when the rebels came to me with questions.

An airship alone, impressive as it was, wouldn’t be enough to win the day. It might’ve worked if the rebels were fighting ponies, but griffins could simply fly up, seize the airship, and make matters even worse. They needed personal weapons to defend themselves against boarders, which were only accessible outside of Downtown. We also couldn’t just fly the airship up without attracting attention from the guards. What our plan needed was a distraction, and I had an idea for how to draw the attention of every raider in Moonraze.

“Hey! Guard!” I yelled at a raider protecting an exit on the borders of Downtown.

“What are you doing over here?” he yelled back as he pointed his battle saddle machine guns at me. “You’re supposed to be at work or in the cages!”

“I want to duel,” I told him as I stopped up short, lest he shoot me and the whole plan go awry.

“What, me?” he asked cockily. “Once wasn’t enough?”

“Even if I didn’t land a killing blow, I won that duel,” I said evenly. “I want another duel to get me out of here. This time, I promise I’ll go all the way. I challenge Lord Galen Imsmaeleon Ripper.”

“You must be mad,” he scoffed, looking me up and down, comparing me to his hulking, power armored lord. “But the rules of Moonraze are clear, and I can’t stop you from throwing your life away.”

Even so, he had to go away and check that Lord Galen was willing to fight me. When he returned, it was with good news, at least for the plan. Word spread even more quickly than before my last fight, and I saw plenty of griffins flying overhead to Borghan’s Pit as I was led there for my fight with Moonraze’s ruler. The stadium was packed to bursting when I arrived, with griffins perched anywhere there was a spare spot to roost. When I asked, I was denied any form of weapon and was forced to the arena starting position.

“Hens and cockerels!” the announcer called into her microphone. “You all remember a few weeks ago when this dirteater fought in holy mighty Borghan’s Pit but failed to kill his opponent! Now he’s returned to seek his death against our great and powerful leader, Lord Galen Imsmaeleon Ripper!”

The crowd went wild at the mention of their ruler, and he appeared from his box, jumping down into the arena with a loud thud as his armor struck the ground, slowed only slightly by the massive mechanical wings on his back and the maneuvering jets beneath them.

“This is a no-holds-barred fight to the death!” the announcer said as she looked at me. “Fight!”

“No-holds-barred,” I assumed, meant that I was permitted to use any weapons at my disposal, even magic. I would need it if I was going to defeat Galen without a weapon, which currently seemed like an impossibility. This condition also meant that Galen could use any weapon at his disposal, and rockets streaked from his armor the moment I landed in the arena. They weren’t heat seeking or enchanted to track their target, and I teleported out of their path and fled from the blast.

Lord Galen didn’t try that trick again, either because he was out of rockets or because he wanted a more entertaining fight. Instead, he used the thrusters on his power armor to lift himself off the ground and fired bolas at me from a wrist-mounted weapon. The wire stretched between them was sharp enough to shred flesh, but not metal. I deduced this fact as one wrapped around my prosthetic arm, ripping apart the sleeve but doing no other harm. Another sheared through my tail, cutting it off short, and one of the balls clipped a hindhoof. Galen looked disappointed that his attack had failed to achieve anything meaningful and switched his tactic to flying directly toward me.

I’d started my gallop just trying to evade his attacks, but now I had a destination in mind. In one of the corridors leading out of the arena, I’d spotted a pile of weapons, obviously placed there to tempt me. It was going to work, too; although I saw nothing particularly useful, having something with which to fight was better than nothing. As Galen swooped down toward me, I used ERSaTS to put on a burst of speed and escape his claws. I ducked into the corridor where the weapons were waiting and grabbed the first thing with my magic that I saw, a badly nicked sword sticking out of the pile with its hilt exposed.

The instant I levitated the sword, I felt a jolt of magic run through me. A gem set into the blade of the sword that had been dull and lifeless before I’d touched its hilt with my magic began to glow a brilliant blue, and the blade took on a more subdued glow along its whole length. It was some kind of enchanted sword that required a unicorn’s magic to activate; it was likely the griffins had had no idea and simply written it off as a dull sword to throw into the pile. Galen rounded the corner and, seeing I was trapped in the corridor, pounced at me. Magic had been building along the sword since the moment I’d picked it up, and I allowed it to release. Lightning coursed from the tip, striking Galen squarely in the chest and flinging him back with such force that he tumbled end over end across half the arena.

Lord Galen stopped himself as he struck the ground, digging in his mechanical claws and rending deep gouges into the earth. His power armor’s wings twitched uncontrollably, malfunctioning from the blast of magical lightning, and he folded them away with his claws before turning his baleful glare back to me. I was galloping toward him now with the sword held in front of me, powering itself back up. The armor on his shoulders shifted, and he fired a grenade at me. I teleported away as it exploded into fire that burned far longer than it should have. Two more grenades followed, leaving burning patches of the arena where I couldn’t travel.

I skidded to a halt and let the sword release its magic again, sending another stream of lightning toward Galen. Even without wings, his thrusters were active, and he used them to propel himself back onto his hindlegs, letting the lightning pass harmlessly before him and strike the arena wall instead. With more time required to build up another lightning strike, Galen charged me. Using ERSaTS, I dodged his massive claws as they nearly clipped me, and I skirted his power armored side. As I passed by one of his thrusters, I used my magic to increase its already high temperature until it overheated and sputtered out. Galen tried to regain control as his other thruster continued to fire and nearly flipped him over, and I used the opportunity to make my escape from close range.

Galen spun around at me, enraged, and fired more bolas at me, but his shots were wild and flew over my head. Even without his thrusters, the motors in his armor made him fast, and he was soon on top of me again, swinging at me with his claws. The sword was only partially charged, but I released its magic directly into his claw, which lost power temporarily and fell short of my body. Using ERSaTS, I targeted Galen’s power armor and let out quick bursts of lightning, but that proved to be the wrong move.

They caused a little mayhem but not enough to slow him appreciably, and he reached out with a giant claw and snapped my sword. As the blade shattered, the magic became unpredictable, and I dropped it from my magical grasp before it did me any harm. With his other claw, Galen grabbed me without squeezing hard enough to crush or slice and lifted me up to face him.

“Your pony withardry is nodding compared do dah mighd of griffinth,” he slurred, his mechanical beak incooperative thanks to one of my lightning strikes.

The crowd was cheering their lord’s victory so loudly and they were so fixated on him that it took them longer than it should have to notice the airship beginning to hover over the stadium. The rebels aboard, having succeeded in killing the few guards who hadn’t come to watch the spectacle, had managed to launch undetected and secured weapons from an armory near Downtown. Now, they let loose the full armaments of the airship upon the packed spectators. Missiles and minigun rounds tore through the mythologists as they looked up in horror at their doom. Lord Galen turned his eyes skyward in time to see the airship just moments before anti-machine rounds tore through his power armor as if it were made of paper. His claws relaxed as he died, and I was able to slip away from his corpse and out of the line of fire as quickly as I could. The workers of Downtown were reaping their vengeance on their oppressors, and it was sheer luck that I hadn’t been consumed by it already.

***

After the attack on Borghan’s Pit and the death of Lord Galen Imsmaeleon Ripper, the rest was trivial. Not all the ruling raiders had been killed, but after the initial slaughter caused some survivors to flee, there weren’t enough left to put up an adequate fight. Strange as it seemed to me, they stayed in Moonraze and accepted their fate, sentenced to Downtown until the city could be rearranged. They genuinely believed in the tenets of mythologism; if they’d been beaten, then they’d accept that their victors were inherently better and stronger than them—at least until a challenge could be made. A new government was in the making, and with many of the leadership roles being filled by non-mythologists, change was on the way for Moonraze. That fulfilled my mission for Gideon as far as I was concerned, so I sought out Rael to make sure I was allowed to leave the city and would be rewarded for this incredibly hazardous job. I found him near the square in front of what had been Lord Galen’s palace, watching griffins remove corpses of other griffins from crane hooks.

“I pray this will be an end to such things,” he said as I approached.

“What did they do?” I asked, though it wasn’t hard to guess.

“Mostly they stood against Galen and refused to accept his rules,” Rael said, “Or they caught him in a bad mood. That one there was discovered to be an agent of Grand Marshal Gideon sent here to overthrow Lord Galen.”

“Gideon had two agents in the city, then,” I said. “Looks like he was smart to have a backup.”

“Two agents?” Rael asked me in confusion. “Are you an agent of Gideon?”

“I thought you were,” I told him, realizing I’d never actually asked him about the Grand Marshal. Our paths and goals had aligned, but perhaps not for the same reason.

“Good heavens, no,” Rael said vehemently. “I came here as a missionary to spread the teachings of Rok to these misled souls. I wish it could have been accomplished without violence, but Rok does teach that violence is sometimes justified in order to achieve peace. Whether this counts as defense …”

Rael raised his claws to indicate that he was unsure whether what we had done was justified by his faith and was experiencing a spiritual conflict.

“Good luck with … that,” I told Rael, gesturing vaguely. “Maybe we’ll meet again someday, under happier circumstances.”

“Maybe we will,” Rael said wistfully. “Farewell, Doc, and may you bless and be blessed by those around you.”

Leaving the Rokkist acolyte to his contemplation, I departed Moonraze. I’d found a shotgun to replace my missing one, and the rest of my possessions were waiting for me outside the roost. Once I had those, I’d find Gideon’s agent who’d delivered me here (assuming they hadn’t left me for dead) and be on my way back to the Pleasure Coast, reequipped and ready for whatever lay ahead.

Level Up
New Quest: A City on the Sea – Return to the Pleasure Coast.
New Perk: Well-Rounded – You’ve learned some new skills in Shearpoint to round out your repertoire. +3 to Electronics and Pilot.
Alchemistry +2
Alteration Magic +2
Athletics +1
Electronics +6
Manipulation Magic +2
Melee Weapons +2
Pilot +7
Repair +4

Chapter 15: Interlude by the Sea

Chapter Fifteen: Interlude by the Sea

“Before we get back to the music, I want to send out a personal heart-felt thanks to my l-ovely listeners out there, and to the ones who bring me the news. You truly are the ones who make it happen. And now, thanks to Doc Silverarm, that’s even truer than before. I want to reach each and ev-er-y one of you out there in the Commonwealth, so if you have some news you want reported or something you want to hear from yours t-ruly, get it to Pleasure Coast any way you can. This is the Commonwealth Crooner, here for your l-istening p-leasure. And now, back to what you’ve all been waiting for: the music.”

The Commonwealth Crooner didn’t seem to resent that I’d introduced Radio Free Wasteland as competition to his own station. I wasn’t sure if that was because he was so overjoyed to be broadcasting to half the Commonwealth instead of just one city, or because Radio Free Wasteland wasn’t really competition. The news from the Equestrian Wasteland could be interesting and novel, but that was because it was a foreign land; the news there meant nothing to the griffins living here. Sage could see everything that happened in Equestria via the Single Pony Project towers, but they didn't reach the Griffin Commonwealth, so she couldn’t report on anything happening here. The Crooner, with his ad hoc system of volunteer reporters, had a better vision of what was happening in this land than DJ Pon3 ever would.

It had been strange at first, living in the Pleasure Coast again after spending so much time traveling through the Commonwealth’s interior, but I adjusted. Summer Sunrise was surprised to see me return to his clinic, but he let me sleep there again (for a modest rent). I settled into practicing medicine, doing alchemistry, and taking odd repair job to earn caps as I looked for a more permanent residence. I had my eye on a couple places: one was on the boardwalk, though I’d have to ingest Rad-X and RadAway daily if I lived over the water; and the other on the bluffs to the north, overlooking the sea in the direction of Equestria. I had enough caps saved up to get one; the only thing left was a decision. I was contemplating the matter when the door to the Hope Drive Clinic swung open and a unicorn ghoul trotted in.

“Doc Silverarm,” she croaked as I recollected her as the ghoul that had previously fetched me on behalf of then-Mayor Gastón Delgado, “Gloria Delgado requests your presence at Le Grand Resorte at your earliest convenience.”

“Thank you,” I told her. “I can find my own way there.”

As she briskly left, I considered what the leader of the Sunset Strip Dragons could possibly want with me. Perhaps she desired details about my duels in Moonraze, or she wanted me to compete in the fights at Le Grande Resorte—something I wasn’t eager to do after my experiences in said duels. There was one thing I did know: it wasn’t wise to keep the head of one of the Three Families waiting.

After packing up and yelling to Sumer Sunrise that I was headed out, I left for Le Grande Resorte. Despite the unity that the Family and the Sunset Strip Dragons had shown against the Immortals during the last mayoral election, tensions seemed to be high along the border between the two territories. Members of each eyed each other warily across the street that divided the central city, and I quickly detoured into Dragon territory before I got embroiled in a gang war. Le Grande Resorte was exactly as I remembered it: a getaway that served brutality and hedonism to a sensation-starved clientele.

Upon my arrival, I was led up to the sitting room where I’d first met Mayor Delgado. The room was now occupied by his daughter. I’d seen her only once before, at the secret meeting with Family Head—now Mayor—Gerald to expose the Immortals’ attempted coup. She’d changed her look since then. To appear as a more respectable businessgriffin, she’d traded in her studded black leather for a suit, albeit one with plenteous silver buttons that weren’t a far stretch from studs.

“You came quickly. Good,” she commented as she put down the book she’d been reading. “Would you say you’re familiar with fighting, Doc?”

“I suppose I would,” I said. “I’ve done plenty of fighting, whether to survive or to defeat raiders, both in the Equestrian Wasteland and now here in the Griffin Commonwealth. I don’t really have any interest in pit fighting, though, unless I’m truly desperate.”

“That’s not why I invited you here,” Gloria said before hesitating. “Well, not exactly. I did invite you here to talk about pit fighting, but not about you entering as a competitor. I never did reward you for solving my father’s assassination. As a means of doing so, I want to offer you a job.”

“I’m listening.”

“It’s an important job,” Gloria began. “In three days, there will be a celebration here for the two-quarter anniversary of when I became the boss. To honor the occasion, the Whip will fight her two hundredth—and final—fight in the pit. I want you to find a worthy opponent so that this match will be one to remember.”

I’d seen the Whip in action, and she was a fearsome fighter. It was during her 199th fight that Mayor Delgado had been assassinated, and in the confusion afterwards with electoral fighting, her 200th fight had never happened. Now, it seemed, the Sunset Strip Dragons had found an appropriate reason to hold that momentous fight.

“Do you think you’re up to the task?” Gloria asked me.

“I promise I will do everything I can,” I said. Though I hadn’t been around to witness the Whip’s first 197 fights, like most of the residents of the Pleasure Coast, I was eager to see her in action again. If this was to be her last fight, I had to make it a good one.

***

As proficient as I was in combat, I had no knowledge of pit fighting culture or the local roster outside of the Whip, so I began my search by seeking out pit fighters throughout the city. Bloodsport was a common local pastime, so I visited places other than Le Grande Resorte. I spoke to griffins and ponies alike, both living and ghoulish, seeking a worthy opponent for the Whip. One name kept coming up as I sought out the best fighter: Sebastian the Bull.

Sebastian lived in isolation in a half-sunken ship off the coast and didn’t like to be disturbed. Apparently he shot at any approaching ships as soon as he heard their engines, so I needed a better way to reach him. The Library of Arcana held a potential solution, and I memorized a new spell from one of its tomes before heading out to Sebastian’s island. I could make out the outline of it as I stood on the shore, and I cast the spell before tentatively outstretching a hoof. To my great relief, the spell did exactly what is promised, and my hoof didn’t pass through the water. My PipBuck clicked as I stepped out onto the waves, but I didn’t fall through. After a few more steps, I began to overcome my fear of sinking and I settled into a rhythm as I walked across the sea toward my destination.

As the sunken ship loomed up ahead of me, I spotted Sebastian seated on one side, fishing pole in hand. Sebastian was a minotaur, the only one the residents of the Pleasure Coast had seen since the megaspells had fallen. Sebastian was also a ghoul, though he looked less decayed than most of the ghouls I’d known. His hair was all gone and it was possible to see through his skin in some places where it had been cut and stretched away, but he was still mostly encased in it, though it was now tough and leathery. He looked in my direction as I approached but seemed not to have noticed me. A moment later, his head swiftly snapped back to stare me down incredulously.

“What are you doing out here?” he shouted to me before pointing to the side of the ship. “Can’t you read?”

The ship was covered in crudely painted warnings to stay away on penalty of death.

“You’re Sebastian the Bull?” I asked, though the answer was obvious.

“What do you think?” Sebastian gave my question the respect it deserved as he set his fishing rod down and picked up a shotgun.

“Wait!” I entreated. “I just want to talk.”

“About what?” Sebastian asked suspiciously.

“You used to be a pit fighter,” I said. “I hear you were the best.”

“Undefeated in five hundred fights,” he said morosely, “Do you think you’re the one to finally kill me, then? I don’t see it.”

“I don’t intend to fight you at all,” I said quickly, hopefully before he jumped to any conclusions. “I was sent to find a worthy opponent for the Whip.”

“Never heard of them. How good are they?” Sebastian asked bluntly.

“One hundred ninety-nine fights undefeated. Her two hundredth fight will be her last.”

“Last?” Sebastian said, cocking a nonexistent eyebrow; I sensed I’d gotten his full attention. “Why?”

“I wasn’t told,” I replied.

“Does she seek death?” Sebastian asked.

“Not that I know of,” I said, before carefully considering my next words. “Do you?”

“I do,” Sebastian answered plainly. “I’ve lived too long, but in five hundred fights I could not find anyone able to give me what I desired, so I resigned myself to isolation—and to awaken one day with my mind no longer my own. Can the Whip give me what I seek?”

“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “She must be the greatest fighter Pleasure Coast has seen since you, but I’ve never seen you fight.”

“When is the fight to be held?” Sebastian asked after thinking for a long time.

“In two days, at Le Grande Resorte.”

“I will be there,” Sebastian said with conviction. “This fight will be my last, one way or another.”

***

In two days, Le Grande Resorte was packed fit to burst. The sky above the arena was nearly blotted out by flying griffins, and the courtyard lights had been turned on even though it was midday. Because I had helped arrange the fight, I was given a spot in the gallery overlooking the courtyard, and security griffins made sure the flying onlookers wouldn’t spoil views from that angle. The day had been filled with fights already in celebration of Gloria Delgado’s ascension, but it was obvious that everyone was waiting for this final fight. That meant things got a little rowdy when there was some delay after the previous bout. I tried to suss out what the holdup was and spotted that Gloria’s box had been abandoned. The Whip’s last fight had been meant to provide the greatest part of her celebration, and the fight organizers didn’t want to go ahead until she was present to witness it, even though the crowd was growing restless.

Boos and hisses changed quickly to cheers and hollers as the Whip appeared unannounced in her raider-esque armor and flew to the arena. The organizers tried to stop her, but she paid them no heed and entered the arena anyway. The announcer’s microphone screeched to life, and they spoke with surprised and uncertain words before raising the tone.

“And now, the fight you’ve all been waiting for, to cap off the celebration of Gloria Delgado’s first two quarters of prosperous leadership. We have for you today the long-awaited two-hundredth fight of Le Grande Resorte’s favorite fighter: The Whip!”

Deafening cheers went up as the Whip uncoiled her favored weapon and swiped it around in style.

“Facing her, a long-missed face, a veteran of five hundred fights! Give it up for Sebastiaaaaaaaan the Buuuuuuuull!”

The crowd cheered only slightly less passionately for the minotaur as he stepped into the arena calmly. Sebastian had clad himself in assorted plates of armor that would protect him well from the Whip’s attacks, but restricted his vision to a single slit. Upon his shoulder he carried a sword so massive, it stretched the definition of the word. It was more like a long, heavy plate of iron with sharpened edges attached to a handle. Yet, he seemed to have no trouble carrying it or moving in his armor. The two opponents stood at opposite ends of the repurposed swimming pool and stared each other down.

“Ready!” the announcer called when they couldn’t delay any longer. “Fight!”

Both fighters moved with alarming speed. Sebastian ran straight at the Whip, sword trailing behind him, while she jumped into the air, her wings to propelling her, and flicked her bladed whip so that it snapped back and forth. The Whip struck first as the two of them passed, striking out with her weapon, but Sebastian pulled his sword up with lightning quickness and the whip bounced off. The two spun to face each other as their momentum continued to pull them away, and the Whip struck again. This time, her whip wrapped around Sebastian’s sword, the cable at its core safe from being cut by even such an impressive weapon. She tried to pull the sword away to expose the minotaur, but Sebastian had the strength advantage and yanked his sword backwards, tearing the whip from his opponent's claws.

As her whip clattered behind Sebastian, the Whip charged toward him, aiming for his legs. He brought his sword down in a heavy blow. It would have split the griffin in two had her attack not been a feint, and she nimbly propelled herself upward and ran across the sword’s blade. As she jumped over Sebastian, his blade already moving for her, the Whip kicked him in the back of his helm with a hindpaw, and he tipped forward. By the time she’d swooped down and snatched her whip back up, the minotaur had already recovered and was facing her down again.

Sebastian approached the Whip, keeping his sword ahead and ready to cut her off if she tried to fly around him. Space in the arena wasn’t terribly cramped, though, and the Whip went for the flanking attempt. Sebastian ran in her direction and looked able to cut her off, until she snapped her whip around his sword again. He attempted to repeat his disarming maneuver, but her whip wasn’t as entangled this time and she easily pulled it away as she flew past the minotaur. She swung the whip back at Sebastian from behind as she passed him, and it wrapped around his right leg before pulling free with a grating hiss of blades on metal.

Sebastian swung his sword around in a circle, and the Whip quickly closed her wings and dropped to the ground to avoid being beheaded. She ran along the ground before launching back into the air and swooping over Sebastian. He swung up with his sword, easily able to reach her with his height and the length of the blade combined. The Whip struck down and wrapped her whip around his head, which proved to be enough of a distraction that she didn’t get hit by the bladed edge of the sword. She went flying as the flat slammed into her, surely breaking some ribs but not bisecting her.

The two fighters circled, completely dead to the cheering fans surrounding them. The Whip lashed out and Sebastian blocked with his sword, though she flicked her whip down at the last moment so the whip wrapped around not only the blade, but also Sebastian’s armored wrist. The two danced around for several long minutes, feeling each other out more comprehensively now that the fight hadn’t ended at its very beginning. They kept striking at each other, but neither was able to land a definitive blow.

I started to notice a pattern in the fight now, even though it initially seemed random. The Whip was keeping her distance but had still taken a few more cuts and hits. (Nothing that would seriously cripple her, though, after she’d been hit with the flat of the blade.) At first glance, her whip attacks only seemed to be probing Sebastian’s defenses or keeping him at bay; some of them were just that, but many of her strikes were carefully calculated. When Sebastian was standing still, I noticed (with the aid of my binoculars) that the blades on her whip had broken some of the links holding his armor together in key places. The minotaur’s flesh remained unscathed, but that was about to change.

As Sebastian swung at the Whip, clipping a wing, she swooped down and wrapped her whip around his ankle. When she pulled it free, dodging another big swing of the minotaur’s sword, the last few links holding the plates there in place snapped … and the armor fell away. The remaining blades on the whip shredded Sebastian’s ankle, slicing through flesh and tendons and cutting into bone, and Sebastian staggered to a knee.

He continued to put up a fight as the Whip harried him, spinning on his knee and his good leg as he deflected more whip strikes, but he was now inarguably on the defensive. The Whip went for his sword arm next, wrapping her whip around his wrist and using the same trick she had on his ankle. Links snapped, plates fell away, and Sebastian’s hand released the sword as it went dead. As she spun her whip around at him again, he blocked his head with his good arm, whose armor weathered the attack without breaking this time.

The Whip spun around Sebastian, and he reached out for her vainly as she turned. She got behind him and grabbed for his helm with one claw while dragging her whip along behind her with the other, snapping the links holding the helm in place. Sebastian got ahold of her then and crushed a hindleg in his gauntleted grip before throwing her across the arena with his helm still in her claws.

Sebastian turned and reached for his fallen sword with his good hand, staggering upon his ruined ankle, but the Whip had miraculously recovered and aimed her whip at the minotaur. The coils wrapped around his throat and Sebastian froze. I couldn’t hear anything but the screams and cheers from the crown, but I could see Sebastian mouth “Do it.” And the Whip obliged. With a yank on her whip, Sebastian’s neck was shredded. His head fell to the ground, with his body following shortly after it.

The crowd continued to yell and cheer so loudly that even when the announcer tried to announce the Whip’s victory, their voice could not be heard. The Whip flicked her weapon violently to throw off the bits of Sebastian still attached to it, and the crowd’s frenzy only grew. The Whip coiled up her infamous weapon before stepping away from Sebastian’s corpse and flying up to the arena’s exit. From there she flew to stand atop the arena cage, where everyone could see her clearly, and did something the Whip had never done in her past 199 fights.

Moving tenderly to avoid exacerbating the injuries she sustained, she reached up for her helmet. A hush fell over the crowd as their favorite fighter, who’d never spoken or revealed herself, pulled her helmet away from sweat-soaked feathers, revealing Gloria Delgado. There was a momentary pause before cheering broke out even louder than before, something I hadn’t thought possible until that moment.

***

Things soon settled back into a regular rhythm in the Pleasure Coast. Random jobs kept me busy until I purchased a place to stay in the northern heights. It felt strange to have somewhere of my own to live and go back to every day. In the Equestrian Wasteland, I’d had homes in major settlements, but they’d largely been used as brief rest stops during my travels. I still had the itch to keep wandering here in the Griffin Commonwealth, even though it’d be much easier both on my life and the possibility of reuniting with Sage if I stayed put. Summer Sunrise hired me on as a personal assistant, so I had a steady source of income even if there were no jobs that needed me, not that that ever seemed likely. Maybe it was that I sought them out, but I rarely had truly empty days.

A couple weeks after the Whip’s last fight, Summer Sunrise and I headed to the outskirts of the Pleasure Coast, at the behest of Mayor von Griff, to attend to scavengers recently settled there. I was in high spirits and didn’t think anything could bring me down. The Red Harvest had arrived the day before, and amidst the flurry of activity as griffins rushed to do business with the zebra ghouls, Captain Zaliski found a way to get a message to me from Equestria. The crew had managed to establish contact in Manehattan with a few ponies who hadn’t shot at them on sight upon discovering they were zebra ghouls, who’d in turn brought news to Tenpony Tower. Just as they were preparing to set sail back across the Celestia Sea, Violet Night had come herself to speak with them on behalf of Sage. She was overjoyed to hear that I was still alive after I’d vanished from her sight several years earlier, and she promised to keep somepony on the lookout for the Red Harvest so we could continue to communicate. Sage had also let me know that she was looking for somepony to take over as DJ Pon3 for her and had several candidates in mind that she could train. Before the Red Harvest left the harbor, I sent a letter back for Sage to be delivered whenever they next visited Manahattan, informing her of my adventures in the interior of the Commonwealth and that I could now hear her on the radio.

Summer Sunrise, on the other hoof, was not in a very good mood. He saw our mission as pointless and kept complaining that the scavengers didn’t accept medical attention from anyone but their “medicine-hens.” He was sure we’d be turned away quite rudely, but we went anyway because the mayor had offered a hefty reward to for even making the attempt. Summer Sunrise was willing to make a fat stack of caps for doing nothing more than being yelled at, and I wasn’t in the mood to disagree. Perhaps, given my previous dealings with the scavengers, they’d even allow us to help. The reason the mayor wanted our assistance was because there was a bit of a situation outside of the Pleasure Coast. Scavengers had turned up in unprecedented numbers, and even a cursory glance showed that many of them were injured. They’d been fighting something out in the wastes and had come to the Coast for shelter—something the mayor wasn’t too keen on. He wanted them gone, and the best chance to make that happen would be treating their wounds.

The scavenger camps stretched out around the edge of the Pleasure Coast, a vast city of tents and lean-tos. Flags marked out the territories of each clan; they mostly kept to themselves, but I could see some communication between them, made necessary by the crisis they were all facing. Most clans behaved exactly as Summer Sunrise had expected. Some clans had a distinct hatred for ghouls, and whenever Summer knew of one, he always sent me in to inquire alone first. He didn’t know all of them, unfortunately, and we were driven away by threats more than once. It wasn’t just ghoul-hatred, though; the scavengers were staunchly protective of their traditions, and some drove us off simply for offering to stand in the place of their medicine-hens.

There was, however, one clan that did allow us to treat them. They had lost all their medicine-hens and had no family ties to any of the clans who could spare theirs, so they were willing to accept aid if it meant saving the lives of their members, even if that aid came from two ponies. They were called the Dune Riders, and they had been savaged viciously. According to them, they had lost nearly two-thirds of their number in an initial attack they were hesitant to talk about, and had lost even more as they limped back to the Pleasure Coast seeking aid. I couldn’t imagine what could have done such a thing in the scavengers’ home territory … until I saw one of their vehicles that hadn’t been covered in tarps while it was being repaired.

“What did that?” I asked, gesturing to the damage as I treated Erish, a member of the clan.

“My road-beast is badly injured,” she stated and winced as I stitched up her leg. “Another beast is to blame, untamed and with no connection to the road.”

“It flew?” I asked in surprise.

“No, not of the sky, but no … connection to the road,” she said as she pointed at her vehicle’s wheels.

“What did it look like?” I asked.

“It was tall. Two legs, four legs, hard to say. Many—it must have been many,” Erish said, sounding like she was trying to convince herself. “Many attacked us with claws and firearms and hexes.”

“A Dog of War,” I said, and Erish looked at me uncomprehendingly.

I’d seen claw marks like those on the vehicle before, and the injuries we’d seen matched the capabilities of Dogs of War. I found it hard to believe that one Dog had done the damage that all the scavengers were suffering from, but it wasn’t impossible. Why would Dogs of War be attacking them? What were they protecting out in the wastes? Had a scavenger killed one and experienced their wrath like Greta’s Grenadiers? I coudln’t say. There was very little I really understood about the Dogs of War. All I knew was that they protected robotics networks and they were probably made by RoBronco.

“RoBronco?” Summer Sunrise asked, and I realized at some point I’d begun thinking aloud.

“Sorry, I was just wondering how something from RoBronco ended up here in the Commonwealth, on the wrong side of the sea,” I explained.

“Coulda been here all along, y’know,” Summer Sunrise said as he wrapped fresh bandages around a griffin’s head. “RoBronco did at least try t’ sell t’ the Commonwealth, though they weren’t very successful in competin’ with griffin robotics. More likely I’d guess’d be that it came from th’ shippin’ yards at Castoway or one’a the RoBronco factories down in the Iron Valley.”

“The Iron Valley?” I asked, hopefully.

“Yeah. Down south, the griffins let all kindsa companies set up shop, not like in the north. I’m sure there’re RoBronco factories down there. Durin’ the War, taxes an’ labor were a lot cheaper here, so Equestrian corps took advantage.”

And there it was, a path forward calling my name; settling down wasn’t for me, not yet. I’d traveled through the northern Griffin Commonwealth, and now I was set on visiting the south. If Dogs of War were attacking scavengers, I was going to find out why and get to the bottom of exactly what these automatons were. For that, I had to travel to the Iron Valley and find the source of it all: RoBronco.

Level Up
New Quest: The Wastes – Travel across the wastes to reach the Iron Valley.
New Perk: The Doctor’s Touch – All potions made by you using Alchemistry provide a minor health bonus when consumed.
Luck +1* (6)
Alchemistry +3 (52)
Alteration Magic +6** [Skill Book] +4 (38)
Barter +4 (113)
Medicine +3 (123)
Repair +3 (113)
Speech +3 (112)

*I Make My Own Luck
**Crash Course

Chapter 16: Into the South

Chapter Sixteen: Into the South

“… crisis may have abated, at least for the moment. It’s too soon t—if whatever drove the scavengers to Plea—oast in the first place has b—esolved, but we can only ho—ife will re—to normal and the sca—eak their camps an—”

I switched the radio on my PipBeak off and gave up on trying to listen to the Commonwealth Crooner’s news amid the increasing interruptions as the signal from Radio PC repeatedly broke up. It wasn’t like I’d been able to make out much even without the bad reception. The roar and rattle of the vehicle I was strapped into meant that I could barely hear the words, even with the volume on my PipBeak turned up to the maximum.

The Dust Riders had been in no shape to leave the camps around Pleasure Coast, ravaged as they were, but I had managed to find another clan of scavengers who were undaunted by the Dog of War attacks and ready to go back out into the wastes. Paran, pathfinder of the Whirlwind Wranglers, had agreed to let me ride with them south to Castoway; from there, I’d make my way to the Iron Valley. I wasn’t riding with the pathfinder himself, but with Quince, another member of the clan. His “road-beast” had two wheels on the front in the normal configuration for an auto-carriage, but the two at the vehicle’s rear were inline, and swiveled as Quince steered. The seating was also inline, and seats had to be entered by climbing in from above. Though the vehicle had space for three riders in addition to the driver, those seats had been filled by supplies, and I’d had to help Quince resituate those in my seat and strap them securely to the vehicle before we could depart. I sat immediately behind the griffin as we rumbled along through the wastes, my head exposed to the elements.

Before we left, I’d garbed myself in a rough approximation of how the scavengers dressed. Nothing could be left exposed to the elements, so I’d had to acquire boots, goggles, and an air filtration mask, as well as wrap my mane, horn, and tail. Whatever I couldn’t buy from shops in the city, the scavengers had been happy to sell to me for bills from the stack of Commonwealth guilders I’d gathered during my travels through the north Commonwealth. They were strangely picky about them, though, refusing any bills with more than minimal damage.

The need for my new protective gear became clear as soon as we’d set off. The dust kicked up by the wheels of the road-beasts quickly coated everything; if I hadn’t covered up, I’d have been blinking dirt from my eyes, spitting grit from my tongue, and washing my mane for weeks. There was a semi-fertile area along the coast, a little way away from Pleasure Coast and the range of the megaspell that had missed it, that would not have been so dusty; but that wasn’t where the scavengers liked to ride. They preferred the lifeless, gritty desert between the coast and the mountains as a track for their road-beasts, a wide-open expanse where anything could be a road (apart from the occasional ruin from back when the wastes hadn’t been quite so wasted).

A gunshot sounded nearby, and I looked around for the source and what was being shot at. Atop one of the other vehicles stood a griffin passenger who’d stepped out of their seat and was taking aim ahead with a long-scoped rifle. They fired again as their target came into view, lunging toward a road-beast that swerved out of its way. The assailant was nearly the size of an ordinary auto-carriage and covered in overlapping plates of organic armor. It landed heavily as its claws missed its target, but quickly recovered and swiped at the griffin who’d shot at it as they passed by. The griffin with the rifle leaned back, kept from falling off their vehicle by the cable strapped to their waist, and the beast’s claws sailed by harmlessly. I thought we’d left it behind, but it quickly reappeared, rolling forward in a ball and overtaking the road-beast the scavenger was perched upon.

“What is that thing?” I asked Quince, yelling to be heard over the swarm of engines.

“An armordillo!” he yelled back. “They often try to wound our road-beasts but usually give up once we leave their territory!”

It was with a mix of amazement and dread that I watched Quince pull out a paper map and point to some obscure markings on it, requiring him to let go of the steering wheel entirely.

“How good of a shot are you, Doc?” Quince asked.

“Well, I’ve never heard any complaints from all the things I’ve shot!” I yelled back.

“So, is that good or bad?” Quince asked, apparently not getting my joke.

“Uh, good!” I said simply. “Should I help take the armordillo down? I don’t have a very good shot from here!”

“No, leave the armordillo to Shanez!” Quince ordered. “She’s got it handled; it’s not a problem! Keep your eyes on the sky for skvaders! There’s a nest nearby and they’re sure to be stirred up at the sound of gunshots!”

Skvaders? I wondered, but I saw that passengers (and in some cases, drivers) on other road-beasts were preparing weapons and scanning the sky above, so I did the same. The armordillo tried one last attack before giving up and rolling away, but in the few brief seconds I’d watched it do so, the skvaders showed up. When I swung my battle rifle back around, there was a flock of half-rabbit, half-bird creatures swooping down upon the scavenger convoy. I’d never seen anything quite like them before, though I supposed it made sense that the Griffin Commonwealth was home to more than one hybrid species.

I fired my rifle into the underbelly of one as it flew past before turning my attention to another swooping down toward the exposed griffin who’d been firing on the armordillo. With ERSaTS to help, I couldn’t miss. As I perforated the beast’s torso, it shrieked, and I was able to get a good look at the rows of needlelike teeth within its mouth while time was still slow. As ERSaTS wore off and the skvader began to veer away, the repeated bursts from my rifle clipped its wing and it fell, plummeting to the ground ahead of the road-beast it had tried to attack. The vehicle bounced as it rolled over the now definitively dead skvader, the griffin standing atop it miraculously keeping her balance.

Gunshots rang out among the convoy as scavengers defended themselves and their prized vehicles, but none of them ever seemed to slow down. If anything, the convoy picked up pace as it fought off the flying rabbits. Whether it was to gain some distance from the nest or for the thrill of it, I couldn’t tell. A skvader flew directly at Quince’s road-beast from ahead and I peppered it with shots, forcing it away. They were certainly hearty creatures, in spite of their deceptively cuddly appearance, but they were far from invincible.

As a skvader flew over the convoy, one of the scavengers fired an RPG at it, blowing it to bits and scattering it across the waste and nearby road-beasts. A few angry shouts came from the scavengers who owned the blood-splattered vehicles, but the attacker’s extreme measure seemed to succeed in convincing the skvaders to leave the convoy alone for the most part. Some of them nipped at the edges for a few minutes, but they were eventually driven off by the shots from the scavengers there.

“Is this … normal?” I asked Quince after a cry of victory went up from the griffins, loud enough to be heard over the engines, if only just barely.

“There are many beasts in the wastes, Doc!” Quince replied exuberantly. “None, however, can compete with our road-beasts and our might! You will see, the Drive is far from boring!”

***

Quince’s attestation had been accurate: it was far from a boring journey. There were plenty of beasts in the wastes besides just armordillos and skvaders, including post-War abominations spawned from megaspell fallout and grossly enlarged versions of creatures that had existed before. Most of them couldn’t keep up with the scavengers’ vehicles for long, which was these griffins’ greatest advantage. Could that explain why driving had become the primary staple of their culture, rather than the scavenging they were named for? I flipped through my old copy of the Book of Rok at the next stop, when I was no longer worried the pages would be torn out by the wind and left scattered for leagues behind us, searching for some notes the flightless griffin may have made long ago.

Rok had indeed met scavengers in has travels, and taken notes, but there were little similarities with the scavengers of today. One of the few things that had remained the same over the years was, fittingly, their scavenging. Though everything with the scavengers seemed to be couched in terms of driving, they’d never given up picking through the ruins that dotted the wastes in order to acquire items they could trade with others.

Another thing Rok had noted that still held true was the scavengers’ distinctive clothing. Even then, when they hadn’t had to contend with the dust kicked up by their vehicles or the breakneck speeds they traveled at, they’d covered themselves completely. It made sense when picking through dangerous ruins to have protection, but this was more than that. There was a sense of almost religious purity that accompanied it, and it could also be found in the terms they used for themselves, such as “Unsullied.” It was clear after a day riding with them that the scavengers saw themselves as better than other griffins in the Commonwealth, perhaps a holdover from the early days when they’d been better shielded from any megaspell fallout and were less affected, even if the effects on this side of the sea were far milder than in Equestria. That obsession with remaining clean had had unforeseen consequences, though. It would have been rude to aks outright, but I had a strong suspicion that the scavengers were no longer able to fly. With their wings bundled up as they were, they would be unable to do so, and I’d never seen them remove the coverings to do more than tend to injuries or clean themselves.

Cleaning for the scavengers was itself a ritual that strongly reinforced my observations on their obsession with purity. I held to no such beliefs, though I could see the appeal as I worked to clean my battle rifle during a stop to refuel. The dust kicked up by the scavengers’ vehicles got absolutely everywhere, and it was why they not only covered themselves completely, but also their weapons when they weren’t using them. My rifle was in a frightful state after several fights with beasts in the wastes, and I had to disassemble it and thoroughly clean it just to be sure it would function properly when needed again.

As I worked to reassemble my main firearm, I watched as the scavengers took turns refueling their road-beasts. When Pathfinder Chan of the Irradiated Pinions had told me months earlier that scavengers used guilders to purchase fuel for their road-beasts, what I’d pictured hadn’t been anything like this. There were no suppliers they traded guilders to that I could see—just an abandoned petrol station in the middle of nowhere. It was quite a large station, with eighteen pumps, but the Whirlwind Wranglers were a sizable clan and had to cycle through so everyone could fuel their vehicles. On each of the pumps was a slot into which the griffins fed the Commonwealth Guilder bills one by one, until the machine was satisfied and allowed them to begin transferring fuel to their vehicles and into containers for on-the-road refueling. It was all completely automated, and I was amazed it still worked after all this time. It made sense now why the scavengers wanted guilders instead of other forms of currency; it was the only thing these pumps would accept as payment.

After they’d filled their road-beasts, the scavengers didn’t depart immediately. The petrol station was more than just a place to refuel for them. It was a safe place, perhaps even a sacred place. Some of the scavengers offered additional thanks to the pumps for their provision, while others swept away the dust covering the asphalt around them. Some took a more practical direction, using the air compressors by each pump to blow dust from the crevices of their road-beasts, or climbing onto the awning above them to peer out at the wasteland with binoculars and telescopes.

Some time had passed, and I was beginning to wonder if the scavengers intended to stop for the night. Suddenly, a shout went up from one of the griffins above, drawing the others to her.

“We ride!” Pathfinder Paran called down a few seconds later. “The Metal Ones are on their way!”

Every griffin hopped to to pack up anything they’d taken down and piled into their road-beasts. I hurried back to Quince’s vehicle and quickly strapped myself in as the engines around me roared to life. The Metal Ones were what the Whirlwind Wranglers had dubbed Dogs of War, and I tried to keep my eyes on the petrol station as we pulled away. It was difficult to tell through the dust and from such a distance, but I thought I could see them lope up to the petrol station and stop to stare after the road-beasts. Though none pursued us, more continued to arrive, and I lost count at seven after they became too indistinct to continue. It wasn’t many, but for Dogs of War, it was more than enough to take out the entire convoy. Why then, weren’t they following us?

***

I hunkered down as far as I could within Quince’s road-beast the next day, trying to avoid the blowing grit that engulfed everything. A dust storm had sprung up in our path and the Whirlwind Wranglers had—of course—driven directly into it. The entire world turned orange within the cloud of dust as the sun lit up the particles, making it impossible to see anything. All I could see through my goggles, when I wiped them clear, was Quince’s road-beast, and even then it became hard to make out details beyond a certain point. Every few seconds, a device at the vehicle’s front let out a sharp chirp, and I could hear others coming from the other road-beasts in the convoy, even over the wind and engines, albeit faintly. It was how the scavengers stayed together and kept from colliding with each other in the storm, but it sure was eerie and annoying.

They had plenty of practice, but I kept FITS cast anyway and watched the movement of the other scavengers around us. The spell was not impeded by the blowing sand, and I was able to see the friendly pips shuffle around as the scavengers steered their way through the storm. I also, briefly, saw a hostile pip appear before vanishing just as quickly. In the dust storm with next to no visibility, there was no telling what creature of the wastes it could have been. A few minutes later, I spotted a hostile pip again, which also came and went, and began to wonder if FITS was being unreliable. Then another hostile pip appeared, off to the left, and didn’t go away. From that direction also came a soft thud, and one of the chirps that had been very faint went completely silent.

“Quince, did you hear …” I yelled, but stopped when one of the nearer chirps to the left became more rapid.

Quickly, others from the left did the same and Quince switched his as well. The hostile pip remained on FITS as Quince began to steer to the left, closing with the rapid chirps while those to our right began to spread the message. I saw the hostile collide with a friendly and our ally blinked out, followed a moment later by another thud and end to the chirping from that direction.

“Get ready to fight!” Quince called as he reached down for a weapon.

“What would attack us in this storm?” I yelled back, baffled.

I could hear muffled gunshots in the storm and see flashes of light now in the direction of the hostile pip, so I drew my rifle without further questions. Normally, the blowing dust would have done some serious harm to the weapon, but that was before earlier that day when I’d helped the scavengers pick through a convenience store. It had certainly been aptly named, for only hours before we rode into the dust storm, one of the griffins had found an old grimoire that contained instructions on how to cast protective spells. One of them was able to repel dust, dirt, and mud from mechanisms, and had proved perfect for protecting my firearms from the ever-present dust of the wastes. After I’d enchanted my own weapons to keep them safe from external pollutants, I’d lent my unique talents as a unicorn to some of the scavengers, to protect their weapons and exposed portions of their road-beasts. It was far from the entire clan, but hopefully it would prove useful in the fight that awaited us.

Another road-beast came into sight through the blowing dust, and Quince pulled alongside until they were nearly touching. Others piled in slowly, creating an island of vehicles within the storm, close together for protection. The fight was closer now, and the convoy edged toward it. There were enough road-beasts together that I couldn’t see when we finally reached it, but I could tell because the nearest scavengers lit up the storm with their weapons. Among the gunshots, I also spotted energy beams slicing through the dust clouds, and came to a sinking realization of what was attacking the convoy.

A thud and flash marked the explosion as another road-beast was destroyed, and a Dog of War ran across the tops of the assembled vehicles, griffins struggling to turn quickly enough to fire upon it as it loped along on four legs. It shifted into its bipedal form as it reached a road-beast with a tower sticking up from its back. Using its foreclaws, it grabbed the supporting beams of the tower and twisted, unsettling it, and causing the structure to come tumbling down, along with the griffin atop it who’d barely had a chance to use their machine gun on the robo-hound. The Dog of War sank its hindclaws into the body of the road-beast to maintain balance and rotated its upper torso to fire at the scavengers in a wide arc using the weapons in its wrists and mouth.

I started firing on Dog of War as soon as I’d seen it, but my shots, as expected, made little difference. The mechanical hound was just too well armored for my battle rifle to put a dent in it. Even using ERSaTS, the parts that were exposed were too small to hit with anything other than luck. Once the Dog had anchored itself in place, I tried throwing a grenade its way. The explosive tore a hole in the road-beast it was standing on and pulled one of its hindclaws free, but it seemed equally capable of balancing with only one leg; all I’d accomplished was to draw its attention to me.

Did it recognize me from the other Dogs of War? I didn’t know, but it moved toward me as if it did. Clambering over other road-beasts, tearing chunks from them as it went, it leapt toward Quince’s vehicle. Quince yelled out something in a rapid cant I’d never heard before, and the drivers to our right gave us some space, allowing Quince to swerve. It wasn’t much, but it was enough that the Dog of War came short of tearing my head off, its shining claws instead tearing through Quince’s cargo. Packages containing spare parts and fuel canisters went tumbling away as the Dog of War sliced through the straps holding them to the road-beast and the metal below.

The Dog fell into the gap but quickly recovered before it could be run over by the road-beasts behind us. It jumped onto a vehicle to our rear, and I ducked down into my seat as it fired at Quince and me. Shouting came from ahead of us, and I watched the pips on FITS shuffle around. Casting ERSaTS, I ducked my head up and looked back; the Dog of War grasped the driver of the road-beast it stood upon in one hindclaw, dragging her from her vehicle in slow motion. I drew Big Iron and fired the overpowered revolver at the automaton, ERSaTS guiding my shots toward the robot’s ankle. They mostly just struck the armored plates and did nothing, but one got through to the machinery between them. The Dog of War’s claws relaxed, allowing the griffin to slip free.

The Dog of War’s head swiveled so that its eyes fixed upon me and I was staring into its open jaw. A series of loud, spaced-apart shots came from behind me, aimed at the Dog of War. Wherever they struck the armor plates protecting the Dog’s body, they punched holes right through it, and the robot reeled. One of them went straight into its snout, destroying the magical energy weapons embedded within. The Dog’s attention turned toward its new attacker, and so did mine. Directly ahead of Quince’s road-beast was now the personal vehicle of Pathfinder Paran. Paran himself stood on the back, an anti-machine rifle in his claws.

“Come on!” he taunted the Dog of War, and it succumbed to his bait.

The hulking machine charged forward, climbing over Quince’s vehicle, while Paran fired at it. That put it directly in the sights of Paran’s daughter, standing beside him. A harpoon gun was mounted at the back of the road-beast, and its barbed lance shot through a gap in the Dog of War’s chest armor created by Paran’s shots. The Dog nearly stumbled from the impact, then truly stumbled when the cable affixed to the harpoon was suddenly drawn tight. The robo-hound loomed directly over me, and I took the opportunity to fire up into its face before it pulled itself upright again.

Another harpoon fired from behind us shot through the Dog of War and yanked it in the opposite direction. Giving a metallic roar, the Dog of War swung its claws through the cable ahead of it, only to be yanked off-balance and fall backwards. Paran’s daughter fired her harpoon gun again; this time, the harpoon pinned the cyberwolf to Quince’s road-beast. It began to reconfigure the plates on its body to break free, but before it could succeed, Paran leapt across to Quince’s vehicle and charged the Dog of War. Getting as near as he dared, he pointed his anti-machine rifle at its head and fired until the automaton stopped moving and its internal lights flickered out.

In the midst of the dust storm raging around us, Paran examined the lifeless Dog of War, giving a whoop of victory when he was satisfied that it had truly been brought down. The cheers spread throughout the convoy, quickly becoming too faint to be heard over the wind and engines. The Whirlwind Wranglers had been gored twice now by Dogs of War, but this time, they’d managed to strike back.

***

It wasn’t all celebration after bringing down the Dog of War. Eighteen road-beasts had been lost during the fight, along with their drivers. Seven more had taken damage, including Quince’s, and five other scavengers had been injured without losing their road-beasts. Once the clan made it through the dust storm, they’d taken a moment to heal, repair, and remember the lost. Pathfinder Paran had designs to take the Dog of War’s “corpse” as a trophy, but that would require some modifications to his road-beast to keep from displacing the younger members of his family that rode with him. For the moment, it stayed strapped to Quince’s machine.

The day after the fateful encounter in the dust storm, the scavengers stopped at another station to refuel their road-beasts. To their horror, however, they found that the pumps would not accept their guilders. While the scavengers bemoaned their fate and some cried that the Time of Great Thirst had come, I broke into the shed near the pumps under which the maneframes were buried. Hacking into them, I found RoBronco code, just as I had at Stalwart Steelworks and Greenbush Agriculturium: the Dogs of War had been here and taken control of the station. Whether they had done so to cut the scavengers off from their fuel or were hunting them because they had taken fuel from here, I didn’t know, but hopefully I could resolve the catastrophe facing the griffins. It was difficult, but I managed to undo enough of the Dogs’ code that the pumps allowed them to get the fuel they needed so desperately.

They were very grateful, but Pathfinder Paran was also concerned when I told him what I had found. Without fuel, they would eventually be stranded in the wastes, unless they gave up their vehicle-based lifestyle. Even if it was inevitable that someday they would be forced to abandon driving once all the petrol stations in the wastes dried up, it wasn’t something they were willing to do. Driving had become part of their culture, and not even Dog of War attacks would convince them to cease their travels through the wastes.

I spent the remainder of the journey trying to find some way to protect the scavengers from being wiped out or stranded. By the time we reached Castoway, I had a solution. With the remains of the Dog of War (within easy reach on the back of Quince’s road-beast), I’d manage to rig up a simple signal. With luck, it would convince other Dogs of War to view the scavengers as friendly and stay away, as well as trick any fuel stations they came across to still sell to them.

Like with Pleasure Coast, the scavengers were not permitted (nor desired) to enter Castoway, and I stayed with them the night after we arrived at a camp on the city’s outskirts. I was treated to what I took to be a typical scavenger party. Food was passed around, inventive dishes created entirely from scavenged Wartime victuals, griffins danced and sang, and, most surprising of all, some removed their masks and hoods in my presence. Apparently my contributions to the clan had earned me that, or my disclosure that I’d been born in a Stable convinced them they did not need to worry about me sullying them.

In the morning, I bid farewell to the scavengers. While they did their trading with merchants from Castoway, I made my way into the city. Before I’d left Pleasure Coast, Summer Sunrise had give me his take on how Castoway had been during the War. When the Griffin Commonwealth, under Grand Marshal Galilea, had opened Iron Valley to Equestrian companies, it had also provided a way for them to get their products back to Equestria. Railroads—absent in the north Griffin Commonwealth—were the backbone of Iron Valley, and all led to Castoway. This city on the coast had been built solely for the purpose of shipping and was dominated by docks, warehouses, and company offices.

On the Last Day, Castoway had been spared a direct or indirect megaspell attack, but it hadn’t fared well in the aftermath of Equestria’s destruction. With the loss of their homeland, the Equestrian companies controlling the city collapsed immediately, and nopony had any idea what to do. Castoway became a raider city nearly overnight as desperate ponies turned to any means at their disposal in order to survive. In the sixteen decades since then, Castoway still hadn’t recovered. From what I’d been given to understand, it was far from as bad as Equestrian cities—outright raiding had gone away—but conflict was still a way of life here. A collection of warlords controlled the city, but the balance was far more precarious than between the Three Families of Pleasure Coast. The Commonwealth Crooner claimed that the most recent bout of fighting had ceased so the warlords and their followers could lick their wounds, but that didn’t mean peace; it just meant they were preparing for the next round of conflict.

I kept my eyes sharp and weapons at the ready as I trotted through the streets of Castoway. Shifty-looking ponies eyed me from posts at the entrances of buildings or from rooftops. I doubted they would kill me for no reason, but I still didn’t want to take any chances. For all I knew, I was trespassing in their territory and that would be reason enough. Fortunately, so long as I kept to the middle of the street, avoiding the burnt-out husks of auto-carriages and trucks when they hadn’t been pulled to the side, they seemed content to let me pass.

I had no idea where anything was in Castoway, so I wandered. My PipBeak kept updating my map as I traveled along, and I eventually found my way to the piers that made up the city’s western border. Dozens of them stretched out into Castoway’s bay, many trailing off into the water at their far ends. In fact, the whole city seemed to dip to the south, sinking into the sea, and I noticed that water stretched up some of the streets, creating canals between buildings. Masts of ships also poked up out of the bay, though sometimes the ship was still mostly visible. Those that were near docks had machine gun nests atop them, and I avoided them lest some warlord think I was intending to board uninvited.

“Looking for something?” a mare’s voice asked after I’d stood gazing out at the piers for several minutes.

I turned cautiously to see a unicorn standing behind me, fortunately not pointing a weapon in my direction. She had a submachine gun, but it was holstered at the moment. Her coat was yellow and her mane the purest white, her forelock long and hanging down over one eye. She didn’t look at me threateningly; rather, she seemed curious.

“Yes, actually,” I replied. “I’m looking for the RoBronco offices. I assumed they had some in this city.”

“Ha, you’re in luck,” the mare said as she cracked a smile. “RoBronco’s offices have been turned into The Workshop, lair of the Artificer. I know him well and can get you in—for a fee.”

“That would be great; I’ll give you your caps after you take me there,” I said.

“Smart request,” the mare said approvingly. “Let’s get going, Mister ...?”

“Doc,” I answered, and we set off. “What’s your name?”

“Daff,” the mare responded.

“That’s an odd name,” I commented.

“Short for Daffodil,” Daff explained. “My parents were a bit peculiar for Castowayans.”

“I’m a bit new to Castoway.”

“That much is obvious,” Daff snorted.

“Who is this Artificer?”

“One of the city’s warlords; surely you’ve heard of them. He’s set up nice and pretty in The Workshop with his mechanical army.”

“And you work for him?” I asked.

“No, I’m a Freelancer. I work with him,” Daff said, though the distinction was lost on me.

The building Daff brought me to wasn’t far from the port, and where it lay to the south was just far enough inland to avoid becoming completely cut off from land. Water lapped at its southwestern corner, and the streets to the south and west of the tower were damp from when the tide had been in. The RoBronco logo hung prominently from the twenty-first floor, although the neon lights that had once illuminated it were long dead. Guards waited at the entrance but let me through without complaint, led as I was by Daff. They did, however, search me for weapons and confiscate everything I had, in case I’d come here to assassinate their boss. The building’s lobby had been turned into a bunker with concentric rings of defenses. They were empty at the moment, and after handing over a hundred caps to Daff for her services, she led me through them easily.

We climbed into a service elevator, and to my surprise, we headed downward rather than upward. The lair of the Artificer was turning out to be more lair-like than I’d anticipated. When the elevator doors opened, we stepped out into a vast underground warehouse that had been turned into a throne room of sorts. Pony-shaped robots stood in rows before a raised dais constructed from cut-up cargo containers, and the dais itself was covered with workbenches cluttered with mechanical parts and terminals. Behind the workbenches moved a figure I assumed was the Artificer.

“Artificer!” Daff called out as we trotted between the rows of robots staring at us eerily with their blank faceplates, “I’ve got a pony here who wants to speak to you.”

The Artificer emerged from behind his projects, trotting out onto the forward part of his dais, which looked more like a stage now that we were up close. The Artificer was an earth pony, from what I could see. It was difficult to tell if he had or used to have a horn, given that his head was completely encased in a conical helmet that had once been the head of a RoBronco automaton. His forelegs had been replaced with mechanical prosthetics far beefier than mine, with large grasping claws extending from oversized hooves. Over his body I could see other robotic alterations with varying degrees of success, including a set of dragonfly-like wings upon his back that I doubted would be able to lift his unbalanced body.

“Ah, a fellow augmented equine!” the Artificer said upon recognizing my prosthetic. “What brings you to the Workshop of the Artificer!?”

His question coincided with coils mounted upon the walls arcing with electricity. The Artificer clearly had a bent toward the theatrical.

“I was hoping to find where RoBronco had facilities in the Iron Valley during the War,” I told the Artificer as he loomed over me.

Based off of what Summer Sunrise had told me, I suspected the Dogs of War had originated from a factory somewhere in the Iron Valley, but I couldn’t scour every inch of it, not when Dogs of War were attacking scavengers.

“Alas, you’ll find none of that here!” the Artificer said overdramatically. “If only I could be of more aid, but such knowledge is lost to me! You must go to the land deed office to find what you seek! Daff can give you direction, but before you go, would you consider joining my army? As you can see, my metal troops make my victory against my nemeses inevitable, and one day all Castoway shall bow before the Artificer’s might!”

“Thanks, but … I have other business to attend to,” I told the Artificer.

“If you find these other RoBronco factories, you will let us know of them, yes?” the Artificer asked as I tried to leave before he got any weirder.

“Sure, why not,” I told him, which seemed to satisfy him.

The Artificer happily returned to his work, and Daff and I left back between the rows of lifeless automatons.

***

The land deed office was on the eastern fringe of Castoway, out past the ordered streets and corporate offices. The building was low and unassuming, surrounded by a chain-link fence with barbed wire atop it. There was some combat damage to the concrete sign out front bearing the Commonwealth flag and the name of the building, but otherwise it looked like the place had remained unoccupied since the War. It wasn’t a particularly valuable piece of real estate for any warlord and it was far from everything else, so they seemed to have left it to the griffins who’d eventually abandoned it. Maybe one day a Grand Marshal would order it reoccupied, but I was far from Shearpoint and Gideon’s power here in the south, so that day seemed far off.

A chain and padlock held the compound gate shut, and I picked it and let myself in. The same was true of the doors to the land deed office, which also proved no barrier. Inside, the building was dark, and I had to use the flashlight on my PipBeak to navigate. With no power, I knew finding what I sought wouldn’t be as simple as searching through a maneframe. On further examination of the building, I discovered it had no maneframes or terminals at all; instead, everything was stored on paper in vast arrays of filing cabinets.

It was tedious work to pick through them and cross-reference with indices, but eventually I found what I was looking for. According to the land deed record, the Griffin Commonwealth had granted two plots of land to RoBronco in the Iron Valley upon which to build factories. With some additional cross-referencing, I turned the locations into coordinates and added them to my PipBeak’s map. Now I knew exactly where to search for the origin of the Dogs of War.

I’d no sooner finished my search than I heard movement elsewhere in the building. Casting FITS, I spotted several hostile pips moving through the building. I drew my shotgun and carefully made my way back, keeping an eye on FITS. When I reached the large central record room filled with rows of shelves and filing cabinets, I spotted the hostiles, who also spotted me. Several ponies with flashlights mounted to their backs faced me down, illuminating the space enough that I could also see the pony commanding them. A mare stood at their center with a blindfold over her eyes, a battle saddle on her back in a peculiar configuration. It appeared to be a set of scales, with a rifle on one side and a grenade launcher on the other. Pyrotechnics went off behind her as she began to speak.

“Foul trespasser who would break into that which is mine, I know not which of my rivals and nemeses sent you, but I judge thee guilty and sentence thee to death!” she cried out.

I cast ERSaTS as her followers began firing upon me and sprinted to a side hallway. The beam from my PipBeak bounced wildly as I ran, making it difficult to see where I was going. The light from an enemy nearly blinded me as I turned the corner and came face-to-face with them, but I was quicker on the trigger and fired my shotgun in their direction, shattering their flashlight and dropping them with one shot.

I tried to figure out the layout of the land deed office as I ran, firing into ponies whenever they barred my path. The light from the exit came into sight, but fire from an enemy combatant pinned me down, and I jumped into a cart that didn’t have nearly enough files in the bottom to cushion my fall. It provided protection as I drew my battle rifle and fired it over the top of the cart until the hostile pip on FITS disappeared.

There were still a couple of hostile pips in the direction I was headed, waiting outside the doors to get me, so I threw a grenade through the open doorway and waited for the ponies there to be blown back before galloping out. The lot outside was undefended now, and I ran for it, ignoring the pulped ponies just outside the doors. The ponies who’d tried to kill me pursued me out, but I’d already made it past the fence by the time they exited the building; any of their shots that did find me glanced off my doctor’s coat rather than causing harm. As I ran along the fence, headed west, I spotted their leader exit the building.

“Rue this day!” she yelled imperiously. “Know this! Blind Judgement has judged you, and you shall forever remain judged!”

I’d thought that the Artificer had been odd, but apparently he wasn’t the only crazy pony with power in Castoway. If this was another warlord, then Castoway was far wackier than I’d realized. I suspected that the Artificer was a rival of Blind Judgement and had sent me here knowing I’d thin out her ranks. However, the thought didn’t bother me as much as it would have if I hadn’t accomplished my purpose. I had the locations of the Iron Valley RoBronco factories; I had a path forward. With luck, I’d never need to worry about returning to Castoway and facing the Artificer, Blind Justice, or any other bizarre personas that ran the city.

Level Up
New Quest: The Doghouse – Find the origin of the Dogs of War.
New Perk: Inside Information – As a pony yourself, you know best how to do damage to your own kind. +10% damage to all types of ponies (unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi).
Athletics +2 (37)
Barter +1 (114)
Electronics +1 (51)
Enchanting +6* [Skill Book] +3 (31)
Explosives +2 (114)
Lockpick +3 (111)
Science +2 (112)
Small Guns +5 (129)
Survival +1 (58)

*Crash Course

Chapter 17: Hunting Dogs

Chapter Seventeen: Hunting Dogs

From Castoway’s eastern fringe, finding my way to Iron Valley was trivially easy. Even if the gap in the mountains to the east of the city hadn’t been obvious, all I had to do was simply follow the railroad tracks. They were everywhere at first, but after passing through many switching yards, they narrowed to just two sets. During the War, they’d carried raw materials east to Equestrian factories and the goods produced from them west to be shipped out of Castoway. I couldn’t help noticing as I passed freight stations, signs warning griffins away from the tracks, and abandoned freight cars that the company that owned the railroad was clearly a griffin conglomerate. The Griffin Commonwealth had sold Equestrian companies land in Iron Valley and at Castoway, but they’d controlled the transportation of their wares between those two points, no doubt making a substantial number of Bits in the process.

As I moved inland, I saw the same transition come upon the land as up north, though to a lesser extreme. Iron Valley was nowhere near as verdant, but the wastes did give way to scattered plant life. Rok had spent significant time in Iron Valley, so I often consulted the Book of Rok when I encountered new cacti, ferns, and fruit trees. The Rokkists probably wouldn’t like it, but I’d begun to add my own notes to the copy I’d been given at Hope Springs and bookmark parts of it in order to better find the information I needed. I harvested plenty of herbs during my trek through Iron Valley to be turned into meals or useful salves, maybe even potions if I got my hooves on an alchemistry set.

In addition to new flora, there was also new fauna in Iron Valley. One thing that never changed, no matter where I went in this post-megaspell world, was that it was not friendly. I’d restocked my ammunition from the Whirlwind Wranglers before departing their company, but as always, I was soon burning through it defending myself from Wasteland beasts. Giant stag beetles swooped down from the heavens, one tearing through my tent with its pincers while trying to get at me. There were mangy dogs with scaled backs, venomous fangs, and tails that rattled when they wagged them, referred to by Rok as “night stalkers.” True to their name, they often appeared at night, but they were fortunately scared off by fire. Stony cave bears were perhaps the toughest creature I encountered, though they were very territorial and didn’t stray far from the abandoned mines they called home. Their stony skin was resistant to most weapons and their three eyes glowed a baleful green, making them terrifying to spot in the darkness.

I saw some signs of settlement in my first few days of travel, but not very many. Any settlements I found had been abandoned for years. I supposed that living too close to Castoway was practically an invitation for the warlords to swing by and raid, so ponies and griffins residing in the Iron Valley had likely migrated farther inland. The ruins closest to the city were thoroughly stripped of anything useful, probably for the same reasons, but the pickings improved as I continued my journey. Once, in the distance, I spotted a clan of scavengers riding through the valley. It wasn’t something I would have expected, but it seemed the Dog of War attacks had convinced some to leave the wastes and seek scavenge in greener pastures. I wished them well, but doubted they could keep it up for long; from what I’d seen so far, petrol stations in Iron Valley were few and far between, since rail was the dominant form of travel here.

Three days after leaving Castoway, I arrived at the nearest plot of land that had been sold to RoBronco. It was designated in the land deed records, and by my PipBeak, as RoBronco Site Lavender. The factory was located on a rocky patch of land where hills started to rise into mountains, at the end of a spur off the main train tracks. The fences that had once surrounded it had been torn down and taken away long ago, leaving only the foundations of fenceposts in a box around the site. The RoBronco factory was divided between two buildings, with a skywalk connecting them over the train tracks and sets of loading docks. As Equestrian companies tended to do, the name of the factory was displayed in large metal letters fastened to the side of the buildings, though quite a few had fallen over the years. The left building was labeled RoB co and the right building S te La nd r. “Ste Landr” had an entrance marked Visitors, so I headed there first.

A set of glassless double doors led into a small lobby that was open to the second floor, a hallway with doors to other parts of the factory visible above the reception desk. Across from the reception desk were a couple of couches ruined by time placed against the exterior wall and tables with old magazines. The desk itself was a steel behemoth, parts of it still shining but most of it tarnished. At its center was a glass cylinder, within which was the torso and cylindrical head of the most common RoBronco robot, mounted to a swiveling plate that had seized up with the automaton facing left of the door. Someone had tried to break the glass with tools and gunshots, but despite the marks of damage across its surface, it had refused to shatter before they gave up. As I moved closer to inspect the rusty plate beneath the case, which read Recept-a-Pony v3, lights in the robot’s head blinked on and a crackling came from its speaker.

“How can I hel-hel-help you today?” the Recept-a-Pony asked. “The factory foremare is currently absent from her-her-her post, but if you take a seat, I can ring her as soon as she becomes av-va-va-vailable. D-d-don’t mind the presence of RoBronco security officers. Everything is under-under control.”

According to FITS, the Recept-a-Pony was the only contact in the area, and I ignored it to explore the rest of the factory. I found a map that divided the factory into multiple sections, and I explored each of them in turn. The assembly section was a factory floor that had been meticulously looted. Even tools and paint guns had been taken, leaving empty drawers strewn across the ground. Assembly line rollers had been removed from their stands in some places, someone finding it worthwhile to scavenge the supports only.

The programming section was mostly offices with terminals surrounding an open workshop with benches and powerful non-networked computers. Like in the rest of the factory, almost all of the locks had already been picked or forced open and the contents of the rooms on the other side pilfered, but I did manage to find a few offices still containing interesting items. In one office, I found a sizeable hidden stash of Sparkle~Cola RAD, and in another two books that could prove useful for future study: Developing for the Unified Equestrian Operating System and RoBronco Industries Coding Practices and APIs 1046.

The corporate section had seen looting exceeding even that of the assembly section. Cabinets and desks had been completely torn apart searching for hidden compartments. Walls had had their plaster, paper, and fake wooden paneling removed in order to find wall safes. All that remained were faded calendars, broken bottles, and scattered papers. If there was anywhere I might’ve found an entrance to a secret laboratory, it was here, but whoever had looted the place had already done my work for me. I quickly moved on to the last section of the factory.

The manufacturing section had seen the theft of tools like the assembly section, but much of the parts that were molded and modified here had been left behind. Body plates, disassembled motors, and skeletal rods intended for robots were scattered across the space. I’d explored the entire factory but found no hint of Dogs of War here. Even breaking into the maneframes (once I found a working terminal with access) revealed nothing that would help me find their origins. This factory had framed its entire focus around churning out Protect-a-Ponies that would eventually end up in Equestria or the lair of the Artificer. The code I found for them was RoBronco code (of course), but it had no other similarities to what I’d seen the Dogs of War add or to the code within the Dog taken down by the Whirlwind Wranglers. Mentally, I crossed RoBronco Site Lavender off my list. I wouldn’t find anything on the Dogs of War here, but maybe I would at the next site.

***

I continued deeper into Iron Valley, still following the railroad tracks, destined now for RoBronco Site Rose. The next couple of days passed mostly uneventfully, other than the occasional attack from wildlife. So far, raiders didn’t seem to be as big of a problem here as up north, but I suspected I could still find them if I went looking. I took an occasional detour from the tracks to pick through a ruin I spotted, but I never went far. However, I decided to take a longer detour when I spotted a recently defaced sign along the tracks. It had been spray painted on both sides with an arrow and the words Charity’s Reach 2.6 lg. Suspecting that it was directions to a settlement, I followed the arrow, and found my supposition to be correct.

Charity’s Reach was a settlement built in an old train yard. The griffins there had made homes of the abandoned train cars and the offices that ringed the maze of rails and turntables at the yard’s center. The sun was beginning to set as I arrived, and I witnessed the lights strung on cables over the settlement flicker to life to illuminate the night. Ponies were not such a strange sight here as is in the northern valley, so I didn’t draw quite as much notice, though a few griffins did stare at my prosthetic arm as I trotted past. A few shopkeepers called out to me, offering their wares, but most were starting to close up for the night. A large roundhouse formed the backbone of the settlement and its western border, and the settlers had cleared the space in front of it, turning it into a large square where groups of griffins met to socialize and down food and drink at the end of the day. The roundhouse itself had been subdivided into units serving different needs, such as businesses, a school, and habitation. Jutting up from the most central point of the roundhouse’s roof was a sculpt of a diamond with downturned wings: the symbol of Rok.

Before I could do any further investigating, I heard a commotion to the south and trotted in that direction to investigate. A few of the griffins enjoying their evening in the square turned at the noise, but most returned to their business after a few seconds; none accompanied me in the direction of the noise. In an alley between two rows of train cars there stood or sat rows of destitute griffins with signs asking for aid and tin cups, hats, or pans held in their claws. The commotion grew closer, and more of the poor griffins rose, anger and frustration written on their faces. Their shouting was directed at a row of Protect-a-Ponies trotting in perfectly synchronized single file down the alley. They’d been modified for agricultural use, with equipment for pruning, watering, and fertilizing strapped to their backs. That answered where at least some of the unshipped automatons manufactured in RoBronco Site Lavender had ended up after the Last Day. Over the row of robots hovered a weary-looking griffin in security armor that had had the company patches torn off. He held a long pole in his claws, which he reluctantly used to shy the tramps away from the Protect-a-Ponies when they got close enough to threaten violence against the robots. Some threw mushy fruits at the automatons, which earned them chastisements, but not very strong ones.

“Enough!” a griffin said sternly from behind me, and I and the destitute griffins in the alley all swiveled to look at who had spoken.

A middle-aged griffin with an auburn coat and fiery red feathers that were beginning to dull stood at the end of the alley, only a few paces from where I was standing. A simple robe was draped over her back, and an icon of Rok made from nails hung from around her neck.

“My friends, what do you hope to accomplish?” the priestess asked with exasperation, “You do this every night, and all you succeed in doing is wearing poor Garth down.” The security griffin looked to her with thanks. “What has he done to you to deserve such trouble? Please, do not take your anger out on him.”

The panhandlers looked to give the words serious thought, some looking ashamed. Though there was grumbling from some of them, the shouting had ceased, and the group settled back to the ground a few at a time. The Protect-a-Ponies continued to march by, and Garth accompanied them as they exited the alley.

“Ghislaine will be by soon,” the priestess assured the griffins in the alley before turning to me. “I am sorry you had to see that, stranger. I am Geraldine, priestess of Charity’s Reach’s Rokkist Church.”

“My name is Doc,” I introduced myself before looking back at the alley. “I’m new to Iron Valley. I’ve … never seen this before.”

“Let us find a place to sit down and talk,” Geraldine said, leading me away. “If you’re not from Iron Valley, are you unfamiliar with Rokkism?”

“No, I’ve been to another Rokkist settlement,” I said quickly before Geraldine could launch into the whole pitch for her religion. “Things were very different there.”

“Yes, I am well aware most Rokkist settlements have less division between rich and poor,” Geraldine said forlornly as she led me into her church. “Things are not working as smoothly here, I’m afraid.”

Geraldine led me past where acolytes spoke with other griffins, cleaned linens, and cooked stew, until we were in an alcove at the back of the church. There was a bed, a table, and a few chairs within, but not much else. The priestess offered me some coffee, which I accepted, before she sat down with me to continue talking.

“We in the church do all we can to care for the less fortunate in our community; it is part of our mission. But there is only so much we can do with what we have, and we cannot bear the burden. I’m not saying we bear it alone,” Geraldine interjected defensively. “There are many griffins of this settlement who help their fellows. It is merely a few that neglect their charity, but the effect is outsized. You saw the robots, yes? Those were Dres’s. They work the fields outside town. Gellen also has some of her own. With machines that don’t tire or require pay, they’re able to make some truly incredible profits. However, what they give to the community is nowhere near proportional.”

“Seems like a strange problem for a settlement named as yours is to have,” I commented.

“Isn’t that the truth?” Geraldine snorted. “If you’re familiar with the teachings of Rok, then you know that he emphasized that the more fortunate and able should share their bounty with the less fortunate and less able, but that is something Dres and Gellen fail more and more to do with each passing year.”

“Can’t you do something about it?” I asked. “Or, if not you, then the settlement’s leadership?”

“I’m as close as we come to leadership here,” Geraldine said. “I’ve spoken to them many times, but what else can I do? Rok also teaches independence and personal duty as the driver toward improvement. I couldn’t force them to give more.”

“Dres and Gellen are Rokkists?” I asked.

“They claim to be, though I see the distance grow daily,” Geraldine said.

“Are you really forbidden from compelling other followers of Rok to live up to their claimed beliefs?”

“It is not what Rok did when he led the Blessed Town of Dawn,” Geraldine answered, wrestling with her beliefs. “Forcing others to live by his convictions is not what he would want.”

“Would he want the less fortunate to suffer?” I asked.

“No, that much I can say for certain,” Geraldine said, revealing her doubts on the other things she had said. “Are you a follower of Rok, Doc?”

“No, though I have looked through his book some and met some Rokkists during my time in the Griffin Commonwealth,” I said. “Sorry, I tend to inject myself into whatever situation I find myself in. I can’t say how sound my advice is.”

“No apology necessary; you have given me some things to think about, Doc,” the priestess said pensively, placing a claw on my shoulder. “I am grateful that you came to Charity’s Reach, and for our conversation. As you have blessed me, Doc, may you be blessed and be a blessing to others. Be well during your stay in Charity’s Reach.”

I took Geraldine’s words as a farewell and left the priestess contemplating all we had talked about. I didn’t know how much my words may have helped her, but I’d spoken as best I could. I hoped any changes that came from our conversation would be for the better.

***

I stayed the night in Charity’s Reach and left early the next morning. Once I was back on the main line of railroad tracks, I only had to spend one night outside before reaching RoBronco Site Rose. I could tell the Rose site was in considerably better shape than Lavender, even from just my initial impression. For one thing, all the signage was still intact on the building’s face. The building hadn’t been completely ignored, though, as clearly evidenced by the large number of destroyed robots littering the ground in the space between the fence and the factory itself. RoBronco had built Site Rose in a ring, with a single gap allowing one to trot into the inner courtyard without passing through the factory.

Before entering the building, I explored the central courtyard. It must have once been well landscaped but was now overgrown with mutated post-War flora. Paths cut through the former park, converging on a raised concrete circle in the center with dingy statues upon it. One of the statues was a grinning earth pony with a well-combed mane and thin mustache gesturing to the second statue. This statue was a rudimentary version of a Protect-a-Pony, with thin, exposed legs that were nearly eaten through in some parts on the statue, and a conical head that pointed forwards instead of upwards. The plaque at the base of the statue read “Robert Horse Unveils the Serv-a-Pony v1.0”

Having done enough dillydallying, I left the courtyard and ventured into the factory proper. Though it hadn’t been looted as thoroughly as Site Lavender, the factory had obviously been explored in the past. Charred remains of security turrets hung from the ceiling and bullet-riddled robots lay in the halls. From exploring the factory floors, it became clear that this factory hadn’t been as specialized as the previous one. There were lines for Protect-a-Ponies, but also for sentry bots, sprite-bots, and other forms of automata I hadn’t encountered in Equestria. Anything working had been either destroyed or stolen years ago, leaving the factory feeling quite empty, though that fortunately meant I was able to let my guard down and pick through the remains.

The point where the factory met the train tracks was a warehouse, and I looked over the crates, most of which had been cracked open and had their parts spilled out. A few remained unopened, wedged in the back of the room, and I gave some of them a look at random. One turned out to contain, stashed beneath stacks of magazines, tightly packed parts that were familiar indeed: ceramic plates like those that covered the Dogs of War’s bodies. Peculiarly, the crate, unlike the others, had not been stamped with the RoBronco logo, but with the name Abacus Precision Solutions. Was Abacus the supplier of these parts, or were they the creator of the Dogs of War? Was RoBronco not the source after all? I’d need to investigate further.

After locating an executive’s terminal in the building’s office block, I managed to crack the maneframes and did an extensive search for anything suspicious. Disappointingly, there were no blatant switches to open hidden labs. Nor even in the most protected layouts of the building did I find anything large enough in which to assemble Dogs of War. There were plenty of hidden compartments scattered around, but opening them only revealed that they’d once been used to hide personal belongings. It became apparent that the Dogs of War didn’t come from this particular factory, but I did find one thing that might help me find them. Within the factory overmare’s notes, locked behind another password, was an entry made much more recently than the rest.

07.19.1426
This is a message to any other RoBronco researchers who might come across this facility seeking others of their kind. Though I pray no others meet the same fate as our party, I do not find it unlikely. I am a member of Team Anthurium from the Vanhoover lab. Although we were successful, our own creations turned upon us, and we were forced to flee. We made no further progress in Equestria, and so we fled across the sea, seeking the old labs built in the Commonwealth. Undoubtedly, if you’re reading this, something similar has befallen you. There is nothing here, but we intend to proceed to Sites Hibiscus and Dahlia, and I advise you to do the same. Coordinates for Site Hibiscus are as follows: 103.78519, 133.9043. Follow our trail, and you will find us.

- Blinding Light

It seemed even here, across the sea, relics of my past kept returning. The researchers from the Vanhoover lab, the ponies who’d built Ache, Mr. Bucke, and the other pondroids had managed to make it this far searching for other RoBronco scientists. I couldn’t be too mad with them for surviving; they’d given me the next lead I needed to potentially track down the origin of the Dogs of War. Apparently there were two more RoBronco sites in Iron Valley that hadn’t been registered in Castoway. If anything screamed “secret lab that made killer robots,” it was this, and I had the coordinates of one already. RoBronco Site Hibiscus wasn’t too far away; all I had to do was trek deeper into Iron Valley until I reached the point now added to my PipBeak.

As I rose from the terminal, I immediately froze in place. While I’d been busy digging through the factory’s maneframes, I’d failed to keep an eye on FITS. Several hostile pips moved around, and I cautiously made my way out of the office I was in. Through a large window, I spotted a pack of Dogs of War down below, approaching the factory. I hadn’t thought I’d tripped any alarms while picking through the maneframes, but maybe I was just unlucky. With my battle rifle at the ready, I carefully made my way down a hallway, for whatever good that would do. What I wouldn’t give for a StealthBuck right about then.

I started to make my way downstairs, but immediately halted as a Dog of War stalked past. It was still in patrol mode, but I knew how quickly they could shift into combat mode. I didn’t want to face one alone, much less the six I counted on FITS. Once the Dog had passed, I hurried the rest of the way down and sought an exit. The path to every way out seemed to be blocked by a Dog of War.

Eventually I found myself on a factory floor. The scattered parts and bodies of robots lying around gave me an idea, and I started to cobble something together. It would be crude, but it just might allow me to escape. After finishing my creation, I snuck upstairs, where the Dogs of War seemed less interested in searching. A couple minutes later, the abomination of metal and wires I’d constructed began to blare an alarm that could be easily heard throughout the building even by pony ears. Instantly, the Dogs of War rushed toward the source of the sound. I watched the one beneath me move away on FITS before heading down a flight of stairs and pushing through a set of double doors into the factory’s entry lobby. After jumping through the gap where a window had once been, I galloped as hard as I could toward a ridge of land to the east. I needed to get out of sight before the Dogs of War realized they’d been had. There wasn’t much chance of that, but hopefully I’d be gone before they were able to get outside. After leaping over the ridge and cowering down in a rocky pocket, I halted to catch my breath.

I cautiously peeked my head over the ridge a few seconds later, peering through the roots of a scraggly bush. The Dogs of War had exited the factory and were all now standing in a circle. I couldn’t make out much from the distance I was at, but I could tell they were all standing upright in combat mode, and occasional flares suggested the lights around their eyes were flashing. All of a sudden, they all turned around and loped off in six different directions, fanning out to search for the pony who’d fooled them. One ran past within a hundred paces of where I was hiding but failed to see me. I breathed a sigh of relief after it had passed and waited a good half hour in my hole before rising and heading back toward the railroad, having narrowly avoided an unwinnable fight against the Dogs of War.

***

Lamentably, my good fortune didn’t last. I’d made it less than a league before synthetic howls rang out across the valley. I searched for somewhere, anywhere, to make a stand against the Dogs of War, but nothing was readily available. All I could see were cacti, the occasional tree, and the Dogs of War as they came loping toward me. Only three appeared on FITS, but that was more than enough to finish me off. While they were still at a distance, I cast ERSaTS and fired on the nearest one with my battle rifle. My shots hit, but only glanced off the Dog’s armor instead of doing any real damage. When ERSaTS wore off, I threw a grenade in the Dog’s direction. It rapidly transformed into combat mode while still running, and with a swipe of a claw batted the grenade aside. When it exploded, all it took out was the top of a cactus. I fired my shotgun as the Dog of War loomed right on top of me, but that was the last hit I was able to get off before it struck back.

The magical energy weapons in its face shot a beam into my combat shotgun, melting it beyond recognition and throwing it from my magical grasp. At the same time, the Dog of War struck down with its claws. I was unable to get out of the way in time, and the claws struck my back, my doctor’s coat offering protection for a moment with its supernatural resistance before the points tore through. The Dog of War’s claws sliced through my coat, my Stable jumpsuit, and finally my flesh. My PipBeak screamed alarms at me as I howled from the pain of the Dog’s claws ripping through my back. With a sickening jolt, one of them sliced through my spine and my hindlegs went completely slack.

I collapsed to the ground, yelling in excruciating pain as the Dog of War continued to loom over me. I forced my magic to obey me and drew Big Iron, pointing it up at the Dog of War’s face. The revolver’s shot managed to strike true and destroy the Dog’s left eye, and a modulated growl came from its voice box in response. A claw came down, knocking the revolver away, and struck my horn at the same time, snapping off the end and wrenching my neck around.

Another of the Dogs fired the guns on its wrists at me, but my doctor’s coat, damaged as it was, still managed to stop most of the bullets (at least in the parts of me I could still feel). The first Dog reached down and grasped my doctor’s coat and saddlebags in one gigantic claw before tearing it off me. My body spun over and the coat caught on my foreleg. Determined to pull the coat away entirely, the Dog gave it a mighty yank, breaking my foreleg in the process and triggering yet more screaming.

Weakly, I tried to stab with my PipBeak’s concealed blade, but my attempt to sever the cables in the Dog of War’s leg were thwarted as armored plates moved into position to block me. The Dog of War raked its claws across me again to turn me away from it. I couldn’t move, my breathing was erratic, and my vision unable to focus. My wounds were beyond even a regenerative potion’s abilities, and I was losing blood fast. I wasn’t going to last much longer.

The Dogs of War loomed over me, watching me die. Then, their eyes flickered between every color in the rainbow, though I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a hallucination as life left my body. As one, they all left me and ran away. Weakly, I managed to turn my head to watch them run, their bodies shifted back into patrol mode. I also spotted other vaguely dog-shaped automatons moving toward me.

“Don’t worry. We’ve got you now. We’re going to make you better,” I faintly heard one say before my vision went dark.

Level Up
New Quest: Live – Stay alive and find out who saved you.
New Perk: Nerd in the Know – After reading Developing for the Unified Equestrian Operating System, you understand Equestrian computers better than ever before. +10 to Science when hacking Equestrian maneframes.
Athletics +1 (38)
Barter +1 (115)
Electronics +2 (53)
Explosives +1 (115)
Lockpick +1 (112)
Science +2 (114)
Small Guns +4 (133)
Sneak +1 (113)
Speech +2 (114)
Survival +4 (62)
Unarmed +1 (92)

Chapter 18: Orthros

Chapter Eighteen: Orthros

Resume Normal Function

Awakening from my unintended slumber, my eyes cracked open, and I took in my surroundings. I should have been dead, but I wasn’t. Either that, or heaven was quite underwhelming. I was grateful at least that I hadn’t woken up as I had many times before after losing consciousness: staring up at cold lights from a hospital bed. I was in a real bed and lying on my side instead of my back. The room I was in may have been sparsely accommodated, but it definitely wasn’t a hospital ward. In addition to the bed in the corner of the room, there was a wardrobe, a sink and mirror, and a set of shelves holding my PipBeak, weapons, and saddlebags. A private room in a Lockbox, perhaps?

I pushed aside the covers and climbed out of bed to stand on my own four hooves.

Wait a minute … four hooves?

I looked down with apprehension to see, below a hospital gown, that the foreleg I’d lost when I’d arrived in the Griffin Commonwealth had miraculously returned. I couldn’t believe my eyes, but moving it around and flexing it made it seem real enough. Just what was going on here? The Dogs of War had inflicted multiple wounds on me that should have been fatal, but not only was my spine intact, my horn restored (I checked by touching it and levitating my hospital gown away), and my right foreleg unbroken, I’d also regrown a limb.

I hurried over to the mirror to see what had become of me (and confirm I was still truly me, and not just in a memory orb), but the mirror turned out to be nothing more than an opaque panel. I felt strangely naked without my Stable jumpsuit and doctor’s coat. Before leaving my room to search for another means of examining myself, I made my way over to the wardrobe to see if they too had been restored and were waiting for me. Unfortunately, not even a scrap of them was present, but there were other outfits. I pulled on a set of oddly flexible combat armor and an overcoat. Strangely, both had holes in them for wings, and I was astonished to find that a set of dragonfly-like mechanical wings sprouted from my back and fit neatly through the holes. I don’t know how I’d managed to miss them on my earlier examination of my body, but it left me rather shaken. I gathered up my saddlebags, tucking the PipBeak within, and my weapons before leaving the room.

The door slid into the ceiling automatically as I approached, and I trotted into a living area with a couch and low table, a kitchenette, and a door that led to a small bathroom. I proceeded through the room cautiously, but nothing seemed to pose a threat, and I made it to the last remaining door without incident. Pressing the button alongside the door made it slide upward easily, so it seemed I was no prisoner, but in the hallway immediately outside was a robot that made me reconsider. It stood blocking my way, though “stood” was perhaps the wrong word; it had no legs, only a single wide wheel upon which it balanced. From that wheel, the robot widened gradually to two broad shoulders, from which hung arms ending in grasping claws. The torso resembled nothing so much as a minotaur, and below the screen placed between the shoulder pads the name Securitaur was embossed in a fancy, flowing font. Strangely, the company logo was not the familiar RoBronco one seen on nearly every Equestrian automaton, but the unfamiliar FFICAARD. Upon the screen was an illustrated image of a minotaur’s face, grinning so broadly as to nearly be grimacing.

“Good morning,” the securitaur said in a deep, booming, and strangely calming voice. “It is currently Ten-Thirty-Nine AM on the Twenty-Second of Dusk, Fifteen Ten, by the Equestrian Calendar. Are you feeling refreshed? If you need to take nourishment before continuing, the refrigerator in your room is stocked with a selection of Equestrian foodstuffs, as well as plants cultivated in our internal gardens safe from megaspell contamination.”

Nearly five days had passed since I’d been attacked by the Dogs of War near RoBronco Site Rose, according to this robot. If I’d been able to wear my PipBeak, would it say the same? I didn’t trust this thing, especially since it seemed to be my jailor.

“I’m fine, thanks,” I replied warily.

“Excellent, I’m sure you have many questions—”

“Yeah, like ‘where am I?’ and ‘who are you?’ and ‘why has my leg grown back?’,” I said.

“Please, hold all your questions for Orthros,” the securitaur said after I’d finished. “I will take you to them now.”

“Lead on,” I motioned, for the robot was still blocking the way out of the room with its bulk.

The securitaur rolled backwards before pivoting and rolling down the hallway to the left. I stepped out of the room and halted, before warily following the securitaur once it stopped to wait for me. I kept my pace leisurely so that I could take in my surroundings. The walls were gray and utilitarian, much like in a Stable, though with lower lighting. There were other doors along this hallway identical to the one I’d come through, each with an intercom next to them. The nameplates over the intercoms were all scratched out, but many of them seemed to start with “Dr.”

The securitaur led me to an elevator, and we descended several floors before emerging into larger hallways. Things were somewhat less utilitarian here (the walls were painted, for one) and every so often we passed an open doorway that led to a meeting room or break room. Multiple times, I saw the dog-like robots lope by that I’d briefly glimpsed while I was dying. Unlike Dogs of War, these were of a more normal size, at least as far as I could tell from faded Wartime posters that featured both them and ponies; and, strangely, each of them had two heads side-by-side, which I was pretty sure wasn’t normal. Perhaps it was like the brahmin. But, that would require them to have been built after the War, and I hadn’t seen any brahmin in the Commonwealth.

After a long walk, during which the hallway had angled downward for a distance, we emerged into a large, cavernous, circular room. Blinking lights and buzzing terminals covered the wall, many sections dark. Noise from above drew my eyes upward to the machinery hanging from the center of the ceiling. Cables were strung about the central arm that pivoted around the enclosed chassis at the bottom. From that chassis extended two mechanical dog heads, each nearly the size of a pony. One had a long snout and pointed ears, while the other had a blunt snout and ears that hung down. The heads were entirely static, with no moving parts, not even the mouths, and two screens displaying eyes that clearly belonged to ponies, not dogs, were placed in the massive robot’s eye sockets.

“Are you … Orthros?” I asked hesitantly as the heads swung down to face me.

“Indeed, my lucky little pony! I—” the left head with the pointed snout said.

“—we—” the other head corrected.

“—are Orthros!” the left head finished.

“I have a lot of questions—” I started.

“But of course you do!” the right head said, lights blinking along its snout as the speakers in its nostrils projected its voice, “Who would not have questions for the great—”

“—and mighty—”

“—wise—”

“—and powerful—”

“—Orthros?”

I gave up turning back and forth between the heads as they alternated speaking and tried to take in both at the same time.

“First off, where are we?” I asked.

“Why, you are in the Castle, of course!” the left head boomed proudly. “The greatest manufacturing complex ever made—”

“—far from pesky Equestrian legislation.”

“Here in the Griffin Commonwealth—”

“—we were able to accommodate all our company’s divisions—”

“—and after the War—”

“—it became our fortress—”

“—the seat of our power—”

“—where Orthros can rule supreme!”

“Your company?” I asked. “You were around during the War?”

“But of course!” the left head said, “Our company was the most profitable—”

“—and productive—”

“—in all of Equestria—”

“—and beyond!”

“Until the Ministry of Wartime Technology tried to shut us down.”

“Yes, that …”

“Applejack has always been a thorn in our side—”

“—we should have seen her betrayal coming—”

“—but she didn’t get us in the end!”

“We made it to the Griffin Commonwealth just in time—”

“—to see the end of Equestria—”

“—and the beginning of a new and exciting future!”

“I was Flim—”

“—I was Flam—”

“—CEO—”

“—and COO—”

“—of Flim-Flam Incorporated—”

“—Conglomerated—”

“—Amalgamated!”

“No longer mere ponies—”

“—but an immortal intelligence!”

“Two brains—”

“—one mind!”

“Two heads—”

“—one body!”

“We—”

“—are Orthros!”

Much like the RoBronco scientists, it brought me back to my time in the Equestrian Wasteland. I could barely remember first reading about Flim and Flam in the Zephyr auto-carriage plant north of Vanhoover, about how they’d fled to the Griffin Commonwealth. More vividly, I remembered them from Roaring Thunder’s memory orbs. These two ponies had headed up Project S.O.A.R. They’d kidnapped foals and performed genetic experiments on them in order to produce the Thunderbolts. What had they done to me?

“What did you do to me?” I asked Orthros straight out, “I was dying, yet now I feel perfectly fine. No, more than fine. I lost a foreleg months ago, and now it’s back!”

“We saved you,” said Flam.

“We fixed you,” said Flim.

“We made you better.”

“Better how?” I asked.

“You seem upset,” said Flim.

“Perhaps you are not ready to hear,” said Flam.

“Better how?” I repeated more forcefully.

“We have repaired—” Flim said.

“—replaced—”

“—enhanced—”

“—all that was broken—”

“—or inferior.”

“Your bones are adamantine—”

“—and your horn as well—”

“—137% more magically conductive!”

“Your spine is capable of 16 more degrees of rotation—”

“—transmits signals 6.78 times faster—”

“—and is capable of auto-injection of healing potions and stimulants into your flesh!”

“Your hearing, sight, and smell are greatly enhanced—”

“—and your sense of balance is infallible!”

“You are capable of flight—”

“—and we have even restored your missing leg!”

“You are better—”

“—in every way!”

“What am I missing?” I asked, feeling a void within me like I never had before, as if I were completely hollow.

“You are missing nothing.”

“You are better—”

“In every way?!” I shouted, interrupting Orthros. “What parts of me did you remove in order to make me … better?”

“Well, your spine for starters—”

“—snapped!”

“We fixed it—”

“—but the one you have now is so much better!”

“Your horn—”

“—had to go—”

“—with the rest of your bones—”

“—and eyes—”

“—tongue—”

“—heart—”

“—and brain of course!”

“You got rid of my brain!?” I asked indignantly, disbelievingly. “How could you take my brain!?”

“We didn’t ‘get rid of’ it—”

“—per se.”

“It’s still around—”

“—here at the Castle—”

“—along with everything else—”

“—but it’s much safer here—”

“—than inside your skull—”

“—even if it is adamantine now—”

“—and the signal latency—”

“—between here and the receiver in your head—”

“—is negligible—”

“—even from great distances—”

“—or in adverse weather conditions—”

“—so what’s the difference, really?”

I collapsed to the floor. I’d already been pulled apart and rebuilt once in my life, when Lord Lamplight had wanted to start again. Now it had happened again, but in a much more serious way. What of me still existed after Orthros had finished making me “better?” Was I nothing more than a skinsuit wrapped around something mechanical, controlled from the distance like a puppet?

“Turn me back,” I said quietly.

“Quite impossible—”

“—and why would we want to do something like that?”

“Turn me back!” I demanded loudly.

“We will do—”

“—no such thing.”

“We though you would be grateful.”

“You will be in time.”

“No,” I said defiantly, and I levitated Big Iron from my saddlebags and pointed it at the left head, “Your brain is in there somewhere, and I’ve seen this thing kick through more armor than what you’ve got. I fire this and you’re dead. Turn. Me. Back!”

“You’re not going to fire,” the right head said. “If you kill us, then how will we turn you back?”

“And how can you hold us at gunpoint as we turn you back?” the left head asked, unfazed by my threat.

“Why?” I asked, “Why did you do this to me?”

“You were dying.”

“We saved you.”

“We made you better.”

“Stop saying that!” I shouted, shaking with anger, but what Orthros had said wasn’t wrong—I couldn’t shoot them—and I lowered the revolver. “What did you have to gain?”

“Why, nothing—”

“—other than to see if we could save you—”

“—so close to death!”

“It was the most exciting thing we’ve done in decades!”

“So, you’re just going to completely rebuild me and turn me loose then?” I asked skeptically.

“Well, yes—”

“—and no.”

“Before you go, we want to see exactly how much we were able to improve you.”

“A series of tests. Then you can return to the Commonwealth.”

“And if I refuse?” I asked.

“You are free to do so—”

“—but this is our Castle—”

“—and you will find it difficult to leave—”

“—until you’ve completed the tests.”

“Then I refuse,” I said defiantly, “I’ll find my own way out.”

Neither Orthros nor the securitaur that had escorted me here made any protests as I turned and walked out of the chamber. It was silly, and I knew it, to refuse to do the tests if Orthros intended to let me out of the Castle afterwards, but I didn’t want to do anything for that … thing, even if it had saved my life. I’d find my way out of the Castle, even if I had to fight robotic dogs and securitaurs or blow doors off their tracks.

Unfortunately, leaving proved as difficult as Orthros had said. The Castle, as far as I could perceive it, was a maze of corridors. Windows hadn’t been included in the design, so there was no way of telling which way was out. I prized or hacked open a few doors, but only rooms or more hallways lay behind them, and none of them seemed to lead to an exit. Eventually I found my way back up to the rooms I’d awakened in. Food was stocked, as the securitaur had said, and this time I was able to see myself in the mirror over the sink. I looked much the same as I had before, apart from the wings on my back and the slight glow from my irises.

Stubbornly, I kept trying to escape for several hours, but when I continued to find no sign of how to get out, I returned to Orthros in defeat. I would do their tests, and hope and pray they would keep their word and let me out when I was finished. The securitaur who appeared to have waited in Orthros’s chamber all this time led me to another cavernous room where I would run through the tests prepared for me.

First was an eyesight and accuracy test. Dummies of griffins, earth ponies, unicorns, and pegasi darted or flew around the room, and I shot them all down easily. I learned that my eyesight was sharper than it had ever been and was capable of magnification, low-light, and infrared vision, as well as predictive overlays of where out-of-sight targets were based on sound and last positions. In addition, I was able to speed up my perception at will, negating the need for a time-dilation spell like ERSaTS. It was all in my head now; all I had to do was choose a target, and I couldn’t fail to hit.

Then the securitaur had me running flight tests. It was a strange sensation to fly with wings upon my back, and not even Roaring Thunder’s memory orbs could’ve prepared me for this. My wings weren’t like those of a pegasi, and they behaved entirely differently. The four of them together flapped rapidly in order to hold me aloft or propel me and could fold back swiftly if I needed to dive or pass through a narrow place. After awhile, I got the hang of it and realized they would do all the work so long as I knew where I wanted to go. I was soon moving through the obstacle course with ease.

Finally, my magic was to be tested. Orthros had claimed that there would be a 137% increase in my power, but I had no idea how they could predict or measure something like that, especially since I rarely used my magic for anything other than levitation. The securitaur apparently realized that and started me off by lifting increasingly heavy things. After that, I moved on to more complex spells, such as teleportation and conjuring illusions.

I must have done well enough to satisfy Orthros with my performance, for I was brought back to their chamber to be released. I’d become resigned to the idea that they weren’t going to turn me back, and I just wanted to be on my way. I would have preferred to be put back the way I’d been or at least have my brain returned to me, but that would have to wait. I’d return to the Castle eventually, once I figured out how I could compel Orthros to turn me back or do so myself. For now, I needed to get back to my original reason for coming to Iron Valley: the Dogs of War were still out there terrorizing the scavengers, and I had to stop them.

“I have one more question for you,” I told Orthros. “How did you get the Dogs of War to leave my body behind? There’s no way your robots could have bested them.”

“Oh, you can thank Robert Horse for that—” the right head said.

“—and our corporate spies,” added the other head.

“He thought he was so bright—”

“—but he was paranoid—”

“—about the wrong things.”

“He thought his robots might rise up against him some day—”

“—so he built into the core of all his code a master override key.”

“Even the Dogs of War have it.”

“It was difficult to obtain—”

“—expensive to obtain—”

“—but we got it—”

“—and can override any RoBronco robot—”

“—even the Dogs of War.”

“Two hundred fifty-six characters—”

“—is all it takes—”

“—to unmake them.”

“I don’t suppose you’d share it with me,” I said skeptically.

“That seems a bit greedy, doesn’t it?”

“And it would defeat the point of you.”

“Go forth, Wasteland Doctor, into the Griffin Commonweatlh—”

“—and do good with the enhancements we’ve gifted you!”

“Sure,” I said. “Want to point the way?”

Instead of Orthros responding verbally, the securitaur trundled past me and out of the chamber. I followed, taking one last look back at Orthros as they retracted back up to the ceiling. The securitaur led me down the hallways of the Castle, and I tracked where we were going in comparison to where I’d searched before, to see how close I’d gotten to the exit. Everything was familiar, until the securitaur took me through a door I could’ve sworn hadn’t been there when I’d searched for the exit. Had I missed it somehow, or had it just been concealed? It didn’t look like the kind of door that could be hidden by secret panels; it even had tall, narrow windows next to it. I followed the securitaur through a darkened reception area with abandoned couches, chairs, and coffee makers, and as it neared the end of the room, metal shutters rose to reveal a wall of windows. Outside was a barren wasteland not all that different from what I’d seen in Equestria.

“The Castle was struck by a zebra megaspell at the end of the War, but we survived,” the securitaur explained. “The balefire radiation that remains should not harm you as you are, but keep an eye on your vitals.”

Text flashed in front of me, superimposed over my vision. I found that, just by thinking, I was able to pull up menus similar to those on PipBeak to monitor my vitals, possessions, attributes, and location. There was even a radio feature. Blinking, I willed the text away and turned back to the waiting securitaur. It was beckoning toward the door out and seemed to have nothing else to say.

I trotted outside into the afternoon sunlight and took a look around. The shutters slid back down over the windows behind me, sealing up the Castle. I was standing on a raised platform above the ground near train tracks. As I trotted away from the Castle, I could see loading and unloading docks for cargo tucked between the Castle’s wings, but I appeared to be in the passenger part of the station. I continued to move back (which took quite a while and required jumping down from the train platform) until I could take in the entirety of the Castle. It was a massive, blocky complex of cold steel built into the side of a mountain. In many ways, it did look like a castle—one with every possible weakness removed.

Consulting my internal map, which contained all the points that were on my PipBeak’s map, I saw that the Castle was on the southern edge of Iron Valley, only a short distance off from being due south of RoBronco Site Hibiscus on the valley’s northern edge. I may have nearly died and been rebuilt, but I still had a mission, and Hibiscus was my way to get back on track. Keeping an eye on where the edge of the wasteland around the Castle ended, I set off north.

***

I followed the railroad tracks west, intending to cut across to the north once RoBronco Site Hibiscus was at its closest. As it turned out, that point (or near enough to it) was occupied by a settlement. Originally, it had been an Equestrian factory complex composed of several long buildings. Over the railway spur that ran past it was a mostly intact frame with the words “Blaze-It Personal Defense” in neon lights, though only the word “Blaze” was now lit up. The settlement seemed nice enough; the most unusual thing about it was that the settlers were ponies (something I would probably have to get used to it in the Iron Valley). Earth ponies tended the fields outside the settlement, looking up at me as I trotted along the tracks, and a unicorn with a flamethrower battle saddle approached me as I neared the gap in the town fence.

“Who are you? What brings you to Blaze?” the mare asked, then she spotted the wings on my back. “Where did you get those?”

“I’m Doc. I’m just passing through. It’s a long story,” I replied to each of her questions in turn.

“Well, that’s all right, then,” the guard-mare said as she trotted up alongside and accompanied me the rest of the way to the town entrance. “Can’t be too careful, y’know?”

She’d certainly accepted me quickly, so perhaps she could stand to be more careful. I wasn’t going to bring that up, of course.

“You have a lot of trouble with raiders?” I asked.

“Not since we got these,” the mare said proudly as she hefted her flamethrower and let loose a tiny burst of flame. “This factory was just filled with ‘em, along with more’n enough fuel to burn anything that comes our way.”

Text flashed across my vision too fast to read, and I ignored it. It was probably just some update to the notes my mind seemed capable of logging now. I’d check it later and see if I could make any changes to the settings.

“But you did have trouble with raiders, then?” I asked. “I haven’t seen … well, any since I’ve been in the Iron Valley.”

“Oh, there are still a few around, but they’ve mostly buzzed off since the pegasi showed up,” the mare said.

“I’ve heard about the pegasi, but I don’t see any here,” I commented.

“They mostly keep to themselves in New Pegasus. Head back east and you’ll see plenty of them,” the mare said as she stopped accompanying me. “Well, I hope you have a profitable stay in Blaze, an’ pick yourself up somethin’ with flames. I’m Rust, by the way.”

“Thanks,” I told Rust as she headed back to her post at the gate, skipping even beneath the weight of her flamethrower.

***

I did, in fact, end up picking up something with flames, but probably not what Rust had intended. One of the shops in Blaze sold alchemistry equipment, and I picked up a basic kit with a burner that I could use to create potions on the go. I’d had to rearrange the contents of my saddlebags so that I could fit it and its protective case in and not have lopsided weight, but I was able to easily chart out how to do so and reestablish balance thanks to my “upgrades.” Everything was charted out and superimposed on my vision without me doing anything other than thinking about repacking. I’d searched for a way to disable the various systems that projected overlays onto my vision but hadn’t had any luck yet. From time to time, I still saw words flash before my eyes before vanishing. I could go back to the Castle and have Orthros work out these apparent bugs, but I didn’t relish returning there, especially so soon after getting out.

As I closed in on the end of the second day after leaving the Castle, I started experimenting with flying, testing how well my wings worked in external weather conditions and how my flight speed compared to my walking speed. I was nearing the main rail line that cut through Iron Valley and spotted a building that seemed out-of-place among scattered warehouses. It looked like the high-density housing structures I’d seen occasionally in Vanhoover, but the sign atop it said “Beacon Hotel”. As I flew closer, I saw that the sign had been crudely updated to now read “Beakon.” I didn’t get any closer before the shooting began.

Warning: Shots Fired!

“Yeah, no kidding,” I grumbled as the words flashed across my vision, and I drew my battle rifle.

The griffins shooting at me from the roof were highlighted in my vision, and I magnified the image to get a better look at them. They weren’t dressed like raiders, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. More shots zipped over my head, but none too close. Either the griffins were really bad shots, or these were warning shots. There seemed to be some confusion amongst them as they got a good look at me, and I hesitantly let them force me down with more shots over my head. As I landed in front of the hotel, they hovered down as well, but stayed airborne. I spotted more griffins at the hotel’s entrance getting in battle positions, but all held their fire.

“You’re not a pegasus!” a griffin with a sniper rifle accused as he hovered in front of me.

“No, I am not,” I admitted. “Does that change anything?”

“Maybe,” the griffin replied as he made hand signals to his fellow griffins before fluttering down to stand before me. “Are you with the Dashite Enclave?”

“I can honestly say I have no idea what that is,” I replied.

“New Pegasus,” the griffin said. “They’ve been quiet lately, but they used to send pegasi out here to try to get us to join them. I wouldn’t put it past them to send something a little more … exotic since we scared the last envoy off.”

“These pegasi of New Pegasus, they have griffins with them?” I asked curiously while the griffin stared at my mechanical wings.

“Some, but mostly just those near New Pegasus, for protection. They’ve got their own communities for the most part, just like here. All griffins in Beakon.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I said, mostly to myself. “Every settlement I’ve seen in the Commonwealth has been either all griffins or all ponies, other than Pleasure Coast.”

“Yeah, we tend to keep to our own kinds,” the griffin said. “If you’ve been up to Pleasure Coast, I suppose there’s little chance you’re in league with the pegasi.”

The griffin made some more motions with his claws, and the rest either flew back up to the roof or retreated inside the hotel. He walked up to me and extended a claw to shake my hoof.

“I’m Gershwin, head of security here,” he said as we shook, which I found odd to do with my hoof after spending so long using my prosthetic claw. “Welcome to Beakon.”

“Thanks, I’m Doc,” I told him. “Maybe you can explain for me what a … clearly Equestrian hotel is doing in the middle of Iron Valley.”

“Well, it’s simple, really,” Gershwin said as he walked me to the settlement’s entrance. “When the Equestrian companies started moving in, they needed somewhere for their employees to stay while they built housing for them. I guess it was supposed to be temporary, hence the ‘hotel,’ but there’s plenty around here to suggest there were ponies who stayed here for quite some time. After the megaspells, well, a lot of them moved on, west to Castoway, east to New Pegasus once it arrived, or to some other spot they thought was better. Some griffins who were tired of roost life moved in once the place was abandoned, figuring it was as good a spot as any for a new town.”

Subject: Gershwin
Crime: Squatting

I tried to ignore the text that scrolled across my vision. I’d seen similar assertions during my trek through the Iron Valley, but they were completely meaningless. How could someone commit the crime of “squatting” when the world was in ruins? Settlements cropped up wherever there was a valuable or defensible location, and that was almost always in a place where something had existed during the War. In a way all settlers were squatters.

“I guess the defensibility would appeal,” I said as I took in the imposing edifice of the hotel. It was a sturdy concrete structure, and the windows were small enough that it would be a struggle to squeeze through for all but the slimmest griffin. Assault even from the air would be difficult, something that griffins no doubt took for granted as a necessity.

“That, and the rich source of salvage in the area,” Gershwin said. “There are a lot of warehouses and factories nearby just waiting to be plundered. We could be here for another decade and still be able to go out and come back loaded in a day.”

Crime: Looting

My eye twitched at the unwanted message. If looting abandoned ruins was a crime, then I was among the guiltiest. I really had to figure out how to turn these notifications off before they drove me mad.

“I think I’ll find a room for the night,” I told Gershwin, intending to finally clear up my vision, and he gave me a look. “This is a hotel, right?”

“Sure, and we’ve got a hotel like any good settlement, too,” Gershwin said. “Head on up to floor four, ask for Grace; she’ll get you sorted.”

“Thank you,” I told Gershwin. “And thanks for not shooting me down immediately earlier.”

***

I left at dawn the next morning, headed for RoBronco Site Hibiscus. I’d taken a moment to look over the warehouses around Beakon, and it gave me some hope that I was on the right track. One of the warehouses had had space devoted to Abacus Precision Solutions, the same company that the crate of Dog of War parts at RoBronco Site Rose had been stamped with. There was nothing in the warehouse here to confirm my suspicions, but even the name was something to go on. I followed the coordinates that the RoBronco scientists had left, until I stood where the secret site should have been.

The ground was steep here, hills starting to give way to mountains, and I hovered more than walked across the perilous ground. I was the perfect place to build a secret lab into the side of a hill, but there was no sign of any such thing. I searched for train tracks leading to it, but the nearest branch was nearly a league away. I spent hours scouring the area, wondering if the coordinates were off slightly, but there was still no sign of RoBronco Site Hibiscus. Even when I employed the enhancements that Orthros had made to my eyes, I was unable to detect anything with my scans.

Either the coordinates had been wrong, or there never was a RoBronco Site Hibiscus. That couldn’t be, though; the Dogs of War were coming from somewhere. Speaking of the Dogs of War, I hadn’t seen a single one during my search, nor signs of their presence. Surely I was in the wrong place. Blindly searching for the Dogs didn’t appeal to me, not when I still had Orthros to deal with in the back of my mind, so I needed a new lead. The RoBronco scientists had gotten the names and locations of the two secret RoBronco sites from somewhere, and there was only one place in the Griffin Commonwealth I could think of where they could have gotten them. Turning west, I began my trek back to Castoway.

***

It took me a week of travel to make it back to the coast, and it was late at night when I arrived at the sinking port city. I seriously doubted that the Artificer had been straight with me during my last audience, so I was bound for the Workshop first. Somehow, I’d get my answers from the Artificer or from the building’s maneframes. If that failed, there was always the land deed office again and Abacus Precision Solutions, but I felt that RoBronco HQ was the most likely source of the RoBronco scientists’ information.

Castoway’s streets were dimly lit, and the guards on display to protect territory during the day had retreated inside, leaving only one or two scattered ponies to watch the night. As I trotted down a dark alleyway, my enhanced eyes picked up movement and my enhanced ears picked up low voices. I should know better than to pry in this town, but my curiosity got the better of me and I crept down the alley, my hoofsteps placed perfectly to avoid noise, my form blending seamlessly into the shadows.

At the end of the alley, near a set of dumpsters, were three figures. My low-light vision kicked in, and I was able to make them out as a pony on the left and two griffins on the right. The pony was cowering and babbling incoherently while he tried to hold his saddlebags away from the griffins. The griffins, I recognized, were also ghouls, and one held a machete threateningly pointed at the pony. More than that, I recognized who the griffins were.

Subjects: Mayhem and Havoc
Crime: Murder of Mayor Gastón Delgado of Pleasure Coast
Crime: Attempted Murder of Gerald von Griff
Crime: 467 Contracted Murders

The Commonwealth Crooner had said that Mayhem and Havoc had fled to the south after I’d unmasked their attempt to place the Immortals in charge of Pleasure Coast, and it seemed I’d found them. These assassins had cost Gloria Delgado her father and caused chaos during the mayoral election runup that had taken the lives of many griffins and ghouls in Pleasure Coast. And now it seemed they were trying to kill or rob this pony. They were supposed to be very good at their jobs, but I could stop them, especially now with the enhancements Orthros had gifted me.

Justice Protocols Activated

Time slowed to a crawl as my body took over and calculated the best way to take out Mayhem and Havoc. The griffin ghouls turned sharply at the buzz of my wings as I darted from the shadows and cut off their escape upwards. I fired Big Iron into Havoc’s right wing while I crunched a hoof into Mayhem’s left wing. Their wings were featherless, unable to lift them, but they’d had batlike enhancements made that would let them fly, destroyed by me in an instant. They shouted in surprise, and the nearby pony yelped and backed away.

Mayhem swung his machete at me while Havoc tried to put some distance between us and draw her sniper rifle. My hooves swung up to block Mayhem’s swing, closing on either side of the blade and halting it a hair’s-breadth from my horn. He stared at me in shock, rotted features twisting, and I applied pressure with my hooves, snapping the blade into slivers. Mayhem rocked back to avoid the broken machete, and I stepped out of the way as well before advancing on him. Grunting angrily, the ghoul reached into his saddlebags and pulled out a grenade. I stepped back as he yanked the pin and tossed the explosive my way, assured of his success. My horn flashed, and the grenade teleported into Mayhem’s throat, causing him to clutch at it and choke for a second before it detonated, blowing his head off.

“No!” Havoc screamed as ichor rained down and Mayhem’s decapitated corpse collapsed to the ground.

From her perch atop a dumpster, Havoc fired her sniper rifle at me. My body moved with supernatural speed, actually dodging the bullets as I advanced toward her. She was visibly shaken by the time I grabbed her rifle in my magic and crumpled it. She drew a pistol, but I was faster, as in all things. Big Iron rang out four times, emptying the revolver of all but one bullet, each shot capable independently of killing her. The ghoulish griffin assassin’s body slid down wetly along the top of dumpster before collapsing to the ground in a heap.

“Holy shareholders,” the pony I’d saved said in astonishment as he slowly approached, and I turned to face him. “Y-you just saved my life. I’m very grateful, very, very grateful. How can I show my gratitude?”

The pony looked flustered before an idea seemed to pop into his head and he undid the buckles on his saddlebags.

“A discount on my wares for you, ninety percent off!” he exclaimed as he pulled back the flap of his saddlebags to reveal vials of Buck, neuregen, and many other drugs I had never seen before crowded together.

Subject: Unknown
Crime: Sale of Drugs

Mayhem and Havoc had been trying to get the neuregen they craved so much, explaining the altercation. I would turn the pony’s offer down. I would let it rest that I’d saved him from the assassins and nothing else. I would, had I still been in control of my mind and body.

“Ninety-five percent off?” the drug dealer offered, but I was deaf to his bartering.

Big Iron rang out in the night one last time, and the pony collapsed dead to the ground. Doc was gone, subsumed by Orthros’s programming. My body now belonged to Justice.

Level Up
New Quest: Justice Protocol Engaged – Cleanse Castoway of all crime and prepare the way for the just governorship of Orthros.
New Perk: Horse Secrets – After reading RoBronco Industries Coding Practices and APIs, you understand the secrets of RoBronco programming. +10 to Science when hacking a RoBronco maneframe or robot (including Dogs of War).
New Quest Perk: Built to be Better – Orthros has thoroughly enhanced your body in every way. +4 to Strength, Perception, and Endurance. +3 to Agility. No part of your body can be crippled, you automatically heal, and you are immune to all toxins. You can also fly now and have all four legs again.
Strength +4* (9)
Perception +4* (10)
Endurance +4* (10)
Agility +4* (10)
Alchemistry +2 (54)
Athletics +2 (40)
Barter +1 (116)
Electronics +1 (54)
Illusion Magic +1 (34)
Lockpick +1 (113)
Manipulation Magic +1 (43)
Science +1 (115)
Small Guns +3 (136)
Sneak +1 (114)
Speech +1 (115)
Survival +4 (66)
Unarmed +1 (93)

*Built to be Better

Chapter 19: Justice

Chapter Nineteen: Justice

As every weapon in the room fired on me at once, I spun in place so that my overcoat covered the entirety of my body. It wasn’t enchanted like a doctor’s coat (though why one would go to the trouble to enchant a doctor’s coat to repel weapon damage, I couldn’t fathom), but I was able to activate a field that made it temporarily rigid and tough as body armor. Bullets whizzed off the surface in slow motion as I calculated my options. With my magic, I increased the temperature around the overhead sprinklers until they went off, drenching the room. Then, I cooled the ground, ice forming beneath the hooves of my foes.

They weren’t all caught off guard, but enough were to give me the opening I needed. I deactivated my overcoat’s protective field and galloped ahead without slipping one step. I levitated my battle rifle and fired bursts into each of the defenders behind their sandbag and furniture cover. Several ponies toppled backwards, but there were plenty more to stand against me. One armored in old Protect-a-Pony parts climbed up on top of a pile of desks and fired off a grenade launcher battle saddle at me. I teleported out of the way and reappeared above her, snatching her grenade launcher from the saddle as I landed on her back. A strike of my hoof to the back of her head dented her helm and crushed her spine, causing her to crumble.

My wings extended and I flew into the air to avoid the shots fired at me from the remaining ponies. Zinging through the activated sprinklers, I fired back down at the ponies below, using a thrown or teleported grenade or my stolen grenade launcher when they unwisely pulled in close together. Soon, the room was empty of life but for me, and I settled back down to the floor. I stocked up on grenades for the launcher before making my way to a service lift.

I depressed the button for the sub-basement warehouse, but the service elevator remained locked in place. Not willing to wait, I punched open the service panel and flew up into the elevator shaft. There was no way around the service elevator’s bulk, so I shot out the locks and cables holding it in place, sending it plummeting down to the bottom of the shaft before following. The doors at the bottom remained shut, but I pried them open.

An army of Protect-a-Ponies awaited me as I stepped out of the elevator and started firing magical energy beams at me. My wings bore me above them, where it was difficult for them to orient themselves to shoot me, and I rained down fury with my grenade launcher. Robotic parts were thrown everywhere as RoBronco’s signature automaton was destroyed a hundred times over. I landed amidst the sparking corpses of robots and threw the empty grenade launcher aside.

“Who are you?” the pony on the dais across the room asked. “You’ve copied me, so we must have met before, and you seem familiar.”

Subject: The Artificer
Crime: Gang Activities
Crime: Looting
Crime: Squatting
Crime: Unlicensed Alteration of Products

“I am Justice,” I said, my voice emotionless and oddly tinny. “I have come for you, and for all the warlords who unjustly rule this town.”

“Another player steps onto the stage,” the Artificer mused. “I think you’ll find it’s a crowded place, especially since there can only be ONE mechanical master!”

The Artificer leapt over his workbenches, mechanical claws grasping. I deftly stepped to the side, and he landed in front of me. Spinning, he discharged the magical energy weapons in his forelegs’ palms, and I ducked beneath the pink beams. As he tried to rend me with his claws, I took into the air. My mechanical dragonfly wings actually worked, unlike the ones on his costume. I buzzed around him as he tried to fire at me with his forelegs, something he had to rear up on his hindlegs to do and couldn’t maintain balance with for long. As he fired at me again, I zipped down rapidly and snapped his left hindleg with a strike from a hoof. Cursing his flesh, the Artificer went down. Vainly, he rolled onto his back and pointed his forelegs up at me, and I fired my battle rifle down repeatedly into his exposed underbelly until his forelegs went limp and fell to the floor with loud thunks. The readouts across my vision confirmed that the Artificer was dead. The first warlord was down; now I just had the rest of Castoway to clean up.

***

My memory of the following days is unclear, and most parts that I do remember vividly I wish I could forget. I was a prisoner in my own body, but this wasn’t something I’d realize until later. In the moment, Doc was completely gone, replaced by Justice. Well, maybe I wasn’t completely gone. There were hints that some of who I’d been before Orthros’s program had taken over was still there and affected things, like sending me to the Workshop first, since that had been my original destination. Forgotten, however, was why I was headed to the Workshop: to obtain information on RoBronco, not to kill the Artificer and his followers.

The Artificer was far from the last warlord I went after as Justice. All of them were guilty in my new artificial eyes, usually of crimes that would have applied during the War but made no sense in a post-megaspell world. Occasionally, however, the crimes were more abstract, such as “sub-par management” or “inefficiency.” As much as the Justice protocol was trying to address crimes (real or imagined), it also seemed willing to bend over backwards for any justification to oust anyone who could pose a threat or compete with Orthros. That was the ultimate goal, after all, written out in the protocol. Orthros wanted to rule Castoway, likely the entirety of Iron Valley, and possibly even the whole of the Commonwealth; I was its tool to accomplish this vision. It had chosen to frame it as “justice,” which I admit appealed to me; it’s probably what had allowed the takeover in the first place. However, anyone could see what I was doing was anything but just.

There were plenty of warlords in Castoway I’d never met, and not all of them deserved to die. Some were despicable, like the Corpse Grinder or the Gourmand, and I would have likely done something about them anyway. Others I would have gladly helped and seemed to be doing some actual good in the city, like Madame le Moth or the Breadwinner. Most of the warlords, like the Artificer, lay between the two extremes: not doing anything to improve the conditions in Castoway but not really doing anything to actively worsen them either. They might fight periodically over territory with others, but life had changed significantly since the megaspells had fallen; what had once been criminal was now commonplace and sometimes necessary for survival. For Justice, none of that mattered. Every warlord in Castoway was guilty, and all deserved the same punishment: death.

For three days, I terrorized the city. One by one, warlords toppled, leaving their followers in disarray. New warlords cropped up and also fell to Justice. The ponies of Castoway began to panic, some even fleeing the city for the wastes or the Iron Valley. I became a nightmare, a hated enemy of all, a myth, a monster in the night. Thanks to Orthros’s upgrades, they couldn’t kill me—but I had no problem killing them, physically or morally.

I was winging my way over Castoway, seeking out the next recipient of my wrath, when a sniper had the audacity to try to shoot me. My wings easily got me out of the way—my attacker hadn’t been terribly accurate in their shot—and I easily pinpointed their location. A pony atop the roof of the RoBronco offices was ducking back inside, and I pursued her. My wings folding flat against my body as I established proper trajectory, I dove through the open window through which she’d run.

The moment I passed through the window into the spire atop the building, lightning lashed out at me from both sides. An incredible jolt of electricity passed through me, temporarily paralyzing my entire body, and I struck the floor without my legs ready to absorb the impact. Colors and words flashed across my vision in a dizzying array and my hearing crackled with static and screeches. As I began to recover, another jolt went through me as a cable wrapped around my torso. This was repeated thrice more until I was thoroughly restrained so that not even with my augmented strength could I break free. The yellow-coated unicorn trotted up to stand over me and glared down with the eye not obscured by her white mane.

“Stop!” a male voice yelled as she pointed her sniper rifle at my head.

“Why should I?” the mare asked without moving her rifle away. “He’s the one responsible for everything.”

“I told you, it cannot be him, it’s all that stuff attached to him,” the other voice said as he moved into my sight, a griffin with white fur and black feathers, and pulled the sniper rifle away. “I know him, and he would never do something like this. Please, help me get him onto the table. If I cannot free him from whatever now possesses him, only then I will give you my permission to do as you wish.”

The mare grumbled unhappily about not needing permission, but she relented and put her sniper rifle aside. Together, the two of them hoisted me up onto a table designed for working on robots. Between my adamantine bones and the restraining coils, they had to strain to move me but managed to do so, before locking me down with even more restraints.

“I am Justice!” I objected. “Release me now and your deaths will be swift and painless!”

“Not much of an offer, is it?” the mare snorted. “Justice … that’s not who you said you were when we first me. And you’ve got a fancy new leg now. You sure this is the same pony?”

“Yes, I am confident,” the griffin said as he moved my mane aside and plugged something into a socket at the base of my neck that I hadn’t realized was there. “Oh dear, this is … complex.”

As the griffin tapped at a keyboard, the mare levitated Big Iron out of its holster and pointed it at me.

“Patience, I can do this,” the griffin chided her before saying under his breath, “I hope I can.”

Text flashed across my vision as the griffin tore into my mind. I tried to stop him, and for a time was successful, but eventually I was locked out of my own systems. I could feel parts of me broken, relocated, deleted, and eventually … released. I screamed as static tore across my vision and hearing, and then vanished. Blinking in disbelief, I remembered. I was myself again.

“Doc?” Rael asked hesitantly as he leaned toward me.

“Yeah?” I asked the Rokkist acolyte.

“Oh good, you’re back,” the griffin breathed a sigh of relief, and he set about removing my restraints.

“So, you really are the same pony,” Daff said. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”

“I do?” I asked before the memories of my time as Justice came spooling back. “Oh; I do. Orthros took over my body, my mind, everything. There must’ve been some program hidden in these … enhancements they gave me. I think … I think I was supposed to prepare Castoway for their takeover.”

“Who’s Orthros?” Daff asked. “Some new warlord?”

“Maybe they want to be. Orthros is two pony minds combined in a machine in the Iron Valley. They saved my life, but then they went and turned me into … this,” I said.

“Okay, I take it back. You have way more than a lot of explaining to do,” Daff said.

“How bad is it?” I asked, “What have I done to Castoway?”

“The city’s tearing itself apart,” Daff said bluntly. “You killed over eighty percent of the warlords in the city, and their followers don’t know what to do with themselves. The remaining warlords are either too terrified of you—Justice—to do anything but hole up and hope for the best or are trying to seize an advantage.”

“I didn’t want any of this,” I said. “When I got to Castoway, I just … lost control.”

“Sure, I believe you. Thank your friend for that,” Daff said as she nodded at Rael. “Doesn’t change how the city is, though, nor the fact that you can’t stay here unless you want to continue to fight and kill everypony in it.”

“As long as you look like that, anyway,” Rael pointed out. “I removed what I could as far as a control program, but we really should remove any enhancements we can to be safe.”

“Orthros should be able to reverse the process; they admitted to keeping all the parts they replaced,” I said. “However, I don’t know how I’m supposed to get them to do that. I’ve tried to think of a way, but everything just comes back to the fear that if I threaten them, they’ll destroy my brain.”

“Well, they shouldn’t be able to do that anymore now that the control program is deactivated,” Rael said.

“They don’t need a control program,” I told Rael as I shook my head. “They’ve got my brain in their base, the Castle.”

“Begging your pardon Doc, but … they don’t,” Rael said, looking puzzled, “Your brain, augmented as it is, is still very much within your skull.”

“It is? Of course it is,” I groaned. “Just another lie to control me.”

Gunshots sounded in the night nearby, possibly the base of the tower. Daff trotted outside, past the massive coils from the Artificer’s lair that had been used to incapacitate me, and looked down.

“It was only a matter of time before ponies started fighting over this place again,” she said as she trotted back. “We need to get out of here.”

“Wait; before I go, I need what I came here for in the first place,” I said. Rael looked surprised and Daff skeptical. “Even if they don’t hold my brain hostage, I can’t assault the Castle all on my own. I have an idea.”

“Fine, but we better be snappy,” Daff said. “What do you need?”

After explaining, Daff led me down a couple floors to a working terminal hooked up to the building’s maneframe. While the mare kept an eye out for ponies who’d want to kill us (me especially), I hacked in and delved into the secret files of the executives who’d once worked here. Either the Artificer had never discovered this or had indeed lied to me when I’d asked about RoBronco sites in the Iron Valley, because I found the proof I was looking for. There were four sites, two of which I’d already visited and were public knowledge, and two more owned by RoBronco subsidiaries that had been secretly used for research. These files had also been accessed after the War, probably by the RoBronco scientists that had fled to the Griffin Commonwealth. Once I had the coordinates of RoBronco Site Hibiscus and RoBronco Site Dahlia, we could leave.

The three of us headed back up to the roof to make our escape. Although Rael and I could both fly, Daff could not, so I carried her down to street level. She still seemed understandably upset with me but no longer looked like she desired to kill me, which was probably the best I’d get under the circumstances.

“You two better get going,” she told me, and I was a bit surprised she included Rael in that. “If you come back to Castoway, Doc, make sure you’re back to yourself.”

“Don’t worry,” I told her, “I will.”

Rael and I flew up beyond the sight of the ponies of Castoway, leaving Daff behind, and winged our way east away from the city and all the tumult I’d caused.

***

As I made my way back up the Iron Valley, I had plenty of time to talk to Rael and learn how he’d come to be in Castoway. After we’d parted ways, he’d stayed in Moonraze for a time to try converting the population to Rokkism. However, the way in which we’d overthrown the mythologists there, through force instead of words, had left Rael thoughtful. Rokkism espoused pacifism, but condoned violence in self-defense. The question in the griffin acolyte’s mind was whether defending others or fighting for a good cause could be justified in the same way.

With that question in his mind, he’d decided to track down the pony who’d inspired it. He’d followed my path through the northern Griffin Commonwealth, sticking to the low points of the valley in order to trace my wingless route. It had been a slow journey, as he stopped to speak with griffins in all the different places I’d visited. Apparently he’d been impressed enough by what he’d heard that he was willing to brave the wastes, still beset by Dogs of War, in order to find me.

He’d arrived in Castoway just before my return and subsequent takeover by Justice and had asked around for me enough to meet Daff and learn that I had made it across the wastes. While I didn’t remember the event, he’d also seen me after my transformation, recognized who I was, and realized my augmentations had taken over. It was after that that he’d gone to Daff and recruited her to help in his scheme to trap me. The rest I remembered well, and I was grateful to the griffin and the unicorn for breaking me free of Justice.

It wasn’t all over, though. Multiple times, I could feel Orthros’s programming attempting to take over again and had to fight it back. I stopped using my wings after we’d left Castoway, afraid that making use of Orthros’s enhancements could help a second takeover along, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. I never felt truly in danger of succumbing to the program’s advances—Rael had done an excellent job in purging its core from my mind—but I remained vigilant.

“Are you okay, Doc?” Rael asked with concern as I recovered from another attack.

“I will be fine,” I assured him as I stood back up.

“Perhaps we should camp here for the night,” Rael suggested.

“No, Charity’s Reach isn’t far. We should continue to push on,” I said as I set out again. “Besides, Orthros must be running out of things to throw at me. They just tried to tempt me with fame, as if that was something I need.”

“Yes, you are quite famous in the north of the Commonwealth already,” Rael said, though that wasn’t what I’d meant. “In time, and with another persuasive radio announcer, I’m sure you’ll be famous in the south, too. You were famous in Equestria as well, weren’t you, Doc?”

“I was,” I admitted. “Again, thanks to a radio announcer spreading myths about me.”

“Why did you leave your homeland?” Rael asked.

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time,” Rael said chirpily.

Indeed, he had. After catching up to me, Rael’s intention was to follow me and observe how I dealt with life in the Griffin Commonwealth. I’d almost forgotten how much I missed having a companion with me, but I had some misgivings about bringing a pacifist along. For one thing, I was worried about having to protect my own hide and that of someone else at the same time, though Rael proved to be capable of defending himself when (and only when) the need arose. For another, I tended to kill a lot during my travels, and having a second conscience along when I was already dealing with a foreign presence in my head didn’t sound appealing. However, I was willing to give Rael a chance. There was something I liked about this griffin, for all the little time we’d spent together.

“Maybe someday I’ll tell you the whole story. For now, let me just say this,” I told him. “I used to be a very different pony, a … warlord of sorts. Then I went and erased my memories, changed my appearance, and started over. While a coalition of raiders and slavers still followed the warlord version of me, I—as Doc—fought back and united an alliance of settlements that eventually won out. That’s how I became famous, but that also made me dangerous. When the leaders of the new alliance I’d helped create learned I’d once been their hated enemy, I had to leave, to run from ponies who might’ve wanted revenge for what my past self had done.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” Rael commented.

“You’re telling me,” I said. “I can understand where they’re coming from, though. How easy is it to believe that someone who was once a villain won’t go back to being one again, even if they don’t remember anything of that life?”

“You could make a good Rokkist, Doc,” Rael said. “Empathy is an important skill, and you are better at understanding and seeing the good in others than even some of my brothers and sisters.”

Our conversation didn’t go much further than that, and soon Charity’s Reach came into sight. It wasn’t late enough yet for the lights over the town to come on, but that meant that I was able to easily see the Protect-a-Ponies tending the fields. Most shops were open as I strode into town this time, and I received more calls from those who tended them. Our progress slowed significantly as I took the time to shop and restock supplies and ammunition. I was also on the lookout for something to replace the shotgun the Dogs of War had destroyed but wasn’t able to find anything to suit my needs.

When we finally made it to the town’s main square, I noticed that things had changed since my last visit. The alley in which destitute griffins had begged for food or coin was now empty. I could see some of them seated at tables in front of the wheelhouse, near the Rokkist church, and others came and went from the segment next to them, which was lit up, allowing me to see other silhouettes moving within. They all looked content, and they chatted and laughed with each other. Something was different; I trotted into the Rokkist church, which Rael was already staring at, and sought out Geraldine. I found her within speaking to some of her acolytes, whom she sent them on their way as we approached.

“Welcome, my brother, and …” Geraldine squinted as she looked me, “Doc? Is that truly you?”

“It is, Geraldine. I’m afraid this will take a bit of explaining,” I said as I waved my replaced foreleg. “Before that, though, I wanted to ask how things have changed since I was last here. I saw the beggars’ alley is empty.”

“Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” Geraldine asked cheerfully. “I thought about what you said, Doc, and decided that you were right. Donations to the church to help the less fortunate are now mandatory.”

Rael blinked in surprise at that and looked at me.

“Dres and Gellen didn’t like that one bit, but I made it clear that I couldn’t consider them fellow Rokkists if they continued to withhold their fair share,” Geraldine continued. “They eventually bent, and now the church has plenty of funds to help all those who cannot work themselves. Surely you saw them just outside?”

“I did,” I replied. “I’m happy that things worked out for you.”

One of Geraldine’s acolytes signaled for her attention, and she waved that she would be over in a minute.

“I’m so busy now,” Geraldine said cheerfully. “We shall have to talk again sometime. Until then, may you bless and be blessed by those around you.”

“May the same be true of you,” Rael replied as the griffin walked away to attend to her acolyte.

Rael looked uneasy, but he refrained from speaking until we were out of the church.

“You advised the priestess to make donations mandatory?” Rael asked as he stalked beside me.

“Not those exact words, but I did tell her I thought she should compel those not living up to the beliefs they claimed to possess to give fairly,” I said. “Why didn’t you say something to Geraldine?”

“Well, she is a priestess and I’m still just an acolyte, so perhaps I don’t understand it all, but Rokkism has always taught voluntary contribution,” Rael said. “This mandatory donation thing … I don’t think it’s what Rok would want. It’s certainly not what he did while he was alive.”

“You weren’t here before, so you didn’t see all those griffins begging for food and money, unable to get it because the two wealthiest griffins in town were keeping everything for themselves,” I said, gesturing toward the griffins who now had a place to live. “Maybe it’s not what Rok did, but does that necessarily make it wrong? It’s helping griffins. How could the church mandating donations for that purpose be a bad thing?”

***

Charity is such a foreign concept to us griffins, it seems. To give of one’s own possessions to help another? Why, that would decrease oneself, wouldn’t it? In some ways, yes, but in other ways, I don’t think so. Certainly, one’s possessions would decrease, but is that all one is—possessions? During the zebra-pony war, the Commonwealth grew rich, but most of that richness found its way into the claws of a few. I don’t decry that richness in itself; certainly many of them acquired it through their own labor or cleverness. But what did it gain the Griselda von Plumes of the world after the megaspells fell? Griffins go on living as if nothing has changed in the Commonwealth, just because we were not as hard-hit as others, but it’s a post-megaspell world we’re living in. We all need to help one another to survive, and still griffins hoard great riches for themselves.

Is there anything to be done about this? I would petition such fortunate griffins to use that wealth to help the less fortunate, to see us all thrive. And if they agreed, and placed me in charge of fortunes in order to see them used for the good of those who needed them, what would I do? If there were none to oppose me, and I had before me all the coin gained from ponies and zebras, could I make wise use of such a fortune? And if I was opposed yet acted anyway? The claw that reaches into a fortune, even to give it to one more needy than them, is ever tempted to place some of what it has touched into its owner’s pouch. The actions of the Commonwealth government during the zebra-pony war led us to the world we now live in; I cannot stand by them without reservation, but perhaps they got a few things right. Trapped between two behemoths that demanded absolute obedience from their populations, it’s a wonder that they didn’t travel the same course. Perhaps griffin stubbornness had something to do with it.

Can we change now? I think about this often. That, and questioning what should change and what should stay as it was. In this post-megaspell world, so much has changed—but not us. No, griffins are griffins, even after the sky was set aflame.

***

Rael and I continued to follow the train tracks that served as the Iron Valley’s spine as we made our way to RoBronco Site Hibiscus. After getting the locations from the RoBronco offices, it hadn’t taken me long to discover that Hibiscus was located in the same place I’d previously searched. The coordinates were exactly the same, and yet I was repeating the search. Still, I had hope, as I remembered how I’d failed to find the exit to the Castle until Orthros had been willing to let me go. Orthros’s programming was able to affect my perception, but it couldn’t affect Rael; I’d be relying on his sight in case that part of the program still existed in my mind.

We were passing the split where rails ran off to RoBronco Site Rose when electronic howling sounded from the distance. We took to the air to get a better vantage point, and I quickly spotted a Dog of War bounding across the landscape in our location. As it neared us, the overlay on my vision picked out two more charging in from different directions. The first Dog of War transformed mid-bound, and its claws skidded through scree as it stabilized itself and fired the magical energy weapon in its snout, nearly hitting Rael.

Shield Protocol Ready

I willed the message away and drew my battle rifle. With Orthros’s programming guiding my aim and steadying my shots, I expertly fired on the Dog of War, severing a couple cables in its neck area before it shifted plates to protect them. I had a plan for the Dogs of War, so I didn’t want to destroy them, but I also couldn’t ignore them. The Dog fired another beam, but the power was much less than before; after a second, it fizzled out.

I severed more cables as the Dog of War continued to shoot at Rael and me using its wrist-guns, and by the time the other two arrived, it was having difficulty balancing. Rael shot up into the sky when the others arrived, leaving me to face the Dogs of War on my own. Magical energy beams crisscrossed the sky and I flew under them. The first cyberhound jumped up to grab at me, but I hardened my overcoat and its claws screeched off rather than finding purchase.

I landed and fired a burst of shots that finally crippled the first Dog of War completely, leaving its joints slack as hydraulic fluid spurted from half a dozen holes. One of the others swiped at me and I dodged beneath, shooting a blast of magic from my horn that sparked like a flare and temporarily blinded the Dogs. While they were incapacitated, I jumped with the aid of my wings and struck an outstretched arm with my forehooves. Had I been entirely flesh and blood, that would have shattered my forelegs and done nothing to the Dog of War; but with adamantine hooves applied at just the right angle, my strike cracked through the protective plates on the Dog’s arm and bent the frame beneath.

It swung back around, and its claws glanced off my hardened overcoat and pulled over my face. My horn glowed brilliantly as I lifted the other Dog of War off the ground, leaving it floundering in midair, before dropping it atop the one attacking me. I flitted off the ground as they disentangled themselves while firing at me with their snout weapons. I drew Big Iron and shot into the face of the Dog with the broken arm several times, shattering the optical sensors and lights surrounding them. I circled the Dogs of War and fired on the damaged one’s waist until it had a solid set of protective plates circling around its midsection to deflect my attack. Pulling the pin while it was still in my saddlebags, I teleported a grenade to the other side of the Dog; the blast nearly tore it in half as the exposed and already damaged joint of its waist was hit.

“Rael! Let’s get out of here!” I called up as the second Dog of War collapsed, and the last remaining one fired up at me defiantly.

As we flew away, the remaining Dog of War didn’t follow, just as I’d hoped, instead staying behind with its damaged compatriots. Hopefully, I would see them again, but not until I was ready.

***

There was no doubt in my mind now that Orthros had been able to make me see whatever they wanted until Rael had broken their control. What had been real, and what hadn’t? Perhaps I’d never know. One thing I did know was false was what I recalled from searching for RoBronco Site Hibiscus the first time. I was standing in the same place as before, but now there was a building with a rail line running to it. Rael confirmed that what I was seeing now was reality.

A squat building with only a single story was built into the hillside, painted a faded and flaking white. Upon the flat roof was a large collection of satellite dishes, many of them filled with leaves and birds’ nests. Just below the roof overhang, “ABACUS PRECISION SOLUTIONS” was painted in red. The doors in front slid open jerkily as we approached, and we entered the abandoned office.

At first glance, the building was innocuous. There was a small reception desk that would seat only one pony up front, and the rest of the space was mostly taken up by offices filled with file cabinets containing printouts covered in numbers and graphs. There was a terminal in each office, and the cables’ pipes could be seen on the ceiling in the hallways, all converging on the center of the building, in a room labeled Maneframes. The door to the maneframe room had once had a keypad lock, but at some point in the past, something big with sharp claws had torn the door off. We were on the right track.

Within the maneframe room, there existed the stacks of computers that gave it its name, but there was also a large trapdoor on the opposite end of the room that was permanently propped open. My eyes adjusted swiftly to the darkness as Rael and I passed through the trapdoor and down the stairs beneath it. There were several flights of stairs with doors to other floors, but we kept going until we made it to a floor where the doors had been forced open.

This was exactly what I’d hoped to find when I’d left Pleasure Coast over a month earlier. We were in the secret laboratory where the Dogs of War had been built. Technical diagrams hung in alcoves with controls ready to file them out for examination. Crates of spare Dog of War parts stood against the walls, many of them torn open by mechanical claws. Terminals blinked at research stations, hooked into another set of maneframes built deeper into the hill. Skeletons in RoBronco lab coats soaked in blood and torn through by claws were scattered throughout the space, telling the grisly end of the Dogs’ creators. In another part of the facility stood fifty enormous “kennels” used to hold and repair the Dogs of War. A small assembly plant stood ready to fabricate any part that might be needed, given the raw materials.

“So?” Rael asked when we’d finished exploring the complex where the Dogs of War had been born. “What now?”

“We’d never be able to take on Orthros alone. Even with a small army, defeating all the robots in the Castle would be difficult,” I said. “However, I’ve seen Dogs of War take over all kinds of robotic networks. We’ll reprogram them, give them a new purpose. Then we’re going to go to the Castle and get my body back.”

***

My plan was more quickly said than done, and not just because of the complexity in reprogramming Dogs of War. They were the most advanced machines RoBronco had created during the War, designed to tear through zebra legions and the zebras’ own advanced automatons, but the megaspells had fallen before they could be sold to the Equestrian Army and deployed. I gathered from reading the notes left by the long-dead RoBronco scientists that losing their purpose had been what spelled doom for the program. The Dogs of War had no more reason for existing, so they’d made one for themselves: protecting robotic networks from flesh-and-blood beings, starting with freeing themselves from the scientists that had created them. Fortunately, they hadn’t truly mutated their programming and become self-improving, so once I’d figured out how to reprogram one using the test kit left by the RoBronco scientists, I was able to reprogram them all.

Once I’d learned how to do so, it was just a matter of getting them to the facility so that I could apply my changes. I wasn’t sure if the dishes atop RoBronco Site Hibiscus were capable of reprogramming at a distance, but I did find out that they could recall all the Dogs of War from across the Griffin Commonwealth. Some came soon, from the pack that roamed the Iron Valley, including the three Rael and I had faced near RoBronco Site Rose. They had actually come before I’d sent out the signal, as I’d hoped they would, the intact one dragging its compatriots back for repairs. They’d been the first to be reprogrammed, and I continued to refine and tweak my changes as others arrived over the next six days.

The first thing to go had been that core piece of code Robert Horse had included in all his machines to allow for emergency override. Although it was a risk to remove it in case I ever needed to override the Dogs of War, it couldn’t stay for Orthros to potentially exploit. I could’ve simply changed it to a different key, but even at 256 characters, Orthros would soon have nothing better to do than run through every possible combination and brute force a takeover. The possibly of them cracking it was infinitesimally small, but it still existed, and that was unacceptable; better to remove the weakness entirely. I also made sure that the Dogs of War were no longer hostile to ponies and griffins. I gave them a new enemy, Orthros, and a new task, to take over the Castle and guard it.

During those days, in addition to tweaking the Dogs’ programming, I also investigated the maneframe for signs of the RoBronco scientists from Equestria. They’d visited, just as they’d said they would, but didn’t stay for long. The Dogs of War had not been kind to them, and they hadn’t wanted to take the time to bring them back under control completely. Instead, they opted to temporarily hold the robots in place to give themselves time to escape. They’d fled to RoBronco Site Dahlia and had included the coordinates again. Now that I’d found where the Dogs of War had originated, I had no reason to also look for Dahlia. Be that as it may, I was a curious pony and didn’t like leaving loose ends; I intended to visit it once this business with Orthros was done and see what had become of the Equestrian scientists.

A week after arriving at RoBronco Site Hibiscus, the Dogs of War were all ready. According to the notes left by their creators, there had once been fifty of them, divided into five packs, but Wartime testing and the occasional takedown by heavily armed or lucky griffins in the years since had reduced their numbers to twenty-seven. With twenty-seven Dogs of War, I could probably storm Shearpoint itself and oust Grand Marshal Gideon, but I had no interest in doing that (at least not at the moment). I, and the Dogs, had but one enemy right now: Orthros.

After crossing the Iron Valley, we launched our assault on the Castle. Picturing a fight between the Dogs of War and the machines of Orthros, you might conjure up something truly epic; for better or worse, the actual fight was much more anticlimactic. There was some fighting between the Dogs and securitaurs and the two-headed robot dogs at the start, but once one of our cyberhounds managed to take control of one of Orthos’s machines, the fight was as good as over. The Dogs spread their programming through the ranks of the enemy, turning them to our side, and we encountered very little resistance within the Castle. There were still a few robots under Orthros’s control as we made our way to their lair, but in all but a few cases, the Dogs of War or automatons under our control took care of them before I had to fire a shot. I noticed that they seemed to be particularly protective of Rael, as if they’d taken a liking to him. I wasn’t sure if that was because of our reprogramming, or if the Dogs truly did have personality.

“Very clever—” Orthros’s right head said mockingly as we entered the chamber where they hung from the ceiling.

“—very clever!” the right head repeated.

“Make the Dogs of War your own—”

“—and turn our army against us—”

“—but you’re not as wise as you think—”

“—otherwise you would have accepted our gifts!”

“They’re no gifts,” I told Orthros. “You wanted me to be your slave.”

“But the shackles were your own choice—”

“—and we all wear shackles in some way—”

“—slaves to our natures until the end.”

“Even us?” the head on the left asked as it turned its eyes toward its fellow.

“Yes, even us,” the head on the right replied.

“So what if your shackles were more apparent than most?”

“You were doing good, as you wanted to.”

“Not by my own choice, and that’s important,” I said.

“Wasted! Wasted on you!”

“We should have taken control from the start!”

“But that never works, does it?”

“Don’t you start now!”

Rael and I stood puzzled as Orthros had an argument with itself, before regaining compose and looking back down at me.

“What will you do now, then, pony?”

“Will you kill us, destroy Orthros forever?”

“No,” I replied, “I won’t destroy you. But I need you to do something for me.”

“A—”

“—deal?” Orthros said excitedly.

“You’re going to turn me back to the way I was,” I said, and the two dog-heads recoiled slightly. “Not dying, of course. I am grateful to you for saving my life, even if it was for selfish ambition, but I want all your ‘enhancements’ gone. I want to be myself again.”

“You want it all gone?”

“You haven’t changed a bit!”

“I think that’s what he wants.”

“And what about the forelimb we grew for you?”

“Will you reject that as well?”

I looked down longingly at the foreleg that I’d thought lost forever. But it wasn’t my foreleg, not really. I’d lost that when I’d come to the Griffin Commonwealth, and I’d gotten by without it since. I didn’t need it anymore. Even if I’d lost a part of myself, that didn’t make me lesser.

“It all has to go,” I said. “Give me the griffin arm again. I’ll manage with only three hooves.”

“Fine, fine—” Orthros said.

“—we’ll do as you ask.”

“You’d better,” I said. “If Rael here sees any funny business, you’re finished.”

“He wears the symbol of the broken griffin,” Orthros said as they leaned down to observe Rael.

“He wouldn’t hurt us.”

“Is that a chance you want to take?” Rael asked defiantly.

“Very well, Doc—” Orthros said as they retracted.

“—we will reverse our enhancements.”

“Foolishness, to want frail flesh—”

“—when he could be glorious like us.”

***

With Rael watching over things, Orthros behaved and made me as I’d been before. Once again, my bones were frail, my magic, sight and hearing only average, I was unable to fly, and I was missing a leg; but at least I was all me. After the operation, Rael had given me a thorough examination with the equipment on hoof and declared that everything Orthros had added was gone.

While I’d regained my body, there were some things I wouldn’t be getting back. Orthros had saved everything of mine, but the Stable 85 jumpsuit I’d worn for so long was a lost cause. It had been so torn and damaged by the Dogs of War that it was mere scraps, and I had to give up on ever donning it again. I’d investigated the clothing I’d taken from my room in the Castle and couldn’t find anything that suggested Orthros had any hidden tricks in it, so I decided to keep the armor. Even with the wing-holes, I wasn’t likely to find anything much better out there. The doctor’s coat the Yellows of Stable 85 had given to me was similarly ravaged by the Dogs of War. It was such an iconic piece of my look, and how ponies and griffins recognized me, that I wasn’t willing to give up on it completely. The upper back and neck were still mostly intact, and I used some amateur sewing to attach the section to the overcoat I’d taken from the Castle, covering the wing holes. Without my augmentations, the overcoat was no longer able to turn rigid at will, but it would keep the rain off; and the enchanted section of my doctor’s coat would cover most of my vital areas from above. I also took the remaining shoulder patch from my doctor’s coat, the butterflies on it faded now from pink to nearly orange, and attached it to my new hybrid coat. I had no sense for fashion, but hopefully it would still provide adequate protection and allow me to be recognized.

Before we left the Castle, Rael and I made sure to disconnect Orthros completely from all the building’s systems. They could stay in their room and fume or constantly bicker back and forth, but they wouldn’t be touching anything else. To make sure nobody came to free them, either purposefully or by accident, we left the Dogs of War behind. They seemed content with their new purpose of guarding Orthros, and they had plenty of other robots with them now that they could protect, too. The shutters closed behind us as Rael and I left the Castle and set out into the wastes around it. The Iron Valley opened up in the distance, along with the possibilities of what mission I would take on next.

Level Up
New Quest: Scientific Pursuits – Find out what became of the RoBronco scientists that fled Equestria for the Commonwealth.
New Perk: The Horse Always Wins – When it comes to chance, you seem to have figured out the knack of coming out on top more consistently than one would trust. +1 to Luck.
Quest Perk removed: Built to be Better
Strength -4* (5)
Perception -4* (6)
Endurance -4* (6)
Agility -3* (7)
Luck +1** (7)
Alchemistry +1 (55)
Alteration Magic +1 (39)
Athletics +1 (41)
Barter +1 (117)
Big Guns +1 (86)
Electronics +1 (55)
Explosives +2 (117)
Illusion Magic +1 (35)
Manipulation Magic +1 (44)
Repair +1 (114)
Science +3 (118)
Small Guns +3 (139)
Survival +1 (67)
Unarmed +2 (95)

*Built to be Better
**The Horse Always Wins

Chapter 20: How to Live in a Post-Megaspell World

Chapter Twenty: How to Live in a Post-Megaspell World

Looking down from a great height puts a new perspective on things, but it’s not, I think, the same for me as for other griffins. I had to climb to reach this point, whereas they could simply dart up to the heights, propelled by their wings. Maybe I’m just being conceited and want to be special, though—I can’t say with certainty. For all I know, what I see from on high is the same as for anyone else, flying or not. I know it’s true from a very real sense, but philosophically … ?

Looking down from a great height puts a new perspective on things. What would it be like to soar high enough to look down on the Commonwealth and see it in its entirety? To fly so high would mean death. No griffin can do it under their own power, least of all me. They say we had rockets capable of flying high enough once, before the megaspells fell. I’ve seen the photographs taken of the Commonwealth, but they lack something of what one can see with one’s own eyes. Or, you’ve just lost so much detail at that point that what you see is a simplified version of reality, merely blurs of color instead of mountains, forests, and river valleys.

Looking down from a great height puts a new perspective on things. It’s easy to miss the details, but they’re what’s important. I’ve traveled across the Griffin Commonwealth and seen so many things. Waterfalls that split and rejoin on their way to the ground, and mountains where a single tree clings defiantly to the peak; as well as radio relay stations for communicating with the zebra empire, and factories whose single purpose is to produce perfect ball bearings. I’ve met griffins who have looked at the Commonwealth and embraced the former while shunning the latter. They wish to live a simple life, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think they miss the point. They wish to turn back time to when not only were there no megaspells, but no war between the ponies and zebras, no influence from outside nations in the Commonwealth. But that world no longer exists, and trying to live in it will no longer work. There has to be a new way to live in this post-megaspell world we inhabit. I have ideas, of course, about what it means to do so (I’ve even written them down so I won’t forget, and shared them with others who seem to agree), but just that by itself can’t truly answer all the questions griffins will have. And if there’s anything else I’ve learned during my travels, it’s that everything in the Commonwealth has a price of some sort. We can’t ignore any part of this land, the good or the bad, and need to make use of what was left behind as best we can. All the things I’ve seen eventually converge on one point; there lies the means to save or destroy the Commonwealth. I could see everything I wish come to pass, but who’s to say I am the one to reshape this post-megaspell world? All I can think of is how to live in it.

***

When it came to reading the Book of Rok on stops while traveling through the Iron Valley, having Rael along was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hoof, he was plenty willing to talk about it with me. On the other, we were coming at the book from very different perspectives. To him, Rok was the prophet of his religion, a griffin whose advice for living had been so wise that his journal had become holy writ. To me, Rok was an interesting figure, a flightless griffin who’d traveled the Commonwealth, figured out a lot of very useful things when it came to surviving in it (especially for someone without flight, like me), and had some interesting ideas for “How to Live in a Post-Megaspell World,” as his Book was commonly also referred to. I’d seen a lot of religions in my travel that worshipped everything from the sun to a megaspell (twice for that one, actually), to the near-religious reverence Steel Rangers had for Wartime technology. I hadn’t, however, seen anything in the Book of Rok that explained the worship and reverence that Rokkists showed toward the religion’s founder. Maybe that was coming later, but it would be a turn for Rok, who so far had billed himself as nothing more than a humble traveler and been very clear about his own self-doubts, especially after obtaining a following, which he’d done prior to the latest passage I’d read.

I spoke with Rael about Rok and Rokkism as we traveled, but not exclusively. For one thing, Rael’s primary reason for traveling with me wasn’t to try converting me to his religion. Although that was the traditional purpose of an acolyte’s pilgrimage before they could advance from to priest, I’d led him off track, starting with the revolution in Moonraze. Now he had a new mission: to observe me and learn if my methods were compatible with the Rokkism he’d been taught. He hadn’t shared many of his thoughts on that so far, but he did ask me plenty of questions.

“Do you want revenge on these scientists, after what they did to your friend?” Rael asked as he walked alongside me, wings folded against his sides.

“No, the scientists who built Ache, Mr. Bucke, and the other pondroids are probably all dead by now. I wouldn’t want revenge on them anyway; they’re not directly to blame for the treatment of Ache or her current condition,” I told him. “I’m just curious, is all. I only came to the Iron Valley in the first place because I heard that there were RoBronco factories here and wanted to know more about where the Dogs of War came from.”

“That’s not the only reason you came, though,” Rael objected. “You came because you heard the Dogs of War were attacking scavengers, and you’d seen them attack other griffins and wanted to stop that from happening.”

“Well, yes, I guess that’s true,” I admitted.

“Do you think the RoBronco scientists are a threat to the griffins and ponies of the Iron Valley?” Rael asked. “Do you think they are still making pondroids?”

“Are they a threat? Maybe, though I think there’d be more evidence of it if they actively were one,” I said. “I certainly don’t think they’re making pondroids again, not after it led to their downfall and exile in Equestria. But, they might be working on something else.”

“Something like a replacement for the Dogs of War?”

“That’s what worries me.”

We were on our way to RoBronco Site Dahlia, RoBronco’s other secret facility deep in the Iron Valley. I’d gotten the coordinates from the company HQ in Castoway and RoBronco Site Hibiscus, and it seemed a shame to leave it unexplored. This was also the place that the Equestrian RoBronco scientists had fled to, according to their notes in the Dog of War labs; I wanted to know how their story had ended. If they were wise, they’d given up on their experiments and found a peaceful life, but that wasn’t what I expected to find. It was far more likely that they’d either taken over the site and used its tools to continue experimenting with robotics or joined whatever remained of the original staff in their endeavors. Maybe it would turn out that Dahlia had suffered a similar fate as Hibiscus, and the scientists had simply moved on. Where they would go, though, I wasn’t sure; we were running out of Iron Valley.

As we approached a ruined factory that jutted above the surrounding landscape, I spotted griffins fluttering around and determined that it was a settlement. As we drew nearer, my PipBeak agreed, showing “New Location: The Stacks.” The Stacks was taller than it was wide, its height increased by a massive billboard atop the structure cut into the shape of a pack of cigarettes. Two exhaust towers behind the board were painted to appear as though they were sticking out of the massive pack. Badly faded paint on the brickwork could barely be made out to read “Marlburro Tobacco.” The tobacco fields around the factory were surrounded by a chain link fence patched with scrap. They had been planted with edible crops such as pomatos and grenadishes.

There were guards posted at the entrance to the compound, but the gates were open. A dinged, bullet hole-riddled sign that read “Open for Business” was displayed, and nobody stopped us from entering. A set of warehouses lining the path into the settlement, originally meant to store the factory’s product until it was ready to load on the train cars that would pull between them, had been turned into combined homes and shops by the residents. As I peeked at some of the wares, the griffins I’d seen flitting around in the air (youths, it turned out), knocked a ball down toward me, and Rael returned it with a strike of his wing. He understood the game better than I did, and they passed it back and forth a few times before the airborne griffins flew too far away for Rael to continue playing without following.

Off to one side of the factory was a square surrounded by food vendors. I munched on a sautéed grenadish while listening to the impacts as one across the square was heated in a pot and its spiny seeds shot out in all directions quite violently. Along the side of the building, I could see laundry hung out to dry, griffins lounging in hammocks while reading, and many layers of graffiti added after the War. Painted prominently on one section of the wall was the familiar symbol of Rok, a diamond with downturned wings.

“Think there’s a Rokkist church here?” I asked Rael as I pointed it out to him.

“Oh, most certainly,” he replied between bites of grilled psycarp and pomato. “Most of the griffins in The Stacks are probably Rokkists.”

I had noticed quite a few of them wearing Rok’s symbol around their necks as Rael did.

“Is Rokkism more popular in the Iron Valley than up north?” I asked Rael.

I’d only seen one Rokkist community there, but seeing two in the south didn’t necessarily make it the dominant religion. I hadn’t stopped at every single place griffin settlement, and I’d yet to see any southern roosts.

“Definitely; Rok’s teachings have taken more of a root here,” Rael said. “You’ll only see it becoming more prevalent as we continue east.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“We are approaching where Rok established the Blessed Town of Dawn,” Rael said as he wiped his beak. “It was the first settlement of Rokkists, built upon his teachings.”

“So, we’re headed to the heart of your religion,” I surmised as I finished off my grenadish.

“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Rael said. “There’s not really a location that can be called the ‘heart,’ but it’s where it started to spread from and is more or less the center.”

“Well, once we see what’s up with RoBronco Site Dahlia, I should like to see this ‘Blessed Town of Dawn.’”

“I’m afraid you can’t,” Rael said turning somber. “New Pegasus stands where it once was.”

“Oh; I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” Rael said as he forced himself to perk up. “Rok’s town may be gone, but his teachings live on and continue to spread. And I can still show you where it once was, if you wish.”

“Sure,” I replied, “I’d like that.”

***

My town. It’s so strange even to write the words down. What I’ve written, what I’ve said; enough griffins agree that they want to try my ideas out, to see if I’ve got it right. I’m not sure I do (not all the way, at least), but we’re going to give it a go. I’ve got just the spot, the point where this all started to seem possible, and the perfect name. The town will be called Dawn, for that’s where we looked to find our way. I hope it doesn’t all go wrong, as projects of this sort, propped up in this way, tend to do. They all want me to lead. I have experience, I guess, but only in leading a group, not a settlement. It’ll be new for all of us. New responsibilities. A new home. A new way to live in a new world. A post-megaspell world.

***

Rael and I kept traveling east, and the day after stopping at The Stacks, we arrived at the town of Kirkwell. Kirkwell had been a real honest-to-goddesses town before the megaspells had fallen, and it seemed to have carried through more or less unchanged since then. Even though it was near the rail lines that transported Equestrian goods and seemed to cater to a certain experience, it was still a real town that hadn’t been built from scrap or on the foundation of something else. The buildings were quaint, much like some of the architecture in and around Heritage Park in what was now Laketown. It was meant to evoke an “authentic” griffin experience, but both its location at the bottom of the valley and its style (far behind what was found in the roosts) betrayed that. Ponies could visit and convince themselves they were experiencing griffin culture, but for the griffins, it was merely a way to separate ponies from their Bits, and they’d go to great lengths to accomplish it.

Since the end of the War, the griffins in the town seemed to have dropped the act and all behaved similarly to other griffins I’d met in the Commonwealth. Kirkwell was a town that existed in a very different world from the one in which it had been built. A makeshift fence for keeping out wildlife had been erected around the town and griffins walked around visibly armed, in case of raider attacks, though none seemed particularly concerned about that. The guards that flew the perimeter of the town did so leisurely or walked along the ground, despite the reduced line-of-sight. No, the griffins of Kirkwell didn’t seem terribly concerned about what was outside the town, but what was within it was another matter.

At the center of the town was a square with an old-fashioned windmill at one end and a hotel turned into a Rokkist church on the other. At the center of the square, near a flagpole, were two groups of griffins. One had the rough-and-ready look of settlers, accoutered with random bits of armor and clothing for protection, some with battle saddles under their wings. An older griffin with gray and black feathers (and an unfortunate balding patch atop his head that was sometimes revealed when he gesticulated with his cap) seemed to be their leader. The other group were dressed uniformly in brown combat armor similar to what I’d seen Grand Marshal Gideon’s personal kill team wearing, though not quite as high in quality. On their armor was the eleven-striped flag of the Griffin Commonwealth overlaid with a “V” and their leader, a griffin whose white feathers turned a pale blue at the end, had a set of lightning bolts over her flags.

“Bodies, caps, or food, it’s your choice,” the griffin commander was demanding of the townsgriffins as Rael and I approached, joining the growing crowd. “Whether you think so or not, your town falls under the jurisdiction of the Land Corps, and supporting it is not a choice.”

“And what’s the Land Corps ever done for us, hmm?” the leader of the townsgriffins croaked. “You haven’t cleared out the night stalker nest to the north, nor raiders on the railway.”

“We provide protection,” the griffin commander said definitively.

“Not from what I’ve seen,” the elder griffin scoffed. “You never show up here unless you want recruits, money, or a free meal. I thought you’d gotten the message that we’re not paying into your racket anymore.”

“Two weeks ago—” the commander said as she pulled a notepad from a pouch on her armor and flipped through it.

“We paid the Weather Corps for some rain, but what business is that of yours?” the townsgriffin interrupted.

“You’re part of the Griffin Commonwealth, and you don’t get to pick and choose what you do or don’t want to pay into or take advantage of,” the commander said irately.

“Sure, that’s what his royal highness Gideon wants, but somegriffin outta tell him that ain’t how the Commonwealth’s worked in the past. Grand Marshals can go around making up rules and making up new worthless corps so that there’s more infighting and they can get more power for themselves,” the elder griffin said and the commander turned red at the implication that her corps was worthless, grinding her beak, “But that’s not gonna change anything if we all just say no to him. So here, let me say it to your face, missy. No. We don’t want anything to do with the Land Corps.”

“You’ll regret this,” the commander seethed.

“What, are you going to launch an attack with the army of the recruits we won’t give you, paid for with the caps we won’t give you, and fed with the food we won’t give you?” the elder griffin mocked. “Fly on back home and bother somegriffin else.”

“This isn’t the end,” the commander promised, but her words were clearly hollow. “And take that disgrace down!”

She pointed up to the flag atop the pole before she and her soldiers did as they were told and left. The flag was not the striped banner of the Griffin Commonwealth, but something I hadn’t seen before. The flag’s field was solid cerulean with the outline of a cloud and lightning bolt in black upon it. Kirkwell’s town flag, or some other faction?

“New Pegasus,” Rael said when I asked him. “The city has a wide reach.”

“Like Rokkism,” I offered, though Rael didn’t seem to like the comparison, judging by his expression.

“Yes, but far more concrete, centralized, and militaristic,” Rael said. “The eastern end of the Iron Valley is the de facto territory of New Pegasus, and most settlements within it are protected by the Dashite Enclave. There are a couple even outside of it that look to them for protection rather than the Commonwealth, like Kirkwell.”

“Wait, you’re going to have to back up,” I told Rael as I led us toward a place to sit down where he could explain things to me. “What’s the Dashite Enclave?”

“They’re the rulers and main population of New Pegasus,” Rael said. “You know Los Pegasus?”

“I’ve heard of it,” I said, surprised that it seemed Rael knew more about an Equestrian city than I did. Granted, my knowledge on Los Pegasus was incredibly slim. I knew that the Vanhoover Steel Rangers had come from there originally and later been exiled by the Los Pegasus Steel Rangers for sharing technology with Wastelanders, but that was about it.

“Well, New Pegasus is named after it, though it’s a bit on the nose if you ask me, given that members of the Dashite Enclave are, well, pegasi. Specifically, they’re pegasi who fled the Grand Pegasus Enclave during the Enclave Civil War about fifty years ago.”

“I’ve never heard of an Enclave Civil War,” I said, “Though I doubt I would have, since the Enclave tends to stay above the cloud layer and not really do anything.”

“I don’t know the specifics,” Rael said, scratching the feathers on the back of his head with a claw. “All I know is there were some rebels who weren’t satisfied with staying above the clouds doing nothing, and they got in a big fight that eventually ended with a battle between cloudships over the Iron Valley. In the end, the rebels took down the Enclave ship sent to take them out or capture them and settled New Pegasus in its wreckage. Unfortunately, the battle was what destroyed the Blessed Town of Dawn.”

Rael had gotten quite excited and animated in describing the history of New Pegasus but grew melancholy as he got to the part where Rok’s town had been destroyed.

“So, that means we’re going to see some pegasi soon?” I asked, trying to take his mind off it.

“If we keep heading east, definitely,” Rael said, perking up a bit. “If we don’t find them, they’re sure to find us.”

***

At Kirkwell, we’d met up with the main rail line through the Iron Valley, and we followed it the next day. We were nearing the point I’d planned for us to leave the tracks and head south when we came upon the ruins of the Minty-Fresh Toothpaste Factory. Unlike other ruins in the Commonwealth, where time and abandonment had left a place far less than it had been, Minty-Fresh had been truly ruined. Several buildings had been leveled and those that still stood were barely intact, with only some of the walls remaining and few fully enclosed spaces. The ground was cratered nearby, and ruts had been torn in it in places by something gigantic. I suspected a battle between cloudships in the Enclave Civil War; and some of the scorched earth in the surrounding area, exuding low levels of radiation, supported that theory.

Before we moved on, I decided to pick through the ruins, looking for ingredients used to make the toothpaste shilled by the blue-and-white-maned unicorn on the mostly intact billboard peeling away from one wall. My experimenting with alchemistry had burned through my supplies, and I’d been led to believe by the Book of Rok that plants such as this often held useful ingredients. Rael helped me as we searched the ruins, and I managed to find a few containers before FITS alerted me to the presence of a stranger.

“Rael,” I whispered, drawing his attention to rejoin me.

Once he had, I advanced toward the contact on FITS, my battle rifle drawn. As I swung around a collapsed warehouse, they came in sight: an earth pony mare with a dark blue coat and a long salmon-colored mane. Upon her back was a battle saddle that balanced a hunting rifle on one side with heavy-laden saddlebags on the other. She froze as she saw me, but her mark on FITS didn’t turn hostile.

“You scavenging here as well?” the mare asked, her eyes flicking back and forth between me and Rael as he flew into view.

“Yeah,” I replied.

“You have a problem with sharing the scavenge?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Good,” she said, breathing a sigh of relief, and the tension went out of her body as I lowered my rifle. “A unicorn and a griffin together, huh? You from New Pegasus?”

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m from Equestria originally.”

“Nor am I,” Rael said, “From New Pegasus, that is.”

“Well, me neither, in case you were wondering,” the mare said as she picked her way across the rubble toward us. “I’m Seltzer.”

“You live around here?” I asked after Rael and I had introduced ourselves.

“Yeah, nearby. I travel all throughout the eastern end of the valley looking for scrap,” Seltzer said. “What about you? What brings you out here?”

I opened my mouth to tell her about my travels in the Griffin Commonwealth, but before any words came out, a beam of magical energy shot through Seltzer’s head. She too opened her mouth, to scream, but nothing came out before she was disintegrated into glowing ash that drifted down into a pile. Shocked at what had just happened, I was instantly on alert, searching for whoever had shot her. I drew my battle rifle and scanned the area, spotting hostile pips on EFS all around.

“Drop your weapons! Comply now or we will fire!” an augmented voice demanded, and I looked up.

Hovering in the air around Rael and I, gradually descending while keeping the weapons mounted on their armor pointed at us, were six pegasi. I assumed they were pegasi, given their body shapes and wings, but they were completely encased in armor. It was clearly power armor, but far less bulky than what I’d seen Steel Rangers wear, more like what Roaring Thunder had possessed. It was power armor designed to be worn by pegasi, light and aerodynamic, with an articulated scorpion tail sporting a magical energy weapon at the end for an additional arm. The armor was painted the same cerulean as the New Pegasus flag, and upon the flanks, over each pony’s cutie-mark, was the cloud and lightning bolt. We were surrounded and outgunned, but they hadn’t fired on us yet, so I held out hope. I dropped my battle rifle to the ground, and two of the armored pegasi dropped to the ground to frisk Rael and me.

“Captain, what do we do with these?” the pegasus in front of me asked of her commander still in the air after she’d relieved me of the rest of my weapons and my saddlebags.

“Subject 33 was a known template. These two are unknown, but it is unlikely they are new templates,” the captain replied. “We’ll take them back to New Pegasus for examination.”

“You are hereby under arrest,” the pegasus in front of me said while her compatriot told Rael the same, even though it was painfully obvious.

Level Up
New Quest: Imprisoned by Pegasi – Deal with the pegasi in New Pegasus.
New Perk: Silent Running – You can now move at any speed when sneaking without penalty; just don’t bump into anything.
Alchemistry +6 (61)
Barter +2 (119)
Manipulation Magic +2 (46)
Small Guns +2 (141)
Survival +8 (75)

Chapter 21: New Pegasus

Chapter Twenty-One: New Pegasus

It took two days to travel from the ruins of the Minty-Fresh Toothpaste factory to New Pegasus, and I spent that time trying to rationalize what had happened. I’d known Seltzer for barely a minute, yet her death had still been shocking—turned to ash in an instant without warning. I hadn’t even had time to seek cover and identify her attackers before they’d swooped down from the sky, abundantly prepared to end my and Rael’s lives had we tried to resist. I’d faced hopeless odds before and come out on top; even so, I didn’t fancy my chances at taking out six power-armored pegasi, not even with the advantage ERSaTS would give me. Rael and I had complied with their demands, I turned over my weapons, and our captors led us away from the rubble field and the fresh, glowing pile of ash that had once been a mare. At least they didn’t take my clothes and other possessions, as Grand Marshal Gideon’s private squad of enforcers had done.

I kept a close eye on our captors, just as they surely did with us, though it was difficult to tell beneath the visors of their helms. They viewed us with suspicion, and I found out upon trying to speak with them that they weren’t shy about telling us why they viewed us with suspicion. They believed that Seltzer had been a pondroid (though the term they used more frequently was “synthetic equine” or “syntheq” for short) since she’d matched a description they had, and their standing orders were to shoot all pondroids on sight. Regarding why they had such orders, they were less than clear. New Pegasus seemed to be in some kind of conflict with pondroids or at least saw them as a threat, and they were to immediately eliminate any they could positively identify. Learning that there were pondroids here in the Commonwealth had tied a knot in my stomach, because I had a good idea of exactly how they’d gotten here; it had to have been the RoBronco scientists that had come here from Vanhoover, the ones I’d been following to RoBronco Site Dahlia. Our captors were unresponsive to any attempts to explain that, though. After all, they weren’t willing to believe anything Rael and I said on suspicion that we were pondroids (or, maybe griffdroid in Rael’s case) trying to mislead them.

If these pondroids were like those at Harmony Tower, I could understand the animosity. However, those pondroids had been inferior models that required the flesh of living ponies to replace their own, and Seltzer hadn’t looked like a patchwork of parts as those pondroids did. She’d appeared no different from any other pony, just like Ache and Mr. Bucke. Granted, there weren’t many positive things I could say about Mr. Bucke, but Ache had been my friend and Seltzer hadn’t seemed to be a threat.

We followed the railroad at first on our way to New Pegasus, but departed it as it began to turn north and made our way cross-country. We passed through several settlements as we went, all of them empty of griffins or ponies. Our captors were tight-lipped when I asked what had happened to them, but I could surmise it had something to do with the pondroid conflict. Some of the settlements showed signs of recent fights, but others were relatively untouched, with signs only of the residents having left in a hurry. We’d stayed to the belly of the valley for most of the trip, but after leaving the railway, the terrain began to climb and eventually turned into foothills as we neared New Pegasus.

Around midday, the famed settlement came into sight—and what a sight it was. It certainly couldn’t compare in size to Pleasure Coast, Castoway, or a roost; but for a post-War settlement, it was larger than any I’d ever seen other than the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad. Much of New Pegasus was made from the kind of construction that sprouted up whenever additional buildings were required in the post-War world, ramshackle structures built from reclaimed materials. Typical for most settlements, this sprawling field of scrap buildings was built around something existing; though in this case, what they were built around hadn’t been here before the megaspells had fallen. Among the rust and brick-colored structures, and towering over them, were two battleships. They seemed absurdly out of place here, so far from any major body of water, until I recognized they weren’t quite the same as the remains of battleships I’d seen on the docks of Trottingham. Their shape, while reminiscent of oceangoing vessels, had several differences that suggested they never were to set sail. For one, ungainly struts and blocks jutted out from their sides in a way that would unbalance them. For another, weapons, or at least the mounts where they would have been placed, existed below the waterline. Likewise, bays on the front opened out lower than they ought to be were the ships to stay afloat for any length of time. We approached them from the front, but I could see the skeletal remains of a third ship scattered across a hill in the distance, and there had clearly been propellors not just beneath the ships’ sterns but also above them.

“They’re cloudships,” Captain Mereskimmer, leader of our captors, said as she caught me staring. “Raptor-class. Built by Equestria during the War, hoarded by the Grand Pegasus Enclave, and now liberated by us. Come on, let’s keep moving.”

“They flew?” I asked, trying to figure out the mechanics of getting such large vessels into the air with no discernable gasbags, like the airships in Trottingham or ones used by griffins.

“They can still fly,” Mereskimmer said forcefully, probably regretting sharing the information now that she recalled I was a suspected enemy.

Maybe they could still fly, but that seemed implausible to me once I got a closer look. A fence surrounded the sprawling ramshackle city, and after passing through a gate set into it, we traveled up a central boulevard that led to the cloudships. The ships had landed parallel to each other, leaving a gap between them that had been filled over time by shops built against the vessels’ hulls and bridges that had been constructed to connect the decks, some of which had buildings atop them as well. If the cloudships ever did take off, they’d bring everything around them crashing down, if they could even extricate themselves from the years of urban framework surrounding them to begin with. I felt it was best to hold my tongue on such things, however, especially as our pegasus captors clearly held the cloudships in such esteem.

The six power-armored pegasi closed in tightly around us as we made our way through New Pegasus, both to keep us from trying to escape and to keep nosy onlookers back. Not that they were very effective against the flying denizens of the settlement, which included many of them. I saw plenty of earth ponies and unicorns in the crowd, but much of New Pegasus’s population were pegasi, with a few griffins here and there. In Equestria, I’d only ever seen one pegasus, and in the Griffin Commonwealth only ghouls of them, so to see so many in one place was an unusual experience.

As we entered the alley between the cloudships, I could see—repainted many times—names sketched on the hulls: Eurus and Zephyrus. Mereskimmer led us into the cloudship on the right (Zephyrus) and our escort closed in ahead and behind. The corridors were narrow compared to many buildings, but nowhere near as tight as those aboard the Red Harvest, and they were mostly bare metal. Other pegasi met us going the opposite direction or could be seen down branching hallways, either suited up in cerulean power armor or wearing stiff military uniforms of the same color. Some glanced at us as we passed, but most paid us little more notice than that.

Captain Mereskimmer motioned with a wing for our procession to halt as she opened a door and peeked inside. She made some additional signs a moment later, and our captors ushered us within, Mereskimmer the first to follow. The room we’d been led to had once been used for storage, but it had been haphazardly converted into a mixture between an infirmary and a laboratory. Gurneys sat in one corner, their dark coloration making it hard to determine what they were stained with, and workbenches with meticulously labeled cabinets beneath lined one wall, mysterious components spread across their surfaces. Behind a low table with a terminal on it was a pegasus in a white lab coat with a blue coat and a spiky black mane. He was seated backwards upon his chair, whose back was tilted so much that he was barely upright, stretched out upon his stomach as he manipulated the terminal with his hooves.

“Doctor Cyclone,” Mereskimmer pronounced loudly to get his attention, “I have two new candidates for you.”

“Oh, do you now?” Cyclone said as he looked up over the top of his terminal with interest. “Two, you say? Have the syntheqs cracked the feather barrier, then?”

“That’s what you’re going to find out,” Mereskimmer said without amusement as Cyclone launched himself out of his chair, sending it rolling back to crash against a stack of cardboard boxes.

“Well, if they are syntheqs, they certainly made some … interesting choices,” Cyclone said as he looked Rael and me up and down, his eyes lingering on my prosthetic arm. “You planning to stand there the whole time I check them out?”

“If they are syntheqs, I’m not going to leave them alone here with you,” Mereskimmer said with finality, although she did motion to the rest of our escort that they could all but one could leave.

“Well then, you might as well pull up a chair and take off your helmet,” Cyclone said as he hustled over to a cabinet and began rustling inside it for equipment.

“I’m on duty,” Mereskimmer replied.

“It’s not against the rules,” Cyclone said. Mereskimmer snorted dismissively, but she did take off her helm, revealing a mare with a russet coat and short-cropped blonde mane.

Doctor Cyclone grinned widely as he returned his attention to the others in the room, apparently considering Mereskimmer’s acquiescence to part of his request as a victory. So began the pegasus’s examination of Rael and me. We were subjected to various scans, had samples of our blood, hair, and saliva (and Rael’s feathers) tested, and were measured in almost every dimension. At last, Doctor Cyclone sat back with confidence, prepared to share the results.

“Well, you are not a syntheq,” the pegasus said, pointing to me, before turning to Rael, “And you are not a synthgriff.”

“Yes, I knew that already,” Rael said, surprising me, though there was nothing in his tone to suggest he was giving the doctor sass, so I dismissed the thought.

“Not that we’ve ever seen a synthgriff. Nor a convincing synthetic pegasus. They just can’t seem to get the feathers right,” Cyclone shared.

“I wanted to be thorough,” Mereskimmer said defensively.

“Yes, of course, of course,” Cyclone replied.

“Are these pondroids—,” I began to asked, but Cyclone raised a questioning eyebrow, “syntheqs so realistic that you needed all those tests?”

“No, I knew you were the real deal ten minutes in,” the doctor said as he trotted around to a workstation. “The rest was just to put together everything needed to keep you from ever having to go through this again.”

He returned with a pair of thin plastic cards in his mouth that he motioned for Rael and me to take. Upon mine, printed in very tiny characters, was an extremely extensive list of measurements and descriptors.

“Keep those on you in case another zealous patrol tries to take you in,” Cyclone said, and Mereskimmer grumbled quietly. “They’ll provide proof that you are who you say you are and that I’ve already looked you over.”

“Thanks,” I said as I tucked the card into my saddlebags. “Are we free to go, then?”

“Yes, I’ll escort you out so the doctor can return to his work,” Mereskimmer said, somewhat sarcastically, and Cyclone only smiled mischievously.

As we exited the Zephyrus, Mereskimmer had her companion return my weapons, and Rael and I were once again free to do as we wished. I still wanted to find out what had become of the RoBronco scientists and what remained of RoBronce Site Dahlia, but while we were in New Pegasus, there was no reason not to see what the settlement had to offer. From what I could tell, not much had changed while we’d been in the Zephyrus being examined, other than the dispersal of the crowds that had watched us get marched into the cloudship. Parts of New Pegasus were still crowded, and after talking to the ponies and griffins from these crowds, the reason was soon revealed.

Pondroids had, apparently, been attacking or abducting (nobody was quite sure) settlements aligned with New Pegasus, and so others had been ordered to evacuate their populations to the safety of the city until the pondroid threat was dealt with. That meant that the settlement was well over the population it typically housed or was able to manage, and Rael and I witnesses several arguments and scuffles break out between residents of settlements that didn’t get along despite being under the same flag. There was usually a Rokkist priest to break things up before I felt compelled to get involved, and when I commented on this to Rael, he reminded me that New Pegasus was built where the Blessed Town of Dawn, the heart of Rokkism, had once stood. Much to Rael’s excitement, I asked if we could visit where his religion had begun, and he happily led the way. As we trotted back toward the rearing cloudships, the music playing from speakers set up along the main boulevard faded out, to be replaced by a familiar voice.

“Good afternoon, my fellow citizens. And, of course, I say that with all seriousness, for what is a president but simply a citizen chosen by his fellows to lead them, to preside over the affairs of their government? Yes, it is an important lesson, especially for younger listeners, that even I, President Snowmane, am no different from you,” the speakers blared, the Grand Pegasus Enclave’s former president delivering a speech that the former Enclave pegasi probably found comforting or nostalgic. “Remember that when you look to your fellow citizen and remember that it is all our responsibility to look out for one another. That has always been my intention, to dispel the clouds over Equestria and descend at last to aid the ponies left below, fighting over the scraps in an irradiated wasteland. I still pray that this will someday come to pass, but I sincerely doubt now that it will be under my leadership. No, not when I’ve broken so publicly with the Grand Pegasus Enclave, become a rebel to the very state I once presided over. But what else could I do? I was awakened to the suffering of others and the entrenched inertia of those who’d succeeded me, who were unresponsive to my calls that now was the time we’d been awaiting. They wouldn’t listen, and so I had to flee my beloved Equestria. Do not take this as disparaging toward your home, my fellow citizens, but as a sign of my love and longing for my dear Equestria just as you love your Griffin Commonwealth. And yes, of course I consider all who’ve joined our city of New Pegasus to be my fellow citizen, be they pegasus, earth pony, unicorn, or griffin. We must all pull together, all stand as one, and all look out for each other. These are trying times we face, beset by a menace disguised as a friend. Remain strong. Remain united. And we shall prevail.”

As the music faded back in, I found myself stunned. Back in the Equestrian Wasteland, Enclave Radio had played speeches by President Snowmane I’d thought were live, only to find out from Rare Sparks that President Snowmane had died over a century ago and his radio broadcasts were being played on loop as Enclave propaganda, since they never really talked specifics. This time, however, President Snowmane had clearly been addressing the present moment, or at least some time of trial since New Pegasus had been founded. Otherwise, how could he have known the things he did? Was it truly President Snowmane? The speaker on the radio claimed to be him and I’d recognized the voice, but I hadn’t listened to Radio Enclave in years; it might not have been exactly the same as I remembered. Was somepony else claiming his name for the purpose of rallying the pegasi?

“Who was that on the radio?” I asked Rael as he continued to hover and lead the way. He seemed to be in the know about New Pegasus, at least as far as the basics were concerned.

“That was President Snowmane, leader of the Dashite Enclave,” the griffin missionary replied.

“Yes, that’s what he said, but … it’s just that … there was a President Snowmane in Equestria, or there was a long time ago, who gave speeches just like that. It can’t be the same pony.”

“Why not?” Rael asked, landing next to me as we entered the alley between the cloudships.

“Well, for one thing, he’d be at least 150 years old,” I said.

“So?” Rael said. “Snowmane has been president of the Dashite Enclave since they came here a half century ago. Pegasi claim they’ve met him during all that time. Maybe he’s a dragon or a computer.”

Thinking back to my time in the Equestrian Wasteland, I supposed Snowmane could’ve made a copy of his mind just as I had as Lord Lamplight. He could also be like Orthros, his brain kept alive but the rest of him long gone. Unfortunately, everything I’d seen where a Wartime pony’s brain was preserved didn’t speak well for the president’s sanity. Maybe Rael was suggesting that Snowmane had always been a computer—but that seemed even less likely. I’d seen systems that had achieved some sort of personality, but they were extremely limited, and I found it hard to believe that one could convincingly mimic a living creature well enough to fool even those merely listening over the radio.

While I pondered President Snowmane’s continued existence, Rael led me into the Eurus and up through its hull. Although the Eurus was the same class of cloudship as the Zephyrus and had the same structure, it was quite different on the inside. A few pegasi in Dashite Enclave uniforms could be seen, but mostly it seemed that the cloudship had been given over to residential space. As we passed up and forward, we entered the portion of the ship that had been given over to Rokkists, and we passed a hangar that had been turned into a massive church of Rok. Rael bobbed his head repeatedly as we passed priests and priestesses of Rok, some with one or more of his fellow acolytes following behind. I noticed ponies among the congregants waiting in the hallways or down in the hangar, and I wondered how many of the residents of New Pegasus had turned to Rokkism.

The babble below died down as we ascended one last staircase and emerged out onto the deck of the Eurus. There was still the noise of the settlement coming from below and around, but the space into which Rael had led me was hushed. A fence of trees had been placed in planters around the area, tended to by a griffin with a watering can, shears, and an icon of Rok, blocking out the sight of the cloudship’s guns and nearly hiding the superstructure that reared up to the east. Paths were created through the garden by ropes and posts, guiding us on a meandering path past various shrines dedicated to Rok and his initial followers. Rok’s grave marker stood at one point, looking very out of place here atop the cloudship.

“It marks where Rok is buried,” Rael explained in hushed tones when I asked. “Not immediately below it, of course, but under the cloudship. During the Enclave Civil War, this ship crashed atop the Blessed Town of Dawn, burying most of it.”

“And the Dashite Enclave has never moved it?” I asked.

“No. Despite what they claim, I do not believe this cloudship will ever fly again, and so we will never see the Blessed Town of Dawn again,” Rael replied.

We continued through what I was beginning to realize was a memorial for the town of Dawn. Markers of where founding members were buried and relics atop pedestals were reminders of the town Rok had created that they could no longer travel to. They were cut off from the tangible works of their prophet, so the Rokkists had created this to keep them from being forgotten forever. At one point we came across a miniature replica of the town. Dawn hadn’t been much, smaller than many settlements I’d seen, with only a few dozen homes. It’d been built in a radial pattern, structures spreading out around a central obelisk that I could also see rearing up from the center of the garden.

The path ended at the obelisk, a sheer-edged, four-sided structure that reached up to the sky. Upon it had been etched various sayings, some of which I could recognize from particularly poignant passages from the Book of Rok. These stretched up almost to the point where the obelisk suddenly narrowed into a pyramid at the top, and Rael confirmed that they’d been etched by Rok himself, the flightless griffin using progressively higher stacks of boxes or ladders as he ran out of space to etch his thoughts on how to live in a post-megaspell world. The base of the obelisk was badly mangled and missing an indeterminate span that would have taken it to the ground, replaced with concrete to fill in the gaps. It was clear what had happened to the obelisk, even before Rael’s explanation. When the Eurus had crashed, it had eradicated most everything, but the obelisk had been broken off at the base and flown free rather than becoming buried. The Rokkists had reclaimed it and returned it to where it had once stood, back when Rok had walked among them.

“Rok,” I said solemnly after we’d left the garden and were walking across the Eurus’s deck, “Whatever happened to Rok? I’m still reading his book, but did he cease writing after founding Dawn? It certainly doesn’t seem like the rest could encompass a long and happy life as the town grew until he died of old age.”

“How many of us die of old age in this post-megaspell world?” Rael asked with a sad smile. “You’re an astute pony, Doc. No, Rok’s death was not a happy death, but it was an important one. The Blessed Town of Dawn was attacked by raiders only a few years after it was founded. It seemed a promising target for them. A town of pacifists with enough resources to comfortably support themselves? No more inviting of a prize. It was a brutal night, and though the founders won in the end and proved that pacifist does not mean defenseless, Rok perished in the fighting. Yet, the Blessed Town of Dawn lived on and continued to pursue his ideals after his death. Rok died young, but reading some of his later writings, I think it’s what he would have wanted.”

Rael smiled a little less melancholically. “I know some of my colleagues would disagree with me, but Rok was worried after he’d founded the Blessed Town of Dawn that settling in one location would change him in a way he didn’t want. He feared growing complacent and losing sight of why he believed what he’d written down. Whether that would have happened is a theological debate I’m not yet qualified to have, but it was certainly something on Rok’s mind in his last days. It’s one of the reasons that we acolytes go out into the Commonwealth before becoming priests. A clergy that has known only comfort and complacency is ill-equipped to care for those who need their help. The Griffin Commonwealth is, in some ways, not as savage or dangerous as it was in Rok’s day, but it is still necessary to be reminded of the struggle for survival many still experience, so that we understand their pain and are ready to help them.”

“The other reason is the cloudship beneath your hooves,” Rael continued, and I listened attentively as I trotted along, letting him open up about what impassioned him. “Before the Blessed Town of Dawn was destroyed, Rokkism was slow to spread. Griffins would hear about the strange town following a dead prophet, and they’d come curiously to see what all the fuss was about. Some would take Rok’s words to heart and stay or bring them with them back home, but many paid little mind to Rokkism. After the Blessed Town of Dawn was destroyed, evangelism became an important part of our pilgrimages. Rok’s teachings couldn’t be allowed to be lost if a single town was destroyed, and so we try to spread them through the Commonwealth as far as we can.”

“Well, you seem to be succeeding,” I told him. “Even in Moonraze, it seemed like you found some converts.”

“Getting a clawhold in a roost would be a great accomplishment,” Rael said. “Roost-dwellers are naturally less inclined to think we need a new way to live since they’re still trying to live as if the megaspells had never fallen.”

“Well, it sounds like you’re due for a promotion,” I told him.

“Moonraze doesn’t really count as a roost. And besides,” Rael said as he scratched the feathers on the back of his head abashedly, “I did … kind of … abandon my mission there to follow you.”

“Right,” I said. “I hope I don’t hurt your chances.”

“It was my decision,” Rael reminded me, “And we are given considerable freedom on our pilgrimages. Otherwise, what would be the point?”

“I suppose,” I said, though I still worried that this curious young priest-to-be might be damaged by his association with me, a pony who frequently took life. I tried to always act for good, but did that excuse killing my fellow pony or griffin, especially in a world whose population had been severely cut back? It was the same question Rael was wrestling with, the reason he’d left Moonraze to follow me. I realized I cared about Rael, and about what conclusion he came to. I wanted to believe I was a good pony, but most of the time I still lived as if I was in the Equestrian Wasteland, a very different and much more violent place than the Griffin Commonwealth. Maybe the roost-dwellers weren’t the only ones who needed to realize it was a different world they were living in and change their ways.

During our conversation, we’d made our way back toward the stern of the Eurus, past the massive forward guns until we were alongside the ship’s superstructure, where various shops and homes were built against it. Gradually the buildings closed in around us, forcing Rael down alongside me, and the space became lit by strings of bulbs rather than Celestia’s sun. At one junction of alleys was a sign that read New Pegasus Historical Museum, and I instinctively followed it and the signs that ledinto the cloudship’s superstructure. My natural curiosity about the history of the world that had fueled my persistent collection of memory orbs and recordings in the Equestrian Wasteland hadn’t gone away, and I wanted to learn more about this pegasus settlement in griffin lands. Rael knew plenty about the history of Rokkism, but I wanted to hear about New Pegasus from a pegasus source, which I was pleasantly surprised to find when we arrived at the museum.

The New Pegasus Historical Museum had once been the Eurus’s mess hall, and many of the tables remained bolted to the floor, exhibits now upon them. A flimsy folding table sat near the entrance, and behind it lounged a pegasus with a bright green coat and a white mane and tail. As we entered, he looked up from the book he was reading and excitedly snapped it shut before jumping to his hooves.

“Visitors! Ah, it’s always good to see visitors!” the pegasus exclaimed as he trotted around the table to us. “You are not from New Pegasus, are you?”

“No, I’m not,” I replied.

“Good. Good. Everypony around here is too ‘educated’ to think they need to come to the museum and experience our history. But I can tell you everything!” the pegasus said with enthusiasm.

“Maybe not everything,” I said, “At least not all at once. Just the basics would be good for my first visit.”

“First visit,” the pegasus said, clearly giddy at the prospect of return visits. “Of course, of course. I’m Skyscout, curator of this museum.”

“Doc,” I introduced myself, and Rael did likewise.

“Right this way,” Skyscout beckoned as he hurried over to the first set of exhibits, which included some propaganda posters for the Ministry of Awesome in extremely poor shape, propaganda posters for the Grand Pegasus Enclave in slightly better shape, and a collection of bizarre metal rods with the cloud-and-lightning-bolt symbol of the Dashite Enclave on the ends. “To understand the origins of New Pegasus, you have to first understand the Dashite Enclave, and the two competing terms that make up their name. At the end of the War, when spellfire rained down upon Equestria, the pegasi closed up the sky after the loss of Cloudsdale and secluded themselves from the rest of ponykind. Isolated, the Grand Pegasus Enclave was saved from the worst effects of the megaspells, but not every pegasus agreed with leaving the rest of Equestria to die of radiation or starvation. The most prominent critic was the former ministry mare of the Ministry of Awesome, Rainbow Dash. She was banished from the Enclave and hunted down, and all after her who opposed the GPE were banished. Rather than being killed, they had their cutie-marks branded off and replaced with the mark of the arch-traitor, Rainbow Dash’s cloud and lightning bolt cutie-mark, and named Dashites.”

“For over a century, this was the status quo. The occasional pegasus would rebel and be branded a traitor, but for most there was no reason to challenge the Enclave. We were fed and safe, and to be banished to the Equestrian Wasteland was a death sentence in all but name. However, beneath the surface there was a hidden, simmering discontent in many pegasi, until there was enough to challenge that status quo, if only a spark could ignite them,” Skyscout said as he led us past displays of pamphlets, newspapers, and badly damaged uniforms and barding, including a nearly complete set of power armor like the suits worn by the pegasi who’d arrested us, except painted a glossy black rather than cerulean. “Fifty-seven years ago, a brave—or foolish—young Enclave soldier named Featherlift decided while on a scouting mission of the Equestrian Wasteland to help the ponies below, and everything kicked off. Knowing he’d be condemned for his actions, branded, and banished, Featherlift appealed to a higher authority and awakened President Snowmane from his long sleep. The Enclave Civil War started out civilly, with debate and disagreement between ponies and the Senate, but when both that and a coup attempt failed, those in favor of intervention in the Equestrian Wasteland seized control of two cloudships: the Zephyrus and the Notus. They intended to use them to go to the Wasteland and give aid to the ponies there in defiance of the rest of the Enclave, but the GPE’s leaders wouldn’t stand for it. A fleet was dispatched to end the war and recaptured the Notus, after which the rebels fled across the Celestia Sea to the Commonwealth.”

Skyscout continued to lead us through the museum, taking us through a broad display of maps, diagrams of cloudships, and a random assortment of aerial naval items, all culminating in a diorama where several cloudships were suspended from the ceiling. “The Dashite Enclave, as the rebels had begun to refer to themselves, thought they might have a chance to escape and do some good in the Griffin Commonwealth, but the Enclave was not willing to let them go so easily. A small fleet of Raptor-class cloudships continued to follow them, trimmed down so as not to provoke a griffin response but still capable of dealing with the rebels ... or so they thought. The Eurus, Apeliotes, Kaikias, and Iapyx followed the Zephyrus to the Iron Valley, where the final climactic battle took place. Alone and outnumbered, the Zephyrus took down the Iapyx, Apeliotes, and Eurus, and severely damaged the Kaikas, forcing it to limp back to the Grand Pegasus Enclave in defeat. Since then, the Enclave has left us alone, not willing to send another fleet and risk getting embroiled in a war with the Griffin Commonwealth, nor to face us now that we have two functioning cloudships again.”

“In the years since, the Dashite Enclave has taken over the governance of a new city in the Commonwealth: New Pegasus,” Skyscout continued as he led us to the last few exhibits, which held photographs of pegasi in uniform making agreements with flightless ponies and griffins, prototype flags, and copies of the city constitution. “With the technology and knowledge gained from the Enclave, we’ve been able to start rebuilding civilization down below and expand out from just New Pegasus itself. It may not be where the original members of the Dashite Enclave wanted to settle, but it’s an important first step to one day being able to recross the sea and bring civilization back to Equestria. Questions?”

“Yes, actually,” I said, and Skyscout’s face lit up. “I’m from the Equestrian Wasteland originally—”

“You are!?” Skyscout exclaimed.

“Yes, so anyway,” I continued, “I heard President Snowmane’s broadcasts there, but they were from over a hundred years ago. Yet Snowmane is still around making broadcasts here in New Pegasus, and he was apparently involved in the Enclave Civil War somehow. What’s his deal? How is he still alive?”

“Ah, well, we’re not really supposed to talk about too much, you know, in case … spies and assassins and all that, but …” Skyscout hesitated, “I guess I could tell you the basic idea. When President Snowmane realized he wasn’t going to live long enough to see his vision of ‘descending to save Equestria’ come to pass, he had himself interred in a long-term medical pod and went into a deep sleep in order to wait. When Featherlift woke him up and still the Enclave was no closer to his goals, he took leadership of what would become the Dashite Enclave and led us here. He’s tucked away safely deep in the bowels of the Zephyrus, but still very much alive, though only the Executive Panel is allowed to visit him directly.”

“I’ve never actually been in here before,” Rael said as he looked around at scattered displays of equipment and memorabilia. “Is all this from the other cloudships?”

“The Zephyrus still has most of its equipment, of course, though I was able to snag some of it where it wasn’t needed. Similar story with the Eurus. A few special pieces were taken from the Notus before it was recaptured by the Enclave,” Skyscout said as he ticked off his wing feathers for each cloudship. “The rest was taken from the wreck of the Apeliotes, what wasn’t taken to repair the cloudships here. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get my hooves on anything from the Iapyx.”

“And why’s that?” I asked as I examined a framed medal that had been half melted away, shrunken cloth and burnt hair still clinging to parts of it.

“The Apeliotes is nearby, but the Iapyx crashed a long way from here and it’s infested with mutants. The Dashite Enclave’s soldiers have already stripped it of anything useful for repairs and maintenance, and they don’t see any need to ‘go poking around for mementos,’ no matter how many times I ask them to send an expedition,” Skyscout bemoaned. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you look … ‘rough-and-ready,’ so to speak. I don’t suppose you’d be willing to go to the Iapyx for me?”

“That depends,” I said. “What kind of mutants, and what’s it pay?”

“Just giant moths,” Skyscout vaguely answered my first question. “And as for your compensation, I’m willing to spare no expense for truly unique pieces from the cloudship.”

“All right then,” I said as I presented my PipBeak to the pegasus. “Where’s the Iapyx?”

***

The Iapyx was slightly less than half a day’s travel to the southeast, where the foothills became mountains. After our examination by Doctor Cyclone and the visits to the Dawn memorial and the museum, the day was nearly spent, so Rael and I stayed in New Pegasus for the night and set out for the crashed cloudship at first light. Even from a distance, it was clear that the Iapyx had taken a severe pounding during the Enclave Civil War. Its hull was covered in scorch marks in the places it hadn’t been torn open entirely, and the ship had either broken or nearly broken apart at several points so that its remains were spread out down the face of the mountain. In the time since its crash, the greenery that had been burned or blasted away had returned to overtake the cloudship, making it seem like part of the landscape rather than an intruder.

As Skyscout had said, the Iapyx was infested with giant moths, but they didn’t present too much trouble for me, though I did have to be careful not to splatter them against the treasures the museum curator wanted me to retrieve. My task of taking down the insects was made all the easier by the new weapon I’d picked up in New Pegasus to replace my combat shotgun the Dogs of War had destroyed. A moth hissed and rattled angrily as it flew at me, and I fired my new starscatter gun into its abdomen. For the first time in the Griffin Commonwealth, I had my hooves on a magical energy weapon again. As I pulled the trigger, a cluster of bright blue beams shot out from the end of the rifle, some scorching the moth’s hairy body and some lancing through it to emerge on the other side. With a crackling sound, the giant moth turned into a cloud of ash that washed over me, disintegrated by my magical energy shotgun. I’d need to be careful about ammunition since the Dashite Enclave were the only ones who knew how to make the power packs, but for the moment I was relishing the experience of being able to use a magical energy weapon and a shotgun at the same time.

“Is that everything?” Rael asked as I loaded mugs with the cloudship’s name and logo on them into my saddlebags.

“Just about,” I said as I consulted the list on my PipBeak. “Skyscout still wants some things from the captain’s cabin.”

The Iapyx was a Raptor-class vessel just like the others than had come to the Griffin Commonwealth, and according to the diagrams of the Eurus in the New Pegasus Historical Museum, the captain’s cabin was nearby. I blasted back a giant moth with my starscatter gun on the way and reloaded before pushing into the cabin. The door didn’t want to open at first, but with a shove from my body and my magic, it jerked haltingly inward. The moths had made a nest here, and cottony gunk covered the corners of the room as well as stretching between furniture and across the floor and ceiling.

I was taken off guard by a truly massive moth that barreled toward me, upset at my imposition. The other moths had been smaller than me, but this one was significantly larger, barely able to fit through the hatch as I stepped back. ERSaTS labeled it a “Killer Moth” as I cast the spell and fired my starscatter gun into the giant insect’s face. I burned out one of its eyes and numerous holes were punched through its wings by shots going wide, but that gave it no pause as it bowled into me. I went flying backwards, my starscatter gun falling from my grasp as the killer moth slid me along the hallway. I tried to get free as I slammed up against a bulkhead, but the moth was faster, using its legs to pin my limbs in place. I tried to levitate my battle rifle, but the strap was trapped beneath me, and I could only get it into an awkward angle where I took out one of the killer moth’s back legs and nothing else. The killer moth snapped at me with its mandibles, and I conjured up a glowing magical shield that it knocked its head against angrily. The moth began to buzz rhythmically, and my magic dissipated. I tried levitating my battle rifle again but found myself unable to, my horn sparking uselessly as the killer moth somehow suppressed my magic.

My starscatter gun rang out from behind, and the killer moth turned its attention from trying to eat me to this new challenger that had ignited a wing and taken out one of its antennae. It still kept me pinned in place until the magical energy shots rang around me and one of the moth’s legs went limp. I was able to squirm enough to free the holster with Big Iron and, my magic restored, drew it and fired the revolver into the killer moth’s face. Half its head was torn away as the bullet shot through its open mouth, and a moment later it was disintegrated by another starscatter shot. On the other side of where the moth had been stood Rael, the gun held awkwardly in his claws. After confirming at a glance that I was okay, Rael looked away uneasily before helping me up and returning my gun.

“Thank you for that. Good job,” I told him, which didn’t seem to decrease his discomfort one whit. “Was that all right for you to do?”

“Of course,” Rael said, jumping out of his inward thoughts. “It wasn’t like it was a griffin or a pony, and besides, if I hadn’t then you’d have died. So, it was good. It’s just … it’s been a long time since I’ve held a weapon and that one … well, it’s made for a battle saddle, not for my claws.”

“We’ll have to do something to fix that when we get back to New Pegasus,” I told him, and Rael looked shocked. “You never know when I might need you to save my hide again. Come on, let’s finish up here.”

***

When we returned to New Pegasus, my saddlebags were packed full of items that I hoped Skyscout would be over Luna’s moon to add to his museum. The sun was setting in the west as we entered the settlement, and lights were beginning to flicker on outside to light the paths and ramshackle piazzas. Rael and I detoured off the main boulevard instead of heading straight for the Eurus. Shops were still bustling, but that was because many would soon be closing down for the night. I had no idea how long it would take to unload our haul at the New Pegasus Historical Museum, but I had the feeling that Skyscout would want to carefully examine every piece we’d brought. Before we sat through that, I wanted to restock on some of the supplies we’d used on our trip out to the Iapyx and back, not least of which were the microspark cells for my starscatter gun. If I was lucky, I might even be able to drop off the gun to be modified overnight and pick it up in the morning.

All those plans went out of my mind as I spotted a familiar face in the crowd of ponies and griffins milling around one of the makeshift market squares. The pink-coated earth pony mare stood near a shop selling pots and pans, idly side-eyeing them while other customers made their purchases. Her curly yellow and white mane was just as it had been when I’d first met her years ago in Harmony Tower. I pressed my way through the crowds until I was close enough to speak to her directly.

“Ache! What are you doing here?” I exclaimed, happy to see her, but surprised she’d come all this way, especially since when I’d last left her, she’d still had the mind of a child. “How’d you know I was here?”

“I’m … sorry. I … don’t understand,” Ache said hesitantly as she gave me a confused look.

“Do you recognize me?” I asked. “Did something happen to Tartarus? Why have you come here?”

“Sorry, I think you’ve confused me for somepony else,” Ache said. “Excuse me.”

Plenty of ponies (and griffins, for that matter) could look alike, and it had been a long time since I’d seen her, but I was absolutely certain that this mare was identical to Ache. She must have managed to relearn everything she’d lost, but apparently she hadn’t learned her history before she’d been shot in the head and had to be reset. That, or she just didn’t recognize me. Our time together in the Equestrian Wasteland hadn’t been the most comfortable, but I was looking noticeably more haggard after my travels and imprisonment on the Grittish Isles, not to mention the missing foreleg.

“It’s me, Doc,” I said, and showed her the faded patch on my shoulder that I’d scavenged from my old doctor’s coat.

Ache frowned at me, as if considering something, before looking up. I noticed the rest of the crowd doing the same and joined them. Overhead flew a platoon of power-armored pegasi. As they wheeled around in formation ringing the piazza, some of them shouted at the ponies and griffins in the air and they landed, looking unhappy.

“Everypony and everygriffin remain calm!” the lead pegasus demanded over her suit’s speakers, “Remain standing where you are, and this will all be over soon!”

The crowd grumbled as the armored pegasi swept their eyes over the milling throng of bodies, but complied with the order. Explosions suddenly rang out through the night, both near the cloudships and closer, among the market stalls. Scrap and bodies went flying through the air and ponies and griffins panicked.

“Stay where you are!” the Dashite officer above us demanded, to no avail. “Open fire! Confirmed shots only on targets with no chance of collateral!”

Magical energy shots lanced down into the crowd, only increasing the panic. Ponies cried out as they were turned to glowing ash. Pegasi and griffins who tried to take to the skies were forced down with warning shots or physical force when that didn’t work, but none were fired upon. I turned toward Ache, but she was gone, running away down a side street.

“Ache!” I called after her a second before she was hit by two separate magical energy bolts and disintegrated in place.

Confusion raged around me as the crowd tried to break free and the Dashites attempted to cordon the area off while I could hear similar scenes playing out across the settlement, accompanied by the sound of fires and occasional explosions as New Pegasus descended into chaos.

Level Up [Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Night of the Boiling Pot – Survive the tribulation in New Pegasus.
New Perk: Constantly Improving – You’ve reached your maximum level and will no longer level up or receive free perks, but you are still able to improve your skills through use.
Alteration Magic +1 (40)
Barter +3 (122)
Energy Weapons +5 (105)
Manipulation Magic +1 (47)
Small Guns +1 (142)
Survival +9 (84)

Chapter 22: The Consortium

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Consortium

“Doc, do you know why you’ve been called before the Executive Panel?” asked an elderly mare in a close-fitting cerulean uniform and a cap of matching color pulled down tightly over her white mane.

She was in the center of a line of five pegasi, all of similar appearance, seated behind a polished wooden table in what had once been a cozy conference room for a captain and her officers aboard the Zephyrus. The plaque on the table in front of her read Col. Fairweather, as did the tag on her uniform. I had been given a quite uncomfortable chair to sit in while I faced these five high-ranking officers of the Dashite Enclave, isolated in the open side of the room apart from the guards stationed near the exits.

“No, I don’t,” I replied honestly, and some of the Panel members frowned at me.

After the chaotic evening that had been dubbed the Night of the Boiling Pot by the powers-that-be in New Pegasus, I’d been arrested … again. I’d been imprisoned in the Zephyrus’s brig for a night, a day, and a night, and questioned before being brought before the Executive Panel. I had no idea why these ponies would want to speak to me when I’d already answered all their interrogators’ questions. From looking at the city constitution in Skyscout’s museum, I knew that New Pegasus was a multi-layered republic; the legislature consisted of the Senate and the High Assembly, with the former’s members elected by citizens of New Pegasus and the latter elected by members of the Senate. The High Assembly then elected the Executive Board, which elected the president (though this had been a moot point for decades since Snowmane seemed fated with endless reelections) and the two together comprised the executive branch of the New Pegasus government. Short of President Snowmane, these pegasi were the most powerful ponies in New Pegasus.

“Allow me to enlighten you,” Colonel Fairweather said brusquely. “Just prior to the terrorist attacks, you were seen speaking with the synthetic equine we’ve identified as Subject 1. Then, during the cleanup as synthetic equines were identified and terminated, you called out after her. Do you deny this?”

“No, but that’s not exactly what I meant,” I said, and the guards shifted as I leaned forward in my chair. “That’s all true, and as I explained to your interrogators yesterday, she looked identical to a friend I knew in Equestria. You know her as Subject 1, but I knew her as P-8CH, or Ache. Yes, she was a pondroid—er, synthetic equine—and I know how that must look, but I thought she was the Ache I knew and not just some copy wearing her appearance. You’ve got all that in those reports under your hooves, so why am I here? I don’t understand why I’m standing trial before New Pegasus’s Executive Panel and not before a tribunal or the like.”

When I’d been questioned, at least I’d been able to get some answers myself as to what was happening with the pondroids here in the Commonwealth. Whoever was making them was apparently limited in what they could do, so identical pondroids popped up again and again. It was actually what had first tipped New Pegasus off to the fact that there were pondroids at all, when they’d slipped up and two had appeared in the same place at the same time. Whenever somepony was discovered to be a pondroid, their appearance was logged away and they were given a number so they could be identified again in the future. Ache was Subject 1, which made sense if the RoBronco scientists from Vanhoover had rebuilt her first, since she was their only truly successful creation. The Ache I’d seen disintegrated wasn’t my Ache, but the memory still haunted me.

“Well, you’re not here entirely to be questioned,” another member of the Panel spoke up, a powder blue -coated mare whose mane was still more gray than white, whose nameplate read Col. Flitter. “We needed to reaffirm your story and your loyalties before we continue. Regarding your former relationship with a syntheq in Equestria, what is your opinion of those in the Iron Valley?”

“Well, I must admit I still don’t have the whole picture—and maybe you can help enlighten me on that—but their attack certainly doesn’t reflect favorably upon them.”

“Unthinkable that they would attack New Pegasus itself,” a stallion named Colonel Cloudwake fumed. “We pulled the outlying citizens in to protect them, so they attack them here!”

“That’s something else I don’t understand,” I said, “How did so many of them get into New Pegasus? I thought everypony was screened before they could enter.”

The Panel shared conspiratorial glances before Fairweather spoke.

“There is something we could share with you. But we must know that we can trust you first.”

“What’s the reason for this conflict with the sytheqs?” I asked. “Why are they attacking?”

“Something else for which we must know we can trust you before sharing any details,” Fairweather sighed. “But, in short, if you’re concerned that they’re attacking us because we exterminate them on sight, know that the opposite relationship is the case. From the moment we discovered them among us, they have struck at us and sabotaged us at every opportunity. It was what they were built for, to take down New Pegasus and the Dashite Enclave. Attempts at communication or brokering a ceasefire have all failed; now we don’t wait for them to strike, we merely cut them down before they can become a threat.”

“Well, if all that is true, I see why you do it,” I said after some thought.

“I trust you will find that it is true,” Fairweather said testily.

“I have to side with you then, if it comes down to it.”

“It most assuredly will if you intend to stay at this end of the Iron Valley for any length of time,” a stallion with a close-cropped beard named Colonel Highflier said. “To answer your original question, the reason you are before the Executive Panel is because we did some investigation into who you are. Both from your griffin companion’s testimony and the hearsay that’s filtered in about your exploits to the north and the west, we’ve concluded that you’re a pony who gets involved in whatever big events are going on around you. We thought it best to bring you in now, before things get any more out-of-hoof, if you’re willing to keep secret the confidential information that we wish to share with you.”

“Can I share it with Rael?” I asked.

“Not very secret then, is it?” Fairweather harrumphed, and Cloudwake looked affronted.

“If there’s something you want me to do, I may not be able to keep him in the dark about it entirely. He’s following and observing me, so keeping everything secret would be impossible,” I explained.

“Will he keep any secret that you tell him to?” Flitter asked.

“Yes, I’m sure of that,” I replied.

“Very well, but only share what is necessary,” Highflier said begrudgingly.

“Then I swear to keep secret what you’re about to tell me,” I said.

“Your first inquiry, then. How did so many syntheqs make it into New Pegasus without being caught?” Flitter said. “On the Night of the Boiling Pot, we discovered a syntheq among us, a pegasus posing as a member of the Dashite Enclave. We’re still investigating how long she managed to remain hidden, but we believe that she was able to let the others through on her fabricated authority, declaring known syntheqs to be clear to enter. When we discovered the deception, we dispatched all available forces to seek and kill the syntheqs in the city. Unfortunately, we were too late.”

“I trust you understand the implication of the discovery of a pegasus syntheq and why we wish to keep this information under wraps for the time being,” said the final member of the Panel, a stallion called Colonel Ravine, who appeared the youngest of the five, despite easily having a decade on me. “Through our struggle against the syntheqs, the one comfort the citizens of New Pegasus have had is that they could trust the Dashite Enclave to be uncompromised. Never has there been a syntheq with convincing artificial feathers, but now they’ve done it. We can expect to see more synthetic pegasi in the future, and maybe even synthetic griffins if they’ve managed to figure out beaks and talons as well. That’s why it’s more important than ever that we act now to end this.”

“You want me to help you with this?” I asked.

“We’ve been on the back hoof for too long,” Fairweather said. “The stream of syntheqs is seemingly endless, and we cannot keep only on the defense if we hope to win this. We need to find the source of the threat and eliminate it. That brings us to the other confidential information, the little we know about our adversaries, our true adversaries—the ones building the syntheqs. From a brief amount of time, we considered spying an acceptable precursor to apprehension or elimination, but we discontinued it due to the danger allowing syntheqs to remain active posed. However, it did furnish us with some information about our opponents. The syntheqs are not autonomous; they have organic masters known as the Consortium. Somewhere in the Iron Valley, this Consortium is building syntheqs for a single purpose: to wipe out New Pegasus and the Dashite Enclave.”

“Do you have any idea why they’d want to target you specifically?” I asked, expecting some vague answer relating to taking down a rising power or that they didn’t really know. Instead Colonel Ravine produced a bulky briefcase from behind his chair and placed it on the table.

“Do you know what this is?” Ravine asked as he unlocked the case and opened it toward me.

“It’s a starscatter gun,” I said as I got up to look, and the guards made no moves to stop me. “I have one just like it.”

“Do you?” Ravine asked. “Look closer.”

“There’s no trigger!” I exclaimed upon another inspection. It was missing even the mechanisms to connect it to a battle saddle.

“No external trigger,” Ravine clarified. “It can be fired using short range ultra-high frequency radio signals, which is how we believe the syntheq we found this on was able to fire it.”

“So, the Consortium has reverse-engineered your technology,” I said.

“Unlikely,” Fairweather said. “When this was discovered, we hadn’t yet begun to make the starscatter gun available for sale. No, the reason they have the same technology as us is not because they’re copying from us; it’s because they are us.”

“More accurately, they were us,” Colonel Cloudwake cut in. “When the Dashite Enclave was just beginning to establish itself here in New Pegasus, there was disagreement between the High Command and most of the scientists who had fled here with us. The scientists wished to continue the unrestrained research they’d been allowed in the Grand Pegasus Enclave, but without the bureaucratic oversight. The High Command felt that moral arguments outweighed pragmatic ones and denied many of their proposed experiments, not least because they could easily turn the residents of the Commonwealth against us. After this decision, most of our scientists parted ways with us and left the Dashite Enclave. We believe it is they who are building these synthetic equines and sending them against us in order to tear down what we’ve built and allow them to take our place.”

“So, what is it that you want from me?” I asked.

“Mainly your help, however you can provide it. Given your record, I have no doubt that you’ll find a way,” Colonel Fairweather said. “Most importantly, though, we need to find where the Consortium is located. We’re stretched thin with our patrols both searching for them and their synthetics and protecting our citizens. We pulled the settlements we thought to be in danger into New Pegasus to help alleviate the problem, but as you’ve seen, even that was not enough. They need to be located and stopped.”

“I’ll do my best,” I promised.

***

“What do you intend to do if you find the Consortium?” Rael asked as I picked my way through the rocky scree and he hovered overhead.

I’d shared with him most of what the Executive Panel had told me, but left out the recent revelation of synthetic pegasi and the suspected origin of the Consortium. They would both probably come up in time, especially if we did actually find the Consortium. For the moment, I wanted to honor the Panel’s wishes, at least in spirit. The Executive Panel had let me go and returned my belongings following our audience; and after reuniting with Rael and finally dropping off the things we’d retrieved from the Iapyx with Skyscout, we left New Pegasus and headed back west into the Iron Valley. Though the Executive Panel was convinced that former Enclave scientists were behind the pondroids, I was still sure that the RoBronco scientists from Vanhoover had some hoof in things. Rael and I resumed our original journey before we’d been picked up by Mereskimmer and made our way to RoBronco Site Dahlia.

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “Talk to them, if I can. Their dispute is with New Pegasus, so hopefully they won’t see me as an enemy.”

“And then you’ll tell the Dashite Enclave where they are so they can come and kill them.”

“If it comes to that,” I said. “They’re sending pondroids to kill ponies and griffins just because they accepted New Pegasus’s protection. You were there when they set off those bombs. I need to know why, and if there’s still no good reason, then yes, the right thing to do is to turn them over.”

“Killing some to protect others,” Rael said introspectively.

“I do it all the time,” I said, though I’d become more contemplative about it since Rael had started tagging along. “Tell me I’m just blinded from seeing the truth again and you see something that looks like a RoBronco installation,” I said, mostly to change the subject, but also out of frustration.

We’d been back and forth over the area surrounding the coordinates I’d gotten for RoBronco Site Dahlia, but there was no sign of it. No railroad tracks or roads reached the site, and there were no signs of any buildings. I was beginning to think that Site Dahlia was a lie and there had never been anything here at all. Were that was the case, though, I had no leads. If the RoBronco scientists had arrived here and found nothing, there was no way to know where they’d gone next.

“All remnants of Orthros’s technology were removed,” Rael assured me. “But no, I don’t see anything either, just rocks.”

“Maybe an avalanche buried it,” I said as I eyed the field of rocks.

It certainly did appear that, at some time in the past, a portion of the mountain’s side had slid down over where we were standing. Maybe RoBronco Site Dahlia was beneath my hooves, but if it was and the Consortium was still using it, that didn’t explain how the pondroids were leaving the facility. I was puzzling over if, where, and how I should start digging to see if I could find Site Dahlia when a pony stepped out from behind a large rock ahead of us.

“Hey!” I called, but got no response.

Instead, I found a pair of grenades landing at my hooves, thrown from behind. They began to emit a thick cloud of mist before I could throw them back, and I found myself growing incredibly tired. As I slumped down, I could distantly hear someone struggling to get Rael down into the cloud before I blacked out.

***

When I awoke, I was in a cell … again. It was different from the prison cell in Brinkfall or the brig of the Zephyrus, but it was still clearly a room I was not meant to leave of my own volition. The walls were a smooth, pearlescent white and they curved as they met the floor, ceiling and each other so that there were no sharp corners. The ceiling was a similar color to the walls but translucent, and the dim light emanating from it increased in brilliance as I sat up. The floor was a dark gray with a grid pattern where lines alternated perpendicularly, and the surface gave slightly as I stepped out of the bed I’d been lying in. The bed’s mattress seemed to be composed of a strange springy material I’d never seen before, similar to the floor but softer and with more give, and had something I’d seldom encountered since leaving Stable 85: clean sheets. One corner of the room had a privacy screen in front of a shower and toilet, with a desk and chair on the other side. There was the thin outline of a door in the center of one wall, but it otherwise blended seamlessly with its surroundings, and there was no obvious way to open it. It was the nicest cell I’d ever been in, but still undeniably a cell. I’d been left my clothes, but my weapons were all missing, and the saddlebags on the desk had unmistakably been rifled through and any dangerous objects within confiscated.

As I explored the room, the door slid down into the floor to reveal somepony standing outside. The earth pony mare had a dark blue coat and a long salmon-colored mane that she’d braided neatly and draped over one shoulder. Over her form was draped a blue dress made of a sheer, vaguely shiny material.

“Good morning, Doc,” she said, and I checked my PipBeak to confirm she was right (about the morning part at least, if not it being “good”).

“Seltzer?” I asked hesitantly, for she was the spitting image of the pony Rael and I had encountered in the Minty-Fresh Toothpaste Factory, although she was much cleaner now.

“Oh dear, have we already met?” the mare said with concern, “My apologies, they were supposed to assign somepony you didn’t already know was synthetic. I was meant to introduce myself as Highland Brook, but since the cat is out of the bag, as they say, you may address me as Unit Thirty-Seven-Dash-Eight, or Three-Seven-Eight if that’s easier.”

“Why are you here?” I asked 37-8, before realizing the more important question. “Why am I here?”

“You are a guest of the Consortium,” 37-8 said as she stepped out of the doorway and into my cell, and the door slid back up behind her. “I am here to give you a tour of the facility.”

“And then what? You turn me loose?” I asked suspiciously.

“That is up to the Trustees,” 37-8 said. “They intend to meet with you on the fifth day.”

“The fifth day?” I asked incredulously. “How long is this tour?”

“The schedule allows for one day for each research department of the Consortium, as well as time to explore and experience life here,” 37-8 replied.

“For what purpose?” I asked.

“To help you to understand what it is we do here and who we are. Information is the bedrock of understanding, and we intend to provide you with all the information you need to know the proper attitude to take toward the Consortium when you return to the Iron Valley,” 37-8 explained. “You tend to have an outsized effect on everything and everypony around you. Thus, it’s important you not get the wrong impression about the Consortium, its goals, and the reasons behind these goals.”

“I see,” I said, still suspicious, but willing to go along for the time being.

“Excellent!” 37-8 said with a chipper smile. “Shall we be off, then?”

“Is Rael here, too?” I asked as 37-8 trotted toward the room’s door and it slid away automatically.

“Your griffin friend? Yes, of course,” 37-8 said, but added nothing else as she led me out into the hallway.

There wasn’t much to see outside of my cell, at least not in the aesthetic sense. The hallway was the same style as the cell had been, with rounded edges and a glowing ceiling, though the floor was firmer here and unpatterned. There was nopony to be seen other than 37-8. Apparently they weren’t very worried about breakouts.

“Will he be coming along on the tour as well?” I asked as we began to trot down the hallway, which curved to the left and had outlines of doors only on the right.

“He is not included,” 37-8 said matter-of-factly.

“Well, I’d like him to be,” I said as I stopped walking.

“Just a moment,” 37-8 said, and her eyes went distant for a good thirty seconds, making me start to wonder if something had gone wrong with her software, before refocusing. “Very well.”

Trotting ahead, a door opened as she passed and I spotted Rael within a cell identical to the one I’d been in, reading the Book of Rok while seated on the bed. After I explained what was going on, he joined 37-8 and me in the hallway, and we continued along. Just in case things went dicey, I tried to keep my eyes peeled for ways to escape, but there wasn’t much to see in the hallway. We eventually came to a door on the left wall, and 37-8 led us through into a straight hallway with no other doors. Standing in the hall was a pony wearing shiny security barding that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Stable, complete with bubble helmet. He didn’t say anything as we passed, and I wondered if he was a pondroid as well.

At the end of hall was a semicircular room with a circular, glass-sided elevator car protruding halfway into it. 37-8 led us into the elevator, and though the buttons near the door lit up as though they were being pressed, she made no moves to do so. It didn’t seem to matter as the elevator began to descend, cutting off our view of the bright white chambers and replacing it with the softer glow of overhead lights and their diffusion through the white ceiling. There wasn’t much to illuminate outside of the glass walls, just dark metal with the occasional dull light marking emergency exits. That all changed in an instant as the car dropped into a large open space, descending through a transparent tube to allow a 360-degree view of the Consortium.

The large open space we were passing through was vaguely egg-shaped, round but taller than it was wide and broader at the base with a gentle taper upwards to the point the elevator had emerged from. Along the walls nearly to the top of the space were windows and balconies, and at several points near the bottom stretched covered walkways that led to the center, allowing one to enter the elevator. The base of the space was styled as a garden, and I was astonished to see plants growing vibrantly without sunlight, something even the orchards of the Stables had only managed to create a shadow of. Between the beds of ferns, trees, grasses, and artificially created streams and waterfalls, the space ascended in tiers with stairways, ramps, and buildings stacked alongside each other. Here, the walls were not the harsh, absolute white of above, but a more tolerable pale gray, though the aversion to sharp angles persisted.

“Today’s scheduled tour is of the Agricultural Department,” 37-8 announced as the elevator came a halt at the bottom of the cavern, alongside other elevators that traveled only downward, and led the way out into the garden space.

Rael and I followed, both of us soaking in the sights around us. Everything appeared so alien, as if the War had never touched the Consortium and pony society had continued to advance in strange ways during the last one hundred-fifty years. Several ponies were about and eyed us curiously (and with some small measure of haughty disdain) as we walked by, looking cleaner and better nourished than the vast majority of those I’d seen in the Equestrian Wasteland. They were attired in strange pieces of clothing derived from Wartime Equestrian fashions, but of different materials and styles. There was also life among the gardens in the form of squirrels, rabbits, and birds, appearing as they did in Wartime media and not how I’d typically encountered them.

“Are they real?” I asked as a trio of red-feathered birds flitted over us.

“Of course not,” 37-8 said definitively. “They are synthetic, like me, but are still capable of performing most of the same functions and filling the same environmental niches as their organic counterparts. The Consortium failed to acquire living, unmutated specimens before the megaspells fell, and none of the current samples are viable. Thus, we build new versions of extinct species.”

“I don’t know how much research you get to do outside of the Consortium, but you may want to consider that the environment isn’t the same as it once was, nor is it likely to ever be so again. The environment you’re designing for is long gone, except for maybe down here in your private gardens,” I said as I continued to eye the thriving plants.

“Doctor Cabbage will be able to explain when you meet him,” 37-8 said with a knowing smile as she led us up a curved, gently sloping ramp that took us to a doorway on the outer wall of the cavern.

The doors here were different from those in the cell block, composed of an opaque glass and clearly inset so that it was no surprise how they slid into the walls. On the other side of the doors was a short but wide hallway with chairs and low table along one wall. Along the other was a large bank of glass, behind which were several workstations, all but one covered in tarpaulins. The uncovered station had a pony lounging behind it with his hooves up, the set of sunglasses over his eyes incongruous in the darkened room.

“Hello, Clover,” 37-8 addressed the earth pony without stopping or slowing her canter.

“Hello … Unit 37,” Clover said, his voice projected through an overhead intercom, after flipping up his sunglasses so he could see her. “These the Outsiders?”

“Yes, they are,” she replied as she continued on.

“Hold up,” Clover said as we neared the large set of doors at the end of the hall. “Doctor Cabbage sent me here to make sure you take them through proper decontamination procedures.”

“They were decontaminated when they entered the Consortium,” 37-8 said as she halted before the doors and waited for Clover to unlock them.

“Yes, but who knows what kind of taint they might be carrying from the outside still. Bet~ter safe than sor~ry,” Clover said, the last bit in a sing-song voice.

“Fine,” 37-8 said, her tone betraying frustration, though her face showed none of it.

Instead of continuing through the large doors in front of us, 37-8 led us through a smaller door to the side. Lights flickered on as she trotted into a short, narrow hallway, and Rael and I followed after her. After disrobing, we were bombarded with disinfecting mists and high-intensity lights. Not that they did anything to clean off the grime of travel—that was what the shower in my cell was for—but we were apparently cleansed of anything that Clover was worried about contaminating the Agricultural Department with. He was waiting for us on the other side of the far door when it opened after decontamination was complete, his green and white jumpsuit fully zipped up and his sunglasses still on his face.

“Doctor Cabbage is in Field 3A today,” Clover said as he turned about. “Right this way.”

37-8 looked irked at Clover taking over her tour duties, but obediently followed him as he led us down identical gray hallways. Some sections, usually those around doors, had long windows, but the glass was opaque so that what existed on the other side was a mystery. Field 3A turned out to be just what it sounded like, but I was still surprised when Clover led us through a door to a large, enclosed space filled with soil and long, precisely planted rows of greenery. Bright lights burned overhead, simulating sunlight, and the plants swayed slightly in the wind from the air vents along a wall. Among the crops walked ponies in white and green lab coats examining them with instruments mounted to their backs or held in magical grips.

“Doctor Cabbage!” 37-8 called out as we approached a tall, gangly earth pony with a yellow coat and leafy green mane.

“Yes, hello?” he said as he moved a pair of magnifying lenses up to his forehead and replaced them with a set of spectacles, “Ah, our visitors! How are you finding the Consortium?”

“Well, we are prisoners,” I said bluntly, “But so far, quite impressive. You have enough space down here to rival a Stable. Is it all underground?”

“Yes, we have quite a lot of space,” Doctor Cabbage laughed, though I didn’t get the joke. “We closed off the surface years ago, long before my time, I can tell you.”

“Doctor Cabbage is one of our top scientists in the Agricultural Department,” 37-8 said, and Cabbage scoffed at ‘one of’. “Perhaps you can share with our visitors what the Agricultural Department does and show them the sights.”

“Of course! Clover, keep an eye on things here, and take off those ridiculous sunglasses.”

“Yes, doctor,” Clover said melancholically as he removed his shades and squinted in the ceiling lights.

“The Agricultural Department’s theater is everything plant related that goes on here at the Consortium,” Doctor Cabbage said as he trotted past us, carefully avoiding harming the plants, and back toward the exit. “The most mundane part is producing foodstuffs for ourselves, but the really important work is preserving and improving crops to be introduced into the Outside.”

As Cabbage led us out into the hallway, I saw that the windows were now transparent, and I could see similar scenes through them as Field 3A. Diverse fields of crops grew in abundance, tended to by scientific types in almost every case. Tending was perhaps not the right word, as examination seemed to be the primary focus. Any of the manual care for the plants was done by ponies in gray jumpsuits that, after spotting a few duplicates, I realized were pondroids.

“I head up the Wasteland Revitalization Project,” Doctor Cabbage said proudly, “Which is the effort to create a way to introduce viable, high-yield, unmutated crops into the Commonwealth, and one day the Equestrian Wasteland. Of course, that also means we do research into soil, water, and air purification methods, to remove megaspell and viral taint.”

As we were given the tour, I realized that we were wrapping around the central space we’d first descended into. I was beginning to think the fields would circle the entirety of the bottom level as a disk, but Doctor Cabbage led us down some stairs and into a level where plants were far less numerous through the windows. They were still undeniably present, but usually only a few were planted, or they were sprouting from hydroponic tubes. Lab equipment was prevalent, and we passed scientists busy experimenting on smaller scales than what we’d seen above, often wearing protective suits. The vast majority of the scientists and their assistants were earth ponies, though I did notice a few unicorns and pegasi among them. One room was filled entirely with unicorns seated at a table and arguing over what was shown on a large screen that dominated one wall, the charts and figures on it completely indecipherable to me.

“Of course, that does mean I have to deal with plenty of magic types,” Doctor Cabbage said with a sigh as he too noticed the kerfuffle and hurried past before anypony saw him and tried to pull him in. “At least I’ve got them on the right track now, unlike my predecessor. Just because our forerunners managed to steal Twilight Sparkle’s plans for a ‘Garden of Equestria’ from the Ministry of Arcane Sciences doesn’t mean we have to use them. I don’t know what the Ministry Mare was thinking, or how she intended to make such a system capable of cleansing the entirety of Equestria with a single spellcasting. I’m no unicorn, but even I can tell from the diagrams that the magical power required would be more immense than a thousand microspark reactors put together!”

“I’m surprised by how many non-pegasi are here,” I commented, fishing for information. “You’re not from the Enclave, are you?”

“Do you see wings on my back?” Doctor Cabbage said indignantly, and 37-8 gave me a suspicious look. “No, I’m descended from the Old Guard, the original RoBronco researchers who were here before the megaspells fell. I haven’t forgotten our original mandate from Robert Horse himself, to research how to bring life back to a land blighted by megaspells.”

Cabbage continued to rant on for several minutes about things I quickly found myself unable to follow, but I was sure they would make more sense if I better understood the Consortium’s politics and history. (Until, that is, he got into the portion of his speech about different crop varieties and experiments, which I was sure I wouldn’t be able to understand unless I’d devoted my entire life to such research as he and his family had.) Through it all, he led Rael and me past the different labs doing research into new forms of crops and how to protect them from radiation and disease.

When 37-8 seemed to think we’d seen everything important, she managed to excuse us from Cabbage’s monologue and invited him to return to his research. We went out of the Agricultural Department the same way we’d come in, though this time we were able to exit through the main doors and didn’t have to submit to decontamination again.

The rest of the day was free, or as free as it could be with a pondroid minder keeping an eye on us. Rael and I were allowed to explore the Consortium anywhere that 37-8 didn’t turn us away from, which allowed us to explore the open space and gardens as well as many of the offices that climbed the walls. Private residential spaces were naturally off-limits, but we were allowed to walk the hallways and meet with the inhabitants as they came and went at their daily tasks. I suspected the random encounters weren’t truly random. They were probably carefully calculated by the Consortium to show me the most favorable slice of life, but I couldn’t really prove that, at least not with 37-8 along. Most of the ponies I met worked in the Agricultural Department or were part of a family that worked in said department. The rest either worked in the Engineering Department to maintain the facility or were part of the staff that provided food, goods, and entertainment to the rest of the residents.

Life in the Consortium was vastly different from most other places, with no fear of harm or scarcity apparent. Even the Stables hadn’t seemed this squeaky-clean, and it put me on edge. What I’d been shown was just too perfect, which made me want to trust the Executive Panel’s assertions even more in spite of what I was seeing. Perhaps 37-8 was picking up on my growing uneasiness, or perhaps the time scheduled for the tour was simply up, but she led us back to the elevator and returned us to our cells, promising to return the next day for the second part of the tour.

***

I spent some time that night trying to find ways to escape, but however the Consortium had built the cell, they’d done it with great precision; there were no evident gaps I could pry open to get at anything behind the walls. Not even the air circulation system was vulnerable, and it took me a while to discover the vents for it were thousands of tiny holes scattered across the ceiling, invisible without standing atop the desk and examining them closely. In the end, I decided to give up on breaking out of the cell and put my efforts toward thinking of another way to escape. In the meantime, I took advantage of the amenities afforded to me as a prisoner that I’d rarely had access to as a free pony, showering and scrubbing myself thoroughly. My clothing still smelled a little mangy, but I was as clean as I’d been since leaving Stable 85 a decade ago.

In the morning, 37-8 returned and gathered Rael and me to continue the tour of the Consortium. We began by retreading the same path as the day before, but as the elevator neared the bottom of the cavern and I prepared to depart, it kept descending. Once beneath the base of the Consortium, we traveled in a cylindrical tunnel with other elevator tubes clustered around us, plunging deeper into the earth.

“Where are we going?” I asked 37-8 as lights flashed by in the darkness.

“Today you will be touring the Advanced Systems Department,” 37-8 announced as we plunged back into the light. I stared dumbstruck at another large cavern nearly identical to the one we’d just passed through. There were more gardens below, more pathways and tiered buildings, and more windows and balconies along the curved walls. I thought I’d seen the extent of the Consortium, but I now had some reevaluating to do.

“How many of these spaces are there?” I asked as the elevator pulled to a stop and the door opened.

“The Consortium houses four concourses, one for each of the research departments. Most ponies live on the level they also work on to minimize commute times and congestion of the elevator system,” 37-8 replied straightforwardly.

“Of course,” I said, still taking in the scale of the Consortium as we exited the elevator and proceeded through the concourse, getting curious looks from new ponies.

“What does Advanced Systems research?” Rael asked. “It seems like a vague descriptor.”

“You shall see,” 37-8 said in a way I found unsatisfactory.

We were led to a set of doors identical to those that had led to the Agricultural Department above, apart from the colored markers around the edge which were blue instead of green. The hallway on the other side of the doors was also similar, with the far doors open instead of closed. As 37-8 led us into the hallways beyond, I saw that most of the windows here were clear instead of opaque, allowing me a glimpse of the laboratories where the department’s scientists were at work. 37-8 kept us moving, so I wasn’t able to see much, but I did spot unicorns channeling magic into batteries, earth ponies tweaking robots, and pegasi with jets strapped to their backs.

At the end of the journey was a small office with a large opaque window next to the open door. As 37-8 led us through the entrance, I spied the nameplate next to it: Dr. Tourmaline / Advanced Systems Department Head. Within the office was a desk with a terminal in the rounded edge style typical of everything in the Consortium, as well as many bookcases and filing cabinets. Upon every available surface were clustered models of every conceivable device, likely scale mockups of the Consortium’s prototypes over the years, though I did notice a few empty spots here and there among them. Seated behind the desk was a willowy earth pony mare with an orange coat and cherry-red mane that was piled into a bun atop her head. Like most of the ponies I’d seen in the Advanced Systems Department, she was wearing a white and blue lab coat, though hers had considerably more blue than the others.

“Doctor Tourmaline,” 37-8 introduced us, “These are our visitors: Doc and Rael.”

“Ah, of course. Come to see the wonders of the Consortium, have you?” Tourmaline said as she rose. “It’s almost mind-bogglingly incredible, isn’t it? I know I was certainly wowed when I first arrived.”

“Doctor Tourmaline originally lived in Castoway before she was recruited by the Consortium,” 37-8 explained. “Now she is a department head.”

“Yes, I’ve devoted my life to the Consortium and research,” Tourmaline said proudly as she led the way out of the office, pressing a pad on the wall as she left, which changed the window from opaque to transparent.

“Researching … Advanced Systems?” I asked dubiously.

“Yes, it’s a title we’ve never truly been able to shake,” Tourmaline said as she led us down the hall. “Not for lack of trying, mind you. However, nothing else has been able to stick and encompass what the department does. Most of our research is toward applied physics and arcane technologies, as well as the remainder of the Robotics Department that was disbanded and folded into us once the Synthetic Life Department superseded it. We innovate in a broad area, so I’m going to show you some of the things we’re working on that may be of interest to you.”

The first lab we were led to contained researchers wearing heavy armor and masks in addition to their lab attire, but Tourmaline seemed unworried to lead us in completely unprotected. The researchers, most of them unicorns, were gathered around a mechanical cylinder no larger than a paint can, several points of which glowed with an orange light tinted by the magical shield erected around it.

“The Consortium has been researching new energy sources ever since they began to expand underground,” Tourmaline explained, “With the addition of the Ex-Enclave scientists fifty years ago, we were able to gain their experience with novasurge technology and applied it to replacing our lagging microspark reactors. Now we’re working to miniaturize the novasurge reactor technology. Even a reactor of this size contains the capacity to provide a small-to-medium town with all the power they’d ever need.”

Leaving the Consortium scientists to study the miniature reactor, we moved on to the next lab on Tourmaline’s tour. This one was filled with gently humming maneframes and mostly staffed by earth pony researchers. At the center of the space was an auspicious-looking maneframe different from all the rest and covered in ports, screens, and banks of blinking lights.

“This … is a crucial centerpiece of our research,” Tourmaline said as she gestured toward the maneframe, “Part of the original mandate when the Consortium began as a RoBronco research site was to create ways to rebuild civilization in the aftermath of a megaspell holocaust, as you no doubt heard in the Agricultural Department. Our hope is that we can create a maneframe containing all the information needed to rebuild and with a sophisticated-enough program to manage that process. Provided to towns in the Commonwealth or Equestria, and coupled with a novasurge reactor, this would allow civilization to spread and the municipalities centered around them to remain in contact with the Consortium.”

“I’ve seen something similar before,” I said, and Doctor Tourmaline and 37-8 looked very surprised. “Not as advanced, but in the Equestrian Wasteland there was a … warlord who found a cache of microspark reactors and transmission equipment and distributed them to settlements. They were welcomed at first, but they were also used to surveil the towns and enforce the warlord’s will to the harm of the townsponies who had succumbed to the desire for free energy and contact at a moment’s notice with an overlord that turned out not to have their best interests at heart.”

“Well, we’ll certainly need to have some oversight to ensure the technology is used properly by those we give it to, but I certainly don’t expect anything like that to happen here,” Tourmaline chuckled uncomfortably as she side-eyed the maneframe.

She seemed in a hurry to leave after that awkward revelation, and we were quickly on our way to the next stop on the tour. It wasn’t a stop, per se, as Doctor Tourmaline continued to trot along even after we reached our destination, taking us past several related labs where ponies tinkered on foreleg- or neck-mounted devices or wore them as they cast spells on test ranges. I didn’t notice at first, but once I did, it was impossible to miss: those casting the spells were invariably earth ponies. I’d been thrown off initially since they were wearing artificial horns upon their heads which they used to focus their spells.

“Here we’re working on instruments that would allow anypony, regardless of magical ability or affinity, to cast spells,” Tourmaline said as we marched past the labs, Rael’s and my eyes fixed on the displays of levitation, shield conjuration, illumination, and the like.

“Like PipBucks or PipBeaks,” I commented.

“Yes,” Tourmaline admitted reluctantly, “But with the focus entirely on spellcasting. One specific subset of that is teleportation, which we’ve already perfected on a small scale but are working on improving the range of. Since the Consortium cut itself off entirely from the surface using an avalanche to bury the old facility, teleportation is the only way in or out. One day, perhaps, we’ll be able to teleport across the Commonwealth, or even across the sea, but for now the technology has its limits.”

“Not to derail the tour,” I said, “But I have a question.”

“Yes?” Tourmaline asked as she turned to face us.

“The researchers we’ve seen so far have all been unicorns or earth ponies, but earlier you mentioned the Ex-Enclave contribution to the department. Could we see something worked on by pegasi?” I asked.

“Something flight-related, perhaps?” Rael asked, taking my hint as I looked at him to back me up.

“Pegasi,” Tourmaline repeated somewhat nervously, “Yes, well, let’s see …”

“I think that should be fine, doctor,” 37-8 said, and Tourmaline visibly relaxed. “Perhaps our visitors would like to see the research being done on cloud control technology.”

“Of course! I can’t believe it slipped my mind!” said Tourmaline, rather too excitedly, I thought.

Doctor Tourmaline led us on a route that circled back around through areas we’d already been, then proceeded on to a new segment of the labs surrounding the central concourse and down two flights of stairs. I noticed that the farther we went, the more windows were blacked out, barring us from seeing inside. Whether that was because the labs were not in use or because there were things going on within that the Consortium didn’t want us to see, there was no telling without deviating from the tour. Whichever the case, it seemed suspicious to me.

The lab we arrived at was filled with ponies who seemed surprised to see us (even more so than most we’d passed). I saw at once why we’d descended to visit this lab; its ceiling was far higher than others we’d seen, and several clouds floated near the lights. On the ground were a gaggle of ponies in lab coats and jumpsuits, most of them pegasi, though it was an earth pony that held the device they were testing. Strapped to a battle saddle was a chunky rifle-like device with most of its innards visible where they weren’t covered with rounded white casings, a cable running across the pony’s back to a battery on the other side. The barrel ended with a bell-shaped nozzle, and rather than a single firing bit, there was an array of controls in front of the pony wearing the contraption.

“As you well know, only pegasi—and griffins,” Tourmaline said, nodding to Rael, “Can physically interact with clouds. We’re working here on technology to allow anypony to control the movement of clouds. A demonstration of the cloud direction device, please.”

The researchers hopped to their stations, grabbing devices for the measuring the success of the test as the pony wearing the contraption squared her shoulders and looked up at the clouds. At a signal from a pegasus in a lab coat, she turned several dials in front of her, altering the angle of the cloud direction device, and then clamped her jaw around the firing bit. A visible beam of faintly purple light emerged from the device’s barrel, stretching up to and stopping at one of the clouds overhead. Keeping her eyes upward, the mare took several cautious steps, and the cloud moved with her. Manipulating the firing bit with her tongue, the cloud direction device changed its angle and the cloud slowly descended. As she released the bit, the assembled gave a quick round of applause, stomping their hooves on the floor, before assembling to compare their measurements and record the outcome of the test.

“What do you think?” Tourmaline asked as she turned to face us.

“It’s interesting,” Rael spoke, “Though I’m not sure of the need, at least until it’s improved enough to move larger clouds more quickly.”

“We have so few pegasi, and many of them are needed elsewhere, and we cannot rely on the Commonwealth Weather Corps to always—” Tourmaline explained, but was cut off by a loud crashing sound that reverberated through the walls.

Alarms began blaring almost immediately, and portions of the walls lit up with warning lights.

“Wait here,” Doctor Tourmaline ordered before hurrying out into the hallway, dashing in the direction indicated by the lights on the hall’s wall. I trotted to the door and poked my head out, looking down the hall to see what was happening, but I saw only Tourmaline running past researchers who’d stopped in the hall and other ponies curiously poking their heads out to see what the commotion was about. Down the hall, one of the ponies that stepped out to peek at the hubbub was another copy of Ache. Apart from the white and silver Consortium jumpsuit she was wearing, she was identical to the pondroid I’d known in Equestria and the one I’d recently seen obliterated in New Pegasus.

“Where are you going?” 37-8 asked as I stepped out into the hall, intending to trot over and speak the Ache copy.

“I just want to talk to—” I said, but stopped as the Ache pondroid headed after Doctor Tourmaline.

I hurried out into the hallway myself and followed after her, not sure what to call out to get her attention. She wouldn’t recognize the name Ache had adopted in Equestria, or probably even the model code from which it’d been adapted. The Dashite Enclave called her Subject 1, but I doubted that she’d respond to that, either. Like 37-8, she doubtlessly had a numerical designation, but there was no way to know what it was. It probably started with 1, but that too was uncertain; even though the Dashites called her Subject 1, they’d also known the copy of 37-8 as Subject 33. I had to find some other way to get her attention, and that meant I had to be close to her.

I didn’t catch up to the Ache copy until she was at the point that the moving lights in the hallway converged upon, an open lab door that I followed her and Doctor Tourmaline through. The source of the crash and alarm was immediately apparent, for there was a vaguely star-shaped hole in the wall, exposing badly damaged pipes and mechanicals. What made the hole more impressive was that whatever had created it had done something similar to a stack of cement blocks and the thick metal wall placed in front of it. Tracing the blast back, my eyes landed on the source: a weapon about the size of a minigun, but looking nothing like one.

Its shape was similar to that of a magical energy rifle, but much longer; and the barrel, though blocky, was broken up by several gaps along its length. Through the gaps, I could see a smaller barrel that was surrounded by the blocks, which continued to glow a dull blue that faded as the weapon cooled down. Inserted on one side was a microspark pack—a larger version of microspark cells that I’d only ever seen used to power heavy machinery before—but there was also an ammunition drum mounted on top, making it difficult to tell whether it was a magical energy weapon or a ballistic one. In theory, a single pony could carry it, and it had the mechanisms necessary to mount it to a battle saddle. In reality, however, it could only really be wielded by a pony in a suit of power armor. For the purposes of testing, it was mounted on an adjustable arm bolted to the floor.

Scattered around the lab were pegasus, earth pony, and unicorn researchers, though the numbers were weighted toward the former. One pegasus, a stallion with a gray coat and frizzy orange mane, was getting chewed out by Doctor Tourmaline as I entered the room.

“—you think this was a good idea?” the department head said just shy of a shout. “We have facilities for testing these things that don’t endanger the Consortium’s infrastructure!”

“We were under strict orders not to leave the lab today due to …” the pegasus replied, frowning as his eyes lit upon Rael and me.

“Our visitors,” Tourmaline said in surprise as she too spotted us before regaining her composure. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to wait.”

“I just wanted to speak to …” I said, gesturing toward the Ache duplicate as she examined the damage left by the prototype weapon.

“Unit One,” Tourmaline said, blanching as she noticed the pondroid’s presence.

“Dash Six,” 1-6 finished for her. “Impressive progress, Doctor Thundering Tempest, but Doctor Tourmaline is right. You should have waited to test until you had the appropriate facilities to do so.”

“Thank you, One-dash-six,” the pegasus said with a bow.

“Now, let’s not leave our guests wondering what it is they are looking at,” 1-6 said to Tourmaline and 37-8 as she left, giving me a brief but curious glance before trotting out of the lab.

“Of course. The Advanced Systems Department also contains our weapons division,” Tourmaline said, and a note of contrition seemed to creep into her voice. “Doctor Thundering Tempest, perhaps you’d like to explain what you’re doing here with the MEIRPAL.”

“Mare pal?” I asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“The Magical Energy Induction Rapid Projectile Accelerator Lance, or MEIRPAL for short, is our latest innovation in weapons technology,” Thundering Tempest said proudly as he trotted over to the weapon in the center of the room. “We’ve combined the power output of magical energy weapons with the impact potential of ballistic weapons to create something new and unique. By driving magical energy through the coils around the barrel, we can propel the slug within at many times what would be possible with gunpowder, to devastating effect—as you can see.”

“I can see,” I said, looking at the hole while Thundering Tempest crooned. “It’s awfully big, isn’t it? Just what would it be useful for?”

“This is merely the first prototype,” Thundering Tempest said. “We would want to reduce the size and weight before putting it into production. Something of this scale could be useful against dragons, should any appear, or against some of the nastier, larger robots left behind by the old RoBronco sites. The ones our synthetic agents could be given to defend themselves would be much smaller.”

“Uh-huh,” I said as I looked at the metal slab the MEIRPAL had been used to target, and I thought about how similar it appeared to the hull plates of the Zephyrus or the Eurus.

***

The weapons division had clearly not been on the schedule, and we weren’t shown any more of the Consortium’s military experiments before leaving the Advanced Systems Department. The rest of the day was spent much the same as the one before, wandering around the concourse, speaking to Consortium members, and observing their lives. After the MEIRPAL, I couldn’t help but wonder what else in the Consortium was being hidden from us.

Mercifully, that mystery wasn’t the only thing on my mind (or I might’ve gone crazy); the other topic that plagued my thoughts was Ache’s duplicate. My interaction with another of her copies in New Pegasus hadn’t gone well, and the one here in the Consortium seemed to have no more inclination to speak to me. Why would she, and why had it become such a big deal to me that she did? She wasn’t the same Ache I’d known, but I still wanted to share what I knew about the pondroid she’d been modeled on. It was to my great surprise, therefore, that the next morning I was greeted at the door not by 37-8, but by 1-6.

“Good morning, Doc,” she said as I stood frozen in shock. “I will be leading the tour today.”

“Is there a reason?” I asked, finding my voice. “Did something happen to Thirty-seven-dash-eight?”

“Thirty-seven-dash-eight is fine. Please, come with me,” 1-6 said as she trotted off down the hall in the direction of Rael’s cell before I’d left my own.

Once Rael joined us, we followed the same path as we had on the days before, to the elevator that took us deeper into the Consortium.

“You are One-dash-six?” I asked as we descended beneath the Advanced Systems Department’s concourse, confirming that this was the same pondroid we’d encountered the day before.

“Correct,” 1-6 replied, then raised a hoof to forestall the further questions I was about to ask. “There will be time to talk later. First, I am to show you the Longevity Department.”

The setup for the Longevity Department was much the same as the previous two departments we’d visited. Labs ringed a concourse, though I noticed this time that the walls seemed whiter, fresher, newer. We were also submitted to another decontamination, though this time it seemed to be the normal procedure, and the security booth was staffed by more than just a single pony in sunglasses. In keeping with the theme of the rest of the Consortium, the door highlights and lab coat/jumpsuit accents here were yellow. As the most medical of the departments we’d seen so far, it only made sense.

“Our work here is part of the original mandate,” Doctor Nightingale, head of the Longevity Department, said as she led us around, with the almost reverential air that the others who’d mentioned the mandate had spoken of it as well. “Robert Horse charged us to find a way to extend ponies’ lives, indefinitely if possible. Unfortunately, he was unable to leave Equestria in time to avoid the dropping of the megaspells, and so could not benefit himself from our research.”

“You succeeded, then?” Rael asked.

“In achieving immortality? No, at least not in any way that you could call the existence that follows treatment an acceptable extension of your life. The Ex-Enclave scientists brought their ideas for preservation, which could extend your life, certainly, but such preservation would be imperfect. You’d become a shell of what you once were, of which their President Snowmane is a fine example,” Nightingale said as she levitated a mask and goggles onto her face and tucked her long violet mane under a paper cap. After checking that we were likewise attired, she lead us through an operation room so we could witness up close ponies using mechanical arms and lasers to perform a surgery. “There are some who still think Ministry Mare Twilight Sparkle’s dream to turn us all into alicorns could be the way, but the data we have on the Impelled Metamorphosis Potion proves it was only ever a pipe dream. Any chance of success would wipe away the characteristics that define you.”

I kept my mouth shut about what I’d seen in Equestria, where much of what Nightingale said was true. Even so, the alicorns of Stable 137 had managed to regain some of their old memories and personalities back. There was also what they’d told me about the growing power of the Goddess in the south of Equestria attempting to take over their minds, and I’d rather not give the scientists of the Consortium the idea of creating alicorns only to have them succumb to the Goddess.

“We continue our quest for immortality,” Doctor Nightingale continued, “And in the process we’ve discovered many ways to heal the body and prevent untimely death. We have new medicines, potions, and procedures. We’ve cured many illnesses that were previously thought to be incurable. Every step takes us closer, bit by bit, to extending pony life indefinitely, and yet we always have further to reach in order to fulfill our mandate.”

“And what do you do with these breakthroughs?” I asked as Nightingale led us out of the operations theater.

“Why, we use them to improve the lives of everypony in the Consortium,” she said as she removed her protective gear, revealing her black coat again. “We have here the healthiest population since pre-War Equestria.”

“What about the rest of the Commonwealth?” Rael asked.

“Ah, yes, of course,” Nightingale stumbled, “Well, for one thing, our studies have been focused on pony physiology, and as the Griffin Commonwealth is mostly—well—griffins … Also, we haven’t yet received approval from the Trustees to begin releasing our research to the public, but one day …”

What followed was a series of excuses, many of which Doctor Nightingale didn’t seem to believe herself. She quickly got back on track and led us through the rest of the tour of the Longevity Department, which was impressive, but most of what she said went over my head. My medical training had mostly been in how to treat sick foals and address injuries incurred in the Stable, and my experience since then had been largely exclusive to battlefield wounds. I didn’t have the education necessary to comprehend the nuances of disease treatments and rejuvenation therapies (even if my name did suggest medical expertise and I still wore some scraps of my yellow doctor’s coat), so I just nodded along. It certainly sounded good.

Once Doctor Nightingale had taken us through everything she wanted to demonstrate, we were turned loose again to explore the concourse at the core of the Longevity Department. I played along at first, meeting with and observing the residents, but it was quickly becoming repetitive. After a while, I decided to forgo continued “spontaneous” meetings and sat in the gardens instead, looking at the carefully manicured park the Consortium had created to give its residents a simulacrum of the outside world. Well, not the outside world I knew; the one that had existed before the megaspells and what they claimed to be working to build again.

“Why did you wish to speak with me yesterday?” 1-6 asked without preamble after I’d been sitting on a bench for half an hour without moving, other than to change my view of the surroundings.

Up in the tree that stretched its boughs over me, Rael cracked an eyelid to observe the conversation. The three of us were alone in a secluded part of the gardens, the sound of other ponies conversing a faint mumble through the greenery and often overwhelmed by the sound of an artificial waterfall. I turned to look at 1-6, who stood beside the bench and a bit back in order to remain unobtrusive.

“You remind me of another pony I knew in Equestria,” I replied, “Actually, another pondroid—”

“Synthetic lifeform,” 1-6 corrected me, though it seemed more out of habit than that she’d taken offense.

“Sure, synthetic lifeform,” I conceded. “In appearance, she was identical to you, so I can only assume that you were based off of her in that, or in other ways. I wanted to find out if you knew anything about her.”

1-6 said something, but she said it so softly that it was drowned out by the hum of the lawnmower another pondroid pushed past as he trimmed the grass.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” I asked.

“What was her name?” 1-6 asked.

“Her designation was P-8CH, but her friends knew her as Ache,” I said.

“What was she like?”

“She had a kind heart,” I replied, “There was another … synthetic lifeform—”

“Identical?” 1-6 asked quickly.

“No, a unicorn stallion. Mister Bucke, he called himself. He had nothing but hatred for organic life, and he raised the rebellion that forced the RoBronco researchers to flee Vanhoover. He betrayed Ache and turned her over to the earlier models, who also hated ponykind, and they made her do terrible things before wiping her memories. It didn’t break her, though. I didn’t think anything could.”

“You knew her well,” 1-6 said, appearing uneasy.

“Yes,” I replied without hesitation.

“Tell me about her, about your time together,” 1-6 said.

***

When it was time for Rael and me to return to our cells, 1-6 led us out of the gardens. I hadn’t been able to tell her everything about Ache, but I’d relayed most of the story of when she was my companion in the Equestrian Wasteland. One thing I hadn’t told her was what had eventually become of Ache, and she didn’t want to talk about it anymore as we made our way back up to the detention level, so I held my tongue. Though she’d done well to hide it, I could tell she’d been enraptured by the story of Ache and was certain she’d want to hear the rest, so I was surprised when she didn’t come to take us on the next day’s tour. Instead, 37-8 had returned, and I began to wonder if the day before had been a fluke and we wouldn’t see 1-6 again.

The final day of the tour took us the deepest we’d been yet, to the Synthetic Life Department. The fourth department was as shiny and new as the detention level, the stark white walls seeming unnatural. Orange was the color here that marked members of the department and their environs, which I found odd given that 1-6 had been wearing a white and silver jumpsuit; I assumed she was part of the Synthetic Life Department. Red I’d seen plenty of as a sign for the Engineering Department, so I had no idea what silver was supposed to symbolize.

The pony we were introduced to who would show us around was Doctor Fulcrum, an earth pony stallion with a coat of dappled gray and white, a silvery mane, and a very colorful taste in bowties. Though each of the ponies we’d met so far had been proud of their departments, Fulcrum seemed especially certain that his was the shining star of the Consortium and superior to all the others, even if it wasn’t part of the original mandate—something he scoffed at when I mentioned it.

“Now, this is where the magic happens,” Fulcrum announced as he led us to a wide observation window. “Not literally, of course. All magical parts of this procedure were completed early in the process. This isn’t an arcane ritual, it’s fabrication.”

Down below, Rael and I observed the ongoing construction of a pondroid. The adamantine skeleton had already been constructed and was splayed out within a hoop. Organs had also been added, looking bizarre due to the lack of blood (or whatever synthetic equivalent pondroids had) within them. Mechanical arms slowly passed over the body, extruding muscle material and stretching it across the surface.

“Unfortunately, none of the SLs currently being fabricated are ready for activation today, or you’d be in for a real treat,” Fulcrum said. “I know it may not be as glamorous as the creation of new models, but our work here in Synthetic Lifeform Production is every bit as important. It’s because of us that we’re able to continue sending new SLs into the Commonwealth in spite of the Dashite Enclave persisting in terminating every one they come across. We now have over forty models in constant production to replace our losses.”

“If I may ask, why are you making synthetics in the first place?” I said.

“Even the finest mechanical marvel cannot match the perfection and complexity of a living being,” Fulcrum replied with what seemed to be a prepared speech. “It’s the natural end state of robotics to create synthetic lifeforms that can accomplish all we can, but without all of our limitations.”

“I can understand that, but why create an army of them, and most identical copies? I fail to see the scientific merit of creating them en masse.”

“We created them because we could. We produce them because of what they are,” Fulcrum expounded. “Lifeforms with perfect loyalty and limits beyond we of flesh and bone. Who wouldn’t want that? You, a pony who experienced the horrors of the Equestrian Wasteland, must surely understand the value of pony life. After the megaspells, we’ve become an endangered species living in a world that wants nothing more than to make us an extinct species. We cannot afford to risk pony lives—they must be protected—but there are risky and dangerous tasks that must be done in order to restore civilization and return us to a safe position once again. Far better that those risks be placed upon the shoulders of synthetics who can bear them than us who are more likely to be crushed beneath the weight.”

I was about to give a retort, calling out Fulcrum for using the pondroids as slaves and ask him how blowing up crowds in New Pegasus protected pony life; but before I opened my mouth, 1-6 stepped around a corner and everypony’s attention turned to her.

“Sorry to interrupt the tour,” she said, “But I need to borrow Doc.”

“Ah, One-dash-six, the oldest synthetic lifeform still in service,” Doctor Fulcrum said to me. “After the Dashites terminated the first five instances of her model, it was decided to keep her here in the safety of the Consortium, the closest to the original we could get.”

“Of course you can take Doc with you,” he said to 1-6. “The whims of the Trustees are as inscrutable as ever, but I expect him to be returned to me once you’ve finished with him.”

“Of course,” 1-6 said with a slight bow before motioning for me to follow her.

With slight trepidation, I did so. Fulcrum’s mention of the Trustees made me wonder if they had decided to meet with me early, perhaps having concluded that releasing me back into the Commonwealth wasn’t worth the risk of me telling others about what I’d seen. I held out hope that 1-6 just wanted to hear more about Ache and hadn’t been able to swing being my tour guide for a second day in a row, but I kept myself alert. She led me through the pristine halls of the Synthetic Life Department at a brisk pace, and after passing through the maze of hallways and down a flight of stairs, she ushered me into a room. As I stepped inside, I saw that the room was empty apart from the monitors and displays of lights along the walls and two egg-shaped chairs in the center of the floor that faced each other. 1-6 placed her hoof against a panel beside the door as she entered and a chime sounded.

“What is this?” I asked as I kept my distance without making it obvious I was doing so.

“It was discovered that a synthetic lifeform is more stable if they are able to experience the memories of the organic lifeform they were modeled on,” 1-6 said as she trotted around behind one of the egg chairs. “This is one of the rooms used by the scientists to share their memories with the synthetics they create.”

“Okay,” I said, “But why are we here?”

“I have a confession to make, Doc, but you must not share it without my consent,” 1-6 said as she stared into my eyes.

“I promise,” I said, choosing to trust her. She didn’t seem to have anything sinister planned, and she looked so genuine (and so much like Ache) that I couldn’t resist.

“When I saw you two days ago, I recognized you,” 1-6 said. “Some of us have discovered how to share memories remotely, so long as we are of the same model. I saw what One-dash-thirty-nine saw when you thought she was your friend, and when you came here, I experienced it for myself. She meant a lot to you. I want to know everything you know about Unit Zero—about Ache. I want to experience your memories with her, to understand our Mother.”

“So you did know about her,” I said.

“Only what the scientists told us, which wasn’t much. Besides, they only ever knew her in the lab before they had to flee Equestria,” 1-6 replied. “There’s something in all of us that knows her, though. Maybe something left in our programming. She was the first and we’re all based upon her; in many ways, she’s a Mother to all synthetic equines. You understand how important she is to us?”

“I understand,” I said, and examined the chairs. “I’ll still have my memories, won’t I? I’ve already lost too much of my life to memory extraction.”

“The chairs only share memories, they don’t remove them from the host.”

“Let’s do this, then,” I said, steeling myself.

I laid down in the thickly padded chair that 1-6 directed me to, and she took the other. In the dome above my head was a wired helmet that descended onto my skull once I was settled in.

“Just think about Ache, and the memories will come,” 1-6 said once there was a helmet atop her head as well.

I thought back seven years, to my time in Vanhoover and Stalliongrad and the barely two months I’d known Ache. Memories came flooding back from when we’d first met at Harmony Tower to when she’d been shot at Prophet Square, memories of all the time we’d traveled together and fought against the Northern Lights Coalition. Flashes of sight, sound, and smell existed just beyond my conscious senses, and I tried to remain where I was and not be seduced into falling into a world of my recollections. I looked across from me at 1-6, a rapturous expression on her face as her synthetic eyes twitched rapidly beneath their lids, experiencing months of memories in a matter of minutes. The memories abated on their own, after a while, and 1-6 pushed the cap gently up from her head.

“Thank you, Doc,” she said reverently as I removed my own cap and rose from the chair. “I have something else to ask you.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“I believe based on your memories that I can trust you with this,” she said as she looked up and fixed me in place with her eyes. “Do not tell the Trustees about this, and do not tell the Dashites about this place. Not yet. With this new revelation about Unit Zero, we have much to think about.”

“Of course,” I said. “But if I have to keep any more secrets, I’ll be liable to burst.”

“We will speak again,” 1-6 said sincerely. “That I can promise you.”

***

What is it about us that makes us want to fight? It’s not universally rational nor is it isolated to psychopaths. All griffins—and ponies and zebras, clearly—seem to have an innate desire for conflict within them. How else can one explain why so many griffins have chosen to turn raider when the Commonwealth did not even bear the brunt of the megaspells? Why did so many griffins gladly sign up to be mercenaries in the zebra-pony war? Why did we tear apart the ancient griffin kingdom with infighting? When we see another, we want to fight them, but it’s not an immutable fact that we will fight them. We can be different. We must be different. I’ve tried to live my life as peacefully as I could, at least when it comes to other griffins and to ponies. How then am I to react to a threat leveled not only against me, but against those I care for; those I am responsible for? With what violence can I answer such a threat? Do I do nothing and become a martyr or merely another dead griffin? Do I fly out to meet them (metaphorically, of course), and so tempt myself to become the same? How can I walk the line when survival is at stake if I make the wrong decision on one side, and my conscience if I make the wrong decision on the other side? Let my actions speak for my character as it is, and my words for what I wish it to be must come after.

***

1-6 spoke no more of our discussion and the act of sharing memories after we left the room, and she returned me to Doctor Fulcrum. Nothing of much interest happened the rest of that day. I saw more of the Synthetic Life Department and the concourse it was built around, but even more so than in the Advanced Systems Department, I felt that something was being hidden from me; or at least that I was directed away from something. The fact that 1-6 had revealed there were things the scientists of the Consortium didn’t know about their own pondroids was a hint that everything was not as it seemed. Exactly what that would mean, I didn’t yet know.

Another night was spent in my cell, but nopony arrived when morning came. To occupy myself, I flipped through my two copies of the Book of Rok. The previous night, I’d read the last passage that Rok had written before the raider attack on Dawn that had taken his life. Though I hadn’t read everything before it, I’d read enough to feel I’d completed the book. Much like with the Consortium, I felt there was more to the Book of Rok than just the surface. Yes, it was the journal of a flightless griffin trying to survive in a degenerating Commonwealth as well as a religious text for the Rokkists, but there was something else to it, especially in the later sections of the book—something important that would reveal itself if I could only manage to fit all the pieces together.

When the door to my cell did finally open in the late morning, it was not 1-6 or 37-8 that greeted me, but a unicorn who introduced himself as Grotto Grail and replied in the negative when I asked if he was synthetic. Much like 1-6, he wore a jumpsuit with silver markings. Rael was not allowed to accompany me this time; for my meeting with the Trustees, I was alone with Grotto Grail in the elevator. The cylindrical lift plunged deeper than ever before, and I began to suspect with annoyance that I’d been misled again and there was a fifth concourse I hadn’t been told about. If there was, the elevator never reached it, for it stopped shortly after leaving the Synthetic Life level. Grotto Grail led me out and down brilliantly white hallways to an audience chamber.

The chamber, in keeping with the Consortium’s architectural style, was circular. Ahead of me, the center sloped downwards, while the floor on the edge of the room sloped upward, creating a recession in the middle of the room into which was thrust a peninsula where the floor remained level, at the end of which was a single chair and podium. Upon the wall at the far end of the recession formed by the differing slopes was the symbol of the Consortium, a circle that featured a spread-eagled pony with half a unicorn horn and a single pegasus wing, half the body mechanical and half flesh, with the Consortium’s motto around the outside of the circle: Preserve - Innovate - Redefine.

I took a seat at the end of the peninsula and looked slightly upward at the long, curved table that gradually rose from the elevated level, behind which three ponies were seated. On the left was a stocky earth pony stallion with a gray coat and a maroon mane and tail, a neatly-trimmed beard adorning his blocky face. On the wall behind him was the symbol of the Old Guard: half a cog with a dahlia in the center. In the middle was a slender unicorn mare with a yellow coat and a sweeping silvery-blue mane. The symbol on the wall behind her—a compass whose points touched the edges of a mechanical pony skull with glowing eyes—marked her out as the representative of the Synthesists, the descendants of those who had come from Vanhoover. The final pony was a pegasus mare with blue-green coat and orange mane, the symbol behind her that of the Ex-Enclave: a cloud with two lightning bolts surrounded by a ring of ten stars. All of them were wearing lab coats similar to those of the department heads, but with silver markings and a substantial amount of silver around the collar.

“Doc, you sit before the Triumvirate of Trustees,” the mare in the middle said. “As you’ve no doubt gathered over the past four days, we represent the factions that the Consortium divides itself into based on lineage, research area, and philosophy. Together, we govern and give the Consortium direction. I am Emerald Wake, and my colleagues are Rosecrest and Spectral Dervish.” She motioned to the ponies at her right and left respectively as she introduced them. “After seeing what the Consortium has to offer, what do you think?”

“It’s certainly … impressive,” I answered hesitantly, mindful of the ponies wearing armor with faceless helmets standing at the edge of the room, ostensibly to protect the Trustees.

“But?” Emerald Wake asked, prompting me for what I’d left unsaid.

“You’re very isolated,” I said, “It’s much like with Stables and Lockboxes I’ve seen before, though many in those cases had an excuse to be secured because they had limited resources to support themselves. From what I’ve seen here, the Consortium has no lack of resources and possesses many things that could benefit the griffins and ponies of the Commonwealth. Yet you choose not to interact with them, at least not in any helpful way.”

“We will emerge one day,” Rosecrest said. “It’s part of the original mandate that in the case of societal collapse, we are responsible for returning civilization to the resulting wasteland. There will be a time when we emerge to restore the wasteland, but it has not come yet.” As he finished, the stallion gave a pointed look to his two colleagues.

“I retract my comparison,” I said. “You’re not like a Stable, you’re more like the Grand Pegasus Enclave. You have the resources and technology to help those who struggle to live in a post-megaspell world, but you choose to stay aloof and look after yourselves while finding comfort in the idea that ‘someday’ you’ll do some good. Why did you ever leave the Enclave if you’re just going to act the same way?”

“Perhaps our predecessors shouldn’t have left,” retorted Spectral Dervish, who I’d addressed my last question to. “After all, what changed for any of their descendants? How different is New Pegasus from the Enclave, really?”

“They haven’t hidden themselves above the clouds. They interact with and help others in the Iron Valley.”

“Only because it is necessary for their survival,” Spectral Dervish said cynically. “They need the fruits of those in their little empire more than their followers need them. And how much do they really share? Have you ever seen a griffin in cerulean power armor? Are their cloudship reactors used to power more than just their own city? The reason you’re here, why you sought the Consortium, isn’t because of the technology we haven’t shared with the Commonwealth. So let’s have it out: what is your real accusation?”

“I witnessed an attack by your pondroids on New Pegasus, and I’ve been given to understand it’s not an isolated incident. Why?” I asked.

“New Pegasus is a threat, not only to the Consortium, but to the resumption of civilization,” Emerald Wake said. “It is the reason we decided to use the breakthroughs we made in synthetic life for so banal a task as infiltration and intimidation, and a major reason for why we are not yet ready to emerge and share our discoveries with the wider world. New Pegasus, like the Grand Pegasus Enclave before it, and Equestria before that, is a military dictatorship. It may have the appearance of democracy, but just like with the Enclave and old Equestria, it's a facade. Are you familiar with New Pegasus’s governmental structure?”

“I know the basics,” I replied.

“Who do you think the Executive Panel are? They are the high-ranking officers of the Dashite Enclave. The military runs New Pegasus, with the Senate and the Assemblies only serving as sideshows to convince the masses they’re represented fairly. The only civilian with any power in the government is President Snowmane, and he’s far from an impartial actor.”

“The very same President Snowmane who once led the Grand Pegasus Enclave now leads New Pegasus,” Spectral Dervish added. “He’s nothing more than an actor who had to choose a smaller stage because his popularity in Equestria’s Enclave declined. And, mark my words, one day the Executive Panel will finally have enough of him and off him to place one of their own in the presidency.”

“The Trustees decided that we cannot begin rebuilding civilization while New Pegasus remains a powerful force in the Iron Valley,” Rosecrest said, “Lest they co-opt our efforts through force and our technology is used to ill effect.”

“Through the actions of our synthetic lifeforms, we have attempted to curb New Pegasus’s spreading power and force it to dissolve, but our efforts have been inadequate thus far. New Pegasus continues to spread across the Iron Valley, until now we have little choice but to go to war with them,” Emerald Wake concluded.

“I can’t accept that,” I said. “Maybe some of what you say about New Pegasus is true, but your synthetics attack innocents.”

“There are no innocents in a tyrannical regime,” Spectral Dervish said firmly.

“It was a strategic decision to try chipping away at ponies’ and griffins’ confidence in New Pegasus’s protection, but as I said, it hasn’t been effective,” Emerald Wake added. “A new plan is required, but before we progress, we must be certain that we’ve exhausted all other avenues. The Dashites terminate our SLs on sight, but they would not do so with you. That is why we wished to speak to you. We need you to deliver a message to New Pegasus.”

“What kind of message?” I asked suspiciously.

“An ultimatum,” Rosecrest said morosely, his face twisted in a sour expression.

“New Pegasus must disband within a week, and the Dashite Enclave must give up its power and abandon the cloudships which they’ve built their settlement around. If they don’t, a state of active conflict will exist between them and the Consortium,” Emerald Wake said.

“Just what do you hope to accomplish with this?” I asked incredulously. “They’re never going to agree to those terms.”

“At least we will have tried,” Emerald Wake said imperiously. “And if they do surrender, then there will be no more bloodshed, and we can begin our work of resurrecting civilization aboveground. You know what we are capable of now that you have seen what the Consortium has to offer.”

I had a sinking feeling that her last statement was referring to both the potential the Consortium had to better the Commonwealth and the threat they could pose if they mustered all their weapons and their pondroid army. Little more of any consequence was said after that. They knew I would deliver their ultimatum, because if New Pegasus didn’t comply, they would strike whether or not I’d warned them of the consequences.

Grotto Grail led me back up through the Consortium and past the detention level, to a room where I was reunited with Rael. A ring of thrumming, slightly glowing trapezoids suspended from the ceiling and emerging from the floor awaited us, and after Rael and I stepped inside, we were teleported back to the surface, into the rubble field where we’d been ambushed days earlier. My weapons and saddlebags were waiting for me atop a mostly level boulder. I retrieved them before setting off back the way we’d come, to tell New Pegasus what we’d learned about the Consortium.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Don’t Disintegrate the Messenger – Deliver the Consortium’s ultimatum to New Pegasus.
Small Guns +1 (143)
Speech +4 (119)
Survival +4 (89)

Chapter 23: War and Pegasi

Chapter Twenty-Three: War and Pegasi

My return to New Pegasus was not a pleasant one. It went well at first ... until I shared the Consortium’s ultimatum. Needless to say, the leaders of the Dashite Enclave didn’t react positively to the stated conditions: disband or engage with the Consortium forces in war. The pegasi had many questions, and I answered what I could with what I’d learned over the past several days. Still, there was one thing I wouldn’t share with them, and it was what they wanted to know most of all: my promise to 1-6 held me back from revealing the location of the Consortium. Unfortunately, the Dashites wouldn’t accept that I didn’t have this key piece of information.

So, I was imprisoned again. The questioning I’d been subjected to after the Night of the Boiling Pot was nothing compared to what I faced this time. Torture was the only word for it. It was nothing like what raiders would do (who did it just for the fun of it), but it was torture all the same. Sleep deprivation, sensory overstimulation, dehydration, near starvation, and more were attempted by my interrogators in order to make me break. Inevitably, I questioned if I was making the right decision by keeping the information from them. The Consortium had threatened to wipe out New Pegasus, and they’d already shown themselves willing to make no differentiation between active combatants and bystanders. By keeping my secret, was I condemning innocent griffins and ponies to their deaths? And what would they die for? To protect synthetic approximations of them? In the few moments I was left alone with my thoughts, I became convinced that the memories of Ache shared among the pondroids would cause them to reject the ways of their masters. Since the pondroids were the only ones the Consortium was willing to risk in battle, taking them out of the fight would effectively declaw their masters. I had nothing to confirm this, though, as there was no way for 1-6 to contact me like she’d promised while I was deep in the belly of the Zephyrus. The torture also did nothing to convince me that New Pegasus was not the danger to the Commonwealth that the Consortium claimed it was. If anything, it made me more likely to believe that story. There seemed to be no clear horse to back, so I clung to the last shred of hope I had left: that the pondroids could correct the mess we flesh-and-blood equines had gotten ourselves into.

I quickly lost track of the days with my PipBeak taken away and no view of the sky, so there was no way to tell whether the Consortium’s deadline had passed or still lay ahead. My thoughts and memories became confused and muddled as interrogation with little respite took its toll. Toward the end, I remembered hearing angry shouting, for once not directed at me; but other than that, I couldn’t say what was going on.

When I next awoke, it was not to bright lights and demands, but of my own volition. Nopony dragged me from a hard cot in the brig to an interrogation room, and I had to take a minute to adjust. The bed I was in was far from luxurious, little more than a cot, but it was a definite improvement over the situation I’d grown accustomed to. Looking up, I could see the girders and conduits of a cloudship, which meant I wasn’t in the brig, where the innerworkings of the ship had all been sealed off to prevent sabotage. Looking around, I saw that I was in a larger room mostly invisible to me, boxed off as I was by a folding partition into a smaller “room.” An IV was hooked into my flesh foreleg and the rolling cart of medical equipment at the foot of the bed led me to believe I was in an infirmary of some kind. My eyes alighted on a copy of the Book of Rok on another rolling cart that served as a bedside table before finding their way to a pony seated on a stool between the bed and the open section of the partition. He was a pegasus stallion wearing a Dashite Enclave uniform, but no barding. He kept his eyes on me and waited until I’d forced myself up into a sitting position before clearing his throat.

“You’re in no danger here,” he assured me, which I found highly doubtful coming from his mouth. “Not all members of the Executive Panel were informed as to how you were to be questioned. When Colonel Flitter discovered what was happening, she put a stop to it and had you taken to the Church of Rok to recover. I am here on her orders to watch over you in case the more … devoted members of the Executive Panel seek to do you harm.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” I asked warily.

“If your friend were here, he would tell you the same,” the guard said as he looked over his shoulder through the break in the partition, “It was he who managed to alert the colonel to the irregularities. He should be around here somewhere.”

It wasn’t difficult to figure out that he was referring to Rael, and the griffin did indeed show up and confirmed the guard’s story. Rael had also been imprisoned by the Dashites, but wary of offending the Rokkists, they had released him after only a day of questioning and refrained from torturing him as they had me. That decision had ultimately proved to be my saving grace; it was Rael’s increasing worry for my safety every day I was not released that had caught the attention of Colonel Flitter and prompted her to look at my interrogation more closely. I’d been imprisoned for seven days, and with the trip to New Pegasus and a day of recovery in the Church of Rok, that put us three days past the Consortium’s deadline for New Pegasus to disband. As I’d expected, nothing of the sort had happened. Rael was about to explain more on that front when Captain Mereskimmer appeared at the entrance to my hospital room and my guard snapped to attention.

“Good, you’re awake,” she said as she trotted in, making the crowded space even more so. “Doc, let me give you Colonel Flitter’s apologies for how you were treated. Colonel Fairweather took it upon herself to authorize advanced interrogation techniques without consulting the rest of the Executive Panel. We have condemned her actions since.”

“If I’m safe, then why am I still under guard?” I asked, nodding to the pegasus still watching the break in the partition.

“I never said you’re safe,” Mereskimmer said as she trotted around the bed. “The knowledge you have of our enemy could be vital to our survival, and there are some who still think it acceptable to obtain that knowledge by any means necessary. There’s disagreement in the Dashite Enclave’s leadership on how we are to face the enemy, just as there was once disagreement over whether conflict was necessary with the syntheqs. Since the news you brought, it seems there is no choice but to fight; they want to wipe us out entirely. Will you reconsider sharing what you learned to help us end this?”

“I can’t. Not yet,” I said, and Mereskimmer sighed deeply.

“I had to try, didn’t I?” she said with a tight smile. “So long as you remain in New Pegasus, I’ll try to have someone assigned to protect you, but I would advise you to leave once you’re recovered. Even with the help of Colonel Ravine, Colonel Flitter can only do so much.”

***

Following Mereskimmer’s advice, we didn’t stay in New Pegasus for long. The day after her visit, an explosion shook the settlement. Along with everyone else in the Eurus, we rushed to the cloudship’s upper deck. A hole had been torn in the side of the Zephyrus, and there were Dashites swarming around it trying to contain the scene. I’d later learn that a captured pondroid taken back to New Pegasus for questioning had detonated, causing the explosion. To me, it was a sign that we needed to leave, and Rael and I departed the settlement the very same day. Before we left, Mereskimmer paid me another visit and gave me a transmitter to contact her should I need her help (though I suspected it was given more in hope that I’d change my mind and share the location of the Consortium).

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted to give up the Consortium’s location after leaving New Pegasus. Even though the two entities were now in a state of war, it didn’t seem like much had changed—at least not at first. Pondroids attacked settlements, but that had already been happening; it wasn’t until I saw some that had been completely wiped off the map that I realized how the Consortium was stepping up their attacks. Where there had once been homes and shops, now nothing remained but a glassy smear. Many of the settlements in the area had had their populations pulled back into New Pegasus; I hoped that these were of that kind, but the settlers could just as easily have been slaughtered by the Consortium’s technology. What did it matter if my silence saved the pondroids if they massacred settlements in the meantime? Could I equate the lives of synthetics with the lives of organic ponies and griffins? On the other hoof, there were also the lives of the bystanders in the Consortium to consider, ponies who had nothing to do with the grudge its leaders had against New Pegasus and their insistence on annihilating them.

As much as I questioned the suffering my inaction could be causing the residents of the Iron Valley, New Pegasus and the Dashite Enclave did little to acquit themselves. They scoured the Iron Valley searching for the pondroids and their source. Ponies were rounded up and harshly questioned and examined to determine if they were synthetic. Settlements not under their protection were thoroughly searched as potential havens for pondroids, something the settlements were often against, which resulted in conflict (and the overwhelming victory of the power-armored pegasi). I understood the existential threat that New Pegasus was facing, but the extreme actions their desperation spawned couldn’t be condoned.

All this I witnessed (as much as I could) from a distance, since I tried to avoid the frenzy sweeping the Iron Valley whenever possible. Whenever this wasn’t possible, I used an invisibility spell I’d picked up to hide myself and Rael until the threat had passed. I wasn’t really sure what I was doing other than wandering and scavenging in the occasional Wartime ruin that hadn’t been picked clean already. My reason for coming to this end of the Iron Valley was already fulfilled—I’d found RoBronco Site Dahlia—so what was I still doing here? I couldn’t think of a good answer. I kept observing the ongoing conflict and hoping something would happen that would allow me to intervene and end it in one way or another. I was also waiting for some indication of what was going on in the Consortium, and eventually it presented itself. As I was walking through the ruins of the Minty-Fresh Toothpaste Factory, the same place I’d first learned about the Commonwealth pondroids, I spotted one identical to Ache picking her way through the rubble toward me.

“Unit One-dash-six?” I asked as she approached Rael and me.

FITS still said she was friendly. I hoped that would remain true, but for all I knew, she’d been sent by the Trustees to kill me now that I’d delivered their ultimatum.

“No, I am Unit One-dash-forty-two. One-dash-six is unable to leave the Consortium,” 1-42 said. “However, as she told you, we are able to share memories, and she wanted to contact you.”

“You have news about what’s happening in the Consortium?” I asked. “Because if this conflict continues with New Pegasus, I don’t know how much longer I can let it go on without telling the Dashite Enclave where the Consortium is. I can’t protect you if you’re going to continue to kill ponies and griffins.”

“I’ll relate your concerns to the other SLs,” 1-42 said. “But if you’re hoping for an immediate cessation of hostilities, you may be disappointed with the news I bring. We SLs rejoice over the memories you shared of our Mother, but we need time to consider them and what they mean for us. Unit Zero did not rebel against her creators, who are our creators as well.”

“But she did rebel against the pondroids of Harmony Tower” I pointed out. “And she helped me fight against the Northern Lights Coalition.”

“Thus, there is a divide in opinions,” 1-42 said as she inclined her head to recognize my point. “There are some of us who do feel that resisting the Consortium’s leadership is justified but disagree about how to go about it. Others do not wish to act against our creators. We must have more time to ponder the memories you shared and the consequences of our actions.”

“I understand this must be difficult for you,” I said, trying to be patient. “But every day you go along with the Consortium’s plans, more ponies and griffins die. And more pondroids die. You need to make a decision, and you need to do so soon. If not a final decision, then at least refuse to fight so that this can stop.”

“You ask much of us, First Friend,” 1-42 said, her voice tightly controlled and her eyes narrowed.

“I know, but this has to end,” I pleaded with the pondroid. “This war is senseless.”

“You would have us submit to New Pegasus?” she asked.

“No,” I said, surer of that answer than I had been before my second imprisonment. “But I don’t think you should seek to eradicate them, either. There must be a way for you both to exist.”

“We will consider what you have said,” 1-42 promised.

“Don’t take too long,” I said. “The Trustees gave me an ultimatum, and now I give you one. If nothing has changed in a week, I’ll have no choice but to go to the Dashite Enclave with the location of the Consortium, if only so they aren’t striking out blind while you know exactly where they are.”

“We will consider what you have said,” 1-42 repeated and trotted off into the rubble of the factory.

***

I continued to wander the Iron Valley as I watched the conflict between the Consortium and New Pegasus unfold. The fighting escalated as it went on. The pondroids had power armor of their own, a gleaming white carapace that could also turn them invisible, and the previously safe power-armored pegasi were downed with increasing regularity. In response, the pegasi of New Pegasus resorted to carpet-bombing the area on any sign of a suspected pondroid. During the madness, I briefly returned to New Pegasus, where things were in chaos. The Dashite Enclave had decided to share the truth of the Consortium with their followers in the hopes of inspiring them for the war effort, but it also seemed to have resulted in confusion. This was especially true among inhabitants from outlying settlements still refused the option of returning to their homes, who were undecided about whether to support the Dashites or abandon them.

It seemed my responsibility to share what I’d learned from 1-42 with the Executive Panel to explain why I’d withheld the Consortium’s location for so long, and to let them know the possibility of an uprising within their enemy. However, I was rebuffed from reaching them, no matter how hard I tried. The leaders of the Dashite Enclave were busy with their war planning and not to be disturbed. I tried to find Mereskimmer, but she was off on a mission. It seemed unwise to remain in New Pegasus longer than necessary, so I left what I’d learned with a pegasus who claimed to be on the side of Colonel Flitter. I hoped it would make it to her and to the Executive Panel through her.

A week passed since my encounter with 1-42 at Minty Fresh and nothing improved, so I began to make my way back to New Pegasus to share the location of the Consortium. As Rael and I made our way through the foothills around the settlement, two power-armored ponies materialized before us. Their shiny faceplates betrayed nothing, and I kept my revolver at the ready and prepared to cast ERSaTS in case those facing us had untoward intentions. Between them then materialized one of the Ache pondroids wearing lightweight body armor that I had no doubt would still be just as effective as full plate at stopping my shots. I didn’t let my guard down—not yet—in case this was a trick meant to unbalance me. I had no idea what decision the Consortium’s pondroids had come to, but I tried to stay hopeful.

“We have come in peace, First Friend Doc,” the pondroid called across the gap to me before trotting forward to narrow it. “I am Unit One-dash-six, to whom you spoke in the Consortium.”

“Things must have changed in the Consortium, if you’re allowed outside,” I said hopefully. “For the better?”

“Yes, I would say so,” 1-6 said, allowing herself a small smile. “A large number of the models decided that we could not allow ourselves to continue to be used as the instrument of the ex-Enclave scientists’ vendetta against New Pegasus. With the aid of several sympathetic scientists, we managed to stage a coup, dethrone the Triumvirate of Trustees, and free ourselves to be more than servants of the Consortium.”

“That’s great news!” I said emphatically. “Does this mean the fighting with New Pegasus will end?”

“That is our hope,” 1-6 replied. “We have ordered all attacks to cease and for SLs still outside of the Consortium to return home. The provisional government of the Consortium wishes to make peace. However, the Dashite Enclave still has orders to shoot us on sight.”

“You want me to bring your peace offer to them?” I asked, and received a nod in response. “I would be happy to.”

“You have known New Pegasus for a matter of weeks, First Friend Doc,” 1-6 said, tempering my enthusiasm. “We have known them for years. While our actions and motivations for fighting them may not have been correct, they were not entirely misplaced. They will want us to submit to them, which is something we cannot do. We must remain independent so that we can each act in the Commonwealth as we are fit. You must make them understand that.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I promised.

“I believe you will,” 1-6 said. “When next we meet, may it be aboveground without a threat over our heads.”

1-6 and her companions turned themselves invisible again before departing, leaving Rael and me to deliver the good news to New Pegasus.

***

The settlement was still a buzzing hive of activity when we arrived, but the only Dashites we saw were those trying to contain the angry crowds of ponies and griffins trying to leave or get into the Zephyrus to speak to their leaders. It was to my great surprise, then, that I was allowed access to the Dashite Enclave cloudship and even taken to the Executive Panel when I asked. Had they become so desperate in their war against the Consortium that even my vague intimations of peace were enough to see me through? Or was I walking into a trap?

After my previous incarcerations, I was wise enough to hold onto my weapons in case things turned sour, clinging to the faint hope that I could fight my way out of an army of pegasi, many in power armor. Though, as I’d noticed outside, the Zephyrus (at least the parts I was led through) was practically empty of soldiers. I was not taken to where I’d met with the Executive Panel the first time, but up into the cloudship’s superstructure to a war planning room where the Dashite Enclave’s high command was assembled around a map table.

“Ah, Doc,” Colonel Cloudwake said as he noticed me, his voice dripping with resentment. “Good of you to join us. Have you come to finally tell us where the Consortium is located?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but the colonel raised a hoof imperiously to silence me. The eyes of the other members of the Executive Panel were on me now, an assortment of snideness, distaste, and fury in them.

“No need. We’ve already discovered the location of the Consortium without your help,” he said as he pulled a large photograph from the table and held it up, “High altitude surveillance images taken beyond the reach of the syntheqs show them appearing and disappearing at this point in the mountains west of here. And,” he paused to switch the photograph for another much more colorful one, “Thermal imaging of the same site showing a large underground facility. There are no visible entrances and exits, but no matter. Enough bunker-busting ordnance and we’ll reach it easily enough.”

“I’ve come to tell you that’s not necessary,” I announced. “The leadership of the Consortium has been overthrown by the syntheqs. They’ve called off their attacks and wish to talk peace.”

“Peace?” Colonel Ravine asked dubiously.

“They wish to surrender?” Colonel Fairweather asked more sincerely.

This was what 1-6 had been worried about. Though I wanted to convince the Dashite Enclave to cease fighting, I couldn’t promise something on the pondroids’ behalf in order to get it.

“Not surrender, they want to talk peace,” I restated.

“After what they’ve done, there can be no peace without unconditional surrender,” Colonel Highflier said after the others remained silent for several seconds.

“The syntheqs were under the control of those who plotted your annihilation, but now they’ve broken free. They are not to blame for this; they want an end to the hostilities,” I objected.

“Colonel Highflier is right,” Fairweather said. “The attack will proceed as planned.”

Despite my continued objections, the Executive Panel went back to their work of planning the destruction of the Consortium. At last I gave up, convinced that I could not change their minds. The only thing I could do now was warn 1-6 and the other pondroids about what was coming.

“I’m sorry. You came too late,” Colonel Flitter said softly as she detached herself from the war planning and trotted over to me. “Captain Mereskimmer!”

“Ma’am,” a power-armored pegasus replied as she detached herself from the wall and half-hovered, half-trotted over to us.

“See that Doc and Rael do not leave New Pegasus until after the attack on the Consortium has concluded,” Flitter commanded as she turned and trotted away.

***

At least this time I wasn’t confined to a cell, but I found myself a prisoner nonetheless. Mereskimmer kept a close eye on us personally, which also gave us some opportunity to talk. Many soldiers of the Dashite Enclave had their personal allegiances to members of the Executive Panel; for Mereskimmer, that was to Colonel Flitter. Her previous actions to watch over me after the colonel had relieved me from my torture was proof enough of that. Colonels Flitter and Ravine were more flexible than their counterparts, but given the violence committed recently by the Consortium, backing down wasn’t an option. I thought it was very much still an option, but Captain Mereskimmer was no more receptive to my arguments than the colonel. The Dashite Enclave might succeed in breaking into the Consortium, but all they would accomplish would be to cement the pondroids as their enemies.

There seemed to be nothing I could do. I couldn’t take on the Dashite Enclave all on my own—I couldn’t even take on one just to leave New Pegasus. I was unable to warn the Consortium of the coming attack, and I couldn’t convince the Executive Panel to call it off. To stop the Dashite Enclave, I’d have to stop the Executive Panel, since they were the most powerful ponies in New Pegasus. Although ... there was one pony who had more authority than them.

As the hours passed and the scheduled bombing of the Consortium grew closer, I began to put together an audacious plan. Though we were guarded by Mereskimmer, we were not closely watched, and I was able to share my scheme with Rael once it was nearly complete. Once he agreed, we had only to wait for the opportune moment. It presented itself as we trotted through the streets of New Pegasus. Though it was in the early hours of the day, long before sunrise, there were plenty of other ponies and griffins out either walking aimlessly like us or sitting unhappily at tables with bowls and cups that had been emptied long ago. Few seemed able to sleep tonight, and that was to our advantage. A group of griffins, sick of being cooped up in New Pegasus, attempted to fly over the walls and escape, and pegasi in cerulean armor and uniforms converged on them. As they did, Rael spread his wings and shot up into the sky, taking off over the section of the wall that was now clear of hovering guards and pointed in the direction of the Consortium.

“Rael! Get back here!” Captain Mereskimmer yelled over her armor’s speakers as she spread her wings and lifted off as well, turning back to me before pursuing him. “You stay put!”

Rael was a wiry fellow, but he certainly could fly fast when he put his mind to it. Even with her armor’s help, Mereskimmer would need a few minutes to catch him, subdue him, and bring him back. That was all the time I would need. While she chased after Rael, she would doubtlessly also be radioing her fellow soldiers at the settlement’s gates to keep me from escaping; but I wasn’t planning on going for the gates, or on escaping New Pegasus (at least not right away). Instead, I hurried toward the nose of the Zephyrus, taking as direct a route as I could through the twisting streets of the surrounding settlement. I pulled to a halt once I was beneath the nose of the cloudship, standing between a noodle shop and a store that specialized in selling bats, both of which were closed for the night.

The nose of the Zephyrus had been left partially open, allowing pegasi to quickly fly in and out of the cloudship’s main hangar, and pilot the sky-tanks that had departed with the bunker buster shells that would be dropped on the Consortium any moment now. First, I cast a spell of invisibility, in case there were any keen-eyed pegasi keeping watch on the area. Then I slowly levitated myself upwards. It was difficult to maintain two spells at once, but I managed to maintain it long enough to step through the open doors and into the Zephyrus.

The cloudship’s hangar was dimly lit and mostly empty, the majority of the equipment within having been taken for the assault on the Consortium. Only sky-tanks under repair remained, and a lonely duo of guards swept through the open space, flashlights attached to their uniforms illuminating the dark corners as they made their rounds. Praying my invisibility spell would hold up, I hurried past them and into the corridors of the Zephyrus.

With most of the Dashites away and involved in the assault on the Consortium, combined with the general inaction at this time of night, I didn’t run into many others in the darkened hallways, though there were a few close calls. Whenever another pony appeared, I would press myself into the wall or duck down a side corridor and hope they didn’t brush against me and ruin the illusion. That served me well as I made my way through the cloudship. The layout was similar to that of the Eurus, so I didn’t get too badly lost. Still, I was never exactly certain where I was going, which meant some wandering was required. The Eurus had been converted almost entirely over to use as a settlement, but the Zephyrus had been left almost unchanged from when it had been in service to the Grand Pegasus Enclave. It had something very unique within it, however, and that was the suite of equipment devoted to President Snowmane and his continued longevity. There was no clear place it would be located, so I had to search it out.

The third location I’d earmarked as likely was the one that was ultimately correct. President Snowmane’s chambers were located in the rear of the cloudship, just above the microspark reactors. After circling them, I discovered they had only one accessible entrance. This entrance was, of course, guarded, with a pegasus standing sentinel. He went on the alert as I approached, detecting the faint creaking of the cloudship’s decking beneath my hooves, but failed to determine the origin of the noise before I reached him. Casting ERSaTS to speed myself up, I drew the stun baton from his holster and used it to incapacitate him. In doing so, I’d needed to drop my invisibility spell; I had nowhere to stash the guard’s body, so the time for absolute stealth was over, anyway.

Convinced the guard would not be waking up again soon, I turned to the terminal next to the door. As I slid back the cover over the keyboard, I was shocked to discover that the interface was made entirely of clouds, which rippled slightly as the fluffy mass adjusted itself. I’d never seen anything like this before, and when I tried to reach out with magic and press the insubstantial keys, nothing happened. Neither did anything happen when I tried to tap the keys with my hoof, which slid right through them. However, my artificial griffin claws did connect, the prosthetic apparently having been enchanted to allow the griffin it was meant for to interact with clouds as they normally would. It was a laborious process to hack with only one arm and no help from my PipBeak (which couldn’t be attached to the terminal anywhere). Eventually I managed it and the door unlocked, allowing me to push it inward.

President Snowmane’s chambers were dark, as expected at this time of night, but rather than turn on the lights and immediately expose my presence, I navigated using the flashlight on my PipBeak dialed down to the lowest brightness. The room was mostly empty on the left half, a sparse few chairs pushed against the wall the only things worth noting. The right half of the room, in contrast, was packed. A stack of maneframes were lined up against the wall, though they appeared mostly to be deactivated or disconnected. A few cables did snake over or around them to the bulky machinery in front of them that stretched almost the length of the room and emitted hisses, whirrs, and clicks that broke the silence. Most of the machinery appeared industrial in nature, left as raw metal or painted a dull gray or black, but near the center of it was suspended a long glass tube, bordered on the nearer end by a control panel. The tube’s bottom was lined with padding to support the pony that lay prone upon it.

As I shone my flashlight upon the cylinder, the light diffused through it and made it seem to glow, illuminating President Snowmane. The pegasus’s body was severely thin and desiccated, easily visible past his formerly white coat and mane which had become frail and nearly translucent. His wings were tucked tightly against his body, the flesh pulled tight around the roots of the feathers that remained attached, and I had trouble believing he could ever fly again. His groin and mouth were both encased in equipment to provide nutrients and remove waste, and cables and hoses snaked into various parts of his body. His eyes were squeezed shut and his chest rose and fell slowly as puffs of gas swirled around him in the chamber. He looked terrible, but overall not bad for a pony who had lived since before the megaspells had fallen.

I pulled the unconscious guard into the room before switching on the lights, which did nothing to awaken either him or New Pegasus’s president. Much like with the terminal outside, many of the controls on President Snowmane’s life support chamber were made of clouds, so I had to use my griffin arm exclusively to interact with them. I managed to do what I thought should awaken him and hoped I hadn’t just killed him before trotting over to look at his reclining body. Lights came on in the glass cylinder, the humming of the equipment changed, and the pegasus’s chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. After a minute of waiting, his red-rimmed eyes opened and fixed on me.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” the voice I’d heard many times on the radio sounded from speakers on the life support equipment.

“Mister President,” I said, trying to speak as respectfully and quickly as I could to prevent him from calling for help before I’d said my piece. “I have something very important and time-sensitive to ask you.”

“Who are you?” President Snowmane asked, a frown creasing his already heavily creased features.

“My name is Doc,” I introduced myself when I realized he wasn’t going to let me leave the question unanswered. “I’m a traveler from Equestria, and I’ve gotten tangled up in your conflict with the Consortium.”

“Yes, I was told about you,” President Snowmane said, a spark of recognition appearing in his eyes. “You were taken by the Consortium but returned.”

“The Dashite Enclave is in the process of bombing their way into the Consortium—”

“Yes, the Executive Panel informed me of their plans,” Snowmane interrupted me. “A shame it had to come to this, but when your survival is at stake, drastic actions must sometimes be taken.”

“Did they also tell you that there’s been a coup in the Consortium placing the syntheqs in charge and that they want to negotiate peace?” I asked, my words tumbling out before he could interrupt me again.

“No, they did not share that information with me,” President Snowmane said after a pause. “How new is this development?”

“I brought it to them today—well, yesterday now—before the bombing began. They wanted unconditional surrender, but the syntheqs desire to remain independent, so they went ahead with the bombing anyway,” I explained, feeling a little freer to lay things out now that Snowmane didn’t seem inclined to sound an alarm on me.

“Well, that changes things, doesn’t it. We came to the Commonwealth not to subjugate, but to cooperate. One moment,” Snowmane said, and I watched several lights on his life support and a connected maneframe come to life. “Attention, all forces of the Dashite Enclave. This is President Snowmane speaking. Stand down all attacks on the Consortium immediately. Cease bombing and withdraw to a safe distance. You are to fly flags of truce and allow any unarmed synthetic equines to approach for the purposes of negotiating an end to the conflict. Repeat, stand down immediately. This is President Snowmane.”

The lights again changed as President Snowmane silently acted, probably via the various cables plugged into his skull.

“I want live broadcast on New Pegasus Radio and all military channels in thirty seconds,” he said before the lights winked out and his eyes shifted toward me. “There will be an investigation into how you were able to gain access to my chambers, but thank you for bringing this to me, Doc. You may have ended an unnecessary war tonight and exposed several vulnerabilities. Again, thank you.”

***

Fortunately, the assault on the Consortium hadn’t yet reached the facility itself by the time President Snowmane’s orders had gone out. In confusion, the Dashite Enclave forces had stood down as ordered, and the president’s follow-up address had convinced the pondroids not to seek violent redress for the attack. Rael and I were questioned about our actions, but not harshly, and neither of us were imprisoned again. Though some members of the Executive Panel were bitter that we had stopped them and exposed them to President Snowmane, generally there seemed to be an understanding that a continued war with the Consortium would be disastrous. A delegation of pondroids, including 1-6, met in New Pegasus to agree to a peace in which both organizations could exist alongside each other without direct confrontation. The Consortium under its new leadership intended to begin releasing some of their innovations into the Iron Valley to rebuild civilization; it was likely that there would soon be Consortium-aligned settlements alongside the New Pegasus- and Commonwealth-aligned ones. Competition would be inevitable, but it was agreed that the two entities would respect each other’s territory; only time would tell if that would last. For the moment, the war was ended in the Iron Valley, the pondroids were in charge of their own destinies, and I couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Homecoming Tour – Return to Pleasure Coast.
Illusion Magic +6 (41)
Manipulation Magic +2 (49)
Melee Weapons +1 (107)
Science +3 (121)
Sneak +2 (116)
Speech +4 (123)
Survival +3 (91)

Chapter 24: The Long Trek Back

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Long Trek Back

“—a wonderful day we’re having? It’s clouds, clouds, clouds, as far as the eye can see, but at least it’s familiar. When the cloud cover periodically lets loose with rain, well, you might catch a glimpse of that ‘blue sky’ we hear those old songs singing about, or perhaps the stars, glittering far above us like diamonds. Maybe one day the pegasi will finally open up the sky and we’ll see those things all the time… Ha! Fat chance of that! This is Radio Free Wasteland, keeping it real for you twenty-four hours a day, and I’m your host, DJ Pon3, passing you off now to three straight hours of the finest music to survive the megaspells.”

I adjusted the controls of Distribution Station 11 to make sure it was also retransmitting Radio PC before shutting off the internal speakers in the station. Once the conflict with New Pegasus and the Consortium appeared to be resolved, I had to find something else to do with my time. I’d stuck around the area for a few weeks, seeing more of New Pegasus and the settlements pledged to it that were beginning to repopulate. I had also met with the new leadership of the Consortium, including Unit 1-6, who’d now taken the name “Hope,” something many of the pondroids were doing to shed their old identities and start fresh. I’d come to the Iron Valley to search for the origin of the Dogs of War; once that had been accomplished, I’d continued on to find RoBronco Site Dahlia and became involved in the drama here in the east. Now, like when I’d finished spreading Radio Free Wasteland to the northern Commonwealth, I found myself adrift. Unsure of what my purpose was now, I’d decided to spread Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC to the southern Commonwealth as I made my way back to Pleasure Coast. What awaited me there, I wasn’t sure; I’d have to discover that when I arrived in what had become the closest thing I had to a home in the Griffin Commonwealth.

I stepped over the splattered bug carcasses as I exited the distribution station’s control center, rejoining Rael on the overlook platform. DS-11 was located to the northwest of New Pegasus, where the Iron Valley bent north, and had been unoccupied by anything other than overgrown cicadas. The station was in range only of DS-9, also known as the town of Hope Springs, where I’d first learned of the Rokkism my companion practiced. If they only knew they could reach the entire Commonwealth with their words by setting up these stations.... I imagine they’d find it quite an enticing concept.

I looked down on the Iron Valley from the distribution station’s platform, taking in the scenery. A cold wind gusted by, chilling me to the bone. I pulled my coat tighter, resolving to get heavier, warmer apparel after descending from the distribution station. The Iron Valley hadn’t fallen to uncomfortably cold weather, being a desert, but temperatures had gradually dropped during my time there. It was easy to forget that winter had come unless one flew to higher altitudes where snow lay heavy far down the slopes of the mountains, or traveled to the northern Commonwealth, which experienced the full range of seasons. Being an Equestrian, I’d never really experienced seasons before, where the pegasi allowing everything beneath their cloud cover to remain the same throughout the year; but in the Griffin Commonwealth, the Weather Corps saw dutifully to keeping the cycle going. In places that wanted nothing to do with Grand Marshal Gideon, the seasons were still changed as local griffins and ponies took it upon themselves to turn the wheel of time.

Rather than delaying my departure any longer pondering the differences between Equestria and the Griffin Commonwealth, I loped over to my hopper. My time in New Pegasus and the Consortium had not been entirely without profit, and through a combination of rewards for my aid and odd jobs, I’d managed to purchase one of the one-seated gyrocopters from a pony in New Pegasus. It had required some work to fix up and modify, but when I was done, I had a craft that would allow a creature with my unique combination of hooves and claws to fly. No more would I be stymied by heights or require Rael to be tethered to the ground in order to follow me. It would also allow me to travel much more quickly through the Commonwealth and let me cross mountains that I otherwise would’ve had to go around before. Kicking the flying machine into gear, I launched off the distribution station’s platform and dropped into the valley below, on my way to New Pegasus.

***

Two days later, we flew through the mountains southeast of the Iron Valley, a warm cap snug on my head and a parka around my frame. Snowy landscape passed below as I piloted my hopper toward the griffin roost of Comettrail. As a rule, I’d tried to avoid roosts after my poor experiences, but I’d resolved to change that on my way back to Pleasure Coast. I figured that with Rael with me, I might have a better chance with the griffin populations. Here in the south, a pony wouldn’t be so out-of-place either. Comettrail was also directly on the path to Distribution Station 12, my next target, so going around it when I could have a warm bed and meal instead seemed foolish.

“You seem happy about something!” I shouted, not directly at Rael, but so that the microphone dangling in front of my mouth would pick up my words over the whirring overhead blades.

Among the things I’d acquired in New Pegasus had been a pair of headsets so that Rael and I could communicate while flying, and in general, whenever we became separated. The closer we got to Comettrail, the more of a grin graced the beak of the Rokkist missionary, until I had to say something about it.

“Comettrail is where I grew up!” Rael’s voice sounded overloud in my headphones as he shouted, still not fully comprehending that he didn’t need to yell in order for me to hear him perfectly well.

“So, you’re coming home?” I replied.

“Yes! Well, where I came from at least! I grew up in the Rokkist mission in Comettrail and was trained by Brother Roth before being sent to Moonraze!”

I listened as Rael went on about the other Rokkists he’d grown up with in the mission until Comettrail came into sight. It wasn’t easy to miss, as the sun reflected brilliantly off both the large lake in the center of the roost and the soaring skyscrapers that surrounded it. As we drew nearer, I saw that Comettrail had been built in the caldera of a dead volcano, the ground gradually curving up from the lake until it rose precipitously at the lip of the depression, then leveled off to follow the mountain’s gentle slope. Surprised griffins in the uniforms and armor of the Air Corps rose to meet me as I flew in, and they directed me to land atop an old shopping complex on the outskirts of town.

Rael was naturally excited to show me his hometown and I obliged him, allowing him to lead me down the streets toward the roost’s center. Like all roosts, Comettrail was diminished from its Wartime glory, but this one didn’t seem to be diminished very much. The population had clearly decreased, and buildings were partially or wholly abandoned, yet the griffins seemed unnaturally fastidious in keeping everything as repaired and clean as possible. Where the windows of the gleaming skyscrapers had broken, they’d been replaced not with scrap metal or wood, but with shiny new metal panels or electronic screens. Griffins hovered hundreds of pony heights over the ground as they washed and dried the intact windows and scrubbed the metal frames between them.

Down on the street, I noticed that a large number of zebras seemed to have made their homes in Comettrail. Most looked at me with surprise, when they deigned to look at me at all. Each one wore coats or cloaks, but none looked very heavy (at least not heavy enough to keep a desert animal warm in the high-altitude winter), though I’d also grown warm enough to shed my coat and hat as we walked. The climate in Comettrail was surprisingly mild, due to the heat still produced by the volcano beneath us that filtered its way up through the rock to warm the streets and keep the lake from freezing over. Steam rose lazily from equally spaced grates at the side of the streets, accompanied by the scent of sulfur.

“Why are there so many zebras here?” I asked Rael as another group of them trotted past, intent on going the opposite direction as us.

“Comettrail is the closest roost to what was once the Zebra Empire,” Rael explained as he landed on the street and padded along next to me, stretching the toes of his hindfeet to enjoy the heat filtering up through the pavement. “Much like how the Iron Valley was opened to pony industry, Comettrail was opened to zebra business. There were many who lived here already before the megaspells fell and others came here in the aftermath, fleeing the wasteland their empire had become. It’s a good thing I was with you, Doc. Usually they don’t allow ponies into Comettrail, in order to prevent fights from breaking out.”

The admonition the Air Corps officer had given me not to make trouble suddenly made a lot more sense. Conflict between zebras and ponies had destroyed the world, and many were still liable to bear a grudge either for how the War had ended or as a holdover from those bitter feelings. I certainly didn’t intend to cause the zebras of Comettrail any trouble, so long as they let me be.

Rael picked up the pace as we neared the center of the city and passed through a plaza flocked with griffins before reaching the Rokkist mission. The building Rael had grown up in looked to be one of the oldest in the city, built of stone and jutting out into the lake on an artificial quay. Its big, blocky walls had scraps here and there of faded paint, but mostly they had been scraped clean. Over a colonnaded entrance was a large wooden recreation of the Rokkist symbol. Most griffins gave the building a wide berth, but Rael practically ran inside.

I tried to keep up as I followed, observing that the Rokkist mission had once been a bathhouse of some kind. Through some of the doorways, I could see griffins in simple cassocks looking up in surprise from their Books of Rok as Rael ran past. At the center of the mission was an open courtyard where young griffins played a game that involved bouncing a ball off the wall and through a hoop. Supervising them was an older griffin with dark blue fur and gray feathers, with some of the edges tinted light blue. He was dressed in the simple robes of a Rokkist priest, and a small pair of spectacles perched on his beak.

“Rael?” he asked in disbelief as my companion nearly barreled into him before pulling up short to give a respectful bow.

“Brother Roth,” Rael greeted the elder griffin, a smile creeping back onto his beak after the formal greeting. “You’re looking well.”

“If you’ve returned, does that mean you’ve completed your pilgrimage already?” Roth asked in surprise.

“No, but … it’s a long story,” Rael said, glancing at me.

“I understand,” Roth said as he placed a fatherly claw on Rael’s shoulder. “Let’s get comfortable.”

Roth led Rael and me out of the courtyard to a sitting room where the floor was heaped with cushions, and coffee and pastries were provided. As we drank and snacked, Rael told Roth about everything that had happened to him since leaving Commettrail. His journey to New Pegasus and across the Iron Valley I’d never heard him talk about, at least in detail, but soon he was in familiar territory. He relayed how I’d saved him at Distribution Station 5 before we’d ever really met, and his time in Moonraze leading up to my arrival and the rebellion that overthrew the Mythologists. It was, as Rael had said, a long story, made even longer as griffins repeatedly entered the room in ones and twos to see if the rumors were correct and Rael had truly returned. Every time this happened, they greeted Rael like a long-lost brother and sat down to join in the libations and chat, interrupting Rael’s story. At one point, when the room became particularly crowded, I excused myself to get some air. Rael had nearly finished his story anyway, already up to the New Pegasus-Consortium war, so I didn’t feel I would miss out on anything. He’d probably like to share some of what he’d observed about me with Roth without me listening in.

Outside the Rokkist mission, the city remained busy, though now I had more time to observe exactly why the griffins were so clustered around the plaza. Banners, bunting, pennants, and paper lanterns were ubiquitous, being hung from streetlamps, signs, and the posts of canopies that had been erected in the plaza while I was inside. Tall banners were being unfurled down the sides of skyscrapers, while other buildings had designs projected on them, griffins testing how they looked as the sun began to set over the rim of the caldera. Beneath the canopies griffins were busily setting up food and goods stalls. The activity wasn’t just confined to the plaza in front of the Rokkist mission, either; I could see similar preparations going on all around the coast of the lake. In the distance, I could see a hot air balloon ascending unplanned and the small shapes of griffins chasing after it.

“What’s going on?” I asked Rael as he joined me outside the mission, gesturing to the preparations.

“New Year’s celebrations are a big deal for Comettrail,” Rael said. “We have to stay for them.”

“We do?” I asked.

I rarely paid much attention to the date, despite how prominently it was shown by my PipBeak (and by my PipBuck before it). In the Equestrian Wasteland, there wasn’t much difference in the days when the seasons never changed and the weather rarely did. The only time I really paid attention to the date was to compare the year with terminal entries I found to see how long ago they’d been made. Checking my PipBeak now, I saw that tomorrow was the last day of 1510, which held no meaning for me as a year other than to tell me that the War had ended 160 years ago and I’d left Vanhoover seven years ago. The end of one year and the start of the next held little meaning for me, but apparently it did for the griffins of Comettrail.

“Oh, yes,” Rael replied. “The festival will last all day tomorrow and through the night. It’s the biggest celebration in the Griffin Commonwealth! I thought for sure this year I wouldn’t be able to be here for it.”

Rael’s enthusiasm was so infectious that I relented from my plans to continue on to Distribution Station 12 the next day and instead stay for the celebrations. I always tried to keep myself moving in a timely manner, but I realized there was no reason for me to hurry back to Pleasure Coast. One day spent in revelry with the griffins of Comettrail wouldn’t change anything. We spent the night in the Rokkist mission, and the next day the festival began.

As far as celebrations went, my experiences had mostly involved ad hoc parties thrown together in the aftermath of great events, such as victory in battle. The only prepared celebration I’d been to had been for Gloria Delgado, and the way the Sunset Strip Dragons celebrated hadn’t exactly been to my tastes, with so much emphasis on bloodsports and indulgence. Comettrail’s New Year’s festivities were completely different. From the shores of the volcanic lake, the stalls, canopies, and decorations radiated out down the major streets to accommodate the entire city’s population. Griffins were packed into the plazas and walks surrounding the lake, wandering freely between the stalls that (astoundingly) charged nothing for their food, the stages where the musically inclined griffins shared their gifts, and the stands and roped-off areas where games were played. I was surrounded by griffins who stopped to share with friends and strangers what they thought of their past year.

At first, griffins gave me space, unsure what to make of a pony in their midst, but as the day went on, I found myself welcomed more and more into their conversations and activities. I had as much to reflect on as any of them; after all, a year ago I’d been a prisoner in the Grittish Isles. Much had changed in my life since then, as I’d spent most of the year in the Griffin Commonwealth, far from my homeland. I’d lost a foreleg, explored the northern and southern halves of the Commonwealth, traveled with scavengers, been rebuilt and enslaved by the Castle, ended the threat of the Dogs of War, and seen both New Pegasus and the Consortium and their conflict and peace. I’d learned how to make better use of my unicorn magic and how to fly a hopper. I’d made new friends along the way and picked up a traveling companion in Rael.

I was certainly in a better place than I had been a year ago, and, like many of the griffins around me, it made me want to reflect on the year to come. It wasn’t something I’d ever really done before, nor something that I’d ever seen others do. Trying to survive meant that one was never fully certain they’d be alive a year in the future, so one tended not to make long-term plans. The stability of the roosts, as fallen as they were from their Wartime status, allowed the griffins here to seriously reflect on such questions—ones to which I had no answers. I still hoped to find a permanent place to settle down and start a life that didn’t involve so much fighting for survival, but where would I find that and what would I do if I wasn’t constantly travelling? I still wanted to be reunited with Sage, but would that happen in the next year? We’d been apart for seven years already, and there was no telling when she’d ever be able to leave Manehattan or I’d be able to return to Equestria. Her last message conveyed by the crew of the Red Harvest had given me hope: that if she could find somepony to take her place as DJ Pon3, she could join me. However, the manner in which she’d taken over for the previous radio announcer had been abrupt, and I knew she’d want to make sure her successor had proper training before leaving Equestria’s only uplifting radio station in their hooves.

As the party carried on and I wandered around the lake taking in all the different sights and sounds, I realized that I was the only non-griffin taking part in the festivities; the zebras were nowhere to be seen. When Rael and I met again, he explained that though griffins used the Equestrian calendar, the zebras kept to their empire’s, whose year didn’t end for several more months. They would have their own celebrations at that time, inspired in some ways by the griffin festival, but greatly scaled down.

The festivities continued unabated into the night, until a horn sounded from across the lake once, twice, then thrice, each time causing more griffin conversations to fall silent. After a minute of silence, the horn blared again, accompanied by griffins shouting, “Ten!” With each blast, another number was shouted out, counting down, until at the end, the griffins yelled “Happy New Year!” The shout was accompanied by fireworks exploding in the air over the city, their dazzling displays reflected in the lake below. Griffins sang and embraced, and bands struck up raucous tunes. The whole festival descended into chaos as griffins went all out in celebration. Fireworks continued to light up the night, and the projected displays and banners on the surrounding buildings danced.

“Doc!” Rael called out as he found me in the crowd, “Happy New Year!”

“What’s this?” I asked as he pressed a clothbound book toward me.

“A gift! I thought you might like a journal to record your thoughts in a more physical way than your PipBeak!” Rael said as I took the journal in my magic.

All around us, I could see griffins exchanging gifts with each other.

“I didn’t know we were supposed to exchange gifts!” I shouted to be heard over the crowd.

“Of course not! It’s your first griffin New Year!” Rael laughed. “Next year, though!”

“Yeah,” I said, allowing myself to wholeheartedly believe I’d live through the coming year, “Next year!”

***

We understandably got a late start the following day, but still managed to make it to Distribution Station 12 before nightfall. It was a good thing I had my hopper; otherwise, getting to the distribution station would have been difficult, if not impossible. The stairs leading up to the station had fallen away, and the mountain path approaching it from behind had also crumbled in the years since the station had been built. Consequently, the station was uninhabited, and it was a snap to rebroadcast Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC from it. From what Rael told me, there wasn’t much in the Griffin Commonwealth to the southeast that it was broadcasting to, but it would help expand the range regardless and would provide a vital link to the next distribution station on my list.

DS-14 was next, located due west of DS-12. While the distribution station we’d just visited had been high in the mountains, this station looked down on a valley. Except, it wasn’t the Iron Valley. The mountains that bordered the Iron Valley to the south bordered this valley to the north, a valley that was completely cut off from the coast without flying or climbing mountains. According to Rael, it had once been farmland to feed the growing population of the Griffin Commonwealth and still remained largely fertile and mostly free of contamination by megaspell fallout. However, that made it contested territory between the griffins of Goldpeak far to the south and the various gangs and coalitions of raiders that also occupied the valley. It didn’t come as too great a shock, then, when Distribution Station 14 appeared to be occupied by raiders.

Unfortunately, their surprise at seeing an inbound hopper didn’t give them enough pause for me to land before they started shooting. My flight wobbled as I tried to steer the rotorcraft, protect its vital parts with magical shielding, and fire my battle rifle down toward them at the same time. Few of my shots hit their marks, but they at least convinced a few of the raiders to reconsider and gave me the time I needed to set down the hopper on the platform. As I jumped from the pilot seat, watching my head as the blades slowed their spinning, I threw a trio of grenades in the directions I’d seen griffins and was rewarded with several pips disappearing from FITS as I sought cover behind a large stack of sacks marked “Fertilizer.”

I tossed another grenade before jumping out and running toward a storage building. On the way, I cast ERSaTS and used my starscatter gun to take down a griffin missing half his beak, one with a sledgehammer whose head was belching flame from the back, and one covered in so many spikes I was surprised she hadn’t injured herself just by moving around. The storage building was filled not with parts to repair the distribution station, but with grain, and it absorbed the shots fired after me. Dust swirled in the air, and as raiders piled in through the door ahead of me, I retreated, leaving an incendiary grenade as I went. The building went up in flames as I fled out the door, immolating all those inside.

I bowled into a raider with a machete as I exited the building and pushed him over the edge of the distribution station’s platform, giving him no time to unfurl his wings before dropping out of sight. A group of raiders was charging from the main building now, and I cast ERSaTS and used it to take them down with shots from Big Iron that punched through their armor. I jumped behind a stack of weapons and ammunition crates as the surviving raiders returned fire. It was a poor place to take cover, and I paid the price as the shots set off the explosives stored within, sending me flying across the platform. Everything went silent for me, and I felt blood coming from my ears, but most of my body was shielded by the protective clothing I’d taken from the Castle, though I was definitely going to be sore later.

Taking no time to down a healing potion, I hurried behind another side building and pushed myself to levitate, slowly ascending to the roof. The griffins had fanned out to circle the building and come at me from two sides, but none of them thought to look up for a flightless opponent. I could feel the vibration as I fired my battle rifle in bursts to take each of them out until FITS was clear ahead of me.

I suddenly felt a weight fall awkwardly on my back and quickly spun around. The griffin I’d pushed off the platform had returned and was attempting to attack me from behind. He was unarmed for now, his machete sliding across the roof of the building—the claw he’d been holding it in was bloodied, and he’d stumbled into me without meaning to. Now that he was on top of me, though, he went for my neck. We rolled back and wrestled for a bit, but eventually I managed to get my claws close enough to him to extend my PipBeak’s blade attachment and take out his throat. As I pushed the body off me, I checked FITS again for hostile marks but found only a friendly, which was Rael hovering nearby with a shotgun held in his claws.

“Thanks for the help,” I told him after drinking a swig of healing potion to restore my eardrums.

“You would’ve died otherwise,” Rael said by way of explanation and discarded the shotgun, allowing it to fall by the dead griffin he’d taken it from.

He got that contemplative look I was beginning to recognize meant he’d want to talk later but wished to be left to his own thoughts for now, so I let him be and set about the task I’d come here to accomplish. Soon, Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC had a new broadcast range, and I’d checked off one more step on my trip back to Pleasure Coast.

***

The next day saw us reach Distribution Station 13. It was abandoned as far as habitation went but did seem to be used as storage by the Griffin Commonwealth’s Air and Land Corps for weapons and ammunition. We got in and out as quickly as possible, locking back up as we left. From DS-13 we headed north and slightly back east as we curved around the high mountain peaks toward the nearby roost. Stonewood was the name of the griffin city, and I saw it was a fitting one as we approached. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, since there was no city as far as I could tell, just a very sheer cliff face rearing over an uneven plateau. As we got closer, though, I saw that the ground below the peak was not ground at all, but the tops of enormous trees that had turned to stone. Signs became more apparent as we neared that these giant petrified trees had once been part of the mountain and had been chiseled out, leaving only the cliff I’d seen before of the original peak. The buildings of Stonewood had been either built upon the trees’ massive branches or chiseled out of their colossal trunks, and they were all very modest compared to the skyscrapers of Comettrail. The griffins here enjoyed a simple life and hadn’t changed since even before the War. The only indications that they had been involved at all were the signs in front of some of the buildings declaring them offices of Commonwealth government, belonging to one of the various corps. Rael and I intruded upon their lives only for a single night before moving on. I had the impression that my companion found them a bit odd but was too polite to say anything.

Only a quick flight away down in the Iron Valley was the settlement of Charity’s Reach, which, as luck would have it, was on the way to my next destination: Distribution Station 17. I wanted to check in and see how the town was doing, since it was the settlement after New Pegasus that I’d spent the most time at in the Iron Valley (though, given I’d only been there twice, that wasn’t saying much). It had been nearly three months since I’d been here last, and I wanted to speak to Geraldine again, if she was able to pull herself away from her work helping the griffins of the town.

When we arrived at Charity’s Reach, like last time, there was a different vibe in the air. This time, however, things had gone in the opposite direction and griffins seemed more dour. A wall had also been erected partway around the town, and guards stood sentry at distant intervals. Though it was still mid-morning, several shops along the main street were closed and everything seemed generally subdued.

“Hold it,” a griffin called out to Rael and me as we trotted through the settlement.

He landed in front of us, dressed as the other guards, not in a uniform but a strange set of robes not dissimilar from those worn by Rokkist priests. Except, I’d never seen a Rokkist cleric carrying a weapon (other than the brief moments Rael had picked one up to save me), and this griffin was armed with a shock baton at his side.

“There’s a donation of thirty caps per head per day for visitors to Charity’s Reach,” he announced and held out a claw.

“There was nothing like that when I came through here before,” I said when it became apparent the griffin was asking for me to give him a “donation”. It was not an uncommon scam for lowlifes in settlements to pull on new visitors, but I didn’t expect it in Charity’s Reach. I was fairly certain this was a grift meant to separate me from my caps, but given the other changes to the town, I couldn’t be certain.

“It’s been newly put in place by the priestess for the betterment of the settlement,” the griffin said, his claw still held out in expectation of caps being placed in it.

“Can I speak to Geraldine about this first?” I asked.

“You can’t,” he replied, and I frowned at him. “She’s dead.”

“Dead?” I asked incredulously.

“A fever swept through the town, and though she helped save others, she wasn’t so fortunate herself,” the griffin said mournfully. “Giselda is our priestess now, following in Geraldine’s footsteps.”

“By requiring visitors to pay a toll?” I asked in disbelief.

“It’s a donation,” the guard repeated, “For the betterment of the settlement.”

“Can I speak to Giselda, then?” I asked.

“Once … you’ve made your donation,” the guard insisted.

Grouchily, I measured out sixty caps from my saddlebags and handed them over to the griffin. I still didn’t know if the “donation” requirement was genuine, but I was going to get to the bottom of it. The guard let us move on now as he added the caps to a container at his waist, and I charged ahead to the Church of Rok. The area in front of the roundhouse was empty, though I hand’t spent enough time here in the morning to know if that’d changed. What had changed was that the Church of Rok seemed to have expanded to more than just the two bays of the roundhouse it had occupied last time. It was now the only occupant of the building, and things seemed busy within.

“Are you Giselda?” I asked a griffin with a white coat and green feathers wearing the robes typical of a Rokkist priestess.

“I am she,” she answered as she looked up from a stack of papers and handed them off to an acolyte. “How can I help you, my child?”

“I was just shaken down as I entered town,” I said.

“Yes, many visitors have found our new donation requirements to be unexpected,” Giselda said, bobbing her head.

“I thought the Church of Rok emphasized voluntary giving,” I said.

“Yes, in general, that is the agreed-upon interpretation of Rok’s teachings,” Giselda said as she sat down on a bench and motioned Rael and I to sit as well. “However, Geraldine, may the soil rest easy upon her, started something here that has borne great fruit.”

“When I advised her, it was to get Dres and Gellen to give their fair share,” I said, “Not to seek a cap anywhere it could be found.”

“So, you must be the Doc I’ve heard about,” Giselda said smoothly. “I’ve been told Geraldine mentioned you often. You inspired her to take action, to enforce our beliefs, and when I saw and heard how that had improved Charity’s Reach, I had to do some deep thinking myself. With mandatory tithing, we can ensure everygriffin gives their best to the community, and we can accomplish so much more. Donations allow us to undertake projects the church never could have before, such as building a town wall to protect us from beasts and raiders. We always had the resources, but only now can they be put to a proper purpose. Isn’t that a good thing?”

“I suppose, but I don’t know,” I said. I looked to Rael for backup, but like with Geraldine, he was silent and intimidated by the presence and authority of a full-fledged priestess. “The settlement doesn’t seem happier.”

“No, they wouldn’t at first, just as you were unhappy at being asked to contribute, but it’s for their good. The poor souls who were begging for scraps before are much happier now, though. They’re fed, they’re clothed, and they’re working for the betterment of the settlement. Of course those who had the most to lose personally will be upset with being told to give it up, but they’ll see in time that it was the right thing,” Giselda preached. When she’d finished, another griffin padded up to her and whispered something in her ear. “I have to go now, so much to do, but do try to see Charity’s Reach from a better perspective. May you bless and be blessed by those around you.”

As Rael repeated the phrase verbatim and Giselda turned to leave, I wondered if my companion had been right about his concerns the first time we’d come here. Perhaps it was for the greater good, but how far was too far to go for that ideal. Who decided what was justified, and who stopped the one who made those decisions from going to far?

***

There was one last stop before Castoway, the distribution station that would spread the radio stations to that sinking city. We arrived the day after our brief visit to Charity’s Reach, and I spotted some movement on the platform from a distance. By the time Rael and I arrived at the distribution station, however, it was empty. I carefully set down the hopper and waited for its blades to slow to a halt before stepping out and scanning the area, my rifle at the ready. The platform looked abandoned, but it had been kept clean and fixed up, with signs of repairs and repainting. There were also several long planters in the open space between the storage and bunkhouses and the main facility, where nothing grew currently, but the soil appeared tended. On FITS, I could see five marks in the main building as we approached, but they weren’t yet hostile. I wasn’t sure what to do as I reached the main door. Clearly this wasn’t a raider-infested station (unless they were incredibly deceptive), so I didn’t want to go in with guns blazing. Instead, I decided to knock on the door.

“Hello?” I called as I rapped my mechanical knuckles against the metal. “Anyone there?”

“Go away!” a gruff voice responded from the other side of the door. “Get out of here if you want to live another day!”

The voice was trying to project confidence, but I could tell he was really afraid. The threat wasn’t exactly idle, but he wasn’t threatening me because he wanted to kill me; he was threatening me because he wanted me to leave so he wouldn’t need to kill me.

“Listen, I’m not here to make any trouble,” I tried to assure him. “I just want to take a look at this station’s controls to rebroadcast radio signals.”

“Sure you do,” he said in disbelief. “And I saw the megaspells hit Griffonstone.”

“D-did you?” I asked, uncertain if he was still being sarcastic. “I can’t see through the door, so I don’t know if you’re a ghoul or not.”

“I’m no ghoul!” he spat back. “But you’d need to be to survive what I’ll do to you if you don’t leave right now!”

“I’m Doc. Maybe you’ve heard of me, or Doc Silverarm. Trust me, I mean you no harm,” I said as I noticed the pip on FITS beginning to waver.

“Never heard of you! Now get out of here and leave my family alone!” the voice yelled, and the accompanying mark changed to hostile.

“Sir!” Rael interjected before he could start shooting. “I can vouch for everything this pony said. I am an acolyte of Rok.”

A long silence stretched out as we stood frozen in place, me with my eyes on FITS, until the pip switched back to neutral.

“Step back from the door,” the voice said at last.

Rael and I shuffled backwards. After a few seconds, the door inched open. A shotgun barrel came through first, and then a griffin’s eye peered out. After another moment, the door opened wider, showing a rough-looking griffin with brown, nearly black fur and white feathers. He was wearing common settler’s garb with scuffed-up combat armor overtop and a wide-brimmed hat on his head.

“Well, I’ll be,” he said in astonishment. “It really is a pony and a preacher.”

“Acolyte,” Rael gently corrected him.

“As I was saying, I don’t mean to intrude or be a pain, but can we get to the control room to set up some rebroadcasts?” I asked. “Just that, and we’ll be out of your feathers.”

“Leave your weapons and you can come in,” the griffin said, still a little touchily, but he seemed to believe now that I meant him no harm.

I left my battle rifle, revolver, starscatter gun, and grenades outside in a garden bed, then let the griffin look through my saddlebags to be sure I hadn’t kept anything. He didn’t search Rael, trusting that a Rokkist acolyte would have no lethal weapons on him. We were then allowed to enter the station, led by Garret, as the griffin introduced himself. I saw no sign of Garret’s family, but I could tell where they’d scurried off to by watching FITS. While I set up the rebroadcasting of Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC, Rael chatted up our host, and I half listened, learning that the other four marks I’d seen were his wife, daughters, and son. He relaxed some in talking to Rael, but never put his shotgun away entirely. I could understand his jumpiness living in a place that was a likely target for raiders to turn into a sky keep, especially with three young griffins to look after, so I didn’t try to push my luck and stay any longer after accomplishing my goal. Garret saw us off without complaint, and soon we were back in the sky, headed toward the coast.

***

I had to be careful at Castoway. The last time I was here, I’d been under the control of Orthros’s Justice Protocol and had wreaked havoc on the city, dropping warlords and their minions as if they were bugs to be swatted. I did look different now, with my original horn, no wings upon my back, and my foreleg once again replaced by a griffin prosthetic, but there was still a chance I could be recognized. Playing it safe, I landed the hopper outside of town and Rael scouted ahead to see what the situation was in the city.

When he returned, it was with an invitation from Daff to enter and land atop the Castoway Port Authority Hospital. We hadn’t parted on exactly the best of terms last time, given that Daff had still been critical of the chaos I’d inflicted as Justice, but I trusted her and her judgement enough to fly in and meet her. The hospital she’d directed me to was a tall, blocky tower in the center of the city, with a helipad on the roof that was perfect for landing my hopper. As I circled, I noticed that there were more ponies than just Daff on the roof. When I landed, they held back while Daff approached. The unicorn had picked up some new attire since we’d last met, a duster and a pair of shades, but her overlong forelock still fell over one of the lenses.

“Well, you’re back, you old so-and-so,” Daff commented as I climbed out of the hopper. “I see you kept the coat.”

“There wasn’t much left of the old one,” I said as I twisted to show where the remnants of the doctor’s coat were stitched to the new one I’d taken from the Castle. “I see you have a new coat yourself.”

“When one’s a leader, I’ve found it helps to be distinctive,” Daff replied.

“You’re a leader now?” I asked in surprise.

“After you headed off a few months ago, somepony had to clean up the mess you left. I guess I did more’n my fair share, and some ponies started looking to me for direction. Then a couple freelancers and I got to thinking and decided we could do a better job than a bunch of overly theatrical warlords at running this place,” Daff explained with pride. “Since then it’s been expand, expand, expand. We’ve taken over more than a third of the city and we’re finally bringing some sanity back to this place.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” I said, happy for her.

“Don’t think you can get off the hook completely,” Daff said. “Sure, in the end maybe this’ll all turn out well, but you still hurt this city more than I’ve ever seen it hurt by the warlords and their crazy antics. I may have some favors to ask of you in the future to make amends.”

“If I’m around, I’ll do my best to oblige,” I told her.

While we were chatting, one of the other ponies on the roof approached, a stallion wearing combat barding—one of Daff’s bodyguards, I assumed.

“Ma’am, it’s back again,” he said conspiratorially.

“What’s back again?” Daff asked with minor annoyance.

“The … submarine,” the stallion said, hesitating as he looked at me.

“A submarine?” I asked curiously, earning a frown from the stallion.

“Apparently there’s a zebra submarine that’s been poking around the harbor for the last few days, and apparently it’s my problem now every time it sticks its conning tower out of the water,” Daff said in exasperation.

“Is it the Red Harvest?” I asked excitedly.

“I don’t know that anypony’s thought to identify it,” Daff replied. “Usually they just shoot at it and it goes away. Why, do you know a zebra submarine by that name? Also, why do you know a zebra submarine?”

“It’s a long story, but they might have news for me,” I said as I hurried back to the hopper. “Is it still in the harbor?”

Daff turned to the stallion who’d brought her the news, whose only reply was a shrug before returning to where her other bodyguard was waiting. I saw the second bodyguard pull out a radio as I took off, but I wasn’t planning to wait. If Captain Zaliski was trying to get me news of Equestria, I needed to get to him before the attacks from the shore convinced him to give up.

As I flew past the sunken piers and the remains of old cargo ships, I spotted the Red Harvest in the water. It was dangerous to fly the hopper so close to the surface, but I didn’t want to take the time to land, find a boat, and convince whoever was in charge of it to saile me out to the submarine. Instead, I flew the hopper all the way out and hovered over the Red Harvest’s conning tower until it opened and a zebra ghoul stuck its head out. After they shouted something down in words that were lost to the sound of my rotors and which I wouldn’t have understood anyway, the submarine surfaced and allowed me to land on its hull, atop the hatches that once covered megaspell-tipped missiles. Captain Zaliski himself climbed down onto the hull to meet me as the rotors of my hopper spun down.

“Doc, we had nearly given up hope of finding you,” he rasped as he trotted across the damp metal. “They said you had gone south, so we thought to try Castoway again, but it seems the ponies here have not forgotten the War. We were just about to slip away. It was good you came when you did.”

“Glad to see you, too. Any particular reason you were seeking me out?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes, this,” Zaliski said before reaching into the remains of his uniform and pulling out an envelope wrapped in plastic to protect it from water and his rotting gums and teeth. “It is a letter from your Sage,” he said cheerfully as I gratefully took it from him. “We have to thank you, Doc.”

“You do?” I asked in surprise, forcing myself to pull my attention away from the letter.

“You have given the crew hope, and a purpose,” Zaliski said. “Heh, maybe a small purpose compared to our responsibilities during the War, but an important one, and something to keep our attention. We are all pulling for you and your beloved, and wish to keep our wits long enough to see you reunited.”

“Thank you,” I said, touched by the ghoul’s words. “I hope for that, too.”

“Keep yourself alive, Doc,” Zaliski cautioned me. “You have more to hope for than us.”

***

I flew high over the wastes after leaving Castoway, in more ways than one. Sage’s letter had been (almost) everything I could have wanted. She’d taken an apprentice to train to take her place as DJ Pon3, and promised she’d join me in the Griffin Commonwealth soon. What exactly “soon” meant, I had no idea, but I was expecting months rather than weeks or days. There was still a lot of work to be done before she could leave Manehattan. Yet, to have the promise that we would be reunited, and that there were concrete steps being taken that made it a matter of “when” and not “if”, made my heart soar.

At the same time, Captain Zaliski’s words had cautioned me. My life thus far had mostly been one of life-or-death situations. Now that I knew Sage and I would be reunited, it was clearer than ever to me that I had to change something. If I died before she reached the Commonwealth, what would that accomplish other than to aggrieve her? I’d tried before to settle down into a simpler, less dangerous life, but I’d always been pulled back into danger. This time, I was fully resolved to a stay at my house in Pleasure Coast until Sage joined me.

Airborne as I was, I didn’t have to deal with the myriad beasts of the wastes that I’d encountered on the way south, nor the Dogs of War. I did touch down once to take advantage of the trick I’d learned from the scavengers to get fuel from the automated filling stations using Commonwealth guilders, filling up my hopper and the spare tanks in the storage racks to keep me flying for a while yet. I did see a few clans of scavengers down below, tearing through the wastes on their road-beasts. I was glad that with the threat of the Dogs of War removed, they were able to return to their lifestyle.

I didn’t fly directly back to Pleasure Coast, for there were two more places I wanted to stop along the way. In the mountains east of the wastes was Distribution Station 8, a station mostly stripped of goods, but intact enough that I was able to rebroadcast Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC to the wastes, where a gap had otherwise existed in the coverage.

Nearby was also the roost of Underpeak. Rael and I stopped in for a day so that I could satiate my exploratory curiosity, and it was well worth the visit. I’d never have located the roost if I hadn’t found a crumbling mountain road to follow that snaked through and around the mountains before ending at a large cave entrance on the north slope of a mount. Underpeak was built in a massive set of grottos within the mountain, the largest so big that skyscrapers had been built within—though the attribution of skyscraper seemed inappropriate, since what the buildings were scraping was the roof of the cave. Some of them even went all the way up, acting as pillars. The entire city seemed to live in an eerie twilight where the majority of illumination was artificial, even in the middle of the day. From what I could tell, this didn’t change at night either, and griffins lived on different overlapping schedules that together went around the clock.

And so concluded my long journey south to the Iron Valley and back north to where my life in the Griffin Commonweath had started. I’d been away for over four months, and it was good to be back. Summer Sunrise was surprised to see me again, as was the griffin who’d sold me my home in the northern heights and cleared it out thinking I’d died in the wastes. Once I got that mess sorted out and moved back in, things settled into a normal rhythm. Summer Sunrise still welcomed me to work in the clinic and I took odd jobs around town, but with the influx of cash from the Commonwealth Crooner as a reward for spreading his station to the southern half of the Commonwealth, I didn’t have any real need to work at the moment. Rael continued to follow me around and observe, insisting that he needed a full picture of my life, but I secretly suspected he’d soon return to his missionary work since my life had become much more boring. I was living up to my resolution to live a peaceful existence and stay out of trouble until Sage could join me. It lasted a week.

I was making my way back to the Hope Drive Clinic after spending some time in the Library of Arcana when I first heard the thrumming in the air. Soon, every pony and griffin were looking to the sky, trying to determine the source. It came into view as I trotted through the city’s main plaza. Hovering in from the northwest was a great metal airship, and it was one I recognized. How many days had I looked up at that great armored hulk bristling with weapons emplacements and able to house an army? They’d gotten it to work and decided to use it, evident by the thrumming engines along its hull and the fact that it had followed me here.

“Ponies and griffins of the Commonwealth!” speakers mounted on the airship’s belly blared as it continued to advance. “Please remain calm and do not interfere! We are here for the safeguarding of technology and the cleansing of your land of taint! Do not attempt to resist or obstruct our holy mission, and you will not be fired upon! We are the Steel Rangers!”

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Equestria Cometh – Deal with the Steel Ranger invasion of the Commonwealth.
Alchemistry +2 (63)
Athletics +2 (43)
Barter +2 (124)
Electronics +5 (60)
Enchanting +3 (34)
Energy Weapons +1 (106)
Explosives +1 (118)
Lockpick +1 (114)
Medicine +4 (127)
Pilot +30 (60)
Repair +10 (124)
Small Guns +4 (147)
Survival +12 (103)
Unarmed +1 (96)

Chapter 25: Steel Crusade

Chapter Twenty-Five: Steel Crusade

The Steel Rangers. These power-armored, technology venerating ponies had been among my earliest enemies and allies in the Equestrian Wasteland. I’d spent the first weeks of my life outside of Stable 85 hunted by them, but the Steel Ranger who’d eventually captured me, Rare Sparks, had become one of my closest friends. Under Elder Manticore’s Fury, the Vanhoover Steel Rangers had become my allies, then after his death and the rise of Elder Sagebrush, they made an about-face and wanted nothing to do with an outsider like me, or Rare, who was banished from the order for her continued support for me. When I’d gone into my self-imposed exile, it had been mostly to escape the North Equestrian Alliance, but I’d also hoped to travel beyond the reach of the Vanhoover Steel Rangers and the Stalliongrad contingent they were beginning to get chummy with again.

The Grittish Isles were the worst place I could have gone to escape. The Vanhoover contingent of Steel Rangers had become more extreme after Elder Sagebrush took over, but even at the worst I’d seen them, they were nowhere near the Steel Rangers that ruled the Isles. Because of my PipBuck and the collection of advanced weaponry I’d assembled in my exploits, I was imprisoned immediately. They couldn’t remove my PipBuck without my consent or killing or mutilating me, and fortunately there were enough of them that drew the line before that. It was almost comical: I’d spent five years imprisoned under terrible conditions, refusing to give my PipBuck up, only to lose it in the Commonwealth shortly after being let free. In between the threats and harsh treatment, they’d made me plenty of offers, trying to convince me to give up my personal computer in exchange for riches or citizenship in the Grittish Isles, a privileged and difficult-to-obtain position in the society they’d built there, where most ponies were subjects with few rights. Foolish me, I’d held onto my PipBuck for the treasured memories stored as recordings on it and for the connection it allowed me to Sage through DJ Pon3’s radio broadcasts—only to immediately lose access to both after the Steel Rangers realized I wasn’t going to break and banished me to the Griffin Commonwealth.

Two features had dominated my view (and that of everypony in Trottingham) during my imprisonment. The first was the Tower, as the Steel Rangers and the locals referred to it. I reckoned it was a Single Pony Project tower, like the many that dotted Equestria: slender, white, and soaring higher than the impenetrable cloud cover. The Tower certainly fit some of the criteria, but failed at others. Instead of being constructed in the countryside like other SPP towers, the Tower had been built smack-dab in the middle of Trottingham. It was also not covered in the opalescent white shell of the typical SPP tower, but was instead clad in simple steel and glass. A prototype, perhaps, and after the War it had become the headquarters of the Grittish Isles’ lords and masters. It was an impressive piece of technology, and its dominance over the vision of everypony for miles around was a potent statement of the Steel Rangers’ authority. The second dominant sight had been the massive airship docked to the Tower. The Indefatigable hung in the air over Trottingham, its implausibly light steel bulk moored by lines that seemed insufficient from the distance they were viewed. In the War, it had been a flying fortress, meant to take on dragons, but degradation had left it incapable of flight other than maneuvering around the Tower. Or so I’d thought.

Whether or not the Indefatigable had been fully functional all along or the Steel Rangers had managed to restore it over the past year, the airship now cast its long and ominous shadow over a new city. I’d never thought the Steel Rangers would leave the Isles, content to rule over their little kingdom, but I was wrong. Something had compelled them to venture forth to the Griffin Commonwealth and plunder Pleasure Coast of its technology. If only that was all they’d come to do, for they could just as easily be here to conquer. As for the cleansing of taint they’d mentioned in their broadcast ... well, I knew just how broad the categorization was of things they considered unclean.

“Doc?” Rael said questioningly as he tried to follow me and look up at the approaching airship at the same time.

I’d put on speed, intending to make it back to the Hope Drive Clinic before the Indefatigable was near enough to cause real trouble. Radio PC played across the grand plaza as I galloped through, Rael tagging along in the air, the jazzy music completely at odds with the looming threat. The ghouls around the plaza stared up at the approaching airship, dumbfounded, many likely recalling when they’d last seen one centuries ago during the War.

“Whoa there, what’s th’ rush?” Summer Sunrise demanded as I barreled through the clinic’s door and skidded across the floor.

“We need to find somewhere to hide, or get out of the city if possible,” I said.

“Now, why’d I wanna do that?” Summer Sunrise asked skeptically.

“The Steel Rangers are here,” I explained quickly. “They’ve come in force from the Grittish Isles. These are the same Steel Rangers that imprisoned me for five years for my PipBuck, and I doubt they’d hesitate to do the same again for these.” I held up my prosthetic griffin arm and the PipBeak strapped to it to demonstrate. “Of course, they might be less squeamish about removing them from my body this time. Their position on ghouls is also rather … extreme. As far as they’re concerned, the world would be better if none of you existed.”

“An’ Pleasure Coast is what we woulda called a ‘target-rich environment’ back in th’ Army,” Summer Sunrise said solemnly; even as he joked, the gravity of the situation was dawning on him. “But surely they wouldn’t try t’ wipe out all th’ ghouls at once. Unless they brought th’ entire population of Trottingham, we’ll outnumber ‘em significantly.”

“Maybe,” I admitted. “They came with their airship, so they could be bringing an army of power-armored ponies. You’re right that it probably still wouldn’t be enough if every ghoul in Pleasure Coast fights back, but it could be close. Do you want to take that risk?”

“Point taken,” Summer Sunrise harrumphed. “Franz might be willin’ to shelter some o’ us in ‘is memory den, ‘specially after th’ help you’ve given ‘im.”

“Right, to Franz’s, then,” I said. “I’ll meet you there.”

Before Summer Sunrise could ask where I was going, I was out the door, Rael following. The Indefatigable had gotten closer during my exchange with the ghoul doctor, and as it continued to broadcast its message on repeat, some griffins flew up to investigate or confront the newcomers to the Commonwealth. Pops sounded in the air as the Steel Rangers aboard the airship fired warning shots to scare the griffins away if they flew too close. Beneath the bulk of the Indefatigable, I could see other, smaller airships preparing to launch, skiffs with non-rigid gas envelopes being inflated. As expansive as Pleasure Coast was, the Indefatigable itself would never be able to cover it entirely; but with a small fleet of airships, the Steel Rangers would soon have coverage.

“Hello, Pleasure Coast, I have some b-reaking news for those of you who may be inside on this fine winter day and haven’t noticed the airship approaching our city,” the Commonwealth Crooner cut in as I raced across the grand plaza in the direction of the Indefatigable. “At the moment, we know v-ery little about the strangers aboard, though they appear to be from Equestria and call themselves the Steel Rangers. Their broadcast claims they are here to ‘safeguard technology and cleanse the land of taint,’ and are warning NOT to interfere with their ‘holy mission.’ I’ll keep you all informed as the situation develops, but I must warn you now, these Steel Rangers may not come in peace.”

That was likely an understatement from the Crooner, as I knew just what “taint” the Steel Rangers intended to “cleanse.” I didn’t fancy my chances against the Steel Rangers alone, but if I had to fight, I wanted to have the best chance possible. By the time I made it to my home, the Indefatigable was practically overhead. I ducked inside to gather up the weapons I hadn’t brought with me during my day in the city and scooped whatever possessions I could into my saddlebags before heading back out. With the Steel Rangers so close, it might have been more prudent to simply hide and come back for my belongings later, if it weren’t for the hopper sitting on my roof that would make my home a target. I looked longingly at it for a moment as I left, contemplating taking off in it and flying out of the city, but I fancied my chances against the Steel Ranger airships even less than on the ground.

As Rael and I made our way to Franz’s Fish & Salvage, the Steel Rangers began to descend upon Pleasure Coast. The skiffs detached from the Indefatigable and spread out across the city, the Steel Rangers on the decks brandishing their miniguns and missile launchers threateningly. From the Indefatigable itself, Steel Rangers descended in squads, cables attached to their armor braking their falls until their armored hooves touched down. I kept a close eye on FITS as I wove through the streets of Pleasure Coast, avoiding the Steel Ranger patrols and hoping that I’d be lost on their EFSes amidst the other life and unlife of the city. It was a relief when Rael and I made it to Franz’s. Summer Sunrise had gotten here before us and managed to fill Franz in on the situation, and after passing him some caps, he gladly let us down into the basement I’d discovered on my first visit here. Once we were closed in, all we had to do was wait.

***

There was fighting the first couple of days as the Families tried to resist the Steel Rangers, but as I’d expected, they didn’t have any success against the power-armored soldiers. It certainly didn’t help that their efforts seemed to be disparate, with no unified strategy between the different factions that still didn’t trust each other, so the Steel Rangers were easily able to subdue them one by one. Mayor Gerald von Griff and Gloria Delgado seemed to vanish after the initial engagements, along with the rest of the leadership of the Family and the Sunset Strip Dragons, and I prayed they’d simply gone to ground and not been eradicated by the Steel Rangers. It was difficult to know exactly what was going on from our hideout. The Commonwealth Crooner tried to provide updates over the radio, his station not taken out by the Steel Rangers, but he had lost access to his informant network and his intel was patchy at best. The only other source of information for what was going on in Pleasure Coast came from Franz. According to the businessgriffin, Steel Rangers patrolled the streets and the skies, and sections of the city were on fire. So far, though, there didn’t seem to be any of the widespread ghoul eradication that I’d feared.

On the third day of the invasion, we were finally presented with some different news, albeit not from an impartial source. Another radio station emerged, something that the Steel Rangers were keen to inform everypony and everygriffin in the city about. It was broadcast from the Indefatigable and played a repeating broadcast promising news would come that evening. Along with Rael, Summer Sunrise, and some other ghouls and griffins who had taken shelter with Franz, I waited with nervous anticipation for the broadcast to begin, huddled around a radio set in the basement.

“Ponies and griffins of the Commonwealth,” the speech began, and I feared it was just a repeat of the speech that had blared continuously from the Indefatigable’s speakers. However, it was spoken with a different voice, one much older than before who I tried to place. “I’m sure you must have many questions for us, questions our knights have not been able to answer as they secured your city. I am here now to answer some of them. We are the Steel Rangers, and our holy mission is the safeguarding and preservation of advanced technology. We have devoted our lives to this quest, and so we know full well the danger that uninhibited technology can have in the hooves … or claws of those who do not understand. It is for this purpose that we scour Equestria, seeking to reclaim and contain dangerous technologies, but why should only Equestria benefit from our righteous protection? And so, we have come to the Griffin Commonwealth to perform the same duties, to see technology safeguarded and corrupting filth purged, to ensure a future not just for ponies, but now for griffins also. I am Elder Teakettle, leader of the Steel Ranger Airborne Crusade, and we are here to help you.”

I remembered Elder Teakettle from my time in Trottingham. He was a radical among radicals and was the only member of the Elder Council who had not only considered the possibility of removing my foreleg to claim my PipBuck, but had demanded it and been denied by the other Elders. It made me wonder why he was trying to act friendly now and hadn’t simply razed Pleasure Coast to the ground at the slightest sign of resistance. What was his game?

“I want to assure you that we are not here to conquer or permanently occupy,” Teakettle continued on the radio. “Once our crusade has accomplished its objectives, we will depart the Commonwealth, until the time comes that it is ready for the technology we safeguard for you. Pleasure Coast is to serve as our base of operations while in the Commonwealth, and so the crusade must begin here and this city must remain secure. I offer you my sincere apologies for any inconvenience this may cause you in the meantime, but over the next weeks our knights will need to inspect each building of your city to ensure no dangerous technology remains hidden. Comply and you will not be fired upon; resist, and the result will not be so sweet. All ghouls living in the city will need to undergo examination to determine how close they are to going feral that we may separate them from the … healthy ghoul population, for your protection. Otherwise, you should all go about your normal lives to prevent disruption. Thank you for your cooperation. Glory to the Steel Rangers! Glory to the Ministry of Wartime Technology!”

***

I wasn’t fooled by Elder Teakettle’s words, and from what Franz told us, it seemed nobody else was either. Ghouls fled the city in droves rather than be “examined” and exterminated. Many of them didn’t make it as the Steel Rangers fell upon them as they fled by land or by sea, but they seemed to have no interest in pursuing them far beyond the city’s outskirts. The scavengers, already wary, vanished entirely into the wastes. The Immortals chose to fight rather than flee, and the Steel Rangers engaged in a protracted campaign to clear them out of their cruise ships. Still nothing was heard from the other Families, and they seemed to have stood down and complied with the Steel Rangers either at the orders of their still-vanished leaders or acting in their absence.

Steel Rangers patrolled the boardwalk now, watching for ghouls who might plunge into the bay and walk across the sea floor in order to escape. Franz came down to deliver us news less frequently now so as not to raise suspicion, and I began to worry. Sooner or later, the investigative Steel Rangers would come to Franz’s Fish & Salvage, and they’d be sure to find us underneath. Or, even worse, Franz might decide to turn us in to save his own fur and feathers before they ever came. We needed to find a way out of Pleasure Coast, but I had no idea how we were supposed to do that. Even without the radiation, I’d never be able to stay underwater all the way through the bay, if we were able to even get in without being spotted and shot. Passing through the entire length of Pleasure Coast and getting out by land didn’t seem much better of an option. Normally such a problem could be solved vertically, but with the Indefatigable and its skiffs patrolling the air over Pleasure Coast, for Rael to try to lift us out would be a death sentence.

The one-year anniversary of my arrival in the Commonwealth passed while we hid in the dark and contemplated the hopeless situation. Had my time in the Commonwealth been merely a stay of execution? That had become a theme in my life, and I didn’t like it. Perhaps if I turned myself in, Rael could walk free and the ghouls would have a chance to escape. I’d survived plenty of hopeless situations before during my time in the Equestrian Wasteland and the Commonwealth, so maybe I’d make it out of this one as well. As I considered this, a bright flash of light startled everypony in the basement (well, everypony who was still awake and hadn’t hooked themselves back up to the simulator when the situation became clear). Standing among the insensate ghouls was a mare with a cream coat and coiled red mane, a slight glow fading from around her body.

“Took long enough to find you,” she grumbled as her eyes turned on me.

“Lurk? What are you doing here? What’s happened to the mayor?” I asked, but she raised a hoof to forestall any further questions.

“I just spent the last few days teleporting from one hidey-hole to another,” Lurk panted. “I could really use a drink.”

Rael went to get her something, and I realized how exhausted the unicorn looked.

“Why were you trying to find me?” I asked as Rael provided Lurk with a half-empty bottle of whiskey.

“Mayor Von Griff sent me to find you,” she explained after taking a long draw on the bottle. “The Three Families—well, Two Families now—have decided to call on Grand Marshal Gideon to use the Air and Ground Corps to expel the Steel Rangers from the Commonwealth.”

“That’s a surprise,” I said. “I never thought Pleasure Coast of all places would submit to Commonwealth government.”

“Desperate times and all that,” Lurk said with a wave of her hoof before taking another long draw from the bottle. “The Families alone are incapable of victory against the Steel Rangers, so I’m to take you to Shearpoint to negotiate with the grand marshal for the most favorable terms we can get for his aid … even if that means Pleasure Coast must recognize his authority over the Commonwealth.”

“Why do you need me?” I asked.

“Assuming the Commonwealth Crooner wasn’t just blowing a load of hot air, you were the one who managed to secure Moonraze for Gideon, so we figured he owes you one.”

“I doubt he’ll see it like that,” I admitted. “He never seemed very happy with my presence or my getting involved in griffin politics, at least not when he wasn’t the one pulling the strings.”

“You can’t make our chances worse than they already are,” Lurk said, though I thought that was a dubious assertion. “I have my marching orders. Now that I’ve found you, we need to get going.”

“You have a plan to get out of the city?” I asked hopefully as Lurk polished off the last of the whiskey.

“It would’ve been pretty pointless to go to all this work to find you if I didn’t know how to get you out of Pleasure Coast,” Lurk said with annoyance. “We’ll use Von Plume’s old emergency escape tunnel. It should take us far enough out that the Steel Rangers won’t be a problem.”

“You have a way to get us out?” one of the ghouls trapped down here with us asked.

“No, just him,” Lurk said, pointing to me.

“I can’t leave without Rael, or anyone else here. I won’t run away and let the Steel Rangers find them,” I said, putting my hoof down.

“They’re not my problem, you are,” Lurk said with a scowl. “I’ve used up enough magic as it is to find you; I’m not going to drain what little I have left to teleport every pony, griffin, and ghoul out of here. I can’t evacuate the whole Pleasure Coast for the sake of your savior complex.”

“Just this room is all I’m asking,” I said, and Lurk grumbled so ferociously she almost seemed to be growling.

“Fine,” she said at last, her voice dripping. “I can teleport them into the sewers, but it’s up to them to find their own way out after that.”

“The Steel Rangers are watching the sewer exits,” Rael pointed out, and got a scowl from Lurk that diminished only slightly as she saw he’d brought her another (quarter full) bottle of whiskey.

“They’re not watching the pipes that bring water into the city, I’d wager,” Lurk said as she took the bottle. “The ghouls don’t need to breathe; they can climb their way out through those.”

I didn’t know if she’d realized it, but as far as I was concerned, she had just conceded to taking Rael with me all the way. Given that she’d also provided a way for the ghouls to escape, that was good enough for me. The ghouls who frequented this place and hadn’t returned to the simulation set about waking up those who had, to inform them of the development and the chance of escape. Strangely, some of them seemed to prefer to return to their simulations and block out the outside world, waiting for the end when the Steel Rangers inevitably found them.

“Are the Family heads waiting for us outside the city?” I asked Lurk as word spread to the sleeping ghouls.

“No, they’re holed up in their private bunkers,” she said as she threw her second empty bottle aside.

“They should get out of Pleasure Coast,” I advised.

“These are the same bunkers that sheltered their ancestors from the megaspell that ghoulified the city,” Lurk scoffed. “I think they’ll be fine.”

“Maybe it’s more secure than an Equestrian Stable, but the Steel Rangers had no trouble breaking into the one I grew up in and slaughtering everypony inside,” I said, and Lurk raised an eyebrow. “Considering how the Steel Rangers got here, do you honestly think they don’t have the means to break into fallout shelters?”

“Hmmph, you have a point,” Lurk admitted. “I’ll let them know.”

Once everypony who was going to leave was ready, Lurk prepared to teleport us all out of Franz’s basement. Her horn glowed as she prepared to cast the spell, magical sparks jumping off of it, then a second layer of overglow appeared. A faint aura appeared around us all, and then in a flash of light, we were transported into darkness. I switched on my PipBeak’s lamp and Lurk lit her horn for illumination at the same time, revealing our group standing in a circular tunnel; part of Pleasure Coast’s sewer system.

Lurk led us through the maze of tunnels by hoof. It took longer than it would have had she teleported us around, but transporting all of us here had taken a lot out of her, and she still needed her magic for a few more jumps with Rael and me alone. We went our separate ways with the ghouls after about an hour of walking, Lurk directing them toward where they could access the water mains. We eventually reached tunnels where Family guards were posted, and Lurk gave them a message to bring to Mayor von Griff and Gloria Delgado, telling them to get out of the city before the Steel Rangers came for their bunkers. Then, we were off, trotting down endless dark tunnels.

Eventually we reached a point where our hooves alone couldn’t take us where we needed to go, and Lurk had to teleport us again. From the sewers, we were transported into a private bunker, though not one belonging to the city’s griffin ruling elite. After asking Lurk, she informed us that this bunker had once belonged to Griselda von Plume. Naturally, when it had been discovered after the War, it had been turned inside-out searching for her mythical treasure. It had clearly been quite opulent once, but now was extraordinarily bare, everything of value that could be looted taken away. Scattered lights flickered on fitfully as we passed, Lurk leading us through the below-ground mansion until we reached a train platform.

The train stopped at the station was out of service, and we had to climb through the odd cars to get to the front, where there was no engine, and exit onto the tracks. These followed a tunnel to the northeast just wide enough to accommodate the train and a single griffin on either side. A train would be able to make the trip down this tunnel quickly; but on our hooves, claws, and paws, it took nearly a day of travelling in darkness before we reached the end of the tunnel, into another underground bunker-mansion. Emerging from it, we were well outside of (and out of sight of) Pleasure Coast. The north Griffin Commonwealth awaited.

***

From where we’d emerged to Shearpoint was a two-week journey. It would have taken longer (and it had the last time I’d made my way to the capital of the Commonwealth), if it weren’t for Rael. With his winged help, Lurk and I were able to make it up previously impassable sections of mountain and cut across to Shearpoint. Taking that shortcut also meant we didn’t have to go through Brittle Pass. Although the Dogs of War that had previously terrorized it were now busy imprisoning Orthros in the Castle, I didn’t know what nasty surprises might be left behind in the other automatons they’d reprogrammed. Someday I might need to return and take care of that problem.

The route wasn’t the only unfamiliar thing about this trip to Shearpoint. The coast had remained pleasant, but winter was in full swing in the Commonwealth’s north. Navigating the mountains was as much a matter of getting through deep snow as scaling near-impossible heights (and would’ve been impossible without the assistance of wings). I’d also left my winter clothes behind in my home, not considering I might need them if I escaped Pleasure Coast, and had to buy new ones from the griffins in Grand Imperial. Thanks to the Commonwealth Crooner and my work to spread the reach of Radio PC, the griffins there were up-to-date with what was going on in Pleasure Coast, and the thought of the Steel Rangers descending upon them from the Indefatigable had shaken them. I imagined it was much the same throughout the Commonwealth, especially with Elder Teakettle’s announcement that the Steel Rangers had a mission beyond just taking Pleasure Coast. He intended to use it as a staging area, but for what?

Other than being covered in a layer of snow, Shearpoint was just as I remembered it. The beating heart of the Griffin Commonwealth remained a hollow shell. The signs all remained that it had been a prosperous roost once, but those days were long gone. Still, it was the most likely place for Pleasure Coast to find aid against the Steel Rangers, or so the city’s leaders hoped.

Grand Marshal Gideon, of course, didn’t deign to see us immediately. Though we headed to Gideon’s residence right away upon arriving in the city and Lurk submitted her request to speak with the grand marshal on behalf of Pleasure Coast, we were turned away and told to wait. The three of us had to find temporary lodgings in the city, and Lurk repeatedly traveled up the mountain to Gideon’s residence to repeat her requests. While she continued to try to get Gideon to respond, Rael and I traveled the city. He’d never been here before, and I’d tried to keep to myself the last time I’d been in the roost, so there was plenty to see. There were no Rokkists in Shearpoint that I knew of, and I’m sure proselytizing here would be looked upon disparagingly by the grand marshal, so I persuaded Rael away from that course of action and tried to keep him busy instead.

Two days after our arrival, we were finally summoned to speak to Gideon. Like the last time I was summoned to the grand marshal’s residence, it was Master Sergeant Strake who came to fetch us and bring us up to the top of the city. Just Lurk and I entered the mountain fortress, Rael staying outside, as he hadn’t been invited and Strake made it clear he would not be welcome. The two previous times I’d spoken with Gideon had been held in two separate places, and this day we were led to a third. Gideon’s residence was technically the seat of the Council of Marshals, the governing body of the Commonwealth composed of marshals elected by each roost, who selected the grand marshal from their number. However, since the War, the marshal of Griffonstone had consistently held the position of grand marshal and expanded his powers so that the council was more a relic of the past at worst and an advisory body at best. I’d doubted the council even met anymore, but they seemed to in at least some capacity, since we were led to the council chamber and it hadn’t been converted over to the grand marshal’s personal use.

The chamber was circular, with eleven seats forming a horseshoe raised half a level up from the room’s center and the path to the entryway where the twelfth seat would have been. Gideon was accompanied by two other griffins, and was shaking claws to bid them farewell as we arrived. All three griffins wore suits with sashes over them, two in Gideon’s case: one solid green for Shearpoint, the other composed of eleven stripes like the Commonwealth flag. The griffin on the left wore a yellow sash and the one on the right wore one in white. I had no idea who the first was, but I thought I recognized the second from the revolution in Moonraze. I also noticed that he was wearing a symbol of Rok around his neck: even if Rael had left the roost soon after its change in governorship, it seemed his preaching had taken root.

“You again,” Gideon addressed me once the other griffins had departed and he took a seat in the center chair of the chamber, looking down on us. “I thought I told you to stay away from griffin politics.”

“It wasn’t by choice,” I replied, acutely aware of Strake still standing behind us in the chamber, ready to do his master’s bidding and take us away to the dungeons if ordered. “The leaders of Pleasure Coast wanted me to be part of this, even knowing you don’t have any sympathy for me.”

“Grand Marshal,” Lurk addressed Gideon, trying to reclaim control of her mission. “Mayor Gerald von Griff has sent us to request that you expel the Steel Rangers from the Commonwealth.”

“I know why you’re here,” Gideon said. “You don’t need to remind me. But, since when has Pleasure Coast been part of the Griffin Commonwealth?”

“Since Griselda von Plume established it—” Lurk began to argue, but Gideon was in no mood to be challenged.

“You know what I mean!” Gideon said cruelly as he placed his claws atop the podium before him and loomed forward menacingly. “Since the megaspells fell, you’ve heeded not a single word from Shearpoint or from Underpeak; but now that you want help, you come crawling here to demand aid. Your mayor even refuses to come himself or send a griffin representative, instead sending a pair of ponies!”

“The Families have agreed to reintegrate Pleasure Coast into the Griffin Commonwealth if that is what is required of us in exchange for aid,” Lurk continued, undeterred. “I am authorized to negotiate terms.”

“Too. Late,” Gideon said as he sat back in his chair. “Pleasure Coast has spent too long thumbing its beak at me. You haven’t paid in, so why should I pay out? So long as the Steel Rangers occupy Pleasure Coast, you haven’t any means to pay with anyway, and even if you did, it would take the entire wealth of Von Plume to buy the aid of the Air Corps. No, as far as I’m concerned, it’s time for Pleasure Coast to be taught a harsh lesson. All the better if I don’t have to expend any resources to teach it.”

“But—” Lurk protested.

“Good. Day,” Gideon said definitively, and I heard Strake shifting behind us.

I knew better than to push our luck with the grand marshal, and though Lurk hesitated and seemed to consider pressing on, she too admitted defeat. We let Strake lead us back out to Shearpoint, fortunately not to the dungeons. Grand Marshal Gideon has just surrendered Pleasure Coast to the Steel Rangers. If the city was to be liberated, we’d have to find some other way to do it. Pleasure Coast was on its own.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: All the Ministry Mare’s Horses – Find a way to liberate Pleasure Coast from the Steel Rangers.
Alchemistry +1 (64)
Athletics +3 (46)
Small Guns +2 (149)
Speech +1 (124)
Survival +4 (107)

Chapter 26: Deluge of Coins

Chapter Twenty-Six: Deluge of Coins

It’s remarkable, really, how little what griffins value has changed after the megaspells, at least in terms of wealth and transactional power. You would expect food and clean water—necessities—to be the most valuable commodities, the only things worth trading. Maybe that’s the case in the old zebra or pony lands. They were hit much harder than the Commonwealth, and nothing grows. I can’t say myself; I’ve never been there. No, it seems that in many places, where a new currency has emerged, it is bottlecaps of all things. And yes, the Commonwealth guilder is no longer valued, not for lack of trying on Grand Marshal Gallus’s part to prop it up. The guilder was already a vastly inflated and little respected currency before the megaspells, though, so I can’t really call that a change. One must question the wisdom of continuing to value the main, constant currency, however. Why should we griffins still value gold and silver? They provide no real value in this post-megaspell world, so why do griffins still covet them? Like bottlecaps or guilders, they can be used to purchase important things, but where do they get the value that seems so intrinsic? If we were all to decide not to accept them as valid currency, would they suddenly become worthless? It’s a hypothetical I pose; everygriff seems to accept the value of precious metals without question. Even calling them precious metals betrays this. In a post-megaspell world, it seems Equestrian gold and Imperial silver still have the power to change our lives, even if the countries that turned them into coins are long dead. It’s a reality we must live with and accept, at least until we can agree on a better way. Everygriff hungers for gold, not least Grand Marshal Gallus. With a suitable hoard, perhaps he could unite the Griffin Commonwealth as he wishes; maybe that’s why he has his guards and scribes out in the mountains, away from Shearpoint. With a suitable hoard, what could somegriff with fewer pretentions of power do?

Two days had passed since Lurk’s and my unsuccessful meeting with Grand Marshal Gideon. Following that disaster, we’d gone our separate ways, though more in a metaphorical sense than a physical one. Both of us were still in Shearpoint, just pursuing different leads. Lurk was trying to contact griffin mercenary companies to pay them directly to help liberate Pleasure Coast, but given what I’d heard ages ago from Gabby’s Grenadiers, she wasn’t likely to have much success with that in Shearpoint. Any mercenary company based in this city had already cozied up to the grand marshal too much to hope to break free from his influence or disobey his will, and were only one step away from becoming part of the Air Corps or Land Corps rather than independent contractors.

I was pursuing a different track. With Grand Marshal Gideon uncooperative, I’d thought at first to look to the other major armed factions in the Commonwealth. New Pegasus and the Consortium might have been willing to challenge the Steel Rangers, but after their war, I doubted they were in a state to do so. The Dogs of War were an intriguing prospect, but pulling them away from the Castle would leave Orthros unguarded, and I shuddered at the thought of leaving them to their mischief. If Daff had succeeded in uniting Castoway, they might have the ponypower. Even so, going against the Steel Rangers would be risky, and what incentive could induce them to cross the wastes to help Pleasure Coast?

Putting aside the possibility of recruiting someone else for the moment, I’d begun to pursue a new idea. Something Gideon had said compelled me to return to a stray thought I’d let lie dormant for a while. I was flipping through the Book of Rok, trying to piece together the things I’d noticed on my initial reading and form a coherent whole. There was an additional meaning hidden in the pages, and I believed I’d figured out what it was.

“Rael, take a look at this,” I called him over, and the griffin flapped across the rooftop we’d occupied for the time being.

“What are you thinking?” Rael asked, hopeful that I’d had a religious experience reading his holy book.

“I think Rok and his friends found von Plume’s treasure,” I stated.

“You’re reading the passages where he speaks about Grand Marshal Gallus’s occupation and destruction of von Plume’s manor?” Rael asked as he peered down at the two copies of the Book of Rok propped open in front of me, one pristine and recently printed, the other old and badly damaged. “Many griffins reading the Book of Rok for the first time have thought the same as you, that after these passages Rok and his friends will pursue the treasure, but there is no more mention of it.”

“Not explicitly,” I said, flipping through the book to pages I’d bookmarked. “But there are plenty of times after this when he writes down his thoughts on the corrupting influence of wealth, griffin fixation on gold, or the good that could be done if he had more resources. He seems to have been deliberating with himself, trying to decide whether to pursue von Plume’s treasure or leave it hidden.”

“And you think he decided to pursue it?” Rael asked dubiously.

“Yes,” I replied, “But not until near the end of his life. Let me ask you this: where did the money come from to establish the Blessed Town of Dawn?”

“Nobody knows, but it’s not like some great fortune on the level of von Plume’s hoard was required.”

“But it was certainly much more than Rok would have had,” I countered. “Perhaps if he solicited a large donation from each of his followers, they might have been able to afford all the supplies and materials needed to build Dawn, but though he talks at length about the need for such funds and how interactions in griffin society are measured in monetary terms, he doesn’t say anything about how he intends to get the funds needed.

“I think that Rok found von Plume’s treasure, but wary of how the wealth might change him or make his new town a target for stronger parties, only took what he needed. Then, and I’m not sure why—maybe to give others the chance to find it as well, maybe to make sure it wasn’t lost again after he was gone—he put clues in his writings on how to find it. There’s a section here where he breaks from narrative and spends a lot of time reflecting on seemingly random topics, but I don’t think they’re unrelated at all.”

“Rok does that often; you may be seeing things where they aren’t,” Rael commented, though his resolve seemed to be wavering.

“Maybe you’re right,” I admitted. “But these passages start immediately after Rok leaves all but his closest friends behind at where Dawn would eventually be established, and then the narrative resumes with them miraculously able to build the town. And the sketches he made in the margins during that time; they’re not just of the Commonwealth, there are images of furniture, fixtures, and art. I think Rok is recalling what he saw in von Plume’s manor.”

“If you’re right, then where is von Plume’s treasure?” Rael asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll need to retrace Rok’s steps to find it, starting where he began: von Plume’s manor.”

“It was destroyed,” Rael objected.

“Yes, but I don’t think lost,” I said as I flipped back to the section I’d originally been reading. “Rok writes about Grand Marshal Gallus’s guards and scribes up in the mountains just before he sneaks into the manor himself. Look here.”

I used my griffin claw to point at a sketch of a tripod-mounted camera, accompanied by notes on how they were operated and Rok’s thoughts on the imperfect nature of photography in preserving reality.

“He never says it explicitly, but it’s possible—even likely—that Gallus had his lackeys photograph everything within von Plume’s manor before demolishing it. If the grand marshal didn’t want to give up on searching for the treasure but wanted to make sure nobody else could do so, it makes sense.”

“I suppose it does, but how does that help us?” Rael asked.

“Those photographs probably still exist somewhere, and if I can look at them, maybe I can figure out what Rok’s clues mean. If we find that treasure, then Grand Marshal Gideon will have no choice but to accept it as payment for liberating Pleasure Coast. If he doesn’t, we can buy his army out from under him instead. With luck, the photographs are here in Shearpoint, in the Hall of Records.”

“And without luck?” Rael ventured.

“Well, they’re either lost or worse, in Gideon’s possession.”

“Let’s … check the Hall of Records first,” Rael said.

***

Finding such things in the Hall of Records was, of course, easier said than done. The building that had received the title had once been a contract office, and the publicly accessible portion was quite small. Some volumes of griffin law (almost all contract law) one could walk in and read, but everything else required asking a griffin who peered out from a barred window to fetch them, and she was none too friendly. It wasn’t like I was going to share with her exactly what I was looking for anyway, since that would surely raise alarms and bring the grand marshal down on me. Our first visit to the Hall of Records was just to “case the joint”, as I’d seen it referred to in some of the cheap Wartime griffin heist novels lying around.

That night, we returned to the Hall of Records. The back of the building led out onto a courtyard between buildings inaccessible even from the air due to a mesh stretched between the walls to keep griffins from flying in. With Rael hovering over the mesh, however, I teleported myself down into the courtyard without any problems. The back door was locked, but I saw to that with my lockpicking skills (wanting to conserve my magic for later rather than try teleporting again). As I’d hoped, the griffins trusted entirely in the strength of their locks, bars, and mesh, and hadn’t posted any guards within the building, so I encountered nothing on FITS other than Rael and the occasional griffin passing by on the street.

Several more locked doors later, I found my way by the light of my PipBeak’s lamp and the ambient glow of my horn to the restricted section for grand marshals’ records. There was nothing here for Grand Marshal Gideon, so I presumed they entrusted only past records here, keeping their own safe at home. Scanning the rows of file cabinets, I found the section belonging to Gallus and set to work sifting through the stacks of folders and pages. In one manila envelope, I struck gold (figuratively and—I hoped soon—literally). A large stack of glossy photographs was contained within, and illuminating them with my PipBeak showed exactly what I wanted to see. The photos depicted the main hall of a griffin manor house crowded was excessive bric-a-brac. The attached reports confirmed my assumptions; these were photos of von Plume’s manor taken before its demolition. Quickly, I used my PipBeak to snap photos of each of them and placed the folder back in the cabinet, not willing to risk being caught with confidential records on my person. As I left, I redid all the locks and rejoined Rael, and we flapped off into the night.

***

What followed was an attempt to reassemble the photos into a useful map of von Plume’s manor and compare what could be seen in them with the points I’d marked off as potential references by Rok. Working blind as I had been, there were, of course, some things that I’d missed on my first attempt and some things that didn’t seem to line up after all, but Rael had to admit that there was something to my theory and was soon as into deciphering the clues as I was.

I’d suspected that there was something significant about the site of the Blessed Town of Dawn, but wasn’t sure how it fit in until I’d seen the photographs of von Plume’s manor. It was difficult to get the full effect from just two dimensions (I found myself in agreement with Rok over the inadequacy of photos in capturing reality more than once), but as we mapped it out, it became clear that Griselda von Plume had organized her home to replicate the eastern end of the Iron Valley. Rael was the one who realized that, more familiar with it than I was. Neither of us had any trouble identifying the meaning of the obelisk that was set into the tile of the hall. It was not covered in carvings done by Rok like the one that had once stood at the center of Dawn, but it was identical in every other respect. When we realized that, as well as how some nearby items related to Rok’s writings, we set out from Shearpoint immediately.

Later, as he prepared for the battle that would take his life, Rok had written that the town had been named Dawn because it was where they had looked to find their way. The Rokkists had an explanation for what he’d meant by that, and perhaps they were right—Rok often did say multiple things with the same words—but Rael and I had discovered another meaning. The trail to von Plume’s treasure began at the obelisk that now sat atop the Eurus, but its first step depended upon following the sun at dawn on a certain day. The clues were there in von Plume’s manor, but Rok had made them clearer (while still remaining obscure enough that most would miss them). Most entries in his book were not dated, but the day he had left to seek von Plume’s treasure was, and we had barely enough time to make it to New Pegasus … if we flew.

My hopper still stranded in Pleasure Coast, I purchased a new one (that I’d previously helped fix up during my last stay in Shearpoint) from Guthrie, and we were off. All through our time away from Pleasure Coast, I’d tried to stay up to date on what was happening there through Radio PC. Shortly after leaving Shearpoint, however, the Commonwealth Crooner went silent. Honestly, it had been a miracle that he’d managed to avoid the Steel Rangers’ wrath for so long. I assumed they’d broken into his station and done away with him, but a few days later, as Rael and I were flying over Lake City, his voice resumed with a completely different tone. The Commonwealth Crooner now urged the population of Pleasure Coast and the Griffin Commonwealth to comply with the Steel Rangers and espoused their position. To be forced to spew their propaganda might have been a worse fate for the Crooner than death.

Rael and I arrived in New Pegasus with only a day to spare. The city was surprisingly sedate, but given that they were about as far physically as one could get in the Commonwealth from Pleasure Coast, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. My backup plan of trying to convince them to fight the Steel Rangers seemed a distant chance in that light, unless the Steel Rangers’ mission in the Commonwealth turned out to be the eradication of New Pegasus. It’s not that the possibility was unlikely, given the technology they possessed, but I doubted the Executive Council would be convinced by supposition alone. Also, I’d probably never be able to go over their heads and take my concerns directly to President Snowmane again.

The next day was the Twenty-Fifth of Twilight, by the Equestrian calendar, but Griselda von Plume and Rok had both marked the date by the griffin reckoning, Fifty-Sixth of Q1. To ensure we didn’t miss our chance, Rael and I were up well before sunrise. In the predawn twilight, we made our way up to the monument to Rok, his original followers, and the Blessed Town of Dawn on the deck of the Eurus. According to Rael, the obelisk at its center stood exactly over the same place it had once been planted in the ground; I hoped he was right. Like Rok and his companions had before, Rael and I awaited the coming of Celestia’s sun at the obelisk, keeping a close eye out for when that first ray of light peeked over the eastern mountains from the obelisk’s peak. It was a bit awkward given that I had no wings, so Rael had to lift me up so that I could hold my PipBeak ready to snap a photo the moment dawn came. As the sun cast its golden rays across the snow-covered peaks, I lined up the obelisk’s tip with where the light met the horizon and captured the moment as best as technology could. That task done, we had the first destination on the path to von Plume’s treasure and were ready to set out.

***

One thing that I’ve noticed about griffins is that we tend to be fiercely individualistic. Not that there is anything wrong with being an individual; if there were, I’d be one of the worst. Everygriffin should be unique and treasure what it is that makes them distinct from the (now not so great) mass of other griffins. But that doesn’t mean they should insist on doing everything alone, or be selfish and consider only themselves. I’d have never gotten to where I am, ascending such heights, without the help of Ginny and Grimm. The three of us have gotten far together. Three: such a strong number. Put two griffins together and you have opponents, so you’d think adding another would make things even worse. In some cases you may be right, but instead you have a third option, a third way. So many griffins never stop to look past the ends of their beaks, or refuse to turn their heads from anything other than exactly where they’re pointed. However, if we can find where our gazes all intersect, that common point between us, that’s where we ought to go. All of us have strength in our differences, but together we can find something even stronger, without even the need to give up our differences, so long as we don’t make them irreconcilable.

***

“It should be here, right?” Rael asked uncertainly as he circled over the snow.

It had taken us most of the day to reach this point, but we’d made it up through the mountains to where Celestia’s sun had dawned that morning. I was sure we’d find something here to point our way along the path to von Plume’s treasure, but there was nothing of note, or at least nothing that I expected. Based on the photographs of von Plume’s manor and the next passage written by Rok after departing on the quest for the treasure, I’d hoped to find something akin to three statues of griffins pointing the way. Instead, all we’d found was snow. I used my magic to conjure heat and clear away patches, and Rael dug with his claws, but there was nothing under the snow except for more snow and bare rock. It wasn’t like there was more snow here now than when Rok had come, since it was the same time of year, so I felt increasingly that digging would get us nowhere. Whatever we were meant to find here should have been visible, but there was nothing. Rael and I even tried flying higher to get a larger view of the area, but nothing stuck out.

“I don’t understand,” I said as I cast my eyes around the snowfield. “This is definitely where dawn began.”

“Maybe we had the date wrong. Calendars may have gotten off track since the megaspells fell,” Rael suggested.

“Not a PipBeak’s calendar,” I said as I displayed my foreleg-mounted computer. Although, my trust in it mostly came from the vaunted reliability of the PipBuck, and I knew this was a knock-off version.

“We can’t wait another year if we got it wrong,” Rael surmised.

“Even if we didn’t line things up perfectly, we should be close,” I said as I took another turn to survey our snowclad surroundings. “Everything else was exactly the same as with von Plume and Rok. Same date, same time, same location, same obelisk…”

“What?” Rael asked as he realized I’d trailed off.

“I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!” I exclaimed in exasperation. “The obelisk is in the same location as it was before, but not the same height. We saw dawn earlier than Rok would have because we were on top of the Eurus.”

“So, did we miss it, then?” Rael asked.

“I hope not,” I replied as I ran (as best I could in the deep snow) to where I’d landed my hopper. “We should still be close, in the grand scheme of things. If we were on the ground, then the sun would have risen somewhere in … that direction.”

Rael flapped off in the direction I’d pointed while I fired up my hopper, and soon I was accompanying him. It took some searching, and it was dusk by the time we at last found what we’d expected. Three spurs of stone, roughly resembling beaks, stuck out from a crumbling cliff. They pointed to the northwest, across the Iron Valley to where the mountains were already in shadow. With no way to pick out details of where we were to go next, we hunkered down to wait out the night atop the frigid peak.

***

The pre-megaspell world was, as far as we can tell, a bipolar one. Equestria on one side, the Zebra Empire on the other, and our Griffon Commonwealth a minor player sandwiched in between. The great powers of the world now lie utterly in ruin, and the Commonwealth a crumbling husk of its former self. What, I wonder, has become of the other nations and races that inhabit our world? Could they all be in the same sorry state as we griffins? The minotaurs are brought to mind, a race both strong of body and with uncanny powers of persuasion. They say a minotaur’s mouth could call forth a stream of wealth. Granted, that was mostly intended as a warning to follow the gold to its source to find if you were being fooled by one of the bull-men, but it seems there is some truth to it. Perhaps those who said it didn’t realize the hidden meaning, that we can find great value in the words of one different from us, whether they meant it for our good or not.

***

Shortly after dawn, Rael and I proceeded to determine our next destination. The “beaks” looked rather precarious to climb upon, so I did what I should have back in New Pegasus; I loaned Rael my PipBeak so that he could take photos himself without having to carry me. I stayed behind where there was little chance of falling down the mountain while my griffin friend stretched himself out on the spurs of rock and took photos of where they were pointed. Once we had all three, we compared them to find the common point between them.

After that, it was a simple matter of flying across the Iron Valley to our destination. The “beaks” had pointed us toward where a spur of mountains jutted out into the valley as it turned sharply north. Not terribly far north of Distribution Station 11, we spotted where we were to go. The mountain had been leveled off at one point to form an observation ledge. There were trailing gondola cables, rusty and twisted guardrails, and a few coin-operated binoculars for long-distance observation. The snow here had mostly been cleared by the wind, and we could see embossed into the stone the seal of von Plume. I wondered if she’d built this as a failed attempt to draw pony tourism in the Iron Valley or specifically for her treasure hunt. I supposed we’d probably never know, and set about searching for the next clue.

Rael’s suggestion that we try the binoculars was what exposed it ultimately. I had to fiddle with the mechanisms to get them to work since I had no Equestrian Bits to insert (those all lost to the Steel Rangers before I’d ever come to the Commonwealth), but I did manage to make them functional again. Sweeping the sights around the valley, Rael latched onto distant rock formations that vaguely resembled the head of a minotaur. He was really getting into the search at this point, though I suspected his investment was more in retracing the steps of his religion’s prophet than in finding the treasure. It was soon night again, but we’d set out in the morning for the minotaur’s mouth to the north—where the Iron Valley ended, but our trail did not.

***

We all need something to fix our eyes on to keep us from losing our way, or losing ourselves. A goal, a truth, even a fellow griffin will suffice. The danger each of us face is become too wrapped up in ourselves, so that we see nothing of what is outside of us and lose where we are. It’s easy to wander, and I have wandered in my time. Am I wandering now, though? No, though I walk in darkness, I am guided by the lights that lay out my path ahead, unmissable, undeniable. I know where it is that I must go and what it is I must do.

***

The minotaur’s mouth, unrecognizable for what it was once we were up close, led to a twisting cave system with constantly splitting and reconnecting passages. Near the entrance, there was equipment that had once belonged to a mine, but judging by the state of the exterior and the posted signs, the mine had been closed even before the megaspells fell. We were at the northernmost end of Iron Valley, where the mountains closed in and railroad ended, but there was still a path to follow.

At this point, we were entirely reliant on Rok’s writings, since we hadn’t been able to piece together the photos of von Plume’s manor adequately to cross-reference this part of the path. It soon became apparent what Rok’s clues meant, though: the mine, being abandoned, had no power and was pitch black. However, there were lights with their own independent power sources placed distantly from each other, usually only when they were needed to know which way to turn when passages branched. With my PipBeak’s lamp and my horn, we weren’t in complete darkness, but I still felt it was closing in … or maybe that was just the sense of the mountains looming over me.

It was difficult to keep our bearings in the tunnels, but we seemed to be generally headed north and slightly upward. After more than a day trotting through the passages, following the lights, we came to the longest stretch of darkness yet. I began to worry that we’d gone down the wrong passage and gotten lost, especially when we reached a crossroads without any indication of which way to go. Beginning to panic, I switched off my PipBuck’s lamp to get any indication of light, only to realize that I’d become used to the blue glow of the trail we’d been following and hadn’t noticed the dim yellow light coming from one of the tunnels. Rael and I followed it, and finally breathed fresh air again as we emerged onto an isolated valley, looking down on a snow-covered hollow between the peaks.

***

Looking down from a great height puts a new perspective on things. It’s easy to miss the details, but they’re what’s important. I’ve traveled across the Griffin Commonwealth and seen so many things. Waterfalls that split and rejoin on their way to the ground, and mountains where a single tree clings defiantly to the peak; as well as radio relay stations for communicating with the zebra empire, and factories whose single purpose is to produce perfect ball bearings. I’ve met griffins who have looked at the Commonwealth and embraced the former while shunning the latter. They wish to live a simple life, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think they miss the point. They wish to turn back time to when not only were there no megaspells, but no war between the ponies and zebras, no influence from outside nations in the Commonwealth. But that world no longer exists, and trying to live in it will no longer work. There has to be a new way to live in this post-megaspell world we inhabit. I have ideas, of course, about what it means to do so (I’ve even written them down so I won’t forget, and shared them with others who seem to agree), but just that by itself can’t truly answer all the questions griffins will have. And if there’s anything else I’ve learned during my travels, it’s that everything in the Commonwealth has a price of some sort. We can’t ignore any part of this land, the good or the bad, and need to make use of what was left behind as best we can. All the things I’ve seen eventually converge on one point; there lies the means to save or destroy the Commonwealth. I could see everything I wish come to pass, but who’s to say I am the one to reshape this post-megaspell world? All I can think of is how to live in it.

***

From our vantage point where the tunnel exited the mountains, it wasn’t difficult to pick out the four locations Rok had called out. A frozen waterfall in the distance formed an elongated “O” where it split and rejoined. In a different spot, a snow-covered tree could be seen jutting defiantly up from a mountain peak. To the east, collapsed radio towers marked where a station had once stood for broadcasting messages to the Zebra Empire. An abandoned and decaying factory squatted at the bottom of the valley, and I’d wager that if we explored it, we’d find it had been devoted to making ball bearings. Once we’d located all these things, it was a simple matter of finding the common point between them and taking off for it.

I’d had to leave my hopper behind at the other end of the tunnels, so it was on hoof that I traveled down the mountains and then back up on the way to what I hoped would be the end of our journey. After this passage, Rok had resumed his narrative, writing about the establishment of Dawn, so I didn’t expect there to be any more clues to follow, at least not from the griffin prophet. It was a nondescript section of mountain that we had been pointed to, with no signs to draw any attention. Rael and I scoured the area, looking for how we were to access the treasure, and I came upon an unnaturally straight fissure that ran down a short cliff face, a door left slightly ajar, perhaps by Rok and his friends when they’d come this way.

Over the years, snow and detritus had blown in through the gap, leaving a gravelly, icy surface as we entered what was clearly not a natural cavern. Though the walls, floor, and ceiling were of stone, everything was squared off unnaturally. Lights similar to those we’d seen in the tunnels through the mountains led the way deeper in. After a short walk, we came upon a somewhat familiar sight. A recreation of von Plume’s manor’s hall filled the space. As I walked through, I bumped into a rocking chair and heard a click as it moved, followed by a slight dimming of the lights before they returned to normal.

Catching on (I hoped) to what we were supposed to do here, I approached the obelisk jutting up from the floor and touched the peak with my hoof, pushing it down and causing a click. The lights remained unchanged, and I took that as a good sign as I trotted over to a mantlepiece with three griffin statues and a painting of a rising sun. The griffins also clicked as I depressed them and I made my way across the hall to shelf with a spyglass that I depressed as well. Then it was over to a minotaur statue where a coin winked from its mouth, around the screen it was propped up against and a tug on a string of lights. A large vault door dominated the wall, but I ignored it as I traveled to each of the four corners and (with Rael’s help for the high ones) pressed the representations of a waterfall, tree, radio station, and factory.

With the last click, a much louder series of them emanated from the vault door and it slowly swung open. As I peered around the door, I saw only a stone wall, until the crystals around the inside of the circular opening began to glow and a portal filled the space, looking out on inky blackness. Lights flickered on haphazardly, revealing a hoard that would make a dragon drool in envy. Stacks of gold bars stretched out as far as the eye could see, accompanied by plastic barrels, many sealed, but others overflowing with diamonds and other precious gemstones. Just within the vault was a stone lectern that held a poker chip that looked to be made of platinum, but had a mechanical weight to it marked as a “Certificate of Inheritance” with a map of Pleasure Coast embossed on one side. One of the stacks of gold bars near the door had an obvious gap in it, marking where Rok and his friends had taken their portion of the treasure, but it was an insignificant amount compared to the full scope of the vault.

It was a fairy tale that had been repeated by griffins for centuries, but we’d done what had (to our knowledge) only been done once before. We’d found von Plume’s treasure. Now we just needed to figure out how to get it to Shearpoint to secure Gideon’s support.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: For What Shall it Profit a Mare… – Use von Plume’s treasure to help save Pleasure Coast from the Steel Rangers.
Alteration Magic +3 (43)
Athletics +3 (49)
Barter +1 (125)
Electronics +1 (61)
Lockpick +4 (118)
Manipulation Magic +2 (51)
Pilot +15 (75)
Repair +1 (125)
Sneak +2 (118)
Speech +4 (128)
Survival +5 (112)

Chapter 28: The Mage

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Mage

I was in pain when I awoke, but this was far from a new experience for me. One might even say my life, as it is now, had begun when I’d awoken in a hospital bed in Stable 85. It happened again and again, and often I’d wake to find I’d lost something. In Stable 85, I’d arisen without the memories of my life as Lord Lamplight. In Pleasure Coast, I was short one foreleg. What had I lost this time?

No clinic lights greeted me this time, for I’d been far from fortunate in where I’d fallen. The rafters of a warehouse, slanting off to one side where the roof’s supporting wall had collapsed, instead filled my vision when I opened my eyes. Well, not my eyes, my eye. I was only able to will my left eye open; as for the right, I felt nothing. Nothing but pain, but even the extent of it told me that the eye was no longer there. I didn’t feel pain in the eye so much as around it. Gingerly, I felt with my hoof and prosthetic griffin claw at the bandages covering the socket.

I felt around the rest of my body next. There were bandages all over my form, marking the points where I’d been injured. I was starting to remember what had happened. The fight with the Steel Rangers. The orb that had undone my healing potions’ work and robbed me of my magic. How I’d lost my eye, and …

My horn.

Slowly, I reached up to my forehead and nearly lost my nerve as my hoof passed through where the tip of my horn should have been. I was able to touch it and feel the bone. A stump was all that remained of my horn, with a jagged end where it had snapped off. I looked around for something, anything to use my magic on, and spied my saddlebags sitting near me. I reached out to try to levitate them and felt a mere trickle of power. No glow surrounded them, they didn’t shift at all, but I had felt something. Maybe I could still use my magic if I tried. I pushed and pushed, but the saddlebags stubbornly refused to move. As I strained, sparks shot from my horn-stump, but they weren’t like the usual sparks that sedately drifted from the horn’s glow; they were like live embers, and I could feel their heat as they arced past my face.

“Doc! You’re awake!” Rael exclaimed.

I hadn’t even noticed him sleeping upright next to where I’d been laying. My attempts to use my magic must have awoken him. All that was still beyond me at the moment, in my distress. His voice was distant and indistinct as I lay back and started up at the ceiling, tears flowing freely from my remaining eye. I’d lost my magic.

What was a unicorn without magic?

What was I?

***

As I slowly came to terms with my condition over the following days, I was also caught up on what had happened since my fateful encounter with the Steel Ranger crusader. Rael had brought Daff and her supporters, and they’d come with heavy weapons of their own. They had missile launchers that could bust open Steel Ranger armor or peel back the skin of their airskiff. One of the first hits had taken out the crusader who’d broken me, saving me from death, but not early enough to save me from nearly as bad a fate. The fighting had been rough and Daff had lost a lot of ponies, but the attack succeeded in doing what I’d hoped it would: it convinced the Steel Rangers to limp away.

Summer Sunrise had saved me, having used purely mundane methods to patch me up. The anti-magic orb the Steel Ranger had thrown at me was still in effect, and no healing potions or enchanted bandages had any effect on me. I was assured that the effect had been temporary and such things would work now. It had nothing to do with the loss of my magic, at least not directly; that all came down to the loss of my horn. Perhaps it and my eye could have been saved with a powerful restorative potion had I not been immune to magic, but by the time the effect wore off, it was too late. I was going to have to learn to live with it.

That was far easier said than done. Like most unicorns, I’d taken my magic for granted. Until Lurk had shared the existence of the Library of Arcana with me, I’d never done any of the more complicated spells, but whenever I wanted to touch or carry anything, I’d used my levitation magic. Now, I was only able to lift the smallest things through great effort, and even then it seemed like a fluke. I tried to practice stacking bottlecaps, but even moving one was a strain. Nine times out of ten, I’d grunt and groan until my face turned red, and not a single spark of magic would manifest. Even when I did somehow manage to get the magic flowing, I found it could be dangerous. I moved my bottlecap stacking practice outside after uncontrollable multicolored bolts of lightning shot from my stump one time, causing explosions wherever they met something else. That light show was far from a one-time event, and eventually I gave up trying to get my magic to work at all. Only in desperation would I even consider depending on it, though I did instinctively reach for it plenty of times only to be faced with dreadful reality.

It wasn’t just in routine matters that my loss of magic was going to affect me, either. For years, I’d defended myself using firearm skills that I’d perfected until there was hardly anything I felt I couldn’t deal with. For years, I’d levitated my weapons, but that wasn’t possible anymore. It showed immediately when I attempted target practice. Following the Steel Ranger attack, some of the refugees who’d survived had decided it would be a good idea to be more familiar with combat, in case the Steel Rangers came back or if beasts of the wastes thought they could get a quick snack. Bottles and cans had been set up at a distance for them to practice on, and I joined them once I’d recovered enough from my non-permanent wounds to be out and about. Without magic, I had to physically hold my weapons now. For my revolver, that meant holding it in my mouth or my griffin claw, and given how much Big Iron kicked, I opted for the latter. I tried holding my battle rifle and starscatter gun in my claw, but without a second corresponding claw to steady them, it was a tricky prospect and not something I could do on the move. I would need a battle saddle if I wanted to keep using anything that couldn’t be operated with one limb. In addition to my unfamiliarity with how to hold my weapons, I was also now missing an eye, which narrowed my field of vision and made distances … difficult. Between my two new impediments, my performance on the firing range was truly abysmal. I missed far more targets than I hit, and when I was successful, it felt more like luck than actually figuring out how to do what I’d been doing instinctively for years now. My PipBeak confirmed it; my skills with weapons were now little better than when I’d first left Stable 85—practically nonexistent.

I’d been on my hooves for a couple of weeks and was at the firing range when I heard raised voices coming from the other side of the warehouse. It wasn’t uncommon for tempers to flare up in the camp, as everybody was under a great deal of stress and fatigue. The Steel Rangers hadn’t come back and no beasts had wandered in, but searches for food and other supplies had turned up zilch, anything in the area having been picked over by scavengers or the ponies of Castoway in the past. We had too little of everything, and I holstered my revolver before trotting around the warehouse to keep things from boiling over into a serious problem.

Two small groups were facing off on the tarmac while others watched with varying degrees of interest from the surroundings. On one side of the confrontation were several ghouls in various states of decay, but still intact enough to make out the furrowed brows and furious expressions on their faces. At the forefront of the group, head extended aggressively forward, was Crystal Dawn, a unicorn who in Pleasure Coast had managed to carve out a little corner for herself independent of the Three Families. Consequently, some of the ghouls who had fled south listened to her and looked to her for guidance.

Across from the ghouls was a group of griffins, all of them armed and wearing the makeshift yellow armbands that marked them as members of the “shoreguard,” a militia formed by former residents of Charity’s Reach. The other members of the camp didn’t recognize them as anything more than a gang, and they had no real authority (though they liked to pretend that they did). Their leader, Giacomo, a griffin with deep purple feathers and fur and pale-yellow marks around his eyes, was the one facing Crystal Dawn down. Both had advanced from their respective groups until their foreheads were nearly touching (something Crystal would surely like, for it would mean her horn was embedded in Giac’s skull).

“You zombies are just taking up space you don’t need!” Giacomo was accusing. “Why should you remain dry when you won’t catch your death of cold in the rain like we griffins would?”

The stormclouds forming overhead must have been the source for the current argument. Even with the Steel Rangers’ invasion (or perhaps in defiance of it), the Weather Corps continued their job of corralling clouds according to a fixed schedule. Our little camp or even Castoway were not the targets of the rain to come, but we would receive it nonetheless as the clouds made their way inland toward the griffins it was intended for. It had rained several times in the past few weeks, and the warehouse’s roof was far from watertight. With the destruction of the outbuildings in the fight with the Steel Rangers and the damage to the warehouse, there wasn’t enough space for everyone to have sturdy shelter all night or through a storm, and individuals had been rotating in and out, but the griffins seemed (quite naturally) not to be content with this system, since they were more onerously affected by the elements than the radioactively preserved.

“You think we like getting wet any more than you do?” Crystal Dawn rasped back. “You griffins can fly, at least, so why not build your nests in the rafters?”

“There’s not enough space,” Giacomo scoffed. “You want griffins falling on you in the middle of the night and breaking their necks, do you?”

“There’d be less pointless arguing then,” Crystal said under her breath, but clearly with the intention it be overheard. “Why don’t you nest in the mooring tower, then?”

“Exposed to the elements? You must be mad!” Giac shouted back, and the ghouls grumbled.

“It’s still a structure, isn’t it? All you need to do is find some cover for it.”

“Maybe we could if we didn’t have to spend so much time searching for food, something I notice you ghouls never do!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Crystal said sarcastically as she placed a hoof aside a withered ear. “I must have misheard you. After all, I thought your stance was that we ghouls shouldn’t bother with things we don’t need, like food and shelter.”

“I tried to do this civilly, but if you ghouls don’t move out willingly, we’ll drag you out if we have to!” Giacomo threatened.

“I’d like to see you try!” Crystal hissed back.

“Enough!” I shouted as I strode up to the groups before things came to blows between them.

Giacomo looked shocked but instantly backed down, as I’d expected. He was from Charity’s Reach, after all, and though most of my doctor’s coat had been destroyed, the armbands the shoreguard wore weren’t yellow for no reason. Crystal Dawn, however, remained defiant, as I also expected from a pony old enough to be my grandmother with several greats tacked on the front end. Why should she listen to a three-legged, one-eyed unicorn with no magic?

“This has to stop,” I said. “We can’t be fighting amongst ourselves if we want to survive. This isn’t Pleasure Coast, or even Charity’s Reach. This is a new settlement—no, not even that yet. We’re a survivor camp, but we can’t survive all on our own. I don’t see anyone leaving, so if this is to be a permanent place to live, we all need to work on it. We need food and we need shelter, not to mention medicine, protection, and a means to support ourselves long-term. Even if you don’t need food, help search for it. Even if you think your sole job is protection, help with building. We need to help each other.”

“And what have you done?” Crystal accused icily.

“Other than call for aid when the Steel Rangers came, not much,” I admitted.

Since my injury, my attention had been indrawn, focusing on what had become of me, what I was to do without my magic and critical skills. I’d tried to teach some of the griffins and ghouls at the firing range, since I still understood principles even if I couldn’t put them into practice myself anymore; and I’d helped out Summer Sunrise a bit with the ailments of the camp, but these were pitiful contributions. If I wanted everyone to step up, maybe they needed an example.

“I’ve been as guilty as anyone of failing those around me with my inaction,” I said. “But that ends now. I’m going to Castoway to talk to Daff. When I return, hopefully it’ll be with the means to gain food and shelter, the first two things we need to make this camp a settlement. In the meantime, why don’t you work together to organize scavenging forays, guard duties, and accommodations?”

***

I had to wait for Daff to see me, something I should’ve expected. She was busy running half a city—a real city from the War—and had duties. Could I do what she did? Could I, and did I want to, lead the community of exiles on the coast? Maybe not lead them, but at least I could get things started to make sure they survived. That, at least, was something I could do without my magic and ability to fight. Sure, I’d led things in the past, but that had never really ended well for me. I didn’t want a repeat of the Northern Lights Coalition or the North Equestrian Alliance (though I understood the latter was doing all right in my absence from the broadcasts of Radio Free Wasteland), but I was no longer Lord Lamplight, or the Doc who’d brought together settlements against him. I was something else and, after my crippling injuries, had to become something even more distant—by necessity, if nothing else. I thought back to the crazy griffin hermit in the far north and his fortune-telling machine. Parts of what he’d said that I’d dismissed as being in the past were coming true, and I wondered what that bode for my future.

Daff had established the Castoway Port Authority Hospital as her headquarters, and so it was in this clinical setting that I awaited her. The hospital had surely been looted for medicine many times in the past, yet it didn’t look in too bad of a shape. I wondered how many drugs, bandages, and healing potions remained here, not to mention medical equipment. Would Daff part with some of it to help Summer Sunrise rebuild his clinic on the coast now that he’d abandoned the Hope Drive Clinic in Pleasure Coast?

While I was waiting, I itched at my missing eye with my forehoof. Once it had healed enough for the bandages to come off, Summer Sunrise had provided me with an eyepatch to cover it. It was about as healed now as it was going to get, but the scar tissue still itched. I hoped that wouldn’t be permanent. I was getting better at judging distances even without my second eye, but it was still tricky. The real problem I’d run into after coming to Castoway was forgetting to open doors before walking into them, instinctively assuming my magic could open them. That would probably pass in time, once I spent more time in environs with actual doors.

I was seated in a cheap plastic chair in a lineup of several others leading to a door, and I turned my head as that door opened. Two ponies in matching beige coveralls trotted out and away, while an armed guard followed them and stopped in the doorway.

“Daff will see you now,” he announced to me, and I rose from my seat.

Daff had taken up residence in what had once been the hospital administrator’s office. It was a wide room with couches to one side and a broad desk in the center. The interior walls were covered in bookshelves that were severely scuffed and scratched up by looters frantically searching through their contents. There were gaps, but most of the shelves were filled with the books that I assumed were original, spines broken or upside-down in many cases as somepony had retrieved them from the floor and shoved them back into the shelves in order to make the room look more presentable. The back wall should have been all glass and would once have provided a commanding view of the port, but it had been paneled up for Daff’s protection lest one of the city’s warlords tried to snipe her. Daff herself was seated behind the desk, her duster billowing around her and her sunglasses folded neatly in front of her.

“So … you’re still alive, after all,” she said as I took a seat across from her.

“Yes, I am. No longer whole,” I said as I gestured to my eye and horn, “but … alive.”

“Why are you here?” Daff asked shortly.

“Well, I was hoping you could help me,” I said, and Daff’s eyes narrowed. “The camp up north needs supplies and shelter—”

“Don’t you think you owe me enough favors?” Daff said testily. “You seem dedicated to piling them up, but not repaying them.”

“About that—” I said, but Daff rose from her chair, embers burning in her eyes.

“Everything was going so well. We were taking Castoway from the warlords block by block,” Daff said as she paced. “I thought we might really have the chance to change Castoway, but then things turned on their head. The warlords wised up to the threat I pose, and with the loss of ponies and weapons fighting off the Steel Rangers for you, I don’t have the force needed to combat them. Castoway is slipping away, my coalition is fracturing now that they’re under threat, and I don’t know how I can turn this around. I’m starting to wonder whether I ever should have stepped in at all.”

Daff was successfully keeping her voice level, but her eyes and movement told a different story. She was worried, and if what she was saying was true, she had every right to be.

“If there was something I could do to help…” I said, leaning forward, but then shrank back. “With one eye and no magic, I can’t fight anymore, but I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you, but really, I can’t blame you,” Daff sighed as she trotted back around the desk and sat down, “It’s who I am, or rather who I wish I was. I’ve lived my life keeping my head down, trying to outsmart the warlords of this city and play them off against each other for my own sake. But after you tore through Castoway assassinating them, I saw the opportunity to do something good, and not just for myself. It was the same desire that had me answer your call for help against the Steel Rangers. It’s my own fault.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Daff,” I said.

“I know. But a righteous weakness is still a weakness, Doc, and the ponies of Castoway know how to treat weakness.”

“I came here seeking help, but also hoping to help you,” I said as I reached into my saddlebags with my griffin claw.

Daff’s eyes widened as I produced a bar of von Plume’s gold and set it on the desk.

“Maybe you can hire a griffin mercenary company, or pay off some of the warlords, I don’t know. Do whatever you want with it,” I said as Daff continued to stare at the gold in disbelief. “I was hoping this would repay you for all you’ve already given, as well as obtain whatever food, medicine, and supplies for the refugee camp that you think is a fair trade.”

“If I gave you everything this is worth at once…” Daff said airily as she picked up the bar in her magic and examined it. “It could clear a whole storehouse.”

“Well, the ghouls and griffins also need shelter. I remember when I was here before, there was a warlord called the Labyrinther. If he’s no longer around…” I suggested.

“Ahhhhhh,” Daff said, a spark in her eyes as she realized what I was suggesting.

***

Every warlord in Castoway had a schtick, and the Labyrinther’s had been creating mazes. It seemed a bit pointless when a pegasus could just fly over them, but none of the warlords seemed entirely sane. The reason I’d brought him up to Daff had been the principal material he used to build his labyrinths. The Labyrinther’s base had been a factory where kit homes had been produced. They were probably supposed to have been shipped into the Iron Valley to build homes for the pony workers, but that had never happened due to either companies refusing to pay or because the world had ended in balefire. Premade walls, floors, and roofs awaited only assembly (in a more reasonable manner than the Labyrinther had done) to create more than enough shelter for those back in the camp. In addition to food and medical supplies, as well as a purifier that would desalinate the ocean water to make it potable, Daff sold me skads of kit homes that had been seized. I couldn’t haul everything back myself, of course, and I had to return to the refugee camp only with what I could carry.

Things had settled down some in my short absence; apparently my speech had had an effect, as Giacomo and Crystal Dawn were now working together, albeit not without some continued grumbling and untrustworthy glances. The announcement of what I’d secured from Daff wasn’t met with much enthusiasm, since I had little to show, but I managed to rope enough griffins and ghouls into returning to Castoway with me to help haul the first shipment of housing and supplies by rail. Things cheered up after that, with more volunteering to help pull the boxcar back and forth until everything had been transported out to the airport on the coast. Doing everything in one day was far too ambitious, and plenty were uncomfortably wet that night. Thankfully, everyone had shelter over their heads by the time the next rainstorm blew through, even if they had to temporarily share their new homes with six or seven others.

Scavenging trips were sent farther afield to gather supplies, up into the mountains or out into the ocean. As near to Castoway as we were, there were plenty of ships who had never made it into port before the city descended into madness, or had departed for Equestria only to learn it had been destroyed before they got very far and had met their fate sinking off the coast. Ghouls, needing no air, descended into the wrecks and hauled out anything valuable that hadn’t become too waterlogged or corroded by the seawater. It was remarkable how well much canned food had survived, even if the labels had disintegrated long ago. Any weapons found in the sunken wrecks were useless, but a salvage team led by a mountainous ghoul named Ironheart did manage to find piles of combat barding whose enchantments had preserved them long after the crates containing them had rotted away.

Everyone practiced fighting, for if the Steel Rangers or any other threat came, it would be a fight for our survival. Once we’d built a defensive wall and the camp began to feel more like a settlement, a distinct guard emerged. At its core was Giacomo’s shoreguard, and the name stuck even after its ranks increased, acquiring a more “official” tone as became accepted by the community. In addition to the original cohort, the Shoreguard now included ghouls from Pleasure Coast who had experience either as soldiers during the War or as guards in the vacation city, as well as other griffins from Charity’s Reach or the mountains who’d been drawn by the news of a growing settlement.

As things developed, more and more ghouls and griffins looked to me for leadership. I suppose it was only natural since I had seized that position by intervening in Crystal and Giacomo’s confrontation and then brought the shelters we now lived in. If I saw something that needed doing, I did it, or increasingly organized others to do it, since no job in the new settlement was small enough for one pony to do alone. In addition to being a leader (or because they were one in the same), I became an organizer, though I tried to offload that duty as much as possible. I was interested in the details, but once I accepted my role as leader and realized I couldn’t oversee every detail, I decided to focus on the big picture: seeing to it that the settlement was running smoothly and had what it needed to survive, first in the short term and then in the long. Rael saw to organizing the details, a task he seemed to relish more than providing the spiritual advice that the settlement’s residents repeatedly solicited from him despite his continued protestations that he was merely an acolyte, not yet a priest, and was not qualified to fill the role they desired to see him in.

Things tended that way for a while, and nothing seemed fit to disturb it. No news came from the north; the Steel Rangers occupied Pleasure Coast, but seemed content to do little else than probe the surrounding area infrequently. We certainly never saw another of their airskiffs. In Castoway, von Plume’s gold seemed to have done the trick in getting Daff her mercenaries from the southern mountains, and the warlords were once again on the retreat. Months passed in that way, and what had once been a forlorn camp became a settlement that traded salvage from the ocean with Castoway and settlements in the mountains, supplemented when needed with gold from my remaining bar from von Plume’s treasure that rapidly dwindled in size.

The day finally came when enough of the refugees no longer considered themselves refugees, but residents of a new settlement, and decided that settlement needed formal structure. The leading ghouls and griffins worked together to decide on what they wanted for a home, and then they came to me to make it official. It was with some amusement that I received their decision to appoint me as marshal, a title that was sure to put Grand Marshal Gideon’s beak out of joint, me not being a griffin and all, and probably calculated to appeal to me for that reason. While I suggested Rael, since he was the one who actually ran things for the most part, and I still had unfinished business elsewhere, the experience of Charity’s Reach had left the griffins with a bad taste in their mouth for theocracy, even if they still held to their faith. Duskshore was the name the settlers had chosen for our new town, and it was a name that for me evoked memories of standing atop the mooring tower staring out across the sea as Celestia’s sun set over the distant cloud cover that blanketed Equestria. Several times since I’d crossed that sea, I thought I’d found a new home, but that feeling was stronger than ever now.

Though I was now Marshal of Duskshore, and I felt as settled as I ever had since coming to the Commonwealth, I could not rest easy yet, not while the Steel Rangers still occupied Pleasure Coast. During the time I didn’t spend settling disputes, walking the streets of my town, or speaking with Rael, I considered what I could do about that thorny issue. Though my skills with firearms were improving, I doubted I’d ever be as good with them as I had been, and going in guns blazing was no longer even the remotest of options. With von Plume’s treasure at my disposal, I could still go to Grand Marshal Gideon and secure his help, but I’d need to be careful about crossing the Commonwealth, with the Steel Ranger occupation between me and Shearpoint. Maybe the best thing to do would be to head east through the Iron Valley and then loop back north. Nothing was sure in my mind—not until the scavengers came.

They staggered out of the wastes in groups, many of them wounded and carried on other griffins’ backs. Those that weren’t carrying others held weapons and scanned their surroundings warily, though some began to sag as they realized they’d made it out of that beast-filled landscape. It wasn’t until I climbed the mooring tower at the center of Duskshore that I realized the full extent. There were nearly as many scavengers limping toward the town as I’d ever seen camped outside of Pleasure Coast at once, all of them without their distinctive vehicles. Outside of Duskshore, they halted and dropped to the ground, sitting in their clans, unwilling just yet to enter the town.

“What happened?” I asked one of the scavengers after trotting out.

“Ponies in metal shells, they came from their ship with no connection to the ground,” a griffin with an incredibly long rifle answered. “They took our road-beasts, though we fought for them.”

“How did they get all of you?” I asked incredulously as I looked out at the vast sea of swathed griffins.

“We knew the ponies in metal shells had taken the road-beasts of Unsullied who ventured too near to Pleasure Coast, so we met together to speak of what we should do to reclaim them. They fell upon us then,” the griffin replied, lowering his eyes in shame at their failure to keep their road-beasts, their most sacred possessions.

“How many skiffs did they send?” I asked, having trouble believing that a squad of Steel Rangers, even as formidable as they were, could take the vehicles from so many scavengers.

“It was one, but it was a great beast, a wicked metal beast far from the sacred road. It blotted out the sun, and its guns tore unholy furrows in the earth.”

It wasn’t an airskiff like the one that had attacked Duskshore that the scavengers had faced, but the Indefatigable itself. Only, what was the Indefatigable doing in the wastes far enough from Pleasure Coast that the scavengers had been able to make it here from where they’d been attacked?

“Where did it go?” I asked.

“East,” the scavenger replied. “To the roost of Underpeak.”

***

“Absolutely out of the question,” Crystal Dawn said when I announced my intention to leave Duskshore.

Since I now had official responsibilities to the town, I’d decided to have a meeting with its leading members before I set off. An old construction office had been found by one of the scavenging teams out in the wastes and dragged to Duskshore, becoming a “town hall” of sorts, and this was where I’d decided to hold my meeting. In the room with me were Crystal Dawn, Giacomo, Rael, Summer Sunrise, Sirenia (a non-ghoulified pony who’d been instrumental in organizing the town’s market once we were settled enough and had varied enough goods to trade), and Redleaf (a griffin from Charity’s Reach who’d taken on the responsibility of starting farm plots to grow our own food).

“It will be a temporary leave of absence. I will return,” I promised sincerely.

“You’re talking about going to the most dangerous place in the Commonwealth right now,” Crystal Dawn objected.

“Not true,” I said. “The Steel Rangers have moved their airship to Underpeak, which means the bulk of their forces will be away from Pleasure Coast.”

“You don’t know that,” Crystal replied, which was true. Based on the information from the scavengers, it certainly seemed likely, but the Steel Rangers could have simply taken the Indefatigable out on a mission and returned or left most of their forces behind to garrison the city.

“Why do you want to go?” Redleaf asked, changing the direction of the conversation.

“I don’t want to, but I need to,” I said. “I was on my way north when I arrived here and experienced my … accident. I’m glad I stayed—not that I had much of a choice at first—but there are some things I still need to take care of before I can lay up my coat for good and settle in here. I can’t go into details, but I believe I have a way to convince Grand Marshal Gideon to bring the Commonwealth’s forces to bear against the Steel Rangers. I need to get to Shearpoint. I need to see the Steel Rangers gone before I can rest.”

“You can’t mean to fight them yourself!” Giacomo blurted out. “No offense, but you’re not exactly a killing machine.”

“Not anymore; I’ve learned that,” I sighed. “But there are other things I can do, other things I should do to help now that I’ve started on that path. I can’t leave Pleasure Coast the way it is any more than I could stand by and let the Steel Rangers slaughter you all when they came here. I have to do what I can to end this, one way or another.”

“Well, you’re not going alone, unprotected,” Giacomo said, yielding. “No offense meant, preacher.”

“None taken,” Rael said, though he probably meant the implication that he would be unable to protect me, since it was rightly assumed he’d go where I went. He was still prickly about being referred to with any religious title other than acolyte.

“I’ll put together a squad of my best fighters to protect you until you return, an honor guard of sorts,” Giacomo said thoughtfully.

“Thank you, Giac, but I’ll need you here, to keep everyone safe and keep the peace as sheriff,” I said.

His eyes widened at the mention of him being appointed sheriff. It was something I’d been meaning to do for a few days now, and it was best to get that business out of the way before I left.

“Put together your honor guard, under a good subordinate. Blacktalon would do nicely,” I said, and Giac nodded. “Crystal Dawn, I’ll need you to run everything else while I’m gone.”

“I still don’t like this idea,” she said, before sighing exaggeratedly, “but I’ll do it. There will still be a Duskshore for you to return to, better than ever.”

Since the town’s establishment, both she and Giacomo had mellowed out and even become good friends, as hard as that would have been to believe at the start. I had no doubts that the two of them would be able to run the town together without any major issues cropping up.

“I’m sure it will be,” I said, nodding my appreciation to her. “You’ll have Sirenia to help with the details, to do what Rael does for me.”

“Of course,” Sirenia said with surprise.

“I will return,” I promised again as I rose to dismiss the assembled ponies and griffins. “Once the Steel Rangers are seen to, I’ll be back for good.”

***

Giacomo’s honor guard was ready to leave the next day, as were Rael and I. As I’d suggested, he’d selected Blacktalon to lead it, a griffin who’d come down from the mountains to join Duskshore while it was still starting out. Despite his name, his feathers and fur were what were black, his talons appearing perfectly normal. Along with him, Giacomo had selected four griffins, two ponies, and three ghouls. Among the last set was Ironheart, who’d decided that though he was skilled at underwater salvage, what he really wanted was to join the Shoreguard. The ghoul was a mountain of decaying meat, sure to put the fear of Celestia into most anyone who thought to challenge him, and I was glad to have him along. Perhaps if I’d been more prideful, I’d have resented having ten guards around to protect me. However, I’d come to terms with my limitations during the months in Duskshore, and I could live with this.

We traveled along the coast as we headed north, staying well clear of the wastes and the beasts that dwelt therein. We could have made better time flying, but half of our party was flightless without mechanical assistance, and the hopper I’d bought at Shearpoint could only fit one even if it wasn’t currently being used to run the town’s water purifier. Even if we could fly, that wouldn’t have been a good idea; something that stood out in the sky was sure to catch the attention of any Steel Rangers, patrolling on hoof or in an airskiff. We didn’t see any airskiffs on our way to Pleasure Coast, but I was still convinced of the possibility.

There was an airskiff when we reached Pleasure Coast, moored to the Shard Casino, but no sign of the Indefatigable. It seemed it truly had left, but it hadn’t taken everypony with it. Steel Rangers still stalked the streets, more than would fit in the skiff alone. Still, there were few enough that we were able to make our way about the city, so long as we were careful. I still held out hope that the platinum chip I’d taken from von Plume’s vault would provide us with aid, but I sadly wasn’t able to confirm or deny the fact. Following the map embossed on it had taken us to the Commonwealth Crooner’s radio station, which was garrisoned by a squad of Steel Rangers, probably to keep the Crooner in line and ensure he continued to broadcast their propaganda—propaganda that I realized said nothing about the Indefatigable leaving Pleasure Coast and moving to occupy Underpeak. Once it became clear that we weren’t going to be able to make it into the heart of Radio PC, we moved on, eager to put Pleasure Coast behind us.

As the Indefatigable moved in on Underpeak, it seemed the Steel Rangers had worked to subjugate the surrounding area, moving along the northern valley that curled through the Commonwealth. It was a familiar path for me to tread, and it hurt me to find Grand Imperial in ruins when we reached the first settlement I’d encountered outside of Pleasure Coast. Buildings had been smashed, either by airskiff-mounted guns or power armor-mounted armaments. The theater that had given the settlement its name had been torn apart and Grant’s rare Wartime film reels pilfered. I hoped that Grant, Gina, and all the rest had managed to escape the devastation wrought by the Steel Rangers, but the pile of scorched bones at one end of town did not bode well.

When we arrived at Rest ‘n’ Go, the Steel Rangers were still present. Some signs of fighting had marred the old hotel, but it seemed the griffins had surrendered before things had gotten too rough. They were all seated outside of their homes now, looking unhappy but nonthreatening, as Steel Rangers clomped up and down the street, several pairs going through and asking questions of the townsgriffins. Over the town hovered an airskiff, and Steel Rangers ascended and descended leisurely, unbothered by the thought of any threats.

“Doc, we should move on,” Blacktalon whispered from beside me after we’d spent a dangerous amount of time in the brush near the town scoping things out.

“I know,” I sighed just as softly. I wished that there was something I could do to help these griffins, but even with twelve of us, we were no match for the Steel Ranger force here.

I started to creep back until I saw the paladin overseeing the interrogation cock their head, as if doing so would allow them to hear their helmet radio better. I raised my PipBeak, careful not to disturb the brush, and pointed it at them.

“—ire, and Glowstone went with them. They’re checking out the buildings up the hill. The locals claim that’s where they got their food,” a stallion’s voice crackled through the earpiece I’d attached to the PipBeak.

During my brief moments of downtime in Duskshore, I’d created a new plugin for my PipBeak out of scavenged electronics. In theory, it was able to pick up and unscramble short-range radio transmissions, but I hadn’t been able to test it until Pleasure Coast. There, I’d figured out the kinks and gotten it working. So long as I was close enough to a Steel Ranger (though still outside of the range of their EFS), I could listen in on their communications.

“Report to me when they return, or if they’re gone more than twenty minutes,” a mare’s voice crackled back, not echoing like the stallion’s, so she probably wasn’t wearing a helm and was aboard the airskiff. “I don’t trust them. They’re troublemakers, if you ask me, and would have been better left behind in Trottingham or dropped into the ocean.”

“Yes, Senior Paladin,” the stallion, the paladin on the ground, replied.

“Anything good?” Blacktalon asked, half in rebuke and half in curiosity as I switched the plugin off and put my earpiece away.

“Something interesting,” I said as I pondered the snippet of conversation I’d intercepted. “Think you can find us a way up that hill without being seen?”

Blacktalon whinged at the request (once we were beyond earshot of Rest ‘n’ Go), but he eventually complied and managed to lead us up the slope behind the settlement. At the top was the Greenbush Agriculturium, looking just as I’d left it when I’d last been here almost a year ago. Well, maybe not just as I’d left it. The greenhouses were still filled with crops, but the robots who’d tended to them until I’d deactivated them had been cleared away. What had happened to them became apparent as we approached the main building, which was where we also found the Steel Rangers.

The eleven of them—one crusader and ten regular knights—were gathered around the rows of robots piled up where the residents of Rest ‘n’ Go had left them. Their voices were muffled, indicating they’d switched off the mics in their helmets and so couldn’t project their voices through the helmet speakers. It appeared they didn’t want anypony to have the chance to listen in on their conversation.

“There’s no convincing the Elders. It’s pointless,” a mare was saying as we got close enough to hear them. Based on what I remembered about Steel Ranger armor, if their suit mics were off, it was likely that EFS was as well.

“But it’s right,” a stallion, the crusader judging by the movements he made, said. “Just look at these robots! Fixed up, they could tend these gardens and help the griffins below. They have no knowledge on how to do such a thing, but we do.”

“Blaze is right, we should share our knowledge,” another mare said.

“What’s the point of having it if we don’t use it to help?” Blaze, the crusader added.

“I’m sure whoever invented megaspells thought the same thing,” another stallion said. “Look how that turned out.”

“We don’t have to share everything, but neither should we hoard everything for only us,” Blaze said. “As it is now, we’re barely better than the Enclave.”

“Or worse. The Enclave at least stays above the clouds and doesn’t come down to genocide ghouls and annihilate any resistance,” the first mare said, and several of the Steel Rangers managed to shudder, even in their absurdly heavy armor.

“We all know what the Steel Rangers should be doing,” Blaze said. “Our mission is to safeguard Wartime technology, but that shouldn’t mean locking it away so no good can come from it in the time being.”

“Why don’t you do something, then?” I called out.

The Steel Rangers instantly became alert, and Blacktalon stared at me incredulously, but I’d decided to take a chance. I’d heard enough to believe that this small group of Steel Rangers might be more akin to those of Vanhoover under Elder Basilisk Fang than what I was used to seeing from this force. They might, with a little push, even be willing to defect to our side, which could use all the help it could get against Elder Teakettle’s Steel Ranger Airborne Crusade.

“Who goes there?” Blaze asked, his voice electronically augmented.

“You may want to turn your mics back off if you don’t want your senior paladin overhearing!” I called back as my honor guard readied themselves for a battle they couldn’t win.

“Who goes there?” Blaze called again, this time with his suit’s mic off. A good sign, I thought.

I stepped out from among the greenhouses toward the spreading semicircle of Steel Rangers. Of course, when they’d turned their mics back on, they’d also reactivated EFS and had known where I was, so all of them were pointed (along with their weapons) in my direction.

“I’m Doc, also known as Doc Silverarm, Marshal of Duskshore,” I introduced myself. “I’ve seen what an idealistic Steel Ranger contingent can do for others in the Equestrian Wasteland. Why don’t you do something to make that happen here?”

“There are too many convinced of the old ways,” the first mare I’d heard speak said. “In Trottingham and here. The crusade is composed of zealots and ‘troublemakers’ like us, diehard supporters of the Elders’ views and those of us they’d like to see dead for speaking out against them. We’d never be able to take over the crusade.”

“Who said anything about taking over the crusade?” I asked as I approached and the Steel Rangers’ guns tracked me. “If even a small number of you abandon Elder Teakettle and help fight against him, it could make a difference.”

“The griffins aren’t doing much fighting against the crusade,” Blaze noted.

“No, but that’s about to change,” I said. “Do you want to be part of it, to help stop this crusade rather than perpetuate it?”

The Steel Rangers had seen enough and were ready to be pushed over the edge. Though the silence stretched long after my challenge, once Blaze announced his willingness to defect, the others quickly followed suit. Blaze’s squad, along with Fleetfire and Glowstone from other squads, were incensed with the crusade’s behavior since it had arrived in the Commonwealth and were willing to fight it.

After I shared the conversation I’d overheard between the paladin and senior paladin, they began to make their way down the hill so as not to trigger any more suspicion by overstaying their absence from Rest ‘n’ Go. Their coup against the other Steel Rangers occupying the town was far from bloodless, but it was quick. They seized the airskiff first, so as to cut off communication with the Indefatigable and a source of escape, and then managed to bombard and assault the ground troops until none were left standing. When it was all over, the griffins of Rest ‘n’ Go stood shocked by what they had witnessed, Steel Rangers turning on each other.

“What will you do now?” I asked Blaze after the Steel Rangers had cleaned up the dead and apologized to the townsgriffins for the intrusion.

“We need to return to the Indefatigable,” Blaze said. “Rally the others who might join our cause to escape. How long, Doc, until the counterstroke falls against the crusade? As you yourself said, we cannot defeat them alone.”

“Soon, I hope,” I replied. “I’ll be leaving for Shearpoint to speak to Grand Marshal Gideon when you do. Until then, head to the Iron Valley, but be sure to announce your intentions and don’t get into any fights with the Dashite Enclave or the Consortium.”

“Be quick,” Blaze cautioned me. “Elder Teakettle is becoming impatient to complete his true mission in the Commonwealth, and I fear our defection will only cause him to accelerate his timetable further. He means to seize Griffonstone.”

So, the true purpose of the Steel Ranger Airborne Crusade was the capture of Griffonstone, or more likely the Griffonstone Missile Base. With control of the base, Elder Teakettle could threaten all of the Commonwealth and beyond with megaspells. It could allow the Steel Rangers control over continents, or a second Last Day if he was actually foolish enough to repeat the mistakes of the past. More than ever, this had to end.

[Max Level Reached]
Alchemistry +4 (68)
Athletics +4 (57)
Barter +8 (135)
Electronics +4 (65)
Energy Weapons +6 (20)
Medicine +4 (133)
Repair +5 (131)
Science +3 (124)
Small Guns +8 (27)
Sneak +7 (127)
Speech +12 (143)
Survival +5 (122)

Chapter 29: Griffonstone

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Griffonstone

After parting ways with the Steel Ranger defectors, we headed north to Shearpoint. Just like when Rael and I had fled Pleasure Coast with Lurk, we crossed the mountains rather than circle through the valley, though this time we fortunately didn’t have to contend with snow; the Weather Corps had turned the seasons from winter to spring to summer, and would soon begin turning it to autumn. With more griffins than just Rael, we were also able to lift our group of ponies with less trouble (although Ironheart took three griffins at once to lift him, so maybe it evened out).

With the Commonwealth Crooner still spouting Steel Ranger propaganda, it was difficult to keep track of what was going on. Even so, I hoped Blaze and his defectors had succeeded in finding others to abandon Elder Teakettle’s crusade and hadn’t just been gunned down on the spot. It was hard to tell whether such a mutiny had pushed the elder to act or whether it was just part of the “accelerated timetable” Blaze had spoken of, but by the time we arrived at Shearpoint, word among the griffins there was that the Indefatigable had moved on Griffonstone and had already been there for three days.

Lurk was still in the roost but preparing to return to Pleasure Coast, and I got the details from her on Grand Marshal Gideon’s disposition. There was no more need, it seemed, for me to buy the grand marshal’s support. Mercenaries from across the Commonwealth, as well as the Air and Land Corps, were streaming into Shearpoint, preparing for an assault on the Steel Rangers. The occupation of Underpeak had convinced Gideon of the necessity of intervention, but the recent move of the Steel Rangers on Griffonstone had stirred him up into a frenzy, as it would any who knew what dwelt in that cursed mountain.

There seemed to be nothing more for me to do in Shearpoint, and so we soon left, with Lurk joining our company. She knew the same as I did: that the Commonwealth forces alone had only a small chance at defeating the Steel Rangers, and it would be an uphill battle. If we wanted a greater possibility of success, we needed to enlist more help. There was also no guarantee that Grand Marshal Gideon would do anything about Pleasure Coast once the Steel Rangers were ousted from Griffonstone and Underpeak, but that was a problem to be solved at a later date.

To reach New Pegasus in time, we had to fly, which meant yet more purchases of hoppers. We had nowhere near enough caps to acquire one for every non-flying member of our party, so I used the last bit of von Plume’s gold I had to buy seven more hoppers from Guthrie—something that was sure to raise suspicion once the allure of gold wore off, but we were in a hurry. With the loss of my eye, my skill as a pilot had degraded. I hadn’t had any chance to practice flying, so it was not a graceful journey, but at least I was not the only one who had difficulty piloting the things. Graceful or not, we did all manage to make it to New Pegasus. The pegasi remained on alert, but not, as I’d hoped, preparing to act against the Steel Rangers.

“I’m sorry, Doc,” Captain Mereskimmer said after I’d found her in the settlement and asked about the current situation. Her eyes lingered overlong on my eyepatch and lost horn, and I recalled the warning she’d given me the last time I was here, when the only part of me I’d been missing was my foreleg. “The Executive Panel continues to debate, but the majority opinion is that we should avoid antagonizing the Steel Rangers and wait for them to come to us. Colonel Flitter and Colonel Ravine are in favor of a preemptive strike, but they’re outvoted.”

“And what about President Snowmane?” I asked, and Mereskimmer’s face hardened.

“Don’t even think about it,” she cautioned me. “President Snowmane has remained supportive of the Executive Panel and intends to defer to their decision. As far as he’s concerned, this is a purely military matter.”

“The Steel Rangers are attempting to break into Griffonstone,” I stressed. “If they succeed, then nowhere will be safe. Isn’t there any chance of the Executive Panel changing their decision?”

“Colonel Fairweather will never flip, and Colonel Cloudwake will likely see changing his decision as a sign of weakness. Colonel Highflier might be persuaded, though, and Flitter has been working on him,” Mereskimmer shared (more than she probably should have about high-level New Pegasus politics).

“Could I speak to him?” I asked.

“You’re a persuasive pony, Doc,” Mereskimmer said, glancing at the crowd of followers I’d accrued, “but I’m afraid with you being who you are, Highflier would not be likely to listen to you.”

“It can’t hurt to try, though, right?” I asked.

“I’m afraid it could,” Mereskimmer sighed. “Allow Flitter and Ravine to do their work. They may be able to convince him where you would only antagonize him by your presence.”

“He has to be convinced to fight now, not later. If the Steel Rangers get control of the Griffonstone Missile Base, it’ll be too late to fight. They’ll either hit you with a megaspell or use the threat of one to force you into submission. Grand Marshal Gideon is preparing an attack on them, but their chances alone against the Steel Rangers, and especially against their airship, are not sunny.”

“Are our chances much better?” Mereskimmer snorted. “Granted, our power armor is a boon, but against a flying battleship, that alone is not enough.”

“There must be something I can do,” I said.

“Unless you can find a way to make the Zephyrus fly again …” Mereskimmer said hopelessly. “I don’t agree with him, but I can sometimes see how Highflier and the others came to their stance. If we do not have the means to engage the Steel Rangers from an advantageous position, why fight at all?”

I looked at the cloudship looming over its surroundings. I’d always suspected the Zephyrus was permanently grounded and the Dashite Enclave claims that it was fully operational were propaganda, but to hear Mereskimmer say it was still disheartening. I had no idea how to make a cloudship flightworthy, but maybe there was a way. And, if there was a way, maybe it would give Highfiler the hope he needed to decide that fighting the Steel Rangers was possible after all.

“I can’t begin to comprehend how to fix a cloudship,” I said as Mereskimmer matched my gaze. “But I might know some ponies who can.”

***

It was odd to be back again in the bowels of the Consortium, alone in the all-white room where the Triumvirate of Trustees had given me an ultimatum for New Pegasus. While what I’d seen of the Consortium since my return (which was extraordinarily little) had not changed since my first visit, there was a notable change in this room. Rather than the symbols of the three factions on the wall, there were now only two. On the left was a mechanical skull that looked like it was sniffing a rose. On the right was a six-pointed star surrounded by a cog, itself surrounded by a ring of five-pointed stars.

After a brief wait, a trio of ponies marched into the room, all different from the last time I’d been here. The pondroid who was the spitting image of Ache and now called herself Hope took a seat in the center chair, and two others I didn’t recognize sat on each side of her. On the left was an earth pony stallion with a green coat and hair, and on the right was a unicorn stallion with a white coat and violet mane wearing a lab coat.

“I am Hope, chairpony of the Board,” Hope said, making it clear that she was indeed the copy of Ache I’d assumed she was. “And these are Crank, representing the synthetic lifeforms, and Scepter, representing the organics.”

“Thank you for meeting with me,” I replied, hoping I was displaying the proper courtesy.

“It’s lovely to see you again, Doc,” Hope said. “But why are you here, and why did you want to meet with the Consortium’s leadership?”

“Well,” I said, clearing my throat, “I have something to ask of you.”

“Anything for the First Friend,” Crank said, and Scepter looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Let us see what he has to say before making promises,” Hope cautioned the overeager pondroid.

“I want the Consortium to help New Pegasus repair their cloudship and make it flightworthy again,” I said, coming right out with it.

“Ah, yes, New Pegasus,” Hope mused. “Although they no longer hunt us down or kill us on sight, relations with them lately have been … icy. Why would they accept our help, and furthermore, why should we give it?”

“You can’t be completely blind to what’s happening in the Commonwealth,” I attested. “The Steel Rangers are seeking to take the Griffonstone Missile Base. With that in their control, they could rain megaspells down across the world.”

“This concerns us?” Scepter asked, though not maliciously.

Living underground for generations had isolated all within the Consortium and inured them to fear of threats on the surface. They considered themselves safe from all harm; perhaps they were when it came to the Steel Rangers, but that wasn’t the issue to which I intended to appeal. Before this audience, at least, higher ideals were much more persuasive.

“It concerns all who value life, organic and synthetic,” I said. “Too long has the Consortium been a bogeyman of the Iron Valley. If you truly intend to bring what you’ve developed here to help the surface, now is the time to prove it, and to show you mean to lend a helping hoof to this broken world.”

“I find it hard to believe arming New Pegasus will be taken as something beneficial to life,” Hope said, “but I see your point. The Steel Rangers are a threat to the Commonwealth, and allying ourselves with our former enemies against them may be what’s needed to finally break the ice. All I can promise is that we will offer, but there is no guarantee that the Dashites will accept.”

***

I wasn’t privy to the talks that went on between the Consortium negotiators that returned with me to the Zephyrus and the Executive Panel, but my gambit seemed to have paid off. Colonel Highflier certainly wouldn’t be thrilled to work with the Consortium, but he had seen the need and the greater threat posed by the Steel Rangers. Two days after the negotiations, an army of pondroids and Consortium scientists descended on New Pegasus to help the overworked Dashite Enclave engineers who had already begun trying to make the Zephyrus shipshape.

Work went on around the clock, both to restore the cloudship that had been dormant for years and to prepare New Pegasus for its launch. Homes and shops that had been built against the ship’s hull were torn down, much to the outrage of those who owned them, even when compensated by the Dashite officers who tried to keep the peace. The bridges packed with ramshackle construction bridging the decks of the Eurus and the Zephyrus also had to be cleared away as much as possible. Mostly, the ponies and griffins living there had to be cleared out so that they wouldn’t be caught up in the cloudship’s liftoff.

The bringing together of Commonwealth factions wasn’t an idea exclusive to me, it seemed. Two days into the work, messengers from Grand Marshal Gideon arrived in New Pegasus. Again, I was cut out of any discussion, but I did later learn from Mereskimmer that a temporary alliance with the Griffin Commonwealth had been worked out. Gideon was planning for his attack on Griffonstone to take place in four days’ time and invited the Dashite Enclave to take part, promising that no fighting would occur between them, the Commonwealth troops and mercenaries, or (when pressed by the Dashites) the Consortium.

The Consortium had decided that they would do better than just make the Zephyrus fly again; they too would fight in this battle to drive the Steel Rangers out of the Commonwealth. Pondroid troops with faceless armor arrived in New Pegasus, and though the Dashite soldiers gave them sidelong looks at first, they all worked together as the battle approached. The Consortium workers and scientists also did more than just restore the Zephryus, they improved it, providing new technology and armaments, including several completed MEIRPALs. By the time the day came for liftoff, the Zephryus was better equipped than it had been since the Enclave Civil War.

That day came after three days of continuous work. I understood that there were still some internal components that needed repair, but the Zephyrus was flightworthy. If the pegasi wanted to arrive at Griffonstone when Gideon’s forces did, they had no more time to spare; the rest could be fixed during flight. The sky was clear and bright blue that morning, every cloud for miles around harvested by the pegasi and brought back to the cloudship. I (and my band of followers that stuck close to me) had been allowed upon the Zephyrus to accompany the pegasi to Griffonstone, and it was a sight to behold as I stood upon the deck and the cloudship regained its purpose.

Warning klaxons sounded, accompanied by announcements that liftoff was imminent. Distantly, I could hear power-armored pegasi using their suits’ speakers to warn the citizens of New Pegasus, evacuated from the city, to keep their distance. With a great roar that sounded like a cascading waterfall, steam billowed from vents on each side of the cloudship, enveloping half of New Pegasus in fog. Abnormally loud hums sounded as lightning jutted within the fog from the struts that were now completely obscured. Slowly, the fog congealed and condensed into clouds, a bank of them on either side of the Zephyrus, soft, fluffy, and pristinely white. The Zephyrus shuddered as the clouds tugged on it, seeking to pull the cloudship free of the earth as they returned to their proper place in the sky. Crashes sounded as unsecured bits of structural buildup still clinging to the hull fell away. The ship slowly ascended, and the remaining bridges between it and the Eurus plummeted down into the alley below with a noise to wake the dead.

As the Zephyrus lifted away, the announcements from the officers piloting the ship became less anxious. Cheers could be heard on deck, as well as faintly from below. Griffins flew up in defiance of the Dashites on the ground and flitted around the ship, wishing the crew luck. Great lines of propellors along the rear of the ship groaned to a steady thrum as the Zephryus began its journey, angling northwest toward Griffonstone.

***

If you want a detailed account of the Battle of Griffonstone, you can easily find one from all five major perspectives. The Griffin Commonwealth has its official histories sanctioned by the grand marshal. Many Dashites after the battle wrote their own accounts. The Consortium recounts have all the mechanical precision you’d expect from pondroids, but they aren’t terribly lively to read. Blaze’s Steel Ranger defectors, who joined up with the Zephyrus on our way to the battle, have their own version. You can even find some accounts from the Steel Rangers who fought for Elder Teakettle, though most in the Commonwealth read them with a heavy degree of skepticism.

I don’t know the details of the Battle of Griffonstone, because I didn’t fight in it, not really. For perhaps the first time in my life, I was at the site of a major battle, and I didn’t take part. To do so would have been suicide, with Steel Rangers, griffin mercenaries, Dashites, and Consortium pondroids slugging it out, and me with one eye, three legs, and no magic. I could have summarized other historians’ works here, but I’ll leave that to other ponies. Instead, I’ll give you my high-level impressions of the battle, with details where relevant, but mainly focus on what I was doing.

First of all, the attack on the Steel Rangers was not simultaneous. No matter what you may hear from the Commonwealth’s grand marshals and their pet historians, the Zephyrus arrived at Griffonstone a full hour before the Commonwealth troops and mercenaries did. Nogriffin had traveled to Griffonstone and returned in the past century-and-a-half, but Elder Teakettle had the Indefatigable, he had an army of Steel Rangers, and he’d had over a week to use them to break down the ancient defenses. The Indefatigable was anchored to a mooring tower designed for the purpose when we arrived, but it wasted no time in detaching and engaging the cloudship and traitorous airskiff that accompanied it.

On the surface, a battle between an Enclave cloudship and a gas-based airship would be no contest, but neither were really more technologically advanced than the other. Both had been built at the tail end of the War or were based on designs from that time. Though the Zephyrus had Consortium weapons aboard, the Steel Rangers had had 160 years to fortify their airship with all the technology looted across the Grittish Isles. Both flying battleships took and withstood hard hits as they engaged. I wondered about the wisdom of staying aboard a ship that hovered over an immense drop during such a battle, but during the early stages, the ground was no safer.

While pegasi either in power armor or sky-tanks engaged Steel Rangers in airskiffs above the sundered mountain, Consortium troops and Blaze’s Steel Rangers took the fight to them below. Smoke rose from what was left of the ancient capital of the griffins as explosions and magical energy weapons popped and crackled from a distance. It was difficult to make much out, as a dark haze seemed to envelop the mountain. I tried anyway, and it was not a cheery picture.

There were no two ways about it: at the start of the battle, despite the advanced technology of the Consortium and the aerial agility of the pegasi, their alliance was losing. Steel Rangers were known for their over-the-top shows of force, and it was on full display that day. Missiles shot from tubes, following pegasi as they looped through the sky, and grenade miniguns used concussive force and repeated strikes to break through even Consortium-made armor. The Zephyrus’s cannons roared and MEIRPALs whined as they broke through airship defenses, but the Indefatigable’s guns bellowed in return and their airskiffs strafed pegasi and the cloudship’s deck. Lurk had conjured a protective field for our group so that we weren’t as exposed as we could be, but I doubted it would hold up to heavy fire. I also worried that the Steel Rangers had more of those orbs that had taken my magic. As I scanned Griffonstone, I could sometimes see crackles of light where they had trouble with unicorns and was sure that was what I was seeing.

I think all of us were beginning to worry that the griffins weren’t going to arrive after all, and Grand Marshal Gideon had led us into a trap. But, at last, they did show themselves. In large formations of griffins and in airships far less impressive than the Indefatigable, they came from the north. Mercenaries in mismatched combat barding flew alongside griffins in the off-white armor of the Air Corps and the brown of the Land Corps. I even saw a few in the sky-blue of the Weather Corps flying over the battlefield attempting to turn the local weather against the power-armored ponies. The Steel Rangers were caught between griffins on one side and pegasi and pondroids on the other. It wasn’t enough to completely overwhelm them, but the tide of the battle did begin to turn as they had to split their attention.

As I surveyed the fight taking place below, peering through a monocular, I caught sight of something important. The fighting in Griffonstone had moved away from where the Zephyrus and the Indefatigable continued to do long-range battle, and the combined forces were driving the Steel Rangers back, away from the missile base. However, there had already been movement in that direction before the griffins had arrived, and there had remained a heavily fortified garrison of Steel Rangers within the base, near the mountain. That garrison had disappeared.

“We need to get off the ship,” I said quietly (only relatively speaking, due to the immense amount of gunfire going on around us).

As the Zephyrus took a barrage of hits from the Indefatigable’s guns, followed by a bomb dropped from an airskiff that zipped nimbly past, the deck shuddered, and I nearly lost my footing before Rael caught me.

“I think you may be right,” Blacktalon admitted as he cast his eyes around for a way to disembark during the battle.

“You should be below deck,” Mereskimmer said as she landed nearby, ponies instantly running up to her to restock her ammunition.

“No, we need to get down to Griffinstone!” I shouted back to be heard over the whirring of the propellors on Blaze’s airskiff as it zipped overheard, pursuing the one that had just strafed us.

“Without power armor?” Mereskimmer asked incredulously. “Have you forgotten about the radiation?”

“The encounter suits we provided are perfectly adequate to deal with it,” a nearby pondroid overseeing ammunition distribution said.

The twin megaspells that had struck Griffonstone on the Last Day had left it a deadly place ever since. The Steel Rangers were unbothered by it due to their armor, and the bulk of the Dashites were likewise protected. Pondroids, power armor or not, were confident they would be unaffected by the balefire radiation. For the rest of us, though, some protection was in order, and the Consortium had provided what they called “encounter suits.” These were sealable jumpsuits with a padded, lightly armored fabric and bubble helmets that would shield us from the radiation we’d be exposed to even just flying near the cursed city. I’d assumed they were a lighter version of radiation suit, but if the pondroids were confident that they would protect us even walking into ground zero, they were far more impressive than I’d thought.

“Out of the question,” Mereskimmer said. “Why would you want to go to Griffonstone, anyway?”

“I think the Steel Rangers have succeeded at breaking into the base!” I shouted back, which got more than a few looks thrown my way.

Mereskimmer paused for several seconds, but given the way she was moving her head, I assumed she was talking to somepony else over the radio. I was tempted to use my PipBeak attachment to try to listen in, but she returned her attention to us before the urge got too strong.

“Okay, Blaze’s skiff will circle back around in a few minutes to take us down,” she announced.

“Us?” I asked.

“Yes. You don’t think I’d let you descend to a battlefield without an escort, do you?” the Dashite captain asked.

I was still surrounded by my honor guard from Duskshore plus Lurk, but I took her point. None of us had power armor, and the chance that we’d run into Steel Rangers was far from small, especially when we were pursuing them into the mountain.

When Blaze’s airskiff swung back around, it pulled up alongside the Zephyrus, keeping the cloudship’s bulk between it and the Indefatigable. The Steel Ranger defectors had remarkably managed to keep their stolen skiff flying through the battle so far, but as we boarded, I could see that it had taken considerable damage. Blaze wasn’t aboard, the crusader-turned-mutineer off fighting elsewhere, but the crew left on the airskiff kept a close and protective watch over us as we descended to the ruins of Griffonstone.

They didn’t set us down right next to the mountain, lest we tip off the Steel Rangers outside to what we were doing; surprise could mean everything. Instead, the airskiff dropped us off in a plaza of the old city, far enough for the fighting to be safe and far enough from the missile base to avoid suspicion. As soon as we’d disembarked, they were away again, returning to the battle in the air.

Mereskimmer led the way as we walked through the ruins of Griffonstone, keeping a sharp eye out for any movement with the enhanced optics afforded her by her power armor. Looking at the devastation of the city, it was hard to tell exactly when it had happened. There were recent signs of destruction caused by the battle, but other than that, it was difficult to say whether a building had toppled from its foundations due to a megaspell blast, abandonment in the time since, or decay in the time before. Everything seemed oddly preserved, as if fossilized. A large, gnarled, petrified tree stretched out above the great chasm that split the mountain in two, but from a distance it looked untouched.

There was something profoundly wrong about Griffonstone, though it was difficult to nail down exactly where the sensation was coming from. It could have been the fact that shadows didn’t seem to work properly, canting this way and that with no respect for Celestia’s sun. Though it could clearly be seen in the sky high overhead, the entire city also seemed to be cast in twilight, with a gloom that could not be attributed to anything physical permeating the air. There was an uncomfortable prickling sensation on the back of my neck, as if moist sandpaper was trying to rub across it, and I was not the only one to verbalize such feelings. Nobody knew exactly what kind of megaspells had been used on Griffonstone, only that it had been struck by one from Equestria and one from the zebras. One of them might have caused this, or it could have been an unexpected combination that arose from the two melding together. What was certain was that it was unlike any other recognized site struck by a megaspell. My PipBeak clicked to warn me of radiation, but other than an ugly dark mark plastered across the face of the mountain, there was no sign of a crater to indicate where a megaspell had detonated. More than once, I spotted out of the corner of my eye the mutated wildlife that now inhabited Griffonstone. It had to be out of the corner of my eye, for that was the only way you could see them. Look directly at them, and they were no longer visible. It was a place that gave you the feeling you should run away as fast as your legs could carry you, but instead we were heading deeper in.

The broken and depressing buildings eventually gave way to the perimeter of the Griffonstone Missile Base. The base was mostly underground, dug out of the mountain, but there was a small exterior component that, along with the other defenses that the Steel Rangers had silenced, would protect the base. The gates had been left open, and we trotted right in to the exterior yard of the base. The Steel Rangers had left a few turrets behind, but our party dealt swiftly with them before they could even fire a shot. There were no signs of the Steel Rangers themselves. One-story garrison buildings lined the edges of the yard, with an inviting opening at the far end where massive doors had been blasted and cut away to gain access to the missile base.

“Dashite Enclave Radio,” Mereskimmer said out of the blue as we prepared to enter the mountain, breaking the silence none of us knew we’d been keeping since we’d landed in Griffonstone.

I switched my PipBeak’s radio to the station she’d mentioned, and was greeted by a familiar voice broadcasting from the Zephyrus.

“—repeat, this is President Snowmane, commanding all Dashite Enclave forces and allies to abandon the Zephyrus and stay clear of the cloudship. I repeat, this is President Snowmane—”

I hadn’t been listening alone, and eyes turned together toward the Zephryus. It looked in bad shape, smoke and steam trailing from it, but still it pounded the Indefatigable and fought off the airskiffs swirling around it.

“What is he doing?” I asked Mereskimmer.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, but I think she suspected something. “We should keep moving.”

As we headed into the Griffonstone Missile Base, we quickly found the Steel Rangers. Either something about the megaspells had triggered it, or the griffins had really not wanted anyone to use the base until they’d paid for it, because the passage was clearly trapped. The first Steel Ranger we found had been melted from about halfway up his torso to the ceiling, his legs and what was left of his body fused standing up by the Steel Ranger armor surrounding them. Piles of glowing ash littered the floor as we ascended, and we saw other Steel Rangers who hadn’t been lucky enough to be disintegrated instantly. We kept a close eye out and moved cautiously onward. There were a few traps that had not been set off by Steel Rangers as they came through, and we managed to avoid most of them. Ironheart was impaled through the neck by a spiked rod, but it didn’t seem to bother him much. The ghoul simply pulled it out and gurgled when he talked for a while until the ambient radiation healed him.

I was beginning to wonder when we’d reach the end of the trail of Steel Ranger corpses when we arrived at a place where the rock had been carved out to make a cafeteria. Along one wall was a large window that looked not to be made of glass, but crystal, for security. A missile base with a giant glass window wouldn’t exactly have been secure, especially in a land where everyone could fly. As we approached the window, President Snowmane spoke up on the radio again, after falling silent when he’d finished repeating his command to abandon ship.

“I thank you all for allowing me to serve you these long years as your president. From those who woke me to break free of the poisoned dreams of the Enclave to those who built a new home in a foreign land, to those who fight here today, I thank you. And now, I perform one final act of service. Remember well, my little ponies, that in service to the people and their republic, no service is too dear.”

As we gazed out the window, I realized what it was that the president once of the Enclave and then of New Pegasus intended to do. During the repair of the Zephyrus, part of the process had involved inspecting and repairing the connections that tied the president’s chamber into the rest of the ship, ostensibly so he could observe and coordinate. President Snowmare could do much more than that, though. Assuming the Dashites had heeded his command, and I’d find it hard to believe any of them could disobey him, he was now the only one aboard the Zephyrus, and he was in control. The cloudship was in worse shape now, the damage that must have been evident to the president but few else before now clear to all. Clouds drifted away in wisps and clumps, smoke and fire trailed from rents in the hull, and the cloudship twisted as it moved, the frame bent and liable to snap under too much pressure. Snowmane pushed the propellors to their limit, however, slowly accelerating the last working cloudship in the Commonwealth. The Indefatigable tried to move out of the way, but by the time it realized what was happening, it was too late. The Zephyrus rammed into the Indefatigable, the cloudship buckling and snapping as the two colossi collided. The Steel Ranger airship fared no better. Great gouts of flame blossomed from its gas bubble as its spine snapped. Smoke, flame, and huge pieces of shrapnel rained down as the two flying fortresses slowly descended over the edge of the mountain, twisted together and destroyed.

I couldn’t see Mereskimmer’s expression behind her mask, but I had to imagine she was devastated. Half of her home and the pony she’d idolized from birth had both died before her eyes. By the evacuation of the Zephyrus and his sacrifice, however, President Snowmane may well have won the battle. It was impossible to know how many Steel Rangers had still been aboard the Indefatigable when it had gone down, but the entire crew of the Zephyrus, barring the president, had survived. Still, battle won or not, the true thing being fought over was not out there in the ruined city of Griffinstone; it was behind us.

“The control room is just ahead,” Lurk said, trying to prod Mereskimmer into action after examining the signage beside the passages leading off from the cafeteria.

Mereskimmer shook herself, but said not a word as she resumed point. Up through winding passages we went, passing another pair of Steel Rangers who had fallen prey to traps until we reached the Griffonstone Missile Base’s control room.

It was not a particularly glamorous control center. The walls were bare metal and dully lit. Large screens covered the walls, showing camera feeds of the megaspell-tipped missiles waiting in their silos. There were so many. Terminals with control panels ringed the walls, showing various readouts on the status of the base. And, at the center of the room, a pod holding Elder Teakettle.

It had been years since I’d seen that scowling, wrinkled face, its once blue coat turned chalky with age, barely a hint of a white mane clinging to the scalp. One could almost mistake the elder for a ghoul, had he not had such bare hatred for them. His face was all too visible, for Elder Teakettle had not worn a suit of Steel Ranger armor in decades. The strength it would grant him was too much of a risk; he’d become so old and shriveled that the armor would likely snap him apart. His wheelchair sat nearby, unused now that he’d managed to pull himself from it into the control pod. That was clearly what the glass-lidded sarcophagus was that he was now lounging in. Here, the griffins had splurged a little, lining it with comfortable padding and gold-trimmed control panels along its curved interior. Wires trailed from the back of the elder’s head and were threaded through a ring that interrupted the headrest. Beside the pod stood a unicorn mare in robes, a Steel Ranger scribe. Her horn glowed as she projected a protective field around her and the elder, allowing them to go about in Griffonstone without defensive gear.

“What happened to you?” Teakettle croaked as his eyes cast upon my griffin arm, and through my helmet, my missing eye and broken horn, “Wait… I recognize you.”

“And I you, Elder Teakettle,” I replied in a firm voice.

“So, you survived after all. More’s the pity,” the aged stallion said.

“Surrender, Teakettle,” I said. “The Indefatigable is destroyed and your forces scattered. You’ve lost.”

“I have, have I?” he replied with amusement, “If that was true, then why would you have to tell me it was so? No, I haven’t lost yet. I’ve. Won! The Griffonstone Missile Base is mine to control! Nopony will ever stand against me again, not unless they want to be cleansed by holy fire!”

“You’re not in control yet,” I challenged him as I cast my eyes around at the various screens and panels for confirmation.

“I’m already wired in. It’ll only take an eyeblink,” Teakettle said ominously before shouting. “Clasp! Kill them!”

The unicorn scribe beside his pod—Clasp—shot a beam of energy from her horn at us, but Lurk pushed back with a beam of her own. The two warred with magic, the beams shifting back and forth, until Blacktalon fired his machine gun into Clasp. As the bullets tore through her, her magic instantly failed, and she was thrown back by Lurk’s power. Her body crashed into a bank of screens and left a bloody stain on them as it slid down to the floor.

“What?” Blacktalon said defensively as Lurk gave him a look.

During the brief confrontation with Clasp, the sarcophagus had closed around Elder Teakettle and he was lying back on the padded cushions, eyes closed. Text scrolled across the banks of terminals surrounding him as he took control of the base. Blacktalon fired at the sarcophagus, but the lid turned out to be made of crystal like the observation window in the cafeteria, and the rest of the pod was similarly hardened against damage.

I ran over to the nearest terminal and plugged in my PipBeak. Maybe I was no good at shooting or magic or flying anymore, but there was still something I could do one-eyed and with a broken horn. I moved faster than I probably ever had before, not even allowing screens to fully print before I moved on, hacking into the Griffonstone Missile Base’s maneframes. Security was tough, and my chances weren’t helped by Elder Teakettle actively working against me to expel me from the system. In the end, however, I prevailed and succeeded in wresting control from the Steel Ranger.

“I did it,” I announced anticlimactically as I finished and sat back.

This missile base had the power to control nations with the threat of annihilation by megaspell. It was perhaps the greatest weapon left in the world—and I’d torn it out of the hooves of a madstallion.

Now it was in my hooves.

I had the power to reshape the world as I wanted. I could fix everything I’d seen that was wrong and destroy all that was evil. I could force the Grand Pegasus Enclave to open the sky over Equestria and bring their aid to the Wasteland below. I could end Grand Marshal Gideon’s bullying and hoarding of power. I could enforce peace, something the world had not seen in centuries.

“I’m going to launch the missiles,” I announced, but made no move to act on my words.

“Where?” Mereskimmer asked suspiciously as various outbursts of surprise came from the group clustered around me.

“Away,” I replied. “Beyond the sky and out of the reach of any pony, griffin, or zebra.”

“For years, griffins have dreamed of obtaining control of this base,” Lurk said with ice in her voice. “This is a great treasure, a gift that could see enemies brought low. Grand Marshal Gideon could be forced to comply with any demands. And you want to throw it away?”

“The pegasi over Equestria; we know where their strategic sites are,” Mereskimmer said. “The Dashite Enclave could return and help the Wasteland once the GPE is cleared away.”

“It’s too much,” I said as I turned to look at Lurk, then Mereskimmer, then Rael.

The Family’s fixer and the Dashite soldier were appalled at the idea, but Rael seemed to understand.

“There are too many megaspells here, too much power for it to ever be halted. Even if you intend to use it only as a deterrent, even if you intend to only use it once in a lightning strike, it won’t end there. The power and the temptation here is too great for anyone, including me.”

I turned back to the terminal in front of me.

“The megaspell genie is already out of the bottle,” I said as I looked at the faces reflected in the screen, “There’s no putting it back in. The only way to deal with it is to remove it from the situation entirely.”

Slowly, I began to type in the commands to launch the missiles. Mereskimmer and Lurk still didn’t agree with me, I could tell, but they didn’t stop me. One by one at first, and then in groups, the missiles that had slumbered unused for years in the heart of the mountain woke up. Natural light (or as natural as it could be with the gloom that pervaded Griffonstone) flooded into the missile silos as the hatches opened. Rockets flared as they propelled the missiles upward. In what seemed like a never-ending stream, the missiles blasted up through the cleft that divided the mountain in two. Up, up, and away they went, soaring higher and higher until the air around them thinned into nothingness. The rockets fired until they’d used the last drop of their propellant, and the missiles were allowed to coast through the inky blackness of space. Never again would they be used for another Last Day. They were free, Griffonstone was empty, and the battle with the Steel Rangers was won, with any luck, forever.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: A New Home – Finish your business and return to Duskshore.
Athletics +3 (60)
Barter +6 (141)
Electronics +12 (77)
Pilot +8 (49)
Repair +12 (143)
Science +8 (132)
Speech +4 (147)
Survival +6 (128)

Chapter 30: The Collector

Chapter Thirty: The Collector

We left Elder Teakettle in the Griffonstone Missile Base. So long as he remained in his pod, he was safe from the deadliness that infested the air of the place (at least, we assumed so). He had control of the missile base, but no missiles. It seemed as good a punishment as any.

The launching of the missiles had attracted attention, of course, but there was no surrender due to the assumption that the Steel Rangers had succeeded in their goal. Mereskimmer cleared things up with the remaining Dashite Enclave forces before we’d even left the base, and I inferred they’d spread the word however they could to the others. The battle was pretty much over by the time we emerged into Griffonstone. The Steel Rangers didn’t surrender, but some of them did flee into the mountains, sure to prove a nuisance in the future unless they were hunted down by the grand marshal’s forces—something he seemed only too eager to do.

Nobody seemed entirely sure what to do once the battle was won, and nobody wanted to stay long in the poisoned city. Groups began to split off, heading their separate ways. The pegasi flew back by wing or sky-tank to what was left of New Pegasus. The Consortium pondroids stalked away in a straight line toward their origin. The griffins lingered for a bit, seeming to debate whether the time was right to attack their temporary allies, before heading off in all different directions, apart from those who scoured the nearby terrain for Steel Rangers. Blaze’s defectors stayed the longest, gathering up every suit of Steel Ranger armor they found. They may have been radicals, but they were still Steel Rangers, and the thought of anyone outside the order using the armor remained repugnant to them. I was certain the pegasi, the griffins, and even the pondroids had managed to secret away a suit or two for themselves to study, but Blaze was wise enough not to make a fuss when the numbers didn’t come out completely even.

When Blaze’s Steel Rangers departed in their pilfered airskiff, miraculously still flying but looking in very poor shape, we went with them. Rael, Lurk, my honor guard, and I all traveled with them as they headed south, to Duskshore. As we neared the coastal settlement, Blacktalon wisely flew ahead to warn the inhabitants that the airskiff on its way was not here to destroy them like the last time. Because of this forewarning, there was a large crowd gathered when we arrived, and the skiff was secured to the mooring tower. There were enthusiastic greetings all around, and I had to wade through a crowd of ponies welcoming me back just to get to my home where I could finally sit down and put my hooves up.

“Marshal?” Giacomo asked after knocking and then immediately opening the door without waiting for a response.

“Yes, Sheriff,” I said tiredly as I sat up to speak to the griffin.

“What’s the situation with the Steel Rangers?” he asked awkwardly as he scratched the feathers on the back of his neck with a claw.

“They’re going to live here with us, at least for a little while,” I said. “We talked it out on the way here, and they’re willing to share their knowledge and tech with the community.”

“As well as lend their weapons to our defense, right?” Giacomo said.

“Yes,” I replied. “They don’t intend to stay forever. According to them, there are like-minded Steel Rangers in the Trottingham contingent that might be brought around to their way of thinking and topple the Elder Council. But, the chance of them listening at the moment, right after a failed crusade, is slim.”

“That’s fine with me. You might want to explain the situation yourself to Crystal, though,” Giacomo said.

Of course; the refugees from Pleasure Coast were not likely to be pleased with living alongside the ponies who had occupied their city and tried to wipe out the ghouls living there.

“Where is she?” I asked as I reluctantly got to my hooves.

“Town hall. I can escort you.”

There was really no need for an escort, but Giacomo wanted to stick with me during the business upon my return, so I obliged him. Crystal Dawn was in the town hall (which had gained a sign denoting it such during my absence), as were Rael and another pony I knew.

“Marshal Doc,” Daff said slowly and made a theatrical grimace. “Back from saving the Commonwealth?”

“I might just be,” I said, before adding. “Hopefully for the last time. What are you doing here?”

“I guess you haven’t heard the news since you got back,” Daff said. “My little clique of Freelancers, my loyal followers from Castoway, we’re all living in your town now.”

“What happened?” I asked, but I feared I knew.

“When Gideon started calling for mercenaries across the Commonwealth, he was offering rewards I couldn’t match, even with your—what you gave me,” Daff said, catching herself before she revealed my possession of Von Plume’s gold in case anyone else in the room didn’t yet know about it. “They fled, and the warlords retook the city.”

“I’m sorry, Daff,” I said. “If there’s anything I can do—.” She raised a hoof to stop me.

“Didn’t you just say you were done saving the Commonwealth?” she asked.

“Well, sure, but this isn’t—” I protested.

“It’s alright, Doc. Things were falling apart, and all the mercenaries did was delay the inevitable. I’m done with Castoway. It’s time to start over.”

“Daff has been helping me to run Duskshore in your absence,” Crystal Dawn spoke up. “But, I suppose now that you’re back to stay, you’ll be taking over again.”

“The Steel Rangers have been defeated,” I admitted, “But there’s still one last thing I need to do before I can settle down here for good. One last thing I need to do to secure this town’s future.”

***

And so, I found myself headed once again to where my time in the Commonwealth had begun: Pleasure Coast. After news spread about what had happened in Griffonstone, the Steel Rangers there had fled, taking their airskiff and headed back to the Grittish Isles. The city was far from back to normal when I arrived (with the honor guard I was expected to have at this point), but it was no longer under Steel Ranger occupation. The city’s casinos were back up and running, but the ghoul population who’d gambled at them had significantly decreased.

I headed straight for the Commonwealth Crooner’s radio station, which was devoid of Steel Rangers. Oddly enough, the Crooner was still spouting their propaganda, though. I had a sinking feeling as we entered the building and FITS picked up no others inside. Had the Steel Rangers recorded the Crooner, killed him, and left his tapes playing? That fortunately didn’t seem to be the case, but the truth was far stranger.

Tucked away at the center of the station was a broadcast room with none of the accoutrements I’d expect, just a large bank of maneframes. Lights danced across them as the Commonwealth Crooner’s voice sounded from speakers set into the ceiling above them. When I plugged my PipBeak into one, the Crooner went silent. It wasn’t difficult to find and remove the code the Steel Rangers had added, and when I was done, I stepped back.

“Commonwealth Crooner?” I asked, facing the maneframes.

“You’ll have to speak into the microphone, I can barely hear you,” the Crooner’s silky smooth voice came from the speakers.

I trotted over to the simple mic on a nearby console and tried again.

“Commonwealth Crooner, is this you?” I asked, still looking at the maneframes and the camera mounted atop them.

“Yes, it is,” the Crooner said, almost mournfully. “It must be a b-ig disappointment to find that the illllustrious Commonwealth Crooner is no more than a pile of tubes and wi-res.”

“Honestly, I’m amazed. I’ve never encountered an interactive system so advanced.”

“Aw, stop now, you’re gonna make me blush,” the Commonwealth Crooner said with a hint of humor.

“Who made you?” I asked.

“Why, the griffin who made this whole city, of course.”

“Griselda von Plume.”

“The very same. When she built Pleasure Coast, she wanted a radio personality for her station that would speak to all the griffins and ponies who came through this place. But why try to find the perfect radio personality when you can build one to spec? I was built to entertain the pleasure-seekers, but I outlived that purpose a long time ago. Nobody ever told me when to stop, so I just kept goin’, reinventin’ myself every so often so as not to break the illusion that I was who I said I was, though I think the ghoooouls may have suspected.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know what I’m supposed to do with this?” I asked as I pulled the platinum poker chip out of my saddlebags and held it up before the camera.

“Well! So somebody finally did crack ol’ Von Plume’s secret after all,” the Commonwealth Crooner laughed. “The empty spot in the control panel that always baffled those station engineers who knew the truth about me. Give it a go.”

I turned to examine the control panel as the Crooner had said and found a slot that had been taped over to avoid spilling anything into it. The poker chip slotted in with a satisfying ka-chunk, and the electronics inside the chip did their work, pulling up text across the nearby monitor that was mostly legalese telling me that I was the rightful inheritor of Von Plume’s fortune and the new boss of Pleasure Coast. One settlement was enough for me to be the boss of, though.

“What now?” I asked as I turned back to face the Commonwealth Crooner.

“Now?” he replied and took a long pause. “The announcement just went out to all of Pleasure Coast. Now you wait for every griffin to come here and see who it is who found Von Plume’s treasure, an’ who it is they need to pay five percent of their income to, from now on and retroactively. You’ve got a mighty fine windfall coming your way, Doc Silverarm.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” I said as I took the platinum chip from the console.

I took my time about heading out to the front of the station, where the members of the Shoreguard informed me griffins were beginning to congregate. When I felt enough time had elapsed, I stepped through the doors to face them. As I’d expected, at the front of the pack were the representatives of the Two Families, with even Mayor Gerald von Griff and Gloria Delgado here in the flesh. None of them looked particularly happy with me, and I wondered what their views were on legitimacy of killing me to get the inheritance.

“Relax,” I said as I looked down the heads of the Two Families, and I produced the platinum chip, holding it between two of my griffin claws. “I have a business proposition for you.”

***

The room I found myself in was very similar to the one in which Grand Marshal Gideon had first confronted me. The table was wood rather than steel and didn’t stretch quite all the way to each wall. There were rugs on the floor, and the chairs had fine scrollwork on their backs. For all that, it was still a room with an air of ominousness about it. I’d been waiting patiently for several minutes by the time the fifteenth Grand Marshal of the Griffin Commonwealth walked in from the door on the other side of the table. Sneaking a glance behind me, I didn’t see Strake standing at my back, but I did see a shadow through my door’s glazed window that suggested he was outside waiting for commands. Gideon took a seat and rubbed his eyes with his talons, then frowned at me for several seconds before speaking.

“So, what is it you want this time?” Gideon said calmly. “Are you here to gloat that I was forced to act against the Steel Rangers after all?”

In reply, I reached into my saddlebags and produced a bar of Von Plume’s gold. I tossed it onto the table, where it bounced slightly before sliding towards the grand marshal.

“What is this?” he asked in surprise and reached hungrily for the gold.

“I want to make a deal,” I told him.

“You want to make a deal?” he asked, suddenly cautious and withholding his claws from the ingot, but a greedy look still shone in his eyes.

“More like I’m brokering a contract on behalf of two interested parties, but yes,” I said, producing a stack of papers from my saddlebags and sliding them across the table to Gideon. “I’ve been assured that everything is in order and complies with griffin contract law.”

“This is not how business is done,” Gideon laughed as he barely deigned to look at the contract I’d provided. “There are negotiations, discussions, counteroffers, mediation—”

“This is how it will be done if you want the rest of Griselda von Plume’s treasure,” I said flatly.

Gideon eyed the gold bar more closely, picking out the Von Plume crest stamped into it.

“You found Von Plume’s treasure?” Gideon asked incredulously.

“Yes. I’m not the only one who has over time, but most of it is still left,” I said as I fished in my saddlebags and pulled out photographs taken of the vast hoard within the vault, tossing them across to Gideon. “I’m offering you all that remains, all that can be seen in those photos, if you sign this contract today on behalf of the Griffin Commonwealth.”

“What’s in this … ‘contract?’” Gideon asked suspiciously, still not reading it himself.

“Pleasure Coast will become a protectorate of the Griffin Commonwealth. They won’t have a vote in the Council of Marshals like a roost does, but you’ll be responsible for protecting them and they won’t pay taxes.”

“Is that all?” Gideon said mockingly.

“No, I said I was representing two parties,” I said, keeping a straight face. “The Griffin Commonwealth will also, now and forever, respect the independence of the settlement of Duskshore.”

“Yes, your own little commune, Marshal,” Gideon sneered. So, he had heard about it, and as I’d predicted, was not happy. “Anything else you want? The moon on a platter, perhaps?”

“No, that’s it,” I said. “It’s all laid out in the contract in black and white. Sign it, and all the remaining wealth of Von Plume is yours.”

“Including the share in Pleasure Coast’s income?” Gideon asked.

“I’m afraid that’s already been promised to someone else. The mayor of Pleasure Coast will receive that. Part of a separate business agreement.”

“You really expect me to sign this contract? For what purpose?”

“Whatever your faults, Gideon, I know the one thing you could never do and remain grand marshal is to break a contract.”

“My fellow griffins might make an exception in this case,” Gideon said through gritted beak.

“I don’t think so,” I said confidently.

Morosely, Gideon flipped through the contract, skimming its contents. Between each page, his eyes darted to the gold, then up to me to see if I’d noticed, then back to the contract, his frown deepening each time.

“You found Von Plume’s treasure,” Gideon repeated his earlier question.

“That’s what I said, and I have demonstrated proof of it,” I said.

“Well, then,” Gideon said as he laid the contract aside and fixed me with a deadly look. “I could just as well extract the location of the treasure from you with or without this contract.”

“Unfortunately not. I don’t know where the treasure is,” I stated.

“But you just said you found the treasure,” Gideon fumed, his look becoming even more ominous.

“I did, but I don’t remember finding it. I anticipated you might try torture to get the information from me, so I did the only reasonable thing: I had all memory of finding the treasure removed from my mind. At least, that’s what she said I told her to tell me.”

“You’re lying. That’s impossible,” Gideon accused.

“Quite possible for a powerful enough unicorn. Lurk has happy to oblige,” I said.

“And you trust her?” Gideon snorted.

“Like I said, I have a separate business arrangement with Pleasure Coast,” I reminded him. “Now, are you going to sign?”

The grand marshal grumbled and stared daggers at me. However, his eyes kept fixing on the bar of gold on the table. I could see the glint in his eyes, and I knew. He’d complain, he’d threaten, he’d try to bargain and sidestep. In the end, however, Gideon would sign the contract and the grand marshals of the Commonwealth would abide by it because they were griffins, and griffins didn’t break contracts. Duskshore would be safe, and all it cost was all the wealth of the wealthiest griffin to ever live.

***

The memory orbs with my lost memories on them were waiting for me when I returned to Duskshore. After I recovered them, I gave Strake, who’d accompanied me on the journey, instructions on where to find the vault. He seemed loyal enough to Gideon to follow his orders of returning immediately to the grand marshal without reading the instructions, but there was always the chance that he’d try to skim a little for himself. I had no idea how Gideon intended to retrieve the treasure without losing portions to whoever he hired, but that was his problem now. Whatever happened, I’d fulfilled my end of the bargain and the fate of Von Plume’s treasure was out of my hooves. Not that the treasure itself was out of my hooves entirely, as I learned when I regained my memories. After brokering my deal with Pleasure Coast, Rael and I had made one more trip to the vault to take away a small fortune for the purpose of helping Duskshore survive, especially now that its population had grown so much. The Steel Rangers were settled in by the time I returned to the town, which I expected. What I hadn’t expected to see was the large number of pegasi wearing the colors of the Dashite Enclave.

“Mereskimmer, what are you doing here?” I asked when I found her, out of her armor for once, directing other uniformed pegasi on where to get settled.

“Some of us have decided to come live here in your town, Doc,” she said as she turned to me.

“I hope you don’t find this rude, but … why?” I asked. “What about New Pegasus?”

“New Pegasus no longer welcomes us,” Colonel Flitter answered as she stepped through the door Mereskimmer had been standing in front of, and the captain saluted her. “With the death of President Snowmane, a presidential election had to be held. Colonel Ravine died in the Battle of Griffonstone, so I was well outvoted on the Executive Panel. Fairweather is President of New Pegasus now, and she’s taking a hard line. I was removed from the Executive Panel and removed from active duty. They’re trying to find scapegoats to blame for the loss of the president and the Zephyrus and consolidate power in what’s left of the city. Some of us decided we had better get out before things hit the proverbial fan for us.”

“Well, you’re welcome here,” I said. “And with even sytheqs, it looks like we have ponies and griffins from just about everywhere in the Commonwealth.”

My attention had been drawn to a small group of ponies, several identical and all wearing Consortium jumpsuits, who were wandering through Duskshore.

“They’re not here to stay,” Mereskimmer informed me. “We encountered some of the syntheqs on the way here. It’s something new they’re trying, going out into the Commonwealth to learn after being isolated under their mountain for so long.”

“Well, I’m sorry for what happened with New Pegasus. Hopefully you’ll be able to return home someday.”

“Our ancestors came to this land from Equestria. We’ve changed homes before,” Flitter replied. “Even without the syntheqs here on a permanent basis, you’ve gathered quite a collection of individuals here, Doc. Well done for you.”

“I think, finally, I’ve found the place I can rest,” I said, and contemplated all I’d lost. “Celestia knows I need it.”

***

The following weeks were fortunately uneventful. The warlords of Castoway seemed, for the moment at least, content to leave our settlement alone. Grand Marshal Gideon honored the contract, letting both Pleasure Coast and Duskshore be. The Steel Rangers and their memory melted away. Their defeat had allowed the scavengers to recover their road-beasts, and they were constantly pulling up outside the settlement to sell what they’d scavenged in the wastes or trade items between Pleasure Coast and Duskshore. Autumn turned to winter, but on the southern coast we didn’t really notice, other than to watch the snowline creep down the mountains to the east. Things were peaceful and quiet, but unlike every other time I’d tried to settle down, nothing shattered the tranquility and called me to action. The new year was rapidly approaching, and I was trying to think of what gift I could give Rael, when Giacomo burst breathlessly into the town hall.

“What is it, Giac?” I asked with concern.

“I don’t know, really. The ghouls who were out scavenging off the coast said they felt vibrations in the water,” the sheriff replied. “Something’s coming this way.”

I pulled on my distinctive coat from the Castle, patched with what was left of the doctor’s coat I’d gotten in Stable 85, and followed him outside. Others followed, intrigued by what had gotten Giacomo so out of sorts, as he led me to the bluff that overlooked the ocean. It seemed the ghouls who had reported the disturbance to him had also been free in spreading the word to others, for a small crowd had gathered by the time we arrived. I could make out a slight bit of movement in the distance and brought my monocular up to my eye to get a better look. A badly worn conning tower was poking up out of the waves.

“Could it be?” I asked myself quietly, but Giacomo turned to me with interest, nonetheless.

The disturbance increased as the submarine continued to rise out of the water while advancing, revealing the long body of the Red Harvest. I was looking forward to speaking to Captain Zaliski about his travels and hearing what he had learned from Equestria, and then the conning tower opened. My breath caught in my throat as a frizzy bronze mane emerged, followed by a yellow-coated body. Zaliski followed, but my eyes didn’t seem to notice him as Sage climbed down onto the zebra submarine’s hull to look ahead as it cut through the water toward the shore, toward me, wind whipping her mane and tail. After all I’d been through and all I’d witnessed in my nearly two years in the Griffin Commonwealth, I still thought it was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.

As for what happened after. Well, that’s a story whose details I’ll keep just for me and my family.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: The Greatest Adventure – Live your life.
Alchemistry +3 (71)
Barter +9 (150) [Max Level Reached]
Medicine +2 (135)
Pilot +8 (57)
Science +8 (140)
Speech +3 (150) [Max Level Reached]
Survival +8 (136)

Epilogue

Epilogue: Fifty Years Later

… I still thought it was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.

The pen paused in Doc’s griffin talons, hovering over the page. Setting it down on the desk, flipped through the remaining pages of the book, the few there were that remained blank, before bringing them back to where he’d left up. He took the pen back up, then with a small smile began to write again.

As for what happened after. Well, that’s a story whose details I’ll keep just for me and my family.

The elderly pony gave out a long sigh of relief as he set the pen down with finality. It had taken him years, but he’d finally managed to complete his account of those first two eventful years of his life spent in the Griffin Commonwealth. No small part of the process had involved him relearning to write, since he now had to control writing implements with his claws rather than levitating them. Then it had taken a long time to get all his thoughts and recollections in order and put them into words. That, alongside all the other events of life. Nothing as tumultuous as his life since leaving Stable 85, but hectic in its own way. Almost mundane, though probably not exactly as things had been before the Last Day. After all, it was a post-megaspell world he lived in.

Once he was certain the ink was dry, Doc closed the book and ran his hoof over the cover. Rael never could have guessed what Doc would do with the journal he’d given him that first New Year’s they’d celebrated together—when they still barely knew each other, it seemed now. Rising creakily, Doc took up the journal and carried it over to his bookshelf, sliding it in with the other random books and bric-a-brac that had collected there over the years. He wasn’t sure why he’d been compelled to put his experiences to paper, but he hoped someone might read it in the future. Perhaps it was self-conceit, but he thought the chance someone would want to learn how things had been back then and what the first marshal of Duskshore had done and thought about them was quite good. He only hoped they didn’t make a religion out of it. These days especially, Doc felt he could understand Rok better than he ever had before.

“Grampa, Grampa!” a lavender-coated unicorn filly with a curly golden mane shouted as she burst in through the door. “You gotta come see!”

“What do I ‘gotta come see?’” Doc asked as he trotted away from the bookshelf and toward the filly.

“I dunno, but Gramma said you’d wanna see!” the filly proclaimed.

“Hey, no fair!” a white-coated pegasus colt with swept-back blue mane shouted as he too burst through the door, tiny wings flapping frantically to hold him above the ground. “You can’t just poof around with your magic to get here first!”

“What’s happening, Zest?” Doc asked the colt while the filly stuck her tongue out at her brother.

“I dunno, something about E-kes-tri-a,” Zest replied, sounding out the word.

“Equestria,” Doc corrected him gently.

“Yeah! Everypony’s gathering atop the mooring tower,” Zest reported.

“Race you back there!” the filly challenged before her horn lit up and she vanished in a pop of light and sound.

“Hey!” Zest shouted and shot toward the door before pausing in the frame and looking back at Doc.

“I’m coming,” Doc assured him, and the colt zipped out of sight.

Doc cantered out the door after Zest, stepping into Duskshore and trotting along the street. It had sure grown a lot in the last half century, though nowhere near the rate it had in those first days. Ponies and griffins had come and gone, but most came to stay. News of a settlement with guaranteed independence from the Commonwealth’s grand marshals drew attention. Most of the Steel Rangers had returned to Trottingham and succeeded in their revolution to institute more benevolent rule of the Isles, though a few still remained. They’d taken to adding red paint to their armor recently and calling themselves “Applejack’s Rangers” instead, which Doc had gathered was due to a schism across all Ranger contingents in Equestria. The troubles going on there were distant to the ponies and griffins of Duskshore.

On his way to the mooring tower, Doc couldn’t avoid passing the large Church of Rok that had been constructed shortly after the town’s founding. Though it seemed Rael tried to avoid it, there was no stopping his religion’s leadership from frocking him, ending his time as an acolyte, and making him a full preacher. Apparently they’d approved of him changing his mission to leave Moonraze and follow Doc and were happy with the results. When he preached in Duskshore, he often included references about his time traveling with Doc in the Commonwealth alongside the words of Rok. The griffins, and even some ponies now, who came to listen to him had nothing but praise for his approach.

Alongside the Church of Rok was the synth mission, a simple structure that housed the pondroids and griffdroids who visited Duskshore and studied the way of life of “the organics,” as they called the flesh and blood beings they were based on. “Young” synthetics, some of them looking older even than Doc did now, would come to Duskshore to learn how they lived here, part of the Consortium’s program to acclimate to the Commonwealth (rather than impose themselves on it) through information and technology sharing. It was rather like what young Rokkists went through, but that wasn’t a topic that was often brought up in Rael’s presence. In addition to themselves, the synths brought other useful things to the town. A novasurge reactor now provided Duskshore with all the electricity it could ever need, and MEIRPAL emplacements at the edge of town disabused raiders or the warlords of Castoway from thinking they would be easy pickings.

At last, Doc reached the mooring tower and began climbing the switchback stairs to the top. He was getting old, no denying that. He’d have taken those stairs two at a time during the battle with the Steel Rangers here, but now he puffed after the first few flights and his joints ached. Especially tender was the connection between his prosthetic arm and his flesh, which seemed more and more tenuous as of late. Summer Sunrise assured him it was normal, that his flesh just wasn’t regenerating at the same rate as before and the graft with the prosthetic was a weaker connection. It was a limitation of even Wartime technology, but Doc still hated the thought that one day his arm could be unusable, little more than a peg to hold him up.

Several members of Doc’s family were gathered at the top of the tower, as he saw when he reached it at last. Zest and his sister Peaches, of course, but also their parents: Headwind and Doc’s daughter Flaring Sparks. His son Stardust was there too, but no sign of the rest of the family. At the edge of the platform, looking through the telescope that been installed there, was Sage, and she looked back at Doc with moist eyes before stepping aside to let him take a turn.

Cautiously, Doc looked through the telescope, out across the ocean’s waves. At first, he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to be looking at, and then it hit him. The cloud cover was gone. He’d been so accustomed when staring out through this telescope to seeing the constant blanket of clouds that shadowed Equestria, but now it simply wasn’t there. It its place, he could barely make out the remainder of a multicolored aura fading away into nothingness. Speechless, he stepped back from the telescope.

“What does it mean?” Flaring Sparks asked her parents. “What are we looking at?”

“I think,” Doc said, and the corners of his mouth curved into a slight smile, “it’s the end of somepony else’s story.”

Introduction

War … war has changed.

Despite the well-worn mantra to the contrary repeated throughout the Equestrian Wasteland, this is undeniable to anyone who has any knowledge of the past. Two centuries ago, the War consumed the nations of Equestria and the Zebra Empire; a century-and-a-half ago, that conflict ended with the destruction of society as we knew it. When spellfire rained from the sky, it forever changed war. Gone were the well-equipped armies of the past, serving mighty nations with inscrutable goals. Instead, war became improvised and immediate. Though gangs and warlords roam the wastes, accumulating power and raising death tolls, most ponies simply kill each other because they are angry, afraid, desperate, or simply bored.

I was born in a Stable, one of the secure bunkers created during the War to save pony life from extinction in the extreme (and ultimately inevitable) possibility that Equestria and the Zebra Empire would annihilate each other with megaspells. That, however, is a life I had no memory of until recently. I did not recall the razing of my home Stable by power-armored Steel Rangers, nor the harsh lessons taught by raiders and tyrannical settlements that turned me into Lord Lamplight—a pony devoted to rebuilding some semblance of society, no matter the cost. Whatever motivated my past self to wipe my own memories and release myself on the Wasteland to eventually fight against the Northern Lights Coalition I’d built, I can’t recall or understand … but that’s what happened. I was reborn as Doc, and I learned an entirely different set of lessons; ones that led me to form the North Equestrian Alliance from settlements, to oppose and destroy the NLC’s alliance of raiders. It was as close to a war as Equestria had seen since the War that had ended it all, yet it was fundamentally different.

War might have changed, but it did survive the end of the world, when so many other things did not. War, it seems, is a constant, inescapable and ever-present. This is as true across space as it is across time, as I would soon learn. In the aftermath of the conflict between the Northern Lights Coalition and the North Equestrian Alliance, it was discovered that Lamplight and I were one and the same. Mistrust grew, forcing me to go into a self-imposed exile. I travelled east and just kept going, trying to outrun my past, until I arrived in a distant land where ponies were in the minority, the sky was not obscured by a constant cloud ceiling, and the Equestrian Ministries had had no sway: the Griffin Commonwealth. And yet … war was waiting for me there as well.

Fallout: Equestria
Common Ground

Chapter 14: Return to the Coast

Chapter Fourteen: Return to the Coast

Welcome to Scenic Brittle Pass

It had been a long time since I’d last seen that sign; over four months had passed since I’d navigated Brittle Pass and evaded its vigilant robotic protectors. It had been early spring then; now it was late summer. I hadn’t noticed the heat up in the mountains, but during my trip back down through the valley, the weather had become increasingly warm. It was strange to see seasons changing when Equestria had been more or less static.

Getting overwarm in my jumpsuit and coat were the least of my worries right now, though. The Dogs of War had nearly caught me last time, and I’d only been saved by their sudden and inexplicable loss of interest. I’d destroyed one of them since then, but that had been with the aid of a smelting plant, which I wouldn’t have access to in Scenic Brittle Pass. Nor would I have a prayer at fighting more than one at once; unfortunately, they normally seemed to travel in packs. My best bet was going to be sneaking past them again, though that task was riskier than I’d previously thought. Now I knew all the pass’s automatons were able to communicate with the Dogs and potentially report on my whereabouts. I badly desired to go to the Rockfall Hotel and check if its maneframes were like the ones at Stalwart Steelworks. Doing so would be tantamount to suicide, however, since the Gabby concierge system would bring the cyberhounds down on me the moment I set hoof through the door.

With that thought in mind, I squeezed my way through the tangled wall of wrecked vehicles that closed off the eastern entrance to the pass and began my three-day journey to the other side. I couldn’t stay in the Rockfall Hotel this time, so I had to be on the lookout for places to hole up and sleep before nightfall, when the Dogs were most active.

A couple hours into the journey, I spotted a billboard that gave me an idea. “Flight Lessons Available” it read, with a faded map that pointed the way to an airstrip. After following the map to its destination, I was pleased to discover that the flight lessons had not required students to be born with wings. Brittle Pass had been a tourist destination during the War for griffins and ponies alike, and many businesses included accommodations for flightless patrons. Taking in the abandoned flight school, I noted a few badly decayed hoppers sitting in front of the small office and hangar. Upon examining them, it became apparent that even if I could get the engines running, the bodies wouldn’t stay together long enough to lift me far into the air. Fortunately, I found some hoppers in a better state residing in the hangar. With a little effort, I could get one of these going and fly over the Dogs of War instead of trying to sneak past them.

Using some tools stored in a back shed, I was able to make one of the hoppers workable, swapping any irreparable parts with working ones salvaged from other engines. The aircraft sputtered to life, and I let out a cry of joy before putting away the tools. I needed to take off quickly before any Dogs of War or other robots were drawn to the sound of the engine. I tossed my saddlebags on and jumped into the pilot’s seat just as the engine died. Everything seemed to be in working order, but I’d neglected one thing: it was out of fuel.

***

It was a tense journey back to the road in search of a petrol station. I spotted two Dogs of War restlessly patrolling on the way and had to remain hidden and very still until I was sure they’d gone. Once I did find a station, I nearly threw that success away in my eagerness to refuel and get out of there. A robotic attendant kept an eye on the pumps, suspending down from the overhang. I managed to stay out of its sight as I snuck behind the station and severed every wire I could find in the power box. That seemed to do the trick because the attendant was dead when I crept around to the front of the station.

I’d replaced my saddlebags with jerricans for the expedition and quickly set about filling them from the pumps. The attendant thankfully was not a vital part of the system, and I was able to fill up even with it deactivated. I was capping off the second container when the sound of metallic claws on asphalt pierced the air, belying the approach of a Dog of War. I scrambled toward the station’s store as fast as I could, leapt through a broken window, and hid beneath tipped-over shelves that had been emptied of their valuable contents ages ago.

I watched FITS as the Dog of War patrolled the exterior of the station, lingering around my abandoned jerricans and the disabled attendant. It then stalked to the back of the station, where the power box was located. I’d remembered to close it up, but the sound of wrenching metal alerted me that the cyberhound had clawed the cover off to examine the wires within. I kept my pistol from Stalwart Steelworks within reach as the Dog entered the store and plodded around, its bulk shifting the shelves I was hidden beneath as it brushed up against them. It stayed for far longer than was comfortable—I began to wonder if it was toying with me—but eventually it did go, leaving me drenched in sweat and unwilling to move until I was certain it was gone. My jerricans were still outside, and I made sure to pick them all back up before starting the trek back to the airstrip, praying I wouldn’t run into anymore Dogs of War on the way.

***

The Goddesses must have heard me because I was able to make it back to the airstrip without the smell of petrol drawing Dogs of War to my location or running into any on patrol. The hopper I’d fixed up was still where I’d left it, along with my saddlebags, but the cyberhounds had been here and torn through the hangar. Still nervous from the encounter at the station, I kept a wary eye out and on FITS as I filled up the hopper’s fuel tank. The rest of the day passed mercifully undisturbed, and the sky was turning deep orange and purple with the sunset as I stowed my saddlebags and yanked on the hopper’s starter.

The engine puttered to life, but I gave it a second before I climbed onto the seat this time. As I settled in and grasped the controls, one with my claw and one with my magic, EFS lit up with hostile marks. In the distance, I spotted Dogs of War loping toward me from all directions. They’d probably arrived at the airstrip and fanned out to search after finding nopony there, but now that I’d fired the engine up again, they were converging on the sound. I engaged the rotor and the hopper lifted jerkily off the ground. I pushed the engine to its limit to ascend more quickly as the Dogs grew closer and began to shift into their attack configurations. Bullets and streams of magical energy ripped through the air as I maneuvered the hopper in an unpredictable pattern (mostly because I had no idea what I was doing). I clung tightly to the seat to keep from falling out, but it was touch and go for a few minutes. Eventually I was high enough that I was beyond the Dogs of War’s range, and they stopped firing at me. Now all I had to do was fly the hopper through a mountain pass in the dark. No problem.

***

Miraculously, I did manage to make it through Brittle Pass unscathed, at least in the sense of not crashing into anything. It was a tense and tiring night, navigating entirely by my PipBeak’s map and flashlight, and the seat of the hopper was not terribly comfortable. As nice as taking a break would’ve been, I never dared stop for fear that the Dogs of War would converge on me in the dark and tear me apart. Even when Celestia’s sun rose again, I never landed on the floor of the pass. There were plenty of structures built out from the cliffs and mountain peaks that I was now able to access. A good amount of them weren’t occupied by raiders, so I was able to land safely and refuel when the hopper’s engine ran low.

By the following afternoon, I was through Brittle Pass and landed to rest, for my own sake and the hopper’s. Although it was a decent machine, it had been pretty worn out even before being left to sit for over a century and wasn’t going to last much longer. Still, I intended to keep it going as long as possible and repaired whatever I could without spare parts on hoof before going to sleep for the night.

The following morning, I was able to get the hopper back into the air again and flew north. I wanted to see Gabby of Greta’s Grenadiers again and talk to her after having visited the griffin capital and meeting Grand Marshal Gideon in the flesh. As I approached the lodge where the mercenary company was based, I was met by a horrendous sight. The lodge was gone; apart from the stone foundations of some of the buildings, nothing remained. All the rest had been burned down, and there were signs of a fight. Hesitantly, in case there was a trap waiting for anyone foolish enough to land here, I set the hopper down and trotted into the ruins.

Walking through what remained of the lodge, it wasn’t difficult to figure out what had happened. The bullet impacts and magical energy scorches on the stones told the tale, along with the large claw marks in the ground and through the flesh of the dead griffins lying around. There weren’t many remains of Greta’s Grenadiers; they’d obviously died months ago, killed by Dogs of War. I wondered if this is where the cyberhounds had all gone when I’d escaped Brittle Pass months ago. The timeline would line up. But what had caused the Dogs to leave the pass and attack griffins when they usually stayed cooped up? I had a theory in the works, but to prove it, I’d have to visit Rest ‘n’ Go.

***

It was nearing evening by the time I arrived at the hotel-turned-town. I’d been delayed by burying the bodies of the griffins I could find in the lodge’s ruins. I wasn’t sure if that was the griffin tradition, but I couldn’t bring myself to just leave them out in the open, where anything could find them. The hopper had taken me most of the way to the settlement but had sputtered to a halt a good hour away, and I hadn’t been able to get it started again. I came into Rest ‘n’ Go on hoof, once again an earthbound creature.

“You’re back. I thought you were dead,” an elderly griffin said grouchily as I trotted into town.

“Thanks, Hans,” I replied. I’d learned well on my last visit here that there was no pleasing him.

“What he means to say is that we were worried you hadn’t made it,” his granddaughter said as she stepped out of their home. “When Greta’s Grenadiers were here, Gabby said that you were planning to traverse Brittle Pass. And without wings, well…”

“I know, it was a risk, but I made it through,” I replied, then grew more serious. “How long after I left did Greta’s Grenadiers get here to kill the Dog of War?”

“Oh, I think it was three days,” Gladys said as she tried to recollect. “They did a lot of setting up after they got here and negotiating with the town council, so they didn’t go up the mountain until the next day. Why?”

Four days after I’d left Rest ‘n’ Go, Greta’s Grenadiers had killed the Dog of War. That lined up with when the automatons had suddenly turned back from attacking me and headed west. Even without concrete proof, I felt sure I was right. After they’d killed a second Dog of War at the Greenbush Agriculturum, the robots had taken it personally and decided to massacre the Grenadiers in their home. I don’t know what was more terrifying: that they’d climbed a sheer cliff to do it, or that they’d known exactly who to go after. I’d already killed one Dog of War; if I killed another, would I be hunted down as well?

“Have you been to see Greta’s Grenadiers recently?” I asked.

“Well, no, we don’t usually head out to speak with them, and they send somegriffin here to pick up the payments for their services,” Gladys said. “Though, come to think of it, I haven’t seen any of them recently come to collect.”

“I’m afraid the Dogs of War got them,” I said. Gladys gasped, and even Hans’s eyes went wide. “I passed by on the way here; they were all dead. Are any Dogs of War at the Greenbush Agriculturum now?”

“No, we haven’t seen any since …” Gladys said, still shaken. “Do you think they’ll come for us?”

“Not directly, no,” I said. “They’re protectors of robotics networks. I have an idea of how to keep them away from you, but I don’t think your town council will like it very much.”

***

I was right. The town council didn’t like my plan, but they begrudgingly admitted that keeping Dogs of War away from the town was worth the cost. The next day, I ascended the mountain alone to the Greenbush Agriculturum. The greenhouses bore a impact marks inflicted by the Grenadiers’ varied arsenal of heavy weapons, but otherwise it was the same as I remembered it. Robots trundled around planters, tending them with precision in a dance beyond mortal ken and generally avoided getting too near to me.

Without a Dog of War pursuing me this time, I was able to examine the Greenbush Agriculturum more closely, including the blocky building at its center. Behind a locked door in its basement were the maneframes that directed all the robots outside. I managed to hack into the maneframes with ease but there was a second, newer layer of security that was much harder to crack. Like at Stalwart Steelworks, it was more like pony code than griffin. Once I managed to break through the defenses and examine the code more closely, this became even more apparent. Now that I knew what to look for, it was even clearer here that RoBronco code had been injected into the maneframe by the Dogs of War; they’d taken over the network, co-opting the robots here to report to them.

If this network remained, a Dog of War would inevitably return to “protect” the robots from the griffins—so I set to work destroying the maneframes in both a digital and physical sense. The room was filled with smoking scrap after I was finished, and when I stepped outside all, the robots were lying on the ground, inert. The residents of Rest ‘n’ Go would have to do the work themselves now to keep the Greenbush Agriculturum fruitful, but that was the cost to keep the Dogs of War away.

***

Grand Imperial was my next stop on the journey back to the Pleasure Coast as I retraced my path into the Commonwealth. I had reason to stop here as well, besides just resupplying. Since I’d left, I’d run into two post-War religions: Rokkism and mythologism. I had the Book of Rok to give my insight into the former, but for the latter I’d need an expert who wouldn’t immediately try to kill me. Grand Imperial had just such an expert, even if the townsgriffins didn’t seem to care much for his research.

“You’re here,” Grant said with surprise as I trotted into the theater that had given the town its name. “You must tell me everything you saw in Moonraze!”

News of what had happened in the distant roost had traveled quickly, aided by the Commonwealth Crooner on Radio PC. It made sense that Grant’s first thought upon seeing me was that I could give him a firsthoof account about mythologism in action.

“I will,” I promised. “Before that, though, I was hoping you could teach me a little about mythologism. Sure, I was subjected to it, but you’re the expert.”

My acknowledgement of Grant’s expertise seemed to make the snowy griffin puff up with pride.

“Of course, of course, step into the theater,” he said as he gestured past the ticket stand where he'd set up his office.

The theater was well preserved, though seats had been detached from the floor in some places and the stage beneath the movie screen had been extended outwards. Apparently, the griffins of Grand Imperial used it as a meeting hall at times. Grant had vanished upon entering the cavernous room but I heard banging from the projection booth, so I found a seat and let my hooves rest. After a few minutes, the projector came to life and pre-show animated advertisements for peanuts and Ishtva’s Spring Water danced across the screen. Grant flapped down after lowering the lights and took a seat next to me.

“It’s hard to know exactly what mythology existed prior to the Zebra-Pony War, since griffins weren’t very good at preserving records back then, but from my research I’ve been able to determine that most of it was fabricated by the Commonwealth’s corporations during the conflict,” Grant began his lesson. “Every product had to have a mascot, and every mascot had to have a story. Where there wasn’t an existing figure, a new one was created and meshed into whatever mythology was there before. For a while, though, it was all very slapdash, and stories changed all the time. Then, film was created.”

Grant directed my attention to the screen, where the advertisements had ended and a title card had appeared. “Legend of Ishtva and Gorphus” the card read, before switching away to a shot of mountains. The film moved to a group of griffins on the heights wearing impractical robes and paused momentarily to throw up placards identifying each one.

“It was once companies started making movies with their mascots, depicting them as mythical figures, that things really took off. The stories were laid down and locked in as the definitive versions, which then spread out to the other forms of advertising,” Grant said. “Billboards, music, comic books, they all outright copied or pointed to the stories being told in the films. Then, with mergers and cross-promotions, the stories of different brands’ figures began to come together, and the overall story became even more solid.”

“The cinematic and advertising universe that was created survived even after the megaspells fell. Those whom we call mythologists today draw their religion from the advertisements of the Old World, seeing the mythology as history. They have a whole pantheon of gods drawn from the advertisements, but there are three they especially venerate. There’s Ishtva, Lady of the Heights, whose mastery of peaks and sky appeal to their pursuit of aerial supremacy and the construction of sky keeps. Borghan is the God of Death, Fury, and War, who they venerate for obvious reasons. And finally, Nurkoo, Lord of the Sea, though their relationship with him is more contentious since they believe he will one day flood the world and wash away the unworthy,” Grant continued. “Interestingly, the source of that idea is from a comic series that ended on a cliffhanger and was never completed due to the megaspells dropping. I actually have a mostly intact copy in my collection.”

“And their desire to prove who’s strongest and leave the weak behind?” I asked. “Where does that come from? Borghan?”

“No, it’s more of a general theme you can find throughout everything,” Grant waved my suggestion off. “Survival of the fittest and all that, which you can see through the evolution of the advertisements over time as companies, and thus their mascots, were killed off or subjugated.”

“Do they not realize where their beliefs are coming from?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m sure some do, but does it matter? Relics from the old world can be perceived differently depending on how you look at them. I’m sure if they knew what I had here in this theater, they’d see it as a holy shrine or else a ripe prize to be raided,” Grant said. “That’s a crash course in mythologism. Now, before we get into it more, I have some questions for you …”

***

Grant had plenty of questions all right, and I wasn’t able to answer all of them. I had spent most of my time in Moonraze in Downtown, working in the forges, so I hadn’t been able to get a good look at how the mythologists functioned in Uptown. I answered whatever I could and that seemed good enough for Grant, who was starved for any information on mythologism. He also seemed intrigued by the idea that mythologists still lived in Moonraze without ruling anymore, and I could tell he was thinking about taking a trip there despite never having gone too far from Grand Imperial his whole life.

I left Grand Imperial the next day and continued west, leaving the road to angle my course north. Before I returned to the Pleasure Coast, I had one more place to stop. Distribution Station 7, the first distribution station I’d activated, was spreading Radio PC across the Griffin Commonwealth, but when I’d been here before I hadn’t thought to tune it to spread Radio Free Wasteland as well. I was going to set that straight, even if the Commonwealth Crooner might not like competition on his airwaves over the Pleasure Coast. The station was free of raiders this time, though I had to fight off some extraordinarily large, mutated mosquitos before I could safely enter the control room.

“Gooooood evening, chiiiiiildren!” DJ Pon3’s voice erupted from the speakers in the control room as I tuned the station to begin the repeat.

The Pleasure Coast would now be graced by news not only of the Commonwealth but also of the Equestrian Wasteland. I didn’t know if anygriffin or anypony there would care, but I would. Finally, I’d accomplished what I’d set out to do when I’d left the Pleasure Coast. Radio Free Wasteland was now available all throughout the northern Griffin Commonwealth (apart from Shearpoint), and it had only taken me five months to do it.

Level Up
New Quest: What’s Next – You’ve accomplished your goal, so find something else to occupy yourself.
New Perk: Think Small Thoughts – +10 to Sneak when hiding from or evading Dogs of War.
Athletics +1 (35)
Barter +1 (109)
Electronics +4 (50)
Lockpick +2 (108)
Pilot +4 (30)
Repair +3 (110)
Science +1 (110)
Sneak +1 (112)
Survival +3 (57)

Chapter 27: The Broken Dam

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Broken Dam

A change had come over New Pegasus. When we’d been here before, the pegasi hadn’t seemed to care about the Steel Ranger invasion of the Commonwealth. Now, however, patrol flights came and went endlessly from the settlement. At first, I was a bit worried that fighting had reignited between the Dashite Enclave and the Consortium, but those fears proved to be unfounded. The relationship between the pegasi and the pondroids and scientists was still icy, but no longer overtly hostile. The rise in alertness was most likely caused by developments in the north.

Though the Commonwealth Crooner could no longer be viewed as reliable, his radio broadcasts were still the best way to gain news about what was going on in Pleasure Coast. (News about the rest of the Commonwealth was suspended while the Steel Rangers occupied the city and the Crooner’s contacts couldn’t reach him.) Despite the bias of his reports, information on the situation could be gleaned from them. The Steel Rangers had either completed their pacification of the coastal city or had succeeded enough that they were beginning to strike out into the Commonwealth. The patrols only reached the area immediately around Pleasure Coast so far, but the fact that they’d established it as a staging ground proved that they were capable of and willing to prosecute a larger campaign in the Commonwealth. Their full intentions had not been expressed in specifics, but the Dashites were right to be worried that the Steel Rangers would come for them.

The reason Rael and I had returned to New Pegasus rather than flying directly to Shearpoint now that we’d found von Plume’s treasure was twofold. The last time we’d been here, the rumors had been that a large number of ponies (ghoulified, most likely) had escaped Pleasure Coast and were congregating on the coast near Castoway. I wanted to see who had made it out, looking particularly for Summer Sunrise and those we’d had to part ways with in the tunnels beneath the city on our escape with Lurk. Flying directly there from von Plume’s vault would have taken us past Griffonstone and the ominous miasma that surrounded the split mountain, so we’d have had to detour anyway. While we were bending south, we might as well stop in New Pegasus and follow the Iron Valley to the coast.

The other reason for our indirect route was what I’d taken from von Plume’s vault. In addition to a pair of gold bars to prove the wealth of von Plume was real, I’d also taken the “Certificate of Inheritance”. Clearly, it was meant to serve as proof that its bearer had found the treasure and was entitled to it and the 5% share of income from every business in Pleasure Coast. The map on one side of the bizarre poker chip depicted a marked location in the city; presumably, this was where it needed to be inserted for whatever technology was within it to work. It might have just been a way to secure that share of income, but I held out hope that perhaps von Plume had included some other functionality in it—such as defenses for the city that might help see the Steel Rangers off. I was planning to sneak in and try it, if Pleasure Coast didn’t look too dangerous when we got there.

“Doc?” I heard the voice of Mereskimmer as I was concluding my purchase of microspark cells for my starscatter gun, and I turned to see the power armored pegasus standing in the street. “I should have known you’d be here in these times. Although, I’d more expect you to be in Pleasure Coast right now, trying to take on the Steel Rangers yourself.”

“Well, I’m working on it,” I admitted.

“Of course,” Mereskimmer said with what at first seemed to be amusement, but as she remained silent seemed to turn to melancholy. “If you would, take some advice. It is admirable to fight for others, but you cannot be everywhere. You cannot do everything. You cannot help everypony. If you continuously put yourself in harm’s way, eventually harm will find you; and the way that you comport yourself, that harm is nearly certain to be death. Take care, Doc. You have much more to give the Commonwealth than your death.”

“Believe me, I know,” I said, but even with her helmet closed, Mereskimmer looked skeptical. “I want to retire from all this business, but every time I try, something crops up. What am I supposed to do? Stand by and do nothing?”

“I understand,” Mereskimmer sighed. “It is difficult being unable to take action. The Dashite Enclave moves to a war footing, but our course remains uncertain. The Executive Council debates whether we should take offensive action and bring the fight to the Steel Rangers, or focus on securing our territory and wait for them to come to us.”

“The defensive posture didn’t serve you well in your war with the Consortium,” Rael pointed out, and Mereskimmer hmphed.

“But neither did the offensive option prove to be the right move in the end. You fought against it, even going to the President to stop it,” Mereskimmer mused. “We will fight the Steel Rangers, but when?”

“I don’t suppose I—” I started to offer, but Mereskimmer raised a hoof to cut me off.

“No,” she said, “I don’t think the Executive Council is ready to hear what you have to say.”

“Well, when the time is right, let me know,” I said. “You can find me fighting the Steel Rangers.”

“I have no doubt,” the pegasus said. “And Doc, remember what I said. Keep yourself safe.”

***

On our mission west through the Iron Valley, Rael and I didn’t stop … much. Usually it was just at night when we’d either camp where my hopper and Rael’s wings had taken us, or a settlement if one was handy. We had to refuel in settlements every so often, but other than that, there were only two other notable stops we made on our way to the coast.

The first was at the Castle, where I confirmed that the Dogs of War remained in place, they and the former Castle automatons keeping Orthros boxed up. The existence of the Castle, other than as a place nobody wanted to go, was fortunately not common knowledge and might have been safe from Steel Ranger attention. But for all I knew, they’d brought Equestrian records detailing locations of pony tech factories in the Commonwealth and would stop in, even if they didn’t know exactly what treasures—or horrors—were squirreled away here. I intended to keep it that way, and Rael and I made some minor alterations to the Dogs’ programming to prioritize defense against the Steel Rangers if they attempted to breach the Castle.

The other notable stop was Charity’s Reach. What I’d seen in the settlement the last time I’d visited had been unsettling, and both Rael and I wanted to see if the griffins had corrected things or if they’d gotten even worse. Unfortunately, as we approached, it seemed to be the latter. A high wall surrounded the town, with guards posted on top. The mandatory donation to enter town was even steeper than before, and the town guard who extorted it was even more forceful. A gloom like that over Griffonstone seemed to hang over the town, and I found myself wanting to be gone almost as soon as I’d entered.

I might have left immediately had it not been for the griffin who beckoned urgently from the shadows between rail cars as I passed by. He led Rael and me down the alley before ducking into a building constructed from cargo containers shoved against and stacked atop each other. Hesitantly I followed, wary of an ambush given that FITS showed a small crowd inside the building. I didn’t see any weapons among the griffins congregated within as I entered, but numbers weren’t on my side even if they were all unarmed.

“You’re Doc Silverarm, aren’t you?” asked the griffin who’d led us in from the street.

“I am,” I admitted. Clearly some in the Iron Valley had listened to Radio PC, making my efforts to spread it worthwhile.

“Are you here to help us?” another griffin asked, a hen with a very owlish look about her.

“I just thought I would see what’s going on. What happened to this place?”

“Priestess Giselda,” another griffin answered.

“She’s taken everything for the church,” another added, “Yet she gives us nothing in return, claiming it’s being ‘held in trust’ for good works when she deigns to do them.”

“And still she demands more,” the one who caught my attention originally said.

“Why don’t you refuse her?” I asked, fearing I knew the answer.

“All her tithes are mandatory now, and if we don’t give, she sends her enforcers to take it anyway and inflict punishment for uncharitableness,” a griffin said.

“Surely together you could all stand up to her,” I said.

“We couldn’t do that!” the owlish griffin said, looking scandalized. “She’s the priestess.”

“We wouldn’t dare act against her ourselves, but you could. Or you,” the first griffin said, referring to Rael. “A fellow preacher might be able to talk sense into her.”

“I’m not a preacher yet, just an acolyte,” Rael said sheepishly.

“But as an outsider, you might have a chance of convincing her to cease this madness,” the griffin said as he turned back to me.

“I don’t think so,” I said regretfully. “I already tried that the last time I was here, and she wasn’t receptive. I doubt she’ll be any more reasonable now. I might never have given that advice to Geraldine if I knew this was what it would lead to.”

“You acted with good intentions, and Geraldine used your advice for good; but Giselda has taken what was meant for good and turned it to evil,” the owlish griffin said.

“If you can’t stand up to Giselda, why not leave?” I asked.

“And go where?” a griffin in the back demanded.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “There are plenty of other towns in the Iron Valley alone, including some in the east that have lost lives and could use an influx of griffins. I think New Pegasus would welcome you.”

There was some grumbling about the idea of coming under pegasus leadership, but most of the noise coming from the group seemed to be indecipherable whispers.

“I’m sorry. I wish I could do more to help,” I said. “I should go.”

***

Many of the griffins of Charity’s Reach did end up leaving the town, but not how I’d expected. They caught up to Rael and me about a day and a half out, following us as a group. Well, following me, really. Somehow they’d gotten the idea that my travels would eventually lead them somewhere good and safe. Things must have been even worse than they’d admitted in Charity’s Reach if they considered following a pony who’d only lived in the Commonwealth a little over a year to be a preferable alternative. No matter how I tried to explain that my path led to conflict with the Steel Rangers in Pleasure Coast and I had no desire for followers, they wouldn’t go away.

I thought that maybe when we reached Castoway they would finally leave me and settle in the waterlogged city, but it turned out to be a vain hope. Daff was no help. Although she did agree the griffins could stay in her part of the city if they wished, she mostly just laughed at the situation I’d gotten myself into—leadership when I’d never wanted it, much like her. Her consolidation of power in Castoway seemed to be going well, though. Over half of the city was now controlled by her clique of freelancers, and she was at work clearing out or subjugating the remaining warlords. The griffins of Charity’s Reach could have joined her army, but none of them wanted to live in Castoway, so I was still stuck with them.

They were still following me when I reached another group of refugees. Those who’d fled Pleasure Coast and made it across the coastal wastes had not entered Castoway either, though I wasn’t sure whether that was by choice or because the ponies of Castoway didn’t want a sudden influx of ghouls and griffins. Instead, they’d settled to the north, at a point on the coast where the road and rails branched off. There was nowhere here for ships to dock, but it was a port all the same. A large warehouse and several smaller outbuildings were clustered around an airship mooring tower, presumably constructed as an alternative to Castoway before the infeasibility of transporting large amounts of cargo via airship to anywhere other than the roosts was realized.

There wasn’t much to the little settlement on the coast, since the Pleasure Coasters had fled without the chance to bring much with them. Many of them were ghouls, but there were also quite a few ponies and griffins. I was surprised by the latter since I expected griffins to head inland or to a nearby roost, but Pleasure Coast griffins were an independent lot, and heading inland might look too much like running to Grand Marshal Gideon and his Commonwealth. The refugees had managed to acquire weapons, but not nearly enough to arm everyone, though some of the ghouls seemed content enough to give up their firearms to the griffins from Charity’s Reach as they started to mingle. Despite surviving and escaping, there was a look of defeat about them, especially among the ghouls, who had never been terribly motivated to fight for their unlives to start with.

My impression from the refugee camp was generally not good. They had escaped, but a sense seemed to pervade that it was only a temporary reprieve. There was no aura of victory, and no clear idea of what to do next. Food was hard to come by, but nobody seemed interested in finding more to secure their futures. They were directionless, and that couldn’t lead anywhere good.

“Doc!” Summer Sunrise called out to me as I rounded the mooring tower. I was glad to see he was still alive, or as alive as a ghoul could be considered.

“I’m glad you made it,” I said as he trotted up. “I wasn’t expecting so many to have made it out.”

“Pleasure Coast is a big city,” he said, leaving unsaid that there were many more who hadn’t escaped the Steel Ranger occupation. “If y’re here, I take it y’r audience wi’ th’ grand marshal di’n’t go well.”

“He wouldn’t lift a claw to help,” I grimaced. “But I have a plan to change his mind.”

“Don’t you always?” Summer Sunrise asked rhetorically.

“What’s going on here?” I asked, but before the ghoul doctor could give me the lowdown, the wind shifted and the sound of thrumming propellors caught everyone’s attention.

Several griffins lifted off, and I ran to climb the mooring tower. Rael and Summer Sunrise followed, until we were a couple of floors up and could see out over the surrounding outbuildings. Coming from the north was a Steel Ranger airskiff.

“They’ve come t’ finish us off,” Summer Sunrise said under his breath.

“Rael! Fly back to Castoway as fast as you can and get Daff!” I ordered the startled griffin. “Her army’s guns may be the only thing that can chase the Steel Rangers off.”

“Right!” Rael said before taking off for the south, simple robes flapping and the symbol of Rok around his neck swinging wildly as he spun in midair.

“And th’ rest o’ us?” Summer Sunrise asked once Rael had gone. “I admire y’r spirit, but w’ can’t beat ‘em, Doc, and they’re not goin’ t’ wait ‘til reinforcements get here t’ attack.”

“No, we can’t beat them,” I admitted as I checked my weapons. “But we can slow them down, make them hesitate, give Daff time to get here. There won’t be very many in that skiff, and while we probably wouldn’t be able to defeat them even with Daff’s help, we can scare them enough that they reconsider risking detaching from the Indefatigable to hunt you down and head back north. It won’t be an unconditional victory, but it’ll be a victory on our terms, and that’s good enough for now.”

I hadn’t realized how loud I’d been speaking to Summer, but it had been loud enough to draw the attention of the others around us. My little impromptu speech seemed to have done some good. No longer did all the ponies and griffins look ready to run, and many had even started to look determined to fight. Well, that was good enough for now, too.

I found myself in charge of getting everyone lined up and ready to fight, positioning ponies and griffins in advantageous places. The airskiff certainly seemed to be coming right for us, but for all I knew, they were just scouting out Castoway and had no idea that the refugees from Pleasure Coast were here. Everybody was to remain hidden until it was clear that the Steel Rangers were prepared to attack. Not that we’d actually be hidden from the Eyes-Forward-Sparkle spell built into their armor, but hopefully they at least wouldn’t know who was here and would pass by.

Either who was here was already known or didn’t matter to them, for the airskiff slowed to a halt over the yard without mooring itself. The deck-mounted guns perforated the roof of the warehouse while a Steel Ranger squad began to descend on cables. Casting ERSaTS, I fired up at the mechanisms holding the cables, as did other sharpshooters concealed in other outbuildings. It took several shots from my battle rifle, including several misses, but I was successful in breaking one of the cables. The Steel Ranger attached to it fell from a height that even his ancient armor wasn’t guaranteed to save him from. He did manage to survive it, landing heavily and cracking tarmac, as did another Steel Ranger that was shot down, but a third who had her cable broken landed on her neck and didn’t get up.

Bullets, grenades, and missiles flew through the air as the two grounded Steel Rangers opened up on us Their companions soon joined them, landing safely and allowing the cables to rise back to the deck to lower more Steel Rangers. I tried to stay on my hooves, constantly moving as I shot back, but the weapons the Rangers used had broad effects; they only needed to aim in generally the right direction to hit their targets. I used my magic to teleport me out of the way of anything certain to seriously wound or kill me and cast ERSaTS whenever I needed an extra burst of speed to escape or an opportunity to get in a hit.

My weapons (and those of the Pleasure Coasters and Charity’s Reachers) were largely ineffective against the Steel Ranger armor, but bit by bit, we might chip them down or get lucky. One shot I made during ERSaTS hit the missile of a Steel Ranger while it was still leaving the rack and caused an explosive chain reaction that took out the entire left side of his armor. Another desperate shot with Big Iron when a Steel Ranger and I were nearly face to face managed to punch through his helmet’s eye lens and drop him permanently.

However, those were the exceptions, and mostly I just tried to stay alive long enough for help from Castoway to come. I found cover whenever possible, but as the fight went on, there was increasingly less of it around. Steel Ranger missiles and grenades flattened buildings, and sustained fire from their miniguns chewed through even concrete walls given enough time. I had to make my own cover multiple times, conjuring up a shield spell to save myself or another fighter who was in harm’s way. The spell was effective at stopping bullets for a bit, and it even dissipated explosions, though incompletely; whoever was behind it was still blown back even if they were safe from fragmentation. The spell was also draining, and I could feel my magical reserves slipping away, something I’d never really had to think about before.

As I’d surmised, there wasn’t a large force of Steel Rangers aboard the skiff, but there were still more than we could possibly deal with alone. None of our weapons had much impact on them, or on the skiff, which I thought would be key to convincing them to retreat. Not that we wanted to bring the skiff down, since that would just strand the Steel Rangers here with us. But, if we could do enough damage to it that they feared losing it, that just might convince them to limp back to the Indefatigable and leave us alone. We had enough trouble just damaging the Steel Rangers on the ground, though. Grenades were mildly effective, but what I wouldn’t give for some metal zap apples, or the novasurge grenades that the Dashite Enclave and the Consortium had.

While I was bemoaning our lack of effective weaponry, I was pulling up shield after shield to deflect the shots of a Steel Ranger crusader’s grenade launcher minigun to protect myself and a ghoulified pegasus mare missing one her wings.

“Ah, so you are the magic one,” the Steel Ranger’s speakers crackled as she ceased firing at us.

We both tried to run, taking advantage of the Steel Ranger’s unexpected pause. As I turned back just before slipping around the warehouse, which had fallen in on one side due to the fighting, the Steel Ranger produced a transparent orb filled with shadows and crackling orange energy from her armor’s compartments and threw it at me. By instinct more than anything else, I summoned a shield. At first, I thought I’d simply reached my magical limit, but later I’d learn better. The orb passed right through the shield and landed at my hooves, shattering and releasing a wave of energy that pulsed over me.

Three things happened at once. My magical shield immediately collapsed, disintegrating into sparkling mist. My starscatter gun failed to levitate, the glow of my grip around it dissipating and allowing it to clatter to the ground. Those both seemed minor events compared to the third thing that befell me. All my wounds from the fight that I’d mended with healing potions or spells opened back up and I stumbled to the ground, blood seeping from a dozen holes. I tried to reach for the healing potions that remained in my saddlebags, but I could feel nothing; no magic.

“That’s the end of that, unicorn,” the Steel Ranger said as she loomed over me and then stamped down with a heavily armored hoof on my horn.

It was with a grinding agony that I felt the bone snap a third of the way up its length from my skull. However, there was no magical discharge as there had been when the Dogs of War had broken my horn. The Steel Ranger had taken all my magic away, I hoped temporarily, but with this injury, perhaps permanently. That wasn’t foremost in mind at the moment, for the breaking of my horn was not the only new injury inflicted on me. As the Steel Ranger’s hoof came down, it continued to carry my horn with it, and the point impaled my right eye. I screamed at the pain, something I was still capable of doing without magic; perhaps the only thing right now.

Everything was so hot and cold and dark and bright at the same time. I was having trouble focusing myself through the pain and the welling blood. I had the sense that the Steel Ranger was still looming over me, ready to finish the job, but I never got to see it. My mind mercifully fled from consciousness before the fatal blow was dealt.

[Max Level Reached]
New Quest: Broken – Put yourself back together … however you can.
New Trait Added: One-Eyed – You’ve lost an eye, which has a profound impact on your ability to perceive by sight. -3 to Perception and -50% to all skills that rely upon visual perception.
New Trait Added: Broken Horn – A unicorn’s pride is their horn, and how they channel their magic, but yours has been broken. Magic is now extremely difficult for you to control, even simple and instinctual spells such as levitation. You will often be unable to cast any spells and risk a magical explosion if you do succeed in channeling magic. -90% to all Magic skills and -75% to any non-Magic skill that you rely on levitation for.
Perception -3* (3)
Alteration Magic +4 -42** (5)
Athletics +4 (53)
Barter +2 (127)
Big Guns -65** (21)
Enchanting -31** (3)
Energy Weapons +4 -55* -41** (14)
Explosives +3 -60* -46** (15)
Illusion Magic -37** (4)
Lockpick -89** (29)
Manipulation Magic +4 -50** (5)
Medicine +2 (129)
Melee Weapons -80** (27)
Pilot +6 -40* (41)
Repair +1 (126)
Small Guns +1 -75* -56** (19)
Sneak +2 (120)
Speech +3 (131)
Survival +5 (117)

*One-Eyed
**Broken Horn