Fallout Equestria: The Ajax Directive

The blind joy I had when initially stepping into the cave gradually dissolved. Two concerns stood out in my mind. 'What if part of this tunnel had collapsed?' and 'What if, at the end of the tunnel, Gleaming Ether or Water Margin showed an interest in going into their basement?' For the former, it would be a fitting frustrating end to a series of failures with sinking hooks into the village. For the latter, while I did have a pipe rifle with a dozen pre-loaded bullets, and a single grenade, I was also carrying the burning wax tray in my mouth. Switching over wouldn't be the easiest trick, and my best hope would have to be extinguishing the flame quickly and hiding in the dark.

Taking my mind off of those concerns, my eyes drifted over the walls and ceiling of the cave. Roughly every 8 feet or so I could see beams of old wood wrapping around the entire circumference, small metal plates and nails keeping their awkward shape and support together. Sometimes it would come off almost square, in other places it would be hexagon, octagonal or...whatever the word was for 13 sided shapes. The beam structures ran across the ground as well. If I wanted to try and run for any reason, my pace would have to be limited to a brisk trot with the constant tripping hazard.

My only company was the echoes of my own hoof-falls against the ground, whenever the loose dirt was thin enough that it was clopping off the stone and packed dirt beneath. On occasion, it seemed like I could hear the sound of wind behind me, faint but just enough to distract me. To top the entire experience off, the tunnel was not nearly as level as I had originally thought, gradually dropping deeper and deeper into the earth as it went along.

In other words, it was eerie.

The distance between the village and the long-hidden building that I came through wasn't long, and should have been a straight shot. Which is why I was more then a little bit surprised when the tunnel suddenly veered off to the right just after leveling off it's descent. If the candle wasn't in my mouth, a simple 'what' probably would have emanated from my mouth. Turning to follow it, about fifty feet down it veered left. Then left a second time another fifty feet after that.

The most frustrating moment, however, was when the tunnel's direction split in two another fifty feet later. In frustration I narrowed my brow, before turning my head right and left down the perpendicular path. If I bothered to stick with basic directions and distances, heading left would lead me only fifty feet, at most, until I met a wall. The wall that also ended the initial direction of the cave. Right would put me back on the path toward the village. With the question pre-answered, I decided to head right.

This direction stalled out and in a very confusing way. I had gone maybe 100 feet, having started to lose count of my hoofsteps just before the change in scenery. For one, the section of cave directly infront of me didn't come to an end, I could see a continuation. But the floor did. I peered over the gap, looking down at a straight drop into the black abyss that even the burning wax-light couldn't cut through.

The second change was a large box, about six feet across, four feet wide and two feet high. My path toward the basement obstructed by a simple lack of floor, I instead decided to investigate this. Setting the wax plate aside, I squatted a bit to get a look at the large box's handle. A single lock stared back at me through the wax light. Setting the tray down beside me, I pulled out the box of extra heavy bobby pins and the screwdriver, lining the tools up and preparing for what would likely be a long slog and lots of busted pins. Thankfully, the box posed no such threat, and I was pleasantly award by a simple two-pin lock that very willingly slipped into place and unlocked with just the slightest pressure. I could feel the edges of a grin overtake my mouth. Quickly placing my tools back in my satchel, my hooves raced to the edge of the box and I flipped it open.

Guns. A solid dozen rifles, slotted by the ends of their barrels and the stocks in wooden divots, lined the case. They were the exact same type of rifles that I had been told to disassemble and reassemble hours before the failed re-marking, the same type that I had seen everypony in this town using up to now. I reached down, carefully picking up one of the rifles between my hooves and giving it a lookover. The overall size was roughly the same as the pipe-rifle I already held. Unlike the pipe-rifle I already held though, the trigger was large and designed for hoof usage rather then the side-jutting mouth trigger of the pipe-rifle. But handling either of them would still expose my underside. Either way, comparing the circumstances the night before with aiming the pipe-rifle, and this older but better constructed piece, the pipe gun felt lighter to hold while this felt more comfortable, outright familiar. One other significant difference was a lever on the outside of the rifle, which judging by the words 'single, double, auto' referred to the rate of fire. If only it had a sling, so I could carry it without worrying about it taking up space in my satchel, which was now starting to feel small compared to everything I was carrying in it.

Noticeably, I didn't see any extra ammunition lying around in side the chest. Setting the rifle down on the corner of the chest, I pulled out the magazine that was already slotted in. To my pleasant surprise, it had a capacity more then twice that of the pipe-rifle I currently had, small open slots on the magazine and numbers that had been raised-stenciled next to it counting from five to 25, compared to the mere dozen my current weapon's magazine could hold. Unfortunately though, there was only a single bullet inside. “What the-” I moved to a second rifle, removing it's magazine as well, revealing a paltry two bullets. The third one held nothing.

By the time I went through all 12 magazines, my searching awarded me with a grand total of six bullets. “Why would you have more guns then ammunition?” I mused to myself outloud, before something else in the chest caught my eye. A pair of folders, leaning against the left wall. Setting the gun to the side, I pulled them out, hoping to find anything of interest.

Ministry Of Wartime Technology

This shipment of AK-119 rifles will contain the first twenty of approximately eighty total crates. As agreed, we have stripped all the customization from the rifles and standardized everything back to mass-produced parts.

Your request on battle performance is limited by M.W.T. Legal requirements. However, a brief summary follows.

The AK-119 was the second mass-produced semi-automatic rifle to enter service, seeing heavy use during Equestria's various incursions into the Zebra homelands. The base was inspired by first-generation Zebra Type 93s, which were quickly noted to have superior stability and accuracy while matching Equestrian first generation AR-77s. Converting the Type-93 to Equestrian standards proved difficult due to requirements changing year on year, but by the sixth year of the war we were able to mass produced AK-119s. Regrettably, the biggest advantages in stability and accuracy could only be partially replicated in the transition to type 5.56 ammunition instead of the original Zebra 5.45, and we can only reason that this is due to Zebra biology enabling better upright stance then the less balanced Pony upright stance, but this issue is non-existent when being handled by unicorns.

The biggest fault lay with being so focused on stability and accuracy to save on ammo that we failed to capitalize on other developmental trends that were emerging in the second hand market. The AK-119 saw fair performance in the battlefield when stock, but smoother triggers, scopes instead of ironsights, foldable stocks, customizable muzzle breaks, slings, and rate-selector guards, all contributed to improved performance in the battlefield, but after the internal purges by Ministry Mare Applejack last year it was decided that it would be better to develop the next rifle, the AK-992, rather then redesign the same weapon against advances in Zebra armor plating. Now as we conclude the Nineteenth year of this conflict we can proudly say that all AK-119's in the field have been exchanged for AK-992s.

We are glad to support you in your services in the M.A.S.'s 'Advanced Society' project and protection against internal Zebra threats and any traitors within your ranks.

Lemon Cupcake

M.A.W. Equestrian Logistics Director

That was a lot of nothing. Still, I couldn't help but stick the folder, with it's single-sheet of paper, inside my satchel. I pulled out the second one, hoping this would have something with a bit more use.

After Ministry Mare Ether demanded that we finish inspecting the rest of these caves, we regret to say that these can only be used in case of an emergency escape. The tunnel is laid out in an almost maze-like sequence, and while most, but not all, of the traps have already been triggered in the proceeding years, there is a very serious risk of stumbling upon mutated creatures in an environment that massively favors them, as any attempt to bring light down into these tunnels only seems to attract them. This totally ignores the parts of the tunnels that require specialized cranks to navigate through, and only Pegasi seem to be able to fly across such gaps.

The best news is that outside of a few rooms, the majority of these caves have remained dry. This means that the extra weapons stored down here have been able to stay dry, and while we've taken every chance to avoid wasting ammunition even on the creatures down here, we have had to fire at least 15 rounds, and have not dealt with any of the bullets being inert, and in the same vein, none of the rifles down here have shown any evidence of rust or decay, though we have only fired two thus far.

In addition to the weapons that were collected from ponies' personal homes fifty years ago that are kept in the water room, we are looking at roughly 200 rifles total, this is without taking into account the possible need for parts cannibalization. For the moment, we will be leaving these extra weapons and the lesser touched ammunition within in their current places as a reserve.

We will be keeping the exit locked, and only the first room beneath Mare Ether's house will be used as storage, along with the water room to hold the weapons still used for training.

Water Margin

I stuffed this paper in as well, looking over at the large gap. Cranks? Mutated Creatures? It was obvious that there was a way through that even an Earth Pony such as myself would be able to use. But with all of these rifles laying around that had minimal, or no, ammo, functionally I was limited to just the 12 shots in my pipe rifle, with bullets that didn't even match the ones that were stored down here. Giving a sigh, I decided to look around, hoping to find one of these special 'cranks'.

It didn't take long to find one more oddity at this artificial end of the cave. Mere inches from the wall, at face-height, was a square cut with a giant circle sitting right inside. In curiosity, I grabbed the screwdriver I had and stuck it in the hole, feeling the recession inside out, which seemed to be hexagonal in shape. Regrettably, this was not suited for lockpicking or even using a J-Hook.

Setting the AK-119 back inside of it's case, but leaving the lid open just in case I came across enough ammunition to warrant switching over. With that, I bit down on the tray of burning wax and began to head to the only part of the tunnel I hadn't navigated yet, the left side of that earlier fork. There was no reason to assume that this divot would hold anything unique, but it was better then mulling around without a crank.

The short walk into the alternate fork revealed a major change in scenery. White string hung from the rafters above, light enough to move out of the way any time I blew on it, and melting in place whenever the wax-fueled fire touched it. Fifty feet felt like an entirely different world, and the back of the cave saw the walls, floor, and ceiling covered in the waxy substance.

“Is this a trick?” I asked after sitting the tray down again. Sticking out of the white-string covered wall to the side was a large handle, rusted. While it was covered in webs, I could see a similar recessed square similar to the one in the dropoff of the cave. Stepping forward I bit down on the crank, turning it just a bit. The large wall that separated this dead-end from the initial entering tunnel suddenly groaned, and as I kept turning it began shifting, string stretching out before collapsing, as the wall swung an entire ninety degrees, stopping just as it blocked what had been a right-handed bend, now straight-lining the shot from the doors I had came through down to the end of the cave.

I let go of the crank, only for it to proceed to fall out of the socket, revealing that the section that had been attached to the inside of the square recession was hexagonal shaped. Stomping my left forehoof down on the edge of the crank, it flipped the tool up into the air, letting me catch it by the handle between my teeth. With that, I turned around...

Only to be confronted with a horror that I couldn't have possibly forseen. Crawling out of the darkness from the way I had just came was a large black...creature. It had a gigantic rear that was nearly the size of an entire pony's torso, but the front of it was a flat 'head' with two massive claws sticking out, fluid dripping from it. The most terrifying part was it's movement, as eight gigantic 'legs', if it could even be called that, moved the entire creature toward me. They were terrifyingly long, branching out from the center of it's body and reaching well over my head before sharply bending down and ending on the ground. Adding to it, I could see dots on it's head glinting in the wax-fueled light.

Without thought, I dropped the crank, pulled out the pipe-rifle, and blindly fired at the massive target. The first shot made it release a horrifying high pitch scream, only quickening the rate of my heart as I shot it again. The second shot made it advance at me, the giant claws sticking out of it's head opening side-to-side as if they replaced lips on a sideways mouth. I fired again. And again. I could hear each impact with a disgusting squish as it hit the massive backside of the being. After the fifth shot it finally stopped advancing, the legs giving out from under it as it crashed to the ground mere feet in front of me. It gave another squeal that I could barely hear, the gigantic legs slowly curling underneath it as I took a step back, waiting to see what it's next move would be.

A long moment passed, my ears ringing from the successive blasts. The beast continued to not move, fluid dripping from the massive rear. Slowly I stowed the rifle back in my satchel, stepping toward the beast anxiously. It continued to not move, allowing me to pick up the crank and stick it in my satchel, following it up with the rifle, completely filling my bag with no room to spare. I picked up the burning tray once more, hugging the wall so as not to touch the corpse of the beast. Still it didn't move, and after I was clear of the thing, I broke into a quick trot, not daring to look back.

Upon returning to the open chest and the cave, I set the tray down and stuck the crank in the hexagonal hole as quickly as possible, immediately beginning to spin it. Unlike before, when a single wall shifted, the walls and ceiling above the giant hole moved, spinning in a clockwise way with a massive grinding sound, akin to gears shifting for their first time in years.

I stopped it after it completed a one-hundred and eighty degree spin, the former ceiling now covering the once gaping hole. Once more I withdrew the crank, and grabbing the candle once more I trotted down the new expansion to the tunnel. The sound of my hooves went from tapping against old hollow stone to solid ground quickly, a wooden door infront of me illuminated. While I knew I hadn't yet crossed the full distance to the village, I could only hope that this would be the end of the tunnel, raising a hoof to the handle and swinging the door open.

No curse I knew could have stated the anger I was filled with. Anger at the other side of the door being more caves, splitting into three different directions. Anger to mask my fear, looking at the hanging white threads on the ceiling and knowing that I only had six more bullets and a grenade. And anger at having not been told that any of this would happen. Doctor Constant hadn't been down in this tunnel for decades, and if these tunnels had gradually become more and more abandoned as the years passed it shouldn't be that surprising that their condition would deteriorate.

In anger I bucked my rear legs against one of the walls, breathing deeply through my nostrils to try and calm back down. Looking to the right I could see a large rock wall, protruding in a rounded shape toward me as if it was placed there after the caves were made. Straight ahead was the continuation of a tunnel that my light didn't illuminate to the end, while to my left was much of the same but with a slight downward angle. Giving a sigh, I decided to check out the leftward direction, feeling in my gut that just going straight wasn't going to be the simple way through these caves, primarily because of how Water Margin described these caves as a maze.

I was cautious, quiet, doing my best not to let my hoof-falls overtake any potential sound of the eight legged beasts that had left their string hanging from the ceiling. The presence of the string was inconsistent as I went farther down, some sections only with errant strands while others slots were filled from beam to beam with it. It also masked my own hoof-falls, but exceptionally thick pieces of webbing would wrap around the base of my legs like a net, a net that took quite a bit of force to yank off.

A step on one partially recessed part of the floor triggered the sound of more gears. My eyes widened, and I looked behind me, hearing a thundering sound, gradually getting louder. Not bothering to wait, I ran deeper and deeper down the tunnel, the thundering quickly beginning to close on me with rapidity.

SCREEEE!

A pair of beasts, a smaller one stacked ontop of a larger one, both made their horrendous noise at me, forcing me to come to a stop as fast as I could, mere inches from them. The larger bottom one lunged for me with it's mouth claws, and I reacted to the throw my body to the side, semi-consciously noticing a branch-off the path and landing in this cave offshot on my left side, doing my best to keep my balance and keep hot wax from spilling from the tray. Turning my head to the beasts, the larger one began to turn to face me.

BOOM

The large round boulder which had been running me down smashed ground right into the face of the beast, not even giving it a chance to react. It moved a few more inches, stopping just a few feet past the offshoot tunnel with a loud crash. Again I stood there, the sound of the crashing boulder fading into the echoes of the tunnels, leaving me only with the screeches of a beast.

Hesitantly I took a step forward, looking at where the rock had crashed. The smaller of the two creatures were pinned between a wall and the boulder, it's head, three of it's front legs, and giant claws were still wagging violently back and forth, trying to get out of it's predicament. Green ichor dropped from it's mouth, the ichor carrying a faint glow, likely blood judging by the small trail left where the larger beast had been standing just before being crushed. The trapped beast, upon seeing me, began pawing more aggressively, and spat string from between it's giant face claws, missing me by several inches, but I could see it land on the ground in the distance, the string landing on the ground several feet away and hissing like an acid dissolving against rock.

I stepped back into the tunnel offshoot. While I could just wait until the creature finally died, the fact that there were many more of these creatures told me one thing. I should look for more weapons, maybe another chest with more ammo then six paltry rounds. Tuning my back on the boulder and the trapped monster, I ventured deeper into the tunnel. My hooves quietly knocked on the ground, and now, as I went further down this path, I could hear small amounts of rapid tapping, small stubby legs bouncing against walls other then those surrounding me, scurrying around as if reacting to my own presence.

Another door greeted me, and I pushed it open, relieved at the lack of creatures inside. Rather, I was greeted with a small room that held two chests similar to the one I had come across earlier. Shutting the door behind me, I looked around at the walls of this room, cut in a more square fashion as opposed to the quicker and messier octagonal fashion behind me. To my surprise, sticking out of one of the walls was a candelabra, two cups sticking out roughly a foot above my head. Rearing onto my hindlegs I braced my forelegs on the wall, looking into the cups to see what looked to be a pair of candles. Carefully, I leaned the tray over to the exposed wick, watching a few errant drops of wax drip onto the candle closest to me before it began to blossom with it's own light, bright enough to illuminate nearly the entire room with a steady glow.

Satisfied, I dropped back down onto all fours before walking over to the chests, once again sitting down my wax tray and taking screwdriver and pin to their locks. Like before, they gave extremely easy and didn't cost a single pin, and I threw both of them open.

Inside was another set of wartime rifles. Quickly I began rooting through them, checking for any that might be already filled with ammunition. Hope gradually dwindled as I began to realize that not a single one was fully equipped. None of them held more then three bullets, and of the 24 rifles exposed to me, half of them were bereft of ammunition at all.

Still, it was unlikely I was going to find more ammo for the pipe-rifle. With a sigh, I began removing all of the magazines that still had rounds inside of them. Between a dozen magazines there were 19 bullets. With a sigh, I sat on my haunches, balancing the magazine between my hooves and beginning the arduous process of removing stray bullets from all but the one magazine that already held three rounds, preparing to gather all the spare ammunition together.

After several minutes and a slightly bloodied lip from a cut, a single AK-119 was ready for use, 19 bullets chambered in the magazine. Interestingly enough, none of the rifles had a bullet already chambered. I flipped the setting of the 119 to 'single' shot, not willing to waste ammo. Lastly, I took the pipe-rifle I was carrying, and slotted it into the location that the rifle I took had been, freeing up space in the satchel for my new rifle to take.

Newly armed and ready to go, I returned to the door, grabbing the wax-burning tray and stepping outside. No more eight legged creatures awaited me, allowing me to quickly shut the door behind me, heading back to the location of the resting boulder. The time I spent exploring and swapping weapons had been enough time for the crushed creature to finally bleed out the rest of the way, it's corpse not reacting to me.

Still, I could hear the tapping all around me. It made it nearly impossible to stay focused on the simple goal of figuring out the quickest way out. Returning to the three-way intersection, I could see where the boulder had become dislodged, a few gears and a pedestal perfectly positioned to push the rock free on command. Like the pegasus had written, this entire cave system was booby trapped. And being an earth pony, I was unable to just fly over those pressure plate traps.

I took off down the remaining pathway for me, the tapping of monster legs quieter here but still constant enough to make me concerned about every step. The pattern from earlier once again held true. Move fifty feet, and then the path would veer off in another ninety degree angle, and then after another fifty feet it would occur again. While the caves themselves were chiseled and supported in haste, the lining of these tunnels were all calculated and pre-planned. For a moment I gave thought of drawing up a map of these tunnels in the old cartographers notebook, but decided against it for two reasons. One, stopping for any significant period of time in these tunnels meant that I could more easily be ambushed by the inequine residents of these tunnels. Two, I had no plans of coming back through here. While I was able to control my pace and firing, under no circumstances would I ever dare to come back down here again. When it came to leaving, I would leave through Mare Ether's front door if necessary.

Another split path lay before me, an option to continue straight and an option to head to my left. By this point, the various twisting and turning had left me unable to keep an idea of the distance between the village and my entry point. The tapping continued, and I though I could hear a higher concentration in front of me, so I veered to the right.

This reminds me of Roam. I thought to myself. Wait. Roam? What is Roam?

“What is Roam?”

“Didn't you listen to the radio silly?” The mare responded, spinning around while the water splashed underneath our hooves. “The cool Radio DJ said that is where the Zebras lived and plot their evil schemes against ponies!”

“Not anymore! I bet it's already a smoking crater!” A brown earth pony colt remarked, jumping ontop of an old log jamming two of the four directions of the storm drain intersection. The grate from above filtered enough cloud-covered light in to showcase the black stripes that we had all painted on his face and back. “And that's why we need to find the last Zebra! Or they'll turn Fillydelphia into a...lee-bra?”

“Your rhymes suck.” The cutie-markless mare curtly responded.

“And so will you! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!” The fourth member of our group shouted from deeper down the storm drain. “You'll never take me alive!” She shouted, scampering down the tunnels with the sound of splashing water left in her wake.

“Come back here, shaman ceaser, and pay for your crimes against ponykind!” I shouted, taking off down the rusted drain, my two other friends chasing down with me.

“Come out come out wherever you are!”

“Don't get to close, or I'll curse you with my evil enchantments!”

We had been running back and forth in the tunnels for so long, circling in the wet tubes back and forth until cutting back to the initial log-blocked split. It took our painted unicorn friend eventually wiggling over the old log and squeezing into one of the closed off splits.

“Hey, that's cheating!” The striped earth pony shouted, just large enough that he could fit through the gap. The mare just laughed farther back in tunnel, scampering off again, while I and my other friend scampered deeper into this tunnel. The water flowed a lot stronger here, raising slightly higher but not quite hitting our knees yet.

“You know, I thought that maybe the tunnels behind that old log would be cooler, but this sucks.” The mare remarked to me, and I nodded back in agreement. Our running pace had slowed down to that of a brisk trot, water splashing all over our bellies and chests, making running around a lot more difficult then it should have been.

“Cotton! It's not really fun down here anymore!” I shouted out to the painted mare who was way farther down. The tunnels bisected just ahead of us, forming a pair of ninety degree corners going to either our left or right. Most interestingly, a light of some sort illuminated out of the right hand tunnel, so both of us turned that way.

Only to be greeted with Cotton standing there in chest-high water, shivering, as a tall figure stared her, and us, down. It was hard to make the figure out, shimmering like water vapor on a hot and muggy day, illuminated by the flashlight that was taped to the side of a pistol that was hanging out the exposed black muzzle. A distinctly non-pony muzzle.

“Zzzz-” Cotton didn't have to say what we all thought, all knew. The gun was lowered right to her head as time seemed to slow down, a flash from the end of the muzzle punctuating the moment as my friend collapsed from the shot. We didn't even think, spinning on our hooves even slower then time itself seemed to move, the gun being slowly brought up as if to take another shot.

Just before finishing the bend around the corner, I took a glance back. Whatever had kept the assailant hidden had failed, a zebra nearly twice as tall as us stood there, gun pointed at me as I rounded the corner. The last thing I saw was Cotton Tail slowly moving into center of the T-intersection behind us, face covered as she was slowly overtaken by the water.

I looked at the pony corpse wrapped against the wall, still mulling the memory over in my head. Just like before, a pony dead in the center of a T-shaped intersection. This one, however, had evidently been here a long time, mane, tail, bones, and small bits of horsehair being the only thing remaining, a large majority of it tied in place by the same white string that hung from the ceiling.

Silently I crouched down, pushing a hoof against the bones of the corpse to try and see anything of note. There was a bag about half the size of my satchel that was also half-obscured by webs, and carefully I pushed the white string aside, doing my best to not let the sticky substance wrap too much around my hooves.

Once the bag was free, I sat my tray of burning wax down, curious to see what the contents inside would hold. A large pipe-wrench that hadn't rusted too much was inside, along with a small box and a copy of Glimmers of Truth. Tilting my head, I went to the book first, flipping to the rear where I knew that empty pages would hold information, likely the ponies' dying words.

We think that this is an attempt by Gleaming Beam to try and oust us. She already had Dirt Pie and Muddled Focus put on the Tree of Woe three weeks ago for 'Crimes against Our Town' and 'Letting nature take back ponykind'. She has only been in as the Ministry Mare for about a year and already she's making massive sweeping changes.

The worst part is, this is probably going to work. Ever since she sent us down here to investigate these tunnels, the door back to the Ministry Mare's basement has been locked from the other side. We were well armed and brought plenty of dried potatoes down, but we didn't expect this. There are spiders everywhere, giant ones, nearly half of my size. We wonder if there's any merit to them having a larger size because of balefire radiation seeping through the groundwater, down low enough that it doesn't effect our crops, but still affects the creatures that live down here.

She's just going to leave us down here to die, either to the creatures or from a lack of food and clean water. We are thirsty. So thirsty. There is a waterfall farther back but the warning etched by it made it very clear not to trust it.

So this is where we die. Skylar Sand, first non-pegasus head guard of Our Town, overthrown because the new Ministry Mare wanted to quash any possibly of dissenting voices.

I miss my son. I hope that he is allowed to live a peaceful life.

The rapid tapping of steps pounded against the floor behind me, the increased loudness compared to before instantly switching my focus from reading to defense. IN a single motion I yanked my new rifle out of my satchel, spinning around and taking a siting position while balancing the rifle down the path I had just come through.

Two 'spiders', as the book had called them, were rushing at me, one walking on the ground while the other one was running on the wall, as if gravity wasn't even effecting it. My lower and more stable stance let me fire a shot quickly, the first bullet pounding through the head of the closer floor-traversing spider. The recoil upset my aim, but that was nothing compared to what it did to the spider, which was thrown back from the force, being tossed on it's back with legs sticking up in the air, tossing about wildly. I fired two more shots through it's large backside, fluids exploding out from the impact. The other creature ran past it, raising it's front two legs while spraying it's wet string at me. Throwing my body to the side to avoid it, I completed a roll counter-clockwise roll before landing back on my stomach, the semi-automatic rifle clutched to my chest. It continued to advance, readying the firearm and unleashing four shots into it's bulbous rear. The impact stomped its' forward momentum, and it fell to the ground, squirming in agony before both of the creatures began pulling their legs into their underside, not moving any more.

Taking another breath, I pushed myself back up into a sitting position, the rifle still in my hooves, listening for any more rapid tapping. Silence and ringing ears was the only response. Quickly I did some math in my head, figuring that I still had 11 shots in the magazine. Once more my gaze turned to the skeleton laying beside me, noticing the box that I had yet to open. Once more, I stuck the rifle muzzle-first into my Satchel, taking my free hooves to brush the excess old string off.

The box, to my shock, carried more ammunition. It wasn't much, only three bullets. But with the frequency of the creatures down here, I had a very strong feeling that this would become a game of numbers. The thought of backtracking to the first case with it's six bullets crossed my mind, but I shook the idea off, not interested in spending any more time in these caves backtracking if I could help it.

Once more back on all four hooves, I decided to take the rightwards path while leaving the string-covered corpse behind me, the light of the burning wax illuminating the cave once more.

While advancing I came across a recession in the ground, roughly four square feet in size and perfectly placed between two of the wooden support circles. When I had returned from the tunnel that the boulder crushed a pair of those creatures in, there had been a similar recession, but my focus had been on the noises of spider legs all around, noises that were beginning to come through again. Crouching down, I gently touched the recession, not hearing any mechanical noises, suggesting to me that this was a similar boulder trap that had already been triggered.

Unlike the tunnel I was in before though, which had a slight downward slope, this one was level. While looking around I rose to my feet, trying to figure out if this was to set off some different trap, or if there was a different direction a boulder could roll down.

Above me was a giant cave carved into the ceiling, it's mouth tilted at an angle down into the hallway I was in. Whenever the trap was activated, sheer momentum would let the boulder roll down the cave and drop into the tunnel, simple physics giving it plenty of momentum to crush anything ahead. The cave had been partially covered back over by string, and if I stared long enough I could use the burning wax's light to see what appeared to be the teeth of a large gear.

More concerning to my survival was the telltale legs of another creature, faintly visible deeper inside the tunnel. It didn't seem to notice my presence at the moment. Quietly I stepped away from the triggered trap, in an attempt to not disturb the spider and hopefully avoid disturbing it and save a bit of ammunition. Once the cave above was out of my illuminated field of view, I turned around and continued down, anticipating another long-activated boulder and possibly another corpse.

Both graced my view, but the boulder had also crushed the pony at a very unfortunate position. The front of their body was sticking out, leaning inward towards a right ninety-degree offshoot, while their hindlegs were crushed between the wall and the side of the boulder. Raising the candle up, I could see that the tunnel only advanced past the split far enough to keep the boulder in place without blocking movement. My focus shifted toward the saddlebags that were still hanging from the skeleton, curious to find any more notes or ammunition inside.

Upon opening the bag, I was greeted with a very unexpected sight, another tin of the Einhorn Schokola, apparently of the Dash-infused version based off of the unique logo on the tin. Tilting my head in confusion, I went ahead and pulled it out of his bag, before rummaging a bit deeper inside, trying to find anything else...

A book. With a smile I pulled out another copy of Glimmers of Truth and flipped to the midsection, this one keeping nearly all of it's old papers and looking nearly as thick as some of the copies in the buried room at the start of this maze.

My feelings are mixed with Starlight's passing. I remember when we first met and how open and receptive she was to us all, especially the ones that came to avoid the war. And only through her knowledge and confidence would she had lead us into the caves that the Equestrian Ministries had been storing surplus goods in, and confidently led us to surviving on those while the worst of the fallout passed.

But she was a harsh mare. And while she was always willing to accept ponies from the outside, she was also always willing to trap them in that awful prison, or worse, exile them into the mountains.

Either way, it will be hard for Our Town to learn how to live without her.

~Sugar Belle

I turned the page for the next entry.

I agree with the new Ministry Mares, as they call themselves, of the village to restore everypony's cutie-marks. But after the bombs fell those of us who remember what life was like when we had them has fallen, and the younger ponies strongly agreed with Strudel Glaze that they should be allowed to read Starlight's unfinished notes. We don't know what to do. Giving into their demands will only strengthen their resolve and they'll try to recreate Starlight's old spell themselves, but the three of us alone don't have what it takes to fight back a whole mob.

~Sugar Belle

The writing style changed dramatically on the following page, scribbled as if in a hurry.

To our dear friend Sugar Belle.

We're sorry about what happened, we never knew that it would end this way.

If you wake up despite the internal bleeding, please know that Sunny tried everything she could but we couldn't get you out.

You'll always be with us in our hearts as a dear friend. I just wish we could have parted under more peaceful circumstances.

~S.S. ~S.T.

There were no further notes, the rest of the pages yellowed and blank.

Turning my focus to the tin, I popped it open to reveal that it still had two wedges of the eight still inside. I thought briefly of the two tins I still had in my satchel, I hadn't opened either of them yet simply because I had enough foodstuffs left over from what the ghoul had lent me. Most of those, however, I had left in the cave just below the cloud-cover, only bringing my own two tins with me.

In the end, I decided to leave it, simply due to the lack of space in my satchel. Heading down the tunnel that this one branched off of, once again my focus shifted to the sound of pattering spider legs above and to the sides of me. That, and the shape of the tunnels. The entire time I had been navigating these tunnels, their shape had gone from nearly perfectly square to rounded and back, multiple times. This current tunnel was square. I didn't exactly have a desire to go backtracking, but the tunnels that the boulders had rolled down earlier were all distinctly circular, or at least, octagonal in shape. If I was unable to see the plates on the floor that likely triggered those traps, surely I could at least stay aware if the tunnel I was in was risky or not.

My train of thought ended upon coming to a single metal door. A rusty metal door at that. It had not handles, no keyholes, nothing. It almost looked like a single slab of metal embedded in a earthen wall at the end of the tunnel. The only thing that gave it away in regards to being a door was the hinges on the left side.

“I bet Amber would just smash the hinges off.” I remarked aloud, thinking about my ex-raider friend who was still waiting on me with this. It was tempting to maybe try shooting it, but the risk of just making the rounds ricochet off and hitting me discouraged such a trick. Likewise, I thought of using my newly acquired J-Hook, but after trying several times the hook kept getting caught on what I could only guess were more webbing on the other side.

Right next to the door a key hung on a large hook, the words 'Waterfall Room' written above in partially faded ink. “What?” Carefully, I put my ear to the door, but beyond the tapping of spider legs around me, I couldn't hear anything, let alone anything that sounded like water.

Stepping back, I looked at the key once more. Reaching up with my hooves, I pushed the large key and the ring it was attached to off the hook. As I did, the sound of some gear clicking behind the wall rang out. “A...weighted trap?” Balancing the abnormally weighty key between my hooves, it reminded me of the box of heavy pins that I had been given. Running my hooves on the door once again, there wasn't any recession or anything, and the gap between the door and the earthen walls was too tight for me to slip my J-hook through.

I was at a bit of an impasse again. There was still the other direction in the earlier split I had not taken, and this door was also denying it's secrets to me. It was tempting to take the key and attempt to see if maybe it would fit in a different door, but space in my satchel was an issue. Opening my case up, I rummaged through and touched all the items inside again. Semi-automatic rifle, J-hook, crank, Schokola tins, my screwdriver and the box of pins, and the grenade.

Pulling out the metal apple, I compared it to the size of the key I had removed. I could swap the two out for simple space storage. Rolling the grenade in my hoof, I looked up at the semi-octagonal semi-circular walls and floor of the tunnel around me. The risk of causing a catastrophic cave-in with an explosive was one that I wasn't willing to take, the idea of being trapped in these caves until I died a thirsty death putting a chill through my core. If worst came to worst, I could come back here and grab the explosive at a later time. Carefully, I took the grenade, and hung it by it's pin on the hook. The weight of the grenade was nothing compared to the key, so the sound of the gear turning was much shorter and quieter.

Having swapped the explosive for the key, I began heading back down the tunnel,

More notably though, the sound of tapping calmed down about the time that I reached the half-crushed skeleton. Not quite stopping, but they were significantly lighter. Raising an eyebrow, I took a few steps farther down, toward the T-junction. The taps picked up right over my head. Were the creatures stalking me, using the sound of my hoof-falls to follow me around, waiting for a chance to come out?

Getting just to the point I could see the hollowed out hole in the ceiling, I sat the tray of burning wax down once more, pulling the assault rifle out again as I crouched back onto my stomach. They weren't ponies, but this seemed like a trap. Scurry around where I could hear them constantly, but then attack when ever I was within striking range and the sounds of their running had become mere background noise. Steadying my breathing, I pointed my weapon at the entrance, looking for any movement.

I'm not sure how long the wait lasted. The tapping, which had almost totally stopped once I laid down, never picked back up to it's original volume. I continued focusing on the hole, moving my head side to side and wiping my eyes every so often just so hyperfocus wouldn't blind me. Eventually, I gave up with the wait. “Come On!” I shouted aloud, the echo carrying my shout through the tunnels.

The creatures responded to that, the scurrying of their legs following the echo of my voice and three of them rushed out of the hole. I fired three shots in quick succession at the first one, the first of the spiders dealt a crippling blow as it's large backside exploded, disgusting fluids spraying all across the floor as it fell from the hole in the ceiling. The next two took two different routes at me, one of them climbing on the ceiling while another scurried on the left wall. I titled my body and fired another trio of shots at the one on the wall, the second one missing but the combination of the two bullets that did land, and the subsequnet splat on the ground, ended it's life.

The one above leapt from the ceiling at me. I jumped onto my hooves and attempted to throw myself backwards, but it was futile. The monster landed on my face, wrapping it's legs around my chest and neck, the large claws on it's head trying to find purchase with my face. IN sheer fear I slammed my head forward, throwing myself and the spider onto the ground. It landed on it's back, legs sticking into the air and waggling around as it tried to roll over.

The trick had got the monster face out of my own, but my head dropped onto it's underside, banging my chin off of what felt like ultra-stiff plastic. The legs continued flexing around, trying to grasp my back. Somehow, sheer instinct got me out of the beast's grasp, and that same instinct made raise onto my hind legs, before dropping with as much force as I could muster, slamming my hooves into it's underside. The sound of it's skin cracking in an inequine way, feeling and sounding like I was breaking stiff plastic, making me recoil in disgust. Nothing about these 'spiders' seemed normal.

The beast rolled itself back over, but by this time I had grabbed my AK again, taking a sitting position as I brought it up as quickly as possible. Running on sheer adrenaline, I pulled the trigger. The first shot landed, but a second shot followed the first right afterwards, the recoil from the first one throwing my aim high and pinging harmlessly off the ceiling in the distance. Once more the wounded creature leapt at me, and I pulled the trigger again, two more bullets striking it mid-air. It landed right infront of me, ichor leaking out of the holes that had been ripped in it by lead and hoof.

My gasps echoed in my head and in the tunnels. “Buck.” I whispered aloud, shivering from the phantom sensation of the monster's legs on my back. “Bucking...Buck.” Thankfully, the sound of tapping had calmed down, and the silence let me calm down for several moments.

I did a quick round of math in my head, figuring I had just four bullets left. Turning the rifle in my hooves, I looked at the lever on the side, which had been moved from the 'single' to the 'double' option. My teeth clinched in controlled anger, frustrated at the waste of ammunition.

Still, I picked up my light source once more, and begin walking back down the tunnels, slowly and as quietly as I could, listening for the sound of any more of those creatures. As frustrating as it was to be so low on ammunition, there was no use in agonizing over it now. Crossing the old corpse at the T-junction, I continued down the route I had ignored earlier, still listening for the sound of any more scurrying legs.

What I was greeted with instead was another gaping hole in the floor. Cautiously, I stepped closer to the edge of this gap, darkness exposed to me once more. Immediately I turned my focus toward the walls, quickly finding another recession suggesting that the crank should be used. Familiar with the song and dance, I sat my tray of burning wax on the ground once more and fished out the crank, sticking it into the wall.

Before the walls over the chasm began to move, the crank snapped in my mouth, the force of it's breaking causing me to stumble dangerously close to the chasm. Spitting the handle of the crank out and dropping the rusted tool into my hooves, my eyes went back and forth between that and the small section still sticking out of the wall. It wasn't jutting out far enough for me to try and get a grip on with my mouth or hooves, and even if I tried to I wouldn't have the natural leverage to turn it. Giving one more look to the broken crank in my hooves, I tossed it into the void.

Sitting down, I thought for a moment on how to get out of this mess. There was the option to completely give up, head back to the old printing press room and figure something else out. I could use the last four bullets in my gun, or even the grenade I left behind, to try and blast my way through the locked door, but that would leave me utterly unprepared for any more spider attacks, let alone risking a cave-in. If only I had some way to wrench the walls around-

I jumped back onto all fours. A wrench! The skeleton in the center of the T-Junction had a pipe wrench that I hadn't bothered to grab. Potentially I could use that and get enough leverage to move the small piece of the crank still sticking out. Spinning around with purpose, I quickly ran down the tunnel and came across the corpse within seconds. With the absence of the crank, I had just enough room to pick up the wrench and stuff it in my satchel.

Rushing back to the chasm, I could hear the sound of spider legs tapping once again around me, the pleading thought of Not Now! the only thing distracting me from the progress I was hopefully making. Once back at the broken crank's spot in the wall, I set the burning-wax light down on the ground one more and lined up the pipe-wrench with the remains of the crank. The tapping was getting louder, sounding like it was coming from the massive hole and closing with speed. Ignoring the temptation to look into the abyss, I clamped the jaws around the piece, and began cranking with all my might.

The sound of spider screeching came through, quickly overwhelmed by the sound of old gears and machinery turning the walls of the tunnel again. I couldn't help but let a smirk form around the handle of the wrench as the walls finished turning at a ninety degree angle, leaving the chasm now up against a slab of rock on the left side while every other direction was covered off.

Leaving the pipe-wrench on the ground, once more I picked up my light source, stepping deeper into the cavern. The sound of monster legs had completely stopped, suggesting that they had been crushed in the machines that shifted the cave.

The end of this cave revealed another rusted door, just like the last one. No handles, no locks, nothing. Right beside it was a hook with another key on it, and raising the wax fire to the hook, I could read a small plaque saying 'weapons room'. Most notably though, I could hear something, something completely different from the sound of legs tapping against the walls and ceiling.

Water.

I picked the key up off of the hook, examining it. Like the other key in my satchel, it was abnormally heavy. And like the last time, the hook shifted upwards with the weight taken off of it, matched by the sound of a gear behind. I pulled the first key out, comparing the two. They seemed to be made of different metals, this key made of steel while the other one was of iron, which led to a difference in their weight in my hooves. My gaze went back to the hook. What an impractical locking system, based purely on weights.

I dropped the iron key on the hook, the gears behind the wall turning once more before a metallic 'click' sounded from the door. Without hesitation, it blew inwards toward me. Cool, wet air burst into the tunnel around me.

The other side of the door held a gigantic cave, and I could see a stream of water pouring through a hole in the wall and falling to the ground. I took several steps forward into the room, sticking the steel key back in my satchel.

The cave on the other side was massive, and the water enabled the light from my tray of burning wax to reflect and light up even more of the room. Water was falling through a hole high up in the wall, splashing into a makeshift pond well beneath by hooves, pooling around the bottom of the cave like. I took several steps into the room, tossing my newly acuqired steel key into my satchel, and looking over the edge of this raised floor and to the pool beneath. The water level showed no signs of rising, leading me to assume that it was pouring into a deeper vein of groundwater from somewhere at the bottom of the tunnel.

More chests, dozens of them with several stacked ontop of eachother, lined the wall next to the door. I flipped one of them open, revealing even more semi-automatic rifles. Quickly I began picking them up, checking their magazines for any more ammunition. The first box I opened was entire devoid of ammunition, each magazine utterly empty.

I looked at the chest beneath the first one, their combined weight had caused it to sink several inches into the ground. Still concerned about more of those monsters, I reached up and hooked my legs around the edge of the box, yanking the top chest off and spilling it's contents on the ground beside me. The second chest held a single round across the twelve rifles inside. Moving to the next stack, I could only find two more bullets.

With a sigh, I cast my gaze across the rows of stacked crates. At the rate it was going, I might be able to find about thirty bullets. But my satchel didn't have the room for extra loose magazines or bullets, meaning that for the moment, I'd be hard-capped at twentyfive. With a sigh, I began going through the crates, painstakingly filling up my satchel one round at a time.

After spending several minutes making a mess of the room, I laid the full collection of bullets on the rocky ground infront of me, wrapping my lips around each of them and slowly sliding each one into the magazine. Why does this rifle have an option for two-shot bursts, but when fully loaded it has an odd number of rounds? I couldn't help but think to myself. While continuing the methodical and almost robotic reloading process, my gaze shifted toward the ceiling. Faintly I could see what looked like old wood and rope tied together in a form similar to that of a rope ladder, but it was a long way out of my reach, having likely been pulled up the last time one of the guards-ponies had came through here to retrieve water for the village ponies.

Once finished, I held the candlewax up again to look around the rest of the cave. A crate sat on a piece on the lower floor, next to the pool of water. Through the burning-wax light, I could see the gleaming reflection of what looked like a metal pen sitting ontop of one of the crates, along with what looked like another copy of Glimmers of Truth. Curiosity overtook me, and I climbed down a few well worn stairs that had been cut into the side of the rock, bringing me down next to the water. The crate had been used like a makeshift desk, the wood having been slowly warped over the decades by droplets of water splashing onto it from the nearby waterfall, but the warping had not compromised it's ability to hold it's shape yet.

I sat down by the crate, reaching forward and opening up the book. To my surprise, while this had the same binding and thickness of the old Glimmers books that were by the old printing press, the entire book was devoid of the normal writings that my copy, and every other copy I had come across, held. Nearly each page had hoof or mouth written inscriptions inside, done with anything from ink to graphite.

As much as we hate to admit it, Sparkling Touch's declaration that we are nearly out of ammunition has held true. I'm not willing to go public with this declaration, in fear that the Ministry Mare will have me vanished as well.

So the following is our plan. Over the next two weeks, we will have all the ponies of Our Town turn their weapons in for safekeeping, and we'll use the claim that Touch wasn't the only fake friend among us. We'll keep the rifles stored here in the water cave. Only us in the guard know where the ladder is to get in and out, something not even Mare Beam is privy to.

The factory manager, Coal Fire, shared with us the location of one of the old stashes of wartime materials that the old Equestrian government has put in the surrounding mountains. Apparently within one of them was a thing known as a water talisman. Normally it would need to be plugged into a power source to magically pull water straight from the air, but Coal told me that even without power it would have the ability to naturally remove radiation from water. We think this is a power ploy to try and win the guard over through me, despite the fact that we are meant to hold loyalty to Our Town and be independent of the squabbling beneath the Ministry Mare. However, it's still a welcome benefit, and in the next few weeks We'll organize a party and we'll attempt to retrieve this talisman from the caves. It would be better then choosing between rainwater and irradiated groundwater.

I turned past several dozen more pages over.

Our son Water Margin earned their cutie mark today. This means that tomorrow Our Town will take them to the vault and have them remarked. It came about after they were down here helping the guard with the gathering buckets of water so we could perform refills, which ironically was the very same mark nature tried to curse him with.

As the head guard of Our Town, it is always nice to have another join our ranks, but now must be the time for his most intense training. As a father, we have never been more proud to know that it will be my son's destiny to follow in my steps in defending and supporting Our Town.

In months past he already showed excitement in working with us, and we can only be thankful to the Ministry Mare for letting him drop out of education early to work with us in this past week.

I turned several more pages. The story was about as heartwarming as it could get in this town were Cutie Marks were treated as a disease. But heartwarming tales of the past wouldn't aid me in any of my quests.

Having confirmed that the long-locked door in this room connects to the tunnels beneath Mare Ether's home and the long-lost printing press, we have come to a difficult crossroads.

I have been conversing with my fellow guards over the last several weeks and tried to subtly bring them to the realization that Mare Ether does not care for our presence. She frequently addresses us as either an average pony, or worse, outright enemies. She does not respect our bond or our duty to defend Our Town. I can only hope that they are able to think another step or two ahead and realize that it may be in the interest of our lives to prepare for an attack against us, and do so off of the books.

The two outsiders that rejoined with us continue to swear that there is a large army of raiders in the mountains actively searching for us. We know that they are lying, and are covering for the fact that their mysterious earth pony companion tried to leave them for dead in the mountains. They know that we know they are lying, or at least, the unicorn stallion knows. The earth pony mare might actually be stupid enough to believe it. But they look us in the eye and smile like anypony else in Our Town, and we're left merely to nod and take notes to report to Mare Ether. The stallion continues the same lies of convenience that everypony else commits to.

But they are foreign, and their convenient lies normally would have given me a chance to increase the numbers of our guard. However, Mare Ether has personally insisted that she organize the scouting parties and plans, and now our guards find their numbers mixed with regular ponies, and they are given only the barest of weapons. We can only assume this is malice born from incompetence. She wishes to make the guard weak, and then she can blame and eventually dissolve us for being weak.

Our Oath of service is taken to Our Town and our fellow guards. This Ministry Mare strains my ability to stay loyal to both.

The last quarter of the book hadn't been written in. It would appear that this book held the records from the prior head guards of Our Town. Closing the book, I picked the tray of burning wax up again, making my way back to the door.

In my mind, I could only think. Just like Woe Tree, Water Margin also showed some desire of frustration judging by his memos. However, unlike Woe Tree, who seemed to have ideas on how to repair and adjust going forward, Margin seemed helpless. The right suggestion made at a convenient time might keep him more pliable going forward.

I kicked the door shut behind me. It caught on the frame, but didn't re-lock, the iron key still sitting on the hook. As silently as I could, I began moving back to the other door, my thoughts still mulling over Spice Chaser's choice to focus so heavily on Woe Tree. For the moment she might control the food, but if we instituted some massive change, Woe Tree didn't have the aptitude to defend herself.

Yet despite that, I had been there when Woe Tree reached out. She was willing to talk with us, willing to risk her life and void any oaths to work with us. Water Margin, even in his writings, let alone his communication with Woe, seemed hostile to the idea of taking part of any change himself.

The giant spiders left me alone as I ventured back through the tunnels, leaving me in peace with my thoughts until I returned to the first locked door. One I had sat the tray of wax down, I placed the steel key on the hook. The gears behind creaked in protest, before the door itself clicked. The door swung in toward me, and a disgusting stench filled the air.

Still, this was the only way forward. I would have to ignore the musty scent of death and decay spilling into the tunnel, a scent that was causing my instincts to scream at me about how dangerous this was. Slipped the grenade back into my satchel, I cautiously stepped in, grimacing at the feeling of string on my hoof. In fact, the entire room was filled with the sticky white string. From the floor to the ceiling, and on the floor it was so thick that as I raised each hoof I could feel the string sticking to it.

A spider corpse dropped onto the ground right infront of me, causing me to leap back in shock. Four of it's legs had been torn off, and a sludgy mess poured out of a pair of giant holes that had been made in the side of it's head.

My gaze immediately shifted above me. Far larger then any of the spiders I had faced thus far, a creature that was nearly three times my size crawled on it's four legs across the ceiling, coming to the wall opposite of me and smoothly walking down the wall, and toward the ground. Unlike the other beasts which I had disposed of, this one had a massive red shape, like that of an hourglass, right in the center of it's massive bloated behind.

I dropped the tray to the ground, dropping to my hindlegs and pulling the fully loaded assault rifle out of my satchel. Such a large target was impossible to miss, and immediately I opened fire as it came down onto the ground level.

Only to be knocked back after the third shot. My back slammed against the wall right beside the door I entered through. The monster had lunged straight across the expanse of the room and sent me tumbling, the rifle skittering to the ground beside me. Just as I lay my hooves on it, it was over me again. Unlike the smaller spiders which had sprayed acidic fluids at me, this one instead crawled overtop of me, and white string began spraying from the back of it's massive body, trying to tie me to the ground while crushing me with it's sheer weight.

I angled the rifle and pulled back on the trigger again, the shots echoing harshly in the enclosed room while the metal penetrated the beast's back. It didn't react to the first two shots though, only recoiling backwards after the third one. I began moving toward the tray of burning wax, hoping that I could tip it over and just set this entire room on fire. The string tightened against my left rear leg, trying to keep me planted against the wall, it's grip on me somehow strengthening as I pulled against it.

The monster reared upwards, it's front two legs moving in the air while the giant claws in the center of it's head opened and shut, crying out with a vicious noise. The string on the left rear leg finally snapped, and I fell forward next to the wax-burning tray. Raising a hoof, I slammed it on the tray's mouth-guard, burning wax landing on the white string around me.

The entire room lit up in an instant, fire quickly catching on the string and spreading across the floor. I brought my rifle up to my shoulder once more, the massive monster recoiling away from the spreading flames. I fired two more shots before I was also forced to retreat from the fire, backing up against a far wall.

Flames stretched to the ceiling, and soon the webs above began to catch fire as well. Hollowed out spider corpses fell to the ground with loud crashes, the webs that had once kept them tied to the walls melting under the heat. Through all the light and noise, the monster took a mad dash at me. This time I had enough time to see it start the charge...

...but not enough time to properly avoid it. I attempted to roll but one of it's massive legs still knocked into me, sending me barrel rolling over myself and into the wall. My rifle didn't move with me this time, instead skidding across the webs until it backed into what looked like a web-covered barrel. The monster stopped directly between it and myself.

Left with no weapons in the burning room, I pulled myself back onto my feet. It turned around, touching the webs we were still standing on daintily with it's forelegs, before rearing up and lobbing a massive spray of acid at me. I leapt back, feeling my right rear leg shoot a bolt of pain through me as I landed, my back touching something that was also moving on it's own.

Pivoting to the side, another spider, this one smaller like the ones in the tunnels, reared up from the wall it was sleeping on, extending it's forelegs to try and grab me. I jumped through the incoming wall of fire once more, watching the two creatures as they both turned to face me. The large one seemed hesitant to move after me again, pawing the web-covered ground around it with hesitation. While I could see eyes, perhaps it wasn't able to see me properly?

This was an issue that the smaller spider didn't have though, as it ran along the wall, avoiding the spreading fire that thus far only affected the ground and ceiling, and began spraying at me with it's own acid, small in volume but still serious enough to make me roll to the side. Again I looked at my rifle, the fire already quickly moving so quickly around it that the rifle hadn't even gotten hot. 'I hope there's no internal heat damage' while sprinting to my weapons.

Only to be denied by the large beast, as it smacked me on the side with one of it's front legs. The monster didn't understand the importance of my gun, but it did understand that I had moved toward it, sending me rolling across the floor, backing into one of the hollowed out corpses. The large spider advanced on me cautiously, taking care to try and stamp out the fire directly infront of it before moving on the now clear stone floor. The smaller one didn't care, rushing at me from across the room.

I came back onto all fours, ignoring the screaming pain in my body, and limped around the corpse. Just in time, as the smaller beast crashed into it's long dead brother, smacking it with it's legs and trying to dig it's face claws into the thing. Carefully I limped backwards from the duo, trying to take stock of the situation.

The larger spider was slowly advancing in my direction, while the smaller one was still engaged with it's dead brethren. My gun was on the other side of the room. I didn't have anything else, the fire had already crossed most of the ceiling and floor, and was now starting to work on the walls. If I couldn't end this quickly, I'd be left fighting to monsters in the complete dark.

Quickly I threw my satchel open, my head turned from the larger of the two beasts as it began to pick up pace toward me, not feeling confident enough to run across rock like it ran across web. My muzzle touched the chocolate tins, the J-hook, and finally.

I yanked the the grenade out of my satchel. The larger monster was now spraying webbing on the floor, stopping every now and again to cautiously feel it's new webbing. Edges of the webs landed on my legs, trying to tie me down. I grabbed the metallic apple between my hooves, biting down on the pin, and yanked. Without hesitation, I tossed it across the floor at the beast, before leaping backwards and stumbling over my bruised leg, throwing my forehooves over my head to cover my ears.

At such a close range, the sound and light of the explosion rang out at the same time, clattering my jaws together as a burst of red light shone across the exposed ceiling above and floor below. A loud inequine screech of pain screech filled the void once the echo of the explosion faded, demanding me to turn around and survey the damage.

The massive monster was dead, it's abdomen having been blown in half, with the rear most half seemingly evaporated from the explosion. It didn't even try to curl into a ball like the other dead creatures did. For the smaller one, it was still alive, though evidently in pain. It banged it's front legs on the wall, two of it's rear legs torn off and glowing green ichor dropping from it's backside. Carefully, I stood back onto all fours, carefully taking a long circle around the large corpse as I kept my eyes bouncing between the surviving creature and my weapon. Upon reaching my gun, I raised it up, and fired a single blast into it's large backside. Like so many of it's brethren before, it popped like a disgusting balloon, spilling it's disgusting fluids on the ground as it's legs slowly began retracting underneath itself.

The fire had near totally burned itself out. A wooden barrel next to me, and one on the opposing corner, were the only steady sources of light, the wood underneath taking longer to burn. I stuck my rifle back into my satchel, and dragged myself toward a set of doors next to the smaller spider's corpse. These doors had been hidden by the webs, but now I could see a pair of metal doors infront of me. My hoof raised out to the door, dropping down on one of the handles, and to my relief, the door swung outward without needing to mess with any locks. Doing my best to keep extra weight off of my rear leg, I stepped into the next room, doing my best to bring my breathing back under control.

It was another tunnel. With a sigh, I moved back into the room. The tray of wax might no longer be an option, but there was burning wood. Crossing the room, I socked the burning barrel with a hoof, feeling it collapse from the force, and then proceeded to bite down on a plank that had only just started burning. It wouldn't be a long-lasting light-source, but it was the best I had left, and hopefully by this point I was closer to the exit of this forsaken tunnel.

Achievement Unlocked – Arachnophobia – Defeat the Black Widow and her favorite mate

Achievement Unlocked – Weapons from the Past – Upgrade from the Pipe Rifle to a wartime gun

Rare Achievement Unlocked – Frugality - Complete the tunnels of Our Town without using a healing item