Fallout: Equestria - Most Dangerous Game

Chapter Eleven:

Jade couldn’t imagine that the countless smart, brilliant ponies, engineers, and scientists that had dedicated their lives to craft the body she now inhabited to be the perfect being... Would be all too impressed with her constant fuck ups. Be it deep water, vile fleshy monsters, and now plastic-printing swarms, it didn’t seem she was adept at using her new self at all. Even with all her enhanced strength, she grit her teeth, feeling her synthetic muscles tense tight as she did all she could to try and break her limbs free of her printed cocoon. The waxy gray coat barely shifted, cracking like freshly set concrete as her eyes fixed on the stand-off before her.

“What is the meaning of this, we thought you destroyed!?” hissed the swarm as it coiled back from Ocean like some kind of cornered predator. “Meddling invaders!”

“You killed my wingmates,” Ocean stated sternly, taking a step forward. “Made sure that no one knew I was stuck up here, and now you’re trying to kill the one mare I have left!”

With a lurch, Jade felt one forehoof give, the gray shell cracking like glass as it edged closer to shattering completely. All the while Ocean advanced, careful step after careful step, her metal-clad talons tapping on the concrete floor like knives. The expressionless face of her elegant armor even portrayed a gleam of rage as she hissed.

“Don’t talk to me about things being destroyed!” With a beat of her wings, she was in the air again, shotgun and flaming rifle aimed at the head of the swarm.

The room was filled with the flash of buckshot and flames as she opened fire, yet not to be struck twice, the swarm melted away, splitting around the cone of fire, and surging up either side of her in two widening coils. Ocean darted left, yet in the confined space, she had few options to dodge as the two tentacles converged on each other, their tips hardening into gray fists of printed material. They shoved her back, seeing her weapons were sent flying from her grip as she grunted.

“Come on, come on, give out, you stupid son of a mule!” Jade growled at the tight bounds around her limbs as her left foreleg, pinned upright to her body, shuddered, the cocoon splitting with a spider web of cracks and dust. “Damn it, Data, I thought you said this thing was strong!”

A little blue mare in Jade’s head sat down with folded forelegs, huffing in discontent. At least once she was done marveling at Ocean’s new armor.

Yes, yes, we can think about how she ended up like that later! Right now, getting free is really high on my to-do list! She felt crazy for thinking she were not the sole entity in her mind, but as Ocean was slammed back against the wall, she hardly felt there was time to argue. Come on, you stubborn mule!

“Invader, defiler!” hissed the swarm as it started to encase Ocean just as it had done Jade. “This was not made for you!”

As if trying to strip the armor from her plate by plate, coils wove and wound their way over her pinned limbs. The thing appeared to delight in it, like a psychotic filly plucking the legs from a helpless insect as Ocean kicked back and flared one wing. She muttered something, as if there were somepony other than her attacker to talk to. Yet in her effort to break free, Jade hardly caught it, instead, she inwardly cheered as her left foreleg finally broke free in a shattering cascade of plastic.

“Haha, yes!” She immediately set the free limb to work, thumping on the cast that encased her opposite foreleg as she did all she could to wiggle her chest and shoulders free, snapping the cast around her neck with a hard crack.

“You know, for a computer…” Ocean gasped, breath reverberating from her grated helmet as her head was pinned to the wall. “Even I think you talk too much!”

The silver pinions on her one free wing glowed a bright blue, crackling with sparks of lightning as she furled the thing over her front. Like razor blades the sharp feathers sliced through the coiling tendril of sprites, seeming to both sever and short out a great many of them as they trailed to the floor in plumes of black dust. With a hiss like a wounded dragon, the swarm recoiled, dropping Ocean to the floor with a heavy clang, as waxy plastic slopped from her armor.

“Ha, it worked,” she muttered, yet seemingly to herself as she lifted a foreclaw to her neck, coughing a little.

Who’s she talking to? Jade felt the inquisitive nagging of the blue pony in her head, yet dismissed it. Curiosity later, survival now, please!

With a sound like falling pottery, the cast wrapped around her right foreleg shattered, allowing her to shrug off the cocoon down to her waist. That just left her flanks and hind legs stuck in the virtual tree stump of thick, plastic bile. She kicked and shoved at the stuff, yet she could barely feel her hind legs, let alone move them. All the while, Ocean staggered to her feet, armor whirring as the swarm coiled about the central spire and reformed into a huge, avian predator.

“We will not let you use us!” it roared, as Ocean flared her wings, seemingly searching for her dropped weapons.

Jade took one glance down and saw that her shotgun, at least, had landed only a foot from the base of her prison, trapped under a wad of gray bile. Right as Ocean apparently saw it too, as did the swarming mass. There was an awkward, tense second of silence as the three looked at each other, before Ocean was the first to make a move.

“Nooo!” hissed the swarm, as the hippogriff dove for the weapon, while Jade did all she could to heave it free of the plastic with her magic.

Stuck upright, she felt an odd sympathy for a tree rooted to the ground as she struggled to bend her midriff. Yet the second Ocean’s foreclaw tapped the weapon, she darted back, ensuring the plastic fist that had been poised to strike her only struck the floor with a wet squelch. She hopped back, floundering a little as she still seemed far less adept at using the armor than the ponies Jade was used to seeing. Yet what she did succeed in doing was shoving the gun free enough for Jade to finally grasp it.

“Hey, too slow!” Ocean mocked as she took a step back, scooping up the second of her weapons with her tail.

In her fluster, Jade missed the discarded rifle, but whatever servos were over Ocean’s eyes had not, and sure enough, the hippogriff took to the air and leveled the weapon at the swarm. She opened fire, drawing all of the ravenous limbs off Jade as the synthetic mare snatched the shotgun in her magic. Flames spurted over the monster, causing it to squirm and wither like an eel out of water, lumps of melted plastic and dead sprites dribbling from its wounded hide. All the while Jade aimed the shotgun down at her plastic prison.

This really feels like a bad idea. She thought, yet a little blue mare in her head told her she could take it, right as Ocean was swatted back against another wall. Just aim low and outward, repair talismans can handle any stray shrapnel.

Using her E.F.S, she made sure to aim as far from her cocooned limbs as she could while still shattering the majority of the stuff, then closed her eyes and pulled the trigger. In a flash the shell shattered, a second shot blasting it apart in a spray of gray shards and dust, as she tumbled free, landing face-first on the concrete.

“Ouch,” she huffed, rubbery cheek pressed to the hard floor as the tiny Data in her head sat back, folded her forelegs, and offered a firm nod of approval.

Jade had no idea if her former marefriend would be happier with her crafty escape or the fact her butt was stuck up in the air to ogle as she shook herself and staggered to her hooves. Meanwhile, Ocean was backed into a corner as the tendrils flared out, morphing thick shields of plastic at their tips to hold off the fire, while driving the flames back to cook the hippogriff within her armor.

I thought you were in a rush? Mused the little mare in Jade’s head as she glanced between the pinned Ocean, and the central spire.

The beast distracted, she aimed her weapon at the core, charging. Yet seconds before she could take her first shot a coil once more wrapped around the shotgun, stealing it from her magical grasp as another coiled back and grasped around her middle, slamming her down at the base of the pillar.

“Aww, come on!” she roared, both she and the internal Data angered in unison as another coil appeared above her, hollowing out into a new rotating tunnel of serrated blades and teeth.

“We tire of this, your efforts are futile!” it hissed, as Jade reached up and grappled the nearest thing she could, the base of the core. “You cannot best us, submit!”

“No, but I can do this!” she declared, ripping out as many wires and chords from the base of the pillar as she could.

Just as when she’d shot it the first time, the whole swarm shuddered and spasmed, sprites popping like miniature spark cells as the thing heaved back. In the same motion, the walls of plastic hemming in Ocean dissolved, and with a beat of her wings, the hippogriff cast the fire back at the hive of machines.

“No, no, no!” the beast roared, coalescing into an avian form right before Jade. “Just submit and die!”

“One thing you need to learn about ponies!” Jade challenged as the thing swung for her with a plastic-encased talon. “We tend not to work how you’d like us to!”

She rolled aside, seeing the downward momentum of the talon carry it right into the bundle of wires she’d wrenched from the system. The sharpened gray coating sliced the things like butter, before lodging deep in the core as a surge of crackling electricity erupted outward, radiating over the creature’s avian avatar. It shuddered and screeched, as terminals around the room shattered and popped in puffs of smoke.

“Noooo!” it hissed, voice lost to binary static as the whole thing began to melt, and the core went dark. “We will not…”

The thing’s last calls of anguish were cut off as Ocean landed atop the melting puddle of sprites with a hard thud, shoving her claw into the concrete for good measure. It writhed and squirmed under her talon like a dying spider, at least until she leaped up and squashed it under all four legs, then took a step back and smacked it a few more times with her left talon for good measure.

“Okay, okay, I think you got it,” Jade told her, feeling as if she should be gasping, panting, anything, as she pressed a forehoof to her chest and leaned back. “By Luna, fuck this place.”

Yet as if somepony had flicked a switch in Ocean’s brain, the hippogriff went from baleful avenger, to bubbly goddess as she looked up and lunged at Jade with her armored limbs spread wide.

“Jade, oh by the seas, you’re alive!” beamed the hippogriff, as Jade felt just what it was like to be hugged tightly by somepony in power armor.

She had a feeling if she’d not been synthetic, Ocean may have accidentally popped her head off like a champagne cork with her affection. As it was, she merely tapped on the giddy hippogriff’s forelegs, feeling her cheeks bulge as she squirmed in the tight grip.

“Okay, Ocean… Too tight…!” she gasped, thankful she didn’t really need to breathe, even if she felt the urge to. “The armor… Crushing me!”

“Oh, right!” Ocean squawked, Jade almost able to imagine her feathers poofing in realization under the silver plates as she dropped Jade with a heavy clang and took a sheepish step back. “Sorry, not quite used to this yet!”

“I hear it’s like that for a lot of ponies their first time in that stuff,” Jade responded, feeling her neck, before she blinked. “Wait a second, where in Luna’s name did you get power armor!?”

Only now, after all the monsters were defeated and she wasn’t about to be digested alive by plastic-spewing swarms did the reality of things return, and so too, did her logical mindset. Hippogriff power armor made no sense, griffin armor sure, that had been made on the regular. But armor for a race that ponykind had little idea even existed. She balked at Ocean, as the hippogriff glanced around, seeming lost as to her own answer, all the while a little blue mare in Jade’s head pulled out a mental chalkboard, drawing out a whole host of calculations and notes.

Why were her kind here in the first place? She thought, pressing a forehoof to her chin. What did the system mean by meddlers?

She studied Ocean up and down before the idea light finally flashed on in her head. This machine could print anything! They came up here looking to arm themselves with power armor!

A small part of her felt the sting of betrayal, yet she was well aware that it was founded upon the ideas of a world two centuries out of date. She had not been a pony herself, she knew somewhat what it was like to envy Equestrian progress. Yet she could hardly place why an empire bound to the sea wanted power armor.

Why not design it for their aquatic forms? She thought, before blinking. Unless they mean to come up here in force?

Yet in the time she’d been lost in thought, Jade had failed to see Ocean perk and glance back, peering back into the broken doors of the corridor she’d seemingly forced open.

“It’s… Complicated… By the seas, I have to get back to him!” the hippogriff declared, taking off into the gloom faster than Jade could blink.

“Wait what, get back to who?” the cyber mare asked, reaching out only to stagger as Ocean vanished. “What happened to you!?”

So many questions were spinning in the mare’s head, yet one spark from the core at her side, and she almost jumped out of her synthetic skin. Both to the amusement and mild disappointment of the little pegasus in her head. If Data had her way, she’d merely used their hooves to beat the core to a wrinkled mess.

And waste a good few hours doing so. Jade thought, telling herself to take a deep breath she didn’t need before moving on after Ocean. Time management was never your strong suit, Data.

She was at least thankful whatever part of Data dwelled within her could not exert herself like X-23, all the blue mare could do was scowl. Even as Jade saw parts of her reflected in the shattered terminal screens around the place. All that ensured was the cyber mare’s even swifter departure from the sparking remnants of the broken core.

For a mare that had never used power armor before, Ocean could really move in the stuff. The plate was elegant and sleek, far more like that of Shadowbolt design than the bulky MoT marks of armor. Yet for as sleek and slender as it was, it almost seemed to blend into the darkness. Jade was sure both of them had some kind of night vision now, and with no lights, it made dodging the few ghouls lingering down here all the easier.

“Ocean, wait, what’s going on, where are you going?” Jade asked, finally reaching out for the hippogriff, gripping her shoulder. “What happened to you?”

“I… I don’t know, you fell… After the last time, I thought you’d died, but I came searching, and then…” The hippogriff shrugged her off. “I just need to get back to him, I promised.”

Sounds like somegriff needs to pull herself together. Part of Jade’s mind sniped, but she shook it off, following her companion. Don’t be like that, she saved my life.

“Like you saved mine?” Jade whirled on the shattered glass of a lab to her left, seeing a blue mare in her reflection for a split second.

“I didn’t… Data…” She squared her jaw and stole her sight from the hallucination. “You’re not real, it’s all in my head.”

“Precisely the point,” mused her dead marefriend’s voice, flying beside her reflection like a ghost, at least until the walls were consumed by more of the plastic hives.

Thankfully the swarming sprites that had once inhabited them were gone. The layer of silver dust on the floor was evidence of that, even if it was thinner here than it had been back towards the core. Still, judging by just how covered some of the walls were, this place had been overrun with the things before their timely intervention. Ocean didn’t seem to care, and Jade could only assume she’d pulled the attention of all the sprites back to the core when the hippogriff had last been trying to come this way.

Coming this way to save my life, need I remind myself? She muttered to herself, only for the tiny image of Data in her head to spit out her tongue like a school filly in protest. All the while X-23 shivered, as if cold, while Ocean marched through a set of double doors that once looked to have been very heavily barricaded.

What use are barricades against a threat like that? She thought, spying more of the tattered biohazard wrapping as the two of them entered a large chamber.

At first glance, it reminded Jade a lot of the labs back in the MoA, the walls were mottled and yellowed, yet she could easily assume they’d once been a clinical white. Chipped tears and cavities were rent in them, revealing more wires and plastic hives, while lights seamlessly integrated into the grated roof flickered and sparked. Chords and wires hung from holes above like the metallic entrails of the decaying structure, while robotic arms and spotlights reached like mechanical spiders to five plinths about the place’s circumference. On each was a pony-sized figure, each in what appeared to be a state of decay.

Yet they were far from biological. The half-melted forms were not alive at all, nor did Jade think they’d ever been. They were almost like ponyquins, half encased in segmental armor, one even appeared to be no more than a set of veins, or a nerve system supported upright only because it was crafted from silvery metal. Above, on rails that ran in rings around the core of the room, were legs, wings, and even bones, all printed from the same plastic. It was a shop for replacement body parts. Jade could only assume this was where the majority of the prosthetics had actually been printed, the armor on the other hoof, seemed like a later edition.

Military taking over peaceful projects? She noted, a fact all too common to her, she wasn’t even sure if this was something she’d offhoofedly signed off on without even thinking. Of course, they’d want to print new suits on demand.

Yet the conjuration engine itself was nothing without the sprites, and with the machines gone, it was utterly dead. A thin layer of dust still lingered on the tile floor, evidence enough of the nanosprites’ presents as the two mares stepped up the squat set of stairs in the room’s center. It was marked by another pillar, only this one was merely half-formed from walls of hissing technology. The base was masked by a flickering set of screens, flashing about errors and power surges. Above, wires and rusty rings connected it to the roof while the center of the thing was a cylindrical shaft of dirty glass, forming a wide tube. In which, encased in a shell of plastic with his head barely free, was a hippogriff. A living hippogriff!

The cocoon of plastic almost filled the whole tube, encasing him like a fly in amber as his eyes, smooshed up against the glass, focused on the two of them. Yet the tight restraint was only half of his issues. Ocean’s claim that not all ghouls were feral had been lost on Jade at the sight of the ferals that had hunted them mere hours ago. Yet the parts of the imprisoned hippogriff, not covered by plastic, were gaunt and withered, his flesh peeling away to reveal faded sinew and muscle.

The soft clicking of Jade’s pipbuck left little doubt as to how he’d ended up that way. Even if the minor radiation was hardly enough to bother her or her power-armored friend, years down here stuck in place would break any pony down, even if the process was agonizingly slow.

He is just as stuck as her, has been all this time. Jade noted, feeling a little disheartened as she regarded Ocean.

His eyes were yellowed, his beak cracked, yet he didn’t appear like he wanted to take a bite out of his fellow hippogriff, in fact, he seemed very glad to see her as she approached.

“Y–you, you’re back, you made it!” he wheezed, voice perforated by harsh coughing. “I knew you could do it!”

“Pfft, it was nothing,” Ocean quipped, waving the idea off with a casual motion of her talons. “You were right, this stuff makes it easy.”

She did a little prance on the spot with her armor, only to stagger and stumble down the ring of steps, sending a tray of lab equipment clattering to the floor.

“Oops, my bad,” she muttered, while Jade could imagine she winced as hard as the imprisoned hippogriff as she finally stepped up to him.

As dry and raspy as his voice was, she could detect a hint of recognition in it. She was good at that. While she’d not seen his color in the aquatic recording, from his face alone she had a feeling who this trapped stranger was.

“You’re Stratus, aren’t you?” she asked simply, and his attention shifted from Ocean to her. “I saw your recording, you’re the leader of Ocean’s wing?”

And the one she was talking to in that fight, I’ll bet. She thought, sure the armor must have some kind of communicator.

“Scout wing Marlin… Yes, I remember,” he muttered, shifting as if trying to salute with a wing, even if it seemed his memory were slipping away as much as his body. “And you are?”

“Jadefire, I worked with the Ministry of Awesome, but that was a long time ago.” She acknowledged his formality with her own, before drooping.

“The surfacer Cult of Rainbows?” he muttered, and she blinked, cocking her head.

“Excuse me, what?” she asked, confusion overcoming her as he looked to be battling to recall what he’d just said.

“It’s what we called those under the one you called Rainbow Dash,” Ocean chipped in, and Jade had to imagine she was offering an odd look under her helmet. “I didn’t know you were part of it?”

“The MoA was not a cult,” Jade deadpanned, while in the back of her mind, the miniature Data giggled. “We just specialized in… Secretive things.”

“And yet you’d find ponies that both worship and loathe your leader,” Stratus coughed. “Or do you not know what became of her?”

What became of Rainbow Dash? Why would I care? She thought, holding only a little discontent for the mare that had forced her to draft ever more specialized ponies. I never even knew the mare, never met her!

“I’d be more interested in knowing how you know?” she countered sharply, jabbing a forehoof at him. “I don’t know where you come from, but what I do know is that you were up here looking to adapt this technology to suit you.”

She jabbed a forehoof at Ocean, and despite the armor, the hippogriff actually flinched a little.

“By the looks of it you succeeded, and I want to know why and how?” she demanded, the part of her trained to maintain security demanding she act upon at least some of her suspicions.

Just because Ocean is good, it hardly means the rest of them aren’t as bad as we used to be. She thought bluntly, but once again, her avian-equine companion shrugged.

“Jade, I told you, I have no idea, it was above my classification,” she reasoned, but Jade’s eyes snapped back to Stratus.

“Maybe, but I doubt it was above his,” she stated, yet despite everything, the imprisoned hippogriff started to chuckle. “W–wait, what’s so funny?”

“You ponies are so funny, so paranoid,” he mused, before trailing off in a fit of coughing. “Long ago our kind fled to the ocean to escape a great evil, it spared us from your war. Yet Seaquestria is strained, the seas are poisoned, and population control can no longer be implemented, we had to expand.”

“So you thought invading our home was the solution?” she asked, only to wince as she remembered this was hardly Equestria anymore.

“An invasion, hardly.” His voice grew soft, despite still boasting the consistency of sandpaper as he added. “A small settlement to start, peaceful, but peace demands at least some security.”

He did his best to nod at Ocean, who looked like she was just as new to this idea. So not everypony is so evil?

She felt herself deflate at the revelation, bitterness seeping away as she sighed.

Why should I stand up for Equestria, they were hardly any better to my kind? She had a feeling maybe the idea to avoid ponies entirely had been the best one, her kind could have just stayed in their mountains, away from the fight.

And die with the rest of the world, it’s not like we had the protection of the whole ocean! She thought with a huff, as her little Data once again did calculations. Still, hardly explains how they knew about all this.

She asked as much, albeit in a far more approachable manner, leaving Stratus lost in thought for a long moment before he stammered.

“You ponies and your paranoia have their uses, trying to hide so much under the sea. Only took one sub to work most of it out.” Once again Jade felt a sinking feeling in her chest, well aware that such practices were common in many operations, scuttling ships to name just a few.

But just one sub, who in Equestria would load up a sub with intel like that? She thought wondering just what else they knew. Seems like something I should know about.

“And that sub was called what, was it a ministry vestal?” she asked with a raised eyebrow, only for him to think and do his best to shake his head.

“No, from what I knew it belonged to a stallion called Lockedheart. Kinda renowned for throwing stuff away, that one,” he told her with a laugh, yet the name made Jade’s heart sink.

That name again… Of all the ponies who’d hide things at the bottom of the ocean. She dreaded to think what would have come to pass if Seaquestria had been on the zebras’ side during the war as she asked.

“And this printing facility, this is all you found out about?” Stratus blinked, then nodded, adding in as casual a manner as Ocean.

“This was my mission, my only mission, all else was above my classification.” Jade fought the urge to face hoof, she understood compartmentalization, but right now it was just infuriating.

“What is it, Jade, what’s wrong?” Ocean asked, as the cyber mare took a step back, rump hitting the floor with a dull thud as she pressed a forehoof to her head.

“Nothing, just that name. Lockedheart and I… We knew each other before the war, I think… He planned for me to wake up like this,” she elaborated, and Ocean cocked her head.

“But you don’t know where he is now?” the hippogriff asked, and Jade rolled her eyes as she added.

“If I had to guess, he’s dead… But I’m still alive so I can’t be sure.” She sighed, pressing her forehooves against her face. “Goddesses, things are such a mess.”

“Aww, don’t worry, I’m sure we can fix that too, once we get you out, you can help, right, Stratus?” Ocean suggested, looking back at the glass cylinder, only for a sad look to pass over her wing leader’s face. “What is it, what’s wrong?”

Jade looked up, her heart dipping again as she picked up on his solemness long before Ocean did.

He’s got to be stuck in there good, maybe fused with the machines for all I know. She thought as the little Data in her head scratched her chin, then nodded once in solemn recognition. Damn it. That’s two hippogriffs I’ve failed.

For as rare as they apparently were, it stung just a little more to see them dropping like flies. Yet not as much as she imagined looking at her wing leader’s sorry eyes was hurting Ocean.

“What do you mean, we can cut you out, the monster’s dead?” Ocean asked, pressing a talon to the glass. “I don’t wanna be the only griff.”

“Ocean, you’re a medical mare. Just look at me, this thing is all the way through me… I… I can feel my mind slipping… No, you have what we came for, it’s on you now,” he admitted, looking at her armor. “You can get back to the others, tell them.”

“I… I can’t, I lost my pearl,” Ocean confessed, the crack of sadness in her voice more than apparent as she sniffed behind the visor. “I’m stuck up here.”

“No, you’re not,” Jade stated firmly as she stepped up beside the hippogriff. “I said I’d get you home and I will, somehow.”

There were no calculations in her head that could tell her how to do that as the tiny Data scribbled on her mental chalkboard and shrugged. Even so, Jade had to imagine that behind the helmet Ocean was at least offering her a look of appreciation, as Stratus finally coughed.

“I’ve been stuck here for nearly seven years… I'm done, but… I was glad I was able to catch you,” he said with a small smile. “And by my authority as wing leader, I hereby grant you the position, Ocean Blaze, as the sole remaining griff.”

“Acknowledged, sir, thank you, sir,” Ocean said, her head drooping with a creek of armored plates.

“And what about you?” Jade asked as the hippogriff mare took a step back. “We were going to head out onto the highway above, but if you just tell us what to do here…” She was cut off by a cough as Stratus added.

“There’s a service escape a few doors down the left corridor out of here. It was our exit, but with the machines gone it should be open.” He nodded left, then ahead, to a console behind the two mares. “Over there’s a purge, was made to disintegrate anything in the template chamber if the thing ever got clogged.”

Jade didn’t even need to think what the template chamber was as she glanced back and caught the faded red switch, nodding.

“No, I’ll do it,” Ocean said, stopping the cyber mare as she lifted a talon. “You just check our escape, I’ll be right behind you.”

Jade didn’t think it was her place to challenge the hippogriff mare’s decision as she nodded and made her way to the door.

“For what it’s worth, “she said as she paused in the doorway and glanced back. “I’m sorry we had to make so many horrible things.”

She didn’t say a word more, nor wait for their reply as she stepped out, naught behind her but a vibrant green flash of disintegration, before gloom once again flooded the dead halls.

Footnote: Level up

Ocean Blaze - Companion Perk Added: Shotgun Surgeon - When using shotguns, regardless of ammunition used, you ignore an additional 10 points of a target's damage threshold