Fallout Equestria: Barkeep’s tale (fanfic of a fanfic. Creds and props to khat for creating one of the most amazing worlds I have ever had the honor to experience.)
'The Glory Hole’ it said in clear writing, devoid of any decoration and faded almost beyond recognition. The stallion sat alone and motionless. His face ravaged by wrinkles, his coat was invaded by age and grey.
He sat like this for a while. After a few more moments of silent meditation, he produced a long wooden case along with a small hammer from a concealed compartment underneath the counter. With the hammer he began to remove the nails sealing the case.
“Can’t you read, colt?” He said in a gruff voice without looking up as several nails came loose. “No minors in here. Also, we’re closed on Thursdays.” The intrusive light from the world out beyond the doorway shone in for a moment as the colt crossed the threshold, briefly illuminating the dusty construct in a shower of golden light.
“It took a long time finding you, Ramparts.” The colt said.
The colt fumbled through the darkness towards the counter. Ramparts eyed the colt closely as he procured a wineglasses from a dusty cabinet behind him. The colt wore a heavy leather coat with some awkward bulges under the leather, and he had a large hat that looked too big to fit on his head.The barkeeper removed the cork from the newly extracted bottle and poured out a generous amount into a glass.
“Well now, even after all these years, you people still manage to find me.” Said Ramparts. The colt pulled out a large caliber revolver with a levitation spell. “A unicorn? Well I suppose it doesn’t matter. So what’s your name, and how may I help?”
“My name is Lucky, and I'm here to collect” He moved closer with the firearm. Ramparts showed no regard for the gun.
“Collect what and for whom?” He drained the entire glass of the brown liquid in one long draught.
“You damn well know what I’m here for, and Eleven demand that I take it back, and your life as well.”
Ramparts let out a long sigh. He got up and stretched his limbs. His left hind leg was gone, and in its place was a metal contraption that was not much more than a glorified peg. It had the shape of a hoof at the end, but a long metal wire frame instead of a leg.
“You moron” Ramparts chuckled. “Why are you working for Eleven? Did she promise you money? Because she is a rather poor fellow, she ain’t got much in the way of caps. Or maybe is it that you are here not for the caps, but for some other personal struggle?” Ramparts poured and downed another glass of the brown opaque liquid. “Anyway, as it stands, I still have no idea what you want, you see, I have numerous things she could possibly want.”
“Oh really? Please tell.” Lucky said. As he pulled back the hammer on the revolver.
“Well now, let’s see. What do I have that she could possibly want?” Another cascade of the brown liquid went into the glass, and again it went down his throat. “I got about nine hundred caps in the back room, I suppose everyone would want that. I have some high quality guns there too. Course, knowing Eleven, she’s probably after something more,” he paused as he picked the right word. “Substantial.”
“She wants Forty-Seven’s pipbuck. You own it.”
“Wow why don’t you just ask for an element of harmony as well. Your chances of finding them are the same as finding that dammed pipbuck, impossible. Truth is, I ain’t been the proper owner of that piece of work since the a whole year before they cleared up the skies.” Ramparts said with a sad smile lingering on his face. “I’m afraid Eleven wasted your time.”
“Then where is it?” Lucky asked with a dangerous edge growing in his prepubescent voice.
“That is a very, very long story.” Ramparts stared at him intensely. Then poured another glass and took a sip. “You’ve never killed before, have you boy?” He paused then drained the entire glass, the bottle was half empty now.
Ramparts was wrong, this would not be Lucky’s first experience killing another pony. He mentally debated with himself whether or not he was responsible for that other death too. Mentally kicking himself he brought himself back into focus. Focus on Ramparts, and on his current objective.
He was so close, he could feel it. This is his defining minute, when he would return home victorious and proud. Then Eleven would reward him greatly. His heart stopped cold when he saw Ramparts no longer on the other side of the counter. He stood right next to Lucky. The revolver no longer suspended in flight, but on the ground and all the bullets contained inside were unloaded.
“You got eyes like his, eyes that show a spirit that can change the world. Your mother would be so proud.”
“What, how did you?” Stammered Lucky on the verge of losing control of his bladder “Wait, you knew my mother? Bullshit! That can’t be possible”
“Impossible is nothing. Yeah, I knew lady Fourleaf. I never would’ve imagined her child working for Eleven.” Ramparts paused. “Since you are going to kill me, the only person who knows the full story of Fourleaf and her damned family. I think you deserve to know the whole thing.” The leathery old stallion pulled two stools up and sat down. “Sit down son, this is gonna take a while.”’
O-*-O-*-O-*-O
The Glory Hole used to be such a lively place. My own little oasis where for a fee, anyone could drown out the problems of their day to day lives. They walk away with an alcoholic fire in their eyes, and I make a few caps. It wasn’t the kind of work I’d prefer to do, it also wasn’t the kind of work I was good at. However I can’t do much else now, I consider it the wasteland’s punishment for drawing breath on this earth for sixty-four sad years. I know that there are those who have endured much longer. However I am no ghoul, nor monster. To your average everyday scavenger, the years can beat down pretty darn hard.
The wasteland loved to hand punishment out so freely, everything you did resulted in someone getting punished. If you fuck up, the wasteland comes down hard. If you did good, the wasteland crashes down upon someone else, and you get to pick his body clean of all his possessions. That used to be the wasteland’s sick and warped idea of a reward.
However I’ve come too understand that these rewards are shared with those closest to you. So it makes sense that the punishments would also be shared as well. Just like the successes of one pony may help. others around him, the punishments are very devastating to all those close to you. It’s especially felt by those very close and personal to you, family usually gets hit the hardest.
So i guess I’ll start there, with family getting hit hard. Born into a place called Paradise because daddy fucked up a while back, and he fucked up big time. So the wasteland came down hard on me as well. Spent the first few years of my life as in my own little garden of equestria. Looking back, it really was a paradise. I was so young, I had no idea the kind of life I was living. I had no idea that I was just living my life as a commodity.
All i knew was that if I did everything i was told, I wouldn't get my ass beaten. Those glorious days of innocence were truly the best time in my life. There was none of this crap about survival, money, love, morality. No massive issues of identity. I didn’t even have a name. Just bliss that could only come from innocence. Now what do you think could take away the innocence of a child? The first encounter with death? The coming of age? I remember exactly when and how i lost mine.
“Five hundred caps, best offer.” He was a dark brown unicorn stallion, His cutie mark was hidden the whole time i was in his company.
“Please sir, this is one of our finest slaves. He never questions, he always follows orders, and he never once complains.” She was lightly grey, with splotches where there were no fur. “750 caps. and I’ll even throw in some of our surplus ammo.”
“Seven-fifty! I outta buck your ass right here. There is no way a single colt is worth that much...”
Losing track of the argument, i took a moment to examine my surroundings. I remember being bound by something heavy and metal, it had a chain connecting me to the brown stallion. It forced me to stand there while they bickered over the counter about something that was of no concern to me.
In my mind there was only one question. “Whats my next assignment?”. Being born as a slave you don’t really know much about freedom. The only freedom you had was to accept your assignment willingly and be rewarded. Or reject it and be punished.
The brown stallion left that tavern with me in tow. Heading onward, we approached a large steel construct of shopping carts and old cars. It was the gate, and an overwhelming fear of it told me to halt. ‘If i went any further, I’m dead’. Fear however, can be overcome by instinct. Instinct to follow orders from my master.
“Keep walking, and stay quiet.” He said, I remember him tensing as his eyes darted around the wall.
We lose innocence when we lose belief in something. One of the biggest beliefs that i had was that there was nothing outside of the gate. That all who have passed through those gates have died, in a way beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies. When I left that gate, the belief died.
“The wasteland punished you for good reason, it was cruel but fair.” I remember him saying to me. We walked for a whole day, my hooves were bleeding, I've never walked this much before in one day. “look at you for example, you might think your life is unfair but fuck no. Its not unfair, its as fair as it could possibly get. It makes sense too, you were born into slavery because your momma was a slave. She fucked up hard, and she owes punishment that she couldn't afford, at least not alone. So the wasteland sees this and passes her punishment onto you. However you got rewarded too. You took to the role of a slave really well. You convinced me to buy you, and take you outta that shit-hole. So there let that be a lesson to ya. next time you see some poor beggar on the streets, you’ll know that they completely deserve it.” I got the feeling that he was talking with me to amuse himself rather than caring about my moral education.
This was however, something that boggled my mind. It stayed with me, it would make my life crystal clear later on. This ideal was more powerful than I could possibly imagine, it would keep me alive, and it would allow me to do things nopony else would ever consider. It would make me powerful.
The outside word was very different from the small civilized one I came from. There seemed to be a dominant color scheme of the world, a dominant color of green. A very dark green, with grey land stretching out in all distance. Grey and green clouds completely covered up the sky.
We walked towards the setting sun for a very long time. We stopped and set up camp in the shadow of a large rock formation. He started a fire, cracked open some cans of some nasty goop. We shared a modest meal of pieces of food that would've been considered on par with parasprite dung two hundred years ago, needless to say, I loved it. I barely said a word, but he talked a lot. He spoke of troubles that were of no concern to me. They just sounded like far fetched stories of another world that i had no interest in. He talked about a group of people going around and taking out the leaders of the biggest and baddest gangs around a place called Hoofington.
Then he turned a few knobs on a strange black box in his saddle. Static erupted from the device. Some soft music danced lightly through the speakers.
“Bloody-arse music stations, I swear they are starting to pop up all over the place. Just because that one DJ got really popular, playing music.” He mumbled. he then pulled out a black mouthpiece and after fiddling with a few more knobs, the music was once again replaced by static. He said a few lines of some strange code with numbers and letters whose meaning escaped my grasp. After a few moments we heard a small beep from amid the static. And ramparts began to talk.
“Ok I brought a slave with me, meeting your exact specifications..” He said, there was hint of disdain in his voice.
“Nicely done Ramparts, I knew could count on you.” Said the voice from the radio.
“Don’t patronize me Shoes” replied Ramparts.
“Ok, bring the colt to 47 and we’ll take it from there.” The mare on the radio was talking much faster now. “I...I... cant believe it, after all these years, we might be able to finally bring down the steel rangers.”
“Ramparts out.” He pressed another knob on the radio and turned it off.
He stood there for a few moments looking around the landscape, then he turned to me. "I’m sorry colt, we all have to do what we have to do. I hate it, but I’m not about to take the cowards way out either.”
He pulled out two blankets and handed one to me. “It’s all i can do to survive. It’s all i can do just to avoid fucking up” He wrapped a blanket around himself as i did the same. “As long as we are in the wasteland, we are going to have to live by its ugly rules.”
For the first time in my life i spoke without being prompted to by a master. “Why doesn’t someone change the rules?.” He looked at me with a faint smile. He reached behind him into his backpack, he pulled out a large steel bracer with a huge panel of glass bulging out on it and numerous knobs. It had several words painted on it, first and foremost were the words ‘pipbuck 3001’ and the other side said ‘Property of 47’. It looked like a massive terminal that went on your leg. Or just a glorified armlet for clumsy bludgeoning.
“Once upon a time, There was a stallion who tried.” He said. “He became a hero, but the wasteland does terrible things to heroes.” A few moments pass as he drifted off into a sad memory.
****
I was brought to what he called “Stable 47.” Why did they need me? Turns out it was something incredibly trivial. They accidentally dropped something into the stable’s drainage, and they needed an expendable child who can fit in there to get it out.
The stable was an underground chamber designed to house thousands of ponies, and protect them from the horrors of the outside world, or so I was told. The inhabitants of the stables were essentially locked in, they weren't allowed to leave. However there are always those that find a way to leave, they were known as stable Wanderers. Equipped with superior nutrition, weapons, morals, skills, and technology (most notably the pipbuck), they were undisputed “problem solvers” of the wasteland.
They generally had a reputation of being very helpful and being backed up by a group of very close friends (usually with strange abilities). Many of them were heroes when they first step into the wasteland. They challenge the wastes and do their best to change everything, and they always fail. When they fail however, one of two things usually happen, they either just flat out kill themselves, or become an incredibly hardcore and over-the-top force of nature that does what they want, when they want, how they want.
When this happens the wasteland faces a whole new kind of dark age. Stable wanderers almost always come out into the world one at a time. They do some heroic deeds then before long the DJ’s of the news start telling their stories on the airwaves. They usually get a pretty epic and unique name that they get bestowed onto them, but sometimes the DJ gets lazy and just decides to call the current one ‘Stable Wanderer’.
I entered into a place they called the main atrium. In addition to me and Ramparts there were five other ponies. two stallions, three mares. One of them i recognized instantly as the mare on the radio. She was a white mare who spoke with an air of command. The other two stallions and mares bent to her every whim. When I entered the room her joy was palpable.
“Oh, sweet Celestia! Finally! We can get that goddamn chip out of the gutter.” She said as she ran over to greet Ramparts.
“Any news of the rangers?”
“Don’t worry, they are meeting up with a convoy who was supposed to be delivering the chip.” She then led us down a corridor to the side.
The corridor had a lot of brownish red paint on the walls. We turned into one of the rooms on the left. Inside the room was a massive collection of strange contraptions that looked very hi-tech. She pushed us into a corner where a large drainage grate was located. Ramparts pried it open with a crowbar revealing a very dark hole. My job seemed pretty self explanatory.
“Ready kid?” Ramparts asked me. I didn’t respond as I lowered myself into the dank hole. No sooner had I touched the bottom had a black satchel landed next to me. Inside there were several objects. A bottle of water, a picture of what the chip looked like, a small gun, and a flashlight. “When you find the chip, come back here and we’ll get you out. One more thing, that gun, we’re not giving you any more ammo for it, the 9 shots that are loaded are all you have, watch for rad roaches, good luck.”
Above me was a narrow hole where i squeezed my way through. To my left was a wall, to my right and behind was another wall. My only way forward, was quite literally forward. Holding The flashlight with my mouth, I clicked it on with my front hoof. I was facing a long dark tunnel. That smelled oddly similar to home. Taking a deep breath I began to move into the dark tunnel. It smelled of age and rot. With the satchel strapped around my neck I had shifted the flashlight to be tied with the satchel on my neck. I held the small gun in my mouth as the awkwardly positioned torch dimly lit my path onwards. Lets get going then.
You would not believe the brahmin dung i found down there. There were old pieces of photographs, and a lot of discarded notes. Sadly, slaves can't read.
I was down there for a long time. Thankfully, the dank corridor didn't have any tunnels that led off to the side (or else i would’ve gotten embarrassingly lost). It also had a slight incline that got more and more noticeable as i went further in. Strange growths of glowing fungi that resembled jellyfish were on the roof just half an inch above my head.
At the end of the corridor there was small circular room about 5 feet in diameter and 4 feet in height. In the center of the room (if you can call it that) laid a small mound of shiny objects that glistened at the center of the construct. Three gigantic bugs were living here. They looked like roaches, only gigantic and much more elongated. these must have been the radroaches he told me to watch out for.
Without even thinking I fumbled to try and fire the gun, nope couldn't do it. Who knew firing a gun with your tongue was so unbelievably hard? So i threw the gun at one of the roaches scaring it off as two more roaches moved towards me. I panicked and tried to move back into the tunnel I came from and I hit my head, very hard.
While still in a daze one of the roaches advanced on me and angrily started to hiss and bit at me. I instinctively bashed it with my right foreleg. It gave a little squeal then stopped moving, they go down pretty quick. Why the hell did he even give me a gun for this? I landed a quick stomp on the other one and the last roach seemed to have disappeared into one of the other tunnels.
It was safe, time to do some digging. I sorted through the mound. Most of it was useless garbage. There were some old pieces of paper with scribbles all over them, some half finished boxes of apple crisps, a lot of candy wrappers. Finally after what felt like a long time, I held in my hooves a small silver chip. It had gold lining on one end and felt heavier than it should be. A large tremor shook through the walls. Terrifying sounds of metal scraping against metal surrounded me. My assignment was finished, nothing getting me sidetracked, and no more exploration, it was time to leave.
A wet and dark trip later, I found my way back to the entrance. I could hear the sounds of large pieces of machinery moving around and the sound of big heavy boots colliding with the floor. I heard Ramparts speaking.
“Please star paladin Stark, you have to understand.” Ramparts stammered, he was afraid, very afraid. “We don’t have the chip. We were having it delivered here but if the courier is dead, and the chip wasn’t on him we can only assume that it was-”
“Taken?” another voice interjected in a highly sarcastic tone. “Yes, that would be an incredibly convenient cover wouldn’t it?”
Ramparts tried his best to play dumb. “Cover for what?”
“For you savages to take the chip yourself.” said the other voice. “The rangers are not children you can fool with your pathetic games. I know that the chip had arrived here, I also know that you are hiding it. I think it was stashed somewhere inside the stable. When we arrived, you and your entourage told us of the fake signal of the convoy carrying the chip. Then we would go investigate, and you would take it out of the hidden place, then you would be gone before we even returned. Am i the ball park with this theory?”
“A-A-Are you insane?” Ramparts said, his cover was cracking up. Even an uneducated child such as myself could tell he was faking it now.
I climbed up the narrow shaft and poked my head out. Three large iron-clad stallions faced Ramparts and away from me. Ramparts saw me and his eyes widened. The middle iron-pony turned around. I ducked just in time for him not to see me.
“The drainage? Wow, risky move, the radroaches could carry it to Celestia knows where.” Said the star paladin, he then turned to his comrades and with an air of command he said “Watch him, if he tries anything, you have my permission to fire at will.” The sound of metal pounding on the steel floors got louder and louder as he drew closer. I ducked into the dark tunnel. Lights from his face cascaded around the entrance.
A very loud explosion went off in the room. The light disappeared as the star paladin looked away. “How the hell di-” He started to say as something collided with him. I heard the sound of a pony being screaming in pain, then silence.
A weak gasping whisper made its way to my ears. “Hey slave. New orders. Get your ass out here.” Lethargically, my body obeyed the command. What I saw when I got up there was rather disturbing. The room was a complete mess, the array of machinery on the left side of the room were completely destroyed. There were two ponies completely liquefied from the inside out, the only way i could tell they were once ponies, was the metal armor around the goop. The sides were blown out and blackened.
The right side of the room was another pony clad in large steel armor. he was propped up against the wall. Red and blue wires wrapped around him with small sparks popping out every few seconds. He seemed to be twitching. At his feet lay Ramparts, or rather waht was left of him. His right hoof was gone, in place of it was a bleeding stump. His other hoof held a very bloody pipbuck.
“Ok, take that chip, put it into this pipbuck.” He rasped. I did as he asked i slid the silver chip into a small slot on the side of massive armlet. The thing flashed on, it popped open, looked like it was ready to go onto another limb. “Turn around.” I turned around and I felt a metal clamp go around my left hind leg, it felt like a shackle.
“Get back into the drainage. find a way outta here.” He said as he pushed a button on my leg. Suddenly, the world changed, I could not describe how it changed, but it did. Words flashed before my eyes. Slaves aren’t literate but i could read them very slowly, the letters ‘E.F.S.’ showed up and soon weird symbols and lines appeared on the edge of my sight. A flashing arrow on the bottom left of my peripherals pointed me where to go. “Keep the pipbuck out of sight, if the steel ponies see it, they will take it.” Ramparts groaned, then he shut his eyes.
I followed it into the drainage. It guided me, through maze of dark tunnels. I stomped my way through countless radroaches, and found more deposits of shiny objects, looking through them, strange symbols flashed through my eyes, I think they were letters. Eventually it led to a dead end. The arrow pointed right at the ground, or was it up? Looking up was another drainage grate. I could hear several ponies out there.
“Star paladin Stark is dead.” a female voice spoke through one of those heavy breathers mounted on the ranger’s helm.
I recognized the voice as the one from the radio. “What? that cant be pos-”
“Shut up.” These ponies enjoyed interrupting people mid-sentence. “Stark is dead, because your friend Ramparts jammed, the guns of Stark’s escorts causing the barrels to rupture and obliterate them from within. He then proceeded to electrocute Stark by charging him into a fuse-box.”
Another voice spoke now I recognized it as one of the colts I saw when I entered the stable. “Ramparts did all that? He took on 3 heavily armored steel rangers wh-”
A gunshot flared, then the sound of a body hitting the ground. “I declare that this stable and all property inside it now officially belongs to the steel rangers.” The mare spoke again, with a shaking voice. “This is now steel ranger domain. All trespassers will be shot.”
“No... YOU CANT-” a salvo of machine gun fire rang out. I opened the drainage grate and charged right out. I was in the atrium, the steel ranger kept on bombarding 4 lifeless pony bodies with rounds. She didn’t see me or even hear me as I ran right out the door and out of the stable.
The sounds of the gun stopped, last thing I heard before I left; A small weak voice “You, tribals. You deserve everything you get.” She fell prey to a series of racking sobs.
-*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*-
Level up
New quest perk- Pipbuck of Fate: An incredibly sturdy metal thingy is now attached to your leg. Reducing all dmg taken from that limb by 75%, additionally grants extra speech options that allow you to further advance the plot of the story.
New perk- Action boy: You gain an additional 15 action points to spend in S.A.T.S.
