Well a collapsed tower didn't really do the image justice. From what I could see it was built like a castle but instead of brick it looked like one giant solid piece of crystal that had been carved out and changed in color. Despite having collapsed on its side, the majority of it looked to be intact if albeit a good percentage of it buried in the snow in a way that had made it looked like a wall. What once were windows and balconies were either collapsed shut or had been reinforced with metal and crystal blockades to prevent entrance from flight or climbing. The bottom of it was unrecognizable from the collapsed ruin that it used to be, ending rather abruptly in the center of the city where a giant glowing crater that flickered with enough radiation to make a glowing ghoul being eaten by an Aqualight look positively dim in-comparison with pale green and blue light. That must of been where a balefire bomb or megaspell had hit the empire, and made me wondered how that turn of events had transpired. As it looked more like it had hit directly center of the city rather than off a side of the castle or dropped in.

The city itself was made of similar crystals on a much smaller scale than the castle. These crystal buildings however only lasted until around the outer rim of the city where metal and brick buildings seemed to make a direct line between the central city and its outskirts and then later a shattered wall that surrounded the outer city proper, protecting whoever had lived in either section from invaders of the outside. The wall and several buildings had been blown over in several places along the city though, and those buildings closest to the blast site had easily been reduced to molten slabs that then rehardened once the natural weather had reclaimed the general area around the site. Another noticeable feature was the ring of security reinforcement that had been abandoned on the wall. Several mortars lined the wall in hundred meter increments along with a ring of turrets that had been knocked loose by the blast, destroyed, or rusted into nonoperational condition over the hundred ninety or so years since they were last in operation.

All in all the city seemed to be in rather shoddy condition, but overall fantastic comparison to the rest of the wasteland in comparisons were to be given with what I had seen so far of the city of Vanhoover. Then came the familiar blip of my pipbuck as it updated my quest objectives from 'Get to the Crystal Empire' to 'Acquire Artifact shards 0/3' which along with it I could see my own icon in the south western corner with a smaller triangle pointing out my companion. Great. Now it was to find the pieces of the magical artifact that wasn't even marked on my pipbuck. Which meant I had to search the city.

While I was up here, however, I could try scavenging for clues. But without much in the way of knowledge of the Crystal Empire's infrastructure I had to take round about guesses using common sense. Seeing as it was a magical artifact of great importance, it was probably held in the center of the city where the tower used to stand, which meant that a shard of it was probably contained inside, as that was the safest and one of the more dangerous places for it to be. The crater itself I would of searched if it wasn't absolutely full of radiation. I imagined without being both a ghoul and in power armor, no one would be able to really travel into that crater. I had a few syringes of Rad-X to help with some of the pockets of radiation, but that would be nowhere near enough to go into that crater. After that point I had searched even further, taking note of key buildings that made up what used to be the central market districts of the city and various bureaucratic offices that could contain memory orbs or other files to help me get better orientation of the destroyed city.

I have a Contact for you to meet if you want more direction, he used to live here back before the war tore it apart and his advice would prove invaluable in your efforts.

Where would I even meet him in this city? It was huge, and it would take a while to reach any portion of the city itself.

Head to the bank in the central city market and open the main vault, He'll be waiting inside at its lowest point. Beware what you find in the city. For not all secrets are meant to be read or believed.

That had been a really ominous and direct warning. And now the rebellious youth in me that had gotten me out of the stable wanted to read every secret this mysterious city. The challenge had been accepted and now it was a matter if I could actually have the patience and ability to search every even somewhat curious looking building.

Mentally I heard the audible slap of a facehoof and that brought a giggle out of me.

Getting into the city was a bit dangerous, infiltration was always like that though, and I couldn't imagine how any changeling could of infiltrated this place during its hay-day. I imagined that they would of had to go through with other refugees and even then I wondered if the Crystal Heart was powerful enough to repel a changeling that fed off the same emotional energies that had supported the Crystal Hearts creation. Still I gave the turrets an apprehensive look as we flew over the wall and landed on a rooftop, taking quick stock of the occasional ghoul wandering around several streets away, or the few rad roaches that were fighting over the remains of another dead pony inside the ruins of a house. Curiously there was a ring of snow mounds in the cross roads of a street. As I watched a ghoul even further away from us, saw us and started running at us, but when he entered the ring hell broke loose on the poor ghoul.

Snow white bipedal dogs with massive arms erupted from the snow, a few of them wielding guns and aiming at the ghoul while four others descended on the ghoul and tore him apart. Once they made short order of him they threw his body into one of the nearby buildings and covered up the signs of the scuffle before reburying themselves in the snow. I shivered from the brutal effectiveness of it, and now I knew, if at a distance, what a Snowhound looked like. I also resolved not to be in the street and to fly instead of walk while in the city. Luckily as Pumpkin was also an aerial pony that tactic was perfectly valid. We took advantage of our ability to fly to enter several of the taller buildings, occasionally having to deal with a ghoul while we scavenged and searched. The first few buildings proved to have very little in the way of supplies, but we did manage to scavenge some 10 mm pistols and ammunition for them after the first hour or so of searching. If the skeleton had been any indicator from earlier, they'd be useless against snow hounds unless we shot them repeatedly in the head, but the pistol would prove a lot more reliable against ghouls. But I still had Ambush and Cloak to deal with the snow hounds if it came to that.

That and a lot of fire if Pumpkin was anything like she had been in the past.

Some of the better buildings to loot had no direct entrance way from below, and when we got past the crowded brick and metal buildings to the more regal crystal ones we found that several of them were flooded with ghouls. Ghouls that screamed in feral rage and died really easily to a bullet to the head, a knife to the chest, or running around in panic when set on fire. It was usually loud and unpleasant, but it was worth it as we came across a few memory orbs after unlocking a safe. The orbs had been marked with tape which only lasted due to the airtight nature of the safe preserving it. A few of them were marked with embarrassing names that marked them to be sold so that another unicorn could get their kicks out of them in my inventory, but I kept the one marked 'Tyrant Speech' and discarded the one marked 'Coal Mine Accident' for its probably morbid nature, though it did tell me that somewhere nearby the town was a mine for coal. Something I made note of in case there was ever a reconstruction effort made here. Information like that could be valuable.

We landed in the balcony of another larger crystal building on our way and it lead into a bedroom where a feral ghoul dressed in nothing but a nightgown was waiting for us to become its next lunch. Honestly seeing that much ghoul flesh exposed in such a thin dress with sultry socks and underwear that emphasized its flanks made me want to hurl. Even more so when it started running at us, and we took off and let it run itself over the balcony and break its neck on the ground. The smell of rotting flesh, feces, and the dead body of a partially chewed up loved one that was also a ghoul made me hurl into the nearby trashcan. Great.

The wasteland didn't even give me a break as it turned out that the ghoul had the same habits of a raider with other unfortunate bucks strewn about her house. Pumpkin for the most part was Impassive about the situation neither commenting or really looking at the gore as we scavenged what we could, pointedly ignoring the containers of food or the jars of peanut butter that had been stuffed with things I'd rather not think about. Well now I could add raider feral ghouls to the mix of things I had witnessed in the wasteland as the bastard child of the two things I had marked for 'kill on sight' already. It didn't take a genius to know that most raiders were beyond any sort of medical help I could of provided, let alone feral ghouls who had so much unnatural things happening to them when they were sane that trying to reason with one that had went insane was simply not worth the effort without any method of success available to either un-feral random ghouls or de-raider raiders if that line of thought worked.

Though my internal line of thought just told me I was making an excuse to kill them instead of trying and to make a point to myself I began greeting the feral ghouls to see if any of them weren't feral. Shortly before shooting them whenever I got an answer that was a scream or a wild charge in my direction... Which was every single ghoul we came across.

After the fifth and sixth feral ghouls, a pair of unicorn ghouls who had been chasing each other in circles, Pumpkin had asked, "Why are you trying to talk to them? It's not like you casually greeting them will bring em back. Once they go feral they never come back."

"I know." I said, "It's just... I want to try to see if there really isn't no way to talk them down." Giving my words a bit more thought, "I feel wrong just killing sick ponies you know?"

"Sick is putting it mildly Lovebug." Pumpkin rolled her head before shaking it, "Its more of a mercy to put them down, as far as I heard, being a Ghoul is to live in constant suffering from the radiation being poison to your body leaving you in a state of living by necrotic flesh and tumors. The only cure of which is to die, but most are too stubborn and scared to and instead go feral when they lose their will and drive to live."

We mulled over that as we continued to scavenge for memory orbs and supplies, "Medical helps ponies." I said after a long time, drawing her attention, "But healing ponies isn't the only duty of a medical pony. Doctors are expected to know when a patient isn't going to make it and to ease their suffering so they can pass on to the next life in relative painlessness."

"But you're not just medical aren't you?" Pumpkin replied, "A Soldier as well."

That was true, but Pumpkin didn't push further, she understood my dilemma with killing radiation victims gone insane. Raiders were a bit sympathetic but not nearly as much as a lot of them had become raiders seemingly by choice and if I were being honest with myself the only ponies I actually enjoyed killing had been mad scientists and slavers, but even that meant to some extent I enjoyed ending another ponies life. Did that make me evil? To play judge jury and executioner? This was a bit much for somepony like me who was barely a teenager and I reverted to thinking about simpler things instead of trying to over think the morality of killing essentially insane sick murderers.

As sympathetic as they were, I had to accept that at the moment it was either them or us whenever we came to blows and I wasn't ready to die yet. As we grew closer to the market district we decided to set up camp in one of the emptier and taller houses, locking a windowless room in the house by shoving a dresser in front of it before getting ready to sleep as night began to fall again. There would be time tomorrow to reach the bank and find Roggar's contact but as for now I was curious if I could access the memory orbs. I hadn't exactly really tried since I lost access to my normal magic. As I wrapped my shadowy tendril around the first of the few memory orbs that we had acquired, I focused my attention inwards and felt the world slip away as I entered the first of many memory orbs...

Xp footnote: 50% until level up.

Next Chapter: Chapter 48: Mirror of Memories Estimated time remaining: 2 Hours, 33 Minutes