Chapter 3

“The Descent”

I woke up. Trapped. Slavers had found me in the middle of the night and put me in a cage in their wagon. They had injected me with a sedative to keep me under. There were two others in the cart, a filly and her mother. I saw my weapons on the back of one of the slavers. I thought about levitating them off, but the other guards would have rounds pumped into me before I could click off the safety. I had nothing to do. My thoughts kept drifting back to my last day in the Stable.

The air had been stale, as usual. The lights seemed dimmer, and everyone seemed tired. I had been called into the security office. I had expected it was for my report on the fight that had broken out. Two of the engineers, drunk, got into a disagreement and I had to pull them apart. They were both under stall arrest. I was greeted by Chief Patroz. He told me to follow him, and I obeyed. He led me to the Overmare’s office. She greeted me.

“The Stable is running out of parts for the generators,” she said

I stood there obediently, trying to figure out why I needed to know.

“we need to send someone out, and see if it is safe for the rest of us to go, the cameras that we used to use were knocked out a decade ago,” she continued

I looked dumbstruck, I was already knowing what was coming next.

“We need you to go out, and recon the area,”

I stood there for a few seconds, and then nodded.

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I was pulled put of my thoughts as the wagon came to a halt. I looked up. It was a compound of some sorts. But it looked like we were just passing through. As we passed in, I was shocked by the scene. Bodies of ponies, strung up on crosses, were everywhere. They were still alive. I then noticed red banners, with manticores on them. This wasn’t a raider camp. A pony in armor with a helmet made seemingly of feathers walked out. The slaver gave him a few caps and we started rolling again.

After about two hours of travelling, we stopped, the slavers got out some of their food, and I sas the perfect chance to get out. The one with my weapons dropped his saddlebags as they gathered around and started setting up a fire. Two of the four went off to find more firewood. Once they were out of sight, I slowly levitated out my rifle and SMG, the guards didn’t even take out the ammo. The two around the fire were down, and one of the others came back. He already had his shotgun out, and started pumping shells towards me, they were slugs, but he was a poor shot. The other two prisoners cowered in the corner of the cage. Even with his poor aiming, a round made it through my right foreleg, taking me down. My magic imploded. He ran towards the cage shooting, but I used one of my best spells, the weapon jamming spell. Sadly, it also works on my guns and I had to find something to take him down with. Quick. I saw a rusted piece of relatively sharp metal and floated it up.

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The cage door opened with a click, and I limped out, the mare and child in tow. I holstered my now unjammed weapons and turned to the other two. They had expressions of happiness and fear. I turned away, bringing out a healing potion from my bag, when I realized that I would have to get the lead out. The two were walking away, and the mother scooped up the

shotgun that the slaver had been using. I turned my attention to getting out the chunk of lead. ‘busy hooves are happy hooves,’ I thought to myself with a smirk. I didn’t have any tools, so I decided to use my magic. I let out a pained groan. As I finally got it out. I sighed with relief. I decided to put away the potion, and took out a few bandages, wrapping them around my leg. I walked over to a different dead slaver. I searched his saddlebags, and repeated the process with the others. At the end, I had found three cans of food, some ammo, and a few bandages. I checked my Pipbuck, I was near Phillydelphia. Fantastic. I looked at the wagon. In a few minutes, I had it on and was pulling it, with even more of the supplies that they had. I didn’t have any clue where to go, but I didn’t want to head in to the big city. Instead I started heading back in the direction of Ponyville. I checked on my Pipbuck map, when I found a new broadcast. I tuned in to it.

“-please help, this message repeats….. if there is anyone out there, this is Velna’s Rangers, we are pinned down outside of Phillydelphia, please, help, this message repeats.”

I turned off the radio, ‘looks like I’m heading to Phillydelphia after all, I thought to myself.’ I sighed. I had only been out here for three days, and I had already been captured by slavers. Things were not going well. I let out a sigh. I was probably going to die out here soon. ‘unless,’ I thought to myself, ‘I can find some friends, or at least help, how corny,’ I stifled a laugh. Walking along, I knew this wouldn’t be easy, they hadn’t said what they were pinned down by, I was hoping it was raiders or something. I halted and sighed. ‘there is no was ill be able to take anything down, who am I kidding,’ I mumbled. I hated not being able to do anything. I cursed myself, I cursed the wasteland, I cursed everything. Apparently, I was yelling pretty loud, because someone started talking.

“you’ve got quite a mouth on you, haven’t you?” a mare asked

I froze up, it would be near impossible to quickly turn the wagon, and I suddenly wished I hadn’t taken it, so instead I played along with her questioning, “yeah. I suppose,”

I slowly turned my wagon, “hold up right there, buddy,”

I heard a shotgun being pumped, “how do I know you aren’t a raider, or a slaver?” she asked,

“you don’t, but your just gonna have to trust me on my word,” I responded,

“what’s your name?” she questioned,

“Vocal,” I responded flatly.

“Well, Vocal, nice to meet you, I’m Very Merry, but people just call me Verma,”

“Nice to meet you too,” I said dully.

“alright, you can turn, you haven’t tried to shoot me yet, and your armor doesn’t make you look like a raider,” she said

I turned, Verma was a light blue pony, a unicorn, in fact, which explained how she could talk while holding the shotgun, which she now had holstered by her saddlebags. Her eyes were a dark green, and her main a light brown, with a single light blue strand in it, she held out a hoof, I took it and shook it, to the best of my abilities, the wagon encumbering my movement.

“So where are you heading?” she asked with an inquisitive look.

I shrugged and answered, “Not sure, just roaming around.”

“It’s pretty dangerous out here on own,” she said

“Yeah,” I paused and lifted my injured foreleg, “I noticed.”

“well why don’t you come with me?” she said “I could always use an extra hoof in my travels.”

I paused for a moment. Verma seemed pretty good natured, compared to most of the other ponies I had met. I took a moment to consider it.

“Why not,” I responded

“Well alright!” she said with a smile, “let’s go then, do you wanna bring the wagon or…”

“not really,” I said, tugging the straps loose.

‘How corny,’ my thoughts teased, I smirked at my own brain, it seemed. We started walking, I didn’t bother to check the direction, I didn’t care at this point, it would be good to have someone to talk to, to keep the dark thoughts out of my mind.

“So, where are you from?” she asked

I paused, wondering what to say, “Vault 86,” I said after a moment.

“Really? I thought they were closed, that’s interesting.” She said

“Yeah, but I was forced to leave,” and she gave me a quizzical look, “It’s a long story,”

We walked for a while, before we spotted a small village.

“Oh my,” she said, very concerned, “We have to go around,”

“Why?” I asked, puzzled.

“That is a Legion outpost,” she said, a bit of fear in her voice.

I didn’t ask any more questions, I decided I would ponder later. She motioned for me to follow, and we started to make a large circle around the camp. Amazingly, we made it around without any issue, although a Legionnaire almost saw me, and a I realized that they were the same ponies who’s camp I had passed through when the slavers had me. Once we finally made it around, and were out of earshot, I started asking questions. She gave me a short summary of the Legion, after I had launched out at least a dozen questions.

“The Legion is a large… army, consisting of slaves and conquered tribes, they are… evil, and they crush everyone who opposes them… and kill anyone else,” she finished with a shiver.

“Wow,” I said solemnly.

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We had been walking for about four and a half hours before it started to get dark. Then it started to rain. We ran for cover, and found a cave. It was somewhat dry inside, dryer than the outside, at least. I ventured outside, and came back with some timber for a fire. It was soaking wet though, but, luckily, there was some dry wood in the cave, which we used to dry the wet logs and sticks off. After a while, there was a soft fire, and I realized that while I had my nightvision, Verma hadn’t been able to see a thing. The fire provided light, but it was dim, so I flicked on my Pipbuck light. I sat on my hauches, and took off my saddlebags. I started searching through them manually, and found what I was looking for. I took out a small holodisk, and popped it in my Pipbuck. I switched the Pipbuck to its speakers (security models had speakers for broadcasting messages in the Stable) and a song started playing. It was a fully instrumental version of a song that I couldn’t remember the name of. I then started rifling through my saddlebags, while Verma watched with an amused look. I took out some of the terminal parts, along with a broken radio I had found, and started to tinker with them. The radio didn’t work, and I tried to figure it out. After a while, I found a piece that looked like it was burnt out, and replaced it with a piece of the terminal. Putting it back together, I tuned into a broadcast, and switched off my Pipbuck’s Song.

“until next time, kiddies, this is DJ Pon3…” I smiled with my success, and Verma gave a little clap. ‘Busy hooves are happy hooves,’ the voice inside my head whispered, it seemed to hate me, or at least get joy in spiting me. I tried to repel those thoughts and turned to Verma.

“Who’s DJ Pon3?” I asked.

“Just somepony who seems to have a lot of informants and knowledge in the wastes,” she said, “There are a lot of people who listen to him, he’s a symbol of hope to most, just a voice to others,”

“hmph,” I responded, it wasn’t very important. But at least someone was trying to help, unlike the majority of ponies I had met so far. ‘Verma’s pretty attractive, don’t you think?’ my thoughts tempted. i pushed them away, thinking like that would make me think of… past occurrences… instead, I turned my attention to my saddlebags, pulling out my bedroll, Verma already had hers out, and I started setting up mine. ‘Busy hooves are -‘ I politely told my thoughts to go die in a hole. Once it was setup, I decided to turn my thoughts to less dark things. I started messing with my Pipbuck, trying to find out why it marked random locations, like Scrapheap, that hadn’t existed before the war. After not finding a single thing, I gave up. I saw that Verma was reading a book, I couldn’t see the title, and I didn’t bother trying to find out.  

“Who’s taking first watch?” I asked.

“Oh right, thanks for reminding me,” she got up, taking out some things from her bags. She set up an alarm system out of string and cans, “Simple, but I gets the job done, and I’m a light sleeper.”

I nodded, why hadn’t I thought of that? I decided that I would have to find a library of some kind, and get a book or two.

“Well, goodnight Vocal.” She said

“Goodnight,” I responded softly, I stared off into space for a few minutes, but before I could be caught in my own thoughts, I had fallen asleep, I hadn’t noticed just how tired I was.

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The morning was colder than others. Other than that, it was pretty much the same. I slowly got up. I checked my Pipbuck, it was 7:48. I yawned. Verma wasn’t up yet, and I started getting breakfast ready. She really was quite good looking, as I saw her without her barding. I looked at her cutie mark; it was two horseshoes next to each other. I got the fire up again, and started cooking a can of beans and took out a can of apples. I went outside to survey the area. We were next to an old forest, completely barren and burned. The air was relatively fresh, and there was a small break in the cloud cover. As I watched, it was quickly drawn closed. I looked around, and saw no definable landmarks. I went back into the cave.

Verma was awake when I came in.

“Good morning,” she said cheerily.

“Morning,” I said in a somewhat less depressing tone than usual. I sat down and tended to the beans.

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After breakfast we headed out. I checked my Pipbuck, but there were no locations nearby.

“How’d you get your cutie mark?” I asked her

“Exploring, it would seem, it kinda makes sense,” she responded, “I wondered why it wasn’t a map or something, but horseshoes make sense too.”

I nodded. We walked for another hour or so, before stumbling upon a house.

“I’ll go inside, you wait out here and keep watch,” she told me.

“Alright.” I confirmed. I looked around, and saw a rock jutting out of the ground. I clambered up on it, and kept a lookout. After only a few minutes, I saw something. I levitated on my modified helmet, and switched to thermal vision, but it had limited range, so I flipped it off. I crouched down, and waited. After another minute, they were close enough to get a good look. Four ponies. All raiders. I crawled over to the house, and warned Verma. She snuck out of the house, and we waited to see if the raiders would come closer. I carefully brought out my rifle, and got ready. Apparently, my luck had run out when we passed the Legion camp. The raiders spotted us, and charged shooting. One of them had a rusty sword, two had pistols, and one had a light SMG. I fell the one with the SMG and Verma got one of the pistol users. They were closing in, and I took out my SMG while putting away my rifle. They were a few paces away, and I brought up my riot shield spell. I pumped a dozen rounds into the other pistol holder, and turned to face the final one with the sword. I stunned him with my shock spell, and Verma finished him off.

“You got some pretty nifty spells there Vocal,” Verma said

“I like to think so,” I responded, panting, “What spells do you have?”

“a handful,” she answered, “mainly some bland ones, but I also have one that throws people back, kinda like telekinesis, except I don’t’ have to really aim it,”

“Neat,” I said, regaining my composure.

“Well, ready to go?” she asked, I nodded.

Footnote: Level Up

New perk: Educated – you get +3 skill points per level.