Dear Diary,

After the fight, it was too dark to continue any further, so we had to settle in for the night. I correctly predicted that we could probably find a suitable building on the other side of the river, but the others insisted we lodge in a motel on the north side that we had recently passed since we knew it existed. Remembering what Dmitry had said to me earlier, I decided not to argue and deferred to his judgement. Part of why i wanted us to sleep on the other side of the river was because I was worried the Guardians might supply reinforcements to the bridge during the night, and that I would have to fight them all over again. I still can’t believe I was able to do it all single-hoofedly, and even if I did, I could never purposely recreate the rage that enabled me to do so.

Fortunately, the bridge remained exactly as I had left it. The site now looked even deader than before, now that the campfire had burnt itself out and the corpses had begun to rot. I had considered going out there before we left and rearranging the corpses before the others saw them, but ultimately decided I wouldn’t have enough time to do so without suspicion. I resorted to simply hoping the others wouldn’t notice.

When we crossed the bridge, we still had to fight the roaches that were feasting upon the corpses, but roaches are far easier to take out than fully grown pony soldiers. A part of me wondered if it would have just been safer to pay the toll, but with the size of our group that probably would have taken all the bullets we had left. Plus, based on their reactions to me, it seemed as though they still held a grudge against me over something that happened nearly a year ago. Whether or not they knew about what we did to their counterparts over in Greyham would depend on the degree of coordination the Gatekeepers had as a whole, which really didn’t seem like much.

We left the freeway at the first exit across the river. This put us out in the country, where it was a lot colder and a lot windier than it was in the city. There were a couple of houses here and there, but the vast space in between consisted solely of barren, desolate fields and clumps of dead trees.

“Hey, since we’re going east, why don’t we go back up to the river and hijack a boat?” one of the survivors asked.

“Nah, it’s more trouble than it’s worth,” replied another. “Besides, what if somepony’s siphoned out all the fuel?”

“We don’t need fuel, we’ll be floating downstream,” said the first. “And it’ll save us lots of walking.”

“That river moves hella slow,” said a third. “It’ll take all day just to go one mile!”

“It’ll just seem slower,” said the first. “But trust me, it’s faster. All these roads go twisting and turning, while the river goes straight through.”

“An’ how will ya know where ta stop?” asked Grapevine. “All those riverbanks are covered in trees!”

“She’s right,” said the second pony. “If we go too far, we’ll just float right back into the city, and all our traveling will be for nothing. If we go way too far, we’ll sail right into the blast zone.”

“Too bad,” said the white stallion I met earlier. “I’d have loved to see the downtown by boat.”

“We can still do that,” said a fourth pony. “I’m sure radiation suits aren’t that hard to find. In fact, I heard there’s a lab somewhere out here...”

“Yeah, a crop lab,” said the second pony. “Not a radiation lab. Why would they be exposing our food to radiation?”

“I dunno, I heard they’re actually doing something like that,” said the third pony.

“Okay, maybe somewhere,” the second pony replied, “But there’s no way they’d do that near a major city!”

I had taken heed of Dmitry’s advice yesterday and deliberately slowed my pace so I wouldn’t leave the others behind. That turned out to be the right thing to do, since their arguing filled what would have otherwise been a pretty monotonous journey through the middle of nowhere.

“No, the river goes east, then north. We need to go east, then east.”

“Then maybe we could just ride the boat until the river turns.”

“But how will we know the difference between its many small turns and the one big turn?”

“Trust me, you’ll know.”

“But what if we miss it anyway? Then what’ll we do?”

“I just remembered there’s a waterfall in Cascade City. We won’t go downtown.”

“A waterfall would be fun.”

“A waterfall would certainly not be fun! And what if we fall down it?”

“We won’t fall down it. I’m sure we’ll spot it before we get there.”

“What if we don’t have any gas in the boat? Then we can’t turn back!”

“Well, I think a waterfall will be the least of our worries. If we drift too far, we’ll have to get past the Gatekeepers again!”

“We’ve handled them before and we can handle them again. No need to worry.”

“I dunno man, that firefight sounded pretty scary.”

“Um, guys,” said the white stallion, “I think that waterfalls and Gatekeepers might be the least of our worries right now. It appears we’ve just run out of road.”

Everypony looked ahead, including me. Admittedly, their conversation had distracted me, because I had unwittingly led us down a gravel path which led us through somepony’s farm and ended in a clearing surrounded by trees.

“What now?” he asked me. “Do we turn back?”

I thought about it for a moment. Then I finally said,

“No.”

This confused the others, so I decided to explain.

“We didn’t pass any signs or roads going south for a long time, so if we try to go around, it could cost us hours. Since we know we’re going east, I thought it would be best if we just went straight through. Eventually we’ll find a road to help us find our bearings.”

Still confusion. I realized my explanation probably wasn’t very helpful, since the others didn’t have pipbucks with road maps.

“She’s right,” said Dmitry, looking at his pipbuck. “The closest road through here is a ways away. Cutting across here might be our best bet.”

The survivors shrugged began trodding eastward toward the thicket.

I almost immediately began regretting my decision. Consciously, I knew that there was very little chance that anypony else was in these woods, but recent events had me worried. I also began to worry that perhaps this was the more time consuming route, despite being potentially shorter, due to our slow progress. The undergrowth teemed with branches and vines, which tried even us three semi-experienced adventurers. After all, we got out of Mt. Hoof using trails and roads. It felt like we were wandering aimlessly, with no path to follow or landmarks to distinguish one place from the next. All we had to go off of was the pipbuck’s compass, which had been pretty accurate so far and gave us no reason to distrust it.

Eventually, we heard the sound of running water and saw light through the branches. We emerged on the bank of a great big ribbon of blue. It was fairly dark, but the numerous tiny ripples on its surface indicated that it wasn’t too deep to wade across. It was too big to call a creek, but it didn’t seem like the sort of place you could float a boat down, either.

“Really?” one of the survivors asked. “Are you going to make us cross that?”

“C’mon, it’ll be fun,” said another. “Are you telling me you don’t know how to swim?”

“It’s not that deep, guys,” I said. “And there’s an island on the other side. You won’t be in the water for long.”

“Fine, we’ll go,” the survivor said. “But I’m not going first.”

I couldn’t help but glare at her, but she had a point. I looked back at the water, then at my own clothing. I wasn’t exactly dressed to go in the water and my boots were made for walking, not wading, but I had backed myself into this and didn’t really have a choice. I plunged my hoof into the water and almost yanked it out because of how cold it was. However, I kept it there and put my other hoof in to let them adjust to the cold. Instead, they started to numb, but the others were looking on with suspicion so I had to get going. What, could they hear my pipbuck’s geiger counter from all the way over there? I stepped forward, then put both of my hindhooves in. As I waded in, I moved slowly and tried to keep my balance on the slippery rocks admidst the swift current of the river.

By the time I was halfway across the river, the water was already up to my belly and my hooves had gone numb. I stopped to catch my balance and looked back to see if the others were following. They were, but with greater difficulty than I had. And with some hesitation too, probably from the radiation. Ironically, standing there worrying about it would only kill them faster. I considered going back to try to help them, but at the same time I didn’t want to spend any longer in there than I had to. Although I was absorbing rads like crazy, radiation was an afterthought for me compared to freezing my hooves off. But scrambling over to the shore would have been very rude and seem like I was rubbing my success in their faces, so I took a halfway approach and kept going at the steady (and safe) pace I had been going at until the water was only fetlock-deep.

The island had little to offer aside from several tufts of dead grass. There weren’t even any stool-sized rocks for us to sit on! However, it was dry land, which was all we were asking for at that point. Our entire group had to sit on the gravel for about ten minutes or so just to warm up, myself included. It felt like we were wasting time, but I also recognized the importance of it, especially in giving our hooves time to warm up. Most of the others took off their waterlogged shoes, but I didn’t; I weighed the pros and cons and decided that the convenience of not having to put them back on again outweighed the risk of hypothermia in my hooves or a fungal infection in my boots. Instead, I’d try to walk around and warm my hooves up that way. My forehooves though had gloves instead of boots, which I could easily take off. I was shocked to see that my forehooves were almost white with numbness, and spent several minutes furiously blowing air on them and rubbing them together until sensation and color returned.

The distance between the island and the east bank was far shorter, and the water was less than knee deep. We could quickly cross that part, but the earlier crossing had left our clothes soaking wet, and therefore frigid. We didn’t have time to properly air them out, nor did we have anything to replace them with. Some of the survivors had packed extra clothes, but unlike our zipper-lined vinyl stable-issued saddlebags, their bags were mainly made of cloth and had button-fastened flaps instead of zippers, which resulted in their articles being soaked with water during the crossing. Given a choice between two pairs of clothes that were both waterlogged, all but one chose not to change.

I wondered if the continuation of the thicket on the other side would give us shelter from the howling winds that swept across the barren fields, but the forest soon drew to an abrupt end when we happened upon an open field. This field was much larger than the clearing on the other side and as evidenced by the large wheel line irrigation pipe, was intended for growing crops, although whatever was growing there last year had either been harvested before the bombs fell or beaten into a muddy pulp by the continuous rain which fell after it.

From there, we found a dirt road that took us to an actual road, which took us to another road which took us to another road which brought us into a small town called Canterby. Much like Sandy Shades, Canterby was also a small town before the war consisting of several blocks of suburban housing surrounding a small downtown core built around a highway. Much like Sandy Shades, Canterby had also responding to the war by shedding its residential periphery and building a makeshift fort in its business district. In Canterby’s case, the town now housed around one hundred ponies inside six blocks of stores, with all the gaps on the outside gated or barricaded. Much of their wall appeared to be made of steel plates ripped out of automobile bodies. However, there was one major difference between the two towns, and no, it was not the fact that Canterby had both a retirement home and a chiropractor inside its walls.

“Who goes there?”

A haggard griffon eyed us from the battlement above the north gate with the gaze of a hawk.

“Who goes there? Friend or foe?”

“Friend!” I shouted. “We mean no harm. Are you open for trade?”

“Trade?” he cocked his head and looked at us like we were speaking some alien language. Then he perked up.

“Trade, ah, yes, very good. Trade. Ah-hem. OPEN THE GAYYY-TE!”

As the gate began opening, the white stallion from earlier whispered to me,

“Was this the place you meant to take us? It doesn’t look very friendly to me.”

“No, it wasn’t,” I replied. “We’re just stopping here for supplies, and maybe lunch.”

Upon entering the gate, we were greeted by three militia ponies in their early 20’s, standing at attention in a line near a very scruffy and inebriated officer with a mustache and thick sideburns. Upon seeing us, his eyes lit up and he began salivating.

“Ooh, lookie here,” he muttered. Then he cleared his throat and announced, “Welcome, welcome, welcome y’all, to our… humble… fort,”

His eyes scanned our group, but kept coming back to me.

“Ah am major Sibley Tent. While we ain’t got the finest of accommodations, we have plenty of… amenities… that are rather uncommon in this wasteland of ours, makin’ it a fine place of lodging fer any ladies an’ gentlecolts of a discerning variety...”

Then he added in a soft, seductive voice,

“Especially the ladies...”
And licked his lips. He seemed to be staring directly at my body as he said this. Most of my companions grimaced awkwardly, and Grapevine seemed particularly annoyed. All of this attention was making me feel awkward.

“Well,....” I began, “I’d hate to be a bother... um… you seem busy. Maybe we’ll just leave you alone then...”

I began turning towards the gate.

“No, wait!” the Major cried in desperation. “We’re plenty open fer company, we’re--”

A calm, authoritative voice interrupted him.

“That’s enough, Sibley. At ease.”

A mildly annoyed middle-aged dark blue stallion with goldenrod hair approached, and all of the guards saluted. His uniform was spotless and his face was spotlessly clean-shaven, a feature incredibly rare among wasteland stallions and placed him in stark contrast to his unruly subordinate.

“Good day travelers,” he said , “ah am Major General Edward Richard Sprigg, retired, an’ I apologize fer the actions of my subordinate. May it be mah pleasure to welcome y’all to our humble fort. How may we be of service?”

Major Tent shut up and stepped aside apologetically. The General’s presence and professionalism put my group at ease, myself most of all.

“We were looking to trade some supplies,” I said. “We’ll be here for about two hours, at most… sir.”

“There’s no need fer formality,” he said. “An’ please, take all the time you’d like. We’d be happy to trade with you, as we were runnin’ low on certain goods ourselves. Ah presume you’ll be joinin’ us fer lunch?”

The arrival of eight extra guests posed a logistical problem since the kitchen staff had already begun cooking. This would be solved by making a second batch of food after the first. Also, the General and three of his officers chose to give their spots at the lunch table to have a private meal with myself and three companions of my choosing (to make up for the impolite behavior of his officer earlier). While the rest of our group was dining with the others, I took Dmitry, Grapevine, and the white stallion from earlier with me to do the group’s trading. However, we were given some very unclear and convoluted directions to the supply depot, and we wandered off into a dark hallway where we were--for lack of a better term--ambushed-- by Major Tent.

“Mah ‘pologies fer mah earlier behav’r,” he began. “Ah suppose we got off on the wrong note.”

“We forgive you,” I said.

“Good, good,” he replied. “Let that be water under the bridge, then.”

“Aren’t ya supposed ta be on scullery duty?” blurted Grapevine.

“Why, yes, yes ah am,” said the Major. “But ah can’t clean the dishes ‘till after the meal’s over. But enough about me. Y’all seem lost.”

“We are lost,” said Dmitry. “Can you direct us to the supply depot?”

“Oh, the supply depot’s located far, far back,” the Major said. “We can make the deal right here. As the official quartermaster, ah have that authoriteh.”

“Oookay,” I said. “Well, we’re running a bit low on food.”

“Food, yes?” he said. “We’ve got plenty. But what’ll ya trade in return?”

“Mostly weapons and ammo,” I said. “Will you accept those?”

“Why, yes, we were runnin’ low on those,” he said. “An’ ah see you’ve got some fine ones on ya, if ya know what ah mean...”

I let Dmitry and the white stallion do most of the trading, partly because they’re better at it than I am, and partly because I still found the Major to be kind of creepy. Grapevine wasn’t good at bartering either, so she kept to herself, muttering angrily.

“We’re both true blue southerners, yet he goes fer the city girl...”

The trade seemed to go without a hitch, though I felt like our bags were a lot lighter coming out of the trade than they were going in. We gave up some pretty good weaponry and a lot of ammo, in exchange for a vague promise that we’d be supplied with edibles when we left the fort. The Major justified this by claiming that the prices had to be adjusted to recoup the cost of the food they’d been serving us, although the General had made no such indication when he invited us to dine with them. We ended up relaying these events to him during our private luncheon.

“Quartermaster?” he said with surprise. “No, he ain’t the quartermaster, he’s in charge of patrols an’ drills, not supplies. Are y’all sure ya heard him correctly?”

“We’re all certain,” Dmitry said. “If I had known better, I could have recorded our conversation.”

“Hmmm,” said the General. “That ain’t like him. Ah know he might rub off on y’all the wrong way, but trust me, he’s a good pony at heart.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t get better directions,” said the actual quartermaster, a green mare who owned a hardware store before the war. “If I had known, I would have met you inside and shown you the way. I was just told you’d be coming, so I stayed in the depot and waited.”

“After lunch, make sure the order goes through,” the General told her. “We won’t let you leave without yer supplies.”

“I think that’s enough on this topic,” said another officer. “So aside from that, how have you been finding our camp?”

“Well, it’s… fairly clean,” said the white stallion.

The quartermaster giggled.

“Yes, we strive to keep everything neat and orderly,” the General said. “We adhere strictly to army regulations in everything we do.”

“Huh,” said Grapevine. “Ah didn’t know there was an army base around here.”

“There ain’t,” the General replied. “Ah had actually come here to retire from the army some time ago, but when we were attacked by vicious looters, they asked fer my help. Ah’m not the best fighter, but ah know how to run a fort.”

“Interesting...” I said. “So you were essentially able to draft the entire civilian population of this town into the military?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘drafted,’” said the quartermaster. “It seemed more of an obvious choice for survival.”

“A shame ya had ta be yanked outta retirement,” Grapevine said. “Even after the war ta end all wars, ya still can’t get any peace.”

“No worries,” the General said. “Ah’ve been preparin’ fer this mah entire life. It’s like Spitfire said; ‘Old soldiers never die..”

“...they just fade away,” I added.

The General turned toward me with a small smile of approval on his face. “Hey, ya got it,” he said. Then, he turned back to the others and said, “Ah’ve been readin’ Spitfire’s memoirs recently. Great book. Any a’ ya read it?”

“I used to have an autographed copy,” I said. Everypony turned and looked at me, with reactions running the gamut from astonished to apathetic.

“Woah there,” the General said with amazement while still retaining his signature calmness. “If ya don’t mind my askin’, how’d ya get it?”

“Well, it was about five years ago, on a Saturday in March,” I began…

I can still remember it rather vividly. My mom was meeting colleagues at some art show in the Opal District and wanted to bring at least one of her children to show off. I was the only one who agreed to go, mainly because she had promised to take me to Towell’s World of Books afterward. The show itself was boring and completely forgettable, and I wouldn’t have really remembered the visit to the bookstore if I hadn’t wandered off to the second floor. There I found a table all laid out for a book signing, and sitting behind it was none other than Spitfire herself. I couldn’t believe it! The most famous name in the Air Force (behind Rainbow Dash, of course) was right here in our inconsequential little corner of Equestria, and now I had the opportunity to meet her in person!

I hid in one of the aisles between bookshelves for a while, trying to calm myself and plan out what I was going to say so I didn’t make a fool out of myself. No, I wasn’t some raving fanfilly about to burst into a scream at any moment because I had just seen my idol-- because I DON’T have ‘idols,’ but I guess you could say she was a bit of a kinda-sorta idol who I thought was really cool. ).

Eventually, I worked up the courage to come out of hiding and actually walk up to her. She looked up from what she was doing and appeared really curious as to what some young filly was approaching her for.

“Um, hi...” I said, before starting to choke on my own shyness. I could feel myself shaking a little, and desperately hoped that she wouldn’t notice. “...miss Spitfire,” I finally added a few seconds later. Then I realized I had made a mistake and quickly corrected it. “Er… General Spitfire,” I quickly added.

Spitfire chuckled at this.

“Just ‘Spitfire’ is fine,” she said. “I’m surprised a filly your age knows who I am. I’m not exactly as famous as I used to be.”

She sighed and gazed out into space and muttered, “Otherwise they wouldn’t have shelved me here like an old book.”

I looked around. Unlike downstairs, this section of the store had the atmosphere of a library. It was almost shocking to see just how deserted it was, especially on the busiest day of the week.

“But I’m not mad,” she continued. “I mean, I get it, times have changed, I’m not in the Wonderbolts anymore. All my work for the past twenty years was behind the scenes. Planning air raids in a war room against targets hundreds of miles away that you’ll never see with your own eyes isn’t exactly glamorous...”

She was definitely past her prime. This was especially obvious when contrasted with the much younger version of herself on the cover of her book, ‘Memoirs of a Wonderbolt Captain’. Despite attempts to dye it, her mane was getting greyer and more brittle. Her skin was also starting to sag (especially under the eyes) and she just seemed a little lethargic overall. She could never go back to the Wonderbolts now, even if she wanted to.

Then she looked back at me.

“Umm… you aren’t lost, are you?”

“No, I was on my way to the history section right over there,” I said, pointing to it.

“History, eh?” she asked. “Well, I guess that’s a fitting new home for me then.”

“Actually, I think they put you in front of the ‘Military’ section,” I said, pointing to the sign behind her.

She turned to look, then smiled slyly back at me.

“I’m just jokin’, I know that,” she said. “I’m just at the part of my life where I reminisce about things, ya know? I’m old enough to be your grandmother, after all. Besides, I pretty much am history at this point, since I’m retiring...”

“So it’s true?” I asked. “Are you already retired, or not yet?”

“Welllll…. It’s complicated,” she said. “I still have a few loose ends to tie up, and I play an advisory role every now and then, but for the most part, yes, I’m already retired. How else’d I have the time to go on this book tour?”
Then she picked up a book and displayed it in front of me.

“So, kid, ya wanna buy my book? I’d really appreciate if you did. There’s action, adventure, all sorts of funny stories, and a whole lotta life lessons.”

“Sure,” I said. “I’ll take one.”

Looking at the big stacks of books on the table, I asked, “Slow day today?”

“Yeah, kind of,” she answered. “But I think there’s a lot less interest in this town than usual. In Manehattan and Filly I always had lines.”

“There’s a lot of anti-war sentiment out here,” I said. “Where’s your next stop?”

“Seaddle,” she said. “Is it any better?”

“Ten times worse,” I said. “We’re like a mini-Seaddle.”

“Shoot,” she said. “Well, it can’t be that bad. The worst they’ve done was pelt me with tomatoes in San Flankcisco… though I guess throwing coffee’s a lot worse, huh?”

“Just a heads up, there’s a couple of weirdos protesting you outside the entrance,” I said. “There’s only five of them, but they looked really, really angry. You should go through the back entrance when you leave, or better yet, the underground parking garage.”

“Noted,” Spitfire said. “I’ll keep an eye out for ‘em, though they’re usually gone by the time I’m done. If there’s one thing the military’s taught me, it’s how to survive chronic boredom.”

At this point, she laid the book down, opened it up, and

“By the way, what’s your name?”

“Silver Bullet,” I responded.

“Silver… Bullet,” she repeated as she wrote it down. Then she quickly scrawled out her signature, closed the book, and gave it to me.

“With a name like that, you’ll do well in the army,” she said. “Especially as a sniper.”

“But I don’t want to be a sniper,” I replied. “I wanna be an officer, just like you.”

She smiled a bit.

“Then follow this book to the letter,” she said, “Conquer your fears, and never, EVER give up.”

I was so excited that I just squealed and galloped away, completely forgetting to thank her.

Behind a bookshelf, I immediately opened the book and read the message Spitfire had written for me, though I can’t remember what it said. Then I skimmed through the book itself, gazing at the pictures and smelling the freshly printed paper… at least until my mom started calling my name.

The others laughed at this last detail, but that wasn’t the end of the story. There was another detail that, seeing just how much they respected her, I purposefully chose to omit: after I replied, “Coming!” to my mom’s call, I looked back at Spitfire and found her slouched over over her table, drinking a huge swig of vodka straight from the bottle. She looked disheveled, pathetic, and overall a mere shadow of her former self.

I carefully approached her, unsure of whether or not she even noticed me. I think she did, but happened to be too drunk to care. In her drunken stupor, she had knocked over one of the books that had been displayed upright, again seeming not to care for it. When I reached the table, I gently propped the book back up, Then I leaned into Spitfire’s ear and whispered,

“If it’s any consolation, I think you did the right thing in the Battle of Dassiestad. Even if everypony else hates you for it.”

“SILVER BULLET!” My mom cried from across the store.

“Coming!” I yelled. Knowing my time was short, I simply looked at Spitfire (who still appeared to be dazed), patted her on the head, then began walking away.

I was halfway across the room when I heard a loud “Hey, kid!” from behind me. I turned around and saw Spitfire, still hunched over but looking ahead with a weak smile on her face.

“Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me.”

As we were preparing to leave, three colts who were about half my age approached us with beige sacks filled with some type of grain.

“Major Tent sends his regards,” one of them said, and I nodded, knowing he had kept his word.

As we were leaving the fort, one of the survivors asked me, “So where are we going next?”

“Shady Sands. It’s to the east, and then north a bit.”

“Will we be able to make it there by tonight?” she asked.

“I’m… not really sure. Can anypony help me out?”

“Ah kinda know this area,” Grapevine added. “Probably not. Ah’m pretty sure there’s also a river we’ll hafta cross.”

“A river?” the survivor asked. “A big river, or a small one?”

“Pretty big,” Grapevine said. “Not as big as the Whinnyamette, but much bigger than the one we just crossed earlier.”

“Can we please cross the next river on a bridge?” another survivor asked. “My clothes still haven’t fully dried yet.”

“Yes, we’ll cross all rivers on bridges from now on,” I said. This seemed to appease everypony, but it made me worry that we might not make it to a town before sundown.

We also made a point to stick only to paved roads. This ended up working well enough as we weren’t wandering into any forests again, but I felt even less sure of where we were going. We were wandering through country roads in an area I had never really been to, and for the first time since leaving the Stable, I began to feel truly lost.

Grapevine assured me that there was a highway in the area that would take us up north again, but she forgot what number it was. This I found only mildly reassuring, because if we happened to miss that highway, then we would be walking back up into the mountains again, getting ourselves even more lost. I only worried about this more and more as I noticed a growing number of conifers in our surroundings as the afternoon progressed. Frequent checks on my pipbuck’s compass confirmed my suspicion that we were drifting southeast, towards an area I knew to be very sparsely populated.

Eventually, Grapevine abruptly stopped at an intersection, grinning with delight.

“Ah-ha!” she exclaimed. “Two-eleven! That’s the highway ah was tellin’ ya about. An’ look! A milepost!”

Across the street, there was a signpost bearing the highway marker and a green sign containing distances to two towns in each direction. The two towns in the northward direction were Springwater (4 miles) and Cicada (8 miles). One of these would have to be our resting place for tonight, since the clouds were already beginning to be overtaken by the dim orangeness I had come to associate with sunset.

“It’s eight miles to Cicada,” Grapevine said. “That should net us two or three hours of travel, assumin’ we leave right now.”

“But that’s too far,” one of the survivors objected. “Springwater is way closer.”

“Springwater ain’t nothin’ but a church an’ a grocery store at a crossroads,” Grapevine replied. “Only Cicada’ll have enough beds.”

So we set forth to Cicada. I personally had my doubts about if we would make it there in time, but we managed to make it just before dusk. However, when we arrived the town was completely abandoned. No shops, no hotels, no traders, not even any lanterns. It was a town, of course, but with all of the buildings darkened and boarded up, it didn’t look very friendly or safe.

“Hey, what’s this?”

All of us crowded around the white stallion from earlier, who had discovered a wooden sign tied to a lamppost. It was homemade, but the letters were large and bold with perfectly straight lines, painstakingly created by somepony who had way too much time on their hooves. Above a big bold arrow, the sign read:

Rearing Hill Heights
Visitors and Traders Welcome,
Ruffians And Raiders Keep Out.

“C’mon, let’s go!” Grapevine exclaimed, and took off in the direction of the arrow. We followed the arrow as it brought us along a chain of signs leading to a subdivision that was walled off from the rest of the world by a neat oak fence. The road leading in had been sealed with a makeshift wooden gate with a small watchtower standing shortly behind it. The bored-looking yellow filly manning it lit up when she saw us approach, and grew excited.

“Visitors! Visitors, everypony, we have visitors!”

“How do ya know they ain’t just passin’ by?” asked a grumpy old stallion behind the gate. “You said that about the last twenty times.”

“If they’re coming by at sundown, they’re probably looking for a place to sleep,” the watchfilly replied.

“Are we allowed to open the gates this late?” asked a third, a young stallion who sounded unsure about his duties.

“I’m sure Ms. Gloomfeather won’t mind,” said the filly. “...Or notice.”

“Just make sure ya get a good look at ‘em,” said the grumpy stallion. “Ya sure they don’t look like raiders?”

“I’m sure,” the watchfilly said. “They’re carrying sacks and stuff, and only three of them have guns.”

Now we were standing in front of the gate, anxiously looking up at the watchfilly.

“Hi!” yelled Grapevine. “Do y’all have any beds ta spare?”

“Certainly!” the watchfilly replied. “I’d be happy to let you in, but Grandpa Grumps wants to know if you’re friendly or not. Are you friendly?”

“With the possible exception of one or two individuals, ah can certainly atest that everypony in mah party is ‘friendly,’” announced Grapevine. Dmitry and I glared at her.

With a shrug, the watchfilly said, “Good enough,” and then signaled to the younger stallion to unlatch the gate. He approached the gate and undid the padlock with an upward thrusting motion, then casually kicked the door open as if he’d done this hundreds of times. As we walked in, the periwinkle Grandpa Grumps pouted, but was powerless to stop us from entering so he just walked away. The watchfilly scurried down the watchtower’s ladder bubbling with excitement.

“Omigosh, I’m soooo happy to meet you!” the yellow filly exclaimed. “I’m Lofty Balloon, and I’m on evening lookout duty. We don’t get many visitors around here, so I’m really happy whenever I get a chance to meet new friends!”

Then she pointed to the young stallion, a sky blue unicorn with an indigo mane.

“This is Switch Flipper, he’s an electrician’s apprentice. Last month the dam that powers our town broke, and thanks to him the lights are back on!”

Upon mentioning working power, I looked around and noticed that the town was unusually bright. Most postwar settlements relied on torches and oil lamps, eschewing light to save their precious generator fuel for turrets, computers, and medical equipment. Here though, the entire town was awash in light from the houses and still-functioning streetlights. We had just crossed a fairly large river before entering town, so there must be a fairly intact dam somewhere around here.

“That guy over there is Bah Humbug, but most ponies just call him Grandpa Grumps. That Griffon over there is--”

“Lofty, your shift isn’t over yet!” said a grey griffon wearing a fairly clean but somewhat worn business suit. Her feathers came in two different shades of grey: a smoky bluish grey and a charcoal grey, modulated by a patch of milky white on her chin and neck. Her suit was even darker than her charcoal feathers, but not jet black, instead being merely an even darker shade of grey that I never even knew existed.

“Oh, of course!” exclaimed a startled Lofty, who clambered back up the ladder to the watchtower.

“Are we letting them stay?” asked Switch Flipper, who had his telekinetic aura gripping the gate’s handles.

“Yes, you may close the gate now,” said the griffon, who I presumed was the Mrs. Gloomfeather who Lofty had mentioned. Then she turned to us and confirmed it.

“Hello, travelers, and welcome to Rearing Hill Heights!” she said with the kind of professional rehearsed excitement one would expect from a pony trying to sell you something expensive, like a house or a car. “I am Gladys Gloomfeather, Chairwoman of the Rearing Hill Heights Homeowner’s Association, and may I be the… second to welcome you to our humble community. Would you like me to take you on a tour of our town?”

“Thank you,” Dmitry said, “But I think we’d rather settle down for the night.”

“We’re also kinda hungry after a long day on the road,” added Grapevine. “Do ya have any restaurants here? And are they still open, or is it too late?”

“Of course, of course,” Gloomfeather said. “Yes, I’m sure our cooks would be happy to make something for you right away! But first, let me show you to an inn...”

We were taken to a two story house which had been repurposed for lodging guests. We were told the family that had lived here before the war had left town (though I later learned that they had actually died during the town’s brief cholera epidemic last November). Most of their furniture and belongings remained, though family pictures and many of the more personal items had been removed. While most of the downstairs had remained virtually unchanged, the upstairs bedrooms were crammed with two or three beds apiece, beds which had obviously been brought in from other houses in the neighborhood but had clean sheets and were in fairly good condition. There were enough beds in the house to accommodate our original party, a fact which only reminded me of things I would much rather forget.

We were very much encouraged to help ourselves to the house’s two showers before going to sleep, but most of our group was dead tired and went to sleep almost immediately upon settling in, pressing the dirt and dust from their coats and clothes against the freshly laundered sheets. Not wanting to exploit our hosts’ generosity, my companions and I chose instead to comply with our hosts’ wishes. Of the three of us, I waited to take my shower last.

Once my companions had finished their showers and went off to sleep, I was left alone in a quiet house with nothing but my thoughts. It was 11:00. I was normally wide awake at this hour, since I had fully adjusted my sleeping schedule around my guard shift, which ran from whenever the others went to bed until around 1 AM. The calmness and lack of danger made me nervous, considering that we had spent most of our nights in the past two weeks camping in abandoned buildings with nopony to watch us but ourselves. I wondered if this town had a night watchpony, so I went outside and sure enough, I found somepony occupying the watchtower at the front gate. There was also a pony who prowled the streets, presumably in search of troublemakers from inside the walls. He had a menacing look about him and his face seemed to have been contorted into a perpetual scowl. It was my luck to narrowly avoid him, choosing to sneak through the yards and hide behind bushes and boulders and porch railings and such instead of traveling down the main street right in the watchpony’s path. Stealth is fairly easy since it’s mainly about staying quiet, something I happen to be quite good at. Having a very dull coat color also comes in handy. And to top it all off, an invisibility spell I can use in short bursts, which I unintentionally taught myself through many years of wallflowering my way through social events. Unfortunately, wishing I could be somewhere else has never given me the ability to teleport… yet.

Upon returning to the inn, I locked myself in one of the bathrooms and removed my stable jumpsuit for what was probably the first time in three weeks or so. The bathroom, like the rest of the house, was incredibly cold since the furnace no longer had access to a regular gas supply, but fortunately the bathroom at least had a heat lamp. While waiting for the water in the shower to heat up, I sat in the corner with a towel draped over my shoulders and observed the effects of my wasteland advenuring and those last hectic days in the stable upon my body.

The stable jumpsuit was rubbery and elastic-y and felt very tight and stiff when I had first put it on, but after being forced to wear one every day for nearly a year, it came to feel like a second skin. ‘Is this what it feels like to tear the scales off a snake?’ I wondered as I pulled it off, feeling the pain of ten thousand bandages slowly being torn off every inch of my body. My coat reeked of days upon days of sweat matted to the hair, and my mane felt more oily than ever before. Now, some of this comes from not bathing in three weeks and then wading across a river, but holy cow! This has to be the most unbreathable ‘fabric’ I’ve ever seen… if you can even call it fabric. The only thing this material should be used for making is tarps. And the design? So tacky! I mean, who the hell thought it would be a good idea to make us wear these for… well… the rest of our lives, I guess? They’re a purely utilitarian outfit only suitable for lab rats.

Perhaps the one redeeming value of these jumpsuits is that they at least have a plethora of pockets, which at least makes them useful for maintenance work and adventuring, I guess.

Progress to Next Level: 1025/4550

Status Ailments:

Mild Food Poisoning: -1 Endurance. Could resolve itself but based on your actions so far, likely to get worse. Curable with antibiotics.

Butthurt: Getting tazed in the butt is never fun. -1 Agility.