Dear Diary,

I was awakened by the distant sound of gunshots. I sat up, got up, and started looking around for my stuff. I eventually found my saddlebags, I soon realized that something wasn’t right. For starters, I didn't remember putting my stuff over there. That's not me-- I always keep it close to my bed. But then I noticed more stuff that wasn't right. I didn't remember there being any motel rooms in Canter bee, so why was I in one? Or me ever getting into this bed, when I'd even had dinner last night. I didn't really remember anything that happened after we left Canterby.

Still, gunshots mean fighting, so dug through my bags to find a weapon suitable for long-range fighting. I felt groggy and tired and my mouth was dry, but despite the fog in my mind I knew that I had to do something. There was a fever burning within me that made me sweat.

I thrust open the door and darted out into the hallway. It was long and thin and I'd never seen it before, but the exits were clearly marked so I knew where to go. I took off running but quickly lost my balance and careened in an arc towards the wall.

Bump!

I fell to the ground, clutching my head in pain and groaning loudly. One of the veins on my head flared up, and I wondered if I had cracked my skull. Meanwhile, doors began opening, ponies were talking, and I felt all their eyes upon me. A couple of hooves approached me and stopped right in front of my face.

"What are you doing?" a mare with a southern accent asked.

"I gotta.... save.... the badguyz...." I said feebly.

"Save who now?" she asked.

It then occurred to me that I didn't really know what was going on or who I was supposed to save.

"You know..." I said, "The ponies. There's danger and they need help. The shooting--"

A stallion chuckled.

"Oh, that happens all the time. We're not in any danger."

I felt myself being lifted up and carried on the backs of two ponies. I soon realized that the southern mare was Grapevine due to her green fur and the bushiness of her tail, which I had the unpleasant experience of having my face half-buried in for the duration of the ride. Although it smelled like the kind of chemical imitation of flowers found in modern air fresheners (and thus was the best smelling thing I'd smelled in quite a while), it still felt like I was invading her privacy, even if she didn't seem to mind.

When they had reached the bed, they gently plopped me back down into it and took a few steps backward.

“Relax, we aren’t in any danger,” said the stallion, whose coat was the color of a coffee stain. “And neither of you. You need bedrest.”

“You’ve been out of it fer a pretty long time,” Grapevine said. “Ya spent most of last day sleepin’.”

“I wasn’t sleeping,” I said. “We spent the day traveling, remember? We fought that battle, then we left Canterby and--”

“That was Monday, the day before yesterday,” said Dmitry as he entered the room with some food on a tray. “Yes, we left Canterby and took 99 south. And around four o’clock, you collapsed into a heap in front of that weigh station. So we took you to the nearest town...”

“...that was still inhabited,” added Grapevine. “There was some ghost town that we thought was here, but it wasn’t.”

“It was maybe four miles north of here,” Dmitry continued. “It was a miracle we could get you here before sundown. You’re so...”

“Fat,” Grapevine blurted out. Dmitry glared at her.

“...I was going to say ‘big boned,’ but that’s also true,” he concluded. “Anyway, we’re just glad we could get you here. We worried you might be dying.”

“And between your symptoms, diet and activities history, and the brief answers you were awake enough to give me yesterday, I’ve concluded that it isn’t anything too serious,” said the coffee stained stallion. “Just a bad case of salmonella left untreated, paired with sleep deprivation. Your friends think you got it from eating a can of rotten oysters about a week ago. I think it will clear up in a few days, but I gave you some antibiotics just in case. Have any questions?”

“Just one,” I said. “How long until I can leave?”

“I would normally advise a week’s worth of rest, but in your case we could lower that to three or four,” he said. “Please, just get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and enjoy your stay as much as you can before going back out into that hellhole of a wasteland.”

The coffee stained doctor left, leaving me alone with my two companions. Dmitry set the food tray in front of me, and I examined its contents: a glass of water, some toast, a bowl of chicken and rice soup, and a fat green pill. The toast appeared to be burnt, but upon closer examination, it was just made of poorly ground whole wheat flour. As I began to eat, I found that it was some of the best food I had had since leaving the Stable, as everything except the pill was fresh and had been recently harvested.

“So what was that shooting for?” I asked, “If they say it’s somehow normal?”

“Some kinda fight with the folks across the street,” Grapevine said. “I don’t know too much about it either.”

“I asked around,” began Dmitry, “And this is what I can gather: after the bombs hit, the survivors here in Woodpile split into two camps: the ‘beds,’ or ‘breads’ and the ‘circuses.’ They’re called that because the ‘breads’ insisted on being responsible by planting crops, building walls, and looking out for their survival needs, while the ‘circuses’ just wanted to have fun doing drugs and vandalizing things, so they formed a gang and moved into the stripmall across the freeway. The ‘circuses’ called the ‘breads’ ‘beds’ because they built their compound around this motel, two apartment complexes, and a retirement home. It was supposed to be derogatory and imply they were boring, but the ‘breads’ eventually adopted the label and used it to symbolize their hospitality towards guests. Several months in, the ‘circuses’ ran out of food and started begging. When the ‘breads’ refused to give them any, the ‘circuses’ resorted to launching raids on this settlement and any travelers in the area. I went over to their side yesterday to take a look for myself, and found that there’s actually plenty of farmland they could use right behind the mall; apparently they just don’t use it because they’re lazy.”

I clapped a little.

“Tell me another story, daddy!”

He smiled, said, “Alright,” pulled up a chair and grabbed a phone book. He sat down, opened the phone book, and flipped through it a bit.

“This one’s called ‘A Tale of Two Ministries; Why Pinkie Pie is Trash and Rainbow Dash is Awesome.’ Ahem! ‘It was the best of--’”

“No, tell me about what happened on Monday,” Grapevine said. “Ya know, with the battle and stuff. I get that there was a fight and that one dude betrayed everypony, but, why? And what was up with that cat girl?”

“Ha, even I was awake enough to remember that,” I said. So Dmitry and I began to explain exactly what went on that day and all the background behind it, based on the bits and pieces we’d collected from talking with the ponies at the fort. Since you, diary, weren’t fully conscious of what happened either, I’ll explain it to you to the best of my ability:

From what I can tell, Sibley himself didn’t have any motivations beyond just pure ambition. He had a big ego and was tired of being told what to do all the time, so he decided he’d orchestrate a coup and make himself the General instead. He couldn’t find enough support within Canterby, so he reached out to various gangs and mercenaries and promised them spoils in exchange for service.

Meanwhile, that ‘cat girl’ he was with during the battle, was Katrina, the town greeter from Sandy Shades. She was secretly the kingpin of some kind of drug cartel with operations as far south as Valleyville, who hid beneath the facade of being a local bartender in Sandy Shades. After the war, she got the town to hire her as an official ‘town greeter’ merely so she could intercept incoming drug shipments and hide them from the local authorities. After the apocalypse, the cartel only became more powerful since there was less law enforcement and it could more easily ‘dispose of’ its rivals.

The two met when Sibley was on a recruiting drive disguised as a salvage hunt and hit it off well. There’s a lot of debate over whether Katrina actually loved him or was just trying to manipulate him, but they entered into both a business and a romantic relationship at that time. The cartel had a lot of wealth, but with everypony living in such close quarters after the war, the officials of Sandy Shades were starting to get on her tail. It was a match made in hell: Sibley’s army had men but needed equipment, Katrina’s cartel had assets but needed a new base, both were scheming and manipulative, and a plan was formed: assemble and train an army in the eastern foothills where nopony would find it, then swoop in one day and attack before anypony would realize what was going on.

Fortunately, the plan started to fall apart before it even began. Just as Sibley was leaving to go get the army and bring it to Canterby, one of his co-conspirators snitched, allowing General Sprigg to send out a force under Major Chive Onion to try to intercept Sibley. However, he underestimated the size of Sibley’s force, and might have very well lost the battle if a gang of meddling kids didn’t intervene.

As for the fate of those meddling kids, they all thought the battle was really cool and wanted to join Canterby’s ‘army’ afterward. And I let them-- after all, I wasn’t their mother, they had no obligation to obey me, and I had no obligation to keep them. After all, as nice as they were, they were kind of a distraction. We didn’t enter the wasteland to babysit, we came to serve Stable 76, and in that capacity, we are obligated to venture southward until a cure to its ailment could be found… for my illness may not be fatal, but the Stable’s is.

But for now, all I can do is rest. And while I rest, maybe I can read a book I recently picked up. As a reward for helping him out, General Sprigg gave me his copy of Spitfire’s Memoirs.

It turns out that General Sprigg had an extra copy of Spitfire’s memoirs lying around. He told me it had come through on one of the caravans. To my surprise, when I opened it up I realized that it was my copy, autographed by Spitfire herself! I was too overjoyed to care that somepony had been rummaging through my old bedroom. Surprisingly, I don’t think I’ve ever actually sat down and read anything more than the first few pages of this thing. I’ll have to study it thoroughly if I want to be the best pony I can be. Between this bedrest and the long, lonely nights of guard duty, I’ll have plenty of time to read it.

Level up!

Level 9: Student of the Wastes

Next Perk at Level 10.

Stats:
Ponies Led: 2
Puzzle Pieces Collected: 3
Price of Silver: 108 bits per Troy Ounce

Author's Notes:

This is an unusually short chapter for this story, but I can't think of anything else I should add. I just needed this to wrap up some loose ends from chapters 13-16 and to serve as a lesson on why you shouldn't leave infections untreated.

This wraps up the first major story arc. I'm planning to have about six in this Act. I'm greatly looking forward to writing the second.