The first thing that hit Party Favor when he woke up was the throbbing pain in the back of his head, making him groan as he tried to make sense of his blurred, sandy surroundings. As time passed, and he became more lucid, he noticed that he was inside a tent, made from cloth and colored beige. The same tent, in fact, that he shared with Starlight and the Wanderer in that long trek from Our Town to the Brustworth-Goldberg highway. However, with the exception of the tattered bedroll he slept in and the lone canteen that sat in front of him, the tent was completely empty. The entrance was just slightly ajar, letting in the magnificent rays of the midday Wasteland sun. He noticed that the rays landed squarely on the canteen, so that it glistened like spring water. Water. His mouth began aching for water. He magically lifted the canteen up to his ear and rocked it back and fourth. By the sound of it, the canteen was filled almost to the brim. This made him suspicious. He didn't expect the Wanderer to be so kind as to give him a full helping of water without some sort of caveat, i.e. poison. He pondered for some time whether it was worth the risk of dying to poisoned water to quench his thirst right now.

“Boy,” said the Wanderer through the other side of the tent behind him, “just drink it. If I intended to kill you, I would not do it that way. Poison is a coward's weapon.”

Now knowing that escape wasn't even a choice in the matter, he twisted the cap off the canteen and chugged down its contents, deciding that even if it were poisoned, the death that would follow would actually be one of the better options. However, that did not come. Instead of the sour taste of death, all he tasted was the bland flavor of filtered and boiled water. The fact that the Wanderer even bothered to treat that water for him came as a shock. In fact, it was downright jarring. Still, he couldn't deny that it made him feel rejuvenated. He fumbled his way up on his hooves, and entered the outside, where the sunlight pierced his eyes until he could adjust.

“Good afternoon, son,” said the Wanderer beside him, “did you sleep well?”

Party Favor looked to that side and up; through that helm with the skull of a saber-toothed lizard, he saw a pair of tired, wrinkled beige eyes. Not hostile, like he'd expected, but just weary, like those of a jaded elder. It reminded him that underneath that armored shell was a pony, just like him. And perhaps there was some mercy or compassion behind that cruel exterior.

“Oh, um, yeah, I guess.”

“You know, you really should have prepared more carefully before running off into the wastes. It is a very hostile environment. Even Imperial legionaries can and do succumb to it. I know carrying supplies is not the most prestigious task, and I know it made you the butt of a few jokes before you decided to betray us, but it is a critical task that you should not have been so keen to shirk. Additionally, you should have traveled by night, in order to mitigate the effects of the Wasteland heat on your body and utilize the constellations of the stars to aid navigation. Luna's night is far more appreciated in the Wasteland than it is in Equestria. The only reason we traveled by day when we left Our Town was because of my training in temperature control. Indeed, the Wasteland would have given you a worse death than I would have had I noticed your desertion before it was too late. A death that I have spared you from.” He paused. “You do remember why I decided to spare you, right?”

“Something about Starlight wanting to keep me alive?”

“Although she has a peculiar way of showing it, she does care about you. She cannot bear to see such a loyal and steadfast servant to the cause of Equalism perish, even for a transgression such as yours.”

“Transgression?”

“Sin. Error. Bad deed. You really hurt her by abandoning us like that.”

Party Favor narrowed his eyes. “Since when do you care about others getting hurt?”

“I will admit that originally, I had only meant to use her as a tool to accrue the means with which to do battle against the Empire so that I could redeem myself in the eyes of God and ascend to the Hall of the Fallen. However, she has grown on me slightly, and I find her ideas to be a sound foundation from which to build a new philosophy with which to better rule and govern the now decrepit Reich.”

Party Favor began choking on a lump that grew in his throat. Tears welled in his eyes as well, despite his efforts to hold them back. “But everything she said was a lie. I saw her cutie mark. I've been nothing but a pack mule for her all this time, but I was happy at least knowing that it was for a good cause. But now, I don't know...”

“And have you not considered how much it hurts her to know that she cannot remove her own mark despite fervently believing that marks are evil? She does care about you, you know. You and all the rest of your townsfolk.”

“But… but the staff of sameness…”

“'Just a piece of wood she found on the ground,' as she put it. It is the abilities afforded to her by her mark that allow her to remove the marks of others. A sacrifice of ideals on the altar of pragmatism that we in the Wasteland are all too familiar with.”

“Did she remove your cutie mark?”

“No. She does not even know what my mark looks like. My talents are just as important as hers in this journey of ours.”

“Just what is this journey about, anyway? I mean, what is it really? Don't even try telling me that we went all this way just to find groundwater.”

“I will answer that question in due time, but first, there is something else I think you should hear first. From Scripture.” The Wanderer, from the rucksack that laid beside the tent, levitated a brown leather book up and brought it to himself. He opened the book to a place kept by a bookmark, and began reading.

"And against the Lord's wishes, the heretic, whose name burns forevermore with him in the fires of hell, had picked the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and eaten it. The heretic, whose heart was impure and whose mind lacked discipline, was overwhelmed by the Lord's Knowledge, as he could not begineth to comprehendeth it. He vomited, and the ejected fruit which spilled onto the barren ground alerted all the righteous to his sin. And verily, the Prophet blankly stared at the ground in sorrow, for his secondborn son had fallen astray from the path of righteousness, and been seduced by the vice of insubordination. Having turned his back on the Lord, the heretic exiled himself from the holy city of Wenn, and the promised land.

"And having turned his back on the Lord, he was blind to the Lord's guiding hand, and stayed stranded in the wastes for six days and six nights.

"And on the seventh day, at the edge of the Canyon of the River Styx, the Lord made His awesome presence known to the heretic.

"And the Lord said unto him, 'Thou hast disobeyed my direct order and eaten from the Tree of Knowledge. Dost thou knoweth the penalties for thy sin?'

"The heretic replied, 'Yay, Father. I knoweth.'

"The Lord said, 'Then why hast thou forsaken me?'

"The heretic replied, 'Why withholdeth knowledge from thine own Chosen? How could thou beeth secretive with thine own righteous followers, and expecteth them to denyeth their curiosity?'

"The Lord said, 'To denyeth one's curiosity in favor of faith beeth the mark of the righteous. To indulgeth one's curiosity, and denyeth faith, beeth the mark of the devil. Dost thou understandeth now?'

"The heretic, whose dark soul could understandeth not the light which shined before it, fell deftly silent.

"But the Lord, perfect in all ways, infinite in His wisdom, and abundant in His generosity, said unto him, 'I offereth thee one final chance. Either sweareth thine undying, unquestioning, and unyielding faith to thy Lord before Him; or perish, and be denied the Hall of the Fallen.'

"But the heretic's mouth had produced nary an utterance, for he, blinded by the evil which clouded his vision, simply could not understandeth the light. And the Lord cast down the heretic into the depths of the Canyon of River Styx, and thus he perished, and was denied the Hall of the Fallen. Thus, divine justice was done, and the Prophet found solace in the damnation of his secondborn son, for the shame which accompanyeth the heretic for eternity had been consumed with him by the gaping mouth of hell."

The Wanderer then eased the book shut, and placed it back into the rucksack with his magic. “That, boy, is Crucible, Section Four, Articles Three to Twenty. Now, follow me. It is time you saw what I intended to show you from the beginning.”

Party Favor walked alongside the Wanderer for some time until he, after a sudden misstep into a great fissure in the ground, just barely managed to save himself. He stared down into the abyss, and could not catch even a glimpse of the bottom. Looking left, then looking right, he also saw no end to the fissure's breadth.

The Wanderer looked to Party Favor. “This, son, is the Canyon of the River Styx. The mouth of hell, and the dividing line between the Imperial hegemony and the land of the Saracens. Like the heretic so long ago, you have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, and have become corrupted by it. Your master, in her generosity, gives you one final chance: be loyal to us, or be eternally damned. I suggest you choose the former, lest history repeat itself.”

Party Favor stared down the canyon again. As much as he hated the prospect of eternal damnation, he also hated the prospect of going back to his life as a pack mule. But what if what the Wanderer was saying was true? What if she really does care about him? What if the Wanderer's abuse was really just ill-informed tough love? Could things change for the better? Could he, after all this was done, go back to his simple life in Our Town and forget all this ever happened? But there was one last question that needed to be answered before he could make his decision. Whether or not he could simply go back to the old life depended entirely on how his actions here would rest on his conscience.

“Before I choose, I need to know what this is really all about. I need to know why I'm really here.”

“Do you really want to know the truth, son? You may not like it.”

“I'm ready.”

“Very well.” He cleared his throat, and paused for some few moments. “The great hawk of the Empire no longer flies as gloriously as she once did. Poverty, corruption, and dishonor plague the Empire from top to bottom. Unworthy cretins are allowed to sit on the Imperial throne and call themselves Kaiser. Centurions are not only allowed to let protocol be ravaged by their subordinates, but are compelled to. Our pool of slave labor is not growing, but shrinking. Our Legions suffer shame and failure on the battlefield through gross negligence on every level. After over four thousand years, the Empire is sickly and frail, keeping herself alive only by her own force of will. It is abundantly clear that she will perish at any moment, and there is nothing that can be done to save her. All that can be done is put her to rest. To give her a death that is quick and honorable. Miss Glimmer and I are working to give her such a death, and put a new, more suitable regime in her place.”

“But why?”

“Despite our best efforts to prevent it, the Reich has fallen deeply ill with internal strife. The causes of this strife are many: conflicts of nationality, of class, of race, of faith, of talent, of opinion. As long as a society is divided within itself by opposing interests, it cannot exist indefinitely. But I now know what must be done.”

“What? Taking away everyone's cutie marks? That's going to solve everything?”

“The problem extends beyond such banalities, as does the solution. The old autocratic orders have attempted to subjugate those outside their prevailing paradigms – this is not enough. We must not subjugate, but assimilate. We must remove not only the marks, but any sense of difference within society.

"This is untenable within the system of the Empire, of course. Our economy is dependent on the cheap labor that slaves provide, and slavery is inherently a system of subjugation of one group over another. No political philosophy, however moral or immoral it may be, can function when it contradicts a society's very economic foundations. However, with the very real possibility of cheap labor becoming mechanized – one that I was skeptical of until much deliberation – such a mass assimilation becomes plausible. Automated manufacture of commodities makes for larger and more uniform assortments of goods, and more importantly, allows for the previous source of labor to open itself up to indoctrination, as they depend on the state apparatus for not only their daily bread, but also the freedom and livelihood which it so graciously grants them.

"All the sapient beings of the world must conform to the most singular uniformity, and their consciousnesses must be melded together into one, because as long as there exists the free agency of the individual to separate himself from the collective, he will separate himself from it and pursue interests outside of, and even contrary to, it. It is natural for the individual to band with like minds and kindred spirits to enforce his will despite all others, so it is imperative that we make all minds like, and all spirits kindred, both to the fullest extent possible, through discipline and targeted education. All that defines the individual – that being, his cumulative impact on the world – must never be anything other than an extension of the collective, itself. Additionally, the individual must never consider himself as anything except such, and the collective must never consider him anything except such. This way, the only interests the individuals who make up the collective will oppose are those outside of the collective, which means the collective stays intact.

"The mark must perish. Individuality must perish. Private enterprise and ownership must perish. Free will, free expression, and free choice must perish. That, I have discovered, is the final conclusion to the harmony-chaos dichotomy. Each new iteration of societal structure hitherto has brought us further from chaos, and closer to harmony. The first Reich was an oligarchy. The second Reich, which we intend to destroy, is an autocracy. The Reich of the future, the third and final Reich, will be a unity. And by the sword of this third Reich, all the world will be united. Chaos will be pounded to dust under the hammer of Equalism.”

Although Party Favor was unable to fully grasp these concepts (indeed, he didn't really pay close attention to most of it), there were some things that struck him. 'Remove any sense of difference.' 'Free will must perish.' 'By the sword, the world will be united.' His mind focused on these simpler components, and they made his lip quiver and his stomach crawl. Is this what he's worked himself to the bone for? Was this what Equalism was truly about, or was this some Wastelander's corruption of it? Isn't the point of harmony to create friendship… some… how? Well, he never really understood either of those terms in any sophisticated way, nor was he certain how they were directly related, but he was certain that killing free will and taking things with swords wasn't friendship. And anything that's not friendship is against friendship, which is evil and insane.

Party Favor shuddered, “Th-… that's crazy!”

“Do not criticize that which you cannot understand, boy.”

“Well you know what? I've decided. I'd rather burn in hell than help you create a hell here on Earth.”

With the glow of the Wanderer's horn, Party Favor was lifted off his hooves, and inch by inch, he was levitated directly over the abyss. “You have chosen poorly,” the Wanderer said. “Goodbye, Party Favor. History will march on without you.”

And just like that, Party Favor was sent down, plummeting, screaming, wailing into the abyss. The blue sky, and the sun that had promised him everything, launched upwards, further and further away from him, until he could hardly see them. The further he fell, the less different looking up was from looking down. Darkness had consumed him. This is what his short, miserable life led up to. The Wasteland grew bored of tormenting him, it seemed. Although he did not know when he would meet his end at the bottom, or if there even was a bottom, he was at least safe in the knowledge that this end was a fitting end. Next Chapter: Chapter 10 Estimated time remaining: 6 Hours, 37 Minutes