Author's Notes:

Google Docs Link, should you want it.

Special thanks to my editor, EverfreePony, and my main pre-reader and basically-co-author, SnakeEye

Freedom

I still couldn’t believe I finally had it. I’d stayed a blank-flank for longer than the vast majority of stable foals, and a part of me had started worrying I’d never get mine. In hindsight, it made perfect sense; I’d never seen a gun prior to today. How would you earn your cutie mark in guns if you hardly knew anything about them? Admittedly, I still didn’t know much, but at least I’d seen one now.

My stomach growled, pulling me out of my amazement. My father had mentioned food, and I definitely needed some right now. I moved over to his lifeless body, telekinetically opened his saddlebags, and took a look inside them.

I found four cans of apples that you could buy from the vending machines, as well as a medium sized canteen with the number 4 engraved and painted on it. From Mother’s books, I knew the canned fruit was produced on the completely sealed off fifth floor. I’d even asked her about it. Not even she knew what exactly was going on upstairs. Advanced magical talismans, probably. According to her, there had never been an incident that required any sort of maintenance there.

I pulled on the tab to open the can, and started picking out the apple slices. They weren’t nearly as good as when a cook prepared them, but they were tasty regardless. They were also hydrating, which made me realise I hadn’t drunk anything either.

Heck, have I really run out of the stable dehydrated and hungry? What is wrong with me? I thought as I finished the last bit of apple. Then I drank the diluted juice the apples had been floating in. Not very delicious, but it was better than wasting it. I tossed the can away.

My bodily needs finally taken care of, I looked around. The cave consisted of a single path which turned right, where my father had come from. That seemed like the way out. I looked behind me at the stable door. Just like inside, there was a terminal on this side, to the right of the door. Something about it struck me as odd, however. The device seemed to be a slightly different model from the ones in the stable.

Curiosity piqued, I walked towards it. The keys and monitor had been covered in a thick layer of dust, until somepony—presumably my father—recently wiped them close-to-clean. I clicked a key, and was met with a familiar prompt. “Stable-Tec terminal. Please issue your official_stable-tec username and password.”

Again, something seemed off. I stared at the green letters on screen for a few seconds before it hit me. It wasn’t asking for a Stable 4 password! This was an external terminal, unrelated to the ones inside. Of course my father’s password hadn’t worked; he probably didn’t even have an account on this terminal!

This thought, however, did not stop me from trying to log in regardless, but with no success. I guess I really am stuck out here, aren’t I? I wondered how likely my survival was. My textbooks had described the wasteland as ‘extremely dangerous and deadly’, but I guessed that didn’t apply to everywhere in the wasteland, right? This area seemed safe, for one. Hay, my PipBuck isn’t even showing any radiation, so I suppose this area really is harmless. Albeit limited in food.

This meant I needed to leave, and waste as little time as possible. Time was food. I walked back towards my father’s corpse and undid the saddlebags he wore. The harness I sported appeared to have been designed specifically to be worn over them. I undid a few straps, and slipped the saddlebags underneath it.

My father had mentioned he hadn’t seen Mother out here. Did he think she was still inside? From what he said, it certainly sounded like it. He probably just missed her, and instead of trying to follow her, he attempted to get back in, and noticed the terminal didn’t accept his credentials, then assumed he’d been tricked.

Given that the only reason it refused his connection was that it’s a different system entirely, this makes it unlikely he was actually tricked. But wait. What if he tricked me? Well, what could he have tricked me about? That he’s out here? That Mother is out here? He sounded like he genuinely believed that. I think the safest assumption is that Mother is in fact out here. Even if she wasn’t, I didn’t have a choice but to leave. For now, as far as I knew, she was out of the stable.

I didn’t know where she had gone but I only had one direction to go, and I hoped I could catch up with her if I moved fast enough. With that note of hope in mind, I started walking. After the turn, the path picked up as a staircase carved into the rock. After a few minutes of stair climbing, I got bored. The cave was mostly unimpressive, and the only thing changing up the scenery were the lamps, some of which had stopped working. Sometimes, several in a row were dark, and the cave went dim for the next few dozen stairs. Nothing happened to take my mind off the ever increasing boredom. I hope there’s going to be less walking in the wasteland. This sucks. If only I had someone to talk to, or even a conversation to listen to.

It took a good fifteen minutes until I finally reached a different area. I spotted a metal fence. Behind it, I could see… the sky? It was vast and grey, like a neverending stable wall. In the books I’d read, it had always been blue. I was surprised I couldn’t see any clouds either. Or maybe… Maybe what I saw were clouds, and they just spanned the entire sky. That was likely the case, and it made me yearn to see the actual sky. How long until the clouds would clear?

I opened the door built into the fence and left the cave, stepping out into the open for the first time of my life. Cold wind hit my face in a surprising but pleasant gust. I took a deep breath and felt like I’d just eaten a mint candy.

As I walked forward, I noticed that my view was occluded by a small hill with a tree on top. As I scaled the hill, my ears perked up, picking up shrill little sounds from around me. Now that I was paying attention, I started noticing other sounds. Gone were the ever-present coil whines and hums from the stable, the whoosh of the wind between the trees taking their place.

After a few moments, I found myself on top of the small hill. From here I could see through the treetops, and observe the whole world. At least that’s how it felt, given that it was utterly overwhelming; just… so… vast. I could see… I didn’t even know how far. Several hundreds of metres, thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even millions! My mind really couldn’t comprehend such distances, and my head started spinning. I tried taking my eyes off the endless vastness, only to look up and be met with something even worse.

The cloud layer I’d seen earlier suddenly seemed tens of orders of magnitude bigger. It stretched in every direction, and was so far up. I felt like I was going to fall. But I knew better. I forced my eyes shut, and repeated to myself: Gravity. Gravity. Gravity. You’re not going to fall up. Unless the Moon is massive enough to attract you. Which it isn’t. Gravity is your friend. You’re not going to fall. I opened my eyes again, but my head still spun from the impossible distances.

To distract myself from the dizzying expanse, I focused on my immediate surroundings. The grass underneath my hooves was a dull yellow, very similar to one of the shades present in my mane, unlike the deep green I’d been promised by books. Not very interesting, but at least it didn’t trigger vertigo.

Most of the trees around me were a bleak, sickly green. The rest, a small minority, were dead and leafless instead. I recognised the live ones as conifers of some kind. Back before the war, they’d kept their colour all year around—was this also why they’d survived so long?

Turning my head around, I was faced with a giant wall of stone. In contrast with what was in front of me, this cliff was mostly rock, with few patches of grass and the occasional tree where the slope allowed it. As my eyes followed the stone wall up, I felt vertiginous again. I forced myself to look away, at the trees surrounding me.

As my other senses slowly acclimated to the outside, I finally noticed it. My EFS was blank. Empty. Barren. Completely devoid of any bars. The interface suddenly seemed so much… cleaner.

Now that I was finally starting to grasp some of the longer distances—albeit not the very long ones—I looked downhill. Through the trees I spotted a pre-war road that had aged quite well. It was surprising that even so many years after the bombs had fallen, the road still existed. Admittedly it was not in a great condition, but it still existed.

I started my way down from the hill and towards the concrete. This side was much steeper than where I’d come from, and after a few steps decided to take the less steep slope to my left.

The ground was covered with mud and dead branches. The feeling of the cool mud on my hooves surprised me. It felt like it looked, viscous and cold. For some reason, however, pressing my hooves into it was extremely fun. I did it again, and again, until I stomped my hoof hard enough to make it splash on my PipBuck screen. I cleaned it with a swipe of my fetlock. I felt childish, playing with something as mundane as mud, but in the moment I didn’t care.

After a few minutes, I finally grew bored enough of the silliness. I used the branches to avoid slipping on the mud, and noticed that some dead shrubs remained in some places. Prior to the war, this forest likely had its ground covered in smaller plants of all sorts. As it stood, however, all that remained were dead plants and mud.

My imagination ran wild and conjured up images of tall, green ferns like the one in the atrium, but in unimaginable quantities. I closed my eyes and let myself marvel at the idea. I blinked my eyes open, and the image was gone, replaced by the sickly trees and brown sludge.

However, anywhere I looked, I saw no sign of Mother. Of course. I guess I’m not leaving any signs behind either, so it makes sense. Instead, I needed to figure out where she’d gone based off nothing but speculation. From here there were two logical paths to follow. I could either go up- or downhill. Given how steep the mountain behind me was, I doubted that the trail could continue much further. I figured she would have a similar line of thought. And even if she didn’t, she’ll have to turn around eventually.

The only case where she wouldn’t eventually end up going downhill was if the road somehow continued past the mountain, and if Mother was aware of that. Satisfied with my reasoning, I set out downhill.

I arrived at a bend in the road. From here, I could see it turn on the other side of an arduous slope. I considered my options. I could either follow the road all the way, or attempt to take a shortcut here. It was steep, and the ground probably slippery. Screw it, time is essential if I wanna catch up with Mother. I stepped off the concrete and onto the muddy slope. I quickly gained momentum, and couldn’t slow myself down. My speed quickly became too much for me to handle, and I tripped on a twig, tumbling straight down. I landed face-first in a puddle of mud next to the concrete.

I spit out the dirt in my mouth, and licked a clean patch of my coat, hoping to get rid of the unpleasant taste and texture. Luckily for me, I’d landed in a rock-free spot, and the impact irritated none of my bruises. I thanked my luck and trotted back onto the road. Gross result or no, the shortcut had saved me a good five minutes of walking. Maybe more, it was hard to tell.

I looked at the next edge. This one was not as steep as the previous, and my confidence grew. If I could conquer the monster I just had, surely this tiny one would pose no threat. As I picked up momentum, I started fearing I’d trip again. This time, however, I knew what to expect. I concentrated on keeping my speed under control and paid extra attention to the ground below me. Any of those branches could be my downfall if my hoof got caught in it. The dash was over in a few excruciatingly long seconds, and I safely reached the flat road and slowed down to a trot.

Breathing heavily, I took a moment to think. The impatient part of my brain kept telling me to keep taking shortcuts. The rational part of my brain knew the risk wasn’t worth it. With those two in a deadlock, a third part of my brain interjected: But it’s fun! And so, I tried once more. Once more, the forest proved no match for my agility, as I managed to not eat dirt again. I was getting good at this! I giggled through my panting.

I felt like a foal half my age, playing outside and not caring if I got dirty. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pang of sadness, and wondered what else I’d missed because of that stupid stable. I also regretted never having asked Mother about going to the running track on the atrium floor. Just the feeling of wind on my face would have brought me so much joy. Then again, she might not have let me go anyway.

I conquered two more slopes, boosting my confidence further. On the third, I started running with no respect for my legs’ ability to keep up. Of course, I tripped, tumbling down until I fell flat on my stomach, branches and rocks digging into my sides, some of them violently hitting my bruises. I yelped from the pain, and my vision blurred with tears. I turned on my back and softly rubbed the worst injuries for a moment. The ache slowly faded away, and a few minutes later I stood up again.

Then I noticed it.

A single red bar appeared on my EFS. What did that mean? The only time I’d seen a bar other than white was when he beat me. Did that mean this pony—robot?—here wanted to hurt me as well? Out here I could assume things that appeared on my EFS were on the same “floor” as me, so I looked in its direction, expecting a—

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t that… thing that floated in the air between trees. From where I was, I could only make out a sort of deformed green ball. Whatever it was, I did not want to get close to it to find out. I levitated out my pistol and took aim. Since the awful creature did not seem interested in me, I took my time to line up my gun’s aim aids with the thing’s terrible shape. I had a hard time figuring out whether my shot was going to hit—mostly because the pistol’s metal obscured my sight of the creature.

I pulled the trigger… and missed. The creature then seemed to notice me, and started moving in my direction. Oh ponyfeathers. I attempted three more shots. By the third, it was close enough that I could tell that it was vaguely bug-like. It was also close enough that my mediocre marksponyship was finally able to hit it. Thankfully, it only took a bullet to make it pop in a shower of grey and green chunks. The unexpected spray of disgusting flesh suddenly made me nauseous.

Very nauseous.

Nauseous enough that I lost my lunch. I coughed and cleared my throat. I took out my canteen and swished the water in my mouth, before spitting it out into the mud. I was wasting water, yes, but I needed to get that aftertaste out of my mouth. I’d take dirt over vomit any day.

It was odd how my father’s brains exploding had amused me while this disgusted me. In my defence, this thing had been just so incredibly vile.

And then I spotted another red bar on my EFS. I turned my head and saw another one of these abominations. I tried aiming at it. Unfortunately, my telekinesis wasn’t steady yet. I needed something to help me aim. Wasn’t there a spell I could learn that would assist me with targeting?

But wait. There is, I thought, remembering the odd spell-program I’d never found a use for back in Stable 4. If I remembered correctly… I searched the side of my PipBuck and found the button labelled ‘SATS’. Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell. I’d talked with Mother about it. She’d called it a marvel of pony spellcasting. Her words rang through my mind. In theory, a regular unicorn would be able to cast this spell, but you would have to learn the entire spell by heart—and that’s not something anypony could do. I snapped out of my reverie before it got me hurt and clicked the button, slipping into SATS for the first time in my life.

The world came to a crawl. A sleek white interface similar to my EFS appeared in my vision. A single white panel with the number five on it floated above the bug, underneath the text ‘Bloatsprite’. Was that what it was called? How the heck did my PipBuck know that? That had to be an impressive spell. I wonder if I can learn it.

My excitement for the spell faded as I quickly realised what the five meant. My likelihood to hit. Had my odds always been this bad? Had I just gotten incredibly lucky with my one shot? Hard to tell, in hindsight, but right now I needed to move closer. I did not like that idea; moving closer seemed like the opposite of a smart move.

Now the question was: How? I had to leave SATS, and there was an appropriate button for that in the interface that had just appeared, but I couldn’t understand how to actually click it. I attempted to focus on it like I’d do with telekinesis… and succeeded!

I slowly moved closer, while letting the bloatsprite approach as well. Once the distance had been halved, the bug shot a spike at me. I did not like the sharp pwang that the projectile made on the concrete road next to me, and I definitely did not want to discover the sound it would make if it hit me. I clicked ‘SATS’ once again.

This time, the spell gave me a thirty-six percent likelihood to hit. I queued one shot. I didn’t like my odds, but I also didn’t like the bug’s projectiles. To my extreme relief, the shot hit, and the sprite exploded in a shower of disgusting goop. Even though I’d been expecting it, seeing it up close was even more disgusting than before, and the nausea hit me. I tried to keep it down, but ended up dry-heaving. I did not like those things. At all. I really hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with them ever again.

Feeling much weaker, I didn’t dare take any more shortcuts—except when the slope was so mild I could just slowly walk across. Eventually, I spotted a wooden hut through the trees, some ways away from the main road, connected by a dirt path. The ambient light had gone down significantly, and I suspected I had three hours before nightfall, at the very most. Given that I was drained and didn’t see another shelter anywhere nearby, I decided to stay the night here.

I followed the dirt path and arrived in front of the hut, and my PipBuck flashed and showed me a name for the place. ‘Arcane Spark’s Chalet’. I did not know what a chalet was, but I was once more impressed by my PipBuck’s ability to find names for things. Curious, I checked the map, and found that I’d come from the south, and that the cave I’d come out of had been labelled ‘Stable-Tec artificial cave’. Stable 4 was right behind it, labelled as expected. My map also called the whole area ‘Foal Mountain’, but didn’t add a specific marker like it had with the previous three locations.

I walked up to the hut—chalet?—and attempted to open the front door. I was glad to find it unlocked. Inside, everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. There were two doors on the opposite side I’d entered from, both closed. On my left, I found a stove—I’d read about those!—a sink, and an armchair, oriented to face the stove. On the right… Oh. That was a pony skeleton, a unicorn to be exact. Part of my brain yelled that that wasn’t the appropriate reaction to an old corpse. I swiftly ignored it.

He or she had been sitting in a chair, head resting on the table, using their hooves as a pillow. In front of it lay two recordings, and an out of commission terminal. The window behind the table had a view rivalling the one up near the stable. However, with the darkness, I couldn’t see nearly as far.

I pushed open one of the doors with my telekinesis. The bathroom had a toilet, a barrel, a mirror, and a yellow box with pink butterflies on it. I couldn’t see myself in the mirror, being too short to have it at eye level. Curious just how terrible I looked, I stood up on my hind legs, using the sink as anchor for my front hooves. Through the mirror, I could see dirt marring the light pink coat on my face, the ugly brown utterly overwhelming the other shade. Having a practically white coat won’t be convenient out here… Staying clean is probably going to be a pain.

A flash of hope crossed my mind, and I opened the tap. To my surprised delight, water actually flowed from the faucet. My PipBuck clicked slightly at the water, but that wasn’t enough of a deterrent for me. I pushed my face under the stream, wincing from the cold, before rubbing my face with a hoof.

I then took a sip of the water and found it had a bitter aftertaste. I took my head out from under the faucet, and swept a wet strand of mint mane out of my face. Scratch that—it had a bitter, slightly painful aftertaste. Suddenly, the water turned to a bright pink, then, after a few moments, went back to its previous, clear colour.

No… it wasn’t perfectly clear. Looking closely, I did notice a pink tint to it. Slight pain from such a tiny concentration? This reeked of trouble. The bright pink stuff might’ve even killed me.

I closed the tap. Canned food would be my main source of hydration, then. Too bad I only had a few cans of that. I’d also avoid washing myself in this water. Unless all the water in the wasteland was like that. That possibility hadn’t crossed my mind. What if everyone was dead out here? What if there was no way I could possibly survive? Everything certainly looks dead, except those awful bugs.

I drew a deep breath and stared into my own red eyes. This was no time for a panic. This pink stuff might not even be harmful. After all, adults drank alcohol all the time, and that hurt much worse than whatever was in this water. Besides, what were the odds that most places in the wasteland had unusable water? I needed more information before drawing any conclusions. However, I still wasn’t going to test my luck drinking this stuff. It was irradiated anyway.

I turned my attention to the yellow box. It had a lock built into it, but as I pulled on the box, I noticed that it hadn’t been locked. Inside, I found a bottle filled with a pink liquid—a different shade than the one that had come out of the tap—two rolls of brown cloth, a bottle labelled ‘disinfectant’, and, finally, an instruction manual.

I put all of those items in my saddlebags to get them to show up on my PipBuck. I found out the pink liquid was a ‘Healing Potion’ and the rolls of cloth ‘Magical Bandages’. I would read the manual when I had time. I turned my attention to the table in the main room and levitated the recordings to the armchair, before sitting down. My stomach grumbled as I was reminded that I had effectively not eaten today.

I pulled out a can of apples, opened it and levitated out a piece of fruit. While I chewed, I inserted the first recording into my PipBuck and heard a pop, then static, and then a mare’s voice.

“Hello, my name is Arcane Spark. I figured I might as well record something on my last day. Mostly to feel less alone. Fuck, if I’m lucky, someone might even listen to this and I’ll be remembered by at least one living pony.” She chuckled drily, and I swallowed the slice.

“Well, looks like I chose the perfect week to go on vacation,” she said without a hint of sarcasm. I levitated another slice. “And I genuinely mean that. We all knew it was coming. Eventually, fuckers were gonna blow us all up. I’m just glad I can spend my last day up here where I got a nice view. I gotta admit, those green fireworks did look pretty from up here. At least they were good for one thing. Makes me glad there was no fog today.” She laughed, and the recording went quiet for a few moments. Apple slice.

“In theory I could go up the mountain and crawl into that stable. But I’d need to walk a few hours through the radioactive snow. Maybe if I’d bothered actually visiting, I could’ve just teleported into it, but at this rate I’d just have to do a bunch of hops, and then walk the rest. And even if I were to somehow survive that, I’d just contaminate the stable. ‘Sides, from what I know of that stable, I wouldn’t wanna live in there anyway. Nah, I’ve accepted my death here. Just hope it won’t be painful.” The recording went quiet.

Apple slice. I levitated the other recording into my PipBuck.

“Update. It’s very fucking painful.” She coughed and hacked violently, and I could hear the fluid in her lungs. “I wish I had my gun, and I don’t think I have the strength to move my desk to open the safe. I shoulda thought of it sooner. Anyway, speaking hurts more than expected, so I’ll be signing off. Goodbye, world.”

The voice gave a dry chuckle, as if laughing at her own joke, before fading out. “Huh, interesting,” I remarked, and went back to eating my apples. I wondered who she’d been; her name didn’t mean anything to me. I wondered what her cutie mark had been. Why was hers the only house around here? What safe had she been talking about? So many questions. I picked out the last slice and drank the rest of the can’s content.

I put the empty can on the kitchen counter, and moved back to the table. With some effort, I managed to levitate it out of the way. Underneath it, I found a latch built into the floor. I flipped it open, and found a combination lock similar to my father’s safe.

I tried a few combinations, hoping to get extraordinarily lucky. It went as expected.

Next, I attempted to figure it out by putting my ear to the metal surface. I’d read about it in some bad novels and had always wondered how effective that method would actually be. In my case, it ended up entirely ineffective, and I finally lost interest.

Now that I had stopped moving for a long while, I started noticing the cold. It wasn’t a feeling I was very familiar with. The temperature inside the stable was highly regulated, after all. Only reason I knew the feeling to begin with was because of the shower. I’d accidentally jumped straight into it a couple of times, without noticing that the water was ice-cold. Not fun.

Given I’d exhausted the interesting options in the room, I turned to the other door. Probably a bedroom, I figured.

My hunch proved correct, and I found a bed, a bedside table, and a bookshelf. To my utter delight, the latter was actually populated. I turned on my PipBuck light and started looking through the shelf. The bottom shelves held books, while the top shelf had magazines, organised with their covers facing forward on three different vertical levels. Most of the magazines seemed more pony-focused, and had oddly dressed mares in weird poses. I couldn’t understand why anypony would wear such a thing, or stand in such uncomfortable ways. To the very right, three magazines stood out by their different cover styles.

The front one was an edition of ‘Spell Matrices Digest’, with a blue unicorn on the cover. The big title read “Exclusive interview with Arcane Spark, inventor of SATS”. So this unicorn kept a magazine of an interview of herself? I can respect that.

The one behind it read ‘Beyond Your Imagination.’, with a front-page title of ‘10 tips and tricks to strengthen your telekinesis!’. The last one was an issue of ‘Filly Fatale’. It looked boring.

I wiped the layer of dust off the bedside table and then levitated the two magazines onto it, wiping the dust off them as well. I then turned my attention to the books. From the titles, most were pre-war novels. A few even seemed interesting. I levitated them onto the table, cleaning them off.

Finally, again on the very right, I found a few more technical books. A dictionary, a botanical encyclopedia, and a volume that read, ‘The Big Book of Arcane Science’. Another book caught my eye: ‘The Egghead’s Guide to Running’. After consideration, I put it back on the shelf. Running wasn’t hard, was it? I’d managed on my first try. Sort of.

A book—two if I counted the firearm book—and two magazines. My saddlebags were going to be heavy, but at least I had books! I checked my PipBuck’s time. B-shift was about to end. So B-shift had been lined up with the outside’s afternoon. Fascinating. The time also explained why, even though my muscles were tired from walking, my head wasn’t sleepy at all yet. This was perfect, as I could finally learn some terminology of firearms. Reading by PipBuck light wasn’t ideal, so I tempted my luck again by flipping the light switch. And, as expected, the ceiling lamp stayed dark.

Over the half hour I’d been here, the light outside had almost entirely faded, and I couldn’t make out anything outside the window, except where my PipBuck light shone. My old fear of getting caught sprung into action, and I turned off the flashlight function. With the light source gone, I went momentarily blind, before my eyes accustomed to the darkness. I telekinetically shoved the bed out from under the window, then emptied the bookshelf, one level at a time, dropping the books onto the mattress, kicking a small cloud of dust out of the quilt.

I would need to get rid of the dust later, but now I had to move the entire bookcase to cover the room’s window. After moving the books back onto the shelf, I levitated the mattress and quilt into the main room, then outside—after a short reflection on the consequences of de-dusting it in here. Out here, it was even colder than inside. I shook the hole-ridden quilt and managed to get most of the dust out. The mattress, thankfully, seemed less dusty, probably because the cover had absorbed most of it.

I moved them back inside, and left them on the floor before closing the door. I spent a few minutes searching for its key, before finding it behind the terminal. I locked the door. It could be a futile attempt; some beast might just knock down the door while I slept, but I didn’t like the idea of sleeping in a house with an unlocked entrance.

Somewhat satisfied with the improved safety, I moved the quilt and mattress back into the bedroom and followed in. I placed them on the bed, and took my equipment off before lying down in an attempt to make myself comfortable. This proved a difficult endeavour, as the dirty bedwear was highly unpleasant and itchy to the touch. Without it, however, I might die of cold. Or maybe not. I didn’t know how much cold I could survive, after all. Still, better safe than sorry.

I levitated the book on firearms to me, and spent the next several hours reading. After a few minutes, I’d gone and grabbed a pencil from the desk in the main room to annotate it. There were many terms I hadn’t ever encountered, but with hard work I was able to understand most of them from cross-comparing the usages. I’d gotten so invested in it that before I’d noticed, I’d fallen asleep.

Footnote:

New Perk: Bookworm — You get one additional skill point for every book and magazine you read, if you’re able to understand it.