Rest Point · 6:37pm Feb 8th, 2018
I've reached the first small village on my route to the Capital. I was able to get some food for Red and myself as well as top off my water supplies.
There's ponies here, gathering. Training. Some with knives. Some with guns. There's no consistency among them. I can't tell who is a soldier and who is a citizen. It feels more like a militia brewing than any sort of formal army.
There's tears. Ponies begging for their loved ones not to go. Younger ones being refused the opportunity to join the effort.
There's also strength. Pride. Nationalism.
For now, I sit at the edge of town, in my own tent. I can't allow myself to spend the coin on something as comfortable as a warm bed. Not when I have a mouth to feed.
I was able to read the hidden file before it was removed from my access. Many of you had different interpretations... and I'm not sure who is right and who is wrong. However, this is what I'm guessing.
We're on a narrative plane. Somewhere that the events are chosen and changed by some sort of controller. Some have the power to change it themselves. Some don't. I think this console is able to be a controller... somewhat. My access is limited.
I think the guide was supposed to be the controller, but somewhere, everything changed. If only I knew when or why that power shifted. Perhaps there's something in the power of you. The question then would be, which you?
The nights are quiet in this village. I can tell that I am not welcomed.
I found a machete.
I hope I don't have to use it. I'm trained to heal, not hurt.
Listen. I know that you'll hate it. But you have to train in combat. What good is a weapon that you can't use? Get comfortable with it. Learn how to swing, fast and hard.
I know that it won't do much against an armed force, but anything is better than nothing.
Well, for some real-world tips, that machete is gonna be more useful for clearing out brush than fighting. "The loser of a knife fight dies on the street; the winner dies in the ambulance" is in full effect here.
Carry yourself with confidence. Follow your instincts. Interact with other ponies only when you need to. Remember that not getting into trouble is better than fighting your way out of it. Don't stay anywhere longer than you have to.
Now, as for the other aspects... this could be tricky.
The power of us has been mentioned more than once, on both your end and Anon's. We're all interacting with you on consoles similar to yours. This page could be a controller that we could use.
I'm going to test something. It'll look dumb if it goes wrong, but it's better to try than not.
The bright light of the console shone in the darkness of the zipped-up tent. It hurt her eyes if she used it for too long, but Nurse Redheart kept on. The advice that these beings, whoever they were, kept giving her had been the only help she'd had so far. She didn't understand who they were or why they cared, but she'd take anything she could at this point.
With her last update posted, she shut it off and curled up in her sleeping bag, where Red had been dozing for the last few hours. As tired as she was though, the idea of going to sleep had started to make her a bit nervous recently. She had no desire to be stranded in the void again, as a lone ark of existence against a suffocating sea of sensory deprivation.
She sought strength in the loving memories she'd shared with Anon, and she found it. Nurse Redheart had peaceful and loving dreams about the man she loved that night. And when she woke up in the morning, she would find that her resolve had strengthened tenfold.
With her things packed and Red in tow, she would move safely to the next town, find somewhere safe and secure to set up camp, and post her next update.
Red, this is something you should try:
Type this into your console then write a couple paragraphs and see if it has any effect:
C://programs/file/priest/stories
://create/new_file.doc
Text://