//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 - Barman // Story: Fallout: Equestria - Lies // by Freedom Flash //------------------------------// “Stable ponies don’t no nothin’.” I just sat and stared. Maybe I hyperventilated, I can’t remember. All I could see was emptiness and waste and death. I don’t know how long I sat there, but eventually I pulled myself off my plot and wondered off into the wasteland. In retrospect, I should probably have scoured the Steelpony facility for recourses then and there, but alas, hindsight is 20-20. As it was, I just wandered off into the middle of nowhere with not so much as a responsible adult to aid me. I must have walked for over an hour, because when I was finally interrupted, the sun had moved almost directly overhead. What had interrupted me was a shallow gully and a fairly sparse bush. I had encountered manny bushes over the course of my journey, but what made this one unique was the poorly concealed pony trying to hide behind it. Excellent, so not everypony’s dead. “Uhh… hello?” The little pony squeaked adorably and tried to hide further behind the bush. “Hey, you can come out,” I razed my hooves, “I promise I won’t hurt you.” The mare extricated herself form the bush, brushing sticks form her pink mane and blue coat. This bright combination combined with my own mint hues made the two of us the most eye-catching things in the vicinity by a long shot. She seemed slightly embraced now that she was out of the shrubbery. “Uh, hi.” “Hello…” wow, this was awkward, “Uhh… why were you hiding in a bush?” “I… ahem,” she coughed, “I herd you coming and there are supposed to be monsters outside, so I hid,” she looked back at the bush, “not very well obviously.” “What do you mean ‘outside’? Also, what’s your name?” I queried. “Oh, my name is Spark Smile, but everyone calls me Sparks,” she straitened up a bit, seemingly more comfortable with the conversation, “and I mean outside as in outside the stable, I’m form stable 17.” “Ah, of course! The stables. I’ve been, well, asleep I guess since the bombs fell. So I was wondering could you tell me how long I’ve been out?” I thought back to the messages I had found on dr Ex Machina’s terminal, ignoring the rather odd look the unicorn was now giving me, “It must have been at leas a few months, maybe a year?” “two hundred.” “What?” “two hundred years,” she said, still giving me that look, “It’s been two hundred years since the bombs fell.” I sat back, stunned. Two hundred years! even if anypony you knew survived the bombs, they’re certainly all dead now, they’re all dead. All of them. “Hey, are you okay?” Sparks was looking at me with concern. “I…” I pulled myself together, “I’m fine, I’m fine.” “Okayyy…” now she was looking at me confusedly, “why’d you ask about the bombs? I thought everypony knew when that was?” “I… didn’t.” “Why?” I told her. “Uh, wow. That’s amazing.” “Yeah, I suppose it is pretty far fetched now that I think about it.” I sat down next to her, “so what’s your story?” “I got in a fight.” “Really?” “Yeah, I’ve been saying for ages that the world outside the stable can’t be as bad as everypony says it is, and I’ve been campaigning for us to send someone out here to take a look. The ponies in my stable are scared of the outside, two centuries locked underground with no outside information does that to ponies. So this morning I had a big fight with some ponies and left. Our overmare’s a real pushover, so I just shouted at her until she gave me the exit code,” she shrugged, “it was her counsel that shot down my petitions.” We sat there for a moment. “So, what do we do now?” “I think we should follow the gully,” Sparks said, “unless you have a better idea?” I got off my plot, “Nope, let’s go!” * * * It was early afternoon when we finally found signs of civilisation, if you could call it that. The town consisted of a main street, with maybe four buildings flanking it. And then we saw the ponies. The mediocre population of ‘Guttersnipe’ as my mini-map called it, were packing more weaponry than I had ever seen on any non-military pony. Combine this with a selection of faces that would be at home on a wanted poster, and this place immediately took priority on the ‘dangerous shit-hole’ list. Understandably, Sparks was a bit concerned. “Uh, maybe we should wait till the next town.” I sighed, “probably, but I’ve been walking for at least four and a half hours and this is the firs sign of civilisation I’ve seen so far. I don’t think we’ll be in to much danger as long as we don’t stop to talk,” I spied something in the town, “also, I think there’s someone down there willing to talk to us.” “Really? Why do you say that?” I grinned, “there’s a pub.” * * * It is a well known fact that any bartender worth his ale can talk the hind leg off a donkey, and any publican distinctly NOT worth his over-priced beer believes his is the final word on any and all subjects under Celestia’s sun. With these facts in mind, Guttersnipe’s one and only tapster should be primed and ready to become a veritable fountain of information on our new surroundings. His customers on the other hand… We had gotten a few odd and suspicious looks on the way in, and it seemed the only thing that stopped that form happening in here was the thick smoke that encircled the lights in the ceiling. Dimming the room enough that we could go relatively un-noticed. We carefully mad our way to the bar, taking two empty stools right down the end. The barkeeper — as if sensing new customers — appeared almost immediately before us. “So, lades, what can I get you?” he had a smile that would take home gold, and probably everypony’s wallets, “wine? ale? sandwich? coltfrend?” he eyed us momentarily, 
“unless of course you’re…” “What? No! We’re not… I’m not…” Sparks gesticulated between us wildly. “Shame,” I sad, earning a sharp look form Sparks and a laugh form the barkeeper. Mark one for diplomacy. “Right, so what can I get you for real this time?” he didn’t get the chance to her our reply, because a shout of ‘More Beer!’ from half way up the bar distracted him. Once he had returned, he said; “Right, so NOW what can I get you? Name’s Watered Down by the way.” “Sparks,” said Sparks “and this is Lyra, and what you can get us is information.” “Oh?” he said, eyes lighting up, “what kind of information?” “Any kind, really. You see, I just got out of my stable and-” “Ah-ha! I knew it!” he interrupted, “I had you pegged as stable ponies form the first time I saw you.” He leaned in a little, “so you would’t know anything about the wasteland would you?” “Nope,” I interjected, “Nothing.” His eyes gleamed, “I think that I’ll be able to help you with that.” No doubt he would have continued, but his duties at the bar called him away again. * * * “…and that is why we use bottle caps for currency.” It was a good hour later, Watered Down had told us — between calls for more beer, more booze, and still more beer — about the events of the previous month and about how ponies now used bottle caps for currency. I wasn’t sure how much I believed though, how on earth could a pony survive a direct hit from a bailfire bomb? “Actually, now that that’s out of the way, there’s something I’d like you to do for me.” He straitened up and took on a businesslike air, “Now I’d imagine that you’d like to sleep somewhere tonight, and I can help you there. You see, I own some rooms that I’d love to rent to you, but judging by the fact that I just had to explain caps to you you don’t have any.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully, “so instead, I have a job for you. If you deliver a message to some ponies not far form here, I’ll give you someplace to sleep and maybe even some food too. The area around here’s not to dangerous so you’ll be fine without weapons.” My eyebrow rose, “then why do they have those?” I gestured to the large amount of ordinance that occupied the pub. He shrugged, “they’re just paranoid.” “So why do you have that?” Sparks pointed at the pistol strapped to the stallion’s own chest. He laughed, “incase they get a bit too paranoid.” I nodded, “So what’s the message?” * * * Five minutes later, me and Sparks where trotting along towards the meeting place. Watered Down had even been kind enough to give us a saddlebag so we didn’t have to levitate the letter with us all the way. “So, what do you think of the world outside?” I asked as we walked. “It’s… defiantly worse than I thought,” she looked up at the sky, “but it’s not as bad as it could have been.” She turned to me, “But what about you? You just lost everything, even more totally than I have, I can’t imagine what that must be like.” “It was bad at first…” I consulted the sky as well, “I just sort of snapped, I probably would have kept walking if I hadn’t run into you. But this place? It’s so different, after the initial shock it’s a bit hard to believe it’s the same place.” I looked down at my hooves, “besides, it’s not as if it’s the first time I’ve had to deal with loss recently.” Sparks was probably about to ask what I meant by that, but we were interrupted by three ponies who had been sitting behind some rocks that were our destination. Two wore scrappy barding and carried guns, but the third wore higher quality armor and carried a large piece of concrete stuck on the end of a rebar. “Uh, hello!” Sparks said, “We have the message!” Rebar shifted slightly, “You’re coming with us.” “Um, no, were just here to deliver a message,” she started reaching for the saddlebag. Two shotguns were levelled at us, “No,” rebar repeated, “You’re coming, with, us.” A smile twisted his features, “welcome to slavery.” He jerked his head at the other two, “Collar ‘em.” One of the goons sheathed his weapon, leaving the other to cover him. He approached us, sliding two collars out of his saddlebags. “What? NO!” Sparks backed up quickly, but the remaining shotgun rounded on her. “Stand still or I’ll blow your brains out your ears!” Sparks froze, eyes fixed with terror on the shotgun barrel prodding her in the muzzle. Collars chuckled as he approached me, “now hold still deary,” he whispered. What am I gonna do? Whatamigonnado? Whatamigonnadowhatamigonnadowhatamigonnad- The world froze. My flailing brain must have hit something right, because the world now floated by as if stuck in frozen treacle. Areas of collars’s body glowed, and a tag reading ‘S.A.T.S, Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell’ was displayed in the corner of my vision. SATS? what is… oh. I thought as I remembered one of the little tidbits I had picked up about Stable-Tec’s pipbucks. So that should mean… I focused on collars’s head, it glowed, and a tag reading ‘98%’ showed up next to it. That’ll work! I queued up the attack and fired. My hoof — guided by the spell — curled swiftly through the air and hit him in the jaw. Now, I have no doubt that some of you will have seen what it looks like to be hit by a ball or maybe even to be punched in slow motion. But believe me when I say that that is NOTHING in comparison to the effect of a pony's entire jaw shattering as it folds around the hoof impacting it. Collars fell back, apparently choking on his own muzzle which had folded in on itself under my onslaught. His companions yelled in surprise and shotgun levelled his at me, firing at my side. His shot went wild, but he was still only a few feet away and some of the pellets hit my back. It didn’t do any real damage, but it hurt like hell and I screamed as I leapt at him. Sparks shrieked and jumped to the side as me and the slaver both went down with me on top. I swung wildly at his head, connecting with his temple. I had no idea wether killed him or just knocked him out, but I had no time to think about that as I turned and rebar swung his weapon at me. It connected with a sickening crunch, shattering the only bone in my body not mechanically re-enforced. My horn. Footnote: Achievement get!: Party for two Start a party with one other person. Achievement get!: Landmark Mark a new location on your map. Achievement get!: Small goals Accept a side quest form a quest giver. Achievement get!: New neighbours Encounter a raider and/or slaver. No updates to stats.