The cart rolled down a cracked road, pulled by a brahmin that tended to list to the left. Whenever it did, the head on the right berated the other, which seemed barely intelligent enough to get the gist. A pony led them along, and two more carts pulled by ponies followed. I trotted along beside the caravan, hunting rifle in my magic and sawed-off shotgun hanging from my saddlebags.

This was another of Lord Lamplight’s memories, the second orb taken from the Vanhoover Spire. Lamplight, my host, was several years older now than he had been in the last memory, now a teenager. His jumpsuit from Stable 83 had long been outgrown and discarded, replaced by light combat barding. He was a true pony of the Wastelands now, working as a caravan guard to protect it from monsters, zombies, and raiders. Or, so I gathered from the short amount of time I’d been in his body. Another guard trotted up to him from the other side of the caravan.

“What’d I tell you, Lamplight?” he said, winking at me over a set of cracked sunglasses, “Almost to Nopar and no sign of trouble. Crate City-Nopar is an easy route.”

“Yeah, well, don’t let Mint hear you say that, Lead” Lamplight said, glancing at a pony sitting atop the lead wagon, “She keeps saying if there’s no danger, then there’s no use for us, and no reason to pay us.”

“Well, if that’s what she thinks, she might just find some trouble,” Lead said, smiling when Mint looked down at the pair, “You let me worry about Mint.”

Lead returned to the other side of the caravan and stayed there as it continued on down the street. The lead pony called out when their destination came in sight. Auto-carriages had been piled up into a barrier with a gate in the center. Above them hung a sign that read “No Par-”, the rest of the letters worn off.

A gunshot rang out, and the pony pulling the rear wagon fell to the ground with a hole through her head. Two others who’d been trotting alongside ran up and began to drag the wagon along.

“Raiders!” Lead yelled, “Get to Nopar!”

The caravan put on extra speed as Lead and my host stayed back and fired at the raiders who were beginning to pour from the surrounding buildings. One on the left, one on the right, two more ahead, another on the right; my rifle sang out as Lamplight fired on the raiders, nearly getting hit himself. He and Lead pulled back toward the caravan as the raiders advanced, using the wagons as cover where they could. Mint fell with a scream from atop her wagon, struck by an errant burst of submachine gun fire from one of the raiders.

We were nearly at Nopar’s gates now. Lead yelled for the traders to leave the rear wagon behind after one of the ponies pulling it along was run through with a thrown spear made from rebar. As he shoved the survivor forward, he was shot several times with a shotgun. The assault rifle on his battle saddle took out his attacker, but it was a short-lived victory. A raider with a shovel cleaved his head open while his back was turned.

“Lead!” Lamplight cried and sent the raider spinning with shots from his rifle.

My host retreated back with the remaining traders toward the gates. The trader who’d been leading was next to me when he was cut down by a burst of machine gun-fire that caught Lamplight in his flank. The raider was shot by Lamplight’s shotgun before he retreated the rest of the way, firing back at the other raiders and wincing with every step.

“Let us in! Help!” Lamplight yelled as he banged on the gate to Nopar, but there was no answer.

The brahmin lowed as it was shot, and my host crouched behind its corpse. Only two other traders were still alive as Lamplight desperately tried to protect them and his own life. Every time a raider appeared over or around the brahmin, he fired his rifle, hitting them more often than not. It’s just there were so many raiders that it was a losing fight. The last trader moved closer as her fellow was shot up by a burst of submachine gun fire.

Lamplight continued to fire at the raiders while yelling for the ponies of Nopar to help. Perhaps it was too late, Nopar was uninhabited except for raiders, and this was all a trap. The same thoughts were probably occurring to Lamplight, though he continued to yell for help. A rebar spear impaled the trader’s head, killing her instantly and pinning her to the concrete. Another pierced Lamplight’s leg and held him in place.

Still, he continued to fight, firing at the raiders while accumulating more injuries. My host’s vision swam sometimes from blood loss, and he ran out of rifle ammunition, resorting to using his shotgun when the raiders got close. When that ran out of ammo, he grabbed a pistol one of them had dropped and fired until it was empty. Forty raiders or more must’ve fallen by the time no more came after him, and Lamplight lay back in agony.

At last, the gates to Nopar creaked open and townsponies trotted out. Lamplight called for help, but they ignored him, picking through the caravan and the piles of dead ponies for loot. They had stayed safe within their walls and let everypony out here die, only to steal from their corpses. My host didn’t seem to know whether to grit his teeth in anger or weep, so he did both.

I was returned to my bed in The Strip, where we’d spent the last day. After leaving the SPP Tower, we’d returned here to help Sage set up the equipment she need to be DJ Pon3. Nopony but Rare, Roaring Thunder, Zherana, and me knew that she had taken over Radio Free Wasteland, and Sage intended to keep it that way. If she could, she’d try to think of a way to explain it to her superiors in the Crimson Tide, but only if necessary. The previous DJ had convinced her it was best if nopony knew who the real DJ Pon3 was, that way he could live on forever, among other benefits.

With that out of the way, we’d be leaving The Strip and back to usual business soon. My diving into memory orbs wasn’t just a hobby anymore, it was a way to learn more about our enemy. With only two memories now experienced, I was beginning to get a picture of the leader of the Northern Lights Coalition. His Stable had been wiped out by Steel Rangers, and now I’d witnessed a settlement acting nearly as bad as the raiders who Lamplight had fought. With this kind of experience, I could almost believe what Mr. Bucke had articulated back in the Vanhoover Spire about the settlements being little better than the raiders and slavers around them. I didn’t believe it—couldn’t believe it—but I was able to see a little better where Lord Lamplight had gotten the idea.

I adjusted my position and prepared to experience the memory again, grimacing as I considered the pain I’d have to endure at the end. I’d experience these memory orbs as many times as I had to in order to learn everything I could about Lord Lamplight. It also would give me something to do in the time before bed other than think about what the following day would bring. We had decided to go after Timbervale next, and I was not looking forward to confronting the settlement that had once protected me, Northern Lights Coalition member or not.

I was filled with apprehension as we trotted toward Timbervale. The path there had been opened up some since I’d last been here. As part of the NLC, apparently they didn’t have to worry about the raiders in the area anymore. That was what they seemed to think, anyway. We spotted several cameras along the way, cables strung back along the ruins of buildings toward Timbervale. We shot them whenever we saw them, depriving the NLC and Lord Lamplight of their eyes.

The gate in the wooden fence was closed tight when we arrived. Guard towers had been built within the walls and a few ponies looked down on us from them, ponies that looked an awful lot like raiders. Zherana pointed out a sniper positioned on the radio tower in the center of town, who I’d only noticed as one more dot in the blob that filled EFS. There were more ponies past the gate, and likely not that far past it either.

“Hello, it’s me, Doc!” I called out, hoping and dreading that somepony I’d known here would answer.

Muffled voices carried through the gate until there was movement on EFS. Peaches came into view as he climbed one of the guard towers. He certainly did not look pleased to see us.

“Turn around and leave now! We don’t want you here! Haven’t you caused enough trouble?” Peaches yelled back.

“I’m not the one collaborating with raiders and slavers!” I yelled.

Rare Sparks paced back and forth, her armor making enough noise that those on the other side of the gate had to be able to hear it. Roaring Thunder alighted on an old billboard to get a better look inside the settlement, and the ponies in one of the guard towers followed him with their guns. Zherana stood completely still yet ready to pounce at any moment in that odd way that had terrified the customers of Tirek’s Taphouse back in Tartarus. I tried to keep my cool and prayed for a peaceful resolution.

“No, you’re the one slaughtering settlements if they don’t agree with you,” Peaches shot back, “Oh yes, we know all about Stallion Hill and Prophet Square.”

“That was different,” I said defensively, “They gave me no choice. Please, don’t force me to do the same here.”

“No one is forcing you but yourself. You refuse to see that this will soon be the way of the world. The Northern Lights Coalition will bring peace and order to the Wasteland.”

“Living with raiders at your side,” Rare said, eyeing the ponies around Peaches suspiciously, “I’ll pass.”

“These are good ponies,” Peaches said stiffly, as if he didn’t really believe it.

“You’re good ponies, the ponies of Timbervale, who protected me from perhaps the very same raiders you now call neighbors,” I said, “You are a good pony, Peaches. I don’t want to do this.”

“Then don’t,” Peaches said firmly, staring me down, “Turn around … and leave.”

“You know I can’t do that,” I said, “Not while you work with and shelter raiders that strike out at other good ponies.”

I wasn’t sure who fired, but somepony shot me. Perhaps it was the sniper on the radio tower, or perhaps one of the raiders in the guard tower I hadn’t been watching. All I knew for sure was that a bullet hit my breastplate before careening through several ribs, exiting my body, and striking my left hindleg.

“Cease fire!” I faintly heard Peaches yell as I fell to the ground.

The Timbervale ponies didn’t comply, so neither did my friends. Zherana dragged me behind a felled tree as I found a healing potion in my saddlebags, moving surprisingly quickly for an emaciated corpse. Once the potion did its trick, I was back in the fight.

With my magical energy rifle, I pegged the raiders in the tower to the right, watching out for Roaring Thunder, who was swooping around and laying down fire with the weapons in his armor. A metal apple thrown from the other tower fell near me, and I ran for different cover. Taking shelter behind a mailbox, I loaded a rocket into my rocket launcher. The left tower was turned into a raging inferno after I hit it, the supports twisting and buckling as the structure fell apart. Peaches had left the tower before I’d even recovered from my wounds, so at least I knew I hadn’t killed him.

“Get the gate open!” I yelled to Rare, and she lobbed several grenades at the settlement’s entrance.

I cast SATS as the gate blew open, watching it collapse in slow motion. Most of the ponies within were aiming for the sky, firing at Roaring Thunder, though many were now turning toward the explosion. There was nopony I knew there. Some I’d seen briefly when I’d visited Timbervale the first time, trotting around town or standing guard, but most were completely unfamiliar. Overall, the group looked more like raiders than townsponies, though they did exist somewhere in between.

I switched my magical energy rifle to burst mode and took aim at those who were close to becoming threats. A big mare with a spiky mane and a minigun battle saddle. A unicorn levitating twin revolvers that were spinning toward me in slow motion. A guard with an assault rifle battle saddle that was already pointed toward Zherana. A mare with earrings made from teeth preparing to lob a spiky object into the air toward Roaring Thunder. They all died to blasts from my magical energy rifle before time returned to normal.

The last one dropped her spiky weapon as she died, and it exploded a second later, sending spikes and fragments into the surrounding ponies. An anti-pegasus device, it seemed, like the AP guns I’d destroyed in the Flankorage simulation, but on a much smaller scale. Even with his advanced armor, that would’ve caused Roaring Thunder some trouble if it’d gone off near him.

Of the ponies that had survived, the rest died quickly. I fired my magical energy rifle, trying to avoid shooting townsponies unless it was necessary to save myself or my friends. Rare Sparks seemed to be doing the same, firing her minigun in bursts that avoided sweeping over townsponies, where she could tell that they were. Roaring Thunder and Zherana attacked indiscriminately, him firing his weapons at anything that held a weapon, her snapping necks and limbs left and right. The space inside the gate was soon clear, but there were still plenty of red marks on EFS. Roaring Thunder landed next to the rest of us as we prepared to advance into the town.

“Try to capture the townsponies if you can,” I ordered as I loaded another magical energy cell into my rifle.

“And do what with them?” Roaring Thunder asked, “Take them back to The Strip?”

“I don’t know, just … try,” I replied.

This wasn’t sitting right with me. Maybe what Peaches had said was getting to me. I’d done the same to other NLC settlements, so what was the difference here? Stallion Hill had seemed to be obviously evil, or at least led by an evil pony. Prophet Square, I didn’t know about, but they’d attacked first. Here, the ponies of Timbervale had also attacked first, but I’d also provoked them, and I knew them. They’d helped me before. Was that why I was having such a hard time?

A trio of raiders tried to jump us from the nearby field and pond, and Rare Sparks smoked them with her minigun. We headed over toward the field and looped around onto one of the outer streets of the settlement. We kept an eye on the houses, but ponies always seemed to come out only to attack us, or fired from the windows. Never did anypony simply stay inside and hide, which is what I’d have expected from the decent ponies of this town. Raiders, we didn’t take a chance with, but I tried to talk to the townsponies. They didn’t seem to want to talk, however, and I grew more and more disheartened as we were forced to defend ourselves from them. Such confrontations never succeeded, and soon Rare’s armor was pitted and marred by shots from townsponies, and my healing potion supply was dwindling. The chance of some ponies surrendering and leaving the NLC seemed impossible by the time we reached the center of the town.

I fired my rocket launcher at the equipment halfway up the tower that controlled the cameras and broadcast equipment, destroying it. Peaches burst out of the town hall, charging toward me with a shotgun battle saddle. Zherana pushed me out of the way as he fired, and the blast struck her instead.

“No!” I yelled as I fell and fired my magical energy rifle at Peaches’s legs.

He went down and Roaring Thunder landed atop him, stripping the shotgun from his battle saddle. Zherana seemed to be fine, though there were some new holes in her flesh. After she assured me that a dip in the radioactive water on the way back would fix her up good as new, I moved to confront Peaches.

“You’re no better than a raider, you’re worse,” the stocky pony accused as I trotted up to him.

I wanted to refute his claim, I wanted to tell him that I was the good guy, but I never got the chance. A bullet went through his neck, fired from the direction of the settlement’s gate. We all turned to spot a raider with a sniper rifle now galloping away.

“Roaring Thunder,” I said.

“On him,” the pegasus said as he launched into the air, catching my intent.

When I turned back to Peaches, he was barely still alive, choking on his own blood.

“Why?” he managed to get out before his mark disappeared from my EFS, and I knew the question was for me, not for the pony who’d killed him.

Timbervale was gone. Maybe someday it could be a settlement again, but for now it was no more. I tried telling myself that it was part of the Northern Lights Coalition, and therefore couldn’t be allowed to remain, but I wasn’t convinced. Peaches hadn’t killed or enslaved anypony, not that I knew of. The ponies of Timbervale were just ponies who’d struggled alone in the Wasteland and turned to Lord Lamplight when he’d offered to give them power, clean water, healthy crops, and protection from raiders. It was a deal any settlement would at least thoughtfully consider and would be foolish not to accept, were it not for his other conditions.

Was I as bad as a raider? I didn’t kill for sport or torture anypony. I had depopulated three settlements now, though, even if Stallion Hill might not have deserved the name. Had it once, though? The ponies at Castle Bridge had been worried about the NLC moving raiders in among them. That had certainly happened to Timbervale. Where were the other townsponies I’d seen before? Replaced by raiders? Was that what Lord Lamplight did, replaced ponies in a settlement until they were all raiders? If I’d come back in a few weeks, would Timbervale have been completely unrecognizable and my conscious would be clear? Too many questions, many that I either didn’t know the answer to or led to other questions I didn’t even want to think of.

We were on our way back to The Strip, trotting to where we’d left the Clinic in West Vanhoover, when I spotted a unicorn stallion trotting toward us, a young griffin at his side. As they got closer, I couldn’t believe who they were.

“Rogue! Gertrude!” I called out, waving to them, “I can’t believe you’re alive!”

“You!” Rogue yelled angrily as he got near, rage burning in his good eye.

I was so shocked that I didn’t even try to stop him as he hit me in the face with a hoof, knocking me to the ground. Zherana pinned the former Sundale militia leader to the ground as he continued to glare at me. Gertrude pointed a shotgun at the zebra ghoul’s head, and Rare and Roaring Thunder trained their weapons on the griffin.

“Don’t hurt him,” I told Zherana as I picked myself up off the ground, “I … know him.”

I had been about to say that he was my friend, but judging by how Rogue was looking at me, he didn’t consider us to be friends anymore.

“Look at you,” Rogue said, his words spitting venom as Zherana let him stand up but still kept ahold of him, “Prancing about with a Steel Ranger after you got Sundale destroyed.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“If it wasn’t for you and your PipBuck and those Steel Rangers with their bounty, Sundale would still be around!” Rogue yelled, “Those raiders came for you while I was out scouting. Guess whatever answers Rasp gave weren’t enough for them, so they slaughtered the settlement looking for you. You bear the blame for Sundale’s destruction just as surely as if you’d killed them all yourself.”

“Railyard too,” Gertrude accused me before I could speak in my defense, “You could have stood with us and fought, but you didn’t. The PRS would never have taken Railyard, and my mom would still be alive if you’d helped.”

I wanted to point out that I was a little busy being a prisoner of the PRS at the time to help, but I’d also inadvertently given the PRS a reason to attack Railyard by giving them the seeding megaspell. That wasn’t something I wanted to bring up. My head was spinning. So soon after Timbervale, I didn’t know what to think. Had I been destroying settlements ever since I’d left the Stable? Sundale. The Republic of Rose. Harmony Tower. Railyard. Stallion Hill. Prophet Square. Timbervale. It seemed I brought death with me wherever I went, both intentional and not. I was racking up quite a list.

“Don’t listen to them,” Rare Sparks told me, “They’re wrong. You’re not to blame.”

“Oh, yes, by all means take advice from the Steel Ranger. Surely, they’re paragons of virtue,” Rogue mocked, “Look at his face. He knows he’s guilty.”

“Come on, Rogue, let’s go,” Gertrude said as she lowered her shotgun from the back of Zherana’s head, “He’ll get his just desserts someday.”

“I pray that you do,” Rogue said as Zherana released him and he rubbed his neck, “To Celestia I pray! Oh, if only the Priestess of the Holy Light could have heard me.”

Rogue trotted away, Gertrude hovering overhead.

“Sundale and Railyard weren’t your fault,” Roaring Thunder assured me after they’d left, “What may have been is of no concern. You have no control over things like this, only your own actions.”

“Are you okay?” Rare asked with concern.

“No, I’m not okay,” I admitted, “This can’t go on. Sundale, the Republic of Rose, Harmony Tower, Railyard, Stallion Hill, Prophet Square, Timbervale. How many more settlements have to die? How can the Wasteland survive? Maybe you’re right, and they’re not all the result of my actions, they’re out of my control, but how can I live with those that aren’t? This has to end. We have to find Lord Lamplight and end this once and for all. We’ll do it, I promise you that. It’s what must be done. It’s all I can do.”

Level Up [Max Level Reached]
New Perk: Check Out These Guns – During your time in the Wasteland, your physique has improved. +2 to Strength.
Lord Lamplight Memory Orb (Bad Among the Good): +1 to Charisma
New Quest: Lord of the North – Find Lord Lamplight and put an end to the Northern Lights Coalition.
Strength +2 (5)
Charisma +1 (4)
Barter +12 (93)
Big Guns +8 (85)