Chapter 6: Journey through Hell
"And ponies went into these places to be safe?"
It was dark down here. Very dark. Saffron decided to don his helmet, not so much to filter out the stench, but to use the lamp built into it. That meant we had three lights between us - two Pipgirls and one Steel Ranger spotlight, which did a better job than the Pipgirls, but only in the direction that Saffron was looking, which could be a tad annoying when he suddenly looked away from something I was trying to get a good look at. The glowing Pipgirls threw off a more general ambience, which was useful, but at times limited. Nonetheless, there really wasn't much to see. The broad, curved roofed corridor wasn't particularly long, but was fairly spacious, no doubt because of its original function. The concrete bulkhead-like walls with their small doors that interrupted our progress would have been among the last things to be installed as the stable neared its completion, access to the cargo elevator no longer being required.
Again we found ourselves facing one of these smaller, heavily built doors with the compression seals. It was interesting that these doors between each of the sections of corridor appeared to be built to withstand flooding, yet, as the stench was clearly showing, there were other ways for air or water to pass between these sections. Poor design? An oversight? Maybe there were some remotely operated vents that had simply been left open.
This door proved to be easier to open, as if it had been used more recently than the last. Curious, I walked back to the last door for a better look, and that was when I discovered that there was no way of opening it from this side. That struck me as odd - a door that the stable dwellers could not open while anyone coming down the shaft could. Of course, there was that massive door we had to force open just to get out of the shaft, so it wasn't as if the door was a security risk. Nonetheless, these odd little things puzzled me. I returned to the others, and we all walked through the next door and into the room beyond. This one was a T intersection, one of these bulkhead doors to our left, and one to our right. Above each was a sign, though what was written on them was hard to make out, as they were designed to be back-illuminated.
Saffron veered left, walking the short distance to the door. Shining his head mounted lamp on the sign above it he managed to read, "Department of Robotics." He tried the door release, and it would not budge. "Dead end," he announced, turning and walking to the door that was opposite. This time he tried the door release first, and though stiff, it did move. With a heavy thunk, the locking mechanism released, and the door moved in towards us, followed by more of the awful stench. He looked up at the sign above it. "Living quarters," he read. "Hmm, I'd almost expect it to say something about being a morgue, with that stench. It's even getting through my filters. There can't be a whole lot of living going on in there."
"You know..." Demi started, then fell silent, unsure of herself again.
"If you've noticed something we've missed, please tell us," I requested.
"Whatever caused that stink is recent, or ongoing. If this place was long dead, there would be musty air, but the smell of decay would have faded by now," she commented.
"Good point, young'n," Saffron agreed. "Stay sharp. Weapons ready."
Lee reached back into her battle saddle and extracted the combat shotgun I had taken from the dead slaver. "Ofay, I'ff reaffy," she announced around a mouth full of muzzle grip. For the moment she dropped back onto all four hooves. The muzzle grip gun was designed to be used that way.
Of course my weapons were already at the ready. I usually kept them that way when travelling, only parking them when I was in safe company, or dealing with merchants or other ponies who really wouldn't like having a loaded gun pointed at them during negotiations. Thinking about it, it was sad that our default way of approaching another pony was to be armed and ready to kill. It was amazing that there were any ponies left with us living this way. Fortunately there were enough non-aggressive ponies huddled together in small settlements to keep the numbers up, even if a percentage of their offspring went to become the scum we had to exterminate.
We stepped through the door, our little pool of light following us. We found ourselves in one of the more box-like metal lined corridors typical of stable public areas. The paint was the typical Stable-Tec blue-grey, though areas of it had peeled back, revealing rust. Up ahead, a dull light flickered into existence, as if our presence had been sensed.
"Hush, and listen," I whispered. We all stopped where we stood, remaining quiet. In the relative silence that followed, I was able to hear the stable itself. There was the occasional groaning and creaking from the fatigued structure, as well as the distant, mostly suppressed throbbing of machinery in operation. This stable was definitely alive, even if its inhabitants were not. It was then we heard the whoosh of pneumatic cylinders as a stable door up ahead, on the right wall, lifted into its ceiling alcove, allowing more light into the corridor. It wasn't very bright, indicating this stable was either running at low power, or simply had run out of resources such as spare parts. Saffron and I instinctively sunk to a crouched position, killing our lights, the other two following suit, through not as quietly as us. With a hoof, I indicated that I wished them to stay put, then silently I began to advance on the open door. I was nearly to the door when a dark shape limped slowly through. It was pony shaped, trussed up in some sort of outfit or armor that clicked and whirred with every step, and armed with a hammer clamped between its teeth. Okay, it was not the most dangerous foe I had ever encountered. It would take someone with a serious amount of enthusiasm to do much damage to me with a hammer. That thought reminded me of the war hammer called Saffron, and what he had and hadn't done to Lee with a single strike. A cripple with a hammer in their mouth was no real threat.
I deliberately cycled the shotgun, ejecting an unused cartridge, just so I could announce both my location and ability in one sound. The pony slowly turned to face me, as I stood from my crouch. I could imagine what the pony must have been thinking, seeing a small pony bristling with weapons staring at them. I certainly didn't expect the reaction I got!
She dropped the hammer. "Finally! Reinforcements!" she said in a husky voice. "Do you have any idea how many decades we have been requesting reinforcements?" As she broke into a coughing fit, I looked back over my shoulder and indicated the others could come up, stealth no longer needed. I also took the time to retrieve my ejected cartridge, and load it back in the shotgun.
"You have... bullets!" the mare commented, her inflection expressing both surprise and delight. "How many of you are there?"
"There are four of us, but we are not all combatants," I answered. "You really must brief us on the situation here."
"Yes, Sir! Please follow me to our headquarters," the mare replied, before bending to pick up her hammer. She paused just before grasping it. "We should be safe for the trip back, as we are in pony territory, but any robot you see is to be considered an enemy." She picked up the hammer, then began her laborious shuffling limp as she lead us further into the stable. War? War inside a stable? I wondered what had gone so wrong as to turn robotic tools against their pony masters. Were we dealing with true robots? Would they be the ones with the manufactured A.I. brains, or those abominations that housed a dumbed down brain taken from a deceased pony donor? I guess it didn't really matter. I had no qualms about blowing away some mobile circuitry, and I figured killing the brain bots was really a case of releasing the already dead from a living hell. Then a thought hit me hard, and I physically shuddered. Was I not almost the same myself? Though I was wrapped in flesh, and looked like a pony, was I not much more than a reanimated near-corpse in a robotic body? The functions of my heart, lungs, eyes, ears, and all aspects of mobility from chewing to walking were all done by some sort of machinery. Even my spinal cord was manufactured, my own having been severed by my father's bullet.
I soon returned my attention to the present. After all, we were walking into a war zone, however localized it was. For the ponies down here, it was their whole world, barring some "out there" that could in theory send reinforcements. I wondered if they had been transmitting messages or praying for reinforcements. I seriously hoped it wasn't something that would promptly put us in a desperate life and death situation. I was getting tired of those. I also hoped that there was some other way to get out of this damned stable.
As our guide led us through the poorly lit, decaying corridors, I noticed that my earlier guess about resources was probably correct. Many of the light fittings had been removed, and few of those that survived were fitted with lamps. While the area had been described to us as "safe" it was clear there had been fighting here at some point. In places paint was charred, flaking away from battered and rusting walls, indicating fires or explosions. There were also tell tale patches of dried blood splattered across the floor and walls. Demi snuggled up as close as she could with my weapons in the way. This place was distressing her. I can't say I was unaffected either.
Our guide was an interesting mechanical sculpture, herself. Her coat was bubble gum pink, while her mane and tail were purple with a magenta streak. Mostly though, she was covered in her weird suit, for the lack of a better term. Leather was combined piecemeal with plastic and metal. Odd bits of circuitry appeared here and there, as did wires, weaving from one location to another. It was a very tight fit, showing no slack anywhere. It was effectively a second somewhat three dimensional skin. She was a unicorn, so why she was carrying the hammer in her mouth, I could not guess.
The mare leading us dropped her hammer again. "We are here," she announced when we arrived at yet another closed door. With some difficulty, she positioned herself so she could lift a fore hoof to bang on the door. Bang, bang bang bang, bang..... bang. The door whooshed up, revealing a better, but not well lit area within. I could see several barricades immediately beyond the door forming a basic chicane we had to negotiate to get inside. So that was what had happened to the missing light fittings. They had been flattened out to be used as crude armor panels on these barricades. I could see some scorch marks as left by energy weapons on them. "It's Helvetica, with four others," the mare announced to the barricades, before ushering us inside. As soon as we were all inside, the door slammed back down behind us, and I could hear locking bolts being driven home.
Helvetica led us through the chicane and into the horror beyond. The room itself was a disaster of patchwork metal, torn, bloodied and stained mattresses, more of those weird suits like Helvetica was wearing, and accumulated rubbish, though perhaps rubbish was not the correct term, because it had been carefully sorted and stacked, as if it were of value. I was beginning to think their "headquarters" was more of a hidey-hole than anything of military use. I recognized a new odor in the general stench; alcohol. Various injured and crippled ponies were lying on the filthy mattresses, made as comfortable as they could be with what little was to hoof. Twisted limbs, burns, cuts and scars were prevalent. Old pillows, cushions, and rolls of old clothing had all been put to use propping up heads and injured limbs. Some of the ponies were totally out of it. Some showed some signs of life, lifting their heads, twisting or rolling to get a better look at the newcomers. Some were bandaged in what appeared to be old strips of cloth torn from bed sheets. Others were bandaged in washed and re-used magical healing bandages that were no doubt totally devoid of any healing power, and probably had been for years. I guess that was where the alcohol came in. They had to be distilling the stuff from whatever they could in order to have an antiseptic, because without one, this stable would have been full of skeletons by now. The whole scene made my insides crawl. I breathed deeply, willing myself to stop shaking in rage. I knew hell was supposedly below those of us who lived up on the surface. I had not been aware it was a Stable-Tec product. And I had thought my stable was bad. It was bad. It was horrible, but this.... this....
"Brings new meaning to the phrase 'bloody hell', doesn't it?" Lee casually remarked. I could have knocked her into next week.
Appearing from behind the barricades came several other ponies, mostly earth ponies, scarred and injured, each trussed up in the same sort of junky outfits as Helvetica. They were armed with a motley collection of makeshift weapons. One I noticed was armed with a 10mm sub-machine gun. It was extremely battered, and had no clip - and the pony was holding it with its barrel clamped firmly between her teeth! So resources were so scarce down here that automatic weapons were now used as clubs!
The ponies looked us over, as if we were the weird looking ones. I guess they were right in a way. A Steel Ranger, a couple of fillies, one with a single wing, the other with metal forelegs, and one fairly ordinary looking mare. It struck me as odd to that the nuttiest of our team was the one that looked the most normal.
"As you can see, there really was a delivery to be collected." Helvetica stated, then coughed again. The response was one of murmured amazement.
"Two unclad. Most unusual! We haven't seen any unclad for a long time," one stated.
"And two unicorns at that," another added. "We don't have many of those here."
Delivery? I didn't like the sound of that. What if this lot decided we were a great package deal of weapons, ammunition and tasty pony meat? If they even hinted at doing something hostile towards any of us, I would deliver the ammunition to them at high velocity. I looked around at them all again. There was a glimmer of hope in their eyes, and they... relaxed?
"All right, I want to be briefed on the situation here right now," I commanded. First things first, let's see if the politeness was genuine or just a front.
"Who should tell?" someone quietly asked.
"I think Rosemary. She's the oldest," came a quiet reply.
"Helvetica would be best. She is the Recorder after all," another countered.
"I believe Helvetica would be more appropriate," an older mare stated, moving forward so we could see her. Like the others, she was also trussed up in assorted junk. Her coat was a dark green, garnished with a light purple mane and tail. What was visible of her coat showed signs of heavy scarring. Like Helvetica she did not move well.
"As you wish, Rosemary," Helvetica acquiesced. The other ponies, all female I noticed, drew back and sat, or lay down. Weapons were dropped or holstered, and when I say holstered, I am not implying guns. Hammers, home made tomahawks and assorted bits of shaped scrap metal were what they stowed.
"For as long as we have lived, and our ancestors before us, we have been at war with the other inhabitants of our world," Helvetica began.
World. Yes, I knew what she meant from my own experiences. After a couple of generations in a stable, the outside world ceased to be of particular importance. In some instances, it simply ceased to be. At least my mother and I had been well informed as to what was outside before we made our escape.
Helvetica coughed a couple of times, then began. "The records state that soon after our ancestors moved into this world, their robotic assistants turned against them. We have fought ever since, neither side managing to destroy the other - until now. Somehow the ponies were never able to break into the areas where the robots set up their home, though the reverse was not true. Back then, the ponies had decent weapons and the robots were new. Now, we have what you see, and the robots, though looking worse for all the fighting, still have their beam weapons, blades and clubs." Helvetica explained, before breaking down in another coughing fit.
"You just said one side has destroyed the other," I commented. "The robots..."
"have won," Rosemary replied, taking over from Helvetica. "We have lost the war, even though we continue to fight. Our last stallion died around a year ago. With no stallion, there will be no more foals to replace those that die because of the robots. Now it merely a matter of time before we die out, unless we can get a new stallion. As you four were the first to come after decades of sending requisitions and requests for more provisions and personnel, I doubt that will happen."
There were foals here somewhere? What the ponies had told me was more of a history lesson than the briefing I was expecting. Very little remained of any true sort of military, assuming there had ever been one. It seemed these mares were assuming we were all female. The three of us that were visible clearly were. Saffron, neatly disguised by his full armor remained silent. If we ended up permanently stuck down here, perhaps he would oblige them. I wondered how long Lee and I could last here, though it was Demi I really feared for. I could picture her lying there much like the aqua pony before me, lying on her side, on the bloody and torn mattress, head turned, chin resting on a pillow so she could watch what was happening. I sincerely hoped we could help these ponies. I sincerely hoped we could help ourselves.
"Please Sir, do you know if the robots also got reinforcements?" one pony asked. This "Sir" business was odd, but if it implied respect or authority, I was not going to object.
"That I am aware of, no," I replied. "We were the only four in the supply shaft, and there was no indication that any had come down before us."
"How did you get down the shaft?" Helvetica managed between coughs. "Every time we send a requisition, we get the response that the supply shaft is closed."
"Trust me, getting down the shaft was no problem," Lee muttered. "It was safely stopping at the bottom that was of an issue. The elevator is missing."
"Oh," several voices chorused. It crossed my mind that these ponies were more like a school room of children than a force to be feared. I felt I could lower my guard around them a little.
"Who is in charge?" I asked.
"Ummm...." a few voiced together again.
"Maybe Helvetica," someone suggested.
"You are now," a quiet voice offered.
"We don't have a command structure," Rosemary explained. "Every time a leader was organized, the robots would target them. After that, leaders were no longer elected. We just try to cooperate now. Everypony knows what we need to do to survive, and everypony does what they can to help."
"Everypony?" I asked. No rebels? No selfish ponies that wouldn't help?
"Yes. Those that didn't were killed by the robots," Rosemary explained, "though that is all history. We haven't had a leader in my lifetime."
"Where is the entrance to this stable?" I asked.
"The great gear door is in robot territory at the moment," Helvetica stated, "though there were times when ponies held the area. According to the records, the ponies were never able to open it though."
Helvetica collapsed in another coughing fit, this time coughing up blood. Several of the more mobile ponies descended on her almost immediately.
"Get her out of her cladding," Rosemary suggested. "She really should be resting after getting that wound."
I watched as the ponies unfastened various clips, and disconnected assorted wires. With a whine, the suit opened up, allowing them to extract the pathetic rag doll from within. Apart from her forelegs, she had no muscle tone, and her rear end and legs flopped around like a bag of uncooked meat. Bloody bandages were wrapped around her torso. So that's what these suits were. Exoskeletons. These ponies were so crippled they needed exoskeletons just to walk.
A small voice whispered in my ear. "We need to help these poor ponies, Anne."
I turned to the source of the voice. While stress was still written all over Demi's face, it was out of concern for these ponies, not out of fear for herself. "We certainly do," I whispered back. "We need to find a way to get them out of this place."
"We need to find somewhere safe to take them too. I didn't think I would survive up there. I don't see how these ponies would have any chance at all," Demi suggested.
"The rules may be different up there, but don't forget they have survived down here," I responded. I moved forward to where Helvetica now lay, watching as the other ponies tried to make her comfortable.
"How did she get like this?" I asked.
"The robots usually just zap and smash us. They stop attacking when we are unconscious. Sometimes we die then. Sometimes we die a few days later from the injuries. And sometimes we end up like this. We're the lucky ones," the mare answered.
"You said they killed certain ponies before," I countered.
"Yes. The robots go out of their way to kill leaders. They kill loners and rebels too, but I think that is mostly because there is no one there to help a lone pony when they are wounded, and they just die."
Returning to the wounded mare before me, I asked, "When did this injury occur?" indicating the bloody patch on Helvetica's bandaged side.
"She got that in the explosion yesterday. Those that are unconscious at the moment were injured then too."
"Explosion? I thought the robots used beam weapons, clubs and blades. Please don't tell me they also have explosives," I said.
"One of the robots that attacked yesterday must have had a problem. We think its spark battery or levitation module ruptured when the ponies were hitting it," she explained, "and that badly damaged two more of them, and they exploded a little later, Fortunately we had rescued the injured by then."
"What of the robots?"
"We brought back some of the pieces," she said, indicating the sorted pile of garbage, "but we really needed a spark battery for Lana's cladding. We were lucky we brought back the injured first too, because if we brought back one of the damaged robots, it would have exploded in here!"
Had they been hunting the robots yesterday or was the salvage operation just part of an inevitable encounter? At least I now knew what had caused the ground to shake the day before. Add the weight of four ponies, guns and armor to a weakened concrete lid, shake it a little with a few distant explosions, and hey, presto - you had one express delivery of reinforcements.
As I stared at her, Helvetica coughed up another mouthful of blood. She wasn't injured - she was dying. I wanted to help her, but doing so could cause a lot of strife. It would cost me a healing potion, but it wasn't that cost, no matter how few healing potions I had, that concerned me. What I was worried about was that I simply did not have enough to go around. I didn't want to turn this collection of desperate ponies into a rioting mob. I looked around the room again. A few dozen sad, tired, but hopeful eyes were fixed on me. Fuck it.
I reached back to my battle saddle, and opened the first aid compartment, and carefully extracted a single dose of the precious liquid. I unscrewed the cap, and placed the opening in Helvetica's mouth. "Drink this," I instructed, as I used my magic to carefully guide the liquid so not a drop was spilled. In truth, this mare needed some serious hospital treatment. She needed bones re broken and set correctly. She needed a medical unicorn to knit her severed spinal cord back together. She needed physiotherapy to help her regain the use of her body. Where would I find somewhere like that in the wasteland. Most doctors were on the same level as the one in New Appleloosa, or worse. They would be of no use. Where could I find.... oh fuck no. No, no, no, NO. Not that hell hole. Besides, rumors were that it had been destroyed. Ah, well, I was going there anyway. Perhaps I could salvage something.
As soon as she had finished drinking the healing potion, Helvetica fell quiet, her chest slowly rising and falling with her breathing. She looked almost peaceful. Sleep was probably the best thing for her right now. I looked around at the other ponies again, still all staring at me, hope in their eyes.
"Is anyone else about to die?" I asked. Several nodded, and hooves were raised to point at a couple of the other ponies. One of them was unconscious. That would make it difficult. I turned to the other, a red colored filly, perhaps ten years old. Her head was bandaged, as were her forelegs and chest. Her breathing was shallow, but she was alert, her visible eye following my actions. I levitated out a second of my precious potions, and carefully administered it, helping her to swallow every last drop. Like Helvetica, she relaxed and fell quiet.
"What did you just do to them?" Rosemary asked, worry painted all over her face.
"I helped them to live," I responded. "Take their bandages off, Helvetica first, and you will see what I mean."
The mares that had made Helvetica comfortable before, carefully raised her body, and began to unwind her bandages. Helvetica herself remained asleep. As the bandages came off, I heard gasps of awe.
"Her wounds. They are gone!" one exclaimed.
"That's right," I agreed, "and more importantly, her internal injuries have also healed. Now she just needs rest."
"How much of that do you have?" one mare asked enthusiastically.
"Unfortunately, I had only three of them." The collective sigh of disappointment, pretty much summed up how I felt about it too. "They are expensive and hard to find," I explained, "and I have one more pony to try to save." I knelt down near the third mare, a grey with a pink mane and tail. Her rear legs were gone - just stumps remained, bandaged as best they could be, but the blackness of the bandages indicated she had bled a lot. She was too still. I rested my head against her chest, and strained to hear anything. Nothing. I could feel no movement either. I tried sensing with my magic. Nothing. Slowly I stood, and shook my head. Someone started sobbing.
Several of the ponies gathered around their dead comrade, and a brief funeral service was held, all in the room but the speakers remaining silent during it. They then carefully lifted the body and carried it away, down a corridor I had not noticed before, no doubt due to the barricading.
For the next hour or so, I tended to the wounded, examining them, occasionally producing one of my few magically enhanced bandages to redress the worst wounds. I made no comment about the healing properties of these. I figured the effect would be subtle enough for the others not to realize. What they were seeing was a fresh, new bandage, and that in itself enthused them. Maybe they really did recognize them, but after their long struggle with a lack of resources, were smart enough to understand these had to be saved for the worst cases. In a way, I was an example of walking prosperity to them, with so many wonders in my battle saddle. They did not resent me that though, because I was sharing them as needed, and without complaint. Demi stayed with me, helping as much as she could. These poor ponies looked like the victims of repeated bashings and general torture, and as I studied the wounds, injuries and scars, I came to the conclusion that the robots were deliberately using underpowered weapons, that apart from exceptional circumstances, killing the ponies was never their intent. That they left when their victims passed out wasn't a lack of understanding of death versus unconsciousness, but rather a deliberate action.
Without a word, Saffron had gone over to take up watch with the mares that were guarding the main entrance to the room. They kept the door open, as it faced a relatively long corridor with a single door at the other end. That gave them a "shooting gallery" in which to try to stop the robots before finally retreating into the room and closing its door. By that stage, it really was too late, with only the door and their makeshift barricades inside the door as their last line of defense. Now that Saffron stood with them, any robot entering that corridor would indeed be shot, instead of just having assorted junk thrown or launched at them from the crude ballista that was mounted just inside the doorway.
Lee had accompanied another mare over to the pile of sorted garbage, and the two were discussing the finer points of the "cladding" the stable dwellers were assembling for Lana, who turned out to be the aqua pony that had been watching me so intently from where she lay. This version of Lee still understood a lot about technology, though she failed to recognize the components involved quite often. Nonetheless, there were enough parallels in her mind-world to ours for her to be of assistance.
As we were helping some ponies left the room via the same door as they had taken the dead pony, and returned with little bowls of some foul smelling black stuff. They began passing them around to the other ponies. I was also passed a bowl. Ah, so that was another component of the stench down here. I was about to ask what the stuff was for when I realized the others were eating it! I scanned it with my Pipgirl, and it identified it as yeast extract. At least I didn't need to ask what it was for anymore. So these mares were probably malnourished as well, as I doubted the yeast extract contained all their bodies needed. Perhaps suitable additives were already part of the foul concoction, if the stable hadn't run out of them. Going how resource stripped this place was, I was amazed there was anything left to feed the yeast... unless... ugh! Indirect cannibalism. These ponies probably didn't realize they were eating recycled sewage and their own dead. Actually, it wasn't that different out in the world above. We fertilize our crops with excrement in the hope of adding some much needed nutrients to the ground. We probably eat stuff that has been grown were bodies were buried too. The only difference was down here it was done in machines and vats.
I licked the stuff. Too bad I didn't have a taste filter to go with my nasal filters. I wondered how Saffron would go about eating without giving himself away. I watched, wondering if he would simply crack his helmet then put up with the possible rush of proposals. He didn't. Instead, a tubule extended from the suit, and sucked up the contents of the bowl. He nodded his thanks, and returned it. Lee, I noticed, was licking hers up while she was discussing things, as if it was something she ate regularly. Demi was considering hers, rolling her tongue around, head tilted in thought.
"You know," she finally announced, "in moderation, this stuff has potential. Imagine what it could do to radroach stew!"
The foul flavoring the vile. Wonderful.
"Robots!" one of the door guards yelled, interrupting my train of thought. I heard Saffron's minigun spin up as everyone that could scrambled to arm themselves, and head for the door. Saffron fired a couple of very short bursts. I hoped he had been listening to the our discussion about exploding robots. I heard the distant clatter of falling metal as the robots fell, then the thoomp of Saffron's grenade launcher as he fired a grenade down the corridor. So there were going to be explosions one way or the other. The blast sounded distant, so he must have lobbed it well beyond the door at the other end of the corridor. Like the other mares, I was scrambling for the door myself, and being somewhat more mobile, arrived ahead of all that had not already been there. Saffron was galloping down the corridor, launching another grenade as he went. I had only just started down the corridor when Saffron vanished into the area beyond, and the door slammed shut behind him.
I slid to a stop. Saffron...
Footnote: Maximum Level. Perk: Practice makes perfect. You have treated so many injured ponies that your medical skill has improved. You have the equivalent of +1 luck when treating the injured.