Chapter Seventeen: Hunting Dogs
From Castoway’s eastern fringe, finding my way to Iron Valley was trivially easy. Even if the gap in the mountains to the east of the city hadn’t been obvious, all I had to do was simply follow the railroad tracks. They were everywhere at first, but after passing through many switching yards, they narrowed to just two sets. During the War, they’d carried raw materials east to Equestrian factories and the goods produced from them west to be shipped out of Castoway. I couldn’t help noticing as I passed freight stations, signs warning griffins away from the tracks, and abandoned freight cars that the company that owned the railroad was clearly a griffin conglomerate. The Griffin Commonwealth had sold Equestrian companies land in Iron Valley and at Castoway, but they’d controlled the transportation of their wares between those two points, no doubt making a substantial number of Bits in the process.
As I moved inland, I saw the same transition come upon the land as up north, though to a lesser extreme. Iron Valley was nowhere near as verdant, but the wastes did give way to scattered plant life. Rok had spent significant time in Iron Valley, so I often consulted the Book of Rok when I encountered new cacti, ferns, and fruit trees. The Rokkists probably wouldn’t like it, but I’d begun to add my own notes to the copy I’d been given at Hope Springs and bookmark parts of it in order to better find the information I needed. I harvested plenty of herbs during my trek through Iron Valley to be turned into meals or useful salves, maybe even potions if I got my hooves on an alchemistry set.
In addition to new flora, there was also new fauna in Iron Valley. One thing that never changed, no matter where I went in this post-megaspell world, was that it was not friendly. I’d restocked my ammunition from the Whirlwind Wranglers before departing their company, but as always, I was soon burning through it defending myself from Wasteland beasts. Giant stag beetles swooped down from the heavens, one tearing through my tent with its pincers while trying to get at me. There were mangy dogs with scaled backs, venomous fangs, and tails that rattled when they wagged them, referred to by Rok as “night stalkers.” True to their name, they often appeared at night, but they were fortunately scared off by fire. Stony cave bears were perhaps the toughest creature I encountered, though they were very territorial and didn’t stray far from the abandoned mines they called home. Their stony skin was resistant to most weapons and their three eyes glowed a baleful green, making them terrifying to spot in the darkness.
I saw some signs of settlement in my first few days of travel, but not very many. Any settlements I found had been abandoned for years. I supposed that living too close to Castoway was practically an invitation for the warlords to swing by and raid, so ponies and griffins residing in the Iron Valley had likely migrated farther inland. The ruins closest to the city were thoroughly stripped of anything useful, probably for the same reasons, but the pickings improved as I continued my journey. Once, in the distance, I spotted a clan of scavengers riding through the valley. It wasn’t something I would have expected, but it seemed the Dog of War attacks had convinced some to leave the wastes and seek scavenge in greener pastures. I wished them well, but doubted they could keep it up for long; from what I’d seen so far, petrol stations in Iron Valley were few and far between, since rail was the dominant form of travel here.
Three days after leaving Castoway, I arrived at the nearest plot of land that had been sold to RoBronco. It was designated in the land deed records, and by my PipBeak, as RoBronco Site Lavender. The factory was located on a rocky patch of land where hills started to rise into mountains, at the end of a spur off the main train tracks. The fences that had once surrounded it had been torn down and taken away long ago, leaving only the foundations of fenceposts in a box around the site. The RoBronco factory was divided between two buildings, with a skywalk connecting them over the train tracks and sets of loading docks. As Equestrian companies tended to do, the name of the factory was displayed in large metal letters fastened to the side of the buildings, though quite a few had fallen over the years. The left building was labeled RoB co and the right building S te La nd r. “Ste Landr” had an entrance marked Visitors, so I headed there first.
A set of glassless double doors led into a small lobby that was open to the second floor, a hallway with doors to other parts of the factory visible above the reception desk. Across from the reception desk were a couple of couches ruined by time placed against the exterior wall and tables with old magazines. The desk itself was a steel behemoth, parts of it still shining but most of it tarnished. At its center was a glass cylinder, within which was the torso and cylindrical head of the most common RoBronco robot, mounted to a swiveling plate that had seized up with the automaton facing left of the door. Someone had tried to break the glass with tools and gunshots, but despite the marks of damage across its surface, it had refused to shatter before they gave up. As I moved closer to inspect the rusty plate beneath the case, which read Recept-a-Pony v3, lights in the robot’s head blinked on and a crackling came from its speaker.
“How can I hel-hel-help you today?” the Recept-a-Pony asked. “The factory foremare is currently absent from her-her-her post, but if you take a seat, I can ring her as soon as she becomes av-va-va-vailable. D-d-don’t mind the presence of RoBronco security officers. Everything is under-under control.”
According to FITS, the Recept-a-Pony was the only contact in the area, and I ignored it to explore the rest of the factory. I found a map that divided the factory into multiple sections, and I explored each of them in turn. The assembly section was a factory floor that had been meticulously looted. Even tools and paint guns had been taken, leaving empty drawers strewn across the ground. Assembly line rollers had been removed from their stands in some places, someone finding it worthwhile to scavenge the supports only.
The programming section was mostly offices with terminals surrounding an open workshop with benches and powerful non-networked computers. Like in the rest of the factory, almost all of the locks had already been picked or forced open and the contents of the rooms on the other side pilfered, but I did manage to find a few offices still containing interesting items. In one office, I found a sizeable hidden stash of Sparkle~Cola RAD, and in another two books that could prove useful for future study: Developing for the Unified Equestrian Operating System and RoBronco Industries Coding Practices and APIs 1046.
The corporate section had seen looting exceeding even that of the assembly section. Cabinets and desks had been completely torn apart searching for hidden compartments. Walls had had their plaster, paper, and fake wooden paneling removed in order to find wall safes. All that remained were faded calendars, broken bottles, and scattered papers. If there was anywhere I might’ve found an entrance to a secret laboratory, it was here, but whoever had looted the place had already done my work for me. I quickly moved on to the last section of the factory.
The manufacturing section had seen the theft of tools like the assembly section, but much of the parts that were molded and modified here had been left behind. Body plates, disassembled motors, and skeletal rods intended for robots were scattered across the space. I’d explored the entire factory but found no hint of Dogs of War here. Even breaking into the maneframes (once I found a working terminal with access) revealed nothing that would help me find their origins. This factory had framed its entire focus around churning out Protect-a-Ponies that would eventually end up in Equestria or the lair of the Artificer. The code I found for them was RoBronco code (of course), but it had no other similarities to what I’d seen the Dogs of War add or to the code within the Dog taken down by the Whirlwind Wranglers. Mentally, I crossed RoBronco Site Lavender off my list. I wouldn’t find anything on the Dogs of War here, but maybe I would at the next site.
***
I continued deeper into Iron Valley, still following the railroad tracks, destined now for RoBronco Site Rose. The next couple of days passed mostly uneventfully, other than the occasional attack from wildlife. So far, raiders didn’t seem to be as big of a problem here as up north, but I suspected I could still find them if I went looking. I took an occasional detour from the tracks to pick through a ruin I spotted, but I never went far. However, I decided to take a longer detour when I spotted a recently defaced sign along the tracks. It had been spray painted on both sides with an arrow and the words Charity’s Reach 2.6 lg. Suspecting that it was directions to a settlement, I followed the arrow, and found my supposition to be correct.
Charity’s Reach was a settlement built in an old train yard. The griffins there had made homes of the abandoned train cars and the offices that ringed the maze of rails and turntables at the yard’s center. The sun was beginning to set as I arrived, and I witnessed the lights strung on cables over the settlement flicker to life to illuminate the night. Ponies were not such a strange sight here as is in the northern valley, so I didn’t draw quite as much notice, though a few griffins did stare at my prosthetic arm as I trotted past. A few shopkeepers called out to me, offering their wares, but most were starting to close up for the night. A large roundhouse formed the backbone of the settlement and its western border, and the settlers had cleared the space in front of it, turning it into a large square where groups of griffins met to socialize and down food and drink at the end of the day. The roundhouse itself had been subdivided into units serving different needs, such as businesses, a school, and habitation. Jutting up from the most central point of the roundhouse’s roof was a sculpt of a diamond with downturned wings: the symbol of Rok.
Before I could do any further investigating, I heard a commotion to the south and trotted in that direction to investigate. A few of the griffins enjoying their evening in the square turned at the noise, but most returned to their business after a few seconds; none accompanied me in the direction of the noise. In an alley between two rows of train cars there stood or sat rows of destitute griffins with signs asking for aid and tin cups, hats, or pans held in their claws. The commotion grew closer, and more of the poor griffins rose, anger and frustration written on their faces. Their shouting was directed at a row of Protect-a-Ponies trotting in perfectly synchronized single file down the alley. They’d been modified for agricultural use, with equipment for pruning, watering, and fertilizing strapped to their backs. That answered where at least some of the unshipped automatons manufactured in RoBronco Site Lavender had ended up after the Last Day. Over the row of robots hovered a weary-looking griffin in security armor that had had the company patches torn off. He held a long pole in his claws, which he reluctantly used to shy the tramps away from the Protect-a-Ponies when they got close enough to threaten violence against the robots. Some threw mushy fruits at the automatons, which earned them chastisements, but not very strong ones.
“Enough!” a griffin said sternly from behind me, and I and the destitute griffins in the alley all swiveled to look at who had spoken.
A middle-aged griffin with an auburn coat and fiery red feathers that were beginning to dull stood at the end of the alley, only a few paces from where I was standing. A simple robe was draped over her back, and an icon of Rok made from nails hung from around her neck.
“My friends, what do you hope to accomplish?” the priestess asked with exasperation, “You do this every night, and all you succeed in doing is wearing poor Garth down.” The security griffin looked to her with thanks. “What has he done to you to deserve such trouble? Please, do not take your anger out on him.”
The panhandlers looked to give the words serious thought, some looking ashamed. Though there was grumbling from some of them, the shouting had ceased, and the group settled back to the ground a few at a time. The Protect-a-Ponies continued to march by, and Garth accompanied them as they exited the alley.
“Ghislaine will be by soon,” the priestess assured the griffins in the alley before turning to me. “I am sorry you had to see that, stranger. I am Geraldine, priestess of Charity’s Reach’s Rokkist Church.”
“My name is Doc,” I introduced myself before looking back at the alley. “I’m new to Iron Valley. I’ve … never seen this before.”
“Let us find a place to sit down and talk,” Geraldine said, leading me away. “If you’re not from Iron Valley, are you unfamiliar with Rokkism?”
“No, I’ve been to another Rokkist settlement,” I said quickly before Geraldine could launch into the whole pitch for her religion. “Things were very different there.”
“Yes, I am well aware most Rokkist settlements have less division between rich and poor,” Geraldine said forlornly as she led me into her church. “Things are not working as smoothly here, I’m afraid.”
Geraldine led me past where acolytes spoke with other griffins, cleaned linens, and cooked stew, until we were in an alcove at the back of the church. There was a bed, a table, and a few chairs within, but not much else. The priestess offered me some coffee, which I accepted, before she sat down with me to continue talking.
“We in the church do all we can to care for the less fortunate in our community; it is part of our mission. But there is only so much we can do with what we have, and we cannot bear the burden. I’m not saying we bear it alone,” Geraldine interjected defensively. “There are many griffins of this settlement who help their fellows. It is merely a few that neglect their charity, but the effect is outsized. You saw the robots, yes? Those were Dres’s. They work the fields outside town. Gellen also has some of her own. With machines that don’t tire or require pay, they’re able to make some truly incredible profits. However, what they give to the community is nowhere near proportional.”
“Seems like a strange problem for a settlement named as yours is to have,” I commented.
“Isn’t that the truth?” Geraldine snorted. “If you’re familiar with the teachings of Rok, then you know that he emphasized that the more fortunate and able should share their bounty with the less fortunate and less able, but that is something Dres and Gellen fail more and more to do with each passing year.”
“Can’t you do something about it?” I asked. “Or, if not you, then the settlement’s leadership?”
“I’m as close as we come to leadership here,” Geraldine said. “I’ve spoken to them many times, but what else can I do? Rok also teaches independence and personal duty as the driver toward improvement. I couldn’t force them to give more.”
“Dres and Gellen are Rokkists?” I asked.
“They claim to be, though I see the distance grow daily,” Geraldine said.
“Are you really forbidden from compelling other followers of Rok to live up to their claimed beliefs?”
“It is not what Rok did when he led the Blessed Town of Dawn,” Geraldine answered, wrestling with her beliefs. “Forcing others to live by his convictions is not what he would want.”
“Would he want the less fortunate to suffer?” I asked.
“No, that much I can say for certain,” Geraldine said, revealing her doubts on the other things she had said. “Are you a follower of Rok, Doc?”
“No, though I have looked through his book some and met some Rokkists during my time in the Griffin Commonwealth,” I said. “Sorry, I tend to inject myself into whatever situation I find myself in. I can’t say how sound my advice is.”
“No apology necessary; you have given me some things to think about, Doc,” the priestess said pensively, placing a claw on my shoulder. “I am grateful that you came to Charity’s Reach, and for our conversation. As you have blessed me, Doc, may you be blessed and be a blessing to others. Be well during your stay in Charity’s Reach.”
I took Geraldine’s words as a farewell and left the priestess contemplating all we had talked about. I didn’t know how much my words may have helped her, but I’d spoken as best I could. I hoped any changes that came from our conversation would be for the better.
***
I stayed the night in Charity’s Reach and left early the next morning. Once I was back on the main line of railroad tracks, I only had to spend one night outside before reaching RoBronco Site Rose. I could tell the Rose site was in considerably better shape than Lavender, even from just my initial impression. For one thing, all the signage was still intact on the building’s face. The building hadn’t been completely ignored, though, as clearly evidenced by the large number of destroyed robots littering the ground in the space between the fence and the factory itself. RoBronco had built Site Rose in a ring, with a single gap allowing one to trot into the inner courtyard without passing through the factory.
Before entering the building, I explored the central courtyard. It must have once been well landscaped but was now overgrown with mutated post-War flora. Paths cut through the former park, converging on a raised concrete circle in the center with dingy statues upon it. One of the statues was a grinning earth pony with a well-combed mane and thin mustache gesturing to the second statue. This statue was a rudimentary version of a Protect-a-Pony, with thin, exposed legs that were nearly eaten through in some parts on the statue, and a conical head that pointed forwards instead of upwards. The plaque at the base of the statue read “Robert Horse Unveils the Serv-a-Pony v1.0”
Having done enough dillydallying, I left the courtyard and ventured into the factory proper. Though it hadn’t been looted as thoroughly as Site Lavender, the factory had obviously been explored in the past. Charred remains of security turrets hung from the ceiling and bullet-riddled robots lay in the halls. From exploring the factory floors, it became clear that this factory hadn’t been as specialized as the previous one. There were lines for Protect-a-Ponies, but also for sentry bots, sprite-bots, and other forms of automata I hadn’t encountered in Equestria. Anything working had been either destroyed or stolen years ago, leaving the factory feeling quite empty, though that fortunately meant I was able to let my guard down and pick through the remains.
The point where the factory met the train tracks was a warehouse, and I looked over the crates, most of which had been cracked open and had their parts spilled out. A few remained unopened, wedged in the back of the room, and I gave some of them a look at random. One turned out to contain, stashed beneath stacks of magazines, tightly packed parts that were familiar indeed: ceramic plates like those that covered the Dogs of War’s bodies. Peculiarly, the crate, unlike the others, had not been stamped with the RoBronco logo, but with the name Abacus Precision Solutions. Was Abacus the supplier of these parts, or were they the creator of the Dogs of War? Was RoBronco not the source after all? I’d need to investigate further.
After locating an executive’s terminal in the building’s office block, I managed to crack the maneframes and did an extensive search for anything suspicious. Disappointingly, there were no blatant switches to open hidden labs. Nor even in the most protected layouts of the building did I find anything large enough in which to assemble Dogs of War. There were plenty of hidden compartments scattered around, but opening them only revealed that they’d once been used to hide personal belongings. It became apparent that the Dogs of War didn’t come from this particular factory, but I did find one thing that might help me find them. Within the factory overmare’s notes, locked behind another password, was an entry made much more recently than the rest.
07.19.1426
This is a message to any other RoBronco researchers who might come across this facility seeking others of their kind. Though I pray no others meet the same fate as our party, I do not find it unlikely. I am a member of Team Anthurium from the Vanhoover lab. Although we were successful, our own creations turned upon us, and we were forced to flee. We made no further progress in Equestria, and so we fled across the sea, seeking the old labs built in the Commonwealth. Undoubtedly, if you’re reading this, something similar has befallen you. There is nothing here, but we intend to proceed to Sites Hibiscus and Dahlia, and I advise you to do the same. Coordinates for Site Hibiscus are as follows: 103.78519, 133.9043. Follow our trail, and you will find us.
- Blinding Light
It seemed even here, across the sea, relics of my past kept returning. The researchers from the Vanhoover lab, the ponies who’d built Ache, Mr. Bucke, and the other pondroids had managed to make it this far searching for other RoBronco scientists. I couldn’t be too mad with them for surviving; they’d given me the next lead I needed to potentially track down the origin of the Dogs of War. Apparently there were two more RoBronco sites in Iron Valley that hadn’t been registered in Castoway. If anything screamed “secret lab that made killer robots,” it was this, and I had the coordinates of one already. RoBronco Site Hibiscus wasn’t too far away; all I had to do was trek deeper into Iron Valley until I reached the point now added to my PipBeak.
As I rose from the terminal, I immediately froze in place. While I’d been busy digging through the factory’s maneframes, I’d failed to keep an eye on FITS. Several hostile pips moved around, and I cautiously made my way out of the office I was in. Through a large window, I spotted a pack of Dogs of War down below, approaching the factory. I hadn’t thought I’d tripped any alarms while picking through the maneframes, but maybe I was just unlucky. With my battle rifle at the ready, I carefully made my way down a hallway, for whatever good that would do. What I wouldn’t give for a StealthBuck right about then.
I started to make my way downstairs, but immediately halted as a Dog of War stalked past. It was still in patrol mode, but I knew how quickly they could shift into combat mode. I didn’t want to face one alone, much less the six I counted on FITS. Once the Dog had passed, I hurried the rest of the way down and sought an exit. The path to every way out seemed to be blocked by a Dog of War.
Eventually I found myself on a factory floor. The scattered parts and bodies of robots lying around gave me an idea, and I started to cobble something together. It would be crude, but it just might allow me to escape. After finishing my creation, I snuck upstairs, where the Dogs of War seemed less interested in searching. A couple minutes later, the abomination of metal and wires I’d constructed began to blare an alarm that could be easily heard throughout the building even by pony ears. Instantly, the Dogs of War rushed toward the source of the sound. I watched the one beneath me move away on FITS before heading down a flight of stairs and pushing through a set of double doors into the factory’s entry lobby. After jumping through the gap where a window had once been, I galloped as hard as I could toward a ridge of land to the east. I needed to get out of sight before the Dogs of War realized they’d been had. There wasn’t much chance of that, but hopefully I’d be gone before they were able to get outside. After leaping over the ridge and cowering down in a rocky pocket, I halted to catch my breath.
I cautiously peeked my head over the ridge a few seconds later, peering through the roots of a scraggly bush. The Dogs of War had exited the factory and were all now standing in a circle. I couldn’t make out much from the distance I was at, but I could tell they were all standing upright in combat mode, and occasional flares suggested the lights around their eyes were flashing. All of a sudden, they all turned around and loped off in six different directions, fanning out to search for the pony who’d fooled them. One ran past within a hundred paces of where I was hiding but failed to see me. I breathed a sigh of relief after it had passed and waited a good half hour in my hole before rising and heading back toward the railroad, having narrowly avoided an unwinnable fight against the Dogs of War.
***
Lamentably, my good fortune didn’t last. I’d made it less than a league before synthetic howls rang out across the valley. I searched for somewhere, anywhere, to make a stand against the Dogs of War, but nothing was readily available. All I could see were cacti, the occasional tree, and the Dogs of War as they came loping toward me. Only three appeared on FITS, but that was more than enough to finish me off. While they were still at a distance, I cast ERSaTS and fired on the nearest one with my battle rifle. My shots hit, but only glanced off the Dog’s armor instead of doing any real damage. When ERSaTS wore off, I threw a grenade in the Dog’s direction. It rapidly transformed into combat mode while still running, and with a swipe of a claw batted the grenade aside. When it exploded, all it took out was the top of a cactus. I fired my shotgun as the Dog of War loomed right on top of me, but that was the last hit I was able to get off before it struck back.
The magical energy weapons in its face shot a beam into my combat shotgun, melting it beyond recognition and throwing it from my magical grasp. At the same time, the Dog of War struck down with its claws. I was unable to get out of the way in time, and the claws struck my back, my doctor’s coat offering protection for a moment with its supernatural resistance before the points tore through. The Dog of War’s claws sliced through my coat, my Stable jumpsuit, and finally my flesh. My PipBeak screamed alarms at me as I howled from the pain of the Dog’s claws ripping through my back. With a sickening jolt, one of them sliced through my spine and my hindlegs went completely slack.
I collapsed to the ground, yelling in excruciating pain as the Dog of War continued to loom over me. I forced my magic to obey me and drew Big Iron, pointing it up at the Dog of War’s face. The revolver’s shot managed to strike true and destroy the Dog’s left eye, and a modulated growl came from its voice box in response. A claw came down, knocking the revolver away, and struck my horn at the same time, snapping off the end and wrenching my neck around.
Another of the Dogs fired the guns on its wrists at me, but my doctor’s coat, damaged as it was, still managed to stop most of the bullets (at least in the parts of me I could still feel). The first Dog reached down and grasped my doctor’s coat and saddlebags in one gigantic claw before tearing it off me. My body spun over and the coat caught on my foreleg. Determined to pull the coat away entirely, the Dog gave it a mighty yank, breaking my foreleg in the process and triggering yet more screaming.
Weakly, I tried to stab with my PipBeak’s concealed blade, but my attempt to sever the cables in the Dog of War’s leg were thwarted as armored plates moved into position to block me. The Dog of War raked its claws across me again to turn me away from it. I couldn’t move, my breathing was erratic, and my vision unable to focus. My wounds were beyond even a regenerative potion’s abilities, and I was losing blood fast. I wasn’t going to last much longer.
The Dogs of War loomed over me, watching me die. Then, their eyes flickered between every color in the rainbow, though I couldn’t be sure it wasn’t just a hallucination as life left my body. As one, they all left me and ran away. Weakly, I managed to turn my head to watch them run, their bodies shifted back into patrol mode. I also spotted other vaguely dog-shaped automatons moving toward me.
“Don’t worry. We’ve got you now. We’re going to make you better,” I faintly heard one say before my vision went dark.
Level Up
New Quest: Live – Stay alive and find out who saved you.
New Perk: Nerd in the Know – After reading Developing for the Unified Equestrian Operating System, you understand Equestrian computers better than ever before. +10 to Science when hacking Equestrian maneframes.
Athletics +1 (38)
Barter +1 (115)
Electronics +2 (53)
Explosives +1 (115)
Lockpick +1 (112)
Science +2 (114)
Small Guns +4 (133)
Sneak +1 (113)
Speech +2 (114)
Survival +4 (62)
Unarmed +1 (92)