Wasting no time, Parish immediately set out to find a spot to work. He was able to clear out space next to a faded red train car. He checked to make sure there weren’t any suspicious looking ponies around. It wasn’t likely that he’d be mugged here, in Talon territory, but it paid to be careful out in the ravaged wastes. It often meant the difference between bitter continued existence and an untimely death.
Satisfied with the location, he immediately dropped to his haunches, and carefully set out the tools he would need, and the PipBuck. It was an intriguing device. From what he had heard throughout his travels, the device could take care of inventory management, injury assessment and medical administration, navigation and automapping, and even offered combat assistance spells. Rumor had it that it could be rigged to cause a small but powerful megaspell explosion, but he wasn’t so sure about that.
Turning it over in his hooves, he noticed it still had a few splotches of Bottle Opener’s blood on it. Using a handkerchief, he carefully wiped what he could off. It would make little difference in the long run, considering the dust and grime that permeated the wastes inevitably got on everything and everypony indiscriminately, but for the moment, it helped him deal with equipping the device that had not long ago been in use by one of his companions.
Undoing the small screws and other fastenings, he held up his left foreleg, and laid the device on it, and began to carefully screw the first set of screws back in, securing it. With some effort, he had it fastened in no time. Like buttoning the cuffs of dress shirts unaided, it proved awkward, but Parish was used to relying on himself, and he managed. He shook it to test the strength of the fastening. The vice was surprisingly secure for a relatively large device. It felt clunky on his hoof, and the extra weight bothered him, but he supposed he would have to get used to it. He had always wanted one…
Gathering his tools, he sat up, and prodded at the PipBoy buttons. It powered on. An image of a pony popped up, along with a message about imminent user death. He shook his hoof, and the screen refreshed. Now it complained about minor radiation poisoning and smoke intake levels. Oh great, not this thing too, he thought.
Parish cycled over to the “DATA” section, and opened up a map of the area. To his surprise, it displayed an incredibly accurate map of his immediate surroundings. But that wasn’t what he was looking for. He pressed a button, and a larger map popped up, along with locations that he had never heard of. Pre-war data, he figured. But the map was strangely populated, with many areas marked in some places, and very few in others. It looked like most of the locations centered around caravan routes. It must have only populated the map with areas that Bottle Cap had been, he realized. Yet, part of the map Parish was certain wasn’t part of any trade route he had visited. It branched off to a location called “Stable 6”.
Strange. He’d heard of these stable things before, but hadn’t cared enough to remember what exactly they were for. Figuring it was something he could worry about later, he decided to figure out where he was going to go.
He hadn’t really thought too terribly much about this, either. Most of his adult life he had made his living off of caravan guard contracting. It always seemed like a safe job, in so much that if anything happened, he would have other ponies to get him out of a bind.
Alone, he figured he’d be as good as dead, and would probably get lost besides… but with this… there was slim chance of him getting lost, and with the combat agumentation provided by the PipBuck, he was sure he could hold his own.
And the prospect of scavenging had always appealed to him. He’d heard all the stories of insane amounts of caps earned from scavenging hauls… much more than any caravan contract paid. Sure, most things of value had been picked clean from the wastes long ago, but now and then items of value still came up. And with his skillset… he was confident he would be able to find something. If through unconventional means. Then, he’d be one step closer to having it easy. Not having to worry about caps… Just taking it easy someplace… Maybe here. Or New Appleloosa. Or this Tenpony tower he kept hearing about… Yeah… that could be good. Little chance of dying where those pompous ponies lived…
He looked at his map. Where would he start? He hadn’t the slightest idea, so he closed his eyes, and started turning the knobs for the waypoint marker coordinates at random. The machine set his marker there, although he had no idea where “there” was in the dull green void.
“Huh. S-sem-seems like good a place as any t-to start… Okay.”
Before he left the Junction, he was sure to stock up on supplies. Food, water, healing potions, bandages, ammo… He even got another 10mm pistol to use for parts. Whenever he wasn’t blowing stuff up, he was using that, so he figured he would need it.
Setting the marker on his new PipBuck, he set out. Occasionally, he would scratch at a strange itch on his left foreleg, but would touch the new device, and realize the cause of the itch. He still had some adjusting to do…
The road before Parish was rippled and warped, almost screaming out for a good repaving after over 200 years of abuse, a cry that would go unanswered, likely until it disintegrated. As often was the case, the road bore no traffic. The unnaturally yellow sky opened above, and a single deep red pony walked on the sickly road, stopping to shudder with his left leg every now and then.
Parish continued on that road for some time, his hooves making a scuffing sound on the brittle pavement as he went. It was more comfortable to walk on than dirt, but its terrible condition made it hard to traverse at times. At times he would have to awkwardly tread it, as parts of the road had shriveled away, revealing the dirt foundation under it.
He took a look at his PipBuck. It directed him to stay on the road for some time, before turning off of it and heading into the wilderness proper.
After covering a decent distance, he stopped to survey the area. Before him, the road strung forward. In the distance, he could see a highway entrance which ended abruptly, the rest of it having fallen down long ago. His PipBuck directed him up in that direction. Sighing, he conceded that he’d have to make his way around the wreckage below.
Beside the highway, there was a monorail, also in shambles, as a section of it had fallen away, just like the highway. But it resumed its length not far across. On the fallen section was the corpse of the monorail train, the front half of it utterly shattered, bits of metal splintered in all directions, partially blackened by an explosion after the impact, he figured.
His mind began to imagine the fateful day… an assortment of ponies in a traincar, some sitting, others holding onto hoofholds above, blankly staring everywhere but eachother. Then, a terribly bright light, leaving an afterimage in the eyes. Then another. And another. Sound became meaningless amongst the noise of the destruction, before becoming indesernable altogether. Then, the traincar suddenly jolts forward and to the side at an odd angle. Suddenly, a pull downward, and the ponies within feel a vague sense of freefall. They look about eachother, fearing their fates, and looking for comfort. Instead, a great many oranges, and reds, colors like late fall leaves erupt from the forward most train section, hungrily snatching forward, flames licking outward in all directions, and out of the train.
As the haunting images drained from his brain, Parish came back to reality with a start. He cursed his overactive imagination. He always had these… theories of prewar events… and he was powerless but to imagine them, flesh them out in his head. Why did they always come to him? What was so interesting about ponies who died countless years ago, whose lives had long since ceased to matter? Wasn’t life in the wastes straining enough for him to worry about these 200 year old ghosts? But he knew why. He shook it from his mind. For now.
He still had ground to cover before he wanted to make camp. The maze of wreckage led the way forward, albeit slowly. It was monotonous sure, but he didn’t care. He made his way forward even faster than before. The effort it required to navigate the ruined landscape would keep it off of pointless imagings, and so he went.
It was a few hours after nightfall when he decided to stop and break camp. Overhead, the half moon shone brilliantly, not obscured by dark clouds, as it often was. It nearly demanded inspection in the sky. Parish held that off for a little while longer. He made camp next to a pile of rubble, pushing his various supplies up against it so it looked like part of the pile. He did not make a fire, as he was fairly sure there were active raiders in this area, and the last thing he needed was a surprise raider bedtime story. It would probably involve chains, blood… and drugs.
He reclined on the pile, and removed a can from his bags. Canned oats, it said. Cracking open the can, he tasted it. It tasted suspiciously like salt. Looks better than it tastes, he decided. Dinner done, he began to doze off once he was satisfied with the placement of his gear, and making sure his weapons were placed so that he could draw them easily, but they wouldn’t be immediately visible to any attackers.