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// Interlogue: Behold, Tauronto? 
// Story: Fallout Equestria: Taking Life By The Horns 
// by Pokonic 
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Perhaps this might be a good place to stop, and go forward a bit.

But that belays the question; why here? Umbra just said something that was pretty interesting, and there seems like there needs to be a bit more done before there's any sort of flash forward or anything like that!

Well, to put it simply, at the time, there isn't much more to say about my stay at Nightcore's and Glory's household. Not enough to keep one's attention, anyway. 

But, I suppose, some things could be cleared up.

For instance, why would I want to become a employee of the Purebreds? I didn't want to be associated with slavers. Who would be so insane to do such a thing if one didn't have any other options? 

Now, that isn't to say that I didn't have any other options, but none of them looked good. I suppose I could say that I wanted structure of some kind. There were other possible ideas in my head about what I could do when I actually reached the city; but to narrow down that list, I will say that they all involved either fighting or labor. 

Let's be honest here; I didn't have much going for me besides my own body. Most of my skill set involves me standing still and looking menacing. 

As far as I can tell, the Pure are the one real power in Tauronto I would have a chance at associating myself with in a positive way. The Reavers seemed to be ghoul-only and the Scions seemed to be some sort of strange cult, and I cannot afford to be independent. 

Speaking of bodies, perhaps it is best to talk about my traveling companions.

There was Umbra, the not-ghoul. Dodgy and mean, it's hard for me to trust her, at this point, especially going by just her actions. She's rude. She's creepy. She smells like old leather and looks like it to. But she's an ally. And with her came Candy Cane, a filly. A little filly that doesn't have any parents, one that somehow ended up under the care of said dodgy bat-pony. 

Both were high on my list of concerns, behind Sea Salt and Blueberry, of course.

Three little ponies and a horse-fish-thing. That was my social circle, at this point. Gone where the days when I could just talk to Copper Pot about what silly things he said he heard on the radio or to Brass about...things. 

But that was just another issue, actually. I was lied to, and that lie was part of my entire motivation for leaving my home in the direction I did. Bitter Truth, the Elder, was a liar. This went against everything I was ever told, growing up. He was a cheerful liar, however. That might have been the worse part.

Well, no, the worst part might have been the fact that Umbra clearly didn't like me, and that, perhaps, she might have a reason for that. That ghoul in Watershed still bothers me, just from how she reacted to the name of the Elder. With every step I take outside the commune, I seem to learn something that makes my old world view just a little more unrealistic.

To sum up my journey so far, I was kicked out of my home without warning because I didn't pass a simplistic test I haven't been prepared for. Then, I discover that my traveling companion is a sociopath, but also has a magical doohickey that caused said sociopathic thoughts and actions. Then, after traveling through a town filled with tribal cannibals, we stopped at an illogically overengineered aquarium filled with mutated fish. Then said companion died because of a giant horse-fish creature thing, who later turns out to be one of the most level heads I have seen on a equine, and then came back to life thanks to the evil amulet I mentioned earlier.

Then, we finally made it to a nice looking town, where I had a insane dream about a draconequus and had ponies try to kill me later at night and a noblepony extort a letter off me that I almost forgotten about. After running to take shelter from a tank that attacked the town for some unknown reason, Blueberry and I stumble on a filly and two corpses, which never got explained to me. Then I run into a bat-pony, which might be a vampire or ghoul or something weird, because if there's anything I can't get from ponies, it's an explanation.

Then Blueberry has a mental episode, which leads to the two of us finding Watershed being fought over by what seemed to be three different groups that weren't there the day before. After chatting with a ghoul that later seemed to react to my grandfathers name with horror, I wandered into the town, found myself sleeping in a rotten house, and later had a chat with a young griffon that has loyalties to a pony I don't know anything about still. Then, I carefully made my way outside, evaded ponies with guns, and later humiliated a pony with guns larger than anyone else in the area, which made her the leader, apparently. After humiliating said pony in a way that seemed to involve divine intervention, or perhaps the opposite of divine intervention, anyway, Sea Salt ate said leader pony and her subordinates, which somehow makes more sense to me then my sudden bout of invincibility.

Later, after waking up in a dark room surrounded by ponies and one griffon, I got directions from said griffon to a house that might be willing to shelter Blueberry and Candy Cane, and also myself. Said house, owned by a horrifically mutated earth pony (?) and a ambiguously moral unicorn, happened to be very comfortable to me but very uncomfortable to my blue traveling companion, who promptly lost her shit after a day in the house and needed to be snapped out of her funk by me, by snapping her neck.

Yes, I did that. Giving that she already made me do that once, it's morbidly appropriate.

But, to continue on with the farce that happens to be my life for the last two weeks, I then attempted to talk to Umbra, who also showed up at the house a hour or so before Blueberry's incident, which failed miserably, so I then made small talk with the mutated horse and the morally ambiguous unicorn, and it says something that the pony eating horse creature continued to be a better conversationalist then the unicorn I chose to trust that day. Said unicorn also continued to be as unhelpful as possible in telling me what, exactly, she worked for, even when I was asking to join said group.





It's been two weeks since I left the commune, and as it is, I am almost exactly how I left it, physically. I expected a lot more fighting in the wasteland then I had gotten, and I have almost nothing physical to show for my continued survival besides Blueberry's bags of bullets.

Apparently, Tauronto is mostly controlled by a group of ponies, supposedly pro-unicorns, that control a wide variety of things, like slaves and trade. There are also a bunch of ghouls that live in a tower, and a cult that worships something that apparently doesn't exist, according to Blueberry.

I could list all my unanswered questions for you. 

In fact, I'm going to do so.

What was the reason behind destroying Watershed? What are the Purebreds, really? What happened to the minotaurs in Tauronto? Why would the Elder lie to me? What's a Balefire Dragon? Why is Umbra such a brat, and what's a Reaver, really, besides a ghoul with guns? Who's this 'Ed' fellow, anyway, or that Boffenspark for that matter? What's the deal with Charnel and Nightcore, and who's this strange stallion that raised the two? How am I supposed to survive walking into the city, if it's so dangerous? What's the big deal about the Crystal Empire? How and why is a little draconequus following me?





Well, as funny as it sounds, all those questions get answered when I go to Tauronto.

And more, unfortunately.