//------------------------------// // Chapter 1: Radiation and You! // Story: Wasteland Survival Guide: Zoology Edition // by The Infinity Doctor //------------------------------// "It is a guaranteed fact that, when leaving the safety of your local Vault, radiation will have mutated and deformed the local wildlife. Survival of the fittest is key, should you ever encounter these ill-mannered creatures." [Blind Eagle's Bluff, outskirts of Fillydelphia, Equestria] "Uhm...P-Posey? Are ye sure we should be out this far? We're awful close to the cliffs..." Big Bolt, an Earth Pony colt with a steel grey coat and dark grey mane asked. "Ahh, quit your worryin', will you?" Pristine Posey replied, rolling her eyes "It's not like I'm going to take a running leap and jump over the edge!" Any newcomer to Clear Springs, Fillydelphia, would take one look at Big Bolt and Pristine Posy, side by side, and think they were polar opposites. Posey was a yellow-coated, red-maned filly, and in some ways, she was perhaps Big Bolt's opposite- she was outgoing, energetic in everything she did, and always seemed to brighten up a room upon entering, making even the brightest of lightbulbs jealous. Big Bolt, on the other hand, while not as outgoing as Posey, was still fairly social- he went to parties with his friends, fishing with his father on occasion, and even just hanging around the schoolyard, he just didn't see himself as charismatic and confident as his friend. "Pose?" Bolt asked, his friend nowhere in sight. "Over here!" she called, popping out from some bushes, rather close to the edge of the cliff. "What in Celestia's name are you doing?!" he hissed, glancing anxiously at the cliff, as if it were about to collapse. "C'mere!" she beckoned, motioning for him the follow. He did so with great caution, eyeing the edge as he followed Posey. Hidden amongst the bushes Posey was just in, was a badly faded, blue and yellow sign, pointing away from the cliff's edge, and towards a seemingly-random spot, some ways from where the current sign was. "What's that say?!" Posey asked excitedly, shaking Bolt's body back and forth as she did so. He squinted at it, only vaguely aware of what it could possibly say. "Uhh...'something-something way'?" he questioned "Can't make out much more than that..." "Doesn't surprise me, given how damaged this is..." Posey responded, tentatively poking the rusting sign with a hoof. Some of the rust came off on the bottom of her hoof, and she winced, scraping the amber brown bits on the sparse grass underhoof. "So uh...what now?" Bolt asked. Posey hummed to herself, glancing in the direction the sign was pointing. "We investigate!" she exclaimed cheerfully. "Investigate what exactly?" Bolt asked "There isn't anything here but a rusty old sign and some grass, nothing's been here since Clear Springs was founded." "How do you know that?" Posey asked, dumbfounded. "Pop said so himself, he and Page Turner even let me see the old maps of the area from way back when- not a single thing was ever built here." "But obviously there was something, if this sign is here." "I 'unno, it was there in black and white." Bolt shrugged, then glanced up to the sky "It's getting late, anyhow, want to head home?" Posey scuffed her hoof in the dirt, and replaced the bushes to their original positions as best as possible. She then trotted over to Bolt, whom watched on in confusion. "Ready!" she grinned, heading back to town with the grey colt. 'There must be something there!' she thought to herself 'Something I missed...some clue or...or...something!' She resolved to figure out the sign, the mystery, behind Blind Eagle's Bluff. [Later that night, Posey's house] Posey poked at her green beans and spinach at dinner, her mother and father talking about something or other... Thoughts whizzed in and out of her head, all concerning the sign, and mystery of the Bluffs. She wasn't a history fanatic, it was one of the few classes she was just barely able to pass. 'Maybe Ms. Trotter would be the right pony to ask...' she mused to herself. She suddenly heard her name called, and her head shot up, almost flinging a strand of green bean across the room. "Y-Yeah?" she asked, blushing. "I said, you've hardly touched your food," her father stated "is something wrong?" "Sort of..." she replied sheepishly, not sure if even her parents would buy into her theory. "What's on your mind?" he asked. "I think...there's a mystery, right here in town!" she exclaimed. "Oooh~, a mystery!" her mother replied, wiping a bit of mashed green bean from her baby brother's muzzle "How exciting!" "I'm serious! An honest-to-Celestia mystery!" "What's the case, Private Eye Posey?" her father joked. "The sign posted over on Blind Eagle's Bluff." Posey responded. "Eagle's Bluff, eh?" her father stated, leaning back and glancing at the ceiling "Been a good long while since someone took interest in the old legend of those old cliffs." Posey's ears swiveled upward, her interest peaked. "Legend?" she asked. "Yep! Old griffon explorer named Blind Eagle mapped out this whole area, shortly after Celestia and Luna unified the three tribes." Posey nodded, she'd learned all about the Unification during Hearth's Warming last year. "Anyway, some ponies and other griffons came to an agreement, and staked a claim out near where the Post Office is now." 'That's just a few blocks from here!' she thought, adding a mental note to visit and investigate. "Then along came a herd a' Buffalo, wantin' the same space as the established colony," her father continued "story goes, Eagle got a rumor goin' around the buffalo camp that gold was at the bottom of the cliffs, and some idjit just happened to leave a marker near the cliffs to show where it was." "But...but the sign points away from the cliffs." Posey responded, frowning. Her father nodded. "Apparently the Buffalo didn't know that," he chuckled "got so excited, they went and tumbled right over the edge, in an effort to get to it- real mess, I was told- took the sea forever to wash out all the-" "Dear, not at the dinner table." her mother interrupted. Posey frowned some more, and glanced to her father. "That wasn't very informative, Dad..." "I guess it wasn't, then again, it is just an old foal's tale," her father replied, waving a forehoof "just something to draw in tourists." Posey hummed to herself, and continued to eat her dinner. 'This is going to need a bit more research...' she pondered. [The next day, Big Bolt's house] "So you think that sign has something to do with the legend and the cliffs?" Bolt asked, the both of them sitting in on a large, overturned apple crate. "Almost positive!" Posey cheered, then taking a sip of her juice box. "'Almost'?" Bolt said, uncertain. "You know what I mean!" Posey replied, straw popping out of her mouth as she rolled her eyes. "Well...we should definitely do some good, hard research before we do anything really drastic." he replied. "We?" Posey questioned "I thought you said you didn't buy into the legend?" "Well...yesterday got me thinking...about why the sign is there too, so...I figured I'd help out..." Posey grinned, and leapt off the crate. "Today, begins a remarkable journey into the mysteries of Equestria!" Posey exclaimed, a forehoof extended towards the sky. Bolt rolled his eyes good-naturedly, and gave a smile of his own. "Keep it down out there!" Bolt's father shouted, from inside the house, followed by a groan. "Sorry Pop!" Bolt called back, apologetic. "First things first- to the Post Office!" "Bwah?" asked Bolt, baffled. [Clear Springs, Fillydelphia - Equestrian Postal Service Building] "Here it is!" Posey squeaked excitedly, pointing to a bronze plaque affixed to the right side of the building's front. "'Here stands the site of the once-flourishing settlement, 'Fort Hippogryph'," Bolt read aloud "'known for its diverse trading fairs and vendors, as well as races from all walks of life, which were quite revolutionary, as well as unheard of for the time period, one of the great mysteries of Equestria, is how this long-standing settlement met its demise.'." "Now we have TWO mysteries to solve?" Posey asked, rubbing a temple "Being a detective is hard work..." "Let's just focus on the sign for now, we can come back to this one later." Bolt chuckled. "Alright..." she sighed "well...this isn't much help either..." Bolt glanced around, searching in vain for anything that might be able to help them in their quest. He saw practically nothing, only serving to add to his frustration. "What about the library?" Bolt asked. An lightbulb suddenly went off inside Posey's head. "I've got a better idea!" she exclaimed.