Homeland Oracle

by StoryForge

Homeland Oracle: Chapter 3

I stared in disbelief as I crept back unsteadily towards the bookshelf. Red had fired a decoy shot, I assumed, to surprise and lure The Mayor out onto his balcony. Apparently Red knew one of two things: he knew something went wrong, or that it was time to start rebelling against Industead. The latter is unlikely, considering he only had himself to do it.

I went into a state of uncontrolled panic. My eyes zipped around the room and I tried to think of what to do, as I could hear guards bustling about in the streets.

I put my hoof to my head, trying to re-rail my train of thought. Even so, a few passengers of that train would be missing. First, I needed my saddlebags.

Out of the dead bastard’s safe.

I was instantly behind his desk, examining the storage unit. It did, in fact, take a key. My hooves began flying through drawers trying to find a key, when I remembered he kept the key on him when he was walking across the room to shut the blinds.

I crept back again and shuddered at the thought of the headless stallion’s body and how much it probably reeked. Sucking it up, I pulled myself across the floor and opened the door to his balcony.

The body was appalling. The whole HEAD wasn’t even gone, it looked like a smashed pumpkin, and the pieces of it were left in the building. He was toppled over against the window sill, of course in the direction that the bullet must have come from.

Luckily, I didn’t have to look far, because the same key I was looking for rested right next to him. Grimacing and whining, I reached over the deceased ‘mayor’ and grabbed it.

Contracting my arm back to my body, I sheepishly realized I could have just used my telekinesis instead of wasting time. I also noticed the golden pistol that he had, lying next to him and I grasped it with my telekinesis.

As I did so, I looked up in the direction of the fire and gave The Mayor’s assailant a sheepish grin.

BLAM!

A bullet penetrated itself into the estate’s wall right behind me, showering splinters of wood forward into view.

I don’t think it was Red.

Panicked and confused, yet again, I dropped the gun and threw myself in through the door, still unable to think clearly. By this time, I was breathing at an abnormal rate and I attempted to control it as I kept my head down, crawling towards the safe.

‘What happened to Red?’ was the thought running through my mind, blockading any sort of focus. My thoughts seemed to align themselves once again as the safe came open with a click.

Inside were my saddlebags as well as three other things: a faded gold clip for the pistol I saw outside, and a folded up, worn piece of paper. I also saw a brown vest, which seemed to accommodate smaller rifles, as well as a smaller gun. It reminded me very much of the Spitfire Strap I was given, but more complicated and in vest form. Through the collar a muzzle piece could be threaded, like the one on my Spitfire Strap.

I thought about the gun outside, but getting it would probably result in my brains going in the same window as Gorman’s. In a panic, I grabbed them all with my telekinesis and put my saddlebags on. Then, I equipped my aluminum bat and my Spitfire Strap, and hooked up my sawed-off shotgun. I really hope I don’t have to use it.

I seemed to have a second to calm down. I had only now realized that ponies were panicking and screaming down on the streets below. Guards must have been moving down the hallways and I could hear hoof-stomps on the cobblestone outside. I know I need to escape Industead. But I’m not doing it without Red. But the question remained... where on Celestia’s plane was he?

I threw myself from behind the desk and into the door of his office. I did so to get away from the new sniper’s view while darting out of the office, if he or she was still there.

The door came down with ease, shooting me through the elegant doorway as I tumbled down five or so of the ten stairs before controlling my acceleration. I walked down the remainder of the steps, readjusting the Spitfire Strap that was knocked out of place.

Walking slowly, I approached the same corner we rounded before arriving at Gorman’s office.

Then I looked at the wall. To my frustration, the poster of Industeadian Celestia was still there. Then I got a closer look at it, and couldn’t help but notice all of the pony workers in the background were actually stallions, and they were all smiling.

In a tantrum, I tore the poster off the wall and shoved it aside. Gorman's ruined all these ponies’ lives so he could benefit himself. What a selfish bastard.

Recovering from my fit of rage, the sounds of hooves on linoleum found their way into my eardrums. Guards were coming... fast.

I hugged the wall, facing the corner. I held the bat in one hoof, in the case that the guards came around hostilely.

In fact, they did. At least it looked like they did. A high-tech looking weapon beyond my own comprehension made its way into my line of sight around the corner, followed by a stallion in scrap armor.

I took the one nearest me by surprise with my bat. He took a fierce blow to the forehead, not enough to kill him, but knock him out cold and forced his weapon to the floor. His twin-like companion to his left turned his head to face me just his friend took a number from my aluminum bat.

He stopped his trot to raise his weapon, or well, at least tried to stop. His hooves foalishly made their way onto the poster I just mangled, and he fumbled, sending the weapon across the floor which was now out of his reach. I chuckled a bit, but focused on the stallion after a little comic relief. My brain quickly interpreted that his thrown-away weapon was a magnum of some sort.

The guard stallion didn’t get up, but just laid there and looked at his disarmed weapon from across the corridor. He then turned his head to me, with an expression that made it seem as if he was expecting to end up like his companion.

I had no intention of attacking him any further. I had the idea to interrogate him, but only one question came to mind.

“Where is Red?!” My shotgun was now levitating inches from his face, enveloped in my telekinesis.

His eyes couldn’t help but widen as he looked down into the gun’s barrel. “Come again?”

I rolled my eyes and shoved the twin barrels of my sawed-off shotgun closer to his face than I thought possible. “White stallion. Red mane. Red eyes. Maybe you’ve seen him?”

He attempted to stay stoic, but failed at doing so. He was trembling. “N-no idea.”

“C’mon, you guards have to know something!”

“We don’t... I...”

Before he could finish his sentence, I shoved the twin barrels into his neck, my magic ready to pull the trigger. I had lost all patience. “Where is Red?!”

I stared him down with eyes of rage. He stared back with hopelessness, since he knew all I had to do was decide that his life was over.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

After several seconds, I pulled the gun away, finally giving the stressed stallion some breathing room. I went to the other side of the corridor where I originally planted myself when they rounded the corner. After taking a heavy breath, I finally looked around my altered surroundings.

I was sitting against the wall in front of the site of the poster’s original spot. Directly in front of me was the jumbled poster itself, along with the guard stallion laying on it, who was now staring at the floor.

To my left I saw the body of the first stallion I assaulted. He had a sandy coat and a grey mane. He wasn’t dead, but he sure wasn’t getting up for a while. My eyes then turned to the beauty and oddity of his weapon.

It was the true work of an industrialist. This was appalling to me in some ways due to the nature of this town, but in other ways intrigued me. The machinery and production I’ve seen have both been so stale. Make this over and over again, then ship it and make money. Then, use the money to repeat the process.

But this looked like it had many, many hours of love into it. It featured goldish pipes lining the black shell of the gun in every which way, and I could clearly see that it was a very unique gun in more than just appearance.

Even though it was appealing to the eye, it didn’t look like it took a familiar form of ammunition: bullets.

It didn’t take bullets. I inspected the gun, keeping an eye on the stallion in front of me. After playing with it for a little while, I managed to get a weird compartment to pop out of the side of the rifle. A brilliant red gem could be seen in it. The gem itself was worn down and seemed faded slightly, but I wondered how much it was worth. I prodded at the gun to try to uncover the secret to firing it, but I made sure to be very careful as to not do anything stupid handling the gun. I had lots of time here. The stallion in front of me wasn’t going anywhere.

Or, at least I thought he wasn’t. In one quick motion, the stallion shot up out of the corner of my eye and darted towards where his gun lay.

I panicked a little and clenched the work of art with my telekinesis. My purple magic enveloped the gun and due to the fact I was suddenly tense, my magic squeezed at it from all angles. The gun, to my astonishment, let out a brilliant, crimson burst of light that formed itself into a kind of laser. The red beam outstretched itself way into the stallion’s flank. No, through the stallion’s flank.

And into the wall behind him as well.

The guard toppled forward, ramming his face into the wall in front of him. He slid down pathetically against it as blood spewed out of the gaping hole in his side.

I was in utter disbelief at two things, the first being the fact that the laser just burned an eight-inch hole through multiple objects. The second was that I probably just killed somepony.

The latter seemed to shock me the most. I couldn’t have killed somepony...

The alarm began to go off, slicing through my regret. I paused, looked down the hallway, and back at the quickly dying stallion. I had to leave him, I had no time to patch him up, nor did I have anything to do so with.

I strapped the rifle to my back, and made sure my Spitfire Strap was hooked up properly before trotting around the corner.

----------

I found myself behind a pile of toppled over filing cabinets in the messy wing of the estate. The cabinets were against a wall, and allowed little space for me to crawl through to hide from the guards. I had a good view of the window from here, and I was impossible to spot since I could only look through a small gap between the cabinets.

Ker-lop Ker-lop Ker-lop Ker-lop.

The alarms signaled many guards to rush to the site of The Mayor’s assassination, and they did so right in front of me. I watched the sets of greaves and hooves zoom by the cabinets through the gap between the cabinets, and I knew. I’d be dead if they saw me.

When they were done parading past, I left the cabinets and hugged the wall. I took a step out into the hallway I was in and looked up to read a sign above a doorway.

It read: “Containment”. That sounds like a fancy word for ‘jail’ to me.

I snuck in, shimmying against the wall for good measure. I approached the main doorway to the “Containment Area”. It was really just an old western-themed sheriff’s office with two jail cells, which faced each other from opposite sides of the room. Encasing both cells, except the bar doors, was a brick wall that restricted the contents of either cell from my eyes. Closer to me on the left wall was another pile of filing cabinets. I couldn’t see what was on the wall to the right... The corner I was approaching quietly was blocking my line of sight to that wall. I could hear a profound whistling coming from inside the room.

Then, the whistling cut off and a mare spoke.

“So, what’s it like, rebellin’ against good folk and all?” The voice sounded like it spent some time down in Appleoosa, and was directed at a prisoner.

I could faintly hear chains move from inside the walled cell that shared the right side of the room with the jail-keeper.

She seemed to pause for a minute. “Silent type, eh?” After speaking, I could hear the distinct sound of keys jingling. She got up and moved in front of the cell she was monologuing to. “Look at ya. A Red Remnant. Fabled t’ be the best at what they do, and yer stuck in an Industead jail cell. Ah can smell the irony.”

While she was ‘conversing’ with the prisoner of that cell by which I now assumed was Red, I crept behind the stack of filing cabinets of the wall on the left. I was particularly shadowed here, and even if somepony looked directly at me, it would be very difficult to distinguish me from the shroud of which I hid in.

I sat back, attempting to get comfortable against the cool and dark brick wall. My eyes trailed the mare as she went to go sit down in a chair, presumably the one she plants herself on for hours on end.

Then I was finally able to get a look at the prisoner in the cell across from me. It was, in fact, Red. I could see thrash marks on his cheek and he was clearly beaten and bruised out of sheer discrimination and disrespect for who he was. They weren’t kidding when they announced that they vilified any Remnants residing in Industead.

I had the idea of making a motion towards Red that I was here, but if he was even able to see it, so was the jail keeper.

She was really hindering the plan I was brewing, and there was no way I could remove her. She sat with a very deadly-looking shotgun that could be quickly pulled up and fired, so attacking her was out of the question, had I even the nerve to try it. Her chair even faced me, as if she stared at tipped-over filing cabinets all day.

I crept back, completely hidden by the cabinets and not just the darkness. My heart was beginning to beat at a faster rate and I didn’t know what to do. The only thing I really could do was sit here. My shotgun wasn’t in range to take out the jail keeper without lunging at her, which would get me perforated into a red soup.

I sat against the wall, still out of sight. I tried to think of something, but the only passenger that disembarked my train of thought was waiting.

Waiting. I didn’t like the idea.

I’ve been waiting my whole life on the town to change at least a little, and it’s gotten worse. I tried to make it a better place to be, but I get my leg mangled by my own bat along the road. I get rescued by a seasoned warrior and now I’m attempting to save him from possible execution while chaos reigns outside.

I can see where this is going.

----------

I woke up, disoriented and not quite knowing where I was. My memory kicked back in, and I was still cowering behind the filing cabinets. I was surprised to find that the alarm stopped. The light in the room seemed dimmer, and I adjusted myself to be able to see over the filing cabinets.

The jail keeper was... dead?

Upon looking more intently over the filing cabinets, she sure was. It looked like she took a kind of bullet or stab wound to the neck. She was in her slouched, laid back position I normally saw her in (even if the time I saw her was short). I wondered if she died slowly, being that her eyes are shut. I pushed the thought out of my head, and looked over at Red’s cage, attempting to determine what was going on.

It was open.

How? So, Red escaped through some unfathomable method, avoided the mare’s buckshot that may have never have even went off, and then stabbed her in the neck somehow, possibly with her own knife? All without disturbing my foolish slumber?

The thought of seeing a dead pony was starting to sink in and became a little bit more usual to me. It’s been the norm of the entire day, from the desert gunfight, the assassination, and the guards... all of it. I’ve grown sick and tired of seeing ponies get hurt or die, but... it’s not so bad anymore. Was I being corrupted by gore and violence, that of which my mind has already adapted to?

I shoved out-of-context thoughts out of my brain, and attempted focusing on the matter at hoof. Red and I would already be out of Industead had I just stayed awake. I pondered all things: How did Red get out? Where did he go? Is he alright?

As my eyes fell to the floor in thought, they caught a glimpse of the murder weapon. On the floor lay a combat knife, freshly bathed in blood. At least the blade was, anyways. I took it, and placed it into my saddle strap. I figured I would need all the arms I could get my hooves on. I was saddened when I could not locate the beauty of a shotgun the mare had during her time of life. I imagined that Red took it.

I made sure my Spitfire Strap and saddlebags were optimally equipped, and I decided to search the mare. I was crestfallen once again to find that she had nothing on her except jail keys, which held no value to me now.

I walked out of the “containment area” and into the hallway.

That was an amazingly foalish move. It took me a second to comprehend that it was a guard. A guard covered head to hoof, in blood. I assumed he was panting from galloping down the hallway.

“Stop... right there!” he dictated, giving off a heavy breath between every other word. “You’ve been charged with multiple accounts of murdering government officials, and you will be dealt with as such.”

Eventually, my brain processed through his hyperventilation, and I got the message when he began to raise a sawed-off shotgun, almost identical to mine, and he had a killing look in his eye.

Draw.

I minimized and compacted myself to the floor and my teeth clenched down on the Spitfire Strap’s clamp trigger that extended in front of my muzzle. A mighty flare erupted from my side (where my shotgun was mounted), and I was relieved when the flaks of my shotgun met his chest, and not vice versa.

The blood-drenched guard fell to the ground, with a mighty (and wet) impact.

I found him very odd to say the least. He was covered... in blood. Who’s blood is it? Was it Red’s? Was it another guard’s? Or did somepony else rough him up before he got to me? Whatever the case was, he shouldn’t have been drenched in bit...

I reluctantly searched the body. I had no time and had to swallow my morals if I was to get out of here alive... I couldn’t seem to get over the fact that the stallion was almost entirely red with all the different shades of blood.

I discovered four shotgun shells on the body and found a lot of soot on his standard issue vest. I noticed that the guard had a lot less ammunition on him than a guard should have. The only really useful thing was those shells, considering everything else was slathered with a patchy-looking, bloody camouflage. Literally.

I didn’t have any method of leaving. I only knew of the front door to the estate. Going there would be idiotic. It was probably swarmed with guards, like flies swarming horse manure. The only other exit to the building I could think of was The Mayor’s office. I do remember seeing a ladder that led to both the roof and the ground during my short time out there. After a brief decision, I decided that it would be the best course of action. I doubted the guards would still be there, since I wasted so much time sleeping.

I made sure everything was adjusted properly (I developed a habit of checking subconsciously). I levitated my shotgun with my telekinesis and strapped my surprisingly light magical laser cannon to my Spitfire Strap. It was awkward for a gun that’s a little bigger, but I managed to pull it off comfortably. I trotted off towards the brain-spattered office I left not too long ago, wary of guards.

After some fast-paced trotting, the laser-gun-ray-of-doom-and-death jostled loose, almost crashing to the ground. I came across a janitor’s closet where I assumed I would be safe to do some adjusting.

I threw open the door and cleared some space. Luckily, the closet itself was a bit more like a typical room, leaving plenty of space to unpack some of my things. Ensuring the door was shut, I plundered my saddlebags and pulled out everything.

My possessions didn’t amount to much: I had that brown vest, a few bits, the laser cannon and my shotgun, a bloody knife, my aluminum bat, Twi’s old journal, and a piece of aged paper that looked somewhat torn around the edges.

My eyes flew to the vest that I had planned on using. It fit me well and hug my body perfectly. I integrated my spitfire strap with it, making it a sort of Spitfire Vest. I threaded the mouthpiece through the collar, which reached out comfortably in front of me. I threaded the connecting wires under the coat and surfaced them on my left shoulder. There, I strapped my rifle after some finagling.

My Spitfire Strap only accommodated one weapon, despite the fact that the vest held two weapons. This was fine at the moment, because I only needed something stable enough to hold the laser-whatever-the-buck gun, which was fairly small. It was maybe one and a half times the size of my sawed-off shotgun. I can hold the shotgun with my telekinesis.

This worked beautifully. It was comfortable and within easy and even more practical reach than the Spitfire Strap by itself. However, the rightmost side of the muzzle piece, which was used for reloading the shotgun, is now rendered useless. That is also fine, because I don’t have any gems lying around I can just reload into it. That’s just ridiculous to think about.

I pushed the ludicrous idea of a gem stockpile out of my head and took a moment to relax. After removing the arms from my possessions, what was left was kind of pathetic. I always knew it was, but it just seems so much smaller now.

Twi’s journal, two bits, a magazine for a gun I didn’t have, and a folded up piece of paper.

I looked at the piece of paper and wondered what exactly was on it. I opened it up and I discovered it wasn’t one piece of paper. Another piece of paper fell out, this one being even more aged. The first one I picked up was a map that covered three fourths of the paper. The map was of a general area of Equestria, with the Everfree as the center.

Industead wasn’t on here. Our little town was fenced in and located a few miles off the Everfree Forest, but it’s not on this map. However, in its place, Dustead existed. South of the Everfree I could see a town called Appleloosa. The Mayor was a trade partner with them, that’s all I know. North of the Everfree a trail existed, where my dad supposedly went through on his caravan route. There were lines drawn with some kind of marker between Dustead and Ponyville, and in the midst of them was a circle labeled: “Look here.”

It was an odd thing to see, really. First of all, Dustead doesn’t really exist. It did exist before Gorman’s founding of Industead, however. But that was almost 50 years ago. So this had to be an extremely old map.

Secondly, look where? The circle was massive on the page, approximately the same size as Ponyville on the map. Assuming the cartographer meant in the exact middle, there’s still probably nothing there. Except an old shack, maybe... But look for what?

My focused eyes relaxed and I gave out a hopeless sigh. They then turned to face the other piece of badly-aged paper.

Upon opening it up, I found that it was a kind of journal entry.

“I dealt with the homicidal pony. It clearly wasn't built on the same nature that we Ponyville residents were. I had to kill her. I did. I killed her. I didn't think I would need to ever kill anypony, but she had lost any semblance of reason that was engraved within a pony’s nature.”

What was one of Twilight's journal entries doing in Gorman's safe?! I read on.

“In the name of science, I took a blood sample from her. She was dead, but for a while longer the blood would still be fine. After a very quick test, I discovered she had a sort of drug in her I hadn’t seen before. More came in. I couldn’t do anything, I just couldn’t kill another pony. Like an incompetent foal, I fled. I used my teleport spell.”

I shook my head in absolute disgust after reading and pushed the morbid thoughts out of my mind. I instead began to dwell on the fact that Gorman possessed one of the last entries of the journal.

I folded both pieces of paper back up and stuck them in the back of Twi’s journal. After doing so, I adjusted my saddlebags to fit perfectly on my back. I looked around the janitor’s closet for anything useful.

I didn’t really see very much, just a medical box near the door. I opened it and peered inside to find bandages, water, and a kind of drug labeled “Rainboom”. I thought I’d need these, so I took them all and stuffed them into my saddlebag, as I headed out the janitor’s closet.

----------

To my surprise, there were no guards on the way to Gorman’s office. I threw open the door to his quarters and was hit by a wall of stench. I had no clue bodies smelled that putrid after only a few hours.

Telekinetically smothering my face with the collar of my vest, I was able to get over it step into the room.

The room was ransacked. The desk was thrown across the room and now blocked the doorway to his balcony. Neither the brains nor the body were cleaned up off the floor. Books had dived off shelves, the desk lamp was shattered, and the seat I had sat in during our ‘discussion’ was also tossed elsewhere. What happened here?

Because I was more exposed to the outside, I could hear gunshots and screaming from down below on the cobblestone street. What in Celestia’s mane was going on down there?!

Then I noticed a fairly small area rug that was balled up in the corner. I don’t remember a rug even being in the room. Then I saw where it came from.

Behind where Gorman’s desk used to be, in the floor, was a kind of door. It was rather small and difficult to get through, especially with my saddlebags. Gunshots outside were raging and bullets sputtered through the air here and there. It was apparent I was not going to use the ladder out there. So I decided the only thing I could do was take the door. Since the room was ransacked, maybe Red went through here.

It opened with an eerie creeeak emanating from its aged hinges. Descending was a slow, meticulous process. I could not fit in there as fast as I would have liked to. I constantly shifted myself to get my rifle and saddlebags in, as it did not accommodate such things. After lots of careful maneuvering, I managed to squeeze myself through without scraping my rifle or tearing my saddlebags.

It was very cold and dank down here. I was definitely not used to the cold, since I had lived in Industead all my life, where heat and pollution ruled the city where Gorman didn’t. I was glad I could walk through this passage freely, and every wall was cool to the hoof.

The walls were crudely carved out of stone, faint light from faraway torches in the passage created a gradient of light that crawled itself toward me on the walls of the passage. The darkness of the place spooked me a little, and I was glad to see torches. After a little precarious trotting through the dark corridor, I really began to wonder why it was here.

----------

The passage widened up after a few minutes of my cautious walk, and more and more light was making its way through as I approached what I assumed was the opening.

Upon taking a turn, A wall of light revealed itself at the opening of the corridor. My pace became a little faster as I was eager to get out of this damnable escape tunnel, even though what was beyond it wasn’t much better.

The passage suddenly opened up into a small cave as the wall of light was converted into a view of the desert. The cave seemed to be home to a pony some time ago. I spotted some charred wood, a footlocker, and a completely destroyed cot. There was a can of spray-paint sitting on the cot and appeared to be used to spray a message on the wall: “Leave home, make home”.

The message confused me and the first half of it seemed directed at me somehow. The second part didn’t seem to make sense.

Next to it, the rising sun Red showed me had been spray-painted onto the cave wall with the same can of paint, but looked much newer. It also looked crisper and well done. Under the decal of the rising sun, a single capitalized word was painted as well: “CANON”.

It would make sense if Red came through here. It was the only possible escape, or so it looked like. The room was ransacked when I got there and already revealed the trap door, and he loved what the rising sun meant.

Red left in a hurry and without me, though. I know he wasn’t really able to wait, for I am sure he was out of time and needed to leave as quickly as possible. This seemed to apply for both of us. What does Canon mean, and why did he write it? Was it his only way of flagging me down that he had? I mean, he could’ve written “Red” next to it or something.

Then I remembered something. His monitors were on this old building with crude letters reading: "Canon". I wondered what was so important about this place.

I sat down on the dilapidated cot and looked at the grimy surroundings. I don’t think I've ever sat on something so filthy in my life. The cave had a thin layer of sand that thinned out more and more as it breached the cave from the outside. I opened the footlocker to see if I could find anything useful. I found a small, green gem, a red gem about the same size, an old pistol, and one round for the pistol.

I took all of it. I wonder if the gems can be used in my whatever-the-buck laser gun-thing. I sat down with the rifle and the gems, and I opened up the gem compartment. I took the current red gem out, and saw that it was rather warm to the touch. The gun must use this directly to power the gun, as well as serve as a source of ammunition.

The gem didn’t exactly appear used. However, it did look faded when compared to the two I had just obtained. I put in the older gem that was in there previously back into the gun, and decided to fire it off. I did this carefully, of course.

At the pull of the trigger, the gun gave off a brilliant red light and let out a scarlet beam that burned a small crater into the rock face, and pieces of rock expelled from it in all directions. This gun was dangerous.

I put the gun back into its strap on my Spitfire Vest. I realized the small worn pistol I received would be perfect for the holster on the vest. I went through the liberty of putting it there. The shotgun went into an easy-to-reach place in my saddlebag. I took out Gorman’s insanely outdated map to see where I should go next.

According to the passage I came out of, I was still sitting on the left side of the cave, on the destroyed cot. I looked out of the right side of the mouth of the cave, out into the desert. I could see the barbed-wired wooden fence of Industead from where I was in the cave, jutting into view from the right of the mouth of the cave. To the left of Industead was the Everfree Forest.

I looked at the map again. Assuming Dustead was now Industead, I was somewhere northwest of my old home. This would mean I am south of Ponyville, which is where I decided to go. I really needed to find out where this Canon was, and I figured that Ponyville would be the place to ask ponies.

I folded up the piece of paper and put it into my saddlebag, got up, and walked towards the entrance. At the cave’s exit, my hoof halted firm contact with the ground and sank into the plush, warm sand of what was now Equestria.