Fallout: Equestria - Common Ground

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 11: Locked Away

Chapter Eleven: Locked Away

“And now … the weather. Clouds. Endless clouds. So, no different from the past hundred-and-sixty years. You know, they used to move around all the time. Not on their own, of course; that’d be preposterous. Pegasi—and occasionally even a griffin or two—would move them about all over Equestria. But what are the pegasi doing now? They sit above the horrors of the Wasteland like warlords, hoarding all the good food and sunlight for themselves. Is that who you want to be like, children? Our lives down here are dreary and difficult, but to hoard everything we have, to keep it all to ourselves while our neighbors starve, why, isn’t that just what the pegasi are doing to us? Think on that one, why don’t you. And, while you do, we’ll be playing ‘Little Ray o’ Sunshine’ here on Radio Free Wasteland with your one and only host, DJ Poooooooon3!”

Reluctantly, I switched away from Radio Free Wasteland and began to program the next station into the distribution station’s maneframe. It had been a treat to hear Radio Free Wasteland again on the way south to the next station. Leaving DS-18 had been much easier than getting to it; a road stretched off from it to the south, and I had an easy time following it. Instead of heading back down into the valleys when the opportunity presented itself, however, I continued following the roads that wound through the mountain heights to the distribution station I was currently in. Judging by the amount of natural detritus piled up against the walls and the plants beginning to grow over the exterior, DS-3 had been abandoned for a long time. It still worked just fine, though, and I had no problem spreading Radio Free Wasteland even farther abroad. From here, the broadcast range would even reach the very first distribution station I’d activated three months earlier, and from there, it would cover the Pleasure Coast (once I returned to that station and tuned it). Because I was finally in range for the first time in ages, I had one other task to complete here.

“-unless somegriffin loves you, and that griffin … is me. You can trust me to look out for aaaaalll you fine listeners out there, and keep you appraised of all the goings-on in Pleasure Coast … and in the greater Commonwealth,” the Commonwealth Crooner crooned, his voice now going out across most of the northern Griffin Commonwealth now that the chain of distribution stations I’d activated on the way here were all in range. “A special thanks goes out all my love-ly correspondents who bring me stories from far and wide, as we turn to the news in the Commonwealth. Things seem to be quieting down in Castoway, as the warlords finish their periodic shuffle on the to-tem pole and go back to licking their wounds and preparing for … the next fight. Don’t plan your trip to the Iron Valley just yet, though, unless you intend to on-ly fly directly to the roosts there. Rumors have filtered back to me about full settlements disappearing, and New Pegasus has even gone so far as to lock down their city and sh-oot on sight. We don’t know exactly what’s happening down there j-ust yet, but rest assured I’ll keep you appraised as more information becomes a-vail-able. Back in the north, the standoff between Hookbeak and Lockbox 17 continues, faaaar longer that this host thought it would. L-atest reports state that Grand Marshal Gide-on has withdrawn his forces from the roost, leaving the local militia to deal with the problem. No word on a reason for why the Grand Marshal would recall his troops, but l-atest news has the griffins of Hookbeak attempting to drill into the Lockbox. This … could end poorly. Keep listening for my speculation on Grand Marshal Gide-on’s ultimate objectives, but first … some music.”

I’d passed Hookbeak on the way here but had avoided it due to my poor experience in the last roost I’d visited and how I’d been warned off the next one. For bastions of the pre-War Commonwealth, they didn’t seem to have a very good reputation. All I knew about Hookbeak was that they were trying to impose their will on Lockbox 17 by force, which didn’t reflect well on them. I knew it was different here than in Equestria, but Stable 85 hadn’t been too pleased to have the Ponies’ Republic of Stalliongrad try to bring them under their control. As much as I disagreed with the Stable’s government, I could understand them, and Lockbox 17 was now in a situation that seemed terribly similar. Perhaps I could do something to help or at the least check things out, since I was in the area. Now that I’d brought Radio Free Wasteland and Radio PC to the northern Commonwealth, I didn’t really have any other plans or goals. Maybe this was something to occupy my time.

***

Hookbeak, like all griffin roosts, was high atop a mountain. This mountain ended in two nearby peaks, and the majority of the griffin structures resided between them or on the slopes of the shorter one. The taller one, I assumed, contained Lockbox 17, given the sight that met my eyes as I climbed the narrow, guardrail-less paths up to the city. Clinging to the slope was a massive, spider-like machine. Eight mechanical legs held it in place, their ends driven into the mountain’s stone and a drill extended from its “body;” this device had stopped just short of the mountain, where a hole had already been drilled. When the Commonwealth Crooner had said that Grand Marshal Gideon was trying to drill into the Lockbox, I hadn’t pictured anything like this. It looked like I might be too late to help resolve the confrontation, but I continued up the slope anyway. I could use some fresh supplies, and Hookbeak was likely the best place around to get them.

I had to pass through Hookbeak to get to Lockbox 17, so I took the opportunity to get a good look at the place. Other than the wear of time, Hookbeak seemed unchanged from its glory days during the War. Almost every building along the main street shared a style with beveled edges, sometimes multiple ones that formed the appearance of layering. Graceful lines streaked skyward along the edges and facades of the buildings, drawing one’s gaze upward until they crooked out away from the building like the top of a wave or a griffin’s beak. They appeared to have been gilded once upon a time; some of that gold still remained, but much of it had been worn off or removed by griffins for other uses. This decorative style permeated the city, both on the buildings’ exteriors and interiors. The shop in which I stocked up on bandages and ammunition seemed far too posh for such crude transactions (and naturally, the shopkeeper felt the plush accommodations deserved a price hike for the privilege of doing business within them).

As I left the shop, the lights overhead flickered, and the shopkeeper looked up worriedly. I had seen other shops on the way here that had been closed and dark although they didn’t appear abandoned, and I saw even more as I continued through the city. Tram tracks ran along the streets, but I saw no such vehicles on my journey—though I did notice large posters plastered to the announcement boards at each tram station. Alongside weatherworn smaller announcements informing that tram service was temporarily suspended were much larger sheets depicting a lock being clipped open by bolt cutters. The text on the posters read: “Do Your Part Until the Lock Breaks Open. Conserve Your Power.” Beneath the large letters was a thick pile of addendums that had been plastered over each other repeatedly. The latest to be added to the growing stack read: “190 caps/kGh”. This meant nothing to me, but I assumed it was some kind of rate charged for power. Hookbeak, it seemed, was experiencing a power shortage, and their intent toward Lockbox 17 suddenly made a lot more sense. If Lockboxes were anything like Stables—and as far as I understood, that was basically what they were—then they would have a working microspark reactor that could provide more than enough power to satisfy Hookbeak’s needs.

The streets of Hookbeak were relatively empty, compared to the only other roost I’d been to; as I neared the entrance to Lockbox 17, I discovered why that was the case. A large crowd of griffins had assembled about a stone’s throw from the door, held back by griffins wearing police barding. Some were in the air but most were on the ground, some even seated in chairs, having made themselves comfortable for a long wait. The crowd was abuzz as I tried to insert myself into it, successful only because the griffins were too surprised at seeing a pony to put up a real fight to keep me out.

“What’s all the commotion?” I asked a griffin in a leather jacket.

“They stopped tryin’ t’ get inta tha Lockbox,” she said, once her initial shock at the sight of me had worn off. “Tha Lockboxas claim they got a megaspell an’ they gonna set it off if wa keep drillin’.”

“As if,” the griffin next to her scoffed. “Evragriffin knows we sold alla ah megaspells t’ tha zebras yeahs ago.”

“ ‘cept tha ones in Griffonstone,” an older griffin butted his way into the conversation.

“Ya, if youse one-a tha schmucks that believes that,” the second griffin retorted with an eyeroll.

As the argument progressively heated up, though somehow in a good-natured way, I tried to get a better look at the entrance to Lockbox 17. Griffins were tall compared to ponies and more than a few had their wings extended, so I had to balance on my hindlegs and really crane my neck to see over the crowd. Beyond the crowd was an open space cordoned off by the police-griffins, where a chunk had been carved out of the mountain’s slope to make a level pathway to the Lockbox’s entrance. A large rectangular door was set into the mountain, a badly faded lock visible only from a distance painted on it. Around the door were several griffins that did not look to be part of the police force.

“Hey you, pony!” a griffin called out, and my eyes were drawn skyward to a police-griffin pointing down at me with one claw and holding a radio in the other. “Get t’ tha fronta tha crowd!”

All eyes were now on me, and seeing no other options, I began to move forward through the crowd of griffins. They didn’t make my passage easy, but I found my way out to where the griffin who’d been hovering overhead had landed near the others holding back the crowd. Now that I was closer, I realized that their uniforms were not from a police force as I’d previously thought and instead were marked as security for HPWS: Hookbeak Power, Water, and Sewage.

“You know how t’ work that thing?” the griffin asked as he gestured to my PipBeak.

“Yeah, sure,” I replied.

“Come on,” he said with an abrupt jerk of his head, indicating I should follow him up to the entrance of Lockbox 17.

Several tables had been set up near the entrance; most were covered in recently drawn blueprints, but one table had a massive arcano-magma cutting rig on it, along with an equally massive albino griffin inspecting and polishing it. He eyed me with curiosity as we passed but didn’t seem to bear any malice … at least toward me. Two griffins were stationed at the massive doors to the Lockbox, looking at them with consternation. On the left, near a terminal with a hazardous amount of cabling running to the door’s control panel, was a portly griffin whose feathers were beginning to fall out of the top of his head, probably not helped by him scratching at the bald patch in thought. On the right, eyes glazed over, was a skinny griffin in a flowered shirt and sunglasses, a cigarette that had burned out hours ago hanging limply from his beak.

“Branson! Angelo! I gots a present for yuhs,” the griffin who’d lead me here announced, and the griffin on the left turned around.

“Holy smokes, that’s a BV-890T prosthetic ahm!” he exclaimed as he hurried over to examine the replacement for my foreleg, paying me no mind at all. “Tree times tha grip strength of an average griffin, but delicate enough t’ pick up a grain-a rice! Angelo, youse gots t’ see this!”

“Not tha ahm,” the security griffin said, “What’s attached t’ it.”

“Tha pony?” Branson asked skeptically.

“No, tha otha thing attached t’ it,” the security griffin said frustratedly.

“Oh, you mean tha PipBeak!” Branson finally realized. “Hey Angelo, check it out, this pony’s got a PipBeak 300Y.”

“PipBeak … Tree hun-” Angelo repeated distantly to himself before snapping out of his trance and snapping his head around. “Wham bang, that’s just what we need t’ get inta tha Lockbox!”

“Yah welcome,” the security guard said sarcastically.

“Hey, pony,” Angelo said as he approached.

“Doc,” I offered my name.

“Doc, how much t’ part with yah PipBeak, huh?” Angelo asked.

“It’s … not for sale. I need it,” I said hesitantly. The griffins of Hookbeak seemed desperate to get into Lockbox 17. If my PipBeak was the key to get in, I didn’t know if they’d take no for an answer.

“Ah, naturally,” Angelo said with a snap of his claws. “Fine, keep it, but maybe youse can help us out ‘fore ya skip town. We need t’ get tha schematics-a tha Lockbox, but we ain’t got anythin’ compatible.”

Angelo gestured to the mass of cables running between Branson’s terminal and the Lockbox control panel, and the balding griffin sheepishly shuffled over to obscure them.

“Yah PipBeak, tho’, that’ll do tha trick,” Angelo continued his pitch. “So, whaddaya say? Alls we need is t’ get in an’ find out how thick this here doah is.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” I said.

“Puhfect,” Angelo said. “Branson, clean that mess up!”

“Ey, at least I was tryin’ somethin’!” Branson shot back as he began disassembling his mess of cables. “What’ve you done? Stared at tha doah hopin’ it’d fall down outta sheer embarrassment?”

“You knows I gotta focus. I gotta knack fuh these things,” Angelo replied.

They continued to bicker, but it didn’t seem to harm their friendship at all. Angelo even pitched in and helped disassemble the tangle of cables. Arguing appeared to just be a natural pastime for the residents of Hookbeak. Once there was no longer a potential electrical fire-starter blocking my way, I hooked my PipBeak into Lockbox 17’s door panel.

It was chaos once I was in the system. With Stables back in Equestria, everything had been uniform and easily accessible, even in the strangest system. Here, however, it was an adventure just to find what was and wasn’t accessible through the door port and where it might be located. There had been no company like Stable-Tec in the Griffin Commonwealth to standardize fallout shelters. Instead, whenever someone wanted a Lockbox, they contracted it out, usually to the lowest bidder. The hired party would then build something that conformed to the idea of a Lockbox, which—having no standardized form—was quite broad. Whoever had built Lockbox 17 had done better than the creator of the leaky Lockbox in the Pleasure Coast, but they wouldn’t win any points for style or user friendliness. Eventually, I managed to dig up the schematics for the door, filed under an archive named To Delete Later.

“The doors,” I reported, for there were actually several layered over each other, “Are 3.7 passus thick.”

“Is that too thick t’ cut through?” the security griffin asked, and the albino perked his head up.

“I’ll have t’ do some figurin’,” Angelo said thoughtfully before finally realizing that his cigarette was out. “We can do it, fuh suh, but if they do got a megaspell, then it’s a mattah-a time. We gotta be able t’ cut through before they can set it off.”

While Angelo did his “figurin’,” I used my PipBeak to convert the units on the schematic from zebra measurements into something I could understand. After converting to Equestrian units, it turned out that the doors were just under thirty-six pasterns thick. That’s when inspiration struck; I’d been practicing my teleportation, and I’d managed to get my range to a little over that. Perhaps there was another way into the Lockbox that didn’t involve drilling through the mountain or cutting through the doors.

While Branson, Angelo, and the security griffin were busy trying to figure out how to break Lockbox 17 open, I disconnected my PipBeak from the door and began to channel my magic. It was only at the last moment that the guard realized my horn was glowing, after it was too late to stop me. Shouts of surprise were abruptly cut off as I teleported past the doors of Lockbox 17 and emerged inside. I immediately began to feel lightheaded and was alarmed that I might have messed the spell up and left part of me behind, but a quick inspection revealed I was still in one piece. That relief was the last thing I felt before I slumped into unconsciousness.

***

When I awoke, it was abrupt and unpleasant. I was soaked with freezing water and tied tightly to a chair. In front of me stood a stern-looking griffin holding a recently emptied bucket. It was difficult to make out details in the darkened room, but her coloration appeared to be burnt umber, apart from her starkly white facial feathers that transitioned to a fiery orange at the tips.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded threateningly.

I could’ve been glib and told her that I had no idea since I’d just woken up, but I felt that wouldn’t go over very well. Best to just be straight with her.

“I thought maybe I could help you with your problem with Hookbeak,” I replied, but her expressing didn’t soften.

“A negotiator to wear us down from the inside? Is that their ploy? Or did you have more sinister motives and just screwed up, so now you’re changing tack?” my captor asked as she hefted my saddlebags and multiple weapons. “That trick of teleporting in here was real cute. I gotta admit, we never saw that coming. We did anticipate your bosses would try to cut through, however, and the sleeping gas we had prepared for them worked on you just as well. What do you have to say to that, pony?”

“I’m not here on Hookbeak’s behalf, honest,” I insisted. “I knew you were in a jam, so I came here to see if I could help you.”

“Even if I did believe that, how could you possibly help?” the griffin scoffed.

“I don’t know,” I said, “I’ve helped out in similar situations before. There must be some way to reach a resolution that doesn’t involve the griffins of Hookbeak breaking in and killing you.”

“Oh, there is,” the griffin said with a wicked glint in her eye. “They can leave us alone, or we’re all gonna die and Hookbeak’s gonna be no more. You see what’s behind you there?”

I craned my neck as best I could to see what was behind me. What was first no more than a slightly darker shape in the shadows revealed its true nature as colorful lights fitfully appeared and disappeared within it. I’d seen something similar in the Republic of Rose years ago, worshipped by cultists as a saving god. The Lockboxers hadn’t been bluffing with their threat; they really did have a megaspell.

“I have half a mind to let you go back out there just so you can let them know we’re serious,” my captor said. “If they try to break into our Lockbox, then we’ll take out the whole mountain before we let them drag us out.”

“W-wait, that won’t accomplish anything,” I said. “There has to be another way to resolve this where both your Lockbox and Hookbeak can come out ahead.”

“So, you show your true colors after all. Just another stooge of Hookbeak come here to intimidate us. Well, I won’t have it! We’ll show you what we do to bullies and trespassers when—”

The fiery griffin was cut off as a door opened behind her and another stepped into the room, flicking on the rest of the room’s lights with a claw.

“I think that’s enough for now, Gisebella. I believe this pony’s story,” the newcomer addressed the stunned griffin who’d been threatening me a moment before.

“P-President Roselynn, I had no idea you’d come down yourself to observe,” Gisebella said deferentially.

“Not to worry,” Roselynn said as she placed her claw comfortingly upon Gisebella’s shoulder. “I commend you for your zeal in wringing the truth from this interloper, but I think you’ve drawn quite the wrong conclusions. This pony bears us no ill will, so let’s not berate him any further.”

“Of course,” Gisebella said as she produced a knife, and I was worried for a heartbeat until she used it to cut my bonds.

“Now, let’s talk,” Roselynn said as she sat in a chair Gisebella fetched without being asked. “I am Roselynn, nineteenth president of Lockbox 17. And you are?”

“Doc,” I replied as I wrung out my mane with my prosthetic claw. “From Equestria originally, though now, I suppose, the Pleasure Coast.”

“You’ve come a long way, Doc,” Roselynn said with a maternal smile. “Well, in this whole nasty business with the griffins outside our Lockbox, it seems neither side has the full picture, but perhaps you can help with that. Tell me, what is it like outside, in Hookbeak?”

“Gladly,” I replied.

***

Self-sufficiency is good. There, I’ve written it down. I won’t deny it’s good to be self-sufficient, but as I look at what the Pony-Zebra War left of the Commonwealth, I also can’t deny that it’s not always achievable. I was never expected to be self-sufficient with my wings the way they are, not in a griffin society. I found a way to claim self-sufficiency, but can I really make such a claim when I didn’t get here on my own? I wonder sometimes how different my life would have been without Grimm and Ginny. We look out for each other—it’s not a one-way street—so let no griffin think this is me pitying myself. We’ve had our fallings-out, but that only makes me surer that we’re stronger together. The same, I think, is true on a greater scale. Looking out for one’s own self-interest is all well and good, but that cannot be the only thing one looks out for. We all need help at times, and when we can, we should be as willing to give it as receive it. I guess what I’m trying to put into words is that we should all strive for self-sufficiency, but if we can’t achieve it, we should be willing to accept help from others; and when we overachieve it, we should use our bounty to help others, not just keep it all for ourselves. Griffins have long been quick to take advantage of any success they find to help only themselves to more of what they desire, be that coin or—like Grand Marshal Gallus—power. How different could the Commonwealth be if griffins who were truly blessed looked at their hoards and realized they could be put to a greater purpose? I don't know if I'll ever see that, but one can hope. It’s a post-megaspell world. Not a bad time for things to change.

After my talk with President Roselynn, I’d been given a room to stay in (away from the megaspell) while she thought about what to do. My possessions had also all been returned, so I’d taken the time to read more of the Book of Rok. Being a copy of a journal Rok had written with no stated intention of becoming holy writ, it was a patchwork of many things, and it was always a mystery what I would find in the next passage. Would it be a mundane recounting of a day’s events in the Griffin Commonwealth of over a century ago? A recipe for organic bandage adhesive? Hints of hints of clues how to find von Plume’s treasure? Random scribblings and doodles? Or, perhaps, Rok’s thoughts on society and how it ought to function. In this last passage, I’d found the core of the Rokkists’ beliefs, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find it repeated throughout the pages. Rok had written life as he saw it as a flightless griffin living in a post-megaspell Commonwealth; I wondered what he would have thought about the religion that had grown up with only that as its seeds.

The book fell from my magic as an alarm klaxon sounded and the light over my room’s door flashed amber. Scuffling and flapping sounded through the not-particularly-soundproof walls, and I hurried to the door, poking my head out to see what was going on. Security griffins flew through the air while the ordinary citizens did just what I was doing: standing in their doorways and wondering what was going on.

“What’s happening?” I asked between klaxon blasts as I spotted Gisebella darting past me.

“They’ve resumed their drilling,” she replied hastily as she rushed through a nearby door and reappeared with a machine gun. “So much for negotiating a peaceful resolution.”

I darted over to the nearby railing as Gisebella hopped over it and plummeted down. The core of Lockbox 17 was a long, narrow open space stretching down sixteen stories, ringed on every floor by rooms and hallways leading off to other parts of the Lockbox. It made sense for a winged race like the griffins who got around by flying, but since I wasn’t blessed with such mobility, I made for the quickest way down my hooves could take me: stairs. I wasn’t sure why I wanted to help defend Lockbox 17 from the Hookbeakers—this wasn’t my fight—but my body moved of its own volition before my mind could catch up. It was the same reason I’d come here in the first place; if there was a problem, I needed to be involved. I seemed drawn to crises, first in Equestria, then in the Pleasure Coast, and now here. I’d fight for the Lockboxers, though that might mean becoming trapped in here with them.

By the time I reached the bottom of the stairs, Gisebella was long gone. There were other security griffins flocking to the source of the invasion, though, so I followed them. None of them questioned what I was doing, though I did get some strange looks. Signs blatantly added as an afterthought by the Lockbox’s residents after construction was already done pointed the way to the reactors, and the sound of gunfire grew louder as we got nearer.

The source of the power that kept all the lights in Lockbox 17 running was nearly pitch-black. Muzzle flashes lit up the cavernous room with a near-constant flickering, revealing the dark, hulking shapes that were the microspark reactors. A dim light came from a hole in the wall on the far end of the room, out of which griffins were trying to advance. I would have thought the smart thing to do would be to fly, but any griffin that tried this feat was quickly shot down due to the lack of any cover in the air. On the ground were pipes, crates, forklifts, and plenty of other objects that provided ample protection against the security team’s bullets. The griffins putting up the defense covered themselves in much the same way, but they moved around the room far more naturally than their attackers; they’d trained for a fight like this and familiarized themselves with the layout of the room.

I unslung my battle rifle and tried to stay out of the way of the security team, using FITS to tell friend from foe in the dark. I let off a burst at the tunnel entrance, which caused the advancing griffins within to back up. I didn’t particularly want to kill the Hookbeakers, but they were the ones who had started the shooting. As one managed to break free and fly around one of the reactors, I drew the revolver I’d picked up at Stalwart Steelworks. The bang of it firing was deafening, but it dropped the griffin even at range. More attempted the same maneuver, but I held them off, and eventually they gave up.

The floor was becoming littered with employees of Hookbeak Power, Water, and Sewage—enough that I wondered just how many they had—by the time the situation changed. A quartet of griffins shouting loudly came charging into the room, Lockbox 17’s megaspell upon their shoulders. Upon seeing that the Lockboxers did indeed possess a megaspell and were preparing to set it off, the invaders hesitated for only a minute before retreating.

“All clear! All clear!” Gisebella shouted after all the Hookbeakers had vanished back up their tunnel.

Lights switched on, flooding the room with brightness and nearly blinding me. President Roselynn swept into the room to survey the aftermath of the attack, looking much sterner than the last time I’d seen her.

“Get that hole sealed up!” she ordered, and security griffins and technicians hopped to the task. “Why won’t they just leave us be?”

“It’s because of these,” I said, gesturing to the microspark reactors as I approached the president.

If I was being too forward, it probably wouldn’t get me killed. Probably. Gisebella looked very cross and ready to do so at a word from President Roselynn, so my life was in the president’s claws now. I had to convince her to listen to me.

“They need your electricity, and they’re not going to stop until they get it,” I said.

“Do you suggest we just give it to them?” Roselynn asked with a bite to her words.

“No, because that’s not fair to you. You’ll be absorbed into Hookbeak and I know you don’t want that. However, there may be another way to resolve this,” I said, and paused for dramatic effect (but only long enough that Gisebella didn’t look too annoyed about it). “These reactors can easily generate enough power to sustain both Lockbox 17 and Hookbeak. Sell them the excess. It would mean opening up the Lockbox to the outside world, but you could reorganize yourselves and incorporate Lockbox 17 as a power company to compete against HPWS. Hookbeak’s government can’t deny you a contract without causing an uproar among their citizens, and they can’t infringe upon your independence without breaking your contract.”

“You know, Doc, there may be more griffin in you than just that arm,” Roselynn said thoughtfully.

***

Lockbox 17 was already half-corporate anyway (I hadn’t realized before that Roselynn was president of a board of directors and not an elected official), so it didn’t take long for them to draft the appropriate paperwork and present their offer through the Lockbox’s door. As I’d predicted, the Hookbeak government, despite pressure from powerful HPWS lobbyists, had no choice but to accept Lockbox 17’s terms. The doors were opened, papers were signed, and the work began to connect the Lockbox’s reactors to the city’s power grid. Hookbeak’s government wasn’t happy that their wings had been publicly twisted; and Hookbeak Power, Water, and Sewage was even more unhappy with a deal that would see them lose their monopoly over, and ultimately all part in, the power sector of Hookbeak; but what did I care? I’d saved the day and prevented Lockbox 17 getting slaughtered or subjugated; that was enough of a win in my book. I left Hookbeak without considering that my actions might come back to bite me someday—or that someday might be sooner rather than later.

Level Up
New Perk: Mountain Goat – You’ve learned a bit about getting around in mountains. Reduced penalties to movement when on difficult terrain (and less chance you’ll fall and break your neck).
New Quest: Homecoming – Return to the Pleasure Coast.
Barter +6 (108)
Manipulation Magic +5 (40)
Science +6 (109)
Small Guns +4 (124)
Speech +4 (109)