Fallout: Equestria - Common Ground

by FireOfTheNorth

Chapter 2: Family Matters

Chapter Two: Family Matters

“Good morning, Pleasure Coast, this is your R-adio PC DJ; the one, the only, Commonwealth Crooner. But, of course, I owe it all to you fine griffins and ponies who’ve invited me into your homes by tunin’ that dial to my station. I will gladly take you up on that invitation and pop by for dinner sometime. Just some humor, folks. Now, on to the reports clutterin’ my desk here at the studio. The Weather Corps is directing some surplus rain our way tonight, so stay inside after sunset and plug your leaks if you’re not particular to getting wet. Still no resolution to the Lockbox 17 standoff, but rumors have it that Grand Marshal Gi-deon has authorized attempts to cut open the shelter’s door or bore in from behind. More news to come whenever it arrives. In Economics, the Family has announced wedding-slash-merger with R-edd’s R-ifles & Ammo. The wedding between Charlotte Van Griff and R-edd III is scheduled for the sixty-third of Q1. Mark your calendars, folks. Now we’ll return to the music, but coming up, look forward to a special n-ature segment. Behemoths and Leviathans: do they exist; and were they caused by the megaspell fallout, or do they predate it? All this and more on R-adio PC.”

The PipBeak’s radio switched to an upbeat song abundant in horns and drums. I was still getting used to the device, and I read up on its features every chance I got. Functionally, it was equivalent to a PipBuck, except that it had been manufactured by the griffin company GroverCorp instead of Stable-Tec as a rip-off of the PipBuck that was available to the common griffin, not just military personnel and Stable-dwellers. It had some very similar built-in spells that even a non-unicorn could cast. Instead of Eyes-Forward-Sparkle (EFS), the PipBeak came with a Friend/Foe Identification and Tracking Spell (FITS). And in place of the Stable-Tec Arcane Targeting Spell (SATS), the PipBeak had the cheekily abbreviated Enemy at Range Selection and Time Dilation Spell (ERSaTS). There was no lamp spell, as I’d discovered in the basement of Fritz’s Fish & Salvage, but the flashlight was in good condition and had several adjustable settings. The PipBeak also allowed for more user customization than the PipBuck, including the ability to write custom programs and the addition of permanent hardware modules. I would have to keep an eye out for any of those, since several modifications had apparently been manufactured and sold during the War, according to the advertisements that accompanied the guide on how to use the PipBeak.

My reward from Franz was enough to pay off the rest of my debt to Summer Sunrise, but the PipBeak wasn’t included in that deal. I was missing my PipBuck, and Summer agreed to let me keep the PipBeak so long as I paid him for it as well … which meant paying off another debt. I didn’t really mind, and I got the feeling I would be spending a lot of time working to pay off debts at the Pleasure Coast. Here I was, far from Equestria, but was the Pleasure Coast the place I wanted to stop and put down roots? If so, I’d need to consider finding a place to live; if not, then I’d need to think about buying equipment to keep me alive as I explored the rest of the Griffin Commonwealth or beyond looking for a home. All my possessions had been taken by the Steel Rangers or whoever had shot me outside the city, so I’d have to work for anything I wanted or needed.

It was easy enough to find work at the Pleasure Coast, since there were few individuals looking for it. The ghouls that made up the majority of the population had things they wanted and would work in order to pay for them, but they didn’t have the same needs as the flesh-and-blood ponies and griffins that lived there. They didn’t need food, purified water, or shelter, so they carried on their unlives without having to do quite as much to pay for the entertainment the city still offered. It also helped that many of them had raided the cash registers of businesses throughout the Pleasure Coast in the early days after the megaspells fell, enabling them to have stashes of gold and gems they could draw on; both kinds of wealth were still accepted as hard currency by griffins that had emerged from their private bunkers and reestablished business. According to Summer, there had been an early attempt to seize those funds back, but it had failed horribly since it was impossibly complex to return the correct amounts to the businesses that had been raided. In the end, the griffins had chosen the long game of earning it back through their casinos and substance sales. It fit with the griffin political and economic ethos—which were one and the same in their minds—that government existed only to resolve disputes, facilitate trade, and offer nationwide contracts; and it was entirely on individual businesses to succeed or fail in the market and cope with adverse conditions. What this had led to at the Pleasure Coast was the dominance of three major factions known as the Three Families that had consolidated businesses through a variety of methods and now each controlled roughly a quarter of the city.

I was on my way to do a job for one of these Three Families, and the only one not run by griffins: The Immortals. The Immortals were a group of pony ghouls who had managed to maintain control of a portion of the city after the griffins had emerged. With the sudden ascendancy of flesh-and-blood griffins, it hadn’t been a hard sell to convince them to band together for the greater good. The Immortals controlled most of the southern part of the Pleasure Coast, and their headquarters were a group of derelict cruise ships beached or partially sunken offshore from the docks that had once welcomed Equestrian visitors during the War. Scrap cable bridges constructed in the intervening years linked the different ships together, and I trotted down one that tethered the ships to an outcropping on the mainland. There was a ghoul in a battle saddle waiting at the top, but she didn’t make any comment as I trotted by, though she did eye my prosthetic limb.

The ship’s deck was canted slightly under my hooves, but not enough to throw me or any of the ghouls trotting around me off balance. Following the instructions of the “help wanted” ad I was answering, I entered the upper casino deck of the ship and trotted between the gambling tables, across red carpet that had been worn down nearly to the decking. Many of the tables were empty, even those with ghouls attending to them. There was one that had ghouls crowded around it, but I couldn’t make any sense of the game being played. That was probably the reason for the excitement coming from the ghouls gathered around; when one has lived for nearly two centuries, novelty must be difficult to find. An office missing its door was located at the end of the gambling hall, the sole occupant a ghoul in a faded pinstripe suit who looked up as I trotted in.

“You come to answer the ad asking for a softskin?” the ghoul asked as he looked me up and down.

“Yes, I’m Doc,” I said.

“Good for you,” the ghoul replied sarcastically, and he paused before introducing himself. “I’m Rubymane. You have any idea what this job entails?”

“No, not really,” I told him.

“There’s a scavenger tribe—the Irradiated Pinions—who refuse to do business with ghouls in person. That’s where you come in,” Rubymane explained. “They’re on their way to Pleasure Coast with a delivery. You’re going to meet them, look tough, exchange cash for scrap, and bring it back here. Understand?”

“Yes, I think so,” I replied.

“Do you have any barding or weapons?” Rubymane asked, eyeing me dubiously.

“I’m afraid not.”

“Well, beggars can’t be choosers. Before you leave, see Pellets about some armor and weapons, and don’t forget to take this with you,” Rubymane said as he passed a set of saddlebags filled with paper bills across the desk to me. “Give the scavs however much they ask. This stuff is worthless, but they don’t seem to care.”

I took the saddlebags filled with cash and left Rubymane’s office. Another ghoul directed me to where I could find Pellet, the Immortals’ quartermaster. He issued me a combat shotgun and some basic barding, enough to appear as more than a pushover, and made it very clear that if I didn’t return it, he’d hunt me down and kill me himself. Now equipped to at least appear ready to handle the Wasteland, I left the Pleasure Coast, following the train tracks south.

Near the ruins of some homes was a titling flagpole driven roughly into the ground, a crudely sewn-together flag hanging from the top. In the distance to the east and west, I could see other flagpoles marking where other scavenger tribes could camp outside the city. A rumbling slowly grew in volume as a dust cloud appeared in the south. Soon the source of it became visible: a pack of wheeled vehicles. Many of them were different than the auto-carriages I’d seen in Equestria, as they had an inline configuration of wheels rather than parallel.

The pack of driven vehicles pulled to a stop around the ruins I was in, and I raised a foreleg to shield my eyes from the dust that rolled around them. The griffins that dismounted from the machines were wearing clothes thoroughly caked in dust, but they were all wearing outfits that covered their bodies completely. Sturdy dusters were worn over barding with lots of pockets, boots covered their hindlegs, gloves on their claws, wraps over their tails, and their faces were obscured by masks with air filters or hoses that snaked back to tanks on their backs. One of them brushed the dust from his mask’s goggles as he approached me.

“We are the Unsullied range-riders, those who pick through the ruins of the Old, the clan of the Irradiated Pinion,” he announced before coming to a stop before me and making a curt bow. “I am Pathfinder Chan. Were you sent by the Rotted Ones?”

“Yes?” I answered tentatively, since he was probably referring to the Immortals, though it wasn’t a very polite way to refer to ghouls.

“This way,” Chan gestured, and I followed him to where a cart was attached to the back of one of the vehicles. “We know what kind of things the Rotted Ones are interested in.”

Chan pulled back the tarp covering the cart, flinging a thick layer of dust into the air. Inside the cart was a pile of datatapes, film reels, books, comics, vials, flasks, and weapons. The griffins standing around the cart looked proud of their haul, which I detected even though I couldn’t see their faces. Or maybe they were just feeling superior for being “Unsullied.”

“How much?” I asked Chan as I gestured toward the cart.

“Forty-seven million Commonwealth Guilders,” he replied, and I passed the saddlebags filled with bills over.

Chan draped the saddlebags over the back of the nearest vehicle, and he and two other griffins quickly counted out their payment before returning the saddlebags to me with a few stacks left over.

“Out of curiosity, what do you use these bills for?” I asked as the griffins unhooked their cart, remembering Rubymane’s attestation that the paper money was worthless.

“We trade with other clans, and we purchase gasoline for our road-beasts,” Chan said as he gestured proudly to the scattered vehicles.

I gathered that the bills truly were worthless to all but the scavenger tribes, who still believed they had worth, as well as whoever they were getting petrol from to fuel their vehicles. I suppose the same could be said of all currencies in a way, but I would stick with bottle caps and Equestrian Bits, the latter of which the griffins and ghouls of the Pleasure Coast lusted for and hoarded as much as the scavenger tribes hungered for Commonwealth Guilders.

Once the cart was detached, I had to haul it back into town. The contents were acceptable to the Immortals, and they set ghouls to work sorting through the entertainment portion of the shipment immediately, searching for anything they hadn’t already seen or read. The longing for anything new was strong in these ponies who’d lived one hundred-sixty years in a resort town. Once I returned the borrowed armor and shotgun to Pellet, I was paid handsomely for my efforts and left one large step closer to paying off my PipBeak.

***

A few days and a few jobs later, I was on my way to meet with another of the Three Families. It seemed strange at first that I should be interacting with the big players so soon after arriving at the Pleasure Coast, but it was inevitable, given how much of the city they each controlled. In retrospect, the same had been true in the Equestrian Wasteland as well; I somehow always found my way to the leaders of any settlement.

Today, I was answering a work offer from the Family. Unlike the other two “families” that ran the Pleasure Coast, members of the Family were actually related to each other through a complicated set of marriage alliances. It had all begun when two of the more powerful griffin families that had emerged from their bunkers decided to marry and unite, and they had continued the trend since. Whenever a new operation was added to the Family, someone in the leader’s family would marry an existing Family member, securing the alliance. The upcoming wedding between Redd III of Redd’s Rifles & Ammo and Charlotte von Griff was just such an arrangement, bringing the weapon’s dealer into the fold by bringing him into the family.

The majority of Family territory was in the north of the city, but their headquarters was located in the central area of the Pleasure Coast, where the roads radiated out from the plaza. Lucky Shard Casino had been built in the triangle formed by diverging streets, and it kept with the theme of triangles as it soared to the sky with sharp edges that ended in a point. The surface was all straight, shiny beams and glass, most of the panes of which were still intact, though there was a clear patchwork pattern showing where they’d been replaced.

The guards at the doors let me through with no more than a quick glance inside my saddlebags. I was getting used to that. Unlike in the Equestrian Wasteland, where it might be impossible to enter the home or headquarters of a major faction without express permission, here it was easy to enter without any fuss. The reason was obvious; these weren’t warlords’ fortresses or government offices—they were businesses. Lucky Shard Casino was still operating, allowing pony ghouls to fritter away their possessions trying to win big and continuing to enrich the Family, which would in turn support their other efforts at controlling the Pleasure Coast.

A unicorn with a coiled red mane suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of me in the middle of the casino floor.

“Whoa! How did you do that?” I exclaimed as I looked for a PipBuck and StealthBuck, neither of which she seemed to have on her.

“A teleportation spell. Anypony with enough magical ability can learn to cast it,” she replied as she looked at me disparagingly.

“Where did you learn that?” I asked, and her expression changed from derision to surprise.

“You’re not from around here, are you?” she asked.

“No, the Equestrian Wasteland.”

“That explains it, then,” the mystery mare said. “The Equestrian government forbade the sale and possession of spell books except by the Ministry of Magic and those vital to the war effort. The Commonwealth, however, freely sold them up until the day the megaspells fell. I have a private collection, but there are plenty of books on lower level spells in the Pleasure Coast Library of Arcana.”

“I’ll have to check it out,” I said, and the mare’s evaluation of me seemed to rise slightly. “I’m Doc. Who are you?”

“The name’s Lurk,” she said as she took my extended hoof.

“Lurk?” I asked.

“Yeah, my folks were terrible at names,” she said defensively.

“No, I was just surprised,” I said. “I came here to meet with you, but I was expecting someone … different.”

“Oh, you’re here for the job offer, are you?” Lurk asked, and I nodded. “Sorry, but it’s already been taken. Although … I do have another matter that you might be able to help with.”

“I’m listening,” I said.

“If you’re coming here for a job, you must have been at the Pleasure Coast long enough to know about the upcoming wedding between Charlotte von Griff and Redd. Family Head Gerald wants this to go off without a hitch, and that means the best food and drink at the wedding. The Cleariwine supplier has turned the boss’s generous offer down. I want you to convince him to reconsider,” Lurk said.

“You want me to rough them up?” I asked dubiously.

“How you do it is up to you, just so long as you get it done,” Lurk said.

“No offense, but isn’t this a job for your own goons?”

“Do you want this job or not?” Lurk asked, her eyes narrowing. “I’m the Family’s fixer, and I’m given a wide degree of freedom on how to fix the Family’s problems. I choose to pass that freedom on to you, so solve this however you think best. If you can achieve it without hurting anyone, then all the better. And for your information, I could send Family griffins, but it would be a death sentence to send them through Dragon territory. You’re far less likely to be shot. Now, are you going to take the job or not?”

“Good, now let me just mark the location of the distillery on your map …”

***

The Cleariwine distillery was located in the small gridded area east of the city center in what had once been the offices of the Pleasure Coast Circular. I rapped on the door with my griffin arm, the sound of metal striking metal making quite a racket. Eventually my knocking got results and the door opened halfway, an earth pony ghoul looking out at me with annoyance and caution.

“What do you want?” he rasped. “I’m not selling.”

“Yeah, about that,” I said. “The Family sent me to try to convince you otherwise.”

“No way!” the ghoul said, and he tried to shut the door on me, but I grabbed the side with my prosthetic.

“Can you at least tell me why?” I asked as I wrestled to keep the door open. “Maybe I can help somehow.”

“I don’t have Cleariwine to sell!” he exclaimed as he stumbled back from the door and I stumbled in.

“You look like you have plenty to me,” I said as I observed the crates filled with bottles stacked against a wall.

“Those are reserved for Mayor Delgado’s birthday in four months. He’s already contracted for them,” the ghoul said. “You need to go!”

“You can’t make more for the mayor by then?” I asked.

It had been a genuine question, since I had no idea how long it took to make Cleariwine, but it visibly flustered the ghoul. He gibbered and sputtered before finally looking defeated.

“Do you know anything about fixing printing presses?” he asked wearily.

“I could give it a shot,” I offered, happy that I was finally getting somewhere.

“Fine, but I need your assurance you won’t tell anyone what you’re about to see. That’s the only way the Family is going to get their Cleariwine. Understand?” the ghoul asked.

“Yes,” I said, and the ghoul continued to frown at me. “I promise not to tell anyone else what I’m about to see.”

“Right this way,” he said.

The ghoul led me through the makeshift distillery he’d set up, past vats, pipes, and alchemical equipment. There was a stairway in the back leading down, and we took it to the basement. The space belowground had been mostly stripped, apart from the old printing presses, most of which had been robbed of parts as well in order to repair a single functioning printing press near the center of the space. That press was partially disassembled at the moment while the ghoul had tried to repair it, apparently to no avail. The press wasn’t exactly in the same state it would have been during the War. At some point, someone had jury-rigged the press to use printing plates other than the ones intended. The reason was clear as I got closer: this ghoul had been using the press to print paper money.

“So?” the ghoul asked. “Only the scavs can get me the ingredients I need to make the Cleariwine, and they want Commonwealth Guilders for them. No money, no Cleariwine. It’s as simple as that.”

“Couldn’t you just ask the Family to be paid with guilders?” I asked skeptically. “I’m sure they’d give them to you since they’re worth nothing to anyone but the scavs.”

“Give up my secret and my profits? Are you mad?” the ghoul asked. “Can you fix the press or not?”

I sighed and got to work. Had the printing press been in its original state, I was sure I could have fixed it in no time, but that would probably be true for a lot of ponies. Instead, this press had been rearranged and repaired haphazardly for centuries, which made it difficult to fix the press without jeopordizing or invalidating some other fix. As I worked, the ghoul warmed up to me surprisingly quickly and was soon talking my ear off. It seemed now that I’d promised not to spill his secrets, he needed to share his entire life story with me.

“Yeah, that’s the reason why I came here at first, ‘cause of the plates,” Trusty—which turned out to be the ghoul’s name—said. “When I found those plates, I thought I’d found a prize even greater than Von Plume’s Treasure, but how wrong I was. Printing my own money was fine at first, but ponies stopped accepting it pretty quickly, and even the griffins wouldn’t take it when they reappeared. Only the scavs still want the stuff. Well, I found a way to make that work for me.”

“Von Plume’s Treasure?” I asked with my head buried in the guts of the printing press, only the light from my horn illuminating the space, hoping to hear something interesting and not just more about the long years since the megaspells had fallen in which Trusty hadn’t done much but make Cleariwine and print money.

“Oh, yeah,” Trusty drawled, “Griselda von Plume’s the griffin who built the Pleasure Coast, or at least laid the foundations for it. Some real rich griffin who wanted to get even richer, so she had the city built to attract Equestrian tourists and convinced other griffins to build their businesses here. She died before the War was even over, after amassing even more wealth than she’d started with, but all her money vanished when she died. In her will, she said she hid it, and that whoever finds it will inherit it and her right to 5% of the income from every business at the Pleasure Coast. Griffins were going crazy trying to find it for a few years, but eventually most gave up. Far as I know, no one’s ever found it, but I imagine most outside of the Pleasure Coast have forgotten the treasure’s even out there somewhere. Assuming Von Plume didn’t just dump it in the ocean or spend it all right before her death, and then leave that storh in her will just to drive everyone crazy.”

“All right, I think I’ve fixed things now,” I said as I crawled out of the printing press, before Trusty could launch into another story. “Give it a try.”

Trusty fired up the press, and it rattled and shuddered to life. I thought at first that it wasn’t going to work, but then it began printing. Large sheets covered in Commonwealth Guilders rolled off the press, landing in a pile where they’d need to be cut apart into individual bills later.

“Well, I’ll be. You fixed it,” Trusty said in appreciation. “All right, I’m a ghoul of my word. You can go back and tell Family Head Gerald or whoever sent you that they’ll have Cleariwine for their wedding.”

***

For any enchantment, the enchanter must know 3 spells: (1) the spell whose effect they wish to bind to an object, (2) the appropriate spell to prepare an object for enchantment, and (3) the spell to enchant the object. This makes enchanting the most flexible of the magical disciplines and the most immune to changes in both technology and other magical disciplines. Take, for example, the common desire to bond a flame spell to an object. Once, this would have been done with swords, arrows, or sling stones, but the principle applies equally well to creating immolation bullets (which are not even considered a separate object class, so the ritual is precisely the same in all the listed cases). In this book, I will cover the basics of preparation for some of the most common object classes, and the enchantment spell itself. As for spells to use with these, you will need to look elsewhere.

In between jobs, I was checking out a book entitled Practical Magic: The Art of Enchanting in the Pleasure Coast Library of Arcana. Ever since Lurk had tipped me off to this place, I’d come here multiple times and read a couple different books on different kinds of magic. The library required a fee to read and wouldn’t let you remove the books from the building, but that was still miles ahead of what had been available in Equestria.

“Are you Doc?” a unicorn ghoul asked me as she approached, and I looked up from my book.

“Yes, I am,” I replied. “Do you need something?”

“Mayor Delgado requests your presence at Le Grande Resorte,” she replied before turning tail and leaving.

I had no idea what this was about, but an invitation from such an important griffin was not to be easily ignored. I’d barely started my book, so I forewent renting a bookmark to keep my place and left the Library of Arcana. There was no town hall or other official government building at the Pleasure Coast, and since its mayors were invariably the heads of the Three Families, government was run from the headquarters of whichever one held the office at the time. Mayor Gastón Delgado was the leader of the Sunset Strip Dragons, and their headquarters was the resort and hotel complex known as Le Grande Resorte. The Dragons controlled much of the city center and most of the territory in the south that hadn’t come under the control of the Immortals. Le Grande Resorte wasn’t very deep in their territory, since it had been built along Sunset Strip, the street that ran directly east from the plaza and divided the city center exactly in half. Raucous music came from the building and geysers of flame shot up from perfectly spaced emitters along the building’s front as I approached.

“In you go,” a griffin in sunglasses gestured me in as I arrived, and he followed me, pointing the way to go whenever I was unsure.

Like the Immortals’ cruise ships and the Family’s Lucky Shard casino, Le Grande Resorte was packed with gambling ghouls. The ubiquitous bars were also popular, though I had no idea what most of the substances— served from bottles, vials, and packets—being sold were. The griffin guard directed me up to the fourth floor via a circuitous route, so that I saw a good deal of the Sunset Strip Dragons’ operations. The section of the fourth floor I was on had a good deal more griffins wearing sunglasses indoors and no patrons. A worn red carpet that didn’t exactly fit with the walls led to a set of polished double doors. A pair of griffins opened them for me as I arrived.

The space through them was a cozy sitting room decorated in some hotel manager’s idea of tasteful. At least, that was how the original bits of the room seemed, where they hadn’t been usurped by more modern griffin sensibilities. Trophies of Wasteland creatures were scattered around the room, many of whom I didn’t recognize, and I assumed they were unique to the Griffin Commonwealth. A gold-plated, diamond-studded PipBuck was displayed on the foreleg of a pony statue that had been allowed to remain. One wall was dominated by sections of a billboard that advertised Le Grande Resorte, transported here from wherever it had been scavenged.

In the center of the room was a cluster of plush chairs and sofas, assorted small tables placed near them conveniently. A griffin in a fine suit lounged on one of the sofas, a glass of alcohol grasped in his talons. Both his fur and feathers were a deep chestnut, unusually identical for a griffin. He looked up at me as I trotted in and gestured for me to take a seat as the other griffins shut the door behind me.

“So, you’re Doc Silverarm?” the griffin asked.

“Just Doc, actually,” I corrected him, suddenly much more self-conscious about my prosthetic limb.

“You’re not the one with flair or showgriffinship,” he accused me. “Doc by itself is not a name that would catch on.”

“Well, back in Equestria I was known as the Wasteland Doctor,” I told him, before realizing it might not be wise in the long run to reveal that.

“Hm, better, but not good enough to draw a crowd,” the griffin said. “Doc Silverarm is much better, much more intriguing.”

“What’s this about?” I asked.

“I want you to fight in my arena,” Gastón Delgado said, for it was clear now that that was who I was talking to.

“This is … unexpected,” I said. “How do you even know I can fight?”

“Franz of Franz’s Fish & Salvage had good things to say about your scrap with a dishonest employee of his,” Delgado said. “You also can’t be too bad at defending yourself if you made it here all the way from Equestria. And your griffin arm will make for a great draw, regardless.”

“But I don’t have any weapons to fight with,” I protested.

“That’s fine; we can provide you with everything you need for your debut today.”

“Today?” I asked in surprise.

“You don’t think I had you brought here for nothing, do you?” Mayor Delgado said. “I need a new event in the arena, and I think you might do. I know you’re saving up caps to pay off a debt to Summer Sunrise. I can give you whatever you need to finish paying it off. What do you say?”

I mulled over Mayor Delgado’s offer. Through odd jobs, I was slowly making progress on paying Summer Sunrise for my PipBeak. My jobs with the Immortals and the Family had each taken a big bite out of that debt, and working for the third Family could very well clear it out completely. The Sunset Strip Dragons had a bit of an unsavory reputation, though, since they were willing to sell and do anything to make caps or Bits. I’d have to set some boundaries.

“Are these fights to the death?” I asked.

“Of course,” Pleasure Coast’s mayor replied.

“Then I won’t fight any other ponies … or griffins,” I demanded.

“That can be arranged,” Delgado said after a pause.

“Okay, then,” I said. “I’m in.”

“Excellent,” he purred. “Head on out the way you came in, and my griffins will get you all set to fight.”

***

“And that’s another victory for The Whip!” the arena announcer declared as an armored griffin with a spiked whip that ended in sawblades used her weapon to disembowel her opponent. “Undefeated in a hundred and ninety-eight matches! Come back in three days to see her hundred and ninety-ninth match, and provided she survives, come back next week for bout two hundred!”

The griffin emerged from the arena near me, holding aside the chain-link fence to let herself through. Her whip, coated in blood and gore, was coiled at her side, and her fans tried to get a glimpse of it as she strode through them.

“Up next, a new competitor from across the Celestia Sea. Introducing, Doc Silverarm!”

I didn’t get nearly as many cheers as The Whip as I entered the arena, but a few ghouls did so just because of their desire to be involved in any entertainment. The Le Grande Resorte’s arena had once been the resort’s swimming pool; it had been drained long ago, and an angled chain-link roof had been built over it to protect bystanders and keep winged competitors from leaving the arena. The pool’s tiles were long-gone, leaving only blood-stained concrete. Across the arena, a team of ghouls was finishing up removing The Whip’s unfortunate competitor’s remains. Once they were out, a tower crane swung around and lowered a cage down toward the arena. Once it was near the chain-link barrier, the griffin riding on the cage jumped down and opened a hole in the arena’s top. The cage came to a stop, its bottom slat flush with the chain-link barrier.

“Today he’ll be facing off against … The Cazador!” the announcer pronounced dramatically.

The griffin by the cage pulled a pin, and the bottom of the cage opened up. Out of it fell a griffin-sized wasp, buzzing angrily, and the crowd cheered. The Cazador charged me stinger –first, and I jumped to the side, avoiding a sting that would surely kill me. In my magic, I wielded a ripper similar to the one I’d possessed in the Equestrian wasteland, and I triggered it on, sending the blade whirring, which seemed to enrage the giant wasp. It flew toward me and I stepped aside again, using ERSaTS to help me move quickly enough. The Cazador had already lost a leg in another fight, and I swung my ripper down and cut off two more as it flew past.

The Cazador swung around toward me, and this time I aimed for the wings. It fell from the air as my ripper tore them apart, but the tattered wings temporarily jammed the weapon. While I was picking wing membrane out with my magic, the angry wasp charged me on the ground. I jumped out of the way as it tried to sting me, narrowly avoiding a jab, but dropped my ripper. It came for me again and I dodged, but it was pushing me back toward one of the arena’s walls. Focusing my magic in a way I’d learned in one of the books in the Library of Arcana, I increased the temperature in The Cazador’s abdomen until it burst.

The giant wasp squealed piteously and tried to come at me with its mouth-pincers. With my griffin arm, I grabbed The Cazador and held it back while the crowd cheered. I retrieved the ripper with my magic and used it to push away the remains of The Cazador’s stinger on the ground before turning it on. Holding the wasp in place with my griffin arm, I chopped away the rest of its kicking legs before decapitating it. Dropping The Cazador’s head, I was met by cheers from the assembled ghouls. Another job done.

***

“Welcome back my l-ovely listeners. This is the Commonwealth Crooner bringing you … the news. Grand Marshal Gi-deon has put out a call for mercenary companies to come to Shearpoint for work. Sources close to the Grand Marshal report that this was brought about by clashes between the Air Corps and the Grand Pegasus Enclave. More to come as more word arrives. The big event in Pleasure Coast today is the marriage between Charlotte von Griff of the Family and R-edd III of R-edd’s R-ifles & Ammo. If you see the happy couple, wish ‘em a happy and pr-osperous marriage. Let’s keep it brief this time around and get back to … the music.”

As the music played on, I swept up the front room of the Hope Drive Clinic. My fight in the arena had provided me with enough caps to pay off the last of my debt to Summer Sunrise, but I was still living in the clinic for the time being and was expected to contribute in some way. I was beginning to think about buying or renting a place of my own, but I would need to save up a fair number of caps to make that a reality; this suited me for now. My sweeping was interrupted as a griffin burst through the clinic’s front door.

“You’re Doc?” he asked urgently.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Come with me right now,” he ordered and immediately exited the clinic.

I had no idea what was going on, but I set the broom aside and followed the griffin out the door. For all I knew, he was here to trick and kill me; that probably wouldn’t happen in the Pleasure Coast’s plaza, thankfully, so I was safe for a little bit. He was waiting for me outside and took off to the east once he saw I was following. I didn’t have any opportunity to ask him what was going on, but it didn’t take long to figure out where he was leading me. The Lucky Shard Casino loomed up ahead, and he led me inside. There were quite a few griffins standing around the entrance and flying around the casino’s upper levels, all heavily armed. It must’ve been for the wedding.

The gambling tables and bars of the casino were abandoned at the moment, all the ghouls who’d been at them now corralled off into groups by griffins who were questioning them. I didn’t get much of a good look, as my griffin guide urged me to keep up. He led me up to a large reception hall on one of the casino’s higher levels, whose wall of windows looked out east on the mountains. The hall had been decorated for the wedding I’d been hearing about on the radio, and bottles of Cleariwine I’d helped procure were scattered on the tables. At the end of the room, a ragged hole had been blown in the ceiling, leaving the head table beneath it a wreck.

“Lurk, I brought who you asked,” the griffin I’d been following announced as the unicorn approached us.

“Good,” Lurk said to the griffin and waved him away before fixing her attention on me. “How good are you at investigating?”

“Um, fine I guess. I don’t know,” I said, taken aback by the question.

“Franz of Franz’s Fish & Salvage swears you’re a regular Griffs McGilly,” Lurk said skeptically.

Griffs McGilly was a fictional griffin private investigator featured in a series of comic books that had been popular during the War, especially in the Griffin Commonwealth. It was especially notable in that it was the only Equestrian comic series to feature a griffin and not a pony as its main character. I’d seen a few of the comics around in the Commonwealth since I’d arrived. Unlike in Equestria, such things could be found here in decently readable condition rather than as pulpy detritus.

“Franz sure seems to talk about me a lot,” I noted.

“Well, maybe you made a good impression on him,” Lurk said distractedly. “It doesn’t matter. We need all the eyes on this that we can get. Listen, nothing you see here can leave the Lucky Shard. Someone tried to assassinate the Family Head. Before we enact retribution, we need to find out who.”

“You want me to figure out who did it?” I asked, taking another look at the hole in the ceiling and the griffins swarming around it.

“I want someone to,” Lurk said. “Whoever it does will be well rewarded, so apply yourself and use whatever methods you need. I don’t care.”

Lurk didn’t even let me respond, she rushed away so quickly. With a hundred different things to deal with, and now the attempted assassination of her boss on top of it, she was a busy mare. I didn’t know what I would be able to do in the way of investigation, but I’d try my best. First, I’d need to check out the floor above.

***

My sweep of the space over the reception hall didn’t turn up any answers. I was far from the first or the last investigator to look over things, and the crime scene had been thoroughly disturbed. It was clear that someone had built a bomb on the floor above where the wedding was being held and had intended to kill Family Head Gerald with it, but that was about it. Gerald had only been saved by his new nephew-in-law Redd III, who’d detected the munitions in time to get him and Charlotte out of the way. I’d only managed to find one possible clue to who had tried to assassinate the head of the Family: a vial that had rolled beneath a cabinet on the floor above the wedding.

I had no idea whether the vial was actually a clue or just junk that someone discarded at some point in the past. It wasn’t as dusty as the underside of the cabinet, however, which made it a little suspicious. It was empty now save for a few purple-pink droplets that clung to the sides, but it had clearly been meant for the quick injection of whatever it had contained, based on the stubby needle stuck one end and button on the other. But, had it contained something for an individual to inject into themselves, or a component of the bomb? I took the vial back to the Hope Drive Clinic in an attempt to analyze it using Summer Sunrise’s alchemical equipment.

“What are you doing there?” he asked me from behind as he walked in on me.

“Just … running some tests,” I told him.

“Mm-hmm,” Summer Sunrise said skeptically. “Well, make sure y’ don’t contaminate my equipment. Ah don’t need to give any griffins jitters ‘cause y’ got neuregen in a healin’ potion.”

“Wait, you know what this is?” I asked as I turned around and abandoned my tests. “What’s neuregen?”

“It’s a drug that regrows nerves at a rapid pace. Neuregen is short fer neural regenerator an’ long fer NRG. I used a small concentrated local dose t’ regrow the nerves in yer foreleg needed to graft on that prosthetic, but otherwise I steer clear o’ the stuff. A full dose one’a them vials holds’ll increase yer sensations t’ dangerous levels. It works on ghouls, too, an’ there’re some who use it t’ regrow the nerves in their rotted flesh.”

“Wouldn’t that be painful for them?” I asked as I winced.

“Oh, incredibly,” Summer Sunrise said. “O’ course, fer some not being able t’ feel anythin’ fer so long means any feelin’, even a painful one, is better’n nothin’. Where’d y’ get that stuff?”

“Lucky Shard Casino,” I answered after weighing whether sharing it would violate the secrecy of my investigation.

“Huh,” Summer said, “That’s not the Family’s style. They’ve always taken pride in not gettin’ involved in drugs, prostitution, or bloodsports. Ah wonder what changed.”

“Well, I didn’t buy it there,” I admitted, “I found it the way it is.”

“Somebody musta snuck it in, then,” Summer said. “There’s no way they’d allow nueregen use in their casino.”

“Thank you,” I told Summer.

“What fer?” he asked, but I couldn’t tell him he’d just given me a real lead to follow in my investigation.

***

Despite having something to actually work on, it didn’t feel like I’d made much progress by the next day. Neuregen was a pretty common drug in the majority-ghoul city of the Pleasure Coast, even if the Family didn’t deal in it. Despite this fact, I was convinced it was a clue that could help me in some way. Anything out of the ordinary had to help, and this was certainly out of the ordinary if Summer Sunrise was to be believed.

My investigation had taken me to Le Grande Resorte, where I inspected the bars while The Whip fought her 199^th bout in the arena. The Sunset Strip Dragons didn’t have any of the moral hang-ups of the Family, and they sold neuregen along with plenty of other substances. There was some variation in their vials, but none of them matched the one I’d found at Lucky Shard. It wasn’t conclusive evidence, but it did suggest that the Dragons weren’t involved in the attempt to assassinate Gerald. It would have been a bold and risky move for them, even if they did hold the mayorship at the moment.

I was wandering around the arena trying to think of what to do next when a cheer went up from the crowd. The Whip had just removed the limbs of her opponent with her choice weapon before slamming its end down onto their head and ending the bout. Over the exultant crowd eager to see her try for 200 wins in a few days, a single gunshot sounded. There were screams on one of the balconies, and I looked up to see guard griffins grabbing at the lifeless form of Mayor Delgado before he fell over the railing. Armed griffins spread out to try to maintain control as the crowd went into a panic, but none of them seemed to have seen what I had.

Pushing my way through the crowd, I forced myself to the building from which I’d seen the flash of a sniper shot a mere instant before it rang out. If someone was trying to assassinate all the leaders of the Three Families, this was my opportunity to find out who. I realized belatedly that I was still unarmed, but there was no time to go back for one of the arena weapons; even if I could manage it, I would probably get detained or shot by Delgado’s bodyguards. I would have to make do with raw strength and my magic if I encountered the assassin.

After ascending the abandoned stairs, I burst into the hotel room from which the shot had been fired. The window was still open, but there was no sign of the shooter. FITS wasn’t any help in identifying a possible direction in which they had fled, with so many ghouls and griffins crowding the area and in an uproar. As I trotted over to the window, my hoof knocked something across the floor; I looked down to see a spinning, empty vial with purple-pink droplets clinging to the inside. I picked it up with my magic and confirmed that this neuregen vial was identical to the first. I was onto something with this, but what?

***

Apart from structural decay, ghouls, and the distant cloud ceiling, my experience up to this point with the Pleasure Coast could’ve convinced me it hadn't changed much from before the megaspells, remaining an ordered and peaceful city. All that changed once word of Mayor Delgado’s assassination got out. According to the Pleasure Coast’s narrow panel of laws, death of the sitting mayor immediately triggered a mayoral election to be held in one week. This resulted in chaos throughout the streets as the Three Families tried to shore up their voting blocs and intimidate their opponents from going to the polls. Now going outside seemed comparable to venturing into the ruins of Vanhoover or Stalliongrad, cities where you could be shot by raiders at any moment for no reason. Thankfully, at least the Family and the Sunset Strip Dragons knew who I was by now. That meant I was less likely to be shot be them, but there was still a possibility.

Summer Sunrise was kept busy patching up wounded griffins and ghouls and seemed miffed that I didn’t help him much. I lent a hoof when I could, but getting to the bottom of these assassinations was more important than ever, and I was often out investigating leads. I still didn’t have a weapon of my own, so I stuck to the strategy of running and hiding in order to stay alive whenever I left the clinic. I slowly picked through the city and began stringing things together, building a better picture of what had happened, but I still needed one more piece of evidence to bring it all in. This is what brought me to the Pleasure Coast’s black market.

This black market was different from a black market in any other settlement or city, since the goods and services being sold weren’t technically illegal. The Griffin Commonwealth and especially the Pleasure Coast were very lax on laws (something that had drawn Equestrian businesses and tourists here), but sometimes it was best to be discrete about your business and not do it out in the open. This was the function the black market served, though it did so openly. What had once been a sports stadium had been turned into a warren of stalls filled with shady griffins and ghouls selling services such as theft, sabotage, and assassination.

Slipping behind the stalls, I found a service entrance and stealthily approached. The black market had a unique feature to it that was kept well hidden. Beneath the stadium was a massive and highly secure set of maneframes that stored all transaction data safely so that it could resolve potential disputes but wouldn’t jeopardize the black market’s clients. It was also not networked to the Pleasure Coast Central Operating System, unlike most other maneframes in the city, which meant the only way to access it was to plug into one of the maneframes in the market or access it directly. For me, the only way was the latter.

Putting my lockpicking skills to good use, I unlocked the service entrance and let myself into the dark corridors that tunneled beneath the black market. I kept my ears pricked as I trotted through the hallways, but there didn’t seem to be any guards down here. Another locked gate barred the way to the maneframes, but I made quick work of it and entered the rows of humming towers.

I found a terminal and jacked my PipBeak in to begin hacking. The security was just as strict as I’d been led to believe, with layers of new protection added on over the centuries providing a thick cocoon around the data I was attempting to steal. It was a tough job to pierce it, but eventually I succeeded and had access to the maneframes. I only had a limited amount of time to find what I needed, though, since there had been no way through without triggering a timed alarm that would go off unless I backed out within a minute. Luckily, thanks to my preparations, I knew exactly where to look.

Asking questions around the Pleasure Coast had yielded some probable suspects: a griffin ghoul assassin couple who called themselves Mayhem and Havoc. They were known to inject themselves with neuregen before every job and accept the drug as payment. The assassination attempts also fit their style. Mayhem had a penchant for explosives, and Havoc was a skilled sniper. I navigated to their segment of the maneframe and quickly cracked the security there. Within was a list of contracts dating back 120 years, with the latest just a day before the Redd wedding. Opening the file confirmed what I’d expected to see: Death of Family Head Gerald and Mayor Gastón Delgado in exchange for 12 cases of neuregen. I copied the file to my PipBeak and backed out of the system before I could be caught. Now that I had enough to prove who was behind the assassinations, I had to bring it to the griffins who needed answers and hope they would listen.

***

Lurk wouldn’t take her eyes off me, and it was really starting to freak me out. When I’d shared my plan with her, she’d been far from happy about it (threatening to flay me alive), but she had gone along with it. Her fears weren’t unfounded, since there was a very real possibility that in trying to solve the attempted assassination of her boss, I would actually end up getting him killed. I felt it was important that I show my findings to all interested parties at the same time, however, especially given the implications for the election in two days.

We were meeting in an old movie theater that had been cleared and swept thoroughly by Family Head Gerald’s bodyguards before he had arrived. Gerald stood before me now, bodyguards hovering protectively around him. He too was wont to stare at me, but he’d actually looked away a few times as we awaited the final party.

She arrived in a flurry of activity, surrounded by her own griffin bodyguards. Gloria Delgado, the new head of the Sunset Strip Dragons, had the same feather and fur coloration as her father, in contrast to Gerald von Griff’s white head and black hindquarters. She was dressed in studded black leather and stared daggers at Gerald as she sauntered down the aisle of the theater with a confidence that covered up worry that this was a trap for her. I wouldn’t be surprised if both of these griffins thought the other was responsible for the assassinations in their respective camps, but I was here to clear that up. Lurk cleared her throat as she continued to stare, urging me to begin explaining before the heads of two Families began attempting to kill each other instinctively upon being in such close proximity.

“Family Head Gerald, the assassin who tried to kill you,” I said, and Gloria struggled to conceal her surprise at that news, “And the assassin who killed Mayor Delgado were working together. Are you familiar with Mayhem and Havoc?”

“They’re behind this?” Gerald asked. “Who hired them? How do you know?”

“I found these at Lucky Shard Casino and in Le Grande Resorte where the assassins attacked from,” I said as I produced the empty neuregen vials and levitated them over to each griffin boss.

“Neuregen,” Gerald sneered. “It’s their trademark all right.”

“Yes, at first I thought it may have come from the Sunset Strip Dragons,” I said, and Gloria frowned angrily. “But the design of the vials doesn’t match any of the ones sold by them. Note the unique housing and injector design. This led me to the Pleasure Coast patent office, where I was able to find record of the patent for this design, which was held by only one company and was filed just weeks before the Last Day.”

Both the griffins were giving me their full attention now, and Lurk, while she hadn’t stopped staring at me, had let up on the intensity of her gaze.

“They were never sold before the end of the War, so these vials should only exist in the factory that produced them, which is far from the Pleasure Coast,” I continued to explain. “ I went to the scavs outside the walls and questioned them about this, and one tribe recognized them. They told me that they recently scavenged in that factory and brought the vials back here to sell to the Immortals. I checked on the streets and was unable to find any other vials of neuregen using this design. The Immortals are the only ones with these, and they haven’t begun distribution yet.”

“And the way that Mayhem and Havoc got ahold of them?” Gloria asked, anticipating the answer.

“They were the payment for the assassinations,” I said. “If that’s not enough, I was able to obtain this from the black market’s maneframes.”

I pulled up the file I’d stolen on my PipBeak, and the two griffins reluctantly learned in to read it. It confirmed that the assassins had been hired for the neuregen and the identity of the hirer: Black Rust – a member of the Council of Immortals.

“The Immortals …” Gerald said before swearing under his breath. “They couldn’t wait their turn to lead the Pleasure Coast, so they decided to take out the competition and trigger an election. Well, they can’t be allowed to get away with this.”

“I agree,” Gloria said and hesitated a moment before extending her claw to Gerald. “We can’t let them win the mayorship for the next three years like this. I’d rather throw my support behind you than let that happen. Truce?”

“Truce,” Gerald said as he grasped Gloria’s claw.

Level Up
New Perk: Private Eye – You notice out-of-place things more quickly than the average pony. +1 to Perception.
New Quest: What Now? – Find your purpose in the Griffin Commonwealth.
Perception +1 (6)
Alchemistry +3 (40)
Alteration Magic +6* [Skill Book] +3 (25)
Athletics +2 (20)
Enchanting +6* [Skill Book] (22)
Lockpick +1 (101)
Medicine +3 (111)
Melee Weapons +2 (103)
Repair +2 (102)
Science +1 (101)
Sneak +1 (102)
Speech +1 (101)
Unarmed +1 (84)

*Crash Course