Fallout Equestria: The Dreamer

by fiendofthet

Chapter 4: Auxois Mysteries

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Fallout Equestria: The Dreamer
Chapter 4: Auxois Mysteries

Mysteries.

I kick at the rocks on the ground. I might as well bash these two together. It comes by habit to me. It is such a mundane skill that I have, but it seems to impress other ponies. All you do is pick one up in each hoof and smash them together, but everypony seems to think it’s awesome. Don’t get me wrong. I love the attention, but it just doesn’t seem very special.

Neither of these rocks had gems in it. They just crumbled to dirt.

“Oh well,” I say with an apathetic sigh.

I pick up another two, but I don’t feel like smashing them. When this happens, I like to make games to become more interested. This time I throw one high in the air, wait for it to reach the top of its arc, before throwing the second one after it.
They collide in midair, exploding in a shower of dust and diamonds.

I hear a slow clap from behind me, as I bend down to pick up the gems. I turn to see my father approaching me.

Wait, what? “Father, what are you doing out here?”

My father has a weird look in his eyes. Is that compassion? “I need to talk to you.”

“Okay,” I say rigidly.

“Not here, at the memory tree.”

Suddenly, we’re at the memory tree. “What do you want?” I say with a tone that is ice cold.

This throws my dad off guard. “I wanted you to know that I ne-” He chokes up a bit. “I never meant to hurt you.” He starts sobbing hysterically. I have never seen my dad like this. I want to go over and hug him, but I am too stubborn to stop hating him. “I only did it because I didn’t want to get too attached to you. I thought that if- if I treated you badly, it wouldn’t be as bad when you were taken from me.”

“What?”

“But I judged him wrong. He didn’t take you, he took me.”

Suddenly I remember. “You’re dead!”

“Eeyup, but don’t worry. I left you in good hooves.”

“Whose hooves?” but by this point he begins to fade. “What do you mean judged him wrong? Who’s he?” I leap forward and put to grab him with my forelegs.

“Listen to the recordings. They will explain everything.” His voice fades off at the end.

“Why’d you die? Tell me!” But he’s gone and I fall flat on my face. It was my dad’s last encounter with me and he leaves me in pain and with so many questions.

I am left lying on the ground to think. Who was my dad?

I wake up.

|><|-------|><|

“Good morning!” Enigma says in a very chipper voice.

“You’re awfully peppy today.”

“Just look at me!” She had changed overnight back to her original aquamarine color. Her mane could now be recognized as actual hair, instead of flowers. One of the larger flowers still remains, looking as if it were simply tucked behind her ear. She seems to have a luster glowing around her body and I can’t help, but gape.

“You look beautiful,” I say in a trance. “I mean, you look almost back to normal again.”

“Um, yeah,” she says turning red. “This just happened overnight. Well, not all of it. I cut off one of the flowers this morning.
It just seemed like too much.”

“Did it hurt?”

“See, I didn’t think it would, but it was weird. First, I couldn’t feel the pain at all when I first cut it, but then, it started to bleed and hurt. After I took the health potion, it was fine.”

We seemed to be using a lot of those. “How many do we have left?”

“A couple, but I get what you’re saying. We have to find more at some point.”

An awkward silence ensues. She stares over at the burnt trees, while I stare at the sky. The clouds seem even thinner than yesterday. I can almost see the golden disk through the clouds. I allow my mind to wander as I think of what the sun would be like. I obviously know about it. I’ve heard stories. The sun was said to bring warmth and light to all of Equestria. Now it hides behind the clouds. It’s probably better that way. All the murder, rape, and thievery happening doesn’t deserve light.

“Well I better go,” Enigma said, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“See you later.” She walks off toward the direction of the trees she had just been staring at, leaving me just standing there.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. ‘You look beautiful?’ Why am I so bad at this?

|><|-------|><|

Once everypony else was awake, we had a breakfast, consisting of packaged hay and beans and about three gulps of clean water.

After we finish our meager meals, Enigma asks me, “Where to next, boss?”

I am dumbfounded. Where do we go next? I haven’t listened to the recordings yet so I don’t know.

Seeing my perplexed expression, Poultice steps up to the plate, “I have some… business in the village of Auxois. It’s only an hour’s walk away and they don’t usually attack strangers.” Then she whispers to me, “And it’ll give you some time to get your shit together.”

“So it’s decided. We’ll go there,” I proclaim.

We make it three steps before Jet suddenly realizes something.

“Wait, isn’t your business slavery?”

|><|-------|><|

The hour’s walk is plenty time to listen to my dad’s messages to me. I slip the first small cassette into my PipBuck. I am greeted by my dad’s voice, but not my dad’s voice. It is softer, younger and it sounds happy which my dad wasn’t really known for.

“You were born today, this morning to be exact. This is the happiest day of my life. After your mother had exhibited signs of… illness, I thought I would never have a son. But here you are, as healthy we could have hoped for.

“Now I’d hate to ruin this momentous occasion, but I have some sad news. I will not be here forever, and I don’t have any doubt how I will go out.

“I never should have made that deal with Firesoul. He is a terrible stallion. *sigh* But he paid for the farm and provides the protection from raiders. Well, I wouldn’t have the farm if it weren’t for him.”

“Honey, are you up there? I need help.”

“In a second. That’s your mom calling, gotta go. Just know that I love you already, my little Ic. I can’t bear the thought of leaving you alone in this world.”

*click*

I stop in place. My dad had once been nice? And who was Firesoul and why was my dad so scared of him? My dream had said that everything would be clarified by these recordings, but all they did was prompt new questions.

“Ic, what’s the matter?”

I am snapped out of a stupor for the second time today by Enigma. “Nothing,” I say as I sprint to catch up the rest of the group.

I search through my bag for the other recordings. There are two more. I put in the next one and listen to the sound of my young dad speak to me.

“You spoke your first word today. It was Dada. My heart melted at this. You’re beginning to grow up. It’s hard to imagine that it’s already been a year since you were born. You just make me so-”

*knock* *knock* *knock*

“Hold on, let me get that”

There is silence for a bit, and then the sound of a door opening far away can be heard. Upon opening the door my father becomes nervous.

“F-Firesoul! What are you doing here?”

A gruff voice replies, “Well, I wanted to see how my little investment was doing.”

“Did you- did you have to bring the guards?”

“They’re my insurance. Now, where are those gems?”

“Here, I’m sure you’ll find th-”

“WHAT!? THAT’S IT?!”

“We’ve only had-”

“NO EXCUSES! If you don’t show more gems by the end of the month, Bruiser here will stick that rifle of his so far up your ass, you won’t be able to sit for weeks!”

“Rock farming is not a perfect system. It doesn’t always give you diamonds when you want it.”

“I hear that you have a new son. How’s he doing?”

“Leave my son out of this!”

“Double this by the end of the month or you’ll never see your son again.”

SLAM

*sigh* “Oh, I left the recorder on. Sorry you had to hear that. I have a lot of thinking to do.”

*click*

“Wow.” My dad was involved in some nasty stuff.

“What was that?” My friends had apparently heard my reaction to my dad’s hidden life.

“Does anypony know who Firesoul is?”

Poultice stops so suddenly that I walk right into her. “Firesoul is… a bad pony,” she says quietly before walking again.

I’m not content with that answer. “What do you mean?”

“I mean he’s done a lot of bad things to good ponies,” she says quickening her pace.

Obviously, she doesn’t want to talk about it, so I let it go. Only, Jet doesn’t seem to understand. “What does that mean?”

“It means that he’s not a pony you want as a friend.”

“Does that mean that he’s evil or just socially awkward?”

“He’s as evil as they come.”

“But-”

Poultice turns and snarls at him.

“Okay, okay, I can take a hint.”

Enigma giggles to herself as I just shake my head.

|><|-------|><|

Auxois appears at in the distance. It seems like a peaceful enough town of about fifty ponies. Ponies are bustling about doing pony things. A few merchants are walking through the town to sell their wares. There is a church, an inn, and even a pub. Overall, it seems like a happy little town.

However, all that joy and activity stops when we walk in. It is as if a magic spell was sent through the entire town taking away their voices.

The silence is broken by Poultice who shouts, “Bring me Puddle Dump.”

The town murmurs for a few seconds before a small pony is thrown out of the pub and onto the street.

He is a grayish blue earth pony with short brown mane. He had obviously drunk a lot of alcohol, as he was having trouble getting up. He fell down four times before finally managing to stand on his own four hooves.

Poultice wastes no time asking him, “Where’s… the thing?”

“What thi- oh you mean the g-,” he says before Poultice shoves a hoof in his mouth.

“Not here. Where’s the inn?”

We go to the inn where we buy two rooms. One is for Enigma and Poultice and one is for Jet and me.

Right now Enigma, Jet, and I are all huddled in my room while Poultice interrogates Puddle Dump. The thing is I need to know what they are talking about. So I make an excuse to leave, “I’m going to go refill our water.”

I crouch by the door in just enough time to hear the intoxicated voice of Puddle Dump saying, “That information comes at a price.”

“Come on, Puddle. We’ve been friends for years.”

“No, I won’t have it. Word is that you’ve gone straight and I can’t have any heroes in my town.”

“Watcha doing?” A soft high-pitched voice says in my ear. I jump so high, you’d think they’d need a new roof. I fight the urge to run away and instead look at the pony that startled me. She’s a red unicorn with horribly straight pink hair. Something just doesn’t sit right with the hair. It should be poofy or something.

“Oh me, nothing. I was just… sitting on the ground with my head against this door.” As if there’s nothing weird with that.

“Why were you doing that?”

“I…was…tired.” What?

“You know ponies usually sleep in the room, not on the room, right?”

“Well in my way, people notice you more. My name’s Icarus. What’s yours?”

“Cardinal Cross.”

We spend the next fifteen minutes just talking. I talk about my adventure so far, and she talks about her life in Auxois. Somehow, we end up talking about her religion.

“We believe that Celestia and Luna are not actually goddesses, but powerful prophets sent from the Creator. Only, at one point along the way, Celestia and Luna forgot their main task. Instead, they took up the greedy position of both monarch and God,” she explains.

“Really?”

“What? It makes as much sense as actual god-creatures living on Earth.”

“Celestia and Luna control the moon and the sun. That seems pretty god-like to me.”

“Then explain how the sun and presumably the moon keep rising and falling after the princesses are long dead. Furthermore, how could a goddess die?”

“I don’t know. It just seems so… stretched.”

“This idea was actually adopted after Celestia and Luna showed up to run the place. The religion has been around for much longer. It’s one of the oldest religions in all of Equestria. In fact, the only religion that has been around for the same amount of time is the zebra religion and that’s been around forever.”

“But how could…” My voice trails off as I just can’t think of anything else to say. Religion has never really been a major
issue in Equestria, seeing as the deities of the major religion were alive and could perform incredible tasks. But apparently, there had been this secret underground religion since before Celestia even harnessed the elements.

Just then a loud yell could be heard from inside the room. “Fine we’ll do it, but don’t expect to still be on my good side.”

The door slams open, narrowly avoiding my snout.

“Good, you’re here,” Poultice says to me, still obviously miffed. “We have a job.”

|><|-------|><|

Regrouped in my room (we can’t fit this many ponies in here!), we discuss the job with everyone.

“Basically, a stable has recently reared its head on the edge of the Mareabian Desert. Puddle Dump wants us to check it out and loot it. Shouldn’t be too difficult. He asked specifically for the wine collection.”

“What’s the pay?” Jet asks.

“Nothing”

“What?” the entire group complains in unison. We try to argue with her, but she just brushes it off.

“Guys, I need this. I can’t explain why, but we have to do this.”

This puts the entire room in silence. I am the first one to speak up, “If you think this is right, we’ll do it.” I can’t forget that she saved my life back in the plant (get it?).

Enigma nods her head whilst Jet grumbles to himself something like, “Why do we have to listen to her? I mean, we don’t get caps from it.”

“There it’s settled. We’re going.”

|><|-------|><|

The walk to the Mareabian Desert is at least a full day trek. So before we can go we have to buy supplies. Enigma and I have been put in charge of this task, leaving Jet and Poultice to get some rest.

The town is wary of us, but they aren’t scared or angry at us anymore.

We walk to the nearest merchant. He seems friendly enough. He’s an old rust colored unicorn with an unusually large pack. When asked how he manages to carry the bag everywhere, he responds with a simple, “I have a strong back.”

We manage to get everything we need from this one merchant, except sniper rifle ammo, but Enigma tells me that ammo for that gun is rare. After checking the other merchants, we confirm that the ammo is indeed rare.

I’m thirsty so I walk over to the sunrise sarsaparilla machine, buy two and hoof one to Enigma. I had never tasted a liquid that wasn’t water so I’m surprised when the sweet and tangy flavor reaches my lips. It’s unlike anything I have ever tasted before. If I had to describe the flavor, I would say it tastes like lettuce mixed with essence of Celestia, Herself. I down the first one in a snap (of my hooves?) and buy another. I can’t get enough of the flavor. This is the source of all euphoria, like alcohol is to other ponies, but this is better. It’s a sort of root beer, you could say. I finish the second one just as fast, but before I could buy another Enigma stops me.

“Woah, there. You’re drinking a little too much of that. I’m setting two as your limit.”

“B-but, why?”

“You’ll spend all of our money.”

I give my best puppy dog eyes.

“Ugh! Fine.”

“Yes!” I find it a little interesting how I needed her permission to buy it with my own bits. But then again she could take me in a fight. I pop the lid off of the bottle and gulp down the sweet ambrosia inside.

I walk over to Enigma, now sitting on a bench and sit next to her.

“Are you happy?” She asks me.

I nod happily. She sighs.

We sit there on the bench for a while. Enigma just sit staring at the distance, taking a swig from her bottle every once in a while. Finally, she says, “You probably don’t understand to gravity of the situation Poultice has put us in.” After waiting for me to answer, she continues, “Those stable have always been trouble. Whether they have had monsters coming out of them or if the inhabitants mysteriously disappeared, when one of those open, it’s never good.”

I just stare, mouth agape. How could she put us in this situation?

“I just don’t get what can make her this arrogant to think that we would just do whatever she says. Why did we even allow her in the group? She just pulls all this shit and expects us to deal with it.” She takes a quick moment to cool down. “Come on. We better make sure she hasn’t murdered Jet by now.” Enigma is obviously not looking forward to what comes next.

|><|-------|><|

While the walk back was uneventful, the scene that we walked into was definitely not. Poultice had the pony that she had met in that room (I believe she called him Puddle Dump) at gunpoint.

“I agree to do this ridiculous task, yet you still try to steal from me?” Poultice says in a cold and unwavering voice. “What’s to stop me from killing you right now?”

“You and I both know that without me, you will never find the…” He notices us in the room before continuing to say, “thing.”

Poultice contemplates this for what seems like a whole minute, before finally lowering her weapon with a snort. Even without the threat of a death, the tension in the room is still palpable.

“Get out.”

Puddle Dump gets halfway to door before turning around and saying, “Maybe I was wrong about you. You don’t seem like a
good pony at all.”

“Out,” Poultice grits between her teeth.

“And you two, what are you guys doing here?” Poultice snaps.

“We, um, got the stuff for the trip,” I say hesitantly.

“Oh.” This seems to quell her rage. “Then we can leave immediately.”

“But the walk there will take all day and sundown’s in 3 hours and-”

“Sweetie, if Poultice stays in this town for any more time, she will murder somepony,” Enigma whispers at a barely audible level.

“Okay, let’s go!”

|><|-------|><|

I like walking. I don’t know what about it that makes it so great, but I love to walk. I guess it could be to the fact that I’m a taller stallion than most so it takes even less effort to walk at the same pace. Or it could be that walking just clears your mind
allowing you to focus on whatever it is that is most prevalent in your life. Or perhaps it is just having the free time to do whatever you want, provided that includes walking.

And what I want to do right now is learn about my friends, starting with why Poultice was being so secretive with Puddle Dump.

“Hey, Poultice”

She sighs, “And I was having such a great trip so far. What?”

“You know how you forced Puddle Dump not to talk about ‘the thing.’ What’s the thing?”

“And this is why I don’t like to talk to you. You can’t just figure out that I don’t want you to know about it. So just let it go.”

“But we’re risking-”

“Let. It. Go.

“Okay.” Moving on to my other friend, of whom I know nothing about.

“Enigma, why did you save my life?”

She halts, obviously taken off guard by this question. “My… parents…weren’t good ponies. I told myself, I wasn’t going to follow their example. I saw a pony getting beat on by three others, so I decided to give you a chance.” She walks off before I
can ask any more questions.

Fine then, on to my last friend. “Jet?” There is no response. I look around for him. No Jet.

“Guys, where’s Jet?” My friends look around

“Hmm, I guess that explains why it has been so quiet,” Poultice smirks. “We must have left him back at Auxois.”

“How could we leave him behind?” I ask.

“I sent him out of room so I could talk to Puddle Dump. I guess I just forgot about him.”

“What were you talking about that he had to leave?”

“Luna dammit! Didn’t I tell you I don’t want to talk about it?” She runs off ahead with Enigma.

I can hear her say, “Ic meddles way too much” before they get too far away.

Great! Only an hour into this walk and I have creating a distance between my friends and myself, both literally and figuratively.

|><|-------|><|

I make it about a minute before boredom controls me. I take out the PipBuck and start looking through the features. There’s a thing called the Eyes Forward Sparkle that gauges your health, location, ammo, and other important things, but I can’t use any of that because it isn’t attached to my body. There’s this that called the SATS that helps you aim, but again I can’t use it.

I eventually find my way over to the stats page. It has a huge list of abilities that it gauges your performance in and gives you a percentage for that skill. The percentage is of proficiency, 100 being perfect and 1 being the worst possible thing. The list is very odd. It has lock pick, and stealth, and small guns, and large guns, and a whole lot more. I just want to know why they were assessing somepony’s lock pick skill. Were they trying to catch future thieves or did they know that ponies would need to know how to pick a lock in post-apocalyptic Equestria?

Whatever the case, I can’t use this either. In fact the only things that found that I can use are the file playback and the radio.

The radio has now become my favorite toy. I’ve discovered two stations, one called DJ PON-3 and the other one called Raider Radio.

I listened to the first one. It had a smooth-talking host who was fun to listen to. He would talk about “the good fight” and give tips on how to survive the wasteland. Both of which made me want to do more good things. He is an awesome host, but the music is too happy and upbeat. I am not really in a Binga-Banga-Bonga mood.

So now, I am listening to Raider Radio. It is similar in the fact that it has a smooth talking host, but the similarities stop there. Instead of talking about the betterment of Equestria, he makes fun of failed heroes and calls out bounties for ponies who he doesn’t like. Instead of “fighting the good fight,” he just wants people to fight. He is not a very agreeable host, unless you were a raider.

The real reason I listen to his station is for the music. It has an angrier feel to it, exactly the mood I feel when my friends are shunning me. The first song I listened to had a zebra (or a zebra sounding pony) speaking so fast, I couldn’t make out a single word he said. Now I’m listening to a song where the artist switches back-and-forth between singing and screaming into my ears. I don’t know why, but I like this music.

There is this wailing sound coming in the middle of the song. Well it was in the entire song, but it is the only sound now.

This mysterious sound is changing pitch extremely quickly and is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have heard. I need to know what makes this sound. This is where the notes section of the PipBuck is useful.

|><|-------|><|

“We’re almost there. Just look.” Poultice points at the horizon where a weird aura can be seen. The air looks… evil. As we get closer, the air gets more and more evil and my friends notice it too.

“Let’s set up camp here,” Enigma says. “We’ve been walking for hours. We don’t need to tackle the stable now.”

We both agree and set up camp, which is still just the single tent. We also build a fire and eat dinner. We all sit awkwardly around the fire for a few minutes before Poultice goes into the tent with a, “Ic, you guard first tonight.” Enigma finds a soft spot away from me and falls asleep as well. Who knew asking friends questions about their past would stick with them so much?

I brush it off. Perhaps in the morning, they’ll be back to normal.

A stare at the weird aura radiating from our destination and I try to determine what makes it so evil. First of all, it is sending off pulses, each one distorting the air. Also, it is glowing setting the night clouds ablaze. Lastly, the glow itself is a blood red which is disturbing as well. All those packed together makes an ominous sky.

I take my pack off. I might as well get comfortable. A small cassette clatters out onto the ground. My dad’s final recording. I
have put off listening to it because it would mean the finality of my parents’ death and I don’t know if I can handle it.

But I have put it off for too long. I slide in the tape and am greeted by the end of a familiar conversation.

“Your dad’s wasted it all shootin’ radroaches.”

“Have a nice day.”

“Grr”

The door slams and there is silence for a few seconds before Mom says.

“Do you think that was good?”

“Yes, he has to be out of the house when Firesoul comes.”

“Okay…”

“Well, my little Icarus, that was our last conversation. I tried to end it on a high note, but I guess after 16 years of bad treatment one ‘have a nice day’ won’t fix it. I’m sorry for mistreating you, but you have to look at it from my perspective. I thought Firesoul was going to take you away from me so I pushed you away. I agree, not the best idea, but it was all I can do.

“Firesoul will probably kill us, but I’m leaving you in good hooves. My best friend, the explorer, agreed to teach you to survive. You can’t miss him. He’s the blue unicorn with a treasure map as a cutie mark. He’s the best pony I know. Think of it as a final way of me saying, ‘I love you’ because I always have.”

“He’s coming!”

“Sweetie, take this and bury it in the memory tree with the others. Just let me-”

*click*

My dad loved me? To the day he died? I feel tears fill my eyes. Then I come to the stunning realization. My parents are dead and I never really felt remorse for them. I just moved on. The tears come now. They rush down my face by the gallons. By the time I am finished, I feel lightheaded from dehydration.

Now the thinking comes. These recordings have taught me so much about my parents. They worked for a pony named Firesoul, who is not a good pony. They had sent a pony to teach me. And most importantly, my dad *sob* loved me.

But it leaves me with more unknown. Who was this Firesoul that even my friends don’t want to talk about (though they don’t really want to talk about anything)? Why did he kill my parents? And what were my parents involved in?

All these questions swam around in my head with the ones about Poultice and Enigma. Even as I was finally relieved of my shift, the questions still kept in the front of my mind. As I lay on the ground, I realize how little I know about the people I care about. They are simply unknown. They are

Mysteries.

Footnote: Level up!
New Perk: Daddy’s Colt-The man you thought you knew isn’t what you thought. Your thirst for the truth gives you increased willpower +1 Endurance

Comments

[Noakwolf]

New chapter! *Squee*

[QuackmanBrony]

They are (wait for it) Mysteries. DUN DUN... DUUUUUNN.
"One more chapter" I said. "It'll be fine" and now it's 4 am. Curse this story for being interesting.
Naw just messin' with ya fiend your're good.
And he finally grieves for his folks. Better late than never 'cuz that would mean he's desensitized to the death and if that happens, through a series of bizarre equations, he could become a raider.

[shiningdark]

I really have to stop checking FiMFiction before going to bed...

The plot thickens! Who is Firesoul? What awaits them in the Stable? What is the thing? And most importantly, what shenanigans will Jet get in to alone in the town? I guess we'll find out!

PS: way to go, you got me to choose this over Anthropology, and I regret nothing!

[fiendofthet]

314993
Wow, more interesting than Anthropology? That might just be the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me.