Fallout Equestria: The Dreamer

by fiendofthet

Chapter 6: The Three Tribes

Chapter 6: The Three Tribes

Death.

Ponies bustle left and right through the village center, talking excited to their friends. There’s so much noise and excitement that I hardly notice when a pony trips over my hoof. He notices though and he turns to glare at me.

“Hey, watch it, jackass,” he yells at me.

I get up, with all intention to attack, but I control myself. If there’s one thing I’m proud of it’s of my calm nature. I meander over to the market and begin to talk with the cabbage vendor. It’s of nothing important, just small talk. I buy a cabbage. I can hear Jet say, “Two caps” as he tells me the total worth of all the items I have in my pack right now.

Where is Jet, anyways?

And just like that he appears on the other end of the market calling my name.

“Hey Ic, what’s up?” He’s by my side now.

My head starts to feel like it’s in a daze, as if there were something that I’m forgetting.

“What’s the matter?” Jet asks bringing me back to reality.

“Nothing,” I reply. “There just seems to be something that I’m forgetting.”

“Did you leave the stove on?” Jet asks, a smile growing on his face.

“What?” I start to laugh, not exactly sure why though. “What’s a stove?”

“I don’t know. It’s just something that ponies used to say.” Jet starts to laugh too.

We both share a laugh while we walk around the market. I can’t even recall the original feeling that was bothering me.

A yell from across the market disturbs my moment of mirth.

“Hey, you’re the one who tripped me earlier!” I can vaguely remember doing this. “You’re going to pay for that.”

“Just calm do-”

“No, don’t talk to me like that!” He draws a knife. “Any last words?”

Something snaps in my brain, like some small wire that used to keep my sanity together.

“Nothing? Yeah, I thought so.” He turns to walk away, but I don’t let him. I grab him by the neck and slam him in the ground, crushing his skull. He doesn’t say another word to me.

I beat him over and over to get the anger out of my system. The sounds stop and everyone is staring at me as I finished him off, beating him with my hooves. They must have been stopped for a while because they are starting to recover from shock.

“Why is everypony staring at me?” I shout to the crowd. This causes some of the crowd to hide away in buildings. The others draw weapons of some kind, some are normal guns, but I see one pony with a prewar mailbox in her hooves.

“Come at me!” I scream, taking out my pistol. I must sound like a raider by now, but I don’t care. I finally get it. Everypony in the wastes sucks and deserves to die.

One brave mare shoots her gun first, but the shotgun’s too big for her and she gets thrown to the ground. I counter her shot by shooting my bullet back at her, hitting her squarely in between the eyes.

“Who’s next?”

Three stallions approach me each with a baseball bat in their mouth. I dodge the first strike with a dive forward and I stab him in the stomach with the knife from the first guy. The second guy swing wildly at me, but misses. Instead, he hits the first stallion in the head knocking him out cold. I shoot my gun at the third stallion before he can even swing his bat. His face goes pale as the life drains from him. I turn to buck the third guy hard in the ribs. I hear a snap and I repeat the process to his head.

My flank burns in a very familiar way and I turn to see the cause. A pony with a flame thrower is trying his luck with me. I pick up a baseball bat and charge at him. Running right through his flames, I strike him with my, now on fire, baseball bat. His skull shatters, his brain turning into a putty and seeping through the cracks.

I pick up the flame thrower and turn to the crowd again. The rest of the ponies in the market are stunned by my awesome show of prowess. They either ran away or started begging for their lives. I allow them to live just to show my power over life and death. I am not going to be so tolerant to the ponies who chose to hide.

I see a house in front of me, so I begin to torch the outside. As the flames start to take hold of the building, I run inside to see who my latest victims are. There are two of them, blankly staring at me. Ha, I’ll wipe those blank looks off their faces.

I run towards the closer one, and tackle him. I pull out my pistol again and plant it’s barrel between my victim’s eyes. “Any last words?” A grin starts to creep across my face.

The stallion lets out a sigh. “None for you, son.”

My heart stops at the last word. I glance in shock down at my victim, and I see my father’s face. I jump up, and begin to back away, but the house is already collapsing on us, on them. I run towards the exit, but it collapses in flames. I look back at my parents as the roof is collapsing on us all. A single thought crosses my mind.

“Wait! I never got to say-”

I wake up.

“...goodbye.”

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

Is a pony defined by his dreams or are his dreams simply random gesticulations of unconscious thought? In other words, am I the pony in the dream, or was that just a random nightmare?

It’s ridiculous to think that I am the pony from my dream, but my dreams have become reflexive of my life recently. So, is this a precursor to what is to come in my life?

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of a pony coughing near me.

I open my eyes to see nothing. At first, I think that my eyes are broken, but after a few seconds my eyes adjust to the light, or lack thereof. I'm in a cave. How'd I get here? I quickly scan the cavern for the source of the sound. I see a familiar aquamarine mass sitting on the ground with another blob cradled in her lap.

"She saved you, you know," she said in a callous voice. "She dove after you when you jumped into the pit."

The events of yesterday come back to me. "Wow, she did that for me." A warmth spreads through my veins, juxtaposing the ice of my dream.

"But she didn't have the energy. You stressed her too much. Come and see."

I push myself to my feet and walk carefully over to my friends, the feeling of lightheadedness becoming a familiar friend to me. As I get closer, I can see the condition they are in. Enigma, usually looking like a pool of immaculate water, now looks as dirty as the puddle I had used to douse the flames on my flank, so long ago. Well, only 5 days ago, but it seems like much longer than that. Arpeggia looks like she is in more severe condition. Her small form is shivering and looks even more frail and weak than before.

"Is she okay?" I ask lamely.

"Feel her forehead."

I touch her head with the tip of my hoof, but recoil it quickly. The small filly is burning up.

"She's been out for hours and her condition has steadily gotten worse." Enigma looks at me as if it was my fault that she was like this. Well, I guess it is my fault, but I don't need her to throw unnecessary guilt my way.

I contemplate ways I can make it better, which leads me to think of my own experiences as a sick pony. The most recent time was when I passed out in the tower. Poultice had healed me. Poultice! "Where's Poultice?" I blurt out much louder than I should have.

Enigma looks shocked, as I'm sure anypony would be after watching a friend drift into deep thought in the middle of a conversation, then suddenly scream in their face.

"She went to explore around," Enigma pauses, puzzled. "But that was hours ago. She should have been back by now." She glances nervously behind her.

"Which way did she go?"

She points behind her with one hoof, making sure to keep Arpeggia's head cradled in the other one.

"I'm going to look for her. You stay here and make sure Arpeggia's alright."

"Fine," I turn to leave, but she stops me. "Just, be careful." She looks as if she is going to cry.

"Okay, I will." Wow, Ic, way not to be awkward.

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

Twenty minutes of uneventful searching follow and by the end of it, I'm feeling discouraged. I'm about to turn around, but I decide to give it five more minutes. Where could she have gone? I mean, there is only one path. It's not like it splits into many different corridors where I could have easily made a wrong turn.

A small torch comes into vision far down the path. It is good to have light after being in the dark since waking up, even if it is just a pinprick in the distance. I sense a small feeling fluttering in the depths of my soul. That feeling is hope. I take that hope and stretch it out to cover other parts of my life. I hope I can find Poultice. I hope that Arpeggia will be alright. I hope I am not the pony in my dream. But hope can only spread so far. If you try to hope for as many things as I hope for, at least a few of your hopes will not come true, and when that happens, a pony can lose himself. My thoughts return to my dream and I gather up all the hope I can muster for my dream never to happen.

The corridor opens to a large square room. It is about the width and length of three ponies and there are three tunnels cut jaggedly into the wall. There is a torch over each of the entrances uniting them, but there is a nervous feeling in my gut telling me that they are not as united as I think.

To the left there is a tunnel covered in bright red gemstones. This path leads down farther into the ground. Peering down the hallway, I can see a faint glow coming from far down the descent. A warm draft comes from this tunnel, adding a refreshing change from the cold, damp air that has filled my lungs since I woke up.

The right path leads down another tunnel, this one lined with deep blue jewels. This path also leads down, but there is no glow from the bottom. It seems as if the light is getting sucked out from the path. Even in the room I’m in, the light is concentrated away from this doorway. Warmth also seems to have disappeared in this half of the room, leaving me with an uneasy imbalance between my two halves.

The final door way seems more rigid. Where the other ones seem like they were set up crudely, the rock in this one seems to have been cut smoothly with a knife. Diamonds set along the ground of this entrance, yet the walls seem bare. There is no temperature change, whether warm or cold in this hallway, and there is a faint ambient light for as far as I can see in the cave.

The left appeals to me the most right now, so I'll go that way.

The rubies in the tunnel reflect the light from the end of the tunnel and spray it all over the wall, giving the entire tunnel a red hue. I used to see this from time to time when farming, but never to this scale and only when the light of the sun was strong enough through the clouds to get such a reflection.

When I was a foal and my dad made me help him with his work for the first time, he gave me a small ruby and said, "This is what we're looking for. Now, grab a couple rocks and bang them together."

I'd take a rock and get to work, but, like many foals that age, I became distracted quickly, especially because of this unprecedented gift from my dad. I held the ruby up to my eye and the world became red. I thought this was the most magical thing. I ran around for hours, trying to see everything in the entire farm in red color. My dad wasn't very happy about that and he took it back from me. I cried for the rest of the day, only letting up when Mom came and told me the story of the rock dwellers and the gem farmers.

She told it like this:

Once upon a time, there were explorers who traveled the whole world looking for treasure. They saw the ruins of Canterlot and bathed in the pink smoke. They fought treacherous beasts in the Whitetail Woods. They even sailed to the zebra homeland and traded with the strange zebra people. They had so much fun adventuring, but now they were tired and they wanted a place to rest their weary bones.

They searched high and low, looking for the perfect place to call home, and they finally found it. It had a hundred apple trees, each giving the most succulent fruit. Gems were sprouting out of the ground and made trees of their own. A flowing river would provide fresh water to the families they planned on having on this land.

Overcome with joy, the traveler set to work at once to build a town. When they finished, they looked at their work and thought it was wonderful. So they slept in the house they had built with their sweat and dreams.

The night, however, did not like the intrusion on her special lands. She sent demonic creatures to her aid. First came the fire devils that torched their apple trees. Next came the water sprites that polluted their river. Finally, to finish the trifecta, came the hell hounds who stole all of their gems.

The travelers, perturbed by this garish response by the night, decided to follow the demons into the caves from which they came. They followed them to the deepest part of the cave where they vanquished the evil beasts. They collected all of the gems and split it out between them.

Then, turned to go back, but without the demons to guide them, they soon got lost in the weaving maze. They prayed and prayed to the goddess Celestia with all their hope. The goddess responded to the call by appearing in front of the lost adventurers.

They told her their troubles and she gave them a simple choice, give her their gems to learn the way out of the cave or try to find their way by their selves.

The first group had hearts full only of greed. They said, "No, we don't want to be poor again. We need our gems. They turned and left, searching for the rest of their lives for the way out of the caves, but never found it.

The second group was not as greedy. They gave up their gems to the princess for a way out of the caves. The princess took these gems and lined the walls, pointing the way out. The travelers thanked the princess for this and escaped.

They went on to have long prosperous lives full of happiness. The other group was cursed to wander the caves for their entire lives as punishment for their greed.

This story always made me laugh. "Why wouldn’t the ponies just give her the gems?" I would ask.

My mother would reply, "Exactly, that's the moral of the story. You shouldn't let your greed control you."

A smile lingers on my face for a few seconds. It disappears with a sigh. Thinking back to my favorite memories of my parents has drained me. I don't feel like searching for Poultice anymore. I walk over to the largest ruby in sight and stare into its glow, entranced in thought. I briefly wonder where that small ruby had gone all those years ago. I come to the conclusion that it was most likely sold all that time ago just before a voice distracts me.

"Another one?" The voice is beyond raspy, like how somepony would sound if they had not drunken any water for days.

Before I can turn and respond, however, a sharp pain erupts in the back of my neck and I fall down.

I seem to be passing out a lot lately. Is that bad for me?

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

It's hot.

I mean, it's really hot. I'm not awake enough to be aware of anything else, but I do know it's hot.

It takes physical effort to open my eyes. I think the blow to my head may have done something to my brain. Even with my eyes open, I can only see bright red.

After a few blinks, an image starts to form. It's an intricate design made entirely out of rubies... Actually, it's an intricate design made of a single ruby. There are cuts crisscrossing the giant gem, forming a picture. It is of a pony rising off the ground, wings spread. From the tip of her horn, there are lines going out every angle, as if powerful magic is shooting out of it.

It occurs to me that this is a giant artwork of Celestia. I have never seen a picture of Celestia before, and I am taken aback at her beauty. Even in this monochromatic representation of her, she emanates great power and grace.

A hoof stamps to my left, startling me out of my admiring trance. I glance over at the interrupting hoof and I jump back in surprise. I'm so surprised that I let out a little, "eep."

The hoof is on fire! Actually, the entire pony that owns the hoof is on fire. She (he? it?) raises one of the flames that is presumably her eyebrow. Then, she shakes her head and says, "Typical. A newcomer arrives and he is frightened by the travesty that is a Ruby Dweller." I can practically taste the sarcasm in that sentence. "I mean, we're not that different. We're both ponies. I'm just better."

Apparently, my expression is still of fright because she says, “Fine, maybe this will make you more comfortable."

She closes her eyes in concentration and the flames begin to retract, first at the tail then working its way up her body, revealing an earthy brown where the flames retreated. When the flames finally extinguish from her body, she relaxes and opens her eyes again.

"There, is that better?"

"Um, your eyes..." My voice fades away in the middle of that thought because her eyes are glowing white pools of lava.

She is completely fed up with me, "These are my eyes. They glow. I know that. Why can't you just deal with it? I should have incinerated you when I had the chance." She mutters that last part.

That gets me thinking, "Why didn't you? Most of the ponies I have met have shot at me for less than I have offended you. So, why haven't you killed me?"

"I'm supposed to give all the ponies that get close to the town a choice: join us, or get burned alive."

"Join you, as in-"

"Yes, you'll become Ruby Dweller." She closes her eyes and composes herself, preparing for the presentation that is, no doubt, to come.

She opens her eyes, which are still glowing brightly, feigns a smile, and begins to speak, "One hundred and seventy years ago, great bombs fell from sky. The lucky ones were vaporized in its blast. Others were not so lucky. Some formed into great monstrosities. Others developed severe radiation poisoning. We select few were the lucky ones. In the wake of the radiation, we fled underground into these very caves. We became obsessed with these gems. We delved deeper and deeper, finding larger and larger gems. Eventually, we found the Everuby and was it ever a ruby if you saw one. One of the more ambitious of our pack ran forward and grabbed the huge stone, and a change was seen in him immediately.

"First, he collapsed on the ground, squealing in pain. Then, he stood up, feeling more powerful than ever. Finally, he caught on fire.

"The rest of us, a little disturbed, hesitantly proceeded to touch the rock with enthusiastic encouragement from the first pony. It was the most painful experience of my life, but the reward was the most invigorating. Better strength, fire control, and ghoul-length life were all mine. The only thing the ruby asked in return was a pledge of subjugation."

She gets real close to me, almost touching my nose with hers. "All this could be yours. The power. The immortality. The Ruby. All you have to do is touch it."

She is actually starting to scare me with her erratic behavior, making me want nothing with her, but immortality is very tempting...

"You have five minutes to decide. Oh, and I don't want to spoil the great experience that you've had so far, but the exit to this room is guarded, so don't even try to leave." She leaves the room, igniting into a column of flame on the way out.

I sit in shocked silence. I could be immortal. If I don't have to worry about dying all the time, imagine what I could do...

Right, how am I going to get out of here? My eyes a drawn upon the giant gem and a thought comes to my head.

Taking all I know of gems and magic, I make some calculations.

"Oh yeah, this'll work, but things might get a little shifty."

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

Enigma is getting worried. It has been an hour since Ic has left and Arpeggia has only gotten worse. Her fever has spiked and her shivers have taken a violent turn for the worse.

A low rumbling noise erupts from behind her, sending vibrations through the ground strong enough to shake a few small rocks loose.

"What has Ic gotten himself into?" Enigma asks to the unconscious pony on her lap. Multiple thoughts speed through her head, most of which do not end well for Ic. "Come on," she says lifting Arpeggia onto her back. "We have a pony to save."

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

A ring of fire erupts in the doorway. A flame covered pony struts into the room through the ring. The pony asks me, "Have you made your decision?"

I walk around the room positioning me just right. If this is going to work, I have to be in the right spot.

"No, I don't want to join your cult." I pack as much insult as I can into that last word.

"Oh, you insult my religion." She begins to rise of the ground, propelled only by the energy of her fire. "Let's see how well you fare, faced with the power of it." Flames grow in between her hooves. Sparks are flying every direction, a warning for what is to come. "Take this," she yells, aiming her hooves at me. The pure fire, built up between her hooves, bullets toward me.

It travels much faster than I expected and I am barely able to move out of the way fast enough. I can feel my hair singe as the fireball narrowly misses me. It hits the gem right on the crack where all the pieces meet. The gem absorbs the energy of the fire and begins to glow. I hold my breath as I anticipate what will happen next. The gem starts to fade to a dull red hue with not a trace of anything having been done.

The mare begins to charge another blast, not even noticing the stunt in which I had put my hopes for escape.

I'm dead. Yep, definitely dead.

A light from the gem attracts my eye. It is a bright red light concentrated in the center of the gem. The light starts to spread outward through the gem. I close my eyes and brace myself.

"Take it like a stallion, you wimp."

"I'm not scared of you," well, I am, but that's not why I'm bracing myself. "I'm scared of that."

Her eyes follow my pointing hoof to see the gem just as the glow reaches the edge of the gem. "Oh, sh-"

She doesn't finish that thought because she is interrupted by a discharge of energy.

The gem exploded.

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

Running out the room, I am surprised to find myself entering an entire village. Judging from the fact that only one pony had spoken to me since I got here, I am thrown off guard by the number of other buildings in the cavern. There are a hundred buildings with a couple of ponies in each and I just blew up their god.

Oh, look at the time. It's time to run.

I pick a direction at random and run that way. I pass several of the stone huts, each with ponies poking their heads out to look for an explosion. They see me rush past them and, by instinct, they chase after me.

I hear a whoosh behind me.

Then another.

And another.

The terrible sound of a pony lighting itself on fire repeats a few more times. I pick up my pace, hoping that the exit's in front of me.

It is.

I run through the modest entryway, now with the entire town on my heels [Do ponies have heels?]. I am thrown into a familiar hallway, lined with rubies. The stones glow bright as the horde of angry townsponies fills the room with their growing flames. One pony near the back of the group makes the mistake of launching a fireball at me. It does not even come close to hitting me, instead hitting a hoof-sized gem on the wall to my left. The gem releases a wave of red energy similar to the one emanated from the stone deity.

The wave causes me to stumble, but I am otherwise unhurt. The wave continues through me to the other wall of the tunnel, hitting two more gems, which in turn launch their own waves back towards me, from my right this time. The waves hit me and I trip once again.

From behind me, I hear a pony say, “Great, now you’ve started a chain. Everypony, fall back.”

The sound of hoofsteps recedes and I let my own slow as well. Finally, outran them. What did that pony say? Something about a chain?

My question is answered by a wave almost knocking me over from the left. That wave was more powerful than the last. I follow the direction of the wave with my head and see it crash into the right side of the tunnel, lighting up several gems.

Aw, but I’m tired.

I leap into full sprint again, trying to outrun the wave that approaching from my right, but to no avail. The wave hits me and knocks me to the ground. Brushing myself off, I realize that the wave will probably become enough to throw me to the wall soon.

The end of the tunnel comes into sight. I need to make it there soon. By my totally correct—and not just a random guess—calculations, if I let the wave build up three more times, it will kill me before I get out of the tunnel.

I make it halfway to the exit before the wave hits me again, but it knocks the wind out of me, so it takes me longer to get up.

I make it halfway to the exit again. This time I get thrown against the wall, landing with a sickening crunch. My legs seem fine, so I keep going. I hobble most of the way to the exit before the wave comes back, this time hitting me from behind. It sends me flying through the doorway and across the room. I land with a flop. Pain erupts in my chest.

I look down grudgingly and confirm the worst. A white bone is sticking out of my chest. Just looking at the sickening sight makes the pain worse. I need something for the pain. I throw my bags in front of me to search through for medical supplies. As I fumble through my bags, I realize how odd it is that the—what did they call themselves—ruby dwellers didn’t take my bags. They could probably use some of this stuff. Just as I thought, I have nothing in my bags, not a single healing potion or bandage. The only things I have are my rifle, my pistol, and three bottles of Sunrise Sarsaparilla.

“This won’t do,” I say, laughing at the absurdity of the comment. It sucks how it hurts to laugh.

Then, I remember the bandage that I put on my leg all those days ago. A spark of hope enters my eyes as I tear it off a carefully apply it to my chest. The magic has worn off, but at least it will stop the bleeding.

I take one of the Sunset Sarsaparillas and open it. This is for my hurt morale and it helps so much. The bubbly sensation entrances my taste buds and the cool liquid relieves my throat of the hot, dry air that I had been breathing for so long. I savor the tantalizing flavor. It’s enough to distract myself from the real world for a few precious moments, but that sensation only lasts as long as the bottle, and I am faced with the reality of my situation.

“Okay, Ic, time to find Poultice,” I say to motivate myself to get up from the comfortable stone ground on which I lay.

I push myself up with a grunt and look at my options. To my left is the ruby dwellers and no sign of Poultice, but the center and right are still a mystery.

The center, the diamond covered hallway, looks safe (and I could use safe right now), but a howl from deep within the right passage alerts me of the danger in the cave and the fact that Poultice is probably somewhere down here.

I decide to trek into the right passage so I can stop whatever is in the depths from killing my friend.

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

Okay, maybe this wasn’t a good idea.

My side feels worse than the time I had caught on fire. Not only did the walking not help, but it made the pain worse. I don’t think I can walk much further down this tunnel and there is no trace of the end. Morale is at an all time low, but I must keep going. I can’t let Poultice die because I am too weak. I have to be strong, to be powerful enough to overcome this challenge. Plenty of ponies break their ribs. It’s no big deal.

A little voice in the back of my head remarks that those sought medical attention or at least rested. I can’t afford not to ignore him.

“Just continue forward,” I reassure myself. “Poultice will be at the end of this tunnel.”

“Keep moving forward,” I say in time with my steps.

“Keep moving forward.”

“Keep… moving…” I collapse in pain. Clutching my chest, I begin to cough and wheeze. I wipe mouth with my other hoof. I’m surprised to find blood on hoof.

I was afraid of this. The broken rib must have punctured my lung. I cough up more blood and turn to lie on my side to alleviate the pressure on my bad lung.

“So, this is what defeat feels like,” I chuckle to myself at the irony, but quickly my laughs turn to a fit of coughs. “Well, it sucks.”

I have no idea why I’m smiling. The dread of this situation should make me be depressed or angry, but I’m laughing at my own death. What’s up with that?

I mess with my PipBuck to get out one of my last two Sunrise Sarsaparillas. I raise my bottle to the sky and say a small toast.

“Cheers, Death. You have taken my parent and now you shall complete the set.” I take a sip of the drink. The warm bubbly liquid causes me to relax all of my muscles. My eyes slowly shut and I don’t care anymore. Perhaps it’s the drink, or maybe the repeated blood loss, but I just do not care anymore. I am allowing death to take me.

Yes, I can already hear it, the slow clop clop of death. The clopping sound grows perpetually faster and louder, to signify the closeness of death. Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop… Wait a second. That’s not the proverbial hoofsteps of death. That’s an actual noise coming from the real world.

I open my eyes to see to pony I expected to see the least in front of me.

“Poultice?”

“Shut up, raider brain. You’re losing as my blood as a super mutant after he deals with me.” She always knows the perfect thing to say.

She starts messing with the bandages on my side. “Yikes, that’s worse than I thought.” She rips a piece of leather off of her armor and puts it in my mouth. “Bite down on this. If you were the black one I wouldn’t care if you bit your tongue off, but you sometimes have important things to say. I can’t have you being an Avox.”

“What?” I ask, but before I get an answer, Poultice shoves her hoof into my side. To say the least, I make good use of that strap of leather.

After what seems like months, she takes her hoof out of my side and mutters something along the lines of, “Darn hooves. You can’t do anything intricate without magic.” Then, she tried again. It hurts more this time.
“Gah! What are you doing in there? Trying to plant an orchard?” I scream at her.

“Shh, you have to be quiet,” she impresses. “You don’t want them to hear.”

“Who?” I scream this too, half because of frustration, half because she dug her hoof further into my abdomen.

“The mirelurks,” and that, of course, clears everything up, but before I can ask, she exclaims, “Aha! Got it.”

“Great, does this mean you want dig around in my insides anymore?”

“Yes,” she hesitates, a smile growing on her face. “Bite down on the leather,” and with that order, she takes a few mushrooms from her pack. “You ready?” She doesn’t wait for my response before she smudges the mushrooms into my wound.

“Ahh!” I scream some other nasty things at Poultice that I’m not willing to share right now, but you get the idea.

When I finally stop screaming, Poultice laughs at me. “You were always such a wuss. Suck it up.”

I spit the scrap of leather into my bags, “You suck.”

“Hey, if it weren’t for me, you’d be dead, and you’d have a hole in your side.”

“What are you talking about? I still have a ho-” It’s gone! The place where there used to be a rib, now has a smooth gray coat. It’s completely healed. I’m completely flustered, “What? How?”

“Glowcaps. They do wonders for healing.” She begins to look worried. “But that was my last supply and I need some to fix that…new filly.”

“Alright,” I wince. The pain’s not quite gone yet.

Poultice looks at me as if she expects me to say something. When I don’t, she continues, “So, that means that I—and now you too—will have to go back the way I came to get more.”

“Then, let’s go,” I say pushing myself up. I make it exactly three steps before collapsing. I land right on my face again.

Poultice laughs at me. “Not like that. You’re not going anywhere right now.”

“I have to. I won’t let you go alone.” I get back up, wiping the blood of my nose. “Not when I’m still able to help.”

Poultice looks at me with the same expression that you would give to the sky if it started raining frogs. She hesitates, probably sizing me up. Then, she makes a decision. “Fine, but don’t slow me down. This way.” She points deeper into the cave.

I put an unsteady hoof forward and say, “Lead the way.”

She looks uneasy, like she feels that she made the wrong decision. She shrugs it off with a grunt, turns, and begins the venture further into the cave.

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

Walking is more difficult than it was when I was inhibited by my broken rib. That weird plant has stiffened the entire left side of my body. Although I don’t want Poultice to know of this, I’ve gotten a few stares from her when a small groan escapes my lips.

I lose my footing on a wet piece of rock and yelp as I fall to the ground. I try to push myself up, but my side decides that I should stay on the ground. I wince, not in pain, but anticipation. Poultice is not going to be happy with this.

I open my eyes reluctantly. As expected, Poultice is fuming. Smoke can practically be seen coming out of her ears and that could only mean two things, either she’s angry or her head is on fire, and I don’t want to pour the rest of my water on her head.

“What are you doing, making noise like that?” she whispers at me. “Do you want to get us killed?”

That was the most forceful whisper I have ever heard. I feel like I should give her a prize, like a bowling ball. If only I had a bowling ball and weren’t scared shitless. “I-erm I was just…falling,” I manage.

“Keep your voice down.” Despite the fact that she’s whispering and I’m not, I think she’s louder than me.

“Okay.” Is it getting hot in here or is it just Poultice’s head? I look for an escape, some way to derail this conversation so that she’s not angry at me. I find the perfect distraction.

“Um, Poultice, there’s a monster right behind you.” There is. It is a large, crab-like monster, only it walks on four legs like a pony. Its shell, deep blue in color, looks sturdy enough to block a shotgun blast. It looks sort of like something Poseidon and his sea-ponies created to punish the land dwellers for destroying the world.

Poultice leers at me, but keeps her voice calm and composed to emphasize the importance of this question. “Does it look like it should be boiled and served with butter?” I nod, not taking my eye off of it.

“Mirelurks.” Poultice curses under her breath. “Okay, on the count of three, we both start shooting at it,” Poultice dictates.

“Ready?”

I unholster my pistol, hold it in my teeth, and nod

“Three!” We charge the marine beast screaming bloody murder, shooting blindly at mirelurk. After a few rather ridiculous seconds of this, Poultice holds me back.

“Wait a second. This is only a shell,” she says staring angrily at me. “I just wasted bullets on a shell.” She slaps me upon the head.

“Ow! Hey, I probably already have brain damage from all the times I get knocked out. You don’t have to make it worse.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she admits. “You probably do have brain damage, if you confuse a dead Mirelurk with a living one,” She’s grins at me.

I laugh at my own expense. “So, does that mean that there are more of those things?”

“Well, that shell didn’t just appear out of thin air. We need to tread more carefully if we don’t want to end up being dinner.”

I swallow, staring at the shell, “That was what I was afraid of.”

We tiptoe past the shell and sneak further into the darkness.

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

After a few minutes of careful walking, I relax. If somepony was going to attack us, then they would have already, right? I feel so relaxed that I ask the question that’s been bothering me ever since the sapphire stones lining the walls had stopped.

“How can I see?”

“What?” Obviously Poultice wasn’t expecting something so random like that. She looks at me like I’m a cow trying to run a stampede by itself.
“I mean, we are hundreds of feet underground. No light should get through, yet I can see you and you can, presumably, see me. So how is it when we shouldn’t be able to see mere inches in front of us, we can see each other pretty well from yards away?”

She opens her mouth to say something, but stops. She rubs her chin with a hoof, then gives up and says, “I think it’s one of those things that when you think about it too hard, it goes away.” She turns away from me and continues her trot.

That doesn’t stop me though. I mean, I guess it could be a spell, or maybe the walls are lined with a light-emitting lichen… Did the lights just dim? Oh, Celestia, think of something else. Like, like, um, Sunrise Sarsaparilla! Yeah! The sweet golden taste of the sun.

I guess the walls could be enchanted to let the sun penetrate down. The ambient light begins to flicker.

Focus on sarsaparilla. Focus on sarsaparilla. I repeat this to me as I jog to catch up with Poultice.

I catch up to her to see her peering around a corner. She holds a hoof up, silently urging me to stop and look at something.

As I get close to her, to follow her pointing, I notice something about my friend. Her breathing sounds shallow and maybe a little raspy. She’s covered in more sweat than I thought possible, despite the fact that it’s pretty chilly down here. Her usual confident demeanor is not quite there. Her hoof, though pointed straight out, seems to be weighing her leg down, like she simply does not have the energy.

“That must be the mirelurks’ home.” I finally focus on where she is pointing instead of her unsavory condition. There is a large opening in the cave around the corner. A pond had formed from some unseen source and large rocks are churning in the water. All the way on the other side of the pond, a faint light is casting elongated arcs across the walls. My hopes of an escape are squashed, however, when Poultice whispers, “The Glowcaps are over there, past all those mirelurks.”

I finally speak. Excited by the proximity to our goal, I forget to be quiet, “Where are these mirelurks?”

Poultice wastes no time shushing me. “Don’t you see all of them, swimming in the water?”

“What are you talking about? All I see is…rocks.” That last word comes out barely audible as I make a realization. All those rocks are just the heads of mirelurks. There are such a large number of them that counting them would be a waste of time. I’ve never actually fought one, but from Poultice’s reaction, I can tell that fighting fifty at once is a bad idea.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, and as much as I would love to charge in killing those things, we’d be dead faster than a stable dweller in Ponyville. I think we should try to sneak our way past them.”

An unpleasant thought comes to my mind. I try to look for a way other than what I think Poultice is insinuating. The banks are too narrow, there’s no flotation device, and I’m not a pegasus, so that only means one thing.

“We’re going to have to swim.”

Following Poultice’s lead I slip smoothly into the water, careful to not make a splash and I begin to wade across the lake. The water, though I would have begged for this an hour ago, is a chilly knife that cuts right down to the bone. I try not to wince with every second that goes by.

To make matters worse, the number of rocks I had seen on the shore was only a fraction of the mirelurks that are filling this lake. I try to focus on following Poultice, but I feel weird staring at her flank for so long. That’s creepy, right? So, I avert my eyes, so to speak.

My eye catches a glint in the water. It’s a reflection of light from the glowcaps. It causes a glimmer not only in the water, but also in my brain. I got it! It’s a series of mirror-like walls that diffuses the light around. No, wait. That’s stupid.

A bolt of pain jolts up my leg. I look down at the water grudgingly; however it’s redundant by this point. A creature is already rising out of the water rubbing its head and looking really confused. This confusion lasts less time than my stunned fear. The creature roars at me, simultaneously alerting all the other mirelurks. As I sit there shaking in fear, one thought dominates my mind.

I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die! I’m gonna die! SUNRISE SARSAPARILLA!

As I try to distract my brain from the danger, Poultice springs to action.

“Hyah,” she yells, kicking the back of the monster’s head. This does nothing to damage the Mirelurk through its tough shell, but it takes its attention off of me. The mirelurk takes a lunge at Poultice. I hold my breath expecting her to get crushed, but at the last second, she dives under the water to avoid it.

A second later she reemerges and yells at me, “Get out, rockbrain!”

This unfreezes my muscles and I turn to leave the cavern. The problem is that I turn to see a mirelurk charging at me. Those things can really swim so I barely have enough time to take out my pistol a shoot a single shot. Somehow, this is a money shot, killing the beast dead in one shot, but that doesn’t stop the armada.

Another charges me from the right. I use this opportunity to try out the new S.A.T.S. program on my PipBuck. My brain is plunged into overdrive, getting a boost from the S.A.T.S. Hit percentages and probabilities come into my head while everything around me seems to be moving in slow motion. I line up three shots right to the head of the charging mirelurk. S.A.T.S. tells me I have great chance of killing it, and I do. It’s all over in only a second or two, but I feel like I just got plenty of time to kill it. This power feels great. I want to try that again.

It seems I about to get that chance another comes at me from the other side. I fall smoothly into bullet time and line up a few shot, however when I pull the trigger the first time, time speeds back up to normal, leaving me more disoriented than the first time I used S.A.T.S. I end up missing the next couple shots, leaving me wide open for attack.

A claw reaches out and grabs me around the neck. It lifts me out of the water and brings me close to the face of mirelurk controlling it. It looks me, squinting, as if it were a scientist studying his newest discovery. It doesn’t seem like it wants to hurt me. I’ve never dealt with these creatures before, but looking at those claws, it could probably snap my neck like a toothpick. So why isn’t it?

“What are you doing?” I say, struggling to get the words out through a clenched neck.

It tilts its head like I did something intriguing. Then, it opens its mouth, pelting my ears with high pitched clicking. It looks like it’s struggling to speak to me, but seeing as how it’s a crab and I’m a pony, neither of us can understand the other.

Another mirelurk approaches us on a homicidal rampage. The mirelurk holding me looks over at the charging one and glares at him. The other mirelurk steps back in fear, but quickly regains its confidence and attack the one holding me. I feel the vice grip loosen from my neck as my mirelurk defends itself.

Using this distraction, I slip out of the claw and into the water. To my surprise, the mirelurk doesn’t even care. It seems glad to be able to use both of its claws to fight. The fight is no longer about me; it’s about fighting in general. Although it’s a small blow to my ego, I’m still glad to be away.

I start to make a break for the shore. Stomach deep in water, this is actually pretty difficult. I feel a tug on my tail and down I go into the water. I resurface with my gun out ready to shoot. Only, there is nothing there.

“Hmm,” I could have sworn something was behind me.

Walking out of the water, I feel the tug again. Now, it’s starting to bug me. I try to twist myself around, but my side is still too stiff from the glowcap body rub.

I weigh my options quickly in my head, quickly deciding to get far away from danger before investigating.
I run for as long as I can and when I can’t run anymore, I stop to both catch my breath and listen for any pursuers. The only thing I hear is the sound of blissful silence. It hurts my ears. It’s so silent it physically hurts my ears. I mean, there is now a gnawing sensation in my left ear that can only be explained but the utter silence engulfing me right now.

Now that I’ve confirmed my safety, it’s the perfect time to begin worrying about somepony else’s safety. In this instance, it’s Poultice’s safety that I’m worried about. Last time I saw seen her, she was conducting hoof-to-hoof combat with a mirelurk. Poultice is tough, but I can’t see anypony winning that fight.

Just then, I hear faint hoofsteps clopping down the hallway. That’s weird. The thought hasn’t even blossomed into a worry-filled flower yet. It’s such an odd time for Poultice to arrive.

Sure enough, the (color-I-can’t-remember-right-now) mare comes into my vision looking as exhausted as I feel. And, although I don’t have a flower in my head, I smile with relief at the sight of her.

I wave my leg in broad sweeping motion to get her attention. I don’t know why I make such a big deal out of it, but it feels right so I don’t stop.

When Poultice gets within range to see more minute details, I expect her to be relieved as well, but she just has a stern look cemented onto her face. It’s rather scary. I know that whatever bereavement is coming next will be intense.

“Hey, what’s up?” I say to fill the silence, not that it makes it any less awkward.

Poultice reaches into her bags, allowing a tiny crack to open and reveal a glowing interior. My shoulders feel a weight lifted off them as I realize that those must be the glowcaps. Poultice flips her head back around to show me the glowcaps and omigosh that’s a gun.

Her rifle, glistening with underground lake water, is pointed directly at my head.

“Stay perfectly still,” she orders in the stern, confident voice that only Poultice can manage. She winces as if the words or the twisting motion caused her pain. That causes her to bite down on the trigger. In the painful silence of the cave, I can hear tiny mechanism straining in her gun, simultaneously trying to hold back the monster stored within the barrel and unleash its fury.

“Poultice,” I say, my voice quavering a little. “What are you doing?”

“I’m saving your life.” Her words are cold, but firm. They do nothing to help me relax.

“Why is my life in danger?”

She finally lowers her weapon. “Wait, you mean you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

She looks awkwardly at me. "Well, you've got a parasite hanging from
face." She paused, a look of disgust flashes on her face. She reaches out a hoof, but to my surprise there is no gun, just an empty hoof. I flinch anyways.

"Stop squirming," she orders. "Let me get it."

With that, she reaches up to my ear and plucks something off it. She holds in front of me to see it clearly. I see what it is, but don't believe it. A mirelurk was hanging off my ear the entire time I was making my escape. Granted, it is just a baby, but I should have noticed something like this.

The mirelurk hangs upside down by Poultice, snapping its claws and making small, soprano roaring sounds. It doesn't look like it'll grow into a monster. It just looks like a foal, albeit a foal with a shell. The little guy yawns, having grown tired of his feeble struggling.

"Okay, I'll kill him now," Poultice announces bluntly.

"Woah, woah, woah! Why do you have to do that? I mean, he's never done anything to you."

"His mommy tried to kill me."

"And why does that mean you have to kill him?" I'm practically begging, but it still feels nice to argue against Poultice.

She grimaces, obviously not happy with the pressure I've put on her. "Fine, but you have to take care of him.” She starts to walk away like she’s done with the conversation, but she stops. She twists her head back to ask one final thing. “Why do you even want him?"

Memories of the dream I had last night assault my head. I want to say that I don’t want to be that pony, but I can’t or won’t... not to Poultice. “He was just so cute,” I say. I mean this as a joke, but the mirelurk doesn’t help convey my intention. He falls back on his shell and get stuck, flailing his legs. The clinically proven cutest action any pony-eating creature can do.

She shrugs and changes the conversation. “We should rest here.”

The baby mirelurk yawned and curled up in a ball as if on cue. That makes me realize just how tired I am. I broke a rib today. With the way my life is pointing right now, breaking a rib seems tame in comparison to all the other horrors that are becoming a norm. The ghostly apparition, overly possessive plant, and... my parents’ gruesome death. Still, injuries sap the energy out of you. It’ll be good to get a rest.

I don’t waste any time. After conferring with Poultice who would go on watch first, I crash on the ground next to the little guy.

His eyes spring open and he looks back and forth to the source of the noise. When he sees me he crawls over and snuggles next to me.

In all the bleakness and death in the wastes, he’s a beacon of innocence and adorableness.

I think I’ll call him...

Life.

Footnote: Level up!
New perk: Flame Proof, those fire ponies don’t stand a chance against you if you can’t catch fire, right? So let’s fill your veins with asbestos!
+15% fire resistance

Comments

[Deathpony]

good chapter like the Ruby Dwellers sound cool look forwards towards the next chapter

[fiendofthet]

938048

Yeah, I know it's been a while, but I got a job so I didn't have quite as much time as I expected. Good to see a few people still remember this little story.

938739

Ever since I read Antipodes, I've been wanting to work with fire ponies. They just are so cool.

[fiendofthet]

191173

I just realized that this comment basically says "cool story bro."
Blew my mind.