Fallout Equestria: Cloppenhagen chronicles.

by neoxxx666

The adventure begins.

Chapter 2: The adventure begins.

“So, what should we do now that we’re out of the stable?” Sky haze asked as we trotted along the dusty streets of Cloppenhagen.

I shrugged, I for one wanted to get some caps and maybe a better weapon, so I better could defend myself, but now that I thought about it, I realized that I didn’t know how adventurers earned caps when they stepped out of the stable. As we walked around, we eventually found our way to the entrance of the main market, and an idea sparked in my head; I turned my head to Sky and said “Maybe people in the market needs help from a couple of adventurers.”.

Sky looked at the entrance for a moment, before she grinned “Yeah, maybe they’ll need us to take care of an army of rad scorpions or maybe we’ll have to take care of more of those Drake claw guys.” She said, sounding very much excited at the prospect of killing monsters.

I giggled lightly and said “Well, let’s first see if we can actually get any work first.” When Skys ears started to droop, I hastily added “But if working here becomes too boring, we can always go into the wastes and seek some thrills ourselves.” Sky immediately smiled and nodded happily. I smiled back and said “Now let’s go and see what treasures the market holds for us.” Sky nodded again and we walked into Cloppenhagen’s main market.

The first thing I did when we entered the market, was to check my pipbuck’s map; and sure enough, the market’s three main areas, the regular, the gun range and pleasure street, along with the harbor, the hospital West medical and the main gate popped up on the screen. I also started receiving radio signals that were normally unavailable to the stable dwellers, due to the stable’s thick walls and the fact that it was located inside a mountain.

We had entered the area of the market that was normally called ‘The regular’, and as we walked around we quickly noticed the many power armor clad ponies, which served as the city guard and was known as the ‘Hagen Rangers, walking around the city, making sure that aggressive situations didn’t evolve into anything uncontrollable; their armor was painted red with a white hoof print where their cutie marks normally was, the same as the flags attached to the flagpoles on top of the main gate.

One of the shops caught my attention; it was one of the bigger clothes shops I had seen while we were walking, though this looked like it had a finer selection of wares ‘Hmm, I would like a new dress, if only just to have something nice to show Sky the next time we’re having some nighttime fun. And maybe I can get some info on where we can get some work.’ I thought before I told my marefriend that I was going into the shop; she nodded and told me that she wouldn’t be far away from said shop.

I walked up to the store and nodded politely to the blue coated, golden maned earth pony mare who was sitting behind the counter, before proceeding into the store. After a little while, I returned to the counter, carrying a nice, simple, midnight blue dress that I thought was perfect the purpose had in mind “I would like this please.” I said, putting the dress on the counter.

“Of course dear.” The sales mare said as she found some brown paper, and started wrapping up the dress.

I watched her wrapping for a bit, before I asked “Do you by any chance know where we could find some work?”.

The mare looked up from her wrapping, and just then it looked like she actually saw how I was dressed “You’re one of those adventurers from the stable right?” She asked.

“That’s right, just got my license not too long ago.” I said with a proud smile on my face.

The mare nodded and smiled back, as she finished wrapping up the dress “If you walk in the direction of the main gate, you’ll come across a big message board, it’s full of jobs and missions for adventurers to do; that’s a good place to start.” She said and handed over the neatly wrapped dress, which I slipped into one of my saddlebags.

“Thanks a lot miss… uhh.” I had forgotten that I didn’t know what the mare’s name was; but fortunately, she was willing to share it.

“Oh, I’m Gold Thread.” She said, showing her cutie mark, which was a spool of gold colored thread.

‘She really lives up to her name.’ I thought, before I said “I’m Amora Rosa, pleased to meet you gold, and thanks for the info.” I handed over the caps for the dress, and a few more as thanks for the information.

“The pleasure is mutual.” Gold said as she counted the caps; she was a little surprised at finding a few caps too much, but after brief explanation she gladly accepted the extra caps, and gave me a friendly smile on the way out.

I found Sky nearby, looking at display of stone carving tools “Finding something you like cutie?” I asked as I walked up beside her.

Sky smiled and nuzzled my head a bit, before answering “I was thinking about buying some new tools, but I think we should save our caps until we have accumulated some more.”.

“Well, it wouldn’t be all that bad to indulge yourself a bit, on your first day out of the stable.” I said a little nervously while keeping my eyes on the tool display, and mentally kicked myself for not thinking practically like my marefriend.

Sky looked down at me, having apparently noticed the nervous tone of my voice, and asked “What did you do?”.

I sighed and said “Bought a new dress for when we got to have some ‘fun’ again.” It actually felt good to get it off my chest, and I soon smiled shyly at Sky.

Sky smirked when she heard the purpose of my purchase, and said “Well then, maybe I could buy a little something for myself…” I thought that she was finished, and was about to suggest what she should take from the display, when she continued “But I’ll wait until I’ve seen what else the market has to offer, I might just find something we both can enjoy.” She gave me a seductive wink, and I knew that she was going to look for something to spice up our sex-life.

I blushed and giggled a bit, but quickly shrugged it off and said “Well, anyway, the pony in the clothes shop said that if we needed work, we should head in the direction of the gate, to find a message board with odd jobs for adventurers to do.”.

“Awesome, let’s go then.” Sky said and soon after, we stood in front of the message board; we both tried our best to find something that would be a good start to our adventure “Augh…” Sky groaned after a while, as she looked from message to message “Where do we start in this mess?” She looked pretty frustrated.

“Hmm.” I mused as I looked at the messages myself; I suddenly spotted a note from the gun range, the weapons district of the market “What about this one?” I asked and pointed at the note; Sky walked over and I read the message out loud “Serge from ‘The gun rack’, requests help to reclaim the warehouse where he keeps his weapons locked up, from a swarm of radigators. The reward is 200 caps and a 10% discount on any purchases in his store.” I looked at the pegasus and asked “Doesn’t that sound like something good to start out with?”.

Sky looked thoughtful for a moment, before she nodded and said “Sounds awesome, let’s get going.” I nodded and tore the message off the message board, and we trotted off towards the gun range.

O-O-O

The gun range was very different from the regular; instead of the more closed up shops that you could walk into, the shops in the gun range had a counter that blocked off any access to the shop, which was understandable, considering the items that was being sold in this part of the market; if you had the caps, you could literally arm a good sized army, and wage war for days.

We quickly located Serge’s shop, not only because of the big sign with a mare that was covered in ammo belts and twirling a revolver, with ‘The Gun Rack’ spelled out in big, black letters underneath it, but also because it had a lot less wares than the other shops. We walked up to the counter, and saw that there was nopony there “Hello, is anypony here?!” I called into the store to try and get the attention of the shop’s owner.

The response came in the form of a foal’s cry, followed by a somewhat frustrated groan from the backroom; there came some shuffling and some hushed whispering, which in turn made the crying stop. After a few minutes, a dust grey unicorn, with a military green mane and tail, and an ammo box cutie mark, came out of the door that separated the shop from what must have been his home “Goddesses damn it, the girl can sleep from machinegun fire, but as soon as a customer speaks a little too loud, she wakes up and cries.” He grumbled loud enough for us to hear, as he walked up to the counter, cleared his throat and said with a small smile “I’m Serge, the owner of this shop, what can I help you fillies with?” The tone of voice he used was the kind that a seller usually used to persuade buyers to buy more than they need, or when he wanted them to buy something they don’t need.

I got the job message out of my saddleback, and put it down on the counter “We are here about the job.” I said in a lower tone than normal, afraid that I might wake up Serge’s foal again.

The smile on the dust colored unicorn’s lips became a little wider by my words “Oh thank the goddesses, I’ve been trying to get rid of those beasts for days. Come with me; I’ll tell you what I need done when we get to the warehouse.” He said as he jumped over the counter and pulled a thick metal fence down from behind the sign, suddenly the size of the thing made a lot more sense.

“What about your foal?” Sky asked as we started trotting towards the warehouse.

“Don’t worry, her mother will take care of her.” Serge said simply.

“Okay.” Sky said, sounding relieved; we both figured that Serge just happened to be in the room when I called, and had left the little one to her mother after calming her down.

O-O-O

“Here we are.” Serge said when we arrived at the lot that surrounded the warehouse; we were near the southwest corner of the great wall, the area of the city where the permanent traders of the city had their warehouses. There was indeed a lot of radigators in the lot, but not so many that the job seemed unreasonable. Serge walked up to the gate and said “You see, a few days ago, these beasts came in through an underwater sewer entrance, and they decided to make their breeding grounds in my warehouse lot; you see, I had forgotten to close the gate that night, and when I returned the next morning, I had to lock the gate so I wouldn’t get eaten. Now, what I want you to do is to kill the lot of them, and smash their eggs while you’re at it, I don’t want to deal with more of those beasts than I have to.” The unicorn floated a key out of his gray vest and started unlocking the gate.

We both nodded, and while I waited for Serge to open the gate, Sky closed her visor and took to the sky and got ready to take care of any radigators that tried to get me when I entered. I drew my weapon and readied myself; the gate opened with the help of Serge’s magic, and the nearest of the large reptiles pounced on me, before I could set foot inside the lot; however, it didn’t get a chance to take a bite out of me, because my personal guardian angel chose that moment, to deliver her divine punishment onto the predator; I looked up and blew Sky a kiss before I ventured into the lot.

It wasn’t long before I was running and jumping for my life, because with every radigator we brought down, there was two or more that tried to sink their teeth or claws in me, which they succeeded in doing a number of times, before I could kick them away and get a new shot in; since I didn’t have much experience in using S.A.T.S, I didn’t really know when to use it and when not to, but I guessed that I would learn in time. The pain that came with my inexperience was remedied with some of the med-X I’d acquired from the stable, but even with the potent chem in my system, it still hurt when one of the beasts bit or scratched me. Sky decided to end her air assault, and come down to ground level and help me out; because her armor was stronger than mine, she held up a lot better against the large reptiles than I did, but that didn’t keep them from trying, but they only succeeded in creating scratches in the surface of the armor.

We finally disposed of the last of the beasts and their eggs; I sat down on one of the dead reptiles, it had been one of the more stubborn ones, which was proven by several cauterized wounds that had been punched through its body by my gun. I opened one of my saddlebags and got a healing potion out; I might have med-X in my body, but painkillers were never a substitute for healing, and I was bleeding quite a bit.

While I drank my potion, Sky walked over and sat down beside me, she lifted her visor and asked “How’re you feeling Amora?”.

I finished the potion and chucked it into one of the destroyed nests, where it made a mix of splats and cracks against the broken eggs; I took a deep breath as I felt my wounds knit back together and said “I kinda feel like a chew toy, but the potion will take care of that; what about you cutie?” I gave her a quick nuzzle as I asked her.

“I’m good, but my armor got scratched.” She said and mock pouted as she showed off the scratch marks on her armored flank.

“Oh, come on here and let me kiss it away.” I said with a chuckle, before I planted a quick kiss on her cheek “Better?” I then asked her and Sky nodded “Now, let’s get back to Serge and get our payment.” I said and got off the radigator, Sky nodded and did the same, and we started walking back towards the gate.

“Amazing job, you two.” Serge said with a smile, when we returned to the lot gate; he opened the gate and stepped into the lot, moving the radigator carcasses as he made his way to us “Go and take a breather outside the gate, I’ll go get my wares.” He said and walked towards the warehouse, flinging the dead radigators away as he did; we silently walked out of the lot and sat down on some nearby crates, happy to be alive and looking forward to getting paid for a job well done.

Serge soon returned with a cloth covered wagon, probably so he wouldn’t attract attention as we walked through the city streets “Say Serge, do you have any energy rifles in your stock?” I asked quietly; I didn’t want to attract attention, since we walked around with Serge’s stock of weapons.

“Yes, I do actually, but can I ask why you want an energy rifle? You seemed to do very well back at the lot.” The gray stallion said as we passed out of the warehouse district and into the housing area that separated it from the gun range.

“Well, a couple of Drake Claws tried to attack stable 169 earlier today, we helped the guards fight them, but my gun barely scratched them, so I really don’t wanna run into more of them, not without some more serious firepower.” It wasn’t because I was all that afraid of those raiders; yes they looked scary, yes they were strong and had razor sharp hooves; and yes, I did hold some fear for them, but if I were to confront them again, however much I wished that I would never have to, I was not going to do so unprepared.

“Sounds reasonable; but let me give you a little piece of advice…” Serge said and stooped so he didn’t have to concentrate on the road, and continued “Always keep your pistol and baton around, or at least something similar; a big gun is nothing if you have to fight everything with it, it’s a waste of ammo, just keep that in mind, okay?”.

“Sure.” I said with a smile; I could see what he meant, no need to shoot flies with a canon.

The rest of the trip back to the gun range was spent in silence, but it was the good kind of silence; me and Sky were walking behind Serge, nuzzling each other, but also keeping an eye on our surroundings, it was a universal truth in the wasteland, that there always was somepony who wanted something others had, even in a relatively peaceful city like Cloppenhagen, this rule applied. We finally made our way back to ‘The Gun Rack’; Serge hoisted the fence back up behind the sign, and together, we started loading the weapon caches over the counter; once we were done, Serge moved the wagon behind the house, before getting back behind the counter “Now, let’s get your payment in order.” Serge said and ducked under the counter, and soon after, I was counting the caps that Serge had put before me.

“Yup, exactly 200 caps.” I said and shook hooves with the merchant pony, before I divided the caps into two piles; I scooped one pile into my saddlebags, and gave the other to Sky, who did the same, I then turned to Serge again and said “Well, it was nice doing business with you Serge, I hope we’ll see each other later, when I have enough caps for that rifle, if you’ll set one aside for me.”.

“Sure kid.” Serge said and gave us a smile. We turned to leave, but we didn’t get very far, before Serge stuck his head out of the shop and whistled, making us turn around and look curiously at him “By the way, if you don’t want to go back to the stable tonight, you can ask Safe Code over there…” He pointed to a red earth pony stallion with an orange mane, who was sitting behind the counter of his own shop, not too far from where we were standing “He rents out rooms for a few caps a night, just so you know” We both nodded and gave the gray pony a smile, and walked back towards the message board.

O-O-O

“Now, what job should we take now?” I asked both myself and Sky as we looked at the many job notes.

Sky, like me, was looking for something that could be interesting “Hey, what about this?” She asked and pointed to one of the notes.

I walked over and looked at the note; it was from the local book store, somepony named Harvest moon needed help in gathering new memory orbs and books for her shop, and was willing to pay good caps for them, 7 caps for memory orbs and 5 for books; in fact, if we found enough, we would have enough caps so I could buy a magic beam rifle from Serge, Sky could buy her little gift to us, and we’d still have enough for us to stock up on ammo, food and chems for a good long time. I pulled the note off the board, and put it in one of my bags “It sounds just like the job we need:” I said and we walked over to the shop, which wasn’t that far from the message board.

“Hey there fillies, what can I do for you, some good prewar stories, or maybe some memories from the past?” The mare standing behind the counter asked us enthusiastically, when we arrived at the store; she was an earth pony with a blond coat, a gray mane, an omega symbol with a moon behind it for a cutie mark, and a smile on her face that more or less reached her ears, making her look like she was on a sugar high.

We both looked at her for a moment, just to make sure that this mare was for real, we had never seen anyone so happy in our lives, so this was a very new experience to us; Sky reached into my bag and pulled out the message, and put it in front of the mare with the words “Actually we’re here for the job you needed help with, miss Moon.”.

“Oh, follow me then.” Harvest said, her smile disappearing a bit at the realization that she didn’t get to sell anything; she waved us behind the counter and into a backroom that was filled with books. We sat down at a small reading table in the middle of the room, with a couple of Sparkle colas, and Harvest started filling us in on what the job was about “A few days ago, a resident here in Cloppenhagen came here to sell me some memory orbs, which looked almost brand spackling new. I of course accepted them and asked her where she had found them. She told me that she had gone exploring a bit outside the city, and that she had come by an old M.O.M hub. She went into the building and found a vault full of memory orbs, and not only that, she found a hidden entrance that led back into the city, that she told me how to find. But, since I can’t leave the shop, I need somepony to go down there and get some more for me, and books if there are any.” She took a quick drink of her cola, before asking “So, are you 2 up for the job?”.

“Sure, it doesn’t sound like too much trouble.” I said and took a drink myself.

“Actually, there is a little thing.” Harvest said, fidgeting a bit with her hooves.

“And here comes the trouble.” Sky said with a smile and took a swig of her cola.

“So, what can we expect inside the hub?” I asked and gave Harvest an approving smile, it couldn’t be much worse than the Drake Claws or the radigators.

“Well, you see; the resident said that in order get into the vault, you need to get to the 3rd floor of the building; there, you need create a temporary key to get the vault door opened…”

“Hold on a sec…” Sky interrupted “I thought this resident already opened the vault.”

“She did, but apparently the vault door is automatic and still working, so it closed after her when she left it, and she says she lost her key, though I’m pretty sure she lied about that.”.

“Sounds about right, hiding the key and pretend it’s gone, so she can milk all the caps she need out of you.” I said, emptying the last of my cola.

“Exactly, but I have a little theory that once a new key has been made, the one before it will be useless, but it’s just a theory though…” Harvest said with a little giggle and continued “But getting hold of a key is the easy part, getting up there is what’s going to be hard; you see, there are zombies in the building, not that many according to the resident, but enough to make it a dangerous trip.” Harvest also emptied her cola and waited for a moment to let the information sink in, before she asked “So, are you still in?”.

We turned away and Sky asked in a whisper “What do you think?”.

“Well, she did say that there weren’t that many zombies in the building; and if she’s anything like Serge, we’ll be out of there with only scratches, and our bags full of books and memory orbs. So yeah, I think we should do it.” I whispered back.

“Okay then.” Sky said before we turned back to Harvest “We’re in.” She said and smiled at the blond coated mare.

“Great.” Harvest said before getting up and walking to a corner of the backroom, and returned with a pair of extra saddlebags, which she put on the table and said with a smile “Here, take these. I’d like to have as much of that vault removed, before somepony else finds it.”.

We gladly accepted the bags and after being told where the hub entrance was, we gave the merchant a quick ‘see you later’ and trotted off towards the sewer that would take us to the abandoned M.O.M hub.

O-O-O

“Yuck, this has to be the most disgusting thing I have ever done.” I said as waded through the Cloppenhagen sewers knee deep sewage; it had been a little under 10 minutes since we left the streets, and descended into the smelly, sludgy and murky tunnels beneath. Fortunately for us, we were in possession of our pipbucks, which was lighting our way with their built-in lights, and showing us the way to the hub with the auto-map system.

“Yeah, it’s gonna take forever to get this stench out of my armor.” Sky said, walking a little ahead of me. I couldn’t blame her, the sludge of the sewer got in through every opening in your clothes, making you feel icky all over. Growing up in the stable, and not having maintenance jobs, meant that we both disliked very dirty places; it wasn’t so bad on the surface, it was just the way nature was, but the sewers were a different story.

I looked at my pipbuck map for a moment and said with a smile “Well, at least we won’t have to deal with this much longer.” We walked for a bit longer, before we came to as set of stairs that led to a heavy iron door. We unbolted the door and pushed it open; the vault area was not all that impressive, it was a white painted concrete room, with a pair of massive vault doors along one of the walls, and a staircase at one end of the room “Nice and quiet, works for me.” I said and closed the door behind us.

“Yeah, but don’t forget that we have to go up to and get ourselves a key.” Sky said and trotted over to the stairs.

“Yeah, but it’s still nice that there isn’t some sort of monster to attack us as soon as we get out of the sewer.”

Sky nodded and put her ear to the door, trying to listen for signs of movement inside the building; after a few seconds of listening, she pulled away and said “Okay, I think the coast is clear, but you better get one of your weapons out, just in case.” I nodded and drew my pistol, loaded a fresh spark pack into it and nodded for Sky to open the door.

The corridor we entered smelled of dust and slightly like something had died in there, and it had the same look as the vault, only with faded posters of Pinkie Pies’ smiling face, I guessed that it hadn’t been all that important to the workers at the hub, what the things behind the scenes looked like. We didn’t the chance ponder much about the interior decoration, before all hell broke loose; we had only just rounded the corner, when a hellish scream rang out through the building, followed closely by the sound of clopping hooves; I didn’t have time to fire a shot, before the zombie was on me, snapping at me with its rotting, yellow teeth. I struggled with the undead pony, and tried to get in a position where I get a shot off, preferably right in its face, but its erratic movements made it an almost impossible task.

Suddenly, the zombie was kicked away by my very angry marefriend, slamming it into the wall and stunning it for a moment; she snorted and growled at it “Nopony hurts my marefriend and gets away with it.”.

I slowly got up, along with the dead pony; I entered S.A.T.S and poured three shots into the zombie’s skull, turning it into green dust. I sat down hard, dropping my gun in the process, and let out a shaky breath; I was scared out of my mind, not because of the attack, but because of the speed the monster had come with, and the fact that in fighting it, it had almost ripped my throat out “By the unwashed balls of Luna, how did that thing find us so fast?” I asked in a voice as shaky as my breath.

Sky lifted her visor and said “I really don’t know, but I think we really need to keep a close eye on our E.F.S’s from now on.” She didn’t look or sound as frightened as me, but then again, she hadn’t been the one who was attacked.

I nodded and took a pair of deep breaths to calm myself down, before I picked up my gun and holstered it, switching it out with my baton “Okay, even if I don’th like thish, I’m not gonna back outh now, noth afther that trip through the sewers.” I said, giving my weapon a few swings before we walked down the corridor, red markings already popping up on our E.F.S’s.

We had only just entered the very festive looking, pink colored lobby when more feral ghouls attacked us, but this time we were ready for them. The first two were put down with a couple of shots, from Skys nova surge rifles; the next got its skull bashed in by my baton, and finished off with a stomp of my hooves. I looked up to see another zombie as it crashed into me, and promptly sunk its teeth into my shoulder. I almost started panicking, as the memories of our first encounter with the walking dead ponies resurfaced, but my will to live was stronger and it forced the fears back under the surface; I smacked the zombie upside down the head, making it let go and fall off me, I quickly got to my hooves, wincing and bleeding from my shoulder wound, and this time I made sure to keep an eye out, while stomping the undead pony’s head in. I dropped the baton and drew my gun once again, slipping into S.A.T.S as two more ferals came my way, sending as many bolts of magical energy as I could into their heads, burning big holes in one of them and reducing the other to green dust.

When I came out of the spell, I watched as Sky as she took care of the last three zombies. She walked over to me, lifted her visor and said “Damn this is so freaky, how did those things know we were coming?” She looked worried and I felt the same, how did those things know where we were, when they couldn’t see us.

I downed a healing potion to deal with the shoulder wound, damn those thing bit hard, and started pacing as I thought it over, what had we done that could have gotten the zombies attention, without them having to look at us. Then it suddenly hit me “Of course, it’s because we stink of sewer, they can smell us and the first zombie’s scream probably also got some attention from the others.” I said in disbelief, I couldn’t believe that we had been so stupid.

“Man, some adventurers we are, we go into a building, smelling like the goddesses knows what, and the occupants just happens to have super sharp senses, by Celestias flaming clit we’re stupid.” Sky said and face-hoofed.

I couldn’t have agreed with her any more “Come, we better find a restroom and get some of this stench off, so we have a chance of seeing them before they see us.” Sky nodded and we started following the signs that pointed towards the toilets.

After a quick cleaning of our clothes with some soap and lightly radiated water, and eating some of the food that brought along from the stable, we made our way up the stairs towards the third floor; we only met three or four zombies on the first and second floor, which we quickly disposed of, since we now had a chance to see them before they attacked and the third floor was surprisingly, completely empty.

We took some time to search the offices for things we could sell or use ourselves later on; we found a number of bobby pins, prewar bits, a few clips of small caliber ammo, porn magazines and some novelty items in the form of plushies, bubbleheads, autographed photos and action figures.

One of the last offices, which had belonged to someone named Dandelion Dust, had a safe built in the wall, so while Sky searched through the drawers and trash bins of the office, I started picking the safe lock, but it turned out to be one of the really stubborn ones, so I ended up breaking four bobby pins, before the lock finally gave in and let me gaze upon the contents within. There was a big bag of prewar bits, an ornate pistol, with dandelions engraved on it, with a few clips beside it and a black metal box, marked ‘R.D Cloppenhagen excavation’.

I took all of the items and put them in my bags, before taking a quick inventory check; the gun had been marked by my pipbuck as ‘Dandelion’s bloom’, and the black case as ‘Rainbow Dash memory orbs and Rainboom speeder’. I cocked an eyebrow at this and pulled the case back out, and put it on the desk; I undid the clasps and opened the lid, revealing four memory orbs and what looked an electronic bracelet beside the orbs. The bracelet had a rainbow colored button, in the shape of a lightning bolt on it, with wires and metal tubes apparently running all the way around it “I wonder what this is all about?” I asked myself quietly before closing the case, and put it back in my bag; I then turned to Sky, who was looking through some file cabinets, and asked “Ready to go Sky?”.

“Yup.” Sky said and closed the cabinet, before following me out of the office. The next office turned out to be the one we were looking for, it was a bit fancier than the others, the desk was bigger and more ornamental, with carvings of pegasi on the legs, there was a large picture of Pinkie Pie behind the nice looking chair, and in a corner was a large, pink machine, which we assumed was the key making machine “Okay, let’s get ourselves a key.” Sky said as she walked over to the machine, and started looking it over to figure out how it worked.

I just nodded absentmindedly, because my eyes were drawn to the picture of Pinkie Pie; she was wearing a tiara and was sitting on a treasure chest, but that wasn’t what drew my eyes, it was many bronze keys on the ground and Pinkie herself, who was sitting with a gold key in her mouth ‘could it be.’ I thought to myself and walked over to the painting; I put a hoof behind it and gave it a good tap, which made the painting swing out, revealing another safe “Sky I think I’ve found something better than a temporary key.” I said and started picking the lock.

Sky walked over and asked “What have you found.”.

“Maybe shomthing that’ll shave us the trouble of figuring out that machine.” I said with my teeth around the bobby pin. This safe turned out to be another tough one, but thanks to a little luck, I only broke three bobby pins before the lock allowed me access to the safe’s contents; I opened the safe and smiled when I saw the small electronic key lying on a small, blue pillow, it looked like a of circuit board in a clear plastic casing, with part of it sticking out to act as the key and three balloons, one blue and two yellow, printed on top of the casing “Shee, I told you it was shomething better.” I said before I put the bobby pin and my screwdriver away.

“Awesome, a master key.” Sky said with a smile that almost reached her ears.

I nodded and carefully lifted the key out of the safe, and into my saddlebag; we then searched the office, not finding anything of our interest, before leaving the office and heading for the vaults. On our way back to the vault room, we ran into a few more zombies who had sniffed us out, and we left with a few scratches, but otherwise unharmed; once we were back in the vault room, we made sure to bolt the door, so we wouldn’t have to worry about unexpected company; we then made our way to the first vault “Well, this is it.” I said as I took off my saddlebags and got the key out, before putting the bags back on and inserted the key into the key reader beside the door.

The three lights on the key reader lit up as it recognized the key, and the door gave off a series of loud clonks as the bolts slid back into the door, before it opened, revealing shelves full of memory orbs, each with a label that told who had been the owner of the memory “Jackpot.” Sky said as we walked into the vault.

“Jackpot indeed.” I said and we set to work on collecting orbs in the extra bags that Harvest had given us; once the bags were full, we got out of the vault, and I took the key out of the reader and the door closed.

“Should we take a look in the other vault? It might have something interesting inside.” Sky asked and I couldn’t help but agreeing with her; we were in a place that hadn’t been touched for 200 years, so goddesses help us if we didn’t take a bit of everything with us before we left. I inserted the key in the other key reader, and the results were the luckily the same as before, only this time, the shelves inside the vault were filled with books instead of memory orbs.

Sky immediately went to look at the titles of the books, while I took the time to read a bronze plaque that was nailed to the first of the bookshelves; it said that the books in the vault were unchanged editions, if the taboos that had been put on them were ever lifted ‘Well, at least they had hope that the world would go back to normal.’ I thought before I went out between the bookshelves to look for interesting books.

We ended up finding a lot of books to sell, and a few we wanted to keep for ourselves, among those we wanted for ourselves, were a Zebra hoof to hoof combat book, a book on how to modify weapons to become even more lethal than they already were, using methods that Zebras used, a ‘Zebra sutra’ love guide and a lock picking guide, what that did there I didn’t quite know, but I took it anyway; and so, with full bags, we closed the vault and went back to the sewers, where we bolted the door and started our trek back to Cloppenhagen.

O-O-O

Night had fallen when we reached Harvests shop again. The gray maned merchant was sitting outside her now closed up shop, drinking a cola and enjoying the relatively warm night; she looked up and smiled when she heard us coming “Hey you’re back, so were you lucky? Tell me, tell me.” She asked excitedly, her smile once again reaching her ears.

“And a good evening to you too Harvest.” I said with a tired smile as we game to a stop in front her “Could we talk inside, we don’t want to lose our cargo, when we spend so much time getting it?” I asked, I felt just about ready to collapse from the weight of my bags, and from all the work I had been doing.

“Oh sure, sure come on in.” Harvest said and opened the door for us. We spend some time telling what had happened in the hub, with Harvest listening so intently that we at one point thought that she had forgotten to breathe. After completing our tale, we gave the extra bags back to her so she could sort out the orbs we had collected, while we sorted through the books, just so we wouldn’t accidentally give her the ones we wanted for ourselves. Harvest was tried to count up the orbs for a good 20 minutes, but it seemed that she was either tired, or just too excited to count properly, and in the end she let out a frustrated sigh and said “Listen fillies, I just can’t count right now, would you mind terribly if you have to wait until tomorrow to get paid?”.

We looked at each other for a moment; Sky just shrugged and turned back to the book she was reading; I turned back and said “Fine by us, and if that’s the case, then we’ll go find Safe Code and get some sleep.”.

“You’re staying at Safe code?” Harvest asked as soon as the words had left my mouth.

“Not really, but we heard that he’s renting out rooms, is there something wrong with that?” I asked and scratched the back of my neck.

Harvest Moon quickly shook her head and said “No, no, of course not, it’s just that, his place is not the cleanest of places.”.

“But we don’t know anywhere else to go.” I said and started fidgeting with my hooves.

“Then it’s a good thing that you met me.” Harvest said as she walked around the table and over to the door “Come along, I’ll show you a better place to stay.” She said and opened the door. We quickly gathered our stuff and followed our new merchant friend out the door, and after locking it, Harvest led the way to what would be the place we would stay for the night.

The place that Harvest had talked about turned out to be Gold Threads shop, Harvest walked to the door and knocked a few times until Gold opened; they talked for a little while, before we were let inside. Gold told us the price for the room, which was 10 caps a night for two ponies, and after saying goodbye to Harvest, we paid Gold the agreed caps and was showed to our room.

The room was quite nice, it was made from a bedroom from one of the torn down stables, but the walls had gotten a coat of pink paint, and there was a nice, light blue carpet on the floor, the bed was just like the ones back in the stable, but that was okay for the both of us.

We said goodnight to Gold Thread, and once we were alone, we went to the bathroom and gave our barding and armor a good wash, and once we had hung it up to dry, we went back to our room and laid down in the bed; I snuggled up to Sky, who put her head on mine after kissing the top of my head, I gave her neck a quick kiss, before I closed my eyes, and as I laid there in the final moments before sleep overtook me, feeling the soft coat and feathers of my marefriend, it felt like all the horrors I had experienced that day had never existed, I felt in all sense of the term, at peace. I snuggled a little closer, and soon fell into a deep, peaceful sleep.

A/N: I finally got this done, and I apologize for the long wait, but I none the less hope you enjoyed it, and that it wasn’t too rushed, but if you think so, you’re welcome to tell me so, and I’ll try my very best to correct it. As a little bonus, I’m including a bit of information on Cloppenhagen, and I’ll be doing this for each chapter I complete. Once again, I hope you liked the chapter, and hopefully I’ll have the next up a little sooner than this.

Stable 169: The only stable in Cloppenhagen that’s still in use, every other stable was scavenged for equipment, dismantled and used for building materials for either the city itself or the grand wall; it offers cheap medical help and possibilities for trading among the inhabitants. Trade however, requires trading papers that can be obtained at the entrance to Cloppenhagen; these papers must be kept in a lockbox, that is provided by the city guard, at all times; if a trader fails to present the papers, the trader will be refused entrance to the stable; if a trader presents the papers from anywhere else than the lockbox, the trader will be allowed access to the stable, but his/her wares will be checked by the stable security. If illegal wares are found, the trader will be thrown out of the stable, or if said trader becomes aggressive, he/she will be given a warning; if the aggressive behavior persists, the trader will be shot and the wares will be taken into custody and later be distributed to the inhabitants of the stable. Inhabitants with an adventurers license is allowed to leave and enter the stable at any time they wish; any other inhabitant of the stable must fill out a special form that takes a few days to process, to leave the stable.

The main market: The central part of Cloppenhagen that lays north of stable 169; it is one big market where traders and business people can freely buy, sell and trade. City guards called ‘the Hagen Rangers’, who is dressed in scavenged, fully functional Steel Ranger armor patrols the streets to make sure there aren’t any fights. The market is divided into 3 areas.
The regular:
For buying and selling food, books, memory orbs, clothing, chems and potions.
The gun range:
For buying and selling guns, ammunition and armored clothing.
Pleasure Street:
The place for anyone who looks for a good time, prices varies from place to place, but if you have the caps, there is nothing you can’t get in the districts; there are also a lot of places that sells sex toys for use on the road or to take home.
The main market also has ponies that are willing to provide shelter for anyone who needs to lay low for a couple of days, or just needs a place for the night, be it to heal up or if there is a bounty on their heads.

Comments

[Noakwolf]

First to read new chapter. That was cool, the end good day ness.