> Fallout Equestria: Stella Royale
>  by RuinQueenofOblivion
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> Prologue: Heist of the Century
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

You’ve heard of the tragedy of Canterlot.

At the end of the war, the once great city was covered in a cloud of pink gas. A horrific creation of Zebra design. It preserved the city and its inhabitants, a twisted monument to the folly of Ponykind. The unlucky survivors twisted and preserved as the Canterlot Ghouls.

It was finally destroyed by the Enclave in a moment of fire and death. The city was gone, and supposedly so was the last of the pink cloud. At least that was what ponies thought.

But there is another story in the Wasteland. A tale told by old Ghouls who spoke of it as if it was some sort of religious icon.

You see, as the war raged, the societal Elite of Western Equestria wanted a way to take their minds off of things. So a new project was launched, a resort high in the mountains known as the Stella Royale. Folks from all over Equestria were invited to the opening night.

To be at the Stella Royale was a sign of status. Celebrities and nobles were given invitations to the resort opening. Some even say that the Princesses and Ministry Mares were set to be there. It was to be a shining light in the darkness of the Great War.

But it was not to be.

As the last day came the Stella Royale was preparing for the opening gala. But as the world burned, the ponies in the Royale survived for a time. Until one day, it too was swallowed up by a cloud of pink gas.

What happened to the Royale? Nopony really knows. But some say that she still stands there preserved in the mountains of Equestria. Her treasures still locked away in the depths of the casino.

Those who have been there and made it back tell tales of horror. A cloud hangs over it like nothing seen since Canterlot. The casino stands guarded by ghosts and surrounded by a city of the dead.

The Stella Royale is no longer a shining light in the Darkness. Now it has been swallowed up by that darkness and twisted into something evil. The treasures inside is something ponies would go to war over.

And war… war never changes.


00000


I slung my saddle bags over my barrel as I headed out into Camp Night Sky. In the wake of the events of the battles in New Pegasus and the Enclave War they had started to expand more. Night Sky was on the edge of their Mohoofe holdings.

I was just a visitor at the moment to be honest. I leaned over a barrel of water and splashed my face. The water stilled after a moment, and the face of a Zebra mare with Zencori stripes looked back at me.

I might as well introduce myself. My name is Sani, I’m a Viatorem from the Free Roam Alliance. I was sent here by the Consul of the FRA in order to help with the dealings with the NCR and their allies.  Riva and Zafir were out of Crusader Town and there were more to the south.

Now my job was to do the same in the West. The Viatorem had a duty to the Alliance to make contact with other groups. I had heard of a smaller nation in and around Seaddle called the Cascadia Federation. They had been a minor player in the Enclave War, but had never played a large role outside of the city.

And so that was where I came in. The Consul wanted to learn more about them, so she sent me.

“Viatorem Sani,” a stallion’s voice said from behind me. I turned to see a Unicorn stallion with a grey coat and dressed in Ranger armor stood there. “You’re up early.”

“Colonel Scale, yes I wanted to get an early start today,” I replied with a soft smile. Colonel Grayscale was the Ranger commander for the Camp. “I have a long way to go to get to Seaddle still.”

“The offer of a Vertibuck still stands you know,” Scale offered. “The territory between here and Seaddle is still very wild after all. Yes, yes I know you’re trained to survive that kind of thing. Still, I don’t like sending you out there. I know the General would be mad if a dignitary died out there.”

“Colonel, Viatorem training requires surviving for weeks in the most wild parts of the Homelands,” I laughed as I patted my rifles. “Equestria has nothing it can throw at me that I can’t survive. I appreciate your concern, but I will be fine, I promise.”

Grayscale frowned a little at that. It was a shame to see a handsome face like his marred by a frown. If he was a Zebra perhaps we could have even been something more.

“Fine, but be careful Sani,” Grayscale told me. “There have been stories about ponies going missing around here. You don’t want to be next, right?”

“I’ll be fine,” I reassured him. “I’ll send you a message when I get to Seaddle, okay?”

“Okay,” Grayscale replied.

I nodded and put my earbuds in my ears from the prototype PipBuck. The Propoli had made it for Viatorem after reverse engineering it from one found by the hero of Roam, Azala. It had taken some getting used to, but I had gotten the hang of it quickly.

I set the radio to NCR radio as a song started playing.

“Shattered remains of once great cities,
These silent highways lead to halls of stone.
Every horizon brings it closer now,
I venture onwards into the unknown.”


00000


I was making my way through the Wasteland outside of New Pegasus. Even from this distance I could make out some of the lights from the cloud city. This felt more like my element than the camp or the city.

I took a deep breath as I made my way over a rock outcropping. I checked my PipBuck again, things looked pretty normal right now at least. I was going through my radio stations again when I noticed one just called “Mysterious Broadcast.”

That was odd, why was it there? Curiosity got the better of me as I switched to the broadcast.

Looking back, this was the biggest mistake of my life.

“The Stella Royale Resort and Casino is having its grand opening,” the purr of a Mare’s voice came over my earbuds. “We will be opening our doors to the ponies of Equestria as well. If you’d like to join us, come to the coordinates in this transmission. The Royale is the finest resort in all of Western Equestria. We are the shining light in the darkness. Come to the Royale, we are waiting for you there. The jewel of the west waits for you.”

Okay, that was incredibly weird. I had never heard of the Stella Royale before, was it a settlement? A city? I had no idea right now as I looked at my PipBuck again for a moment.

What was I supposed to do? If I went I would be late to my arrival in Seaddle. But if this was a new settlement we could meet, then the Consul would be happy with me. This was my chance to really make a name for myself in the Diplomatic Corps.

“Okay Sani,” I said to myself. When you travel alone you tend to do that to keep yourself sane. “This is crazy sure, but maybe it would be a good experience for you. Things can’t be that bad, right? I might as well at least check it out.”

I checked the map this time. The location on it was labeled as an abandoned Steel Rangers bunker. It wasn’t that far away at least, if I went there it would give me a place to go.

I changed direction towards the next destination. I followed the marker towards the bunker. It took me about 10 minutes to get there, I made my way down into the bunker after a moment of hesitation.

The interior was older than I expected. Lining the walls were discarded papers and graffiti that said Stella Royale. It was a bit creepy as I made my way deeper into the bunker, half expecting to be attacked at any moment.

But I wasn’t. Everything was pretty normal as I made my way to the back, following the sound of static. If there was something that would get me to Stella Royale, it had to be here.

But when I got to the back, there was nothing but a radio and beds lining the walls.

“Okay, I’m here,” I said as I looked around confused. “My name is Sani, I’m a Viatorem from the Free Roam Alliance. I’m here to open talks between the FRA and Stella Royale.”

I felt kind of dumb saying that out loud, even more so when I was answered with nothing but silence. This had to be a joke of some sort. I sighed a little and started to turn around when a hissing sound was heard.

I smelled gas, and my hooves gave out from under me. My eyes went black, and the last thing I saw was a pair of green hooves walking towards me.


00000


I groaned as the world slowly came back to me. I held my head for a moment as my vision returned to normal. I blinked in surprise, I wasn’t even sure where I was now. I was standing in an odd town square. There were buildings around me that looked intact with high arches.

I brushed my hoof against something metal and looked down. There was an odd metal coin or chip there which I picked up and brushed it off. On it was two words, the same two words that brought me here. The mystery of this place and why I was here.

Stella Royale.

I quickly looked up and gasped. The sky above was pink and cloudy. In fact, there was a lot of pink around me, though none of it was close. But that was impossible, the Pink Cloud had only been deployed in Canterlot and in the ruins of the old city or so the records said.

So this was impossible.

“Well, I must say I was not expecting a Zebra,” a male voice said behind me. I spun around to see a hologram of an Earth Pony stallion being projected off a fountain. He was an old stallion with a scraggly beard, that was all I could make out. “But still it is not unwelcome. I bid you welcome to the Stella Royale, Zebra.”

“Who are you?” I demanded of the stallion. “Why did you lure me here?”

“You may call me Father Quasar, you are here to take part in a grand undertaking,” Quasar answered. “You are here because I need your skills. Look down at your neck.”

I looked down and realized that there was a metal collar around my neck. There was a flashing light on it as I realized what it was. It was a bomb collar, the Legion had put these on their slaves. Why was I wearing one?

“Why did you put this on me?” I demanded of the stallion. “Answer me! I am a diplomat from the Free…”

“You will find that such titles don’t matter in the Stella Royale,” Quasar snorted. “I can detonate that collar at any time you know. Now, you will do what I tell you and you will make it out of this necropolis alive. We are here to raid the casino’s vault, the greatest treasure of the old world this side of the Dragon Lands rests there. Work with me and you’ll escape with your life and treasures beyond your wildest imagination. Otherwise, you won’t have a head much longer.”

It sounded like I had no choice at this point. I didn’t want to die right now. But this Father Quasar creeped me out. But then again, what choice did I have right now?

“Fine, what do you want me to do?” I asked.

“There are three others who are collared just like you,” Quasar answered. “Find them and bring them back here. I would be careful however.”

“Careful?” I asked.

“The Cloud will have effects on you in here,” he answered. “The collar you are wearing as well as the clothing has been treated with special enchantments so they won’t fuse to you, at least not for a while. However the broadcasters will trigger the bomb collar if you aren’t careful. A few good shots will take them out or if you get out of range in time.”

“So, you’re trying to kill me?” I asked with a growl.

“An unforeseen problem I’m afraid,” Quasar answered. “For now, go out and find the others. I would go after the Alicorn in the old police station first however. She would be the best place to start. The old singer and the Unicorn can wait for now. I transferred the coordinates to your PipBuck.”

I nodded a little as I checked the map and three new markers came up. I eyed the one with the police station, that should be where to start.

“I’ll be back shortly,” I said as I started to walk away. I looked at my side, a new strange rifle was there now. It looked like an energy rifle of some sort. I had to hope that it was enough.

“Be careful of the dead, they still walk these streets,” Quasar added. “The Ghosts are waiting and will hurt you if you aren’t careful. Good luck, and welcome once more. The Royale welcomes you into its embrace.”

And with that his voice cut off. Now, haunting music began to play from the fountain.

“I come from a world where all alarms are false,
I come from a world that only has one pulse.
In all worlds nothing is immutable,
Our nature is gentle and the divine is mental.”
> Chapter 1: Full House
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I was honestly at a loss for what to do right now.

My map called this area the Chateau. It was made up of buildings lining the street that looked like nopony had lived in them for years. It was creepy to say the least, I kept my eye on my EFS at all times out of fear.

The Pink Cloud, how was it even here? The old Empire had not intended to use it anywhere else in Equestria. It showing up here out of the blue didn’t make sense. There had to be something more to this, and it only added to the mystery of the Royale.

Then there was the treasure itself. The FRA had lost a lot of money and infrastructure in the war with the Legion back home. Even a small fortune would help with trade and stabilization of the nation.

But that was assuming I could get out of here with my life, let alone with treasure. I needed to get out of this place, but walking out was just asking for trouble right now.

So for now I was going to have to do what Quasar said. I hated that I didn’t have any other options right now. For now I had to find this Alicorn that Quasar had mentioned was in the Police Station.

I took a deep breath as I heard a sound ahead of me. I came around a corner and that’s when I saw the first of the locals. They were dressed in odd black clothing with a gas mask covering their face.

I hadn’t ever seen anything like that before. I ducked behind a column and checked my EFS again, whatever that thing was it was hostile. I checked my bags, I had enough ammo to take it out, but I didn’t like dealing with this right now.

“Okay Sani, it’s just a creepy pony, you don’t have any reason to be scared,” I said to myself in an attempt to reassure myself. It wasn’t very helpful, but it made me feel a little better. “You’ve dealt with way worse. Just take it out quickly and you’ll be fine.”

I adjusted the odd rifle and looked back at the creepy pony. At least they hadn’t noticed me yet. I swung the rifle around and aimed for the pony’s barrel.

“Spirits guide my aim and keep it true…” I prayed quietly as I pulled the trigger on the rifle. An energy bolt cracked through the air as it flew into the odd pony’s body and made contact with a crackle.

The ghastly pony snapped up and looked right at me with an unnatural sound. It lumbered towards me with a long spear levitated up and spun it around. I fired another shot at. It paused a moment before starting towards me again. The shot hadn’t even slowed it down, it wasn’t normal.

“By the spirits... what are you?” I screamed as I backed away. I fired several more shots into the pony. Each shot only seemed to make it angry as it got closer to me.

I fired one last shot into the pony as it got close to me. I was ready to do hoof to hoof when the creature finally fell onto the ground in front of me. My heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. I spotted the strange spear it had been carrying and picked it up.

It was an odd design to be sure. It looked like a broom handle with odd knives taped to it like a spearhead. It was a clever design really, I had to give these odd ponies that. I slid the spear onto my back and checked my inventory screen. It was called a Knife Spear, not very imaginative but it did the trick.

“Okay, now let’s see here…” I said as I started walking again. But before I could go five feet I heard a sound behind me.

I turned to see the strange pony getting to its hooves once more. My eyes went wide in shock at that as it headed towards me again. Quickly I drew out the knife spear and gripped it in my hooves as it got closer.

I hadn’t wielded a spear in years, but it didn’t require much knowledge of how to use it. I thrust it forward into the pony and caught it in the neck. I was shocked by how easily it went down this time. Probably this time it had been weakened enough.

But it was going to get up again, that much I was sure of. It wasn’t natural, so there was no point in holding back. I stabbed the spear into its neck, cutting off its head as I fell back onto my flank breathing heavily.

“What are you,” I said out loud to myself or whatever spirits resided in this Hell. That’s when I saw it, there was a pink mist coming out of its neck wound. I screamed and backed away quickly, dragging the spear with me.

I should have known. There was only one thing that could live in this kind of place.

“Equus Exspiravit…” I said quietly as I stared at it. We called them Ghost Ponies, but those in Equestria gave them another name.

Canterlot Ghouls. They were the only things that could live in this city of the dead.

I breathed heavily as I watched the corpse of the Ghoul for a long moment. Finally I was convinced it was dead as I got to my hooves and slid my spear back into the saddle.

I started walking again in silence. I knew how to kill one of these things, and it would be better off dead anyway. But still I was scared. This city, this Royale was a nightmare that I would need to escape somehow.

I made my way towards the police station again. I was about to turn again, but I saw something strange. There was a hoof mark against the wall painted in white. I glanced around and walked towards it, it was next to an old suitcase and I opened it carefully.

Inside the suitcase was a revolver, food, water, healing potions, and several boxes of ammunition. I put it in my bags and looked around it to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I found an odd note and opened it up out of curiosity.



 “To whoever finds this,

I can only believe that you got dragged into this Hell by the same forces that brought me here. I set these caches up around the Chateau to help me if I ever needed them. I guess you found it first. Take what you need, I can always get more, but replace it if you can.

Do not trust Father Quasar. He knows very little about this place. I know the secrets of the Royale and what is waiting for us at the bottom. Don’t believe a false prophet who promises gold. Not all that glitters is gold and not all that is gold glitters.

Getting out of this Hell is our priority now. I hope to see you around whoever you are.

V.K.”



I put away the supplies, I had none of my own anymore so I needed them. I started back towards the police station and found it after a moment. I opened the door quietly and went inside.


00000


I silently entered the police station wishing that I had my stealth cloak. I covered my ears for a moment when my collar started beeping. Luckily the source was easy to find, an old radio was activated and I shut it off with a sigh of relief as the beeping ceased.

I looked ahead of me and into a holding cell. Seated against the wall was a pony… but this wasn’t a normal pony. She was a tall dark green Alicorn dressed in armor with a collar around her neck. She was hunched over muttering to herself about something.

“Hello?” I asked, trying to get her attention. “I was sent here by a Father Quasar. I’m guessing you’re the Alicorn I’m here to find.”

“Oh yes yes, that would be us.” The Alicorn said, her gaze shifting upwards and meeting mine. “What can we do you for dearie?” 

“He told me to find you and two others in order to get into the Casino,” I replied. “I didn’t exactly expect to find you like this though. Are you stuck in there?”

“Oh not at all! We put ourselves in here.” The alicorn said with a laugh. “We bet you’re wondering why now, right?”

“Yeah, I kinda am,” I said as I eyed her for a moment. This Alicorn was a bit weird, but then again I hadn’t actually met many Alicorns. Maybe this was actually normal for them and the ones I had met were the weird ones. “Why would you put yourself into a prison cell?”

“To protect the others of course!” She said cheerily “You see, not all of us agree on things, and some of us have problems with self-control and not getting into trouble, locking ourselves in here was the best thing we could do, We hid the key, the others do not know where it is.”

“The others, do you mean the others in the Chateau?” I asked. “Have you met any other ponies in here?”

“Now come to think of it we don’t think we have.” She said, lightly tapping at her chin with a hoof. “Come to think of it you’re the only other pony we’ve seen, been quite lonely here dontcha know.”

“Uh, I’m a Zebra technically, or did they erase my stripes…” I commented but looked back at her. “Okay, so if you haven’t seen anypony else, who are you keeping the key from?”

“Us!” she said, giggling excitedly to herself and clapping her hooves together.

“You’re… hiding the key from yourself… but you know where the key is…” I said as I rubbed my forehead a little. “That doesn’t make any sense. Or, do you have short term memory loss or something?”

“You could call it that, though it’s more like the others aren’t always in charge,” She said, smiling and nodding at me. “Though, I suppose seeing is believing huh? Don’t worry though, you’ll meet them in due time!” 

“Okay, well the creepy hologram pony said to get you,” I replied as I eyed her for a moment. “Something tells me you’re not just going to give me the key though. I mean, that would be way too simple for this kind of place…”

“Oh no, we’ll tell you, no need to worry your pretty little head over it dearie,” she said, standing from where she had been standing and coming closer to me. “Just gotta promise us that you don’t tell them, it’s a really good hiding place as long as they don’t find out.” 

“Okay, I won’t tell them, whoever they are,” I said with a nod. This was getting weird, but I did hear about Alicorns from the Unity having some sort of Hive Mind years ago. Maybe this was related to that with everything that was going on. “Would it help if I swore to the Spirits not to?”

“Who are the spirits? They sound nice.” She said, giggling to herself again. “But you know how us alicorns, we have a hive mind, but the cloud here, it disrupts that, and when we stopped hearing them a couple voices got trapped, they’re still here, up in the ol’ noggin, sometimes they take control, but usually they just leave me to it.” 

“Oh great… she’s insane…” I muttered to myself with a forced smile before speaking up again. “But yes, if you tell me where it is I’ll let you out of the cell. Then we can go find the others and hopefully get out of this nightmare.”

“Oh yes, the key, right.” She said, starting to tap at her chin again. “All you gotta do... is levitate up that there console over there, there’s a small cavity under it where I put the password to the safe to get the key!”

“Right, levitate, I’ll get right on that…” I groaned as I looked back at the terminal. “So, do you have a name or should I just call you Crazy Green Alicorn?”

“We are… complicated.” She said with a little chuckle. “We, never decided on a name for ourselves, In unity there is no need for a name.” 

“Well I can’t just keep calling you the Alicorn,” I pointed out as I looked at the terminal for a moment. It was still active, there was some data on the screen but it looked like it needed a password. “This’ll take a moment, I can’t just levitate it out of the way. How long have you been in the Royale anyway?”

“Too long.” She said, with a frown. “Without all the others it’s very quiet, We couldn’t tell you how long we’ve been here - just that it has been many moons.”

“Yes, you Ponies and your moons,” I said as I started moving the terminal slowly. “Sometimes I don’t even think you know how long a Moon is. Right now we need to focus on getting out of this place.”

“A moon is from whence it is full, to when it is full again - this is what we’ve always believed.” She said, taking a little bit of a sigh and shaking her head. “If this is correct, we do not know - But we do know that one of what we consider to be a moon cycle is around… thirty or so sun rises and sunsets.”

“Yes, we call that a month,” I said as I finally pushed it out of the way and picked up the paper with the password on it. I looked at it curiously for a moment. “Cheddar?”

“Yes yes! That is it, the password to the safe” She said, nodding her head frantically.

“Alright, if you say so,” I said as I moved the terminal one last time and looked around for the safe in question. 

“Upstairs, door on the left, under the Sheriff’s desk,” She said, smiling at me.

“Thanks,” I said as I headed through the stairs and started walking up them. I kept on guard as if something might jump out at me at any moment, but nothing happened. I reached the room in question and found the desk and knelt down, brushing the keypad off a moment and then realizing that something was wrong.

This keypad didn’t have letters on it, it had numbers. Why then had the note had a word? That made absolutely no sense.

“Okay, this is insane, why would she tell me to go somewhere that doesn’t even have letters on the keypad?” I groaned as I looked it over again. This didn’t make any sense, but I might as well go see if that… weird Alicorn knew what was going on.

I sighed a little and headed back downstairs and into the room with the Alicorn. “Hey, Gestalt Alicorn thing, that safe doesn’t take letters. What kind of joke is this?”

“Oh! Right, sorry, that must be the password to the terminal downstairs in the armory, the numbers password is there for sure!” She said, chuckling a little to herself. “We did say this was a very good hiding place.”

“And you couldn’t have just told me that already?” I asked with a groan as I headed for the second set of stairs and headed down them.

This time as I got farther down my collar started beeping again. I looked around quickly, suddenly very scared as I looked for the source of the beeping. Spotting an old radio on a table, I raised my rifle and fired an energy bolt into it. It crackled with static before it went silent once more, falling onto the ground.

“This is getting really annoying…” I muttered to myself as I started walking down the corridor again. I adjusted my rifle again as I looked for the terminal in question as I reached the armory and looked around for a moment before finally finding what I was looking for.

Against the wall next to several old weapons and lockers was a table with a terminal. I sat down in front of it and typed in the password, CHEDDAR. This had better actually be the information I needed.

Thankfully this was true as I loaded up the terminal screen. There were several things listed on it already.



ARMORY LOG.
SHERIFF’S PERSONAL LOG #1.
INCIDENT REPORT #2013.
SAFE CODE.



I had to admit that despite how dire the situation was, I was a bit curious about this place. I opened up the Armory Log, it was just a log of what was taken out of the armory up until a certain date. I noticed that they seemed to increase after the Last Day. No real surprise there to be honest, this place had probably descended into chaos.

I opened the Sheriff’s personal log next. Most of the files were corrupted, but I pulled up one of them that was complete, the one on the Last Day..



We all knew this day would come eventually, even though we hoped that it wouldn’t. The bombs have fallen, and the Stella Royale is still standing. The Ponies that made it to the Gala are terrified, not that I blame them, I’m as scared as they are and so are my deputies.

That blasted Solace hasn’t even left the confines of his precious Casino. The Gala was supposed to go off and open it up to the Chateau. I guess he decided that with the bombs having fallen there was enough fireworks for one lifetime. Still, the fact that it’s gone completely quiet feels, wrong. I’m going to send Sky Fire to investigate, she’s the only Pegasus on the Force and she should be able to reach it.

If there’s anypony even left in the Casino at this point, I hope that the Princesses are watching over them. Right now we don’t even know if there’s anypony left in Equestria.

Some shining light this place wound up being.



I closed out of it and glanced over the remaining surviving logs. There wasn’t a lot of information there, just your basic reports of day to day life before and after the Last Day. Finally I closed out of it and opened up the Incident Report file.



Incident #2013:

A Pegasus pony appeared in Coucher du Soleil today. She was reduced to a feral animalistic state and attempted to attack any pony nearby. She was put down by Deputy Auger during an attempt to attack one of the maintenance ponies. When her body was recovered it was discovered that the pony was Deputy Sky Fire who had been sent to the Casino and vanished. Her body appeared to be fused with her armor due to an unknown cause. Her body was burned without further investigation in the event that it may be contagious.



“Spirits… so that’s how it all started…” I muttered as I read over the reports and files again and again. Now everything was starting to make more sense, though it still left a lot of questions about how the Pink Cloud got here to begin with.

I sighed a little and clicked the last option. My face fell, I don’t even know what to make of this to be honest. The screen had the numbers all over the place without any clear order, probably an effect of the Pink Cloud. I quickly wrote them down and logged off the terminal, so I’d have to talk to the Alicorn again.

I trotted back up the stairs and into the main room once more. “Hey, uh, I need your help again. It seems the code got a bit scrambled.”

“Okidoki, so what you’re going to wanna do, is enter the number then press the button marked Break to enter the next number.” She said, perking up again. “Now the order should be, 23 05 99 47 01.”

“I swear if this isn’t the actual code this time…” I muttered as I headed BACK upstairs to the safe, muttering something about insane Alicorns and insane ponies and insane EVERYTHING in this insane city. 

I was going insane, that had to be it, I was probably lying back on the floor in that blasted bunker slowly losing my mind. I was  never going to hear the end of this from the others in the Diplomatic Corps.

I sighed and crouched down by the safe again and put the numbers in one at a time. Finally it beeped as it opened up and I opened to see… a strangely perfectly preserved cupcake and a note.

“WHAT IN THE NAME OF THE SPIRITS IS GOING ON IN THIS CRAZY PLACE!” I screamed as I kicked the safe and a sharp pain shot through my hoof. I finally collapsed onto the ground, breathing heavily as I stared up at the bottom of the desk.

And that’s when I saw it, taped to the bottom of the desk, was a spirits damned key.

“Oh hey, there’s our cupcake, was wondering where we put it.” A familiar voice said, the cupcake levitating up and past me. Sitting across the room in a chair, munching away on the cupcake was that Alicorn, just cheerily smiling at me.

“You… I’m an idiot,” I groaned in realization. “You can’t lock yourself in the cell if you don’t have the key.”

“Oh no, the cell was locked, Alicorns can Teleport.” She said with a giggle. “Do you know what the lesson is?” 

“Don’t trust an insane Alicorn to give you an honest answer?”

“The Casino you have been tasked to enter, the one we have been told to follow you into - is going to have many more dangerous and complex puzzles and traps then this one. If you could not do this, you would not stand a chance in there - and not only drag yourself to your death, but us with you.” She said, her demeanor changing. “Forgive us if a test was necessary, you see many ponies have tried, none have succeeded.” 

“Yeah… I’m starting to realize that…” I said as I sat up again and looked at the Alicorn. “This place is a death trap isn’t it? The whole place I mean.”

“From the traps and puzzles, to the ghosts, most definitely.” She said, sighing softly. “My sister did not mean to mislead you, she only knows what we have told her - She is the most trustworthy of us with this kind of information, however - she did not know this was a test, she honestly believed that we were stuck in that cage until somepony unlocked it.” 

“Well, here we are then,” I said as I got to my hooves. “I should probably formally introduce myself, shouldn’t I? My name is Sani, I’m a Viatorem from the Free Roam Alliance. Not that I’m exactly doing my job well right now.”

“As nice as that sounds, all of that means nothing to us.” The Alicorn said, standing and brushing herself off. “We are Unity, as you may have guessed. It is nice to meet you Sani.” 

“It’s a fancy title for a diplomat really, one with survival training who seeks out settlements and factions instead of being sent to one specifically,” I explained. “But that’s not really important. I guess now we have to go and find the other two ponies that Father Quasar sent me to look for.”

“Ah yes, Father…” She said, pausing and taking a deep breath. “We would suppose you would prefer to use the name he has provided us rather than just referring to us as Unity?”

“Really, I’ll call you whatever you want me to call you,” I said with a shrug. “But that would probably be for the best, yes.”

“Father refers to us as Silver Show.” She said with a sigh. “We have no idea why he insists, something to do with our being green.” 

“Well, I’m sure it makes sense in his head,” I shrugged. “So, we should get going I guess. Though I have to ask, do you know anything about this place? Like, other than that it’s a death trap?”

“We assume you have already met with a ghost?” Silver said, sitting up and taking a deep breath. “We will give you the key to defeating them quickly and efficiently. Do not bother shooting them, unless your weapon can disintegrate them, else wise you will absolutely need to use a knife or other tool of sorts and disable the creature, preferably through decapitation.” 

“Yes, I learned that the hard way, luckily I’m familiar with these Ghosts through secondhoof accounts,” I said. “We call them Equus Expsirivat. Ponies around here call them Canterlot Ghouls, I guess calling them Ghosts is more pithy.”

“They are different than the ghouls of Canterlot, way back when we were tasked with holding together unity as we looked for a book in the ruins of Canterlot, we came across many of the ghouls there. Even the ones who are feral went down with ease - these here, they are different, they even appear to have a sort of magical resistance that the ones of Canterlot simply didn’t have.” Silver said, shaking her head with a sigh. “We are thankful that you did not fall to the ghost, that would have been most unfortunate”

“Yeah, it would have been,” I said with a smile. “Sorry if I got a bit frustrated back there. I’m glad you’re at least friendly. The only other things I’ve encountered here so far are Father Quasar and that Ghost thing. A friendly face helps.”

“Friendly helps, it gets us farther and helps us achieve more.” Silver said, slowly nodding. “We must admit, there is far more than what meets the eye going on here, Father Quasar is not all he appears to be, and other friendly faces - may not stay so friendly.”

“Yeah, I saw a note to that effect,” I said as I remembered the weird stash I had found. “But since he’s threatening to blow our heads off if we don’t do this, and I doubt even an Alicorn can recover from that, we should do as he says. At least for now.”

“We do agree.” Silver said and relaxed a bit. “You didn’t happen to see our weapon down in the armory, we are afraid one of the others may have came in and taken it.” 

“I saw several weapons down there, most looked like they were too degraded to use though,” I replied. “What was it?”

“A zebra rifle, or a carbine of that sort. Has Nightbird engrained on the receiver.” Silver said, using her hooves as though she was trying to express what her rifle looked like. “It was a gift, from a friend, we must get it back.” 

“I was more focused on the terminal, but we can go take a look,” I suggested. “Maybe it’s still in there.”

“We must hope.” She said, standing and heading out of the room. “To lose that rifle, would be a great disgrace to us.” 

“Well, then I hope it’s in there,” I said as we started down the stairs. “So, uh, I have a question. Why don’t you just teleport out of the Royale? You could probably get out of range of Quasar’s detonator pretty easily.”

“Dead Mare’s switch.” She said, looking back at me. “Set to detonate if it loses connection with the detonator.” 

“Because of course it is,” I groaned. “He’s a smart one isn’t he? Though somehow he still didn’t consider the fact that the radios would trigger the freakin’ collars.”

“Do you understand how frequencies work?” Silver said with a chuckle. “It’s the same system, these old radios broadcast on a frequency not too dissimilar from the detonator frequency, the two frequencies cancel each other out, collar thinks you’re no longer in range of the detonator, it beeps, letting you know to get back in range, and if you don’t… boom.” 

“Still seems like an oversight the size of Okambo,” I muttered as we reached the stairs leading down. “But I see your point. Yes, that does make sense.”

“It makes more sense when you consider these radios were not turned on by him, but by one of the others he brought here for the same reason he brought you here, with the intent to kill others who he brought so that the wealth does not need to be shared.” Silver said, stretching a bit. “He even moved and placed radios around to make mazes out of them.” 

“Yeah, treasure seems to bring out the worst in beings,” I commented. “Perhaps I’ll tell you some of the stories I’ve heard of the Great Hoard sometime. But in the meantime, let’s see if we can find your rifle.”

“Sounds like a plan, lead the way.” Silver said, motioning me forward. 

We headed downstairs and into the armory. I started looking around for any sign of the weapon that she had mentioned, taking another look at the terminal for a moment before moving on. Checking around I found a few more rounds of ammunition for the revolver I found before, but nothing that looked like what she had described.

“Any luck over there?” I asked as I looked back at Silver.

“It is not where we had left it.” Silver said with a sigh, pulling one of the old rifles off the wall and placing the sling around her neck. “We will have to retrieve it.” 

I sighed, of course it wasn’t going to be that easy. Well, it wasn’t like we were on a deadline or anything. “Okay, we’ll find your rifle too, I promise.”

“We are certain that it will be with one of the others that you are to find.” She said, taking a deep breath and sighing. “If it is not with them, we are uncertain where to look next.” 

“Because why not have us deal with thieves in addition to everything else,” I said with a groan as I raised my PipBuck and checked the information. “Alright, so the closest one is going to be in the Medical District. The other one is over in Residential on the other side of the main Plaza. I guess we should probably head to medical first.”

As we headed out of the police station I thought back to the terminal I had found before. Something about all of this still bugged me. Why had someone set off the Pink Cloud in the Stella Royale? What purpose did it serve? And what was Father Quasar really up to?

For now, we didn’t have any answers. I just had to hope that we’d find them soon.


00000


As we stepped out onto the street again I turned to say something else to Silver when my ear twitched a little at a familiar sound. I quickly spun around, drawing the knife spear off of my back as two more of those Ghosts came towards us. Only these weren’t wielding the same Knife Spear, instead they had what I swear looked like bear traps on their hooves.

“Okay… this is getting ridiculous,” I commented as I aimed the spear at the two Ghosts. “You get the legs, I’ll go for the head. Or do you think your magic might take them out?”

“As we have said before, magic does not appear to do very much against these creatures.” Silver said, taking a deep breath and drawing the rifle “We find disabling the legs tends to be the most effective, once they are down close in, it’s the most painless and quick way we have discovered.” 

“Alright, take out the legs, stab them, avoid the freakin’ bear trap and the cloud, got it,” I said as I gripped the spear in my hooves. “Let’s do this then. Your weapon would probably do more damage and I don’t have the hang of a revolver yet.”

That alicorn didn’t say anything else, just the ear ringing after her firing several times. Both ghosts falling to the floor.

“We suggest you do the deed quickly, these kinds of wounds will not keep them down for long at all.” She said, quickly looking to me and motioning me forward. “Quick, effortless, painless, how it should be done.” 

I nodded and ran forward with the spear and dug the tip of the spear into the first Ghost’s neck. It took only a moment for the ghostly pony to go down as I spun around to face the other Ghost with the spear in my hooves, but it wasn’t down. Instead it was awake again and lunged right at me with its bear trap fist.

I quickly raised my spear as the bear trap closed down around the shaft of the spear. I pulled the ghost in closer. It let out an unnatural sound as it tried to struggle out of my grip. It finally managed to detach the trap from around the spear as it swung its other hoof at my face, catching me across the muzzle as I fell back from the impact.

The Ghost snarled as it walked forward towards me again. Whatever this thing was, it didn’t seem to be willing to let me go. I adjusted myself, holding the spear out defensively. As it got close enough, I pushed at the butt of the spear and stabbed upward through the Ghost’s head and dug it in as deep as I could.

As I pulled it out again the Ghost crumpled to the ground as I took a step back away from it, letting out a sigh of relief. Once I was sure it was safe, I started to detach the bear trap weapon from its hoof. If I was going to have to fight hoof to hoof, I was going to need more weapons like this.

“Alright, I think that’s all of them,” I said as I slid the spear back into its slot and turned back to look at Silver. “At least for the moment.”

“We still do not understand why you don’t just use a ranged weapon, with a precise shot you could technically shoot the head off one.” Silver said with a shrug, coming over to where I was. “Anything of importance on them? Sometimes we have noticed they will have holotapes or something of the sort. Even just notes.” 

“Because they have magical resistance and my only projectile weapon is not one I’m used to using,” I replied as I looked back at the Ghost I had impaled through the head. “Nothing on this one other than the Bear Trap which I already took. The other one might though.”

“You check that one as well, we will keep on the lookout, those ghosts - they can be a crafty bunch.” Silver said, raising her rifle and looking around. “We do not trust that these were the only ones there are in this area.” 

“Agreed,” I said as I checked the body of the other Ghost. For a moment I didn’t think there was anything until I found folded into its suit’s pouches a piece of paper. I unfolded it carefully and held it up in the dim light so I could read it. “I’ve got something here, looks like a note of some sort.”

“Good good, it may have something on value.” Silver said lowering her rifle down and leaning to get a look. “These ghosts, they did not turn into these creatures quickly - they were ponies much longer, and many of them have written their findings or beliefs, we would suggest keeping a look out for any medium of storage - They wrote where they could.” 

I nodded as I squinted a little to try and read it. I frowned a little when I made out what it said in the Equestrian Alphabet. That was definitely not a good thing to have found out. I read it out loud to her.

“The Clinic is compromised,” I read. “The cloud started seeping through the ventilation system two days ago. The Doctors have moved all the ponies not immediately affected by the Cloud to a secondary Triage location. We’ve been assigned to keep an eye on the doors to the Clinic in the event that anypony tries to enter or leave. Among the dead is my nephew… by Celestia I didn’t want to have to tell his parents the news. I still don’t know how I’m going to tell them… Celestia, please forgive me.”

“Most unfortunate, we are sorry to say - this is just one of many stories like this that we have recovered.” Silver said with a frown, ears pinned back “Perhaps it would be wise if we quickly moved along. No need to linger, it is no longer suffering now.” 

“Yeah, let’s get going,” I said as I folded up the piece of paper and reverently placed it in my bags. Someone deserved to remember this place and what happened to the ponies. I gently knelt down next to the dead pony and spoke softly to him. “Ego portare historia tua mecum in aeternum.”

“Perhaps we should head to this… clinic, if not to perhaps find more of this poor creature’s fate, to at least stock up on healing potions and the like?” Silver said as she turned and started to walk. “That is, if you wish to piece together this story, may lead to answers you seek.” 

“Yeah… we need to head that way anyway,” I said as I checked my PipBuck again. We started walking together towards the medical district. “My family would think I’m insane for what I’m doing here.”

“How so? Did you not come here seeking fortune and fame like the others? Or were you sent here to see if the stories were true for some higher power?” Silver said, looking over at me with a smirk. “The goddess sent us here roughly Twelve years ago, by your time. We have been trapped here since, we have seen many come, many go, many die all looking for the secrets of the Stella Royale.” 

“I told you, I’m a Viatorem, I’m a diplomat, I was in Equestria because the Consul sent me and I found the broadcast,” I said as I adjusted myself a little. “But more than that I’m a Zencori. My Tribe has always been Storytellers, but we were picked to be the Viatorem because we are nomadic by nature already and can open dialogue with others. My parents didn’t like that I joined the Diplomatic Corps.”

“Ah, so wealth and glory.” Silver said nodding her head. “Why else would you follow the broadcast.” 

“To a degree sure,” I said. “I thought it would lead to a friendly settlement or faction that I could make contact with, something notable. I’m not like Riva who fought in the Enclave War or Soia who got caught up in the Nightmare Society business. I guess, I wanted the glory of being the first to do something for the Alliance. And the treasure would benefit us as well. I guess I let that blind me.”

“You talk too much.” Silver said with a chuckle as she turned away and continued towards the Clinic. “In unity, we do not need so many words to tell each other something, we just think it and the others know.”

“Well, last time I checked I’m not an Alicorn,” I reminded her. “And if I remember correctly Zebras can’t be in Unity. But, yes I do tend to talk a lot. I think it’s because I spend a lot of time alone.”

“We do not require your manifesto in order for you to answer our simple questions.” Silver said, chuckling again. “Though, Earlier you asked me my name, I don’t believe you ever told me yours.” 

“Uh, I told you my… oh right, multiple personalities,” I reminded myself. “Its Sani… am I going to have to introduce myself multiple times?”

“Unlikely, we have a shared consciousness that we can contribute information to, my sister however - did not commit this to it, therefore we had no idea, other than to trust you.” Silver said eyeing me for a moment. “You have not been around many others like us, have you.”

“I met some Alicorns in my travels, mostly to the south,” I replied. “Though none of them were exactly like you, no. They were…”

I paused a moment at that. Unity had collapsed years ago at around the same time she had apparently wound up in the Stella Royale from what I had heard. I wasn’t sure how exactly I was going to explain that to her. Or how exactly she was going to respond.

“They were different, I’ll just leave it at that,” I finally finished.

Silver paused, glaring at me for a moment before simply shaking her head and continuing onward. “We know you’re hiding something from us.” 

“Nothing important, but we need to move on,” I said as I checked the map again. “We should take a turn up here to get to the Medical District. Hopefully we’ll be able to find whoever we’re looking for in there quickly.”

Silver stopped, glaring at me more now. “You will tell us this instant or we will invade your mind and take the information by force.” 

“Uh, you see…” I muttered as I gulped a little. How exactly was I going to explain this to her? “There isn’t a Unity any more. The Goddess was killed years ago when Maripony was destroyed. The Unity Alicorns are still around, as many of them escaped the destruction of Maripony as they could. There’s no Unity left anymore, at least not one like it once was.”

“We… I see…” Silver said, an obvious sadness in her voice. “There is much to think about, then.” 

“Yeah, I’m sure there is…” I said softly. “There are still Alicorns out there. They’re just trying to survive like anypony else in the Wasteland. Some of them have tried to form a new Unity but never really made one as strong as the old one. I wish I could tell you more, but this is all from secondhoof information.”

“Then there is a chance that this information is incorrect, and that the goddess is fine.” Silver said, taking a deep breath and looking towards me for a few moments. “We were never told what to do if something like what you described happened, so many contingency plans we had to memorize, but not one for this.” 

“If it’s true, what will you do then?” I asked.

“If it is true, we have outlived our duty and thus will immediately terminate our lives.” Silver said, in a calm matter of fact tone. “We have no reason for existing outside serving the goddess, and helping keep Unity together, no unity no reason for us to exist.” 

“Perhaps you’ll find a new purpose,” I suggested. “If there are still Alicorns out there, they have found their own new purposes. What makes you any different?”

“We grew up under the goddess, it is all we know.” Silver said, sighing a bit “We don’t know what to do with ourselves without her guiding light.” 

“I wish I could tell you what to do,” I said as I looked at the door leading into the medical district for a long moment. “I’m a Viatorem, a Traveler. But I’m also a storyteller. The one thing I’ve learned from both these roles is that Ponies and Zebras, we’re both driven by something similar. A desire to survive and make something of ourselves and the world around us. You can terminate your life, or you can live on and become something more. Find your purpose in this world, and challenge yourself to survive. Your life is your own, you no longer have to have it dictated by either the Goddess or Father Quasar, do something more with it.”

“The goddess never dictated anything.” Silver said, her voice growing softer. “She only asked us to listen and share her vision, those who did not agree were not forced in, those who agreed and believed in her guiding light were bestowed with her gift, everlasting life, free from weakness and sickness, perfectly suited for the wasteland. And then to talk to others, have them hear her vision, and if they agree, to bestow her gift on them as well.” 

“Well, I can’t tell you what to do with your life,” I replied as I adjusted my weapon for a moment. “But first, we have to get through this nightmare. So, are you ready to see what’s waiting for us in there?”

“Ready as we could ever be.” Silver said with a slow nod as she lifted her rifle once more. “Let us hope, that there are not many of them.” 

I nodded as I slid the bear trap onto one hoof and adjusted the spear for a moment. I pushed the door open and we headed into the medical district together.


00000


The Medical District had the same architecture as the rest of the Chateau. I checked the map for a moment, we needed to go to the northwest part of the district. But the gate leading that way was collapsed with a lot of rubble blocking the way. I looked around before spotting another way around and glanced back at the Alicorn.

“That seems oddly convenient,” I pointed out. “Can you teleport us over there?”

“Of course we could, however there is no guarantee that we would not be teleporting right into a room full of radios, or worse yet, a room full of ghosts.” Silver said with a chuckle, “We believe it is best for us to just walk it.” 

“Right, great plan, let’s walk into what looks like a trap,” I muttered as we started walking again. I kept an eye on my EFS to look for anything that was going to try and attack us. “Keep an eye out, I don’t like this…”

“Question.” Silver said, tapping my shoulder “How often has that Stable-Tec garbage actually worked here? We were nearly snuck up on earlier and you seemed to have no clue” 

“Technically this was reverse engineered by the Propoli, not made by Stable-Tec,” I said as I hit the PipBuck with my hoof. “But yeah, the EFS is on the fritz. Probably because of the Pink Cloud or something. If I ever make it back home I’m going to have a word with Myrik about it.”

“We have heard stories, a tale of others not too dissimilar from the ghosts - They did not appear on the eyes forward sparkle, because they have no life signs.” Silver pointed out. “Perhaps the ghosts are the same, they do not appear because they do not breathe.” 

“That doesn’t make sense, the Ghosts are a variety of Canterlot Ghoul, Ghouls Canterlot or otherwise still appear on the EFS,” I pointed out. “Unless we’re missing something.”

“Likely we are missing something.” Silver said with a shrug “Canterlot ghouls breathe, we have never observed the ghosts breathing.”

“Yeah, well if we stand around contemplating it they might just come after us,” I pointed out as we started towards the passageway again. Something about all of this bothered me, it felt like there was something about this that we were missing. I adjusted my weapons again and nodded to the columns on either side and whispered to her. “We’ve got an open courtyard ahead. These things don’t seem completely devoid of intelligence, so I’d bet my last cap that they’re luring us into a killing field. Any ideas on what to do from here?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but we believe you are giving them too much credit, they have a hunter's instinct, not the desire to set up traps” Silver said with a roll of her eyes “It is far more likely that one of the others is up there, taking pot shots at the ghosts that wander through.”

Maybe she was right. My combat training from the Roamani and Achu had apparently worked a bit too well. I thought I had seen some intelligence in the Ghost’s actions, but if she was right then I had been overthinking it.

I nodded and glanced out carefully. “Okay, so how do you suggest we proceed?”

“The opposite of any combat training you have, lest we find the bad end of a rifle.” Silver said with a chuckle “Make noise, make sure it is intelligible and clearly not made by the Ghosts, less likely they may decide that we are good targets.” 

“I swear, Ranith is laughing at me in the Zebra Lands…” I muttered as I remembered the Roamani instructor back home. “Alright, so we try and talk to them or something maybe? That would probably be the quickest way to do this. But that might also attract Ghosts.”

“The more you deal with Ghosts, the better you become at handling them.” Silver said with a sigh. “It’s either attract ghosts, or get shot by a likely sniper, which do you prefer?” 

“I see your point,” I agreed as I glanced back out again. “Alright, let’s do this.”

I called out as loudly as I could. “To whoever’s out there, we’re not your enemies. We’re stuck in the same situation you’re in with these collars. Father Quasar sent me to find you and the others. If you’re out there, say something.”

“We doubt that you can be easily heard at this range,” Silver said, shaking her head. “Only thing we can think of is to go into the open and see if we get shot, we are far harder to kill, and easily healed in a place like this.” 

“Not to mention my stripes might make me a target,” I pointed out. “Alright, you go, just be careful. I don’t know what would happen if one of us died.”

“Death.” Silver said, chuckling a little.

“Yes, thank you for reassuring me, you must’ve been very popular at the Unity’s parties,” I said sarcastically. “So, yeah, be careful please.”

“Death is a fact of life to us, many of us knew that we would die in service to the goddess, but we knew that if we did fall, the others would remember us, would mourn us, that we would live on through them because all our minds are one.” Silver said, resting her rifle at her side and started to step out into the open. 

I adjusted myself so I could see and hear what was going on better but didn’t go out into the open just yet. Every instinct and lesson I had been taught was telling me not to go out there, it was a killing field. Silver seemed confident that it would work, but I wasn’t so sure.

I just had to hope that she was right.

A loud bang and an ear splitting crack raced through the air, the first thing that came to mind is that Silver had just been shot by the unseen sniper, but shortly there after I could hear Silver laughing.

“Nice shot!” I heard her call out “Going to come down here and let us see who you are, or you just going to stay up there and play the silent type?” 

“Go away, freak” An unfamiliar voice called back, “Be thankful I didn’t let it kill you”

Well, that was a great start to this. At least whoever it was hadn’t killed Silver yet. Apparently they had taken out a Ghost though. Maybe that was a good sign.

“Freak? What makes us a freak? Why not come down, we have a striped friend that would like to meet you, Father Quasar demands it.” Silver said, chuckling to herself once more. “We promise we’re not contagious and do not bite.” 

“You’re a freak because you’re a mutant, a sick creature created by the wasteland, and this friend - if they really exist they will come where I can see them” The other voice called back.

“She is a Viatorem named Sani.” Silver said, using a wing to motion for me to come out.

“Yeah, I don’t think that word means anything to her,” I called out but walked forward anyway. I looked up towards where the pony was. “I don’t mean you any harm. I serve as a diplomat for the Free Roam Alliance in the Zebra Lands.”

In a flash of magic the pony from the tower disappeared from her sniper’s nest and appeared in front of me, looking me over for a moment. “I know what a Viatorem is.” She said, continuing her visual inspection. “Your story checks out Zencori, What is it that Father Quasar wants from me now.” 

“Whatever his plan is to get into the Casino, he’s putting it into action now,” I replied. “He sent me to get you and the others together. Given we all have these bomb collars on, we don’t really have much of a choice right now.”

“I see, and what does he hope to find in there? He should know by now that it’s a deathtrap in there, any try I’ve made to infiltrate has ended up with me being back out here licking my wounds.” She said with a huff, “Whatever, I guess.”

“Cheery lot you Enclave soldiers, pillage any good villages lately? Maybe burned down the homes of the innocent just to send a message?” Silver added with a chuckle.

“Watch it freak, I don’t have to deal with you - I have to deal with her.” That mare snapped back at Silver.

“You’re Enclave? That I wasn’t expecting” I asked as I looked at the new pony curiously for a moment. “And, I would tell you what he’s planning if I knew. Whatever is at the bottom of that casino has to be worth risking other’s lives over. And we’re not exactly in a position to argue.”

With that I tapped the collar around my neck for emphasis.

“What intel I had followed him here pinned him as a former Steel Rangers elder, went astray and a bit insane. I wasn’t expecting to get jumped, knocked out and a bomb collar strapped to my neck. All he said was he needed my horn for something.” She said with a huff. “Next thing I can remember I was coming out of this weird auto-doc, saying they did something to… modulate my magic, or something” 

“I see,” I said as I stroked my chin thoughtfully for a moment. “So that’s why he needs you, but the two of us don’t make any sense. I’m not exactly special, and Silver here is… well, she’s Silver. I’m not sure what her deal is other than a former member of Unity with multiple personalities. Not sure why he’d need either of us.”

“He needs you to actually enter whatever is below the casino, that’s pretty clear, you’re a diplomat, compromise and peacemaking is your agenda, one of us - we might take what he’s after and run, you - you’re more likely to let him keep it.” That unicorn mare said, stretching a bit. “And her? It’s because she’s basically unkillable here, except by that bomb collar” 

“So, then the big question who is our last player and how do they fit on the gameboard?” I commented. “Alright, look, we all know who we are and why we’re here. Given we all need to get out of this with our heads intact, are we going to work together or not?”

“In order to keep my head on my shoulders and be able to return home to my son, yes.” The unicorn said with a scowl. “Don’t know about the freak over there, She keeps trying to be friendly with me, but I know their type, can’t trust them farther than you can throw them.”

“We haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.” Silver said with a huff. “Mrs Solstice here is just a bit bitter, apparently a alicorn of some type took something from her.”

“I told you to stay out of my head!” Solstice said with a growl to her voice. “Dear Celestia do you not have any personal space recognition?!” 

“Both of you, this isn’t the time for this!” I said. “We are stuck in a living Hell right here. This isn’t the time to be at each other’s throats. Silver, give her personal space. Solstice, don’t call her a freak. I don’t like these collars and I don’t like the fact that we’re all having to be stuck together like this. We’re going to have to get into that Casino and do whatever he tells us even if we don’t like it. Right now it’s our only way of surviving this place.”

“Maybe your job is to play mediator between us and stop us from killing each other.” Solstice said with a groan. “But fine, I’ll not call the fre-... Alicorn, a freak anymore.” 

“I never invaded her personal space, just telling you that, I have the ability to, but being connected to an unwilling pony is as traumatic for me as it is angering for them.” Silver added. “I only know what I know because Quasar told me.” 

“Alright, good,” I said as I looked between the two of them for a moment. “We’re going to check the clinic and then head for the Residential District for, whoever the last pony is. There’s something weird about this place, and I want to know more about what happened here.”

“The pink cloud, obviously.” Solstice said with a roll of her eyes. “How it got here is the bigger question, though I suppose you’d know more about that than any of us, I suppose there was just too many promising unicorns here.” 

“That’s the thing, the Pink Cloud was only deployed three times by the old Imperial records and more recent ones,” I pointed out. “The first time being at Littlehorn, the second time being at Canterlot, and the third time being in one of our cities. There is no record of it ever being used on the Stella Royale. Either the Last Caesar hid the records very well, or something else happened here.”

“Yes, because old world zebra totally did everything they were told to do and recorded everything perfectly, especially when they were doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing.” Solstice said with a sneer.

“Okay, seriously, you need to stop it.” Silver said, glaring at that unicorn. “We have had enough of your attitude and holier than thou methodology, you were captured just like us and did as told by a character you have even identified as outright insane - you are no better than us so get off your high horse.”

“Oh no, the Alicorn thinks she can boss me around.” Solstice said before rolling her eyes. “Point is, it’s here, only creatures out there that have it is the zebras, the only way it could be here is zebras.”

“Okay, I’ll admit the records could have been lost,” I admitted. “But still, I don’t want to leave out any possibilities. We need to investigate this, and last time I checked I'm here too. If I knew something about Pink Cloud being at the Stella Royale, I would have avoided that broadcast. I just want to make sure that there is no other explanation. I also want to learn what happened to this place, the ponies who lived here, they deserve to have their stories remembered by someone. I will go alone if I have to, you can wait for me at the fountain back at the main plaza. But you both know there is something weird about this place and we need to know what happened.”

“We are in agreeance, we have been here longer than most, the cloud disrupts our telepathic abilities, we have not been able to talk to Unity.” Silver said, looking between me and that Unicorn. “To find out why it is here, could prevent it from being used elsewhere.” 

“Exactly, if there is a chance it wasn’t the old Empire, we need to know who did cause it,” I said with a nod. “There could be more places like this out there. The NCR and Enclave deserve to know if there might be a threat. So, what about you Solstice?”

“I can agree that if there is somepony using the pink cloud now, there is a new threat beyond what we could imagine, so fine - you have my compliance. I’m not happy about it, but I’ll accept it.” Solstice said with a sigh. 

“Alright, then we’re going to the Clinic,” I said as I turned to look at the path towards the clinic for a moment. “So far it’s the earliest report I’ve found of the Cloud being in the Chateau itself. There was an earlier report that suggests that it started in the Casino. The clinic may give us some clues at the very least. Can you tell us anything about the situation there, Solstice?”

“If you were here a week ago - it was over run with ghosts.” Solstice said, with a sigh. “Thanks to my rifle here, I’ve been luring them out and picking them off one by one, no more than four or five are left in there.”

“Alright, we’ll head there then, carefully,” I said. “Solstice you know the lay of the land so lead the way.”

“I mean, if you insist,” Solstice said with a chuckle. “Really there isn’t anything dangerous or deadly around here, a couple radios that are easy enough to avoid and the ghosts which, one shot and they go down.”

“That’s an anti-machine rifle, isn’t it” Silver added “A bit overkill don’t you think?”

“Overkill is the best kill when you’re in a life or death situation, want to make sure they never get back up.” Solstice replied, giving her rifle a pat.

“Alright then, let’s get going,” I said as we headed towards the Clinic.

LEVEL UP!

Perk Received: Stella Royale Negotiator.
Details: Your training as a Viatorem by the FRA has given you an edge in the ruins of the Stella Royale casino. Now if only your companions won’t kill each other. You get an extra 10 points speech and barter and special conversation options while talking to Inhabitants of the Royale.
> Chapter 2: Flush
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

I checked the map on my PipBuck again as we neared the Clinic. The other signal seemed to be coming from the Residential District. But given that I seemed to be the only newcomer here, she had likely survived the Royale for a while. I adjusted my spear on my back again for a moment, and looked forward towards the neon sign that marked the clinic.

“There.” Solstice said as she pushed past me, pushing the door opens with her hooves before drawing what looked to be a knife not too dissimilar to the one mounted to my spear. “Keep your head on a swivel in here, Ghosts like to jump out when and where they can.” 

“And given that my EFS doesn’t seem to be working here…” I muttered as I checked the compass again to no avail. Glancing around I noticed a book on the table and brushed it off. It had a mark that I recognized as belonging to the Ministry of Peace. Mostly out of curiosity I slid it into my bags and looked back at the others when I noticed a terminal on the wall. “What’s that for over there?”

“We have not the slightest, would appear rather out of place in our opinion.” Silver said, starting to trot over to it.

“Maybe a medical log terminal? Y’know, the kind of place where doctors and nurses would store reports for the events of the day?” Solstice added, quickly joining Silver over by the terminal. “Darn, it’s locked - uh… any chance either of you have the password? I can’t hack”

“Here, let me give it a try, the Propoli taught me a few things as part of my training,” I said as I headed over to the terminal. I pulled up the hacking screen and ran my hooves along the keyboard for a minute, finally getting through on the last try. “There we go, it was Diamond. Let’s see what we have here, might give us some clues.”

I opened up the screen and frowned a little. This wasn’t any data, instead it showed a screen with options for some sort of hologram system.

“Interesting… this seems to be for a security hologram system,” I said as I looked at it. “Think it might distract the Ghosts?”

“Not a good idea, the cloud messes with Electrical systems, these holograms are likely to kill us as much as they are to kill the ghosts.” Solstice said with a shake of her head. “I think it’s best to leave it off - Ghosts aren’t really much of a problem once you know how to deal with them.” 

“We agree, You cannot kill what is not real.” Silver added. “Ghosts are a problem, but what happens if the holograms attack and make it impossible for us to shut them off?” 

“Alright, we’ll leave it there for now,” I said as I walked away from it. “By the looks of the outside this place has two levels. Maybe three if it has a basement. We should search the ground floor first.”

“What exactly are we searching for?” Solstice asked, chuckling a bit “If you’re looking for your chem fix, I probably have some in my bag you can have.” 

“Medical supplies, terminals, notes from before and during the Pink Cloud outbreak,” I commented as I looked around the room. I spotted a second white hoofprint and knelt down next to it to find a suitcase. “It’s one of those weird caches I found one near the Police Station. It’ll give us some supplies at least.”

I opened it and found more rounds, food, water, and healing potions. I noticed there were some larger rounds that looked like they belonged to a high caliber rifle and tossed them to Solstice.

“Here, these might work with your Anti-Machine rifle.”

Solstice took them from me with her magic, levitating them over and looking them over for a few moments before she dropped them on the floor. “Old rounds like that will mess my rifle up, ever wonder why wasteland weapons only last a few hundred shots? It’s the old powder, doesn’t burn right.” 

“Fair enough,” I said with a shrug. “Levitate them back over, I might as well leave them here if you can’t use them. Maybe if we don’t get out of this somepony else can. The food and potions should still be good at least.”

“They are as good on the floor as they are in that box.” Solstice said with a shrug, “So unless you know how to ammo craft, I’m not bothering.” 

“I only know so much, I’m afraid,” I said with a shake of my head. “Alright, that should be everything we need right now. Might be worth seeing if we can find any others while we’re here, it could come in handy. Let’s check out the hallway over there, room to room search, we all know what we’re looking for.”

“And if we find something we’re not looking for? Is it ours to keep?” Solstice said, chuckling a little to herself. “Like say, if we find a statuette or something?” 

“If we find anything of use, I guess including a statuette, we can grab them too,” I replied. “But not too much, we can’t afford to be weighed down by too much here.”

“So… it’s not yours if you find it” Solstice said, frowning a bit. “Great, so any treasures I find that aren’t on the list aren’t mine.” 

“That is, quite selfish of you.” Silver said, glaring at Solstice for a moment. “We understand, there are a lot of treasures and secrets here, but without all of us being aware - it could be a risk for us to have something and hide it.” 

“Agreed, and we’re supposed to be working together here,” I reminded the two of them. “We need to pool our resources. But, yes I suppose some of the treasures that aren’t immediately helpful to our situation would be yours.”

“So, my statuette is mine still?” Solstice said, cheering up a little as she pulled a small purple alicorn statuette from her pocket. “I.. I technically found it before you showed up, but if we’re supposed to pool everything..”

I blinked a little at that and sighed a little. “Don’t worry, from what I’ve heard Statuettes only work on the pony holding it. You can keep it, mostly I’m talking about food, water, medicine, and ammo. We need to survive this place together and we don’t know how long we’ll be stuck here.”

Solstice stuffed the statuette back into her bag, and smiled a little at me. “That, means a lot.” 

“Ministry Mare Twilight was an Inspirational mare, no wonder you would wish to keep her statuette.” Silver said with a smile. “We had the opportunity to know her personally, in a sense.”

“Right… Twilight was part of the Goddess,” I said as I remembered what I had read as we started down the hallway. “So, should we split up or stay together? Given the situation we probably should stay together. But then again we also would get it done faster if we did. Maybe we should clear the area and then search?”

“If there was a ghost on this floor, it’d already be on us.” Solstice said, looking around for a moment. “There might be one trapped on the upper floor, but one isn’t exactly a difficult thing to handle.”

“We are unsure there is even a basement in this building, the floor feels solid, usually it’d be hollow.” Silver added. “We believe staying together may be the best option.” 

“Agreed,” I said as I glanced at the doors down the hall from us. “Alright, first room on the right first. If it’s like other pre-war hospitals or clinics I’ve seen, this is probably treatment rooms for the most part. Not sure how much data we’ll get, but we should be able to find potions and everything. We also need to be careful, there might be Pink Cloud in the Clinic based on the note I found.”

“Most likely going to be pink cloud in here, It’s a clinic, where do you think they took exposed ponies?” Solstice said, chuckling a little. “Also, you ever been told you talk too much?” 

“We told her that earlier.” Silver said with a chuckle.

“Yes, I’ve heard that several times,” I groaned before addressing the other point. “I found a note that said they had to abandon the clinic due to the Pink Cloud entering it. Though it also tends to settle in the lower parts of buildings like this, so we might be fine up here if there is a basement. Look, I don’t know if it is here, but we should be careful anyway.”

We headed into the room I had gestured towards and I nearly emptied the contents of my stomach on the floor. Lying on the stretchers were mutilated bodies of ponies with their heads cut off. I stumbled back out of the room, breathing heavily as I tried not to think about who or what might have done that.

“Spirits… what is wrong with this place…” I said weakly as I slumped against the wall. “Maybe this was a mistake. What were they doing in there?”

“Don’t be stupid.” Solstice said, walking past me. “Look at the corpses, how preserved they are, they were ghosts.”

“Right… sorry, I’m not used to walking into rooms of mutilated corpses,” I said as I took a deep breath. “I swear if I ever actually get used to that, I’m submitting myself for psychiatric screening back in Carthage.”

“Guess you’ve never been to war.” Solstice said with a chuckle. “I walked the streets in the aftermath of the last war - you realize this… this is tame compared to what war can do to a body.” 

“I wasn’t involved in the fighting with the Legion or the… uh, rogue Enclave soldiers under Stardust,” I replied as I straightened myself up. “I’m a diplomat, not a soldier. Even with Roamani training, I can’t be ready for everything.”

“The best diplomats are born on the battlefield.” Solstice said, checking one of the bodies over. “Because they know the costs of their actions.” 

“We have seen many battlefields in our time with Unity, it can be quite gruesome and hard to look at.” Silver said, shaking her head. “It is a cost we wish not to see, but know all too well, even more so since we have arrived here.”

“Look, I’m sorry, I just…” I said as I shook my head a little. “Maybe Ranith was right. We’re storytellers not soldiers, I shouldn’t be out here…”

“Bit late there sugarcube” Solstice said with a chuckle. “Not to mention, others like you have done great things on the battlefield, and have gone on to tell the horror stories of the battlefield so its lesson can reach more than the soldiers.”

I nodded a little and look around. “Okay, let’s see if we can find anything in here. You’re right, I can’t let this get to me, not right now. I have a duty to perform to my country and to you. We’re all going to get out of here.”

“Yeah, it’d really suck if you went off and lost your head.” Solstice said, snickering a little “Figuratively and Literally.” 

“Yeah…” I said as I checked around for anything. I found two healing potions and put them in my bags as I glanced back at the others. “Solstice, Silver, I, uh… I wanted to say thank you. I was not in a good place a moment ago. I’m new to this, Seaddle and the Federation was supposed to be my first assignment outside of the FRA. I got stuck in the middle of this spirits be damned situation. You gave me a lot to think about and put things in perspective for me. So, thank you, both of you.”

“We are most welcome” Silver said with a small bow.

“Thanks for what? Being brutally honest? If I got thanks for that I’d probably be a nicer pony.” Solstice said with a chuckle. “But no problem, If we didn’t keep you grounded who knows how far you’d float.” 

“Yeah,” I said as I slid the last of the potions into my bags. “Did you two find anything?”

“Corpses. But you already knew that.” Solstice said with another chuckle. 

“We have found a small cache of purified water.” Silver said with a cheery smile.

“Okay good,” I said as I checked the terminal but it was broken. That figured, I wasn’t going to get any data out of that. “Alright, unless there’s anything else we should move on. Put the purified water away, it’ll be good to have.”

We headed back out of the room together. We checked a few more, but there wasn’t much more than just a few more potions and purified water. It wasn’t until the fifth room in the hallway that we found and I blinked in surprise.

Sitting in front of us was a large machine that had a pod attached to it. The pod was open to the air with a terminal attached to the side of it. I walked over to it carefully, gripping the spear in my hooves for a moment. But when I looked into it, it was only a pile of bones inside.

“It’s clear,” I said as I let out a sigh of relief. “Though, what is this thing? I’ve never seen anything like it before…”

Though something about this felt familiar. As if I had heard of this in a story somewhere. I looked at it for a long moment, trying to think of where I had heard of it. This was weird, why was this in this place?

I went over to the terminal and activated it. A few moments passed as text scrolled across the screen. Finally the information popped up on it.



STASIS AUTO DOC INFORMATION
STATUS: ERROR IN STASIS SYSTEM.
PLEASE CALL MINISTRY OF ARCANE SCIENCE TECHNICIAN.



I facehooved at that, but somehow this made even less sense. “An S.A.D. pod, these things saved Scootaloo after the apocalypse. I heard about it from Riva… but, what’s it doing in the Stella Royale?”

“I wish I could come up with a way to explain that one.” Solstice said with a shrug. “Auto-Docs are pretty wide spread, but a Stasis one? Those were experimental at best.” 

“We never trusted such technology. We have seen what it can do to some ponies.” Silver said with a frown. “We believe it would be smart to leave, immediately.” 

“Agreed, I don’t think we’re going to find much else in here,” I replied. “Let’s get out of here, we can keep looking around elsewhere.”

“Not to mention we think it would be an obvious choice to check out a clinic if you are in need of medical supplies, we would be better off looking for medicine cabinets and boxes in bathrooms rather than staying here.” Silver said, quickly turning and moving away from the room

“You’re freaked out by that thing, aren’t you.” Solstice said with a chuckle.

“Would you not be if you had seen what those can do to a pony? It is not pretty, not in the least, a fate worse than death to those who have been forced into one.” Silver said, sighing and shaking her head. 

“Sometimes it works, I’ve heard the stories from the Enclave War, but yeah, we should probably get out of here,” I commented. “We’ll head back to the fountain at the plaza. Our last stop is the Residential District.”

“Our last patzee?” Solstice said, sheathing her knife and adjusting her rifle.

“What is with you and name calling?” Silver said with a frown.

“What is with you and speaking in plural.” Solstice shot back

“I swear it’s like I’m babysitting foals,” I groaned. “It’s like dealing with tribal leaders only you two are more mature and do less name calling.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment” Solstice said with a laugh

“Speak for yourself.” Silver said with a huff. “It is not every day we, being almost two hundred years old, get compared to foals.” 

“I compared you to tribal politics back home, and that’s what you were insulted by?” I said with a laugh as we started back down the hallway. “Come on, we can’t just stand around talking and something tells me the Ghost ponies are waiting for us out there.”

“Of course we can, as long as they are out there and we’re in here, we have all eternity.” Solstice said with a chuckle. “For some of us that may be longer than others.”

“Alright, then let’s be ready for anything,” I said as I slid my knife spear off my back. “We don’t know how many we’re dealing with so stay on your guard. Solstice, how much ammo do you have in that thing?”

“How much you want?” Solstice said with a snicker.

“Unless you’ve somehow made a weapon with infinite ammunition, we need to make sure we keep track of how much we have,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “And a reload time may put you in the line of fire. We’ve seen the territory, this is street based close quarters combat not sniping them from a perch. Are you going to be able to deal with them?”

“One word for you darling, Unicorn.” Solstice said, horn glowing and lifting not just her rifle but her knife from its sheath. “Combine magic with SATS, I can hit the freckle on your left flank from a mile, or from an inch.” 

“Alright, then let’s do this,” I said as we reached the entrance. “You two provide covering fire if there are any Ghosts out there. You know where to aim, I’ll get what’s left with my spear. Unless you two have a better plan.”

“Try to not get shot.” Solstice said with a snicker. “Though like I said, I doubt there is going to be a horde of them - if you’re so concerned the second floor balcony can offer a vantage point.” 

“Sorry, it’s my combat training kicking in,” I said as I adjusted my spear. “I think we’ll be fine if we’re careful. Unless you’d rather have a vantage point, but we need to be able to move fast, so it might be better not to.”

Solstice just stared at me blankly for a moment. “Am I a joke to you?” She said, chuckling a little. “Say it with me U-Ni-Corn, Teleportation is a thing, you know. I’ll probably be out of danger before you two can blink.” 

“Right, sorry, I’m used to working with Zebras,” I said with a shake of my head. “So, should we just teleport there or is something going to get in the way of that too?”

“Teleportation to an unseen location is possible, but it is not very recommended - Teleportation into a room full of enemies, or perhaps even into an unseen wall is a possibility.” Silver said with a sigh. “As much as we wish it was that easy - Teleportation is good as a retreat, not as an advance” 

“Alright then,” I said as I nodded to the door. “Once more into the breach, dear friends, once more.”

“Was that an attempt to be poetic?” Solstice said, pausing and looking at me for a moment.

“We aren’t going to war, you do know that, right?” Silver added, staring at me as well. 

“First lesson I learned from the Roamani, life in the Wasteland is a war,” I said with a chuckle as I moved towards the door. “This kind of situation is a war for survival. And unless you want to lose it, I’d stop commenting on my attempts to be poetic and be ready to make a move.”

“I promise you, on my Stable’s honor, there is not going to be a horde of ghosts outside that door, I’ve killed most of them, only the ones not drawn out by my lures are left, so they’re probably deaf.” Solstice said with a frown. 

“Better to be prepared for nothing than to be caught unprepared,” I said with a shrug as I pushed the door open and stepped out into the Chateau itself.

“That’s a great way to kill yourself.” Solstice said, pushing past me and walking out into the open. “See, not a single ghost.” 

Right after she said that, a knife spear flew past her head just barely missing her. I quickly spun around to see four Ghosts heading towards us, one of them preparing to throw another spear as they did.

“You were saying?” I shouted as I ran forward at the nearest Ghost, swinging my spear at it as I ducked out of the way of another spear.

“Oh for celestia’s sake” Solstice said as she recovered from the near miss, lifting her rifle and aiming at the nearest ghost “I suggest you cover your ears.”

Without hesitation, Silver quickly covered her ears as she ducked down some. “Sani, These rifles will make you deaf if you don’t protect your ears!” She called out to me. 

I nodded as I impaled the Ghost I had targeted through the head and fell back as I covered my ears to protect them from the sound. “Do it fast!”

What followed was three shots, each pull of the trigger thumping our chests like we had been bucked square in the ribs. The three remaining ghosts falling over, each one having had its head blown open by a high caliber round.

“Take that you bitches!” Solstice shouted as she stood up and put her rifle down. “You get one free shot, ONE, you better not miss next time!” 

As if to answer her, there was the sudden sound of something bouncing across the ground as it landed at her hooves. Gas was released by the small projectile as it surrounded us, cloaking the area in fog.

“Come on… where are you…” I muttered as I looked around quickly, holding my spear in my hooves.

Suddenly there was an unusual noise as something seemed to move through the smoke. There was a whooshing sound as it stabbed at Solstice with its spear and I started to raise my own, trying to get a look at where the Ghost was.

Solstice was in a panic, forgetting to just teleport away like she bragged before.

“That is enough” Silver yelled, and started to beat her wings, easily moving enough air to blow the smoke away and reveal the ghost, and solstice to us. “Solstice, you should have just teleported.”

I quickly grabbed a spear and threw it as hard as I could at the Ghost, catching it in the head as it crumpled to the ground. “Are you okay, Solstice?”

“Since when do they throw things?!” She said in her panic “They’ve never thrown things before!” 

“Apparently they’re smarter than we give them credit, this might be a problem,” I said as I picked up the spear I had used to impale the first one. I flinched a little as it had become cracked and sighed a little. “Well, that was bound to happen eventually.”

“I don’t want to do this anymore” Solstice said, still visibly shaken. “They’ve never done this before, I’ve taken them on hoof to hoof, at range, they’ve never thrown anything at me before… are they learning? Trying to adapt to the more skilled foes?..”

“They might be honestly,” I admitted as I picked up another spear from one of the Ghosts and slid it into the slot. “Is it possible that they have more than a rudimentary intelligence? The fact that these spears exist alone suggests they’re capable of tool making. And that gas bomb, that was sophisticated.”

“I was always told that they found the weapons on those they killed, or had them when they turned… they’re feral ghouls under it all, they shouldn’t have any brain left, should just be a puddle in their melon, to suggest that they are still intelligent just… it makes no sense!” Solstice said, starting to shift from fear to frustration. “Everything we have ever known about ghouls is that when they go feral; they don’t have a brain anymore” 

“I know, this doesn’t make sense to me either…” I said as I shook my head a little. “Look, we need to get moving. We’ll figure it out when we get back to the Fountain. Right now we need to get there, clear our heads, and plan our next move.”

We headed back to the Fountain in silence. The Ghosts didn’t bother us again, what had happened had scared them off. But still, we had a lot to think about.

I just had to hope we’d be able to figure it out.


00000


“Well, meet me mother and father, meet me on the river road.
And momma you know that I’ll be there when I check my load.
Ain’t no grave can hold my body down.
There ain’t no grave that can hold my body down.
There ain’t no grave that can hold my body down.”

I was seated on the stone of the fountain as I wrote the events that had happened so far. It turned out the book that I had found in the Clinic was a blank journal. I was chronicling everything that had happened while it was fresh in my mind so I could bring the story back with me to the Zebra Lands.

If I made it back to the Zebra lands at least.

I glanced up at the hologram of the singing mare for a moment. She was a Pegasus mare dressed in a pre-war formal outfit. She was singing another song as I wrote the last words about the events in the medical district as I looked up at my companions for a moment.

“Do either of you know who she was?” I mused as I pointed my pencil up at the hologram.

“If the stories are true, she was the partner to the pony that built this place.” Solstice said, stretching a bit as she sat beside me.

“Few know her name, even fewer knew much of anything about her. Just that she was from a far away township.” Silver added.

“Interesting, I wonder what her name was, what her story was…” I commented as I stared at her for a moment longer. “Well, wherever she is now I hope she’s at peace. It certainly can’t be worse than where we are.”

“That depends on what line of events you believe.” Solstice said with a chuckle. “Some say she was a crook, just played Solace in this venture so that she could steal his business and become filthy rich overnight.”

“Others say the two were madly in love and would do anything for eachother, that Solace built this place as a gift to her.” Silver added. “We have heard other stories about her, but we are unsure who or what to believe.”

“I guess we’ll never know,” I said as I put the journal back into my bags. “She has a lovely voice at least. So, whoever we’re looking for next is in the Residential District. Do either of you know anything about that area?”

“Pretty much like the medical district.” Solstice said with a shrug. “Most of the ghosts there have moved on though, hell some reports say they’ve gone into the casino itself, something about higher concentration of cloud in there.” 

“Interesting,” I commented as I adjusted my spear for a moment. “We apparently can’t just walk into the casino. Though this does imply that there is an easier way to get in there. Just we don’t know what it is. So for now, like pretty much everything else, we have to trust that Father Quasar’s plan won’t get us killed. Spirits, this is not the best place to be in either literally or figuratively.”

I took a deep breath and looked up at the sky for a moment. The pink cloud swirled around the towering casino above us. “Let’s assume for a moment that there are still Ghosts in there. What supplies do we have that we can use? How many bullets do you two have? I need a number this time, we need to know how much we’ve got after what happened last time.”

“If I could give you a definitive number I would, but packing ammo literally everywhere it can fit tends to lead to a few misplaced rounds and surprises later on.” Solstice said with a shrug. “If I had to guess, Probably around 115, maybe 120 rounds for the AM Rifle.” 

“Given that our rifle is not well suited for ghosts, we fear that any amount of ammunition we may have is inadequate if we are to find ourselves in a large gathering.” Silver said with a sigh. “If we had our own rifle, this would not be the case… We are afraid the most we can offer is support, our secondary job to unity was shield projection, we are concerned however, as we worked in pairs and my partner is… no longer with us.” 

“I’m sorry... “ I said softly. “But I’m sure your shields will help. We could always use a good defense against these things. And let’s try not to tempt fate again, okay? I swear it’s like Discord or something put a curse on this world to cause stuff to happen when you tempt fate.”

“Our shields are nigh unbreakable… when we work in pairs.” Silver said, almost proud of herself for a moment. “Alone, they are by far tougher than most Unicorns of old, but not permanent, they can be easily collapsed from too much exertion.” 

“Don’t worry, if we get into a position where we need your shielding, they aren’t going to last long enough to break through it.” Solstice said, smirking to herself a little. “I really can’t wait to show you both what I can really do.” 

“Alright, well if there are no other plans as to what we should do next, we’re going into the Residential District,” I said as I adjusted my weapons one last time. I glanced back up towards the casino for a long moment as I watched the pink cloud shift and swirl around it. “No one back home is going to believe any of this you know.”

“If they don’t believe you, then they are fools.” Solstice said, checking her rifle over one more time. “The thing I’m more worried about is this rifle is due for a cleaning, I might get ten, maybe twenty rounds out of it before it’s just too likely to jam, and trust me - this rifle jamming is a bad time for the shooter, and everyone within a few feet.” 

“I’ve got a revolver I picked up from one of those stashes, it will at least slow them down,” I offered. “And we can look around to see if we can find anything else.”

“Not needed.” Solstice said, motioning to her side, using her magic to lift the covering to her bags, revealing what looked to be a collapsed blade. “You know how Enclave have wing-blades? Well, no wings - but they made a set just for me that can be used like swords instead.” 

“That works,” I said with a nod as I looked at Silver. “What about you? Are you hiding anything or should we find you another option?”

“It may be wise to look for alternative methods of attack.” Silver said with a shake of her head and sigh. “If not for their resistance, we would be able to defeat them with our magic alone, alas we are not one of our stronger sisters.” 

“The three of us are working together on this,” I commented as I looked between the two of them for a moment. “We’re a team right now, even if we were forced into it. Hopefully, whoever we’re looking for will be able to help us figure out how to get us out of this crazy situation. So, I guess we should get going.”

As we started towards the residential district, the haunting voice of the old world mare kept singing.

“It keeps creeping over me,
The more it gives, the less I am.
It keeps on screaming for release,
Yells with my voice, tears with my hooves.”


00000


“It’s so quiet here…” I commented out loud as we pushed through the door to the Residential District. “I mean, I’ve been in silent places before. But this place, it’s… it’s a silence like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I’m not sure I like it, maybe that’s why I keep talking too much… am I talking too much now? I never thought about that before.”

I slapped myself a little. I really needed to stop talking so much, it was just going to give away our position to the Ghosts.

“I really need to work on that…” I groaned as I checked the map again. “Alright, it looks like the signal is coming from the south end of the district.”

“So, we just get there, make contact, tell them to get off their lazy flanks and come with us?” Solstice said with a chuckle. “Y’know, there used to be a lot more ghosts in this area, I get the feeling that whoever they left here for you to find - might be a bit more dangerous than me.”

“Yeah… I don’t like this,” I said as I looked up for a moment. “Let’s approach carefully. Who knows what’s waiting for us in here if they’re more dangerous than you. The Ghosts may be the least of our problems.”

I glanced towards a set of stairs and off to the side. I could see wisps of the pink gas in the distance from here. I nodded that way and pointed up the stairs.

“We should head upstairs,” I finally said. “I don’t like the look of the ground route right now. The stairs should be slightly safer.”

“Sure, the stairs.” Solstice said with a chuckle. “And let’s just hope they don’t collapse out from under our hooves from age and neglect, right?” 

“I’m not worried about that, Pink Cloud preserves things like that very well and its not made of wood,” I replied. “I’m more worried about what could be waiting for us. If there’s somepony that dangerous here, then the first thing I’d do is set up traps on routes close to the Pink Cloud to... dissuade anypony from getting close.”

“Unless they are aware that they need three others, and would not want the three to end up dead or injured - because, you know, if they are smart they don’t want to get blown up, or have dead weight.” Solstice pointed out with a chuckle. “There are two sides to every coin stripes, don’t forget that not everything is as it immediately appears.” 

“Right… but still I’d keep an eye out,” I added. “I’d still put traps in this kind of area. And we don’t exactly know what kind of pony we’re dealing with here. Just, let’s be careful, okay?”

“If any pony, we are not sure if they are still here… perhaps the marker is wrong?” Silver said, gently leaning to look at my pipbuck. “The EFS is messing up… why not the marking system?” 

“Yeah… that’s also possible,” I commented as I looked at the mark for a moment. “But given that we don’t have any other clues, we should at least give it a shot. Unless one of you has a better idea.”

“I personally prefer the ideas that do not result in horrible death,” Solstice said with a chuckle. “It’s not like we can just reload an earlier save or something.” 

“That would’ve been useful while learning how to hack,” I commented with a light chuckle. “We’ll be careful then. But I’d rather not go through the Pink Cloud or figure out a way around it that way. And you just know that Quasar will ask if we checked, and if it turns out he or she is actually there… yeah, we need to check. Just be careful, I’m not entirely convinced that we won’t have to deal with some sort of traps.”

“The cloud really isn’t a big deal, a part of Enclave training teaches you how to handle small pockets of it. I think it has something to do with the idea of storming Canterlot, before you know, they blew it up.” Solstice said with a shrug. “Hold your breath, close your eyes, and sprint as quick as possible, spend almost no time in it, it’ll do basically nothing to you.” 

“Okay, fair,” I said as I glanced back towards the Pink Cloud area for a moment. “Alright, that should probably cut some time out of our trip. This is the Spirits getting back at the FRA for not sending us into the Old City for training, I just know it.”

“If your… Spirits would do such a thing, perhaps they are not worth mentioning?” Silver said with a chuckle. “Sounds much like how many ponies will say goddesses or the like, some goddesses, died and left the world to ruin, they did not deserve it.” 

“I can think of another ‘Goddess’ that didn’t deserve the title.” Solstice said with a snicker.

“The Spirits are real,” I snorted. “We work with them and they aid us and our shamans. Though, the Spirits have long abandoned this place. We’re on our own here.”

“Religions are a load of…” Solstice said, chuckling and shaking her head. “Maybe to you they are, but to everypony else, they are nothing more than smoke and mirrors” 

“I find it interesting that our two nations can have such similar ideals but differ on that one point,” I commented as we started walking again. “Perhaps if you ever wind up in Crusader Town you should ask about the Dealer. And our Shamans have interacted with Spirits for centuries. But, you are still free to have your view of things.”

“As you are to have yours, even if they’re wrong and misguided.” Solstice said with a shrug.

I facehooved at that, but I was not about to get into a debate with this mare. She wasn’t a Shaman, I had never met a Pony Shaman (though I had heard rumors about one from Hoofington that came to our lands). She would never completely understand unless she could actually see some sort of evidence, so I let it go.

“Well, we’re not going to get anything done if we just keep arguing about our respective views on religion,” I said as we reached the area where the pink cloud had collected. “Alright, hopefully this will get us to where we need to go. Are you two ready?”

We quickly made our way through the pink cloud section. For a moment it felt almost like we wouldn’t reach the end of it, I almost felt like I was going to give in and breathe in the horrible gas. Mentally I was cursing the old Imperial spellcrafters who had made this horrifying creation and whoever had put it in the Stella Royale.

Finally we pushed through the pink cloud and I let out a breath that I had been holding. We found ourselves through a hole in the wall and a door that we pushed open. It lead into a small kitchen with stairs that lead upstairs and a desk with a terminal against the wall.

“I’m going to check the terminal, you two see if you can find anything in here,” I said as I trotted over to the terminal. This one wasn’t password protected as I pulled up the data on the screen.



Doctor Magenta’s Notes.
Log Entries.



Interesting, this belonged to one of the Doctors who worked in the Medical District. Looking over the notes confirmed that, it was mostly just notes of treatments from before the last day. I loaded up the log entries, and clicked on one that was dated a year before the bombs fell.

What I noted that the information had been partially corrupted. The name of the patient had been cut out, leaving just the initials V.K.

“V.K. again…” I muttered as I looked at the entry. “Interesting… probably a coincidence though.”



I saw V.K again today. She came down from the Casino to meet with me in the Clinic, these visits seem to be getting more and more frequent lately. She’s doing worse I’m afraid, I’ve given her what Med-X I can spare. I put in a requisition to have one of the experimental S.A.D. systems be moved into the Casino’s medical center in the event that she needs it.

I’m still confused by her insistence on a [REDACTED], or why she had been so secretive about it. 



That was where the file ended however. It was just another mystery to pile on top of the numerous mysteries of this place including V.K. For now, I didn’t have time to wonder about that, I scanned through the rest of the log entries. They were more reports of what had happened after the bombs fell and the ensuing chaos followed by the Clinic being abandoned.

I pulled up the last log entry on the terminal. I was going to get answers about this.



The Triage center we set up is gone.

I don’t know how many ponies are left in the Chateau anymore. I wasn’t trained for this kind of thing. The lucky ones die quickly from the exposure to the pink cloud, the unlucky ones suffer a long and painful death. Or worse, they don’t die at all. I found a stash of hazard suits that we’re starting to pass out to ponies that need to get into the affected areas. But it’s not doing any good, whatever this thing is, it gets into the suits anyway.

Now at least we know what happened to the Deputy from before. The Pink Cloud does it, it made her that, thing. I’ve never experienced something as horrible as a pony rising up after seemingly dying and attacking their former friends and family. The Cloud, it makes them no better than animals.

We sent a team to try and get the gate open, but the Cloud had already breached that area. And there were ponies… dressed in hazard suits there. They attacked the team, with only a single survivor barely escaping. He mentioned that they seemed enraptured by the hologram of V.K. at the center of the fountain before succumbing to his wounds.

Its spreading further over the Chateau, I don’t know how much longer we’re going to last at this point. If anypony ever finds this, get out of here. There’s nothing left of us here, we’re all just living on borrowed time at this point.

My name is Doctor Magenta, I’m the last of the medical staff here at the Stella Royale. And I have failed in my duty to keep these ponies alive. For that, I am truly sorry.



“Sani?” I heard Silver call out. “We have found something you may want to see.” 

“What is it?” I asked, finally being able to tear myself away from the screen. I headed over towards where the other two were standing to see what was going on.

“We warn that this may be very disturbing, based on previous reactions.” Silver said, looking over her shoulder for a moment. Just now noticing that she had been shielding a hallway with her wings to block my view. “Are you absolutely sure you want to see this?” 

“You just said I may want to see it,” I pointed out and sighed. “Look, I lost my composure back at the Clinic I know. But if I need to see this, then I’ll come see it and try to avoid freaking out or throwing up.”

Silver nodded and lifted her wings, letting me see a hallway littered with bodies, most of them very well preserved, but at the far end of the hallway stood a furniture barricade, behind it skeletons of ponies, young and old, one of them draped in a tattered and torn white lab coat.

“It would appear, this was their final stand.” Silver said, looking away with a sigh.

I stood there in silence for a long moment as I looked at the skeletons of the ponies. Part of me wished that we could give them a proper burial, but the rest of me knew that there was no way we would be able to find a place for them.

The silence around us was deafening, as if there was nothing else any of us could either do or say. I couldn’t look away, it was like looking away would do these ponies a disservice. I finally couldn’t help it any longer, I broke down crying.

“I’m sorry…” I finally said, not to Silver, but to them. “This is all our fault. We developed that horrible weapon and let it be used. Everything that happened here, it’s our fault…”

I felt a hoof gently grasping at my back, pulling me back until I was enveloped in darkness, a slight light shining, only to grow brighter, Silver smiling there, having wrapped me in her wings.

“The sins of the father weigh heavily on this one’s back, but the father did not intend for his sins to fall to his children.” Silver said softly. “You need not apologize for them, or for what the fathers of time past have done, but honor their memory, and ensure that something like this may never happen again.” 

“It’s still not easy you know…” I admitted. “How much have we really changed since then? We still fight wars with one another. We still kill one another. Not long ago Equestria was embroiled in the biggest war it had seen in years. Ponies were willing to use Megaspells on each other, and they did once. All because nopony was willing to do what they should have done to begin with, sit down and talk.”

“This is true, however do not take the lessons learned from this last great war and let them be forgotten.” Silver said, smiling at me. “Weapons of mass destruction will always be a part of our history, but the marks of times changing is when we learn that these weapons are not our way, and decide that perhaps it would be best to dismantle them and let them be relics of the past rather than embrace them and use them to only deepen the wastes.”

“This place would be better off destroyed, never thought I’d agree with the old Enclave on that kind of thing,” I sighed. I looked at the skeletons one last time and muttered a soft prayer. “The only thing we can do now is remember. I’m going back to the terminal to download the files to my PipBuck. If we get out of this, I think both our species need to see what we’ve learned here.”

“Do what you must to be at peace.” Silver said, lifting her wings and standing, her gaze turning back to the bodies that littered the hallway. “May the goddess -” she paused, looked at me for a moment “And the spirits, guide your souls to rest.” 

I went to the terminal and downloaded the files in silence. I was going to make sure that these stories were remembered. I took a deep breath as I made sure they were downloaded. This place was horrible, but I had to make sure they survived.

When I turned from the terminal I saw Silver still in the hallway, she had moved each body - every skeleton to be in a line along a wall, each one draped in a clean white sheet. Resting on each a single, glowing other-worldly flower. A part of me wondered where she was getting them, only to watch her levitate up a dirty one in her magic, seeing as it bleached white, and was capped with the conjured flower.

“Requiem aeternam dona eis.” she said, before turning to face me with a soft smile. “Are you ready to leave?” 

“Thank you, it’s beautiful,” I said as I admired her work and gave her a nod. “Let’s get Solstice and go. We shouldn’t be too far away from our goal.”

We headed upstairs and found a balcony that would lead us away from the Pink Cloud. I checked my map again as we started heading along the rooftops towards our goal.


00000


As we neared the building where the signal was coming from, we heard a familiar sound as more Ghosts came into view. I was about to raise my spear to fight them again when there was a sudden clicking sound as they stepped on something.

“Down!” I shouted as we ducked down and there was an explosion followed by the unnatural cries of the Ghosts. When we looked up again, most of them had been blown to pieces with the last one stumbling around from the shock as I threw my spear at its head, impaling it. “I told you there were traps around here. That is why we keep a close eye out.”

I checked over the bodies as I pulled the spear out again. There wasn’t much to find, just a few random items and weapons. I found another note on one body however, and when I opened it, all that was on it was a drawing of two ponies against a background with words written under it that were crossed out and replaced with “There is no light left in the world.”

“Well, that’s not ominous at all…” I said as I stared at the paper for a moment before sliding it into my bags.

“Okay, so, traps,” Solstice said, tapping at her chin. “Those were obvious, we just weren’t looking… maybe they are meant to be seen by us, but the ghosts aren’t coordinated enough to avoid them.” 

“Or you tempting fate once more has put us all at risk.” Silver said with a frown. “From this point forward, if we survive - You are no longer allowed to tempt fate.” 

“Oh come on, It can’t happen every time!” Solstice said, sputtering and looking a little offended.

“Then I wouldn’t move your left foreleg an inch to your left,” I commented as I glanced down at the ground. “Because there’s a pressure plate right where you were about to step.”

Silver sighed and rolled her eyes, horn starting to glow and a solid platform made of her magic appeared just above the ground. 

“All aboard.” Silver said, slightly glaring at Solstice. “You’re lucky that if you die we die, else we would leave you here to work yourself out of your own mistake.” 

Solstice just puffed her cheeks for a moment before stepping onto the platform of magic. “Yeah… well… I’ll remember that when you nearly get yourself killed by a poor choice.”

“I’m here because of a poor choice if that helps any,” I commented as we started for the stairs, keeping an eye out for any more traps. “Well, I’m pretty sure whoever we’re looking for knows we’re here at this point. So, we might as well…”

I stopped in mid-sentence when we reached the destroyed floor where the signal was coming from. There was nothing there except for two chairs and a desk with a terminal on it.

“Oh… you have got to be kidding me,” I commented as I looked around. “Where is that signal coming from?”

“Perhaps the drawers?” Silver said, motioning to the desk.

“And what if whoever put it there expected Quasar to come check it out? It could be trapped.” Solstice said with a huff.

“Oh, now we’re worried about traps we see.” Silver said, shooting Solstice a look. 

“Yeah…” I said as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

“We swear, it is almost like there are not two magic users here.” Silver said, rolling her eyes as she placed a shield between us and the desk. “Use your magic, open the drawers, if they are trapped, it’ll go off, and we’ll be fine.” 

“Shell shock is a thing you know.” Solstice said, shaking her head and rolling her eyes in reply. Horn glowing and started to gently pull each drawer out.

And absolutely nothing happened as each of them opened. “Well, that was a waste of time,” I commented. “But better safe than sorry I suppose. Well, let’s see if the terminal offers anything.”

I headed over to the terminal and typed on it, keeping an eye out for anything for a moment but nothing happened. I let out a sigh of relief as I pulled up the terminal information.



Signal Broadcast: On.
Message for Quasar.



“Okay, well that explains why we were led here, this terminal is broadcasting the signal,” I said as I shut off the signal and it vanished from my EFS. “So… what does this mean?”

I opened up the other entry and narrowed my eyes, it was only a short message.

“See you soon,” I read out loud. “What do you two suggest we do now? This didn’t exactly pan out. Should we go back to the Fountain and report?”

“Father Quasar needs us, correct?” Silver said, looking at me for a moment. “We say he can contact us, we need not be his puppets.”

“He could decide that’s enough to kill us and start again?” Solstice pointed out.

“We doubt this, we have been here before Father Quasar was here - we have seen all his past attempts fail, but each got farther than the last - He would not let us live when those attempts failed, if he did not need us.” Silver said, slowly shaking her head. “We believe that he needs us, and you.” pointing to Solstice. “We are unsure why he has roped Sani into this, there is more here than meets the eye, however we are confident he would not risk killing us.” 

“I agree,” I said. “But this isn’t the safest place to be right now. The Fountain is our fallback point, we should return there and either contact him or figure out what to do next. We don’t have to contact him yet.”

“We disagree, but we will follow your lead.” Silver said with a sigh. “There are many buildings, each have been untouched for decades, if not longer, with caches scattered around there is no telling what we could be leaving behind.”

“Well, we can always come back and check it out after we’ve cleared the Casino.” Solstice said with a shrug. “And with no worry about losing our heads.” 

“Or before we go into the Casino,” I suggested as we started down the stairs again. “Keep an eye out while we’re here as well. I don’t like this any more than you do. But… I don’t like this place, it feels like we’re walking over graves.”

As we headed back to the entrance to the Residential district, I spotted another white hoofprint. I found the suitcase and gathered up what we could, spotting another identical letter at the bottom of it. I stared at the name on it for the longest moment.

“V.K… who are you…” I commented out loud as I looked at it. “Why did you leave these caches out…”

“We will find out in due time, however we do believe there is a fair chance that this cache may have been guarded.” Silver said, motioning to a nearby pile of bones and unidentifiable meat, “It may be wise to move quicker.”

“Agreed,” I said as we started walking again, this time much faster. Something about this still bothered me though. It felt so much like we were being set up for something.

And I didn’t like it one bit.


00000


“World on fire with a smoking sun,
Stops everything and everyone.
Brace yourself for all will pay,
Help is on the way.”

“If they weren’t in the Residential District, where did they go?” I asked as I paced in front of the fountain. “There are only two other locations we haven’t searched. Lever du Soleil and Coucher du Soleil. What is that anyway, Prench?”

“We believe so.” Silver said, tapping her chin for a moment. “We have a theory, but we are unsure if the possibility is… well, a possibility.” 

“There is something off about all of this, like we’ve all been led in circles and believed something to be truth and fact when it was just a single lie by a very skilled liar.” Solstice said, sighing and shaking her head. “This is giving me a headache, and that gosh darn singing isn’t helping!” 

“Tell me about it…” I muttered as I closed my eyes. Something about that singing suddenly bothered me. “Why is that thing still running anyway? It should have run out of power years ago or something. Or does it have a limitless power source? Why am I wondering about this kind of thing? We have more important things to deal with like what we’re supposed to do now.”

“Question.” Solstice said, holding her hoof up. “Where is Father Quasar after all? I mean - He’s here, somewhere… he can’t be too far, the cloud messes with electronics too much”

“Perhaps we should contact him, as much as we would desire any other choice than this.” Silver added, sighing and sitting down while shaking her head. “This one stallion has… many answers we feel.” 

“Yes, I agree, give me a second,” I said as I went back over to the fountain and input commands into a terminal. After a moment, the holographic projection of Father Quasar appeared before us.

“Well, I see you’ve found two of them at least, I hope you’re not here to waste my time,” Quasar commented as he stared the three of us down. “Do you have any questions or should I just wait until you actually find the last member of our little team?”

“We went to the location of the signal from the last member,” I told him. “He or she apparently rigged a terminal to broadcast the signal. They’re in the wind.”

“That is troubling, but not unexpected,” Quasar commented. “I will run a scan for the signal again. Without that interfering, it should be easy enough to track down their actual location within the Chateau. If you’ll give me a moment I’ll…”

He paused a moment as if he was listening to something. Then the hologram flickered before shutting off.

“Okay, that wasn’t weird at all…” I commented as I looked back at the others. “What do you two think?”

“Perhaps he discovered that our last member has made an escape without his noticing?” Solstice said with a shrug. “It’d be what I’d do if I had the ability to take off my collar and spoof my signal.” 

“Yeah… maybe,” I said as I looked thoughtful for a moment. Something was wrong about all of this, I couldn’t put my hoof on it, but something felt wrong.

“We did not find a collar with the terminal, it is possible that the collar was not removed and that our last member is somewhere in the villa, or perhaps even the casino.” Silver pointed out. “You see… we have a feeling that our last member is… much more familiar with this place, perhaps has been here far longer than all of us combined.” 

“Yeah, I agree,” I said as I shifted again. Something really felt off, like there was something missing all of a sudden. “They’re smart, and very dangerous. If they’re up to something, we have to…”

I stopped in mid sentence when I realized what was missing. There was a silence, a very familiar silence that was native to the Royale.

“What happened to the music?” I asked. I turned around quickly and saw the hologram of the mare was still there. However now she was staring at the three of us with sharp eyes and a smile on her lips. “You have got to be kidding me…”

“Well, it’s about time you figured it out,” the mare laughed. “I was expecting Quasar to send smarter ponies than this.”

Silver jumped to her hooves and stared at that hologram for a few moments. “We knew it, V.K. Right? We knew you must have been the last, Let us guess, used VIP access to get into the Casino without the Gala event?” 

“There were rumors of a connection between the theater and the Chateau to allow for, psuedo-live performances.” Solstice said, chuckling a little. “Never thought a pony would sit there singing for hours on end to no crowd.” 

“I only sing when you’re here, it keeps up appearances,” V.K. replied. She raised a cigarette to her lips and lit it. “And yes, I am V.K., I’m sure you’ve found my caches around the Chateau I assume. If you want to call me anything, call me Velvet Kiss. I must say, Quasar certainly has gathered up a motley crew.”

“Where is our rifle” Silver said, walking up to that hologram. “What have you done with it.” 

“Oh, this is yours?” Velvet asked as she reached over and picked up a rifle. “I simply found it in the armory at the Police Station. I felt it might come in handy, nothing more. But it may have some uses.”

“Well, Velvet,” I said as I eyed her. “You clearly know what we’re doing here. You know we’re after the treasure of the Stella Royale.”

“Yes, I do, and I also know things about Father Quasar,” Velvet replied and took a drag on her cigarette. “You know parts of it I’m sure. Former Steel Ranger Elder, out of San Prancisco I think it was. I wonder if you know that for a time some years back he was in Seaddle before the little civil war broke out. Way I hear it, Elder Mandrake himself excommunicated the not-so good Father and sent his operatives after him.”

“Mandrake?” I asked. “The Seaddle Elder that waged war against Applejack’s Rangers?”

“Yes, and if the likes of him didn’t like Quasar, you can only imagine how dangerous this stallion is,” Velvet snorted.

“You are a liar.” Silver said, scowling at that hologram. “We have sat and talked with this stallion, he has never once mentioned this to us, nor have we seen it when we entered his mind.”

“You really think it’s that simple?” Velvet asked. “This isn’t the first time he’s crossed paths with your kind. I’m sure he has defenses against it. He’s tried to use other Alicorns over the years, and none of them could pierce his defenses either. Tell me, did he tell you the trick to these things?”

She adjusted the hologram and a collar appeared around her neck which she tapped.

“If one of us dies, we all die,” she continued. “Beep… beep… BOOM!”

“Indeed he did.” Silver said, her horn starting to glow, aura appearing around her own collar. “If what we have been told is true, Unity is gone, we no longer have a purpose - We could end this charade right here, right now, and end all of us before Quasar gets what he desires. Dare us.”

“Yes, but imagine what you can do with the treasures lying in this place,” Velvet said as she smiled. “You could use the treasure to find yourself a new purpose in life. Or perhaps convince other Alicorns to build a new Unity. Sani, you’re from the Free Roam Alliance. Your nation is still recovering from the last war, imagine what that much gold could do for the people of Zebrica. And not to mention how much you could all get personally. You’re in luck because I’m still going to help you get into the Casino.”

“You talk too much.” Solstice said, walking up next to Silver. “See, the thing here is - Maybe that kind of thinking could appeal to you, and possibly Sani, but Big Green here? She has no interest in Wealth, and my goal is to see Quasar in a puddle of blood, so why don’t you stop with the theatrics and cut to the chase.” 

“Alright then, I’ll cut to the chase as you said,” Velvet said. “We can all get what we want out of this. Quasar is in a well protected location, the only way to lure him out is to play his game. You want to kill him, then we have to work together. As for you Silver, you want your gun back I’m guessing. I’ll give you your gun back upon delivery of your side of the deal. And after that, well, you’re free to do whatever you want. Kill yourself, go out and walk Equestria. Maybe find a pony and have little Alicorn babies, whatever you want to do. I don’t really care at this point, all I care about is getting into that vault, and the three of you are the only way we’re going to do it. So, what do you say?”

“We do not make deals with thieves.” Silver said, scowling at that hologram all the more. “You fail to realize, we hold the cards. You will be here, at this fountain in no less than five minutes, you will return our rifle, and then you will stay with us and assist in triggering the Gala event, failure to comply will result in immediate removal of our collar, and thus the termination of this so called game. What do you say.” 

“Oh, you’re under the impression that I’m under the same restrictions as you, how cute,” Velvet giggled. “See, I’m capable of doing more things than you three are. I removed the bomb on my collar a long time ago. However, it’s still linked so all I have to do is remove one, little, clasp. And then, like I said… boom.”

“That explains how you survived the previous games.” Silver said with a frown “However, this time is different is it not? You need us, elsewise you will not survive the pink cloud in the vault. You need Solstice to open the lock to get into the vault, We are not sure what Sani is meant to do - but we are certain, you disabled your collar, but our deaths would be irreplaceable in your ability to enter the vault unharmed.”

“Oh, such a party pooper,” Velvet said with a pout. “To answer your question, the Zebra would not have been my first choice. However I suppose that Quasar believed that she would be good to keep us from killing one another. Well, since you put it that way, I suppose I can comply with your request. But one wrong move, and all three of you will blow up, I have infinite patience at this point, I can find more ponies if I have to.”

“We beg to differ.” Silver said, starting to smirk. “The wasteland grows sparse in particular departments. If what was said is true, Unity is gone, which means many of our sisters will have gone with it, no alicorns, no shield. On top of which we can sense the potential of this unicorn, she is one in a million, kill her there is no promise of another being of her caliber being born in a millenia. Not to mention with your defiance, Quasar is likely to try and kill you himself.” 

“Well then, I might as well play your game,” Velvet said. “Very well, I will be at the fountain shortly.”

And with that the hologram shut off completely.

“I swear, she’s going to get us all killed,” I groaned as I looked back at Silver and Solstice. “What do you two make of her? She doesn’t exactly strike me as the most stable of ponies.”

“Buh dun tiss.” Solstice said with a chuckle. “But in all things considered and full seriousness - I think she’s a few screws short. Though I believe we just witnessed a rare unmovable object colliding with an unstoppable force.” 

Silver, through this all was standing there, collar still held in her magic, staring at the gates that lead to the casino.

“Agreed,” I said as I looked at the gates again. “You know, I once heard a story about a hero who was faced with that supposedly unanswerable question by a Sphinx.”

“What was his answer?”

“They surrender.”

LEVEL UP!

Perk Received: Mare of Steel.
Details: Your time in the Stella Royale has strengthened your resolve and strength. Your durability and bones have increased in strength. You take less damage from physical attacks and your bones break less often.