WASTELAND! With Horses - Chapter 9 [It's Ded]

"Er, hang on a moment. Red, you're bleeding."
>Red glares at you
~"No, you're bleeding."
"What? No, just-"
>she leans over and points a hoof at a nasty wound on your breast which you must admit is, in fact, bleeding
~"Yeah, lemme just- Whoah!"
>Red's eyes pop out of their sockets as though a rapid jolt of pain is shooting through her body
>she stiffens up and falls forward
>in the process, her pointing hoof falls forward as well
>directly into your open wound
>you yelp and go down with her
>in a moment you're both a crumpled heap of cream-and-red pony lying on the ground groaning
/"I think you are both bleeding."
>you groan again
"S-sketchy?"
_"… Okay."
>a few bandages and painkillers later, you're as close to good as new as you're going to get
>you examine a bandage just below your flank while wiggling your hind leg to see if it comes loose
>it doesn't
"Well"
>you load a fresh magazine into your gun and wait for the others to do the same
"Let's get going."
>the remainder of the trip is eerily quiet
>even your own hoofsteps are nearly silent with each feather-like step you take
>even your own mind is silent with each radar-like sweep for enemies your eyes and ears make
>enemies, and possibly the allies you left behind, catching up to you
>but neither enemy nor ally makes itself known to your perception
>this trip has been too eventful for you to behave otherwise
>navigation is simple and mindless; the only navigable way is the way which leads to the hideout
>and following it, you eventually make your way to your destination
>the hideout seems to have at one point been a government building
>once-gleaming marble makes up the exterior walls and the great pillars which uphold the over-hanging rooftop
>the statue of Princess Celestia in the courtyard was probably white marble once as well, but it's so burnt and blackened now that it's hard to tell
>was it recently burned?
>it looks like it's still smoking, and something like glowing embers are scattered on the ground around it
>if it was recently burned, then there's probably someone still nearby
>in any case, it's probably better to take some cover now anyway, in case of patrolling gangmembers looking out for Rangers
>you whisper your command
"Come on."
>and quickly creep behind a nearby building that may have once been a mart of some sort
>for the first time since entering the castle, your muscles relax and a deep breath enters your lungs
~"Is that it?"
"Definitely."
/"Do ve have a plan for getting in? I doubt ve can simply valtz in through ze front door."
~"As the only one here who's broken into lairs of armed scum before, I bet there's a back way in without a lot of guards."
"Well, maybe we can simply waltz in through the front door…"
~"I mean if you're looking for a fight I guess."
"No, no, no. Listen. You were all stone drunk at the time, but those thugs from the pub, they had a note on them…"
/"A note?"
"Mhm. I think… I think it might have had a password on it."
~"What, like, to here?"
"Probably."
~"Passwords usually work."
_"What if they recognize us?"
>Red reaches over and pops Sketchy's chevron off of her saddle bag
~"They won't now; it's not like they know our faces."
"Hmmm… If I could just remember what that note said. Or if not then maybe we find a back way in. Just let me think for a moment here."

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On the off-chance that you were reading this, I'm sorry to say that the story won't be finished. You see, it was a CYOA on 8chan /pone/, and it just sort of died. People stopped replying, which makes a choose-your-own-adventure story more or less impossible. When the 8chan hack happened, the thread was lost, and I just decided not to re-make it. The interest simply wasn't there. There was a decent amount of interest in the first week or so of the story, and after that the thread moved at an agonizingly slow pace, even for a slow board like /pone/, usually going weeks or months without a bump, somehow just barely managing to crawl along as long as it did. I think people found the concept boring, and also the board was already clogged up with like half a dozen other long-running CYOAs. Oh well.

And even if the CYOA were to be picked up again right now, it probably still wouldn't be finished. I'm leaving the internet, not really by choice, in about a month, which is June 2017. I'll be gone for at least a good 6 months. That's not enough time to finish the main quest storyline I had planned, not to mention the possible side quests that could have been taken, even if the thread got popular enough for me to update it every day. Hell, even if I said fuck the CYOA and just wrote the story myself I doubt I'd have it written out in time. I'm just going to use this month to try my best to finish the Anon Tried to Kill Himself story, which started much earlier and is much closer to being finished than this one is. If you care enough about this story to want some closure, QQ about it on /pone/ before June starts and I'll give you the tl;dr of everything you didn't know. Or if you find this too late and have autism feel free to pick up where I left off, I don't really care.

Semper Autisticus,
Anonymous