Now to continue where I left off. At some point they decided to rest and caught sight of that lovely silhouette you see above seemingly watching them from a hill nearby. It didn't seem to threaten them and they were mostly unarmed so they decided to just watch it in case. It didn't act at all so they were content to move on in the morning. As they walked on they caught sight of a pony shaped bundle of cloth on the side of the road. It was revealed to be the corpse of the pony euthanized by Astron in my previous post, with a new bullet hole no pony other than Astron recognized. At that point the only pony who hadn't figured out what happened was Lovetap, who quickly put two and two together in time to see Astron rather quickly speeding away from the scene. Eventually the much more fit Lovetap chased him down and tackled him, attempting to calm him down. While their conversation was going on Silent Scope caught sight of a green pony in the distance laughing at the whole situation. He quickly made chase, but the pony went to the other side of the hill and when Silent Scope arrived there was no sign of him anywhere.
Eventually Astron was consoled enough and they made their way West again trying to get back to their home in the Stable. As night fell they found an abandoned police station and decided to rest there for the night. Astron amused himself by attempting to hack into an old computer terminal with a cautious Lovetap peering over his shoulder, the rest of the party decided to search for anything salvageable. With very little difficulty Astron opened up the computer and discovered a few old emergency call logs. A few were run of the mill, but one was just horrific screaming, and another one a few days later was a man turning himself in for the murder of his wife. While these stories were disturbing, they were for the most part nonthreatening. There was also a switch that apparently opened some door Astron couldn't see.
The rest of the party came back with a bounty of armor collected from a previously electronically locked room Astron had unwittingly opened during his foaling about. Apparently the armor was pre-war Trottingham police issue and bore their standards. It took some coaxing to get Astron to accept the armor, but eventually the entire party was armored and they even found a few guns to protect themselves with.
They moved on quite sometime and a rather uneventful walk later they found themselves at the outskirts of the Trottingham proper itself. There were towering buildings and piles of rubble several ponies high. Seeing as they were all exhausted from their journey so far they decided to call it a night and set up in an old building.
Again after a bit of searching they found the building entirely free of ponies, although there were a few oversized rats they made short work of. Astron quickly ensconced himself in another terminal again a slightly disturbed Lovetap watching over his shoulder just in case. He hacked his way in and figured out the computer's password was "Redhoofinnsucks" he had slight chuckle at the long dead ponies humour and began to read over some old records of ponies that had used the hotel before the war ended their world. He clicked over a few run of the mill records before seeing one that was eerily familiar. It was a story told over two records. One of a mysterious mare that paid for her room entirely in bits and made one phone call the entire time. It just so happened to be the exact same length as the phone call that consisted entirely of one constant scream. The second was a nervous stallion who checked in and made several phone calls the last of which was to the police station, he then checked out and left.
While these records were sort of an amusing disturbance for Astron it was the last entry on the computer that truly disturbed him. One labeled simply "> Astron" After a bit of hesitation Astron's curiosity got the better of him and he opened the file. It said simply "His name was Long Hooves" it didn't long for him to realise who this was in reference to. He saved it to his Pipbuck when he noticed a second entry in the file labeled, "Lovetap". He called over Lovetap and showed her the file, she decided to open it up and got a message saying, "Step a little closer." They heard the computer beeping and managed to step away before it exploded.
The rest of the party returned at the sound of the explosion and after a brief explanation for the explosion they decided to call it a night and assigned a watch cycle before sleeping. The morning came without even and saw a unicorn with a machete strapped to his side smoking a cigarette standing outside the front door. And that's where I'll stop for tonight.