The Long Road [Closed]

As the group finished their buyings or waitings, Spectre gathered everypony back together, and the group set out north for Friendship city. The first portion of the journey was rather dull and uneventful, the group walking through the empty wasteland. The old railway was just a short distance to their right, it could be seen a couple hundred meters away. The occasional sounds of fighting could be heard as always in the wastes, and after a few hours of nothingness they came upon an old ruin up ahead. The place looked derelict, just an old house.

Half the bulding had collapsed long ago, and the other half hardly looked safe. As the group drew nearer they could make out more, at the very least the place seemed unoccupied.

Spectre had walked at the head of the group, though not so far as he couldn't occasionally glance back and see what the rest were up to, besides Sanura, Zuberi and Talib, Spectre didn't know any of the others, and still didn't want to take any chances. When they came across the ruin Spectre halted the group and moved a little closer himself, barely making a sound. Once he was confident the place was empty, or it's occupants asleep for some reason, he motioned for the others to catch up and they moved closer. "We can take a quick look and see if there is anything of use in this wreck and take a short rest if you all wish to? Or we can just continue on our way." Spectre looked back to the others as he spoke, he cold easily go further if he wanted, and he was sure others could too, bt he asked on the off chance. The prospect of loot appealed to him more if anything, but still not much considering it was half a pre-war house.

Sanura stepped up beside the Zebra once he'd pronounced that it was clear enough they'd be safe to even possibly sleep in it. Biting down on her lip as she leaned this way and that as if trying to see into the whole place without actually walking in... I mean he might've been wrong after all and she certainly didn't want to be the first once to really stick her nose into a trap or anything.

"I said we check it out... may as well see what's there and settle down, get ready for a longer haul tomorrow hmm?" she looked to the others. "Sound like a good idea to everypony else?" she asked and then grinned, "Maybe have some fun, share stories before we head off into the horizons. That way we know who's who and craziness like that." She gave a firm nod.

Ditzy grabbed the pistol in her mouth, unloaded the magazine and slid the receiver to eject the bullet, examining the insides of the pistol. Then she placed it on the counter, smiled at Harmor and stacked a small pile of caps next to it as a counteroffer.

Harmor selling 9mm pistol for 70 caps.

Shrapnel placed the dynamite sticks in the pockets inside his coat, bidding Ditzy a goodbye as he did so. He took one last look around the cluttered shop, but he felt how light the pocket with caps have gotten. Maybe next time.

"Alright, I'll be waiting outside. It's already a bit crowded here, no need to make it worse." he said to noone in particular as he opened the door and went outside. He gave a nod to the zebra that was waiting outside, the one he saw few whiles back at the meeting place but not spoke to him, and started to slowly walk back outside of 'loosa, catching up with the rest of the group and heading out with them.

Talib politely returned the nod to Shrapnel before setting off after him, decidng that it would be best to catch up to everyone rather than get left behind. He wasn't sure whether he should try to start a conversation or not, so simply kept his eyes open for anything useful along the trail that he could use.

Silent kept to himself as they trotted in, after putting on his new barding and iron shoes, not entirely sure who he should talk to, he didn't really know anypony there, and several of them didn't seem like the kind of ponies he'd like to associate with.

Noticing a zebra whose name he hadn't caught earlier looking around in the same apprehensive fashion as him he trotted over and attempted to start a conversation.

"I don't believe I caught your name earlier, and I'm Silent Echo by the way, if you didn't catch mine"

Talib noticed that he was being talked to and smiled sheepishly to Silent, having almost jumped as he was a bit distracted in his search for something to use in his concotions. He faced Silent and nodded slightly.

"A pleasure to meet you Silent." Talib held out his hoof, still smiling. "My name is Talib."

After Harmor had finished his bartering with the pegasus ghoul, he donned his new barding and checked the balance on the machete. Obviously, it was quite a bit off being the crude, thrown-togther thing that it was. He followed the group to the broken down house, sticking close to Sanura. Harmor personally wanted to continue, but agreed with the unicorn to rest for a longer venture the next day.

"Sure Sanura, we can eat the food that I bought earlier too, unless everypony thinks saving it is a better idea?"

Spectre looked at Sanura next to him as she appeared to be checking the building herself... Sort of. "Do you not trust me?" Spectre smirked, and proceeded to trot up to the building, ignoring the caved in side he walked up to the front door and tried to open it. The door responded by falling straight backwards into the house, almost in slow motion, followed by a resounding 'thud' as it hit the floor. Spectre waited, and still nothing seemed to stir in the house, so he turned back to the others. "Coming?" Spectre then entered the house and proceeded to start shoving stuff out the way on the floor.

Sanura gave Spectre an almost hurt look, "N-not trust you? That's not it at all!" she huffed and sniffled, forcing tears to her eyes as best she could which... was really good actualy, she seemed to be on the verge of bursting into sobs and waterfalls really. "I-I just thought with your forcibly acquired internal armor it'd be best that way..." she said and rubbed her nose, speaking of the bullets that she still had to get out of him which... would be happening tonight, whether he knew it or not. She moved after him though, carefully going through as much of what was there as she could, using her magic to open things from a distance in case of traps. "Ever wonder what these places looked like before... you know all the bad stuff?"

Silent smiles happily at the zebra, who's name he now knew was named Talib, and writes. "Didn't mean to startle you, nice to meet you too Talib." Shortly after that he noticed Spectre starting to enter the ruin and calling out for the others to do so too. "Well looks like were headed inside for now, guess we can maybe talk some more in there?"

Spectre had stopped to look back at Sanura, wondering if he had actually offended her, until she brought up his 'armour', Spectre chuckled. "You know, that was very convincing, you could use that to your advantage..." Spectre mostly just moved things out the way so the others could sleep on the floor, though he occasionally checked some containers. When Sanura asked about what the place used to look like Spectre smirked, then proceeded to pick a book up off the floor and put it on the bookshelf. "Well I imagine this was here..." Then he picked up a tattered cushion. "And this here..." He said as he put it on a ruined chair.

After entering the half destroyed house, Harmor climed the stairs, the wood creaking with every placement of a hoof. Once on the second floor, he opened some drawers, which exploded dust into Harmor's face. He couged loudly and waved the dust away with his forleg, finding nothing in the drawers that was useful.

Something shiny caught Harmor's eye on the opposite side of the room, he walked slowly towards it, the floor groaning with each step in protest. The groan of one board turned into a cracking sound, Harmor jumped out of the way, crashing through several floorboards. He felt the air leave his lungs and grabbed onto one of the intact boards, but his strength failed and he fell to the first floor, landing on the chair. "Ah-... Ow... Sorry about that..."

Harmor got up slowly and limped away.

Shrapnel heard the sound of something going horribly wrong in the next room. He dropped the lamp he was examining and galloped into the room that suddenly got it's volume combined with the one under it and looked through the hole down on the unicorn crashed in the chair below.

"Harmor! You okay down there? Anything broken?" The string of additional questions got broken when the unicorn got up from the chair and stood on all four without any sign of more serious injury. "Darn it, you got me worried there for a moment. Come back up here, there might be still something of interest in the other room and the floor there seems in lot better condition." said Shrapnel and turned away from the hole in the floor. He headed back to the lamp, trying to stifle chuckling from how hilarious must have been to see Harmor suddenly vanish with half of the floor in the room.

Sanura smirks as Spectre goes about trying to put things back into place and she'd laugh, "You know what I meant, crazy thing." she prodded him with her hoof, "Before all the stains and burns an- ACK!" she hops backward as Harmor falls through the ceiling and lands in the recently placed cushion along with a mass of debri and old dry wall and wood, "Err.. are you okay, hun?" she asked and took a few trots after Harmor as he limped off and she bit her lower lip, trying not to giggle since he seemed mostly alright.

Turning to Spectre she'd prod him again, "I know where the books and the cushions go." she said before poking her tongue out at him before she'd call out a bit more loudly so everyone could here, "Keep an eye out for some med-x if everyone would please?" Meanwhile, in the larger room on the first floor, probably the living room one would assume, she'd start floating various bits aside from here and there to make a decent place for everypony to sleep when it was time.

Talib smiles and nods to Silent, intrigued as to what he might like to talk about. However, Talib thought thiis would be a good time to pursue his craft slightly, so spoke once more.

"I'd be delighted to. But first I'd like to see if I can find anything useful for either my alchemical creations, or just something I can turn into a nice drink or meal." Talib smiled once more. "Feel free to join me whilst I look."

With that, Talib set off in search of ingredients, foodstuffs, and anything else that might be of some use around the structure.

{Survival 51, Searching For Ingredients, Food, Drink etc, Using Perk Green Hoof for Alchemy Search (Alchemy 50).}

"Alrighty, I'll come help you look!"

Silent wrote in response to Talib and happily trotted of after the zebra ti help him look, pointing at random things and asking and hoping that they could be used and that he was being helpful

As the various ponies and zebras looked in and around the half-house, one in particular even getting a fleeting glance between the floorboards, they came across various useful and useless things.

Sanura finds a few caps, and a couple of sellable, but useless items, giving her a total of 80 caps.

Spectre finds mostly old broken junk, though through it all he's able to make about two lots of Scrap Metal, and finds a singular bottle cap.

Harmor doesn't seem to find much either, only 30 caps, though as he fell through the floor so spectacularly he caught a glimpse of something shiny inbetween the floorboards, hidden treasure perhaps? An old but still active landmine? Who knows!

Shrapnel while examining the lamp spotted something down the back of the drawers it was on, upon closer inspection it would appear that there was a single shotgun down there, must've fallen down some time. If if chooses to examine it, he would find it had a single shell loaded into it, though no more have been found so far.

Outside the house Talib and Silent searched together for any ingriedients the zebra could use in his alchemy, and possibly some food too. through their combined efforts they managed to turn up about 125 caps worth of standard ingridients. The only food found was when Talib came across a decaying squirrel corpse, not really safe to eat, and rather nasty to look at. Silent however managed to find a battered box containing six 20 gauge shotgun shells, it had been on the ground near a shattered second floor window, apparently blown through it in the megaspell blasts.

The ground floor of the building is eventually cleared of junk, giving enough room for everypony to sleep there if they so wished. The group had some shelter for the night.

Spectre shoved the bits of scrap into his saddlebags, along with the single cap he'd found, he hadn't been expecting to find much in the house really. Though now there was suitable space on the floor for everypony to rest at least. He chucked his stuff down onto the floor, and proceeded to check out the upstairs for himself, noting the hole that Harmor had made, and testing each floorboard with a hoof before he stepped on it. He gradually made his way round the area, it gave a good lookout from the lack of a wall, and floor on one side. Spectre began shifting some rubble and old bits of furniture to give himself something to hide behind, setting up effectively a small watch post.

Shrapnel took the lamp to a better light, getting finally a good look on it. "Eeeh... nah. A piece of junk, shame. He took the lamp and placed it back on the drawers. "Now... what is that?"

A metal tube was sticking out from under the drawer, hidden from being seen from the front of the furniture by rubble. The pipe seemed awfully lot like that one of a gun, and several minutes and some furniture hauling later, Shrapnel found out that someone expected trouble and hid a single shotgun in his bedroom. The weapon was still loaded and the shell looked intact. "Not bad, not bad at all..."

With the weapon checked, Shrapnel climbed the stairs down and looked around at the place. "Well, so what is our plan now? A bit late to set out for the wastes, maybe stay here overnight?"

Sanura pocketed al the caps and junk and what not in her saddle bags when she'd found it but probably spent a significant amount of time just clearing things out to make a spot for everypony to sleep in that night, she din't seem to mind though, actually just humming softly to herself and working at it, even taking a bit of time to use her magic and a few bits of cloth to try and clear away some of the gathered dust and smaller rubble on the ground before she'd sigh and set it all aside, looking to the others and then to spectre heading up top, "Probably better that way..."

She paused to look to Shrapnel though and grinned some, "Sounds like a good idea to me! ACtually ya might look and see, I think there's a fireplace behind some of the stuff I pushed aside err... sorry." she cleared her throat, "Could build a fire and settle down for the night, chat and food ourselves and stuff." she nodded, "Who knows maybe someone brought some drink.' she teased and then went trotting up the steps toward Spectre.

"Spectre~!" she sang out, "Ya busy?" not quite stepping out into the same room that he was in, "Was hopin' I might be able to get rid of those fragments stuck in you if... that's okay?"

Spectre had just finished setting up the watch post, really it had been done a while a go but he had spent some time just making it look more like natural rubble rather than something that had been put there. He heard somepony coming up the stairs, followed by Sanuras familiar voice, though she seemed to be a bit confused. "In here Sanura, and what's this that you want to do to me now?" He climbed out of the rubble and waited for Sanura to find him.

Sanura steps out a bit more carefully this time, testing the boards before moving onto the next and overall just looking clumsy as hell which... wasn't terribly out of place to be honest, she had yet to show it but she was far from notably graceful.

"Oh, you remember getting shot right? Not too long ago? And how we never had a chance to pull the bits out and that they could be bad cause you might have something in there that's breeding apit of pretty green puss and disease or sharp and slowly cutting you or if you're really lucky it's just scarring around them and they're harmless..." she grinned.

Spectre had infact completely forgotten that his body was still full of bullets and shrapnel. "What... Oh! You still remember? I had forgotten." He listened as she described the various things those bits of metal could be doing to him, and really didn't know whether or not she was serious. "Well since you seem to have put so much thought into just what may be wrong with me, I suppose I have no choice really do I?" He noticed her cautiosly testing the floor as she walked. "If you stick to the right side of the room you'll have no problems with the floor. So just what are you planning to do to me?" Spectre smiled.