A Mad Ghoul's Folly: Rescue Group

Sawdust had fallen behind, her attention slowed by the sudden need to explore some side rooms. The explorations were mostly fruitless, a stray shell casing or hull was all she found and those were worthless, literally, the damned things were so beyond ubiquitous that no trader in the wasteland even bothered with the things. The mare was no different, she left them behind as she almost invariably did with the casings and hulls she produced firing her own weapon.

That thought in mind she noticed that the party had stopped ahead of her and decided to sneak back to them. The scene before her was grisly, but not at all unexpected, reminants of combat were a wasteland ubiquity on par with finding caps in drawers and shell casings on the ground. The monster however was not one she was familar with, it looked to her like a mutant cross between a dual horned 'unicorn', a goat and some sort of finger hoofed beast! On the upside at least it wasn't a Dragon.

She arrived in time to notice their ghoulish guide pointing to a hole in the wall, one that had all the trappings of a window. ... Right, it was a window, was being the operative term. The yellow mare stared at the hole for a few moments from the shadows of a piece of makeshift cover.

She knew from experience that the windows of the city were at times nearly indestructible and that a blasted open one was often a herald of something very nasty being nearby, or proximity to a Balefire bomb crater; the later of course would have blasted out more than just the one window. Of course there was also a probable mundane explanation, whoever that pony was who had the missile launcher, probably had crappy aim and hit the window.

In any case the quiet mare kept a vigil over the party, waiting for something bad to happen. It was times like this she wished for a Pipbuck and their useful little navigation/enemy detection thinger. It would make deciding who to shoot so much simpler! Or it wouldn't, as she looked around again at the assembled ponies, still somewhat unsure if they were all trustworthy, in spite of all the evidence so far to the contrary...

Lightning watched quietly as all the others collected the materials and they looked over the dead minoutar with awe. He ignored it for the most part and instead turned his attention to the dead ponies. There had to be quite a bit of explosive in order to make this much damage. And they were obviously well armed in order to kill that huge beast and the ponies with it.

Lightning quietly glanced at his Pipbuck and took a look at the map. He wanted to know all his exits in case something were to happen here. If the ponies who did this wanted to return, there would be nothing stopping them from shooting and possibly killing the group. He looked back to the others and would say, "If you're all done sight-seeing, let's go. I don't like standing here any longer than we need too."

"Alright then Lightning, I found the exit while I was poking around so I'll lead."

Scrap replied back to Lightning, before moving towards the door he had noticed a bit ago, shooting a few wayward glances towards the corpse of the minotaur and raiders before he walked through the door.

Leading the way down a hall, pistols out, Scraps had to on several occasions step over mutilated carcasses of what were once raiders. One poor schmuck had been driven into a wall with enough force that he was pinned to it and Scraps temporarily took his attention of watching where he was going to look at it, causing him to step on what appeared to be the spleen of a nearby raider.

Recoiling slightly he refocused his attention and led the group down a set of stairs.

Th group headed down one flight of stairs and entered into another floor. This one was in much better condition. Only the lightest of debris littered the floor, and no holes were in the walls. Desks lined the walls, only sectioned off by small cubicle walls. The desks faced the wall, with the terminals facing the hallway. Most terminals were powerless, or had taken buckshot to their screens. However, to their left, one terminal was on, though it was locked by a password.

Sky kept her pace as she walked down the stairs, with her rifle at the ready she was with the group with as they descended down the slight of stairs. When the reached a near untouched room, Sky walked around the room. "Room seems clear, just keep your guard up." Sky said as she walked over to the one light in the room, a terminal that was still powered.

Scraps glanced around the new room, making sure there were no spleens to step on, before moving out into it. Satisfied that he wasn't going to step in raider guts he started to explore, checking the terminals for functioning one's

The destruction of the terminals somewhat saddened Scrap, he hated ti see good pre-war tech be destroyed, unless of course it was shooting at him. Moving along the line of terminals he found the one that was working and quickly attempted to hack it, losing himself in the lines of code as the sickly green light from the terminal scree washed over him.

(Science 100, Luck 6, Rolling to unlock terminal)

Kira had been following Scraps in to the office complex she saw all the destroyed computer monitor dot the room. It was so more normal the one really though about to see destroyed monitors in the wasteland but this was a bit overkill, who ever had tried to get in to the computer had fail and shot the screen in anger. Still Kira could understand the anger they have felt as she was not much better with computer and would probably end up doing the same thing.

The gryphoness moved about cubicles in the room and looked after any trace of who might have passed through this area, she could only remembered to bodies the raiders they had found earlier and the group that attacked them. Whatever this was there was more raiders that she had normally met in one place.

Zuberi was interested in the contents of the computer as well. However, he couldn't hack into it. No way. He came to Scrap's side, and set his journal on the desk next to the computer. "Do you think this computer will say what happened here on it? I love to document the stories of each ruin I come across. I think it may help ponies who come along afterwards understand what to watch out for."

Zuberi found an old office chair. It was some what wobbly, but it stood. He set it up behind Scrap Parts and pushed it forward.

It took Scrap three tries, backing out twice, to finally crack the code. The password; 'Melodramatic Kiwis'. On the terminal there were four options.

Message to Mom #1
Message to Mom #2
corrupt data
Pipbuck A.M.F. Wide Area Assist.

.:Message to Mom #1:.

Finally got the job! Two and a half weeks of interviews, brown nosing, and coffee runs I finally have it! Cloudchaser would be proud of me. She always said I was her favorite cousin.

Still can't believe I have it though. It seems like things are finally turning around for me. Maybe Flitter would be happy for me as well... I hope she's still not mad at me for what happened at Nightmare Night.

-Love
Magenta Spring

.:Message to Mom #2:.

You were right! Flitter was happy for me. She said that she was willing to get passed what happened on Nightmare Night. Thank you mom. Next time I'm by the house, I'll make sure to hug you extra tight. Hearth Warming Eve will be better for me this year without me worrying about Flitter.

-Your daughter,
Magenta Spring

Scraps read the terminal entries slowly, making sure he hadn't missed any hidden sub-files or hints toward something bigger. Inside he was somewhat saddened by the messages contained within the terminal as thwy showed ponies from before the war living happily only with Scraps knowledge he knew most of them didn't end happy buf instead perished as the world burned in balefire.

Pushing away from the terminal he gestured to Zubi.

"Terminal's all yours. A few personal e-mails from pre-war ponies for you to archive."

Zuberi gave a nod to Scraps, then stepped up to the terminal. He read the messages on the screen, and gave waved them off. Such petty information was not worth the page space. He went back to the menu, and looked over the list of options. As interesting as letters from mom or corrupt data was, Zuberi had to admit he was interested in the fourth option... So he clicked it.

The computer let out a chirp. The screen flashed and then words filled the display.

Pipbuck Auto Map Feature Wide Area Assist mode selected.
...
...
...
Pipbuck(s) ditected...
...
...
Area map uploaded. Check Pipbuck Data screen.

View map? y/n

Zuberi blinked. Apparently the computer had just connected wirelessly to every pip buck in the room, and downloaded a map. He pressed y, and the map appeared on the screen.



He turned back and looked at the ponies behind him. "Hey, if you have a pip buck, check the screen," he said. "I think the computer just downloaded a map onto them."

Sky nodded to Zuberi as she took a look at her pipbuck, to notice a ping. She selected it and saw something new, a map appeared on the screen. "New map, cool." Sky said as she started to look around the map for places of interest, to see where the group might go next.

"Anyone know where exactly Ark is?" Sky asked out loud, probably to the one pony who does know, sunny smiles.

Scraps glanced down at his pipbuck, checking the new option. It seemed like he had missed something on the terminal after all, he'd need to look harder next time.

"Looks like it's a map of the area, we should use it to plot out our next moves."

Zuberi walked away from the terminal and back to the group. "Hey, do one of you think next time we stop, could I copy the map down off your pip buck? I'd love to have it in my maps, but I just don't think there's time right now to sit down and copy it off the terminal screen, since I have to do it by hoof... And with that, is there anything else to do here?"

Sky nodded to Zuberi, "Yeah, next Stop ill let you copy the map." Sky flat out said as she looked to the others to see if they also got the map or not, but it seemed to go to the ponies who had pipbucks and maybe the other ponies here also had pipbucks too.

Sunny heard the chirp from the computer and went to investigate. She looked over the zebra's shoulder and examined the map on the terminal's screen.

"Last place I saw Atriark was.." Sunny pointed to Two Sense Gun Store on the terminal. "There. We head to Candence Plaza, do what Atri asked, go to the building north of it. Now the map doesn't show it, but there is an access tunnel in the building that'll get us passed the rubble and put us not that far from the gun store."

"Ok we know the place, now we just to get over there, find who ever got him or chased you out and rescue him, Simeple?" Sky said out loud to make sure everypony heard her, now that had a map and know the location. This will either get easier or harder, or just suck along the way.

Sawdust made a face at the announcement, she frowned, her brow knit tightly. She continued to envy the ponies that had Pipbucks, envy them with much of her being. ... She grumbled quietly as they looked at their legs and examined screens that she couldn't see. Bastards.

In a futile gesture she fished out her crude approximation of a Pipbuck; a notebook attached to a clipboard with a rad-counter taped to the under side. She looked at it, and spent the moment that everypony else was busy staring at magical screens to update her inventory chart. She erased the bullet number and lowered it by the number she'd fired earlier, then added a new line to the ammo page and a new one to the weapons page. She'd not bothered to do it earlier since everypony seemed to want to move on, now however everypony was busy, staring at their legs. Bastards.

... Sawdust nodded to herself, mumbling, "Yes yes, jealousy doesn't make friendships better." But did they all have to have one? Really? For a brief moment she considered how she might pull off snagging one if one of the ponies with one happened to... Expire in an untimely manner. The scene in her head was not a pretty one, somepony would yell and scream for sure, or claim that it now belonged to some other pony. Bastards.

Without fanfare she finished and put away her MUWOT-buck (Manually Updating Written Objective Thing) She would admit the name needed work, and maybe a better system, but well, screw everypony in the room that had a Pipbuck. As she closed the button on her Duster, she briefly glared at the ponies with Pipbucks; Lucky bastards.

Nova leaned over to get a look at the map on somepony's pipbuck, making sure to memorise what was there. Once she was sure she had it, she readied herself to move out, not wanting to waste time. They had a plan, it was time to get moving.

"Ready to move when you are." She told the group.

Kira had been keeping quiet as Scraped finished his work on the terminal unlocking it and showing its contents, she would have thought this was a waste of time if it was not for the map. Now they had a clear goal and a path they could follow thanks to the map still with her luck at time the probably have to fight a raider town, some manticors and the steel ranger before they would get to the gun store.

"Nice work Scrap." She said as she eminently turned to the rest of the group. "Well we know our goal now so lets get moving, I found a way to keep moving as I looked around so I lead the way."

Lightning remained quiet as the others used their skills to hack the terminal and even discover a map of all things. That would become useful. He took a quick glance at the map waited his turn before downloading the map onto his own Pipbuck for him to study. The gun store would certainly be a great place to go find some more powerful weaponry for the ponies who weren't as well equipped. Turning back to Kira, he would give her a nod, signaling her that he was ready to move.

Scraps finished mentally berating himself for missing the option to download the map and zoned back into reality in time to catch Kira saying she had found the way. Quickly checking his equipment he drew his lightning pistol and got ready to follow Kira towards wherever they were going.

"I'm ready to move whenever." Scraps said before, in a much quieter voice, he whispered to Sky. "I kinda zoned out during the details, where are we headed from here?"

Sky looked over to Scrap, and nodded to him. "We going to a place called Candence Plaza and to get there, we need to go through another tunnel. Not much to really say, but yeah im here if you need anymore help, and zoning out not a good option when out in the wasteland." Sky smiled at scrap to look back to the rest, ready to go.