The Eternal Nightmare[Closed]

Arc trotted over to Rad holding the box under his hoof. He picked it in his magic and set on a bench, looking it over. "Right... I might try to remove axis from the hinges, seems they could go out with proper coercion." Arc then started to float out tools from his utility vest and set to work.

(Repair 60, Luck 6
Rolled 81+12+3=96
Successfully removed the hinges and opened the box.
Found:
3 Weak healing potions
2 Med-X
3 Bandages
)

by the time Arc was finished it was already dark, forcing him to use his horn to light his work. The hinges gave in and slid out, allowing Arc, with some liberal application of violence, the pry open the lid of the box and get to the contents.

""All's clear as far as I can tell Arc. Didn't find much out on my patrol. Are you alright?"

Arc winced when he suddenly heard the voice next to him, perking up from how he got spooked. He looked at the black pegasus that got rather well masked by the darkness, only thing breaking the camouflage being the green striped and pair of whites of eyes with green irises in them.

"No, no... I mean, yes, I'm okay, Nova, was just... concentrated on the box. Listen... why don't you take the meds, if Winter won't object? We should evenly distribute these things, in case we get separated." he said as he slid the box across the bench to her. Then he got up and headed to the rain. "I'll be on the watch... not in a mood to sleep tonight. Go get some rest, if you can. Might need it soon." he said as he was leaving the bus carriage.

Important public service announcement
24 hours after this post, I'll move the thread to another plot point, please finish everything you need to do in the Cartfort today. Thank you.
Thank you for your attention

Nova noticed Arc's sudden jump, guessing her leaving him to his thoughts earlier may not have been the best option. Still, she didn't want him to overwork himself. Nova shook her head slightly, passing the box back to Arc as she trotted around in front of him again and smiled warmly.

"I doubt I'd even know what to do with them. Besides," Nova tries to look as friendly as she can. "You look like you could use the rest, Arc. I'll take the watch. If anything does happen it's less likely I'll be spotted."

Arc stopped at the door and turned around when Nova caught him. "Then at least you could carry it? If it isn't too much, of course..." said Arc with honest concern, floating the box back to them, smiling weakly at Nova and looking at her with tired eyes, hints of black shades under them.

"As for the watch, don't worry. I think I can blend in in the dark as well, and the rain would make your feathers wet after a whole night of it... and I know how long they take to dry up after that. I'll take care of it, Nova." Still smiling, he turned away and trotted out into the rain.

Nova nodded and placed the container on her back for now. However, Nova could see how tired Arc was and trotted out after him again, not going to let him hurt himself like this. Nova stood next to him in the rain as she spoke again.

"The wings will dry out as I fly tomorrow. Besides, you're tired. If you fall asleep out here, it can't be good for you." Nova smiled and laughed slightly. "Besides, this way people will get to see what my mane looks like when it's wet."

Arc trotted out into the rain. His mane was drooping over his eyes in mere moments, the rain seemed to be getting worse. Hearing Nova, he turned around. Well... not letting up easily, is she. thought Arc. "Nova, I doubt you can really fall asleep in such weather and..."

Suddenly his thoughts screeched into a halt as his mind processed the last sentence, blushing and staring at her for a moment. Then he snapped out of it and his eyes turned away, trying to look anywhere but to Nova. "...wet mane?" Arc whimpered out in a quiet, nervous tone.

Nova blushed slightly and chuckled at Arc's reaction to her statement, before smirking conspirationally. Nova trotted closer to Arc and walked past him slowly and laughed slightly again.

"Indeed. A rare sight upon me, as my flights usually dries it out." Nova smiled warmly again and put a hoof on Arc's shoulder. "Get some rest Arc, you've earned it."

Arc felt how the sudden adrenaline rush from the thoughts started to fade away, and when Nova walked around and touched him, everything suddenly felt heavier to bear. Suddenly he realized how tired he actually was, and how his horn lightly pulsed with pain after digging out a grave, overextending it's capabilities. Slouched a little, he turned his head around, looking at Nova, suddenly looking ten years older.

"I... I might actually do that. Thank you, and... I'll see if I can make it up to you. Probably lot wiser if I take rest now. Are you sure you want to take the whole night? I can go and ask Flash, or someone, set up changes, so you could get some rest."

Nova smiled warmly and let out a sigh of relief when Arc yielded. Nova pondered for a few moments his question before nodding her head slightly.

"Alright. If anyone else wants to volunteer to switch with me at some point, then I'll let them." Nova smiled as she saluted slightly. "But I'll go all night if I need to."

Arc smiled back as Nova saluted, finding the gesture extremely cute. "I'll see who I can find, Nova." Then he nodded and trotted away, searching for Flash. Trotting around a corner, he found him standing with Violet. He walked close and nodded to the two in greeting. Then he looked at Flash, the pegasus able to clearly read how Arc was tired.

"Flash, as for that offer from earlier, about taking the watch for the nigh... Nova coerced me to go crash, and... if you could go switch her at midnight, I would very much appreciate it."

Lightning perked his ears up when Arc walked up to him. He would bow his head toward the unicorn and listen to his words closely. Looks like he'll be doing some guard duty after all. "Alright, that is fine with me. Just have her wake me at midnight. We shouldn't have much a problem, I hope."

Arc nodded in response to Flash. "Alright. Thank you Flash, I'll go tell Nova. Tomorrow." Arc then turned around, trotting away to find the appointed watch.

He found Nova taking cover from the rain in a small sky wagon, moved ontop of the barricade wall. It's roof still intact, it provided relatively dry place to spend the night in. He knocked on the wagon, then told Nova about the deal with Flash. Then he dragged himself back into the bus and found himself a corner to curl up in and collapse into restless sleep.

---Day 3, morning, cartfort---
The rain managed to keep up it's strength throught the night, soaking Nova to the bone when she trotted back from her watch after Flash switched with her at midnight. When the new day dawned, the fury behind the rains seemed to have ran out, and the downpour turned into a light drizzle as the sun climbed into a greyish day.

After the morning commotion, the party took of from the cartfort, with Arc at the head, finally heading to the site. Several miles from the cartfort later, the jagged terrain gave up to show a roughly five mile wide, completely flat plateau, with one tall building standing in it's centre. As the got closer, the structure showed up to be a tower, made from girders and sheets of metal, with large, vertically positioned wheel ontop.

---Day 3, midday, dig site---
As they arrived to the building, they saw that the building stood vigil above a gaping hole, bottom impossible to see from top, a singe steel rope hanging to it, tied to the large wheel.

Atriark looked at the building then to the steel cord in the hole. The zebra swallowed hard. He really had no idea what was going on, why he was there, or what they were doing there as he had missed that part of the adventure.

"Alright ponies..." the stable zebra nerviously shifted. "mind telling me what we are doing here?"

Arc stood next to Atriark, looking up at the big wheel on the top of the building. Compared to yesterday, Arc actually did get some rest, sleeping through the night with no dreams to truly disturb him, and looked better. The bags under his eyes were almost non-existent, eyes had a lively look, and not showed so many blood vessels in the whites, and his postured looked less burdened, with whatever burdened him.

"Right. Atri, I think I should start with this place. What we... suspect is, this place used to be a gem mine before the war, or something like that, considering the borehole you see here." As he spoke, he slowly walked towards the edge of the hole, looking over to the darkness below. "Now, since gems in surface deposits are... gone, more or less, they had to dig deeper. And I suspect that this place, deep down, has water source, untainted by the radiation." Arc kicked down a rock, waiting for the sound. Roughly twelve seconds later it returned. Five hundred... darn. Too long for the rope... and can't let the flyers down like that, not without light. The rope... he thought, looking at the cable running down the shaft. Might work. If the generator is still here... guess we will see.

Arc turned around, looking at the group, the dark wide hole behind him. "Right. Seems like there could be a cabin at the end of the cable. At least it would made some sense. I don't think letting any of you pegasuses down there without a good source of light would be a good idea, we have no way of telling if there aren't any debris or such things down there."

Arc looked up, bobbing his head a little as he thought. "Right... right then." He looked back at the group. "So, let's search the place, see if we can get the engine that turns the wheel working, or at least some flares or such."


(
Building looks like this http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/pictures/10000/velka/1-123479967196f7.jpg

Also, the item list.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ah47zjKU7ksddC02ckFVY1p5NHhtQ1pSS1FQRm9TWnc#gid=0
Removed the ammo, since... well, let's be honest, it was a dumb idea from me. we are thinking on how to make it work, but for the time being, all your caps you spent for the ammo are back.

=Refunds=
Arc Weld +800 caps
Winter Bell +576 caps
Nova Surge +108 caps
Rad Boom +384 caps

)

As promised, Lightning switched off with Nova on guard duty for the night. With his sniper rifle by his side, he could see a fair distance from all sides so he wasn't worried about anything trying to sneak up on them in the night. For the rest of the night, it was quiet and uneventful.

The next morning, Lightning didn't waste any time packing up his equipment and checking on Spectrum on her condition before setting off. During the trip, the blue pegasus was flying in the air as it helped him to see further but he kept his altitude low, staying close to his marefriend. Upon arrival, he would scan the building first, keeping his eye out for snipers before turning his attention to the huge hole. Hovering over it, he would try and gauge how far down it went. "This is going to take a while to get down there."

Violet didn’t sleep much the night before, not that she usually did. For a filly, she just didn’t sleep a lot, and most of the night she roamed around the cartfort, silent as a mouse and not being particularly bothered by the rain. When she finally went to sleep, she woke up about five hours later with the other ponies.

When the group was on the move again, she kept a good eye out for anything within her limited sphere of view, although she assumed that if anything did come by Lightning would spot it first, especially since his vision wasn’t restricted to a 100 meter radius.

When they arrived at the site, Violet and Liz walked over to the edge of the hole, the filly having a better picture of what was in the hole then the others...At least for the first 100 meters, after that she was just as clueless. And even past 50 meters she had trouble making out anything besides rough shapes.

“Hey Arcy!” she called for the unicorn as she turned towards him. “Our winged buddies may not be able to see down their easily, but my shiny eyes can see very well in the dark. If one of the pegasi carried me down there on there on their back, I could guide them and we could scout the area down there, make sure it’s safe for when we go down with everyone else. If and when we go down by that cable, we’d be pretty much sitting ducks if anything attacked, so it’d be a good idea to make sure nothing can do that!”

Arc looked at the filly, giving her a contemplative look as he consider her proposition. Then slowly nodded. "Alright, Violet. Find yourself a mount and you can scout ahead, provided you do it slow. No need to rush, we have time."

Violet grinned. “Alrighty Arcy!”

She turned towards the pit, specifically towards a pegasus hovering over the pit. “Hey Light!” she called out to the pegasus, and waited for him to fly over. “Wanna do some spelunking?” she asked. “I was thinking you and me could scout out this hole while everypony else tried to find a safe way down! I can see pretty well in the dark, so I could ride on your back and guide your way down into the hole. We can check the place out and make sure there aren’t any mean monsters down there, before flying back up!”

Atriark peered over the edge of the gapping hole into the dark abyss. A phrase came to his mind and he chuckled nerviously. 'Stare long enough into the abyss, and the abyss stares back.' The zebra took a step back away from the ledge and wished Kira was here. He hadn't seen her in a week and knew it would be even longer now.

"So Arc, why are we here exactly?"

Lightning perked his ears to the sound of Violet calling out for him. Smiling a little, he knew the filly had a unique ability to see in the darkness and with him being a pegasus, he could easily fly Violet down in the hole. If any trouble came up on the surface, he would be able to fly up and deal with it easily so the stallion gave the unicorn a nod. "Sound fine with me."

Flying over to Violet, Lightning lowered his body to let the filly jump on his back before opening his wings and flying over the hole. Drawing his .45 pistol just in case, he would say to the others, "We will be back soon!" To Violet, he added, "Hang on." Beginning their descent, Lightning made sure to keep his flight controlled but he was dropping at a rather fair speed.

"Well, Atri... short story even shorter, to see if there is a water source down there. There should be one, things point to it, but... well, we have to get down there first," answered the unicorn.

Arc looked up at the tower. "Atri, I do believe the cable is tied to a platform, or something akin to that. I want to see if the engine is still working, might make our life easier."

Arc trotted to the entrance to the tower and peeked inside. It was made from several platforms, each above the other, accessed by a catwalks with stairs, whole thing held together with four steel pillars. "Right then... let's see."

Violet grinned when Flash agreed, before she jumped onto his back, wrapping her forehooves around his neck, making sure not to strangle the pegasus. That wouldn’t be good.

“Bye-Bye Everypony!” she called out to everyone else with Flash, waving. “Make sure nothing happens to Liz while I’m gone!!”

Turning back towards the hole, Violet nodded at Flash’s order to ‘Hang On’. “Alrighty Light, GERONIMO!!!” she cried as they descended into the dark pit.

"So we are here to find water?" Atriark looked back at the large hole. "And it's down there..."

The runty zebra put on a smile. He did not like going down into caves or subways or basements. As ghouls usually reside there. But maybe this time was different. Arc had said that this place may not have been touched by the magical radiation that decimated the rest of Equestria. But that made Atriark wonder, what would reside down there? Because, in The Wasteland, nothing was easy.

"You want me to go up there and check the wheel out? See if everything is attached?" Atriark asked, trotting up beside Arc Weld and speaking softly.

Nova had remained quiet for the most part, primarily focused on the building before hearing Ark's suggestion. Nova trotted up next to the two and gave them a small smile as she thought of how to word it.

"Or I could do it if you like. Considering I can't really fly blind, I think we'll need to." Nova tapped a hoof to her chin. "So, if I do go check, what exactly am I looking for?"