I actually exceeded the maximum allowed length of 40k characters when I finished writing the summary.
Yeah, what the fuck.
The summary can be found in another post which is linked just below.
Day 2
POV Corai
"Guys?" Corai called out in the dark.
"What is it Corai?" Lycaeon answered from somewhere in the back of the room.
They were all resting in the pitch black darkness of a small dirt room Corai and the others had dug out during the day.
"It's so dark in here... and cold..."
"We'll set up some beds tomorrow, get yourself some sleep." PSI yawned.
"Easy for you to say, you bitch..." Corai muttered for herself under voice.
She turned over trying to make herself comfortable in the dirt, it felt so cold against her fur, she felt like a mud pony, sleeping in the dirt like this.
It was no good, she turned over to the other side, stretching out her hindlegs to try and push some of the dirt away but ended up bumping something metallic.
It was a Sprite-Bot, which activated by the sudden touch, turning a light mounted on it's casing on and beginning to spout out that cheerful annoying polka music.
It hoovered up from the dirt and began flying around in circles, waking everypony up.
In the light she could see her companions laying about the dirt, Sweet "Lojack" Lineriver was laying over in the far side by a corner, Lycaeon was a few meters besides her and then there were the two "couples", Replica and Zebio who were snuggled together not far from her and Splint and PSI which were just next to them.
Fucking PSI, fucking PSI and her greasy hooves and loose lips and-
"HEY! HEY!! GET THAT FUCKING THING OUT OF HERE!" PSI yelled.
"SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO GET SOME SLEEP HERE!"
"Well it's not MY fault that it woke up!" Corai lied.
"I DON'T CARE WHOSE FAULT IT IS, JUST GET IT OUT OF HERE!!"
Replica got up and waved the Sprite-Bot over, she hushed it down and patted it on it's casing, it stopped playing it's polka music and beeped at her.
"There there... it's okay, no need to be afraid little fella..." she calmed the Sprite-Bot tiredly.
"What the heck are you doing?" PSI wondered.
"Calming the Sprite-Bot down. It's just afraid."
"It's a damn robot, robots don't feel fear!"
"Sprite-Bots do."
"Well whatever! Get it out of here!"
Replica didn't protest, she escorted the Sprite-Bot out of the room, the room fell completely dark again.
Corai heard the sound of dirt being shuffled aside followed by a warm cozy moan from PSI, obviously the two were settling back in again.
"Jeez, give it a fucking rest already..." Corai muttered.
It was killing her, it really was, she had kept her eyes on Splint for well over a year now and then all of a sudden PSI goes on kissing him and now the two were a "thing" or something, it was really irking her.
"Hmm..." PSI moaned again.
That's right, just rub it in you stupid cripe.
Corai had enough, she got up and left the room, being careful not to step on somepony or waking up another Sprite-Bot.
She stopped briefly in the corridor outside looking down towards the dormant security turrets stationed by the rock wall they had raised.
Their red "eyes" blinked dimly in the dark, occasionally one of the turrets would beep quietly as if speaking to one another (altough Replica had explained some time ago that they did that to confirm that their fellow "units" were still operational, a bit like a squad roll call or check-in of sorts), they seemed so peaceful.
Sometimes Corai imagined that the turrets were actually intelligent and that they cared about one another, she sometimes wondered what they would have to say if they could speak, but then she knew that the turrets were just dumb machinery who followed simple programing and routines.
But Corai hadn't gotten up to watch sleeping turrets, she wanted to find Replica and her Sprite-Bot.
As it turned out the two hadn't gone very far, they were actually in the food storage over in the next room, she was actually standing just next to the room entrance.
Corai carefully leaned in to see what Replica was doing before announcing her presence.
Replica was sitting on a wooden barrel looking completely wrecked, she was incredibly tired and clearly just wanted to go back to sleep, but the Sprite-Bot was keeping her busy.
The bot snuggled against her chest as she gently caressed its frame saying something encouraging or soothing now and then, but her eyes were struggling to stay open and her caress slowed down to a halt, Replica soon found herself sleeping in a sitting position with her head bowed just over the floating ball of metal.
She had a cute snore.
Corai slowly went inside the room but was instantly detected by the perceptive and alert Sprite-Bot which beeped at her.
She raised a hoof to try and gesture that she didn't mean the bot or her master any harm.
"Easy little fella, I am not here to hurt you." she said to it.
She felt silly talking to a robot, it was one thing thinking about talking to robots but it was entirely another actually doing it in practice.
The bot beeped and flew to the side, letting Corai approach the sleeping Replica.
Replica swayed and was just about to fall forward and into the ground when Corai cached her with one quick movement.
The mare woke up abruptly.
"Huh? Wha?"
She yawned and sat up again.
"Oh Corai, it's you."
"Yeah."
"Can't sleep?"
"No..." Corai frowned.
She wanted to make it clear to her friend that something was troubling her without bluntly saying it.
"Something troubling you?" Replica wondered.
"It's Splint..." Corai admitted.
"Ah... I'm sorry it turned out like that."
"It's just not fair, he was mine, PSI stole him from me!"
"I know Corai, but its not like you expressed your feelings for him or anything, does he even know?"
"N-no... I never told him..."
"And do you blame him for giving in to PSI so easily?"
"Yes! I mean..." Corai sighed, "You're right... this is my fault, I should have done something..." Corai bowed her head.
Replica gently lifted Corai's head up by her chin bringing her to eye level.
"There there Corai, you couldn't have known that PSI felt that way about Splint, you just thought you had a little more time, and there is nothing wrong with that."
"But I lost him, I can't just steal him away now."
"Oh just give it some time, maybe it wont work out for them and you'll have another shot at Splint. There is no need to be losing your hopes now, there is always another chance."
"I dunno Replica... I don't think they will break up anytime soon. And how am I supposed to compete with HER? I mean look at her, she looks like a damn soldier-"
"She is a soldier, has been all her life, and so has Splint. The two were made sergents together."
"That's what I mean! They know eachother, they were in the army together! Why would Splint leave her for me!?"
Replica looked puzzled. Perhaps she didn't know what to respond or perhaps it was just her sleepiness catching up with her again.
She wasn't really in the condition to console her friend about love right now, she could barely keep her eyes open.
"Just forget it..." Corai sighed, she knew Replica wasn't in the right mood to discuss this with her at the moment, she needed sleep.
"Common, better get you back to your loveydovey."
"H-hey I said it was nothing like that! We are just friends..." Replica protested.
"Friends huh? Friends don't spoon eachother Replica."
"W-what?! We are not spooning anything!"
Corai gave her a stern look.
"I saw how you were all snuggled together when the Sprite-Bot went off, you are more than friends, admit it."
"Hey I'll prove that we are just friends!"
"Oh yeah? How?"
"Join us."
It took a second for Corai to process what Replica had said.
"...what? Join you?"
"Yeah, settle in by my side, snuggle, like FRIENDS."
"Uh..." Corai wasn't sure what to say, she definitely knew that friends didn't snuggle together, especially not marefiends, unless... well.
But she felt cold and lonely in the little patch of dirt she had been laying in, so she didn't entirely object to the idea of settling in cozily by the side of her friend, if only just this once.
"Well, okay."
Corai helped Replica back to the room, they were followed by the Sprite-Bot she had calmed which was silent.
When they went inside the room the Sprite-Bot dimmed it's light just barely enough for the two mares to see where they were stepping.
Replica settled down next to Zebio Lizard followed by Corai, she had Zebio on one side and Corai on the other, the Sprite-Bot settled down next to Corai just close enough to graze against her fur, it was warm to the touch.
Corai felt happy, the warmth from Replica and Sprite-Bot made it easier for her to fall asleep and the company of her friend let her forget all about Splint and PSI for moment.
The night passed calmly.
The next day the party was woken up early in the morning by the three Sprite-Bots who flew in flashing their lights and blasting their polka music on full audio, PSI flew into an absolute rage and attempted to knock the bots down with her spear, but they were too fast and too agile for her to hit.
The three Sprite-Bots flew out of the room leaving the seven disgruntled and tired ponies alone.
But by now they were all wide awake, they turned their pipbuck lights on, the room was lit up by the green, orange, white and blue lights of their various wrist mounted PDP's configured in different colors and styles.
"Fucking hell, what time is it?" PSI asked herself, discarding her spear and looking at her pipbuck.
"It's five in the fucking morning! What the hell Replica! Couldn't your fucking Sprite-Bots have waited for another couple of hours!?"
Replica gave her a questioning glare.
"Why the heck are you barking at her for?" Lycaeon said, "Those things have a mind of their own, it's not HER fault that the bots barged in."
"Yeah PSI, you should calm down, we need to get up anyway, there is work to be done." Splint said.
"An hour, I just wanted to sleep for another hour..." she muttered.
"Hey," Splint said, getting up and putting a hoof on her shoulder, "Today we are building beds, you'll get to sleep tonight, in an actual bed."
"Oh yeah... will you be joining me?"
Corai gave Replica a very hurt look which she returned with compassion.
Splint glanced towards Corai, having noticed her expression.
"Eh, we'll see."
"What." PSI was taken aback by how casually he had turned her suggestion down.
Splint laughed.
"Heh, we'll see how much work we need to do, ok? It's no fun if the two of us are too tired to even lift our hooves is it?"
"I guess." PSI turned to Replica.
"Okay boss! What do you want us to do?" she asked with a nauseating cheerful eagerness.
"I don't know..." Zebio jabbed her lightly with his elbow, "Ow!"
"I mean, do you know how to use a hammer and saw?"
"Yep, they taught us basic engineering in the army, we know how to build barricades, fortifications, pilboxes and everything!"
"'We'?"
She wrapped a hoof around Splint's shoulders.
"Why, me and Splint of course!"
"Right..." Replica looked at the two thoughtfully.
"Well, you wont be building fortifications, you'll be building beds. Lots of them. And uh... Splint wont be working with you."
"Wait, what? Why?"
"He'll help us build stone tables and benches for our new mess hall downstairs, we need a mason to build some furniture for us while the rest of us work elsewhere."
"Why does Splint have to do it? Why can't Lycaeon be the mason?"
"Lycaeon is helping us mine out your new rooms."
"But that is your, Corai's, Zebio's and Lojack's job!"
"Lojack is going to set up a butchering shop. She needs time to carve some stone knives."
"Butchering shop?"
"We need to slaughter all our cattle."
"Why?"
"They have nothing to eat down here, and we can't share our food with them." Replica went up to and pulled Splint away from his marefriend.
"But-"
"Enough bickering, we are just going to borrow him, he is not going anywhere and it's not like he'll be busy all day. You can talk to him later."
Replica left with Splint followed by everyone but PSI who remained, trying to figure out what had just happened.
As Replica led Splint downstairs Corai went up besides her and mouthed a silent "Thank you".
The Lovers of Fruit worked all the way up til early noon, they were quick about their various tasks, surprisingly quick considering that none of them had operated a mining drill or built furniture before.
Splint was busy downstairs making stone furniture for most of the time, as was PSI up making beds, there wasn't much to build the bed frames from, they had scavenged a minimal amount of wood, leaving PSI to be forced to take apart some of the scavenge and bend it into bed frames using her strength, worst of all was that there wasn't even enough scavenge to do that, she had to scrounge up every bit of twisted metal to make it last.
It was hard time consuming work and Replica knew that, that's why she gave PSI and Splint their respective assignments, it was to keep the two apart from each other as a small favor to Corai.
Lojack had been spending most of the morning carving knives out of bits of stones left over from Splint's material, the two chatted away the hours and Splint learned more about the knife crazy mare than he ever wanted.
The others were busy digging out the various rooms, Replica and Zebio, who were starting to become better and better with their mining drills dug out all the rooms in the stone layer while Corai and Lycaeon worked on digging out more of the dirt layer in preparation for Lojack's butcher shop and refuse stockpiles (ie, the foul smelling room filled with the disgusting picked carcasses of their cattle).
But they were all done now, the rooms were all dug out, the butchering shop was set up and the furniture was all made.
Splint had even been so decent as to build a few stone doors for the rooms Replica and Zebio had dug out.
As it turned out there was only enough wood and scavenge to build six beds, for seven ponies, and guess who was going to share the sixth bed?
Corai and Replica had both realized that it had been a mistake to assign PSI on bed construction duty, but the damage was done.
After furnishing the rooms with the beds and doors and moving the heavy stone tables and chairs to the new mess hall (it was really just a dusty cave, still it was better than sitting in the dirt) the seven friends gathered around Lojack's butchering shop.
Lojack was sharpening a large knife she had crafted, the six ponies was watching her movements intently, Lycaeon, Replica and Zebio seemed fascinated, Corai, Splint and PSI looked pale and nervous.
"So why are we here again?" Corai asked.
"We are going to help Lojack butcher the cattle." Replica explained.
"Nnnnnnoooooo, I don't think so." PSI said.
"You don't really have a choice"
"I am not slaughtering an animal like this."
"You are a soldier, your job is practically to kill shit." Lycaeon said.
"Killing yeah, not cutting them apart and gutting them!"
Lojack stopped sharpening her knife, drawing the stone she had used to sharpen it across the blade one last time as hard as she could before setting the stone down.
"Relax. That's my job. All I need you guys to do is haul all the byproducts into that room." she pointed a hoof at a stone door beside them, that would be their refuse stockpile, where they would discard anything organic that would end up smelling bad in the tunnels.
"That's... sick..." PSI said slowly.
"Are you sure you want to do this Lojack?" Replica asked.
"Are you volunteering to do it in my place?" she asked back.
"No..."
She pointed the knife at the others.
"How about you? Anyone else willing to kill and butcher the bighorners?"
They all shook their heads.
"Then yes, pretty sure." she set her knife down and picked up a sizable rock cleaver, weighting it in her hoof.
"Alright, bring in the first victim."
Replica signaled for Corai to come along.
"Common Corai, lets go."
They went upstairs, leaving their companions with the creepy knife manic mare.
"Fuck me she is creepy." Replica whispered to Corai.
Corai didn't respond, her thoughts were elsewhere, with Splint.
"Still thinking about Splint and PSI?"
"Yeah..."
"Cheer up."
"How? They are sharing the same bed now! Assigning PSI to make the beds didn't help at all!"
"Yeah well, after what we'll be doing now they sure as heck wont be in the mood for anything tonight."
True.
It was hard to imagine the two being in the mood for intimacy after a day of hauling guts and meat around, if there was anything that killed the mood between two ponies it was slaughter alright, that was probably why many butchers grew old and childless.
The thought cheered Corai up somewhat, she could always try and break them up again tomorrow.
The two mares went past the food storage and into the general storage, where they had practically just ditched everything, including the gypsum boulders, in a disorganized pile.
The three brahmin and two bighorners were mooing unhappily at the sight of the two ponies, there was nothing to eat in there and they were pleading for them to let them back out into the sparsely vegetated area above.
But they had darker plans in mind for them.
The brahmin were dumb as rocks and had no idea what was going on, they were no longer like the cows from the time before the great war, they couldn't speak and could certainly not think well for themselves, the bighorners on the other hoof were smart, while they couldn't speak they knew what was happening, and they weren't happy.
"Let's take the bighorners first." Replica said, slowly moving towards the large bull which had placed itself between the cow and Replica to protect it.
"Um... are you sure that is such a good idea? He doesn't look very happy... in fact, he looks pretty pissed."
"Yeah yeah, it will be fine." Replica reassured, taking another few steps towards the bull.
It snorted at her, making her back away slightly.
"Sorry, but we got to do this, it's for your own good..." she said to the bull.
Replica whistled and the three Sprite-Bots floated in, surrounding the bull on three sides.
"I know you can understand me. Don't make this hard on yourself."
The bull looked angrily at the three bots and snorted angrily at Replica, the cow behind it mooed, the bull mooed back.
This went on for a few minutes until the bull finally submitted, it bowed it's head and walked up to Replica who patted the bull on it's head.
"I'm sorry, this isn't what I had in mind for you guys..."
Corai watched this scene with astonishment, she had never seen anypony actually talk to cattle, let alone convince it to submit to slaughter, Replica may have been an emotional klutz, but she was an emotional klutz that was good with Sprite-Bots AND animals. It was weird.
"Corai, please lead him to Lojack and the others. I need to... talk... with the cow."
The bull walked up to Corai, it's head was still bowed in submission.
"Uuuh..." Corai wasn't sure what to make of it, but Replica had done a strange if effective job so far so she didn't protest.
"Yeah, okay, on it."
Corai led the bull downstairs, it didn't need promting or pushing, it followed right behind her.
When she arrived with the bull to the butchering shop the others immediately jumped it and manhandled it to the butchering area where Lojack was waiting with a large knife in her hoof, grinning like a psychopath. The bull did not resist.
Lojack looked the bull in the eyes and slit it's throat in the most painful way imaginable, letting it bleed out slowly rather than offering it a quick death.
Lojack remained in place, letting the blood spray over her like some sick water fountain, she seemed to enjoy it the sick bastard.
The bull didn't moo or say anything as its life was slowly drained from it, eventually it couldn't sustain itself anymore and it collapsed.
Lojack immediately set about cutting it, she didn't even wait for the bull to fully die.
Everypony looked away in disgust.
After a few hours the cattle were all... dealt with and the meat was stored away.
Lojack had done a remarkably good job, she had harvested more meat than any of them thought was possible, there was so much meat that there weren't even enough barrels to store it all in, much of it had to be laid out in the dirt storage on large cloth rags.
There was enough meat to last them for weeks, perhaps even months.
Harvesting meat wasn't all Lojack had done either, she had also skinned the cattle and tanned their hides into resistant leather.
Following the butchering of the cattle the Lovers of Fruit had pretty much split up to do their own thing, without Replica's orders or anything.
Corai went on to build a little kitchen area up in the soil layer, she managed, much to PSI's dismay, convince Splint to help her craft some pots, pans and general kitchen utensil and tools with her, she built a little stove out of stone all by herself which was to be fueled by wood they didn't have.
Zebio dug out a wide area which he explained would be for his and Replica's farming, he also dug out a wide corridor around the large farming area which according to blind guessing ended just next to the rock wall they had raised the day before, he said that they would need to build some type of entrance eventually and that he was just digging out the groundwork for it.
Lycaeon and PSI worked on trying to smooth some of the rough rock walls in their various rooms, at first they had no real idea of what they were doing, but after some time they managed to get a good technique down. Smoothing walls and floors wasn't something PSI was crazy over, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing.
Everypony had avoided Lojack like the plague after the butchering, everypony except for Replica who was actually sitting down with her to carve out some stone mechanisms needed for their doors and whatnot to operate properly.
Replica kinda already knew Lojack from before, Lojack was a bit like Zebio, the two had been with the gang for a while but they had never spoken much or gotten to know each other all that well, so this was a good opportunity for Replica to learn more about Lojack.
She learned that her father had been a hunter and that he had raised her on his own.
Her father died one day when roaming about the area around Lemon, the poor guy had consumed one too many bottles of pegasian wine the night before and had gone out to hunt with a measly BB rifle. He was killed by a black radscorpion.
This hadn't saddened or even surprised Lojack, but it hadn't left her passive either, she wanted revenge, she wanted to get back at the black radscorpions pestering Lemon.
She explained that if she couldn't kill the monsters, she would catch them, so she learned the trade of the wasteland trapper and became one of two trappers in all of Lemon.
Her thirst for revenge had practically left the black radscorpions extinct in the area, she had caught them all and given them to the leaders of Lemon, free of charge, knowing that they would kill them all and harvest their meat and carapace for her.
She didn't explain how she knew how to butcher animals so well or how she had learned tanning hides.
Replica slightly doubted the validity of her story, it wasn't the BB gun or the trapper's revenge that made her suspicious, it was how Lojack mentioned black radscorpions.
Sure, there were scorpions around Lemon alright, and yeah, they were deadly, but there was no such thing as a "black" radscorpion.
The variants she knew were radscorpion, large radscorpion, huge radscorpion. Their only differences was in size really.
Corai showed up before Replica and Lojack, looking really excited about something.
"Hey Corai." Replica greeted her.
Zebio Lizard appeared behind her.
"Z-zebio" she stammered, for reasons unknown to Corai and Lojack, "I thought you were busy mining upstairs?"
"All done. We can begin planting whenever you're ready."
"Right..." Replica looked back down at the mechanism she had been working on, it was jagged and deformed, she must have clumsily broken it when looking up at Zebio.
"That all?" she asked.
"There is something else actually," Corai said, "Zebio had a really good idea, about a well."
"Well." Replica repeated.
"Our drinks will run out eventually, probably way sooner than we can grow new plants to brew..." Zebio began to explain.
"And?"
"And so I thought we could dig a well, which draws water from the brook above."
"Okay," Replica said, setting her broken mechanism aside, "There are two problems with that."
"Tell me."
"One is that we have nowhere to divert the water to, and the other is that ghouls could get in and climb out of the well."
"How?"
"They don't- hmm..." Replica wasn't so sure of herself, did ghouls breathe? Could they survive being submerged in water?
What had REALLY happened to the two necrotic ghouls which the Sprite-Bot had lured into the pond? Had they been killed by the bot or had they drowned?
"You don't know do you?"
"Know what?"
"If they can breathe underwater or not."
Replica seemed impressed at how spot on he had been.
"No, I... I don't. But we still have nowhere to divert the water. Once the water clogs at the end the water level will begin to raise, out of the well."
"Alright, but just so you know, ghouls can't climb through brooks, if we dig in from the side below it the water should drain into our channel without giving the ghouls access to our burrow. And as for diverting the water... well..."
"Didn't think of that, did you?"
Zebio gave her a sheepish smile.
"Don't worry hun, I'll get back to you on that. Just have a couple 'o blocks, rope, mechanisms and a bucket ready for when I have something figured out."
Zebio rushed off.
Corai looked at Replica with a fiendish expression.
"'Hun' huh?"
"Shut up. Go away."
Corai snickered and left Replica alone with her psycho company.
Going back upstairs she heard the dogs bark, snarl and whimper, it sounded like they were fighting something.
Corai rushed to the source of all the commotion and found the four dogs fighting each other just next to the turrets.
One of the dogs was trying to bite the base of one of the turrets, it had been dented but was otherwise not paying the dog any attention.
"Help! The dogs are attacking each other!" Corai called out.
PSI came running wearing her security barding and wielding her puny wooden spear, using her spear as a beating stick she beat the dogs into submission and made them stop fighting.
Without a a word PSI dragged two of the dogs to Corai, one of them had been seriously injured, the other looked submissive, both of them were hunched over with their tails stuck inbetween their legs.
"Take these two somewhere else." PSI commanded.
"Where?"
"I don't care, take them wherever."
Corai did as she said, not knowing where to take the dogs she brought them down to the mess hall where she took some time off to be with them.
After another couple of hours she overheard Zebio returning to Replica.
Peering out of the mess hall door she noticed that Lojack had left Replica, Zebio and Replica were alone.
Zebio held her tightly and pulled herself towards him, she blushed and tried to push him away from him, but not forcibly, it didn't seem like she minded.
"Zebio no..."
"Why not?"
"Somepony could see us."
"And?"
"Please Zebio..."
Zebio let go of her.
"As you wish. I just wanted to let you know that I figured something out for the well."
"Oh?"
"I did some digging and-"
"Digging? Where?"
Zebio led her behind the pile of boulders stacked in the room, Corai lost sight of them.
"How did I miss that?" Replica said.
"When did you do this?"
"Replica, you were sitting right there, did you really miss the deafening sound of my power drill just now?"
"I don't know, that's what I am asking myself."
"Well anyway, I dug this channel and discovered an underground chasm with a river running along it..."
"You could have gotten us killed!"
"You have gotten us killed by stranding us out here in this ghoul infested hellhole." Zebio chastised.
Replica remained silent.
"Replica, hun, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that-"
"No I know exactly what you meant!" her voice cracked.
"Replica..."
"Don't touch me!"
Replica galloped off in tears.
Poor girl, she didn't deserve that.
Zebio silently appeared from behind the rock pile, Corai narrowly avoided detection by him.
He sighed. "I shouldn't have said that... why the fuck did I say that to her?"
Replica had shut herself in her room, well not her room, she had just gone inside the first best room barricaded it with the bed inside, blocking access inside.
In the absence of Replica's directives Zebio had pretty much taken over, he gave everypony the rundown of his well scheme, let them know of a design he had in mind for the entrance that would block both flying as well as brutishly strong ghouls complete with a pitfall and a drowning pit and water disposal channel in case something happened to end up trapped down there.
He instructed Corai and Lojack to take over Splint's masonry and build some floodgates and doors and had the others begin smoothing the channel he had shown Replica, to prevent rocks and other bits from sticking on the rough edges and clogging the channel.
After that, he had just gone upstairs to dig out a segment above the channel where the well was going to be.
That had taken him barely twenty minutes. He had spent the rest of the time sitting up there grumbling about something.
His thoughts had been interrupted by the sound of dogs fighting again, before anypony cared to go and investigate he had simply jumped down the well hole into the aqueduct and stormed off towards the mess hall, where the dogs had been.
He had punched a single dog on the nose and dragged two of them away, upstairs where he had yelled at them and ditched them in the general storage.
Just as he was about to leave Corai showed up.
"Zebio, we have a problem." Corai informed.
"What is it?"
"We can't make any buckets for the well."
"Why not?"
"Ain't got anything to make them with. We are all out of wood."
"Uh... can't we make them out of stone?"
"Too heavy. Rope wont sustain the weight."
"What about the barrels? The beds? Or anything made of something lighter? Can't we take that apart and make buckets out of them?"
"Wouldn't work the way the barrels are shaped, it would make for poor building material..."
"Well we can't exactly be picking materials by quality here, take the barrels apart, I think we can sacrifice a couple for some buckets."
"No, Zebio, we can't, the buckets would just leak all over."
"Ugh, what do you suggest then? Wood from the surface?"
"I... g-guess?" Corai felt very hesitant, she knew what was coming, she could feel it crawling up her spine.
"Guess you'll be volunteering for it then."
She totally knew that was going to happen.
"Eeeh, I don't... know..." she tried to weasel.
"Common, it will be quick, it wont take long, you just need to get up there, throw some wood down and come in. Piece of cake."
She wasn't getting away from it.
Everypony save for Replica gathered by the rock wall, they were there both for moral support and in case things turned ugly.
A modest hole had been made in the wall, it was too small for a normal sized pony to climb through, but Corai wasn't "normal sized", she had a small frame which easily let her climb through the small hole in the wall where others couldn't.
This also meant that the ghouls would most likely not be able to climb through either.
Corai was ready now, she just needed to be given the go.
"Okay Corai, the wood has already been chopped. All you need to do is get up there and throw some logs down, alright?" Splint said.
"Yeah."
"You ready?"
"Yeah, I'm ready."
"Then go right ahead. We are counting on you Corai." Splint encouraged.
Corai was filled with a sense of pride which gave her a real rush.
She climbed out of the pit without problems and rapidly scanned her surroundings.
There was nothing around her, no ghouls.
The orange sun was setting in the west. That strange self controlled sun.
Without waiting any further she immediately set about dragging the closest log to her to the pit, she threw it down and went to get another one.
Second log falls into the pit, no problems, so far so good.
Now for the third log.
She gets the third log to the pit and pushes it down.
She turns around to go get a fourth one only to see a pair of ghouls sticking their heads up just fifty meters away from her.
She carefully backs up and climbs down into the pit.
"Ghouls." she whispered.
Very quietly she pushed the logs through the hole in the wall, safely and neatly getting all three of them inside without problems before climbing in herself.
They seal the hole.
"That went well." PSI said.
"The ghouls saw her." Lycaeon remarked.
"They didn't chase after her though."
"Is that so?" Splint said, "I would bet you a bag of bits that there is at least one ghoul standing right on the other side of that wall right now."
"It's a bet." PSI challenged.
"Go on right ahead."
PSI went up to the wall and leaned in, pressing her ear against it.
She couldn't hear anything.
"Nothing."
"Knock."
She leaned back again and knocked with her hoof.
A ghoul hissed at her from the other side. "OHSHIT!"
She backed away in fear but tripped over a loose rock, falling backwards and landing on her back.
"Looks like I win."
Splint smiled and offered her a hoof which she accepted.
They helped hauling the logs downstairs and Lycaeon set about getting some buckets built, then the rest of them returned downstairs.
First thing Zebio did when coming back down was grab his mining drill and dig out more of the mess hall and then adding a corridor to it, ending it with a small room, just adjacent to the room where Replica was sulking in.
He had then asked Lojack to come and help him install some levers in there for purposes unknown.
Once this was done he picked up his mining drill again, and drilled straight through the wall to Replica's room.
Everypony rushed to see what was going on once they realized what he was doing.
Zebio breached the wall, drilling away enough to make room for a pony sized hole before stepping inside, everypony hurried up to the breach to see what he would do, nopony had the mind to stop him or even ask what he was doing, even Corai, who was essentially Replica's closest friend in the group was more curious than inclined to help her friend.
Replica had backed herself up against the corner on the far side of the room, the one by the same wall of the barricaded door, she was stricken with panic.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? WHAT DO YOU WANT!? GET AWAY FROM ME!!" she yelled at the slowly approaching Zebio.
He stopped a couple of meters away from her and offered her a hoof.
"Overmare Replica, ma'am. Your well aqueducts and control room are almost ready."
"WHAT!?"
"While you have been locked up in here we have been working on Zebio Lizard's well project." Lycaeon explained.
"No idea why he punched a hole in your wall though."
"It wouldn't be her office if it wasn't attached to her bedroom would it?" Zebio said.
"Her office? But you just said it was a control room."
"The stable is controlled from the overseer's office."
"Ah, right."
"I don't get it." PSI said, "Why is she like that? Why has she been in here anyway?"
"It's because I said something really stupid that I regret saying and am really sorry about." Zebio admitted, mostly directing himself at Replica.
"Replica, forgive me, I didn't mean to upset you."
"Then why did you say that!" Replica responded.
"I dug that long channel for us, I spent all day thinking about and devising a plan for the well which we do need and I just got frustrated by the way you reacted to my hard work, that's all."
Replica didn't budge, she seemed really angry and mistrusting with Zebio.
"I globbed up alright? I lost my cool and said something I didn't really mean."
Replica still didn't say anything.
"Replica... please..."
After a long suspecting stare Replica finally gave in.
"Okay, fine, I forgive you..." she went up to Zebio and looked him in the eyes.
"Just... just tell me when you are about to dig into the unknown next time, alright? We don't know what's around us and I am really worried about our safety, and you could get hurt mining like that on your own! I don't want you to die trapped under some cave in!"
"Promise you wont do that? Without at least talking to me first?"
Zebio hugged Replica.
"I promise."
If only she knew about what they had just done for a measly few buckets.
Replica's pipbuck beeped and began playing some type of scrambled transmission.
"{Replica Planternourish!? Replica Planternourish!? Hello!? The Lovers of Fruit!? Are you out there!? Hello!?}" the raspy voice of an old stallion called for them.
Someone knew they were there.
Rescue party?
Replica tinkered with her pipbuck trying to figure out how to respond to them.
"This is Replica Planternourish! Who is this?" she transmitted.
"{This is Pokon! Pokon Oilweather! Where are you!? Our group needs to get below ground, we got ghouls on or tail!}"
Replica gestured for everypony to go upstairs.
"Uh, we uh, look for a hole in the ground, a pit, just along the side of the brook!"
"{Copy!}"
Replica and the others rushed upstairs and to the rock wall.
They began to take the wall apart.
"{We see it! We see the pit!}"
"Hurry!!!" Replica stressed her companions, pressing them and herself to work faster.
They made just a big enough hole for the running ponies to crawl through.
Five ponies crawled through, when the last pony got through the old stallion, presumably Pokon, yelled at them to seal the hole immediately.
And they were just in time, just after they had placed the first boulder the heavy stomp of a ghoulish brute in the ancient and stripped remains of a suit of powered armor was heard outside followed by its ghastly scream.
The five new arrivals had thrown themselves on the dirt floor, completely exhausted from their narrow escape.
They looked tired, hungry and ragged.
They would need tending to over the night...
Too dramatic and drawn out for your own good.
