Day 1The Lover of Fruit embarked on a sinister evil woodland area which turned out to be the whackiest mistake I have ever done in FO: Equestria so far.
The whole place is INFESTED with ghouls which attack prematurely, I know I said I wouldn't savescum, but I absolutely HAD to do it to even get below ground, there were several times where I lost like half the embark, my turrets, dogs, cattle, some of our ponies and would have carried on if the ghouls hadn't invaded the burrow itself.
After several attempts and through sheer luck I managed to run the usual "evil embark, gtfo below ground" strategy of caving the wagon in and sealing yourself off with incredibly favorable conditions which was totally fine by me.
Savescumming community games is bad though and I should feel bad, mkay? Just didn't want it to end prematurely
on the first post. (just watch as the game ends on the second post when I try to save some migrants or something
)
But anyway, the process.
We begin by cutting down some trees, gathering some plants and digging a couple of smaller rooms where we immediately pastured all our animals.
Barely three minutes after unpause two necrotic ghouls attack, but are through some amazing twist lured away by a Sprite-Bot who tricks them into following it into a murky pool where they DROWN. BOTH OF THEM.
So to you guys who still insist on calling the Sprite-Bots "useless" have
this.
We prepared the wagon for cave in, which was successful with the only injuries being minor bruises for Replica.
Following this the initial staircase entrance was covered up and all but one ramp were removed from the pit.
Everything was hauled inside, including some of the wood we cut down before (but not all of it due to new ghouls roaming about the surface).
About the same time rooms are somewhat expanded, we dig down to the stone layer and find gneiss, which we need to cover up the entrance (dont want to waste what little wood we scrounged up).
When all this is done it is time to cover the entrance.
Problem is, two ghouls attack, they attack a dog which dodges their attacks like a boss and get hammered by bullets which do absolutely zip against them.
Splint and PSI are both sent after them and through luck manage to bring both of them down without taking any injuries whatsoever, which is exactly the opposite of what they managed to do the other 4 or so times I attempted the same thing, so this was an interesting outcome.
The entrance is covered and everyone are safely sealed inside the little hole in the ground we call "the stable of Pineapple".
We now have 4 necrotics and 1 reaver roaming about the surface. Getting new blood and chickens for the robot industry down there is going to be a bitch until I set up a good flier proof underground gate design.
Before session end I check relationships.
In the middle of all this "fighting for your life" thing PSI and Splint have become lovers, and so have Replica and Zebio Lizard (formerly Ravendent).
Lycaeon has formed a
grudge against Zebio Lizard. Oh yeah. They hate each others guts now. There just wasn't enough Replica to go around for everyone.
All in all? Great success. Day 1 was fantastic.
Lets hope that Day 2 will go just as smoothly.
The serious shorter summary of what happened with pictures for the illiterate, the inbred and the foreigners.
I am not pointing fingers here, so sit down and calm your tits.
Day 1
POV Replica
The Lovers of Fruit had just begun to dig out their little hole in the ground.
Sweet Lineriver, Corai, Zebio Lizard and Replica, being the more squeamish of the group volunteered to dig their new homes while Lycaeon, Splint and PSI, the bravest opted to scavenge for some wood and scrap in the immediate area.
Even they were afraid of wandering too far from the wagon.
Especially since the eerie silence hadn't lasted for long, in the far distance, rummaging among the ancient remains were horrifying husks of Cloudsdale's former citizens, unfortunate ponies who had survived the initial blasts and gradually mutated into ghoulish zombies which were monstrous creatures that looked like they had been taken directly out of a zombie pony movie like those they had had back in the Lemon holovid archives.
What was absolutely sickening about them was how they could fly despite having no feathers on their wings, it was disturbing to say the least.
But they weren't just pegasi around, there were plenty of ghoulish earth ponies and unicorns around too, and then there were some of the pegasi who looked different from one another and more similar to the earth pony and unicorn ghouls.
They had a more... melted... appearance... it's hard to describe, but it's like their flesh melted at some point and became solid before falling completely off their bones, like stearine from a candle. Except it was of a discolored sick purple.
They kept their distance, for now.
There was absolutely no telling when they would draw closer, they could attack at any moment without warning, and this had everyone on the tip of their hooves.
Replica was down below with Zebio Lizard mining out smaller rooms in the crusty soil a few meters below the surface.
At first she hadn't been sure if the soil was safe to mine, it could have just caved in over them under the pressure of all the rubble and scrap on the surface, but it was pretty solid, almost too solid in fact, mining out these first few rooms was turning out to be quite the work.
Working beside Zebio Lizard had proven to be rather... odd, Replica didn't mind him, in fact, she didn't mind him at all, he seemed nice and all.
It was just that she felt like he kept looking her way whenever he thought she wasn't aware of him.
She wasn't sure what he actually wanted from her or why he kept looking at her, she almost felt compelled to ask except that she was pretty sure that he would just deny it if she did.
Growing increasingly creeped out by his secretive stares and tired from keeping the mining drill in place Replica decided to go topside and check on the others.
She found Lycaeon, Splint and PSI all gazing towards the distance, leaning in towards each other and whispering whenever they thought they saw something.
Replica quietly approached them.
"What's going on guys?" she asked in a hushed voice.
"Oh hey Replica." Lycaeon greeted her, looking somewhat startled by her sudden appearance.
"Uh, we think the... ghouls... are starting to come closer..." he pointed a hoof in the direction they had been looking at.
Replica squinted her eyes and scanned the scrap heaps in the distance, then she spotted it, a necrotic ghoul, no wait, two necrotic looking ghouls just short of 300 meters, maybe even 250.
They were looking in their direction.
"Shit." was all Replica could say.
"Shit indeed." Splint said.
"You guys better hurry up and get that mining done, as in 'get-it-done-within-two-hours' done."
"Two hours? That's impossible, there is still lots to do." Replica said.
She wasn't an expert miner, but at the steady pace they had been working in there was just no way they would have the rooms dug out in time.
"I am not joking, they will be here within two hours. You need to get it done by then."
"Why two hours? Why not three? Or four?"
"Just look at them, they know we are here, they are really close to us. How long do you think it takes for a rotting corpse brain to figure out that we are easy prey?" he winced at Lycaeon and PSI, "Guys? Let's make a bet out of this, just for fun."
"What are you betting?" PSI wondered.
"Food rations for one day."
"I'd be up for that. I say 3 hours."
"What the hell guys?" Replica said "Now is really not the time to-"
"One hour, tops." Lycaeon interrupted, pointing towards the ghouls.
They all looked towards the ghouls again. They had gotten considerably closer now.
The four of them could see the yellow glow in their eyes from where they stood.
"PSI, Splint, get your weapons and armor. Now." Replica ordered.
She was growing increasingly pale at the sight and notion of the ghouls being so close to them.
"What? My BB gun? We ain't got any ammo for it, what am I supposed to do? Give them angry glares?" Splint remarked.
Replica ran short of patience as she often did when under a lot of stress, she grabbed Splint by his neck and stared him in the eyes.
"This isn't a game Splint! The rifle is made of fucking bronze for Luna's sake, just bash them with the stock, jab them in the eyes, I don't fucking care, just get your damn rifle and be ready!"
Splint pushed Replica away from him.
He was stronger and bigger than Replica, he felt slightly embarrassed to have let a pony like her grab hold of him forcibly like that.
"Alright fine, jeez." he muttered making way for the wagon just a few meters away from them along with PSI.
"What about me?" Lycaeon asked.
Replica fidgeted, she had no idea what to do, the ghouls were getting close and she wasn't sure if they could take them on, or if there were more on the way.
She had heard stories of ghouls taking the full force of an AMR round to the chest and walking away like it was nothing.
They had what, a wooden spear, a bronze BB gun and a few turrets that shot bullets the size of a pea?
"O-okay look, I am honestly not sure if we can finish the tunnels AND haul the goods inside in time. Even if we finish the tunnels we'd still have to haul the stuff, and the ghouls are not going to wait patiently for us to do that, they WILL get close to us and they WILL stick around up here if we decide to just hide down there. And you know just as well as me that we need our supplies to survive more than a couple of days."
"So what do you propose we do then? Run?"
"No, we can't run, we don't even know if there are more ghouls around us, they could be hiding in the scrap piles."
"Then what?"
"This is going to sound stupid... but... uh... what if we... dug out a large room under the wagon and... caved it in?" Replica was really hesitant about it, it didn't sound as smart and cleverly devised when she said it as it had sounded like in her head.
"You're right." Lycaeon said, "That DOES sound stupid."
"What made you think that would be a good idea?"
"Quick and easy way to get everything below ground?" she tried to reason.
"That's a quick and easy way to smash our food and tools alright! And what if someone gets injured? What if you are down there digging and the whole thing collapses on you?"
"That's why we'd have to be really careful doing it."
"Can't risk it Replica, it's too dangerous."
"That's too bad, because this is what I am going to do. I am the boss, so I decide, remember?"
"I am starting to wonder if it was such a good idea making you the expedition leader after all..." Lycaeon grumbled.
Replica went down into the tunnels and told everyone to go back up to the surface.
The seven of them gathered in a ring to discuss the plan.
"So what is it?" Corai wondered.
"Replica is scared and wants to cave in the wagon." Splint said.
"Shut the fuck up Splint." Replica hissed.
"But yes, we got ghouls incoming and we can't be sticking around the surface forever. We need to get everything down below ground as soon as possible and there is absolutely no time to dig the tunnels out and haul everything downstairs. We need to cave the wagon in and pick up the pieces from the safety of the burrow." she explained.
"This isn't a vote, I am really sorry guys, but if we don't do this we'll die. That's granted."
The six ponies looked at each other questionably, but none of them said anything.
"Sounds good, where do I dig?" Zebio said eagerly, taking a few steps towards Replica to which she responded by taking a few steps back.
"Corai? Sweet?" she called.
"Yeah, I'm up for it." Corai said, followed by Sweet Lineriver's "Whatever you say".
"Great, thanks, lets get to it then."
"Hey wait a second!" PSI stopped.
"We don't have enough mining drills for everypony, what do you want US to do?"
"Get the cattle and turrets out of the way and scrounge up as much wood as you can. Once the wagon is caved in we need to get all the turrets and animals and as much wood as we can below ground before sealing ourselves off."
"Whoa whoa whoa, wait a second, sealing ourselves off? From the surface? You didn't say anything about that!"
"Don't worry about it, it's not permanent. We just need to save ourselves for now, alright?"
PSI muttered something and got to her work, moving the heavy and crappy old security turrets away from the wagon.
The rest followed suit, Replica paused briefly by the hole they called "staircase" and looked proudly over her friends at work, they all had something to do and they were all working together. It would have been a moment worth capturing if they hadn't all been under the threat of imminent zombie death.
She was just about to jump down the rabbit hole when she spotted something creeping up on Lycaeon.
"LYC WATCH OUT!!" she yelled.
He turned around immediately just in time to punch a necrotic unicorn ghoul in the face, it's horn flew off like it hadn't been properly attached to it's head.
The ghoul recovered instantly and threw itself at him, he would have been dead if it wasn't for one of the three Sprite-Bots swooping in and smashing into the side of the ghoul.
The ghoul became enraged with the floating ball of metal and began flailing at it furiously, the Sprite-Bot floated off, away from the wagon and towards a pond of dirty water, completely out of nowhere a necrotic pegasus ghoul showed up in pursuit of the Sprite-Bot.
It lured them out over the water where they both fell in and began to flounder around.
Replica and the others thought it would have been left at that but no, the Sprite-Bot dove into the water after the ghouls and began blasting away with it's laser pistol, underwater.
The dirty pond flashed repeatedly with the glow of the red lasers until the ghouls simply stopped moving and the water returned to it's still stagnant state.
A few moments after the water had calmed the Sprite-Bot slowly emerged from the water missing it's right upper wing, lower left wing and main antenna, returning to it's eerily silent patrol duty.
Replica had remained in awe over the sight, Lycaeon had just been frightened.
All she could bring herself to say in her astonishment was "Amazing..."
Before long they had all returned to their respective assignment, Replica, Corai, Sweet and Zebio Lizard all toiled away down in the main tunnel digging away at the area below the wagon (or where they THOUGHT the wagon was).
With the conjoined work of their four drills it didn't take long for them to finish digging.
All they had to do now was trigger the wagon to fall through the ground.
The four of them gathered around the wagon, mining drills ready.
Lycaeon, PSI and Splint kept their distance, they were all still very skeptical about the whole idea.
"Carefully dig out the sides of the wagon on my go," Replica instructed, "We need to dig either side out at the same time or it will turn over in the fall, okay?"
They were all ready.
"Okay. 3... 2... 1... go, dig, dig!" they all began to drill their way through the crusty soil.
As predicted the ground on which the wagon stood gave away evenly on either side of it as the four of them breached the shaft ceiling at around the same time.
With a loud creak and crunch of crumbling soil and rock the wagon gave away and fell straight through the ground, Replica's mining drill got hitched in the wagon jerking her forward before she could react and let go of the drill.
She was dangerously close to falling down into the pit and possibly break her spine on the heap of rock, soil and smashed supplies if it wasn't for Zebio Lizard who had been quick enough to grab hold of her hindlegs as she was about to slide off the edge.
"AH!!! PULL ME UP!! PULL ME UP!!!" she yelled, flailing her forelegs in panic.
With some help from Lycaeon, Zebio managed to pull her up over the edge.
She sat down trying to hide her blushing face as she caught her breath, she was embarrassed over having been so incredibly clumsy as to almost fall down her own pit and over having ended up in such an awkward position gripped by her hindlegs by the stallion she considered to be "creepy".
She really didn't like ponies touching her hindlegs, she was pretty sure that nopony did, it was something about instinctively kicking whenever someone tried and she had struggled really hard not to kick her savior on the nose something she had managed to control in the end.
"Replica..." Zebio began, possibly trying to console her or excuse himself.
"NO, DON'T EVEN..." she dismissed, not wanting to think about any of it. But she felt bad about it, he had saved her after all.
"Look Zebio... thanks for saving me, really. I'm sorry for being such a klutz..."
"Don't mention it, accidents happen."
"Yeah..." Replica got up and dusted herself off.
"We need to get below ground and begin gathering up the supplies, there is still plenty of work to be done before nightfall."
Everypony got below ground, they sealed their "staircase" with some wood, hoping that it would keep the ghouls at bay.
The supplies were surprisingly intact, the only damage anything had sustained was Replica's mining drill that had been dented from the fall and a barrel of sewer brew which had cracked under the weight of a gypsum boulder, aside from that everything was fine, none of the barrels had broken open and spilled the contents like the two soldiers had expected.
While Lycaeon, Splint and PSI moved everything from the crash site to one of the smaller adjacent rooms Replica, Zebio, Corai and Sweet continued to dig out more rooms and corridors, turning what had previously been a makeshift rabbit hole into a pony sized cave of sorts, they could actually walk around down there without hitting their heads on anything.
Zebio insisted on working along with Replica in case she had another mining "accident", something she begrudgingly accepted, with the two working in such close proximity to one another for most of the day they ended up chitchatting about a bit of everything, getting to know each other more.
Towards the end of the day they had successfully hauled everything into two rooms, one room for food and one for, well, everything else.
It wasn't much to look at but it suited their present needs for underground storage and safekeeping.
By the pit where the wagon had fallen through they had also expanded the corridor slightly to make room for the turrets and they had dug out another medium sized room just below the others where they had stacked some of the wood and scavenge they had managed to recover before being chased away from the surface.
All they had to do now was seal the gaping hole to the surface and settle in, for which Replica and Corai had dug deeper for in order to get some rocks to block the hole with.
The two mares had been good friends since before embarking on this seemingly suicidal journey so they didn't have quite as much to share with one another as Replica and Zebio had.
Corai turned her power drill back on and began hacking away at the gneiss cave wall, they almost had enough boulders and bits of rock now to cover up the entrance, so this wouldn't take long.
Replica did the same.
"SO HOW ABOUT ZEBIO?" Corai asked, raising her voice over the sound of their mining drills.
"I DON'T KNOW, WHAT ABOUT ZEBIO?" Replica wondered, not quite getting the question.
"HE SEEMS PRETTY CUTE, FOR AN EARTH PONY."
"WHAT?" Replica yelled, pretending not to have heard.
"I SAID H-"
"I HEARD WHAT YOU SAID ALRIGHT! WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT?"
"EH, IT JUST LOOKS LIKE THE TWO OF YOU ARE HITTING IT OFF AFTER TODAY."
Replica's hoof slipped and she lost hold of her mining drill, fortunately it was built in a way that required constant operation to remain active and so it switched off and silently fell on the stone floor.
"WHAT!? IT'S NOTHING LIKE THAT! WE JUST MET!"
"SO?"
"SO YOU DON'T 'HIT IT OFF' WITH RANDOM STALLIONS JUST LIKE THAT!"
"HE IS NOT ALL THAT RANDOM THOUGH IS HE? HE HAS BEEN WITH US FOR OVER A YEAR NOW." Corai continued to yell over her drill.
"I NEVER SPOKE WITH HIM ALL THAT MUCH."
"STILL, HE SAVED YOU TODAY, AND THE TWO OF YOU SEEM TO BE GETTING ALONG NICELY, SO WHATS THE PROBLEM?"
"THE PROBLEM IS... THE PROBLEM..." Replica couldn't come up with anything, she didn't have any particular reason for not hanging out with him.
"PROBLEM, REPLICA?" Corai chuckled.
"THE PROBLEM IS THAT IT IS TOO SOON."
"IF THINGS GO AS 'SMOOTHLY' AS THEY HAVE GONE TODAY 'TOO SOON' MIGHT AS WELL MEAN 'TOO LATE'."
That was true, things could have gone way worse today, they could have died had they not acted as quickly as they had.
"DON'T GET ALL MELODRAMATIC ON ME CORAI."
"WHY SHOULDN'T I?"
"IT'S NOT LIKE YOU TO BE LIKE THAT."
"EHH YOU'RE RIGHT, IT ISN'T. BUT STILL, IT WOULDN'T HURT TO HAVE A 'FRIEND' TO TURN TO IN THIS PLACE, THIS ISN'T LEMON, WE WONT HAVE WARM BEDS, COLD DRINKS AND A HUNDRED STALLIONS TO CHOOSE FROM ANYTIME SOON YOU KNOW."
"JUST MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS AND KEEP MINING, ALRIGHT?"
"I AM GOING TO GO UPSTAIRS AND CHECK ON THE OTHERS."
"TO CHECK ON ZEBIO YOU MEAN."
"FUCK YOU." Replica yelled in response.
She went upstairs, her throat felt a bit raspy from all the yelling and rock dust, she could go for a drink.
In the dirt room that acted as their food storage was PSI, sitting around petting one of the dogs which paid him no mind at all and just stared dumbly and aimlessly at a barrel of crow meat.
"Are the rocks ready for pickup?" she asked Replica.
Replica gestured at her to wait a second while she took a sip from a barrel of sewer brew.
It tasted horrible. It wasn't called sewer brew for nothing.
"Yeah, yeah, almost finished, you guys can begin hauling the rocks we have up here now if you'd like."
"Great." PSI got up.
As soon as she did the dogs out by the turrets began barking, followed by the resounding noise of pathetic gunshots in rapid volley.
PSI and Replica ran to see what was going on, as did Splint who came rushing from his resting spot in the dirt in the next room.
Rounding the corner where the turrets were stationed they saw two ghouls, one earth pony and one unicorn flailing away at a dog which was running around them in circles barking and dodging bullets by sheer luck.
PSI and Splint didn't even stop to wonder or go back to pick up their gear, they just charged straight on ahead at the ghouls with whatever they had at hand, which in PSI's case was nothing and in Splint's a hacksaw he had used for whatever.
PSI couldn't do much unarmed, she tried to gore one of the ghouls with her horn but ended up charging straight at one of the dirt walls, smashing a hole in it.
While she desperately tried to pull herself loose Splint hacked away like a madpony with his saw, making surprisingly good use of it despite it not being built for combat, through sheer force he managed to sever some of their legs, severing the lower left hindleg of one, then the lower left foreleg of another, as he swung his saw in an elegant arch back at the first ghoul he found himself in a vulnerable position ripe for attack by the first ghoul which lunged for his stomach, but it was stopped dead in mid lunge by PSI who had pulled herself loose and who had launched herself once more at the ghoul, hitting it successfully and tumbling it over.
She immediately rolled away giving Splint the opportunity to hack off the ghouls upper left hindleg severing the rotted bleeding stump he had left before in one clean swing.
The ghouls were left completely crippled and at a disadvantage, and easy prey for Splint's hacksaw and a heroic Sprite-Bot which charged around the corner and down the corridor in full speed before smacking forcibly into the skull of one, mashing it like a wet paper bag filled with soggy cupcakes.
Replica had fled downstairs and riled everypony up to help her haul the rocks upstairs immediately, and shortly after the Sprite-Bot dealt with the last ghoul she and the others came hauling large boulders on their backs, stacking them in a pile one by one to cover up the entrance.
Meanwhile more ghouls were gathering outside, their crazed screams and roars echoed over the pony boneyard instilling deep fear and a rush of adrenaline in all of them.
There was but one hole to plug in and Replica had just the boulder for it, as she climbed the pile of rocks with her boulder on her aching back a pegasus ghoul of the most hideous appearance imaginable swooped down the pit and landed in the center of it, it screamed at Replica and charged straight at the hole.
"OUH! NO PLEASE, I DON'T WANT TO DIE!!" she panicked, dropping the boulder.
Zebio charged up the pile, grabbed the boulder and slammed it in place using a surge of superpony strength just as the ghoul was barely two meters away.
The pegasus ghoul slammed against the rock with an audible PLAT! and soon got up to scream at the rock wall, shortly joined by its monstrous companions.
While Replica held the rock wall in place along with Zebio and Lycaeon the others continued to haul rocks to strengthen the pile until they had eventually gathered up enough rocks for the ghouls to give up and leave them alone.
The seven of them earned a moment of respite to catch their breath, it had been a close call, much closer than before.
"YEAH!!" Splint cheered, "WE FUCKING DID IT!!"
He went up to PSI and grabbed hold of her, swinging her around 180 degrees, "You did great PSI! If you hadn't-" his praise was interrupted by her smiling and putting a hoof on his lips, she leaned in and gave him a long passionate kiss.
The two drifted apart and wandered off elsewhere, nopone followed after them, choosing instead to go to the food storage for a celebratory victory drink, with the fine rum they were saving up for later.
Everypony but Replica and Zebio Lizard.
Replica was sitting on a rock hunched over with her hood over her face, she was almost in tears, Zebio was just passively watching over her like some kind of guardian angel who had saved her not once, but twice this day.
"Replica..." he said softly, putting a hoof around her shoulder.
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" she sobbed. "I didn't mean to panic! I didn't mean to drop that rock!!"
"It's okay..." he consoled her.
"It's NOT okay! I could have gotten us killed!"
Zebio gently pulled her hood back and slowly caressed her mane.
"It's okay, it's okay... shh shh shh." this made her calm down a bit, it gave her peace.
She leaned her head against him and sighed deeply.
Today had been a dangerous gamble.
But at least they were safe, for now.
And at least she had Zebio Lizard to comfort her.
and dramatized version of what went down.
Author
Topic: Fallout: Equestria - Pineapple (Closed) (Read 37020 times)