Horace, having returned from outside the bunker and having seen the devastation, developed a new appreciation for the simpler things in life, such as feeding the chickens. Maybe this was what it was like to be human?
Noel, on the other hand, concentrated on complicated tasks such as building nanites and trait chips to outfit the plumbots with. Horace did what he could to help him by researching and constructing nanites in order to be able to create for Noel the most advanced nanites that he possibly could. After all, what wouldn't he do for Noel? He'd been the one to give Horace life.
The Eight concerned themselves with increasing their logic skills by creating potions at the chemistry table which would come in useful later on, while Mickey proceeded to hone up on his inventing skill. When the atmosphere cleared of radioactivity, he would use those skills that he learned. And River and Haruo bent over the alchemy table to try and create elixirs that would help their continued existence.
On the surface it was a cutthroat battle for survival and those who were still alive after what was considered by those, who were superstitious to be the Day of Reckoning, were left to fend for themselves in an ever present constant danger. Because if it wasn't thugs it was clones of the eight that had no idea of the mores of human civility and would sooner kill to get what they wanted. There were no rules in the wasteland other than Only the strong survive and its corollary The strong take what they need and nothing would prevent them from doing so.
Evidently there had been a shift in what governed reality; what could formerly be done and what could now. Things that were purely metaphysical were now possible in the realm of reality. For who would have thought that one could conjure up as if by magic, things out of thin air. Such was possible with the Lord Vladimir's Magic Cauldron. In fact two had been placed in there as large stew cauldrons. However those two cauldrons had been appropriated for their magical properties once it was learned that it could be used in that manner.
So the eight set about to learning about how to use Lord Vladimir's Magic Cauldron and they learned that magic was taxing on one's body and that conjuring could certainly take the wind out of one's sails if one persisted in materializing objects out of thin air for far too long. Some of them learned that far too painfully.
On the surface, the survivors did their best to remain alive. They sought shelter as best as they could when the clouds laden with radioactivity arrived and the rad-counts soared into the lethal range. All they could do if they were able to was find the nearest place that could shield them from the radioactivity, even if it meant a subterranean parking garage and hiding in the nearest elevator; at least the concrete shell of the elevator shaft would protect them...somewhat. If they didn't; they sickened and they died.
River and Haruo took what minor solace that they could given the situation; they took comfort with each other's bodies. Social mores went out the window when it came to a survival situation. No, River and Haruo were not married and back in the world before the Bomb; such degeneracy would have been roundly castigated. But now there was no one to chastise them for such immorality - they gave of themselves to each other.
Phil, on the other hand, concerned himself with potions. One of his traits being insane, he wanted something that would go kaboom...but well, if he wanted that, he should have gone into inventing.
Horace, as usual, helped his Creator, Noel, build more nanites as Noel increased his bot-building knowledge to be able to reverse-engineer those nanites and get the various sizes of circuit boards that he needed to be able to create trait chips.
And well, the Eight would need whatever knowledge that they could learn to be able to survive.
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