Commonwealth Quest [Fallout 4 AU]

[Swordomatic]

Commonwealth Quest​

War… War never changes.

Before the world died with the light of the atom, I was a soldier in the American Army. I fought in the Sino-American War. I fought to reclaim Alaska from the Chinese, for the last untapped reserves of crude oil in the world. I fought alongside my countrymen, and watched them die not for their country, not for their ideals, but for resources.

Years of consumption had lead to shortages of every major resource. The entire world unravelled. Peace became a distant memory. Conflict became daily existence, no matter how much the United States of America tried to pretend otherwise. Nuclear War was an inevitability, no matter the advances in technology or how many boots they put in China. I knew this, and so did my wife. The both of us fought in Alaska. Hell, I met here there, and she's the reason why I discharged myself from the service.

In our eyes, the end of the world was looming closer and closer with every tick of the clock, and when the hand struck twelve, everything would be swept away in the light of nuclear hellfire. But there was always a faint hope that with the advent of fusion power, these wars would soon come to an end.

Oh, how wrong we were.

----

The Male Survivor
The Male Survivor of Vault 111 is a man out of time, with nothing and nobody to rely on but his wife and his own wits. But before the bombs fell, he was a soldier, and he was someone who served America with distinction.

The Male Survivor's Name
[] Write-In

The Male Survivor's Past
[] The Survivor served with the 442nd Infantry Battalion as a Sergeant, and was amongst the first units deployed to retake Anchorage from the chinese invaders. He fought early on, before the introduction of Power Armor, and saw many men and women die in the gruelling campaign to follow.

[] The Survivor was deployed with the 33rd Armored Cavalry, amongst the first units to be equipped with the new T-45 Power Armor, and was instrumental to breaking the chinese grip upon Alaska. He would later serve a tour in China, newly-equipped with T-51 Power Armor, before retiring from service.

[] The Survivor was a scout and a sniper, trained to spot and shoot while far from friendly lines and while virtually invisible. He was amongst the first units deployed to Alaska, forward of the American advance, and wrecked havoc as an infiltrator, saboteur, and sniper.

[] Though the Survivor was a soldier by trade, he was also responsible for the lives of the men in his company, and he was instrumental in saving the lives of many a man in the Sino-American War. However, while a medic and equipped as one, the Survivor was more than capable of fighting back. The Chinese were relentless, and did not abide by the rules of war.

[] The Survivor was deployed with the 33rd Armored Cavalry, but not as one of those clad in T-45 Power Armor. Rather, he was taught to repair and maintain those suits, amongst other pieces of American machinery and combat robotics, and became exceptionally skilled at his job.

The Female Survivor
The Female Survivor of Vault 111, while not as versed as her husband in the art of war, is nonetheless ready to survive in the post-apocalyptic Commonwealth. She served in the military to pay off her College loans, and the skills she learned two hundred years ago will serve her well in the days to come.

The Female Survivor's Name
[] Write-In

The Female Survivor's Past
[] Prior to enlisting in the American Army, the Survivor had attended a moderately prestigious university in Chicago, where she had attained a degree in Social Services. Her talents had always laid in the area of people management, and spending more than a decade in various project and people management roles has found her acting as though managing people is second nature- a skill that will surely be of great assistance in the post-apocalyptic Wastelands.

[] The Survivor was always good with machines- designing them, building them, and fixing them. After her time spent in the army, the Survivor had moved on to projects both bigger and better than any the Army had assigned her to. These skills, once merely a hobby turned livelihood, will serve her well in the Wastelands.

[] Architecture had always been a passion of the Survivor. Whether working on small-scale projects for a family or large-scale projects for an apartment building to house dozens, she had always gone above and beyond. In the Wasteland, the rules might seem different- but everyone still needs roofs over their head and food in their stomachs.

[] Robotics was a difficult art. Bridging the gap between engineering and programming, the designing and production of robots from Mr. Handy to Sentry Bots was not something that afforded a lot of mistakes. While the Survivor may not have been the brains behind the operations, her skills and steady hands were nonetheless an important asset- and will be again in the wild Wastelands.

[] The biological arts have always been an integral part of modern life. Comprising everything from the development of medicines to the synthesizing of drugs to the production of genetically modified foods, biology is one of the most important sciences there is. While the search for knowledge on the biological sciences has mostly died out in the Wastelands, the necessity of their practical uses has not. The Survivor's skills will most certainly be appreciated.

[] A source of contention even before the Great War, the nuclear sciences were at once the pinnacle of human innovation and the progenitor of their own destruction. Nonetheless, even the denizens of the Wastelands must acknowledge the myriad benefits that power can bring to their lives. Harnessing the knowledge of nuclear power, the Survivor's skills are at once of immense benefit and a source of contention amongst the wastelanders.

----

GM Note: Right, so here's what's going to happen. This is a quest that I'm running (obviously) and that is being co-run by @Tempera (less obviously), and it's going to be a quest about rebuilding civilisation in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, except unlike most wastelands it also has a little bit of Blade Runner to it. The setting will be Fallout 4... plus several major differences.

First off: Both survivors live. They both survive Vault 111, and they both go on to rip the Wasteland apart in an attempt to find their son.

Second o--wait, no, from this point on that would be spoilers. Well, they'll happen as they happen. Join me, won't you?

 

[Swordomatic]

Nate

SPECIAL

Strength: ●●●○○○○○○○ (3)
Perception: ●●●●●○○○○○ (5)
Charisma: ●●○○○○○○○○ (2)
Endurance: ●●●○○○○○○○ (3)
Intelligence: ●●●●○○○○○○ (4)
Agility: ●●●●●●○○○○ (6)
Luck: ○○○○○○○○○○ (0)

Perks

Alaskan Mechanic
Gives the holder of the perk an extra 1d10 in their dicepool when making hasty repairs to mechanical equipment, at the cost of requiring additional materials to fully repair mechanical equipment.

Sharpshooter
Gives the holder of the perk +2 to combat rolls if they have the time and distance to line up a shot with non-automatic rifles.

Inventory

Hunting Rifle- 2 cases of ammunition
Hiking Clothing

Rad-X (2)

Relationships

Nora
Nate's wife. A former soldier and architect, Nora was frozen within Vault 111 like Nate was. She, like Nate, is currently embroiled in the search for their missing son, Shaun.

Current Missions/Tasks

Major Missions:
- Find Shaun.

Nora

SPECIAL

Strength: ●●○○○○○○○○ (2)
Perception: ●●●●○○○○○○ (4)
Charisma: ●●●●○○○○○○ (4)
Endurance: ●●●○○○○○○○ (3)
Intelligence: ●●●●●●○○○○ (6)
Agility: ●●●●○○○○○○ (4)
Luck: ●●○○○○○○○○ (2)

Perks

Architect
Gives the holder of the perk +2 to die rolls when attempting to construct suitable shelter on the field or within a settlement.

Reservist Medic
Lowers the threshold for critical failures from one-half of the task's threshold to one-third of the task's threshold when attempting to treat injuries.

Empathetic
Lowers the threshold for critical successes from twice the task's threshold to two-thirds of the task's threshold when treating the injuries of non-enemies.

Inventory

10mm Pistol (6 cases of ammunition)
Hiking Clothing

Cheap Tent

Rad-X (2)

Relationships

Nate
Nora's husband. A former soldier and engineer, Nate was frozen within Vault 111 like Nora was. He, like Nora, is currently embroiled in the search for their missing son, Shaun.

Current Missions/Tasks

Major Missions:
- Find Shaun.

 

[Swordomatic]

1.1

"Alaska was the best damn thing to happen to me."

Nate used to say that all the time, while they were watching the telly, and Nora would always reply 'No, I was.' They would then laugh lightly at their little joke before returning to their business. But Nora didn't say anything this time. Nora was too busy keeping count of everything they have.

"Five magazines of 10mm ammunition between the two of us, two empty, with twelve rounds each. A Pipboy 3000 personal computer for the both of us. Vault 111 Jumpsuits, which we are both wearing. Our wedding rings, for sentiment. And that's all we have." Nora sighed and looked down at the flakey dirt beneath them. Dead and lifeless, like the world around them. "Still think we'll find anyone, Nate?"

"Of course," he replied. He was keeping watch, one of their 10mm pistols in his hands. The weight was familiar in his hands, though he tried not to think about it. What he did in Alaska was nothing compared to what his mates in the fighting arm of the 33rd Armored Cavalry had to deal with, but memories like those will only kill them at a time like this. "Come on, Nora. Remember your training."

"We live in a world with giant cockroaches, Nate."

"And your training helped kill them. Come on, we have to keep moving."

It's only been three hours since they woke up from those pods. So much happened in three hours. There was nobody to greet them, and nobody else coming out of the pods. They had checked every last one of them, and found all of them dead. Dead for a while. The thought that they could have met the same fate chilled Nate to the bone, but he had to think beyond what happened and towards the future.

Like finding the son of a bitch that took their son.

Nate remembered every detail of that encounter. It was hazy at first, like a dream. A man and woman came, opened up Nora's pod, and took their son from them. Nora resisted - she always had a fire in her, and the recruiters always lamented that she wasn't frontline infantry during veterans' meetings - but the man knocked her out cold with the butt of his gun. It seemed impossible, like a fever dream.

Then they woke up for real, without a son, and Nate knew that it was real. All of it. And his wife has the bruise on her head to prove it.

Nora sighed again and looked up at her husband, and then past him. The sky above them was sickly green-brown, like a kid barfed over it and let it dry for centuries. In a way, that's exactly what happened, wasn't it? "I know, I know, but… look around you, Nathaniel, and what do you see? Dead trees, dead bushes, dead people. It's all dead, Nate. There's nothing left. We came out of a tomb and into a wasteland."

"And if I know people, they are stubborn and impossible to kill," He retorted. The way Nora was so hopeless annoyed him. This wasn't the woman he met in Anchorage. But, he reminded himself, he wasn't the one who felt their infant son get torn away, and subsequently get pistol-whipped like a greenhorn. "This might be a wasteland, but I won't stop until we get our son back." He helps her to her feet, and stuffs a magazine into a waist pouch. Hopefully they won't need it soon. "So let's get moving, and see if there's anything left at Sanctuary Hills."

--

Sanctuary had changed.

It felt like less than a day had passed since they had entered the vault, but if any lingering doubts about what had happened during their storage in the vault had remained in their heads, it was immediately dispelled when they saw what had happened to their city.

The Ashford's house, a sleek blue house Nora had helped design, sat on the outskirts of town. It was one of the first houses they had had to pass as they walked back down the faded path from the Vault. The elderly lady who owned the house, Marie, had taken a lot of pride in caring for her garden, constantly refusing Nate's offers of assistance in weeding. It was dead now, small brown tufts of some bristly flower the only thing sitting in the loose topsoil around the house.

"Jesus," Nate choked out. "It looked bad from up there, but… jesus."

Nora made a hushed noise of agreement. The faint, bitter smell of dry dust and stale wind permeated the land around them. Everything looked so… so different, so removed from her memories of yesterday. It was all so dead.

"They're all falling apart," she murmured as they continued to meander down the path. There wasn't much to move through- Sanctuary Hills had never been a particularly big town, barely large enough to actually be called a town rather than a village. Three hundred houses, four hundred tops, all built haphazardly over the years of the twenty-first century.

And indeed, she was right. Even Nate, a soldier with less than no idea what real houses should look like, could see what she meant. The houses- those that were still there- weren't quite falling apart, but they weren't far off it. Repairs had been made inexpertly, rough-cut wooden planks nailed awkwardly in where walls had collapsed and old signposts shoved beneath sagging porch roofs to prevent them falling in.

And then they heard a creak, and Nora squeaked. Or she would have, if Nate and his years of experience on the warfront had not cupped her mouth and pulled her to the ground, behind the former Ashford's House's fence.

They saw him together, a man wearing tattered trousers and nothing on his chest except a mottled leather vest with metal studs and a face-obscuring gas mask. The man was lean, almost stick-like, grimy, and walked about with a menacing slouch. He carried a pistol that looked like it was made out of… plumbing equipment? It was makeshift, for sure. Nate had a face like he didn't know whether to be surprised or offended, and decided to be both.

She pulled Nate's hand away from her mouth, giving him an annoyed look before turning her head back to watch the man's circuitous path around the village.

Then she saw it; a streak of dried blood covering the man's left side. By the way he was moving surely and confidently, not limping at all, it wasn't his own.

"Think he's a spy?" she asked softly, moving to lean gently against the wall of the nearest house like her husband.

He shook his head in response. "Nah, he's not watching his perimeter at all. Either militia or a bandit, I'd say. Probably militia, but it's hard to say without knowing more about the area." The absurdity of the words hit him after a moment, and he grimaced. "Or the times. Whatever, you know what I meant."

"Yeah."

They watched the man wander slowly up what had used to be Baker Street before turning to each other, a worried look evident in Nate's eyes and the beginnings of a fiery anger in Nora's.

"Think they had anything to do with it?" she breathed, hand tightening around the handle of the pistol holstered against her hip.

He shook his head, gently touching her hand to calm her down. "I doubt it." She reluctantly released the weapon, and he enveloped her hand in his, gently rubbing smooth circles on her palm with his thumb. "But we need to know what's going on anyway, and this is as good a place to start as any."

[] Storm the place. Leave no survivors. It's like 2074 all over again. They can find clues on their corpses as easily as anything. (Agility/Strength + Endurance, Spends Ammunition, Potential Loot)

[] Capture the lone militia/bandit. Extort him for information. These are exceptional times, and they have exceptional measures. (Agility + Endurance)

[] Confronting them isn't safe. Sneak past them, and see if they can learn anything from the surroundings. Nate can almost see their house from down here… (Agility + Intelligence)

[] Fuck it. They can come home later. They need to find Shaun, and they'll find clues closer to Boston.

 

[Cavalier]

stop @Tel Janin Aman, your image has been removed. There is a strong presumption against the use of racially loaded language, even in a joke image. And the context of this was nowhere near sufficient to provide an excuse for doing so. I would encourage all posters to exercise greater reflection and mindfulness before posting dubious material.

 

[Swordomatic]

1.2




Finding Shaun was the most important task the two of them had. It was an unspoken agreement between the two of them- an agreement neither of them needed to make. Of course Shaun came first. He was their child.

But the man who had stolen him, the man who had pistol-whipped Nate and frozen the two of them for however long it had been, was long gone. The two of them had nothing to go on, no idea where to go, no idea where to even begin looking for him.

And that was how the two of them found themselves sneaking through the ruins of their old village, feet treading lightly yet surely over the ground as they picked their way around the empty shells of the houses of former friends.

They may have been frozen, but Codsworth was a robot, a particularly tough model of Mr Handy. There was a chance that he had survived the fallout and was still alive today.

And any chance was better than sinking into bleak hopelessness.

----

Nate was the first one to see the second man, sitting alone on the roof of an unbroken garden shed beside the Jones' old house. This one was an older man with a lined face and greying hair. He had a radio beside him and a cigarette puffing away in his mouth, the wireless' volume turned down enough that the cheerful tunes almost didn't reach Nate's position across the street.

They skirted around him, but the two of them weren't the only ones around. There was a third patrolling around the outskirts of the old arcade's parking lot, a fourth standing incautious vigil atop the rusted ruins of an old truck, a fifth, a sixth and a seventh tending to bushels of strange plants neither of the two of them had ever seen before.

By the time they had reached the ruins of their old house, they'd seen nearly a dozen of them around the town. Whoever they were, they obviously weren't part of a professional outfit- they allowed themselves to be distracted too easily, paid too little attention, didn't notice the small mistakes Nate and Nora made as they passed them by.

But when they passed into the ruins of their old house, all thoughts of caution fled their minds. A soft keening sound escaped Nora's mouth for a second before Nate clamped a hand over her mouth, even as he himself looked devastated at the debris of their former life.

"Jesus, Codsworth…" Nate closed the door behind them, careful to stay out of view of the windows. "What happened to you…?"

Their trusty Mr. Handy was in pieces, barely recognisable. Plates were torn off, burns scarred entire segments of plating and internal wiring, and his last remaining eye was cracked and dented. None of his arms were left. Barely anything of his engine assembly was left. If Nate wasn't good with machines, he would have thought Codsworth a lost cause. But he is, and he doesn't.

"Oh my god, Codsworth…" Nora gasped. Codsworth was a big part of their life. They got him right around the time Shaun was born. He is as much a part of the family as their son is, like a shiny chrome uncle.

"I'll fix him," Nate assured reflexively. Restoring him will be hard. They definitely can't do it now. But he could do it. Gently, Nate pulls Nora to the ground - and out of sight - before getting to work. They need to know. His central processor should have survived, as should his memory core. They should be able to glean something from it. RobCo and Vault-Tec had some joint projects back in the day…

Within minutes he had carefully stripped off their robot butler's memory core from his chassis and linked it to his PipBoy. He's going to need a proper terminal before he can do anything more, but he can read something.

It was not what he was hoping.

"It's… the 23rd of October, 2287, going by Codsworth's internal clock." Nate looked at the screen, sucked on his teeth, and slouched his shoulders. "Well, looks like our Pipboys are working fine, at least?"

"So… we've been gone for two hundred years?" Nora let out a sob, but it sounded less anguished and more frustrated. "Well, isn't that fantastic?"

"Outlived Great Aunt Hilary, at least," Nate shrugged. They shared a short chuckle, but it was bitter and brief. It was a technique Nate learned in Anchorage, close to the front. You make awful jokes or you break under the pressure. His mates in the 33rd were particularly notorious about the puns.

...The 33rd was posted to Guangzhou, last he heard. What happened to the--no. No. He can't dwell on this right now. Neither of them can dwell on anything now. They need to find their son, and they need to keep moving.

"We can't stay here," Nora said, echoing his thoughts. "Can you reactivate him?"

"I'll see what I can do," he replied. He couldn't do much, but he could probably bring the personality matrix back up, at least. Codsworth won't be up and about anytime soon, not without actual tools, but he can make sure that when he is, he is still the Mr. Handy they know. "And you?"

"I'll see if I can salvage anything from the Super Duper Mart or Dr. McAllister's practice. Maybe the police station has something left, and Old Harrison was a paranoid old f--goober," she self-corrected. "And you know the old plan, right? In case of riots, run to the school?"

"Or from it," Nate grinned, finishing off the joke. St. Emmerick's School for Clever Youngsters was built like a prison and intent on keeping kids from climbing out during school times. Excellent for riot control. Not so much for the state of education in America. And Shaun was going to attend when he got older… "There might be more people there, though, so be careful."

"Might not even go there," Nora said. "We don't have much time, and we should get going before nightfall."

"Go where?"

"Where else? Concord."

----

Pick Three:
[] The Super Duper Mart. They'll need supplies for when they move onto Concord in their search, and quite frankly she's famished. [Luck, Nora] [Potential Food, Potential Medical Supplies]

[] The old School. If memory serves, a school would be an optimal place to hold out in the event of things like riots, fighting… or the post-apocalypse; it was the most likely headquarters for them. This is the best place to find out just who these people are, and how many of these people there really are. [Agility/Perception, Nora] [Learn Estimated Numbers, Inhabitant's Allegiance]

[] The Clinic. Dr. McAllister ran a tight ship back in the day, and always kept his medical supplies locked up and secure when he didn't need them. Some of his supplies may have survived to this day. They can put them to use better than he ever can now. [Luck/Perception, Nora] [Medical Supplies]

[] The Police Station. Sanctuary Hills may have been a small suburb, but it had crime and unrest like anywhere else. The station was well-supplied back in the day - at least, one of Nate's old mates who joined the police force said so - and some of their equipment might still be there. Especially the ones under lock and key… [Intelligence/Luck, Nora] [Potential Weapons, Potential Armour]

[] The Hunting Store. Sanctuary Hills may not have been the largest village around, but there was enough interest in hunting- and hiking- that old Harrison had run a hunting store out of an old building beside the gas station. It's unlikely that any weaponry remains within the store, unless she gets lucky and finds an intact safe, but hiking and camping gear will be useful. [Luck/Perception, Nora] [Potential Weapons, Potential Hiking Supplies, Potential Camping Supplies]

 

[Swordomatic]

1.3




The town's old police station had definitely seen better days.

Then again, so had… the rest of the town. And so had she. She really had no room to judge.

Boards covered the windows with only small gaps in between them, just large enough that someone could poke the barrel of a rifle out the window and aim through a scope. There was a soft jangle as a tin can tied to a rope hit the door she pushed open, broken remnants of a functional (if uncouth) alarm system.

Someone had probably used it as a fallback in case of attack.

Judging by the way nobody leaped out at her, and by the way the school's fortifications had been so built up, it obviously hadn't worked as well as the builder had wanted it to.

She nudged debris out of her way with her foot as she pushed her way through the building. It wasn't worth her time to go and check the desks or the unlocked lockers for any useful equipment. Two hundred years had passed. If there was anything useful there, it would have long since been looted.

No, there was no point in checking the open locations. She was after something rather more secure.

A terminal blinked in the back of the police station, faded green light blinking out of a broken screen.

Stretching her arm muscles, she padded her way over to the terminal, pulling up a rotting wooden crate to act as a makeshift chair. "Alright," she muttered to herself, pressing the key to bring up the terminal's login screen. "Let's see what we've got."

The first few passwords she tried weren't correct- 0000, 1234, password, admin and swordfish just brought up a mocking 'password incor' screen. The rest of the screen had shattered away, and refused to display anything.

Growling softly to herself, she tried some less obvious passwords. shpd and sanctuarypd bore no results; similarly, qwerty, baseball, monkey, abc123, 11111111, access and grognak all proved to be failures.

And then her last attempt, trustno1, opened a different screen.

Unfortunately, rather than the main desktop screen she had hoped to see, it was just a login failed- please wait ten minutes before attempting again screen.

"Damn it!" she swore. Every time. Every gosh-darn fudging time! Even when she knew the password, the screen locked her out! Oh, how she envied those other people who could do things like 'hacking' or 'passwords' just fine. Oh, Debbie. Debbie Debbie Debbie. She knew. She could do it. Debbie could probably hack the terminal.

But fudge Debbie, and fudge this terminal.

And so Nora kicked the terminal, shattering the screen, and then kicked the locker hard enough for the deafening crash of foot on metal to, well, deafen her. Her ears were ringing, her foot was kind of numb, and a tiny little bit of Nora knew that she would have a headache and a sore foot in a few minutes.

But fudge it, the evidence locker can stuff it.

Then the door swung inwards just slightly, and her frustration melted away. Well, most of it. Some of it. A little bit of it. Like, three percent.

The evidence locker swung open when she prodded at it, revealing a short rifle, the kind used for hunting deer and rabbits in the forests outside Sanctuary. She recognized it, in fact - it had belonged to Ash, one of her friends who had worked in the department beside her in Concord when her business had still paid enough for her boss to afford the lease there. Ash had been pulled in a few weeks ago for unlawfully discharging a weapon against another person's property.

Frankly, Friedman's dog had deserved it. Damned thing never shut up.

She pulled it out, strapping it haphazardly across her chest and shoving the few cases of ammunition in the locker deep within her pockets.

The other lockers were just as easy to open, although she took far more care with them, trying her best not to make any noises that might alert the sentries this time. The locker's hinges had probably rusted away over the years.

Most of them were empty, but she did get lucky in a few of them. Two of them contained ballistic vests- one just the right size for her, and one two sizes too large for Nate. Another contained a small backup supply of 10mm ammunition, likely for an officer's personal supply.

It wasn't much.

A better person might have said "but it was better than nothing", but Nora wasn't a better person.

It just wasn't much.

-------------------




Harrison's hunting store was-

Honestly, Nora was sick of noting how broken-down everything was by now. It was broken down. Literally everything was broken down. Even the fudging sun had broken down - it was green now. Recounting how everything around her was a broken husk was rapidly wearing on her patience.

The hunting store had, by the look of it, been spared the attention of most of the inhabitants that had taken over the town. Oh, yes, it was still worn down and even falling apart in places, and a thick layer of dust covered everything, but most of the store's inventory remained untouched.

Stepping inside, she scanned the store's walls with a critical eye.

The weapons were gone, of course. She had vaguely hoped that perhaps someone had left an old hunting rifle leaning behind a shelf or something, but no such luck; people had evidently stripped the store of all weapons long before now.

They hadn't bothered to take most of the rest of the store's supplies, however, which suited her just fine.

Most of what the store held was useless to her, so she didn't bother. She did take an old camping bag, one of the big long ones people used to hold sleeping bags, and shoved the hunting rifle in there before covering it with dusty clothing from beneath a rusted shelf that had collapsed at some point over an old rack of hiking clothes. Two boxes of boots- a set for her and a set for Nate- were tossed on top, then a box of sneakers for good measure, although their quality was suspect.

The last thing she was planning on taking, this one in its own separate bag tossed over her left shoulder, was a cheap tent set. The good ones were all gone, but this one appeared to still have all its metal pegs within the packet, and it didn't have too many holes in it.

That was all she was planning on taking, but she couldn't resist poking her head out to the store's storage area one last time, couldn't resist booting up the failing terminal out the back just this one last time. Ash would have been proud.

Debbie would have been pissed, but as she had already established; fudge Debbie. Fudging know-it-all.

Realizing she was poking her tongue out at an old picture of Harrison's grandmother, she shuddered and pulled her tongue back in, a faint flush stealing up over her face.

In one of their less proud moments, she and Ash had decided to hack into this terminal once, just to see what kind of things Harrison had stored on his work computer. The things she had seen then could not be unseen, but she had at least learned that Harrison's password security was even worse than the police department's.

She entered the password, password, and moved straight to the computer's desktop screen. From there, manipulating Harrison's safe open was as simple as opening the store's security system controls and sending it a message to open.

"Huh," she muttered once she had ambled over to it and peered inside. Four small bags of Rad-X peered out at her, the sloshing red liquid inside churning her stomach as it always did. "Nice, Harrison. Never thought you'd be the kinda guy to hold out on me like this."

------------------------------




Sanctuary Hills High may not have been a literal prison, but to the teenagers in town, it had been close enough. The eight-foot chain-link fence surrounding the building had certainly never done anything to correct that image, and nor had the bars the administration had installed over the building's windows after the sixteenth time someone had tossed a brick through them.

Looking at it now, Nora would almost have preferred that it was a prison. At least then she'd be able to understand why it looked so damned menacing, even in the evening sun.

The men inside were sharper-eyed than the men patrolling the rest of the village had been. She couldn't afford to get too close, not when they had four sentries posted on the roof and another three circling the prison's - the school's grounds. Lacking a set of binoculars, she could only go by what she could see, which wasn't much.

What she could see wasn't good, though.

The men were dragging in carts full of stuff. Loot, she supposed, if she looked at it weirdly. Old sheets of half-rusted corrugated iron, lamps with no lampshades, wooden planks of various sizes, and strewn in amongst it all, the occasional weapon and pieces of armour, strewn in amongst the garbage.

What concerned her was the blood that speckled it. Dried blood covered the armours, cracked and peeled into little flakes from the men's skin, baked beneath the evening sun as it pooled on the sides of the carts.

Wherever these men had managed to find these items, they certainly hadn't got them legitimately. And that almost certainly meant banditry.

At least seven patrolling the village. Four on the school's roof. Three patrolling the school's ground. And nobody worth their salt would leave more than half their forces patrolling outside and leave everyone inside vulnerable to a sneak attack.

At least twice that many bandits, then. Thirty of the raiders, minimum. Far too many for the two of them to handle alone, even with their new equipment; they were trained soldiers, but they weren't demigods.

----

By the time Nora got back to their old dilapidated house, it was almost dusk. She headed in with her stuff, taking care to close the door and make as little noise as humanly possible, and headed in to find Nate in their old room kneeling on the ground, still tinkering with Codsworth.

"How's he doing?" Nora asked. Nate didn't respond, and just kind of nodded. By the looks of it, he wasn't really working on Codsworth anymore, just trying to poke through whatever logs he could find from their robot butler's memory core. Which, considering how Nate looks like he would really want to swear, is probably not going well.

"We need a terminal," Nate grunted, which confirmed her suspicions. It appeared her annoyance is contagious. Or they're just a perfect match for each other. "There's too much corruption. The Pipboy isn't doing shit."

"Language!"

"The swear jar doesn't exist anymore, it melted when the bombs fell."

"Well, we'll find one in Concord. Anyways,I got you a present," Nora said before presenting the Hunting Rifle. It wasn't in the best condition, but it should be fine. Nate was always better with a rifle, and they have some rounds for it.

Nate went from disgruntled grandpa to a kid at christmas in the span of five seconds, then went straight to flabbergasted teenager. "Wait, how did you fit it in your… do you even have pockets?"

"I'm a wizard, Nate. I thought we established this on the first date."

"Our first date was in Anchorage while artillery pounded six klicks away," he said dryly. "I didn't know you read Grognak too!"

"I don't, it's from… I found a bag."

"Oh." They looked at each other for a moment. In the distance, something that sounded suspiciously like shouting happened. "I knew that."

She sighed while Nate got his hands on and around their new weapon. He's such a dork. Well, that gives them a spare pistol and more ammo for her, plus vests for coverage and hiking attire. Though maybe they should keep the vault jumpsuits on under the clothes. They're pretty good for protection against exposure.

"...It's getting dark," Nate noted. His hands rested around the weapon's stock, and he slid a round in. Safety precautions, she supposed. "Stick to the plan?"

[] Stay in Sanctuary for the night. None of the buildings provide the greatest of comfort, and they're going to have to take turns keeping watch to prevent themselves from being ambushed by raiders, but they'll make the journey to Concord beneath the protection of that hateful yet welcomed daystar.

[] Head to Concord immediately. Heading over the main roads will be pretty quick, and they probably won't attract the attention of any wildlife, but they won't be able to hide from anyone watching from within the city. They might draw a lot of unnecessary attention.

[] Head to Concord immediately, but try to be stealthy about it. Cutting through the wilderness should avoid attracting too much attention within the city, but carries the risk of encountering wildlife- and the wildlands tend to carry more radioactive hotspots than the roads do.

-----------------------

Items Obtained:

Hiking Clothing- Nate [Removes penalties for crossing wild terrain untrained.]
Hiking Clothing- Nora [Removes penalties for crossing wild terrain untrained.]

Cheap Tent [Lowers penalties for sleeping in the wilderness.]

Hunting Rifle

Rad-X (4)- Temporarily renders the consumer immune to radiation. Carries the risk of contracting sickness afterwards. [Obtained due to write-in Luck bonus.]

 

[Swordomatic]

1.4



Nate's leg bounced with frustration as he slumped down on the ruined counter. "I... I just want to be moving. To go after him," he said softly.

"I know," Nora agreed, looking out into the darkness. From the window she could see patches of light in the landscape below, but she didn't think they were the light of civilisation. They were too... green. Areas of countryside that were still so irradiated that they glowed at night - that was her guess. "But Nate. I'm hungry. I'm tired. I'm still stiff from the freezing process. I... I'm not sure I'm in any state for a cross-country hike right now."

The man nearly snarled in frustration, but slumped, knowing she was right. "Fudge. You're right. I know you are. It's just..."

"I know," she agreed, hugging him close. "But we'll be no good for him if we're puking up our guts because we had to eat some irradiated food or something. We don't even know if there are any animals alive out there for us to hunt. And if they are, they might be hostile and I'm not sure I'm in any state to fight."

Nate crossed his arms grumpily. "Dang it all," he muttered. "Well. Right. We don't want them to stumble on us, and we want to be moving before first light. When they're all asleep, we'll grab some food and then get the heck out of this place. It isn't our home any more."

"No," she agreed. "It's not." She tugged on one sleeve. "I think I saw the Johnson's dog house was still intact," she said. "After all, it was made of that heat-resistant plastic and their brute was one of those big breeds. Maybe it'd be better to sleep there. In case they check the ruined buildings on a cycle or something. And it's closer to the edge of the place, so if we have to make a break for it, we'll have less far to run."

It was intact and the Geiger counter in the pipboys just clicked at the background level when they tested it. It was mostly empty. Its former occupant never really left. But once they pushed the ancient, moss-covered bones into one corner, there was just enough room for two people.

"Good boy, Fido," Nate said dryly, patting the dog skull.

----

"Well, looks like we slept in the doghouse last night. Now to check that off the Dad's Bucket List."

"You. Quiet."

Concord had never seemed to be this far away, back before the nukes had dropped. It had been a half-hour drive, forty minutes on a bad day. Far enough away that the daily trip to and from work had been annoying, yes, but it wasn't like they'd been making the trip to New York on a weekly basis.

On foot, it was more like a six-hour walk, even when they cut away from the highway to take the most direct route possible. And under the hot sun, those six hours could feel more like twelve.

Just two hours into the walk, both Nate and Nora were already sweating heavily in their hiking outfits. They'd decided against putting their ballistic vests on during the walk, figuring that they'd be too stifling. The added risk of being shot wouldn't matter much if they collapsed dead of heatstroke before they even made it to Concord.

Nate wiped the sweat from his brow for what must have been the twentieth time during their hike, scowling unpleasantly at the sheen of perspiration left on his hand.

"I told you we should have brought water with us," he said, anger faintly bleeding into the tired words. "'No, Nate, we can't risk alerting the bandits!' Fuck the bandits."

"Fudge," Nora corrected him sharply. "Fudge the bandits. Oh, and shut up."

He sneered at her, but it quickly became too much effort to maintain it, and he let it slip away into a mopey expression again.

"This is going to be a long walk," he sighed.

"And it will be longer if you don't move your legs!" Nora snapped irritably.

----

Concord had definitely seen better days, by the time they got there. Most of the windows were boarded up - assuming there were any window-esque features left to board - and numerous walls were blown out. The bricks weren't bleached and flaking, though, which ruled out another nuclear strike. Any damage that wasn't worn by time and wear and tear looked recent, and repair attempts had already begun, although the most recent repairs appeared to be months old at best.

"So much for bustling Concord, right?" Nate scoffed in disbelief.

"There should be something left," Nora replied. She looked about the ruined street, and tried to get a feel for where this place once was, so that she could reference the map of Concord she drew in her mind centuries ago, though for her it was only relative days since she came to this town.

They began their search through the ruins of the once-busy city, never quite the size of Boston but still far more than the sleepy town of Sanctuary Hills. It was difficult going. While the streets were the same, signs had long since fallen down and rusted, and many of the landmarks the two had used to navigate the city way back when had likely been gone for more than a century.

It didn't take long before Nate's keen eyes picked out the silhouette of a man above them.

"Man above us," he said quietly, not taking his eyes off the road in front of them. Nora's gaze jerked upwards before she caught herself and stared ahead, glaring at the ruins of an old Super Duper Mart.

"Friendly, or another bandit?" she replied, keeping her voice quiet but unable to hide the frustration burning in her.

He gently shook his head, turning to peer into the ruins of the first floor of a small apartment building. "I don't know," he said grimly. "We should-"

"Hey!"

Both of them swivelled their heads to the left, where the voice had hailed them from. Nate immediately took a step back, his hand falling to the butt of the rifle he was holding in his hands.

Perhaps it wasn't the wisest move, but when he saw someone with what appeared to be some kind of energy weapon pointing at him, he couldn't help his reactions.

"Hello," Nora called back, turning to eye Nate off. He scowled, but didn't raise the rifle. No use in engaging them just yet- he would bet any amount of money that he was faster than them, anyway. "Will you identify yourself?" Nora had no room to judge him, anyway. He could see her hand moving down to where her 10mm pistol was holstered.

"Michael," the man replied, stepping forwards out of the shade of the building he'd been standing in. The sun lit up his uniform a bit, showing off a blue vest and plain brown pants. "I'm with the Minutemen here in Concord. Care to tell me your names and why you're here?"

Eyeing him distrustfully, Nora nonetheless answered him, if a bit stiffly, "I'm Nora, and my husband is Nate. We're headed to Boston."

Michael smiled at them, a lopsided smile that hit Nate with a sudden blast of nostalgia for his old friend from the Army, Pete. "Nice to meet you, Nate and Nora. Concord's a bit of a mess at the moment, so it might be difficult to get you through to Boston, but I can take you to our leader. He can tell you the safest way through, and I might even be able to escort you through. It'd be nice to have someone who isn't a raider around, anyway."

Nate and Nora turned to each other, each questioning the other with their eyes. Minutemen hadn't been around since the War of Independence, but who knew what had happened in the time they'd been asleep?

[] Accept Michael's offer. The talk of Concord being unsafe and his mention of raiders had the two unsettled, but having an escort through should help- and their leader might have seen whoever took Shaun, or know something about it, which would be worth it anyway. Nate would just have to hope that Nora's hero complex wouldn't kick in.

[] Decline Michael's offer and attempt to make their own way through Concord. The mention of raiders unsettled the two of them, but they had both trained in the Army. They may be able to make their own way through the city, and even find a terminal along the way without having to go all the way to Boston.

[] Decline Michael's offer and cut their way around Concord, avoiding the town entirely. They'd hopefully avoid encountering any raiders along the way, but being out in the wilderness for days as they travelled to Boston would necessitate hunting local creatures, and their supply of Rad-X would likely disappear even if they didn't get lost along the way.

 

[Tempera]

I don't actually know where @Swordomatic got to, but he disappeared immediately after I finished writing this update. I'm sorry if you're one of those posters who only checks a quest when an OP alert is sent out; I'll try to get Swordo to make a longish post later and link back to this update so you're all alerted.

In the meantime, please enjoy this quest update.

---

1.5



"Sure." Nate was the first one to speak up, giving the man a small smile as he did so. It wasn't that he trusted the man; it was just that he was the one with the gun, and he had the best chance of getting out of the line of fire, so it was best that he kept the man's attention on him. "We'd appreciate that, Michael."

"Excellent!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "If the two of you would follow me, then, I'll escort you to our base of operations now. Oh- and if you could watch your step and keep your voices low, I'd appreciate that."

Nate nodded. The request made a lot of sense, especially considering Michael likely thought they were civilians, or at least had minimal combat training, and there was no harm in it.

They fell into step behind the man, following him through the streets of Concord. Nora kept her eyes peeled, while Nate kept his gaze on Michael, watchful for any signs of deceit.

Eventually, the silence became too much for Nate. "So," he started, "you mentioned there were raiders here. Anything we should worry about?"

"Hm." Humming thoughtfully, the Minuteman tapped the hilt of his laser musket, as though needing a reminder that the weapon was still there. "Well, I certainly wouldn't advise trying to go through Concord on your own right now. We're having a bit of a civil war here," he added weakly with a self-deprecating laugh.

"We?" Nate frowned. "I thought you were with these Minutemen."

Michael nodded, turning sharply at an imagined sound. "I am," he said, frowning at the location he'd turned to for a moment before turning around and continuing on. "It's a bit more complicated than that, you know how things can get, yeah?"

He paused for a moment as he led them over a pile of rubble. A three-storey building had collapsed, spilling several tonnes of brick and tiles over the streets in front of them. Whatever had hit that particular building had hit it hard.

"You see," he continued once they'd made it over the debris, "we're in kind of a bad situation right now. Not sure if you know, but our General died a while back. The Minutemen ended up fracturing, a whole lot of splinter groups formed, you know how it is, yeah? And some of them ended up deciding they weren't getting enough from the job, so they turned Raider."

Nate nodded, absorbing the information. He'd seen similar things during the War. A lot of soldiers had decided them that America wasn't paying them enough for their jobs, and had turned merc or fled to other countries and sought better pay elsewhere.

Evidently satisfied with Nate's response, Michael gestured around them, taking his eyes off the buildings around him. "Well, I'm not really sure about the details," he admitted. "After Quincy- sorry, that's the town we were in a week or so back- we ended up here, looking for a safe place for the refugees we're escorting to settle. And then bam! A missile tore through the building next to us." He shook his head, disbelief still clear on his face.

Beside him, Nora turned to raise her eyebrows at Nate. He shook his head discreetly at her; he didn't need her to interrupt him. She pouted, but he just waggled his finger a bit, and she subsided, sulking.

"Sounds scary," Nate replied neutrally to Michael. "Was anyone injured?"

"A few people were bruised, but nobody was seriously injured." Michael stopped for a moment, casting his gaze around the streets. Evidently seeing some kind of landmark neither Nate nor Nora could pick out, he nodded in satisfaction and headed left down a small alleyway, picking his way over trash that had accumulated over the years as the wind had blown it around. "Lucky enough, I guess. That's when we found out about the raiders, though."

As they turned around a corner, another man dressed in a similar uniform- a dirty-white shirt, a blue vest and light brown pants- waved at them from atop another building, where he was sitting with a rifle in hand. Michael waved nonchalantly back, gesturing back at the two of them. A coded gesture, Nate guessed, or maybe Michael was letting the other man know he knew the two were there.

"Sorry, I got a bit distracted." The Minuteman turned back to the two of them, looking seriously at Nate. "From what Preston's been saying, one of the groups of raiders here used to be Minutemen. So it's a bit of a civil war on two fronts. Raider against raider, and Minuteman against Minuteman. It's made it difficult for us to try to escort the refugees out."

A simple "Ah" was Nate's intelligent reply. It certainly didn't sound all that complicated, but that was what happened when you only had an unreliable source to go from, he guessed.

"Anyway, we're here now." Michael stopped near a large building, a derelict building with large red wooden blocks spelling out the word Museum on the front of it.

[] "Preston should be up on the top floor. I'd suggest you go speak to him. He might be able to give you an escort out, or at least tell you about a safer route than I'd be able to pick for you. Might be too distracted with the Raider battles, though."

[] "If you don't want to trouble Preston, you might head in to the second floor, where Sturges has set up his workshop. If you're any good with that gun of yours, Sturges might be able to fix you up with something better, give you a fighting chance out there. Could be you could cut yourself a path out of Concord towards Boston."

[] "Hell, I could escort you out myself, but I'd only be able to take you back the way we came. Doctor from Quincy, goes by the name of Leon, might be able to fix you up with food and Radaway to make the journey. Probably won't give it to you for free, but you might be able to work something out with him."

 

[Swordomatic]

1.6

Nate rolled his shoulders. "I reckon your leader sounds pretty busy," he said. "If you don't mind, we could go talk this Sturges man. I've worked as a mechanic and I'm pretty handy with tools. Might be able to help him a bit in thanks for the help you've been for us."

"That'd be nice."

They headed upstairs.

"Nate," Nora hissed.

"Look, Nora, these seem like decent folk in trouble and we don't know shi- uh, sugar about how the world is. And we're going to need supplies if we're heading to Boston - and we're going to need food right now. So I reckon we make ourselves useful for a bit until we can get the full story on what's ahead of us. If they're as hard-pressed as they sound, they're going to appreciate me around the place, while I don't think their boss'll much like two refugees appearing from nowhere just asking questions when he's busy fighting other groups. Then, when there's a lull in the fighting, maybe tonight or something, we can approach him - and we might well have this Sturges to vouch for us."

Nora sighed. "That... that makes sense," she said mournfully. "But... they might be getting even further ahead with Shaun. I... I hate the feeling we're delaying."

"So do I. But we don't know the land and I sure as hell don't want to try living off the fields when everything's all irradiated." He sighed. "You better put some thought into your doctoring, too. Patch some people up and they'll think of us as friends and might tell us something that'll help us find him." He grinned. "You can ask them questions about the world under the guise of checking them for shock."

She swatted at his arm. "You sly dog, you're smarter than you look. Not that that's hard."

"Play nice, dear."

She smirked at him. "Whatever you say, honey. Go along and talk to your mechanic buddy." She fluttered her hands dismissively at him, and poked her tongue at him in response when he scowled at her. "I'll see you later, then."

----

Reaching the second floor, Nate was about to ask who Sturges was when a scruffy man with an apron and - is that a mullet and a flannel shirt. "Howdy! Name's Sturges!" He extended a hand, and Nate catches it dumbly, more stunned than anything that of all things to survive the apocalypse it would be rednecks. And he's also their mechanic. How the world changes. "Heard you folks were coming up from Michael! So what do I call you two?"

Nate nods. Well, at least he's friendly. And doesn't smell like day-old whiskey. Not like Great Uncle Rayson. "I'm Nate and this is Nora, my wife. We're just trying to get to Boston, and -- is that an issue of Grognak the Barbarian under your arm?"

"Ah, I see you know your comics!" Sturges pulled out the rolled-up comic book and - that's the limited edition Grognak the Barbarian and the Red Lake Amazons. And in good condition, too! "I was just taking me a breather from keeping things running. So, you two are headed to Boston, eh? Well, things're heating up 'round these parts, and I'd wager this comicbook here that it won't end anytime soon."

Please do, Nate thought to himself. If there was a time to rebuild his collection… "Well, I can help. What needs to be done?"

Sturges thought on that for a second, and he took an appraising look at Nate from head to toe. "Well, you look like you could grok a hydrospanner, so sure. We've got some stuff that needs to be done, defenses here, walls there… oh, there's the water purifier in the basement that I've been banging my head against!"

--------

Nora's precious good mood dissipated almost immediately when she emerged from the staircase to the second floor and saw the refugees scattered around a small wireless radio up there.

When she was younger, Nora had been deployed to Alaska following the Battle of Anchorage. While she had been there in a support role, patching up American soldiers after they clashed with Canadian rebels around the Alaskan oil fields, the work was irregular and had often left her and her team with nothing to do for days.

Once, her commander had allowed her team to visit an Alaskan refugee city, a vast sea of tents and ramshackle huts built around the ruins of towns that had been shelled by her fellow soldiers. They had trudged through the muds, offering their assistance to the wary refugees within.

The refugees had stared up at them with soulful eyes, unmindful of the dirt soiling their cheeks and staining their clothing. They had been spat upon many times by hateful dissidents, victims of war who had blamed them- them, not the Chinese infiltrators!- for bringing the war to them and tearing their lives apart.

But it wasn't the hate she remembered. It was the image of mothers clutching their children to their chests, pulling them away from the American soldiers as they passed. It was the weary men who had reported in to their medical tents, asking for painkillers to soothe the pain of limbs lost to Chinese mines. It was the way the very air had stunk faintly of soot, sweat and hopelessness.

Once, her commander had allowed her team to visit an Alaskan refugee city. After seeing their eyes after they returned, he had never authorized a second visit.

The men and women sitting in front of her had the same look to them. There were certainly differences; none of them looked upon her with hatred, as though they blamed her for their misery. In fact, only a few of them even looked up at her as she approached, tiredness writ over their faces.

Jesus. What had happened to these people?

She stepped briskly into the room, moving through the refugees and looking over them with a practiced eye. Only a few of them had any big injuries like missing limbs, but many of them had half-healed gashes and broken bones, and she even saw several people with cuts in the beginning stages of an infection. A lot of other people were nursing bruises and minor cuts, but they'd heal without much of her input.

Nate had suggested that she use treating these people as an excuse to gather information about where they were. It had seemed like a good idea at the time.

Looking at the weary faces of the refugees in front of her, looking at the tired bruises beneath their eyes and the cuts and gashes littering the bodies of even the smallest children there, it seemed like a much worse idea now.

It was time to make a choice, then.

----

Nate (Pick One)

[] Help Sturges to set up a set of basic Mk. 1 Automatic Turrets around the Museum. They weren't the most sturdy of machines, and he could only program them with a very basic targeting array, but they'd be a big help in the case of an attack against the Museum. [Agility/Strength, builds 1 layer of Defences]

[] Help Sturges to reactivate the Museum's pre-war Security system. While the Museum's two or three remaining Protectrons wouldn't be as much help as a small network of turrets would be in case of invasion, reactivating the Museum's cameras would provide them with the ability to watch for incoming invasions and react to infiltrators within the Museum. [Intelligence/Perception, builds 1 layer of Security]

[] Help Sturges to repair the portable water purifier he had brought with him. It wouldn't help all that much, but providing the refugees with clean, non-irradiated water would hopefully be a big help in preparing everyone for the march out of Concord. [Agility/Perception, gives access to small supply of Clean Water]

Nora (Pick One)

[] Nora had always been a bleeding heart, unable to turn away from people who needed her help. This was no exception. She couldn't just sit back and watch as people suffered right in front of her, no matter how much she wanted to focus on finding Shaun. She needed to go and speak to this Preston about getting the medical supplies she needed to treat these refugees. [Gives the Empathic perk, boosting Nora's medic abilities. Raises influence with Minutemen.]

[] Nora was a medic, but before even that, she was a mother. Finding Shaun was her priority. And if that meant turning her back on people in need, even if it made her go numb inside- finding their son would be worth it. It was worth anything. She could close off her heart and draw the information she needed. [Gives the Determined perk, boosting Nora's combat abilities while in the pursuit of Shaun.]

 

[Tempera]

@Swordomatic is taking a year and a half to post this update, and I have work in approximately seven and a half hours, so I'm going to be handling posting this one.

I hope you all enjoy these rolls, because they were some pretty good rolls. Truly, Nora is too good for Nate.

---

1.7




The basement of the museum is dank and dusty and dark and Nate can't think of any other D-words but dang it he's gonna keep trying. "We're keeping the touchy-feely stuff we brought back from Quincy down here, so none of the other refugees get any ideas into their head that they can fix it," Sturges explained, while he led the two of them with a torchlight in hand, occasionally smacking the side when the light started flickering. "They can't. That's why I'm here. But I'm guessing you can, can't ya, buddy?"

Sturges palmed the wall next to them and darkness flickers to light, revealing what was once a cellar, with several wrecked turret housings and other assorted niceties. Nate caught the portable water purifier in the corner, but that'll have to wait for after he's done fiddling with guns. Again. Just like he's back in the army, except this time not only are his meals cold they're also radioactive.

He recognises the make of those turrets, from the way their casings look. They're rusted and dented and spotted with holes and in some places melted and warped, possibly from nearby explosions, and they are a mangled mess if he's being charitable. But Nate knew his turrets, and the Mk. I Machinegun Turret was notably flimsy and vulnerable to sabotage. But they were cheap, so they got delivered by the truckload at Anchorage.

The soldiers swore by them, citing the ease of setup and how, since there was so many of them, that the walls of lead they put up literally cut the chinese to shreds. The engineers? They hated them. You could put up the same amount of lead for half the volume with one of the Mk. IIs, with a heavier caliber besides, which didn't have stubborn hinges that made it a pain to disassemble when everything was said and done. That, and they had better targeting AI. But nobody ever listened to the engineering corp, nope, it was always the boys in power armor that got the headlines.

Well, Nate would like to see his old mates survive in post-apocalyptic Boston!

...Nate would like to see his old mates in general. Last he heard, a number of the 33rd Armored Cavalry was deployed to mainland China.

"I think I could cast a magic spell or two," Nate said. He cracked his knuckles and took an analytical scan. Which turrets were obvious lost causes, which were too much trouble to do anything with which ones just needed some elbow grease and tender love and care to fix, and which ones he should start on first to impress his new Grognak buddy.

He knelt beside one of the kinda-borked-but-fixable turrets and looked intently at the turret housing. The gun and its mount was salvageable, but everything else had to go. The struts and actuators were blasted apart by shrapnel. It's a wonder the ammo that must have cooked off didn't shred the mount off. "I need a wrench."

"Should be one on my person… Give me a sec--"

"Wait, nevermind. I got a quicker way." Nate learned a lot from Anchorage, things to do when you're low on tools and time and high on frustration and incoming fire. He wrapped his hands around the bolt linking mount to frame, and twisted. There was a technique to it, you see. An Ancient American Secret, he used to joke to his mates at mess. He still did it from time to time at home, like when they had to move to their new home and he couldn't be as--bothered to find the specialty wrenches Tots & Teeds provided for their cradles.

In seconds the bolt gave way and the mount and machinegun clanged off the floor like rapturous applause. Nate wanted to stand up and bow, but he settled for a tired look and smile while Sturges looked at him, mouth wide and mullet flat.

"...You gotta teach me that," Sturges said, utterly in awe.

Nate laughed. Going by his initial scan, he could maybe put two turrets together in the timeframe they had. "Ancient American Secret," he told him, before going back to work.
------



Mentally apologizing to Shaun, Nora turned away from the refugees, ignoring the guilt beginning to churn deep within her gut.

She couldn't remember if Michael had told them where he would be, but if he hadn't left to resume his guard duty in Concord, it wouldn't be too hard for her to find him. The building was scarcely four storeys high, and she'd only seen the one entrance into the place, plus the likely back exit and emergency exit.

He wasn't on the first floor, and none of the people she asked could tell her where this Preston was. The story was the same on the second floor; "Sorry, couldn't tell you, he's in and out so much".

Michael still wasn't on the third floor, but after asking several Minutemen where she might be able to find someone who could help, she finally got lucky. A grizzled old soldier, scruffy beard speckled pepper-grey and too many scars marring his cheeks, gestured outside with his head.

"Leon's meant to be on the second floor, working on the refugees, but who knows where he really is," he spoke. His voice was hoarse, gravelly- as he looked up, Nora spotted a long scar over his neck. "It's good to hear someone around this place is willing to actually help them. Yeah, I saw Preston. He left just a couple of minutes ago, took a few of the fellows with him. Think they headed off to go ward off some scouts. Head up the road to the right, the one leading to the big blue building over there, you'll find him."

Nora thanked him, giving him a small smile, the best she could muster.

Up the road on the right, to the big blue building. She repeated the instructions in her head over and over as she walked, focusing on them. They weren't complex, or even at all difficult to remember, but it gave her something to- to occupy her head with.

The "big blue building", as it turned out, was an old apartment building, one of the ones that had sprung up prior to the War. A lot of older cities like Concord had begun building upwards like this, focusing their populations into a smaller area rather than sprawling all over America like a creeping fungus.

She only half paid attention to the roads as she walked down them, lost in her thoughts of pre-war America. As such, she almost missed the soft whumph that echoed from a street off to her right.

It took a few seconds for the sound to register, but when it did, her head shot up immediately.

A mine just went off.

Her first instinct was to sprint towards the sound, but she bit that impulse off sharply, the words of old Drill Sergeant Baxter coming back to her- shut up and tippy-toe, recruit, 'cause if you shoot first they'll shoot never- and forcing her feet to inch forward far slower than she'd like.

Rather than heading immediately to the sound of the fight, she ducked into one of the alleyways that crisscrossed throughout the city's streets, then pulled her way up a rusted fire escape. It creaked alarmingly beneath her weight, but surprisingly held, allowing her to pull her way up to the roof of the building.

From here, she had a much better vantage point.

She moved stealthily across the roof of the buildings, pulling her 10mm pistol out from its holster at her side. Her feet passed noiselessly over the wind-blown rooftops, only making a sound when she eventually slowed so she could lay herself down and continue crawling across the rooftop, making it much more difficult for anyone on the streets below to see her.

When she eventually made it over to the side of the street the mine had exploded in, she paused for a moment to take stock of the situation.

The mine had gone off from within an upended trash can, if her guess was correct- the can itself was gone, but a rusted lid of approximately the right size was embedded in the doorway of a nearby building, the lid having pierced right through rotten wood.

Four men laid just within an old storefront, directly opposite the rusted lid. Three of the men were lying on the ground, groaning and clutching at their torn and useless legs. The fourth man, a black man looking to be in his late twenties and dressed in a much sharper blue coat, was the only one standing. He'd chosen to stand just outside the storefront, eschewing the miniscule protection the rotten wood would offer him.

Further up the road, another half a dozen men were hiding behind the rusted-out shell of a car, occasionally making threatening gestures with bayonets and yelling obscenities at the man, but oddly never actually firing their weapons. The men were dressed in an eclectic measure of old denim clothing and metal scraps, having taken entirely the wrong lesson from the story of Ned Kelly.

A movement from a nearby alleyway caught her eye, and she scurried over to the side to investigate.

Two men were making their way stealthily through the alley. Following it back, Nora could see that the alley looped back to the street behind them, which itself linked to another alley near where the other men were hiding behind their car.

Her breath caught for a moment. An ambush, then- and one the single Minuteman standing wouldn't see in time, not if the ambushers remained as stealthy as they were being.

She made up her mind in a heartbeat.




A few moments remained before the men would be in a position where they could fire upon the man, so she took her time lining up a shot. It wouldn't do to miss, especially not when doing so would alert them to her presence.

A beat, then another- and she fired, straight and true. Her pistol jerked up slightly, but she'd expected that and compensated for it. The bullet whistled through the air, met one of the ambusher's heads with a wet thunk, and passed through into the bricks behind him.

The sound of the shot rang through the street. The remaining ambusher cursed and jerked away, but she was already tracking him with her pistol. She waited for one moment, two, ignoring the loud retorts of weapons firing from the street- and then he was in position, and she fired. Twice, just in case, not that it mattered- the first bullet hit him straight in the thigh, sending him to the ground even as the second bullet caught him in the gut.

Her targets down, she looked up, just in time.



The Minuteman was a model of efficiency. Muskets had long been done away with by the time she had been born, let alone by the time she had served in the Army, but they had been a deadly weapon once, and this man was showing that they could be again.

He had ducked behind a lamppost, bullets whistling haphazardly past him or pinging off the lamppost, far away from his injured comrades. The few that made their mark slapped against his leather vest and stopped cold. Evidently, whatever armour he was wearing that had protected him from the mine stood just as easily against small arms fire.

Every few moments, the man would lean out from behind the post and fire in the direction of the men. The shots flew wide, occasionally by as much as two or three feet, but they were tight enough that they were forced to take cover, buying him precious seconds of quiet to begin reloading.

If this was what he could do with a musket, Nora wondered uncharitably, what would he be able to do with a proper weapon?

The thought seemed to trigger something- well, it was likely as not a coincidence, but as she thought it, the man ducked behind the post again. One of the men opposing him, sensing an opportunity, stood and began pulling something out of his coat.

Her eyes widened. "Look out!" she shouted, forgetting herself.

He started slightly, eyes flicking up towards her before moving back to his opponents, just in time to see the grenade they pulled out. She caught the soft sound of a muffled swear as he dropped his musket and stepped out from behind the post.

She couldn't hear the sound of the pin being pulled, or the sound of the grenade whistling through the air, but she covered her ears in anticipation of the sound she would be able to hear.

Then the man caught the grenade lightly in his hand and, in a single smooth motion, threw it underarm back at the men.

The explosion lit up the streets as bright as a midsummer noon, and she could feel the whumph of displaced air as the explosion rocked through the street, but she was too busy boggling at the man who had just caught and tossed back a live grenade to pay much attention to it.

Jesus fudging christ.

Now she really hoped that was Preston, because that was pretty fudging impressive.

[] Now that she's seen him in action, Nora is eager to greet Preston. A good first impression is crucial, so she should present herself professionally. [Charisma]
[] [Write-In] Provide Nora with an alternate introduction to Preston. The higher the quality of the write-in, the more held dice (and thus the larger the bonus) the write-in will provide, but Nora's introduction to Preston should be no longer than a single spoken line of dialogue. [Charisma/Write-in Bonus]