Yeah i was confused by the comment that stargate was being adapted for planetry travel.
The Contest of Power (Wiki-Warrior style story) (Fallout)
- Thread starter Aurora Moon
- Start date
- Location
- 𐌂 ̢͎̩̤̲̙͓̑̀͂͒̀͆̏𐋏 ̛͏̫̚𐌀 ̛͉̥̩̤̰͈̂̅͒͊͟𐍈 ̣͛𐍃 ̡̅̈́
Well, this kind of seeds would be very good at strengthening in the soil. Just make a proper streamlined shape, move the center of gravity closer to the sharp end and voila - seeds fly down like air bombs and are stuck deep into the ground with a crash. Of course to mature such whoppers need so much resources from soil and time... But on the other hand - such big concentration of materials in one plant give good ground for development of different types of symbiosis (like nesting in flowers). Soil in sunflower forest poor, dry and stony because of plants itself, but there are still some cunning creatures live in the dry dark. Like some hard mushrooms, that connect to the root system of plants or grow on stems like tinder fungus. Or glass-like mold at the base of the flowers, which roots in seeds and forms a thick, ice-like coating (attention, explodes on impact!). Or mutated spiders, which like to eat mushrooms and the remains of dead plants and weave a transparent prickly web with toxic, stinking oils on it. Yeah, I understand why no one lives here permanently or trying to cut down or burn down this place... So many potential dangers hide in this bomb-flower jungle.
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Chapter Nine-- The Fort Peck Area
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Regan got a very rude awakening when some diseased-looking mutant bear tried to eat him.
Overnight, he had fallen asleep and forgot about the fact that the campfire would eventually die out if there was nobody to feed it. And thus wouldn't be able to keep any creatures away once it died out.
"ARGH!" Regan screamed out in pain as he woke up to some god-damned bear mauling him and trying to eat him.
>BONG<
He punched the bear in the nose and then swiftly got away up to a nearby tree branch via shapeshifting.
He then sat there on the tree branch, glaring down at the bear. Thankfully, he could just shape-shift the injuries away but… god, that had fucking HURT!!
Not to mention… he was also angry that the bear honestly thought he was prey. He wasn't!
He was the one who devoured everything around him, not the way around!
His stomach growled. He was so insanely hungry right now, thanks to all that flying he did, and all the shapeshifting.
He then grinned nastily as the bear started climbing up the tree towards him.
The bear thought he was prey to be hunted? Well, this bear was going to find out that Regan was the opposite. Instead, the bear was going to find himself eaten instead!
Some moments later, there was a gory puddle of blood and leftover bone that Regan hadn't bothered to devour.
And Regan was looking so much healthier and full, a somewhat contented expression on his face. Turns out that animals could in fact feel fear and other things… so all those pet lovers were on to something there.
The tangy flavor of fear acted as the sauce accompanying the meat he had been devouring, making it taste even more delicious.
He wandered back to his campfire, where his bag was waiting for him. He then dug out the pip-boy to check where he was now. He had been so tired before that he hadn't thought to check the pip-boy… which made him feel stupid as he realized what he could've done in hindsight.
It was easy to forget that you had a pip-boy when you weren't constantly wearing it on your wrist, though.
According to it, he was near the flat-lake recreation area by the Fort Peck lake that was part of the Missouri river?
He still didn't know where that was, nor did he care that much. What he had opened the pip-boy up for, was so that it could point him in the right direction of Helena. He kept on turning this way or that way, using the pip-boy as a compass, seeing that it had an "arrow" on the map indicating not only where he was but also the direction he was facing.
He reoriented himself with the help from the pip-boy, and then put everything back into his bag before shapeshifting into a gigantic crow again. He then took off into the sky.
~~
It was barely 15 minutes in before Regan was sniped out of the air. He heard the gunshot but hadn't moved out of the way in time to dodge the bullet that hit his wing. He let out a screech of pain, and he found himself falling towards the ground 30 feet below. Damnit, he should've really flown higher to where nobody would've seen him!
>BONG!<
The impact of hitting the ground was almost to knock him out, but he struggled to stay conscious. For some reason, he was suddenly feeling so drowsy.
"It fell over there!" A young-sounding voice said, "I swear, dad, it was the biggest bird I've ever seen. I hit it with one of our tranq bullets so we can take it in alive. Maybe Dr. Julius will reward me?"
Regan's eyes twitched angrily at this. First the bear, now this? He actually got sniped out of the air by some little brat?? This was shaping up to be such a bad day.
He desperately did his best to shapeshift back to his original shape, but he was rapidly losing consciousness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Regan came to, he found himself on some dirty hospital bed in a dimly lit facility that looked like it had seen better days.
It seemed as if he was now human-shaped and had his human head and human feet sticking out of what looked like a weird bird costume. So he had managed to shapeshift halfway back, but he still had the arm-wings and the rest of his body was still heavily feathered.
"Ah, you're awake. Good." An elderly dark-skinned man wearing a lab coat said as he came into the room.
Regan took one look around the room once more before asking, "Where am I? And who are you?"
"I'm Dr. Jeremiah Julius, and you're currently in the Fort Peck Fish Hatchery building."
Regan scowled. "I distinctly remember getting shot at…"
Dr. Julius grimaced at this. "My apologies. It was a young boy who mistook you for a big bird, so I hope you won't feel too much ill will towards him. His daddy's a hunter around those parts, and he often goes on those hunting trips with his dad, you see. And to be fair, it's not every day you see a human man in a bird suit flying overhead. Anybody could've made that mistake, I suppose."
He then looked at the 'bird suit' that Regan was wearing curiously. "I'm curious as to where you got that bird suit though. I've never seen a costume that would allow for flight like that one."
"I got it in Vault 129," Regan replied which was technically the truth.
Dr.Julius nodded. "Certainly explains the vault suit and pip-boy I found in your bag, then."
Regan shot him an unimpressed look. "First your people shoot at me, and then you go through my bag??"
Dr.Julius held up his hands. "It's not what you think. We're not raiders or any other thieves' group. I was just looking for anything that would identify you, in case we had to send word to your loved ones should you die. I didn't want anybody thinking this was an intentional murder rather than an accidental one. Thankfully, it seems that you're the hardy sort, to be able to survive a 30-feet-drop without any injuries."
He then paused, before asking, "By the way, what's your name?"
"Regan Turner," Regan answered. He then asked, "So… am I free to go?"
Dr.Julius nodded. "Sure. but not before I give you a health checkup just in case. I want to make sure nothing's broken. It's difficult to check whenever you have any cracked ribs due to your costume. So if you could just take it off…?"
Regan sighed and then shapeshifted his body so that as he mimicked taking the costume off, it would look like it was in fact a costume and not fused to his body like it was originally. He kept the "pants" part of the costume on though and was now shirtless.
During this time Dr.Julius brought out what looked like a doctor's kit, and pulled a stethoscope out of his bag. He then moved over to by Regan's side, and told him to take a few deep breathes while he listened for anything irregular.
After that, he ran probing fingers over Regan's ribcages, checking for any signs of damage and watching Regan carefully for any signs that he might be in pain.
Finally, he said, "Well, you've managed to survive the fall without a single injury at all. Amazing."
Just as Regan slid off the hospital bed to get dressed, a man wearing a stereotypical western outfit came in followed by a young blonde boy wearing a similar outfit.
The man had a tan cowboy hat, and his entire outfit seemed to be well-worn blue denim and on his feet was a pair of black cowboy boots. Wrapped around his chest were a bunch of bullet belts worn like sashes crossing each other in an X shape, and a mailbag. He also seemed to have a holster that held his large rifle on his back.
The boy's outfit was mostly the same, save for the genuine Davey Crocket coonskin cap he had on his head, raccoon tail and all. Complete with a rifle as well.
Regan wanted to roll his eyes at how stereotypical it all was, but he held off on that. Instead, he raised one eyebrow wearing a thoroughly unimpressed look. "So, this is the boy who shot me down?"
The blond boy at least had the decency to look deeply ashamed as he looked down at the ground. He said, "Yeah, that was me. I'm so sorry."
The man decided this was the time to introduce themselves. "I'm Jones Kingely. This is my son, Simon Kingely. I want to apologize on behalf of my son. He had no idea that you were a human and not a big giant bird."
Regan sighed loudly.
There was still a strong part of him that wanted to devour them all for even daring to attack him, even if it was a case of mistaken identity. He was very sorely tempted to just straight-up murder them all. But, he was starting to learn that doing such things on impulse might end up biting him in the ass.
Besides, those were the very first actual human beings he had come across out here if you didn't count his summons. It might be prudent to try to learn a few more things from those people about the world at large before he killed them.
He had been mostly playing things by ear so far, but maybe it might be better to gather information and then plan ahead from there on?
So he forced a smile into his face. "It's alright. Mistakes happen."
Simon then looked up at him curiously as he started asking a series of rapid-fire questions in the way that kids typically did. "So how can you fly in a costume like that? I didn't know that was possible! Can you go hunting in it?"
Regan smiled, even though the smile didn't reach his eyes. "Well, first off, you do it like this…"
With that, he flapped his arms, and then added, "And then you have to hold them straight and stiff when you catch a wind draft that you can glide on. And if you're talking about hunting with a rifle, then no. can I flap my wings and hold a rifle at the same time? No. Even if I could, think of the recoil while in flight! "
Simon looked mildly disappointed at this. "Oh, that's too bad."
Jones wrinkled his forehead at that. "Constantly flapping your arms like that must be tiring as hell though. Wouldn't it be just easier to walk?"
Regan nodded. "It is, but it also takes so long on foot to get to where I'm going. I'm headed off to Helen, but getting all the way there from Vault 129 would've taken me more than twenty days. Flying cuts down that time. See, where it would've taken two days to reach a town, for example, I'd be able to do it in only thirty minutes."
"Why are you in such a rush? Also, I don't think I've heard of this Helen place. Sounds more like a woman's name than the name of a town if you ask me." Dr. Julius commented.
Regan thought fast and then lied, "Vault 129's generator broke down and we need spare parts for it. Otherwise, we'll be forced to leave the vault and live on the outside. According to our Vault-tec manual, they have the spare parts for the Vault-tec brand generators in the closest Vault-tec headquarters, which is in Helen."
Regan then paused before asking, "And what do you mean you've never heard of Helen? It's Montana's capital city!"
Jones' eyes lit up, as he answered, "Oh! You're talking about Hel, also known as 'Hell'!"
At this, he burst out laughing. "Sorry, that's just I never heard of anybody actually wanting to go there for any reason ever since it was taken over by warlords decades ago. The entire place's a massive cesspool and isn't exactly a safe place to be."
Regan frowned heavily at this. He didn't like the sound of that at all.
Ever since he was a little kid, he always considered Helen to be his home city, and his home away from home when he didn't want to deal with his parents anymore. It was his sanctuary and was always full of interesting things to do. It was the reason why his main plan was to go there and then play things by ear once he got there.
He even had vague plans of turning it into his home base from which he would spread his influence over the state, and then eventually the whole world. It kinda bummed him out to learn that his beloved home city had become a hellhole because of the ramping warlords that ran it into the ground.
Hmm. but he could change that, couldn't he? He had the power to do so.
But first, he'd need more information on Montana as a whole before he could act on any of this.
Regan sighed dramatically. "Oh, dear. I guess that's what we get for being underground dwellers for so long. All of our information about the surface world is so outdated. What am I going to do if The Vault-tec headquarters in Hel is thoroughly looted and stripped bare??"
Jonas then said, "I suppose I can tell you everything I know. It's the least I can do, for what my son did. Come on, I'll even buy you a drink at the Fort Bar… my treat. We can discuss everything there."
Regan smiled gratefully. "Thank you. That'd be nice."
With that, he followed the adult man and his son on the way out.
=================================================================
A/N: And so Regan is slowly evolving into a long-term planner. Somewhat.
This chapter was a pain to slog through because honestly, I don't care that much about Regan. The only way I could get through it was to have bad things happen to Regan. I figure it's only fair since he was the one sucking up all Karina's luck in earlier chapters.
Overnight, he had fallen asleep and forgot about the fact that the campfire would eventually die out if there was nobody to feed it. And thus wouldn't be able to keep any creatures away once it died out.
"ARGH!" Regan screamed out in pain as he woke up to some god-damned bear mauling him and trying to eat him.
>BONG<
| https://speculativeevolution.fandom.com/wiki/Deathbottle Roll 19 The death-bottle is a carnivorous flowering plant native to the Rainshadow Desert of Novopangea, 200 million AD, in the documentary The Future is Wild. Effect: Regan gains the ability to change his scent to anything he desires, in order to lure in predators that will eventually become his prey. |
He punched the bear in the nose and then swiftly got away up to a nearby tree branch via shapeshifting.
He then sat there on the tree branch, glaring down at the bear. Thankfully, he could just shape-shift the injuries away but… god, that had fucking HURT!!
Not to mention… he was also angry that the bear honestly thought he was prey. He wasn't!
He was the one who devoured everything around him, not the way around!
His stomach growled. He was so insanely hungry right now, thanks to all that flying he did, and all the shapeshifting.
He then grinned nastily as the bear started climbing up the tree towards him.
The bear thought he was prey to be hunted? Well, this bear was going to find out that Regan was the opposite. Instead, the bear was going to find himself eaten instead!
Some moments later, there was a gory puddle of blood and leftover bone that Regan hadn't bothered to devour.
And Regan was looking so much healthier and full, a somewhat contented expression on his face. Turns out that animals could in fact feel fear and other things… so all those pet lovers were on to something there.
The tangy flavor of fear acted as the sauce accompanying the meat he had been devouring, making it taste even more delicious.
He wandered back to his campfire, where his bag was waiting for him. He then dug out the pip-boy to check where he was now. He had been so tired before that he hadn't thought to check the pip-boy… which made him feel stupid as he realized what he could've done in hindsight.
It was easy to forget that you had a pip-boy when you weren't constantly wearing it on your wrist, though.
According to it, he was near the flat-lake recreation area by the Fort Peck lake that was part of the Missouri river?
He still didn't know where that was, nor did he care that much. What he had opened the pip-boy up for, was so that it could point him in the right direction of Helena. He kept on turning this way or that way, using the pip-boy as a compass, seeing that it had an "arrow" on the map indicating not only where he was but also the direction he was facing.
He reoriented himself with the help from the pip-boy, and then put everything back into his bag before shapeshifting into a gigantic crow again. He then took off into the sky.
~~
It was barely 15 minutes in before Regan was sniped out of the air. He heard the gunshot but hadn't moved out of the way in time to dodge the bullet that hit his wing. He let out a screech of pain, and he found himself falling towards the ground 30 feet below. Damnit, he should've really flown higher to where nobody would've seen him!
>BONG!<
| https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/Remington_Model_788 Roll 11 The Remington Model 788 is an inexpensive yet accurate hunting rifle developed by the Remington Arms Company to compete with other gun companies' less expensive rifles and marketed alongside their more expensive Model 700 line. The 788 utilizes a single-column detachable magazine holding 3 rounds. A .22 rimfire model was also produced known as the 580, 581, or 582 depending on its method of feed. A target version of the .22 caliber 58x series, the 540X, was used by the US Military as a training rifle and later disposed of through the Civilian Marksmanship Program. Effect: Regan gets a well-worn rifle added to his inventory. |
The impact of hitting the ground was almost to knock him out, but he struggled to stay conscious. For some reason, he was suddenly feeling so drowsy.
"It fell over there!" A young-sounding voice said, "I swear, dad, it was the biggest bird I've ever seen. I hit it with one of our tranq bullets so we can take it in alive. Maybe Dr. Julius will reward me?"
Regan's eyes twitched angrily at this. First the bear, now this? He actually got sniped out of the air by some little brat?? This was shaping up to be such a bad day.
He desperately did his best to shapeshift back to his original shape, but he was rapidly losing consciousness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Regan came to, he found himself on some dirty hospital bed in a dimly lit facility that looked like it had seen better days.
It seemed as if he was now human-shaped and had his human head and human feet sticking out of what looked like a weird bird costume. So he had managed to shapeshift halfway back, but he still had the arm-wings and the rest of his body was still heavily feathered.
"Ah, you're awake. Good." An elderly dark-skinned man wearing a lab coat said as he came into the room.
Regan took one look around the room once more before asking, "Where am I? And who are you?"
"I'm Dr. Jeremiah Julius, and you're currently in the Fort Peck Fish Hatchery building."
Regan scowled. "I distinctly remember getting shot at…"
Dr. Julius grimaced at this. "My apologies. It was a young boy who mistook you for a big bird, so I hope you won't feel too much ill will towards him. His daddy's a hunter around those parts, and he often goes on those hunting trips with his dad, you see. And to be fair, it's not every day you see a human man in a bird suit flying overhead. Anybody could've made that mistake, I suppose."
He then looked at the 'bird suit' that Regan was wearing curiously. "I'm curious as to where you got that bird suit though. I've never seen a costume that would allow for flight like that one."
"I got it in Vault 129," Regan replied which was technically the truth.
Dr.Julius nodded. "Certainly explains the vault suit and pip-boy I found in your bag, then."
Regan shot him an unimpressed look. "First your people shoot at me, and then you go through my bag??"
Dr.Julius held up his hands. "It's not what you think. We're not raiders or any other thieves' group. I was just looking for anything that would identify you, in case we had to send word to your loved ones should you die. I didn't want anybody thinking this was an intentional murder rather than an accidental one. Thankfully, it seems that you're the hardy sort, to be able to survive a 30-feet-drop without any injuries."
He then paused, before asking, "By the way, what's your name?"
"Regan Turner," Regan answered. He then asked, "So… am I free to go?"
Dr.Julius nodded. "Sure. but not before I give you a health checkup just in case. I want to make sure nothing's broken. It's difficult to check whenever you have any cracked ribs due to your costume. So if you could just take it off…?"
Regan sighed and then shapeshifted his body so that as he mimicked taking the costume off, it would look like it was in fact a costume and not fused to his body like it was originally. He kept the "pants" part of the costume on though and was now shirtless.
During this time Dr.Julius brought out what looked like a doctor's kit, and pulled a stethoscope out of his bag. He then moved over to by Regan's side, and told him to take a few deep breathes while he listened for anything irregular.
After that, he ran probing fingers over Regan's ribcages, checking for any signs of damage and watching Regan carefully for any signs that he might be in pain.
Finally, he said, "Well, you've managed to survive the fall without a single injury at all. Amazing."
Just as Regan slid off the hospital bed to get dressed, a man wearing a stereotypical western outfit came in followed by a young blonde boy wearing a similar outfit.
The man had a tan cowboy hat, and his entire outfit seemed to be well-worn blue denim and on his feet was a pair of black cowboy boots. Wrapped around his chest were a bunch of bullet belts worn like sashes crossing each other in an X shape, and a mailbag. He also seemed to have a holster that held his large rifle on his back.
The boy's outfit was mostly the same, save for the genuine Davey Crocket coonskin cap he had on his head, raccoon tail and all. Complete with a rifle as well.
Regan wanted to roll his eyes at how stereotypical it all was, but he held off on that. Instead, he raised one eyebrow wearing a thoroughly unimpressed look. "So, this is the boy who shot me down?"
The blond boy at least had the decency to look deeply ashamed as he looked down at the ground. He said, "Yeah, that was me. I'm so sorry."
The man decided this was the time to introduce themselves. "I'm Jones Kingely. This is my son, Simon Kingely. I want to apologize on behalf of my son. He had no idea that you were a human and not a big giant bird."
Regan sighed loudly.
There was still a strong part of him that wanted to devour them all for even daring to attack him, even if it was a case of mistaken identity. He was very sorely tempted to just straight-up murder them all. But, he was starting to learn that doing such things on impulse might end up biting him in the ass.
Besides, those were the very first actual human beings he had come across out here if you didn't count his summons. It might be prudent to try to learn a few more things from those people about the world at large before he killed them.
He had been mostly playing things by ear so far, but maybe it might be better to gather information and then plan ahead from there on?
So he forced a smile into his face. "It's alright. Mistakes happen."
Simon then looked up at him curiously as he started asking a series of rapid-fire questions in the way that kids typically did. "So how can you fly in a costume like that? I didn't know that was possible! Can you go hunting in it?"
Regan smiled, even though the smile didn't reach his eyes. "Well, first off, you do it like this…"
With that, he flapped his arms, and then added, "And then you have to hold them straight and stiff when you catch a wind draft that you can glide on. And if you're talking about hunting with a rifle, then no. can I flap my wings and hold a rifle at the same time? No. Even if I could, think of the recoil while in flight! "
Simon looked mildly disappointed at this. "Oh, that's too bad."
Jones wrinkled his forehead at that. "Constantly flapping your arms like that must be tiring as hell though. Wouldn't it be just easier to walk?"
Regan nodded. "It is, but it also takes so long on foot to get to where I'm going. I'm headed off to Helen, but getting all the way there from Vault 129 would've taken me more than twenty days. Flying cuts down that time. See, where it would've taken two days to reach a town, for example, I'd be able to do it in only thirty minutes."
"Why are you in such a rush? Also, I don't think I've heard of this Helen place. Sounds more like a woman's name than the name of a town if you ask me." Dr. Julius commented.
Regan thought fast and then lied, "Vault 129's generator broke down and we need spare parts for it. Otherwise, we'll be forced to leave the vault and live on the outside. According to our Vault-tec manual, they have the spare parts for the Vault-tec brand generators in the closest Vault-tec headquarters, which is in Helen."
Regan then paused before asking, "And what do you mean you've never heard of Helen? It's Montana's capital city!"
Jones' eyes lit up, as he answered, "Oh! You're talking about Hel, also known as 'Hell'!"
At this, he burst out laughing. "Sorry, that's just I never heard of anybody actually wanting to go there for any reason ever since it was taken over by warlords decades ago. The entire place's a massive cesspool and isn't exactly a safe place to be."
Regan frowned heavily at this. He didn't like the sound of that at all.
Ever since he was a little kid, he always considered Helen to be his home city, and his home away from home when he didn't want to deal with his parents anymore. It was his sanctuary and was always full of interesting things to do. It was the reason why his main plan was to go there and then play things by ear once he got there.
He even had vague plans of turning it into his home base from which he would spread his influence over the state, and then eventually the whole world. It kinda bummed him out to learn that his beloved home city had become a hellhole because of the ramping warlords that ran it into the ground.
Hmm. but he could change that, couldn't he? He had the power to do so.
But first, he'd need more information on Montana as a whole before he could act on any of this.
Regan sighed dramatically. "Oh, dear. I guess that's what we get for being underground dwellers for so long. All of our information about the surface world is so outdated. What am I going to do if The Vault-tec headquarters in Hel is thoroughly looted and stripped bare??"
Jonas then said, "I suppose I can tell you everything I know. It's the least I can do, for what my son did. Come on, I'll even buy you a drink at the Fort Bar… my treat. We can discuss everything there."
Regan smiled gratefully. "Thank you. That'd be nice."
With that, he followed the adult man and his son on the way out.
=================================================================
A/N: And so Regan is slowly evolving into a long-term planner. Somewhat.
This chapter was a pain to slog through because honestly, I don't care that much about Regan. The only way I could get through it was to have bad things happen to Regan. I figure it's only fair since he was the one sucking up all Karina's luck in earlier chapters.
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clonezero
Is it a bad thing if my t read list keeps growing?
While I'm all for him dying, that admittedly is the cheap way to go about it. What I suggest is you focus more on the MC while still rolling for the bad guy. Like when you give Karina a roll, you also roll one in the background for the bad guy and just note down a summary of what happening on his end. Maybe relegate him to snippets and/or interludes and updating his perk information afterwards for those curious. It does have an added effect of giving his rise to power as an evil overlord a feeling of mystery. Karina is tracking him down so seeing his path of destruction from her eyes may make writing about his exploits be less problematic for you to write.
I for one admittedly am skipping his chapters myself as I don't like him and don't feel any interest in knowing what atrocities his doing so I am admittedly biased in what I suggest.
On an unrelated note:
Karina summoned a being with toon force. Why do I have a feeling that even though the duck is a temporary summon he may end up visiting Karina whenever he liked and may even bring friends and gifts!
I for one admittedly am skipping his chapters myself as I don't like him and don't feel any interest in knowing what atrocities his doing so I am admittedly biased in what I suggest.
On an unrelated note:
Karina summoned a being with toon force. Why do I have a feeling that even though the duck is a temporary summon he may end up visiting Karina whenever he liked and may even bring friends and gifts!
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Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's actually a pretty good suggestion. The only reason why I was even doing his chapter, was so that we could all get insight into what Montana was like. But, Karina might end up eventually visiting Montana anyways? Hmm.
- Location
- 𐌂 ̢͎̩̤̲̙͓̑̀͂͒̀͆̏𐋏 ̛͏̫̚𐌀 ̛͉̥̩̤̰͈̂̅͒͊͟𐍈 ̣͛𐍃 ̡̅̈́
Maybe hiding his adventures from us would be good as surprise effect? Like, at some point two of them going to confront and knowing plans of both sides kinda kills all intrigue? But on the other hand story suggests, that he is one of the MC and presented on an equal footing with hero. Also, all antipathy towards him maybe strengthened by expectations from the start. Like, story telling us, that he is a villian and it's hard for many to tell, that they like bad guy and have some sort of sympathy towards him. Maybe with time he became less of an asshole, find something worth to protect and care about... Even if this people morally flawed and just tools for HIM, it doesn't mean do not care at all or THEY will not care about him. Or is hero going to chase him forever, even if Regan lay low and just want to be left alone, not going to hurt others on purpose? Sometimes heroes became so obsessed with justice and thier image of 'do right things', that stop noticing risks for others and distraction brought by the path they follow. Both are people, evil can doing good things and good can bring suffering, they can change their paths or pass over mistakes. There are many possibilities for complicated situations, conflict and character growth.
It would be sad, if we just toss bad guy away and decide he is just final goal, enemy for hero to defeat. What the point then even focus on him at the start, make him MC... Maybe it would be better to start with two neutral people with different philosophies. Like, one is conservative towards laws of the 'old world' and anything morally unacceptable for them = evil. And other: more flexible and sometimes committing horrible things, if it brings good to people in wasteland realities... I don't know. Going to read, think and wait for everything to progress. Good luck, @Aurora Moon, let the muse never leave you!
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Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Indeed. The way this randomizer works it means the villain could win instead of the hero. Because everything is literally left up to chance. This is why I made him one of the MCs, on an equal footing with the hero.
still, I suppose I could do with having him mainly be in interludes and snippets to build up some mystery without having him simply being the endgame big bad.
still, I suppose I could do with having him mainly be in interludes and snippets to build up some mystery without having him simply being the endgame big bad.
Chapter Ten--Karina's escape from the sunflower forest.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Karina was immediately regretting stepping foot into the Sunflower Forest soon as she was half a mile in because there were freakin' GIANT INSECTS EVERYWHERE!
Karina had never been the type to be scared of insects before… heck, she had never really developed arachnophobia as she found the tiny common house spiders to be cute. They were only 0.24 inches long, barely half the size of a toddler's pinky fingernail. Plus, they helped the house free of pests such as ants, mosquitoes, etc. What was not to love about that?
But… she was finding out that size definitely made a huge difference whenever something was considered cute or scary. Not to mention that when something was so tiny, its venom usually had no effect on humans and was considered harmless. But if they were large enough for their venom to make a big difference…? Needless to say, they wouldn't be harmless anymore, would they?
Whatever had mutated the sunflowers so that they were ridiculously large enough to be compared to redwood trees, must've mutated all the insects in the same way. Ugh.
Even the harmless dragonflies she normally liked so much were giant monsters now, who seemed intent on seeing her and Gus Gooseburger as lunch.
Speaking of which, the two of them were doing their best to rush through the pathway as they deterred the bugs as best as they could do by shooting at them.
Unfortunately, it looked as if they were out of bullets now, and Karina was forced to pull out the Trident which she had strapped to her back this whole time, and swing it about to keep the giant bugs off them.
One of the giant dragonflies dive-bombed at her quickly, causing her to swing her trident wildly and accidentally causing the glowing gold thing to let off a blast of lighting, which hit one of the sunflowers and caused it to shake violently. There was a loud whistling noise, as dozens of something massive started raining down hard on everything in the area.
**THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!**
The impacts from whatever it was so powerful that it sent shockwaves that knocked everyone off their feet, or sent them flying in the case of the bugs.
>Ring<
Karina profusely thanked her power when she saw what it had given her, and she started shooting at the disoriented bugs that had been chasing after them and finally killed them all.
She then got to her feet, since she had been shooting them while she knelt, and then looked around to see where Gus Gooseburger was.
It was then that she noted the new massive craters, with what looked like giant sunflower seeds in the center of them. That was what had caused the shockwaves? Fucking hell. To think that any one of them could easily get crushed by a giant sunflower seed… man, what an embarrassing way to go. Thankfully that hadn't happened to her.
Unfortunately, she saw a pair of toony-duck feet sticking out from one of those said giant seeds.
"Gus!!" Karina yelled, worried that the toon-duck had bit it after all, with that she rushed over to pull at his feet and--
>ring<
Thankfully, She was able to pull Gus from under the insanely heavy giant seed, although Gus was now flattened like paper with cartoon stars swirling around his head to indicate that he was still out of it.
"Gus. are you alright?!" Karina whisper-shouted frantically, and only relaxed slightly when Gus moved one flattened arm to put a thumb in his beak and he started blowing, as to inflate himself.
With a loud pop, he managed to return to normal, although the stars were still orbiting his head.
"Did you get de numbew of de twuck dat hit me?" Gus mumbled, still dazed.
"Come on. We've got to hurry if we want to leave this forest any time soon. I don't look forward to meeting any more giant bugs." Karina whispered, as she gathered up all of their things and secured it in her green duffel bag and the harness that she had made for her Trident so that it could be secured against her back.
Gus shook away the stars, slapping away at them as he did so. "Wight!"
With that, the two of them lightly jogged at a semi-urgent pace, trying not to tire themselves out while at the same time trying to leave the forest in a hurry.
Much to their relief, they saw a faded battered green sign by the road, that was barely readable, but what they could make out said "Tow of Bowbells. 5 m lies a ay. Restr ms, G s and hotel available."
The missing letters were so faded away that they weren't there at all. However, it was still enough for them to get the idea of what it originally said.
This was enough to lift Gus's spirits. "Bowbewws, eh? sounds wike a nice town!"
"It means we're close to the forest's exit!" Karina cheered. With that, they picked up their pace even more.
What they both failed to take into account was the fact that it typically took 22 to 30 minutes to walk a whole mile, and by the second mile the two of them were starting to feel tired out because they had tried to hurry so much without pacing themselves.
So they stopped by the road to take a hydration break as the two of them chugged the cans of purified water they had on hand. Gus rested his back against one of the mammoth-sized sunflower stalks as he chugged his water, while Karina sat down on a rock.
Gus then threw away the can and was about to move away when his eyes widened.
He then said in a desperate-sounding voice, "Um, kawina? I seem to be twapped by someding, so a wittwe hewp hewe wouwd be appweciated."
Karina frowned slightly, as she got up to slowly approach the anthropomorphic cartoon duck. She then looked behind the duck to see what was holding him in place so firmly.
The thing about Sunflowers? While most tended to imagine the plant stems of a large sunflower to be mostly smooth, they were in reality bristly plant stems and had this fuzzy appearance as a result. But it seemed to have mutated so that the bristles were now acting as velcro that grabbed on to everything and anything that brushed against its' stems.
And because Gus had chosen to rest his back against the giant plant, it had grabbed onto him and were clingy like crazy.
Karina explained all of this to the duck as she put one of her feet on the stem to leverage herself against it, and then she pulled Gus away hard as she could.
There was a loud ripping noise like a thousand velcro against fabric was being pulled at once, and both Karina and Gus fell to the dirt ground.
It was then that Karina noticed that one of her black leather shoes was now missing, and was currently stuck on the Sunflower's stem base near the ground.
She then hopped over to her shoe and tried to pull it away, but it was too stuck to be pulled away effectively. Damn, the skin of a sunflower stem was far more stubborn than velcro was!
It was then she noticed that right next to the shoe, there was an outline of Gus's brown feathers and back clothes stuck to it also.
Karina turned around to see that Gus's behind from head to legs, was now stripped bare. As a result, his skin was now plucked pink and showing his strangely human-looking butt, crack and all. It was made all the more comical by the fact that you wouldn't have known if you looked at him from the front because his front was still fully feathered and clothed.
Karina couldn't help herself, she started snickering loudly once she noticed Gus's bare ass.
Gus blinked as he looked behind himself at himself, and then he puffed up in indignation. "you dink dis is funny?? how wouwd you feew if dis happened to you, huh?"
This just caused Karina to burst out laughing, instead of the quiet snickering, she was doing before.
Gus was working himself up to give Karina a massive scolding when he suddenly disappeared with a quiet >ring<.
Karina's laughter and the smile faded away as she noticed that Gus was now gone. For some reason, she had known that he wasn't going to stick around long somehow, but it was still a bummer to see him go. It had been nice having him for company.
Plus, having a toon friend meant that you were always in for a fun time when you weren't worried about giant bugs chasing after you and making you their dinner. That is if he was actually real and not just some sign that she was having a mental breakdown, like a part of her were worried about.
She then grunted heavily as she used her strength to try to pull her shoe off the trunk-like flower stem, and fell backward on her butt as she finally liberated it. Only to notice that her shoe now had massive holes on the bottom of her sole thanks to the sunflower's stubborn velcro skin.
"Ugh. great. Just what I needed." She grumbled as she pulled her now damaged shoe back on.
~~~~
>Ring<
Karina wanted to scream with frustration, but instead, she ducked behind some plants to hide when she noticed that there were a dozen giant spiders that were in the process of building a large web that was blocking the way to the forest's exit.
As if this forest wanted to keep her trapped here forever and didn't want her to leave! GRR.
She then went through her inventory to see what she could use to take the spiders down, and much to her dismay she was still mostly out of bullets, save for the last remaining two bullets in the LeMat gun that she had summoned earlier today. And there were like seven giant spiders out there… so she couldn't kill them all with just two bullets.
She then eyed the Trident on her back. This was kind of risky as it would bring down a massive tower of lighting that would wipe out everything in that general area. Not to mention it might cause the sunflowers nearby to explode and start raining their seeds down violently…
But what else could she do?
Well… she could just sneak her way around the roadblock? It wasn't like she couldn't take an alternative shortcut, right?
But just in case, she'll hold the trident into her hands in case the spiders noticed her and came running after her. With that plan in mind, she grabbed the trident and then slowly scooted off the road and all around the webbing that the spiders had put up, looking for an opening.
For some reason, none of the spiders seemed to notice her, not even when one of them gave her a scare again when one of them dropped down from above so close to her!
She had to muffle her scream when that happened with both hands, dropping the trident next to her when she did so.
>ring<
Thankfully, the spider didn't seem to notice her and wandered off. Karina let out a deep breath, as she grabbed her trident again and quietly scooted off towards the forest's exit soon as she found a way around the webbing.
Finally, she was outside the forest… and… she could definitely see a small town in the distance.
She was so happy that she could cry, but instead, she simply got up to her feet and legged it fast as she could in the direction of the town.
Karina had never been the type to be scared of insects before… heck, she had never really developed arachnophobia as she found the tiny common house spiders to be cute. They were only 0.24 inches long, barely half the size of a toddler's pinky fingernail. Plus, they helped the house free of pests such as ants, mosquitoes, etc. What was not to love about that?
But… she was finding out that size definitely made a huge difference whenever something was considered cute or scary. Not to mention that when something was so tiny, its venom usually had no effect on humans and was considered harmless. But if they were large enough for their venom to make a big difference…? Needless to say, they wouldn't be harmless anymore, would they?
Whatever had mutated the sunflowers so that they were ridiculously large enough to be compared to redwood trees, must've mutated all the insects in the same way. Ugh.
Even the harmless dragonflies she normally liked so much were giant monsters now, who seemed intent on seeing her and Gus Gooseburger as lunch.
Speaking of which, the two of them were doing their best to rush through the pathway as they deterred the bugs as best as they could do by shooting at them.
Unfortunately, it looked as if they were out of bullets now, and Karina was forced to pull out the Trident which she had strapped to her back this whole time, and swing it about to keep the giant bugs off them.
One of the giant dragonflies dive-bombed at her quickly, causing her to swing her trident wildly and accidentally causing the glowing gold thing to let off a blast of lighting, which hit one of the sunflowers and caused it to shake violently. There was a loud whistling noise, as dozens of something massive started raining down hard on everything in the area.
**THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!****THUD!!**
The impacts from whatever it was so powerful that it sent shockwaves that knocked everyone off their feet, or sent them flying in the case of the bugs.
>Ring<
| https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/LeMat_Revolver Roll 18 The LeMat Revolver was a .42 caliber revolver invented by Dr. Jean Alexandre of New Orleans. LeMat revolvers were set apart from the common Colt and Starr revolvers of the day (the 1860s) by a single .68" bore smoothbore barrel affixed to the bottom of the main barrel, loaded with a charge of shot. Effect: Karina gets a fully loaded LeMat Revolver gun permanently added to her inventory. And because it was a roll 18, it seems to be in pretty good condition too! |
Karina profusely thanked her power when she saw what it had given her, and she started shooting at the disoriented bugs that had been chasing after them and finally killed them all.
She then got to her feet, since she had been shooting them while she knelt, and then looked around to see where Gus Gooseburger was.
It was then that she noted the new massive craters, with what looked like giant sunflower seeds in the center of them. That was what had caused the shockwaves? Fucking hell. To think that any one of them could easily get crushed by a giant sunflower seed… man, what an embarrassing way to go. Thankfully that hadn't happened to her.
Unfortunately, she saw a pair of toony-duck feet sticking out from one of those said giant seeds.
"Gus!!" Karina yelled, worried that the toon-duck had bit it after all, with that she rushed over to pull at his feet and--
>ring<
| https://pdsh.fandom.com/wiki/Mea_of_Mermea Roll 19 Queen Mea was the ruler of Mermea, which was an undersea kingdom inhabited by the Sea Amazons. Queen Mea was aided by Typhon in defending her people from the villain Mikal and his Sea Demons. Queen Mea was able to summon the giant, tentacled "Guardian of Mermea" which was friendly to her people. Effect: Karina's bloodline is slightly modified so that she is now seen as the legitimate heir and rulier of the closest sea (Hudson Bay), and King Triton's Trident is now more responsive and easier to wield in Karina's hands. She also can summon an insanely giant octopus, but only if she's nearby a large water source such as a massive lake, a large river, or the sea. Because of the fact that she's now the heiress of an underwater kingdom, she gains one point of the Aquagirl perk. |
Thankfully, She was able to pull Gus from under the insanely heavy giant seed, although Gus was now flattened like paper with cartoon stars swirling around his head to indicate that he was still out of it.
"Gus. are you alright?!" Karina whisper-shouted frantically, and only relaxed slightly when Gus moved one flattened arm to put a thumb in his beak and he started blowing, as to inflate himself.
With a loud pop, he managed to return to normal, although the stars were still orbiting his head.
"Did you get de numbew of de twuck dat hit me?" Gus mumbled, still dazed.
"Come on. We've got to hurry if we want to leave this forest any time soon. I don't look forward to meeting any more giant bugs." Karina whispered, as she gathered up all of their things and secured it in her green duffel bag and the harness that she had made for her Trident so that it could be secured against her back.
Gus shook away the stars, slapping away at them as he did so. "Wight!"
With that, the two of them lightly jogged at a semi-urgent pace, trying not to tire themselves out while at the same time trying to leave the forest in a hurry.
Much to their relief, they saw a faded battered green sign by the road, that was barely readable, but what they could make out said "Tow of Bowbells. 5 m lies a ay. Restr ms, G s and hotel available."
The missing letters were so faded away that they weren't there at all. However, it was still enough for them to get the idea of what it originally said.
This was enough to lift Gus's spirits. "Bowbewws, eh? sounds wike a nice town!"
"It means we're close to the forest's exit!" Karina cheered. With that, they picked up their pace even more.
What they both failed to take into account was the fact that it typically took 22 to 30 minutes to walk a whole mile, and by the second mile the two of them were starting to feel tired out because they had tried to hurry so much without pacing themselves.
So they stopped by the road to take a hydration break as the two of them chugged the cans of purified water they had on hand. Gus rested his back against one of the mammoth-sized sunflower stalks as he chugged his water, while Karina sat down on a rock.
Gus then threw away the can and was about to move away when his eyes widened.
He then said in a desperate-sounding voice, "Um, kawina? I seem to be twapped by someding, so a wittwe hewp hewe wouwd be appweciated."
Karina frowned slightly, as she got up to slowly approach the anthropomorphic cartoon duck. She then looked behind the duck to see what was holding him in place so firmly.
The thing about Sunflowers? While most tended to imagine the plant stems of a large sunflower to be mostly smooth, they were in reality bristly plant stems and had this fuzzy appearance as a result. But it seemed to have mutated so that the bristles were now acting as velcro that grabbed on to everything and anything that brushed against its' stems.
And because Gus had chosen to rest his back against the giant plant, it had grabbed onto him and were clingy like crazy.
Karina explained all of this to the duck as she put one of her feet on the stem to leverage herself against it, and then she pulled Gus away hard as she could.
There was a loud ripping noise like a thousand velcro against fabric was being pulled at once, and both Karina and Gus fell to the dirt ground.
It was then that Karina noticed that one of her black leather shoes was now missing, and was currently stuck on the Sunflower's stem base near the ground.
She then hopped over to her shoe and tried to pull it away, but it was too stuck to be pulled away effectively. Damn, the skin of a sunflower stem was far more stubborn than velcro was!
It was then she noticed that right next to the shoe, there was an outline of Gus's brown feathers and back clothes stuck to it also.
Karina turned around to see that Gus's behind from head to legs, was now stripped bare. As a result, his skin was now plucked pink and showing his strangely human-looking butt, crack and all. It was made all the more comical by the fact that you wouldn't have known if you looked at him from the front because his front was still fully feathered and clothed.
Karina couldn't help herself, she started snickering loudly once she noticed Gus's bare ass.
Gus blinked as he looked behind himself at himself, and then he puffed up in indignation. "you dink dis is funny?? how wouwd you feew if dis happened to you, huh?"
This just caused Karina to burst out laughing, instead of the quiet snickering, she was doing before.
Gus was working himself up to give Karina a massive scolding when he suddenly disappeared with a quiet >ring<.
Karina's laughter and the smile faded away as she noticed that Gus was now gone. For some reason, she had known that he wasn't going to stick around long somehow, but it was still a bummer to see him go. It had been nice having him for company.
Plus, having a toon friend meant that you were always in for a fun time when you weren't worried about giant bugs chasing after you and making you their dinner. That is if he was actually real and not just some sign that she was having a mental breakdown, like a part of her were worried about.
She then grunted heavily as she used her strength to try to pull her shoe off the trunk-like flower stem, and fell backward on her butt as she finally liberated it. Only to notice that her shoe now had massive holes on the bottom of her sole thanks to the sunflower's stubborn velcro skin.
"Ugh. great. Just what I needed." She grumbled as she pulled her now damaged shoe back on.
~~~~
>Ring<
| https://magical-girl-mahou-shoujo.fandom.com/wiki/Mosaic roll 6 Aspiring young actress Maggie Nelson (Anna Paquin) gains chameleon-like powers after she is exposed to an electrical storm and a magic rune which her father, an Interpol agent, had brought home to study after it was found at the scene of a murder at a New York City museum. Her powers are from a secret and ancient race known as the Chameliel, who can hide in plain sight of the public due to their shapeshifting abilities, and she is told all about the Chameliel after meeting a young Chameliel named Mosaic (Kirby Morrow). The murder victim at the museum was a Chameliel who was killed by another Chameliel named Maniken, who is intent on gaining the alchemical powers of his dead wife Facade and ruling the world. After Maniken kidnaps her father, Maggie becomes determined to help Mosaic to fight Maniken. Effect: For up to six hours, Karina can become fully invisible to all of her enemies when she does her best to be stealthy by crouching low and pressing herself up against walls, etc. (too bad this isn't permanent, seems like this would've been a really useful power) |
Karina wanted to scream with frustration, but instead, she ducked behind some plants to hide when she noticed that there were a dozen giant spiders that were in the process of building a large web that was blocking the way to the forest's exit.
As if this forest wanted to keep her trapped here forever and didn't want her to leave! GRR.
She then went through her inventory to see what she could use to take the spiders down, and much to her dismay she was still mostly out of bullets, save for the last remaining two bullets in the LeMat gun that she had summoned earlier today. And there were like seven giant spiders out there… so she couldn't kill them all with just two bullets.
She then eyed the Trident on her back. This was kind of risky as it would bring down a massive tower of lighting that would wipe out everything in that general area. Not to mention it might cause the sunflowers nearby to explode and start raining their seeds down violently…
But what else could she do?
Well… she could just sneak her way around the roadblock? It wasn't like she couldn't take an alternative shortcut, right?
But just in case, she'll hold the trident into her hands in case the spiders noticed her and came running after her. With that plan in mind, she grabbed the trident and then slowly scooted off the road and all around the webbing that the spiders had put up, looking for an opening.
For some reason, none of the spiders seemed to notice her, not even when one of them gave her a scare again when one of them dropped down from above so close to her!
She had to muffle her scream when that happened with both hands, dropping the trident next to her when she did so.
>ring<
| https://mlp.fandom.com/wiki/Sassy_Saddles Roll 16 Sassy Saddles is a female unicorn pony and supporting character who first appears in the season five episode Canterlot Boutique. She is the manager of the couture boutique Canterlot Carousel. She is called Savvy Saddles or Sassy Sandals in some merchandise. As part of her managerial position, Sassy plans out a multi-point plan to bring the boutique a lot of business, from marketing to public relations, and she helps Rarity organize the boutique's grand opening. Effect: Karina now gains knowledge and experience on how businesses are run and managed, especially when it comes to clothing stores. Karina also gains one point towards the Cap Collector perk. |
Thankfully, the spider didn't seem to notice her and wandered off. Karina let out a deep breath, as she grabbed her trident again and quietly scooted off towards the forest's exit soon as she found a way around the webbing.
Finally, she was outside the forest… and… she could definitely see a small town in the distance.
She was so happy that she could cry, but instead, she simply got up to her feet and legged it fast as she could in the direction of the town.
- Location
- 𐌂 ̢͎̩̤̲̙͓̑̀͂͒̀͆̏𐋏 ̛͏̫̚𐌀 ̛͉̥̩̤̰͈̂̅͒͊͟𐍈 ̣͛𐍃 ̡̅̈́
Karina will never again visit post-apocalyptic hotbeds of flora and fauna no matter how beautiful they are. Information gathering, collection of equipment and maybe search for ways around first. No jumps into mossy mushroom tunnels, no walk into beautiful autumn-looking grove, no running across field of many crystal clear puddles... This place want her dead or crippled, or worse!
Also, poor Gus. This little adventure was pretty harsh for him.
Also, poor Gus. This little adventure was pretty harsh for him.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
informational posts on both heroine and villain are updated, detailing which permanent summons items, abilities, etc they have with them now.
I also updated the map so you can see which places were visited, or mentioned.
I also updated the map so you can see which places were visited, or mentioned.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Why do rolls that land on characters sometimes summon them and sometimes just power up Karina? Is there a rule I'm missing?
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Yeah, this is actually part of the experiment I'm running to see if it reduces character bloat. 1-10 summons them temporarily, 11 to 19 doesn't summon them but instead awards Karina the powersets or skillsets that they would've had, and 20 summons them permanently. unless it's just an item, clothing, or something else in which case Karina is allowed to summon it as it is, but sometimes modified to fit into the Fallout universe better.
Chapter Eleven--Bowbells
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Bowbells seemed to be your typical small farming town, if somewhat dilapidated and slightly run-down.
They even had a massive metal tower of a building in the distance that seemed dedicated to milling and processing flour to be shipped out to other towns, by the looks of it.
Upon closer inspection, or at least as close as she could get from this distance while she walked into town, it seemed that they had robots and humans working together at that mill. Surprisingly enough they seemed to be transporting giant sunflower seeds into there using wooden carts that both robots and cows were pulling, while humans pushed from behind??
She then winced in pain when a pointy rock managed to get at her feet through the holes in her ruined shoe, due to the fact that she hadn't been paying attention to where she was walking.
>ring<
Karina pulled the rock out and then limped slightly all the way into town, where the townfolk stopped occasionally to stare at her as she went by.
It was a very small town, alright. There seemed to be only like ten remaining residential houses left in this town, and the rest were a church, a diner-style place, a single store, a small hotel that would barely house ten guests, a small school, and what looked like a police's brick building due to the words "The Sheriff's Home" and under that in tiny letters, "Lawbreakers will be punished and jailed here" spraypainted outside on the sides of it.
Karina perked up at the last one, and so she then went to move towards that one instead of the other places. Maybe they'd be able to get her in contact with the state's authority if they couldn't do much for her here?
She lightly knocked on the door, before opening the door and going in.
It seemed to have been a warehouse at one point and then retrofitted to have cubicles with metal bars installed into here to act as jail cells. Each jail cell cubicle was fitted with a very dirty-looking singles bed and a bucket, and that was it. There were only four jail cells here, and all of them empty which indicated that Bowbells typically didn't get that many troublemakers.
And to the other side of the large warehouse, there were a series of desks and computers, and at one of them there seemed to be a fairly young man who appeared to be five years younger than Karina was, dozing off.
He was blond, with strong freckles all over his face and down his neck. As for his outfit, he was dressed like a typical farmhand… a monochrome flannel shirt under a brown leather jacket, well-worn black jeans, and dark brown boots. On his head was a tan brown cowboy hat, and a pair of dark sunglasses. On one side of his chest, there was a well-worn sheriff badge pinned to his jacket. Around his belt was a gunslinger belt, complete with a gun.
Karina moved over to his desk and made a loud clearing noise, causing him to startle from his nap as he nearly fell out of his chair.
"Wut??" He uttered as he steadied himself in his chair.
"Um, I would like to report a murder to the local authorities. I was wondering if you could help me with this?" Karina said, getting straight to the point once she was sure that the young sheriff was awake enough to process what she said.
That definitely seemed to wake up the blond man all the way up. "What?! There's been a murder in Bowbells?!"
Karina shook her head. "No, it happened in Vault 129, where I came from. And the culprit by the name of Regan escaped, so I'd like for the authorities to be aware of him so that we can capture him and have him be tried for his crimes."
The man finally took in what Karina was wearing, which was clearly a vault suit, and calmed down once he heard her explanation.
"Oh? Ah. Alrighty then. So you wish to post a bounty on his head here, then? Alright, we can do that!" With that, he pulled out a bunch of faded and dirty papers from the desk along with a few pens and then put them on top of the desk as if he was ready to take notes.
It was then that a slightly elder-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair wearing the same cowboy sheriff uniform the young man had on stormed into the building. He called out, "Derek! Look alive. People are saying we got an outsider in town--"
He cut off when he noticed that the said 'outsider' was in fact inside the same building as the two of them were.
The blond man, who was presumably called Derek, nodded. "Ya, I know. Get this, she says she's a vault dweller! From one I never heard of, at that. She says she's here to report a murder that happened there and to file a bounty on the head of the man who done it and escaped. Says his name is Regan."
The older man raised one eyebrow at that. "Ah, is that so? Well, then. I suppose we oughta sit down and have a chat about what happened then, eh?"
With that, he walked over and then gestured at Derek to go somewhere else and busy himself doing something. "Why don't ya get us all some of that herbal coffee from the diner? I'm sure the lady would love some after traveling a long way here. Or so I assume."
Derek seemed to take umbrage at this, as he whined, "But dad…"
At the elder man's look, Derek sighed. "Fine."
With that, the blond man left, leaving Karina alone with the older man.
"The name's Wyatt Dawson. And that boy over there's my son. And your name is… miss?" The man introduced himself.
"Karina Munn. I'm from Vault 129." She replied.
Wyatt looked thoughtful. "Never heard of that vault before. Where did you say it was at, again?"
"I didn't. It's right on the border between Montana and North Dakota, just north of Westby town."
Wyatt nodded. "Ah, mostly on the Montana side then, eh? That explains it, I've heard of all the vaults in North Dakota and that number wasn't one I heard of before. For example, the ones in Fargo and Grand Forks? The vault dwellers got a bad reputation there. For some reason, they seem to be loony in the head or got some bad breeding going on. Makes you wonder what went on in those vaults to make them that way, hmm?"
With that, he glanced at Karina meaningfully as if she was supposed to know something about that.
Karina just blinked. "Uhh. I wouldn't know anything about that. The only vault I've known about was the one I lived in for a time."
Wyatt sighed. "Uff da. Fine, so tell me about this vault you've been living in, then. And why did this man go killing somebody before runnin' off?"
Karina smiled sheepishly. "Well, this is going to sound crazy but… well, our vault had this experiment going on that was supposed to benefit the American government, and all of us were voluntary volunteers for it. It wasn't until 205 years today that something happened though."
Wyatt smirked. "Figures it was somethin' like that. First time I've heard of the vault dwellers being aware of the experiments and being willing lab rats, though. Usually, the story goes like this--The vault dwellers are unaware of it happening and are being experimented on against their wills. And this often ends up with tragic results, with the whole vault dying or the vault dwellers going insane or whatever else. The sick shit I've heard of, going on inside those vaults… it's enough to make my stomach turn."
Karina just stared at the other man, unsure of what to say to him. After all, that was news to her and she wasn't sure whenever to believe him or not.
Wyatt cleared his throat. "Sorry, I'll stop with the commentary. Go ahead with the rest of the story."
Karina then said, "Okay. So anyways… our Vault's purpose was to breed superhumans, with extraordinary abilities that would help America in the fight against our enemies. Most of us were in suspended animation while the scientists constantly pumped our bodies full of chemicals that would hopefully awaken special abilities in us. After that, we were supposed to be awakened one by one to test out our abilities. But due to certain circumstances, we didn't get awakened until 205 years later… meaning some days ago."
It was Wyatt's turn to stare at the other woman, as he replied in a highly disbelieving tone of voice, "What, you're saying you're like one of those Supermutants?"
"I can demonstrate my ability to you, if you like," Karina replied blandly, as she pulled on her power.
>Ring<
"Oh geez!" Wyatt cried out in shock as the entire area inside was suddenly being rained in cheese wedges.
"I can summon anything out of thin air, or it bestows knowledge and abilities on things I want to know about, although it seems highly random at times. It's been helpful to me most of the time, however." Karina said as she caught some of the cheese wedges in her hands.
She examined the cheese wedges, noting that it seemed to be like a cross between cheddar and swiss cheese in looks and texture.
"Uff da." Wyatt muttered in shock as he stared around the room with wide eyes, eyeing the cheese wedges that were now all over everything.
It was then that Derek came in carrying a small tray full of drinks, and he paused when he took in the now messy room that was completely filled up with cheese.
"What the heck happened here, dad?" Derek asked, before adding, "See, this is why I wanted to stay with you! I miss out on all of the interesting crap thanks to you always sending me away."
"Oh, I was just explaining to your father the special talent my people have in Vault 129, such as creating cheese out of nothing but thin air on command for example. And I showed him how it was done." Karina replied blandly, although she was secretly enjoying the confused and baffled expression on Wyatt's face.
Karina's expression then grew solemn, as she said, "But that was exactly the motive Regan had for killing off all the men in the vault, although he left us women alone. Because he wanted to be the only special one with this kind of power so that people on the outside could come to depend on him for all of their needs. He wants to build up an empire where people worship him. That's why I think he needs to be stopped before he can do any damage outside of the vault."
Wyatt seemed to be finally realizing how big this was, and this might be too big for him or his son to deal with. The two of them first thought that Karina had wanted to put up a simple bounty so that this Regan person would be taken in by bounty hunters back to Vault 129's people to face his punishment. In any other situation that would've been the reasonable thing to do. That was what passed for justice and law in those parts, after all.
But, if what Karina told was the truth… then there was no way Regan would be able to be taken in by simple bounty hunters if he had powers like hers. Regan would need to be assassinated outright if he was really as dangerous as Karina suggested. Espeically if he could summon things far more dangerous than cheese. As such, she needed specialists who would be able to do that.
Finally, Wyatt spoke. "Miss, I think you might need to go direct to the capitol in Bismarck. That's where The Dakota Buffalo Cavalry Battalion is situated, you see. And before you ask, they're the primary government and law enforcement in the two Dakotas. This case you've brought to us is way too much for a bunch of small-time sheriffs like us to handle, so I'm thinking you need some specialists on this case instead. And they definitely have specialists for this sort of thing."
Karina nodded in understanding, not at all upset that the two of them weren't able to help her right away. "That's still more information than I had to go on in the past. So thanks for telling me that. And also thank you for believing me when I told you everything. I know it's all a little bit hard to believe at first."
She then paused. "I also need to get my shoes fixed, know anybody in town who can do that? I got them damaged when I was going through the sunflower forest. The flora and fauna weren't exactly kind to me or my possessions. I also might need more ammo for my guns now that I think of it."
That part got long stares from both Derek and Wyatt. More Wyatt than Derek as the blond man was doing his best to wade through the floor without stepping on any cheese so that he could get close enough to hand over the cups of herbal coffee he had gotten for them all.
"Ha! You expect us to believe you went through the forest alone?? Nobody's dared to go in there alone and survived to tell the tale. You need a large group to survive that kind of experience." Derek burst out giggling at that, while he handed his father the coffee first before giving Karina the second cup. He then sipped at the third one he had gotten for himself.
Karina could only raise her eyebrows. They were able to accept that she had superpowers, but not that she was able to survive going through the sunflower forest by herself? Okay then. Although, she had Gus with her… she was unsure about whenever they'd believe her about Gus. The cheese was one thing, but to summon anthropomorphic cartoon ducks? That might be a mite too far… especially if she couldn't reproduce the results as proof.
Instead, she just shrugged and said, "A normal person might not be able to survive it, but I do have superpowers, so…"
At that, she sipped at her hot herbal coffee… which tasted nothing like real coffee at all and instead seemed to be a poor imitation of it. It tasted good though, even if you could tell that it wasn't real coffee at all. A part of her wondered what this drink was made out of exactly. To say it was herbs without specifying what kind of herb it was would be a major cop-out.
Wyatt could only shake his head. "Oh, fer fuck's sake, I knew it. All you vault dwellers are friggin' loony as hell. All those stories about the vaults don't lie! You're going to get yourself killed thinking that way!"
Derek could only nod in agreement. "Ya, sure."
Karina smiled grimly at this. A part of her really didn't appreciate being called crazy, especially so because she was still worried that she was in the middle of a mental breakdown. That maybe she was hallucinating all of this. After all, what kind of person believed that they could summon toon ducks and a raincloud of cheese inside buildings?
Instead, she forced the topic back on track before it could go any more off-track. "Yeah, yeah. So about my shoes? Where can I get them fixed? And where can I buy more Ammo?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The very next morning after staying at the hotel overnight, Karina was on her way south to Minot first, and then Bismarck. That was the plan anyhow.
Turns out that her old shoes were done for, so she had been forced to trade some of her cheeses around town to earn up enough bottle caps to get herself a new pair. That was the part that oddly weirded her out more than her own power did… the fact that Bottlecaps were now a legit currency? What was with that?
She also traded her cheese for ammo and left the rest of the cheese with the sheriff's family for their "consultant fee". Also mainly because she couldn't possibly carry that much cheese with her on the road… she only had enough room in her bag for like six wedges of cheese. Which she of course took with her.
As she left Bowbells, she was unaware of the legend that was starting to form around her… starting with the fact that she managed to survive going through the sunflower forest mostly unscathed when large groups of hunters had suffered worse fates than she did.
=========================================
A/N: unsure about this chapter. Not really happy with it. Planned for Karina to do some sightseeing, starting with the shops first so that she could learn more about Bowbells. but once I mentioned the makeshift police station it was like Karina just overrode everything I was planning for this story, and just kind of... took over? Because of course, Karina would want to head for the police first before doing anything else.
More facts about Bowbells-- The flour mill they had there used to be for wheat flour, but now exclusively turns giant sunflower seeds into sunflower flour and other sunflower-related products. This is due to the fact that wheat flour can go bad easily when transported to other towns and cities on long trips. However, Sunflower seeds tend to keep longer, especially if they've been cooked and treated. So when ground into flour, they also keep much longer than regular flour does.
So to the town, it's more advantageous to live close enough to the sunflower forest and harvest all the seeds when it's the season for the sunflowers to finally shed their seeds. But they also live a reasonable distance away to prevent their town from being rained down by sunflower seeds or being attacked by the bugs living in the forest.
This way they make a living off making edible sunflower products as well as canning all kinds of meats (mostly from bugs that wandered outside of the forest). They also have a local specialty of herbal coffee, which is mostly just dandelion root and a few other local herbs. This is due to the fact that there's a constant coffee shortage at all times, so this is the alternative as it comes the closest to tasting like coffee.
They also have a local clothier that's figured out how to turn the sunflower's giant leaves and fibers into a type of plant-based leather using highly noxious chemicals that stinks to high heaven for days when first applied to the giant leaves, petals, and so on forth. Which is then soaked into dirty water afterward to get rid of the scent, before heading into final treatment to turn it into hardened "leather". (funnily enough, this also has a basis in real life, as there's vegan plant-based leather that exists in life.)
So is the sunflower not only a source for food, but it's sometimes a source for fresh clothes too, provided you know how to treat the plant matter so that it doesn't constantly stick to you.
This is the reason why people haven't burnt down the forest, despite knowing that the forest is full of deadly man-eating things. It's a dangerous forest, but also one that's too useful to be destroyed.
They even had a massive metal tower of a building in the distance that seemed dedicated to milling and processing flour to be shipped out to other towns, by the looks of it.
Upon closer inspection, or at least as close as she could get from this distance while she walked into town, it seemed that they had robots and humans working together at that mill. Surprisingly enough they seemed to be transporting giant sunflower seeds into there using wooden carts that both robots and cows were pulling, while humans pushed from behind??
She then winced in pain when a pointy rock managed to get at her feet through the holes in her ruined shoe, due to the fact that she hadn't been paying attention to where she was walking.
>ring<
| https://sega.fandom.com/wiki/Sonic_Underground/Videos 14 Sonic Underground is an animated series featuring Sonic and his two siblings. It aired 40 episodes in one season until October 21, 1999. No other seasons were ever made. Interestingly enough, this sonic series was unlike the other sonic cartoons in that it was set in a wasteland world and had a completely different plot in that sonic was part of a rock band and a rebel who was trying to bring life back to the dead wasteland after Robotnik turned the whole world into that. Oddly appropriate for the Fallout universe if you think about it. Effect: Karina gets the whole boxset of the cartoon "Sonic Underground" in the form of holotapes, which will point out that it can only be played on a holotape player meant for a technicolor TV or a pip-boy if you try to play it on a computer. |
Karina pulled the rock out and then limped slightly all the way into town, where the townfolk stopped occasionally to stare at her as she went by.
It was a very small town, alright. There seemed to be only like ten remaining residential houses left in this town, and the rest were a church, a diner-style place, a single store, a small hotel that would barely house ten guests, a small school, and what looked like a police's brick building due to the words "The Sheriff's Home" and under that in tiny letters, "Lawbreakers will be punished and jailed here" spraypainted outside on the sides of it.
Karina perked up at the last one, and so she then went to move towards that one instead of the other places. Maybe they'd be able to get her in contact with the state's authority if they couldn't do much for her here?
She lightly knocked on the door, before opening the door and going in.
It seemed to have been a warehouse at one point and then retrofitted to have cubicles with metal bars installed into here to act as jail cells. Each jail cell cubicle was fitted with a very dirty-looking singles bed and a bucket, and that was it. There were only four jail cells here, and all of them empty which indicated that Bowbells typically didn't get that many troublemakers.
And to the other side of the large warehouse, there were a series of desks and computers, and at one of them there seemed to be a fairly young man who appeared to be five years younger than Karina was, dozing off.
He was blond, with strong freckles all over his face and down his neck. As for his outfit, he was dressed like a typical farmhand… a monochrome flannel shirt under a brown leather jacket, well-worn black jeans, and dark brown boots. On his head was a tan brown cowboy hat, and a pair of dark sunglasses. On one side of his chest, there was a well-worn sheriff badge pinned to his jacket. Around his belt was a gunslinger belt, complete with a gun.
Karina moved over to his desk and made a loud clearing noise, causing him to startle from his nap as he nearly fell out of his chair.
"Wut??" He uttered as he steadied himself in his chair.
"Um, I would like to report a murder to the local authorities. I was wondering if you could help me with this?" Karina said, getting straight to the point once she was sure that the young sheriff was awake enough to process what she said.
That definitely seemed to wake up the blond man all the way up. "What?! There's been a murder in Bowbells?!"
Karina shook her head. "No, it happened in Vault 129, where I came from. And the culprit by the name of Regan escaped, so I'd like for the authorities to be aware of him so that we can capture him and have him be tried for his crimes."
The man finally took in what Karina was wearing, which was clearly a vault suit, and calmed down once he heard her explanation.
"Oh? Ah. Alrighty then. So you wish to post a bounty on his head here, then? Alright, we can do that!" With that, he pulled out a bunch of faded and dirty papers from the desk along with a few pens and then put them on top of the desk as if he was ready to take notes.
It was then that a slightly elder-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair wearing the same cowboy sheriff uniform the young man had on stormed into the building. He called out, "Derek! Look alive. People are saying we got an outsider in town--"
He cut off when he noticed that the said 'outsider' was in fact inside the same building as the two of them were.
The blond man, who was presumably called Derek, nodded. "Ya, I know. Get this, she says she's a vault dweller! From one I never heard of, at that. She says she's here to report a murder that happened there and to file a bounty on the head of the man who done it and escaped. Says his name is Regan."
The older man raised one eyebrow at that. "Ah, is that so? Well, then. I suppose we oughta sit down and have a chat about what happened then, eh?"
With that, he walked over and then gestured at Derek to go somewhere else and busy himself doing something. "Why don't ya get us all some of that herbal coffee from the diner? I'm sure the lady would love some after traveling a long way here. Or so I assume."
Derek seemed to take umbrage at this, as he whined, "But dad…"
At the elder man's look, Derek sighed. "Fine."
With that, the blond man left, leaving Karina alone with the older man.
"The name's Wyatt Dawson. And that boy over there's my son. And your name is… miss?" The man introduced himself.
"Karina Munn. I'm from Vault 129." She replied.
Wyatt looked thoughtful. "Never heard of that vault before. Where did you say it was at, again?"
"I didn't. It's right on the border between Montana and North Dakota, just north of Westby town."
Wyatt nodded. "Ah, mostly on the Montana side then, eh? That explains it, I've heard of all the vaults in North Dakota and that number wasn't one I heard of before. For example, the ones in Fargo and Grand Forks? The vault dwellers got a bad reputation there. For some reason, they seem to be loony in the head or got some bad breeding going on. Makes you wonder what went on in those vaults to make them that way, hmm?"
With that, he glanced at Karina meaningfully as if she was supposed to know something about that.
Karina just blinked. "Uhh. I wouldn't know anything about that. The only vault I've known about was the one I lived in for a time."
Wyatt sighed. "Uff da. Fine, so tell me about this vault you've been living in, then. And why did this man go killing somebody before runnin' off?"
Karina smiled sheepishly. "Well, this is going to sound crazy but… well, our vault had this experiment going on that was supposed to benefit the American government, and all of us were voluntary volunteers for it. It wasn't until 205 years today that something happened though."
Wyatt smirked. "Figures it was somethin' like that. First time I've heard of the vault dwellers being aware of the experiments and being willing lab rats, though. Usually, the story goes like this--The vault dwellers are unaware of it happening and are being experimented on against their wills. And this often ends up with tragic results, with the whole vault dying or the vault dwellers going insane or whatever else. The sick shit I've heard of, going on inside those vaults… it's enough to make my stomach turn."
Karina just stared at the other man, unsure of what to say to him. After all, that was news to her and she wasn't sure whenever to believe him or not.
Wyatt cleared his throat. "Sorry, I'll stop with the commentary. Go ahead with the rest of the story."
Karina then said, "Okay. So anyways… our Vault's purpose was to breed superhumans, with extraordinary abilities that would help America in the fight against our enemies. Most of us were in suspended animation while the scientists constantly pumped our bodies full of chemicals that would hopefully awaken special abilities in us. After that, we were supposed to be awakened one by one to test out our abilities. But due to certain circumstances, we didn't get awakened until 205 years later… meaning some days ago."
It was Wyatt's turn to stare at the other woman, as he replied in a highly disbelieving tone of voice, "What, you're saying you're like one of those Supermutants?"
"I can demonstrate my ability to you, if you like," Karina replied blandly, as she pulled on her power.
>Ring<
| https://graveyardkeeper.fandom.com/wiki/Cheese Roll 20 Cheese is an ingredient used in cooking, the only source of which is Rosa, Shepherd's wife. Effect: Karina summons a crapload of cheese that's permanent, and on top of it she also copies Rosa's knowledge on how to make the Cheese. So even if she runs out, she can just make more with the right ingredients! And because it's a 20, those cheeses are permanently fresh. Until they're eaten, anyhow. |
"Oh geez!" Wyatt cried out in shock as the entire area inside was suddenly being rained in cheese wedges.
"I can summon anything out of thin air, or it bestows knowledge and abilities on things I want to know about, although it seems highly random at times. It's been helpful to me most of the time, however." Karina said as she caught some of the cheese wedges in her hands.
She examined the cheese wedges, noting that it seemed to be like a cross between cheddar and swiss cheese in looks and texture.
"Uff da." Wyatt muttered in shock as he stared around the room with wide eyes, eyeing the cheese wedges that were now all over everything.
It was then that Derek came in carrying a small tray full of drinks, and he paused when he took in the now messy room that was completely filled up with cheese.
"What the heck happened here, dad?" Derek asked, before adding, "See, this is why I wanted to stay with you! I miss out on all of the interesting crap thanks to you always sending me away."
"Oh, I was just explaining to your father the special talent my people have in Vault 129, such as creating cheese out of nothing but thin air on command for example. And I showed him how it was done." Karina replied blandly, although she was secretly enjoying the confused and baffled expression on Wyatt's face.
Karina's expression then grew solemn, as she said, "But that was exactly the motive Regan had for killing off all the men in the vault, although he left us women alone. Because he wanted to be the only special one with this kind of power so that people on the outside could come to depend on him for all of their needs. He wants to build up an empire where people worship him. That's why I think he needs to be stopped before he can do any damage outside of the vault."
Wyatt seemed to be finally realizing how big this was, and this might be too big for him or his son to deal with. The two of them first thought that Karina had wanted to put up a simple bounty so that this Regan person would be taken in by bounty hunters back to Vault 129's people to face his punishment. In any other situation that would've been the reasonable thing to do. That was what passed for justice and law in those parts, after all.
But, if what Karina told was the truth… then there was no way Regan would be able to be taken in by simple bounty hunters if he had powers like hers. Regan would need to be assassinated outright if he was really as dangerous as Karina suggested. Espeically if he could summon things far more dangerous than cheese. As such, she needed specialists who would be able to do that.
Finally, Wyatt spoke. "Miss, I think you might need to go direct to the capitol in Bismarck. That's where The Dakota Buffalo Cavalry Battalion is situated, you see. And before you ask, they're the primary government and law enforcement in the two Dakotas. This case you've brought to us is way too much for a bunch of small-time sheriffs like us to handle, so I'm thinking you need some specialists on this case instead. And they definitely have specialists for this sort of thing."
Karina nodded in understanding, not at all upset that the two of them weren't able to help her right away. "That's still more information than I had to go on in the past. So thanks for telling me that. And also thank you for believing me when I told you everything. I know it's all a little bit hard to believe at first."
She then paused. "I also need to get my shoes fixed, know anybody in town who can do that? I got them damaged when I was going through the sunflower forest. The flora and fauna weren't exactly kind to me or my possessions. I also might need more ammo for my guns now that I think of it."
That part got long stares from both Derek and Wyatt. More Wyatt than Derek as the blond man was doing his best to wade through the floor without stepping on any cheese so that he could get close enough to hand over the cups of herbal coffee he had gotten for them all.
"Ha! You expect us to believe you went through the forest alone?? Nobody's dared to go in there alone and survived to tell the tale. You need a large group to survive that kind of experience." Derek burst out giggling at that, while he handed his father the coffee first before giving Karina the second cup. He then sipped at the third one he had gotten for himself.
Karina could only raise her eyebrows. They were able to accept that she had superpowers, but not that she was able to survive going through the sunflower forest by herself? Okay then. Although, she had Gus with her… she was unsure about whenever they'd believe her about Gus. The cheese was one thing, but to summon anthropomorphic cartoon ducks? That might be a mite too far… especially if she couldn't reproduce the results as proof.
Instead, she just shrugged and said, "A normal person might not be able to survive it, but I do have superpowers, so…"
At that, she sipped at her hot herbal coffee… which tasted nothing like real coffee at all and instead seemed to be a poor imitation of it. It tasted good though, even if you could tell that it wasn't real coffee at all. A part of her wondered what this drink was made out of exactly. To say it was herbs without specifying what kind of herb it was would be a major cop-out.
Wyatt could only shake his head. "Oh, fer fuck's sake, I knew it. All you vault dwellers are friggin' loony as hell. All those stories about the vaults don't lie! You're going to get yourself killed thinking that way!"
Derek could only nod in agreement. "Ya, sure."
Karina smiled grimly at this. A part of her really didn't appreciate being called crazy, especially so because she was still worried that she was in the middle of a mental breakdown. That maybe she was hallucinating all of this. After all, what kind of person believed that they could summon toon ducks and a raincloud of cheese inside buildings?
Instead, she forced the topic back on track before it could go any more off-track. "Yeah, yeah. So about my shoes? Where can I get them fixed? And where can I buy more Ammo?"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The very next morning after staying at the hotel overnight, Karina was on her way south to Minot first, and then Bismarck. That was the plan anyhow.
Turns out that her old shoes were done for, so she had been forced to trade some of her cheeses around town to earn up enough bottle caps to get herself a new pair. That was the part that oddly weirded her out more than her own power did… the fact that Bottlecaps were now a legit currency? What was with that?
She also traded her cheese for ammo and left the rest of the cheese with the sheriff's family for their "consultant fee". Also mainly because she couldn't possibly carry that much cheese with her on the road… she only had enough room in her bag for like six wedges of cheese. Which she of course took with her.
As she left Bowbells, she was unaware of the legend that was starting to form around her… starting with the fact that she managed to survive going through the sunflower forest mostly unscathed when large groups of hunters had suffered worse fates than she did.
=========================================
A/N: unsure about this chapter. Not really happy with it. Planned for Karina to do some sightseeing, starting with the shops first so that she could learn more about Bowbells. but once I mentioned the makeshift police station it was like Karina just overrode everything I was planning for this story, and just kind of... took over? Because of course, Karina would want to head for the police first before doing anything else.
More facts about Bowbells-- The flour mill they had there used to be for wheat flour, but now exclusively turns giant sunflower seeds into sunflower flour and other sunflower-related products. This is due to the fact that wheat flour can go bad easily when transported to other towns and cities on long trips. However, Sunflower seeds tend to keep longer, especially if they've been cooked and treated. So when ground into flour, they also keep much longer than regular flour does.
So to the town, it's more advantageous to live close enough to the sunflower forest and harvest all the seeds when it's the season for the sunflowers to finally shed their seeds. But they also live a reasonable distance away to prevent their town from being rained down by sunflower seeds or being attacked by the bugs living in the forest.
This way they make a living off making edible sunflower products as well as canning all kinds of meats (mostly from bugs that wandered outside of the forest). They also have a local specialty of herbal coffee, which is mostly just dandelion root and a few other local herbs. This is due to the fact that there's a constant coffee shortage at all times, so this is the alternative as it comes the closest to tasting like coffee.
They also have a local clothier that's figured out how to turn the sunflower's giant leaves and fibers into a type of plant-based leather using highly noxious chemicals that stinks to high heaven for days when first applied to the giant leaves, petals, and so on forth. Which is then soaked into dirty water afterward to get rid of the scent, before heading into final treatment to turn it into hardened "leather". (funnily enough, this also has a basis in real life, as there's vegan plant-based leather that exists in life.)
So is the sunflower not only a source for food, but it's sometimes a source for fresh clothes too, provided you know how to treat the plant matter so that it doesn't constantly stick to you.
This is the reason why people haven't burnt down the forest, despite knowing that the forest is full of deadly man-eating things. It's a dangerous forest, but also one that's too useful to be destroyed.
LMeire
Let the Dice Decide!
To me that's the sign for when I have a good believable character design, they ought to have a semblance of agency that's independent of what I want to do and lends a sense of flow to everything involving them, particularly when 2 or more characters have good chemistry and start playing off of eachother. It's very noticeable when you have somebody with a serious background and goal suddenly get sidetracked by a passing butterfly, stuff like that can bring readers out of their SoD unless you lampshade it and have the oddity be a sign of like mindcontrol or the character acting on blackmail or something.
KickInator
Verified Doomsday Device, SuperVella
- Location
- India
- Location
- 𐌂 ̢͎̩̤̲̙͓̑̀͂͒̀͆̏𐋏 ̛͏̫̚𐌀 ̛͉̥̩̤̰͈̂̅͒͊͟𐍈 ̣͛𐍃 ̡̅̈́
If I could properly use photoshop, I would feed one gentleman with cheese. Ah, another unborn meme will stuck forever in my head.
Chapter Twelve--The Deep
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A/N: thought I'd do a pov from one of Regan's permanent summons.
===================================================
>BONG!<
"Fuck you and your weird Fresca obsession! I'm done being under your thumb, you little freak!" The Deep, aka Kevin, screamed at what he thought was one of the church leaders who had been trying to control him, only to find himself standing in front of a black-haired, green-eyed man who was wearing a bright blue and gold bodysuit along with some weird device on his wrist.
The black-haired man raised one eyebrow at him, and Kevin felt his face flushing.
"Um, sorry. I was just talking to this other person… while I was somewhere else. Where am I again?" Kevin mumbled as he looked around himself, and the two of them were standing out in what was a ruined forest that had suffered a bad fire a while ago.
"Currently, you're in a different world now. I'm the one who brought you here." He replied calmly.
Kevin stared at the other dude, who had to be a superhuman with the outfit he was wearing, and he burst out laughing. "Right, right. Pull the other leg, will you? Say, what's your name? You're a Super like I am, but I don't recognize your name or your outfit."
The black-haired man seemed to perk up slightly at this, as he took in The Deep's iconic green-scaled outfit. He then answered, "The name's Regan, and I have the power to summon things from other worlds, and occasionally empower myself. And you are…?"
Kevin couldn't believe his ears. This dude honestly didn't know who he was? "Are you fucking kidding me? You don't know me? I'm one of the Seven! I'm The Deep, also known as Lord of the Seven Seas! I'm the dude who can survive underwater and breathe the waters. I can talk to fish! Is all of this sounding familiar to you now?"
Regan started laughing giddily. He then started talking to himself. "I can't believe this. I summoned somebody similar to Manta Man?"
Kevin frowned slightly as he was starting to get a bad feeling about this. "You don't know who I am? Huh? I thought I was plastered all over the news, due to all those women accusing me of sexual assault and rape."
He paused, before adding loudly, "all unfounded, of course!"
That was a lie, of course, but he didn't want the other Super to think too badly of him.
Regan turned his attention back on Kevin. "I'm sorry. As I said, my power is to summon things from other worlds. Things or people who I think would help me in my quest to save this world from itself. Take a good look around you. What do you see?"
"Um, a forest which's been through a serious forest fire? And a highway road, which is in serious need of repair." Kevin replied as he looked around.
"It's like this everywhere. You see, in this world, in the year 2077 the bombs dropped everywhere and nuclear armageddon happened all over the world. It's now 215 years later, in the year 2292 according to my pip-boy calendar. I suppose this must be shocking to you as you're probably from a different time, but this is the truth." Regan replied.
"What? No, no… now this joke of yours is going too far!" Kevin complained.
Regan raised one eyebrow. "You don't believe I can summon things, places, and people from elsewhere? Fine, I'll demonstrate to you."
There was a bonging noise, and--
--a massive run-down gothic building just appeared on the side of the road. There was even an old dirt road leading up to it as if it had always been there.
Regan smiled at him as he gestured towards the building. "Shall we? I think I'm due a break from all this traveling, and you look like you need to sit down and process what I've told you so far."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An hour later, it had finally sunk in for the 'hero' who called himself The Deep.
He was really in another world, now. But weirdly enough he felt nothing but calm now… but that was mainly because he suspected Regan had something to do with that. Every time he started to feel fearful about his situation, Regan was promptly at his side and the feeling would go away.
And, he had to admit that Regan was making a convincing argument for why he should help Regan out here in this world. Regan had rightfully sussed out that he was in a spot of legal trouble back home, and that it might help The Deep's case if he was to wait out all his problems here by actually being a hero. And then, The Deep would be remembered for making contact with another world and being their hero once he found a way back home…. And that the interdimensional trade between the two worlds would be thanks to him.
And by the time all of this was over, everyone would've forgotten about the time that he had raped the heroine Starlight and all those other women. He would be a hero again in everyone's eyes.
On paper, it made sense.
But…. he had to see the rest of the world for himself before he could agree to anything.
And he told Regan as much.
Regan merely nodded in understanding. "Of course. There's not much in here anyways, not even food. So I'm more than happy to move on."
When the two of them headed outside back towards the highways, Regan then pulled on his power, which made a BONGING noise again…
A bright purple car resembling a Mazda appeared on the ruined highway, and Regan rushed around to get into the driver's seat.
He then looked up at Kevin. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
Kevin could only shake his head and smile. He had to admit, Regan had some style at least. This was a nice car.
With that, he got into the passenger seat and the two of them drove off.
=========================================================
A/N: I like to think that the reason why Regan didn't eat this one, was due to his thought process.
"My god. Did I summon a Manta-man knock-off? Does this mean I'll eventually summon all of the unstoppable group's Expy counterparts and start up my personal superhero team?" Regan thinks to himself and then has a nerdgasm at that idea. Because he's still a geeky comic book fan at heart under all that evil. He prefers the villains, but that doesn't mean that he still can't geek out over the idea of superheroes becoming real.
===================================================
>BONG!<
| The Deep Roll 20 The Deep (real name Kevin Moskowitz) is a major antagonist of the Amazon series The Boys, serving as the tertiary antagonist of season 1, and a supporting antagonist of season 2. He is a superhero, a former member of The Seven and the Church of the Collective. The Deep can breathe underwater and communicate with sea creatures. Effect: The Deep is permanently summoned to the world of the Fallout universe. For this man, there's no way back home. Not ever. |
"Fuck you and your weird Fresca obsession! I'm done being under your thumb, you little freak!" The Deep, aka Kevin, screamed at what he thought was one of the church leaders who had been trying to control him, only to find himself standing in front of a black-haired, green-eyed man who was wearing a bright blue and gold bodysuit along with some weird device on his wrist.
The black-haired man raised one eyebrow at him, and Kevin felt his face flushing.
"Um, sorry. I was just talking to this other person… while I was somewhere else. Where am I again?" Kevin mumbled as he looked around himself, and the two of them were standing out in what was a ruined forest that had suffered a bad fire a while ago.
"Currently, you're in a different world now. I'm the one who brought you here." He replied calmly.
Kevin stared at the other dude, who had to be a superhuman with the outfit he was wearing, and he burst out laughing. "Right, right. Pull the other leg, will you? Say, what's your name? You're a Super like I am, but I don't recognize your name or your outfit."
The black-haired man seemed to perk up slightly at this, as he took in The Deep's iconic green-scaled outfit. He then answered, "The name's Regan, and I have the power to summon things from other worlds, and occasionally empower myself. And you are…?"
Kevin couldn't believe his ears. This dude honestly didn't know who he was? "Are you fucking kidding me? You don't know me? I'm one of the Seven! I'm The Deep, also known as Lord of the Seven Seas! I'm the dude who can survive underwater and breathe the waters. I can talk to fish! Is all of this sounding familiar to you now?"
Regan started laughing giddily. He then started talking to himself. "I can't believe this. I summoned somebody similar to Manta Man?"
Kevin frowned slightly as he was starting to get a bad feeling about this. "You don't know who I am? Huh? I thought I was plastered all over the news, due to all those women accusing me of sexual assault and rape."
He paused, before adding loudly, "all unfounded, of course!"
That was a lie, of course, but he didn't want the other Super to think too badly of him.
Regan turned his attention back on Kevin. "I'm sorry. As I said, my power is to summon things from other worlds. Things or people who I think would help me in my quest to save this world from itself. Take a good look around you. What do you see?"
"Um, a forest which's been through a serious forest fire? And a highway road, which is in serious need of repair." Kevin replied as he looked around.
"It's like this everywhere. You see, in this world, in the year 2077 the bombs dropped everywhere and nuclear armageddon happened all over the world. It's now 215 years later, in the year 2292 according to my pip-boy calendar. I suppose this must be shocking to you as you're probably from a different time, but this is the truth." Regan replied.
"What? No, no… now this joke of yours is going too far!" Kevin complained.
Regan raised one eyebrow. "You don't believe I can summon things, places, and people from elsewhere? Fine, I'll demonstrate to you."
There was a bonging noise, and--
| https://evil.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Wing_Prison Roll 14 The Black Wing Prison, also known as the "Black Wing Maximum Security Prison", is a supermax prison based in the country of Japan for incarcerated convicts and it serves as the main location in the Sweet Punishment anime and the first half of the Amai Choubatsu: Watashi wa Kanshu Senyou Pet manga series. In the manga. the penitentiary itself is named "Kokuyoku Prison". The Black Wing prison is located in Japan. The story takes place in 2030 and the prison was stated to have been a maximum-security facility since 2026. Effect: a worn-down castle-like gothic mansion appears by the highway. Upon closer examination, you'd find that it used to be a prison, but it has long ever since been abandoned as everything is in complete disarray and devoid of human life. |
--a massive run-down gothic building just appeared on the side of the road. There was even an old dirt road leading up to it as if it had always been there.
Regan smiled at him as he gestured towards the building. "Shall we? I think I'm due a break from all this traveling, and you look like you need to sit down and process what I've told you so far."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
An hour later, it had finally sunk in for the 'hero' who called himself The Deep.
He was really in another world, now. But weirdly enough he felt nothing but calm now… but that was mainly because he suspected Regan had something to do with that. Every time he started to feel fearful about his situation, Regan was promptly at his side and the feeling would go away.
And, he had to admit that Regan was making a convincing argument for why he should help Regan out here in this world. Regan had rightfully sussed out that he was in a spot of legal trouble back home, and that it might help The Deep's case if he was to wait out all his problems here by actually being a hero. And then, The Deep would be remembered for making contact with another world and being their hero once he found a way back home…. And that the interdimensional trade between the two worlds would be thanks to him.
And by the time all of this was over, everyone would've forgotten about the time that he had raped the heroine Starlight and all those other women. He would be a hero again in everyone's eyes.
On paper, it made sense.
But…. he had to see the rest of the world for himself before he could agree to anything.
And he told Regan as much.
Regan merely nodded in understanding. "Of course. There's not much in here anyways, not even food. So I'm more than happy to move on."
When the two of them headed outside back towards the highways, Regan then pulled on his power, which made a BONGING noise again…
| Roadster Roll 17 The Roadster is a car depicted in the first Grand Theft Auto. The Roadster has a resemblance to a Mazda MX-5/Miata, sharing the distinctive flip-up lights and roofless top. Effect: As the roll is a 17, this means the car's in pretty good condition, even if it's got a few miles on it. Got a full gas tank on it as well. |
A bright purple car resembling a Mazda appeared on the ruined highway, and Regan rushed around to get into the driver's seat.
He then looked up at Kevin. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
Kevin could only shake his head and smile. He had to admit, Regan had some style at least. This was a nice car.
With that, he got into the passenger seat and the two of them drove off.
=========================================================
A/N: I like to think that the reason why Regan didn't eat this one, was due to his thought process.
"My god. Did I summon a Manta-man knock-off? Does this mean I'll eventually summon all of the unstoppable group's Expy counterparts and start up my personal superhero team?" Regan thinks to himself and then has a nerdgasm at that idea. Because he's still a geeky comic book fan at heart under all that evil. He prefers the villains, but that doesn't mean that he still can't geek out over the idea of superheroes becoming real.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Espeically if it's an evil Aquaman knock-off.