Lieutenant Mato turned out to have strong native American blood in him, judging by his features. And the stitched patch on the arm of his tan and orange uniform, which formed the image of a Lakota medicine wheel, indicated which tribe he belonged to, which was commonly known as the Teton Sioux.
Wait. did they even have tribes anymore in this post-war world? Was he merely honoring his ancestors and heritage instead of showing which tribe he belonged to?
While Karina pondered that, Lieutenant Mato was busy typing down all the information Karina had given him so far.
Everything about how Regan had murdered all the men inside Vault 129 by purposefully misusing a machine the wrong way instead of for its' intended use. Karina was being kinda vague here but she didn't really want to get into the whole bio-gel thing as it would have taken too much time to explain in itself.
She instead skipped ahead to the part where he spared the woman halfway through, but still left most of the women in a highly critical state to the point that they all needed medical care. Which was kinda true, hence why she was also sent out to get some medical stuff that their vault needed. She showed him the list on the pip-boy at this point, asking him where she could possibly find some of those things.
How Regan was to be considered dangerous due to the super-soldier program that had been going on inside the vault for centuries, etc. Mato didn't seem too terribly surprised at this part, apparently being familiar with the dark rumors of what went on inside those vaults all those decades ago.
And how Karina was telling him Regan's basic description. "He's somewhat taller than I am, so maybe around 5'10? He has black hair and green eyes. Answers to Regan Turner."
Mato nodded as he typed all of this down on his computer, and then pressed a few buttons before heading over to an old battered pre-war printer that was hooked up to the computer via a few wires.
He then smiled at Karina while he waited for the printer to start printing out the sheets of paper. "We have a pretty good radio system here, so once I get all this information together we'll send out a radio APB on this guy all over North Dakota and South Dakota. And from there we'll find a way to get this information over to Montana and Wyoming, as well. I promise you, this guy isn't going to get away with what he did."
He then seemed to think of something. "Oh, I almost forgot. What kind of reward are you offering for the bounty on his head?"
Karina thought about that and then replied, "Money isn't really a problem for me. So any amount they want, along with whatever else I can summon on the spot?"
At Mato's strange look, Karina then explained, "That's the power I seem to have gotten from the super-soldier program. I can summon things and people from other worlds. The people seem to be more temporary while objects like guns are more permanent, though."
Mato chuckled weakly, the expression on his face made it clear that he didn't quite believe her. Under his breath, she could kind of overhear him mumbling something about a vault 130 and how the people there were insane, so maybe 129 was the same way?
Karina scowled slightly. "I can prove it to you right now if you'd like."
Mato nodded and replied in a tone of voice that indicated that he was merely humoring her. "Sure, I'd like to see that."
With that, she pulled--
>ring<
https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Dandelion Roll 15
The Dandelion is found via foraging in the Spring or grown from Spring Seeds. Up to ten can also be purchased from Pierre at the Flower Dance. Although it is a flower in its description (and in real life), the game classifies it as "Forage" and not "Flower." Not the prettiest flower, but the leaves make a good salad.
Effect: Similar to the cheese, the inside of the offices will now be raining Dandelions until Karina gets enough to create salads out of those flowers for a week. |
Mato blinked puzzledly as both of them got showered in what looked like yellow flowers with lance-shaped leaves.
In fact, it was raining flowers everywhere in his office.
Karina just sat back in her seat and smiled at him smugly.
Mato smiled weakly again, as he replied, "Huh. I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation for this…"
"Sure, whatever. Tell yourself that as much as you want. I can understand why you'd think that though." Karina shrugged her shoulders as she said that before she went to collect some of the dandelions. And using the hair tie she pulled out of her hair to tie the flowers together into a large bunch before she put them into her backpack.
Not many people knew this, but her mom had taught her how to make excellent Dandelion jelly using this common weed. And plus, the leaves were great for a salad! Due to the food riots and food shortages back then, her family had learned how to forage for themselves out of necessity. Sometimes the camping trips they all took together as a family were just a way to stock up on all the edible plants out in the wild when the local grocery stores were running a little low and honestly didn't know when the next shipments would come in. It also counted as an extra income for her family selling off foraged mushrooms and the like. Sometimes the cops detained them because they thought those mushrooms were the illegal narcotic type, only to be stunned when it turned out they weren't.
Ahh, memories.
"Right…" Mato just shook his head, and then turned back towards the printer again to see if the papers were done printing. They were, so he started collecting up the papers after clearing the top of the printers off due to the dandelions raining down on it.
"At any rate, I'm going to take this up to the radio station floor. You're welcome to come with, so you can see how we send out this APB to all the Buffalo Battalion outposts." Mato said, and Karina nodded.
"That'd be nice." She agreed after she was done collecting a few more bunches of Dandelions off the floor.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Turns out the floor that the radio station was on was a big friggin' MESS.
It was at the very top floor, where the roofing and some of the walls had pretty much crumbled and large holes existed where you could look outside and see the world out there. And some of the holes here even looked like it was made on purpose, all so that they could push out this gigantic antenna, and a dozen satellites though.
And the radio technology they had up here, looked like they were all old pre-war junk cobbled together that somehow managed to become a working radio station that expanded its range over the entirety of the Dakotas?
Yet, everything looked like it was about to fall apart any second now.
Mato had clearly brought her up here so that she could be impressed by how large this radio station was by the fact that it took up the entire top floor. And by the fact that they had managed to lug all this pre-war technology all the way up here and thus be reassured that they did, in fact, have the resources to find and capture the murderer who had escaped Vault 129. Look, they had working pre-war tech, woot, look how special this post-war military is!
Karina supposed this would've had the intended effect on her had she grown up in the post-war world with very little experience of what pre-war technology was like.
But… a very large part of her couldn't help but feel highly dismayed. This had the opposite effect of impressing her, really. Again, all of this was really offending her pre-war sensibilities.
For one thing, didn't they know that leaving exposed holes in the roof and the walls alone like this could easily damage the working technology here even more if there was a powerful rainstorm or something?? More so if none of this stuff was waterproof or insulated against lighting storms, etc. a lighting bolt hitting this place in just the right spot could easily act as an EMP and completely fry everything. Did they even have backup plans for that?
She doubted it. In fact, how the hell had that not happened yet? Maybe they did have a way to storm-proof the radio station… she just didn't know about it.
Not to mention all the rubble and trash laying all over the damn place. Hadn't they learned how to clean up after themselves, or know that a janitor might be needed to keep the place clean?
She had thought that the Junk fences would be the worst thing she'd see so far, but apparently not. Did the necessity of living in old ruins distort those post-war people's ideas of what was considered a nice, clean place? That as long as most walls were intact, it wasn't a dump to their eyes?
Ugh.
"It's great, isn't it? Thanks to this technology, we've been able to keep all the community in the Dakotas safe from raiders, super-mutants, and feral ghouls. And other creatures too." Mato beamed, obviously having mistaken Karina's dismayed silence as she looked around for awe.
"Haha… yeah…" Karina laughed weakly. She then asked, "Feral ghouls and Supermutants? Let me guess, the Supermutants are the weird giant green and purple men I've seen on my travels? It was my first time seeing them ever since I stepped out of the vault. Managed to get away from them though, considering that they weren't very friendly."
Mato looked mildly impressed. "All on your lonesome? Not many can say they got away unscathed, much less on their own. As for the ghouls…well, they look like they're undead like the ones from myth and legends, but they're actually alive. Got a beating heart, warm blood, and everything else just like you and myself. They happen to be humans who got mutated by the FEV differently compared to the Supermutants, is all. They lost their good looks but on the flip side, the mutation gave them immortality, enabling them to live way past the normal human span. The feral ones are poor unfortunate souls who lost their minds to radiation damage."
Karina blinked and then cringed slightly. "They're alive, seriously? Uhh… I thought of them as zombies and were killing the ones that were mindlessly attacking me. Um, is that bad? I mean, they're mentally ill people who didn't know what they were doing?"
Mato's eyes widened at this as he quickly looked around to make sure nobody had overheard her, and then pulled her aside into a nearby corner. He then quietly said, "Never say the zombie word, and especially not in front of ghouls! That's a slur, you know. And I suppose I should warn you that our radio operator is in fact a ghoul. She's not one of the feral ones, so you don't have to worry. So be respectful. You're not going to have any problems with her because she's a ghoul, right?"
Karina blinked, honestly thrown off by this. She hadn't expected that reaction. Finally, she said, "No problem. I only ever attacked the ones that were attacking me. Self-defense, you know?"
Mato nodded. "Good. Nobody minds if it's just the ferals that you go after. But the ones who's managed to keep their sanity and mind intact for decades are considered people around here, and should be treated as such."
Karina slowly nodded. "Right. Understood."
It was then a female voice that sounded raspy like it was a chain smoker, joined in. "Hey, what's this? Two people quietly gossiping in the corner, and I'm left out? I'm hurt, Mato."
Karina turned around to see who was speaking, and nearly jumped, but was able to contain her flinch upon seeing her.
Err, Mato hadn't been kidding when he told her that the radio operator up here was a female ghoul.
But this one seemed different than the ghouls she had seen before. Yes, she had the same nose-less thing going on and parts of her skin were sloughed off, but there was a strong intelligence in her milky-blue eyes. There were bits of what remained of her blonde hair, indicating that she had a head full of blonde hair at one point before most of it was lost.
And most importantly she wasn't attacking anybody which was a plus in her book. She was also wearing the orange-tannish Battalion uniform.
"Amber. I was just explaining to Karina here, how putting out a radio APB worked and how many bases we had all over the Dakotas. I wanted to reassure her that the murderer she put a large bounty on would be caught. Also, she's very insanely rich, she actually said that any price was no object to bring him in or kill him. She's willing to pay as many bottle caps as it takes, even if it goes up to 2,000 bottle caps." Mato said smoothly.
Amber's eyes raked over Karina's body, taking in her vault suit. She then commented, "And she's from a vault too. Vault 130?"
Karina shook her head. And then turned around to show off the number on her back. "No. Vault 129. It's right on the border between North Dakota and Montana."
Amber smiled. "Good. I've heard that the people from Vault 130 are not only insane but that they tend to be swindlers. I don't appreciate people offering up that much if they can't pay for it. They're the reason why vault dwellers tend to get a bad rap around here. I'll have to see if people from Vault 129 are different than the ones from 130, however. Don't disappoint me."
Karina couldn't help but wonder what the people of Vault 130 were really like, considering that on her trip here so far people had kept on hinting at Vault 130 and how it was a fucked up place. And now Amber was telling her even more details about that place. All those rumors about it… kinda made her feel curious.
Amber then grabbed the papers out of Mato's hand. "Whatever. Let's see the details of this bounty, then."
She then slowly walked over to the radio station area where she worked, with Karina and Mato following behind her, while she read over the papers.
She paused at some parts, as she commented out loud, "This Regan fella killed all of the men in the vault? How the hell did he manage to pull that off. Most would've fought back?"
Karina then spoke up. "As part of the super-soldier program we were put in, most of us would be put on life support to stabilize our bodies and prevent us from flat-lining while our bodies were pumped full of various chemicals to give us superhuman abilities. Regan purposefully screwed up the life support system for the men who were under, killing most of them in seconds. I would've liked to think it was an accident and that he panicked and fled after the fact. But, we've got a witness that says that he did it on purpose because he wanted there to be less competition? So now he's got the death of roughly 98 men on his hands, all for such a stupid reason."
Amber raised a non-existent eyebrow at that. "Well, damn. I can see why you're saying money is no object when it comes to bringing him in."
Karina didn't say anything in response and merely nodded.
As Amber kept on reading the rest of the details on the papers such as Regan's physical description, she then asked, "On to happier topics, what do you think of Capitol town so far? As somebody who spent most of their life underground, it must be different than what you're used to."
Karina grimaced. "Umm… I'll be honest. I was expecting more after learning this was the home city where the Buffalo Battalion was situated. I thought that with you guys being a legit militia group, you'd have better secure walls and buildings than the other settlement would have. I'm very sorely tempted to use my powers to fix this town right now."
Amber seemed puzzled. "Your powers. What do you mean by that."
Before Mato could even step in and stop her, Karina said, "I'll just show you."
And with that, she pulled on her power--
>ring<
https://fantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Gerlde roll 15
Gerlde is the Capital City of Insel Sadra. The name derives from the German words "gerne da" (love it to be there). Insel Sadra is a fictional modern fantasy island in the bahamas, So expect this city to have modern amenities such as electricity in addition to being a fantasy town that happens to have an old-fashioned medieval feel and look.
Effect: In a wide 1.25-mile radius all around Capitol Town, which exceeds their borders, all the buildings, and ruins are transformed and "rebuilt" to strongly resemble this fantasy german town. All the junk fences are transformed into strong, extremely thick stone walls and the roads are repaired and transformed to resemble cobblestone roads.
Because the roll was a 15, the buildings aren't that run down but neither are they in pristine condition. They're mostly middle of the road in terms of wear and tear. But, the buildings are still leagues better than the former condition of the buildings which the Buffalo Battalion group had to put up with.
If you can't imagine what the buildings look like, here's a visual of what it may look like. |
Amber and Mato freaked out as the building around them seemed to shapeshift. The trash on the ground slowly disappeared as it slid up the walls to somehow magically repair them by being absorbed into the wall. The holes in the walls and roof all vanished, and the old building, which had been once an art deco-styled building, now had a distinctly medieval feel despite the fact that all the electric light blubs and the elevators were still there.
Everything no longer looked so ruined and broken down, the radio technology aside, and instead simply looked "well-loved".
There were sounds of shouting from floors down, the rest of the soldiers no doubt freaking out over the building's sudden change.
Karina looked around and grinned. "Yup, I've got to say this is a vast improvement. it doesn't look like your military is squatting in an old ruined building anymore. It feels like a proper home base, now."
Amber looked about herself wildly, as she asked in a slightly shaky voice, "Mato? Um… it's not just me, right? You're seeing the same thing I am, right? The room changed its look!"
Mato swallowed. So… Karina was actually telling the truth about having powers.
He then sighed loudly. "We've all got to report this to the superior. Karina, you're coming with me so we can explain this before everyone goes into a blind panic over this."
It was then that Karina finally realized the implications of her actions, especially if this effect was far more spread wide outside of the building than she thought. And how people would react to this. "… oh."
===============================================
A/N: I know some parts were boring as it was just Karina re-telling her story to various random characters. But, next chapter, we'll have the Buffalo Battalion group's interlude as they react to the fact that there's a freakin' reality warper wearing a vault suit just wandering around. That one should be more interesting.
Also, Karina is way too honest for her own good. She isn't even hiding or lying about what she can do, jeez!
