John Davis: Vault Dweller

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I found some scrap parts in a rats nest in the tunnels and from there it was a simple patch job on the water pump itself.  There were jail cells at the southern end of the building for some reason, too.  I let out an imprisoned Ghoul who thanked me by telling me how to get to Vault 12.  I’m headed down there right now.

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++BEGIN RECORDING++—++USER: JONATHAN DAVIS++

Christ it’s late.  But I’m on a roll now.  No time to rest!  Vault 12 is a mess.  It doesn’t look like the vault door ever shut.  At all.  Everything inside is filthy and rusted over.  This place hasn’t aged gracefully at all.  No functional computers on the first level…  this seems about as promising as Vault 15.  Damn.

There were some glowing Ghouls on the way in.  The “normal” Ghoul I let out of jail earlier said that they’re violent and feral, so I walked out into the middle of the hallway, whistled to get their attention and k’pchew!  I’m going to skip the second floor and head straight to the third.  If it’s anything like Vaults 13 and 15 then first floor is medical, second is residential, and third is recreation, the Overseers office and…  the control room!

Excellent!  The elevator is in working order.  Down we go.

…

[Tycho: Contact!  One’o’clock!]

[KERBLAM!  rat-tat-tat BANG! oof! hiss!  KERBLAM!]

There were three more of the bastards standing around the corpse of a merchant.  Judging by the trail of blood I think they dragged him in here, and judging by the way they look and act, I’ll bet they were going to eat him!  …nothing useful on any of them, either.  Balls.

Alright, here’s the control center…  It’s looking pretty bad.  Everything’s broken.  Wait- Wait what is that?  That old wreck wasn’t lying- the Water Purification computer is running!  Ian, Tycho, cover the entrances, I need to check this old rig…  Uhh…  how do you turn this thing off?  Never needed to before.  …whatever, I’ll just unplug it.

[rattle-creek…  KLANK]

c’mere you… [creek… pop!  thunk] well, it looks intact…  Hmm.  Well, we have plenty of time before the water supply runs out.  I really didn’t expect to find a new controller chip before the end of the year like this.  Think we’ll take this back and see if it works alright.  Are we clear?  No movement?  …alright, gentlemen, lets clear out of this dump.  

If I never see a Ghoul again it’ll be too soon.

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++BEGIN RECORDING++—++USER: JONATHAN DAVIS++

Necropolis is a broken shell of a city.  Once proud buildings are crumbling and wrecked to the point where the streets are impassable and all travel through the town has to be done through tunnels.  It seems that intelligent ghouls stay indoors or underground, while violent, mindless ghouls tend to wander the streets.  They’re slow and stupid.  Just target practice.

After exploring the tunnels a bit I came across one ghoul who claimed to be the leader who greeted me with “Please!  Don’t shoot!”  Those were a good choice of words, since I hadn’t quite noticed the difference between Feral and “Normal” Ghouls yet.  I’m trying to remember which one is which by their disfigurements, but it’s pretty difficult.  This guy makes Harold look young and handsome, though.  At least Harold’s eye was only stuck shut, as opposed to this guy’s gaping, empty eye socket.  Eyugh.  At least it makes him recognizable.  He mentioned something about a guy topside who goes by the name of Set.  Apparently that’s this “Powerful new leader” I’ve heard about.  It’s been recommended that I avoid him, and I might just do that.

Good news, though!  They’re telling me that there’s a functional water chip in Vault 12 in here!  …only they need it to survive, too.  I can’t just take it and let OTHER people die of dehydration, even if they’re half dead monsters already.  So I’ve agreed to find parts and fix their water pump.  They say it’s up in the water shed area north of here, and that I should be able to find the parts for it in the tunnels.  They’ve sent some of their own to retrieve the parts, but I guess they can’t take on the wildlife that’s down here.

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++BEGIN RECORDING++—++USER: JONATHAN DAVIS++

Sweet holy God, you should have seen the size of those scorpions!  They were at least twice as long as I am tall, and that’s not counting their tails!

Conversely, you should have seen this new rifle in action!  This thing is death incarnate!  I took down three of the bastards.  Ian got one and so did Dogmeat, but Tycho had me scared.  One of those radscorpions got him good and he just dropped right there.  I thought he was a gonner for sure, but once we took care of ‘em all, I had time to check and he was still breathing.  Not even a minute later, he came to.  Just a little first aid and he was right as rain.  …I wonder if I’ll ever see rain.

We’ll go ahead and camp out here for the night.  I wonder if scorpion is edible…  or if the whole thing is poisonous?  Signing off for the night.

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++BEGIN RECORDING++—++USER: JONATHAN DAVIS++

Forget the Desert Eagle.

I found a god damn sniper rifle.

I think I peed a little when I saw it.  Damn near cost me everything I had in barter, but HOO BOY is this going to be worth it!  This is the kind of firepower I came here for!  Tycho’s got his shotgun and I gave Ian the SMG and knife.  I just hope Dogmeat doesn’t go and get himself killed, you know?  He already discovered some sort of trap for me.  …the hard way.  Poor guy, his fur is all singed on one side.

Well, time to…  hoo boy.  I’m really not looking forward to going to this Necropolis place.

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++BEGIN RECORDING++—++USER: JONATHAN DAVIS++

Made it to the Hub.  Talked to a caravan driver right off the bat who filled me in a little on the place.  Apparently it’s the biggest town around and a huge trading center.  Had no idea what a water chip was, but said I should check the general store.  I doubt they’ll have one, but hey, it’s worth a shot.

Deputy Fry said just about the same thing.  He also mentioned that the place is relatively safe compared to other towns, and just to avoid The Maltise Falcon and it’s owner, Decker.  Guess they’re a dangerous sort, but I’m starting to think there’s no one who could stop this rag tag team of machismo!

Naw, I’ll steer clear.

The general store has…  stuff.  No water chip.  They had a pretty cool geiger counter, though.  Might be handy if my Pipboy didn’t have one integrated.  And a motion detector.  Not sure what I’d use that for.  Maybe we could install it outside of the vault enterance for security?  Eh, naw, it’d just pick up more of those gigantic ass rats movin’ around, gnawing on that skeleton of the guy who never made it in.

Spoke to the Water Merchant general manager about water chips and prices.  She says I’m not going to find one anywhere in town since without the proper equipment they’re useless… and she’s absolutely correct.  She suggested Necropolis might have use for one, which is pretty much what I was thinking.  She mentioned the possibility of shipping water up to the vault, but when she asked where it was and all I told her was “near shady sands” she furrowed her brow and said that it’d be around two thousand caps to start things up and that the vault could probably trade supplies to keep things going.  To make matters worse, apparently their equipment is breaking down, too.  She said they’d only be able to supply us with water for about three, maybe three and a half months.  I told her I’d come back if my plan fell through.  As soon as I left the room I could hear her badmouthing me and calling me a cheapskate.  Charming.

I also found the worship house of The Children Of The Cathedral.  These space cadets have taken up the radioactive trifoil as their insignia and worship the great war that nearly destroyed the world!  One of them, I think her name was Elder Jenna or something, got all upset with me for saying hello.  I figured I’d humor her and pretend I was interested in their little cult and got an ear full.  Took me a little while to find an excuse to gracefully excuse myself and get the hell out of there.

The local weapons dealer is more of a rumors dealer.  She’s got some guns, sure, but about all I really found that any of us actually wanted was a new combat knife for Ian.  He sure does like to get up close and personal with his knife, so a new, serrated one might be just what the auto-doc ordered.

Well, so far this place has been nothing but disapointing.

Oh, and the PipBoy wishes us all a Merry Christmas.  Heh, I love this thing.

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++BEGIN RECORDING++—++USER: JONATHAN DAVIS++

I got back to Killian with the recording.  He thanked me heartily, rewarded me with my choice of items from his shop— I picked up some medical supplies, just in case— and asked if I would like to help run Gizmo and his goons out of town.  Said it might be good for a laugh.

Yeah, I’d like to see that fat slab run more than ten feet.  Hah!  All three of us, and Dogmeat…  I named the dog, by the way!  Dogmeat.  All three of us agreed that it sounded like a good time, and we certainly don’t want to see Killian or his guards to take an unnecessary risk with Maximus Glutius over there.

Yeah, well, it got kind of violent.  There were a lot of us and only two of them so I figured I’d keep it on semi-auto instead of just spraying the room with lead, but let it be known that I’m getting pretty good at head-shots, at least at a distance of about, oh, 20 feet.  I got that Izo creep right in they eye.  That was about all the action I got though.  It was over pretty quickly.  Tubby caught a LOT of lead.

The town guards asked if we would be willing to help deal with that local gang, the Sharks, but really, I need to be finding that water chip controller.  Killian, Tycho and a couple other people have mentioned a place called “Necropolis” to the east, I think it was?  I guess it used to be a little town called Barkersfield.  Apparently there was another vault there, but something went wrong and it failed…  and Tycho says there are ghouls and worse there.  I’ve heard rumors that they have some new, powerful leader, too.  When I asked him what he meant by “Ghouls” he told me they’re sort of like zombies.

That news wasn’t too great.

I might want to head south to the Hub and see if I can’t stock up on supplies before I head over there.  Now that I’ve purchased a 44. Desert Eagle and ammo for it, Killian doesn’t have anything more for me in the way of supplies here.  Hmm, so yeah, south I go.

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++BEGIN RECORDING++—++USER: JONATHAN DAVIS++

Met Killian Darkwater, mayor and shopkeeper here.  I sold a few things I’d scavanged up and just as I was about to leave some asshole barges in the door with a hunting rifle and shouts “Gizmo sends his regards!” and puts a sizable hole in Killian’s leg.  So I put a sizable hole in his head.  Killian seemed to appreciate this.

We’ve struck up a deal where, since I’m new in town and no one knows me yet, I’ll go talk to this Gizmo guy and either bug his desk or talk to him, record it and get him to spill his guts about whatever kind of shady business he seems to be into.  I’m not so sneaky up close and personal, so I’ll just try to get his confession on tape.

On my way to Gizmos a dog started following me.  He seems to like me, though a villager, Phil, told me not to trust him and that he’s a killer and a menace.  Seems friendly enough to me.  I might have to come up with a name for him.  Ian and I agreed that there was no rush to take care of Gizmo and that we may as well stop for a drink, so we stopped by the local bar, the Skum Pitt.

The place was full of local gangsters who identified themselves as “Sharks”.  I wonder if they even know what a Shark is.  A man in a leather duster was seated at one of the back tables, and being the only person in the bar who didn’t look associted with the gangers, Ian and I asked to join him.

He introduced himself as Tycho, and it turns out he’s a Desert Ranger from out east, from a land called “Nevada.”  He hasn’t told me his whole story yet, but we’re getting along quite well, especially since I mentioned that Killian asked me to clean up the streets a little here.  He offered to help, and of course I accepted.  I’m starting to build quite the retinue here.

[Some time later…]

Got a few brews in me for liquid courage…  Tycho said, they treat their beer like a potted plant, and boy is he right.  Still, though.  I’ll bet if I could get my hands on some that wasn’t watered down it’d taste plenty better than the Synth-Beer in the Vaults!  I might have to bring back materials for a brewery along with the water chip.  Ha!  Ian, you hear me?  A brewery!  Haha!  That’d kick ass!  Ah, man, this top-sider stuff ain’t half bad.  Action, adventure, excitement…

Ah, hell.  Back to business I guess.  Gonna head on in to Gizmos.  Better put on my game face.

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