Journey
As the sun plunged into the horizon, the sky darkened picking up a deep blue with pink and white clouds. The air became crisp, and the humidity kept it slightly warm. A man, a boy, a ghoul, a raider, and a super mutant left an old forgotten home of a family long lost to the tides of war.
The wind danced through the tall grass bending it around their knees as if making a path for them. One by one, stars flickered into existence, the suns diminished rays bringing them into the visible spectrum. They slowly dotted the sky, and helped to illuminate the world around them. The waning moon was a deep orange this evening and smiled upon the adventurers.
"Damn, that wind is cold." the raider, who still hadn't revealed her name shivered.
Greg could never figure out why women were always cold. She was wearing tight leather, had a sweater, a gas mask and a helmet, and she was still cold. "Probably because of the ocean breeze."
"Why are we headed to San Francisco again? I thought we wanted to go the other way?" She seemed to be more talkative now, Greg figured if she kept talking she wouldn't be able to think of different ways to murder him.
A guttural sigh, apparently Gary thought he was the only one keen on making decent decisions at this point. "Well, when our train wrecked, most of our supplies were destroyed. Apparently you had planned on just taking ours, because you've brought none of your own."
"So we have to go to this stupid city to get more? How great could this city be anyway?" She didn't seem to mind the fact that he was a ghoul. In fact, Greg had suspicions that raiders and ghouls often worked together in the cities they ran.
"I think going to the city to get supplies is a much better idea than hoping they just magically pop into existence." Greg was still mad she had shot him in the leg. Then again, she was probably still mad Greg had killed everybody she had ever known.
"Hmph." She was still ignoring Greg, whatever.
As they crested a hilltop, lights illuminated the sky. Apparently San Francisco had done well as a post war city. Though most of the city was in darkness, there seemed to be a central area with illumination. Greg had seen other cities like this in his time. Such as New Reno, and New Vegas which were both brilliant cities. Though he had a hard time holding onto his funds in such places.
"Well, it looks like we'll definitely find people there. Or ghouls. Raiders and super mutants aren't capable of pulling off such feats?" Greg knew he'd get a rise out of the girl, what he really wanted though was to see the reaction from kelvin.
Naturally, the raider just growled at him, still not talking. The super mutant didn't seem to pay any attention. About an hour later, they noticed armed guards patrolling the city outskirts. Most of which had advanced battle armor, with at least one person per patrol in power armor.
Then Greg noticed they had somebody trailing them. So Greg made a motion to stop to see how their tail would react. As they stopped, the trail pulled up on them and halted within a few feet.
A man in battle armor hopped out, pulling up his face visor. "Good evening, travelers. Quite the group you have here? Humans and ghouls are okay. Super mutants, we can let in unarmed. Raiders though?"
"What about raiders? Do I look like I'm going to take on an entire city of armed citizens on by myself? If you hadn't noticed, a certain somebody here blew up my entire tribe and family." She snapped back at the guard, resisting the urge to be more vulgar.
“You insolent little bitch! Just who do you, ugh.” The man suddenly shut up.
It wasn't because the raider girl was reaching for her AK, but because Greg had shoved the barrel of his railgun into the man's stomach, and from quite a distance. “I'd watch your tongue when talking to anybody in my group.”
“You, you can't do this! I'm with the Brotherhood of Steel!” The man snapped back, trying to push Greg's railgun away.
“Relax, Joe. You're not Brotherhood yet, you're still just an initiate.” A muffled electronic voice boomed from a suit of power armor.
“Sir!”And the man Joe, stepped back, and pulled down his visor. “I apologize for my transgressions, please don't view all Brotherhood of Steel as incompetent as myself. You're all welcome to Frisco, however you will all have to check your weapons in at the main gate. Good day, travelers.”
“I didn't ask you for your help!” The girl was now in Greg's face. “I could have handled that myself!
“Yeah, you probably would have shot at him, then we'd all be enemies of the brotherhood. Not the best of ideas, eh?” Greg slung the railgun over his back again. He was really getting tired of lugging that thing around. “I took a still rough but more diplomatic approach. Still, I can't help but feel like we made enemies with the Brotherhood.”
“Probably because you shoved an extremely large gun barrel into one of their stomachs.” Kelvin boomed in a voice tainted with a giants chuckle. Apparently some super mutants were capable of intelligent conversation.
“Yeah, well the situation is under control. Let's continue on, shall we?” Gary, that overzealous ghoul who always seemed to flaunt his hundreds of years of life experiences onto the group. Couldn't he ever just let us make terrible decisions so that we could learn from them?
As they reached the main gates, they noticed those men from before were still following them. "Check your weapons please, all of them."
Being skilled in the art of deception, Greg managed to slip some weapons past their searches. His railgun, notsomuch. It seemed like Gary and Wesley managed to smuggle in some weapons too. The raider girl, and Kelvin, not so much, as their searches were far more thorough.
Their first opinions of the city were terrible, as the gates lead into an immediate slum. There were chem users, chem abusers, and chem dealers everywhere. They weren't even sure if half the people were even alive anymore. Yet, this is where Greg felt more comfortable, like he could actually negotiate and survive in this part of town.
Yet, the rest of the group desired luxury, and they were recommended to go further into town. As they reached a second check point, they weren't searched again. Rather, asked to pay a small fee of one thousand caps per person. Greg hesitantly offered to cover all of them, being secretly rich from years of successful scavenging. The other part of the checkpoint was to check for chem use.
Fortunately, all of them made it through. This part of the city seemed seriously upscale. The people were all dressed in ridiculously nice clothing, the streets were clean and maintained and the lights seemed more constant. There were armed guards walking the streets. At one point they saw the guards engaging somebody who seemed to have snuck in.
Before long, they found a section for traders and scavengers. Greg decided he would handle this part, the rest decided to let him handle it. Except for Wesley, who wanted to learn from Greg for some reason.
Gary decided to head off to a watering hole, where they didn't serve water. He was greeted by a pasty skinned girl, probably around twenty. She seemed quite delectable, though she wouldn't want anything to do with a ghoul, and so he minded his own business.
The bar though, that definitely wanted to deal with a ghoul, and take his caps. “Strongest whiskey you've got.”
“Strongest? Well, everything here we brew ourselves, and all of it can be quite potent. None of it is anywhere near potable.” The bartender seemed to be proud of this toxic vile he brewed.
“Well, down the hatch!” Gary willingly tilted his head back, and allowed the foul fluids to pour down his throat. It burned the whole way down.
Before long, Gary had become severely intoxicated, “Hey you, mop head. Yeah you, the one who's hair looks like a mop!”
“Sir, you're talking to a mop.” Another patron corrected him.
“I knoooow, just hic look at that hair! Get this man a comb, yeehaw!” Gary definitely hadn't been drunk like this in probably fifty or so years.
“Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.” The bar keep decided to cut the ghoul dry.
“Or else what, you're going to blow up my home? Oh, wait, Greg already did that. Hows about another on the house?”
“Absolutely not, remove yourself from this building, or we'll remove you for you.” The bartender was obviously not playing around at this point.
“Have you seen my pinky?” The bartender was now infuriated and took a swing at Gary as he continued on in a drunken ramble.
Yet the man missed, as the ghoul remarkably ducked out of the way just in time. “There's my pinky! Oh wait, that's a peanut.” At this point, Gary let out a laughter that could be confused for the hounds of hell.
Just as several men had crowded around him to assist in his removal, a certain raider made her appearance. “Hands off the ghoul, or you'll look far worse than he ever could.” She subdued him into a headlock and dragged him our, looking quite miserable.
“Where is the room going? Even the room is leaving me! Oh, life is so terrible.” Gary began pouting about nonsense that made absolutely no sense.
As she dragged him, and dragged him some more, she met up with the group. “Well, it took me a moment to find him. The real question is, why are we taking this ghoul?”
“Well, he saved my life at one point, as has helped me out a great deal.” Greg recoiled at the thought of leaving Gary behind.
“All the more reason we should leave him!” She gleamed angrily at Greg, who in turn started whistling innocently.
Just then she felt a small barrel poke under her leather vest, cold hard steel against her stomach. “You wouldn't think of trying to harm me in any way, would you?” Either Gary sobered up fast, or he was never really drunk to begin with.
“Whatever, we have what we need, we should go.” It seemed like whenever Kelvin spoke, it was was unadulterated wisdom. Or at least he just managed to snap people back into focus.
“Can't we afford to stay the night in one of those snazzy hotels?” the girl whimpered.
“Nope, we can't afford to, anymore. Let's go.” Gary just up and walked off now. Apparently completely sober again.
Most willingly followed. One was rather upset, but she would get over it in time. Their adventure in the Frisco drew to a close and they found themselves heading onward.
“Not so fast.” It was that guy Joe again. He was really going to get annoying wasn't he? “I still owe you from before. Not so big without that railgun, are we?”
“Let me guess, you want to fight?
“No. I have a mission for you. We need an outsider to do this one.” Joe seemed rather displeased with the man, and especially his group, that was chosen for this task.
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- Chapter Six
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The wind danced through the tall grass bending it around their knees as if making a path for them. One by one, stars flickered into existence, the suns diminished rays bringing them into the visible spectrum. They slowly dotted the sky, and helped to illuminate the world around them. The waning moon was a deep orange this evening and smiled upon the adventurers.
"Damn, that wind is cold." the raider, who still hadn't revealed her name shivered.
Greg could never figure out why women were always cold. She was wearing tight leather, had a sweater, a gas mask and a helmet, and she was still cold. "Probably because of the ocean breeze."
"Why are we headed to San Francisco again? I thought we wanted to go the other way?" She seemed to be more talkative now, Greg figured if she kept talking she wouldn't be able to think of different ways to murder him.
A guttural sigh, apparently Gary thought he was the only one keen on making decent decisions at this point. "Well, when our train wrecked, most of our supplies were destroyed. Apparently you had planned on just taking ours, because you've brought none of your own."
"So we have to go to this stupid city to get more? How great could this city be anyway?" She didn't seem to mind the fact that he was a ghoul. In fact, Greg had suspicions that raiders and ghouls often worked together in the cities they ran.
"I think going to the city to get supplies is a much better idea than hoping they just magically pop into existence." Greg was still mad she had shot him in the leg. Then again, she was probably still mad Greg had killed everybody she had ever known.
"Hmph." She was still ignoring Greg, whatever.
As they crested a hilltop, lights illuminated the sky. Apparently San Francisco had done well as a post war city. Though most of the city was in darkness, there seemed to be a central area with illumination. Greg had seen other cities like this in his time. Such as New Reno, and New Vegas which were both brilliant cities. Though he had a hard time holding onto his funds in such places.
"Well, it looks like we'll definitely find people there. Or ghouls. Raiders and super mutants aren't capable of pulling off such feats?" Greg knew he'd get a rise out of the girl, what he really wanted though was to see the reaction from kelvin.
Naturally, the raider just growled at him, still not talking. The super mutant didn't seem to pay any attention. About an hour later, they noticed armed guards patrolling the city outskirts. Most of which had advanced battle armor, with at least one person per patrol in power armor.
Then Greg noticed they had somebody trailing them. So Greg made a motion to stop to see how their tail would react. As they stopped, the trail pulled up on them and halted within a few feet.
A man in battle armor hopped out, pulling up his face visor. "Good evening, travelers. Quite the group you have here? Humans and ghouls are okay. Super mutants, we can let in unarmed. Raiders though?"
"What about raiders? Do I look like I'm going to take on an entire city of armed citizens on by myself? If you hadn't noticed, a certain somebody here blew up my entire tribe and family." She snapped back at the guard, resisting the urge to be more vulgar.
“You insolent little bitch! Just who do you, ugh.” The man suddenly shut up.
It wasn't because the raider girl was reaching for her AK, but because Greg had shoved the barrel of his railgun into the man's stomach, and from quite a distance. “I'd watch your tongue when talking to anybody in my group.”
“You, you can't do this! I'm with the Brotherhood of Steel!” The man snapped back, trying to push Greg's railgun away.
“Relax, Joe. You're not Brotherhood yet, you're still just an initiate.” A muffled electronic voice boomed from a suit of power armor.
“Sir!”And the man Joe, stepped back, and pulled down his visor. “I apologize for my transgressions, please don't view all Brotherhood of Steel as incompetent as myself. You're all welcome to Frisco, however you will all have to check your weapons in at the main gate. Good day, travelers.”
“I didn't ask you for your help!” The girl was now in Greg's face. “I could have handled that myself!
“Yeah, you probably would have shot at him, then we'd all be enemies of the brotherhood. Not the best of ideas, eh?” Greg slung the railgun over his back again. He was really getting tired of lugging that thing around. “I took a still rough but more diplomatic approach. Still, I can't help but feel like we made enemies with the Brotherhood.”
“Probably because you shoved an extremely large gun barrel into one of their stomachs.” Kelvin boomed in a voice tainted with a giants chuckle. Apparently some super mutants were capable of intelligent conversation.
“Yeah, well the situation is under control. Let's continue on, shall we?” Gary, that overzealous ghoul who always seemed to flaunt his hundreds of years of life experiences onto the group. Couldn't he ever just let us make terrible decisions so that we could learn from them?
As they reached the main gates, they noticed those men from before were still following them. "Check your weapons please, all of them."
Being skilled in the art of deception, Greg managed to slip some weapons past their searches. His railgun, notsomuch. It seemed like Gary and Wesley managed to smuggle in some weapons too. The raider girl, and Kelvin, not so much, as their searches were far more thorough.
Their first opinions of the city were terrible, as the gates lead into an immediate slum. There were chem users, chem abusers, and chem dealers everywhere. They weren't even sure if half the people were even alive anymore. Yet, this is where Greg felt more comfortable, like he could actually negotiate and survive in this part of town.
Yet, the rest of the group desired luxury, and they were recommended to go further into town. As they reached a second check point, they weren't searched again. Rather, asked to pay a small fee of one thousand caps per person. Greg hesitantly offered to cover all of them, being secretly rich from years of successful scavenging. The other part of the checkpoint was to check for chem use.
Fortunately, all of them made it through. This part of the city seemed seriously upscale. The people were all dressed in ridiculously nice clothing, the streets were clean and maintained and the lights seemed more constant. There were armed guards walking the streets. At one point they saw the guards engaging somebody who seemed to have snuck in.
Before long, they found a section for traders and scavengers. Greg decided he would handle this part, the rest decided to let him handle it. Except for Wesley, who wanted to learn from Greg for some reason.
Gary decided to head off to a watering hole, where they didn't serve water. He was greeted by a pasty skinned girl, probably around twenty. She seemed quite delectable, though she wouldn't want anything to do with a ghoul, and so he minded his own business.
The bar though, that definitely wanted to deal with a ghoul, and take his caps. “Strongest whiskey you've got.”
“Strongest? Well, everything here we brew ourselves, and all of it can be quite potent. None of it is anywhere near potable.” The bartender seemed to be proud of this toxic vile he brewed.
“Well, down the hatch!” Gary willingly tilted his head back, and allowed the foul fluids to pour down his throat. It burned the whole way down.
Before long, Gary had become severely intoxicated, “Hey you, mop head. Yeah you, the one who's hair looks like a mop!”
“Sir, you're talking to a mop.” Another patron corrected him.
“I knoooow, just hic look at that hair! Get this man a comb, yeehaw!” Gary definitely hadn't been drunk like this in probably fifty or so years.
“Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave now.” The bar keep decided to cut the ghoul dry.
“Or else what, you're going to blow up my home? Oh, wait, Greg already did that. Hows about another on the house?”
“Absolutely not, remove yourself from this building, or we'll remove you for you.” The bartender was obviously not playing around at this point.
“Have you seen my pinky?” The bartender was now infuriated and took a swing at Gary as he continued on in a drunken ramble.
Yet the man missed, as the ghoul remarkably ducked out of the way just in time. “There's my pinky! Oh wait, that's a peanut.” At this point, Gary let out a laughter that could be confused for the hounds of hell.
Just as several men had crowded around him to assist in his removal, a certain raider made her appearance. “Hands off the ghoul, or you'll look far worse than he ever could.” She subdued him into a headlock and dragged him our, looking quite miserable.
“Where is the room going? Even the room is leaving me! Oh, life is so terrible.” Gary began pouting about nonsense that made absolutely no sense.
As she dragged him, and dragged him some more, she met up with the group. “Well, it took me a moment to find him. The real question is, why are we taking this ghoul?”
“Well, he saved my life at one point, as has helped me out a great deal.” Greg recoiled at the thought of leaving Gary behind.
“All the more reason we should leave him!” She gleamed angrily at Greg, who in turn started whistling innocently.
Just then she felt a small barrel poke under her leather vest, cold hard steel against her stomach. “You wouldn't think of trying to harm me in any way, would you?” Either Gary sobered up fast, or he was never really drunk to begin with.
“Whatever, we have what we need, we should go.” It seemed like whenever Kelvin spoke, it was was unadulterated wisdom. Or at least he just managed to snap people back into focus.
“Can't we afford to stay the night in one of those snazzy hotels?” the girl whimpered.
“Nope, we can't afford to, anymore. Let's go.” Gary just up and walked off now. Apparently completely sober again.
Most willingly followed. One was rather upset, but she would get over it in time. Their adventure in the Frisco drew to a close and they found themselves heading onward.
“Not so fast.” It was that guy Joe again. He was really going to get annoying wasn't he? “I still owe you from before. Not so big without that railgun, are we?”
“Let me guess, you want to fight?
“No. I have a mission for you. We need an outsider to do this one.” Joe seemed rather displeased with the man, and especially his group, that was chosen for this task.
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