RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #21

Right. So, last time, we had just gotten out of the sewers and into the Citadel of the Brotherhood of Steel - i.e. what's left of the US Army a.k.a. a bunch of grunts in mecha suits.

Thankfully, I do get to meet the leader- Commander Lyons right away. Well, it turns out he was friends with my dad and hey - the whole reason he cast out the Outcast Brotherhood members is because he thought it was more important for The Brotherhood to be protecting the weak and innocent people of Washington D.C. rather than following the Prime Directive - grab the fancy technology we don't have and run. I also get to meet his daughter Sarah (yowza!), who is head of the elite corps of the local chapter's warriors, aka Lyon's Pride.

I also get special permission to be trained in the use of their special strength-enhancing, power armor and permission to trade with the quartermaster. And just when I think it can't get any better...

Woman in Power Armor: Hail!
Me: Uh... yeah.
Woman in Power Armor: I am Star Paladin Cross. I had the honor of guarding your father during his travels in the Wasteland.
Me: Is that a fact?
Woman In Power Armor: I would be honored to guard you as well in the hard times to come.
Me: Ah... well, that's swell. Really... but I wouldn't want you to get in trouble with Commander Lyons.
Woman In Power Armor: He has given me leave to aid you as best I can.
Me: Did he? Well, I kinda move quickly, quietly and travel light...
Woman In Power Armor: I promise to be the soul of discretion.
Me: Discreet as a 6-foot tall robot with the head of Grace Jones can be, eh? Oh, what the heck... you're the first person who actually has wanted to join me.

Eventually, I find the head scribe who can give me access to the Vault-Tec computer archives so I can find out what local Vaults MIGHT have gotten this GECK Instant Eden kit. After reading a bunch of records, I discovered where it was (Vault 78) but still had no idea where it was. The Scribe, who is kind of a dick, shows me where it is on a map but tells me that it's in the middle of a radioactive waste that would vaporize me as soon as I got near it. Of course there IS a way there... through the tunnels of Lamplight Caverns.

Yes. I have to go back to Tiny Town. Little Lamplight. City of Children.

I stop off at Megaton on the way back. Figure I can get myself and Grace a good night's sleep before I have to deal with the rugrats. And that's when my radio picks up a distress signal from Vault 101. Seems Amata - my childhood sweetheart - is calling for help. Daddy Dearest, the Overseer, has gone mad with power and the rebellion she is leading is in dire straits.

*sighs* A hero's work is never done.

Luckily she changed the password to the Vault door, so I'm able to get in. And even luckier, the guard watching the door is kindly Officer Garza who "forgets" to inform the Overseer that I've returned... these things slip your mind when you get to his age. :)

Well, I manage to walk through The Vault without incident. And guess who I run into in the hallway?

Butch: Well, well. Look who came back.
Me: Oh hell... the roaches didn't get you?
Butch: You've got to get me out of here! I'm sick of this place. I wanna go out and make my own gang... take over the wasteland!
Me: Yes, I'm sure the gangs of cannibals will be terrified of you what with your mad cowering-in-terror from giant bugs skills.
Butch: Screw you, man! I'm not staying here! What kind of life do I have here? They want me to be a barber!
Me: Actually, I seem to remember your test pegged you as a hairdresser.
Butch: Screw you! I'm a barber!
Me: Okay. Can I get a haircut?
Butch: ...Sure.

(Yes, the game actually let me enter the "change your appearance" interface at this point)

Eventually I find Amata and - big surprise - she wants me to deal with her dad but try not to kill him, even though he just tried to kill one of her friends and has them pinned down by armed guards. Still, I promise to try. Luckily my speechifying skills are up to the task.

Overseer: So, you returned. Well, I hope you realize you can't sneak in here like a teen violating curfew.
Me: Relax. I just came to settle a few things with you.
Overseer: Oh really? So you believe our mission must be compromised?
Me: What mission?
Overseer: The true purpose of our vault! All of the vaults had a secret project. We were meant to be a control group. To be uncontaminated by outside influence. To be purely human!
Me: Yeah, but you've only got like... what, 10 people in here under the age of 50 at at this point? You've got maybe two generations left, if that, before inbreeding kicks in.
Overseer: My God, you're right! We'll have a bunch of two-headed babies without letting the radioactive freaks in here. Clearly I must step down in favor of my daughter immediately.

Me: Hey! Your dad just put you in charge!
Amata: Me? Well, I suppose it's for the best.
Me: So... buy you a milkshake?
Amata: Well, actually... I have to ask you to leave and never come back.
Me: What?!
Amata: Well, a lot of people still blame you for the roach invasion and the people dying when you left the vault in the first place.
Me: But... can't you explain to them? You ARE the leader.
Amata: No, no... it's better this way.
Me: So that's it? I save your life and now I'm shunned. Is that the shape of it?
Amata: Yeah, pretty much. But maybe we'll run into you someday outside of the vault.
Me: Don't bet on it.

*sighs* Well, that was half-an-hour wasted. So where were we? Oh yes. Little Lamplight.

Mayor McBratty hasn't changed his tune much about me but he's willing enough to open up the gates to the Vault for me, though he warns me that none of the kids go there anymore because of the big green guys. More Super Mutants? Easy Peasy.

Eventually I find the Vault, more Super Mutants, a secret lab IN the vault filled with even more hideous freaks and... this.

Fawkes: Hello! Is there somebody there? I wish to talk.
Me: Holy crap! A smart Super Mutant!
Fawkes: Yes. The other mutants imprisoned me for being a mutant freak because of my intelligence.
Me: Ha! How ironic.
Fawkes: Yes. How nice to meet someone who can appreciate irony.

Fawkes makes me a deal - spring her and then clear a path through the rest of the monsters for her and she will get the GECK for me from the high radiation area that will kill me instantly if I set one foot in it. Well, I uphold my end of the bargain... she upholds her end and I'm ready to go back to The Citadel and save the world... until a bunch of Enclave punks jump me and take me in for questioning.

Well, the questioning doesn't last long. The President of the USA - John Henry Eden - tells his head grunt and "guy who killed my father" Colonel Autumn to stand down because he wants to talk to me in person. Of course, no sooner do I get to the door to Level 2, Colonel Autumn gets onto the PA and starts telling everyone to belay The President's last order and everyone starts pulling guns and looking for me.

Lucky for me I'm so stealthy and the Enclave base is so filled with curves and alcoves that I'm able to get to the President's office without having to fire a shot.

Computer: So... at last, we meet face-to-face.
Me: Except, being in a computer, you don't have a face per say.
Computer: Indeed. You are... unsurprised at my status?
Me: Mmmmm... let's just say I'm not shocked. I was expecting a severed head in a jar but hey - super-intelligent A.I. with the voice of Malcolm McDowell works too.
Computer: Indeed, well, I have a proposition for you regarding this Project of yours. I have an additive that should work with your GECK system. It will not interfere with the cleaning of the water but it will make the water deadly to... unpure humans.
Me: You mean Super Mutants and Ghouls, right?
Computer: Ahhhhhh.... probably yes. Do this and my final goal for America will be complete
Me: Really? Well, in that case... there's no reason for you to stick around, is there?
Computer: You know... you have a point. I will blow up the base after you leave. Now go. Colonel Autumn will not be happy. In fact, he is sending what men he hasn't already sent to Project Purity to kill you. I will redirect the automated systems to aid you. But even then, surely, it will be the ultimate test of your fighting skills.
Me: Or I can just use one of these Stealth Boys and just sneak past all the guards.
Computer: ... there is that, yes.

So, yes. Base goes boom. I sneak out rather than fight all the guards with a lot better armor than I have. And on the outside, I run into an old friend.

Fawkes (mowing down Enclave soldiers with a Gatling laser): My friend! You escaped!
Me: Yeah! Not that I'm not happy to see you, but how...
Fawkes: I followed after the soldiers who took you.
Me: And where did you get the -
Fawkes: I took it from one of the soldiers. It is a most fascinating weapon.
Me: It is at that.
Fawkes: Anyway, I owe you much and have nowhere else to go. May I join you in your journeys?
Me: Since my other life-long bosom buddy and eternal friend seems to have buggered off, sure!

I never do see Star Paladin Cross again.

We high-tail it back to The Citadel, just in time for me to be informed by Sarah of the blonde-hair, sexy voice and big-armor that I have been officially inducted into The Lyon's Pride in honor of everything I've done. Which makes my conversation with the old man all the funnier.

The short version is that we don't have the GECK anymore, The Enclave does but they can't do a lot without the code to my dad's equipment and that it's all a moot point as The Enclave have taken over the Jefferson Memorial and put big force-field fences up on all the roads to the memorial.

Thankfully, we do have one ace in the hole - a giant Chinese-bashing robot that the Powers That Be Just Got working, which is capable of destroying the force-fields as we take the battle to the streets of DC. And let me tell you that THIS is an awesome moment. You finally have your own power armor (I chose the stealth suit, naturally), a giant robot is stomping down Enclave soldiers in front of you and an army of similarly armed soldiers, a hot blonde babe and your super-smart, super-mutant buddy is at your back to help you pick off the remnants. There's no way to make this any more awesome.

Well, perhaps one way.

*runs to get his Black Sabbath CD*

*sets "Iron Man" on endless replay as the robot trashes the Enclave*

Eventually, we make it to the memorial. Of course, things never go smooth and some jackass has to try and get the last word in.

Colonel Autumn: Well, well, well. You're in a heap of trouble, son.
Me: I don't think so. I'm not the one with no helmet taunting a man with a drawn plasma rifle.
Colonel Autumn: Oh spit!
Me: *pulling trigger, focused head shot vaporizing the Colonel where he stands*

Sadly, it is only going to get worse.

Dr. Li: Can you hear me?
Sarah: We're both here Dr. Li! What's going on?
Dr. Li: For some reason - possibly to do with a forced ending - there's a problem with the system. If we don't start it now, it won't work and it will have to be turned on now from the radiation-soaked command room.
Me: You mean where my dad died?
Dr. Li: Exactly. One of you must enter the room and sacrifice your life in order to activate the machinery.
Me: Why? Fawkes here is immune to radiation. She can just go in...
Fawkes: I'm sorry, my friend. But this is obviously your moment of destiny. I cannot deny you your chance to prove yourself.
Me: Well, I have like 40 tubes of Rad-Away here. Surely I can just run in, type in the code and run back before my skin melts off.
Dr. Li: No, no... it is far too dangerous to try that. One of you must die.
Sarah: We could draw straws...
Me: No, you heard the lady. Clearly the game is expecting me to do the noble thing.
Sarah: Which you've been doing the whole time anyway.
Me: Yeah, but I haven't been that happy about it most of the time...


And so it was that the Lone Wanderer ventured forth from Vault 101 intent on discovering the fate of a father who has once sacrificed the future of humanity for that of his own child.

The Capital Wasteland proved a cruel inhospitable place, but the Lone Wanderer refused to surrender to the vices that had claimed so many others. The values passed on from father to child – selflessness, compassion, honor – guided this noble soul through countless trials and triumphs.

But it was not until the end of this long road that the Lone Wanderer learned the true meaning of that greatest of virtues – sacrifice. Stepping into the irradiated control chamber of Project Purity, the child followed the example of the father sacrificing life itself for the greater good of mankind.

Thankfully, when selected by the sinister president to be his instrument of annihilation, the Wanderer refused. Humanity with all its flaws was deemed worthy of preservation. The waters of life flowed at last – free and pure, for any and all. The Capital Wasteland at long last was saved.

So ends the story of the Lone Wanderer, who stepped through the great door of Vault 101 and into the annals of legend. But the tale of humanity will never come to a close, for the struggle of survival is a war without end, and war – war never changes.


So yeah... now I see why so many people were upset by the ending. Everything you do and it all gets reduced to a few quick slides with no specific narration regarding your great (or not) deeds... unlike the first two Fallout Games. And ultimately, what you are remembered for comes down to the last two minutes of the game, your race and gender and whether or not you were mostly good, evil or neutral.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #20

Turns out the bug that shut me down last time was less of a bug and more of a "me not seeing the manhole cover into the sewers, due to the pile of vaporized Enclave soldier ashes covering said hole".

Still, once I was in the sewer it was an easy matter for me to start sneaking around, vaporizing the Enclave soldiers that were in pursuit of our party. Laser rifles are wonderful things when you know how to use them and actually have one. :)

Good news is that eventually the Enclave soldiers stop bothering us. Bad news is that is because the escape tunnel is also being used by a couple of squatting feral ghouls and the Enclave soldiers were ripped to shreds despite their fancy armor and plasma weapons. Of course I am sneaky like ninja and manage to vaporize ghouls just as easily as I do Enclave soldiers.

The one hang-up? Doctor Li makes me stop moving about halfway down the tunnel. Seems that her head lab assistant has a heart condition and she doesn't have his medication. I briefly consider using my speechify skills to convince her to leave him behind but since she says she can treat him temporarily with a few Stims if I can spare them. Since I have about 60 of them even after being burned by plasma a few times, I agree and everyone is ready to go again in a minute.

There is another humorous moment where - after I find a few Brotherhood of Steel Paladins behind one door - I give the rest of my group the go-ahead to go on and a horde of zombies suddenly run out from the doorway I hadn't checked yet. The Paladins are on the case and shooting flamethrowers at the ghouls.... somehow not hitting the panicky scientists and technicians running between them and the sudden zombie invasion.

We come out the other side of the tunnel and it turns out that the emergency tunnel leads to The Citadel - the main fortress of the Brotherhood of Steel. Doctor Li shouts at their leader - a man named Lyons - over the intercom to let her in. Well, one thing leads to another, I am introduced to the boss-man and I am told to talk with him about what we need to continue my father's work.

Oh, and in the midst of this, I hit level 18 and gained another feat. I took Concentrated Fire, which allows me to do extra damage to any body part on an enemy for every successful attack I make. Hello extra-damage head-shots!

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #19

After cleaning out the Deathclaw Sanctuary - and finding a magical bobblehead that increased my endurance by one, I decided that I'd explored enough, gained enough levels and that it was time to get back to the serious business of finding my dad and helping him out with this whole saving-the-world thing.

I return to the Jefferson Memorial and find that the interior is as cram-full of Super Mutants as the exterior was. Thankfully, they're almost no challenge at all at this point, unless I let the ones with a sledgehammer get close.

I find dad's lab and some tapes. It seems that he found evidence of something called a G.E.C.K. - basically a Do It Yourself Terraforming Kit - and that he went rushing off to Vault 112 - the place where he believes the Doctor Braun guy who built this thing eventually settled.

The Vault is fairly close to Fort Barrister. I fast-travel there only to wind up in the middle of a fire-fight between the two renegade members of the Brotherhood of Steel and a bunch of Talon Mercenaries with dogs and robots. I guess they're taking me a bit more seriously now that I'm level 17.

The journey to the Vault, hidden inside an abandoned garage, is uneventful. Shoot roaches. Shoot mole rats. And then I find... friendly robots who offer me a change of clothes and ask me to sit down in the life pod. Next thing I know I'm in Mayberry. Or Pleasantville. Well, a reasonable facsimile anyway. I'm trapped in a kid's body and everyone tells me to go play with Betty, a girl in the playground in the center of town.

Betty is mean and tells me to go make one of the neighbor boys cry. Deciding that there's obviously something screwy about this place, I opt instead to just wander around, after having a nice talk with Doc The Dog.

Eventually, an old woman comes out, insisting that the world around us isn't real and that they're all trapped in a computer simulation of reality. Uh... yeah. I've seen The Matrix. But in this case it's all the fault of Dr. Braun - the jackass my dad was looking for who is apparently still alive, kept in cryogenic suspension by the life-pods... a virtual god in this world of his own design but bored and wanting amusement. She tells me that there's an abandoned house nobody is meant to go into.

I go there, find a bunch of random objects and find that messing with the objects creates tones. Eventually I work out the "code" and make a computer appear in the wall that lets me "hack the Matrix". And by Hack the Matrix, I mean unleash an army of Chinese soldiers who gun down everyone except me, Betty and Doc the Dog. Somehow, this gives me good karma, even though these people dying in the game kills them in real life.

(Side Note: I looked at the guide on-line later and found out that had I gone on to make the boy cry, I could have begun a reign of terror that would have also eventually lead in the entire town being killed and netted myself a ton of bad karma. I guess the logic is that by having them gunned down quickly, I am putting these people out of an eternity of torment quickly rather than by making them suffer as I would have by following Betty's instructions.)

Anyway, it turns out that Betty is Dr. Braun, that he did indeed get bored of the virtual paradise he had created.... a tropical island then a ski chalet... and decided to make something like his childhood neighborhood... and he had gotten bored again. However, by doing what I've done, I've trapped him in this reality alone forever, since the game won't allow him to die. Seems that essential personnel have a god mode that can't be shut off. Sucks to be him.

I get out of the pod and find Dad (he was Doc the dog), who thanks me for rescuing him. We have a heart to heart about things and I agree to help him with getting Project Purity - the project to clean all the radioactive water in the wasteland - up and running. We head back to Rivet City, gather up the scientists there and head back to the Jefferson Memorial.

I'll spare you the fine details. Suffice it to say I clear the basement of Super Mutants and then run around the place activating equipment in order to get the water pumps activated again. By the time I get back to the control room, there's a bunch of guys in Power Armor there, hassling my dad and insisting that he activate the facility, which is now under their control.

Well, Dad winds up blowing the reactor, killing them all and himself... and having just enough time to collapse against the glass, look up at me and say "Run"....

And that's where I had to stop because - due to a game bug - I couldn't follow the fleeing scientists through the secret passage they used to evacuate the complex. So next time... fleeing the Memorial. Maybe.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #18

Looking at my map, I find that there's a point I haven't explored yet called "Temple of the Union" a little ways to the Northwest. After a short trek across mutant-bear infested wilderness, I find the place. I am greeted by a surly woman with a shotgun who lets me know she'd just as soon kill me but the boss insists that anyone who approaches and says they are friendly has to be let in.

Give that woman points for honesty.

I eventually do meet the boss - a gentleman by the unlikely name of Hannibal Hamlin.

Hannibal Hamlin: Before we talk about anything else, I need you to promise on your solemn oath that you will never speak of this place to any slaver, especially the people in Paradise Falls.
Me: *laughs* Sooooo not a problem.
Hannibal Hamlin: Good! Here's a key to our community.
Me: You know, if I were lying this could get you intro trouble.
Hannibal: True. Of course if you were lying, confessing it right now in the middle of a room full of jumpy, heavily armed, escaped slaves would get YOU into trouble.
Me: Escaped slaves? I thought this was a temple!
Hannibal: It is! A temple devoted to freedom and a refugee to those who seek freedom.
Me: Ah. So not a place to get married then?
Hannibal: Not that kind of union!

Turns out that the Temple of the Union isn't a place to get hitched. No, seems that Hannibal - and everyone else in the Temple - are escaped slaves and that he established the Temple as a haven for escaped slaves and a memorial to Abraham Lincolin, the great president who ended slavery in American many many many years ago. Amazingly, they have the severed head of the statue from the Lincoln memorial and it is Hannibal's dream to someday get to the Lincoln Memorial and turn it into the New Temple of the Union.

Well, seeing as how I love making dreams come true and further seeing as how I love any excuse to go annoying slavers if I can't blow them up, I agree to go and scout out the Lincoln Memorial, which apparently has been claimed as a base by an army of Super Mutants. I also agree to help out the stone mason in the group by raiding the National History Museum to see if I can find a picture of what The Lincoln Memorial looked like before the war trashed it.

Tackling the later task first, I head back to Underworld and find out that - sure enough - there is a basement full of archives that nobody has bothered with - mostly becuase of all the glowing feral ghouls living down there. Nothing that me and my hunting rifle can't solve. I find the picture of the Memorial in record time and also find a fair number of Lincoln artifacts which i pick up for the museum one of the slaves was building in Lincoln's honor.

Cleaning the memorial of Super Mutants turns out to be a lot easier than I thought. I get to the Memorial (it's just down the National Mall from the National History Museum) and find that - Good News, Everyone! - the Super Mutants are all dead. Bad news is that's because a group of apparently well-armed and well-organized slavers have moved in. Apparently they're either big fans of irony or they got wind of the slave's plan and decided to set a trap.

Luckily for the slaves they have me on their side. And the forces of good are always triumphant. Because evil is dumb.

Me: *sneaking around the side of the building, readying a sniper's assault on the perimeter guard* Okay. I'm out of the range of fire of most of the guards here. I'll pick off the first guard, who should be far enough away that the others won't notice his messy death. From there, I can sneak to his post and start picking off the rest. Just need to round this corner and take the shot...
Perimeter Guard: Halt! State your business!
Me: *looking down at sniper rifle* Ah. My mistake. Didn't mean to head this way.
Perimeter Guard: Smart thinking. People who come to the Lincoln Memorial uninvited don't leave happy.
Me: *taking two steps back around the corner, raising rifle* Riiiiight.

Is there any doubt that I did wind up with more weapons and army than I could carry? I thought not.

I report back to Hamlin and tell him the Memorial is free of slavers and super mutants. I gave the mason his drawing and sell the Lincoln items for a reasonable fee. After all the slaver fingers I just picked up, I can afford to be generous. Hamlin tells me to meet him at the memorial while he and everyone else pack-up the head and get ready to move. I try to fast travel but am told - by the divine random powers that rule the universe - that I cannot fast travel from here. Looking at the map, I see a dotted trail, taking a very long path the to entrance to the main DC island ruins near Rivet City.

My purpose becomes clear. As one of the few competent forces of good in this godsforsaken wasteland, I must clear the path for these noble souls on their crusade. Well, that would be nice. I found out after the fact that there's apparently a game bug that prevents you from fast-traveling from the Temple of Union. You can fix it by entering anyplace else and then exiting... but me? I took the long path and wound up clearing the road of five separate gangs of raiders. Including two I was sure I had killed before at one point or another.

Still, eventually I help the escapees to their new home, reap a mild bounty of xp and and an even larger bounty on scavaged slaver loot and evil person fingers.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #17

Having determined that there's nothing for me in Little Lamplight, I return to the search for Paradise Falls and the Slavers Guild that has been laying waste to so much of the land. Having pretty much exhausted everything to the west of Big Town, this time I head north, starting from the train station leading to the vampire lair and heading north.

Amazingly, it doesn't take me long to find Paradise Falls. All I had to do was cross one hill and then head for the elevated Big Boy statue I suddenly saw on the horizon. And that was when I saw the big billboard for Paradise Falls.

You know, I've had a ridiculous amount of trouble finding this place for something so well advertised. But as hard as it was to find, getting in would prove to be relatively easy.

Guard: Halt! State your business in Paradise Falls.
Me: Just wanted to come in. Look around.
Guard: Ha! Yeah, I don't think so.
Me: Oh, come on! Why can't I come in?
Guard: Let's just say it wouldn't be your kind of place, do-gooder.
Me: Ah. Ya hoid of me?
Guard: Yep. And there's no way I'm letting your Chaotic Good ass in here.
Me: Everyone has a price. What's yours?
Guard: Well, I suppose I could ignore your reputation as an unblinking anti-slavery activist and brown-coated god of war and let you in... for 500 caps.
Me: Beautiful! Let me just go get the spare trenchcoat I keep my money in...

Here's how stealthy and skilled with small firearms I am at this point. After breaking off the conversation, I'm able to hide, become invisible to the guard immediately in the dark of night from about 10 feet away, move back another 10 feet, plant a land mine, move back another 10 feet, pull a sniper rifle, line up a shot and kill the first gate guard. Duck around a corner, switch to my hunting rifle, duck back around the corner, shoot at the second guard who is now looking for me, duck back around the corner. Wait. BOOM. Loot bodies.

Moving into the city, sneaking the whole way under cover of night, I spot another slave guard with the unlikely name of Forty. Dunno how I know his name but he's somehow tough enough to take a sniper round to the head and still keep going. I run in for an easier shot with the hunting rifle and see some poor sap in a collar make a run for it between us before suddenly going BOOM in the middle of the road.

Kid: Wow. The slavers are going to be mad at you. REAAAAL mad.
Me: I think they're past mad at this point kid. Now go on and get out of here.
Kid: Un-uh. No way! The collars are wired to explode if you go out too far. You saw what happened to that guy.
Me: Clever sons of... ah... heh. Yeah. Stay put kid. I've got this.
Kid: Could you help my friends? They're from Lamplight too.
Me: What? Send Mayor McBratty three more mouths to feed? Sure!

The battle with the slavers went fast and furious. A running battle throughout an entire square city block. Land mines were planted. Grenades were thrown. Good Karma was amassed for every named Slaver I killed. And I damn near got killed by a slavegirl named Clover.

Me: (having just gunned down another slaver) Ah! Running woman in a collar! Fear not! Salvation is at hand!
Clover: (pulling sword) Die! Die!
Me: (jumping back) Augggh! (shooting her in the head)
Clover: Whatsammater? Afraid of the sight of your own blood?
Me: Dammit, I'm here to save you! (shooting her in the head)
Clover: (laughs manically)
Me: Um... kinda out space here to run. (dropping a land mine)

It wound up taking five shots to the head and a land mine to bring down Clover. Amazing how a blonde in a sundress and a collar was better able to shrug off damage than the entire gang of slavers.

I take out the town doctor in her sleep. Literally walked into the barracks and into two slavers, who were dead before the door finished closing behind me. The gun-shop owner woke up to find his guard dead and soon found his kneecaps missing. It was at this point that I discovered that stealing items didn't result in karma loss and proceeded to loot the doctor's office and the armory blind. I also take down the head slaver - no surprise he's a pimp named Eulogy Jones. Noting that he has another woman with a collar with him, I aim for him first - controlled fire, no explosives - and bring him down.

Me: Fear not, good woman! I am here to lead you to -
Crimson: (firing her gun at me) Die!
Me: Ach! But - but I'm freeing you! He who held you captive is no more! He's bleeding out on the tiger-skin rug, for crissakes!
Crimson: Die! Die! (laughs insanely)
Me: Dammit! Why is it every attractive woman I meet is either crazy or trying to kill me? Usually both.

With the slavers all dead, this leaves me free to go to the slave pens (they keep a two-headed cow locked in with them just to make the point) and let everyone go. Luckily one of the Little Lamplighters was able to - somehow - rig the fence from inside his cell so that nobody's collars would go off. It takes me three trips to gather up all the excess loot, swag and booty from scavaging Paradise Falls. And with that, Paradise Falls... falls.

Score 900 xp for freeing all the slaves. Score a Level Up to 15. Score the Lawbringer perk.

Yes. The Lawbringer Perk. Let me type this one out for you from the manual.

LAWBRINGER
Ranks Available: 1
Prerequisites: None, save being level 14.
Once you have the Lawgiver perk, any evil character you kill will have a finger on their corpse. This finger can then be sold to a certain person (whose identity is disclosed to you if you take this perk) for caps and positive Karma.

Free money and more good karma for what I was doing already? Sounds like a winner to me!

A quick check of my map reveals a new location out east of Minetown - Regulator HQ. Sounds a likely place to look for lawmen. It's a relatively peaceful journey, save for when I encounter two mutant black bears and have to blow about half of my remaining land mine stock dealing with them. Luckily the path heading southeast out of Minetown - which I missed earlier - HAD plenty of material for me to restock with. Unfortunately, I run into the bears just outside Regulator HQ - just after the bears slaughtered the two two-headed cows that were tied up behind the shotgun shack that is apparently HQ.

Me: Anyone here?
Regulator: You'll want to talk to our leader.
Me: Yes, but first I could use some stitching up. Bears just killed your cattle and I got cut pretty bad. Can I see the med bay?
Regulator: You'll want to talk to our leader.
Me: Or a trader/quartermaster? Buy a few stims?
Regulator: You'll want to talk to our leader.
Me: Can't you say anything else?
Regulator: Welcome to Corneria!
Me: ... moving on.

Leader: Hey. I see you got our message.
Me: ... Yes. Yes I did.
Leader: You've got a reputation as a good guy. Want to join us?
Me: Money for killing people I was killing anyway? Sure.
Leader: Excellent. Here's your regulation trenchcoat.
Me: Oooh... Browncoat. I like.
Leader: Yes, we all do. From now on, every evil person you kill, cut off a finger and bring it back to me. It's 10 caps a finger. 1000 if it belongs to a person on our hit list.
Me: ... wait, from now on? Like, from THIS moment on?
Leader: Yes.
Me: So if I were to - hypothetically - have single-handed killed an entire city full of slavers BEFORE now..?
Leader: ...you wouldn't get squat.
Me: You know, it's a good thing I have 2000 caps, a full arsenal and a fairly good collection of medical supplies right now. Otherwise I'd be sorely annoyed.

I head south and clean the raiders out of an abandoned US Army Armory. By the time I'm done moving loot around and collecting fingers, I now have 3000 caps. Seeing a city called Canterbury Commons to the east, I decide to move on.

Oddly, on the way out to CC, the radio plays something new for the first time in a while. 3-Dog, the DJ on the Galaxy News station says there's reports that Canterbury Commons is being fought over by two people in costumes, with giant ants and robots fighting in the streets.

Yeah. This sounds like something I need to see.

I get into town just in time to watch one of these super battles. I decide to take a shot at the woman in the ant helmet, seeing as how she's monologuing about humanity falling before the might of... The Ant-Agonizer! The other costumed twit, by contrast, is monologuing about how her evil scehemes will not succeed - so sayeth The Mechanist! Despite two critical hits and a sneak attack, the woman shows no signs of being damaged though she and the ants run off fast enough. I try talking to The Mechanist, but he shrugs me off with a "No Time, Citizen! I must return to my Forge to prepare for her next attack!"

And then I meet the Mayor - Uncle Roe- who is understandably annoyed about this whole situation as it's scaring off the traders. Seems that they know who The Mechanist is - the former town mechanic - and that he started the whole Superhero thing after this crazy woman in the ant costume, who somehow kept the ants docile, started showing up preaching about humanity being corrupt and people needing to follow the example of the ants. She didn't actually hurt anyone though one of her ants did wind up getting freaked out by his pet robot and... well, one thing led to another as when neighbor's pets fight.

I walk around town and meet Joe, who runs the diner and the mayor's nephew, who is your typical 10-year-old comic book geek, who tells me all about the local characters. Naturally, he thinks this is a lot cooler than any of the adults do. Joe also tells me that he thinks the Ant-Agonizer might be Tanya, this girl whose family was eaten by giant ants a few years ago.

I also meet the town's two cops - a disagreeable woman named Machete who I perceive to be a Lamplighter from her name and disrespectful attitude - and a slightly more agreeable fellow named Dominic.

Me: Hello.
Dominic: Hey there. Welcome to Canterbury Commons.
Me: Thanks. So what else is there to do besides taking in the daily superhero battles?
Dominic: Well, not much since the traders are avoiding the place. Right now our main attractions are eating at Joe's and burying thieves in unmarked graves. Of course that last one is something of a lost art, unless'n you're planning to start taking something that taint yours.
Me: I wasn't planning on it. I'm a lawman myself.
Dominic: Damn.
Me: You really are that bored, aren't you?
Dominic: Being head cop of a town with seven people, two of them are cops and the other two are supervillains the mayor won't let me go after because he wants a peaceful solution? Hell yes.

I like this guy.

Deciding to go after the ants first, I head north and enter the tunnels that run under the city. The ants provide little resistance and I'm soon face to face with the Queen Ant herself.

Ant-Agonizer: Foolish mortal!
Me: I just came to talk. That's all.
Ant-Agonizer: Speak then! But know that if your words displease me, my beauties await.
Me: Why are you doing this?
Ant-Agonizer: Because humanity is crass and corrupt! Left to their own devices without a society to guide them, look what happens? They turn on one another! Kill one another when they should cooperate as the ants do!
Me: But don't ants also bully other colonies into joining them through force?
Ant-Agonizer: Uh... yes. But ants don't make nuclear arms! You can't hug children with nuclear arms.
Me: Actually, I know this scientist you should meet. Oh wait... you can't. Cause he's dead. But that's besides the point. The point is that, yes, humanity sucks. But it isn't beyond hope yet. I'm sure you could give it another chance somewhere without it coming to this.
Ant-Agonizer: ... you're right. Here, take the costume. I don't want to see it again.
Me: Wow. You're kinda hot without the mask and the body-armor.
Ant-Agonizer: I'm going to find someplace where I can just forget all of this. Farewell.
Me: *sighs* Every hot woman I meet is either crazy or trying to kill me or a cosplayer. Sometimes all three.

That done, I head south to The Mechanist's Forge (i.e. the abandoned robot store) There's one angry Robo-Brain in the lobby but I take care of it easily before finding a side-door that leads directly into the lair of The Mechanist himself after some persuasive picking, allowing me to avoid a factory floor-full of angry robots.

Mechanist: I see you hold the armor of my enemy! Let me have it, that her reign of evil may finally be ended.
Me: Wait! Before I do that, I have something I must ask you.
Mechanist: Very well, but speak quickly. For Justice can wait for no man!
Me: Hasn't it occurred to you that by doing this you are causing more trouble than the giant ants ever did? That heavily armed robots programmed to kill are ineffectual, at best, as a force for law and order?
Mechanist: Golly no... is it possible? Have I become a villain by encouraging the cycle of violence?
Me: Yes. You should give this up, Mechanist. The threat is over. Your violent ways solve nothing.
Mechanist: Wait a second - aren't you the guy who solved the gentrification problem in Tenpenny Tower by killing a bunch of people?
Me: Yes, but I didn't use uncontrollable robots with freaking lasers. HUUUUGE difference.
Mechanist: Oh gods... what have I done? I must go somewhere else... I couldn't face the town again after all this.
Me: Yes, yes. That's probably for the best... (quietly) and since you're going away, nobody will miss all this cool junk in your apartment.

So yeah - not much XP for solving the situation and getting both costumed crusaders to give up the fight. But who cares - now I have cool ant armor that increases my agility!

Me: Wasteland, rejoice this day. For you have a new hero with a mind as sharp Damascus steel and a gaze as steely as his mind. You are now under the protection of Adamant!
Joe: What, really?
Me: Nah... can you give me a Stim or 2 for this?
Joe: So you were joking?
Me: Of course. This armor was made for a girl. A very crazy... very special girl, whose family was eaten by ants... *sobs*
Joe: *sighs* Whiskey?
Me: Whiskey.

Now that the town is safe for trading again, I talk with the mayor about getting the traders to come back. One thing leads to another and Uncle Roe and I are suddenly talking investments. One thing leads to another again and I've invested 2800 caps into four different caravan companies for the purpose of upgrading their inventory. What's truly sad is that after selling various bits of Mechanist/Ant-Agonizer loot, I can easily afford it to do this and still have 1500 caps left.

Hell of a day.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #16

Not much to tell. Wandered around. Killed more mutants. Got more loot. And found The Lost Boys.

The most interesting thing was that I found Little Lamplight - a city the people in Big Town told me about, but I didn't pay much attention to. The short version is it's an entire city of children, that kicks its' members out once they hit 16. Kinda like Logan's Run mixed with NeverNeverLand. Big Town was a story the kids told the kids who "grew up" in order to convince them to go.

No, I'm not sure how the population of orphans sustains itself... Just go with it, okay?

I managed to fast talk my way into it, finding an entire cave lit by Christmas lights, populated by children playing at being adults. There wasn't much of interest - nobody really wanted to talk to me except for the town cop/morale officer, Knock Knock, who kept telling me really bad jokes. I got bored and agreed to escort Stinky - the teen who just got kicked out as I got into town - to Big Town.

Well, the trip was one easy fast travel and Stinky is officially the most excited person in Big Town. Wait until he gets the information packet on the nightly Super Mutant attacks and the psycho goth girl town whore.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #15

I decided to head southwest from the old robot factory to a place on my map called Tenpenny Tower. I get there just in time to overhear an argument between a ghoul named Roy. Seems he's trying to move into the town but they don't take ghouls.

Thanks to my speechifying skills, I manage to talk my way in, convincing the guard at the gate - Chief Gustavo, it turns out - that his boss, Mr. Tenpenny wants to see me. Walking around the place and talking to people, it becomes clear that I'm in a neo-con paradise. Everyone is well-off, white or "acceptably ethnic" and scared out of their wits that the ghouls are going to eat them. Grim security guards walk the halls with the finest high-power weapons, unwilling to talk to a simple traveler who needs directions.

So yeah... in case you missed the subtle metaphor, the big white tower is an Ivory Tower, Mr. Tenpenny is The Man, most of the tower residents are the usual bunch of deviants who inhabit gated communities fearful that the poor/minorities are going to rise-up and kill them and the ghouls are your minority of choice.

Still, I go up and see Mr. Tenpenny and it becomes clear that he's the worst of the lot. Not only is he a rich elitist and a bigot but he's the one who hired the guy that tried to hire me to blow up Megaton. Why? It offended his view of the wasteland from the top of his tower.

Mr. Tenpenny: It is regrettable, but occasionally some must die for the benefit of the better people. It is survival of the fittest.
Me: Really? Well, I never thought of it that way. Hey! There's a puppy and kitten ranch being built in the distance!
Mr. Tenpenny: Where? I don't recall authorizing the zoning for that!
Me: (pulling grenade from pocket) It's WAAAY out there. Keep looking that way...

For blowing up a defenseless old man who wasn't expecting it - Good Karma!

I go back into his suite, expecting a firefight. Amazingly, the guard right outside the door either didn't hear a big kaboom or he doesn't care. But surely the guards outside heard that, right?

Not so much. Even Chief Gustavo seems rather blase about somebody dying on his watch, much less the guy who would sign his paycheck if they still had paychecks these days. I ask him about trying to reason with The Ghouls. He laughs this off and says if I want to get eaten alive, be his guest.

One sojourn into the nearby train tunnels later - after having discovered that with all my gear and all my bonuses, I am now capable of sneaking up on someone with their back-turned and hitting critical-damage sneak-attacks from point-blank range. With a shotgun.

I also discover realistic physics as my shooting at a ghoul while standing in the middle of a gas jet results in my being knocked down and set on fire. Amazingly, the fire kills the ghouls and only mildly annoys me. Thank you amoral mad scientist who gave me the powers of a fire-proof ant!

Eventually, I find Roy - who it turns out is leader of the local non-feral ghoul community. He's agreeable to trying to work something out with Mr. Tenpenny (apparently word hasn't reached the sewers yet) but how if that fails, he wants me to unlock a security door in the tower's basement so that they can unleash a horde of feral ghouls into the tower and then move in themselves.

Considering this as a last resort since there are a relatively few decent people in Tenpenny Tower who don't deserve to be the first against the wall when the zombie revolution comes, I go back and talk to Chief Gustavo, who still hasn't put 2 and 2 together on "stranger shows up saying he needs to talk to the boss" and "boss mysteriously explodes". In fact, the only acknowledgment of Mr. Tenpenny's passing is Chief Gustavo's assertion that he is in charge now.

Me: I talked with the ghouls. They're peaceful. They're friendly. They're just folks trying to get by. They'll pay rent same as everyone else - they just want a place to stay.
Chief Gustavo: Like hell! The only way those hideous freaks are coming in here is over my dead body.
Me: You feel that strongly about it? You sure there's no other way this will happen?
Chief Gustavo: Yep. Only way ghouls will ever live in this place is over my dead body! Now drop this nonsense! I have my eye on you...
Me: (pulling my sniper rifle) Really? Do you have eyes in the back of your head? If not, I can put them there.

*BLAM!*

Random Guard: Get him!
Me: Ah hell... (running inside)

Another Random Guard: He's in here!
Me: Oh come on! I kill the boss on his balcony with an explosive in broad daylight and nobody says anything! I snipe the head of security, in the dark of night, from a distance, and suddenly the security team wakes up! (running for basement door)

Me: Okay. I've got 20 mines, 15 explosives and about 50 Stims. I think I can take on the entire security team, not to mention every single crazed bigot in this place who probably have enough guns and ammo in their underwear drawers to make Ted Nugent weak in the knees with joy. Or I could just unlock the doors down here and let the zombies do it. It'll be a karma hit, but hey - there's always beggars who need fresh water.

(fiddling with door) Dammit. This door must open someplace else. No switches obvious. Guess I'll have to become Death, Destroyer of Worlds

Me: (running through door) Yippie Kai Yai Yay, Mamma-Jamma!
Security Guard: Hey! How's it going?
Me: ... the hell?

Yes. Apparently all it took for me to be forgiven for shooting the sheriff (but I did not shoot the deputy) was to hide in the basement. After I exit, I find that not only are the security guards smiling and friendly, but that I have apparently been granted Superintendent powers. Every bigot I talk to afterward curses me and my ghoul friends for destroying their paradise, asking where they are supposed to go now.

Me: Not my problem. You can live with it... or you can live somewhere else. Don't hurt my feelings none if you leave.
Bigots: You bleeding heart do-gooder! My death will be on your head! We'll get you next time, Captain Planet!

For evicting a bunch of rich white pricks - Good Karma for each one!

So yeah... the non-bigots are quite happy with their new neighbors. Ghoul women in sun-dresses walk the halls freely. And me? Well, I'm moving on - my only regret that I didn't follow the bigots out of town to laugh as they get mauled by a giant scorpion and loot their bodies.

The Moral Of The Story? The best way to combat racism is not through education but by blowing up the rich white guys in charge, shooting their bodyguards in the head and forcing the rest of the rich bigots into the streets to live like mangy dogs.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #14

I actually start out exploring a little bit closer to home. I return to the Bed and Breakfast to find that the raiders are back. And their little dog too. And by little dog I mean vicious pit bull. I get another flame-thrower, a nice pile of ammo and I encounter my first slaver. Damn friendly fellow who doesn't say much other than "Shame About The Slaves - would have made a fortune in Paradise Falls." At least, that's all he says before I end his sorry life. No sign of the dead slaves he was talking about, though.

Ah yes... Paradise Falls. The mythical city of the slavers. I've heard of the place but haven't heard where it is. Maybe we'll find it on the way to the military base to the west I heard about? I heard rumors the slavers all came from the west of Megaton.

Turns out the base isn't so abandoned after all. Seems the Talon Mercenaries had been using it as a campsite. They keyword being had. I'm not sure these guys are as bright as they are ruthless. since one of them had a rocket launcher and attempted to shoot me with it through a chain-link fence and almost point-blank range. Another ammo dump. Another trip back to Megaton to sell guns and ammo I don't need.

The road to Oasis was littered with Super Mutants. I rescued another three captives, including my first male captive - just as I was starting to think that every single person I had to rescue was a helpless woman. Of course the ratio so far is running about 6:1, so... yeah. Not a very progressive view of the apocalypse. I mean to say, you'd think there would be some boy whores in all of this...

(Little Firefly reference for you all. Moving On.)

I also wind up fighting a ton of mutant bear monsters, more giant scorpions and even another robotic brain. I also wind up discovering a nuclear waste dump site that was - in a fit of irony, I assume - named the Greener Pastures Waste Facility.

Eventually, after much walking and rock-climbing (Rock-climbing, Joel...), I found a mountain pass guarded by two people in brown robes who were wearing twigs. One of them - an older man - greeted me and told me that my coming was foretold by Him and that I was to speak to Him.

Well, I'm allowed into the city and it is - as promised - a green paradise with water that's only slightly radioactive. I talk to the old man who reveals that he is father to this group of Tree-Tenders. A speechifying check and he tells me that Him is a tree. A talking tree and god of nature who has blessed the grove and taught them to live in peace with nature, free of the corruption of technology. Well, all technology except guns - they need something to protect themselves with from the Outsiders, after all.

So yeah... Oasis is basically a hippie commune, only with a serious lack of uninhibited young women and recreational drugs. Well, except for the tree sap that causes me to pass out after the Father insists on me undergoing a purification ritual before I am allowed to see Him. The ritual consists of listening to the rest of the Tenders recite bad poetry and then drinking their magic tree sap.

When I wake up, I'm in a grove with a big damn tree. With a face. He says his name is Harold, but the plant growing out of his is named Bob. It becomes readily apparent that Harold is going out of his mind. It seems that he was human once, contact with some radioactive waste caused him to start sprouting plant-life and now "Bob" has grown so big that he's enveloped Harold completely. He's also somehow keeping Harold alive, since Harold has been rooted in place for the better part of 200 years, thus creating all this wonderful greenery whenever his seed spreads.

Yeah. I'm starting to wonder about that tree sap too.

Anyway, his connection to the local environment allows Harold to see most of what goes on around him - since why my outsider self was allowed into Oasis to speak to Harold and do him a favor. He wants to die and he wants me to kill him. I try to talk him into continuing to live and trying to convince him that his lot is not so bad. But he's having none of it and asks why the first outsider he's seen in months has to have a conscience. He then asks me to go into the caves under the city, find his heart (it's in his roots) and kill him. I ask why I can't just set him on fire but it turns out that Harold is afraid of fire and that he doesn't want to die THAT way.

I head to the caves and walk in on a conversation with Father and his wife, Mother. It seems Father is concerned about the outside world and fears that unless Oasis is kept contained, it will become tainted. Mother, on the other hand, thinks that Harold is a means of salvation and that their duty should be to spread the greenery to the rest of the Capitol Wasteland. They both ask me to help them, with Father giving me an elixir that will stun Harold's growth and Mother giving me one that will accelerate it, hopefully restoring the ecosystem of the Wasteland within decades instead of centuries.

Well, no choice really - needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and all. I decide to help Mother. But first, I have to go into the caves. Caves full of not just Mirelurk crab men but also Mirelurk Hunters and Mirelurk Kings. The Hunters are bigger and tougher. The Kings have some kind of sonic/psychic attack that hurts like hell. Thankfully, they have relatively human heads so they are a LOT easier to kill than even regular Mirelurks.

I wind up using the "growth" formula on the heart and return to Harold. He asks me why I did what I did and I explain to him that it would be cruel of me to deny the tree-tenders their purpose in life. Actually, I could care less about the hippies being content with their lot - I want to save the world and let my grand kids have a green lawn to play on. Regardless, Harold accepts this and decides to try and take joy in the happiness he gives others.

Speaking of giving, Mother thanks me for my help and says that some of the other Tree-Tenders would like to thank me too.

I wind up getting a lucky charm that boosts my Speech skill by 10 points, a hood woven of Harold's bark that increases my agility by 1 and my sneak skill by 10 (goodbye Shady Fedora) and one of the brothers who used to be a member of the Brotherhood of Steel gives me his Outcast Brotherhood of Steel member armor.

Now, I actually got into a talk about this yesterday with my friend Patrick. In the first 2 Fallout games, it was all but IMPOSSIBLE to get Brotherhood of Steel armor. Even if you joined the order (which was a tasking task in and of itself), you still had to do several quests to prove yourself worthy of a set of Knights armor. Patrick said he had heard in the game that it was insanely easy to get the armor and that the Brotherhood seemed to die a lot easier.

I confirmed the later point - all but one of the Brotherhood I've seen so far were corpses slaughtered by Super Mutants - but I hadn't tried the armor since it lowers your agility while boosting your strength and I'm a fighter who is built for movement.

Still... this outcast armor I considered. It only boosted strength 1 point, but the agility penalty was only 1 as well. Easily balanced out by my new Hood of Stealthiness. And it also gave me radiation protection AND a bonus to using Big Gun weapons.

What a shame I can't wear it without special training...

So yeah. Not quite as game-break as we'd hoped. Still, if I can find someone to train me in wearing an armored suit...

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #13

Right. So I only have one more job from Moira for the book - investigate the old abandoned robot factory and reactivate the machinery there.

I think you can all guess where this leads - me shooting my way out of a factory as it turns out that - in spite of all Moira's evidence to the contrary - the robots are quite hostile when they wake up. Luckily I have tons of EMP-generating grenades on my person. Unfortunately, I probably just unleashed certain doom on the future since I don't have the mad science skills to hack the computers and reprogram the robots to be peaceful.

Still, have some fun along the way to said factory. I kill a lot more raiders who are camped out in an abandoned drive-in. By some miracle, I managed to walk their mine-field without setting anything off.

And I found a town full of very friendly, happy folks. Two typical 50s families... except for the fact that they live in a perfect three-house block in the middle of the apocalyptic wastes. And then there's the one old man who keeps telling me to get out of town while I still can. Well, naturally that piques my curiosity and I pickpocket the key one of the sleeping fathers since all of my lockpicks are broken.

Surprise surprise. It's "Motel Hell" meets "The Stepford Wives" and I'm suddenly shooting it out with two middle-aged women with bee-hive hair-dos and carving knives after I stumble across the shed where all the "new people" come looking for their perfect gated community wind up.

Takes all kinds of critters to make Farmer Vincent's fritters.

ANYWAY, I get back to Moira, get a portable mini-nuke as a reward for all my efforts and the first copy of the book as well as a HUGE bonus to all my survival skills.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #12

It took about two more hours of fighting raiders for me to finally get to the library. Well, 10 minutes to fight the raiders, a team of Talon Mercenaries I managed to sneak up on (thank you Stealth Boy) - and a GIANT giant scorpion that some random twit died trying to fight with a tire iron. The remaining 1 Hour and 50 minutes was devoted toward looting bodies, looting raider camps and then then stashing excess loot on the giant scorpion body as I dragged myself back to Megaton to sell loot. THEN dragging myself to Big Town once all the merchants in Megaton ran out of cash. Even after I bought "My First Labratory" for my house, which gives me every single item I can buy for improving my home, I was still up 1500 bucks. Woot!

Still, I finally got to the library. And oh this was anti-climatic. Seems the entire library is under lockdown by The Brotherhood of Steel. They claim to be what remains of the US Army, re envisioned as the neo-Knights of the Round Table. Either way, they're cramping my style with their metal power suits and laser weapons. Thankfully, the scribe watching the door is reasonable about me coming in and making a copy of the database archives since they're trying to fight their way to the main computers themselves. Seem the place is swarming with *laughs* radioactive roaches and raiders.

Now, I know what you're thinking - how can giant roaches and a bunch of punks in leather armor possibly stand up to a bunch of people in metal strength-increasing armor and laser cannons?

They can't. I'm lucky to get a shot in and earn xp for killing any of the raiders with two paladin's stomping around each part of the library that I enter. On the bright side, I have no problems getting to the archive wing, getting the information Moira needs and getting the hell out of there with a spattering of loot. I even manage to get the BoS Scribe to pay me 100 bucks per intact book I bring her. If I ever get strapped for cash (unlikely at this point, but you never know), I could easily come back here and clean up.

And as I head back over to Vamp town to unload all the blood packs I am carrying, I get ambushed by another 3 Talon Mercs. And that pushes me over the edge to leveling.

Yay Level 12. And now I'm a Paladin. Definitely "Have Gun, Will Travel" and not D&D.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #11

Next up: The journey to the Arlington Library

Make a long story short, I didn't get there, but I did discover two very important things.

1. Cars can explode if something else explodes near them. This is very cool when you're throwing grenades at the two mercenaries who are trying to kill you as they take cover behind a car. It isn't so cool when a cannibal raider with a missile launcher manages to kill you, separate your drumsticks from your thighs AND flame broil you to perfection in five seconds.

2. The Game World map actually shows areas that are blocked off by rubble and can only be accessed - relative to where you are - by an underground tunnel.

This later point would have saved me a lot of legwork before but hey... it DID result in me freeing another hot redhead enslaved by the Super Mutants. So hurrah for that.

So, where were we? Ah yes...

LAST TIME: I had just turned in the Declaration of Independence and parted ways with Sydney the hot mercenary chick. I sold off my excess loot and proceeded to head back to Megaton. As I left the city, I saw Sydney leaving town as well. Remember that she said she was going to Underworld and thinking "Hey! I promised the ghoul bartender in Megaton I'd look someone up for him but have no idea where Underworld is..." decided to follow Sydney. The fact that she's a smoking-hot ass-kicking babe in tight leather pants had nothing whatsoever to do with this decision. No no no...

Good thing for her that I did follow her though. Soon as she got to the nearest tunnels, three men in the same cheesy black leather armor came out. They recognized me, said they were with the Talon Mercenaries and that I couldn't just go around doing good and expect not to get noticed. And it was in this ensuing firefight that I discovered - cars blow up. They blow up good. It took me three minutes to find a piece of the mercs so that I could loot their bodies.

Yeah - another nice bit of game logic. If you blow someone's head off and can only find their body, you can still steal the helmet. :)

I follow Sydney through the tunnels - dispatch another raider in the process - and grab some excess loot I lost before. It's slow going as I become overburdened very quickly but I manage to keep up. And then on the other side of the tunnel, I discover something shocking.

Underworld? It's the Museum of History I walked right past when I was looking for the archives. Seems they set up shop in a wing that was devoted to a "History of The Underworld in Mythology" exhibit and the name stuck. Good news is that there's a thriving service industry here (goodbye excess guns and armor) and the ghouls are cool about smoothskins like me coming in as long as I don't shoot anyone. Suits me.

Sydney didn't take long to lose her share of the reward but she did invest part of it into becoming a guns and ammo saleswoman herself, operating out of the one bar in Underworld. What I couldn't sell to the local drug lord, she takes easily.

I leave Underworld behind, loot the rest of the Supermutant bodies I left behind while I was here and head back to Megaton. It won't let me tell Gob the bartender that I found the woman he was looking for - the woman who was basically the closest thing he had to a mother. Suckage. But I have enough money saved that I do manage to buy a personal infirmary, workbench, soda machine and jukebox for my house.

So yeah - no more wasted money on radiation detox or "all or nothing" healing for this boyo. I can patch myself up at home now.

So as I said... I still haven't made it to the library because it turns out that it is a LONG walk from Megaton and there's no fast-travel stop points along the way. Well, none I've found... and that long walk is full of tons of raiders.

Not much else to tell for the rest of the night. Fighting raiders. Lots of raiders. And no sooner do I bring down another raiding party, I have more armor and excess guns to haul back to Megaton to sell off, bringing about yet another round of enthusiastic pleading from Moira (No, I don't know if you can still check out books there! Just fix my armor, woman!)

Oh, and I encountered my first feral ghoul. Remember the really fast zombies in "28 Days Later"? Like that. But worse. I also fight - for some weird reason - a radioactive two-headed cow.

I can accept this. I'm just wondering... why NOW two-headed cow?

I quit for the night after a game glitch somehow put me into the editor - I think. Alt-Tabing out and tabbing back in seemed to work, but once I unpaused the game, THAT was when I discovered the pile of cars behind me blew up and once the glow died down I saw my carcass, up in the air, going what could be described as head-over-heels if I still had heels. Or calves.

Miraculously, my fedora (aka Shady Hat) stayed on the whole time. :)

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #10

Next up - retrieve The Declaration of Independence from the National Archives.

It took me forever to figure out how to get to the blessed National Archives in the first place. And I had my first encounter with the bane of Oblivion - the invisible force-field and the game message that says "You cannot continue this way. Please move another direction."

Eventually, I do find a subway station that leads in the right direction. It takes two trips back and forth through the tunnel for me to gather up all the loot dropped by the raiders living in the tunnels. And then it takes another two trips for me to gather up all the loot once I get to the other side of the tunnel - just outside the National History Museum - and wind up fighting eight Super Mutants at the same time.

How did I survive? Fragmentary grenades are my friend.

I also run into my first living member of the Brotherhood of Steel, but he's not very chatty. Indeed, he refuses to say anything other than the area is in lockdown. Not that he does anything to stop me from entering the Archives. Lazy ass knights...

No sooner do I enter the archives, I find myself paired up with an attractive Brunette named Sydney. Seems that Mr. Lincoln - the museum curator - hired her to go after the Declaration as well. After fighting off a sudden invasion of Super Mutants, I suggest an alliance and a splitting of the reward. Sydney agrees and I make Level 10 by disarming landmines around the room Sydney set up as a barricade against the Super Mutants. :)

And this is where I max out my Lockpicking skill so that I never again have to dive through a toxic river again. Probably. I also take a feat called Finesse - I get treated as if my Luck were 5 points higher for the purpose of landing critical hits.

Another trip back to Rivet City to sell off loot and I wind up running into a woman who asks me why I'm asking so many questions about this missing humanoid. I answer that I'm looking to help him - that's it. She explains that she's with a group called "The Railroad" and they they are helping escaped android slaves keep hidden - as well as fighting regular slaving organizations. She gives me a micro-circuit unique to that type of android and tells me that giving that to Zimmer should make him give up the chase. I ask about joining the Railroad and she says they'll consider it IF I do this job for them.

Well, Zimmer cheaps out - seems he doesn't care much about the dead on the "dead or alive" thing. But hey - 300 xp for doing the right thing strikes me as being a much better reward than 50 bucks, anyway.

Sydney and I wind up blasting our way through more mutants and - on the bottom level - a lot of robots. There's not much style except for one part where I pick a lock to get into the maintenance tunnels - in order to cut down on the number of robots I HAVE to deal with. Eventually, we get to the vault room... and find that the last guardian before the vault is a robot who has been programmed with the personality of the second man to sign the Declaration.

Okay - little bit of style here. I manage to con my way PAST the robot with my mad speechifying skills by convincing him that I am - in fact - Thomas Jefferson and that I have come to pick up the Declaration in order to deliver it into the safekeeping of the new President. The robot is overjoyed, inquires as to it's service. I thank him for his service and give him permission to "retire" gracefully.

We head back and I get my loot. I ask Sydney if she'd like to keep teaming up but she says she wants to relax and enjoy her wealth for a bit but she invites me to look her up in Underworld. Seems she likes hanging around the ghouls because they don't flirt with her.

So... yeah. Level 10, two more quests done. Three if you count the "mess with jerkass" quest because - as I was walking around selling things - I found out that I couldn't do a blessed thing with the information of the true history of Rivet Town. No blackmailing of the corrupt councilmen or anything.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #9

Last time, I had just finished eeking out some justice to an amoral scientist and blowing up a lot of ants. Not wanting to go back through a ton of caverns, I opt to take this strange tunnel exit I found with a sign reading "Church Falls"

I walk up and find myself in the middle of a fire-fight between.. well, someone who is firing a laser gun and a butt load of Super Mutants. Pretty soon, the Super Mutants are charging me and.. make a long story short, I'm quickly carrying more hunting rifles and boards with nails in them than I can manage. Quick sidetrip back to Megaton (No Moira - I STILL haven't gotten to Crabmen - now give me my 8 bits for the board!) and I return to tell the orphan that I've avenged his family. He confirms that whatever the mad scientist did to calm the ants wound up making them go crazy and start killing each other.

Color me shocked. Still, problem solved. I ask if there's anyplace he could go and he says his dad talked about having a sister in Rivet City, but he has no idea where that is. Neither do I. Huh.

Ah well - no sense in putting it off anymore. Time to die.

I begin the death march toward the crab-man lair. Amazingly, I have a very peaceful time of it. I run into a nice old lady with a shotgun (she calls herself Grandma Sparkles) who tells me that she saw a group of mercenaries who were looking for "some do-gooder from the Vault". This can't possibly be good. I also run into a group of ghouls trying to find a place that will take them since they're having no luck finding The Underground - a city run by ghouls, for ghouls.

Funny - in my real life and my virtual life - the most polite people are the freaks.

The ghouls are actually standing right on top of the lair. I quickly abandon the stealthy approach for the time honored method of running like mad, jumping down three stories into a pool of radioactive, egg-infested water, planting the camera and then running like all the demons in Hell are chasing after me - which was not too far from what WAS chasing after me.

Still, I actually get a halfway decent reward for this. A hat! A spiffy black fedora which has the neat effect of boosting my stealth skill 5 points AND my perception by 1. Oh, and some invisibility cloak device called The Stealth Boy, which I haven't used yet as it only has four charges and I haven't run into any missions (well, apart from this one) where stealth would be more useful than running like hell or guns-a-blazing.

This job done, Moria asks me to start work in the final chapter, which will be all about how to rebuild society in the wake of Armageddon. First task - go to Rivet City (the most successful post-apoc town) and find out the history of how they were founded.

Good news! I now know how to get there so I can track down the orphan's aunt. Bad news! It's ALLL the way down in the SE corner of the world map and the closest place I can fast travel to is... the spawning pool.

*sighs* At least I don't have to go inside there. I do, however, have to cross a radioactive river. Luckily there's a shallow spot where I barely get wet running across. Unfortunately, I wind up having to fight off two crabmen and a centaur. There's also a few giant roaches but I avoid them. Turns out they don't bother me if I don't bother them and I don't have the ammo to waste for a 2xp kill.

Getting across the river, I wind up discovering the Tepid Sewers (the place Moria wanted me to go to find giant mole rats... HA!) and someplace called Dukov's Place. Dukov, it turns out, is the most intelligent man I've met so far. Rather than try and eek out an honest living like all the other poor slobs, he has renovated an entact government building into what is basically the Playboy mansion and is now spending his days drinking, eating and screwing the two ladies who are with him because - well, screwing an odious Hugh Hefner wannabe with the voice of Lonod Mollari beats having to do honest work. At least, that's what one of them (Fantasia) thinks. The other (Cherry) quickly bends to my Speechifying ways and agrees to leave.... if I escort her to Rivet City.

Me: Great! That's where I'm going anyway.
Cherry: Super. But I'm not sleeping with you on the way there.
Me: Awwwwww!

Oh well - here I am. Wandering through the wilderness - weapon in my hand and a redhead in a teddy at my side. Why do I have the feeling I've had this dream before?

Cherry goes running as we find a raider camp. Bad news is that - unlike most of the raiders I've seen so far - these guys are smart enough to use guns. Assault rifles even. Good news is that a raid of their camp and a looting of bodies after I end them leaves me with so much loot, swag and excess weaponry I'd look something like Jayne Cobb if my avatar reflected just how much crap I was carrying at any given time.

I recover Cherry and keep heading south. Stumble across a Scavenger who seems like a might friendly guy. We do some trading, he repairs my guns and I ask Cherry to stay put while I scout ahead.

I wind up stumbling across a Super Mutant camp right off the road. Thankfully, I spot them way before they spot me. Actually, I spot their captive first and THEN the big green Hulking guards. Because apparently my ability to see hot redheads in need of assistance is now extending into the game world. I rescue her, gather up more loot and then follow her to see where it is she is running off to.

Surprisingly, it is ANOTHER Super Mutant Camp. I follow after the mysterious redhead, downing Supermutants all the while as I run across this scaffolding. It's dark, so I don't make out much of the scenery, but I am suddenly informed that I am standing on the Jefferson Memorial. Cool.

I chase the redhead again until she doubles-back almost all the way to where I left Cherry, taking a path down another road. Suddenly, she stops. Won't say a word as I try to talk to her. I sense enemies close though. Looking around I don't see anything.... walk forward... and then I look up. Catwalk above me, two super mutants begin talking. One complains of how he keeps trying to remember their old life - they remember a woman - or maybe being a woman. Thinking hurts. I cure this existential dilemma the only way I know how. Sniper rifle fire to the brainpan.

Following the road and checking my map, I find myself close to the National History Museum but see no obvious path there through the rubble. I do, however, find a bridge going back over the river. Resolving to explore this later, I go back to Cherry and - one more Super Mutant ambush later - we make our way to Rivet City.

Rivet City is - it turns out - an entire city built into the back half of a wrecked aircraft carrier. I quickly introduce myself to the lawman guarding the bridge and find out that most of the decisions regarding the city are made by a Dr. Li. I resolve to go see her after I sell my excess loot.

Cherry thanks me for everything but tells me not to get too big a head even though "oh yay, you're my hero and everything." But hey... another Karma boost. At this point, I don't think I can go any higher than Very Good.

The market square does have everything - including a lot of potential quest stuff that we're not going to mess with. Why? Well, to be quite blunt, everyone in Rivet City is a jerkass.

* There's tons of cops, but most of them are leaning on the walls and act like it's a major imposition to even give me directions.
* The owners of the local pharmacy are obviously sampling their own wears and nobody seems to care that one of them is about to go over the edge.
* Bannon, the fancy man who runs the clothing store AND represents the merchants in the city council - makes it clear that he'd be very grateful if someone found something incriminating in the quarters of the head of the general store, who is challenging his seat.
* Angela, one of the local teenage girls, is looking to score some ant pheromone to try and win over Diego, a priest in training who loves her, but has been convinced by the local priest that Angela is a test he must overcome on the road to holiness.
* The town drunk is abusive to her son, who everyone is convinced is a total brat. Nobody seems to think that - hey - given that his mom actively mocks him every chance she gets, he has a good reason to be a hostile little smart-ass.

I ignore all this - apart from asking everyone about the history of Rivet City - finding out little more than Bannon claims to be responsible for everything, most nobody else really cares and the old lady running the bar tells me that a guy named Pinkerton - who is probably dead but if he is still alive he's living on the far end of the ship- can tell me the truth.

Stumbling around, I find a museum of sorts devoted to American History. Talking to the guy who runs it - Abraham Washington - I find that he knows very little about the city history but he is in need of a brave soul to break into the old National Archives - all in the name of reclaiming the Declaration of Independence. I agree to help, simply because breaking in and entering is sort of my thing... even if I am a Very Good agent of Law and Order. Besides, apparently the place is crawling with Super Mutants and they're always good for loot.

I meet a woman who claims that this man named Sister is a slave and that she's afraid he came for her. Having little love for slavery or slavers, I give her 25 bucks to buy herself a gun and decide to deal with this guy. Bad news - I find him at the inn and he doesn't give me any good reason to have it out there. Can't get the option to say "Have at you you flesh-peddling scum!" or some such. On the bright side, the inn-keeper is the Orphan's aunt and she's more than happy to take in her brother's son.

I also find the science lab and Dr. Lee. It turns out - hey - she knows my father and he was just here trying to revive something called Project Purity. Seems the whole reason my dad was sneaking in and out of the Vault was to try and solve the problem of cleaning up the toxic, radiation soaked water and that he's gone back to his lab in... wait for it... The Jefferson Memorial to work on it.

While in the lab, I also meet a jackass named Zimmer, who comes from some big fancy town up north. Seems they've perfected the art of robotics to the point of creating realistic androids. One of them, apparently sick of being a slave, fled southward and has apparently erased his own memories and had surgery to change his features. I nominally agree to help look for this android but honestly... I'm going to seek this guy out to ask if I can help with freeing the rest of his robotic brethren if only to spite this Zimmerman jackass.

Having talked to everyone in the city now, I go off looking for this mysterious Pinkerton fellow. Good news is that the game quest journal will tell you where to go if you're not sure how to find something. Bad news is that... well, I think the thing is bugged as the way it is showing me lies beyond that radioactive deadly water.

For the first time since starting the game, I cheat a bit and check out an on-line hint guide. Seems I'm not alone and that NOBODY knew how to find this guy. Eventually, you can walk around and find a metal walkway that leads to a door that requires a 100% Lockpicking skill to bust open. Or, you can just dive into the radioactive water, swim through a tunnel into an underwater maze and fight several Mirelurks in close-quarters while trying to get to the same point. Because, you know, it's totally logical that you'd go swim around a radioactive lake full of mutant monsters looking for a tunnel entrance that isn't on your map. :P

Regardless, I finally find Pinkerton and he gives me the real truth on how Rivet Town was founded as a scientific outpost and how he was the original founder, but he was forced out of the city council and out of town by Dr. Li and her gang. He gives me the notes that prove he is telling the truth, which I file away to use for making certain jerkasses very uncomfortable later on.

So... after swimming back through the same radioactive waste because the jerkass won't unlock the door for me even though he no longer objects to me coming to visit, I take a quick trip back to Megaton to tell Moira the good news, get my next assignment (look for books at the Arlington Virginia Library), sell more excess loot, stop off by the giant ant city to tell the orphan he has a home and stop off by the Church Falls train station (closest point to the library, which is where I want to go next) where I discover that the things the Super Mutants were fighting, which I didn't investigate in the dark, were apparently members of the Brotherhood of Steel - i.e. the power-armor wearing Knights of the Round Table wannabees well familiar to regulars of the Fallout series.

Man... and I just got done selling excess loot. Now I have to go back to Megaton to sell these damn plasma cannons and power armor suits....

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #8

So I head to the S-Mart - the closest Fast-Travel point form which I can start walking to the crabman lair. No sooner do I step out of the parking lot than this boy runs up. Seems he's from a town to the south that is under siege by giant fire ants. He isn't sure where his dad or his neighbors from across the street or the scientist they were renting a room to are. Having fought a few giant ants before, I agree to help out. Anything to stave off the insanity of sneaking into a crabman lair.

I quickly find out that these are literally fire-ants. That is, the ants can breathe fire. Like a flame-thrower. I take a quick spin around the town blasting the things while trying to find the kid's house. I wind up finding an abandoned train station in the middle of this and wind up circling around the whole town trying to get to where I need to go. Luckily the kid has a good shelter to hide in. Unluckily, his dad died taking the ants down with him. The kid takes the news about as well as you can expect - thankfully he was all cried out. He asks me to figure out what's caused the ants and keep them from hurting anyone else. I agree, of course. It's what a sheriff would do.

Dad had a key to a newly constructed shack out behind their house. Seems this belonged to the scientist. A quick examination of his notes (he left his password written on the desk - not smart) reveals that the ants are HIS fault. Apparently he was trying to shrink the regular giant ants back to normal size and.... well, silly him he somehow gave them the ability to breathe fire. His notes also tell how he was working on his experiments in a lab he built... inside the train station.

So yay! More tunnels! More ants! And a virtual depletion of most of my guns, ammo and land mines. The only interesting things of note I find are a tunnel that says it leads up into a church and a room full of loot and swag, including a safe containing "Naughty Nightwear". No sooner do I swipe it, a raider type comes in demanding that I return it. My speechifying skills convince him to let it go and that I am in fact the rightful owner of this sexy lingerie.

Sad how the most reasonable person I've met today is an underwear-stealing maniac in a hockey mask.

Eventually, I find the scientist. It quickly becomes apparent that the not so good doctor has gone past being a mad scientist and has now entered Dr. Moreau territory. It doesn't matter that he just killed an entire city and destroyed two families (I found the dad from the other family down here in the tunnels as well - no sign of his wife or kids...) - he must solve the ant-shrinking problem. He says that he has created a device to make the ants docile but that he needs a clear path to the ant queen's lair. In exchange, he offers to use his science to enhance my genetics.

Guess who gets recruited to go kill the ant queen's five personal guard ants to get that clear path made? Guess who came back and - after making sure the ant-calmer was turned on - blew the head off the pencil-neck geek who thought ant shrinking was more important than people? Guess who went back and killed the ant queen... just to make sure? Guess who made level 8 and - despite a karma drop for killing the amoral scientist - is still very good?

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #7

I head back to Megaton to cash in my loot before heading off to mine town and it occurs to me that I have been remiss in my sherrifly duties in my adopted town as I've been running around and saving the last two towns - three if you count the vampires.. ha ha - Count. Vampires? Get it?

Colin, the guy running the salon, is a bit of an information merchant. In addition to keeping a ghoul as an actual slave and forcing a woman named Mona into being a virtual slave for anyone with 120 bucks for a room with companionship (wink wink), he's reportedly blackmailing half the town. I decide to deal with this the only way a frontier sheriff can... after making sure there's no dialogue options for me to convince Colin to give up his wicked ways.

I luck out - I go to the bar and find him luxuriating on the front porch, enjoying a smoke. Three shots from my pistol and his head gets neatly separated from his body (I just LOOOOOOVE that Bloody Mess feat) and I get a drop in Karma for the first time ever.

Wha? But... but he's a pimp and a bully and a criminal! He's a bad, bad person. I am the law!

Ah hell. *RUNS*

I decide to go for a quick stroll northward to collect my thoughts, regroup and outrun the lynch mob. I wind up getting all the way to Big Town, stop in and rest for a bit (there's always a mattress in the street for you to sleep on, our hero!) before heading back to see if people have calmed down.

Good news. They have. Things have adjusted themselves real well. Mona has taken over the inn/bar and is still renting rooms for the same 120 bucks... WITHOUT companionship. Weirdly, she still refuses to help me with hacking Colin's computer. Gob, the ghoul bartender, isn't taking to freedom as well and indeed seems to have developed some form of paranoid psychosis. That is to say, he greets me by shouting "Don't shoot! Please!", says "Anything for you, friend." when I ask about getting a drink and then begs me not to hit him when I say goodbye.

Ah well... you try your best. I decide against getting into Colin's computer on my own even though I have his password (it was written on something and he had it on his body...) since I don't care to know all the dirty laundry he may have been sitting on unless the town is in danger and it isn't. Yet.

I run into Lucy West on my way back home. She doesn't have anything to say about me delivering her letter except that she totally forgot about that with everything else going on. She asks me to look her up next time I'm in town but... eh... won't say anything else after that. Stuck up priss.

Ah well... at least the townsfolk know how to show their appreciation. I get some more ammo for a gun I don't have and a Stim from grateful random villagers as I get up in the morning and walk to Minetown from the Police Station/Supermutant base.

Well, the name isn't misleading - the whole town is SWARMING with mines in the streets. I even have a few proximity explosions blow up a few cars that nearly end me a few times. Luckily I'm fast enough and (thanks to me buffing my Repair Skill last level) skilled enough that I can move in and deactivate the things before they go off.

Eventually I find the source of all this - a man I somehow know is named Arkansas who shoots at me from atop the remains of the tallest building in town. Checking the tower reveals a sizeable ammo dump as well as a sniper rifle. I help myself to it because in this county, "You can take my gun from my cold dead hands." isn't just an expression.

I check around a few of the houses - find one full of giant roaches and some loot. Find another one full of loot and no roaches. And a third one filled with a raider's dead body and not much else. I wind up with more loot than I can carry and head back to Megaton and Moira the Crazy Lady.

Well, she's overjoyed by my gift of a disabled mine and the information I give her. It's enough to get Chapter One of the book done... which leads to her asking if I'd like to help with Chapter Two. I agree - simply because the sherrifing isn't the most profitable gig in the world what with the one criminal mastermind in my town dead.

The first task is to test a new mole-rat repellent she invented. I express concerns about the safety of the chemicals involved but she reassures me by saying she works with them all the time and she's fine.

Ha comma ha comma ha.

You ever notice how you can never find the one enemy you need to find in an RPG when you need to, even if they were swarming you in packs earlier? I get attacked by two radioactive scorpions before I get attacked by mole-rats so I could test the repellent.

Well, the good news is that I don't get killed by the Molerats. The bad news is that the Repellent-On-A-Stick isn't so much a Repellent as it is a glorious Mattock of Mole Rat Crushing +5. Why is that bad news? Well, there's already lots of ways to kill Molerats, Moira says but she does give me what remains of the chemicals she used to make the bat after taking it away. I'd rather have the bat.

Ah well - another day another job. This one is much trickier - she wants to measure the affects of pain and crippling injuries that can occur in the wasteland. The reason this is trickier is that I have to get to at least half health (preferably have at least one limb crippled) and the game system won't let you Fast Travel when there is a hostile nearby - much less actively gnawing on your scant tender bits.

And then it occurs to me - I never quite did finish cleaning up Minetown.

One selective and carefully timed injury later, I'm raking in the cash for my hideous injury AND the rest of the loot I couldn't carry before. And that is when Moira asks me about the final thing she needed help with for Chapter Two.

Sneak inside a crab-men lair and plant a monitoring device in their spawning pool so we can observe their mating habits.

It is at this point that I try to use my speechifying powers to convince Moira that this book is a bad idea and that all she is going to do is get people (besides me) hurt. All this does is increase her resolve to make everything as accurate as possible - which means answering for all time the question - are crab men intelligent?

Well, they're more intelligent than me - I'm about to go sneak a nanny cam into their bedrooms so that a crazy lady can enjoy the finest mollusc porn Post-Apoc technology can provide.

RETRO: Fallout 3 War Journal #6

I have amazingly little trouble getting to the police station the Super Mutants use as a base. Well, okay... there's something called the Robo-brain - a Robby the Robot body with a human brain in the top which screams "I was programmed to loooooove!" as it shoots lasers at me. Freaky, even by my standards. There's also the Centaur - some Lovecraftian abomination that does not resemble the beloved horse people of lore. I also manage to sneak attack a super mutant and read a disturbingly depressing computer journal belonging to an army nurse who tried to treat the survivors of the bombings that ended the world at a make-shift hospital/army base that was built around the police station. No other signs of mutants around the place, I find a staircase leading up to an inside door on the top floor.

I'm lucky enough to walk in on two of the mutants talking. They wind up discussing where both the hostages are and -thankfully - it looks like the people are only being eaten. How is that a good thing? Ask a Firefly fan about everything The Reavers do...

I sneak around the place, disarming land mine traps and shooting roaches. I wind up with a small pile of hunting rifles by the time I'm done with the mutants and done saving the two townsfolk that are left. I escort them back to Bigtown and am told that - well, the townsfolk want me to help figure out a way for them to be safe-ish forever. A few things come to mind but I opt to teach them the ways of small guns. More effective than trying to teach them how to sneak around, I figure.

Bad news - the shooting training winds up burning up all of my rifle ammo. Good news - I don't need it. The newbies manage to down all the mutants swarming the town without my help. I'm thanked profusely for teaching them how to defend themselves, promised cheap medical care any time I need it (the woman I saved is the town doctor) and generally made up to be a big damn hero.

NEXT TIME: I go to a place called Minetown to look for land mines, all in the name of science! Science and a book deal, but science none the less!