Chapter 3: Heading South

Captain Scruffy ran his fingers through his beard. He unholstered his favorite weapon at the moment, a .357 magnum in prime codition. Then he holstered it again. Then he unholstered it. And holstered it again. And he drew it once more, and then put it away. This had been going on for the last couple of minutes on the road down to Primm. Earlier Scruffy had tried going into third person and jumping, and looking around with it, but that just wasn't cutting it anymore. Finally, he decided to turn his radio on, and sing along.

"It's a sin, to hide behind this heartache…" he began. Suddenly, he was stopped in his tracks by a menu.

Before you venture deeper into the wasteland, you may revise your character.

This menu was a dream-come true for our hero, as he had been very foolish with his S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes selection. After okaying his appearance, and deciding to take Sneak instead of Survival, Scruffy changed about his points. He opted to dump into Intelligence and leave the rest of his scores at an average '5'. Instantly he felt his vision and hearing come back to normal, and his muscles solidified once more. After this he selected 'Finished – Travel Onward' and continued his trek.

"Oh I've got spurs, than jingle jangle jaaaannngleeee! Jingle! Jangle!"

Before he knew it, Cpt. Scruffy was being greeted by an ornery, goggled NCR man at the Northern entrance to Primm.

"Hey, where the hell do you think you're going? Primm is off limits." The soldier inquisitioned.

"Look, if this is about Doc Mitchell, I assure you. He uhh, he uhh… uhh… he drowned! In the bathtub! I tried to save him, but it was too late!" Hurriedly explained the captain, worried that his deeds might finally catch up to him. The tropper merely continued on with his thousand-yard stare, blinking occasionally and swaying slightly.

"…Right. Well, Thanks for the warning, I'll be going now."

"Be careful. You might want to talk to Lieutenant Hayes. He's in a tent by the side of the road. Stick to the West side if you don't want to get shot at. With this the soldier turned around and completed his patrol. Scruffy didn't really want to visit Hayes or anybody that could get him in trouble, but he really had nothing better to do. As Scruffy began walking away, he was hit with another menu.

WELCOME TO LEVEL 2

Captain Scruffy carefully looked at all of the descriptions for all of his stats, and ran the numbers in his head. Given that he had 15 skill points to spend on even levels, and 14 on odd levels, (according to the ten minute youtube video he had watched on the process) and came up with a diagnostic spreadsheet for his next ten level-ups. Then he threw it out the window and dumped into Sneak. For a perk he took 'Heave, Ho', figuring that his dynamite would be much more effective that way.

Continuing south and sticking West, Scruffy ducked between an old crude shelter of sheet metal and half of a bus. The Great War had truly left its mark on Primm. Only one of several streetlights was on, and the buildings were all tattered and in pieces. Piles of rubble adorned the sidewalks and alleyways. The road was in patches, and bushes and such were growing between the myriad cracks. Going straight through and intersection and past a small barricade, Scruffy found himself at the NCR tent.

"Hello." Greeted Sergeant McGee who was leaning on one such barrier. Scruffy barely noticed him, but chortled when he saw his last name on the HUD when he hard-jogged by. McGee. That's just a funny name. Hi! I'm Randy McGee! Teehee.

Captain Scruffy continued and pressed 'A' at the tent that had Hayes's label on it. "I'm lieutenant Hayes of the New California Republic Army, 5th battalion, 1st company." Hayes declared.

"Nobody cares." Came the nonchalant reply.

"What is your business?"

Scruffy selected 'What are you doing out here?' in the small chat menu.

"We were sent out here to hold back the tide of convicts from the correctional facility. As you can probably tell, we aren't doing the kind of job we could be doing." All of Scruffy's options here seemed boring, but he decided to go with 'What's the problem with your mission?'

"The mission isn't a problem. The problem is with supplies. The convicts are better armed and organized than our intel originally suggested. I'm trying to get some reinforcements here, maybe some guns with some firepower, but…well…Things are going slow. Now growing very bored with this conversation, Scruffy decided to leave.

"Cool story bro." The captain stated, as he jogged out of the door.

Captain Scruffy looked at Primm from the road South. It was just a pig, old hull of crap. With a rollercoaster. All benefits aside, (benefits of course being the coaster) there wasn't much value in the place. Scruffy turned to go South, just as Blue Moon came on.

A hundred yards or so, our hero caught up with a few old raiders. Taking this in stride, he calmly slaughturdered them and took all of their shiny equipment and weapons. (Author's Note: I couldn't decide between 'slaughter' and 'murder' because really, it was a bit of both.) Getting to level 2 and spending high on Sneak was really paying off. He was a ninja in pink pajamas. Captain Scruffy then went into his inventory and hotkeyed the new 10mm pistol he had was 'given'.

After jogging hard onwards, and taking a left at an intersection, our hero was ambushed by raiders again, this time at a stop in the middle of Ivanpah Dry Lake. The captain dived behind a billboard and devised a gameplan of running backwards and shooting. More slaughturder ensued. Scruffy left the road warm and soaked with raider blood. Very Easy mode was really beginning to suit him. On the corpses of these terrible ne'er-do-wells he found Absinthe, Psycho, Scotch, Whiskey, Jet, and Beer. Captain Scruffy decided to pour all the liquids into a dirty pitcher he found by the campfire. After inhaling the Jet, he chugged it all.

When Captain Scruffy awoke, he found himself in a bed in Nipton, legs wrapped around a twitching Mister Gutsy, wearing Vulpes Inculta's wolf hat, and clutching a Cowboy repeater with both hands. Scruffy pushed the bot, which was riddled with .357 holes off of him, and got up. After wiping off what he hoped was drool, he inspected himself in the nearby bathroom's mirror.

"Now this, is a freaking hat."