It's A Fucked Up World
Raven waited outside of the tavern drinking from a bottle of whiskey that she had bought from Trudy, she had spoken to Sunny and been told to sweet talk Trudy into helping out, which she had easily done while buying the alcohol, Sunny also told her that Easy Pete had a stockpile of dynamite somewhere near, but Raven had blown that because her explosive knowledge was shit. With that failure she decided to park her ass down, take a few minutes to herself and unwind with a few sips of her favourite alcohol. It was nice, and luckily her friends return before she gets more than slightly buzzed
"what's up my weirdos" Raven grins, watching as her friends walked over
"are you drunk?" Jack questions in surprise
"nah, I've had the equivalent of two shots max, I know my limits, anyway, how'd it go?"
"we got a few magazines, some ammo, Stimpaks, a 10mm pistol and a stealth boy" Michelle answers
"a stealth boy? Nice" Raven grins
"what's a stealth boy?" Wolfie asks
"it's a device that can only be used once, it brings your sneak up +100 and your stealth field +75, it's a handy little thing for delicate missions" Raven replies looking through the loot
"oh, then why was it in a schoolhouse?" Wolfie questions, Raven shrugs
"creators may have wanted to give the explorers a little reward, it happened a lot in fallout 3"
"how did it go with Ringo?" Michelle asks
"he's asked me to round up some more help, Sunny has suggested talking to Easy Pete, Chet and Dc Mitchel, I've already talked to Trudy and she's agreed to help out, Mouse, I need you to talk to Pete, and Wolfie, I need you to talk to Chet, you both have enough to pass their skill checks, I'm gonna go see the Doc about some medical supplies, Jackal, just… don't do anything stupid" Raven instructs
"why am I always left out!" Jack complains
"because you're the idiot who decided to become a Deathclaw and are passive aggressive unless provoked, honestly, I know you've never played Fallout before, but its not a kill everything game, you need to strategize, sneak, and even charm your way through some situations, you being a Deathclaw means you will get benched unless we're fighting and traveling the wasteland. Please do not make me explain this again, because I bet the people watching us will get bored of it soon if it carries on" Jack, now thoroughly chastised just sighs defeatedly
"fine, I'll wait here"
"good, like usual we'll meet up back here when done" Raven orders before jogging over to Doc Mitchel's house.
Raven walks in to find the house seemingly empty but can hear the old man pottering about in the kitchen, there was an old broken 9mm sub machine gun she had spotted earlier but wasn't skilled enough to fix it, now she was. So, without prompting Raven strolls over to the chemistry station and fiddles with the broken gun, smiling smugly when it's fixed, and when she receives XP. Once done, she turns to find the Doctor walking into the room, and proceeds to ask for and receive medical supplies, enough for her, Michelle and Wolfie, seeing as Jack apparently had an endurance level of 8, Raven figured he'd be fine. She decided to take one last look around the property for anything she had missed the first time around, she actually found a handful of bottle caps, some med-X and a pair of reading glasses, which she promptly equipped, seeing as her original perception is 4 but she took the four eyes perk making her perseption even less, she was glad to find a pair of glasses, it was close to her original style, now all she needs is a baseball cap, preferably red, and she'd be set.
Exiting the house, the quest marker changes, telling her to go speak with Ringo apparently, walking over to her friends, Raven finds them lounging around looking bored as hell
"well?" she asks, scaring the crap out of them because none had heard her approach
"we got leather armour from Chet, but none for Jack" Wolfie replies
"same with the dynamite, I got three crates, one for each of us" Michelle adds
"and I got three lots of stimpaks, the townspeople must think it's a waste to help him or something" Raven assumes, slipping into the leather armour and handing out the stimpaks, when Michelle attempted to give her one lot of dynamite she declined, never having liked explosives in the game, Wolfie also declines because she dislikes explosives even more than guns, who would've guessed? So, Michelle is left with three crates full of dynamite
"are we ready for this?" Raven asks, her voice carrying because of the silence that had descended around them, this would be their first fight after all
"yeah, lets get this over with" Wolfie replies
"remember what I told you with the Geckos babe, keep an eye on your health bar and don't go into it rashly, keep a cool head and scope out the field first, and none of you panic if you get shot, that's easy to fix" Raven says
"that seems pretty stupid, don't panic? How about don't get shot in the first place" Jack argues
"good luck with that, you're gonna be a walking target out there, if they don't run away first" Raven scoffs
"they could actually run away?" Wolfie asks
"I… don't know, as a player you would've been insane to take on a Deathclaw so early in the game, but I have no idea about NPC's especially these warped versions that can think for themselves" Raven replies, annoyed at how little she knows, she hates not knowing, it always had a way of biting her in the ass
"what do we do if they try to run away?" Michelle asks
"kill them, if they can run away then they can think for themselves, that means that they could easily come back later to finish off this town after we've left" Raven shrugs
"that's a bit heartless, don't you think?" Wolfie objects
"it's a heartless world, I'm just trying to keep us alive" she shrugs again
"let's just get this shit over with" Jack grumbles.
Raven returned to Ringo and informed him that they were all set to take on the Powder Gangers, Jack had wandered off to look for a good ambush point where they could hide his existence until the Gangers were in sight and unable to flee and both Michelle and Wolfie were near the gas station, waiting for Raven.
Speaking of, she had just finished talking to Ringo when she must have triggered the next sequence in the quest, because Sunny Smiles showed up and simply said "they're here" before disappearing, Raven was starting to get an inkling that what the NPC's were saying was not a part of the original script simply because their responses didn't sound wooden and forced, in fact, some of the responses probably were completely new, suited to their new environment.
Gathering her nerves, Raven follows, being joined by Wolfie and Michelle on her way towards the saloon
"did Jackal find a vantage point?" Raven questions
"well no, but he did find somewhere to keep low until they close in" Michelle replies
"good, remember what we discussed, hard and fast hits, keep an eye on the townspeople and keep an eye on your health. I'm going to stay back and use my newly moded vermin rifle. Good luck guys" Raven nods, a blank mask already in place, preparing for the worst
"good luck Raven" Michelle echoes
"and thanks for all the help" Wolfie adds, Raven looks at her and gives a soft smile
"you're my family, I could never forsake you" Wolfie smiles back happily, feeling ready.
A total of 24 men had shown up, Raven knew instantly that this was different compared to actual gameplay, never would such low-level characters be pitted against 24 enemies, no matter the difficulty. Although if everything was quadrupled in this world because there was four of them it would make sense that there were six each, her eyes scanned the men when her eyes landed on a bright red baseball cap
"I call the baseball hat!" she calls out startling all those gathered, every eye turned towards her, but she already had her rifle pointed at the man, and quickly shot him, right between the eyes. Shouting brakes out, and gunfire erupts, each side desperate to stay alive.
Raven smirks as an explosion kills three men and cripples two, quickly putting them out of their misery she yells
"7"
"GOD DAMN IT! HA 8!" Michelle boasts, happily taking up the challenge, suddenly an ungodly roar echoes throughout the town, Jack emerges, his maw and claws covered in blood and carrying a severed leg
"5" the unhappy beast growls
"fuck yeah, beat 9 bitches!" Raven cheers as another ganger falls due to a well-placed shot
"are you three done? There's no one left to kill" Wolfie chuckles, she didn't like that they had killed people, but the competition that probably happened because all of them were huge nerds was pretty funny.
Both Jack and Michelle grumble at loosing, but were honestly unsurprised, they were still new to this world and though not remembering the game much, Raven was experienced with this world and its ways, they would be patient, who knows maybe they could bring down an elephant… did fallout have elephants?
Ringo walks over to Raven, thanks her, gives her 200 caps (which she splits equally between the others) and fucks off, which she is grateful for because that dude was seriously boring the hell out of her. When finished with the annoying man her attention was pulled towards the level up menu and she quickly filled it out bringing her lockpick up to 25 and raising unarmed, survival, medicine to 15 and raising energy weapons to 13.
Finished with this she looks up to find all three of her friends playing around with an invisible screen, deciding to leave them in peace she loots the dead and claims the red cap for herself, leaving the rest of the loot in a pile, waiting for the others so they can argue about who gets what, but she would be keeping the fucking hat.
Raven was pleasantly surprised to find that none of them had been grievously injured, nothing a few bits of food and some water wouldn't cure, especially since all of them either had minor dehydration or were already suffering from it.
Splitting the loot Raven grinned as Wolfie looked over her new, fully repaired baseball bat, she herself was able to fully repair her rifle, Michelle was able to replace all the dynamite that was used and even add to her collection, and Jack decided he wanted to wear a desperado cowboy hat, for whatever reason, maybe because he didn't keep any weapon for himself, they ended up selling everything else except food, water and meds and splitting the profits equally.
Lounging in the now abandoned gas station, which was cleared of trash and debris and furnished with 3 extra matrices, Raven watched the candle flame flicker
"it must seem really boring that we spent 4 whole chapters in Goodsprings" she spoke
"chapters?" Jack chuckles
"well yeah, I mean Maxi is watching us and yet, not always, haven't you noticed that sometimes things are brighter, as if someone is writing colour into the world?" Raven asks
"…have you been drinking? You sound like you've been drinking" Jack snickers
"no, you asshole, well yes, but I'm not that drunk!" Raven protests
"how about you just sleep this off Raven, if you're still adamant about this in the morning then we'll take you seriously" Michelle offers
"fine, hey, fallout have really good whiskey, fucking strong stuff, I love it" Raven hiccups
"get some rest Raven, we'll speak in the morning" Wolfie says
"m'kay" Raven mumbles, snuggling into Wolfie's side subconsciously in her sleep.