Courier's Journal: Week One
Day 7: October 25th 2281
Wild day. Saw Cliff Briscoe at the gift shop first thing this morning. He kept trying to sell me his novelty merchandise like toy rockets and Dinky the Dinosaur figures, which actually turned out to be important later, but I was more interested in his weapon selection at the time. After everything I sold to the caravan traders yesterday, I had a lot of caps left over, and I don't like travelling with too many caps on hand; it makes you a target for robbery, and they take up a lot of space, which is at a premium for me now since losing my old clothes. So I spent what I had on a few weapons and expensive parts.
Among other things, I purchased a longer barrel for my grenade rifle to increase the range, and upgraded the springs and receiver of my service rifle to improve its performance. But I also picked up a new laser rifle and a plasma pistol, both in pristine factory condition, along with a few modifications for them both. The laser rifle comes with a long range scope, a beam splitter, and focused optics, while the plasma pistol sports a high energy ioniser, a recycler for ammo efficiency, and a magazine accelerator. I'm most excited about that last component, since it more than doubles the speed of the plasma projectiles, effectively cancelling out my main criticism of all plasma-based weaponry. The advantages of this should be obvious.
The new weapons served to replace some of my regular loadout today. The plasma pistol of course replaces Doc Mitchell's laser pistol as my secondary sidearm after the revolver, while my new laser rifle took over for my submachine gun today, since I'm starting to get low on 9mm rounds after dealing with the Vipers. I would've sold off those old guns, but I'm hanging onto them for now. As I said, I prefer assets over cash, and besides, I might want to go back to them again later if my ammo situation changes. After all, I have plenty of small energy cells, but I have no idea how long my pistol's plasma cartridges are going to last.
On an unrelated note, while I was in Cliff's shop, he had Radio New Vegas on, and Mr. New Vegas was reporting on Primm swearing in Primm Slim as their new sheriff. It was only a short segment, but it amused me. I didn't think much of it at the time, but in hindsight, installing a robot sheriff was a pretty odd choice on my part. I mean, I don't regret it; I still think I made the best choice given the options available to me at the time. But I expect that my decision will have some pretty interesting consequences down the road, and it's still odd to think that I just walked into town that day and casually decided that entire community's future for them. Bit of a heavy responsibility to put on the mailman's shoulders, if you ask me.
Anyway, after I was done shopping, I went upstairs and met Manny Vargas, the other sniper. I'm glad I got the chance to talk to him, because not only was he important to my investigation into Boone's wife, but he was also a former Great Khan, a friend of the two who were travelling with my attacker, and he knew them all by name. The asshole in the suit is a guy called Benny, and apparently he and the Khans were heading up to Boulder City.
Incidentally, Manny is not just a former Khan, but also served in the NCR too. I gotta wonder if that's awkward for him, considering the history the Khans have with the NCR? Their feud is so old, it actually predates their emergence into the wasteland. Literally. Shady Sands and the Khans came from the same vault. Well, the original Khans did, at least. Then they were all supposedly wiped out by the Vault Dweller. And then a single survivor of the original Khans got some unrelated people in and formed the New Khans. And then they were all wiped out too by some other guy. And I don't even remember at what point the Great Khans sprung up. It must have been some point after the 2240's, obviously, but I'm not sure when exactly. I just remember coming back to the Core Region and hearing that there were now Khans again.
I remember my exact words at the time were, "Fucking great! Just what we needed!"
What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Manny Vargas.
So Manny initially wanted me to do him a favour in exchange for the information about Benny, but I won him over, and he just told me what I wanted to know. As a gesture of gratitude and goodwill, I promised to help him out with his problem anyway. Unfortunately, the issue was a little bigger than I thought, and turned out to be a day-long project, but it wasn't too big a setback; Benny and the Khans clearly aren't moving that fast to begin with, and even if they do get away from me, I'm pretty sure now that they're heading up to Vegas, so I'll probably catch up with them there anyway.
Aside from that, my impression of Manny was that he had nothing to do with the disappearance of Boone's wife. He didn't like her, and he's quite candid about that, which led to the two having a falling out, but I don't think he's responsible. So before I went off to deal with his task, I decided to stick around and talk to some of the other residents of Novac, to see if any of them knew anything.
They were some colourful folk, to say the least. The first people I met were an old couple called the McBrides, owners of a small local brahmin ranch. They didn't know anything about Carla Boone, but they told me a little about life in Novac, and about how something was killing their brahmin at night. Out of a desire to help, I agreed to look into the matter for as long as I was in town, and it was also good cover for my other investigation.
Dr. Straus and her mercs didn't know anything about either case, and neither did Jeannie May, or Cliff Briscoe, who I interrogated over a friendly game of Caravan, which I of course lost. So I went knocking on some doors, allegedly looking for the McBrides' brahmin killer, but also discreetly looking for leads on Carla Boone. There were some interesting people staying in the motel, including a former independent vertibird pilot, as well as none other than the great New Reno singer, Bruce Isaac.
I actually met him before. Sort of. I saw his show once during one of my visits. I remember liking his act a lot, but right now he's on the run from the Bishop Family, for reasons of theft and sexing up Mr. Bishop's daughter. I gotta respect the hustle. Too bad it landed him here, but hey, there are worse places he could've ended up. Like in a shallow grave.
Since I wasn't getting anywhere with motel, and since I'd heard his name a few times, I eventually relented and talked to No-Bark Noonan, who could be politely described as off his fucking rocker. He almost defies explanation. Anything I could say about the man does not do him justice. All I'll say is that despite being completely insane, I think he's the only actual witness to either one of the incidents I'm investigating, since he actually goes out at night.
He claims to have seen both the brahmin killer and the people who took Boone's wife, at least from a distance, although he clearly doesn't know what he actually saw. I have a sneaking suspicion from his descriptions that the brahmin killer was using a stealth boy, and the people who took Carla Boone apparently stopped in the motel's front office that night, which suggests to me that Jeannie May might have had something to do with it. I hope she didn't, because then I really will have no alternative but to hand her over to Boone, but she's the most solid lead I have so far, so I quietly broke into her house to look for clues. I found nothing incriminating there, but I can't clear her just yet; there might still be evidence in the motel itself, but I can't check until Jeannie May goes home for the night.
But I didn't just spend all day going around town talking to people. Most of my time actually went into Manny's favour. He wanted me to clear the ghouls out of the nearby REPCONN test site, so naturally I went in expecting to just shoot a few ferals and be done. But although there were ferals in and around the facility, I also found several dead ghouls in robes along the way, just like those other ones. It turns out the dead ghouls I've been finding recently were all fleeing from REPCONN after a recent incident, as once I fought my way past the ferals and into the main building, I was contacted through the intercom by someone telling me to make my way upstairs, where I met the Bright Brotherhood.
The Bright Brotherhood are a (mostly) ghoul cult, led by a rare non-feral glowing one, funnily enough named Jason Bright. I'm not very clear on what their actual beliefs are, since there wasn't much time to ask, but they were in REPCONN planning to use the rockets to make some kind of "great journey" to... somewhere where they wouldn't be persecuted by humans anymore. It's all your standard crazy cult stuff. Nothing I haven't seen before. The rocket plan in particular reminds me more than a little of those Hubologist guys, since their mission is pretty much the same thing, but Jason Bright at least strikes me as more of a true believer than a demagogue preying on stupid people.
That said, he was somewhat exploiting one person in particular, a human with delusions of ghoulism named Chris Haversam, whose technical skill made him essential to completing their work on the rockets. Chris was originally from Vault 34, which apparently suffered a reactor leak at some point, and he thought he was turning into a ghoul from the radiation because he went bald shortly afterwards. The Bright Brotherhood tried to explain to him that he was human, but he just wouldn't listen to them, so eventually I guess they just decided to go along with it, because what is a cult if not a collective delusion anyway?
I worried for the man, but within seconds of meeting him, I already had bigger problems to deal with. I just so happened to arrive after some gatecrashers came in and wrecked the place, so work on the rockets had ground to a halt until it all blew over. That's also why the ferals I came to deal with were swarming around Novac; the Bright Brotherhood are one of those ghoul groups that doesn't mind ferals and keeps them around as pets or whatever, but after the attack, the ferals escaped their confinement and ran rampant.
And who were those gatecrashers that started all this? None other than a nightkin raiding party. I came across a dead one when I first entered the building, and immediately regretted agreeing to help Manny with this. Words cannot describe how much I did not want to fight nightkin. But somehow, Jason Bright, charismatic bastard that he is, convinced me to head into the basement and deal with them. Because of course, why wouldn't I want to face off against the invisible, super strong, and utterly insane former special forces of the Master's army, in a darkened basement no less?
Needless to say, I was feeling a little jumpy as I ventured down. I kept remembering the last time I fought a nightkin, and how he tore my whole arm off and smacked me in the fucking face with it. I'm lucky to still be alive to regret that. Roughest bar fight I've ever been in, no contest. Really brought new meaning to "unarmed combat." Fortunately, this time I wasn't drunk, and even more fortunately, I didn't actually need to fight these nightkin. I was using one of my stealth boys to sneak around in the dark, scouting to find their locations and considering plans for an ambush, when by chance I ran into the nightkin leader, Davison.
Davison was, of course, completely insane, and listening to the imaginary voice of a brahmin skull called Antler when I found him, but he was at least open to the idea of a peaceful dialogue, which at least makes him less insane than the Powder Gangers by my estimation. He and the others came to REPCONN in search of a shipment of stealth boys, but there was one room they had yet to search, because there was a ghoul inside laying traps and shooting at them whenever they entered. Davison agreed to leave if I could somehow clear him out.
The ghoul was Harland. He wasn't even a real Bright follower, just a guy hanging around with them for companionship, but he was missing a friend who had gotten lost somewhere around the place when the nightkin attacked. I felt bad for him, so I went back out into the basement to search for her, which was pretty damn perilous; even though I was working with Davison now, the rest of the nightkin weren't lucid enough to understand that, so I had to use another stealth boy to continue sneaking my way around everywhere. I eventually found Harland's friend, but needless to say, she didn't make it. Nothing else I could do, so I went back and told him the bad news, and he cleared out to rejoin the others.
Once the room was clear, I went around and disabled all of Harland's traps, collecting a nice lot of landmines along the way, and tried to look for clues about those stealth boys on the working terminals in the room. Harland had rigged up the one downstairs to explode, but fortunately I spotted the mechanism before I touched anything. Disarming it was a painstaking process, and outside my usual skillset with explosives. I had to take some Mentats for concentration, and consulted the Patriot's Cookbook for similar traps to compare it with. It was a learning experience for sure, but annoyingly pointless in the end, since all the data on the terminal had been wiped.
Fortunately, the one upstairs still had some entries, so I was at least able to confirm that the stealth boys weren't there anymore. This worried me, as I didn't know how Davison would take the news, but I reported back regardless. He was predictably upset, but to my relief, he didn't seem to blame me or think that I was lying. Or, at least, the voice in his head didn't seem to blame me. Either way, it meant that Davison chose to not to crush my head in his hands, and that he and the nightkin all left as agreed, so far be it from me to question the will of Antler.
In the end, I'm quite proud to say I dealt with that whole nightkin situation without a drop of blood spilled, a rare and pleasant surprise for me.
So, mission accomplished, right? Wrong! The ghouls still wanted my help in finishing their "great journey." But honestly, I had no problem with that. Manny wanted me to remove the ghouls, and I had been having a bit of a moral crisis about kicking them out of their home anyway, so helping them to leave on their own terms was the best of both worlds.
While talking with Chris about the project, the subject of his humanity came up, and against my expectations, I somehow managed to break his delusions and convince him that he was human. I kind of felt like I had to, since Jason Bright told me that they were going to abandon him once he finished work on the rockets, as he wouldn't survive the journey due to the radiation levels. I did not approve of this manipulation, and wanted Chris to know the truth before they did that to him. He was of course distraught, and initially wanted to take revenge for it, but I calmed him down and talked him out of it. He had some harsh words for Jason, but the two reconciled by the time I got back later, so I'm glad that they were able to work it out.
As for me, finishing the "great journey" required some materials for the rocket, so I returned to Novac at Chris's bidding and went to speak with Cliff. We did some negotiating, and for a tidy sum of caps he gave me the key to the storeroom where he kept all the dinosaur and rocket toys, and told me to take anything I wanted from it. A strategic mistake on his part, I think, because that room also contained a beautiful .223 pistol, pared down and heavily modified so that it now shoots the far more common 5.56mm rounds. This also makes it capable of firing armour-piercing rounds, too. Not many pistols can do that. It's real nice. I've since taken a liking to it. I call it "That Gun," because even if I did give it a proper name, that's how I'm always going to refer to it.
"Uh oh, looks like this heavily-armoured super mutant wants to smash my skull in with a rebar club! And I don't have enough time to draw my rifle and load the right rounds! Looks like I need to pull out That Gun!"
But the main reason I was there was that I needed the rocket souvenirs. Or rather Chris needed them, because for reasons that confound any sense of logic, REPCONN made their toy rockets with isotope-239 igniting agent inside. Which strikes me as horrifically dangerous for things that were meant to be handled by children, but I guess that's just how they rolled in pre-war times. Makes me glad I didn't live back then. At least nowadays all the psychopaths join raider gangs and clearly identify themselves as the dregs of society by their choice of attire. In pre-war times, human civilization was so all-encompassing that the psychopaths got inside the system and screwed over everyone (see: the Enclave). I shudder to think what it must have been like to live in such a world. It'd be like if the NCR was everywhere and you could never escape them.
Anyway, after that I went north a little to find Gibson Scrapyard, where I met the eponymous Old Lady Gibson. She lives there alone, raising hounds and dealing in scrap, a lot of which was scavenged from REPCONN, so she had the thrust controllers which Chris and I needed for the rockets. They were supposed to be five hundred caps, but she ended up just giving them to me for free after I offered to fuck her. I didn't even have to actually do it. She was just flattered that I would even flirt with her in the first place. Probably didn't think I was being serious. I would've stuck around to prove her wrong, because I'd quite happily rail that old lady until her heart gives out, but I was burning daylight, so I had to get going soon after.
But while we were there, ED-E did something weird. Something me or Old Lady Gibson said activated an audio log by accident, which unexpectedly revealed that the Enclave either has or had a presence further east. A scientist at somewhere called Adams Air Force Base was working on a "duraframe reinforcement project" for the "combat eyebots," of which ED-E is supposedly both the prototype and last functional model. The project was cancelled to divert resources to something called "hellfire armour" (which sounds like bad news to me), and so this scientist, Witley, sent ED-E across America to Navarro for the rest of his upgrades. He was supposed to stop by some place called Chicago on the way for repairs, where there may be another Enclave base.
I'll admit, I was a little disturbed by this news. I thought that the Enclave were local to California, like the Master's army. The idea that they may still exist out east in some form isn't a pleasant one. But honestly, after thinking about it for a while, I'm not too worried now. After all, they were sending ED-E to Navarro, which was wiped out decades ago, so this message has to be old. And if the eastern Enclave really were a threat, then they surely would have retaliated against the NCR or the Brotherhood of Steel by now. The fact that I've never heard of them until today suggests that they're probably not a serious problem. Maybe just a small science team or expeditionary force who were away from home when the Enclave fell.
But back to the ghouls. I returned to REPCONN once I was done at the scrapyard, and handed the components to Chris. After that, he and I spent the afternoon finishing up the rockets and making them ready to fly. I learned a lot from observing Chris, rocket science never really being my primary field before. Later, just before the launch, I was even able to improve the navigation of the rockets so that they'd get to their destination more efficiently, which I was particularly proud of myself for.
Finally, we said goodbye to Jason Bright and the rest of the Brotherhood, including Harland, as they all left together. Me and Chris got to watch the rockets take off into the night sky to the sound of "Ride of the Valkyries" by Richard Wagner. It was a surreal and beautiful experience, and a perfect capstone to this whole bizarre adventure.
We returned to Novac together after dark. Chris decided to make Novac his new home, and so went to Jeannie May to get a room at the motel, while I went to Manny to report my success, which he was naturally very pleased with. He's still finishing up his watch, but once he's done, we've agreed to meet up for drinks at his place. Until then, I'm just sitting here outside the McBrides' house, watching for their brahmin killer as I write this entry. And once that's done, I'll snoop around the motel lobby some as well.
Hail to the Keeper.
Killed: Feral ghouls by the truckload.
Today's dinner: Squirrel on a stick again.
Had sex with: Nobody yet, but I'll hit up Manny Vargas later, assuming I don't unexpectedly uncover evidence linking him to the local slave trade.
Day 7: October 25th 2281 UPDATE
So Jeannie May was the culprit. For the disappearance of Boone's wife, I mean, not for gunning down the McBridges' brahmin in the middle of the night while screaming. That turned out to be the work of a nightkin.
I guess I should start with that. Yeah, it was a nightkin killing the brahmin. You cannot imagine how pissed I was to find this out. After all the trouble I went through in REPCONN to avoid fighting the nightkin and to get them to peacefully move on, I ended up having to kill one of them anyway. This one apparently slipped the net and got away from Davison's group, and he was killing the brahmin because he thought he heard them screaming in his head.
I tried to approach and talk to him about this as he left, because naturally I couldn't let this continue, and I was hoping I could get him to go back to Davison's group. But he didn't appreciate my efforts, and tried to shoot me with a minigun. I had to break out my best dance moves to avoid being riddled with bullets, running around him in circles while he twirled on the spot, and he just would not stop, so eventually I stopped him myself with a 5.56 round to the head, much to my regret.
The commotion attracted the attention of the McBrides, who came outside just in time to see me fell the nightkin. I was rewarded with seventy-five caps and a fridge full of brahmin steaks for my trouble. Not what I was expecting, but appreciated. I've since packed them for travel.
While they and some of the other locals were distracted by the dead schizophrenic super mutant, I was able to slip away to the motel and investigate behind the front desk. No-Bark Noonan had been... sort of right about the brahmin killer, so I had to follow up on his lead about seeing people in the motel as well. With Jeannie May gone for the night, I was able to break into her floor safe, where I found a convenient bill of sale for one Carla Boone. It was issued by Caesar's Legion, and addressed to Jeannie May Crawford by name; there was no evidence more damning. The document even named the price for her and Boone's unborn child. I do not say this often or lightly, but I believe that woman got what was coming to her.
It was not easy, knowingly luring her to her death. I mean, she followed me without question, probably because she trusted me so much after all I had done for the town, but that only made it harder if anything. But like I said, Novac doesn't have any real authorities. Boone and Manny are it. It's not like I could just take her to jail. So I did the deed, and just contented myself in the knowledge that if anyone ever deserved this fate, Jeannie May had done more to earn it than most.
I'll have to buy No-Bark Noonan a drink tomorrow, because that's twice tonight he was vital to solving a mystery. He saw Benny and the Khans coming through as well. Makes you wonder what else he knows about.
I went up to Boone again after the deed was done, and we had a little chat. He gave me a hundred caps and an NCR beret as payment, and told me he had no reason to stay in Novac any longer, and wanted to go off to hunt legionaries. I recognise a man with demons when I see one, and I don't want him going off alone and getting killed out in the wasteland chasing his revenge, so I made him the offer to travel with me. He was hesitant at first, but snipers are meant to work in teams, and simply pointing out that he'd be more effective with help than alone was enough to convince him. He might not be a friend yet, but he's an ally now, and maybe in time I might be able to help him.
I'll admit I have some selfish reasons for inviting him to join me, too. I'm pretty badass most of the time, especially after my most recent resurrection, but that incident in Nipton shook me, and even despite all his crimes, I still couldn't bring myself to stop Mr. Fox and his entourage. Boone would not have hesitated in my place. His hatred of the Legion might be the push to action that I need. I don't approve of needless violence, or the cold, calculating way he executed Jeannie May, but if there's one thing I can respect about a man like Boone, it's that I trust him to not let an injustice like Nipton stand.
But although I want to get to know Boone some more, orientation has to wait. I generally work by day, and I don't want him being awake for twenty-four hours and dead on his feet tomorrow. With that in mind, he went off to bed early with a promise to set out tomorrow morning, while I sneaked away to Manny Vargas's room, where I am now writing this entry.
It was a long one (haha) today, but the sun will be coming up in a few hours, and we'll soon have to be on our way again. Looks like another "note on the nightstand" job. Just another day in the life of the Courier.
Hail to the Keeper.
Killed: The stray nightkin, and technically Jeannie May Crawford.
Today's dinner: Already ate earlier.
Had sex with: Manny Vargas (first time with a Great Khan). 10/10 - The man's hung like a super mutant. Definitely going to need some Med-X after this.
Author's notes:
REPCONN and Novac are full of interesting and iconic characters and moments for this game, but Come Fly With Me is still personally one of my least favourite quests. It was one of the first ones which Obsidian designed and implemented in New Vegas, and their inexperience with the engine at the time shows. It's a well-written quest, but it has way too much back and forth running around for what is essentially a series of micro-fetch quests, and the way it handles getting the rocket parts in particular is not well implemented. You probably know what I mean.
Still, I do love the Novac area and characters, especially Manny and Boone. And of course, who could ever forget No-Bark Noonan, the only man Easy Pete ever feared? But more importantly, Novac for me marks the point in every playthrough where I can finally relax, store my items, and start branching out to do my own thing. The early game is always kind of the same for me in New Vegas, but after Novac, everything changes. This is the point, for me, where the game really begins.