No, I'm not dead.

So very sorry this took so long to come out. Something came up irl.

jsrd: For all intents and purposes, Rick is an Antihero in this fic. He's not going to pass up an opportunity to acquire the chip safely due to canon knowledge. Let's say he did take the chip. That runs the risk of getting ambushed and shot in the head, and "Courier 6" wouldn't be the "Courier 6" anymore, changing "canon". Besides, Rick wasn't a courier in the first place and you likely need some kind of paperwork and verification to become one. You can't just entrust a client's mail to some random bum you've never heard of who lives out in the wastes.

Guest: Thank you for your… "opinion". If you don't like self inserts, than why the hell are you reading this? I specified this was a self-insert in the first chapter, and the summary as well. Commenting for the sake of not liking it is pointless and a waste of space. Don't like, don't read.

7000+ words.

Chapter 6 – Recollections of a partly sane man


Clicp

For anyone wondering what that noise was just now, that's what opening a bottle of flat soda sounds like.

The soda in question is Sunset Sarsaparilla. The taste? A mixture of root beer and licorice.

Not really my cup of tea, but I'm drinking it anyway.

Slurp. Actually glug would fit better.

So, it's been about… uh… a week since I last talked to myself like this. One week of being "sane". Currently, I'm sitting in the Mojave Outpost, nursing a hangover.

Last night when I walked in here, one drunk Sharon Cassidy challenged everyone, including NCR soldiers, to a drinking contest. I don't know what NCR policy on drinking outside Vegas is, but some off-duty NCR soldiers joined in, along with a few caravan people. She tried to get me to join too, while already being partly drunk.

Rick told her to fuck off, but she laughed it off and managed to rope me in somehow. The next part is the muddled mess usually associated with drinking too much, but I remember I almost beat her in the contest. If only I had ten Endurance. Lasted a lot longer than everyone else though.

This morning, I woke up on the floor with a bucket on my head and one of the worst headaches in my life. At least I was still wearing my armor, it could have been worse. I took a mentat and drank five purified waters. Worked a little bit, but I'm still waiting for my headache to fully subsidize before risking my life out in the wastes.

Cass is completely out of it. She's draped over the counter of the bar, snoring loudly. Some NCR soldiers walking around are giving her dirty looks. I could wake her, but this is amusing seeing her annoy everyone else in the vicinity. There are also a couple people passed out in a similar position around the bar.

Just wish she'd quiet down a bit. My ears are still susceptible to loud noises. Eyes are fine, probably because they aren't organic anymore.

Cass herself, is rather pretty in real life. Can see why there's so much "fanart" coughporncough of her on the internet.

It exists, you're just not looking hard enough. Before you get disgusted, I am a male. That is what a large majority of males do. Females too, I don't judge. Besides, you've probably looked at it as well, or will shortly after reading this here thought of mine.

Don't lie. Nobody likes a liar.

But enough talking about the woman like she's a piece of meat. I'd like to think I'm better than that. Though if you think about it, human bodies are technically large pieces of meat…

I blame my hangover for these weird thoughts. Let's move on before this gets even more disturbing. Point is, not my type anyway.

Alright soooo… even though this won't benefit me in any conceivable manner possible, let's do a recap of the three weeks before I ended up at this here bar. It'll give me something to focus on other than my hangover at least.

Let's start with some minor news. Every Powder Ganger between Goodsprings, Sloan, and Primm are all dead.

Whaaaattt, that's not minor? My mistake.

After I finished clearing out Vault 40, I decided to finally get down to the nitty gritty business of exterminating the Powder Gangers in this section of the Mojave. Took me about… four days to kill them all.

First day Eddy and I harassed all the little camps by murdering every convict in them, stealing the mines, looting everything, and killing reinforcements.

The tin can mines they make, powder charges, are disabled by pressing the little silver button on the sensor module portion. Electromagnetic vision helped a lot finding the things hidden in the grass. Only got blown up three times that day. Once by being grazed by a dynamite explosion, once by failing to disarm a powder charge in time (luckily I was wearing metal armor for that one), and once by a guy who tried to go full kamikaze by rushing me holding a lit dynamite. He almost got me. Almost. That day, I realized just how fucking crazy Powder Gangers are.

Lost my hearing temporarily in one ear for the rest of the day. Dynamite is loud, especially when it goes off next to you. Had to stumble back to Goodsprings after the third one almost killed me unlike the first two. Doc Mitchell complained to me, but I was deaf in one ear and easily ignored his mother-henning.

I leveled up that day too. Two new perks were available. Friend of the Night and Hunter.

Friend of the Night was useless in the vanilla game to begin with, and Bionic Eyes makes them utterly pointless. Hunter however, is a perk I might get later on my travels if I run out of perks I want. Damage bonus to wasteland animals.

I picked the second rank for the Toughness perk.

Second day, I went to Primm and raided the Bison Steve Hotel. There were people, namely tourists, in there, but it didn't stop me from pilfering everything. Found a Tales of a Junkytown Jerky Vendor in the room where you get the unique weapon Lucky, a .357 revolver that crits more often. I stole that too.

Here's the quip from the Junkytown book.

When attempting to bargain, assume everything is fair game. Don't be intimidated by a title, and be willing to bargain for big bucks. Give a reason for sellers to negotiate, ask open-ended questions, see whether or not the seller is anxious, a good indicator of if they are trying to swindle you. Most importantly, make sure to decide on a fair price and be willing to walk away if they are asking too much and are refusing to budge.

Your Barter has increased by 4.

After that, the town was attacked by escaped convicts that afternoon, about a dozen or so of them. Eddy and I teamed up with Sheriff McBain (that's the dead guy you find in the sheriff house) and killed them all, through several well placed explosions and cracked skulls courtesy of me.

The Butterfly Effect is finally here people. Now, due to my existence, Sheriff McBain won't die in his sleep and Primm be overrun by convicts. He thanked me afterwards for my assistance and Rick was like "yeah whatever" in response.

Went down into the AWoP Primm sewers, and killed a lot of ghouls. Got rad sickness, which was really unpleasant. Headache, nausea, and I felt like I had a fever. Radaway is administered by uncapping a needle that comes with the IV bag, and sticking yourself with it, squeezing the bag. Feels really unpleasant unlike a stimpack. Like I'm pumping crap into my system.

What is Radaway made out of anyway? Knowing Fallout, probably something hideous.

Next, I went up into the hills of Primm, killed a few Bark scorpions, discovered the train station junkyard thing along with an AWoP entrance. I didn't go in, remembered that the dungeon had deathclaws. Maybe later, when I'm in my level thirties.

Then I came across a group of raiders in the prospector cave lounge nearby. Killed all of them easily with surprisingly minimal effort. Came across some reinforced metal armor and a metal helm, actually wearing that right now at the table I'm sitting at.

Found a Tumblr's Today in the lounge after I killed the raider leader via face disfigurement by my crowbar. Here's the excerpt.

Use a tension tool that fits the keyway snugly. Always begin with a very light turning tension. Don't start resorting to higher forces until you've spent a few minutes raking the lock with a feather light tuning force. If using a pickgun, start with-

Your Lockpick has increased by 4.

After that adventure, I returned to Primm and then Goodsprings, selling stuff to their respective merchants. By that point, I had a little over five thousand caps. So I went to Frank's and bought the house.

It was worth the caps. Walking in, the house itself looks pretty standard, a kitchen, some ammo boxes, and a bunk bed. But going into the kitchen you can find a locked safe mounted on the counter with a key in it. Taking the key, you can open a trapdoor next to the bed, and that's where the real treasure is.

But before I did that, I found a Nikola Tesla and You. I honestly had no idea what to expect, given the closest things we've ever had to energy weapons on our Earth aren't like the fallout version at all. I was disappointed when all it talked about was theoretical applications of Tesla's death ray. Trust me, it really wasn't interesting at all to read as it sounds, so I'll just spare you the boredom.

Your Energy Weapons has increased by 4.

The trapdoor reveals a ladder, which leads down into a cozy little bunker. I won't describe the layout in heavy detail, just the necessities.

The first room has several lockers and other containers which you can store things in. It also possesses a reloading bench and a workbench near the ladder where you come in. Further on in, you'll find a desk with a working terminal which talks about The Underground, the main star of the AWoP mod. I'll talk about it another time, when it's relevant.

There are two doors left and right of the terminal. We'll go right first.

The second room mainly serves as the bedroom area. In here, you'll find one king-size bed and a bunkbed. There are at least five wardrobes in the room, so you can hang up all your non-armor clothing. Eddy likes to perch himself on a desk that has a huge plasma globe on it at night. This room is also shared with the "medical" section further in. Here, we find the aforementioned auto-doc which will be so useful in the future. It's not like the one in Big Mountain, instead like the one that Caesar has in his tent. Nearby is a counter where you can store all your medical crap.

If you were to look to the left of the medical station, you would see yet another door. Opening it leads to an armory where I stored most of my weapons I don't need but don't want to sell. I've gained a habit over the past few weeks of collecting mark II weapons or unique items. I also shove weapon mods on the mark II weapons.

A guy needs a hobby. No, killing people doesn't count. Trying to stay sane and relatively moral here.

Going back to the first room and walking through the left door, we find ourselves in the kitchen. The refrigerators have power, and I've been able to secure cold water, a luxury in this place. The RobCo brand water purifier is here too, and I've used it with a great degree of success. There's another door in the kitchen. Walking through that one finds us in the bathroom.

The bathroom has a working toilet, bathtub, sink, and also houses the generator powering this place. Hopefully it won't fail anytime soon. It can probably be fixed, but looking at it I can tell it would be a major pain in the ass to replace several key components.

There's one last room. Opening the door leads to a small cave system. There's a few pieces of furniture like a sofa and comfy chairs. Also a few metal boxes and a trunk, plus a campfire.

Over the course of these past few days I've been picking up things like honey mesquite, barrel cactus fruit, things like that. Also empty soda bottles, tin cans, fission batteries, practically anything of value. I could tell you where I stored everything in the house, but I'm not bored enough to put you through that torture.

I used the bathtub. Felt great. I'd go into detail, but I'm sure most of you could live without knowing the exact details of how filthy I'd gotten since waking up here.

The answer? Very.

After I slept in a real bed for the night, I got back to my little pet project of murdering every Powder Ganger.

Third day, the NCRCF facility sent out a couple of Powder Gangers, about ten, to hunt me down. I think part of them were Joe Cobb's group, because I saw Cobb's ugly mug in there.

They lost. Badly. Four of them got blown up, three killed by Eddy's laser, two introduced to the business end of my crowbar. Joe Cobb was "lucky" enough to survive, and had a very different fate than his compatriots.

When I was in the prospector den the raiders took over, I found a ripper. I'm sure you can guess what I did to him. After he was *ahem* "indisposed", I took his armor. It's hanging up in my armory right now.

You owe me one, Dingo. I think that's the Crimson Caravan guy's name. Definitely.

After that, I lurked near the NCRCF for the rest of the day, waiting for the surviving Powder Gangers to make their move. I think I spooked them bad, because no one came out. I was considering starving them out, but I've never been that patient.

So I, assisted only by Eddy, stormed the facility at midnight. It went pretty well. The guy at the entrance took only two blows to the face before dropping, and it only took three seconds to dig through his pockets to find the key to the door.

What happened next was essentially a bloodbath. Various explosives were thrown, Eddy's laser fired, guns were fired, my crowbar swung, people died. I don't remember how many convicts were in the facility only that I killed them all, each with a number added to my count.

I also took the powder charge schematic. I probably wouldn't use it, given that satchel charges were the superior mine and much more cheap to make, but it was something. When morning came, I stumbled out of the administration office, metal armor covered in blood. I had several bones broken (bastard with the brass knuckles packs a mean punch) and I felt like shit from all the chems I took.

And with not a single feeling of regret.

Unfortunately, Meyers perished that night as well. Before you go pointing fingers, I didn't technically kill him. What happened was that when I and Eddy stepped into the reception building, one of the Gangers had the bright idea to pull out a dynamite stick.

Eddy's laser hit the dynamite before the guy could throw it. Meyers was sitting next to the Ganger. Guy goes boom, Meyers goes boom.

Sorry, Meyers.

I leveled up after falling on my ass in exhaustion in the courtyard. I ignored the level up menu for a few minutes, contemplating what I'd just done. After a while, I came to the conclusion that I didn't care. They had it coming anyway. If I didn't do it, the Courier or someone else would have eventually.

Except Meyers. I'd say sorry, but it wouldn't make you come back, so I'll save my breath.

Ah, I should probably tell you about the drugs before I move onto the new perks available.

Psycho makes you super-aggressive. From a medical standpoint, I'd imagine it makes your brain produce excessive amounts of testosterone in a short time. Maybe adrenalin as well.

Buffout makes you feel invincible, and can take on the world. Nuff' said.

But new perks. I actually leveled up between day one and two of fighting the Powder Gangers, but I held off talking about it now so we can get it all done in one nicely condensed info dump.

The first of the new perks was Commando. Useless for me, as it's a rifle version of Gunslinger and I don't have VATS because no pip-boy.

Iron Handshake. Project Nevada perk, allows you to install more cybernetic implants in your arms. After I get a solid stack of perks and find enough implants, I'll get this perk.

Quick Draw. This perk sounds really good, but it's actually pointless. If you're going into a dangerous area you know has enemies, why haven't you already drawn your weapon?

Scrounger. Let's you find more ammo. Useless for me as finding explosive ammo is fairly uncommon and I can deal with buying it from the store like everyone else.

Sneering Imperialist. I might get this perk later, maybe when I get to the Fiends. Don't especially need it though. Can kill raiders on my own fine enough. Plus I'm worried it might alter my mind and make me be an asshole to Zion's tribals.

Strong Back. If I didn't have a 4D, this perk would have been essential. I might get it, just not anytime soon.

Stonewall and Super Slam. Essential perks if you're making a melee build. Stonewall gives you extra defense against melee and unarmed attacks and prevents you from being knocked down. Super Slam gives a chance for your melee and unarmed attacks to knock your opponents down.

I picked Stonewall earlier, picked up Lord Death and Day Tripper (I did a bunch of drugs during the Primm fight) and lastly picked Super Slam.

Here are the perk descriptions.

Stonewall- You have harnessed the power of bad country music.

I listen to rock and metal, so I have no idea what it's referencing.

Lord Death- Congratulations, you've ended the life of 200 living beings for your own personal gain. Are you proud of yourself?

Fuck off.

Day Tripper- You can now be piss drunk for even longer. Hooray.

Oh boy, I can't wait.

Super Slam- COME ON AND SLAM IF YOU WANNA JAM-

I should have known the description would be something from that terrible movie.

"Hey!" said someone at Warner Bros, "Let's make a movie about Looney Tunes and Michael Jordan, it'll be great! The kiddies will love it!"

Space Jam is one of those movies that fall into the "so bad it's good" category. Ah, the nostalgia of watching it back when I was in middle school. Back then, I thought it was a great movie.

Now, I'd just laugh on and on at how stupid it was.

After trudging back to my new home in Goodsprings, I took a well-deserved bath. Also dumped a load of Abraxo cleaner into the water when I was done and washed the blood off my new reinforced metal armor. I found a metal helm alongside the armor when I got it.

And unlike the armor I started out with, it is bulletproof. Thank God.

The fourth day, I went and cleared out the two gecko dungeons near Goodsprings. The first was the one in Devil's Gullet, and was infested by Golden Geckoes. The second is located in the hills of Goodsprings in a place called Firetooth Caverns, filled with Fire Geckoes. Never saw that coming.

I killed all the Geckos with my fireaxe, strategic explosions, and Eddy's help. There was also usage of chems when necessary. I don't plan on using chems for every fight due to concerns of overdose, or it changing my body's chemistry to make me reliant on chems to the point that a Fixer or auto-doc is useless.

I do not want to walk all the way to the other end of America to find that Vault that has the addiction curing machine in the Commonwealth. I'm in Nevada for god's sake.

Holy shit. Just realized I'm not bound by the limits of a game anymore. I could go wherever I want. Travel all the way to the Commonwealth just to bitchslap Shawn for his shitty reason for replacing people with synths.

"You wouldn't understand." Quality writing as always, Bethesda. And people wonder why Fallout New Vegas had a better storyline coughObsidiancough.

Maybe after I complete FNV's main story quest.

It's starting to feel weird classifying this as a game. Hmm. My genre savvy sense is tingling.

Oh noes, I'm beginning to turn from a self-insert into an OC with future knowledge.

I wonder how badly I damaged the forth wall with that line.

But back to my usage of the fireaxe. I've gotten better with it over the past few days and it's surprisingly effective against creatures bigger than dogs. I've shelved the crowbar for now, letting it sit in my 4D. Super Slam was probably the most useful perk ever when fighting these things. My swings would occasionally knock them over when they hit, sending them tumbling.

Killing the geckoes up close and personal was a bit daunting at first if I was honest. Especially the fire ones, as the adults were mostly taller than me. I was half expecting nothing to happen when I hit them with the axe, but was pleasantly surprised when it tore through flesh like nothing.

I'm still not properly spec'd for the fire axe but I find as I raise my melee weapons skill, it gets easier to wield. Still sucks when I miss a swing and inertia grabs hold of me.

Skinning the bodies was a rather unpleasant task, and I messed up the first few times, but I've gotten better at it. I remember you can upgrade leather and metal armor with a high survival skin and tanned gecko leather at a campire. Which reminds me, to make healing powder all you need is Xander root and Broc flowers plus a knife, cut them up and stuff em in a bag and presto, healing powder.

In the Devil's Gullet dungeon, I leveled up once more. Three new perks to choose from.

Finesse. A must have for any build that has uses critical hits. Gives you five extra points of Luck in combat and is an absolute killer when paired with Better Criticals.

Here and Now. Utterly fucking useless. Fallout New Vegas is, or was, a game where you can hit max level well before you finish exploring everything. Only useful if you absolutely need skill points or something right away.

Night Person. Gives you two Intelligence and Perception at night. To be honest, it's pretty useless for me since I have Eddy, whose perk will grant me super perception when it decides to work. I'm planning to max my Intelligence anyway.

The obvious choice is Finesse.

Finesse- Holding your gun sideways does not increase your accuracy. Stop trying to look cool, you moron.

Ah, it's mocking the perk icon.

When I finished killing all the Gecko bosses, Smokey, Firetooth, and… I don't remember the last one, I went to Frank and told him I killed them all. He then gave me a quest to kill a radscorpion called Big Bertha in an abandoned NCR bunker.

Which brought us to our next location: Mojave Outpost. Now don't get excited yet, I'm not done telling my story. The trek to the outpost on the fifth day was extremely boring, broken only by several locations I visited.

The Mojave Wasteland is slightly bigger and larger in real life than it was in game, though it just might be because the whole "shit, this is real life now" thing. Took me an hour to walk from Primm to the area near the outpost. Although it was relieving when I finally reached something interesting after murdering some raiders…

The station with a green fuck you written on the doors. Friendly as could be. After I killed all the inhabitants, I raided the place, as is customary for when this still was a game. Notable finds include a variety of ammo, two hydra, and a Guns and Bullets.

Never run a brush in the barrel first when cleaning. This will damage the firearm. The brush will pick up dirt, moisture or powder residue and deposit it into the chamber or receiver. Never dip a brush in solvent. The solvent at the brush core will collect dirt and drop it into the receiver and chamber.

Your Guns have increased by 4.

Firearm maintenance? Wouldn't that fit better in a Repair skill book?

Thirty minutes later Eddy and I reached that old gas station with radscorpions outside. Everything's where it was in the game except mayor fatass's note. We might just reach Nipton before it gets Legion'd.

Another skill book found, I'm really patting myself on the back for making the decision to take Comprehension.

Pugilism Illustrated.

Turn your whole body into the punch. If your feet are slow (most people have slow feet at first) you will find that punching a little slower actually hits harder than punching faster. So in other words, punch as fast as your body can turn so you won't sacrifice power. Again, use your whole body instead of the arms to punch.

Your Unarmed has increased by 4.

Next we trek all the way up the hill, undisturbed except for the occasional radscorpion. Eddy's laser usually kills them before they even get close to us, but one swing of my axe is enough to finish one off.

I need to find a rag or something to clean radscorpion guts off it though. Threw away the old rag, got too nasty.

After I reached Mojave Outpost, I traded with some people, bought some things. Then I headed off to the abandoned bunker a little ways away. Long story short, I never knew how deceptively easy it was to knock over giant radscorpions with a fire axe. I have more radscorpion poison sacs than I know what to do with now.

Note to any future self-inserters out there: Unless you're a big strong boy like me, don't attack a radscorpion the size of a car with a normal fire axe. It probably won't end well for you.

Bertha was one big motherfucker, about the size of a minivan at least. Course, nothing explosives can't take care of. I reported her death to Frankie and got a key to the Underground as payment. I'll explain what the Underground is to you briefly, but we're not going down there till we have a high enough level to transverse it without getting wrecked by all the horrible things that live there.

Basic summary? Massive cave system under the whole Mojave. Rich people funded it and hid there when the bombs dropped. Most of it's been overrun by things such as Lakelurks and other horrors of the wastes. There's a community of friendlies living down there somewhere, but I've only been there once in game, and I didn't really explore that area much.

What happened after that was that I took two days off to rest and relax. Which leads us to where we are now, the Mojave outpost. The eighth day. To be honest, the only reason I'm here is because I'm bored. Rick's social mind vehemently protests hanging out with the settlers of Goodsprings and I had to take another mentant even before I approached the outpost itself.

I'll eventually fix my Charisma, but it's not a high priority because I mostly adventure by myself sans Eddy. What'll probably happen is I'll shove two Intensive Training points into it, then get the Charisma implant from the New Vegas Clinic.

Alright, story time's over. We are now in the present.

Hang on.

Ah shit, I missed something. Got two new perks while I was in that bunker.

Bug Stomper (Rank 2)- You're a bully to insects. Be proud.

What's weird is that I don't remember getting the first rank of Bug Stomper. I probably got it in Vault 40 and just didn't see the notification or something.

Melee Hacker (Rank 1)- You're good at mashing your keyboard with your fingers.

What- oh I get it.

Ahem.

Now we are in the present.

I realize I've been talking about all this shit I'm finding, so for the hell of it, let's go over what's currently in the pile of stuff I use. Right now, I'm wearing a full set of metal reinforced armor, helmet included as I mentioned earlier. My combat helmet and merc suit broke ages ago.

Now, weapons. My primary is my fire axe. I've still got my crowbar, it's sitting in the 4D just in case. Swapped out the mercenary grenade rifle for a fancy Grenade rifle Mark II I found somewhere. It fires two shots before you have to reload. Both it and the fire axe are currently sitting on my back right now, which it seems all metal armor is magnetized to a degree.

I also have a bunch of grenades, both frag and plasma clipped at my waist. Can't reach for my remote in the middle of a firefight and risk it getting damaged.

The rest of the weapon crap sitting in my inventory is waiting to be sold to someone who actually has caps, while stuff like the ripper is used for… other things than combat.

All you imaginary lawful good's who are protesting in the back of my mind, save your breath on that speech you're preparing. I could care less about your self-righteous crap. Not like I'm going to make a habit of it.

Placing my hands on the bar in a way that supports my body weight, I push myself up from the bar stool. Eddy, who's perched himself on a wooden box nearby, chirps and "wakes up." We leave the outpost without much fanfare, just a couple NCR soldiers who glanced at me.

Today, ladies and gents, we are going to explore the Reinmann Bunker. It's near Goodsprings Sewer and the door that leads to the Underground. For those who have never played FNV with AWoP, this is near the cazadores. Luckily it's not that close to the buggers, so it's unlikely we'll run into them. Though if we do, I have plenty of antivenom to spare.

This is the place that has the redoubts I talked a few days ago. Speaking in game terms, Reinmann Bunker is essentially an extended dungeon, with the redoubts coming out at various points around the Mojave. We already saw one of the exits at Hidden Valley.

But Rick, you still haven't told us what a redoubt is!-I hear you whining in the background.

I'm getting to it, goddamn.

A redoubt, in AWoP terms, is basically an area that you reach via teleporter. There's a central hub of the things sitting deeper in Reinmann Bunker. As for what the teleporters actually look like…

You know those Protectron cylinders you find in Helios? Basically that with a generic control panel in the wall, minus the force field.

There was some kinda mod lore around that area as well. Some secret group of people, probably the Illuminati, were using it to scavenge for things. I didn't really pay much attention to it at the time.

But getting back on topic, if real life FNV decides to give me the middle finger and not let me fast travel when I get a pip boy, I could use some of these exits to get around quickly in the Mojave Wasteland.

SURPRISE KILL COUNT! NINETY SIX!

I bet one of you assholes was hoping I'd forget to list the number so you could rib alternate me about it. To those people, fuck you.

On a much more serious note…

Ninety six. Damn.

Given my apathy and complete lack of regret for killing almost one hundred people, suffice to say it's definitely confirmed there is something very wrong with me.

Good thing I'm self-aware as hell, so I'll likely avoid falling into the pitfall of insanity and become a murderhobo psychopath who kills anything that moves for no good reason.

Probably.

…Hopefully.

Ookay there's just one more thing I promise… oh yah, news on the Courier.

Haven't seen hide nor hair of this "Hannah". I've visited the old man almost daily so I'd like to think I would have noticed someone lying on the patient bed. The game never was clear on how many weeks between the Ulysses-Nash event and the Courier picking up the package event took place. Could be a week or two, or a month until show time. I'm planning on hitting the road and migrating to Novac soon. I've kinda shot myself in the foot with the whole message thing and I'm not eager at having to explain it to the Courier.

Besides my crap Charisma will likely just make things worse.

I'll give it one more day, just in case it happens. If Benny shows up I have no issues with getting on the Great Khans shit list for murdering members of their tribe and their backstabbing client. The chip is more important than the lives of a smooth talker and a couple thugs.

That's everything important addressed. Only thing left to do is to reach the Bunker now.

It's hot.

I'm not even halfway there yet.

Arrrggghhhh.


After three hours of speed walking from Mojave Outpost back to Goodsprings under that godawful sun, I finally reach Reinmann Cave.

Ugh. I stink.

Thinking about it now, a large majority of people in the fallout-verse probably don't smell that great either, seeing as most of us live out in a powerless wasteland.

Well, not here at least. Hoover Dam is main power supplier around here. Everything else is powered by old generators and fission batteries. I need to fix Helios at some point, regardless of the Courier's intentions towards the Mojave. Need to make sure ARCHIMEDES II can't ever be activated.

The entrance to the cave is covered with vines sprawling out of the mouth. I don't remember seeing any Vault 22 abominations in there when this was a game, so it must be entirely natural.

I'd say something really witty here, but my plant puns are lacking so I'll just leaf the matter alone for now.

Inside well… it's a cave. Wet, dark, and dank.

No, there isn't abundance of Mountain Dew and Doritos in here. Dank as in damp, musty, and cold. How dank got to be associated with the term mlg is beyond me.

How do you do fellow kids? Fellow memers? Do I sound like an old man trying to be hip to you?

But anyway, if you go further down the inside of Reinmann Bunker looks to be used as a dumping ground for Goodsprings along with prewar crap. Rusted out robots, broken terminals, all overgrown with natural plant life. And rats. Rats about the size of a housecat and bigger.

Unfriendly, too. I think I was swinging my axe at one point continuously for five minutes. Little bastards. They just kept coming and coming. Thankfully my "level" and "stats" were at a point I could kill them all easily.

I must have killed thirty to forty of them. Seriously, the cave was absolutely infested with them. In fact, I killed so many that Animal Control leveled up in rank. Sadly no new descriptions about PETA hating my guts.

Not much else to say. I ran around looting everything of value until I came across the lakelurk.

And man, it is one ugly motherpucker. Yes, I spelled that wrong intentionally.

The first thing that grabs your attention about a lakelurk besides its size is the color of the skin. Now I don't know about you, but where I come from, something that is seven feet tall and colored ocean blue isn't typically considered normal for the local wildlife.

Naturally that makes it stick out like a sore thumb, especially in a cave filled with radioactive glowing green mushrooms.

Did I say it was ugly before? Let me restate my observation.

It's very ugly.

The eyes are an orangish red, and its nose has its nostrils turned upwards. There's also a huge scar running diagonally across its face, even leading to the frill things surrounding its neck.

If I remember correctly, this particular lakelurk is called "Scar". How appropriate.

Scar takes offense at my very existence and begins growling at me. A normal person might have ran away, but I think we all know by now that I've got a couple screws loose.

So, hefting my axe into a swinging position, I charge it. Eddy's just now noticed it and the speakers mounted on his chassis have crackled to life, playing the first few notes of his battle music. Scar leans his upper body backwards, splaying his arms outwards horizontally making a droopy T.

Ah fuck, he's gonna use that weird echolocation death ray that all lakelurks have.

The lakelurk opens his mouth and time seems to slow as an orb of blue manifests in his mouth. It expands rapidly, shooting outwards making the "bew" noise as it flies towards me.

I have the strangest feeling it's not a good idea to let that thing hit me.

So to avoid the projectile, my next stride has me bending my extended leg, putting me in awkward crouch as the energy thing flies over my head and hits the wall behind me. From the sound it made, probably broke off a sizeable chunk of the cave wall. Eddy hasn't fired his laser yet for some reason, probably doesn't have a clear shot or some bullshit reason like that. I get up and stare at Scar.

The lakelurk is taller than me by at least two feet. I have to look upwards at it to even see its eyes. At this point, we're probably five feet away from each other.

Derplurk seems to be in a state of shock if I take its opened mouth into account. Granted, I can't really read its facial expressions with a hundred percent accuracy. Probably isn't used to things outright dodging its projectiles, but whatever.

Scar makes a snorting noise followed by a snarl. Straightening his stature, he leans himself forward, most likely about to charge. Normally, I wouldn't take something that big on in an outright slugfest, but Stonewall will prevent me from being bowled over, and Super Slam speaks for itself.

For those of you wondering how I was taking on radscorpions with ease earlier, I was just flipping the scorpions for the most part, and attacking their weak point for massive damage. Completely different from what I'm about to do here.

If we were to take the game into account, while a lakelurk's melee prowess is nothing to scoff at, a baby deathclaw is much more dangerous than a full grown lakelurk in the melee department. I've never fought a deathclaw, but theoretically, this should be easy.

Imma bout to get my ass whooped, aren't I?


Bethesda's E3 stuff was basically, "We're still milking the shit out of Skyrim and bringing back paid mods". Looking at it now, Bethesda has become a huge disappointment over the years. They need to focus on making other games and get their dicks out of Skyrim's ass. It's been roughly six years since Skyrim was released, and they still want to squeeze more money for it out of their consumers. It's not like they need it either.

How the mighty have fallen. As for practically everyone's opinion on the Creation Club (PAID MODS) itself…

To quote the famous words of some guy on YouTube;

"Hey Bethesda here's another dick you can suck, let me mark it on your map!"

When will the gaming industry learn that paid mods are a big no-no?

P.S. Did you know FNV was a rushed game? That's right, Obsidian planned on adding a whole bunch of other stuff to the game. If you look carefully, you can find traces of Cut Content all throughout the Mojave. Look it up if you don't believe me. Obsidian even was planning to make it so you were able to walk around after the Battle of Hoover Dam, kind of like Fallout 3's Broken Steel. But Bethesda rushed them for time constraints and we were presented with a game that could have been so much more. FNV is still great, but imagine how better it could have been had it been delayed a year or two for Obsidian to finish implementing all that cut content?

Alright, enough shitting on Bethesda, let's move the topic to something relevant.

This chapter was meant to be much, much, longer, but I haven't updated in a month so some folks might think I've died or something. I'll just give it almost-finished as a way of reassuring you folks I haven't abandoned this. Next chapter will finish up Reinmann Bunker and might dip into what was originally planned to be the next chapter a little.

This chapter was going to be called "Recaps and Redoubts", but yeah…

Originally, I was going to finish Reinmann Bunker in this chapter but it's since it's been moved, here's what'll probably happen. Next chapter we "complete" Reinmann Bunker, talk about what a pre-Legion Nipton looks like, and then might end up time skipping to Novac. I'm unsure how many words Reinmann Bunker will take up, so it might be combined with the rest of the originally planned Novac chapter or it (Novac Chapter) could go on to be Chapter 8. The Novac area was supposed to get a chapter all to itself, so I'm not sure what I'll do for that. Might get split up into parts like this chapter.

I might just say fuck it and combine the two chapters together to form chapter 7 "possibly" making it 10000+ words. No promises on how long it will take for me to accomplish that feat should I choose that option.

Not sure how it'll all work out, but considering all my chapters have passed the 5000+ word mark so far (not counting the first chapter), I'm sure you guys will be satisfied with whatever happens. Now, about the whole, "Is Rick going to meet the Courier in Goodsprings?" thing that some of you probably have a burning desire in your heart to know, I might as well tell you now b/c it's relatively unimportant.

I did consider letting Rick meet the Courier at Goodsprings and begin traveling with her, but here's a few reasons why I'm choosing not to.

-Rick will not part with Eddy voluntary, out of fear he will go insane if left alone to his own devices and by himself. Feels genuine companionship with the eyebot, despite speaking little to Eddy. He will stay with Eddy as long as the robot is still functioning. As mentioned earlier and last chapter, he wrote a note that gave a huge clue about who shot her and the note also came with a threat. If the Courier asks who wrote the letter, Nash can tell the Courier that they have their own personal eyebot.

ED-E is the only functional eyebot in the Mojave. (Divide eyebots don't count.)

As a result, if Rick travels with the Courier, he will likely have to lie repeatedly about Benny and the other factions without giving knowledge that he should not have. The consequences should the lie's cover be blown would be disastrous to say the least. Rick has no intention of sharing the full extent of his knowledge of the future for fear that it will change "canon".

-Due to the previous host being a misanthrope, there is a distinct separation of how Rick wants to act around people, and what actually happens. Even if he were to raise his Charisma, his behavioral issues would likely persist, albeit be much more manageable. Despite his best efforts, he will likely feel extremely hostile and be easily irritated at the Courier until he can fix his Charisma.

-I'd like to give Rick a reputation before the Courier comes across him. Instead of being some random stranger nobody, make Rick become a widely known figure that is both respected… and feared.

There was a profile here, but the whole "I'm releasing this early" thing has made it invalid. Whoops.

2/5/2019: Holy shit, I had completely forgot about the paid mods thing. Another reason to hate Bethesda, thanks past self!

Edited 2/5/2019.