Thank you, user Selected Sound, for the review! You all should be more like him!
Our hero found himself in Goodneighbor, rocking his new Courser Uniform. He jogged past Hancock, who was apparently still waiting for the response to their first conversation. He ran past the shops, hopped over the two park benches in front of the Third Rail, and on in to the Memory Den. He needed to go tell Doctor Amari that he had successfully dispatched the Courser. And needed a code from the Courser chip.
"I found Virgil. He has a way inside the Institute, but I need a code from a Courser Chip."
"A Courser Chip? You fought a Courser? Oh my God," Amari exclaimed with her vaguely eastern European accent.
"I don't know why everyone is so surprised at the fact that I fought a Courser! Besides, I literally walked in wearing his coat, figured that would have tipped you off at least," said Scruffy, somewhat insecurely.
The good doctor gave him instructions that he would have to Follow the Freedom Trail in order to reach the Railroad, a shadowy organization that could help him decode the Courser Chip.
Our hero shrugged and jogged on out of there, to the beginning of the Freedom Trail.
Apparently, anyone who wanted to join the Railroad had to walk this historical trail from start to finish, while keeping track of certain puzzle clues written on the ground. Oh, and apparently they would need to be a master of combat.
Scruffy started on the first tile of the Trail and hard jogged along it. Along the way, he fought a graveyard full of Super Mutants, a building full of Ghouls, an alley full of vicious dogs and more ghouls. Then, he darted past the courtyard of Faneuil Hall, which located even more Super Mutants and one very lost Raider. Everyone received the customary Furious punch to the noggin, even Strong at one point, which Captain Scruffy swears was an accident.
Finally, he found himself at the entrance to the Old North Church. He knew there must be some history behind this building, judging by the statue of the dude on the horse right out front, but he resolutely ignored it, and the rest of Revolutionary history on display before him. If he had, there's no telling what kind of connections he might have drawn between the people back then, and the people right now. He may have even seen and appreciated the connections between the factions he was currently dealing with, and their counterparts located conveniently throughout early American history.
"I have no space in my brain for such trifles!" he said to himself. The only things he did have space for, apparently, were the various means of violence, and the lyrics to a Diamond City Radio song or two.
Once inside, he found a broken down church and some feral ghouls who seemed very angry to be woken up.
"Hey, you guys don't look like Railroad operatives!" Scruffy accused as he punched their heads off. "Guess I'll check in the basement."
A couple of decrepit hallways later, he was face to face with his worst nightmare: A puzzle element. There was a plaque that said "The Freedom Trail - Boston" on it, in circular formation. The ring containing the letters could rotate, and there was a red arrow drawn pointing to the letter at 12 o' clock. One could press a button that registered that letter as their selection. Clearly, the puzzle wanted the answerer to spell a word, like a secret passphrase.
Scruffy gasped. The hairs went up on the back of his neck. His breathing grew short. His pupils narrowed. And then he realized something. He had definitely not been paying attention when the Freedom Trail was handing out the free answer to this puzzle, and he was most definitely too lazy to go back and work out the answer now. That means he had to do his two worst favorite things on planet Earth: Concentrate, and think. He did so, for about five seconds. Then the answer popped out at him like burnt toast pops out of a toaster oven.
"It's Railroad, isn't it? The answer's Railroad. It can't be freedom, because freedom is already spelled out there. It can't be liberty, because there's no 'Y'. What do you think, Strong?" he asked.
Strong stood still and stared at the wall.
"I'll take that as a sign of agreement."
He entered RAILROAD as the answer using a complicated method of spinning the ring and pressing the button. Sure enough, the wall next to him slid open, much in the way that a door to a shadowy organization would. Our hero walked forward, into a pitch black room. All of the sudden, the lights came on, and he had a couple of guns pointed at him.
"Stop right there," said a woman named Desdemona as the game prevented Scruffy from walking forward momentarily, "You went through a lot of effort to arrange this meeting. But before we go any further, answer this question: Who the hell are you?"
"Okay, first of all, if you're actually good spies you would already know who I am. Second, isn't this how people are supposed to join the Railroad? You just point guns at and interrogate everyone who successfully passes the puzzle? And third, Put down your weapons first."
"Until I determine that you're not a threat, we'll point our weapons wherever we damn well please," came the heated reply. "Who told you to contact us?"
Scruffy decided to try the hardest speech option.
"I helped Karl out of a jam. He knows a guy who knows a guy, and they hooked me up with a lead," said Scruffy, nearly laughing at the stupidity of the response.
"This will go a lot better if you stick to the truth. Who told you about us?" Desdemona threatened. She was determined to pry Scruffy's source out of him, whatever it took.
"I'm not saying," came the resolute response. To be honest, Scruffy felt a little bit like a badass action hero being questioned. And if he knew anything about action movies, he was about to be rescued by some sort of distraction.
"We have very powerful enemies. If you want to deal with us, we require your cooperation. Last question, why are you here?" Desdemona responded, completely forgetting that she still hadn't found out who sent him. Scruffy considered it a personal win.
"Let's say, hypothetically, I've come into the possession of a Courser Chip. Would you be able to help?"
Desdemona could not believe it. Until a man named Deacon came up, and insisted that Scruffy had definitely killed a Courser. Apparently this Deacon man had been tracking Scruffy throughout his misadventures in the Commonwealth. This Deacon fellow had a sarcastic attitude, and Scruffy could tell that the makers of the game had worked hard on this character and wanted people to like him. Scruffy hated him. He felt as though his privacy had been invaded by some sunglasses-wearing dickwad, plus he felt insecure that Deacon may actually be funnier than him.
He trudged into the Railroad HQ and some creep named Tinker Tom helped him decode the chip. It took forever. Then he learned, to his dismay, that he had to go all the way back to Virgil.
He hard jogged out of the Railroad HQ, back to the room where everyone had pointed guns at him. There, a couple of agents and Deacon stood, apparently waiting to give him a Railroad-related quest. Scruffy walked to the edge of the room, pulled out his Fat Man launcher, and fired it directly into Deacon's crotch.
Everyone went flying everywhere, and Scruffy gained a level. Nice.
Desdemona, the leader who had been so intimidating a few minutes before, ran into the room, hostile. Strong dispatched her in a couple of blows with his sledgehammer.
"Finally you prove your worth, you green-skinned jackanape!" Scruffy yelled. They charged back into the Railroad HQ and took no prisoners. Doctor Carrington received a missile, and P.A.M. got 140 minigun rounds. Other agents received a swift uppercut or shot from a sledge, depending on who got to them first. The slaughter was exquisite.
After the dust settled, they ducked out of there using the escape tunnel. Outside they were greeted by 8 or so Raiders who just happened to be in the area. They caught Scruffy at a bad time. He punched the nearest one's head off, picked a double-barrel shotgun up off of the corpse, and blasted his friend with it. Strong destroyed three of them with his now-trusty sledgehammer, and our hero got the rest with the double-barrel. They were becoming quite the team.
"Say, Strong, if we were a celebrity couple, what would our nickname be? Struffy, or Captain Scrong?"
Our dynamic duo fast-travelled back to Virgil, where they received some very bad news.
"You want me to WHAT?"