Cort woke up equally cranky as when she had laid down. Motioning to Charon to take his turn, she hauled out a Nuka Cola along with a few magazines and her lantern, shielding the light from the ghoul on the far side of her. He hadn't spoken or even looked at her directly after waking her up, and figured he was still cross over her snapping earlier and calling him an idiot. She thinned her lips and stared at his back. Two steps forward, one step back, and around, around we go. Briefly considering flipping on the radio to help her stay awake, Cort decided she would prefer not listen to the Enclave pontificate or Three Dog possibly giving away more information about her. If he was, she would rather be in the dark about it. Grabbing a piece of jagged plaster, she settled for wedging it somewhere uncomfortable under her back to stay alert. Once they were finished with the Rangers, she was going to find a very nice secure room to dig into and sleep until she was done. Today, or yesterday depending on how she looked at it, had been very, very long. The next one was probably going to shape up to be just as much of a drag.

Flipping through a new D.C. Journal of Internal Medicine she had found in the Hospital, Cort waited for the minutes to wind down. A quarter hour before it was time to wake Charon, she started pulling out various food items. If we're going to go haring around like loons again, we might as well do it full this time. Cort filled Dogmeat's bowl with Cram and Mac N' Cheese, replacing it with water when he finished, then opened the same for herself and Charon as well as the last two Nuka Colas.

"Charon, wake up. Charon. Char-" Cort started mildly as the ghoul shot up straight at her gentle patting. "Jeeze, jumpy. Sit down and eat yours."


After finishing, all three of them dropped down to the lower level. There were lights still on in the building, covering everything in a sickening dirty glow. Charon quietly showed her how to disarm the grenades around the door and they moved into the next section. The hotel was much, much worse than Our Lady of Hope. Walls had collapsed, turning the entire floor into nothing but gaping holes and dead ends stinking of rotting plaster and ancient wood, the piles under their feet shifting and announcing their position. The only reason they were ready for the Super Mutants coming for them were their thumping steps and tendency to bellow, and all three were shot more than once on the way to the upper floors. Cort was kept busy pulling bullets out and jamming Stimpaks into all of them, while Charon continued to disarm multiple traps. The Rangers had even gone so far as to rig up toilets to deliver a shock if they were used as a water source. She understood why it would work, after all the fighting her nose and throat felt rimed in the dry rotted dust their feet kicked up from the floors, and her companions couldn't be making out much better.

Along with the ones they themselves were killing, there were dead mutants everywhere, and Cort found Theo buried under one of them in a stairwell. Popping open the ammo box, she wordlessly split up the contents between Charon and herself and moved on. Cort scooped things up as she saw them, food, Stimpaks, ammo, even a holodisk buried under a skeleton. Going forward on auto-pilot, Charon was the only reason she didn't blunder into more than one tripwire. I will have a very, very long sleep, Dogmeat will have a very long sleep and Charon will too whether he likes it or not.


"Alfresco. We're getting close." Cort croaked out the statement in a whisper, then turned her head and snorted violently, spraying wet dust and blackened mucus onto the floor. Entering the restaurant, they slid down a collapsed floor into the level below it, then were forced to climb back out on the other side into a gas-laden kitchen. Muffling their faces to pass through, they came to a gaming room next, the worst area they had yet to encounter. The place was a literal pit, pool tables and a bar in the bottom and a raised walkway around the entire circumference. Charon and Cort were pinned down outside the door they had opened, him throwing grenades and her drawing beads with the repeater, firing whenever she had a clear head shot. Chunks of pool balls and flesh flew everywhere. At some point a piece of shrapnel went through the jukebox and switched it on, layering everything with Three Dog's howling and Butcher Pete, which came on precisely when Cort was shot through the left shoulder. Laughing wildly, she crossed her right arm over, pulled her pistol loose and continued firing. Charon grabbed her wrist a moment later.

'They're all dead. Stop."

Cort groaned and slumped forward. "Oh thank God and little green apples for that. Please drag me over to the bar so I can drop dead on it."

"You're joking."

"Probably joking about dropping dead. Not about the dragging, I'm pretty dizzy." Charon pulled her loose from her pack and helped her slide up onto the bar, then set the pack beside her. Cort spent the next ten minutes pulling things out of herself and injecting things back in, then gave the ghoul and Dogmeat the same treatment. Collapsing backwards she sighed, then looked at them. "What do you say we just kinda sit here for a few minutes."

"As you wish." Cort rolled her head around, watching him walk around the room and scavenging through the debris and closets, putting various things into their packs. When he was next to the jukebox, he turned to her and raised both eyebrows in question.

"Oh, please." Cort closed her eyes and grinned when he shot it out and it finally fell silent. Sliding off the bar top a few moments later, she rolled her shoulder and winced. "Basically fine, but my accuracy is shot for the day." Cort waited for Charon to snipe through the opening she left and frowned when he didn't. He was still clammed up. Tired or still pissed off. Whatever it is I'll have to figure it out later. Settling her heavy pack in place after reloading, she switched out the repeater for the assault rifle again and headed up.


The roof was an area of white walls and columns open to the sky. Cort let her breath out in a whoop, grateful to finally be outside again, then snapped her head around when the sounds of gunfire reached her. Breaking into a jagged run, they reached a staircase leading to a patio just as a Super Mutant rolled down it in pieces. She cautiously walked up the steps, Charon and Dogmeat behind her, then waved when she saw figures, human figures all in green combat armour, at the other end. One of them yelled at her when she was halfway to the other side.

"Hey you, get your ass over here before you attract every mutie in the building!" Cort walked over to the man, tall with a sandy brush cut, and fumed.

"Excuse fucking me? I just spent the last two days ploughing through the ones you dragged in here on your ass, so don't talk to me about attracting the bastards." Ignoring her outburst, he leaned towards her.

"You knew we were up here? When are the reinforcements coming?"

"They just did. Howdy-do."

"You're it?" Cort bit the inside of her cheek and counted to ten. The last thing she needed to do was start a pissing match, especially when she was so tired.

"Yes, I'm it. Reilly seemed to have no problem with me being it when she found me in Underworld, and since I made it the fuck up here, how about you don't have a problem with it either. I've been shot, strangled, shot, beaten, shot, vomited, cut and shot again getting up here to you, as well as my friends being filled with holes, on two hours of sleep in two days, so how about we just leave now. Please and thank you."

"If Reilly sent you, then that's good enough for me. I'm Butcher, the team medic. That redhead over there is Brick, our heavy weapons specialist, and Donovan is our tech. He's working on the way to get us off of here right now, through the service elevator." Cort followed behind him as he turned towards the dark-haired man at the far right. "How are you doing with fixing that thing?"

"Not good. There's no power running up to this part of the Hotel. I need an external source for it, like a fission battery." Cort swung around in place.

"Charon! Do we have a fission battery?" the ghoul looked up from where he had been poking around the various corpses and rasped.

"There was one in the gaming room. It's in the top of your pack." Cort slung it off her back with a crash, motioning him over to do the same.

"We've got other things too, actually." She dug the battery out, then started pulling things loose and untying boxes. "Who wants ammo?"

"Oh Hell yes! Eugene's nearly runnin' dry!" Brick ambled over happily with her Mini Gun, which Cort distractedly assumed was the Eugene she mentioned, and handed her cases of 5mm rounds.

"Go nuts, I don't use these right now." She smiled as the woman whooped. Passing out the remainder of Theo's load, along with some food and medical supplies, she wandered around the rest of the patio examining things while Donovan worked. In one corner she found scattered music books, and grabbed them for Agatha. I need to go do that sometime soon. Not today. I am way, way too thrashed out to tackle anything extra today, Stimpaks or no. I don't think I was even this tired coming into Underworld the first time. Cort leaned against one of the columns, not willing to risk sitting down. She felt dangerously wiped out, and stayed still until Donovan called everyone over.

Entering the lobby turned out to be a shit show. All of them were shot up again with the exception of Dogmeat, who Cort had instructed to stay back. She didn't doubt that at least one of them would've ended up dead if it hadn't been for Brick mowing the hell out of the entire room while everyone else gave cover fire for her. After Butcher and Cort worked on everyone and repairs were made, the Rangers set back for their home base, Butcher having a word with her before they left.

"Thanks are very much in order, kid. Here's the password for the Compound, and something extra from me. We're going to head back direct and see if Reilly's made it home yet. Stop in as soon as you can and she'll pay you good for this." Cort took the bag of caps he proffered and thanked him, then watched them pile out the doors, following a moment later when she didn't hear any more shooting.


Cutting around the corner of the Hotel and Our Lady of Hope, they headed back to where they had entered Vernon Square, then followed the Pip-Boy's map to the Metro Junction and descended into it. The few raiders and ferals they ran into felt like chump change to Cort after the last 48 hours, and they passed by in a blur, thankfully not interrupted by more Talon Company.

Emerging at Chevy Chase East, they slowly made their way across the Plaza, Cort deviating to kick the rotting corpse of the Behemoth, and Charon to stare at it incredulously before turning to follow her. Dogmeat paused to lift a leg against it before trotting after both of them.

Rocking back on her heels when the Brotherhood members stationed outside raised their weapons, Cort stripped her Pip-Boy bare and lit it, waggling her arm over her head. "Just me." She staggered forward when they waved her up and into the GNR building. She was close to sobbing as she made her way to the last set of stairs to the studio. Finally. Fucking finally. I'm coming, Dad. I'm so tired. And you better have a good explanation.


Wow, what a slog. Exactly how that hotel made me feel in game, you could get sick spinning in circles in there. There should be at least one chapter before Monday, and then I'm on a training course, so don't expect too many updates for a week after that. :)