Everything is as dead and without update as me
The Courier awoke to the sound of general chaos outside. He quickly re-equipped all of his weapons and rushed out the door. The townsfolk around the inn were running for the walls, weapons in hand. Courier Six didn't have to really guess too much on what was going on. Likely, those creatures from last night were back for round two.
Running for the walls, the sound of gunfire reached the Courier. It was similar to last night, only now the shooting was done away from him instead of in his direction.
He pondered in his mind what he might use to fight the Grimm. Since he assumed that he would be engaging the from the wall this time, shotguns and lower calibre weapons seemed out of the question. Medicine Stick was of a high calibre, and would probably be good since it would retain the most damage over range. The limitation being that the Courier was not willing to dip below having a few hundred rounds of ammunition at the moment. The anti-materiel rifle would be even worse for the slower reload. That being said, he saw that only the mayor had something as high-calibre, so he would be bringing some punch that the locals might be missing. In the end, he settled for All American. It was the best general purpose weapon in his arsenal. There was a reason service rifles were built that way.
By the time he was done choosing, he was now within sight of the wall.
On said wall, everything was going pretty good. The Grimm that had come out were young and drawn in by the negativity that happened around the Faunus. None of the older or truly terrifying creatures had come out, probably because they realised that it was a mostly pointless exercise. Their numbers, also, were few. Numbering around a hundred or so beowolves.
By the time that the Courier had gotten up there, ready to fight, the fight he came for was essentially over.
He could only look with disappointment as the few remaining Grimm either got picked off by the unfamiliar munitions or retreated back behind the trees.
"Great," Courier Six muttered. "Woke me up for nothing."
All American was slung back onto his back as he stepped down the stairs. The other townsfolk waited a few moments before doing the same.
The Mojave Mailman decided that, since he was already up, he might as well go check on the general store he heard about last night. Liz in the market, if he recalled correctly.
So, he made his way there. Well, he tried to. He first had to find the market first.
It wasn't too hard. A business lived on customers, so it had to attract them. Bright colours were usually the pick, but other things like advertising your products and making yourself convenient were also pretty regularly used. All the Courier had to do was listen and look.
After a couple of moments, his 10 rating in perception showed itself and he got under way.
The market was situated on a square. It had farmers selling the seasonal harvest or preserves of the last. There were also tailors, cobblers, and all sorts of other trades that kept the town running and then some. Black Plains, from what the Courier could see, was a thriving little town. Little only relative to Old World cities. In the Mojave, something like this would be considered pretty big. The more that Courier Six saw, the more he was awed. How could something like that exist in the nuclear wasteland he called home?
After a while of pondering the question, he decided that he didn't know the answer and pushed it back for later. No point in mulling over something you couldn't solve. Just a waste of time at that point.
The Courier soon found what he was looking for. A sign saying 'Elizabeth's Store of General Goods' hung over a shop with a big glass window, allowing a clear view of everything inside. It looked like exactly what Courier Six wanted. There were boxes of ammunition lined up on shelves behind the counter, some canned food and snacks stocked around the store, a couple of bits of clothes and tools, and other miscellaneous goods that one might expect to find in a place like that. In many ways, it reminded the Courier of Mick and Ralph's.
The armoured man opened the door and walked inside.
"Hi, what can I get yo-" A voice from behind the counter called. It cut itself short as the source of it saw the intimidating figure of a full set of elite riot gear.
"I see you've got some ammo back there," the Courier began as he strolled up to the counter. "What do you stock?"
"Well..ummm..." The girl who Courier Six assumed to be Elizabeth or 'Liz' struggled to come up with a response. She was a lot shorter than he was and had a light brown hair. Her eyes were a similar shade to her hair. Elizabeth struggled to meet his eyes and looked a shade pale. The armoured man raised a brow at that. He didn't usually scare people that much. If he did, it was on purpose.
"Is something on my face?"
"Oh no! I'm sorry," Elizabeth said in a timid voice. "I wasn't trying to be rude. It's just.. well..."
It was only after a couple more seconds did the Courier decide that maybe he looked a tad bit intimidating after all. He hadn't noticed because everyone around him had gotten used to it. That and there were a lot more brown-stain inducing in the Mojave alone to him than what might look to the common man like souped-up ranger armour, so he didn't really consider. Not to mention, most of his enemies didn't seem to care at all. Even when he was wearing a full suit of T-51, the common wastelander didn't seem to get dissuaded from pulling out their switchblade and running head-first into 12 gauge.
The Courier decided to take his helmet off, revealing his face. It was a fairly young face for a man in his early thirties. The last time he had shaved was a few weeks ago, so there was the beginning of a beard present on his face.
"Better?"
Elizabeth's face got slightly red from embarrassment. "Yes," she responded weakly. "Thank you."
"All good," the Courier responded. "Anyways, ammo."
"Right, yes." The shopkeeper spun around to the shelf behind her. "What are you looking for?"
"Primarily .45-70 Gov't. I'll take any 5.56, 9mm, .45 acp, or shotgun shell you'll give me, though. Oh, and .50, too."
"Okay. Well I do have some shotgun shells." Elizabeth started to look around. "Do you have any preference in Dust?"
"Minimal, but I've been in my share of ruins so I don't mind."
The store was silent for a couple of seconds. Then it was silent for a couple more seconds. Elizabeth let out a weak laugh that clearly wasn't natural.
The Courier realised that he had somehow made the conversation slightly awkward. How he did it very much confused him. He began to try and piece together what he had done in his head. She had asked about dust, so he responded about dust. However, she took his serious response as a joke. That meant that her original question wasn't a joke. Her question in the preference of dust was a genuine one. Unless there was some serious cultural difference, dust on a box of ammo didn't seem like something to ask a genuine question about. So, what could be related to ammunition that could be described as dust? Gunpowder. It was the most logical conclusion that the Courier could come up with, so he rolled with it.
"Smokeless, please," he said. "I don't mind black powder, but I'd rather smokeless."
"Umm... So anything that produces little smoke will do?"
"Yeah, look, I'll honestly take the ol' charcoal, sulphur, and wherever you want to source potassium nitrate if nothing else."
Elizabeth turned back around to regard the Courier. "Are we... talking about the same things here?"
"I'm starting to think not." The Courier said with a chuckle. He pulled out a shotgun shell from one of his pouched and put it on the counter. "Okay, I'm pretty sure the problem is just that we're using different words to describe things, so just tell me about this dust you're talking about? Feel free to disassemble this if it'll help."
"Alright," the shopkeeper said, bringing the projectile close to herself and examining it. "Well, Dust should be the thing that makes the bullet go. That's where you get the bang sound of a gun from, and it changes depending on the Dust."
"Oh, so it's the propellent."
"Yeah, that. But also depending on the Dust, you're going to get different things. Like Ice Dust makes ice and Fire Dust makes fire."
The Courier raised a brow at that description. Suddenly, he wasn't sure anymore. He first thought that it was just conflicting terminology, but now he was almost certain that the people in Black Plains made their bullets differently.
"Can I see the Dust you're talking about? Probably should've started with that."
"Totally," the shopkeeper responded as she ducked down under the counter and returned with a small vial of vibrant blue powder. "So this is Water Dust."
The Courier stared at the vial for a while as he searched his memories for any sort of idea as to what he was seeing before him.
"Yeah, no. Never seen it before. I take it you don't sell non-Dust ammunition then?"
"No. I didn't even know you could make bullets without Dust."
"Well then... I think I'll take a few rounds of 12 gauge anyways. Experiment a little, y'know."
"Cool. How many will you take?"
"You said there were many types of Dust, right? Dozen of each'll do me."
The shopkeeper nodded and fetched various different types of ammunition with ease. The armoured mailman remarked how much better at her job she seemed when she wasn't afraid of him. He might have to reconsider his wardrobe if that was enough to give someone the frights.
"I'll just have a look around while you do that," the Courier announced as he peeled away from the counter and went to inspect the various shelves around the store. There were all the staples that one might find in the average general store. The Courier picked up a couple of cans of canned food as he went along. He noted that the people of Black Plains or maybe even the Vale that keeps getting mentioned use a different calender. The months look the same, but the year isn't. At least, it isn't likely that they're the same. If it was, the Courier would've been in the times of actual Romans. He had a chuckle at that thought. "Do you sell any weapons repair kits here?"
"Umm... I don't think so," the shopkeeper responded after a bit. "There should be a couple of tools and spare parts around, though. Everyone usually just buys what they need, so we never assembled it into a kit."
"Fair enough." The Courier went around and gathered the materials to make two weapon repair kits from around the shop. He also picked up a couple of other bits of junk on the way. After he was done, he returned to the front counter and placed everything down. "Alright, how much will all that cost me."
Elizabeth silently calculated for a moment before giving her answer. "Should be five-hundred-and-twenty Liens total."
"That reminds me, do you accept foreign currency?"
The shopkeeper tilted her head slightly in confusion. "I didn't think any of the other kingdoms used anything other than Lien."
"Well maybe they do maybe they don't." The Courier said as he fished around in his many pockets and came back with handful of various currencies. He placed them all on the counter. Firstly there was the wasteland standard, the reliable bottlecap. "I'm hoping you'll take these since I have more of them than the rest."
"Are those... bottlecaps?" Elizabeth looked at the caps and then back at the Courier.
"Yes. So will you take them?"
"I.. I don't mean to be rude, but I don't think those are worth anything."
"Well, shit. Alright what about these?" Courier Six then pointed to the NCR Dollar notes. "They're a little wrinkled, but that's still a private's pay."
The shopkeeper examined it for another moment before shaking her head. "Sorry, no. Even if what you're saying is true and they are worth something, I can't use it for anything. I doubt the banks back in Vale would want to take it."
"I'm guessing your policy is the same with these casino chips." With an affirmative response from the shopkeeper, the Courier internally sighed as he pulled out a few Denarii. "Silver. Pretty pure. You can bite it if you want, but I think that's for checking gold."
The shopkeeper's eyes widened. She quickly picked it up and examined it. It looked like the real deal alright, but she was no expert.
"Wow," Elizabeth said absentmindedly. "Alright, I'll give you two-hundred Liens for each of these coins."
The Courier couldn't help but smile. It was a subtle smile, but it was there. The girl was giving him a better exchange rate than the innkeeper.
"Cool, I'll trade in ten."
The Courier had put his helmet back on when he left the general store. He had expertly placed all of the acquired items in his inventory and was now just browsing the other shops around the market. He went to visit the tailor and got his clothes repaired. He even bought a little bit of extra fabric to do his own repairs on the stealth suit. It was going so well on his side that he suddenly wondered how it was going on Graham's.
It was not so smooth on the side of the Burned Man. After the sudden alarms, the fight broke up immediately. The mayor quickly organised everyone to different sections of the wall. Graham himself joined in on one of them. He didn't get to do much during the defence itself because he only had pistols. At such a range, it would've proven less than ideal for such large enemies.
After dealing with the Grimm, Joshua was about to get down from the wall when a familiar face stopped him.
"Joshua Graham," the mayor said with a clearly annoyed voice. "I don't appreciate you causing trouble in my town."
Katherin had gone over to him quite quickly after the fight had finished. She was visibly very displeased.
"I wasn't aware I was doing such a thing," the Burned Man responded honestly. "The man who assaulted me earlier seemed more to me to be the one doing that."
"Yeah, but here's the key difference. Wallace is an expected thing. You can expect Ice Dust to freeze like you could expect Wallace to start shit with Faunus. You, on the other hand, are an outsider. I don't care if you're a gods-damned saint or a general from Atlas. My town, my problems. Keep to yourself while you're here. That applies to your mailman friend, too."
"I understand your concerns, however it seemed to me at the time-"
"Don't care. I genuinely don't fucking care what it looked like at the time. From here on out, Black Plain's problems is solved by Black Plain's people."
The Burned Man was silent for a couple of seconds before agreeing to the demands. There was no real reason not to go against it. She was right in many ways, he was an outsider to these lands, so he probably didn't know what he was doing.
After a couple more moments of the Almond really hammering in the point and Graham patiently listening, she let him go. The Burned Man decided that it was probably the best idea to go back to the inn and meet up with Courier Six soon. As he was on his way, he began to think. He had come on the journey with the Courier, in a way, to escape Zion. It was paradise. At least, it was before he arrived. No matter where he went, there was war. No matter how he ran from it all, it always caught up. New Canaan, the Dead Horse, the Sorrows. Being away from them, in a way, meant that they would be safer from him. At the very least, he hoped so.
On his route back, Graham found himself in the market. In that very market was a very conspicuous form of the Courier. The newly-repaired elite riot gear and amber pip-boy setting him easily apart from the rest of town. The man himself had also noticed Graham since Joshua was sitting together with him at the far opposite of plain.
They caught up with each other and explained to one another what they had been doing. The Courier began with the alarm and his discovery of Dust and acquisition of currency while Graham talked about his side of things.
"So those animal-hybrid people are called Faunus," the Courier repeated back.
"From what I've gathered, yes," Graham replied.
"Interesting. You think it's mutation or FEV?"
"I'm not an expert on either, so I wouldn't know."
"Fair. If I had to take a blind guess, seems too clean to be either. I saw a couple yesterday and even a few more today while I was shopping. Looked perfectly human with the exception of a few extra ears and tails. If it was FEV, then I think it's either a really controlled strain or just a new one altogether. For mutation... Well to be honest, their skin's too smooth. Even animal mutations like bighorns have rougher patches of skin where their precursors hadn't."
"Do you believe they're naturally occurring, then?"
"Thing is, I'm not sure. I can't see the evolutionary background that could lead to that. If it was just one type of animal then maybe, but the fact that there seems to be multiple and they're all pre-war... I just haven't a clue what the fuck could've caused them."
The Courier took a break from theory crafting to take a sip from his Vault 13 canteen.
"Could be gene splicing. That's where nightstalkers come from. Maybe if there was a similar process done at such a large scale that could create a big population of diverse animal-human hybrids, then there lies our explanation." Then the Courier paused to look around him. "But it's too fucking rural. Not a single building around here that could've done it. Wait... Maybe not here. Maybe there's... a secret lab that's underground that's splicing all of these people with animals and throwing them back onto the surface as a test population!"
The burned man let out an amused chuckle. The Courier turned his head to face the burned man, a slight smile present on his face.
"It's more likely than you think, y'know," the Courier said. "I'll have you know that there are a surprising amount of mad scientists with a tendency to mix things they shouldn't around here."
"I'll have to rely on your judgement for that. I've never personally encountered one."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." As they walked, the Courier noticed something. There was a Faunus, a woman somewhere in her late twenties, and her child. Both of them had traits of a dog, having a pair of ears on their head and a tail each. They seemed to be walking home with some groceries. The man took off his helmet again, lesson learned from his interaction at the general store, and approached the two.
"Hey, sorry, would you mind if I asked a few questions?" The Courier began as he got close to them. "Just a few minutes of your time."
The woman turned to face him. "How could I help you?"
A myriad of questions rushed through the Courier's head. Many options to choose from. Should he be direct and ask about their origins? Or maybe he should be a little more subtle. He definitely wants to understand these people more. After all, how often in the wasteland do you get to see things like this? That being said, he had to be careful. With what Graham had told him about the discrimination against the Faunus, the Courier reasoned that they might get a little defensive about a random stranger approaching them. Maybe he should try and just befriend them first. No. It has been said by many wise men that the fastest route to one's destination is in a straight line. Honesty and directness was to be the day's guiding light.
"So where I'm from I've never seen people like you. Faunus, I mean. So I just wanted to ask a few questions if you're fine with that."
The Courier waited. He had shot his shot. From his perspective, it seemed a safe bet. The question wasn't insulting and it came out of pure curiosity. It wouldn't offend him if someone came up to him and ask something similar, so he was hoping that it would be the same here.
"I guess, sure," came the response. The woman seemed to have a slightly guarded look about her when she answered. "What do you want to know?"
"Oh just basic things. Like I said, I've never seen a Faunus before so I don't really mind general knowledge. So something like do your ears actually give you better hearing or just there for the looks."
"They do help. From what I know, we Faunus have better hearing, sight, and smell than regular humans."
"That's pretty cool. So is it just senses that's better or are you stronger too?"
The woman thought for a moment before answering. "I think that depends on who you ask. I don't think so, but other people will say other things."
"I see. So are there any downsides to having animal features? 'Cuz it looks like you just get plusses."
"Well, yes and no. No as in there's no physical downside that I've seen. Yes in that you get treated like shit by assholes like Green and his posse."
"Interesting. Thank you very much. I won't bother you any further." Before the Faunus woman could say anything else, the Courier turned around and jogged away back to Graham.
"What a weird fellow," the woman muttered as she herself got back to her day.
Message from Author
Yeah it's been a while. This has been a bit of a short chapter just to signify that the fic is back (despite never really starting in the first place)
Life happens, I was busy, writing a couple words is so hard that i had to take a year and 9 months off, blah blah all the standard excuses
Im back now and have read up on all of my previous notes and recovered all the files for this fic so hopefully the sailing will become smooth and we'll actually make it somewhere this time.
Also disregard that stupid little inventory from last chapter.
