"Ain't that a kick in the head?" The radio sung, while a certain rough-looking character listened to it.
He was a man, though it was hard to tell based on the armour alone, as it covered every inch of his body. Said armour sported long leather duster, reinforced riot gear plating covering all the areas and last but not least, a helmet with glowing red visor. It was a suit of Elite Riot Gear now worn by the individual in question.
He was currently located in a bar, the only one located in a sleepy town of Good Springs. It may not have been an established location like the Tops casino, but it's bartender, known as Trudy, made sure it had all it needed to provide for the people across the Mojave Desert, as long as they had the caps that is. She was a woman in her mid thirties, with short brown hair and eyes of the same colour.
"Didn't expect you here anytime soon, Six," She said, as she turned towards the stranger.
"What can I say? I am sucker for a pretty face," He replied
"Haha, I know you don't mean it, you bastard," Truly replied with a snort and a small smile. "Now, what can I get you today?"
"Nuka Cola, Ice Cold One, please," The man replied.
"Payment upfront, twenty caps, Six," She replied, while the man reached into his duster, snipped out a bunch of bottlecaps and placed them on the counter.
"Here you go," He replied, while the bartender counted the caps. "So, about that Nuka Cola…?"
"Coming right up," She replied, as she reached below the bar towards a small refrigerator, before pulling out the beverage and opening it up with a loud hiss. "Here you go, Six."
"Much obliged," He replied, as he opened the clasps in his helmet, causing a small hiss in the process, before lifting the drink to his lips, his face obscured by the helmet. "Ah, that hits the spot."
"Glad to hear it, now, why don't you indulge me and tell me what brings you here to Good Springs? Don't you have a whole city to run?" She asked.
"You mean a whole nation? Yep, that's my life nowadays, alright," He replied with a snort. "Truth to be told, I heard something quite interesting and decided to check it out."
"Don't suppose you can indulge me with that little secret of yours?" She asked, as she leaned on the counter. "You know, for the old times sake?"
"Smooth, Trudy, real smooth. Sadly, it's not really much of a secret or hot gossip anyway. Just need to make sure the NCR outpost is still as deserted as it ought to be, which it may or it may not be," He replied.
"NCR's outpost, huh? Don't suppose they decided to come back for round two that way, did they?" She asked, while the man shook his head.
"I very much doubt it. That area is still irradiated to hell as far as I know, so unless they have got a mountain of Rad-X and Radaway, they would die or turn into ghouls by simply trying to cross that irradiated trench," He replied, finished his drink and put on his helmet. "Now, as much as I would love to stay and chat, I have to nation to run, bandits to kill and paperwork to do. Say Sunny, I said hi, would ya?"
"I will be sure to pass it along to her," Trudy said, while Six tipped his helmet at her, stood up from his stool and made his way outside the bar.
Hot rays of the Sun immediately hit him right in the face, the scorching heat of the Mojave Desert well known to it's inhabitants. Courier Six, Six to most, the ruler of New Vegas, that crazy son of a bitch, lobotomite and doctor Dala's favourite teddy bear. Just one of the many titles he harboured, though, he quite liked the 'Butcher of the West', seemed fitting, especially with all the people he killed and all the shit he had done in the past. Now though, he had places to be, like the Mojave Outpost.
So, without further ado, the man began his trip towards his destination, shoes stomping over Mojave Dust, as he made his way forward. It has been a couple of years, since the second battle of Hover Damn, now that he thought of it. He kicked out both the NCR and the Legion from the Mojave back then, leaving only a single road for NCR to trade with. That way, they couldn't launch an assault without alerting him or his second-in-command, Yes-Man.
That AI was loyal to boot and happy to serve, sometimes too happy even. At least, he reprogrammed himself to an extent, so he would only accept commands from him. Plus, with all the Securitrons under his control, he had basically full supervision of the Mojave Desert, allowing the AI to interfere basically whenever he wanted, which turned out to be a bit of a problem.
Turns out, having a Securitron or two in every settlement allowed the AI to remotely solve most issues, with or without his help, regardless of their nature. That meant he became a bit obsolete in a way. Why go all the way to the town of Novac, when a nearby Securitron could transfer all the data, scan for irregularities and solve the problem from the safety of Lucky 38?
However, that meant, he, the man responsible for all the events that transpired prior to that, was delegated to a desk jockey basically. Okay, he was exaggerating, sue him. Still, Courier Six couldn't deny that at times he missed the good old times, when he simply travelled the Wasteland, solved problems by himself, uncovered long forgotten caches of advanced technologies or bust out a slavery ring or two in a very brutal and bloody way.
So, when an opportunity arrived to get out of the tomb of the Lucky 38, he immediately took it, which brought him back to his current journey. He took a deep breath, feeling fresh air enter his synthetic lungs, before exhaling it with a satisfaction. Dust and sand, the two most common smells in the desert, much better than vomits, drugs, faeces of either Freeside drunks or the gamblers from the Strip.
As he made his way across the desert, his eyes were scanning the environment, while his right hand rested on a. 45 auto pistol given to him by Joshua Graham. It was probably his most favourite sidearm, and quite stylish too with a snake-skin grip and a fitting name of "A Light Shining in the Darkness", he used it quite often to deal with Deathclaws, Cazadors, Nightstalkers, etc.
For bandits, radroaches and the like, he reserved Blood-Nap, a bowie knife he found back in the Divide, which now rested on the left side of his hip. These two weapons alone probably had kill counts in hundreds, if not thousands at this point in time and served him well over the years. However, to his dismay, nothing alive could be seen on the horizon.
As far as looked there was sand, sand and… oh look, even more sand! Okay, he was in the desert and there were some ruins and wrecked vehicles on the road he was travelling, but they didn't count! Then again, it made sense, the south side of the New Vegas had very few towns of value, now with the one of the trade routes cut off, most people moved north, leaving the area deserted.
There used to be a town of Nipton, but it had been destroyed by the Caesar's Legion, then taken over by bandits and then cleansed by him. Sure, there was also a town of Primm, but he passed it a good few hours ago, not stopping by in the process. As he pondered what to do next, he caught a movement in the left corner of his eye, his head snapping towards it.
There he saw… a gecko, basically a giant mutated lizard. Just a single one, it seemed to be eating a radroach, which was a giant mutated cockroach in turn. As soon as the gecko noticed him, it stood on it's hind legs and growled, hoping to make itself big and scary. Sadly, for it, as far as the Courier was concerned, that lizard was harmless. But, since it wasn't attacking him and he didn't feel like killing it, he skidded past the lizard, avoiding it entirely.
He might have been a mass murderer, but he didn't go around killing everything and everyone he saw, dammit! He had principles! … Okay, it was a lie, a big fat one too. At best, he had a few rules he tried not to break, but that didn't always pan out. Still, despite his rather violent nature, he tried to avoid killing things that were not attacking him, like the Brahmin or the Big Horners, so the gecko was free to live another day, this time. Though, he wouldn't be surprised if the next wastelander shot the animal in the face either for their meat or their skin, so they could sell it for caps, such was life.
It took a few more hours, before his destination finally decided to appear on the horizon. One of the first things one could see were two massive metal figures shaking hands on top of the hill. It was known as the unification monument, which symbolized a Ranger Unification Treaty signed in 2271, when both NCR and Desert Rangers of Nevada joined forces.
Courier sighed as he looked upon the figures. The sight of them brought back memories, some better, some worse than others, as he slowly walked up the hill, passing by vehicle wrecks on his way up. Ever since the events of the Divide, the outpost lay abandoned, both NCR and the bar's owner Lacey having long left the ruins. That didn't stop any raiders from taking it for themselves every now and then, which is probably what happened once again.
He could already sense a few smelly bodies thanks to his perception of an Eagle with Telescope and some implants. Seeing that he had work cut out for him, he simply drew his knife with his right hand and gave it a few spins. Satisfied he continued on, until one of the raiders located on top of the hill spotted him. Just like any average raider in the Wasteland, he was dressed in a pain spike armour, which consisted of a spiked arm pads for both arms, spiked shoulder pad and a pair of pants.
"Alarm! We have got an intruder on our turf!" The raider yelled, before drawing a weapon of his own.
The Courier smirked, as he glanced at the weapon in the man's hand, which he quickly identified as a cowboy repeater, a powerful gun on it's own, but way too weak to be considered a threat. The man watched, as the raider took aim, before pulling the trigger, while the bullet ripped through the air. In response, the Courier simply titled his head to the side, the bullet passing by without hitting him.
A few more were sent his way, but he simply chose to ignore them instead, the projectiles not able to pierce through his enhanced Elite Riot Gear, as they simply bounced off without leaving a scratch. In the meantime, a group of twelve raiders armed with 10mm pistols, knifes, tire irons and baseball bats rushed forward to kill him. He wouldn't give them this chance and sprinted forward, easily getting into the face of the first raider, before beheading the girl on the spot, her severed head flying into the air.
He immediately moved onto his next target, ducking beneath horizontal sweep of a baseball bat, before plunging the knife into the throat of next raider, blood coming out in waves, as he dropped his weapon. Bullets wheezed past him, some of them hitting their mark, only to bounce off harmlessly from the armour, which didn't seem like it had taken any damage whatsoever.
Sensing a presence behind him, he immediately kicked behind him, probably breaking a few ribs in the process, before sweeping in front of him, while two raiders in front of him fell to the ground. He immediately followed the attack by stomping on the head of the first raider, blood and brain splattering over the soil, before cutting cutting of an arm of a raider wielding a gun, making him scream.
The fight continued, but no matter how hard they tried, the raiders couldn't do anything to the armoured individual, causing some of them to turn and flee from where he came from. He wouldn't let them, breaking off from the remaining members, he sheathed the blade, before drawing his gun and activating VATS.
VATS also known as Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System was a function of a pipboy, which allowed him to take aimed shots at his opponents, while the time seemed frozen to his perception. Taking his time, he lined up his shots, before firing six bullets in rapids succession. Five of them killed all the raiders around him, while the sixth one was aimed at the sniper at the top of the barracks, his head exploding into a bloody mist, while the corpses fell all around him, the entire process lasting less than a second.
Making sure all the raiders were dead, the Courier quickly ejected the magazine from his gun, before loading a fresh one from the depths of his duster, before holstering the gun. Satisfied, it was time for more pleasant part of the fight, looting the corpses of his foes! The Courier immediately began picking pockets and armour of the raiders, looking for anything valuable they could carry. Ammo and guns were obvious, since he could fix those and sell them for profit.
Taking one of the 10mm pistols, he looked all over it, appraising it's conditions, before stuffing it into the depths of his duster. He followed the same pattern, with the rest of the bodies, before heading towards inside. Sadly, it appeared this group of raiders was rather small and the guard's shout drew everyone out. It also seemed to be rather young gang, as they didn't possess much in terms of loot.
"Well, that turned out out to be a bit of a bust," The Courier muttered to himself.
When Yes-Man sent him here, he expected to find a bit more of a challenge than a few raiders to be perfectly honest. The AI wouldn't sent him just for that, would he now? Unless… He turned towards the gate heading towards Long 15, a former trade route used by NCR. Normally, he wouldn't have bothered, in fact, he really didn't feel like visiting that graveyard, especially not after being responsible for the destruction he brought upon it.
However, as much as he didn't want to, he had job to do and if there was one thing he was good at, it was being thorough. Grimacing internally, he headed towards the site, expecting to find nothing more but radiation and death. As soon as he got near the site, his Geiger counter began spiking like crazy, informing him that the lethal radiation was still there. Popping a dose of Rad-X just for a good measure, he ventured into the depths of the site.
There he could burnt out NCR trucks, tents and crates, all of it long claimed by him. However, there was something new, or rather a group of them. Three individuals, all dressed in advanced radiation suits were looking around, each of them with a rifle holstered over their shoulder. He raised his eyebrow at that, as he calmly walked down towards, the trio immediately turned towards him, their weapons drawn and aimed at him, while he casually walked closer to them, hands tucked in the pockets of his coat, as he got closer.
"Stop right there!" One of them yelled out.
"If you're going to shoot, you'd better not miss," The Courier warned, while the trio kept their guns aimed at him. "Now, riddle me this, what is a group of three idiots doing in the middle of a this irradiated hellhole?"
"Why should we answer any of your questions, asshole?" The second one pointed out.
"Uh, guys, I think that's… the Courier," The third one added, his hands shaking a bit.
"Ring a ding, ding, baby. At least one of you is smarter than a box of rocks," Six replied, while the three looked between each other.
"Oh shit, look man, we don't want any trouble, we are here just to do our job!" One the man said.
"Oh? And what would that job be exactly?" Courier asked, an evil glint in his eyes.
"You idiot, you weren't supposed to tell him that!" Another man said, before sighing. "Fine, we are mercenaries, hired by the NCR to scout the area. There, happy?"
"Not quite, but I am pretty sure I can figure out the rest myself. Basically, you were sent here to figure out if the Long 15 could be traversed safely, am I correct?" Courier guessed, while the trio looked between each other.
"Guess there's no hiding it. Yeah, that's our job, what are you going to do about it, now that you know of it?" The man asked.
"Should I do anything about it? It's not like you can traverse the area safely, can you?" He pointed out.
"So, you're not going to kill us?" Another man asked.
"Would you like me to?" He asked, while tapping into Terrifying Presence, the men taking a step back, their hands shaking.
"No, god! No, god! Please no!" He replied.
"Thought so, go back to NCR and tell them that if they really want to find a way to catch me off guard or sneak through a squad of NCR rangers, they need to try harder than this. And if they keep shit like this up, I will cut off all electricity from them," Courier ordered.
"Don't worry, you won't see us here ever again and we hopefully won't see you either," He said, before the trio holstered their rifles and began to leave the area, leaving the Courier alone.
"Right, that's sorted out, guess I will stop by the Think Tank in the process," The man said, as he pulled out a transportalponder.
It was basically a blue transparent tube in an orange casing with a trigger, while a lightning arced inside of it. Pulling the trigger, the man prepared himself mentally for the sensation, only to yelp in pain, as something went horribly wrong. The device started sparking uncontrollably, sending surges of electricity down his arm, a smell of burnt flesh entering his nostrils. Just as he was about to throw it away, the device worked, a globe of light encompassing him for a moment, before it disappeared, him along with it.
"Ugh, did anybody get the number of that Deathclaw that mauled me?" The Courier groaned, as he found himself lying on the ground, his body tumbling for a brief moment, before coming to stop.
One moment he was in the Long 15, ready to visit the Think Tank, only to end feeling like had just finished a boxing match with a legendary deathclaw. Lying on his back, his right hand scooped out a bit of substrate, before bringing it in front of his eyes. He expected to see a handful of Mojave Dust seeping through his fingers, only to notice a patch of grass being grasped by him instead.
"Grass…? Here? In the Mojave desert?" He asked nobody in particular, as he looked around, only to notice what looked like a pile of melted plasma located a few feet away from his face. "… Fuck."
It appeared the fate really loved messing with him, based on the fact, it just fried a device, which allowed him to safely teleport from the Mojave to the Big Mountain and vice versa. Worse still, he didn't have a second one, nor had the means to remake one from scratch. At least, not without some serious time investment and advanced facilities, which were not easy to come by, even in the Mojave, not something he could do on an ordinary workbench. Sighing underneath his breath, the man flipped himself up, before dusting himself off, as he took a look around.
Trees, everywhere he looked he could see nothing more than a bunch of trees, similar to those found in Vault 22. However, instead of familiar metal walls of the vault, he noticed rays of Sun seeping through the cracks in the canopy, confirming he wasn't teleported to that spore infested hellhole. Unfortunately, that was about the only good thing about his current situation. No matter where he look, he couldn't see anything that resembled a road or a pre-war building of old, much less a thriving city or town nearby. Good thing, he still had his pipboy. Raising his left arm, the man brought up the device to his face.
The device in question was manufactured by RobCo Industries and improved by the Think Tank themselves. This personal information processor helped him through thick and thin, more times than he could remember. It was able to display the wearer's stats, area maps, inventory and item properties. It also included a Geiger counter and a radio. It's screen doubled as a flash light for fixing visibility issues in dark or obscured areas.
The main difference between it's older bulkier model also known as Pip-Boy 3000 was it's sleek design. Unlike the previous generation of Pip-Boys, which were quite bulky, this one was about as big as larger-than-average watch and could easily be hidden beneath power armour or put over a standard combat armour, with a slot designed to house it. He then activated the map tab, only to be greeted with a message he did not expect to see. Outside of RobCo satellite range, regional maps disabled.
"This might be a problem..." The Courier muttered to himself.
That was actually kind of worrying. If he was outside of range of pre-war satellites, then that put him in a rather desolate spot, nowhere near Mojave, Zion, the Divide of even Big Mountain for that matter. Heck, for all he knew, he could be on the other side of the world, like Europe or even Asia for that matter. He hoped that wasn't the case, otherwise finding his way back to the Mojave could turn out to be a bit of pain in ass to say the least.
Six sighed internally, as he considered his options. Standing in the middle of the forest was going to bring him nowhere, that much was certain. With no landmarks in sight he might as well pick a direction at random and start walking. Heading west seemed like the best choice overall, as the NCR had still plenty of settlements in the west like Shady Sands or Boneyard. Though, he wasn't looking forward to being shot on sight. To make matters worse he was considered a terrorist and had at least two massive bounties set on his head, both by the NCR and the Caesar's Legion.
With that in mind, he began his trek towards the nearest settlement. As the grass bent beneath his pair of combat boots, the Courier looked around, as he tried to find something, anything of note. However, no matter where he looked, all he could see was trees and grass. However, that soon changed, when in the distance he noticed what looked like a clearing in the forest.
Currently, he was heading West and so far, he had yet to see another human being or anything outside of some animals like deer, squirrels, birds, so on and so forth. Curiously enough, unlike typical fauna and flora of the Mojave desert, the animals he noticed looked completely normal, untouched by radiation. They didn't have two heads, didn't have any signs of mutations and looked pretty damn tasty, if he had to say. He hadn't had a pleasure of eating a deer in his life, so that could be quite interesting experience, except the animals immediately ran away from him, which delayed those plans quite a bit. His taste buds were already salivating at the taste of fresh venison.
Although, it did brought up a question, where could he be that wasn't touched by nuclear bombs during Great War? Zion was one of the areas, same with Sierra Madre and even the Big Mountain itself. These were fairly large areas that avoided the nuclear devastation, but they were also located in remote areas and often far away from major cities. This implied he was nowhere near a city or a settlement for that matter.
After what seemed like eternity, he finally managed to leave the forest behind and ended in the middle of a road, well sort of. The road in question was different from the asphalt he was used to. It looked almost like those old Roman roads he saw in the books, but it seemed to be well maintained. To top it all of, he could easily tell that the road was being used on a regular basis, based on the few tracks he noticed. As he looked around, he noticed a sign located just a stone throw away from him, which caught his attention.
He briskly walked up to the sign, only to blink in confusion as he stared at the writing in front of him. The sign was written in a language he could not understand for the life of him. It seemed similar to runic at best, but he wasn't certain of that. Definitely not Chinese or English or Hispanic or well anything he was familiar with. Did he really end up in Asia or other boonies like that? He hoped not! He had stuff to do! Raiders to kill and a nation to run!
Seeing that he had nothing better to do than follow the signs he set off towards the direction it pointed, he began his trek. As he moved forward, he noticed the road descending into a small rocky valley, a perfect place for an ambush. That stopped him in his tracks, as he decided upon the course of action.
The last time he came across this kind of ambush was close to Nipton. He was lucky back then and decided to go around the hills and managed to get a drop on the bandits, reducing the damage he received. However, that happened, when he was still quite weak and definitely much less powerful than he was right now. If there really was an ambush waiting for him, he was confident he could take it, unless they launched a barrage of mini nukes at him, they could be dangerous, even for him.
So, with a practised movements, he drew Blood-nap and walked right into the area of the ambush. What followed was a screech of some kind of creature, as a group of them rushed him. However, instead of raiders, nightstalkers or one of the many horrors of the Wasteland he was familiar with, he was greeted with a sight of creatures he had never seen before.
The humanoid creatures were green skinned with a pair of yellow eyes resting in their heads, which were longer than those of humans. However, they were also shorter than humans, about half the size of an average human male, their arms way too long for their frames and fur-covered green skin. They also had three horns on top of their heads and pointy ears, making them look like something taken straight out of a fantasy, especially with crude weapons and shield they were carrying.
"The fuck are you supposed to be?" Courier asked, as he activated VATS.
Scanning his foes was one of the functions of Pip-Boy and VATS or Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, which allowed him to gauge opponents overall strength, when compared to his. It seemed as if the time itself had frozen, while his brain and the machine run the scan. It was a very useful feature, especially when dealing with unknown opponents or wanting to get an upper hand in a fight. For example Cazadors and most animals had basically no armour, making them especially weak to hollow point ammo of different calibres.
Simply scanning others did not put much of a strain on his brain, but the same couldn't be said, when using the VATS to carefully pick off targets and execute them in rapid succession. This was represented by 'Action Points', which was basically the limit his brain could handle safely. At that point, he needed to slow down and allow them to recharge. One time he tried to go overboard, he felt like he was about to die, going dizzy, losing control of his body for a brief moments, while the raiders tried to make him into Swiss cheese with all the guns they had.
To his disbelief, the creatures in front of him were about as dangerous as radroaches, no less than that. They had virtually no armour, barely any durability and were so slow, he could run circles around them, without breaking a sweat. Well, whatever they were, they were obviously trying to kill him, so he returned the favour, by rushing in and slashing the head of the first of the creatures.
He nimbly dodged out of the way of the next, using one of the creatures as a spring board, before kicking another one into a nearby rock and making it splatter into a pile of guts and gore. This shook other creatures, giving him enough time to kill another three, before they could comprehend they were being effortlessly slaughtered. However, as his blade sunk deep into the chest of one of the creatures, something unexpected happened. It felt like his blade pierced a glass of sorts, which then caused the creature to simultaneously turn into dust.
His surprise was short lived, as one of the creatures used that moment to slash him across the leg, the weapon it carried failing to do any damage. He countered, by stabbing it in the eye, before kicking it away from him. He could take care of that occurrence later, right now, he was in the middle of a fight. Focusing back on his enemies, the Courier resumed his slaughter, but this time, he aimed for the middle of the chest of each creatures. Just as before, each time he felt the sensation of glass shattering, the creature would turn into dust immediately. He wasn't sure why that was, but he used the newfound knowledge to his advantage, easily clearing the group. Once he was done, looked around, before cleaning blood from his blade and sheathing the weapon. Any blood of the monsters seemed to evaporate as well, leaving him much cleaner, than when fighting ordinary bandits.
"Okay, that was unexpected," Courier muttered to himself, as he walked to one of the few corpses left.
Normally, whenever he killed his opponents, their bodies would remain on the ground, except when using lasers or plasma. However, he didn't use either of these weapons here and yet, the creatures died as if subjected to this kind of damage. His hand reached out for the dust of one of the creatures, as it seeped through his fingers, already disappearing into the wind. His first thought was that the creatures were made from tiny microscopic robots, called nanites. However, if that was the case, they should immediately try to reassemble themselves instead of falling dead and spewing blood. There had to be a reason why that happened, as he walked up to a corpse of the creature with a slit throat. He knelt beside, as he began inspecting the corpse of the creature.
"Let's see… average size of the specimens seems to vary between three to four feet, with a lean and wiry frame. Their limbs are disproportional long, particularly the arms, which extend almost to knee level, enhancing the creature's reach and agility. Body weight seems be around thirty five pounds, with minimal fat and muscle density, making it rather fragile. The skin is mottled, greying-green, covered in layer of bristly hair, most likely used as a form of camouflage in forest environment. Dentition of creatures points towards carnivorous diet, possibly omnivorous," He muttered to himself, as he stood up. "These creatures… are they a result of some kind experiment?"
These creatures were not something he was familiar, not even pre-war world had such creatures, last he checked. They also exhibited enough intelligence to create an ambush and even use tools and weapons. Humans were not the only sapient race in the Wasteland, but he had never heard or seen anything like them and that was coming from one of the former couriers of the Mojave Express.
"Where the hell did I get send to?" He asked himself.
Obviously he wasn't in the Mojave, hell, after all he had seen thus far, he was pretty sure he wasn't in America either. However, that didn't exactly narrow down his current position, especially with the lack of satellite coverage. And the creatures he just fought only added to his confusion. Where did they come from? How did come to exist? Did the Chinese make them? Like Think Tank made Cazadors and Nightstalkers? It was hard to tell.
Still, there was an upside to this whole situation, he was able to test himself against new enemies and come out victorious. Wherever he was, he was not at the bottom of the food chain, which was reassuring. But leaving that aside, he needed a settlement of sorts, a map of local area would definitely help him as well. And if there were merchants there, he could maybe buy some more ammo or other supplies.
Now, that left only one thing left to do, looting the bodies of the creatures. While most of their weapons were on the verge of the falling apart, it didn't mean they had no value to him. He also wanted to learn just what was in the middle of the chest of the creature that caused it to turn into ash. He started by gathering all the weapons and putting them in front of him, as he inspected their general condition. Just as he suspected, most of them were on the verge of falling apart, but with thirty of them, he could do something useful.
During his travels in the Mojave Desert, he acquired many unique abilities or perks. They were basically abilities that improved his own body, although, he wasn't sure if they were natural or caused by mutations, at least some of them. Without them, his life would be much harder than it already was and he was grateful for their existence, Jury Rigging being one of them.
This skill was easily his most valuable ability, even if it wasn't combat oriented. Anybody in the Wasteland could repair one weapon using parts from another, with those more experienced able to do bigger repairs with less parts. However, there were certain restrictions, which most had to abide by. You couldn't fix a caravan shotgun with a varmint rifle, due to differences in their design. Said design, he could circumvent with the help of Jury Rigging.
It essentially allowed him to repair one item with another, as long as two were similar enough. For example, he could fix a katana with a lead pipe or an Anti-Materiel Rifle with a varmint rifle. It was incredibly useful and allowed him to basically fix very rare and expensive weapons for a fraction of the price it would take to repair them and then pocket the difference. However, in order for repair done like this to work, they had to be in mint condition, unlike the weapons in front of him. So, he did what he did best, he took five of the daggers and combined them together from five pieces of junk into one mint condition dagger. He repeated that process five more times, earning himself five more daggers, which he could use to fix his own weapons in the future.
Satisfied, the Courier turned towards the body of the creature he inspected, drew the Blood-nap and made a simple incision coming from the middle of the chest, down to the crotch. He then opened the inside of the creature and took a look inside. While the general anatomical structure was similar to that of a human, there was one thing that didn't belong. It was a purple gem-like crystal the size of a grain of rice. He almost missed it the first time he looked, because of how small it was. His hand reached out for the gem and plucked it from the creature's corpse, which immediately caused to turn into pile of dust, making him blink his eyes in confusion.
"How did removing this tiny gem cause the body to turn to dust? What is this thing anyway?" He asked himself, as he pocketed the gem and brought up his pip-boy.
One of the many functions the pip boy possessed was the fact it could analyse any substance, weapon, armour and such and give him accurate data regarding it. He had no clue how it worked exactly, but as long as it worked he wouldn't complain, Old World tech and such. Still, it was incredibly useful and he could not imagine conquering the Wasteland without its help. It also identified the creature as a "goblin" for what it was worth, like those found in fantasy books of old.
"Tiny power stone? What?" He muttered to himself, as he read what the pip-boy could find out about it. "A small unknown crystal, that seems to possess some kind of energy inside. Huh, that's new."
This was pretty big discovery all things considered. Back in the Mojave the power was scarce, mostly delivered by the Hover Dam and Helios One power plant. While microfusion cells existed, they were mostly used to power energy weapons. They also came too late to stop the world from descending into a massive war over dwindling resources, but given enough time, he was sure, they could be used to rebuilt the Mojave Wasteland. This tiny crystal could probably do the same, but it was only dropped by the creatures he fought, making it hard to manufacture. Plus, he still had no clue how powerful that thing was, but if he were to use bigger = stronger equation. Then stronger creatures would drop bigger crystals. Then again, until he figured out how to tap into the power of said crystals, it was nothing more than a curiosity.
"Although, that still begs the question of why do these creatures have such crystals inside them? Are they supposed to act like batteries for them? How are they created then? And why even?" Courier pondered.
So many questions, so few answers. Sighing, he began gutting the rest of the creatures, gaining a few more crystals and even what seemed to be fangs of the creatures, as well as some blood sausages and thin red paste. It was another of his perks, called 'Them's Good Eatin', which helped him during his travels in the Wasteland, as both of the aforementioned items could be used to heal wounds or simply sold for high price. And let it be known that he earned a ton of caps, by simply slaughtering bandits and selling their gear and everything valuable they had. Don't look at him like that, he had to earn a living and if some unsavoury characters were to bite the dust in the process, it's not like anybody would miss them, right? Well, nobody important that is.
"Welp, thanks for making me slightly more rich," He muttered to himself and resumed his journey, his mind lost deep in thoughts.