Waking up the next morning, with our new perk in full effect, was an… interesting experience. I could feel the added strength, though not in a direct, physical way. My muscles didn't feel more dense, and I wasn't suddenly cut like a dehydrated movie star. But I could feel the strength in my body, feel it pushing and pulling as I moved. Everything was easier, from walking around to getting dressed. Bringing my kit out to the main hall was like carrying a mostly empty bag. The Solar Powered perk had taken me from something akin to slightly above average to just a couple of points below human peak.
"This is going to take some getting used to," Joseph said as he followed me from the bedroom hall, Carlos lagging behind a bit. "May I suggest taking it easy for a day, Sir?"
"Sounds like a good idea," I agreed with a nod, opening my bag. "No crazy quests if we can help it."
He nodded, understanding that we didn't always have the luxury of ignoring our problems just cause we weren't in optimal condition. I quickly got dressed, putting on my armor plates and strapping on my equipment. Before I put on my helmet, however, I left the hall behind, heading to the doors outside.
Stepping out into the sun, I could immediately feel the "vitality" effect from the new perk diffusing over me. It was difficult to describe, but after standing there for a full minute, the best I could do was that it felt like a refreshing drink, something with plenty of caffeine in it… all through my body. The sunlight felt pleasant, and even after a few minutes, and all my armor, I did not feel anything past being pleasantly warm and awake.
"That is an interesting sensation," Joseph comments, looking down at his arms and hands. "Like had I had a double shot of espresso… but it's had an hour to settle out of the jittery phase. I'm starting to understand your choice, Sir."
"It's almost like we were right," Carlos said with a smirk, looking up at the bright, clear sky, pointedly ignoring Joseph's glare. "So, what's up for today, Sir?"
"First, we need to see the quests for today, but Joseph suggested we take the day easy, and I agree," I commented. "Unless there is something groundbreaking, we will start with a morning patrol."
Carlos nodded, and together we headed back inside the HQ, where Maxwell was waiting. The suit-clad man smiled as we approached, and quickly presented us with two more quests, placing them on the table for me to inspect.
"Two more quests for you, Sir," He said, tapping the table next to each piece of parchment. "Good luck."
I reached forward and grabbed the closest option, turning it over in my hand to read the description. After a moment, I nodded.
"Well… suppose I should have expected that," I guessed, passing the parchment to Joseph. "They want us to travel up to the area described by Toando and Yalna. The area we can hunt without bothering them."
"What's the reward?" Carlos asked, trying to peek over Joseph's shoulders, the other soldier rolling his eyes and passing him the parchment when he was done.
"An optic, seems like some sort of. It actually kinda looks like an clone," I responded, picking up the second parchment. "Or at least something similar. No real magnification but certainly better than iron sights."
I read the second quest, frowning and shaking my head as IO made it through the task. When I was done, I passed it to Joseph, not even bothering to look at the reward.
"Looks like we are going for a walk," I commented, shaking my head. "The second one is getting put off for another day."
For some reason, despite denying that I had any interest in doing so several times, we now had a quest to make contact with the nearest tribe in Horizon. Despite Toando and Yalna seeming like relatively decent people, I was not about to get myself involved with tribal politics and bullshit until I had more people and more options.
I wasn't exactly afraid of the group, though they could almost certainly overwhelm us, between their superior numbers and home-field advantage. I just had a very strong suspicion that the second we met the tribe, things were going to get a lot more complicated. The groups I knew from the game had been superstitious and spiritual to occasionally unreasonable degrees. I did not want to get caught up appeasing the local sun god or get forced to make material sacrifices to Gaia just to keep them off our backs.
"Sir… did you look at the reward?" Joseph asked, tapping the parchment I had just passed him. "I don't know if it would change your mind, but…"
"What is it?"
"A new option for our primary weapon," he responded. "A shotgun."
I sighed, holding my hand out to Joseph, who handed me back the piece of parchment. I scanned the quest again, before turning the page over to read the reward. Sure enough, completing the quest would give us a second primary weapon option, as well as a way to trade them out.
"Alright, I'll admit that is intriguing," I responded, chewing my lip for a moment before shaking my head. "But my statement stands for now. I'm not willing to kick this potential hornet's nest over until we are more prepared. A new soldier or two, another perk or… something. I'll know when it happens. Until then… we go for a walk."
My two soldiers nodded, and we quickly finished getting ready. I officially selected the exploration mission before leading everyone outside. We still needed to walk our patrol, even though it seemed that we would continue to receive Fallout world guests regardless. I knew, statistically speaking, that it wasn't unusual for something that was just a bit rare to pop up twice in so many weeks, especially with probabilities being weighted by previous actions, but it was certainly annoying.
We left the protection of the HQ, pushing back along our clearing, past the barracks. As we did, I wondered how often we would get new buildings and upgrades for those buildings. So far, we hadn't gotten a single one since I placed the barracks, and it made me wonder if we were just unlucky, or if they were just that rare. We were out of what Maxwell called the tutorial, which told me that things were supposed to be as random as they would get. Beyond crossing my fingers and hoping, all I could do was settle in and wait.
Our target for our "patrol" was the first road of houses along the residential section, located far behind the HQ. There were several roads within short walking distance of us, followed by a stretch of dead trees, then more homes and residential roads. Beyond that, far in the distance, there was the dual monorail line, built up into the air, though it was collapsed in several sections.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Absolutely made the right call, Sir," Carlos said, easily jumping up onto a rock along the path. "I feel light on my feet and strong as an ox. Might as well be wearing nothing but my."
"look forward to being able to wear more protective armor," Joseph responded, prompting Carlos to roll his eyes.
Along the road that was our target, there were around two dozen homes, most of them completely leveled. Five of them, however, were still standing, with faded and stained siding, partially barred-up windows, and quite a bit of trash and debris strewn around them. They stood among their collapsed neighbors like relics of the past, snapshots of what living in Pre-war America might have been like.
It was also strange that only five houses out of just over twenty-four were standing, especially when, at least from where we were, there didn't appear to be anything special about them.
"Why are these houses still standing?" Joseph asked with a frown, looking around at the mostly broken and charred neighborhood. "It seems random."
"Yeah… it always seemed that way in the game too… whole roads with nothing but one or two homes standing…" I trailed off, all three of us approaching the nearest home.
When we finally arrived at the water-stained building, I ran my hands along the siding, accidentally knocking some off. I winced, only to stop and tilt my head, before leaning closer. I carefully tore away the patches of wet and rotted material that was under the outer shell of the home to reveal a wall of concrete cinder blocks.
"Well… that explains that," I said, leaning back to let the other two see. "It seems like not all the homes in the Fallout world were made equal."
"Huh… these little cookie-cutter homes suddenly seem a lot more… daunting," Carlos said with a frown. "Who knows what might be trapped inside a cinderblock frame, especially if it's reinforced."
I gave him a look, wondering if he had just cursed us to finding a deathclaw or something else dangerous stuck inside one of these homes, before leading the pair around the home.
In the video game, pretty much all of the homes followed the same general model. There were some deviations, but those were by far the exceptions rather than the rule. Here, in this reality, the homes were not nearly as repetitive. However, they did follow a fairly consistent general style, characterized by simple, boxy homes, usually with some sort of garage, either attached or separate.
Some of the homes were larger, though it was clear that the cinderblock houses were generally smaller than their traditional counterparts. I couldn't imagine it was cheap to build a cinderblock house, especially if it was reinforced, which I could only assume they were. Not only had they survived way too well to be just simple cinderblocks, but the whole point of using a more expensive material was to be tougher, maybe even with the goal of being nuke-proof. Which seemed to have worked to a degree.
Who knew how resistant they were to radiation.
We carefully peeked through the gaps of the first home's barred windows, eventually coming to the conclusion that there wasn't anything waiting by the front door to tear us to pieces. After establishing that, we attempted to kick down the front door to get inside. That's when we learned two things. One, that the doors were just as heavily built as the rest of the home, and two, the strength increase we received was just as potent as I had hoped.
After testing the door a bit, Joseph and Carlos stood side by side in front of the door, just a few feet away. On the count of three, they move in concert, stepping forward, raising their feet, and kicking the reinforced door as hard as they could.
A loud thump, followed by the sound of metal giving way and bending, echoed down the street as the door caved inward by a few inches. The door was torn off its hinges, tumbling into the house at an angle, before sliding across the floor and coming to a stop. A cloud of dust blew out from the impact, and both soldiers stepped back while I raised my weapon to cover them.
After about a minute, when nothing came sprinting out from around the corner or through the doors, I looked over at both of them, the soldiers now holding their weapons at the ready.
"I… may be beginning to see your reasoning behind picking Solar Powered," Joseph admitted. "That was.. Not something we would have been able to do yesterday."
"Not without some very intense training, at least," Carlos pointed out, chuckling as he inspected the bent and torn hinges. "Yeah… definitely old, but not too rusted or corroded."
"Well… nice to have my choices validated," I said, shaking my head clear before nodding to the now open door. "Let's clear the building before we get too distracted. I want to search at least two more before going back."
My soldiers nodded, and we quickly pushed into the house. Carlos stood at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor, keeping watch while Joseph and I quickly cleared the bottom floor, followed by the basement. Carlos then led us through clearing the second floor. Once we felt certain we weren't about to be ambushed by ghouls, or worse, we split up to search the house for anything useful.
Together we spent about fifteen minutes scavenge, quickly filling up my pack with a few bottles of wine, an old first aid kit that seemed almost entirely intact, as well as a few other odds and ends. We also managed to pry open a safe thanks to a pair of crowbars we found in the attached garage. Inside, we found a that was in frankly startling good condition, a silencer for that pistol, a spare magazine, and a box of 10mm bullets. We also found two bottles of alcohol and a bunch of basically useless paper money.
"If no one wants it, I would like the," Joseph said, holding up a holster he found hanging on a rack by the door. "As a backup sidearm. At least until we can find a laser pistol holster."
"Fine by me," I responded with a shrug. "I'm kinda hoping to find a .44 magnum, or maybe another energy weapon."
It took a little trimming and finagling, but eventually Joseph was able to combine the new holster with his current gear. After that, he quickly slid his new weapon on his hip, the silencer tucked into one of the many pockets and pouches built into our kit. After testing to ensure it was securely attached, we continued searching the house.
Once we were all set, we moved out of the house, heading to the next one. This time, only Carlos kicked the door, kicking it in the center twice before it popped open, revealing another dusty, musty interior.
Unlike the previous house, however, this one was not empty. The second the door clanged open, the shrieks and screams of ghouls greeted us.
Within seconds, a trio of ghouls burst from around a corner, while two more tumbled and fumbled down the stairs. Joseph and I, who had been waiting on either side of the door while Carlos kicked, opened fire immediately, bullets tearing through the ghouls easily.
Only one got within even a half dozen feet of us, close enough for Carlos to pull his sawed-off shotgun from its holster and fire it from his hip. Despite his cowboy-esque firing style, the shot was accurate, and damn near blew the zombie in half, the heavy load of buckshot eviscerating a good chunk of its soft, half rotted torso.
We waited in the quiet for a long moment, Carlos raising his rifle to cover inside while Joseph and I turned to scan the area, eyes peeled for anything coming to investigate the gunshots. Eventually, when nothing came running to attack us, we lowered our weapons and stepped inside.
This time, we had a partially intact door to shove back into the frame, for at least partial protection.
We quickly cleared the interior and began looting, filling what little space was left in my pack and starting to fill Carlos'. Once we finished with that home, we stepped out and headed to the next house. We cleared three more before we ran out of space in our bags and headed home, light on ammo and ready to go for a much longer walk in the Horizon world.
When we returned to the HQ, we were carrying a few more shelves and crates, leaving them and the contents of our bags at the loot corner for Maxwell to take care of. After a quick break, a tasteless snack, and a bottle of water for each of us, we made our way to the dark door connected to the Horizon world. After a quick check of the proximity scanner, we stepped through the connection link, on our way to our new hunting grounds.
