Okay, David asked what I was referring to in a previous post, when I lamented the "new companion" status that Ria carries.
I was typing out a reply comment, when it occurred to me that I was likely going over the comment-length limit. So, rather than cut down my reply, I'll just turn it into a new post, and maybe enlighten some of you what in the holy hell I'm talking about when I mention my companions learning.
What I mean when I talk about old and new NPCs is... sort of difficult to explain.
I've logged a thousand or more hours on the RR companion system over the last year plus. Probably more than 75% of the rest of the users of the mod combined. I've seen them do things no one else ever will.
It isn't widely reported, but the companions are... a sort of persistent. They learn and grow as individuals, as long as the game stays installed. The information isn't hidden in the save files, as it persists even across cleaning those out. The only way to reset the companions is to uninstall and reinstall the game. Even cleaning your save-game of the mod doesn't seem to reset the data.
Even if it is commonly encountered, it's not surprising it isn't reported. You have to know what to look for to notice it, and only a few of us do.
Besides which, out of 24,000 downloaders and change, less than 515 have been willing to take thirty seconds to endorse - another twelve were willing to thumbs-down it. That places the number of users that give enough of a fuck to toss in a vote either way at a bit less than 2.5% - so even if they are seeing it... most people wouldn't bother saying anything.
As you play with the companions, they get more accurate with weapons, they retreat less often, use more advanced combat tactics. They learn. Become more dangerous; better partners.
This isn't the "system", on the whole - it takes place for each individual. The longer you have one in tow, the better that one gets.
After being with me for 95% of the 68 hour game I'd been playing since the reinstall, my favorite "special" companion is just plain fucking scary. With a revolver she can take on six or more raiders and come out without a scratch. Get all three of them together, and they can take on Deathclaws in close-quarters combat and not have to use any stims.
They were like that before my video card died. When I uninstalled and reinstalled, though, they lost that experience, and started anew in the new install. It took about ten hours for them to get good again; by thirty hours (about level six, for the record), they were more than a match for any group of NPCs in the wastes.
I've seen them pull stuff that would make any graduate of the US Army's MOUT course proud. They work corners, cover each others' reloads, double-up on targets. Hell, I've seen them advance in a bounding overwatch formation.
I watched one engage targets at range with her rifle, then when the horde of zombies got too close she transitioned to a sidearm, and moved laterally to get out of the way while laying down accurate fire the entire time.
I saw my special version of Maeva develop a taste for making sure her targets are dead. She'll kill at range normally, but then walk up to the corpse, aim down, and put two or three rounds into the corpse's head.
Now. I planned out the mods for my Nos' Adventures game around this sort of behavior. Any one of them would be able to handle ten raiders with ease, even at level two.
The problem, is I forgot that they have to learn that behavior.
When I created Arianrhod, it slipped my mind that she'd be a clean slate.
Sure enough, she's been backing down from combat, spraying fire from the hip, and just generally making rookie mistakes left and right.
But, she's learning. Each encounter, she does a bit better. Still pretty worthless with a submachinegun... but does decently with a revolver. Her last bit of performance with an assault rifle was adequate, if not inspiring.
This has caused problems for me. I've had to turn off the increased increased spawns. With FWE on as well, they were simply unsurvivable.
If not for trying to hold to my storytelling ideals, I'd turn my special companions back on, and turn them loose. I may do it anyway, just to see how well they hunt with FWE on. I do so love watching my girls hunt...
Now, you guys may think I'm overdosed on caffeine or something, and have begun seeing things that aren't there - but this learning behavior has been reported by a couple other people, so I'm fairly sure it's not just some random convergence in my system, or insanity on my part.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Monday, July 5, 2010
Nos' Adventures, Next Entry
Well, I'm part-way through writing entry #3. About a third written, another half played and screenshotted, with a bit more yet to plan out.
Already... the project is in jeopardy. Why? I'm not losing interest - really, I don't bore that quickly. The problem is the same problem I've always had with my writing: I've begun censoring myself.
Deleting and rewriting parts to "clean them up", and to avoid having the story degenerate into the travels of a pair of nearly amoral monsters.
Trouble is, when I censor myself, you can tell it. The "feel" changes, and it goes from being unequivocally me, to sounding tacked on and unnatural.
So, I have a bit of a quandary. Do I be me, and showcase exactly the sort of fucked up shit that goes down in my games, or do I clean it up; and come across as a worse storyteller than I actually am?
Not sure. I know it'll never be published, so I don't have to worry about the PC-ness of it all... but I still know that the intarwebz are archived somewhere until the fall of humanity.
Already... the project is in jeopardy. Why? I'm not losing interest - really, I don't bore that quickly. The problem is the same problem I've always had with my writing: I've begun censoring myself.
Deleting and rewriting parts to "clean them up", and to avoid having the story degenerate into the travels of a pair of nearly amoral monsters.
Trouble is, when I censor myself, you can tell it. The "feel" changes, and it goes from being unequivocally me, to sounding tacked on and unnatural.
So, I have a bit of a quandary. Do I be me, and showcase exactly the sort of fucked up shit that goes down in my games, or do I clean it up; and come across as a worse storyteller than I actually am?
Not sure. I know it'll never be published, so I don't have to worry about the PC-ness of it all... but I still know that the intarwebz are archived somewhere until the fall of humanity.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
New Games
As you might have inferred, I started a new game to run the Nos' Adventures series. My previous game is backed up should I want to just play, but at 68 odd hours, so much had been done and so many NPCs killed, that the world was not really suitable to the whole storytelling thing.
One of the changes I made was to keep it from being too easy. Even larger mobs were total pushovers in previous games.
I added FWE to try out, and MMM's increased increased spawns - the standalone, without all that extra "improvement" from the main MMM package that is so wonderfully framerate destroying and game breaking in general.
FWE isn't too bad thus far, although it did take me twenty odd minutes to turn off the useless shit that's included. For instance: "sprint key" replacing the move forward key? Dumbest shit I've ever seen. Whoever did that? You should be ashamed of yourself. Since that portion of the mod wouldn't switch off no matter how many times I told it to uninstall, I ended up switching the keybind to something I never touched. Backslash, I think.
I'm also not thinking highly of the "combat AI improvements" in FWE. I was able to sit with an unsuppressed pistol and pick people off for almost five minutes, with no one coming to see who that was shooting at them.
I'll say this for Arwen: I may hate her stealth modifications, but her AI work is top notch, and if running her tweaks the raiders would have been on my ass after shot number two. Three if I was lucky.
As it was, they never noticed us until we moved in close. Was at the Springvale school. After picking off all I could through the windows, we worked around the back side of the hill, and into the playground. I ascended the ladder on the slide, and tossed a frag into the midst of three raiders who had come that direction.
That, they noticed.
Quite a fight, it turned out. Ria and I had our pistols, Silver's revolver, and three frags I had found in a mail box. Ten or so raiders to start, I think I got five of them from my sniper's perch through the windows.
Which brings me to my own point about AI...
See, I had based the whole "Pair of travelers" thing on the fact that any one of my special companions - even solo - is fucking death incarnate. They're expert pistoleros, burst fire assault rifles with the best of them, and can one-shot your ass with anything scoped from seventy-five yards out (which is impressive, for FO3 NPCs).
...Trouble is... I forgot Ria is a new NPC. Assaulting the school was only the second combat she had been exposed to - the first being Silver. I didn't actually drag her through the tutorial with me; although in retrospect I think I should have. Stomping those guards would have helped...
So, we get an interesting side to the story, that being that she really is still learning to be a killer, and I'm having to pick up a lot of the slack in the interim.
Unfortunately, I'm at like 4x normal spawns, extra weapon damage, and more 'realistic' crippling and medical stuff.
This is gonna be interesting.
Even more so, since I'm not allowing myself access to Vault 1 and my stash of weapons lockers and ammo cans. Or the super-merchant.
One of the changes I made was to keep it from being too easy. Even larger mobs were total pushovers in previous games.
I added FWE to try out, and MMM's increased increased spawns - the standalone, without all that extra "improvement" from the main MMM package that is so wonderfully framerate destroying and game breaking in general.
FWE isn't too bad thus far, although it did take me twenty odd minutes to turn off the useless shit that's included. For instance: "sprint key" replacing the move forward key? Dumbest shit I've ever seen. Whoever did that? You should be ashamed of yourself. Since that portion of the mod wouldn't switch off no matter how many times I told it to uninstall, I ended up switching the keybind to something I never touched. Backslash, I think.
I'm also not thinking highly of the "combat AI improvements" in FWE. I was able to sit with an unsuppressed pistol and pick people off for almost five minutes, with no one coming to see who that was shooting at them.
I'll say this for Arwen: I may hate her stealth modifications, but her AI work is top notch, and if running her tweaks the raiders would have been on my ass after shot number two. Three if I was lucky.
As it was, they never noticed us until we moved in close. Was at the Springvale school. After picking off all I could through the windows, we worked around the back side of the hill, and into the playground. I ascended the ladder on the slide, and tossed a frag into the midst of three raiders who had come that direction.
That, they noticed.
Quite a fight, it turned out. Ria and I had our pistols, Silver's revolver, and three frags I had found in a mail box. Ten or so raiders to start, I think I got five of them from my sniper's perch through the windows.
Which brings me to my own point about AI...
See, I had based the whole "Pair of travelers" thing on the fact that any one of my special companions - even solo - is fucking death incarnate. They're expert pistoleros, burst fire assault rifles with the best of them, and can one-shot your ass with anything scoped from seventy-five yards out (which is impressive, for FO3 NPCs).
...Trouble is... I forgot Ria is a new NPC. Assaulting the school was only the second combat she had been exposed to - the first being Silver. I didn't actually drag her through the tutorial with me; although in retrospect I think I should have. Stomping those guards would have helped...
So, we get an interesting side to the story, that being that she really is still learning to be a killer, and I'm having to pick up a lot of the slack in the interim.
Unfortunately, I'm at like 4x normal spawns, extra weapon damage, and more 'realistic' crippling and medical stuff.
This is gonna be interesting.
Even more so, since I'm not allowing myself access to Vault 1 and my stash of weapons lockers and ammo cans. Or the super-merchant.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Nos' Adventures, 8-18-77
August 18, 2277:
Our first night in the wastes was less than amazing. We stayed awake until dawn, keeping an eye out for anything hostile. Nothing presented itself, but we did hear some things moving around out in the darkness.
Not that sitting back to back with your girl isn’t nice. Nicer, surely, when you do it inside a building with a locking door, though. Maybe some 2x4’s nailed across the door; or a sliding bar at the very least.
I’ll also mention that it’s true the food was still good. In a manner of speaking, anyway. While it didn’t make us sick, strictly speaking… washing down cram and instant noodles with several shots of vodka do not make for what one would term a happy GI tract.
I’m pretty sure that the area within thirty or so feet of our hideout could have been considered to be undergoing another apocalypse. I love her dearly… but God. Damn. I had no idea the human body could produce smells like that. I can’t claim innocence, either. It’s a good thing we didn’t have a fire burning.
We finally went to sleep around dawn, leaning against each other and backed into a corner. Sleeping fitfully until what my Pip-Boy informed me was just after eleven AM.
I woke up with a truly epic headache. I’d have chalked it up to the vodka, but I’ve been hung over before, and this was something else. It felt almost like my head was going to explode from some internal pressure. The headache, it would turn out, would stick with me the entire day.
We had to forgo any sort of a shower, since there was no apparent running water nearby.
“We need to ditch these clothes.” Ria declared, unzipping the front of her jumpsuit.
It slipped my mind before, but I suppose I should note that I generally refer to Arianrhod as Ria. Easier on the tongue by far. She doesn’t seem to mind in the least.
“I know you’ve got an exhibitionist streak, but do you really think this is the best time for that sort of thing?” I replied, trying hard not to look.
“Get your mind out of the gutter.” She shot back, picking up a partially burned book and using it as a fan to try and dry the sweat that was freely running down between her breasts. “It’s hot as fucking hell out here.”
“It’s August. I still don’t think going around naked would help, anyway. Sunburns are no joke, and you and I don’t exactly have skin that’s used to UV-exposure.”
“True.” She conceded. “But the fact remains that our jumpsuits and the armor both have vault logos emblazoned across the back. Since the vault door has a big, matching one-oh-one plastered across it, you can bet the locals will get ideas about us if they see us in these outfits. I don’t want to be singled out as someone who could get them into paradise; do you?”
“Not particularly, no.” I admitted, sullenly.
While I’ll confess I don’t really like the vault jumpsuits, they were nonetheless far and away better than the immediate alternatives.
Ria was right, though – between the logo, and the sheer cleanliness of the clothing; we’d be marked as outsiders on the spot. Standing out is never good when you’re only two people with two pistols and four magazines between you.
“We also need supplies.” She added. “That vodka isn’t doing us any favors for hydration.”
“There’s also the matter that being drunk off your ass isn’t conducive to survival.”
“Fuckin’ A.” Ria replied.
She continued swearing under her breath, and pulled the front of her still-unzipped jumpsuit out, trying to direct the fan-generated breeze to areas below her waist.
“Where should we try first…?” I ventured.
“Not sure. Just after the sun came up, I saw a couple houses down the street that looked inhabitable. We could try looting those. May even find someplace more defensible to stay awhile…”
I glanced up, from my position sitting at her feet. “If nothing else, we could get out of the sun, awhile. Doubt we’ll find an air conditioner, though.”
“Agreed. Quickie before we go?”
“I don’t… really think out in the open would be such a good idea…” I noted, unsuccessfully attempting to suppress a blush.
Even after years together, she can still tease me with almost pathetic ease.
“Fine, be no fun.” Ria returned, grinning.
She offered me a hand, and pulled me to my feet. That done, she zipped her jumpsuit back up, and we pulled our vests on.
We moved off down the street. Immediately, I spied the building Ria mentioned having seen.
Amazingly, the place still had its walls intact, as far as we could tell. Front and rear doors, even. No signs of life externally, but I had to confess that anyone who had lived out here for any length of time would almost assuredly have had to learn to conceal their presence.
With windows boarded up as they were, it was nearly impossible to tell whether anyone was inside.
Stopping at the door, Ria gently tried the handle. It wasn’t locked.
“Should we knock?” She asked, wearing a slight grin.
“You think they’d let us in if we said we were selling Mary Kay?”
“Probably not.”
“Then no, I don’t think announcing ourselves would do any good.”
“On three?”
“Not yet.”
I removed the riot helmet from its place on my belt, and pulled it on.
Laughing softly, Ria did the same.
“Now.”
She nodded, and silently twisted the door handle. On three, Ria gave a soft push on the door. The fact that the door didn’t squeak as it moved inward suggested rather strongly that someone did live there.
We moved in, pistols raised and covering corners as well as we could.
The front room appeared to be a combination kitchen and dining room. There were electric lights in operation, and a functioning refrigerator against one wall.
Ignoring it for the time being, we moved on. Coming through the doorway, we were immediately set upon by a woman. She didn’t initially attack physically, but rather came at us demanding answers.
Wanting to know if we worked for someone. I could barely understand her.
The woman quickly grew frustrated with jabbering in our general direction, and pulled a small revolver from her pocket.
Ria and I both still had our pistols raised. The woman who had never even bothered to identify herself – or given us a chance to introduce ourselves – caught two rounds of 10mm; one in the face and the second in the throat.
Morbid as this may sound to you, we had both aimed with the intent of not ruining her clothes.
Unfortunately, as it turned out her outfit wouldn’t fit Ria. The skirt was so short that it didn’t leave anything to the imagination on the dead woman – who was four plus inches shorter than Ria. The “top”, such as it was, was a good four cup sizes and ten inches too small. We took it anyway, since downright tawdry as it was, the outfit was of decent quality, and would probably be worth something; if we ever found a group of sane people to trade with.
We searched through the nearby cabinet, but found no other clothing. It appeared that for the time being at least, we were stuck with our Vault attire.
We moved the wardrobe over to block the back door from opening, then took one of the chairs from the dining table and wedged it into place at the front door; to at least delay entry.
Now at least moderately secure, we raided the refrigerator and sat down to relax.
The dead woman had had precious little in the way of arms. She had been armed only with a thirty-two caliber revolver that would have been considered a piece of shit even before the war. A handful of ammunition that was so corroded I’d have been surprised if it had even gone off rounded out her protection kit.
We found some small amount of food, and water that wasn’t completely filthy. The survey meter built into my Pip-Boy concluded that the water bottles were irradiated; but not dangerously so. Living on it long-term wouldn’t have been advisable, but considering that there was only a few days worth of the stuff left, we decided it wouldn’t be too much of an issue.
It did, however, raise the question of how the dead woman had been surviving here. She was obviously settled in, and didn’t look like she had been planning on leaving anytime soon.
There must be a water supply nearby, then. If not… perhaps that city we spied yesterday?
“Still…” Ria mused, sipping at one of the bottles of water. “If this psycho was any indication of the rest of them, getting that water could be interesting.”
I agreed; taking a drink myself, after she passed me the bottle. The water tasted terrible.
“What do you think all those Nuka Cola caps were for? Seems like an odd thing to collect in this day and age.” I asked, changing the subject.
“No idea. Could be an obsessive-compulsive disorder driving her to collect them; could be some new, crazy religion… hell, it could be fucking money for all we know.”
“I suppose. What now?”
“Now?” Ria repeated, standing and stretching. “Now, I say we dump that bitch’s corpse in one of the dumpsters outside, lock this place down, and get some real sleep. We found enough supplies to last a few days. We’ll worry about more later.”
Cold? Absolutely; but a good idea is a good idea, and my darling girl is ever the pragmatist…
We unceremoniously dumped the corpse into one of the dumpsters outside, and closed the lid without even any final words for the deceased.
That done, we returned to our new house, and battened down the metaphorical hatches before night fell. The house wouldn’t stand up to any sort of real assault… but it would at least slow down an attacker enough to give us time to wake up and grab weapons to mount a defense.
While searching around the bedroom, we found a considerable stash of drugs, mostly in auto-injector form. Neither of us recognized most of the trade-names on the labels, but I did see one with a name similar to a heavy-duty amphetamine that my dad had prescribed occasionally, back in the vault.
If she had been out of her skull on stimulants… it would certainly explain the aggressive and erratic behavior. The thought brightened our outlook somewhat, since it suggested that at least some of the people might be sane and reasonable.
And yes, I do realize the irony of someone who just shot a random woman, hoping for reasonable discourse in future dealings.
Surprisingly enough, we found a second set of sheets under the bed that were actually more-or-less clean. We quickly changed them out for the equally surprisingly filthy ones that had been on the bed.
For the first time since Amata woke me in my bedroom in the Vault, I got to sit down and take my boots off. Thank the universe for insoles with activated charcoal, I can tell you that much.
Ria didn’t stop there, though. She quickly shed the rest of her clothes, and fell into bed.
She loves to sleep naked. Something about the feeling of skin-on-skin contact was soothing to Ria. It’s another of those things I really don’t understand, but I like both the view and the feel enough that you won’t generally find me dissenting. Since we had already checked the sheets, mattress, and pillow for lice and other unpleasant surprises, I had no intention of arguing this time, either.
I followed suit, and climbed in after her. We were so exhausted after the previous night’s perpetual on-edge state that we didn’t even bother with anything perverse, and instead were asleep within minutes.
Our first night in the wastes was less than amazing. We stayed awake until dawn, keeping an eye out for anything hostile. Nothing presented itself, but we did hear some things moving around out in the darkness.
Not that sitting back to back with your girl isn’t nice. Nicer, surely, when you do it inside a building with a locking door, though. Maybe some 2x4’s nailed across the door; or a sliding bar at the very least.
I’ll also mention that it’s true the food was still good. In a manner of speaking, anyway. While it didn’t make us sick, strictly speaking… washing down cram and instant noodles with several shots of vodka do not make for what one would term a happy GI tract.
I’m pretty sure that the area within thirty or so feet of our hideout could have been considered to be undergoing another apocalypse. I love her dearly… but God. Damn. I had no idea the human body could produce smells like that. I can’t claim innocence, either. It’s a good thing we didn’t have a fire burning.
We finally went to sleep around dawn, leaning against each other and backed into a corner. Sleeping fitfully until what my Pip-Boy informed me was just after eleven AM.
I woke up with a truly epic headache. I’d have chalked it up to the vodka, but I’ve been hung over before, and this was something else. It felt almost like my head was going to explode from some internal pressure. The headache, it would turn out, would stick with me the entire day.
We had to forgo any sort of a shower, since there was no apparent running water nearby.
“We need to ditch these clothes.” Ria declared, unzipping the front of her jumpsuit.
It slipped my mind before, but I suppose I should note that I generally refer to Arianrhod as Ria. Easier on the tongue by far. She doesn’t seem to mind in the least.
“I know you’ve got an exhibitionist streak, but do you really think this is the best time for that sort of thing?” I replied, trying hard not to look.
“Get your mind out of the gutter.” She shot back, picking up a partially burned book and using it as a fan to try and dry the sweat that was freely running down between her breasts. “It’s hot as fucking hell out here.”
“It’s August. I still don’t think going around naked would help, anyway. Sunburns are no joke, and you and I don’t exactly have skin that’s used to UV-exposure.”
“True.” She conceded. “But the fact remains that our jumpsuits and the armor both have vault logos emblazoned across the back. Since the vault door has a big, matching one-oh-one plastered across it, you can bet the locals will get ideas about us if they see us in these outfits. I don’t want to be singled out as someone who could get them into paradise; do you?”
“Not particularly, no.” I admitted, sullenly.
While I’ll confess I don’t really like the vault jumpsuits, they were nonetheless far and away better than the immediate alternatives.
Ria was right, though – between the logo, and the sheer cleanliness of the clothing; we’d be marked as outsiders on the spot. Standing out is never good when you’re only two people with two pistols and four magazines between you.
“We also need supplies.” She added. “That vodka isn’t doing us any favors for hydration.”
“There’s also the matter that being drunk off your ass isn’t conducive to survival.”
“Fuckin’ A.” Ria replied.
She continued swearing under her breath, and pulled the front of her still-unzipped jumpsuit out, trying to direct the fan-generated breeze to areas below her waist.
“Where should we try first…?” I ventured.
“Not sure. Just after the sun came up, I saw a couple houses down the street that looked inhabitable. We could try looting those. May even find someplace more defensible to stay awhile…”
I glanced up, from my position sitting at her feet. “If nothing else, we could get out of the sun, awhile. Doubt we’ll find an air conditioner, though.”
“Agreed. Quickie before we go?”
“I don’t… really think out in the open would be such a good idea…” I noted, unsuccessfully attempting to suppress a blush.
Even after years together, she can still tease me with almost pathetic ease.
“Fine, be no fun.” Ria returned, grinning.
She offered me a hand, and pulled me to my feet. That done, she zipped her jumpsuit back up, and we pulled our vests on.
We moved off down the street. Immediately, I spied the building Ria mentioned having seen.
Amazingly, the place still had its walls intact, as far as we could tell. Front and rear doors, even. No signs of life externally, but I had to confess that anyone who had lived out here for any length of time would almost assuredly have had to learn to conceal their presence.
With windows boarded up as they were, it was nearly impossible to tell whether anyone was inside.
Stopping at the door, Ria gently tried the handle. It wasn’t locked.
“Should we knock?” She asked, wearing a slight grin.
“You think they’d let us in if we said we were selling Mary Kay?”
“Probably not.”
“Then no, I don’t think announcing ourselves would do any good.”
“On three?”
“Not yet.”
I removed the riot helmet from its place on my belt, and pulled it on.
Laughing softly, Ria did the same.
“Now.”
She nodded, and silently twisted the door handle. On three, Ria gave a soft push on the door. The fact that the door didn’t squeak as it moved inward suggested rather strongly that someone did live there.
We moved in, pistols raised and covering corners as well as we could.
The front room appeared to be a combination kitchen and dining room. There were electric lights in operation, and a functioning refrigerator against one wall.
Ignoring it for the time being, we moved on. Coming through the doorway, we were immediately set upon by a woman. She didn’t initially attack physically, but rather came at us demanding answers.
Wanting to know if we worked for someone. I could barely understand her.
The woman quickly grew frustrated with jabbering in our general direction, and pulled a small revolver from her pocket.
Ria and I both still had our pistols raised. The woman who had never even bothered to identify herself – or given us a chance to introduce ourselves – caught two rounds of 10mm; one in the face and the second in the throat.
Morbid as this may sound to you, we had both aimed with the intent of not ruining her clothes.
Unfortunately, as it turned out her outfit wouldn’t fit Ria. The skirt was so short that it didn’t leave anything to the imagination on the dead woman – who was four plus inches shorter than Ria. The “top”, such as it was, was a good four cup sizes and ten inches too small. We took it anyway, since downright tawdry as it was, the outfit was of decent quality, and would probably be worth something; if we ever found a group of sane people to trade with.
We searched through the nearby cabinet, but found no other clothing. It appeared that for the time being at least, we were stuck with our Vault attire.
We moved the wardrobe over to block the back door from opening, then took one of the chairs from the dining table and wedged it into place at the front door; to at least delay entry.
Now at least moderately secure, we raided the refrigerator and sat down to relax.
The dead woman had had precious little in the way of arms. She had been armed only with a thirty-two caliber revolver that would have been considered a piece of shit even before the war. A handful of ammunition that was so corroded I’d have been surprised if it had even gone off rounded out her protection kit.
We found some small amount of food, and water that wasn’t completely filthy. The survey meter built into my Pip-Boy concluded that the water bottles were irradiated; but not dangerously so. Living on it long-term wouldn’t have been advisable, but considering that there was only a few days worth of the stuff left, we decided it wouldn’t be too much of an issue.
It did, however, raise the question of how the dead woman had been surviving here. She was obviously settled in, and didn’t look like she had been planning on leaving anytime soon.
There must be a water supply nearby, then. If not… perhaps that city we spied yesterday?
“Still…” Ria mused, sipping at one of the bottles of water. “If this psycho was any indication of the rest of them, getting that water could be interesting.”
I agreed; taking a drink myself, after she passed me the bottle. The water tasted terrible.
“What do you think all those Nuka Cola caps were for? Seems like an odd thing to collect in this day and age.” I asked, changing the subject.
“No idea. Could be an obsessive-compulsive disorder driving her to collect them; could be some new, crazy religion… hell, it could be fucking money for all we know.”
“I suppose. What now?”
“Now?” Ria repeated, standing and stretching. “Now, I say we dump that bitch’s corpse in one of the dumpsters outside, lock this place down, and get some real sleep. We found enough supplies to last a few days. We’ll worry about more later.”
Cold? Absolutely; but a good idea is a good idea, and my darling girl is ever the pragmatist…
We unceremoniously dumped the corpse into one of the dumpsters outside, and closed the lid without even any final words for the deceased.
That done, we returned to our new house, and battened down the metaphorical hatches before night fell. The house wouldn’t stand up to any sort of real assault… but it would at least slow down an attacker enough to give us time to wake up and grab weapons to mount a defense.
While searching around the bedroom, we found a considerable stash of drugs, mostly in auto-injector form. Neither of us recognized most of the trade-names on the labels, but I did see one with a name similar to a heavy-duty amphetamine that my dad had prescribed occasionally, back in the vault.
If she had been out of her skull on stimulants… it would certainly explain the aggressive and erratic behavior. The thought brightened our outlook somewhat, since it suggested that at least some of the people might be sane and reasonable.
And yes, I do realize the irony of someone who just shot a random woman, hoping for reasonable discourse in future dealings.
Surprisingly enough, we found a second set of sheets under the bed that were actually more-or-less clean. We quickly changed them out for the equally surprisingly filthy ones that had been on the bed.
For the first time since Amata woke me in my bedroom in the Vault, I got to sit down and take my boots off. Thank the universe for insoles with activated charcoal, I can tell you that much.
Ria didn’t stop there, though. She quickly shed the rest of her clothes, and fell into bed.
She loves to sleep naked. Something about the feeling of skin-on-skin contact was soothing to Ria. It’s another of those things I really don’t understand, but I like both the view and the feel enough that you won’t generally find me dissenting. Since we had already checked the sheets, mattress, and pillow for lice and other unpleasant surprises, I had no intention of arguing this time, either.
I followed suit, and climbed in after her. We were so exhausted after the previous night’s perpetual on-edge state that we didn’t even bother with anything perverse, and instead were asleep within minutes.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Nos' Adventures, 8-17-77
August 17, 2277:
It may not be the smartest of things to do, but after what happened today I’ve decided that I want a record to survive… when the inevitable occurs.
You can call me Nos. True, it wasn’t the name I was given at birth… but I never much cared for my ‘real’ name, and it seems I’ve now got little reason to leave myself saddled with it out of any sense of familial loyalty, or just plain not wanting to endure the cajoling of people who don’t understand.
If you’re reading this, I’d like to think I simply lost or was forced to leave my journal wherever you found it. I know that since I’m entering this into my Pip-Boy’s log, it’s far more likely that I’m actually dead at this point… but humor me, okay?
What can I say about myself to open this account? I’m nineteen, at the time of this writing. Male. I stand just shy of six feet, have short hair, and wear glasses due to a cruel twist of genetics.
I know perfectly well that ‘normal’ is very much a matter of perspective; but that’s what I always thought my life was – insofar as normalcy still exists when your world consists of an elaborate underground NBCR shelter, situated in the bedrock beneath the blasted earth that used to be the capital of the world’s foremost power.
If you who are reading this are one of the denizens of the wasteland I’ve recently found myself in, then you no doubt find the idea of living in a vault to be outlandish – perhaps even idyllic. To me, it was normal. It was all I had ever known… but, I’m getting ahead of myself.
As I said, I lived in a vault. Number 101, to be exact. I was assigned to maintenance, after the aptitude test. I have considerable knack for firearms, and would have been perfect for security… but I have something of a problem with authority, you see. "Doesn’t follow orders", they said. Wasn’t qualified for medical or science work; so into the world of parts-changing I went.
It was slow, laborious, and totally boring work. I dislike it; but it kept me fed, and taught me more than a bit about keeping machines of various type up and running. Improvisation in repair is a handy skill, I’m learning.
I shared quarters with my father – it not having been deemed that I warranted private accommodations. My mother died in childbirth, they tell me. I don’t think about it much – I never knew her, so I can’t really say as I feel like I’m missing anything.
I never had many friends. Didn’t get along with the resident ne’er-do-wells, wasn’t considered good enough for most of the other kids. Had a bit of a friendship with Amata – the Overseer’s biological daughter; but we never got really close. Then, there was Arianrhod.
That’s not her birth name, either, by the way. She had even less to require she hang on to a family name than I do, and so stopped using her ‘proper’ name years ago.
Our relationship is… somewhat complicated, you see. Not complicated in the love/hate thing going on way. Nor complicated in the sleeping around way, either. It’s more the… ‘they’ve developed emotional attachments to each other that are probably inappropriate’ way.
Arianrhod lost her own parents at a young age, and was technically a ward of the Overseer – though moved to separate quarters for an unspecified reason. She doesn’t talk about it much, but I don’t think they got along very well. As I’m missing my mother, and she both parents, we sort of filled those voids in each others emotions. Some perverse combination of lovers and surrogate siblings. I don’t claim to fully understand it… but it makes us both happy, and sometimes that’s all you need to know.
When I was seventeen, Arianrhod decided that I would be hers, for whatever reason. After all this time, I’ll confess I’m still not sure why she likes me so much… but I’m not going to be a fool and say no to her. Decision made, she began actively scaring off anyone else who even looked like they might show an interest in me, and started in “proving herself” to me.
Gorgeous, isn’t she? While it’s not commonplace, I do occasionally manage to talk her into letting me take a picture or two. The Pip-Boy’s camera function is very handy.
Very handy.
Her eyes, I think, are the most striking feature. I’d call them a mutation of some sort… but that’s silly. No one gets into a vault from outside once it’s been sealed, right?
Needless to say, it didn’t take long for me to succumb to her advances. We’ve been secret lovers ever since.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not ashamed of her, nor she of me. Far from it. You have to understand how a vault works, though. Inside a vault the Overseer is unquestionable leader and protector in self-given title – ruthless dictator, in actuality. Our Overseer decided that no “pairing” as he calls it would be permitted, until and unless he personally signed off, after deciding that the couple in question were genetically and emotionally compatible. “To ensure the best results for the community” he says. I tell you, after nineteen years, I am so sick of being shafted in the name of “the community” that I can’t properly convey it in words; and I damn well was not going to take one for the team in this case.
So we met in secret. Ideally in dark, secluded parts of the vault that even the Overseer didn’t know about. Sometimes in her room; more often in mine – as my father, being the head doctor, was called out on emergency cases fairly often; and my room was under considerably fewer watchful gazes than hers.
Arianrhod had even fewer friends than I did. Amata would tolerate her – but only just, and they never saw themselves as sisters of any sort. The other kids steered far clear of her after the “incident” with the local gang. Being of the pretty sort, they naturally expressed an interest in her; in their coarse manner, at least. Arianrhod was content to simply brush them off until one day when their leader made the mistake of attempting to touch her.
According to security, the event never actually happened; and Butch refuses to admit to anything more than falling down due to an errant puddle of coolant. Though because my father is the head doctor, I was able to sneak a look at the medical report from that day. She broke his jaw in two places, tore a tendon in his right wrist, and hyper-extended his left knee.
Arianrhod doesn’t talk about the incident. She doesn’t actively hide it from me; but instead simply doesn’t consider it a big deal. If asked, she’ll respond only that she discouraged his interest in her.
As you might expect, she has much the same problem with authority I do; and more than a bit of combative skill. Being the Overseer’s ward, however, means that it would be unseemly for her to be relegated to maintenance, and so she is on the security team. This worked heavily to our advantage, as I would volunteer for repairs and inspections in the deeper and less pleasant parts of the vault, while she did similar for patrols.
All this worked fine until one morning. This morning, in fact.
I was in bed, and had only been asleep about twenty minutes when Amata burst in, babbling something about my having to escape. She communicated a hasty and rather vague plan, and passed me a pistol and a couple of magazines, then left.
Fortunately, on hearing someone enter, Arianrhod had pulled the blanket up over herself and held amazingly still. Amata never noticed. She mentioned after that she had assumed it was my father returning from the late night call-out that allowed her to slip into my room unnoticed.
We found out later that that was much less likely. My father, it turned out, had fled the vault. His assistant was dead, and most of the security force was now looking for me for “questioning”.
We both agreed that after what happened to Jonas, this did not bode well for my prospects of living much longer. Whether as a reprisal against me for whatever slight my father had dealt the Overseer – be it real or imagined – or because the old megalomaniac believed I was in on it, I had no idea.
In the end, it really mattered little. If someone is planning to torture and possibly kill you… does the why really matter? It didn’t to us.
Arianrhod, being a security officer herself, had her own sidearm – which she sleeps with in an almost religious manner – and rapidly declared that if I was leaving, so was she. I almost protested… almost. I’ve never been able to say no to her, and to be perfectly honest I was terrified of the prospect of losing her.
Somehow, the problems with my father and security had coincided with a radroach infestation. We made use of the cover to slip along most of the way to the Overseer’s office – where that failed, Arianrhod used her personal status to claim that I was apprehended and being taken to the Overseer. That got us past the remaining guards without incident. After all, while the rumored black sheep of the family, Arianrhod was still a child over the Overseer, and thus very nearly above suspicion in the eyes of the brainwashed drones that made up most of the vault’s security force.
But, as they used to say, eventually the shit hit the fan. We passed by a room where Amata was being interrogated, with her own father looking on impassively, no less. We both agreed that we couldn’t simply let that be; and Arianrhod quickly killed the interrogator. Not awaiting reinforcements, we fled on; eventually reaching the Overseer’s office – and more importantly, the escape tunnel that Amata had promised would be awaiting me. A quick hack of the computer – repairing the systems for years had certainly taught me a trick or two in bypassing a “lost” password – had the tunnel opened, and we nearly dove in, closing the door behind us to buy precious seconds if nothing more.
By the time we made it to the entryway, the guards were wise to us – probably the Overseer himself, tipping them off. I knew we should have killed him, too…
Nonetheless, I got the door open. Unfortunately, security got the door to the entryway open a second later, and some guards streamed in to stop us.
Things very quickly got bad. I… don’t remember much of it, but when the haze faded, Arianrhod and I had killed four guards. We quickly stripped them of their body armor and helmets, and ran out into the cave tunnel outside the vault. The reinforcing guards, for whatever reason, refused to follow; instead being content to close the main door behind us.
That was it, we were outcasts. We had each other, true. Bruised, tired, and dangerously low on supplies; but together. Still, the Vault was all either of us had ever known. We had grown up hearing stories about the horrors of the nuclear wasteland. Deadly radiation, mutant beasts. If humanity had survived, surely they had been reduced to little more than barbarians.
The cave tunnel led out to what was once a scenic overlook, according to a nearby sign.
Once outside, our Pip-Boys picked up some radio signals. According to their carrier signal IDs, they’re “Enclave Radio”, “GNR”, and “WAR Radio”.
The Enclave station is nothing but some sort of pseudo-patriotic spiel. It sounds like an old recording. Could it really be live? I doubt it…
GNR is nothing but static. Which is a shame; I got hold of a disc full of Guns ‘N Roses once, years ago, and it wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t mind hearing some more of it. To think someone would find enough of their albums to set up a dedicated radio station is really something.
WAR Radio is a bit of an odd one. It’s hosted by a man calling himself “Angry Bob”. Bob seems to be a little… into the whole post-apocalypse thing. I’m thinking our initial assessment of the state of humanity may be accurate. His taste in music’s not bad, though…
Gazing out across our new home, we saw a wasted city; and what looked to be a second, fortified and inhabited city a bit less than a kilometer distant.
Not knowing what to expect from the inhabited city, we opted to instead find a place to hunker down in the deserted ruins.
Almost immediately, we ran across an odd robot. Some sort of floating… speaker system? It was blaring that Enclave station. The drone doesn’t dissuade me from thinking that it’s just a recording, either. The little thing seemed to be armed with some sort of laser (I didn’t get close enough to get a good look), but at least it wasn’t hostile.
We managed to find a burned out house that still had some of its roof intact. Since there’s not a cloud in the sky, this seemed as good as place as any to lay low until we can take a better look around.
It’s dusk now, and Arianrhod has just returned from foraging in the next house over. She came across an old refrigerator that still had some food in it. Cram, a package of instant noodles, a box of sugar bombs, and some vodka. They say this stuff is supposed to last damn near forever if the sealed package isn’t breached. We’re about to find out.
I guess I’m a Wastelander, now…
It may not be the smartest of things to do, but after what happened today I’ve decided that I want a record to survive… when the inevitable occurs.
You can call me Nos. True, it wasn’t the name I was given at birth… but I never much cared for my ‘real’ name, and it seems I’ve now got little reason to leave myself saddled with it out of any sense of familial loyalty, or just plain not wanting to endure the cajoling of people who don’t understand.
If you’re reading this, I’d like to think I simply lost or was forced to leave my journal wherever you found it. I know that since I’m entering this into my Pip-Boy’s log, it’s far more likely that I’m actually dead at this point… but humor me, okay?
What can I say about myself to open this account? I’m nineteen, at the time of this writing. Male. I stand just shy of six feet, have short hair, and wear glasses due to a cruel twist of genetics.
I know perfectly well that ‘normal’ is very much a matter of perspective; but that’s what I always thought my life was – insofar as normalcy still exists when your world consists of an elaborate underground NBCR shelter, situated in the bedrock beneath the blasted earth that used to be the capital of the world’s foremost power.
If you who are reading this are one of the denizens of the wasteland I’ve recently found myself in, then you no doubt find the idea of living in a vault to be outlandish – perhaps even idyllic. To me, it was normal. It was all I had ever known… but, I’m getting ahead of myself.
As I said, I lived in a vault. Number 101, to be exact. I was assigned to maintenance, after the aptitude test. I have considerable knack for firearms, and would have been perfect for security… but I have something of a problem with authority, you see. "Doesn’t follow orders", they said. Wasn’t qualified for medical or science work; so into the world of parts-changing I went.
It was slow, laborious, and totally boring work. I dislike it; but it kept me fed, and taught me more than a bit about keeping machines of various type up and running. Improvisation in repair is a handy skill, I’m learning.
I shared quarters with my father – it not having been deemed that I warranted private accommodations. My mother died in childbirth, they tell me. I don’t think about it much – I never knew her, so I can’t really say as I feel like I’m missing anything.
I never had many friends. Didn’t get along with the resident ne’er-do-wells, wasn’t considered good enough for most of the other kids. Had a bit of a friendship with Amata – the Overseer’s biological daughter; but we never got really close. Then, there was Arianrhod.
That’s not her birth name, either, by the way. She had even less to require she hang on to a family name than I do, and so stopped using her ‘proper’ name years ago.
Our relationship is… somewhat complicated, you see. Not complicated in the love/hate thing going on way. Nor complicated in the sleeping around way, either. It’s more the… ‘they’ve developed emotional attachments to each other that are probably inappropriate’ way.
Arianrhod lost her own parents at a young age, and was technically a ward of the Overseer – though moved to separate quarters for an unspecified reason. She doesn’t talk about it much, but I don’t think they got along very well. As I’m missing my mother, and she both parents, we sort of filled those voids in each others emotions. Some perverse combination of lovers and surrogate siblings. I don’t claim to fully understand it… but it makes us both happy, and sometimes that’s all you need to know.
When I was seventeen, Arianrhod decided that I would be hers, for whatever reason. After all this time, I’ll confess I’m still not sure why she likes me so much… but I’m not going to be a fool and say no to her. Decision made, she began actively scaring off anyone else who even looked like they might show an interest in me, and started in “proving herself” to me.
Gorgeous, isn’t she? While it’s not commonplace, I do occasionally manage to talk her into letting me take a picture or two. The Pip-Boy’s camera function is very handy.
Very handy.
Her eyes, I think, are the most striking feature. I’d call them a mutation of some sort… but that’s silly. No one gets into a vault from outside once it’s been sealed, right?
Needless to say, it didn’t take long for me to succumb to her advances. We’ve been secret lovers ever since.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not ashamed of her, nor she of me. Far from it. You have to understand how a vault works, though. Inside a vault the Overseer is unquestionable leader and protector in self-given title – ruthless dictator, in actuality. Our Overseer decided that no “pairing” as he calls it would be permitted, until and unless he personally signed off, after deciding that the couple in question were genetically and emotionally compatible. “To ensure the best results for the community” he says. I tell you, after nineteen years, I am so sick of being shafted in the name of “the community” that I can’t properly convey it in words; and I damn well was not going to take one for the team in this case.
So we met in secret. Ideally in dark, secluded parts of the vault that even the Overseer didn’t know about. Sometimes in her room; more often in mine – as my father, being the head doctor, was called out on emergency cases fairly often; and my room was under considerably fewer watchful gazes than hers.
Arianrhod had even fewer friends than I did. Amata would tolerate her – but only just, and they never saw themselves as sisters of any sort. The other kids steered far clear of her after the “incident” with the local gang. Being of the pretty sort, they naturally expressed an interest in her; in their coarse manner, at least. Arianrhod was content to simply brush them off until one day when their leader made the mistake of attempting to touch her.
According to security, the event never actually happened; and Butch refuses to admit to anything more than falling down due to an errant puddle of coolant. Though because my father is the head doctor, I was able to sneak a look at the medical report from that day. She broke his jaw in two places, tore a tendon in his right wrist, and hyper-extended his left knee.
Arianrhod doesn’t talk about the incident. She doesn’t actively hide it from me; but instead simply doesn’t consider it a big deal. If asked, she’ll respond only that she discouraged his interest in her.
As you might expect, she has much the same problem with authority I do; and more than a bit of combative skill. Being the Overseer’s ward, however, means that it would be unseemly for her to be relegated to maintenance, and so she is on the security team. This worked heavily to our advantage, as I would volunteer for repairs and inspections in the deeper and less pleasant parts of the vault, while she did similar for patrols.
All this worked fine until one morning. This morning, in fact.
I was in bed, and had only been asleep about twenty minutes when Amata burst in, babbling something about my having to escape. She communicated a hasty and rather vague plan, and passed me a pistol and a couple of magazines, then left.
Fortunately, on hearing someone enter, Arianrhod had pulled the blanket up over herself and held amazingly still. Amata never noticed. She mentioned after that she had assumed it was my father returning from the late night call-out that allowed her to slip into my room unnoticed.
We found out later that that was much less likely. My father, it turned out, had fled the vault. His assistant was dead, and most of the security force was now looking for me for “questioning”.
We both agreed that after what happened to Jonas, this did not bode well for my prospects of living much longer. Whether as a reprisal against me for whatever slight my father had dealt the Overseer – be it real or imagined – or because the old megalomaniac believed I was in on it, I had no idea.
In the end, it really mattered little. If someone is planning to torture and possibly kill you… does the why really matter? It didn’t to us.
Arianrhod, being a security officer herself, had her own sidearm – which she sleeps with in an almost religious manner – and rapidly declared that if I was leaving, so was she. I almost protested… almost. I’ve never been able to say no to her, and to be perfectly honest I was terrified of the prospect of losing her.
Somehow, the problems with my father and security had coincided with a radroach infestation. We made use of the cover to slip along most of the way to the Overseer’s office – where that failed, Arianrhod used her personal status to claim that I was apprehended and being taken to the Overseer. That got us past the remaining guards without incident. After all, while the rumored black sheep of the family, Arianrhod was still a child over the Overseer, and thus very nearly above suspicion in the eyes of the brainwashed drones that made up most of the vault’s security force.
But, as they used to say, eventually the shit hit the fan. We passed by a room where Amata was being interrogated, with her own father looking on impassively, no less. We both agreed that we couldn’t simply let that be; and Arianrhod quickly killed the interrogator. Not awaiting reinforcements, we fled on; eventually reaching the Overseer’s office – and more importantly, the escape tunnel that Amata had promised would be awaiting me. A quick hack of the computer – repairing the systems for years had certainly taught me a trick or two in bypassing a “lost” password – had the tunnel opened, and we nearly dove in, closing the door behind us to buy precious seconds if nothing more.
By the time we made it to the entryway, the guards were wise to us – probably the Overseer himself, tipping them off. I knew we should have killed him, too…
Nonetheless, I got the door open. Unfortunately, security got the door to the entryway open a second later, and some guards streamed in to stop us.
Things very quickly got bad. I… don’t remember much of it, but when the haze faded, Arianrhod and I had killed four guards. We quickly stripped them of their body armor and helmets, and ran out into the cave tunnel outside the vault. The reinforcing guards, for whatever reason, refused to follow; instead being content to close the main door behind us.
That was it, we were outcasts. We had each other, true. Bruised, tired, and dangerously low on supplies; but together. Still, the Vault was all either of us had ever known. We had grown up hearing stories about the horrors of the nuclear wasteland. Deadly radiation, mutant beasts. If humanity had survived, surely they had been reduced to little more than barbarians.
The cave tunnel led out to what was once a scenic overlook, according to a nearby sign.
Once outside, our Pip-Boys picked up some radio signals. According to their carrier signal IDs, they’re “Enclave Radio”, “GNR”, and “WAR Radio”.
The Enclave station is nothing but some sort of pseudo-patriotic spiel. It sounds like an old recording. Could it really be live? I doubt it…
GNR is nothing but static. Which is a shame; I got hold of a disc full of Guns ‘N Roses once, years ago, and it wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t mind hearing some more of it. To think someone would find enough of their albums to set up a dedicated radio station is really something.
WAR Radio is a bit of an odd one. It’s hosted by a man calling himself “Angry Bob”. Bob seems to be a little… into the whole post-apocalypse thing. I’m thinking our initial assessment of the state of humanity may be accurate. His taste in music’s not bad, though…
Gazing out across our new home, we saw a wasted city; and what looked to be a second, fortified and inhabited city a bit less than a kilometer distant.
Not knowing what to expect from the inhabited city, we opted to instead find a place to hunker down in the deserted ruins.
Almost immediately, we ran across an odd robot. Some sort of floating… speaker system? It was blaring that Enclave station. The drone doesn’t dissuade me from thinking that it’s just a recording, either. The little thing seemed to be armed with some sort of laser (I didn’t get close enough to get a good look), but at least it wasn’t hostile.
We managed to find a burned out house that still had some of its roof intact. Since there’s not a cloud in the sky, this seemed as good as place as any to lay low until we can take a better look around.
It’s dusk now, and Arianrhod has just returned from foraging in the next house over. She came across an old refrigerator that still had some food in it. Cram, a package of instant noodles, a box of sugar bombs, and some vodka. They say this stuff is supposed to last damn near forever if the sealed package isn’t breached. We’re about to find out.
I guess I’m a Wastelander, now…
Nos' Adventures, Introduction
Okay, so I've been mentioning on and off for awhile now a secret project.
I wasn't being secretive strictly because I enjoy messing with you. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy that; it's just not the primary reason this time. I held off mentioning it because I wasn't sure I was going to go through with my idea.
The more astute of you may have had a feeling what was coming, based on the album name that the screenshot I posted on Tuesday came from.
As I've mentioned now and again, I'm a writer, as well as an NPC monger and profanity-spewing code monkey. Since taking up my apparent mantle as go-to-guy for many things companion in FO3, I've lost practically all opportunity to write. So, I've decided to combine Fallout 3 and writing, and do one of those "journal with screenshots" things you see from time to time.
This one - I hope at least - will be less boring than most you see. No trials and tribulations of a misunderstood ghoul; or tour of duty of an initiate in the Brotherhood or any of that crap. This is going to be straight-up me. I write the sort of thing I like to read. And what, you may ask, do I like to read? Sex, violence, and dark humor.
This will cover from Vault 101, up until I either handle the whole game and as much of the DLC as I can stomach, or until I get bored and decide to do something else.
It won't be done to the exclusion of my modding. Rather, it will be an... alternate creative outlet, for those times when I want to write.
Mods will be included here and there, with appropriate links; but I want to say outright that this story will not center around Vault 1. It will likely make an appearance later on, but to start it will be nowhere to be seen.
I should also note that despite the fact that I'm not going to sidestep the issue of sex, this will not devolve into pr0n. No nudity in the screenshots, even. Damn well no AP.
There will however be profanity, blood, and evil deeds aplenty. Be forewarned: in my stories, there are no "good guys".
The entries will be arranged in traditional date format, and will be archived in a new list on the right side of the blog.
Got the shots for the first entry uploaded, and it written. I just need to move it from Word to a blogger post, and add in the appropriate links and such.
So... yeah. Enjoy, I guess. Oh, and feel free to blame Herculine for this. She's my enabler on this one, too...
I wasn't being secretive strictly because I enjoy messing with you. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy that; it's just not the primary reason this time. I held off mentioning it because I wasn't sure I was going to go through with my idea.
The more astute of you may have had a feeling what was coming, based on the album name that the screenshot I posted on Tuesday came from.
As I've mentioned now and again, I'm a writer, as well as an NPC monger and profanity-spewing code monkey. Since taking up my apparent mantle as go-to-guy for many things companion in FO3, I've lost practically all opportunity to write. So, I've decided to combine Fallout 3 and writing, and do one of those "journal with screenshots" things you see from time to time.
This one - I hope at least - will be less boring than most you see. No trials and tribulations of a misunderstood ghoul; or tour of duty of an initiate in the Brotherhood or any of that crap. This is going to be straight-up me. I write the sort of thing I like to read. And what, you may ask, do I like to read? Sex, violence, and dark humor.
This will cover from Vault 101, up until I either handle the whole game and as much of the DLC as I can stomach, or until I get bored and decide to do something else.
It won't be done to the exclusion of my modding. Rather, it will be an... alternate creative outlet, for those times when I want to write.
Mods will be included here and there, with appropriate links; but I want to say outright that this story will not center around Vault 1. It will likely make an appearance later on, but to start it will be nowhere to be seen.
I should also note that despite the fact that I'm not going to sidestep the issue of sex, this will not devolve into pr0n. No nudity in the screenshots, even. Damn well no AP.
There will however be profanity, blood, and evil deeds aplenty. Be forewarned: in my stories, there are no "good guys".
The entries will be arranged in traditional date format, and will be archived in a new list on the right side of the blog.
Got the shots for the first entry uploaded, and it written. I just need to move it from Word to a blogger post, and add in the appropriate links and such.
So... yeah. Enjoy, I guess. Oh, and feel free to blame Herculine for this. She's my enabler on this one, too...
It Never Rains...
...but oh man, does it pour.
Have heard nary a peep in my PM box for over a week now, save for some bantering I've had going on with Herculine.
I've gotten like eight PMs now in the last 24 hours. A French translation of the RR Companions Vault (must... not... quote... Reverend Al Bundy...), and two new companion mods.
One of which I fear is going to blow up in its author's face, since he's planning on trying to use the RR system to run creature followers; which it was not meant to do. I have no idea how all those sandbox and dialog options are going to work for something that can't use furniture or equip items. Also not sure what'll happen when you try to force an animal to equip an item...
And of course, it would have to happen on the third day in a row that I was getting called out of town. Trying to get my seeeeeeeecret new project ready for upping. Or, the intro and first episode anyway. (ZOMG, HINT AS TO ITS NATURE!)
Guh. I swear, between being a weaponry consultant, keeping up with RR comments and PMs, and trying to keep my apartment from looking like it's inhabited by a pack of wild dogs, there just aren't enough hours in the day to actually mod much.
Have heard nary a peep in my PM box for over a week now, save for some bantering I've had going on with Herculine.
I've gotten like eight PMs now in the last 24 hours. A French translation of the RR Companions Vault (must... not... quote... Reverend Al Bundy...), and two new companion mods.
One of which I fear is going to blow up in its author's face, since he's planning on trying to use the RR system to run creature followers; which it was not meant to do. I have no idea how all those sandbox and dialog options are going to work for something that can't use furniture or equip items. Also not sure what'll happen when you try to force an animal to equip an item...
And of course, it would have to happen on the third day in a row that I was getting called out of town. Trying to get my seeeeeeeecret new project ready for upping. Or, the intro and first episode anyway. (ZOMG, HINT AS TO ITS NATURE!)
Guh. I swear, between being a weaponry consultant, keeping up with RR comments and PMs, and trying to keep my apartment from looking like it's inhabited by a pack of wild dogs, there just aren't enough hours in the day to actually mod much.
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