Great Dismal Swamp: Dalmud
As I emerged from the thickest part of the vast swamplands I felt free of the threat of Mustoat boogles and albino alligators. I also left behind the perpetual chorus of birdsong, frog chirping and the icy baritone of singing turtles. I was no longer among the vine draqed and moss clothed trees growing from legend laced lakes.

The old road led me to Dalmud where lazy gray smoke reminded me of the drugged haze I had experienced while I kicked it with Sunspider. Gaurds looked at me nervously but I wasn't what they feared. Perhaps it was my approach from the wall of darkness nearby reknowned for its ghosts and foxfire.

"Are you an enemy?" The scrawny guard wearing a helmit two sizes too big had his crossbow aimed at me shakily.

"Put it down Smitey, its just an old swamp hermit." A large black bearded companion ordered the youthful one.

"You send out a radio signal asking for help. I come from Trappertown." I reported.

"You can help us? We don't want any more trouble with the Reavers. We are sorry for what happened." The black bearded guard introduced me to their problem.

"I am a nuetral third party so I can go from your town with your words and speak with the Reavers on your behalf." I nodded. They sighed relief. "I am Goris..."

"I am Frederen and this is Smitey. We are the guards of Dalmud. Awhile ago we were five in number. Three guards saw some Reavers leave a couple of crates out in the marshes. They seemed to be in a big hurry and left quickly. They went to investigate and found a bunch of micro fusion cells and other technology. Expensive and rare. But then a giant black bird showed up. Probably what scared away the Reavers. They surrendered the loot to the metal men who emerged only to be gunned down anyway. The Reavers have been stalking that area and the town ever since. We fear they blame us for the theft and will soon attack." Frederen told me the sordid tale.

"I see. Then I shall go to the Reavers and explain that...those men sound exactly like the Enclave..." I realized I had interrupted myself with my epiphany. But I couldn't believe they could still exist! The Chosen One had killed everyone in Navarro in a daring raid with the help of two robot dogs and Xarn. And I myself had dealt the deathblow to Frank Horrigan and watched as the derrick exploded into a million tiny peices.

"Goris, what do you mean? What is the Enclave?" Frederen asked as I stood having a brief flashback.

"They are bad news. When I go to the Reavers and explain about the Enclave they will more likely become your allies then your enemies." I waited a moment considering the possibility that I was wrong. I wasn't. Only the Enclave had flying machines. Vertibirds. Not even the BOS had technology like that. "Where are the Reavers anyway?" I asked.

"They have an excavation encampment not far from here...almost directly south along this road. We don't go into the ruins down there. Terrible creatures used to dwell there." Frederen directed me. I paused.

"What sort of creatures...were they by any chance made of metal?" I asked.

"Why...yes they were in fact metallic."

"Robots...there must have been technology in those ruins guarded by robots." I sighed. "The Reavers defeated them, probably by disabling them and making them their own and then they had access to all that junk..."

"Robots eh?" Frederen agreed as if he knew what I was talking about. I noted he carried a club in addition to his crossbow. The good people of Dalmud in their humble garments watched me depart placing all their hope in my promise to free them of the Reaver threat.

Little did they know that with the Enclave somehow returning from their grave the Reavers were the least of theri worries. Luckily they had so little technology that the Enclave probably wouldn't waste ammo raiding their squalorous settlement.

After a long walk I reached the smoldering remains of the Reaver camp. Dead Reavers lay strewn about everywhere. All the technology that hadn't been adopted into their cybernetic exoskeletons had been stripped, even some that was as well. Blown apart robot allies of the Reavers lay in molten heaps. I found a pile of men and women stripped down to their undergarments and void of dog tags and Enclave armor. Nearby some folded body bags lay in a pile. They had left their dead to make room for all the loot aboard their Vertibird.

A dead Deathclaw with a control collar imbedded in her neck had taken the brunt of the Reaver defenses.

This had definetely the work of the Enclave.

My worst nightmares were coming true.

Suddenly I felt especially far from home and all alone.

Great Dismal Swamp: Foxfire
I journeyed back to Dalmud with the news that the Reavers had been killed by an even greater threat and warned the good people of Dalmud that if the Enclave returned that they should flee.

I travelled back through the swamps and along the way I witnessed a battle between a giant otter and a boogle of Mustoats. It wasn't really a battle though, more like a slaughter as the boogle took down their large prey and began to devour it. Shuddering I continued, determined to avoid a similar fate. Mustoats here were large, vicious pack hunters and resembled rats but had long agile bodies. After they had killed they did a peculiar war dance shortly before they began to feed.

My second journey through the swamp was slighly less harrowing despite this event since I had been this way before and I reached Trappertown with no further delay. Looking back at the swamp I could see glowing lights begging me to return and realized that these were likely a natural phenomenon. Regardless the supersticious locals called these lights foxfire and believed they were the spirits of dead trappers who had lost their way and roamed the swamps in torment. How they had gotten their name I couldn't speculate but I added the word foxfire to my vocabulary to represent a misleading beacon.

Without learning a lesson from foxfire I accepted a second opportunity for adventure from Waves after I reported back to him about Dalmud, the Reavers and I even mentioned the Enclave. He had little interest in my mention of the Enclave because he didn't really believe me. The feeling of ignoring the belief's of the other was therefore mutual between Waves and myself.

"In the ruins to the north of here...this land that was once called Virginia had many radio signals. Someone up there has been emitting a broadcast almost as long as I have." Waves told me.

"Who controls that broadcast?" I asked him.

"I am not sure. It seems that an old man who knows alot about technology is there. A very very old man." Waves was smoking his herbal clove again.

"What does he want?" I asked.

"He tells me that they live peacefully up there and have found some sort of cure for bad water not far to the south of him. He also claims to have some sort of critical component to something he refers to as the Project." Waves had only vague information, his attention span and comprehension being as limited as they were.

"I will have to go investigate." I checked out. I was given a backpack of supplies and some prewar coins that some of the trappers thought were good for trading in the northernmost settlement of Virginia. They also gave me an antique map confirming that their territory was once called that. Notations had been carefully added over time but Waves couldn't show me where the signal was coming from only that it was 'this way' laying the map out flat and then pointing in a northeasternly direction off of it.

"Thank you." I spoke my gratitude to them and they watched me go. I concluded that stories about my adventure into and back from the swamps would tempt future adventurers. Expeditions to Dalmud would sometimes meet with success and trade would occur. Glad to do my part I headed north.

As I travelled the landscape grew gradually more barren until it resembled a thirsty desert once again. The trees here were alone and dead and no green could survive. In the distance a scattered skyline of ruins stood preserved in the dry stillness.

Northern Ruins: Andale
I approached the first settlement on my map called Annandale before the war. Dried and dead farms lay outside of the unwalled town as I walked along Gallows Road. Many of the homes on the outskirts were seemingly abandoned and falling into disrepair. I continued on into the town until I found its people gathered inside a prewar middleschool that was used now as the town's hall. A sign out front read 'Edgar Allan Poe Middle School' but I had to study it for a few minutes to read its worn engraving.

"We must make an expedition to recolonize where we can grow food!" One of the men was shouting. There were perhaps six families here altogether. They had a few surviving children among them but everyone was lean from starvation. I stood in the back and observed their discussions for some time.

"I and my family are leaving." A different man and the first one I had heard shouting when I approached had both decided that their families stood a better chance heading south to greener pastures. Hunger was a powerful motivator. Others were seemingly stubborn and willing to tough it out still.

"There ain't nothing here for you stranger." I was told by one of the men who had decided to leave. I silently offered him my supply of food to take with them. I hoped it would increase their chances of survival.

"Bless you." His wife accepted the gift. I stood with the other four remaining families as they watched the deserters leave for good.

"You won't find anything here worth staying for." One of the men approached me as the others shuffled back to their homes.

"I am just passing through. There is another settlement to the north of the ruins near here. I am headed there to see their progress." I felt sorry for these humans but there really wasn't anything I could do for them. Their community was failing.

"You should stay the night here. Then you will be rested for your travels." He smiled and I sensed a kind of desperation in him that made me regret rejecting Sunspider's Sight. I couldn't sense his intentions but only that they were dire. "I am Harris, the woman walking toward us is my wife, Victoria."

"I am Goris." I told him. I was left by them as soon as his wife arrived and hooked her arm under his, not interested in conversation. I had noted that she was pregnant however, with her second child. It occured to me they might have had other children as well but that the lifestyle here was difficult to survive.

I went to one of the empty homes and took off my pack, preparing to sleep. Something I sensed here wasn't quite right though and made sleep hard to achieve. Later on in the night I heard voices outside my temporary residence. I listened with acute Deathclaw hearing to their nocturnal plotting.

"He must be asleep by now, David." Harris was encouraging another resident.

"Then you and Sam take the back." The leader, David, instructed.

"The rest of you wait out here for him. Layla and I will flush him out." He got murmurs of approval from a few more. I guessed the four men were accompanied by at least one of the women. The rest of the remaining residents were asleep, probably unaware of the conspiricy to murder a visitor.

Having given away my food rations I wondered what they hoped to gain from attacking me. Surely it wasn't simply out of spite or hostility since they had invited me to stay. I considered the situation as David and Layla entered the house trying to sneak into my room. I imagined their first attempt would be to kill me in my sleep and as a second plan they would chase me outside into an ambush.

"Are you sure this is good?" Layla whispered to her husband.

"We need food. We wont tell the rest...they will just have to eat without knowing." David sounded unsure.

"But won't this make us cannibals if we eat another person?" She protested in a whisper.

"No...just survivors...thats all..." He tried to reassure her with a flimsy relabeling.

Fighting my way out was my only option. At least they would have some of the meat they sought if I killed some of them. I got up and put my robes in my backback and put it on. They had no idea what they were about to find waiting for them in the dark. Slaying my would-be murderers in self defense was acceptable violence for me. I flexed my claws.

A light shone under the door from a kerosene lantern. They set it down at the end of the hall so that when they opened the door it would only provide dim illumination for them to work with. Not enough to wake me. Too bad it was an added effort in vain. I blinked as the door creaked open. The I pounced.

"Gods! He is a (censored) Deathclaw!" Were David's last words. The shotgun he had slung on his back was pointless. I swatted him through a dessicated wall with a backhand and he landed without air in his lungs. Layla wasn't so lucky. She stepped backwards dropping the kitchen knife she carried and tipped over the lantern flooding the kerosene onto the flame. It might have been doused in fuel or snuffed out but the wick lit her up instead. Screaming she did a square dance in the hallway corner and landed with a thump I heard as I descended the stairs.

"Get him!" I heard the rest outside in the front telling each other. I decided to take my chances with the two out back. Harris was standing outside and Sam was in the doorway with a sub machine gun. I ducked into a hallway downstairs that led me into the kitchen as he started shooting. He was lined up with the front door and I heard agonized sreams and more firepower coming from the front group.

There was added havoc as I crashed through the drywall from the kitchen to the back door. I found Sam had been killed by his comrades who hadn't seen who they were being shot at from. I raced out back and around the corner escaping Harris who stood mortified by the distastrous attempt on my life.

"There he is!" A second woman armed with a shovel saw me running through the dark. She was in my way and at the same moment she realized I was a beast instead of a man I eliminated one more hungry mouth. The last attacker Had a pistol aimed at me and shot four times asI bore down on him. I was grazed by two of these shots but they did little damage. What I did to him was in vast contrast. As I fled the now enemy settlement of Andale, as the residents had renamed it, the house I had stayed in had gone up in flames.

I reached a distance outside of town unpursued and realized that I had just annihilated many of its inhabitants. A brief feeling of guilt washed over me but dissipated as I cleaned the blood from my claws. I checked my slight bruises and scraqes and found all of them to be unnoteworthy. I redressed and felt a little more civilized as I continued unrested and hungry toward my next destination.

In my heart I wished for a better place than Andale and accepted that my standards had just been lowered significantly.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/b/b9/Andale.jpg

Northern Ruins: Megaton
August 4, 2259.
(or so the robot's little ticket checking calendar read)
A broken robot stood out in front of the mechanized door spouting jibberish.

"Howdy partner. Howdy do? Howdy dat..." It swivelled on its sparking torsoe gears and let out a random laser blast that discouraged an approaching molerat. "Howdy. You are within target specifications. Howdy target."

"Howdy partner. Howdy Howdy. Howdy dit? Howdy dot." It seemed to be addressing me now.

"Um...howdy." I replied. I saw a little light inside its cracked glass dome head turn red and then green and it ignored me.

"Welcome to Megaton stranger." A sheriff dressed in a duster and wearing a wide brimmed hat greeted me personally. He had dark skin and appeared to be middle aged. Near him was a young man with a rifle wearing a duster and a baseball cap. The young man appeared to be both his son and his deputy.

"My name is Goris." I told him.

"Mine is Walker Simms and this is my boy Lucas. I'm the sheriff here and if you came looking for trouble you just found where its at."

"I don't want any trouble Sheriff. I am visiting Megaton on my way into the ruins beyond the edge of my map. I'm looking for a place where a signal is being broadcast from." I explained.

"Well do your visiting and then get out of my town." Sheriff Walker had a steady and unyeilding gaze. He was making eye contact with me within the dark cave of my robes. I could tell he sensed danger but I had better senses and I sensed he was a good man and his tough talk was his way of keeping the peace. "I will be watching you Goris. If you (censored) up I will (censored) you up. Understand?"

"I understand. I won't be a problem. I prefer peace. I just want to see what Megaton is like. I am a traveller and curiousity motivates me." I further explained myself.

"Well we like peace also. But don't take our kindness for weakness. If you test me or anyone here you will quickly be in over your head with violence." He assured me. It occured to me that he wasn't going to let me have the last word in this conversation and I had heard enough of his threats and warnings to grasp that he was the law here, not the wasteland law most visitors were used to. I walked past him without further need for his 'warm welcome'. Behind me I heard him say to his son.

"That's how you talk to visitors. Never let them feel too comfortable."

"Yes Sheriff sir...got it." Lucas replied to his father.

The descent into the crater the town was built in brought a large unexploded bomb into view. Admirers...rather worshippers stood around it. They were being led by a young woman who seemed to be aging badly. I was interested in them since religion was still a mystery to me.

"I am Reverend Maya" Their leader introduced herself early in my interview. They were the Church of Atom and she was the same age as Lucas Simms even though her years appeared to be a bit longer than his. She was apparently the leader of this strange cult that reminded me vaguely of the Reavers in their anomalous creed. Eventually they had told me all that there was to learn about them without becoming a formal member so I left them to their prayers and continued to explore.

I entered the saloon and was greeted by a slender man, clean shaved with a funny drunken sounding accent as the bartender. He had just given a plate of scraps to a boy who was the only patron. Upstairs an older woman with long red hair watched me with feigned interest.

"You like Betty?" He grinned and I sensed he was not a good man. I didn't have a man's needs as he presumed and had a special revulsion for offers from human females since the Sky Queen.

"She is too old for me." I made an excuse.

"I'm working on getting a younger one." He winked. I didn't like him. "Moriarty." He offered his hand sensing I was losing interest in doing any business. "But my friends call me Colin"

"You must not hear your first name very often then." I left his hand stuck out between us partly because I didn't like him and partly because my talons would reveal my inhuman nature if I extended them beyond the edge of my sleeves.

"Oh thats so funny. Ha. Ha." He pasted a fake smile on. "Yeah because I don't have friends, right?" He retracted his hand. The seven year old boy on the stool who was eating laughed at the exchange.

"Shut up Stockholm." Moriarty threatened to take his plate by reaching for it. The boy's laugh ceased quickly and he slid his plate away from the advlt's hand defensively.

"I am done." I turned and left. He called out after me:

"Watch your back." And then he muttered: "Jerk."

"Meet Moriarty?" A youth in his late teens was outside leaning over the railing observing the town below.

"I did." I walked over and stood next to him.

"Get with Betty?" He asked. He sounded very bored.

"No." I replied. "She is kinda old for that job..." I used my previous excuse.

"Yeah but she is the only fun that there is around here and she will work for free if you are nice to her when Moriarty isn't around." He gave me a tip.

"I'll, uh, keep that in mind." I felt bad for him that his boredom had reached that point where he knew stuff like that.

"My name is Pete, by-the-way." He said. "Pete Vargus."

"Nice to meet you Pete. I am Goris." I had seldom met a more well-intending human. Pete had a lot of potential; I could tell.

"My father wants me to join the Enclave. He thinks they are going to rebuild everything. Crack open the vault and let everyone inside." He sighed.

"The Enclave?" I gulped. "What do you think?"

"I would just to get out of here and have a life, but they are the bad guys out there. I don't care what my father thinks of them. They are no good and I don't want any part of their levy."

"Levy? You mean they are actively recruiting around here?" I considered the ramifications of being in a place where Enclave were drafting. I still couldn't believe they were not only still around, but here and as strong as ever five years after I killed Frank Horrigan and fought against them alongside the Chosen One.

"They show up every once in awhile and take away the healthy kids to become Enclave soldiers. They are bolstering their numbers for some reason. I think they are preparing to deal with some new threat to them."

"Like what?" I asked.

"I don't know. But about four years ago Some guys in armor came through. At first we all thought they were Enclave but they were not like the Enclave at all. They settled south of here somewhere and we haven't heard from them since."

"Maybe they were Brotherhood of Steel." I spoke out of wishful thinking. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Although I doubted the Brotherhood would actually ever stand up to the Enclave they probably wouldn't side with them either. I knew that the men he was talking about couldn't be the BOS. Their numbers were dwindling back home. Still, the Enclave had found their way out here there was no reason to be sure the BOS couldn't have made it here as well. I had read while in the Enclave derrick that the BOS had sent an expedition after the Super Mutants and were believed to have met them in battle near Chicago in the mid west.

"Who are they? Would they stop the Enclave?" Pete Vargus asked.

"No. They were once warriors but the ones I met were more like passive observers scrounging for information and bits of leftover Enclave technology." I told him. I realized I had put a stabbing icicle of dissapointment in his heart.

"If they were warriors once they could rise up again." He refused to let go of this new shred of hope. I could tell he had no affinity for his father's Enclave.

"Yes but now that I think about it I don't really think those men were BOS." I shook my head slowly. "The BOS keep their heads down...they wouldn't have come here. Although they don't have any fued with the Enclave they are not exactly friends either. But I am from very far away and so are they. Unless they came from the ones who left I can't imagine how they could have gotten here." I had to be honest with him.

"I think you aren't telling me everything." Pete Vargus muttered. He was fishing for the feeling he had when I first said 'Brotherhood of Steel'.

"I'm sorry." My apology felt inadequate. "Perhaps those men would oppose the Enclave. They could be anybody. I will have to go and find out more about them myself. I could come back and let you know what I find out."

"No. I want to be there and see for myself." He sounded very adamant. I considered letting him come with me.

"What would your parents think?" I asked.

"If I go with you to see? My father, Nathan Vargus...he would be pissed. My mother would understand though. She always tells me to follow my heart when it knows what is the right way to learn things...experience things...make choices..." He meditated briefly on all the advice she had given him.

"Then say farewell and come with me." I suggested.

"No. She will know I am doing something good. My father is better off not knowing where I have gone." He grinned. "But I am going to go say goodbye to Betty. I will be ready to go in a few minutes." He went inside to make his farewell and I waited there.

"I'm ready. I made her sad that I am going but that seems right for her to be the person that I am parting ways with." He and I walked through Megaton and out into the desert beyond.

We travelled north into the deeper ruins where Pete said we were heading into the Mall. These were the D.C. ruins and within them we would find the source of the signal.

Just letting you know I'm enjoying the hell out of this still. I like how you've got him there before the FO3 game and that there's characters from it that are younger. That's pretty cool. Also the destruction of Andale!

Northern Ruins: Signal
"Goris...This is the most fun I have had in...years..." Pete Vargus told me.

"You didn't get out much did you? These are just quiet ruins." I looked around the carved reliefs and faded decals. The D.C. ruins were the most empty and silent ruins I had been in. They drank up our noise into their silence like dry-cracked mud drinks up spilt water.

"I didn't get out at all. I grew up in Megaton and never had a way to leave." Pete stared at the desolation the way I would stare at a pile of unread books.

"How many places have you been too?" He asked me. His curiousity reminded me of someone. I sighed. This had been my idea so I dredged up some extra patience.

"Dozens. I have seen things you wouldn't believe...Enclave ships burning off the coast of Los Angelos, moonlight above the clouds in the rain. Monsters, men of high character and sometimes even the prettiest women hold the most deadly of poisons in their hands..." I rambled, uninterested in telling my story at that moment. The momentum of his enthusiasm only slowed my pulse further.

"Have you ever seen a Deathclaw?" He asked as if my mention of monsters automatically referred to Deathclaws.

"When I look into a mirror..." I muttered.

"What?" He hadn't heard me.

"Only dead ones." I said in a tone that shut him up for some reason. As we walked along I spotted two ghouls watching us from the dark of a subway entrance. I then realized that at night the D.C. ruins would have more activity then our naiave expedition.

"Keep an eye out for any radio towers." I instructed my companion.

"Like that?" He pointed off in the dusty distance. The sunset turned our find into a silhoette.

"You have good eyes." I complimented him.

"I saw it earlier. I wasn't sure though." He was pleased I appreciated his observation.

Soon we reached the building and none too late because it had begun to grow dark and several Molerats were wandering around. They had caught the scent of a Deathclaw and maybe thought it would leave some scraps. They didn't see a Deathclaw though so they simply circled in caution. Feral Ghouls wouldn't be so paranoid and I wasn't in the mood for a brawl.

"Its locked." He was holding the padlock.

"We need inside...check those rocks for a key..." I didn't point so he fumbled around with his back to me. I kicked the door and it gave in like a 'pretending-to-be-reluctant lover' in a human romance novel (which revealed absolutely nothing practical about human mating rituals).

"What?" He whirled at the crashing noise.

"I saw a ghoul coming. Let's go." I led him inside and as I closed the shattered door the ravenous howls of approaching Feral Ghouls made my lie little and white. He pulled a couch over to help prop the doors shut. "forget that...help me with this..." I went and started dragging a Nuka Cola machine into place sealing the door. The young man stared at me with a suprised glare.

"What?" I asked.

"You...have...claws..." He was furrowing his brow as if watching a jigsaw puzzle assemble itself (We had these toys in Vault 13 but most of my brothers and sisters preferred to eat them. Cardboard tastes very sweet to Deathclaws.).

"Pete..." I didn't want him to freak out.

"Are you..." He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head slightly (an unknown expression/statement modifier for me) "Are you a Deathclaw?"

"I am, actually." I confessed. Outside the Feral Ghouls were going nuts on the door.

"You could have told me." He sounded hurt.

"I'm sorry to have decieved you. Most humans are not as understanding." I apologized and offered an explanation.

"I think its cool. Can I see?" He asked.

"Not right now...we need to find out about the signal and finding another way out of here wouldn't be a bad goal." I took off my hood and showed him my Deathclaw face at least. He grinned with delight and then went and found a crowbar to use as a weapon in case we met any of our entourage who were locked outside.

We headed upstairs where we found the control and equipment making the broadcast. A swivel chair had its back to us.

"Welcome to Galaxy News Radio" Spoke our host. The voice was raspy and choked.

"We came here to get answers about the Project and the component you have in your possession." I told it.

"See why I didn't go myself." Our host revealed itself by placing its four digit hand on the table before it and turning its chair. It was a naked ghoul, badly decomposed and lacking gender. It had no legs anymore and only most of one arm and hand. What it still had was obvious. It had made a small functional robot arm portuding from its neck, attached to its spine. Its archaiac technical skills had allowed it to make this as well as a functional and powerful radio to broadcast its signal.

"In Rivet City there are scientists building a machine that will make unlimited purified water for everyone." It explained briefly about the Project

"I have built a device that can contain an ungodly amount of radiation. It is a kind of filter they may find...indispensible if they can figure out how to harness its isotope energy with a G.E.C.K. and presuming they have one." It pointed at a bucket sized canister with wires and tubes portruding from it as if it had been removed from a machine rather than built to be a component of one.

"How did you know what they are building so that you could make this to specification?" I asked an obvious question. I had a thousand more questions for this fossil but that one seemed to be the most important.

"There is a man there named Pinkerton. His inspiration was actually...lets just say that I used to be someone who actually wrote the text book he learned much of what he knows from." Our ghoul professor didn't have eyelids but a moisture seemed to have entered his countenance. I wondered if he would have cried now if he could.

"This is important to you." I observed.

"God left me in this nightmare hellscape for a reason. Everyone, everything and all that I had are gone. Been gone fer like hundreds of years. I am still here. I don't know why. Still here but I know I must look like I am as old as I am." It gave us a summary of its existence and then said: "I have seen so much suffering that I don't even feel my own suffering anymore. I want all of that to be worth something. I want to make a difference. More of a difference than I already have made. It doesn't mean jack if that piece of the puzzle is missing. They could never have built it to specification...They are still alive...still mortal...still vulnerable."

"What do you mean?"

"This part wont actually work without already containing a certain level of radiation. They could never have pulled it off with trial and error...one slip up you see..." It clarified.

"I see." I suddenly realized what it meant.

"All part of God's plan. Funny that before the war I was an atheist. There are still days..." His religious beliefs were interrupted by a pack of Feral Ghouls breaking in downstairs.

"Quick! Take the back door out of here! That part is all that matters!" He ordered us. Pete snatched it up, dropping his weapon. I took one last look at him as we obeyed and fled. Outside I heard him say to his killers:

"You are too late...mankind is saved...HAHAHAHA!!!!" And then the enraged fiends tore apart what was left of him.

Northern Ruins: So Much For Science...
Pete Vargus and I fled what was a snowballing avalanche of pursuing Feral Ghouls. The two or three dozen that had poured out of Galaxy News Radio after they were finished with the crippled ancient had doubled in number. Each time I looked back I couldn't believe how many of them there were. We ran and they followed tirelessly.

"Don't look...just keep running!" I panted at my young companion. He looked anyway and his velocity increased accordingly.

"They will tear us apart!" He predicted our fate if we couldn't outrun them. I wondered what had provoked the midnight frenzy.

We ducked into a half flattened structure and up some stairs. A hermit was sitting up there with a small campfire. We paused to catch our breath while the Ferals scattered below trying to pick up our trail.

"We are being chased by Ferals" I informed the hermit after I caught my breath. Pete had the component under one arm still and was gasping for more air.

"You must have got onna them Mad Ghouls on your trail." The hermit stood up and fished in his belongings for a combat shotgun and loaded it.

"You mean Ferals...we got alot more than one." Pete shook his head.

"No I meant a Mad Ghoul. They are a little different than your typical Feral. Ferals aren't normally as dedicated to follow you a long distance in huge numbers. Mad Ghouls won't let you go. They would follow you all the way to the Pitt and back attracting all the Ferals along the way until an army of em is after you. Kill the Mad Ghoul and the rest will give up. It follows you and the Ferals follow it." The hermit crept to the edge of the floor we were on and looked down trying to spot the Mad Ghoul. I wondered if he wasn't mad himself.

"We have to get this component to Rivet City. It is absolutely critical. A one shot once in a lifetime chance for the whole wasteland." I told the hermit.

"Yeah, everyone is on a quest to save the world. I been searching for my very own water chip for forty years...big deal." He spat.

"Which way to we go?" I asked. He pointed down a street stacked with rubble on either side. A skybridge crossed it and it sloped downward.

"He is that one" The hermit aimed as a particulary scrawny ghoul crept up the stairs. I noticed it had ears still and a nose which were subtle but rare features for a ghoul. It spotted us and let out a frightening screech. Within seconds all of the ghouls were flooding up the stairs. "Get going." The hermit suggested.

We heard several shotgun blasts as he shot apart the Mad Ghoul. Then the horde of the Ferals were upon him. He fired one last shot and then tried to scream as we escaped. We rounded the corner and could see far ahead the Jefferson Memorial. Beyond the landmark which I recognized from pictures in books was a gigantic ship.

We couldn't find a way into the Jefferson Memorial. All of the entrances were stuffed with massive pipes and the whole thing was surrounded by scaffolding and catwalks.

"This must be the Project" I was awed but the scope and scale of this attempt. Mankind might not be endangered after all.

"Its beautiful." Pete was impressed as well.

Then I saw something that changed everything. Above the Jefferson memorial in the light of dawn was flying the flag of the Brotherhood of Steel. I couldn't believe my eyes. This Project was their doing!

"The Brotherhood of Steel" I said aloud.

"They are here?" Pete Vargus nearly danced a jig in his excitement.

"Yes." I confirmed. "That flag is theirs."

"We must find them. They have to have this." He was still holding the component.

We walked toward Rivet City, unable to find our way inside the memorial. We ascended a structure built for a drawbridge that swung outward toward the ship from the side, held by a crane. Several guards greeted us and when we told them that we had come in search of the scientists of the Project they took us to them in a lab within the bowels of the ship.

"I am Dr. Madison. Pinkerton is no longer with us." A woman who we had been told by the others was in charge when we asked for Pinkerton.

"You work for the Brotherhood of Steel? Where are they?" Pete Vargus asked. She explained she didn't work for them anymore and that they could be found in a huge compound called the Citadel across a bridge we had passed on our way to the Jefferson Memorial which housed the Project.

"We have brought this component." Pete Vargus offered what we had brought for them. She shook her head.

"Put it over there." She gestured to a few tables with piles of notes and half assembled parts. Many were covered with worn transparent plastic.

"What?" I protested. "This device is absolutely critical and irreplaceable."

"Yes but Project Purity is no more. Catherine is dead, James has left...Pinkerton won't cooperate with the team. The Brotherhood of Steel has cancelled their support." She explained. "We haven't even got a G.E.C.K. which is another vital part."

"You can't just abandon the Project." I was bitterly dissapointed. Two had died to get this component here. Pete had left his home and I had travelled so far to be here.

"It is too late. It is shut down. The dream is over. I'm sorry." Madison, such a young woman with so much time ahead of her but none to give to this great cause.

"I guess that is it then." Pete Vargus lifted a corner of the tarp and set the component with the other pieces and parts. He covered it slowly like a coffin being lowered into a grave.

"Come one. Let's leave them to their..." I paused and looked over. The scientists were busy messing with some rotting fruit and dried vegetables.

"Food preservation experiments." Madison finished my sentence for me.

"Whatever." I grunted. We left them down there and headed back out to go see the Brotherhood of Steel for ourselves.

Schism: Citadel
We arrived at the Citadel of the Brotherhood of Steel shortly before noon. They had thin numbers, I estimated there must be four or maybe five squads. It was still the most Brotherhood I had seen before. These were different then the petty, grasping and meek organization with an innappropriate reputation from the West Coast.

"I am Paladin John Jameson" The sentry at the gate had listened to our grievance about Project Purity. "Welcome to the Citadel." He let us in seeing me for a scholarly hermit and Pete Vargus as an enthusiastic potential recruit.

We were escorted through the encampment to their leader. He was a man in his late fifties who had been recently promoted to a rank that placed him high above the rest of his comrades.

"I am Elder Owyn Lyons." He greeted us. Next to him stood a girl of eleven with short hair, jumpsuit and crossed arms. "My daughter, Initiate Sarah Lyons."

There was another girl of similar age and a slight shy disposition we were told was Elizabeth. She was Paladin Jameson's daughter and wasn't an initiate.

"I am Goris the Scholar. I would like to share my opinion about Project Purity." I spoke uninhibited.

"I would like to hear this." Elder Owyn Lyons held up a finger. "But at this moment we are having...problems. If you are in a hurry to get this off of your chest you should speak to Scribe Rothchild. I have put him in charge of Project Purity. History is his specialty."

"History." I grumped. I had caught the intonation that Project Purity was not going to be supported by anyone. Three members of the team were gone. I couldn't understand why that meant the whole thing should be shut down. Before we could be escorted by Paladin John Jameson to the Archives a young dark skinned Knight Seargent in her early twenties jogged up to our huddle in the middle of the courtyard.

"Star Paladin Lyons sir," She sounded like her report was very urgent.

"Elder." He replied.

"Excuse me sir, Elder Lyons, sir." She made a formal salute and held it until he let her go.

"Report Knight Seargent Cross." Elder Lyons, having cleared up her blunder of addressing him by his previous rank was ready now to hear her urgent report. We were hurriedly led away but my sharp Deathclaw hearing caught every syllable of it.

"Sir, Rivet City is besieged by a group of Super Mutants!" She informed him.

"I see. We must help them. We are here because of Super Mutants." Elder Lyons determined.

"Gather the Knights and their squads and get over there and help them Paladin Casdin." Elder Lyons ordered a Paladin who had approached, replacing Paladin Jameson by their leader's side.

"Sir I must protest. We have already provided their security with weapons and we have given them machinery for their drawbridge. Their defenses are more than adequate to fend off some simple Super Mutants." Paladin Casdin sounded bitter for some reason.

"They are armed with guns and heavy weapons this time." Knight Sergeant Cross added to her report.

"They will use up their ammo shooting a ship's hull and then leave. Noone will be hurt." Paladin Casdin argued.

"This is not a council meeting between Elders. I am in charge here and I have given you a direct order Paladin Casdin." Elder Lyons sounded calm but firm.

"Sir. Yes sir!" Paladin Casdin went to go and follow orders. Before we had even been taken inside Several squads were being deployed. I imagined with actual targets there would be an actual battle. Super Mutants.

"Are there a lot of Super Mutants in Virginia?" I asked.

"What is a Super Mutant?" Asked Pete Vargus.

"We have met a couple of small groups of them armed with clubs. They aren't average Super Mutants. Stupider, slower and easier to kill. Also we have never seen one use a firearm." Paladin John Jameson told me.

"Scribe Rothchild at your service." A man in his early or mid thirties greeted us. He was apparently their only Scribe. This was once again in direct contrast to what I had seen in the decaying BOS back home. Most were Scribes or Agents, very few were actually combatants. They also had so many Elders that nothing was done without concensus.

"Yes I was directed to you to make a complaint." I told him my story and how important I felt Project Purity to be.

"Is that all?" He asked when I was done.

"Yes."

"I'm sorry but we have already allocated so much of our resources and personnel in protecting the settlements around here and hunting down raiders that without voluntary help from the scientists there we can't actually do anything. Project Purity was just a pipe dream." He turned his back on us in dismissal.

Pete and I went back upstairs. In the distance we could hear the sounds of battle. Later the Brotherhood soldiers were coming home carrying their wounded and dead. I saw Paladin Casdin standing over the casualties with an indecipherable look on his face.

I wondered what would happen next...

Schism: Dissention
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/d/d1/Fallout_3_Protector_Henry_Casdin_otOutcasts.png
We sat and watched what I later realized would become a dark chapter and obscure historical moment for the Brotherhood of Steel.
All of the Brotherhood of Steel had gathered with the exception of the little girls and the scribe and some of the more critically wounded. Many were still wearing their Power Armor and armed.

"Elder Lyons, we can now discuss openly what it is that we are doing here." Paladin Casdin stood facing Elder Lyons as the sun was setting casting long shadows of the men and those who supported each of them. It appeared that of those gathered in the courtyard the split was less than even.

The majority stood with Casdin.

"We are aiding the locals. The people here need our help." Elder Lyons resolved.

"That is what I mean. We shed blood so they can feel safe. We give them the means to defend themselves at our own expense and then we defend them anyway. Five good soldiers died today and four more are too badly wounded to gather here tonight." Paladin Casdin spoke loudly. There were murmurs of agreement.

"What do you propose we do? Let them be attacked and sit by without helping them?" Elder Lyons sounded like this idea made him angry.

"We are here to gather technology as our secondary mission. Our first was to assess the Super Mutant threat. There is no Super Mutant threat here. Just isolated roaming bands that are less dangerous than common raiders." Paladin Casdin had most of the support still.

"You contradict yourself. You fought the Super Mutants today. Are they no threat? Then why have we suffered such casualties?" Elder Lyons would not be out-debated.

"Becuase we walked into a foolish firefight. Rivet City was safe. There was no need for us to be there. You sent those men to their deaths!" Paladin Casdin accused.

"You have stepped out of line Paladin." Elder Lyons voice held a threat. "I hereby demote you to the rank of knight. Your priveledge to openly question my orders and judgement is therefore void."

"I will not be silenced. I earned my rank. I am a veteran. I have even saved your life during countless battles by your side. You are becoming arrogant and senile." Casdin kept talking. Now there was tension between the supporters. With Lyons having demoted Casdin several of his supporters walked over to Lyon's side.

"Your words have cost you. I hereby banish you from the ranks of the Brotherhood until such time as you honor our ways to be an initiate." Elder Lyons fought to keep his composure. Now even more of Casdin's supporters abandoned him. Fourteen in all still stood with him though and they seemed to be the most hardened and high ranking among the Brotherhood of Steel.

"Paladin Jameson, quarter his armor and weapons." Jameson moved to obey but Casdin's supporter's stood their ground. They had in their possession far more armor and firepower than Lyon's loyals. I wondered vaguely why they had equipped themselves with full gear.

"No. I am leaving with my equipment. I will continue the original mission out there in my exile. When this is all over it will be you who shall be stripped by the Brotherhood." Casdin turned to leave and his followers went with him, proceeding him out the gate.

"You! Stop!" Paladin Jameson had his weapon trained on Casdin. He fired a warning shot. Casdin turned with battle hardened reflexes and returned fire with his Plasma Rifle. One shot was all it took. Jameson's face was burned away, his brains incinerated. Death was instantaneous.

"(censored)!" Casdin cursed. For a moment he stared at Jameson's lifeless remains and then he looked up at Elder Lyon's and the others. Lyon's had his hands held against his loyals retaliating. Casdin swore bitterly and looked down at the weapon he had taken Jameson's life with. For a second I thought he would toss it into the dirt but he didn't. Instead he carried it like a flag of liberation.

They were gone and darkness had fallen.

"Noone is to tell Elizabeth of her father's fate. If she ever asks then he must have died somewhere out there under unknown circumstances. Get rid of his body and his dog tags. Tell her niether were ever found." Lyon's gave a sacred order. He then retreated to his private rooms and I did not see him again.

"This changes nothing." Pete Vargus had watched.

"What do you mean?" I asked him.

"I still want to join them. This only proves how strongly they feel about their beliefs." Pete Vargus went to Knight Sergeant Cross who was now the highest ranking BOS present. He explained himself to her and how he felt about that night's events. Having just lost all of their strength recruitment was imidiate.

I concluded that my time here was at an end and so I left behind the burial detail for Paladin Jameson's remains.

I headed out into the wasteland through the battlefield with the Super Mutants earlier and past Rivet City in a somewhat eastern direction and followed the coast out of the Northern Ruins of D.C. and into new unknown adventures far away.

He always gets to witness such interesting things.

Heart of Shade: Cafe
Ahead I could see a small building. It stood alone in the blackened and scorched northern wastelands. Inside I could hear a honky tonk piano being pounded on. I opened the swinging doors and walked in.

I stared around suprised to see so many ghouls. Very few of the cafe patrons were human. I approached the bar.

"What will it be stranger?" The bartender was a ghoul with a handlebar mustache glued to his face. He had his hand in a rag inside a glass he was wiping clean.

"Water please." I offered him some caps. He took them and returned with a mug of sludge that apparently passed for water around here.

"Can you tell me about this place?" I asked over the din made by the piano as it started up with 'Campton Race Has Come To Town'.

"DOO DAAA DOOO DA!" A drunken ghoul sang along loudly.

"This is the cafe." The bartender shrugged.

"I see." I gave up. I sipped my water. It had too much flavor.

"I can tell you what is going on here." An apparently female ghoul sidled up to me with a tall glass of glowing Roentgen Rum.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"I am Carrie, adventurer extrordinaire." She pulled a claw from my sleeve and shook.

"Are you some kind of mutant?" She asked. She sounded so casual that I tempted honesty.

"I'm a Deathclaw." I admitted.

"You must be handy in a fight." She nudged me.

"I avoid fights. But when they happen...I always win."

"What a coincidence...so do I." She smiled and something fell off of her face and plopped into her drink. She fished it out and ate it.

"Otherwise I would have lost...and I would be dead I soppose." I sighed. I wondered what she wanted.

"Want to join up? City of The Dead can be an unforgiving place. But the sights and sounds...hell the whole place is brimmed with fresh glowing loot." She sounded like she might be on her second or third drink.

"I have never heard of it." I said.

"You must have been hanging out with Smoothskins too long." She slapped my back. "Come with me. It will be fun!" She promised.

"What are you going to do there?" I asked

"There is this Ghoul Lord, Kurtis. He used to be part of my team. When I had a team. We were near the ruins over there on the islands. (censored) double crossed us and killed everyone. Didn't want to share the loot, you see. He even tried to kill me. That made it personal. Now he has got himself a nice little set up like a (censored) king. Ghouls over there do what he says or get killed. I'm gonna cross the water and pay him another visit."

"So that is why you need my help. You are on your own." I sighed. I didn't really want to get involved.

"Not exactly. I have a dog. Ever seen a ghoul dog?" She whistled and some pus-like goop trickled down her chin. I looked.

"This is Toto. A Hellhound. Isn't he lovely?" She introduced me to her dog. She was right, it was a ghoul dog. Now I had seen everything.

"I am sorry. I didn't get your name." She looked up from patting her pet.

"I am Goris."

"Will you help me Goris? I know I am asking alot from you to travel into a place that Smoothskins won't go. But I need help to take that madman down. Ghouls in the City are counting on me." She made a pouting face, or something like one.

"I will help. I guess it is time I see how the other half lives." I finished my drink and it gurgled with enthusiasm in my stomach.

"Thank you Goris. You won't regret this. We will be making history when we dethrone that tyrant." She claimed.

"I can't wait." I belched and a brown bubble floated across the bar and stuck to the cracked mirror behind the bartender.

"Another water?" He asked.

"Why not..." I stated.

Heart of Shade: Ferryman
We sat in the Cafe. Carrie and Toto had their help and wanted to celebrate. She had herself a few more drinks and even talked me into a Gamma Gulp Beer. It went down easier than I thought it would.

"Have another drink Goris. Let me tell you all about Ghoul Lords." She had one eye closed. I presumed this was because she was drunk but then she caught something rolling around on the table and popped it into her eyesocket. She had two eyes again.

"That was a pretty neat trick." I told her.

"I have a few 'neat tricks' up my sleeve." She slurred.

"Alright. I'll bite." I felt my mood lifting as I had a second and third drinks.

She started with a pedantic shpew about how Glowing Ones could blast rads. Then she compared that Roamers wore armor. Then Carrie described how Reavers could take a clip to the head, wore metal armor and could not only blast rads but coul hurl globs of goo.

"Ghoul Lords are the worst. They could easily tear apart a Reaver."

"Hold on...Ghoul Reavers...are they like the technology cultists called Reavers?" I asked.

"I don't know. I don't think so though. Ghoul Reavers just wear metal armor. No cybernetics...now listen" She had her elbows on the table and kept batting her hands.

"Sorry. I was just wondering."

"Thats fine. Now listen. Ghoul Lords are like Reavers on Buffout, Psycho and a whole lot more radiation. Their torsoes are protected by old rusty Power Armor and they often wear a headress of some kind. Kurtis wears a crown. They are so strong they can wear the armor even though it had rusted into junk." She went on.

"What about their special attacks?" I tried.

"Oh. Reavers throw those globs, right? So do Ghoul Lords. They also move a lot faster. On top of everything else they can emit a concentrated beam of lethal radiation. It takes them a few seconds to charge it up and after they do it their glow fades a little bit and they can't use their Glowing blast of radiation attack.

"They sound very dangerous." I agreed.

"Also ghouls who rank above Ferals will attack other ghouls if the occasion warrants it." She told me something I had already realized. "This only happens in the City of The Dead."

"I imagine it keeps things interesting since it is populated entirely by ghouls." I muttered.

"That's not true. There are other things living there also. All that decomposition and radiation has birther new life that thrives in the environment. And there are Hellhounds too." She patted Toto on his head.

"Oh yeah, I had almost forgotten about the Ghoul Dogs." I smiled at the Hellhound and he whimpered.

"You ready to go?" She asked.

"As ready as ever." I replied.

We headed down to a rotting dock where a small barge had just arrived. We climbed on board and paid our fare to the Ferryman. I couldn't see but he seemed to be a skeletal kind of ghoul under some dark robes. I guessed he didn't eat much.

We crossed the black waters toward the dismal dark towers crumbling on the island in the distance. They were like skeletons as well, having nothing left of them but their rebar frames supporting hollow floors like giant ribcages.

The skies here were a hideous dark gray with a blood red horizon. Lightning spider webbed across these skies. I looked back but the scorched wreckage of the heavily bombed wastelands behind us were only slightly more inviting. The Cafe and the shore we had left were soon gone.

I felt a kind of dread a Deathclaw could only feel in that environment. Like we were drifting upsteam into the very heart of death, evil and hell itself. I understood why the ghouls called their home City of the Dead.

You replied in my thread so I thought I'd return the favour, and frankly I'm glad I did. I enjoy your style, it's a refreshing change to the 3rd person narrative I usually use. It may have inspired me to try something else so thanks for that.

Also, I was impressed by the dramatic schism of the Brotherhood, well written without going over the top. Please keep writing.

Heart of Shade: Bones
The Ferryman took us across the nighmarishly still waters as slowly as we could travel and still be moving. I watched the opposite shore slowly turn from shades of midnight blue and black to more descernable shapes and colors. Here and there were small fires where ghouls stood around like haunts. I looked away and instead stared across the ink black waters to the crimson horizon under quartz gray skies.

"Isn't is lovely?" Carrie asked. Since our Ferryman had silently accepted our fare and had remained mute I presumed she expected a response from me.

"I used to think the deserts were desolate. This place makes them seem alive and colorful." I felt the alchohol wearing off.

"Home is where the heart is, Goris. I have lived here for a very long time. It grows on you." She held Toto in her lap.

"Who are those ghouls on the shore?" I asked.

"The ghouls who have lived here for the last two centuries are a little different than the talking ghouls and ferals you are used to." She began to tell me.

"I had begun to guess as much after you told me about Ghoul Lords." I replied.

"Right. There are basically three classes and Ghoul Lords are the highest and most rare. In fact, Kurtis is the only one I know of specifically." She paused.

"Go on." I urged her.

"Most of the population are essentially mindless to some extent like ferals. But they are normally peaceful unless led into a fight. Remember what I said about no ghoul attacking another ghoul?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"The regualr population are capable of acting in a variety of ways. They are called Necro Ghouls. Named after City of The Dead since this behaviour only occurs there. Necro Ghouls typically act peaceful and can hold limited conversations. They wouldn't hurt anything. Now put them with a Slayer or as you would know them Ghoul Reavers. Slayers are the same as Ghoul Reavers with one difference and that is that they are capable of inciting Necro Ghouls to violence. They still won't harm another ghoul but a Slayer would if the other Ghoul isn't a Necro Ghoul." She seemed to be making this more complicated than it needed to be. I guessed she still had trouble understanding it herself.

"What makes Slayers act this way?" I asked.

"Ghoul Lords." She got to the bottom of it. "Necro Ghouls and Slayers would be harmless to other ghouls except Ghoul Lords control them. With Kurtis dead, in other words...The Slayers wouldn't command the Necro Ghouls and violence would end. We could have tourists again as long as they avoided direct contact with the Slayers they would be fine."

"So basically Ghoul Lords are the source of domestic violence among the ghoul population and that violence spills over and means violence toward Smoothskins and anyone else who wants to visit." I summarized her dissertation.

"Exactly. That is what I am trying to explain."

"So if we defeat Kurtis we can explore in relative safety?"

"Something like that." She looked up and I followed her gaze. Poles stood out of the shaded waters and upon them were Necro Ghouls who had crossed Kurtis. As we neared the shore more and more of these crucifixions stood.

We landed on the beach and I noticed the beaches were covered in piles of bones. When ghouls died their skulls looked exactly like human skulls and each pile was topped by a stack of skulls. Mixed in there were dog skulls and bird skulls and fish bones everywhere.

"I don't understand" I whispered.

"The shore is like a tomb. All of the dead are brought here." Carrie told me.

"I see. Then these fires are funeral fires."

"Something like that." Carrie said.

She led me off of the beach into the ruins of the islands. We climbed a hill of rubble where we could see much of the levelled city. It had once been a very large city. In its center was a glowing crater.

"I am home." She greeted the perpetual night of City of The Dead.

Heart of Shade: Artifacts
We travelled through the City seeing much melted destruction like I had never seen before. What men had once expected of war was not what they had gotten. I spotted a sign on the ground covered in a thin layer of soot and propped up by an uncollected skeleton that grinned sardonically at me.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e6/Fallout_shelter.jpg

"What is it?" Carrie asked.

"I am often locked in an internal debate as to what will become of the human race." I said softly.

"Meditate later, Goris. You need to be alert. Your senses are better than mine or Toto's combined. An early warning might be the difference between life and death out here. We are in enemy territory." She chastised me at length.

"Sorry." I grumbled. I perked up my hearing and kept my low-light vision keen. Deathclaws can't exactly see in the dark but we are still reptiles and our vision is very different from humans.

As we travelled along I found a preserved cache of newspapers and couldn't help but peek inside. It read:

"Energy Crisis Might Repeat Hot Summer"
Due to recent demands for power
New York residents face a possible
near nuclear meltdown and power
rationing will continue to tighten.
"We face yet another challenge"
the mayor was quoted last wednes
-day. Power officials could not be
reached for a comment on this
matter. As New York remembers
on our twelfth anniversary of the
June of 2065 incident had recently
shed their old fears for good this
new outtages and politics have occ
-ured. What make it worse are the
worldwide ridicules of support and
re-election of our successful Power
Management Commitee who were
Ad-Hoc at the time of the Crisis.
See A-6

So I gathered that the City of The Dead was once known as New York and the Necro Ghouls were people who had survived the direct bombardment during the Great War. Carrie ignored my momentary curiousity as we continued on our way to confront Kurtis.

We soon came upon another curiousity. Encased in a shipping pod that was sealed Prewar was a multi armed robot whose labels had been worn away with time. Robots made for fearless fighters under the right conditions.

"We could use some extra hands." I stopped Carrie and pointed to the fresh deactivated robot.

"Of course. That machine could come in handy." She stated as we went over to figure out how to release it from its cocoon.

"Oh I'm sure it could handle a few enemies for us." I commented as she found a stuck release mechanism.

"Give me a hand with this, will ya?" Carrie needed my help with the rusted lever.

"Arf! Arf!" Toto started barking at us, unable to endure any more.

We freed the machine and it promptly began to power up after we flipped its 'on' switch. I recognized it from an owner's manual that had been in my book collection as a Mr. Handy of some sort. I glanced at Toto.

"It's a http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/7/77/Mr._Handy.png." I told Carrie. Toto emitted a soft growl.

"Good morning. How may I be of assistance?" Mr. Handy spoke. He had a male, accented voice.

"We are your owners." I told him.

"Greetings Mr. and Mrs. Taylor. I am your new household unit: Type 2 to replace your previous and licensed Type 1. Compliments of General Atomics International: The world's foremost leader in advanced domestic robotica. Shall I dispatch my predecessor for you?" He sounded incredibly friendly and well intended.

His little saw blade powered up accenting his initial offer even further.

"No thanks. What happened to Asimov's Laws?" I complained.

"Pardon me, Mr. Taylor, Sir. What Asimov's Laws are you referring to?" He inquired.

"Nevermind. There will be no need for you to scrap our old machine. He is already dead."

"My condolenscences. Your loss is my loss." He almost sounded sincere.

"But you just offered..." Carrie objected. I hushed her though.

"What may I offer you this evening Mrs. Taylor?" Mr. Handy seemed to have changed his computer-mind about what time it was. I considered that he had been right the first time. Going off of an internal clock he had known it was morning. But further assessment led him to conclude that it was initially wrong. Probably because the skies were dark.

"Nothing." Carrie furrowed her brow.

"Please do not refer to us as Mr. or Mrs. Taylor anymore Mr. Handy. We have other preferences for you us to call us by." I decided that in order to cut down on confusion later on we ought to reprogram it with our actual names. This wouldn't interfere with its presumption that we actually were Mr. and Mrs. Taylor.

"Your prefences will be noted. Please specify your preferred references." He was listening.

"Goris." I told him.

"Carrie." She said. "And that is the family dog, Toto."

"Preferences noted." He confirmed.

"I have more preferences." I wasn't done yet.

"Please state your preferences." Mr. Handy listened carefully.

"If anyone or anything tries to hurt any of us you are to kill them." Was my first command.

"Bodyguard mode initiated." A small red light went from green to red.

"Use radiation detection and inform me of any levels approaching twice what a human can withstand." I also instructed.

"Modified radiation scale set and detecting." He had deployed a tiny needle from his chassis that was taking samples of radiation.

"Anything else?" I asked Carrie. She looked at me with a 'isn't it obvious?' sort of look. Her facial expressions were all exaggerated since ghoul faces are hard to read. Then I realized he was programmed as a household appliance.

"Mr. Handy. You are to remain in our presence at all times. And use your scanners and alert us of anything living or robotic near us." I concluded.

"Preferences noted and locked." He confirmed.

We continued our approach toward Ghoul Lord Kurtis.

Abyss: Ruins
The four of us walked, trotted and hovered along together, off to see the king. The wonderful king of an area called Abyss. We skipped and sang and had a jolly time as we went.

At least that is how I would like to remember it all.

Our party had snuck into Abyss and were winding our way through the crispy and crumbling ash sculptures. The ruins of Abyss were a fragile creation of fire. No wind and water weathered them here in this region of silent graves and shaded places. I and Mr. Handy were ever alert for enemies.

Toto the Hellhound was alert also but he would only catch wind of danger after we already knew.

Finnally there was our leader and warrior, Carrie. The ghoul maiden had a weapon I had yet to see slung in a case on her back, concealed and specially preserved for her upcoming battle with the Ghoul Lord Kurtis.

"We are getting close. Kurtis resides between the ruins and the crater of Abyss." She told me.

"Why is this area called Abyss anyway?" I asked.

"We are descending into the crater already. When the blast levelled the old city the crater it made was so deep and hot that the surrounding rim collapsed into it forming a great bowl below sea level. Water doesn't come in here though, the ground beneath us is like a solid sheet of slag miles across." she gave me the low down on our especially low elevation.

"I think I understand. It makes sense I guess, if someone were looking down at where we are from the outer ruins." I imagined the topography of City of The Dead and the name Abyss made sense for our current area. My only doubt was that we might have to circle the crater to find our enemy.

"A canine and two unidentifiable humans are approaching." Mr. Handy detected two Necro Ghouls and a Hellhound on patrol.

"Can we avoid them?" I asked trying to pinpoint their location. I finally figured out where they were. We had spotted them first.

"If we head counter clockwise to the crater." Carrie suggested, noting which way I was facing.

"Lets go. We don't want to lose our element of suprise." I followed her and Mr. Handy and Toto took up the rear of our evasive formation.

"Have we eluded them?" I asked Mr. Handy after the glowing crater came into view. It took him a moment to assess whether we had or not.

"Affirmative." He replied at last. We continued on our way.

The whole "hands" bit had me giggling :lmao:

Abyss: Crater
We continued our journey into the heart of the deepest and most shaded place I had ever been. The crater was glowing like some sick light and we were the moths attending it. Abyss was an entirely dreamy and unwholesome place.

Ahead stood what appeared to be a Ghoul Reaver with a sword.

"Sir, I must warn you..." Mr. Handy advised.

"I see him." I noticed the Ghoul wore some kind of mask as well. Like a canvas bag with slits for eyes and xxx sewn into it for a mouth.

"Halt. Who goes here in the crater?" It asked us. We approached with caution. He had his weapon sheathed still so we remained on friendly terms, even if a bit cautious.

"It is I, Carrie of Crater and these are my friends: Goris the Scholar, Toto the Hellhound and Mr. Handy the...the...Robot Butler"

"At your service." Mr. Handy addded politely.

"Off to see him, eh? Followed the yellowish glow eh? Scholars and Hellhounds and Butlers...Oh my." He sounded dearranged or drugged. His voice had a sort of half-sung tone to it that sounded strangely familiar.

"Who are you?" Carrie ignored his rude reply.

"I am Duncan. Duncan York. I was once a teacher of the sword way. Now the way of the sword teaches me." He spoke like his words were deeply philosophical. I grasped irony but not philosophy in them though.

"Why do you wear that mask?" Carrie asked.

"Why do you wear a cloth covered firearm on your back? Why does Goris wear that robe? Why does Mr. Handy wear...well he is silly looking." Duncan retorted.

"Shall I tell a joke? My humor emitter is fully recharged and I detect an exchange..." Mr. Handy offered.

"Shut up." I interrupted him.

"Touche' Duncan York." Carrie let the matter rest.

"So if you are going to confront the king, Ghoul Lord Kurtis, I should like to come with you. I would have challenged him before. But alone one Slayer stands little chance. My opportunity is now." He stated.

"I don't know." Carrie was not quick to recruit this close to Kurtis.

"Of course if I am not with you then I must stop you: I do work for him guarding this entrance to his crater penthouse." Duncan advised us of our alternatives.

"Fine. Come with us then." Carrie decided that an ally would be better than an extra enemy.

With our numbers swollen we proceeded into the mouth of the heart's uttermost destination.

Cannot.. stop.. the giggling..

Abyss: Altar
With Duncan York leading us we were ignored by the other guards on our way to see Kurtis.

"So...you return at last." His powerful and hideous voice spoke from the shadows.

"I have. You betrayed me. You betrayed everyone down there in the caverns. For what? So you could keep the treasure all for yourself?" Carrie began the confrontation.

"We stand here together at this balcony of my new home. We stand at this precipice...this threshhold to what lies beneath in the caverns." He sounded diabolical to me. I had no doubts that his assassination would bring some good to this tortured place.

"What the (censored) are you talking about Kurtis?" Carrie asked coldly.

"It feeds down there in the twilight of the glow and the pitch black caverns. And I am the one who provides it with food. It is growing." Kurtis could be seen in silhoette against the backdrop of the glow.

"You feed it your own people?" Carrie was outraged.

"I am their king..." He reminded her.

"You are their self appointed king..." She argued.

"It is my right as a Ghoul Lord to rule over the lesser Necro Ghouls. Even the Slayers acknowledge that." He stepped into the light, having left the opening for his balcony.

"That might be. But not every Slayer still believes in your right to be king." Duncan York presented himself as one of us.

"Your defiance will end with Carrie's. All in good time." Kurtis would be a very tough opponent. Some of us, if not all of us, would die once battle began. For now he was still talking.

"So you push Necro Ghouls to their deaths?" Carrie returned to the original subject. I sensed why: something more was at stake here.

"Yes to feed what lies below. There was no treasure Carrie. I killed your friends becuase they had seen something no Ghoul should see and live to tell about." He excused his murder of her friends and his apparently.

"And what is that?" Carrie asked.

"If I told you I would have to kill you." He chuckled menacingly.

"Are you kidding?" She scowled.

"This is the altar of my god. You will soon find out" He assured us.

Kurtis could now be seen in his entirety.

I took a good look at him. He was the foulest and most fetid ghoul I had ever seen. He had his own aura of radiation like a Glowing One and he wore a crown. It was made of bones. Bones of ghouls I was certain. Besides that he wore the derelict Power Armor rusted through in some places and no longer functional. This proved he must have awesome strength for he had worn it so long it had almost begun to merge with his ghoul flesh.

"You truely are a devil" I spoke.

"Thank you."

"Goris, radiation levels are approaching the scale level." Mr. Handy informed me.

"Ready for battle?" I asked our adversary.

"It is you who should prepare." He laughed.

Abyss: Horror
We had travelled far in his kingdom and laid our doubts upon his altar. We had turned his gaze from adoration of his insatiable and ravenous god. But we had not yet seen the man behind the curtain...

Toto barked, running toward him.

"What gifts I shall render upon you all..." He promised. Then he released the beam of lethal radiation upon the Ghoul Dog. Radiation doesn't hurt creatures made from it under normal circumstances. But his beam was so intense that the Hellhound was stunned and walked sideways into a wall and collapsed.

"You are the one who shall be given a rending!" Duncan York had drawn his sword and rushed his former king.

"Your efforts are in vain!" Kurtis promised and drew his own sword. Their blades met in singing fury over and over. Sparks flew forth and then Duncan was disarmed. His weapon was sent clattering across the floor.

"Strike me down." Duncan stood bravely against the might of the Ghoul Lord. He batted him aside with a back hand sending our ally to land near Toto.

My robes flew off and so did the cloth covering Carrie's secret weapon. It was a Plasma Rifle.

"Remember this?" She asked him. "You gave it to me a long time ago. 'Happy Birthday' you said. I named it 'Peacegiver' because you hade made up with me an arguement we had with this gift."

"I remember." Kurtis snarled.

"Well here you go. Happy (censored) Birthday mother (censored)!" She aimed Peacegiver at his ugly face and fired a beam of deadly heat. He staggered back, reeling from the incredible amount of damage to his head.

"That will cost you!" Kurtis roared savagely. He charged at us and Carrie fired three more shots into him as he came, barely slowing him down.

I tried to tackle him from the side but he slapped me spinning through the air like an acrobat into a wall.

"I will have to ask to to refrain from that." Mr. Handy used his torch on full blast on our enemy. Kurtis felt it and turned on the robot. As he lifted his sword Mr. Handy drove his sawblade deep into the Ghoul Lord's neck. Gore sprayed forth.

"Gurgle glug glug (censored) Gurgle gurgle!" Kurtis's throat had been cut and his own ichor filled his lungs and mouth as he tried to chastise the machine. He hacked at it wildly with his sword striking Mr. Handy to the ground and seperating his limbs from him.

"Goodbye darling!" Carrie fired two more shots into the Ghoul Lord at point blank range knocking him onto his back. He lay there dying and she went and stood over him.

He coughed a jet of slime free of his windpipe and managed to say almost not understandably:

"Feed me to god."

"Oh I will." She placed Peacegiver into his mouth and angled it towards his brain and fired, shattering what was left into a plasma storm.

I managed to get back onto my feet a little shakily as did Duncan and Toto. I limped over to Mr. Handy who was leaking robot fluids, sparks and smoke.

"Did we win, Mr. Taylor?" He asked.

"We won." I told the dying machine.

"I love the smell of plasma in the morning..." He told me. Then his lights flickered and went out.

We went forth to tell the good people of Abyss that their king was finally defeated.

Waters of Death: Taint
"I'm going down there" Carrie told me.

I looked at the Ghoul Maiden. I hadn't put my robes back on, instead I had stashed them in my bag. Everyone here accepted that I was actually a Deathclaw. Carrie looked up.

"It isn't over yet. Something is down there. Something that Kurtis saw and decided was more important than his friends, his people and even me."

"I will go with you. When you got my help it was to see this adventure through." I responded.

"Even if you die in your efforts?" She asked.

"Listen:" I realized I needed to explain myself. "I tried to help the Smoothskins. They throw away their best hopes like dust in the wind."

"Ghouls live too long to have regrets. We find regret to be more frightening than death." She countered.

"I will help you. I am searching for the definition of you humans. Ghouls are still human in a way. When does a Ghoul stop being a human?" I asked her.

"Never. We just become Ghouls. Then the Smoothskins think of us as creatures. Humanoid creatures." She considered my words.

"I will die someday. How I die doesn't bother me now. Right now I worry about how I live." I summarized.

"Even if your last moments of life are in the digestive track of hell?" She winked her weird eye at me.

"Lets get going. Our bravery isn't increasing." I made a Deathclaw chuckle which doesn't sound very jovial.

We left Duncan York administering to the Necro Ghouls and took Toto with us down into the cavern. At the entrance I stared into its darkness unable to see anything in the cold wall of lightless doom. We ventured in with only the glow of the Plasma Rifle and a jar of glowing goo on a stick to light our path.

Down into the most twisted nightmare labrinth I was ever in.

On the ground I spotted a puddle of strange oily colored slime that slowly swirled in cloudy formations within its shallow depths.

"Primordial Goop" Carrie told me. As I watched it intently some of it extended toward us in a thin tendril, searching for prey...

Waters of Death: Lore
Carrie, Toto and I avoided the Puddle and continued down into the murk.

"There, up ahead." Carrie pointed out a narrow opening that we walked through into a small cave leading into a much larger chamber. The much larger cavern chamber beyond was well lit by the glow of the crater above. Its top had been opened like a broken bubble and many Necro Ghouls had fallen there.

This room held two skeletal human remains in scientist radiation suits. I noticed they were Enclave. I gathered their deaths had kept them from returning with their findings.

"What are you doing?" Carrie asked as I disturbed their bodies.

"Searching for clues. Enclave scientists means they were gathering data." I found a holotape recording device amid other equipment including a radiation counter. Curiousity made me turn it on. The radiation level down here was pretty bad. They might have died of radiation poisoning.

"Anything useful?" Carrie asked. I was pleased to find the holotape recorder still worked fine. We listened as they talked about the Primordial Goop.

"The puddles are basically harmless as long as you watch your step. Jones discovered the hard way the puddles are still hungry." One of the scientists mentioned after about ten minutes of technical data.

"We witnessed a Primordial Pond give birth to dozens of Pints. The Pints spread out moving quickly along walls and ceilings in search of prey. We believe from remains we found earlier on that these tunnels were once full of Radroaches and other insect life that the Primordials exterminated. Fed Pints merge with other Pints or simply take root. In either case they become Puddles that slowly flow to low ground and regather into Ponds."

We listened for about an hour more before the holotape came to a sudden end, mentioning Ghoul Slayers. I concluded they had been chased down here and died of a lethal dose of radiation. It was all good. The last thing the Enclave needed to exploit was this Primordial lifeform. I still wasn't sure if it was all one creature or a species of creatures. From their findings it seemed the Enclave scientists hadn't been too sure of this either.

"Kurtis's god...it is in the chamber beyond...the lowest point in these caverns." Carrie spoke in a hushed tone. She sounded like she had a mix of reverence and disgust. Ghouls were more complicated that their younger Smoothskin counterparts and more difficult to read.

"What are we going to do about it?" I asked her.

"We don't know how to kill it. That would be our best move." She seemed distant. "I am not sure I want to."

"What? What do you mean Carrie?" I asked.

"Maybe if you had lived as long as a Ghoul you would understand. This thing...it is very special."

"So are fire breathing geckos and mirelurk hunters...you don't stop shooting when one of those is your mortal opponent." I protested.

"This thing is one of a kind and very different from those. It had taken two centuries to get where it is." She shook her head.

"If you let it keep growing it will crawl out of its cradle some day and devour every Ghoul in City of The Dead we have fought to save." I couldn't believe she was reconsidering.

"I think I see what Kurtis saw down here."

"Are you (censored) kidding?" I wasn't wearing my robes and used human body language with my claws spread open inviting her to answer my criticism.

Toto started barking at me, seeing my gesture as hostile. What none of us had seen was the great tendril creeping towards us from the lowest part of the caverns. Toto began to yip helplessly as he was dragged into the stomach of darkness.

"Toto!" Carrie shrieked. She pulled out Peacegiver and I followed her down to the bottom...

:clap:

Waters of Death: Cavern
Carrie and I both skidded to a halt sending tiny rocks tumbling down the embankment.

The Thing in The Cavern was much more than the Ponds we had learned existed. It writhed like an endless sea of slime and constantly formed and dissipated appendages. It used these to eternally comb its massive chamber in which it dwelt. The sight of the Thing in The Cavern was not the only one of my senses driven temporarily insane with its presence.

The Thing in The Cavern smelled both sour like sulphur and sweet like a kind of sporeplant pulp but partly fermented like on a hot day. The malodor also left a sort of taste in my mouth the way an especially ripe compost pile's stench would. The miasma we gagged on wasn't the Thing in The Cavern's final offensiveness.

The sound the Thing in The Cavern made was both like the lapping of waves and like a drum beat of wet thumping noises. Squishing, svcking and gurgling with constant cacaphony. The horror of this rendered our ears with a wish for deafness.

"It is so awful!" Carrie's eyes were wide, sharing my madness. Nothing like this should exist. I guessed later that it was at this moment that she forgot her foolish Ghoul sentiments moments earlier.

"Arf Arf Yipe Yipe" We heard and then saw Toto being swung into the middle. More tendrils blindly reached up and felt around in the air until they found him and then he was brought into it with a splash.

"Toto!" Carrie was berieved and enraged at the same time. She had loved her dog very much. She began firing at Kurtis's god and vaporized its tendrils as they reached for us. She kept firing until she ran out of ammo.

"We have to get out of here!" I decided that retreating from the Thing in The Cavern was our only choice. I loathed to touch it with my claws even, realizing that it would merely engulf me and devour me. I had come to my senses by then and I was stepping backward away from the Thing in The Cavern.

"No. I must avenge Toto!" She shouted more at the Thing in The Cavern than at me.

"By getting eaten? Let's go. Come back with a Fat Man and avenge your dog, let's get out of here!" I was about to drag her away from the Thing in The Cavern but several Primordial Pints and tendrils were quickly surrounding Carrie, ready to envelope her...