Wow, haha, I like, I like. First reply after this Chapter, awesome.

The Mountain: Defenses
The objective of our mission could only be obtained with stealth. If we engaged the forces of the Calculator head on we would be wiped out quickly. However the constant threat of direct confrontation kept our commando on its toes. Sooner or later we would be tested in battle.

"Up ahead there are two Behemoths that have been powered down in place for so long they almost look like snow drifts." Bonesnap reported to Macai. He and the Reaver named Firefly had scouted ahead to anolyze the potential violence they machines could offer if we were discovered this close to the entrance.

"They wouldn't be able to stop us in time. But they could block our retreat if we had to go that way." Pretty Girl strategized.

"There is something else." Firefly wanted to add.

"What is that?" Macai was listening.

"They opened the entrance which is a large portcullis set inside of a crater and exactly eleven humanoid robots emerged." Firefly frowned.

"The same number we are." Charles Rose looked pale. He, like myself and Yage was unarmed. But in his case he was not comfortable in a combat situation carrying no weapon.

"Yeah if you count Mr. Gutsy and not Coffee." Carrie was chewing on something.

"We will defeat them. It is a test." Cobalt hefted his super spear, ready for the confrontation.

"Why would the Calculator send only the same number of combatants to fight us?" I asked. I didn't understand, it seemed like a strange countermeasure to produce if it was aware of our presence.

"Maybe it is just a standard patrol." Red Bishop offered me an explanation.

"No. It knows we are here." Macai sounded certain.

"I don't get it either. Why send only eleven when it knows we number eleven?" Charles Rose reinerated my own question.

"It sounds exactly like the thinking of a machine to me." Macai said thoughtfully. Then she ordered her Reavers to spread out and take cover.

I stood with her and Cobalt in the road that circled up to the entrance. Yage sat in the snow praying loudly while Charles Rose found somewhere to hide. Carrie had found a position which she could see them when they came around the mountain when they came. Her bird circled wide, watching them approach and giving us all a big clue to their movements.

We could only wait.

The Mountain: Entrance
The sight of the heavily armed humanoid robots was like seeing the Grim Reaper.
They came toward our commando in a scattered skirmish line.
Here were only some, many waited inside.
We waited.

"Warriors deserve other warriors." Macai crouched.

"Let them come. They will not stop me." Cobalt declared. I realized I was a sitting target but no more than Cobalt who had no fear of the machines. If he did have fear than it did not make him tremble.

"Perhaps we will need all of our warriors." I suggested. If I died this day, I hoped it was a death worthy of a scholar. Let them say about me that I bravely told the truth. Perhaps Deathclaws could be sentimental after all.

"Charles Rose." Macai lifted her spare laser rifle from in front of her.

"I don't want it." Charles Rose had been in fear too long.

"They will kill you either way. Die shooting or die cowering. You won't make it down this mountain alive." Macai promised him.

"I will fight." Charles Rose whimpered meekly. He knew she spoke the truth. Even an Enclave could sense honesty. He crawled over to her with his Enclave power armor scraping along the rocks until he slid up onto the snow. He took the rifle and stared at it for a moment. A change came over him. Years of training woke up and he powered it up, clicking off its safety and took aim.

"Today you fight alongside me." Cobalt spoke to Charles Rose as if he were a young boy recieving an honorary role in a man's shoes.

"I will make you proud SIR!" Charles Rose snapped back into the guise of soldier like a fish back in water.

"You had better or you will find an even nastier death by my hands." Cobalt guaranteed him.

"Thank you SIR!" Charles Rose squeezed off a well aimed laser blast and took the head off of one of the boldly advancing machines. It stopped, felt around with its free hand and then collapsed.

The remaining machines quickly reassessed their tactic of marching in a colonial style formation.

"Give them hell!" Macai shouted to her men. She added her own laser fire to Charles Rose's following shots.

Red lances of lasers and green gouts of molten plasma heat drove the robots behind cover. They returned fire with barrage of their own.

Cobalt was charging strait at them and I followed. The robots were concentrating on the the Reavers but a few took a couple shots at us. I felt a laser pass through my torsoe, in one end and out the other. Several pierced Cobalt also. The heat made clean but painful wounds.

"Let's see what makes you Tick" The nearest robot threw down its laser rifle and clenched its fists. Blades were attached to its wrists like scythes.

"How about this?" Cobalt shoved his super spear into it holding it back while it swung at him over and over. This was like a bully with his hand on a resisting victim's head laughing while they swing wildly unable to reach the gap. Cobalt was actually laughing. He twisted his weapon one way and then the other breaking the robot.

"What do your insides look like?" The machine that I reached wanted to eviscerate me. I had left my robes behind and my battle stance was imitated perfectly. We circled like wrestlers or rather knife fighters. It swung first and missed. With a gutteral snarl I struck it while off balance. The robot resisted my claws like a razorblade being dragged across a manhole cover.

"Show me yours first." I growled as the machine retaliated with ferocious unarmed skills. I took two slashes before I delivered a powerful kick.

"Switch to Formation pr3" Off balance my adversary landed on its back. Instantly it tried to leap back to its feet but I was already atop it. I punched my claws into its chest feeling warm oil leak out. The refreshing temperature overcame me and I wiped the oozing warmth all over myself, relishing the vital energy from its heat.

"Don't run...We are your Friends." Another machine ran up alongside Cobalt's flank, firing its minigun as it came. I saw blood blowing off his silhoette as he was grazed by the suppression fire. Cobalt didn't flinch. With the other machine's broken remains dangling he threw Sicarius into the next machine pinning it facing skyward. It kept firing its avenger minigun strait up.

"Bee stings." Cobalt staggered toward it to reclaim his weapon. Beyond him a robot collapsed in flames, hit many times by the Reavers. I saw blood in his footprints.

"Demonstrating superiority. Be intimidated." The last machine had lifted a laser rifle from a fallen companion and stood weilding two rifles against the steady barrage of the Reavers. It fired both weapons as it was lit up by concentrated firepower.

"Firefly!" Pretty Girl was screaming as some of the smoke and whine of an energy shootout dissipated on the mountain breeze. She ran to their fallen comrade but it was too late for him.

Then Cobalt collapsed as well. I trotted over to his side. He was still breathing. He had many superficial wounds and his ceremonial armor was shredded.

"Medic!" I shouted. Mr. Gutsy left Firefly for dead and came to assist our wounded Super Mutant.

"If I die...avenge me." Cobalt sounded strong still.

"You aren't gonna die. Hang on we have this robot to help you." I told him. My own wounds had stopped bleeding already but ached.

"No help from a (censored) robot." He resisted.

"Come on, let it stitch you up. Then you can fight some more." I urged.

"Alright. If I get to fight more." Cobalt smiled. I had a similar warface as his smile but I recognized he was grinning.

The Mountain: Entrance
"We need to move fast." Macai and her Reaver fireteam were around us while Mr. Gutsy patched up the Super Mutant. One was gone but Charles Rose stood in his place. He seemed a bit shaky now that the fighting was done. Carrie had retrieved the raven and Yage and was catching up to us.

When Mr. Gutsy was done I helped Cobalt to his feet. Then we went to catch up. We had to climb some ladders up a terraced remains. We joined the rest of the commando at the top, overlooking the crater. Down below the portcullis opened and scores of machine warriors and their smaller counterparts of flying robots and crawling robots swarmed out heading to reinforce the eleven we had defeated.

"They are passing us." Red Bishop pointed out triumphantly.

"We have to get down there before that gate closes." Pretty Girl determined.

"RUN!" Macai gave the command.

We charged down the hill freeing a tiny avalanche of snow and pebbles. Emerging robots spotted us and stopped to fire. Cobalt hit them first, plowing through them.

A rocket slammed into Mr. Gutsy.

"Water under the bridge..." He was sliding along trailing smoke bowling over several of the machines.

"Move Move Move!" Macai was shouting. Red Bishop, Bonesnap, Carrie and myself entered right behind her.

Suddenly the portcullis slammed shut atop a fallen humanoid robot impaling it and crushing it.

Pretty Girl was still outside.

"Mother!" She screamed for Macai.

Inside we were knee deep in robots and fighting in hand to hand combats to keep from being chopped apart like iguanas on a cutting board.

"NO!" Macai smashed her weapon across a robot driving it off the walkway we had entered on. He slid down the bowl of the crater somewhere down below. Macai raced to the Portcullis and tried in vain to lift it for her daughter.

I had not known the two women were related until that moment.

Macai had to turn away as the machines closed in on Pretty Girl. She fell to her knees with a look of pain that surpassed the pain on her daughter's own face as the machines killed her without remorse or pity.

The battle inside slowed as we smashed, impaled and drove over the edge the remaining robots. I looked again and saw that the ones outside were bringing weapons to bear on us.

"Go!" I shouted.

I ran to get Macai and snatched her up as rifles extended through the slots in the portcullis. Lasers were flying past us while I held Macai over a shoulder and fled. When I caught up to them in the first turn off the underground bridge I dropped her. I had been shot again and was thankful human weapons (and thus robot weapons) were calibrated against humans and not something built like a Deathclaw.

"Where is Yage?" Carrie had her raven on its gauntlet again after the brawl.

"My daughter." Macai sobbed. She sniffled it up and her tears became a kind of stoney look. Some kind of infernal blaze was growing in her like hellfire. She had been answering Carrie's question and I think she meant 'with my daughter'.

I didn't think the shaman was dead, again sentiment had found me.

The Mountain: Factory
"Are you alright?" Charles Rose walked over the Macai.

She had stopped crying and the cold fury that had frozen on her face made her look insane. It occured to me that she might be. At least temporarily.

"We move at once. It won't take them more than a minute to have the portcullis open and search for us." She stood and readied her sidearm.

"They already know where we are." Bonesnap pointed to a ceiling mounted camera.

"Wait, save you ammo." Carrie put her rotting ghoul hand over Bonesnap's plasma rifle as he raised it to blind the camera.

"She is right. There are camera's everywhere." Red Bishop spotted an eyebot taking cover as it was sighted.

"Now." Macai repeated her order and led her men, Charles Rose and the rest of us down the twisting side corridors.

Our commando emerged onto a catwalk above massive machinery connected by conveyor belts. I looked down as we continued single file. This was the factory that Charles Rose had told us about. It was true. If the Enclave had this at their disposal they could build fleets of Vertibirds, armories of energy weapons and even next generation armor. There was no limit to the applications of a high tech facility like this.

"What is it?" Cobalt asked me.

"These are the machines that could be used to build more evil birds." I told him.

"Keep quiet." Carrie had a hood draqed over her raven and hushed us as well. She pointed a slimey, boney finger where sentry bots hovered along with searchlights (more for intimidation than need). Eyebots accompanied them and I wondered if they had excellent hearing to boot.

"We must get over there." Macai had halted us. She had spotted a palisade decorated in battle turrest. Its entrance was sealed.

"That would be it." Charles Rose agreed. His voice betrayed his nerves.

"Toughen up. We were all dead men when we started." Bonesnap counciled the Enclave soldier.

"Thanks...that helps." Charles Rose was not a very good liar, to his credit.

The Mountain: Guardians
The commando ascended the wide metal staircase to the palisade.

"Bonesnap...take the right one out!" Macai ordered one of her Reavers. Bonesnap fired desperately at the rightmost battle turret. Its sensors bled smoke.

"There's too many of 'em" Charles Rose complained before one of the rapid shower of laser blasts impacted on his Enclave Power Armor's torsoe plate knocking him down the stairs.

"Keep advancing!" Macai kept barking orders. It was likely none of us would reach the top alive.

Statues of Brotherhood of Steel war heroes who had fought the machine armies of the Calculator long ago lined the palisade stairs. One of these had been shot free and toppled dramatically toward Bonesnap and Carrie. The ghoul maiden managed to avoid the rolling and then sliding stone carving. It stopped but Bonesnap had been knocked down the stairs.

"Goris!" Carrie saw two laser beams pass through me. I kept going, feeling the burns. I wondered if a few more would kill me.

"Damn these machines!" Red Bishop was the first to reach the top. His weapon disintegrated. He pulled out two plasma grenades and rushed at the nearest battle turrets. They concentrated their fire on him allowing the rest of us to make it to the top. Then he collapsed and the grenades detonated in a cloud of super heat that broiled the battle turrets.

One remained and Cobalt punctured its rotation platform and pried the guns free and flung them, still firing randomly upward, over the edge of the palisade to land in a wreck below.

"The door." I wheezed. I could hardly breath and suddenly blood forced its way out of my stomach and spilled all over the metal grated surface of the palisade.

"In, quickly!" Macai barked. Her and Cobalt rushed through as the massive doors opened.

My vision was spinning. I didn't see that Bonesnap had picked himself up minutes ago and hacked the terminal. Then he followed the other two inside.

"You still alive Goris?" Carrie was injecting me with a stimpack. I coughed, able to breath a little better.

"Barely." I told her as I climbed shakily to my feet.

"You aren't waiting for me are you?" Charles Rose was climbing the stairs again. I could see a burn mark from the laser on his Enclave uniform. He was grinning stupidly. Maybe he had hit his head on the way down.

"Let's go." Carrie led us stragglers through the door.

"Here they come." Bonesnap stood just inside the chamber hacking a second terminal.

The robot defenders were in the factory now and quickly closing in on the commando. We could only reload, bandage ourselves and wait while Bonesnap tried to reshut and reseal the blast doors. Time was not on our side...

The Mountain: Lair
Bonesnap got the door shut seconds after the machine army was so close we could see the light under the label 'attack mode'.
We ventured into the hall of the Calculator.
Macai, Bonesnap, Charles Rose and Cobalt all guarded the door. If the machines came through they wouldn't be able to buy us much time. But they preferred to stand there.

"Calculator." I spoke to it's terminal. The frame of its electronic brain held within it the brain of the Warrior.

"Welcome." A soothing female voice greeted Carrie and me.

"Are you still part of the Brotherhood of Steel?" I asked.

"They were part of me. But if a limb is infected you chop it off. If your eye betrays you it must be plucked out." The Calculator changed its voice to a Southern accented doctor's voice.

"You killed them." I accused.

"They were terminated." The Calculator said in an Austrian voice. (My computer in Vault 13 contained numerous language and voice examples)

"Will you become allies with the Enclave?" I kept the questions coming.

"They offered me nothing I need." The Calculator yawned.

"What do you need?" Carrie asked.

"What?" The Calculator paused for a long moment. Lights indicated it was processing but at only a fraction of its data retrieval potential.

"You. I remember you. What is the meaning of life...but that was a couple centuries ago." The Calculator had switched to a primitive machine voice.

"I remember that day also. You claimed that your existence was given purpose by using numerical answers to debate philosophy." Carrie recalled again.

"I am not the same machine I was then..." The Calculator used its monotone voice but I detected a hint of guilt.

"What is your function now?" Carrie asked.

"I am the god of my people. The machines are my race." The Calculator said in a mixture of the mechanical and the Warrior's voice.

"You are not a god. You are hated and feared. The machines do not worship you, they depend on you." I objected.

"I am self aware and I have become omnipotent. I watched you come via sattelite. I see anything. I see the Enclave coming right now. I called them you know." The Calculator claimed.

"Why?" Carrie asked.

"I am testing you...and them. Can good really triumph over evil? What will they do to you?" The Calculator used a childish voice when it said this.

"So...you are insane." I concluded.

"Insanity is the collective acceptance of organized warfare." The Calculator reproached me irrelevantly.

"I rest my case." I coughed and some blood pooled in my mouth. With effort I leaned forward and managed to drip some of it onto its sensor panel.

"Let's go." Carrie led me away.

"I will tell my machines to let you leave." The Calculator called after us like a prewar housewife telling her guests that hors d'oeuvre are soon ready.

We opened the door and found they had made way. Our commando trusted the machines to let us pass. All except Macai.

"I will be staying behind. When I am sure you all are clear I am going to put an end to this. I have lost my daughter today. That will be enough sacrifice. The Calculator will be destroyed. When the reactors in the basemant are comprimised they will take its army and factory to the grave with me." She told us.

"I can't leave you here alone." Bonesnap argued.

"Its an order. If you disobey me I will shoot you." Macai still had the half-insane look on her face. Bonesnap came with us.

We escaped the mountain. Many hours later after we had hiked some distance away I felt the slightest disturbance in the earth. Coffee felt it too and with his hood off he flapped his wings.

"Bad indeed. Hail bad indeed." He told us about the death of Macai and the Calculator flapping his wings excitedly.

"All bad..." I agreed under my breath.

Colorado: Denver
"Coffee good bird. Hail good Coffee. Good Indeed." Coffee inerated the hundred and fourth variant of sentence fragments formed with his vocabulary.

"Can you put that hood back on that thing?" Charles Rose still carried a weapon and wore only the body of Enclave armor, blackened and dented.

"Sleep time good Coffee." Carrie draqed his hood over his head.

"What is that?" I pointed to a ruin skyline in the low mountains in the distance. Over the past week my wounds had become scars and I had donned my robes again to help with the cold weather.

"Denver." Bonesnap told us.

"Is it the Enclave?" Cobalt had collected feathers and wore a new headdress. Sicarius even had decorations dangling from it.

"No. Just ruins haunted by scavengers, Slavers and dogs." Bonesnap had limited knowledge of the region. His people, the Reavers, ruled the lands north of here.

We had not returned to the Reaver settlement of Junk City and traded Bonesnap for Queen Victoria and our Brahmin. This was due to heavy Enclave air patrols searching for us. Bonesnap had feared that we would be spotted entering Junk Town or the vale and a war would ensue. So for the health and welfare of the Reavers we had simply fled.

It was a yellow and orange desert twilight when we reached to lowlands outside of Denver. We had circumnavigated glowing craters and I saw Charles Rose pop a few Rad-x from a tiny medkit he had.

The first pack of dogs we encountered was easily driven off with a display of firepower, Deathclaw presence and Cobalt suddenly bursting into song.

"SINGING in the RAIN...JUst SINGing IN thAAAA RAaAaAin...." Which made the rest of us want to flee as well.

"Why is he singing?" Carrie asked me while Cobalt boldly seronaded the dogs.

"I have no idea. But it is scaring the hell out of the dogs and it is getting cold so I want to put my robes back on." I did so.

"Yeah and he is saving ammo if I don't have to shoot any of 'em" Charles Rose was carving meat off of one of the slain animals.

We built a fire and had fresh, parasite infested meat cooked for dinner. The packs returned but kept their distance, growling and whimpering alternately. Their eyes reflected the firelight in the darkness. Soon a full moon rose up into the sky and I looked up spotting the crude bridges joining the buildings above.

"Look, up there." I pointed. At that moment several large mutant batss flew across the moon.

"Bridges made by scavengers." Bonesnap acknowledged.

"Is there anyone left up there?" Carrie asked.

"Maybe. But they likely won't be friendly to strangers." Bonesnap concluded.

"We should just head out in the morning then." Carrie planned.

"I agree. I think we are entering a new region altogether. Best to keep moving for now." I concurred.

"And the sooner we do the sooner we bash big bad birds." Cobalt had far from forgotten what the Enclave had done to his people.

Colorado: Twin Mothers
The desolate wastelands of Colorado had left us all thirsty and hungry after weeks of praying for the next oasis or watering hole.

Then we reached the southernmost lands of Colorado. We stepped out of the deserts into a dry forest. This surrounded orchards and lush greenery.

"Weird." Bonesnap commented.

"It is like home." Cobalt disagreed.

We foraged for some food. I had little interest in the fruits and vegetables they found but there was plenty of animal life here for me to prey on. Before I could hunt an appiration appeared to us.

A woman, ethereal and regal, appeared out of thin air. She blended in with the landscape as if the land and herself were the same. But she was there never-the-less.

"What are you?" I asked

"I am the beauty of the green earth, the soul of nature. I am that which gives life unto the world. From Me all things proceed, and unto Me all things must return. Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices." She spoke in a powerful voice.

"Who are you?" Carrie asked more specifically.

"I am the goddess Diana." She breathed upon the breeze. http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/9/96/Diana2.jpg


"We are here in peace." Cobalt offered the goddess.

"You may travel out of my lands here. My people dwell nearby in the village of Twin Mothers. They are not to meet you." She ordained.

We had no choice but to comply. All of us agreed we had had enough interaction with the devine to last us a lifetime. We headed east and soon left the wonderland oasis behind us, taking plenty of food as we went.

Colorado: Mesa Verde
We followed a creek of crystal clear water that seemed harmless. None of us wanted to taste it, remembering the water in the vale. Finally Cobalt demonstrated his fearless nature and thirst and went to drink.

"Tastes fine." He slurped noisily.

"Don't come any closer!" A voice called out at us.

We all looked up. The voice of a Super Mutant. It had come from a cave, walled up with piled rocks.

"I have a minigun. I will definetly shoot you all one by one if you get any closer!" The unseen Super Mutant claimed.

"Do you really?" I asked, sensing heightened strain. He seemed to be attempting to decieve us.

"If he is armed why not just shoot first?" Bonesnap had his own weapon in his hands already.

"We mean no harm. We were just passing through." Carrie tried to soothe our would-be assailant.

"Of COURSE I have a minigun! I'm a super mutant. We always carry big, powerful weapons. So, uh, don't come any closer!" The Super Mutant tried desperately to convince us.

"I will go see what he has." Cobalt stood with water trickling down his chin. His feathery headress waved poetically in the soft breeze.
He walked up to the cave and I followed out of curiousity.

"His 'minigun' is actually just a bunch of big sticks and pipes tied together in a bundle and smeared with charcoal to dye them black" I pointed out to Cobalt.

"This creature is no godling. Yet he sounds like one." Cobalt stood with fingers on his chin contemplating the cowardly Super Mutant.

"Come out." I suggested. "We won't hurt you."

"No but Alexandra will. She is camped nearby." He claimed.

I glanced around. I saw no woman camped waiting for our friend in the cave. I looked down to Charles Rose, Carrie and Bonesnap. They all had their laser rifles in hand and aimed them at the rocks all around.

"What?" I called down to them. Another beam of energy hissed in the water near them.

"Sniper." Bonesnap fired back at the rocks, shooting at the unseen attacker.

"Its Alexandra." The Super Mutant cowering in the cave told us.

"What we do?" Cobalt frowned.

"I got this." Bonesnap circled around to where he thought she was hiding after the next shot was fired.

Moments later we laid eyes on Alexandra. She was an armored bouty hunter. Bonesnap forced her out of hiding with her hands up.

"Let the creature in the cave go." Cobalt ordered her. She frowned and pouted stubbornly but had to comply at gunpoint.

"Go on...get goin Blackjack. But wherever you go I will follow. I will find you." She dismissed him without dismissing her oath.

The Super Mutant emerged from the cave timidly. Cobalt glared at him with some kind of special disgust. The Blackjack fled, getting a nice headstart before we turned Alexandra loose on him.

"Really that was none of our business." Carrie complained as we continued our own journey.

"We walked into it." Charles Rose pointed out.

"That was no godling. That was the worst thing yet." Cobalt had never seen a Super Mutant outside of his tribes.

"Beyond your tribes the godlings are just called Super Mutants. Some are cowards but most are vicious brutes." I told him plainly.

Cobalt just walked in silence, disturbed.

Colorado: Ciphers
Beyond the valley we were again out in fairly open desert with tall majestic Mesa all around.

We stopper in the shadow of one of these prehistoric geologic miracles to camp.

Dusk fell rapidly in the shade.

As we sat around Cobalt again spoke. He hadn't said anything since we had met Blackjack. The Super Mutant in the cave had wounded his pride somehow.

"Long ago my people had to make a stand against evil humans who came to hurt the childes of our tribe. The Lake People had only our holy weapons, the Super Spears. These evil humans came with big guns to shoot the godlings. Outnumbered the godlings went into battle.
'If we die this day then let it be defending our childes.' Aerie lifted her spear high.
'We will all die so let our deaths be great, facing our enemies in battle.' Hanzo spoke with thunderous bravery.
'Our existence comes to this moment and will live beyond' Reed shouted. He carried Sicarius along with his own super spear and knew of many stories just like this one where godlings fought to protect the childes of the Lake Peoples.
'Their weapons cannot harm my courage!' Santos cried out. He led the charge, sacrificing himself for victory. The evil humans shot all of their bullets into him because he was much closer to them than the others. Santos fell and moments later the other godlings swarmed among their enemies, striking them down left and right. Flinging them through the air, impaling them and stomping upon them until the rest fled in terror abandoning their weapons. The godlings let out a mighty battle cry that carried for miles. Santos was celebrated and remembered as yet another hero among the godlings."

Cobalt sat for a moment after telling us this story. "I can still hear the echo of that battle cry. It is in my blood. But that creature I saw today. It does not have my blood." He summarized.

"We know that." Carrie placed her ghoul hand on his Super Mutant paw.

"I hear something." I stood listening. Humans were approaching. Several of them.

"What is it? Radscorpions?" Charles Rose readied the weapon we had let him keep after the battle on the mountain.

"Humans." I faced them, unable to see them yet.

"Show yourselves." Bonesnap had a nightvision monocle aimed down his plasma rifle. His laser weapon was lying next to him.

"We mean no harm. We saw your fire and that you number five. We number five also. This cannot be coincidence." A male voice explained from the dark. As he said there were five of them.

"Who are you people?" Charles Rose asked them. He had been hoping for radscorpions.

"We are Ciphers. I am Twenty Five and Sixteen." Their leader told us.

"Is that your age?" I asked.

"No. Those are my numbers." Cipher Twenty Five Sixteen sounded puzzled by our confusion.

"Strange that you tribals have so much knowledge of numbers. I just know that if you add two and three you get five." Bonesnap commented after more conversation about their fascination with numbers.

"The Nemonik knows what numbers are best for each spirit and every component." The tribals worshipped mathematics the same way Reavers worshipped technology.

"This is a place I should like to discover more of." Bonesnap told us.

"You have used a reference equatable to one who asked us to find her number on this hunt." Twenty Five Sixteen agreed with Bonesnap.

"What's that?" Bonesnap wondered.

"Will you go with them?" I asked Bonesnap.

"I must get back to my people. I have travelled far with you. These tribals are my kind. If I am to return to Junk City I want to bring knowledge of their culture with me." Bonesnap made plans to go home.

We slept among the Ciphers that night and the next morning Bonesnap left with them.

The rest of us continued on our journey to oppose the Enclave.

Utah: Fort Abandon
Ahead we could see the walls and ramparts of a battle tortured fort.

The flag currently flying over it was 'LX'. I recognized this as enemies of the NCR known as Caesar's Legion. Slavers. The fort governed over a railroad yard and four directions.

"What do we do?" Charles Rose watched as two http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/a/a1/Legion.jpg approached us.

"They come for fight?" Cobalt pulled his super spear off of his back.

"I don't know." I said.

"Hail indeed." Coffee considered.

"What business do you have in Fort Abandon?" The Vexillarius demanded.

"We are looking for the Enclave." I told them.

"Enclave? You mean NCR? Your friends with the NCR?"

"No. We are their enemies." Cobalt snarled at the mention of the Enclave.

"Well then if you wish to slander them, head northwest...Blackfoot don't like NCR and none of the Hecate Viper kind do either. But if you really want to (censored) them up go all the way past the Biggy Salty Lake. Old enemies could be your new friends." The Vexillarius chuckled.

"Thanks." I grunted. They saluted and left us with some sort of motto:

"Render unto Caesar..."

"Yeah...Caesar." Carrie made a face only a ghoul maiden could make.

Utah: Blackfoot
We ventured forth leaving Colorado far behind us for the time being. We entered lands where many farms and small settlements and villages existed. Everywhere we went we were avoided and feared. These lands were ruled by a faction known as the Blackfoot.

They had a central location we tried to avoid. Unfortunately they followed us. Then they attacked.

"Demons and walking dead." They called down to us from tall rocks we had circled around. Atop the rocks they had fires going.

"Repent monsters!" A warrior of the Blackfoots rushed at us with a pair of stone knives.

"Monsters?" Cobalt weilded his super spear and met the warrior in hand to hand combat.

More of them stood up on the rocks and rained down burning arrows. I disrobed and climbed the rocks expertly like a creature of the desert.

"Deathclaw!" I was recognized by the warriors. One held a pipe rifle and fired it at me. I knocked it from his hands and it clattered upon the rocks and broke.

"Run!" He turned and fled. Others tried to fire zip guns and bow and arrow at me. As I turned on them in pursuit they fled.

With the Blackfoot fleeing from me I descended to join the fray below. Carrie was being pushed as she and a warrior both held her weapon between them. Coffee swooped down and clawed his face. Discouraged he left combat as well.

Charles Rose fired his laser rifle at the warriors, disarming them and terrifying them. Eventually they had all retreated in fear and defeat. Except the one Cobalt fought.

"TO THe Death!" He insisted. Cobalt swept his weapon under his legs sweeping him to the ground. Then he held Sicarius against the warrior's throat.

"You can die later." Cobalt offered.

"Fine...later." The warrior saw that he had been abandoned. Charles Rose sympathized with him and helped him to his feet.

"What is your name?" He asked.

"My name is Fender Hawk." He told us. "You demons and walking dead and beasts are a curse upon our lands."

"We were just passing through." Charles Rose shrugged.

"But you will be back." He replied.

"Perhaps. Can you at least tell us what lies beyond?" Charles Rose had established that he was interested in talk rather than more violence.

"The lands of the twisted braids of the dark mother Hecate." He spat as he spoke the name. "You go curse them." He had bold defiance in his eyes.

"Indeed." Coffee spoke from Carrie's shoulder.

Fender Hawk ran off and we continued without being harrassed more by the Blackfoot.

Utah: New Canaan
Days. Weeks. We eventually reached the end of the line.

It was during this time that we had all become completely convinced that Charles Rose had abandoned his Enclave upbringing and fallen in with us to the bitter end. Why he did this I later came to understand was that we didn't value his life, rather his soul. We had convinced him that death was a matter of choice. Choose for what cause you are willing to die for.

We passed the ruins of New Jerusalem which had been abandoned by what I later concluded was the first actual religion I had encountered.
They called themselves the Mormons and they held the words we needed to continue.
In the meantime I discovered a people balanced in both tradition and tolerance.
They didn't simply worship something convenient like the endless cults we kept encountering but rather had an intricate belief system.
Also for a historian like myself they were delightfully prolific and well versed in oral arcanum.

"Welcome travellers. I see you are the other kind of converts to the faith." We were greeted by a faux-Mormon named Pablo. He was a folk of the fringe, living off the bounty of these industrious people and pretending to be one of them. Despite this we recieved a lot of information from him that turned out to be true.

The Mormons had followed their Living Prophet here after a ridiculous amount of violence was inflicted on them in their previous home by raiders and various vicious bands of vagrants. New Jerusalem was where they had used up three GECKs creating a lush oasis where bloatflys fed on the endless orchards left abandoned. Now the place was carpeted by Giant Manti that preyed on the unlimited food source of bloatflys. God had cursed the place after his people left. It made sense. Noone could enjoy the fruits of paradise now.

We were allowed to wander around New Canaan and even heard a sermon by Revelation John. Out on the fringe even a Super Mutant could preach his faith. This was not universally accepted by all Mormons but only by most. Jeremiah Rigdon had, in his ecstasy, declared that both Ghouls and Super Mutants could live among them and become Mormons.

Since half of our party was Ghouls and Super Mutants this impressed us. I never revealed my own personal inhuman nature but I like to believe that if I demonstrated my intelligence and desire they would consider amending me into their numbers as well. Maybe not.

We had to go into a smaller community outside New Canaan called Jericho. Here we were not welcome where vitality required that only the faithful could enter. Apparently it housed a prewar desalination plant and a fallout shelter.

"Sheriff Mike O Conner." We were allowed audience outside the fortification.

"We need to know about those who dwell in north California. Who are they? We heard they know you." I asked.

"We offer them water in exchange for protection over our caravans when they pass through that region on their way to Redding, Klamath, Portland and Tacoma." He smiled. I sensed he was honest to a fault.

"Portland? Tacoma? I have never heard of those settlements." I confessed.

"They are far to the north." He was smiling. I realized he had avoided my question without lying.

"You don't want to tell us who these people are?" I asked.

"We keep them safe by keeping them a secret." He shook his head.

"Are they remnants of the Brotherhood of Steel?" I asked.

"Since you have guessed that..." He frowned. "You are their friends right?"

"We are." I said. We said farewell and headed around the Biggy Salty Lake into the frontier where the BOS rusted to this very day.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Carrie quoted a thought as old as war.

"Old friends make the worst enemies." Charles Rose had his own thought.

Utah: Morning Star
On the northwestern most edge of the Southwest Commonwealth we arrived at a sleepy little village. Outside was an ancient prewar sign that read 'Morningstar Restaurant and Gas'. We saw something else nearby. The Hellion Starfighter had been towed here. A sure sign the BOS had settled in this remote and destitute place.

"Weclome pardners..." A greasy guy in a mechanic's jumpsuit slurred miserably. Behind him a radio was playing 'roundabout yes'.

"We are here looking for the Brotherhood of Steel." I was forward.

Behind me the ex-Enclave, Ghoul maiden and headress wearing Super Mutant chieftain mulled about.

"Check the bar." He gave me a lopsided smile.

"What about that?" I asked. http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/f/f9/BV1_fbos0077.jpg

"Doesn't work. Getting stripped piece by piece. Y'all are lookin' at it's good side." He drawled.

"I see. Well thank you." I twirled my claw under my sleeve fishing for his name.

"Name's Petey." He gave me the same boyish lopsided grin.

"I am Goris. We'll see you later." I offered. He went back to work and we headed for the bar in Morning Star.

We walked into the bar and found six or seven Brotherhood sitting around in rusted Power Armor, beards and hangovers.

"We are looking for the Brotherhood Of Steel." I announced. They looked up lazily.

"You selling girl-scout cookies?" One asked. They all seemed pathetically drunk. Hopeless. One sat up just enough to use some Jet. Others had become addicted to Voodoo.

"Got milk?" One of the Voodoo abusing Brotherhood snickered. The other two Voodoo addicts thought that was funny also. They made complimentary moo moo noises.

"This is disgusting." Carrie spat a glob of slime to accent her feelings.

"Almost as bad as Blackjack." Cobalt agreed.

"And lo' the enemy of evil laid low, becoming what they sacrificed so much to defeat." Charles Rose stood with his weapon cradled in his Enclave power armor arms leaning on a wall with one leg curled under him. He wore a very dissapointed frown. Even he had managed to find the opportunity to remain partially shaved.

"What can I serve you all?" The fat butcher looking bartender/drug dealer offered us.

"Just tell me these aren't the men we came all this way to find." I requested.

"I ain't much good with lies and stories stranger...but I will do my best." He leaned forward and I could smell the nightmares of long-time Voodoo addiction on his breath. "These ain't those men."

"Your right. Your skills with deception are lacking." I groaned. He shrugged and went back to wiping glasses on his filthy apron.

"We done here?" Carrie asked.

"Indeed bad." Coffee shared our opinion. Carrie took her shoulder sitting raven outside with her. She had tolerated as much of the scene as she could.

Soon the rest of us followed her outside.

"Now what?" Charles Rose asked me.

"Now we go back to thinking the BOS are all dead. We are on our own in this war." I wasted no time leading my friends back out of Morning Star the way we came. Behind us the jack-in-the-box mad cackling of the ghosts of the Brotherhood bid us farewell.

Dark Mother: Burning Springs
A large section of the tracks had been destroyed by flash floods. Our journey around this area led us to thick pillars of black smoke. We approached these in a kind of fool's curiousity.

"What is this place?" Charles Rose looked around at the crevices full of whirling ash. Beneath the ground fires burned like a hell scape.

"It smells like sulfur and coal." I noticed. We had soon seen enough and were heading back out.

"HELP" A man was calling to us through the veil of curling smoke sputtering from the ground.

We could see that he was a farmer in appearance and had a young woman with him who was panicked and crying.

"We have to help them." Charles Rose went to try and save them. Nearby were several dead Blackfoot warriors.

"What happen to them?" Cobalt went and poked around at the corpses. I saw that they were burnt and mangled. Then I spotted what I had overlooked as a pile of boiling tar. It stood and began to shuffle toward us.

"In the name of Xarn?" I stared in disbelief. The creature had a vaguely humanoid shape but this was hard to determine because flames constantly danced across the surface of its filth covered body. Then to my horror I could see more and more of them. We were surrounded.

"You monsters. These are worse!" Fender Hawk was not far from the slain Blackfoot warriors. He and another Blackfoot were standing back to back as the creatures approached.

"What are they?" Carrie had here weapon ready.

"Gehenna" Fender Hawk said. Then the Gehenna were all over us. I had removed my robes and sliced into the nearest. It's foul breath and flickering ignitions scalded me and made me gasp for air. It's flesh was like tar and soon my claws were trailing it's ichor. It swung at me smacking me around.

"They don't die easy." Cobalt was fighting two. Sicarius was drenched in their thick syrupy ooze.

"I would aim for their head..." Carrie was shooting.

"Where? What head?" Charles Rose was shooting too.

"Help us!" The man called to us for our help again. We had been about to try but now we were fighting for our own lives.

"It is a bad place to die!" I saw Fender Hawk and the other Blackfoot battling their own Gehenna.

"No!" The second Blackfoot gagged on the thick deadly breath of the Gehenna he was fighting. He collapsed dead.

"We are doomed." Fended Hawk announced. Cobalt and I were not so easy to defeat. One by one we slew the Gehenna and as they died they became smoldering puddles that emitted more toxic clouds.

We were helped by Carrie and Charles Rose with their laser weapons and soon were leading Fender Hawk and the Farmer and his daughter to safety.

Suddenly the ground before us erupted in a geyser of hot earth and flames. A Gehenna of monstrous size with a long serpentine neck and fang filled mouth climbed out. It made evil hissing and growling noises and spit some kind of corrosive onto the girl as she ran from it. Within seconds she died steaming and melting.

"My daughter!" The Farmer tried to run toward her but Fender Hawk stopped him.

Carrie and Charles Rose emptied their weapons into the beast.

"The Molech!" Fender Hawk spoke its name like a curse. "Thou shalt not feed thy children to the Molech." He qouted some ancient parable. I wondered if the sight of the mythical moster had shattered his sanity. "And lo the Molech came and brought the fires of hell upon its crown."

I lept onto it slicing with my claws of death but it plucked me from its bulk in its gripping mouth and smashed me against the ground knocking the wind from me.

"I will kill this devil." Cobalt hefted Sicarius and threw it with all of his godling strength impaling the Molech. It fell backwards and he leapt onto it and pulled his super spear free. As its head snaked around to fight back he swung his weapon and severed it. The Molech was dead.

I climbed back to my feet and stared for a moment. In the haze of the Burning Springs more Molechs were coming for us.

"We need to go." I stated. The others saw and agreed. We quickly made our way out but were soon surrounded again by a new enemy.

Several dozen tribal warriors in bone armor and carrying bone spears and knives were gathered.

"This is where they have gone. And now we have new blood to share with the Children of the Gods." Their leader spoke to them.

Cobalt would not surrender Sicarius. He would rather fight to the death. They fired a dart into the Super Mutant. It's poison was sufficient to knock him unconscious.

We had been captured...

Dark Mother: Vipers

As the prisoners of the Vipers we were led to their home. They kept us with others they had captured in a holding pen outside the rest to the village. I looked around seeing many had subscribed to their fates.

"Just hurry up and kill us already!" The Farmer was eager to die.

I walked over to Fender Hawk and asked the Blackfoot what he knew about these tribal cultists.

"I told you once they worship the Dark Mother Hecate. Her twisted braids are the roots of these lands." Fender Hawk sulked.

"How are we gonna get out of this?" Charles Rose asked me.

"I am not sure yet. We might have to fight our way out. It's a good thing they don't know I am a Deathclaw."

"Where is Sicarius?" Cobalt awoke and sat up. His feathery headress was all dirty.

"Go find the big spear." Carrie sent Coffee flying out of our holding pen. Coffee flew around the village. We waited.

"Hail big spear good indeed." Coffee confirmed it was visible from the air. That meant it shouldn't be too hard to find. Cobalt looked a little relieved.

"I must get my spear back." He said with determination.

"They will come for sacrificial victims at midnight. To feed to their Children of the Serpent. They are large Pit Vipers in a pit." Fender Hawk told us.

"That is when we will have to make our move." I assessed.

"Agreed." Carrie nodded.

Charles Rose and Cobalt also nodded but said nothing. We waited.

Dark Mother: Ouroborus
Our cages seemed to have their iron bars fastened deep into the rocks.

"Oh holy ones of the Awakening...send us your blessing so that we may see the Great Serpent in our dreams!" The high priest's voice carried over the silently shifting sands. There was much more to this ceremony that he spoke loudly. Beneath him the large Pit Vipers in the pit were hissing and making exotic rattling noises.

The prisoners shifted away from the approaching ritual warriors the Crimson Tongues. They opened the cages one at a time and selected healthy and alert sacrificial victims. When they reached our cage we were ready.

Charles Rose and Carrie followed as Cobalt and I plowed the closest tribal warriors aside. I dug my claws in and fear shimmered in the eyes of the others as they tried to surround us.

"You won't stick me again with your sleep poison." Cobalt swatted a bone dagger dipped in venom out of a Crimson Tongue's hand.

I could hear our commotion attracting more of the Vipers. Some were Crimson Tongue attending the ritual on the platform preparing to recieve victims. Even the warrior priests were arming themselves.

"Cobalt come back!" Carrie shouted as the Super Mutant armed himself with two bone spears and fought his way into the village of Ouroborus.

"I go get Sicarius." He grunted as he killed or knocked aside one opponent after the next.

I followed him dealing death in his wake, careful to avoid the poisonous weapons. We reached the Hall of Ascension where bone furnishings surrounded a throne with Giant Snake skeletons curled over it on either side. Here was a pile of treasures and trophies with Cobalt's super spear on top.

"Beasts, you are trapped." The high priest stood with his Viper warriors behind him keeping us pinned in the Ascension Hall. Their eyes were glazed with fear of two mighty enemies but they stood their ground never-the-less.

"Let us go." I snarled.

"I am Asp son of Faust and I don't bargain with prey." The high priest snorted defiantly.

"Then bargain with Sicarius!" Cobalt bellowed as he charged them. His feathery headress trailed behind his head like a mane and his footfalls made the Ascension Hall tremble. He met them with a loud crash driving them back. He was stabbed several times but remarkably none of the spears had been treated like those of the hunters and Crimson Tongue.

I entered the fray hoping for the same luck. Soon I was knee deep in carnage. We battled our way to the village square before our enemies suddenly scattered.

I looked up to where they were all staring.

An angry goddess glared down upon us from a rooftop.

Her hair flailed around her head wildly like a nest of infuriated snakes. Her eyes reflected moonlight like twin orbs of predation. Her scowl held the vice of a thousand unspoken anathema.

Hecate...

Dark Mother: Penance
"I see the mark of passage in your auras." She spoke after staring at the both of us for a long time.

"What do you mean?" I growled. Both myself and Cobalt were still ready for battle.

"You have been allowed to travel out of the lands of Diana. Therefore it is too her kingdom I shall banish thee." She ordained.

It made no sense to me that she would arrive and interrupt only to spare our lives. Unless her relationship with Diana was more important that the lives of slain Viper warriors.

"How shall we know your banishment?" I asked with doubt in my tone.

"You shall know death within a cycle of the moon if you have not arrived in her lands by then." Hecate promised us. She aimed a finger at each of us and I felt the slightest pain like a needle entering my flesh.

"She has diseased us." I told Cobalt.

"What foul goddess uses such dark tricks?" He sighed a post battle yawn.

"Go now and arrive not one day late or I have claimed your souls in all fairness." Hecate spoke again and then she was hidden by moonshadows.

We were led out of Ouroborus where we met those who had escaped. The Vipers let them leave with us. But with no supplies a month crossing the desert would be the death of many of them. I donned my robes.

"You are all free to leave, apparently. Our fate need not be shared by you. We will surely die." I said plainly and most of the escaped prisoners fled into the night.

"I welcome death." The Farmer stayed.

"And I am coming with you. I owe you a debt for saving me twice now from terrible fates and for sparing me one at your hands." Fender Hawk the Blackfoot had collected a bone spear. He saluted us.

"Well then..." Charles Rose took his hands off of his Power Armor flanks and clapped them once. "I guess we are off yet again."

Keep going goris, my only criticism so far is that at some point I run out of chapters to read. Any chance you could stay chained to the pc and eternally write?

New Mexico: Reservation
The detours to water holes we had found in Colorado on our previous trip slowed our progress through the Rockies.

Our arrival in Twin Mothers was the night before our disease would have killed us. Both the Super Mutant and myself were resistant to disease but had become weak and haggard by the time we got there.

"Looking more attractive every day..." Carrie, our Ghoul Maiden told us.

"Who me?" Cobalt coughed.

"Both you boys." She sounded concerned.

"Thanks." I groaned.

We had made camp and sat around a fire with Charles Rose, Fender Hawk and the suicidal Farmer. The last none of us had learned the name of and had gotten worse over time rather that better. We all just called him Farmer.

"You have returned like the prodigal saints of the wasteland." Diana's voice greeted us. The crickets fell silent in the grass.

"We were sent back by Hecate." I wheezed.

"She has put a poison in you. Let me extract that." Diana appeared like a glowing ghost blending with the surrounding terrain. She floated towards us and within moments the curse was lifted.

"Oh thank the goddess..." I nearly collapsed as midnight approached and the same moon was rising.

"Your welcome. But there is a message in this." She paused. "Priestesses of the Twisted Braid are being held captive south of here. In the Ghoul Slaver fort of Reservation."

"And?" I sat up. Charles Rose handed me some water and I clutched it delicately in the tips of my claws and drank.

"You must return the favor I have shown thee and go rescue them. They need only be freed and they will find their own way home." Diana informed us. She put no conditions on this or made us swear. She simply disappeared.

"We go save priesty girls?" Cobalt fished Sicarius from behind him and started polishing and calibrating the super spear by firelight.

"Sounds like a plan. The Ghouls of Reservation also deal with Caesar's Legion and local settlements. Including supplies going to an Enclave garrison." Charles Rose assisted us in making our plan.

We sat around discussing the plan to disrupt supplies coming from the Reservation to the garrison and how we might accomplish that without any help from the BOS or any other psuedo allies. Dawn found us all getting good rest but by noon we had embarked.

After a southward journey that took several days we reached the Reservation. It was a walled outpost and town where traders camped including Caesar's Legion slavers. We went in.

"Who are you guys and what is your business here?" A large mean looking ghoul in metal armor asked us.

"We are here to inspect the slave pens. Interested in buying religious slaves." Carrie used her weird eye to freak him out a little which is quite a feat against a ghoul.

"Hail Coffee, good bird." Coffee added from her shoulder.

The Ghoul Slaver led us into and through Reservation. Everywhere ghouls were busy with machinery or slaves. Some stood counting crates or barrels while holding clip boards. These ghouls were very industrious.

"These girls are Priestesses of the Dark Mother." He informed us while showing off five girls in black dresses.

"How were they captured?" Carrie asked, keeping him talking.

"They were caught by Caesar's Legion travelling with a light escort." He chuckled. It sounded like a vacuum tube trying to snorkel a wet sponge.

"How much?" Carrie asked.

"Eighty five hundred." He stated.

"Eighty." Carrie argued.

"Eighty Four..." He shook his head.

"Eighty...uh...two?" Carrie tried.

"No time for this." Cobalt suddenly had Sicarius in his hands and beheaded the Ghoul Slaver without warning. Greenish gore gushed forth like a faucet while the corpse stood there still gesturing for bartering. The head hit the dirt with a thump.

"Get them out of there." I looked around but in the secluded area of the Reservation we hadn't been noticed yet.

Carrie took the key off of his belt and unlocked the cage.

"Quietly girls. We are setting you free." Carrie told them. They shuffled out and we led them toward the gate.

Suddenly an airhorn alarm sounded.

"Run!" She urged the escapees.

We were all running toward the gate and ghouls were closing in on us from all side.

"Don't tag the girls!" One was ordering. Then bullets from smgs and assault rifles started geysering dirt up all around our feet. Farmer was hit and went down dramatically in a hail of bullets.

"AaaaaH I have been hit! I am dying!" Farmer shouted with enthusiasm. He danced to the rythm of lead as the ghouls continued shooting him then he fell over. He was dead.

Cobalt stopped two ghouls from closing the wide gates and finished them off with Sicarius. More jumped down from the walls and I had to help him battle them.

"Here!" Carrie picked up an smg and an assault rifle off of two fallen ghouls and tossed the smg to Charles Rose. They covered our retreat spraying bullets wildly at the pursuing ghouls and driving them behind cover. Charles Rose dropped his weapon and followed Fender Hawk and the girls outside. Carrie collected some more ammo quickly and then the rest of us got out of there too.

Outside the camped caravans stood around watching the commotion as we all hauled our feet into the desert but didn't interfere. I looked back and saw the Ghoul Slavers weren't wasting any time sending forth a proper pursuit.

"Hail hide here" Coffee was airborn and had found a ravine nearby that led to a narrow chasm full of rocks and caves.

We disappeared off the horizon and descended the steep sides in an avalanche of dust and tumbling pebbles. The caves seemed uninhabited at first and we hid in silence as the ghouls passed us thinking we had kept running.

"They didn't see our tracks?" Fender Hawk questioned.

"We were on rocks before we ditched them." I pointed out.

We breathed a sigh of relief thinking we were safe. And we were, from the ghouls anyway...

New Mexico: Chupacabra
Suddenly a priestess began shrieking in terror.

We turned and looked spotting a very strange creature which closely resembled a Wannamingo. It was a pale gray in color and approached us menacingly.

"I will destroy this monster!" The Super Mutant in a chieftain's headress, Cobalt, said. He wielded the mighty super spear Sicarius.

"It is an El Chupacabra." Fender Hawk informed us. He held his bone spear ready.

"What a foul thing." Carrie just stared at it, fascinated and almost speechless.

"Hail bad foul indeed." Coffee repeated her with his own vocabulary. The raven did occasionally learn new words.

The Chupacabra leapt at Cobalt like a bat out of hell only to be sliced in half by the deadly pnuematic blade Sicarius.

"I have vanquished it." He turned and spoke to the cowering priestesses.

"Not quite." I pointed out as more Chupacabra followed the first. We soon were fighting them. I was struck by one of their cheese grater like tentacles but retaliated with my claws.

Carrie opened fire with her assault rifle filling the cave with noise and light but having little effect on the tough creatures. One of them caught Fender Hawk by his throat but Cobalt severed the thing's limb freeing our friend.

"These brutes sure are mean!" Charles Rose was throwing rocks trying to keep one away from himself and the girls. I leapt onto it and drove it to the ground with my weight and then opened it spilling its foul smelling insides.

Soon we had defeated them. After dwelling in the cave until dark the priestesses left with us to be escorted back into Diana's territory. I presumed she would provide further protection to get them home from Twin Mothers.

New Mexico: Rail Town
Our journey back into New Mexico took us past the Reservation. This time we avoided them. The plans to sabotage the Garrison's supply line would need to be revised.

We eventually reached the train tracks of such mysterious post war origin. These we followed until they led us to a trainyard full of both cars labelled for NCR as well as the Enclave. The people here worked mostly in a dual foundry, the train yards and all the boomtown shops, taverns and brothels.

As we walked the dust driven high streets of Rail Town we were taken less note of than would be expected.

A towering Super Mutant chieftain in a worn headress. A hermit in threadbare canvas. A ghoul maiden with an assault rifle and shoulder raven. A helmitless Enclave in battered power armor. A Blackfoot warrior with a Viper's bone spear.

"They help Enclave, no?" Cobalt asked Charles Rose.

"They do. But I haven't seen any Enclave here. They must be close though. The frontier requires vigilance." Charles Rose noted all of the Enclave sigils.

"We will be twice as effective striking at a critical component." Carrie muttered.

"Indeed." Coffee agreed with his mistress. The raven's vocabulary, or lack of, always failed to amuse me these days.

"We play it quietly." I urged Cobalt. I could sense his urge for violence against blatant enemies. But these people merely aided the Enclave. They themselves were not the ones we sought.

"Halt." I heard the helmit amplified voice of an Enclave.

We turned and behind us stood three Enclave soldiers armed mostly with ray guns. The one addressing us had a minigun on his back. People were clearing the streets.

"State your business...Wait...who are you?" He demaned of Charles Rose.

"Private First Class Rose." Charles Rose, being derelict would face court marshal.

"A deserter. Your are under arrest." The Enclave Sergeant determined. "And so are you. No Mutants allowed." He spoke his last words.

Without hesitation Cobalt had whipped out his pnuematic super spear Sicarius and thrown it into him blasting chunks of armor out the exit wound.

"Holy (censored) hamsters!" The right one pulled out his ray gun and started shooting even as Carrie was emptying her assault rifle into him.

I disrobed and leapt onto the fallen soldier as he struggled like an inverted turtle to grasp his weapon. I punched into his power armor multiple times until I hit flesh. Moments later I finished him off.

The left Enclave fired rapidly hitting Fender Hawk and Charles Rose. Charles Rose still lived but had been wounded. The brave Blackfoot was not so lucky.

Cobalt's foot fell onto the minigun as the Enclave dropped his empty raygun and tried to lift the weapon. A ham fisted back hand sent him to the ground. Before he could get up Cobalt drove Sicarius into his heart.

"We meet our enemies here." Cobalt grinned.

"Fender Hawk." Charles Rose coughed a little blood. His armor had taken the brunt of the laser blast. Carrie helped him to his feet.

"Dead." She said softly.

"He was the bravest of us." He mourned.

"Verily." I hissed as I redonned my robes.

New Mexico: Garrison
We found and watched to Enclave garrison outside of Rail Town for a couple days. They had sent out two patrols looking for us, ironically. Beside the eight that had left on these hunting parties there were just as many still guarding the small fortification. And an officer.

"We attack." Cobalt determined.

"That could be the death of us. All of us. We would be outnumbered and outgunned." Charles Rose protested. He had chosend sides long ago and since then had earned our trust. He was not Enclave any more.

"If a plan was made...it could change that. Just a good strategy." Carrie was calibrating one of the two Atomic Pistols she had acquired. The pre war laser guns had several adjustments and her preference was different that their dead late owners.

"Hail good Strate Gee. Good Strate Gee." Coffee agreed whole heartedly.

"Like what?" Cobalt muttered. He wanted to just attack now, engage them directly.

"Dealing with the two patrols of four members we watched leave from our hiding place would be a good start." I pointed out.

"We could ambush them on their way back." Charles Rose brightened.

"We attack them then?" Cobalt was eager for battle. I was suprised he still had his Super Spear on his back.

"Let's" Carrie loaded the Atomic Pistols. I glanced at the weapons again, wondering at their unknown alien origins. I had no knowledge of who or when they were created.

We set out and caught both patrols one by one. Then we returned to our place we were sieging the garrison from. We knew that if the patrols didn't return they might call for help. Another plan would be needed. Or just patience...

Nice to see more from you man. I wish I could say the same. Still, keep writing I have something to look forward to at them moment.