POV Rio
The cleanup of all the corpses took nearly a week. It would have taken longer if I hadn't learned a spell to vastly increase the speed of clean up, and I got help from quite a few people. The spell turned any corpse into 0.1 lbs of Ultra Grade Fertilizer. Now you may wonder what that is. It is a unique fertilizer that can be used in a special recipe. The Ultra Grade Fertilizer can be turned into either a premium Jet that lasts 10 times longer and gives a much better high, or I can turn it into an Explosive Primer. I chose the Explosive Primer as it can be turned into a nuclear artillery shell.
The recipe called for 100 lbs of Steel, Nuclear Material, and Explosive Primer as well as 1 Mini Nuke. It creates a Davy Crockett II Nuclear Shell. It has a range of 10 miles, a payload of 0.5 kilotons, and a lower fallout radius. You would have to be just over 0.6 miles away to avoid any damage. One shell could destroy The Castle, or at least it could if it weren't a settlement. To put it another way, it is around 3333 times more powerful than a Mininuke. And nearly 300 times stronger than the Mark 28 Nukes Liberty Prime uses.
I ended up crafting 32 of these shells. Now I didn't know what I would use them for, but it was a very useful weapon to have. My best idea would be to use them on the Gunners. Or the Enclave if they keep bothering me.
During the cleanup, the Synth caretaker didn't show up. My plan had caused them to wait until things cleared up. I didn't blame them, as I would be a bit cautious if a horde of nearly 30k feral ghouls rampaged throughout most of Boston. Around 60% of the city was cleared out. The western quarter of the city and the region around Bunker Hill weren't touched. I knew the area wouldn't stay cleared out for long, but it would at least give us a chance to expand the Mintutemens' territory. The Railroad's HQ and that area were also not messed with. That included Pickman's Gallery, but I would deal with that later. I also didn't get into Vault 114, but Park Street Station was cleared out.
But most importantly, it meant I could loot the crap out of Boston. I got enough ammo and armor that I would never have to worry about them. The same could be said about weapons, as almost everything that was consumed by the horde had a weapon of some kind. There was so much loot that I had to make over a hundred trips to transport the gear to the Castle. And that was with the AHO helping. I got 6 sets of Power Armor, 2 sets of T-51, 1 set of T-60, and 3 sets of X-01. I would have gotten 4 sets of X-01, but the Gunner leader scuttled his set instead of letting it be captured.
Most of the Power Armor came from military convoys or storage sites. The T-60 set was interesting as it was being used by a man called Vaultie, who had a full upgraded set of T-60 Power Armor with the Vault-Tec paint and even a Vault Boy headlamp. The man was very clearly crazy, but despite that, he still took down almost a thousand ferals before he fell. Both of the T-51 sets were interesting, as both were of rarely seen varieties. One was a fully upgraded military set with a Jet Pack. It was found in a crashed APC. The other set was a Winterized Set that was found in a display case in a government building. The reason why they hadn't been looted yet was unknown to me, but I wasn't going to complain.
For unique or special loot, I got the following: Total Hack #2 Spotlights, Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor #1, 2, and 6, Tesla Science #2 and 7, Guns and Bullets #7, Unstoppables #2 and 7, Live & Love #1, Grognak the Barbarian #2, and Astoundingly Awesome Tales #2 and 4.
Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor improved prices when buying and selling for me. Tesla Science increased Critical Damage with energy weapons by 10% total. Guns and Bullets and Grognak the Barbarian did the same, but for ballistic weapons and melee weapons, respectively. Unstoppables gave me an additional 2% chance to avoid all damage. Live & Love #1 gave companions permanent +10 health. Astoundingly Awesome Tales #2 increased damage to Super Mutants by 5%. Astoundingly Awesome Tales #4 increased damage with Zetan weapons by 5%.
I hadn't gotten any additional Bobbleheads as they were all in places that had some survivors, and I didn't feel like dealing with them right now. I would deal with them once I was done looting things, but that would likely be another couple of weeks, as I intend on taking off some time for Christmas.
I got some unique weapons and armor as well. I got the Silver Shroud and Grognak costumes as well as the accompanying weapons from Hubris Comics. I got the mascot helmet and varsity jackets from D.B. Technical High School. I got HalluciGen Gas Grenades and several technical schematics from HalluciGen. I ended up looting over 40k caps from throughout Boston. There were also several banks throughout Boston that I was able to loot. Through my numerous heists, I was able to gather several million pre-war US dollars. Now that didn't actually mean as much as you would think, as inflation was brutal before the war, so in the end, the system identified the cash as around 13k stacks of pre-war money. It was still an immense amount of money if I could convert it into caps, but that would take a very long time.
I also looted a lot of legendary weapons and armor. The standouts were as follows: An STG 45 named The Iron Cross that did 25% more damage and limb damage while having zero recoil, A PPSh 41 called Russian Winter that did cryo damage, a Remington 870 shotgun called Police Brutality that shot dragon breath shells and did even more fire damage on top of that, a MP40 called Fuhrious that did 15% more damage for each consecutive hit on the same target, a Resolute Mosin Nagant that slowed time when chambering the last round, a Kneecapper Cowboy Repeater (20% chance to cripple a leg), a SG 550-2 that had an unlimited clip size, a FAMAS called Viper that shot venom soaked bullets, an Instigating MG36E, a Steryr AUG A1 that causes bleed damage, an 10MM SMG called Sleepytime that shot and reloaded faster while being very silent, a Desert Eagle called the Kneecapper that did what you would expect, a uniquely engraved 9mm Psitol called Mare that did more damage at night but less during the day and also shot venom soaked bullets, a Hunting Revolver called Big Iron and its sister pistol Texas Red that both shot and reloaded faster, and last and my favourite find a M1921-A1 called the Rattle Em Boys which had a small phrase engraved into the barrel that read "Property of Bones Malone".
Most of the guns with unique names were held by interesting people the horde fought during Operation Silent Hill. For instance, The Iron Cross was used by a gang of Neo Nazis which is also where I got the Führious and Russian Winter. Big Iron and Texas Red were being used by a Raider Cowboy who had a 500 Cap bounty on their head and was also in possession of the Kneecapper Cowboy Repeater.
Sleepytime was found by accident, as it was on the body of someone who was completely invisible. MacCready and Cait were shocked beyond belief when I dispelled the invisibility, as apparently the person was a known myth. They were called Ghost or The Phantom. The reason they were invisible was that they had a full set of Chameleon Combat Armor, which made them invisible if you were not moving and further made them harder to detect. No one had seen them, but many people reported strange happenings. The reason they died was radiation poisoning as they stood still while the horde passed them, as they couldn't risk moving. Glowing Ones must have cooked him from the inside out.
Viper was wielded by the Raider with the same name. They led a gang called the Vipers, which, from what I could tell, had no relation to the Vipers from the West Coast. Mare was found in Trinity Chruch. Police Brutality was stored at the South Boston Police Department. It did have a little story with it, as I found it with a feral ghoul in a tattered police uniform that was stuck in a jail cell. The cop was a famous vigilante after the bombs that kept the peace, but started to go feral and locked himself up, and then turned on the automated security to prevent anyone from getting his shotgun or endangering themselves.
The Rattle Em Boys were found with 3 skeletons wearing fancy suits in the Old Granary Burying Ground. I only noticed the gun because the skeletons had residual magic on them. From what I could tell, it was either a curse or some kind of necromancy. The curse or spell was lifted when I took the gun. The Kneecapper was found on the remains of a Triggerman. The rest of the weapons were looted from legendary enemy corpses.
Speaking of unique or interesting enemies, I ended up meeting a few. One that was the most annoying was a man named The Anti-Ghoul. He was called that because he was immune to all damage done by ghouls and ghoul-related beings. I kid you not, the guy just stood there and screamed, "You can't hurt me, Jack!". Now I have no idea who he was talking to, but it didn't change the fact that the guy was immune to damage from ferals. And he was inside, so MacCready couldn't kill him. Meanwhile, The Anti-Ghoul was cutting up ferals with an old revolutionary sword. So I had to use a magic spell to kill him with a runic explosion.
After The Anti-Ghoul, I led the horde into a gang of Raiders led by two brothers, Apocalypse and Devastator. The Raiders under them were not much of an issue, but Apocalypse and Devastator were very impressive. Devastator was a menace in close combat as he would reflect around half the damage back on his attackers. Apocalypse, on the other hand, got stronger and faster the more injured he became. Apocalypse got so fast near his death that I had to narrow my vision to focus on him to track his movements. Devastator was the first to go down, which seemed to cause Apocalypse to get another power-up. He started to drain his mana rapidly, and his speed accelerated to a point where I could say with certainty that I couldn't physically keep up with him if we fought. The gang of Raiders killed over 500 ferals before Apocalypse finally died. I learned why Apocalypse was so fast. His armor gave him the power to accelerate his local time, making him appear like he is going very fast. That, and his brain was melted from a concoction of chems. And that was literal, his brain was just a soup when I got to his corpse.
The next gang was the Viper Gang, which was not nearly as hard to deal with. Their leader did have a unique choice for armor. She was wearing a T-51 Power Armor helmet and an armored vault suit. But while the ferals were wiping them out, I was attacked by an assassin called Mantis. The Nurse ferals cut her to pieces before she could actually harm me, but still, it was interesting to see someone try and attack the leader of the horde. Now, the really odd thing was that the Nurses just appeared near Mantis and started to attack her. But I could have sworn they were near me mere moments earlier. I also didn't know how the Nurses "saw" anything, but I could feel them staring at me. It was one of the many reasons I never want to do this again.
The end result of Operation Silent Hill was enough resources to operate with for a long time and the clearance of the majority of Boston of hostiles. Now it is possible, if not likely, that more Raiders and other groups will start to move into the cleared areas, but that would take time, which could give the Minutemen time to breathe, as the Castle had been under near daily attacks by various groups. Which was another reason I made it seem like the Enclave was responsible for this.
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Authors Note:
I didn't go too in-depth about the minute-to-minute operation, but I figured I would add these little highlights. If you are wondering why Rio didn't get more Caps or resources, it's because a lot of the gangs that were wiped out weren't that rich, and there weren't that many of them. Boston had a lot of different groups, and many of them wouldn't keep Caps as they are useless to them. Think Ferals, Deathclaws, Super Mutants, etc. That and most Raiders aren't going to hoard Caps and would spend a lot of them on chems, ammo, healing supplies, guns, explosives, etc. In terms of loot, Rio definitely got way more than 40k Caps. But turning the loot into Caps is not an instant thing. Most of it would be put into the Workshop storage of the Castle and perhaps Sanctuary and Vault 111. Until next time, Ciao.