POV Rio
After dealing with Kellogg, we started to loot The Switchboard. The loot was thankfully already gathered together for us. I also stored all the Feral Ghouls' corpses and took them outside to be disposed of, as I planned to use this facility for MIMIC. The loot itself was okay, but nothing massive, as the Railroad wasn't a wealthy faction, and furthermore, they had used up much of the facilities' supplies while occupying it. For instance, there was a shipment of over 300 Stealth Boys, but by the time I arrived, only three remained from that shipment.
I did find some Radiation Equipment, some Healing Supplies, Ammo, a couple of Fusion Cores, and some robot parts. I also got another copy of the U.S. Covert Operations Manual. I found a Unique Weapon called the Deliverer, which was a fairly decent pistol that seemed to be based on the Walther PPK or the famous gun of James Bond. The real prize we found was the heaps of technical data on the Predictive Analytics Machine, or P.A.M. for short. While her main programming was put into a mobile Assaultron Body, there were still copies of her original programming left in the servers.
'Hmm, if what I am reading is right, then she is basically a weaker form of the Tactical Droid seen in Star Wars. I can improve it with some effort, which might be worth it.'
The comparison to a base model Tectical Droid seemed even more accurate as P.A.M. struggled and was even somewhat incapable of predicting the human element. Or rather, the fact that humans and sentient beings can act illogically. This is also why P.A.M. wasn't able to predict the attack by the Institute. There were just too many errors in how she calculated things.
After dealing with the P.A.M. data, I set up some turrets, and we decided to use this as our camp for the next little bit. We had to loot and scavenge Lexington, which might take a while.
The first stop in Lexington was to ensure that all the enemies had been cleared out. Thankfully, there were only a few stragglers. A few Raiders hiding on the freeway, a couple Feral Ghouls trapped in locked rooms, and a single Super Mutant living in the town Pharmacy. The Raiders were easy to deal with; they weren't really trying to hide. So a few shots from my rifle were enough to kill them. The Ferals were also easy to deal with. You open the door, shoot them with a shotgun, close the door, and repeat until done. As for the Super Mutant, I left them alone for the time being as they seemed to be in their own little world.
As for the loot, we got a good supply of food and Caps from all over Lexington. Plenty from the Raiders, but some just from random caches of Caps. The food came mainly from the Super Duper Mart and the Corvega Assembly Plant. I was expecting to find a lot of Chems, but it seemed like Jared and his gang had sold most of their supply to the Raider army. Or at least that was my guess, as they had around 30k Caps stored at their base. We also found a lot of Stimpaks, Rad-X, Radaway, and even some Medical Equipment. It seemed like Jared planned on upgrading his operations to be more macabre in nature. Thankfully, we stopped him before he could start that up.
As for the more unique loot, there was some. The first thing was the Repair Bobblehead, which made Fusion cores permanently last 10% longer and gave me 15 more skill Points to distribute. It read, To repair is to honor what once was, and guide it gently into what it can be.
'A nice quote, but I still find it odd that I am getting 15 Skill Points now that my Intelligence has reached 16. It must be a set score regardless of my Intelligence stat.'
The next noteworthy items were the Perk Magazines. They were as follows: Grognak the Barbarian, Issue #4, In the Bosom of the Corsair Queen, which increased my Critical Hits with unarmed and melee attacks by 5% damage. Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor, Issue #3, The Art of Haggling, and Tales of a Junktown Jerky Vendor Issue #5, Take Your Business on the Road, both increased my buying and selling ability. I also got a unique weapon called The Best Medicine, which was a Rolling Pin that healed people instead of damaging them. How it worked truly baffled me. The best guess I had was some sort of curse. It was very faintly magical, but it was so faint that I had to concentrate to even see it.
After the unique and noteworthy loot, the rest were more generic materials. But I wasn't about to let those go to waste. I pulled out the C.A.M.P. that I had been working on repairing for a while and started testing it. But before that, I decided it was time to check the rewards for completing the quest of surviving the ambush.
[It's A Trap
Rewards:
1500 Experience
1 Zetan Computer
1 Low Threat Summon ]
The rewards were odd. The first reward was the usual, just some experience. Welcome, but normal. The second was strange, as I already had a Zetan Computer. In fact, I had several. But when I took it out, it quickly became clear why this computer was different. The first thing I noticed was how more advanced it was. The second thing I noticed was that it wasn't empty. It was full of data. From skimming it, I could see that it was full of... History, I think. I wasn't perfect when it came to the Zetan language, but I was fairly sure it was Historical and Cultural texts.
'I will need to spend some time to sort through all this info.'
After the computer came the strangest item. The item description was suspect at best.
Low Threat Summon
Low Threat Summon™ grants the user the chance to gain a random low-threat summon. The summon will not be guaranteed to be loyal or in good health. It will at least come alive. Low Threat is calculated on the user's base power without using abilities or powers. The user's Luck Stat can have some influence on what the summoned being is. Mal0's Specialty Systems assumes zero responsibility for the loss or gain of life, limb, sanity, inventory slots, save data, moral alignment, or property. By reading this, you have agreed to the terms of service. And remember, in the wise words of God Howard, It Just Works.
'Yeah, I have no confidence that this thing would do anything good.'
I decide to let the summon ticket stay in my inventory until I am in an area where I can ensure that if anything goes wrong, I won't lose too much. I also needed to make sure I had the medical supplies present to deal with any issues they may have.
A Few Days Later...
'Hmm, well, I guess it's good enough.'
I had used the C.A.M.P. for the last few days and found many bugs and issues with it. But it did allow me to do what I wanted. I scrapped the entire city of Lexington. Or at least anything that couldn't be salvaged. There were actually quite a few buildings still in great condition. The most likely reason was that the Feral Ghouls had warded off most attempts to control this area, which meant few people to damage or fight over the ruins. The scrapped buildings were then used to repair the still-in-good-condition buildings. This allowed us to make a small city with some pristine apartment buildings. The only thing it needed now was to make a Workshop.
But that was the really hard part. From what I could tell, I couldn't make System Recognized Workshops. I could store them. I could move them. But I couldn't make them. Or rather, I could make them right. I could perfectly replicate the Workshops, but they would function like the non-system variety, only helping make items and being used to build all sorts of normal, destroyable things. But I had a plan for how I would do that. I had been looking through the Perk List recently to see if I had missed something, and I noticed a perk I wanted that could allow me to create System-Recognized Workshops. The only issue, it requires level 90 to get, and I was just now level 85.
Speaking of level 85, I chose another perk and maxed it out.
Endless Winter
You use the powers of the embodiment of hatred, division, and cold.
Rank 1 (Level 56): Enemies affected by fear, debuffs, or morale loss take +30% cold damage and slow down by 40%.
Rank 2 (Level 69): Your frost spells now do +50% damage. You and your allies are immune to Cold, Frost, and Necrotic Damage.
Rank 3 (Level 78): You can restore HP, AP, and MP by feeding off negative emotions around you.
Rank 4 (Level 85): Once per day, activate Glacial Cataclysm: summon the full might of a Windigo Winter. A blizzard rages, and enemies inside are frozen and take cold damage over time. Allies inside gain +50% movement speed and regenerate health rapidly.
I chose Endless Winter for a few reasons. For one, I intended to explore that frozen world on the other side of the mirror and figured that cold immunity was a good investment. The first rank's effects were fine. They were a permanent passive effect that would make battles easier. The second effect would be useful in general. The Cold/Frost Magic increase was good if a bit niche. Cold/Frost Magic was okay. I wasn't particularly invested in it, but I wouldn't mind the boost. And as stated before, any immunity is a good immunity. Rank three was pretty good to have for passive recovery. Most battles include a lot of negative emotions, and as far as I could tell, it doesn't cause any side effects by eating them. The last rank was pretty powerful as the effect would effectively hide me and my allies while it was in effect. I tested the effect near Lexington, and the area of effect was very large. I calculated it to be nearly 10 miles in radius.
I did find a slight weak point of it. It seemed to only count enemies that are classified as in combat with me. But all things considered, that was an acceptable drawback. I wouldn't want this ability to affect those not directly involved beyond what it is already doing. I mean, it reduces visibility to only a few feet within 10 miles. The time it lasts for is also somewhat variable since, from using it, I know generally how it works. From what I can tell, the blizzard is fueled by negative emotions. It lasts for a base time of 60 seconds, but based on the negative emotions in the area, the effect can last longer. But it also seems like the cost for maintaining it increases exponentially. I also learned that it causes some brutal effects on those killed by the storm. They turned into frozen ice statues. Those statues would then produce more negative emotions, feeding the blizzard.
'I hope this snow melts fast. I guess I don't have to worry about causing car crashes as there are none.'
While I was working on Lexington, everyone else had gone to Sanctuary to help out and drop off the Power Armor in the Armory. When they came back, they told me a story about a new Private in the Minutemen named Kowalski. He was a newly freed slave, and he was protecting the Memorial they made for the people who died in the defense of Sanctuary. Apparently, Cait got drunk. Again. And she ended up puking on the memorial. Which caused the Private it get quite upset.
POV Cait
"What the f*ck are you doing!? My brother died at the Battle of Sanctuary. You're desecrating a war memorial!" the random man says angrily.
"Piss off! Can't you... see... I'm... Busy," I reply with slurred speech.
"Just get the f*ck away from here, already!" he yells at me, and before I can respond, I feel someone grabbing me.
"Lemme gooo, I can whoop his @ss!" I said before getting queasy again and puking.
"Not on my shoes! Not on my shoes!" I hear who I think is Piper say before the person lets me go.
"Oof, that was a big one," I say while wiping my mouth.
"Oh, that's nasty," says some other man.
I am a bit drunk, but I see Piper wiping her shoes on the ground and approaching her.
"Hey~ Piper, what's goin' on? Oh~ Shoot, did... did... someone p-puke on your shoes? W-Who wassit? I'll...I'll mess them up," I say while swaying.
"It was you, you jerk!" Piper yells.
"Oh~ was that me~ My bad. Oh... I know how to fix it... Hows... Howss about us make it a threesome?" I ask.
"Never going to happen, Cait," Piper responds.
"Sigh. So this is where you two ran off to. I think you have had enough for the night. Preston has already had a few complaints about you two causing a mess and desecrating a war memorial," Nick says.
"Heya Nick~ Howss Howss it hangin'?" I ask before falling over on my face and passing out.
"Sigh. I swear I would have been happier staying with Rio in Lexington," Nick says with an exhausted sigh.
POV Rio
From what they told me, it was quite the night, and Cait woke up at some point in the night and wandered off while still drunk off her face. And somehow she ended up in the driver's seat of an old Atomic V-8. That wouldn't be that crazy, but it was where the car was. She was in a tree nearly 20 feet off the ground. How she even got up there was a mystery even Nick couldn't solve, as the car was long since broken and showed no signs of working. Which means Cait would have somehow climbed a tree while drunk, and then unlocked the car door as it was locked, and then crawled into the driver's seat, and then passed out again.
'I am almost impressed by that level of skill while drunk. But I think this is getting a bit out of hand. I have noticed she's been drinking a lot more lately, and she seems off. I need to talk with her. This has gone on long enough.'
-----------------
Author's Note:
The Low Threat Summon is a one-time thing. I have no interest in adding any more summons. The summon was chosen as I had issues thinking of a suitable reward. The summon won't appear for quite a while. Until next time, Ciao.