Dear Pip-Boy,
Oh. Shit.
I'm maybe ten minutes in to my new role as the Goodspring's deputy badass (which I am hoping will require doing nothing out of the ordinary) and some psycho is threatening to destroy the town.
That's the sort of thing people tend to demand immediate action about. Fortunately, it seems the women of this town don't scare easy.
Despite the argument she just had, I can't help but ask about the robot first. I'm just kinda interested in robots. She doesn't really have anything to base her suspicions on, though. She just finds it "creepy".
She has more to say on the whole argument situation. Despite her tough demeanour, she shares my reticence to get into a fight. The skinny seems to be that the NCR considered this part of the world "the middle of nowhere" and shipped its undesirables here, then tried to get them to do hard labor without adequate supervision. And now it's our problem.
The people of Goodsprings, for obvious reasons, aren't fond of the Powder Gangers and seem keen to give them the impression this town isn't one to mess with. The hint seems to be, of course, that I should do it. I don't really wanna, though. Still, clearly I need to weigh up my options. It's pretty clear this is a part of the world where I ain't gonna get very far without the support of the locals.
Speaking of which, an opportunity sprang up when I tried to find out more about where those assholes who stole my delivery package went. I may not be much in a fight, but I sure know a thing or two about fixing things. Piece of cake! I get more caps for five minutes worth of fixing the radio than I normally get for a weeks worth of delivery jobs.
Hopefully that loosens her tounge a bit with regards to my attackers. She says that they're fixing to head over to the strip. That just sounds a little too convenient. I've always been wanting an excuse to visit the strip, but if the Mojave Express gets wind that I've gone gallavanting there based on hearsay, I won't get any more delivery jobs again ever. I was warned when given this assignment not to go into the strip without a damn good reason. Then again, I was warned never to lose a package and I've already gone and done that.
Still, as things are now, I haven't a hope in hell of making it very far. I'm still short on caps and equipment and barely on my feet after a serious injury. So for now, I guess I'm stuck here in this role of sorta deputy sherrif (for which I am dangerously underqualified). May as well go to the old gas station and talk to this Ringo fella. If anything, he'll probably be able to appreciate the situation of being stuck in this middle of nowhere town, way over his head, far better than anyone else here.
I do not get the friendliest of receptions. Fortunately, he's just on edge rather than irrationally paranoid. Seems to be fond of a card game I've never heard of before. My attempts to make head or tail of the rules are fruitless. Whatever the Doc's vigor tester alleges about my intellect, I don't have the sort of free time required to learn the elaborate rules of this game.
They guy must be exhausted, because as soon as I've assured him I'm not there to get my murder on, he immediately crawls off to bed. Admittedly, I've only just got up a few hours ago, so I'm on an unusual sleep schedule compared to most people. This said, I learned a while back that travelling in the dark was a wise tactic as a courier if you found the local wildlife a lesser danger than humans. I figure for now it's best to let him rest, however uneasily.
I go back to the Saloon to see if I can get Sunny Smiles take on the situation. To my surprise, she doesn't have a lot to say. She actually thinks of herself as a hunter rather than a sheriff. Seems the town doesn't actually have one. I really, really hope I haven't been "volunteered" for the job behind my back, but I have a sneaking suspicion there's a local tradition of foisting the role upon gullible outsiders. In terms of ways I can make myself useful while I recover, Sunny is keen to mention the wealth of hunting opportunities available locally, as well as a safe near the schoolhouse that has been resistant to attempts by the locals to liberate its contents.
I think she can see my eyes light up when she mentions this. My inner magpie becomes anxious at the possibility of secret treasure. At the very least, it might keep me busy until I feel like sleeping.
From the outside, the schoolhouse, for a place the locals consider shrouded in mystery and danger, seems as non-ominous as a building can possibly get. The inside is a different matter. Until, that is, I see the friendly green glow of a computer screen. It feels like an age since I last got to play with one of those! Unfortunately, the place is crawling with giant bugs and I won't get an opportunity to use the computer in peace until I clear it out.
The bugs have a nasty bite. It's not going to kill me, not even worth seeing the doc over, but it stings like crazy. Still, now I have a computer, all to myself! The thought is more than enough to push the pain to the back of my mind. I am totally a pro at this. The key to cracking passwords is to find groups of words with commonly repeating components in the keylogs and then try to figure out what group they are. After that, it's just a matter of narrowing down which one it is.
And with that, the safe is busted. No bobby pins, no dynamite, pure science. That's when it hits me. Sure, I'm not a hard-fightin', leather wearing hardass like Sunny Smiles, but the only way I'm ever going to pull my weight is to use my knowledge to do things that nobody else in Goodsprings knows how to do. Trying to be good at the things they're good at isn't going to work, I have to have faith in my ability to get things done my way.
The safe is an awesome haul. It's full of guns, ammo and even some valuable pre-war tech. I might not be the best shot out there, but now I can have some of the best maintained weapons in town. Still, the whole escapade doesn't take terribly long and it's now the middle of the night and most people who aren't nocturnal gardening enthusiasts are asleep. I guess it's perhaps time I turned in for a good 8 hour's rest.
BAD IDEA. The doc did not warn me about the nightmares. Terrible, terrible nightmares which I don't want to describe, even here. I think I'm going to stick to cat-napping for the forseeable future.
Ringo's awake at least. He seems relatively insightful, figuring out pretty quickly that I'm not much good in a fight but I might have what it takes to rally the town against the powder gangers. Fortunately, convincing Sunny Smiles is a breeze. She seems to have been just looking for an excuse to fight them, but hasn't had any luck convincing the rest of the town. This, it appears, is where I come in. If I can convince the town to work together and make the most effective use of the force multipliers we have available, even a force of hardened criminals won't be a match for us.
Winning Trudy over isn't difficult. I just rehash some stuff I learnt from some old special forces manuals I read once and she thinks I'm a tactical genius. Easy Pete is another matter. I don't really know jack diddly about dynamite and he can spot it a mile off. In the end, I think he has a point. In my hands, that stuff's probably going to cause more harm than good.
Chet is understandably worried about subjecting a significant amount of his capital investments to the less than gentle conditions of a firefight, but I gently remind him that he's going to have a much harder time making money off his investment if he's got nobody around to sell to. OK, so I wasn't being terribly subtle there, but it got the job done. Still, he deserves it for being so pigheaded.
I now have something to wear other than those embarassing blue overalls the Doc gave me. I'd never mention how ridiculous looking they are to his face, but I'm keen to get out of them. Speaking of which, I need to see the doc about supplies. I don't have to tell him much, he's cynical and world-weary enough to have encountered plenty like the powder gangers before. While I'm there, I notice he has a real good knife. While I'm loathe to steal medical supplies, this doesn't seem like a surgical tool and frankly I'd like to have something other than guns to be able to deal with what I'm likely to find out there. Eventually my magpie tendencies get the better of me and I pocket it, hoping he won't miss it too much.
By now, we seem as well prepared as we're ever going to be. So I head out to let Ringo know the town's ready to take on the powder gangers. They run straight into the ambush, but as I try to pick one off, he rushes at me with a baseball bat. I blast him in the chest with a shotgun and he falls over before he gets the chance to hit me good. The rest of the townspeople finish off the powder gangers by the time I'm done dealing with my own problem and all that's left is Joe Cobb, cowering like a wimp. Sunny's dog, Cheyenne, finishes him off. In a way, I'm glad it turned out that way, so no human had to live with killing someone in cold blood like that. I am still alarmed at the way Cobb's eyeballs hang out of the dog's mouth, like they're being saved for dessert.
The townspeople seem uninterested in what the powder gangers had on them. Most people would find that morbid, I imagine. But graverobbing was the family business, so it doesn't bother me, even if the corpses are still warm. Unfortunately, one of those corpses included a Goodsprings local. I guess it could have turned out a lot worse, though.
Still, with the matter of the powder gangers dealt with, my attention once again becomes focused on that mysterious landmark in the distance. Nobody talks about it, yet there it is, plain as day, whenever one looks out East. I can't not go and explore it.
There doesn't seem to be much out there apart from Coyotes, which are fortunately isolated and easy to deal with at a distance. I'd hate to think of what they could do close up, though.
Near the object is a sign warning of something called Deathclaws. I'm not sure what they are, but between the shillouette and the name I'm not particularly inclined to find out. They seem like a creature that regards humans as shishkebab. I turn back towards the object again and get a bad feeling. Oh. Crap.
I get the drop on him but he still gets the chance to sting me a doozy before he goes down. I am rewarded with an amazing view. I can see some sort of mysterious radio towers over to the east, and can even see what looks like part of the strip over to the north. Any temptation to actually go there straight away is stymied by a graphic and grisly reminder of what would likely happen to me if I tried such a thing.
I notice what looks like an old shelter just over to the northwest, and decide to give it a look. By all appearances, it's abandoned. There's not much left there, but after my fight with the powder gangers and the scorpion, I appreciate the opportunity to get a little rest. It's been a long day.
