Dear Pip-Boy,
Well, I'm up again after about as much nightmares as I'm willing to tolerate. Since it's still dark I decide to do a bit of random wandering. It's not too long before I discover some sinkhole near that strange white monument thing
. I decide to call it "The Devil's Gullet" because it smells like the worst case of halitosis ever.
Curiosity compels me to see what the hell's down there, because it seems like the perfect place to store cool treasure. Amazingly, there are no land mines. Indeed there doesn't seem to be much of any great interest except perhaps this mysterious crate at the back end of a truck. I have no idea what's in it but suspect that if I shoot it, very bad things involving explosions and/or radioactivity will happen to me if I try shooting it. So I'll just leave it alone in favour of not being dead.
When I crawl out and go over the next hill, I can see something off in the distance. I'm not quite sure what it is. It looks vaguely like a military installation, but not quite. I can't put my finger on it, but I get the feeling I'm better off avoiding it.
I can see that Primm is not too far away but also that the road is occupied by people who look like powder gangers to me. If my choice is between powder gangers on the road and coyotes off it, I'll go with the coyotes. For a start, killing Coyotes doesn't give me horrible nightmares. That's always a plus.
This doesn't go terribly well, as I blunder into a pack of Coyotes and try to use a nearby cave as a refuge. As soon as I go in I know it's out of the frying pan into the fire. It smells like coyote and death in here. Fortunately, it appears that the Coyote are not used to dealing with humans that lacking in basic survival instinct. I'm able to get the drop on them time and time again, thanks to my natural knack for sneaking around quietly.
It is a charnel house in here. The stench is indescribable. I don't know where these coyotes have been getting so many corpses from, but if they've been creating any of them, I've done the area a considerable favour. The coyote seem to be indiscriminate in their eating habits, even ghouls are fair game in their eyes. I always thought that wildlife didn't find ghouls to be edible. But then, maybe they just look more like meat than the average person.
The bodies I searched (waste not, want not) were, not to put too fine a point on it pretty well armed. Seems there may have been some sort of armed skirmish around here. Everything I find lately just makes me increasingly paranoid. Who are the sides in this conflict? Are there holdouts? If so, are they more likely to be on or off the roads? If I've swapped powder gangers for a bunch of psychos with laser pistols then I am more kinds of screwed than I have fingers to count. To make matters more complicated, no two people seem to have anything resembling a matching uniform. I guess the only thing I can take for granted then is that the people with uniforms are the less dangerous ones.
On the bright side, I have new toys to play with. This isn't the first time I've held energy weapons in my hand, but definitely the first time I've ever seen them in working order. Before, all Dad and I found was scrap that we sold to traveling caravans to be sold as parts. They seem pretty powerful, but I don't have much ammunition to play with.
As soon as I leave the cave, those damn coyotes are waiting for me. I panic and the first thing I can grab is my knife, which turns out to be not a very good thing to fight coyotes with as they get some nasty bites through my leather. I need to get back to Goodsprings and take a nap after that. While I'm there, I ask Chet if he knows anything about the guy who stole my package. Chet thinks he was from the New Vegas Strip. He claims to have been there and knows what people from there are like.
Chet doesn't really have much to sell that interests me and he's a real ball-buster when it comes to haggling so I don't bother selling any of my stuff to him. By now, thanks to my cave haul I reckon I've got enough guns to make it to Primm, provided I don't run into any groups of uniformless crazy people with lasers. So I head out. It feels kinda weird to be going in the opposite direction to Vegas but considering what was said about the wildlife in that area I guess that a scenic route that gets me there alive is a damn sight better than a shortcut to a horrible death.
I notice another apparently abandoned shack. I also notice powder gangers down the road and nearby. Time to duck in and hide. This one is even less inviting than the last abandoned shack. But I notice there's lockers there and a shiny thing. Also, a key. For the lockers. Wheee! More guns!
I turn out to need them, as off the roads Geckos are plentiful during the daytime. I murder them in the face with my newfound arsenal. At first, I think Gecko-induced blood loss is playing tricks with my vision, but I see a trailer nearby, in the middle of nowhere. However, upon closer inspection it appears definitely real.
As for the inside, it appears fate has decided I haven't had quite enough nightmare fuel lately. It appears to have been the last resting place of someone who was alive when the bomb hit and who had a shitton of radio gear and front row seats to the old world's death rattle. He did not take it well. At all. There is a mattress there and I take a nap because seriously at this point I can just take the horrible nightmares for granted. I wake up wishing that he hadn't drunk everything already.
Despite the nightmares, I feel a bit more clear headed after that. Maybe it gave me some perspective. Horrifying, awful perspective, but I guess you take what you can get. I start thinking back to Sunny Smiles cooking lessons and noticing that all around me are cooking ingredients. I find a campfire and get to work, for a moment not thinking about the possibility of attracting laser armed psychos because I've been too long without a decent meal. Besides, I made enough to go round.
I notice I'm very near Primm now. I notice a few more things, like that it's surrounded by some sort of makeshift military encampment and patrolled by men in uniform. Uniforms are probably a good thing, though. They look a bit like one of the people in the monument I can see in the distance, so they probably represent something more than just a gang of psychos (with laser pistols). I decide to take the plunge and talk with them.
It appears uniforms are indeed good. These men are NCR.
