♫ SHE HIT ME WITH TECHNOLOGY ♫ - Guilty of Rocketeering, Pt. 2

Greetings once again!

Last we left off, Jason was about to drop Phase 2 on our asses, about the Far Beyond!

ooooOoOoOoOOooOooooooh spooky/scary.

What does a ghoul need with anti-radiation medication?

Yeah I stole all that shit.  IDGAF call the cops.  Not like they've been using any of it, Ghouls feed off of radiation.  Whatever.  BASEMENT TIME.

Jason, always so melodramatic.  FORSOOTH, WANDERER; HITHER TO THIS, TITHER TO THAT.

Fuckin' unclench buddy!  Sheesh.  It's only your own brand of paradise you're talking about here.  No biggie.  Speaking of the launch pad, there's something moving over there...

GHOULS.  IN.  SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!

Jason's on the up-and-up; he admits to me in private that they've been decieving Chris, telling him he's a ghoul so that he'd fix stuff for them because the guy,s some sort of moody genius or some shit.  Cold, but as they say, it was out of necessity and not malice.  Yeah whatever you need to tell yourself so you can sleep at night, dude.

He then adds that as much as Chris would like to go, he can't.  The voyage itself would kill him, due to the radiation levels.  Never you mind that's how ghouls come into existence, and maybe JUST MAYBE Chris would go through the transformation.  Jason then labels Chris a martyr to the cause of the Far Beyond, taking the Jesus symbolism and cult-status a step further.

Let's see what CHRIS has to say about that!

EY YO.  You a human, dawg.

He thinks I'm playing a cruel joke at first, then slowly comes out of denial, realizing that the people in the vault he was living with weren't teasing him for becoming a ghoul, but because he was going bald.

Really dude?  Really?  Lose a few hairs and you jump straight to OH NOES, AM GUULS NAO.  AM SADS.  What the hell, man.

This newfound sense of humanity is short-lived however, as now Chris wants to fucking MURDER THEM ALL.  That'll show 'em for taking him in and giving him a sense of worth and purpose!  THAT'LL SHOW THEM ALL!

Muuuuuuuuurder!

I have to goddamn babysit the entire Wastelands, don't I!?  Jeezy Creezy Chris, YES THAT IS MURDER AND IT IS BAD.  What the HELL.  I talk him out of outright killing those who sheltered him all this time, and indicate that maybe JUST MAYBE he could live as a goddamn normal human being in Novac instead of a hate-filled vengeful bastard.

Anyways.  PHASE 2!  Yes yes we all forgot about Phase 2! HA HA it is to laugh!  Phase 2 is essentially fueling up the rocket ships, so Jason can go be Zombie Space-Jesus or whatever.  That's cool man.  He needs some specialty rocket fuel so Chris can synthesize more, but they don't have any left, and some sort of computing module doohickey.  I should check the local scrapyards.

Thankfully I got them covered on fuel already!  I raided the Dinky Dino store once the owner left for the night and essentially robbed the man BLIND.  I mean it.  I stole his reading glasses.  I really don't care who's toes I step on!

So; lets head over to the scrapyard.

Pretty steep price for a good thrust, lady.

Ol'lady Gibson here has a pack of dogs and is still as sharp as ever when it comes to bargaining and electronics.  I guess I'll have to find a way to negotiate...

'Ow you doin'.  *EYEBROW WIGGLE*

Aww shucks.  *blush* tee-hee!

To be fair, she doesn't look that old and is still quite pretty!  Old Lady Gibson can still get it, UNH.  C'mere girl I'll toss it at ya no problemo.

Ahem.  That got weird.

Back to REPCONN HQ to deliver the fuel and parts!  Jason wants me to go witness the launch from the observation deck where the launch controls are, and thanks me one last time for setting him and his followers on their way to the Far Beyond where myself and Chris will be remembered as Saints, redeeming the sins of our human predecessors in the Great War.

...yeah.  Well then.  Time to go shoot some ghouls out of orbit. Like ya do.

START THE WORLD-ENGINE!

Science 55!?  I can't be THAT far off.  I have a few Science magazines for a temporary +10 to SCIENCE! skill I can boost with, lets go see...

HOW DO I FORMAT C:\

Oh.  oh.  Yeah OK well we'll just NOT tamper with the coordinates then.  I'll trust Jason and his boffins that they've plotted their course correctly, 'cause there's nothing I can do to help/hinder now.

3... 2... 1... LET'S JAM!

FWOOSH!  Off they go, into the glowy firmament.  Aww I feel like a proud mama bird watchin' her little glowy zombified babies fly the nest for the first time.  Flapping their tiny rotting flesh'd wings.  So cute!  Mmmm!  I'm gettin' a little verklempt!

SUNRISE!

SUNSET!

SUNRIIIIIIIIIISE!

SUNSET!

Questcomplete'd.  YAY EXPERIENCE!

Sneering Imperialist IS tempting; but extra room for loot?  BEST THING.

Well, might as well head back to ol' Novac, see what the good folks are up to!  Also tell Manny that I did his dirty work, now he needs to tell me 'bout them sumbitches that what want me in the ground, I reckon.

NOVAC - Free Wi-Fi & Continental Breakfast!

Home sweet home.  Sort-of.  They gave me a room for free since Jeannie-May 'disappeared' and Boone vouched for me.

Graciously omitting that I've launched them into space; just that 'you don't need to worry about them anymore'.

Manny doesn't really want me to elaborate, or I just don't elaborate on principle.  Regardless, I've done your damn task, show me the money!  I mean info.  Spill dem beans, boi.

Payback; thy name is BENNY.

BENNY.  Finally, a name to put to a face.  Boulder City?  Sounds like a town in Pokemon.  Or Colorado.  Pokerado.  Anyways.  Thanks Manny, but now I gotta go find me a Benny.  You've been little to no help.  I hope that dwells on your conscience for a while.

They love me!  They really love me!

My charisma is hard to bear! (Actually its quite easy to beat, its a 5 out of a potential 10.  My LUCK however?  That shit is aces.  10/10 would luck again.)

Where IS Boulder City anyways.  Manny gives me some directions, but lets check this up on the ol' PipBoy Maps app.

Almost there!  I wonder how many calories that run will cost me.

So ends my adventures in Novac for now.  Time to move on up and out to Boulder City!  What will I find?  Benny?  Drama? Suspense? Romance? Deathclaws?

Find out... NEXT TUESDAY!

♫ SHE BLINDED ME WITH SCIENCE! ♫ - Guilty of Rocketeering, Pt. 1

Hidey-ho!

Sorry 'bout last tuesdsay, we had some technical difficulties over here at Geekin' Out Dot Com, ha ha we do like to laugh.

Anyways, moving on!  Last time we had just met Chris Haversam, who wants us to talk to his Bestie, Jason Bright.  Presumably because Jason has something for us to do or whatever, Chris isn't being too friendly, AND is insisting he's a ghoul.  (He clearly isn't.)  No amount of telling him otherwise is working.  Oh well, some people, y'know?

Classic textbook example of Not-A-Ghoul, Chris Haversam.

For those of you wondering just WHAT is a 'ghoul' well I'll explain.  Those of you who already know / don't care, skip down, you assholes.  Go look at the pretty pictures whatever you're not my mom.

Ghouls are humans whom in the Fallout world have absorbed immense amounts of radiation, but by some twist of fate or another, don't simply just die a burned out radioactive husk, but come out of the process still alive.  Well, 'Alive'.  They're still living and breathing, however they now resemble walking corpses.  Some retain their pre-ghoulification minds, some others become feral, and are little more than shambling bodies, hovering around radioactive sites, possibly the same that caused their ghoulification in the first place.

Interestingly enough some of the ghouls in the Fallout universe are pre-war people who've survived since the great war; ghoulification has a way of preserving someone who's going through the process.  Nearby radiation heals them at an exponential rate; some ghouls even absorb so much radiation that they become permanently radioactive (scientific impossibility but whatevs) and just spit out radioactive energy like it was the End-Times.  (It is/was, really.)  They're called Glowing Ones.  Speaking of Glowing Ones, let's meet Jason.

Jason Bright: Glowing One Ghoul, and all-around tent revival preacher, but for ghouls.

Jason here is real-good at spinnin' a yarn y'see?  He's been plagued with visions; omens of clarity from what he calls the Far Beyond!  It tells him to gather his flock (ghouls and feral ghouls) to the REPCONN facility, so that theycan prepare for their great and final voyage.

Eloquent AND Polite!

 I tell him about Novac and why I'm here; to which he responds "OH YEAH, the feral ghouls.  Sorry about them, but they've lost their minds to the Far Beyond, it's hard to control them."  This is soundin' all sorts of Jonestown, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now.  He's already risked many of his flock to fight against the invisible demons infesting the facility.  ... whatever that means.  Since I look more than capable of handling myself, Jason asks me to clear out  the basement of said demons.  Who're invisible too, I might remind you.

Scary Basement Level: SPOOKY

Oh hey, gore-covered entrance way.  Yeah this isn't terrifying at all!  Who's blood is that!?  Is it my blood?  Is this real life?  Why does everything float down there?

Suspiciously empty corridors for now, but I press onward and downward.

Literally a Get-Out-of-Jail card.  But a key.  To get out of jail with.

Why does this place even HAVE a jail; its a former rocket factory that designed and manufactured space aeronautics.  What the hell.  Why. Who.  We'll find out soon enough, I wager.

♫ Workin' on my Nightkin Moves ♫

Oh so THESE are the demons Jason was talkin' about!  Nightkin!  They're super mutants, who also have developed a taste for using Stealth Boys to go invisible and stalk their prey.  Prey that they then brain savagely with that there Rebar club.  A huge chunk of cement holding together the steel rebar (hence the name!) used to keep it in place during large building construction.

So yeah; they're THAT strong; they just rip off part of the building to smack you around with.  Bastards.  No wonder the place is coming down ontop of us.

An unfortunate end to one of Jason's followers.  Sadface.  :(

I've found this poor girl, who clearly got beat to death by the jailor.  I know nothing else happened, as with all super mutants (all created from the original FEV batch used by The Master back in Fallout 1) super mutants are genderless with no reproductive organs to speak of.  Some of them do retain 'gender' or maybe in a more progressive way, after being mutated get to re-identify themselves! (Marcus, Uncle Leo, Tabitha, etc.)

Anyways, time to go check out that lone corridor over there...

"Big dumb what, son.  Big dumb WHAT."

 Harland here is a mercenary ghoul-for-hire, who signed on with Jason's boys for the time being because it kept him rolling in caps and sweet sweet ghoul-trim. (Bleurgh.)  WELL.  To each their own, sir.

You could point that gun elsewhere y'know than directly at me.

 Yeah... about her.

*Sad Trombone*

Harland's broken up about it, but not too much.  He looks more disappointed than sad, really.  Cold man, cold.  Your girl is dead and all you do once finding out is quit on Jason and his team?  Supah COLD.

Where will this door lead me?

ANTLER DON'T KNOW SHIT.

Davison here is the self-proclaimed leader of the Nightkin infesting the facility.  Well, OK ANTLER is, but Davison does it all as Antler's proxy.  Antler is that cow skull there, by the way.  And that pipe sticking out of Davison's back is a bumper sword.  A car's muffler and front bumper (license plate still affixed) sharpened to a gleaming edge.  Shit be FETCH, YO.

Wipe yoself off man; you dead.

With enough bullets to the head from myself, ED-E and Boone, Davison goes down pretty easy.  For good measure, I shot Antler off the coffee machine immediately after taking this picture, and kicked him into the corner of the room.  Take THAT.

♫ Secret Tunnel! ♫

This place is all sorts of hidden passageways; behind Davison was some sort of service stairwell/elevator combo that just plungers deeper into the facility.  I wonder where we'll end up!?

SPACESHIP!!!!

SPAAAAAAAACE!  SHIIIIIIIIIIP!  Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

All that glowy goo down there though.  HRMM.  I wonder if there's anything down here of interest...

Suit up.

Well well well.  A space suit?  For me?  Don't mind if I do!

Take me to your leader; nanoo-nanoo.

Styles upon styles, for sure.  Like Spaceman Spiff or Buck Rogers, just sexy and suave.  A veritable James Bond Cosmonaut this one!  Welp that's enough selfie-taking in funny outfits.  let's go tell Jason his basement is demon free.

Is it? How can the way be clear if mirrors aren't real.

Jayden Smith philosophy aside, Jason is ecstatic his basement is invisible-demon free, and wants to move on to Phase 2.  What's phase 2?

Find out more... NEXT TUESDAY!

This isn't rocket surgery, you morans!

It's that time again!

As we leave Nipton, I'm reminded of something Boxcars told me, shortly before I caused his head to collapse inward like a spoiled melon; Legion took captives to a camp nearby.  So, lets go settle that while making our way to NOVAC, in search of the man who shot me!

Behold; yon abandoned ranch...

Just beyond the Wolfhorn ranch above, lies a Legion camp.  I'm shunned by them, but I'm not yet such a pariah that they outright detest me.

Let's fix that.

Gon' make you blow a load in yo pants guuuuuuuurl.

Drinkin' dat Haterade

Chillin' like a Villain-Villain.

I think they're blowing it out of proportion again; "overwhelmingly monstrous behavior" towards roaming marauders, murderers, rapists and slavers?  Just throw me the keys to the city all ready.

Well that was nice.  Now on to NOVAC.

VICTAH. YOU SUNOFFABEECH.  PUSHEEN TEW MANEE PENSEELS?!

Victor!  That Rootin'-Tootin' robot from Goodsprings who done what saved me from that early and shallow grave!  He's in NOVAC's outskirts, but he doesn't know why!  He's pretty happy regardless to see me there, though.  That's nice!  It's hard to make friends in an irradiated wasteland; let alone time to cultivate and tend to said friendships.  I'm thankful for Victor here.

HALT! I AM REPTAR!

NOVAC baby!  It's actually because the sign for the Dino T-Rex Motel's "NO VACANCY" is broken and only the NO VAC part lights up.  WELP time to go explorin' about town.

Sneakin' up on sour snipers who sulk about.  ♫ Alliteratiooooooooon! ♫

If you're a sniper and you get done snuck up upon, you are a shitty sniper.  I don't care HOW you try and rationalize it.  That shit's SHAMEFUL.  Boone's his name and he is SURLY.  Oh my; he is very pissed off and has anger in his heart.

Why?  Well, he lost his wife.  Not like, she left, or she's gone, I mean she is, but he knows something terrible.  He knows someone had her kidnapped before she died.  He wants to find out who did it; who sold out his honey-boo.  I can respect that; that's cool man.  I'd be hella mad if someone done took my girl and sold her off.  Its fortunate too since I'm new in town and nobody knows me, so I might catch the sneaky person red-handed by lowerin' their guard because hey; I'm just a new person in town; a-ramblin' drifter a-tumblin' on outta here soon.

GAME REFERENCE!

Daisy here is essentially a very elaborate & banal easter egg if you'd like about Fallout 2.  The tiny starting village of Arroyo where the player comes from had a Vertibird crash-land near it, where you can find some tribal kid's dog, and also a crazy robot that needs a-murderin'.  Y'know, like most robots.  It's nice to find out that she survived!  I never really wondered; but hey that's cool!

A few more folks questioned, I find out that the lady running the NOVAC hotel actually sold Boone's wife to the Legion, with a bonus to be collected if Boone's wife's pregnancy came to term and produced a healthy baby.

Cold blooded, Jeannie May.  Fuckin' Cold. Blooded.

So I signaled to Boone who the snitch was, and he blew her away because snitches get stitches.

Go. Hunt. Kil Legionz.

Harsh.  WELL Boone; why don't you come with me? "No.  I'm a loner man; a rebel." OK PEE WEE; how 'bout we go shoot legionnaires?

360NoScopin' All day ERRY DAY.

Boone took little convincing when murdering Legion thugs went on the table.  I mean that shit's fun.  SO he gave me a hat!  A jaunty beret!  I wonder what it does...

Adds +4% SASSY and 4th finger snap talent becomes available.

Nice!  improved criticals for that extra bit of overkill.  I like that!  I wonder how'll I look in it.

FEROSH

Awwww yiss.   STYLES UPON STYLES.  Boone tells me that his t-rex sniper partner Manny might know 'bout the men I'm lookin' for...

♫ Gimme gimme gimme a man after midniiiiiiight ♫

By that I mean I want to shoot him in the head.  Repeatedly.

Manny's no snitch; he gives up that yeah he saw the guys; this dickbag in a loud jacket, and former gang-members he used to run with.  Real TOUGH types, Great Khans.  He'll tell me more, but first I gotta go deal with some ghouls out at the Repconn Rocket Test Site.  Something's driving them out of the lab/factory and into the surrounding areas (NOVAC).  That's no good.  SO; let's go fix a problem.  And by Fix, I mean shoot.  Because that's what I'm good at.

Dead guy?  Whatever look at all this TREASURE.

SpookyScary!

What could be in here... the second I walk in however, a raspy voice on the PA system guides me to the factory floor and up a metal stairwell, to get to the management offices; somebody needs my help and wants to keep me alive for hither-to unknown reasons; possibly to meet me because I am amazing.  I do not blame them.

Thank you!  I moisturize, thanks for noticing.

A little carousing and witty banter, the door opens and...

ED-E photobombing Chris here with his robo-dick.  Bravo. *CLAP CLAP CLAP*

Chris here is an odd duck; he sounds like a ghoul, acts like one, but isn't a ghoul.  He fervently believes he's one though, and will debate the shit out of you if you say otherwise.  He wants me to talk to Jason Bright, his boss.  Which is odd, because all the ghouls I've met so-far were either dead, or feral, then also dead.  Because I killed them.  With bullets.  pew pew pew.

Next Tuesday; ROCKET SCIENCE!  WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!