Fallout 4: Angel's Pip-Boy Diary #5 · 9:55am Nov 21st, 2015
"87 Percent to the Head"
art by Slawomiro
After the page break, I bring you the next installment of my Fallout 4 written playthrough.
A few notes:
I have recently installed the Full Dialogue Interface mod, which tells you what your dialogue choices are, rather than just summarizing them. This, I feel, greatly enhances roleplay.
I discovered that while dead bodies tend to hang out for a long time, they disappear faster than I had anticipated, leaving only their weapon behind. As a result, I ended up replaying a section of the game to not miss out on the bulk of the loot I had earned. The second time, some of the random encounters were different. I based the diary entry for those days on the initial, "blind" playthrough, fusing the new encounters into it as seemed most appropriate.
I have since taken to scavenging things, sticking them in containers, and making multiple trips after clearing an area to ferry loot. While this will be mentioned in the diary a few times, I'm not going to bore everyone with a detailed account of every time this happens. However, between doing this and settlement building, some days are going to have much shorter write-ups than others. Additionally, this repetitive loot ferrying is the one time that I use fast travel options, preferring to otherwise explore the wasteland while I travel to locals.
Because I take a lot of time to take screenshots and notes for the diary, the amount that I have accomplished is drastically less than would be expected for the of time that I have clocked in the game. At this point, my character Angel is only level 19 and has just gotten to Diamond City. I have yet to take any real combat perks, and I'm beginning to feel it. I have also shifted the difficulty of the game to "Survival". I will occasionally make note in the diary of "Legendary" encounters, but there are so many of them that I won't me mentioning all of them.
art by Kruszyna
Angel's Pip-Boy Diary
Days 7 - 9
Day 7
October 30, 2287We’re rebuilding the Minutemen.
At least, that is my intention. Meeting Preston, my hazy notion of acting in some sort of law enforcement capacity – protecting and serving the Commonweath – shot into sharp focus.
Preston is thankful for everything that I did yesterday, and seems open to the idea. But before committing to it, he wants to be sure I’m dedicated to the effort. His concern is more than fair. Considering a prolonged, life-endangering career is quite different than embarking on it. And I have only been considering it for four days.
My husband was a soldier. I have seen, second-hand but intimately, what that kind of career does to a person. I have seen what it takes, and what it takes from you. Nate did this, and now so will I. I am not afraid of the decision or the commitment.
Right now, it would be just Preston and I. But that is a start. And I know there are good people out there, so I expect it to grow.
We’re also rebuilding Sanctuary.
(We’ve dropped “Hills” from the name.)
After a long and well-earned rest, the first good sleep that I’ve gotten since Nate was murdered, I spent all day cleaning up the neighborhood. Moving downed trees and brush, collecting litter and scraps to be stripped down for useful materials, and similar chores.
This was the first day in a week that I haven’t been in a fight. I cannot say how beneficial this day has been for both my physical and mental health. I am also realizing how lucky I am that wartime medicine was so miraculous. I’ve sustained what would otherwise have been life-threatening injuries on two occasions this last week. I know that there were times when Nate spent weeks on the front lines, regularly under fire. I’ve always loved how strong he was. I pray that his spirit is with me, giving me that strength. I’m going to need it.
Day 8 – Midnight
October 31, 2287Halloween.
I can safely announce that ghosts have been debunked. With billions dead, Earth would be a planet-wide haunted house.
I have encountered ghouls. Two days ago, I saw an actual monster that put every movie matinee horror to shame. I fought it, and I killed it. I won’t pretend that fight couldn’t have easily gone the other way. But that doesn’t change the fact that the imaginary creepy-crawlies of Halloween have lost their bite.
Still, I find it oddly thematic that I am spending Halloween in a sewer battling monsters.
Last evening, shortly after recording my diary entry, I went for a walk with Dogmeat. We walked back to Concord with the intention of gathering up whatever supplies could be scavenged. There were a few bodies that I knew I hadn’t stripped the clean of weapons, armor and useful items. I consider it only fair that everything they had would go to helping build a settlement for the good people they were attacking. Plus, I wanted another shot at the safes in the drug store and the church.
I haven’t actually gotten around to that last part yet. I got to the drug store only to set eyes on the hole in the street that the monster torn up from. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what I got was the Concord Civil Access.
There are sewer monsters in this wonderful new world. Of course there are. Not just molerats, but some sort of horrid crab-like creature as big as I am and with an armored shell that shrugs off bullets.
I think I’ve cleared the sewer of pests and gotten everything I can carry. I’m tired and hungry, so the plan is to go back to Sanctuary. I do look forward to cooking the meat from the crab-monster that I killed.
Day 8 – Evening
October 31, 2287I have learned that the monster I killed is called a “mirelurk” – quite the evocative name – and they can be found just about anywhere that there is sufficient irradiated water. What a wonderful thought, seeing that Sanctuary is an island.
Although considering how absolutely delicious mirklurk meat is, I am not picturing building mirelurk breeding pens along the shoreline. But that would be a major project for another day. Today was spent focusing on providing and establishing the most basic necessities: building beds, digging wells and starting a garden. The Smith’s backyard has volunteered for the last part. The blue house next door to Pietro’s house (I can’t remember the family’s name; they kept to themselves) has become the communal housing for Sanctuary, at least for the time being.
I’m on my way back to Concord. One more run to get the last of the goods there. I’m confident I can crack those safes this time.
New Perk: Locksmith Rank 2
Day 9 – Late Afternoon
November 1, 2287I’m on my way to Tenpines Bluff. The farmers up there have requested the assistance of the Minutemen. Helping them out will help prove my dedication to Preston Garvey. I don’t need to prove it to myself. I never have. Not with law school, not with Nate and not with this.
I started out the morning by working on my armor, darkening it to help hide me in the shadows. Then, after a hearty breakfast, I was off, Dogmeat faithfully at my side.
Along the way to Tenpines Bluff, I came across Thicket Excavations, which is nothing but a big hole in the ground, now filled with water. I turned northwest and trekked back to Olivia Station. After Concord, it struck me that I might have future use for the power core that was keeping the lights on in that raider den.
Similarly, it occurs to me that I need to find more salt. I’ve raided all the cupboards in Sanctuary and Concord, but I’ll want more than I’ve found if I’m going to start curing the meat from the wild animals I kill. A few minutes ago, Dogmeat and I fought off a pack of wild dogs near a junk pit, so I’m sitting on meat to spare. I need to build up a stock of provisions. Winter is coming.
Day 9 - Night
November 1, 2287I am suddenly reminded of my first year in college, sitting down to a Computer Science test that I expected to be easy… because all of that professor’s tests were easy… only to realize on reading the first question that he had decided to crank up the difficulty to Very Hard.
I braced myself and took it as a challenge. It had been a challenge that I was ready for... but it had been grueling.
Clearly, my life has decided to crank up the difficulty.
The farmers at Tenpines Bluff have asked for my help with some raiders. No problem, I said. After all, how many raiders, bandits or other assorted thugs have I dealt with in the last week-and-a-half? And for the most part, my fellow humans have proven less dangerous than the giant, mutated flies south of Sanctuary. If clearing out a raider nest was going to be the test to prove my dedication to Preston, then it was going to be an easy test. And as an added bonus, the raider camp is at the Corvega Assembly Plant, a location I intended to scout anyway, following up on deliveries from Wicked Shipping.
This is not going to be easy. The Corvega Assembly Plant is a fortress!
I’ll admit, there is a small part of me that wants to just say “to heck with this” and go home. But I’m not going to do that. Nate wouldn’t do that. I’m on a mission, and I will see it through.
The question is: how? I am asking myself what Nate would do, trying to picture how he would have approached taking down a fortified location filled with Chinese.
Fortunately, I think the right solution to the problem is a stealth approach by one or two individual infiltrators. This place could beat back a small army. But if I can find a way to slip inside their perimeter, I could creep through the place like a cancer, taking them down one at a time.
So, here’s hoping for a break in the fence or a poorly-secured back door.
A few other notes. The farmer up at Tenpines Bluff hinted that whatever went down at Quincy severely marred the reputation of the Minutemen. It may be harder to rebuild them as a force of law and order than I had hoped. We need the trust and goodwill of the people in order to serve and protect them. But the other option would be to start over with a completely new operation with new branding, and I think we need the name recognition. The Minutemen, for better or worse, are an established concept within minds of the citizens of the Commonwealth.
The farmer’s wife also mentioned that a place called Goodneighbor is "nothing but trouble." I didn’t need her to tell me; names like that only exist ironically.
Finally, I’ve stumbled across a possible location to re-purpose into a Minuteman station, one that can serve the area around Lexington. The Starlight Drive-In has a lot of potential. It also had a lot of booby traps and molerats, but those have been removed. I found the remains of the previous tenant upstairs, so I’m confident that the location is abandoned.
Of course, I remember Preston Garvey’s warning about Lexington. I’ve skirted the town carefully so far. But eventually, we will have to clear out the ghoul infestation and turn it into a place that people can live in. Or, if it is particularly irradiated, perhaps it could be a town for the non-crazy ghouls that Preston claims exist. With the radioactive pool near the Starlight, I’m even imagining it as a station manned by sane ghoul Minutemen. Assuming sane ghouls is in the same realm as unicorns and…
…actually, having seen two-headed deer, I probably shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the possibility of unicorns.
"Solution"
comic by doubleWbrothers
That comic is amazing.
And then she discovered the town populated by self-aware Giddy-Up Buttercups. (Hey, if it works for the various Mister models...)
I can agree on that.
That comic at the end though
Hahaha!
Ooooh Fluttershy.
Awesomeness!
Haha!
Shouldn't that be:
is misspelt?
That comic is hilarious! Also, congratulations on reaching four thousand followers!
I guess Mirelurks are an acquired taste. One of my good neighbors told me they taste slimy yet tough at the same time.
And I finally got my copy of the game to work. To the wasteland.
3559442
You also need to scrap the crashed car as well(or hell, all of the cars. Might as well put that rusting steel to use).
That Day 8 Midnight pic is kind of bizarre... why are the body's clothes all gone, but the cardboard box it's holding isn't? Did they die naked?
"not"? Or "now"?
Yay! loving this journal style let's play!