I flipped through my pimp boy at all the tasks the weird floaty brain scientist things had given me to help them fight the other scientist guy. None of them seemed to jump out at me as something I wanted to do right away. What did see was the task of getting modules for all the cool robots that are apparently around my new living quarters. Yes. This is IMPORTANT. If I have to stay here, it needs to be in comfort. And for it to be in comfort, I need that toaster to work properly.

I head outside finally. It seems relatively quiet for the moment, but haha, here comes a crazy looking fucker shooting at me. Awesome. I kill him and check out what he’s carrying. He’s got these freaky looking goggles that I think are kinda rad looking but they make me stupider or something and I take enough of a INT hit from being drunk constantly already so I pass on ’em.

I find the first few modules in some buildings while fighting these weirdos around here and some robo-scorpions and and then find a door into a large building so I head inside as another module is supposed to be in there.

Inside the large building are several houses and in the middle is a water fountain. I pick a bunch of bottle caps out of the fountain, wondering to myself why people who didn’t use caps as money were treating caps as money.

I head into the house that has the module I’m looking for and am slightly weirded out by the piles of electronics in it. I go back outside and decide to see what’s in a different house. Inside are a bunch of teddy bears posed and cameras sitting around and fuckton of Mentats which I love but goddamn this is weird and I’m kinda thinking fuck these houses and I’ll just get on with my life.

I decide to try one more though. I walk inside and turn to my right and I swear I could hear angels singing because there in all its glory was a FULL BAR. Oh my god fuck that apartment I want to move in here! I rush over it to it, practically weeping with joy. The taps don’t seem to work, but oh god there is booze everywhere behind it. Wine, beer…vodka, scotch…and WHISKEY. SWEET WHISKEY LET ME HOLD YOU.

The glorious bounty of booze I found in that house gave me the strength and hope I needed to check out the rest of them but alas none of the others contained anything even as close to as wonderful as that. One house had a basement with a locked door, which I picked open. When something is locked, opening it usually leads to something awesome or something horrifying and unsettling so it’s always this gamble. This was an especially high gamble as the lock was extra hard and I needed to read a magazine quick to figure out how I do it…

And then naturally, when I got down there, I wished I hadn’t as it was all just empty cages of blood and horror and what the fuck happened down here. I drink more booze and head back upstairs and outside.

I wander around this weird large building for a little longer, trying to find anything I may have missed when I see a small shack behind one of houses. Huh, it kinda looks like a doghouse. I walk over to it and out of it comes a tiny deathclaw! Oh my gosh! It’s kinda cute eve-OH GOD IT’S HITTING ME. OH FUCK THAT HURT. THAT HURT A LOT.

OH MY GOD I’M ALMOST DEAD?!

I run away muttering “what the fuck what the fuck” to myself while I stimpak up and flick through my guns. I grab the All-American, hit some Psycho, some Jet, a few other chems…what’s one more addiction after all, I’m already back to my old alcoholism habit. I start pumping rounds into this surprisingly durable little fuck until he finally dies.

What the shit was that about.

I glance around see a whole row of xander root which I pick up but sigh that there’s no broc flower because I could sooo make a bunch of stimpaks with all the empty syringes I’ve been picking up too. And then I turn and see, haha! An empty whiskey bottle! Sweet, gonna make Wasteland Tequila.

Oh wait, what’s near that bottle? A whole row of broc flower! I guess that’s pretty cool too!

I leave this building, giving it the finger on the way out and head back to my new living space. A bunch of my stuff is working now and my light switches are hitting on me, I think. It’s kind of uncomfortable. I have the auto-doc cure all my addictions, which he does for free. And he doesn’t even scold me or tell me not to come back with a bunch more tomorrow, because that is pretty much guaranteed to happen. I love you Auto-Doc.

Finally I plop down on my bed and sleep for several hours.

I’ll do stuff those guys actually wanted me to do tomorrow.

Back in the Mojave, I headed to that NCR outpost that Cass hangs out at and asked if she wanted to kick it with me again for a bit. Of course she agreed, and I handed her some of my extra bottles of whiskey and let her try some of this “Wasteland Tequila” I’d been making, and also I’ve been experimenting making toilet wine with mutfruit if you want to try some of that.

We hang out for a while, shoot a bunch of dudes, and I take the time to buy up all the .308 ammo in town and all surrounding towns and then primer and lead to make more .308 ammo and then wait a couple days and do it all again. Finally I decide that we should head to this drive-in theater and check out the mysterious signal or whatever it is I’m supposed to be so interested in.

I arrive in the middle of the day to find a crashed satellite and go over to it. It tells me to come back later. You think you’re real funny, huh, satellite? Fine. I wait til midnight and try again. Suddenly I get a PREMONITION that I am going to be taken somewhere and won’t be able to come back for a while and that I can bring all my stuff and after I finish there I can go back there and it was pretty long detailed premonition, really.

Suddenly after my novel of a psychic reading, I black out, watch a slide show and wake up in a tower or something. I am covered in scars and wearing a hospital gown so this is pretty much par for the course when it comes to my excursions. At least the last terrible trip resulted in me having a new booze I could make. Somehow I doubt this will have a recipe for Wasteland Spiced Rum but I’ll keep me eye out, I guess.

As a breeze flaps at the back of my gown, I check to see if all of my stuff was taken from me like it usually is when I’m kidnapped, only to find suprisingly that this time it wasn’t! Hey! Awesome! I get the fuck out of this gown and back into my combat armor, drink a much needed whiskey, and then find an elevator.

It drops me off in some place with lots of rooms, a bed, a kitchen, and all kinds of things that tell me they need other stuff to actually work. I take what I can and look around some more. I see two doors.

BIG MT
THINK TANK

Uuuuuuh, BIG MT seems to be triggering a part of my brain that just adds all the letters it needs to say “BIG MISTAKE” so I head to the THINK TANK instead. As I enter, apparently a “feeling of pacification” comes over and I am unable to draw my weapon.

Then some talking robot, brain in a jar thing starts talking to me. Or at me. More…more AT me, really. As it talks it keeps saying something about scooping my brains out but uh..but I’m totally alive so um…haha, uh, clarification on that last bit there please? No? I…

The robot talks to well, itself but there seems to be several personalities within it. Then some other voice comes through on a screen and is threatening them, I’m really not clear because this shit is CRAZY, but well, I’m not surprised when my help is needed.

Yes, I will gladly help if I could just get clarification one on teensy weensy little detail here that you seemed to keep glossing over.

My brain.

What’s the uh, what’s the deal with my brain?

They confirm that it has been removed and replaced with mechanical…stuff. It doesn’t stop there though, nope. They removed my heart too. Aaaand my spine.

…

Well. Awesome. Can’t say I’m REAL pleased about this.

I think about the whiskey I drank a bit earlier. Oh no.

Am I drunk now? Can I still get drink, oh god, oh no, if I can’t get drunk anymore, I don’t know what I’ll do!

After leaving the Think Tank with a list of tasks to take care of I finally get a chance to check my Pimp Boy and see if I still have the will to live.

I am pleased to find that I am currently drunk. PHEWFTA.

Shortly thereafter, the whiskey wore off and I was even more pleased to find that not only had I been drunk, I am also suffering from an alcohol addiction.

Everything is as it should be.

These people, in this place, my god. Everytime they start talking about their history or anything, my eyes just totally glaze over. And now they want me to make a decision about what to do when I honestly haven’t paid attention to any of their arguments? I need you guys to just outline your arguments and I need you to go SLOW and you need to leave out any references to a Father or a Lord or anything. I am wasted. I really just wanna go back to my bed at the Lucky 38.

I decide for the moment to just waste more time by checking out this cave. I wander around inside killing more of these horrible plant monsters that I have had just about enough of. Finally I’m pretty bored of the place, and decide to go back outside. As soon as I exit the cave I am greeted by one, two, count ’em it’s THREE GIANT YAO GUAI! FUCK!

I shoot them all in the head, and down a bottle of scotch. Jesus H! Wakin’ C you check that shit? Goddamn! As I’m catching my breath, WC decides now would be a good time for chitchat, and tells me that I would’ve liked her family, and wishes I’d been able to meet them. Oooh, Wakin’. I ain’t exactly a “people person.” Maybe you’ve picked up on this, I tend to shoot, I would say, the vast majority of the ones that I meet. Is your family perhaps bottles of tequila? Because THEN…then I might LOVE them. Otherwise it’s probably just for the best that they aren’t here.

I finally have had just enough of this place and enough of these people. I find Daniel and Joshua. After a short talk with Joshua about how much it must suck getting set on fire, I tell Daniel we’re doing it Joshua’s way and killing everything and goddammit you guys stop saying Lord and shit, it really does grate on me. Me and Joshua apparently have to walk from this camp all the way to other camp where we’re gonna meet a some Dead Horses and Sorrows people to help us fight.  Whatever.

This walk takes forever because I am terrible at navigating this annoying moutain-y land and whenever I end up on top of something and I don’t want to be on anymore, I have a bad habit of just jumping down. Look. It usually works! Sometimes I lose half my health. WHATEVER.

Finally we get to the camp, except I accidentally killed someone on our side because I snipe people from way too far away. Uh, whoops. Some of the White Legs in this camp are already dead from earlier assault, but as we wade into a bit of water, a giant explosion sends a bunch of rocks tumbling down to block the path. Welp, I quit. Let’s go find Daniel and just move the people inste-oh Joshua is talking to me.

He says this is taking to long and he’s gonna find another way around and then takes off running. Wha…but? Why don’t I just come with you? I mean I still need to find another way around too right? How many other ways around could there be, we might as well just stick together.

But he was already gone.

I grope around in the dark for a bit and eventually find my way to a cave that pops me out on the other side of the rocks that had been blocking us. Also something was fuckin’ UP with that cave, because every person I shot in there would burst and their body parts and guns would fly clear across the room in a way I had never quite witnessed before. If there had been a continual supply of guys to kill, I might’ve just stayed in that cave all day.

On the other side, I find some more White Legs to kill and run into a few more of the people on my side. One walks way up this hill towards a camp so I follow her only to find that there is just fucking NOTHING in this camp and I need to turn around and go back down. I manage to not shoot her for this.

I continue along the stream for what seems like forever until I finally reach Joshua and Salty Wounds.  Joshua’s got two other White Legs on their knees next to Saltwater Taffy and he shoots them. Salty starts yelling at me and asking me to get Joshua to stop. I’m like eh, get up and fight him. I’m pretty sure this is what we came here for, right? Killing all you guys?

So Salt dude JUMPS UP AND CHARGES AT ME! Goddammit no! I wanted you to fight Joshua, while I watched over you like some sort of Roman emperor. He wants to fight me though, so I shoot him and then look over to see that another White Legs apparently charged Joshua and set him on fire. He is fully on fire now. And now he is talking to me.

This. This is awkward.

He thanks me for the help and I try not to say anything about all the fire all over him.

A slideshow informs me of what everyone does after this, and I am suddenly back at the Southern Passage in front of a footlocker. Everyone’s stuff is inside of it. I guess they decided I would need it more than they would. I don’t really need any of it, but I take it all anyways.

BACK TO THE GODDAMN MOJAVE.

I’m finding Cass, we’re gonna make Moonshine and tequila until we cannot fucking walk.

Oh, I am far too excited about making Wasteland Tequila. I wanna make Wasteland Every Type of Alcohol. Where is all the rum? Where is all the gin? I want everything! I immediately check what I need to make it. FUCK I NEED WHISKEY BOTTLES. I check the campsite I am at and find a few right there. I make as much Wasteland Tequila as I can, and then check what I need again because I already forgot.

I need to find more agave fruit and more bottles. Back to looking around, I find lots of agave immediately but the bottles are hard to come by. I know I’ve got all this stuff to take to this guy at some other camp, but making this booze is PRIORITY A NUMBER ONE right now.

I do not care at all about anything else. I visit every campsite I can find, and go back to the fishing lodge, until I have several empty whiskey bottles and make a veritable bounty of tequila. Then, of course, I have to drink a bunch of it.

And some whiskey.

Totally plastered, I decide to finally go to this other camp.

As I approach, some lady named Walking Cloud runs over to me.

“WHAT’S YOUR DEAL?” I manage to ask her. She explains that she’s the tribe’s midwife and she also has a giant bear claw and not the delicious kind but the scary kind! She points me towards some dude named Daniel, and I show him all the sweet supplies I got for ’em.

He’s super happy, and then explains that if they are going to leave this incredibly dismal place for somewhere that I’m sure is equally as dismal, they need someone to do some scouting first and take care of some traps the White Legs set and blah blah, I AM ZONING OUT, PLEASE JUST PIN A NOTE TO MY CHEST AND GIVE ME AN ANNOYING PERSON TO TAG ALONG.

I tell Follows-Chalk to go follow some chalk instead of me and I grab Walking Cloud instead. C’mon woman. We’re gonna go do some stuff.

This list includes killing some White Legs, taking care of some yao guai, finding a map, and disarming some traps. I groan a bit to myself and head towards the White Legs first because I love killing them.

Perched high on some mountain-y thing, I pull out my sniper rifle and shoot a bunch of them one at a time. I giggle as the survivors panic for a bit, but can’t figure out where I am and eventually decide to just go back to standing around and then OH NO ANOTHER ONE OF US IS DEAD.

AHAHAHAHA.

Walking Cloud is not laughing nearly as hard as I am. I don’t know what her problem is.

After a bit, I think they’re all dead, so we walk down there and I start searching all their sacks and JACKPOT a bunch of them have ALL of the ingredients to make Trail Mix. And I found more bottles to make tequila in! TO A CAMPFIRE!

After doing that and taking care of the rest of the ridiculously easy tasks, I decide to wander around a bit. Every time I stop for more than a few seconds, Walking Cloud starts in with the “I don’t like to linger here” business. WE’RE JUST AT A CAMPGROUND. THERE’S NOTHING HERE.

I didn’t really wanna go talk to Daniel or Joshua or whoever at the moment, so I headed down a section of map I hadn’t explored yet. It was dark out and I began walking down a stream. Walking Cloud then informs me that this stream leads to the White Legs base.

…oh really?

HEHEHEHEHEHE.

I continue walking down it despite her protests that we not linger and that my god let’s turn back please what are we doing.

Ya know what, maybe shut up because they are all asleep except this one dude and my gun is super quiet.

I climb up a small hill and aim at a White Leg on the edge of the camp. POW. He falls over dead and I giggle to myself. Two more are sleeping and didn’t even hear my gun. I aim at a second one and POW HE’S DEAD TOO. One more shot. POW. HAHAHA.

I wander a bit deeper into the White Legs camp stealing a bunch of supplies and fuck yes, more whiskey. Finally Walking Cloud’s pestering convinces me that we should leave. I’m sure the rest of these assholes will be quite surprised in the morning to wake up and find three people dead in their camp.

I AM THE BOOGEY MAN YOU FUCKERS. MUAHAHAHAHA.

Full of booze and feeling a little better, I start again towards this camp that Follows whatever wants me to go to. We wander through a bunch of standing water that he informs me is full of bear traps. Really dude? I still get to blindly lead the way to the place I’ve never been and the path is full of bear traps? REALLY?

We finally make to camp, where I head into a cave and find a guy wrapped in bandages, cleaning a never-ending pile of .45 pistols. His name, it turns out is Joshua Graham, aka that guy I wasn’t supposed to mention to anyone. He is ALSO the Burned Man or whatever. So okay, the two guys I wasn’t supposed to mention is actually just one guy and everyone just knows him because here is hanging out?

I try not to let him see how upset and annoyed I am when I start talking to him.

I tell him what happened to my caravan, and he says he can get me a map to let me get back home. Frankly I don’t know why I need a map. As long as there’s booze, I might as well just be a goddamn drifter. Oh but all my cool stuff. Sure, there’s that, but there’s probably more cool stuff I could find, and for all I know, I had even COOLER stuff back wherever I lived before Benny shot me in the head. I might’ve had THE COOLEST stuff then. Can someone give me a map to get back there?

I shrug and agree to help dude here, because I have just really nothing else to do. He gives me a few places to go and find things for his buddy Daniel who is at a completely different camp. Oh, and I can take Follows Chalk with me! Fucking hurray.

Our first stop is a wrecked school bus to find a compass. Guys, I have a compass on my Pip Boy. I have one, right here. Whatever. I find it, and a whooooole bunch of lunch boxes. OH YES. SOMEONE IS MAKING CARAVAN LUNCHES LATER. (The someone is me.)

Follows-My Ass is really excited to be going out and exploring all this stuff, but dude is starting to annoy me.

SAY COMPASS CORRECTLY. I WILL FORGIVE IT THE FIRST TIME. BUT I HAVE NOW CORRECTED YOU SEVERAL TIMES. SAY IT RIGHT.

Next we go to an old fishing lodge to get something that I don’t remember because oh my god yes this place has booze. I clean out their old fridge, old gun cabinet, old anything that had liqour in it. PRAISE THE MAKER(of booze) THERE IS BOOZE TO BE HAD HERE.

Finally we go to some old market to get some lunch boxes even though I have a bunch of lunch boxes already. I guess this guy needs very specific ones? Whatever, I pick them all up quickly and then start stacking the large number of boxes sitting around, in an attempt to build a fort. After I get a shitty box stack, I fill the fort with old teddy bears and pat myself on the back for a job well done.

I am then excited to find that store has ALL THE INGREDIENTS for my Caravan Lunches! Fuck yes! Cram, Insta-Mash, Pork and Beans, fuck yes fuck yes fuck yes.

Not really giving a fuck about getting this stuff to the guy who wanted it right away, I instead head right for a campfire. I gotta cook some lunches, bitches.

At the campfire though, I suddenly am greeted with a new recipe.

Wasteland Tequila.

heh…heheheh….hahahhahahah…

hahahahahhahahhaaaaa

AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHAHAHAAAA!!

Back in the godawful Mojave, I decide hey, you know what I haven’t done in a while? Left here for a substantial amount of time. I check my Pimp Boy 3000000000 and see that there’s some caravan headin’ out soon and they need another person or something. I go upstairs and pick out what guns to bring on the trip, and make sure I’m carrying enough whiskey and then head to the Northern Passage.

I start chattin’ up this Jed fellow who tells me so much stuff that I am so terrible at keeping track of, good lord. We’re going to Zion, or New Canaan, or …New Canaan is IN Zion? I don’t even, just gimme something to shoot okay? Don’t have me be navigator. Jed tells me I can’t bring V-Ron or Rex so I tell them to go wait for me at the Lucky 38. Maybe clean up while you’re there. Wait, here’s some caps. Go refill my booze fridge.  Then Jed tells me I can only bring 75 pounds of stuff with me. Uh, fuck you, I carry shit all the time everywhere. Oh okay 100 pounds then. I glare at him. Goddammit.

YOU GUYS WAIT UP I’LL WALK BACK TO THE 38 WITH YOU. I gotta re-pick which guns to bring on this stupid trip.

After some quick decision making (this gun…or all of my whiskey? leave some doctor’s bags and repair kits. I don’t need all this WATER. Who needs to stay hydrated in the desert…okay 20 bottles of whiskey, guns, all set) I head back to the cave where those guys are waiting for me.

I talk to a couple other of the people going on this expedition, including a guy in a vault suit with a pip boy that he obviously doesn’t know how to use. I ask him if he maybe noticed that I TOO have a pip boy. Except it says PIMP BOY and is gold plated and covered in diamonds, how the fuck could someone NOT notice this thing? I tell this guy to leave I guess and he runs away. *shrug* Not even sure why I did that, I think I was hoping he would start crying or something.

Jed mentions before we leave that I should not mention “Joshua Graham” or “The Burned Man” to anyone there. Arrrgh. Why’d you even tell me this? Now that is the only thing I want to do. If you had never told me this, I wouldn’t even know those names and would have DEFINITELY not mentioned them. Now they are in my head! Now they will get mentioned at first available chance!

We leave, and I guess I just sit back and watch a slide show for this whole trip while Jed tells me a story. This is the most caps I have ever made for doing what is practically nothing.  Finally the show is over and we are by some canyon with a bridge. I can’t move my legs, and Jed and this other chick are talking. I..my legs. I can’t move…my legs what the oh there they go. We continue walking when all of a sudden tribals jump out and kill everyone in my caravan except me.

Well….fuck.

I loot all the dead bodies around me and then look around. I ummm, I guess I’ll go home? How do I get home? I don’t know how to get home because I was too busy WATCHING A SLIDE SHOW. What the fuck. Instead I kill two more tribals and cross a bridge when some friendly guy comes running over to me. He says I should go talk to some guy. *shrug* Okay.

I don’t know, can I just…go back that way? I don’t know why I am continuing whatever the caravan was up to. I don’t even know really what it was! I didn’t save that information anywhere!

This dude is named Follows-Chalk, but now he’s following me back to HIS camp. I start wandering off in the wrong direction and he’s like “I thought we were going to this other place.”

Well then why don’t YOU lead the goddamn way? I don’t know if you REMEMBER, but I’ve never BEEN HERE. I pull out Maria and fire angrily into the air a few times, down a bottle of whiskey, and a Salisbury steak. Look how mad you made me. You made me so mad I had to hork down a steak.

As if Follows Me wasn’t already making me angry, now he tells me to check in that hollow log for anything. So I do.

Xander root and some bullet casings.

THANKS.

That is so helpful. Tell me, is the next hollow log gonna be even better? Or is that one gonna have a mutated giant black widow spider that just crawls out and bites me on the face?

Now where the hell is your camp? I’m stealing something from there to make up for your stupidity.