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15.23% Steel Waste / Chapter 108: Conspiracy Theorist

Chapter 108: Conspiracy Theorist

Afton looks to Logan, "What're you here for?"

...

Logan glares at him, "Well that's none of your fuckin' business. You may be from the NCR, but you don't hold authority over us."

Afton shakes his head, "We're working for the NCR, but we aren't with them... Right now, it's just wastelander to wastelander." he says, tension filling the air.

"If you're not from the NCR then get the fuck out, this place is ours, we find it first. The Crimson Caravan will loot this place clean, and afterwards, you can pick up what's left." he states.

Afton frowns, "The Crimson Caravan wouldn't happen to have provided keys to some of the town's buildings... Would they?"

[Spies Guise is in effect]

One of the hired gun's unconsciously nod, "They migh-"

Logan glares at him, "Shut the fuck up! When McLafferty said keep it covert and her name outta it, she didn't mean spout her secrets to the nearest-... Fuck!" he exclaims, only now realising that he himself had dropped the ball.

"Well, now you know something you shouldn't, you won't be leaving this place." Logan says, grabbing his gun and-

*BANG!*

[John Wick Style is in effect]

Afton had drawn Lucky faster than the other men could blink and fired a shoot through Logan's brain, killing him instantly.

[Scare a humanoid shitless. 4/50]

He looks at the other men who didn't dare reach for their weapons, "Well? You gonna follow your friend? Go ahead, make my day." Afton says, inwardly fanboying at finally getting to use that phrase.

The three remaining men raise their hands above their hands, expressions locked in abject terror. Afton nods in satisfaction, "Now, you lot'll walk outta here, and never speak about this to anyone. 'Specially not whoever McLafferty is, got it?"

They quickly nod and start slowly walking towards the staircase, their hands still above their hands... Afton glances towards Karl and winks.

*BANGBANGBANG!*

Lucky fires out three shots all penetrating the skulls of the unfortunate souls who'd encountered it. The basement goes silent as all enemies were dispatched, Afton tosses out the empty shells and reloads Lucky while turning. "No loose ends, right?"

Karl nods, "Yeah, seems like you're learnin'. Best they didn't leave, gettin' on the wrong side of the Crimson Caravan would spell a lotta trouble... Though, whether getting the opportunity to loot the town was worth killin' those men is up in the air." he says.

"Let's make sure no one knows who killed these guys then... But first let's see if they have anything on them." Afton says and starts rifling through their belongings.

They find a couple 9mm SMG's, Rad X's, Ammo, and a chock-full keyring on Logan. Neither knew why the Crimson Caravan would have access to the locked buildings around the town, but it sounded like the start of some conspiracy.

Afton kicks Logan's corpse outta the way and sits down in front of the terminal he was trying to gain access to. Unlike the hired gun's, he was well enough acquainted with computer technology to hack it.

He took his time in order to go through the code in an attempt to find the password, getting locked out would stop him ever seeing what was held inside it... Well, unless he found where the database was being held and took it apart. That would be difficult though as this world's technology forced computer databases to be about as large as a room depending on how large they were.

In the end he managed to crack the code and was greeted with some updates on the supplies. This was obviously before the town was irradiated... Apparently there used to be radiation suits held in here, which would probably be what Logan was looking for. Unfortunately for them, someone seems to have stolen them and headed up to Nipton-... Oh.

"Er, we seem to have stolen the radiation suits these guys were looking for." he says, causing Karl to start chuckling.

"I almost feel bad for them... Almost."

The fact that the Crimson Caravan knew that Radiation suits would likely be held here only gave credence to his thought that a conspiracy was afoot... Or maybe he was overthinking it? They're traders and may have sold the NCR the radiation suits in the first place.

The duo grab two backpacks from the dead Crimson Caravan mercs and start stuffing them full of the supplies held within here. There was a huge amount to take and so they were stuck grabbing only the most valuable and weight efficient items. Ammunitions, chems, small arms, etc.

Afterwards they dump the four bodies outside of the church where some ghouls would probably devour them, removing any and all evidence of the duo's involvement. The two then proceed to lug the full backpacks back to the NCR encampment.

Sargeant Astor greets them as he sees them come in, giving an inquiring gaze towards the new backpacks they seemed to have. "A profitable trip I take it?"

Afton nods, and reaches into his satchel, "You have no idea." he states as he drops the irradiated dogtags into the man's hand.

He looks down at the almost forty tags and his eyes moisten slightly, "Thank you... Here," he hands off a bag of 400 caps.

"Don't worry about it. If you're still willing to pay we'll continue to deal with the ghouls... There's still quite a lot wandering around." Afton says, not letting the man know they'd probably get rid of them anyway while looting the town.

Sargeant Astor nods, "If you could I'd be grateful, if you need somewhere to stay the night we got a couple free beds in the tent. I don't think anyone would mind you taking them. Oh, your gear is in the tent aswell, no one's touched them.

Afton nods at him, "Thanks."

Just as the duo are about to enter the tent, time freezes and Afton is greeted with an all too familiar notification.

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 13]

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 14]

"Huh, neat."


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Niggross Niggross

Hope you guys liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know.

If you like my content or want to read ahead please go to https://www.p.atreon.com/Nagross, I'd appreciate it.

next chapter

Chapter 109: Becoming an "X-Man"

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 14]

Again Afton was greeted with the level screen, a fresh set of 30 points waiting to be placed wherever he wanted.

Quickly he placed all 30 skill points into Repair, he was considering putting them in Melee Weapons, Explosives, or Science, but felt that this would probably be more useful in the short-term. Hopefully the Perk it gave when it's maxed out would be worth the effort.

Next, he new Perks he had access to were displayed before him,

[Adamantium Skeleton] : Damage taken by limbs reduced by 50%. This was monstrously overpowered. This would essentially make his limbs avoid 50% of all damage, 50% less bullets, 50% less getting sliced or bruised... He was a little put out it didn't make him like Wolverine, but this would do for now...

[Center of Mass] : In V.A.T.S., you do an additional 15% damage when targeting the torso. Somewhat useless, why would he use VATS and target someone's torso? He had the [Sniper] Perk anyway so it was counter-intuitive to pick this.

[Jury Rigging] : Repair any item using a roughly similar item. Now Afton had just made the requirements of this Perk by getting 90 points in Repair. He wasn't sure how good it was anyway, what constitutes a "similar" item? If there weren't any interesting Perks he'd pick it just to see what it did, otherwise it was a mystery.

[Purifier] : You do 50% extra damage with melee and unarmed weapons against centaurs, night stalkers, spore plants, spore carriers, deathclaws and super mutants. Yeah, no. Afton wasn't getting close to any of these creatures. The 50% bonus damage was good, but not enough to risk changing his fighting style.

So, the choice was between [Jury Rigging] and [Adamantium Skeleton]... Afton shrugged and quickly selected the latter, with that Perk he might consider just using his arms as makeshift shields now...

Afton Parker

Level : 14

S.P.E.C.I.A.L :

Strength : 7

Perception : 7

Endurance : 7

Charisma : 4

Intelligence : 6

Agility : 7

Luck : 4

Skills :

Barter : 21

Energy Weapons : 55

Explosives : 20

Guns : 100

Lockpick : 10

Medicine : 40

Melee Weapons : 41

Repair : 90

Science : 44

Sneak : 20

Speech : 100

Survival : 30

Unarmed : 30

Perks :

[Trigger Discipline], [Heavy Handed], [Rapid Reload], [Torture Techniques], [Educated], [John Wick Style], [Toughness], [Stonewall], [Bug Stomper], [Lord Death v1], [Spies Guise], [Quick Draw], [Adamantium Skeleton]

Companion Perks :

[Old Wisdom]

Afton stumbled as information about the Repair skill entered his mind, everything he needed to know about repairing generators, wind turbines, machinery and much, much more bored itself in his head. Repair was a much more intense skill than Speech and Guns, the amount of information stuffed into his head wasn't even comparable.

Karl noticed his situation and raised a brow, not saying anything and instead escorting him inside the tent and sitting him down on the bed he'd been given. It took a couple minutes for him to regain his faculties again, but even after he found himself muttering how to replace a robo-brain's biomedical fluids, or fixing a cyber-dog's cybernetic materials.

He eventually managed to regain his composure though, one thing he knew for sure was that maxing out Repair would likely be just as painful as this... Or maybe not? There was only 10 points left, much less than the 30 that'd caused him so much trouble. He was wondering if this pain was really worth it, as well as if he wanted to test how much worse upgrading Science would be.

The next couple of days Karl and Afton woke up early and went to sleep late, spending their days thinning out the ghoul horde and occasionally exploring some buildings to kill any ghouls that stayed or were stuck inside.

Their efforts were slowly becoming visible, and after three days there weren't any ghouls left wandering the streets of Camp Searchlight. During all of this Karl too the chance to show Afton some tricks that the Ranger's would use.

What was surprising was the fact that these small lessons gave way to actual Perks!

[Ranger Tactics] : Movement speed increased by 20% when following a pre-planned path.

[Ranger Targeting] : AP cost in VATS reduced by 25% when targeting multiple enemies.

[Ranger Awareness] : Ability to hear noises behind you in combat is improved by 10%.

Karl was surprised he'd picked up his teaching so quickly, but just judged it another quirk of his partner. Usually it'd take weeks to months at best to learn these things, but they just seemed to "click" at random times. Very strange.

The duo had cleared the streets and some of the building and was now looking forward to looting the public-service ones. They'd likely have a good amount of stuff to steal due to them being locked probably before the radiation disaster.

So, they find themselves outside the Police Station with weapons drawn. Corpses of the ghouls they'd previously killed lay at their feet, but they ignored them unlocked the door.

Upon stepping inside the duo were surprised to see many terminals lining the wall as well as the desks in the middle of the room. Apparently, this had been an NCR communication centre.

*Guuuuhk*

A gurgling, spluttering noise came from both directions, the left and right rooms seemed to have ghouls within them. Afton stepped forward and glanced into the right door, having to quickly step backwards a claw swipes at his face. It'd be a serious problem if his radiation suit got breached, so he'd stay as far away from these creatures as physically possible.

The ghoul stumbles through the doorway, bits of its rotten flesh sliding off of its bones as its pale eyes stare him down. Its teeth were fully exposed and looked sharper than regular humans should. Wheter this was a mutation from the radiation or just a natural adaptation he had no idea... The only thing he knew for sure was to shoot it until it stopped squirming.

Raising his two revolvers he fires two simultaneous shots into its head, instantly killing it. Afton quickly reloads as he hears a couple more enemies behind the one he'd just killed. They each individually walked through the door, getting a bullet in the cranium for their troubles. It really was just like shooting fish in a barrel, he wondered if intelligent ghouls would be this easy to kill?

Karl dealt with the ghouls in the leftmost rooms and afterwards, they looked around to see what was worth looting. They found various weapons, a grenade launcher with some ammo for it, some actual ballistic grenades, service rifles, NCR armour, etc.

As they'd done so many times before this, they stuffed their backpacks with every valuable item that was efficient to carry... Afton didn't know how they were supposed to carry what, five backpacks full worth of loot to a trader, but they'd managed somehow... Loot was loot, and there was no point in wasting it.


CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Niggross Niggross

Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know.

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