ADVENTURES OF THE WILD EAST

[Maharg67]

FACTIONS (IN OR 'CLOSE' TO DC)

 

UST: United Settlement Territories being a loose federation of settlements and the territories that they control.

 

Brotherhood of Steel based in DC Citadel and allied to the UST. Made up of Elders, Scribes, Sages, Sappers, Troopers and others. Tightly allied to the UST.

 

Sisterhood of Steel, amazonic offshoot of Brotherhood of Steel. Loosely allied to the UST.

 

Outcast Brotherhood, breakaway faction from the Brotherhood of Steel based in Fort Independence. Loosely allied to the UST.

 

Orderhood being made up of Orders of Compassion, Protection, Healing, Teaching, Learning, Enlightenment and others. Loosely allied to the UST.

 

TekRepublic being surviving restructured TekCorporations (TekCorps), including the contracted public service GovTek. Ruled by TekHighCouncil. Also TekInstitute as linked to DomniInstitute. Part of the DC Coalition.

 

DomniCommonwealth being surviving elements of one of the Thirteen Commonwealths. DomniGovernment (DomniGov), DomniCorporation (DomniCorp) and other. Also DomniInstitute as linked to TekInstitute. Part of the DC Coalition.

 

Peoples Republic of DC: hidden 'nation' of descendents of Soviet invaders, infiltrators and US followers.

 

Ghoul Underworld being a network of underground hidden settlements with the only open settlement being in the National Mall in one of the museums there.

 

Point Lookout Alliance being coastal settlements linked by patrolled coastal road and sea routes.

 

Republic of Dave: Bemusing and amusing but sometimes annoying.

 

EagleEnclaven: powerful and dangerous survivors of the worst elements of the old US Federal Government that have evolved and expanded, advancing new technologies in hidden bases and Vault like Claves. Linked with even more secretive backing power. The EagleEnclaven is based in three actual territories known as EagleEnclaves.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

BRUSHING WITH DANGER; EAGLEENCLAVE SCOUTS AND SOMETHING MORE MYSTERIOUS

 

The expeditionary group went around the area of the giant stinger-ants and the stinger-ants made no further aggressive moves, which was the doing somehow of Herbert Daring Dashwood but nobody brought up the issue. They crossed what had been a wide parklands of green lawns and ornamental flowerbeds with many small statues of common citizens. Many of the statues were intact and the ground was largely bare but areas were mounded up with mutated grasses and other plants.

 

It was Argyle who asked Sarah to have the convoy halt and who departed to slip into the surrounds with two BofS Scouts stripped down to fatigues. Standard Brotherhood of Steel (BofS) power armour was not easy to sneak around in at the best of times. They reached about twenty metres from the carefully arrayed vehicles when they ran into the EagleEnclave scouts who wore special recon power armour. For a moment the two trios stood staring at each other, old enemies for sure, prepared to try to slaughter each other. But then a silent decision was made and the Enclavers quietly backed away to vanish into the exotic semiwilderness. Both sides had little to gain and too much to lose in fighting each other.

 

Argyle and the others returned to the formation. Argyle met up with Sarah and Herbert crouched close to a temorary set up where soldiers were sorting out some hot coffee. Coffee came from an odd variety of sources including mutated coffee plants growing with surprising success in some areas of the North American Wastelands including the DC.

 

Argyle was concerned but not surprised. He had been in the Special Forces. "Would be surprised if the Enclavers did not send out scouts. They are excellent soldiers even if they suck as human beings."

 

Sarah snorted in irritation. "Yes it makes sense but it makes our task of getting to TekVault0087 even harder. Of course they will report back to their people. It will be a surprise for them that the Brotherhood of Steel is waiting for them here in DC."

 

But Dashwood grinned mildly. "The EagleEnclave scouts were not surprised. They were expecting to find your people here, Knight Captain Sarah Lyons. I sensed this in a general fashion and can not explain why they were not surprised. I would suggest that the Enclavers want to know what we are up to, what we know, what our interest in TekVault0087 is. By letting us alone but watching us, as they are attempting to do, they hope to gain more valuable data. We will need to either mislead them or give the enemy the slip. I have a plan but it is dangerous."

 

Sarah shrugged as if to indicate that this was no surprise.

 

Herbert Daring Dashwood took a sip of hot, black coffee from a plastic mug and then spoke. He was drinking mutated stuff that supposedly could grow hairs on the chest of a suit of power armour. "I am having flashbacks of what happened in TekVault0087. It was a research and development base for mutagenics, for the FEV, that was based on captured zetan technological data and samples of zetan experimental biologics. It was a large TekVault and in theory should still be functioning strongly. I dreamed only of part of it, a subvault, and there easily may be Vaultfolk survivors there. Though fragmented and frustrating, my flashbacks have alerted me to the existence of a series of emergency transit tunnels constructed by VaultTek that lead into TekVault0087. I suggest that Argyle and myself go find those tunnels and see if we can find a way to the Lamplight Caverns, even if we do not manage to get as far as the TekVault itself."

 

Sarah spoke after a pause. "Very good then. We will take your vehicle since I expect you will be moving on foot."

 

Argyle responded this time. "Yep but you look after her. I put a lot of work into that machine."

 

Sarah gave the ghoul a look of annoyance. "The BofS does know how to take good care of an SATV." Then she gave a mild grin. "We will have two troopers try to look like you two but can we find somebody to be as ugly as Argyle is."

 

Argyle glared mildly at Sarah Lyons. "Bloody rude, smoothskin, but I like it; nobody can be as handsomely ugly as Argyle. I suppose we will be moving out..."

 

Then he noticed that Herbert Daring Dashwood had gone into some kind of trance state and was staring into space with great intensity. Argyle was and looked concerned. He knew the signs. Herbert Daring Dashwood was involved in some kind of battle that was beyond his understanding, that he did not want to understand, and with something out there that he had no desire at all to meet. As if sensing the same, Sarah at once made efforts to make sure all of her scouts and sentries were okay.

 

It was not long later that her scouts brought in the three EagleEnclave scouts they had briefly encountered before but now the Enclavers were quite dead and yet there were no physical marks on their bodies or on their special recon power armour. Sarah was excited by the chance to send the advanced enemy equipment for the BofS Scribes and Sages to examine, to even back engineer, but she was now deeply concerned for the health of her people, forgetting her own safety as she often did.

Edited May 4, 2011 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

NOTES:

 

ROBOTS

 

NOTE: Brainbots are only found indoors and, as cyborgs, in control of other robots, roboremotes and other hitech hardware-software. Robobrains are outdoors versions of brainbots having no bubble brain exposed at the top but being bulkier, better armoured and more heavily armed.

Robobrains can exhange weapons for tools or other devices. Like brainbots, robobrains are not truly robots but are cyborgs of a special nature.

Exception to the rule is when rogue crazed brainbots wander outdoors but they tend not to survive very long.

 

NOTE: Soviets unleashed robots into the DC being marauderbots, strikerbots, sneakerbots and others. These are of various levels of threat. Old robots are getting repaired somewhere and newer robots are being built in small but consistant numbers. The place remains a mystery.

 

VEHICLES

 

NOTE: Along with the big atomic motorised Landliner coaches, there can be found Landfreighters being the same type of vehicle altered to carry freight or even livestock or special tanks for liquid or gas. Landliner variants were also created being fire-engines, SWAT vehicles, special ambulances with extra equipment, mobile 3DTV centres, armoured bank-trucks and much else. The military forces used a variant of Landliner called the Landtrooper that had roboremote gun-turrets.

[Maharg67]

AFTER THE STRANGE BATTLE

 

Daring Herbert Dashwood took a vial of serum, some water, and a stimpak before he went to sleep. The invisible battle with a mysterious enemy, the same one that had killed the EagleEnclave scouts, had taken its toll of him. He slept for a few hours while the Lyon's Pride took the chance to take a rest. Sarah Lyons had made plans with her officers and they knew where they would head for in order to decoy away the EagleEnclave. They had to be seen to be still going towards TekVault0087 but in a fashion that made it seem they were getting lost to at least some extent. As for the invisible enemy, that was something that Sarah Lyons doubted she or the Lyon's Pride could deal with.

 

With Argyle at his side, Herbert awoke and sat up looking surprisingly refreshed. He was on a made up military bed on the floor. He looked around the tent and then at Argyle. "That dark, hateful mentality out there is very powerful but its hatred, its desire for revenge, weakens it. The EagleEnclave was the main reason came it came here for the EagleEnclave was behind the agony of its creation and existence. In the end it relented to some extent and I was able to give it some soothing, some healing. It knows how we can get to TekVault0087 past the EagleEnclave but firstly, it states, we must go to Bigtown and then to Little Lamplight inside the Western Lamplight Caverns. It would not tell me why but I sensed fear in it. The entity might or might not come with us."

 

Samantha walked into the tent with a tray with three messkits with very warm tea, foodbars, made up powdered soup and cleansed muttfruit gathered locally along with a metallic lid-jug of clean, cool water. She was not at all surprised by Herbert being awake and ready for food and drink; Argyle knew this was because Herbert had reached out to Samantha or so he assumed.

 

Samantha sat on a folding chair and sighed. "Sarah Lyons and her people want to move out soon. Are you ready to set out on foot?"

 

"More than ready." Herbert frowned softly. "I fear that something dark and dangerous exists in TekVault0087 and that the foolish, greedy, arrogant and aggressive EagleEnclavers are going to stir up dark forces beyond their control. We will head for Bigtown. We will have to set out soon, as will the Lyon's Pride, for other dangerous forces are moving into the area in big numbers and I mean more than the EagleEnclavers."

 

The other two had learned to trust Herbert. They finished the food and drink, it was often wise to consume it when you had access to it, and then Samantha went off to speak with Sarah while Herbert and Argyle started preparations to move out on foot. They had to cut down the amount of equipment and supplies they carried but they did have some special resources to assist them in such matters.

[Maharg67]

THROUGH EMERGENCY TRANSIT TUNNELS

 

Not only were the emergency transit tunnels in surprisingly good condition, they were sealed off from threats. Samantha, Herbert and Argyle managed to get into the tunnels through a small hub-station and sealed the secret door carefully behind themselves. If they had thought there were anybody in the area that were both friendly, or at least non aggressive, that could and would use the tunnels, they would have left them open. They did not want the EagleEnclavers to find the tunnels or what ever else threats were out there that Herbert could sense.

 

Not just savage zhouls were out there but berserker ghouls with weapons, somewhere between greater deformed zhouls and normal ghouls, known as ghoulers. There were muttbears, mutated monster bears, diredogs and other things including rogue molerats, most molerats being passive escapist unless cornered or with pups near them. wild dogs tended to be the same as molerats and did many other critters. More often than not such critters were the victims of human or ghoul aggression, not the other way around.

 

There was also that other threat out there, the more exotic, more hidden and deadly one.

 

They made good time through the tunnels past semiactive robots inside rest-recharge bays. They took only some of the supplies in the tunnels so as to use them and to keep in reserve those that they carried. So from a CafeTek vending-machine they got mealpaks, bottles of filtered water labelled FineWaters along with CafeTek coffee in self-heating cupcans. All containers and packaging went into recycling-chutes not just for any goodness but to leave as few traces of there having been there as possible.

 

The only problem was that the tunnels did not lead directly to Bigtown and so they had to depart earlier from the tunnels than they had previously planned to do. Soon they were in a series of rugged seminatural caves that were partly extended and augmented by artificial means. The huge cave network had been a storage area for both the military and various big corporations along with various RDNGOs, research and development non government organisations.

[Maharg67]

:thumbsup: = okay

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: = good

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: = very good

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Locked at OP's request. -mm