I'm referring, of course, to the Brotherhood of Steel. These paranoid survivalist fanatics have access to advanced pre-war technology, including energy weapons, power armor, and near limitless supplies of ammunition. However, they don't like outsiders, and to prove my worth, I must undertake a quest.
This is more or less a suicide mission. The area they're sending me to is highly radioactive, and I'm almost certainly not meant to return.
It is for this reason that I part ways with Ian. I'm not at all sure whether NPCs are vulnerable to radiation, but I am certain that I don't want to deal with it if they aren't (a quick google search has told me that followers aren't susceptible, which would have been useful to know, but doesn't especially matter because Ian has outlived his usefulness)
After picking up some rope in the Hub's General Store (because, I forgot, this mission is the third and final time you need it), I make my way further south.
This area was obviously hit pretty hard by nukes, but I'm not sure what was so valuable there that made it a bigger target than Los Angeles. My initial thought was perhaps the naval base in San Diego, but this is too far inland. Google tells me it was the West Tek research facility, which is a name that means nothing to me. I'll try and keep an eye out for it in future Fallouts.
The Glow's post card makes it look even uglier. Whoever those West Tek people were, somebody wanted them dead in a big way.
Perhaps the reason for this gratuitous overkill is because their headquarters appears to be a Vault.
Navigating around the gigantic hole is a little tricky, because it is not at all clear that there's enough room to walk by on the left. But there is. The Brotherhood corpse up top has the thing I need to complete the quest. I could try and activate the elevator to go down to sub-level 3, but there is so much radiation, and the way forward is so non-intuitive, that I prefer not to try my luck. Despite my radaways and quick moving, I probably took more than enough radiation as it is.
Case in point. My stats take a massive hit. Luckily, it's not quite enough to kill me. I'm able to limp my way back to Brotherhood headquarters, where they seem surprised to see me.
It's a nice, high-tech building that definitely feels like a refuge after so much time wandering the desert.
They even have someone who can cure my radiation sickness.
So, all-in-all, I'm able to access this high-tech treasure trove without having to fight any enemies and with no permanent ill effects. I won't say it wasn't risky. I could well have taken too big a radiation dose to survive, but if I had to do it all again, I'd probably come straight here and take my chances.
Without having to do anything else, they just hand me advanced combat armor, but at the cost of a minor errand, even bigger rewards await. All I have to do is find an initiate who went missing in the hub.
Naturally, the police are useless. . .
But it doesn't matter, because I've got the second strongest armor in the game and a pistol that packs the punch of a rifle. A few thugs are nothing for me to worry about.
The trickiest part was poking my nose in every damned building in town until someone decided to attack me.
The guy was suitably grateful.
In addition to his heartfelt thanks, I get confirmation that my initiation test was just an attempt to get me killed. Real nice, Brotherhood. Classy.
Doesn't matter, though, because they give me what I came for.
POWER ARMOR!
It is clearly the best option on the list, though if I'm really min-maxing the game, I should choose something else, because there's actually another way to get power armor, whereas the rocket launcher or the super sledgehammer only show up in really expensive barter deals or on the corpses of powerful enemies.
Still, I'm impatient. And who wouldn't be when you look this damned good.
Not only does it make me effectively immune to small arms fire, but it also boosts my strength by four points. From this moment on, the only things I have to fear are high-end energy weapons and critical hits (because some critical hits bypass armor in its entirety and render all your fancy technology into a shiny metal container for your pureed organic goo).
I'm so pleased that I seek out the leader of the Brotherhood, to see if there are any more missions I can do for the order.
However, he gives me no more than a vague direction - search the northwest until I find the source of the mutant attacks. It is, of course, something that I was already planning on doing, but with any luck, I'll get an extra reward for it.
In the meantime, I decide to put my power armor through its paces. My main short-term goal is to kill the Deathclaws that are boxing in the Gun Runners so they will give weapons to the Blades so they can take down the Regulators (despite the fact that it would now be easier for me to skip all those intermediate steps and just directly attack Adytum by myself). However, I'm not yet sure how well my armor will do in anti-deathclaw combat.
So I need a test case. A single deathclaw I can go up against to see how well I do. For that, the creature stalking the Hub's caravans is the ideal choice.
I get some vital information from a ghoul named Harold
He will turn out to be an important recurring character, but for now he's just a talkative old guy who seems to be involved in half the wasteland's more important events (perhaps he's the player character from a more experimental alternate Fallout series). He gives me significant hints about the origins of the super mutants and their mysterious Master, and also directs me to talk to Slappy.
He's pretty much your stock rpg "crazy guy." Lots of nonsensical babble that is harmlessly wacky, but it turns out that he knows more than you assume . . . provided your assumptions are based on a complete ignorance of the last 400 years of popular culture. He leads me to the deathclaws lair, where I forget to get a screenshot of me easily dispatching it (but, no joke, it was totally heroic and awesome, trust me).
However, the poor deathclaw was falsely blamed for these heinous attacks. It turns out it was super mutants.
It's kind of sad, actually. The mutants appear to be able to care for their comrades, and experience the same fear of death as any "normal" human. Perhaps we are not so different after all. And yet we continue to slaughter each other, just like the short-sighted ancients who scorched this once beautiful world over petty resource disputes. I guess war never changes. . .
(Hey! I just got that!)
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