Sophia of Vault 111's page

Sophia: "Ugh... *cough* Cait! What am doing waking up on the beach?"

Cait: "Gotta sleep somewhere. Can't just run on Psycho, Jet, and liquor all the time."

S: Is that why I feel like five gallons of puke in a one gallon bucket?

C: That's how you know you had a good time.

S: Sure wish I remember what was so good about it.

C: First was offing that prick that tried to extort you for caps in Goodneighbor. Turned his back and he never saw that shotgun slug coming.

S: I did what?!? Did anyone see?

C: You offed that yahoo like I did with raiders back in the Combat Zone. Of course the mayor saw but he liked it. Not much patience for thugs that Hancock.

Then their was that research post with the Handys.

S: What the heck did I do with robots now?

C: Made yourself a small little army to try and throw off their mirelurks overlords. Didn't work out well for anyone. Then their was Salem.

S: Isn't that place abandoned?

C: Almost. Some crazy militia codger tried to bark at us for riling up the lurks. You set him straight, cleared out all the nasty neighbors for him but only after he promised to give you something worth the time. Ate good after that too.

Then the retirement home after that.

S: I really hope that was abandoned.

C: Those nanny handys were convinced you were some long lost lady. Took all their meds and then after the synths attacked you laid them all up in beds like the needed a nurse. Then their was Mt. Crabcake.

S: This can't be good. *Clears custom map marker from Pip-Boy.*

C: Some Mirelurk Queen you insisted on beating to death with that funny knife of yours and then climbed up and planted a flagpole in. Then you had some fun at the races.

S: What races are we talking about?

C: Some races the Triggermen had rigged up for raiders. We tried to blend in but they spotted is straightaway. Turned into a right bloodbath that did. After that we strolled down the beach until we found some beaten up house and insisted it must be a haunted.

S: What the hell was I thinking?

C: Don't know, but you did put some ghouls down and looted the basement. I tried to tell you we should call it a day their but you insisted on going on a bit more.

S: Just where did we go. What's this Libertalia?

C: A bunch of raiders all camped together on boats. Not so many raiders anymore. You can see them floating back over their.

S: Is that all of it?

C: More or less. We walked down the beach a bit and you passed out. The dog kept watch for us, good boy that he is.

S: What the heck is that smell?

C: Some stuff the dog decided to roll around in at the bottom of an old subway station.

S: Remind me never to do chems again.

C: Sure thing. Now turn that thing off, I got something important I need to ask you.

S: What the hell, why is this thing running!

*Recording end*

I'm unsure how effective he is in combat besides killing flies and moles so I'll need a test run. Ghouls should be a good benchmark and I've heard that an old National Guard post that is completely lousy with them.

Day One Test Results:
A typical Mr. Handy is surprisingly effective against your garden variety ghoul. Lack of ranged weaponry certainly limited his capabilities, especially against out of reach targets that are unapproachable. While his close range weaponry is impressive it still want defeating enough to deal with a small Swarm of ghouls. Conclusion: Default Mr. Handy units are ineffective base defenses.

Day Two Build:
Simple goal: Maximum firepower. I've fought enough Sentry Bots to know those automatic lasers are terrifyingly powerful so we will begin by attaching two of those. Attaching extra storage to the frame should be a nice quality of life improvement. For me of course, not him.

A suitable testing ground might be hard to find. I'll need to take him through some ghouls again, just for the sake of experimenting. Then I'll follow it up with whatever we can find until it proves too much for him.

Day Two Test Results:
Found a ghoul swarm that was quickly reduced to glowing ashes. Next we found a group of super mutants. They lacked heavy firepower and were quickly dispatched as well, though one did get close enough to smack him with a plank of wood. Nearby was a quarry that was occupied by raiders. Despite having grenades, long range weaponry, and superior numbers, the raiders on the exterior were all killed. The interior was also cleared out of ghoul and raider alike. We also found this odd looking knife.

*long silence*

What?! Oh, yes. Conclusion: successful day off testing but perhaps too successful. I've hacked plenty of robots to know it is too easy to turn them against their creator so I'll tone this down tomorrow.

Day Three Build:
Mr. Handy is the civilian version of the Mr. Gutsy. Perhaps that build deserves a test run, the military must have liked it for a reason. Swap one of the auto lasers for a flamethrower and downgrade the other laser.

No test site in mind. I'll need as varied and input for this as yesterday. How about a trip to the beach?

Day Three Test:
Started at a fish packaging facility. Synths occupied it. Codsworth faired fairly well. Never quite laying waste like there previous build but not suffering either.

Further south we found a Children of Atom cloister. They weren't particularly fond of outsiders. They provided moderate resistance but proved entirely ineffective at combatting the robot. He did tumble down into the radioactive waste though, so the test is ending while he goes back for a thorough decontamination. Can't have a hot robot tagging along with me.

Conclusions: Until a properly secured robot can be produced, limit the firepower to a moderate level.

Robots as basic laborers should be feasible as well but people probably work better in the long run. Robots might malfunction or misinterpret orders. People can reason things out and can always be intimidated.

I guess it's time to find someone else to travel with as Codsworth won't be ready for a bit.

Followed the synth trail to the subway. Raiders, dead and dismembered, strewn about the place. Good gear to scrap. Synths have definitely settled in, not sure why though. They are easy enough to tear through with a mix of rifle fire and swings of the wrench.

Seems the place had only recently been overrun as some turrets were still active and plenty of heavy munitions were still laying around. A trip down the elevator and synths are still roaming the place. At the end of the complex is an active fire fight between raiders and synths. I end the fight by quickly sorting the synths in the back and then shooting the raiders in the chest.

Loot what I want and then head back out. The streets are quiet, no mutants about, so I head into the hospital. We creep in the front door and surprise the guard before he can charge us with his mini-nuke. It alerts the mutant did though and its howling gets the rest to storm toward us.

A shot with the rifle puts the dog down and we head for a less exposed area. A mutant with a board pops up only to get knocked down. More arrive and by the time it's quiet, a half dozen mutants are piled at the door. Now with time to take it all in, Piper and I are standing in the middle of a gruesome kitchen as the dog pulls something out of a bag of meat and bones.

We hurry through grabbing chems and meds and try to focus on something other than our surroundings. Thankfully the gore is replaced by broken furniture soon enough. Some old medical equipment, meds, and a few mutants later and we are at the top floor in front of a locked door. It's a tough lock but I crack it quickly much to Piper's surprise.

Inside is an old operating theatre occupied by some miracle and dogs. We sneak around the side and finish them off quick. A little bit of loot left an we leave. Piper mentions she has enough stuff to write about for awhile now and needs some time away from it all. We make a last trip back to the base to unload and I escort her back to Diamond City. Hopefully she can enjoy some time with her sis.

The next day we ventured south to Natick. We approached slowly as raiders had decorated the place nicely. It was quiet and deserted. We entered the town and spotted a group of fresh raider corpses and spent ammo. Fear set in as I heard a familiar roar. A Deathclaw, stronger and faster than others, charged through the town square.

It moved to fast for my rifles or handgun. The shotgun only had two rounds which barely made a dent. I pulled out the trusty pipe wrench and swung for the legs. I was clawed viciously and slammed into the ground, definitely broke something. My good arm swung for the legs with the wrench and broke its left leg. Piper and the dog pitched in and distracted him enough for me to get back on my feet. It lurched about and clawed Piper but I was able to read the shotgun and blow the other leg out. With two broken legs, it all but laid on the ground. I reloaded the shotgun and put it out of its misery.

Then the pain came on. Piper and I crawled into a nearby building and patched our wounds up. I cooked some fresh Deathclaw for us and the dog. Another day done.

Piper mentioned we are getting close to the Glowing Sea and we should probably turn back. We decided to head to an old hospital in the northeast. It was overrun with super mutants but that shouldn't be too hard to deal with. A long overland hike stopping to deposit things at the base consumed most of the day. We pushed on and made it to the neighborhood by evening.

Camped out nearby and called it quits for the day. Hopefully there aren't any Deathclaws nearby.

Highways in that area have been occupied by Gunners that have setup extensive camps with rickety elevators to move people from camp to the ground quickly. One such base camp blocked my way, I could have spent awhile going around, but I decided to just snipe the troops around the elevator and continue on.

We encountered a wrecked store a bit later with a single Raider that tried ambushing us. Really must have been crazy.

Up top a small Hill I saw a small hut and went to investigate. I had to don my hazmat suit as the area was intensely irradiated. Outside the hut was a kindly ghoul doctor. I traded for some salvaged microscopes and left.

We reached the coast of the lake and a small settlement. Destroyed settlement actually; completely overrun by mirelurks. Extermination went well and we gathered what we could. It was getting rather late by now but we would chance finding somewhere else to crash rather than become mirelurks chow.

We headed back around the other way around the lake to the ruins of a small town. First up was the fueling station with a single super mutant guard. Killed him, drug the corpse outside, crashed for the night.

Woke up to start clearing this town. A small pack of ghouls attacked some Minutemen which made it easy to clear them out. The town didn't have much except and old blood bank. A large amount of bloodbugs had taken up residence in the ruins. Thanks to Piper's help I was able to clear it out without too much trouble though a particularly tough but nearly got me.

Lots of chems and meds, some old medical literature, and a peculiar rifle were all it held. Not a bad haul. Clearing out the town entirely took the rest of the day.

Time for bed.

The gate was closed due to some domestic dispute with a journalist. I helped her get back in and the continued the lie Piper spun to earn some spending change from a guard.

The self-important mayor had some beef with Piper's newspaper, calling it a rag of lies, but he left before I had the urge to slap him around. The big dummy acts like synths don't exist or aren't ever a threat. I'd like to drag him out to see how wrong he is.

Piper wanted to give me an interview, seems that my story has been told by the traders and been embellished upon. I set it straight. After that I received an odd request; she wanted to follow me for a bit to get some better stories.

Sounded like fun, so I agreed. We grabbed some food and set off. First stop was the water treatment plant that Greygarden needed operational. It was overrun with super mutants but sniper fire brought them down easily enough. The idiots didn't have any respectable cover. Inside, mirelurks had settled in nicely as the facility was flooded thoroughly. Reactivating the pumps and eliminating the lurks took some work but also gave us enough meat to have a little feast.

We emerged from the plant and returned to Greygarden. The robotic overseers were happy enough and allowed me to use their facilities whenever I might need to.

Next we responded to a distress signal about some caravan under attack. By the time we got their it was almost over, just one robot left and some scavenger. The scavenger left as we arrived, not ready to contest the scrap to be had, but the robot seemed more talkative than most. She claimed to have some emotional expression but I wasn't sold on that. She offered some fancy plans for a robotics assembly station to help kill the master of the robots that hunted her friends. That I was sold on.

The robot, Ada, said that she would wait for me at Red Rocket to set out whenever I was ready. That will probably be a little while though as the robots that attached her were extremely powerful compared to what I'm used to. She seemed unconcerned.

After that I got a message that Tenpines was under attack. A quick hike up north and we drove off some strange raiders. They wore robot parts as armor and attacked with oddly put together robots. A new threat, wonderful.

Piper and I head to sleep in the camp safe in the knowledge that these crazy bandits failed to kill even a single settler.

Abernathy, Oberland, and Tenpines are all stable settlements with defenses in place now and as word gets out more are sure to ask for aid. As for that direct aid, another gun and backpack makes looting places much easier.

Plane wreck with a smugglers cache of ammo, explosives, and guns.

Cemetery with some grave defiling raiders, now dead.

A robot run mall, full of glitchy robots, now fixed and running smoothly, I guess. I might put this place out of its misery but it does give me an idea. Why not just make robotic residents for my settlements?

Checked by that quarry again and I was forced to put down a dozen or more raiders and their pet mirelurks.

Tracked down radio distress signals, not much loot and lots of sad stories.

Abandoned bunkers, one filled with raiders, the other with synths. Both had lots of loot and equipment to use.

Cleared out the area surrounding an old University, super mutants and ghouls were in residence but not a lot of loot. Oh well, didn't expect much.

A few radioactive dumping areas allowed me to test the new hazmat suit I found. I'll be hearing the ticking from my Pip-Boy until I die now.

The last of the month's excursions took me to the up and coming trade hub of Covenant. I had to answer to a test when I entered, didn't think much of it until later though. Everyone seemed nice but one mercenary was asking around after a missing girl. I offered to help and began asking around town, using my persuasive talents I uncovered information about the residents.

They all have some task they are doing and this test serves as a sort of tools to weed out potential candidates. If I'm going to find out more I need to break someone out of character. Their weak link, the mechanic. I deceive and pressure her enough to warrant the direct intervention of the mayor. Now I'm getting somewhere.

I convince the mayor to let me meet with the leadership of this experiment in their base. The mayor radios ahead and I head out. The Compound was hidden in a drain pipe down by the pond; good location to hide it.

The door guard guides me through the mess of halls and walkways to the lead scientist. What followed was a brief discussion where she tried to convince Preston and I that they should be left alone to find and destroy synths by using their test. While we agree that the Institute (an entity I don't fully comprehend) needs to be stopped it doesn't warrant the slaughter of innocent people.

Preston wouldn't like it, but had their success/fail rate been reversed, I'd have likely let them continue. Can't help it now. The slaughter of guards and scientists in the Compound lasted a short while, but as we emerged into the night, Covenant lay ahead of us.

I sniped the turrets from a distance and disabled their frontal defenses. The gate guard also took a shot while he relaxed in his chair and slumped over dead.

The rest of the residents funneled out of town to confront us. They died on the road out of town and the few stragglers died in town. I disabled the 'lemonade' dispensing robot and locked the gates. I might return to put this place in order some day, but not now.

A long quiet walk back to my base and Preston decides to open up fully to me. He confesses that he has nearly given up on life when I showed up. At the end of that, he also asks to be relieved of service as my personal guard, seems that Covenant was just a little too much for him.

I agree, reluctantly, but tell him that I'll get to the settlements in my own time and that I'll need to head to Diamond City to try and find some better gear, so don't ask for anything for a few days.

I head in to get a good sleep and he goes back to Sanctuary. Hard to find good help.

Preston accepts me immediately; he is too trusting. That took the whole day to resolve Corvega, but I may have found potential solution to the problem of raiders.

Cabin with a few bloatflies and a very old, very dead runaway. Not much here other than an old magazine.

A few raiders near a water tower with some nearby Radstag Does. Good food and water.

Further south I found some farmers. They were hesitant to talk with me and complained about raiders that killed their daughter. They wanted a fancy locket back, one which I happened to still have in my possession. I have it back and they offered to let me trade, rest, and use their workshop.

The dog and I moved a bunch of raw materials here to make some defenses for them, over a half dozen turrets. That should keep the casual raiders away.

Further south I found a drainage pipe that looked suspiciously well traveled. I entered, cleared out a bunch of raiders, salvaged some materials and found a rather peculiar heavy wrench that has been modified into a gruesome limb crippler. That should prove useful.

I detoured east towards where Corvega should be. Ran into a different group called the Gunners. They nearly did me in with their advanced weaponry, explosives, and teamwork. I bandage up and rest in their huts on the highway.

Continued east and found Lexington and Corvega. Corvega is a monster. Is that thing filled with raiders? Oh boy, this isn't going to be easy. I spend the rest of the day looking for a back way in, but find nothing. Guess the front door will have to do.

I head back up the road towards my base but find an old drive-in movie theatre. Takes a bit to clean up, but I could turn this into something useful given time.

Further on I encounter a diner where some gun-toting thugs are threatening a woman whose son was given some bad drugs. I probably could have talked them off, but I decided the woman would be safer if they were dead.

In retrospect, I'm beginning to wonder why I treated them so callously. I'll need to be careful in the future. Thankfully the dog doesn't judge me.

Made it back to base very late, unloaded, and slept.

Vertibird wreck with a partial suit of power armor and another frame. Stored back at base before continuing.

Stumbled upon an old satellite base. Outside the base, chunks of raiders littered the ground. Nearby, mole rats strapped with bombs. Seems the raiders got a taste of their own medicine. Inside the bunker, a half dozen or so lightly armed raiders with one tough one carrying a minigun. The dog distracted one most of the time and we stayed out of sight of the heavy until the heavy and one raider remained. Lots of salvage and another group of raiders eliminated.

It was getting dark but I pushed on. Found a destroyed house with some radroaches hiding out around it. Clubbed them and turned around to find a gun in my face.

Turns out this little shack nearby is inhabited by two people. They need help with raiders from Corvega and were hoping the Minutemen had come. I let them know Preston's whereabouts and I offer to help in exchange for access to the workshop.

Bed down for the night in a spare bed.

Journeyed further afield. Found a junkyard with a prototype military sentry bot. It was resistant to reprogramming as a guard so I disabled it and scrapped him for parts and fusion cores.

Scavengers at a little hovel attacked at first sight, they are gone now.

Railroad depot full of these creepy undead-like monsters. They are gone now. Found some interesting notes around there hinting at some clandestine activities that went bad.

Questionable sort trying to drain an old quarry. Seemed like he might be a scoundrel of some sort, I'll have to check later.

I stopped by Concord on my way back home and met an old man by the cook fire at the bottom of a hill. Had a long chat with the fellow and learned the popular terminology for most of today's things; people, objects, factions, places.

Turns out he is a ghoul. I shared most of my old prewar food, rads won't affect him at all. Head back, empty out the scrap material and start over again tomorrow.