I was halfway down the stairs to the third floor, trying to scrape the radroach gunk off my boot as I walked, when I realized I had missed something rather obvious. Something fundamental to the idea of clearing buildings, something so quintessential to Fallout that I felt kinda dumb for not realizing it sooner.
I had cleared the building, now it was time to loot.
Shaking my head, I made my way back up the stairs to the top floor, looking around at where I should start. I stayed alert, since the possibility of there being more radroaches in the walls was very real, but I picked a corner office and started tossing the place. I grabbed the trash can from beside the desk, dumped the contents out onto the floor, before opening up cabinets, looking in desk drawers, and even moving things around a bit to see if there were any hidden safes.
I knew from the games that people in this world had a strange habit of putting safes behind or under furniture that would make opening the safe rather difficult. That meant I needed to check behind and under every cabinet and desk saw. Not that I had any idea how to open a safe that didn't involve way too much time and a crowbar. Which I also didn't have.
It took me ten minutes to go through the first room, eight minutes for the second, and five for the third. By the time I walked down the third floor, I was clearing the rooms in just a few minutes, having refined what was worth my time and gotten used to just tossing things around rather than carefully opening drawers and cabinet doors. By the time I was done, no one would mistake the building for anything other than thoroughly searched.
As I finished my looting by tearing through the front desk, I took a minute to examine the trash can I had half filled. Two bottles of unopened alcohol, one of which I easily recognized as the from the game. I also found three sealed containers of water, which, as far as I could see, would have to be clean since they were unopened and inside a desk, therefore untouched by contaminated particulates.
Another desk contained a pack of 10mm ammo with twelve rounds and a small gun cleaning kit. Two of the bathrooms contained unopened first aid kits, one of which contained a, this one dirty and old, while the other had a container of. There were also a surprising number of bottle caps spread around all of the desks, enough that there must have been a reason for people to collect them. By the time I walked out the front door, I had forty-six caps, which might not seem like a lot, but I couldn't imagine finding that many if I had searched a random office back home.
Most of the loot I gathered, everything save the Rad-X, really, I only grabbed for trade. Should any wandering traders ever stumble by, having a few items to pass off would grease any gossip wheels and make conversations much easier. Plus, just having caps on hand would be useful, even if I was hoping to push… whatever it was I was trying to build here into being self-sufficient.
With my first building cleared and looted, I carried the trash can back to HQ, stopping as I walked inside. I looked around for a moment before a frown grew on my face. It rather slowly dawned on me that while the Headquarters might have appeared to be well supplied, we in fact had very little in the way of infrastructure. Sure, we had water and basic food, which in this world made us pretty well off, but we lacked a lot of what made organizations and group work. We had no boxes, no bags, no office supplies, and no mass storage for what I had just brought back. We didn't even have any shelves to stack stuff on. We needed a whole list of mundane materials and basic infrastructure. Luckily, this could be solved with good old-fashioned looting, but needs would grow as the HQ did.
"Is something wrong, Sir?" Maxwell asked, stepping around the corner.
"No, just realizing how much work this place is going to need to be functional," I explained, letting out a breath. "Do me a favor and take this, and bring it into the main hall. Then, clear one of the far corners of anything that would get in the way of shelves, crates, or other storage. It hopefully won't be permanent, but for now it's going to have to be our loot corner."
"Right, very well, sir," he said, looking down at the trash can as if it were an affront to god. "Just.. try not to track too much of a mess, Sir."
"I'll do my best, but I can't make any promises," I explained.
He sighed and nodded, turning back to the main hall while I left the building again, heading towards the second set of doors to the large, multi-office complex. These doors were, rather miraculously, not broken, and instead opened easily when I pulled on them, letting me step inside. The first floor of this area was a bit more open, a large waiting room or gathering area, though judging by the corporation name behind the reception desk, it was still an office building.
Immediately, I noticed something was different, but it took a second for me to realize it was the skeletons. I had purposely ignored the number of skeletons and bones scattered along the ground in the first building. But now, standing in the lobby of the second building, it was impossible to not notice just how few there were. The fact settled heavily in my stomach, and I took a minute to adjust my grip on my gun, double-checking that the safety was off.
I carefully cleared the first floor, taking my time and mentally preparing myself before making my way to the stairs to the second floor. From the bottom looking up, I could see that one corner was partially collapsed, parts of the second landing having broken and fallen into the first. I climbed about halfway up the first flight, trying to figure out what I was going to do, when I made the mistake of leaning on the railing.
With a loud creak, which echoed up and down the stairs, the bolts holding the railing in place failed, rusted puffs of dust catching the light as they snapped, followed by an almighty clang as the railing pulled free and slammed into the concrete stairs. The reverberations of the bouncing metal railing continued as it slid down, only stopping when it finally caught on something.
For a moment, the building was silent. Then, suddenly, a moaning scream echoed from the upper floors. It was wet, like someone had scraped a throat bloody and then forced it to keep screaming, gargling through their own blood. One scream turned into two, four, and then five, and for a few long seconds, it felt like the building itself was screaming. Then, one by one, the screaming stopped, replaced with the sounds of heavy footsteps, running feet echoing down the stairs.
I couldn't help but curse, shouting to steel my nerves. As I did, I carefully walked backward toward the door. I kept my gun raised, aimed at the stairwell, stopping after I had close to two dozen feet of space separating us. I could hear them, pounding down the stairs, getting closer and closer until…
A moving corpse burst around the corner of the stairs, stumbling on the collapsed debris and tumbling down the stairs. A second and third soon followed, both of them managing to stay on their feet, despite looking more like they were stumbling towards me, rather than walking.
Immediately, I opened fire, pulling the trigger three times, hitting the closest ghoul twice, causing it to stumble and struggle, partially tripping up the second. It kept coming, though, getting within several feet of me before I could properly sight it in. Again, I pulled the trigger, and my rifle barked, flashes lighting up the interior as gore and black rotting ichor exploded out of the charging ghoul. One shot hit it in the leg, causing it to collapse forward, right into the way of my second bullet, its head exploding in a shower of horrific sludge.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The first ghoul, who had stumbled on the stairs, was standing, and the one I had wounded but not killed was crawling towards me. I quickly fired again, letting my adrenaline win and firing way too much. Still, it was hard to argue with the results, as both ghouls finally dropped.
Unfortunately, the sound of feet thumping above me did not stop, and I quickly reloaded my rifle, barely having time to slide the two-thirds empty magazine into my back pocket before a new wave charged me.
I opened fire at the shambling, tumbling group, managing to take down three more before having to back up, firing as I moved. Another ghoul dropped as I pushed through the doors into the bright exterior, barely remaining stable as they just kept coming. As I blinked and struggled to focus through the glare, a pair of ghouls slammed into the door as it swung closed after me, smashing the glass and getting caught up in the frame, screeching and flailing against each other. Seeing that they were stuck, I stopped retreating, took careful aim, and executed both of them, their heads exploding.
With a click, I released the magazine for my M4, reaching down to pick up my third and final full magazine, when suddenly three more ghouls burst from the darkness of the interior. The first slammed into the remaining door frame hard enough to break and push it open, and while it collapsed and stumbled, the two ghouls behind it managed to get through without falling.
"Fuck!" I cursed, dropping my empty rifle before pulling out my pistol, doing my best to aim it before the ghouls could reach me.
I pulled the trigger, the first two bullets, fired almost from the hip, punched through the first ghoul's thigh and stomach, causing it to spin and drop. Despite its wounds, it immediately started trying to get back up. I managed to take a bit better aim at the second ghoul, firing a trio of shots all center mass, dropping it to the ground. As it fell, the first ghoul, the one that I managed to just wing, was getting to its knees, letting me perfectly line up a shot and blow its head off.
The last ghoul was still struggling after slamming into the door, having clearly broken its hip or something. So, rather than shoot it and waste a bullet, I lifted up a chunk of concrete and, from a few feet away, tossed it on its head, crushing it into pulp.
I quickly reloaded my pistol, sliding it back into its holster before grabbing my rifle and reloading that as well. I then moved into the shadow of the building, watching and listening, catching my breath and waiting for more ghouls, or even something else from the surrounding area, to come rushing to find me.
Five minutes later, my breathing had calmed, and my adrenaline had subsided. Thankfully, no new ghouls had shown their faces while I had waited. I had spent the last five minutes moving the leftover rounds from my two used magazines into one, giving me one full mag and one with eighteen rounds inside. After giving myself a quick check over, I stood from my cover and took a deep, fortifying breath before I pushed into the building again.
While I had technically already cleared it, I quickly gave the first floor another once over before moving to the stairs, rifle up and ready. I quietly, carefully, climbed upward, only to find the second floor was empty, as was the third and fourth.
I took a moment on the fourth floor, debating if I cared enough about the maybe hundred caps worth of stuff in the whole building, before sighing and grabbing two trash cans. In one, I gathered anything useful for trade, and in the other, I gathered anything that might be useful for us. Pens, a few stacks of relatively clean paper, a stapler, and some paperclips, I even grabbed a pair of clipboards that might eventually be useful.
As I descended, I also made note of a few sturdy shelves in a janitor's closet on the second floor, as well as a stack of metal crates in the back of the first floor. They were filled with junk, but that was easy enough to solve.
As I finally stepped back out of the door, I spotted the leaking, broken corpses of the ghouls who had charged me, and I winced. I was doing everything I could to ignore the smell, which was horrific on a level I didn't even know existed. Unfortunately, I had no idea how the surrounding mutated wildlife would react to corpses being left out in the open. So, after dropping off my loot, I grabbed each corpse and dragged them back into the building. I even grabbed the ones inside, moving all of them much deeper into the first floor. Hopefully, that would keep molerats or bloatflies from showing up.
With the corpses taken care of, I once again focused on my current quest. I had two more office spaces to clear, and I was dreading what I would find inside. I was that any ghouls that were inside would have come out when they heard the shooting, but with no way to confirm that, I needed to be on constant alert.
I climbed up and through the third office space without any issues, clearing a relatively normal office space. Like the first building was filled with skeletons, especially on the first floor, but I also found a mostly intact Mr. Handy robot, collapsed in a supply closet. My gaming instincts told me that there must be some sort of instructions or part tucked away nearby that I needed to replace to get it working again, but after searching for about fifteen minutes, I found nothing. Not exactly surprising considering I wasn't actually in a game, but I had to at least try, if for no other reason than to have someone on hand to help Maxwell.
I went through the fourth building with my nerves and tension all tightened to eleven, my body nearly exploding from the stress, which ultimately led to nothing. Just like the previous building, there were a whole lot of skeletons on the first and second floors, which made me think that there was some sort of difference in radiation exposure levels between the four buildings, for only one of the four offices to have ghouls. Whatever the reason, I was more than happy to take advantage of it. Nearly fifteen ghouls at once, at least by myself, was more than enough of a challenge.
When I was done looting, I made my way out of the building, fighting to keep myself alert as an edge of fatigue started catching up to me. I had only been working for a few hours, maybe just under four, but between the radroaches, the ghouls, and the general stress, my body felt tired. I was not used to the spikes of adrenaline, something I was hoping would change over time.
I didn't expect any of this shit to get easier after all. Not with the entities clearly making my quests with the intention of keeping things interesting. I made my way back to the HQ, dropping off my loot before heading straight for Maxwell's desk, where he was already waiting for me.
"Welcome back, sir," He said with a smile. "Congratulations on completing your quest."
"Yeah, went about as well as I could hope for," I said, shaking my head a bit. "How does this work, the soldier creation process?"
"Well, first we submit your quest…"
I watched him feed the parchment into the same mail slot, the familiar ding sounding a moment later. Maxwell then reached under the counter and pulled out a tiny tin soldier, about half the size of my thumb. It was expertly detailed, showing a modern soldier with barely detectable features, wearing the same I was, a M4 carbine slung over their back with a strap.
"So… what, just add water?" I guessed, looking up to find that Maxwell was already bringing out the map I had used to place the barracks the day before. "Oh… right, fair enough."
He unfurled and weighed down the map before gesturing to the green square and grayed-out area that represented the barracks. There were now also eight dots on the green space, each the size of the tin soldiers' base.
"I believe how this works is quite obvious?" Maxwell asked, and I nodded silently in response, placing the tin soldier on one of the eight circles.
After a moment, the tiny tin soldier seemed to sink down into the map, just as the small green box that had represented the barracks had. When it was gone, the circle was filled in grey, the color of tin.
"Well…not sure what else I was expecting," I admitted after staring at the map for a moment. "Guess I'll go greet our newest teammate."
It didn't take long to walk around the building and arrive at the barracks. The door was sealed shut, just like it had been when we left the day before. After sparing a look back at the HQ, I opened the door and walked inside. Immediately, I spotted the soldier, who was still lying back on one of the beds, his eyes closed. As I walked further into the room, his eyes flew open, and he jumped out of bed and quickly stood at attention by the end of it.
"Private Joseph Adams reporting for duty, Sir!" He shouted, his hands behind his back.
He didn't look out of the ordinary as far as I could tell. He had black hair, cut short into a military flat top, with brown eyes and a serious expression. He was wearing the same grey shirt and pants combo that I had arrived in a few days ago. Overall, he looked incredibly average, with his most defining feature a slightly hooked nose.
"At ease, soldier," I said, looking him over for a moment as he loosened up slightly. "You're the first soldier I've summoned, so I'm afraid I'm pretty green. We are going to be doing a lot of learning together, so for now, just call me Connor."
"Understood, S-... Connor," he responded with a nod, finally meeting my eyes.
"Great. Well… grab your stuff. Until we can make the barracks more secure, either by improving the building or filling it with more people, everyone will be staying in the HQ with Maxwell and I. I'm not about to risk you getting ambushed somewhere without proper support."
He quickly nodded and grabbed his things, including a large duffel bag and his rifle case. When he had gathered everything, he nodded, and together we left the barracks, heading to the HQ.
