Character sheet:

Name: Ted Kazador
Level 4
Tag skills: Small Guns, Science, Outdoorsman
Traits: Bloody Mess, Jinxed

SPECIAL
STR: 4
PER: 7
END: 5
CHA: 3
INT: 7
AGI: 7
LCK: 7

Skill levels:
>Small Guns: 55
>Big Guns: 15
>Energy Weapons: 25
>Unarmed: 50
>Melee: 40
>Throwing: 30
>Medicine: 25
>Sneak: 35
>Lockpick: 35
>Steal: 30
>Traps: 40
>Science: 75
>Repair: 20
>Speech: 20
>Barter: 10
>Gambling: 35
>Outdoorsman: 55

Perks:
>Thief

Your inventory:
>Caps (568)
>Hunting rifle (Scoped)
>.308 rounds (17)
>Rusted AK-47 (Reflex sight)
>7.62mm rounds (90)
>Pump-action shotgun [Kira]
>Shotgun shells (20) [Kira]
>10mm pistol
>10mm JHP rounds (60)
>Sharp knife
>Leather jacket [equipped]
>Stimpaks (2)
>Water flasks
>Weapon maintenance kit
>Robotics book
>Pencils (2)
>Written notes
>Pip-boy

Companions:
Kira (Medicine, Barter, Speech)
Oswald Rankin (Small Guns, Energy Weapons, Unarmed)

The caravan makes its way into Ferrytown in the early afternoon, and the caravan master arranges for the wagons to be ferried across the river. Some of the guards insist on taking you to the tavern, where you don't pay for a single drink for the rest of the night. Inside, you are encouraged to tell the story of the robot encounter and how you saved the caravan to the other patrons, who listen keenly. After the questions and discussion die down, you ask about the goings-on in the town. You find out that the townsfolk have been having trouble with a particularly large mutated fish, called a crawler. This one has been nicknamed Big Bertha and has a habit of ramming small boats in the river. No one has been killed yet, but the boater's guild has pre-emptively put a 500 cap bounty on her. It's getting late, and you could wait until tomorrow to try to kill it, but this would mean you, Kira, and Oswald would miss the caravan leaving tomorrow morning and would have to return to Boise alone.
>Try to kill Big Bertha tomorrow
>Leave with the caravan in the morning

>>6462081
>Leave with the caravan in the morning

>>6462081
>Try to kill Big Bertha tomorrow

>>6462081
>Leave with the caravan in the morning

You decide to avoid the aquatic creature and stick with the caravan. You set out the following morning, and at midday the advance scouts report back that a pack of radscorpions is blocking the road up ahead. They counted at least seven, to the caravan's 22 fighters. On this terrain the wagons couldn't go off-road to go around. The caravan master doesn't want to lose any time and insists on shooting them head-on.
>Agree and join the attack (Small guns, roll 1d20 for success)
>Suggest you go out alone and distract them to draw them away from the road without a fight (Outdoorsman, roll 1d20 for persuade + 1d20 for success)
>Suggest waiting for them to move on (Luck, roll 1d20 for persuade + 1d20 for success)
>Suggest setting up a trap of falling rocks and baiting them into it (Traps, roll 1d20 for persuade + 1d20 for success)

>>6462743
>Suggest you go out alone and distract them to draw them away from the road without a fight

Rolled 1, 6 = 7 (2d20)

>>6462768
Rolling for this

You try to convince the caravan master of your plan, but you fail to ply him.
"Let's not waste any time. We can shoot them easily." You and the other guards form a firing line a hundred yards from the radscorpions and open fire. You fire a few short bursts from your AK and the radscorpions fall one by one. To the left, a small radscorpion darts out from it's hiding place in the undergrowth. You and some others shoot it, but not before its stinger pierces the arm of the leftmost man. Kira rushes to his aid and gives him the antivenom she had at the ready. She starts treating his wounds and asks whether he has a stimpak, to which he answers no.
>Donate one of your stimpaks
>Let him make do with bandages

>>6463605
>Donate one of your stimpaks

You give Kira one of your stimpaks and she injects it in places around the wound after disinfecting it. She finishes tightening the bandages and the caravan gets ready to move on. The wounded man thanks you for the stimpak, and tells you he will repay you when you get back to Boise. His name is Marc, and he tells you about how he is normally a prospector but takes up caravan work occasionally to make ends meet.
>Accept the money
>Ask if he wants to join you instead (Gain Marc as companion. Tag skills: Small Guns, Lockpick, Repair)
>Turn down the money

You have reached Level 5! You have 20 skill points to invest, in increments of +5. Tag skills (Small Guns, Science, Outdoorsman) will gain double points. Current skill levels:
>Small Guns: 55
>Big Guns: 15
>Energy Weapons: 25
>Unarmed: 50
>Melee: 40
>Throwing: 30
>Medicine: 25
>Sneak: 35
>Lockpick: 35
>Steal: 30
>Traps: 40
>Science: 75
>Repair: 20
>Speech: 20
>Barter: 10
>Gambling: 35
>Outdoorsman: 55
Choose how to allocate your skill points.

>>6464425
>Accept the money
>Invest 5 skill points into Small Guns and Outdoorsman
>Invest 10 skill points into Repair

While approaching a rock formation in the evening, you spot some tracks across the path. They're human, barefoot, looks like two adult men. You and some others scout the area but find no one around. The caravan master has camp set up in the rocks and doubles the watch overnight. The night passes without incident, and the caravan leaves for Boise in the morning. On arriving in Boise, you get paid 100 caps for the journey plus a bonus of 600 for saving the caravan from the robots. Marc also gives you 150 caps for the stimpak. Oswald retrieves his new laser rifle from the gunsmith.

Your inventory:
>Caps (1418)
>Hunting rifle (Scoped)
>.308 rounds (17)
>Rusted AK-47 (Reflex sight)
>7.62mm rounds (78)
>Pump-action shotgun [Kira]
>Shotgun shells (16) [Kira]
>10mm pistol
>10mm JHP rounds (60)
>Sharp knife
>Leather jacket [equipped]
>Stimpak
>Water flasks
>Weapon maintenance kit
>Robotics book
>Pencils (2)
>Written notes
>Pip-boy

You consider your next moves.
>Leave for Salmon straight away to report your findings
>Go to the market to buy something
>Work on ways to fight the robots with Oswald
>Go to the mayor and try to decode the communist's letter
>Something else

>Go to the market to buy something

The city markets offer a wide assortment of goods, and some items in particular catch your eye. A bookseller has piles of dusty old tomes full of stories of English ladies in love triangles, troubled Russian aristocrats, and other fanciful timewasters, but he is also selling a textbook on electronics. This may prove useful if you try to build new anti-robot weapons. The gunsmiths are selling their usual wares; rifles, pistols, ammunition, and the occasional highly expensive minigun or rocket launcher that you're not sure anyone will ever buy. The armorsmith you saw last time is still selling the 2500 cap steel suit, and he shows you a cheaper set of quality leather armor within your price range. It would protect you very well against the claws and teeth of all but the most fearsome creatures, however it wouldn't do much to stop a bullet.

>Buy ammunition
>Buy weapons
>Buy leather armor (1000 caps)
>Buy the Repair textbook (200 caps)
>Buy nothing
>Sell something
>Look for something else

>>6467437
>Buy the Repair textbook (200 caps)

>>6467437
>>Buy the Repair textbook (200 caps)

You buy the textbook and put it in your bag for now. You head back to Oswald's office and meet him and Kira there.
"I've been thinking about what the robot told us." he says. "They have some base or facility where they keep a lot of people prisoner and build more robots. They couldn't hide a place like that unless it's underground, right? I don't think they dug it up from scratch. I think they come from a pre-war vault. Maybe a military base."
"Are we certain that it was telling the truth? Maybe it was lying to kill us easier." Kira asks.
"No, we aren't. It did let us go when we said we'd tell more people. But I suppose that might help them kill more if that's all they wanted. Still, I'm inclined to believe it. It said their goal is to maximise human happiness. Seems like someone with good intentions programmed them to do that without properly considering how a coldly logical machine would interpret that instruction."
"So if we think they're coming from a vault, where do we find it?" you ask.
"We need to find a list of vaults in the region. We might be able to get that in Vault 28. The vaults were all made by the same company, Vault-Tec, so there's a good chance they had information on the locations of the others stored. Whether those records survived this long is another question."
"Where is Vault 28?"
"It's less than a day's walk from here, it was built to shelter the people from Boise. Most of the city's population today descends from the people who came out of it after the radiation died down from the Great War. No doubt they took almost everything useful with them, but maybe there are some records. Files in a library, or a computer that was too big to carry outside. Regardless, it can't hurt to take a look."
>Agree to search Vault 28 tomorrow
>Go to the mayor tomorrow to decode the communist's letter
>Leave for Salmon tomorrow to report back

>>6468146
>Agree to search Vault 28 tomorrow

You decide to search Vault 28 the next day. You buy some provisions for the journey in the morning, Oswald finds a sturdy rope, and you all set out to the North. Oswald leads the way, reading from a hand-drawn map. You keep an eye out for anything dangerous, but spot nothing. You all spend some time walking around among the trees and rocks looking for the entrance, until you eventually stumble upon a huge steel door shaped like a gear with the number 28 engraved on it located within a recess in a cliff.
The doorway is overgrown and the door is open, with the gear rolled to the side. It's dark inside and the steel is rusted and dirty. You notice that there are footprints leading into and out of the vault, most of them barefoot. After some study you conclude that some tracks are fresh and others are days old, going both ways. It seems someone lives here. Wildmen, judging by the bare feet. Going by the number of tracks there could be a dozen of them. You keep your distance from the vault for now while discussing what to do. Oswald unpacks some electric lanterns as you talk.
>Alert them to your presence and attempt to negotiate (Roll 1d20)
>Wildmen are usually raiders, don't waste the element of surprise and storm the vault with guns blazing (Roll 1d20)
>Leave peacefully
>Something else

>>6468963
>Wildmen are usually raiders, don't waste the element of surprise and storm the vault with guns blazing (Roll 1d20)

Rolled 9 (1d20)

>>6469095
Rolling for this

You decide to take the vault by force. You expected Kira to be hesitant, but you are surprised when she agrees immediately. Oswald also agrees; you wonder if he's looking for an excuse to try out his new laser rifle. You formulate the plan together. You will all carry a lantern each to light the way ahead. This will make you more visible targets in the dark, but it would put you at a greater advantage than the enemy considering that they likely have close range weapons like spears and clubs. Two of the lanterns can be attached to belts, while the other must be held in the hand. You elect to take the hand lantern since you can use your pistol in your other hand. The JHP rounds will be safer to use in the enclosed environment anyway, as they won't ricochet off the metal walls.
You quietly approach the vault doorway and after taking positions, you breach through and sweep the entry corridor. The room is empty. You notice that the floor is covered in a thick layer of dry dirt, and you realise it must be deliberate to protect their bare feet from the rusty metal. Fortuitously, it also makes your footsteps quiet. The door at the other end of the corridor is open, and you switch your lanterns on and take cover on both sides. You aim through the doorway and see a dirty, unshaven man in furs and rags coming from the right to investigate the lantern light. He is holding a spear ahead of him tipped with rusty scrap metal. You fire three shots into his center mass and he drops with a cry.
You don't see or hear anyone else for a little while, so you cautiously advance through the door. You and Kira take the left while Oswald takes the right. The way to the left leads to nothing but some flat metal doors with no handle. You turn back to help Oswald, and find a corridor with a long, shattered window to the left. The window opens into another room with more doors inside it, some open, some closed, and some smashed apart. The three of you aim through the window and look around in the other room. The room has makeshift bedding and other signs of habitation all over the floor but you don't see anyone, until suddenly a wildman who was hiding below the windowsill jumps up with a shout and swings a club at you. You step back and defend yourself with your left arm, and the club hits near your elbow. Kira blasts the man in the shoulder, neck, and chest with the shotgun and he falls down dead. More wildmen come out of the open doorways and you fire wildly at them with your pistol. With your left arm hanging limp you have to rely on the others' lanterns, so you can't see enough to aim well. Oswald and Kira keep firing at them, and one makes it through the doorway on the far end of the corridor. Oswald turns around, dodges the spear thrust at him, grabs onto it, and gives his attacker a sturdy kick. The wildman falls back onto the floor, and as he tries to get up he is stopped by the spear piercing through his neck.

By now you've managed to reload your pistol, and you finish off the last enemy who was taking cover from a doorway across the room. The three of you go through the door to search the rooms, and confirm there are none left alive. The closed doors seem to be rusted shut, even the wildmen had never gotten in. Now that it's safe, Kira checks on you both. You hadn't noticed until now, but Oswald has a crossbow bolt sticking out of his chestplate. It partially pierced through the armor, but not deep and Kira says it didn't pierce anything important. She also says your arm has heavy bruising and only a minor fracture, and will recover okay. Both of you need to rest however. She treats you both and uses up your last stimpak.
While you're resting, she looks around the rooms and through the boxes laying around. There is no way through through the doors here, only small rooms are behind them. Kira says this place looks like a medical bay; the rest of the vault must be through those flat metal doors on the other side, and the wildmen were only ever able to reach this area. The boxes contain various items presumably stolen from ambushed travellers. You split the loot between you evenly.

Your inventory:
>Caps (1350)
>Hunting rifle (Scoped)
>.308 rounds (17)
>Rusted AK-47 (Reflex sight)
>7.62mm rounds (78)
>Pump-action shotgun [Kira]
>Shotgun shells (11) [Kira]
>10mm pistol
>10mm JHP rounds (44)
>Varmint rifle (Broken)
>Pipe rifle
>.22 rounds (38)
>Sharp knife
>Crowbar
>Leather jacket [equipped]
>Cowboy hat
>Spare clothes (bloodstained)
>Stimpak
>Water flasks
>Food (5 days)
>Weapon maintenance kit
>Robotics book
>Electronics book
>Outdoor survival book
>Pencils (2)
>Written notes
>Box of nails
>Pip-boy

After some rest, you get up to have a look at those strange doors. You realise now that these must be an elevator to the lower floors. You saw a couple of them in the ruined buildings in Boise, but you've never seen a working one. Considering the state of the vault, you doubt that this one works. Just to check though, you press the buttons on the panel beside it and nothing happens. You use the crowbar you found to pry open the doors a little. After coming unstuck, you find the doors slide open quite easily. Rather than an elevator cabin, behind the doors lies an empty shaft. With the lantern, you take a look down and see the doorways of several levels below. Oswald takes out his rope and suggests tying a knot every foot and using it to climb down. Your left arm is still injured and Oswald's chest doesn't let him bear too much weight with his arms.
>Secure the rope and let Kira climb down to investigate the lower floors
>Tie the rope around you in a bowline and have the others lower you down
>That's too risky, wait until your arm is healed and climb down yourself
>Leave
>Something else

>>6470035
>>Tie the rope around you in a bowline and have the others lower you down

This won't end badly, what's the worst that could be down there?

>>6470035
>That's too risky, wait until your arm is healed and climb down yourself

Rolled 1 (1d2)

Rolling for tiebreaker, 1=>>6470076, 2=>>6470186