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Danse When last we left the Commonwealth, the Elites of the multiverse, along with the local Paladin Danse, had made a rendezvous with the likely Synth Lindsie, as she had made a call for assistance. That call provided few details, not even a location of where to meet, as she had presumably guessed (correctly) that they had the means to track down her signal. There was also that gigantic scorpion besieging a trade caravan, and the Courser watching the whole thing from a thankfully respectable distance. The important thing is that everyone made it and is in one piece.

    That leaves the destination, however. Salem, Massachusetts, a setting historic and infamous, but one that she is convinced is important to her finding a place to discover herself. Once she hops onto the back of Kyle's speeder, she warns, "It's going to be a long trip. The good news is, from here, it's mostly through the wilderness. The bad news is, well, the same thing." Then there's a slight pause, as she also allows, "It's the Wasteland standard to pay people back for help, but I don't really have anything. So uhm, thanks. People that will just show up to help with nothing in it for them are really rare around here. Bill told stories that we used to have people like that, back when I was still a kid."

    The terrain so far, is rolling, but there's no direct opposition yet. The path of travel skirts around Cambridge and avoids Lexington; in the distance, humanoid shapes can still be seen milling around on ramshackle rooftop barricades and bridges, presumably raiders and other unsavories, but they know not to overextend out of their turf. It leaves room for Danse to extrapolate on what Lindsie was talking about, "The Minutemen. They're a bit of a local legend. Their goals were just and admirable, but didn't know when to temper that with realist expectations. They apparently were betrayed by one of their own at Quincy, and that was that. You still see remnants of their old holdouts, every so often."

    The way they're spoken about, it almost sounds like ancient history. It'd be hard to believe it's not really been that long, in Commonwealth time.

    Meanwhile, the path re-converges to the remains of an old highway, which ran over the partially intact overpass, and what is left of what was a retirement home. Surprisingly, the lights are still on, presumably thanks to the barely perceptible hum of one of the Wasteland's many (ultra-)long run fusion generators from the basement area, but no one's home. Out back, a skeleton in a wheel chair sits hunched over, next to a few quite unprofessionally prepared graves and decayed flowers in vases from the home. Seems at least some isolated pockets of people survived the initial blast and continued on as they could, but succumbed in isolation. What a sad way to go. Inside, there are a few more skeletons, some that apparently died in their bed, and a few scarce supplies. One skeleton is of a man that apparently locked himself into the storage area and is surrounded by several liquor bottles. The kitchen has the standard irradiated, but remarkably well-preserved, edibles.

    Meanwhile, further up the road, a military checkpoint can be seen. It's similar to the one that some may remember hosted the prime suit of T-45 power armor, but it has no such amenities. This one looks like it was abandoned voluntarily, after it became apparent that the world was crumbling; only the actual barricades and one military-issue truck remains. This road circles around a large lake, which the graves and wheelchair bound skeleton seemed to be placed to overlook.
Silica     Silica remains in the middle of the group, moving at a speed comparable to the rest, due to her status as a video game avatar. Infinite Sprint, yay!

    Her Cait Sith ears pin down a little at the sound of Danse's voice. "Well, we're here, and it's only right we help someone in need."

    She sounds like a little girl, very much to go with her appearance, but the steel in her magenta eyes belies any thoughts she's a naieve child... just a mostly innocent soul that's seen the very worst that humanity could give, and still can see the good in people. "The thing about people, is that even if they do terrible things, there can still be a good spark inside of them."
Kyle Katarn     Kyle's speeder keeps a decent speed, not outrunning the others, but he definitely does seem intent on getting this journey over with. If the roads are bad enough, he's not in a hurry to see the wilderness's nastier side. "I'm more used to helping people out just for the sake of it myself, honestly."

    He pulls up by the building, hopping off the speeder as he produces his blaster. "Here," He flips the gun and offers it grip first to Lindsie, "You may need this. Do you know how to use a gun?" He asks, looking at her in the eye as he does so. To be fair, weapons training is a useful skill to know out here.
Rory White Rory White, as usual, has her attention spread out far and wide. The two Saucers flying far overhead have a remarkable picture of the surroundings in ridiculous resolution and magnification, and make use of much of the electromagnetic spectrum on passive sensors. No wasteland creatures traveling in plain sight will be able to sneak up on her watch, nor bandits. She hopes. That's her goal behind watching the thermal overlays very carefully.

    Of course, a decent amount of attetion's on that suspected Courser. Rory's only not interfering because she remains unsure of the Synth's - or rather, the ones pulling his strength's - motives. Prime on her mind is the possibility that he's interested in the destination and not Lindsie at all...

    "Silica is right. Selfishness is everyone's nature, and an environment like this leaves little room for kindness and generosity... I cannot really blame many of those who've turned to raiding and exploiting others, but if they don't change when given the opportunity... if they truly ENJOY that..."

    Then there's no hope for them, Rory implies. She's quiet a great deal otherwise, listening to the explanations and focusing on navigating. With only one thought thread devoted to managing her own body she's a bit more accident-prone and stumbly on the uneven ground tha normal and pauses several times around rubble to calculate a stable path. It makes her movements look a bit herky jerky and too optimized and measured....

    "It's a shame that these Minutemen fell though. If I encounter any remnants, they have my instant support!"
Kotone Yamakawa So here Kotone was in the Commonwealth, and she always did feel a bit odd given the echo of a world before the bombs fell locked in the 1950s which can't help cause her to shudder a little inside. Still the people here needed help and she was happy to do what she could but it was always creepy to be going on the ruins of an alternate place she had known of on her world she wasn't stopping as she moved along though.

"Sounds like some sort of adhock militia to deal with predators and bandits?"

She asked as she kept moving though as they hit the old highway and Kotone sees the check point where they talked a Gutsy down and found an intact power armour. The fact all the tech was fairly advanced and analog? Was still something Kotone marveled out at.

"Everyone has it it's surival drive but when you can over come it? That's what really matters."
Danse "The Minutemen were heroes," Lindsie abruptly adds, partially in sharp response to Danse! "But...I suppose nothing in this world is truly all good, huh?" That's part of the reason for trade for assistance, perhaps. Repayment for good deeds insures everyone's square. Danse doesn't seem completely convinced, though, and similarly responds to the notions of working pro bono, "I joined the Brotherhood of Steel to make a difference in my world, but the truth is that unconditional altruism isn't practical. Elder Lyons' policies were almost a disaster in the Capital Wasteland." If not for that mysterious and legendary Wanderer showing up when they did, things might not have turned out as favorably as they did, if they had at all. "That said, I'll expect nothing in return unless we can get the Commonwealth up on its feet again. There is nothing to be gained taking from the destitute." The Synth girl responds, dryly, "Yeah, thanks..."

    For his part, the Courser does not seem to be following. Perhaps he doesn't have to, if some of the paranoid ramblings about Synths all being unwitting spies proves to be true; but if that were the case, why send the Courser at all, intimidation? As no one stops to loot the poor, abandoned retirement home, that leaves mainly the road ahead. Danse responds to Kotone, using the still relative peace, "They were already scattered by the time my team made it to the Commonwealth, but from what I've pieced together, something like that. A militia of volunteer soldiers that could respond quickly to any signs of trouble, and defenders of the common people." Sounds like Rory has been studying on it, herself; at this point she might actually be a better source of Minuteman information than Danse. Studying history is mainly the job of Scribes. "I just hope that those raiders you gave second chances to will actually sieze it."

    The peace of the highway is suddenly shattered, as gunshots can be heard up ahead. It's the standard improved gunnery of the Commonwealth, as would be distinctively familiar by now. Rory's aerial observation would see the conflict coming from an old scrap yard just at the turn of the road around the lake; it seems a civilian is standing atop a heap of tires, trying frantically to fight off several hound-sized rodents, possiby some kind of heavily mutated burrowing animal, which burrow around and attempt ambush tactics, while they gnash away with their oversized incisors. The sounds of a struggle are enough to also put Lindsie over the edge, whereas she had been somewhat staring at Kyle's offer before, to accept the blaster. It's not like any weapon she's ever used personally, but the operating principle is close enough. "Y-yeah. I mean...you don't get very far in this world without knowing how to handle a gun." Sad facts.

    Danse, for his part, has already engaged the forward drive mechanism of his power armor, and is rapidly rushing forward in broad, almost leaping, steps while the hydraulics audibly pump with each landing. "Molerats. They really are everywhere."
Silica     Silica, for her part, remains silent on the subject... that is until the sounds of gunfire ring out, and Danse just takes off. "Hey, wait for me!" she chirps unhappily as the Tank goes running off without the healer... again.

    It's been long enough that her wings have recharged, so she deploys them, and leaps into the air, turning and folding down tight enough that she actually starts forming a mach cone, before falling in near to Danse, keeping pace. "Jeeze, don't just run off like that! You might have armour but if something happens you need backup."

    Her chiding aside, she turns her eyes to the group of molerats and the beleagered civilian. "I'll get them out of there. Pina, defend!" she says, pointing her companion dragonling at Danse.

    Pina chirps, and takes up station near to the Paladin. "She can heal, and do some light damage. If you need some breathing room, tell her to use Bubble Breath, and point at your target." comments Silica to the Paladin, before she angles to come in fast and low, aiming to just scoop the civilian up and fly out of range. "Hold on, I've got you!"
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa is going to not try to look for trouble with Courser. She wonders was he sent to make sure the other synth was alive? Maybe his bosses wanted to see hwo she'd react to everyone was seeking to aid her? She doesn't know but she does keep moving she looks at the place for a moment and no she doesn't loot anything there's no real time honestly.

"Sounds like a decent idea but as you said something broke it but if there are remants we might be able to at least talk to them right? Well they seem to not be blowing it so far."

Which is more than Kotone expected to be perfectly honest so she's going to hang on to that slim bit of hope she had and drive on fooward but here comes some sohorrible bug things? Wait are they bugs? She's not sure then wait are those /molerats/? Holy how they are and Kotone isn't going to hold back as she now sets her SMG for single fire mode and moves to attack her actions are quick and abit unhuman as she starts trying to pick off the Mutant blind naked mole rats!
Rory White "Successful raiders have valuable skills and personality traits. Put them in a different situation and the results speak for themselves." Indeed, she's found a few uses for their scrapyard ingenuity, will to survive, and callousness - ex-raiders are valuable members of Weston's defense force and caravan guards. With basic survival needs covered more than adequately, there's no need to steal from the destitute, as Danse put it.

    But the suddeness of GUNSHOTS reaching her audio sensors interrupts her forming package of achievements to speak of. She momentarily ponders kicking into a sprint and going to assist herself but instead just draws a weapon from her robes. A sleek-looking energy-pistol that isn't of local design at all. Far too ergonomic and minimalistic engineering, a hallmark of additive engineering instead of reductive.

    "I'm staying with Lindsie. There's a lone man up ahead who needs aid!" Not that she needs tell Danse this.

    As for why she's staying with Lindsie? The reason is simple. Someone must watch over her in case that Courser does something unexpected.
Danse Molerats aren't usually that dangerous, at least to decently trained and armed people. The danger, besides catching something from their bites, is when they attack in large numbers. Which is exactly what they're doing to the poor young man in a patched together leather coat and sea captain's hat right at the moment. Just when it looks like he's completely surrounded, an angel appears! An angel with cat ears. "Huh, wha?" Someone that had been hollering out for help just moments before has his panic turn into confusion rapidly, but he's too dumbfounded to try to struggle too much, and Silica definitely seems friendlier than the creatures that, even now, are still jumping up from the top of the pile of discarded tires, trying to reach with their massive, gnawing teeth.

    They soon have other things to turn their attention to, though, as the rest of the advance guard appears. Danse is somewhat hard to miss, being as Silica would put it, the tank, on many levels. "I, see," Danse says, somewhat awkwardly despite his normally even tone, at the dragonling he has been granted temporary charge of. He gives a somewhat uncertain glance to Pina, though less out of distrust and more from how far out of his area of expertise this is. "Crowd control, then." Perfect for a nest of these beasts, which are now heading in Danse's direction, and by way of that, Kotone and eventually Rory and Lindsie.

    They don't rush simply on the ground, though. While some still take the obvious path, others begin to burrow into the ground in a similar fashion that the radscorpion did, only much more quickly with their smaller and more streamlined bodies. It makes predicting where they're going to surface a bit more unpredictable. Silica had another point, as well; as armored as he is, there's no need to have too many scratches on it, or worse if one can really sink its incisors in. He finds a long-abandoned car, that was likely destined to be scrap even before the bombs fell, and stands atop the hood of it. "Find something solid to stand on, if you can, so they can't come up next to you!"

    With this, he begins squeezing off shots from his laser rifle at the two that surface immediately adjacent to him. The ones that were approaching on the ground, where they seem slower if nothing else, he motions to Pina for, "Bubble Breath." It sounds ridiculous to say, especially coming in his somewhat gruff voice, but buying some extra time to deal with their other buddies is a great idea. Kotone's shots, meanwhile, find at least one of those that was targetted with the Bubble Breath, gravely wounding it before it collapses to the turf. They aren't very durable, despite their tough and nearly hairless hide. The vibrations close to her would alert to the ones that suddenly burst through the ground, moving to bite!

    Rory might also notice a stray tremor coming out in her and Lindsie's direction, though unsurfaced yet.
Silica     Pina gives a high pitched trill that is probably meant to be a roar, opening her mouth and ejecting a stream of bubbles at the targetted Molerats. The pop around the ugly critters, attempting to inflict a temporary stunning effect on them. Similar to a flashbang, without the flash or bang really.

    Silica herself smiles warmly at the man she's carrying. "Don't worry. We'll take care of this." she assures, before landing atop a solid looking chunk of rock... the little buggers shouldn't be able to pop up through that... but one can never really tell.

    The Cait Sith casts her eyes across the battle. They have it in hand, mostly, so instead of firing off attack spells, she lifts her hands and begins chanting.

    "Þeír fylla heilagr austr, brott svalr bani!" everyone in her 'party', including the rescued civilian, would find themselves suffused in a brief coat of warm water. It doesn't leave them wet afterwards, but infuses some vitality they may have lost.
Kotone Yamakawa Kotone Yamakawa leaps and bounds she's long learned to sit still is a bad idea, even if she could take a number of bullets and keep going. Inuries stilll hurt, might make her need to turrn off her sense of touch, which would lead to worse damage, and it's not cheap. So why risk itwhen you have the option of not being there when your enemy shoots or attacks you uin some fashion. She's thankful for the support from the bubble breath and she will now contiune to keep shooting the mole rats as she leaps and bonds about though she's cracking the grounf with some of her impacts.

"Thanks Silica!"

She keeps going those mole rats are going to be over and done if she's got anything to say about it!
Rory White Rory can't detect the seismics, but her lidar scans of the surface do show the Molerats at the shallow level they dig at! With one approaching she steadies herself, readying for battle! "incoming, Lindsie. Watch the ground!"

    She does her best to predict the thing's re-entry point using lidar and thermals... and also, the first thingg that comes to mind. No need to waste her weapon's charges on these things!

    She dashes towards the emerging molerat while it's still erupting from the earth. AND GIVES IT ONE GOOD, SOLID KICK!

    A kick that bears all of the robotic strength her human form hides.

    Given the beast's relatively miniscule mass, it's probably going to go sailing into a rubble pile with smashed ribs or a broken spine...
Danse You never know, with these things. They do get through concrete walls, sometimes, if there's somewhere they really want to go. Even the Weston treatment plant's storage closets might not be completely safe. It's likely they wouldn't go to the trouble in this case, though. The man, still looking a bit stunned, forces a still bewildered smile as he's set down, "Th-thanks." He's not completely ready to feel safe, though, and he still clutches his pipe revolver in his hands at the ready, if he sees either a molerat, or feels the vibrations of one, heading up in his direction.

    The ones Kotone and Danse were firing on are persistant, but they're thankfully not too much of a threat, especially with the aide of Pina's stun attack, which staggers the group that were approaching from above ground. While they don't have much in the way of vision to be stunned, if anything, the fact that it's bubbles gives them even more problems because of their other senses being vulnerable to it. That leaves Danse, in particular, free to blast deep laser burns into several of them, while another leaps to latch onto his armored forearm. After a few shakes of it, the molerat finally flies loose, smashing almost comedically into an old clothes washer (and its body torpedoing into the opening). It doesn't emerge after that. He's not feeling too beat up from this level of workout, but the odd sensation of having his vitality restored earns a, "Much appreciated," for Silica. It'll keep up the pace.

    Kotone's strategy of simply not staying in one place long enough also appears to be working. By the time they're able to breach the surface to attempt to bite, she's already moved again. They're durable, but can't really stand up to the weapons of Elites, and she soon adds more molerats to her bounty tally. Most of these are small or medium dog sized, definitely large by rodent standards, but not much more than nuisances. This possibly leads to a slight miscalibration for Rory, as the one that emerges when her kick arrives doesn't go flying quite so far as she might have expected. This is instead a larger specimen, more large dog or baby bear sized, and possibly is the broodmother of this nest. She gives a throaty screech as she is still punted across the turf, which is still enough to deal with her given the surprise factor (Sneak Attack Critical!?), but how big can these things actually grow?

    While helping clear out the last of the nest, including a shot at the broodmother just to be sure, Danse discloses, "There's probably more, but hidden. We don't have time to chase them, though. We'll just have to accept that they won't be trouble for the civilian." The young man, once things seem to have died down, wanders from the rock. He seems a but cautious around obvious outsiders, but it's hard to deny the assistance he just received. "Thanks. I...I just came here looking for some scrap to sell, and those things started crawling out of everywhere." Which fits what Danse assumed about the situation. "I don't have much, but...here." He offers 50 caps to each, which Danse would turn down, and as a bonus for Silica, he actually takes his weathered sea captain's hat off and holds it out.

    Lindsie, whom had been heeding Rory's advice in the meanwhile to be watchful of any more molerats, breathes a sigh of relief. "Those things are no trouble for you guys, but I've seen them actually kill farmers that were trying to keep them from their corn or mutfruit. Looks like I've got the right help."
Silica     "It's no trouble, we were just passing by and heard the gunfire." replies Silica, declining the reward. "You look better in that than I would." she offers by way of explantion, before giving a sharp trilling whistle to recall Pina to her shoulder. "Grab what you can and head home before the rest of them find some courage." she adds, then returns to the group. "We should keep moving."