Okay...

I didn't update last week. Or the previous week.

I was sick for a while there, and didn't even play Mace Raiden... well, that's not entirely true. I had a high-ish fever and was somewhat delerious, I played Mace Raiden, went to Solstheim, and didn't figure out that Dawnguard != Solstheim for several hours of play. So that was one day wasted.

Then... I just haven't written anything. I've been sort of concentrating on making a mod, not playing the game.

Then I skipped playing Skyrim for a while and went to Starcraft, XCom, and Fallout 3.

Then I kept on playing Fallout 3.

So... no Mace Raiden.

But I wrote up a little bit about Fallout 3, so... for the next four weeks, this is what you'll be getting.

Then back to Mace Raiden.

DIARY OF A WATER PURIFIER:

EP1, TRIPPY BIRTH DAY

So here I am, shoved out of my mother's vagina in a sterile medical room. My first view is the nurse, my second is a dark blur with insanely bright piercing high-beam style eyes. There he is, my father, right in front of me. And I can see him pretty well, actually... my vision clears up and everything in the room comes in crystal clear. I'm pretty advanced for a newborn baby. Apparently my daddy knows it too, because after a few seconds when he starts talking to me, and expecting answers.

He starts out by asking if I am a boy or a girl. At least, I think he's asking me - with the way his head is bobbing around, he could be asking the nurse, or possibly my mother, but I should hope he's at least somewhat familiar with her gender. He then goes on to ask what my name is, which I thought was HIS job, and what I'm going to look like when I grow up. This is kind of a lot to demand of a newborn, but I throw out some quick answers (I'm a boy, my name is Roberto, and I'm going to look like a mohawk-wearing mexican badass with a big muttonchop moustache). He's about to ask me what I want to do with my life when my mother starts, I don't know, having a heart attack or something. I sympathize, lady. Judging by his questions, this dude jumps the gun a bit, doesn't he? One wonders how the wedding went. Was he cutting the cake five minutes after the proposal? I'll bet sex was nice. "Hey baby foreplay BAM goodnight honey" all within a four-second timespan.

So mom's over there dying, dad starts chest compressions, and the nurse wheels me out. Everything goes dark, and the next thing I remember is dad motioning me toward him, demanding that his newborn son walk. But wait, I'm not newborn any more... apparently we entered a time warp, and now I'm in a nursery. I'm a year old and I can crawl, walk, handle various objects, jump on top of chairs and tables, read with complete comprehension, operate heavy machinery, and apparently pick locks like a pro. Dad puts me in a playpen, but I can organize prison breaks, buddy. I rattle a few toys around, clamber around on the furniture, and read a scintillating, stimulating novel. The plot is gripping, the characters are deep and complex, and it's a book called S.P.E.C.I.A.L. with a grand total of eight cardboard pages, guaranteed waterproof and chewable. Apparently the book is also a magic spellbook, because by poking my finger at it I get stronger, smarter, more agile, etcetera.

As soon as I'm done reading the book, dad comes back into the room and starts reading bible quotes at me. Apparently it was my mother's favorite book and, judging from how he acts about it, only book. Not a big reader, I guess. He finishes his spiel, and we walk out the door together, and apparently he knocks me on the head, because everything goes white and...

Suddenly I'm ten years old, and it's my birthday party! There's dad, and all my friends I've known for years, except I don't know any of them. The overseer (which is apparently an important position around here) comes over and clamps a wrist computer on my arm, surgically bonding to the bone, judging by the way I can't get the damn thing off. Bathing may be a problem. Masturbation should be okay. My only real problem with it is that it doesn't play pong.

So I walk around and talk to people, all of whom are wearing glazed expressions, and some of whom are real assholes. The girl Amata is apparently my best friend, and she gives me a comic book. Stanley the mechanic gives me a hat, old lady Palmer gives me a sweetroll, and a kind named Butch smarms at me. That's a good name, there. Your parents said to themselves "we want our son to be a bully when he grows up. Should his name be Alan? No, Marvin? No, what about Butch?" and it stuck. With a name like Butch, you're bound for prison.

So the robot with a buzzsaw mertilizes my birthday cake, and Butch comes over and demands my sweetroll. I refuse, and he starts to hit me. I try to hit back, but apparently I'm suffering from a chronic case of arms-with-no-strength-disease, because I can't raise my hands above my waist. Or maybe it's the goddamn wrist computer, weighing me down. Anyway, I take a few licks, and then a security guard comes over and stops the "fight." The intercom beeps, and dad tells me that my other good friend Jonas has a surprise for me in the reactor. I head out the door, and a lady named Beatrice gives me a birthday poem full of light and happiness (not really). I head down the stairs into the dark and scary reactor, and a pedophile jumps out at me, but I'm rescued in the nick of time by dad, who gives me a gun. I'm not allowed to head back up and shoot Butch, so I settle for shooting Jonas, but he doesn't care. So I have to do some target practice, then kill a giant cockroach, and Jonas takes out a camera and snaps a picture. Apparently something really traumatic happens next, because I black out and when I wake up I'm in a medical clinic.

Dad's giving me an eye exam, and tells me I have to go eat a goat or something. I'm kind of operating on autopilot, now, wondering when the next time warp is going to happen, so I don't really pay attention to his words. I head out the door and there's Amata, Butch, and my other childhood friends and playmates, all grown up. I walk into a classroom, and the teacher says it's time to take a test, the final exam. He's either the nicest teacher in the world or the dumbest, because he lets me off without taking the test, saying I can just give myself a grade. I do, specializing in peaceful skills like Big Guns, Explosives, and Lockpicking, walk out of the room, and goddamn I must have a brain tumor or something, because all of these blackouts and lost time are getting commonplace. I can understand losing some time before I even turn one year old, but to lose nine years? Then another six? Then, I dunno, a few more? It's as if my life has been a few short episodes stitched together with blackouts.

I wake up in bed, with Amata shouting at me and an alarm blaring. Dad's gone and the vault is infested with giant cockroaches. I suddenly realize that the best thing for me to do is not aid in defense of the vault, or talk to people, or find out what happened to dad, no... apparently I NEED TO FLEE THE VAULT BECAUSE REASONS. So I grab my baseball bat, a gun, a few changes of clothes, and I skedaddle on out of there. A security guard tries to stop me, but I whomp him a few times with my bat and steal his clothes. Thus begins my life of crime. Honestly, I'm given no option here - some people choose crime, some are driven to it by circumstances, and some are given a linear corridor to go down with only one possible option. It was him or me, so here I am starting my adventure with a murder and theft.

As I wander the corridors, looking for the exit to leave everything I've ever known and everyone I've ever cared about to venture into a radioactive hellhole to find my dad who apparently cares jack shit about any other human beings, his son included, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, there's Butch. He wants help, his mother is being eaten alive by cockroaches. Dude, you are like the king asshole here, and apparently a really tough guy, so just go step on the damn things. They aren't that hard to kill. He curses at me and runs off, but fuck him. The security guards on the front door have orders to shoot to kill, and they do kill two innocent civilians who were running for the front door for god-only-knows-why. It's like everyone in the entire vault was just waiting for dad to leave so they could go either homicidal or suicidal. "Hey, James is gone! Party time! You swallow this live hand grenade and I'll shoot that guy in the face!"

I wander the corridors some more, whomping roaches and the occasional security guard, and there's the overseer and another guard, smacking Amata around. So I head in, Amata runs out, and I murder yet another security guard. The overseer smarms at me for a bit and then starts yelling for help, so I run to his office (stepping over the corpse of the pedophile, good riddance I suppose), hack his computer, get the vault door password, and open up the secret exit tunnel. Down the tunnel and through a hole in the wall, and I press a control panel and suddenly the vault starts to open. Amata teleports in, somehow, and seems very surprised that this has happened, despite the fact that dad apparently just did it. She refuses to come with me, choosing to stay here and be beaten by her father's mooks instead. She heads out the door, a couple more security guards come in, and I've got some more security guard uniforms off their corpses.

As I head up the tunnel, the vault door closes behind me, forever sealing me out of the vault, and I honestly can't say I'm sad about that. Those people are nutcases, all of them. I'm sure everyone in the wide outer world will be a lot more sane and sensible.

The outer door is a magical portal, because as soon as I touch it I am transformed from a tough mexican hombre into a petite black woman named Mary with a completely different personality, but I'm sure dad will still recognize me. Because that's why I'm out here, and that's where I'm going, to track him down. He left about ten minutes ago, but due to all the delays it'll probably take me about an hour to find him, and that's my goal in life, because fuck if I know, I just don't have anything better to do.

NEXT EPISODE: SOMEONE SET US UP THE BOMB