A few days after my trip down to Wicked Shipping, we had a close call with a pack of Ghouls. Oddly enough, I'd been dreaming about my encounter at the shipping lockup, and how the fight could have gone badly when I was awakened by gunfire and the roar of angry ferals. I rolled out of bed and grabbed my pistol from the nightstand, and I almost ran out to fight with just that... but remembering my past experiences, I also took the time to retrieve the shotgun from my gun rack. It turned out to be a wise decision. 

 

 

Apparently they'd been milling around the top of the elevator, and when Fred dropped it to do some scavenging outside, they all poured in. Me, Holly, and the Ainsleighs managed to fight them off, but we used up a lot of our ammunition in the process. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and we managed to top off our supplies of leather and cloth by feeding the Ghouls' corpses and clothing into the Workshop. Yeah, gross, I know, but beggars can't be choosers. We decided then that we'd be keeping the vault's inner door sealed in the future, but that was going to complicate coming and going and it underscored the potential problems with the food supply.

 

Fortunately, the tato stash was holding up well, and Fred had rigged up a smoker in the cavern to turn the excess radstag meat into jerky. With a little help from the Neural Sentries, we weren't going to starve. Likewise, the vault's water purification system was still working well and the output didn't show any signs of contamination. However, I'd been brainstorming with Stef about how to fix our farm situation, and we kept coming back to the same problem: we needed soil to grow crops, which meant we had to do it in the cavern. But we needed light to grow crops, and we couldn't get lights working in the cavern. We had to fix one or both problems if we wanted to grow fresh food.

 

Then I thought back to when I'd found the fission battery under the Red Rocket station, and I asked Stef a question -- could we grow mushrooms down here?

 

 

She thought about that for a second, then nodded slowly.

 

"Maybe..." she offered cautiously, "but there might be problems with radiation. I don't really trust anything that glows."

 

"Hmm... I think its still better than nothing. We have a small enough group here that if we monitor exposure carefully we keep ahead of getting sick with the chems in the clinic."

 

Stef seemed to ponder that for a while. I still didn't think she completely trusted me, but I could see the gears turning in her mind. After a while, she nodded slowly. "Can you get a good sample of mushrooms? If you do, bring back a sack of them and we can experiment."

 

The following morning, Winter helped me get back into the power suit and I set out towards the cave under Red Rocket. The temperature had crept up just over the freezing point and icy rain was sheeting down over Sanctuary Hills. Once more, I found myself glad to have the power suit, and I pressed on without any difficulties. I did keep a close eye out for any more sign of Ghouls, but it looked like we'd cleaned up the whole pack. It still bothered me though... this was the second time that Ghouls had 'followed me home' after encounters in the wild, and I needed to figure out how they were tracking me. 

 

 

I didn't go right down into the cave when I arrived at the Red Rocket. The first time I'd come here, I really focused on looking for specific things that I needed for my house, and I hadn't stopped to consider the full implications of the state of the place. But I hadn't been blind to the surroundings either: there were signs that some time after the war but before the present people had lived there. After what I'd seen at Wicked Shipping, I took a closer look around and I quickly confirmed my memories were correct. I found tools, workbenches, cooking and distilling equipment, all kinds of useful things for a settlement... but no people.

 

Not even any sign of people. That detail set Red Rocket apart from Wicked Shipping. At the shipping lockup, I could imagine how that settlement had failed. Whether by invasion or an insider threat, that place had been wiped out by Ghouls. Here though... not so clear. Maybe the people here just up and left. With a hive of mole rats nearby, I could imagine if it wouldn't be the best place to set down roots, but on the other hand, the structure offered a lot. Indeed, I was really surprised that no one had tried to set up a fort of the sort the Abernathys cobbled together, up on the large, flat roof of the station. 

 

Then I glanced east, and saw the buildings of Concord in the distance. Codsworth had warned me about the people there - they'd shot at him and chased him away when he tried to contact them. I wondered if Concord was going to pose a bigger problem than I expected. I filed that away for the moment though, and made my way down to the cave. 

 

 

I moved through the cave with care, watching out for any sign that more mole rats - or worse - had moved in, but it seemed to still be empty. Within, I found two general types of mushrooms: some had spindly stalks with a parasol type top, while others were big, squishy lumps. Both of them glowed slightly in the dark, and I made sure to keep an eye on the radiation meter. Fortunately, my suit seemed to be protecting me well, and I was able to transfer a significant sample of both types into the storage box I'd brought along with me. I had no idea which one was a better choice for farming, but I hoped Stef could figure it out. 

 

In addition to the fungus samples, I found something very interesting: a portable fusion core. I didn't have any equipment it was suited for, but I knew that some military vehicles used them, and I quickly picked it up. Unfortunately, even as I reached for it, my Geiger counter spiked and I realized that I was leaning over a half-buried engine housing that was apparently positively gushing gamma emissions. I could taste metal in my mouth as I snatched back the fusion core, and a quick glance at my suit display showed I'd taken a large dose. 

 

Last time I'd needed medical treatment, the suit had done it automatically. This time, it seemed, I'd have to find a way to trigger it. I looked around at the displays inside my helmet, trying to figure out the activation process. I noticed that, as I glanced over them, the text of the different status fields came into sharper focus. Lingering my eyes over the 'medical' display, after just a second it expanded into a larger menu. I ran my eyes down the line until I found "radiation bioremediation", and focused on it. A new message appeared - hold selection to commit - along with a countdown ticking down from 5. 

 

When the counter reached zero, the menu closed, and I could feel saline solution pumping into me through the suit's rear plug. A series of messages scrolled over my display in quick succession:

 

Biosaline Solution Injection: 1 Liter... complete

Diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid injection... complete

3,4,3-LIHOPO injection... complete

RadAway™ injection... complete

 

It was a strange experience - when I'd taken IV RadAway back at the clinic, I felt oddly warmed and had a hard to describe taste in my mouth. I was getting some of that as the radiation treatment ran its course, but it was... different. I felt several more pulses of fluid jet into my guts, followed by another warm rush of medicine hitting my blood. A new message appeared.

 

Chelation process commencing. Standby...

 

Below that message, a counter started to tick down from ten minutes. Though I felt a little sloshy from all the fluid the medical system had injected, I could still move and I made my way back to the service station, trying my best not to get too cramped up. Hiding in the building's back room, I waited out the rest of the timer until it hit zero. Then, with a bit of a rumble, the flow of the medicine reversed and I could feel the fluids getting sucked out of my body. As if to speed the process, the suit itself contracted sequentially, tightening around different parts of my abdomen to drain all the fluids.

 

Chelation process... complete

Ionization remediation... complete

Expended medication transfer to waste management system... complete

!! ALERT !! Biosaline storage tank below 10% capacity. Switching medical system to biofuel carrier solution

!! ALERT !! Biofuel storage tank at 0% capacity. Disabling medication injection system

!! ALERT !! WMS volume exceeds normal release capacity. Servicing required

 

Those messages left me with far more questions than answers, but I accepted that the main takeaway was that I needed to get back to the vault. If the medical system was offline, I was suddenly a lot more vulnerable to the hazards that surrounded me. Fortunately, I made it back into the vault without any complications, then I plugged in my Pip-Boy and cycled the door shut.

 

Handing off the box of fungus to Stef, I tracked down Winter and then retreated to the clinic to strip out of the power suit. By that point we'd got the routine of using the suit mostly nailed down and the whole process went pretty smoothly. I did notice that this time Winter moved slightly off to the side when she removed the catheter, evidently wanting to avoid the impromptu shower she'd received the last time. However, almost nothing came out.

 

"Hmm, did you notice anything unusual when you were out? The system is supposed to keep a fairly large amount of fluid in your bladder, but it looks like you're almost empty."

 

I explained the different warning messages I'd seen following the radiation treatment, and after I explained them Winter borrowed the helmet and popped it on her head. She didn't bother plugging in the air filter, so whatever she'd had to say was just unintelligible mumbles until she removed it, at which point she repeated.

 

"So... Okay." She let out a little laugh then. "So the biosaline it's talking about? Apparently the suit filters any harmful chemicals out of your urine, then reinjects it as a carrier for drugs. The radiation treatment requires a lot more fluids than the other functions, and it used up not just the reservoir in the backpack but also when you had stored the natural way. I think we might need to rig something you can use to refill the reservoir if you aren't going to wear the suit for an extended period of time, so you don't run out again in an emergency. But we can work on that later. I'm also interested in this reference to biofuel. I've seen that term before, so maybe there's something buried in the manual that'll explain its significance. For now though, it looks like the system took pretty good care of you."

 

I noticed as we chatted that Winter still hadn't replaced her bathing suit. "I take it your parents have given up on hounding you about your outfit?"

 

She shrugged. "Holly doesn't seem to care anymore, and with dad going commando these days mom is very much the minority voice. She still gives me 'the look' sometimes, but I haven't had to put up with a lecture since I ditched the suit."

 

"Good," I said, "you look great, and... well, I think you'll be a good role model."

 

"Oh?" she asked, interested, "what do you mean by that?"

 

I explained that when we move back into Sanctuary Hills, I expect we'll have more people eventually want to join the settlement. One thing I learned from the argument with Stef about the vault suits was that if I don't challenge peoples' assumptions, they're just going to assume that whatever they did before, they do here. But the vault, and Vault-Tec and its technology, that's mine now, and I want the settlement to reflect that. I want us to be one team, and I don't want whatever politics and grudges and other crap that's out there in the wasteland to get in the way. I'm thinking a lot about telling anyone new to dump their stuff and suit up in the vault gear as a condition of moving in.

 

 

Winter thought about that for a moment. "It might be a hard sell. I mean, even if you ignore my mother, I don't think Aunt Holly's any closer to wanting to let it all hang out. You're going to have some folks who decide not to move in if you have a rule like that. A lot of people, probably."

 

"I thought of that," I admitted, "but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. I'd rather only have people who want to be here living with us, instead of any old person who wanders into town."

 

"Well," she said with a bit of a laugh, "good luck with that. But I'll do my best to help you make it work."

 

The next few weeks passed uneventfully. As we rolled towards the end of the year, Stef reported good results with the mushroom farm - a lot better in fact than she'd expected - and on the 21st she asked me if I could set up some tables in the rec room for her to set up planters on. Doing so, she explained, would let her move the whole farm out of the cavern and have it readily accessible from the kitchen. I agreed, and started fabricating the kits for the tables. 

 

Once I had everything ready, Fred and Stef carefully brought in a series of planters, now showing a large number of the mushrooms - more, in fact, than I think I'd gathered in the first place.

 

 

"This is amazing, Stef," I said. "I never would have thought you could have grown this much, this fast!"

 

"Me neither," she agreed, "but it turns out they really took to the environment here in the vault. You made some good picks out there."

 

"And..." I couldn't help but notice, "did you do something with your dress?"

 

Stef's eyes flicked away for a moment, but then she smiled. "Yeah, I did. It was getting caught on stuff all the time, and then when the Ghouls got in I almost tripped on it. So Winter helped me pick out a slimmer one from the catalogue. Do you like it?"

 

"I do. If I wasn't so used to just wearing the vault suit by now, I'd give it a try myself. It looks soft and loose - probably the only kind of 'regular clothes' I can wear these days."

 

"Ha, maybe. Well, if you ever decide you want to dress decent, you just ask and I'll give you some pointers. I bet we can turn you into a proper lady without too much work."

 

Winter and Holly entered then, chatting about something else, but they paused when they saw the planter tables. 

 

"Damn, mom, how did you pull that off?"

 

 

Stef shrugged, "hard work good fertilizer, same as always." I was pleased to note that she seemed to be entirely ignoring her daughter's state of undress. Indeed, while Holly was probably the most conservatively attired of the whole group at this point, she too had been chattering away with her niece without any obvious discomfort.

 

I felt like we'd overcome a number of obstacles in the waning days of 2287, and it buoyed my confidence about our prospects for the days ahead.

 

 

Behind The Scenes

Things are coming together nicely in terms of building up some unfinished infrastructure from this original mod build. As you can see in the later segments, I've ported the shader data from Greenhouse Plants over to Fully Functional Wild Crops to get the mushroom planters to no longer show a snow shader on the dirt. I've also been continuing to work on the pubic hair project - I got Charley's pink hair working properly as you can see below. I also created a new hair style for Winter, though it didn't show up right in the narrative screen shots due to a coding error. You can also see the fixed appearance below. This is actually a custom style made by taking the default 'stripe' style, widening it, and removing some of the fuzzy outer vertices to create a more trimmed look. I imagine in the future as I create more customized character looks I'll need to do some additional custom meshes in line with this.