After I suited up the next morning, I met with each of the settlers to find out if there was anything they needed. My plan was to try and barter for anything we couldn't obtain locally, and I didn't want to make the long trip, only to find I'd come back missing something important. Winter and the Donahue sisters didn't have anything too exotic they asked for, mostly just raw materials they needed for fabricating some household goods and otherwise improving our little village. 

 

Of course, Tracey was excited about the prospect of getting a home of her own. I'd been doing some research into alternatives to the plastic that the West Everett floors needed and I had a few ideas - notably the engineered hardwood floors I'd used when I repaired Winter's house. Nevertheless, I'd need concrete to make a new foundation; one thing I'd learned when making the Donahue house was the foundations under these old houses weren't in good shape, and I'd had to replace theirs. I expected the same for my future projects and planned accordingly.

 

But the thing Tracey was really excited about was the motorcycle. She gave me a pretty specific list of parts to look for, and she promised me that if we could find or fabricate everything she needed, then the bike itself was mechanically sound. The big thing she'd need to do it work up a new engine for it - the fusion generator was completely shot and without access to one of the automated factor or repair facilities, she doubted she could ever repair it. However, the bike could take a properly sized internal combustion engine, and while fuel was hard to come by it wouldn't be impossible.

 

 

I promised her I'd talk to Trudy, the Diner's owner, about her list, and that I'd start checking off items as I was able to. I had to admit, I was also pretty excited about the prospect of having motorized transport. I doubted I'd be finding any more power suits, so I'd need things like the bike to achieve any better mobility for my group than we had already. That conversation with Tracey took up most of the morning, and according to the clock on my Pip-Boy it was just past noon when I crossed the Old North Bridge. As I did so, I made a note to see if I could find a way to repair it. In its current damaged state I wasn't confident that the bridge could last indefinitely if pack animals - or the motorcycle - started regularly crossing it. 

 

The Diner was southeast of Concord off the Cambridge Pike. I decided to cut across Abernathy Farm, say hi to Blake and Connie in the process, and then push east to bypass Concord and reach my destination. It was another rainy day, though chillier than the previous one, and I completed the first leg of the journey quickly. Blake and Connie were inside, and it was their daughter who greeted me. She'd been up to something outside, and spotted me almost as soon as I broke the treeline.

 

"Hello," I said, "you must be Lucy."

 

"That's me," she said, "you don't sound like Winter, so I'm guessing you're Charley?"

 

 

That was an interesting little detail. 

 

"You got it. I didn't know you knew Winter."

 

Lucy nodded in agreement, "she's been down here once or twice - helped dad clear some trees and then hauled them away."

 

"Oh, I see." Well, that explained that. I was surprised though that Winter hadn't mentioned it. I'd assumed she had stayed in Sanctuary during her work shifts. "Well, I'm on my way to the Drumlin Diner, so I thought I'd stop in and say hello."

 

Lucy let out a laugh - it sounded tinged with just a little bit of nervousness - and considered me for just a second before answering, "well, hello. Did you want to see my folks also?"

 

"I did. But it sounds like you've got a question on your tongue. Don't hold back."

 

"Well... it's just that I know about how you suggested that I help out your town arrange for trade with the farm. And that someone from your group come here to work out trades for things that we need. It makes sense but... I've heard some strange things about your crew."

 

"Oh?"

 

"Like, um, sorry, I don't know how to put this. Travelers have come through saying they've heard talk of a cult up north, say they don't wear any clothes and they fight with raiders over slaves. I'm pretty sure they were talking about you guys. But mom and dad seem to trust you, and Winter seems really nice. She even helped us fix up the water pump when the motor shorted out. I'm not sure what to believe."

 

I shrugged. "You know rumors. They kind of take on a life of their own."

 

"But," she said, putting a discerning eye on me, "the truth's the soil that rumors grow in. So what's the truth?"

 

"Hmm, you're a clever one, aren't you? Well, I'll tell you a few things. We're not a cult, but we want to change the way people live. I was in a vault for... a long time. And while the vaults have their own problems, I want people to enjoy the good things about the vaults... and maybe even the good things about the old world, before the war. I also want to get rid of a lot of the bad things. We do fight with raiders and slavers when we find them, and we do take their captives, but they get a choice: they can go free, or they can join our settlement. Do you know about the Constitution?"

 

"The boat with the robots?"

 

I laughed, "no, not the boat. In the old world, in America, the one law about all others was the Constitution. And it used to let people keep slaves. It took almost a hundred years and a bloody war to change that, and even then they couldn't quite let go - no one admitted it but there was still legal slavery, just a lot less of it. That was a terrible mistake and it hurt the country badly. I won't make that mistake again, so they'll be no slaves in any settlement I have a say over."

 

She nodded at that. "I wish more people thought like you. I think you'll find slavers aplenty in the Commonwealth these days."

 

"No doubt, slavers, raiders, cannibals, all kinds of bad people. But my goal it to keep my people safe from that. It's actually part of why I'm going down to the Diner, to get supplies for our defenses."

 

She crooked her head at me a little bit, "I noticed you dodged the rumor about not wearing clothes. So, is that the true part?"

 

"Half true. I don't want people marking themselves apart and making cliques and, well, eventually separating into upper and lower classes. Having everyone dress the same makes that easier, keeps people equal. I give everyone a uniform, a vault suit. They don't cover up much, but they're comfortable and don't get in their way. They also have sensors sewn into them to tell if you're getting sick or got dosed with rads, so we can get anyone help who needs it. If you want, you can come up to Sanctuary and try one on, I bet you'll like how it feels."

 

Lucy shook her head slowly, smirking, "I'll think about it. But not in this weather. Maybe in the spring."

 

I patted her on the shoulder. "I'll hold you to that," I said, before I set off to check with Blake and Connie. 

 

The elder Abernathies were sitting out the storm inside their fort, and I was impressed at how spacious it was. Their family had done a good job building it up over the years, and I wondered what kind of improvements we could make with the help of the Workshop. Connie, it turned out, had been thinking of us and she'd arranged for Trashcan Carla to store a load of cement in the trailer at the back of the farm, on the promise that if I came through they'd sell it on in exchange for a small cut of the profits. That delighted me, and worked out an agreement on the spot: they'd send Lucy up to Sanctuary with their brahmin to drop off the cement, and they'd come back with some weapons and ammunition I'd confiscated from raiders, along with one of the gold bars from the root cellar. 

 

Our chat was all business from there, mostly going over the best options for getting bulk materials. The options they laid out were about the same as the ones I'd considered before: Drumlin Diner was closest and safest, Bunker Hill further and more dangerous to reach, but better stocked. Diamond City also had a thriving market, and once upon a time Quincy had been a gateway to points south and a good source of more exotic goods. Unfortunately, ever since the Castle fell, Quincy was cut off and - rumor had it - under new management that wasn't friendly to outsiders. I toyed with going to Diamond City, but ultimately I decided to stick with my original plan. Bidding farewell and thanking both of them again for working out the cement deal, I set out before it got too late. 

 

 

The trip to the Diner was pretty much uneventful, though I had one fortunate encounter: as I neared my destination, I caught sight of a woman sheltering under a wrecked billboard, puffing on a cigarette while her massively burdened brahmin rested its legs.

 

"Hello there," I said while still a distance off.

 

Putting down her cigarette, she appraised me coldly before asking, "Hello to you too. What's your story? Looking to trade, or to rob me?"

 

"Depends what you've got, but probably trade."

 

"Well, I've got a little bit of everything, so you're in luck."

 

 

This was, as you probably guessed, the famous Trashcan Carla, scavenger and trader extraordinaire. She showed me her stuff, and it lived up to her nickname - it was truly a remarkable collection of everything one could possibly find in a trash can, from clothes to weapons to scrap of all sorts. Unfortunately she didn't have any of the items on Tracey's list, but she did have a few odd-looking devices, small terminals of some sort with antenna poking out.

 

"What're those?" I asked.

 

Carla shrugged. "No idea. You can probably break it down for steel from the housing, circuitry on the insides, and aluminum from the antenna if I'm not mistaken. Maybe even some fiber optics and other good stuff hidden under the cover. Want 'em? I'll give you a deal."

 

 

I thought on that, and ultimately decided to set to haggling with her. In the process, I learned that she could indeed get a large shipment of cement up to Sanctuary, and we added that to the terms of our bartering. Carla was a tough negotiator, and in the end I only took one of the mystery devices off her - but agreed to hand over a large drum of machine-gun ammunition I'd retrieved from the Air Force base in exchange for a large shipment of cement, with the deal to go down later this month.

 

I asked her if it was safe for her, with Concord in the way, and she laughed it off. Apparently she had an understanding with the raiders up there - they left her alone and didn't ask questions about where she did business, and in exchange she made sure that her fellow traders didn't cut off Concord's food supply. Evidently she drove hard bargains in more than just the junk business - but that was also an important data point for me: the raiders in Concord were organized enough that with the right leverage, they could be negotiated with. I made a note of that, to hopefully benefit from in the future.

 

Had I come on a different day, my visit to the Diner itself might have been something of an anticlimax. On that day, however, I walked into an armed standoff. It turned out that Trudy's son was a drug addict, and his dealer had come calling after he didn't pay up. Understandably, Trudy wanted the pusher off her land, and was ready to start shooting to get her way. As soon as they saw me approaching, everyone's guns were pointed at me instead, and things got a little... tense.

 

"Whoa," said the man who I was about to learn was the drug dealer, "hold it right there. I don't want no trouble with you."

 

I really didn't like having a gun waved in my face. As far back as elementary school, I'd learned to treat every gun like it was loaded, and I certainly had no reason to doubt that this was some exception. I tried not to growl too much as I challenged him, "how about you lower that gun, or you will have trouble with me."

 

The man blinked, seemingly surprised at the answer, and then slowly lowered the revolver.

 

"Okay," he said, "gun's lowered."

 

"Fine. Sounds like you have some explaining to do, because this sure looks like a raider shaking down a trading post."

 

The man blanched at that, then explained the scenario. I found it kind of amusing that he seemed so aggrieved at getting stiffed. Evidently being a drug pusher was a perfectly respectable occupation in the post-war Commonwealth. Oh, the boys at BADTFL must have been spinning in their irradiated graves. After he laid out his sob story, he offered to pay me to shake the money out of Trudy, but I stopped him short. I told him to cool it while I got Trudy's side of the story.

 

 

Understandably, Trudy was not thrilled to see a third armed person outside her shop, and so I found myself across from where she'd barricaded herself with a submachine gun getting waved in my general direction. I appreciated that at least she wasn't directly pointing it at me, but her gun was clearly at the ready. 

 

"You want to tell me your side of this?" I asked.

 

The older woman wrinkled her nose and proceeded to confirm that most of what Wolfgang had told me was true. He'd left out the bit about how he groomed Trudy's son into trying stronger and stronger drugs until he was seriously addicted though, as well as the part where he'd just arbitrarily decided that Trudy was going to carry the dumb kid's debt.

 

We talked for a while. I consulted with Wolfgang a bit. Wolfgang's dusky-skinned bodyguard checked out my boobs while I talked to her boss. I went back to Trudy, I made a proposal, she rejected it. I went back to Wolfgang, came back with a counter-offer, and at last the guns started to drop a bit.

 

In the end, this was the deal: Trudy would pay off the kid's debt. Wolfgang would only sell chems that Trudy approved - which was effectively going to turn him into more of a pharmacist than a drug pusher since all the heavy stuff would be off the table. Wolfgang could sell on the Drumlin property, but had to give Trudy a cut, and his bodyguard would do double-duty as security for the Diner.

 

I don't think anyone was actually happy with the deal, but no one felt screwed over. Part of me still kind of regretted not plugging Wolfgang full of buckshot for getting a kid hooked on hard drugs, but I suspected that was a case of me applying 2077 values to a very different 2288 world. I still almost did it. After all, my whole grand plan involved restoring 2077 values... at least the ones I agreed with. But I also was going to need a reliable source of medicine and chems if I was going to get this power suit operating at its full capacity, and I'd decided that Wolfgang was going to be that contact, at least for now. He'd shown me his inventory, and I was impressed.

 

With peace restored at the Diner, I took some time to discuss trades with both Trudy and Wolfgang. I settled a contract with Trudy for another concrete delivery in a few weeks - enough to make really good progress on the wall - and with Wolfgang I picked up a few of the drugs that were notably absent from my suit's medical reservoir. I also gave the pusher a list of some of the more obscure chems the suit had spots for, and he promised to keep an ear to the ground.

 

 

What I'd expected to be a little baby step in meeting my needs had ended up checking almost all my boxes for the next month at least. With a little skip in my step, I retracted my steps towards Sanctuary. And by the way, you've probably noticed I stopped saying Sanctuary Hills a bit back. That's because LonDon's bit about sanctuary and paradise had stuck with me. 'Sanctuary' was so snappy and topical on its own, even though I hadn't quite realized it intellectually, in my heart I'd already decided that's what our settlement would be known as in the new world. No more Sanctuary Hills... just Sanctuary.

 

That's not to say it was an uneventful walk home. Just as I got ready to leave the road in order to bypass Concord, I heard a call for help, followed by a cry of pain. A man in a vault suit - albeit a different model than the one from 111, was crumbling to his knees, having just been butt stroked by an angry looking man in ratty leathers. Raiders. Slavers. Dead meat. With now-familiar ease, I triggered the biofuel injector and felt the dull bloating sensation as the drug-laden foam rushed out of the butt plug to fill my colon right up to the top and pump its medicine into my blood. Time slowed and, barely noticing a bullet deflect off the power suit's flexible but resilient exterior, I delivered a mouthful of buckshot to the closer raider. 

 

 

Even as she fell, blood gushing from the hole that had previously been her face, I ran past her and put my second shot into the chest of her companion. The close-range impact lifted him off his feel and sent him reeling to the ground. He didn't seem quite dead, but I didn't bother reloading. With two quick steps and a downward kick of my leg, I sunk the steel heel of my boot into the side of his head and crushed it like a melon. 

 

I glanced to the side and saw their prisoner, cowering in the treeline and watching me. When he realized I'd spotted him, he seemed about ready to flee, but I held up a hand.

 

"Stop, give me a second to find the key to your cuffs."

 

That halted his flight, and I rifled through both sets of remains, ultimately finding a key on the woman's body. I snapped off the man's cuffs and his face positively lit up.

 

"Oh God, I thought I was done for. I'm never leaving Vault 81 again!" 

 

He started to run off, clearly not wanting to spend another moment out Concord way, but I called to him.

 

"Hey! When you get to 81, tell them that Vault 111 is open, and some time I'd like to talk to their Overseer!"

 

 

That got him to pause for just a moment more. "One-Eleven? Open? I've never heard of Vault 111. But I'll tell Mrs. McNamara, I'm sure she'll want to know. Thank you again, thank you!" And then he was sprinting off again.

 

I wondered if it was a good idea to to reveal to him that 111 was open, but at that point it was too late to take it back. I hoped I'd find an ally in Vault 81, but of course, only time would tell.

 

Behind The Scenes

I spent most of today's session on pathfinding repair, and let me tell you: it sucks. Turning on god mode helps a little bit, but it's still a very tedious manual process. Fortunately, the Sanctuary settlement is relatively localized and I don't have outsiders like caravans coming in yet, so I didn't have to extend pathfinding all the way to the settlement entrances. Though, I'll need to do that soon, since otherwise hostile spawns may not work right and might end up teleporting past any walls I build. Actually, with me meeting Carla in this chapter, it looks like I'll need to go back and path out at least to the bridge, since she'll start showing up from time to time.

 

Still, its good that Sanctuary broke when it did so I could fine-tune my technique before I had to tackle a really huge location; likewise, the new houses will be easier to work with since their interiors will get proper navmeshing from the foundations and floors - I'll just need to mesh the exterior parts and even then I only really need to run pathfinding markers across the areas where I want settlers to go to and fro, such as to the water pump or to the farm plots. 

 

When the time comes to move into Concord, I'll have a much heavier lift in store for me, and that'll kind of suck - though at least Concord is fairly flat.