by Roger Bourke White Jr., May 2023
01 -- Fixing Lios One
02 -- Exploring southwest and awakening traders there
03 -- Exploring Milard and installing Marshal Dango
04 -- Circling north to explore around Bluemart
May awakens in her room in Palma. She dresses and pats her SureShot Blaster which she just bought from the merchant who's shop is across the courtyard. She now has a powerful beam weapon that auto recharges -- she can damage tough beasts from a distance and doesn't need to hunt around for ammo. Yes, she is now dangerous, and now she can explore the world and show others that.
May dresses for action, not attraction, but she turns some heads. She is a redhead, 20, 5' 10", and slim but with an athletic build and movement style.
She goes out, breathes the cool night air, and heads north a short way to Lios One to help the NDA there. Lios One is currently a mess. It's a solar power plant, but currently not producing because creatures and booby traps control critical parts of the place.
Lt. Jackson, the NDA commander, lets her in and she begins helping out... and doing some scavenging, there are lots of goodies in piles of trash here, and more self-improvement is going to be expensive.
She talks to the two civilians. They can't get by the booby traps guarding the computer terminals out in the solar field, but they know the passwords, and they tell her what they are.
Passwords discovered, she goes out and deals with the terminals. She disarms the booby traps at the first one and shoots the vicious dogs guarding the second one. Yeah, this blaster is working fine!
That accomplished she goes in the power tower to route the power when it comes back on at dawn. Inside there are robots and robot turrets to overcome. She does. And when dawn breaks she flips the final switch that turns the whole plant back on.
That done, she has a final talk with civilian Jose Sivas who invites her into his group, the Followers of the Popsie. This will get her a discount when she shops at the Nagi medical clinic located beside the Bluemart business complex located up north.
She heads out and explores the region just north of Lios. She visits sites around the El Dorado Dry Lake and then travels to the Bluemart area to unload her loot.
Her first stop in the area is the medical clinic, where Doc Nagi now gives her some generous pricing on what she sells and buys. May will be back here often, to both sell loot and to buy her personal improvements.
She then heads to Sellerbot, the Macho Bros. merchant with a shop on the other side of the complex. He is a robot with more cash than Doc Nagi but he doesn't pay as much per item. He buys the rest of her loot and she heads back to Palma -- time for more bed time.
May awakens and goes out. It is dark outside again. She thinks to herself, "My personal improvement is going to be expensive. It will cost thousands. I need to both collect the loot and sell it. To sell all of it I'm going to need traveling merchants as well as the shops. Time for some exploring to the southwest and waking up some traveling merchants there."
She heads out of the courtyard and gets on the now-ruined road that heads from Palma south to Scout Post Charlie. When she gets there she looks around briefly -- there is only one NDA ranger in the place, nothing happening here. She continues following the road to the south. Not much further along she encounters three Mad Dog outlaws watching the road from an overlooking hill on the east side. Here the blaster pays off: she shoots them from a long ways off and takes little damage in return. Once dead, she loots them and then leaves the road heading southwest into the foothills beside the road.
She heads for Red Rover Cavern. This is a good place to visit at night because during the day a pack of Night Howlers lurk there and they are tough to deal with. She gets it on her map and then heads east, out of the foothills and back to the road. At the road she encounters some Legionaries. They give her no trouble. She then heads south following the road again and leaving the Legionaries behind. Not far down the road she gets close to the pack of traders she is looking for. They are on a bridge crossing the road. She gets them in sight, but doesn't join up with them. It's important that the traders and Legionaries don't meet -- they will fight if they do.
Once the traders are discovered she moves on. She travels back to Redwell Source -- water for the town -- where she dodges some dinos. The stranger hanging out there, kills them for her. Once they are dead she loots them for dino meat -- cooked, it makes a nice, healing meal.
Time for some more exploring. She heads southeast. She visits Allen Airport, a small airport, now abandoned. Further southeast she discovers NDA Millstone Prison, a correctional facility now taken over by a rebelious group of prisoners who now call themselves the TNT Boys -- so called because they love dynamite. She doesn't go in. Instead she heads back to Redwell Source, quenches her thirst, and circles around the steep hill west of her. She encounters more dinos and a camp site with bear traps and a refrigerator filled with goodies.
From there she heads south. She visits Squirrel Radio, an abandoned radio station which has a book which she reads to boost her Survival Skill. That done she keeps heading south through the foothills. After dealing with another half dozen dinos she ends up at the Millie's Movie Drive-in movie theater. From there she heads east and discovers the city of Milard -- a place where she is going to spend lots of time in the future.
But for now she is done. She heads for Redwell to freshen up and unload loot, then back to Palma for some bed time.
Rested and ready, it is time to find out more about what is happening in Milard. She travels there. When she arrives she finds two convicts outside in the central square. She dispatches them and heads for the Honcho Hotel, which also has a casino -- exploring that should be "interesting".
She sneaks into the entrance lobby and dispatches three convicts wandering the hallway next to the lobby. She takes a moment to unlock a terminal and using it unlocks a door to a storage room off the lobby. In the room she collects loot and a key that will be useful later. She then loots another storage room off the main hallway near the lobby. There she collects another handy book, this one enhances her Barter Skill.
Now she heads for the main casino room. The room is a ruin but there are three convicts wandering around in it. She positions herself so that only one is visible. She shoots him, then hides back in the hallway. The other two come looking for her and she dispatches them one at a time.
There are a couple other convicts on this floor so she is careful as she moves into the kitchen beside the casino room. She dispatches them, and that leaves one other person in the area: Deputy Barnum, who is being held hostage. She frees Barnum and leads him outside through a back hallway that goes back to the lobby -- she uses the key she acquired earlier.
When they get outside he complains that Milard is still a mess. There are still convicts running wild. What Milard needs is a good sheriff. And, he says, there is a TNT Boy, Dango, who used to be a sheriff and would make a good one for Milard.
May heads to the prison and talks to him. He says he will take on the role if he can get a pardon from his current prison sentence, and there's a man, Major Crane in Camp Loren, who can give him one.
That mission taken on, May explores south from Millie's Movie Drive-in to Camp Loren. In Camp Loren she talks to Major Crane. He grants the pardon. "Milard is important to us." he says. She heads back to Milard, tells Dango, and he now quickly restores order in Milard. This is good news because Milard's shop will give her discounts like the Nagi medical clinic does.
Mission accomplished, May heads back to Palma, it's time for another sleep session.
May wakes. It is dark outside again. She travels to an abandoned gas station near Lake El Dorado to begin her exploring. She checks the station out, then circles south around a big hill next to it. As she is heading north around the east side she comes upon something quite unusual: it is an NDA supply mission that has been ambushed and is now abandoned. She checks out the NDA soldier corpses and notices another surprise: the supply crate has not been opened. This signals trouble. She looks around, pulls out her blaster, and then opens the crate...
Yes, it is an ambush! Three Legionaries pop out from hiding and jump her. She beats them. And, there is another surprise: after the fight her relation to the Legion doesn't change -- she is still just another person to them, not an enemy. She thinks, "I guess if they start this kind thing as the 'bad boys' then my reputation stays clean." So, she has handled them, now loots their corpses, and then continues circling east around the big hill so she can head north to continue her exploring.
Her exploring brings her to Camp Dally, an NDA military base north of Camp Greeson, a Legion military base -- the two face off against each other in a tense stalemate.
She explores the HQ tent, a big tent. It is good it is still nighttime because in the tent is another book, this one will boost her Science Skill. There are only two soldiers in the tent so with some care and patience she is able to take it while hidden. Once grabbed, she heads outside and reads it. Ah, more science skill.
From there she explores north. She visits Truman Dam, Scout Post Delta and Granite City. After discovering Granite City she travels north to Nagi medical clinic. She then wanders through the Bluemart complex to refresh herself with fine water, do some cooking at a campfire, and assemble stuff at a workbench from the loot she has collected. She will be back here often. That done, she then starts exploring again, heading west out the complex.
She discovers entrances to several more urban complexes. She ends the exploration at the ruins of an ambushed caravan that belonged to merchant Andrews. Beyond here is wasteland and mountains. She will explore the mountains another time. She travels back to Macho Bros. to start selling the loot she has collected, she has more than Sellerbot alone can handle, so Macho Bros. is followed by a couple other stops as she looks for traveling merchants, and then Hudson Scrap Yard for a final unloading with Grandma Hudson. When the selling is finished, there is a quick journey to Redwell for some water refreshment, then it is "back to Palma time" for some sleep refreshment.
-- The End --