by Roger Bourke White Jr., May 2023
05 -- Visit Armis in northeast and boost repair skill
06 -- Circle around the nearby south and do a sneaky legion kill
07 -- Explore southeast to Balloon Bay
May wakes and looks at her blaster. "You may not need ammo, but you will need repairs. I have a couple weapon repair kits, but it is time to learn how to make more. There is a book that will help with that at Armis Air Force Base to the northeast."
She heads out and begins more exploring.
She has already been as far as Arnold's sacked caravan in the northeast direction. She travels there and does some more exploring in that area before she gets on the road that heads to Armis. On that road she meets Kelly, a stranger.
"Whoa!" he says, "That road ahead is dangerous. Those Armis folk have a lot of artillery as well as airplanes and they love using it on strangers.
The good news... for you... is that I know a way to dodge through it all." he looks just a little uncertain, "...Well... it works... most of the time."
She pays him for the secret in the form of a bet -- if she gets back to him he will double her money. She then gives it a try. For her it's an exciting sprint, and it works! She makes it to the main gate.
The guard there is certainly surprised to see her, and Nancy, his Master-at-Arms supervisor, is as well. As the surprise wears off she leads May to meet Mother Melissa, the base commander.
More surprise here: Melissa is delighted to see her, not fearful or angry. She has a whole bunch of projects in mind that outsider May can help with. She gives May run of the base and tells her to wander around and find out what she can help with.
May helps with three things: She helps Doc Lomax heal three of his patients who are near death, she helps Tonta get five solar panels running again (and grabs the book she is after from his room), and she helps Nancy by clearing giant ants out of the power station and getting the generators started again.
That done, she talks to Melissa. Melissa is real happy to hear the good news and then tells her to talk to Tonta about the big mission she really wants accomplished.
That mission is to raise an old bomber from the bottom of Lake Kneade. Tonta gives her two deployable ballasts that she must attach to the wings of the bomber. After they are attached they can be inflated and the bomber will float to the surface. Once that happens Tonta and John can take care of what else needs to happen to get it back to Armis and refurbished.
The journey will be a long one and half will be swimming. She travels back to Palma for some bed time, then travels north to Granite City and from there into Lake Kneade. She jumps in and swims east for a long way and finally gets to the sunken aircraft site. She swims down to it twice to install the ballasts. Success! She now swims to the nearby shore and there triggers the ballast detonator. More success! The bomber comes floating up and looks relatively intact. She travels back to Armis to give Tonta and Melissa the good news. She is now idolized by the Armis folk.
Mission accomplished, she meets up with Kelly on the Armis road again, collects her bet, and then on the way home she grabs some substantial loot from the corpses of victims of previous Armis artillery barrages. She stops by many shops and merchants on her way back to Palma. She is now well on her way to her next improvement purchase.
Back at Palma she tries out her newly increased repair skills to make some healing and weapon repair kits. More mission accomplished.
The next day she heads south again, but not far. It is time to explore the area south of Palma. She follows the road to where the Viper bandits attacked her just beyond Scout Post Charlie and then heads southeast. She comes upon a Legion camp that is holding two prisoners. It is an informal place, just a campfire and some tents. It has three Legionaries and two TNT Boys as prisoners.
She decides to rescue the prisoners, but wants to do so without pissing off the Legionaries -- this is going to take some finesse.
She succeeds. With great care, she ambushes the Legionaries one at a time, without letting the others or the prisoners see what she is doing. She shoots one, then hides behind the tent, and the two other Legionaries come one at a time to investigate.
She kills, loots, frees the prisoners, and moves on, heading further east.
The area has lots of wildlife, and a mix of both Legion and NDA soldiers. As she explores she hears a mix of gunfire from various distant places, and sometimes it consists of two different styles of weapons at the same time -- the Legion and NDA are having a get-together. There are also lots of bigbuzzes, she will make bigbuzz sliders when she gets these and the other ingredients.
She discovers a cave and collects lots of loma flowers in the area. Further east she discovers a prospector's camp which has a campfire. She cooks up a couple of bigbuzz sliders then heads north to circle back towards Palma. She discovers more loot, confirms she still has an OK relation with the Legion as Legion soldiers walk by and ignore her, and wipes out a Mad Dog bandit camp.
She is now full to the brim with loot. She heads for Milard and starts unloading it. From Milard she heads to first to Camp Loren and then Redwell where she finally unloads the last of it. Soon she will have enough caps to pay for her first self-improvement with Doc Nagi. She heads back to Palma for some bed time.
She wakes and heads out to the courtyard where she checks her map. She decides on more exploring to the southeast. She travels to the prospector camp. From there she heads east and discovers a north-south road. She follows that to the south and discovers another mine. She leaves the road and heads east again, this time through the hills and a plateau next to a big lake further to the east. She discovers Scout Post Echo which is a curious place. It is an NDA camp, but the soldiers there are ghouls, not humans. "Domesticated ghouls, not feral ghouls." she mutters to herself.
More exploring east beyond that. It is a hilly area thick with both fire dinos and Legionaries. It is also the location of another mine, and this one has a book that boosts her Speech skill.
More east exploring and lots of dino killing. She travels back to a prospector camp to cook them. From there she travels back to the nearby mine and loots the cabin. From there she heads southeast and downhill and finally gets to the big lake. There she discovers Balloon Bay.
Full of loot, she travels to Camp Loren to begin selling it off. More good news follows that: she has finally acquired enough caps to buy her first self-improvement. She travels to Nagi medical clinic and has Doc Nagi give her a Regeneration implant -- she will now heal while she travels around as well as while she is sleeping.
And speaking of sleeping, it is time for some Palma bed time.
-- The End --