Part 10: Mazes and Monsters

Hey guys!
Sorry for the delay but I'm still wrapped up and burned out by work. Therefore this update will be a shorty but I think it's better than going on hiatus for the time being.


Mazes and Monsters

Last time we wiped out the Ratskulls, discovered that Wesley was a traitor ( ) and got our new objective: Kill dem mutants.

This time we will make the first step into that direction and head towards the town of Copper Hill.

I say "head towards" because we first have to cross a mountain range.

Through the labyrinth. uhhuhuh

The map itself is actually not a labyrinth at all.

You can make a more or less straight line through it, and the mini map prevents you from getting lost. The meat of this map is shooting some guys on the way and nothing else really.

There's two huts at the entrance.

And when we close in, two ragged and very crazy guys chat us up.

:"Hey! How are you, my friend? How did you end up is a place like this?"

:"Stop crawling, it's disgusting! You'll frighten him away. Don't listen to anything he says! He's crazy!"
He kinda looks like a young John Goodman, after a healthy diet of meth.

:"Crazy? Me? Which of us keeps burying himself in the sand?!"

:"That's to get out of the midday sun! It's cooler under the sand. Everyone knows about that!"
Some animals do.

:"Ha! Don't make me laugh! Why don't you dig a deeper hole next time, say ten feet, and lie down in it. I'll do you a favor and shovel all the sand back in on top of you!"
Wacky!

:"Shut up you two! Your shouting is getting on my nerves. Who are you and what do you want from me?"

:"I'm Stitch."

:"And I'm Shuffle. And we don't want anything at all!"

:"Unless you're going into the labyrinth."

:"Right!"

:"Labyrinth? What's that supposed to be?"

:"You're standing in front of it. That's the entrance over there. If you want to go further north through the mountains, you'll have to go through the labyrinth."

:"Absolutely! Otherwise you'll have to take the route around the mountains. And that would take weeks!"

:"Months!"

:"Yeah, months! Or years. So you gotta go through the labyrinth. You just keep heading north. Keep to the gorges and the foot of the cliffs."

:"You seem to be very keen to send me into this labyrinth.."
I'm sure glad you catch on, for once.

:"Us? No!"

:"What for?"

:"Unless you're intending to go there anyway. Then you could maybe do us a small favor."
Nobody saw that coming.

:"Absolutely! A tiny, tiny favor."

:"Come on, out with it! What do you want?"

:"You could bring us a man."

:"Yeah, a man!"


:"He went in to the labyrinth some time ago. He's most likely dead by now. If you find him, bring him to us and we'll give you something for him."

:"Absolutely, we'll give you something!"

:"Why should the man be dead?"
Seagull is in full detective mode.

:"Because of the Seekers."
Got you.

:"Ssshhh!"

:"Eh.. Well, it may be that there are a couple of Seekers in the labyrinth. That doesn't necessarily mean that there are though!"
Smooth.

:"Yeah, there doesn't have to be any! Besides, it doesn't necessarily mean that they've killed him."

:"Absolutely, not necessarily!"
It would be kinda cute how they try to hold on to the charade, if it weren't so stupid.

:"So there's this guy hanging around the labyrinth being hunted by the Seekers. And why are they hunting him?"

:"Because they're after his gear. The Seekers are evil people!"

:"Absolutely, evil people!"

:"The Seekers are often in the labyrinth. They wait for people who want to go through. And then they strip them of their belongings."

:"Yeah, they just steal them!"
So, now you're admitting it?



:"Naaaahh! We got lots of good stuff! We got guns! And ammo!"

:"Absolutely! For shooting!"


:"If you bring us the man, we'll give you all these nice things! Promise!"
Intrigued and suspicious. What a conflict!

:"What do you want to do with this guy anyway?"

:"We.. er.. He owes us something. And.. and we can trade his body. For food and water."

:"Absolutely! We know some doctors who need dead bodies. For experiments and stuff like that,"



Yeah, that was weird.

As the two numbnuts said, the labyrinth is full of Seekers. They mostly hang around in small camps scattered about the place. You saw me shooting people plenty of times, so I'll give you a cliff note version which has Keno as the hero.





They carry mostly shotguns and smg's so I don't even bother to pick em up as my loot truck is already stuffed. I do loot the camps though as they have some neat ammo and another plate armor.

Ivana, Butch and Keno level from the fights. Our army gal picks up the driving talent "Repair vehicles" as all the cars are almost busted. Butch has maxed his relevant skills already so I start to teach him lockpicking, just for the hell of it.
But Keno maxes sniper and picks the talent "Camouflage" which is hilariously broken. Basically it makes Keno invisible if prone and further away from enemies than 30 meters. If he can get a clear shot, which is harder than you think, he can wipe out whole groups with a stronger rifle. I really hope I find a 50.cal rifle soon.

On the downside I will constantly have that message up during fights now.

Kinda bothering.

Near the end of the labyrinth I find the guy those two Igor's were talking about.

He's surrounded by a bunch of dead Seekers and still breathing.

:"Hey! What's up with you? Are you badly wounded?"
It's pretty obvious, you know?

:"Yeah.. I am. My forefathers are already calling to me."
Cue Native American stereotype.

:"Did the Seekers do this to you?"

:"Yes.. but I'll die with honor. A lot of Seekers had to give their lives.. before they could wound old Sevensouls."

:"I can see that. Your name is Sevensouls? Unusual."
And cool.

:"That's true. Even among my people. I'm a native of this land and I'll soon be re-united with it once again."

:"Hmm.. We could try to heal your wounds. It should be possible.."

:"I'm a healer myself. My wounds are very serious.."

And now we have a choice. Either do him in, or try to heal him. I kinda mislead you as I wanted to save him from the start. See, the reward is not very good and I rather have him live to show his background later. Also, and you might have guessed that already, the two ghouls want to eat his corpse and not trade him. You can find that out later, but there is no way to confront them about it. Pretty lame as I would have liked to kill em, if only for being so annoying.

Agnes can do this!

She only needs a medkit and if you don't have one, you can find one on the corpses around him.

:"You saved me. My forefathers will have to wait a little longer now. I owe you my life. If you want I'll join you and fight by your side. To the death."

Sevensouls is actually a neat squaddie. He is skilled in medicine and close combat and has the right stats for it. But he just doesn't fit my party so I'll pass on him. As said, melee is not bad but doesn't really hold up compared to endgame guns.

When I reach the end of the labyrinth, Seagull decides to leave the group behind and have a chat with a random fella.


:"Hey, stranger! So you got through the labyrinth in one piece?! How did you manage that?"

:"Slowly, Choker! I get real nervous when someone jumps out on me like that! Who are you anyway?"

:"I'm Hickey. I work for the Seekers. When I see someone, I let them know, you understand? That way they don't need to spend all their time hanging around in the labyrinth."

Is that so?

NO. MERCY.

If you talk more with him, he will tell you that Copper Hill is close by(which we know) and that the two weirdos at the entrance are deranged cannibals. But If you do that you miss the chance to kill him. So fuck him.

Now Copper Hill is on our map, but that is for the next update. Let me close this with a quick visit to one of the minor areas we have open.

Remember how that fire-eater told us about a raided settlement?

Let's go there.


Sure looks like a raided place.

Let's snoop around a bit.

Hmm.. Detective sense is tingeling.


Or maybe not?

:"Those aren't corpses, they're scarecrows! This smells like a damned trap!"
Whaaa?


Oh come on! You could have gunned them down while they were leisurely strolling up.

:"I told you, Max! We should have attacked sooner. People work out what's going on here much too fast!"
I think you flatter Seagull's performance here.

:"Shit it, Vick! We attack when I say and not a second earlier, get it?! And from now on, no more dumb remarks in front of our customers."
Oh boy, more hijinks. Also say hi to a young George Takei.

:"Just out of curiosity - is this seriously intended to be a hold-up?"

:"What a stroke of luck, this guy's even dumber than we are. He hasn't even realized that his number is up."


:"Shut it, Vick!"

:"You already said that once."



:"You've never held anyone up before, have you?"

:"Hey, Max. How he knows that?"

:"Shut it, Vick! Listen up, Choker. Either you hand over everything you've got, or we put a bullet in your head - right now. What's it gonna be?!"

Okay, time to put some perspective on this. In one of the earlier updates, Fredo, told us about the various gangs in the area. He also mentioned the Kid gang.
This encounter is their only appearance and it can play out in three different ways. We can give them our gear, by which I mean give them everything except our undies. Or we can shoot them for some measly Xp and their crappy guns. None of this pleases me so I decide to go for door number three with my speech skill.

:"I'm going to count to three. If your ugly mugs are still spoiling my view of this beautiful countryside by then, I'll blast you all away. One.."


:"He's starting to count, Max..."
Numbers scare idiots, you see.

:"I... eee... Come on, let's beat it!"


And thus they dart off into the sunset, never to be seen again. This is another really underdeveloped encounter/gang and totally pointless. We didn't even get XP.


Next time: Why does everyone have to betray me?!

Authors note: Can't really say when the next update will come around, due to my current busy-bee status. I'm trying my best though! Also there won't be a roundup for this update as we have not missed anything and the scenery is not interesting at all. I hope you can come to terms with that.