Part 11: It Doesn't Just Roll Downhill

Update 11: It Doesn't Just Roll Downhill



The first rundown shack I visited looked like a miniature tornado had been through. From the looks of it the geezer living there didn't have much in the way of help, and for some reason there was a barrel with a fire in it located in one of the corners. I almost didn't want to ask if he needed help for fear that he might ask me to clean the place up.



Instead he asked me to help find a gold watch that everyone was accusing him of having stolen, although he had absolutely no clue as to where it would be. Instead, he just said I should ask ask around and investigate the Bed and Breakfast.



I wasn't eager to start that so I asked if he had anything else. He asked me to clear the pests out of his garden, which I could only hope would would work out better than dealing with Hakunin's garden.



Having a pistol helped a lot, although I could barely believe the size of the rats in the garden. They were probably a bigger problem than not having water. Along with the fact that some of his plants appeared to be cactuses.



We had to go up and down the rows hunting them down, but before long we were the only living things in the garden. It was actually a lot of fun, kind of like a shooting gallery made up of oversized rodents.



I don't know what kind of reward I expected, but a pep talk would not have been on the list. It was still kind of nice.

"It's like getting thanks for doing something for grampy."

"Was that before or after you put him through your nose?"

"Both!"

"Hey, what does he say about this whole thing anyway?"



"Damn. Finding a thief would be a lot simpler. This is going to be like finding a cactus thorn in a dog's ass.



Our next stop was the Bed and Breakfast, which was right next door. I couldn't get a word in edgewise with the woman at the counter, although the idea of coming back for an omelet sounded pretty good.



"Wait, who's Rose?"

"Rose is my wife; I named this place after her. DId you know I'm married?"

"This man not have strong spirits… this man have confused spirits."

"You need serious help, old man."



"A while back, I forget when… my best friend of 30… or was it 40 years? Oh, it doesn't matter, what matters is that he stole my precious gold pocket watch. It has been handed down in my family for five, no six, er… four generations."

"Enough! We'll find your damn watch."

"I have a watch. It was a gold watch. I wonder where I put it?"



Since Sulik's spirits said the ring was lost and not stolen, we started looking around for it in out of the way places. I don't think we could have gotten more out of the way than the outhouse, but the fact that there was a ladder behind the shitter was more than a little weird. I hated the thought, but the old geezer could have dropped it out of his pocket when he was in the john.



There wasn't any sign of the watch, but there was some kind of blockage and what looked like a tunnel, so I couldn't rule it out.



So, I made the perfectly rational decision to buy some dynamite from Jo and clear the rocks out. I set it for the maximum time possible on the timer and tried to hurry Vic and Sulik up the damn ladder.



It… uh… well, it didn't work out as well as I would have liked. Stories later said that the entire place smelled like an outhouse for weeks afterwards.



The tunnel had much better ventilation, as well as a giant mole rat that I shot in the head. Cornelius' watch was in its nest, although I don't know if it just saw something shiny and grabbed it or if the watch really had fallen down the shit hole.



When I tried to explain the situation to Cornelius he immediately blamed me for stealing the watch, despite it having been taken weeks ago. I didn't care, though, as he could go ahead and blame me if it would lead to him making up with his friend.



Although by that point, I really wanted one of those omelets. Getting a meal in me made me feel a lot better… although I couldn't believe the size of the egg that I saw her crack. It started to make me a bit curious, so that night we did a bit of looking around...



There was something a bit strange about the chicken coop. It had dogs around it and heavy rocks piled in front of the doors. Almost like it was built to keep something in rather than to keep it out. Since I didn't have any way to clear the rocks and didn't want to start shooting their dogs so I decided to leave it alone for the moment.

Getting into the chicken coop is likely to start a fight with the locals, so it's probably something that's better do to on a play through with a more evil character.



In order to escape the smell, and since we'd visited everyone on this side of town, we headed back toward the tannery. Off to the side there was a large farmhouse with a gun toting old man standing just inside.



He had a job for me, but I had a feeling that something was up.

"That depends. How much, what do I have to do, and most importantly, HOW MUCH?"

"Smart as a whip! You remind me of myself when I was young. Simple… some wild dogs have been coming down out of hills lately looking for food. I think they find brahmin easy prey and have been attacking my herds nightly. Wipe out their pack ,and I'll give you $1000."

"You're holding something back, you old coot. What's the catch?"

"Perceptive as well as smart. I knew I wouldn't be able to pull anything on you. The catch is that for every brahmin you let get killed, I charge you $100. I pay well for success and I also charge for failure. That's the risk you take."



And that's how I ended up in a pasture at night holding on to my hunting rifle for dear life preparing to try and fight off a pack of wild dogs.



The brahmin didn't make it any easier, since they had a bad habit of walking between us and the dogs. Once the dogs were injured enough they took off for the hills, which got them out of the fight and made them easy targets for the rifle. The revolver worked a lot better for close in work and would make the dogs generally forget about the brahmin and come after me.



It all went pretty well, until Sulik and Vic decided that they were going to start slaughtering the brahmin once they ran out of dogs. I had to take out the dogs that had run off and then drag the two of them out of the pasture before they got any more cattle. The dogs didn't actually manage to get any cattle, and I guess Vic and Sulik felt bad for them.

The AI has some… issues… whenever a stray shot accidentally hits a neutral party in a fight. This isn't the only place it will rear its ugly head, but this is the only place where each bystander they kill costs you $100.



On the way back we came across a completely unrelated Brahmin that appeared to have broken its leg. I felt pretty bad about the slaughter we'd perpetrated in the pasture so I went ahead and set her leg. Maybe I'd have to see about being a veterinarian after this whole saving the village thing was done with.



Grisham had sent someone to watch us, so there was no way of getting out of the $200 for the two cows that Vic and Sulik had killed. I was just grateful that whoever he sent to watch had put it down to carelessness and not bloodthirsty.



I tried to buy some provisions for the rest of our trip, only to have the brahmin I'd helped catch up at the most inopportune time. Grisham thought I wanted him to make the cow into jerky, and I was shocked enough that I blurted out something that I immediately regretted.

"No way! I love Bess. Nobody is going to make jerky out of her."



"Boss, really? But we saw with you that girl back in Klamath."

"Wait! I didn't mean it like that. Uh.. yeah, sure make some jerky out of her. I don't care."

"Great! Come back in a week. You can pick up your jerky in the smokehouse. I'll leave it in a sack for you."



With that bit of treachery accomplished, we started poking around for various odds and ends about the town. The covered well in particular beckoned to us, since we'd already found a gold watch and a giant rat down another hole in the ground.



Instead, we found bunch of coins that people had thrown in as some kind of offering to have their wishes granted. I took one, since I was sure that at least one person had been cheated out of their wish.



We also found a BB gun with Jonny's name on it, oddly enough. I had no idea how he'd managed to get it this far down the well without climbing down himself… unless he'd fallen down the well at some point and then climbed out?

"Ha! If we found dis gun here, we would still be looking for boy in the water."



When we climbed out of the well I looked over to the right and saw a pen full of cattle near the slaughterhouse, one of whom still had a splint on it's rear leg. I felt kind of bad about that, especially since I don't think she knew what was going to happen to her.



So, after having a conversation with Bess about it I staged a jailbreak. While she and the rest of the cows were taking their time ambling out of the pen, I had to go and distract Grisham and his family.



I took a stab at his son being persecuted for bestiality and his reaction showed that I wasn't the first person to say that and that there was probably a little bit of truth to the rumors.



Grisham's daughter, on the other hand, left me speechless for a few seconds.



I hastily shooed Vic and Sulik out of the room and tried to close the deal...



But evidently the two of them appearing without me alarmed the old man more than anything. I had to leave pretty quickly at that point. Still, they were definitely distracted and weren't paying any attention to the cattle.

This is what happens when you either choose the wrong option or don't have enough charisma. It's possible for you to get married to Grisham's children, and the game isn't too particular about gender when it comes to marriage. If possible I'll show off all of the permutations later, although we'll see if the game will allow screen shots during that time.



With shotgun blasts going off behind us we set off for Vault City, where we'd hopefully find some answers about the "Holy GECK."