Part 29: The Dance of the Winds

Update 29: The Dance of the Winds



When we got back to the NCR the car watcher had expended his business to include watching cats, since they sounded kind of like cars to him. I wasn't sure how I'd feel about trusting him with a pet, but nobody had stolen our car.



"I have no idea what a blower is, but… eh, sure. Why not?"



"Yep. The squatters want a deal. You help them become self-sufficient and they'll give you the vault. Also, here are the parts in case you don't want to wait until the negotiations are done."

"So, they finally go treasonable. I can bull the Congress into sending supplies and techs. You sure we can get into the vault?"

"Quite sure. There were some lowlifes there but I kicked their ass."

"And that's putting it mildly. You might want to send a bunch of janitors with the first batch of techs."

"Darion doesn't say hi. He knew you long time ago. Also, he's dead now."

"I've always believed in fair pay for fair work. My assistant will square things up."

"That's not the only problem you've got. If you look at this holodisk you'll see that you have a spy in the NCR."

"Damn, the only person who knew all this was Feargus! I'm not suggesting anything, but maybe Gunther should know about this."

"What is it with people named Feargus? He's an idiot too."



Gunther didn't believe it either, but the disk was pretty damn convincing. Feargus, hearing what was up, quietly walked out while nobody was looking.



And just like that, I actually had more money than I really knew what to do with. I wasn't about to spend it on higher end combat implants, and I was perfectly happy with my armor and weapons.



Somewhere in there we got some experience, enough to boost us up to level 19. Points go to top out Science at 100 and then into Small Guns and Energy Weapons.



"Westin… Westin… why does that name seem so familiar?"

"I dunno. Why don't we see him and find out?"



"OH! I remember now! Bishop wanted me to come here!"

"Was that after you banged his daughter and wife?"

"Between."

"I should have guessed. What did he promise you - money, chems, or sex? It doesn't matter. You'll never see any of it."

"Yeah, we definitely not getting anything from Bishop."

"What do you mean?"

"What do you think? You know too much. What if you come back to NCR and sell him out - or threaten to? You're as good as death already. On the other hand, I've got a better offer."



I didn't remember for sure, but I knew that one number was bigger than the other.

"$750."

"Fine. Kill Bishop and I'll pay you $1125."

"It's a deal."



"Bishop's dead."

"What do you mean? You never left!"

"Yeah, funny thing about that…"

"HA! I like you, boy. Got another job for you, if you want it. Something or someone has been raiding my brahmin at night. I need to find out what's up. How about going out there and looking into it for me? I'll pay you for your trouble."

"Appreciate the thought, but no thanks. Sitting in a field, waiting for some mastoid to show sounds boring. Also, I've got a village to save."



With our business concluded we drove out to the coordinates for Vault 13. The actual cave entrance that led to the vault was hidden well enough that we could have wandered for days if we'd had nothing more than a generic "west of NCR" for directions.



80 years before my great-grandfather had stood in front of this door, only in his case it was closing behind him. Not many things awe me, but standing in that place did… even if it was a very basic and functional door. With my hands shaking I keyed the still working entry panel and walked inside.



"Oh. Fuck."

"Man, why you not tell we and I you was a lizard person? These your ancestors other children, right?"

"Not just Deathclaws, but talking Deathclaws. Yeah, this does explain a lot about you."

"I don't see the big deal. If I could be friends with a Brotherhood Paladin, this isn't that strange."

I was too numb with shock to do anything but blurt out the actual reason I'd come.

"I'm looking for something called a GECK. I was told I could find one here."

"A geck, you say? Is that not a small lizard? No, wait, I'm thinking of a gecko. I am sorry, but I do not know what a geck is nor where it can be found."

"Actually, I'm not exactly sure what it looks like either. Would it be okay with you if I looked for it? And if you could refrain from eating me?"

"I am sorry, but I do not allow just anyone to wander these halls. I am responsible for the safety of all who live here and I must exercise caution. However, I will look for this geck and if I find it I will let you know."

"I have the strangest feeling I've done this kind of thing before. What if I could help you somehow and in return you'd let me look around?"

"You would be interested in helping us? Yes, I sense little evil in you. Very well, I shall place my trust in you."



"This machine no longer listens. It will no longer run the other machines. We are running out of food and water. I have ordered raids on the human lands so that we may survive. I am not proud of this and I would put an end to it. If you repair this machine, I will be able to feed my people once again. I will gladly stop the raids. Will you agree to this?"

"I'm no tech, but I can give it a try. Can't be much more complicated than an auto-doc."

And with that, they gave us the freedom of the Vault to go and look at their broken machinery. I was still in some shock, but it was beginning to look like everything might work out after all. Rather than rush to repair the machinery, I took a few minutes to talk with the residents of the Vault. First up was the standard issue Vault Doctor, who had a few things to say about the Death Claws.



"is highly intelligent, about the equivalent of an eight-year-old, with some individuals reaching human normal level. Their learning capacity is very high, and they are capable of abstract thought and reasoning."

"Could you explain the talking thing? That's what's really wigging me out."

"They don't have vocal cords, but they mimic human speech like a parrot. I don't know exactly how, but then again it's not like they've let me dissect one of them. Socially they are pack animals with a very rigid code of ethics who are ruled by an 'alpha male.'"

"So… they probably didn't kill the people who were in this Vault?"

"While I don't doubt that they would happily kill any of us if we threatened their pack, you are correct. I believe they actually only came here fairly recently and the Vault was already abandoned."



Heading toward the elevator I got to speak with one of the Deathclaws on the other end of the intelligence curve from Gruthar. If the average Deathclaw was somewhere in the middle, they probably weren't much stupider than the average human.



The second floor housed the majority of the human residents, including a member of a cult dedicated to my great-grandfather who'd been off to visit the statue in NCR when the other residents vanished. It had only happened a few months ago, and he didn't blame the Deathclaws either. Instead, he said I should speak to someone named Goris. And no, I didn't tell him I was a descendant of his deity.



It was also home to the saddest man I've ever met, who'd had a disaster occur in his life pretty much every year from the moment of his birth. Most of them involved loss of an extremity by either him or a family member.



His story was that the Deathclaws had rescued him from the desert after the idiot had drank irradiated water. I was honestly surprised that he'd managed to survive as long as he had with the whole litany of issues he'd already listed combined with his own stupidity.



"Please, please tell me you don't have any children."



"Don't need to hear any more than that! Leaving now!"



Much to my surprise Dahlia from the Squat had somehow managed to beat us here, despite the fact that we'd only stopped at NCR for a couple of hours and she'd been on foot while we were driving a car. Not only had she beat us here, she was looking comfortably settled in. And had changed her hair color. And gotten some armor. Women are mysterious.



Evidently she'd started booking it before we'd dealt with Darion and his cronies, not realizing that we were clearing the place out. If she'd stayed around for another day or so she wouldn't have had to leave. A bit unfortunate, that.



The mysterious Goris I was supposed to meet was just down the hallway in the computer room, dressed in a cloak. Poor bastard looked like he had a wicked hunchback, but he was evidently studying the difference between deathclaw and human culture. He wanted to travel, but we were full up.

And yes, there is something up with Goris. I'll cover it later.



The idea of Deathclaws having a culture was a bit questionable, since they'd evidently been artificially created by a group called the Enclave. If I had to guess, they were probably the ones I'd seen in New Reno and at the crash-site in Klamath.



The experiment worked a bit better than expected, and the Deathclaws had been clever enough to fool their creators and then escaped.. but not before playing a part in the disappearance of the humans from Vault 13.



"So he was hiding something…"

"Yah, I can understand why he not let that one out when someone shows up and starts asking about those people. Kinda hard to explain."

"Goris seems to have explained it pretty well. Is there anything else you can tell me about the Enclave, Goris?"

"No, only what I've told you. Wait, there is one other thing. The Enclave showed an interest in some ruins to the west of here. Why, I don't know. That's about it."

"Let me mark that down on the map… you were saying something about a virus?"



"FEV… for some reason that sounds really familiar…"

"See, I told you it would have made everybody better. Look at what it did to these Deathclaws."



"See, like this guy. Worked out great for him."

"I don't care what you say, if we found a whole vat of the stuff I wouldn't let you dip me."



"Evidently it doesn't always work as well as it might, either. Okay, I'll go in alone."



"I see… selective breeding? But why the guard, and what happened to the door?"

"That is a painful memory. A treacherous human sneaked in here and planted a bomb among the eggs while I was asleep. Fortunately he was not as stealthy leaving and I awoke to find the bomb. There was not enough time to deal with the device properly, so I threw it at the door and placed myself between it and the eggs. The eggs and I survived. The door did not."

"I'm not going to ask what happened to the person who did that."



When they're not trying to rip your face off, baby deathclaws are actually kind of cute. Especially when they can talk.



Right next to the hatchery we found the central computer, which had replaced the vault Overseer after a rebellion. Somehow I had a feeling that my ancestor had been directly involved in that, and that the computer had probably been a hell of an improvement.



Fixing the computer wasn't an issue, since the voice module I'd been toting around from Vault City fit perfectly. Obsessive collection of random items is a survival trait for adventurers, you know… I don't even know where I'd have found another one.

The answer is from Eldridge in New Reno for $3000. You definitely want to get the one in Vault City.



Gruthar handed over the GECK as agreed, but that wasn't the end of it… as I proceeded to go back downstairs and help myself to the storage rooms, now that I knew the real story of this place.




They had some weapons, ammunition, and armor that were of no use to deathclaws as well as a water chip, and some computer parts that looked like they might be useful. Since the last time I'd randomly grabbed computer components had worked out so well I took those with me too.



The ruins that Goris had described were only a short distance away, but something… something I don't really want to explain and can't describe said I had to go back to Arroyo. They were waiting, and I'd finally gotten the GECK I'd set out for nearly six months before. The trip took us five days… five days, from when I had that feeling, which meant...



Hakunin had been laying there for that long.

"Hakunin! What happened?"

"Dark souls came. They took everyone. A rush of wind came. On it were great dragonflies that spat flame. Evil men crawled from the beasts' bellies and brought death to our warriors."

"Of course they couldn't stop something like that…"

"The spirit was willing, but the spearheads were weak. The evil ones burned our warriors with the lights of hell."

"They killed everyone?"

"No. The beasts swallowed all who survived, and took to the winds."

"Uh… which way were the winds that they followed going?"



"Your descriptions were so vivid and powerful, great Hakunin, that I was often stricken senseless for the duration of your lessons."

"It is kind of you to try to cheer an old and dying man. Yes, they traveled the wind south. I overheard the dark souls speaking. They planned to rest their beasts at a place called Navarro before crossing the great basin of our earth mother's tears."

"Basin of tears? Oh! The ocean! Hakunin, what should I do?"

"You… are the Chosen. You must do."

"…for the first time, I think I understand what you are saying. Goodbye, Hakunin."



I had the GECK, but Arroyo was in ruins. And I had nothing more than a cardinal direction to help me find the people responsible. But I knew I would find them.