Part 7: Freeport, Part 2: Bullets Are Not LOL
I was looking for special encounters...
Even saw cockroach-on-cockroach violence.
Post 7: Freeport: Bullets Are Not LOL, pt. 2
Previously, our crew was on a stealthy mission of shooting everyone till they find a kidnapped tribal elder.
More currently, Flashman took a bite of Afterburner gun and became instantly addicted to it's jet fuel taste.
...or not. AfterBurner gives some sort of bonus, but I don't know what it is.
For some reason I remembered chewing Hubba Bubba gum and now I'm nauseous
High on gum and his good track record of charging armed people to return relatively in one piece, Flashman wades into the band of raiders once more.
One raider lets out YEEHAA... that never stops, since Flashman's punches knock something loose in his noggin.
Here, the raider is screaming as he's running away. Wasteland medicine is helpless when faced with his condition.
However, we still have enough medicine to fix Flashman's crippling injuries... provided he can limp back to his friends totally unsupported.
Yes, he can! Apparently, a man in bright red armor slowly limping away is a worse target than a man in bright red armor charging at your face. Who could have know!
With no time to waste, Stitch breaks out the Doctor Bag. Unlike stimpacks and First Aid kits, Doctor bags are for real big kid injuries, like crippling and blindness.
This especially useful, since BoS doesn't really have a disability plan. You either (slowly) walk away from whatever injured you or you don't come back at all.
Saves money, it does, and everybody has bitchin' scars. Real popular with the tribal ladies.
With Flashman stitched by Stitch, Rage moves up to pester a raider with his SMG. The AK-47 doesn't look threatening: in fact, Rage intends to get one down the road.
Raiders start hitting all sorts of decks once SMG and Rifle fire reaches them. Videogame firing ranges aren't impressive (except for Combat Mission, where one mission saw a DShK hunting British APCs over half a map), and night makes it even more absurd.
What's this? Some raiders decide to rush the firing positions and get into melee! Naturally, with Flashman around, that's not the brightest proposition.
One of them manages to blind Rebecca while Flashman is away kicking people while they're down.
The addled raider can still be heard wailing in the distance.
Despite being all shot up - again - Flashman manages to turn another raider into mince meat. Charon, being a nominally peaceful tribal elder, refuses to look at the carnage and stares into a corner, muttering highly suspicious things.
Another raider starts taking potshots at Flashman. Apparently a standing man in red armor in a well lit area is the worst target of them all. Ice is dispatched to have some fun and maybe even try hitting him.
The raider runs out of patience (and bullets) and charges Ice, since he had never been told not to hit girls. Flashman rushes to the rescue with fists raised.
With all nearby raiders dead, it's looting time! Being well suited for close quarters work, Flashman clears house after house, tent after tent.
In the last one, he feels his knuckles itch. Punching sense is telling him there's a raider nearby!
Apparently, Charon was captured while making a small, slightly glowing puddle and tossed in a commoner kidnapping sack. What a disgrace! Before the war the bag would have been velvet, at the very least!
Much like last time, he's of little use, being a
Intuition tell Flashman, that the tent with the skull flag is likely the one containing the prime asshole! His fists also detect a few more raiders mucking about.
Forming a half hearted contingency plan, he orders the crew to take positions near the camp fire and, if things go south, provide covering the fire while Flashman beats the snot, everliving shit and loot out of the raider commander.
"Place the sandbags between the tents, at about 1/6th the length of a tent. <...>Fuck you, that's why" - O'Reilly, raider boss, sandbag affectionado
O'Reilly is so badly out of breath that he doesn't even make a villain speach, nor does he manage to put up any sort of defense. Must be all the shouting and sandbag sports.
Being a dick (comes with the territory), O'Reilly carried around about two mags worth of ammo he couldn't use, since he didn't have the proper weapon. I bet at least a few raiders with AKs could have used those rounds, but nooo.
Apparently, his raider band wasn't really competent (respectable armament aside) since his "loot" stash only contained this stuff. Ring Pulls, the stuff spilling out of the bag, is the legal tender that locals use in this part. Why not the ubiquitous bottle caps? I don't think that I have ever seen a can in the wasteland.
Don't know if I had told you yet, but when I was a kid, I misread it as "Ring Pills" and thought that tribals traded in drugs, something I believed up to this LP... Childhood, not even once
With the lamest raider boss down, Flashman takes time to award Rage with a new (as much as those things are ever new) AK to use all the surplus
Newly armed and trigger happy, Rage bounds off to some scouting and scouts a raider that's sleeping all through this commotion. There's only one action to be taken there...
To break in...
...and murdOHMYGODSOMUCHBLOOD!
Some might say it is cowardly to attack a sleeping enemy. Those people can shut the hell up, because Flashman has already proved his courage by tirelessly charging into foes that out-gun and outnumber him.
In another life, he would have been a military officer that solved all his tasks by mounting bayonets.
As the crew slowly made their way forward... Ambush! Two raiders came up to within punching distance while two more fired from south west.
This was an another opportunity for Flashman to demonstrate whatever "flanking" was, not charging straight at blazing guns for a change.
One raider down, getting to punch another one...
Two down! Ain't no amount of raider sass is gonna stop Flashman!
Finally, the only raiders left are the ones still at the still (hyuk hyuk). Time to punch!
"Hey, is that a sleeping raider?"
"Eh, must have been seeing things"
"Oh shit, he's real!"
*punch*
*more punch*
"Run away!"
As Flashman has noted before, running away is a viable tactic if the raider is prone to chasing you. Meep meep!
Thus the raider becomes the first victim of Communist's Choice. Rage is quite happy with the big ass gun that fires 7.62, a caliber much superior to the puny 5.56.
Not wishing to partake in ammo dickwaving contest and already having seen a community torn apart by "9mm vs. .45 ACP", Flashman runs off to punch more people. Or raiders.
Applying punch dagger straight to the kisser voids the latter's warranty. Same goes for pie holes and DSLs.
Punching never ends. Stitch takes time to sneak up to the still, so he could also tell girls back in the bunker that he was involved in blood curdling action!
What fortune! One raider stayed in the ruins, callous and uncaring about her friends getting slaughtered near the still!
It's Stitch's time to shine!
And by "time to shine" I mean "time for an embarrassing gun duel". They spend some time shooting at each other at the distance of two or three feet and Stitch eventually wins.
So, the latest kill tally is:
Secure in the knowledge that he's the best killer around, Flashman runs back to tell Charon that it's a good time to get out of here, as well an opportunity to look into some sort of central plumbing. For safety's sake, they could at least try peeing into the moat.
Escorting the leader, just in case.
And he runs off into the unprotected wilderness...
Wait.
There's no moat, no walls and no patrols here...
WHY WAS MY TEAM NOT DEPLOYED HERE?
The message is short, laconic and underwhelming.
To wash away the disappointment, Stitch tries firing at gas barrels.
Barrels usually win.
Apparently the song telling me to go West (life is peaceful there, etc.) was lying to me!
Anyways, with loot taken, our soldiers march out home, to sell their ill gotten gains.
Next time: Bunker Alpha: 1000 Random and 1 Special Encounter