Leaving the Vault

Billings Farmstead

Reverend Tug

The Grafton Monster

Reverend No More

The Mothmans Blessing

Raiders at the Gorge Junkyard

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........Before the Vault, I was a member of Whitesprings Golf and country club. A scratch handicap, I would golf 2-3 times a week. Sometimes we would wine and dine a client for work. We'd do a nice lunch, play 18, and usually let them take a couple bucks from us. I could beat just about everyone I stepped onto the course with, but when you take a potential clients money before you get their business...doesn't usually look good. It was always a treat to play with them again at a later date, cause I'd usually take their money...and then some....

...Sitting on a hill overlooking the back nine, which is still in amazing shape, the memories are just pouring in....

"This used to be my safe place. I can still remember every shot of my last 9 holes. I remember winding down from a big sale at work, just out here letting my head clear..."

Course maintenance bots are running mowers over the fairways as others pick up branches, spread fertilizer, and rake the traps...

"It's amazing...the world has ended. Civilization has crumbled...and here are these bots just going about their programming like nothing is wrong...To be that carefree would be.. Amazing."

Making my way towards the clubhouse I spot movement in the main lobby. I sneak up to the whitewashed double doors I've walked through so many times and press up against them. The heavy oak doesn't budge under my weight and I peer up through a window. A group of feral ghouls dot the lounge where I've sat and woo'd countless of clients. Sneaking on the plush carpet I creep towards the lounge. The ghouls are busy tearing something to pieces...Probably a molerat. I get to the lounge, with Babe firmly grasped I swing for the first one and connect with the back of it's head, Caving in his skull and ripping a large amount of flesh off. The other ghouls spring to life with a large howl and a few wild swings with their hands. I manage to dodge them and use the reach of Babe to connect with another. The hit takes an arm clean off, but he persists. Another swing of his arm and it catches me in-between the armor...

"The best way I can describe it is like the worst paper cut you've ever had, but it's on fire, and covered in acid. Sure the scratch hurts but the radiation is what burns like nothing you've ever felt."

...I dispatch the next two ghouls and patch my wounds. If you don't treat them right away the radiation sickness will get you quick. After collecting my breath I head over to the stairs leading down to the basement....

"I wonder if my stuff is in my locker still?"

I take the first step down and am frozen in place by the loudest shriek I've ever heard rising up from the lower floor. Shortly after a symphony of howls and roars emerge from the darkness. Now I've seen somethings that I wouldn't have ever believed in my short time outside the vault...but this....this sound scared me.

I take a few precautions before descending. I lay a few mines, and rig a Nuka-grenade at the base of the stairs. If anything. I hope I can collapse the stairs and make my escape. The howls continue as I reach the bottom step and I see the way to the lockers down the hall. The roars echo in the dark hallways making it really hard to discern which way they're coming from. I continue to sneak and Remember...I looted a stealth boy a while back. I pull it out, plug it in the AUX port in my Pipboy, and pop the plunger. A slight shock followed by a tingling sensation engulfs my body as I go invisible. A 2 minute timer pops up on my Pipboy and I head down the dark hallway.

I get to the locker room and am about to open the door when a ghoul stumbles out the swinging door to my left. Instincts take over and I introduce Babe to the side of his head. In such a tight space I can't get a good swing and the ghoul begins to get back up. About to swing again when the ghoul pays me no mind, and keeps walking down the hallway....

"Stealth boy must be working...I need to find more of these!..."

-1:30

Trusting in the tech I throw open the door to the locker room with a crash to see at least 20 ghouls all kinda just standing around. Even though I'm invisible I freeze in fear, sweat begins to from in buckets across my body. The ghouls turn toward the door, one dashes frantically towards me and stops at the door. Nearly face to face it's eyes darting back and forth frantically looking for the "meal" that opened the door. After a second of wild movements and odd grunts it gives up and goes back to standing. In the back I see the source of the howl, a ghoul twice the size of the others and glowing green with radiation.

"Yikes...Look at that guy."

-1:00

I push my way past the ghouls to my locker and click it open. The few keepsakes that might have been there are now gone...looted. I don't know what I expected, but then something catches my eye. I reach for the glimmer in the back of the locker and find my old Watch. I strap it on and examine it closely...still ticking, and on time! Best gift my boss ever gave me...

-BUZZZZ 00:05

"uh oh...."

The familiar cooling sensation washes over me again as I materialize in the room with all these ghouls. There is a brief moment where we all stared at one another...though short, it felt like an eternity. My adrenaline spikes about the same time as all the ghouls let out their raspy howls. I burst with speed charging into the closest ghoul picking him up and driving him through the others as I make for the door. Clawing a biting at me he only manages to scrape my armor, while I can feel my hands dig deep into his rotting flesh. The other ghouls within reach do manage to land blows and I can feel the radiation start to flow against my blood. I drop my make shift battering ram, arm a 'nade - drop it, and make my way out the door. I sprint down the hallway pushing my ghoul friend from earlier aside. A muffled thump is followed by the door of the locker room flying down the hallway behind me. The ghoul in the hallway is obliterated by the door as it takes him, Quite literally, off his feet. I glance back to see an infestation of ghouls begins to pour out the door to the locker room behind me as I turn for the stairs. Shooting up I tip toe around my explosives and as I get to the top I look down to see ghouls swarming like ants, heading for the stairs...one trips and falls, tumbling to the stairs. He lands on one of my mines ...

"oh no..."

BEEEP BEEP BEEP BEP BEP BE.....BOOOM!

I turn and sprint but it's too late. The explosion sends me flying out the main doors to the club house. Ears ringing and vision coming back I roll to my feet to see more feet. Two suits of power armor are standing directly in front of me facing the club house. I jump back, then remember the ghouls at my back...howls still pouring out of the clubhouse as they begin to make their way through the rubble.

I hear a "Sup" followed by a get back as the barrels on their mini guns begin to wind up. Nothing but a solid minutes worth of buzzing as the two armored giants shred every ghoul that decided to show its face. Once the chaos ends, not a word is spoken between the three of us. The one guy pats me on the back with the giant metal hand of the power armor and they head in one direction...I go in mine.

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- Tug

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