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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tmart" data-source="post: 3610539" data-attributes="member: 11198">Day 288So when Jack showed up back in Newver he brought a friend with him named Duff McLeod, who’s from across the mountains to the east.  He’s some combination of cowboy and chemical engineer.  He’s really smart but on the extreme far end of smart where it wraps back around to insanity.  He keeps going on about this thing called “xyclos” or something but I have no idea what that means.  But Dexter took a shine to him, and even though Jack is leaving Dex wants Duff to stick around with the group.  He’s pretty useful.  I just hope I don’t wake up with “xyclos” carved into my arms.So the Council says the area north of our border is becoming known as the “rad wastes.”  We figure the mutants are moving in and spreading radiation.  We might have to nuke another brain like in the military base.  Also I had them send an envoy to Couver to set up trade in electronics and precious metals with the birth defect folks.Dex is looking a lot better recently.  He’s in better shape after long hikes too.  He theorizes the nanites are actually helping his health, which is great because he was always such a softie.  Now we need a new excuse to leave him behind as a hostage.We left him and Duff to fix up the bikes to run on ethanol, and then get started on any jeeps or trucks they can get their hands on so we can start patrolling further.  Timmy Thane is cooking up some anti-rad meds for us in the meanwhile.  Joe Steel, since nobody knows who he is, was sent to scout Athena Vault and see if the Sandovals had any guards there.  So Dole and me took a few soldiers and drove to Trade City to talk.  I spoke with Chairmen Anders and Delfino.  We hammered out some commitments:•    We protect Trade City from military action by Blue Lake and Mittlewerk in exchange for preferential trade rates•    Trade City lets us know about any military purchases by BL/MW•    We give them a better rate on ethanol in exchange for exclusive access to Vault cases/keysEventually they insisted on exclusive rights to trading ethanol and weapons, acting as a middleman between Haven and Newver.  I’m not fond of the idea, but in exchange they agreed to join our republic.  If they join then we can do pretty well whatever we like, but I get a bad feeling about it.  It’s strange because it’s our best case scenario.  I told them I liked their proposal but had to ratify it with the Haven Council.Day 289So we drove up to Athena Vault to meet Joe.  He had just barely got to the Vault.  He spent all of his time in Blue Lake for some reason… spilling our secrets to David Sandoval.  COVER YOUR EYES DUMBHe told him about the repaired pass across the mountains.  Sandoval didn’t even know anyone had been over there.  I talked to him about it and it seemed like he wasn’t quite that stupid, it’s just he was stuck talking to Sandoval and is pretty useless dealing with people whereas Sandoval is pretty crafty.  So now they know about Newver and the pass.  I guess it’s okay… it wasn’t going to be a secret for long, and people using the pass are going to pay for guards for our trade shipments.  We still yelled at Joe a lot though.  “You did WHAT?”  It was pretty funny.Anyway, he at least had scouted the Vault and let us know about some mutants.  They seemed idle and without a purpose, like the others since we blew up the brain.  We just rolled the jeep to within about thirty metres, and then unloaded while driving away faster than they could keep up.  I took the first shot and pegged one of the big ones in the eye with Moomba’s Boomstick.  Deaded.  The muties are pretty dumb so it was really easy.  Timmy Thane was on the machine gun, and he was practically flapping in the wind with the recoil.In the Vault control room there were two other muties, and smart ones.  They were a bit less mutated.  They had the same claws and muscles but not as melty looking.  They actually used tactics, which makes me worry.  The worst part was one was using a shotgun.  As soon as Timmy saw the one with the shottie he yelled “It’s like the Flood!”  They took cover in the room and didn’t run stupidly after the jeep like the others did.  My fright power worked on them normally like on humans.  I felt some kind of broadcast in my mind too.  I’m worried about what that might mean.  One of them managed to get up on the jeep as we made a drive-by pass.  I got in its mind and suggested the jeep wasn’t a safe place to be, and it should probably think about getting off.  It seemed to work but I felt a wave of feedback, like an instinctive defense, and I was knocked out.  The guys finished it off but they said the other one got away.But we got the Vault open!  We took a quick look at the swag before calling it a night:•    Writing supplies•    A huge library•    A computer lab•    Fusion reactor to power the place•    A cryo lab with seven pods, one malfunctioned.  Five of the remaining six have vital signs.  We’ve got a robotics guy, an engineer, an economist, a biochemist… and a physicist named Ferdinand Sandoval.</blockquote>

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