Things are about to become entertaining in a second here.
Sensing something interesting taking place inside the confines of the poorly cobbled together cell, I waited for the show to begin.
As my captive bandit reached the rear of the rusted and worn makeshift carriage, he rushed to open it under the duress of his life being extinguished, and after fumbling with the mechanism, he finally started opening the door. However, before he could open it himself, the door swung open forcefully, catching the poor bastard in the jaw and knocking him to the ground. A feisty, not so small 5 foot 8, dirty blond haired woman wearing a dirtied tank top, jeans, and a set of leather boots then shot out of the carriage, combat knife in hand, and jumped on top of her captor before plunging her half serrated blade into him.
I could stop her but I've gotten most of what I could out of the bandit thus there isn't much point in keeping him alive any longer, so might as well let the chick they captured get a bit of revenge. It'll probably work out better for me anyhow.
Letting the young woman do her thing, she ripped her weapon out of the bandit's chest before sticking it back in again. She repeated these same violent actions repeatedly in her frenzy, whilst her "victim" quickly lost both strength and life at an increasingly faster rate. When the man had finally passed on from being used as basically a pincushion, I asked while she was busy huffing and puffing from exerting herself. "You good now?"
"Very." The lass responded as she began getting off the corpse of her captor.
"Thanks for helping me out of that predicament of mine..."
Seeing her looking for me to give my name, I removed my Heavy Trooper Helmet and introduced myself. "The names Dom, Dom Mason Woods and you."
"Mary, Mary Alison Gibbens, handsome." She returned in a very pleasant sounding voice that sounded like a cross between a stereotypical southern belle and what I imagined a cowgirl would sound like, not seeming to be scared nor reserved with me even the least bit.
I knew she had an accent, but wow, that's a voice. She would for sure drive more than a few of my buddies in my past life nuts with a voice like that alone. And that's not even taking her looks into account, which are more than a few levels above the average.
As I was checking her out, she suddenly did a 180 and went and retrieved a dark brown leather cowboy hat with a set of goggles wrapped around the hatband from amongst the bandits' things, brushed it off, and wore it, completing her fit.
"So what's a handsome thing such as yourself doing all the way out here?" The sun-kissed, uniquely gray-eyed, dirty blonde gal asked the moment she came back with what I suppose was originally her hat.
Yeah, she's a looker alright and certainly got charm in spades.
My gut was telling me she was one who wouldn't give up information easily, so even though this was my very first time meeting her, I entertained her question truthfully. "You see that facility over there?" I answered, jutting my finger at the gargantuan Cyberdynamics Robotics Facility that had now been renamed to the Cornerstone Stronghold.
"Yup, what about it?"
"That's where I live, and it just so happens that I spotted the group of bandits. The very same ones that were transporting you as I was making my way home. Hence, why I'm all the way out here in the middle of nowhere practically."
"Do you really though? My pa told me that was quite the dangerous and scary place with many, many remnant combat robots from the old world roaming the insides of the facility." She followed up, clearly skeptical of my normally absurd claims.
"Mm, I do." I responded simply, doing nothing to convince her of what I was claiming since all would be explained the instant she sees it because there was no way I was letting this wild beauty journey on back home alone through the wasteland. Especially after I just rescued her from meeting her end.
The two of us chattered on for a couple of minutes with the sun setting further behind the mountains to the west when she asked while batting her lashes at yours truly. "You mind giving little ole me a lift home, handsome?"
"Sure, but it'll have to wait till tomorrow, since I don't particularly want to be driving around the Nevada wasteland at night."
"Smart. So where are we hunkering down for the night?"
Already expecting this question, I simply pointed to the facility behind me again.
"Haha, funny, so where are we really staying the night?" She responded sarcastically.
"Oh, I was 100% serious when I said that place was my residence."
"...You can't be serious."
"I am."
"Whelp, I guess I better start walking then." Mary said before spinning around and attempting to begin her journey.
Grabbing hold of her left hand, I stopped her mid stride. "You know, it's not polite to grab a lady's hand when it's not being offered, right?"
"I do, but I can't exactly let you go waltzing through the desert armed with nothing but a combat knife. And besides, you're making a big deal out of nothing when you've yet to actually see the situation. So why don't you hold off on your presumptions until you've actually seen the place?" I told her whilst her cheeks flushed ever so slightly under the dimming sky.
"Mmm, you have a point I suppose... Alright, I'll entertain you for now Dom, since you've saved me and all, but if things aren't as you are describing them to be, I'll have to make my way back one way or another."
"That's fair, but before we do, I want to go check out the bandits' hideout."
"What for?"
"Well, they could be holding onto others besides yourself. Therefore, I would like to make sure that isn't going on before I turn in for the night."
There could be loot I never came across in the game too, but that doesn't need to be mentioned.
Keeping my loot goblin tendencies hidden the cowgirl said more than fired up to hit her former captors' base. "Ohh, then we should head there right away."
"Alright, let's go then."
Having the cowgirl following me, I directed her to the Wolverine that would be acting as our transportation. On our way there, her eyes briefly locked onto my smallish squad of robots that were currently busy removing and gathering the loot from their late owners, looking mighty impressed with what she was seeing. Answering a few of her questions, we quickly made it to the rear of our means of travel that had its rear hatch already lowered for us.
"Come on in." I told Mary as she was busy inspecting my armored combat vehicle and its interior.
"Coming." She replied before briskly joining me inside and taking the shotgun seat beside me.
The both of us passed the time telling each other a bit about ourselves whilst we waited on the mechanical men. And although it ended up being me, mostly answering her questions about myself and giving her surface level information that wasn't very deep, my guys eventually got everything loaded up into the bandits' carriage. Finally ready to depart, I assigned a number of them to escort the haul back to base with the beast of burden.
So, as they were starting their journey, I ended my chat with my temporary companion. "Looks like my boys are done. We're good to go now."
"Aww, things were just beginning to get good too."
"We can resume your barrage of questions when business has been handled."
"I'll keep you to your word, then." She happily responded lastly.
With the bandits taken care of permanently, I took a moment to process all I had done up to this point.
I thought I would've felt some type of way when I took my first human life, but it honestly felt as natural as breathing to me... I could lie to myself and say I somewhat regret doing what I did but, I actually quite enjoyed killing them and removing these cancers from existence and preventing them from bringing harm to anyone else.
Maybe I'm feeling the way I am because I was always like this... or the other very real possibility is because of the cumulative effect of my numerous perks. It could also be a combination of the two, I suppose... Anyways, it doesn't really matter since I'm glad I don't have any negative feelings holding me back, so I can be as ruthless as I wish to be in the future.
Coming to terms that I was more than made for this dog eat dog world either due to me always being like this, my perks' effects, or a combination of the two or some other factors I was unaware of, I threw the Wolverine into drive and sped off northward heading in the direction of the abandoned shack the bandits' were using as their base of operations.
Whilst we were flying down the broken asphalt road and kicking up plenty of dust and sand behind us thanks to the vehicles tracks, packs of mutated coyotes, wild dogs, and varieties of other bottom tier mutants moved in on the plethora of bodies we left behind and began battling over the remains. Not paying them any mind other than giving them a brief glance via my rearview screen, it only took a few minutes to arrive at a Y in the road that broke off into two different directions.
However, since I knew where I was going thanks to my minimap, I hopped on the branch heading east and not long into my travel upon it, a rustic dilapidated structure appeared in the distance. With our destination in sight, I placed a bit more pressure on the gas pedal, upping our speed by another level, which directly resulted in us swiftly reaching the shack in no time at all.
"We've arrived." I announced as we pulled up to the location.
"Let's go teach those bastards a lesson."
"Hold your horses there, speedy. Take this so you at least have some means of defending yourself." I told her while presenting her with my energy weapon sidearm.
"Thanks... Uh, how do I work this weapon?" She responded, embarrassed.
"Like this-"
...
After showing her the plasma machine pistol's various functions and how to operate it, the rear hatch of the vehicle lowered. So we departed from the Wolverine and began approaching the crummy structure that I detected had a decently large hidden space below it with my perception field.
Well, that's new. I never found that hidden space below in my tens of thousands of hours of playtime with the series... I suppose it would be a good idea to revisit every location, going forward to see if I missed anything. Even the ones I considered unimportant should be given a second look over just in case. Don't want to pass up on any unique loot.
Planning on visiting every single map marker from now on, I proceeded towards the shack with my .338 Lapua Magnum hand cannon, drawn and ready to dispense lethal damage whenever I wished.
[ Loot Gained ]
| Weapons |
AR-15 Rifles (20) - M4 Carbines (10) - M5 Assault Rifle (1) - M90 Frag Grenades (20) - M101 Frag Mines (10)
| Weapon Magazines |
5.56 STANAG 30 Round Magazines (149) - 5.56 STANAG 60 Round Quad Stack Magazines (7)
| Aid |
First Aid Kit (5) - Maxigen Bottle (1) - Medstims (55) - R4GE Injectors (9)
| Ammo |
12 Gauge Shotgun Shells (150) - 5.56x45mm Rounds (9,068) - 7.62x39mm Rounds (1,000)
| Miscellaneous |
Makeshift Carriage (1) - Metal (387) - Other Misc Items (359)
| Money |
Dollars (33,985)
| Creatures |
Nembe (1)
[ Creatures Killed & EXP Gained ]
Bandits (25) 28,275 exp - Bandit Veterans (4) 6,336 exp - Bandit Squad Leader (1) 2,127 exp - Total exp 36,738
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Just letting you guys know now that releases are going to be much more infrequent for all of my works for the next year to year and a half. If you want a more detailed explanation why, you can check out the pinned public post on Patreon. Aside from that, my Borderlands webnovel is finally released. Go check it out.