Within five minutes of turning back to head home, I was feeling rather silly. Sure, the massive machine, which I remembered was called a Horus, was shockingly large and intimidating looking, but between the enormous hole in its head and several detached and broken tentacles, this one was clearly dead.

  Still, there was something unnerving about it, seeing something so immense, something that I knew was extremely dangerous, that could tear down whole armies. It almost... loomed over the lake, like it was watching its domain, even in death.

  Thankfully, I had a perfectly legitimate reason to leave and head back, seeing as I was almost positive I had enough of the last medicinal herb to turn in my quest. It was time to head back and turn in this quest.

  Slowly but surely, I made my way back down the river, staying in cover with my rifle up and ready as much as I could, since I could see several pods of robots walking around on the other side of the river. I had to imagine that the forest along my side was keeping large pods from wandering around, since so far, all I had seen in the forest the Headquarters connected to was a single watcher. Of course, stirring up trouble was likely to bring their attention as well, as scrappers would come to investigate if too many robot wrecks piled up in one area.

  I was about halfway back, a few minutes along the trail, when, as if to prove my point, a grazer walked across the path. I got lucky, in that it wasn't focused on looking for me, meaning I had enough time to dive into cover, crawling behind some nearby bushes and a large log. There I waited silently, as it continued to move through the forest, too close for me to even think about sticking my head up out of cover to check where it was.

  For ten minutes I waited, listening to the bot move around until the sounds of whirring motors and clomping feet finally started to fade away. Once the forest was silent again, I slowly stood up out of my cover.

  "At least they have no idea how to be quiet," I mumbled to myself, dusting myself off.

  After I slowly climbed out from behind the rotted, overgrown log I dove behind, I continued my way back to the ruins. Thankfully, the rest of the walk was quiet and straightforward, with no more incidents. As I walked around the rusted and creaking ruins, stopping by the entrance to the dark connection point, I spotted a. It was black and gray, made of metal and plastic, and was held closed with a secure latch. A quick look at the top showed it had a glowing screen.

  I leaned down to read the screen, only to see that it was counting the number of bundles inside. There was also a note clipped to the latch, a message explaining to stick my gathered loot into the box, and it would let me know if I had finished the collecting portion of any quest I was attempting to complete.

  After re-reading the instructions, I carefully took off my backpack, placed it near the crate, and unlatched the lid. There were no ostentatious effects or hissing as I did, just an empty box. I took out the medicinal herbs, placed them inside, and resealed the box. After a moment, the screen blinked green and showed positive confirmation that I had completed my gathering quest. Once I was sure I was set, I turned to give the area a last look before stepping into the darkness, appearing through the dark door a moment later.

  I let out a long breath, carefully clicking the safety of my rifle on before making my way back to the main hall, where Maxwell was waiting for me.

  "Welcome back, Sir," he said with a smile. "Am I safe in assuming you have completed your task?"

  "Yeah. Did you know there would be a container for me to store the herbs in before I stepped over?" I asked, placing my rifle and my helmet on one of the tables before approaching the counter.

  "I assumed there would be some sort of mechanic in play, Sir," He admitted. "Materials cannot transfer over from that world, as far as I know."

  "Right. Well, let's finish this quest out before I take the next one," I responded, gesturing gently for him to get started.

  "Very well, Sir."

  With a flick, he was suddenly holding the quest parchment, quickly confirming that I had completed my task. He fed it into the same mail slot as before, the one built into his desk. With the same metallic click, it accepted the parchment before letting out a resounding to confirm my success. Unlike before, however, Maxwell didn't reach below the counter.

  "I believe this reward has already been added to your kit, Sir," He explained. "Normally, it would appear wherever most of your kit was being stored, but since you are currently wearing it, I suspect it will be in your claimed room."

  "Why not just have it appear in my pack or something?"

  "Primarily to avoid changing the kit of people away from the base, I would surmise," Maxwell explained with a shrug. "I must again confess that while I was given enough information to explain the system, I do not know the depths of its mysteries, Sir."

  "Alright, fair enough. I'll check my room."

  Thankfully, a quick check of my room revealed two, both of them in pristine condition. There was also a brief instruction manual for them, which amounted to "Set broken bones, remove debris from any wounds, inject near the largest wound, and drink plenty of water."

  After looking over the small devices, I carefully pushed them through strap loops on either side of my armor, right next to the spare mags for my rifle. There they would be easily reachable, but not in the way of my movement.

  With the newest additions to my loadout secure, I headed back out to the main hall, where Maxwell was waiting. He spotted the stimpaks and nodded.

  "Looks like you found them, good. Does that mean you wish to take a second mission?"

  "I may as well," I responded, not nearly as confident as I sounded. "Sitting around doing nothing won't solve anything."

  "Perhaps not, but you have barely stepped outside the building," He pointed out, causing me to frown.

  "I'm aware… I'm concerned that any threat I stumble into on the other side is going to be too much for me to handle alone."

  "I suppose you are not incorrect," He responded, pausing for a moment before shaking his head. "Very well, a simple observation quest."

  Maxwell selected the quest, reading it out before activating it simply by waving his hand over it. Once it was selected, I quickly headed back out to the hall of doors, stepping back through the connected dark doorway. As I stepped into the light, once again spending a few minutes listening for any nearby robots, I quickly realized the crate I had stored the medicinal herbs in was gone, leaving nothing but a spot of flattened grass where it had been.

  Rather than heading to the plains, where I had first assumed I had to go, I instead followed the second path, which led to the river. The quest hadn't really specified where I needed to go, so while the plains had more robots walking around, any one of them could spot me through the treeline and immediately chase me down, following me into the woods if it was so inclined. At the river, however, I had a decently fast-flowing, deep barrier of water between me and most of the robots, giving me more time to run and hide, or at least find a better place to fight from.

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  I quickly selected a group to observe, finding a dark bit of cover by a partially collapsed tree. There I settled in, watching a group of twelve striders, escorted by a group of five watchers, as they slowly made their way across the lightly wooded area across the river. It was incredibly boring, but I forced myself to pay attention and stay alert, mentally taking notes on any weird bits of activity I saw.

  At first, I had no idea what they were doing in terms of movement patterns, but after the first hour, I started to see small bits of patterns. Eventually, as the sun started to get low in the sky, I could connect those patterns together. The last forty minutes were spent with me doing my best to predict their movement, noting each shift in their patterns. It wasn't until I realized that they were not just moving around looking for more material, but they were also taking cues from the groups around them, that I felt confident I had completed the quest.

  I made my way back home, managing to avoid being spotted, barely avoiding the encroaching night, stepping through to the other side just as the darkness was settling over the forest. Maxwell happily confirmed I had finished my quest, and I went back to the dark door to check out my reward.

  It appeared as a small screen, which was definitely not there before, built into the left wall of the small hallway that led to each dark door. A panel slid to the side to reveal the device, which seemed to show the connected area and two hundred feet around it.

  "Well… At least we won't be ambushed as we enter…." I muttered to myself. "I wonder if someone could stay on this side as a sort of overwatch, and then step through with a warning if something came close…."

  Considering the idea for a moment, I eventually pushed it back until I could actually test it. It was late, I was tired, and I needed to sleep. I made my way to my room, said good night to Maxwell on the way, and crawled into my bed after setting my armor aside.

  The following day started with what I could only assume would become my normal morning routine. A shower, some barely edible breakfast, followed by a quick walk around the base, which was a new addition that I had added specifically to see if anyone had been snooping around. As far as I could tell with my meager tracking skills, there were no new tracks around the central HQ or the new barracks, but I did spot a distant.

  I was relatively confident it hadn't spotted me, or even come close to the HQ, but it was still the first moving thing I had seen on this side of the dark doors, other than Maxwell. Sort of proof that this was not just the barren world I had been subconsciously trying to convince myself it was.

  I somehow resisted the urge to shoot at the bobbing, sound-playing robot, quickly returning to the relative safety of the main hall, making my way to the front desk.

  "Alright, Maxwell. Let's see our new quest," I said, leaning on his desk.

  Maxwell nodded, first placing the three remaining quests from the day before on the counter, before reaching into a new pile and picking out a new one. I could see, as he held it out for me to take, that the paper was actually filling in with words as I reached out to take it.

  I had barely started reading it when I let out a curse, closing my eyes for a moment before continuing to read.

  "I thought you said that quests involving the Fallout world would be far and few between?" I asked, putting the parchment down. "This one is for clearing out some of the buildings around us."

  "Well… there may be a small chance that ignoring the 'real world' for too long makes them more common?" Maxwell explained, wincing and looking apologetic. "I did plan on mentioning it, I just didn't expect it to kick in so quickly, Sir."

  "How is that not important enough to mention?" I asked, biting down on my irritation. "If I had known that, I would have made an effort to at least explore the area a bit, maybe after sunset, so I could sneak around. Now I'm stuck with what could be a very brutal quest by myself in order to get what I desperately need, a soldier to work with!"

  Despite my effort to hold back, I couldn't help but raise my voice the further along I got. The only thing that kept me from slamming my hand down on the counter was that Maxwell seemed to at least understand the impact of what he had done by deciding something wasn't important for me. If I had made an effort to explore or do something low-risk, the quest to get access to a soldier might have triggered over in Horizon, where I was facing stupid robots that could be killed with bows and arrows, never mind an assault rifle.

  Even worse, I couldn't just pass it off or skip it for now. I a soldier to back me up, because without one, I didn't feel confident tackling most of the quests I had gotten so far.

  "You are correct, Sir," he responded with a frown. "I apologize."

  I let out a sigh and ran my hand through my hair, shaking my head. I took a moment to calm down, not exactly happy with my own response. Yes, Maxwell was a subordinate and loyal to me, but he was still a person, and yelling at him solved nothing.

  "There's nothing we can do about it now," I finally said, resisting the urge to curse again. "Just please try to do better in the future."

  When he nodded, I dropped it fully, tapping the quest.

  "Either way, I'm taking this quest. I need backup, and considering most of the buildings seem empty, I can't imagine they are full of raiders," I explained. "That leaves ghouls and animals, which I think I can handle."

  "Very well, Sir," He responded, disappearing the quest with a wave. "Good luck."

  I nodded again and walked out of the main hall, not stopping until I reached the front entrance. I checked my weapons, confirming they were locked and loaded, before opening the door and stepping outside.

  The quest had been very explicit in its direction, telling me to clear the to the right of the HQ's entrance, next to the shell of a building that had almost completely collapsed. The strip had multiple entrances, though I had no idea if they were all one building or divided up behind each of those doors.

  For a long moment, I listened and watched for any signs of trouble, before eventually crossing the parking lot and the road that ran between the HQ and the buildings. First, I approached the mostly collapsed building, peeking inside to confirm there was nothing there to worry about besides the obvious fact that it was a barely standing death trap. Once I was satisfied, I walked along the buildings until I reached the first doorway. It was partially blocked by chunks of concrete and asphalt, but the door itself was smashed inward, so I could just climb in, glass crunching beneath my boots.

  The interior of the building was dark, but not nearly as bad as it could have been, since there were plenty of windows and broken holes for light to pour in through. As for the interior, it was some sort of front desk, but a quick look around showed that the building was in fact some sort of office facility, with rows of desks and dozens of those bulky, green screen. Of course, everything was covered in grime, dirt, dust, mold and rust, with plenty of the furniture nothing but piles of broken and rusted crap.

  Still, my job was to clear the building, so slowly but surely I went room to room, pushing open partially rotted doors and peering carefully into hallways. I started from the bottom and worked my way up, carefully checking the stairs before climbing up to the second floor. It wasn't until I stepped onto the third and final floor that I ran into trouble.

  From around the corner of a cubicle crawled a pair of massive fucking, each of them almost as long as my arm. Immediately, one of them spotted me and began crawling towards me to attack. I stepped back, caught off guard by its size, by how loud it was, and the fact that I could .

  As it followed me, I considered stomping it, smacking it with the butt of my rifle or even just turning around and leaving, searching the building for something heavy and sturdy I could swing around and smash it with. Instead, I flicked my rifle to semi-auto, raised it up, and braced it against my shoulder before pulling the trigger twice. It was probably a waste, but there was no way I was risking getting into a melee with a fucking bug big enough to chew off parts of me.

  The first radroach's head exploded, as did a chunk of its torso. I shifted my aim, trying to take out the second roach before it could do anything, only to jump out of the way as it flew at me, its wings flapping like crazy. It came at me again and I tried to bash it with the butt of my rifle, only to miss.

  "Motherfucker!" I shouted, forced to duck and dodge again, the roach still flying around.

  I swung and swatted at it, my armor thankfully enough to keep it from actually hurting my hand, until I finally managed to hit it hard enough, sending it to the ground. I immediately raised my foot and slammed it down on the bug's thick carapace, shouting as I did, punctuating every word with a stomp.

  "I. Will. Not. Be. Bug. Food!"

  When I eventually stopped, the roach was a broken, horrific puddle of goop that made me gag. I stepped away and leaned on a table to catch my breath, very purposefully not looking at the mess I had made while shaking my head.

  "Jesus Christ... one building done, four more to go," I muttered, pushing off the table and heading to the stairs.