Chapter 9: Another One

That about does it for my ranged weapons time to cover the melee weapons I created for my upcoming hunt. When it came time to make the arsenal of weapons I would be bringing along with me for my excursion, I tried brainstorming again to see if I could come up with something better than what I had originally thought of.

Sadly, no better ideas came to mind, hence I went with my original idea of a large heavy sword meant for dealing with multiple enemies. As a result of that decision, I created a monster of a sword that would have no issue cleaving right through multiple molerats in a single swing from the tests I performed. The weapon's stats were also quite something to look at, to say the least.

| Guillotine |

Damage: 75

DPS: Variable

Class: Heavy

Weight: 35

Value: 3,500

Item Description: A large four-foot-long, six-inch wide, and a quarter-inch thick two-handed cleaver-like sword cut and made from a hardened steel sheet. The weapon possesses one side for hacking and slicing through enemies and serrated teeth on the back side of the blade for ripping and tearing. Besides its features, this blade can be used with one hand as long as you have the strength required, otherwise you'll just pull your arm out of its socket. Designed by Harold Todd Woods.

For the knives, I designed something akin to a scaled-up combat knife that is comparable in size to a large bowie knife or a decently long dagger. The tests I performed with the both of them showed that I should have no issue pushing the blades through a mole rat's skull if the need to ever arises. Other than that, the stats both knives had were the same and were also slightly better than a run-of-the-mill combat knife.

| Custom Combat Knife |

Damage: 20

DPS: Variable

Class: Light

Weight: 1.5

Value: 650

Item Description: A foot-long hardened steel combat knife. Designed by Harold Todd Woods.

For the spear slash javelin idea I had come up with a while back, I decided to just make five simple spears with serrated spearheads that should cause a bit of extra damage. And a hell of a lot of bleeding damage when I rip them out of whatever I'm fighting in close-quarters combat.

On top of that, they're well balanced, so they can be used in a similar fashion to a javelin. From the practice I've done with them so far on immobile practice targets, my throwing accuracy is around the 80% mark with most of my throws hitting and landing where I intended them to. The remaining 20% typically still land on target just on other parts of the target, for the most part. As for my headshot accuracy with them, it's decent. However, it still needs some major time in the oven before I'll be happy with it.

Now the stats the spears ended up receiving were a nice surprise. I was expecting something around the 55 to 60 damage mark, so when I saw what the final result was, I was pleased to say the least. Despite its great damage, I wished it had a bleed effect stacked on top of the damage; I guess I will have to perform some tests and modifications at a later date to see if I can add the effect on to them.

| Serrated Spear |

Damage: 70

DPS: Variable

Class: Medium

Weight: 10

Value: 1,000

Item Description: A six-foot-long aluminum pole with a hardened steel serrated spearhead. Designed by Harold Todd Woods.

Onto the last of the weapons. So I wanted to have some sort of grenade or explosive to carry around in case I ever ended up getting swarmed at some point. I knew it was going to be somewhat difficult to get my hands on the components and chemicals for it, but I didn't think it would be near impossible. Sadly, that was how things were. Hence, I modified several of the microfusion cells I had accumulated recently into Microfusion Cell Grenades. The stats for these little guys were similar but not identical to the damage of the ones from fallout new vegas.

| MFC Grenade |

Damage: 100

Class: Light

Weight: 0.5

Value: 15

Item Description: A microfusion cell that's been modified into a grenade. When set off, this makeshift energy grenade produces a corona of energy similar in appearance to a plasma grenade's just not nearly as powerful and destructive.

I will definitely have to pick up any microfusion cells I encounter in the future so I can turn them into grenades and convert them into microfusion breeder cells... Hold up a minute, I wonder what would happen if I was to turn one of the microfusion breeder cells into a grenade, I'll have to test that out when I'm in the wasteland. There's no way I'll be able to set one off down here unless I go deep into the mines, which is kind of dangerous, so I'd rather not.

That's it for the weapons time to go over the armor I crafted next. I didn't have any issues with the idea I had previously of a leather body suit covered in hardened steel plates, so I got to work creating it. However, when I was in the midst of crafting it, a couple of upgrades came to mind.

Thus, the armor's leather bodysuit went through an additional hardening process and received some heavier plating to the crotch area to protect and safeguard my crown jewels from damage. I want to have kids this go around, so I'm going to need those two little guys in perfect condition if I want to make that a reality some day. Returning to the armor, when I finally finished assembling this hefty piece of kit, I was quite happy with how it turned out. Its stats included, since they were more than sufficient for holding up against any damage the mole rats could dish out.

| Black Hardened Metal Armor |

Resistances: DT 32

Class: Heavy

Weight: 80

Value: 10,500

Item Description: A heavy suit of metal and leather. Hardened steel plates cover most of the leather armor base in segments, leaving small gaps so the armor remains flexible. The hands, forearms, elbows, boots, and shins have spikes welded on their armor plates for violent usage. Also, the armor provides protection up to 5.56x45 rounds on the metal plates and the family jewels are rated for 7.62x51. Designed by Harold Todd Woods.

For the helmet, I went with what I had thought of before, which was to make a helmet similar to the altyn helmet from my previous life. The only modification I made to it was adding a flashlight to it that was wired up to a microfusion breeder cell so I can see in the mines without having to worry about running out of juice literally ever. The stats they were decent as well, but I will for sure make a better helmet before I step foot out into the wasteland because all it would take is one headshot from anything above 5.56x45mm and I'm dead.

| Black Altyn Helmet |

Resistances: DT 32

Class: Heavy

Weight: 8

Value: 3,500

Item Description: A hardened steel helmet with a visor for protecting the face from damage. The helmet features a flashlight on the side of the helmet that is powered off a microfusion breeder cell so it will never run out of power. The helmet's design was also mainly inspired by the Altyn helmet from the crafter's previous life.

The last item I made that could be considered armor is the War Belt. I mainly made it so I could mount pouches to it via magnets. But as a result of using magnets, I can now use it to attach MFC Grenades wherever I please on it and holster my 12G Laser Pistol without a holster.

That latter bit is a huge improvement over having to take my pistol out of my holster, which would delay me by a second or slightly more. So anything that can improve my ability to respond to threats sooner is a huge gain in my book, since every second in those sorts of situations count. Other than those two benefits, I can also attach many other objects to it on the fly, such as magazines, if I implement a ballistic firearm into my loadout. The stats were not too bad for a simple belt as well.

| War Belt |

Resistances: DT 1

Class: Light

Weight: 2

Value: 250

Item Description: A leather belt with many attachment points for different pouches, holsters, sheathes, and adjustable magnets for quick drawing of ranged weapons, melee weapons, and explosives. Designed by Harold Todd Woods.

That's the end of the gear overview time to move on to my main objective for today, since today's the day I venture into the old vault mine.

After finishing that thought, I sat up and checked my Pip-Boy to see if the quest | It's Hunten Season | was ready to turn in. A second later time froze and as soon as everything came to a stop, the usual holographic screen made its appearance.

The instant the screen appeared within my vision, I ignored everything else displayed and navigate down to the quest section. Once there, I saw that the quest | It's Hunten Season | was ready to turn in, so I turned it in and received my quest rewards.

| It's Hunten Season | Objectives: Convince your dad to let you enter the vault mines. Rewards: 3 Speech points and 500 exp.

Quest Turned In!

Level Up!

My level up obtained, I quickly entered the perk selection screen with no new perk options displayed other than an increase in Daddy's Boy rank.

What to choose... I did say, the earlier I acquire Swift Learner, the better last time, so it looks like I'll be picking it up.

As for the next level up, I'll most likely grab Junk Rounds. I'm going to have to start accumulating ammo for my future venture into the wasteland at some point. Therefore, I might as well take it early on to make the most of it. I also got a feeling I'll be coming across tons of enemies, so if that ends up coming to bed I'll without a doubt be blowing through tons of ammo, thus I'll need as much of the stuff I can get.

Looking over the perks again, I finalized my selection. A split second later, the holographic screen changed again to display the skill distribution screen.

[ Skills ]

Skill Points Left: 16

Barter: 31

Energy Weapons: 50

Explosives: 35

Guns: 42

Lockpick: 36

Medicine: 52

Melee Weapons: 30

Repair: 57

Science: 56

Sneak: 24

Speech: 42

Survival: 34

Unarmed: 40

Decisions, decisions... Sneak could be a good option. I could use it to investigate their population, for instance. But I think putting the skills points into something like energy weapons or melee weapons would be more effective because I'm going there to kill, not to sneak around. Nevertheless, it will be very useful when eventually I exit the vault.

Spending a bit contemplating between energy weapons and melee weapons, I decided to go with melee weapons since most of my slaughter was going carried out with my heavy sword so why not go with the skill that will increasing my experience, skill, and damage with the weapon I'll mainly be using in the mines.

Swiftly locking in the distribution, the holographic screen returned to the perk selection screen for my next level up, now with some new perk options.

Perks

1 Point Left

Level 4 Perks

| Cannibal | Requirements Level 4: When eating human corpses regain health rapidly.

| Child At Heart | Requirements Level 4, Charisma 4: Your affinity with children will be improved, thus you'll get along remarkably well with them from here on out.

| Comprehension | Requirements Level 4, Intelligence 4: Gain 1 additional skill point every time you read a new skill book.

| Educated | Requirements Level 4, Intelligence 4: +2 additional skill points every level up.

| Entomologist | Requirements Level 4, Intelligence 4, Science 40: Deal 50% more damage to insects and gain a ton of knowledge regarding that group of organisms.

| Iron Fist | Requirements Level 4, Strength 4: The hardness of your fists increase and your unarmed damage is raised by 5.

| Rad Child | Requirements Level 4, Survival 70: Regenerate 2 HP a second per 200 rads accumulated. Caps out at 1,000.

| Run 'n Gun | Requirements Level 4, Gun or Energy Weapons 45: Halve all weapon spread when walking and running.

| Scoundrel | Requirements Level 4, Charisma 4: +5 barter and speech and gain a 5% discount when trading.

| Travel Light | Requirements Level 4, Survival 45: While wearing light armor or no armor, your movement speed is increased by 10%.

Hmm, let me see if there are any better options other than Junk Rounds.

After a few seconds of looking through the level 4 perk list, I spotted a perk.

Now that I've looked over the list, I'm going to change my initial decision and go with Educated first because it will provide me with 2 additional skill points at every level. Combine that with the fact that I'm going to be heading into the mines in a second here to level up, it'll benefit more that less say the other perk which won't show it's real worth until further down the road... Yeah, Junk Rounds will just have to wait till the next level.

Once I made my mind up, I performed a speedrun through the skills menu and distributed 16 points to sneak to even it out at 40 before I put the last 2 skill points into speech. When the skill distribution was completed, the holographic screen swapped back to display my status, along with the new changes and my increased stats.

Pip-Boy

Name: Harold Todd Woods

Age: 10

Height: 5,5 (in feet and inches)

Race: Human

Level: 4

Experience Points: 105/650

Total Experience Points Earned: 1155

Experience Rate: 175%

Health: 460 | Formula: Base of 90 + (Endurance x 30) + (Level# x 10) |

Carry Weight: 146.5/200 | Formula: (150 + Strength x 10 and will go up to 500 at full maturity) |

Resistances:

Total Damage Threshold: 44

Body Damage Threshold: 11

Armor Damage Threshold: 33

Poison Resistance: 50% | Formula: (Endurance - 1) x 5 |

Radiation Resistance: 22% | Formula: (Endurance x 2) |

| S.P.E.C.I.A.L. |

Strength: 5

Perception: 10

Endurance: 11

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 13

Agility: 5

Luck: 7

| Skills |

Barter: 31

Energy Weapons: 50

Explosives: 35

Guns: 42

Lockpick: 36

Medicine: 52

Melee Weapons: 46

Repair: 57

Science: 56

Sneak: 40

Speech: 47

Survival: 34

Unarmed: 40

Mutations:

Gear: |12G Laser Pistol|, |Black Altyn Helmet|, |Black Hardened Metal Armor|, 2x |Combat Knife|, |Guillotine|, 10x |MFC Grenade |,|War Belt|

Loot: AER 18 LMG, 1 Big Book Of Science, 1 Kid's Baseball Cap, 50 MFC Grenade, 194 Microfusion Breeder Cells 50 Microfusion Cells, 75 Duct Tape, 130 Scrap Electronics, 250 Scrap Metal, 5 Serrated Spear, 1 SPECIAL Book, 25 Wonderglue, 869 Other Misc. Junk.

Quests: 0 Ready to turn in, Many in progress, 2 Completed

Quests In Progress:

| Surpass Your Human Physical Limits | Objectives: Reach a value of 11 in every S.P.E.C.I.A.L. Rewards: New Perk?, 10,000 exp, and 10 S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points.

| Save dad | Objectives: Prevent the death of your father, James Watson Woods. Rewards: New Perk? and 5,000 exp.

| Mole Rat Exterminator | Objectives: Kill 100 mole rats. Rewards: 1,000 exp.

| Seeker Of Knowledge | Objectives: Continue to hoover up all knowledge in the vault library till there is nothing left. Rewards: 3 Intelligence Points and 2,500 exp.

| Take Over The RobCo Facility | Objectives: Clear out all hostile forces and set up shop. Rewards: Perk RobCo Certified, 5 Science Points, 2,000 exp.

| Take Over Raven Rock | Objectives: …

| Orbital …

Nice, looks like I got a new quest for the mole rat hunting trip. Alright everything looks good, but before I exit out of my Pip-Boy screen, let me see if I missed anything new.

Double checking to make sure I hadn't missed anything, I spent a short bit going over my Pip-Boy.

There doesn't seem to be anything else of interest...

Not finding anything, I closed the window, resuming time once again. As soon as things resumed, I was unceremoniously greeted by a flood of information, knowledge, and techniques regarding how to fight with a whole assortment of different melee weapons, how to best go about unnoticed, how to steal things of value with none being the wiser, and how to assassinate someone while remaining undetected.

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If you want something else to read, that's similar to this, check out my other webnovel Wasteland Conqueror. It has a lot more chapters released.

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