The radio and air conditioning blasted as my car rocketed down the treacherous roads of Nevada to Idaho. The roads had obviously not been taken care of, but the old world considered making stuff nearly eternal, as an art form. I hadn't met many threats on the roads as I didn't consider most things to be threats. A single cazador could do damage but I could easily outrun them. Deathclaws and humans were much rarer and I hadn't seen any besides the human signs left by the old world. The views I'd seen after a few hours of driving had been very worth the trip as I'd gotten to see actual nature that wasn't barren desert or mountains. I'd had to
re-route a few times from complete path obstruction or destruction. A new river had formed at some point in the mountains and carved through the soil and through the road from floods.
I blazed through the town of Jackpot and into Idaho. I'd had to reroute again at my remembrance of some info. The Shoshone Native American had likely survived the nuclear destruction in a decently intact state. I knew practically nothing about this area besides that it was Idaho and thusly had the Shoshone, The 80s gang or whatever they were, and of course potatoes.
The reroute from this info ment I wouldn't be going into Boise as the Shoshone had likely taken in or eliminated survivors to claim the city and its resources. What I was most concerned about was if the Shoshone and 80s were the same thing. I could only guess that the 80s were like the Khans and would likely be little better than raiders. My hopes for the area were completely guesswork as despite my previous life's love of the series, I knew pitifully little because of Bethesdas broad strokes approach to things outside of the games. All I could really hope for in Idaho was that I'd get some actual potatoes instead of lots of tatos. The inside of a taro was good but the skin was always a nasty version of a tomato and made on have to peel it to get the slightly decent potato flesh inside.
If I could get some potatoes I could spread them like Johnny Appleseed had done with apples. I'd be surprised however if they were something like the tangler vines or whatever that eldrich horror, root vine stuff was in West Virginia.
The second I got to Twin Falls I blasted up for Yellowstone. It was either go to what was probably an irradiated steam swamp or go down to Phoenix. That place was a legion dictatorship likely full of patrolling scouts and other lesser military troops. I wouldn't put it past them to heavily landmine the areas that they couldn't patrol frequently. When the night finally came I shuttered my windows and locked down for the night on the road. I activated the eyebots on a circling patrol around my car and set them on high alert.
I popped some sleep meds and passed out somewhere near a town called Rexburg.
The morning came fast and I drove as soon as I could see effectively. It quickly became clear however that I would have to go straight through Yellowstone as some kind of sentient life had set up lots of pilon technology that kept a nasty looking mist at bay from the roads. I took the drive into the canyon of mist ass clinchingly slow. I kept my finger over the eyebot deployment button as I worked myself into a fit.
Hissing continuously sounded as the ground seemed to grown and shift. Despite the tall pilons emitting something to keep the fog away I didn't feel safe from it. At some point the road ahead disappeared and I flicked on my near laser beam headlights. They physically cut through the clouds and I relaxed a bit. Unfortunately the feeling of unease grew as the hissing grew louder and irregular. Suddenly my quite radio cut off and I nearly hit the brakes.
I activated the powerful passive sensors and they started a scan around me. The second they flashed a negative for movement or humanoid signatures, a low, crackling scream sounded through my radio. My fingers reflexively tightened till they were white and I peered around, my sensors activating again. Once again they came back negative as I rolled forwards
Then a crackling sound came through. I turned up the volume till I heard what seemed to be a panicked voice mumbling. A chill crawled up my spine as my sensors once again gave a negative. Wham! I leapt as far as I could with my seatbelt on and hit the brakes. Sssssckhhhhrrrrrrssss! Steam gushed into my headlights and all around me till I was blind. I hit the sensors after peeling my fingers away from the steering wheel.
As it scanned I popped berry and orange mentats, and dug up some coyote tobacco chew. I nearly ate the chew like it was salad and waited while pulling my door window shutters down. I partially closed the main window and pulled out a heavy blaster. This custom piece was way more powerful with the cost of firing speed and energy transfer. It was my best weapon in this place however as it could put holes through deathclaws in just a few shots.
Finally my scan came back negative and I relaxed a bit. It seemed the scare had simply been some kind of geyser hitting me through the pilons. As I slowly started moving again however I caught myself drifting my sight into the fog. I was moving slowly and the fog seemed to be getting to me. I was hallucinating or something despite the chems I was using.
However as I continued forward I realized I wasn't going crazy. Sitting atop a mount at the edge of my powerful lights, just down the road was a humanoid. It looked like a mix between a Native American and some kind of WW2 soldier in a combat hazmat suit. In the humanoids hands was a long weapon with a gleaming blade at one end. It looked like an absurdly long bolt action rifle with a bayonet. The mount seemed to be an unreasonably massive horse thing.
The horse creature was quite interesting as it looked like a horse but had other animal qualities. Goat like hooves, a long, matted cat like tail. Three eyes to seemingly cover for its horrible vision, and fur so long it looked like the horse was armored down to its knees. The man on its back looked tiny in comparison as the beast towered over my car even with a distance between us.
As I gawked at it it snorted and out came a plume of the strange fog or steam of this place. The man on the creature looked down at it and pulled the reins and the horse thing turned. He lowered the long ass rifle to point at the ground and swept it along the road in a follow gesture. I was , understandably, concerned about that but at this point my only option was to turn around and blast back to Idaho. I'd seen signs of recent human activity in Idaho so I hadn't stopped anywhere as I had all the supplies I needed.
The fusion engine hummed as I flicked off the radio and slowly followed the creature and its rider. This proceeded for a few hours as the maybe-man glanced around with his mount leading the way. I couldn't tell if he was looking at the fog or me but it gave me an eerie sense of danger lurking behind the clouds forming the canyon we were going through.
Three hours in I finally saw something just outside the fog barriers. An old wooden sign that once had color now sat lopsided and half steamed by the strange weather of this place. My inbuilt water purifier, connected to my air conditioning system had filled up seven times after entering this blinding hell. My vehicles systems were straining from the heat of the steam by now despite my overly redundant, simple engineering.
I could barely make out that the sign said Welcom T
R ck Spr n s
Ten minutes past the sign I found the fog thinning massively on both sides of the road. Suddenly buildings appeared behind two pilons and multiple more people on massive horse creatures came up alongside me. I could see fields stretching out through the openings between buildings. As I rolled through what looked liked the beginnings of a town I soon found myself in an large open area of road that was surrounded by buildings.
The lead person pointed to the road and turned so I came to a stop. I didn't really fear these people as I doubted their weapons could harm my car. A few minutes passed in silence as I looked around at the fairly nice town around me. As I passed over the fog walls an amazing view opened up to the east. The fog was gone and I could see for miles to the distant rolling hills.
A sharp ting yanked me from my gawking and I spun to find what seemed to be an old man in the same attire the other people were wearing. I dragged my steel shutters up and cracked my window open a bit. A sweet and slightly spicy smell came in and my Geiger counter started ticking. A glance showed slightly higher rad counts than normal but it was safe enough for me to be exposed to for long periods of time.
I looked back up and found the old man's gas mask removed and exposing a face covered in small scars and dark brown freckles. His head was missing all but a bit of hair forming a wreath like crown on his head. His eyes were full of a wary hope, with a bit of disappointment, likely from not recognizing me. His cracked lips parted as he spoke. "Ave, true to Caesar. What news do you bring from the emperor and the west, child?"
I adapted quickly despite the surprise and answered. "Ave amicus. The enemy is on the back foot. Our forces reach into their lands and our brothers return home victorious. The Caesar is forgiving of past mistakes as the profligates fall. The enemy has become desperate and is reaching for alliances with past enemies. They shall fall all the same as Legate Lanius is now leading personally. The Lacerta Legate has sent me with this old world tech on behalf of Caesar to speak with a newly discovered tribe called the Murdose Men. Might you know of them senex?"
I was talking out my ass most of the time and using as much Latin as I knew and could fit in my speech. The people around us began chattering and giving small gestures of joy. The old man smiled and started to speak before he was interrupted by a clanging noise from my car. Smoke started pouring out and filling the cab. The old man thankfully stepped back and I threw the door open. As I got out I noticed that the gun he was holding was actually a flagstaff without a flag. It had the symbol of the bull in gold on top. That told me what I'd missed out on.
I jumped out and ran to the front then popped the hood open. Smoke shot out as I frantically looked around for the problem. I was devastated to find that the main fission battery hold was producing the smoke. I tore the lid of and didn't hear the pop the seal should have made. The design flaw I was now suffering from was the entirety of the batteries being protected by a single seal.
If I wanted to get this car running again I'd need to replace the entire battery block. I yanked the battery block up and flopped it off the car. Smoke continued to pour out of it as chemical reactions freaked out without exploding. A relatively ingenious creation of one of my engineers had produced small expanding balls of extinguisher. The chemicals he had put in the balls was a nearly universal extinguisher and eliminated the chance of getting an explosion from anything that had a chance to do so.
I let loose a string of curses, even putting in some Latin ones, as the locals looked on at what I was doing. "Is there something wrong with the old world object cursor?"
It took me a moment to respond as I went through the Latin I knew. Cursor… something like a runner or messenger. I suppressed my reaction to the Latin and answered. "The power source is dead and burning. I cannot continue without a method of long range travel. It seems some profligate will need to be crucified for not informing us of the treacherous conditions of the via. Auxilium is required from you and your tribus."
The old man gave a solemn nod and turned to the person that had led me in. The person took a few words from the elder then climbed onto the horse thing. Outside of my car it's footfalls were like snare drums with a scraping noise as a claw like toe thing hit the well cared for pavement. "How long do you have to get to your destination cursor?"
"Tres mensis, senex. How long will it take for me to train for one of those beasts? I need to fulfill my duty as the Caesar demands."
"A few moons at most young cursor. You need not rush, the Caesar is known for his cunning patience. He will wait for you to return with good news of another tribe joining his great empire." The elder turned from me as spoke while walking. "Come, I will take you to your hospitium."
I followed behind him, praying to Todd Howard, Bethesda, and even Obsidian, that they had fully bought my words. They seemed horribly disconnected from the legion and I hoped I could take advantage of that.