The next day woke me with a clap of thunder and horribly toxic, acid rain. The streets were lit with a few covered torches and the occasional patrol of legionnaires wielding guns with flashlights and large ponchos over their armor. Even their dogs had coats on as the rain sizzled at their uncovered feet. Their coats and coverings were probably made from those very dogs predecessors. I shrugged my hood and coat of deathclaw leather on and closed up my backpack. A shattered terminal and a few plasma cuts gave me a covering for the top of it.
I entered street level a few minutes later and found the ground covered in a thin toxic liquid that caught the light in nasty colors. My stealth field shimmered as a spot light passed by and I slunk in behind a patrol that was headed towards the legion fortifications. A dog stopped at the entrance to relieve itself and I passed through, trailing the steps of a legionnaire. When he stopped to call the dog I slipped away from him as only the dogs had hearing capable enough to distinguish my steps from the sizzling rain. I took a quick break at the old hotel wall and looked around. These fortifications were mostly just a wall and some raised platforms with roofs and smaller walls. It was all junk and was only slightly lit by covered fire sources.
I looked up at the massive building and found it easily lit by actual modern lights. The spot light that had passed over was in a window and slowly moving to scan the areas it could reach. I continued climbing, stopping sometimes to observe anything that might be of use. Most of the useful stuff was barely worth anything. The maps were easily scanned by my pipboy and documents contained mostly useless info. A few details skirmishes with dog packs or outsiders. A few contained good info however. Two reports in particular found my full attention as the centurion of Denver left his office for something inane.
I didn't care who he was or why he was here. All I needed was relevant information of the core of the city. The first report was on a large ambush from cyberdogs and robots. The report concluded that they had some kind of organizer somewhere in the core that was directing them. The second report was about particularly humanoid robots that stood taller than a brotherhood member and had a single red eye. In the hands of the bots was a large plasma rifle with a laser sight that was powerful enough to turn the falling rain to steam. The last part of the report detailed a large version of the bots wielding a weapon that accurately described a Tesla cannon as a long bulky thing that brought down the fury of Zeus.
No bodies were recovered from the groups that engaged the robots and the scouts were nearly hunted to the last by a large pack of cyberdogs. After reading the reports I snatched the centurion's beautiful machete gladius and its scabbard. It looked unused and I'd gladly put it to use if I needed it. It wasn't as great as my plasma cutter but was easier to handle and was just another backup weapon. When I got to the top floor I found it decently well guarded and had a large door on one wall. Peaking through a window I spotted the bridge that had been built to another building.
It was long and crappy looking but held steady in the heavy rain. In order to cross I simply waited till a group of hooded explorers and scouts went out. A large pack of dogs followed behind them so I snuck into the middle of the group. Crossing was tedious and terrifying as I maintained the highest spacial awareness I could. It was difficult and I nearly drew my blaster when I accidentally hit a cape but it was ignored and we continued on and into the building. I slipped away the second I could.
However I was forced to wait even longer as the group had to catch up and open the next set of doors. I continued on till we got to building deep in the city. The ground below was a grey haze with the glow of robots and cyberdogs appearing and disappearing all around. Packs of wild dogs wandered through the mist and gave off bone chilling howls at the dark, acid green clouds. The bridges became more numerous and less guarded, groups of legionnaires inside the cover of buildings and not patrolling.
This made things easy for me but gave me practically nothing to work with besides wandering as deep as I could into the city. After nearly an hour I finally met the scout group I'd started with and followed them to a smaller building, deep in the cores edge and covered in a clinging mist. Without proper doors to hold me back I hung behind the group till the ground floor. I found it guarded heavily. Scavenged power armor pieces, robot parts, layers of dog leather, and what I recognized as a cyberdogs leg attached as armor to a guards arm.
LMGs and thermic lances were hefted by all, with the decanus carrying a minigun and two short grenade launchers on his sides. His helmet was a T-45d helmet but its entire face had been cut off to show the mask and goggles of a decanus. He even had the red, black, and white plumage of the decanus headgear. I followed the legionnaires closely till we got outside. All I had was a weak flashlight and my pipboy light and still needed to stay stealthy.
I continued to follow the group into the fog till they stopped at another building. The steel door, covered in long nails and surrounded by sandbags opened to a specific knock and I memorized it while slipping in. Inside was another, equally sized group of legion who all had better armor and weapons. I could see scars and scabbing wounds all over the few who had their armor off. They all were either working on weapons, standing guard, resting, or eating from dog food and cram cans.
I winced as I saw a man spooning insta mash straight from a plastic bag after adding hot water. The group I came in with began to unload and do the same as everyone else so I began looking around. I quickly found a locked room at the end of hall. I easily picked it open and sat down inside. I reapplied my activated charcoal. Once that was done I made myself comfortable in the storage room and had myself a can of pork and beans with crackers.
Once my dinner was done I passed out on the floor. I woke the next day sore and aching but an MRE peanut butter pack and graham crackers pack was a wake up call to get ahold of more MREs. My mind immediately flicked to this city having been heavily controlled by police forces and obviously having at least some access to MREs from the military. Ignoring my stray thoughts I readied myself for more exploration. I left my little supply closet or whatever and found the group I'd come in with was gone. I could barely tell however as the legion idiots all liked to look the same and there was somehow more of them.
I snuck out easily through the bustling building and into the acid rain that continued to pour down. This time I wasn't going to be following my enemies. I slowly trudged down the road till my pipboy began ticking. The Geiger counter had suddenly skyrocketed. I rushed backward till the ticking died down and looked into the storm. It was barely visible through the haze, small, nearly imperceptible wear, more than everything I'd seen in the city. A few minutes of silence passed as I gazed as far and deep as I could. Eventually I began seeing a difference in the air. The storm blocked it almost entirely. The haze where I was standing was a slightly lighter greenish grey than the haze ahead.
It made no sense to me why it was like that, but it simply was. I could do nothing about it. If I wanted deeper I'd need to find a charted path through or use the rooftops. I quickly got back to the building I'd left and began climbing. I found a map carved in a wall that marked a few bridges and potential paths, so I copied it and made my way down the most promising one. As I continued I began going over why I was here. I had no real expectations besides hidden loot that the legion and hangdogs couldn't get.
Denver had been a police state or something close to it. High automation of police forces, lots of cyberdogs from a factory to make them, and of course whatever treasures where housed in the city's core. Even Lanius hadn't been able to take the core with an entire army and it had been some time since he left. I doubted that the legion still here had made much more progress. Outside of that knowledge there was little else. Perhaps I could find some power armor. With its relative commonality in the later games I could guess that the city would have some sets.
The police state would have been heavily enforced by the government and that definitely meant power armor. I still had some fusion cores so the armor would only need some repairs and maintenance to get back to usable. As I drifted in my thoughts I kept walking, in and out of buildings and the bridges. It was a massive maze and was full of dogs. If it didn't have dogs it had legionnaires. Most of them sat around with rifles and little else but the dogs came in massive packs that could make the streets as dark as night when they passed.
Passing by the packs was a boring chore as it meant lots of waiting for what seemed like hundreds of them to leave. Eventually I stopped and took a break from the constant scaling and climbing ontop of a tall building. A lot of the buildings were cut off from the streets by collapsing the stairs up and tying ropes to climb to prevent dogs from flooding upwards. Climbing ropes or other fortifications meant lots of exercise I had barely trained for. This vertical environment was nasty for me.
On top of the building the rain began to lessen and I started looking out with my rifle. The big ass scope allowed easily sight over everything. A few minutes in I finally realized that a wall of buildings I'd overlooked wasn't multiple buildings. Some kind of metal structure had text in it.
OORS
dium
Home of he Roc
Below the screwed up text was a humanoid mascot with what might have once been a dinosaur or monster head. All I could really tell was that the mascot had horns and a beak. It was weird and slightly creepy looking so I began charting a path towards it as it was a better goal than blindly wandering deeper. Once back on the trail I went over my weapons. I was almost guaranteed to meet trouble here with how this world worked and I needed to be prepared.
An hour of walking passed as I marched towards the place I'd seen till I was forced to stop. The bridge I was on slammed into a building and dropped down a deadly dive. I carefully climbed into the building and made my way down the the street. That was where I realized that the legion had gotten much deeper in the city than I could have ever guessed, as right outside the stadium was nearly an army of legionnaires, all armored and stomping around with packs of dogs at their feet.
Nearest the building was a man that could rival Lanius in height. His helmet was an umpire's mask and baseball helmet combined and forged completely from steel. A sharp black and white plume sat on top with heavy padded armor covering his massive frame. He stood in some kind of arena outside the stadium where he fought multiple men all armed with machetes. His own weapons were roughly carved baseball bats covered in razor wire. On his back was a large, mainly purple head, three horns and a beak showing in the distinctive shape of a triceratops.