Steel Waste

Once the fight was over Afton and Karl found Emil trying to comfort his injured men. Some obviously wouldn't make it, but war is war, there was bound to be casualties with how many men there were.

The man was holding the hand of a young woman who was slowly bleeding out, a bullet had hit gone completely through the Femoral artery in her leg... There wasn't all that much anyone could do, Afton wasn't one for giving up however, he had extra stimpacks so he might as well do something with them. Nothing wrong with a test subject to practise medicine on.​​

"Emil, excuse me for a moment." he says, kneeling down and retrieving a stimpack. He injects it directly into her leg well cleaning the wound with an alcohol-soaked cottonball. Afterwards suturing the wound closed to encourage the stimpack to focus its effect on the limited area... Stimpacks were essentially just massive amounts of nutrients combined with hormones and other complex chemicals that encouraged healing.

Due to this you couldn't take too many at a time as you'd literally 'starve to death', while the stimpacks contained nutrients, it still wasn't enough to replace what you'd use to heal. It was slightly difficult to suture the wound due to bullet exit wounds being notoriously... Messy, but he managed it eventually.

He wiped some sweat from his forehead and looked down at the girl, her breathing had quicked due to the pain from the alcohol and sudden suturing, but her pale complexion was slowly recovering... She'll probably be alright? Probably.

"Hurgh!" Afton groans as he feels a weight on his back... Its Sargeant Emil hugging him... "I don't swing that way, get off of me Sargeant."

"Ah-er, sorry... Thanks kid, it means a lot for you to help one of us like that... I mean it. Here, your pay and a little extra for the help." Emil says as he reaches into a pouch and pulls out a sack of caps. As soon as it drops into Afton's hand, time stops.

He glances down at his Pipboy and nods to himself, this was what he'd been waiting for, the quest chain hadn't ended until now, so the gathered exp sat back until he completed it.

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 5]

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 6]

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 7]

Huh, three levels in one go... It was kind of to be expected, he'd killed quite a few Powder Gangers and completed a rather big quest chain. He now had 45 points to use, he could do a few things with this many, maxing out Guns or Energy Weapons was one... Increasing his Sneak, Lockpick, or Speech was another.

Looking back on what he'd been using during the quests, he knew that Guns was probably the right way to go. He'd found an ungodly amount of ammunition for ballistic weapons and a pitiful amount for energy... He decided that maxing it out was probably the best thing he could do.

He maxed Guns using 39 skill points leaving him with 6 left... He put those in Speech raising that to 44. He was about to move on to pick his next Perk when a notification stopped him.

[Guns has been maxed!]

[Perk gained! : John Wick Style]

[John Wick Style] : Increases agility, perception, and hit chance depending on how outnumbered you are.

This, was really, really good. He didn't know if this'd basically make him comparable to John Wick cuz he doubted that was even possible, but it'd definitely increase his combat potential by a whole lot. All of the fights he'd end up in would likely be with him outnumbered, so this was an absolute buff.

This wasn't in Fallout 3, maxing a skill didn't grant an extra Perk so maybe it was unique to Fallout Newvegas? Regardless, he was excited to find out what the other skills would give once they were maxed.

He moved onto the Perks available and examined them.

[Bloody Mess] : +5% overall damage; more violent death animations. Afton knew this perk well, it was probably the most hilarious one in Fallout 3, even a small weapon like a 9mm pistol could explode someones entire body... The damage boost wasn't all that exciting but he was curious to see if the 'sudden combustion' effect would work...

He shook his head, if it did, then almost every person he killed would explode into, well, a bloody mess. That'd ruin any armour, or other delicate objects he'd potentially loot from them. He wouldn't take this Perk unless there was literally no other option.

[Gunslinger] : +25% accuracy in V.A.T.S. with one-handed weapons. An alright Perk, Afton didn't want to specialise into anything though. One-handed weapons would eventually not be powerful enough to breach his enemies defences, he couldn't imagine using a revolver to take on a Deathclaw.

[Lead Belly] : -50% radiation taken from food and water sources. Judging by the fact Afton was in a radioactive wasteland, this could potentially save him a lot of trouble in the long term... He didn't know if stimpacks could cure cancer after all.

[Shotgun Surgeon] : When using shotguns, regardless of ammunition used, you ignore an additional 10 points of a target's Damage Threshold. Again, he didn't want to specialise into any specific weapon type, especially shotguns given you'd need to be up close and personal to make use of them.

[Toughness] +3 DT permanently. This would be the start of making him superhuman... Leather armour gave 6 DT, so his skin would essentially be half a tough as leather armour... Not something to scoff at.

There were still the other Perks from the previous levels he hadn't picked, the choice was between [Lead Belly], [Toughness], and [Intense Training]... Lead Belly would be useful longterm, but it didn't stop a bullet going through his face like Toughness might...