Steel Waste

The duo are greeted by Lieutenant Hayes who's ordering people around with a clipboard in his hand, "Hm? Come to visit again you two?" he asks semi-sarcastically.

"Just headed to the Outpost, you relocating?" Karl says.​​

Hayes nods, "We are, you two have basically done all of our jobs for us... Primm's no-longer a threat and their new Sheriff is arriving soon, the NCRCF has been taken so the Powder Gangers won't be a problem... Really, without you two we'd still be stuck here for who knows how long."

"Where you headed?" Afton asks, wanting to get some information about NCR placements.

"Camp Forlorn Hope, North of Nelson. It'll take us about a week to pack everything up and get the NCRCF completely secured. You're welcome to stop by if you need anything, you can consider yourselves friends of mine for what you've done... Oh, by the way, the Outpost knows you're coming, got some job for you apparently. Don't know whether your interested, but its there." he says.

The duo nod and wave as they leave, its a straight road to the Mojave Outpost. It isn't exactly hard to find where they were going due to the humungous statue off in the distance. It depicts a ranger shaking hands with an NCR soldier.

"What's that statue even for?" Afton asks while glaring at the huge piece of scrap metal off in the distance.

"Hmm, I think its for the Unification of the Desert Rangers and the NCR... Reckon they never woulda agreed to it if they knew how corrupt the NCR was." he mutters.

They continue walking and spot a ruined gas station on the side of the highway, Karl stops Afton and drops the large sack of weapons onto the floor before pulling them both behind a bush.

Afton gives him a peculiar look, "What is it?"

"Vipers." Karl quickly states, the two peeking over and spotting a face so dirty it seemed black, looking around from behind a wall. They seemed to be attempting to ambush travellers, its lucky Karl spotted them otherwise they might've actually had some trouble.

"What are 'Vipers'?" Afton asks, having never heard of that group before.

"Don't know their history, but most are just chem-addicted psychopaths that occasionally popup in the Mojave. They resemble the Fiends and Jackals in their actions but are probably the weakest of the three. Think I prefer them though."

"Prefer them?" Afton parrots in confusion.

Karl nods, "Jackals are cannibals, and Fiend are murdering, raping scum... Vipers just ambush folk and take their supplies, sometimes even let their victims escape with their lives." he explains.

Afton slowly nods, "Yeah, I can see what you mean then... What're we gonna do about these guys?"

"Kill them." he states simply, as if it was obvious.

The duo don't waste anytime, giving the place a wide berth while circling around to scout it out. Once they locate every Viper that was waiting outside they launched their attack. In a couple of seconds, three Vipers were dead, many bullet wounds covering their bodies.

The duo approach and Afton throws down a mine at the steps of the front door of the gas station before retreating.]

*BOOM!*

It explodes and destroys a portion of the wall, as well as killing the unfortunate person who'd stepped out to see what the gunshots were about.

All in all, there were only around seven Vipers which were all easily dispatched. Karl packed up all their weaponry into their backpack and Afton checked around the building and eventually found a skill book tucked away behind a desk... Someone must've dropped it and forgotten it, probably before the war happened?

He touches the Big Book of Science, as well as the Barter skill book he picked up in the Bison Steve Hotel. Both turn to ash and a notification pops up in the corner of his vision.

[+3 Science]

[+3 Barter]

They burn the Viper's bodies and head out again, it wasn't long before they encounter yet another obstacle... An overpass that was completely infested with Giant Ants, they seem to have come from the Dry-lake and set up shop. Afton was sure he'd be able to take on a small colony of them, but this wasn't that... There were hundreds of them, varying from worker ants to soldier ants.

"Go around?" he mutters to Karl who just nods, "Go around."

And so they ignore the colony and circled around, giving it some distance in order to not aggravate the creatures. Sure some unfortunate travellers might stumble into them, but it wasn't the duo's responsibility to solve everyone's problems. Hopefully it'd be an NCR patrol or something...

It was only now that Afton could see just how fucked the Mojave actually was... They'd only been on the road for a couple hours, and they'd already stumbled across an ambush, a colony of irradiated creatures, and now before them was a rest stop with huge grey rad scorpions infesting it!

Karl took one look at them and grabbed him, "We're not fightin' those, we'd need armour piercin' rounds to get through their exoskeletons." he states as they run. Fortunately, the Giant Rad-Scorpions weren't faster than them, allowing them to get outta dodge relatively easily.

The two stopped to catch their breath as they reached the bottom of the hill leading to the Mojave Outpost... They could see a few Giant Ants nearby by they seemed more concerned with tearing apart a pre-war truck than eating them.

"Is travelling the Mojave always going to be like this?" he complains to his partner.

Karl snorts, "No... Not always." he states, cheering Afton up slightly, only to drop him again. "Sometimes you get attacked by Deathclaws, Supermutants, or other insanely strong creatures... Today's been fairly tame to be honest."

Afton was beginning to wonder why he'd been so happy to have been reincarnated in this place...