The Swamps

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens onto a scene of grey-green organic dampness. It's late in the year in the swamps of Point Lookout- maybe November, maybe December, hard to say. The bombs threw the climate off something awful, mostly in the nuclear summer direction, and the plants don't really know when to stop growing versus when to just slow down.

There's a humming of bugs and a feeling of large things moving in the deeper, browner, more acidic waters off in the distance, but for now the ground is solid as Ellen observes, "I think this was Tobar's shack- the man who was doing those surgeries. When all of this is done I'm probably going to burn it to the ground, assuming it's not too damp to catch fire."

Comments

[ambriel]

"I can assist if necessary," Ambriel says absently. There is far too much to look at, and the ground feels strange under bare feet.

This is ANOTHER UNIVERSE. Ambriel is really rather excited and trying not to show it in favor of mission-readiness.

"Where is the village?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"East of here," Ellen says as Dogmeat slips past her to sniff at the muddy ground. "They're concentrated inside the walls of a building called the Ark and Dove Cathedral. I have a map, here-"

She holds out her left arm. The piece of power armor that would normally take up the space betwnen her elbow and her wrist isn't there; she's got a wrap-around forearm computer with a black-and-green screen instead. Ellen pulls up a map of the area with several glowing buildings and other markings on it.

"This is them, and this spot near them is the cave where their leader goes to communicate with Professor Calvert."

[ambriel]

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE TECHNOLOGY.

Not that Ambriel knows much about technology from the home universe...

The angel glances at the map, then steps around the clearing, making a slow circle. Resetting the inner compass. Ambriel stops, facing East.

"Very well. I am ready."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen nods, and pulls her goggles on over her eyes. "These are what I was wearing to find my way here," she says. "They can see scent trails- a troll alchemized them for me. Human smells come up as different shades of orange light. Since one part of the swamp looks more or less like another to me, they make it easier not to get lost."

She starts squelching eastward, and adds, "If we run into anybody who doesn't have a forehead scar, try to get them to speak first. There's another tribe around here that isn't hostile, they just don't want outsiders bothering them. They speak in iambic pentameter, for some reason. I haven't been able to find out why just yet."

[ambriel]

"...I see. I will follow your guidance, as I am the stranger here. I am able to subdue humans without harming them, if necessary."

It smells very odd, here. The radiation? The strange flora? Something else?

Ambriel has not been on a planet for a long time. Milliways doesn't count.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"That could be useful," Ellen says. "I'm afraid nearly all my skills are lethal-"

Ambriel?

That smell's not the flora.

It's the giant pig. You know. The one with the bones sticking out of its back and the tiny maddened red eyes and the up-curling tusks the size of very large things. The one that just broke out of the undergrowth and is about to charge.

... Ellen really hates the swamps.

[ambriel]

Oh, it is the fauna. Well, isn't that interesting. That seems like rather hostile body language, perhaps they should...

Hm. Too late.

There's a meaty crunch as hog and angel collide. Ambriel slams back into a tree. Branches and shattered bark fly everywhere. Another thud and a pained squeal follow.

Then, Ambriel stands, holding the hog off the ground at arm's length, its legs flailing uselessly as it snorts and growls in rage and fear. The angel's clothes are torn and spattered with mud.

"Now, then. That wasn't very enjoyable for anyone involved. Shall we try again?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

.... Ellen's just gonna be over here with her sword crackling in her hand, mm'kay?

Also the hog is going to snort some more and thrash a bit, because when you're a mutant post-nuclear hog the size of a small grizzly bear, that is what you do. But the plus side to being a mutant post-nuclear hog is that there is a good chance you have at least two or three functioning neurons to rub together, which means that there's a very good chance the animal will, if put down, make a few more threatening gestures and then turn and stomp off.

Not like it's a Deathclaw or a mirelurk or something.

[ambriel]

"Very well," Ambriel says, and sets the pig down. If not gently, then at least carefully. With one last swipe of its tusks (which messes) it takes off back into the gloom of the swamp.

Ambriel absently rolls up the cuff of one sleeve to hide the hole ripped in it. "Are you all right, Ellen?"

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I'm fine, thank you," Ellen says and sheaths the sword. "I'd ask if you were all right, but that'd be a silly question, wouldn't it?"

[ambriel]

"Not at all. I am difficult to injure, but I appreciate the thought nonetheless. I was rather surprised." And now, full of splinters. Ambriel brushes them off.

"This particular manifestation does not bruise or bleed, but I still feel. Not pain, precisely, but a close equivalent. The sense that allowing a particular behavior to continue is inadvisable."

Like sticking your hand in boiling water. Or letting yourself get gored by a giant pig.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I'll remember that," Ellen promises, and makes a mental note. "It's a good thing you stopped it when you did. We don't really have time for me to butcher an entire animal that size, and it would have been a sin and a shame to let that much perfectly good meat just go to waste."

She may not be much of a cook, but almost anything works out pretty well if you cut it off the bone, put it on a stick, and hold it over a fire long enough.

"We should keep moving. Tobar told Cross and me that the catfish were biting when he let us off the boat. He really wasn't kidding- you don't want to get jumped by a seven foot tall territorial catfish on legs."

[ambriel]

"I stand by my previous statement that you live an exciting life, Ellen. Lead on."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen smiles wryly. "Remind me to tell you about the Vault full of Gary sometime," she says. "Clones are bad news."

Strictly as the crow flies, the trip back to the Ark and Dove Cathedral isn't that much in the way of distance. Ellen, however, spent nineteen years living on the most even and carefully maintained floors Vault-Tec could design, and then around two years either in the scrub desert of the Capital Wastes or on the ruins of roads and railroads that eventually led to Pittsburgh. Making her way through swamps is very much not a developed skill for her portfolio, in spite of all her trying.

At least there's no catfish, though.

When they finally make their way out of the bog Ellen indicates the walled compound with its guarded spire up ahead. "That's where the tribe lives," she says. "Desmond needs me to take the telepathy blocker he built and put it up on the highest point I can reach, so I'm going in there and hoping like anything the stairs inside that building aren't completely rotted to pieces."

(And trying really, really hard not to look out any windows. She still has issues with heights.)

[ambriel]

"Call on me if you have trouble."

Any particularly overt use of power may attract attention, and that includes flight. Ambriel's place here is to wait and watch, but will happily abandon that if Ellen seems to be in immediate danger or need of assistance.

Stealth is only useful if it keeps you, or your compatriots safer than a direct strike.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"I will," Ellen promises. "Hopefully that won't be necessary. I'll come find you afterwards if that's the case."

Fortunately, the gatekeeper is on duty and not pootling around some other plane of existence. She clanks up to the gates with her helmet under her arm and they open almost immediately. It might be nice to say they clanged ominously shut behind her, but really, they're not all that heavy; they just go clink when they swing back shut.

They'll open again later. Maybe they'll clang then.

[ambriel]

Ambriel steps back into the shadows, silent and still.

That bright white button-up shirt blends in a lot better now that it's smeared with mud and green slime of dubious provenance.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

It'll be quiet for a while, or at least as quiet as the Point Lookout area ever gets. Unlike the Capital Wasteland, there's insect life here that isn't the size of prewar rabbits. And there are things splashing out in the distance, too- oh, and Dogmeat is happily investigating everything within reach, because really, who thinks bringing a highly protective attack dog into a compound full of lobotomized chemmed-up swamp dwellers is a good idea.

Oh, hey, the gates are openin- oh, wait, no, it's not Ellen, it's about five or six of the aforementioned swamp dwellers.

Some of them might be singing. None of them carry the same tune.

[ambriel]

Ambriel's eyes narrow, unsure if this is a good sign or not.

This may be a clue that bears following. But then again, Ellen could reappear at any moment.

No. Ambriel would spot her, up in the tower, if she was there. She isn't finished yet.

The angel waits for a hint about where they might be headed.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

They're migrating erratically southward, for the most part. Occasionally one of them has to go round up a stray to get them back on course. They have the look of a hunting party that's already done the drinking one normally does after the hunt is successful.

Ah, and there's movement up in the tower. Ellen is doing her best to be casual and moderately stealthy but she's wearing heavy power armor that's painted silver under all that mud. Stealth is nnnot really in the cards.

There's an oddly heavy kind of feeling in the air.

[ambriel]

It's hard to miss.

Ambriel ignores the others for now. This is the most dangerous point in Ellen's solo mission. If she is seen, she could be attacked, and trapped in the tower. Ambriel is statue-still, tense and ready.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

And this would be the point where several things happen at once:

- Anybody with the slightest bit of psychic sensitivity or power can probably feel the sudden surge of somebody very desperate trying to exert themselves mentally over a great distance. Calvert might not be able to do much out here normally, but it appears he can at least perceive things going on.

- Just as suddenly as his psychic power surges it's cut off by the mental equivalent of aluminum-foil chaff pitched into a radar beam - Desmond's device, activated up in the top of the cathedral.

- Somewhere in the southern distance, gunfire and explosions start.

- Dogmeat stops chasing swamp creatures and starts towards the compound's gates, head lowered and teeth bared.

- And someone who had the eyes to see it would note Ellen turning and running for the stairs down and out of the cathedral spire, because let's face it, power armor does not lend itself to rappelling out of a building that's been cared for and maintained by a bunch of lobotomized chemmed-up hippies.

[ambriel]

That's an excellent hint that it's time to mosey on out of here.

And, stealth is no longer an advantage.

Ambriel bursts out of the undergrowth and is suddenly there at the gates. The angel draws back one arm and punches through a rusty spot on one of the doors, hauling it open with a shriek of tortured metal.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

And Ellen is just fine with that. Even with Joshua's tinfoil hat Artifact on under her helmet she still heard Professor Calvert's mental voice shrieking at her to stop, and at the tribals nearest the cathedral to stop her; desperation must have lent him strength. So she did the only sensible thing and charged for the gates like all Hell was on her tail. The last thing she wants to do right now is kill any more of these tribals. They've got problems enough.

"Thank you!" she calls out, her voice muffled and staticky through her helmet's filters. "How fast can you move? Calvert Mansion is south of here!"

[ambriel]

"Very fast, relatively," Ambriel says, slamming the door back into place so hard that it bends, and jams.

"But I would prefer to stay with you rather than go ahead. Unless you would like me to carry you."

Carrying Ellen and Dogmeat at once might get a little awkward.