AFter another mile walking, the group arrived at the gates of the university. Yes, gates, that was something that Pip certainly hadn't expected, and something he had expected even less happened, a ghoul stepped forward from a house not far from the gate, the ghoul looked pretty friendly, but he still carried a pistol.
Pip looked aroun, examined what was left of the group, they had to leave two of the remaining guards behind, leaving just two extra guards, besides Pip, Gruug and the old Virgil, and those two guards didn't look to well either. He suspected that one at least would fall if they didn't get that medicine fast, very fast. One of the two guards, the weaker one, coughed up some blood and looked at, disturbed by the sight of his own life fluids in his hands and on the ground.
The one guard they had gotten to follow them first had already fallen, Jake or maybe James, was his name...or that's what Pip thought, he hadn't paid attention, he couldn't, this was more important than that.
"Hey, what are you-"were the first words coming from the guarding ghouls mouth, but when he saw the coughed up blood and the look of the two guards with them, he changed his tone, and decided to say something else."Hey, what is that. Wh-what is wrong with you? D'you have some kind of disease??"
Pip mumbled "Plague.", and shook his head. He was still feeling weird about the fact that he wasn't hurt-wasn't diseased by the plague. He had felt weak for a while, but that was gone now, maybe he'd gotten it and recovered. If he had, he imagined that some FEV infection or something like that must've helped. Maybe that could also explain his height and build. Pip shrugged, now was not the time for such thoughts.
In the mean while, the ghoul looked strangely at the small creature who had uttered the word "Plague", he hadn't seen a grown man so small in his entire life, and his life had been long, after all, he WAS a ghoul.
Seeing the other ghoul's disturbance, Virgil quickly stepped in. "Yes, these men here,"said Virgil, making a gesture towards the two sick men, "have the plague, it's bad, but at least we", Virgil indicated himself and Gruug, "cannot have it. And I think the small one there had it, but he got over it or something, there's nothing wrong with him, well, nothing involving the plague anyway."
The ghoul behind the gate shrugged, "Alright, you guys are sick, now could you explain why you went here? We don't want sick people here, I may be a ghoul, but not everyone is, and not everyone likes being around plague-infected people either."
"We-we thought that this was our only hope of finding a cure, I mean-"
"Your only hope, what do you mean. YOu've got two, probably dying, men and three who aren't affected by it. That isn't enough for me to let you in. Besides, I don't know if we have anything."
"We're not the only ones, we're just here so we can get a cure, stuff, for our caravan, they are infected, and that is much worse. But they can't get here that fast, I don't know if they're even going here right now, but we need to cure them as well. It's a large caravan, we can't let them die."
"Right, now again, why would we have this...cure for this disease here?"
"You're an old university, if you haven't traded away your med stuff, I mean, your experimental stuff, your stashed stuff, of the university hospital, and the medical department. They must've had a stash, with a cure here before the war. They couldn't risk having the entire campus here die. And-there's no reason for you to trade it, noone would've wanted those damned things, they couldn't do anything with it. Stimpaks and stuff-yeah. But not that."
"A-alright, you three can come in. But the two sick guards have to stay in, no, wait, they can stay in my little house here. They can't infect anyone there. Now, come on. I'l lead you to the hospital-and stuff. Bah."
"Wait, I have to get some stuff of them, tradeable stuff, I doubt you're going to give us everything for free." said Virgil, and then, turning to the two diseased, "Right, if you want to live, hand over your valuables. Now."
The two men obeyed, they knew what would happen if they couldn't get a cure, survival was on their minds. They handed over some simple stuff, some bottlecaps, some old drinks, a bit of alcohol, some dice. But then came the more valuable stuff, a pre-war mechanical watch, mechanical! And it was working! As well as a necklace with a heart shaped container on it, with two pictures in it. That would fetch them quite some nice stuff. And last, their weapons and ammo. In a world like this, weapons and ammo can always be traded.
Hank, they had learned the ghoul's name now, led the two diseased guards into his small house, he laid them down on the floor, on some straw in a corner, and told them to stay put.
Not that the guards could do anything else, their state had deteriorated rapidly over the past hour.
Hank then led the men towards a large building, with a red cross on it, after closing the gate again. The building was made out of red brick, and was in good shape, it must've been one of the best buildings they'd seen sofar in these wastes. IN fact, the entire surroundings looked very good, this was an entire university campus, and it had survived the war without even a scrape, or at least from what they could see. Buildings, large and small, buildings that are occupied and lived in, and buildings where-Pip couldn't believe his eyes- where people were studying, reading books, and even, an entire huge building, which was, from what Pip could see, entirely filled with books. Incredible!
Virgil was amazed as well, and decided to ask what the deal was with this place.
Hank, the ghoul, answered and explained what had happened to the University during and after the devestation of the bombs.
"This entire campus was occupied, people lived and studied here, classes were given, research done. Especially on the medical field, but then the bombs came. Surprisingly for all of us living here at that time, we were never hit by anything. We all had just heard about the nuclear horror starting out when the power went out, everywhere on the campus. Apparently, our power supply was hit, but everything was still standing. However, we didn't have the luck of being spared of radiation and FEV exposure, all of the students at that time present were all turned into ghouls by those things, each and everyone of us. I was a student here too at that time, it was horrible to see what had happened."
"You say students-but what had happened to the teachers then, the people giving classes." was what Virgil said.
"They, they had all fled into their private vault. Those treacherous bastards had built their own shelter underneath this campus, their own place to survive if this war broke loose. And they never told a single student about it. After we found out about it, they all said it was by order of the goverment, to preserve the brightest of the nation. Pheh." the ghoul spat on the ground.
"Wh-what did you do to them?"
"We dragged them out of their vault when we found out. Hah! They were all horrified when they found out that the radiation and FEV was transforming us, and them as well. Some of them were so horrified that they killed themselves, just like some of the students. Most of the others were thrown out of here, although some were allowed to stay, the ones who seemed to truly regret what they had done, who seemed to want to build this place into a good thing."
"A...good thing?"
"Yes, after we had all settled down, and realised what had happened. We decided that we couldn't let all this stuff, all this knowledge just disappear. We kept this university up, we kept it running, we preserved all of the books and gathered as many as we could. We even gave colleges, and we started up the hospital again. We also built a defense, after having encountered raiders once or twice, we found out the weapons from the shelter and musea weren't all useless. Gradually, people went here, and started to join us. Ghouls, humans, and even some mutants joined us and learned here."
Virgil realised that Hank had, indeed, not been surprised to see a mutant. Odd.
"However, most of the populace here is still ghoulish, and we don't have any mutants anymore, sadly. But, this is where you need to be for your cure. I'll leave you to it now."
The group was standing in front of the large building, in front of the hospital, with the large red cross on it. They entered...
