This is my first fanfic, and ingeniously, it is actually two fanfics at the same time! I give you:
The Story of El-ahrairad and the Black Deathclaw of the Vats, part 1 of 3
"Sooner or later, everything leaks out (such as air from a Rubber Doll, or stealing from a container while someone blocks line of sight and then shouting 'You can't prove it was me!' with 3 Metal Armors in your inventory) and your reputation in various settlements swings up and down. Some say that it was Lemmy who told King Decker the truth about the trick with the water caravans. Others say that Patrick the Celt went gossiping in the wasteland. But however it was, King Decker got to know that he had been made a fool when he delivered his Cheezy Poofs to the ruins of Necropolis. He did not call his raiders out to fight - not yet. But he made up his mind that he would find an opportunity to get his own back on El-ahrairad. El-ahrairad knew this and he warned all his people to be careful, especially when they went about alone to the gecko hunting grounds.
"'But sir,' one of the anthropomorphic rabbits piped up after being given permission to speak, 'why do we even have to go out to the gecko hunting grounds? All that ever happens is that they hunt us.'
"'Builds character,' El-ahrairad told them. 'Earns xp. How do you think I got to be where I am?' And he gave the rabbit a loving swat on the head for 8 points of damage, disassembling the meeting in the process.
"Now late one afternoon in 2155, Radscuttle led some of the rabbits out to a rubbish heap on the edge of Junktown, some way away from the Burrows. The evening came on hot and dry, and well before twilight a radioactive haze came down thick. They set off for home, but they failed their Outdoorsman checks; and then they had trouble with a molerat and became confused over the world map. Anyway, Radscuttle got 'separated' from the others (while fortuitously carrying all the Water Flasks), and after wandering about for some time, he strayed into the raiders' camp outside King Decker's city, and they caught him and took him down under the Maltese Falcon to the King.
"King Decker saw his chance to spite El-ahrairad. He put Radscuttle on a special prison level and every day he was brought out and made to work, sometimes in the glowing rain, digging missile silos and tunneling trenches.
"'Radscuttle?' the guards said. 'What's so rad about you?'
"'Fuck off,' said Radscuttle.
"But El-ahrairad swore he would get him out somehow and get quest xp for it, too. And so he did, for he and two of his does spent four days (though it was really just 15 minutes with lots of fade-outs) digging a tunnel from the desert into the back of the ruins where Radscuttle had been set to work. And in the end this tunnel came near to the hole down which Radscuttle had been pushed. He was supposed to be digging to turn the hole into a fallout shelter and the guards were making cracks about sex reputations outside while he worked. But El-ahrairad reached him, for he could hear him using a Shovel in the dark; and they all selected "Always run" and slipped away down the tunnel and escaped through the wastes.
"When they were halfway home, one of the does asked, 'Only thing I don't get is, why did us two does have to come along on the mission?'
"El-ahrairad and Radscuttle grinned evilly.
"When the news reached King Decker, his facial animation became very angry indeed, and he determined that this time he would start a war and get El-ahrairad down to 0 hp once and for all. His raiders set out in the night and went to the world map circle of the Burrows; but they couldn't get down to the rabbit hole map. Some tried, to be sure, but they soon came out again, because they met El-ahrairad and the other rabbits who made targeted shots and ducked behind walls with spare AP and other crap. They were not used to fighting in narrow places in the dark without Night Vision or modified FN FALs and they got bitten and scratched until they were glad to come out tail-first.
"'Dude,' said one raider to another, 'you have a fucking tail. That looks fucking ridiculous.'
"But they didn't go away: they sat outside and waited, using supine animation frames so at least they didn't have to lie face down. Whenever any of the rabbits tried to reach the brown exit grid they found their enemies ready to enter combat mode. King Decker and his raiders couldn't watch all the grids - there were too many, due to crappy map design - but their Sequence was high enough to dash off wherever they saw a rabbit show his pixellated nose. Very soon El-ahrairad's people found that it was all they could do to snatch a mouthful or two of Xander Root - just enough to keep the Shaman incomprehensible - before they had to bolt underground again. El-ahrairad tried every cheap combat trick he could think of, but he couldn't be rid of King Decker or get his own people off to another map. The rabbits began to become thin and miserable underground and some of them lost stat points.
"At last El-ahrairad felt quite desperate and one night, when he had had to reload again and again to bring down a few mouthfuls of Broc Flower for a doe and her family whose father had been killed the day before (by Radscuttle, fumbling with a Rocket Launcher, which everyone agreed could be adequately described as 'good fun'), he called out, 'Great Glow! I would do anything to save my people, even though I know we were a bad design decision! I would drive a bargain with a radscorpion or a mantis - yes, or with the Black Deathclaw of the Vats!'
"Now, as soon as he had said this, El-ahrairad could verify in the Fallout Utility for Critter Tinkering that if there was one creature anywhere who might have the stats and certainly had the hit points to destroy his enemies, it was the Black Deathclaw of the Vats. For he was a talking animal, and yet had more levels than King Decker a thousand times over. But the thought made El-ahrairad sweat and shudder ('I thought you could only go to level 99!?'), so that he had to crouch down where he was in the run, even though he had to go into the prone animation frame, which looked pretty ridiculous. After a time he mumbled into the dirt, 'To hell with this,' went to his own burrow and began to think of what quest option he had chosen and what it meant.
"Now, as you all know, the Black Deathclaw of the Vats is a fucking big end boss. He is basically an anthropomorphic animal, but he isn't a gay furry like the rabbits. He is that sudden, frustrating crash to desktop from which we can only entreat the Great Glow to save us today and tomorrow. When the mine is laid in the corridor, the Black Deathclaw knows where the pressure plate script is fucked up; and when your only save is corrupted, the Black Deathclaw is not far off. You all know how some rabbits seem just to throw their lives away between two shitty dialogue options and a failed Steal check: but the truth is that their foolishness comes from the Black Deathclaw, for it is by his will that they do not target their shots or get that lucky critical. The Black Deathclaw brings stat penalties, too. Or again, he will start up the official mapper and call a rabbit by PID number: and then that rabbit must go out and stand somewhere and make repetitive floats for however long, even though he may have the stats and equipment to save himself from any other danger. He goes with the Black Deathclaw and leaves no pool of blood behind. Some say that the Black Deathclaw hates us and wants to kill us off for xp. But the truth is - or so I read in the official hintbook - that he, too, serves the Great Glow and does no more than his appointed task - to bring about quests and stuff. We are spawned by the engine and our scripts have to be junked: but we do not go merely to serve the turn of one scripted sequence or another. If that were so, we would all be destroyed in a playing session. We go by the will of the Black Deathclaw of the Vats and only by his will. And though that will seems in dire need of a gore and profanity filter to us all, yet in his way he is our protector, for he knows the Great Glow's original design idea for the rabbits and he will avenge any rabbit who may chance to be destroyed by someone using 1337 h4xx. Anyone who has seen a dancing death by fire animation knows what the Black Deathclaw can bring down on random encounter monsters who think they will do what they will even though they're not in the fucking storyline.
"El-ahrairad spent the night alone in his burrow and his thoughts were terrible ('I have three pieces of furniture and only two are lootable and they contain a Junk and a Technical Manual, thanks a bunch!'). As far as he knew, no rabbit had ever tried to finish the quest that he had in his Pip Boy. But the more he thought about it - as well as he could for hunger and morale penalties and the lag that comes upon rabbits face to face with a thrashing hard drive - the more it seemed to him that there was at least a minimum 5% chance of success. He would seek out the Black Deathclaw and offer him his own life in return for the reintegration of his people into official franchise continuity. But if, when he made the crucial Speech check, he meant to keep a backup of his most recent save, it would be better not to go near the Black Deathclaw at all. The Black Deathclaw might not accept his character data: yet still, perhaps, he might get a chance to try a stealth or combat solution. Only, there could be no using bug exploits on the Black Deathclaw. If his people's safety were to be had, by whatever form of bartering, the price would be his entire save folder. So unless he failed, he would not get to keep playing. He would therefore need an NPC companion to bring back whatever it was that was going to overthrow King Decker and secure a good ending for the Burrows.
"In the morning, El-ahrairad went to find Radscuttle and they made Speech checks far into the day.
"'You WILL walk in front of me and take bullets from random Enclave patrols,' said El-ahrairad.
"'Fuck you,' said Radscuttle.
"'You WILL walk in front of me and take bullets from random Enclave patrols,' said El-ahrairad.
"'Fuck you,' said Radscuttle.
"'You WILL walk in front of me and take bullets from random Enclave patrols,' said El-ahrairad.
"'Oh, OK,' said Radscuttle.
"Then he called his Owsla together and told them what he meant to do.
"'I'm going to get the hell out of here, and you're all going to die to cover my ass,' he said.
"'Oh, OK,' said the Owsla, who by the way had a pretty ridiculous name and Intelligence to match.
"Later that evening, in the last of the twilight (-20% on ranged attacks), the rabbits came out and attacked King Decker's raiders. They tossed lots of Frag Grenades around and some of them had their ribs blown off or got their chests riddled with bullets. The enemy thought they were trying to make for the exit grids and did everything they could to surround them and force them back into their own map. But the truth was that all the fighting was simply a needless bloody sacrifice to distract King Decker's attention and keep his raiders using up their AP and ammo. As darkness set in (-40%), El-ahrairad and Radscuttle slipped out from the other end of the warren and made off down the ditch, keeping the A key depressed for infinite movement, while what little remained of the Owsla fell back and King Decker's raiders made combat taunts at them down the holes. As for King Decker, he sent a holodisk to say that he was ready to talk to El-ahrairad about terms of surrender.
"El-ahrairad and Radscuttle set out on their dark journey making a red dotted line over the world map. What areas they visited I don't know and no rabbit knows. But I always remember what old FEV-erfew - d'you remember him? - used to say when he told this story. 'They didn't take long,' he said. 'They took no time at all. No. Because overland travel is simply an abstraction and you kick back and watch the little red cross gliding across the map until maybe suddenly it blinks or you stop over a green fat circle or something. They used the A cheat to avoid encounters while going to that terrible location they were bound for. Where they were travelling, the sun and moon mean nothing and winter and summer less, because you can't even see the sky in the isometric view and seasons aren't implemented at all. But you will never know' - and then he used to look all round at us, before shooting the ugliest one - 'you will never know, and neither do I, how far El-ahrairad went on his journey into the dark. You see the top of a great stone head sticking out of the ground. How far is it to the middle? Fuck if I know. What was I talking about? C'mere, you little pieces of ass.'
"At last they came to a high place where there was no grass. This was pretty much like everywhere else in the wasteland, so they went to some other place. They scrambled upward, into mountainous terrain where map travel was slower and there was a different encounter table, over splinters of slate ('Holy splinters of slate, El-ahrairad!' cried Radscuttle merrily, and received a beating therefore), among grey rocks bigger than pigrats (some of which where actually painted pigrats in devious disguise, who couldn't move however because the paint had dried). Mist and acid rain swirled about them and there were no SFX but the trickling of water and sometimes, from far above, the cry of some great, evil vertibird on the wing. And these sounds echoed, for they were between black cliffs of stone, taller than the screen in 800x600 resolution, and there was an EAX sound card. The snow lay in patches all about ('Look, the latest patch,' quipped Radscuttle, and got beaten), for the sun never shone to melt it. The green goo was slippery, and whenever they pushed out a pebble, failing their Sneak checks, it rattled down and down behind them in the gullies. But El-ahrairad knew the way from the walkthrough and on he went, until the haze grew so thick that they could see nothing and they had to double-check that the monitor was still on. Then they kept close to the cliff and little by little, as they went, it overhung them until it made a row of dark roof tiles above their backs. Where the cliff ended was the mouth of a tunnel, like a huge rabbit hole with a green exit grid. In the freezing cold and silence, El-ahrairad stamped and flashed his tail to Radscuttle.
"'You are so fucking gay, El-ahrairad,' whined Radscuttle.
"And then, as they were about to go into the tunnel, they realized that what they had thought, in the low gamma setting, to be a part of the rock was not scenery but a critter. It was the Black Deathclaw of the Vats, close beside them, still as something that lacks fidget animations and black as #000000."
"Hazelkunin," said Pipboykin, staring into the dusk and trembling, "I don't like this story. I know I've not got a lot of karma -"
"You're too damn much of a low-hp wuss," said FVE-er, "ruining it for the rest of us." He himself seemed composed and even detached, which was perhaps in part thanks to the weed pipe full of Healing Powder on the ground beside him: but Pipboykin was hardly to realize this. "Let's go out and see if we can feed you to one of the mutated spiders, shall we?" said FVE-er. "I think I can remember where I left a bunch of them - it must be somewhere this way." Still talking quietly, he dragged Pipboykin screaming out into the overgrown combe. Hazelkunin turned to make sure of the direction they had taken and as he did so Shady Sandelion hesitated, uncertain whether to resume.
"Go on," said Big Guns, "and don't leave any of the sex scenes out this time."
The Story of El-ahrairad and the Black Deathclaw of the Vats, part 1 of 3
"Sooner or later, everything leaks out (such as air from a Rubber Doll, or stealing from a container while someone blocks line of sight and then shouting 'You can't prove it was me!' with 3 Metal Armors in your inventory) and your reputation in various settlements swings up and down. Some say that it was Lemmy who told King Decker the truth about the trick with the water caravans. Others say that Patrick the Celt went gossiping in the wasteland. But however it was, King Decker got to know that he had been made a fool when he delivered his Cheezy Poofs to the ruins of Necropolis. He did not call his raiders out to fight - not yet. But he made up his mind that he would find an opportunity to get his own back on El-ahrairad. El-ahrairad knew this and he warned all his people to be careful, especially when they went about alone to the gecko hunting grounds.
"'But sir,' one of the anthropomorphic rabbits piped up after being given permission to speak, 'why do we even have to go out to the gecko hunting grounds? All that ever happens is that they hunt us.'
"'Builds character,' El-ahrairad told them. 'Earns xp. How do you think I got to be where I am?' And he gave the rabbit a loving swat on the head for 8 points of damage, disassembling the meeting in the process.
"Now late one afternoon in 2155, Radscuttle led some of the rabbits out to a rubbish heap on the edge of Junktown, some way away from the Burrows. The evening came on hot and dry, and well before twilight a radioactive haze came down thick. They set off for home, but they failed their Outdoorsman checks; and then they had trouble with a molerat and became confused over the world map. Anyway, Radscuttle got 'separated' from the others (while fortuitously carrying all the Water Flasks), and after wandering about for some time, he strayed into the raiders' camp outside King Decker's city, and they caught him and took him down under the Maltese Falcon to the King.
"King Decker saw his chance to spite El-ahrairad. He put Radscuttle on a special prison level and every day he was brought out and made to work, sometimes in the glowing rain, digging missile silos and tunneling trenches.
"'Radscuttle?' the guards said. 'What's so rad about you?'
"'Fuck off,' said Radscuttle.
"But El-ahrairad swore he would get him out somehow and get quest xp for it, too. And so he did, for he and two of his does spent four days (though it was really just 15 minutes with lots of fade-outs) digging a tunnel from the desert into the back of the ruins where Radscuttle had been set to work. And in the end this tunnel came near to the hole down which Radscuttle had been pushed. He was supposed to be digging to turn the hole into a fallout shelter and the guards were making cracks about sex reputations outside while he worked. But El-ahrairad reached him, for he could hear him using a Shovel in the dark; and they all selected "Always run" and slipped away down the tunnel and escaped through the wastes.
"When they were halfway home, one of the does asked, 'Only thing I don't get is, why did us two does have to come along on the mission?'
"El-ahrairad and Radscuttle grinned evilly.
"When the news reached King Decker, his facial animation became very angry indeed, and he determined that this time he would start a war and get El-ahrairad down to 0 hp once and for all. His raiders set out in the night and went to the world map circle of the Burrows; but they couldn't get down to the rabbit hole map. Some tried, to be sure, but they soon came out again, because they met El-ahrairad and the other rabbits who made targeted shots and ducked behind walls with spare AP and other crap. They were not used to fighting in narrow places in the dark without Night Vision or modified FN FALs and they got bitten and scratched until they were glad to come out tail-first.
"'Dude,' said one raider to another, 'you have a fucking tail. That looks fucking ridiculous.'
"But they didn't go away: they sat outside and waited, using supine animation frames so at least they didn't have to lie face down. Whenever any of the rabbits tried to reach the brown exit grid they found their enemies ready to enter combat mode. King Decker and his raiders couldn't watch all the grids - there were too many, due to crappy map design - but their Sequence was high enough to dash off wherever they saw a rabbit show his pixellated nose. Very soon El-ahrairad's people found that it was all they could do to snatch a mouthful or two of Xander Root - just enough to keep the Shaman incomprehensible - before they had to bolt underground again. El-ahrairad tried every cheap combat trick he could think of, but he couldn't be rid of King Decker or get his own people off to another map. The rabbits began to become thin and miserable underground and some of them lost stat points.
"At last El-ahrairad felt quite desperate and one night, when he had had to reload again and again to bring down a few mouthfuls of Broc Flower for a doe and her family whose father had been killed the day before (by Radscuttle, fumbling with a Rocket Launcher, which everyone agreed could be adequately described as 'good fun'), he called out, 'Great Glow! I would do anything to save my people, even though I know we were a bad design decision! I would drive a bargain with a radscorpion or a mantis - yes, or with the Black Deathclaw of the Vats!'
"Now, as soon as he had said this, El-ahrairad could verify in the Fallout Utility for Critter Tinkering that if there was one creature anywhere who might have the stats and certainly had the hit points to destroy his enemies, it was the Black Deathclaw of the Vats. For he was a talking animal, and yet had more levels than King Decker a thousand times over. But the thought made El-ahrairad sweat and shudder ('I thought you could only go to level 99!?'), so that he had to crouch down where he was in the run, even though he had to go into the prone animation frame, which looked pretty ridiculous. After a time he mumbled into the dirt, 'To hell with this,' went to his own burrow and began to think of what quest option he had chosen and what it meant.
"Now, as you all know, the Black Deathclaw of the Vats is a fucking big end boss. He is basically an anthropomorphic animal, but he isn't a gay furry like the rabbits. He is that sudden, frustrating crash to desktop from which we can only entreat the Great Glow to save us today and tomorrow. When the mine is laid in the corridor, the Black Deathclaw knows where the pressure plate script is fucked up; and when your only save is corrupted, the Black Deathclaw is not far off. You all know how some rabbits seem just to throw their lives away between two shitty dialogue options and a failed Steal check: but the truth is that their foolishness comes from the Black Deathclaw, for it is by his will that they do not target their shots or get that lucky critical. The Black Deathclaw brings stat penalties, too. Or again, he will start up the official mapper and call a rabbit by PID number: and then that rabbit must go out and stand somewhere and make repetitive floats for however long, even though he may have the stats and equipment to save himself from any other danger. He goes with the Black Deathclaw and leaves no pool of blood behind. Some say that the Black Deathclaw hates us and wants to kill us off for xp. But the truth is - or so I read in the official hintbook - that he, too, serves the Great Glow and does no more than his appointed task - to bring about quests and stuff. We are spawned by the engine and our scripts have to be junked: but we do not go merely to serve the turn of one scripted sequence or another. If that were so, we would all be destroyed in a playing session. We go by the will of the Black Deathclaw of the Vats and only by his will. And though that will seems in dire need of a gore and profanity filter to us all, yet in his way he is our protector, for he knows the Great Glow's original design idea for the rabbits and he will avenge any rabbit who may chance to be destroyed by someone using 1337 h4xx. Anyone who has seen a dancing death by fire animation knows what the Black Deathclaw can bring down on random encounter monsters who think they will do what they will even though they're not in the fucking storyline.
"El-ahrairad spent the night alone in his burrow and his thoughts were terrible ('I have three pieces of furniture and only two are lootable and they contain a Junk and a Technical Manual, thanks a bunch!'). As far as he knew, no rabbit had ever tried to finish the quest that he had in his Pip Boy. But the more he thought about it - as well as he could for hunger and morale penalties and the lag that comes upon rabbits face to face with a thrashing hard drive - the more it seemed to him that there was at least a minimum 5% chance of success. He would seek out the Black Deathclaw and offer him his own life in return for the reintegration of his people into official franchise continuity. But if, when he made the crucial Speech check, he meant to keep a backup of his most recent save, it would be better not to go near the Black Deathclaw at all. The Black Deathclaw might not accept his character data: yet still, perhaps, he might get a chance to try a stealth or combat solution. Only, there could be no using bug exploits on the Black Deathclaw. If his people's safety were to be had, by whatever form of bartering, the price would be his entire save folder. So unless he failed, he would not get to keep playing. He would therefore need an NPC companion to bring back whatever it was that was going to overthrow King Decker and secure a good ending for the Burrows.
"In the morning, El-ahrairad went to find Radscuttle and they made Speech checks far into the day.
"'You WILL walk in front of me and take bullets from random Enclave patrols,' said El-ahrairad.
"'Fuck you,' said Radscuttle.
"'You WILL walk in front of me and take bullets from random Enclave patrols,' said El-ahrairad.
"'Fuck you,' said Radscuttle.
"'You WILL walk in front of me and take bullets from random Enclave patrols,' said El-ahrairad.
"'Oh, OK,' said Radscuttle.
"Then he called his Owsla together and told them what he meant to do.
"'I'm going to get the hell out of here, and you're all going to die to cover my ass,' he said.
"'Oh, OK,' said the Owsla, who by the way had a pretty ridiculous name and Intelligence to match.
"Later that evening, in the last of the twilight (-20% on ranged attacks), the rabbits came out and attacked King Decker's raiders. They tossed lots of Frag Grenades around and some of them had their ribs blown off or got their chests riddled with bullets. The enemy thought they were trying to make for the exit grids and did everything they could to surround them and force them back into their own map. But the truth was that all the fighting was simply a needless bloody sacrifice to distract King Decker's attention and keep his raiders using up their AP and ammo. As darkness set in (-40%), El-ahrairad and Radscuttle slipped out from the other end of the warren and made off down the ditch, keeping the A key depressed for infinite movement, while what little remained of the Owsla fell back and King Decker's raiders made combat taunts at them down the holes. As for King Decker, he sent a holodisk to say that he was ready to talk to El-ahrairad about terms of surrender.
"El-ahrairad and Radscuttle set out on their dark journey making a red dotted line over the world map. What areas they visited I don't know and no rabbit knows. But I always remember what old FEV-erfew - d'you remember him? - used to say when he told this story. 'They didn't take long,' he said. 'They took no time at all. No. Because overland travel is simply an abstraction and you kick back and watch the little red cross gliding across the map until maybe suddenly it blinks or you stop over a green fat circle or something. They used the A cheat to avoid encounters while going to that terrible location they were bound for. Where they were travelling, the sun and moon mean nothing and winter and summer less, because you can't even see the sky in the isometric view and seasons aren't implemented at all. But you will never know' - and then he used to look all round at us, before shooting the ugliest one - 'you will never know, and neither do I, how far El-ahrairad went on his journey into the dark. You see the top of a great stone head sticking out of the ground. How far is it to the middle? Fuck if I know. What was I talking about? C'mere, you little pieces of ass.'
"At last they came to a high place where there was no grass. This was pretty much like everywhere else in the wasteland, so they went to some other place. They scrambled upward, into mountainous terrain where map travel was slower and there was a different encounter table, over splinters of slate ('Holy splinters of slate, El-ahrairad!' cried Radscuttle merrily, and received a beating therefore), among grey rocks bigger than pigrats (some of which where actually painted pigrats in devious disguise, who couldn't move however because the paint had dried). Mist and acid rain swirled about them and there were no SFX but the trickling of water and sometimes, from far above, the cry of some great, evil vertibird on the wing. And these sounds echoed, for they were between black cliffs of stone, taller than the screen in 800x600 resolution, and there was an EAX sound card. The snow lay in patches all about ('Look, the latest patch,' quipped Radscuttle, and got beaten), for the sun never shone to melt it. The green goo was slippery, and whenever they pushed out a pebble, failing their Sneak checks, it rattled down and down behind them in the gullies. But El-ahrairad knew the way from the walkthrough and on he went, until the haze grew so thick that they could see nothing and they had to double-check that the monitor was still on. Then they kept close to the cliff and little by little, as they went, it overhung them until it made a row of dark roof tiles above their backs. Where the cliff ended was the mouth of a tunnel, like a huge rabbit hole with a green exit grid. In the freezing cold and silence, El-ahrairad stamped and flashed his tail to Radscuttle.
"'You are so fucking gay, El-ahrairad,' whined Radscuttle.
"And then, as they were about to go into the tunnel, they realized that what they had thought, in the low gamma setting, to be a part of the rock was not scenery but a critter. It was the Black Deathclaw of the Vats, close beside them, still as something that lacks fidget animations and black as #000000."
"Hazelkunin," said Pipboykin, staring into the dusk and trembling, "I don't like this story. I know I've not got a lot of karma -"
"You're too damn much of a low-hp wuss," said FVE-er, "ruining it for the rest of us." He himself seemed composed and even detached, which was perhaps in part thanks to the weed pipe full of Healing Powder on the ground beside him: but Pipboykin was hardly to realize this. "Let's go out and see if we can feed you to one of the mutated spiders, shall we?" said FVE-er. "I think I can remember where I left a bunch of them - it must be somewhere this way." Still talking quietly, he dragged Pipboykin screaming out into the overgrown combe. Hazelkunin turned to make sure of the direction they had taken and as he did so Shady Sandelion hesitated, uncertain whether to resume.
"Go on," said Big Guns, "and don't leave any of the sex scenes out this time."
