Letters from the Wasteland - Part 4 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One
Go to Part Two
Go to Part Three

Dusk, looking west from Miranda's post.

June, 2288

Dear Luce,

I don’t know what to make of your last letter. Whispers of the Brotherhood planning to take back the Commonwealth? Have people not had enough of the killing by now? Maybe Miranda was right…maybe there will never be peace in the wasteland.

The settlement was attacked last night. We’re all okay, but it was terrifying. A band of Raiders tried to storm the compound. 

I was at my post when the Wanderer showed up at dusk. I noticed he had a new weapon – a combat shotgun. After the recon patrol out on the peninsula, I didn’t want to ask him how he happened by it. He went about his usual duties upon arrival, checking the turrets, tinkering at the workshop.

The clear night over the manor.

Later, he came over to me, up the stairs, and stood by me for a while, silent, staring out into the darkness.
     ‘Clear night,’ I said. 
     He looked up at the deep sky sparkling with stars, and then back out over the peninsula. ‘Almost makes you forget, doesn’t it?’
     I nodded. ‘Yeah, it does.’
     He reached into his pack and took out a recon scope. ‘Let me see that rifle of yours, I can attach this to it if you’d like.’
     I couldn’t help the grin that spread across my face. He started to return the smile but looked away quickly. I unslung my rifle and handed it over. ‘That would be great. A recon scope would be perfect out here.’
     He nodded and took my rifle, handing me a long double-barrelled shotgun with a reflex sight. ‘Take this while I attach the scope. Can’t leave you empty-handed up here. This has been with me since Concord after I left the Vault.’
     ‘The Vault? You were in a Vault?’ I asked.
     He looked away again. ‘Yeah. I’ll be right back.’
     He headed for the weapons bench and I heard him start attaching the scope. I realised I’d come to like the sound of him tinkering away back there.

And then all hell broke loose.
They came up along the west road, and through the trees to the south. A dozen Raiders. They had waited until nightfall. I was still at my post so the first thing I knew was when the west turrets open up (we have two guarding the western road into the compound). I then heard the newcomer (I still don’t know his name, I just call him Skull because of his bandanna) open fire and call out from the Island. He didn’t fall back to the compound, he held his ground and took two of them down before they even reached the walls. 

The west road - this is the road the Raiders used to attempt to
storm the settlement. 'The Island' can be seen at the bottom of the photo.

The turrets kept thumping away, Miranda opened up with her laser rifle and Marius headed past my post with his shotgun drawn. 
     ‘Stay up there,’ he told me. ‘They might try and come in from the east too. Here,’ he tossed me my rifle with the new scope. ‘Tag any that try and come through the trees on that side and call them out. And keep one eye on the compound. If any make it inside the walls you know what to do.’
     I took the rifle and did a quick scan of the woods to the east. Nothing. Marius headed out through the gate next to Miranda’s post, Dogmeat following close behind, and the booming shotgun joined the rest of the cacophony of gunfire out there. I wanted to be a part of it, but I held my post. 

The guns kept banging away and then I saw him – a lone Raider with a missile launcher, coming through the trees at the foot of the embankment to the east. 
     ‘Missile to the east,’ I called out and took aim with the scope, saying a quick prayer of thanks to my Wanderer as the scope lit the Raider up, bright as day. 
     ‘Fuck you,’ I said under my breath before I held it and put a .308 through his head. He dropped to the ground and rolled down the embankment, the launcher clattering to the ground beside his body.

View from Daphne's post. She spotted the Raider coming through this grove of trees.

It was all over as quickly as it had begun. Did I just write ‘my Wanderer’? Huh. Luce, I think your little sister may have developed a crush.

Anyway, everyone gradually drifted back inside, but Marius and Skull set about looting the Raiders, Dogmeat sniffing around their ankles as they went from body to body. I saw Marius wander over to the east side and retrieve the missile launcher then he came back up into the compound and gathered everyone by the bell. He gave the missile launcher and a few rockets to Skull.
     ‘You held your ground out there,’ he said. ‘You saved lives tonight.’
     I waited for him to say something to me, but he didn’t. Instead he turned to Miranda and told her she had handled herself well tonight. I could have screamed.
     ‘Everyone did well,’ Marius said, but still didn’t look at me. ‘I think this calls for a celebration. Next time I’m in Diamond, I’ll pick up something for each of you. Let me know what. Don’t think something you need. Think something you want.’

Everyone became excited like little kids. Miranda of course went first, said she used to have a lucky eight ball. Gerald said he missed playing chess, and that if he could get hold of a board he could start carving some pieces. I have no idea what the hell ‘chess’ is so I made a note to ask him sometime. Eliza said all she wanted was a Grognak the Barbarian comic book, and Elise thought about it for a moment and requested a nice big chunk of radstag meat so she could cook us a stew. 
     ‘Would go real nice with all them carrots we been growing here,’ she said, nodding and licking her lips.
     Marius laughed at this and suggested some whiskey to wash it down with, to which everyone nodded eagerly. 
     ‘I’m going to sleep here tonight,’ he said, ‘just in case those guys decide to regroup and try a second time. I want guards back at their posts. Everyone else, get some sleep.’

Daphne's letters did not contain any photographs of Raiders she encountered,
living or otherwise, but they would have looked something like this.

I waited until everyone had gone inside and settled in, and then headed up onto the balcony to sit by my turret. I wouldn’t normally have done that, abandoned my post, but the turret overlooks the east side of the hill anyway, and I needed, tonight more than ever, to hear that comforting rattling. My hands were still shaking. 
     ‘You did good tonight.’
     Marius' voice took me by surprise and I almost dropped my rifle. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ll head back to my post.’
     ‘It’s okay.’ He sat beside me. He looked at the turret, dutifully, mindlessly rattling back and forth, a sleepless sentinel of the wastes. ‘How can you stand that thing?’
     I laughed. ‘I find it soothing.’
     He laughed back. ‘If you say so.’
     I looked down the east hill to the Raider I had killed. I was glad that at this distance and in the darkness I could not see the blood. ‘I thought you hadn’t noticed.’
     Marius followed my gaze and was silent for what seemed like a long time. 
     ‘I’m hard on you because I…’ he stopped. ‘Because I need to be. Like I said, I need to know you can handle yourself.’
     ‘Who was she?’ I asked him.
     He seemed taken aback. ‘Who?’
     ‘The woman I remind you of.’
     He sighed and shuffled a little, then caught himself and sat steady, fixing me with those steel-grey eyes. ‘You remind me of my wife,’ he said. ‘I’m hard on you because I don’t want you to get hurt, like she did.’
     The way he said hurt I knew he meant killed, and I wanted to ask what happened to her, but something in his eyes told me not to.
     ‘I better get back to my post.’ I stood.
     ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I’m going to head off. I have something I need to do.’ He stood, heading for the stairs. ‘Hey, you never said what you wanted from Diamond City.’
     I shrugged. ‘Just my letters.’
     ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing you want?’
     ‘Like I said, I got food and a roof over my head. That’s all I need for now.’
     He nodded. ‘Okay.’
     As we parted ways he said, ‘You know, a friend of mine keeps giving me advice, it’s always real simple: Don’t let your guard down.’
     I looked back at him, ‘I never do.’ 

Well that’s it for tonight sis, I’m so damn tired my eyes are closing as I write this. No one has said it, but I know we all feel proud of what we did here. We might not have much, but we’ll fight for what is ours.


Love always, your little sister, 
Daph x

PS - This is my rifle with the new recon scope. I think it saved my life.

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Letters from the Wasteland - Part 3 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One.
Go to Part Two.

Sunrise from the east tower, looking out over the peninsula
(what once was known as Nahant, Boston).

May, 2288

Dear Lucy,

Last week, for the first time since arriving here at the Manor, I ventured outside the walls. Late one night Marius came by the settlement as he does, checking the turrets, wandering about the house, checking the crops. Again he climbed the stairs to the top floor of the house and just stared out to the southeast, looking over the peninsula as if searching for something. Oh, big sister, I can’t help myself. There is something about this man that fascinates me.

He spent the night in the settlement, which is unusual. I was on day shift so I headed out to my post just before sunrise and to my amazement he emerged into the compound and came straight over to my post. He asked if the rifle he had given me was sufficient for my needs. I told him it was just fine, but that a scope might help. Sometimes when the storms blow in, visibility drops to almost zero. Supplies are scarce out here, so I expected him to give me the old ‘make do with what I give you’ speech, but he cocked his head to the side and smiled.
     ‘Night vision?’ he asked me.
     I smiled back, trying to channel a little of Miranda’s audacity. ‘Well, I do stand out here all night sometimes.’
     He laughed. First time I’ve heard someone laugh since I held your little Jacob in my arms, Luce. It’s been years. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said. ‘I have to go out on the peninsula to check on something. I want you to come with me.’
I nodded a little too eagerly and told him, sure.

A random photo taken on the peninsula. The house on the right
is most likely the 'scavver house' Daphne refers to below.

It was a little after sunrise as we headed out. He took the lead with Dogmeat, and told me to stay behind him and keep up, which I did. We hit the southeast road and headed out onto the peninsula. He moved with an authority I’ve only seen in the Brotherhood of Steel, clunking around in their armoured suits. His boots traversed the uneven ground with a strange kind of grace, and unlike most people I’ve seen he did not need to look down to ensure even footing. He carries a few guns with him, but the rifle he had at the ready was unlike any I've seen. It looked vaguely like the sniper rifles I’ve seen before but it had a recon scope. A recon scope! Big sis, you don’t want to know what I would have done for a recon scope when I was out here wandering the wasteland. I asked him about it, and he said it was a gift from an old guy Marius had helped rid a settlement of Mirelurks. 
     ‘The ancestors sure made wide roads,’ I said as we negotiated the cracked black slabs with their funny white and yellow paint. 
     ‘They weren’t for walking,’ Marius said. ‘These things,’ he pointed to one of the rusted hulks beside the road, ‘used to carry people to and from settlements and cities.’
     I had figured they must have been some kind of transport, with the seats and wheels, but I remarked that the only thing I had learned about them during my time in the wasteland was to stay the hell away from them. At this, Marius laughed.
‘Yeah, when they blow, you don’t want to be anywhere near them,’ he said. ‘One of the legacies of powering transport with fusion energy is it goes out with a hell of a bang.’

     I stared at one of the hulks. I said that it must have been good to not have to walk everywhere, but the Wanderer said it made people lazy and isolated, and fat, because there was too much food. I wondered how he knew all this. What a world that used to exist here, sis. I cannot even imagine it.

     ‘How’s things at the settlement?’ he asked. He kept his eyes locked forward, but periodically scanned our surroundings. I tried to emulate his movements as I struggled to keep up.
     ‘It’s fine,’ I told him. ‘Food, shelter, water. There’s not a lot else a girl can ask for out here.’
     ‘The house is still a little broken in places,’ he said. ‘I fixed up the defences first. I’ll concentrate on aesthetics later. I’m sorry if it’s a little drafty at night. I’ll try to repair those walls before the season turns.’
     ‘It’s fine,’ I said again. ‘It beats sleeping in a ditch.’
     ‘I want it to feel like a home,’ he said, and his voice became distant. ‘I had a home once.’
     ‘It’s the first place I’ve thought of as home in a while,’ I said.

"Dogmeat out on the peninsula, during a rare moment of calm"

This was the first time I’d seen Marius out here with Dogmeat. The dog is different out here, he’s not as carefree. He doesn’t scamper about, he sticks close to his master and trots along with his nose angled to the ground but his eyes forward. It’s as if he knows that outside the walls means business. I suspect he knows it better even than I. The two of them operate in a strange sort of unison. When Marius stops, Dogmeat stops. He doesn’t start forward again until Marius takes a step.
A little ways further Marius stopped, and crouched, signaled for me to do the same. Dogmeat paused beside us, and for a moment, they both seemed to lift their noses, as if trying to catch a scent.
     ‘Trouble up ahead,’ Marius said, and at that moment I heard gunfire. Small arms.
     ‘What do you think, Raiders?’ I asked.
     He nodded. ‘Sounds like pipe rifles. Maybe an auto or two. Move quietly, stay with me, keep low.’ He looked me up and down. ‘You ever been with a unit or anything? Brotherhood, Minutemen?’
     I shook my head.
     He held his hand up, palm flat as if waving to me. ‘If I do this, stop.’
     I nodded.
     We crept forward, and stopped about a hundred yards from the confrontation up ahead. Three Raiders gunning it out with some scavengers holed up in an old house. Marius took two of them out with that recon-scoped rifle. The third Raider did some duck and cover behind an old railing, out of sight. Marius turned to Dogmeat and gave him the go ahead, and Dogmeat took off towards the Raider. 
     ‘Come on,’ Marius said, and I could hear the dog tussling with the Raider up ahead. We got closer and I saw just how fierce Dogmeat can be. He had the Raider by the gun arm, and was dragging him to the ground. Marius watched for a moment, and then unslung his shotgun and blew the guy’s head off. 

I saw a different side to the Wanderer out here as well. I don’t know what I expected him to be like. I suppose I didn’t really give it a lot of thought. We approached the house cautiously, and one of the scavvers came out onto the porch. Marius had his gun lowered, but the scavver raised his. Before he got anywhere close to aiming, Marius dropped him with three quick blasts from the shotgun. We heard a panicked cry from inside and then one of the other scavvers burst out of the back door and started sprinting away towards the old church. In a manner I can only describe as ‘quiet’, Marius carefully aimed his scope at the guy’s back, and put him down. He then told me to stay put and headed inside the house. I heard two more shotgun blasts and a muffled scream. Marius emerged carrying two pipe rifles.
     ‘Here,’ he told me, handing them over. ‘Take these back to the manor.’ He then headed out across the parking lot and searched the other scavver. He came back with a funny brimmed hat.
     ‘Maybe give this to one of the twins,’ he said, handing it to me. ‘Might help telling them apart.’

As we were walking back to the settlement, Marius asked me if there was something on my mind. I asked him why he had shot that man in the back. He told me if he didn’t kill him now, there was a chance he’d just come back later. He seemed annoyed that I had questioned him, and I couldn’t help thinking I’d blown it, that next time he’d probably take Miranda with him. He stopped walking and stared me straight in the eye.
     ‘Nothing I do out here is accidental,’ he told me. ‘You start second-guessing yourself out here, you might as well just give up.’
     I nodded.
     ‘When you’re up on that tower I need you to shoot at anything that moves, whether its back is turned or not. If you can’t do that you need to let me know right now. I won’t make you leave the settlement. But I need guards up on those towers who can handle themselves.’
     I stood up straight and held his gaze. ‘I can handle myself.’
     ‘Good.’ He nodded and we kept walking. 
     I had noticed that as I straightened my back and stood up to the Wanderer, Dogmeat had stiffened and his hackles had raised slightly. He was just short of lowering his head and growling at me, I know it. I don’t know which part of that whole encounter made me feel smaller, sis – the fact that Marius had doubted me or that Dogmeat had, for even a split second, considered me a potential enemy.

Back inside the compound Marius walked me to my post. As I started up the stairs something came over me and I turned to face him. 
     ‘You’ll never doubt me again,’ I said.
     All he said was ‘Okay,’ and he turned to leave.
     ‘Why did you take me with you today?’
     He stopped and looked at me. I told him he could have handled that patrol all by himself, why did he need me to accompany him? 
     He seemed to stare past me for a moment and then said, ‘You remind me of someone I knew a long time ago.’
     I was about to ask who, but he nodded to my tower and said, ‘Get up there and keep watch. I’ll see what I can do about getting you a scope. And I never doubted you.’

I couldn’t sleep that night, so I headed up to the top floor landing and sat by my favourite turret, listening to it rattling back and forth, wishing I could be as mindless a killer. The truth is I couldn’t shake that image from my mind - a helpless man, gunned down while running for his life. At that moment I remembered something. I took the folded, brimmed hat from my pocket and threw it out over the fence. Let the wasteland have it. Why not. It takes everything else.


Daph.

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Letters from the Wasteland - Part 2 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Go to Part One.

May, 2288

Dear Big Sister,

Thank you for your letter. I am glad things are business-as-usual in Diamond City. I suppose a few synths wandering around is small price to pay if they are keeping the peace and city security doesn't seem to mind them. It gives me hope that the emergence of the Institute as the new power in the Commonwealth can only be a good thing. Oh, how I hope, Luce. How I hope. 

'Looking northeast from my guard post.'

I included a photograph of the view from my post. The sun was out and the wind from the ocean smelled like salt. It almost made me forget this place, Luce. Almost.

Since my last letter things have changed a bit here. We now have nine settlers in our little community. There are seven women and two men. Most of them I don't know very well yet. Everyone is still a little standoffish, and understandably so. Plus there's so much work to be done scavenging on the rocky cliffs and the peninsula, and tending the crops. I've gotten to know the twins, Eliza and Elise, our head gardeners. They are inseparable. They both wear these green rag hats that make it almost impossible to tell them apart. One of the men, Gerald, keeps to himself mostly but smiles and nods to me every morning before he starts work pruning the mutfruit plants. He seems nice, but has the same faraway eyes that everyone else does here.

The compound from the second storey of Croup Manor.
Daphne's guard post can be seen on the left.

The other change is, we all got new beds. Oh, the small pleasures! I couldn’t believe it. I was standing my post while the Wanderer tinkered and bashed about inside the old house. When I went inside later I saw the changes – he’d fixed the holes in the floors and roof, and installed brand new frame beds for us, with mattresses (we only had flimsy sleeping bags before). Though I am so grateful for the bed, it will sure make it hard to get up every morning!

There’s something I need to share. When the Wanderer was last here, dropping off the letters and building our new beds, I accidentally overheard him talking to Dogmeat. He fusses over that dog in a way that makes my heart ache. Anyway, he was putting a few new toys around the doghouse, and he stroked Dogmeat’s head and said something. I didn’t catch it clearly, but it was like ‘I don’t know if I did the right thing, boy,’ and he said it in… well in such a distant way. It’s probably nothing. All of us who have wandered the wastelands hold regrets in our hearts and in our souls. The occasional lonely musing over it all can be excused, I think. But there’s something else. He was about to give one of the other settlers a coat. A Railroad coat. But at the last minute he changed his mind, said he’d bring something better next time, and left in a hurry. There was something in his eyes. Something much deeper than regret. It’s the first time I’ve seen anything in those eyes beyond a pale, blank stare. 

Don’t mind me... It’s late and it’s been a long day. We tuned in to Freedom Radio today. I’m very thankful for that radio. The Wanderer brought it for us. It helps to break the monotony. At first, for safety, we were going to only listen to it at night, volume down real low. But Miranda, bless her tough-as-nails soul, insisted we turn it up, loud, all day while we work the crops and guard this place. And since she got her way (Miranda always does) this place feels more like a home. The Wanderer was not too sure of it at first. He worried we wouldn’t be able to hear an attack coming. He looked right at me when he said it, and I am ashamed to admit I could not hold his stare. I don’t have your self-confidence, sis. Miranda stepped in and said we’d see an attack coming during the day, and hear it at night. It was hard to argue with her logic. The Wanderer just nodded and went about his business. I think he’s a little taken with her. She got a military cap and a laser rifle. All I got was some sunglasses. She keeps teasing him, every time he approaches her she says playfully ‘Hope you’re not here to cause trouble...' He never laughs at her jokes. I saw him smirk once. At any rate, Miranda is difficult to argue with.

Miranda at her post atop the west guard tower.

Before I forget, the last time the Wanderer was here, I got to play with Dogmeat. I noticed something – he’s got little needle scars on his neck and haunches. He’s been stimpaked a few times. It’s amazing. In this world of such chaos and barbarity, such callous and reckless hate, a man could pause long enough during a fight to administer first aid to his dog. I like this Wanderer. 
     I couldn’t help myself – I had to ask. Before the Wanderer could call Dogmeat over I leaned down, touched one of the tiny scars, and asked him, ‘stimpaks?’ 
     To this he remarked, after regarding me for just a moment, ‘Yeah. Super Mutant Suicider with a mini-nuke.’ He leaned down and stroked the dog’s fur. ‘He was a lucky boy that day.’ 
     ‘You’re good to have used a stim on him,’ I said. 
     He regarded me again in that distant way. ‘He’s been good to me,’ he said. 
     The way he said it, call me silly, but I felt sure he would have used that stimpak on Dogmeat even if it had been the last one he had. 
     ‘Where did it happen?’ I asked.
     ‘Not far from here, Nahant Wharf,’ the Wanderer said. He seemed about to go on, but instead just stroked Dogmeat’s head again. ‘We’ve been through worse.’
He started towards the front gate, and I called after him, ‘Watch yourself out there, Wanderer.’
     ‘Call me Marius,’ he said.

Our ninth comrade showed up the other day. He's been wandering the wastes for a long time, and has some kind of terrible scars on his face that he covers with a skull bandanna. He arrived one day while Marius was here, and the two of them talked quietly by the front gate for a while, before our new friend was given a pipe rifle and sent to the guard post outside the walls, the one we call the Island because when you're standing there at night it feels so very far away. He hasn't told anyone his name, and he eats alone and doesn't talk to anyone. Each day he just checks his rifle with the care of a farmer tending the only crop he's ever grown, and heads out to the Island to keep watch on the road. I managed to take a photograph of him the other day. He just looked at me, nodded, and went back to watching the road.

Daphne's 'ninth comrade', the newcomer.

It's late. I better get some sleep before the next guard shift. Write me back as soon as you can, the thought of your letters making their way to me in Marius' backpack fills me with hope each day.

With love, your little sister, Daph.

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Letters from the Wasteland - Part 1 - (Fallout 4 fan fiction)

Fallout 4 is the smash hit RPG video game by Bethesda. It was released worldwide on November 10, 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Playstation 4 and Xbox One. https://www.fallout4.com/ (all screenshots used under creative commons licence or used with permission via PS4 share) 

Note from the Wasteland: The following entries are from a series of letters discovered in the former city of Boston, Massachusetts, in 2340 AD. They are from a woman named Daphne, out in a small wasteland settlement known as Croup Manor, to her sister in Diamond City. Many of the letters contained photographs that I have interspersed throughout the narrative, with her captions where possible (in quotations) and mine where there was no description.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

April, 2288

Dearest Lucy,

So, from the chaos has emerged the Institute. The dropships are gone, and as Miranda puts it, so has 'all chance for peace in our time'. She likes to be dramatic. It's not like there was much peace before. But now we have these robots walking around telling people they’re in charge now. Apparently they fired up a new reactor that’s supposed to mean clean water for everyone. No more fighting bands of Raiders for scraps and stims. I guess down there in the big city you'd know more about it than I do. Do you think we'll really have peace here? I suppose time will tell. But how much time do we really have?

What I know is, I’ve bought myself some. I've come here to a place called Croup Manor, drawn to it by a signal beacon. I'd been sleeping in a ditch inside a ruined house and I was running low on water and had five measly .38 rounds in my pocket. I'd like to say I just needed a place to regroup for a while, trade some caps for some food and ammo before setting off again. But the truth is, I was tired, big sister, so I thought I’d do what you keep telling me to do and settle in somewhere rather than wandering the wasteland forever. Well, here I am.

This settlement was built by the guy that helped the Institute (they call him the Wanderer), so I figured that’s a good sign. I mean, at the very least I’m on the side that’s winning. Well, for now. It’s a nice place, a big old house on a hill, a little worse for wear, like all of us. It’s a little remote, but it’s out on a peninsula so it’s relatively easy to defend. That's what Miranda says anyway. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

'The Croup Manor. This was taken the day before
the defences started going up.'

Miranda talks a lot about the politics of this wretched place we call the Commonwealth. She says that since the Railroad (the ‘do-gooder-robot-lovers’ as she called them) were massacred in their own filthy basement and the Brotherhood were gunned down at the feet of their own monolithic messiah, the Synths are in charge and all that means is that now the lunatics are running the asylum.

'Miranda heading to work. It's not a good idea to get in her way.'

I don’t know about all that. Fact is now I got a roof and a bed to call my own. I got corn and carrots and mutfruit and potatoes, grown by our own hands, and clean water. Oh Lord, the clean water! What a relief that is. Maybe my stomach can finally settle down, as my weary bones have.

The Wanderer (his real name is Marius) put up walls around this place and turrets to protect us at night. I guess he liked the look of me, because he assigned me to the east guard tower and gave me a shiny new hunting rifle he said he’d modded himself. The thing takes .308s! It damn near took my shoulder apart the first time I fired it. It sure as hell beats that crappy little pipe pistol I’ve been carrying around with me these last few months. I think even the radroaches laughed at that peashooter. He gave me some metal armor too. Not sure about it yet, but it is protection. I guess carrying a little extra weight is a small price to pay for safe refuge.

The thing I like most, and this is silly… it’s the sunglasses. He gave me a pair of sunglasses. They’re not much, a little rusty and one of the lenses is scratched, but I don’t mind. During the day they cut the awful glare from out there in the Glowing Sea, and sometimes when I put them on at night I can, for just a moment, imagine that I’m somewhere else. In a world and a time that existed before the great god fell through the Earth and the land of steel and oil was consumed by fire.

I’ve replaced a settler who left, a guard. Apparently he took the armor and gun he was given and took off, maybe bound for Diamond City or a Vault somewhere to sell his newly-acquired gear for some caps. As I look at my new rifle standing proudly beside my bed under the roof that gave me shelter last night, my belly full of corn and a bottle of fresh water beside me, I know I’ll do no such thing.

Anyway, we’ve got guns, we’ve got food, we’ve got water and shelter and those beautiful turrets (my first night, their constant rattling back and forth gave me the best night’s sleep I’d had in some time), and so for now, we have hope. There are seven of us here so far, but the recruitment beacon is still turned on, humming away, so others may yet come to join us here in our little patch of paradise.

The best days here are when the Wanderer comes to check on the farm. He brings his dog with him. While his owner fiddles at the workshop, Dogmeat scurries about. He comes up onto my guard tower sometimes and sniffs at my boots. I like that. He must really love that dog. He built a doghouse for him. That more than anything else, more than the turrets, more than the ten-foot high fences, more than the guns, makes me feel secure. Because maybe if he feels the need to build a permanent shelter for a friend who has travelled the wasteland with him, and been through god-knows-what hells and seen and done god-knows-what unspeakable things to survive… I figure maybe it means we’re going to be here awhile.

'Our little patch of paradise. That's Dogmeat in the lower left.'

I’m not sure about the Wanderer yet. He’s mysterious, really quiet, but there is danger about him. He seems to have access to a lot of weapons and armor, which tells me only one thing so far – he’s a survivor. I arrived the day after the guy had taken off with the equipment the Wanderer had given him. Everyone was assembled by the bell. The Wanderer asked if we’d seen the thief leave (no-one had), and then just walked slowly around the group, as if counting us. He didn’t say anything, just turned and left. From my tower I saw him, rifle drawn, scouring the peninsula looking for the guy. In the distance I heard gunfire, then a few hours later he returned and deposited some fresh Mirelurk meat in the workshop. A lot of Mirelurk meat. Then, silently, he counted us again, and then he left.

I know the owner of the weapon I was given met some awful fate: the Wanderer had wiped the blood clean but I can see spots where it soaked into the wood of the stock. He wasn’t forthcoming, and I didn’t ask. I don’t even want to know where my armor came from (or more specifically, from whose body it was torn). Anyway, apparently at first the Wanderer spent lots of time here, putting up the fences, installing the turrets, planting the crops. Now, he comes and goes every few days. Sometimes he takes some of our food with him, other times he walks around checking on the turrets and the fences. Sometimes he just stands up on the top floor of the old house and looks out over the landscape. It’s like he’s searching for something. Maybe one day I’ll work up the courage to ask what. I know one thing: I am glad he’s on our side.

Well, the sun is coming up, I will bid you bye for now, dear sister. I have to get out there and stand my post for another day. I can hear Miranda in the next room, awake, fiddling with her rifle and muttering about something. If I get to my post after she does, she’ll never let me hear the end of it, so I better go. Hopefully this reaches you safely (the Wanderer said he’d take our letters with him next time he goes to Diamond City). Til I receive your reply, give my love to Jacob and tell him his Aunt Daphne loves him and is doing just fine.

Love you sis. Daph x

PS. I've included a picture of me. It was taken the day after I arrived...write me soon

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