Leidenschaft

The Elder Scrolls: Fruits of Contention - Chapter 1 (Completed)

I guess that damned bard is getting Solveig's help. She's for retreating back to the elevator.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

<Snipped quote by Leidenschaft>

Mind you, it doesn't mean I haven't considered it. But Abigail is waaay too small-scale to even be considered by Redding. She's kept as much distance as possible from the criminal undergrounds - she's a thief by necessity and, as you can see, she probably responded to the lowest of low-life scum out there in Freeside. Mainly because she's got enough common sense to know that she's too weak to actually make it out there. There's no way in hell she'd steal any drugs stash - she'd have to literally be dying to even consider the thought because she would inevitably end up riddled with bullet holes in a gutter.

So I gave her some different plans. She's left Freeside several years back, so I doubt she would have much involvement there anyway.

@Stitches

Well, the friendly neighborhood drug dealer is always open for business if she needs the stuff.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

Righto, just trying to make friends. I'm excited to have Redding get some action.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

Sorry, I've already got plans for her! ^^

@Stitches

Not that they should become a dynamic duo, it just pays to network in criminal undergrounds.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

Redding remembered David. He was knocking on Redding's door on Christmas eve with a sack full of caps. It was Christmas, and David was a polite man so he cut the guy a holiday deal. Two girls, one at a half-price. Francine and Kristi. He frowned at the memory of Francine, she'd died only an hour ago and Ramirez must be having fun burying her and chopping up the fucker that killed her so they could dump him somewhere. He needed something more than a drink, some pills or Med-X.

“Said he had a business opportunity for you.” David said.

Redding looked up from the bartop, “Did he now?” He asked, “And I'll get a beer.” Once David returned with his chilled bottle, he slid a few caps forward, “Thank you, David. You remember how I cut you that holiday deal when I didn't have to? Well, I need to ask you something, these caps and a free half-hour with one of my girls is in it for you if you can dig out any information from that beautiful brain of yours might be important to me.”

He looked over both his shoulders for anyone that looked particularly suspicious. When he saw nothing, he gave David his best wolf's grin, “I'd like to know about the ghoul that was in here. Heard he arrived in town with some friends, know anything?”

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

Let me just...throw this down here...

My CS

Name/Nicknames: Abigail Harlow

Age: Mid 20s

Gender: Female

Appearance: A malnourished runt of a woman, Abigail could have looked fairly beautiful were it not for the unforgiving conditions of the wastelands. Her physique is bony at best - small packs of muscle can be seen primarily on her arms and legs, but her abdomen retains the typical pot-belly and stunted growth of a starved child. She averages at around 5’2. Her hair has been haphazardly cut short and She usually wears thin, baggy clothing which makes Abigail seem even smaller than she actually is; the cloth bunches and gathers around the straps of some old sports gear she wears on top.

Race: Human

Strengths: Abigail’s hopeless when it comes to avoiding trouble, so she worked incredibly hard at being able to get out of it. She likes to label herself as an actress, when in fact she simply has a knack for thinking on the spot. Her photographic memory makes it easy for her to remember factual information such as scraps of conversation or certain mannerisms of particular people, and she can use what little she knows about her opponents to try and convince them she is either not a threat, or perhaps an ally.

Whenever she failed in her little ‘acts’ the outcome was usually a ruthless beating or getting shot, so Abigail quickly learned how to control her body right down to the facial expressions and body language. This helped immensely as, sometimes, the best thing she could do was run away. Since Abigail can’t run very far or for very long, she is far more skilled at hiding and stealth - by using her small frame and slight build, she has learned how to move around fluidly and silently.

Weaknesses: Addict, Magpie, Fragile -- The origin of Abigail’s weaknesses is undeniably her addiction to Med-X. This powerful painkiller has caused some irrevocable damage on the nervous system in her brain, making her photographic memory unreliable and being partly to blame for her compulsion to fidget. Perhaps the strongest (and weirdest) effect it has had on Abigail’s psyche is giving her magpie-like tendencies, primarily an overwhelming urge to take and hoard shiny things - even if it’s a very dangerous move to take. Her attention span is also rather short, meaning that she gets easily distracted at all the wrong moments.

A lifetime of beatings and poor nutrition has also made Abigail fragile - she takes longer to recover from physical injury, becomes fatigued easily and does terribly in hand-to-hand combat. This makes her solely dependent on her stealth and speech to truly survive - that, or the help of a few friends...

Personality: Abigail’s always been a little odd, for as long as anyone could remember. Stories in the Wasteland always focused on the hardened veterans, the ‘shoot-first-ask-questions-later’ folk, the lone wolves who can hold their own in any situation; those who are too weak to fight and survive have to find other means of keeping all their limbs intact. In Abigail’s case, she has developed a series of facades to switch between depending on the situation. The most common one is her theatrical, loud-mouthed and outgoing persona.The way she manages to maintain a constant sense of optimism, the jovial and almost theatrical way she spoke, the big smiles and boundless amounts of energy; these traits were pretty jarring when set against the backdrop of the unforgiving wastelands and its people. This bright outlook on life has undercurrents of nihilism, as she is wont to believe that everyone is going to die soon enough so there isn’t any point in wasting that time by brooding or generally being upset.

When she is hard at work or the situation demands some form of solemnity, Abigail shifts from one extreme to another. Quiet, scrutinising and very wary in her movements and speech patterns, Abigail becomes incredibly guarded and tries to remain as self-sufficient as possible. These moments are when her inferiority shine through; she acts naturally submissive, keeping out of the limelight and trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. This is for her own sake, as she is actually quite cowardly and prone to running away instead of sticking around to fight. She’s the underdog who’d rather save her own skin than risk dying over a bag of caps.

Finally, there’s a sort of childlike inquisitiveness within Abigail. She is quite analytical of situations, and though she is not the brightest she likes to boast about having more common sense than many of the people she has met. She has the potential to become a very good tinkerer, but her restlessness and painfully short attention span prevent her from doing so. Certain things tend to capture her attention for long periods of time and she uses these as a sort of calming method or a way to stave off boredom; things such as counting, checking inventory, learning how to read and write or playing with shiny objects.

Skills/Attributes: Abigail’s strongest skill is her thievery. Lockpicking, pickpocketing, sneaking into old buildings through a gap in the boarded-up windows...if there’s a thing that doesn’t belong to her, she’s got the means and the skills to grab it. Aside from that, she’s pretty much useless aside from the basics - cooking, first aid, simple repairs and the like. She likes to commend her excellent skills as a mascot, however.

Back-story:
Every time Abigail talks about her past, the story becomes more and more extravagant and outlandish to the point where the listener has a hard time trying to figure out what proportion of it was real and how much was just a rampant hallucinogenic fever dream during one of her Med-X highs. From what has been deciphered (and admittedly nobody cared that much to actually do it properly) Abigail’s early childhood is too hazy to distinguish. She’s been in Freeside of new Vegas for as long as she could remember, working as an informant to scrounge up some food. She didn’t make many friends, and ended up on the receiving end of quite a few punches.

One of Abigail’s business acquaintances suggested Med-X to help numb the pain, and she’s been addicted ever since. In order to get the caps to pay for her bad habit, Abigail took them from passers-by along with anything that looked like she could pawn it off. Her teenage years were a muddied tangle of poor excuses and lots of hiding; nobody gave a shit about a spindly little addict in Freeside, and her face was easily forgotten in the crowd of petty criminals that lived there.

Eventually, Abigail ran out of luck trying to pickpocket a local thug; she made a wrong turn into an alleyway and ended up being cornered by him and his goons. It would have taken a small miracle to make it out of that situation alive. Luckily, a stranger saw the commotion play out and decided to run after the fleeing thief. He shot the men down at point-blank range and offered Abigail a ‘second chance’ at life, seeing potential in her. Abigail took on a much more pragmatic approach and saw free food and shelter, so she jumped for the opportunity.

Abigail was initially wary of this man; he was religious, and she didn’t want to hear him preach. The prospect of finally leaving Freeside and getting to see all the weird and wonderful parts of the Wastelands was worth any sermons along the way, and the moment Abigail found out he wasn’t going to lecture her the duo got along like a house on fire. They have been travelling the Wastelands together for several years, living off bounties and mercenary work alongside Abigail’s shameless looting and thievery.

Other: N/A

@Stitches

Hey, maybe Redding and Abigail can have a thread that ties them together. With Abigail's addiction to Med-X and her tendency to go thieving, she could've stumbled across Redding's stash, which would've been the Med-X jackpot. Of course, that doesn't explain the piss in the whiskey bottle, though... Or the note...

Maybe she's asking around for Med-X in Redding's neck of the woods and that's how he finds her.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

Unfortunately, @Dismas will not be with us for the rest of our journey through the wasteland. I hope I gave Horus' story a satisfying conclusion.

@Kingfisher

Ah, goddamnit, truth be told, he was one of my favorite characters and I wanted Redding to meet him. Didn't read this until after the post, maybe if Redding follows Horus's leads, he'll at least find his body.

Oh, well, that leaves Dallen to track down, tail and question.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

So, the way my first post is going, Redding's going to be asking after Dallen and Horus, Horus first.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

Whores, pimps, drug dealers, junkies. He wondered how the tourists walking along the streets looking for a good time could turn a blind eye to the gutters teeming with the refuse of life's more shitty tendencies. He always felt a little pang of guilt seeing the other addicts who weren't afforded the good graces of powerful people and good brothers. Survivor's guilt, they called it, when you couldn't sleep and couldn't stand the thing looking back at you in the mirror knowing there was a trail of bodies sprinkled behind you. But that was the world- shitty.

“You fuckin' okay?” He heard a voice and looked at Ramirez, his .38 in his hand and one hand close to the knob of the door they were standing next to now.

He took a breath, his thumb reaching up to cock back the hammer of his pistol. He nodded. Ramirez knocked on the door, his hand still close to the knob, “Time's up, friendo! You only gave us a hundred caps and it's well past forty-five minutes.”

No answer. Redding knew what would happen next. This wasn't his first time doing this, he waited for Ramirez to jiggle the handle and find that it was locked. Then he watched as Ramirez stepped away from the door and Redding cocked back his leg, smashed his boot into the door. The frame gave some, but still held true. The neighbor didn't much like it and opened his door, but Ramirez didn't much like that himself. The squinty-eyed junkie saw the snub-nose close enough to his mouth to kiss it. The two shared a moment, reaching an understanding, and the junkie slowly closed his door.

Redding kicked the door again, smashing it in that much more before his third kick sent the door smacking against the wall on the inside. What greeted them wasn't all too unfamiliar to Redding. “Fuck.” Francine, Redding's whore, lay on the bed with a chin crusty with spittle.

The man who'd payed to fuck her was still nodding off in the corner, naked. Redding tightened his grip on his pistol, imagining the grip to be the tourist's neck. He walked up to the man, sitting in his wooden chair, half-conscious. The Tourist smiled, his eyelids fluttering and his eyes only barely focusing on him. “Thanks for the fun time, man.” He slurred and chuckled.

That put a sour taste in Redding's mouth and he was sick of this man. He looked back at Francine, she was one of the only whores in New Reno that wasn't a sore-covered junkie. She was the reason why Redding was one of the most successful independent pimps in the city. Now she was dead, nothing but meat and there went Redding's money. “You killed her?” Redding asked.

“I did? I only gave her what she needed...” The man licked his lips and looked at Francine on the bed and now he noticed what Redding did. She wasn't breathing. “Oh, fuck.”

“Oh, fuck is right.” Redding smacked the man upside the head with his pistol and he fell to the ground.

“Oh, shit, man. Wait,” The man was saying, a dark wound on his forehead yawning open and drooling blood. Redding swallowed, his lip curling, the way the man was laying there was disgusting, the way he was pleading was putrid. This piece of shit fucked with his money and there weren't many people alive or would be for long that did that. “I didn't- I didn't mean to, I got money, a lot. I can pay, man, shit!”

Redding lined up his sights and squeezed off two rounds in the man's lower chest. The Tourist slumped back, one of holes in him bubbling with each breath. His fingernails still scraped on the floorboards just a bit until he took a breath that sounded like a tub draining and sent a spray of blood from his mouth to his bare chest and died. Redding stood there and watched. This man fucked with his money. That was all. Just his money, only his money, and now it was done. That was the life he chose and friends came and went. No reason dwelling on it. “Jesus, Red, you sure you're okay?” Ramirez said, “Drugs fuckin' with your brain, man. Gotta get off that shit, how're you gonna sell the shit to junkies and be one yourself?”

“I seem to be making it work so far.” Redding tucked his pistol in near his waist and walked out of the room, Ramirez following after him. The two walked out of the apartments and down the street to their own. He reached out to the knob but before he could slip the key into the hole, the doorknob turned and opened, revealing the mess that was his room in the hotel-turned-apartment building.

It wasn't a mess when he left it. He brought out his pistol and pushed the door open, stepping inside as softly as he could. He couldn't hear anyone rooting around anywhere, so they had to have already gone. The drugs, he thought. He went straight to the suitcase filled with jet and prescription meds, finding it empty. A note was inside. He picked up the piece of paper between finger and thumb, unfolding it and finding only an infuriating, vague message- This is mine now, find me when you want it back. Redding snarled, crumpling up the piece of paper and throwing it over his shoulder, grasping up the bottle of whiskey near the mattress on the floor that was his bed.

He unscrewed the cap but before he put the bottle to his mouth, he stopped himself, only growing more angry. “They fucking pissed in my whiskey.”

“No...” Ramirez's mouth hung open, his eyes narrowed.

“Took my drugs, pissed in my drink, killed my fr-” His eyes flitted to Ramirez for half a second, “Killed my finest whore. She was worth a-fucking-lot, goddamnit.” He closed his eyes, his head hanging, “Fuck!”

He sent the bottle skidding across the floor, dumping pissy whiskey in the corner. Ramirez sat on his own mattress, at least standing the bottle up and laying a stray towel that was on the floor over the puddle of piss-whiskey. “The fuck're we gonna do.”

“We're going hunting.” Redding stuffed his pistol in his holster, tucked away in his waistband, and an extra magazine next to it.

“For who?” Ramirez asked, though he was loading up the weapons with no complaint.

“We'll ask around, I guess. They're bound to make it clear who did it, they don't send a message for no reason.” Redding stood, slipping on his jacket, “Never fuck with a man's money, or his drugs.”

* * *

The Cracked Glass, a small dive bar near Redding's apartment building. The bartender knew Redding, and he would hook him up with jobs for nameless clients, that way Redding didn't have to meet with anyone he didn't know and they didn't have to meet him. He slid five caps forward and Ryan, the tender, stepped up. “What'll it be?”

“Information, Ryan. Anyone been through here with far too many drugs for one night? New faces in town?” Redding asked. "I don't remember pissing off the Lazzaris or the Torres'. I'm pretty under the radar, last time I checked."

“Big bank likes taking little banks, Red. Wasn't long ago, you beat the shit out of Ramirez's gang and took their shit. But, yeah, actually. Group of 'em blew in today. Couple of 'em have been digging pretty deep into the town's shady parts. Ain't no tourists, people been saying, business trip, know what I mean?”

“Mm.” Redding nodded, “What do they look like, these guys.”

“One of 'em's a fuckin' zombie. The other's a tall fucker in a suit, talk about a high profile. Either one of 'em could be an interesting conversation.” Ryan coughed into a fist, “Anything to drink?”

“Whiskey.” Redding licked his lips, one drink before he'd go and handle business. Either find that fucker in a suit or have some words with the ghoul. “You know where these guys were last, at least?”

“Snooping around some of the Lazzari's places. Zombie left the Desperado some time ago, last I heard, Suit-n-Tie was at the Shark Club. And there,” He poured the whiskey in the glass, two fingers, no chill or ice, “On the house.”

Redding slammed the whiskey with no sense of ceremony, two big gulps, only slightly grimacing. A good shiver went down his spine and he shook his head, growling. He pushed the door open and stepped back outside, making a fist to pop his knuckles and sniffed, scanning the street. He made his way towards the Desperado, sure steps leading him there. Mancini would know about most of the people who entered the bar, or at least the bartender would. Once he got inside, there was no sign of the big-named Mancini that he could see, at least not now, but the bartender was still there. He stepped up, taking a seat on a stool and waited for the bartender to take notice of him, letting him serve some other patrons.

Fallout: Under Silver Skies [Closed]

My only gripes with Oblivion is that it felt bland and cultureless. I get that the game was about portals to hell opening and whatnot, but Morrowind and Skyrim, despite my gripes about that game, did a better job of showing off the unique and detailed cultures of their respective provinces. Morrowind is pretty clunky and a bit dated, but the way it presented Morrowind's people and customs was something that felt absent from the other games.

Compared to Morrowind, Cyrodiil is a run-of-the-mill not!Central/Western Europe-centric fantasy land. I would've liked to see the pretty clear divide between Nibenean and Colovian culture, as well as the racial divide between the man races, the Argonians, and the Khajiit in Bravil and Leyawiin.

@Kingfisher Am I correct in assuming that all the other characters are still looking for leads on Donna Lazzari and whatnot? Would Donna Lazzari send thugs out to bully small-time drug dealers into getting under her wing so she can take a cut of their profits and bug them for protection money?

Because, if so, Redding likes to be under more laissez-faire conditions and that might mean butting heads with Lazzari, which would put him on the side of the PCs.