Like a wolf to the slaughter.

I would sleep for longer, perhaps spend a day or two relaxing, but the profit margin of my present endeavor is slim enough as it is – any tiddly-farting about is going to cut into available funds pretty significantly. With water costing good caps, and with food at a premium, I’m going to have to make good use of my time.
I give Veronica all of the rubbish I hadn’t yet put on display, and then grimly trudge out to see what fresh horrors await me. Good times.

Unfortunately it looks like today has got more in common with my original trip out then my more profitable expedition. I pick through old homes long open to the air and old shops that have long since been picked clean. This is outside Vegas so it’s predictable that they have had anything valuable taken – but these are also picked clean of old clothing, cups and other rubbish I might normally scavenge… err… I mean… “prospect”. The cupboard is bare.

On the bright side... I guess it has great in-door, out-door flow.

I get the feeling someone else was here first

Picking my away through the ruins is a fairly depressing exercise. Normally the melancholy task of sifting through a forgotten civilisation is mitigated by sweet loot. That’s not the case here: it’s just the bare bones of a long-dead city and no trace is left of whoever lived here.

Eerie

Eerie-er. More eerie? Eerie-ist?

I catch a lucky break when I find an old house packed with pre-war artifacts. Mostly cups, pots and such – but I can sell it all for scrap.

Perhaps I should have noticed that this was the only building out here that wasn’t collapsed and inaccessible.
I might have wondered why all the windows were blacked out.
Possibly I should have noted that this was the only place here that hadn’t been picked clean.
And conceivably I ought to have asked myself why that might be.

And yet the inevitable ambush was still quite the shock when I wondered back out into the sun.

Boom! A lucky find!
OR IS IT?

It appears that some drugged-up raiders from the fiends were able to clear their heads long enough lay a rudimentary trap – a trap baited with the meager salvage available in this house. Although anyone with a lick of sense would have seen it from a mile away, poor ol’ Joe was too caught up with joy at having found something he could plunder.

The ambush wasn’t too well planed and it turns to a bit of a shambles, because while my aggressors have fairly advanced weaponry, all but one have almost no armour. That’s a distinct advantage to Joe’s favourite little 10mm pistol, which had zero issues filling them with lead.

"Hey, frank - how do these overalls look for the raid this afternoon?"
"Not too bad, Bruce. But don't you want something with more armour?"
"Naw, it'll be fine. Pass me my goat hat."

Pity you can't armour your face

I should perhaps be a little upset about the ambush, but frankly the weapons and armour I just got from the Fiends is worth more than anything I found in the house. It proves once again that I could be much richer if I just took up highway robbery. Of course, in that line of work people have the tendency to shoot back.

Also on a bitter-sweet note, Joe has levelled up yet again – further testament to my inability to avoid trouble.

After lugging all my new crap back to the strip I don’t bother putting the weapons on display – I instead take them over to the pawn shop and trade them for caps and ammo. I’m running short after my little run-in with the fiends.

So… I walked right into an ambush, but it was the most profitable thing to happen since I got here.
So I guess that’s good thing?
Right?