The day had finally arrived,it was 19 years in the making but I finally did it. All the hours slaving away at my crappy minimum wage job had paid off. With this last paycheck I had finally saved enough money to actually build a proper Gaming PC. To award this crowning achievement I decided to start off with playing a game I always wanted to play modded : Fallout 4. Now I had played the original game of course but all the mods I installed were sure to make it feel brand spanking new. I even splurged and bought myself the Pipboy edition strapping the replica onto my wrist with my phone inside giddy with excitement. The Fallout series was arguably one of my favorite franchises and the reason I discovered it in the first place was pretty funny. See i myself lived in Springvale Virginia, which just so happened to be a location featured in Fallout 3. One day when I was randomly googling my town I came across the Fallout wiki which made me begin to play as just a curiosity which then became an obsession.

I pondered my first experience with the game as it booted was taking a while to start up but it was fair considering all the mods I had installed. I didn't really care about looks just the gameplay so the mods I downloaded to use were Fallout Wanderers Edition,Marts Mutant Mod(F3),Monsters Mod(FNV),Ultimate Perk pack,More Perks,2 perks per level,Mother Ship Zeta Crew,Mtc Wasteland Travelers,A World of Pain(FNV,F3),Atomic World, Mythic Monsters, Mythic creatures, Exotic Enemies, Fallout Miami, Fallout project Mojave, Fallout project wasteland, Fallout Appalachia, Fallout New california, Fallout new vegas bounties 1 & 2 ,Wanderlust,Forgotten cove island, Fallout Northern springs,South of the sea, Beyond the borders, Shipwreck isle,Journey to Ipswich, The wilderness, Project lunar, and finally Scrap everything. There were many more mods with me losing track of some of them Most of the mods took place in fallout 4s original map as there weren't really many that were made compatible on the new engine.

In the spirit of being a massive nerd I even had on my armored vault suit cosplay. The Game finally booted up but instead of the regular loading screen all it said was click to start. 'Huh one of the mods must have changed the load screen' I thought to myself. I was taken to another screen where it asked me to type in my name. John Cruz. As I pressed enter the next screen popped up you will now choose S.P.E.C.I.A.L, Traits, and tagged skills all choices are final. I figured this was a permadeath feature added by one of the mods which was neat. I had decided that this run I was going to play a character similar to myself so I made it accordingly.

John Cruz

Level : 1 (0/200)

Strength:6

Perception:7

Endurance:5

Charisma:4

Intelligence:7

Agility:5

Luck:6

For my tagged skills I went : Medicine,science,and guns since in real life this is what I knew the most about as I was studying nursing, minored in computer science , and enjoyed going to the shooting range with my dad.

Next up were the 2 traits I got to pick . After scrolling a bit I decided to go with Four Eyes, and Skilled as these fit me the best.

With that i pressed enter and the screen went completely black. Shit did it crash already I said tapping the screen when I noticed my wrist was becoming increasingly hot. I looked and my pipboys screen had begun shining ,a green light emanating from the phone screen then started beeping rapidly and words appeared on its screen transfer imminent as it began to heat up around my wrist even more. I started panicking attempting to take it off or shut it down to no avail. The Light became brighter and brighter till it erupted in a flash of light blinding me and causing me to pass out.

I blinked a few times as I came too sitting up and rubbing my eyes ."God what happened my brain feels like it got put in a blender" I said massaging my temples.

I looked around and saw I was completely in the dark, only the light from my blinds illuminating my room. Looking down at my wrist I tried to get the Pip Boy off one last time but no dice , it seemed glued to my skin. Fiddling with the knob and switching it on. The screen flashed to life with the signature Vault Boy giving me a thumbs up. I flipped through all the tabs and found them to be exactly as they were in game. Status,Inventory,Data,Map,Radio. Scrolling through it I saw that in inventory all I had equipped was an Armored Vault 101 suit and Eyeglasses. It was at this point I started to freak out a little bit.

'This was way too detailed to be a dream. This is bad, like really really bad'. I calmed myself and got up from my chair walking to the window. I pulled the blind to reveal what I had been fearing in front of my eyes was the ruins of my neighborhood. Of the houses I could see from my window all looked run down with some of their roofs caved in and windows broken. The real kicker however was that from my window I could see a familiar red rocket gas station which was not something that was normally in my neighborhood. I immediately shut the blinds and curled up into my bed hyperventilating.

'Fuck fuck fuck I'm so fucked why couldn't I have been isekaid while playing Pokémon or something'. After a good 5 minutes of yelling quietly into my pillow in frustration followed by 10 minutes of crying about possibly never seeing my family again I calmed down and decided to buck up. 'Ok ok I need to get my head on straight and get some protection before a raider or some mutated monster busts down my door' I thought, giving myself two quick slaps on the cheek.

I quickly ran over to my parents room and accessed the safe grabbing the .38 caliber revolver from within. I loaded it up with 6 bullets and looked at the box of 110 rounds left within. Ok let's see how this inventory works I said touching the box. I focused and willed the rounds to disappear and to my surprise it did just that, disappearing from existence before my eyes. I found the inventory could just make things appear and reappear and in the case of weapons it would just spawn in my my pip boy I saw that now in my inventory sat 110 rounds of .38 fmj rounds. I tried it with my revolver and it would disappear and reappear in my hand. 'How handy I thought would make switching in combat easy just had to make sure each gun was always loaded and I could do some fortnite esque gun moves'.

I resummoned the revolver and went downstairs quietly doing a quick scan finding nothing amiss in my home. I quickly went to my garage to retrieve my fathers scoped hunting rifle, loading it and putting the rest of the bullets away. While in the garage I also made sure my solar generator was still working but it seemed to be switched off for now. I considered turning them on but my Ac would make some noise booting up which would probably give away my entire position. In my garage I found something even more interesting however , as it seems my dad's arts and crafts station had turned into a workbench. I reached out and touched the workbench and immediately I saw 2 rows of information in front of my vision detailing the settlement's details. The top row had information on how much food,water,people and defense the settlement currently had. The main things I saw were that under people it read 1 and that defense was in the negatives but thinking about it, it made sense considering there was a raider base literally a brisk walk away. Having the settlement system was basically a godsend as it worked like magic. I looked toward my old bicycle and was able to recycle it which made its components transfer into the work bench. I forced myself to not experiment more as I looked out the window for any movement and began trying to plan my next moves.

According to my Pipboy the date was August 1st 2277. Consulting the lore books in my room meant that Fallout 3 was about to start in t minus 16 days. That was something to worry about in the not too distant future but right now I just had to I set down my Lorebook I got an idea and went to my tiny collection room. See as a massive weeb I had a few posters and statues of different anime I liked which meant I had also collected some Fallout bobbleheads. Seeing them on the shelf I reached out and grabbed the nearest one, the strength Bobble. As soon as I grabbed it the Bobble disappeared in my hand magically. As a green notification appeared briefly. +1 strength added. I became giddy with excitement and quickly grabbed the rest of them. +1 Luck,+1 Agility,+1 intelligence,+1 Endurance , and lastly Toughness. I cursed myself for not completing the collection before as I looked down at my pip boy to see the changes.

Flipping through my Pipboy I decided to check out the settings tab and all that I found was something called HUD settings in the data tab with everything currently set to off. I turned everything on and now I could see my health and action points in the bottom right as well as a line marking the direction and degrees. With that out of the way I felt secure enough to take a peek outside. As I opened the door I felt the dry heat of the wasteland as the sun beared down on me. I gripped my rifle as I looked around, spotting no enemies and my minimap was clear as well.

'Ok game plan i need to set up a generator and some turrets before some raiders come sniffing around'. I went back inside and started looking around at stuff to scrap. First off were the 2 lamps in my parents room and the one in the living room. This netted me a total of 12 copper and 6 glass. Next up was my old iphone which netted me . I also scrapped 2 of the bars of dove soap I had and thanked my mother for being such a sucker for buying bulk deals and lastly scrapped a couple of tools in the garage to get up to 20 steel. After that I built the generator placing it in the middle of my garage and opened the garage ever so slowly to avoid making any sounds. I then placed a turret on either side of my driveway and connected them to the generator via wires that magically came into existence. The thing is that they were pretty loud releasing a decently loud mechanical noise of all of them chugging. Seeing as the noise was decently loud I quickly locked the garage door leaving only space for the wires and went upstairs looking out with my rifle from the window to see if it had attracted any attention. From the second story I could see the springvale school sign if I zoomed in but didn't spot anyone. I let out a breath of relief as I got to cataloging my belongings while scraping a few more useless junk laying throughout the house.

I only did this for 15 minutes till my nerves became too much to handle. There was no way I could sit idly by while cold hearted murderers sat not even a mile from me. I steeled my nerves and went out my front door being very quiet and making sure to shut the door ever so slowly. I walked forward with the hunting rifle held in my hands and decided to go left, walking to the back toward the water tower and making a left toward deciding to go around for some modicum of cover. If i remembered correctly there should be 2 raiders who keep looking out outside of the school and then probably around 10 more inside. There were quite a few broken houses and I ended up crossing quite a bit of distance as I trudged along the path ever wary of enemies. As I got to the last bit of cover from one of the broken houses I looked around and still saw no one but erring on the side of caution. I ran over to the rocky hill deciding to go around and take position on the hill. I got as close as I could before my compass alerted me to an enemy causing me to lay down and set up a tripod facing toward the entrance. Sure enough when I looked through the scope I indeed saw a man dressed in some funky beat up looking armor smoking a cigarette leaning against the wall.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

I lined the crosshairs up with the side of the man's head but immediately started trembling.

'Could I really do this? That person down there was a living breathing man with his own life who was I to just kill him , heck I don't even know if he's evil could I really just kill him just because a game said he was the bad guy'. I was broken from my thoughts when I saw my compass alert me to enemies to the east and what I saw made me immediately reevaluate my stance on the situation.

Coming down from the east was a group of 4 armed raiders and with them tied up and beaten were two people. The two people wore dirty rags, one was an older woman and the other a child. From just zooming in I could see the older of the two women had bruises on her arms and even a black eye. This was all I needed to steel myself toward a decision. My father had always taught me one thing above all else: protect those who cant protect themselves. I steeled myself and activated V.A.T.S still too shaken to consciously shoot them myself i'd rather make the magic possess me. I targeted each of their heads once with the closest at the door having a 95 percent chance and the rest of them each having an 80 percent save for the one heading up the rear which had a 75% chance. I confirmed it and felt the weird feeling as my body was possessed and everything moved in slow motion with me as a passenger.

The first bullet ran true shooting the guard raider right in the temple killing him instantly. The second shot rang out not even a second later and hit one of the guard raiders right between the eyes. As I reloaded the next bullet into the chamber I saw in slow motion as the faces of the raiders and the captives morphed into fear as they tried to react but they were too slow. The next bullet rang out and hit the left guard right in his eye. The last raider however got lucky as 75% truly does mean there is a chance of failure and the bullet whizzed by his left ear leaving him very much alive as I regained control of my body.

"Shit shit shit" I said, reloading my next bullet but it was too late. The raider opened fire on my general direction with his submachine gun and I ducked back down in fear. The volley of gunfire however didn't last long as I heard another single shot ring out and then everything went quiet. I waited a couple of seconds before peaking out looking down my scope and saw the raider laying dead with the mother on her knees hugging the younger girl with one of the pistols at her side. Perfect she must have picked up one of the dead raiders pistols and finished the job herself.

I looked at my minimap and they showed up as white showing they were friendly but regardless I inventoried my hunting rifle and brought out my revolver. I got out from behind cover and started making my way toward them trying to look as non aggressive as possible with my hands in the air showing I was coming in peace. The lady seeing me approach had briefly leveled her gun at me but quickly put it down I guess realizing I was the one who helped her. I was almost right next to her when I saw another red marker appear on my hud this time from behind.

"Shit" I cursed whirling around and bringing my revolver up. I had just enough time to turn around to see a raider come out from the side of the school. I didn't want to risk using V.A.T.S in the open so I opened fire on the raider and he did the same. Thankfully my decent Guns skill ran true and the raider went down with 3 hits to the torso. Unfortunately however he scored a hit of his own. A sharp burning pain ripped through my left arm as I cried out in pain. The pain caused me to stumble as it burned like hell but if anything I felt it hurt less than I thought it should.

The thought was quickly put out of my mind by the voice of a woman behind me "Thank you so much for helping us stranger. Are you okay that last Raider shot you '' said the mother while the daughter hid behind scared.

"Yes I'll live but let's loot them and get out of the open. I have a base we can rest up at." I said as I reloaded my revolver and kept an eye on our surroundings. The two quickly got to work searching the dead raiders pockets and it surprised me how unphased they were but then again this was the wasteland you'd have to get used to all this quick to survive. Within 2 minutes we had looted everything and retreated back to my side of the town. As we got close to the house the two turrets turned toward us noticing our approach but then went back to the rotating I guess seeing we were not a threat. The mother on edge had almost opened fire on the turrets but I stopped her when I told her they were mine. Getting into the house both of the women looked around at the clean surroundings with stars in their eyes.

"Ok now that we're safe my name is Jake , it's nice to meet you, " I said, leading them to the living room where I found the first aid kit and began to disinfect the wound.

"Thank you for saving us Jake. My name is Mary and this is my daughter Ana." Seeing me unpack the first aid kit Mary spoke up, "Wait here one of the raiders had this on him" she said, presenting me with a syringe that had a little clock on it.

I gingerly accepted it "Thank you how lucky that they had a Stimpak" I said. I inspected it closely and it seemed ok to use. I mean everyone did it but I took an alcohol swab and cleaned the needle part. I had Mary check the wound and it thankfully went through so I didn't have to dig it out. "Bottoms up," I said, injecting myself. I immediately felt itchy but it soon subsided and in the mirror I could see the wound rapidly stitching back together. The mom and daughter pair sat around in the stools awkwardly as if they were too scared to move or touch anything. "Well if you'd like I can get you some clothes and towels to shower with," I said.

At the word shower the ladies' eyes perked up. "Yes please" exclaimed Ana saying her first words since she arrived before she quickly defaulted back to being shy. I let out a light chuckle at that and got them both a towel and some of my smaller sized clothes to wear leading them over to the guest bedroom. "I'll be downstairs you guys let me know when you're ready".

Now the reason I was helping them was simple: it was the right thing to do and it benefited me in the long run. See i wouldn't be in my base forever and with these two indebted to me for saving there life im sure i could trust them to not just run away first chance they get. Besides when i get around to starting the farm someone has to tend to it. I Took a look at my health and saw it was topped up but what was interesting was that I had gained some experience points for those raider kills. At 15 xp a pop the 5 raiders boasted me 75 xp that coupled with the 2 turrets and my generator sat me at 110 xp. Hmm a couple more kills and I could level up and get a nice juicy perk. With the girls being busy upstairs I also got to work making a list of all the food and water I currently had available. Since we were an active family we had a lot of water stockpiled and considering purified water was rare here I was glad. The first thing I would do when I cleared the raiders would be to make a water purifier myself. The girls came back from freshening up with the wipes and looked much better plus when coupled with the deodorant they actually smelled human.

"Now that you two are feeling better, how about you go play with the toys upstairs while me and your mom talk a bit" . Ana looked toward her mom who nodded before running back upstairs with a smile on her face. I watched the little girl run upstairs before I turned back towards Mary "So How about you–".

As I turned back I noticed Mary had taken off her top and was in the middle of taking off her shorts. "Wait wait what are you doing?" I said, turning my head away and covering my eyes.

"What do you mean isn't this why you saved us?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"No no please just put your clothes on," I said still covering my eyes. A few moments later she gave me the ok to look back as she was fully clothed. I let out an awkward cough. "Now then i didn't save you for any sexual reasons , you guys were in trouble and i had the means to help you which brings me to what i was originally going to say please tell me the story of how you guys ended up in this situation".

"Well you see me and Ana were part of a small wandering trade community in the wasteland. While our group wasn't heavily armed we traveled the safe roads and tried to just pass between settlements. We were on our way to Arefu from Megaton when our group was attacked by these raiders in the middle of the night. Sadly in the chaos me and Ana were separated and captured. Thankfully nothing worse happened as they said the boss Rosco wanted all first dibs" she said that last part disgusted. "If you ever meet that guy do me a favor and put a bullet right between his eyes"

At that last sentence a notification popped up in my hub much to my surprise.

School showdown

Eliminate Rosco the raider who has holed up in Springville elementary.

This is perfect. I already planned to take them out since they were right there but now I have even more reason to. The thing is I was not ready for an upfront assault on that raider base maybe if i picked up a good perk at level 2 but certainly not right now. As i considered what to do i got an idea not a bright idea but an idea nonetheless. See one of the mods that potentially carried over into this world was A world of pain. This mod added a variety of new locations with enemies and one such location should be located below springvale in the sewers. Was fighting zombies in a dark sewer smart no. Was it better than getting into a shoot out by myself with some Raiders hell yes.

"Trust me I plan to take care of that raider problem soon but first I have to get some better gear. Out of curiosity, do you know how far we are from Megaton?"

The lady put her hand to her chin in thought "Well I think maybe a day's walk from here give or take. If you're thinking about going there to get some help though, don't bother, the police force isn't what it used to be; they barely have enough people to keep in the town" she said.

"Hmm as far as i remembered the sheriff was supposed to be the only one there but it seems like there might actually be a bigger police force now. Now that I think of it, the distance between the raiders and me seems much larger. I had to pass a whole 3 blocks of houses before getting to the school so it's likely they won't find us anytime soon".

"Okay here's the plan: those raiders have too much of a presence here for us to sneak by them to Megaton. We're safe here for now because I set up shop here very discreetly and they think this area is looted but sooner or later someone might come poking around. To be able to take them down I'm going to need some better gear so I'm going to go into the sewers and get some."

Mary looked at me for a couple of seconds with a blank expression "That is a terrible idea, sewers could be filled with all sorts of mutated creatures they'll tear you apart".

"Well you know what they say, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger '' I said, smiling.

With that I got to work around the house finding more things to scrap until I finally got enough for another turret, arranging them all in a way so that the entrance to my house would have no blind spots. I had Mary stay inside for all this as I didn't want her thinking I was a magic man or something until I was sure I could take a bullet if she took it the wrong way.

I went back inside and left some food and water on the counter for them. "Ok Mary i'll be back , the turrets are programmed to shoot anyone who isn't us so you should be safe here. I should be back in a couple of hours. I'm going to go down in the sewers and gather some loot."

"I'll be sure to keep the house safe" she said holding the pipe pistol she had looted from the raider.

"Good luck " said Ana, eating a chocolate bar i had given her.

I patted her on the head "Oh c'mon I don't need luck , it's a sewer. What's the worst that could happen down there?" I said laughing to her.