CRITICAL EDIT: Haute Ecole Rider pointed out that 1) I'd used a variant of Julian without his permission, and 2) that I'd varied too far from the essential Julian as well. So there's no Julian in this splay any more.

Preface

It's probably a bit early to start posting this second fanfic, but seeing as I already have a chunk of the story... researched... I have no compunction about posting it already. If a fanfic in which Cyrodiil yankees land in Three Dog's court isn't suitable on this forum, just say so and I won't continue.

It's set in the future after the following events:

1. The elevation of Ra'jirra to the position of Arch-Mage
2. His marriage to S'jirra
3. The Oblivion crisis and the equally nasty affair of the Knights of the Nine, which was resolved by Zul gro-Radagash, Champion of Cyrodiil. (Ra'jirra and Zul don't play well together.)

More importantly, this should ensure your regular dose of everyone's favourite khajiit mage until I save up enough for a new graphics card. The original Chronicles will be restarted then, probably in November.

Chapter 0. Prologue

"Now what's going on here?" I asked the pilus once my horse was stabled at Black Plateau.

I wasn't in a good mood. Five days ago, I'd been having a pleasant week with my family at Faregyl Inn when I received the summons. The kits are growing up so fast; R'mara and Sheeyin are following in their mother's footsteps - along with 'Auntie Abhuki's' – and with any luck will run the inn just as well. At least, once they get big enough to cook and see over the top of a broom.

Don't tell anyone, but we're thinking of taking over the Inn of Ill Omen as well. Gods know that place needs a decent cook at least.

J'dargo... well, he's a big boy and I've told him that when he's older there'll surely be a place in the Legion or the Fighter's Guild for him, if he doesn't go getting himself killed first.

And no, I will never bring them to live in the Imperial City. S'jirra hates the big smoke, and I'm not making her unhappy. Well, more than I have to. Besides, you all know by now about how so many buildings there became slaughterhouses at the height of the Oblivion crisis.

Let me tell you a truth: Despite what that cretinous "Champion of Cyrodiil", Zul gro-Kissmyarse-Radagash says, it was me who closed the gate threatening the Faregyl Inn and the Inn of Ill Omen. I even have the sigil stone, since I knew damn well that any stones that moronic snot golem found would be turned into enchanted gimcracks before you could say chump.

Anyway, the aforementioned summons was in the form of a rather tattered-looking apprentice who stumbled through the door four days ago. "Arch-mage!" cries he, looking very tired and like he misplaced a lot of blood somewhere. And here I am sitting in a corner reading The Children's Anuad to them.

So I get up and over to this apprentice who's bleeding all over our nice clean floor and land a healing spell on him. "What the hells have you been doing?" asks I, "playing with those bandits around Horn Cave?"

He just gave me a sickly look and I make a note to pay the drunken swines a visit. "At the bridge," says he. Ah. Better pay the lazy drunken Legion swines a visit instead then.

"Well," says I, "We'll put you up for the night, at twenty drakes." And he looks at me like a stunned slaughterfish and I explain, "That's bed, potions and labour. You can deliver your message tomorrow."

Then I grin to let him know I was teasing.

"Arch-mage," gods he was persistent! "I have a message from Vito."

And I just look at him. What did the pilus of Black Plateau want?

"The message can wait," says I, "let's get you sorted." And I swing everyone into action and grab J'dargo before he can head out the door.

"No," says I.

"Dad!" whines he, "I'm going to kill those ban-dits!"

"No," says I, "you're too young." And at twelve he was too. "Besides the bridge is six hours away, and they have big axes, and big swords, and bows and spells that will get you before you see them."

Well! He draws himself up to his full height and stares at me from around stomach level.

"I can see in the dark," says he correctly, "I'll kill them all first!"

This is why heroes shouldn't settle down and have kids. I think Trey, you know, the Nerevarine, would agree with me. He didn't let Athlain hare out the door with a toy mace at twelve years old in the dead of night, so why should I?

So I do the only thing I can. I'm bigger than he is, so I yank his mace out of his hand and stick it in my belt. J'dargo knows better than to try and take it from my belt, because when I take his mace off him, I'm serious.

And I look at him and he looks at me and sags. "Please?"

"No." The world would be a better place if more parents put their foot down and said no to their kids. I've got into all sorts of trouble just from wearing my distaste on my face when confronted with brats and their servile sires and/or dams. And I've got out of all sorts of trouble when they recognised me.

And the children of the aristocracy are the worst, which is another reason I'm not bringing my family to the Imperial City.

Anyway I turn away from J'dargo – case closed, father knows best – and he slopes off to mope with his toy soldiers to the amusement of the other patrons.

And I go up to check on our visitor. I find him in better fettle, partly due to the silver flash of healing magic observable under the door.

"You able to talk?" and he nods, but looking a little woozy still.

"Did you come all the way from Black Plateau?" asks I.

"No," says he, "the message came to your chambers at the Arcane University, and Master Polus called for a messenger." And he shrugs.

"I'll discuss your run-ins later," says I, "Now, what's the message?"

And he points to a sealed packet on the dresser; fortunately my girls are sensible and know better than to read the Arch-mage's mail – even if he is formally known as 'Daddy' or 'Husband'. So I opens it and find:

Ra'jirra,

Tuls Laren has had a fire in his laboratory as of 3 bells post-noon, 26 Last Seed 3E445. I think you should come and see this as soon as you can.

Brucellus Vito
Pilus Prior
Black Plateau Magical Research Institute

PS. Don't call me Bruce in front of the men.

That’s Bruce for you. A decorated hero from the battle of Bruma, but a knee smashed beyond repair condemned him to ‘manning the wooden fort’. He may be deskbound, but don't underestimate him. He effectively manages the place with an iron fist.

But at the same time, he knows I'm a busy Khajiit. I've got the various guilds to keep under control; the Guardians of Oblivion to worry about; battlemagi to train in order to deal to said Guardians of Oblivion; a whole new set of buttocks to kiss under Chancellor Ocato and that oaf of a Champion, Zul gro-Radagash; and the Bruma guildhall still isn't back up to speed yet. So he wouldn't summon me for a common or garden laboratory fire.

Moreover, he had a method of directly communicating with me in case of emergency. Whatever had happened in Laren's lab wasn't life-threatening yet, but he still felt I needed to see it.

The apprentice had either fallen asleep or passed out, so I slipped out into the hall. My darling S'jirra was there with a small bowl.

"Some brroth forr the apprrentice," says she softly.

"He's just passed out for now," says I softly, "but he gave me the message. I'm wanted at Black Plateau."

I hate it when S'jirra looks sad. I'd rather see her smile that smile that feels like warm sun in my heart. "Don't worry," says I, "I'm not leaving now. They can wait until tomorrow, when I've finished vital important business here." And I look her up and down in that way that always makes her chuckle and in this case almost spill the broth.

"Silly kit!" says she, "I will take this in, then we will rretirre forr yourr verry vital imporrtant business!"

And so she did and, once we finally got the kits in their own beds, we did. Allow me to add here three asterisks, to indicate the pleasant passing of many hours.


At dawn we were woken by various grunts and bustles as Abhuki and some of our guests got up and about, readying themselves to head off. And so did I – reluctantly.

My little pride came out as I, looking resplendent in my now increasingly long in the tooth 'travelling clothes' – Ayleid armour, the black bow from my Leyawiin days, and a silver mace I hung onto "just in case" – prepared to mount the white gelding I'd got to replace the unicorn and match my shield.

"Now then hot stuff," says I to J'dargo sternly, "I'll be back between a week or a fortnight, depending on what's going on, so I want you to take care of your mum and Auntie Abhuki–"

"I'll defend them with my life!" Yep, definitely warrior material. But he needs to develop brains to balance his brawn, or maybe it's that I gave him his mace back. Local rats beware!

"–and your sisters," making those two kits giggle. J'dargo made a face, but I gave him a stern look. "No arguments," says I.

"Yes, father," he knows better than to argue about that.

And so with the farewell cries of my family echoing behind me, I rode off into the sunrise to the Black Plateau Imperial Mage's Guild Research Facility.

Interesting. Oh, and funny as hell

Congrats on thread two !! I'll be back to read the chapter when I've had some coffee!


ARGH! It's Julian of Anvil !!!!!! She's everywhere !!!!

You have me wondering about Black Plateau for a while. Then when I saw Julian's letter, it all made sense. I suppose Gordon Freeman has already vanished? Ra'jirra better watch for headcrabs, rather than mudcrabs!

My doggie nose sniffs out a wild ride here. As well as (immodestly) spotting a reference or two to some people I know...

And Julian appears again. She is more ubiquitous than that Waldo fella....

Can't quote everything, so I will just pick one:



Don't you hate it when that happens?

I've just had PMs with Haute Ecole Rider. He and I agree that I not only neglected to ask permission first, but I also deviated too far from who Julian is.

As such I have basically rewritten her out of the story.

Oh, I thought you had permission - I was going to jump on Hauty while she was saying yes and have Owyn meet Julian and develop an unrequited attraction to her.

This part of the story was the most fun and challenging to write, since obviously there are concepts and objects Ra'jirra is going to experience first-hand that have no parallels in Tamriel, not to mention they don't know how to spell them anyway.

Chapter 1. Black Plateau

As I mentioned, I arrived five days later at Black Plateau in a bad mood. Normally the trip takes four days, but a pack of slavers had the nerve to set up shop close on to the route. Now we don't have proper roads to Black Plateau for the simple reason that it's one more thing to discourage the nosey from coming up. And while slavers tend not to be nosey, there's the little issues of there being laws against them, so their presence might attract folks more curious still. Also in the event of certain experiments getting loose the last thing you need is some idiot nearby who either sees them as potential profit or charges off spreading panic or worse.

So I wasted a day wiping slaver scum from my armament and the face of the earth before arriving at the outer gate. The only thing that would have made the day worse would have been meeting that damnable Zul gro-Radagash – thankfully I didn't.

But first let me explain how Black Plateau works, and why. Black Plateau is based in eastern Cyrodiil, very close to the Morrowind border. It's a complex of buildings devoted to three things: magickal research of a dangerous nature; containment of magickal research of a dangerous nature; and cleaning up as required after said magickal research of a dangerous nature.

The place is arranged in a set of rings. Inner Ring is where all the interesting stuff takes place – and the exciting stuff if you're unlucky. Middle Ring is where the battlemages keep problems and secrets in and nosey parkers out. And Outer Ring is where people do their eating, sleeping, healing and all the lovely paperwork. And that's all you need to know, except for one last thing: Stay out.

Inmates like Ancotar and Henantier hate it, but as far as I'm concerned uprooting them and their precious research is all for the common good. And Aleswell's.

To my surprise Bruce was waiting for me at the gate, that daft hat on his head, leaning against the wall in a deceptively casual stance that actually favoured his leg and left his weapon hand free.

"Now what's going on?" I ask him. "Must be important to get you up and about."

And he just looks at me, steady blue eye under white hair. "It is," says he, "Laren's opened an entirely new gate."

I handed over the reins to the ostler and gods, Bruce can move as fast on that stick as he hits hard with it – or so I've been told!

"So how're the kits?" asks he over her shoulder as I catch up to him entering Middle Ring.

"Doing well," says I, "The messenger got whacked by bandits on the Red Ring Road though. J'dargo was all for going after them."

And we both chuckle at that. "Tell you what," says he, "I'll write out a recommendation for the Legion. He can take that when he's of age to join."

"What about the Fighter's Guild?" Sure, Lord Snot Golem was one of them, but it's always a good idea to keep your kits' options open.

"You want him to follow in the steps of gro-Radagash?" and he stops and looks at me and I look at him and then I continue chasing after him. I won't stop J'dargo if he wants to join the guild. I'll just live long enough to be a nuisance to him in my dotage.

Bruce led me into the Inner Ring, and headed towards Building 3. Like all the buildings in the Inner Circle, it's an ugly barn-like structure designed for holding horrors in so they don't get loose, or at bay if they do get loose, or quick repairs when things go boom. Inside is one large hallway with windows and doors opening into four laboratory rooms each side. Bruce and I joined a group of guards and magi, who were peering through the window into Lab 7.

Inside the room was a big globe of flickering light, about six and a half feet across, that varied from an intense purplish blue to blue-white. There was no indication of any frame, which would have suggested which daedric prince it was associated with. I could hear a vague sound coming from it but the glass turned it into an unintelligible murmur.

"So what the hell am I looking at?" was my intelligent inquiry.

"Um," the intelligent response came from a frazzled-looking Dunmer everyone agreed was Tuls Laren, "This is meant to be a portal to a point outside the building."

"What the hell for?" asks I, "There's these things called doors, you know." This broke some of the tension, except on Tuls' part.

"Well excuse me! I am attempting to rediscover the secrets of the guild guides, who as you know were all wiped out when the daedra overran Morrowind, Arch-Mage, and my intention was to start small! Today a portal to the outside, tomorrow I could link legion outposts from High Rock to – to Gnisis!"

"All right, all right," says I with a wave of the hand, "I understand now. So if this is a portal, where does it go?"

Tuls just looks at me. "Some place called the Capital Wasteland," says he, "listen."

And he opens the door to the lab, and now I can faintly hear music, as from a long way off, but distorted. It stopped, and an equally distant, distorted and boisterous voice butted in. I still remember that diatribe.

"We interrupt our regularly scheduled program for – da-da-da-dah – some news! For those of you not in the know, to the northwest of Megaton is this vault, Vault 101. Now, believe it or not, this one's still got people livin' in it! And every few years, someone comes scrabblin' out! Well, wouldn't you know it, someone's come out of it again. And, I kid you not, he came to visit yours truly, right here in the studio! Now this cat, James is his name, had been in the hole for years. He needed to know what was what out here in the beautiful Capital Wasteland. So I, the great and powerful Three Dog, set my brother straight. I told him what was what. The winners – the losers – the movers... and the shakers.

"So if you see James out there, say hello. Be kind to our new brother. And show him that here on the outside, we always fight the good fight. Hey – and in case a light bulb started glowin' over your head, you can flick the switch and forget about it. You're not getting into that vault. Whoever lives in there sure as hell doesn't want what you're sellin'. And no, you can't knock down the door. It weighs like... thirteen tons.

"And now, a super-important public service announcement! We all know the dangers of radiation, but with the right precautions, you can prevent accidental death or even – yeugh! – ghoul-ification. Keep your eyes on those gy-gur counters kids. Tick-tick-tickety means 'run your boat outa there.' And pop some Rad-Away for good measure. If you do need to head into the heat, be smart. Give yourself a nice boost of Rad-X first. Remember, only you can prevent human flesh fires.

"Thanks for listening, chill-dren! This is Three Dog! – Owww! – and you're listening to Galaxy News Ray-dee-oh. We're Ray-dee-oh Free Wasteland and we're here – for you. And now, some music."

Tuls closed and locked the door on some bard singing about how he was a mighty mighty man or some similar tripe.

"I have made notes on this man's pronouncements," Tuls went on. "He repeats himself a lot. He also doesn't seem to be able to hear us, no matter how loudly we call. But look in the corner there."

So I look and I see a cockroach resting in pieces. It was hard to miss.

"Ahnissi's dugs," says I, "that bug's a foot long!"

"It came through the portal," says Tuls, "and it was hungry. Fortunately it wasn't immune to fire."

"Or sharp objects," a guard added.

"I want to see your notes on this portal," says I.

We went next door into Lab Eight, where a large mass of books and papers above the floor implied there was a table underneath somewhere.

"As you know, Arch-mage," starts Tuls, slowly at first but getting more animated, "the Empire is besieged on all sides. Daedra, if reports are true, are rampant in Morrowind and Skyrim. Brigands are flowing out of Valenwood, and –"

"Your portal will change all that how?" asks I.

"Arch-mage, my portal, when perfected, will allow troops to bridge great distances as though walking through a door! One step the Imperial barracks, the next the battlefield! No more vulnerable supply trains, forced marches, any of that rot –"

"Steady," I put a hand on Bruce's arm as he starts breathing hard through his nose and his hat starts trembling.

"– Fresh troops as and when needed! Now, from what we know of the gates of Mehrunes Dagon..."

"Explain to me later," says I, cutting Tuls off (and earning a grateful look from Bruce), "that's what should be, now about what is. What do we know of what's beyond the portal?"

"Nothing much," up pipes Henantier, to my surprise. Then again, he did create a gateway into his own dreams so of course he'd be teamed up with Laren. "We haven't sent scouts through yet since we don't know how stable the portal is."

"Also it was felt that scouting should not be done without first informing the Arch-mage," Bruce added, and I noticed the hurt looks from Laren and Henantier. Still, when Bruce decides, you don't undecide him.

"That giant insect suggests other giant creatures," he went on, "so we may enter into a world of giants."

"We don't know that," Laren says irritably, "if you would let me attempt to make visible what is beyond the portal..."

"But if it's unstable it could do anything!" Henantier cries.

"Don't you think I know my own damn portal? It's simply a matter of..."

Out comes my mace and I bang it a few times to restore order.

"This Three Dog person," says I, "What else does he speak of?"

"Well," Laren pulls out a set of papers, "we know he is involved with something called Galaxy News Ray-dee-oh, or Gee-en-ar for short. It could be either a place, or alike to The Common Tongue or Black Horse Courier. When he isn't crying the news, there is music, usually the same songs repeated over and over again."

"Night and day, it doesn't matter," chimes Henantier, "I think either he doesn't sleep or there's several bards taking the title Three Dog."

"Have you tried hailing him?"

Henantier nodded, then shook his head. "No answer. Either he's very disciplined or he can't hear us."

"So that's one group in this place," says I, "Who else is in there?"

"It's a dangerous place," Laren explains, "which is why we've holed up next door. We have references to 'raiders', slavers – are you all right, Arch-mage?"

"I ran into a pack of the scum on the way up," says I, "four hours ride away. I was trying to tell you on the way here Bru–" Whoops! Don't call him that in front of the men – "Brucellus, could you see about patrols or something? That's too close for my liking."

Bruce nods agreement. "I'll see to it." Which means some cadets are in for hard yakker and a bit of hands-on. A great deal of deviltry goes on underneath that hat.

That issue finally dealt to I nodded at Laren to continue.

"There are also warnings about ghouls, although they apparently are, and I quote, 'humans exposed to an ungodly amount of radiation'. Some are apparently reasonable enough, but there are feral ones little more than animals." He smiled thinly. "At least they're not undead."

I don't rise to the bait. This is what comes of publishing your memoirs. "What else?"

"Creatures called, er, 'yow gwy', but only to warn against feeding them. He also warns against mercenaries called 'Talon Company' and beings called 'super mutants'."

Henantier butts in. "Apparently if these mutants don't kill you, they take you away somewhere."

"And the only other group he favours is the, eh, 'Brotherhood of Steel'." Laren glares at Henantier.

"Fine," says I, "And where are they when they're at home?"

"No idea," the two chorus, then Laren continues. "All we know is that Vault 101 is northwest of Megaton, both of which we assume are outside an area called the... 'Dee-See Ruins.' There are also reports on trouble in places called 'Ten Penny Tower', 'Gray Ditch' and 'Ar-eh-foo'. But no directions!"

"Which is why we need to send a scouting party," Henantier adds.

"Not until we have more information and know we can get them back," Bruce states coldly.

"But how can we test the portal's stability without sending someone through?" Laren goes to stop Henantier, but the bit's in his teeth now. "We need to find this Three Dog or whoever these sages are and find out all he or they knows as soon as we can!"

WHACK! Did I mention Bruce's very good with that stick?

"We do nothing. Until we are certain that we can retrieve a party and that the area is secure." Bruce's eye was as deadly as his voice.

"How long has the portal been open?" asks I.

"A week," Laren says, "At first it was only about a foot across, but then it expanded without warning. The cockroach arrived three days ago."

"So living creatures can pass through it safely," adds Henantier.

"But was the bug always that size?" Bruce may have been a legionnaire, but he was also a battlemage, and like all good battlemagi he wasn't thick. And the possibility shut Laren and Henantier up.

I too dwelled on the implications – of six-foot-too-much Zul gro-Radagash striding through the portal and emerging just over a foot tall. It was a lovely thought.

"Just now," Bruce was saying, bringing me back to reality, "he was warning about radiation. Any idea what he's talking about?"

More head-shaking. "No idea," says Laren, "but it must be something related to fire. After all, he says 'heading into the heat' and 'human flesh fires'. I'm wondering if we've opened onto some previously unknown plane of Oblivion."

"All the more reason for caution." Bruce's face went blank, thinking back to the nightmare of Bruma.

"Good point." I sit up straighter. "I think what we should do is leave the trap alone, and wait for something more intelligent to arrive. That way we have the home advantage as opposed to popping through and straight onto something's sword-point. For one, we know our magic works here."

Bruce was nodding and looks at me approvingly. "I'll get a watch schedule drawn up," says he, "versed in illusion magicks." I look at him and he looks at me. "Paralyse, charm, or scare off," he explains.

He struggled erect and nodded at me. "With your leave Arch-mage, I'll get to it," he says, and I tell him to carry on and salute and he salutes and away he goes.

"Right then," says I turning to the two mer, "how were you going to make the far end visible?"

And away we went talking shop. Or rather, theoretical shop. And substitute 'talking' with 'arguing over the exact method to use with this magickal dingus'. I'll spare you the gory details. It was a thoroughly interesting concept and much of the theory tested my understanding of Mysticism.

We were involved in debating the relative merits of using some sort of physical object as an anchoring point as opposed to establishing a psijic link with an anchorite when there was a commotion outside.

Ok, I wonder how this will continue. I thik I am going to like this story a lot more than I liked FO3 *ahum.. right*
one nit that "bugs" me is that the Tamrielic people understand English.

Good point. This is something I'm going to need more handwavium to fix, or maybe marysuium. But it's going to become a visible conundrum in the next chapter, so I need to figure out an explanation smartish.

After all, you can't solve a mystery you don't know exists yet.

[Righty then. This chapter's taken some serious writing and rewriting as the characters' confusion deepens. Also: slightly Latinized cussing!]

Chapter 2. Entrance

There was a loud sort of popping noise and a scream, and someone yelling, "Stop her!"

Someone else, probably the her in question, yelled, "Fut you!"

I grabbed a staff leaning by the door, popped the latch and stuck my head and staff out.

Backpedalling toward me was a woman in what could nicely be described as rags – rags attempting to be armour. She was dirty, I noticed, swore like a soldier, had mousy brown hair done in two sweeps like wings, and appeared to be holding something in her hands I couldn't see. Whatever it was made her arms jerk and that sharp popping sound. Beyond her, someone crumpled on the floor. In the air, acrid smoke and blood.

I guess the green glow gave the game away, as she turned to me, swinging around something that looked like a small metal crossbow without the arms. She didn't duck fast enough to avoid the magick though.

She toppled face down – thank the Nine, whoever owned it had plumped for paralysis magick on his staff too! – followed shortly thereafter by myself. I had only four seconds to pin her down for the guards that would be coming – wherever the hells they were. By the time I got my knee in her back, she was already trying to buck me off and screeching like a raped scamp. I aimed at the first part of her I could get a clean shot at, so she got paralysed in the bum. Where was something to bind her with?

I tried to determine how much charge was in the old staff and couldn't. No time to fish out a soul gem. Where the hell were the damn guardsmen?

The staff hit me in the forehead as she shook me off, screeching, "I'll have you for a futtin' rug!" and scrabbling for her weapon, whatever it was.

My shot just passed her shoulder and she flinched, which gave me enough time to knock her to the floor for the second time. There were guards now, pulling me away; I saw a fist rise and fall, her shrieking broke off then resumed. Four burly guards hauled the umbrella seller upright, still spewing invective and threats until she saw me.

"What the fut are you?" was her intelligent enquiry, as it was about now that she realised that –

"I'm Ra'jirra," says I, "and you're not in the Capital Wasteland any more."

Her head snapped around, looking at the guards, the walls, at me. "You futters with the futtin' Brotherhood?"

"No. We're with the Mage's Guild and the Imperial Legion. And until you can speak with a civil tongue, you can wait in the cells to cool off. We've got a few questions for you."

"Fut you," and she spits, "torture me all you like, 'cos I'll never tell you merd!"

"Oh, you'll tell us all..." and I stop and look at her closely.

"What? You don't like my face? You think I'm some kinda futtin' freak? Huh? Seen yourself in a futtin' mirror lately?" and on and on and more and more disturbing until it hit me.

Her mouth movements didn't match up with her words.

But while she was demonstrating this mystery nicely, she was getting monotonous, so I cut short our little chat and get her sent off.

"Did you notice," says I in the ensuing quiet, "during her little speech, what her mouth was doing?"

"No," says Bruce and Laren together.

"You'll see it," says I, "something's translating her words – all of them, unfortunately."

And Laren's eyes go wide. "Nine preserve us," he whispers.

"I don't know about preserving but something's being done to us."

"I'll have a word with the resident priests, then," says Bruce. Good man.

Our unexpected guest was reportedly a bit upset to be stripped, searched and decked in sackcloth, but that goes without saying. Nobody looks good in sackcloth except Dibella. Her belongings were brought back to Laren and I in Lab Eight and we pored through them.

"This meat looks like it came from a big ant," says Tuls, waving a chunk of something chitinous. "Must've been about six foot long!"

"The metalwork on this weapon," says I, "Incredible. Such delicacy! Almost dwemer." And I pick up one of the objects it uses instead of bolts. It looked like a thumb-length metal tube with another metal piece on the end, tapered to a point. Tapped it. "This isn't solid. Wonder what's inside?"

"Here," Tuls says, and hands me another of the tubes. This one's obviously hollow, discoloured, blackened and odoriferous inside with the point missing. "It came out of the weapon after she used it. I think some new alchemy is at work here."

"How is young Pierre anyway?" Pierre Beugalle had been hit by the weapon when the noise had enticed him away from his geomancy work to take a look.

"Dead," says Tuls, "That weapon of hers makes small holes going in and big ones coming out. Not good when the hole's in your head – or your heart."

And we share a moment of silence. Whoever this woman is, she's a murderer now. All right, Pierre was only messing with geomancy, but losing a fellow guildmate is always hard. Especially since I'd have to write a letter of condolence to his parents.

"Well," says I, "The Legion would probably love such weapons then. They could turn the tide in Skyrim and Morrowind, then Valenwood..."

There were other things. There was a contraption that seemed to focus about a thin, sharp-looking needle. A small box of little tablets, mostly crumbled to powder. The box had what appeared to be swathes of neat, small writing on it, but we struggled to figure out what it said.

"This box," Henantier murmured, "It's like some sort of paper, but incredibly thick... I've never seen anything like it." He poked at an edge. "Or maybe it's several layers glued together."

"Is that a list of ingredients?" says I, pointing at what looks like a list with what could be amounts. "This language could be like daedric – ever noticed how you can translate that directly into Aldmeris? Or is it more like Akaviri squiggles or that 'N'gasta khaki' book?"

"Let me take a look," Henantier fumbles for writing tools.

There was a knock at the door, and in comes a tall thin priest and Aragaer: bosmer, battlemage, and pretty good alchemist. "This is Holmar Long-Drink," says he, "He thinks he has a clue about our translator."

"Arch-mage," Holmar greets me sonorously, "Give praise to Julianos of the Nine, for the blessings of understanding tongues unknown, and, from what I understand, uncouth." And he stares at me through eyes so sunken I think someone was behind him looking through holes in his head.

"But why would Julianos wish us to understand the speech of another realm, but not their writing?" I was honestly puzzled. What I knew of history involved the Empire bringing not only peace and stability to Tamriel, but a common language. Yet my own eyes had seen evidence that this woman didn't speak it.

"Be there an emperor, or none, the Nine are the true rulers of the Empire and Tamriel," oh gods preserve us he was sermonising! "Arch-mage or peasant, the true and loyal subject obeys his rulers, suffers their discipline, accepts their gifts, takes their tests... without question."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone move away from the window. I shot a glance but they'd already gone; but the distraction stopped me from clocking the snot.

Henantier crowed. "Arch-mage! I think you're right!" and waved a sheet he'd scribbled the strange letters on, along with daedric and Aldmeris ones. "See the big letters on the top of the box? If you substitute roht-ayem-doht for these three symbols – then an xayah – then into Aldmeris – you get 'Rad-X'! – just like that Three Dog speaks of!"

"Thus the Nine bestow their gifts upon all their children," Holmar said in a self-satisfied tone. "Praise be to Julianos!"

"But some of us are a little slow to notice," says I darkly. "Why didn't anyone think to ask why they could understand this Three Dog before now?"

"Hoi!" Aragaer was hovering over the meat the woman had been toting. "There is some sort of poison here."

"Poison? What do you mean?"

And Aragaer frowns! "I don't know. It's not a property of the meat, it's as though..." He frowns at me. "That wild woman, she came out of that portal, didn't she?"

"The door is locked and barred now," says I, "Nothing else's coming through that portal without our knowledge."

"Speaking of the portal," Tuls says, "It's oscillating badly. Ever since she came through."

"Go on," says I.

"Well... It's wobbling and shaking," and he demonstrates with his hands. "It may not last much longer."

I straighten up and rub my eyes. "We're all tired," says I, "We need to get some sleep."


Extract from guards' log, night shift, 16 First Seed 5E7

Prisoner (Female, Breton? Imperial?) placed into cell 7 after search following apprehension for intrusion and murder of Pierre Bereguine. Escort observed that prisoner had been violently uncooperative during transfer until same observed the moons rising during outside portion of transfer. Sighting made prisoner hysterical, requiring the use of subduing force.

Prisoner in cell 7 regained consciousness about 2 bells. Immediately attempted exit via bodily forcing the door. Prisoner was determined but not physically capable of the task. Expressed extremely strong sentiments at both this, and at her situation not being a dream.

Prisoner addressed guards directly, demanding release. On refusal, attempted to offer sexual favours in exchange. Refusal was taken poorly.

At this point the Argonian thief in cell 8 (adjacent to guard post, across from cell 7) was woken. Spoke directly to prisoner, saying, "For the love of the Nine, smoothskin, shut up". Prisoner was apparently taken aback not so much by being addressed, but by the addressee, stumbling away from the door and muttering to the effect of "lizard people" and asking what was going on – profanely.

Prisoner stayed on the floor, shaking violently, until roughly 4 bells. Prisoner then crawled onto pallet and stayed there until morning.


"Now then," Bruce says to the woman in front of him the following morning.

"Fut you," the woman spits back at him. Mind you, I'd be irritable if I was shackled to a chair as well.

"You're guilty of murder," says Bruce quietly, "so that leaves two options. One's the headsman's block, the other's imprisonment. If you don't cooperate with us, you'll get one. If you do, you'll get the other. So – who're you?"

Apparently, once you stripped out the profanity and threats of retaliation, she was called Dead-bolt. Bruce let her start the second chorus before he put that stick into play. I'm surprised her head didn't fly off.

"Here's the rules of the game," says he, still with that frightening calm, "I'm going to ask questions, and you are going to answer them. The more questions you answer, the more chance your head stays on your shoulders and you get to be freed after your jail time. Deal?"

And he looks at her and she looks at him and then she looks around. Obviously what she's seeing is firstly a formidable man in armour and a broad-brimmed hat right in front of her; flanking either side are more equally formidable men in armour and big swords; and of course me, Tuls, and Henantier.

"Well, 'Dead-bolt'?"

And she relaxes and shrugs. "Fine," says she, "I'll talk, but when I'm outa here, you –"

Which is pretty much how the questioning went. Bruce asks questions. Dead-bolt spaces out useful information with a lot of bragging and profanity. Bruce picks up his stick and Dead-bolt either gets to the point or shuts up.

The portal's other end, according to her, was inside a building she called a "sewer way station". Claimed she was scouting for a suitable hideout for her gang near Gray Ditch prior to going in, and basically killing those who resisted right off and killing those who don't much later. I made a note to ensure her prison sentence was nice and long – or the axe was nice and blunt.

"Now then, regarding the weapon used to murder Pierre Bereguine," Bruce continues and Dead-bolt sulks, since Bruce is very, very good at being so calm and unshakeable it's scary. Don't play cards for money with him. "For the record, will you please identify this weapon."

"What? You've never seen a futting gun before? Yeah, that's my gun, what about it?"

"And what variety of 'gun' is this? After all, there are many types of sword, or bow, or shield..."

"It's a f-f-f..." she pulls up sharpish, guess Bruce gave her a look – "a ten-mill piss-till. Hey, there's worse. The chink ones are merd and thirty-two's forget 'em. But my gang's got wry-fools, and you think this one's bad? Wry-fools really fut you up."

And Bruce just looks at her. "I'd take you seriously if you weren't so defiant," says he, "I've fought and bested worse than you."

"Whatever," she obviously hadn't heard of the Battle of Bruma.

"So how did you find the portal?"

"I just did, okay? Lookin' for supplies."

"And where exactly is this... sewer way station... when it's at home?"

"You wanna know where your futting portal is? Trade you. Just tell me what the fut that is." And she looks at me.

Bruce looks at me as well then turns back to her. "He's a khajiit, I'm an imperial, your escort is, from left to right, altmer, breton, breton and redguard, your friend in the other cell is an argonian, the scribe who's taking all this down is bosmer, and you're going to tell us how and where you found the portal."

Now that Bruce had finished the pleasantries and was getting down to brass tacks I tapped Laren and Henantier, murmured "We'll leave 'em to it, there's work to do," and left.

It was a nice day, if crisp, but mountain air tends to be that way. As we walked towards Inner Ring I began to hum, then sing. "There was a land, there was a beautiful land, called Fuh..."

"Arch-mage?" Laren and Henantier had stopped and were looking at me strangely.

"And in this land – oh, sorry, it's just a nice day, and there was this bard came through a month ago. Seems he had a new song someone wrote after wrongful accusation of obscenity. Just popped into my head again."

"A new song?" Henantier brightened. "Must be good if you're trying to murder it."

"Not good," says I, "but the kits overheard every single word, and they enjoy singing the chorus when they think their parents can't hear."

"Ah." Henantier thought for a bit, worked out who was in the land of Fuh and said "Ah," understandingly.

"Never mind that," Laren said irritably, "How long's that –" he jabbed a thumb back towards the cells – "going to take?"

"Bruce is going to get a recording to us once it's finished," says I, "and the young lass is taken back to her cell. Let's be honest, she's off to the block soonest. She's an absolute savage, and I'll be Molag Bal's catamite before I'll let her roam the same country my family's in."

We returned to Building Three. What Laren hadn't mentioned about the portal was that as well as wobbling and shaking, you could see through it into a dingy, dark little room. Broken shelves were arrayed against the far wall; there was one door close to the portal, and another on the opposing wall further away, with light leaking around it. The closest wall had another broken metal shelf unit and a large boxy thing with a big hatch in the centre. My hands itched to see what was inside it, but Henantier was more interested in the stylised lettering on its front. "Eat... o... tronic," he read. "What's a tronic?"

None of us knew so we went into Lab Eight and picked up where we left off.

"It's no good," Henantier says in disgust an hour later. "That list you thought were ingredients? Utter gibberish. This one here at the top says 'something iodide', and there's more like that. What's an iodide when it's at home?"

"Must be a fungus or something, like a cairn or summer bolete," says I, "What else is on that packet?"

"Instructions, I think. Dosages. And on the front is... uh... 'Absorbs radiation so you don't have to.' And what looks like an address for the maker."

"Don't take it hard," says I, "You've done well to translate that much."

"We should send in a scouting party," insists Laren from behind a wad of scrawls.

"Agreed," says I to him, "but until Bruce approves it, and you figure out a way to make that thing stable, we'll just have to –"

Bells began ringing wildly outside.

ARGH! Tamriel meets the Wasteland !!!!!

[Another chapter. Actually, half of what was originally intended, but I came up with an ideal breakpoint; I'd actually written this when playing a previous version of Haines, so I just finished the fight off. But in any case, Ra'jirra's bad week is about to get as worse as it can short of Zul gro-Radagash coming to save him.]

Chapter 3. 20 August 2277

From Earnest Haines' Log Entries, as copied by Arch-mage Ra'jirra once he managed to learn enough of the English alphabet and get time alone with Haines' terminal

Moira is the absolute limit. Certainly she is rather callous with regard to the safety of her "research associates"!! First I get repeatedly shot and exploded at collecting a damnable landmine for her, now she wants me to deliberately afflict myself with radiation sickness! Just how gung-ho would she be, I ask, if it was HER health and genetic material at risk?

YES, I know scientists of history have experimented on themselves for want of useful results or subjects. But this is not a controlled environment – there is not even a control GROUP, unless you count Moira herself! Heaven only know what sort of "tests" or "cure" Moira has in store for me. The only reason I endure her pseudo-Science nonsense is in order to improve my chances of surviving, and moreover find my father AND get answers from him.

The opportunity to be looked up to as the man who did the field research that may save lives is also not to be sneezed at. Empirical? Yes. For instance, my research into landmines has revealed that the devices use a proximity sensor in addition to pressure triggers. Also, application of intense heat, such as that generated by the AEP-7 laser pistol, or significant percussive force from small arms, is adequate for neutralization of same. No doubt a device for disarming mines at a distance would be an interesting Scientific challenge, and profitable.

But back to the events of the day. Leaving Megaton after speaking with that dreadful woman, I decided I was NOT interested in pursuing HER "research", but instead it seemed wise to investigate the closest section of the DC ruins and test that Simms person's hypothesis of that area being a "war zone".

Science? In spirit. Hypotheses are made to be tested by experiment. That is how Science advances.

Therefore I turned west, and headed towards a utility structure on high ground. Apart from a couple of bloatflies and a protectron which I sniped for its ammunition, I encountered no meaningful opposition whatsoever.

Approaching an entrance on the northeast side, I was almost bowled over by a raider backing out of there, clutching some sort of large stick. She turned to face me, lowered the stick as if she was aiming it, and before I could bring my AEP-7 to bear, an arrow, of all things, popped out of her head!

It should be obvious to even the most ignorant observer that an arrow through the brain is lethal. However, her killer was so unusual that a detailed description is in order.

Imagine a large cat, probably evolved from one of the big cats, i.e. the mountain lion (if fur coloration is any guide), capable of bipedal locomotion, with plantigrade as opposed to a cat's digitigrade legs. Said being is encased almost entirely in armour which is of a strange pale gold alloy. Exceptions are leather trousers, red leather gloves, and a shield showing a white horse against a dull green background. Its helmet leaves much of its muzzle exposed, and sports two arcs resembling either horns, or wings, depending on how you interpret the patterns on them. I could also see a tail moving with what appeared to be strong emotion.

The being is armed with a bow of blackened material, as well as a large finned club of a bronze-gold alloy that does not match that of the armour resting on the left hip.

This was the being that had followed her, and now aimed at me. Since the creature was apparently upset, capable of using tools, and prepared to kill me, I did the only sensible thing. I holstered my weapon and spread my hands.

"You're not with this fetcher are you?" he growled. (I use the masculine term as his voice was masculine; he was later quite forceful in confirmation of gender.)

"No," I said, and he just grunted and let the string of his bow slacken.

"I'll just take that staff," he said then, and took his gaze off me long enough to retrieve the stick the raider had been carrying. "Now I'll be going."

He turned back to the building, which I have since identified as a way-station for the DC sewage system. It was this time I observed a variable blue-white glow through the doorway.

Intending to investigate, I followed the cat-man inside, whereupon he swore and turned on me. "Stand your ground, nosey," he said, "Don't try to follow me."

I didn't answer immediately as I was taken with the source of the increasingly erratic glow: a large violently oscillating spheroid roughly two metres in diameter, depicting inside it what appeared to be a stone room, a door, and several humanoids peering through said door. One was clutching its arm as though wounded.

"Arch-mage! Hurry!" one shouted, and the cat-man turned and gasped.

Apparently the portal, which I was later informed it was, was degrading at an accelerating pace. The cat-man did not hesitate to run into the portal. On contact, the portal appeared to deform, then burst like a soap bubble with a brief burst of radioactivity. The cat-man was unable to stop and smacked into the wall.


There are things you don't do in armour and running into walls is one of them. It took me a bit to pick myself up and around, then I saw Mister Curious attempting a subtle exit.

So I sent a fireball in front of his nose. That tends to stop people.

Anyway, this guy gapes at the scorch mark left behind, gapes at me, and does he say sorry for marooning me here?

Like hells! He just asks, "How on earth did you do that?"

"What? This?" I ask sarcastically, and flick another past him. Do I need to tell you I was a bit pissed off?

And his eyes go all wide and glittery behind the transparent face shield he's wearing. "The gloves," he says to himself, "Some sort of projection system maybe..." and continues wittering as I realise they don't know magic here.

"Oh, there's a projection system all right," says I, "it's called 'knowing how to perform magic'. Which I'm now going to have to do a lot of until my fellow magi can reopen that damn portal so I can go home, thanks to you!"

Mister Curious just glared at me and threw up the face shield so hard his helm flew off, revealing pallid skin, two bulging, almost froglike eyes, and a head of grey hair that had mostly slid down onto his face.

"How dare you use that word!" he shouted! "There is no such thing as magic!" You should have heard him spit it, like an insult! "Do I look like a fool to you? I am no idiot raider, sir – I am a man of Science!"

And he jabs at the wall behind me. "That portal or whatever it was, obeyed all physical laws, like all things do, and is therefore a product of Science! Your gloves launch fireballs, therefore they have the Technology to do so, and Technology is the product of Science! You yourself," – good gods, he was frothing! – "have an evolutionary history from the pre-war cats, it is fairly obvious, and that can be explained by Science! Science! SCIENCE!"

And I get the impression this guy's got a few scamps in his attic. Mind you, he looked a bit like Sheogorath, but worse dressed.

And I take a deep breath, pull off my gauntlets, and throw another fireball into the corner. "I can also cast spells," and I stuck my tongue out at him, "to throw frost, lightning, trap soul energy, shield myself, sense life around me, and a few other things." I then added, "With or without gauntlets." And I pause and add, "I see Julianos' blessing works here as well."

He just stares at me in the darkness of the decrepit room, then we both start as something fairly large claws at the bottom of the interior door.

"Psychic powers then, must be," he mutters to himself while looking about for his helm.

Watching the door rattle, I suspected close quarter work was nigh; I readied my dear old dwemer mace, faithful companion throughout my time in the Mage's Guild. The door's latch finally gave way – and I sometimes still have nightmares about what scuttled into the room.

My first impression was it was a mudcrab gone wrong – two huge claws lunging at my legs – a crushing pain in my right ankle – and then a wickedly barbed tail stabbed into my left elbow!

I was being attacked by a gigantic version of a deadly creature I'd mercifully only seen in bestiaries from Elsweyr – a creature that in normal size could kill a grown man in an instant – a scorpion over six feet long!

My left arm hurt like hell, the stallion felt as heavy as stone – the tail barb was poisonous – oh Stendarr god of mercy thank you it's not deadly – I hated to think what would happen if it stabbed me in the face. I swung my mace at that tail but the creature pulled it out of range of my swing, ready for another strike.

There was a strangely echoing slapping sound, and part of the tail flashed and disintegrated. The monster lurched as another slap-flash appeared close to the barb.

Looking to my left, I saw the human braced, aiming a boxy square sort of piss-till at the thing. Slap. A thin beam of hot orange-yellow light connected it to the monster's tail, between two segments. Flash. This time a spray of pallid gore spewed out – he'd hit a weak spot, evidently. The creature turned to face its new attacker, which would have been nice except that its claw was still clamped on my foot!

"Fetcher!" I screamed, and did the only thing I could. I planted my left foot on its head, dropped my mace and grabbed its tail! "Kill the stinking thing!" I yelled at the man, straining to keep the monster from stabbing me while I threw myself off-balance and pulled it over onto its side, crashing into a bench and sending detritus flying.

Whoever he was, he was quick on the uptake. While I kept the tail at bay, he fired his gun into the thing's belly until it stopped struggling.

"Right then," says I into the relative quiet, "now that's over, what's your name?"

"My name?" He blinks at me in confusion through the dead creature's legs. "Oh – Haines. Doctor Earnest Haines."

"Ra'jirra, Arch-mage of the Imperial Mage's Guild. Now, Doctor–"

"Please, call me Earnest."

"All right then, Earnest, will you please make this damn thing let go of me?"

It took Earnest, a pair of hammers, all the leverage my right arm could still give and quite a bit of swearing to make the damn thing's claw loosen enough that I could extract my ominously numb foot. I cast a healing spell and breathed a curse of relief as feeling came back in a flood of needles. My shield arm also lightened a bit, but was still on strike.

"I thought radroaches and bloatflies were bad enough," Earnest grumbled, "but scorpions?"

I just sat there and examined my boot. The Ayleid metal was severely dented and would need some tender loving hammering to fix it. I shrugged and unleashed another spell of healing, wiggled my toes, flexed the bloated sausages on my left hand painfully. I'd just have to bear it until the poison burned itself out. Some Arch-mage. Can't even cast an antidote spell on himself.


"So, uh, Ra-uh-jirra..." I looked up at Earnest, who apparently came to a decision, straightened up, put a silly smile on his face and spoke formally. "Welcome to planet Earth!"

[Crossovers are hard to write, especially when the main characters fail to get on with each other. The big challenge is describing the discovery of the commonplace from the 'alien' point of view. So in this chapter Ra'jirra learns a bit more about how James' little boy... got that way. Fun fact: that beard of his is compensatory after, um, unexpected test results.]

Chapter 4. The Impotence of Being Earnest

I just stare at him. This grinning idiot may have been responsible for marooning me here – or not, but the delay involved with his following me may have tipped the balance. Also, his tirade about "Science" and his beard suggested that he'd definitely been hobnobbing with Sheogorath at some stage. On the other hand, at least he hadn't fled when the giant scorpion had charged in. In fact, he'd been quick enough to react when I'd tipped the beast over.

"So, er," he continues with that stupid smile on his mug, "What planet are you from? Mars? Vee-nus? Yer-anus?"

If my ears weren't already flattened by my helm they'd have done so; as it was they tried to flatten even flatter. "Are you insulting me?"

"No, no!" exclaims he, "I'm honestly curious! According to my history readings, and I sincerely doubt I am mistaken, many people before the war claimed to have seen or been aboard the vessels of beings from other planets, mostly Mars but some from Venus, or even as far as Sir-ee-us or Alpha Sen-tor-ee."

"Nirn," says I. Most folks would say 'Tamriel', but Tamriel is just part of the world, along with the Summurset Isles and Akavir. And if you did say 'Tamriel', maybe you should go back to Sundas school and pay attention this time.

"Well, that doesn't mean anything to me," he muses, "but then again, why should you know what English names mean what? Like that song, 'Potayto, potahto, let's call the whole thing off...'" and he rubs his chin and looks off into the middle distance.

"Earnest. Haines. Try being useful for a change and help me get this damn thing off." And I point to my right boot. Only an idiot tries to hammer a metal boot back into shape while he's wearing it, and I wanted to check my ankle.

"Useful? For a change? Oh, of course, er, right..." Haines blinked and seemed to remember that I was there, pulled off his pack and rummaged inside it. "Your left arm was stung... here we are."

And he advances with one of those contraptions with the needle and a businesslike expression. "Remove your glove please."

"Why?" is my quite reasonable and intelligent enquiry to a madman wanting to stick something pointy into me when asked to assist in boot removal.

"So I can find a vein and set this stim-pack to work!" says he, waving the thing.

"You stick that into yourself?" I was really hankering for a potion around this time. Any potion. Even one made with bog beacon which always makes me want to spew – and has.

"Well of course you do! Intravenous delivery to the affected parts! I may not be a doctor, but I assure you I have learned a thing or two from..." he shook his head, "anyway, take off your glove and the injection should neutralise the poison and stimulate tissue repair, thus resulting in restored function to your left arm." He tapped the needle. "Brace yourself – if my personal experience is any guide, and I have no reason to doubt my senses, these things tend to be blunt."

I just looked at him as I yanked off my gauntlet and held on to it; thwacking this smoothskin wouldn't help me get home but it would make me feel better and maybe get him to pull his head in. The fool took his time checking for a vein before sticking that damned needle in.

It was blunt, by the way, and if anyone attempts to give me an injection ever again they will be very, very, very, very, very sorry.

To be fair, however, whatever muck that thing squirted into me worked. A wave of metal-flavoured cold washed away the heat, pain and heaviness.

I flexed my hand again. It didn't hurt. I flexed my elbow. Not only did it not hurt either, but it actually bent. As Haines watched, I carefully and painfully pulled off my right boot, revealing the expected fragrance and some truly frightening colouration. Despite the healing spells the bruising on my ankle was still severe and tender.

"Fascinating," oh, right, Haines. "But can you walk on it?"

"Don't know," says I and cast another spell, willing the energy into my leg. "Once I get the worst of the damage out I should be fine."

"Well hurry up then," says he and hands me a hammer and another tool I would later learn was called a wrench. "There might be more of them." And jerks his head at the outside door in an unexpected fit of common sense. Dead-bolt had been scouting for a group, and for all I knew they were already out looking for their companion. So I hurry up with tappin' and whackin' and...

"Haines, where is that music coming from?"

"There must be a ray-dee-oh in the next room," says he and he gets up and goes to have a look while I sit on the floor attempting some crude smith-work. The tune was enthusiastic, but the more I listened to the lyrics the more disturbed I became, even over Haines' sporadic piss-till fire and cursing of rad-roaches. The singer was all about a womaniser – no, I realised, a murderer – was this place the realm of Sheogorath?

With my boot no longer attempting to cut off blood flow I decided now was a good time to try standing up. Which obviously still hurt. I thought of getting some padding from Dead-bolt, limped to the door, looked at the dog snacking on her, changed my mind, shut the door..

The tune finished off in gibberish – hey turn this record over you ain't heard nothin' yet! – and the voice of Three Dog followed hard on, proclaiming news.

"I've got some great news from outa the town of Megaton," he crows, "Turns out the live atomic bomb in town's centre has finally been deep-sixed for good! Town sheriff, one Lucas Simms, commissioned the one, the only, Lone Wanderer, Ernie Haines from Vault 101 to disarm the nasty nuke. And the kid delivered."

"Don't call me 'kid'!" yells Haines from well beyond the door, and Three Dog's voice stopped abruptly as something crashed to the floor. I carefully made my way in.

Further inside the building made me think of drawings I've seen of Dwemer ruins. Machines of unknown purpose stood in the lower level, linked with what I vaguely recalled were plates attached to looped chains, forming a moving surface. The stuffed toys arranged on the – what were they called, conveying belts? – were disturbing. I myself was on an elevated metal walkway, which ran to an elevated level where Haines was glowering over the contents of a wooden box.

"So they call you the Lone Wanderer then?" says I, causing him to jump and nearly brain himself on shelving.

"I am Doctor Earnest Haines," says he once the curses died down, "thank you very much, regardless of what that Three Dog idiot says!"

"From Vault 101," says I, "like James?"

And he stops rubbing his bonce and stares at me. "How do you know – no. No time. It's getting late, we can't stay here, you can tell me about it on the way home. Those raiders. You can walk then?"

I stomp around in a circle to prove it and nearly trip over another box. Except this one's fancier with knobs on one side. "What's this?"

"The ray-dee-oh," says he, "I, um, turned it off... a little too hard. Well. Let's go."

There was another door out, and mercifully no dogs. And I finally got my first real look at the Capital Wasteland.

Before me stretched the ruins of an enormous city. The shells of buildings towered higher than anything in the Imperial City – and I was to learn that intact they had towered higher still. There was a river, and still more of the immense buildings. You could have dropped the entire Imperial City in here and had room for at least three more!

The sheer extent of the devastation is impossible to describe; it was as though Mehrunes Dagon had gone on a skooma bender and done the high-kick dance in spiked boots clean through it.

The setting sun (judging from Haines' comment about it getting late) meant that I was looking east; the ruins draped in hues of fire. The ground was a despairing brown, dry and hard, with only a few stubborn grasses attempting to survive. Haines turned north and I did too; there were less buildings that way, directly in front of us, a fence of metal mesh before what remained of a road.

"I'm not wasting ammo on dogs," Haines muttered as he shifted his helm and turned south, "And we're too far away. Let's find shelter in another building."

The fence had been twisted down in places, but I followed Haines through a gate onto the road. It was easily a hundred feet across, and littering it were the hulks of objects I couldn't identify.

"What the hells are these?" asks I rapping my knuckles on one. It was metal.

And what does Haines do? He yelps and races off and then yells at me! "Are you mad? Those things can explode!"

And what do I do? I race off to join him! "Well how would I know?" snarls I, "I've never seen them before!"

"You don't have vehicles?" And he stares at me. "No, probably not, not if you can create portals in space and time. Who'd need portals then? But in museums perhaps..." and he gets that miles-off look again.

"We have horses, boats and carts," says I, "that portal was a fluke."

And I watch as my words make their way from his cloth ears to wherever his mind is and bring it back.

"No motorised vehicles?" I shook my head. "Atomic power?" Shake. "Electricity?" Shake. "Steam engines?" I decided Dwemer ruins and machines didn't count, since it's tricky taking apart a steam engine that's trying to take you apart, and shook my head again.

"Getting back to my query," and I jab a thumb at the object, "are those things 'mo-', er, 'mo-tor-ised vehicles' then?" carefully pronouncing the words.

"Well of course they are! Auto-mobiles, to be precise. Designed to carry passengers and cargo in comfort at speeds up to, and exceeding, fifty miles per hour." He looks at me smug. "Rather quicker than horses and boats, yes?"

Well! That was impressive. I looked at the road as it turned south and tried to imagine dozens of these vehicles racing along, but Haines was off again.

"Just be careful," says he, "I've seen hits on these things ignite remaining atomic materials and cause them to explode. After all," he goes on, "while you're here the least I can do is ensure your survival by teaching from my own experience."

"And how much experience do you have?" asks I.

"Four days," says he with no irony. "Now, can you see any unobstructed doorways?"

No, I couldn't, so we continued south, into a deep trench and beneath a bridge.


"So, why'd you leave the Vault?" I asked several hours later.

Haines didn't answer at first but munched on the partially cooked chunk of meat recently cut from something descended from a cow. Except that this thing had two equally unfriendly heads, no hair, and a hideously bloated udder. 'Bra-min', Haines told me someone else in Megaton told him it was.

We were ensconced on top of another bridge further south, where one man had set up his home and had also been appreciative of our help with the impromptu hunt.

"I didn't have a choice," says he bitterly, "my father, for reasons I intend to discover, left the Vault without permission. And for some reason, the Overseer seemed to think that I knew why and where he'd gone. Obviously, I didn't, and I ended up having to follow him... out here." He glared out at the night. "Chasing him for answers."

"What about your mother?"

"She died giving birth to me." His voice was flat. "Or so my father told me."

We sat in silence chewing half-cooked beef – at least it tasted like beef. Then, "Do you have families?"

There are questions and there are dumb questions and this, to me, was definitely in the dumb category.

"Of course," says I, "my parents are still farming and, well... let me show you." And I pull the amulet out and opened it.

Haines did something to the bracer on his left arm and slightly greenish light washed over both of us and the amulet's contents: a beautiful miniature of me and my family outside the Faregyl Inn, on a beautiful spring day three years gone. There's a larger version in my quarters at the Arcane University.

"That's me and my wife," says I pointing, "the young master there's J'dargo and those are the twins..."

Something swelled in my throat and interfered with my breathing.

"All I have are memories of father," Haines said quietly. "And..." he frowned at his bracer. "And what he did to my Pip-Boy."

"Huh?" is my eloquent response.

"This," and Haines tapped the bracer, "it's a Pip-Boy 3000. I received it on my tenth birthday. I was so proud... because now I'd get to work and be... well, a man. Hell, I was trained to be a Pip-Boy programmer, but dad was better at it. I mean, watch."

And he pushes a button here and twiddles dials there and on the glass panel a map flashed up. "It's the whole Capital Wasteland," says he, "Dad must've down-loaded it to my Pip-Boy for me. But here... listen to this." More twiddling and button-pushing and a voice came from the device; a man's voice, tense and anxious.

"I've... I don't really know how to tell you this... I hope you'll understand but I know you might be angry. I've thought about it for a long time, but in the end... it was best for you not to know. So many things could've gone wrong,and there's really no telling how the Overseer will react when he finds out. It's best he can blame everything on me. Obviously you already know that I'm gone. It was something I needed to do.

"You're an adult now. You're ready to be on your own. Maybe some day things will change and we can see each other again. I can't tell you why I left or where I'm going." The voice became more urgent, pleading. "I don't want you to follow me. God knows life in the Vault isn't perfect, but at least you'll be safe. Just knowing that will be enough to keep me going."

"Don't mean to rush you doc," interrupted what was either a nervous Redguard with a nasal voice, or a Bosmer with a baritone, "but I'd feel better if we got this over with."

"Okay! Go ahead!" Haines' father responded, then, "Goodbye... I love you..."

The Pip-Boy stopped with a soft blip. Silence fell and I looked at Earnest. Earnest was looking at nothing with a stony expression.

"Jonas is dead." His expression didn't alter. "The Overseer's goons killed him."

Silence fell again.

"Father was working on something," – hello, it's 'father' again! – "the Overseer didn't like. I remember hearing arguments about the worth of his work. 'These experiments are a waste of time'," and he spits. "Stupid fool! Technology is not Science – it is the child of Science!"

"Keep your damn voice down," the local says, "You want the raiders callin'?"

Haines blinks and shuts up and peers over the edge through the 'scope' on his 'piss-till'.

"I'll go see what they're doing," says I.

"It's clouded over," Haines says, "You can't see anything."

"I'm a Khajiit," says I, "we can see in the dark."

And I get up and walk away and invoke my ability.

The trench the road ran through turned west, and I thought of what could have happened if one of those auto-mobiles failed to make the turn at fifty miles per hour. Perhaps that was why the road was sunk into a trench. However, the trench came to an end, and peering around a ruined building I could see figures moving around improvised barricades. Raiders.

I didn't give a damn. I just wanted some privacy. Because, even in the reassuringly familiar false colours of night-eye, the alien world I was in was pushing down very, very hard.

Carefully, I forced myself to imagine a clean sheet of paper, fresh cut, creamy white. This is important, Warlock. It can well be the difference between our foes losing their heads or you losing yours, damnit. Too right, Traven, and I need your wisdom now, more than ever.

I then imagined a quill, loaded with ink, writing clear letters on that page.

A portal was opened to another place called the Capital Wasteland.

One of Haines' passing comments fell into place. There has been a devastating war here.

Julianos has decreed we can understand their language, and they ours.

I have fallen in with

I hesitated. Part of the meditation technique was to transcend emotive responses and think clearly.

Earnest Haines, an exile from Vault 101. He is very earnest (ha ha)

The technique didn't transcend jokes.

about finding his father, who left unexpectedly and told his son not to follow. He is also very intense about Science and learning.

He does not know where his father went.

Revelation fell into place with a loud clunk that shook me to the core.

I was having trouble with the crossover, but you redeemed yourself with this chapter! Bravo! - because that has to be the hardest type fanfic to write, combining two completely different worlds and keeping it straight between characters !! EXCELLENT JOB !!!!

Thanks. I suspected that the previous chapter was too dry and overly... well, grey is the word I'm looking for. I'm certain that it could have been handled much better, but I've no idea how. I had the same problem with Quake mapping: by the time I'd got the thing to a releasable state I was absolutely exhausted and just thought, "f--- it, just get it out and be done."

The Nine are rather a deus ex machina (Gr. 'cop-out'), I will admit, along with whatever they're working with. Don't tell Ernie, he'll freak.

Well you made up for it in this chapter. You cleared the distinction between the two character's backgrounds with precision that erased the ambiguity I felt (as a reader) when Ra'Jirra first arrived in the Wasteland. His personality and your writing style (which really makes your story a favorite to me) seemed to disappear when he first arrived in the Wasteland.

I love both games - you have a precedent setting idea here, it won't be easy to pull off - but you did it so well with this chapter. Your unique writing style was back, Ra'Jirra's personality shone through again. You pulled me back in with an interest to see where you will head with this.

I loved that you got Moira in this too - she has to be one of the stronger characters in FO3 - love her or hate her - you know you've met her, lol.

In the next chapter Ra'jirra will firstly be freaked out by Ernie, then meet Megaton and Moira.

Also in the previous chapter I considered Ra'jirra to be under quite a bit of stress. He had to GTFO before the portal exploded or whatever; retrieve the staff from Deadbolt; get some blundering idiot out of his way, and finally giant friggin' scorpions - on top of all the other mysteries. Cracking wise was not one of his priorities [Getting me stomped on by TWO SPECTRAL FARGNAXING WARRIORS didn't help either you useless cunno - R.]

Lol! When I first read it I was like..."Huh?" I went back and re-read it several times to see if I was actually reading it right. Then suddenly I said, "Holy [censored] !!! He's in FO3 !!!!!

[This chapter is going to have to be split. So in this thrilling chapter: a terrible title pun; more pseudo-latin swearing; more damn exposition; a vignette from Ra'jirra's childhood; and footnotes.]
21 August 2277: Background Radiation

“Wakey wakey,” said a voice, and I awoke the following morning to discover the Capital Wasteland wasn't a dream. There are things that are bloody painful to do in full armour and sleeping on decaying bridges without a bedroll is one of them.

So I peered up at Haines' face, which suggested he felt like I did. Good. The dead city around us used shadows from the east for crutches as it braced itself for another day.

“So, what's the plan?” asks I. My meditation last night had helped me accept the fact that I'd been chosen by the Nine for something. That they had chosen me and not Zul the Snot Golem also helped me accept it!

“You're asking me?” Haines looks puzzled. “Oh! Of course, my superior knowledge and your desire to survive. Well!”

I decided not to tell him about the Nine's plans. Yet.

“Of course,” says I, “not to mention I'll be wrung for information when I do get rescued, and I'm sure a smart lad like yourself can show me wonders.”

Got 'im! Haines beams and puffs himself up like a rooster. Exposure to and practise in stroking the ego of Zul gro-Merdaful[1] was evidently paying off.

“According to my map, that building directly to the south,” and he points past the turn in the road to another building standing some way off in glorious isolation, “is marked as penetrable. It is my goal to arrive at and, well, investigate the structure.”

“All right then,” says I, “but just a thought, let's walk on the east side of the road here so those bandits – I mean, raiders don't spot us.”

And Haines nods. “Good thinking Ra'jirra,” says he, “Ammunition doesn't grow on trees after all, so even if they do we're out of range. Well – let's get up and going. I need to get glowy for Moira.”

“Moira?” We both turn to the scavenger, who never did tell us his name and was staring at Haines incredulously. “Moira Brown? The mad scientist of Megaton?”

“Well, I'd hardly call her a scientist,” Haines says stiffly, “But I'm researching a book for her. It may well end up saving lives.”

And the guy just shakes his head and snorts. “Listen buster, I've been to Megaton, I've met that girl. Take my advice and stick to trading from now on. One of these days she's going to blow herself up, I swear. Don't let her blow you up, okay?”

Well! “I think I can prevent that from happening, I am Doctor Earnest Haines after all,” says Haines huffily. The effect was immediate.

“The Ernie Haines? The guy who disarmed the Megaton A-bomb?” And he rushes forward and shakes Haines' hand! “That was futtin'[2] amazing! You know how long it's been ticking there? I mean... wow. The guy who saved Megaton. And I shook your hand! Hey – thanks dude. That's...”

“Oh please!” says Haines, trying very hard to be modest – and failing. “I was just fixing pipes, and while I was fixing things, I thought, why not fix that bomb? So...” if ever a man was arrogantly humble, Haines was.

“Nothin' my cloony.[3] If there's anythin' you need, gimme a visit. And tell Moira ol' Donny says hi, okay?”

It took a fair bit more gushy stuff and handshaking before Haines and I could start picking our way south from Donny's bridge, with him guarding our backs.

“Haines,” says I thoughtfully, “you mentioned a war.”

“Eh?” Haines looked at me thoughtfully. “I did? Well, yes, there was a war. Two hundred years ago as a matter of fact.”

I tried to comprehend the idea and failed. “Well, why hasn't anyone started rebuilding at all? Nine love us, even Kvatch was rebuilt and that was finished four years after the Oblivion crisis.”

Haines looked at me and looked away and at all the dead buildings and then west, down the road. “Does this look like some village to you?”

“Village?” I could not believe this idiot had dismissed the arduous but vital business of rebuilding the site where the Oblivion crisis had begun. “Kvatch is a city you jackass!”

“Well excuse us for not building castles! We didn't fight with futting crossbows and catapults you know!”

“Let me guess – guns, right?”

“Yes! I mean no! I mean...” Haines was trying to control himself. “There are worse weapons, all right? Can you even – Raider!”

We'd walked right past the ruined shell of a building without watching where we were going, and a raider at the far end of the 'street' had got the drop on us. There are many ways of cutting an argument short and being shot at by a bloodthirsty criso[4] is one of them.

I went for my bow but got the staff instead. While both Ernie and the raider were demonstrating what godsawful shots they were, I decided nothing ventured, nothing gained, lined up the raider and loosed an amber pulse.

It hit the woman dead on, showing them both what a marvellous shot I was; to my surprise it shrank into her hand and her piss-till fell to bits.

Disintegration magics eh? Guess the Nine have a sense of humour.

Until now I hadn't understood how many moving parts there were in a gun. From her expression she hadn't known either. She continued to gape as I dropped the staff and charged with mace at the ready before finally fleeing.

Something small and round overtook me and I heard Haines yell a warning. I pulled up in time to see the raider sent flying by an explosion that took her leg off.

“All right then,” says I, acting as though loud bangs were a regular part of life (all right, they were at Black Plateau!), “was that one of your 'worse weapons'?”

“That, sir, was a grenade.” And he shows me another little round ball with a sort of handle on one side and a pin in one side. “Just pull the pin and throw. Well, throw the grenade, not the pin, you, ah, only have three seconds before detonation.”

I just look at him. “And bigger ones could do more damage, eh?” I picked the staff up and looked about the ruined street.

And Haines looks up from where he's going through the raider's belongings. “Don't be an idiot! Chemical explosives are nowhere near as effective. Atomic weapons did all this, hundreds of them. Once I'm done,” and he mutters “to a turn” under his breath, “I'll take you to Megaton and show you how big they were. Think!... er...”

“Er what?”

“I've only just thought to ask now. What do you call your, um, race?”

What damage could it do? “I am Khajiit,” says I calmly, “and I had you pegged for a Breton.” Seriously. He had the pale skin, tone of voice and snotty attitude of the more aristocratic denizens of High Rock. As opposed to his coming from Hole-In-The-Rock, but never mind.

“Breton? But I've never been to France.”

“What?” was my intelligent response.

“Well... I took pre-war geography in school. There's a region of France whose people are called Bretons. I mean were.”

I just stared. I'd braced myself for strange things, and I could cope with two-headed cows, giant bugs and bloodthirsty bandits, but that this world had Bretons?

“Um... what about Redguards?”

“The only Red Guard I know off is part of the Chinese army.”

Whatever Chinese were.“Nords?”

He frowned, absently pouring gun ammunition into a pocket. “I remember some reference to the Norsemen of ancient Europe. We are talking human beings, right?”

“Well, yes, we have the races of Men, Mer–”

“Don't tell me you have mermaids on your homeworld!”

As most people know and I would later tell Haines, we have sort-of mermaids. As well as the sea-going forms of the dreugh, there are those nicer varieties adorning sailors, ships, grog-shops, gimcracks, poems and maps. Some folk even claim the Solstheim horker – basically a sack of lard with tusks on one end and flippers on the other – has been taken for a mermaid. Gods help the man that desperate.

I was about to explain this to him, but a distant high-pitched hiss stopped me. I froze at once. As we'd come east to loot the dead raider the only location it could have come from was due north, where the land dropped. I pointed and Ernie nodded and we crept to investigate.

Earnest headed in another fit of common sense to where a retaining wall still stood. Logical. In front of us the ruined road bed made a ramp down to whatever was making strangled scamp imitations.

Peering over the edge of the wall showed what might have been a small park at some stage, as it didn't appear to have been built on. A trench suggested a watercourse, but what took my attention was the figures tottering about it.

Haines extracted a wry-fool from his pack, and handed me his square piss-till. “Look through the scope,” whispers he tapping the tube on the top. So I do, and it's a nice little spyglass!

Unfortunately the figures in the scope didn't look any better. They looked dead, but they clearly weren't zombies. For one thing, they weren't obviously rotting and they moved easily. They were emaciated, but worse, they seemed to have no skin. I was looking at muscle and, I swear, insides.

And one was looking in my direction with cloudy, but still working eyes. Whatever the thing was, it was capable of pointing and screaming, which it did.

At us, squatting like idiots on a ledge in plain view.

I dropped the piss-till and took aim at one of the... well, they weren't exactly charging, since they couldn't seem to decide how to run, four limbs or two.

“What the hell are you doing!” Haines yelled at me.

I ignored him and launched a snowball – I don't know why, I just thought frost magics and there it went. Seemed to do the trick as it hunched over shaking long enough for Haines to aim and miss by a mile with an almighty bang.

“You could've –” he went on, shooting at the other horror and sending its head flying out its cully,[5] “– shot at it!”

Maybe he meant shoot the gun and not fling a nice Firestarter into the thing, sending it overcooked to the floor, which I'd just done. Why should he care? Results are results.

“I don't know how to use that thing,” says I, “so I stuck with what I know.” I also stuck my tongue out at him. (I know my tongue. It's always been part of my life.)

“Or did you learn to shoot guns when something was trying to kill you?”

Well, Ernie went red behind his visor, and his beard goes up and down. “Of course not!” he finally squirts out, “my father set up a target range for me!” He then looks down at his larger wry-fool. “He took it down later when he found out I'd converted it to hold radroaches and... um... charged for admission.”

I think for a moment and say, “Same here.”

And he stares at me.

* * *

When I was six, my dad gave me a wooden sword and shield for Emperor's Birthday. I was rapt, of course, and the hours in the day I wasn't doing chores I was General Ra'jirra of the Imperial Legion, defending the Empire from diabolical daedra, unspeakable undead, bloodthirsty bandits and mean ol' mages, “with a thrust and a stab and a parry-diddle-O” as the song goes.

One day I had to scoot the chickens back into the coop. Using all the logical powers a six-year-old could bring to bear, I decided the best way to make this really tiresome chore fun was to take arms and rout the evil poultry armada back to their fortress. (Hey, I was six, I didn't know the difference between an army and armada.)

Trying to explain to an irate father why two of our hens were dead and most of the rest flying everywhere but their coop was well beyond the explanatory powers of a six-year-old, unfortunately.

That night I was unceremoniously and dishonourably discharged from the Imperial Legion, my armaments consigned to the flames and my equally burning backside sent to bed without supper. In fact, I was on bread and water for a week.

Maybe that's why I've never been comfy with blades.

* * *

But anyhow I told that tale to Ernie, and he scoffed. “Bugger your chickens,” says he, “the fact remains, and I doubt I am wrong, that your learning to use modern weaponry will improve your chances of survival until you are hopefully rescued.” He points to the piss-till. “Now pass that weapon, please.”

Oh well, I tried. I picked up the boxy little thing and gave it to him and he gave me a familiar shape in return.

“One standard ten-millimetre pistol,” he announced, “as issued to Vault security officers. Now then,” and that's how I found myself with a gun in hand watching Ernie place a rusted piece of junk he called a tin can on the ledge some twenty feet away.

I can't go into details due to Imperial oaths[6], but I will admit that it took me two whole 'clips' before the can was knocked off the edge. I shook my head, trying to get the sound of gunfire out. Give me a nice quiet bow any day.

“Don't worry about it,” said Ernie, “Most rounds are fired solely to stop the other lidgie firing straight. You'll get the hang of it, since you can fling... energy... as well. So – enough target practice, let's see what we've got here.”

I go to hand him the gun but he tells me to hold on to it. Fine. It'll be a nice souvenir when I go home.

And so we get closer to the corpses. They're ripe aren't they!

“Urgh,” says Haines as he rifles through their meagre claddings, and then turns to me. “Pocket money,” says he, dropping half a dozen metal circlets with crimped edges into my hand.

“Money?” I dig into my purse and pull out a drake. “No mate, this is money.”

And Haines snatches it and turns it around and peers at the image of Uriel Septim on one side and the Imperial Dragon on the other and runs his finger along the words along the edge, trying to make them out.

“Well,” says he pocketing it, “your money's no good here. Bottle caps! That's what they use for currency these days. Anyway! These must be ghouls, and I believe they inhabited that drain over there. Let us investigate.”

Inside the drain were more ghouls, stagnant water, and several metal gates stopping us progressing further. A pair of tunnels of extraordinary smoothness rose up to the east and we followed them. “Can't see a thing,” Haines grizzled and turned on his light again. I quickly turned away to avoid dazzling my night eyes and saw a shape in an alcove that wasn't a ghoul.

“Your eyes are good,” Haines remarked as he quickly divested the half-eaten corpse of its valuables: A gun Haines identified as an 'assault rifle', some ammo and some 'meds'.

“There's another up top,” says I, and so the second corpse came to pass, along with a metal box which yielded something too big to be a gun.

“That's no gun,” says I, “another of your 'far worse' weapons?”

“Indeed,” says Haines haughtily, “a missile launcher. Rather clumsy, and this one's in terrible condition... did you hear something?”

Haines two, me one. Apparently this sewer was a ghoul lair, and another quartet had returned home and weren't happy we'd been messing with their larder. We weren't happy with their attempts to put us on the menu either, so it all balanced out bar the shooting, shouting and whacking once-human wretches with blunt objects.

I poked one peculiar ghoul, which was still glowing an unhealthy green, but it seemed it wouldn't be attempting anything again. “What's with this one?” asks I, “When it flared up like that. Replenished my magicka reserves a treat.”

Haines came up, his Pip-Boy ticking away happily. “It what?” He looks at the ghoul and looks at me uncertainly. “Maybe it's an elder. Perhaps this is the redoubt of a ghoul... tribe, I guess. But what's this about magicka?”

Time for me to play the scholar! “All men, mer and beastfolk have a natural reserve of magicka within them. With tutoring and practise, they can use it to touch the Aurbis and create effects in this mundane world. Most times, it naturally regenerates slowly, unless you're unlucky enough to be born under the Atronach, or there's a damping field such as Dagoth Ur placed over Morrowind.” And I look at the glowing corpse and frown. “Normally I'd only get such a charge from a welkynd stone, or a really expensive restorative potion... and it wouldn't itch so much.”

Most of that sailed straight out Haines' other earhole and went splat on the ground.

“Well,” says he, and consults his Pip-Boy. “That's an effect of radiation exposure not covered in the books. Most remarkable.”

My cully heard 'radiation' and tried to hide up around my neck.

“Hang on,” squeaks I, “Radiation? As in 'tick-tick-tickety means run your cloony outa there'? As in needing, uh, Rad-X and RadAway to survive?”

“Oh, don't worry,” says Haines happily, “I have those in abundance, as well as a fine purgative system at my house, allowing me to absorb plenty of rads without fear.”

I was already heading for the door. All right, the grate. “Don't worry? You could catch on fire or something!”

“Well of course don't worry!” Haines wasn't following. He was making himself comfy in the spot where his Pip-Boy was ticking fastest. “This is all part of the plan today. Tomorrow, I assure you, I won't be leading you into any more hot zones than I have to.

“My mission is to contract radiation poisoning, preferably six hundred rads or more, for Moira to do her little tests and work on her 'Wasteland Survival Guide.'”

Just then his Pip-Boy rang a little bell. “Ah!” exclaims Haines looking at the thing, “Minor rad poisoning! We're on the way!” And he rubs his head.

I gave serious thought to just fleeing back to where we'd met and leaving my nutty travelling companion to his fate. Yes, I might well starve, or get stomped on by something (or several somethings), but hang it all...

...I was stuck here nursemaiding this loon. The gods had decided, and I might not like it, but at least I could... I could learn from it. While things weren't trying to chew my tail off anyway.

“Have you never seen a khajiit before?” asks I.

“Hum? No...” Haines says quietly and winces. “Only humans.”

“No mer? Maybe you know them as elves.” He just shook his head. “Only in fairy tales.”

“What about the Orsimer – you know, orcs?”

“Big green things? Snaggle teeth? Aggressive and love a fight?”

That was Zul gro-kissmycully-Radagash[7] to the life! “You have them then?”

“Only in fairy tales.” He leaned over to one side and was noisily sick. My night-eye vision revealed bluish tints that could have been blood.

I didn't ask about Argonians. I could guess what the answer would be. A whole world of nothing but humans boggled my imagination. Or perhaps, just perhaps, they hadn't found other races yet...

“So how much of the world has been explored?” Perfectly sensible question.

“All of it!” Haines rasped. “We've sent explorers to the deepest deserts, to the North and South poles, dived under the seas and seen the Earth from space. We've even been to the moon! What d'you think of that eh? With your magic and horses and boats oh my?” And then he was sick again.

I assumed it was the radiation talking at the end. No mer, no beastfolk, no orcs. Unbelievable. Maybe they'd been... I decided not to ask.

A little bell rang.

“What caused this war anyway?”

Haines forced his eyes open, and even my night eye could tell they were discoloured. “Natural resources. The last supplies of oil, the last mines of uranium ore. We needed those to survive. But the futtin' Chinks thought they could just invade our territory and take it. Spurrys. We showed them up – power armour.” He smirked and his lips cracked into a maze of blood. “They dropped the futtin' bombs on us, so we dropped ours on them.” The smile slipped. “And destroyed ourselves.”

“What – the whole world?” I couldn't understand. Haines observed this and I agreed with him.

“You've no idea what atomic bombs can do. Look at me.” I didn't want to because there were hideous bruises or lesions appearing on his skin. “When they went off, they kicked up dust. And it wasn't just us versus the Chinks – it was our allies in Europe, their allies in the Middle East, nobody was spared. The radioactive dust in the air, the fires, the destroying of all civic infrastructure... millions died. Thousands of millions.”

Exaggeration, I thought, it must be. Haines is going potty from all that radiation. An entire world destroyed? Thousands of millions of people killed? Impossible. At least, that's what I thought at the time.

A little bell rang. Haines hauled his Pip-Boy up to his face, drooled bloody and coughed. “Well, I'm nice and toasty, don't know about you,” he chuckled. I wish he hadn't. It sounded like our beloved Champion of Cyrodiil during a banquet. (To qualify that, at least Haines wasn't pawing anything in a skirt and – oh, let's be honest, I speak from agonising experience.)

Anyway, Haines levered himself up to a standing position. “Let's go back to Megaton and let Moira do her worst, eh?”

[1] From the Latin merda, literally 'full of excrement'.
[2] From the Latin futu. Self explanatory.
[3] From Latin clunes, 'buttocks'. No reference to actors British, Hollywooden or otherwise.
[4] Refers to the female partner's actions during sex (derogatory); 'b*tch'.
[5] Slang term for anus. 'Cully-licker' is a good offensive term, especially for Khajiit.
[6] Let's just say Ra'jirra brought more than a good tale back, and leave it at that, shall we?
[7] I would like to clarify at this point that the full name Champion of Cyrodill, Hero of Kvatch, Knight of the Thorn etc. is Zul gro-Radagash, period. This disclaimer is brought to you in order to prevent possible injury or death.

I have to say, you solved the language issue nicely.
So Dagoth Ur had a dampening field over Morrowind that prevented magicka to restore.... oowwwkaaaayyy..

btw, your footnotes are more funny than explanatory

SPEW !!!!!!! ROFL !!!!!! [GASP, CHOKE] SPEW !!!!!! ROFL !!!!!!

FUN FANFIC FACTS!

FACT: A popular side effect of Dagoth Ur's dampening field was levitation!
FACT: Black Plateau is always looking for research associates to help discover how to levitate again. If you are interested in magickal research and have outstanding warrants, just ask your local Imperial guardsman today!
FACT: Earnest Haines sounds like Harry "Dr Howll" Robbins, voice of Dr Isaac Kleiner!
FACT: Hircine drove a wedge between Ra'jirra and Zul gro-Radagash, but blames it all on Mehrunes Dagon!
FACT: Latin cusswords made sense, given the Imperial dominance in culture, and were a blast to retrofit!
FACT: Doing the next chapter in Megaton terrifies me. I might go "meanwhile, at Black Plateau..." instead and see if they've actually decided what to do yet.

Or simply a "meanwhile" chapter where they argue about what to do next, fail to reach a decision, and choose to break for lunch, instead. After all, the Arch-Mage isn't there to tell them to "Get on with it!"

That is because Moira lives in Megaton. She is a frightening aspect of FO3...real frightening!!!

[Ah, interludes. To write, like Treydog, in snippets of letters, memoranda, and such? Or... well, I needed the exercise in third person writing. To be blunt, tried mock minutes but nothing came out right.]

Interlude: Loredas 11 First Seed 4E8, 11 bells of morning

Brucellus Vito, pilus of Black Plateau Security and Battlemage Training, rapped his stick on the table.

"Thank you all for coming," he said quietly, "at such short notice. The Arch-mage would have been pleased, and it's the Arch-mage we'll be discussing."

"I hope this won't take long then," was a statement coming from an elongated Bosmer down the far end of the table. Oh, of course, Arondiel. The fly guy.

"I think rescuing the Arch-mage is more important that sending more convicts to their deaths," Tuls Laren said acidly. "Honestly, are you ever going to let go of Tarhiel's stupid ideas?"

"Order," Brucellus said ominously.

"They worked damnit! It was just the landing that was fatal!"

"Order," Brucellus said again, but a little more ominously. The two magi took the hint and shut up, glaring daggers at each other.

"To recap the events of the past day and a half," Brucellus ticked them off on the report sheet in his head, "Arch-mage Ra'jirra arrived Fredas 10 First Seed at nine-and-quarter bells, and was taken directly to Laboratory Seven, Building Three, assigned to Laren, Tuls. There he was shown the portal which Laren had created, linking the laboratory to an unknown location for, at that point in time, a duration of six and one-half days. Due to the portal being opaque no identification could be made as to the portal's destination at that time."

There were various mutterings and scratching of quills as the assembled took notes.

"Said portal's intended destination was a point immediately outside Building Three for a proof of concept." This produced another flurry of surprised note-taking and Laren stared at the table.

"Did you try a smaller portal first?" That was Er-Ma, a collected young hatchling of three-and-thirty and wise beyond her years. Bruce had heard that Er-Ma had been part of a coven or something before heeding her true calling and arriving at the Leyawiin guild-house. Right now her unusually bright eyes were trained on Laren.

"Of course" he replied, "I'm not stupid! The original portal was only a foot across before it expanded!"

"Order," Bruce used a vocal trick that had in the past terrorised whole platoons. Herding cats, he thought to himself. "We can discuss good research practices later. If I may continue:

"At about seven-and-quarter bells in the evening, an intruder emerged from the portal. Intruder was hostile and attacked Pierre Beugalle, injuring him fatally. Arch-mage Ra'jirra apprehended the intruder long enough for security staff to secure the prisoner."

"That would be the wild woman," someone said thoughtfully, "quite the privy-mouth wasn't she?"

"The intruder was taken to the cells, searched and locked up for the night," Bruce forged on. "Interrogation of prisoner 'Dead-bolt' commenced Loredas 11 First Seed at seven bells of morning. Interrogation run by Brucellus Vito, Arch-mage Ra'jirra and Magician Tuls Laren in attendance for first half-hour before returning to laboratory."

"I love military talk, don't you?" Arondiel murmured to nobody in particular.

"Better than listening to you," Er-Ma channelled the feelings of most of the assembly.

"Do you mind?" Henantier said irritably, "I want to hear how she escaped."

Bruce shifted a little in his chair.

"Interrogation of prisoner 'Dead-bolt' concluded nine bells of morning," he pressed on tonelessly. "Brucellus Vito departed room before prisoner was transferred back to holding cell prior to transfer to Imperial City prison and sentencing for murder of Pierre Beugalle. At this point prisoner... managed to incapacitate the guards, unlock shackles and escape." The words tasted like dead fish and bog beacon.

"Four of them," Laren shook his head, "I still can't believe it even now. What the hell happened?"

"You should have given her to me," Arondiel snapped, "I need more research associates!"

"She managed to knock out four damn guards, you jackass!" Laren shouted, "Can't you think about something other than your stupid research for one second?"

"Stupid research? Look who's calling who stupid! Playing with holes in space when we could be flying!" Arondiel was up on his feet and turning red.

"What's the point in flying when you can't get down safely!" Laren was turning purple. "And you're so stuck on Tarhiel's stupid spells you're not even –"

Bruce closed his eyes, counted to ten in increments of five, then brought his stick down on the table. Hard.

"Ladies and gentlemen of the Mage's Guild!" Brucellus Vito rarely raised his voice unless he was extremely excited. The fact he was raising it now caused everyone to freeze and egos to shrink back to normal.

"I think Ra'jirra would appreciate it if we all, as he liked to say, 'mucked in together' and applied ourselves to the task of locating and rescuing him." He twitched one corner of his mouth. "Backbiting, no matter how deserved, might make him ticked off."

Arondiel glared at Laren and then found something fascinating about the table. Having 'ticked off' the Arch-mage previously he didn't want that to happen again.

Laren opened his mouth but Holmar beat him to it.

"The Nine may not let us." This intonation hung in the air for about two and a half seconds before the table burst into seven and three-quarter seconds of furious objection, followed by Bruce rapping his stick for order.

"Holmar Long-Drink," he asked with an unnerving flatness of tone, "please explain your statement."

"The Nine blessed us with the gift of tongues," the priest said, "And they brought unto us the one known as 'Dead Bolt'. The portal of Tuls Laren enlarged without warning. Mayhap the hand of the gods was moving afore that day. Think you: how could a slip of a girl subdue a quartet of armed men? Look to the blessed Divines, for 'twould appear a Champion was required, to tread that distant soil in its hour of need..."

Bruce looked around at the rest of the attendees. Laren was frowning at nothing. Arondiel, Henantier and Er-Ma were wearing identical glazed expressions along with a substantial cross-section of the others as Holmar continued to preach.

"He's right." Laren's determined tone shattered the spell and Holmar stopped dead, glowering at the interruption.

"It makes sense. There is no logical explanation except that outside forces manipulated the portal's daedronic fields – and given the translation magic Holmar's probably right on the money."

"Probably?" Holmar sputtered.

"Also note that we were unaware of the language problem until Ra'jirra arrived, and then that criso appeared after he did, and then she somehow manages to free herself from her shackles and four guardsmen." The Dunmer looked around.

"I am loath to use such a phrase, but, well," his face looked like he'd swallowed a lemon, "the gods did it. The question is: Why?"

"Ours is not to question the gods," Holmar intoned stonily, "but to obey their dictates. To do otherwise... is sin."

The meeting was brought to an abrupt close due to attempted murder.

* * *

In the following hours Brucellus Vito took charge.

He had a few words with Arondiel regarding the possibility that, despite Trebonius Artorius' notorious and well-documented incompetence, his underlings may have been somewhat more effective, and as such maybe analysis of levitation as observed and cast by other guild members might be worth revisiting. After all, the Arch-mage himself had suggested doing so on several occasions, and surely such a recommendation counted for something?

Arondiel looked doubtful.

Bruce remarked that while doing so, he might find something that would help reopen Laren's portal and keep it open before Laren did.

Arondiel looked more than a little interested when Bruce left him.

Bruce also visited Holmar Long-Drink in the infirmary, ostensibly to check on his condition. While that ecclesiastical worthy was unable to speak, he was able to nod when the pilus prior requested that he be informed should Holmar be granted any further insights into the Nine's intentions.

While at the infirmary, he also checked on Er-Ma. Apparently her arm had only been dislocated and would heal up by tomorrow afternoon.

Finally he visited Tuls Laren. The Dunmer had retreated back to Building Three and flinched when Brucellus entered the laboratory.

There was some one-sided discussion regarding respect for the clergy and general etiquette, with particular focus on the observed relationship between Holmar Long-Drink's throat and a pair of hands which appeared to be attached to Tuls Laren.

Tuls made statements regarding the personality and genealogy of Holmar Long-Drink and the nature of magical research.

Brucellus made it clear that he didn't give a fourdrake and that if it wasn't for the urgency of locating the Arch-mage the jail manifest would be longer by one Tuls Laren.

Tuls said nothing of note in response.

Brucellus added that Arondiel was revisiting pre-Nerevarine records of the Mage's Guild and might find something useful.

Tuls expressed significant doubts that this would happen. The exact wording involved speculation on Arondiel's family tree of a highly libellous nature.

Brucellus stated that he would expect a status report by tomorrow noon.

My favorite lines:



and especially this one:




ROFL !!!!!

One of Ra'jirra's complaints about Black Plateau is that "all the big brains in magic are linked to ginormous egos". It doesn't help that my research in The Imperial Library suggests friction between the Imperial Cult and the Mage's Guild, which would also explain the bias of Alessia Ottus.

Short Interludes are for those of us who can't think of a way to write long ones- in other words, please proceed.





See how much more enjoyable that is than- "The debate became spirited"?

[Ugh, the wording. Lots of digressions and crawling into people's heads. One exception is Tar-Meena; she doesn't mind Ra'jirra's fatherly delight in his hatchlings, but she insists they stay well away from her precious Archives. There's one more chapter taking place in a Megaton afternoon before Ra'jirra and Haines make an unwelcome discovery. Partly because I have more business here, partly because of dangling conversation threads.]


Chapter 6: 21 August 2277: Megaton

I think it best that I perform a public service and explain for idiots what radiation is, more or less, so you can use your own judgement and stay the hells away from it.

According to Haines, the people of Earth had discovered that all matter is composed of bits called atoms, which are too small to see, and which stick together to make water, air, and everything else. In fact, they're so small that they're right on the border between being honest-to-gods stuff and energy.

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed,” Haines recited like a liturgy, “only transformed.”

Some atoms are unstable. So if you get a big enough lump of some stuff made of unstable atoms, the whole thing explodes as all the atoms turn into energy – heat, light, shock, and a whole raft of other energies we people of Nirn mercifully haven't even discovered yet.

Because these Earth clowns made weapons called bombs that used this 'critical mass' idea, and look where it got them.

Or if someone has, they went boom before they could tell anyone.

Anyway, some of these energies are lumped together as 'radiation', and it's these which were, apparently, causing Haines to feel weak and fall apart, and were giving me headaches, as well as an unexpected magicka boost. Evidently magicka is an energy – one that these people hadn't discovered!

Radiation cannot be seen, usually, but there are ways of sensing that it's there. Lots of dead creatures and plants for starters.

Anyway, that's the basics of radiation. And between you and me, no matter how badly you might need magicka, the side effects are simply not worth it: unable to eat, hair falling out, skin bruises and splits at the slightest provocation, literally puking up your guts, your brain literally rotting away in your skull, and a slow, horrid, painful death.

I may have some of the details wrong but radiation will kill you anyway.

________

We were quite the pair when we arrived at the Craterside Supply in Megaton that afternoon. Actually, we were quite the pair when we arrived at Megaton in the first place, but that goes without saying. I just ignored the inevitable stares and helped a decidedly enfeebled Earnest Haines up a rickety metal ramp and into a shack that Haines assured me was the main store in the place.

Speaking of places, Megaton is a walled village built within a huge crater over two hundred feet across. Apparently it's made from the carcass of a huge flying machine, one of many which dropped the atomic bombs here. And one of them didn't go off. That one still sits, mercifully defused, in the middle of the village, worshipped by its own cult of loonies. I'll describe it later.

Note to Arondiel: I'm talking about the bomb, not the flying machine. It wasn't until much later that Ernie deigned to explain how that damn thing worked.

Also please note the crater housing Megaton was made by a bomb that didn't explode. If it had, the crater would have been measured in miles, I'm quite certain, and there would have been no reason at all for me being here.

The crater walls have been enlarged by barriers of scavenged metal about thirty feet high or more, making it one of the best fortified places in the Capital Wasteland area. I know this because the sheriff told me himself, later on.

But right now a rather dirty and slightly singed young woman I decided was Moira was goggling at me and Haines from behind a counter, and also at our entourage: a scowling dirty Redguard boy in an overlarge coat, a girl who again looked sort of Breton under all her dirt, an oldster of indeterminate race, and two or three extra gogglers.

“Ah, Moira,” Haines said as though fronting up with serious radiation poisoning and an armoured Khajiit in tow was a perfectly normal occurrence.

“Uh, hi, Ernie,” Moira didn't look like a mad scientist, but then there was that odd smell in the air speaking clearly of potions gone wrong. “What... I mean who... uh...”

“Ra'jirra, this is Moira Brown, she runs the Craterside Supply,” says Haines in as breezy a tone as he can manage. “Moira, I'd like you to meet Ra'jirra the, er, Khajiit.” Yep, he's enjoying her discomfort. “I was explaining to him about your survival guide?”

“Oh! He told you about it?” She perked right up like one of those twitty apprentices convinced they're going to turn the world on its ear with their profound discoveries. “Yeah, lemme explain why –”

I hold up a hand. “Maybe later ma'am,” says I, “but right now Doctor Haines here needs your assistance.” Ernie rolling his eyes suggested that was a bit more important than explanations about survival guides.

So she looks again at Haines and notices. “Oh, yeah, I'll tell you later,” says she, and then says to Ernie, “So, feeling a little under the weather... or maybe over the guy-gur counter?”

Oh what a lovely bedside manner. I would soon learn that the official healer in town was even worse. This meant people tended to sew their own limbs back on and stuff like that.

“Moira... my Pip-Boy's reading nearly 700 rads right now,” Haines manages to say in a civil tone, “I feel like I'm about to burn a hole through the floor, the only reason I'm standing is this counter, my skin is beginning to fall off, and I swear if I listen closely I can hear my genes crying.”

Genes? Another mystery word for the list, thought I.

“So, fatigue, tissue damage, and you're experiencing delusions, too? Fascinating!” She reminded me of Arondiel, the fly boy. “Now, after taking a few notes, I'll take care of that nasty radiation with a bit of my own home-made concoction. So, if you come over here,” and she points to a wretched-looking cot down the back, “and if your audience would like to give us some space,” and she looks hard at the gawpers, “I'll get right to it.”

“So you know some alchemy for curing this radiation then?” asks I. “I think a dose would do me good too.”

“Well,” says she, “I know a little chemistry –”

Must be what they call alchemy here, I thought. Or was it something else entirely?

“– But mainly it's a nice tall glass of rad-cleansing brahmin milk. Laced with a whole lot of Rad-X and RadAway.”

Oh.

“And maybe even a more reliable way to get rid of radiation! ...Assuming it works, of course.”

Uh-oh. I could see Haines thinking the same thing.

“I've never had a chance to test it out on someone so heavily dosed, but I'm sure it'll work out fine. Exciting, isn't it? Now, let's see,” and she turns away and starts rummaging through dented desks and crumpled metal cupboards, “a little brahmin milk, some magnets, a few happy thoughts...”

I've seen research being done, and I've seen the healers at work, and what Moira was doing wasn't research and would make any healer worth their salt hit the skooma. Basically she poked, prodded, stuck tubes connected to pouches of gods only knew what sludge into his arm, asked stupid questions, took samples, stared into a contraption with green symbols on a screen while tapping away on a mass of keys like a harpsichord gone wrong, and let's be honest here. She was making it up as she went along. As a secondary observer, I noticed to my dismay that whatever was in those pouches seemed to be having more effect than anything else.

I say 'to my dismay' because I'm no soothsayer, but I could see plainly that the “being stuck like a pig” cure was going to feature large in my future.

“What's the pouch things?” asks I of the nearest gawker.

“RadAway,” says he, “absorbs radiation and heals some of the damage. Only thing is the stuff does a number on your head and guts.”

“Lovely,” says I, “now I know what I've got coming next.” I looked over at Haines who was dozing in his chair as Moira did anything with a selection of small vials and other gimcracks.

“Huh? What's that?” She swung around to look at me. “You get irradiated as well huh? That's... uh...” and the confused look returns to her face, “great I guess, but...”

“I'm a Khajiit,” says I before she asks, “and it might throw off your results, right?”

And she just blinks at me and then the bottle-cap drops. “Yeah, right, exactly! Well, I can maybe do a few checks, but since you're a mutant –”

And she stops dead because I'm not hiding my annoyance. Yes, I don't look human, but – “Let me set you straight,” says I, “I'm a born and bred Khajiit, for more generations than I have fingers. Despite that, the arts of the healer and the alchemist work as well on me as any man or mer. And if anyone calls me a mutant...” and I trail off and look around meaningfully, then the increasingly pugnacious-looking Redguard kid pipes up.

“You don't try nothin' mister,” says he, “my dad's the sheriff here, so you just watch it.”

Gods! If I closed my eyes I could imagine that coming from my fearless J'dargo, facing a drunk at the Faregyl Inn! It's a wonder he's still alive.

“Well then, young sir,” says I soberly, “I won't start anything.” Which is a good way to run your life. Let the other pugnacious idiot seek help getting their head bashed in.

“Sounds good to me,” said a voice that probably started in the man's boots before emerging from his beard. His coat – his son was wearing a cut-down version – bore a metal star, as did his broad-brimmed hat. “None of these folks causing you trouble?”

“Apart from making me feel like I'm in a menagerie, no,” says I, then I tap my chest. “Ra'jirra,” and I pause, then decide what the hells, “Arch-mage of the Imperial Mage's Guild, currently picking my nose and awaiting rescue.”

“At the same time?” Yep, I was going to get on fine. “Lucas Simms, mayor and sheriff of Megaton. I see you've met Harden,” he adds. “So where you from?”

“Cyrodiil,” says I, “which is probably a lot further off than even I think.”

“Did you have to mention you do magic?” Haines had come around at last, albeit with, I suspected, stomach pains and a headache, as well as an irritated expression.

“Nice of you to come round,” says I, “how're you feeling?”

“Horrible,” says he, “I don't think I'll be able to eat anything for a week.”

“That's RadAway for you,” says Simms the elder with a knowing smile. “Oh, and make sure you drink plenty of water. That stuff goes in orange and comes out green.”

Oh, joy. Laughter made me realise that I'd groaned that aloud.

“Well, the good news is – you're alive!” Moira chirped happily to Haines, who didn't seem cheered by that. “But... um... there was a little side-effect.”

“You mean something worse than a force-regrown digestive tract?” Ernie was exaggerating. It's the lining in your guts that gets regrown, apparently. I shudder to think what happens in your brain.

“No, not that bad! Just a teeny, tiny, um, mutation.”

Haines went even whiter than he already was. Apparently mutation tends to be a bad thing.

“But it seems to be benign, at least.” She tapped away on her contraption and peered at the green symbols. “Looks like a form of radiation-assisted regeneration.”

“Fat lot of use that is,” Haines grumbled, “seeing as I don't intend getting radiation poisoning ever again.”

Moira didn't answer that as she dug into a box and extracted some items. “Here,” says she to Ernie, “take a few radiation chems, as my little way of saying, 'I'm sorry I twisted your DNA like a kitten with a ball of yarn.'”
And then they stop and look at me since I burst out laughing.

“Sorry, sorry,” says I, “you haven't seen what my little kits could do with yarn. Trust me on this.”

________

Abhuki liked to knit. She knit vests. She knit caps. She knit scarves and really quite pretty placemats and gloves and such. And she made a nice drake out of it. Which for the slow meant she had a chest full of bright coloured materials and needles.

When the twins were three, they went upstairs to play, while Abhuki manned the taps, and S'jirra and I were in the basement, checking inventory. One of the downsides is that the Arch-Mage has to do all the shopping in the Imperial City where Bravil's markets don't cut it.

Anyhow, there's a crash from upstairs followed by a shrill howling duet that shook off all thought of shopping trips. S'jirra and I jumped up and adjusted our clothing and headed upstairs where the patrons were all staring up at the ceiling and Abhuki was nowhere in sight.

So we went upstairs and saw Abhuki outside her room, arms folded. She looked up as we approached, and I noticed she was trying very hard to not laugh.

In the middle of her room was a large ball of assorted yarns which apparently had attempted to engulf the rest of the room's contents... including two very frightened little Khajiiti girls, staring out of their brightly-coloured bonds with eyes the size of their heads!

________

“And that,” I finished up once the laughter died down, “is what kittens can do with yarn!”

Moira was busy with picking herself up off the floor, while Haines just looked pained. “Thank you so much for that slice of your home life,” says he stiffly, “now I look forward to you getting the treatment.”

“Oh yeah,” Moira says uncertainly. “Uh, you'll have to remove your, um, upper, armour... stuff.”

“My cuirass? Just remember I'm a married man,” says I, and a fiddle with the straps later off it comes. I wanted a good look at myself to ensure that I wasn't shedding my hair. S'jirra would have a fit.

And I wasn't taking off my greaves in public. S'jirra would kill me.

My torso looked shed-free, although I needed to lose a few pounds. But you try saying no to my wife's cooking.

My cuirass looked like it was holding up nicely apart from a couple of ghoul-induced dents.

Moira was looking like a cross between a carp and a startled strawberry. Maybe she was allergic to Khajiit hair or something.

Ernie was getting colour back into his mug and concealing a grin.

“Right,” I went on as if nothing had happened, “let's get this radiation out of me if you don't mind.”

________

From Moira Brown's notes

This Rajirrer guy (how does he spell it?) looks like a cat. One of the big cats. That fur of his makes it difficult to find a vein to set up a RadAway dose though. At least I did find one and it seems to work, he did mention that his energy was coming back and his stomach was starting to hurt.

Doctor Haines says he ran into the guy in a building more or less east of here late yesterday chasing a raider. There was some sort of magic portal that the Ka-jeet came through, and he looked like he was about to puke when he said “magic” - Haines I mean. Apparently the portal closed suddenly so this guy's stuck here awaiting rescue.

Haines can be such a prick sometimes. Maybe I should warn Rajirrer about that before he smacks his head off for an insult or something.

________

From Earnest Haines' journal

I had no idea Moira's terminal patched into a medical computer system until today! It seems, despite her magpie habits and undisciplined attitude towards Science, she can work wonders with genetic analysis. Perhaps I should re-evaluate her merits.

Naturally I asked her what genetic analysis showed on my furry compatriot compared to the normal human genome.

What she found out was nothing short of jaw-dropping. Well over 80% of his DNA is a match for homo sapiens!
It is my current hypothesis that this “Cirodil” place is somewhere else on Earth, and that Kajeet and their mysterious powers are the result of genetic manipulation by another country's super-Science, perhaps somewhere in Africa or the Antipodes.

I shall be careful not to let Rajirra go home with an excuse for them to conquer us. After all, I am an American free – and I would prefer to learn about their Scientific knowledge as an equal!

________

The bloody needles were blunt again. Just as I expected.

Brilliant stuff- especially the dueling journal entries. I also loved the story of the kits "discovery" of large amounts of yarn.

Er...Ra'jirra...is...PW?

My dear MalX, Ra'jirra is married, and has a sense of modesty, and he doesn't know what PW means either.

In other news I'm having trouble with a tricky scene holding me up. Actually the last scene was only solved by 'duelling journals' as Treydog put it.

Actually, I'm surprised Foxy hasn't noticed a certain detail in Ra'jirra's reminiscence...

[Alrighty. I've been wrangling this section for ages, and I think this is a decent draft.]

Chapter 7: 21 August 2277: House 'Wares

The silence between Ernie and me was a little tense as we entered the shack grandiosely called Moriarty's Saloon. Haines looked like he'd been played the yokel after my demonstration of Conjuration magicks to the still-curious group loitering outside Moira's shop.

I didn't see what the problem was. Harden the Pugnacious had more or less challenged me to prove I did magic, so I did. As setting fire to the village was pretty much out of contention, and daylight meant you wouldn't be able to see Starlight, I invoked the pattern Volanaro had taught me all those years ago, and conjured up Mister Bones.

Mister Bones, in the time I'd spent summoning him over the years, had begun to develop a definite personality. While unable to speak, his pose spoke volumes at times, and he recognised the interior of the Faregyl Inn – especially at Tales and Tallows. He also had begun to be more canny in fighting, leading with his shield rather than the rusty axe seemingly nailed into his bony hand. When he appeared during negotiations – such as cutting off drunks or encouraging reckless experimenters to move to Black Plateau, he generally tended to adopt threatening postures, and at during one set of negotiations managed twenty-seven different poses before the spell wore off.

The demonstration didn't go well. Several people fled, including the children, several others just stood stunned, and Lucas Simms drew his gun. Mister Bones saw him and immediately took a threatening stance.

“Don't shoot you fool!” yells I! “He'll attack you if you do.”

And Mister Bones looks at me with a what-the-hell-was-that-all-about pose and then at Simms with a just-you-try-it pose.

Just then Haines emerged from Moira's, saw Mister Bones, and adopted a what-the-hell-is-going-on-and-what-is-that-thing pose with matching expression.

“Sorry Bonesy,” says I, “wasn't expecting that reaction.”

Mister Bones assumed an I'm-disappointed-in-you pose as I launched a dispel enchantment on myself, and he disappeared in an amber flash.

Haines did an impression of a freshly caught perch for a bit before finally saying, “When you've finished terrorising the villagers we'll visit this Moriarty person.”

Lucas Simms just shouldered his rifle with a flat expression and suggestions about using a little more discretion next time.

* * *

The first thing I noticed in Moriarty's was a ghoul thumping a buzzing, crackling ray-dee-oh with added swearing. “Why won't you work?” it demanded in a voice that could have come straight from inland Vvardenfell.

“It's not the radio, it's Gee-en-ar,” a young woman with golden hair in a rough bun said to him, “their signal's been merd lately.”

“Well I'm not puttin' the Enclave on,” the creature growled, “between endless futtin' Yanky Doodle and that cullyhole Eden it makes me puke.” And it gave the device another vengeful thump and turned back to rearranging the dirt on the glasses.

“Maybe we should pay this Gee-en-ar a visit,” says I quietly to Haines, “they seem to know a lot about what happens around here.”

“Later,” says Haines curtly, “Moriarty is closer. Wherever he is.”

Just then there was the sound of a breaking glass. The ghoul had seen us, and everyone else's eyes followed his.

It says something that I was getting used to it at this point. To be honest, it was a wee bit refreshing not to be stared at as the Great and Terrible Arch-Mage, but only wee, since I was being stared at as a What The Hells Is That, which is slightly worse.

There was a girlish little squeal from further in the room, and it wasn't happy, and it came from behind a roguish gent with an eyepatch who was standing up and glaring at me.

“Hey! You're that cat-man Maggie was talkin' about!” Well, obviously, since there weren't any other Khajiiti running around! “What the hell'd you do to her?”

“Now hold on there, sir,” and Ernie steps forward raising his hands, “Ra'jirra here didn't mean any harm by his, ah, demonstration.”

Yeah, right, seemed to be the consensus between Maggie's protector, the hard-faced guard, and Gob for that matter. “What the fut's that mean? Maggie comes screamin' in here, scared out of her mind, screamin' about cat-men and monsters appearin' outa thin air!” His hand's on his gun! “You got some 'splainin' to do!”

So I push Ernie out of the way and 'splain. The details aren't important, but I showed him my family portrait and retold the one about R'mara and Sheeyin's adventure in the yarn and Maggie got to giggling and the gent calmed down nicely. Apparently Billy had found Maggie after raiders killed her parents up north somewhere and had been protecting her ever since.

“Well that explains you wanting to kill me,” says I at last, “I'd be mad if some idiot mage scared my kits too. Hey, where's Ernie gone?”

“Out back with Moriarty,” Gob said, jabbing one cadaverous finger towards an anteroom. “Said he needed to talk with him, not listen to your home life.” He rolled his foggy eyes. “He might've defused that bomb out there, but he can be a real cullyhole huh?”

“Bomb?” was my intelligent response. You have to understand that this was my first visit, and I'd been more concerned with getting Ernie to Moira's than sightseeing.

“Yeah, the bomb! Big round black thing in the middle? What got the town named after it?” Gob looked at me scornfully. “Well, two days ago the Doc there was helpin' Walter fix the water pipes in town, and he decides hey, while I'm here, let's fix that bomb, so he did.” Gob grinned and shook his head. “Next thing I know, Simms comes in here and lays a hundred caps on the counter – drinks on him toastin' the good Doc.” His face darkened. “Weird thing though – this Burke guy who used to hang out in the corner over there. Just asked if it was true, jumped up and left like he'd been insulted.”

“And have you finished giving our guest a freebie?” The man glaring at the ghoul had a lilting accent that didn't match the ice in his eyes. They switched to me and I felt my hackles rise. If this was Moriarty then I'd be taking my trade elsewhere.

“Just tellin' him about the bomb,” Gob said nervously.

“Anyone could tell... him... about the futting thing,” Moriarty said disgustedly and smacked Gob upside the head. “Go clean the rest room and do something useful.”

Gob just shrugged meekly and trudged to the back. 'Rest room' is what they call privies in the Capital Wasteland, but they smell just as bad.

“Well, you've got what you wanted to know,” Moriarty was talking to Ernie but his eyes were still frozen on me, “So either buy a drink or fut off.”

“Indeed,” Ernie said stiffly, “And besides, we have work to do first, play later. Shall we go, Arch-mage?”

“By all means, Doctor.”

And off we fut.

* * *

As we navigated around the south end of Megaton we both found mutual ground regarding the venality and general cullyhole-ness of one Colin Moriarty, proprietor of Moriarty's Saloon, and that we would be taking future trade elsewhere. “Maybe the Brass Lantern,” says Haines, pointing to a stall at the bottom of the crater, then he pauses. “Follow me.”

I don't bother to ask where we're going. He leads me over bridges and across decks and at one point across someone's roof to stand in front of a building.

“Here,” says he, “I'll let you do the honours.”

And he hands me a key!

“What's this?” is my intelligent response.

“I was given this house,” Ernie explains, “after defusing the bomb down there.” And he points to the bomb – it says something about my preoccupation that I missed it when I came in here. “Right next to it there is the local cult that worships the bloody thing... religion. The Brass Lantern's right below, the clinic's right behind it... After you?”

So of course I take the key and slot it into the lock and inside I'm approached by a big metal ball with three eyes.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” it says in a posh voice, “I am Wadsworth, your personal robotic butler.”

I looked the... machine... over dubiously. It seemed to be floating on a column of air – hot air at that. As well as three eyes, or what I assumed to be eyes, it sported three spidery arms, one of which was tipped with a jagged circular blade, one with a suspiciously blackened nozzle, and another with an evil-looking claw.

“I am here to look after your needs and to keep you happy and entertained,” it declared proudly. “What can I do for you?”

Need I say I was at a complete loss? Doctor Haines to the rescue!

“This,” says he smugly, “is a Mister Handy robot. We had one in the cafeteria in Vault 101. Wadsworth, what is your functionality?”

“My functionality is your pleasure and comfort sir,” the robot declared, “I can clean, exterminate vermin, distil limited amounts of water, provide quality haircare and even tell jokes.”

“Jokes?” says I, “Well, let's hear one.”

“A neutron walks into a bar and asks, 'How much for a drink?' The bartender says, 'For you, no charge.'”

Only Haines got it, I saw him smirk.

Wadsworth rotated between us uncertainly, then focussed on Haines. “Your hair needs some attention sir, may I recommend the combover?”

“Would you like a haircut?” Haines looks at me.

Right. A haircut from a floating ball that didn't even have proper hands to handle shears and comb. “You first,” says I.

“Certainly!” Wadsworth cries, “I am programmed with a multitude of hair shaping scenarios, if you would care to choose one, I would be happy to replicate it for you.” And it extends a sort of circular screen and up comes a picture of Haines with a new hairdo. As he looked at it his face became speculative.

“Can you tint my hair? Say, black?”

“Certainly,” and the picture changes its hair colour.

Once Haines had decided not only a hairdo but a beard-do as well, I was honestly surprised at how effectively the machine worked. I won't try to describe its actions – let's just say better Haines kept his eyes shut during proceedings – but when it was finished, Doctor Earnest Haines looked ten years younger and I said so.

“Really?” preens he, flicking stray hairs out of his collar, “I'm glad to hear it. Thank you, Wadsworth.”

“No trouble at all sir. Is there anything else?”

“No, thank you.”

“I'll just clean up then sir,” says Wadsworth and it floats off doing whatever it is the robot does with nobody around.

“I have my own house,” Haines explains, “outside Springvale, and it's all I need. But you... I'd like to give you use of this place. If you want a space to yourself, that is.”

And I has a think, and finally, “Sounds fair. Keeps me away from you too right?”

Haines just smiled thinly.

* * *

“So why are we here again?” asks I outside the waystation where we'd met what felt like a million years ago. The setting sun drew tattered palls of shadow over the dead city.

“I'm doing research for Moira Brown, as you've been told,” says he with an annoyed look, “and so far, I've been nearly blown to bits from landmines as well as almost having a very personal meltdown – as you know first hand.”

“What's a landmine?”

“Oh for... It's an explosive device that rests on the ground. Objects that trigger proximity detectors or stand on them–”

“Oh, like the 'Bouncing Borbas' encountered through the Oblivion gates!” I was quite pleased with myself for making the connection.

Haines looked like he was about to crap a brick – backwards. “Er... these don't bounce.”

“That's a relief.” I fingered my quiver, flicking through the shafts. Nineteen-odd. My stay here was going to be troublesome if I didn't find some way of getting my arms and armour mended, and I got the impression that fletchers were few and far between. Magic's not endless, and the pistol Haines had given me still felt wrong on my hip.

Haines himself spun around and fired several shots at a mangy dog which had followed us down the bank. The last shot blew its skull apart, causing the corpse to go head over heels down to where we were.

“Anyway,” says he, skulking along the side of a ruined tower, “my mission is to investigate the Super-Duper Mart down there and see if there's any food and/or medicines inside.” His face went grim. “In my home, there's a terminal that the previous occupant used. What Moira doesn't know and I do is that raiders took the place over a year ago.”

As we rounded the corner, Haines dropped to a crouch and peered through the scope at the boxy building under a large, probably once eye-catching sign, now rusted and unloved. I squinted at the characters that adorned each panel, matching them to what I had gathered of the English alphabet.

Haines nudged me and passed over his laser pistol. “Check the awning.” I looked through the scope and saw a corpse apparently – no, it was hanging from the awning. Yep – raiders.

Somebody fired a shot. We froze, looking eastward. What we saw through Haines' scope was a raider actually doing pretty well against three better armed and more professional-looking thugs. I say 'thugs' because that's what we found out they were.

I'm not stupid, so I tapped Haines' shoulder and made a sweeping gesture west and north. He nodded.

We broke cover, swinging west towards the back of the mart, clinging to the shadow of the slope behind our destination. The mystery trio didn't see or hear us, being too far away, and we relaxed slightly once we reached the building.

“What sort of place is a 'Super-Duper Mart' anyway?” asks I softly.

“A place where people did their shopping, of course,” Haines murmered irritably, “Buy food, basic cleaning materials, housewares, all under one roof. Generically, they're 'super-markets'.”

Oh – so it was like a cross between The Feed Bag and Three Brothers or something like that. As the last rays of sun fled, I invoked the Eye of Night.

We continued our circuit around the west, then north sides of the building, then froze. Voices meant the thugs were still in front of the building.

“What didja say he looked like again?”

“He's bald with a beard. Totes a scoped laser, but he might have a rifle on 'im. Just watch it – he's got some sorta mutie for company.”

And we look at each other in alarm. Why the hell are these guys waiting for us?

“Well how futtin' long are we gonna wait here?”

“As long as we have to, dumbcully. Our intel is they're coming here, so they're probably close by. And thanks to that futtin' raider they prob'ly know we're here.”

“So? Makes for a fun fight. Now, we split the caps even stevens, right?”

“Are you crazy? Whoever deals the death blow gets half and the others a quarter each.”

And my hackles are rising and I see Haines' teeth flash. Assassins. We should have known.

I watched Haines shrug off his pack, pull out a pair of rifles, and took the one he handed me. He also pulled out several objects I didn't recognise before nodding back the way we came. Rounding the west side, he turned on the light of his Pip-Boy. I winced and closed the Eye.

“Now pay attention,” whispers he, and I learned how to work an assault rifle. He made me load and reload the gun several times, then nodded. “I'll toss some grenades to soften them up,” he added, “And that's where the rifles come into play.” And he smiles grimly. “Welcome to your first firefight.”

And off goes the light and I open my Eye and we creep off to war.

Ernie's 'grenades', when thrown, bounce a little way before exploding – unfortunately too far away to soften the assassins enough – “What the balls!?” – “Find cover!” – “Two north!” – hard-faced men in purpose-made raiment with a claw design, and toting assault rifles of their own – “Talon Company!” – I pull the trigger but the damn gun wants to kill the sky – to hells with it – I drop the gun and summon a scamp – “Where'd the hell that come from?” – “It's shooting at us!” – my arrow leaves the string and one falls grabbing his belly – “Keep firing!” – I loose arrow eighteen and another drops his weapon from an arm gone useless before Haines blows his head apart – a clink – something loud knocked me down – my bow's gone – pistol – the world's at an angle – summon Mister Bones – the gutshot guy's screaming whatthefut over and over again – the other's turned to face Bones with gun spitting – something hit my pauldron – gutshot's in front of me fumbling with a stimpack – put the gun to his eye – he spits – falls eye a hole – someone in front of me – gun as a club – knocked down but I still have the gun – and hand free – left-handed spellcasting – woe upon you – I passed out.

Minefield - I love that town !!! I thought it was cool the way he connected them to the ones in the Oblivion gates - and the Neutron joke !!

The developing personality of Mr. Bones- and the Megatonian’s reactions to him- were a treat.

As always, your characterizations of others in the game are spot-on- particularly Gob and Moriarty.

Never could quite bring myself to let Wadsworth give me a haircut, especially not after seeing the birthday cake back in the Vault.



And a cliff-hanger ending…

The main thing is and has always been diarising and research - and holding fire until I can find my way through a scene. Or my hasty scribble

Haines is a rather arrogant, vain young man, as you've probably guessed. Thanks to a disastrous early attempt at Science, he got the nickname 'Baldy' from the Tunnel Snakes and grew a beard to compensate. In a few days he's going to get another hairdo, but stay tuned - he's going to apply Science as well.

My other concern is making sure I don't give Ra'jirra powers he shouldn't have - while he does have some spells he cannot use yet, radiation giveth magicka fortification and taketh away health and genetic integrity. This is a dilemma for me as well as him - because you can be sure there'll be another litter nine months after he returns.

[And here we go again with another long-delayed episode of Ra'jirra's exile in the Capital Wasteland. Playing through the game, I found myself wondering why hitmen were waiting for me, and how they knew. So creating a natural explanation took up a fair whack of my time.]

21 August 2277: The Super-Duper Mart

The main reason I came to was because I wasn't dead. The other reason was that Haines was playing healer very roughly and causing me excruciating pain around the groin area.

Now when someone inflicts pain in those locales, a man tends to voice his objections, so I was not really surprised to find my own gauntlet muffling me.

“You're alive,” Haines said soft and tense like, “thank god. Take a look at this!”

He held up a wickedly sharp shard of gore-drenched metal – grenades, like landmines, are designed to shatter into lots of sharp pieces and literally shred the enemy. Mind you, on reflection, that's what their bullets do as well. These Earth types seem a bit squeamish about blood, preferring to kill folk in one go from a safe distance.

I was feeling a bit squeamish too since I realised the gore was mine. So I took my mind off matters by looking up at the sky, where a crescent of corpse-pale, leprous moon the colour of Haines' Pip-Boy light smirked down at me. Evidently Haines had dragged me back behind the Super-Duper Mart before anyone inside came investigating.

“Brace yourself,” Haines said, and that now familiar sting of a (blunt) needle heralded the burning coolness of a stimpack. “One more inch and your femoral artery would have been severed.”

I shivered, less from realising how close I was to death – occupational hazard when you're Arch-Mage – than from realising I was lying on a stone surface stark naked.

I spat the gauntlet out and managed to say, “Where's my gear?”

Haines just looked at me, reached over and mutely lifted up my cuirass.

Or what was left of it.

The left side was punctured and dented by bits of grenade, and the left pauldron was hanging by half a strap. The gousset on that side resembled rotten lace. The right side wasn't much better, pocked with bullet holes, and then Haines showed me my helm.

My helm had a thumping great crack running from the corner of my eye to the base of the left horn, and then another picked up the trail down towards the back of my neck.

Nothing needed to be said. My reliable, faithful Ayleid suit, which I had seized as of right after hard and bitter combat in the marauder den of Fort Cedrian; which had stood me in good stead as I rose to meet the challenge of Mannimarco; endured the fires of Oblivion; withstood the assaults of bandit, beast, undead and worse – and also helped me make quite the entrance into this strange new world – was utterly, irrevocably buggered.

“Fortunately we have a loaner suit for you,” Haines finally said with a ghost of a smile.

I didn't answer; I attempted to lift myself up enough to take a look at the most important casualty of war. While my left thigh was a mess of blood-sodden fur, my manliness was intact, and the wounds on my left side were reasonably minor. In my travels I'd kept an eye out for Ayleid greaves, but never found any. Traven wouldn't have approved, I think, but not everyone's got the broad back for sodding daedric.

I concentrated, shunting the pain into an invocation to Stendarr.

Stendarr, God of Mercy, if you can hear me–

No, I've done magic, He can hear me, all of them can hear me–

O merciful Father Stendarr, make me whole and strengthen my arm, so I may bring Divine justice to the wicked and the unbelieving, and return victorious in thy name and all the Nine Divines...

I felt the pain cool and burst into silver rain. I opened my eyes again to see Haines looking like he could do with a go himself.

“Prayer?” says he in an ill tone.

“Don't mock,” says I, “It's worked hasn't it?” I led one-nil.

I cast the invocation one more time, then gingerly lifted myself to my feet. Yep, I could walk, talk, and do all the things that separate the living from the more stupid creatures. But I was still stark bollock-naked in a pool of light that picked us out to any predators out there.

I looked at the remains of my armour, then at the dark outfit laid out next to it. Sturdy boots, padded pants of a tough material, and a heavily padded jerkin, which I now saw was black with that stylised claw in white. Looked like a clannfear's claw.

“That's proper combat armour,” says Haines, and I turn to see him lifting up another of the outfits in a measuring pose. “Better that this patchwork quilt I'm wearing.” Good point – when we left Megaton, Haines had changed into a leather armour suit apparently made of offcuts crudely stitched together. He nods at the kit next to my Ayleid wear. “Go on, looks like your size, and I doubt going in naked will work.”

You know something? Haines had a good measuring eye. To be frank I felt more than a little exposed with bare arms, but later I'd see myself in a mirror, and you know something else? I looked like a hardy Skyrim native. “Boots are a bit tight,” says I thoughtfully.

Haines just looks at me and almost steps out of his. So one pair of switched boots later we prepare to go in for the second time.

“Don't get too attacked,” says Haines grimly, “we've only got the one suit for spare parts at the moment. And then there's this. I think you'd better hear it.”

He pulls out a tatty note and starts reading.

“'Find Earnest Haines and show how we treat people that fail to live up to Mr. Tenpenny's expectations. Do not fail me. You know what will happen if you arouse my displeasure.' It's signed 'B', and it describes us both in unflattering detail.”

“Burke,” says I, “While you were talking to Moriarty, I was talking to Gob about your work on the bomb.”

“Go on.” He starts piling my ruined armour in one of the big containers along with some spare weapons. “I'm listening.”

“Apparently once this Burke guy had confirmation of what you'd done, he jumped up and stormed out of the place.” Zenithar gave me a slap upside the head. “And I'm guessing...”

And the two of us stare at each other in disbelief. Burke and this Tenpenny person must have wanted Megaton destroyed!

“But I've never met a Burke,” Haines says in confused irritation, “and I've never been into Moriarty's before today. How would he know what I looked like?”

“Bugger that,” says I, “how'd his thugs know we were coming here?”

Haines by the look of him had his suspicions. We stealthily retraced our trail – mostly my blood trail! - to the entrance.

The entrance smelled of old death from the corpses hanging above us. I felt the horrors; they hadn't been haphazardly chained up there, but carefully displayed in the sputtering flashes of a red and white machine. Haines crept up to it and cracked the thing open, then returned with a trio of bottles.

“The Nuka-Colas are on me,” says he, handing me one. I watched him twist off the cap; in the Eye of Night I could see the cap had been somehow pressed into place. I emulated what he did, and swigged the horrid potion – a sickly sweet fluid that nevertheless would help replenish my bodily fluids. I stuffed the cap into one of the pockets sewn into the pants – handy but not secure – and looked at Haines.

“Two entrances,” says he, “I say take this closest one.”

I'd no complaint. So we carefully pulled the door open and skulked into some sort of antechamber before one great hall. The dusty air showed long ranks of empty shelves and some sort of nearby counter with a contraption on top, but what concerned me was the raiders. The lidgies had set up the shelves as a raised walkway, and I counted three guards patrolling their beats. Worse, light fittings in and dangling from the ceilings were still mostly working. It hit me that my golden Ayleid wear would have stood out like a beacon.

So I look at Haines on the other side of the doorway and he looks at me and points past my right shoulder. So I take a breath and peep round the edge. There was an enclosed area with nobody in it. Which meant it was defensible. Great.

So Haines and I go creeping up to the counter. There's a contraption on the top, which I notice Haines takes pains to avoid touching as he flops onto the countertop and over. I take another look around the dusty, malodorous space and do the same, wincing as several cuts around my waist open.

I drop and crouch over the other side to see Haines picking the lock on a battered metal box. It was an interesting procedure, and I got the impression that I'd need to know how it was done since Earth locks are a completely different design to ours.

In one hand, he holds a straightened out example of what a little packet by his foot called 'BOBBY-JO TM Best Quality for Girls BOBBY PINS'. (Didn't look like a pin to me, more like a metal hair clip.) In the other, he holds some sort of hand tool not quite like a chisel. He rotates the bobby pin in the lock trying to tickle the tumblers and applies pressure to the lock with the tool. And I squat there trying to lockpick my memory. Something Bothiel told me about Dwemer engineering.

The click of the lock breaks my concentration and Haines chuckles as he scoops out that ammo he uses in his precious laser pistol. He then picks up another of the boxy devices – this one in pretty bad shape.

“We're in the money,” whispers he, and points past a door to the back, where a bulky, dirty white cupboard cowers behind some metal shelves. “Let's raid the fridge.”

So we raid the fridge – that bulky cupboard is a machine. I recognised meat, and some things that Sheogorath might declare fruit, but the rest was a set of paper boxes. “Fancy Lads Snack Cakes, pork and beans, and a mack-a-roeny and cheese dinner – 'just heat and eat',” Haines muttered. “So there's food here, but for medicines...”

“How old would these be?”

Haines stares at me. “About two hundred years old, why?”

“They can't still be edible, surely.”

“I've eaten them, and they are.” Haines grinned. “The power of Science, my good man, the power of Science.”

Fine. One all.

“How's your wounds?”

I check my side. Sticky. I check my left thigh. Also sticky and smelling coppery. “Breaking open a bit... leg's a bit stiff.”

And Haines has a look round. “Try your... spell... again.” Good idea – since we're under a light, nobody should notice my invoking Stendarr's mercy again. One shower of silver rain later I manage to stand and take a few steps. Stiff and awkward, but steps nonetheless.

“You're better off waiting here,” says Haines, and hands me some thick things the size of plates. We crouch our way to the counter where Ernie says “Watch,” and I do as he prepares one for anyone coming in that way. “Now you,” and so I set my first landmine where he points.

“I'll place one outside this door,” says he, “once I start moving. You keep watch and if I call, you provide covering fire so we can both get out of here alive.”

And so he pushes the door open, which swings out and smacks one of the many metal carts all over the place. We both freeze and wait for investigation.

“Hey, watch out with those carts cullyhole!” came a distant voice.

“Who you calling a cullyhole?” asks another, 'Sides I have to look at yours all the futtin' time!”

The upshot was that one savage on high thought some other savage on the floor had made the noise, and the argument meant nobody came to enquire just what Haines was doing strapping a doohickey I'd never seen before to his wrist.

Then he cast a spell of chameleon on himself – somehow without the usual flare of light – and slipped out and closed the door behind him. I heard the clunk of a mine on the floor, and now I just had to wait.

I spent the time peering into the metal boxes on the shelves – nothing of worth – and watching the raiders pad about on patrol. For bloodthirsty savages they were surprisingly disciplined –

“Hey! Jagger! Quit goofin' off before the bossman gets back!”

All right, not so surprising. And equally unsurprising that there'd be a hunting party out there. Great.

I went back to passing the time, and my eye fell on the box Ernie had tickled open. That little tool of his wasn't a chisel...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bothiel emerged with smuts on her just about everything from the guts of the orrery. “Almost done!” says she, “I just need to adjust a few tensioning screws on the secondary mainsprings.”

“Screws?” asks I, relishing the chance to speak in a normal tone inside the Orrery as opposed to screaming my lungs out over its creaking and clanging and clashing.

Bothiel explained that in many of their constructs the Dwemer had used a fastener like a nail with a long spiral down one side. These fasteners were more resistant to vibration, more secure, but since you couldn't bang them in with a hammer you needed to twist them in with a–

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Screwdriver,” gasps I, of course! Maybe these Earth people were related to Dwemer, or had been visited by them at some point. Now I looked, I could see screws holding the light fittings together, the contraption on the counter, the shelving, the–

I heard a door open close by – the entrance – oh hooray, hail the hero returning. I instinctively drew my bow and ducked behind the shelves as three unkempt people entered the hall and came over to the counter. One grabbed the stalky bit to his mouth and did something that made his voice echo all over the building.

“We're back. Open up the...” And he stares at the countertop – of course, my bloodstains!

“Hang on! Somethin' ain't right here...”

There certainly wasn't. Gunfire erupted over in the far corner of the hall. Two of the speaker's mates immediately turned to head towards the commotion, and I swung around the shelf and let arrow number sixteen fly. Mister Talky Man dropped choking and the other two spun back to me.

So I duck back behind the shelves as they open fire on me! One thing about those metal boxes – they were sturdy. The Earth people seemed to have a fixation about building things to last.

“I'm goin' over! You hit the door!”

Which is what they did. One fellow with a mangy haircut vaulted across the counter – and I smacked him with a flare spell. Not much damage, but it made him stagger back onto one of the mines.

The results were quite impressive. (If you're interested in the details, please apply to Raminus Polus at the Arcane University and ask about our experimental alchemy programmes. That way we know who to watch.)

The side door flew open, less from charging raider than flying body parts. Good ol' Haines. No wonder he didn't like landmines. Since the newcomers were sorted, I decided to go see if he needed any help.

I snuck out of the door and squelched through the remnants of a raider – in the Super-Duper Mart, the door hits you – and saw through the dust a figure on top of a shelving unit. He was looking away from me, weaving as though trying to see what he was aiming for. Haines, probably.

So I decide he needs to cool off and send a frostball his way. It hit him on the back of the neck, and did it make him yelp! He turned halfway and was about to fire his pistol when an almighty flash literally shattered his skull. Must have reacted badly with frozen flesh or something.

“Ra'jirra?”

“Haines? You all right?”

“Of course I'm all right! Well, as right as I can be, fortunately I still had some stimpacks left after your medical treatment, so we may as well go home.”

And we approach each other. Haines had a few new marks in his second-hand armour.

“So what'd you find?”

“Ah!” He preens himself. “That Stealth Boy got me all the way to the back there,” and he points to a counter past a double door. “Being knowledgeable of Science, I was able to unlock the door to the store-room, where I did indeed discover a cache of much-needed medical supplies.”

Oh, let it rest you lidgie. I didn't know what grenades could do, all right? I just thought that since saying it wouldn't help.

“There was also a protectron on standby, which I was able to activate.” He frowned. “Obviously it wasn't up to handling armed resistance, and I was forced to resort to guns and mines.”

“Did you? I was busy.”

“Yes. I noticed. Careful application of landmines took care of more, and I am so pleased I found this scope.” He frowned. “What did you do to that raider on the shelves?”

“Frost magic.”

“Really? Hmm... a laser does inflict heat on its target, and if the target is as a low temperature...” He frowns as thought he's been offered a light snack by King Helseth.

“Let's discuss this as we go,” says I, and Haines nods and is about to follow me when we hear a woman: “Hey! What's all the shootin' for? Thunder-struck? Yale? What's goin' on?”

She was just another raider, and so we ended up with another gun, then left, stopping only to load up with our stored loot before heading westward.

“Two in the morning,” Haines observed as we trudged along a shattered road, “We can rest a bit in my house before we see Moira and that spurius.”

We didn't actually discuss it as we went; I was too busy scanning the scenery with a watchful Eye where Haines was virtually blind. We reached the burnt bones of a town (“Springvale”, Haines said it was called) before heading north to Haines' redoubt – a surprisingly intact building. “Follow me,” Haines said, leading us to a metal trapdoor in what I judged to be a kitchen. It led to a basement, where I was relieved of my excess baggage. I looked around. There were three cabinets of metal, a fancy stand I didn't recognise, another fridge, but emblazoned in red and yellow with some image of a bottle, a bench, and a table with alchemical apparatus and a device like Moira had, some square dingus I couldn't identify, and an uncomfortable looking bed.

“You can rest here,” Haines says, “Me, I'll crash upstairs,” and was gone before I realised he'd taken the better bed I'd glimpsed upstairs.

Despite the uncomfortable appearance of the bed, the mattress inside was very comfy indeed, and I was out like a light.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“So why are we here again?” Simms asks us a bit testily outside Moira's later that morning. He'd been less than pleased to see us enter town until he realised who we were. Apparently Talon isn't good company to keep.

“Unmasking a spy,” snaps Haines, “follow me!” and he flings open the door, totally ignores a startled Moira, and up to the guard, who also props up a very important wall in the Craterside Supply.

“Recognise these uniforms?” snarls Haines.

And the guard looks real surprised doesn't he! “Hey – y-you took on Talon Company?” stutters he, “Y-you're a real pair of bad-cloonies y'know?”

“They were waiting for us,” snarls I, “and they knew we were coming.”

“And then there's these instructions,” says Haines all icy, passing that note he found to Simms, who read it and at once drew his gun. “Tell me, ah...”

“G-Geoffrey, look I don't kn-know...”

Don't know my backside! I gave him a little jolt to get his brain going a bit better. Sure he screamed and fell to the floor but you get these side effects.

“No games, fetcher,” says I, “Who is Burke, and who is Tenpenny, and why do they want us dead?”

“You,” adds Haines, “were the only other person in here when Moira gave me my instructions. So that narrows down the list of suspected spies quite a bit.”

“Take all the time you wish,” recites I to be encouraging, “I can boil the blood in your veins, or freeze your bones to the marrow... or worse. And should you be close to death, I can bring you back... and start over until you tell us what we want to know.”

Got that line from The Fall of King Handril.

Anyway he went to get up but Simms points his gun at him. “Well, Geoffrey? Care to explain?”

I prep another Spark to encourage him. Geoffrey was encouraged so much he pissed himself and started talking real fast.

He's a spy all right, for Alastair Tenpenny, up there in his Tenpenny Tower. Every night when he goes to “dinner”, he's been sneaking out to a hidden ray-dee-oh and finking on the town. So when Geoffrey snuck out to deliver the daily report after Haines had defused the bomb, he got grilled for a description and told to report on our movements. He was also told to not blow his cover, just keep finking.

“A-and Mister Burke's Tenpenny's right-hand man, h-he's probably the one who – who ordered the hit, not m-me!”

He didn't know that the mercs would attack this time.

“So you weren't surprised we were still alive then?” asks I.

“N-no! I-it's the T-Talon uniforms!”

“Never mind!” snaps Doc Haines irritably, “Why does Tenpenny want Megaton destroyed?”

“I-I-I-I dunno!”

And then he lunged at Haines' legs, knocking him over, scrambled to his feet, and then he pulled a knife and lunged at Moira, who'd been pretty much transfixed during our little talk. Simms opened fire – Moira screamed – she and Geoffrey fell to the floor.

There are interesting ways to start a day and this was pretty much one of them.

The first page alone made it worth the wait. Medieval-style armor does not fare well against industrial era weaponry- rather the opposite, as all that metal becomes so much shrapnel itself.

And the “Battle of Faiths” was a great way to demonstrate the rivalry between Ra’jirra and Haines.



And your explanation for how the Talon Co. can not only locate, but also recognize Haines was perfect.

SPEW !!!

One of the things I love about your writing - tiny details slipped in. This sentence is a huge example of how you managed in eight added words to convey a history of information, change the tone and mood of the words that went before it. Your story is filled with these examples, and it is what keeps the reader on their toes and interested!

Another Great Write - as always !!!!!

Heh. Thanks.

Originally, the scene in Moira's was to be diarised by Moira herself, and even now I think the conversion is a little crude.

Incidentally, there's one detail that I owe to SubRosa - guess who's been reading over my shoulder about Teresa's history lessons and loves his plays!

I've just remembered the word I've been looking for. Exposition. Ra'jirra's about to have an epiphany and I'd rather not use a deus ex Sheogorath - although given the nature of the FO3 universe it'd be bloody apt!

[Righty. I may as well post some build-up to the exposition. The actual first epiphany will take a while as I compose the ballad of Farmer Fat!]

22 August 2277: Rest and Rat-Catching

It took a while for Moira to return to her normal self. At least, I'm assuming that being almost maniacally fixated on her pet project was normal, and not her way of coping with having a recently unmasked – and even more recently dead – spy bleeding all over her. Then again, her fainting hadn't lasted very long, although it had given us time to clean up most of the mess.

“Let me get this straight,” Ernie said in a strangled tone, “You want us to go into the DC ruins and fight rats... with a stick?”

And Moira just smiles at him tightly. “Mole rats can burrow into almost anything and cause a lot of trouble – you know, wrecking food supplies, chowing on injured people... So I figured I'd make a chemical repellent stick for people to shoo them off.”

And she digs out an honest to gods stick, a fair-sized tree branch really, complete with some sort of frighteningly green and potions-gone-wrong-scented glop all over it, and looks at it as fondly as we do incredulously.

“But I need it to be tested before I put the recipe to paper in the guide. So I need you to find some Mole Rats and test it out a bit.”

“Really.” Haines looked skeptical.

“It'll be easy,” says she breezily, “One tap with the applicator, and it overwhelms their senses with a sort of... 'feel-bad' sensation. Then they're gone before you know it!”

I loved Moira's breezy enthusiasm in the face of total ignorance. She reminded me of that nitwit Ancotar. There may still be a few bits left of him after he blew up Fort Caracatus.

“You could test it out on just a few mole ratties, but for real testing, try it on ten or more. There should be plenty in the Tepid Sewers, downtown. Just visit the Anchorage War Memorial and look downriver... outside Dukov's Place.” She makes a retching sound. “Unfortunately... I haven't worked out a Dukov repellent yet.”

“Well... if it saves ammo...” Haines says thoughtfully, then his brain works, “Why not? We'll try it out! Why, it could revolutionise animal husbandry – create mole rat farms!” And his eyes flash. “Why, there could be variants for other animals too – even these Super Mutants I've heard about!”

And Moira's eyes go wide as saucers, and I find myself saying, “Could have done with scorpion repellent when I came here!” and she bursts into giggles. Turned out it was more the idea of someone sending Super Mutants running with a stick than making stuff for shooing giant bugs that set her off.

“Okay, okay!” she finally says, “You guys go find some mole rats and try it out. Good hunting!”

As we turn to go my left hip plays up and I must have stumbled.

“Ra'jirra?” Haines grabbed me before I fell into the counter. “You okay?”

“Dunno,” says I, “But... look... Doctor... do you need me with you?”

I feel Haines' hand running around the left side of my waist and he brings it up red and sticky. “Not in this condition,” says he, “besides, I've survived four days alone, and I've encountered mole rats before. As a Scientist and a doctor, I recommend bed rest.”

There are people who think Ernie Haines was a fanatical sort, but sometimes he made good sense. This was one of those times.

And so we left Moira's and went over to 'my' place. Unsurprisingly people were talking about what happened earlier, but all I wanted was to rest up and follow doctor's orders. Just to add spice to proceedings the storm atronachs in my head were back and working themselves into a frenzy; being Arch-Mage and unofficial ambassador of the Empire, having a nervous breakdown in public wasn't a good idea.

“I'll be back in a couple of hours,” Haines said, escorting me to the bed in a small upstairs room that also sported a desk and cabinet. He had the decency to turn away as I painfully unpeeled the Talon body armour; fresh red streaks worsened the mess of my body fur.

“You appear to be wounded sir,” Wadsworth noted from the doorway, “may I suggest you seek medical attention?”

“I just need rest,” said I to the machine and more or less passed out until I was woken a couple of hours later by Haines dumping several books and a change of clothes on the table. New stains on his Talon duds smelled of gore and potions gone wrong. The atronachs in my head had at least settled their differences if not ceased hostilities.

“You might find these interesting,” explains he, “and there's something to wear if you're sick of that body armour.” And he grimaces. “Look, I felt the same way when I... left... the Vault. 'What the hell's happened to the world', sort of thing.” And he hefts the stick. “Anyway, at least mole rats don't shoot back – and you can eat 'em! Oh, speaking of which...” and out come more damn Nuka-Colas and some boxed foodstuffs.

“Find any mole rats?”

“A few,” was all he said, “I think Moira might be a little disappointed though.” And he frowns. “Either that or I'm hitting too hard.”

There was a basin downstairs next to another fridge, and I used it to wash myself after Haines left. The dribbling water was tepid and didn't smell too good, but at least it got most of the blood off. The scarring on my side had broken open, but that wasn't my main problem though.

Ever since I'd entered the portal, I had been hauled from one shock to the next. The radscorpion stabbing me in the arm. The ghouls. Radiation poisoning, and Moira's 'cure'. And nearly dying outside the Super-Duper Mart. Almost always accompanied by the angry young fanatic who insisted on being called Doctor Earnest Haines.

I needed a rest. I needed the chance to just take it all in.

And I needed to know where the strange sense of looming, gibbering madness came from.

Upstairs, I lifted my cracked helm and looked at it. Nothing to be done; there were no smiths here, I guessed. And if there were, they wouldn't know what the hell to do with it. I put the helm gently on top of the cabinet.

My new threads were a pair of blue pants, slightly too short, paired with a short-sleeved shirt, and fairly comfortable shoes. The whole ensemble was dirty, but that went without saying. Anything not utterly ruined was dirty in the Capital Wasteland.

Peering at myself in a broken and dirty mirror, I couldn't help noticing that, again, I actually looked quite spiffy. Earth people had good tailors!

Better still, my new garb meant that I could now take off, and have a good long look at, my Talon threads, since I'd be relying on them fairly comprehensively.

I laid out the bulky vest and the blood-crusted padded leggings on the floor downstairs, then had a think and laid out my ruined cuirass next to it, along with a selection of tools. The more I thought and the more I looked, the more I realised I'd have to visit Moira's again if my plan was to work, since I didn't have all the tools I needed.

So I forsook that, told an inquisitive Wadsworth to clean the Talon suit, and went upstairs and settled in for some heavy reading before lunch. I say 'heavy' since I had to not only decipher their alphabet, but also try to work out concepts and interpret local slang from the context.

Also, I had to winnow out useful wheat from the chaff.

Haines had been collecting books during his sojourns. Some were flimsy things that fell apart if you looked at them cross-eyed, such as one item entitled Guns & Bullets. It was also grimy and looked like it had been passed through innumerable hands. As I stumbled through it, I saw why: Once you took all the bardy bits out, there was a fair whack of useful information that could stop you from either breaking your weapon, or dying, or both.

The sheer speed of bullets is the main reason not even plate armour can withstand, say, a direct hit from a .308 'round', and why hits from other weapons can be so messy. On Earth, combat mainly involves trying to shoot the enemy without being hit – a nervy game of waiting for him to stop to reload, then popping out of hiding and hoping that he hasn't reached cover yet. In the open, it's running like mad, spraying bullets all over the shop and – well, you know.

All through the pages were pieces hawking all sorts of businesses and items, not all of which were guns. One page was devoted mostly to a painting of two victorious men returning home with their quarry in the back of a vehicle. I applied the great Ra'jirra brain to deciphering the Earth alphabet and discovered a new word: 'radio'. So that's what we heard blathering away on the other side of Laren's portal. Galaxy News Radio. Apparently this 'Chevrolair' 'pickup truck' boasted one, so you and your passengers would 'stay entertained getting there and back!'

After two attempts I gave up on a hardback volume of dreadful tales labelled True Adventure Stories of MEN Magazine, where men were men, women's clothes fell off, and foreigners were godless scheming evildoers ready to utilise thugs, drugs and exotic animals to further evil schemes that made less sense than Sheogorath at his craziest. Even Zul gro-Rubbish would have scoffed at them.

I dipped into and grimaced at the smugly arrogant racism of The Boy Scout's Guide to Defending America, which pitted American boyhood against just about everyone who either lived beyond their borders, looked 'Chinese', or didn't adhere to a surprisingly rigid set of cultural norms. For a culture that bandied the word 'freedom' around, they seemed rather leery of it.

I leafed with increasing interest through a 'scrapbook' of what looked like annotated clippings from other publications – a piece of paper glued on the front called it Resource Wars Coming 2050. (I think that was the year the collection was started.) Somewhere in there was the explanation I was after, buried in the mass of yellowed and singed scraps.

By the time I'd worked that far, I had collected a kaleidoscope of impressions, but nothing coherent. I was going to take a leaf out of Dagail's book and let my unconscious sort them all.

“The time is two pee-em sir,” Wadsworth said from the doorway, “May I assist with lunch?”

Lunch at two ('pee-em' had something to do with afternoons, I guess) was:

– something claiming to be a 'Salisbury Steak', a ghastly brown object which neither looked, or felt on the tooth, like any steak I'd ever had, cringing beneath a glutinous blob of gravy – and Wadsworth's heating it up didn't help;

– 'Dandy Boy' brand red wizened things claiming to be apples – and may have been at some point in the past;

– another gooey-feeling Nuka-Cola to wash them down.

I then had a rest while my innards debated whether my repast lived up to the claims on the boxes. It sounded like my stomach was on the affirmative side, supported by my sweetbreads, but my intestines and bum-gut were more than a little unconvinced.

Just when the debate reached its noisy height, I had my first epiphany.

(To be continued...)

This made me laugh:


Or I am hitting too hard.......

I think it gets better and better.

Remko already got a perfect example, I loved all the reading material you described - but I think this tops everything for perfect visual producing descriptions:




ROFL !!! Perfect!!! ...will R'jirra be heading to ... New Vegas?

“…complete with some sort of frighteningly green and potions-gone-wrong-scented glop all over it…”



Beyond that, if I quoted everything that I liked, I would simply copy and paste the entire post. mALX has already highlighted the excellent description of the “food,” and Remko notes the jingoism inherent in the “Boy Scouts Against the World.”

@Remko: The idea for the 'reading' extends on the existing jingoism that was permeating the FO3 universe, especially noticeable in the planned releases from Hubris Comics. Wait until Ra'jirra meets his first Grognak comic and becomes an art critic

Seriously, such a propaganda campaign makes sense, given the 1950s 'theme' of FO3. Ra'jirra and Quill-weave came up with a good metaphor to explain why to the Cyrodiilic public.

If plausible, I'm thinking of having the two pay a call to the Bethesda offices. They might find what's in there... interesting.

@mALX: This was actually a fun part, since I wasn't sure how to describe the sheer eeergh of eating two-century-old TV dinners!

@treydog: Now we know what the pong was from when they first met Moira The only problem now is that my autocomplete keeps suggesting that phrase whenever I mention 'potions'...

Seriously though, the big reveal/s are causing trouble to phrase in a natural sounding way. The first one finally resolved itself during my postie route today, so onward ho before I drop it...

[Righty. I've noticed I have more trouble with these contemplative chapters than the action sequences; I guess that's one of the dangers of plugging Genuine People Personalities into your computer game dollies.]

Rest and Rat-Catching (continued)

Said Temple priest,'O Farmer Fat!'
'Where be ye winter hay?
For Last Seed's nearly up and gone
And winter's on the way.'

The resources that kept Earth's civilisations running had become depleted – the 'Energy Crisis' they called it – just like the food ran out for Farmer Fat.

'Be off with ye!' said Farmer Fat,
'I see no winter near,
But only apples ripe to eat
Washed down with foaming beer.'

There had been people playing the Temple priest, and warning of this happening, something to do with inefficient machines or something. But most of the rulers had played Farmer Fat to the hilt, and the warning voices were laughed and shamed – or worse – into silence.

'No fright of future doom for me,
Begone O grim and glum!'
And off the Temple priest did flee
Pursued by clods of dung.

As the situation got worse, nation turned against nation – nowhere more so than between 'China' and the 'United States of America' – in attempts to corner the last few remaining resources for themselves.

The empires of Earth had poured everything they had into one staggering, world-spanning war – a grinding war machine that gobbled up the very resources that it was being fought over, even as the rulers continued to assure their peoples that their way of living would be preserved.

And what became of Farmer Fat?
His fam'ly merely say:
He made them all good victuals,
And kept the famine at bay.

Except spring hadn't arrived on Earth yet and maybe never would.

I sat on the edge of the bed and thought about that. What I'd seen this far was the ruin of a city, yes, but I had also seen the nearest river – a virtually dried-up remnant in the midst of an arid wasteland. With little wet and nothing green, how long would life live here?

Well, that was a question for another sage, and not for a homesick mage, and I went down and collected my not particularly well-laundered Talon duds and battered armour and trudged over to Moira's. Best to do something constructive while waiting.

Moira was inside, attempting to sweep the floor. There was this discoloured area she wasn't keen on standing in.

“Oh! Rajirrer,” says she a bit breathlessly, “has D-Doc Haines returned?”

“Nope,” says I, “Can you help me try something out?” Doing something constructive might help her too.
“Try something?” She looks at my bundle. “Like what?”

I look around meaningfully and she directs me to a sturdy table with tools on it. “Right then,” says I, “I want to take the plates off this–” and I put down my cuirass, “–and fix them onto this,” and drop the Talon gear.

“Giving up your right to bare arms huh?” She grins at me, then realises I don't get it. “Never mind. Let's give it a try then...”

Moira did have the tools I needed to remove the pauldrons and plates from the gousset. It took an hour to lift the pauldrons off, and Moira was fascinated by the mail left behind.

“Man... I thought these rings were welded or something,” says she, peering at them, “but I can see rivets!”

“That they are,” agrees I, “and all handmade.” I didn't think it necessary to mention that the hands most likely belonged to Ayleid slaves.

“Oh, these ones aren't riveted,” she then says, pointing at a patch.

“Well, I've had this suit for twelve years,” says I, “salvage from bowling some marauders. And there's been bandits, necromancers, daedra, assorted wildlife, undead, and Mannimarco. So I've had it at the menders a time or two.” Twelve years takes the rough edges off those memories.

“Who's Mannimarco?”

“King of Worms – wanted to destroy the Mage's Guild,” says I absently, measuring up the pauldrons against the vest. “How's the best way to fix these on?”

“Huh?” Maybe I shouldn't have dropped that list on her. “Oh – uh – we can try rivets I think. Or maybe if I drilled in some bolts or... Idea!”

“Idea?”

“Lemme get some old belts. That way if this Talon suit falls to bits, you can keep, uh, your bits!”

“What a good idea!” exclaims I; certainly I wouldn't have thought of it. Better still, I could take the bright Ayleid clobber off and stash it when stealth was required. There are all sorts of obstacles to moving around unseen and wearing bits of clinky metal is one of them.

So out come a swag of leather belts. “One of the good things about running the store is I get first dibs on the best stuff,” says she by way of explanation, “so I have plenty for my lab!”

As we measured, fiddled, cut and riveted together belts, pauldrons and lamés, Moira started talking about herself – how she'd been here almost all her life, about the terrible journey she'd endured travelling from Canterbury Commons to end up taking over the store, and how she wanted to improve the lives of people. “Like the Wasteland Survival Guide,” she wound down, lifting up the harness we'd developed and looking at it, “that's gonna be a real life-saver now I've got Doc Haines as an assistant.”

Apparently Ernie and his dad weren't the first to emerge from the nearby Vault 101. There'd been a scout twelve years before, but she'd disappeared. “Guess someone or something got her. But ever since then, I got to thinking that a book like this would be really useful, and... well...”

I assure her I'm listening.

“Well, look around at the world we live in. It may be okay to you, but I've read about what it used to be like, and this wasn't it. So we all need something that keeps us going, despite all the terrible things around us. For me, it's things like this book.”

“And the chance to make things better, right?” asks I.

“Hey, it sounds crazy when you say it that way, but that's what I'm aiming for, yeah,” says she, “The Wasteland Survival Guide isn't much towards that lofty goal, but it's an important one. Look,” and she's got that gleam in her eye and she's waving tools around as she speaks, “Did you ever try to put a broken piece of glass back together? Even if the pieces fit, you can't make it whole again the way it was.”

Yep. I knew that from boyhood experience. Not even the thrashing dad gave me fixed that glass.

“But if you're clever, you can still use the pieces to make other useful things. Maybe even something wonderful, like a mosaic.” That gleam was a flame now. “Well, the world broke just like glass. And everyone's trying to put it back together like it was, but it'll never come together the same way.”

I just listen and try the armoured harness we'd created for fit.

“Lemme give you an example. A couple months back, I was playing with an idea for an elevated brahmin feeding system, so they don't have to strain their necks so much. But the caravan master said, 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it.'” And she sighs bitterly. “Guess that applies to improvements, too.”

And up leaps Zenithar and gives it to me right between the eyes.

I always play along with Moira till the very end, then crush her dream and take that "Dream Crusher" perk, lol.

GAAAAAH! Zenithar?

This is a wonderfully cohesive chapter, with the musing and conversations on making things better. Especially insightful is the point that “fixing” may mean “changing.” The rhyme is a perfect bit of cultural crossover- the reason those lessons are still around is because they still apply. Zenithar--- hmmm.

[In my notes, I wrote 'Moira wasn't happy about the repellent'. How things dilate.]
Rest and Rat-Catching (continued)

“They just stopped,” I breathed to the rusty ceiling.

It would take later reading to understand – especially history books. Just over a hundred years before the Great War, Earth had emerged, battered and shaken, from the second nigh-world-spanning war in less than fifty years.

All anyone wanted to do was regroup and regain the happy societies that they'd left behind, and no more of this terrible technological advances undermining society, thank you very much.

I know I'm not explaining this very well, but in less than four decades the Earth people had gone from the mass array and the cavalry charge at the start of the first world war – it was drowned in mud and blown to bits – to unleashing the power of the atom and stopping the second one.

That sort of thing probably affects you. Imagine a nation of Kvatch survivors all trying to rebuild their old lives and forget that war ever existed.

They had stopped developing technology, at least on the surface. The scrapbooker had it – any new advances were hoarded in secret for weapons. But there was something else: a sense of self-satisfied inertia. They hadn't seen the need to adapt. They thought their way of life was perfect.

It wasn't just technological developments – for evidence, please see Notes on the Bureau of Technological Advancement, which worked to either hide, cripple or delay innovations. Society itself was frozen in amber – ways of living, ways of thinking, ways of worship of their single god.

Funny thing – their god didn't have a name. Most people just called him 'God'. Rather like a shepherd I met outside Kvatch. He explained his flock was named 'Sheep', 'Sheep', 'Sheep', 'Sheep' and 'Sheep'.

“You don't give them names?” asked I.

“No sor!” said he, “No point! They be too daft to 'member them for a start, so they wouldn't respond iffn ye call'm, and besides they'll be mutton soon enough.”

Some books of theology I read – such as PRAY! And Grow Rich – make me think some Earth folk treated God the same way.

* * *

“Who stopped?” Oh – back to the present. Moira was staring at me. And so I explain my little revelation and about my reading about the Resource Wars.

“So it's as though they just decided no more changes, we're perfect,” says I winding up.
Moira just looks at me thoughtfully.

“Maybe you're right,” says she, and absently reaches over and tweaks some of my straps. “Maybe I can put that in the book... Yeah! I'll rewrite the foreword!”

And she goes and sits in front of her contraption with the glowing green symbols.

“You write with that?” asks I, “What is it anyway?”

“This? It's a terminal... uh... which I got hooked up to a... a... um...” and she looks really uncertain. “D'you know what a computer is?”

“Nope,” says I.

Her explanation was tortured as she obviously was trying to explain something that was, firstly, so mundane to her she didn't know how to explain it, and secondly, she didn't know how it worked, just how to use it. Then again, I use alchemical gear all the time and I wouldn't know how to make any to save my life.

Earth people dealt a lot in information – files, paperwork, and their libraries when intact would have put even The Imperial Library to shame and made Tar-Meena think she'd died and gone to librarian heaven. So much so, in fact, they created machines to handle all this information in scales and ways unthinkable and impossible to us. And these machines they called computers.

Somewhere in the Wasteland, there was a central 'main frame' which people accessed from various points by means of devices called 'terminals'. At these terminals, you typed your instructions and data on a mess of push-buttons called a 'keyboard', rather like the keyboard of a harpsichord or one of those pianoforte things. And the results were displayed on what the engineers, with great imagination, called the 'display'. However, Moira had another gadget roped up to it she called a 'printer'.

And that was how her book was going to get from her head to paper – as long as there was paper to put through it – and as long as Haines didn't get himself killed doing the research.

* * *

Speaking of research, Ernie returned stained, spattered, toting a heavy metal metal box, and annoyed late the following morning. I know this because I heard my shack door bang open and his voice calling for me.

“I'm here, damnit,” I groaned, hauling the old carcass out of bed and lurching over to the railing, “What took you so long?”

The good Doctor Haines just scowled at me and waved the magic rat-scaring stick, which looked big enough to be called the Staff of Moira. So I will.

“Moira's precious repellent doesn't work,” he said disgustedly, “and then there were raiders.”

So I follow him over to where Moira's opening up for business.

“Oh, hey Doc!” Moira looked cheerful. “How's that repellent working?”

“Well,” Haines began carefully, putting his box on the counter, “The first three mole rats I encountered, the repellent didn't really drive them off, but their brains exploded.”

“Their brains... exploded.” Moira stared at him as though she thought he was mad.

“Just like I said,” says he, “I'd strike them, but they still attacked. On the second strike, what looked like mixed blood and brain matter was expelled through the ears, nose, mouth, and to a lesser extent the eyes.

“I had to suspend testing due to there being a raider base within the Tepid Sewer location. Once that was dealt with, I located another seven mole rats and, ah, resumed testing.”

He had a rummage in his increasingly leaky metal box and extracted a head that I assumed was off a mole rat. Now, imagine a regular rat's head. Double its size. Remove all the hair and add heaps of jowls, dewlaps and wrinkles. Squash the muzzle in and make the front teeth twice the size and three times as long. Paint the whole thing a burnt shade of pink. Congratulations! You've got no idea of just how hideous a mole rat is.

“As you can see,” Haines pointed out, “aerated blood and clumps of otherwise liquefied brain matter can be observed emerging from the ear and nasal canals, as well as leaking out around the eyeballs, causing the protrusion in this example, and also from the tear ducts, which suggests matter flooded into the sinus cavities.”

He poked one of the rivulets of pitted brown-grey ooze, which made a horrid crunching sound and – oh gods, I wish I could describe the smell!

“The repellent chemical seems to penetrate the skin with minor surface burning and swelling, and enters the bloodstream, thus arriving in the brain. Contact with brain material results in a violent chemical reaction producing gaseous sulphur compounds including hydrogen sulphide. The expansion of the gas results in the rupture of the dura mater and expulsion of partially aerosolised material–”

Moira finally found her voice. “AlrightwegedditnowputthatfuckinthingAWAY!” she gagged before clapping her hand back over her mouth. The new guy acting as store guard looked as green as she did – and I felt.

“But I'm not finished,” Haines protested, “I mean, if you look in the mouth–”

The guard bolted out the door.

“–you can see how the brain matter–”

Moira joined him faster than a Cheydinhal horse.

“–has flooded the nasal cavity–”

And I joined the other two puking over the side.

“–and also the... pharynx,” Haines finished rather plaintively from inside.

We ignored him and continued leaning over the rail until our stomachs decided it was safe to resume their posts. Inside the store, Haines grumbled and there was this disgusting splot, probably him dropping the head back in the box.

He then emerged from the store with his box under one arm. “One more thing,” he added, “the repellent does not seem to affect the meat. I speak from experience when I say that cutlets from the, ah, test subjects were quite nutritious.”

“Uh.” Moira's colour was probably still around her knees and rising. “Well, we don't... really need the... the head... I... reckon that's a dead end. Uh, research-wise.”

“Are you sure?” Haines was looking at her without actually looking at her. “I think this sort of Scientific research may be a great opportunity for taming the local wildlife.”

“No! I mean, I just wanted to drive them off or herd them, not kill them! If they could be domesticated...” and she trails off looking at where the box is dripping from under his arm and bolts inside, then came back out with an armful of chems – the Earth equivalent of potions.

“Look, keep the repellent stick, and take these for your trouble,” says she quickly, “they're left over from working on the repellent. Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta store to run...”

And back in she vanishes, followed by the guard, who looked at us.

“Might be an idea to let her cool off for a bit,” says he.

“That's a good idea, actually,” says Haines to nobody in particular, then he looks at me.

“Ra'jirra, I'm off to meet Three Dog. Are you up to joining me?”

“That rat head isn't coming with us is it?”