Level 25 (3 Perk points floating)
S-3 Armorer 1,
P-(+)10 Rifleman 1, Awareness, Locksmith 3
E-2
C-6 Lady Killer 1, Local Leader 2
I-6 Gun Nut 1, Hacker 3, Science 1
A-(+)6 Gunslinger 3, Action Boy 2
L-3
(Astoundingly Awesome 8, Barbarian 5, Covert Operations, Gift of Gab, Junktown Vendor 2, Massachusetts Surgery, Tesla Science, Tumblers Today, Wasteland Survival 7 and 9)

I slept 3 hours until after 8, and Piper is already up sitting in a nearby chair when I wake up. “We don’t normally sleep this late,” she astutely observes. It seems there are still some wake-up dialogue options I haven’t seen. I consider selecting a perk before heading out. I upgrade my Rifleman perk to do 40% more damage and ignore 15% of target armor, since I do use my sniper rifle quite a bit. Then we head out towards County Crossing.

The man there asks for some help with some “bugs” nearby, which could be trouble if they’re left unchecked. He says the site they’re at could be a good place for a settlement if it were cleared out. This is not the dire situation I thought it would be when I started making the trek out here, though I suppose it makes me feel a bit better about being held up exploring along the way.

Doc Weathers is a bit of a rough personality, and I’m not sure he’s actually a doctor, but he does provide healing services and bartering. I accept a slight cap loss for the convenience of unloading my extra loot.

Now it’s off the the Taffington Boathouse to take care of whatever bugs these are. Along the way I pass some good views of the city. In the interest of expedience I avoid a building on the road up ahead and cut cross-country more directly to my objective.

As I clear the hill towards the boathouse I spot a legendary supermutant on top of a building. This is NOT a bug. I snipe him and get a couple of good shots in before he’s out of view. What comes back into view is a completely different supermutant, and soon a lot of them are swarming out after me. I take a couple out before running out of action points, then stand and fire until I take a solid quarter of my hp in damage and the mutant hounds are on me. After that I backpedal, shooting them with my very quick and efficient laser rifle. A stimpak later and I’m back in the fight, but there’s only some cleaning up to do.

Or so I think, but as I near the town a supermutant called Hammer who has a skull icon comes out. I pop a buffjet and fire rapidly into him, not even bothering with VATS. The buffjet wears off just as I fire my last shots. It seems I have a buffout addiction now, and with the addiction penalties to strength I suddenly can’t carry this weight anymore. I consider taking my addiction cure I have on hand, but there are still some stragglers left, so I pop a buffout instead and finish them off. The downsides to abusing drugs don’t really have the same effect when you have so many guaranteed outs to deal with addiction problems. I suppose the temptation/dependency part is still there though, because I wouldn’t think of facing a difficult fight without popping chems first now. I just have so many of them and it really isn’t worth the risk of having to reload and replay a fight.

I track down the rest of the bodies, which is a lot easier in broad daylight, but supermutants rarely have much loot. Hammer’s missile launcher should sell for a good amount, though, and I give it to Piper. Apparently, this is not the place I’m heading to, but the nearby West Everett Estates, so I guess the settler of County Crossing are off the hook. Though they could have warned me I was going to walk right past some of toughest supermutants I’ve encountered (who frankly have to be a much bigger threat than whatever bugs they are talking about). Another bit of unbelievability thanks to the radiant quest system. You’d think that the game would be able to detect the nearest major threat and generate that as the mission to protect the settlement, but perhaps these things may spawn based on my level only when I get within a certain range.

West Everett Estates look like a very defensible location (provided you stay behind your defenses and don’t rush out to take on enemies like the supermutants did). Certainly much better than County Crossing’s open air aesthetic. Though I suppose it’s not defensible enough because whoever was living here has most likely been eaten.

My buffout wears off as I duck into the first house on the left after making sure the outside was all clear, so I use my addictol to cure the addiction. There’s a raider corpse in here, so maybe these weren’t the average settlers even before the supermutants. The most interesting thing I find is a Boston Mayoral Shelter Bathroom Key in, of all places, this random nursery.

While exploring the house across the way, I hear an explosion and gunfire. I head out to see Piper coming my direction from the other entrance to the settlement, so I retrace her steps to find some Brotherhood of Steel folks engaged in a firefight. I help them finish the last couple of supermutants off and start moving towards them as a chopper shows up. I put away my gun and try to talk to them, but all they have to say to me as they head out to wherever they are going is “Out of my way, wastelander!” I suppose it’s better than completely ignoring me like last time, but still, it does not make me feel very friendly towards the Brotherhood of Steel. They don’t even seem to worry about me as a possible threat either. I consider following them to see where they are headed or if the AI responds differently, but I expect I’ll be disappointed or there will be some glitch like last time. So I just go back to my looting.

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There’s a house to the right near the barricade with a landmine I barely avoid. A safe has some decent loot, and there’s a terminal called Lance’s Terminal nearby. I deactivate the spotlights just in case some more baddies move in before my return, then check the logs. Lance Ames was apparently around when the bombs hit, and actually survived with some folks to make it back to his neighborhood. This is a rare look at the tale of someone in the early days after the bombs. He discusses how some survivors walled the neighborhood up with the help of an “egghead” named Wayne whose bunker Lance had laughed at all summer. The narrative turn comes with a log that recounts how, while out scouting, Lance and his brother Leon saw a group of armed men, and that Leon recognized one of them and outed the settlement. The final log shows the predictable downfall of the settlement Lance died to protect. It’s a sad tale, and while not the strongest method of storytelling (Bethesda is far better at environmental narrative techniques even though it relies on terminals and notes quite a bit) it still gives an interesting perspective of the world that came before.

The house also has grenade bouquets set to drop to the floor in response to pressure on bathroom scales, an interesting trap I haven’t seen yet. There’s another safe in the back with more good loot. These folks were certainly well off. Likely some raiders in the interim have put up a display of all the different varieties of beer the local brewery made, which I can’t bear to disturb. By the time I’ve looted the rest of the town it is getting towards evening and I’m near my carry weight limit again.

Beyond a house where I see a vending machine taken apart (it’s the first time I’ve seen that) the only other interesting house is the one apparently used by Hammer, the supermutant I killed. It’s well-appointed and there’s an interesting collection (and some good loot like a Nuka Cola Quantum).

More interesting is a holotape, which I didn’t know supermutants were capable of making. Of course, it’s message is “Human, did you make the machine work?” followed by an uncomfortable silence then a sound I can only assume is something that causes a good deal of pain. “This is Hammer. I got a human to make the machine work. We found a good place, already has walls and water. Some human made a tiny room underground, with many good things inside. Send more people, so we can raid more! We give you these guns for trade. Ok, human, make the machine stop recording now. Human! No time for sleep! Stop bleeding, and work the machine! Argh, fine, Hammer will fix it!” Interestingly, as these corpses are labeled “Raider” I don’t feel nearly as bad as I would otherwise, but it is still a slightly somber moment (if sprinkled with a little humor, given the funny way supermutants talk). I resolve to search for this bunker, but maybe I’ll try some bowling first. Again, I am really angry I can’t make this place a settlement. As Hammer said, it’s perfect.

There are still Brotherhood folks around, which is just really odd scripting. They’re just wandering around. If they were here to loot the place, you’d think they’d have a problem with me going around looting the place. Regardless, they should have a little more to say to me. I’d make a note to come back to the bunker later, as I can’t carry anything else right now, then I head out as the sky grows darker.

“Nice night! That means things with sharper eyes than us will be on the hunt…” Way to be a downer, Piper. I head west, then approach the Boathouse along the waterfront rather than via the road. I don’t have time to loot things I can’t carry in all these ruined houses. I’d rather not swim the murky channel but climbing up the hill reveals no nearby bridges. The channel soon narrows, though and might be very shallow, so I give it a shot. This radiant mission is ridiculous. Whatever threat is here, it is probably the least severe threat that settlement faces.

It’s just a bunch of bloodbugs, and I kill most of them easily outside the place. I shoot another through the open window. The boat dock seems to have a serious trap, two laser tripwires on the other side of the dock. I may be able to jump it, but it’s risky. I’ll come back to it.

The house is a cozy little house with a cooking station and a sleeping bag. Clearly not long vacated. The top floor even has a view of the stars. The close quarters fighting with the last two bugs on the second floor gives me a bit more trouble, but nothing a nice refreshing Nuka Cola won’t fix. Afterwards I find poor Mary Sutton, who I can only assume is the previous resident.

There’s a note on the body, presumably from her daughter Margie, which perhaps explains what happened here. The letter also hints of a holotape in the boat house, and a stash of chems at the end of the canal. I doubt anyone that lived here is still alive, so I go downstairs to claim the settlement as my own at the workshop. It’ll make a nice getaway lakehouse, I suppose. It also seems like a great opportunity to unload some of the crafting materials Piper and I have been carrying around.

I close the door, park my power armor in front of it, and use the cooking station. This is the first time I figure out you can make purified water from three dirty waters. I suppose it makes a tad bit of sense, boiling away bacteria, although I don’t think you can boil away radiation. After that we head upstairs to sleep under the stars.