Level 20 (1 Perk point floating)
S-3 Armorer 1,
P-(+)10 Rifleman 1, Locksmith 3
E-2
C-6 Lady Killer 1, Local Leader 2
I-6 Gun Nut 1, Hacker 2, Science 1
A-(+)6 Gunslinger 2, Action Boy 2
L-3
(Astoundingly Awesome 8, Barbarian 3, Covert Operations, Junktown Vendor 2, Tesla Science, Wasteland Survival 9)

Well, apparently there’s no well rested bonus for sleeping in a ruined nursing home five feet from a corpse. Who would have thought? I get the morning started fast by heading to the restricted area and opening the door. There’s a humming sound from downstairs… a fusion core! Good stuff. Now time to take the rest of the raiders out before the sun rises completely.

These raiders have spread themselves out across several ruined buildings, making an approach difficult. Fortunately, they patrol, allowing me to snipe them. I head up some stairs to their network of catwalks to get the high ground. Hearing a turret I look through some cracks in the floorboard to find and snipe it.

With the raiders gone, I crack a safe upstairs for some good loot. Piper strikes up a conversation, asking me for advice about her sister because I seem really good with people. She’s terrified about her sister growing up to lead a dangerous life like her. That’s part of the reason she’s on the road so much and part of the reason she’s out here with me. I say that she should just love her because family’s precious and you don’t want to drive them away. She thanks me and says I’m a good friend. I banter back with a flirt and she adds a “for now unless something changes” and starts stumbling over her words a bit before saying “Did it get hot in here?” and then changing the subject to suggest we hit the road. As you can see below, some of the dialogue options are fairly straightforward, while others don’t precisely indicate what you’re going to say.

The raiders had a pretty good position overlooking most approaches except the one I happened to approach from, so I suppose I got lucky. I encounter more of them just around the corner and actually get shot as they’re behind a fence and have good cover. I dodge back and circle around to flank them as Piper continues the firefight. After taking that one out, rather than approaching from the front I go around back of the building and find a fire escape to use. It’s a long way up, but my tactic is rewarded. I catch a raider psycho I can only assume is the leader in power armor just gazing out the window of his room (which is appointed with two hanging corpses). I get three good shots off in his back and take him down before he gets more than one shot off on me. On closer inspection what I thought were statues on the nightstand are actually two severed heads, the sicko. There’s a corpse under the bed as well. With plenty of striking images from raiders like this around, it makes it easy to shoot raiders on sight, even without the red label in the HUD indicating they’re enemies.

From here I have an almost 360 view of the approach. If they had more men maybe I would’ve had more trouble taking it. The interior stairs down are caved in, however, so I’ll have to backtrack. I almost forget the power armor makes me immune to falling damage. Piper can take the stairs, I’m taking the fast way down, which is exhilarating. There actually is no entrance to the interior I can find right now, so I keep exploring, zigzagging to cover all the ground.

I make it back to the building next to the bank, near where I fought the ghouls last night. The money that was robbed from the bank is actually still in a duffel back the corpse apparently dropped. Bad luck robbing a bank just as the bombs hit. Inside the building, I’m immediately attacked by another ghoul. My opening fire isn’t enough, but I remember power armor melee attacks are pretty good, so rather than waste ammo trying to shoot something that fast after my action points deplete I bash it once to finish it. I clear the floor before unlocking a nearby terminal. Inside, more pre-war cash and a safe. Nothing interesting upstairs but a workbench.

Next stop, the nearby Apartments, which apparently contains only two apartments and a lot of wasted space. Someone wasn’t a very good architect. Across the way I find the Lexington Apartments, which seem more enticing. I’m thinking ghouls galore after I spot a torn up body, but then I see a land mine. A tripwire set to drop a grenade waits on the next landing. More blood and gore at the top of the stairs. As I creep in and turn off my light I hear a man’s voice from the other room. “I need a drink. The real shit, not moonshine.” Two raiders are sitting and talking. I take them both out. After what I’ve seen here I don’t really have an moral reservations about it. I find some more ammo and an overdue book. It occurs to me that I have an awful lot of grenades for someone that never uses them anymore.

I head out and continue my circuit. Circling into town a bit, I spot a diner and a pharmacy on the interior streets. The diner is empty, but I enter the pharmacy to find what appears to be a flickering light in the back room behind a wall or curtain. Turns out it’s actually just a texture glitch that happens as I move, the first glitch of that type I’ve spotted. I believe it may be what they called z-fighting in the level design class I took many years ago.
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I continue back out to the bus stop on the edge of town. The bus is empty, like so many cars you can enter. I think an excellent addition to a Fallout game would be like 8-track tapes you can build a song playlist in your Pip Boy from, but of course that would require music rights or even more awful public domain songs. The interior is creepy, but empty, just like almost everything else.

I’m nearing the Corvega Assembly plant where I deposed some raiders on my first Minutemen mission. Behind some buildings I find an open sewer pipe heading that direction. Might have been a better approach had I seen this the first time. I hear gunfire up ahead and see a ghoul running from what I can only assume is the turret I left set up down here last time. But then I hear a voice say “Another one bites the dust!” and I wonder if I missed something. Turns out there was a raider down here. I blow up the turret easy then hang back. He sticks his head in the sewer pipe and I shoot his head off. It’s glorious. My Xbox refuses to record it.

There’s a terminal labeled Lonnie’s Terminal. It details the adventures of the raiders taking Lexington back from the ghouls and setting up shop here, including such gems as the house Lonnie had his eye on, his efforts at increasing defense and his efforts to curtail his leader, Jared’s obsession with chems and the “sight” (which sounds like what the old lady Mama Murphy that’s led me along thus far has). I feel kind of bad for blowing Lonnie’s head off now, if that was Lonnie.

The above set of terminal notes does a good job offering the raider’s point of view. Their struggles are, in many ways, the struggles of survivors in a harsh land. Some of them are reasonable people trying to make their way in the world, more concerned with defending themselves from the dangers out there than becoming dangers themselves. Of course, I know from my last experience in this place that these raiders weren’t good people, on the whole. Do I mourn in any significant way the killing of a few decent people alongside many bad ones? It makes me think about it, and in that way provokes some moral reflection on my part, but not to the point of drastically changing my actions. Perhaps if Bethesda went beyond their environmental/note method of storytelling and included more of these moral quandaries–and especially characters I actually interact with that these can accrue around–then it might have more of an impact.

It seems more raiders have returned, or perhaps since I didn’t clear it the first time it respawned. Or maybe entering from the pipe triggered the respawn. It means more loot, and these guys are pushovers this time around. I just hope it doesn’t lead to any game glitches. No big boss this time, but at least I spot the button to extend the bridge before wasting hours of in-game time trying to make the jump to the central area in the top chamber. There’s a Grognak the Barbarian comic, “In the Bosom of the Corsair Queen.”

There’s also a terminal detailing everything from Jared’s viewpoint. Apparently, he had met Mama Murphy, the same lady that’s been helping me with her visions, as a child. Everything she said came true, causing him to devote his life to mastering that power. The notes paint a tragic tale, and I understand Jared’s obsession. I also understand why he turned out the way he did, seeing his settlement murdered in front of him and being kidnapped by the killers. But understanding where someone is coming from doesn’t excuse their terrible actions. Oh, also, apparently Lonnie is a woman, so I guess I didn’t blow his head off and my conscience is eased somewhat. The raiders were actually sent to collect the old woman in Concord, and that is where I intervene into this little story. This far into the game and I finally get those connections. Another example of how even with seemingly straightforward storytelling (Preston’s first mission sends me here after encountering them, not far from the start area) there is no guarantee with an open world game. Would have been faster if I had seen that damn button earlier.  I clean out the raiders and call it a night.