Fallout: (Nuclear)Winter Is Coming

'System?' I called out in my mind and I immediately saw a familiar green screen pop up in my vision. A little green man holding one of his thumbs up with a smile on his face appeared.

The pip-boy mascot soon disappeared and what appeared was the iconic pip-boy menu just like in the games.

'S.P.E.C.I.A.L. System? Nice, let's see all the features.'

I was able to navigate the menu with just a subtle thought. It was incredibly easy to control as if it was a natural function of my brain.

There were several main tabs, Stats, Items,Quests, Map, Radio, and Shop. Each of those main tabs had sub-tabs and I couldnt help but feel excitement bubbling up within me.

I checked the Stats tab and inside was a full report on my condition. The first sub-tab showed my general health and limb condition, which was currently in perfect order.

It also showed a hunger and thirst meter and both was currently only half full.

I was also "rested" but not "well rested".

The next sub tab showed my S.P.E.C.I.A.L. which stands for Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, and Luck. The names of the Attributes that determine all sorts of things such as damage and XP gain.

And since I am still level 1, it seems all my attributes are at 1.

It was all pretty empty and I had no positive or negative effects at the moment.

I went over to the Item main tab and the sub-tabs were; weapons, armor, clothing, food/drink, aid, notes, holo, misc, junk, and ammo.

Each tab is pretty self explanatory but there was currently nothing inside the inventory except one thing which was a casual outfit and was literally the clothes I was wearing.

'Can I really store things like in the game? Is there still a risk of encumbrance?'

I decided to try it out now. I looked over at Homeless Joe and he was busy doing... well I'd rather not say.

I grabbed the dirty pillow from under me and held it with my back turned to the nasty freak 10 feet away from me. I 'willed' the pillow into my inventory and then checked.

'Yup. It's there. But damn. There is a weight to things, but it seems I wont actually feel the weight at all until it surpasses my maximum carry weight. Then I'd likely feel like a stone if the game is anything to go by.'

My carry weight was at 125 lbs right now. So I could only carry that much on my person before being in an encumbered state.

The bright side is I'm pretty sure I can now change my outfits as if by magic like in game and I also already had 10k caps for some reason. Possibly a starter bonus.

I pulled the pillow back out and resumed exploring my system.

The next was the Quests main tab. The sub tabs were Main, Side, and Misc. I had one quest and it was one called Get Out Of Jail Free.

[Get Out Of Jail Free: You're in jail, but you want out. Help Nick Valentine bring Eddie Winter to justice to attain your freedom.

Reward: 1000xp, 1000 caps, Personal Vault Shelter.]

I nearly gasped. The reward for completing the quest was enough XP to push me to level 5 probably and a Personal Vault Shelter.

The vault shelter was a feature in Fallout 76. Despite the buggy release of the game, the devs did work hard to bring many improvements which drew me back into it. One of the things I did enjoy about what they added was the shelters.

Many of them were vault themed and some were just flat land with different themed landscapes.

I had all the vault shelters and connected them as if they were all one solid vault. I decorated each area for what they would be used for if I really lived inside. Building was my favorite part of many games so I spent many hours doing just that.

Even if there were people unhappy with the game I still felt it was worth what I paid for it just with the hundreds of hours I spent playing it.

But if this quest reward is what I think it is, I may not have to worry about surviving the bombs.

I then checked the Map and Radio main tabs and was pleasantly surprised with both.

The map only showed one found location which was the police station I was in, but I could zoom out and pretty much see the entire country even though it wasn't like google maps with actual satellite images.

And what I also noticed was that places had to be manually added on the map. It didnt automatically add new markers, I had to place and name them after I discover them, unless the place existed pre-war then there would be an icon, but I can at least edit it myself.

It was a much more comprehensive map to the game version even though it was more manual, I was happy with that. I could create custom map markers and edit them whenever I felt like. There was even a toggle for an active minimap and a compass which I left turned off. I'd rather keep my vision free of hud clutter.

Fast travel didn't seem like a real thing though. Shame.

The Radio tab worked just like in game but instead of playing on a pip-boy speaker, I heard it in my mind. I spent some time browsing through the local stations and knew this would be quite useful.

The reason being is if I had a holotape in my inventory, I could listen to it without anyone hearing it. I could also play holotape movies like we saw in the live action Fallout series, but in my mind.

'I'll try to buy some holotapes somehow after getting out of here. Between holotape movies and the holotape games I can stave off boredom whenever I'm not busy. Anywhere. Anytime.'

Now last but probably not least, the Shop tab. Now this is something I hadn't seen in the previous games.

Sure there was the atom shop and creative club but never a Shop tab in the pip-boy menu.

My eyes nearly burst from my skull like gear 5 Luffy. Almost every item in Fallout I could think of was for sale. There was some limitations but the list was impressive. However everything cost caps, and alot of them too. A currency that wouldn't be used for decades...

'Well the system came pre loaded with ten thousand caps but it's still not enough to buy even a quarter of the things here.'

The prices were insane. The cost of a regular 10mm was similiar to what one would see in game from a vendor. 400 caps.

A power armor chassis without any armor pieces was over 9000!

The most expensive things seemed to be plans and recipes. The plans ranged from things like Big Mountain teleportation technology to Institute Synths and even things like proprietary Vault Technology such as G.E.C.K.s.

The only things I didnt see were legendary weapons or armor. No uniques or named items either. The only evidence suggesting they even existed were the Legendary Modules for sale.

I wasnt able to go to a crafting bench to see what I was able to craft but if the system was anything like Fallout 76, I could make Legendaries by adding the modules during the process of creation.

But modules are hard to come by and the price for just one of them costs 10k caps, my entire current bank account.

'I wonder if I could buy caps from the Nuka-Cola factory before the bombs drop? If I could, then I could get some good stuff to load into my vault.'

Once done browsing the shop, I noticed a little (!) icon next to where it says Level 1 at the bottom. It seems I also got a free level up and after accepting it a notification popped up.

[Congratulations, you have reached level 2!]

The S.P.E.C.I.A.L. tab popped up and I had one point to spend.

I placed the point into Intelligence as I would usually do on any Fallout playthrough since a higher INT increases the amount of XP someone's gains.

A higher Intelligence means faster progression. And I also felt my mind was a little lighter. A bit more efficient. It felt a little addicting...

After allocating the point a new tab popped up. This time I had to choose a perk. Most of the perks were greyed out due to level or stat requirements being insufficient. But I nearly drooled at some of the later perks.

There were only a few perks I could take now but I narrowed my choises down to these three.

[Lady Killer: +10% Damage to the opposite sex, and +10% more likely to pass a speech check]

'In other words, I would be ten percent better at rizzing the ladies. Or killing them... Quickest way to woman's heart is through her chest as they say.' I mused.

[Hard Bargain: +10% better prices for buying or selling, and +10% better chance to succeed at haggling]

Pretty self explanatory, but money is important and getting more of it cant hurt.

[Swift Learner: +10% more XP whenever XP is earned, and +10% speed to learning new knowledge.]

This one is one I'm definitely considering taking. But I also have to consider my situation. Hard Bargain would be helpful to get the things I might need and Lady Killer could get me female companionship, which I didnt need but as a hot blooded male I felt it would be a disservice to Little Frankie if the option wasnt at least on the table.

So essentially my only real options right now were Hard Bargain or Swift Learner...

'Fuck it. I choose...'

---

Status

Frank Winter, 18

Lvl: 2

XP:0/200

HP:110

AP:100

S-1

P-1

E-1

C-1

I-2

A-1

L-1

Perks:

Perk Points: 1