Tales From The Vault

Saturday, 02 January, Year 13 d.Tr. | Author: Mircea Popescu

Motto: The only new thing in this vault
Is the order in which you experience the rooms.

Inspurredi by the fabulous Ballad of Buster Scruggs, I'm going to try my own hand at something equally fictitiously factitious. It won't be "The Frontier" though, because whatever, enough already. It's been played to death and moreover it wasn't really ever anything like the popular depictions.ii

Instead, it'll be about "The Wastes", something that never did happen (and perhaps never could have happened) yet a whole lot of people spent a short little while convinced that it probably will happen, at least eventually, and (most importantly!) if not for their precious backyard shelters / diligent muzzle wearing it very well might've happened imminently!

vault-tales-3 The Wastes, as you might surmise, are a sort of planetscape Chrenobyl, where (as per canon) two-headed cattle (called Brahmin) graze "mutated" plantsiii and so following. It's bleak and fallout. Scattered about there's vaults, wherein some were saved some time ago, had children, tried to live on some variant branch of "life as you know it" (much in the way the Scottish are people, for isntance) and... well... thus equipped, let's move on!


. ~ The Story Of One Chris Pratt ~ .

Of How He Became Chris Hero

This fellow was one of the original fifteen, which is how his name's something other than derogatory (if indeed Pratt's that). Everyone born in the vault has to content themselves being Fuckboi Suckdick, Cucky Cuntslurp, Simp Naked and suchiv ; but while I was coming up with fabulous girl names for the stay-at-vault moms-to-be such as Amber Nude, the Naked sisters (Irish and Garnish), Amanda Fucksall an' so on, he was out wandering the wastes -- the first vault dweller to be thus sent out of this particular vaultv. Then he returned, with some shotguns and other common loot, was sent out again, with a coupla stimpaks this time... it really looked like his life had found its groove, settled on a course.

He'd be sent out, over and over, for longer and longer, bringing back the meagre loots his 20% Strength, 30% Perception, 10% Agility and 10% Luck entitled him to, until he'd run into some ceiling or other. Until he'd be too old too move, or perhaps supernumerary in some other way. Maybe the bureaucrats one day decide 25's the largest number of Wastes wanderers worth keeping on the books and for his sins he comes out 27th best in the list of candidates, and so...

As a factual matter he'd necessarily become no longer +EV to run, one day. It's the fate of the world, those who fatten on your work grow ; and from their point of view "you stopped growing". Because hey, their growth is their growth and what do you want from them, old man ?! Perhaps he'd be killed, more or less "accidentally" -- one can always find himself alone in a room full of raiders by sheer coincidence just as his gun was being repaired, no ? Maybe even cast outvi, for some transgression, imaginary or otherwisevii. Maybe they'd even take the trouble to "make an example out of him", for whatever needed exampling right then. Whichever it'd be, one thing's for sure...

As fate would have it, just then he spotted something odd about a long-abandoned Red Rocket Truck Stop. He approached, carefully, doggedly. After clearing out some debris and snuffing out some raiders, Chris found a lone fellow trapped inside! He invited him to the vault, which the other said he was hoping to hear, and they moved on. Those found this way are always rare-grade colonists, meaning a damn sight better than Chris could ever hope to be. Their stats average over 40%, which is not only more than his modest 14% : it's almost three times more. Meaning, one of them's worth three of him (while eating just as much). Chris had no ilusions about things. After all, the Wastes wash illusions out of one, that's what they do, their spirits joining the background radiation blanketing the New Earth.

His health bar not entirely depleted just yet, in spite of some Raider shrapnel and whatall, Chriss trudged on, through the endless Wastes, whatever they may be, until he came to... another lost 40%-er! Whom he also invited to the vault, and there's Chris, coming back while Master slept, with two! Not just one but two excellent finds! Just what the vault needed, at that juncture, some people with actual stats to put behind the better class of weapons Chris had found, to be thus sent back out for ever better loot -- better than what Chris could reasonably hope to get (and did).

Chris was allowed all of five minutes (which is still a lot in dog years) to take a shower, rinse maybe some of the radioactive dust out of his skin folds, stretch his legs out of the wind a little ; but thereupon was sent right back out, while the two newcomers... well, they had to wait around, for their loads of stimpaks to be prepared and whatnot, flirting with the Medbay girlies all the while (all pregnant, by the way, courtesy of the Vault-designated allfucker whose name history has not recorded, and therefore as safe to fuck as it gets). Right ? Because so it goes, Chris ain't worth nothing no mo'. He's amortized himself already, so he needn't be fussed about ; but a serious Overseer wouldn't sent out his only rare colonists without first giving them the best possible conditions, n'est pas ?

Yet while Chris trudged on the Deathclaws cameviii, and killed one of the two newcomers ; the other having been fortunately already sent outix. The Overseer cursed and swore, and then set out to re-populating the base -- a process which consists of de-pregnantingx the pregnant females one at a time, and then setting the (still somewhat bloody) λεχούσαxi up in a special room for just this purpose. She'd be all decked in "Naughty Nightwear"xii and trembling with bated breath, to meet a dude selected for her, a dude who's not seen any, in months, the first time. Then he sees another and another and another, one after the other. They exchange pleasantries ("The doctor's prescribed me vitamin U" ; "I'm an official vault suit inspector, and I have to inspect yours very closely" ; "Children are like chocolates -- you can always have one more" and so following), they sorta-dance like dorks in place, and then she kisses him lifting a calf at a right angle and then bam, neeeext!

Just as the first of the lined up dollies was squeezing her eyes shut to thus better think of The Empire, Chris Pratt called a mission in. He had happened upon a suspicious abandoned cabin, and traditionally the Overseer himself plays out these scenarios (through a process not specificaly explained, telepsychosis, teleportation, telepomposhing, whatever it is). Through the intervention of fate disguised as a game of chance this particular adventure yielded a flamethrower, which is an endgame weapon, the first time this vault had seen such a wonder (and by far the best weapon then available). The Overseer, not one to be blind to dictates from above, promoted Chris from Pratt to Hero on the field, and then paid the six Nuka-Cola (real currency, valuable stuff) fee to have the newly dubbed sir teleported right back to the base, where, in triumphal processing, he was alloted the best suit of armor available, and the best weapon (he himself had just found) and was forthwith set upon the task of resticking the puppies up twenty-seven love canals that recently passed something roughly the size of lusciously ripe watermelons.

And this is how Chris Pratt became Chris Hero ; a new Achilles whose name will not however be preserved in the Vault's own lineages, because in this culture children inherit their mother's name, boys or girls. Mayhap something of Chris' passes on through, though, filtered from generation to generation, from Bambi to her daugther Candi or Champagne, to grand-daughters Dollie and Dinah, to great-grandaughters Eris, Francisca, Gwyndolyn an' Hussy ; and perhaps... beyond.


. ~ The Story Of Adam Aronson ~ .

Or The Spirit of Christmas

The vault was prosperous, more prosperous than ever. Hero's herd having just come of age, the Overseer set about to moving the Vault into a glorious future of united and upgraded rooms. Adieu, cramped spaces and alternating checkerboard of singlet rooms ; farewell averaging six doors to get between one room and another, having to meet and greet a good dozen dorks just to get to an elevator -- the same dorks as yesterday, and as tomorrow.

The new open space plans made the vault much harder to defend (though so much easier for everyone to ignore each other), and the beasties (radscorpions, radroaches, naked mole rats, fires and brain parasites -- it's a terrible pity there's no carnivorous plant antagonist well fleshed out in the franchise) invading significantly stronger. The fifty or so pregnant females, rotund equally since the moment after conception until the future day of ever-procrastinated delivery, worked and toiled and rebuilt as ordered, and all was well, and the Overseer smiled in his chair upon the kneeling walrus suckling between his knees. It is not hard to take harder accidents and incidents when you've immunity on your side in any case.

The vault was prosperous enough to keep out half a dozen wanderers wanderin' them Wastes at all times, plus a team of three fellows doing quests, whose last names were thus conveniently changed from Whorelet, Camwhore and whatever the third one was, maybe Sluttxiii to Quester. Much easier to find in the lists that way. These three fellows were sent on a themed quest, something to do with the time of year in a different place, somewhere else where they were not ; and therein as their reward they found a jolly rotund fellow named Adam Aronson. His garb was red with white fringe, his laughter tediously repeated all the way to becoming unbearable after a while.

They took the maniac back to base, as per their orders, and there the Overseer noticed potential : Adam's Charisma was nominally eight, a good five points over anyone else's. So he was decked in a Pope outfit and set about to manning the man's end of yet another large child blast, yet again record-setting largest for the vault. The headciount stood at 65, but the Overseer decided to take it over a hundred, to unlock the Nuka-Cola Bottling Plant. All the pregnant females were relieved and recharged in the usual matter, Adam's fortunate diceroll at birth making short work of any possible resistance (to not say opposition) of the... medium. For what are they but culture medium ? Then, as their daughters came of age one by one he fucked them one by one too. For safety you see, for it's unsafe to keep human females meandering about the base. What if some ghouls should come for them ?

Adam grew ever fatter ; the overseer made him a little radio shack, where he could spend his days pleasantly going through paper making notes he never bothered to re-read while a pretty brown thing of his choice (as pregnant as all the rest) sang her pretty pink lungs out on a microphone set to off. The shack didn't broadcast anything anywhere, for fear of attracting enemies ; but Adam could still pretend that hey baby, he's a producer, and thereby lure the ambitious, or just curious, or maybe merely bored young things into the special room across the way for this very purpose. They had no doubt a very personal time of it, each one individually experiencing her own experience, which was this : a fat old guy in a pope hat fucked them pregnant across the way from his radio shack, each like the other indistinctly enough.

Adam's life seemed to have found its groove ; for all anyone concerned cared he was perfectly welcome to keep at it until the end of time ; but the Fates once again took a hand, and just as he had fucked his fiftieth indistinctxiv filly (or was it hussy, fistory has not recorded) the Overseer looked over the room, to remove the dead live body to an adequate pregnantarium (and perhaps refil the petri dish if there were still young fillies, or hussies perhaps, still wandering freely about) when he saw... Adam, sprawled on the ground. It seems a stray Deathclaw did in fact get to him, while attention was focused somewhere else, and did him in for his good life ; or maybe it was something else.

Adam Aronson's body was discarded with the garbage like all the others ; and the pope outfit hung in storage, having been superseded by a higher Charisma bonus outfit, and having lost its amusing Southern Baptist preacher fit in such a fitting manner.

The pretty brown thing's still pregnant by the grave.


. ~ The Story Of Cuckboi Cuntslurp ~ .

Of How He Took Things Into His Own Hands, Becoming Dick Steele
And How He Fared Thence

Upon the heels of all this fun, the actual game developers must've added a silent hotfix, because the Overseer's game crashed mysteriously, and then when he reloaded it... the strangest thing! The pregnant females were still all pregnant in the sense of having the suckling babe icon hovering over their headsxv, but they were no longer the familiar walrus! They had reverted to plain womanhood, and pregnant or no -- they were immune no longer!

The next minute Deathclaws attacked, of course, in the commotion managing to gut a coupla 9-strength gals that had been training like fiends throughout their lengthy pregnancy, and maybe one or two high-endurance level 1 boys aspiring to Wunderkind. A lot of others died, including the whole Strenght room, six people by the very entrance holding the best weapons. The Overseer set about to salvaging his base in a flury, limiting damage and reshuffling things around. The new situation called for an emergency fuckboy, and the previously anodyne Cuckboi Cuntslurp nobody had ever heard or thought about rose to the occasion and seized the opportunity! A lowish level, low statistics overachiever from the mailroom, Cuckboi Cuntslurp called himself Dick Steele, and set about to fucking through the confused girlies like curling iron through frozen margerine.

Chaotic changes followed one after the other, as if Stalin himself had moved into the Overseer's CEO chair. The remainder Wunderkid-wannabe's were sent to the newly built Nuka-Cola plant, to workxvi, and learn of real life ; the higher level females, having leveled to over 30 under the steel veil of their erstwhile immunity were given rifles and set to guard the base entrance ; a special cordon of un-upgraded singlet rooms, manned by a guy and a girl of levels as high as could be had and armed with the shotguns the Vault's armory had been churning out one every hour or thereabous since yesterday and thus available in enough abundance to be deemed the Vault's standard weapon, arranged such as to protect the delicate underbellies of reproduction and infantile training.

Through it all casualties soared, numerous nameless cucks and simps going to meet their maker. More vault paper figurines died in that hour than in the whole history of the Vault to date ; even a half dozen females were lost among the half grosse pile of corpses standing as tallxvii as the second floor behind the vault, where it piled its byproducts by tradition. This never had happened before, females dead, and it sparked a sort of revolution in the Vault's politics and socio-sexual mores : because newly impregnated females still enjoy the traditional immunity denied mysteriously to some for some reason somehow, and because hitpoints are directly related to levels, and because the only way to train Wunderkids is by having level 1 (meaning, lowest hitpoint) colonist work out their Endurance to max (over something like three real days!), it then follows it's much better to use females than males (and it's a rush to do it, too, because a troop of raiders brought a heavy wasteland gear recipe with them for some reason, so now the vault can actually manufacture the only item actually required in an absolute sense for game "completion"). Since females seem to hold an implicit monopoly on Wunderkid status, and since the higher levels among them, freed from the chains of perpetual pregnancy and its attendant toils and humiliations (such as having to flee, arms flailing, at the first sight of a roach), best weapons availavble in hand were now in charge of base security (at the top, where it matters), a lot of low level bois (that had just come out of childhood) found themselves outright and directly evicted.

vault-tales-4The trend started once Lucas Simms, a fetching black man of near-legendary bodily attributes, turned out in a lunch box. vault-tales-5He was tall and hansome and donned a sheriff's duster! All the gals instantly fell for him, and in their frenzied, hysterical excitement they dragged poor Dick Steele-Cuckslurp kicking and screaming out of the hussery. They shorn his hair, they cut his ears, they made him ride the urination train (that's when they stand, legs apart, hands on each other's shoulders or waists or hips or where they may, and someone crawls through the moist tunnel underneath, between their legs), vault-tales-6no doubt to show ole Lucas (who just happens to be black) just how devotedly they all love him, in the exact sort of contortedly indirect fashion female hysteria ever works in females, whatever vaults they might be confined in. Then Cuckboi was sewn into an old tractor envelope together with a cockroach, a mole rat, a radscorpion and a sexually aroused ghoulxviii and rolled down off the hill, away from base.

And then a lot of level ones, a bunch of just-recently-turned-18(or 21, 12, whatever it is) bois followed in his wake, unceremoniously booted out. Out, out, into the waste space, there to find their fortune -- or better yet, to make some vultures' fortune with themselves, giving their utmost of themselves and their own bodies, in flesh and sustenance. Just like the women do.


. ~ The End ~ .

Of All Elaborate Plans, The End
Of Everything That Stands, The End
Or How It Went ?

———
  1. No ? Why must it be inspired, I wasn't spired, I was spurred. []
  2. To best understand this, leave aside an' nevermind "your own" ancestors -- they're way to encrusted in the barnacles of comfortable falsification, held fast by the steady glue of pious fraud, elaborately selected and improved over centuries. Focus instead of someone else's : do you really think "the noble savage" of Seymour-Feymoor Cooper's like anything that ever existed ? What, the stone-age hunter-gatherer stumbling over prissy notions of "propriety" ? Really now... []
  3. Whatever that means, Monsanto (R) (TM) etc. []
  4. vault-tales-1

    vault-tales-2 []

  5. Vault number 670, because you see... I started with 666 and then blew/lost interest in a few. Aren't fictive worlds a wonderful thing ? Literally wonderful I mean. []
  6. This can happen, by the way. You can send out any colonist into the Waste naked (well technically she packs a very sad valise), and good riddance! Just in case you were wondering what'd be the means to ensure compliance and general good behaviour in the very tight (and not precisely pleasant to live in) nooks an' crannies of the Vault.

    To quote one very happy vault girl that I've no doubt was thus enhappined through this exact process,

    It comforts me to know that my daughter will grow up in the vault.

    Ain't that the truth! []


  7. Zece membri de partid visau viaţă nouă. Unul a vorbit în vis, şi-au rămas doar nouă.
    Nouă membri de partid s-au copt de marxism! Unul s-a răscopt din ei, şi-au rămas doar opt!
    Opt membri de partid au trecut la fapte... Un' mai breaz s-a dus la Broz, şi-au rămas doar şapte.
    Şapte membri de partid fac afaceri grase. Unul a intrat la zdup, şi-au rămas doar sase.
    Sase membri de partid au strigat lozinci. Unul a strigat greşit... şi-au rămas doar cinci.
    Cinci membri de partid priveau ca la teatru. Unul n-a aplaudat, şi-au rămas doar patru!
    Patru membri de partid erau toţi evrei. Unul s-a dus în Ereţ, şi-au rămas doar trei!
    Trei membri de partid vorbeau de război. Unul şi-amintea prea mult, şi-au rămas doar doi!
    Doi membri de partid, mîndri ca un soare. Unul a înnebunit, şi-a rămas doar unul!
    Un membru de partid, cel mai preaslavit, a plecat cu ONT-ul şi n-a mai venit!
    Zero membri de partid luptă pentru pace, că partidul nostru drag ştie el ce face!

    ~ Pastorel

    Syllabus : Broz [Tito] ; Ereţ [Israel]. []

  8. Every time the vault door opens (such as to let out another wanderer o' the Wastes), some air from the vault, a locksworth of air from the vault is leaked into the general atmosphere, to linger its scents about, diffusely. This happens to be exactly how a number of creatures mate, isn't it ? The vault, an immense flower of ages past, dusting its cryptic perfumes in the morning dew, in the midnight air, the Moon the only common aspect of experience uniting its present life with its imagined past.

    Obviously there's all kind and manner of wasp bee and ant come to seek their birthright nectar. []

  9. Deathclaws feel no particular impulse to extract five month old foetuses out of the still somewhat living mothers, they're not cats or anything, they're reptiles, okay ? Mutated reptiles, which is why instead of using the elevators like everyone else (what shit elevators are these anyways ?!) they just tear a hole through the floor. []
  10. The Romanian for this actually works a lot better, "femeia insarcinata" = "prgnant woman" however technically "encharged woman". So you just decharge them, makes sense. []
  11. What's the word for "a woman that's given to light recently enough her uterus and vaginal canal haven't re-compressed into anything like a fuckable shape just yet" in your language ?

    What's poverty of experience like, in your language ? []

  12. Charisma +5, which added to the native one (or sometimes two) makes seven, which is to say three and a half times faster processing. Because there's 30+ to go through and we'd like this to be done today... []
  13. That bitch Annelise Slutt an' also Antigone Cuntslurp, and all their rabbity daughters and antqueen grand-daughters fucked so eagerly thoroughly and well that by the present day here contemplated two thirds the vault stood filled with their progeny though they had only been two out of nine early vhores (like whores but in vaults). Hardly a room could be somehow made without a Slutt or a Cuntslurp in it, and often two of two and four or more of six. []
  14. Not to be confused with Indistinct Harlot, who's a real person, so named because I must've accidentally clicked her into the world and she had kept her father's name, meaning there was no way to figure out which walrus she crawled out of, so... she started a new vhore line. []
  15. That annoying piece of shit that covers all other overlays so you keep producing babies when you aim to click a level up or whatever, jeez! []
  16. Meaning they'd have to level before maxing out their endurance, meaning they could by definition never ever be Wunderkids, even if they lived. []
  17. If you figure seventy or so corpses at maybe seventy or so kilograms each it comes to a good five tons, which if it packed like potatoes it'd fit in a truck, but if it packs like people it stands taller than that. []
  18. Ghouls are quasi-immortal beings who had started life as commonplace human beings before the nuculation, but the radiation changed them into a sort of post-Fallout zombie, basically. []
Category: Cuvinte Sfiinte
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  1. [...] low-key playing a computer game in the background. The 174-strong base, well equipped with (locally manufactured) focused laser [...]

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