Art Blog

Steph gazed up at the sign. This was her ancestral home- her mother had come from here. Her mother’s tribe still roamed the roads of the Mojave. She planned to find them. Still, she’d need work. She wondered who might have an opening.

It had been weeks since the purifier had been restarted, and Steph remained unconscious, sick. Tests after tests, IVs to ensure she didn’t waste away entirely. The touch of radiation was still on her visibly, Jack’s pipboy ticking when he got close enough. The slight rise of breathing was all that indicated she was still alive, she looked dead.

“-and so I had to double back a bit, but I finally found the right place, and they had a whole crate!” Jack frowned, wondering where she’d gotten the...incidental leftovers, to trade for the soda. He wasn’t sure he should ask.

He glanced over at her, working on fixing her prosthetic eye. The Enclave had left her with a lot of things, including mental damage. PTSD, he had read it was called prewar. But being what she was, it made her much more dangerous. The ruins of Greyditch and Whitemound confirmed that much. He sometimes wondered...if helping her...pass, would be the kindest thing for both her and the Wastes.

She cackled, holding up her friend as they watched Raven Rock burn. They hadn’t gotten the code out of Jack and now they never would. She hoped nothing ever grew on this forsaken place again, so it looked like the grave it was.

The sirens blared heavily, Steph holding herself up on the machinery as she punched in the numbers. She was radiation resistant, not radiation proof. Her sight was already blurry, as the purifier roared to life. A shame she wasn’t going to see the changes it brought.

Steph whimpered. “Because those are Enclave birds...”

Twenty minutes at full speed, repeating the same sentence over and over. He was about to lean over and start a fight if she didn’t calm down.

This wasn’t entirely unexpected. Between the brain surgery and the punga seeds drugging him he’d expected some...changes. Odd dreams weren’t out of the realm of possibility. What pissed him off, however, was that the Mirelurk won every time.

The Legend of the Star... Looooong ago, people didn't have a heap of choices when it came to soft drinks. It was either water, or Nuka-cola. So one day a man, a saloon owner in a small town, decided to make a new type of soft drink, and asked his patrons what flavor they'd like it to be. After getting no help from them, a stranger at the end of the bar suggested the man make a sarsaparilla flavored drink. The stranger said he would happily share his family's recipe for the drink, on one condition. The condition being that the stranger would be allowed to sample a bottle whenever he liked, to ensure the recipe was being followed to the letter. The man happily agreed, thinking the drink would make him rich, and the stranger promised to meet him by sundown the next day. The next morning, the sheriff stopped by and reported that the stranger's body was found on the side of the town road. He'd been killed by bandits. The man, cursing his luck, closed the saloon early that day, just as the sun began to set. But after he had locked the doors, he turned around to find an unfamiliar bottle on the bar, with a note beneath it. The note was sealed with blue wax in the shape of a star. Opening it, the man found it contained a recipe for a sarsaparilla-flavored drink. Sampling the bottle's contents and finding it singularly delicious, the man gave silent thanks to his mysterious benefactor, wherever he was. Being an honorable man, the saloon owner paid for the stranger's funeral, thinking it was the least he could do to repay him. The saloon owner went on to become rich selling the new drink, and to this day some bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla have a blue star under their caps. Some say the saloon owner ordered it done, in honor of the stranger. Others say it's the stranger, sampling the bottles like he promised.

She staggered, her prosthetic eye sparking in her head, causing her to move oddly and painfully.

The music echoed over a long abandoned prewar campsite. Even the caves inside stood silent, empty of the children who once gave it life.

Steph spoke to the vampires of Meresti-their origin was close to her own. Just close enough to cause them to crave the meat and blood they couldn’t quite metabolize. Still, they were close enough for her to warn them of the Enclave, places to avoid. Green eyes focused on her, a shared mutation. It was hard to keep calm, reminding her of her time serving in the Enclave. She’d had people looking to her then, too.