Last time, I logged out after crafting the crossbow and bolts I needed to murder the final animal for my Tadpole: Athlete badge. Saturday, I returned to the Whitespring to murder a radstag with my crossbow.
This left one final requirement to complete the Tadpole quest. Revive an ally. Now I could have tried to make arrangements with a player to self-terminate so I could revive them, but I wanted to try to do it “natural,” so I did every public event that cropped up, until finally, on my second Encryptid, someone died and I got to them before someone else and triumphantly jabbed my stimpak into their cold, nearly dead, flesh.
I then returned to the robot at the Pioneer Scout camp to claim my promotion to Possum, which came with a nifty backpack that increased my carry weight by 60. I then returned to doing side quests.
Next up, is Ally: Crash Landing. I went to investigate a broadcast signal I had come across while wandering the wasteland.
I discovered an astronaut named Sofia, who had been in deep sleep in space since before the war. Her ship had crash-landed and injured, she had taken shelter in a run-down bunker.
I gave Sofia a stimpak for her injuries. She asked me to go to her crash site and retrieve the recorder data.
After doing this, she asked me to find her ship’s robot and use the emergency code phrase “Blue Sunset” to get the encryption key for the data I retrieved. I returned the key to Sofia and she advised she needed someplace to assemble a console she could use to analyze the data.
I offered her a spot at my camp. Once her console was set up, she needed a scanner upgrade module.
I grabbed the scanner upgrade and of course, she needed something else, so next I had to retrieve the emergency protocols. That opened up another fetch quest to retrieve the U.S.S.A. beacon.
I returned with the beacon and discovered a sketchy character by the name of Dr. Emerson Hale had shown up at the camp. He apparently worked on the Deep Sleep project that Sofia was part of and he is obviously full of shit.
Next, Sofia wanted me to search the wreckage of the crew’s ship for survivors. There were none.
My next task was to eliminate a U.S.S.A. robot that Sofia picked up on her scanner that seemed to be hostile towards our cause. I then followed another U.S.S.A. signal to find more information about the Deep Sleep routine.
At this point, it had become clear that the project was some kind of experiment and as part of our continuing attempts to unravel what happened and resolve Sofia’s headaches, I had to get the patent design for the Deep Sleeper Pod.
Next up, I needed to get Sofia’s medical records and then the government contract, which revealed that Dr. Hale brokered the whole deal. I then had to go kill a U.S.S.A Protectron, which was hanging out in a railyard with a bunch of snallygasters.
My next objective was to obtain a sample of the serum they used in the Deep Sleep project and then kill off a U.S.S.A. Robobrain.
Next up, I had to go get the Deep Sleep Experiment holotape, which revealed that not only did they experiment on Sofia without her consent, but they forced all the scientists on the project to also undergo the experiment. My next job was to retrieve a high-security signal called Arachne and then a U.S.S.A access card.
Finally, Sofia reveals that the experiment seemed to involve linking her brain to some entity called A.T.H.E.N.A. She has concluded that the only way to stop her headaches is to destroy A.T.H.E.N.A.
I find A.T.H.E.N.A. in Sugar Grove. She is a robot who was also an unwitting part of the Deep Sleep experiment.
For decades she has been collecting sensory input from the various test subjects and she wants it all to stop. That is why she lured us to her lair.
She presents us with two options. I can use Arachne to destroy A.T.H.E.N.A. or transfer her consciousness into a nearby Assaultron unit, freeing her and Sofia from the experiment.
However, there is no guarantee it will resolve Sofia’s headaches.
Sofia seems empathetic toward A.T.H.E.N.A., feeling they were both used against their will. Dr. Hale wants me to destroy A.T.H.E.N.A. I decide to transfer A.T.H.E.N.A. to the assaultron and suggest Dr. Hale go find a new place, far away to live.
Sofia says her headaches seem better and now A.T.H.E.N.A. occasionally turns up at camp selling things. With Sofia’s storyline finished, I returned to my other side quests.
First up is the bucket list quest for the dead tourist I got the prosnap camera from. This quest involves traveling to seven locations and taking a photo.
I take my photos and collect my rewards and then go investigate the beast at Abandoned Mineshaft 2 that Pete, the Nuka-World mechanic, wanted me to check out. I don’t find any beast, but I do find a holotape that seems to confirm Pete’s story.
Next, I’m searching some cabins for survivors. Instead, I find a holotape indicating that one of their own murdered the rest.
I have an outstanding quest to gather the personal effects of some settlers killed out in Skyline Valley that I had started but left off because the Thrashers kicked my ass. I return and find 2 of the three, but I don’t even get a search bubble for the third, so I assume there’s something else I need to do and leave that one for later.
I then go to Camp McClintock to start my training, but all I get is a lecture from the Robot about not being in uniform. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to come back in uniform and start it again or do something else, so I just decided to leave this one for later.
I do find one of the Overseer’s holos while I’m there. Next, my terminal had provided me with some tips about a missing hunting party.
I start my search for them in Harpers Ferry. Someone triggered the A Colossal Problem event, which is the only way I know of to get into Monongah Mine to complete the Something Sentimental mission, so I joined.
I’m not a power armor user, so I immediately died when I jumped down the mineshaft, but fortunately, someone revived me. We battled our way through hoards of Wendigo spawn and took down Earl, who had mutated into a giant Wendigo, which netted me Earl’s pocketwatch.
I returned the watch to Maggie and broke the bad news about her father. She was of course dismayed at his fate but was relieved he had been put out of his misery (until the next time someone starts the event).
I returned to my mission to track down the hunting party. I found a terminal entry in Harper’s Ferry that indicated the hunting party had gone off tracking ghouls north of Valley Galleria.
I discovered a robot named Hardball that gave me the task of finding a signal booster and attaching it to a Cargobot at the Survival Training Center. I went to the training center where I completed my first course for the Athlete badge and located a terminal that allowed me to summon a cargobot to attach the booster to.
I then tracked the beacon to a dead body in a swampy area near a creepy church. I got a Dyer Chemical ID Card and a holotape off the body.
The holotape revealed that the hunting party had tracked down the ghouls, but not all of them were feral. The surviving ghouls fled to the Dyer Chemical sewers.
I searched the sewers and found the dead bodies of the ghouls. A holotape revealed that the hunter had killed them in spite of their attempts to convince him that not all ghouls are bad.
The hunter said it was justice for his family, presumably killed by ghouls. He seems to have died after exacting his revenge.
Next, I returned to Belching Betty, the site where I earned my place in the Fire Breathers. This time, I was searching for a locker to open with the miner’s key I found.
I found the locker, which didn’t contain anything all that special. My next mission was to complete Ella’s research on a chem called RadShield.
First, I had to go find her research, which I did, along with her dead body. Her research indicated I needed some irradiated bone meal, nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium to make a mixture I could flush into the river to get the strangler pods to bloom.
My first task was to collect the bone meal from a Deathclaw nest. As you might imagine, I had to take a deathclaw down to get to it.
Then, I had to go get the nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium at Dyer Chemical. Collecting these items required me to battle a hoard of robots.
Once I had all three, I had to put them in a mixer with the bone meal, mix it up, and then flush it into the river. To complete the mission, I then had to search along the river for a strangler bloom, which I found after battling a few gulphers.
Finally, I took the bloom back to my camp and made some Rad Shield at my chemistry workbench. Rad Shield provides +300 rad resist for 15 minutes.
I then traveled to Mount Blair to find another of the Overseer’s journals. This was a sad one.
It turns out that she was engaged to a man named Evan before she got picked for Vault 76. Vault 76 was only for the “best and brightest” and Evan didn’t make the cut.
As a result, the Overseer broke off her engagement with him. She went looking for him after she got out of the vault and discovered that he had become one of the Scorched.
She couldn’t bring herself to kill him, so she asked whoever found the holotape to do it for her. I found him locked in a basement and shot him through the window.
I returned to camp and logged out. I think that was the last of the side missions that I could do without doing some main storyline stuff first, except for one that involves mononagh mine. I’m not launching a nuke to try to get in there, so I’ll save that for later. Oh, there’s also one that involves killing a specific enemy while wearing a clown suit and I don’t think I have a clown suit, though I suppose I should see if I can craft one.
Tomorrow, I’ll return to the main story missions.