[WELCOME TO LEVEL 14]

Again Afton was greeted with the level screen, a fresh set of 30 points waiting to be placed wherever he wanted. ​​

Quickly he placed all 30 skill points into Repair, he was considering putting them in Melee Weapons, Explosives, or Science, but felt that this would probably be more useful in the short-term. Hopefully the Perk it gave when it's maxed out would be worth the effort.

Next, he new Perks he had access to were displayed before him,

[Adamantium Skeleton] : Damage taken by limbs reduced by 50%. This was monstrously overpowered. This would essentially make his limbs avoid 50% of all damage, 50% less bullets, 50% less getting sliced or bruised... He was a little put out it didn't make him like Wolverine, but this would do for now...

[Center of Mass] : In V.A.T.S., you do an additional 15% damage when targeting the torso. Somewhat useless, why would he use VATS and target someone's torso? He had the [Sniper] Perk anyway so it was counter-intuitive to pick this.

[Jury Rigging] : Repair any item using a roughly similar item. Now Afton had just made the requirements of this Perk by getting 90 points in Repair. He wasn't sure how good it was anyway, what constitutes a "similar" item? If there weren't any interesting Perks he'd pick it just to see what it did, otherwise it was a mystery.

[Purifier] : You do 50% extra damage with melee and unarmed weapons against centaurs, night stalkers, spore plants, spore carriers, deathclaws and super mutants. Yeah, no. Afton wasn't getting close to any of these creatures. The 50% bonus damage was good, but not enough to risk changing his fighting style.

So, the choice was between [Jury Rigging] and [Adamantium Skeleton]... Afton shrugged and quickly selected the latter, with that Perk he might consider just using his arms as makeshift shields now...

Afton Parker

Level : 14

S.P.E.C.I.A.L :

Strength : 7

Perception : 7

Endurance : 7

Charisma : 4

Intelligence : 6

Agility : 7

Luck : 4

Skills :

Barter : 21

Energy Weapons : 55

Explosives : 20

Guns : 100

Lockpick : 10

Medicine : 40

Melee Weapons : 41

Repair : 90

Science : 44

Sneak : 20

Speech : 100

Survival : 30

Unarmed : 30

Perks :

[Trigger Discipline], [Heavy Handed], [Rapid Reload], [Torture Techniques], [Educated], [John Wick Style], [Toughness], [Stonewall], [Bug Stomper], [Lord Death v1], [Spies Guise], [Quick Draw], [Adamantium Skeleton]

Companion Perks :

[Old Wisdom]

Afton stumbled as information about the Repair skill entered his mind, everything he needed to know about repairing generators, wind turbines, machinery and much, much more bored itself in his head. Repair was a much more intense skill than Speech and Guns, the amount of information stuffed into his head wasn't even comparable.

Karl noticed his situation and raised a brow, not saying anything and instead escorting him inside the tent and sitting him down on the bed he'd been given. It took a couple minutes for him to regain his faculties again, but even after he found himself muttering how to replace a robo-brain's biomedical fluids, or fixing a cyber-dog's cybernetic materials.

He eventually managed to regain his composure though, one thing he knew for sure was that maxing out Repair would likely be just as painful as this... Or maybe not? There was only 10 points left, much less than the 30 that'd caused him so much trouble. He was wondering if this pain was really worth it, as well as if he wanted to test how much worse upgrading Science would be.

The next couple of days Karl and Afton woke up early and went to sleep late, spending their days thinning out the ghoul horde and occasionally exploring some buildings to kill any ghouls that stayed or were stuck inside.

Their efforts were slowly becoming visible, and after three days there weren't any ghouls left wandering the streets of Camp Searchlight. During all of this Karl too the chance to show Afton some tricks that the Ranger's would use.

What was surprising was the fact that these small lessons gave way to actual Perks!

[Ranger Tactics] : Movement speed increased by 20% when following a pre-planned path.

[Ranger Targeting] : AP cost in VATS reduced by 25% when targeting multiple enemies.

[Ranger Awareness] : Ability to hear noises behind you in combat is improved by 10%.

Karl was surprised he'd picked up his teaching so quickly, but just judged it another quirk of his partner. Usually it'd take weeks to months at best to learn these things, but they just seemed to "click" at random times. Very strange.

The duo had cleared the streets and some of the building and was now looking forward to looting the public-service ones. They'd likely have a good amount of stuff to steal due to them being locked probably before the radiation disaster.

So, they find themselves outside the Police Station with weapons drawn. Corpses of the ghouls they'd previously killed lay at their feet, but they ignored them unlocked the door.

Upon stepping inside the duo were surprised to see many terminals lining the wall as well as the desks in the middle of the room. Apparently, this had been an NCR communication centre.

*Guuuuhk*

A gurgling, spluttering noise came from both directions, the left and right rooms seemed to have ghouls within them. Afton stepped forward and glanced into the right door, having to quickly step backwards a claw swipes at his face. It'd be a serious problem if his radiation suit got breached, so he'd stay as far away from these creatures as physically possible.

The ghoul stumbles through the doorway, bits of its rotten flesh sliding off of its bones as its pale eyes stare him down. Its teeth were fully exposed and looked sharper than regular humans should. Wheter this was a mutation from the radiation or just a natural adaptation he had no idea... The only thing he knew for sure was to shoot it until it stopped squirming.

Raising his two revolvers he fires two simultaneous shots into its head, instantly killing it. Afton quickly reloads as he hears a couple more enemies behind the one he'd just killed. They each individually walked through the door, getting a bullet in the cranium for their troubles. It really was just like shooting fish in a barrel, he wondered if intelligent ghouls would be this easy to kill?

Karl dealt with the ghouls in the leftmost rooms and afterwards, they looked around to see what was worth looting. They found various weapons, a grenade launcher with some ammo for it, some actual ballistic grenades, service rifles, NCR armour, etc.

As they'd done so many times before this, they stuffed their backpacks with every valuable item that was efficient to carry... Afton didn't know how they were supposed to carry what, five backpacks full worth of loot to a trader, but they'd managed somehow... Loot was loot, and there was no point in wasting it.