Chapter 7: Chapter 6: Irradiated Man
Unlike the game, there are plenty of different stores, shops and stalls throughout Megaton. Craterside Supply isn't the only variety/general type store but it definitely is the biggest and most iconic one in town. It's also we'll known for its diversity and one of the best places for any mechanic to supply on materials. With the main gate being the front of Megaton, Craterside supply is near the back on the right side of town and at the top near the edge of the crater by the outer wall.
Before Jayson started to head to Craterside Supply, he quickly ducked behind a building and took the duffle bag he got from the secret cache out from his Pipboy and filled it up with all of the stuff he'll be selling to Moira today. The reason for this is so he won't be revealing the paranormal storage ability he has. He doesn't want that kind of attention on his head.
Walking over a small metal bridge near the top of town and looking down at Megaton is a real sight. Megaton may be disorganized and chaotic, but it's also beautiful in its own way. After gazing across rusted metal structures of the bomb centered town, Jayson hoisted the duffle bag's strap further up on his shoulder and continued to walk towards Craterside Supply. Eventually, after a few twists and turns, he makes his way infront of the store. After gazing up at its huge size for a bit, he eventually opened the door and entered inside.
The inside of Craterside Supply is just like most of the other interiors of Megaton; grey-brownish metal all over the place. The place was definitely a bit bigger than the game but it's floor space actually a bit smaller. Boxes, bags and random things ranging from small bolts to giant sheets of metal are positioned all over the place and in piles.
When he walked in, he saw Moira Brown and the hired Mercenary. The Mercenary, leaning against the left wall by the stairs leading to the second floor, had a stiff and unmoving frown on his face, a big rifle strapped to his back, and wearing thick well maintained leather armour with pieces of metal over it. He is someone Moira has hired to keep watch over the store to make sure nobody steels anything and he's honestly pretty difficult to notice as he barely moves from his position. Moira Brown on the other hand is unmistakable with a dirty light blue mechanics jumpsuit and bright red hair as she's sitting behind the stores desk fiddling around with a broken alarm clock.
The door closed behind him as he walked up to the desk off to the right side with Moira behind it. When he walked up, Moira looked up from the clock she was dissecting and straightened a bit. "Welcome to Craterside supply~ What ya need today?"
Jayson slid the dufflebags' strap off of his shoulder and placed it on the desk.
"If it's alright with you, I'd like to sell and buy a few things today."
"Ooooo~ Sure! What ya got?" Moira's eyes practically shined as Jayson started to open the bag and pull all the stuff out. He pulled out the Jet he got from cleaning Leo's stash and also two pretty worn jumpsuits he snatched from the vault when he escaped. Jayson also pulled out a few odds and ends as well that he knew he won't be needing.
When he pulled out the two vault 101 jumpsuits though, Moira's eyes practically glowed as she grabbed one and looked it over.
"Oooooo! It's not in the best condition, but these are pretty rare! And even two!" She then turned her gaze up at Jayson. "Where'd ya get these?!"
Jayson chuckled a bit at her overexageration. "Well... I'm actually from Vault 101. Recently left."
"Woah! Really?! That's amazing!" Moira then got struck with an idea and huriedly pulled out some paper and a pencil to write with. "Hey, is it ok if I ask about how life was in the vault? It would be great as a forward for a book I'm writing!"
Smiling a bit, Jayson agreed as he took a seat on a nearby stool and started talking about how it was like in the vault as Moira hurriedly scrawled on a bunch of papers. Even though he himself didn't live his life in the Vault, he does have the memories. So he went through and explained as much as he could about how everything worked, his experiences, what he felt about vault life, what the other vault dwellers were like/acted, the tale behind how he left and a bunch of other things. He made sure to touch on and cover as much as possible to paint a full, accurate and partially unbiased perspective of vault life.
"Wow! That's amazing! So you left the vault in search of your dad?"
"Yup. I wish to find and reunite with him since we're family, but I also know he'll want me to live my own life. So that's what I'm going to do. Live my life to the fullest in pursuit of that goal."
Moira was stunned a bit as her pencil floated above the paper as she looked at Jayson and then hurriedly started to write down what he said.
"Wow! That will make an incredible quote!"
Jayson chuckled and then eventually after a while Moira looked back up at him.
"Hey, why not help out on my research?! I'm writing a book to help fellow wastelanders out in the wastes. I'm calling it the Wastelanders Survival guide~"
Jayson scratched the side of his chin a bit in thought. "Hmmm, whats the pay and what would it require of me?"
"It'll just require ya to go out in the wastes and test some theories I have or gather items and/or information. it also might require a bit of reading." Jayson chuckled at that. "I'll be paying ya with a variety of stuff. Caps, meds, ammo and maybe even some of my inventions! What ya think?"
Jayson put on an act to make it look like he was in deep thought and then eventually accepted. "Sure."
Moira smiled brightly and shook hands with him. "Nice! The first chapter will be about the basics of the wastes. Where it is and isn't safe to find food, the dangers of radiation and even how to avoid and profit from dangerous landmines. So what do ya wanna work on first?"
"Hmm, what would require of me for 'The Dangers of Radiation'?
"Weeeell, I might need ya to, maaaaaybe, get irradiated. Don't worry, I'll fix ya up as soon as ya get back. After I study the effects of radiation on the human body of course."
Jayson sighed at this ridiculous request. If he didn't have info from the game or 10 Endurance, then he would most likely not accept doing it. Or at least just doing the minimum requirement.
"Well, the small pond in the middle of town is radioactive, right? So how about I sit in there for a bit and you can study the effects first hand?"
Moira put her hands together happily. "Oh! I love that~ That way I can also ask ya how it feels getting irradiated~"
Jayson chuckled and after discussing it a bit more with Moira, they decided they will meet down at the pond later when it's night; when most of the residents of town are inside. Just like what he did when disarming the nuke previously.
After arranging everything, Jayson bartered with Moira for a bit for good prices of the items he's selling and also bartered for a bunch of miscellaneous materials, basic survival equipment, tools and a few more rounds of ammo for his 10mm Pistol and Sniper Rifle. He also had Moira look at his Sniper Rifle to see if she could fix it up a bit and she said she definitely could. Paying the needed caps, she said she'll hand it back when they meet at the pond for the little 'radiation experiment'. She also handed an Armoured Vault 101 jumpsuit she got a few years ago to him in thanks for the little interview and for becoming her research assistant.
After all that, Jayson stood outside Craterside supply and gazed out across the town, thinking of what to do before he'll meet up with Moira to become irradiated. Thinking for a bit, he decided on that now would be a good time to start dissecting and butchering the Radroach and Molerat corpses he has in his inventory. The parts, pelt, meat and organs can all be quite useful and can net a pretty cap if sold to traders.
Jayson took a bit of a walk around Megaton, enjoying the feeling of the town, as he headed back to his new home. Entering inside, he went to an empty table and after transferring all the stuff he got from his dufflebag to his Pipboy, he took out some knives and other kinds of tools that he bought from Moira. Laying everything out, he then brought up his Pipboy and, after finding 'em in the item list, took out one of the Radroach corpses.
Throughout the next few hours Jayson went through each of the Radroach corpses by carefully dissecting them and made to preserve as many of the different pieces (such as the meat and carapace) as he could. At first his cuts weren't that good and a bit of the meat and other materials were destroyed or became unusable. After his first attempt though, he quickly learned from his mistakes through the two Swift Learner perks and with each Radroach, his cuts and dissections got cleaner, smoother and more accurate.
After all the Radroaches, he cleaned up a bit and then took out the four Molerats. After using the less valuable Radroaches as practice, he then started to work on the more valuable Molerat corpses. A few more hours pass and the sun outside started to set as he finished up the last. Most of the Radroach bodies were quite unusable since they were fairly small and his small guns skill was lower back then. The Molerats though we're bigger and all had headshots or damage done to the heads. Because of this, the bodies and pelts were untouched and he managed to come out with fairly well extracted pelts and meat from them compared to the fairly destroyed Radroach parts.
Cleaning up, wrapping all the materials in thin leather/pelts/cloth he bought and storing everything in his Pipboy's inventory, he stretched and looked at the time on his Pipboy. Seeing that it's getting pretty late, he took a deep breath and opened his door to complete the first research quest for Moira.
With the sun down, Jayson stood at the edge of the small pond as he fiddled with his Pip-boy a bit; inputting logs of what happened so far and putting down any information that he deemed he'll possibly need to know in the future. A small amount of time passed by until eventually he saw Moira walking up as she's lugging around a big bag bulging at the seems with stuff as her eyes glittered in excitement; his sniper rifle also pinned under one of her arms.
Jayson looked at the scene and raised one of his eyebrows. To him, Moira had to be one of the best and well-written characters in Fallout 3, but after meeting her in person, he realized that she definitely has to have a screw loose somewhere. Shaking his head of stray thoughts, he lowered his arm with his Pipboy and turned to the new arrival.
"Here's ya rifle. Was able ta improve it a bit. Now, how ya wanna do this?" Moira immediately said as she practically skipped over and handed over his rifle to him.
Jayson felt relieved once his rifle was back in his grasp as he looked it over and noticed how much better it looked. He put it on his back and then turned back to Moira. "Well, you just need me to get irradiated, right?"
"Yup~"
"Then just standing in the pond will be good. It'll be really slow and will most likely take a while, but this is really the safest way to do this."
With Moira's nod, Jayson walked into the pond and looked down at his Pipboy as the Geiger Counter slowly started to rise. He then turned back to Moira by the edge.
"I'm getting rads. How much are ya thinking I should take?"
Moira could be seen tilting her head up a bit in thought and then responded back. "200 should be the minimum, but I really wanna see the effects of 600."
Jayson just chuckled as he couldn't believe at how low-key crazy Moira has to be to ask something like that from someone. 200 is where radiation sickness starts to show and it slowly starts to get worse with every increase. 600 is 3x the amount of that. That's pretty severe radiation sickness and she's asking him to irradiate himself that much like it's barely anything. Well, he did know the requirements to complete this part of the quest from the game but it's still crazy that she would actually ask that from someone in real life.
For the next while in the darkness of Megaton, a man in Leather armour and a sniper rifle on his back could be seen standing in the middle of a small green pond where an unexploded nuke lays standing up in the middle. The man could also be seen talking to a woman with red hair tied in a bun and in a blue mechanics jumpsuit. The woman could be seen sitting down cross legged as she questioned the man regularly about his condition and what he's feeling as she's constantly writing the information and her own observations in a large research journal in her lap.
Time continued to flow by as Jaysons' Geiger Counter continued to slowly rise as he constantly informed Moira about everything he's feeling and providing as much accurate details as possible. Eventually, after quite a while since his 10 Endurance provided high radiation resistance, his Geiger Counter reached the 600 mark and he walked out of the pond.
Jaysons' figure as he walked out looked horrible. Large bags were under his eyes, his posture hunched slightly, his eyes looked hollow and his skin looked quite sickly. The most obvious change though is that..
"Woah! Y-Your practically glowing!" Announced Moira as Jayson came out of the pond. She didn't notice it before because his slight glow was masked by the glow from the pond.
Jayson just nodded with a tired expression as he just felt completely horrible. He felt really weak, out of energy and just wanted to lay down.
For the next while Moira continued to question him about his condition and how he feels; with him giving back as much detailed information and responses as he could despite his lack of energy.
Afterwards, the two of them headed back to Craterside Supply. The Mercenary raised an eyebrow at Jaysons' appearance as they walked in but didn't say anything despite that. Jayson then layed down on a spare bed Moira had in her collection as she practically pulled out a mountain of different meds and materials. The next while had Moira performing an 'experimental rad treatment' where she injected him with a homemade concoction, prodded him with a bunch of medical instruments and at one point actually had him gulping down a glass of brahmin milk filled with Radaway, crushed Rad-X and a magnet dipped inside. Jayson couldn't believe what he was seeing when Moira handed the glass to him. It tasted awful.
If he didn't have 10 Endurance, he would most likely have passed out throughout it all but luckily, or unluckily, stayed awake. The Merc stood nearby watching him getting poked at by medical instruments and being hounded by Moira's questions as she kept scribbling in her journal. He just shook his head, not wanting to get involved.
After a while all the rads were purged from his body as Jayson continued to lay there on the bed as Moira left to 'analyze her research'. While staring up at the ceiling and questioning himself why he went through all that, a floating green window popped up in his view.
Rad Regeneration Perk Added:
Moira's experiment had an unexpected side-effect. Now, when you suffer from Advanced Radiation Poisoning, crippled limbs automatically regenerate.
Jayson smiled at this as he laid his head back and finally closed his eyes.
/ / / / / / / / / /
Skills:
Barter- 27
Big Guns- 27
Energy Weapons- 27
Explosives- 30
Lockpick- 27
Medicine- 37
Melee Weapons- 27
Repair- 30
Science- 27
Small Guns- 90
Sneak- 48
Speech- 42
Unarmed- 27
Perks:
-Rad Regeneration
-Educated
-Swift Learner (2)
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
owie108
owie108 I apologize.
It's been about 2-3 months since my last chapter update and I'm really sorry about that.
My desire and passion just fizzled out after writing chapter five and I found it so hard to continue writing. I kept trying to write this chapter but could barely write a few words at a time.
My groove has finally come back to me though, and I'm thinking of doing a regular update schedule for roughly 1-2 chapters a week.
Still, I'm very sorry about the absence. Thank you for your time.
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