Chapter 38 - 38

Words : 1795 Updated : Sep 10th, 2025

An hour later the group had rather thoroughly taken everything of value from the hideout. All in all they had found 17 bodies, their group had just wiped out a raider gang of 32 people. It was an impressive victory to be honest, but no one spoke about it. Those who cared didn't care to brag, and those who would brag didn't feel it was something they wanted to discuss. So no one in the group brought up the death count, on either side. In the center of the room was a pile of weapons, from solid, reliable ones, to completely useless pipe pistols. There were some pieces of armor that were worth something like helmets, body armors, knee pads, and such. There was lots of ammo, in fact, ammo seemed to be the most lucrative outcome of this whole endeavor. The raiders were certainly lacking good guns, but they had plenty of bullets to fill them with. They also found a sizable stockpile of food. Some of it was canned food, boxed, or jarred. Some of the food looked to be branded with a Midway Logo on it. But a good amount of it was just meat stored in several refrigerators, meat that no one was certain where it came from, so for the safety and caution of everyone involved it was left untouched. Of course there was a notable amount of alcohol too. Though most of it seemed to be moonshine style beer, there were a few choice picks scattered about too. And lastly caps, not an insignificant amount either, somewhere close to a thousand caps. Most of it was hidden inside a safe in the manager's office but various small pouches of caps as well as loose caps were found throughout the building. There were, of course, various other things they found too. A comic book, a few books, a sensor module, some tools, gears, a single bar of silver, watches, a military circuit board, and a lot of other things that could be considered "junk". The most interesting thing that Adam found personally was a little Vault Boy bobblehead holding a pistol. It was cute, but strange because not only was it weird that Vault-Tec had branded bobble heads, but also strange the raiders had it. But he put it in the pile with everything else. And of course, besides all the loot they found, they had the woman, who was still unconscious, now laying on a rolled mat the group had moved her to for her comfort. "So…" Salvatore began as everyone gathered once more when the looting was done. "What are you going to do with the woman, Grant?" "Well, we can't just leave her." Grant said, stroking his chin in thought. "Sure you can." Salvatore said callously. "It aint your job to play white knight, leave the gallantry to others." Grant shot him a look and Salvatore shrugged. "I do not see another option other than bring her back with us, we can have the Doc look at her and go from there." The group nodded weakly with Grant's plan and then they all began to collect as much of the stuff they found as they could to bring back with them. An initial attempt was made to wake the woman up, but it was Deccanus who identified that she was heavily drugged and likely wouldn't be moving under her own power for the next few hours at least. So, with that in mind, Adam offered to be the one to carry her back to town, provided someone else carried his backpack full of the various things they found. The walk back to town was quiet, almost every man here had thoughts of their own, some more casual than others, and some still were as tense as before, not willing to let their guard down until they were back inside the walls. When they made it back they were flagged down by the three guards who were left behind and let in quickly. The town was still rather quiet even when they returned but that quickly changed as the news of the victory spread. It took less than an hour before a full blown festival was being celebrated. The center of the street turned into a long kitchen full of tables and chairs, campfires, and grills, with food from the mundane to the excotic, alcohol, soda, and juice flowed freely, and even Mandy went out of her way to open up her stocks to the defenders. A few of the town's folk even brought out instruments, some he recognized and some he didn't and began to play music creating a giant dancing circle at one point. Adam too was heavily celebrated, along with everyone who had fought off the raiders. He had never gotten so many hugs and pats on the back in his life. It also gave him a sense of how many people actually were in this small town, it was more than he had expected. Salvatore didn't stick around long, he didn't seem to want to be celebrated and only came long enough to eat and drink for free before he returned to his room without a word. Deccanus was much the same, though from the beginning he had little interest in partying, he grabbed a plate of food and drink and then walked off back to the Inn where things were quieter, ironically. Adam, Grant, and the rest of the defenders, sans 2 who were needed to actually guard the walls, stayed throughout the night. Laughing, joking, and partying with the entire town. By the time that Adam had turned in for the night he was so stuffed with food and drink he felt like he was about to explode. But he felt good, and sleep came easy to him that night. The next day came and there was some work that had to be done. First, there was a memorial service held for the guardsman who died in the battle, there were 4 in total. It seemed as though 3 of them had families of some sort. One had a wife and kids, one had a younger brother, and one was an only child of two parents. The fourth seemed to have no living family, but all four were buried in the town cemetery, a small fenced in garden area near the gazebo that Adam didn't even know existed, likely because he had never explored this half of the town, he assumed it was all for farming. In addition to the four guards, the wandering bounty hunter who helped defend the town was buried in the graveyard alongside the others. No one knew him, he hadn't even really introduced himself, though Grant said he said his name was Ken. Still, despite the fact he was a stranger to the town he had laid down his life to defend it, and that alone endeared him to the townsfolk. The least they could do for him is bury him respectfully. Adam attended the memorial service. He had nothing to say and didn't know any of the men that well, but it seemed the right thing to do. It was in stark contrast to the night prior when everyone was dancing, eating and drinking, the mood was expectantly somber and quiet. But there was a feeling of resolution, everyone knew that the men died defending the town, that they died to save everyone else, so while it was a somber affair there was a sense of hope that permeated the crowd, a sense of pride. When that finally wrapped up the last of the things that needed to be finished was the payouts. Of course Adam got 300 caps for fighting, and an additional 100 caps for joining the attacking team. The goods they looted from the base also were sold to Chuck and split 12 ways. The 3 guardsmen who had family and died had their shares of caps given to their family instead. When totalled together the lot of goods gave each man an additional 366 caps. At the end of the day Adam had a total of 1702 caps, though most of it was in Vouchers. But he was much more wealthy than he was before. In addition, Adam had requested to keep the bobblehead. He found it interesting and Salvatore even joked it was "like Adam's little brother". No one argued so he put it in his Inn room. The last surprise of the day came as he had just finished helping around the town doing various small tasks either as clean up from the battle or him just being neighborly. He was walking back to his room in the Inn when Mandy stopped him. "Hey, vaulty." She called out as Adam walked past the bar. He turned to look and then reflexively caught something she threw to him. Opening his palm he turned to look at it, it was a key. He looked up at her confused. "That's your key." She laughed, seeing his confusion. "The room you stay in, consider it yours whenever you need it." She grinned. "Well…" She backpedaled. "I'm saying I'm considering you a regular. It will only be 25 caps per night and you can pay on credit, plus whenever you are in town consider the room yours. Though I can't say for certain that if you leave town for a while that someone else won't rent the room, but if you leave stuff in there I'll make sure to keep it safe for you." "Mandy…" Adam said feeling touched. "Don't get mushy on me." She grinned and shook her head. "I don't need none of that here." She laughed. "You saved the town, I'm not going to let a town hero suffer me. Besides, you've already helped the town out enough without doing what you did, so it's been overdue." She paused as she looked at the key in Adam's hand. "That one is yours to keep. I imagine you aren't going to sneak in in the middle of the night and try to rob the room im giving you, but if you ever get back late from Scaving and need a place to stay you can head right in, like I said, you can pay on credit, so just pay me the next day." She walked around to the other side of the bar putting a hand on his shoulder and patting it gently. "You did a good job Adam." She smiled softly. "Thank you." She continued, warmly. "Thanks Mandy, I appreciate it." Adam smiled back.

Chapter 38 - 38

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