Chapter 71 - 71

Words : 1835 Updated : Sep 12th, 2025

Adam had prepared to be looting the mall all day, he figured scavenging a building the size of a mall and to be thorough would take a while, but finding this room where the raiders kept everything of value was a massive boon. The time he would have to spend looting was reduced drastically, he still might search the rest of the building but he didn't need to be nearly as thorough if he did, since the items in this room alone were likely enough to fill his bag. Adam pulled out his duffle bag from his backpack and unfolded it. He had kept the bag after he had found it at the gun store last time, having extra carrying capacity was always a boon and the duffle bag folded up into his bag well enough so it was perfect, he just would have to carry it himself, he couldn't foist it upon Salvatore. He loaded up all the guns that were in the room and threw them into the duffle bag, it was longer than his backpack so it made the most sense since the majority of the guns were long guns. As he realized before, the humidity in the building meant a lot of the guns had been wet for a long time, but none of the guns seemed to be too badly damaged by the water to matter. Interestingly though, there really weren't that many guns over all, not for a building this size. This meant that either there was another place that was the de facto armory he could loot or, and more likely, the rest of the weapons that weren't in this room so close to the mirelurk nest were taken by the surviving raiders when the mirelurks moved in. The ones who didn't die took what they could with them and vacated, obviously guns would be a high priority. Still it might be worth coming back later another time to check again since he might find a second room used to house all their goods just like this one. But he would likely be full on loot this time so that was a future him problem. Next he went about taking all the medical supplies, which mostly meant chems, a ton of them, these guys were either hoarders or chem fiends, probably both. He had enough drugs now to become a dealer himself if he wanted to, but he didn't. He wanted to offload it as quickly as possible. Then it was virtually everything else, of which the variety of things here was quite diverse. Liquor and other booze, of course, were in no short supply, but there was such a strange and eclectic collection of things stored here it would not do it justice to list them all out. Suffice it to say that Adam had filled his backpack and duffel bag quite well with numerous things. Though he took careful steps to ensure that he was not going to be overburdened, a promise to himself he did not intend to break. This meant there were still a number of things left behind, but truthfully, the things left behind were of little value as far as Adam was concerned, if this was all that was left here it wouldn't be worth coming back, not least of all because they certainly didn't kill all the mirelurks. Among the more interesting things Adam had found, he found a second vault-tec bobblehead, this one was wearing a little green hat and holding a 4 leaf clover, it was cute, and it seemed he was growing a collection so it was more than worth grabbing. He also found a Dean Martin holotape. Normally he would have passed on this but he had realized that his pip-boy has a holotape player built into it. He could play games and music right on his pip-boy right off the tapes. He had also found another tape labeled 'FUCK SHIT'. He was amused enough to grab it, maybe he could play it on the way back. He had also found the schematics for something called 'the railway rifle'? It seemed to be a pressurized cannon that fired railway spikes. Pretty gnarly but also quite impressive, and, if he was honest, hit his boyish desire to cause damage in the right way. So he took it too. Lastly there was a stash of caps, a not insubstantial 737 caps. This would definitely be a worthwhile run assuming they could get out safely. As Adam emerged from the store room he looked down the hallways and did not see any more Mirelurks. For whatever reason it seemed as though the ones that came after them were the only ones interested in engaging. Maybe the rest ran away? Or maybe they were protecting their eggs? Either way he was grateful. If they had all come after the two of them in the wave of crabs they might have been overrun. Adam made his way back down the hall towards the boarded up exit where Salvatore was likely to be working. He was correct. "How's it going over here?" Adam said as he rolled up on Salvatore, his bags full. "Good." Salvatore responded as he put a large chunk of crab meat wrapped in what looked to be linen in his bag, which was practically full itself. "I'm sure I could stay here and carve more meat out of these fuckers but I don't want to be a butcher. Besides, my bag is full. If you are good then so am I." He said as he wiped his hands off on some of the spare linen he had laying on the floor, likely looted from a nearby store. "Yeah I'm good to go. I think we did well." Adam said as he then reached into the back pouch of his backpack and pulled out a caps bag with 350 caps in it and handed it over to Salvatore. "Your spoils." Adam said with a smile. Salvatore raised an eyebrow. "I thought I told you I wasn't going to take a cut." Despite his words though, he did take the bag of caps. "It's fine." Adam replied. "I paid you to come with me. I don't mind sharing the caps we find since I'll be the one earning off the items themselves. Besides, you said I'd need to pay for your room and board as well as any ammo you burn." "True." Salvatore said as he shoved the pouch of caps in his bag. "Though I get a free room from Claire for… reasons." Now it was Adam's turn to raise an eyebrow. "I'm not going to ask, since I know you will shut me down. But just take the damn caps will you?" Salvatore grinned. "I knew I liked you for a reason, kid. Love an employer that gives bonuses." Adam walked over to the quad barreled makeshift machine gun he had used to mow down the mirelurks earlier, picked it up with his spare hand and hoisted it over his shoulder. He was truly at max capacity now, no free hands. Lucky he had Salvatore if things got hairy. "We are going to have to sneak out, huh?" "Yeah, I doubt that's all the Mirelurks, there has to be more, we didn't see any other than the basic bitch variety and hunters, no kings or queens, but with this many around there has to be more lurking about." Adam nodded. "I suppose we will just need to move quietly then." "Agreed. Let's head back the way we came, hopefully it will be a simple matter to get out." They then began to make their way out of the building, slowly, and quietly. Once they got to the intersection where Adam was forced to make a rapid choice before they saw the nest again. Indeed, there were still a ton of Mirelurks roaming about near their eggs. Perhaps they didn't want to leave their nest undefended which is why only some came after them? Or perhaps they had another reason, but indeed the two of them did not kill them all. And now neither were in the mood for another fight. Especially when Adam saw a Mirelurk the size of a bus standing upright. "What the fuck is that thing?" Adam said quietly to Salvatore as they hugged the wall and peeked around the corner, preparing to make their move. The monster was so large it was only able to move around in the center of the adjacent section where the ceiling was twice as high due to a rounded skylight and the floor was lower due to the water that burst in. "That's a Mirelurk Queen. Almost worse than a behemoth, though truthfully I'd rather not compare them." "If that's a queen, I'm terrified to see a king." "Kings are actually much smaller, and they aren't very crablike, to tell you the truth I'm not even sure if they are the same species but I'm just a hired gun not a marine biologist." "Fair enough. Well it looks like they haven't noticed us, so if we just sneak past we should get out fine." "Right. Let's do this quietly then." The two of them quietly and stealthy made it past the intersection without raising any alarms from the Mirelurks in the building, and were able to get far enough down the hall to be well and truly out of the way of being spotted now. Even able to see the exit door in the distance. "Alright I think we are out of the thick of it." Adam said letting his guard down a bit. "While I agree, you should never say something like that outloud. It's asking for something bad to go wrong." Adam frowned but nodded, he knew Salvatore was right, he would have never made such a slip up back during deployment. It was just a superstition but these are the kinds of things you learned not to jinx when your life was on the line. He needed to get back his sense from the time he was on active duty, he was getting there but it was taking time. Once outside the two men sighed in relief. "Alright, I think we can head back to the city now." "Good, I can't wait to spend my caps." Salvatore grinned. "Oh." Adam said as he pulled out the holotape from earlier. "I found an amusingly titled Holotape, but I think it might shed some light on what happened to that place, if you'd care to listen with me." Adam offered. "Sure, the trip back will probably be a bit more entertaining if I can listen to some raiders dying." Adam chuckled and then popped the holotape into his pip-boy and pressed play.

Chapter 71 - 71

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