So the League of Extraordinary Assholes decided to head back home to Vault 27, to give them a status report on their mission and to suggest the possibility of opening up a trade route with Oksana in Barstow. They didn't quite anticipate getting no response from the communication unit outside the massive vault door.

Best as Morgan could tell the communicator (and its camera) were functioning properly, but there was no response to any of their inquiries. Felicia tried explaining the situation with Billy, tried to warn them that he might return*, and suggested that if they needed to get in touch Johnny Franks had the most powerful transmitter around and maybe they could get a message to him or piggy-back off his signal like so many others had done.

Debate ensued over whether something had happened to the communicator or to the people inside. Jodath thought they weren't answering on purpose (and maybe that was the same reason these five were selected for the mission... maybe nobody liked them and they just wanted them gone). Despite that, they tried to offer what little help they could in the event Billy made good on his threat*. They took a bit of human flesh Joe had recovered (and SAVED!!) from one of his excavations of animal insides, dumped it in an old can and wrote "The vault dwellers were nommy!" on it and left it outside the vault door.

These are the people the entire vault population's lives depend on. Oy.

They decided to head for the Legion camp at the old train yard, looking for vehicle parts along the way. They had to make the journey on foot since their truck was still busted, hence the looking for parts. It all makes sense sometimes, doesn't it?

They did happen across an old, burned out mail truck, but unfortunately for them it was presently being picked through by a damned Deathclaw.

They screamed and squealed and before they knew it, it was on top of them. Jodath promptly cut himself with a chainsaw (so helpful!), but the only weapon that seemed to do much of any good was Felicia's laser.

ROFA picked the Deathclaw up and slammed it against a rock, which didn't hurt it much but at least bought them some time. At this point Holly wasted her only stick of dynamite, failing to do much of any damage. ROFA slammed it against the rock again, and Morgan tried to use her Flamer pistol... which promptly broke.

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

Joe fired up one of the chain guns they'd taken from the Raiders and let loose, and was able to blind the Deathclaw and knock it out for a few seconds. ROFA picked up the nearby trunk of a destroyed tree and threw it, but even robots miss sometimes. The good news is that even though it missed, the Deathclaw was severely disoriented from the blindness and tripped over the trunk as soon as it got back to its feet.

ROFA picked up the trunk and slammed it down on the Deathclaw time and time again, alternately using the trunk to pin the Deathclaw to the ground while the others attacked it. Eventually this method resulted in the Deathclaw expiring, and Joe promptly took its claws for his dead animal body part collection.

Felicia and Morgan built a makeshift wheelbarrow out of the tree trunk and the one tire they were able to salvage from the mail truck, and Morgan figured out how to charge her cattle prod from the little bit of juice left in the truck's battery.

And that's when another group of Raiders found them.

They hid behind the truck, for what little cover it would still provide, and the Raiders offered to pretend none of this ever happened for the small price of 500 caps.

They tried to reverse the offer, and said if the Raiders paid THEM 1000 caps they'd let them live! That didn't go over well, until the dead Deathclaw body entered the equation. Well the Raiders didn't have 1000 caps on them, but they offered 200 and a Solar Scorcher instead. The vault dwellers accepted the payment and the Raiders couldn't get out of there fast enough.

Deciding that having a dead Deathclaw with them delivered a very nice message, they loaded the body into their wheelbarrow and decided to keep it. And then Joe heard Janice's impassioned plea*, and screamed to Janice through the wasteland that he was coming back. There was no way she'd hear him, of course, but he's never been the brightest.

They returned to Barstow, where Oksana offered them a fair price for the Deathclaw. They opted to keep the head, though she said it would take her a little while to get through the scales and remove it. Meanwhile Holly went back to visit Ralphie, to see if he'd gotten any more Jet in, and discovered him cold and dead, with a bullet in his head fired from close range.

She looted his dead body (and his house) and then notified everyone. They examined him further and found no exit wound, and their best guess put his time of death at sometime during the previous night.

They figured it was Billy and the Raiders, probably after whatever stash of drugs Ralphie had on him. Neither Janice or Oksana had heard anything suspicious; gunshots aren't exactly uncommon in the wasteland. They went to check with Willa... and discovered the same fate had befallen her.

Now nobody mourned the passing of Ralphie, but Willa's death hit them all a lot harder. Now entirely suspicious, thinking the deaths had to be related to each other AND to them, they carefully checked out their truck and discovered the storage compartments had been accessed and the ground around it had been mined.

None of them wanted to risk their lives to get back to the truck, so they convinced Gabe (who had training in such things, you see) to try and disarm them. He put on some heavy armor and gave it a shot, and disarmed four of the five without incident. The fifth, though... well, Gabe got blowed up. It didn't kill him, luckily, and Jodath was sure to heal him back up in thanks for his help.

The mine damaged the engine, though, so the truck's even further from running again than it was before... and all the gear and loot they'd stored in the truck was gone. They briefly considered heading to Beaumont when Gabe mentioned there's probably working cars there, though his telling them no weapons were allowed in town quickly disavowed them of that notion.

Felicia shouted toward the mountains at Johnny Franks in frustration, figuring if he's been watching them he might hear her and somehow respond, but that crazy tree didn't bear fruit.

They decided once again to head back to the Legion camp at the train yard in search of Nancy, and after much debate asked Janice to join them.*

Joe was able to convince her to tag along, but she didn't do it for her own safety... she did it for his.

ps - What the hell were all those asterisks about?

* - It all comes back to Johnny's broadcast!

pps - Wash your hands next time, Johnny!

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