Freeing herself from the creepy gaze of The Creeps, Gwendy explores the bluffs on the east side of Blood Bay and comes upon the shipping-crate treehouse dwelling of the diminutive hunter Louise Powell. After a short exchange wherein the vault dweller reveals that she's avenged Powell's encounter with the Yao Guai of Pinegrail Lodge some years ago, a rope ladder is dropped which allows her to enter the treehouse.

At first the solitary hunter is standoffish and reserved, but rapidly warms to the generosity displayed by the daughter of the people who saved her from death long ago. When Gwendy rejects Louise' offer of her beloved Deadeye rifle as payment, the hunter has a momentary emotional breakdown, unable to deal with the unexpected sympathy and generosity. She tells Gwendy that she will travel with her, watching her back in an effort to repay the kindness she's been shown by two generations of the Corner family from Vault 73.

TALL TALES DIRTY GLASSES

Mid-day in the Bluffs comes and goes with pleasant but halting conversation between Gwendy and Louise. Both women have little in common beyond their few shared experiences except for one very strong one: Hunting. Despite the ragged edge of exhaustion beating her brow, Gwendy is fascinated to hear the stories behind several of the mounted trophies. She does her best to tell Louise about the legendary hunts her folks went on and related to her as a kid.

@ Gwendy attempts to impress Louise with a tall tale
d: (CHA)SPEECH(T) (TN=9) 2d20=19,7 -> HIT
d: Generate Foe (Creature) 1d20=17 -> Wounded dog persued by a Yao Guai
d: Generate Miraculous Escape 1d20=16 -> A Bigger Fish comes along
=> Tracking a mutant wolf that was terrorizing the trails around Fort 73, they ran their wounded quarry to a cave-riddled cliff face, out from which emerged a huge Yao Guai

She relates the tale of how Nate and Jennifer pursued a notorious rad-wolf they called Sawtooth away from the trails around Fort 73, up into the cliffs above the vault:

"For three days they ran the wounded monster until they cornered it in a cave up the cliff. Mum was nearly out of ammo for her .32 and Dad was down to his last good throwing daggers and things were looking grim when out of the back of the cave came a sickly green light, wavering back and forth!"

"Dad said to withdraw--he'd fought with glowing Ghouls before and never wanted to again--but Mum knew if they fled now Sawtooth would just keep terrorizing them, so they covered the exit to the cave and waited nearby at the ready. Maybe five or ten minutes later a massive roar ripped out of the gloom. The wolf barked and growled, the glowing lights wavered. Whatever it was fought that rad-wolf for almost a half hour before it won out and emerged from the cave."

"They said it was a Yao Guai that was super far along radiation exposure. Its flesh glowed and bubbled where the fur fell away and there was a light in its eyes, terrible and rolling. Not knowing they were laying in wait, Mum let loose with her .32 and Dad threw everything he had. She said it took everything they brought and it still wouldn't die, probably on account of the Rad Rage. In the end they had to drop rocks on it from a ledge above the cave."

Gwendy: "No trophies or meat from the hunt, which hurt the vault, but at least they wouldn't have Sawtooth bugging the Fort anymore."

Louise gives Gwendy's story an appraising nod, impressed with the details of her kin's exploits. They chat as the sun makes its course across the wounded sky above Blood Bay and the Bluffs. Eventually Louise produces a tatty straw basket of glass bottles from the corner of her one-room home: alcohol.

Louise: "This is strong stuff and you look next-to-dead so it'll probably just knock you out... but I've never traveled with someone I can't share a drink with and I'm not about to start now," she says, tapping a few fingers of amber liquid into what must have been an industrial sized end-cap for Gwendy, and another in a chipped glass jar with a lip on only one side for herself.

The hunter's small frame and high voice could fool anyone into thinking she was too young to drink, at least by Vault Tek standards, but the practiced movements tell Gwendy that Louise was well acquainted with the stuff. She accepts the cap and looks down into the warm shadows at the bottom of it, smelling a sweet odour as the esters rise out of the vessel. She raises her cap when Louise does the same.

Louise: "To Jenny and Nate, wherever they are, I hope they're proud of their daughter for taking out one cantankerous bastard of a fuckin' rad-bear. Cheers."

Gwendy: "Cheers," She says, sipping at the rough edge of the cap and tasting the... whiskey? Ehwhew! Yep, must be whiskey. Or maybe something to strip grease from ancient engine blocks. She's tasted clear alcohol once before, but it must have been watered down because it doesn't compare at all with what she's drinking now. Blinking her gummy eyes, Gwendy watches her vision start to swim, her head a floating balloon tethered to her shoulders with a gossamer string.

@ As Gwendy drinks with Louise, is she able to resist the effects and stay awake?
d: UNLIKELY 2d20=10,18 -> YES
=> She fights the effects with determination!

Swallowing, the young vault dweller compliments Louise on the quality of her drink, saying that it is the best she's ever had.

Louise: "Actually, it's pretty shitty. But it's the best I can get around here these days. You should have tasted the bevies back home in the Shaft! Best pour anywhere, big distiller near the surface - Guy named Mackenzie used to run in back then and maaan... you could fill a flask for five caps and keep floating high for a week."

Gwendy: "The Shaft? Is it some kind of mine?" She guesses, watching with detached fascination as Louise tops up both of their drinks.

@ Gwendy takes another sip of whiskey, how is she handling it?
=> Never Drank Before: Difficulty 1 + 1 (Strong Drink) + 1 (Exhausted) = 3
d: (END)SURVIVAL(T) (TN=7) Dif=3 2d20=6,6 -> MISS
-> Blocker: How does one go to the bathroom up in this tree...?  Next check difficulty reduced -1 = 2
=> This stuff is starting to taste good. And feel good too! Who cares that she can barely keep her head up

Louise: (shrugs her shoulders with a smile) "Nah not really, not how the old ones meant it, though we did take things out of the ground."

The whole thing started as a big sink hole, she says, falling into the earth a long time after the bombs fell. Lots of holes in the ground there, the way water moved around the area changing with the sudden destruction. Not all of them had a wrecked Vault at the bottom though. First people down the shaft found a busted section under the rubble with smoke coming out of it, checked it out and discovered an entrance to a Vault Tek installation full of dead bodies in blue suits.

Louise: "A couple of scavers made a small fortune pulling out whatever they could, then they built a trading post around the hole. Clever bastards rigged an industrial pulley system to haul stuff up and down... The rest of the city grew like a crust around it, eventually leading to the cursed birth of Yours Truly." She raises her glass in a toast at that, but doesn't wait for any reciprocation before drinking half of what she poured.

Gwendy is impressed at how Louise can down the stuff to little effect, figuring she must have quite a bit of experience. Maybe this drinking thing isn't as bad as the folks in her vault led her to believe: Old Man Percy told her that alcohol was the reason the world ended back in the day, and with little other evidence to dispute him, she carried that opinion through her teens. Having put on a dense and pleasant buzz she's wondering if Mr. Percy had it all wrong.

@ Gwendy takes a third sip off of her drink, riding high on the false sense of wellbeing and strength it has given her
=> Difficulty 2
d: (END)SURVIVAL(T) (TN=7) 2d20=17,15 -> MISS 
=> One toke over the line, sweetie

Gwendy: "Sho, how'd you shay you f-find, finded the deaf-claw mask you got?" She slurs, attempting to make her eyes keep blinking in sync. It's harder than usual for some season.

Louise smiles and finishes what she's poured for herself, reaching over to the shelf nearest her bed and placing the chipped jar there carefully.

Louise: "That is a story for another night, I think. You held your own against me pretty good, G, but if we kept up this pace I'd be explaining to your Mama's ghost why you're so sick tomorrow."

Gwendy: "H-heyyyy, you don't know that my Mum is dead, you don't know that. I don't know that, and it isn't fair to s-say that." She pleads in a whining voice.

Louise turns towards the front of the perforated container as she rises from her make-shift stool.

Louise: "...Ok, you're right, I don't know for sure." She means it to sound placating, reassuring, but decades of bitter sarcasm can't help but sneak in. "If we catch up with your folks I'll tell them how you drank me under the table, which is partially true because you're taking my bed tonight, and I'm sleeping under there."

Pulling an extra blanket from the mass of rags on her bed, the diminutive hunter places it in the spacious hollow under the elevated slab on the other side of the room, below the yawning head of the slain Yao Guai. Having constructed her nest, Louise then hauls an empty bucket over to Gwendy, placing it beside the bed.

Gwendy: "What's that for?"

Louise: "Number one, number two, and if the drink does to you what I think it'll do, number three. I'm not gonna trap the hatch because I'll be on watch tonight, but you're in no state to use the outhouse I've got rigged up on another branch out there. Stay inside."

Not waiting for a detailed response, Louise settles into the heap in the shadows on the far end of the space while Gwendy attempts to stop the room from spinning by spreading out flat on the rough bedding.

Gwendy: "...Louise?"

Louise: (with a huff) "What?"

Gwendy: "Goodnight."

Afterwards, Louise lays awake hidden in the shadows at the back of the room, the wind and the susurration of the shore mixing with Gwendy's snore into the late hours of the night.

Note: Level Up action taken as Gwendy falls asleep so that any benefits factor into the next scene immediately
@ Gwendy Levels Up and spends 1 XP
d: Spend 1 XP -> Gain SPECIAL Training Perk +1 to STR Stat
=> Update Skill TNs and Stat in PipBoy

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