Fallout Wastelander

Ten minutes passed before I was finished processing and absorbing the flood of information and experience that had rushed its way inside my head. 

Damn, that was a lot to deal with.

With nothing holding me up any longer, I hopped off my bed and made my way over to the storage area part of my room. The moment I arrived in front of them, I crouched down and unlocked my toy box first. Standing back up, I moved over and began unlocking all the storage cabinets I had lined up against the walls of my room to hold the ever-increasing amount of loot I'm hoarding.

Over a few dozen seconds later, I had all the storage cabinets I needed access to unlocked and opened. The many cabinets in front of me contained an assortment of ranged weapons, armor, ammo, meds, pouches, and many, many different materials that I can use in all sorts of projects.

I've made impressive progress so far, especially for my age, if I do say so myself. And that little excursion I have planned for today will help accelerate that progress even further. But that progress will mainly be stat oriented, unfortunately, because from the information I've gathered, the old vault mines have been stripped of most of their resources.

That said, as I get older, my progress in the material acquisition area should substantially increase since I'll be able to get my hands on the necessary parts needed for producing robots. When that day comes, I'll be able to build myself a few workers and use them to assist me in building some of the custom robots I got planned, such as a mining bot. That specific one I'll send into the deep earth vault mines, which have replaced the older stripped ones, to gather the ore and different kinds of minerals I'll require for my preparations.

After spending a few more seconds deep in thought, staring off in the direction of my stockpile, I pulled myself out of it and got busy. Picking up my body armor from one of the tall cabinets hanger first, I started equipping it. Right as I had it equipped with all its parts, I grabbed my war belt next and looped it around my waist.

Once I had the belt fully looped and secured around my waist, I followed it up by attaching a number of pouches to it, including my IFAK (individual first aid kit) and a couple of other things to it via the magnets running throughout it. Just as I got done with that, I grabbed both of my custom combat knives and put one in the sheath located on my boot and the other in the sheath positioned on the right side of my war belt.

Finished handling that, I grabbed 10 MFC Grenades and placed them into the pouches I had attached to my war belt. As soon as I had my grenades secured in their respective pouches, I took my 12G Laser Pistol and hid it in one of the larger pouches on the war belt for now, to avoid any potential trouble involved with having a firearm.

From there, I threw my Altyn helmet I had crafted a while ago on my head and kept the armored visor flipped in the upright position, since there was no reason to have it down just yet. With it sitting snuggly upon my head, I took hold of my recently crafted blade, Guillotine and attached it to the magnetic attachment point I had made just for it on my back.

Now that I had all my gear equipped, I gave my equipment as well as myself a look over to see if I was missing anything. I wasn't, hence I started walking towards my bedroom door to get this show on the road.

Hmm, I might get hungry out there, so I should probably take some energy bars and a container of water with me... You know what, just in case shit hits the fan and I somehow get stuck in the mines for a while, let me bring along enough for a few days.

So before I headed out the door to go to the mines, I turned right around and retrieved a few energy bars and protein bars from my snack stash and shoved them into one of the pouches sitting on my war belt. Prepared as I could be, I exited my room and made my way through the house to the fridge and grabbed a large container of water, and attached it to the rear of my war belt to keep it out of the way.

Okay, now that I got some emergency rations, I'm good to go now. Alright time to head to the mines and get some levels.

Once I'd made sure I had everything I needed, I quickly left my home behind and began my trek through the gray vault hallways, moving in the direction of the vault mines and the material processing area.

...

It took a while, but around the 20 minute mark or so, I reached my destination. When I finally did, I took a brief look around the area and spotted a rough-looking old man wearing a light-colored leather hat relaxing in a comfy chair positioned by what looked to be the controls for the old vault mine doors.

That's probably the old guy I was told to talk to if I want to enter the mines.

Walking up to the man, I asked, while pointing at the beefy metal door. "Hey old man, can you open that door for me?"

He gave me a look over and responded jokingly. "Who are you calling old youngin? I'm a young 65 and my name is Old Man Pete, but only I get to call myself old, got it!"

I chuckled and replied. "Sure, sure, Old Man Pete."

"As for this here door, youngin, the answer will be a hell no unless you're on the list of people that are allowed entry. By the way youngin, what's your name?" Old Man Pete asked.

"My name is Harold Todd Woods." I answered.

Hearing my answer, the old man nodded and said. "Then in that case you can head on in youngin since I've already gotten word you would be coming and to let you through."

The old man paused for a second and continued with a serious look on his face while pointing his thumb at the large metal door behind him. "But before I let you go explore inside, let me give you a word of warning first. This door leads into the old mines and is the only way back into vault 101. So make sure you don't get lost or venture too far away from the main tunnels off onto one of the many offshoots dug out by the previous vault miners and mole rats that now inhabit them because if you do, you're basically fucked."

He took a brief moment to let the information sink in and continued on to his second warning. "For my second warning, if you hear a rumbling sound and feel a vibration you best run at your fastest speed possible back here youngin because that segment of the mine you're in could be collapsing and if not that you may have pissed off the mole rats which in that case they will swarm you and tear you apart."

"Those are the things you need to be worried about in there, so if that didn't put you off and you still want to enter the mines, I'll open the doors for ya."

I took a second to process the information and responded swiftly, not deterred the least bit. "Thanks for the information, Old Man Pete. I should be able to handle myself as long as I don't end up surrounded or go too deep into the mines."

"Well, you look like you've come prepared youngin so I'll give you that. But as I said before, if you hear that rumbling, I would recommend you turn tail and run like hell for the doors because that rumbling could be caused by an incoming mole rat hoard. If that ends up happening, the turrets set up outside will be your lifeline and the only way of preventing yourself from being torn to pieces." The old man responded with a smile.

Acknowledging the old man's words with a nod of my head, he turned around in his chair the next moment and pressed a big red button on the control panel next to him, which immediately set off a high pitched chirping sound around the general vicinity. A few moments passed before the large metal doors began to slowly move with a metal grinding sound. Ten seconds later, the metal doors settled into place in the open position, revealing the old no longer used mine behind it.

With the way open, I looked over to Old Man Pete and said. "Thanks again, old man."

"No problem youngin, just don't go and get yourself killed."

Throwing an okay gesture at the old man in response, I flipped my Black Altyn Helmet's visor down, turned on the mounted light, and walked through the large set of metal doors leading into the old mines. While I was walking through them, I noticed they were around 10 feet or a bit more than 3 meters thick, which seemed a bit overkill just to keep a bunch of mole rats at bay. However, I guess one can never be too careful or too prepared here in the wasteland.

Once I made it past the doors and entered the actual mines, I did the smart thing and scanned my surroundings to get a layout of the mine and to see if there were any immediate threats in the area. As I was scanning my surroundings, I eventually looked back at the mine entrance ceiling and walls and as soon as I had, I couldn't help myself from letting loose a whistle at the sight that was presented.

*Whistle*

"There ain't no damn way any mole rats are getting through that, or even a pack of death claws, for that matter." I commented aloud, more than impressed looking at the large number of turrets mounted strewn about all over the walls and ceiling of the tunnel, that consisted of two dozen laser turrets as well as two large gatling-style ballistic turrets. 

I definitely won't have to worry about shit if I run back here with a horde of mole rats right on my tail. I'll have to build myself something comparable to these in the future when I get a base setup in the wasteland one day.

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If you want something else to read, that's similar to this, check out my other webnovel Wasteland Conqueror. It has a lot more chapters released.