Long travels require traveling music. We are playing a post-apocalyptic game after all.
No longer will there be worry or strife in this Citadel for the Rangers have come!
"Carved into the side of a mountain you
see a huge black structure you recognize as the Guardian Citadel. You know the
Brotherhood Guardians to be strange collectors of old items and as xenophobic fools who would not hesitate to kill strangers without ever seeing the whites of their eyes. You've learned that the flags are in place to mark the closest an outside may approach without being attacked."
I'm absolutely quivering in fear.
"A voice booms from the Citadel. "You would be a fool to dream of assaulting the Citadel."
Well, yeah, that's why we're not dreaming about it and instead are doing it.
"This close to the Citadel you realize you've not got the armor it would take to survive an assault on this place." Do we have the rockets though? I think we do.
Suddenly nuns!
Suddenly Goliath! Apparently this guy is supposed to be intimidating. I think we've seen worse.
Also, Brother David has shown up. Even though he's behind bars he's going to try to attack us.
20 damage? Really? Generic robits in the sewers can do more than that.
Alright, they've knocked out a few people now. I think we might need to grind to get our ranged skills up as none of us are able to hit any of them. We'll see if I actually grind or just use a save editor.
How about we go to the Sleeper Base instead?
"You come upon a little used trail which leads you to a place that you never knew existed before."
"
Stainless steel corridors extend into the darkness."
Whoever was the interior decorator for this place had no taste. Goddamn cheap government hiring losers.
This set of rooms can be summarized with a quote from the game itself: "The debris is a collection of odds and ends -- mostly useless stuff." With that said, let's go elsewhere.
"The door is a steel bulkhead, but looks as if it could be forced."
This gives us the rare opportunity to see Brotherman in his natural habitat. Such a majestic creature. Have you seen that CHA score? It's simply divine.
"The door slides up into the ceiling." A brief moment, but a great one nonetheless.
"This room is in complete disarray and cluttered with piles of debris." Just like the rest of the Wasteland. I don't see what's so-
Those are men in wolf suits. Kill them, kill them with speed!
These wolf-men bleed bullets it seems. Either that or they were packing rifles in those suits. I prefer the former option to the latter.
After a bit of searching we find...
...a single 7.62mm clip. Oh, and we found Secpass 1, that might be useful.
In this set of useless rooms we find a secpass. These wolf-men really need to go to a home-safety seminar. You leave your keys outside and RPG protagonists are going to come sniffing around eventually.
These are IRON WOLVES. Platemail won't save you from pure American rifling, wolfies.
Iron wolves bleed crowbars. Must be the tiny factories inside of them that make 'em.
This robot has training wheels, how can it be a threat?
Well, when Brotherman is doing 100 damage in a single turn it can't do much of anything, much less be a threat. Anyway, 1 laser rifle, 2 power packs, and 4 RPG-7s.
This ladder can take us down to level 2 and 3. If that warbot was supposed to protect this place then the wolf-men are boned.
"This door has no handle or sign on it, just a narrow slot on the right side." This is apparently secdoor 3 and it contains...
...debris and a book about cloning. "You have found a set of books entitled "Everything you always wanted to know about
Clone Chemical Preparations." None of us are smart enough for cloning according to the game, I digress however; how many A Things have you seen over the years? Clearly I can't learn for I already know how this magery works.
Now to find out if the other secdoor on this level accepts secpass 1.
It does! Wonderful! Time to be disappointed by the contents of this room.
This is all secroom 1 contains. Seems to just exist to make accessing secroom 2 harder.
If only they didn't leave out secpass 3, if only.
"You have found a weapons locker, but it is tightly close up." Not tight enough that Brotherman can't tear it open however.
Just has AK97s. Down to level 2 we go then.
Secpass 3 works also works here, and that one room is obviously full of robots. What else would you store in a room like that?
Surprisingly walking by the robot closet we are not jumped. I'm slightly disappointed.
This room has a library and a portal to the netherzone. Since we barely any skill points the latter sounds like it'll yield more results.
Oh, it's just this dude. Is this area secretly a town or something?
It even has a cheap halloween store. "As you enter this room you are assaulted by chilling cold and the reek of rotting flesh. Bodies covered with clean white sheets lie on beds."
"The toe tag on this body reads:
Rudolph Sicorro."
"The toe tag on this body reads:
Kenneth Ungla."
"The toe tag on this body reads: Debra Vaulgren. This body seems to have been placed here very recently." I'm sure these are either developer buddies or people who will be explained soon. Back to exploration.
Well this room is worthle- Surprise paragraph!
"Faded but still visible you see a map tacked on the wall of the area before the war. You seee a small star that roughly corresponds, as nearly as you can tell, to the base you now stand inside. Almost directly south you see a second star, and directly west, at the map's far edge, you see a third star." The plot thickens, well, if you haven't played Wasteland 2 that is.
No surprise paragraphs in this room, it really is empty.
"The furnishings and diplomas on the walls suggest this was once the chief Medical officer's office." If the chief medical officer is dead, who is manning the doctor's room?
"This standard furniture, while looking comfortable, is of no use or importance."
"The finely constructed Oaken desk is still full of documents and odds and ends." Perception?
"Your search turns something up!"
We get Secpass A. I imagine these are for officer areas, probably anyway.
That's it for this room besides a diploma "The diploma on the wall shows Philip Thomas graduated from the Harvard Medical school in 1987."
This is the room that secpass A opened. Looks sorta like a missile silo.
"Clone Pod control:
1) Abort clone incubation.
2) Release clone."
Yeah, missiles. Let's get out of here, quickly.
Look at how delicious that room is, if only we had the secpass to it.
Here's another secpass A room, hopefully it has a secpass of some sort.
"This control panel is shutdown." Shall we jaunt to level 3? I think we shall.
Unsurprisingly, secpass 3 works on the door to level 3. Into the abyss we go.
"The base commander's old steel desk appears in good shape. The central drawer is still locked." Appears I was right about the officer areas thing. Anyway, should be obvious what we need to do here.
"Good shape or not it opened easily enough for you."
Secpass 7 and a power converter. Not sure what the power converter will be used for but the secpass is certainly helpful.
Also noticed this while I was wonder about. Probably something worth noting even if we can't open it right now.
This safe is safe no more.
"For you, opening this
cabinent safe is only slightly more difficult than opening a piggy bank." All we get from it is a single, lonely power pack. How sad.
This room is as pointless as building a pyramid to preserve your dead king.
This room only exists to protect another. Is that a life worth living, room?
Unlike the previous rooms, this room contains something very useful. A, uhh, typewriter thing.
"Select info file:
1) Col. John Smith.
2) Maj. Harrison Edsel.
3) Maj Peregrine (Pippin?) Cite.
4) Capt. Phil Thomas.
5) Capt. Andrea Mills.
6) Dr. Franklin Beams.
7) Lt. Russel Heller."
Grab a drink, load up some
music, it's exposition time.
"Col. John Smith's personnel file flashes up onto the screen. Aside from a large amount of test scores and other data, an occasional paragraph of interest slides by. One that catches your eye reads, in part, "After the confrontation with Finster concerning the shift of Darwin's focus, Smith requested and got a transfer to the Base 2 operation. He remained acting commander until the project's completion in 1995."
"Maj. Harrison Edel's personnel file flashes up onto the screen. Aside from a large amount of test scores and other data, an occasional paragraph of interest slides by. One tha tcatches your eye reads, in pan, "The discipline problem with Edsel has resolved itself. Once he learned he wold be transferred to Base Cochise (where?) to program that computer with his new artificial intelligence (You can probably see where this is going) routines, he stopped complaining about the primitive rules restricting his creativity on this project."
I'm just going to skip past the "test scores and data" part now.
"Peregrine accurately assessed the security problems with the storage area. While the base is not meant to be an armed camp, his precautions are well noted and should provide a surprise for unauthorized personnel operating in the base."
"Thomas, a recent transfer from Project Darwin, has expressed reservations about Finster's experiments. He voiced some of the same objections to them that prompted me to leave Darwin. I don't know if he's on the level or if this is some trap set by Finster..."
"Despite her having won the Noble last year, Andrea's relationships with other project members have not changed. She's still her affable self, and she's made other's feel, through their work on the clone pods, they've each earned a piece of that Nobel for themselves." Something something Master reference. You can definitely see where Fallout 1 got its inspiration from.
"I thought Heller would be a discipline problem, but he's not. His jokes relieve the tension as we work to finish this base. Others worry about the news that Edsel's new computer is helping to finish Cochise all by itself, but Heller shrugs it off. 'Who wants to work with someone who won't sit down for a cold beer after the work's done anyway?' Perhaps mankind does stand a chance against superior machines." What? Is that a relic of an older draft or something? I mean, this game isn't exactly subtle but that's pretty aggressive foreshadowing.
Back to sleepily surveying .
This door refuses secpass 7 so south we venture.
"This is the Chopper Simulator. It has a side panel open and a part that controls the computer to open the door seems to be missing."
ROM board, you must sacrifice yourself for the betterment of mankind.
"The part you used fit and sounds from within suggest the simulator is in good working shape."
"An internal Iris door swirls open and you only see blackness beyond it."
"The door snaps shut before you can step in. The pod is only big enough for one person at a time."
Go forth Yoink and learn to fly.
"You step forward and the door clicks shut behind you."
"A blast of blue light strikes you like a wind. All of your muscles fire at once and you feel weak."
"You recover in a second as a computer voices says, (Join? Die? Join? Die?) "Satisfactory reflexes. (For once your high dexterity is actually useful, Yoink.) Proceed with training."
This is one weird chopper simulation module. Also, Yoink isn't smart enough to be a helicopter pilot so this whole thing was a waste of time. Back to level 2.
"This room looks like it was the base's Nuclear Medicine facility."
I'm coming for you, lockbox!
"This is a locked safety cabinet. Through the window you can see some Radiation suits."
"You manage to open the locker." You would think that 2 picklock wouldn't be good enough to rob military installations, but it is.
Holy shit 10 rad suits.
Holy shit guns and ammo.
The rest of the armory is full of jugs. Why exactly I do not know.
That's it for Sleeper Base. Next stop: Project Darwin.
"The door opens."
I was wrong about the three areas thing, but there are only three areas left now and this area is a decent chunk smaller than Sleeper Base.
"This mess hall is clean." And that's all it appears to be. To the kitchen we go.
"This kitchen has never been used." Interestingly enough, walking on the refrigerator gives us the "Stay off the tables!" message. Besides that there is nothing of note in here.
Going west...
"It appears that no one lives here." Yep, most of these rooms are empty too. I'll be back when something interesting happens here.
Nothing too much has happened but I found an interesting bit of flavor in the empty rooms. "The walls are covered with 100 year old pictures." I guess this area might be the inspiration for the vaults in Fallout? Maybe, maybe not.
Teleporters or giant spider webbing? We can only find out for sure if we walk onto it.
"A steel door slides open."
"A steel door slides shut behind you."
This is an unfortunate turn of events. Suppose we gotta find our way back into Project Darwin.
These are apparently "Shadow Panthers." Guess wolf suits were on sale and panther suits weren't. Also, there's some crater thing that we can climb up. I'm sure that's important.
"Ambush! Enemies advance from every direction!"
Brotherman sends enough lead flying to give a generation lead poisoning, and Yoink sends a Spawnmaster to Limbo.
A Thing blasts out a Spawnmaster's braincap and the rest of the Rangers fire averagely.
Brotherman sends a Spawnmaster flying, right into another Spawnmaster! One gets a ticket and the other meets the Junkman.
Ace sends the ticketed Spawnmaster to court and the rest of the Rangers shoot like Pistoleros.
Brotherman finally remembers how to shoot and ends the last of the Spawnmasters. The Rangers get...
...nothing. Thanks game.
Spawn Wolves! Spawnmasters! Maybe these ones will actually have something of value!
2 Laser carbines, 6 Power packs, 1 Fusion cell, and 1 Psuedo-chitin armor. All good things, especially the armor. Now Brotherman has 10 AC, which is about as good as it gets. I don't think there is anything else to get down here so I'll be back when we see something new.
Out of the Darwin pan and into the Chip's Challenge.
We wouldn't be Rangers if we didn't use our secpass on everything we found. You would think they would have a unique key for the prison, but apparently they don't. Whatever locksmith they hired must've been a greedy bastard.
"A prisoner runs out crying, "Finster's a heartless android. He'll kill us if we try to leave!" None of the Rangers tried to stop them as they ran out. If they had useful information we can't get it now.
So ends the lower level of Project Darwin.
So begins the upper level of Project Darwin.
"No!' Finster shouts. "You meddlers! You freed them."
Sorry? We didn't have much choice in the matter.
Brotherman rips out Finster's psuedo-human guts, and pops off his head as a trophy. Finster really was a madman, eh?
Besides Finster's head and some cash this is the only thing of interest in Finster's room.
"A steel balcony stops you. Beyond is Finster's mad vision of Earth transformed."
The only other thing on the upper level is the entrance to Finster's Mind Maze. I might do a bonus part where I go through that at some point, but I wouldn't count on it. Anyway, next stop: Guardian Citadel.
After a great slog, we enter the Citadel. Also, Brother Goliath was able to hurt Brotherman and he dropped a normal ax. I call bullshit. He also dropped a pulsar key but that is significantly less obnoxious.
"For the first time you get a look at the massive bronze doors shut against your attack. THe word is formidable. You realize this cul-de-sac is a killing zone tailor made to protect the defenders and destroy the attackers." Why did Goliath and pals attack me earlier then? Do they not know basic tactics?
"The Citadel doors are massive and wholly made of bronze. Each stands 25 feet high and is inscribed with Guardian sayings." Pulsar key? Pulsar key.
"Your assault the door as best you can but it does not yield to your efforts."
"The walls here are somewhat weaker looking than elsewhere yet you know it will take a great force to knock them down." Guess we need to get TNT then, I'll be back.
"The explosion blasts chunks of wall free and showers you with fragments. When the smoke clears you see a hole in the wall."
"A ragged hole has been blasted through the wall here."
Rubble cannot hold us back!
"This is the Guardian's Grand Hallway. The vaulted ceiling is lost in darkness above you."
North, West, or East. Why not East? It's one letter away from eat after all and I'm sorta hungry.
"Guardian Mess Hall."
"This dining table is tipped over to provide cover."
More battle? Really, more battle? Yeah, more battle.
This is the kitchen of Guardian Citadel, fascinating stuff, I know. There was a cook here that attacked us but he was just a normal enemy besides dropping knives instead of nothing. Probably just going to skip ahead since this place seems kinda mundane.
As soon as I say that we enter an interesting area. At the very least the "Guardian Museum" sounds interesting; it could also be a total wash. If they somehow manage to screw it up, I'm skipping to the end of this dungeon.
I once knew a guy named Brother Kenneth, he was cool, shame he's dead.
Now let's judge this museum. Well, let me judge this museum.
"The lights are off in the case and the smoky glass makes it nearly impossible to see what is inside the case." Not off to a great start but I imagine we can...
"You opened the case successfully..."
2 Gas masks. Nope, not good enough. Gas masks are only used once in this game and we've already killed Fat Freddy.
Eastern most case has a broken toaster. Ehh, I'll let that one pass. It's kinda cute.
Next one, 4 clay pots. Not good enough either. Who cares about clay pots with no context? Am I supposed to make up my own story? Onto the next case.
One Quasar key. Probably used somewhere so it passes.
The north-western case contains a Grazer Bat fetish. Not sure what it's for, but it's a new item AND sorta belongs in a museum!
Alright, the let's play continues as normal.
Visit the scenic Guardian Bunkroom, see hairy bums, meet the fanatical locals, and hike to beautiful locations like the Laundry Room Hillocks.
"The safe door is made of a strange gray metal that looks too solid to blast." Pulsar key?
Nope. Quasar key?
Nope. To the north we go I suppose.
"Screaming insanely, a Guardian leaps at you from ambush. She clutches two pikes designed to puncture armor."
Despite her exposed breasts she has an AC of 7. Maybe they're implants?
AC 7 isn't that much when chainsaws get involved, however so it doesn't really matter. What does matter is this bit of dialogue that we get after killing Sister Wrath.
"From inside the west office you hear a voice call out,
Marco! "I thought I told you I would see no one today, Sister Wrath."
Turning around the corner we're greeted with...
"A live grenade bounces into the doorway. "Chew on this, infidel slime!"
"The Guardian facing you sighs. "Why does it always happen in my shift?" He raises a strange weapon and shoots."
He runs away... into melee range. Guess he can't live without Sister Wrath?
Whoops, I forgot to heal up after fighting Sister Wrath. I guess we died, what a shame.
Brother Austin has 5 power packs and an Ion Beamer. Would be nice if it weren't for the fact we have no energy weapon skills.
Deeper we go, once again.
"The Outer Sanctum of the Guardians' Citadel is massive and decorated with items from the time before the holocaust."
A master? An adept? This smells like a combat encounter that's going to take a while.
Ehh, it didn't take all that long. I can see some lootbags to the west of us, I guess that's where we're going now.
"The pillar is carved of sandstone and is more ornamental than functional as a support."
Something something picklocking doors.
North lootbag has some robes and some jackets. The middle one has snake squeenzins, visa cards, (why?) and 8 fruits. South one has LAW rockets, rifle ammo, power packs, and grenades. Let's take a jaunt into the bunkroom to recover from all that excitement.
"This bed has a bright red blanket thrown over it and still has the depression of a body in the center."
"You see the word "Rosebud" scrawled on a piece of paper you pulled from beneath the mattress."
The rest of the beds have random amounts of power packs and cash, at least in this section of the bunks. Who knows what mysteries hide in the northern section of the bunks?
Mysteries like more power packs and a Master hiding in his bunk. Some real scintillating stuff, I assure you.
Wait, the Master has something to say.
"This Guardian is not quite dead. He motions for you to come closer. His lips move but you cannot hear his whisper."
"You kneel
before your new liege and bend to hear (I thought we couldn't hear him?) his final words. His fingers lock around your throat. "Die infidel!" he screams as he wraps his hands around your throat. His grip is as strong as iron.. Blood pounds at your temples as he grins and tries to choke you to death! You must break free."
How would you get to this point in the game with weaker armor? It's better than getting insta-killed for randomly, but still.
"Though you could not break his grip, the exertion has finished him. His grip slackens and his hands fall." Directly onto a Nova key. While we can probably leave now, we might as well explore the rest of the
Outer Sanctum. Not like I'm going to be able to finish this before midnight anyway.
"This room is packed with thousands of books. Many predate the bomb!"
"The books on this shelf are rather old and organized by subject. They are of no interest to you."
What is of interest to you is the...
..."Monkish guardian leaping up and attacking you!"
If only he didn't die in the first round. If only he was a streetwise Hercules...
Browsing further we find the fiction section...
"The leather bindings of some books crumble beneath your touch. These books are mostly fiction." Canterbury Tales? No wonder all of these monks are mad.
"You've found the technical section of the library!"
Still don't have skillpoints and the only explorable area left in the
Outer Sanctum is to the east. I guess we know where we're going then.
"Your attempt at opening the door, however humble it may have been, is successful." You want to die game? You want a knife in your ribs? I'll kill you, I'll do it!
"A male Guardian leapt s at you, and behind him rushes in a woman to attack."
Sending in Master Bruce Wayne and Mistress Jennifer Hale is one way to respond to that threat that's for sure.
Their not the greatest of fighter though. Probably because they were defending junk items, who dies honorably defending snake squeezins?
"This appears to be a small Guardian chapel. It is dark and the walls are painted with grotesque." Isn't this whole place a temple? That's like having a church in Vatican City.
"The chapel has a bronze triptych on the front that depicts the rise, fall and resurrection of Man." What about he Womans? What about using perception on the triptych?
"The center plate in the triptych is loose and behind it you find a small alcove where relics have been stored."
We get a Blackstar key. Why it has to have a Warhammer name I do not know. What I do know is that there is a big room to the south east of here that is practically begging to be pillaged.
"A narrow hallway burrows more deeply into the Citadel to the north." Doesn't matter, we're going south!
Oh. Oh!
"An old Guardian looks up. "Never taught you Rangers to read, did they." He picks up a chainsaw. "Let us fight."
If only he was a decent melee fighter and not just a cool dude.
"A rather surprised man looks up from a poker table. "Deal me out," he says as he draws his gun."
Master Paz? Can we undress him with our eyes?
Suddenly jailers! We're in cells within cells.
"A sizzling blade slices by you as you enter the room. The proton ax, in the hands of a giant, tears a chunk out of the wall."
This is it. This is what we came here for.
He died in one round which means he wasn't destined for this most precious of ax but we were!
Screw exploration, let's kill the leader now! Prisoners? They can find their own way out!
"The north end of the Sanctum ends in broad marble steps heading up."
"A huge steel portcullis prevents further movement up the stairs."
We kill the portcullis gate guards and open it, did you expect us to lose at this point?
Hmm a console. What is the one password we've seen in this place?
ROSEBUD
"With the correct combination the gold doors rumble and slide into the walls on either side of the doorway."
Power armor, robotfucking power armor! AC 14! 5 pieces of power armor.
Reporting is required.
So ends this update and soon ends this Let's Play. I'm a little excited if you couldn't tell.
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Topic: Let's Play Wasteland & Wasteland 2 Part 17: Aced? Aced. (Read 23945 times)