Silath's Journal: Day 12 - October 30, 2281

God fucking damnit. Today was just about the worst day I've had yet. It started out well enough but as soon as I got to Lake Mead it was like the entire goddamn world wanted my head on a platter.

I woke up about 9, went to see Raquel and give her news of my success and survival. She seemed pleased enough. After that I found Jack and Loyal, gave them a few pieces of scrap metal and told Loyal how I'd fixed the solar arrays, he was pretty impressed.
After that I stopped by the infirmary again, to see how the patients were doing. This time I was able to help both the other two; it seemed so obvious now. I was able to fix up the leg of one of them (Argyll is terrible at stitches) and halt the allergic reaction to the ant venom of the other one, saving them both. Argyll was very impressed.
Figured after everything I'd done Pearl should be pleased, and she was. Told me to go talk to Loyal about 'Their fondest dream'. Apparently they want to recover a huge, bomb-dropping flying machine from the bottom of Lake Mead, using self-inflating ballast bags.
Jack had been working on a device for breathing under water, and after seeing his designs I was able to finish it up with some corn silk, rubber tubing, and wonderglue. Easy enough.

Before I headed to Lake Mead I wanted to stop by the Crimson Caravan and Gun Runners, unload some various junk I had picked up the last few days. Traded my worn out combat armor for a brand new reinforced leather suit. It provides less protection, but is a good deal lighter and less bulky, the combat armor wasn't really my style.
At the gun runners I picked up two new guns, and some carbon fiber parts to make my DKS a lot lighter. Replaced my service rifle (I'll miss you!) with an M1 garand in .308, and replaced the 20 gauge combat shotgun with a 12 gauge Mossberg 500. Basically I traded ammo capacity for firepower.

A little ways out from the lake, I was assualted by a group of raiders (for lack of a better term) that were quite well equipped, proved a tough fight... especially because on of them was wearing functioning power armor! What the fuck? Even my .308 armor piercing rounds couldn't crack it's plating. Thankfully they didn't have a matching helmet, so I was able to blow his head off after a few tries. But still.
A little while after that four lakelurks started trying to attack me, with their crazy pyschic emissions. Those guys are pretty damn hard to take down too. Then I noticed a few more, out on some sort of floating platform somebody had built out on the lake. I sniped them with my DKS, far enough away they couldn't figure out where I was.

Using the rebreather I was able to attach the ballast bags to the bomber, and swam back to shore by the winch on the boat dock Loyal had told me about. Of course as soon as I got there... MORE of the well-armed raiders, again one of them wearing power armor!
Ugh. What a pain in the ass... by the time I was finished dealing with them I just wanted to raise the damned bomber and set up camp for the night. At least Loyal's ballast bags and remote detonator worked right.

But, of course, when I went looking for a good place to bed down for the night... I awoke a goddamned nest of cazadores. Got stung a few times trying to blast them out of air. Have I mentioned how much I FUCKING HATE CAZADORES.
Had to use up the last of my antivenom and a few more stimpacks, and the last of my hydra. This goddamn bomber had better be fucking worth, I think I killed more motherfucking creatures and crazy assed raiders tonight than I have the last few days combined. What a day.