Silath's Journal: Day 2 - October 20, 2281

Woke up early today, 4 AM. Drank some water from the well and then headed over to the Saloon, which was dead empty, at breakfast at the bar and cleaned my weapons to pass the time till daylight. Around 6 I headed over to the gas station to talk to Ringo about the powder ganger situation; bastard greeted me with a gun.
I let him know I wasn't there to put a round in his head and he calmed down and apologized. Seemed like a nice enough guy. I wanted to convince him to leave town, it wasn't right to bring his troubles down on the peoplke of Goodsprings.
Believe it or not though, he convinced me to help him in return for payment from the Crimson Caravan company. I told him I'd take the job, but if he reneged on the contract I'd take the payment out of his hide.
He suggested I talk to Sunny Smiles for help defending the town, a suggestion I followed. Sunny was easy enough to convince, she seemed to believe that the powder ganger situation was best resolved as soon as possible. Sunny said I ought to talk to a few people about getting a hand in defending Ringo, and consequently the town.
Apparently Easy Pete had a stash of dynamite somewhere, but I wasn't able to convince the bastard to use some of it in our defense; he thought the explosives would end up doing more good than harm. If I'd been able to convince him otherwise things might've gone better at the battle, but it was his dynamite and his choice, I wasn't going to force him to help.
Thankfully Trudy was easier to convice; I laid out a plan to set up an ambush for the gangers and she agreed. Doc Mitchell gave me a few stimpacks, but that was all. At least I was able to convince Chet to hand out some leather armor and ammunition; he realized that if the ganger's took over the town, his business was as good as dead. Caps talk.

The batttle... could have gone better. We killed four of the powder gangers, including Joe Cobb. Sadly Ringo died in the process, which means whatever payment I would have had coming from the Crimson Caravan went right out the window. It also means I failed my contract with him... not something I'm proud of. Cheyenne, Sunny's dog, got her head blown off. Feel bad about that, that dog meant a lot to Sunny. I'm not so stupid as to think it was my fault; Sunny chose to go into battle and her dog went with her. Still sucks, though.
We also lost one of the townies, I didn't know him or his name. One of the men Trudy convinced to help defend the town. We stripped the powder gangers of gear and burned their bodies. Trudy and Sunny buried the body of the townie up at the graveyard, I helped dig the grave. The idea of burial seems odd to me, rotting in the ground till you're nothing but rotten bones, but Trudy seemed to think it was more civilized than burning. Personally I'd rather my body be reduced to ashes and charcoal, but I guess if I'm dead it doesn't really matter. Still and all...
Anyway, the town didn't seem too shook up by the battle. I guess their accustomed enough to death. After the battle I realized that my lever action is less than stellar against armored oppenents, headed over to Chet's and traded it in. One of the gangers had a decent Varmint rifle, with an extended magazine to hold 7 rounds instead of 5. I bought some 5.56 rounds off of Chet and headed over to the reloading bench to make some armor piercing rounds. Made some 10mm hollow points for the N99 too, figured I could use the varmint rifle on armored enemies and the N99 for everything else.
Aside from the varmint rifle, I also found a decent cowboy hat on one of the powder gangers, took it for myself. The Mojave sun will burn the skin right off your face if you let it, so it was nice to get some protection.

I'm not sure I wanna talk about this, but I guess I should at least mention it... it's important after all. Today was the first day, as far as I know, that I killed a man. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to feel about that. We all made the decision to join in that battle, we all knew the risks involved. I feel bad about Ringo and the townie that died, but I feel even worse about Sunny's dog Cheyenne. Dunno why that is.
Really, I feel ambivalant about the whole thing. I mean, I killed people today. One could even argue that I got people killed. It feels... well, I don't want to say it feels 'right', but thats as close as I can get to it. We wanted different things, we fought over it, and this time I won. I guess it's just the way things are out here... Sure we could have tried to talk about it, come to some sort of compromise. But I'm smart enough to know that never lasts. In the end, it always comes down to blows.

Anyway, enough about feelings. After that I decided to head north on the road out of town. Goodsprings is a nice place and all, but there's something out there in the Mojave calling to me. I don't know what, or why... maybe it's some subconscious thing, some leftover part of my old memories calling me towards... something.
Along the road I came across the Goodsprings sewer system, though, and I decided to check it out. Lotta mole rats inside, trying to bite my fucking face off, but a 10mm hollow point to the head stops em real quick.
Found an odd thing inside though. Hidden in a locked back room was a ghoul, wearing NCR armor. Three hollow points to the head put him down though; he was feral, no doubt. Ain't hard to tell a feral ghoul from one of the nice ones.
Odd... there's this amnesia again. I can remember what the NCR is, and all about ghouls... makes me feel wierd when I think about it, the fact I can remember all this crap and still nothing about myself.
Anyway, the ghoul had a note on him and some dog tags. Guess his name was Baxter. The note said something about him being fed up with killing people, and yet apparently he poisoned a corporal. Hypocrit. So he decided to hide down here in the sewers.
On the plus side, our dear ghoul Baxter had some radaway, ammo, and a nice modified Service Rifle on him. Feels a little creepy taking the man's rifle away and using it for myself, then again I am wearing a dead powder gangers hat. I'm not going to just let useful equipment lay to rot... not like the dead have any need of it. Still feels a little wierd though, I'll just have to get used to it.
After that I trotted back to town, did a little trading with the stuff I salvaged from the sewers. Swapped out the varmint rifle for Baxter's service rifle. I do like that N99 though. It's big and bulky, but that helps absorb the considerable kick of the 10mm rounds. Loaded with hollow points it's a hell of a pistol... at least for anything not wearing armor.
I headed back north on the road, and a little ways past the sewers there were some cazadores. I did remember them, and I remember them being a real bitch to kill. As I turned around to backtrack a bit and go around him, that damned robot Victor came up and started chatting to me.
He said something about how I should be careful out here (No shit, Sherlock!) and how he 'felt responsible' for me. The entire conversation was a little odd and a lot creepy. That robot, man... something about it is off.
Anyway, despite my efforts to go around the cazadores one of the damned things spotted me and headed straight for me. Fucker stung me before I could kill him, let me tell you: if you've never gotten stung by a cazadore, it HURTS. Thankfully I had some antivenom, which I promptly downed, and then followed up with a couple of stimpacks. If it hadn't been for the antivenom I probably would have died, something to keep in mind future me.
After the cazadore encounter I continued on my way, only to be promptly assualted by several radscorpions. This time I was prepared though: the armor piercing rounds from the service rifle took care of them nicely. Glad I decided to take the time at the reloading bench. I think from now on I'll always take a good rifle loaded with some AP rounds wherever I go.
By that point it was getting dark, so I decided to set up camp and wait out the night. Besides, after all the adrenaline I'd pumped through today I was dog tired.
That's it for now... gonna eat dinner and catch some sleep. Tomorrow I'll continue heading north.