Silath's Journal: Day 25 - November 12, 2281

Veronica seemed to sleep better here than she had at the Lucky 38. Something tells me she's used to sleeping on old couches and in abandoned buildings like this. Maybe I've just been spoiled by being able to retreat to the Lucky 38 every few days.
Noticed a faded red bull on Rex's flank this morning. I wonder if he used to be a legion dog? I'm pretty sure he's as old as the great war, judging by his technology. Imagine the things he's seen and been through. Too bad he can't talk.

There were two paths to take: one north, one west. We took the west one, which led into a tiny town built into the cavern. Had a liquor store, playground, everything. But there were about a dozen ghouls wandering around the center, so I had Veronica and Rex stay back while I went ahead to snipe. Veronica is real happy when I do that, but she accepts the fact that it's a hell of a lot afer than charging in, no matter how deadly she is with that ballistic fist.
I sniped off a half dozen of them, then they finally got wind of my location. The caverns echo the gunshots, making it hard to find me I guess. Veronica noticed, let go of Rex and we charged in to finish the remaining ghouls off.

Most of the buildings were boarded up or collapsed, but we entered on labelled simply 'Workshop'. Inside were several lakelurks, and in the basement one of the walls had collapsed leading to another cavern that seemed to be their nest. We cleared it out, one of the lakelurks was easily three times the size of the others. Veronica's ballistic fist punched massive holes in it, but I still had to pump several 12 guage rounds into it. Rex was... Rex.
The lakelurks had dragged several bodies back there, and one of them had a nice custom tri-beam laser rifle on him, which I offered to Veronica, but she said she was fine with her plasma pistol as a backup.
He also had a REALLY nice suit of modified combat armor; it had been reinforced in several places, but was still almost as light as my reinforced leather armor. Certainly lighter than normal combar armor. I repaired it with my old armor and put it on. I really like it.

After that we went back into the little town and entered the only other servicable building, a sort of small apartment complex. My combat module told me there were tons of ghouls inside, so I left Rex outside and had Veronica guard the stairs leading up while I cleared out the lower floor. The ghouls here were fairly well armed and armored, and when I was almost done clearing the lower level I could hear the sounds of Veronica fighting.
By the time I made it back to her, she had almost finished off 6 ghouls: I helped her kill the last two. Total kill count: 13. We got lucky though; among the loot was a suit of power armor, and after repairing it with some scraps of metal armor and electronics it was almost as good as new. Veronica gladly put it on.
She's a pretty intimidating sight now; all we need to do is find her a proper power armor helmet. For now she's just wearing a combat helmet.

We came out of the little town on the other side of a long cave tunnel, and finally found some friendlies! A Seargent McMillian (I think that's how it's spelled, I didn't ask) was in charge of a defense squad, and greeted us.
When he saw Veronica's power armor, he asked us if we had killed a guy wielding a flame thrower. That was the ghoul we had gotten the power armor off of; McMillian was impressed. We tried to enter the town he was guarding, but McMillian demanded a price for interest.
Since it was obvious we could handle ourselves, he said, the price for admission to their town was to kill  a series of leaders. It seems the ghouls we had been fighting were part of some sort of faction trying to take over their town.

I had planned on backtracking and clearing out the rest of the caverns anyway, so I agreed. We had already killed half the people and things McMillian wanted dead; the giant lakelurk, and a ghoul holding a key I had picked up.
He still wanted us to kill some scientist ghoul called Gregor, who was apparently at the power plant, and another lakelurk named Lockjaw (who had apparently gotten his name when half his face had been melted by a plasma bolt.)

So we backtracked a way and took the path north in the main cavern. Found the power plant easily enough and cleared it out (with Rex waiting outside.) Veronica moves surprisingly well in that huge suit of power armor.
Including Gregor, we killed about 20 ghouls in the power station. Was quite a battle. After that, we moved deeper into the northern cavern, coming across a big metal door. Beyond was quite a sight: a massive, deep cavern spanned by a single catwalk, 30 or 40 feet up.
There were a shitload of lakelurks down below, and I picked them off with my desert DKS. One of them was Lockjaw, judging by the description McMillian had given me.

The catwalk lead to another section, this one some sort of construction sight for a bunch of self-proclaimed 'Mini-Vaults'. We cleared out the main area, but there's still a few tunnels we need to explore.
One of the buildings was some sort of workers barracks, filled with dozens of radroaches. Rex had a field day, though I had to help him out once when he got a little overwhelmed. I swear as soon as we fix that dog he's going right to the King.
I love dogs, honestly, but Rex just is too eager for his own good. Keeping him safe is a huge chore. Anyway, once we cleared out the workers housing I noticed it was nearly 1 AM. It's way to easy to get caught up in battle and lose track of time underground.
I asked Veronica if she ever had that problem in the Brotherhood bunker, and she said the lights were programmed to brighten and dim to simulate daylight and nightfall. I guess that makes sense.

Anyway, I'm pretty much exhausted. I think between ghouls and lakelurks, we must have killed 50 enemies today. If it wasn't for the reloading bench in that workshop I'd probably be out of ammo by now. Bleh... sleep time.