[hider=Continuing Adventure] Sweet Gin lay staring up at the bottom of the marque as it hung over her. The ages had eaten at it, destroying much of the old paneling under neath. Vandalism had broken the rest. Signs of scavenging picked away at much of the bottom-most edge. Stripping it further to its bare-bones netted components. Inlets for light-bulbs hung from loose cables and wires empty. Stained, weathered pitch-black brass framed and trimmed the corners. A heavy crown of metal of hard plastic crowned the top, shielding the android from what was aboe. A hot pain burned at the under side of her chin and she grimaced as she brushed the underside. Loose gravel and stones fell at the pass of her fingers, leaving behind a sharp biting burning pain. A smear of bright crimson blood brushed itself on the backside of her nails. She feel back, looking at the trace artificial blood that polished the ends of her hands. Joining with the soft pain of her chin a tingling sensation ran up and down the upper part of her arm where a bullet had passed, peeling back the metal and exposing long intertwining chords of cables and relays around a central skeleton. The injury was artificial enough, as she clenched her hand on that arm and pulled herself to her knees. Lives wires sparked feebly and she hoped they wouldn't short circuit. But shaking, she stood up. She found as well that her coat had taken light damage. Small holes had opened in the material where shrapnel from the bullet had entered, but otherwise caught itself up in the nylon and polyester within, never piercing the inner layer to scar her belly as it had her chin. And android quivered to her feet and rubbed her hands along the rest of her, checking to make sure that no bullets had torn any significant holes in her. But none had. She gave a couple curious looks up and down the road-way, seeking out what had shot at her. And in childish curiosity for this expanding world. She was forced back to the present with a spike of shock. A loud crack above the marquee shot her to her feat as large fist-sized holes opened above. The resulting spray of shrapnel dusting her metal ankles as she bolted for the door. Tearing through the broken frame. She staggered inwards, ducking through the door. Stepping foot into a wide darkened lobby. All around her the air hung in a stagnant, sepulcher mass. Thick clouds of dust floated in every golden, yellow band of sunlight that fell upon a carpeted floor caked over in the grime and residue. Chairs and benches littered the open lobby between towering pillars that held up a ceiling some two stories high. The hanging ceiling was quickly coming undone and abestos tiles had rotted and broken in two. Sections of the entire ceiling itself were collapsing as the cables that held it up rusted and snapped from the stress. Litter coated the floor as well. White plastic bins filled with gray dust littered the floor, alongside lids without cups and toys without children. Trivialities of a gone age. The remains of human skeletons joined the litter. Sprawled out in frightened poses on the floors. Arms wrapped around the remains of younger bodies. The sight of the mass grave summoned the invocation of the word which she had no meaning to: death. What was death, what was life, and what did it mean here? The Android stepped carefully around the remains as she walked to a far counter. Unfamiliar machines stood silent behind, with stacks of faded red and white buckets and cups. Additional bodies lay in the same pained heaps on the floor. The thin remnants of otherwise colorful uniforms hung from their bones. Sweet Gin wondered, exactly how much had it to of hurt for these figures to have their outer forms stripped from them, and the mechanics of their base functionality stolen from them? Sweet Gin came to the end of the counter. A long passageway cut by beyond to the back of the building. Miraculously the emergency lighting still operated, casting the long hall with its vaulted ceiling in a soft orange and red glow. Silhouettes rimmed with crimson light lay alongside against the walls: vending machines and garbage cans, still standing or toppled; some flickered weakly. If the man that Bancroft wanted dealt with was on the roof, the android would need to start looking. Ahead was the way to go. Taking a deep sigh, she drew her pistol from its holster. The VATS system activating and through some magic of its own registered that she needed to reload. Slowly beginning her voyage down the hall as she flipped switches to swap cartridges. With a pleasant click, the action came back and snapped to place. She was ready, for the most part. Passing down the hallway she came to a door nondescript and featureless, but something had propped it open: the backseat had rusted no less, and it sat propped open on its own tired accord. Opening she found a flight of stairs. The soft red emergency lights casting them in soft illumination. She smiled softly as she set up the stairs, her gun pointed to the floor. She made one flight, turning on her feet to head up the next before she stopped abruptly. Her breath catching in her throat as she stopped to stare. Hanging above head level, barely visible in the weak lighting hung a bushel of small, egg shaped objects. Grenades. A thin barely-there wire held the by the ceiling. It took her a moment to register, and tracing the spindly spider-web to the ceiling and around she traced the pencil-thin line to a tripwire thin as fishing line. The wire looked so flimsy on them it looked simply passing through they would unpin and fall. Something inside her begged her this would be a terrible idea. She had already been shot at, she didn't need anything doing any more damage. As well though, a space was left just between them and the wall she could squeeze by, if she removed her pack. Sighing deeply she hoisted up her bag, sliding it to the step above before pressing against the wall. Hugging it closely she negotiated around the bouquet, holding back her breath in case she disturbed the hornets nest that hung before her. It was a small feet to be sure, but voices and forces within her only made it become larger. A grand step to breech a great canyon. Anticipation clinging as she stepped safely behind, bending down, and dragging her pack carefully up the steps and into the room beyond. A self congratulatory pat on the imaginary back. The floor above smaller and emptier, or just more cramped. A few spartan tables cluttered the floor alongside toppled chairs. Faded posters under dead lights hung caked with black mildew in a darker space. The images unrecognizable and the writing illegible from the work of years. The android stepped apprehensively inside, and looked about. Doors sat at each corner, and it was a question of where it was she was to go next. There wasn't a choice but to try each one, and to see where they would go. At times they would open, but lead out only into shallow closets, or in a single instance a long hall whose only rooms where those looking out over the vast side-rooms of the floor below. Tiny narrow windows peering out over them giving a silent kind of watch. A door marked "film storage" had been sealed shut as well; shame, she was curious of what had been there. And the door was too solid to force down. There was a door though that bore promise, as all good things came last. Though the handle remained someone had removed the back set. It eased open with a gentle push, but a series of loud beeping cut short any feeling of ceremony. The earliest guttural bumps sent the android back against the far wall, smashing her through the paper thin dry wall. Debris sprayed out in a fan from the door. Crashing on the far side of the desk, she lay back stunned as a large chunk of metal cut through where she had been moments before. Her torso throbbed numb and her back screamed in bitter rage. All over her face she felt she had sand dug into her face. She sat up, tendrils of thick smoke bellowed out from the door. Looking down the long dark hall she beheld a long series of amber lights planted on the ground. Glowing silently and waiting. She believed it had been one of these that had blow up. And looking at them, she realized there would be no door to trip them all for her, and she wasn't about to set them off herself. She needed a stand in. Something to throw. The explosion had kicked from its seat battered and bent trashcan. Tossed against the wall, it had embedded at and angle in the wall from the explosive force. She delicately dug inside and found a rusted over can. Holding it, she looked down the field of amber running down the new hall. Taking a breath she chucked the can down the way. It bounced and clanged as it rolled against the floor. Coming to a gentle roll it entered the darkness, something tripped one of the lights and it began flashing, illuminating the bent can. Soft distant beeps echoed down the corridor and Sweet Gin rolled spun into cover, holding her hands up to her ears as she readied. A new explosion rocked the hallway, sending a throbbing shudder through the air and tossing even more debris into a wicked and twisting spin. Soon, explosions cascaded down the hall. Each chaining into each other in deep guttural pops and bangs that rained across anything. There came a soft rattle and silence as the mine field stilled. She relaxed as things went silent, loosening her jaw. A thick dust filled the air. She coughed as she walked through the door. The air tasted bitter and foul. Waving her prosthetic hands before her face she stepped around the door, the lights had certainly died out, and it was presumable safe. The end of the passageway bore another set of stairs which she climbed. The next floor had been much like the one below. But packed with more inter-twining halls wrapping around square offices. To the android's fortune there weren't any traps laid in wait for her here. But it was in no way a relief from the anxiety they had caused earlier. If it had been those devices that had broken the remains down stairs in that way, then she understood their pained and fearful poses. But with each careful look into the numerous offices she confirmed more and more than no one had gone out of their way to sew those seeds here. What was plentiful though, were bones. Strewn on the floors alongside desks, or seated at the desks. Burns and scorch marks ran the horizontal lengths of the walls like dragging claws. At one end, the melted and in-ward blasted windows opened into the warm afternoon sunlight. Daylight pooled in through and illuminated the offices in a warm soft glow. With the flickering emergency lighting the remainder of the winding tombs. On the other-side, a face of glass windows shown with a stifled and muddy quality. The glass panes here mired by years of thick coated dust and mildew that frosted the glass over and fogged the images of the world beyond. The faint light that did manage to pass through was extraordinarily weak, and the windows glowed with a frighteningly morbid green glow. Spiderweb cracks still shown through the grime, and Sweet Gin had to wonder if whatever had shattered the windows of the opposite face had been weaker there. In comparison, the warmth of the open daylight was comforting and she stuck to that side. Another flight of stares, and another layer of offices. Closing now on the final floor, Sweet Gin pushed through the derelict offices. She could have gone straight up, if the stairwell had not collapsed in the final segment. But given the man had perched on the roof, there had to be a way across. And signs of his presence littered the final level of administration. Trip wires and mines littered the floor space, which the android navigated carefully. Large, heavy blocks or chunks of machinery tucked into alcoves within the hanging ceiling; waiting for anything to trip the wires. Booming rumbling helped punctuate the scene as the android tumbled out through a window, coming to a roll out onto a rusted fire-escape as a room full of explosives went off at once. The air was full of rumbling and the grinding of steel and brick as through the window the sounds of the floor collapsing washed out over Sweet Gin as a solid wash of blackened soot, ash, and dust washed over the android as she lay curled on rusted wrought iron platform. The last sound that still played in her ears was the loud chaotic beeping of a armory's worth of low-grade mines beeping and singing all at once. The harsh ringing in her ears and the suffocating tightness in her chest singing just below the memory. She had thrown her self out just in time through an open window as the first hot tongues of explosives lapped up her back. The low rumble slowed and stilled, and Sweet Gin fearfully peeled open her eyes. She quivered on the steel as she rose shaking. Slowly, if at first. A nest of dusty rubble and caked plaster lay in the grates around her. Plaster fell out of her hair in a rain. The fine particles obscured her vision and she coughed on the swirling cloud that plumed out the window. Nothing felt broken, and nothing felt it was bleeding as she regained her footing. The beeping – almost cute – still chimed in her ears. There had to have been more in that room than she encountered anywhere else. Four floors below her was the street. Just below her the remains of the fire-escape hung cut away, or fell away from weight and time. What was left of the ladder was a twisted mess that tore and twisted itself like a corkscrew, each rung hanging and splitting off at odd angles. She certainly would not be going that way. Above her, the fire-escape was more intact. Guide wires and jury rigged lengths of pipe and iron reinforced what was left. Sheet metal awning hovered over it from the edge of the roof. The ladder - itself built back over with planks of wood and wire - climbed up into the last window. Taking a deep sigh, she stood herself up. The platform groaned under the shifting weight, but it ultimately held as she climbed to the peak. Her landing was rather graceless, her shoulder hitting the floor first after the rest of her body. But she was here, towards the top. Tucked in a massive and impressive room. Large blocks of machinery and ventilation pipe scoured the floor. Wrapping and netting themselves around each other as they took nineties and dove into the concrete below. From somewhere, the faint rumble of an engine could be heard. Actual, working lights illuminated select and odd patches of the floor. Crisp white lights flickering rapidly; they looked to be struggling to stay alight as much as the choking engine was fighting to stay alive. Standing up, she stepped into the network of maintenance, cautiously scanning the area. The navigation arrow was flashing furiously over the compass, but it had been doing that for a while now. It had brought her here, it was making it known that it knew. The entire floor smelled like a mix of ozone and carbon. A thick sour industrial smell mixing with others. The bitter smell of urine from some distant corner was present, as well as the decay of old food. Sure enough, this floor was being used for something. It smelled it. But where its tenant was puzzled Sweet Gin, turning right at a intersection of pipe and vents she wandered through. Her pistol was out, and she carefully crept on, passing a dark alcove... "Smile, yoiu' oin came'ah." a low voice crooned softly as something hard and cold was pressed to the back of the Android's neck. She tensed up, freezing as the sensation hovered there, "Stahy wheah yea a'h an' I cahn mahke this nice n' eahsy." "Who are you?" Sweet Gin asked shuddering, her hands slowly rose in obedience. Fear tingled inside her as much as the coldness pressed against the back of her neck did. Her breath felt short, and even her artificial legs felt like they shook. "Ahn't none oif yeah buisiness, And'oid." the voice said again, "N'ah turn, I wanna get a gooid looik at'ea." Slowly she turned, facing her attacker. What she saw in the faint light was a man nearly as weathered as the men under Bancroft's services. Sand and sun had taken a toll on his face wearing it down to a gaunt years-old sag. His skin was rough and pitted, lips chipped and flaking. Deep lines mired his face, giving normally soft features a harder look. And his eyes burned with a rabid intensity. A filthy map of hair capped his head. The hood of his coat was pulled down around his neck. Padded gloves guarded his hands, as did his arms. And resting in his hands was a monstrous looking rifle. A block of machinery hung off the side like a cancerous growth, linked into an over-sized scope strapped to the back of a monster of a rifle. Its barrel about as long as he was tall, and at its tip a square box, hills drilled into it to no doubt deflect the gasses. Despite its nature, the hunter held it with a soft tenderness. A eloquent experience that made the gun feel weightless in his hands. He maneuvered it around the tight space as if it were a smaller weapon. "Naeh, ain't yea ah pretty Ahndeh." the man chuckled as he looked up and down Sweet Gin's surrendered figure. He glowed a storm of lust. The way he licked his lips suggested he hadn't had a woman in a long time. "Wohdn't sepeise meh nahne if soomeone baeck 'ome is missin' yea. N'ah dooubt yea tits are nice n' fieam undeh theah." "Who are you?" Sweet Gin repeated. "Ah t' 'ell yea cahe." The man cackled coldly, voice was rough and jagged, "Ahnd is thaet all ye caen say. Shit, yoou needin' soome new pahgammin'." The man paused, looking Sweet Gin up and down. Relaxing for a minute. Removing a hand from his gun he let the barrel drop for a moment, hovering it above the ground. His other hand went to the side of his greasy head where he tapped it. "'Eah caemmand, this'is me Vinny, 'eh got ah 'unaway Aendy 'ehe in The Woo. Some tight ass'd bitch we geht any waen-" He was cut off mid-sentence as Sweet Gin swept her leg about and caught the man with a kick to the side of his face. He dropped his hands, screaming in pain and shock. Blood trailing out the side of his face as the clawed toes of Sweet Gin's foot caught the side of his face. Vinny's whole body spun to the side against a panel of ventilation, cursing in agony, "Yah cold fuckin' synth!" he screamed with clarity as he lay against the side of the ventilation, holding his hand to the side of his head as he stared in disbelief at Sweet Gin. Blood dripped from the side of his face in dripping stream-lets. "Vinny, this is command," a faint static-fused voice said, "Appehand the synth immediately and tuen 'eh in to the closest outpost. Do you copy?" "I will not go back!" Sweet Gin screamed as she lunged at Vinny, ramming her weight into the side of the Bureau hunter's gut, and further pinning him into the mass of ventilation. She drew back her arm, balling it into a fist and began angrily punching at the man's side, screaming. Something grabbed against her shoulder as Vinny wrapped his fingers on her shoulder and with a mighty heave slammed her against the side of the ventilation, trading places with her. Anger burned in his face as blood smeared half of it. "Aessaltin' an officeh!" he bellowed, taking Sweet Gin's face in his hand and slamming the android's face against the cold metal of the vents. The drumming echoed in her hearing as the side of face beat against the fragile metal. Her face pulled back as Vinny prepared to ram it against the side again. She was already slowly becoming sore, a bruising numbness beginning to develop on that side of her face. Reaching up with her hands Sweet Gin wrapped her claws around the armored platting of the hunter's uniform and pulled and twisted. His hand let go as she forced it to the side with him hollering and growling in pain. Red blood pooling at the nails as she found a space between the plating and dug in. Giving the man a toss, she forced him away from her, throwing him down the walking space. Free she reached for her side, going for her handgun. But her hands only hit the leather of her belt, and the canvas of her stolen clothes. Panicked, she looked about, dearly searching for her pistol. She saw it behind her, but looking ahead, she saw the man was already reaching for his rifle, it had been kicked down the hall, and she had thrown him right for it. "No!" she boomed, charging for him as he painfully began to lift it up. Before he could bring it to bear the weight of the android was on top of him and she rode him across the floor, pushing him down the slimy cold concrete floor and away from his rifle. Her hand dove for his face, but his own swung from the side in a left-hook and caught the android in the ribs. Unarmored, she felt the full force of the man's fist and she spilled onto the floor and onto her back. Struggling up the man got to his knees. Sweet Gin tried to struggle to her own feet, but was quickly pinned by the sniper as he dove on top of her. Pinning her down with a hand as another reached for his belt. There was a flash of steel as he drew a long curved knife from his belt. The cold glow of the florescent flashed off the gleaming talon as he raised it into the air, and brought it down in one quick arch. Sweet Gin bit back a scream as she pushed her hands up, catching the man's wrist on the downswing and wrestling with the cold blade. He was strung, but the android held him back. The light and shadows shone and reflected off the polished blade as it quivered from side-to-side as the two forms fought for control of the death-stroke. Vinny's hand released itself from her shoulder and went to the hilt of the blade, fighting to press it down, but Sweet Gin persisted. "Theh 'ell yea think yea gooina outsaide the Coimmonwealth?" Vinny asked in a scowling voice, "Theah's nowheah out theahe fo' a f'eahk like you. "Ye'a had a poipese in the Coimmonwealth, and yea goinna throew that away?" "I didn't like mine." she hissed. "Yeah don' even know feahdom." Vinny hissed, throwing his weight on the knife, and beginning to slowly inch it down. Sweet Gin didn't answer, and her refusal was taken as a sign of humor as the Synth hunter laughed. But he stopped as he felt his weight give. Sweet Gin pulled the knife to the side and he turned as he fell on top of the android. Her arms wrapped around his neck in a tight embrace as she strangled him. Anger was boiling inside of her, fueling her as much as the adrenaline was. She wasn't just trying to do a job now, she was taking it personally. Vinny dropped the knife as he hands rose to undo Sweet Gin's grip. He spat and sputtered in her arms, kicking and thrashing. Anything to break out of the vice-like grip of the synthetic woman holding him down. He tried to speak, but his words came out in a wet mess as spittle fountained from his mouth, trying to scream. He gave up his fight, and began weakly elbowing at Sweet Gin's ribs. His final throws weakening as his body feel limp. He stopped sputtering, and soon only sighed weakly as the rest of his neck was slowly closed under Sweet Gin. She felt his body go warm, and then still as he lay heavy on her. "I'm sorry, but I can't let you take me back!" she shouted into his ear, "I can't do it, there's no way I can go back. I know what I was used for, and I've decided I don't like it. I want to know what else there is, to keep away from that life. I was told to watch out for you types, and I will! "I'm sorry, but there'll no doubt be someone coming back to fix you up." she said sobbing as she slid Vinny's body off of her and weakly crawling off the floor, "But when they do, I hope I'm far away. Tell them to leave me alone!" His body wasn't moving. Saliva only dripped from the edge of his mouth in the weak light that pooled from between the pipes and the vents. "And I was only doing what was asked of me." she said in a soft voice as she walked down the vents. Her body felt sore. She felt tired. Her head hurt, her sides hurt. "You were being a problem to someone, so I have to take this away." she mumbled, coming to where his rifle lay, lifting it up. It was a heft gun. But she cradled it in her arms. "I can't let you continue with this, people need things, and you're keeping them from getting it." The sharp ringing of the stone on steel sang out in the trees. The watchman sitting slouched in the battered arm-chair, little more than a frame in its state; additions in the last few months kept the hair-thin mesh from completely falling out under his weight. The charcoal'd trees stood in a silent vigil like him, groaning in the dry wind that raced across New England. It was a lonely job, and rather dull. With men in the streets at the bottom of the hill they kept ghoul activity to a check. The only instance of his use being to put down a lucky feral that had shambled through the scavengers down below, looking to lift supplies to trade for their valuable spear. It was a quick job with his lance, which he worked on now. A wrought steel pole with a glistening kitchen knife forge welded to the end. Straps of brass and rusty iron held the hammered chunk to the end of his pole. But despite its age, it had kept an edge, and the watchman insured it kept. Each brush of the stone along its face brushing the feathers flat. The smoothed face a mirror for the sun, where it danced and mingled with blurred, dark reflections of the trees behind him and his own muddy face. A stick cracked in the distance down the hill and the watchman's eyes shot up. The stone dropping to a soft thud on the char and dirt that piled up all over the ground. He leaned up onto his lance, peering through the clustered packs of carbon-shelled plant-life. He tensed his breath, and a stick broke under something else's foot against. Shooting to his feet and leveled the spear in his hands and turned to where he heard it. The chair landed with a dull "thump" behind him. But it didn't matter, the glint of the sun shone on his weapon's honed edge as he scanned it around. Searching for the source. And pointing at the android. Her face was bruised, and her short red hair fell about her face in a messy mat. Her soft rounded cheeks blackened with force, and a few scratch marks mired her appearance. Her coat torn and scrabbled over, dashes of blood ran up the length of those metal arms and legs of hers, coating them in a clear crimson mat. But she still breathed, and still stood. Dragging the most bestial rifle he had ever seen behind her, and with a curved Bowie knife strapped to her breast he gawked and stared. The ghouls had put her into the ringer. "I need to speak with Bancroft." she said in a dry heavy voice. The watchman nodded enthusiastically, stepping back from his post. "Yea," he started, "'ight this way if you will..." "I certainly did not expect you to run into such issues." Bancroft said in his characteristic diplomatically indifferent expression. His cloak fell about him, concealing his body. He looked to be a ghost, or a manifestation of the monsters he kept in his pits behind the tower, "Certainly, I felt the approach to the sharpshooter's nest would have been the most troubling part, let alone any ghouls." "Well, there was more than enough." sighed Sweet Gin, staring emptily out to the pits. The behemoth creatures inside lay out in the middle, bathing in the sun as they napped. "Certainly," agreed Bancroft, "when the old world unleashed Hellfire on Worcester they condemned its people, and the knights serving it to become monsters. Some were fortunate to die, others were not so fortunate and were transformed against their will to ravenous monsters. My men can scour the ruins of the city for months and not purge the threat from the city. They crawl forth from the sewers and the darkened recesses of the world they still live in. "We do our best to preserve that route and my men had said that they kept the hordes at bay, and when the sharpshooter stole the building for his residence we had presumed his shot would have kept the roads clear enough, as he certainly did for my men. We unfortunately needed to abandon it given he was the cause of too many deaths." "People keep talking about 'death'..." Sweet Gin mumbled, hesitant and uncomfortable in her lack of knowledge, "and life. What is it, and how is it so important?" Bancroft was cold and unresponsive to the question, instead turning to the wasteland and burned city that surrounded him. "Life and death..." he started, "is a cold reality that this world teaches us as we persist on. I do not claim to be a philosopher. There are too few like that. So I can't tell you the details. You'll need to learn it yourself. Its abstractness.” "I don't feel I understand." Sweet Gin said softly. "Perhaps someday you will when people you have know suffer to the Wasteland." replied Bancroft grimly, "But let us not dwell on this subject, tell me of the mission. I see you brought the shooter's gun." he added, nodding to the rifle Sweet Gin leaned up against the parapets. "I did." she said, "He's no doubt awaiting his friends, but I removed his ability to disrupt your road. But his companions will be back. "I think they'll be after me." "So it was the Synth Retention Bureau?" Sweet Gin nodded silently, biting her lip. "Then this adds a new direness to the situation." Bancroft noted, "And you can not stay. If you need anything, it will be best to move. I will offer the protection of my son to guide you as far as the old world's derelict air-station. From there, I advise you go on alone, and do not turn back. "If you..." he started, looking at Sweet Gin's arm. The wires still hung exposed from where Vinny's bullet had struck it, "Need something to cover your damage, best make it quick." "Thank you, Bancroft." she said. "Roose Bancroft." the lord corrected, "If you're not going to remain I might as well grant you the permission to refer to me by an informality. I will inform Barston of his new duties, you do as you need to do. When you're finished, see him at the entrance to this hill and you may set out." Sweet Gin nodded, turning to leave. "Before you do leave," Roose Bancroft called back, "know that to keep me and the Synth Retention Bureau cordial I can not lie to them. I will retrieve the sharpshooter to hand over to them. But if they insist on asking about an android I will have no choice but to tell them you were here. "I will not say where you are going, but that you were here. By chance, they might already know you are present and my lying will not be a defense." A little light of hope lit in Sweet Gin and a small gentle smile crept onto her face. "Yeah, thank you." she said. "And if I may ask," Bancroft said again, "How did you survive the ghouls?" Sweet Gin smiled weakly, "I ran." she said, laughing a little, "I learned to run." "A good trait, no doubt." -------------------------------------- [i]Chapter footnote: Level up[/i] [i]Level footnote: Level 4[/i] [i]Skill footnote: Gun: 36/100[/i] [i]Quest Perk added:[/i] [i]Learned to Run![/i] [i]Certainly, being the main course in some nefarious monster's feast his not a pleasant prospect to be. And when the odds are too hard set against you to fight, it's time to run. Move speed is increased by ten percent when health is below thirty-five percent.[/i] [i]Level up perk added:[/i] [i]Educated[/i] [i]You gain two more skill points every time you advance in level. Certainly being part robot doesn't hurt either.[/i] [/hider]