Special thanks to Acroterion for graphics source photography and Jokerine for the amazing Newline Town mod!
Maybe I’m overthinking this. Deathclaws are nasty sure, but this landmine I picked up in Goodsprings Cavern should shred up anything living, right? It’s a fearsome bird sure, but it’s not an armored tank.
I just have to place the mine right, then lure the deathclaw back towards us. As long as Wattsworth doesn’t run up ahead…
Which of course he does. At least I figure out the landmine isn’t going to help before the deathclaw rips us both into gruesome chunks again. I did like two pips of damage, maybe? Fuck.
It pains me but Wattsworth may just not be up to the task of stalking deathclaws. He’s pretty helpless in a hunt unless his prey is stone deaf, to be honest, but I don’t say anything nearly as rude as that. I just ask him to guard Sloan for a bit while I sneak off. I’ll come back for ya, pal.
I manage to sneak a little further this time and find a shack full of salvage. Fission batteries, a steam assembly, scrap metal, it’s all the treasure I can carry! And it’s just sitting out here in the open, why hasn’t anyone…
Oh right. Laden down with treasure I make easy prey for pure death a-walkin’.
Wattsworth stays behind, I sneak North, PAST the fabulous treasure of the dilapidated shack, my Pip-boy blaring a red CAUTION at me the whole way. I’m closer than ever to the mysterious hotel, which has some kind of gear-themed flag waving over it.
The pip-boy alert switches to DANGER and I cower behind a cliff. The deathclaw can’t possibly see me, or hear me, I’m too far from the road. There’s a wall of solid rock between me and the road! I’m almost to the hotel, I have a clear shot, I got this.
The deathclaw drops down on me from the cliff like an avalanche of ugly knives and football leather. I don’t got this.
Wattsworth stays behind. Sneak North. No treasure! Go slowly!! I don’t even skirt the road, I go due fucking East almost, anything to avoid that stupid deathclaw. I call bullshit as my Pip-boy flashes danger, once again. Really?
Oh it’s a scorpion. And not even a car-sized one! Do you think they call these ones bark scorpions on account of they’re about the size of coyotes? They take about as many hits with a guitar to kill as a coyote too. I would know.
The Pip-boy warnings continue blaring as I stomp another scorpion, and a third approaches me. Just as I’m wondering if this route is really that much of an improvement; death by dog-sized scorpions vs death by 10 foot tall superchicken; when from over the hill to the north I hear gunfire. Lots of gunfire. Traditional and the laser-variety. Somebody’s shooting a whole lot at something, or each other, or who knows what, up ahead. Towards the hotel. The guns are loud enough to send the third scorpion skittering away in a panic.
Cresting the hill I am just in time to see a remarkable sight: my friend the deathclaw attacking someone else for a change. Up near the hotel (which I now realize is an old train service tunnel with some interesting renovations), a pair of caravaners try to defend themselves with junky old guns.
I pull my guitar out and start sprinting, but I know I’ll never close the distance in time. In fact I’m pretty sure the deathclaw is just going to kill me for dessert after eating these two and their brahmin and all their cargo, but just as I’m imagining that fireworks display of gore, the tables turn. A pair of mysterious robots appear.
Emerging from the train tunnel, something like a stripped-down protectron storms towards the deathclaw, blasting away with the rifle gripped in its clumsy fingers. Meanwhile a turret on the roof provides the laser fire I had heard earlier, and between all four sources, the deathclaw is dead before I even arrive.
I walk up to the freshly killed deathclaw as the robot and the merchants walk away, lighting cigarettes and chatting with each other. Looking over the dead abomination, I can’t help but think it’s smaller than before. Is it even the same one? In Sloan they did say there was a whole nest out here.
Now I might not be the most charming fellow in the wastes, but ol’ Johnny Smash can do math, you better believe it. It takes 4 gunners to down just one relatively runty deathclaw, and I have a guitar. I reckon, while peering up and down the road, straining my eyes for signs of more murderous ultrachickens, that the idea of me fighting a whole nest of older, more experienced deathclaws all by myself might be… ambitious. Just a tad.
Luckily this runty one has an egg on its person, and nobody else seems to care, so I grab it. Omelette recipe here I come. I sever the creature’s hand too, because why not? The bots back home will get a kick out of it. Might make a decent rake.
I munch on maize and molerat steaks as I approach the small merchant’s tent to the side of the hotel structure. The caravan merchant and her guard are remarkably calm for having just survived a deathclaw attack- perhaps they’re just used to it by now? Me, I need a beer, I don’t care what time it is.
I trade the recharger rifle and weird cult robes for some scrap metal, a fireman’s helmet and set of standard prospector’s clothes, so I’ll finally look official while selling junk. All in all I’m down 22 caps, leaving me with 39 to my name. I hope it’s not too fancy a hotel.
Around the front of the tunnel I can finally read the spray-painted road sign under the neon HOTEL letters: “Welcome To Newline. We sell ice cream”.
Guarding the immense crisscrossing metal doors to Newline is a protectron my Pip Boy IDs as “Shirreff”. He’s lanky, with custom joints to let him hold a standard rifle. Very nice work. I introduce myself, glancing over Shirreff’s shoulder vent at the spinning klaxons inside the hotel. Shirreff’s clearly custom lights blink as he responds.
I nod in agreement, definitely don’t want to do that, I’ll just be going over here then, just checking my mail, la la la. Shirreff does not consider me an interference, thank goodness. I can tell this guy has sentrybot AI, so that plus the custom limbs, frame, lights, the works, just, dang. I mean it’s no cherry Teslatron like Wattsworth but, still, whoever rebuilt this guy is no slouch. My interest in the Newline Hotel deepens.
Looking for another, less heavily guarded entrance to the hotel I find an intercom panel, and as coincidence would have it just as I’m about to press the button, someone yells for help over the other end. Huh, what are the odds?
Husvik, as the computerized voice quickly introduces itself, sounds more than a little panicked, and does a terrible job of explaining what emergency has this whole place on klaxon-blaring lock-down. They just unlock the door and tell me to hurry to “town hall”.
Shirreff steps aside allowing me through the huge metal gate, which slams shut immediately behind me.
Inside I’m surprised to see the small, closed train tunnel has been converted to some kind of festive marketplace. As promised there’s even ice cream, but that stand like the rest is abandoned.
As much as I want to explore, there’s some kind of vague emergency on. I find the door marked town hall and enter.
I am confronted by a floating electrocardiogram monitor wearing a bandana.
So you’re Husvik huh? I’ve heard about medibot probes like this but clearly there’s some aftermarket parts involved, wait, what about my blood???
Oh! Suddenly everything makes sense. The laser turret protecting the caravan locked outside the gate, the yellow alert blaring inside it, the jury-rigged emergency bots losing their shit. Somebody built this hotel as a little automated oasis for themselves out here. Somebody who now needs a blood transfusion.
Never let it be said that Johnny Smash doesn’t roll up his sleeves to help. I even take the pack of cigarettes out first.
Husvik immediately starts running tests on the blood, muttering about how the boss “doesn’t trust people anymore”. I can’t help but smile- I’d probably donate blood to anybody who needed it, but for a fellow antisocial bot salvager? It’s a no-brainer. Can’t wait to meet them.
Husvik pumps the blood sample into a nearby autodoc, which after a moment slides open with a hiss of steam, revealing the inhabitant. Unsurprisingly, they’re in a vault suit.
Surprisingly though, they’re a cyborg. Didn’t see that one coming.
Husvik and their master exchange a brief explanation: the cyborg fell off the roof, his robot arm came off, blood etc, lock-down for the whole joint. Thank goodness I was around to replace the blood part. I introduce myself.
Oliver seems like a nice enough guy who has really been through the ringer. He’s thankful for the blood, but all the same hurries for the door to go lift the lock-down and get things “back to normal”. I get the feeling there’s more to this hotel than I know. A lot more.
“Town Hall” is, as far as I can tell, Oliver’s medical bay and personal quarters. I don’t try to snoop after he’s left the room, per se, but… well there are a few objects that beg so many questions, like this rocking horse, “fine cotton”:
He reads Corny Magazine, which I’ve never even heard of.
Oliver has quite the collection of electronics down here, there are hand-held radio receivers, a calculator, even a briefcase computer that I am, no lie, extremely jealous of.
I mean I would personally password protect mine but I’m not gonna tell the man how to run his business.
His deeply, deeply personal business. Oh my.
I make sure to close the briefcase computer carefully, especially after noticing the security camera watching me. Just looking around, really! Heh. My Pip-boy IDs the camera as being named Kovach. Weird?
On my way out I chat with Husvik, who is much less pushy now Oliver isn’t dying so much. Husvik is more than a little protective of his primary user, methinks.
As much as selling my blood makes sense in a desperate kind of way, I decline the offer to give up more for caps; for now. Blood-sucking robot with antennae for hands or not, you can never know enough doctors in the wasteland. To that end, I buy a doctor’s bag for 21 caps, leaving me with just 18, and Kovach says goodbye as I leave. Very weird.
I exit Newline Town Hall and return to the bazaar, which is transformed in the absence of lockdown sirens and klaxons. Half a dozen different robots, some I recognize and some I don’t and all with unique modifications have come out from the woodwork to man the stands and benches. Newline isn’t just a robot hotel, I discover. It’s a whole compact robot town.
I kick myself for leaving Wattsworth behind, he would have loved this place. But honestly it’s crowded as it is, there are so many custom robots around. Part of me rejoices- i’ve always had more luck with machines than townsfolk. What about machine townsfolk?
The more I walk through the Newline market the more I find. Stores and workshops crammed behind old tunnel access doors, divided and subdivided into a mall of shops, each run by another custom bot. Oliver has been busy, there are a LOT of salvaged robots in here. Most of them with fancy hats and stories to tell.
Clerke is a floating sarsaparilla ad in a straw cowboy hat, with an adorable accent to his voice module that calls me “pardner” a lot. He has some impressive cryonics installed, and uses them as the proprieter of the famous ice cream stand. Clerke admits a few of the recipes are experimental, which explains all the copy in his menu about the treats being fire retardant. I’ll pass for now.
Dixson is an old-school factory protectron painted up in a gaudy checkerboard pattern. No custom mechanics like Shireff, much closer to factory standard configurations of hardware and software as far as I can tell- clanky, on both counts. He describes himself as the “town’s officially sanctioned ecdysiast”. Being well-read enough to know what that means, I quickly excuse myself from his graphic explanation.
Royds is a robot dog who I swear I’ve seen somewhere before. Who would build such a thing?
At first I mistake Leith for a human in a leather jacket and metal helmet, until I see the empty space through the limbs and neck. I’ve heard about androids but never seen one before. Leith has little to say to me about his business here, other than identifying himself as a former assassin, and telling me I don’t need to know any more. I agree wholeheartedly.
Leith’s companion, a blue-eyed gynoid in a beautifully embroidered dress, is extremely rude to me. I laugh it off and ask her how she came to be here, only to be given a sarcastic story about the Kingdom of Haute, the silver streets of which she was paraded through as ruler on pink elaphant-back each morning. When I politely call ‘Queen Limanora’ on her fanciful story, she admits it’s a lie, insults my intelligence, and tells me to leave her alone. Amazingly life-like tech.
Dinea, another floating probe, runs the local haberdashery, where she makes a lovely assortment of hats, several of which I would look good in out shopping at the general store if I do say so myself. I was starting to wonder where all these local robots were getting such fine hats. Ironically, from someone who can’t wear one herself due to a massive antenna (which she says used to be even bigger before she got attacked by wild dogs. Been there, girlfriend). She fills me in on her model specs: eyebot, a Repconn creation, clearly with several iterations. Husvik is a medical droid and Clerke is essentially an intelligent soda machine, and they’re both based on the prototype run Dinea belonged to. Impressive.
Commander X63A82, Dinea’s obnoxious roommate, is a typical Gutsy model, though I think he might be a compact (though I would not mention that). Standard quartermaster software, selling all manner of weaponry he guards with a crackling plasma pistol for a hand. I can’t help but eye the pyramid of energy cells for sale, but I’ve been window-shopping for hours and it’s dark out, and considering the shit I went through to get here I’m sure as fuck not sleeping outside in the dark. I have 18 caps. Where’s that hotel?
I immediately know I’m in trouble upon stepping into the “Bon Voyage” gift shop, a tiny utility closet lined with shelves and shelves of books and magazines, many of which I have never even heard of before. I fall into a hushed awe at this hidden library, all for sale, and me with hardly any caps in my pocket. Johnny Smash’s famous luck strikes again.
The gift shop is run by another compact bot, this one a RobCo Brainbot with a very interesting paint job. Name of Smyley. Before I have a chance to ask Smyley about their impressive collection, they thank me profusely for attending their birthday party.
Oh. Uh yeah, of course! Wouldn’t miss it for the world, friend. I quickly drop a baseball glove and baseball I was saving in a nearby gift bag, and help myself to some “snacks” when directed. A battery on a stick, and what appears to be some gears between pieces of very old toast. I hold them as if I was going to eat them, and bop along to the music a little. Fun party.
Smyley calls me his best friend, which is sweet. My curiosity finally gets the better of me; what’s with the moon and stars paint job and the little kid voice module?
Ohh… the processing unit was “collected” early to… I see. Wow. Yeah, I bet that was controversial, uh gosh Smyley look at the time! This has been fun but I gotta be going, happy “birth” day and all, whatever that… so long! Enjoy the… children’s toys, designed for human hands uh dammit where is that hotel anyway?
Finally I find the dang hotel, though it’s really no more than a commons room, in the very back of the crowded tunnel that is Newline town. A motley gang of robots inhabits the little speakeasy up front, with a table for cards and a jury-rigged slot machine made of an old cash register.
Stromness, the bartender, is a navy blue Handy compact with another delightful accent. He talks up a storm as I peruse the mostly non-edible non-potable menu, and eventually he offers me a job finding him bottles of glue. The money is good so I make a note of it, but as I do I notice the cyborg mayor of Newline walk in. He’s hard to miss.
Oliver takes a seat near the piano with a couple bots- Howe, another elongated protectron that may or may not be the bouncer, and a guy in a baseball cap that I’m not sure is even ambulatory, my Pip Boy just IDs it as “drunk robot”. I sidle over and join them.
Oliver and I chat for a while and I can’t help but like the guy. The bots all have their own star-optics stories of being rescued across the wastes from here to DC, but Oliver himself is simply matter-of-fact about it. His vault was raided by cannibals and he almost died in the escape, but was saved by a salvaged medical eyebot, Husvik, starting a lifelong fascination with reclaimed bots. Nowadays his clique-of-a-button does more work out here than I realized, trading with regular caravans, repairing tech, clearing radioactive zones, building this little oasis up despite the death claws which, once I hear a little more, I realize are a feature and not a bug. Oliver’s not unfriendly really, we even briefly discuss the possibility of him tutoring me on robotics (once I can afford it), but he clearly prefers the company of the mechanical. I can relate, but that only goes so far. He strongly insinuates that I’m welcome to stay… for a night.
The last bot in joint is the innkeeper Mariholm, a security camera that claims to have a sentry turret’s AI salvaged from a life of slaughter. I determine quickly that I should not try and haggle the price, despite being 2 caps short. Luckily, there’s a piano in the bar.
I play every song I know for 2 hours and manage to make 8 caps from the locals. Not much, but enough. The room in back is tiny but it’ll have to do. I collapse on the bed but don’t fall asleep immediately, I’ve met more robotic vendors and townsfolk in the last few hours than I ever thought existed out here and my head is abuzz with possibilities. The treasures they have hoarded away in here! Gear, ammunition, books upon books! If I had more than 8 caps to my name I could really get seriously equipped here. If only.
I play the radio for a little bit in the tiny room before falling asleep on the bottom bunk. They get a station here I couldn’t get back in Goodsprings, featuring somebody named Best Friend Tabatha screaming about Super Mutants and “protecting” humans by shooting them on sight. What a wasteland.
Right before passing out I have a thought. I check the Pip-boy logs from today charting my vitals, and as far as I can tell there have been no permanent effects on my health from me donating blood here. As I drift off I wonder, how much plasma can one man safely donate, anyway?
What should Johnny Smash do next?
-Camp here a while, trading blood (which I THINK won’t affect my health) and piano songs for a heap of Newline treasures? And do I try to speed up the process by gambling at the slots?
-Continue sneaking North through probably impossible deathclaw country? Also, are you nuts?
-Go back and get Wattsworth, explore the lovely-sounding nearby “state of Utobitha”?
-A combination of these things? Something else entirely?