Just a Guy and a Gate to the Multiverse - Chapter 7 (Patreon)

Chapter 7 - Settling down

— On the Road from Concord, 2287 —

This is so cool!

I feel like a walking tank. Sure, it’s just the T-45 Power Armor, the oldest Power Armor model in existence, but it still feels amazing.

With Power Armor at hand, I feel much more confident about surviving this Wasteland. Of course, it will need some modifications, and I am planning to get the best Power Armor I possibly can.

But this T-45 is a solid start.

Followed by the survivors of Concord, I passed the Red Rocket truck stop. It was a place that confused me a lot earlier today. It actually made me doubt whether this world worked based on game laws.

After all, I expected Dogmeat, the classic Fallout dog companion, to be waiting for me here. But he never appeared. Now that I am thinking about it, that makes quite a bit of sense.

First of all, I am not the protagonist. And secondly, there are a lot of theories out there that this version of Dogmeat was sent by the Institute to spy on the Sole Survivor because they stole his son.

The Institute has no reason yet to specifically spy on me.

At least I still found the Fusion Core in a cave infested with Molerats below the truck stop, along with a ton of Glowing Fungus and Brain Fungus. Crafting materials for medicine and drugs.

I plan to farm as much of them as I can and figure out a way to cultivate them myself, too. They sound like classic potion ingredients for magical worlds, which I plan to visit in the future, so they may come in handy.

Soon, we arrived at Sanctuary Hills.

“Is this the place you want to build a settlement?” Preston Garvey asked as his gaze wandered over the collection of rundown buildings, many of them collapsed.

“Yes, I know it doesn’t look like much. But with the river here, it will be a better defensible position. And I have a ton of building materials to work with. Let’s make sure you guys have a roof over your heads first.” I smirked as I exited my Power Armor and approached the first of the collapsed buildings.

As soon as I touched it, I activated the deconstruction and reconstruction alchemy arrays worn as sleeves on my arms and rearranged the existing materials into a two-floor home.

Taking a glance at the five survivors, I said, “That should be enough for the first few nights, shouldn’t it?”

They just nodded dumbly.

Of course, it would be enough. Those people are used to living in ruins. The newest buildings they have ever seen were made out of scrap from broken ones. They looked like literal scrap.

Meanwhile, I gave them a house that looked just like a new one from the pre-war era. Something they had only seen in pictures, if ever.

That’s my whole selling point for my cheap labor force. I am planning to exploit them from a modern perspective while they view me as a saint. I will turn Sanctuary into a bustling city surpassing Diamond City, while they mainly make me richer.

I am planning to leave this world with the best things I can have. And much of the stuff that is valuable to me isn’t worth much to them.

A perfect plan.

“Yes, it is more than enough!” Sturges said quickly, probably fearing I would kick them out.

“Eh, that’s just the first house. And a temporary one. I plan for each house to have several floors. You guys will need to gather as many materials as you can from the surrounding area. It doesn’t matter what condition they are in. As you just saw, I can restructure them to be as good as new. Now then, let’s see about getting you some beds and doing something about food and water. I’ve got some seeds. There should also be enough materials for a generator and water purifier.” I mused as I began to take charge of my workforce.

———

I’ve been busy these last few days. Building up Sanctuary Hills was more work than I anticipated, although I probably overdid it. But I am the kind guy who does one Job in bulk, before doing something else for a while.

At this point, the small town is ready to house over a hundred people. And I mean with beds and everything ready the moment they arrive. We only have five people living there right now.

Each house in the settlement has four floors. Nothing too extravagant, since I am no architect, but it provides enough vertical infrastructure to use the available space as sparingly as possible. After all, the island Sanctuary is on only has limited space.

Of course, the whole island isn’t covered with buildings yet. There are only five residential buildings so far, each one with four floors, making them big enough overall to comfortably house twenty people.

So a hundred people is just the minimum. If they cram together, more can fit.

But for more buildings, I would need more materials. That is the main limiting factor. With my alchemy, construction is easy. Even machines are easy to make. I just need to transmute them part by part and then let someone assemble them.

With a more complex transmutation circle I should be able to create a machine in one transmutation. But that would require an circle desgin for each individual machine. It's only necessarc for bulk stuff, like power generators and similar.

And with alchemy, none of the materials go to waste. No matter how broken or small, everything has its use.

The Fullmetal Alchemist universe must have a really easy time with infrastructure if they employ alchemists.

Anyway, the main reason I limited myself to five buildings for now is because we focused on our defenses first. Garvey and his people were mostly busy carrying stones for me from the surrounding area.

Meanwhile, I kept transmuting a big wall around the island, reaching down to the water level and keeping the radioactive liquid away from our soil, too. So the walls don’t just act as a defense, but also as protection from radiation.

None of the water comes directly into contact with the soil on our island. At this point, the island can only be entered from two points, where the bridges originally were. One leads up to the Vault, and the other is the big one where the main street to Red Rocket begins.

I repaired those too, but partially turned them into motorized drawbridges. The walls are lined with automatic defense turrets, making sure to actively keep any raiders or other enemies away.

It is a solid defense for the beginning. Of course, I am still planning to expand it. For now, it’s just walls with regular turrets. I am planning to add towers and make the walls taller and thicker with a two-layer design, each one lined with turrets.

But all of that is a matter of materials. For now, I have a good workforce gathering more for me. I am sure this will become a popular trading spot soon, where traders will deliver even more materials. And Garvey said he would invite more settlers, too.

Lastly, I used alchemy to remove all the radiation from the soil on the entire island, then used my Power Armor to dispose of it away from the island. I gave the settlers some of the seeds I brought from the FMA world so they could start farming.

Even if I am going vegetarian in this world, I am not planning to eat any mutated goods. I want to minimize my exposure to radiation as much as possible.

Once Sanctuary was ready for them to handle on their own, I started exploring the surrounding Wasteland more. Or rather, I started targeting some more good loot spots I knew of. I even got another partial set of Power Armor.

After that, I isolated myself in Vault 111 with my Power Armor, Fusion Cores, and other loot. It was time for me to start the first of my experiments and ideas.

— Over a Month Later —

“You are heading out in that Power Armor everywhere at this point. Aren’t you worried about running out of Fusion Cores?” Preston Garvey asked when I stepped out of my modified Power Armor.

Yes, it was modified. I put a lot of effort into that baby.

Well, it is a proof of concept, but I am planning to do the same with more advanced versions of Power Armor. Especially that X-02 model belonging to the Enclave. The best kind of Power Armor around.

It took me the entire month to figure things out and get my modifications working properly. Fortunately, I managed to get them working.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve got a good source of them,” I shrugged as I took a look around the settlement. I had visited a few times to get some fresh food supplies, but it really had gotten more crowded, hadn’t it? “How are things in Sanctuary?”

“Everything is working fine and following the rules. I’ve got the Caps from our exports to the traders in my room, and I bought up as many of the materials you wanted as possible,” Garvey replied, walking beside me as I began inspecting the town. Then he added, “But we ran out of living space. We will need a few more houses.”

“That’s fine. At this point, you must have gathered enough materials to build several more. You saw how fast I am able to construct.” I replied. I could clearly see that we had a lot more than a hundred people here at this point. They must have crowded together.

Well, building is fast. I will do that first, then head further into the Commonwealth. It is time to put real effort into getting all the technology I want.

I asked further, “What about raiders? Any problems on that front?”

“There have been a few attempts at an attack. But against our defenses, they stood no chance. They died to the turrets before they could even reach the walls. And with all that radioactive water surrounding our tall walls, they pretty much stand no chance,” Garvey shrugged. “Honestly, this is the easiest defense job I have ever had.”

“Well, good to hear. But don’t get careless. Make sure you have enough trained men to fight, too. A big settlement like this will attract the wrong attention. In fact, you should start recruiting men for a defense force, like Diamond City.” Now that I think about it, that is actually a good idea. They can also act as my own army in the future. “Start small so you don’t affect the economy, then work up from there.”

“That’s easy enough. I believe it’s time for the Minutemen to be reborn. If you want, you could be the new General leading us,” Garvey commented slyly.

Here it is. This guy is still trying to recruit me to do the dirty work for him.

“I can be the Commander-in-Chief above the General,” I replied instead. “My strengths are in other areas. You should handle the day-to-day tasks. I am too busy handling other stuff while taking care of construction for all of you.”

Take that, sucker. Be my private army without making me handle the odd jobs.

Soon, I was busy building more houses for the settlers, letting this town grow even further. We will become the biggest settlement in the Commonwealth. At this point, several industries are forming in my city, making me even richer since everyone has to hand over large parts of their production.

And they are even happy about it! This is just great.

Finally, I am able to head out into the Commonwealth.

———

My Power Armor is just amazing. The Alchemical T-45 Power Armor is an incredible combination of alchemy and technology.

I can’t help but gush while I blow up another Super Mutant with a large blast of fire from my hand. Yep, I added transmutation circles to the Power Armor.

On the inside of my right hand is, of course, Roy Mustang’s Flame Alchemy array. I also added a small device into the armored hand that can create sparks to ignite the oxygen.

So there is no need for snapping with special combustible gloves anymore. And I no longer have a weakness when it rains, like Mustang did. After all, the gloves couldn’t spark while they were wet. A technological solution is far more reliable.

My left hand has the Ice Alchemy array instead. I chose versatility rather than using the same alchemy twice.

It can basically remove energy from anything to freeze it, or add more energy to heat it, relying on the principles of thermodynamics. It is another powerful weapon in my arsenal. Maybe not as destructive as Flame Alchemy or Explosion Alchemy, but very versatile.

Of course, the insides of the arm sections of my Power Armor are engraved with Scar’s brother’s deconstruction and reconstruction arrays. I still want to be able to manipulate my surroundings and have a method to kill most things in close combat.

With my Power Armor, I don’t need to be as afraid of close combat as before. I have powerful armor protecting me, making it hard for anyone to kill me quickly.

I also added another transmutation circle to my Power Armor on the inside of its chest plate. That one is defensive in nature. Or rather, I can use it to repair the armor plating of my suit, negating most damage as long as I react fast enough and it isn’t too severe.

Of course, I can’t keep those transmutation circles active all the time. After all, it takes concentration, and even at my peak, I can only use one transmutation circle at a time. This is one of the limits of alchemy.

I need to actively feed geothermal energy from the earth below me to power a transmutation circle.

At least, that is how alchemy and alkahestry usually work.

I found a small workaround that can be applied in certain cases. A stroke of genius on my part, I have to admit, and one of the main reasons why I chose to come to the Fallout universe. I wanted to know if it would actually work.

Instead of geothermal energy, I use the power generated by the nuclear fusion inside the Fusion Core to power a transmutation array. That transmutation array, on the other hand, separates the stable fused matter inside the Fusion Core back into its unstable form, granting the core infinite matter to generate energy from.

Yes, I got a Fusion Core that works indefinitely. Its only limitation is how much power it can generate at once. A perfect alchemical and technological cycle, with each part powering the other and my Power Armor.

Unfortunately, an indefinitely working transmutation circle can only be powered by energy that is generated inside that transmutation circle. I needed to start the process first like a regular one. But once it was running, the circle was closed and kept working.

That’s why I can’t use it for my repair circle and have to activate that one manually.

Two different transmutation circles that overlap and affect the same matter are very dangerous. They will cause unforeseen and very deadly consequences, since they interfere with each other’s workings.

I learned that the hard way. I even lost my spare Power Armor and almost my life too. In order to activate a transmutation circle, I have to be close to it.

It was a good thing that I was cautious enough not to be inside the Power Armor while testing whether the transmutation arrays worked, because as soon as I realized that something was wrong, I was able to create some distance between myself and the armor and transmute a wall between us.

But the resulting small nuclear explosion was still powerful enough to almost kill me. It was a good thing that, as a precaution, I always carry my Philosopher’s Stone with me. If I didn’t, I would have died.

No risk, no fun.

At least I have an amazing Power Armor now, and my Fusion Cores don’t run out of power. Multiversal travel feels kind of like cheating. Even if I almost blow myself up.

[ End of the Chapter ]