"You guys do whatever, I'm going to look around the town."
Go and explore the town, especially the rodeo.
The town isn't especially big, even counting the ruins that lay outside the walls and the outlying farms. Much bigger than the vault, but nothing approaching a city the vault's elders spoke of. Most people live in the ruins of old houses, patched up with post-war scraps. Likewise, old main-street has a series of repaired shops selling a variety of goods, alongside a couple of post-war stalls set up by the traveling merchants. Barrels and buckets of water can be seen set up along town, taken from the purifiers in a pond that used to be next to a golf-course.
Surprisingly near the town's entrance is the rodeo, a large structure surrounded by as series of metal fences. Inside the fences are the promised array of animals-a couple angry looking brahmin bulls with impressively large horns. Next to them is the robotic rides, the first a one-headed mechanical bull. Not the mechanical bull you'd see in a bar, but a four-legged nuclear-powered hydraulic bucking machine. Next to it is a Mr. Handy with a chair welded to the top of its head. Its left to freely rotate, adding a spinning twist to the classic ride. The final exhibit combined both robot and animal, being a particularly large cyberdog. It is this beast that is currently hitting the dusty field, trying to knock the rider from its back in front of an impressively sized crowd. With a final buck it succeeds, sending the crowd into a series of cheers and boos as money exchanges hands.
Sneak/Lockpick my way into an empty house. Steal some caps and Sneak/Lock the door out/behind me.
"Come on Katie, go with the Deathclaw.", she whispers before sneaking away.
Leaving the cat behind, the catburgler begins robbing the innocent townspeople. She makes her way to the residential district, discretely finding an empty home, and easily clicks past its defenses. The insides are very plain, with a couple of mattresses lying on the floor and sunlight flowing through the roof in various places. A handful of caps where lying on the counter next to bags filled with food. She swipes them, making her way out the door.
As she is locking the door behind her, from the corner of her eye she sees two guards walking down the street on patrol. One of them points at her, and the pair begins walking in her direction.
((Lockpick PASSED, Sneak FAILED))
check out the merchants and see what they sell. Pet the good radcat named Katie.
Most merchants by the gate are of the traveling variety, with a suitably wide variety of goods available. Most spend their days either traveling to the surrounding settlements or the mining town passed the pass. Those who visit settlements tend to bring back food while selling low-quality supplies and weapons, those who go pass the pass tend to bring the same food wile returning with higher-quality weapons and equipment, in addition to raw metal. It looks like the guards and townspeople bought out all the good guns, but just about anything else should be easy to purchase here.
In addition, it should be easy to get information about the surrounding area. You should also be able to get a job guarding the caravans going back, after the raider issue is dealt with.
As Crank Hank aproached Edgar, his inticts were screaming him to run as fast as possible. There was something horribly wrong with that man, and Edgar could feel the strange aura of dread and misfortune that followed him. A terrible curse of unluck, every word he said foreshadowed cataclysms and disasters.
"W-what the hell is wrong with you?! Get away from me! You reek of bad luck!"
Run towards the rodeo! Get away from there!
Seeing the man run away in (substantiated) terror, Hank, came to the only reasonable conclusion - he would have to prove his luck to everyone, so he found some suitable target and threw one of his spears at it. Everyone knows that when people don't trust you only solution is random acts of aggresion against paper bulls' eyes,
As Edgar's good luck meets its evil opposite, he begins to run like a sensible person. Like an unsensible person, this is met with a thrown spear. His skill overcoming his luck handicap, it pierces a bale of hay feet in front of Edgar blocking his path! Without damaging anything important either! What a strange outcome!
Less strangely, the surrounding people all look his way with their hands on their guns. This includes a Mr. Handy, who's hands are already weapons making this act redundant.
Blaine has nothing he really wants to do here, so he just wanders about seemingly aimlessly. It is not completely aimless however, because as he wandered around, he listened in to every conversation he could hear, slowly learning what he could.
Eavesdrop on everyone and everything I can find. Discreetly.
A Mr. Handy beeps repeatedly.
Several of the refugees are worried about their farms, about the raider attack, and wondering when they can go back home. The townspeople seems to be much more optimistic about their chances.
Gamblers are talking about the rodeo. Mostly about the odds of each beast, and of some of the more popular riders. Apparently a "Champion" managed to last a record 40 seconds on the Steel Bull.
Several merchants are smoking while sitting around a radio. A
song plays, before the DJ gives the news.
"Bobcat Mitch here with the latest in Triple Trident's developments. Scouts report that a group of raiders camped outside the settlement have broken off from the main force and are headed north passed the town. If we're lucky, some warlord just ditched with his men. But I wouldn't get your hopes up people. If your a betting man, then put your money on them looking for L and C tribe. That's all I have for news, now back to the music..."