The two talked more casually as they continued on the path that Adam, this time, carefully plotted before he left midway, arriving at their destination after about an hour more of travel. A warehouse.
Adam had heard this warehouse could be a source of goods worth looting. He did have reliable intel that it had been scavenged from before but not in quite some time. Besides, it was a warehouse, it had to have something valuable left behind, certainly.
The building itself looked to still be in good standing, weather worn, and ravaged by time, sure, but otherwise it seemed to have survived the bombs well. A good sign.
"I don't know what we will find, so keep your wits about you." Adam said as he approached the massive door at the front of the building and began to slowly open it.
"Understood." Deccanus said seriously as he drew his machete and prepared for whatever might be on the other side.
Inside the door was dark, predictably, though the natural light coming in from outside through the now open door was giving quite a long sightline down a long row of metal shelving units stacked all the way to the impressively high ceiling. There also seemed to be some breaks in the ceiling in some areas because more natural light shone in from above randomly throughout the warehouse. For the moment though, they were not shot at, they were not attacked, they were not spotted. It seemed to be unoccupied, at least for now. However neither man was letting his guard down.
As they began to enter the building Adam turned on his lights to offer more visibility. At first blush the shelves were, indeed, full of boxes, however most of them seemed to have already been broken open, their contents long since taken, some boxes were smashed entirely, and there was also a notable amount of empty space. It was not a great first look, but it was just the entrance, this building was huge, there was no telling what they might find if they kept searching. Perhaps it might not be the goldmine that Adam had secretly hoped it was, but if it yielded something at all it would be worthwhile. Perhaps hoping for a warehouse full of goods only a few hours from Midway that he could monopolize himself was too much to ask. But hey, let a man dream.
Then, as they continued to scour the building more, slowly finding some things worth bringing back, he began to hear it. Skittering.
It immediately shot a shiver up Adam's spine. He knew this sound.
"Deccanus! There are radroaches!" He shouted to him. Deccanus gave him a strange look, he was unconcerned. It seemed to be on the tip of Deccanus' tongue to ask why Adam seemed to panicked by them.
For Adam's sake, he didn't necessarily think they were a threat. But he really did hate bugs. He didn't specifically have a fear of bugs, but giant cockroaches were about the worst bug to see a giant version of. And ever since he was spooked by one that crawled out from under the fridge when he had recently left the vault he was excessively not fond of them.
"I see. Then we shall clear the infestation." Deccanus said, calmly, clearly not worried about the situation like Adam was. However after he began to say this new noises began to be heard, buzzing, chattering, clicking. There was much more than just skittering. Now Deccanus seemed to be on alert as he took a stance. The sounds seemed to be coming from all directions.
"Blood bugs, radroaches, giant mantis, bloatflies… perhaps even a radscorpion…" Deccanus said slowly as he parsed through the sounds he was hearing to pick out each one individually.
"You mean we walked into a hive of bugs?" Adam said, grossed out.
"No. A hive implies they work together. It's more accurate to say an ecosystem." Deccanus corrected.
"Well excuse me professor, forgive me for not taking my ecology lessons seriously." Adam joked as he drew his laser pistol and readied him for the inevitable fight they would have as the sounds drew closer and closer.
Then the first bugs began to emerge. Blood bugs. Giant mosquitos the size of a 10 year old child. They flew in through the holes in the roof as they dove right for the two new sources of fresh blood.
Deccanus cleaved one in half mid flight as it dove at him with his machete and Adam shot two more down with his laser pistol, each one took more than two shots, they were tough.
However that was not the end as Adam was hit by something in his chest from an angle he wasn't looking. It hit him hard but didn't break through his combat armor.
In the distance, from a dark area above a shelf where a pool of irradiated water stagnated, a large fly the size of a toddler was zipping erratically side to side and up and down. Adam shot at it only to find his first few shots missed their mark, it was moving so erratically it was hard to hit. Then he remembered VATS.
Activating his pip-boy he brought up VATS and, using the predictive algorithm he was able to nail the bastard on his next shot, killing it instantly. However as he was patting himself on the back from hitting it he was nipped at on the shin.
He yelped in pain as he looked down and noticed a radroach at his heels. He fucking hated these things.
He fired more times than were necessary at the radroach before seeing a handful more crawling out from other shelves towards him. He killed the rest of them before they approached.
However when he had looked down at the radroaches he noticed a gross larva stuck to his chest, right where the bloatfly had hit him. It had thrown its own larva egg at him as an attack? Luckily it didn't even seem to puncture the armor so it was just flailing about uselessly as it tried to chew through the body armor. He pulled it off, threw it on the ground, and then stomped on it.
He heard a grunt of effort from behind him and whipped around fast enough to see Deccanus, with his spear, cleaving through a group of mantises the size of small children. His spear cut one of them and the rest he batted away like he was playing baseball. The force was enough to visibly break some of the bugs' limbs but they didn't seem to be done with the fight yet.
Adam was about to move to help him when he felt the ground rumble underneath him, something was breaking through the cracked, formerly concrete, ground. He jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a giant stinger nearly the size of him.
As he looked at the creature it was just as Deccanus said, a scorpion. Or, rather, a radscorpion. Does everything need to have the word rad in it?
Regardless this thing was huge, it was comparable to a human in size though slightly larger than Adam by a bit. It was built exactly like a scorpion with two massive pincers at the front and a stinger tail. Adam was not looking to get impaled with that tail as it would likely kill him if it did. So he backed up.
What was most interesting about the scorpion was that it seemed to glow a luminescent green. It actually gave off a faint light and his pip-boy's geiger counter was even clicking slowly indicating that it was irradiated. Was that why they were called radscorpions? Whatever, thoughts for later.
He began to fire his laser pistol at the scorpion but found it was having little effect on the creature. So he swapped guns.
Pulling out his rifle he got one shot off, which did seem to do considerable damage before the scorpion swiped at him with its pincers. He managed to dodge out of the way by jumping back only to back up against a shelf.
He fired again, another great hit, but the bug didn't seem to stop, the scorpion seemed to have him dead in its sights. Adam didn't have time to fire again before it once more swiped at him, another near miss.
Adam got his shot off, shooting one of its pincers clean off, it reared in pain, letting off a scream like noise before it moved to charge back in.
It swiped at him with its pincer and once more missed Adam, however Adam was slow to avoid its next attack from its tail. While it did not impale him as he feared it did nick his lower arm near the back of his wrist, not too deep of a cut, but enough to draw blood. A close call for sure.
Adam fired again, this time taking a chunk out of its tail. However as it once more charged forward ready to try to sting Adam again a spear came flying through the air and impaled it through its body right into the ground. The spear stuck in place as it writhed in pain. Adam wasted no time and emptied the rest of his magazine into the scorpion without delay, killing it on the last bullet in his gun.