"Fuck shit fuck." A voice of a man spoke through Adam's pip-boy when he started the holotape. "There's water everywhere, goddamn pipeburst right under the main room, boss is going to be pissed about- wait… what was that noise?" The sounds of gunshots followed as well as some screams in the far distance. "THE FUCK IS THAT THING?!" The sounds of gunshots continued as they kept firing.
"Everyone, we have to go! Get the fuck out of here! Grab your shit and go!"
"What about the others? Or our loot?"
"Shut the fuck up! You want to become Lakelurk food? Grab the essentials and go. Fuck am I still recording? Fuck you recorder… you know what?" The tape then cut out suddenly.
Adam left the holotape in his pip-boy when the recording finished, it was enough of a pain putting it in when both his hands were occupied, he could take it out later when he was more able to.
"Well, sounds about exactly what I thought." Salvatore said casually as he smoked. "Fuckers got invaded by the 'lurks and ran off, the ones who didn't run died. Good. Fuckem." He grinned. Adam paused to consider.
"What's the difference between a Lakelurk and a Mirelurk?"
"One lives in a lake, one lives in a mire." Salvatore said with a shit eating grin. "Look, I don't fucking know, kid. They got all sorts of names but they are all just giant fucking crabs, I kill 'em, sometimes I eat 'em, that's as much as I know. If you want to know more about the various differences in the 'lurk biology' go ask a fisherman from The Pier."
"Do the people on The Pier often deal with lakelurks?"
"Oh yeah. They deal with them all the time, they live on a lake so naturally they deal with its inhabitants." He finished his cigarette and threw the butt on the ground, leaving it behind as they kept walking. Adam nodded slowly as he got lost in his own thoughts for a moment.
"Ghoul town has its own merchants, right? Am I correct to assume that?" Adam asked, changing gears.
"What?" Salvatore started, caught off guard by the sudden topic switch. "Yeah. it does. Ghouls can't get into the main city so we got our own merchants to sell whatever the people need. Merchants from the city sometimes come to trade but not often, usually it's on ghouls to trade with ghouls. Why?" Adam paused for a moment more to process his thoughts.
"I'm thinking that we could maybe sell some of this stuff to the ghoul merchants. It's some valuable loot we got and I'm sure they would appreciate a fresh infusion of goods. Though I will save some to sell elsewhere, I've already made promises to sell some of the loot I found to Lune in the city."
"Well…" Salvatore paused to consider. "Yeah, If you want to. I mean it's your shit so what you do with it isn't my business but if that's what you want to do I can bring you to the merchant square."
"I'd appreciate that." Adam smiled.
The rest of the walk back to the town was uneventful, nothing came to bother them and the route back was simple and straightforward as it was when they left the city.
When they got back to the entrance gate they saw some men wearing long purple cloaks and hoods that tapered off into a sickly dark green on the bottom. As they drew closer, the gate opened for them and let them in.
"Who are those guys?" Adam asked curiously.
"You think I know every asshole who comes and goes into the city?" Salvatore asked with a bit of sass.
"No but they stand out a lot, so I figured it was worth asking." Salvatore paused and then sighed.
"Well you are lucky, I do know who they are." He paused again for a moment stopping short of the gate so they didn't have to interact with the guards yet. "They are from the Order of Pestilence"
"Order of Pestilence?" Adam asked.
"Yeah, or well, I don't know what they are really called, that's just what I know them as, they work for the Horseman Pestilence, obviously. But as I've said already I don't know much about them. They aren't always hostile but they give me the creeps. My advice, stay away from them, they are bad news, probably worse news than War's group if you ask me." Adam nodded slowly.
"I understand." Salvatore grinned and then patted Adam's shoulder before heading to the gate.
The two of them went through the same speech as last time, it seemed that the guards always gave this speech to everyone who comes into the town no matter if they were just here or not. Luckily the speech was not that long.
Once through the gate Salvatore led Adam along towards Ghoul town. With Salvatore leading the way there was no near altercation with any ghouls at the wall this time. Though no ghoul neighborhood watch was standing outside this time so he likely would have been able to get in easily anyway.
Salvatore led Adam through the streets and towards the Private terminal.
"In here." Salvatore said as he opened the door for Adam, letting him go in first. Recognizing that Adam's hands were full. Once inside Adam looked around the terminal. In many ways the private terminal was set up like a miniature version of Midway proper, buildings littered the inside of the entrance area and much of the space had been converted to shops and stalls. However, as it was a private terminal, despite being quite sizable, its scale was nowhere on par with Midway proper so it was not maze-like, only one row of buildings and then check-in counter space broken into different shops.
Ghouls were walking around conducting business with each other. If Adam hadn't already seen Midway this would have been an impressive sight, though as he had it was just normal for him.
"I'll show you to a guy I know, come along." Salvatore said as he stepped past Adam and led the way to the shop counters.
"Hey Sal!" Another ghoul said as he watched as Salvatore walked over. "I see you picked up a smoothskin, you here to sell him to me?" The ghoul grinned, clearly joking, but there was a tiny dark edge to his words that was hard to shake. Adam chose to pay it no mind.
"Not today I'm afraid." Salvatore said as he hoisted his bag off his bag and put it on the counter.
"This here is my new boss. Bought out my contract."
"What's with you and all the smoothskins?" He asked with a raised eyebrow.
"They pay well, bite me." He said back casually and then turned to Adam. "Adam this is Hobson, Hobson, Adam." He said making brief introductions.
"Nice to meet you Adam. Don't take my words too seriously, I'm just busting this guy's balls." He grinned.
"Certainly, I understand." Adam chuckled and then hoisted the duffle bag on to the counter to get it out of his hand, then the gun too.
"I'm here to sell." He grinned.