Story

*Click **here** if you want to know the history leading up to the present day timeline of Fallout: The Horizon Ahead.*

Consider this a repository for all the campaigns and their stories that are ran using this setting/world.

### **2291**

**Degen** arrives in **New York** after his long and treacherous journey coming from Ronto.

**Subject Five** and his **brothers** (*Subject's One through Four*) are **teleported** to their designated waypoints, which are markers scattered around **New York**, their mission to find and locate a key asset to recover stolen information.

##### Statue of Liberty

Degen and Subject 5 encounter each other inside the raider occupied **Statue of Liberty**, which has had its interiors converted into a rest area and fighting pit, the large group of shifty characters look at the fights. Degen buys some water while Subject 5 looks around the room, and the suddenly the fight stops in the pit.

The raiders unsatisfied with the fight lead the winner out and grab Subject 5 and Degen, and forcefully make them enter the fighting arena. They are both told to fight to the death, and unwilling to do so they begin to look for a way out. Nearby they spot a grate and as rocks begin to get hurled at them for disobeying, Degen uses his rage and lifts up the heavy metal grating, moving it aside for them to slip through. Degen uses a rope and quickly ties it and then heads down using it, and as Subject 5 starts to ascend, the weight of two on the rope untie the the rope causing them to both slip into the darkness below.

They land in some sort of area and are immediately attacked by some feral ghouls, they work together and dispatch them, hearing the shouting raiders from ahead. They continue on forwards and encounter some radroaches, taking them out but sustaining some damage. They find an exit leading to the surface.

As they leave they are met with a group that are on their way into the Statue, Degen uses deception and lies that they are supposed to be here. The group buys it and continues on unaware, then Degen and Subject 5 make their way away from the Statue of Liberty and move Northwards to the city.

##### Wayward Soul

As the two make their way to the city together they come across an individual camping alone. Subject 5 makes his way stealthily behind the man with a knife and begins to interrogate him for information, seeing the overwhelmingly aggressive actions Degen berates Subject 5 and tells him to let the man loose.

The man is a babbling mess, and Degen yells at the man to calm down. He talks about being from a village that is in desperate need, and how they are starving. As he says that, Degen gives the man some food and lets him eat before talking some more. The man says that he is looking for his brother **Blue** who has some prewar book about agriculture and that he hasn't come back so he might be in trouble, and that he is looking for some parts for machine or something to find a source of groundwater.

Degen tries to get Subject 5's name and he says its not important, so he decides to call him Portent. He then tries to get the name of the man, who says his name is **Greg**.

Greg says that it is located in some basements of the Statue, and then the two hesitate. Degen still wounded from his last encounter and Subject 5 is uncertain. Greg begs and pleads and eventually wins over them, leading them to the place. It is a spot far off, marked with a large boulder that has a basement. The entranceway was blocked but Degen and Subject 5 work together to move the debris.

Entering the sloped entrance they are led into a sewer like area. Degen decides to light a torch and is coerced to lead the way, and is almost immediately brought down unconscious as a group of radroaches ambushed them. They work together, but are both at near death. Subject 5 leads the way stealthily, and they both engage in ranged combat to fell off the enemies to try to make their way in deeper and deeper, eventually finding the location of the mans brother; being held hostage in a similar situation as they were in the area they were prior, inside the fight pit found at the Statue of Liberty.

They double back and explore some more, finding what looks like an experimental area with a bunch of storage boxes. Looking inside the reinforced glass the two see a bunch of experiment tubes. One is broken open and there looks like signs of burrowing leading outside, and the rest have dead deathclaws laying limp. Inside the boxes they find some medical stimpaks, and they both have one; deciding to take their chances and to rescue the mans brother.

##### Brother Glowe

Roughly a day prior to the events of Degen and Subject 5 meeting, a pair of wastelanders wake up from their established camping site. Two **Children of Atom**, making pilgrimage towards the Oasis of Atom. An ancient looking ghoul named **Brother Glowe** and his student, and a half super mutant nightkin named **Gatekeeper**.

The two get up and pack up their supplies, Brother Glowe prepares a meal of cooked pork 'n beans and rations on the coal remnants of their fireplace. Gatekeeper asks him where their next stop is, and Glowe takes a moment to look around, test the wind direction with a saliva covered finger, and then points to a seemingly random direction saying that will be their next path forward.

Travelling for a few hours, the two come across a small campsite with a human wastelander in a vault suit and his pack brahmin just relaxing near some shade provided by the terrain. Glowe waves, and the man waves back. Approaching, they have a short talk and Glowe brings up the Children of Atom, and tries to do his preaching shtick to him, which he politely declines. Glowe not wanting to waste the mans time, buys some water off of him and the two continue to walk the path set by Brother Glowe.

After some more time travelling they come across an abandoned shack in the middle of the wasteland, deciding to take a moment to look over and see if there is anything worth salvaging or taking they both go inside and witness a decaying corpse of a wastelander who looks like he's been dead for months, perhaps years. Brother Glowe insists that they take a moment to bury the poor soul, and Gatekeeper agrees and helps.

After burying the body, they start to walk back inside the shack to do a once over; but before they are able to they hear some noise coming from outside. Heading out they immediately see a large group of roving raiders heading directly to them. They have no good intentions, and immediately begin to hoot and holler in excitement as they find their "new fresh meat", happy to see the sight of Gatekeeper's physique and not too impressed with Glowe's withered body.

Knowing the old man isn't worth the dragging back, the leader of the group lifts up his sawn-off shotgun towards Glowe's head who attempts to dissuade the chem addicted savage to not resort to violence, Gatekeeper tries to help and also persuade him but with their shaky and scared voice; only further aggravate the raider leader who doesn't hesitate and shoots Glowe point blank in the head, killing him instantly.

Gatekeeper is defeated by seeing her mentor and guidance being killed so ruthlessly and without good reason, she has chains put around her feet and she is taken towards the Statue of Liberty to compete in the raiders games.

##### Saving Blue

Before leaving the room the duo explore a bit further and Degen comes across a powered terminal, while Subject 5 rounds the other end of the room and heads up a short flight of stairs and nearly almost walks into an active turret. He is able to dodge out of the way, and then Degen calls over Subject 5 towards the active computer; who begins to hack into it, successfully.

Given access into the terminal revealed two prompts, one to change parameters and the other was a toggle to activate and deactivate a turret. Deactivating the turret, the two are given access to the hallway that the turret was facing and begin to look around. Inside the guarded nook, the find a strange looking drilling machine which the two instantly recognize as being the thing that Greg's brother Blue was looking for.

Degen using Subject 5's crowbar attempts to pry the turret from the floor to relocate it, but his efforts are fruitless as the machine is welded securely onto a metal tripod which is firmly bolted onto the ground. Handing it back, the two formulate a plan of attack. The plan boils down to Degen drawing the attention of the raiders in the room with the hostages down into the turret hallway while it is deactivated, and have Subject 5 hide near the terminal after moving some of the barrels in the room as partial cover to activate it once they are in the kill zone.

Degen relents, and asks if he could take the Med-X that Subject 5 found earlier as he'll probably need it. Subject 5 gives him the syringe, and they begin to rearrange the room getting ready for their ambush. After everything is in position, Degen amps himself up and begins to backtrack to the manhole cover leading to the raiders arena audience/hostage holding area.

Degen amps himself up, raises his welding mask up and then tosses open the manhole cover open, shouting at the top of his lungs to "*COME AT ME YOU MOTHERFUCKERS!*" as he begins to quickly sprint back to their ambush site. Leading them with shouts, taunts and other barks and roars, Degen eventually leads them down into their room and into the firing range of the turret. Looking at them cornering Degen, Subject 5 activates the turret and it begins to fire at the raiders.

As soon as the gunfire is heard from the turret, Degen knows it's time to do what needs to be done and regretfully injects the Med-X. The sweet euphoria and pain numbing relief that the Med-X provided pushed him over the edge and as a result his addiction to the chem returned, though that would be a worry for later as when the raiders began to come at him; his crazed expression and pain absorption made the human mutant hybrid return back into his monstrous and feral ways.

Taking hits like a champion Degen counterattacked with his claws while Subject 5 provided stealthy sneak attacks from range with his 10mm pistol. The two are able to take down the group of three raiders and what looked like a raider captain. Degen starting to feel the side effects of the Med-X withdrawal post battle puts his welding mask back down and takes a moment to catch himself against a wall after feeling a wave of lightheadedness.

Disabling the turrets, the two have a chance to loot through their remains and are able to pick up a few decent items, such as ammo, medicine, and even a firearm for Degen to use. Satisfied with their victory, the two begin to move back up the way Degen came and they come out up from the manhole.

##### Spark of Hope

Gatekeeper, still distraught over the events that only happened around a day prior, ruminates in her chains along with the other prisoners and slaves the raiders have caught for their game. She looks around and see's many dead or in the process of dying people who don't deserve this fate, as well as her neighbor; a bearded bald man.

Both of them look up from their dazed states to notice and listen to the strange large figure emerging from a nearby manhole, taunting the raiders to chase after him. Given this chance, the two look at each other with a spark of hope, and begin to try to find a way out of their situation. The raiders did not confiscate anything from their captives, so Gatekeeper attempts to use a few of her bobby pins to try to get the lock off of the chains.

Her trembling hands do her no favors and she breaks a few before the man asks if he could attempt to try. Luckily, the man seems to be quite skilled and is able to open both locks on their respective chains. They relish in this moment of freedom and decide to head down the same way that the strange figure came from after hearing the gunshots and screaming stop.

Heading down, they encounter their rescuers, a human man in a black trench coat and a large hooded and robed mutant of some kind, obfuscated by their mask and clothes. As they head down, the large mutant asks "*Friend or foe?!*" as they both descend, both saying that they are friendly. Blue thanks them both with his extremely country accent and begins to double back the way they came; the turret room with the dead experimental looking deathclaws.

Being lead back, Degen takes a moment of introspection to himself while looking at the decaying deathclaws in their tanks. One filled with liquid, the other cracked and featuring a drying corpse, and the last one completely devoid of anything with obvious signs that it broke out of containment and burrowed outside. Gatekeeper looks and has a moment to chat with Degen, who seems more focused on what he's seeing rather than the conversation being struck up.

Subject 5 and Blue make their way to the machine, Blue flips some sort of lever hidden on the tech which powers it on. In a surprising feat of strength, Blue somehow manages to lift up and drag the heavy machinery by himself, and leads the group into the room with the turret and begins to unscrew a panel off the wall, allowing the group to enter the deathclaw containment room as Blue presses a button which causes the reinforced glass to lift up like a door.

Blue makes a snide comment about deathclaws to which Degen just replies with a "yeah", and the group continue to follow Blue who leads them through the burrow and out onto the surface of the wasteland once more; immediately spotting a crumbling underpass highway.

##### **Under the Underpass**

The group make their way forward and continue to follow Blue, who leads them further North and towards the crumbling underpass of a prewar highway, heading towards what looks like to be a makeshift junk wall constructed with the remnants of concrete and rebar.

As the group progresses, Gatekeeper tries to break the awkward silence with a joke. Something about the joke rubs Subject 5 off and in an instant turns around and pulls out his 10mm pistol, aiming and firing the weapon straight into Gatekeepers head; knocking them down and leaving them at deaths door, gurgling but not dead. This sudden display of violence frightened Blue, and enraged Degen; who picked him up by the collar and told him that it was uncalled for. Subject 5 shrugs it off and then goes to loot the still breathing and dying body of Gatekeeper. Sickened by this display Blue and Degen both walk away and let Subject 5 finish his work.

When Subject 5 regroups with the group, Degen takes a look behind and see's the still struggling body of Gatekeeper. Unhappy with this, he decides to help them ease through the transition of death a bit quicker, and quickly cuts a major artery in their throat like he was trained to do with hunting animals, to help finish off the sloppy headshot Subject 5 inflicted on this innocent soul. Degen sighs and returns back to the group, with a newfound disrespect for Portent.

Moving on ahead, Degen follows Blue with Subject 5 lagging behind. Blue comes across the way forward, but notices a new blockage that prevents him from moving the machine through it, asking if Degen could move it. He does with relative ease, and the group proceed through the hole in the junk wall.

Going on through they come across an old home, but as they approach they are ambushed by a single protectron robot stationed on the roof, firing down at the group with lasers. The trio quickly make their way closer to the home to get out of line of sight, and then begin to make their way inside. While inside they fend off against a few ghouls, which the combatative duo take care of with ease. They continue to loot through the home and find a few things, of note a .308 Hunting Rifle that Degen finds. Degen gives his spare 10mm pistol with 3 rounds to Blue, who has to be threatened into taking it, and doesn't even hold it properly to use it; as he seemingly is a pacifist.

They begin to make their way to a nearby cellar near the stairs up, but Degen suggests to block the stairs leading up just incase the robot decides to make its way down from the roof. They move a few pieces of furniture to block the path, and move down into the wine cellar. As Subject 5 takes point and sneaks, he encounters radroaches and the duo begin to fight the few pests hidden in the darkness. After a quick fight, they catch their breaths and look around the area.

##### **Up and Under**

Looking around the area, Subject 5 finds a chest and picks it open; while Degen finds a manhole cover and lifts it up. Subject 5 finds some anti radiation drugs such as Rad-X and RadAway, and Degen looks into the dark hole and suggests that they clear out the remaining hostiles in the house, namely the robot on the roof. Subject 5 agrees and takes point as they go back up and prepare to move the blockage for Subject 5 to make his way stealthily up the stairs.

Before going up, Degen tells Blue to give Portent the gun he gave him. Blue happily gives the gun to Subject 5, and Degen also trades his found hunting rifle for Subject 5's found combat helmet. Degen swaps his welding mask for the combat helmet.

Subject 5 creeps up the stairs but isn't sneaky enough, the robot turns around and fires a laser at him, hurting him badly. Subject 5 retaliates and once the fighting starts Degen comes rushing up the stairs. The fight is quick, and Degen gets the last hit with a swipe against the robots glass and metal "brain" casing. After the fight, Degen yells for Blue to come up the stairs to look at a dead robot. He takes some coaxing but is convinced and begins to enthusiastically break down the downed machine like a kid in a candy shop. Degen tells him to stay up here while they take a look in the basement, Blue happily obliges.

As Degen is recovering his javelin which fell from the roof and onto the ground below, he hears splashing coming from the basement below. He tells Subject 5 and the duo make their way back into the wine cellar and look at the manhole leading down. Subject 5 takes point and sneakily goes down. Some Institute technology ringing in his head tells him the area is irradiated, so he pops some of the found Rad-X. Degen see's him eat something and asks if it's okay down there, Subject 5 says it's irradiated so Degen says he'd rather stay up there and not go in.

Subject 5 scoffs and move ahead. He finds many leaking barrels of radioactive material, and eventually stumbles upon a glowing radroach. He is spotted, but quickly backtracks and tries to set up an ambush. He gets the drop on the bug, but gets cornered. After the shot goes off, Degen begins to hastily go down the basement despite his intention not to. The fighting ensues and Degen comes too late, as Subject 5 gets the last hit on it as he comes close. As it dies, it erupts in a small burst of radiative material, harming the both of them. Degen quickly asks Portent to give him some of that Rad-X he ate, and he gets a handful to scoff down quickly in this sickening environment.

As Degen begins to head back he hears some sort of sign of life, be it his innate animalistic nature kicking in, but it seems like a heartbeat or maybe some faint breathing, but he knows that there's something else in this place worth investigating.

### **2292**

*Campaign 2:* *Run by DM David*

A long time has passed, the group had split up for their own reasons and all but Degen have gone missing somewhere in the wastes. Degen, missing his deathclaw clawed arm and not wearing his usual mask, proudly baring his maskless face that reveals his deathclaw origins. Degen, now aligned with the Church of Atom, has been summoned to speak with High Confessor Simulacrum, will be given a new lead to his mission as long as he can complete an important task for the Church; without much options he accepts.

Degen is to lead a caravan with a few other members and associates of the Church of Atom towards stopping at Rochester and taking a vessel towards Ronto. The details are purposefully vague, but Degen needs to deliver two people of great interest to the Confessor, as well as as 'sealed briefcase, embedded with a Vault-Tek symbol'. He is to take these people and this object, ensure their safety, and lead them towards the city of Ronto.

## **Side Stories**

#### Soul Scout in the Tower

The peacekeeping force in Goers Enter, the biggest and most peaceful community in Ronto, sent a small squad of their best to secure the Tower, the large structure near the settlement, and they were able to reclaim it but not without major losses. The only survivor of the encounter is still up in the Tower, they still communicate via radio and make scouting reports from their position, but they are running out of supplies and don't want to risk disarming their own traps incase they get ambushed. The peacekeepers of Goers Enter would thank you generously if you were able to help their soul scout in the Tower.

#### A Dog & His Robot

Reports of a robot that walks like a spider with a dog sitting on it have spread across Eastern America. Some say they even saw the duo engage in combat and seemingly come out of it unscathed and victorious.

#### Creecher Feature

A group of Creechers from New York have seemingly split up from their own people and have decided to take pilgrimage North. Their intentions or goal is unclear, but they seem peaceful and friendly enough.

#### Nukamaniac

A Canadian Vault Dweller now living in Goers Enter has become obsessed with Nuka-Cola, and would pay handsomely for rare variants, merchandise, intact memorabilia, anything related to the Nuka-Cola product line.

#### Automated Misfortune

An automated food factory ran by computers and robots has become deranged, substituting their protein sources with more... questionable ones. Someone has to put a stop to this madness.

#### Gun Fearing Gunsmith

You come across a drunken man who sobs and whines, wallowing in alcohol. Learning more about him, you learn his name to be Harv Winslow and that he used to be a gunsmith before the 'accident'. The accident is hard to discern, as he is vague and unclear about the details, but he wants to make peace with it; giving the group a location that points them to a intact but weather worn home, inside the home a mystery unfolds.