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Adventurer Finds Killing Mole Rats Makes Him A Better Lockpick

D.C. Wastelands — A former vault-dweller known only as the Lone Wanderer was both pleased and perplexed to discover that killing mutated mole rats with a baseball bat has somehow made him better at picking locks.

“It’s like, locks just suddenly made a lot more sense to me,” The Lone Wanderer said, standing over the bloody corpses of several mole rats. “Somehow, beating a bunch of mutated animals to death with a baseball bat gave me insight into the inner workings of the locking mechanisms of doors and safes.”

“You’d think that using a bat to bludgeon vicious animals would make me stronger, or a better fighter or something,” he continued. “Maybe something related to the physical act of slamming a blunt weapon into a large, rampaging animal.”

He paused, taking a sip of water from a filthy toilet. “Instead, I’m suddenly finding it easier to pick locks with hairpins. I crushed some skulls with a stick of wood and then just had this sudden jolt of knowledge about how locks work.”

This is not the first time the adventurer has noticed that his actions and activities lead to enhancements of unrelated abilities.

“A couple days ago, I was out collecting bottles of Nuka-Cola Quantum for some lady who asked for them, and when I finished, I suddenly had a slightly better sense of how to repair my weapons and armor, and became a bit more adept at sneaking around undetected.”

As for why he’s finding his skills increasing from performing activities unrelated to those skills, the former vault-dweller doesn’t know, and isn’t sure he wants to know.

“It’s definitely weird, but a lot of things around here are weird,” he said. “The locks themselves are kinda weird. They all look like doorknobs, even the ones built into ammo boxes. I can’t explain that, either. I won’t even try.”

“I just hope the afternoon I plan to spend killing feral ghouls with a laser gun in the metro tunnels makes me better at bartering with merchants,” he added. “With all the locks I’m picking lately, I’ve got a lot more loot to sell.”

Comments

  1. Wasteland Scavenger says:

    Don’t even get me started on computer screens or how to hack into them. I mean, who wants to guess out of 50 random words what their password is? The nuclear holocaust may have been horrible; but atleast the guy who programmed the software is probably a bunch of dusty bones in downtown D.C.

  2. Super Mutant Brute says:

    raaarg if i want door open i smash it good

  3. Wasteland Settler says:

    I think I caught this guy stealing from my house the other day, but before I could confront him, he stood perfectly straight for a full day, don’t think he even blinked.
    And then for some reason, I didn’t want to kill him for stealing my cups and plates anymore.

  4. Wastelander says:

    I dont get why people need to use lockpicks on doors one moment they are there then they fade into the building as if tthe door wasnt necessary but i couldnt be the only one noticing this am i?

  5. Lucas Simms says:

    The other day, the Lone Wanderer walked into my house and took my priceless one-of-a-kind Vault-Tec Vault Boy bobblehead. I think I would have been pretty upset if he’d taken anything else, but even despite its extreme rarity I guess I didn’t mind parting with it.

    It was pretty strange, though … It’s not that heavy, but when he picked it up it looked like he gained enough muscle to carry an extra 10 lbs.!

  6. I just wish the guy would buy a drink instead of bringing in ones he found and drinking them in front me. God damn smoothskin…

    Oh shit, Moriarty’s coming!

  7. Feral Ghoul says:

    GRRAAAAAAGAHAGAGGAGAG!

  8. Say what you want about him, but that Lone Wanderer sure has helped my research! I mean, sure, he’s a bit odd, but aren’t we all? So what if it only took him 10 seconds to go to Minefield and back, or if 3 grenades to the face only injures him a little, or if everywhere I ask him to go is either fresh out of medicine or books – he’s a great partner!

  9. President John Henry Eden says:

    This man may seem to be a “hero”. But you must look at him how he truly is, America. Look through the eyes of Lady Liberty herself. And see. See, that this man is a menace.

    Good night, sweet America.

  10. Hero of Kavatch says:

    It seems I am not alone. Every now and again, running will make me a better alchemist.

  11. Nameless Hero says:

    Back in my day, i had to kill in order to get more space in my brain for learning new things. Easier things like taking teeth of a dead animal or cooking a meatbug ragout might seem easy but sometimes you are simply not expirienced enough to understand what someone means when they tell you to roll if you fall.

  12. Fawkes says:

    Ha. Ever since walking around with him, every time he appears to get better, I suddenly feel MUCH more resilient. The other day he got the ENTIRE brotherhood force at the Citadel to attack me and the dog. Despite the fact there were hundreds of lasers that should have sliced through me, I managed to come out of it more or less unscaved.

    Though I do feel as if sometimes he’s running over top of mines and waiting just to see if I’m going to blow up.

    And don’t get me started on him always killing the damn dog. He tells the poor thing to head back to the Vault, sticks a mine in his nonexistant pockets, recruits another person to follow him, then grabs one of his puppies to repeat the process. It’s very perplexing, granted I AM a super Mutant, after all.

  13. Raider says:

    This little prick keeps sneaking into our various fortifications and murdering us by the thousends.

    Granted I think it all started when the poor sap walked into one of our 13 million locations on the Wasteland, and for no reason we started attacking him. You’d think after the fifteenth person he killed, we’d try to become friends with him, but for some strange reason I still have the compulsion to attack him when he gets near. Not only can he take a lot of bullets (That suit of armor he wears makes the fight not even fair) But I’ve seen him turn a few of my buddies into piles of goo, dust, or gore.

    We’ll get him one day though.

  14. Mothership Zeta Captain says:

    ????T???? T?? ? ????? ????????????????t??. ????? t?? tl t????t??t??? ?t??t???? T?T?, ???????T???T?. ?????????????????????????T? ?t???t??t?????t? ?t??lt. ?????T???????? ????t??t???t?, ?????t?????t?????.t??t??.t???. ?????t???t?????t?;t? ???t?t?????t????.

  15. The Master says:

    The Unity will bring about the master race. Master! Master! One able to survive, or even thrive, in the wastelands. As long as there are differences, we will tear ourselves apart fighting each other. We need one race. Race! Race! One goal.

  16. Some people have it easy. If I want to get better at hacking, deal more damage with my drill, or use plasmids more efficiently, I have to track down sea slugs or someone with sea slugs implanted in them. On the other hand, at least I get to choose my skills from vending machines.

    It’s rather handy that someone developed a Drill Expert tonic even though I’m the only one in the world who can use it.

  17. One time my friend Gordon was caught in a nuclear explosion and it made his flashlight last longer.

  18. There was this one time, I ran into a room full of geth and shot them all. Suddenly it’s like, when I use medigel, it seems to be much more effective for healing me.
    Strange thing is, not only did Liara say she was better at throwing people with her biotics, but Garrus said he felt “at least 6% more accurate with assault rifles. Maybe more.”
    He wasn’t even there!

  19. Sonora Cruz says:

    For some obscure reason, I buy fingers off this guy, even if I don’t know who they belong to…
    Also I really don’t mind if he kills my friends in front of me and knocks me unconscious… Just so long he kills the yao guai and the sentry bots that seem to constantly be outside my house…

  20. Choosen One says:

    I now kinda what is like.
    Sometimes when I kill big bug or meanie man I gets better at punching things, but also at making ouchies go away. I learned fire sticks this way.

    Hehehehe… Fire sticks make cows give light.

  21. Elven Wizard says:

    That is ridiculous! There is no causal link between rodent target practice and the illicit manipulation of locking mechanisms!

    Next you’ll tell me that cleaning the kitchen sink improved your diplomacy ranking! (Though one may not put language skills past the things found underneath a kitchen sink in such a desolate radioactive landscape.)

  22. Agreement: This is something that has perplexed even my non-organic circitry. Putting large, blaster-sized holes into the head of every organic my master desires dead has for some reason made me superior at stealth.

  23. Shock: Oh no! My persuade skill just went up! I just called meatbags ‘organics’! Lament: Oh, the shame.

  24. Lt. Masterson says:

    You know, this sort of unrelated skill-gain would be useful where I’m at. Say, when I keep my teammates hopped up on whatever painkillers the brass gave us, all that happens is I don’t have to give them as much of the stuff as usual. You’d think drug tolerance worked the other way.

  25. note from Gordon says:

    Alyx, I found extra D batteries!

  26. This is not an isolated phenomenon. We observed that, after completing mission to rescue Tali Creator, our combat drone became 0.35% more efficient. We do not engage combat drone often during actual combat scenarios. We will investigate further.

  27. Wastelander says:

    The Lone Wanderer can figure out how to open a lock simply by bashing mole rats? That baffles me!

    Just the other day I spotted him killing bloatflies when he got attacked by those Talon Company punks. Somehow he immediately discovered how to reduce a person to a bloody mess through squishing mutant bugs.

    One second the vault dude shoots a merc in the head. The next, there’s nothing but a bloody torso left!

  28. note from Gordon says:

    anyone else notice he can lift things with his mind??

  29. Kadorhal says:

    So could you.

    Understandable that you’ve forgotten, what with the gravity gun and the being missing for nearly three years.

  30. Adoring Fan says:

    By Azura! By Azura! By Azura!

  31. local hero says:

    i suddenly got a better skill in quantumphysiks after taking a dumb

  32. King of the Vaegirs says:

    That’s nothing. I led an army of 500 against a small uprising in Shulus and found out I have more leverage with merchants. And this new vassal of mine once collected taxes for me and came back as an engineer.

  33. Yes, the computers have a very elegant solution to security: Rather than a set password to allow easy access to those who know it, they reset their password whenever shut down.

    This allows for near flawless security!

    However, there is a failsafe that displays the password with related words, just in case.

  34. Liberty Prime says:

    IF YOU FEEL THE NEED TO QUESTION THESE THINGS COMMUNISM HAS CERTAINLY GAINED A FOOTHOLD IN YOUR LIFE.

    REMEMBER: DEMOCRACY IS NON-NEGOTIABLE.

  35. The Hero of Albion says:

    Democracy? HA! I just can’t wait to be king…

    ….right after I get rid of these !@#*% horns!

  36. Minmatar Pilot says:

    I can’t imagine such an unpredictable system. When I want to improve myself, I just read a book! All the time. At such a steady pace that I know the exact time I’ll be finished by.

    It’s really convenient. I read so staggeringly slowly that I can get on with mining, trading and complex space dog-fights while slowly osmosing a new text book.

    I’ve noticed that books are getting more and more expensive though. I can’t afford all the books I’m interested in unless I spend almost all of my time profiteering.

  37. I got Natasha by nomming Sandvich for many days. Bologna…HAHAHAHA!

  38. Ok, get this. I bring my brothers, Terry and Clay, along to mess with some deadbeats, right? Well, I go on ahead and wipe most of them out, in fact, I don’t think anyone else managed to get more than a few shots off before those AOD shitheads were either dead or writhing in pain on the ground. Yet, despite that, they both seem to have gotten much, much better with their guns! What the hell?

  39. Marked One says:

    That’s odd. I have never heard of anything like this skill-gaining. Usually I just get better at things by getting better equipment and weapons. I’ve never even needed to pick a lock in my entire life!

  40. Francis says:

    I hate rats.

  41. I would laugh at this, but I believe those Oasis pineheads would interpret it as some sorta prophecy or something…
    *sighs*

  42. Frank West says:

    I know how this feels! I got a survivor to the security room and all of a sudden I know how to pull off a roundhouse kick!

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  44. You BASTARD! YOU KILLED MY COUSIN!! The Animal Friend Perk is a sacred trust, not to be broken for any reason! SCREW YOU! AND SCREW YOUR LOCKPICKS!

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