I watched as both of the natives got to work, though neither of them really took their eyes off of us for very long. Unsurprisingly, they started with the lancehorn furthest away from us, moving with practiced speed as they flipped and turned the robot into position, treating it much like how someone would butcher an animal.

  With practiced hands, they used a sharpened blade made from some sort of metal plate to cut free a triangle of woven material from just inside the zoomorph's chest cavity. I had no idea how they managed to remove it so cleanly and quickly, but it was fascinating watching them work. We observed them for another minute or so before I finally spoke up.

  "We noticed there was a bridge down by the clearing, across a river coming from the lake that this river feeds into. It was rather well-made and sturdy," I said, watching the two hunters' reaction while still trying to seem friendly. "Did you guys make that?"

  "Not us, but our tribe did," Toando responded with a nod. "That road is well traveled by several traders, making it easier for them to cross means we get to trade more."

  "Then there are other tribes nearby?" I asked, turning to scan the area, keeping an eye on the trees.

  "There are a few, none closer than a full day's dedicated walk," Toando responded, looking up from the robot chassis as he pulled a long bundle of wires out. "We are friendly, but besides trade, we tend to keep to ourselves. Why?"

  "Because meeting new groups is stressful enough," I pointed out, gesturing between each of us. "Meeting several new groups at once would be increasingly difficult."

  "Mmm, I suppose you are right. Any gathering with all of our neighbors does tend to become… tense," he admitted, though his smile kept the comment from being too worrying. "But that question entails that you will be sticking around to eventually meet them. What brings you to the area, and how long will you be staying?"

  "We are… explorers of a sort," I explained, doing my best to be honest, but in a way that wouldn't make them question our sanity. "We are not from around here, but we are likely to be in the area for a while."

  "How often will we be seeing you, Explorer Connors?" Toando asked, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

  "Pretty often, I would say," I admitted. "There are a lot of interesting things in the area, and we are keen to take samples, explore, and understand some of the past. That said, we do not want to cause trouble for you and your people."

  "Do you plan on hunting like this often?" he asked, gesturing to the robots strewn along the grass and gravel. "Because if you do… we will likely be unable to remain friends for long."

  The statement caught me off guard, both in its casual delivery and the severity of the statement.

  "I'm sorry if we have offended you, could you explain why it's a problem?"

  "You haven't offended me, strangers," the large man assured us. "But hunting like this attracts the attention of the more dangerous machines. are likely, but it's possible to even draw the attention of a herd of or something similar. Having too many of those in the area would set us back months, making trade and winter prep more difficult."

  I frowned, realizing that how I responded to this information would significantly color our impression of these people. Not being able to hunt large quantities of robots nearby would dramatically increase the difficulty of completing our missions. However, I was not prepared to put a native group at risk just because I wanted some easy quest completions.

  "How far would we have to travel before hunting like this would no longer be an issue to you or your neighbors?"

  Toando sat back on his haunches, studying me for a moment before nodding, gesturing along the river.

  "If you continue along the river for another hour or so, you will reach a natural falls," He explained. "On top of that, there is space enough for hunting, with enough of a natural divide that we rarely hunt there. The machines of the area rarely migrate directly to this area, meaning you can hunt them to your heart's content."

  Having to travel such a distance would add hours to every quest that required hunting or gathering parts from a machine, making it significantly more challenging to complete multiple quests in a day, especially considering we still needed to interact with the Fallout world as well. Still, considering the alternative was to piss off the natives, who had just proven they could hunt us by sneaking up on us while we worked.

  "That will make some things more difficult, but very well," I agreed with a nod. "It is worth it to remain on friendly terms with you and ensure your hunting parties are safe."

  "What of feeding your people?" Yalna asked, having been silently working until then. "Will you starve our people by hunting our food with your loud weapons?"

  While the question seemed casual, something about how she watched me as she asked it told me it was anything but. I had no way of knowing for sure, but my gut told me that this was a problem they were already dealing with.

  "My people travel with their own supplies," I assured her, meeting her eyes. "Besides the occasional small samples, we will not be hunting at all."

  That caught them both off guard, with Yalna seeming particularly put off, though I got the feeling that she was just disappointed she couldn't be angry. She did seem suspicious that I was lying, but she at least didn't call me out.

  "That would go a long way to calming people down," Toando said after a long moment. "Overhunting is always a concern."

  "I can imagine."

  For a few minutes, we watched as the two natives handily stripped the robot of anything useful, pulling it apart for plates, wires, mirrors, and several smaller bits. Some of them I could see being useful, others simply seemed to look cool.

  "Tell me, you wouldn't happen to know a young woman by the name of Aloy, would you?" I asked, mainly as a shot in the dark. "Or tribes called the Nora, the Carja or the Banuk?"

  "I'm afraid I don't recognize any of those names," Toando responded, before looking over at his hunting partner. "Yalna?"

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  "No, I have never heard them either," She said, eying me for a second. "Are they friends of yours?"

  "No, just names passed to us by another traveler," I explained with a shrug. "They claimed those tribes knew the locations of some interesting places. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to find out where they are."

  Yalna and Toando shared a look, but seemed to at least accept the explanation, even if they didn't necessarily believe it fully. After another moment of work, switching from one cleaned-out robot frame to another, Toando looked up at me.

  "Is that what you're looking for? Interesting things? Places to explore?"

  "When it suits us," I admitted with a shrug. "Sorry, we don't quite have any sort of specific overall mission, at least not here. It's more… occasional quests for specific things. Part of what we do for fun."

  We continued to watch the two hunters at work, noting several items that they carefully removed, as well as the method they used to do so. Knowing what sort of parts were worth the most and how to carefully remove them might come in handy, after all. Eventually, however, it was time for us to make our way back home.

  "Thank you for answering our questions," I responded. "I hope that in the future, we could meet you and your tribe members again. For now, however, we need to return."

  "I suppose we will see you around, new neighbors," Toando said. "Safe travels."

  "And the same to you," I responded, before turning to nod at Joseph.

  We slowly made our way around the sparsely wooded area, eventually cutting through to the simple bridge. Most of the native wildlife and zoomorphs had been driven off by our presence, so it was simple to just cut through safely. After we arrived at the bridge, we crossed it quickly, heading back down the way we came just a few hours before. As we moved, we picked up the pace, putting a significant amount of distance between us and the pair of hunters.

  "That was not what I was hoping would happen today," I commented, shaking my head as we moved along the river. "Was hoping for a few more soldiers to work with before we met any neighbors, if we had to meet them at all."

  "It could have gone worse, Sir," Joseph pointed out. "They seemed nice, didn't shoot at us, and we didn't shoot at them. Heck, we even gave them some free stuff, so they will go back and tell everyone how nice we are."

  "I suppose you're right," I said with a frown. "I just didn't want the first meeting to be at a position of weakness. It's not like I wanted to show up and be a threat, but I at least wanted to be something that they couldn't take lightly. I suppose that will have to wait until we ever go to the village itself."

  Over the next hour, we made it all the way back to the connection point, where we carefully slid our backpacks, laden with containers of chillwater, under the cover of a large bush, growing beside a rusted slab of iron. We then traveled back through the dark tunnel into the HQ, quickly heading back to the desk, where Maxwell was waiting.

  "Welcome back, Sir," The suit-wearing man greeted. "How was your trip?"

  "We made it, and even found chillwater," I said with a smile. "Also ran into some natives."

  "Oh my," Maxwell said, his eyes going wide. "And how did that go?"

  "About as well as we could have hoped for an uncontrolled first contact," I admitted. "Not what I was going for, but I'll get over it, I'm sure. For now, let's complete the quest so we can return and finish with the chillwater. It's starting to get late."

  Maxwell nodded and quickly completed the exploration quest without issue, before activating the gathering quest as well. When that was done, he started digging and preparing the maps, which appeared under his counter, while Joseph and I returned to the Horizon world. It only took us a few minutes to gather our backpacks and carry them back to the entrance of the connection tunnel. Just as there had been with the medicinal herbs, a large crate was waiting for us, and one by one we laid the containers inside before sealing it shut.

  With one last look around, we headed back through the connection, crossing it again and returning to the HQ. From there, we headed back to the main hall where Maxwell was waiting for us, moving with a spring in our step. It only took him a moment to confirm and submit the quest after we returned.

  "Congratulations, Sir," he said with a smile. "Both your quests were successful. Please allow me to present your rewards."

  He made his way around the counter, carefully handing me a singular tin soldier. It looked exactly the same as the one that I had used to summon Joseph, all the way down to the rough facial features. After turning it over in my fingers, I carefully stored it in my breast pocket, before following Maxwell to one of the larger tables along the main hall. There, spread out and held open by small paper weights, were two large maps. When I finally got a good look at the large unrolled sheets of paper, I couldn't help but stop in my tracks.

  "Woah…" I said, sharing a look with Joseph and Maxwell before stepping closer and peering over the maps.

  The large sheets of parchment were filled with what looked like a color version of the special paper-esque screens that some reading or writing tablets used. It featured matte colors, and every line and symbol was drawn with serious detail. After a moment of looking, I reached out and touched the Fallout map, shifting the location like you would control any touchscreen, despite it most definitely being drawn on parchment.

  It turns out, what had been called a map was pretty much a simplified google maps, all the way down to be able to switch from a simplified road map to satellite image, as well as a mix, which was what I would probably end up using the most. The map itself extended to only a fraction of the total map from Fallout 3, but still revealed a lot of area around us. Unfortunately, nothing but the HQ was labeled. It didn't take me long to find Megaton, which was shockingly large compared to the tiny town it had been in the game, as well as the Super Duper Mart and a few other landmarks I recognized.

  The Horizon map was the same, except it seemed to show a much larger area, probably due to a lot of it just being empty forests and plains. We could see the whole clearing and a large portion of the lake, as well as several paths and roads we had missed as we had walked around the entire clearing. I was pretty sure I could make a solid guess as to where Toando and Yalna's tribe was, judging by where many of the paths and roads led to. It was more than a bit annoying that the actual village wasn't revealed, but it wasn't like the quest had been too challenging, so I couldn't exactly expect much.

  "This is going to come in handy," I said, tapping on megaton to find that I could enter a label for it, which I quickly did by writing the name with my finger. "Let's hope we can expand them with quests in the future."

  I spent a few more minutes messing with the map before I burned through the newness, and the small tin figure in my pocket was too heavy to ignore. I quickly placed it down on the planning map of the space around the HQ, which Maxwell had helpfully taken out as well, before Joseph and headed out to the barracks. When we opened the door, just as Joseph had snapped to attention, the newest member of our team quickly stood and saluted.

  "Carlos Alfaro, reporting for duty, Sir!"

  My newest recruit stood just a hair taller than me, with thick eyebrows and short brown hair. The soldier's eyes were wider than average, each with a dark hazel iris. He had freckles along his cheeks as well, which was surprising, given that his complexion was darker than mine or Joseph's. I stuck my hand out toward him.

  "At ease, soldier, welcome aboard," I said with a smiled, nodding when he shook my hand. "Grab your stuff so we can head to the main building, that's where we will be staying until there are more of you, or until I can upgrade the barracks."

  Being back in the barracks reminded me just how insecure the building felt. The door was made of aluminum, and while it would hold up against someone with a bat or a tire iron, it was not bulletproof, nor was it resistant to deathclaws or radscorpions. The doors of the HQ were significantly thicker, and according to Maxwell could lock automatically in the presence of danger, though that didn't make them supernaturally tough.

  There was no way I was letting anyone stay in this concrete death trap, not when I could help it. With any luck, upgrading the building would improve that.

  I watched as Carlos quickly packed up his gear and followed Joseph and me out into the wasteland. The newest member of our team let out a low, soft whisper, followed by a curse.

  "Could really use some green, sir," he said, looking around. "Or blue. Or any color besides grey, brown, and rust."

  I snorted and nodded in agreement, following behind Joseph, keeping my eyes around us. Thankfully, we were not interrupted as we finally arrived back inside the HQ, the doors shutting behind us. As we entered the main hall, I saw Maxwell attending to the various maps, smiling and nodding as we arrived.

  "Maxwell, this is Carlos, Carlos, this is Maxwell," I said, before finally dropping down into one of the comfortable chairs. "Have a seat, let's talk about what's next."