Escape Vault 99: A Dungeonalia Inspired Fallout Adventure

Main Quest: Discover the Secrets of Vault 99
(Optional) Find and Search the Overseers Terminal for Information
(Optional) Find and Persuade a Vault Dweller to Give you Information

Leeland and Lucie stepped into the brightness. They were expecting their eyes to adjust to the light, revealing the post-war outside world. Instead they revealed a bare bulb in the ceiling of a small room.

“What the hell..?”

The room looked very much like the rooms in their vault, just dirty and in a state of disrepair. There was a desk with a non-functioning computer terminal, and a filing cabinet. Something in the corner of the room moved.

“What was that?”
“It looked like some kind of insect, only much bigger..”

Leeland’s hand tightened on the grip of his stun baton, and almost immediately the critter they had seen scuttling into the corner rushed out with two more of their kind. They were upon Leeland in a flash, attempting to bite him. Luckily Leeland was able to evade the snapping pincers, and swing back with the baton. He managed to splat the creatures quite easily, and it was a few moments before he could catch his breath. “They look like cockroaches…only bigger…MUCH bigger!”

“Where on earth are we?” asked Lucie. “How come the exit isn’t the exit?” She tentatively explored the room, opening a drawer in the desk and finding a bottle of Nuka Cola. She moved over to the filing cabinet and opened a drawer. “There’s something in here”. She put her hand into the drawer, before recoiling in pain “OUCH!” There was a piece of a large dead insect in the drawer, it looked like a scorpion tail, but much like the roaches was a lot bigger.

“That looks nasty,” exclaimed Leeland “could be infected. Let’s get moving”.

[So what happened in game terms? The first Feature Room drawn from the deck was “Control Room”. The room has two doors and two searchable. It had an “Occupant” so I added a Radroach swarm for them to face. Not a difficult test for them, but this is how Fallout games generally start. First searchable was a good find – Nuka Cola can be consumed to restore health points. Unfortunately the other searchable revealed a Danger card. Lucie failed the Intelligence Test, then failed a luck test and the result was the “poisoned” condition. This means she will take a point of damage each time she activates until the condition is removed. This is a horrendous start for her as it is not an easy condition to remove! I will likely have to hand-of-god something as a DM to sort that!]

Leeland and Lucie open the door at the opposite side of the room to which they entered, ignoring a door on the right. They step into a room which Leeland immediately recognises to be a Security room. He steps ahead of Lucie who is still nursing her damaged hand, and worrying about the red line now appearing around the wound. The other doors and windows to the room are already open so Leeland can see in all directions. To the right is a corridor with even more of those roaches. To the left a window revealed a restroom, and on a wall in that restroom was a first aid box. Ahead the door led into a corridor that appeared to be unoccupied. They set about searching the room, and were rewarded with a Pipe Rifle and a Cryo Grenade. Leeland didn’t recognise the weapon – it looked like something that had been cobbled together out of pieces of junk, but it was clear that it was functional. “Awesome! We can use this!”

[A dice roll determines whether the next room is a corridor or a Feature Room. In this case, the dice chose room. The Feature Room drawn was a Security Room. The dice decided that the room was unoccupied this time, with two searchables and an “incident” that was determined to be “All Doors Unlocked”. As the room was a security room, I drew from the item deck until weapons were drawn – hence the gun and the grenade. As the doors were open, the characters can see into the next sections as well, again dice rolls dictating the next rooms and their occupants. The little “c” token in the image below shows the position of a sign.  This is one way that players can get advance notice of what an upcoming room will be.  In this case I know the next room the character’s will encounter after turning right will be a Cafeteria. ]

The downside of Leeland being able to see into the room with the radroaches was that the radroaches could also see him. In fact they seem to be as surprised to see him as he is to see them, and the nearest swarm retreated back into the corridor, blocking the other swarm from moving closer. Leeland aimed and fired his newly found gun, and was able to put some damage onto the closest swarm. “Leave this to me”, he called to Lucie, “go into that restroom and see if there is anything in the first aid box for your hand.” Lucie didn’t want to leave Leeland to the roaches, but saw the wisdom in his words and reluctantly ran out of the room, took a left into the corridor, then left again into the restroom. It was a grim sight in there, but the first aid box was unlocked. In it, there was only a vial of Med-X, a drug that can temporarily prevent you from taking radiation, but nothing that would help with the poison. “Damn!”.

Back in the security room, the radroaches have gathered their wits and swarm in on Leeland. He manages to dispatch the closest swarm, which also has the effect of making room for the other swarm to move in. Leeland shoots and misses. Meanwhile Lucie, succumbing more and more to the poison, drinks the Nuka Cola [removing the 3 damage she has taken from the poison so far but adding one radiation damage]. She instantly feels a little better and explores the corridor. Thankfully, having learned her lesson, she explores more tentatively this time and on discovering a steel trap close to a computer terminal, she manages to leap back in time before the jaws snap shut. “That was close.” On closer inspection it was revealed that the trap was guarding another weapon, which she carefully picked up. It didn’t look as good as Leeland’s rifle [it was a Bolt-Action Pipe Pistol] but she now had a gun too. She races back to find Leeland still struggling with the radroaches. He was swinging his stun baton at them, as much in defense as in attack. Lucie drew her baton and joined the fray, doing some damage to the roaches. Finally, Leeland was able to finish them off [it was a god-roll – way too much for the poor roaches! See pic below!] and he and Lucie caught their breath having finally cleared the discovered rooms from enemies.

Unfortunately for Lucie, the Nuka Cola was only a temporary fix, and the poison was starting to take effect once again. Leeland went back to explore the corridor that the radroaches were in but only got bogged down in a sinking floor. They must have been trying to chew their way out of there.. [a danger card revealed ‘sinking floor’ which means next turn Leeland suffers Difficult Terrain – ought not to be an issue other than slowing down possibility of finding a cure for Lucie].

“This is looking a lot like a full scale Vault”, suggested Lucie, “why would they build another right next to ours? And why is it in such a state?”
“No idea”, replied Leeland, “I don’t understand this at all”.

The confused pair followed a sign on the wall marked “Cafeteria” and opened a door at the end of the corridor and discovered another, long, corridor. This space was completely trashed and it was slow moving though it [‘levelled room’ = difficult terrain]. All the while Lucie was taking more and more poison. There was nothing of interest in the corridor and they opened a door at the end to reveal a large room which indeed appeared to be some form of long-deserted canteen. There was not much left in there to scavenge. They managed to jimmy open some containers but all they found was a bottle of moonshine, and a portion of something that looked like it was once perhaps some form of meat [‘squirrel on a stick’]. Due to Lucie’s condition, they agreed to keep moving, passing through the cafeteria into another corridor, where they were confronted by a wandering robot.

“Protectron!” Recognised Leeland, “but is it in hostile mode or is it friendly?” The answer wasn’t long in coming as the Protectron opened fire with its hand laser. Leeland shouted to Lucie that their guns wouldn’t be as much use against the robot as their stun batons, with their energy damage, so they both rushed in. It was a tough fight with Leeland taking the brunt of the damage from the Protectron. He managed to find time to consume the mystery meat [squirrel on a stick], and despite its foul taste it did make him feel stronger. “Careful, these things can explode”, Leeland told Lucie, “be ready to run!”. Between them they eventually took the Protectron down and thankfully it didn’t explode, it just crumpled to the floor in a shower of sparks. Leeland, badly wounded, uses his only Stimpak to restore health.

[In theory a Protectron is a fairly low level enemy in the game, but what was becoming clear by this point was that brand new survivors, with very little in the way of armour, can take serious amounts of damage in the process of taking enemies out. The Protectron has an armour rating of 3 which meant it could cancel a lot of incoming damage. Our survivors however are only granted 1 point of armour from their vault suits. So, whilst the two of them together were able to despatch the Protectron over time, they both ended up carrying serious damage. They are going to need some luck, and thankfully the fates do indeed give them an opportunity..]

Lucie and Leeland limped to the door to the next room and opened it a crack to peer inside. It was a medical room! What luck! But not so lucky is that the room is not unoccupied. There are two creatures within that look as though they might once have been human [Feral Ghouls] desperately swiping their gnarled hands at a locked safe on one side of the room. There was zero chance of them doing any damage to the safe, but it did not stop them from trying! What on earth were they doing?

“What are those things?”, queried Lucie.
“No idea”, replied Leeland, “are they…human?”
“Whatever they are, they look hostile and are in the way of us getting some medical supplies, we need to deal with them.”
“Agreed!”

Lucie aims and fires her pistol at the weaker looking ghoul, and damages it, but it doesn’t seem to notice. Leeland also fires at the other ghoul, and similarly the shots hit home but still the ghouls come on. Close combat now and the damage that the ghouls do also cause radiation damage. Both Lucie and Leeland are taking too much damage for this fight to last much longer. Hand to hand combat now, and the stun batons are working. The ghouls are eventually despatched, and Leeland rushes to the safe. Lucie is looking close to death now, she won’t last much longer. If Leeland can’t open the safe quickly it will be too late. [Lucie is literally on her last point of health. If she has to activate again she will take another point of damage from the poison and die. So Leeland needs to pass a lockpick skill check THIS turn!]. Leeland gets to work on the lock, years of security training directing his hands. With a click, the lock opens! He reaches inside.. “YES!” and throws a syringe to Lucie..