Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 109: Blood Of The Demon

Danse and Kelly were not permitted to walk the catacombs freely, and were kept under a constant guard in Rolling-Stone and Talking-Head's shared chamber while they waited to meet with Prowess, Roark's partner in leadership.

"She's on away mission," Talking-Head informed them when Danse grew grouchy in waiting and demanded answers. "She likes to stay active, see world above with own eyes. Red Roark is tactical thinker, likes to craft while he thinks, spend time with the people."

Later, Danse drew Kelly aside and spoke in a hushed voice. "Are you certain that allying yourself with these people will prove beneficial to the Minutemen? We know next to nothing about them, or even about what they want from an alliance with us."

"They're not giving us much choice. I'm just playing along, riding it out."

"And if all they want is you, and nothing to do with the Minutemen or Brotherhood?"

She had no response for him on that.

Kelly wandered the heavily spiced cave with curious eyes and fingers, exploring every trinket and totemic craft of art, while Danse preferred to pace or sit brooding, either watching her or glaring at the two Sightwalkers as they lingered in their potions and crafting. Without a weapon to strip, armor to tend, subordinates to browbeat, or something to occupy himself with, he was a lost man.

"It sounds like Roark and Prowess are a recipe for locking horns," Kelly speculated while fingering a clay idol of a rad-dragon richly adorned in red detail painting, thinking of her and Maxson's disastrous partnership. Locking horns, among other things...

"Others do horn locking for them."

Kelly wondered what that meant, and turned from her inspections toward Talking-Head. But he was already abandoning his things and fleeing under a cloud of sudden anger, brushing the shoulder of one of the guards. Danse watched after him and then shrugged at her silent question, while Rolling-Stone hummed tunelessly to himself as he embroidered patterns into a shawl.

They were fed clay bowls of thick stew, with various meats and softened blue stalks of something called Moonshoot. They were watery and tasteless, but the stew as a whole was generously seasoned and went down well in hungry stomachs. After, Rolling-Stone gave them a drop each from a vial of clear fluid.

"Moondrops," he explained, while giving Kelly her dose. "To keep the radiation at bay."

"Like Rad-X and Radaway," she said after swallowing. It tasted toxic, and she schooled her features from grimacing.

Danse, however, spat his out mercilessly. "Revolting. It tastes of chemicals and infected urine. How can we know this is safe for consumption, or even effective at all?"

Kelly elbowed him. "Don't bite the hand that feeds."

"The hand that poisons, more like."

Rolling-Stone took Danse's rancour like a champ, smiling like an old granddad might to an ungrateful grandson.

When night seeped in through the spy holes down the main passages, Kelly and Danse settled down together on the sleeping arrangement set up for them in a far corner. She was just about to fall asleep on his chest while he sat up fiddling on her Pip-boy, when Rolling-Stone lost his shit.

He blustered at them like they were a pair of animals caught indulging in bad behavior. "No you don't. Bad! Bad!" He swatted at them with a cloth until they parted. "Not to sleep together! Too dangerous. You," he thrust a gnarled finger at Kelly, the nail long and curling, "sleep in Pandora's chambers. You," his finger thrust back at Danse, "stay here. Not to follow."