#50 percent of my gaming history is my character being overencumbered

[nightingaelic]

Companions reaction to the Courier with the Strong Back and Burden to Bear peak just picking up everything in sight?

Eventually, the Legion left Nipton. The fires in the empty homes went out one by one, and the wild dogs and vultures that had gathered to feast returned to the desert.

The NCR sent a few soldiers from the Mojave Outpost to take down the crucified victims and scrub the outward evidence of Legion occupation from the site, but they didn't have the men or the money to rebuild. Besides, Nipton had a reputation now, as an ill-fated ghost town. Scavengers made up stories about it, caravans went around it. Even the Powder Gangers gave the place a wide berth. As such, the next time the courier came through with their companion, the belongings of the dead citizenry had been largely untouched. The pair stood in the middle of the town square for a moment, listening to the wind whistling through the broken doors and the brittlebrush, before the courier snapped the straps on their already-bulging pack. "I'm gonna start over here," they said, pointing toward the general store.

It didn't take long before they'd filled their arms with everything left on the shelves. Dusty bottles of Nuka-Cola, cans of Pork 'n' Beans, an entire set of wrenches, a single leather boot- it all went on the pile the courier was accumulating. Any normal scav would've been satisfied with that haul, maybe even overwhelmed. The courier just shifted their finds a bit, grabbed a screwdriver they definitely didn't need, and turned to their companion in the doorway. "Give me a hand? This place is loaded."

Arcade Gannon: Arcade, who was leaning on the door frame, folded his arms. "Nope. Not in the mood to be a pack mule, today."

"Boo." The courier stuck their tongue out at him and kept looting the place. Arcade watched them go, raising his eyebrows higher with every new addition to the stack. A baseball bat. Four pairs of pants, none of which were the same size. A box of gumdrops.

When they tried to add an entire crate of Abraxo to their finds and nearly tipped over, Arcade started to chuckle and shake his head. "What the hell are you going to do with laundry soap?"

"Don't worry about it," the courier grunted, struggling to balance the Abraxo boxes on top of the Nuka-Cola. The baseball bat tumbled to the ground and hit their foot, drawing out a yelp of pain.

Arcade stooped down to pick the bat up. "Set those down," he said, gesturing at their armful of goods. "Come on. I'll help you organize."

The courier eyed him with some misgiving. "And you're not going to pitch anything you think we don't need when I'm not looking, like you did in Novac?"

Arcade held his right hand up. "I iurare."

"I don't know what that means."

"I won't throw away any of your junk, Six. Promise." Arcade rolled his eyes. "But I am going to reiterate that it's junk."

Craig Boone: Boone was still preoccupied with the ruined town outside the store. The NCR had ripped the makeshift crucifixes out of the ground where they could, but a few had been sawed off, leaving a stump. The dirt around them was dark, stained.

"Goddamn Legion," Boone said under his breath.

The courier began handing him cans of Cram. "Tell me about it. What a waste."

"Every man wearing Caesar's colors is a waste," Boone replied. He stacked the cans without thinking as he surveyed Nipton's main street. "This town might have been full of scammers, but that doesn't mean everyone who-"

He realized what he was doing with his hands and looked at the courier in disgust. "I told you, Six. You'll slow us down, picking up everything you see."

"But it's just sitting here!" the courier argued. "Look, what good is standing around talking about how bad the Legion is, if we don't-"

Boone firmly tucked the pile of Cram back into their armful. "Carry your own gear, spotter," he said, grimacing. "Nipton might not need it anymore, but that doesn't mean you do."

Lily Bowen: "That's too much, dearie." Lily began to pluck some of the larger items from their stack. "Give grandma some of those."

The courier obliged, standing still so the nightkin could share some of the load. Lily held up the single boot they'd claimed with some confusion. "Just one? You don't need this, pumpkin."

"I need a new one!" the courier protested. They balanced on their left foot and stuck their right shoe out. "Look, the sole's going on this one. If I step in a puddle, I get soaked."

Lily crouched down to carefully cup their foot in her free hand, nearly tipping them over in the process. "Okay," she agreed, beginning to undo their laces. "Let's put your new boot on, then."

The courier did their best to stand on one leg while Lily swapped their boot out. It took awhile, thanks to Lily's over-sized fingers, and they put their foot down with a sigh of relief when she was finally done. "Thanks, Lily," they said, reaching for the shoe she'd taken off.

"Leave the old one," Lily insisted, straightening up.

"I can use the laces!"

Lily harrumphed, then placed the old boot on top of the general store's highest shelf. The courier groaned. "No fair, Lily."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: "No manches, Six." Raul sighed and put his head in his hand. "Nipton hasn't been dead a year, and you're taking what's left of it? No me echen la sal."

The courier made a face. "Why not? No one's here. No one's coming back, even if the Legion does retreat."

They tossed a Hubris Comics t-shirt and a set of plastic cutlery onto their pile. "Finders keepers."

"We both know you don't need plastic spoons," Raul said flatly. "Let the town rest, Six. Your pack's already full, anyway."

"Fine." The courier rolled their eyes and put the cutlery back. "I'll leave everything else, but clothes, food and ammo are fair game. Órale?"

Raul grunted, but it wasn't an objection. The courier began stashing the other non-necessities on open shelves, sneaking the odd small tool or piece of tech into their pack as they went. Raul caught their attempts to be sneaky, but he knew by now that pointing it out wasn't worth the effort. They had sticky fingers, and guilt wasn't something they were known to dwell on. Not like him, anyway.

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Just don't grab so much that you can't reach your holster," Cass cautioned them. She grabbed a nearby trash can and upended it, emptying it out for easy storage. "The Jackals like to hole up at that pit stop outside of town."

"We'll be fine," the courier reassured her, dumping their finds into the trash can. They wiped their hands and went back to perusing the shelves. "We could break every bone in our bodies and still be better shots than Jackals, Cass."

"Sure, but flying bullets bring in curious critters." Cass shifted the receptacle so it was resting on her hip. "The last thing we need is a mound of fire ants taking notice of us on our way to the outpost."

"I'd relish the opportunity to kill some fire ants." The courier grabbed a trash can of their own and began filling it with buffalo gourd seeds from the produce counter. "You know Arcade likes their nectar in his tea. He'd be thrilled if I found some more."

"Thrilled that he wouldn't have to kill the damn things himself, that's for sure." Cass knocked every box of bullets from the ammo shelves into her trash can and eyed the explosives section. "Do we need grenades?"

"Oh, yeah, grab me a few. I'm running low."

Veronica Santangelo: "It definitely is," Veronica agreed, grabbing the two remaining cans of Potato Crisps from a nearby shelf. She paused before continuing down the line of displays, though. "We're not about to get ambushed by Legionaries, are we?"

"Doubtful." The courier shrugged. "I'll just drop all of this if we do and pick it up again later."

"Got it." Veronica continued stuffing the general store's goods into her Scribe robe pockets and the crook of her elbow. "Do you think this place is haunted?"

"If it wasn't before, it is now."

Veronica tutted and pocketed some packs of bubblegum. "Most people in the Brotherhood say they don't believe in ghosts, but some of the Scribes get really jumpy about looking through old ruins. Something about being disrespectful? I don't know, I think it's really about avoiding any leftover security turrets or sentry bots. They're more dangerous than ghosts, anyway."

"Have you actually seen a ghost, while looking for supplies?" the courier asked from behind a shelf full of broken tech.

"No. But I convinced some raiders I was a ghost, once." Veronica grinned. "You know that old Poseidon gas station, along the 160? Some Fiends surprised me there while I was looking through it. They were higher than the Lucky 38 penthouse, and very suggestible."

ED-E: ED-E flipped through its audio files until it found the Tennessee Ernie Ford song it was looking for. The eyebot began blaring the tune into the otherwise-silent general store. "-a mind that's weak and a back that's strong, you load 16 tons-"

"Yeah, yeah, none of that," the courier said, with a chuckle and a wave from the screwdriver they'd claimed. "The next time we run into some poor soul whose bot's broken down, and they need tools to fix it, you get to explain to them why we didn't pick up the ones that were just lying around in here."

ED-E cut the song short and let out an unimpressed blat. It began to weave around the store, taking in the various scraps of life that Nipton's residents had left behind in the struggle with the Legion. A baseball cap. An empty milk bottle. The other boot, knocked behind a collapsed shelf. When it reached the other end of the room, ED-E issued a few sad beeps.

"I know, ED-E." The courier sighed and paused, their hand still inside the cash register on the counter. "I know. The best we can do is use what they left behind."

Rex: Rex began to root through the items on the general store's floor alongside the courier. The cyberdog passed by overturned baskets of junk, slightly-used toothbrushes, and bars of brahmin milk soap, but he paused to sniff a large, burlap sack underneath the store's counter. He let out a low bark that descended into a growl.

"What'd you find?" The courier crouched down to examine the sack. Inside were several dozen gray eggs, soft-shelled and shot through with dark green veins.

When they held one up to the room's spare light, Rex's growling became interspersed with curious snuffling. "Don't worry, bud, radscorpion eggs don't hatch unless they're left out in the sun," the courier reassured the dog, turning the egg this way and that. "Good find, though. We can stop by Ruby's on our way through Primm."

They added the sack of eggs to their growing stack. The pair didn't leave the store until both were weighed down with loot, jingling and clanking with every step into the Mojave.