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[Out of Milliways: another one of the alien abductees meets the Brotherhood of Steel chaplain.]

"Is there anybody here who needs giant radscorpion chitin or meat or something?" says Ellen as she staggers through the door, her Brotherhood uniform splattered with dust and weird fluids that aren't red but sure look like blood otherwise. "The stupid things are getting way too bold for my liking."

She's not going to wait for an answer. She's just going to get a bottle of beer for herself and a bowl of water for Dogmeat, and then sit down and go over her uniform for rips and tears and possible bug-inflicted wounds. The prospect of going to wash up may occur to her later, but you're free to talk to her in the meantime.

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"What would you want in trade for it?" Gavroche asks speculatively. "I can get you about anything - and I'll take either, if the meat's edible."

"The meat's not particularly edible, for the most part," Ellen admits, "or people would be scraping the stupid things out. It might be edible to animals for all I know, though. I usually sell the poison glands to the trolls here. If you've got reliable antibiotics I'd be interested in those."

"I'll take it anyway", he says easily. "The rats might like it, or we've got people who eat anything. Antibiotics it is, measure for measure."

"All right," says Ellen. "Do you have a sylladex? This was one of the bigger radscorpions."

"I don't - is that like Autor's thing?" He turns to the Bar and asks, "Could I get some sort of cart with wheels?"

"I guess. I haven't seen his thing," Ellen says. "You'd better make it a big cart. The body on this one was about as long as I am tall, and then there's the tail and pincers."

"Big one, please, Bar", he says easily. "I'll clean it and give it back later."

"All right," says Ellen, and fishes an object the size of a deck of cards out of her pocket.

She wasn't exaggerating about the size of the carcass that appears.

His eyes widen, impressed and a little daunted.

"You killed this by yourself?"

"I had some help from a former Congressman with a .32 rifle," Ellen admits, "but that big crack in the carapace just behind the eyes was the killing shot, from my Gauss rifle. This is about... they get maybe a foot or two longer than this, some of them. The majority of radscorpions are maybe two-thirds this size."

"What are these really big ones, then?" he asks with curiosity. "Sort of the king scorpions, or just the lucky ones?"

"They all seem to be the same species, although sometimes you get albino freaks," Ellen says. "I think the bigger ones are mostly female, from what people tell me. I'm not really good at insect anatomy. Arachnid anatomy. Whatever these stupid things are."

"Hm. Some species, the females do get a lot bigger." He drags the carcass fully onto his cart. "Does the chitin make good armour?"

"I imagine it might, if you could get it apart without ruining your tools," Ellen says. "I've usually had access to stuff I could repair more easily, so I haven't tried. There's probably tribals who could tell you more about it, but I haven't seen Sativa here in ages."

[ooc: Slowtime! I have a volunteer thing, I should be back in a few hours if I don't tag from the session.]

"A different kind of tool, maybe." Gavroche grins. "Somebody Below will have something they want to do with it. Nothing goes to waste."

"Okay, good," says Ellen. "Thank you, Gavroche. These things are really a pain, especially when they decide to ambush our cattle."

"One the size of this could probably eat your cattle in one bite", he says sympathetically, possibly exaggerating. "So how do you want to work the exchange for the antibiotics? So much per segment, or in weight, or...?"

"Let's go with doses per usable unit of weight," Ellen says. "Easier to establish a possible future standard of trade that way."

"All right, that works." He eyes the scorpion, judging what would give Ellen a fair exchange. "Five doses per?"

"That should-" Ellen pauses, considering. "That should work, I think. I'll get some kind of portable refrigeration here if I have to."

"I should think they'll let me use the infirmary fridge until you can get to them", he says with a nod.

"I meant for transport at home. There's a lot of walking to do between Lacuna and the Citadel."

"Hm, yeah." He considers. "Unless you go back to the Citadel first?"

"It'll still have to be transported eventually unless it all gets used up at once," Ellen says. "I'll manage. And one of these days I'll find out what kind of conditions we need to grow the right molds for these things."

"You could experiment", he suggests cheerfully. "In the infirmary here, they'd probably give you workspace."

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