Choose my Adventure: Toppling a fortress of junk

Another week, another adventure chosen. This week's Choose my Adventure group in Fallen Earth turned out to be a blast as more of you showed up to help crush the Junk Fortress just outside of Embry Crossroads.

As we begin to level our characters into the double digits, we start setting out sights on the middle of Sector 1 in cities like Kingman, Oilville and Linewood Facility. But how did we do in Embry Crossroads this week? Keep reading below for the complete story.
We seem to be picking up steam lately with the new group. Friendships are forming and we're really beginning to trust each other more. We gained five or six new faces on our way to Embry Crossroads. I think this is the first time I've had a chance to sit down and think for a good bit as we're constantly on the move. You know what they say: rolling clones gather no moss.

We made our way into Embry Crossroads early... heck, I don't even know what day it was. We decided on Embry because of the things we'd heard about it. One Zanesville local was telling us a story about a giant fortress of junk on the outskirts of Embry's city limits. Not only did that make it into our new agenda, but Elena Winters mentioned a man by the name of Graham in the LifeNet facility there. Hopefully he can help us with more info on that alpha clone.

Since our first few weeks on this adventure, my memories have been a blur. I imagine it's a side-effect of being recloned, but it worries me. Of course, this is one reason I started this journal, to lock in the experience. But I also wanted to take a bit of precious scrap paper here to talk about my new comrades.

Freezer Burn is a man I met early on in my journey, back at South Burb. He seems to have retained many of his earlier memories better than the rest of us, and we often look to him for direction... literally. I'm not sure I want to know why they call him Freezer Burn, but I imagine it has something to do with cryogenics.

Angelis Claux has also been with me since South Burb, and I would say she can best be described as a gun nut. She doesn't say much, and usually lets her assortment of rifles do the talking. Part of her reason for joining us was to find her lost sister, Moira. None of us thought it would happen so quickly, but we were able to find Moira within days, thanks to the flyers I've been posting along our path.

I figured Angelis' little sister would be a snot-nosed little punk that we'd have to babysit the whole time, but she turned out to be an essential part of the team. She's taken a special liking to crafting useful items for the group out of whatever materials we can find, and some of our best clothes and armor have been created by her.

Darkheart Ebonsoul, Blynd and David Hull came to me as a trio. Those three seem to have known each other for awhile, and they work really well together. Despite their previous bond, they've also mix well with the rest of us.

Marmalade Jones is a bit of a character, but every group needs one, right? He has this unsatiable ability to sniff out the bars and slot machines in every town we've seen so far. What makes it more incredible is the fact that he actually keeps winning! I'm not sure how he got the nickname Marmalade, but I think something along the lines of "Lucky" would be more appropriate. I can't complain though. He won a powerful rifle from a drifter the other night, and it's helped us out on more than one occasion. He might just want to keep it away from Angelis, though. I'd bet she'd snatch that thing away from him with his hands still attached.

Of course, this isn't our entire group, but it's the ones who were with me when we rolled into Embry. Although we've done a good bit since my last journal entry, I wanted to focus on our trip through what the Embry residents call Junk Fortress.

It wasn't hard to find -- we just followed the smell. The directions given to us by the locals weren't much help, but it was unmistakable once we saw those piles of scrap on the horizon. After a bit of deliberation, we decided against the stealthy approach in lieu of storming in, guns blazing. This went against all of my best judgment, but who was I to argue with a group crazy enough to actually pull this off?

The plan worked as we busted our way through the front gates, through scores of unsuspecting guards and into a dark corner of the underground parking garage to regroup. This is where we tied up our horses and continued on. Even in circumstances like this, with armed men and women attacking from all directions, I can still take a step back to assess the situation at hand. I'm quite proud of our little group of clones, and I sometimes wonder if our determination is truly fueled by our ultimate goal, or we just really enjoy smashing some skulls. I watch the efficiency and skill that some of these team members show in their combat technique, and it makes me wonder if this alpha clone whose DNA we share isn't some sort of highly-trained fighting machine.

We traveled to the deepest, darkest corners of that facility, through a whole lot more than just junk and a few wild scavengers. I'm not even sure if the people on the outside realize what was down there, but the whole illusion of a junk fortress was lost once we started to see labs and mutants aiming their weapons at us.

Following a series of winding stairwells, we happened upon a room guarded by some ferociously evil creatures with black, matted fur and teeth as large as kitchen knifes. As daunting as they were were, they were still no match for us. The large mutant in the next room, however? We were not ready for him.

Don't worry, we took down the giant drooling mutant, but not without a good fight. A few of us took a good beating that night, so of course we spent the next few days recovering. Most of us spent it being stitched up by Doctor Watson who was so thankful that we found her sister Freya down there. Of course Marmalade Jones recovered in his own special way: surrounded by Blackjack tables and dinging slot machines.

Away from the group for a bit, I wandered around town alone, trying to clear my head of the recent excitement. According to what Elena Winters told me, I should be able to find a man named Graham in the Embry LifeNet facility.

He was not quite what I expected. His off-color sense of humor struck me as odd, but I guess that's what happens when you work in an underground bio lab surrounded by various forms of cloned life all day. He was happy to see me, and cheerfully caught me up on the situation.

It turns out there's more to Elena's story than I imagined. Graham told me that she is dead, but only as dead as I am. That's right, she's also a clone. Although he couldn't tell me where she is right now, he did help me retrieve some animal DNA that he could somehow use to extend my life and the lives of my companions. With a bit of an inappropriate chuckle, the man told me that if I hadn't found him when I did, our DNA could have actually begun the devolution process into some crazed mutant.

He went on to explain our DNA history and how we're each comprised of 64 different DNA strands as part of an elaborate LifeNet experiment to make "worker clones". The alpha clone samples that were used to make us were mostly destroyed in the war, but he caught wind of possible samples in Rest Stop and Trumbull.

So even though I really have no idea where these two cities are, Graham mentioned that they're both far north of the Embry facility, and that I need to prepare myself for the dangers that lie further north.

Now that I have an idea of where to go next, and am certain that my DNA won't fall apart any time soon, I am a bit relieved to know that we at least have a solid lead.

In the morning we'll be off to another town and more lessons learned. From what I hear, finding this alpha clone DNA will not be easy, and many clones have died on this very same journey. I will make sure that we are prepared, though. Nothing can stop us.

I'm happy to say that we picked up a surprising number of players this week. As we push on, our choices will get a bit more linear than we're used to in the starter areas, but the cities will be much larger with more group-oriented quests and instances.

Having completely plowed through Junk Fortress (Loki was really not a problem at all for us), we're eager to hit more of these large group quests. We have a few major cities in store, and it's time to make your vote on this week's challenges:

Oilville - Despite this being in the polls last time, it's still a solid option for this week as it remains in our level range and has a ton of quests.
Old Kingman - While Old Kingman is full of regular quests, the Kingman prison is what we're after on our group night. This facility holds some of the most difficult challenges you'll find to this point.
Linewood Facility - Also quite high for our level, Linewood's group and AP quests should pose an interesting challenge to us.

So get those votes in and meet up with us this Friday night at 9pm EST to join in the fun. Our waypoint rendezvous this time will be X: 4267046 Y: 3534249. Even if you don't plan on joining with the group, stop by and say hi!