POV Rio
After dealing with the outer defenses, I used my Hoshigan to look into the vault, and what I saw made me a little frustrated.
"Well, I got good news and bad news," I say.
"What's the bad news?" Deacon asks.
"I count 78 Gunners in the Vault, and there is only one entrance," I say.
"Ouch, that... yeah... That's not good," Hancock responds.
"What's the good news?" Cait asks.
"From what I can tell, most of the Gunners down there are lightly armored or unarmored. The guns are also not that threatening. Of course, not all of them are like that. The Atrium has 28 Gunners, and they are mostly very well armed. One is even in Power Armor," I reply.
"So we just got to clear out the Atrium and everything else will go smoother?" Hancock asks.
"Yeah. That's the basics. The only entrance is an elevator, which we can't risk breaking. If we had all the time in the world, we could try starving them out, but even that likely wouldn't work. Gunner HQ is not that far, so if this Vault went silent, they would come investigate after a little time," I reply.
"What if we use that... Uh, C.A.M.P., right? We could make some barricades and then use our superior position to funnel them into a killbox," Deacon offers.
"Hmm, that could work. But it wouldn't work unless we took out the Gunner in Power Armor. He could rush our defenses and pin us down while the other Gunners attack," I reply.
We go back and forth for a while, trying to think of a way through these Gunners. In the end, it was decided to use the C.A.M.P. plan combined with some traps I would set. I was confident I could sneak past the barricade the Gunners had made to set up some explosives. Before I chose what explosives to use, I made sure to check what the Vault could handle. Thankfully, the Vault was plenty capable of taking almost anything. It seems Vault-Tec didn't cut corners. That being said, I wasn't going to go overboard. I didn't want to push the 200-year-old Vault with C4 and Nukes.
I took the elevator down to the Vault. As it was coming down, I saw that a couple of Gunners were waiting near the door. It was clear they were meant to alert anyone if someone came down. When the elevator came down, the doors opened, and the Gunners raised their eyebrows.
"Huh? Is it empty?" asked one Gunner.
"Uh, I dunno, let's check," the second Gunner said.
They approached the Elevator and turned on a flashlight to see if there was anybody inside. If they looked up, they would likely see me slowly crawling out from the elevator's roof into the Vault entrance hall's roof.
"Huh? There's nobody here?" said the first Gunner.
"Must be a malfunction. After all these things are really old. Or maybe Gus was an idiot and sent it down without anyone inside," commented the second Gunner.
"Whatever, let's report this," said the first Gunner.
As they turned around, I was already around the corner. I was about to enter the Atrium when I chose my target and teleported to their shadow. It seemed like I did it at the perfect time.
"Huh?" said one of the Gunners.
"What is it?" asked another.
"Thought I saw something, but it must have been my imagination, there is no way someone can crawl on the ceiling," said the Gunner.
"Yeah, it was likely nothing," says the other Gunner.
I sneak around and set up some charges. For most of the mines and bombs, I set them up near where most people would use as cover. Thanks to my Sneak and Explosives Skills, I could plant them in a way that they were nearly impossible to find. At least not without a few days of being here. I also set up a few magic rune traps. The last thing I did was mess with the 6 turrets they had set up. The terminal they had set up to control the Turrets was in the Overseer's Office. From what I could tell, they chose here as it was in a place that would normally be impossible to tamper with.
'That is, unless you can slip through walls.'
There were 4 Turrets in the main Atrium and two more turrets leading towards the control terminal. Would the turrets actually stop the Gunners? Oh, heaven no. They could take out a few, but they wouldn't stop them. After dealing with the Turrets, I moved on to the two other wings of the Vault. I locked the doors so they could get reinforcements. I also took the Grenade Traps in the Right Wing and moved them into places to kill some of the other Gunners in the other sections. Specifically, the Reactor section, which had 4 Gunners. Once everything was dealt with, I moved into a good position. I waited until the two Gunners at the entrance were in the right position. Then I teleported behind them and overheared their conversation, which caused me to pause.
"Please, half the things they say about Rio are exaggerated. I mean, teleportation? Come on, really?" said the first Gunner.
"I'm telling you it's true. It is said he is actually part shadow, and if you say his name three times, he'll appear behind you," said the second Gunner.
"Please, what do you think this is? A simulation?" says the first Gunner.
"I swear it's true. I heard it from my Cousins, Cousins, Ex-Boyfriends, Sister," says the second Gunner.
"Haha, yeah, right. Rio, Rio, Rio," says the first Gunner with a laugh.
"Dude, are you crazy?!" says the second Gunner.
"Hah, dude, it's just a myth. What if I turn around and see R-" the first Gunner says, but stops when he sees me and goes to scream, but I stick a knife into their heads.
I put the bodies into my Inventory and send the elevator up so everyone else can join me. My next step was to distract some of the Gunners. So I grabbed an empty magazine and aimed it carefully.
Tap
"Huh? What was that sound?" asked a Gunner.
"Not sure. Come on, let's check it out," says another Gunner.
Several Gunners join, and more keep an eye on it to make sure it isn't something odd. While they are distracted, I deploy the C.A.M.P. and start quickly building walls.
"Huh? It's a magazine? Where'd it come from?" asks the Gunner.
They all look around when one notices the new wall.
"What the hell?" says one Gunner.
"What?" asks another.
They all start noticing the wall; some rub their eyes, and others slowly approach it.
"Uh, I'm not the only one seeing this, right?" says a Gunner.
"Do things like this just happen? Do walls just appear?" asks another Gunner.
As they were having an existential crisis about how a wall just appeared out of nowhere, I set up an EWHB-12, and my companions arrived. Cait wasn't doing that great. She had a massive debuff to her stats, and she was paler than usual. The EWHB-12 was set to automated fire. Then I made sure everyone was ready.
"3... 2..." I said, slowly getting quieter while the number one was silent.
The wall opened up, and we started shooting before the enemy could respond. 5 went down right away. 3 more died before they could get to cover. Then, as they got to cover, I activated the bombs. That took out 11. Then the Turrets opened fire. The turrets were, unfortunately, just the weak 10mm variety, but they still took out another 3 Gunners before being destroyed. That left 6 Gunners. One was the Power Armor user, 4 were in full Heavy Combat Armor, and the last was using a Stealth Boy. The EWHB-12 was preventing any of them from getting up from cover. But that was fine, I had something to help.
Clink
"Flashbang!" screamed the Gunner in Power Armor.
Whiiiiiiiiinnnnnnneeee
The blinded and confused Gunners were then easy to kill with a follow-up China Lake. That left the Gunner in T-51F Power Armor using a Gatling Laser. The Power Armor protected them from the Flashbang's effects. But they were outnumbered and outgunned, so it wouldn't be too difficult to deal with them. I kept the EWHB-12 shooting, keeping the Gunner pinned down while we circled him and got ready to deal with him. I went left while the others went right.
The Gunner sees them and starts shooting at them while remaining behind the stairs he was using as cover. When he did so, I was able to see his undefended back.
BOOOOM
I shot a round straight into his Fusion Core, causing it to explode and crippling the suit. The Gunner was barely able to move, and it was clear he was trapped. That didn't mean he surrendered; it just meant he tried even harder to kill at least one of us. I just sighed and took off his helmet and put a hole through his head. The traps I set had taken out the other 4 Gunners in the other areas. We took a slight break while we started grabbing some loot and setting up additional defenses.