Just a few feet in front of me stands a balding, wiry man who wants to kill me. He snaps at me with a loathsome tone for asking a line of ethical questions about his occupation of slave trader. Sun-weathered skin cracks around his mouth as he barks "get yer ass out of here if you don't like it then!" I relent and cool him down a bit. I inform him that I would like to inspect and possibly acquire several of his goods, but I am swiftly denied.
Perhaps he knows of my true intent, to rescue two children who have recently vanished from a neighboring shantytown. He hints to me that I can gain entrance to his slave pen if I offer him the right sum of caps, which are the legal tender in the Wastelands. Better yet, giving him a slave from a nearby town might improve my odds. I question whether I should even continue this harrowing discussion as I eye the road behind me.
I notice a raggedy man in a hockey mask standing behind him, holding a rifle. I quickly pull out my combat shotgun and literally blow the balding slaver's head right off. The grunt in the background raises that shotgun of his, but I put an end to things before he can even pull the trigger. I have found a more favorable solution and fashioned my own means of entry outside of the dialog tree. I'll continue my search for those kids, but first I'll pick these bodies clean of munitions and rations. This was my way of doing things in one of the numerous side-quests in Bethesda's long-awaited and skeptically-approached take on the Fallout franchise, Fallout 3.
