This is a main quest segment, so more serious spoilers follow. I’m level 14 at this point, and while the quest was challenging it was manageable.

In the morning, I wake up Well Rested but over my carry weight, even though I sold some stuff before turning in at the inn. I suppose this is due to the carry weight bonus from my grilled radstag wearing off. That’s some good stuff! I didn’t really think of my character as someone who would unnecessarily kill radstags, but for sheer utility of cooking something to boost carry weight I’ll have to kill them from now on.

Outside, a radiation storm is raging yet again. The sky is dark, it being before 6, and practically green. I step back inside and try out the classical radio station for awhile. The storm is still raging an hour later. Another hour and it’s finally all cleared up. Vendors are out too. I wonder if they ever vary it up a bit. The AI would seem more realistic if every now and then one of the vendors woke up too late, or had a cold and slept in all day. I offload the rest of my goods then head to Valentine’s.

Inside, I witness Nick and Ellie’s reunion. Ellie thanks me, insists on paying me (with a sweet trench coat as well!) and says Nick could use a new partner. Nick insists we get to my case first. He asks me to tell him everything I can, so I do. He goes into people that might take Shaun. He gives a more intelligent description of the Institute and reveals he’s a synth himself, a discarded early prototype. While I had initially thought Nick was some sort of strange ghoul, the thought that he might be a synth crossed my mind. I’m wondering how this town that’s so paranoid about synths even allows him to live here though. It seems like quite an odd move for the narrative. Regardless, he claims any secret knowledge of the Institute is locked away from him by security protocols.

After a description of the man, Nick thinks a man named Kellogg might have my son. He also says Kellogg moved to town awhile back and bought a house, living with a 10 year old kid before disappearing. It’s either another kidnapped kid or, as I suspected, a fair amount of time passed between Shaun being taken and me ultimately waking up. Nick suggests we head over to Kellogg’s, which is in a disused part of town. As we walk, he speaks more about Kellogg and the way he operates. A cunning professional with few enemies, not the typical mercenary.

We can’t get in to the house, as it has a Master lock on it. Nick sends me to the mayor to see if I can get a key. When I get to the Mayor’s office, Piper is shouting at the secretary, accusing the mayor of avoiding the press and making an off-hand remark about the Institute. The secretary quips back that Piper might have better luck getting a man if she shouted less. Piper retorts that it reminds her of an article she’s writing about an affair the mayor is having with the secretary. Piper turns and wants to know why I’m here. She’s here to find out why the mayor has been meeting with a mysterious courier every week.

I speak with Geneva about the house before going in to see the mayor. As I’ve invested in some Charisma and the Ladykiller perk, as well as wearing my suit and nice glasses, I persuade her to help me because I need to find my son. She puts the key on her desk with the understanding that she is just misplacing it so I can take it.

As a side note, I really wish the dog would get on the elevator with me automatically. Instead this time I can just stand there and look at him sometimes and he never moves towards me. Yet he appears almost immediately where I’m going. It breaks the realism a bit.

Back at Kellogg’s, Nick congratulates me on getting the key and we move in. There’s a hidden room revealed with a button on the desk. There are some supplies in the room, as well as a particular brand of cigar. A dialogue option suggests the dog might track the scent. Valentine agrees, but also offers his help if I should need it.

I’m torn between trying to track the scent immediately, and regrouping at Sanctuary first. I have left them a long time. I decide to try the scent though as the story and my character’s motivations would tend towards that. As I gear up to head out, I’m also torn in terms of gear choices. For some reason while I can wear my vault jump suit along with other options, if I opt to wear the trench coat it’s the only thing I can wear on my body. In the fiction it seems like a somewhat arbitrary choice, as I really don’t see why I couldn’t wear the trench coat over something else (that’s typically how trench coats are worn). Mechanically, I suppose the choice between extra perception, and extra protection is more interesting, but I like such gameplay choices to fit better with the fiction if possible. While the perception is nice, I haven’t been having much trouble hitting, and I don’t believe it affects damage or my survivability. I choose protection before I head out of town.

Once my dog gets the scent, we’re off. It feels early to be doing this, but it’s what I would do in the situation. Who knows how long the scent will last? And I can always hold off if I get in over my head. I think. Dogmeat gets the scent and quite literally runs with it. I generally don’t sprint in this game, but I feel the urge to keep up. It’s not far out of town before we get our first clue, another half-smoked cigar.

We’re off again, encountering a swarm of mole rats on the railroad tracks Dogmeat leads me down (including a Legendary Mole Rat). The Bolstering Raider Left Arm I get is neat, but not better than the pocketed Poisoner’s Tempered Raider Left Arm I’ve got already. I’m annoyed that so many of these pests seem to swallow only left arm gear, although I suppose it makes sense. If I were fending off an attacking beast I might throw my left arm out too.

Dogmeat takes me down some stairs at a highway access point, and across the way I find some bloody bandages, as well as a dead raider. These should be good for tracking. We’re beset by some wild mongrels, but they’re easy 2-shots. The Yao Guai is a different story. I take half my HP in damage before I am able to put the charging mutated bear down.

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Dogmeat gets the scent again and I head down another set of stairs. I carefully disarm some cans hung to sound alarm and then look behind a makeshift wall with a mannequin behind it. I know there’s a mine there, but it goes off before I can disarm it. The cursor just keeps showing an option for me to examine the clue rather than the mine. I’m a bit annoyed, as I was well aware of the trap, but I’ve got the stimpacks to deal with it. My character’s voice muses about it being “a decoy” and “clever”.

The bridge we head over next looks familiar, and a glance at my map confirms it is the way I crossed heading in to town. There are more ghouls on the bridge though. I thought I had cleared the area out during my long night near Forest Grove Marsh. On the other side of the nearby pub Dogmeat leads me to a broken down Assaultron robot. This wasn’t here before. I feel kind of sorry for the thing as it says “I can’t feel my legs.” But I don’t really know if there’s anything I can do. I’m not getting any repair options or options to speak to it. I take the nearby cigar and continue tracking the scent.

Soon, we’re at an old army base. There are the expected institutional buildings and satellite dishes, with the nice touch of a ruined basketball court on the outskirts. I make a note to do a more thorough exploration of the base, and then follow Dogmeat past several of the buildings (killing a couple of blowflies along the way). Finally, we’re at Fort Hagen. Now to find a way in. I snipe a turret from a nearby ruined bar, then head around the back to climb to the roof where I face more turrets.

Dogmeat seems to have disappeared, which I’m hoping is not a permanent glitch and he’ll reappear when I enter the next area. I hate replaying segments of the game. Dogmeat is still not there. Time to reload. I have to go back quite a bit before I get him back. Next time I’ll just reload immediately when I notice something like this. He keeps disappearing after this so I know it’s a bug with the mission (especially since it uses Dogmeat separate from his companion role). Internet search reveals exiting Fort Hagen then re-entering fixes it. Confirmed! (although at first I thought he hadn’t followed me in so you may want to be patient).

Inside, Institute synths are attacking, and it’s a tough fight. I hear one say “Shaun has ordered your termination.” That can’t be right. Or at least, that can’t be good. Also, “Asset Kellogg in danger. Defending.” These don’t seem to be the super-smart synths everyone is afraid of though. Certainly worse-off than Nick. There’s a protectron in the basement, so I hack the terminal, fire it up and hope it helps. It takes out a few, but as I’ve learned previously it won’t take down turrets. So after it sweeps what it will, I shut it down. I have to take out the synth leader on my own, who is tougher if not smarter. I switch to a laser rifle in case there are more. Perhaps they might be weaker to energy weapons.

I take an elevator down which speaks, rather ominously, in the same voice as the synths I’ve been killing. Opening a chained door, I find where the stairs I passed earlier lead. I always like to round out the map I keep in my head. It’s quite satisfying. Further in, after a turret and synth, I hear a voice over a loudspeaker. He’s talking to me, I assume, from a comment he makes about the person he’s talking to being a frozen TV dinner. I kill another turret. He says sorry about something I can’t quite make out and then says he doesn’t need a roommate and tells me to leave. I continue down to the command center. He says he never figured I’d come knocking at his door and that he gave me only 50/50 on making it to Diamond City. Well, he underestimated me, though if he thought I had 50/50 I wonder why he didn’t kill me before.

More synths attack. But they’re a bit cocky and easily dispatched. More chatter: “Look, you’re pissed off, but whatever you think you’re accomplishing here? It’s not going to go your way.” I proceed cautiously, looting some more. This is one of the places I’m going to have to go back to loot everything I leave behind. I encounter another terminal and upgrade my perk so I have expert hacking and disable the turret. Then I’m a little pissed when I keep targeting the turret I just deactivated instead of the synths coming up the stairs to kill me. This type of thing didn’t make as much of a difference in previous games when VATS froze time, but now that it merely slows time extraneous VATS targets are a real problem. I find a fusion core in a side room down below. With all the cores I’m collecting I should be all set to have a good run in the power armor later.

As I continue to explore, I keep noticing bodies everywhere. One is thrown halfway through a window. I wonder how they all died. It looks like they died violently. Certainly not from the nuke. There’s an energy weapons bobblehead in the kitchen, of all places. Kellogg again, calmly as usual “You’ve got guts and determination. That’s admirable. But you are in over your head in ways you can’t possibly comprehend.” Another battle with synths, then a pause as I turn a corner. “It’s not too late. Stop, turn around, and leave. You have that option. Not a lot of people can say that.”

I find the best cache of guns and ammo I’ve seen. And a Fat Man to shoot nukes with, which I definitely can’t carry right now. I will have to come back for it. Just past there is a bedroom. Nice, so probably officers quarters. And inside a nice US Covert Operations Manual. I find a big office, flanked by American flags. It feels like I’m close. Changing tone, he says “Ok, you made it. My synths are standing down. Let’s talk.” He opens the doors for me. Calm though he may be, it’s not a pleasant conversation. He says my son is alive, that he’s older than I expect and in a good home. He can’t tell me where, he’s just a puppet like me, but I can die knowing my son is alive. The fight is tough, and he’s my first opponent to use stealth, but I triumph after a retreat to use a stimpack. Kellogg, it seems, is almost more machine than man. But he’s got a fantastic gun I can use.

What I find on Kellogg’s terminal doesn’t make much sense. Something about Shaun being delivered “back to the Institute” as if he had somehow been there before. And some orders to “track down renegade” whoever that is. It’s after 3 now, another night and a day kind of mission. It would be interesting if there were detrimental effect for staying awake this long. It would make these missions quite difficult though, without places to sleep. But I suppose running on adrenaline a person could pull something like this. I can’t remember how long survival mode allowed in Fallout New Vegas. Time to head to Sanctuary. I’ve got to regroup. The elevator near Kellogg’s office takes me to the roof. Good, I don’t want to trek back the way I came.

As I exit, elated, I look at the smoldering remains of the turrets I dispatched before, then I notice a strange shadow across them. Looking up to see I gigantic airship is really a spectacular experience. The helicopters are surprising as well, but dwarfed by this massive airship which blots out the sun as it passes. “People of the Commonwealth! Do not interfere! Our intentions are peaceful. We are the Brotherhood of Steel.” I watch for awhile as it flies off towards Diamond City. Even this early in the game, you can build a fairly rote pattern of exploration and combat. This established pattern is comforting, but can take away some of the magic. It is to Fallout 4’s credit that they build in different events or other changes still capable of surprising the player and evoking feelings of awe and excitement like this. I briefly want to follow, but I should be getting back to Haven. I’ve left them far too long, and I’m carrying way too much crap. It’s weighing me down. I’ll come see the Brotherhood once they’re already established.

I head back to Sanctuary, stow my junk, and sleep 8 hours.