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Unofficial-MooseRiverValley-Contest

Carol Hall participated in the Unofficial Survivors of Moose River Valley Contest. Carol Hall was written by MongoosePirate. The article focuses on a Minuteman Deserter who has since travelled to Maine.
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Carol Hall
Carol Hall
General Information
Date of Birth: January 23, 2256
Date of Death: N/A
Age: 31
Location Information
Status Information
Status: Living in isolation in Maine
Occupation: Corporal in the Minutemen, raider, gunslinger, homesteader
Physical Information
Gender: Female
Race: Human
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 165 lbs.

Carol Hall is a Minuteman deserter who left the Commonwealth after their collapse for the far north. She has lived in a cabin in Moose River Valley since around 2285, living a tenuous existence on the frontier. Various threats have reared their heads to oppose Carol over time, but she has persevered so far.

Biography[]

Carol Hall was born on January 23, 2256, at University Point to Anthony Hall and Faith Hall, the second of three children. The Hall Family were fish vendors who bought fish from local fishermen and sold them to traders. Carol's early life was rather boring, mostly deboning fish and playing in the nearby ruins of the Commonwealth. Carol made quite a few friends in those recent years such as Bobbie Strickland and Izzie, and she was often more friendly to them than with her own family.

In 2268, Carol found an undamaged terminal in the ruins and, with the help of her friends, hauled it back to University Point. One of her friends, Bobbie Strickland, complained to his parents about being 'forced' to haul back the terminal. This got Carol and all of her friends in trouble for bullying with their terminal being seized by adults. For this, Carol personally told Bobbie that he was a dirty liar. After hearing Bobbie's further whining, Carol socked Bobbie in the nose and got in more trouble. She was fine with that. She was less fine when she had to stay inside University Point due to increased raider attacks. Luckily, the raiders were later cleared out by the Minutemen, and she was able to explore again.

Carol proved to be a bright child, excelling in her schooling at University Point. However, Carol's education was tertiary compared to social climbing. This became even more prominent as she grew into a teenager. Her old best friend Izzie grew more wild as she grew older. Carol saw that she soon had to make a decision on what to do with her life. Her parents encouraged her to follow in the family business. Most of her friends encouraged her to be a raider or a scavenger, roaming the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, Carol's friend Izzie tried to pressure Carol into joining a raider gang alongside her. It was a hard decision for Carol, and she came dangerously close to running away with Izzie a couple of times.

However, Carol eventually chose to take another option. Over the span of her short life, Carol had heard numerous stories about the heroic actions of the Minutemen. However, that was not what attracted Carol to the Minutemen; it was instead the promise of ranging around the Commonwealth, gathering resources for herself, and possibly gaining political power in the future. So, Carol was relieved to leave University Point with her parents' blessing and go out to join up with a group of Minutemen in 2274.

It turned the stories about the Minutemen had vastly exaggerated their power and competence. Since losing their base of operations at Fort Independence in 2240, the Minutemen had been in a steady decline with enemies seemingly around every corner. Nevertheless, Carol was still positive that the Minutemen would be her avenue to success and joined up with a large group of Minutemen.

Carol Hall was given quite a bit of training to use weapons and follow orders from her superiors, specifically Major Camden Trescott who led Carol's group of Minutemen. Carol's training was short but efficient. She also got equipment that made her 'a Minuteman'. Another important part of Carol's training was socializing with other Minutemen in her group and befriending them. Her two best friends at this time were Jay Pryor (a former caravan guard from Diamond City) and Maxwell 'Max' Bolt (a former mercenary from Maine). Both were already quite experienced in combat, something Carol was well-aware of when she befriended them.

Carol Hall was in the Minutemen for about ten years and gained a great amount of experience in the group, fighting across the Commonwealth against things such as raiders, super mutants, and synths. Just surviving that time was an achievement in itself. Carol bonded with Jay and Max quite deeply over the years. Jay opened up to Carol about his estranged family in Diamond City while Max told Carol in great detail about his cabin in far northern reaches of Maine and offered to take her there after the Minutemen ‘won’. As long as the three of them survived, they could face the world it seemed. That is until it turned out she was sleeping with Jay behind Max’s back in 2280. That shattered the trio’s friendship and soon even Carol and Jay went their separate ways. By 2281, Carol Hall was a corporal in the Minutemen and in command of her own group of Minutemen. She had accumulated a great amount of equipment over the years such as her assortment of weapons and a Pip-boy on her arm. Carol was finally a contender within the hierarchy of the various Minutemen militias, if a small one, and she was comfortable with that for the moment, protecting little towns and yielding the rewards.

Things changed radically in the spring of 2282 when General Becker, the leader of the Minutemen, suffered an unexpected death. This did not trouble Carol all that much, but for many of the Minutemen, Becker had been the only thing holding them together. Carol Hall’s attempts to try to climb the Minutemen’s hierarchy after Becker’s death only made her more enemies and hastened the Minutemen’s decline as a cohesive organization. Nevertheless, Carol retained command of her small group and tried to retain cooperation with other Minutemen militias across the Commonwealth. She resisted her opportunistic urges, for a while a least.

In 2283, Carol was mortified to hear of her old friend Max’s death at the hands of raiders, putting her situation in perspective. Quite a bit of the rest of that year was spent defending a collection of disparate farms on the fringes of the Commonwealth alongside other squabbling Minutemen against raider attacks. This further wore on Carol, and she finally began to see the writing on the wall.

Carol finally decided that she was done with the Minutemen in early 2284. The internal strife, loss of popular support, and indefensible position just proved too much for Carol. She decided desertion from the declining group was the way to go. She at first considered going back to University Point to be a merc or caravans guard, but then thought “Why not use the men I have to start a raider gang? I can make many more caps that way!” Over the next month or so, Carol persuaded her entire group of Minutemen to desert alongside her and become raiders, though Carol’s plan was to prey on Institute synths and other raiders instead regular wastelanders (for the most part). This bit of moralizing self-justification would be what led to Carol’s exodus from the Commonwealth. The former Minutemen raiders kept their iconography to maintain a better sense of unity, even if it brought unneeded attention.

After leaving the Minutemen, Carol and her group moved to College Square to gain a better position in Boston. That soon enough went sour as they came under near-constant assault from synths, raiders, and super mutants. The former Minutemen were blasted and battered this way and that by various forces. Carol saw her forces shrink week by week and soon began to look for a way out.

College Square sustained a major attack from super mutants in mid-2284, scarring Carol's face rather badly. This convinced Carol that it was about her time to make an exit from the raiding business. However, Carol was uncertain how to leave her own raider gang in a graceful manner. She decided that perhaps she could just take several of her former Minutemen and look for better opportunities.

That was until disaster struck College Square in the early summer of 2284. Without warning, the Institute unleashed hell upon Carol and her group of former Minutemen. A small horde of synths teleported inside College Square's defenses and a fierce battle for survival ensued. Carol herself holed up in one of the buildings adjacent to College Square and scrambled to take stock of the situation. She was further horrified to hear that Conard Kellogg, the Institute's primary enforcer, was in College Square. Carol was informed soon afterwards why the Institute was attacking: Carol’s frequent attacks on their synths had provoked swift retribution. A Minuteman deserter who admitted to being covertly part of the Railroad told Carol this. This woman, named Laura, insisted she had meant no ill against Carol or any of the Minutemen by being part of the Railroad, asking for Carol's forgiveness in regards to her secrecy. That did not stop Carol from laying a bullet between Laura's eyes for her perceived betrayal, blaming her and the Railroad for the attack. That proved to be a foolhardy action on Carol's part.

Killing Laura did not dissuade the Institute's assault on the College Square and soon enough, Carol finally abandoned her small close-knit group to save her own skin. Carol made her way back to her hometown of University Point to try to hide out for a while from synths. Her parents Anthony and Faith were very happy to see her for the first time in years, but her siblings were not so happy to see her, as they knew more about what Carol had been up to than their parents did.

Carol did not stay in University Point long, however. She decided, in case synths was still tailing her, to take up residence in Goodneighbor in mid-2284, off the beaten path. They did not mind putting up with a rather cold Minuteman deserter. That was good for Carol for a brief time until word came that synths were on her trail (the Institute wanted to tie up some loose ends). Confused and scared by this, Carol quickly packed up and vacated her residence in the fall of 2284. She left the city limits of Boston after a day of walking and sat down on a ruined pre-War automobile to figure things out. The Commonwealth was practically off-limits to Carol now and she had little choice but to move somewhere else. She considered going south towards New York City and Capital Wasteland but deemed them both too unstable and too known to the synths. Perhaps she should go north? That was when Carol remembered her friend Max’s story about his cabin in Moose River Valley in Maine, “far from war and civilization”. Carol quickly dismissed her thought of the valley as unobtainable since she did not have any real idea where it was besides “far north”. She needed to get out of the Institute’s way quickly and so Carol set out west from Boston towards New York where she knew of some settlements. This took a surprisingly short time.

That was until Carol came across a fiefdom controlled by the Old Lords of New York, Whitehall. Carol observed the goings on of the serfs and was disgusted by the conditions within the settlement. Nonetheless, Carol went into Whitehall and slept in an inn. The next day, Carol shopped around Whitehall and managed to buy a holotape that could install a map of New England in her Pip-boy, which included an in-depth map of the Moose River Valley. With that, Carol decided to make her to her friend Max's homestead in Moose River Valley instead of Upstate New York. With that, she turned her back on the Commonwealth for good and decided a quiet life in Maine would beat being dead in Boston.

The journey turned Carol right around, taking her northeast towards Maine. That took her first through the ruins of Rutland in Vermont. There, she met an old scrawny hermit of the occult named Styx who warned Carol of dangers ahead and offered to have tea with her. Carol was too reluctant to actually have tea with the hermit, but Styx sent Carol on her way with teabags, teacups, spoons, and a copy of one of his books nonetheless. Carol was a little creeped out while still accepting Styx's gifts.

Moving on from the ruins of Rutland, Carol walked the ruins of U.S. Route 4. She warded off attacks from wildlife, tribals, and hillfolk until she came upon another settlement, White River, a frontier trading post and stockade. Carol decided to take a good long stop there. White River was a rough town, sitting at the ruined junction of a couple of pre-War roads, but Carol Hall felt like she could manage, as she had faced the worse the Commonwealth had thrown at her. The people of White River were a tough breed, constantly vigilant against raids from tribals, hillfolk, and worse things. However, the settlers still manage to make a living off of lumber and trade. They scratch by year by year, drinking frequently. The most popular place to get drunk in White River was Holland’s Owl, an inn and bar owned by the titular oddball Holland. Carol went there for shelter as snow began to fall in 2284 and bought herself a room.

That night, Carol was at the bar having a drink when she was dog-whistled by a couple of the other barflies. Carol repeatedly told the harassers to fuck off but was ignored every time. After two days of constant harassment and one instance of a man groping her ass, Carol decided to finally play the pestering to her advantage. The third day of Carol’s stay at Holland's Owl was as cold as ever. Carol was trying to get a drink. Another gaggle of barflies came to harass her. However, this time Carol acted differently. She flirted with the drunks and indulged their touching. Nothing too far but enough. At the end of the night, the barflies stumbled out of Holland’s Owl only to find that their pockets were empty. They returned to the inn only to find Carol gone, already on the road north towards Moose River Valley. Before leaving White River, Carol had bought two games on tapes for her Pip-boy, Grognak & the Ruby Ruins and Red Menace, which entertained her for weeks afterwards.

Soon after leaving White River, Carol Hall had an unfortunate encounter on the road. A large hunting party of hillfolk drove Carol off of the road and into the forest. The hillfolk hooted and howled, crazed at the prospect of capturing a healthy female. Carol managed to pick off two of the hillfolk but was continually driven south by her pursuers back southeast. Eventually, Carol came upon a circle of standing stones on the summit of a gentle hill. That seemed irrelevant to Carol until she noticed that the hillfolk had stopped their chase far outside of the circle of standing stones and were watching Carol with tangible fear on their faces. She was initially happy to see that the chase had stopped and let out a cry of joy upon seeing the hillfolk leave. Resting her back against a standing stone, Carol took a much-needed break, played some of her tapes, and looked at her Pip-boy to gauge her location. She was rather put out to see that she was back in southeast Vermont.

After figuring out her location, Carol examined the hill with the standing stones a little bit more. The standing stones and the area around them had the grass around them worn away, which seemed to not have been shaped by nature from Carol's perspective. That scared her, remembering the reaction of the hillfolk when they had seen her go among the standing stones. Something was unnatural. This awakened a new fear within Carol, and she stumbled away from the standing stones, taking an alternative path than before so as to throw the hillfolk off her trail.

Carol finally got back on the road a day later and began her journey once again, nonetheless with a larger degree of caution. Soon enough, Carol made her way up U.S. Route 4 towards Moose River Valley as planned.

On the road in New Hampshire, Carol came across fewer travelers. Even less were willing to strike up a conversation or trade. That scant trade kept Carol fed. The most notable traveler Carol met was a lone wanderer from the Detroit Wasteland named Cornelius. Cornelius and Carol held a long conversation about the wider wasteland, and they reminisced about their homes. Carol spoke wistfully of University Point while Cornelius talked about his birthplace Motor Town. Cornelius was a drifter who liked to think of himself as rootless but who ultimately still remembered where he came from. They drifted closer together as the night grew longer. Cornelius propositioned Carol then and there, and they had sex soon afterwards. It felt good for Carol but less than intimate. She just hoped she had not gotten pregnant.

The two travelers parted their ways the next day, Carol to Moose River Valley and Cornelius back to his home in the Detroit Wasteland. Making her way north through New Hampshire, Carol came into more conflict with people on the road, mostly more hillfolk. Luckily, she met them only in small numbers and was able to fend them off. In January 2285, Carol was happy to be finally met with a sign signalling she had crossed the state line into Maine. Carol reassessed her position using her position using her Pip-boy and continued on the road towards Moose River Valley.

The path for Carol after crossing into Maine was calm, with a lot less hillfolk and significantly less people on the road in general. She made her way north unmolested for days, simply enjoying the scenery and picking through various pre-War ruins. She found various baubles in those ruins, most importantly an intact hunting rifle. She picked that up in the ruins of Newby from a soldier's skeleton. Carol also found a raided caravan near Newby with some wounded survivors and looted the caravan’s remains, leaving the dying behind to the elements.

Carol finally came upon a real settlement at the Kennebec Homestead. She was surprised to find it to be thriving under the control of the family matriarch Ida Wilson. Ida gave off some overbearing religious vibes but warmly welcomed Carol to her homestead. She offered to house Carol for the night. Carol was happy to have a hot meal and a warm bed for once. Carol traded with some of Ida’s relatives for more food in exchange for ammunition. At dinner with the Wilsons, Carol was introduced to Daryl Wilson by his mother Ida, obviously wanting to set the two up. Daryl was nice but he was not Carol’s type. Carol quietly rebuffed his advances. Ida noticed this but said nothing. After dinner, Carol slept.

Carol awakened the next morning to see Ida standing by her bed, mumbling to herself. Alarmed, Carol kept her eyes closed and listened closely. All she heard was gibberish, something about ‘demons’. Ida eventually left the room, and Carol got up, quickly preparing to leave the Kennebec Homestead. She rationalized the encounter with Ida as a dream. Carol made her way out of the homestead’s main building with no problem, telling the people who were awake that she did not want to eat breakfast. However, she was stopped at the entrance of the homestead by Ida and two of her sons, who wished Carol goodbye. The fact they were prepared for her to leave creeped Carol out, but she managed to squeak out a thank you.

Soon after leaving the Kennebec Homestead, Carol met with a traveling trader on the road coming from Moose River Valley. Carol was happy to finally meet someone besides her old friend Max who had been to Moose River Alley. After trading for some supplies, Carol asked the trader about current conditions within the valley. The trader, named Collins, was all too happy to tell Carol about Moose River Valley (for a small fee, of course). The valley was free of radiation as it had not been hit during the war, and the airstream did not carry nuclear fallout its way. However, the winters were long and harsh in Northern Maine with winters being six months long. Nevertheless, Moose River Valley held great potential as most of its wildlife was unmutated. This meant animals such as moose, deer, and even a couple of wolf packs. The valley was sparsely populated at best, with a couple of hunters living in the wilderness and a single ghoul who was a park ranger before the Great War. He neglected to mention Fort Lake, which set up Carol for quite the surprise later on.

Carol thanked Collins for his information and was asked how her trip has been so far. She replied that it had been hostile but had been met with some hospitality at the Kennebec Homestead. Collins was disturbed and remarked that Carol was lucky to still be alive. He expanded on this by saying their matriarch, Ida, had gone mad in recent years and claimed to be tormented by demons. This explained quite a lot to Carol, and she voiced how she had been lucky, as usual, to have escaped a schizophrenic zealot. After that, Collins asked if she wanted to share a camp with him for the night. Carol accepted. This led to the two sleeping together that night, but luckily, Collins had brought protection.

The next day, a fresh layer of snow had fallen and Collins was already gone. Gathering up her own stuff, Carol continued on her way to Moose River Valley. She considered what had happened the previous night and wondered. Carol had never been so open about sex in the Commonwealth and had only had sex once before going on her journey. Now, it was twice in a month. Had Carol changed as a person? Perhaps, she thought, but it was not necessarily bad. Carol had not wanted to feel vulnerable to her underlings in the Commonwealth to ensure their loyalty but now she could do as she liked. After all, she could have just become really paranoid after being attacked so many times, but that had not happened.

Carol made her way into Moose River Valley in early 2285 and began searching for the specific old homestead her friend Max had mentioned to her, on the shores of Holeb Pond. She found it after some searching in a decrepit state, abandoned (which made sense since Max had been gone/dead for years). Carol immediately set about repairing the homestead in preparation for a harsh winter. It was hard work but fulfilling for Carol. It took time away from actually considering her rather depressing situation (and that was without knowing the fate of her family in University Point). However, Carol did manage to fix up the homestead before more heavy snow began to fall and get comfortable. That winter was the hardest of Carol's life in regards to her livelihood. Firewood and food were the real necessities in those days. Carol heard the howls of a wolf pack and a couple of more 'human' screams in the night. It scared her but did not damage her resolve to stand her ground.

The spring of 2285 could not have broken early enough for Carol. Her meager supply of food had already run out by then, and she had resorted to scavenging in the snowy wasteland outside. The area around the homestead had been nearly picked clean by wolves and other things. The only things that Carol had found buried in the snow were some old cans of food left over from when Max lived in the area, she assumed at least. Luckily, animals began to come back as spring came and Carol began to hunt. Fresh meat was a wonderful thing.

As the temperature rose, Carol began to go out more, not only to hunt but also to look over Moose River Valley and to continue repairing Max's old homestead. The repairs included patching up more holes in the homestead, buying a new generator from traders to replace the old one, and obtain some domesticated animals to help weather the next winter. However, Carol procrastinated repairing the holes in the homestead in the spring and the summer while she did manage to get her new generator and a couple of brahmin. The suspiciously broken corral (now repaired) came in good use for keeping the brahmin from wandering off.

About a month or two after the end of winter, Carol had effectively restored the old homestead to working condition, now known as the Hall Homestead. That was when she finally felt comfortable going out to explore the rest of Moose River Valley, most interested in meeting the pre-War park ranger. That led to Carol meeting several different hunters in the valley, most who seemed surprised that a woman had to live in their area, alone nonetheless. This surprise (and suspicion) was most apparent when Carol met the hunter Totem, a superstitious old coot who seemed to constantly leer, make suggestive comments, and talk about the spirits of the area, all things Carol hated. Carol made sure to leave Totem's home quickly but tried to be polite about it in case she needed him later. He did endear himself to Carol a little though since he was the first person to tell her about Fort Lake. Carol was happy to hear about a settlement where she could trade and followed the Moose River there from Totem's home.

Fort Lake was not a big settlement for Carol, as she had been to places such as Diamond City and Goodneighbor. However, she knew the settlement would be more helpful in the future and cursed herself for not knowing about it when suffering through the last winter. At Fort Lake, Carol bought as much supplies as she could. That was when she realized that Fort Lake was where those traders she had traded with had come from and that they had grifted her on practically everything she bought from them. She cursed herself yet again as she made a mental note not to buy from them again. However, things improved for Carol when she finally met a character she had been looking for who also happened to be in Fort Lake: Gary Lewis Windham. Gary, a pre-War ghoulified park ranger, had been in town for supplies just like Carol and was taken aback when she enthusiastically greeted him. Relations between ghouls and humans was rather chilly in Moose Valley compared to even the Commonwealth, and he was happily startled by Carol's warm hello. The ghoul's soft Southern drawl interested Carol further, but her interest faded as she found that the only things Gary had in bulk were stories of the past. Still, Gary Lewis Windham quickly became one of Carol's few consistent friends after their meeting in Fort Lake.

Soon after leaving Fort Lake to return to the Hall Homestead, Carol was ambushed by a couple of thugs of the Boss Merchants. The thugs, led by a bald cretin named Muzzle, initially just demanded Carol's Pip-boy. Carol played along with the thugs without giving up her Pip-boy until one of them began to insist that she start removing her clothes. That was when Carol shot that thug with her 10mm pistol and took off with the thugs hot on her heels. She managed to make it back to the Hall Homestead unharmed and in turn was rewarded with a degree of respect from the Boss Merchants. From there, Carol began a small brahmin farming operation on her homestead making both meat and milk. These were things she had rarely done in the past, but Carol was sure she could get used to it until she was comfortable enough to 'move up'.

As the summer of 2285 began, Carol faced yet another problem. She was beginning to hear strange noises throughout her homestead. Carol looked high and low through her house for things such as molerats or rats but found none. The sounds worsened in the July of 2285 and happened to coincide with another unfortunate event. On the night of July 3, 2285, Carol awakened to hear her front door creak open. Carol quickly grabbed the combat rifle that was underneath her bed and stood beside the doorframe of her bedroom to ambush the unlucky intruders. Those intruders came about two minutes later with Carol knocking out the first one that came in with the butt of her combat rifle. The second intruder tackled Carol and pinned her to the ground. In response, Carol kneed the intruder in the groin, grabbed her combat rifle, and got a head shot on him as he was rolling around on the ground holding his groin. After that, Carol slumped down and tried to catch her breath. That was when she caught sight of the stunned intruder still lying on the ground. Carol then got a rope, tied up the still-live intruder, and examined the dead body. She was shocked to recognize the corpse as Daryl Wilson, the polite shy man she had met at the Kennebec Homestead. Carol realized the other intruder must be the other Wilson brother and considered that. Why would the Wilsons want her? Then, a wicked thought crossed her mind: how much would Ida Wilson pay to get her scumbag of a son back? Being ransomed was more than the man deserved after all. Some caps would help Carol quite a lot.

Carol set out west in a Brahmin cart containing the unconscious Wilson brother to the Kennebec Homestead to ask for a ransom. However, Carol was ambushed by Wilsons before she came to the homestead and was forced to flee back to her own homestead. Luckily, the Wilsons did not pursue Carol back to her homestead and seemed to get the message that she should not be messed with. Carol returned to the Hall Homestead to find it mostly untouched, but she found some things slightly changed. It seemed odd to Carol. Nonetheless, she carried on managing her tiny brahmin pen.

The weird sounds intermittently continued in the Hall Homestead as time months went by in 2285. Carol was unnerved by this but still chalked it up to small animals holed up in the homestead. Late 2285 went by with Carol going relatively unmolested besides a single unsuccessful bandit attack. Things were definitely much calmer than in the Commonwealth for Carol. Carol visited Fort Lake on occasion, and she was visited in turn at the Hall Homestead by caravaners and Gary Windham. Carol asked Gary about the noises in her house and was amused by the ghoul’s notion that her house might be haunted. She bought a dog in September 2285 at Fort Lake to keep her company as well. Carol treated the dog well and named him Bane. Also in late 2285, Carol detected a new radio station from Fort Lake on her Pip-boy. She liked the music but disliked the obnoxious host.

In the winter of 2285, another event came that disturbed Carol. Carol’s dog Bane began getting more agitated, and the sounds in her house worsened. This came to a head one morning when Carol awakened to hear loud crashing noises coming from directly underneath her homestead. Bane was barking up a storm. Carol’s house had nothing resembling a basement, and she decided she was going to go outside to see what was going on. By the time Carol had gotten outside, there was no one there but there was an uncovered man-sized hole at the base of her house, obviously hidden but now revealed to all. Carol was instantly suspicious and got a flashlight to explore the mysterious hole in her homestead.

Carol sent Bane in first to see if anything was still there, and he found none. So, Carol wriggled in herself. What she found horrified her. Under Carol’s homestead was a hollow that something had been living in. That alone did not surprise (or horrify) her all that much. However, what did surprise Carol was that what had her living in the hollow had kept a cot, some supplies, and a working terminal. Whatever had been living under her homestead was not an animal but intelligent. A man perhaps? It later turned out to be something more. Mentally taking a note to check the terminal tucked away in the back of the hollow, Carol combed through the garbage and supplies strewn elsewhere. She found very little of value in the remaining supplies in the hollow, only some empty cans and other rotten foodstuffs. Carol made her way to the cot and hacked her way onto the terminal.

That terminal contained a whole other story. It was owned by someone called Chip and his first entry went back to July 2285. The terminal’s first entries told Chip’s arrival at the Hall Homestead, with him digging out the hollow over weeks and holing up right underneath Carol. In that time, Chip learned about Carol, leeched off her supplies, and admired her from a distance. He knew everything about Carol’s life such as her small group of contacts, her schedule, and her origins from the Commonwealth. In one particular entry, Chip detailed how one night, he had just entered Carol’s room while she was sleeping and watched her. He said he never did that again as he had barely resisted the urge to “take her in” that one time. However, Chip said he could never live with himself if he harmed her and remained conflicted. Chip's unusual obsession with Carol seemed quite upsetting for him (and unsettling to Carol). It would be so easy just to take her, but Chip restrained himself. Things changed for him when Carol got her dog Bane however. It became more difficult for Chip to move around without Bane smelling him, and he constantly had to mask his scent. Chip said he preferred not to kill the dog, as Carol seemed to like it. He managed to continue to scrape by without being noticed. That was until someone named Galdr began being mentioned by Chip. Throughout his later terminal entries, Chip hoped to avoid Galdr while he was in Moose River Valley and implied that he is a person to be feared. Chip's terminal entries became more and more panicked until it got to the current day. Then, the entries stopped. Carol could see what happened from there. She quickly threw everything out of the hollow and closed it up.

After discovering the hollow underneath her homestead, Carol obviously became more cautious, not only because of the Chip fellow who had hidden under her for months on end but also the Galdr guy mentioned in Chip's terminal entries. That guy might still be hanging around the Hall Homestead, watching her. Carol's suspicions were confirmed when she saw an mysterious humanoid figure watching her outside her homestead one day after finding the hollow. Carol went outside to blow the thing's head off with her combat rifle but was instead met with emptiness. This put her on edge for weeks, and Carol’s paranoia only worsened as she saw the thing several more times watching her from a distance in the following days.

Gary Windham arrived at the Hall Homestead in December 2285 to find it in disarray. The animals were close to starving, refuse from the hollow was strewn across the main house’s front yard, and the door of the homestead was barricaded from the inside. When Gary came up to one of the windows, he was greeted by the business end of a combat rifle. He quickly ducked down and yelled his name to Carol. At that, Carol profusely apologized and took down the barricade at her door, asking for Gary to come in.

Gary walked into the Hall Homestead to find it in shambles. He also found Carol disheveled though trying to put on a brave face. She immediately barricaded the door back up after Gary came in. After Carol brought out some tea and the two sat down, Gary tentatively asked what was going on. Carol answered in a hysterical rant about how there had been someone living under her homestead and some mutant was now stalking her outside. Suspicious and a little worried, Gary offered to search the area around the homestead that day to see if any mutant was around (he assumed it was a feral ghoul or something like that). He found no mutant. That reassured Carol, and she calmed down significantly. She saw her mutant stalker no more and after a month of peace (and occasional visits from Gary), Carol’s paranoia was gone. That was not to say she was not alert, as the experience changed her perspective on many things.

The next two years were largely peaceful. Carol became more familiar with the valley while settling into her role as a homesteader. The visits from caravaners and Gary Windham kept her busy when she was not maintaining her small brahmin herd or caring for Bane. She eventually made friends with a trader out of Fort Lake, Victoria. She was a real chatterbox and told Carol all about the going-ons in the rest of the valley. In early 2286, she got to visit Gary Windham’s abode, a small campsite inside a cave behind a waterfall. It was a beautiful setup. Later, she bought another dog, a pup named Lana, from Fort Lake. Things were good. The winter of 2286 was mild compared to the ones before.

In late 2286, Carol Hall began to think back to her past once again, first as a Minuteman and then a raider. Carol figured, between that and her misadventure in Maine, that meant she could write a book about her life, a biography. It could make her the richest person in Moose River Valley, even more than the Boss Merchants. It would be great! Endeavoring to write her biography, Carol bought a whole lot of paper from Fort Lake and began writing in early 2287. Things were easy at first, even with Gary’s words of caution, but soon enough Carol hit writer’s block as she began her in-story transition from a Minuteman to a raider. Should she admit that to the reader? Carol pondered that until her homestead was attacked once again by bandits, who she fended off. After that, Carol has been trying to get some rest before writing again.

Currently, Carol Hall is feeling comfortable in her tidy homestead in Moose River Valley, far from the Commonwealth’s petty wars and complications. Carol is happy with her lot even if she still yearns for something more whether it might be a successful book or a lucky opportunity falling on her doorstep. Nonetheless, Carol is comfortable with her situation, and that is all that really matters to her.

Personality[]

Fundamentally, Carol Hall has always been a casual opportunist. Carol, even when she was in the Minutemen, regularly exploits circumstances to gain immediate advantage rather than be guided by any consistent principles. She prefers the term survivor to opportunist and is prepared to perform untold acts of brutality to gain an upper hand against potential threats. Carol has a low tolerance for weakness. However, Carol does have a moral compass irregardless of what it might seem, and her conscience occasionally emerges at the most inopportune times for her. Carol values friendship and loyalty (from others) in the highest regard, which is why lonely life in Moose River Valley has been hard for her. Her love of animals is one of the only things that has kept Carol going.

Carol prefers logic over faith and trusts little that she cannot see without her own eyes. This translates to skepticism towards things such as religion, superstition, and certain parts of pre-War technology on Carol's part. That has made her time in Moose River Valley even harder than she could have guessed. However, all the danger Carol has encountered in Maine has luckily not turned her paranoid as she is not quick to fear, and she is still more than willing to accept visitors to her isolated homestead.

Appearance[]

Carol has never been much of a looker but has never been very ugly at the same time. Her appearance was rather average with dirty blonde hair and hazel eyes. Before joining the Minutemen, Carol was little more than a scrawny teenage girl. Carol's service in the Minutemen gave her a lean sinewy build and a collection of scars, the most prominent one being a facial scar gained from an encounter with one of the Institute's abandoned super mutants. She is strong for a woman but would still prefer not to get into a physical confrontation with a man.

Equipment[]

Carol's equipment is holdovers from her time in the Minutemen. This includes Carol's wardrobe, which is consistent with the Minutemen's general style right down to her hat. Most of Carol's attire consists of scavenged pieces of U.S. Army armor and leathers. The most notable piece of equipment she possesses is a Pip-Boy 3000 Mark IV which she seized off a scavenger. That Pip-Boy has been very useful for Carol.

The weapons Carol carries are of a more diverse variety. Her primary weapon is a combat rifle while she sometimes uses a hunting rifle as well. Carol's reliable sidearm is a 10mm pistol.

Quotes[]

By[]

The Minutemen? Not people you want to get tangled up with. Can talk the talk but can't walk the walk.— Carol Hall discussing the Minutemen after her desertion
Forgiveness, from me? Who do you think I am?— Carol Hall before shooting Laura for her betrayal
What the fuck is that?— Carol Hall seeing something outside the window of her cabin

About[]

She's one stone cold bitch.— A Maine caravaner about Carol Hall
This has been written by MongoosePirate. Please contact this user before editing this article.
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