Before we hit the ground floor and I had to deal with THAT mess I checked the next quest in the chain.
{New chain quest generated}
{Quest: Fate of the land-House route
Description: You've thrown your hat in the ring with the big man himself. See to it that he wins in the upcoming conflict.
Objectives: Upgrade the securitrons under fortification hill with the platinum chip.
Rewards: 1x pack opening token}
Honestly this was pretty much about what I expected for this questline. The changes my presence have made to this world from the games routes hasn't been all that drastic.-
Sure theres a few things that caused differences but the grand picture is pretty much the same. House has a plan that's still not much different from what it would have been though the long term has likely deviated drastically. As for the NCR and Legion? Honestly it was still up in the air there. I've had very little impact on the former and the latter was a savage group that was destined to lose statistically even without my own input. Jess was obviously one of the good karma versions of the courier so she'd never help the Legion and would actively work against them even.-
To put it bluntly the Legion was fucked in this timeline either way. Finally though the elevator reached the ground floor of the Lucky thirty eight where Jess was waiting very impatiently. She narrowed her gaze on me the moment the doors of the elevator opened.
"You have some explaining to do." she said firmly.
"Not much. I've been pretty truthfully so far." I say casually as I step past her to leave the building.
"No you haven't. You just say "magic" like that's not complete shit." she snapped.
"Whether or not you believe the truth is irrelevant to whether it is the truth or not." I point out.
"Except magic isn't fucking real!" she hissed as we stepped out onto the strip.
"Of course it is. You've literally seen it. You just refuse to believe it's magic. That's not a me problem but a you one." I say with a shrug.
"That's the suit!" she said angrily.
"It's not. I never developed spatial technology to that degree." Adam chimed in.
"Don't defend his lies!" she snapped.
"He isn't lying. It truly is magic." Adam said seriously.
"Then explain why no one else has it? If magic was real then why does everything say it's fake?" she demanded.
"Do you think anyone with it would just run around shouting about it from the rooftops? No, they'd keep it to themselves if they had any sense. The fact you were told at all is because it would be far more inconvenient to hide it." I said flatly.
"And what about all the stuff you know that you shouldn't?" She pressed unwilling to just accept that.
"You think i'm the only person who knows things they shouldn't? I know for a fact there is a woman in the Commonwealth at this exact moment who can say the same. Though hers is fueled by drugs. It's ritualistic magic though I doubt she even knows that." I say easily to deflect that line of questioning.
"And i'm just supposed to accept that? A "fact" I have no way to verify?" she said with a glare.
"No. I'm telling you that there are things in this world science can't explain and giving examples." I say honestly.
"So what? You can just throw fireballs and haven't?" she scoffed.
"Magic doesn't work like that. There's no "one size fits all" set of abilities with it. That stereotype was likely only made because someone's personal account got taken as the baseline for magic. Where someone said all magic users could throw fireballs or other such nonsense and it got taken as the flat truth." I said frankly.
"Alright then, what all can you do?" she said challengingly.
"Store things, know things and use conditional magic." I said without technically lying.
I did have my inventory, I did know things unnaturally and my magic was conditional in nature. That condition of course being that I could only use what was on the cards and only after getting the mana to do it.-
"Conditional magic?" she said with a raised eyebrow while Boone listened closely.
"Yes, conditional. As in I have conditions that need to be met in order to use it and as to what exactly it can accomplish. And no i'm not going to use it now. We are literally in the one place every faction in New Vegas would learn about it if I did. It was why House wanted to talk to me in private to begin with, he picked up some of it on his sensors and was worried it would interfere with his plans. We worked out an arrangement." I said seriously.
"Is that your trump card?" Boone asked before Jess could try and retort.
"Yes and no. My trump card is part of it but otherwise it's a tool with various depths." I said honestly.
"And you can back that up?" Jess said with her arms crossed.
"Absolutely. Adam has seen it and just a bit ago so too did House. Both can tell you it's very much real." I say without hesitation.
"You showed House before us?" She asked with her tone getting angrier again.
"You know what the difference between you and him is? If he wants to cause us problems he has a bunch of ways to accomplish it. If you want to cause me problems you'll likely fail. Not because you aren't capable but because you just don't have a faction behind you that might make it possible. He's got his own and the NCR." I said with a shrug.
"But we've known you longer!" she argued.
"And? Have you not noodled this entire series of events end out? Once the second battle for Hoover dam is over our group will likely splinter and go our separate ways unlikely to ever intersect again. Boone will likely end up heading east of the Colorado river to hunt the legions leftovers until it kills him, you'll go who knows where, Veronica's fate is split between wandering lost with them or trying to get revenge for her slain "family". House is effectively immortal. And as time passes he'll continue to expand his influence. At some point he will definitely reach me again." I explained honestly making both her and Boone shift uncomfortably in place.
"So yes. You have known me longer but the circumstances involved make him have higher priority. Besides, thanks to his sensors he already knew about it but didn't have the details until now. In other words he found out on his own and I just clarified things because the alternative was either murdering him to hide it, fleeing New Vegas or constantly watching over my shoulder for him to drop the boot on us." I said flatly.