He’s done the bare minimum improvements on the town, but everyone is employed and the wages are market-value and rent is what can be expected. It’s safe, albeit boring and the work is hard.

Leaving Bonnie Springe, you can’t find much fault with how he’s running things here. There’s always more than meets the eye but if this is Heck behaving, there are worse robber barons to have shackled up in the Mojave.

Unfortunately you have to skip the planned stop in Goodsprings due to time constraints, but you notice more people moving to and from than before, the sleepy little hamlet growing by the month.

You’re greeted by a Brotherhood Patrol just outside of Sloan, the Paladin informing you that Hardin and his superiors from out West are eagerly awaiting you in Hidden Valley. You don’t see any of the vertibirds as you walk through the courtyard of the bunker complex, though they could be at Helios where the terrain is much flatter.

Paladin Hussel guides you through the bowels of the main Hidden Valley complex and to the Elder’s Chambers, where you find Elder Hardin sitting at a smaller table with two other older men with him. One has the look of a grizzled veteran, no doubt having seen countless battles. The other looks much more academic in nature, more similar to Head Scribe Taggert or Father Elijah.