Marcus
Now, normally I was quite active in the Fallout: New Vegas community. I had been interested in Fallout modding since I first got Fallout 3 for my computer. At the time, I was quite new to modding of any kind. The most experience I had was creating stupid little Doom 2 WADs and making sprites in MS Paint. I look back on those days and laugh sometimes, after how far I've come. But I went too far with my latest mod. I had quite enjoyed reading creepy pastas, and I wanted to make something reminiscent of that for Fallout: New Vegas. I spent several weeks adding on new ideas to the mod, learning many things as I went on, and finally the mod was finished. I uploaded it to a modding website I am a regular to, and a few days later I checked on it. My account was banned, and there was no message from the admin.
I was angered by this, I spent weeks working on that only to be banned? I needed to find an explanation. I talked to a friend on the site who had downloaded it, I asked him to email it to me. He said that he hadn't played the mod yet, and he asked me why I wanted my own file. I told him that I needed to check to make sure it wasn't tampered with because I was banned and needed to see if there was something wrong with the mod. He sent it to me, and already I could tell there was something off about it. The filesize was much bigger than the one I uploaded to the server, I tried to open it up in the GECK modding tool, but an error message popped up saying that multiple master files were detected and the tool wouldn't load it. I checked the file's masters and it was only the FalloutNV.esm master file that contained the unmodified game's data. Even though the variable for loading multiple master files was enabled in the GECK's configuration settings, it would not load the mod. After this, I decided the only way I'd figure out what was going on in my mod was to play it with the game, so I could explain to the admins what happened and hopefully get my account back.
The title screen came up normally, but the music was absent. I remember tampering with the game's music files earlier, so it was quite possible I forgot to put everything back where it belonged (I often make silly mistakes like that). When I went to load my save file, the error message that normally notifies you that a previously loaded mod that the save depends on isn't present appeared. This was normal, because the save I loaded was rather old, nothing wrong there. I loaded the save anyway, interested to see what was going on, I was in Freeside near the north gate. The NPCs which normally walk around were just standing there, as if their AI had been disabled. They seemed to carry looks of intense misery, as if they had seen a loved one die right before them. I especially don't remember doing this, the creepy stuff I added was supposed to remain confined to the areas I created. They wouldn't speak to me either, attempting to interact with an NPC would only cause a brief zoom to their face before going back to the game. Normally, this is what the game does when the dialogue info wasn't detected. I continued to explore Freeside, and eventually found a Freeside Thug, which was a normally hostile NPC. This one wasn't hostile, I ran up to talk to him, and he looked at me. "You set these events in motion, we're all suffering because of what you created." the Freeside Thug said. There was no voice to it, I simply read the subtitle. It was at that point, my attitude turned from mere amusement and interest to concern, this wasn't a matter of just my modding mistakes. After seeing this, I decided to stop messing around and get to the areas I added in my mod. The idea was I added a door standing straight up out of the ground, and behind it was a paranormal adventure. When I fast traveled to the 188 Trading Post where the door was located at, and the game immediately crashed to desktop. There wasn't anything too unusual about that, the game tends to get unstable when so many mods are run at once. Instead of fast traveling to it, I decided to directly teleport to the area using console commands. My allies didn't teleport with me, which was strange. I found a note on the ground beside the radio container that I added. I opened the pip-boy, and read the note. "We did this together, but I don't need you anymore. - Marcus" Marcus was the name of the antagonist I added for the mod, he was supposed to be a dead serial killer who intercepted the souls of dead people and brings them to a torture realm he created. I continued to the bridge of desks.
The desk bridge part was normal for the most part, but the skybox was changed. Instead of the orangey tan color, it was now a dark grey color. As I got to the the other side, I entered the door near the boxcar and it took me to the next area. There were no walls in this area, only stairs. The area was completely different than what I had originally made there. I climbed the stairs, they seemed to go on and on, but eventually I reached the top. The enemy I added that was meant to be placed in this area was standing at the top next to another door. She didn't attack me, so I attempted to interact with her. A dialogue screen came up, and without a voice, the subtitle read "I wish I was dead." The only dialogue options were "Rumors" and "Goodbye". Rumors was a dialogue option common to the Elder Scrolls games, it was odd to see it in Fallout and I selected it. The subtitle from her speech read "You created Marcus. The pain never ends. I hate you." I selected the "Goodbye" option, and suddenly my character's head disappeared, there was a noticeable bloody stump where his neck was as if he had been decapitated by normal means in-game, however my character wasn't dead and I could still move on. Whatever had been done to this mod, was beyond everything I did with it. I was concerned about this strange occurence, but it was interesting nonetheless. I continued through to the next door, where the area with Lost Souls and the ghost of the Fallout 3 player character fighting were supposed to be, but what I saw was disgusting.
My weapons had disappeared and my head returned to normal. I appeared to be a basement of some kind, there were skinned corpses, rotting body parts, and a blood covered operating table in the center of the room. The walls were stained with what appeared to be blood, vomit, urine, and feces. I saw naked filthy and emaciated NPCs crawling around through the piled rotting mess, eating rotting flesh from the corpses, and I saw several NPCs molesting a dismembered torso. A subtitle popped up, "My God... This place stinks with decay... please don't let them see me... I don't want to die this way...." There were no other NPCs in the room besides the insane basement dwellers. The only explanation I could come up with was that my player character, normally very stoic in nature and who doesn't seem to be phased by anything in the game, said this in fear. My character was in no way a stealth character, and the door behind me was now innaccessible. I was actually frightened at this point, the only exit was a large hole in the wall across the room that appeared to be previously boarded up. There was no way I could sneak past those lunatics, and the only thing that was going through my mind at this point was why the hell are these people here and what is this basement. I tried to disable collision so I could get past them by going through the walls, but I wasn't able to get through the walls. I realized there was only one way I could get through this. I opened the console and enabled God Mode, just in case I get caught. I took a deep breath and proceeded down the stairs to the basement. The scene was just as horrible as when I first looked, as soon as I entered the basement, I stepped in a puddle of blood. There was a splash sound effect, and my heart jumped, the heads of all the psychotic filthy NPCs turned to my character, and they all began sniffing the air in an animalistic sort of way, as if they were blind. When I saw their faces, my stomach turned. Their faces were cut up, their lips appeared to be bitten off, they had large scars on their heads as if they had parts of their brains removed, and their eyes were pure white. Immediately one of them stood up and pointed towards my character, screaming violently. The NPCs charged my character and began to maul him, the game went into a first person view and he was lying on the floor as the NPCs pulled his limbs off and began to feast on him. Blood splattered the screen and my character's vision faded as I watched in horror at the disgusting NPCs pulling chunks out of his torso and eating them. The camera then zoomed out, and I could see the NPCs begin to rape my character's mutilated torso. I wanted to vomit, and I couldn't believe they managed to kill me even with God Mode on. I still had to get through this, regardless of if I get my account unbanned or not, something was incredibly wrong here.
When I reloaded the game, I appeared in a different area. The load screen had showed a message that said "They were my pets, when faced with an inevitable doom, they reverted to animal instincts" That to me, sounded like the game was referring to those people in the basement. The game finished loading, and the next area appeared to be the place where the Lost Souls and Fallout 3 player ghost should be, but it was completely empty. There weren't even any clutter items in the room. After what I had just seen, it was a relief to be out of that place. After investigating the room, and finding nothing, I continued through the door to the next area. This area was supposed to be where you fight the first form of Marcus, the antagonist. The bunker room loaded up like normal, and I had my weapons back, so I was slightly more at ease. After I went down the stairs, I saw one of the characters from the main game, Benny, standing alone in the empty bunker. I ran up and went to talk to him, but as soon as I pressed the interact key, he disintegrated and formed an ash pile on the floor. I searched the ash pile, and he had another note. I read the note, and it said "As a pawn in all this, does your master even care for your safety? Maybe it is time to move on, child.... " This note was especially unnerving, as it seemed to be addressing my character while directly referring to me as his "master". After reading the note, I noticed that it was noticeably more difficult to control my character. The mouse sensitivity was extremely low, I could barely look around, and my character would only run in short three step bursts before stopping briefly.
In the next area, there were supposed to be two deathclaws to fight. But instead they were on the ground dead, when my character came near them, text popped up. "Is it all worth fighting for?" These messages seemingly coming from my character were perplexing to me. As I started walking towards the door to the next area, an image flashed accross the screen for half a second. In the brief glance that I had, it appeared to be a hand gun. I entered the next room where the giant deathclaw boss was supposed to be, and I found myself in a dilapidated bathroom. The tiles on the walls were falling off, the floor had holes in it and dry blood stains, the stall doors had come off, and the sinks were smashed. There was nothing else in the room besides a wooden chair. I walked closer to the chair, and I kept seeing brief flashes of Marcus sitting in the chair. When I got in arms distance with the chair, there he was. "Hmm... tell me, child, now that you're here, why bother following your master's orders? The same entity that forced you to murder people for his amusement. I may be a murderer, but I think you'll find I've been quite honest so far." The text said. Without me pressing any keys, my character brandished a handgun exactly like the one I briefly saw in the image. "I failed everyone. But if this world revolves around my actions, the greatest deed I can do is unmake all of it." After the text disappeared, my character put the gun to Marcus' head, and shot him. "And if I need to live so this madness can continue, there's only one way to put a stop to it." The text said as my character raised the gun up to his own head and shot himself. After my character died, the screen faded to black. Suddenly the screen began to show rapidly flashing pixelated glitching, and there was a painfully loud low-quality sound bite of warped screaming. I was wearing my headphones at the time, and the scream was so intense it gave me a bloody nose.
After that, the game crashed to desktop. I noticed that the plugin was gone, leaving only my copy of the original mod I backed up. I was sick to my stomach and frightened at this point, suddenly the printer began to start printing something. I didn't want to look at it at first, but it was a note. I just wanted to get it out of the way, and I read it.
Dear Master,
You could have never known what you were creating in the game would cause suffering, and for that I do not blame you. My final decision was not one of hatred for you, I was doing what was right. I killed myself so that his influence over the world would end, to purge the world of his evil. Goodbye, and please, be careful from now on. The imagination is a deadly thing.
-The Courier
A few days later, I worked up the courage to go back to the site to report my findings. Eventually, I even managed to get my account back. Once I did, the mod was still there and I was very nervous when I saw it, but I checked the file section. I was relieved to see that it was now the unmodified version, whatever happened, whatever I did, fixed it. I still don't know what caused this to happen, but every once in a while, I see Marcus' masked face in my dreams. The mod is still up there today, for archival purposes...