Night of the Full Moon

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

My second task at Agroprom was to locate Ghost's diary for Kruglov. The idiot placed it on a highly irradiated hill guarded by pseudodogs. After sniping said dogs it took me a few goes using anti-rad to locate the thing only to then suddenly take fire from a nearby hill. Since it was night time and a storm had begun pouring rain from above I had no hope in fighting back from that open location so instead I opted to make a wide run back to the facility where the friendly stalkers were camped, losing my pursuers in the process. There was no point in going back out there with poor visibility so I decided to nap only to be woken up by another blowout at midnight. Once it passed, so had the storm and the full moon lit up the surroundings enough for me to travel. Returned to Garbage after killing a pair of would-be robbers and traded in some dog parts for equipment and cash from the fat trader. From there I decided to cross over to the Dark Valley to try wrap up more quests and was pleased to find a Duty Squad guarding the Western woods of the area. I proceeded North where Fox had joined Bes and Mole's camp, and handed in Strelok's armor to Bes as I promised earlier.

Decided to try retrieve a laptop from the lab here too so I circled around the bandit buildings, killing their lone sentry as well as a wandering burer then remembered to detour into an abandoned house where the injured guy I left here from last time was still bleeding out. Must have a lot of blood? Anyway gave him a medkit and he accompanied me to the lab entrance where I eliminated a random mutant camp (rats, snorks and bloodsucker) before continuing downstairs to face the pair of poltergeists that survived my previous venture here. Finally cleared the place but they managed to smash my armor. With the laptop in hand I made my way back to the surface only to find a new military APC had parked itself right outside the gate! I used up what little grenades I had left but the damn thing was still alive. There was no way I could outrun it's autocannon and no cover to run to from there so I made my way upstairs to the roof and did some parkour to the next building. It was a long drop from the roof, but was the only way I could see to get out of the perimiter without passing the APC. Needless to say, it hurt. - but I lived!

Did a huge circle around the area again, passing Bes' camp and the Duty team to avoid the APC and reach the bunkers in the bottom part of the region. There I was meant to hunt down a stalker called "Vampire" which turned out to be pretty easy as he was just chillaxing by the fire. Punched his lights out to complete the quest then took the South path to return to Cordon.

I like to think this is what he looked like.

Guns make the World go around

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Managed to convince Sakharov to tell me where to get a mini-gun and he told me to talk to the army guy that was arriving by helicopter. As if on queue I heard the chopper arriving and stood outside to meet Major Dad. Yes, that was his name. He told me that the good doctor will exchange the gear for me in exchange for some data disk to be retrieved from the wild territory. I agreed, then watched as he got back in his helicopter and just as it was taking off, it hit a random anomaly and exploded. WTF? Kruglov also asked me to return into the lab to pick up a laptop which I did, meeting very little resistance this time around before heading back to the Rostok Wild Territory to look for this data thingie. The usual sniper bandit and dogs were there but this time there was also a huge amount of RATS! Spent so much ammo eradicating those little vermin that I was almost glad when I then had to fight a lone random poltergeist - at least he was easier! Scoured the area for quite awhile till I finally found the tape hidden in some grass near the railroad tracks. Low on ammo I decided to make my way to Bar first, using the last of my sniper rounds on a Merc squad guarding the exit.

Then I became like Gene Hackman at the end of this movie.

Right after entering the "safe zone" I had to do a quick-draw duel against an "invisible" stalker of the "Avenger" faction. It took a few loads before I managed to shoot him dead before he could launch a grenade into my face. Not sure where he came from but after looting his stuff made my way to the Barman to sell goods and hand in more quests. Got a new sniper rifle for it too. Decided to continue South to complete tasks there and after testing out my new rifle on a burer and his dogs on the South road and waiting for a blowout to pass, made my way through the Garbage (after handing over 10 medkits to a Duty captain there) directly to Agroprom with no incident. Found a friendly group of stalkers had taken up residence at the facility there, though half their number was killed by a rampaging bloodsucker.

Since I had a task to clear out a bandit who had taken up residence in the tunnels below, I decided to do that first and managed to salvage his super exoskeleton armor before continuing to Strelok's stash again to loot the items I previously left behind, and some I missed entirely. A pair of Izolms and four blood suckers tried to stop me but they all got saiga'd to death. Upgrading my radar to detect those tentacle-mouth freaks was really paying off. A small military squad was also present at the very end but the grunts had no idea what hit them and didn't even put up a fight.

Southern Circuit

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Blew through Bar pretty quick, though I had to take some time on the Southern border to snipe a whole pack of dogs waiting for me. Tried sniping a wandering Burer too but I ended up having to just run past the telepathic bastard. Pushed through Garbage to Agroprom for a small detour of sniping a military grunt at a toxic lake. Also found myself attacked by a small litter of fast moving cats. Yes. Cats. God damn. Everything here wants to kill me. Fortunately some drop good loot like the bandit bunch I ran into. Managed to pickup a "Bandit Exo-skeleton suit".

Decided to then take a short-cut back to the Cordon via a foresty path filled with anomalies, boars and fleshes. Thought I'd finish off a few quests while I was here only to find I couldn't for some because a) the quest giver had travelled to a different location and b) the item I retrieved and used was so damaged they wanted me to fix it first. Sigh. Fortunately Sid repairs for resonable prices. Got a replacement shottie while I was at it and I also found a fat guy named Tolik bleeding out in the bush, patched him up and helped him get vengeance on the dog pack that got him and his buddies.

I also met a group of three hunters who wanted my help in staving off an attack by bandits near the rail-crossing. I agreed and sure enough a large firefight ensued with the hunters all dying in the first 10 seconds of combat. To make things more interesting a group of wandering stalkers and Colonel Vodka and his squad decided to join in. In the end everyone except for the invincible Colonel and myself were dead.

After the blood bath I had to elude the Colonel with a large detour, then it was time to push back North. My journey was slightly delayed by a heavy storm so I made camp to wait it out near the ruins where Fox's team was - though one of their number had been killed by another pack of dogs. They weren't what I came across when following the road to Garbage though. It was this guy...

Yup. A psuedogiant.

Fortunately I was well stocked on launchable grens and took it down with no fuss. Still high on ammo and supplies, I headed for my next stop: the Dark Valley.

In-depth Research

My journal through Stalker Soup - a mega mod for Shadows of Chernobyl! You can follow the rest of the story here!

Made my way to the factory where "Serly" and his band of free-stalkers were finishing off the bandits camped there. Two of his buddies then helped me push on to the border of Agroprom but they were killed by the leftover bandits ambushing from the tree line. Once they were out of the way I continued alone down the road. When I got to the research facility there was a heavy fire fight already underway between stalkers looting the place and a large military contigent storming the facility. I joined in, assisting the free stalkers but in the end only one guy named "Mole" survived, and he suggested we get out of there before the spetznaz special forces came - and sure enough a helicopter flew overhead even as he was talking. Decided to cover Mole's escape from the rooftop and eliminated the 2 squads that were making their way in. Mole was thankful, giving me a lead of where to find Strelok - in the tunnels that ran beneath this whole area - right before a bloodsucker appeared out of nowhere and ripped him apart infront of me.

Yeah, Cthulhu is in this game.

Shotgunned the horror before it could do the same to me then climbed down the ladder into the darkness, shotgun close at hand. First thing I ran into though was a small crew of bandits who were easily eliminated. Deeper in were more bloodsuckers, a full contigent of military dudes, and a controller. They now make horrible ghost children sounds. Fantastic. After wandering around the cramped tunnels for a bit I finally found Strelok's hideout but no one was home. Decided to try the second exit in the middle of the night and popped out in the nearby Military Base! Not wanting to start a firefight in the dark I quickly went back through the tunnels to where I first entered. I did have a mission to retrieve some documents from that base though, so first I returned to the now empty research facility and slept till dawn, a nap only interupted by a emission. And not the fart kind.

As the sun began to rise I hoofed it up to a hill overlooking the base and began sniping sentries. Sure enough they began sending out scouts to try find me, a few of whom I killed but I quickly learned that they had a working fleet of attack choppers (with much loading), and had to pull back into the shrubs before they arrived. Still, there was a good number of troopers looking for me on that hill so I circled around and easily got in after killing the two remaining guards at the gate. Snuck into the target building pretty easily too via a back window, until I had to shoot a guard patrolling inside - then all hell broke loose. Not only did they send a whole contigent of soldiers to try swarm me, they also got an attack chopper circling around which turned the numerous windows into near insta-death if I timed my movements wrongly.

It was a pretty long, and epic cat and mouse game - with one mouse (me) and cats working in squads (some in power armor) to catch me. Managed to eventually nab those documents at the top floor then being low on ammo had to sneak my way back out to the entry point. There was no way I was getting past the new gate guards and be able to outrun their aircraft though so I made a sprint for the tunnel opening I had found earlier and made it with automatic gunfire whizzing overhead. Fortunately there were no new bloodsuckers waiting for me in the darkness as I made my escape.