America! Fuck Yeah!

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

Heading North through Garbage I was jumped by a pair of pseudodogs that managed to hurt me a bit. Kept pressing forward to the Duty outpost and just as I was about to reach there all hell broke loose - I had to sprint to cover as bullets flew everywhere and in quick order the Duty guys were dying left, right and center! A large mercenary group was attacking, all armed with Colt M16s so I figure they're Americans. Bastards were trying to kill me too though so I had to put an end to all of them. Only two duty guys were left alive after the massacre, and it took me a few trips to Raven, the fat merchant at the depot, to sell all their stuff. Continued to the Bar, killing a chimera and bloodsucker duo and a (tough) pack of dogs on the way in. Once there I figured I'd do the arena circuit, easily completing the first bunch of fights but could not finish since I was "not experienced" enough to proceed. Took my winnings and picked up quests from all over, without any real intent to do any of them this time. This time I'm looking out for numero uno.

Just like Team America!

Continued the march North where I found a friendly group of Freedom dudes in a farmstead I could trade with. Also took out "Master" again at Wolf's camp - this time with a bullet to the head after selling him all my stuff (then taking it off his corpse). Seems that somewhere during the arena battles I had misplaced my knife! Oh well. Since I was nearby I decided to clear out the bloodsucker village again but without my fancy radar thing or my good guns this was a little more dangerous than usual. Fortunately the quest completed after I killed just two. Snuck into mill to collect gear and got out of there before I woke up anything else. I was told by the Duty guys (back at the Bar) that there was a good rifle held by some mercs nearby so I went hunting that - found a few of them camped out in another farm, but the main group was at a roadblock. Managed to catch them unawares and only had to fight their two sentries. The rifle was a little underwhelming though. Interesting to note these ones too all had Colts - more Americans?

Still, I took it and their gear then sold stuff at the Freedom base at the Warehouses before proceeding to the barrier again, hearing gunfire as I approached. No monolith dudes rushing it this time, but a pair of bloodsuckers had killed all but two dudes. After reloading all my weapons I pushed on to the Radar.

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.

Return of the Yantar

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

At the Garbage a band of 3 mercs pulled a really tough ambush on me (flanking from both sides) probably because of what I did to their buddies at Cordon previously. Survived that and started restocking on grenades from the Duty guys at their road block. Also got a nice sniper rifle from one of them for giving him a whole bunch of flesh eyes. At the entry to Bar the road was again full of anomalies and sure enough the Burer and his pet pseudodog were still lurking about. It was bright daytime now though, and with the new rifle I managed to one-shot the Burer between the eyes before he could react. The dog was a bit more annoying, hiding in the tall grass so I just kept pushing forward and when I thought he was almost on me, I turned around quickly and Saiga'd the mutt in the face.

Some strange things happening at the South watch to Bar when I got there though - they were being attacked by bandits from INSIDE the base? Maybe a group escaped from the arena? No matter, they handled the threat though half the guards were now dead. Handed in a whole bunch of things at the Bar itself, upgraded my radar to detect bloodsuckers, and left my duty armor (found it off some one at Dark Valley ages ago) to be repaired and in its place am finally using the science suit Kruglov gave me at Yantar. Speaking of which, that's where I need to head next - to find another lab. You mean the one that kills me as soon as I step in there? Yeah probably that one.

Didn't end up using the science suit for very long as there was a large group of exo-skeleton mercs waiting for me in the Wild Territory (the ruined city) whom I sniped down from far. Managed to salvage one of exo suits and continued on my way past the multiple anomaly fields to get the high ground. Good thing too as I saw new blips on my radar moving around really quick. That upgrade was working. From the rooftops I also eliminated a large pack of psydogs that had taken residence there as well as the odd sniper or two. Finally after what felt like a long trek I made it back to Yantar and was given the task of escorting my old buddy Kruglov to take some readings to develop an anti-instant death helmet. For a scientist he handles a gun well, and we completed the task through a good number of zombies with ease (though we did both black out at one point - good thing no zombies were around then!). Once we returned to the mobile camp Sahkarov used the data to complete the device and I was finally ready to look for the next undoubtedly spooky laboratory.

Exoskeletons are cool. This is the Sarcos prototype.

Descent into the Dark Valley

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

I noticed on the map a new way to reach my destination - something called the Forgotten Forest. I only got to its outer zone when I was beset by packs of dogs, a pair of snorks, blood suckers and zombies that get up after you "kill" them. Did a good job pushing me outta there and rethinking my route. With exo armor at less than 50% I hoofed it back to the Duty outpost and used the Northern path instead which, while being more radiated, was a whole lot easier to traverse.

Upon entering the Dark Valley I met up with "Bullet" who had just taken down a small group of bandits (I had to put one out of his misery though), and he asked me to help him free his fellow guild members from the bandit controlled buildings in the northern section. Turns out their leader holds a key I need to get into my main target = laboratory x18. After helping Bullet save one guy being transported it was up to me to infiltrate the base and rescue "Shaggy" and his team.

Of course I was attacked by a bunch of bloodsuckers en route but the first part of their compound was surprisingly lightly guarded by only 1 dude. I imagine the bloodsuckers did take a few of them out though since I found their bodies. The next few sets of bandits were asleep so I took the liberty of point blank shotgunning them to the face, Just as they deserved. This of course alerted the numerous remaining scum but they were no match for me. Alas I found Shaggy in the dungeon - dead. He was either executed or it was suicide, regardless I got the key from the bandit boss and made sure all hostiles were dead before leaving the compound.

I was surprised to find Mole and Bes camped outside, and completed a few tasks for them while I was there which earned me a nice Tommy-gun from Mole which would come in very handy in the next place I was going to visit. The laboratory had a few more bandits lurking outside (one with an RPG - yikes), but the true horrors were within the heavy sealed door.

 

Burers are a lot more dangerous now, but still just as ugly.

The entry was crawling with izolms along with a few snorks. Also killed me a few burers and a number of very annoying poltergeists further in while trying to find codes to open two locked doors, behind one of which was another pseudogiant. I eventually find the files I was after, but that nice tommy gun was totally dry of ammo and my exo-skeleton armor was pretty much falling to pieces.

A Bar full of Bullets

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

On my way back to Garbage I met the trader Adrenalin who had setup shop in the research station as well as the "flying" trader named Gray. Seriously, he lands his helicopter at a spot and opens a temporary shop. Also had to deal with one more military squad waiting for me on the road. Back at the Garbage I made my way through the duty checkpoint after helping them with a stampede of boars from the dark valley and began the trek to the "Bar". The path was littered with anomalies, and the pack of dogs didn't help. Apparently the pseudo-psy dogs gained the ability to pull weapons from my hands too. Great. More fantastic was that a blowout was on its way.

Smarter than the average dog.

With a mad dash I made it to a bunker and waited with a squad of Duty guys for the emission to pass. After it was over, I had finally made it to the duty controlled city of "Bar" (which seemed to be run by the barkeep no less). Some interesting people there too - one being Gordon Freeman. Yup, exactly the one you were thinking of. There's also an arena here. Apparently these crazy guys don't have enough to shoot at so they shoot at each other for sport. I knew there was good money in it though so I joined the tournament. First two rounds were one on one matches with pistols which I won easily. The third match which pitted me against a swede and his frenemy with shotguns was perhaps the hardest and a lesson in cover. Fourth match was a teams of 3 event which was easy since I had bait, followed by a round against 2 spetznaz who had no chance since they gave me a decent rifle for that fight.

Sixth round was very fun as I was fully equipped against a band of six captured bandits. After slaughtering them it was I who was almost completely unarmed against a veteran in powerarmor. I had four grenades to win the match and only needed one. The finals saw me go against 4 other Exoskeleton dudes (with me being the only one without exo armor). However since it was a free for all, I let the idiots kill each other and picked off the winner at the end. With that, I was the new tournament champion - for now anyway. It runs everyday.

After talking to everyone and now having a super long list of things to do, I decided to push onto the main part of the city that "Bar" is attached to. Large warning signs conveniently let me know that it is no longer a secure area. Nevertheless - I pushed on into Rostok.

Another Mans Treasure

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

After camping out to recover and continued up the road north when the sun was up which was a good call since I ran into a pack of around 20 doggies. Shot what I could as I sprinted back to Stargazer's team who helped me clean up the rest. Pushed on to the checkpoint guarded by two bandits who were easily dispatched. FINALLY I get a 2 shot short-rifle from them. Also found an amusing TV inside, displaying a clip from Silent Hill. Once it started to loop, I made my way to the next area: Garbage.

The first thing I ran into was a group of three thugs robbing another Stalker so after sneaking to a good spot I took them out before they knew what hit them. The dude I rescued was thankful but also in a hurry since another blowout was on the way. Not knowing where the nearest shelter was I decided to backtrack instead and hide out at the checkpoint which protected me pretty well. Back at Garbage I came across a vehicle graveyard occupied by a squad of stalkers led by Bes - he asked if I could help them kill some inbound bandit reinforcements and I agreed instantly. Soon enough the fire fight began, the enemy outnumbering Bes' well-armed squad. I let them take point while I waited from an opportune position and that's when I heard something lurking in the tall grass nearby. Spinning around I saw the beast do an incredible leap towards me but I dodged just in time and clambered up on a nearby rotting APC.

It was a Chimera!

These things didn't come out till the 3RD game! WTF - Awesome! I took on the beast on my own to cover Bes' flank and managed to take it down pretty quickly with the sawn-off rifle. Advanced into a broken down bus and took down the remaining bandits from there with pistol head shots. At the end, only Bes was left alive and after thanking me he headed off leaving me to pick up the (plenty of) loot from the fallen. Now well equipped I headed to the North part of the Garbage where I was tasked to hunt down a particular bandit. It was easy enough to kill him with my plated combat gloves, having snuck up on him while he slept in the middle of the field.

Not so easy was evading the Merc squad that suddenly showed up right after, apparently they were also after his PDA. Bolted to the nearby silos and used them as cover to take down the 5 man team after me - including their leader who like Bes, was in full power armor. Too bad I couldn't loot that. The next road checkpoint was nearby, controlled by the "Duty" faction so I headed there to trade off some gear and recover. Interesting to note that non-merchants no longer trade ammo, it certainly makes the game more challenging. :)