Darklands: The Great Monastery

This is part of The Darklands story.

It is an uneventful journey from Hamburg to Lubeck (same city as in Stalker Online I wonder?) and again to Flensburg which is ruled by the King of Denmark himself. Unfortunately all the monks within the walls (of all those cities) have no knowledge they wish to share of St. Thomas the Apostle, which Liore diligently checks to avert any Wild Hunt attacks. This doesn't bother her though as the Wild Hunt hasn't chased them recently, and more importantly because their destination was in sight.

After resting up at Flensburg the team journeyed across a large plain to the Great Monastery, ready to face anything. The exterior simply had a graveyard and two guard houses. Opening the door to the first they are surprised to find a squad of templar knights!

The bad ass kind, like the ones you find in Priest!

These traitors are well trained and well equipped, and the team just scrapes through for a victory with River sustaining heavy,  near death damage. After looting their chamber with Liore finding a strange bone they then come across a second group of templars and having been so weakened from the first fight Syncaine and Doone get knocked out early. Before anyone is killed Liore decides to surrender instead of abandoning her comrades. They are taken prisoner and brought to the dungeons below.

Station Lockdown

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Turns out R4wEC, my new ecuadorian friend, had a lot of quests to complete in the Lubech station area so I decided to help him out - killing dogs and brownies mainly while keeping an eye out for spare parts wherever we travelled. He also advised me to steer clear of the Last_Light clan as they were "looters", an interesting assessment. It was slow going - back and forth in the mist but it was good to have someone watching my back and vice versa. Made a little money selling mutant parts at the Police Station but my funds were drying up pretty quick due to the price of ammo. Really need to find more "arts" soon.

They fetch a lot of money!

We were also both given a task to courier some documents to "the second post" wherever that was, but more alarmingly the gate guards today did NOT want us to exit this area due to the horrible mutants outside. Interesting indeed as I didn't think the gate would be "one way". Not a big deal however as we just took the tunnels underneath the wall, a quick trip since I had previously explored the whole of this underground area.

Once top side we decided to try again for "the city", blasting the mutts that got in the way and carefully avoiding wind and fire anomalies on the road. An encounter with a lone stalker of the First_Light faction startled R4wEC a little until I pointed out they were probably different clans. Got lucky on our approach as none of the other stalkers at the village us till we were in the protection of the guard zone. I say lucky because some of them were packing some scoped high-powered rifles, and we would have been easy pickings coming down the open road during the day like we did. In any case we made it and R4wEC went to get some shut eye while I headed to the chef for some chow.

Country Walkabout

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It was pretty easy going, traveling the country. The thing I saw earlier was a fortress controlled by the SILENCE faction. Seems they controlled a large portion of the midlands here as my journey North-East led me to two more of their strongholds (the one on top of a mountain was really nice)! The guards seemed friendly enough too. Killed more boars and spiders as I trekked through forest and field to another fort, this one held by the GROM_INT group. Less friendly here as they didn't even let me trade with them but at least I could spend the night in safety. At the break of dawn I continued East into the tall grass and I must have stepped on a spider nest or something because before I knew it, dozens of the arachnids were on my case.

If these are "small" I'd hate to see what "big" ones are!

Managed to kill all the leggy insects and make it back to a road where I fought and killed a mountain brutor. I wonder if this muscular dwarf is related to the burers? I tried to continue down the road through the valley but there was some large-scale anomaly here causing me to stagger. Kinda missed my psy-helmet now too. Pulled back and opted to follow the road West instead. Made for easy travelling again and though I thought I heard distant gunshots at one point, I didn't run into a single soul on this journey. Took a small dirt path North to some old farms but found them quite empty. After spending the night by a campfire I pushed on across the fields to another small deserted village. Looked like everything here was looted.

With no more map to the West I followed the road South, finding some larger boars now. Another fort, this one held by the GROM faction, was coming up but I didn't make it there as their sentries opened fire on me! Had to backtrack to the empty village to lick my wounds and rest up for the night. I had less than half the ammo I started with now, and my guns were slowly deteriorating. As nice as it was out here I had no choice but to try make my way back to the city eventually.

Which is a pity because it can be really nice out here.

A Good Place

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As we trekked down a lonely road we passed multiple anomalies, some moving around. Larger mutated dogs prowled the streets here, and I took note that even my heavily armored companion was sniping them from as far away as he could. Eventually I saw where we were headed, a small village on the outskirts of the metropolitan area. Smoke from the chimneys were a tell-tale sign of life. Came across a poison anomaly on the road first which Pioyer pointed out had an "art". He instructed me to learn to pick it up which was quite painful, but I managed to get out before dying. With a short congratulation we continued to the village which boasted every single type of shop I've seen so far - what Pioyer called "the city". He explained that selling "arts" was the best way to make money and after selling the one I got for 30k, I really believed him.

He then took me to the local outfitters and got me to buy a backpack which allowed me to carry 10 kgs more weight. After advising what armor I should buy next when I had enough funds, he took his leave - having to rest up for future adventures. Alone again, I decided to explore the surroundings during the day, finding more brownies in houses and learning the big dogs had a bigger aggro range (nothing the AK couldn't handle though). Also found some small boars and a "small" spider (not very small) that Emile was talking about before as well as a line of guild houses nearby. Most importantly I bagged another artifact, this one selling for 50k! At night I explored the village more, and noted there were much fewer stalkers out here (counted around 4 separate people) which made sense.



Yeah, I'm not going out there at night.

Figured that since I was in pretty good shape equipment wise, I went for minor repairs then headed out to explore this region. Started my journey with the nearby burnt forest, taking down a couple of young boars on the way to a broken part of the wall. After crossing the rubble and climbing a rise I found myself on a road! I checked my map and saw that I could go anywhere from here so since old habits die hard, I decided to follow it North but soon got side tracked off it to explore some buildings I could see in the distance across the plains. 

Looks much better in the day.

Journey to the City

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There was a lot more traffic at the station today as I counted seven other stalkers talking amongst themselves, doing business or just passing through. Loaded up some ammo then took a task to find out what brownies eat. Fortunately for me, it's not people - as a wandering one managed to knock me out after my gun jammed. After getting it repaired and getting healed up I was running quite low on money and ammo so I thought I'd try go for an ammo stash I heard about hidden somewhere in a nearby warehouse. The place now acted as a giant dog pen though, with those mutated mutts all over the place. Killed a few before the sound of a heavy rifle scared the bejeezus out of me. It was a polish pro-stalker named Pioyer and he was showing an american "newbie" called Emile the ropes. I asked if I could loot the heads since they were leaving them behind and he said it was fine. He also said that I should tag along - I didn't find the ammo stash but I did find a teacher.

A teacher with a heavy machinegun.

He took us to a field near the police station to show us anomalies, explaining the whirling death ones were very dangerous and how to retrieve "arts" (artifacts) - suggesting we purchase a magnetic grip when we are able. He offered to take us to the next part of the city (which he called "the city") but Emile refused, wanting to train up first. I was game to do so, but he took one look at me and said I needed gear first. Emile left us to return to hunting dogs while we returned to the station where my new benefactor outfitted me with 10k rubles, leggings, a vest, a hat, and most importantly an AK47 with 700 rounds of ammo! Just as we were preparing to leave my old frenemy, Null25 showed up, having been similarly outfitted by someone else and now belonging to the "Last Light" faction, and asked if he can tag along. I had previously told Pioyer of my last encounter so he knew I wanted to avoid him. This didn't stop Null25 from following us though, leaving me somewhat uneasy.

The trip took us past the police station and a graveyard to another guarded building. This one had stairs down which we took into some spooky looking tunnels. While we were at it Pioyer taught me how to sprint. The tunnels branched out into a bloody labyrinth in the next section and Pioyer pulled me aside down one tunnel and made us wait for a few minutes. We could hear Null25 calling out for our position and in truth I felt bad leaving him out there but I would have felt worse bringing him along. I can only hope he simply turned around and went back to the station. After many turns we eventually came to stairs going up which led us to the middle of a field in an apartment block complex, and the bright sunlight was a good change from the mists of the first area. "Ready your AK," said Pioyer - confirming that we had come to a dangerous place; however this wasn't "the city" Pioyer was referring to.

Those aren't just ordinary dust devils.

Welcome to Lubech

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Eventually the train pulled to a stop at an old looking station surrounded by heavy mist. There were a number of homeless people outside, as well as some well armed security personel. I instinctively checked for my pack but remembered that I had lost pretty much all my gear (and money) catching the damn train in the first place. A man called "Blacksmith" told me where I was, at the city of Lubech - which I've never heard of before... maybe the zone was expanding? He also handed me a map and gave me directions to another guy inside the station proper who was equiping "newbies" with a small medkit and a small pistol with 100 rounds. The interior was pretty well setup, they had electricity, a bar, an apothecary, a number of shops and a courier bank system in place - anything you stored in one bank could be delivered to another as long as your standing at the other end was high enough. Still, this place was quite deserted. Maybe the other guys who came on the train had already moved out?

Having received my "care package" I took a walk out into the streets of perpetual dusk. It reminded me of Silent Hill. Little mutated rats scurried around in the tall grass that was overgrowing the place, and the small delapidated wooden homes nearby were now occupied by little malevolent imps called Brownies. Two bullets were enough to take those fast moving freaks down though, and some houses had random spare parts I could collect for later crafting. Behind the houses I found large packs of mutant puppies - zombie dogs who I used as target practice, and took their heads back to a homeless guy collecting them. The rubles I earned were barely enough to buy back the ammo I had used though so I took a job to deliver a message to a nearby police station in hopes it would pay better. The streets were mostly inhabited by the mutant dogs, but the cop shop wasn't that far away. The building was also guarded by security but had less facilities within, though I did find the clan registar upstairs. There was little money in the task I did though, and with no ammo vendor here I decided to head back to the station before I ran too low.

If pyramid head shows up, I'm outta here.

After restocking I decided to try explore the streets to the south while looking for spare TV parts for another homeless dude. Threw rocks (out of bolts) to make sure no anomalies were ahead of me and carefully avoided a cluster or rats beside a burned out car. I hadn't gotten very far when suddenly I was being shot at! I turned around to see another stalker/bandit named Null25 shooting at me from near point blank! Fortunately these pistols are crap, so I managed to survive and empty a clip in his direction. Decided to make a run for it while he took cover, but it wasn't long before he and his bullets were after me again though (at least it looked like it) so I carefully positioned myself on the street to bait him to take cover behind the burned out car and soon enough he did. Not sure if my plan worked, but between me shooting him and the rat pack that should have been nibling his feet he retreated back into the station. I used the opportunity to do the same. Once inside the guards deterred any futher shooting and he apologized for shooting at me, thinking I was a bandit. Told him not to worry about it and decided to spend the rest of the day resting up indoors, under the watchful eye of the guards.