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.