Stalker 2: Strelok

[Part of the Wasted Land story] 

The Doctor turns out to be a pacifist who lives on a small island in a highly radioactive lake and is horrified to learn the C-Consciousness project is still running so he reveals Strelok is somewhere at the Cordon, an area near where I first entered the zone! The boss of the rookie village there (who is also feared by the local bandits) partners me up with a capable stalker named Dark who is already on Strelok's trail, which leads to another abandoned underground lab full of anomalies and mutants, including a pseudogiant we manage to slay!

Surprise!

Soon after, Strelok gets the drop on us and kills Dark with a TV induced migraine - revealing Dark was an unwitting C-Consciousness assassin sent to kill him. As we're on the same side about "killing" this C-Consciousness he sends me to turn on another installation nearby, this one with ghostly type poltergeists in the way and a trio of burers down below. These mutant dwarves have powerful telekinesis and can use scattered weapons to fire or throw at their prey meaning it pays to fight them in "clean" areas.

After turning on the power I'm jumped by Scar and his Spark fanatics, who question my allegiance with Ward. I basically tell them what they want to hear, that I support their vision of a "shining land" to make the zone paradise for all to trick them into letting me go without harm. To help me see the "truth" about Ward I'm told to go to one of their bunkers and ask about "FIBER", which seems like a reasonable request.

Stalker 2: SIRCAA

[Part of the Wasted Land story]   

I'm welcomed with open arms at the SIRCAA research institute by Dr Dalin who is happy the device has finally made it to him in one piece. Colonel K and Ward soldiers are present too so I warn them about the impending Spark assault so we setup an ambush for the raiders and kill a lot of them, but are blind sided by additional Noontider troops now somehow fully back under the thrall of the Monolith who perform a secondary attack and throwing SIRCAA into disarray.

The retreat order is issued and while Colonel K and Dr Dalin manage to get to the evac chopper it leaves me and the remaining Ward soldiers behind as a pseudogiant joins the fray! The Colonel tells me there's another way out via some tunnels so I rush to that, leaving the pseudogiant battle to instead fight through an array of other previously caged mutants underground, like snorks who happen to be scary and hilarious at the same time.

The danger continues once I exit the tunnel as I happen to wander next to a chimera den, angering the two headed inhabitant which forces me to tumble down some cliffs to escape. While getting my bearings down at the riverbank Colonel K radios in saying massive psi-spikes were detected near my position and I am to check it out. It's a bit of a trek and the four blood suckers who ambush me on the road are more of a surprise than the Monolith troops now guarding my target location.

Stalker 2: Swamp

[Part of the Wasted Land story]  

On the hunt for the Clear Sky base I run into Richter again at the Sultansk loner base (and bar) who provides directions to get through the swamp to the distant village but warns about the defenses setup to protect it from outsiders. Sure enough, a number of psi-emitting towers need to be disabled before I can proceed - one guarded by a mutant cat in a dark church!

Even without them the swamp is a hellish place to traverse with all sorts of anomalies, mutants, and hyper radioactive water - but I make it to the ruined and empty village and find the scanner in a basement, but no Faust. Now of course I have to make the trip back and running face to face into a pseudogiant was not on my bingo card. I fight for a bit until it's apparent that I don't have the ammo to take this monster down so I jump a broken bridge and flee through a bubble anomaly field which seems to make it lose interest.

Exhausted, I try to rest up at the nearest ranger station but instead encounter the Sparker faction and their leader Scar, who know I'm on the way to SIRCAA with the device. They don't want to stop me, they just want me to open a door in an underground tunnel while I'm there. Before I can give a proper response, Ward troops arrive and begin a gunfight so I dash out the backdoor to let them sort it out while continuing to jog to the SIRCAA research facility. Good thing I'm loaded up with energy drinks!

Another Lab of Horror

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

Not that type of Lab.

With my psi-block helmet on it was time to march into that facility, and by march I actually mean very cautiously navigate past a deadly anomaly field. I had been warned that once I stepped in, the helmet could only protect me for so long so I made it a point to move a bit quicker, using my spray-and-pray Necro rifle to hose down the numerous zombies and snorks lurking within. The building I was meant to explore was blocked by a nasty teleport though (it threw me to the snork swamp - reload :P) so I had to find my way up to the higher levels using an adjoining structure and sneak in through a window. Once inside it was down, down into the darkness. This lab was pretty straight forward, just dark and home to more dead brains and jumping idiots. Eventually I reached the multi-level core and that's when the timer started. I had to shut down the death machine quick or I'd soon be one of the dead heads. The Necro served me well here as zombies began piling in from the higher levels and from behind me. With four switches to hit on various floors I had no time to take cover and had to spray from the hip. Eventually I made it to the top control and managed to shut that bastard
down. Huzzah!

Now I just had to get out - the ladder I used to drop down was broken and I couldn't go back that way so I forged ahead to the final chamber but stopped quickly as five burers blocked the hallway ahead. This was a challenge but I managed to get past them by using a turn in the hall and their greed. I noticed most AI here like to loot things so I tossed a rifle out at waited at the corner with my Saiga shotgun. Sure enough one of the dwarves shortly showed up, going directly for the item. A single shell to the side of it's head finished it. Soon after the second dwarf came to loot the first - he met the same end. This repeated until all five were dead in a humorous congo line with none of them having noticed me at all. Victorious I marched up to the door confidently and was faced with the largest group of fleshes, rats, and dogs I've ever seen! With a quick switch to the Necro I hosed them all down, as well as the Controller lurking in the back behind them. Having collected what I came for I found a hole in the floor which indicated my exit. Sure enough I found myself in the now unused tunnels beneath the facility, now inhabited only by snorks and a pseudogiant. The sounds of a helicopter outside plus heavy gunfire was not good but it turns out the military was not what I had to worry about. After climbing up a tall ladder I saw that there were now two "super" chimeras running around along with a whole pack of snorks - I call them "super" because they had lightning circling around them and each time I tried to shoot at them from above my shots reflected back and killed me! :(

After much loading, I decided to be quiet and watch what they'd do - the lot of them jumped straight down the long shaft I just climbed up. While they were down there I took the opportunity to FLEE. Didn't get very far before they caught wind of that and began chasing after me though, but now being on lower terrain I filled their bellies full of holes and they died before their claws could finish me off. With my armor in ruins, I hobbled back to the Research Outpost and handed it as many quests as I could, earning a bit of cash which I quickly spent on medical supplies of all kinds.

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.

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.

Tripping out at the Cordon

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

Woke up on the road with a guy named Stargazer who apparently pulled me from the wreckage of a "death" truck. He seemed surprised I survived then gave me a raincoat, binoculars, a knife, a med kit (used immediately since I was near death) and a small pistol with 8 bullets and sent me on my way to the "newbie village". This is hilarious, given the amount of hostile wild life I am seeing nearby, not to mention I have to get past a military checkpoint at a broken rail bridge to reach it. Gotta say the anomalies have never looked so good, and dangerous. Fortunately I still have my infinite scrap metal pieces to toss ahead of me just to make sure I'm not walking into anything nasty.

Getting across the tracks turned out to be easy since I spotted a lightly patrolled section atop the hill and I slipped through undetected which is great given that a) the military guys don't like stalkers and b) they are better equipped than I am. Spent all but one bullet on a pack of dogs that caught onto my scent on the other side, and I had to make a run for the village with the left overs in tow, resulting in the death of one of the guards. Was also interesting to note that there was a gangly zombie (which I had never seen before) lurking in the forests nearby and keeping everyone on edge. The guards eventually killed the "Izolm".

He's a handsome fella ain't he?

The other stalkers at the village had a great deal of distrust in me, and sent me to see Doc to take some sort of test. Apparently this involves taking wierd medicine and passing out (again) only to wake up deep in a mine full of horrible beasties including snorks, bloodsuckers, zombies, skeletons, pseudogiants and poltergeists. Thanks guys. At least they provided me with some power armor, a chain gun and decent artifacts to negate the horrible radiation. After massacring all the other hostiles the last section contained a series of lightning anomalies - a good trick given that someone in power armor cannot run. Easy enough to time jumping through the eletrical arcs with the armor off though.

Having passed the "test" I awoke back in the village and see the local trader (bought more ammo - yay) as well as some other dudes to do some random tasks involving retrieving artifacts, saving captured people, retrieving armor from dens of psy-dogs, and hunting boar - all in a lousy raincoat and -still- using Stargazer's pistol. The modders balanced the money in-take/out-take very well. It was around this point last time that I went south to the military camp to wipe them out but given that they have a HELICOPTER lurking around their base (and I still only have a pistol) I thought to instead follow the main quest North to find this "Strelok" person.