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.

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.

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.

One heck of a Detour

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

Since I was stuck in the swamp anyway I decided to visit the Clear Sky base. Apart from a multitude of anomalies and a lone sniper in a tall tower, it was a pretty easy march even in the dead of night. The farmstead was guarded by four more Clear Sky dudes and sure enough they had a working teleporter nearby. Unfortunately everytime I used it, the game would eventually crash when exploring or opening the menu at their base so I elected not to use it. Just as well because the place soon came under attack by a group of snorks and two burers!

The jumping freaks killed two of the guys before I could put them all down, and the dwarves managed to slay a third leaving me with one exo-armored ally. Snuck up to a broken roof while he distracted them and managed to injure one with the Saiga. This one turned to attack me and exo-dude managed to shoot him dead while I did the same for the other one about to kill him. That was cool. After looting what was left (he looted heaps) I decided to sleep till morning since wandering in the pitch black was not fun at all. My nap was interrupted by an emission though (typical) so Exo dude and I waited it out in one of the houses. It was dawn when it finished and as soon as we stepped out we were attacked again by three snorks this time with 2 green swamp fleshes. Killed all hostiles and bid farewell to exo-friend who was left to guard the homestead on his own.

He was like this, only in exo armor. :P

Proceeded North East to the next Cordon exit on the map, stopping atop the sniper tower to shoot a pack of dogs who were going to be in the way. Seemed to be safer to go through the water-parts as there were less anomalies but I had to detour around a heavily radiated village. Found an unusable buggy at an abandoned factory as well as a pack of hostile zombie-cats all of whom met some bullets to the face. There was one last village to go through before the exit and this one was inhabited by more bandits, though very stupid ones. After sniping the first two lookouts I assaulted the compound and managed to flank and one-shot kill every single one of them.

Finally I was back in Cordon, though North of the tracks, so after fighting past a few fleshes and some of Colonel Vodka's reinforcements I was back where I began: at the village, scouting out the military base to the South with my binocs. It was then I decided there was going to be no sneaking. I would need to launch a head on attack, so with grenade launcher and plenty of ammo at the ready took aim at their parked tank.

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.

Rostok Rumba

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

The entry of Rostok was a strangely quiet and anomally filled courtyard. Good thing I trusted my instincts and pulled up my binocs to spot a squad of mercs waiting to ambush me. Took some cover behind some concrete blocks and put all of them down and FINALLY managed to get a decent scope from their weapons. It was going to come in handy too, because the city was a warzone. Mercs led by some dude called Wolfhound were here in force, even shooting down a passing army chopper in the process. They were after a science group in the area, and it wasn't long before it was up to me to rescue them.

Decided to stay on the rooftops as much as I could to avoid the anomalies below, also taking the opportunity to snipe down as many mercs as I could. Eventually I had to get down to the train tracks and decided to check the downed chopper. Had a close encounter against Wolfhound himself but my shotgun was faster than his. Found what was left of the science team, one guy named Kruglov who asked me to escort him down to the Yantar valley. Ofcourse I agreed, getting him through a few more merc ambushes, a dozen anomalies and right at the end along with a few zombified stalkers. The valley itself is mostly inhabited by zombified guys and snorks, neither of which are very dangerous if they don't catch you by surprise.

They're more like radioactive jumping idiots.

There are tons of dangerous, moving anomalies though - and the building zone where all the zombies were coming from just seems to kill me by simply standing in it, so it was definitely a no go zone. At least the mobile science lab was well stocked with useful gear which I paid big bucks for: military grade binocs, an anomaly detector, a mine detector, various pills and medicines and because I got Kruglov there in one piece - a brand new bio-hazard suit - useful for radioactive areas. Unfortunately they did not sell bullets of any kind, depite having some high caliber weaponry on sale. With nowhere else to go and ammo running low I began the long trek back through Rostok.

The snorks and radioactive skull-rats had moved in, as had two more merc units with one exo-armored bastard but I got through them just the same, despite me choosing to go in the dead of night where visibility was really against me.