Expedition 8: Looking for Miss Adventure

0553 5-1-2012

Well, don't look too pleased to see me or anything

OK, so I got caught by one of the meanest traps the game throws at you in the early stages (hah! It's not early anymore!).  The waves of bandits in that vehicle yard fight are notoriously brutal to even the casual player in the unmodded version of the game.  The power of the guns in this thing does give you a certain confidence, particularly when you appear to be doing alright.  Stupid confidence is still confidence.

There's also something just not right about turning your back on people trying to kill you.  Frankly I blame whoever put our arms on backwards.  More eyes wouldn't hurt either.

At 0700 I've done most of my morning chores but it's still too dark to undertake a raid so I take my time. 

I stroll over and get Tolik back on his feet again.  As I' ve said before, there's clearly the choice here to leave him and keep the medkit for myself.  But I always give it to him. If it was a some nice artifact or suit it might be a different story.  He stands there while he helicopter flies by and I fossick around waiting for the sun to get higher.

0720 - This is sad.  I don't think I've ever looked in the ruined rail car before. The one that Tolik is found next to. In it there's only some ammo, bandages, another med kit and a silenced pistol fer crissakes. Man that's embarassing.

0730 - Now I want to try it out. It's light enough, or I've just gotten used to the dark.  Either way there's nothing quite like new guns to spur you on. So, to Petruha and the boys it is.

I take the usual approach: flanking right into the first room.  But when I get there there's no bandits by the fire at all.  Ok, stick with the plan.  I advance to the  hole in the wall as the other guys come in, but I'm mostly just pinging the odd round at the bandits I glimpse through the other side in the courtyard.

As I'm thinking something is seriously amiss here, a guy steps out from the back end of the building and sprays me with buckshot.  Sneaky bastard.  I stumble forward into cover, not too badly hurt.  Petruha steps in from behind me and drives the guy back into the building.  I slap on a bandage or two and sprint up to the doorway and jump the bandit while he reloads. 

My aim is a little panicked and I end up riddling the guy with bullets just to stop him pushing those shells into his barrels. I pause for breath, reload and start stumbling through this burned out end of the building.

Then someone pitches a grenade into the middle of the courtyard.  I assume it was one of our guys because from then on it's pretty much all over bar the shouting/screaming.

We seemed to have the upper hand in numbers and tactics the whole time. Of course winning does give that impression. I found Lenka Quiet, one of Petruha's crew, dead out by the trailer.  I didn't even notice him go down.

I leave Petruha and the oddly named German Nothing to the place while me and Nimble head back to camp.

1000

The sun's finally shining a bit.  Admiring the scenery must be distracting since I've wandered all the way to the embankment and completely forgotten to take any side missions from Nimble or Wolf. Still it does look nice. Might as well make the most of things while I'm out here.

Chatting with Maj. Kuretzov reminds me how far off that MP5 is.  It's not really a chat.  More a series of thinly veiled threats.  I'm really not happy about the idea of giving these guys 500R to get through.  It's funny that by the time you've got enough cash that 500R isn't really a problem, you've usually got enough weapons and armour to decisively refuse handing it over.

While talking with these guys probably doesn't make them any more observant, I'll take the scenic route to see Fox and look at a few stashes along the way.  I might get lucky.

I've been neglecting one of the stash tips Nimble points out. Over to the East-North East towards the rail tunnel. That end of the track is a pretty rough area as environmental hazards go.  But it's probably time I headed over to see what's what. 

1205

So much for the sunshine.  Here we have a pretty good memento mori all by itself.  But the overcast conditions add a certain something to this stalker's grave site I must say. 

1212

Nimble's marker leads me here, to this old rail engine with something shiny on the top.  It's got quite a lot of radiation and anomalies around it, but if you stick close you're usually alright.  I do have to hand it to Nimble for storing his stuff in interesting places.


You can get up there fairly easily around the other side.  The glowing thing is just a Stone Blood,  and there's some other stuff as well.  Not earth shattering but nothing to be sneezed at. At this stage it's nice to make each little venture pay.


1240 -  When I got down from the engine and headed back down the line, I strayed up the embankment slightly.  It was only for a moment to sidestep an anomaly, but I walked into a highly irradiated area.

The dosimeter's constantly clicking around there anyway. But in that couple of steps my radiation dose indicator shot all the way into the red. My health meter started going the other way nearly as fast. I almost couldn't walk to safety.

Stuffing in all my med kits and food keeps me from dying right then and there, but it isn't enough.  The radiation dose is stripping my health faster than it is dropping on its own and I haven't got any anti-rad. So I have to use Vodka.  It takes all three bottles to get the radiation down below my health.  I equip the Stone Blood and wait for it to drop the rest of the way by itself.

I live, just.

You're not kidding there, uh,  me.  Three bottles of vodka is apparently quite a lot.  Who knew.

What the cops need when they pull someone over, instead of walking the line, is to make people walk between a couple of gravitational anomalies.  That'd sort out the men from the boys.

Oh man. Time for boys to go lie down before they walk into something unpleasent.

 

Some dog'll probably come and bite me as well.  So I climb onto this rock and just wait for the effects to pass.

0024 - Oh hell. I was mucking around when I wrote that.  I passed out for eleven hours.  I didn't even know that could happen in this game.  Now it's pitch dark and I'm out in the open, a long way from home.  Still a bit drunk too.

I really need to get somewhere in case of something.  I'll try and get to the Garage.  Hopefully the guys are still there and the bandits haven't come back.

0058 - despite the full moon it's still really dark.  I knew I should have done this with Complete instead.  That has great moonlight.  The Garage isn't too far away but I've got to be real careful of anomalies. 

A few paces more and I start getting people-blips on my scope, but no dots to mark them; 2-3-4...  Bandits?  Whoever they are they're on the move.  Maybe if I sit tight they'll pass me by.  I flip my light off and hide.

• The Marked One was killed by the grenade of an army patrol.
  Possibly they smelled his breath.
  T.O.D. 0103 approx