Ridli Scott
(Verified acid sweater mutant)
- Location
- The Periphery
Update the main art thread, then go for some painkillers. Slamming your head against a desk should hurt.
Stalker Zero (FoZ/S.T.A.L.K.E.R.)
- Thread starter TheannaTW
- Start date
- Crossover
Update the main art thread, then go for some painkillers. Slamming your head against a desk should hurt.
hapcelion
The Abyss gazed back
- Location
- n/a
Don't they have really venomous bite?
- Location
- Dubai Baby!
It'll cure her headache eventually either way. :lol
hapcelion
The Abyss gazed back
- Location
- n/a
Why can't you do things conventionally, like use leeches?
Louises Assemble!
TheannaTW
Master Procrastinator
- Location
- Canada
Happy New Year everybody! I have something special for you!
I don't have much to say, other than this looks great in colour! And yes, I know the AK is still reversed.
I'll just copypasta what I wrote on the preview.
So, from left to right we have Fallout!Louise from The Fall by @Jeggetts2.0. Next is Dovah!Louise from Poliamida's Zero Summing, and then of course we have Stalker!Louise next, and then finally, Sith!Louise from Guest000's The Sith, Zero! If you enjoy RS stories, then I definitely recommend reading those!
I don't have much to say, other than this looks great in colour! And yes, I know the AK is still reversed.
I'll just copypasta what I wrote on the preview.
So, from left to right we have Fallout!Louise from The Fall by @Jeggetts2.0. Next is Dovah!Louise from Poliamida's Zero Summing, and then of course we have Stalker!Louise next, and then finally, Sith!Louise from Guest000's The Sith, Zero! If you enjoy RS stories, then I definitely recommend reading those!
TheannaTW
Master Procrastinator
- Location
- Canada
And now Louise is left-handed.
- Location
- Canada
Oh wow that's really good
The Life of a Stalker XIII
TheannaTW
Master Procrastinator
- Location
- Canada
The Life of a Stalker XIII
Zaton
Following that afternoon's commotion, Louise couldn't help but feel doubly relieved when her shift finally came to an end. She had honestly thought for certain somebody was going to figure out that she had been responsible for that explosion.
Louise ducked out of the Skadovsk's bridge after bidding her partner Polar farewell. Her hand fell protectively over the metal rod tucked into one of the pouches on her vest. Louise almost couldn't believe she had done something correctly with magic.
She paused on the metal walkway, grimacing. Well, she had sort of done something correctly.
Heaving out a tired sigh, Louise turned toward the stairwell, metal groaning underneath her boots. The short-barreled Kalashnikov that dangled from her shoulder smacked rhythmically against her side with every step. Perhaps they could spend the evening relaxing aboard the Skadovsk, rather than wandering around Zaton.
Siesta and Kirche were both waiting for her at the bottom of the narrow stairs. Neither of them looked impressed, and Louise immediately realized they knew.
Louise glowered down from the top of the stairs. "…Yes. That explosion was because of me."
While Siesta groaned, bringing her palm upward to meet her face, Kirche started hooting out a loud bout of laughter, throwing her head backward. Louise just clenched her fists and seethed, remembering this distinct feeling from the Academy.
"I knew that was you!" Kirche proclaimed, a little too loudly. "I just knew I recognized that sound!"
"You – shut up!" Louise snapped, stomping down the stairs. "Do you want everybody on the damned ship to hear you? We're supposed to keep this a secret!"
"But nobody can even…" Realization flashed across Kirche's face. "Oh, right. Because Polar can understand us…"
Siesta crossed her arms over her load-bearing vest. "What were you doing up here?"
Deflating slightly, Louise sighed again. "I was just trying to bind with that stupid metal rod like I've been doing all week, and… well, I suppose it just sort of happened."
"You should've seen Spartacus," Siesta continued, snorting out a laugh. "Your explosion scared the crap out of him. He looked like he'd seen a ghost or something."
"He thought somebody was shooting grenades at us, you said?" Kirche added thoughtfully. "I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds rather unpleasant."
Despite her annoyances with Kirche, Louise found herself holding back some laughter of her own. "When it happened, Polar nearly fell out of his chair…"
Siesta snickered, a wide grin stretching across her face, while Kirche blew out another laugh. The warm afternoon breeze gently fingered through Louise's unwashed hair. Glancing toward the south, there was a swath of dark clouds creeping toward them. They would almost certainly be in for a soaking that evening.
Which only further exacerbated Louise's desire to remain holed up in the Skadovsk. She produced the metal rod from her vest, turning the unassuming object over. Perhaps she should start referring to the rod as her wand going forward. Louise couldn't help but frown. The threaded rod was rather crude-looking.
"Siesta?" Louise began, turning her gaze up to the veteran stalker. "Do you have some of that black tape? I'm thinking about creating some sort of grip for this."
Siesta smiled, nodding. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got some kicking around somewhere. So, looks like there's some crappy weather coming for us this evening. I was thinking we should just spend tonight hanging around the Skadovsk."
Louise quirked an eyebrow. Perhaps Siesta had somehow managed to read her mind? Either way, Louise definitely wasn't planning on arguing against her proposal.
"We were talking earlier," Kirche interjected. "I suggested we could have some drinks."
"Yeah," Siesta added eagerly. "Since you've got your new wand we should definitely celebrate! I don't think we've even done anything fun since I've been back on my feet."
Louise eyed them both flatly. "…You know, at this point I shouldn't even be surprised."
"C'mon, Louise." Siesta casually looped her arm around Louise's shoulders and steered her toward the nearest entrance. "Seriously – I promise we won't go overboard."
Louise rolled her eyes and squirmed away from Siesta's clutches. "Fine, but I'm only having a few drinks, because I am not having another one of those hangovers."
"Yeah, sure." Siesta's devious grin widened as she ushered Louise toward the door. "Just a few drinks."
…
The Darkscape
Anyone who dared to venture within the Zone eventually learned about bloodsuckers, one way or another. Montmorency was certainly no exception to the rule.
Montmorency had learned of them during those long stretches of perpetual boredom that seemed to be such a noteworthy part of life in the Zone. Drifter often regaled her with tales of these dangerous mutants, lurking deep in the darkest corners of the Zone. Their origins were a mystery. Nobody knew how these creatures had come to exist.
Needless to say, knowing what she knew, Montmorency was feeling rightfully fearful of these creatures. Apparently they often hunted in groups, able to become completely invisible to the naked eye. Suddenly, Montmorency was teetering on the edge of panic – had they wandered right into some kind of ambush?
They were surrounded. The sounds of movement came from nearly every direction. Claws scraped against the concrete as laboured breathing echoed through the tunnel. Montmorency spun as something metal rang against the concrete.
Her heart leapt up into her throat when something grabbed a strap of her backpack. Montmorency could do little more than release a hoarse whimper.
"Move, Monty!" Tolik hissed, yanking her backward. "Tabitha – put your back to the wall!"
Tabitha nodded, clutching her staff as she edged backward. Montmorency shouldered her Kalashnikov, sweeping the beam of her flashlight across the tunnel. The bloodsuckers could have easily been hiding anywhere within the labyrinth of abandoned vehicles. Her hands shook. The sling mounts on her rifle ratted noisily.
"Keep watching for movement," Tolik instructed hoarsely. He sounded just as frightened as Montmorency felt right then. "They'll be waiting for the best moment to strike at us. Or they might come rushing all at once. These fucking things…"
Montmorency and Tabitha both absorbed the impromptu advice, but thus far Tabitha had only ever heard of bloodsuckers in passing. Apparently they could become invisible, and they drank blood. That was about the extent of her knowledge.
Tabitha was already wracking her mind, trying to drum up some possible workarounds. She was accustomed to listening keenly for the sounds of movement, but once the gunfire began she knew her hearing would be completely ruined. Guns were loud enough in the open. The confines of this damned tunnel would undoubtedly turn those gunshots into deafening thunderclaps.
Movement on her left – claws clicking against the concrete. Tabitha whirled around, leveling her staff. The flashlight clipped to her belt cast an elongated shadow across the floor, splaying the silhouette of a vaguely humanoid figure against the doors of an abandoned sedan. The shadow hunched lower, releasing a guttural hiss.
Tabitha quickly recited the simplest incantation she knew, which blasted a powerful gust of wind from the crook of her staff. The bloodsucker was blown backward, limbs flailing as the mutant suddenly became visible, tumbling against the old sedan. Glass crunched as the bloodsucker wasted little time, scrambling back to its feet and snarling angrily.
For a moment, Tabitha couldn't help but stare in a strange state of horror and fascination. She had faced down plenty of terrible creatures in her time in Halkeginia, but she had never seen anything like this hideous thing. The bloodsucker's tentacles spread wide, and the creature settled into a more formidable stance.
Thunder echoed in the tunnel as Montmorency raised the muzzle of her Kalashnikov, squeezing out half a dozen bullets. The bloodsucker jerked backward, blood spattering across the white doors of the sedan, before crumpling to the ground.
Montmorency's new weapon might have looked fancy enough, but that morning Tabitha had noted the so-called muzzle brake attached to the end of the weapon created an uncomfortable concussive effect, which seemed to beat against the inside of her skull when she happened to be standing in the wrong place.
Tolik released an indiscriminate cry over the loud crash of gunfire. There was another flash as he fired toward movement between vehicles, the blast reverberating in Montmorency and Tabitha's chests. Montmorency turned and opened fire. Sparks showered where her bullets landed, fire spewing from the muzzle.
Silence briefly settled over the passage, broken only by the intense ringing in their ears.
"Did you get it?" Tolik asked, lurking behind her shoulder. "…I think you might've got it."
"I don't know!" Montmorency hissed back. "I was just shooting! I only saw a shape!"
Tabitha scanned, clutching her staff. "There was another one. I heard more movement before."
"Shit…" Tolik swallowed. "Where?"
"Don't know," Tabitha told him, keeping her voice low. "Gunfire ruined my hearing."
"We gotta go," Tolik urged as he thumbed another shell into the shotgun's magazine tube. "There should be some more anomalies ahead – we could probably lose them there. It could be long gone by now, though. Those bloodsuckers are pretty…"
Tolik trailed off before they could even think of taking a step. Tabitha heard movement above them – claws scraping against metal. Both Tolik and Montmorency turned their weapons upward, flashlights illuminating a single bloodsucker clinging to the pipes overhead. The mutant released a low hiss, scrambling away.
Montmorency and Tolik began shooting just as Tabitha finished shouting an incantation, and an instant later, the bloodsucker splattered to the ground in several bloodied pieces.
Lowering his shotgun, Tolik blinked. "Holy shit… remind me to never mess with Tabitha."
…
Following that unpleasant encounter, they were predictably on edge for the remainder of their journey through the anomaly-ridden passage. They soon encountered the anomalies Tolik had mentioned, and painstaking navigated through the dense whirligigs, probing with bolts as their detectors shrieked endlessly.
Montmorency felt a euphoric rush of relief once the literal light at the end was revealed. She resisted the urge to run and get as far away from this place as possible – she would likely only end up as a crimson stain smeared across the ground.
Eventually, the trio lingered near the mouth of the tunnel, gazing out at the Darkscape. The unassuming road was pockmarked with potholes, worming through towering pines. Apparently some rather unfavourable weather had moved over them while they had been busy picking their way through the tunnel.
Neither of them had even bothered dressing for a potential rainfall that afternoon, but the idea of getting a little wet was far more appealing than remaining so close to the tunnel. For all they knew there were even more bloodsuckers coming for them, intent on avenging the deaths of their three comrades.
Stepping out into the open, Tabitha immediately began reciting a short incantation, and the dome of hardened air that formed over her head essentially acted like a floating umbrella.
Tolik blinked at the strange sight, watching as the raindrops ran off the invisible dome. "C'mon, Tab," he complained, the rain soaking his hair. "That's totally cheating."
Tabitha eyed him flatly. "…Tab?"
"Well, I mean, Monty's got her stalker name, right?" Tolik reasoned. "So you should have one too."
Tabitha's gaze returned to the road ahead, strewn with anomalies. "Just call me Tabitha."
Tolik turned to Montmorency, looking for some sort of support, but she only shrugged. She decided against using her magic to stave off the rainfall. The showering mists felt somewhat refreshing after spending most of the day sweating.
Soon, Montmorency and Tabitha noted the Darkscape was rather quiet compared to the Cordon. Montmorency had become used to hearing the commander's drunken ramblings that drifted up from the outpost half-a-mile down the road, not to mention the helicopters that periodically patrolled overhead.
Some stalkers seemed to believe the military deliberately flew right over the Rookie Village just to annoy everybody. Whether that was true or not, Montmorency couldn't say. In the Swamps or the Garbage there was almost always somebody shooting something in the distance, and Rostok was just a constant flurry of activity.
Here, there was only the gentle sound of the rain drumming against the pavement. Montmorency just hoped the dreary Darkscape would prove uneventful. After that encounter with those bloodsuckers she had her fill of excitement for the day.
Montmorency recalled the information that Sidorovich had relayed to her and Tabitha that morning. There was an old gas station somewhere along this lonesome anomaly-plagued road, and near that was an old path that would eventually lead to the farmhouse. The stash was hidden underneath the floorboards.
The rainfall seemed to have an effect of making the deadly whirligigs and springboards much easier to detect with the naked eye. The gravitational distortions caused the raindrops to move in all manner of strange and random directions.
They passed a husk of a truck where electrical anomalies were already sparking angrily as the rain passed through them. Montmorency had actually been wondering what effect water might have on anomalies, the electrical ones in particular.
Silence had fallen over them like a heavy woolen blanket since Tolik had attempted to give Tabitha a nickname. Every so often the branches rustled overhead, while the haunting howls of some mutant would drift through the forest. Montmorency chewed on her lip, and immediately decided one of those was much more unsettling than the other.
"So, the old man mention what was on the flash drive?" Tolik asked as they trudged through the rain. "I bet it must be something real juicy to send us out here."
Montmorency frowned. "I didn't ask. I don't even know how you could store information on such a thing. All these computers and things might as well be powered by magic."
Tolik laughed. "You remind me of my grandmother. Don't know crap about computers."
"I… I'm not like a grandmother!" Montmorency insisted hotly, but Tolik just chuckled.
Eventually, Tabitha's spell wore off, exposing her to the elements. She immediately recited the incantation again, garnering looks from both her companions.
"Can't you make that big enough for all of us?" Tolik complained. "I'm getting soaked!"
"Need to conserve willpower," Tabitha reasoned. "Should have brought an umbrella."
"I'm really starting to wish I wore something with a hood," Montmorency muttered.
"Yeah, crappy weather seems to have a way of sneaking up on you," Tolik commented. "Ah well – a little rain won't kill us, Monty. The bandits might, though."
Montmorency stiffened, gripping her rifle. "…Could we run into them around here?"
"Bandits are everywhere," Tolik told her. "They own pretty much half the Dark Valley these days, so I dunno, we might run into some of them. Hard to say for sure."
Somehow, Montmorency had managed to remain clear of any up close and personal encounters with bandits, and she continued to thank her lucky stars every day. Eventually, that was going to change, and the inevitability truly frightened her.
They rounded another bend in the road, noting a bulky shape lurking in the distance. Montmorency quickly recognized the lumpy form as a massive helicopter. She faltered slightly, having been told time and time again the Ukrainian military was definitely not on her side. Tolik explained the huge helicopter had been abandoned here for quite some time, all the valuable components stripped.
Nearing the flying machine, Montmorency couldn't help but frown a little. The faded grey paint was stained with off-coloured splotches and patches of cancerous rust, while the long blades drooped unhappily. Until now, Montmorency had never gotten so close to one of these strange machines before.
Beyond the helicopter were two more massive tunnel entrances nestled into natural rock walls. One of them appeared to lead downward, although Montmorency couldn't see much beyond that through the rainfall and poor lighting.
"Where do those tunnels go?" Tabitha asked Tolik, before Montmorency could pose the question herself.
Tolik shrugged. "Who knows? I'm sure there's somebody who could tell you. I heard they collapsed. You probably couldn't get through them even if you wanted."
Not unless they stumbled upon an Earth mage somehow. Montmorency shuddered. "…I'm not sure who in their right mind would actually want to do that."
Tabitha briefly lingered, curiously gazing up at the drooping form of the huge helicopter. Montmorency stopped at her side. The helicopters that routinely roared over the Cordon were definitely smaller than this absurdly massive machine.
"What do you think?" Montmorency asked in Tristainian. "I have a hard time imagining that thing flying anywhere without using any windstones. It's enormous!"
Tabitha scrunched her nose. She was thoroughly tempted to explore the abandoned machine. "Big."
Tolik urged them to leave the helicopter behind. There were anomalies lurking around the area, and he promised them there really was nothing useful left inside.
Ahead, there was a small building sitting alongside the road. That was the gas station. Montmorency was wholly on board when Tolik suggested that they should take shelter there for a short while. Hopefully the rain would let up eventually.
The gas station was apparently one of many locations meant for refuelling vehicles. Engines ran on liquid fuels, which were supplied by the pumps underneath the solid metal canopy. While Tolik approached the building, Montmorency curiously studied the pumps. They were obviously beyond any repair.
Tabitha dismissed her spell as Tolik approached the building, peering through shattered windows with his shotgun shouldered. The place had been all but swallowed whole by a twisted grove of alders. Nature certainly had a way of reclaiming everything.
Tolik entered first, the broken glass crunching loudly underneath his boots. Montmorency immediately noted the overturned shelves, and trash strewn across the floor. There was a countertop covered with old newspapers. Montmorency wanted to sift through some of them, but the leaking roof had created an ugly mess of sodden paper.
Drifter had used several of those before to help start fires, but only after Montmorency had clipped out several pictures, which she had stuck in her notebook. Some of the faded and stained images were of people, but Montmorency preferred the pictures of places, and of structures. Perhaps somebody would be interested in her notes if she managed to return to Halkeginia.
Paint peeled from the walls. Plaster had fallen away, revealing patches of weathered brick beneath. Montmorency had already become used to the architecture in this strange world, beyond anything she could imagine through Halkeginian eyes. Things had a strange way of falling apart when nobody was around.
Rain drummed against the roof, dripping into pools that had formed on the uneven floor, while rivulets ran down the walls. Montmorency searched for somewhere relatively dry to settle down. Tolik volunteered to keep watch through the broken windows while he ate. Tabitha had already begun poking around the building, curiously studying the artifacts that had been left behind.
Montmorency wasn't feeling particularly hungry. Being in the Darkscape was unsettling enough to ruin her appetite. Clearing away a dry place on the countertop, Montmorency shrugged out of her backpack and produced her notebook. She heaved herself up, sitting cross-legged. From here, she had a perfect view of the helicopter.
Flipping the book open, Montmorency quickly fingered through her notes regarding all manner of odd subjects. Several pages were dedicated to the pictures she had stolen from ancient newspapers, depicting anything from vehicles to otherworldly cityscapes. Unfortunately, most of them weren't coloured.
Awl had recently explained to her some of the specifics of how electricity was supposed to work. Montmorency had translated his Russian into Tristainian to the best of her ability. She flipped past that page, briefly adding to the notes she had written about gas stations. Clearly people could purchase many other goods from this place.
Once that was finished, Montmorency flipped to a clear page, eyeing the helicopter outside. Uncertainly, she began sketching, noting the machine's unhappy and droopy posture. There seemed to be several doors missing too. Montmorency also noted that she wasn't terribly good at sketching, groaning under her breath.
"What are you doing?" Tabitha suddenly asked. Montmorency hadn't even realized the other girl had started lurking so nearby. "Didn't know you could draw."
Montmorency sighed. "Well… I can't, really. If we ever return to Halkeginia someday I imagine people will wonder about some of the things we've seen. That's why I started writing in this notebook, I suppose. People might be interested."
Nearby, Tolik carelessly discarded an emptied can into the rubble, and belched loudly. "Go to Sidorovich and buy a PDA," he told her. "Then you can just take pictures of everything."
While Tabitha turned and raised her brow, Montmorency made a face at his behaviour. "They're far too expensive," she grumbled unhappily. "Besides – I can't even read anything on them."
"We could show you what buttons do what," Tolik pointed out. "I think you probably should've kept one of the PDAs you found on those zombies in the Swamps."
Montmorency frowned and returned to her drawing. "We needed the money more."
They set out once Montmorency had completed her mediocre drawing. Thankfully, the rain had let up slightly, but judging from the clouds hanging overhead there was still more in store. Tolik led the mages away from the gas station, but instead of following the road, they were headed straight for the forest.
There was just enough space between the tall pines that Montmorency suspected there had once been some sort of road here, but the grass was so overgrown that it was barely even noticeable. Montmorency was once again thankful they had brought Tolik along. Finding this path would have been impossible without him.
Trudging through the forest, they soon noticed the humidity was becoming unbearable, and soon, the mosquitoes returned, endlessly swarming around their heads. Tabitha resisted the urge to waste her willpower and conjure up a whirlwind powerful enough to keep them away.
Dogs barked somewhere in the distance, and Montmorency tensed up involuntarily. Tabitha, confident she could dispatch some mangy dogs with spellcasting, merely glanced toward the noise. Tolik didn't seem particularly bothered either.
"They sound pretty far away," Tolik reasoned, once Montmorency broke the silence. "Besides, they're just some dogs. They usually scatter once you start shooting."
Tabitha just hoped they would find this farmhouse before the insects started carrying her away, and Montmorency wasn't faring much better, constantly swatting the infuriating flies away. Already, she was rubbing the innumerable places where she had been bitten. She definitely needed to buy some insect repellant.
The distant barking was suddenly drowned away by an off-kilter clatter of gunshots. They halted as one, Montmorency sucking in a gasp, while Tolik muttered a curse under his breath. Tabitha simply turned, clenching her staff tighter.
Dropping to a crouch, Tolik peered uselessly through the trees. Those shots couldn't have been more than a kilometer away. Tabitha peered over his shoulder.
"Bandits?" She asked quietly.
"Could be," Tolik answered, staring through the trees. "Shit… I don't see why anybody else would be out here."
Montmorency worked her mouth for a moment, before she finally found the words. "…What do we do?"
Tolik eyed her over his shoulder. "We should get our asses moving before they show up."
They continued onward through the narrow trail, after Tolik instructed Montmorency and Tabitha to be ready for anything. He insisted that the farmhouse was only just ahead, and they should get in and out as quickly as possible.
Montmorency wasn't about to argue against that. The dogs had become suspiciously quiet after those gunshots, and Tolik believed whoever was responsible might be headed toward them. Montmorency clutched her Kalashnikov and matched Tolik's brisk pace. Silent as ever, Tabitha was hot on their heels.
After splashing through sucking mud and a number of murky puddles, the farmhouse finally appeared through the trees as the rain began picking up again. They paused, studying their surroundings, and Montmorency couldn't help but wonder why this was in the middle of the woods. Judging from the trees, there couldn't have ever been a farm here.
The so-called farmhouse seemed like little more than some gutted barn, surrounded by the same combination of concrete posts and wooden pickets bordering the car park in the Cordon. They cautiously crept toward the opened barn doors, Tolik heading up the trio, pump-action shouldered and ready for anything.
Hopefully they weren't about to find themselves right in the middle of some trouble.
Inside, they discovered that the corrugated metal roofing was rife with rusted holes, allowing rivulets of water to splash against the concrete floor. Montmorency inhaled, scrunching her nose as the strange scents of the farmhouse flooded her nostrils.
They were all equally relieved that they appeared to be alone. Nobody had ventured near this creepy old place in quite some time, and hopefully that wouldn't change anytime soon.
Montmorency wrung out her hair, eyeing the silt that had collected over the decades. There was plaster crumbling away from the walls, revealing brick underneath. Hopefully they could stay here for a while until the rain finally stopped.
"So where's the stash?" Tolik asked, probing deeper into the farmhouse. He activated his flashlight as he passed through a squared archway, sweeping the cone of light across the walls. "We should find it as fast as we can and get out of here."
So much for the idea of another break. Montmorency eyed the concrete floor, frowning. "…Sidorovich told me the stash was hidden underneath some floorboards."
Tolik motioned for Montmorency and Tabitha to follow him deeper into the farmhouse. "Back here."
Montmorency passed underneath the archway alongside Tabitha, and briefly glanced toward the stack of long-forgotten logs. There was a much narrower doorway there, but the door itself seemed to have gone missing. Passing underneath another squared archway, they heard floorboards groaning under their boots.
"Should be in here somewhere, I guess," Tolik muttered. "Quick, let's start looking."
There had clearly been a stalker camp here at one time or another, like in the tunnel before. Montmorency studied the cut down barrel that had been a campfire and the sagging sofa sitting against one of the walls. There were even bed frames and old mattresses that were covered with some rather suspicious stains. On the opposite side of the room was another empty doorway. This time the door was lying flat against the floor.
Tabitha started near one end of the room, opposite of Tolik. She rapped the bottom of her staff against the floor, resulting in a solid thunk. Montmorency copied Tabitha's odd little strategy, but instead used the butt end of her Kalashnikov.
Montmorency wiped the sweat from her brow, feeling anxiety bubbling up through her stomach. Perhaps Tolik was right to not want to linger around this place. Whoever had made those gunshots before certainly hadn't made noise since.
The end of Tabitha's staff landed against the floorboards again, but this time resulting in a hollow knock. Montmorency paused, looking up from the grime-covered floor as Tolik crossed the farmhouse room, pulling a knife free from his belt. Kneeling, he slipped the blade between the boards, and they came away easily.
Inside they found a plastic case that was about a foot wide. Tolik pulled the case out and eyed the padlock. "Shit. We'll have to get this thing open at the Village."
"Wait." Tabitha quietly recited a brief incantation, waving the crook of her staff. The padlock suddenly popped open, seemingly on its own. "There. Unlocking spell."
Tolik blinked. "Whoa. Can you do that with any kind of lock?"
Montmorency nodded. "Yes. The Unlocking spell is just a simple cantrip they taught us."
There were two items hidden inside the case – the flash drive that Sidorovich wanted, alongside a pistol which resembled a slightly larger Makarov to Montmorency. Tolik scooped up the gun as Montmorency wiggled out of her backpack.
"Pretty nice gun," Tolik commented. He handed the pistol to Montmorency grip first after she stuffed the flash drive in her backpack. "You don't really see these around so much."
"Then you should keep it," Montmorency told the stalker. "I don't think I need another gun."
Tolik studied the Makarov holstered on Montmorency's belt, and mentally compared the gun to the Beretta strapped to his thigh. "Nah, Monty. I think you need this more than I do."
Reluctantly, Montmorency accepted the pistol, which was apparently called a Stechkin. The big pistol felt much heavier compared to her Makarov, and supposedly could hold twenty bullets, rather than merely eight. Montmorency stuffed the pistol into her backpack, as they finally prepared to leave the Darkscape.
"Quiet," Tabitha suddenly hissed, creeping toward one of the windows. She swore she could hear the bushes rustling. "Heard something outside."
Tolik gripped his shotgun tighter. "C'mon, Tab. Probably just the wind or something."
"I want to check," Tabitha insisted, eyeing him over her shoulder. "And don't call me that."
"Just be careful, Tabitha," Montmorency advised uneasily. "For all we know there could be anything out there!"
Tabitha nodded and levitated through a hole in the roof, being sure her submachine gun was tucked safely beneath her arm. Having the little gun accidentally fire was probably the last thing she needed right now. Squeezing through the hole, Tabitha quietly moved across the metal roofing, toward the source of the noise.
Peering above the rooftop, Tabitha couldn't make anything out beyond the dense brush. She relaxed for a moment, thinking that perhaps her paranoia had gotten the better of her. But then, just as she was letting her guard down, something moved.
There was a flash about twenty yards from the fence surrounding the farmhouse. The crack of the shot nearly overpowered the sound of the bullet hissing frightfully nearby. Tabitha scrambled away, resisting the urge to scream aloud as her heart hammered in her chest.
Below, Montmorency and Tolik, who had both clearly heard the gunshot, listened as Tabitha scrambled across the roof and hastily dropped down through another gaping hole.
"Shit! How many?" Tolik asked quickly. "Where were they?"
Tabitha pointed toward the corner of the farmhouse, closest to the doorway. "That way – couldn't see anybody – just a flash."
"We need to go!" Tolik pointed toward the side entrance near the stack of logs. "There! We might be able to lose them in the woods. I'll move first – wait for me to stop, and I'll cover you!"
Montmorency watched as Tolik sprinted through the open, praying she wasn't about to watch him die. Tolik vaulted over the fence, before continuing onward toward the trees. Somehow, no shots rang out. Tolik dove into a dip, and remained there for a moment before he started frantically motioning for Tabitha and Montmorency to join him.
Footsteps outside. Montmorency suddenly became keenly away of that other entrance on the opposite end of the farmhouse. She preemptively spun around, clutching her rifle.
"…on the roof, I swear!" They heard somebody saying outside. "Nikita – you head around while I –"
Time seemed to hang in the air as Montmorency's eyes met with the figure standing in the doorway, clutching a double-barrel shotgun. He seemed just as surprised as she was, especially when he saw the Kalashnikov being pointed toward him.
Montmorency fired without really aiming, jamming down on the trigger as the bandit stumbled backward. Shouts and exclamations rose up from outside the farmhouse. Tabitha was suddenly tugging on her backpack, yanking her outside.
"Go!" Tabitha shouted uncharacteristically. "Run to Tolik!"
Montmorency swore she could hear strangled screaming rising up from somewhere behind the farmhouse as she took flight. Tabitha suddenly disappeared, but right then her panic-stricken mind was only screaming one thought – run.
Tumbling through a gap in the fence, Montmorency sprinted toward Tolik, watching as Tabitha descended through the air. She hadn't even though of levitating as a means of escape. Montmorency practically dove into the dip as Tabitha touched down, and promptly discovered there was much more mud and water in the hole than she had assumed.
Montmorency clutched her rifle, wiping the mud away. "I think I shot him…" she wheezed. "Founder above…"
"We need to keep moving," Tabitha urged. "Before they figure out where we went."
Tolik agreed wholeheartedly, while Montmorency was still busy trying to comprehend what she had done. Hoping the bandits were distracted by their wounded buddy, Tolik began to move deeper into the forest, motioning for the others to follow.
They barely made ten yards before there was a shout, quickly followed up with another gunshot. Something hissed between Montmorency and Tolik, and everybody scattered to put themselves behind something solid. There was a thankful abundance of thick tree trunks and several dips and rises dotting the ground.
Taking cover behind a pine, Tolik shouldered his pump-action and fired toward a figure wearing a hooded trench coat, who was moving toward the trees. The unsuspecting bandit clutched his leg and hopped in an almost comical manner toward the nearest cover – one of the weathered concrete posts making up the fence.
More bullets came toward them. Montmorency had huddled herself behind a mound of earth, and shrieked as the ground exploded in a shower of dirt frighteningly close to her head. Shouldering the AK-74, she began haphazardly returning fire toward the figures darting through the open.
Behind another tree, Tabitha had come to realize that her setup was far more cumbersome than she had initially thought. She tucked the shaft of her staff underneath her arm and scooped up the Kedr from her sling, emptying the magazine toward the farmhouse in a single pull of the trigger. Their bullets pockmarked the farmhouse, clouds of duty blossoming outward that seemed to hang in the humid air.
"That's enough!" Tolik cried out, pumping a fresh shell into the chamber. "C'mon! We gotta haul ass!"
Neither Montmorency nor Tabitha needed to be told twice. They broke cover, weaving through the trees. There was a moment where the only sounds were frantic breathing and the rustling of them barrelling headlong through the dense brush.
More gunshots – the lighter cracks of pistols juxtaposed with much deeper shotgun blasts. Montmorency heard a deep thunk as one bullet blasted a strip of bark away from a tree, while another severed a branch that tumbled down from somewhere above her head.
They didn't dare stop. Tabitha easily managed to keep pace, and was surprisingly nimble as she bounded over the uneven terrain, while Montmorency only wished she had kept that Moonlight, because soon enough she had become soaked wheezing mess.
Thankfully, there was a particularly large boulder sitting near a tangled grove of alders. Montmorency slumped down, uncaring that her bottom was becoming soaked by the sodden earth, gasping desperately for air. She had never run so quickly before in her entire life.
"Everybody alright?" Tolik asked, sounding only slightly winded. "Make sure you're not hit."
After inspecting themselves, they discovered nobody had come away with any additional holes from that experience, which was a great relief for the three of them. Tolik kept watch around the boulder, in the event the bandits decided to chase after them.
Montmorency wiped the sweat from her eyes, which might have been mixed with tears. "I know shot somebody," she said again. "I know I did. I swear I must have shot him…"
"Well, those assholes were definitely bandits," Tolik told her, trying to sound reassuring. "Who knows what those guys would have done – you did the right thing."
Montmorency still wasn't entirely convinced. "I hope so…"
"We need to go," Tabitha urged once again, clutching her staff. The emptied submachine dangled at her side. She was definitely going to have to figure something out about that. "They may be coming."
"Yeah," Tolik agreed. "I'm pretty sure I hit one of them. Hopefully they're still distracted with that. We'll cut through the woods this time. That'll get us back faster."
Montmorency followed behind Tolik, after swapping the Kalashnikov's magazine. She would certainly have a story to tell Drifter once they returned.
...
A/N: And we're back! That little break ended up becoming much longer than I'd anticipated. Whoops! Anyway, Monty and Tabby have completed their first real mission, and have thus increased their reputation with Sidorovich. They'll certainly get more menial tasks in the future.
Next chapter, we'll be focusing entirely on Louise and friends in Zaton.
Zaton
Following that afternoon's commotion, Louise couldn't help but feel doubly relieved when her shift finally came to an end. She had honestly thought for certain somebody was going to figure out that she had been responsible for that explosion.
Louise ducked out of the Skadovsk's bridge after bidding her partner Polar farewell. Her hand fell protectively over the metal rod tucked into one of the pouches on her vest. Louise almost couldn't believe she had done something correctly with magic.
She paused on the metal walkway, grimacing. Well, she had sort of done something correctly.
Heaving out a tired sigh, Louise turned toward the stairwell, metal groaning underneath her boots. The short-barreled Kalashnikov that dangled from her shoulder smacked rhythmically against her side with every step. Perhaps they could spend the evening relaxing aboard the Skadovsk, rather than wandering around Zaton.
Siesta and Kirche were both waiting for her at the bottom of the narrow stairs. Neither of them looked impressed, and Louise immediately realized they knew.
Louise glowered down from the top of the stairs. "…Yes. That explosion was because of me."
While Siesta groaned, bringing her palm upward to meet her face, Kirche started hooting out a loud bout of laughter, throwing her head backward. Louise just clenched her fists and seethed, remembering this distinct feeling from the Academy.
"I knew that was you!" Kirche proclaimed, a little too loudly. "I just knew I recognized that sound!"
"You – shut up!" Louise snapped, stomping down the stairs. "Do you want everybody on the damned ship to hear you? We're supposed to keep this a secret!"
"But nobody can even…" Realization flashed across Kirche's face. "Oh, right. Because Polar can understand us…"
Siesta crossed her arms over her load-bearing vest. "What were you doing up here?"
Deflating slightly, Louise sighed again. "I was just trying to bind with that stupid metal rod like I've been doing all week, and… well, I suppose it just sort of happened."
"You should've seen Spartacus," Siesta continued, snorting out a laugh. "Your explosion scared the crap out of him. He looked like he'd seen a ghost or something."
"He thought somebody was shooting grenades at us, you said?" Kirche added thoughtfully. "I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it sounds rather unpleasant."
Despite her annoyances with Kirche, Louise found herself holding back some laughter of her own. "When it happened, Polar nearly fell out of his chair…"
Siesta snickered, a wide grin stretching across her face, while Kirche blew out another laugh. The warm afternoon breeze gently fingered through Louise's unwashed hair. Glancing toward the south, there was a swath of dark clouds creeping toward them. They would almost certainly be in for a soaking that evening.
Which only further exacerbated Louise's desire to remain holed up in the Skadovsk. She produced the metal rod from her vest, turning the unassuming object over. Perhaps she should start referring to the rod as her wand going forward. Louise couldn't help but frown. The threaded rod was rather crude-looking.
"Siesta?" Louise began, turning her gaze up to the veteran stalker. "Do you have some of that black tape? I'm thinking about creating some sort of grip for this."
Siesta smiled, nodding. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got some kicking around somewhere. So, looks like there's some crappy weather coming for us this evening. I was thinking we should just spend tonight hanging around the Skadovsk."
Louise quirked an eyebrow. Perhaps Siesta had somehow managed to read her mind? Either way, Louise definitely wasn't planning on arguing against her proposal.
"We were talking earlier," Kirche interjected. "I suggested we could have some drinks."
"Yeah," Siesta added eagerly. "Since you've got your new wand we should definitely celebrate! I don't think we've even done anything fun since I've been back on my feet."
Louise eyed them both flatly. "…You know, at this point I shouldn't even be surprised."
"C'mon, Louise." Siesta casually looped her arm around Louise's shoulders and steered her toward the nearest entrance. "Seriously – I promise we won't go overboard."
Louise rolled her eyes and squirmed away from Siesta's clutches. "Fine, but I'm only having a few drinks, because I am not having another one of those hangovers."
"Yeah, sure." Siesta's devious grin widened as she ushered Louise toward the door. "Just a few drinks."
…
The Darkscape
Anyone who dared to venture within the Zone eventually learned about bloodsuckers, one way or another. Montmorency was certainly no exception to the rule.
Montmorency had learned of them during those long stretches of perpetual boredom that seemed to be such a noteworthy part of life in the Zone. Drifter often regaled her with tales of these dangerous mutants, lurking deep in the darkest corners of the Zone. Their origins were a mystery. Nobody knew how these creatures had come to exist.
Needless to say, knowing what she knew, Montmorency was feeling rightfully fearful of these creatures. Apparently they often hunted in groups, able to become completely invisible to the naked eye. Suddenly, Montmorency was teetering on the edge of panic – had they wandered right into some kind of ambush?
They were surrounded. The sounds of movement came from nearly every direction. Claws scraped against the concrete as laboured breathing echoed through the tunnel. Montmorency spun as something metal rang against the concrete.
Her heart leapt up into her throat when something grabbed a strap of her backpack. Montmorency could do little more than release a hoarse whimper.
"Move, Monty!" Tolik hissed, yanking her backward. "Tabitha – put your back to the wall!"
Tabitha nodded, clutching her staff as she edged backward. Montmorency shouldered her Kalashnikov, sweeping the beam of her flashlight across the tunnel. The bloodsuckers could have easily been hiding anywhere within the labyrinth of abandoned vehicles. Her hands shook. The sling mounts on her rifle ratted noisily.
"Keep watching for movement," Tolik instructed hoarsely. He sounded just as frightened as Montmorency felt right then. "They'll be waiting for the best moment to strike at us. Or they might come rushing all at once. These fucking things…"
Montmorency and Tabitha both absorbed the impromptu advice, but thus far Tabitha had only ever heard of bloodsuckers in passing. Apparently they could become invisible, and they drank blood. That was about the extent of her knowledge.
Tabitha was already wracking her mind, trying to drum up some possible workarounds. She was accustomed to listening keenly for the sounds of movement, but once the gunfire began she knew her hearing would be completely ruined. Guns were loud enough in the open. The confines of this damned tunnel would undoubtedly turn those gunshots into deafening thunderclaps.
Movement on her left – claws clicking against the concrete. Tabitha whirled around, leveling her staff. The flashlight clipped to her belt cast an elongated shadow across the floor, splaying the silhouette of a vaguely humanoid figure against the doors of an abandoned sedan. The shadow hunched lower, releasing a guttural hiss.
Tabitha quickly recited the simplest incantation she knew, which blasted a powerful gust of wind from the crook of her staff. The bloodsucker was blown backward, limbs flailing as the mutant suddenly became visible, tumbling against the old sedan. Glass crunched as the bloodsucker wasted little time, scrambling back to its feet and snarling angrily.
For a moment, Tabitha couldn't help but stare in a strange state of horror and fascination. She had faced down plenty of terrible creatures in her time in Halkeginia, but she had never seen anything like this hideous thing. The bloodsucker's tentacles spread wide, and the creature settled into a more formidable stance.
Thunder echoed in the tunnel as Montmorency raised the muzzle of her Kalashnikov, squeezing out half a dozen bullets. The bloodsucker jerked backward, blood spattering across the white doors of the sedan, before crumpling to the ground.
Montmorency's new weapon might have looked fancy enough, but that morning Tabitha had noted the so-called muzzle brake attached to the end of the weapon created an uncomfortable concussive effect, which seemed to beat against the inside of her skull when she happened to be standing in the wrong place.
Tolik released an indiscriminate cry over the loud crash of gunfire. There was another flash as he fired toward movement between vehicles, the blast reverberating in Montmorency and Tabitha's chests. Montmorency turned and opened fire. Sparks showered where her bullets landed, fire spewing from the muzzle.
Silence briefly settled over the passage, broken only by the intense ringing in their ears.
"Did you get it?" Tolik asked, lurking behind her shoulder. "…I think you might've got it."
"I don't know!" Montmorency hissed back. "I was just shooting! I only saw a shape!"
Tabitha scanned, clutching her staff. "There was another one. I heard more movement before."
"Shit…" Tolik swallowed. "Where?"
"Don't know," Tabitha told him, keeping her voice low. "Gunfire ruined my hearing."
"We gotta go," Tolik urged as he thumbed another shell into the shotgun's magazine tube. "There should be some more anomalies ahead – we could probably lose them there. It could be long gone by now, though. Those bloodsuckers are pretty…"
Tolik trailed off before they could even think of taking a step. Tabitha heard movement above them – claws scraping against metal. Both Tolik and Montmorency turned their weapons upward, flashlights illuminating a single bloodsucker clinging to the pipes overhead. The mutant released a low hiss, scrambling away.
Montmorency and Tolik began shooting just as Tabitha finished shouting an incantation, and an instant later, the bloodsucker splattered to the ground in several bloodied pieces.
Lowering his shotgun, Tolik blinked. "Holy shit… remind me to never mess with Tabitha."
…
Following that unpleasant encounter, they were predictably on edge for the remainder of their journey through the anomaly-ridden passage. They soon encountered the anomalies Tolik had mentioned, and painstaking navigated through the dense whirligigs, probing with bolts as their detectors shrieked endlessly.
Montmorency felt a euphoric rush of relief once the literal light at the end was revealed. She resisted the urge to run and get as far away from this place as possible – she would likely only end up as a crimson stain smeared across the ground.
Eventually, the trio lingered near the mouth of the tunnel, gazing out at the Darkscape. The unassuming road was pockmarked with potholes, worming through towering pines. Apparently some rather unfavourable weather had moved over them while they had been busy picking their way through the tunnel.
Neither of them had even bothered dressing for a potential rainfall that afternoon, but the idea of getting a little wet was far more appealing than remaining so close to the tunnel. For all they knew there were even more bloodsuckers coming for them, intent on avenging the deaths of their three comrades.
Stepping out into the open, Tabitha immediately began reciting a short incantation, and the dome of hardened air that formed over her head essentially acted like a floating umbrella.
Tolik blinked at the strange sight, watching as the raindrops ran off the invisible dome. "C'mon, Tab," he complained, the rain soaking his hair. "That's totally cheating."
Tabitha eyed him flatly. "…Tab?"
"Well, I mean, Monty's got her stalker name, right?" Tolik reasoned. "So you should have one too."
Tabitha's gaze returned to the road ahead, strewn with anomalies. "Just call me Tabitha."
Tolik turned to Montmorency, looking for some sort of support, but she only shrugged. She decided against using her magic to stave off the rainfall. The showering mists felt somewhat refreshing after spending most of the day sweating.
Soon, Montmorency and Tabitha noted the Darkscape was rather quiet compared to the Cordon. Montmorency had become used to hearing the commander's drunken ramblings that drifted up from the outpost half-a-mile down the road, not to mention the helicopters that periodically patrolled overhead.
Some stalkers seemed to believe the military deliberately flew right over the Rookie Village just to annoy everybody. Whether that was true or not, Montmorency couldn't say. In the Swamps or the Garbage there was almost always somebody shooting something in the distance, and Rostok was just a constant flurry of activity.
Here, there was only the gentle sound of the rain drumming against the pavement. Montmorency just hoped the dreary Darkscape would prove uneventful. After that encounter with those bloodsuckers she had her fill of excitement for the day.
Montmorency recalled the information that Sidorovich had relayed to her and Tabitha that morning. There was an old gas station somewhere along this lonesome anomaly-plagued road, and near that was an old path that would eventually lead to the farmhouse. The stash was hidden underneath the floorboards.
The rainfall seemed to have an effect of making the deadly whirligigs and springboards much easier to detect with the naked eye. The gravitational distortions caused the raindrops to move in all manner of strange and random directions.
They passed a husk of a truck where electrical anomalies were already sparking angrily as the rain passed through them. Montmorency had actually been wondering what effect water might have on anomalies, the electrical ones in particular.
Silence had fallen over them like a heavy woolen blanket since Tolik had attempted to give Tabitha a nickname. Every so often the branches rustled overhead, while the haunting howls of some mutant would drift through the forest. Montmorency chewed on her lip, and immediately decided one of those was much more unsettling than the other.
"So, the old man mention what was on the flash drive?" Tolik asked as they trudged through the rain. "I bet it must be something real juicy to send us out here."
Montmorency frowned. "I didn't ask. I don't even know how you could store information on such a thing. All these computers and things might as well be powered by magic."
Tolik laughed. "You remind me of my grandmother. Don't know crap about computers."
"I… I'm not like a grandmother!" Montmorency insisted hotly, but Tolik just chuckled.
Eventually, Tabitha's spell wore off, exposing her to the elements. She immediately recited the incantation again, garnering looks from both her companions.
"Can't you make that big enough for all of us?" Tolik complained. "I'm getting soaked!"
"Need to conserve willpower," Tabitha reasoned. "Should have brought an umbrella."
"I'm really starting to wish I wore something with a hood," Montmorency muttered.
"Yeah, crappy weather seems to have a way of sneaking up on you," Tolik commented. "Ah well – a little rain won't kill us, Monty. The bandits might, though."
Montmorency stiffened, gripping her rifle. "…Could we run into them around here?"
"Bandits are everywhere," Tolik told her. "They own pretty much half the Dark Valley these days, so I dunno, we might run into some of them. Hard to say for sure."
Somehow, Montmorency had managed to remain clear of any up close and personal encounters with bandits, and she continued to thank her lucky stars every day. Eventually, that was going to change, and the inevitability truly frightened her.
They rounded another bend in the road, noting a bulky shape lurking in the distance. Montmorency quickly recognized the lumpy form as a massive helicopter. She faltered slightly, having been told time and time again the Ukrainian military was definitely not on her side. Tolik explained the huge helicopter had been abandoned here for quite some time, all the valuable components stripped.
Nearing the flying machine, Montmorency couldn't help but frown a little. The faded grey paint was stained with off-coloured splotches and patches of cancerous rust, while the long blades drooped unhappily. Until now, Montmorency had never gotten so close to one of these strange machines before.
Beyond the helicopter were two more massive tunnel entrances nestled into natural rock walls. One of them appeared to lead downward, although Montmorency couldn't see much beyond that through the rainfall and poor lighting.
"Where do those tunnels go?" Tabitha asked Tolik, before Montmorency could pose the question herself.
Tolik shrugged. "Who knows? I'm sure there's somebody who could tell you. I heard they collapsed. You probably couldn't get through them even if you wanted."
Not unless they stumbled upon an Earth mage somehow. Montmorency shuddered. "…I'm not sure who in their right mind would actually want to do that."
Tabitha briefly lingered, curiously gazing up at the drooping form of the huge helicopter. Montmorency stopped at her side. The helicopters that routinely roared over the Cordon were definitely smaller than this absurdly massive machine.
"What do you think?" Montmorency asked in Tristainian. "I have a hard time imagining that thing flying anywhere without using any windstones. It's enormous!"
Tabitha scrunched her nose. She was thoroughly tempted to explore the abandoned machine. "Big."
Tolik urged them to leave the helicopter behind. There were anomalies lurking around the area, and he promised them there really was nothing useful left inside.
Ahead, there was a small building sitting alongside the road. That was the gas station. Montmorency was wholly on board when Tolik suggested that they should take shelter there for a short while. Hopefully the rain would let up eventually.
The gas station was apparently one of many locations meant for refuelling vehicles. Engines ran on liquid fuels, which were supplied by the pumps underneath the solid metal canopy. While Tolik approached the building, Montmorency curiously studied the pumps. They were obviously beyond any repair.
Tabitha dismissed her spell as Tolik approached the building, peering through shattered windows with his shotgun shouldered. The place had been all but swallowed whole by a twisted grove of alders. Nature certainly had a way of reclaiming everything.
Tolik entered first, the broken glass crunching loudly underneath his boots. Montmorency immediately noted the overturned shelves, and trash strewn across the floor. There was a countertop covered with old newspapers. Montmorency wanted to sift through some of them, but the leaking roof had created an ugly mess of sodden paper.
Drifter had used several of those before to help start fires, but only after Montmorency had clipped out several pictures, which she had stuck in her notebook. Some of the faded and stained images were of people, but Montmorency preferred the pictures of places, and of structures. Perhaps somebody would be interested in her notes if she managed to return to Halkeginia.
Paint peeled from the walls. Plaster had fallen away, revealing patches of weathered brick beneath. Montmorency had already become used to the architecture in this strange world, beyond anything she could imagine through Halkeginian eyes. Things had a strange way of falling apart when nobody was around.
Rain drummed against the roof, dripping into pools that had formed on the uneven floor, while rivulets ran down the walls. Montmorency searched for somewhere relatively dry to settle down. Tolik volunteered to keep watch through the broken windows while he ate. Tabitha had already begun poking around the building, curiously studying the artifacts that had been left behind.
Montmorency wasn't feeling particularly hungry. Being in the Darkscape was unsettling enough to ruin her appetite. Clearing away a dry place on the countertop, Montmorency shrugged out of her backpack and produced her notebook. She heaved herself up, sitting cross-legged. From here, she had a perfect view of the helicopter.
Flipping the book open, Montmorency quickly fingered through her notes regarding all manner of odd subjects. Several pages were dedicated to the pictures she had stolen from ancient newspapers, depicting anything from vehicles to otherworldly cityscapes. Unfortunately, most of them weren't coloured.
Awl had recently explained to her some of the specifics of how electricity was supposed to work. Montmorency had translated his Russian into Tristainian to the best of her ability. She flipped past that page, briefly adding to the notes she had written about gas stations. Clearly people could purchase many other goods from this place.
Once that was finished, Montmorency flipped to a clear page, eyeing the helicopter outside. Uncertainly, she began sketching, noting the machine's unhappy and droopy posture. There seemed to be several doors missing too. Montmorency also noted that she wasn't terribly good at sketching, groaning under her breath.
"What are you doing?" Tabitha suddenly asked. Montmorency hadn't even realized the other girl had started lurking so nearby. "Didn't know you could draw."
Montmorency sighed. "Well… I can't, really. If we ever return to Halkeginia someday I imagine people will wonder about some of the things we've seen. That's why I started writing in this notebook, I suppose. People might be interested."
Nearby, Tolik carelessly discarded an emptied can into the rubble, and belched loudly. "Go to Sidorovich and buy a PDA," he told her. "Then you can just take pictures of everything."
While Tabitha turned and raised her brow, Montmorency made a face at his behaviour. "They're far too expensive," she grumbled unhappily. "Besides – I can't even read anything on them."
"We could show you what buttons do what," Tolik pointed out. "I think you probably should've kept one of the PDAs you found on those zombies in the Swamps."
Montmorency frowned and returned to her drawing. "We needed the money more."
They set out once Montmorency had completed her mediocre drawing. Thankfully, the rain had let up slightly, but judging from the clouds hanging overhead there was still more in store. Tolik led the mages away from the gas station, but instead of following the road, they were headed straight for the forest.
There was just enough space between the tall pines that Montmorency suspected there had once been some sort of road here, but the grass was so overgrown that it was barely even noticeable. Montmorency was once again thankful they had brought Tolik along. Finding this path would have been impossible without him.
Trudging through the forest, they soon noticed the humidity was becoming unbearable, and soon, the mosquitoes returned, endlessly swarming around their heads. Tabitha resisted the urge to waste her willpower and conjure up a whirlwind powerful enough to keep them away.
Dogs barked somewhere in the distance, and Montmorency tensed up involuntarily. Tabitha, confident she could dispatch some mangy dogs with spellcasting, merely glanced toward the noise. Tolik didn't seem particularly bothered either.
"They sound pretty far away," Tolik reasoned, once Montmorency broke the silence. "Besides, they're just some dogs. They usually scatter once you start shooting."
Tabitha just hoped they would find this farmhouse before the insects started carrying her away, and Montmorency wasn't faring much better, constantly swatting the infuriating flies away. Already, she was rubbing the innumerable places where she had been bitten. She definitely needed to buy some insect repellant.
The distant barking was suddenly drowned away by an off-kilter clatter of gunshots. They halted as one, Montmorency sucking in a gasp, while Tolik muttered a curse under his breath. Tabitha simply turned, clenching her staff tighter.
Dropping to a crouch, Tolik peered uselessly through the trees. Those shots couldn't have been more than a kilometer away. Tabitha peered over his shoulder.
"Bandits?" She asked quietly.
"Could be," Tolik answered, staring through the trees. "Shit… I don't see why anybody else would be out here."
Montmorency worked her mouth for a moment, before she finally found the words. "…What do we do?"
Tolik eyed her over his shoulder. "We should get our asses moving before they show up."
They continued onward through the narrow trail, after Tolik instructed Montmorency and Tabitha to be ready for anything. He insisted that the farmhouse was only just ahead, and they should get in and out as quickly as possible.
Montmorency wasn't about to argue against that. The dogs had become suspiciously quiet after those gunshots, and Tolik believed whoever was responsible might be headed toward them. Montmorency clutched her Kalashnikov and matched Tolik's brisk pace. Silent as ever, Tabitha was hot on their heels.
After splashing through sucking mud and a number of murky puddles, the farmhouse finally appeared through the trees as the rain began picking up again. They paused, studying their surroundings, and Montmorency couldn't help but wonder why this was in the middle of the woods. Judging from the trees, there couldn't have ever been a farm here.
The so-called farmhouse seemed like little more than some gutted barn, surrounded by the same combination of concrete posts and wooden pickets bordering the car park in the Cordon. They cautiously crept toward the opened barn doors, Tolik heading up the trio, pump-action shouldered and ready for anything.
Hopefully they weren't about to find themselves right in the middle of some trouble.
Inside, they discovered that the corrugated metal roofing was rife with rusted holes, allowing rivulets of water to splash against the concrete floor. Montmorency inhaled, scrunching her nose as the strange scents of the farmhouse flooded her nostrils.
They were all equally relieved that they appeared to be alone. Nobody had ventured near this creepy old place in quite some time, and hopefully that wouldn't change anytime soon.
Montmorency wrung out her hair, eyeing the silt that had collected over the decades. There was plaster crumbling away from the walls, revealing brick underneath. Hopefully they could stay here for a while until the rain finally stopped.
"So where's the stash?" Tolik asked, probing deeper into the farmhouse. He activated his flashlight as he passed through a squared archway, sweeping the cone of light across the walls. "We should find it as fast as we can and get out of here."
So much for the idea of another break. Montmorency eyed the concrete floor, frowning. "…Sidorovich told me the stash was hidden underneath some floorboards."
Tolik motioned for Montmorency and Tabitha to follow him deeper into the farmhouse. "Back here."
Montmorency passed underneath the archway alongside Tabitha, and briefly glanced toward the stack of long-forgotten logs. There was a much narrower doorway there, but the door itself seemed to have gone missing. Passing underneath another squared archway, they heard floorboards groaning under their boots.
"Should be in here somewhere, I guess," Tolik muttered. "Quick, let's start looking."
There had clearly been a stalker camp here at one time or another, like in the tunnel before. Montmorency studied the cut down barrel that had been a campfire and the sagging sofa sitting against one of the walls. There were even bed frames and old mattresses that were covered with some rather suspicious stains. On the opposite side of the room was another empty doorway. This time the door was lying flat against the floor.
Tabitha started near one end of the room, opposite of Tolik. She rapped the bottom of her staff against the floor, resulting in a solid thunk. Montmorency copied Tabitha's odd little strategy, but instead used the butt end of her Kalashnikov.
Montmorency wiped the sweat from her brow, feeling anxiety bubbling up through her stomach. Perhaps Tolik was right to not want to linger around this place. Whoever had made those gunshots before certainly hadn't made noise since.
The end of Tabitha's staff landed against the floorboards again, but this time resulting in a hollow knock. Montmorency paused, looking up from the grime-covered floor as Tolik crossed the farmhouse room, pulling a knife free from his belt. Kneeling, he slipped the blade between the boards, and they came away easily.
Inside they found a plastic case that was about a foot wide. Tolik pulled the case out and eyed the padlock. "Shit. We'll have to get this thing open at the Village."
"Wait." Tabitha quietly recited a brief incantation, waving the crook of her staff. The padlock suddenly popped open, seemingly on its own. "There. Unlocking spell."
Tolik blinked. "Whoa. Can you do that with any kind of lock?"
Montmorency nodded. "Yes. The Unlocking spell is just a simple cantrip they taught us."
There were two items hidden inside the case – the flash drive that Sidorovich wanted, alongside a pistol which resembled a slightly larger Makarov to Montmorency. Tolik scooped up the gun as Montmorency wiggled out of her backpack.
"Pretty nice gun," Tolik commented. He handed the pistol to Montmorency grip first after she stuffed the flash drive in her backpack. "You don't really see these around so much."
"Then you should keep it," Montmorency told the stalker. "I don't think I need another gun."
Tolik studied the Makarov holstered on Montmorency's belt, and mentally compared the gun to the Beretta strapped to his thigh. "Nah, Monty. I think you need this more than I do."
Reluctantly, Montmorency accepted the pistol, which was apparently called a Stechkin. The big pistol felt much heavier compared to her Makarov, and supposedly could hold twenty bullets, rather than merely eight. Montmorency stuffed the pistol into her backpack, as they finally prepared to leave the Darkscape.
"Quiet," Tabitha suddenly hissed, creeping toward one of the windows. She swore she could hear the bushes rustling. "Heard something outside."
Tolik gripped his shotgun tighter. "C'mon, Tab. Probably just the wind or something."
"I want to check," Tabitha insisted, eyeing him over her shoulder. "And don't call me that."
"Just be careful, Tabitha," Montmorency advised uneasily. "For all we know there could be anything out there!"
Tabitha nodded and levitated through a hole in the roof, being sure her submachine gun was tucked safely beneath her arm. Having the little gun accidentally fire was probably the last thing she needed right now. Squeezing through the hole, Tabitha quietly moved across the metal roofing, toward the source of the noise.
Peering above the rooftop, Tabitha couldn't make anything out beyond the dense brush. She relaxed for a moment, thinking that perhaps her paranoia had gotten the better of her. But then, just as she was letting her guard down, something moved.
There was a flash about twenty yards from the fence surrounding the farmhouse. The crack of the shot nearly overpowered the sound of the bullet hissing frightfully nearby. Tabitha scrambled away, resisting the urge to scream aloud as her heart hammered in her chest.
Below, Montmorency and Tolik, who had both clearly heard the gunshot, listened as Tabitha scrambled across the roof and hastily dropped down through another gaping hole.
"Shit! How many?" Tolik asked quickly. "Where were they?"
Tabitha pointed toward the corner of the farmhouse, closest to the doorway. "That way – couldn't see anybody – just a flash."
"We need to go!" Tolik pointed toward the side entrance near the stack of logs. "There! We might be able to lose them in the woods. I'll move first – wait for me to stop, and I'll cover you!"
Montmorency watched as Tolik sprinted through the open, praying she wasn't about to watch him die. Tolik vaulted over the fence, before continuing onward toward the trees. Somehow, no shots rang out. Tolik dove into a dip, and remained there for a moment before he started frantically motioning for Tabitha and Montmorency to join him.
Footsteps outside. Montmorency suddenly became keenly away of that other entrance on the opposite end of the farmhouse. She preemptively spun around, clutching her rifle.
"…on the roof, I swear!" They heard somebody saying outside. "Nikita – you head around while I –"
Time seemed to hang in the air as Montmorency's eyes met with the figure standing in the doorway, clutching a double-barrel shotgun. He seemed just as surprised as she was, especially when he saw the Kalashnikov being pointed toward him.
Montmorency fired without really aiming, jamming down on the trigger as the bandit stumbled backward. Shouts and exclamations rose up from outside the farmhouse. Tabitha was suddenly tugging on her backpack, yanking her outside.
"Go!" Tabitha shouted uncharacteristically. "Run to Tolik!"
Montmorency swore she could hear strangled screaming rising up from somewhere behind the farmhouse as she took flight. Tabitha suddenly disappeared, but right then her panic-stricken mind was only screaming one thought – run.
Tumbling through a gap in the fence, Montmorency sprinted toward Tolik, watching as Tabitha descended through the air. She hadn't even though of levitating as a means of escape. Montmorency practically dove into the dip as Tabitha touched down, and promptly discovered there was much more mud and water in the hole than she had assumed.
Montmorency clutched her rifle, wiping the mud away. "I think I shot him…" she wheezed. "Founder above…"
"We need to keep moving," Tabitha urged. "Before they figure out where we went."
Tolik agreed wholeheartedly, while Montmorency was still busy trying to comprehend what she had done. Hoping the bandits were distracted by their wounded buddy, Tolik began to move deeper into the forest, motioning for the others to follow.
They barely made ten yards before there was a shout, quickly followed up with another gunshot. Something hissed between Montmorency and Tolik, and everybody scattered to put themselves behind something solid. There was a thankful abundance of thick tree trunks and several dips and rises dotting the ground.
Taking cover behind a pine, Tolik shouldered his pump-action and fired toward a figure wearing a hooded trench coat, who was moving toward the trees. The unsuspecting bandit clutched his leg and hopped in an almost comical manner toward the nearest cover – one of the weathered concrete posts making up the fence.
More bullets came toward them. Montmorency had huddled herself behind a mound of earth, and shrieked as the ground exploded in a shower of dirt frighteningly close to her head. Shouldering the AK-74, she began haphazardly returning fire toward the figures darting through the open.
Behind another tree, Tabitha had come to realize that her setup was far more cumbersome than she had initially thought. She tucked the shaft of her staff underneath her arm and scooped up the Kedr from her sling, emptying the magazine toward the farmhouse in a single pull of the trigger. Their bullets pockmarked the farmhouse, clouds of duty blossoming outward that seemed to hang in the humid air.
"That's enough!" Tolik cried out, pumping a fresh shell into the chamber. "C'mon! We gotta haul ass!"
Neither Montmorency nor Tabitha needed to be told twice. They broke cover, weaving through the trees. There was a moment where the only sounds were frantic breathing and the rustling of them barrelling headlong through the dense brush.
More gunshots – the lighter cracks of pistols juxtaposed with much deeper shotgun blasts. Montmorency heard a deep thunk as one bullet blasted a strip of bark away from a tree, while another severed a branch that tumbled down from somewhere above her head.
They didn't dare stop. Tabitha easily managed to keep pace, and was surprisingly nimble as she bounded over the uneven terrain, while Montmorency only wished she had kept that Moonlight, because soon enough she had become soaked wheezing mess.
Thankfully, there was a particularly large boulder sitting near a tangled grove of alders. Montmorency slumped down, uncaring that her bottom was becoming soaked by the sodden earth, gasping desperately for air. She had never run so quickly before in her entire life.
"Everybody alright?" Tolik asked, sounding only slightly winded. "Make sure you're not hit."
After inspecting themselves, they discovered nobody had come away with any additional holes from that experience, which was a great relief for the three of them. Tolik kept watch around the boulder, in the event the bandits decided to chase after them.
Montmorency wiped the sweat from her eyes, which might have been mixed with tears. "I know shot somebody," she said again. "I know I did. I swear I must have shot him…"
"Well, those assholes were definitely bandits," Tolik told her, trying to sound reassuring. "Who knows what those guys would have done – you did the right thing."
Montmorency still wasn't entirely convinced. "I hope so…"
"We need to go," Tabitha urged once again, clutching her staff. The emptied submachine dangled at her side. She was definitely going to have to figure something out about that. "They may be coming."
"Yeah," Tolik agreed. "I'm pretty sure I hit one of them. Hopefully they're still distracted with that. We'll cut through the woods this time. That'll get us back faster."
Montmorency followed behind Tolik, after swapping the Kalashnikov's magazine. She would certainly have a story to tell Drifter once they returned.
...
A/N: And we're back! That little break ended up becoming much longer than I'd anticipated. Whoops! Anyway, Monty and Tabby have completed their first real mission, and have thus increased their reputation with Sidorovich. They'll certainly get more menial tasks in the future.
Next chapter, we'll be focusing entirely on Louise and friends in Zaton.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
How many drinks until the off-the-note singing starts?
Welcome to the Zone, Monty.
The Life of a Stalker XIV
TheannaTW
Master Procrastinator
- Location
- Canada
The Life of a Stalker XIV
Zaton
Consciousness came slowly flooding back to Louise, and in those few brief moments of misery, she immediately discovered two things – their cramped quarters had become incredibly stuffy, and her head was throbbing like no tomorrow.
Working her dry mouth, Louise groaned helplessly. There was drool plastered across her cheek, slowly soaking into the pillow. She couldn't even begin to remember what transpired the night before, but Louise had her suspicions that copious amounts of foul-tasting Cossacks Vodka had been involved. She wiped the crusted drool away from her cheek, before burying her head even deeper into the pillow.
Siesta had doubtlessly coerced her into drinking far too much – again. This had happened before, during the days after she had been attacked by that bloodsucker. Once the most miserable parts of her recovery had been over Louise had decided to stop trying to soothe her pain with alcohol, feeling as though she had been well on her way to becoming some sort of pathetic drunkard.
Knowing Kirche, she had probably been somehow responsible for Louise's miserable state too. The Germanian seemed to enjoy taking things to the extremes.
The room was practically pitch black, illuminated only by the dim green light emitting from where Siesta's PDA was sitting on the desk, left to charge overnight. Louise's nostrils were filled with the familiar stench of cigarette smoke and sweat, and she couldn't keep herself from yearning for a proper bath.
But then, something moved inside her sleeping bag. Louise froze, and panic immediately bubbled up through her chest. Her bunk was normally cramped anyway, but she became keenly aware of just how little space was hers. Something wormed around her waist, brushing against a sliver of bare stomach.
The bunk creaked as something soft pressed against her back. Clearly somebody had decided to crawl into her bed, and Louise's muddled mind desperately raced.
What in the Founder's name happened last night!? I am never ever drinking again!
There was a soft sigh from behind, and Louise felt her impromptu bedmate nuzzle the back of her head. That was just about enough of that, so she squirmed, hearing a gasp of surprise when she jarred whoever was squeezing her awake.
Louise ended up gasping herself. She was much closer to the edge than she thought, and the next thing she knew she was already tumbling out into darkness. Louise braced, but discovered the floor was much closer than she'd thought. The cold metal was also strangely soft and warm, and released a strangled grunt.
"Louise –!" Kirche rasped. "What in the Founder's name do you think you're doing?"
Bare feet slapped against the metal floor, and only a moment later, flickering light flooded the small room. Siesta winced and shielded her eyes from the sudden light, before discovering Kirche and Louise on the floor in a tangle of limbs.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Siesta remained near the light switch, grimacing. Her elbow was stiff, accompanied by a shooting pain with every movement. She honestly wasn't all that surprised she'd managed to do something stupid while drunk.
But Siesta nearly forgot all about her elbow when she saw that Louise was practically straddling a befuddled Kirche. That alone didn't really catch her attention. One of Louise's hands had apparently landed somewhere rather squishy.
Louise met Kirche's gaze, heat shooting up to her face. Meanwhile, the Germanian blearily stared upward, grimacing. "Are you enjoying yourself, Vallière?"
Suddenly, Louise's complexion resembled that of a tomato. She tore her hand away from Kirche's chest and scrambled to her feet, stumbling against the desk. She clutched her pounding head, her raging hangover hitting her in full force.
Siesta, true to form, immediately erupted in laughter, which fell away into a grimace when she only exacerbated her own vicious hangover. Twisting, she studied her elbow. There was definitely a bruise forming. What had happened?
Kirche slowly sat up and clutched her belly. "Bloody hell… you kneed my stomach."
"Zerbst…!" Louise squealed accusingly. "Why would you even decide to sleep there you… y-you moron!"
"Huh!? Don't try and act like that was my fault!" Kirche snapped, glaring. "Dummkopf!"
Siesta clutched her head with causing hot pain to lance through her elbow. "Quit yelling," she groaned hoarsely, trying to moisten her lips. "My freaking head. What the hell did we do last night…?"
Kirche deflated with a tired sigh, before settling back on the mattress she'd dragged across the floor for whatever reason. She nursed the place where Louise's knee had sunk into her stomach, as some of the memories of the previous night flooded back. Clearly they allowed things to get a little out of hand.
Shoulders drooping, Louise decided that she felt far too miserable to keep arguing, and decided to just drop the embarrassing issue altogether. She stepped around Kirche, eager to erase the foul taste in her parched mouth. Snatching up a bottle from the desk marked with her initials, Louise began chugging greedily.
"I think I remember a few things…" Kirche said, throwing a gaze toward the emptied bottles of Cossacks sitting on the desk. She propped herself up onto her elbows. "We obviously drank far too much."
"No kidding," Siesta muttered. "My head's pounding, and my elbow really hurts…"
After draining the half-empty bottle of water down her gullet, Louise turned around to face Siesta. "And why in the world were we sleeping in the same bed? What happened?"
Siesta just shrugged. "How should I know?"
"You should!" Louise's face flushed again. "You were the one who started… hugging onto me…"
Kirche tipped her head backward, grinning up at Louise. "Oh? What else happened?"
"N-Nothing!"
Snorting, Siesta staggered back toward the bunk, dropping down onto the mattress. "Remember anything else?" She asked Kirche, twisting to eye her elbow again.
Hesitantly, Louise took a seat next to Siesta, noting her sleeping bag was completely unzipped, turning the nylon sack into some sort of swishy blanket. She supposed that had probably been Siesta's doing as well. She couldn't even remember crawling into bed.
Kirche thought for a long moment, and struggled to recall the events of the previous night. "I'm pretty sure Louise started throwing up… and then she passed out on the bottom bunk. Then we drank more, which we obviously shouldn't have done…"
"No kidding," Siesta groaned. "What else happened? What the hell did I do to my arm?"
Realization flashed across Kirche's face. "Oh! I remember using your PDA. We recorded you trying to climb up to sleep in the top bunk, but you ended up falling…"
Siesta furrowed her brow. "We recorded that? We definitely gotta watch that one later."
Pressing her lips together, Louise frowned. "I don't even remember anything about Siesta falling. Wouldn't that have made noise? I would've noticed."
"You didn't even wake up," Kirche said. "We started laughing really hard about that, actually."
Shaking her head in distaste, Louise decided to hunt down a suitable pair of trousers. "So much for just a few drinks." She threw a scathing look toward Siesta. "I'm telling you both here and now – I am never ever going to drink again."
"Yeah right, Louise." Siesta stretched. "Do you know how many times I've told myself that?"
…
After a half-hearted attempt at taming their dishevelled appearances, both Louise and Kirche tiredly descended into the bowels of the Skadovsk for breakfast.
Being thoroughly marinated with vodka, they had all predictably ended up sleeping in well past dawn, meaning they found the Skadovsk practically deserted. Louise herself was thankful. Hopefully there wouldn't be anybody leering at them from across the room, snickering and laughing among one another.
There was only one pair of men sharing a table, throwing periodic glances toward them. Louise simply ignored them and picked at the greasy slab of leftover boar, while Kirche hungrily wolfed down her own breakfast. The Germanian soon began occupying her time by fumbling ineffectually with Siesta's PDA while she waited for Louise to finish.
Beard was behind the ramshackle bar as usual, hunched over working on something. Louise listened to the strange tune that was playing on the radio. As time aboard the Skadovsk continued to pass, Louise found herself growing fonder of some of the music, despite not being able to understand the words.
Strangely, that slimy cheat Snag was nowhere to be seen. Louise wondered where he might have gone, before ultimately deciding that she didn't particularly care.
Louise sighed awkwardly, turning back to her breakfast. "So… what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to find that video I recorded last night." Kirche didn't even bother looking up, furrowing her brow. "I can't remember how to use this damned thing. Why does this technology stuff have to be so bloody complicated?"
"I see…"
"How long are you going to act awkward?" Kirche asked. "Wasn't it just an accident?"
Louise frowned. "I am not acting awkward."
"You can't even look me in the eye."
"…I can!"
Kirche paused and glanced up from the PDA, meeting Louise's eyes, who immediately averted her gaze. Kirche rolled her eyes. "See? Don't act so childish."
Returning to her meagre breakfast, Louise tried to stop thinking about that morning. She was only embarrassing herself further, and perhaps Kirche was right for once – it wasn't as though Louise had groped the Germanian on purpose.
"Vallière…" Kirche said lowly. "Perhaps you can explain to me why this is on here."
Kirche turned the PDA around, and Louise blinked at the sight of Kirche slumbering with a metal bucket covering her head, and she couldn't help but snort out a laugh. Louise had completely forgotten about taking that particular picture.
"Who took this?" Kirche demanded. "Once I figure out how to make things disappear from this thing…"
Siesta chose that moment to finally emerge from the upper levels of the Skadovsk, fully clad in her stalker suit. Immediately, she noted Louise's amusement, and approached them with a grin, testing her elbow. Kirche furiously mashed the PDA's buttons, a look of determination creasing her features.
"What are you doing?" Siesta asked as she peered over the Germanian's shoulder, and snorted when she saw the picture. "Finally found that one, did you? Well, that kind of sucks. I was really hoping I would get to see your reaction."
Kirche glowered up at her. "So you took this? Seriously – make this thing disappear."
Siesta snatched the PDA away. "Hell no. I'm keeping that one for the memories."
"Siesta!" Kirche protested.
"I want to keep it too," Louise said, grinning. "Think of it as some sort of revenge."
Rolling her eyes, Kirche sunk back into her chair and crossed her arms. "Fine. But I'm definitely going to take some stupid pictures of you two when I get the chance. Two wrongs don't make a right, Vallière."
"Alright, you two." Siesta pulled a chair over from another table, lighting a cigarette after carelessly dropping into the seat. "Can't we just all get along?"
"Sure." The corners of Kirche's mouth turned upward. "But only as long as Vallière keeps her hands to herself."
Louise felt heat rising her cheeks once again. "It was an accident!" She protested.
Flicking cigarette ashes onto the floor, Siesta snorted out a string of loud laughter. While Louise and Kirche had been busy communicating to Beard to warm up some leftover boar, Siesta had been holed up in their quarters, pressing the Kolobok artifact against her bruised elbow, hoping to drive the soreness away.
Thankfully, that seemed to have gone according to plan, although she was definitely going to have to pop some of those anti-radiation pills they'd scavenged from Tremor's belongings. Over the years, Siesta had heard many stalkers proudly proclaim some good old-fashioned vodka achieved a similar result, but after last night she didn't plan on doing any heavy drinking for a while. She usually ended up going overboard, and feeling terrible afterward.
Browsing through the PDA, Siesta easily navigated through the menus. Her knowledge of Cyrillic certainly wasn't equal to that of a native Ukrainian or Russian, but after spending this many years living in the Zone Siesta was normally able to make do.
"Here," Siesta said, playing the video. "I think this is the one we recorded last night."
Stretching her arms across the table, Siesta held the PDA far enough away so Louise and Kirche could see the screen. The shaky image revealed Louise motionless on the bottom bunk, while Siesta was busy staggering across the room.
Coming to a stop, the Siesta in the video, who was wearing only her underclothes, pointed toward the screen. "You – wait wait wait – you got it recordin' yet?"
"Uhm…" The screen shook briefly. "I… I think sooo… but are'ya sure you should…"
Siesta scoffed loudly, as though Kirche was suggesting something truly ridiculous. "Huh…? I ain't even drunk! Y'know… I'm probably the soberest person here!"
Huddling around the PDA, they watched as the video continued. Siesta clambered up the bunks, nearly making it safely to the top, before her foot slipped, and she crashed to the floor with an undignified squawk. Louise watched as she didn't even stir on the bottom bunk, while Kirche's laugher played through the PDA.
After the video had finished with Siesta on the floor, Louise only shook her head, while Kirche snickered. The memories of that event continued flooding back.
"Wow," Siesta remarked, settling back in her chair. "That was pretty fucking stupid of me, huh?"
"Agreed." Louise returned to her breakfast. "I'm seriously never drinking anymore."
Siesta and Kirche shared a look. Neither of them really believed her. They turned as Grouse emerged from the Skadovsk's upper levels. He paused and began heading straight toward them, as though he had come looking for them specifically.
Leaning her chair back, Siesta interlaced her fingers behind her head as her cigarette continued burning between her lips, the smoke swirling toward the ceiling.
"Yo, Grouse," she greeted. "What's up?"
"I was just talking to Owl," Grouse said, eyeing Kirche and Louise dubiously. "He's looking for some experienced stalkers. Figured I'd see if you were interested."
…
About twenty minutes later, Siesta and Grouse found themselves standing across from Owl in the Skadovsk's upper levels, a map spread across the countertop between them.
Siesta didn't need some map to get around Zaton – she'd been here long enough – but a cursory glance told her this was no ordinary map. There appeared to be a number of underground facilities and hidden passages beneath Zaton.
What madness was Grouse trying to drag her into this time? First it was bloodsuckers, and now he apparently wanted to drag her down into more creepy underground ruins. This job coming from Owl also made her uncomfortable, especially with all the rumours of his previous dealings with bandits.
"My client is looking for an experienced group of stalkers," Owl said. "They're interested in obtaining sensitive documents from an underground facility here in Zaton."
"Sounds great," Grouse said. "So what's the catch? With you there's always something."
Owl shot Grouse a look, but he knew there was no way he could possibly intimidate the stalker. "The facility is to the south, underneath the old substation."
Hearing that didn't make Siesta feel any more enthusiastic. The electrical substation was nestled in the southern reaches of Zaton, deep in bandit territory. Not only that, the place was rumoured to be infested by electro anomalies, and some stalkers even claimed there was a poltergeist hanging around.
"Shit," Grouse spat, mirroring Siesta's thoughts. "There's freaking bandits crawling all over that half of Zaton."
"I'm well aware," Owl said knowingly. "And I've already come up with a solution."
Owl then directed their attention toward his map, and the network of underground passages. Apparently these abandoned tunnels connected a number of places around Zaton, which wasn't a surprise to either of the experienced stalkers. Siesta herself had plenty of experience with creepy underground places.
Throughout the years she'd spent in the Zone, Siesta had heard plenty of stories. These places hidden below the surface had been created for the scientists working in the Zone before the first emission, and their strange clandestine experiments.
Siesta knew of many stalkers who believed these scientists had been responsible for some of the mutants that roamed the Zone today. Others believed the nature of the anomalies and radiation was responsible for the twisted creatures that made life so difficult around here, but Siesta didn't pretend to know for certain.
Owl briefly explained the passages beneath Zaton were once used for transporting materials and personnel between facilities with minimal travel above ground. Something so elaborate had probably cost more money than Siesta would ever see in her lifetime. Could something like that have been worth the time and effort?
Either way, these days there were no scientists to perform their strange experiments underground. Siesta knew perfectly full well they would only find anomalies blocking places that hadn't been seen in decades, and hordes of mutants who had made the underground passages home.
People around Zaton were still talking about their brief encounters bloodsuckers here and there. Maybe that was where the rest of them were hiding. Maybe the passages were teeming with snorks. They'd be lucky if that was their biggest problem.
Owl prodded the map with his grimy fingers. "Here we have the antenna complex. Here, we have the ranger station, and down here we have the substation. As you can both see, they're all connected to each other underground."
Siesta wasn't convinced. "So? These old tunnels could still be filled with mutants."
Nodding, Grouse noted another problem. "And they're connected to the antenna complex, which we filled with fucking nerve gas to kill the bloodsuckers."
That reminded Siesta about the locked gate hidden in the basement of the antenna complex, which in all likelihood was connected to these supposed passages, but how long would the nerve gas linger? How far would the gas spread?
But Owl apparently had yet another solution for that problem. "Then enter through the ranger station. The route's a little longer, but I guess you'll be safer."
"Nice to know you care," Siesta snorted, arms crossed. "We'll go in with gas masks too."
Louise and Kirche probably wouldn't be enthusiastic about returning to the ranger station after what had happened there, not that Siesta could blame them.
"Fine," Grouse grumbled. Owl seemed to have a bad habit of grating on his nerves. "But we need some more details. Where's the entrance for these tunnels?"
"Beats me," Owl said. "I'm sure you'll find something once you take a look around."
Siesta decided to change the subject before Grouse lost his temper and throttled the man. "Fine, we'll take a look around then. So what sort of documents are we looking for?"
"They pertain to a project called Item 62," Owl explained. "Experimental weapons testing, shit like that. The folders you're looking for should be somewhere in the testing workshops under the substation."
"So who's paying for this?" Grouse asked. "Must be some kind of freaking bigshots."
Owl began drawing on the map with a red pen, marking a route from the substation back to the ranger station. "I could tell you. Information costs money."
Siesta glowered across the countertop. "Forget it. Probably not even worth knowing."
Grouse turned to her and leaned against the countertop. "So? What do you think?"
"I dunno," Siesta grumbled. "I woke up this morning feeling super freaking hungover." She looked back to Owl. "Depends on how much your client's paying."
…
After listening to Siesta repeat the information she'd learned during her meeting with Owl and Grouse, Louise set down her steaming thermos and frowned. "Every time we go to the ranger station, something terrible happens…"
Siesta had known Louise was going to say something like that. "Yeah, I know Louise, but…"
"Seriously – every time," Louise continued. "First there was that bloody pseudogiant. Then there was the pseudogiant again. Then there were bandits…"
While all of those unpleasant memories still haunted Louise, the last one bothered her most of all. She couldn't forget that feeling of complete hopelessness. The overwhelming stench of burning flesh, and that horrible screaming.
On the opposite end of the room on the lower bunk, Kirche found herself reluctantly reminiscing as well. She wouldn't forget setting that bandit alight anytime soon, whether or not that deplorable excuse of a human being deserved the fate.
Kirche fidgeted. "I don't know, Siesta. Just how much money are we talking about?"
Leaning against the metal frame of the bunk, Siesta repeated what had practically convinced her all at once. "Our share would end up being fifty-thousand."
"Wuh…" Louise gaped. "Fifty-thousand?"
Siesta nodded. "Yeah. With that much we could order a new stalker suit for Kirche."
While Louise hadn't learned all that much about how the economy worked outside the Zone, earning fifty-thousand rubles from a job was like returning to the Skadovsk with their radiation resistant container practically ready to explode with artifacts. Achieving that during the course of a single day was all but impossible.
Considering the proposition, Louise turned to her collection of nuts and washers strewn across the surface of the desk. After breakfast, Louise had delved into the Skadovsk's dank underbelly, and the absurdly noisy engine room.
Louise had tried to ignore the chugging engine and the reeking fumes permeating the air while perusing the spare parts, but she didn't have the patience to figure out what would fit on her threaded rod down there. The noise of the Skadovsk's engine had practically rattled her teeth, like somebody had been firing a machine gun next to her head.
After laboriously threading one of the hexagonal rings of metal down the threaded rod, Louise then scooped up a pair of those so-called washers. Combined with the tape, which she had already wound around the end she decided was the grip, she was well on her way to creating some sort of rudimentary hilt.
As Louise returned to picking through the small pile of nuts, hoping to find another that matched the threads on her wand, Kirche eyed Siesta, or more accurately, her stalker suit. The idea of added protection was definitely appealing.
"So say we decide to agree," Kirche said uncertainly. "When would we be leaving?"
Siesta checked her watch, noting it was still barely past nine o'clock in the morning. "Probably sometime after lunch – I already told Grouse we were feeling like crap." She scoffed. "Of course a job comes up when we're all hungover."
"Yes, of course that happens. I knew drinking was a stupid idea," Louise muttered.
"Well, you seemed like you were having a great time before you started throwing up."
Some memories of last night had come flooding back during breakfast, but Louise wouldn't dare admit to either Siesta or Kirche that her miserable hangover was mostly her own doing. She was just thankful neither of her parents would ever find out.
Louise sipped from the tea she'd bought from Beard. Soon enough, she thankfully found another nut that matched the threads on her wand. The makeshift grip might have been somewhat crude, but she supposed it was better than gripping bare threads. Meeting resistance, she grabbed the adjustable wrench she scavenged from the Skadovsk's disorganized engine room.
"Huh…" Siesta remarked. "Y'know, that's definitely a Zone wand if I ever saw one."
Once the nut was sufficiently secure, Louise finally set down her cobbled together wand. "I have no objections," she finally said. "But, I swear if something bad happens when we're at the ranger station today, then I am seriously never going there again."
"I wouldn't worry," Kirche said sarcastically. "Some creepy underground passages? What could possibly go wrong?"
Siesta snorted loudly, grinning. However, Louise didn't find Kirche's sarcasm nearly as amusing. Being in the Zone was quickly beginning to make her strangely superstitious.
"Zerbst," Louise groaned, as she clutched the warm thermos in her hands. "Founder above – don't say that. Now you're just asking for some kind of trouble!"
…
The Cordon
Yanking open the door to the basement, Awl blinked as he was suddenly smacked by a wave of foul-smelling fumes. He could only wonder what Montmorency had gotten up to, since the smell had spread throughout the entire house.
He reluctantly crept down the rickety staircase, finding Montmorency and Tabitha hovering over the propane stove, both of them wearing cobbled-together masks. Montmorency sported some goggles, with cloth wrapped around her mouth and nose. while Tabitha had apparently scrounged up a gas mask from somewhere.
Montmorency glanced up from the sizzling concoction. Awl really wanted to laugh, because she looked pretty ridiculous in her strange outfit, but Tabitha's gas mask just made her seem creepy. All Montmorency really needed to complete the picture was an apron.
"Awl?" Montmorency squinted through the clouded goggles. "Uh… you shouldn't come down here while we're brewing. The fumes smell kind of bad."
Awl pinched his nose. "No kidding. We can smell it through the freaking house!"
"Oh." Montmorency shifted, while Tabitha remained silent. "We collected reagents on the way to the Darkscape yesterday, so we thought we'd try brewing some potions."
Heaving out a sigh, Awl wasn't going to even bother pretending he knew anything about their weird magical hobbies. "Right, sure. I just came for our stove. Tolik just smoked a joint and he keeps complaining that it's almost lunchtime."
"Already?" Montmorency checked the cheap watch she'd bought from Sidorovich. "Oh. Well, we were just about to finish up anyway. I'll bring it up soon."
Tabitha pulled off her gasmask and revealed a face that glistened with perspiration. "I'll go and see Sidorovich then."
Montmorency nodded, watching as Tabitha turned and bounded up the staircase. The fact she'd left her staff propped against the wall didn't go unnoticed. Awl turned back to Montmorency, feeling his eyes beginning to water.
He just hoped these fumes were just annoying, and not toxic or something. "Right…. so… what in the hell are you supposed to be making anyway?"
"Well, we're trying to make healing potions." Montmorency removed the blackened old pot from the burner, before she began pouring the syrupy concoction into a tin mug. "They can heal minor wounds on their own, but they're far more effective when you use them in combination with healing spells."
Awl's blank expression pretty much said everything. Sighing to herself, Montmorency pulled away the goggles and face mask, revealing a blackened stripe across her nose and cheeks. She should probably start cleaning up the mess.
"Huh…" Awl finally said, shifting awkwardly. "Right. So how do you know if it worked?"
Montmorency shrugged. "We don't know yet. Would you like to be our test subject?"
"Uh, no."
"I didn't think so."
Grabbing a rag up from the table, Montmorency dampened the cloth with a bottle of water and wiped down the burner, cleaning the overspill that had become an ugly brown crust. She supposed she would just have to test the potions herself, although Montmorency had honestly been expecting that anyway.
Tabitha seemed to believe that the batch had come along well, but Montmorency had been far more accustomed to brewing perfumes for extra coin. She snorted to herself. With the way they smelled now her perfumes would have come in handy.
"Anyway." Awl crossed his arms. "I came down here to ask you about something."
"Alright," Montmorency said while she worked. "Ask away then."
"Still interested in finding Siesta?"
Montmorency paused what she was doing, because now Awl really had her attention.
…
Tabitha stepped outside the house, shielding her eyes against the glaring sunlight. Across the road, she eyed the headless flesh roasting over the campfire. The pungent smell of sizzling meat caused her stomach to growl angrily, which reminded Tabitha that she hadn't even eaten anything that morning.
But before she could scrounge herself up a late breakfast, Tabitha had her own business to attend to.
The stalkers crowded around the campfire chatted jovially, listening to otherworldly music on some ancient radio. Tabitha briefly listened to the conversation, which concerned somebody named Oleg being kicked out of Rostok over a dispute involving a sandwich. Tabitha nearly had to stop herself from snorting aloud.
Ignoring their lingering stares, Tabitha continued onward through the Rookie Village. She found another pair of stalkers lurking around the entrance of another dilapidated house, smoking cigarettes. They stared, whispering and snickering to one another. Tabitha didn't even bother to slow her pace, and ignored them too.
Tabitha couldn't help but feel naked without her staff, but thankfully, the entrance to Sidorovich's underground bunker was just outside the Rookie Village. Even knowing that, there was a Makarov holstered on her belt, just for safety's sake.
Descending into the cramped stairwell, Tabitha discovered the heavy bunker door had already been opened. Apparently Sidorovich was busy entertaining company. Fanatic was in the middle of explaining something to Sidorovich when he glanced toward her, and ended up doing a double take.
"Shit!" Fanatic sputtered, glowering down at her. "You enjoy sneaking up on people?"
"Yes." Tabitha scrunched her nose. The bunker reeked of both sweat and cigarette smoke, like almost everywhere. "I just needed to speak with Sidorovich."
Thankfully, Fanatic was about to leave anyway, after finishing his discussion regarding several of the newest rookies. Tabitha supposed she counted among them, but he didn't seem to be talking about her, however. She didn't believe she was a 'freaking shithead,' as Fanatic had so eloquently been explaining.
Fanatic seemed to dislike her for some reason. Perhaps being snuck up on bothered him. Once he finally disappeared up the stairs, Tabitha turned to Sidorovich. The greasy man leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach.
"So what do you need?" Sidorovich asked. "You don't come to visit very often."
Which was mostly because this place smelled terrible. "My staff is too cumbersome to use with firearms. I need to find something else for spellcasting."
For a moment, Sidorovich just stared. He supposed he could probably understand why, since the staff was more than a foot higher than Tabitha's head.
"Alright…" Sidorovich began. "But I'm not sure how I'm supposed to help. I'm sure Monty's told you that I don't know shit about any magic business."
"Don't need you to know," Tabitha said. "I need a wand. Only needs to be sturdy."
Sidorovich huffed. "That's all? Don't need any dragon blood or unicorn hairs inside?"
Tabitha cocked her head. "No. Dragons don't exist here. Unicorns are rare creatures."
Feeling the urge to light a cigarette, Sidorovich honestly wasn't surprised his stupid jab had gone completely over Tabitha's head. "Of course. Real endangered. I probably have something kicking around, but I'm not running some kind of freaking charity here."
"I still have money," Tabitha pointed out. "From the job we did for you yesterday."
Heaving himself up from his chair with a grunt, Sidorovich left Tabitha and sauntered into the back of his bunker. Montmorency explained there was actually quite a lot more space back there than most stalkers apparently believed.
Montmorency had also explained that her first days in the Zone were spent cooped up down here with Sidorovich, feeling absolutely miserable about everything. She had even drawn a summoning circle on the floor in a vain attempt to return to Halkeginia, not even realizing she'd used a permanent marker.
Sidorovich had been constantly annoyed with her, and that had been the final straw. Afterward, he'd even tried to get Fanatic to train her as a rookie, but Tabitha was happy Fanatic had refused, because Drifter was clearly more bearable.
Moments later, Sidorovich returned grasping two objects. One of them was obviously a sheathed knife. However, the other one was something Tabitha hadn't seen before. The slender black cylinder appeared to be only slightly longer than the width of Sidorovich's palm. He set them both down on the countertop.
Ignoring the knife for now, Tabitha immediately grabbed the strange little cylinder, which turned out to be heavier than anticipated. "What is this?" She asked.
Sidorovich huffed. "Some dumb rookie thought that would be a good self-defence weapon. Here – I'll show you."
Tabitha studiously watched as Sidorovich depressed the little button with his thumb before flicking his wrist. There was an audible shlack as the cylinder practically quadrupled in size, and immediately, the gears began turning in her mind.
"It's a collapsible baton." Sidorovich handed the baton back. "That asshole discovered pretty quick the best way to defend yourself around here is with bullets, not with some little fucking stick."
Accepting the baton, Tabitha tried it out for herself, and discovered it was surprisingly sturdy. The baton was completely made from metal, but she doubted she would end up using this thing to whack somebody over the head anyway. Tabitha was known for her magical prowess, not her upper body strength.
The baton was concealable as well. Tabitha eyed the sheathed knife. "I'll take both."
"You want both, huh?" Amused, Sidorovich blew out a snort. "Big spender."
"Could use a knife," Tabitha reasoned, shrugging. "Might come in handy sometime."
Sidorovich counter over the meagre handful of banknotes that Tabitha surrendered, chuckling to himself. "Alright. Now get out of here unless you need something else. I've got a bunch of shit to get done before somebody else invites themselves down here."
Wordlessly, Tabitha turned on her heel before stepping out into the narrow stairwell. Her plan right now was to stash her beloved staff somewhere hopefully safe. Montmorency had said she could probably leave it with Sidorovich, but Tabitha wasn't sure she could completely trust him. He just seemed slimy.
The staff had once belonged to her father. Tabitha wasn't going to discard something with so much sentimental value. With all the bullets flying around yesterday, Tabitha had come to the sudden realization her staff would eventually become a liability.
That, or splinters.
Tabitha made her way straight back to the house, uninterested in any dillydallying. She found Drifter still seated on the sagging sofa, completely engrossed in the screen of his PDA. Tolik appeared to have gone down and retrieved his little propane burner himself, rather than waiting for Montmorency.
"Yo, Tabitha," Tolik greeted jovially. "You feeling hungry? We got beans for lunch!"
Again, Tabitha was reminded that she really needed something to eat. She nodded, before heading downstairs and catching the end of Awl and Montmorency's conversation. For some reason, Montmorency was looking rather apprehensive.
"…In a week's time, then?" Montmorency was saying. "I suppose I can do that…"
"Sure," Awl nodded. "You'll be fine without a stalker suit, but you could use some body armour."
Tabitha snorted at the sudden mental image of Montmorency completely dressed in steel plate from head to heel. "Why does Montmorency need armour?"
Awl turned. "To stop bullets. You should try getting your hands on something too. Look – I gotta head out, alright? You think you can explain everything to Tabitha?"
Once he made his way up the creaky stairs, which hadn't made a sound when Tabitha was on them, she turned back to Montmorency. "What was that about?"
Montmorency sighed. "Awl wants to head deeper into the Zone to meet up with one of his friends, beyond a place called the Red Forest. Apparently Siesta might be there too – that other girl from our world? I'm still hoping that she might have answers."
"So you want to go too," Tabitha said. "I see. Then we need to make preparations."
Leaning against the table, strewn with their notes and potential reagents, Montmorency blinked. "So… you're agreeing? I thought I was going to have to convince you."
"This Siesta may have answers," Tabitha said, shrugging. "Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn't. Either way – I'd rather not be left in the Rookie Village alone."
"I wouldn't just leave you, Tabitha!" Montmorency assured. "I'm still not sure myself…"
"Wouldn't mind another girl around, either," Tabitha reasoned. "And her experience could be helpful."
Montmorency hummed thoughtfully. "I hope so…"
"But we need to train," Tabitha continued. Producing the collapsible baton, Montmorency visibly flinched when she flicked her wrist and extended the device. "And I need to spend a few days making this my new wand."
"…What in the Founder's name is that thing?"
"Apparently for hitting people," Tabitha answered. "Sturdy. Made from good steel."
Montmorency nodded. She hadn't really considered replacing her wand with anything else. "Then we'll start training tomorrow. I suppose Drifter could explain some things to us."
Zaton
Consciousness came slowly flooding back to Louise, and in those few brief moments of misery, she immediately discovered two things – their cramped quarters had become incredibly stuffy, and her head was throbbing like no tomorrow.
Working her dry mouth, Louise groaned helplessly. There was drool plastered across her cheek, slowly soaking into the pillow. She couldn't even begin to remember what transpired the night before, but Louise had her suspicions that copious amounts of foul-tasting Cossacks Vodka had been involved. She wiped the crusted drool away from her cheek, before burying her head even deeper into the pillow.
Siesta had doubtlessly coerced her into drinking far too much – again. This had happened before, during the days after she had been attacked by that bloodsucker. Once the most miserable parts of her recovery had been over Louise had decided to stop trying to soothe her pain with alcohol, feeling as though she had been well on her way to becoming some sort of pathetic drunkard.
Knowing Kirche, she had probably been somehow responsible for Louise's miserable state too. The Germanian seemed to enjoy taking things to the extremes.
The room was practically pitch black, illuminated only by the dim green light emitting from where Siesta's PDA was sitting on the desk, left to charge overnight. Louise's nostrils were filled with the familiar stench of cigarette smoke and sweat, and she couldn't keep herself from yearning for a proper bath.
But then, something moved inside her sleeping bag. Louise froze, and panic immediately bubbled up through her chest. Her bunk was normally cramped anyway, but she became keenly aware of just how little space was hers. Something wormed around her waist, brushing against a sliver of bare stomach.
The bunk creaked as something soft pressed against her back. Clearly somebody had decided to crawl into her bed, and Louise's muddled mind desperately raced.
What in the Founder's name happened last night!? I am never ever drinking again!
There was a soft sigh from behind, and Louise felt her impromptu bedmate nuzzle the back of her head. That was just about enough of that, so she squirmed, hearing a gasp of surprise when she jarred whoever was squeezing her awake.
Louise ended up gasping herself. She was much closer to the edge than she thought, and the next thing she knew she was already tumbling out into darkness. Louise braced, but discovered the floor was much closer than she'd thought. The cold metal was also strangely soft and warm, and released a strangled grunt.
"Louise –!" Kirche rasped. "What in the Founder's name do you think you're doing?"
Bare feet slapped against the metal floor, and only a moment later, flickering light flooded the small room. Siesta winced and shielded her eyes from the sudden light, before discovering Kirche and Louise on the floor in a tangle of limbs.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Siesta remained near the light switch, grimacing. Her elbow was stiff, accompanied by a shooting pain with every movement. She honestly wasn't all that surprised she'd managed to do something stupid while drunk.
But Siesta nearly forgot all about her elbow when she saw that Louise was practically straddling a befuddled Kirche. That alone didn't really catch her attention. One of Louise's hands had apparently landed somewhere rather squishy.
Louise met Kirche's gaze, heat shooting up to her face. Meanwhile, the Germanian blearily stared upward, grimacing. "Are you enjoying yourself, Vallière?"
Suddenly, Louise's complexion resembled that of a tomato. She tore her hand away from Kirche's chest and scrambled to her feet, stumbling against the desk. She clutched her pounding head, her raging hangover hitting her in full force.
Siesta, true to form, immediately erupted in laughter, which fell away into a grimace when she only exacerbated her own vicious hangover. Twisting, she studied her elbow. There was definitely a bruise forming. What had happened?
Kirche slowly sat up and clutched her belly. "Bloody hell… you kneed my stomach."
"Zerbst…!" Louise squealed accusingly. "Why would you even decide to sleep there you… y-you moron!"
"Huh!? Don't try and act like that was my fault!" Kirche snapped, glaring. "Dummkopf!"
Siesta clutched her head with causing hot pain to lance through her elbow. "Quit yelling," she groaned hoarsely, trying to moisten her lips. "My freaking head. What the hell did we do last night…?"
Kirche deflated with a tired sigh, before settling back on the mattress she'd dragged across the floor for whatever reason. She nursed the place where Louise's knee had sunk into her stomach, as some of the memories of the previous night flooded back. Clearly they allowed things to get a little out of hand.
Shoulders drooping, Louise decided that she felt far too miserable to keep arguing, and decided to just drop the embarrassing issue altogether. She stepped around Kirche, eager to erase the foul taste in her parched mouth. Snatching up a bottle from the desk marked with her initials, Louise began chugging greedily.
"I think I remember a few things…" Kirche said, throwing a gaze toward the emptied bottles of Cossacks sitting on the desk. She propped herself up onto her elbows. "We obviously drank far too much."
"No kidding," Siesta muttered. "My head's pounding, and my elbow really hurts…"
After draining the half-empty bottle of water down her gullet, Louise turned around to face Siesta. "And why in the world were we sleeping in the same bed? What happened?"
Siesta just shrugged. "How should I know?"
"You should!" Louise's face flushed again. "You were the one who started… hugging onto me…"
Kirche tipped her head backward, grinning up at Louise. "Oh? What else happened?"
"N-Nothing!"
Snorting, Siesta staggered back toward the bunk, dropping down onto the mattress. "Remember anything else?" She asked Kirche, twisting to eye her elbow again.
Hesitantly, Louise took a seat next to Siesta, noting her sleeping bag was completely unzipped, turning the nylon sack into some sort of swishy blanket. She supposed that had probably been Siesta's doing as well. She couldn't even remember crawling into bed.
Kirche thought for a long moment, and struggled to recall the events of the previous night. "I'm pretty sure Louise started throwing up… and then she passed out on the bottom bunk. Then we drank more, which we obviously shouldn't have done…"
"No kidding," Siesta groaned. "What else happened? What the hell did I do to my arm?"
Realization flashed across Kirche's face. "Oh! I remember using your PDA. We recorded you trying to climb up to sleep in the top bunk, but you ended up falling…"
Siesta furrowed her brow. "We recorded that? We definitely gotta watch that one later."
Pressing her lips together, Louise frowned. "I don't even remember anything about Siesta falling. Wouldn't that have made noise? I would've noticed."
"You didn't even wake up," Kirche said. "We started laughing really hard about that, actually."
Shaking her head in distaste, Louise decided to hunt down a suitable pair of trousers. "So much for just a few drinks." She threw a scathing look toward Siesta. "I'm telling you both here and now – I am never ever going to drink again."
"Yeah right, Louise." Siesta stretched. "Do you know how many times I've told myself that?"
…
After a half-hearted attempt at taming their dishevelled appearances, both Louise and Kirche tiredly descended into the bowels of the Skadovsk for breakfast.
Being thoroughly marinated with vodka, they had all predictably ended up sleeping in well past dawn, meaning they found the Skadovsk practically deserted. Louise herself was thankful. Hopefully there wouldn't be anybody leering at them from across the room, snickering and laughing among one another.
There was only one pair of men sharing a table, throwing periodic glances toward them. Louise simply ignored them and picked at the greasy slab of leftover boar, while Kirche hungrily wolfed down her own breakfast. The Germanian soon began occupying her time by fumbling ineffectually with Siesta's PDA while she waited for Louise to finish.
Beard was behind the ramshackle bar as usual, hunched over working on something. Louise listened to the strange tune that was playing on the radio. As time aboard the Skadovsk continued to pass, Louise found herself growing fonder of some of the music, despite not being able to understand the words.
Strangely, that slimy cheat Snag was nowhere to be seen. Louise wondered where he might have gone, before ultimately deciding that she didn't particularly care.
Louise sighed awkwardly, turning back to her breakfast. "So… what are you doing?"
"I'm trying to find that video I recorded last night." Kirche didn't even bother looking up, furrowing her brow. "I can't remember how to use this damned thing. Why does this technology stuff have to be so bloody complicated?"
"I see…"
"How long are you going to act awkward?" Kirche asked. "Wasn't it just an accident?"
Louise frowned. "I am not acting awkward."
"You can't even look me in the eye."
"…I can!"
Kirche paused and glanced up from the PDA, meeting Louise's eyes, who immediately averted her gaze. Kirche rolled her eyes. "See? Don't act so childish."
Returning to her meagre breakfast, Louise tried to stop thinking about that morning. She was only embarrassing herself further, and perhaps Kirche was right for once – it wasn't as though Louise had groped the Germanian on purpose.
"Vallière…" Kirche said lowly. "Perhaps you can explain to me why this is on here."
Kirche turned the PDA around, and Louise blinked at the sight of Kirche slumbering with a metal bucket covering her head, and she couldn't help but snort out a laugh. Louise had completely forgotten about taking that particular picture.
"Who took this?" Kirche demanded. "Once I figure out how to make things disappear from this thing…"
Siesta chose that moment to finally emerge from the upper levels of the Skadovsk, fully clad in her stalker suit. Immediately, she noted Louise's amusement, and approached them with a grin, testing her elbow. Kirche furiously mashed the PDA's buttons, a look of determination creasing her features.
"What are you doing?" Siesta asked as she peered over the Germanian's shoulder, and snorted when she saw the picture. "Finally found that one, did you? Well, that kind of sucks. I was really hoping I would get to see your reaction."
Kirche glowered up at her. "So you took this? Seriously – make this thing disappear."
Siesta snatched the PDA away. "Hell no. I'm keeping that one for the memories."
"Siesta!" Kirche protested.
"I want to keep it too," Louise said, grinning. "Think of it as some sort of revenge."
Rolling her eyes, Kirche sunk back into her chair and crossed her arms. "Fine. But I'm definitely going to take some stupid pictures of you two when I get the chance. Two wrongs don't make a right, Vallière."
"Alright, you two." Siesta pulled a chair over from another table, lighting a cigarette after carelessly dropping into the seat. "Can't we just all get along?"
"Sure." The corners of Kirche's mouth turned upward. "But only as long as Vallière keeps her hands to herself."
Louise felt heat rising her cheeks once again. "It was an accident!" She protested.
Flicking cigarette ashes onto the floor, Siesta snorted out a string of loud laughter. While Louise and Kirche had been busy communicating to Beard to warm up some leftover boar, Siesta had been holed up in their quarters, pressing the Kolobok artifact against her bruised elbow, hoping to drive the soreness away.
Thankfully, that seemed to have gone according to plan, although she was definitely going to have to pop some of those anti-radiation pills they'd scavenged from Tremor's belongings. Over the years, Siesta had heard many stalkers proudly proclaim some good old-fashioned vodka achieved a similar result, but after last night she didn't plan on doing any heavy drinking for a while. She usually ended up going overboard, and feeling terrible afterward.
Browsing through the PDA, Siesta easily navigated through the menus. Her knowledge of Cyrillic certainly wasn't equal to that of a native Ukrainian or Russian, but after spending this many years living in the Zone Siesta was normally able to make do.
"Here," Siesta said, playing the video. "I think this is the one we recorded last night."
Stretching her arms across the table, Siesta held the PDA far enough away so Louise and Kirche could see the screen. The shaky image revealed Louise motionless on the bottom bunk, while Siesta was busy staggering across the room.
Coming to a stop, the Siesta in the video, who was wearing only her underclothes, pointed toward the screen. "You – wait wait wait – you got it recordin' yet?"
"Uhm…" The screen shook briefly. "I… I think sooo… but are'ya sure you should…"
Siesta scoffed loudly, as though Kirche was suggesting something truly ridiculous. "Huh…? I ain't even drunk! Y'know… I'm probably the soberest person here!"
Huddling around the PDA, they watched as the video continued. Siesta clambered up the bunks, nearly making it safely to the top, before her foot slipped, and she crashed to the floor with an undignified squawk. Louise watched as she didn't even stir on the bottom bunk, while Kirche's laugher played through the PDA.
After the video had finished with Siesta on the floor, Louise only shook her head, while Kirche snickered. The memories of that event continued flooding back.
"Wow," Siesta remarked, settling back in her chair. "That was pretty fucking stupid of me, huh?"
"Agreed." Louise returned to her breakfast. "I'm seriously never drinking anymore."
Siesta and Kirche shared a look. Neither of them really believed her. They turned as Grouse emerged from the Skadovsk's upper levels. He paused and began heading straight toward them, as though he had come looking for them specifically.
Leaning her chair back, Siesta interlaced her fingers behind her head as her cigarette continued burning between her lips, the smoke swirling toward the ceiling.
"Yo, Grouse," she greeted. "What's up?"
"I was just talking to Owl," Grouse said, eyeing Kirche and Louise dubiously. "He's looking for some experienced stalkers. Figured I'd see if you were interested."
…
About twenty minutes later, Siesta and Grouse found themselves standing across from Owl in the Skadovsk's upper levels, a map spread across the countertop between them.
Siesta didn't need some map to get around Zaton – she'd been here long enough – but a cursory glance told her this was no ordinary map. There appeared to be a number of underground facilities and hidden passages beneath Zaton.
What madness was Grouse trying to drag her into this time? First it was bloodsuckers, and now he apparently wanted to drag her down into more creepy underground ruins. This job coming from Owl also made her uncomfortable, especially with all the rumours of his previous dealings with bandits.
"My client is looking for an experienced group of stalkers," Owl said. "They're interested in obtaining sensitive documents from an underground facility here in Zaton."
"Sounds great," Grouse said. "So what's the catch? With you there's always something."
Owl shot Grouse a look, but he knew there was no way he could possibly intimidate the stalker. "The facility is to the south, underneath the old substation."
Hearing that didn't make Siesta feel any more enthusiastic. The electrical substation was nestled in the southern reaches of Zaton, deep in bandit territory. Not only that, the place was rumoured to be infested by electro anomalies, and some stalkers even claimed there was a poltergeist hanging around.
"Shit," Grouse spat, mirroring Siesta's thoughts. "There's freaking bandits crawling all over that half of Zaton."
"I'm well aware," Owl said knowingly. "And I've already come up with a solution."
Owl then directed their attention toward his map, and the network of underground passages. Apparently these abandoned tunnels connected a number of places around Zaton, which wasn't a surprise to either of the experienced stalkers. Siesta herself had plenty of experience with creepy underground places.
Throughout the years she'd spent in the Zone, Siesta had heard plenty of stories. These places hidden below the surface had been created for the scientists working in the Zone before the first emission, and their strange clandestine experiments.
Siesta knew of many stalkers who believed these scientists had been responsible for some of the mutants that roamed the Zone today. Others believed the nature of the anomalies and radiation was responsible for the twisted creatures that made life so difficult around here, but Siesta didn't pretend to know for certain.
Owl briefly explained the passages beneath Zaton were once used for transporting materials and personnel between facilities with minimal travel above ground. Something so elaborate had probably cost more money than Siesta would ever see in her lifetime. Could something like that have been worth the time and effort?
Either way, these days there were no scientists to perform their strange experiments underground. Siesta knew perfectly full well they would only find anomalies blocking places that hadn't been seen in decades, and hordes of mutants who had made the underground passages home.
People around Zaton were still talking about their brief encounters bloodsuckers here and there. Maybe that was where the rest of them were hiding. Maybe the passages were teeming with snorks. They'd be lucky if that was their biggest problem.
Owl prodded the map with his grimy fingers. "Here we have the antenna complex. Here, we have the ranger station, and down here we have the substation. As you can both see, they're all connected to each other underground."
Siesta wasn't convinced. "So? These old tunnels could still be filled with mutants."
Nodding, Grouse noted another problem. "And they're connected to the antenna complex, which we filled with fucking nerve gas to kill the bloodsuckers."
That reminded Siesta about the locked gate hidden in the basement of the antenna complex, which in all likelihood was connected to these supposed passages, but how long would the nerve gas linger? How far would the gas spread?
But Owl apparently had yet another solution for that problem. "Then enter through the ranger station. The route's a little longer, but I guess you'll be safer."
"Nice to know you care," Siesta snorted, arms crossed. "We'll go in with gas masks too."
Louise and Kirche probably wouldn't be enthusiastic about returning to the ranger station after what had happened there, not that Siesta could blame them.
"Fine," Grouse grumbled. Owl seemed to have a bad habit of grating on his nerves. "But we need some more details. Where's the entrance for these tunnels?"
"Beats me," Owl said. "I'm sure you'll find something once you take a look around."
Siesta decided to change the subject before Grouse lost his temper and throttled the man. "Fine, we'll take a look around then. So what sort of documents are we looking for?"
"They pertain to a project called Item 62," Owl explained. "Experimental weapons testing, shit like that. The folders you're looking for should be somewhere in the testing workshops under the substation."
"So who's paying for this?" Grouse asked. "Must be some kind of freaking bigshots."
Owl began drawing on the map with a red pen, marking a route from the substation back to the ranger station. "I could tell you. Information costs money."
Siesta glowered across the countertop. "Forget it. Probably not even worth knowing."
Grouse turned to her and leaned against the countertop. "So? What do you think?"
"I dunno," Siesta grumbled. "I woke up this morning feeling super freaking hungover." She looked back to Owl. "Depends on how much your client's paying."
…
After listening to Siesta repeat the information she'd learned during her meeting with Owl and Grouse, Louise set down her steaming thermos and frowned. "Every time we go to the ranger station, something terrible happens…"
Siesta had known Louise was going to say something like that. "Yeah, I know Louise, but…"
"Seriously – every time," Louise continued. "First there was that bloody pseudogiant. Then there was the pseudogiant again. Then there were bandits…"
While all of those unpleasant memories still haunted Louise, the last one bothered her most of all. She couldn't forget that feeling of complete hopelessness. The overwhelming stench of burning flesh, and that horrible screaming.
On the opposite end of the room on the lower bunk, Kirche found herself reluctantly reminiscing as well. She wouldn't forget setting that bandit alight anytime soon, whether or not that deplorable excuse of a human being deserved the fate.
Kirche fidgeted. "I don't know, Siesta. Just how much money are we talking about?"
Leaning against the metal frame of the bunk, Siesta repeated what had practically convinced her all at once. "Our share would end up being fifty-thousand."
"Wuh…" Louise gaped. "Fifty-thousand?"
Siesta nodded. "Yeah. With that much we could order a new stalker suit for Kirche."
While Louise hadn't learned all that much about how the economy worked outside the Zone, earning fifty-thousand rubles from a job was like returning to the Skadovsk with their radiation resistant container practically ready to explode with artifacts. Achieving that during the course of a single day was all but impossible.
Considering the proposition, Louise turned to her collection of nuts and washers strewn across the surface of the desk. After breakfast, Louise had delved into the Skadovsk's dank underbelly, and the absurdly noisy engine room.
Louise had tried to ignore the chugging engine and the reeking fumes permeating the air while perusing the spare parts, but she didn't have the patience to figure out what would fit on her threaded rod down there. The noise of the Skadovsk's engine had practically rattled her teeth, like somebody had been firing a machine gun next to her head.
After laboriously threading one of the hexagonal rings of metal down the threaded rod, Louise then scooped up a pair of those so-called washers. Combined with the tape, which she had already wound around the end she decided was the grip, she was well on her way to creating some sort of rudimentary hilt.
As Louise returned to picking through the small pile of nuts, hoping to find another that matched the threads on her wand, Kirche eyed Siesta, or more accurately, her stalker suit. The idea of added protection was definitely appealing.
"So say we decide to agree," Kirche said uncertainly. "When would we be leaving?"
Siesta checked her watch, noting it was still barely past nine o'clock in the morning. "Probably sometime after lunch – I already told Grouse we were feeling like crap." She scoffed. "Of course a job comes up when we're all hungover."
"Yes, of course that happens. I knew drinking was a stupid idea," Louise muttered.
"Well, you seemed like you were having a great time before you started throwing up."
Some memories of last night had come flooding back during breakfast, but Louise wouldn't dare admit to either Siesta or Kirche that her miserable hangover was mostly her own doing. She was just thankful neither of her parents would ever find out.
Louise sipped from the tea she'd bought from Beard. Soon enough, she thankfully found another nut that matched the threads on her wand. The makeshift grip might have been somewhat crude, but she supposed it was better than gripping bare threads. Meeting resistance, she grabbed the adjustable wrench she scavenged from the Skadovsk's disorganized engine room.
"Huh…" Siesta remarked. "Y'know, that's definitely a Zone wand if I ever saw one."
Once the nut was sufficiently secure, Louise finally set down her cobbled together wand. "I have no objections," she finally said. "But, I swear if something bad happens when we're at the ranger station today, then I am seriously never going there again."
"I wouldn't worry," Kirche said sarcastically. "Some creepy underground passages? What could possibly go wrong?"
Siesta snorted loudly, grinning. However, Louise didn't find Kirche's sarcasm nearly as amusing. Being in the Zone was quickly beginning to make her strangely superstitious.
"Zerbst," Louise groaned, as she clutched the warm thermos in her hands. "Founder above – don't say that. Now you're just asking for some kind of trouble!"
…
The Cordon
Yanking open the door to the basement, Awl blinked as he was suddenly smacked by a wave of foul-smelling fumes. He could only wonder what Montmorency had gotten up to, since the smell had spread throughout the entire house.
He reluctantly crept down the rickety staircase, finding Montmorency and Tabitha hovering over the propane stove, both of them wearing cobbled-together masks. Montmorency sported some goggles, with cloth wrapped around her mouth and nose. while Tabitha had apparently scrounged up a gas mask from somewhere.
Montmorency glanced up from the sizzling concoction. Awl really wanted to laugh, because she looked pretty ridiculous in her strange outfit, but Tabitha's gas mask just made her seem creepy. All Montmorency really needed to complete the picture was an apron.
"Awl?" Montmorency squinted through the clouded goggles. "Uh… you shouldn't come down here while we're brewing. The fumes smell kind of bad."
Awl pinched his nose. "No kidding. We can smell it through the freaking house!"
"Oh." Montmorency shifted, while Tabitha remained silent. "We collected reagents on the way to the Darkscape yesterday, so we thought we'd try brewing some potions."
Heaving out a sigh, Awl wasn't going to even bother pretending he knew anything about their weird magical hobbies. "Right, sure. I just came for our stove. Tolik just smoked a joint and he keeps complaining that it's almost lunchtime."
"Already?" Montmorency checked the cheap watch she'd bought from Sidorovich. "Oh. Well, we were just about to finish up anyway. I'll bring it up soon."
Tabitha pulled off her gasmask and revealed a face that glistened with perspiration. "I'll go and see Sidorovich then."
Montmorency nodded, watching as Tabitha turned and bounded up the staircase. The fact she'd left her staff propped against the wall didn't go unnoticed. Awl turned back to Montmorency, feeling his eyes beginning to water.
He just hoped these fumes were just annoying, and not toxic or something. "Right…. so… what in the hell are you supposed to be making anyway?"
"Well, we're trying to make healing potions." Montmorency removed the blackened old pot from the burner, before she began pouring the syrupy concoction into a tin mug. "They can heal minor wounds on their own, but they're far more effective when you use them in combination with healing spells."
Awl's blank expression pretty much said everything. Sighing to herself, Montmorency pulled away the goggles and face mask, revealing a blackened stripe across her nose and cheeks. She should probably start cleaning up the mess.
"Huh…" Awl finally said, shifting awkwardly. "Right. So how do you know if it worked?"
Montmorency shrugged. "We don't know yet. Would you like to be our test subject?"
"Uh, no."
"I didn't think so."
Grabbing a rag up from the table, Montmorency dampened the cloth with a bottle of water and wiped down the burner, cleaning the overspill that had become an ugly brown crust. She supposed she would just have to test the potions herself, although Montmorency had honestly been expecting that anyway.
Tabitha seemed to believe that the batch had come along well, but Montmorency had been far more accustomed to brewing perfumes for extra coin. She snorted to herself. With the way they smelled now her perfumes would have come in handy.
"Anyway." Awl crossed his arms. "I came down here to ask you about something."
"Alright," Montmorency said while she worked. "Ask away then."
"Still interested in finding Siesta?"
Montmorency paused what she was doing, because now Awl really had her attention.
…
Tabitha stepped outside the house, shielding her eyes against the glaring sunlight. Across the road, she eyed the headless flesh roasting over the campfire. The pungent smell of sizzling meat caused her stomach to growl angrily, which reminded Tabitha that she hadn't even eaten anything that morning.
But before she could scrounge herself up a late breakfast, Tabitha had her own business to attend to.
The stalkers crowded around the campfire chatted jovially, listening to otherworldly music on some ancient radio. Tabitha briefly listened to the conversation, which concerned somebody named Oleg being kicked out of Rostok over a dispute involving a sandwich. Tabitha nearly had to stop herself from snorting aloud.
Ignoring their lingering stares, Tabitha continued onward through the Rookie Village. She found another pair of stalkers lurking around the entrance of another dilapidated house, smoking cigarettes. They stared, whispering and snickering to one another. Tabitha didn't even bother to slow her pace, and ignored them too.
Tabitha couldn't help but feel naked without her staff, but thankfully, the entrance to Sidorovich's underground bunker was just outside the Rookie Village. Even knowing that, there was a Makarov holstered on her belt, just for safety's sake.
Descending into the cramped stairwell, Tabitha discovered the heavy bunker door had already been opened. Apparently Sidorovich was busy entertaining company. Fanatic was in the middle of explaining something to Sidorovich when he glanced toward her, and ended up doing a double take.
"Shit!" Fanatic sputtered, glowering down at her. "You enjoy sneaking up on people?"
"Yes." Tabitha scrunched her nose. The bunker reeked of both sweat and cigarette smoke, like almost everywhere. "I just needed to speak with Sidorovich."
Thankfully, Fanatic was about to leave anyway, after finishing his discussion regarding several of the newest rookies. Tabitha supposed she counted among them, but he didn't seem to be talking about her, however. She didn't believe she was a 'freaking shithead,' as Fanatic had so eloquently been explaining.
Fanatic seemed to dislike her for some reason. Perhaps being snuck up on bothered him. Once he finally disappeared up the stairs, Tabitha turned to Sidorovich. The greasy man leaned back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach.
"So what do you need?" Sidorovich asked. "You don't come to visit very often."
Which was mostly because this place smelled terrible. "My staff is too cumbersome to use with firearms. I need to find something else for spellcasting."
For a moment, Sidorovich just stared. He supposed he could probably understand why, since the staff was more than a foot higher than Tabitha's head.
"Alright…" Sidorovich began. "But I'm not sure how I'm supposed to help. I'm sure Monty's told you that I don't know shit about any magic business."
"Don't need you to know," Tabitha said. "I need a wand. Only needs to be sturdy."
Sidorovich huffed. "That's all? Don't need any dragon blood or unicorn hairs inside?"
Tabitha cocked her head. "No. Dragons don't exist here. Unicorns are rare creatures."
Feeling the urge to light a cigarette, Sidorovich honestly wasn't surprised his stupid jab had gone completely over Tabitha's head. "Of course. Real endangered. I probably have something kicking around, but I'm not running some kind of freaking charity here."
"I still have money," Tabitha pointed out. "From the job we did for you yesterday."
Heaving himself up from his chair with a grunt, Sidorovich left Tabitha and sauntered into the back of his bunker. Montmorency explained there was actually quite a lot more space back there than most stalkers apparently believed.
Montmorency had also explained that her first days in the Zone were spent cooped up down here with Sidorovich, feeling absolutely miserable about everything. She had even drawn a summoning circle on the floor in a vain attempt to return to Halkeginia, not even realizing she'd used a permanent marker.
Sidorovich had been constantly annoyed with her, and that had been the final straw. Afterward, he'd even tried to get Fanatic to train her as a rookie, but Tabitha was happy Fanatic had refused, because Drifter was clearly more bearable.
Moments later, Sidorovich returned grasping two objects. One of them was obviously a sheathed knife. However, the other one was something Tabitha hadn't seen before. The slender black cylinder appeared to be only slightly longer than the width of Sidorovich's palm. He set them both down on the countertop.
Ignoring the knife for now, Tabitha immediately grabbed the strange little cylinder, which turned out to be heavier than anticipated. "What is this?" She asked.
Sidorovich huffed. "Some dumb rookie thought that would be a good self-defence weapon. Here – I'll show you."
Tabitha studiously watched as Sidorovich depressed the little button with his thumb before flicking his wrist. There was an audible shlack as the cylinder practically quadrupled in size, and immediately, the gears began turning in her mind.
"It's a collapsible baton." Sidorovich handed the baton back. "That asshole discovered pretty quick the best way to defend yourself around here is with bullets, not with some little fucking stick."
Accepting the baton, Tabitha tried it out for herself, and discovered it was surprisingly sturdy. The baton was completely made from metal, but she doubted she would end up using this thing to whack somebody over the head anyway. Tabitha was known for her magical prowess, not her upper body strength.
The baton was concealable as well. Tabitha eyed the sheathed knife. "I'll take both."
"You want both, huh?" Amused, Sidorovich blew out a snort. "Big spender."
"Could use a knife," Tabitha reasoned, shrugging. "Might come in handy sometime."
Sidorovich counter over the meagre handful of banknotes that Tabitha surrendered, chuckling to himself. "Alright. Now get out of here unless you need something else. I've got a bunch of shit to get done before somebody else invites themselves down here."
Wordlessly, Tabitha turned on her heel before stepping out into the narrow stairwell. Her plan right now was to stash her beloved staff somewhere hopefully safe. Montmorency had said she could probably leave it with Sidorovich, but Tabitha wasn't sure she could completely trust him. He just seemed slimy.
The staff had once belonged to her father. Tabitha wasn't going to discard something with so much sentimental value. With all the bullets flying around yesterday, Tabitha had come to the sudden realization her staff would eventually become a liability.
That, or splinters.
Tabitha made her way straight back to the house, uninterested in any dillydallying. She found Drifter still seated on the sagging sofa, completely engrossed in the screen of his PDA. Tolik appeared to have gone down and retrieved his little propane burner himself, rather than waiting for Montmorency.
"Yo, Tabitha," Tolik greeted jovially. "You feeling hungry? We got beans for lunch!"
Again, Tabitha was reminded that she really needed something to eat. She nodded, before heading downstairs and catching the end of Awl and Montmorency's conversation. For some reason, Montmorency was looking rather apprehensive.
"…In a week's time, then?" Montmorency was saying. "I suppose I can do that…"
"Sure," Awl nodded. "You'll be fine without a stalker suit, but you could use some body armour."
Tabitha snorted at the sudden mental image of Montmorency completely dressed in steel plate from head to heel. "Why does Montmorency need armour?"
Awl turned. "To stop bullets. You should try getting your hands on something too. Look – I gotta head out, alright? You think you can explain everything to Tabitha?"
Once he made his way up the creaky stairs, which hadn't made a sound when Tabitha was on them, she turned back to Montmorency. "What was that about?"
Montmorency sighed. "Awl wants to head deeper into the Zone to meet up with one of his friends, beyond a place called the Red Forest. Apparently Siesta might be there too – that other girl from our world? I'm still hoping that she might have answers."
"So you want to go too," Tabitha said. "I see. Then we need to make preparations."
Leaning against the table, strewn with their notes and potential reagents, Montmorency blinked. "So… you're agreeing? I thought I was going to have to convince you."
"This Siesta may have answers," Tabitha said, shrugging. "Maybe she does. Maybe she doesn't. Either way – I'd rather not be left in the Rookie Village alone."
"I wouldn't just leave you, Tabitha!" Montmorency assured. "I'm still not sure myself…"
"Wouldn't mind another girl around, either," Tabitha reasoned. "And her experience could be helpful."
Montmorency hummed thoughtfully. "I hope so…"
"But we need to train," Tabitha continued. Producing the collapsible baton, Montmorency visibly flinched when she flicked her wrist and extended the device. "And I need to spend a few days making this my new wand."
"…What in the Founder's name is that thing?"
"Apparently for hitting people," Tabitha answered. "Sturdy. Made from good steel."
Montmorency nodded. She hadn't really considered replacing her wand with anything else. "Then we'll start training tomorrow. I suppose Drifter could explain some things to us."
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Vodka, Russian's greatest contribution to mankind.
That's what I'd miss most in the Zone: showering.
Do you want me to start from the beginning, or from the juicy parts?
Healing potions ala Zone. The side effects are going to be either horrible or hilarious. Possibly both.
Or phoenix feathers.
She's got a knife!
hapcelion
The Abyss gazed back
- Location
- n/a
I have a lot of Phoenix Down to sell them, but sadly they're all virtual.
The Life of a Stalker XV
TheannaTW
Master Procrastinator
- Location
- Canada
The Life of a Stalker XV
Zaton
Adjusting the strap of her Kalashnikov, Louise gazed toward the sky and wondered whether the lead-coloured blanket hanging overhead was a premonition of things to come. Today would surely be one unpleasant event after another, just like every single damned day in the Zone. Louise heaved another sigh.
"Hm? What's the matter?" Kirche asked, keeping pace with Louise. Her submachine gun hung underneath her arm, the uncomfortable metal stock folded.
The lonesome pothole-ridden road curved upward through the pines – the ranger station was only just ahead. Louise immediately recognized the abandoned van sitting across the road, which she knew to be somewhat radioactive. Grouse and Siesta walked ahead of them, discussing their plans in Russian.
Louise had found her thoughts wandering all day, after the debacle of that morning. For some reason, having a functional wand once again had caused another rush of homesickness and guilt to overpower practically all of her thoughts. She frowned as they passed the old van, her detector ticking ominously.
With how much time had passed, her family had probably assumed she was already dead. Louise only wished there was some way she could tell them she was still alive, that she would do anything to find some way to return to Halkeginia. She hadn't meant to create a connection between the Zone and Tristain.
Usually these nagging thoughts waited for the cold quiet of night to start bothering her, keeping her awake as she silently stared into the impenetrable darkness – they always floated back to the surface, when the waters had calmed.
Louise desperately tried not to think about how many others might have disappeared, only to become stranded in the Zone. If they died, she might as well have murdered them.
"Oi, Vallière?" Kirche grumbled. "You've barely said a word since we left the Skadovsk."
Louise had almost forgotten Kirche said something. "Kirche, have you ever wondered what you were doing with your life?" She finally asked. "I've been thinking lately…"
Quirking her eyebrow, Kirche turned back to the road ahead and blew out a snort. "Since I came to the Zone? I've been thinking that pretty much all the time."
Closing her eyes, Louise chewed on her lip. "I never should have tried to summon my familiar that day. Maybe you were right. Maybe I was never supposed to be a mage."
"You know," Kirche paused, sounding annoyed. "Sometimes I really want to smack you."
Louise stopped, whirling on the Germanian as her usual demeanor suddenly returned. "…Huh? What in the Founder's name do you think you're saying, Zerbst?"
"You had no control over what happened!" Kirche snapped. "I realize you're upset, but –"
Grouse and Siesta had also stopped as well, taking note of the commotion behind them. "What the hell are you doing?" Siesta asked. "Quit messing around!"
Kirche groaned, her shoulders drooping. "Louise is being sulky again. It just annoys me!"
"I –" Louise tried.
"Haven't we talked about this enough already?" Siesta asked. "She tried to summon her familiar. I think we both know Louise didn't want this crap to happen."
"But she still thinks it was her fault. Louise didn't do anything weird. We all watched her!"
Siesta certainly couldn't say how things had ended up this way, why she'd disappeared all those years ago. Louise hadn't even been attending the Academy back then. Maybe there was another reason why the Zone and Halkeginia shared a connection.
"I don't think it was her fault either. We all know how weird things can get around here. Maybe the Zone did something. I always hear about people disappearing in anomalies."
Throwing glances toward the trees, Grouse was starting to feel just a little squeamish. Not only did he feel awkward being here in the middle of their argument, but here in the middle of the Zone definitely was not the time or place. He looked toward Louise, watching as her cheeks grew increasingly redder.
"Stop talking about me like I'm not standing right here!" Louise hissed. "I shouldn't have even opened my mouth! Forget I said anything! This isn't the place!"
Siesta deflated. "Louise…"
"Stop!"
"But –" Kirche tried.
"No!"
Moments later, they were continuing along the road, but this time a tense atmosphere hung over the group as the trudged ahead under a shroud of silence. Grouse whistled as he brought up his shotgun to rest against his shoulder.
"What the hell was that about?" Grouse asked Siesta, who had become uncharacteristically tight-lipped. "Shit, I bet even the mercs across the bridge heard that."
Siesta opened her mouth to tell Grouse he needn't be concerned, but she remembered he already knew about their unique little situation. "Louise believes that everything's her fault. Like, how we all ended up in the Zone, I mean. She's so stubborn. Sometimes it's hard to get something through her head."
Sparing a glance over his shoulder, Grouse found Louise staring right at him, probably because she heard Siesta saying her name. "Well? So what do you think?"
"Me?" Siesta shrugged. "How the hell should I know? I've been in the Zone almost five years now. I don't know about Kirche, but why would I be here because of something that happened like… a couple months ago? Maybe Halkeginia and the Zone are connected somehow. Magic and anomalies do strange stuff sometimes."
Grouse eyed her. Something definitely weighed on her mind. "Huh. Yeah, I guess."
Soon, the ranger station loomed through the trees. Louise put that little disagreement out of her mind, as she was reminded of everything that happened here. She could still see the bandit bleeding on the floor, face contorted with pain and desperation. Louise could vividly remember that moment – the taste of blood on her tongue, and the raw, bubbling, burning anger.
Louise just clutched her weapon tighter, still feeling unsure despite all the practice Siesta had continued drilling both herself and Kirche through. The illuminated reticule floating in the stubby tube certainly made the little Kalashnikov much easier to point, but Louise could still barely stomach the thought of bullets flying around. Invisible death, always ready to strike you down.
They'd returned to that ruined outdoor theater several times. Siesta had instructed them on something known as point-shooting recently. In close quarters, when some mutant came scrambling out of nowhere, proper marksmanship wasn't feasible. While you were trying to line up sights, a bloodsucker or snork might have already pounced on you – then you were doomed.
Of course, Siesta hadn't been quite so eloquent, and had used a much more vulgar term instead. Louise honestly wasn't bothered by those trivial things anymore.
Siesta had procured some vaguely torso-shaped targets from Owl, and had instructed Louise and Kirche to simply raise their weapons and start shooting instinctually, without taking time to really aim. It worked better than Louise thought, although Kirche seemed to do more spraying with her gun than anything else.
Hopefully the day wouldn't come to that. Once again, Louise found herself thankful she wasn't the one leading Kirche around as they bumbled their way through the Zone. The measure of confidence Siesta and Grouse seemed to display simply came from experience – Louise had already been told that enough.
"Lovely as ever, I see," Kirche muttered. "Founder… I never wanted to come back here."
Louise sighed. Perhaps exhaling hard enough would blow all of her troubles away. "We need to be much more cautious than last time. There could be anything hiding here."
Siesta cast a look over her shoulder. "Yeah, don't worry. We're not strolling through the main gate like a bunch of assholes. We're gonna sneak through where we did before – back when we had to deal with that freaking pseudogiant."
The silence grew heavy again as they left the road behind and began trudging through the brush, being careful not to stumble over uneven ground and exposed roots. Louise could feel anxiety churning her stomach when ghastly howls drifted up from the marshes, quickly followed by a distant clatter of gunfire.
Soon, they were gathered around the jagged crack in the concrete wall where Louise and Siesta had once snuck through. That day, they'd stumbled upon Spartacus and his crew waiting to ambush bandits, making a shady deal for weapons.
Siesta recalled discovering the mangled corpse of a Duty stalker, after the rampaging pseudogiant had finished the senseless slaughter. The bandits would've become a much more worrisome threat, had the deal gone down according to plan. Siesta quailed at the thought of those morons getting their hands on an RPG. The Skadovsk probably would have been filled with holes already.
One part of her genuinely hoped Duty wasn't involved, and that whoever had gotten wasted at the ranger station had been operating independently, smuggling Duty's guns for their own profit. Either way, Siesta's opinion of Voronin and his gang of wannabe soldiers definitely couldn't get that much lower.
"So what's the plan?" Siesta asked Grouse, peering through the crack. She couldn't see any activity, but that didn't mean they weren't already being watched.
"We could cover more ground by splitting up – groups of two," Grouse suggested. "Probably safe to assume the entrance to the underground is probably hidden down in a basement somewhere."
Siesta nodded, turning to Kirche and Louise. "We should split up. I'll go with Grouse, so you two stick together. Check out the basements for anything strange."
Louise and Kirche shared a glance, both of them feeling unsure about that particular idea.
"We're going to split up?" Louise asked quietly, shifting awkwardly. "Well, I mean…"
"Keep your radio on," Siesta told her. "And just make sure you watch each other's backs."
Reluctantly, Louise decided to agree. Siesta couldn't keep leading her around forever. They would just have to douse anything nasty with bullets and fire magic. "Fine," she said. "Let's get this over with. I'll let you know if we find anything."
They squeezed through the jagged crack one at a time. Grouse went first, ducking under an exposed length of rebar, cradling a semi-automatic Baikal shotgun. Siesta was next, grimacing as the concrete caught on her magazine pouches.
"We'll start over there," Siesta told Louise, pointing toward the large garage nestled in one corner of the compound. The door was wedged open, bent outward where the long-dead pseudogiant had come mindlessly barreling through.
Louise nodded, keeping the buttstock of her carbine pressed against her shoulder. The selector was pushed downward to semi-automatic, and the glowing reticule floated in her optic. As Louise waited for Kirche, she sighted through the scope, pressing her face against the cheek pad. She had recently realized there was an identical one strapped to the stock of Polar's huge Dragunov rifle.
But Kirche seemed to be taking far too long. Louise turned, hearing her frustration. "What in the Founder's name are you doing, Zerbst? Stop wasting time and…"
Kirche grimaced, untangling her hair from the twisted web of exposed metal bars. "Just – hold on a minute!" She hissed. "I'm starting to think about that haircut now…"
Rolling her eyes, Louise resigned herself to keeping watch for now. "You shouldn't chop off your hair because it got caught on some piece of metal, Kirche. It's too nice for that."
Finally freeing herself, Kirche brushed the concrete dust off her jacket. "Hm? Don't tell me you're finally warming up to me after what happened this morning?"
Louise glowered up at the Germanian. "Don't make me take more stupid pictures of you."
They decided to search the huge building that had housed those massive furnaces, where the bandits had met their gruesome demise. They both prepared for the sea of corpses waiting inside, but instead found an odd surprise.
The corpses seemed to have vanished, leaving only dark splotches on the concrete. Louise and Kirche ventured through the tall wooden doors, their weapons ready. Debris crunched and scuffed beneath their boots, echoing against the brick walls. Louise eyed the twisted metal that had once been a furnace, reduced to a heap of scrap after the pseudogiant had charged clean through.
"They're gone?" Kirche said, although she noted the evidence left behind, notably a boot sitting on the floor nearby. "Hm. Perhaps they all turned into zombies."
"Don't say that!" Louise hissed. "We both know the Zone doesn't raise the dead."
Dust hung in the air, dancing in the shafts of light spilling through the tall windows. Louise eyed the adjacent building. Were the corpses of those unsuspecting bandits still there? Perhaps some mutants had made off with them. Neither Louise nor Kirche really cared to know for certain, and moved deeper into the building.
Aside from the massive room housing the furnaces, they discovered several barren rooms that might have one been offices. Other than the overturned desks, there was a thick coating of grime on the tiled floor that hadn't been disturbed in some time.
Louise kept her weapon shouldered, cautiously plodding through the rooms, sweeping the glowing red dot across the walls. Close behind, Kirche was tentatively clutching her Sudayev, entirely expecting something to come screaming at them out of nowhere.
After a little searching, they discovered a stairwell leading to a floor above and below. Louise pointed the flashlight taped to the forend of her Kalashnikov downward, illuminating the pitch darkness. There seemed to be a basement under them, where anything could be hiding. Louise and Kirche lingered for several moments.
"You go down first," Louise said eventually.
"What?" Kirche shook her head vehemently. "Not in this bloody lifetime, Vallière. You've got the bigger gun, don't you? You should definitely go down first."
"…Don't be a coward."
"You're the one who suggested I go first," Kirche hissed. "So who's being a coward?"
Louise had fully realized her hypocrisy, even before opening her mouth. Resigned to taking the lead, she crept down the stairs, descending into the depths of the building. The sagging staircase creaked and groaned unhappily under her boots. Louise wasn't sure whether the humidity was causing her profuse sweating, or the sting of anxiety twisting her bowels into a jumble of knots.
However, there didn't seem to be much of anything waiting in the basement below. Kirche shuffled down behind Louise, activating the flashlight clipped to her jacket, and eyed the collection of dust-ridden boxes and electrical panels lining the walls, most of which were pried open. As Louise approached one of the rusted panel boxes, Kirche turned, shining her flashlight through an opened door.
"There's another room over there," Kirche pointed out. "Maybe we'll find something –"
The instant Louise turned toward the doorway, they spotted the rat-like creature lurking there, and the basement was immediately filled with a high-pitched squealing. Through the doorway, they could both see the mass of squirming tushkano skittering about, surging toward the door.
Before Kirche could even shout a warning, she was deafened by a sudden thunderclap. The room was illuminated by the flashes spewed from Louise's muzzle.
Kirche squeezed the Sudayev's trigger twice for good measure, spitting two short bursts. She could barely hear the shots, feeling the concussive thud reverberating inside her chest. Kirche scrambled back up the stairs, Louise dogging her heels.
"Hey!" Siesta shouted over Louise's radio. "What's going on? Are you two alright!?"
"Kirche, watch the stairs!" Louise cried, groping for her radio. "Rats, Siesta! Massive rats! Dozens of them!"
"…Seriously? You almost gave me a freaking heart attack over here!"
Louise grimaced. Her ears continued to ring furiously. "Yes! Like the one we found at the gas station! There were dozens of them! They started squealing at us!"
"Look – just be careful, alright? And tell Kirche to be careful with her fire. She might burn the place down."
Kirche frowned, eyeing the stairwell. The tushkano didn't seem to be coming after them. "Be careful with my fire?" She muttered to Louise. "I'm not a moron."
"Well," Louise began. "I'm not shooting down there anymore. We'll make ourselves deaf soon enough."
"So what, then?" Kirche asked.
Louise stared down the stairwell for a few moments. "Just burn the bloody things."
Allowing the submachine gun to hang on its sling, Kirche drew her wand and descended into the basement. Flashlight in one hand, she held her wand outward. She could hear the tushkano below scurrying around, hissing and squealing.
At the bottom, Kirche glimpsed two of them sprawled on the floor, while another scrambled past the doorway on hind legs, and seemed to freeze instantly.
"Feoh, ex, bes, inguz!" Kirche cried. Swirling flames leapt from her wand and soared through the doorway, roaring furiously. She could vaguely hear the mutants screeching. One of them scrambled through the door as the flames writhed over its body, the mutant leaving a trail of smoke as it darted around the room.
Kirche prepared to cast another spell, but the tushkano quickly became motionless, flesh sizzling. Grimacing, Kirche covered her nose as the magical flames quickly dissipated. She was thankful bricks and concrete weren't particularly flammable.
"Did you get them all?" Louise asked, lurking over Kirche's shoulder in the stairwell.
"I think so," Kirche muttered. "Ugh – that stinks!"
Ignoring the stench of cooked tushkano, Louise and Kirche reluctantly began searching through the basement. The room that the mutants had been occupying housed a massive metal contraption, which sprouted a strange network of rusted pipes that penetrated the walls, seemingly spreading throughout the entire building.
The floor and even some of the walls were adorned with black scorch marks, courtesy of Kirche's magic. Louise was tempted to don the gas mask she'd purchased from Owl, wondering if the filters inside would mask the strange smells.
They emerged from the basement only a few moments later, and Louise thumbed her radio. "There's nothing over here, Siesta. Just some junk and bloody rats."
"Yeah, no luck so far over here either," Siesta replied. "Keep looking – check out the building where we found Kirche. You might find something underneath there."
Louise wasn't sure what they would find in the large multi-floored structure. They hadn't done much exploring inside while the pseudogiant had been wreaking havoc around the ranger station. Louise shuddered, recalling the screams.
"Hey – look," Kirche said, gazing through one of the broken windows. "The pseudogiant's gone."
Following Kirche to the window, Louise discovered the taller girl was indeed correct. The pseudogiant's corpse has been near the adjacent building after Siesta had bombarded the mutant with grenades. Louise could see the scorch marks running along the wall, and the cracked bricks pummeled by deadly shrapnel.
There was merely an uneven dark stain splotched across the ground. No skeleton, not even a few bones. How could something so massive just disappear?
"That's… odd," Louise mumbled. "Maybe some mutants took it away or something…"
"But it was huge," Kirche pointed out. "It must have weighed as much as a dragon. Probably more."
Louise decided to put the strange development out of mind. She wasn't searching that building anyway, not unless she absolutely needed to. Kirche followed Louise into the other room and around the mangled furnaces. The massive holes in the walls made for plentiful exits, so long as you remained mindful of the rubble.
The doors Louise had stumbled through on Siesta's heels those weeks before were gone. Now, there was only a twelve-foot hole where the bricks were broken away. There were many creatures native to Halkeginia capable of wreaking such destruction, but not simply by ramming into brick walls with its head.
Louise stepped into the lobby first, debris crunching under the soles of her boots. The stairs wrapped around the walls, spiraling upward for half-a-dozen levels.
Immediately, Louise froze, feeling the floor sagging with every step. The pseudogiant's weight probably had something to do with that. Hopefully the floor hadn't been weakened so much that it would unexpectedly collapse underneath them.
"Be careful," Louise warned. "The floor feels… squishy."
Kirche huffed. "And you'd know a lot about feeling squishy things, isn't that right?"
"Stop bringing that up!"
According to Kirche, the floors above them appeared to have once been dormitories, or perhaps even some barracks for soldiers. She had briefly explored them after first appearing here, escaping the commotion and chaos outside.
They weren't interested in searching the upper levels, however. Louise and Kirche followed the stairs downward, into the darkness of the dank-smelling basement. This basement was much more cramped. There was a long passageway lined with doors on either side stretching from one end of the building to the next.
"Should we start at opposite ends?" Kirche wondered. "There's so many rooms…"
"I suppose," Louise muttered, feeling just as unsure. "Just yell if you find anything."
Louise and Kirche separated, both clutching their respective weapons. Kirche knew well enough that in such close quarters she could pull the trigger much faster than reciting an incantation, but her hearing would certainly suffer as a result. Louise's ears still hadn't even ceased ringing, and continued to pulse painfully.
Thankfully, they seemed to be alone. Clouds of dust hung in the musty basement, the dancing motes illuminated by Louise's flashlight. She stopped, ducking into a room at the very end of the hallway, which was merely some storage closet packed with dust-covered supplies, and even an old mop and broom.
For her trouble, Louise ended up bumbling face-first into a spider web, immediately becoming tangled in her hair. "Founder above – you have to be joking!"
"Louise?" Kirche called out from further up the hallway. "Are you alright over there?"
"I've gotten spider webs in my bloody hair!" Louise cried. "Damn this stupid – ugh!"
Kirche continued her search, snorting under her breath. She found another massive contraption in a room with a lower floor, similar to the previous basement. There was, however, something else that quickly caught her attention – namely, the massive hole that had apparently been eaten clean through the concrete flooring.
Ducking into the room, Kirche crept down the short set of stairs, cautiously approaching the hole. Unclipping the flashlight from her jacket, she cast the beam below. Something had eaten through the concrete, and even the strengthening metal bars.
Below, Kirche could see another concrete floor, and a network of narrow conduits and pipes spanning across a wall. Strangely, there wasn't even any debris strewn about. This had been the work of an anomaly, long since disappeared.
Kirche peered back out into the hallway, where she found Louise's flashlight dancing about several doors down. "Louise! Come here! I think I found something!"
Louise joined her a few moments later, peering through the hole with her flashlight. Her perpetual frown deepened. "Do you think this could lead to those tunnels?"
"Dunno," Kirche shrugged. "But, there aren't any more stairs leading down, right?"
Nodding, Louise thumbed her radio. "Siesta – I think we've just found something."
"Yeah? Big building where we found Kirche?"
"Yes. Kirche just found a huge hole in the floor, and there's something underneath us, but we can't find stairs that go down any further," Louise explained.
"Meet us in the lobby," Siesta replied. "We're heading toward you now."
Louise turned back to Kirche. "Wait here. Make sure nothing comes up from there."
"I didn't realize you were my boss," Kirche grumbled.
"Well, I've been in the Zone longer than you," Louise said. "So I have more seniority."
As Kirche blew out a laugh, Louise left the room behind and jogged up the stairwell into the lobby, where she found Siesta and Grouse just entering through the widened doorway. Neither of them looked like they were particularly happy.
"We couldn't find shit," Siesta immediately said. "That building where the pseudogiant was hiding out was a freaking mess. Like a bomb went off or something."
"…Did you find its nest?"
Siesta snorted. "I dunno about that. We did find out those things take huge dumps."
Louise grimaced. "That's just wonderful to hear. Kirche's waiting for us downstairs."
Mere moments later, Louise had lead them down the stairs, where they gathered around the hole. Grouse gazed around the boiler room, briefly thinking. The floor below only seemed to be about twenty feet underneath them.
"That can't be part of the tunnels," he said to Siesta. "If they go under the marshes they'd need to be way deeper than that. This might lead to them though…"
Siesta nodded. Grouse's logic was pretty sound. "I guess we should start working."
Grouse frowned. "Last time I followed you down a hole we found a nest of sleeping bloodsuckers." He shook his head as Siesta chuckled. "And that's a pretty big drop too."
"Don't worry." Siesta flashed him a grin. "We've got Kirche now. She can just levitate us down."
Grouse eyed the crimson-haired girl. "How the hell does something like that work?"
"You're about to find out." Siesta turned to Kirche and Louise, switching to Tristainian. "Alright. Kirche, levitate me down so I can have a look. If I start screaming then bring me up."
Kirche nodded, and Siesta felt magic grip her body as she softly recited the incantation. Slowly dropping through the hole, Siesta tucked her legs and shouldered her AKM, sweeping the flashlight around the passage below. Thankfully nothing immediately leapt out at her as Kirche halted her slow descent.
Pipes and conduits lined the walls, while light fixtures that hadn't worked in decades dangled from the ceiling. At one end of the passage she saw what appeared to be a metal gate of some sort, while the other end seemed to continue on into darkness.
There were a number of doors leading off from the main passage. They reminded her of the doors aboard the Skadovsk, aside from looking a little sleeker.
"Alright, put me down," Siesta called up to Kirche. "We should check this place out."
Kirche suddenly ended her spell, and Siesta yelped as she was unexpectedly dropped. Next, Grouse slowly floated down, clutching his shotgun with an expression of bewilderment crossing his face. Once on his feet again, he shuddered.
"That was freaky," Grouse muttered. "Almost like some giant hand was squeezing me."
"C'mon. It wasn't that bad."
Louise was next, who showed almost no signs of discomfort from being levitated. She quickly readied her AKS-74U, sighting through the scope. The reticule was far too bright. Remembering Siesta's advice, she dialed the brightness setting back several notches, while Kirche finally levitated herself down.
As the others gathered around, Siesta produced the map Owl had supplied to them, unfolding the creased sheet. Grouse lurked over her shoulder. The passage moved westward from the ranger station, before sharply turning southbound under the marshes. Hopefully the gas beneath the antenna complex wouldn't become an issue.
At any rate, the map wasn't detailed enough to tell them how to get to the passage. Siesta folded the sheet, heaving a sigh. "Well, let's start looking around."
Grouse led the group of stalkers toward the metal gate at the end of the passage. Louise paused and peered through one of the opened doors, her flashlight casting long shadows across the floor. Louise could see a desk, surrounded by papers, and some strange-looking equipment lurking beyond.
The gate had been wedged open several feet. Grouse peered out into the elevator shaft. The cables were dangling limply – the massive elevator had apparently fallen to the bottom.
"Huh. Probably for cargo," Grouse observed. "I'll bet this leads down to the tunnels."
Louise frowned, after Siesta explained what they were looking at. "I'm not jumping down another elevator shaft. I still have nightmares about the last time."
"We could levitate again?" Siesta suggested, looking to Kirche. "What do you think?"
Kirche easily recalled Louise's story of leaping down an elevator shaft into a bloodsucker den, which had sounded rather unpleasant. Besides – the shaft seemed to go on forever, and she doubted her levitation could keep up the range.
"I think we should probably look for some stairs first," Kirche suggested. "For safety."
"Yes, stairs," Louise agreed. "There's nothing wrong with some good, safe stairs."
Grouse was more than amiable to that plan, once Siesta translated Kirche's Tristainian. There was another, narrower passage leading away from the elevator. Grouse found himself heading up the group again, shotgun shouldered.
Many of the rooms lining the passages were opened. Siesta paused, peering through one doorway. Inside, there were desks and papers strewn about the room, and what appeared to be computer equipment set against one of the walls. Siesta eyed the vat near the center of the room. The shattered glass glistened under the glow of her flashlight.
The other rooms seemed to be similar in design and function. The strange experiments that could have gone on down here were a mystery. Siesta felt squeamish at the thought. This place was definitely one of those secret laboratories. Siesta had plenty of first-hand experience with those, briefly wondering how people could have gone through so much effort to remain hidden.
There was something congealed at the bottom of the vats, creating a rather peculiar, sickly-sweet stench – perhaps they should be wearing gas masks already.
Something crashed down the hallway, causing the entire group to freeze instantly. What followed was a bone-chilling snarl that Siesta and Grouse immediately recognized.
Louise worked her mouth, and clutched her carbine a little tighter. "Was that…?"
"Snorks," Siesta confirmed quietly. "Shit. They probably know we're here already."
"Brilliant," Kirche muttered. "Snorks again. How many of these damned creatures are there?"
Pointing her rifle down the passage, Siesta snorted. "Way too freaking many Kirche."
Reaching up with her middle and index fingers, Louise gently nudged the Kalashnikov's selector upward to fully-automatic, heaving out a steadying breath. Louise peered through the nearest doorway. The beefy metal door stood ajar. She cautiously poked the muzzle of her carbine into the dark chamber.
Movement. Papers were scattered in a flurry as the snork scrambled toward Louise. The overturned desk scraped against the tiled floor as the creature savagely clambered over, snarling.
"Shit!" Siesta cried. "Louise –!"
Anything else that Siesta might've said was drowned away when Louise tightened down on the trigger. The reticule bounced, and her ears were assaulted with unrelenting thunderous cracks. The muzzle flashes briefly illuminated the room, and Louise distantly noted that the snork hadn't been alone.
Her bullets punched holes through the desk. The snork hit the floor, blood splattered across the splintered wood. Another snork scrambled into the passage ahead, reduced to a motionless heap by two blasts from Grouse's shotgun.
Siesta grabbed Louise by her backpack, yanking her from the mouth of the doorway. "Move! Get back to the elevator!" She shouted. "Move your ass Kirche!"
Another blast rattled Siesta's teeth when Grouse fired again, the buckshot shooting sparks as the torrent of lead glanced off one of the opened metal doors. Siesta fired several rounds of her own as the snork scrambled back through the door.
Turning, Siesta broke into a sprint. Grouse thumbed fresh shells into his shotgun's magazine and followed close behind. When Siesta reached the intersection she nearly managed to catch up with Louise and Kirche. They continued toward the elevator, turning and skidding to a halt on the grimy concrete.
Grouse topped off his magazine with another shell. Siesta dropped to her knee and shouldered her rifle, the stock thumping her shoulder as another snork appeared around the corner. Louise retreated to the wedged-open gate, swapping magazines.
Something tightened around her ankle. Louise gasped as her foot came out from under her. She hadn't heard the snork scaling the elevator shaft over the deafening barrage of gunfire. Louise shrieked as her gun clattered against the floor, and she started frantically kicking at the snork's face, groping for something to grab onto.
Thankfully, somebody had taken note of her plight. Grouse grabbed her underneath her armpits before she was dragged into the elevator shaft, to certain doom. Kirche emptied her submachine gun as another snork came around the corner, before drawing her wand and loudly screaming an incantation.
The sudden wave of heat slammed against Louise's face when the fireball exploded against the floor. Siesta was there as Louise latched onto Grouse for dear life, jamming the muzzle of her Kalashnikov into the snork's face. The muzzle blast appeared to do more damage than the bullet, and practically inverted the snork's gas mask.
Silence fell over the passage as Louise kicked away from the elevator shaft, heaving frantic breaths, her ears ringing. She continued clutching Grouse's stalker suit for a moment, before finally realizing what she was doing. She relaxed, her unnecessary embarrassment all but forgotten as the adrenaline shook her hands.
"Thank you…" Louise rasped in Tristainian, but immediately noted something concerning – she couldn't even hear her own voice over her painfully ringing ears.
"Louise?" Siesta scooped up the fallen carbine, making sure the scope was secure. "You alright?"
"What?" Louise shouted, bolting up. "…I can't hear anything! Founder above! I've gone deaf!"
"You're fine Louise! Relax!" Siesta shouted back, grabbing Louise by her shoulders. "Hey, Grouse. You and Kirche wanna keep watch? Let's stop for a minute and take a breather."
Grouse nodded. "Yeah, but let's get away from this freaking elevator shaft before that."
Zaton
Adjusting the strap of her Kalashnikov, Louise gazed toward the sky and wondered whether the lead-coloured blanket hanging overhead was a premonition of things to come. Today would surely be one unpleasant event after another, just like every single damned day in the Zone. Louise heaved another sigh.
"Hm? What's the matter?" Kirche asked, keeping pace with Louise. Her submachine gun hung underneath her arm, the uncomfortable metal stock folded.
The lonesome pothole-ridden road curved upward through the pines – the ranger station was only just ahead. Louise immediately recognized the abandoned van sitting across the road, which she knew to be somewhat radioactive. Grouse and Siesta walked ahead of them, discussing their plans in Russian.
Louise had found her thoughts wandering all day, after the debacle of that morning. For some reason, having a functional wand once again had caused another rush of homesickness and guilt to overpower practically all of her thoughts. She frowned as they passed the old van, her detector ticking ominously.
With how much time had passed, her family had probably assumed she was already dead. Louise only wished there was some way she could tell them she was still alive, that she would do anything to find some way to return to Halkeginia. She hadn't meant to create a connection between the Zone and Tristain.
Usually these nagging thoughts waited for the cold quiet of night to start bothering her, keeping her awake as she silently stared into the impenetrable darkness – they always floated back to the surface, when the waters had calmed.
Louise desperately tried not to think about how many others might have disappeared, only to become stranded in the Zone. If they died, she might as well have murdered them.
"Oi, Vallière?" Kirche grumbled. "You've barely said a word since we left the Skadovsk."
Louise had almost forgotten Kirche said something. "Kirche, have you ever wondered what you were doing with your life?" She finally asked. "I've been thinking lately…"
Quirking her eyebrow, Kirche turned back to the road ahead and blew out a snort. "Since I came to the Zone? I've been thinking that pretty much all the time."
Closing her eyes, Louise chewed on her lip. "I never should have tried to summon my familiar that day. Maybe you were right. Maybe I was never supposed to be a mage."
"You know," Kirche paused, sounding annoyed. "Sometimes I really want to smack you."
Louise stopped, whirling on the Germanian as her usual demeanor suddenly returned. "…Huh? What in the Founder's name do you think you're saying, Zerbst?"
"You had no control over what happened!" Kirche snapped. "I realize you're upset, but –"
Grouse and Siesta had also stopped as well, taking note of the commotion behind them. "What the hell are you doing?" Siesta asked. "Quit messing around!"
Kirche groaned, her shoulders drooping. "Louise is being sulky again. It just annoys me!"
"I –" Louise tried.
"Haven't we talked about this enough already?" Siesta asked. "She tried to summon her familiar. I think we both know Louise didn't want this crap to happen."
"But she still thinks it was her fault. Louise didn't do anything weird. We all watched her!"
Siesta certainly couldn't say how things had ended up this way, why she'd disappeared all those years ago. Louise hadn't even been attending the Academy back then. Maybe there was another reason why the Zone and Halkeginia shared a connection.
"I don't think it was her fault either. We all know how weird things can get around here. Maybe the Zone did something. I always hear about people disappearing in anomalies."
Throwing glances toward the trees, Grouse was starting to feel just a little squeamish. Not only did he feel awkward being here in the middle of their argument, but here in the middle of the Zone definitely was not the time or place. He looked toward Louise, watching as her cheeks grew increasingly redder.
"Stop talking about me like I'm not standing right here!" Louise hissed. "I shouldn't have even opened my mouth! Forget I said anything! This isn't the place!"
Siesta deflated. "Louise…"
"Stop!"
"But –" Kirche tried.
"No!"
Moments later, they were continuing along the road, but this time a tense atmosphere hung over the group as the trudged ahead under a shroud of silence. Grouse whistled as he brought up his shotgun to rest against his shoulder.
"What the hell was that about?" Grouse asked Siesta, who had become uncharacteristically tight-lipped. "Shit, I bet even the mercs across the bridge heard that."
Siesta opened her mouth to tell Grouse he needn't be concerned, but she remembered he already knew about their unique little situation. "Louise believes that everything's her fault. Like, how we all ended up in the Zone, I mean. She's so stubborn. Sometimes it's hard to get something through her head."
Sparing a glance over his shoulder, Grouse found Louise staring right at him, probably because she heard Siesta saying her name. "Well? So what do you think?"
"Me?" Siesta shrugged. "How the hell should I know? I've been in the Zone almost five years now. I don't know about Kirche, but why would I be here because of something that happened like… a couple months ago? Maybe Halkeginia and the Zone are connected somehow. Magic and anomalies do strange stuff sometimes."
Grouse eyed her. Something definitely weighed on her mind. "Huh. Yeah, I guess."
Soon, the ranger station loomed through the trees. Louise put that little disagreement out of her mind, as she was reminded of everything that happened here. She could still see the bandit bleeding on the floor, face contorted with pain and desperation. Louise could vividly remember that moment – the taste of blood on her tongue, and the raw, bubbling, burning anger.
Louise just clutched her weapon tighter, still feeling unsure despite all the practice Siesta had continued drilling both herself and Kirche through. The illuminated reticule floating in the stubby tube certainly made the little Kalashnikov much easier to point, but Louise could still barely stomach the thought of bullets flying around. Invisible death, always ready to strike you down.
They'd returned to that ruined outdoor theater several times. Siesta had instructed them on something known as point-shooting recently. In close quarters, when some mutant came scrambling out of nowhere, proper marksmanship wasn't feasible. While you were trying to line up sights, a bloodsucker or snork might have already pounced on you – then you were doomed.
Of course, Siesta hadn't been quite so eloquent, and had used a much more vulgar term instead. Louise honestly wasn't bothered by those trivial things anymore.
Siesta had procured some vaguely torso-shaped targets from Owl, and had instructed Louise and Kirche to simply raise their weapons and start shooting instinctually, without taking time to really aim. It worked better than Louise thought, although Kirche seemed to do more spraying with her gun than anything else.
Hopefully the day wouldn't come to that. Once again, Louise found herself thankful she wasn't the one leading Kirche around as they bumbled their way through the Zone. The measure of confidence Siesta and Grouse seemed to display simply came from experience – Louise had already been told that enough.
"Lovely as ever, I see," Kirche muttered. "Founder… I never wanted to come back here."
Louise sighed. Perhaps exhaling hard enough would blow all of her troubles away. "We need to be much more cautious than last time. There could be anything hiding here."
Siesta cast a look over her shoulder. "Yeah, don't worry. We're not strolling through the main gate like a bunch of assholes. We're gonna sneak through where we did before – back when we had to deal with that freaking pseudogiant."
The silence grew heavy again as they left the road behind and began trudging through the brush, being careful not to stumble over uneven ground and exposed roots. Louise could feel anxiety churning her stomach when ghastly howls drifted up from the marshes, quickly followed by a distant clatter of gunfire.
Soon, they were gathered around the jagged crack in the concrete wall where Louise and Siesta had once snuck through. That day, they'd stumbled upon Spartacus and his crew waiting to ambush bandits, making a shady deal for weapons.
Siesta recalled discovering the mangled corpse of a Duty stalker, after the rampaging pseudogiant had finished the senseless slaughter. The bandits would've become a much more worrisome threat, had the deal gone down according to plan. Siesta quailed at the thought of those morons getting their hands on an RPG. The Skadovsk probably would have been filled with holes already.
One part of her genuinely hoped Duty wasn't involved, and that whoever had gotten wasted at the ranger station had been operating independently, smuggling Duty's guns for their own profit. Either way, Siesta's opinion of Voronin and his gang of wannabe soldiers definitely couldn't get that much lower.
"So what's the plan?" Siesta asked Grouse, peering through the crack. She couldn't see any activity, but that didn't mean they weren't already being watched.
"We could cover more ground by splitting up – groups of two," Grouse suggested. "Probably safe to assume the entrance to the underground is probably hidden down in a basement somewhere."
Siesta nodded, turning to Kirche and Louise. "We should split up. I'll go with Grouse, so you two stick together. Check out the basements for anything strange."
Louise and Kirche shared a glance, both of them feeling unsure about that particular idea.
"We're going to split up?" Louise asked quietly, shifting awkwardly. "Well, I mean…"
"Keep your radio on," Siesta told her. "And just make sure you watch each other's backs."
Reluctantly, Louise decided to agree. Siesta couldn't keep leading her around forever. They would just have to douse anything nasty with bullets and fire magic. "Fine," she said. "Let's get this over with. I'll let you know if we find anything."
They squeezed through the jagged crack one at a time. Grouse went first, ducking under an exposed length of rebar, cradling a semi-automatic Baikal shotgun. Siesta was next, grimacing as the concrete caught on her magazine pouches.
"We'll start over there," Siesta told Louise, pointing toward the large garage nestled in one corner of the compound. The door was wedged open, bent outward where the long-dead pseudogiant had come mindlessly barreling through.
Louise nodded, keeping the buttstock of her carbine pressed against her shoulder. The selector was pushed downward to semi-automatic, and the glowing reticule floated in her optic. As Louise waited for Kirche, she sighted through the scope, pressing her face against the cheek pad. She had recently realized there was an identical one strapped to the stock of Polar's huge Dragunov rifle.
But Kirche seemed to be taking far too long. Louise turned, hearing her frustration. "What in the Founder's name are you doing, Zerbst? Stop wasting time and…"
Kirche grimaced, untangling her hair from the twisted web of exposed metal bars. "Just – hold on a minute!" She hissed. "I'm starting to think about that haircut now…"
Rolling her eyes, Louise resigned herself to keeping watch for now. "You shouldn't chop off your hair because it got caught on some piece of metal, Kirche. It's too nice for that."
Finally freeing herself, Kirche brushed the concrete dust off her jacket. "Hm? Don't tell me you're finally warming up to me after what happened this morning?"
Louise glowered up at the Germanian. "Don't make me take more stupid pictures of you."
They decided to search the huge building that had housed those massive furnaces, where the bandits had met their gruesome demise. They both prepared for the sea of corpses waiting inside, but instead found an odd surprise.
The corpses seemed to have vanished, leaving only dark splotches on the concrete. Louise and Kirche ventured through the tall wooden doors, their weapons ready. Debris crunched and scuffed beneath their boots, echoing against the brick walls. Louise eyed the twisted metal that had once been a furnace, reduced to a heap of scrap after the pseudogiant had charged clean through.
"They're gone?" Kirche said, although she noted the evidence left behind, notably a boot sitting on the floor nearby. "Hm. Perhaps they all turned into zombies."
"Don't say that!" Louise hissed. "We both know the Zone doesn't raise the dead."
Dust hung in the air, dancing in the shafts of light spilling through the tall windows. Louise eyed the adjacent building. Were the corpses of those unsuspecting bandits still there? Perhaps some mutants had made off with them. Neither Louise nor Kirche really cared to know for certain, and moved deeper into the building.
Aside from the massive room housing the furnaces, they discovered several barren rooms that might have one been offices. Other than the overturned desks, there was a thick coating of grime on the tiled floor that hadn't been disturbed in some time.
Louise kept her weapon shouldered, cautiously plodding through the rooms, sweeping the glowing red dot across the walls. Close behind, Kirche was tentatively clutching her Sudayev, entirely expecting something to come screaming at them out of nowhere.
After a little searching, they discovered a stairwell leading to a floor above and below. Louise pointed the flashlight taped to the forend of her Kalashnikov downward, illuminating the pitch darkness. There seemed to be a basement under them, where anything could be hiding. Louise and Kirche lingered for several moments.
"You go down first," Louise said eventually.
"What?" Kirche shook her head vehemently. "Not in this bloody lifetime, Vallière. You've got the bigger gun, don't you? You should definitely go down first."
"…Don't be a coward."
"You're the one who suggested I go first," Kirche hissed. "So who's being a coward?"
Louise had fully realized her hypocrisy, even before opening her mouth. Resigned to taking the lead, she crept down the stairs, descending into the depths of the building. The sagging staircase creaked and groaned unhappily under her boots. Louise wasn't sure whether the humidity was causing her profuse sweating, or the sting of anxiety twisting her bowels into a jumble of knots.
However, there didn't seem to be much of anything waiting in the basement below. Kirche shuffled down behind Louise, activating the flashlight clipped to her jacket, and eyed the collection of dust-ridden boxes and electrical panels lining the walls, most of which were pried open. As Louise approached one of the rusted panel boxes, Kirche turned, shining her flashlight through an opened door.
"There's another room over there," Kirche pointed out. "Maybe we'll find something –"
The instant Louise turned toward the doorway, they spotted the rat-like creature lurking there, and the basement was immediately filled with a high-pitched squealing. Through the doorway, they could both see the mass of squirming tushkano skittering about, surging toward the door.
Before Kirche could even shout a warning, she was deafened by a sudden thunderclap. The room was illuminated by the flashes spewed from Louise's muzzle.
Kirche squeezed the Sudayev's trigger twice for good measure, spitting two short bursts. She could barely hear the shots, feeling the concussive thud reverberating inside her chest. Kirche scrambled back up the stairs, Louise dogging her heels.
"Hey!" Siesta shouted over Louise's radio. "What's going on? Are you two alright!?"
"Kirche, watch the stairs!" Louise cried, groping for her radio. "Rats, Siesta! Massive rats! Dozens of them!"
"…Seriously? You almost gave me a freaking heart attack over here!"
Louise grimaced. Her ears continued to ring furiously. "Yes! Like the one we found at the gas station! There were dozens of them! They started squealing at us!"
"Look – just be careful, alright? And tell Kirche to be careful with her fire. She might burn the place down."
Kirche frowned, eyeing the stairwell. The tushkano didn't seem to be coming after them. "Be careful with my fire?" She muttered to Louise. "I'm not a moron."
"Well," Louise began. "I'm not shooting down there anymore. We'll make ourselves deaf soon enough."
"So what, then?" Kirche asked.
Louise stared down the stairwell for a few moments. "Just burn the bloody things."
Allowing the submachine gun to hang on its sling, Kirche drew her wand and descended into the basement. Flashlight in one hand, she held her wand outward. She could hear the tushkano below scurrying around, hissing and squealing.
At the bottom, Kirche glimpsed two of them sprawled on the floor, while another scrambled past the doorway on hind legs, and seemed to freeze instantly.
"Feoh, ex, bes, inguz!" Kirche cried. Swirling flames leapt from her wand and soared through the doorway, roaring furiously. She could vaguely hear the mutants screeching. One of them scrambled through the door as the flames writhed over its body, the mutant leaving a trail of smoke as it darted around the room.
Kirche prepared to cast another spell, but the tushkano quickly became motionless, flesh sizzling. Grimacing, Kirche covered her nose as the magical flames quickly dissipated. She was thankful bricks and concrete weren't particularly flammable.
"Did you get them all?" Louise asked, lurking over Kirche's shoulder in the stairwell.
"I think so," Kirche muttered. "Ugh – that stinks!"
Ignoring the stench of cooked tushkano, Louise and Kirche reluctantly began searching through the basement. The room that the mutants had been occupying housed a massive metal contraption, which sprouted a strange network of rusted pipes that penetrated the walls, seemingly spreading throughout the entire building.
The floor and even some of the walls were adorned with black scorch marks, courtesy of Kirche's magic. Louise was tempted to don the gas mask she'd purchased from Owl, wondering if the filters inside would mask the strange smells.
They emerged from the basement only a few moments later, and Louise thumbed her radio. "There's nothing over here, Siesta. Just some junk and bloody rats."
"Yeah, no luck so far over here either," Siesta replied. "Keep looking – check out the building where we found Kirche. You might find something underneath there."
Louise wasn't sure what they would find in the large multi-floored structure. They hadn't done much exploring inside while the pseudogiant had been wreaking havoc around the ranger station. Louise shuddered, recalling the screams.
"Hey – look," Kirche said, gazing through one of the broken windows. "The pseudogiant's gone."
Following Kirche to the window, Louise discovered the taller girl was indeed correct. The pseudogiant's corpse has been near the adjacent building after Siesta had bombarded the mutant with grenades. Louise could see the scorch marks running along the wall, and the cracked bricks pummeled by deadly shrapnel.
There was merely an uneven dark stain splotched across the ground. No skeleton, not even a few bones. How could something so massive just disappear?
"That's… odd," Louise mumbled. "Maybe some mutants took it away or something…"
"But it was huge," Kirche pointed out. "It must have weighed as much as a dragon. Probably more."
Louise decided to put the strange development out of mind. She wasn't searching that building anyway, not unless she absolutely needed to. Kirche followed Louise into the other room and around the mangled furnaces. The massive holes in the walls made for plentiful exits, so long as you remained mindful of the rubble.
The doors Louise had stumbled through on Siesta's heels those weeks before were gone. Now, there was only a twelve-foot hole where the bricks were broken away. There were many creatures native to Halkeginia capable of wreaking such destruction, but not simply by ramming into brick walls with its head.
Louise stepped into the lobby first, debris crunching under the soles of her boots. The stairs wrapped around the walls, spiraling upward for half-a-dozen levels.
Immediately, Louise froze, feeling the floor sagging with every step. The pseudogiant's weight probably had something to do with that. Hopefully the floor hadn't been weakened so much that it would unexpectedly collapse underneath them.
"Be careful," Louise warned. "The floor feels… squishy."
Kirche huffed. "And you'd know a lot about feeling squishy things, isn't that right?"
"Stop bringing that up!"
According to Kirche, the floors above them appeared to have once been dormitories, or perhaps even some barracks for soldiers. She had briefly explored them after first appearing here, escaping the commotion and chaos outside.
They weren't interested in searching the upper levels, however. Louise and Kirche followed the stairs downward, into the darkness of the dank-smelling basement. This basement was much more cramped. There was a long passageway lined with doors on either side stretching from one end of the building to the next.
"Should we start at opposite ends?" Kirche wondered. "There's so many rooms…"
"I suppose," Louise muttered, feeling just as unsure. "Just yell if you find anything."
Louise and Kirche separated, both clutching their respective weapons. Kirche knew well enough that in such close quarters she could pull the trigger much faster than reciting an incantation, but her hearing would certainly suffer as a result. Louise's ears still hadn't even ceased ringing, and continued to pulse painfully.
Thankfully, they seemed to be alone. Clouds of dust hung in the musty basement, the dancing motes illuminated by Louise's flashlight. She stopped, ducking into a room at the very end of the hallway, which was merely some storage closet packed with dust-covered supplies, and even an old mop and broom.
For her trouble, Louise ended up bumbling face-first into a spider web, immediately becoming tangled in her hair. "Founder above – you have to be joking!"
"Louise?" Kirche called out from further up the hallway. "Are you alright over there?"
"I've gotten spider webs in my bloody hair!" Louise cried. "Damn this stupid – ugh!"
Kirche continued her search, snorting under her breath. She found another massive contraption in a room with a lower floor, similar to the previous basement. There was, however, something else that quickly caught her attention – namely, the massive hole that had apparently been eaten clean through the concrete flooring.
Ducking into the room, Kirche crept down the short set of stairs, cautiously approaching the hole. Unclipping the flashlight from her jacket, she cast the beam below. Something had eaten through the concrete, and even the strengthening metal bars.
Below, Kirche could see another concrete floor, and a network of narrow conduits and pipes spanning across a wall. Strangely, there wasn't even any debris strewn about. This had been the work of an anomaly, long since disappeared.
Kirche peered back out into the hallway, where she found Louise's flashlight dancing about several doors down. "Louise! Come here! I think I found something!"
Louise joined her a few moments later, peering through the hole with her flashlight. Her perpetual frown deepened. "Do you think this could lead to those tunnels?"
"Dunno," Kirche shrugged. "But, there aren't any more stairs leading down, right?"
Nodding, Louise thumbed her radio. "Siesta – I think we've just found something."
"Yeah? Big building where we found Kirche?"
"Yes. Kirche just found a huge hole in the floor, and there's something underneath us, but we can't find stairs that go down any further," Louise explained.
"Meet us in the lobby," Siesta replied. "We're heading toward you now."
Louise turned back to Kirche. "Wait here. Make sure nothing comes up from there."
"I didn't realize you were my boss," Kirche grumbled.
"Well, I've been in the Zone longer than you," Louise said. "So I have more seniority."
As Kirche blew out a laugh, Louise left the room behind and jogged up the stairwell into the lobby, where she found Siesta and Grouse just entering through the widened doorway. Neither of them looked like they were particularly happy.
"We couldn't find shit," Siesta immediately said. "That building where the pseudogiant was hiding out was a freaking mess. Like a bomb went off or something."
"…Did you find its nest?"
Siesta snorted. "I dunno about that. We did find out those things take huge dumps."
Louise grimaced. "That's just wonderful to hear. Kirche's waiting for us downstairs."
Mere moments later, Louise had lead them down the stairs, where they gathered around the hole. Grouse gazed around the boiler room, briefly thinking. The floor below only seemed to be about twenty feet underneath them.
"That can't be part of the tunnels," he said to Siesta. "If they go under the marshes they'd need to be way deeper than that. This might lead to them though…"
Siesta nodded. Grouse's logic was pretty sound. "I guess we should start working."
Grouse frowned. "Last time I followed you down a hole we found a nest of sleeping bloodsuckers." He shook his head as Siesta chuckled. "And that's a pretty big drop too."
"Don't worry." Siesta flashed him a grin. "We've got Kirche now. She can just levitate us down."
Grouse eyed the crimson-haired girl. "How the hell does something like that work?"
"You're about to find out." Siesta turned to Kirche and Louise, switching to Tristainian. "Alright. Kirche, levitate me down so I can have a look. If I start screaming then bring me up."
Kirche nodded, and Siesta felt magic grip her body as she softly recited the incantation. Slowly dropping through the hole, Siesta tucked her legs and shouldered her AKM, sweeping the flashlight around the passage below. Thankfully nothing immediately leapt out at her as Kirche halted her slow descent.
Pipes and conduits lined the walls, while light fixtures that hadn't worked in decades dangled from the ceiling. At one end of the passage she saw what appeared to be a metal gate of some sort, while the other end seemed to continue on into darkness.
There were a number of doors leading off from the main passage. They reminded her of the doors aboard the Skadovsk, aside from looking a little sleeker.
"Alright, put me down," Siesta called up to Kirche. "We should check this place out."
Kirche suddenly ended her spell, and Siesta yelped as she was unexpectedly dropped. Next, Grouse slowly floated down, clutching his shotgun with an expression of bewilderment crossing his face. Once on his feet again, he shuddered.
"That was freaky," Grouse muttered. "Almost like some giant hand was squeezing me."
"C'mon. It wasn't that bad."
Louise was next, who showed almost no signs of discomfort from being levitated. She quickly readied her AKS-74U, sighting through the scope. The reticule was far too bright. Remembering Siesta's advice, she dialed the brightness setting back several notches, while Kirche finally levitated herself down.
As the others gathered around, Siesta produced the map Owl had supplied to them, unfolding the creased sheet. Grouse lurked over her shoulder. The passage moved westward from the ranger station, before sharply turning southbound under the marshes. Hopefully the gas beneath the antenna complex wouldn't become an issue.
At any rate, the map wasn't detailed enough to tell them how to get to the passage. Siesta folded the sheet, heaving a sigh. "Well, let's start looking around."
Grouse led the group of stalkers toward the metal gate at the end of the passage. Louise paused and peered through one of the opened doors, her flashlight casting long shadows across the floor. Louise could see a desk, surrounded by papers, and some strange-looking equipment lurking beyond.
The gate had been wedged open several feet. Grouse peered out into the elevator shaft. The cables were dangling limply – the massive elevator had apparently fallen to the bottom.
"Huh. Probably for cargo," Grouse observed. "I'll bet this leads down to the tunnels."
Louise frowned, after Siesta explained what they were looking at. "I'm not jumping down another elevator shaft. I still have nightmares about the last time."
"We could levitate again?" Siesta suggested, looking to Kirche. "What do you think?"
Kirche easily recalled Louise's story of leaping down an elevator shaft into a bloodsucker den, which had sounded rather unpleasant. Besides – the shaft seemed to go on forever, and she doubted her levitation could keep up the range.
"I think we should probably look for some stairs first," Kirche suggested. "For safety."
"Yes, stairs," Louise agreed. "There's nothing wrong with some good, safe stairs."
Grouse was more than amiable to that plan, once Siesta translated Kirche's Tristainian. There was another, narrower passage leading away from the elevator. Grouse found himself heading up the group again, shotgun shouldered.
Many of the rooms lining the passages were opened. Siesta paused, peering through one doorway. Inside, there were desks and papers strewn about the room, and what appeared to be computer equipment set against one of the walls. Siesta eyed the vat near the center of the room. The shattered glass glistened under the glow of her flashlight.
The other rooms seemed to be similar in design and function. The strange experiments that could have gone on down here were a mystery. Siesta felt squeamish at the thought. This place was definitely one of those secret laboratories. Siesta had plenty of first-hand experience with those, briefly wondering how people could have gone through so much effort to remain hidden.
There was something congealed at the bottom of the vats, creating a rather peculiar, sickly-sweet stench – perhaps they should be wearing gas masks already.
Something crashed down the hallway, causing the entire group to freeze instantly. What followed was a bone-chilling snarl that Siesta and Grouse immediately recognized.
Louise worked her mouth, and clutched her carbine a little tighter. "Was that…?"
"Snorks," Siesta confirmed quietly. "Shit. They probably know we're here already."
"Brilliant," Kirche muttered. "Snorks again. How many of these damned creatures are there?"
Pointing her rifle down the passage, Siesta snorted. "Way too freaking many Kirche."
Reaching up with her middle and index fingers, Louise gently nudged the Kalashnikov's selector upward to fully-automatic, heaving out a steadying breath. Louise peered through the nearest doorway. The beefy metal door stood ajar. She cautiously poked the muzzle of her carbine into the dark chamber.
Movement. Papers were scattered in a flurry as the snork scrambled toward Louise. The overturned desk scraped against the tiled floor as the creature savagely clambered over, snarling.
"Shit!" Siesta cried. "Louise –!"
Anything else that Siesta might've said was drowned away when Louise tightened down on the trigger. The reticule bounced, and her ears were assaulted with unrelenting thunderous cracks. The muzzle flashes briefly illuminated the room, and Louise distantly noted that the snork hadn't been alone.
Her bullets punched holes through the desk. The snork hit the floor, blood splattered across the splintered wood. Another snork scrambled into the passage ahead, reduced to a motionless heap by two blasts from Grouse's shotgun.
Siesta grabbed Louise by her backpack, yanking her from the mouth of the doorway. "Move! Get back to the elevator!" She shouted. "Move your ass Kirche!"
Another blast rattled Siesta's teeth when Grouse fired again, the buckshot shooting sparks as the torrent of lead glanced off one of the opened metal doors. Siesta fired several rounds of her own as the snork scrambled back through the door.
Turning, Siesta broke into a sprint. Grouse thumbed fresh shells into his shotgun's magazine and followed close behind. When Siesta reached the intersection she nearly managed to catch up with Louise and Kirche. They continued toward the elevator, turning and skidding to a halt on the grimy concrete.
Grouse topped off his magazine with another shell. Siesta dropped to her knee and shouldered her rifle, the stock thumping her shoulder as another snork appeared around the corner. Louise retreated to the wedged-open gate, swapping magazines.
Something tightened around her ankle. Louise gasped as her foot came out from under her. She hadn't heard the snork scaling the elevator shaft over the deafening barrage of gunfire. Louise shrieked as her gun clattered against the floor, and she started frantically kicking at the snork's face, groping for something to grab onto.
Thankfully, somebody had taken note of her plight. Grouse grabbed her underneath her armpits before she was dragged into the elevator shaft, to certain doom. Kirche emptied her submachine gun as another snork came around the corner, before drawing her wand and loudly screaming an incantation.
The sudden wave of heat slammed against Louise's face when the fireball exploded against the floor. Siesta was there as Louise latched onto Grouse for dear life, jamming the muzzle of her Kalashnikov into the snork's face. The muzzle blast appeared to do more damage than the bullet, and practically inverted the snork's gas mask.
Silence fell over the passage as Louise kicked away from the elevator shaft, heaving frantic breaths, her ears ringing. She continued clutching Grouse's stalker suit for a moment, before finally realizing what she was doing. She relaxed, her unnecessary embarrassment all but forgotten as the adrenaline shook her hands.
"Thank you…" Louise rasped in Tristainian, but immediately noted something concerning – she couldn't even hear her own voice over her painfully ringing ears.
"Louise?" Siesta scooped up the fallen carbine, making sure the scope was secure. "You alright?"
"What?" Louise shouted, bolting up. "…I can't hear anything! Founder above! I've gone deaf!"
"You're fine Louise! Relax!" Siesta shouted back, grabbing Louise by her shoulders. "Hey, Grouse. You and Kirche wanna keep watch? Let's stop for a minute and take a breather."
Grouse nodded. "Yeah, but let's get away from this freaking elevator shaft before that."
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
They found the Rodents of Unusual Size.
Wouldn't you want something more decriptive to show that you're in trouble, like mimicking tawny owl three times?
The only amount that matters: More than you have bullets and magic.
42 - The Life of a Stalker XVI
TheannaTW
Master Procrastinator
- Location
- Canada
The Life of a Stalker XVI
Zaton
Louise paused again, listening intently as the corroded metal stairwell groaned ominously.
Her slender frame was completely soaked with sweat beneath her constrictive stalker suit. The gas mask that was sealed over her face felt incredibly suffocating. With every heavy, anxious breath she seemed to cloud the lenses.
Needless to say, at that moment, Louise was not feeling particularly comfortable.
They had taken ten minutes to gather themselves after she was almost dragged down the massive cargo elevator shaft, doubtlessly to certain doom. Louise couldn't help but shudder at the thought of tumbling down through darkness, screaming helplessly.
Just something else to plague my dreams, Louise thought unhappily, descending the groaning stairs behind Grouse. She carefully ducked underneath what appeared to be moss dangling from the level of stairs above, which caused Siesta and Grouse's detectors to begin beeping warnings. We shouldn't have agreed to this!
There wasn't much point for her to voice these concerns now, as they ventured deeper and deeper underground. They managed to find this stairwell winding downward through a claustrophobic shaft. Nobody was interested in being levitated all the way down into seemingly endless blackness.
"Brimir's balls…" Kirche breathed. Her voice sounded strangely muffled through her own gas mask. "How many stairs did they put in this damned place?"
Porting her Kalashnikov over the railing, Louise blinked in surprise. The bottom was actually much closer than she anticipated, but there was something rather troubling waiting for them at the bottom, and Louise's enthusiasm only worsened.
"Right. So, that looks an awful lot like water to me," Louise pointed out grumpily.
Siesta paused, doing the same. "…Fuck!"
Once they reached the bottom they huddled on the stairs for a few moments. There was a doorway, which plainly revealed the water was merely inches deep. Grouse shuffled around Siesta, plotting into the stagnant water.
"It's only up to my ankles," Grouse told them. "Your boots aren't waterproof?"
"Mine are." Leaping off the last step, Siesta splashed water all over the cramped room. "So are Louise's, but I'm not sure about Kirche's fancy boots."
Kirche confidently ventured out into the water behind Louise. Her Germanian leather boots were a little worn, but they would probably be perfectly fine. She had already trudged through plenty of water in the marshes, and her feet hadn't gotten wet yet.
The doorway led them to a narrow passageway, lined with a number of other doorways. The concrete walls were lined with conduits and light fixtures, and through one of the doorways they could see a room full of electrical panels.
They sloshed through the water toward the end of the corridor, clutching their weapons tightly. There could have been more snorks waiting to ambush them down here somewhere, or something that might have been entirely worse. Soon enough, the group had emerged in a much larger passage.
Louise swept her flashlight across the concrete walls, studying the architecture. Far to her left, their flashlights were only barely able to illuminate the mangled remains of the huge elevator. On the right was blackness continuing on into eternity.
There was water everywhere, filthy and stagnant after sitting in the underground. Louise was just happy her boots were indeed waterproof. Moving toward the elevator, they all gathered around the twisted mass of metal.
"It's probably a good thing we didn't try levitating down the shaft," Siesta muttered.
Kirche nodded. The wreckage seemed practically impassible to the Germanian. "Yes, I'm glad too. I think I'm starting to develop a fear of heights."
"It's cramped spaces for me," Siesta told her. "I got stuck trying to crawl through some kind of ventilation shaft one time. I didn't think I was ever getting out of that one."
Louise eyed them both. The gas masks had the effect of giving them inhuman appearances, intentionally or not. Doubly so for Siesta, with the helmet she'd gotten from Snag's stash. They gathered around as Siesta produced Owl's map again, studying the tunnels hidden beneath the sprawling marshes.
"The route's pretty simple," Siesta said. "We're going west toward the antenna complex, but once we get here," she pointed to a place where passages intersected, "then we turn left and start heading south to the substation."
The plan was relatively simple, so Siesta quickly folded the map and carefully stowed it into one of the pouches on her vest. Sighing, Louise steeled her nerves. She could only keep pushing forward. Maybe her parents would have at least been proud of her for that much.
But no matter how much she told herself she wasn't a coward, Louise couldn't quell the sting of anxiety that was still relentlessly twisting her insides.
The tunnel was more than wide enough for the whole group to walk shoulder to shoulder. Siesta told them to be careful of anything lurking beneath the surface before they set out, splashing through the stagnant water. Louise wasn't the only one who was hoping the flooding wouldn't worsen.
"Look," Siesta said, pointing to the wall. There were tidemarks almost halfway up the concrete wall. "Looks like the water here used to be way higher."
"Probably in the spring," Grouse suggested. "When all the snow was melting."
The high, arched ceiling of the huge subterranean passage was interspersed with defunct light fixtures and snaking conduits. Louise attempted to imagine how difficult creating something this elaborate was without the advantages of magic.
Soon, a shape appeared under the glow of their flashlights. The group slowed for a moment, before they realized the object was merely an abandoned truck.
"I guess they really did use these tunnels for moving stuff around," Siesta said. She approached the old truck first and hefted herself up by the tailgate, peering into the back.
Of course, there wasn't anything there. Curious, Kirche decided to investigate the cabin. She placed a boot on the step beneath the door before grabbing hold of the door mirror and heaving herself up. The cylindrical filter of her gas mask unceremoniously smacked the grimy window of the driver's side door.
"Founder!" Kirche squawked, while Siesta laughed. "I can't stand this ridiculous mask!"
Sloshing through the water, Louise happily noted that it seemed to be getting shallower. "Would you rather be dead, Zerbst? There could be anomalies down here."
"I look silly."
"You don't need that mask to look silly."
Kirche stepped down from the truck and glared through the lenses of her mask. "Oh, you're so funny Louise."
Grouse impatiently waited as Kirche became uninterested in the truck. Shaking his head, he had to wonder sometimes what their little conversations were about. "Come on," he said to Siesta. "We shouldn't waste time."
She knew he was right. "Yeah," she agreed, before switching back to Tristainian. "C'mon – forget about that stupid truck. We should keep moving."
They continued, and soon Louise realized that the water was indeed becoming shallower. She asked just to fill the following silence with conversation. Siesta was inclined to believe the tunnel probably wasn't perfectly level.
Louise wondered if her little jab had annoyed Kirche that much. She probably deserved more than a stupid comment, as far as Louise was concerned. She sighed, and shook her head of those thoughts of petty revenge.
Besides, there was a distinctive green glow that was steadily looming closer.
"Anomalies ahead," Siesta announced, although everybody had already known. "Things might get interesting."
"I really hope not," Kirche grumbled.
Scattered throughout the tunnel ahead were clusters of fruit punch anomalies, bathing the concrete walls in an ominous green glow. But thankfully, the water seemed to be further reduced to mere sporadic puddles.
They passed another truck, which was sitting near the edge of the anomalies. Detectors suddenly sprang to life, beeping their needless warnings of impending doom. Louise and Kirche studied the pools of bubbling, hissing liquid. They'd eaten away parts of the concrete, leaving deep divots where anomalies had once been.
"You really don't want to step in these," Siesta warned them. "We'll go through single-file. They're easy to see, so we don't really need to waste any bolts."
"…So what happens when you step in one?" Kirche asked, as Siesta pressed forward.
"First, it'll start eating through your boots." Siesta threw a look over her shoulder. "Then your legs start melting. I've seen it happen. It's really unpleasant."
That was certainly putting it mildly. Siesta told Grouse she was willing to take point, and they carefully began creeping through the underground anomaly field. Siesta knew their gas masks would definitely be useful around here – sometimes these corrosive anomalies released some unhealthy fumes.
Letting her rifle hand on its sling, Siesta produced her detector, feeling curious. Opening the display, she frowned when the screen was utterly blank. Her brief hopes for some extra income squashed, Siesta just continued weaving through the anomalies.
She had plenty of experience in places like these, more than she should have. These types of anomalies were nasty, but could be buffers for attacking mutants. Some were smart enough to avoid them, but other charged recklessly toward their prey.
Ahead, she spotted something sprawled amongst the bubbling pools. Taking up her AKM, she highlighted the motionless form under her flashlight, quickly recognizing the weathered uniform and gas mask of a snork. Soon, they were all gathered around, mindful of the dangerous anomalies lurking nearby. Somebody had riddled the snork's body with bullets.
Grouse squatted, studying the corpse. "Shit. This actually looks pretty recent."
Siesta had plenty of experience with recently-killed things, and definitely agreed. "Somebody else was down here? Shit. What the hell were they doing?"
Louise eyed the dead mutant, and she found herself overcome with a strangely morbid curiosity. The snork's gas mask seemed to be pushed upward, exposing the mutant's mouth, lipless and caked with blood. The lenses of the mask were completely clouded with grime. Louise recalled Siesta once saying snorks relied mostly on a keen sense of smell.
Prodding at the gas mask with the muzzle of the carbine, she noted it refused to so much as budge. It was almost as through it had been completely fused with the snork's flesh.
"Trust me," Siesta said, seeing what she'd been doing. "You don't want to see what one of those things look like."
Adjusting her mask, Kirche pulled her gaze away from the corpse and conjured a small ball of dancing flames from the tip of her wand. She carefully studied the walls, moving away from the snork, and found they were pockmarked where bullets had blown away uneven chunks of concrete.
"There was definitely more than one person," Louise observed. Kirche hadn't even realized she was following her. "Look – there's empty shells everywhere."
She was right. Kirche could immediately see a handful of pistol-caliber casings, as well as spent shotgun hulls. Grouse saw where they were looking.
"Pistols and shotguns," he said to Siesta. "Probably bandits."
"Probably," Siesta agreed. "But why were they down here? Can't be a coincidence."
"You don't think so?" Grouse was developing a theory of his own. "They might use these tunnels as a way to get around Zaton without being spotted."
Siesta chewed on her lip, knowing he might have been right. Maybe the bandits who ambushed Louise and Kirche had used these tunnels. The thought was rather discomforting. Grouse rose and pointed his flashlight down the passage.
"Check it out," he said. "There's another one."
Siesta sighed. "Merde."
They gingerly crept up to the next corpse, weaving through the glowing anomalies. The next snork was similarly riddled with bullets, so they continued onward. Louise glanced toward the snork's slack-jawed expression. Part of its face had been shredded. She couldn't help but grimace.
Despite Siesta's warning, she was still a little curious of what was underneath the snork's gasmask. It wasn't all that long ago when she wouldn't have even entertained the notion. Perhaps she was really changing.
There was another form sprawled amongst the anomalies. They approached, surprised to find the corpse wasn't another snork. Kirche reeled at the sight, letting out a loud groan of disgust. This victim was human.
He had apparently stepped into one of the anomalies, judging from his partially-dissolved legs. He seemed to have dragged himself several meters, before ultimately expiring.
"Gods…" Kirche wheezed. "I'm going to be sick…"
"Just don't throw up in your mask," Siesta warned her. "I know from experience."
Louise turned away from the gruesome sight, and the anguish forever etched onto the corpse's face. She shuddered, her resolve not to inadvertently wander into any of these strange glowing anomalies strengthened.
Nearby, Grouse found a discarded double-barrel shotgun, already discharged. "He was probably running from the snorks with his little buddies."
Siesta studied the body. He definitely had the look of the bandits that plagued Zaton, wearing an overcoat and a balaclava. "So this asshole stepped in one of these anomalies, and his friends left him behind. Shitty way to go."
"No honour among thieves," Grouse said. He stood, and seemed predictably concerned. "Siesta, I'm starting to think these tunnels aren't abandoned."
He didn't really need to tell her that, but his words were still equally discomforting. She considered turning back, but the payout was too tempting to pass up. Siesta took a knee and quickly searched the dead bandit. She only found a flattened pack of cigarettes and some spare shotgun shells.
She pocketed the shells, and the cigarettes too. "We should just keep moving."
Thankfully, the hissing and spitting anomalies were thinning out ahead. Siesta relayed her and Grouse's budding theory to Louise and Kirche. Neither of them were exactly thrilled to know the bandits who ambushed them had probably used these same passages.
"Doesn't this just keep getting better?" Kirche moaned. "I should have stayed in bed today."
"We all should have," Louise agreed.
Siesta snickered, gently elbowing the shorter girl. "I bet you would have loved that."
Rolling her eyes, Louise shook her head. "I don't want to be ambushed again."
Nobody agreed more than Kirche, who still vividly remembered the screaming as the bandit had burned to death before her eyes. She desperately tried to put the gruesome images out of her mind. They continued onward through the anomaly-infested passage, and she wondered how different things would have been if she'd stayed in Germania.
Kirche had gotten expelled from school in Vindobona, the capitol of Germania. Following that, her parents had decided to quickly arrange a marriage to some geezer in a neighbouring Germanian kingdom. Fat chance of that ever happening.
After learning about that, Kirche had left her home and her parent's bickering behind. Ever since she was a child she had craved some adventure. She must have read dozens of those stories, when those interested her. Leaving for Tristain, a foreign kingdom, had been that adventure for her.
She clutched her submachine gun. The Sudayev was a hideous amalgamation of metal sheets stamped into shapes by other soulless machines in enormous factories. That was what Siesta had described, anyway. These weapons could be produced much faster than some blacksmith banging together muskets, and armies of millions could be equipped with them.
That was probably the future of Halkeginia too. Slaughter becoming a massive industry. Kirche felt so differently about warfare now that she'd actually killed somebody. She knew she wouldn't ever forget that experience.
Was this a better alternative than some arranged marriage to a man decades older than her? She hadn't expected her life would be in such jeopardy every day. Kirche honestly missed the many luxuries of a noblewoman's life.
Kirche missed having clean sheets, and a proper bed. Not switching between the cramped bunks and the Skadovsk's metal floors. Kirche missed her silk nightgown. She missed eating decent meals, and fooling around with the boys at the Academy.
If she had to pick one thing, Kirche would have taken a hot bath over anything else. Just one hot bath. The thought seemed like a dream come true. They passed the last of the anomalies, and Kirche abandoned her thoughts of home. She was only going to make herself feel all the more depressed.
Ahead, their flashlights illuminated a huge metal door as the passage widened out.
"Whoa…" Siesta remarked. Reaching into her vest, she unfurled the crumpled map. "I'm gonna guess that's supposed to go to the antenna complex."
Grouse nodded. "Maybe we didn't have to worry about the gas. We're probably still a few miles away."
"Probably." Siesta studied the map again. The passage continued to the south, connecting to some workshops before continuing east to the substation.
"Siesta," Louise began. "Are you absolutely certain that this is a better alternative than, oh I don't know, just following some bloody road or something?"
"I think Louise and I agree for once," Kirche added. "Siesta, this is miserable!"
"Getting shot at feels worse," Siesta pointed out. "I figured we'd be less exposed this way."
Continuing on in silence, Kirche and Louise decided that Siesta was probably right. Thus far, they had only been fired upon by zombified stalkers. Getting shot at by people who weren't completely brain dead must've been much more nerve-wracking. Hopefully they wouldn't encounter anybody down here.
The passage gradually began to angle downward. Around them, a spiderweb of cracks sprawled through the concrete, and soon their flashlights had illuminated something looming ahead. The passage had partially collapsed.
"Great," Siesta grumbled sarcastically.
There seemed to be enough space on the right side for them to pass through. However, the collapse was flooded far worse than around the elevator. The crumbling concrete opened up along the left side of the passage, leading to what appeared to be a system of natural caves.
"Oh…" Kirche's shoulders sagged. "We're about to get really wet, aren't we?"
Grouse stepped up next to Siesta. "I think I know where we are."
"You do?"
He nodded. "You remember the old gas station? I think these are those caves."
The realization struck her almost immediately. Those caves were completely infested with snorks. Before she could open her mouth, a gurgling snarl echoed through the caves toward them, followed by the sounds of something scrambling through the earth.
Siesta turned to Louise and Kirche. "Get ready! We're about to have company! Get your wand out Kirche. We might need some of your fire magic!"
Just as they readied their weapons, the first snork appeared, splashing through the muck. The mutant scrambled toward them not unlike a disturbingly humanoid spider. Siesta immediately opened fire, and practically deafened the entire group.
Behind that snork was another. There was another screeching mutant behind that one too. Grouse fired his shotgun twice into the mutants scrambling toward them, before a ball of flames about two feet around suddenly soared overhead before abruptly arching downward. He hadn't even heard Kirche's incantation over his ringing ears.
The fireball exploded, causing the group to reel backward when the overwhelming heat slammed into them and a dense plume of steam billowed outward, completely enveloping them. The burning snorks screeched horribly.
Siesta whooped, stumbling away from the blinding steam. "Holy shit, Kirche!"
"I think I made it too big!" Kirche cried. "Where are you? I can't see anything!"
Something collided with Kirche's side, and she caught just the briefest glimpse of a gas mask. She released a blood-curdling scream, flailing helplessly. There was a snork latched onto her, and she was absolutely certain this was the end.
"It's just me, Kirche!" Louise shouted. "We need to get away from this bloody steam!"
Louise pulled her down the passage toward the huge door, where they discovered Grouse and Siesta waiting impatiently, cleaning away the moisture from the lenses of their gas masks using the sleeves of their stalker suits.
"I thought I was done for," Kirche wheezed, her body coursing with adrenaline. Her hands were shaking. "Louise I really thought you were a snork!"
"You're fine, Kirche." Louise desperately wanted to paw the cascading sweat away from her face. "Gods… I need to get out of this ridiculous mask."
They stopped near Siesta and Grouse about twenty yards from the dissipating steam, who were already keeping a cautious watch over the passage. Louise wiped her sleeve across her own mask, leaving streaks across the lenses.
"That was awesome," Siesta said to Kirche. "We should burn stuff more often."
"Brilliant idea," Louise drawled. "Didn't you say the Zone already has a problem with wildfires?"
…
Following that brief debacle, the savage mutants either must've wisely retreated, or there simply weren't any of them left. Louise doubted either option was true.
They lingered near the massive sealed door. Louise took that short opportunity to top off a partially-emptied magazine and to root out the annoying little pebble that had somehow gotten inside her boot. Siesta hovered over the wrinkled map beside Grouse, debating whether they should pass underneath the workshop to the south.
Kirche sat near Louise with her back to the concrete wall, still feeling shaken. She watched Louise for a moment, as the pink-haired girl was stuffing her foot back inside her boot. Kirche couldn't help but lament her situation once again.
"Louise, this is miserable."
Grunting, Louise got to tying her laces. "I don't need you to tell me that Zerbst."
"I still feel terrible because of last night too," Kirche complained. "We shouldn't have taken this job."
"I was thinking that earlier," Louise said. She stood, looming over Kirche. "But we need to keep making money if we ever want to get out of this place."
They'd already had this conversation more than enough times. If they wanted to leave the Zone then they needed enough money for the expensive bribes. That didn't mean the soldiers would let them pass unscathed. The only other option was to brave one of the daunting minefields.
Not to mention the fact they'd need even more money to start from essentially nothing.
Soon, Siesta and Grouse finally decided they were going to pass underneath the workshop, which was rumoured to be a camp for Zaton's bandits. They hoped the bandits were cautious enough to avoid the passage full of anomalies and snorks, especially after one of them had already fallen victim.
Siesta approached the collapsed section first, thankful she couldn't smell roasted snorks through her gasmask. They were a congealed mass of burned flesh and bones at the mouth of the caves. Siesta ignored the stomach-churning sight left by Kirche's fire magic and plodded into the water.
Underneath the surface of the murky water, the concrete floor was crumbling and uneven. Siesta held her rifle above her head, as water suddenly reached above her waist. The stalker suit was somewhat waterproof, but she could still feel the water slowly invading her stuffy stalker suit.
Siesta placed one hand on the wall for support and ducked through the narrow space as the water almost reached her neck for a moment. Watching her, neither Louise nor Kirche were feeling particularly enthusiastic.
Kirche eyed her PPS-43. "Should we not get our guns wet?"
"I don't think it stops them from working," Louise said. "But I wouldn't anyway."
Louise heard Siesta shout something back to Grouse in Russian. He motioned for her to go through next. Rather than try resisting or complaining, Louise wordlessly stepped out into the water, holding her carbine above her head like Siesta had done moments before, and the water flooded her boots.
Her foot caught something beneath the surface, and Louise could only squawk before she tumbled over forward into the water. Completely submerged, she blindly scrambled underwater before she found the concrete wall.
She thrusted her head above the surface, hearing Grouse and Kirche shouting. Louise was far too annoyed to even begin making sense of anything they were saying. She ducked through the narrow space, and found Siesta waiting on the other side. Ahead, the tunnel continued on as before.
"Ugh! Founder's arse!" Louise shrieked. "I am soaked, Siesta! I'm completely soaked!"
"Come here," Siesta said as she shrugged out of her backpack. "You probably just ruined your filter. Here – I've got another one for you somewhere."
"Why did we agree to this?" Louise shivered. "This is shit, Siesta! I can't think of any other bloody word to describe this. It's just shit! I'm so miserable!"
Howling with laughter, Siesta tried to avoid Louise's angry gaze as she unthreaded the filter from her mask. "Louise, stop. I'm trying to do this quickly."
Grouse appeared next, just as Siesta finished threading on another cylindrical filter. He was dripping wet too, but he didn't seem to be as bothered. "Is she alright?"
"She's pissed."
Kirche was next, who bobbed through the narrow crack with both legs tucked beneath her. Her wand was clenched in hand as her bottom skimmed the surface of the water, and Louise was none too pleased to watch the Germanian cheating by using magic.
"Ugh. I got my bottom wet," Kirche said.
"Oh how terrible for you!" Louise snapped. "Why couldn't you do that for everybody?"
Kirche winced. "Well, I didn't think about it! Why didn't you make a suggestion?"
Dripping all over the floor, Louise noticed there was even water pouring from her AK. "You know what? I don't even care. I'm sure I'll dry off eventually."
Despite having said that, Louise's voice was clearly tinged with a certain amount of venom. Once Siesta had assured her that her weapon would function just fine, they continued along the tunnel, their soggy boots squelching unpleasantly.
Louise felt the misery most of all. Even her undergarments had become soaked.
Silence had awkwardly fallen over the group. Louise unlatched the magazine from her carbine, droplets flying as she gave it a shake. She wondered if anything amongst her meagre possessions had just been ruined.
Louise's thoughts drifted back to home, and specifically her parent's experiences. Perhaps they'd gone through similarly miserable moments during their campaigns against Germania. If she ever returned to Halkeginia, Louise knew she was going to have plenty of her own experiences to tell them about.
After what felt like an eternity of walking through endless, oppressive darkness, they could hear a number of panicked voices echoing back to them. Louise tensed up and clutched her weapon tighter. The time for thoughts of home was over.
"There's no way I'm going back down there!" Somebody said, voice cracking. "We got past the collapsed part, but we stirred up the freaking snorks!"
"Listen," another figure snarled. "These assholes are supposed to have some killer gear. And they're mostly chicks man. What the hell are they gonna do?"
The tunnel ended ahead, opening into a massive chamber. The voices echoed from somewhere to the right. The chamber seemed to be some manner of parking garage. There were several trucks and a number of armoured BTR's.
Siesta silently motioned for them to move forward. Louise felt her guts clench at the thought. What was her plan? Were they about to lay an ambush?
There was a ramp near the far end of the garage, which led up to the surface if the bright shafts of daylight that spilled downward were any indication. They easily spotted the five figures standing near there, silhouetted against the light.
"Let's just wait for them here," one of the figures suggested. "We can ambush those cunts. Maybe we can even take some prisoners for ourselves."
Another figure laughed. "I know what I'd like to…" He turned, and his comment fell short. "Shit! There they are!"
Siesta broke for the nearest BTR. The armoured machine was the most solid cover around. Kirche and Grouse were on her heels as the world erupted in gunfire. Bullets bounced off the armor as sparks flew in the darkness. Grouse returned fire with his shotgun, while Kirche was completely stricken with panic.
In her own panic, Louise had managed to get herself separated from the others. She had instead veered toward a flatbed truck that was parked parallel to the BTR, dropping to the floor and huddling herself behind a massive wheel. Bullets landed around her, blowing chunks out of the concrete and punching through metal with ease. Louise tried to make herself as small as possible.
The disorienting sound of gunfire in the underground was almost overwhelming. Grouse ripped off his obtrusive gas mask and began shooting again. Siesta did the same. She dropped to her belly, peering underneath the BTR.
Kirche could only wonder what she had done to deserve this. Seeing that Siesta and Grouse had already pulled off their suffocating masks, she copied them. The smell of spent gunpowder already hung heavy around them.
There was a brief flash of light from around the BTR. Kirche peered tentatively. Dimly noting the presence of a flashlight, she was suddenly greeted with a bright yellow flash from somebody's muzzle. Shrieking, Kirche shrunk back into cover, before blindly opening fire with her submachine gun.
Hands shaking, she fumbled for her wand. "In, ex, dest, flame…" She peered out into danger. The flashlight danced where the bandits had disappeared behind a truck. "Fireball!"
The conjured ball of fire soared through the room, exploding in a storm of writhing flames. Their screams could briefly be heard above the indistinguishable roar of gunfire.
On the floor, Siesta watched as one bandit stumbled into the open, desperately patting down the flames quickly consuming his weathered overcoat. She fired twice at his upper back, and he dropped like a sack of flour. The other man was already a heap of sizzling flesh.
Watching what had just happened, Louise knew she needed to do something. The bandits had taken up positions at the opposite end of the room. Periodically a bright yellow flash would bloom from somebody's muzzle. She peered over the bed of the truck, and she only barely registered the glowing red dot of her sight before being forced back down under a hail of bullets.
The problem became obvious. In all the panic, Louise had completely forgotten to switch off the flashlight taped to the handguard of her Kalashnikov. The light was simply a beacon telling everyone her exact position.
Louise switched the light off, and nearly opened fire when somebody appeared startling nearby. Sliding on her padded knees, Siesta was swapping magazines before she'd even stopped moving.
"Siesta!" Louise squawked. "I almost shot you!"
"I think we already took a couple down," Siesta shouted. "The others are laying down fire, so we're going to try to get around and flank those assholes."
"Alright!" Louise sputtered. "I-I'm going to cast an explosion to distract them!"
Siesta nodded. "Good thinking," she said, while Louise produced her makeshift wand.
Louise shouted the incantation for Fireball. The explosion that erupted across the massive room was much louder than the one Louise had accidentally cast aboard the Skadovsk. The bandits were thrown into complete disarray.
Following behind Siesta, Louise kept her head low as they quickly crept around the edges of the huge garage. Siesta moved to the cover of one vehicle, before motioning for Louise to move next. They leapfrogged through the room, covering one another as Kirche and Grouse traded gunfire with the bandits.
They were about to move again, when another on of Kirche's fireballs whooshed across the garage and exploded amongst the few remaining bandits. They watched as three men broke cover, one patting flames covering his jacket.
They seemed to be fleeing toward the ramp that led to the surface. Shouldering her rifle, Siesta began shooting, and Louise quickly followed suit. Two bandits immediately tumbled to the floor as their bullets pockmarked the concrete wall behind them, spewing thick clouds of concrete dust.
The remaining bandit dropped his shotgun in panic, and dove behind another BTR. All at once, the underground garage had fallen completely silent. Louise blinked, ears ringing furiously. The gunfight had lasted probably two or three minutes, at most. The rush of adrenaline was staggering. Louise tried to register in her mind what happened.
Siesta motioned for her to move, and they slowly advanced with rifles shouldered. Grouse and Kirche approached the BTR from the opposite direction, Grouse giving Siesta a quick signal to regroup with a simple movement of his hand.
"Last guy dropped his gun over there," Siesta told Grouse, pointing. "He went behind that BTR over there. What's the plan? I have a grenade we could…"
"Wait!"
The voice had come from behind the BTR, cracking with fear and desperation.
"I… I'm not armed! Please, just don't shoot me! I don't want to fight! I surrender!"
Grouse and Siesta shared a look. "You think he's bluffing?" Grouse wondered.
"I don't think so." Siesta quickly instructed Louise and Kirche to stay prepared, and only then did she realize that the Germanian looked particularly pale. She'd have to see how she was holding up later. "Hey asshole! You hear me?"
"…Y-Yeah?"
"You'd better listen good, or your shitty day is about to get a lot fucking worse. Come out nice and slow, and we might not roast you like your buddies."
They watched as the bandit cautiously plodded out from around the armoured vehicle. Louise gripped her carbine with hands shaking from adrenaline. The glowing dot in the center of her sight's reticule trembled across his torso, but she kept her finger off the trigger, fearing she'd accidentally shoot him.
Louise almost pitied him. What was he feeling, now that they killed his friends? He was completely alone, facing down some rightfully angry enemies.
"Stay here and keep a lookout," Siesta told Louise. "Make sure Kirche's alright. Grouse and I are gonna see what this guy knows."
Louise nodded as though she were a soldier taking orders from her superior, while Siesta and Grouse approached the petrified bandit. His balaclava had come away at some point, and he looked as though he might've been around Siesta's age.
"What were you doing down here?" Grouse demanded.
Siesta was keen to watch every movement the bandit made as Grouse searched him for weapons.
"We…" The bandit swallowed. He had messy brown hair and a pair of matching eyes. "We were just scavenging, and –"
"Don't give us that crap," Siesta interrupted. "What's your name?"
The bandit flinched. "Uh… it's Andrey."
Siesta leaned closer, eyeing him like he was an insect. "We heard you assholes talking about us. You were gonna ambush us and take some prisoners. It's not my first day in the Zone. I can guess what you were planning."
"I… well… I-I um…"
Grouse finished his search, coming up empty, and grabbed Andrey's overcoat. "Spit it out. You wanna get out of here alive you tell us everything."
"Alright, alright!" Andrey cried. "We were paid by a stalker from the Skadovsk, an old buddy of ours. He… he said you'd be coming through here today. He told us to ambush you, said you'd probably have some decent weapons we could take. We… w-we went deep down in the tunnels… but we stirred up the snorks, and Nikolay stepped in those anomalies…"
Siesta ran her fingers through her hair, fuming. "Fuck!"
"Who was it?" Grouse asked him lowly. "Which one of those fucking assholes sold us out?"
"His name was Snag!" Andrey said hoarsely. "He paid us with a soul artifact… that's everything, I swear!"
Stomping away, Siesta turned and slammed her fist against the door of a nearby truck. "I bet fucking Owl told Snag where we were going," she shouted, and started hitting the door with each word. "Fucking. Bald. Bastard!"
"Siesta!" Grouse shouted. "You're just going to break your hand! Settle down!"
Louise and Kirche were on her in moments. "Siesta! What did he say to you?"
Slumping against the truck, Siesta cradled her throbbing hand. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She was so angry she could have screamed and cried right there, but she took a breath and held herself together.
"It was all Snag," Siesta hissed, seething. "That piece of shit paid those bandits to ambush us."
Louise balked. "What?"
"Oh Founder," Kirche sighed. "Siesta, I knew we shouldn't have messed with him…"
Siesta nearly rounded on the Germanian to scream something, but she probably had enough on her mind already. Siesta held her tongue and stomped back toward where Grouse had just finished interrogating the bandit.
"So apparently Snag gave them the artifact and left Zaton," Grouse explained. "I guess that's why I didn't see him aboard the Skadovsk this morning."
"I almost got us killed," Siesta said, her anger beginning to fade. "You alright?"
Grouse looked like he had something to say, but settling on looking himself over. "I think so."
"I'll deal with him," she said. "Stay here with the others?"
Grouse eyed her. "You will, huh? You gonna put a bullet in him or something?"
Siesta's face tightened, and she wondered what stories he'd heard. "No."
That was enough for the bandit to relax, his shoulders sagging. Siesta prodded him toward the ramp to the surface, knowing that her impulsiveness had nearly gotten her and her friends killed once again, or worse.
"You're Siesta, right?" Andrey asked, trudging ahead of her with hands raised.
"Shut up."
Andrey was silent for a moment. "…I've heard some stories about you before."
"Yeah, I bet you have," Siesta snapped. The lush woodlands of the Zone awaited them on the surface. "Now get lost before I change my mind. Just go."
Andrey turned, glancing at the muzzle of her rifle. Nodding, he began jogging down the overgrown road leading away from the garage's wide entrance. Siesta watched him for a few moments, before heading underground again.
Kirche had taken a seat on the step below another truck's door. Louise hovered above her. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I just feel a little sick," Kirche moaned. "I'm hungover and I just burned somebody to death… I think… I think I just need a few minutes. I'll be alright."
Louise turned, eyeing Siesta as she returned, flexing the hand she'd pointless punched the truck with. Grouse was near, searching through corpses for anything useful.
"You didn't shoot him?" Louise asked.
"Why would I?" Siesta countered, heaving a sigh. "He'd already surrendered. I wouldn't feel right just gunning him down. Probably keep me up at night." She eyed Kirche, who looked as though she was about to vomit. "Let's take a break, but we should move soon. I don't want any company."
…
A/N: So, here we are, have an unexpected hiatus. Whoops. I blame a combination of writer's block, video games consuming my life, and a whole host of personal issues I shall not get into here.
Zaton
Louise paused again, listening intently as the corroded metal stairwell groaned ominously.
Her slender frame was completely soaked with sweat beneath her constrictive stalker suit. The gas mask that was sealed over her face felt incredibly suffocating. With every heavy, anxious breath she seemed to cloud the lenses.
Needless to say, at that moment, Louise was not feeling particularly comfortable.
They had taken ten minutes to gather themselves after she was almost dragged down the massive cargo elevator shaft, doubtlessly to certain doom. Louise couldn't help but shudder at the thought of tumbling down through darkness, screaming helplessly.
Just something else to plague my dreams, Louise thought unhappily, descending the groaning stairs behind Grouse. She carefully ducked underneath what appeared to be moss dangling from the level of stairs above, which caused Siesta and Grouse's detectors to begin beeping warnings. We shouldn't have agreed to this!
There wasn't much point for her to voice these concerns now, as they ventured deeper and deeper underground. They managed to find this stairwell winding downward through a claustrophobic shaft. Nobody was interested in being levitated all the way down into seemingly endless blackness.
"Brimir's balls…" Kirche breathed. Her voice sounded strangely muffled through her own gas mask. "How many stairs did they put in this damned place?"
Porting her Kalashnikov over the railing, Louise blinked in surprise. The bottom was actually much closer than she anticipated, but there was something rather troubling waiting for them at the bottom, and Louise's enthusiasm only worsened.
"Right. So, that looks an awful lot like water to me," Louise pointed out grumpily.
Siesta paused, doing the same. "…Fuck!"
Once they reached the bottom they huddled on the stairs for a few moments. There was a doorway, which plainly revealed the water was merely inches deep. Grouse shuffled around Siesta, plotting into the stagnant water.
"It's only up to my ankles," Grouse told them. "Your boots aren't waterproof?"
"Mine are." Leaping off the last step, Siesta splashed water all over the cramped room. "So are Louise's, but I'm not sure about Kirche's fancy boots."
Kirche confidently ventured out into the water behind Louise. Her Germanian leather boots were a little worn, but they would probably be perfectly fine. She had already trudged through plenty of water in the marshes, and her feet hadn't gotten wet yet.
The doorway led them to a narrow passageway, lined with a number of other doorways. The concrete walls were lined with conduits and light fixtures, and through one of the doorways they could see a room full of electrical panels.
They sloshed through the water toward the end of the corridor, clutching their weapons tightly. There could have been more snorks waiting to ambush them down here somewhere, or something that might have been entirely worse. Soon enough, the group had emerged in a much larger passage.
Louise swept her flashlight across the concrete walls, studying the architecture. Far to her left, their flashlights were only barely able to illuminate the mangled remains of the huge elevator. On the right was blackness continuing on into eternity.
There was water everywhere, filthy and stagnant after sitting in the underground. Louise was just happy her boots were indeed waterproof. Moving toward the elevator, they all gathered around the twisted mass of metal.
"It's probably a good thing we didn't try levitating down the shaft," Siesta muttered.
Kirche nodded. The wreckage seemed practically impassible to the Germanian. "Yes, I'm glad too. I think I'm starting to develop a fear of heights."
"It's cramped spaces for me," Siesta told her. "I got stuck trying to crawl through some kind of ventilation shaft one time. I didn't think I was ever getting out of that one."
Louise eyed them both. The gas masks had the effect of giving them inhuman appearances, intentionally or not. Doubly so for Siesta, with the helmet she'd gotten from Snag's stash. They gathered around as Siesta produced Owl's map again, studying the tunnels hidden beneath the sprawling marshes.
"The route's pretty simple," Siesta said. "We're going west toward the antenna complex, but once we get here," she pointed to a place where passages intersected, "then we turn left and start heading south to the substation."
The plan was relatively simple, so Siesta quickly folded the map and carefully stowed it into one of the pouches on her vest. Sighing, Louise steeled her nerves. She could only keep pushing forward. Maybe her parents would have at least been proud of her for that much.
But no matter how much she told herself she wasn't a coward, Louise couldn't quell the sting of anxiety that was still relentlessly twisting her insides.
The tunnel was more than wide enough for the whole group to walk shoulder to shoulder. Siesta told them to be careful of anything lurking beneath the surface before they set out, splashing through the stagnant water. Louise wasn't the only one who was hoping the flooding wouldn't worsen.
"Look," Siesta said, pointing to the wall. There were tidemarks almost halfway up the concrete wall. "Looks like the water here used to be way higher."
"Probably in the spring," Grouse suggested. "When all the snow was melting."
The high, arched ceiling of the huge subterranean passage was interspersed with defunct light fixtures and snaking conduits. Louise attempted to imagine how difficult creating something this elaborate was without the advantages of magic.
Soon, a shape appeared under the glow of their flashlights. The group slowed for a moment, before they realized the object was merely an abandoned truck.
"I guess they really did use these tunnels for moving stuff around," Siesta said. She approached the old truck first and hefted herself up by the tailgate, peering into the back.
Of course, there wasn't anything there. Curious, Kirche decided to investigate the cabin. She placed a boot on the step beneath the door before grabbing hold of the door mirror and heaving herself up. The cylindrical filter of her gas mask unceremoniously smacked the grimy window of the driver's side door.
"Founder!" Kirche squawked, while Siesta laughed. "I can't stand this ridiculous mask!"
Sloshing through the water, Louise happily noted that it seemed to be getting shallower. "Would you rather be dead, Zerbst? There could be anomalies down here."
"I look silly."
"You don't need that mask to look silly."
Kirche stepped down from the truck and glared through the lenses of her mask. "Oh, you're so funny Louise."
Grouse impatiently waited as Kirche became uninterested in the truck. Shaking his head, he had to wonder sometimes what their little conversations were about. "Come on," he said to Siesta. "We shouldn't waste time."
She knew he was right. "Yeah," she agreed, before switching back to Tristainian. "C'mon – forget about that stupid truck. We should keep moving."
They continued, and soon Louise realized that the water was indeed becoming shallower. She asked just to fill the following silence with conversation. Siesta was inclined to believe the tunnel probably wasn't perfectly level.
Louise wondered if her little jab had annoyed Kirche that much. She probably deserved more than a stupid comment, as far as Louise was concerned. She sighed, and shook her head of those thoughts of petty revenge.
Besides, there was a distinctive green glow that was steadily looming closer.
"Anomalies ahead," Siesta announced, although everybody had already known. "Things might get interesting."
"I really hope not," Kirche grumbled.
Scattered throughout the tunnel ahead were clusters of fruit punch anomalies, bathing the concrete walls in an ominous green glow. But thankfully, the water seemed to be further reduced to mere sporadic puddles.
They passed another truck, which was sitting near the edge of the anomalies. Detectors suddenly sprang to life, beeping their needless warnings of impending doom. Louise and Kirche studied the pools of bubbling, hissing liquid. They'd eaten away parts of the concrete, leaving deep divots where anomalies had once been.
"You really don't want to step in these," Siesta warned them. "We'll go through single-file. They're easy to see, so we don't really need to waste any bolts."
"…So what happens when you step in one?" Kirche asked, as Siesta pressed forward.
"First, it'll start eating through your boots." Siesta threw a look over her shoulder. "Then your legs start melting. I've seen it happen. It's really unpleasant."
That was certainly putting it mildly. Siesta told Grouse she was willing to take point, and they carefully began creeping through the underground anomaly field. Siesta knew their gas masks would definitely be useful around here – sometimes these corrosive anomalies released some unhealthy fumes.
Letting her rifle hand on its sling, Siesta produced her detector, feeling curious. Opening the display, she frowned when the screen was utterly blank. Her brief hopes for some extra income squashed, Siesta just continued weaving through the anomalies.
She had plenty of experience in places like these, more than she should have. These types of anomalies were nasty, but could be buffers for attacking mutants. Some were smart enough to avoid them, but other charged recklessly toward their prey.
Ahead, she spotted something sprawled amongst the bubbling pools. Taking up her AKM, she highlighted the motionless form under her flashlight, quickly recognizing the weathered uniform and gas mask of a snork. Soon, they were all gathered around, mindful of the dangerous anomalies lurking nearby. Somebody had riddled the snork's body with bullets.
Grouse squatted, studying the corpse. "Shit. This actually looks pretty recent."
Siesta had plenty of experience with recently-killed things, and definitely agreed. "Somebody else was down here? Shit. What the hell were they doing?"
Louise eyed the dead mutant, and she found herself overcome with a strangely morbid curiosity. The snork's gas mask seemed to be pushed upward, exposing the mutant's mouth, lipless and caked with blood. The lenses of the mask were completely clouded with grime. Louise recalled Siesta once saying snorks relied mostly on a keen sense of smell.
Prodding at the gas mask with the muzzle of the carbine, she noted it refused to so much as budge. It was almost as through it had been completely fused with the snork's flesh.
"Trust me," Siesta said, seeing what she'd been doing. "You don't want to see what one of those things look like."
Adjusting her mask, Kirche pulled her gaze away from the corpse and conjured a small ball of dancing flames from the tip of her wand. She carefully studied the walls, moving away from the snork, and found they were pockmarked where bullets had blown away uneven chunks of concrete.
"There was definitely more than one person," Louise observed. Kirche hadn't even realized she was following her. "Look – there's empty shells everywhere."
She was right. Kirche could immediately see a handful of pistol-caliber casings, as well as spent shotgun hulls. Grouse saw where they were looking.
"Pistols and shotguns," he said to Siesta. "Probably bandits."
"Probably," Siesta agreed. "But why were they down here? Can't be a coincidence."
"You don't think so?" Grouse was developing a theory of his own. "They might use these tunnels as a way to get around Zaton without being spotted."
Siesta chewed on her lip, knowing he might have been right. Maybe the bandits who ambushed Louise and Kirche had used these tunnels. The thought was rather discomforting. Grouse rose and pointed his flashlight down the passage.
"Check it out," he said. "There's another one."
Siesta sighed. "Merde."
They gingerly crept up to the next corpse, weaving through the glowing anomalies. The next snork was similarly riddled with bullets, so they continued onward. Louise glanced toward the snork's slack-jawed expression. Part of its face had been shredded. She couldn't help but grimace.
Despite Siesta's warning, she was still a little curious of what was underneath the snork's gasmask. It wasn't all that long ago when she wouldn't have even entertained the notion. Perhaps she was really changing.
There was another form sprawled amongst the anomalies. They approached, surprised to find the corpse wasn't another snork. Kirche reeled at the sight, letting out a loud groan of disgust. This victim was human.
He had apparently stepped into one of the anomalies, judging from his partially-dissolved legs. He seemed to have dragged himself several meters, before ultimately expiring.
"Gods…" Kirche wheezed. "I'm going to be sick…"
"Just don't throw up in your mask," Siesta warned her. "I know from experience."
Louise turned away from the gruesome sight, and the anguish forever etched onto the corpse's face. She shuddered, her resolve not to inadvertently wander into any of these strange glowing anomalies strengthened.
Nearby, Grouse found a discarded double-barrel shotgun, already discharged. "He was probably running from the snorks with his little buddies."
Siesta studied the body. He definitely had the look of the bandits that plagued Zaton, wearing an overcoat and a balaclava. "So this asshole stepped in one of these anomalies, and his friends left him behind. Shitty way to go."
"No honour among thieves," Grouse said. He stood, and seemed predictably concerned. "Siesta, I'm starting to think these tunnels aren't abandoned."
He didn't really need to tell her that, but his words were still equally discomforting. She considered turning back, but the payout was too tempting to pass up. Siesta took a knee and quickly searched the dead bandit. She only found a flattened pack of cigarettes and some spare shotgun shells.
She pocketed the shells, and the cigarettes too. "We should just keep moving."
Thankfully, the hissing and spitting anomalies were thinning out ahead. Siesta relayed her and Grouse's budding theory to Louise and Kirche. Neither of them were exactly thrilled to know the bandits who ambushed them had probably used these same passages.
"Doesn't this just keep getting better?" Kirche moaned. "I should have stayed in bed today."
"We all should have," Louise agreed.
Siesta snickered, gently elbowing the shorter girl. "I bet you would have loved that."
Rolling her eyes, Louise shook her head. "I don't want to be ambushed again."
Nobody agreed more than Kirche, who still vividly remembered the screaming as the bandit had burned to death before her eyes. She desperately tried to put the gruesome images out of her mind. They continued onward through the anomaly-infested passage, and she wondered how different things would have been if she'd stayed in Germania.
Kirche had gotten expelled from school in Vindobona, the capitol of Germania. Following that, her parents had decided to quickly arrange a marriage to some geezer in a neighbouring Germanian kingdom. Fat chance of that ever happening.
After learning about that, Kirche had left her home and her parent's bickering behind. Ever since she was a child she had craved some adventure. She must have read dozens of those stories, when those interested her. Leaving for Tristain, a foreign kingdom, had been that adventure for her.
She clutched her submachine gun. The Sudayev was a hideous amalgamation of metal sheets stamped into shapes by other soulless machines in enormous factories. That was what Siesta had described, anyway. These weapons could be produced much faster than some blacksmith banging together muskets, and armies of millions could be equipped with them.
That was probably the future of Halkeginia too. Slaughter becoming a massive industry. Kirche felt so differently about warfare now that she'd actually killed somebody. She knew she wouldn't ever forget that experience.
Was this a better alternative than some arranged marriage to a man decades older than her? She hadn't expected her life would be in such jeopardy every day. Kirche honestly missed the many luxuries of a noblewoman's life.
Kirche missed having clean sheets, and a proper bed. Not switching between the cramped bunks and the Skadovsk's metal floors. Kirche missed her silk nightgown. She missed eating decent meals, and fooling around with the boys at the Academy.
If she had to pick one thing, Kirche would have taken a hot bath over anything else. Just one hot bath. The thought seemed like a dream come true. They passed the last of the anomalies, and Kirche abandoned her thoughts of home. She was only going to make herself feel all the more depressed.
Ahead, their flashlights illuminated a huge metal door as the passage widened out.
"Whoa…" Siesta remarked. Reaching into her vest, she unfurled the crumpled map. "I'm gonna guess that's supposed to go to the antenna complex."
Grouse nodded. "Maybe we didn't have to worry about the gas. We're probably still a few miles away."
"Probably." Siesta studied the map again. The passage continued to the south, connecting to some workshops before continuing east to the substation.
"Siesta," Louise began. "Are you absolutely certain that this is a better alternative than, oh I don't know, just following some bloody road or something?"
"I think Louise and I agree for once," Kirche added. "Siesta, this is miserable!"
"Getting shot at feels worse," Siesta pointed out. "I figured we'd be less exposed this way."
Continuing on in silence, Kirche and Louise decided that Siesta was probably right. Thus far, they had only been fired upon by zombified stalkers. Getting shot at by people who weren't completely brain dead must've been much more nerve-wracking. Hopefully they wouldn't encounter anybody down here.
The passage gradually began to angle downward. Around them, a spiderweb of cracks sprawled through the concrete, and soon their flashlights had illuminated something looming ahead. The passage had partially collapsed.
"Great," Siesta grumbled sarcastically.
There seemed to be enough space on the right side for them to pass through. However, the collapse was flooded far worse than around the elevator. The crumbling concrete opened up along the left side of the passage, leading to what appeared to be a system of natural caves.
"Oh…" Kirche's shoulders sagged. "We're about to get really wet, aren't we?"
Grouse stepped up next to Siesta. "I think I know where we are."
"You do?"
He nodded. "You remember the old gas station? I think these are those caves."
The realization struck her almost immediately. Those caves were completely infested with snorks. Before she could open her mouth, a gurgling snarl echoed through the caves toward them, followed by the sounds of something scrambling through the earth.
Siesta turned to Louise and Kirche. "Get ready! We're about to have company! Get your wand out Kirche. We might need some of your fire magic!"
Just as they readied their weapons, the first snork appeared, splashing through the muck. The mutant scrambled toward them not unlike a disturbingly humanoid spider. Siesta immediately opened fire, and practically deafened the entire group.
Behind that snork was another. There was another screeching mutant behind that one too. Grouse fired his shotgun twice into the mutants scrambling toward them, before a ball of flames about two feet around suddenly soared overhead before abruptly arching downward. He hadn't even heard Kirche's incantation over his ringing ears.
The fireball exploded, causing the group to reel backward when the overwhelming heat slammed into them and a dense plume of steam billowed outward, completely enveloping them. The burning snorks screeched horribly.
Siesta whooped, stumbling away from the blinding steam. "Holy shit, Kirche!"
"I think I made it too big!" Kirche cried. "Where are you? I can't see anything!"
Something collided with Kirche's side, and she caught just the briefest glimpse of a gas mask. She released a blood-curdling scream, flailing helplessly. There was a snork latched onto her, and she was absolutely certain this was the end.
"It's just me, Kirche!" Louise shouted. "We need to get away from this bloody steam!"
Louise pulled her down the passage toward the huge door, where they discovered Grouse and Siesta waiting impatiently, cleaning away the moisture from the lenses of their gas masks using the sleeves of their stalker suits.
"I thought I was done for," Kirche wheezed, her body coursing with adrenaline. Her hands were shaking. "Louise I really thought you were a snork!"
"You're fine, Kirche." Louise desperately wanted to paw the cascading sweat away from her face. "Gods… I need to get out of this ridiculous mask."
They stopped near Siesta and Grouse about twenty yards from the dissipating steam, who were already keeping a cautious watch over the passage. Louise wiped her sleeve across her own mask, leaving streaks across the lenses.
"That was awesome," Siesta said to Kirche. "We should burn stuff more often."
"Brilliant idea," Louise drawled. "Didn't you say the Zone already has a problem with wildfires?"
…
Following that brief debacle, the savage mutants either must've wisely retreated, or there simply weren't any of them left. Louise doubted either option was true.
They lingered near the massive sealed door. Louise took that short opportunity to top off a partially-emptied magazine and to root out the annoying little pebble that had somehow gotten inside her boot. Siesta hovered over the wrinkled map beside Grouse, debating whether they should pass underneath the workshop to the south.
Kirche sat near Louise with her back to the concrete wall, still feeling shaken. She watched Louise for a moment, as the pink-haired girl was stuffing her foot back inside her boot. Kirche couldn't help but lament her situation once again.
"Louise, this is miserable."
Grunting, Louise got to tying her laces. "I don't need you to tell me that Zerbst."
"I still feel terrible because of last night too," Kirche complained. "We shouldn't have taken this job."
"I was thinking that earlier," Louise said. She stood, looming over Kirche. "But we need to keep making money if we ever want to get out of this place."
They'd already had this conversation more than enough times. If they wanted to leave the Zone then they needed enough money for the expensive bribes. That didn't mean the soldiers would let them pass unscathed. The only other option was to brave one of the daunting minefields.
Not to mention the fact they'd need even more money to start from essentially nothing.
Soon, Siesta and Grouse finally decided they were going to pass underneath the workshop, which was rumoured to be a camp for Zaton's bandits. They hoped the bandits were cautious enough to avoid the passage full of anomalies and snorks, especially after one of them had already fallen victim.
Siesta approached the collapsed section first, thankful she couldn't smell roasted snorks through her gasmask. They were a congealed mass of burned flesh and bones at the mouth of the caves. Siesta ignored the stomach-churning sight left by Kirche's fire magic and plodded into the water.
Underneath the surface of the murky water, the concrete floor was crumbling and uneven. Siesta held her rifle above her head, as water suddenly reached above her waist. The stalker suit was somewhat waterproof, but she could still feel the water slowly invading her stuffy stalker suit.
Siesta placed one hand on the wall for support and ducked through the narrow space as the water almost reached her neck for a moment. Watching her, neither Louise nor Kirche were feeling particularly enthusiastic.
Kirche eyed her PPS-43. "Should we not get our guns wet?"
"I don't think it stops them from working," Louise said. "But I wouldn't anyway."
Louise heard Siesta shout something back to Grouse in Russian. He motioned for her to go through next. Rather than try resisting or complaining, Louise wordlessly stepped out into the water, holding her carbine above her head like Siesta had done moments before, and the water flooded her boots.
Her foot caught something beneath the surface, and Louise could only squawk before she tumbled over forward into the water. Completely submerged, she blindly scrambled underwater before she found the concrete wall.
She thrusted her head above the surface, hearing Grouse and Kirche shouting. Louise was far too annoyed to even begin making sense of anything they were saying. She ducked through the narrow space, and found Siesta waiting on the other side. Ahead, the tunnel continued on as before.
"Ugh! Founder's arse!" Louise shrieked. "I am soaked, Siesta! I'm completely soaked!"
"Come here," Siesta said as she shrugged out of her backpack. "You probably just ruined your filter. Here – I've got another one for you somewhere."
"Why did we agree to this?" Louise shivered. "This is shit, Siesta! I can't think of any other bloody word to describe this. It's just shit! I'm so miserable!"
Howling with laughter, Siesta tried to avoid Louise's angry gaze as she unthreaded the filter from her mask. "Louise, stop. I'm trying to do this quickly."
Grouse appeared next, just as Siesta finished threading on another cylindrical filter. He was dripping wet too, but he didn't seem to be as bothered. "Is she alright?"
"She's pissed."
Kirche was next, who bobbed through the narrow crack with both legs tucked beneath her. Her wand was clenched in hand as her bottom skimmed the surface of the water, and Louise was none too pleased to watch the Germanian cheating by using magic.
"Ugh. I got my bottom wet," Kirche said.
"Oh how terrible for you!" Louise snapped. "Why couldn't you do that for everybody?"
Kirche winced. "Well, I didn't think about it! Why didn't you make a suggestion?"
Dripping all over the floor, Louise noticed there was even water pouring from her AK. "You know what? I don't even care. I'm sure I'll dry off eventually."
Despite having said that, Louise's voice was clearly tinged with a certain amount of venom. Once Siesta had assured her that her weapon would function just fine, they continued along the tunnel, their soggy boots squelching unpleasantly.
Louise felt the misery most of all. Even her undergarments had become soaked.
Silence had awkwardly fallen over the group. Louise unlatched the magazine from her carbine, droplets flying as she gave it a shake. She wondered if anything amongst her meagre possessions had just been ruined.
Louise's thoughts drifted back to home, and specifically her parent's experiences. Perhaps they'd gone through similarly miserable moments during their campaigns against Germania. If she ever returned to Halkeginia, Louise knew she was going to have plenty of her own experiences to tell them about.
After what felt like an eternity of walking through endless, oppressive darkness, they could hear a number of panicked voices echoing back to them. Louise tensed up and clutched her weapon tighter. The time for thoughts of home was over.
"There's no way I'm going back down there!" Somebody said, voice cracking. "We got past the collapsed part, but we stirred up the freaking snorks!"
"Listen," another figure snarled. "These assholes are supposed to have some killer gear. And they're mostly chicks man. What the hell are they gonna do?"
The tunnel ended ahead, opening into a massive chamber. The voices echoed from somewhere to the right. The chamber seemed to be some manner of parking garage. There were several trucks and a number of armoured BTR's.
Siesta silently motioned for them to move forward. Louise felt her guts clench at the thought. What was her plan? Were they about to lay an ambush?
There was a ramp near the far end of the garage, which led up to the surface if the bright shafts of daylight that spilled downward were any indication. They easily spotted the five figures standing near there, silhouetted against the light.
"Let's just wait for them here," one of the figures suggested. "We can ambush those cunts. Maybe we can even take some prisoners for ourselves."
Another figure laughed. "I know what I'd like to…" He turned, and his comment fell short. "Shit! There they are!"
Siesta broke for the nearest BTR. The armoured machine was the most solid cover around. Kirche and Grouse were on her heels as the world erupted in gunfire. Bullets bounced off the armor as sparks flew in the darkness. Grouse returned fire with his shotgun, while Kirche was completely stricken with panic.
In her own panic, Louise had managed to get herself separated from the others. She had instead veered toward a flatbed truck that was parked parallel to the BTR, dropping to the floor and huddling herself behind a massive wheel. Bullets landed around her, blowing chunks out of the concrete and punching through metal with ease. Louise tried to make herself as small as possible.
The disorienting sound of gunfire in the underground was almost overwhelming. Grouse ripped off his obtrusive gas mask and began shooting again. Siesta did the same. She dropped to her belly, peering underneath the BTR.
Kirche could only wonder what she had done to deserve this. Seeing that Siesta and Grouse had already pulled off their suffocating masks, she copied them. The smell of spent gunpowder already hung heavy around them.
There was a brief flash of light from around the BTR. Kirche peered tentatively. Dimly noting the presence of a flashlight, she was suddenly greeted with a bright yellow flash from somebody's muzzle. Shrieking, Kirche shrunk back into cover, before blindly opening fire with her submachine gun.
Hands shaking, she fumbled for her wand. "In, ex, dest, flame…" She peered out into danger. The flashlight danced where the bandits had disappeared behind a truck. "Fireball!"
The conjured ball of fire soared through the room, exploding in a storm of writhing flames. Their screams could briefly be heard above the indistinguishable roar of gunfire.
On the floor, Siesta watched as one bandit stumbled into the open, desperately patting down the flames quickly consuming his weathered overcoat. She fired twice at his upper back, and he dropped like a sack of flour. The other man was already a heap of sizzling flesh.
Watching what had just happened, Louise knew she needed to do something. The bandits had taken up positions at the opposite end of the room. Periodically a bright yellow flash would bloom from somebody's muzzle. She peered over the bed of the truck, and she only barely registered the glowing red dot of her sight before being forced back down under a hail of bullets.
The problem became obvious. In all the panic, Louise had completely forgotten to switch off the flashlight taped to the handguard of her Kalashnikov. The light was simply a beacon telling everyone her exact position.
Louise switched the light off, and nearly opened fire when somebody appeared startling nearby. Sliding on her padded knees, Siesta was swapping magazines before she'd even stopped moving.
"Siesta!" Louise squawked. "I almost shot you!"
"I think we already took a couple down," Siesta shouted. "The others are laying down fire, so we're going to try to get around and flank those assholes."
"Alright!" Louise sputtered. "I-I'm going to cast an explosion to distract them!"
Siesta nodded. "Good thinking," she said, while Louise produced her makeshift wand.
Louise shouted the incantation for Fireball. The explosion that erupted across the massive room was much louder than the one Louise had accidentally cast aboard the Skadovsk. The bandits were thrown into complete disarray.
Following behind Siesta, Louise kept her head low as they quickly crept around the edges of the huge garage. Siesta moved to the cover of one vehicle, before motioning for Louise to move next. They leapfrogged through the room, covering one another as Kirche and Grouse traded gunfire with the bandits.
They were about to move again, when another on of Kirche's fireballs whooshed across the garage and exploded amongst the few remaining bandits. They watched as three men broke cover, one patting flames covering his jacket.
They seemed to be fleeing toward the ramp that led to the surface. Shouldering her rifle, Siesta began shooting, and Louise quickly followed suit. Two bandits immediately tumbled to the floor as their bullets pockmarked the concrete wall behind them, spewing thick clouds of concrete dust.
The remaining bandit dropped his shotgun in panic, and dove behind another BTR. All at once, the underground garage had fallen completely silent. Louise blinked, ears ringing furiously. The gunfight had lasted probably two or three minutes, at most. The rush of adrenaline was staggering. Louise tried to register in her mind what happened.
Siesta motioned for her to move, and they slowly advanced with rifles shouldered. Grouse and Kirche approached the BTR from the opposite direction, Grouse giving Siesta a quick signal to regroup with a simple movement of his hand.
"Last guy dropped his gun over there," Siesta told Grouse, pointing. "He went behind that BTR over there. What's the plan? I have a grenade we could…"
"Wait!"
The voice had come from behind the BTR, cracking with fear and desperation.
"I… I'm not armed! Please, just don't shoot me! I don't want to fight! I surrender!"
Grouse and Siesta shared a look. "You think he's bluffing?" Grouse wondered.
"I don't think so." Siesta quickly instructed Louise and Kirche to stay prepared, and only then did she realize that the Germanian looked particularly pale. She'd have to see how she was holding up later. "Hey asshole! You hear me?"
"…Y-Yeah?"
"You'd better listen good, or your shitty day is about to get a lot fucking worse. Come out nice and slow, and we might not roast you like your buddies."
They watched as the bandit cautiously plodded out from around the armoured vehicle. Louise gripped her carbine with hands shaking from adrenaline. The glowing dot in the center of her sight's reticule trembled across his torso, but she kept her finger off the trigger, fearing she'd accidentally shoot him.
Louise almost pitied him. What was he feeling, now that they killed his friends? He was completely alone, facing down some rightfully angry enemies.
"Stay here and keep a lookout," Siesta told Louise. "Make sure Kirche's alright. Grouse and I are gonna see what this guy knows."
Louise nodded as though she were a soldier taking orders from her superior, while Siesta and Grouse approached the petrified bandit. His balaclava had come away at some point, and he looked as though he might've been around Siesta's age.
"What were you doing down here?" Grouse demanded.
Siesta was keen to watch every movement the bandit made as Grouse searched him for weapons.
"We…" The bandit swallowed. He had messy brown hair and a pair of matching eyes. "We were just scavenging, and –"
"Don't give us that crap," Siesta interrupted. "What's your name?"
The bandit flinched. "Uh… it's Andrey."
Siesta leaned closer, eyeing him like he was an insect. "We heard you assholes talking about us. You were gonna ambush us and take some prisoners. It's not my first day in the Zone. I can guess what you were planning."
"I… well… I-I um…"
Grouse finished his search, coming up empty, and grabbed Andrey's overcoat. "Spit it out. You wanna get out of here alive you tell us everything."
"Alright, alright!" Andrey cried. "We were paid by a stalker from the Skadovsk, an old buddy of ours. He… he said you'd be coming through here today. He told us to ambush you, said you'd probably have some decent weapons we could take. We… w-we went deep down in the tunnels… but we stirred up the snorks, and Nikolay stepped in those anomalies…"
Siesta ran her fingers through her hair, fuming. "Fuck!"
"Who was it?" Grouse asked him lowly. "Which one of those fucking assholes sold us out?"
"His name was Snag!" Andrey said hoarsely. "He paid us with a soul artifact… that's everything, I swear!"
Stomping away, Siesta turned and slammed her fist against the door of a nearby truck. "I bet fucking Owl told Snag where we were going," she shouted, and started hitting the door with each word. "Fucking. Bald. Bastard!"
"Siesta!" Grouse shouted. "You're just going to break your hand! Settle down!"
Louise and Kirche were on her in moments. "Siesta! What did he say to you?"
Slumping against the truck, Siesta cradled her throbbing hand. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. She was so angry she could have screamed and cried right there, but she took a breath and held herself together.
"It was all Snag," Siesta hissed, seething. "That piece of shit paid those bandits to ambush us."
Louise balked. "What?"
"Oh Founder," Kirche sighed. "Siesta, I knew we shouldn't have messed with him…"
Siesta nearly rounded on the Germanian to scream something, but she probably had enough on her mind already. Siesta held her tongue and stomped back toward where Grouse had just finished interrogating the bandit.
"So apparently Snag gave them the artifact and left Zaton," Grouse explained. "I guess that's why I didn't see him aboard the Skadovsk this morning."
"I almost got us killed," Siesta said, her anger beginning to fade. "You alright?"
Grouse looked like he had something to say, but settling on looking himself over. "I think so."
"I'll deal with him," she said. "Stay here with the others?"
Grouse eyed her. "You will, huh? You gonna put a bullet in him or something?"
Siesta's face tightened, and she wondered what stories he'd heard. "No."
That was enough for the bandit to relax, his shoulders sagging. Siesta prodded him toward the ramp to the surface, knowing that her impulsiveness had nearly gotten her and her friends killed once again, or worse.
"You're Siesta, right?" Andrey asked, trudging ahead of her with hands raised.
"Shut up."
Andrey was silent for a moment. "…I've heard some stories about you before."
"Yeah, I bet you have," Siesta snapped. The lush woodlands of the Zone awaited them on the surface. "Now get lost before I change my mind. Just go."
Andrey turned, glancing at the muzzle of her rifle. Nodding, he began jogging down the overgrown road leading away from the garage's wide entrance. Siesta watched him for a few moments, before heading underground again.
Kirche had taken a seat on the step below another truck's door. Louise hovered above her. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I just feel a little sick," Kirche moaned. "I'm hungover and I just burned somebody to death… I think… I think I just need a few minutes. I'll be alright."
Louise turned, eyeing Siesta as she returned, flexing the hand she'd pointless punched the truck with. Grouse was near, searching through corpses for anything useful.
"You didn't shoot him?" Louise asked.
"Why would I?" Siesta countered, heaving a sigh. "He'd already surrendered. I wouldn't feel right just gunning him down. Probably keep me up at night." She eyed Kirche, who looked as though she was about to vomit. "Let's take a break, but we should move soon. I don't want any company."
…
A/N: So, here we are, have an unexpected hiatus. Whoops. I blame a combination of writer's block, video games consuming my life, and a whole host of personal issues I shall not get into here.
Mechanical
Initiate Action: Buzz
- Location
- Somewhere Strange
Nice to see this back.
Icipall
Don't worry, we can fanfix that!
- Location
- Cold snow fields of Finland
Shower. That is the one thing I would miss most of modern luxuries in the Zone.
Explosions in enclosed spaces is a bad idea!
You have to dry them carefully, otherwise rust is going to settle in.
I had recently finished Call of Pripyat when I started reading this fic, and just caught up. It makes me want to play the game again.
I love how much attention to detail there is; not just the major landmarks, but even the little stuff. When you say the characters are passing by that car on the way up to the Ranger station, I know exactly where they are. Faithfulness to the world really stands out. I'm looking forward to more of this.
This got me thinking about the economics of the Zone. There's a lot of commentary on how expensive it is to bribe your way out, but how expensive can it really be? There doesn't seem to be any shortage of bullets or food, and people import vodka rather than brew their own on site. Thus, it follows that the cost of bribing your way out and back in cannot exceed the profits to be made on smuggling, otherwise nobody would be doing that. If the bribes are that costly, I would expect the Zone to involve a lot fewer cans of Tourist's Delight and bottles of Cossacks, and a lot more roasted boar and moonshine. The Zone has zero economic infrastructure; they're importing everything. Or maybe the military just really likes Sidorovich and they help him run a big enough logistics operation to support the entire Zone.
So, what kind of business could you run in the Zone? Prostitution is an obvious answer given the scarcity of women, but we'll just dismiss that one even though our protagonists include the pinnacle of Germanian skank technology. One possibility was, instead of selling the Kolobok, they'd take over as the Skadovsk's doctor. If you could get somebody back on their feet two weeks sooner with a Kolobok, charging them less than what they'd be able to make by working for those two weeks would still be a good deal for them. Two weeks of anomaly diving can net you quite a few artifacts, so taking over as the doctor would have been a profitable business.
Some artifacts are situationally useful, like fire/electricity/chem resistance, but you'd need to take them out into the Zone to make use of them, so it would be possible to go into artifact rental. To make this profitable you'd need sufficient collateral so you're not taking a hit if somebody runs off or dies, but this could still work. I'm a little surprised that Beard isn't doing this already; he's perfectly positioned for it, and he's already got a direct financial interest in increasing the number of artifacts that stalkers are able to bring in.
Magic isn't a secret they can keep forever. Aside from the random stalkers they've worked with, Alex knows about it (which means the Ukranian military is going to know about it), Sidorovich knows about it, and now the random bandit they turned loose knows that the girls Owl told them about point a stick, chant, and make fireballs or explosions. Every time a new mage gets dropped into the Zone, you add one more person who uses magic and none of them have any idea that it's not a thing that everybody already knows about. When they eventually meet up with the other group, they should probably assume that there are other mages around, the secret is (or soon will be) blown, and start working around that.
I love how much attention to detail there is; not just the major landmarks, but even the little stuff. When you say the characters are passing by that car on the way up to the Ranger station, I know exactly where they are. Faithfulness to the world really stands out. I'm looking forward to more of this.
If they can get Kirche and Monty in the same place, they could manage this. Hell, they might be able to make better money offering hot showers than they could make diving anomalies. Even just providing clean water so stalkers can clean out their suits every month or so would be a pretty significant quality of life improvement.
This got me thinking about the economics of the Zone. There's a lot of commentary on how expensive it is to bribe your way out, but how expensive can it really be? There doesn't seem to be any shortage of bullets or food, and people import vodka rather than brew their own on site. Thus, it follows that the cost of bribing your way out and back in cannot exceed the profits to be made on smuggling, otherwise nobody would be doing that. If the bribes are that costly, I would expect the Zone to involve a lot fewer cans of Tourist's Delight and bottles of Cossacks, and a lot more roasted boar and moonshine. The Zone has zero economic infrastructure; they're importing everything. Or maybe the military just really likes Sidorovich and they help him run a big enough logistics operation to support the entire Zone.
So, what kind of business could you run in the Zone? Prostitution is an obvious answer given the scarcity of women, but we'll just dismiss that one even though our protagonists include the pinnacle of Germanian skank technology. One possibility was, instead of selling the Kolobok, they'd take over as the Skadovsk's doctor. If you could get somebody back on their feet two weeks sooner with a Kolobok, charging them less than what they'd be able to make by working for those two weeks would still be a good deal for them. Two weeks of anomaly diving can net you quite a few artifacts, so taking over as the doctor would have been a profitable business.
Some artifacts are situationally useful, like fire/electricity/chem resistance, but you'd need to take them out into the Zone to make use of them, so it would be possible to go into artifact rental. To make this profitable you'd need sufficient collateral so you're not taking a hit if somebody runs off or dies, but this could still work. I'm a little surprised that Beard isn't doing this already; he's perfectly positioned for it, and he's already got a direct financial interest in increasing the number of artifacts that stalkers are able to bring in.
Magic isn't a secret they can keep forever. Aside from the random stalkers they've worked with, Alex knows about it (which means the Ukranian military is going to know about it), Sidorovich knows about it, and now the random bandit they turned loose knows that the girls Owl told them about point a stick, chant, and make fireballs or explosions. Every time a new mage gets dropped into the Zone, you add one more person who uses magic and none of them have any idea that it's not a thing that everybody already knows about. When they eventually meet up with the other group, they should probably assume that there are other mages around, the secret is (or soon will be) blown, and start working around that.
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