Water and Mud

[blackpapermoon]

Ferret ran as fast as his legs would carry him, as muddy water splashed around him. His heart was racing, his muscles ached, and his sides pained him. As greasy matted black hair clumped to an oily dirt covered face. Dressed in a worn black anorak and track suit pants, and armed with only Makarov pistol and AK-74/U both in less then good condition, where all one needed to see to know what he was. A rookie Bandit, zone scum, a dead man walking. He had only been in this hellhole, this zone for a week and it made him wish even more that he was dead and yet a small part of him forced him to survive.

Running from the semi transparent creature that he did not want to believe was there. He did not want to believe that only minutes ago his partner who was only standing less then a meter away had been pinned down by the mutant and then carried away as he stood there paralyzed in fear. Unfortunately for the Bandit the creature was not going to settle for just one meal when it could have two. At first he tried to fight back, the rookie emptied the full clip of his Ak-74/U into the area he thought the monster was only to find he was wrong. His hands trembled as he removed the old clip, because of his fear and little experience with the weapon. His hands fumbled with the new clip and it fell into the murky water. Franticly he dropped to his knees to try to find the clip. It was sadly to no avail as the mutant attacked him head on.

The Bandit by some good grace of a higher power managed to roll away from the large claw as it slashed down at him. However his luck had run out on the second swipe; the sharp claw tore into his back, shredding his 'armor' and left four huge gashes in his skin. Forgetting about the clip and ignoring the pain radiating from his back he tried to flee, the invisible monstrosity in hot pursue of its pray.

As he neared the bank of the swampy area he did not see the large tree root in the water; tripping over it he fell, the creature now on top of him. Holding up his arms in a defensive manner he waited for the killing blow, but it never came. Instead there was a sound of a bullet hitting its target as the beast's head exploded. The rookie dragged himself out of the mud and water and then rested his forehead on the boot of his savior, thankfully to who ever it was.

(I hope I'm not braking any rules by posting this)
[teal][Nope, you're good.][/teal]
There's one rule you forgot actually.
i42.tinypic.com/kolmq.jpg
I'll just leave this here.
[teal][/teal]

[Διμι]

Slinging his silenced rifle across his back once more, Meph reached out and pulled up the stalker the bloodsucker had very nearly chased down. Another bandit, he thought, perhaps risking his hide to save this chap wasn't in vain after all. He noted the man had suffered a considerable injury. Four deep gashes had been torn through his light jacket and into his back, no doubt the work of the beast's clawed extremities.

Leaving the bandit momentarily to recover, he turned back to the dead bloodsucker. The round had gone cleanly through the beast's temple, which was nothing surprising. It would be a shame for the killer to miss at such a distance, considering the beast was too engulfed in pursuing its prey to notice Meph catch up with it. The small Asiatic stalker grabbed the dead husk by its tentacles in one hand, drawing one of his honed foot long blades in the other. A quick slash, and the body fell to the ground, its entire lower jaw remaining in the bandit's hand. Small streams of smoke rose from where the acid from the beast's deadly tentacles came into contact with Meph's gloves. The stalker hurriedly put his trophy away before the creature could do any more damage, even while dead.

He returned his attention to the bandit he had saved, who seemed to have recovered sufficiently from the initial shock. The assassin examined the man, who was considerably taller than he was, which, in itself, was hardly an accomplishment. By his equipment, Meph judged the man to be a rookie, newly incepted into the ranks of the crooked organization. The Asian was about to open his mouth and make a somewhat awkward introduction to the bandit before him, but was interrupted by a commotion in a nearby drainage pipe emptying into the swamp. Instantly, both of his automatic Berettas were up, aimed for the opening.

Several forms, all clad in various shades of black and gray, scrambled out. Some wore the ordinary black jackets not unlike the man he had just rescued, others went for longer trench coats, while a couple of others still opted for full combat suits and vests, still painted black. Meph lowered his sidearms, recognizing the squad he had arrived with.

"Meph," the trench coated leader addressed the stalker "we ran into a military patrol belowground, believe it or not. Apparently these catacombs are connecting the military base and the second half of the institute. Now, I doubt they'll go aboveground after us, but they'll probably send a patrol from their outpost." Both the trench coated man and Meph looked into the distance, where the tops of several guard towers could plainly be seen over a ridge.

"Now, do what you want, but I'm pulling my men out of here." the bandit continued, "and who's that?" he queried, pointing to the recovered loner.

"Just some newbie of ours that decided to mess with the local wildlife, Dober" Meph replied, indicating the loner's ravaged back and the bloodsucker lying on the ground. "I figure we'd better get him back to base, given that the wound looks a bit too severe to treat on the run."

"Fair enough, since he's one of ours. Now let's get out of here, I think I can already see movement up near the base", the bandit named Dober said. Without a further word, the group began to move. Another trip, and still no information concerning his target, Meph thought. This 'Orumov' woman, whoever she was, was steadily proving to be a stealthy bitch to find.

"What's your name, anyway?" he addressed the wounded bandit walking beside him. "And what the hell dragged you out here, to the most infamous bloodsucker breeding Zone south of the Bar? You're lucky we were around and not the military, or that bloodsucker would have made a steak out of you and scarf it down without the sauce."

He stopped, as the leader of the squad held out his hand. Two figures could be seen approaching ahead. Curiously enough, neither looked particularly like a loner or military man, so the bandit squad's guns stayed down. "Mercenaries, by the looks of it," the assassin muttered, recognizing the blue and gray colored suit one of the stalkers wore. Both of the men were regular giants in comparison, and Meph gauged them to be roughly two meters tall.

He nodded as the bandit leader motioned for him to follow. The Asian smiled slightly, stepping forward to greet the newcomers, and placing a hand dangerously near the blade handle on his belt. If there was a chance things were to go wrong, Dober needed to ensure that they would go wrong at the turn of a second, last about as much, and end up very, very messy.

[Afterburner]

Burner kicked through the gate, still trying to keep his balance (a particularly hard task, considering the backpack was loaded with extremely heavy, tampered explosives) when he heard a shot in the distance.

He nodded to Karc who was loaded with a similar backpack and they crept behind an old van.

Immediately, the Geiger counter started ticking.

"What the? This piece of shit is irradiated! FUCK! I can't do jack shit now! We ought to find something to keep us alive till we blow that thing up...Okay, so, we ought to pull something out...This place is littered with cheap artifacts, most of which are irradiated. Don't pick anything up unless you know it's rad free...or better yet, rad-away."

Two figures appeared in the distance, looming over a body on the ground which turned out to be a bloodsucker,gazing at the sky with its petrifying, white pupils visible from quite a distance. The monster looked intimidating even while it was dead. Burner remembered how one of the beasts grabbed Vasily and gulped.

"Sh, sh, sh, тихо, тихо, тихо! Two contacts up front. Loners or bandits...I'm not too keen on jumping in front of either. A bloodsucker's down...Pfuf. Not rookies, or that thing'd have peeled them and sucked 'em dry. Let's try to get a better view."

They managed to sneak to the old bus without being noticed. More bandits emerged and Burner thought one nearly saw him, but the man carelessly turned around. Burner whispered as quietly as possible

"Should we wait for them to leave, smoke them or kindly introduce ourselves? With what we've got, I'd say the second one is out of the question."

[blackpapermoon]

The rookie staid back with the other bandits, as the leader and the Asian stalker went to meet with the Mercenaries. He knew little about them or their faction, he just knew that the other fractions would pay Mercs to the dirty work, that they could not be seen doing and that there was an uneasy alliance between Mercenaries and Bandits. But that was about it.

‘Uneasy, yeah that’s the key word,’ thought Ferret as his palm sweat around the grip of his Makarov. He could feel the tension in the air. ‘What the hell am I doing, I’m no fucking gun runner, hell I can’t even shoot straight’
Suddenly one of the Bandits spoke up.

“Easy rookie, let the boss handle this,” said the Bandit to his right as the newbie let go of his gun’s grip.

“Good boy,” he continued, “this will be over soon, then we can go get you fixed up.”

The rookie tried to relax as he watched Dober and Meph talk with the men in the dark blue vests.

[Karcentric]

Karc looked about he'd heard nothing good about this research area. Following Burner, Karc moved away from the van. Artifacts bobbed about lighting a small area around them. They hid in the bus watching the bandits, "I reckon we go say hello. Find out what these fellas are doin' here. Besides I'm kinda curious to hear what these guys have got say, and they might know something about the base that will help us, but we gotta play it careful." Karc said rearranging the backpack again.

"Either way, it's up to you I say, there is bound to more of them lurking about. We should be all friendly with em if we talk to them." He said, looking at the men, neither were very tall but one of them was armed very well indeed, "That chap one the left is probably the leader judging by his gear. Fuck, check out his blades he's got, don't let these lads get close." Karc said loading his P-90 holding it in one hand, he waited for Burner to decide what they would do.

[Afterburner]

"Easy there. Bandits. You can smell 'em. Black leather...Typical гопник bastards. Wait 'till we lose them. They just helped our mission indirectly with that underground thing. . Personally, I wouldn't trust them. They'll probably mess up the thing. Sit down here, and hope we don't die from rad-poisoning in this Soviet piece of shit."

They sat there for some time, Burner occasionally rising to see if the bandits were gone.

"Okay, they're moving. Now's our chance to get out of here!"

Burner got up, still trying to keep the backpack from blowing them both to smithereens.

"Okay, out of here, quietly."

As they crawled out of the bus, something caught Burner's eye.

"Hold on. Something's under the bus seat."

He put his hand under the bus seat, only to jump back when he accidentally grabbed a small, crystallized Thorn.

"A Crystal Thorn...Heard about these. Stick one in yer hide and bleed the rads out. Only thing is, I don't have many bandages left. I don't see how this will work out. Here, you've got a free satchel on your suit, put it in there. It should be thick enough not to let the artifact tear it. It'd probably go through my backpack."

The bandits nearly disappeared in the distance when the two mercenaries quietly exited the bus, still trying to keep out of sight.

"Next task-finding an entrance to this underground."

[Διμι]

Meph could see the two mercenaries suddenly duck out of sight off of the road and disappear as they approached. Beside him, Dober grinned, revealing a set of crooked, yellow teeth. "Hide and seek..." the bandits seethed, drawing his Kalashnikov rifle.

"Waste of time," Meph interjected, lowering the barrel of the gun with his hand "spending half an hour searching for two stalkers to loot while there's nine of us in total? Not worth the time expenditure at all..." The bandit turned back to the rest of the squad, waving them over. The men drew near, looking somewhat disappointed. "Exit back to the Garbage isn't far from here." the Asian noted, eying the rusting metal gate in the distance "we've seen all we needed to. It's time to get out of this place." The group walked on, through the gate and past the abandoned concrete barricade as the sun set behind the horizon. It was quickly getting dark.

"We'll make camp in the old train depot hangar," informed Dober "there was some kind of fight back there not too long, some stalker left everyone dead, and cleared the place out as well. No one's been particularly daring to settle back into the place, but since there's a load of us, what do we have to fear?" he took a careful look at the looming structure ahead of him. The building looked completely abandoned. "We'll patch this guy up as well, to a degree, anyway." he commented, inspecting the newcomer's wound. "Some Meat Chunk would do best, but since we haven't found any artifacts of that caliber lately, you'll have to settle for bandages." The lead bandit waved over the group's medic equivalent, who quickly began to treat the lacerations.

The squad slowly dispersed itself throughout the building's interior, taking positions on catwalks, inside the train cars, as well as re-kindling a fire in a charred barrel used by previous residents for that purpose. He turned back to the bandit he had come across in the swamps. The man had been fixed to a relative degree by the group's medic, but it would take longer for the wounds to fully heal without the use of artifacts.

"I never did get a chance to listen because of those mercenaries appearing," he explained to the man "what's your name, brother, and what in the world dragged you all the way to Agroprom?"

[Afterburner]

"Phew. They're gone. Hopefully, they won't see what happened in the car park. Swallow should have cleared out by now, the sneaky fuck. I just hope they dragged the bodies away, or these cunts might go back for us."

They entered the first building complex ahead, where they found a few loners, hunting what junk laid around. Knowing that these people might be trusted, they entered the base. The leader of the rookies, Snarl, greeted them

"Ah, mercenaries? Unless you're out here hunting us, I have nothing against your lot. Would you like to sit down?"

Burner responded, still wary of the fact that the stalkers might prove to be an obstacle to their mission

"Until nightfall. Listen, friend, is there a way into that military base to the west, besides the suicide lane?"

The leader turned ,shouting, and a rookie jumped

"We found this PDA detailing their patrols. Also, there is a way underground. But, that one is much more dangerous. I wouldn't go there if I were you. Bandits, mutants, military. All crammed down there. Listen, if you really want to lose your head in there, there's a way around the base. The wall's cracked a bit on the southwest corner of the base, just under the sentry. If you manage to bring him down without alerting the base, you can sneak in. Just, uh, don't go and make a mess in there. The military will go for us first, and I'm right when I say we want to be left alone. Okay? Now, sit down a little. What's wrong? Under the weather?"

Burner responded hastily

"Rad poisoning, and nothing to treat it with. We've got a Crystal thorn, but we'd bleed out in here."

The leader shrugged

"Sorry, can't help you there. We're low on supplies as it is, and we'll be running back to the Cordon pretty soon. Your best chance is to find a medical supply in the military base-they're bound to have something which should heal whatever ails you."

Lowering his head, Burner muttered something to himself. He started unwrapping the bandage around his head, and the group of stalkers who were carelessly laughing, suddenly went quiet.

"They can't treat this, can they."

[blackpapermoon]

The Bandit new blood was busy trying to repair the rips in his coat when his rescuer came over.
This was the first time the Rookie got a good look at the Asian Bandit. The man looked to be around the same age as himself but the Asian looked as if he had seen a great deal more. There was definitely more to this man then having two different colored eyes. Something much darker indeed, but the Bandit newbie knew better then to ask questions. He knew from the ripe age of 12 that when you are in the Mob asking questions got you killed. As the saying went "the more you ask the shorter your life is."

"I'm called Ferret," he said as he looked up from his work, "My partner said he needed help getting to some stash he'd found, said it belonged to some famous Stalker and if I helped I'd get a cut of it."

"That didn't work out," he said as he went back to his work, "He's dead and if you hadn't come along I'd be dead right along with him."

Ferret then pulled out his PDA and said, "Here take the coordinates, there all I got to give."

[Basil]

You lost your FATHER'S SVD.

Balalaïka pushed the nagging thought away. She had indeed lost it while running away from a pack of pseudodogs in the Eastern part of the Garbage. The rifle who had been slung over her back had caught against the branches of a tree and almost made her fall over backwards. Guilt and anger churned within her as she looked at the only gun she had left: a crappy Makarov pistol.

As she made her way to the central road that ran through the Garbage, she quickly went over her current situation. She had lost one of the things she loved the most in the world, did not have much money, had no allies, no proper weaponry and was in an area notorious for being frequented by bandits. Darkness was falling quickly, and her escape from the savage mutants earlier on had taxed her strength.

Up ahead she saw the large shape of the old train hangar. It was too dark to see if it was occupied or not, and she was too tired to care much. She trudged over to it, elaborating plans to get her SVD back as soon as possible.
Maybe she could scare the pseudo-dogs away somehow? No, they wouldn't be scared by a few shots from her pistol...

Her train of thought was interrupted as she arrived at the half open, rusted gate that lead into the train hangar's yard. She could see the light from a fire flickering somewhere inside the hangar, and since she doubted mutants could make a fire, fire meant humans were nearby.

She drew her pathetic pictol and edged forward very quietly, hoping whoever was inside wasn't hostile.

[Διμι]

Meph pushed the bandit's PDA away back to him. "It's yours, and you'll come back for it some day, stalker." he paused "Now..." he began, but was interrupted by the quick patter of feet. One of the bandits had hauled up to the campfire from his position on the catwalks.

"Meph," he said hoarsely "Dober's asleep, and there's some kind of stalker making their way over here. Short fella, can't tell whether it's a loner or one of ours." The Asian slowly got up, and like a ghost, made his way over to the hangar gate. His light footfalls were almost completely silenced by the Spring and Flash artifacts on his belt, keeping him almost floating above the ground. In seconds, he had crossed the entire hangar, and peeked through a crack in the rusted gate.

The newcomer was short, even shorter than he was, and very, very haggard-looking. As far as Meph could tell, he wore no armor, instead sporting a similar leather jacket to both bandits and loners traveling all over the southern reaches, and held a small pistol in his hands. Meph steadied himself as the intruder drew near. As soon as the man crossed into the hangar, Meph moved. With almost impossible speed, the two blades slashed through the air, interlocking about the intruder's closed wrists. With a twist of his hands, Meph broke the man's grip with his weapons, sending the pistol flying to the floor. One of the blades continued its course upwards, arriving directly beneath the intruder's chin.

"Well, what do we have here?!" the bandit exclaimed, withdrawing his weapons. The man was, in fact, a woman. His mind immediately went to the image of Nadya Orumov he had inherited from their run-in in Moscow, as well as his briefing from the Mob's bosses. No, this couldn't be her, he thought, as Orumov had blue eyes, and was somewhat taller than both the newcomer and Meph himself, evidently not a bandit either. He examined the pistol he had disarmed her of, it was a Makarov, the sort any rookie would tote. The group of bandits leaned in closer, jeering. Someone had mentioned easy loot.

"Enough!" he snapped in annoyance. Looting rookies would always be the same, but this was a bit too pathetic, even for them. He noticed Dober walk up to the circle of bandits from the shadow, his gun at the ready. Meph held up a hand to signal that all was clear.

Pulling out one of his Berettas, he aimed the gun at the female loner's head. "You picked the wrong avenue to come across, milady." he hissed "Who the hell are you? Is this a joke?" he indicated her equipment and haggard form "Answer!"

[Basil]

"Answer!", barked the bandit with the blades. For a moment Balalaïka was too frightened to say anything, but she managed to will herself into speaking lest the leering bandits around her decided to do kill her or worse.

"-I...I'm Balalaïka", she said in a terrified voice, "I'm new to the Zone. I got chased by a pack of pseudo-dogs and dropped my gun. Please don't hurt me!"

She knew she sounded abject, but what else could she do? They were thugs, thieves, murderers and she didn't have her beloved SVD with her. It was probably still out there in the dark, under the tree where she had dropped it and surrounded by those stinking, beady-eyed pseudo-dogs who had almost torn her to bits.

[Afterburner]

As the loners around the campfire stared, Burner took out his last bandage.

"I could have used these to stop the bleeding, but what's the point? Either way, the wounds are going to open again and I'm going to do shit about it."

He emptied the last few drops of the liquid Vasily gave him on the bandage and wrapped it around his head. Nodding to Karc, he got up; it was time to leave.

"I'll have to visit Vasily on the way back to see if there's more of this stuff..."

Saying goodbye to the loners, they headed towards the mercenary base. Apart from a lone dog on the hill, they didn't see anyone.

"Okay, NV on."

Just as Snarl said, they found the sentry tower on the northwestern corner of the base. The guard was standing, fiddling with the spotlight as it illuminated a single spot on the ground, obviously unhappy about his duty. They could hear his mumbling, as he kicked a plank off the tower.

"Another greedy military fuck..."

Nobody heard the shot as the .45 darted towards the soldier's head, leaving him dead on the spot.

"Okay, he's not getting up in the morning. Get up the tower and see if you can spot the trucks while I check the barracks over here. Something smells nasty , and I'm pretty sure that it's the infirmary."

As he entered the barracks, he noticed a soldier slung in a chair, fast asleep. He was about to put another round to his head when he noticed that the man had an armband with a red cross on it. The wounded were lying around, half dead. Some of them had injuries that made even Burner shiver.

"Poor souls...Some of them never deserved this. I'm not shooting a medic."

A large cabinet was in the corner and, as Burner made his way to it, one of the soldiers whose face was wrapped in a bloody red bandage started moaning. He froze, waiting to see if the soldier spotted him, but the soldier turned around and continued sleeping. With a sigh of relief, he opened the cabinet. It was filled with different medical supplies. He grabbed a few bandages and stuffed them in his bag, along with some packs of anti-rad medicine. He also took a pack of antibiotics, some lidocaine and a bottle of iodine tincture. Barely breathing, he got out and whispered

"Got them! Where are the trucks?"

[Διμι]

Meph lowered this gun and began to laugh. It was just too much. Finally, he turned away, picked up the Makarov pistol and tossed it back to the loner. "You're a real treat," he finally said "what is it with the amount of rookies these days that are so intent on finding their way into mutant lairs?" he said to himself. He turned back to the loner "You can spend the night here, we aren't going to rob anyone who doesn't have anything to give, anyway." he paused slightly "But if you decide to bring any of your loner friends here, that might make our haul worth the while... Not to mention you'll be the first one to go down."

He holstered his gun. "Everyone back to sleep, nothing to see here. You two-" he pointed to the two bandits on the catwalk "-keep an eye on her and anyone else that might decide to come around. I don't want to get knifed or robbed in my sleep."

The Asian walked down into the dug-out area of the hangar beside the campfire. He put his gear and a ratty mattress lying nearby into a niche between a concrete block and the wall before taking a rusty sheet of dented metal. Settling into the niche, he slammed the metal sheet into the entrance, bending it slightly and forcing it between the wall and block. Anyone who would want to get through to him would have to pry it off or kick it in, making more than enough noise to wake him up. Satisfied, Meph sank down on the dirty mattress and went to sleep.

[Basil]

Balalaïka ran from the train hangar, relief flooding through her. She was alive! They hadn't killed her! She almost felt like laughing.
But the exhilaration did not last long. Balalaïka looked around her as she left the yard through its rusting gates and saw that night had fallen. The stars twinkled coldly in the dark sky, and the moon hung like a heavy, glowing white orb in a cloudless sky.

She felt alone.

A soft breeze made the grass rustle, and an animal howled somewhere in the distance. Balalaïka shivered. After some hesitation, she went back the way she came. Her SVD was still lying out there on the ground, and she would get it back, mutants or no mutants. She walked past two large buildings that looked like silos and a ruined one storey building next to them and ended up near the stagnant pool of water where she had dropped her rifle. The area was quiet as the grave.

Maybe they're gone...

She cautiously crept over to the scrawny tree that grew next to the pond. It was far too dark to see anything on the ground from where she stood, so she edged closer.
To her immense relief, the pseudo-dogs were gone, and to her joy, she saw the familiar shape of her SVD Dragunov lying in the grass. She picked it up and held it close to her, clinging to it like a child clinging to a comforter.

The ruined building nearby would make a somewhat decent place to spend the night, and Balalaïka, rifle in hand, walked over to it and settled down on its first floor. Towards 2:30 am, she heard the familiar and frightening growls of the pseudo-dogs who had chased her earlier that day.

"Time for revenge...", she whispered before shouldering her SVD and taking aim at the lead animal.

Six shots cracked loudly through the quiet night air. Balalaïka smiled as she observed the six dead mutants through her scope.

"Maybe I should go wait for the bandits outside their hidey hole...", she whispered to herself as she stroked the barrel of her sniper rifle. She was perfectly capable of lying for hours in wait, but lack of ammunition discouraged her. Eventually, she went back to sleep with a contented sigh.