After recovering a bit from the fight with the mutants, I unfasten my jumpsuit and expose my torso, observing huge purple bruises across my ribs and chest. Not pleasant, but at least there were no fractures. Then I notice several metal sheets of various shapes, covered in rust and dirt. This is, of course, far from proper medical care, but it's something.
"Damn, this hurts so much!" I hiss, applying a cold, cleaned metal sheet to my chest. "I wonder how this looks from the outside..."
After sitting like this for a few minutes, until the iron warmed up from my body heat, I throw the metal pieces away and, having disinfected the bruises again, put on my outer clothing. I'm more or less back to myself, which means it's time to do what I was sent here for.
First, I examine the mattresses and a couple of crates under the stretched tent, but find nothing. Not in the crates, not under them, not in the mattresses. Damn... And where am I supposed to look for this PDA? I carefully examine the rest of the camp and come to the conclusion that there's absolutely nothing to find here, except for a couple of cans of stew and a few half-empty packs of bullets. I wish I could examine the bodies of the dead, maybe Svezhak didn't have time to put it out. But the mutants had already claimed them, not even bones were left.
And then a sudden thought strikes me. The snorks attacked me from above, which means that somewhere up there there might be remnants of the digger group. And it's strange, after all, as far as I remember from the games, snorks preferred an underground lifestyle, occasionally coming out. And for such mutants to make their lair on top of a garbage heap? Oh well, in any case, I don't have many choices. If I want to gain the support of Napr and his people, I need to finish this "story arc" of buying weapons from smugglers.
I take a dosimeter out of my backpack pocket; if the radiation is too strong, I'll have to use an antirad. Gathering my strength and taking a deep breath, I begin to climb the garbage heap from which the mutants appeared.
I don't even know who would have come up with the idea of piling up a bunch of garbage and covering it all with earth. Or maybe these several high hills stood here during the catastrophe. But one way or another, the higher I climbed, the louder the dosimeter started to crackle. Just in case, I roll up my sleeve and inject a dose of the drug, then look around carefully. A pile of rusty metal, broken glass, and concrete debris. My gaze catches on flattened grass a little to the side of me, to my left. Apparently, the snorks' lair is there.
I put the dosimeter back in my side pocket, without turning it off, and grip my rifle tighter, heading along the mutant tracks. After going behind a cracked concrete slab, I find another snork, tearing a blind mole it caught with its teeth. It was turned away from me, and didn't notice the presence of a stranger during its meal. I decide to examine it more closely, giving this creature the chance to enjoy its food one last time. Torn and stuck-to-the-body clothes, exposed muscles, bones, and remnants of skin were covered in some dark brown pus and scabs, and on its head, the remnants of a long-torn gas mask were visible. An extremely disgusting sight.
As soon as I aim, the mutant finally notices something is wrong, but it's too late, and after a loud shot, it falls to the ground, not having finished half of the brown dog carcass. I approach, looking around carefully, and see something that shocks me slightly. Not far from the snork, in a small clearing amidst all sorts of rusty junk, is a dug-out den, a meter and a half by a meter and a half.
"Well done, bastards," I say quietly, approaching the mutants' lair and squatting in front of it, peering intently into its darkness.
And what I saw there did not please me at all. Crawling into such a confined space in my condition is a rather questionable undertaking in terms of reasonableness. But I'll have to go there, because a half-torn black boot, stained with fresh blood that had barely had time to dry and turn into a crust, lay a meter and a half away from me.
"If you think about it, I've already eliminated four snorks," I think aloud for a moment, assessing the situation. "It's unlikely there'll be a huge population of them here, in the Dump. Although... Who knows."
"Help... Khkh!" came from the depths of the tunnel in a barely audible and hoarse voice. Are there any survivors left?
I put my rifle over my shoulder; it will only get in the way in the burrow with its size, arm myself with a pistol and a flashlight, and, bending down, I begin to move forward carefully. I move as quietly as possible, avoiding yellowed bones and other remnants of bodies in this narrow space and carefully illuminating my way. I wouldn't want to attract
the attention of possible enemies. But my fears were in vain.
At the end of the tunnel, it widened to several meters, still remaining quite low. In the far right corner, amidst a pile of gnawed corpses of people and mutants, sat a barely alive stalker, leaning his back against the wall. Noticing me, he exhaled with relief.
"And I thought, khkh," he says, choking with a cough and spitting out phlegm with blood as soon as I approached. "That I was hallucinating..."
The stalker, unknown to me, was in a pathetic state. All crumpled, covered in dirt, not a single spot of living skin on his face, dark hair stuck together, a suspicious hollow instead of his left eye. His jacket was torn, covered in dirt and blood, his pants in the same condition, and he was missing one boot on his feet. I shift my gaze to his bare left foot, and a grim realization dawns on me. The stalker is not going to make it. I don't know how he managed to survive here, but the black spot spreading across his leg indicated advanced gangrene.
"I'm sorry," I say, unhooking the flask from my belt and taking painkillers from my backpack. "I came too late, but at least I can ease the pain."
"So that's how it is..." he says thoughtfully, opening his mouth slightly, into which I place half a pack of pills, and greedily swallows water from the flask. "Khkh. Thank you, brother. And what's wrong with me?"
"Gangrene," I answer briefly. "If there was a hospital nearby, maybe something could be done, but like this..."
"I... I thought so," the stalker says, slightly lifting the corners of his lips and closing his one remaining eye, and his hoarse and restless breathing slowly returns to normal. "My name is Diesel, let's, ha, be acquainted."
"Executioner."
"You should be called a savior," Diesel says with a sad smile. "It's a shame you came so late... Eh, be a friend, Executioner. Kill me, will you? Before those bitches come back. I heard, khkh, you killed one, but there are three more. They tore our camp apart like a dog with a rag. You need to hurry so you don't get caught by them..."
"I've already dealt with them," I reply, placing my hand on the stalker's shoulder, calming him. "I'll fulfill your request, but you have to help me."
"Hahaha," Diesel laughs hoarsely. "With whatever I can."
"You're from Svezhak's group, aren't you?" I ask him and, after receiving an affirmative nod, continue. "I arrived on behalf of Napr. He needs the money that you and your group earned."
"Well, damn it," Diesel frowns deeply and purses his lips, causing veins to bulge on his neck, then the anger leaves him, and he sighs helplessly. "So Vasyan didn't survive either. Damn!"
"Vasyan?"
"Yes," the stalker nods again, barely. "He was supposed to catch up with a client, who went east, and after talking to him, head to Napr with the money. Damn..."
"I'm sorry," I sigh. "Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"No, thank you," he replies, closing his eye. "It's time for me to go to the guys, I've lingered too long. If it weren't for them... You know, I got hit on the head almost at the very beginning and passed out. I woke up here, wounded, so much so that I couldn't even move properly, without a weapon, only my flask. How scary it was... To watch for several minutes as these bastards tore my friends apart piece by piece. And they knew, the bastards, that I was alive. I feel it in my gut... Ha. Do it quickly."
At the last words, Diesel falls silent, pursing his lips and frowning. It's clear how hard and scary it is for him to consciously part with his life, but we both understand that this is the end. I take my pistol out of the holster and aim it at the center of the tormented stalker's forehead. I smoothly pull the trigger, the recoil slightly hitting my hand, and the dead stalker falls to his side with a peaceful expression. And now it's time for me to go. I have no desire to search the dead stalkers, and, I think, it's useless. It's unlikely anything could have survived the snorks.
Getting outside, I turn to the snorks' lair and, spitting on the ground, reach for the only grenade in my backpack. A good old RG-42. I sharply pull the pin and throw it directly into the burrow, hoping it will collapse its roof. And I immediately run away in the opposite direction, fearing shrapnel and hiding behind a concrete slab. A loud explosion and a slight underground tremor follow, which finally bury Diesel and his friends in this garbage heap.
Descending the mountain, the first thing I do is take out an antirad and inject it, hoping I haven't received too large a dose. Now I had to decide what to do. I could go straight to Napr now and tell him what happened, and then we could think together. Or I could take a risk and head east, to a small forest where Vasyan was supposed to be stuck in the original game.
This task itself is not difficult; shooting a few dogs is easy, but I'm troubled by how much this deviates from the game events. A snork lair right in the Dump? Vasyan was supposed to give the PDA, but he didn't even make it, even with Shram's help? Or did he not help that stalker? Stop. And how was the mercenary supposed to help if by the time he appeared here, Svezhak's group was already wiped out? There were no communicators, audio recordings, or notes in the digger camp.
Hmm, now it's clear. Most likely, Shram just passed by and headed to the Flea Market, where, precisely, the stalkers could have seen Klyk heading to the Dark Valley, as far as I remember, the path to that territory is not far from the main base of the local vagrants.
Calming down a bit, I decide to go to Vasyan's rescue. After all, he should have survived, and forcing the poor guy to sit on a boulder for a few more hours after the days he spent there is somehow wrong. Reloading my pistol magazines and gathering my strength, I head east.
The journey was not long; in half an hour I was already at the edge of the small forest I needed. Although what kind of forest is that, just a couple of dozen trees and many small bushes, bordered by two steep hills. To my great surprise, I heard neither barking nor human voices. Strange. I draw my pistol, as it will be faster than a rifle, and cautiously move forward, trying to make as little noise as possible.
When I pass another not-too-tall green oak with cracked bark, I find myself in a small clearing and raise my eyebrows in surprise. There were no dogs here, which is not surprising, considering that instead of the Vasyan I was looking for, a gnawed skeleton with torn and blood-stained clothes lay by a large boulder.
What the hell happened here? I perfectly understand that real dogs, unlike game ones, are good jumpers, but not so much that they can jump onto a boulder that is half a meter taller than me. This means that the dogs didn't kill Vasyan.
I approach his remains, trying to understand what exactly happened, when I notice decent-sized cracks on the skeleton's temple. I reach into the remnants of his clothes, and I was about to rejoice, because in the breast pocket, miraculously intact, was the PDA. Only, this device belonged to Vasyan himself, as the last notes about the difficult digger life in the Dump stated, but I don't have time for his life now. I continue searching.
It seems that the digger fell and hit his head on the boulder. But did he slip or did someone push him? I really hope he just stumbled. It's quite cynical of me to say so, but it would be much easier for me if he died by accident, not by malice.
I approach the boulder and decide to go around it, and if I don't find anything, I'll climb on it and look around from there. And indeed, on the side, on its gray and rough surface, a bloodstain was visible. Apparently, he took a step to the side, slipped, and broke his head. Or someone pushed him. But, judging by the tracks, I can breathe a sigh of relief. There was nothing here except the tracks of one person running towards the boulder and a few paw prints of dogs in the mud. This means that the PDA I need is somewhere here. Now all that's left is to find it and hope it's not broken.
I carefully look around the area and notice a small glint from the sunlight right under the boulder. How lucky, I didn't even have to search much. It probably fell out of his pocket when the poor guy fell and accidentally got there. Or it fell out when the mutants dragged him. I bend down and pick up a standard PDA, only with a cracked screen and a little blood-stained. I immediately try to turn it on to check its functionality, but it turns out to be password-protected. I turn it in my hands and notice that on the back cover, the phrase "For Napr" is carelessly scratched.
Time to go back.