The Bounty Of the Zone (IC)

[Ryan Naismith]

Foma Nevzorov was bored. He was pretty often. even when he was artifact hunting, it was pretty simple. Easy, even. Right now, he was heading to the jupiter plant to check out a stash that he got from a loner in exchange for his grenade. It was somewhere in the jupiter plant; "towards the back where all the containers are." It was " in a locked white box" , that said loner gave him a key too. He headed from yanov to the jupiter plant, stopping every thirty or so meters to scan the horizon with his scope. This tactic added about an hour to his journey, but he saw a group of bandits off in the distance that he avoided with a small detour. As he was exiting the treeline outside of the jupiter plant,He scanned with his scope. Nothing. But something was telling him that there was. He wasn't sure. But in the zone, not being sure will oftentimes kill you. So he waited. And he saw it again. A greyish shape, appearing for a split second, and then disappearing again, not anthro, for sure. It moves to fast. He'll wait, he decided. He'll se exactly what mutant this is, and engage it on his terms.

[Khaki-Shepherd]

  Kazbek scoured the derelict office for any supplies; the room was typical of those in the Jupiter Administration buildings, with piles of paper strewn across the floor and long swaths of bright green mould colouring the walls. The stalker, known only as “Byareza’ or ‘Birch’ cursed angrily as the search revealed nothing more than a few empty cans and bullet casings. The room had been cleared out of any valuables long ago and there seemed to be no point in staying much longer. Birch wasn’t desperate for supplies so he decided to focus instead on his original goal. He still had to search for the stash that he’d purchased from a Loner back at Yanov station, a tip about a large cache of weapons and supplies hidden away in the cargo area.

He’d seen a bloodsucker lurking outside the entrance earlier, meaning that he’d have to stay in the buildings for as long as possible, the narrow hallways would make it harder for them to outflank him and keep him out of sight. Birch passed through the door slowly, but he had barely crossed the threshold when two gunshots rang out from outside. Kazbek took cover immediately and after pausing for a moment, slowly made his way back to the window and nervously looked outside. Several floors bellow, the grey bloodsucker that had been lurking outside now lay sprawled out near the wire fence, a closer look through his binoculars revealed that a bullet had struck the mutant in the chest and another had gone straight through it’s head. Birch tried to keep hidden at the edge of the window and continued to scour the area, his mind sorting through possible factions that might be operating around the Jupiter plant. Experience had taught him to consider all other stalkers as hostile until proven otherwise and he wasn’t taking any chances.

The grey husky adjusted the focus on his binoculars, noticing a shape moving at the tree line. The figure stepped into the open, carefully checking each direction with his rifle as he walked; he was a professional by any standard. His armoured suit identified him as a Loner and he appeared to be moving towards the Jupiter plant. Birch quickly left the room and descended the flight of stairs to the ground level. He waited until the stalker had already entered the compound before he began to follow him from the cover of the buildings.

Birch flicked the safety catch off his rifle began to move from room to room, carefully watching the stalker from the windows.

“Now…. Where are you going stalker?” he asked as the figure made a detour towards the cargo crates.

[Ryan Naismith]

Fortunately, Foma didn't have to wait long for the mutant to show itself, Because a few moments after he readied his rifle, he saw the bloodsucker. It seems that he had mistaken it cloaking for speed. Doesn't matter. The damn mutie is dead anyways. With that, He fired a short burst of two rounds at it. The first round hit it straight in the chest, and with the second, the recoil of his rifle combined with the medium range drove the second round right into it's head. For a minute, he considered going and butchering the animal, but he quickly shot down that thought. The stash will likely have more valuable loot, and he would like to make sure he gets all of said loot. 




Crossing an open field, especially a grey concrete one which his green sunrise suit contrasts with is oobviously nerve-wracking, but he kept his cool, checked  all directions, and continued wwalking at a brisk pace. When he exited the cooncrete field and entered the building complex (of which he had no idea what any of it was for), He Tried to stick close to the walls. Less angles too be shot from typaclly means less chances of  being shot, and Foma was generally a fan of not being shot.He cheeckeed his corneers, and regularaly looked up into the uppper floors of the buildings, and saw nothing. But he still couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. He almost dismissed it as paranoia, but he trusted his gut. It had saved him plenty of times.


The cargo area was as expected filled with various cargo containers. Most of them had been cleared of anything of value a long  time  ago.  The loner had told him that the Box was in the cargo area, but he hadn't told him where in the cargo area it was. He Gives a sigh, quickly clears the area, and seeing nothing, holsters his  rifle, draws his pistol (It would be better to use inside confined spaces than his Belgian battle rifle) , and starts looking. After about an hour of looking, he finally finds the stash, inside a red cargo container.




He expected there to be nothing of immense value in the stash, after all, he had only tradeded an RDG-5 grenade for it, and  those things are rather commonplace. The first thhing he thought of when he found out that the stash had a rather large amount of weapons in it was "Why the hell did he only ask for a grenade?" He figured that the stalker had maybe recceived the tip ffrom another  stalker, and, unable to find it, had given it to him. That was the most plausible answer, at least  to Foma. And upon further inspection, aall of the weapons seemmed to be in pretty good condition, too! The first thhing he did was to take all of the weapons out, and look foor the smaller ones, like pistols or  submachineguns. He fouund  a GSH-18, an AKS-74u, and an APS stechkin. There was a rather large amount of larger rifles, most of them being AK's. He didn't take those simply because he didn't have space in  his backpack. With a smile on his face, he left the container. This was a damn good haul. He would probbably sell the location of the rifles to duty when he got back to yanov.

[Khaki-Shepherd]

  Birch pulled the trigger the moment the stalker walked out of the container. The powerful SVD round struck the steel wall of the container with a loud crash, impacting less than a few inches from the stalker’s face. The stalker barely had enough time to look around in shock or draw his gun before Birch carefully advanced out from the building a few metres away. He never gave a second warning shot; his rifle was now trained on the stalker’s head, almost one inch above his muzzle, right between the eyes. “Drop it… Stay where you are” Birch shouted in Belorussian out of instinct but corrected himself and then repeated it again in Ukrainian. The stalker lowered his rifle and carefully laid the weapon down in the ground, it looked like a custom weapon. Well maintained and obviously expensive, judging by the care that the stalker took in slowly lowering and placing the weapon beside him. The rest of his equipment made him look like a foreign mercenary. “He’s Important… Maybe I’ll let him live” Birch considered as he approached the figure. “Identify yourself” Birch demanded. “Foma Nevzorov” The Loner replied after removing his mask, “Listen, I’m good friends with your tech, Nitro” Birch ignored the Stalker’s remark “what are you doing raiding my stash, huh?” “I didn’t see your name on it…” The fox replied coolly, never breaking his gaze. “It’s mine, I paid for it” Birch growled, losing his patience “So did I” The fox answered, his eyes focused on something in the distance. “**censor** Snag, I should have known he’d sell the same stash to two guys” Birch thought as he planned beating the treacherous weasel to a bloody pulp for duping him. “How about we split it?” the stalker said, starting to look a bit nervous. “I’m not negotiating, the loot's mine” Birch growled as he noticed that the stalker was looking over the husky’s shoulder. “You might want to take care of that first” the Stalker suggested, pointing behind me.“Wha-” Kazbek never had time to finish his sentence before he heard loud bark behind him. Birch twisted around to see a Pseudo-dog racing towards him, with large pack of blind dogs following behind. He tried to take aim, but the Husky was already out of time as lead dog’s jaws clamped down on his arm as it lunged at him. the impact knocking him to the ground with serious force.
He grabbed the Mutant's neck with both hands, keeping its teeth at bay. But his gloves were slowly slipping and the dog's teeth edged closer to his neck.

[Ryan Naismith]

Foma considered letting the pack of dogs that he saw creeping up behind the dutyer eat him... But he decided that he was feeling generous today.
"you might want to deal with that first" He says, nodding at the dogs behind him.
That gave him just barely enough time to react. A dog managed to get a hold of his arm, knocking him to the ground.
Foma quickly drew his pistol, fired two rounds, walking slowly towards the dutyer, taking out two more dogs on the way, using about four rounds. He fired his last two at the leader of the dogs (who had stayed slightly behind) and that was that.
"So... you owe me now. Let me keep the stuff I have in my pack.I can forgive you for shooting at me; I would do the same thing." He said, reloading his pistol.
"I mean, I did save your life." He finishes, walking over to get his Rifle.
He checks it for dirt, finds some and rubs it off with his finger.
He looks up at the dutyer, waiting for a reply.

[Khaki-Shepherd]

  Birch’s first thought was of rabies contamination as he pushed the dog's dead body from his chest. Most stalkers, especially Dutyers, sought rabies vaccinations before coming to the Zone, but Birch had never received any vaccinations in his life. The only treatment he would receive from Duty would be a bullet, or maybe just directions to the nearest anomaly. “Sh-Shit..." Birch whimpered as he pulled up the sleeve of his suit, expecting to see lacerations, but to his relief he found nothing, the dog’s teeth hadn’t even penetrated the suit’s outer layer. Relieved, the Duty sniper stood up and left his rifle on the ground. The stalker wasn’t pointing his pistol at him but had it ready at his side in an obvious gesture. Birch was confused by the stalker’s kindness, most people would have already killed him and looted his body. It took him a few seconds to respond, “…Thanks for your help… Here, take this pack, it’s from the Ecologist’s bunker” Birch said as he passed the French-made First aid bag to the stalker. Aside from his rifle, the Kit was one of his most expensive belongings. The stalker took it with his free hand and nodded in acknowledgement.  Birch walked past him and looked inside the container. An assortment of AKs were propped up against the wall, all of which were in excellent condition. The container was a veritable goldmine. But what caught his eye was the 200rd belt of PKM rounds hidden in the corner. He took it out of the green magazine box, clipped the ends together and slung the belt across his shoulders. The 7.62x54 machine gun rounds had decreased accuracy than the specialised sniper rounds but they’d make excellent reserve ammunition. Birch left the rifles alone, he had no need for them and decided that since the stalker could have left him to be torn apart by the dogs he was better off not pushing his luck and asking too much. Birch left the container, closed the doors behind him, and walked over to the Loner. He wondered if the stalker would be going back to Yanov soon, it would be getting dark in a couple of hours and the ecologists had sent out alerts about an emission threat tonight. “Hey stalker, I err… guess we started off on bad terms” Birch said, “Duty has many enemies in the Zone and we can’t trust many loners. Anyway, My name’s Birch. Yours?”

[Ryan Naismith]

The dutyer went inside the container, while he was inside, Foma decided that he might as well celebrate. He had just possibly earned a new stalking partner. He would've had a group before, but he just can't trust anyone.  Saving someone's life tends to make them a bit more trustworthy. He shrugged off his pack, Shoved the first aid kit in it, rifled through it, found his crumpled pack of cigarettes, and then he realized he didn't have a lighter. He cursed silently,shoved the pack in one of his empty vest pockets, and pulled back on his pack. He would have to ask the dutyer for a lighter.  If he didn't, he would probbably end up using his rifle's muzzle flash to light it. Might not work, but hey, it's a fire.The dutyer introduced himself as 'birch'   "Foma Nevzorov," he introduced himself "don't have a nickname because I haven't earned one yet. Anyways, got a lighter? let you bum a cig if you'll light."
birch shook his head in a "no" fashion



"ah... christ. Hold on a sec."
Foma took his rifle, Placed it on the floor, and then pressed his cigarette against the muzzle break. With his other hand, he reached over to the trigger of his rifle, and pulled it. He had just wasted a round of 7.62, but it was just one round. he could buy more, just like he should buy a lighter.Much to his delight, the cigarette glowed orange; it was lit.
He looked back up at the dutyer, gave sheepish smile, and then placed the cigarette in between his teeth. He took a long drag, then took it between two fingers. "Let's group up going to yanov, yeah? It's safer that way."