14 DAY TRIAL // Continuing from yesterday's little "Love Boat" adventure, I barely managed to drag my feet back to Skadovsk, turn in the quest and collect my hefty reward. With all the money in my pocket, and my recent experience with the lack of supplies at a crucial point, I almost had a moment of weakness and headed towards a vendor, but I strengthened my resolve on the way towards him and went back into the Zone not on a quest, but out on a scavenging run. And Call of Pripyat's new open world, far more organic than the old one, gave me plenty of opportunities.
The first time around, I spent a lot of my time on the highest patch of dirt I could find, with the binoculars in my hand, keeping an eye out for any Free Stalker groups out in the Zone that were attacked by mutants. To my morbid disappointment, this didn't turn out all that profitable as I had hoped, since mutants roamed in small packs and the Stalkers were pretty effective at dispatching the beasts. Even if a Stalker did die in the confrontation, by the time I got to him, his fellow Stalkers had already plundered his corpse and there was nothing left for me to collect.
A far more lucrative business opportunity revealed itself when I found a Stalker group that was heading towards the sawmill. Saying that they'd heard rumors about some valuable artifact in the area and that they were heading towards it to investigate, I decided to join their group and see if there was anything there for me as well. While we didn't find any artifacts, what we did find were lots, and lots of zombies. But these aren't your typical undead shufflers. They're stalkers that have been too affected by either too much radiation or by anomalies, that they've become brain-dead. And that means that there's no harm to any faction in putting them down, but you do get to collect everything they have on them.
Since I was the only one that bothered to loot the corpses while in the middle of a firefight, with the rest of the Stalkers more worried about their lives and fighting the zombies, I pretty much ended up with more than I could carry, and that was without collecting any of the weapons. In CoP, vendors don't purchase weapons unless they're brand new, and repairing them costs pretty much what you get for selling them back, so there's no point in doing it unless it's a very good weapon and you plan on keeping it for yourself.
As the last shot was fired, only two other Stalkers were still alive, with the rest falling prey to the zombies. There was no artifact to be found anywhere around, but I didn't really care. I had collected enough ammo, food and medicine to last me for a long time, so, while the Stalkers were worse for wear, I was revitalized by this little trip. Now, I just have to get someone to tell me how in God's name do I get up on that plateau?