Pathfinder: Diary of Dimka Torodov

  Diary of Corporal Dimka Torodov, day 18 Sevka and I followed the trail behind Alla under Pripyat. After the large domed room, a new tunnel stretched out in front of us. As if there wasn't enough of that here already... This one seemed a lot more unused, with flooded spots and dirt floors. Also plenty of Zombified corpses, Alla had made sure work of them. We also passed some sort of mutant, a humanoid one. It was not like the gasmask-faces or tentacle monsters we saw before, this one had a massive, bulbous head and parts of its body was covered in bandages. My Geiger counter went off the rails when nearing it, so we steered clear of it. It did make me wonder however. When I was close to it, my head begun to ache similarly to the time in Jupiter Factory. Like something was probing my mental defences. I shuddered and hurried my steps. When the Zone was wide open in front of me, and there were all sorts of nooks and crannies to discover and places to visit, it was like a good dream.

  Diary of Corporal Dimka Torodov, day 17. We approached the end of the tunnel complex slowly, Sevka and Lyonka taking the lead while I and Alla provided overwatch with our more accurate weapons. The area we had now entered was some sort of a train stopping point, it was hard to tell in the dark but large coal wagons indicated so. Remembering the earlier incident with the tushkanos, I climbed on top of one of the platforms and walked on the uneven coal. Whatever was ahead of us, it was clearly partially exposed to sky, as moonlight shone inwards and lit the area up. Rails continued in there, and from my vantage point I could see what was ahead. A squad of those religious soldiers, Monolithians, were fighting another horde of monsters. I could see what the merc had called a chimera, and there were even more of those tushkanos. I held my fire and closed my lamp, signaling the others to do the same. We could see well enough with the moonlight, but the Monolith troopers would have a much h

  Diary of Corporal Dimka Torodov, day 16. Mill made it back to base okay. We lost Captain Taylor, our medic, not long after we arrived here, so patching him up was not too easy. Still, our rudimentary medical skills put together were enough to save his ass. Hernandez was pretty alarmed though, he kept going on about how we can't lose any more men as political situation in Europe is tightening. No idea what he is on about, news don't travel to us grunts here in accursed lands too often. And the local stalkers are about as politically illiterate as the rural folk back home, not much use fishing for info there. I closed such notions from my mind, it was probably the typical hyperbole and hubris of politics anyway. Politicians lie and exaggerate all they like, and in the end we either get to put a bullet in someone or get one ourselves. Sevka agreed with me on this, and we did not discuss it much. Besides, we got a new gig lined up, a proper exploration mission this time. Maus had

Diary of Corporal Dimka Torodov, day 15. Couple days have passed since my last entry. I was promoted to Corporal for the successful conduct of our mission, despite my protests. This was partially because of one our officers, lieutenant Maus. Coincidentally, he was the guy I saved back in Transnistria, and the reason I was here now instead of doing a peacekeeper tour in some unstable nation. He recognized me and backed my promotion. He also provided me and De Luca with better gear, I swapped my battered AK to a brand new DVL-10 Saboteur and sold him the Voyager suit as well, not needing it any longer. Sevka got himself a more advanced American variant of the Saiga and a Glock 18, sneering at me for keeping my Ruger revolver. I also sold my Saiga, the 20-gauge shells on it not really that useful in a firefight no more. From now on, I'd stick to long-range, or so I hoped. Sevka could handle close-range combat for all I cared. Besides, from what Hernandez had given to us as missions, I