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Bungie Weekly Update

Posted by Frankie at 3/9/2007 5:45 PM PST

 

 

One of our effects artists, implemented some spume, foam and spray for waterfalls. The only announced waterfall is to be found in Valhalla, but it’s such a pretty finishing touch and helps smooth out the somewhat abrupt collision of waterfall and river. Valhalla already feels a lot like Yosemite in some ways, and when you’re standing in the fast flowing water, up to your thighs in it, the effect is complete. Maybe just a little more alpine and open than the national park’s intimidatingly oppressive grandeur.

 

 

We also added splashing for bipeds (Spartans and other characters) walking through the water (they already ripple it when standing in a low or moving through it) and significant spray when vehicles drive through it, bordering on a rooster tail effect, although we can’t make it too crazy, or it will spoil your sniper view of a fleeing Mongoose driver.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hyper Sniper

 

 

Now, speaking of sniper view, I noticed that weapons laying on the ground looked considerably better all of a sudden. They just seemed to pop more. So I asked a grown-up ­ in this case Tom Doyle, one of our amazing 3D artists, who concentrates primarily on weapons these days ­ and he had in fact made some big changes.

 

 

So textures had another layer of improvement, and the overall model quality had improved ­ but importantly, on weapons a cube map had been added to reflective surfaces like metal ­ which is basically a 'cheap' way to add realistic reflections to surfaces ­ so the reflection is real ­ roughly the area the weapon is in, but doesn’t hog processing power by having to be rendered for every single frame and location on the map.

 

 

Anyway, the upshot is that the weapons look way better in your hands ­ but remember I was saying they popped on the ground? Well that’s an aesthetic trick. The model is actually slightly bigger in its ‘ground' state, so that you can see it more easily. I don’t mean super jumbo ­ it’s a subtle thing, but it makes a huge difference.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jub Jub and Co.

 

In multiplayer play tests, we moved back to a map we hadn’t played for ages ­ codenamed Jub Jub, which still hasn’t had any graphic polish, but did get some revamped geometry. It’s what I’d call a smaller map, about the size of Lockout and with similar layering of geometry ­ lots of places to hide and drop down from - ­ but it had seen a few navigation changes since the last time we played.

 

 

We were testing territories and I have to say, it worked great. There was no way to easily hold a territory, and even players fighting for other zones, could at least lob grenades it you to interrupt your capture progress. It worked surprisingly well, but the map is also going into its scheduled graphics tartup phase, so my Jub Jub codename will either be enhanced or rendered meaningless.

 

 

Those geometry changes on Jub Jub also took out a gap by a ramp that I used to abuse, so now I sucked at it (more than normal).

 

 

But it’s not just old Halo 3 maps I’ve been playing, I tested a little bit of a couple of Certain Affinity’s new Halo 2 maps. I wish we could share more info about those, but right now isn’t the time. It’ll be soon though. I think hardcore Halo 2 players are going to LOVE this stuff. One of them is going to be the ultimate BR nastiness map, so SWAT and MLG-style players will have a ball. Everyone else can play that map with kinder, gentler settings and love it too.

 

 

The wind effect on the grass decorators has had some work too. It now blows in a convincingly non repetitive fashion. Before it got some of that polishing loving, you could easily see the pattern in the way the ‘wind’ moved through it. Now it seems to be obeying a natural breeze. Combine that with a lovely audio scheme (which varies by level) and the illusion is complete.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

DOF Cap

 

 

Now I keep discussing this stuff as if it’s photo-realistic. And sometimes it is, but again, from an artistic perspective, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the new game retains the ‘Halo’ aesthetic. It still looks like a Halo game, but just rendered with vastly more detail and content and some visual effects that simply weren’t possible on Xbox. And part of that aesthetic is directly tied to gameplay. I was reading about DOF (Depth Of Field - the appearance of something being in or out of focus, as seen by a camera lens, but designed to emulate human vision) effects in another game yesterday – and thought about some of the ways that can harm and help something like Halo.

 

As a matter of fact, we do have depth of field in the game, but right now, it’s only being used (with any great visibility) in the UI and in cinematics – because one of Halo’s key functions is the idea of long distance combat. If something is out of focus for the game engine, that doesn’t mean the player wasn’t trying to focus on it.

 

We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the player’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing. There are borderline cases though. When you run around in a dark area – the bunker in High Ground for example, and then dash into the sunlight – your ‘eyes’ will adjust to the glare with a subtle blow out of the sky compared to the rock and dirt directly ahead of you. To ‘see’ the effect happen, you’d have to stop, look up and wait for the sky’s contrast to adjust (about a half a second) but it’s there.

 

However, it deliberately doesn’t obscure your vision. It’s just a subtle trick to fool your brain into thinking you’ve been inside for a while – the same effect you get when you emerge, blinking, from a movie theater into daylight.

 

In the UI however, we go nuts with it. Primarily to make elaborate 3D backgrounds that aren’t too distracting in comparison to the usable portions of the UI. It’s a lovely effect. You’ll definitely see some of that in the public Beta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Splitsville

 

As for multiplayer – a couple of games were announced or released this week with no split-screen. My mailbox instantly filled up with angry complaints about how Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer was an affront to mankind and that I ought to be shot in the face with various impossible guns and mangling devices.

 

Well I make no apologies for Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer, primarily because it WILL of course have splitscreen multiplayer. That’s a vital part of the Halo experience and one vastly improved by the advent of high def TVs. Basically with a big LCD or plasma, the splitscreen experience takes on almost luxurious overtones.

 

There are several tiers of this multiplayer mode. At its simplest level, it’s a couple of siblings running around on Lockout with swords. But at its most convoluted, it’s a LAN party where adding TVs keeps blowing out the power (we say this from personal experience) and splitscreen at that point, is a godsend.

 

We’ll still have the same online matchmaking restrictions – not being able to play splitscreen in certain types of ranked games, for example - but otherwise expect full feature parity with Halo 2 in that regard – with some improvements based on resolution and evolution (including improvements to the HUD.) to make the game easier to see in those modes.

 

Don’t worry standard def owners, we’re making sure it looks amazing on your sets too. In fact, our test department still has as many little 4:3 CRTs as it does LCDs.

 

In a couple of weeks, we’re switching over to the redesigned Bungie.net, the result of a lot of hard work and effort by our web and art team. It’s a cleaner, prettier site in many ways, and it certainly addresses a lot of the complaints you guys have about navigation and clarity. However, you should remember that for a while after the relaunch, some of the features you’re used to will be moved, or in the case of groups, temporarily on hold. If you want to guarantee your groups pages come back as normal, then we suggest backing up your data – even if that simply means cutting and pasting text, or saving the entire set of pages as html – that’s because it’s possible that there will be some data loss by the time groups return. Of course, we’ll do everything to ensure that isn’t the case.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Shut It!

 

So remember we were explaining how easy it is to mute an annoying player a while back? Well it’s even easier. The interface changed a little and Dave Candland took me through the process. On my first ever try, I muted Dave in less than a second. This is the process as it stands now:

 

 

Annoyed by player

Press BACK button

Right stick to select annoying player

X to mute

Now, the cool thing is it keeps your hands in place for battle, so that it’s less likely you’ll get owned as you pop back out of that mode (you can still see what’s going on in the game during this brief pause). You can also look at who is actually talking in that screen (the mic icon will be ‘lit’ up, and if you want to un-mute them, the process is exactly the same. The X button un-mutes a previously silenced player. Better still, it looks like the option to turn off proximity voice on opposing teams is in. So you can choose whether to hear them or not, but still hear your friends and teammates speak while in proximity. Really, there are layers and layers of tools in this regard, so you should be able to fully customize voice to suit your needs.

 

Philosophically speaking, however, this can turn bad players into good players. After all, if you can’t hear them spouting drivel, then it’s effectively the same as playing against a good sport with his mic disconnected. That should mean fewer sessions quit in frustration and lots more happy matchmaking scenarios. It might even provide a little social training for some of our less sophisticated friends.

 

And guys, that is not the ‘true’ function of the X-Button, before your panties start autobunching. The X-Button in-game does something else. Something neat. Although technically yesterday, the testers complained that because something had been turned off during a performance test, pressing X caused their game to crash, and you could hear them all yelling, ‘WHO PRESSED X!!??’

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Bungie Weekly Update

Posted by Frankie at 3/9/2007 5:45 PM PST

 

 

One of our effects artists, implemented some spume, foam and spray for waterfalls. The only announced waterfall is to be found in Valhalla, but it’s such a pretty finishing touch and helps smooth out the somewhat abrupt collision of waterfall and river. Valhalla already feels a lot like Yosemite in some ways, and when you’re standing in the fast flowing water, up to your thighs in it, the effect is complete. Maybe just a little more alpine and open than the national park’s intimidatingly oppressive grandeur.

 

 

We also added splashing for bipeds (Spartans and other characters) walking through the water (they already ripple it when standing in a low or moving through it) and significant spray when vehicles drive through it, bordering on a rooster tail effect, although we can’t make it too crazy, or it will spoil your sniper view of a fleeing Mongoose driver.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hyper Sniper

 

 

Now, speaking of sniper view, I noticed that weapons laying on the ground looked considerably better all of a sudden. They just seemed to pop more. So I asked a grown-up ­ in this case Tom Doyle, one of our amazing 3D artists, who concentrates primarily on weapons these days ­ and he had in fact made some big changes.

 

 

So textures had another layer of improvement, and the overall model quality had improved ­ but importantly, on weapons a cube map had been added to reflective surfaces like metal ­ which is basically a 'cheap' way to add realistic reflections to surfaces ­ so the reflection is real ­ roughly the area the weapon is in, but doesn’t hog processing power by having to be rendered for every single frame and location on the map.

 

 

Anyway, the upshot is that the weapons look way better in your hands ­ but remember I was saying they popped on the ground? Well that’s an aesthetic trick. The model is actually slightly bigger in its ‘ground' state, so that you can see it more easily. I don’t mean super jumbo ­ it’s a subtle thing, but it makes a huge difference.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jub Jub and Co.

 

In multiplayer play tests, we moved back to a map we hadn’t played for ages ­ codenamed Jub Jub, which still hasn’t had any graphic polish, but did get some revamped geometry. It’s what I’d call a smaller map, about the size of Lockout and with similar layering of geometry ­ lots of places to hide and drop down from - ­ but it had seen a few navigation changes since the last time we played.

 

 

We were testing territories and I have to say, it worked great. There was no way to easily hold a territory, and even players fighting for other zones, could at least lob grenades it you to interrupt your capture progress. It worked surprisingly well, but the map is also going into its scheduled graphics tartup phase, so my Jub Jub codename will either be enhanced or rendered meaningless.

 

 

Those geometry changes on Jub Jub also took out a gap by a ramp that I used to abuse, so now I sucked at it (more than normal).

 

 

But it’s not just old Halo 3 maps I’ve been playing, I tested a little bit of a couple of Certain Affinity’s new Halo 2 maps. I wish we could share more info about those, but right now isn’t the time. It’ll be soon though. I think hardcore Halo 2 players are going to LOVE this stuff. One of them is going to be the ultimate BR nastiness map, so SWAT and MLG-style players will have a ball. Everyone else can play that map with kinder, gentler settings and love it too.

 

 

The wind effect on the grass decorators has had some work too. It now blows in a convincingly non repetitive fashion. Before it got some of that polishing loving, you could easily see the pattern in the way the ‘wind’ moved through it. Now it seems to be obeying a natural breeze. Combine that with a lovely audio scheme (which varies by level) and the illusion is complete.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

DOF Cap

 

 

Now I keep discussing this stuff as if it’s photo-realistic. And sometimes it is, but again, from an artistic perspective, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the new game retains the ‘Halo’ aesthetic. It still looks like a Halo game, but just rendered with vastly more detail and content and some visual effects that simply weren’t possible on Xbox. And part of that aesthetic is directly tied to gameplay. I was reading about DOF (Depth Of Field - the appearance of something being in or out of focus, as seen by a camera lens, but designed to emulate human vision) effects in another game yesterday – and thought about some of the ways that can harm and help something like Halo.

 

As a matter of fact, we do have depth of field in the game, but right now, it’s only being used (with any great visibility) in the UI and in cinematics – because one of Halo’s key functions is the idea of long distance combat. If something is out of focus for the game engine, that doesn’t mean the player wasn’t trying to focus on it.

 

We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the player’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing. There are borderline cases though. When you run around in a dark area – the bunker in High Ground for example, and then dash into the sunlight – your ‘eyes’ will adjust to the glare with a subtle blow out of the sky compared to the rock and dirt directly ahead of you. To ‘see’ the effect happen, you’d have to stop, look up and wait for the sky’s contrast to adjust (about a half a second) but it’s there.

 

However, it deliberately doesn’t obscure your vision. It’s just a subtle trick to fool your brain into thinking you’ve been inside for a while – the same effect you get when you emerge, blinking, from a movie theater into daylight.

 

In the UI however, we go nuts with it. Primarily to make elaborate 3D backgrounds that aren’t too distracting in comparison to the usable portions of the UI. It’s a lovely effect. You’ll definitely see some of that in the public Beta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Splitsville

 

As for multiplayer – a couple of games were announced or released this week with no split-screen. My mailbox instantly filled up with angry complaints about how Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer was an affront to mankind and that I ought to be shot in the face with various impossible guns and mangling devices.

 

Well I make no apologies for Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer, primarily because it WILL of course have splitscreen multiplayer. That’s a vital part of the Halo experience and one vastly improved by the advent of high def TVs. Basically with a big LCD or plasma, the splitscreen experience takes on almost luxurious overtones.

 

There are several tiers of this multiplayer mode. At its simplest level, it’s a couple of siblings running around on Lockout with swords. But at its most convoluted, it’s a LAN party where adding TVs keeps blowing out the power (we say this from personal experience) and splitscreen at that point, is a godsend.

 

We’ll still have the same online matchmaking restrictions – not being able to play splitscreen in certain types of ranked games, for example - but otherwise expect full feature parity with Halo 2 in that regard – with some improvements based on resolution and evolution (including improvements to the HUD.) to make the game easier to see in those modes.

 

Don’t worry standard def owners, we’re making sure it looks amazing on your sets too. In fact, our test department still has as many little 4:3 CRTs as it does LCDs.

 

In a couple of weeks, we’re switching over to the redesigned Bungie.net, the result of a lot of hard work and effort by our web and art team. It’s a cleaner, prettier site in many ways, and it certainly addresses a lot of the complaints you guys have about navigation and clarity. However, you should remember that for a while after the relaunch, some of the features you’re used to will be moved, or in the case of groups, temporarily on hold. If you want to guarantee your groups pages come back as normal, then we suggest backing up your data – even if that simply means cutting and pasting text, or saving the entire set of pages as html – that’s because it’s possible that there will be some data loss by the time groups return. Of course, we’ll do everything to ensure that isn’t the case.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Shut It!

 

So remember we were explaining how easy it is to mute an annoying player a while back? Well it’s even easier. The interface changed a little and Dave Candland took me through the process. On my first ever try, I muted Dave in less than a second. This is the process as it stands now:

 

 

Annoyed by player

Press BACK button

Right stick to select annoying player

X to mute

Now, the cool thing is it keeps your hands in place for battle, so that it’s less likely you’ll get owned as you pop back out of that mode (you can still see what’s going on in the game during this brief pause). You can also look at who is actually talking in that screen (the mic icon will be ‘lit’ up, and if you want to un-mute them, the process is exactly the same. The X button un-mutes a previously silenced player. Better still, it looks like the option to turn off proximity voice on opposing teams is in. So you can choose whether to hear them or not, but still hear your friends and teammates speak while in proximity. Really, there are layers and layers of tools in this regard, so you should be able to fully customize voice to suit your needs.

 

Philosophically speaking, however, this can turn bad players into good players. After all, if you can’t hear them spouting drivel, then it’s effectively the same as playing against a good sport with his mic disconnected. That should mean fewer sessions quit in frustration and lots more happy matchmaking scenarios. It might even provide a little social training for some of our less sophisticated friends.

 

And guys, that is not the ‘true’ function of the X-Button, before your panties start autobunching. The X-Button in-game does something else. Something neat. Although technically yesterday, the testers complained that because something had been turned off during a performance test, pressing X caused their game to crash, and you could hear them all yelling, ‘WHO PRESSED X!!??’

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Bungie Weekly Update

Posted by Frankie at 3/9/2007 5:45 PM PST

 

 

One of our effects artists, implemented some spume, foam and spray for waterfalls. The only announced waterfall is to be found in Valhalla, but it’s such a pretty finishing touch and helps smooth out the somewhat abrupt collision of waterfall and river. Valhalla already feels a lot like Yosemite in some ways, and when you’re standing in the fast flowing water, up to your thighs in it, the effect is complete. Maybe just a little more alpine and open than the national park’s intimidatingly oppressive grandeur.

 

 

We also added splashing for bipeds (Spartans and other characters) walking through the water (they already ripple it when standing in a low or moving through it) and significant spray when vehicles drive through it, bordering on a rooster tail effect, although we can’t make it too crazy, or it will spoil your sniper view of a fleeing Mongoose driver.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hyper Sniper

 

 

Now, speaking of sniper view, I noticed that weapons laying on the ground looked considerably better all of a sudden. They just seemed to pop more. So I asked a grown-up ­ in this case Tom Doyle, one of our amazing 3D artists, who concentrates primarily on weapons these days ­ and he had in fact made some big changes.

 

 

So textures had another layer of improvement, and the overall model quality had improved ­ but importantly, on weapons a cube map had been added to reflective surfaces like metal ­ which is basically a 'cheap' way to add realistic reflections to surfaces ­ so the reflection is real ­ roughly the area the weapon is in, but doesn’t hog processing power by having to be rendered for every single frame and location on the map.

 

 

Anyway, the upshot is that the weapons look way better in your hands ­ but remember I was saying they popped on the ground? Well that’s an aesthetic trick. The model is actually slightly bigger in its ‘ground' state, so that you can see it more easily. I don’t mean super jumbo ­ it’s a subtle thing, but it makes a huge difference.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jub Jub and Co.

 

In multiplayer play tests, we moved back to a map we hadn’t played for ages ­ codenamed Jub Jub, which still hasn’t had any graphic polish, but did get some revamped geometry. It’s what I’d call a smaller map, about the size of Lockout and with similar layering of geometry ­ lots of places to hide and drop down from - ­ but it had seen a few navigation changes since the last time we played.

 

 

We were testing territories and I have to say, it worked great. There was no way to easily hold a territory, and even players fighting for other zones, could at least lob grenades it you to interrupt your capture progress. It worked surprisingly well, but the map is also going into its scheduled graphics tartup phase, so my Jub Jub codename will either be enhanced or rendered meaningless.

 

 

Those geometry changes on Jub Jub also took out a gap by a ramp that I used to abuse, so now I sucked at it (more than normal).

 

 

But it’s not just old Halo 3 maps I’ve been playing, I tested a little bit of a couple of Certain Affinity’s new Halo 2 maps. I wish we could share more info about those, but right now isn’t the time. It’ll be soon though. I think hardcore Halo 2 players are going to LOVE this stuff. One of them is going to be the ultimate BR nastiness map, so SWAT and MLG-style players will have a ball. Everyone else can play that map with kinder, gentler settings and love it too.

 

 

The wind effect on the grass decorators has had some work too. It now blows in a convincingly non repetitive fashion. Before it got some of that polishing loving, you could easily see the pattern in the way the ‘wind’ moved through it. Now it seems to be obeying a natural breeze. Combine that with a lovely audio scheme (which varies by level) and the illusion is complete.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

DOF Cap

 

 

Now I keep discussing this stuff as if it’s photo-realistic. And sometimes it is, but again, from an artistic perspective, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the new game retains the ‘Halo’ aesthetic. It still looks like a Halo game, but just rendered with vastly more detail and content and some visual effects that simply weren’t possible on Xbox. And part of that aesthetic is directly tied to gameplay. I was reading about DOF (Depth Of Field - the appearance of something being in or out of focus, as seen by a camera lens, but designed to emulate human vision) effects in another game yesterday – and thought about some of the ways that can harm and help something like Halo.

 

As a matter of fact, we do have depth of field in the game, but right now, it’s only being used (with any great visibility) in the UI and in cinematics – because one of Halo’s key functions is the idea of long distance combat. If something is out of focus for the game engine, that doesn’t mean the player wasn’t trying to focus on it.

 

We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the player’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing. There are borderline cases though. When you run around in a dark area – the bunker in High Ground for example, and then dash into the sunlight – your ‘eyes’ will adjust to the glare with a subtle blow out of the sky compared to the rock and dirt directly ahead of you. To ‘see’ the effect happen, you’d have to stop, look up and wait for the sky’s contrast to adjust (about a half a second) but it’s there.

 

However, it deliberately doesn’t obscure your vision. It’s just a subtle trick to fool your brain into thinking you’ve been inside for a while – the same effect you get when you emerge, blinking, from a movie theater into daylight.

 

In the UI however, we go nuts with it. Primarily to make elaborate 3D backgrounds that aren’t too distracting in comparison to the usable portions of the UI. It’s a lovely effect. You’ll definitely see some of that in the public Beta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Splitsville

 

As for multiplayer – a couple of games were announced or released this week with no split-screen. My mailbox instantly filled up with angry complaints about how Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer was an affront to mankind and that I ought to be shot in the face with various impossible guns and mangling devices.

 

Well I make no apologies for Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer, primarily because it WILL of course have splitscreen multiplayer. That’s a vital part of the Halo experience and one vastly improved by the advent of high def TVs. Basically with a big LCD or plasma, the splitscreen experience takes on almost luxurious overtones.

 

There are several tiers of this multiplayer mode. At its simplest level, it’s a couple of siblings running around on Lockout with swords. But at its most convoluted, it’s a LAN party where adding TVs keeps blowing out the power (we say this from personal experience) and splitscreen at that point, is a godsend.

 

We’ll still have the same online matchmaking restrictions – not being able to play splitscreen in certain types of ranked games, for example - but otherwise expect full feature parity with Halo 2 in that regard – with some improvements based on resolution and evolution (including improvements to the HUD.) to make the game easier to see in those modes.

 

Don’t worry standard def owners, we’re making sure it looks amazing on your sets too. In fact, our test department still has as many little 4:3 CRTs as it does LCDs.

 

In a couple of weeks, we’re switching over to the redesigned Bungie.net, the result of a lot of hard work and effort by our web and art team. It’s a cleaner, prettier site in many ways, and it certainly addresses a lot of the complaints you guys have about navigation and clarity. However, you should remember that for a while after the relaunch, some of the features you’re used to will be moved, or in the case of groups, temporarily on hold. If you want to guarantee your groups pages come back as normal, then we suggest backing up your data – even if that simply means cutting and pasting text, or saving the entire set of pages as html – that’s because it’s possible that there will be some data loss by the time groups return. Of course, we’ll do everything to ensure that isn’t the case.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Shut It!

 

So remember we were explaining how easy it is to mute an annoying player a while back? Well it’s even easier. The interface changed a little and Dave Candland took me through the process. On my first ever try, I muted Dave in less than a second. This is the process as it stands now:

 

 

Annoyed by player

Press BACK button

Right stick to select annoying player

X to mute

Now, the cool thing is it keeps your hands in place for battle, so that it’s less likely you’ll get owned as you pop back out of that mode (you can still see what’s going on in the game during this brief pause). You can also look at who is actually talking in that screen (the mic icon will be ‘lit’ up, and if you want to un-mute them, the process is exactly the same. The X button un-mutes a previously silenced player. Better still, it looks like the option to turn off proximity voice on opposing teams is in. So you can choose whether to hear them or not, but still hear your friends and teammates speak while in proximity. Really, there are layers and layers of tools in this regard, so you should be able to fully customize voice to suit your needs.

 

Philosophically speaking, however, this can turn bad players into good players. After all, if you can’t hear them spouting drivel, then it’s effectively the same as playing against a good sport with his mic disconnected. That should mean fewer sessions quit in frustration and lots more happy matchmaking scenarios. It might even provide a little social training for some of our less sophisticated friends.

 

And guys, that is not the ‘true’ function of the X-Button, before your panties start autobunching. The X-Button in-game does something else. Something neat. Although technically yesterday, the testers complained that because something had been turned off during a performance test, pressing X caused their game to crash, and you could hear them all yelling, ‘WHO PRESSED X!!??’

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

 

Bungie Weekly Update

Posted by Frankie at 3/9/2007 5:45 PM PST

 

 

One of our effects artists, implemented some spume, foam and spray for waterfalls. The only announced waterfall is to be found in Valhalla, but it’s such a pretty finishing touch and helps smooth out the somewhat abrupt collision of waterfall and river. Valhalla already feels a lot like Yosemite in some ways, and when you’re standing in the fast flowing water, up to your thighs in it, the effect is complete. Maybe just a little more alpine and open than the national park’s intimidatingly oppressive grandeur.

 

 

We also added splashing for bipeds (Spartans and other characters) walking through the water (they already ripple it when standing in a low or moving through it) and significant spray when vehicles drive through it, bordering on a rooster tail effect, although we can’t make it too crazy, or it will spoil your sniper view of a fleeing Mongoose driver.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hyper Sniper

 

 

Now, speaking of sniper view, I noticed that weapons laying on the ground looked considerably better all of a sudden. They just seemed to pop more. So I asked a grown-up ­ in this case Tom Doyle, one of our amazing 3D artists, who concentrates primarily on weapons these days ­ and he had in fact made some big changes.

 

 

So textures had another layer of improvement, and the overall model quality had improved ­ but importantly, on weapons a cube map had been added to reflective surfaces like metal ­ which is basically a 'cheap' way to add realistic reflections to surfaces ­ so the reflection is real ­ roughly the area the weapon is in, but doesn’t hog processing power by having to be rendered for every single frame and location on the map.

 

 

Anyway, the upshot is that the weapons look way better in your hands ­ but remember I was saying they popped on the ground? Well that’s an aesthetic trick. The model is actually slightly bigger in its ‘ground' state, so that you can see it more easily. I don’t mean super jumbo ­ it’s a subtle thing, but it makes a huge difference.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jub Jub and Co.

 

In multiplayer play tests, we moved back to a map we hadn’t played for ages ­ codenamed Jub Jub, which still hasn’t had any graphic polish, but did get some revamped geometry. It’s what I’d call a smaller map, about the size of Lockout and with similar layering of geometry ­ lots of places to hide and drop down from - ­ but it had seen a few navigation changes since the last time we played.

 

 

We were testing territories and I have to say, it worked great. There was no way to easily hold a territory, and even players fighting for other zones, could at least lob grenades it you to interrupt your capture progress. It worked surprisingly well, but the map is also going into its scheduled graphics tartup phase, so my Jub Jub codename will either be enhanced or rendered meaningless.

 

 

Those geometry changes on Jub Jub also took out a gap by a ramp that I used to abuse, so now I sucked at it (more than normal).

 

 

But it’s not just old Halo 3 maps I’ve been playing, I tested a little bit of a couple of Certain Affinity’s new Halo 2 maps. I wish we could share more info about those, but right now isn’t the time. It’ll be soon though. I think hardcore Halo 2 players are going to LOVE this stuff. One of them is going to be the ultimate BR nastiness map, so SWAT and MLG-style players will have a ball. Everyone else can play that map with kinder, gentler settings and love it too.

 

 

The wind effect on the grass decorators has had some work too. It now blows in a convincingly non repetitive fashion. Before it got some of that polishing loving, you could easily see the pattern in the way the ‘wind’ moved through it. Now it seems to be obeying a natural breeze. Combine that with a lovely audio scheme (which varies by level) and the illusion is complete.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

DOF Cap

 

 

Now I keep discussing this stuff as if it’s photo-realistic. And sometimes it is, but again, from an artistic perspective, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the new game retains the ‘Halo’ aesthetic. It still looks like a Halo game, but just rendered with vastly more detail and content and some visual effects that simply weren’t possible on Xbox. And part of that aesthetic is directly tied to gameplay. I was reading about DOF (Depth Of Field - the appearance of something being in or out of focus, as seen by a camera lens, but designed to emulate human vision) effects in another game yesterday – and thought about some of the ways that can harm and help something like Halo.

 

As a matter of fact, we do have depth of field in the game, but right now, it’s only being used (with any great visibility) in the UI and in cinematics – because one of Halo’s key functions is the idea of long distance combat. If something is out of focus for the game engine, that doesn’t mean the player wasn’t trying to focus on it.

 

We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the player’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing. There are borderline cases though. When you run around in a dark area – the bunker in High Ground for example, and then dash into the sunlight – your ‘eyes’ will adjust to the glare with a subtle blow out of the sky compared to the rock and dirt directly ahead of you. To ‘see’ the effect happen, you’d have to stop, look up and wait for the sky’s contrast to adjust (about a half a second) but it’s there.

 

However, it deliberately doesn’t obscure your vision. It’s just a subtle trick to fool your brain into thinking you’ve been inside for a while – the same effect you get when you emerge, blinking, from a movie theater into daylight.

 

In the UI however, we go nuts with it. Primarily to make elaborate 3D backgrounds that aren’t too distracting in comparison to the usable portions of the UI. It’s a lovely effect. You’ll definitely see some of that in the public Beta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Splitsville

 

As for multiplayer – a couple of games were announced or released this week with no split-screen. My mailbox instantly filled up with angry complaints about how Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer was an affront to mankind and that I ought to be shot in the face with various impossible guns and mangling devices.

 

Well I make no apologies for Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer, primarily because it WILL of course have splitscreen multiplayer. That’s a vital part of the Halo experience and one vastly improved by the advent of high def TVs. Basically with a big LCD or plasma, the splitscreen experience takes on almost luxurious overtones.

 

There are several tiers of this multiplayer mode. At its simplest level, it’s a couple of siblings running around on Lockout with swords. But at its most convoluted, it’s a LAN party where adding TVs keeps blowing out the power (we say this from personal experience) and splitscreen at that point, is a godsend.

 

We’ll still have the same online matchmaking restrictions – not being able to play splitscreen in certain types of ranked games, for example - but otherwise expect full feature parity with Halo 2 in that regard – with some improvements based on resolution and evolution (including improvements to the HUD.) to make the game easier to see in those modes.

 

Don’t worry standard def owners, we’re making sure it looks amazing on your sets too. In fact, our test department still has as many little 4:3 CRTs as it does LCDs.

 

In a couple of weeks, we’re switching over to the redesigned Bungie.net, the result of a lot of hard work and effort by our web and art team. It’s a cleaner, prettier site in many ways, and it certainly addresses a lot of the complaints you guys have about navigation and clarity. However, you should remember that for a while after the relaunch, some of the features you’re used to will be moved, or in the case of groups, temporarily on hold. If you want to guarantee your groups pages come back as normal, then we suggest backing up your data – even if that simply means cutting and pasting text, or saving the entire set of pages as html – that’s because it’s possible that there will be some data loss by the time groups return. Of course, we’ll do everything to ensure that isn’t the case.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Shut It!

 

So remember we were explaining how easy it is to mute an annoying player a while back? Well it’s even easier. The interface changed a little and Dave Candland took me through the process. On my first ever try, I muted Dave in less than a second. This is the process as it stands now:

 

 

Annoyed by player

Press BACK button

Right stick to select annoying player

X to mute

Now, the cool thing is it keeps your hands in place for battle, so that it’s less likely you’ll get owned as you pop back out of that mode (you can still see what’s going on in the game during this brief pause). You can also look at who is actually talking in that screen (the mic icon will be ‘lit’ up, and if you want to un-mute them, the process is exactly the same. The X button un-mutes a previously silenced player. Better still, it looks like the option to turn off proximity voice on opposing teams is in. So you can choose whether to hear them or not, but still hear your friends and teammates speak while in proximity. Really, there are layers and layers of tools in this regard, so you should be able to fully customize voice to suit your needs.

 

Philosophically speaking, however, this can turn bad players into good players. After all, if you can’t hear them spouting drivel, then it’s effectively the same as playing against a good sport with his mic disconnected. That should mean fewer sessions quit in frustration and lots more happy matchmaking scenarios. It might even provide a little social training for some of our less sophisticated friends.

 

And guys, that is not the ‘true’ function of the X-Button, before your panties start autobunching. The X-Button in-game does something else. Something neat. Although technically yesterday, the testers complained that because something had been turned off during a performance test, pressing X caused their game to crash, and you could hear them all yelling, ‘WHO PRESSED X!!??’

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

EDIT:

 

Bungie Weekly Update

Posted by Frankie at 3/9/2007 5:45 PM PST

 

 

One of our effects artists, implemented some spume, foam and spray for waterfalls. The only announced waterfall is to be found in Valhalla, but it’s such a pretty finishing touch and helps smooth out the somewhat abrupt collision of waterfall and river. Valhalla already feels a lot like Yosemite in some ways, and when you’re standing in the fast flowing water, up to your thighs in it, the effect is complete. Maybe just a little more alpine and open than the national park’s intimidatingly oppressive grandeur.

 

 

We also added splashing for bipeds (Spartans and other characters) walking through the water (they already ripple it when standing in a low or moving through it) and significant spray when vehicles drive through it, bordering on a rooster tail effect, although we can’t make it too crazy, or it will spoil your sniper view of a fleeing Mongoose driver.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hyper Sniper

 

 

Now, speaking of sniper view, I noticed that weapons laying on the ground looked considerably better all of a sudden. They just seemed to pop more. So I asked a grown-up ­ in this case Tom Doyle, one of our amazing 3D artists, who concentrates primarily on weapons these days ­ and he had in fact made some big changes.

 

 

So textures had another layer of improvement, and the overall model quality had improved ­ but importantly, on weapons a cube map had been added to reflective surfaces like metal ­ which is basically a 'cheap' way to add realistic reflections to surfaces ­ so the reflection is real ­ roughly the area the weapon is in, but doesn’t hog processing power by having to be rendered for every single frame and location on the map.

 

 

Anyway, the upshot is that the weapons look way better in your hands ­ but remember I was saying they popped on the ground? Well that’s an aesthetic trick. The model is actually slightly bigger in its ‘ground' state, so that you can see it more easily. I don’t mean super jumbo ­ it’s a subtle thing, but it makes a huge difference.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jub Jub and Co.

 

In multiplayer play tests, we moved back to a map we hadn’t played for ages ­ codenamed Jub Jub, which still hasn’t had any graphic polish, but did get some revamped geometry. It’s what I’d call a smaller map, about the size of Lockout and with similar layering of geometry ­ lots of places to hide and drop down from - ­ but it had seen a few navigation changes since the last time we played.

 

 

We were testing territories and I have to say, it worked great. There was no way to easily hold a territory, and even players fighting for other zones, could at least lob grenades it you to interrupt your capture progress. It worked surprisingly well, but the map is also going into its scheduled graphics tartup phase, so my Jub Jub codename will either be enhanced or rendered meaningless.

 

 

Those geometry changes on Jub Jub also took out a gap by a ramp that I used to abuse, so now I sucked at it (more than normal).

 

 

But it’s not just old Halo 3 maps I’ve been playing, I tested a little bit of a couple of Certain Affinity’s new Halo 2 maps. I wish we could share more info about those, but right now isn’t the time. It’ll be soon though. I think hardcore Halo 2 players are going to LOVE this stuff. One of them is going to be the ultimate BR nastiness map, so SWAT and MLG-style players will have a ball. Everyone else can play that map with kinder, gentler settings and love it too.

 

 

The wind effect on the grass decorators has had some work too. It now blows in a convincingly non repetitive fashion. Before it got some of that polishing loving, you could easily see the pattern in the way the ‘wind’ moved through it. Now it seems to be obeying a natural breeze. Combine that with a lovely audio scheme (which varies by level) and the illusion is complete.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

DOF Cap

 

 

Now I keep discussing this stuff as if it’s photo-realistic. And sometimes it is, but again, from an artistic perspective, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the new game retains the ‘Halo’ aesthetic. It still looks like a Halo game, but just rendered with vastly more detail and content and some visual effects that simply weren’t possible on Xbox. And part of that aesthetic is directly tied to gameplay. I was reading about DOF (Depth Of Field - the appearance of something being in or out of focus, as seen by a camera lens, but designed to emulate human vision) effects in another game yesterday – and thought about some of the ways that can harm and help something like Halo.

 

As a matter of fact, we do have depth of field in the game, but right now, it’s only being used (with any great visibility) in the UI and in cinematics – because one of Halo’s key functions is the idea of long distance combat. If something is out of focus for the game engine, that doesn’t mean the player wasn’t trying to focus on it.

 

We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the player’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing. There are borderline cases though. When you run around in a dark area – the bunker in High Ground for example, and then dash into the sunlight – your ‘eyes’ will adjust to the glare with a subtle blow out of the sky compared to the rock and dirt directly ahead of you. To ‘see’ the effect happen, you’d have to stop, look up and wait for the sky’s contrast to adjust (about a half a second) but it’s there.

 

However, it deliberately doesn’t obscure your vision. It’s just a subtle trick to fool your brain into thinking you’ve been inside for a while – the same effect you get when you emerge, blinking, from a movie theater into daylight.

 

In the UI however, we go nuts with it. Primarily to make elaborate 3D backgrounds that aren’t too distracting in comparison to the usable portions of the UI. It’s a lovely effect. You’ll definitely see some of that in the public Beta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Splitsville

 

As for multiplayer – a couple of games were announced or released this week with no split-screen. My mailbox instantly filled up with angry complaints about how Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer was an affront to mankind and that I ought to be shot in the face with various impossible guns and mangling devices.

 

Well I make no apologies for Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer, primarily because it WILL of course have splitscreen multiplayer. That’s a vital part of the Halo experience and one vastly improved by the advent of high def TVs. Basically with a big LCD or plasma, the splitscreen experience takes on almost luxurious overtones.

 

There are several tiers of this multiplayer mode. At its simplest level, it’s a couple of siblings running around on Lockout with swords. But at its most convoluted, it’s a LAN party where adding TVs keeps blowing out the power (we say this from personal experience) and splitscreen at that point, is a godsend.

 

We’ll still have the same online matchmaking restrictions – not being able to play splitscreen in certain types of ranked games, for example - but otherwise expect full feature parity with Halo 2 in that regard – with some improvements based on resolution and evolution (including improvements to the HUD.) to make the game easier to see in those modes.

 

Don’t worry standard def owners, we’re making sure it looks amazing on your sets too. In fact, our test department still has as many little 4:3 CRTs as it does LCDs.

 

In a couple of weeks, we’re switching over to the redesigned Bungie.net, the result of a lot of hard work and effort by our web and art team. It’s a cleaner, prettier site in many ways, and it certainly addresses a lot of the complaints you guys have about navigation and clarity. However, you should remember that for a while after the relaunch, some of the features you’re used to will be moved, or in the case of groups, temporarily on hold. If you want to guarantee your groups pages come back as normal, then we suggest backing up your data – even if that simply means cutting and pasting text, or saving the entire set of pages as html – that’s because it’s possible that there will be some data loss by the time groups return. Of course, we’ll do everything to ensure that isn’t the case.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Shut It!

 

So remember we were explaining how easy it is to mute an annoying player a while back? Well it’s even easier. The interface changed a little and Dave Candland took me through the process. On my first ever try, I muted Dave in less than a second. This is the process as it stands now:

 

 

Annoyed by player

Press BACK button

Right stick to select annoying player

X to mute

Now, the cool thing is it keeps your hands in place for battle, so that it’s less likely you’ll get owned as you pop back out of that mode (you can still see what’s going on in the game during this brief pause). You can also look at who is actually talking in that screen (the mic icon will be ‘lit’ up, and if you want to un-mute them, the process is exactly the same. The X button un-mutes a previously silenced player. Better still, it looks like the option to turn off proximity voice on opposing teams is in. So you can choose whether to hear them or not, but still hear your friends and teammates speak while in proximity. Really, there are layers and layers of tools in this regard, so you should be able to fully customize voice to suit your needs.

 

Philosophically speaking, however, this can turn bad players into good players. After all, if you can’t hear them spouting drivel, then it’s effectively the same as playing against a good sport with his mic disconnected. That should mean fewer sessions quit in frustration and lots more happy matchmaking scenarios. It might even provide a little social training for some of our less sophisticated friends.

 

And guys, that is not the ‘true’ function of the X-Button, before your panties start autobunching. The X-Button in-game does something else. Something neat. Although technically yesterday, the testers complained that because something had been turned off during a performance test, pressing X caused their game to crash, and you could hear them all yelling, ‘WHO PRESSED X!!??’

 

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Bungie Weekly Update

Posted by Frankie at 3/9/2007 5:45 PM PST

 

 

One of our effects artists, implemented some spume, foam and spray for waterfalls. The only announced waterfall is to be found in Valhalla, but it’s such a pretty finishing touch and helps smooth out the somewhat abrupt collision of waterfall and river. Valhalla already feels a lot like Yosemite in some ways, and when you’re standing in the fast flowing water, up to your thighs in it, the effect is complete. Maybe just a little more alpine and open than the national park’s intimidatingly oppressive grandeur.

 

 

We also added splashing for bipeds (Spartans and other characters) walking through the water (they already ripple it when standing in a low or moving through it) and significant spray when vehicles drive through it, bordering on a rooster tail effect, although we can’t make it too crazy, or it will spoil your sniper view of a fleeing Mongoose driver.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hyper Sniper

 

 

Now, speaking of sniper view, I noticed that weapons laying on the ground looked considerably better all of a sudden. They just seemed to pop more. So I asked a grown-up ­ in this case Tom Doyle, one of our amazing 3D artists, who concentrates primarily on weapons these days ­ and he had in fact made some big changes.

 

 

So textures had another layer of improvement, and the overall model quality had improved ­ but importantly, on weapons a cube map had been added to reflective surfaces like metal ­ which is basically a 'cheap' way to add realistic reflections to surfaces ­ so the reflection is real ­ roughly the area the weapon is in, but doesn’t hog processing power by having to be rendered for every single frame and location on the map.

 

 

Anyway, the upshot is that the weapons look way better in your hands ­ but remember I was saying they popped on the ground? Well that’s an aesthetic trick. The model is actually slightly bigger in its ‘ground' state, so that you can see it more easily. I don’t mean super jumbo ­ it’s a subtle thing, but it makes a huge difference.

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Jub Jub and Co.

 

In multiplayer play tests, we moved back to a map we hadn’t played for ages ­ codenamed Jub Jub, which still hasn’t had any graphic polish, but did get some revamped geometry. It’s what I’d call a smaller map, about the size of Lockout and with similar layering of geometry ­ lots of places to hide and drop down from - ­ but it had seen a few navigation changes since the last time we played.

 

 

We were testing territories and I have to say, it worked great. There was no way to easily hold a territory, and even players fighting for other zones, could at least lob grenades it you to interrupt your capture progress. It worked surprisingly well, but the map is also going into its scheduled graphics tartup phase, so my Jub Jub codename will either be enhanced or rendered meaningless.

 

 

Those geometry changes on Jub Jub also took out a gap by a ramp that I used to abuse, so now I sucked at it (more than normal).

 

 

But it’s not just old Halo 3 maps I’ve been playing, I tested a little bit of a couple of Certain Affinity’s new Halo 2 maps. I wish we could share more info about those, but right now isn’t the time. It’ll be soon though. I think hardcore Halo 2 players are going to LOVE this stuff. One of them is going to be the ultimate BR nastiness map, so SWAT and MLG-style players will have a ball. Everyone else can play that map with kinder, gentler settings and love it too.

 

 

The wind effect on the grass decorators has had some work too. It now blows in a convincingly non repetitive fashion. Before it got some of that polishing loving, you could easily see the pattern in the way the ‘wind’ moved through it. Now it seems to be obeying a natural breeze. Combine that with a lovely audio scheme (which varies by level) and the illusion is complete.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

DOF Cap

 

 

Now I keep discussing this stuff as if it’s photo-realistic. And sometimes it is, but again, from an artistic perspective, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the new game retains the ‘Halo’ aesthetic. It still looks like a Halo game, but just rendered with vastly more detail and content and some visual effects that simply weren’t possible on Xbox. And part of that aesthetic is directly tied to gameplay. I was reading about DOF (Depth Of Field - the appearance of something being in or out of focus, as seen by a camera lens, but designed to emulate human vision) effects in another game yesterday – and thought about some of the ways that can harm and help something like Halo.

 

As a matter of fact, we do have depth of field in the game, but right now, it’s only being used (with any great visibility) in the UI and in cinematics – because one of Halo’s key functions is the idea of long distance combat. If something is out of focus for the game engine, that doesn’t mean the player wasn’t trying to focus on it.

 

We would never implement something in multiplayer that artificially obscured the player’s ability to decide what he or she was seeing. There are borderline cases though. When you run around in a dark area – the bunker in High Ground for example, and then dash into the sunlight – your ‘eyes’ will adjust to the glare with a subtle blow out of the sky compared to the rock and dirt directly ahead of you. To ‘see’ the effect happen, you’d have to stop, look up and wait for the sky’s contrast to adjust (about a half a second) but it’s there.

 

However, it deliberately doesn’t obscure your vision. It’s just a subtle trick to fool your brain into thinking you’ve been inside for a while – the same effect you get when you emerge, blinking, from a movie theater into daylight.

 

In the UI however, we go nuts with it. Primarily to make elaborate 3D backgrounds that aren’t too distracting in comparison to the usable portions of the UI. It’s a lovely effect. You’ll definitely see some of that in the public Beta.

 

 

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Splitsville

 

As for multiplayer – a couple of games were announced or released this week with no split-screen. My mailbox instantly filled up with angry complaints about how Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer was an affront to mankind and that I ought to be shot in the face with various impossible guns and mangling devices.

 

Well I make no apologies for Halo 3’s lack of splitscreen multiplayer, primarily because it WILL of course have splitscreen multiplayer. That’s a vital part of the Halo experience and one vastly improved by the advent of high def TVs. Basically with a big LCD or plasma, the splitscreen experience takes on almost luxurious overtones.

 

There are several tiers of this multiplayer mode. At its simplest level, it’s a couple of siblings running around on Lockout with swords. But at its most convoluted, it’s a LAN party where adding TVs keeps blowing out the power (we say this from personal experience) and splitscreen at that point, is a godsend.

 

We’ll still have the same online matchmaking restrictions – not being able to play splitscreen in certain types of ranked games, for example - but otherwise expect full feature parity with Halo 2 in that regard – with some improvements based on resolution and evolution (including improvements to the HUD.) to make the game easier to see in those modes.

 

Don’t worry standard def owners, we’re making sure it looks amazing on your sets too. In fact, our test department still has as many little 4:3 CRTs as it does LCDs.

 

In a couple of weeks, we’re switching over to the redesigned Bungie.net, the result of a lot of hard work and effort by our web and art team. It’s a cleaner, prettier site in many ways, and it certainly addresses a lot of the complaints you guys have about navigation and clarity. However, you should remember that for a while after the relaunch, some of the features you’re used to will be moved, or in the case of groups, temporarily on hold. If you want to guarantee your groups pages come back as normal, then we suggest backing up your data – even if that simply means cutting and pasting text, or saving the entire set of pages as html – that’s because it’s possible that there will be some data loss by the time groups return. Of course, we’ll do everything to ensure that isn’t the case.

 

 

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Shut It!

 

So remember we were explaining how easy it is to mute an annoying player a while back? Well it’s even easier. The interface changed a little and Dave Candland took me through the process. On my first ever try, I muted Dave in less than a second. This is the process as it stands now:

 

 

Annoyed by player

Press BACK button

Right stick t

Link to post
Share on other sites

Obsidian series: day 1

 

By: Grisly Silence

 

 

 

 

 

What is it that makes a survivor?

What characteristics define this trait?

Why does one live and another die?

Strength of will, body, and mind; these things a survivor make.

This seems straightforward, but what happens when two such survivors meet?

What happens when they both have strength of will, body, and mind?

But of course, there is only one solution, one possible outcome.

In this game, there can be no tie, no draw, and no second place.

Only one of the two could possibly survive the encounter.

Which one?

The one with the most of each, of course.

 

 

 

Day 1

 

 

“There is something strange on the north side.”

 

“Strange how?” A lot of things could be called strange. Most of it was to be avoided.

 

“Earlier this morning I found a Stalker coming from up there. He was bleeding badly. Said I should stay away from the north side. After that I hid. A big pack of blind dogs was following the scent of his blood.”

 

“What’s so strange about that? Stalkers die every day. Blind dogs are everywhere.”

 

The Stalker looked at Mihail intensely. “It’s not that he died, it’s how,” he paused. “He was bleeding from gunshot wounds.”

 

Mihail’s eyebrows rose. Now that was interesting. Very interesting indeed. “Sounds like greed to me. Either military or another Stalker.” He thought a moment. “Only one thing could cause that kind of greed.”

 

“Artifacts,” the man said almost reverently. He smiled eagerly

 

Mihail gave him a sideways glance. He was a little too excited. That made Mihail suspicious. He had survived on being so. “Why did you decide to tell me, then? Why not go and get it yourself, not risk getting shot in the back?”

 

“Because if the military or other Stalkers are up there, I doubt either one of us would be able to…obtain it by ourselves.”

 

Mihail considered. It made sense. Two Stalkers would be better able to handle a threat than one. But threats from without weren’t the only threats. This man could just be trying to have him help get the artifact, but was planning on shooting him in the back. It was a big risk. An artifact weighed against the possibility of his demise. He thought about it only for a moment. If one didn’t take risks one would never get anywhere. Besides, just being in this place was a risk. Even if this man was going to betray him, Mihail had lived a long time watching his back, and he wasn’t going to give the Stalker a chance to stab him in it. Besides, that wouldn’t happen until they had gotten to the artifact, after Mihail’s usefulness had been expended. When that happened, Mihail would be ready. He suppressed a grim smile. Perhaps this Stalker would have to watch his own back.

 

Mihail nodded, almost to himself. “Sounds like a good idea.” He thought a moment. “Did the other Stalker give you any idea on what type of artifact it would be?”

 

The man shook his head. “No. Just what I’ve told you.”

 

Damn. The artifact was just a question mark, and Mihail didn’t know what type of measures he would have to take to contain and transport it. Artifacts could sometimes be more dangerous than the Zone’s more permanent residents. That could cause problems later.

 

Mihail suddenly noticed the light was fading. The night was stealing away the sun’s brightness, shading it red and purple. The air was taking on an unpleasant chill. There would probably be a freeze that night. “Let’s get into one of these buildings. No sense getting caught out in the open by something.” He reached his hand forward. “They call me Mihail.”

 

The other Stalker hesitated at the strange way he phrased it, then extended his own and shook Mihail’s firmly. “Svyatoslav.”

 

Mihail nodded. “Good. Now that the pleasantries have been dealt with, let us go inside before it gets any colder.”

 

Mihail directed him to the doorway of a building he had already pre-selected on his initial survey of the area hours earlier. It was a run-down old restaurant with a second story that seemed to have been dropped on top of the first as an afterthought and was only precariously perched atop it. It was a wood and stone affair, with paint peeling and mortar crumbled away and wood eaten by mold and insects. It was dark inside; the rays of the dying sun barely penetrating the single dirty—but intact—window, lending a vague crimson glow to the area as if they were seeing it through a filter. It was a little warmer inside, but not by much. Debris crunched underfoot as they entered the main room, shattered plates and silverware, crushed glass and the forgotten refuse of years of habitation. There were partially burned clothes piled inside a stone fireplace, and all the chairs and tables looked to have been rolled over by something heavy. The stairway creaked badly when Svyatoslav tried it, and looked to be about to crumble away, so he retreated. A candelabrum had fallen from the high, ribbed ceiling and lay crashed to the floor. A bar to the side once serviced patrons of liquor. All of the alcohol was gone, but Mihail wouldn’t have drunk it anyway. Svyatoslav sneezed as dust drifted into the air from their movements.

 

Mihail locked the door behind him with the heavy dead-bolt, one of the reasons he chose the building. Crossing the room, kicking aside a large chunk of wood, he found the back door and checked to see if it opened. It did, if with a little effort. He locked that too. It was the second reason he chose the building. He never went into a place that didn’t have more than one exit.

 

Svyatoslav watched him without comment as he went about the room, checking this and that, making sure there weren’t any weak points in the walls, a potential entrance for something nasty. There wasn’t a basement, so he didn’t have to worry about the floor giving way or something unpleasant coming up while they were sleeping. He eyed the ceiling. He would have to hope the second story would stay situated above their heads for the duration of the night.

 

He found a mostly stable chair from within all of the garbage and pulled it up to the bar. A table that was missing a leg would have to serve as another. He propped it up against the bar as well. Svyatoslav had already seated himself on the chair, so Mihail took the table. He unslung his AK-74 from over his shoulder and placed it on the bar, then dropped his pack onto the ground next to his makeshift chair. He searched it for his lantern, set it on the bar, and wound the dynamo handle. Feeble light streamed from within the dirty glass, casting long shadows of the two against the aging, decayed walls. He started disassembling his gun for cleaning. He didn’t want it to jam at an inopportune moment. Svyatoslav dropped his own AKS onto the bar but made no move to start any sort of maintenance. Mihail could tell Svyatoslav wanted to say something, but he didn’t ask; he didn’t need to. Svyatoslav would eventually get to it.

 

While he worked, he listened for stray sounds, things that shouldn’t belong. He heard nothing but for the wind, though that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The wind had never comforted him as it did others. Others said it brought in fresh air, cooled them down, and reminded them of better days. They liked the sound of the wind.

 

He hated the wind. It masked the sound of things sneaking up on you. Things that were hungry. It swirled dust around, obscuring trails and making it harder to see. To him, it brought the smell of something other than freshness. On the wind he could always smell the bitter scent of death.

 

When he first came to the zone, he had been given to flights of fantasy. That had long since been ground out of him by the overwhelming, crushing presence of the zone and its inhabitants. He used to say that the day the wind was loudest and most furious was the day you died. He used to say that on that day you could smell the scent of your own death in the wind. He realized it was just superstitious nonsense, but belief in something, no matter how incredible, gave many people a measure of comfort. Though he didn’t admit it, perhaps it gave him a measure of comfort as well, or at least a sort of resolve. All those others that liked the wind were dead as far as he knew, unless one could rise up and live from being torn to shreds by dwarves or blind dogs. But then again, you never knew with the Zone. He liked it best when it was dead quiet. You stood a better chance of living.

 

Svyatoslav cleared his throat. Mihail gave up on ignoring him and looked over questioningly. “Something on your mind?”

 

“I was just wondering…” He trailed off.

 

Mihail almost shook his head. They always started that way. I was just wondering…and then they deluged you with questions about your childhood, your family, your old life. Mihail’s old life was dead. So was everyone else’s. Even if it wasn’t private business—which was reason enough for Mihail to refuse answering—it was long gone, too far away to be of any use in the here and now. People who dwelled on the past ended up not thinking enough on the present and they died. That was how it was. Mihail didn’t dwell on the past, nor did he dwell on the future. What was happening right at that moment was what was important, was what could kill you. What was in the past was unchangeable, and the future was so vague and uncertain there was no way to predict or influence it; if you tried you’d end up with the same problem as if you were dwelling on the past and you’d end up feeding the worms, or something else.

 

Svyatoslav started again. “I was just wondering why you said they call you Mihail? Why not say that that was your name?”

 

Mihail looked up again. An actual intelligent question. “It’s not my name. I had another once, before all this. It died along with everything else. Now I am Mihail. That is all that matters.” He looked away and returned to cleaning the gun. It had gotten very grimy from some constant use only a few days before.

 

“It’s getting worse out there,” Svyatoslav offered after a moment.

 

Mihail didn’t look up. “The weather or the Zone?” He stopped to look at the wood surface of the bar. Round stains from mugs and steins turned the rough grain dark in places, memories of more jubilant times. That was all gone now.

 

“Both. Have you noticed?”

 

Mihail had noticed. As blowout after blowout occurred, and more anomalies and strange things started appearing, and more and more Stalkers died, the weather got stranger and stranger. One day it would be as hot as hell’s forge, and the next it would be a winter’s night in Siberia. It would snow and then melt an hour later. Lakes froze or dried up, becoming huge salt beds. In other places, new lakes emerged from contaminated water and the vegetation all around died. You couldn’t help but notice it. It was another unanswerable question about this godforsaken place.

 

“Everything’s going to die sooner or later, you know? Us, the plants and animals, eventually everybody else. Makes me want to leave.”

 

“Then leave.” Mihail had no time for the future. If he died, it would happen. He wouldn’t die easy, but everyone had a time. Mihail’s wasn’t up yet, because he was still alive. Any other thoughts on the matter were irrelevant.

 

Svyatoslav’s brow creased. “Well, why…”

 

Mihail stopped him with a hand. He thought he had heard something outside…

 

Getting a little angry, Svyatoslav started to his feet. “Look here, you can’t just…”

 

Mihail fixed him with a glare so hellish that the man stopped in his tracks and quit breathing. He continued to fix his gaze on the man until he was sure he would stay quiet. Then Mihail listened. His eyes gathered in the walls of the room. Suddenly it seemed very small. He quietly turned the lantern off. Everything went dark. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that the sun had set. There was no moon out. The entire area was covered in clouds, so there were no stars either. He could barely make out the outline of Svyatoslav’s form or the dimensions of the room. But he didn’t move from his spot to try different angles. He didn’t want to make any sounds. There was a tiny scratching sound from outside. His heart skipped a beat. He saw Svyatoslav’s eyes go wide. He turned his head to the window. That was the part he was worried about. He couldn’t see through it, and anything that wanted in could easily break it. It could be standing just outside the window and he wouldn’t know. His eyes strained in the dark to make something out. Illusions flickered at the edges of his visions, whispers of movement. He ignored them, concentrating on the window. A small scrape against the wood of the wall outside, mere feet from the window. He heard a heavy breath. God only knows, but it could be smelling them. He stopped breathing. His blood thundered through his ears. He feared the sound of his heart would alert the thing outside to his presence.

 

All was silence. It had to be out there somewhere. It couldn’t have gotten very… gravel crunched right underneath the window. Adrenaline pumped through Mihail’s veins like fire, grinding its way through him, instilling him with its harsh need, its power. His hand edged towards the Stechkin he kept at his belt. His AK-74 was in no state to be used. Something was right outside the window, but he couldn’t see it. A thousand possibilities rushed through his mind. What was out there? What was out there? A little voice teased him. He couldn’t answer it. He feared the thing would hear the sound of his reply.

 

Something heavy hammered against the wall. The entire building shuddered, the glass of the window rattling. Mihail’s hand shot to his gun. Svyatoslav jerked backward and fell off his chair, crashing into the debris in the middle of the floor. They both froze, staring at the window. Had it heard? Nothing moved. Mihail leaned forward ever so slightly, silently withdrawing his gun from its holster. He was on the edge of the table he sat on, ready to bolt or attack at an instant’s notice. Whatever was out there could easily kill them. He knew that. He couldn’t hear if there was any wind through the rush of blood in his ears. Today could be the day the wind became loud for him. But what would the thing outside do?

 

There was a heavy huffing sound from outside. A deep, angry growl reverberated through the building. The huffing increased. Then it rammed into the side of the building with tremendous force. The entire west wall splintered and cracked, scattering dust and wood chips through the air. The window shattered, sharp chunks of glass clinking to the floor. The stairs behind Mihail finally gave way and crashed to the floor. More dust rose into the air, turning into a thick, grimy morass. Cold air streamed in through the broken boards of the walls. A huge black shape passed in front of the window. He swore viciously, then started for the rear door as quietly as he could. If the thing outside wasn’t entirely where they were in the building, maybe it wouldn’t be able to get him before he got out. He would have to leave his AK-74 for later. He passed Svyatoslav trying to get to his feet without disturbing the debris around him. Suddenly, the thing roared with fury and slammed into the wall again. This time it smashed through, breaking apart the wood beams as if they were toothpicks, sending the thick boards flying through the air. The splintered ends shattered against the far wall as Mihail dove behind the bar. Its heavy footsteps thudded against the floor. Whatever it was, it was big.

 

He heard Svyatoslav scrambling to get away. He heard the thing turn and start toward the struggling Stalker. Glass and wood were crushed alike beneath its feet. Mihail slowed his breath. His heartbeat raged uncontrolled. Blood pounded through his veins. The heady mix of adrenaline and fear surged and flowed. Fire burned in his eyes.

 

With a feral roar Mihail leaped out from behind the bar and fired at the dark shape clouded by swirling dust. He held down the trigger of his Stechkin machine pistol. Twenty rounds of hot lead stitched into the thing’s flesh. He slammed into the wall with a painful thud and rolled free. The thing roared again, but this time in pain, and turned on him. Its movements were jerky and fast, but no less powerful. Its footsteps thundered in his ears. It was too close. He couldn’t tell how much he had injured it. He dove behind the bar again and ejected the clip to his Stechkin. With shaking fingers, he found the second clip at his belt and quickly shoved it home.

 

Before he could prepare for the thing, it had already crossed the room. Without warning the whole left side of the bar exploded into dust and splinters as the thing crashed into it in its frenzied search for Mihail. He fell back as shards of wood cut into him with slivers of pain. He fired blindly at the thing, bullets shrieking through the air and thudding into its meaty flesh. It roared again, stepping back as the hot pieces of shaped metal tore through it. But it shrugged them aside in its fury and slammed its massive fists against the wall. Bricks and mortar tumbled down onto Mihail, plaster choking the air, turning it into a thick white morass. Barely having enough time, Mihail leaped over the remains of the bar just as the thing crashed into the corner where he had been. Unsteady as he landed, he slipped on a board and fell heavily to the floor. The Stechkin slipped from his fingers. White lights flashed in his eyes as he compressed his chest against the floor. His breath wheezed out. Where was Svyatoslav?

 

Already the thing realized it hadn’t crushed Mihail in its attack. It lunged forward, breaking the bar in half, and stomped toward him. He scrambled forward, his numb fingers fumbling at his belt for his machete. The thing was gaining on him in the close quarters of the restaurant. He wouldn’t be able to run forever. Everything was too damn close together. Sweat and dust stung his eyes and blurred his vision as he tried to find a way out. His breath came in ragged pulls. He could barely breathe through the thick dust clogging the air. He could barely see anything. He stumbled forward, looking for the door. He heard the thing roar in frustration and pound after him in anger.

 

He hurtled into something and fell to the floor, stunned. What had he hit? He hadn’t seen anything. For a moment he was confused. Then he saw the vague form standing above him. It was Svyatoslav. With his AKS.

 

Mihail tried to stand, but a sharp pain in his side brought him back down to a crouch. He tore the machete from his belt, despite how ineffective it was bound to be. Svyatoslav yelled something, but Mihail couldn’t hear it over the noise the thing was making. And then it suddenly appeared through the dust and slammed into them, tossing them both aside before they could react. Its gigantic fist jack-hammered into his stomach, crushing the breath from his lungs with a pain that felt like it had torn him in two, throwing him across the breadth of the room. He skidded across the wood scattered over the floor, hit something with his shoulder and tumbled through the hole in the wall the thing made.

 

He fell heavily onto the dirt. Bitter cold air washed over him, but he couldn’t breathe it. Pain seared through his lungs like acid. Even the thought of taking a breath brought the pain to full force. Gripping his stomach with his hands, he forced himself to take that breath. Agony ripped through his chest like a thousand shards stabbing into his lungs. He screamed and choked on vomit. He took another shuddering breath. Pure, biting air flowed into his lungs like liquor that burned all the way down. He forced himself to take another, wincing against the pain. Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes. He spit the bitter liquid of his vomit from his mouth.

 

He heard Svyatoslav yelling. He heard the thing thundering across the floor with steps that caused the building to shake. He heard wood and glass breaking. He heard the stuttering report of Svyatoslav’s AKS. He heard the thing roaring. He heard all this in a split second’s time. He listened for one sound in particular. But he couldn’t hear it. The wind was still and dead. Renewed determination brought him to his feet. He didn’t believe in such things, and yet it still held meaning for him. Clenching his teeth against the pain, he stepped back into the dust pouring from the restaurant.

 

He saw everything through a haze other than the cloud kicked up by their fierce battle. Calm swept through him, steadying him. The fear that had gripped his heart like a vise fled before the onslaught of cold hard resolve. He would not die. Not before he killed this thing. Not before he brought it to the ground and crushed the life from its inhuman body. Not before.

 

Almost immediately his eyes found the long black shape of his machete. It was only feet from him. He grabbed it by its leather handle, lifting the deadly sharp blade up from the floor. Fury raged in his eyes. He looked up and saw Svyatoslav firing several rounds into the thing. Each harsh flash lit the cloud of dust, turning everything white. The thing roared in pain and anger as the rounds tore into its flesh. Mihail saw chunks of its flesh flying off and blood spurting as each bullet burrowed in. But it seemed to make no difference to it. It was so big that he doubted the bullets were even harming it very badly. They went in, but they didn’t hit anything important, didn’t do any damage. Its vague man-shape made it that much more horrifying, reminiscent of a more homogenous past. If they didn’t kill it soon, it would win simply because it could survive much more than they. But everything had a weakness. Finding this thing’s weakness using trial-and-error would take too long. They would be dead before they found out, and there was no way to test different theories while it tried to grind them into bloody sacs beneath its feet. They would have to do something that would definitely hurt it instead of just putting useless holes in it. He looked down at his machete and hefted it. What he needed to do was cut something off.

 

He stormed across the room to the giant thing; hate, anger, disgust and terror all gripping him by turns as he in turn gripped the machete in both hands. It was stopped for a moment, shuddering as Svyatoslav poured more bullets into its belly. It was time to end it. It was time for it to die. He came up behind it. He twisted to the right, then brought the machete around with as much force and fury as he could possibly bring to bear, putting his entire body, his entire being into ramming the blade directly into the thing. The steel blade glinted dully in the murky air to the cadence of Svyatoslav’s gun. The edge sliced through the dust and gloom with razor-sharp efficiency, exactly how Mihail kept it. He experienced a measure of satisfaction as he noted it, but it was gone in a flash.

 

The machete slammed into the side of the creature’s neck with such jarring force that it knocked the creature to its knees. Gushes of dark red blood splashed against the walls and ceiling. Mihail lost his grip on the weapon as his hands went numb from the vibration of hitting the thing’s spine. Breathing raggedly, he quickly regained the machete, and again hacked sharply into the thing’s neck. The machete stuck in its thick spine, so he released it again. He pulled his bayonet from his belt and reached around the thing while it was still stunned, reeking blood pouring from its half-severed neck and pooling against the wood floor. With a sudden jerk of his powerful muscles, he severed it part of the way, cutting through layers of flesh and blood. He felt the warmth of its life flow out over his hands, staining them red. With a final grimace, he bunched up his muscles and tore the bayonet through the thing’s spine, snapping it in half. He let the body slam to the floor with enough force to cause the restaurant to shudder, bringing down more clouds of plaster and wood. The machete clattered down on top of the debris. He held the thing’s gigantic head in his left hand for a moment, long strings of blood leaking from its severed bottom. It was the twisted visage of a once-human. What had been done to it, Mihail didn’t know. Whatever it was, he didn’t want it to happen to him.

 

He tossed the severed head away from himself in disgust. He was covered in blood, some of it his, some of it the creature’s. His clothing was in tatters, torn up from the ferocious battle. He let his breath out slowly, relief flooding through him. He replaced the bayonet in its sheath, then gestured to Svyatoslav.

 

“Help me find my guns.”

 

 

Obsidian Series: Day 2

 

By: Grisly Silence

 

 

 

 

 

The next day dawned bright and cold. The sun rose above the horizon like some burning sentinel of doom, searing the land with intense white light. And yet, it was still cold. Breath clouded, skin prickled, liquids froze. Bleak thunderheads gathered on the opposite horizon, as if driven away by the light of the sun. But appearances are not everything, and as the sun rose, they came closer and closer, shadowing the land, concealing it from the sun’s harsh light.

 

Mihail and Svyatoslav moved out immediately, having collected the pieces of Mihail’s gun and transferring to a different building. They passed the restaurant where they had fought the monstrosity. Great splashes of blood were frozen on the walls and floor, but the body was gone. Scavengers had eaten it during the night.

 

They didn’t speak as they walked out of the nameless city; yet another crushed achievement of humankind in a long line of such crushed achievements. They were all the same to Mihail. They all blurred together. He couldn’t care less what the name was. They kept a sharp eye out for any sign of anomalies. Often these were more dangerous than the creatures that lived within the Zone.

 

They moved slowly at first, Mihail favoring his stomach for a good while. The thing’s fist had been like an iron bar slammed into his midsection. He began to feel better, though, and they were able to pick up the pace. They caught sight of a host of rats near the northern outskirts. They scurried around as if mad, swarming over bulky objects in the middle of a broad square. One or two larger ones seemed to be watching for something, standing up on their haunches occasionally and looking suspiciously around with beady black eyes. Mihail and Svyatoslav watched this from across the square, beyond the poor vision of the rats. Normally Mihail might be inclined to devise a way to draw the rats off or kill them so he could get a look at what they were gathered around, but he had more interesting prospects farther off, and it was entirely possible the rats were merely feeding on the bodies of someone hapless enough to get trapped in the square. Besides, Mihail could taste a peculiar tang in the air, similar to the coppery taste of blood. It was the sign of Fog. The rats would be dead soon enough anyway.

 

Mihail noticed Svyatoslav pull an antique pocket watch from one of his pockets and open the face, studying the movement. Mihail looked at him curiously. Svyatoslav smiled grimly.

 

“A mechanical watch will stop in a high magnetic field.” He said simply.

 

Mihail nodded. That was very interesting. He would have to see about obtaining one from the Dealer. High magnetic fields were very dangerous.

 

After that they skirted the square, still heading north through the buildings. They didn’t see anything alive. The wind had died, but the clouds had made it overhead, lending everything a dull, leaden cast.

 

Then they stepped from the cover of the last of the buildings and saw the bodies. This was what they were looking for. Bright red splashes of blood glistened on the broken concrete. Viscera were strewn from long gashes in the bellies of bodies. Eyes stared in horror at whatever they had last seen. Faces were locked in terrible grimaces of pain. Flies gathered around the eviscerated bodies, swarming around the mouths, eyes, and the extensive wounds. The smell of rotting meat hung in the air like a hideous funeral pall. One never got used to that smell.

 

Svyatoslav wandered through the carnage a few feet ahead of Mihail. Six Stalkers brutally killed, all ripped open, the trademark of Dwarves. But didn’t Dwarves usually stay underground? And some even had bullet wounds. It must have happened within the last few hours, not long before dawn, or they would already have been eaten by scavengers by now. Mihail checked the line of trees some hundred yards distant for movement. They would have to leave soon.

 

He bent to one of the bodies, searching for anything useful. The pockets were empty but for some crumbs of food in his pack and bullets in a mag pouch at his belt. He kept the bullets but left the food. It was too easily poisoned. He stopped by another body. Nothing. He looked up and scanned the horizon again. He didn’t like lingering in one place if he didn’t have to. Especially with the attractive smell of all this dead drawing predators. He glanced at the overall scene. Where were all the guns?

 

His companion continued walking to a small outcropping of buildings just past the site. Mihail searched another corpse. Something caught his eyes as he rummaged through the body’s pockets. The man had burns on his hands and face. Bad burns. Mihail recognized those burns. He’d seen them before. He swore under his breath and conducted a thorough search of all the bodies, then the area around them. He swore again when he found nothing.

 

There was a yell. He looked to see Svyatoslav waving him over. His eyes passed over the bodies one more time. He couldn’t help swearing again.

 

Mihail trotted over to where Svyatoslav stood. The man pointed to the wall before them. It was riddled with bullet holes. Svyatoslav nodded wordlessly at the ground. Mihail followed the line of his gaze. Another body, red, burned and deformed, leaking blood and other fluids through a multitude of sores and bullet holes. It wasn’t human. Not any more. But it wasn’t a Dwarf, either. It looked a lot like a zombie. That might explain some things. Controllers were more intelligent than most everything else in the zone. More human. It might have noticed something about the artifact and taken it.

 

He squatted, analyzing the ground, letting his fingers brush the grass. There were tracks leading away from the area, farther north. He considered. The Stalkers must have come upon an artifact, probably the one Svyatoslav had found out about, and fought over it. Some of them were killed. Maybe they stumbled onto the Controller and its minions, or the Controller stumbled on them, and killed the remaining Stalkers, except for the one that managed to escape.

 

He wasn’t afraid of much. He had a lot of respect for many of the Zone’s inhabitants. But Controllers were another matter. He was afraid of them. Another time, another place, he might have had a hard time admitting it. But if he deluded himself in the Zone, he’d end up dead. A Controller could do things to a man nothing else could. It was nauseating. But what worried him even more were the burns on the one man’s face.

 

Radiation burns.

 

“We go north.” He said simply. Svyatoslav nodded. If he was going to die, then that was his fate.

 

They left the outskirts of the city ruins, walking through the forest for several hours. They kept a sharp eye for anything trailing them or telltales of an ambush. Svyatoslav checked his watch often. The trail was easy to follow; their quarry wasn’t making an effort to conceal the signs of their passing. The terrain grew rougher and more difficult to traverse. The day wore on until the sun was directly over their heads, though they could only see it as a vague brightening of the clouds above them. They ate a quick lunch of MRE’s, which preserved well, didn’t take up much space, and tasted vaguely of cardboard and salt.

 

It was about an hour after noon, according to Svyatoslav’s watch, that they came upon an anomaly.

 

The trees stopped. There was no reason for it. They were there, and then the two suddenly stepped onto hard earth. There were no trees, no scrub brush, no grass struggling to reach the light of the sun from under a rock. Nothing. Nothing but an expanse of dirt and gravel. It went on and on until the far edge of the clearing was but a vague blur. A slight wind shifted dust here and there along the length and breadth of the area.

 

“I don't like it.” Mihail said to himself.

 

Svyatoslav seemed to have heard. “At least nothing will sneak up on us. We will be able to see for miles all around.”

 

That was true, Mihail thought. But anyone coming would also see them for miles. Being out in the open like that was as bad as being in a tight, enclosed space. It was easy to get trapped. But that wasn’t the reason he was uneasy. There was something about this unnatural wasteland that unnerved him. It was too perfectly scoured of life. In the Zone, there were very few places where there was no life, or sign of it of some kind.

 

Dust swirled up by the wind blew all around, obscuring the wasteland. The grains of sand got in their eyes and mouths. Coughing, they turned their backs on the empty place, retreating into the cover of the trees, rubbing their eyes. Svyatoslav checked his watch. Mihail donned his gas mask, making sure the filters were tight and in place. He looked back at the area through the round lenses. The tracks stopped at the edge of the trees, leading straight in. The dust had blown over the rest. He looked over at Svyatoslav, putting on his own gas mask. The man checked his watch again, then nodded. They would have to travel with their guns inside their coats. Even the trusty Kalashnikovs were susceptible to grit. They would have to be careful when using them; if they jammed, they would be in trouble until they could get them cleaned out. Checking behind for a moment, Mihail considered the effort required to get the artifact. He noted the radiation burns and possible presence of a Controller and zombies. He also noted the Stalkers fighting and killing each other over it, and the fact that it had disappeared, possibly taken by that very Controller. There was something very desirable about it. At this point, it was still worth it.

 

The instant they stepped into the desolation, dust whirled up around them, encasing them in a gritty shell. It seemed that they would be able to see no one, no matter how close they got. Even the fact that anything would also not see them failed to make him feel any better. He looked around the dust as the wind tugged at his clothes. He was rapidly being coated in the stuff, turning his black outfit tan. Despite the roaring outside his mask, his own breath was loud in his ears. He started walking.

 

The walking seemed endless. At times the wind dissipated a little and the dust would settle to the ground, leaving in its place a thick haze in the air, still preventing them from seeing very far. But even these thin spells lasted for no longer than a moment. For all they knew, whoever, or whatever had that artifact could have died somewhere in the vast expanse and they could pass within feet of it without noticing. In this mess, they would have to trip over whatever they were looking for. He just hoped the artifact made it to the edge where they could look for it. Everything would have been a waste of time if a sorry chance of fate hid it under an inch of silt.

 

But there was nothing they could possibly do about that, so they kept walking, not speaking for that was not possible over the thundering of the wind. The incessant droning eventually faded into a distant buzzing in his ears as they trudged through the rocks and dust. Mihail had lost all track of time. The dust was the same in every direction, just a wall of whirling tan particles. He supposed he could have asked Svyatoslav to check his watch, but felt no particular need to know. Just as long as they got to the end, that was good enough for him. But he still didn’t like the place. He could feel…eyes on him at all times. Watching.

--------------

 

He remembered a similar time, years before, when he had felt eyes on him. It was just before the second blowout. He felt as if something had been looking on him from some hidden vantage point. There was a bright light that lit all the clouds in every direction orange. Night was made day. The shockwave knocked him down. He was unconscious for hours. When he awoke, the sky was still bright orange, but everything around him was still standing. The trees hadn’t even dropped any leaves. Why had the wave only hit him? His gaze turned to the power plant.

 

Then he was running through the forest back to his home. The dark specter of the plant’s towers loomed starkly against the sky. He ran toward them. Fear gripped him. He had only been out to gather some firewood. His wife had been baking bread at the house. It was too close. He ran harder, ripping through the forest. They were all right. They were all right.

 

He was too late. He flew into the clearing where their house sat. It was too quiet. He didn’t hear the clatter of pans or the crackling of the baking fire or the crying of the baby. But he wouldn’t let himself believe it. He tore open the door and stumbled over her body. His heart stopped. Blood ran from a gaping wound in her throat. Her hand clutched a knife coated in blood. He crawled over to her and cried, tenderly stroking her face. He didn’t even ask what had happened. It was too horrible for him to bear thinking of.

 

Finally, he rose weakly, staring at his beloved wife. Then he looked away. He couldn’t bear to look any more. Stumbling through the hall, he made his unsteady way to the bedroom. His knees were weak. He was afraid to look in. Steeling himself, he stepped into the doorway, bracing himself against the frame. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Falling to his knees, he vomited, pressing his fists against his stomach. Tears dripped endlessly from his eyes. Crawling away from the room, choking on fear and agony, he wept.

 

He didn’t even register the sounds for almost an hour. He just lay on the floor gasping for breath. His life was over. His only two reasons for living were gone. Finally he had no more tears left, no strength left for crying. As he went quiet, he heard rustling sounds outside. Someone was outside. Shock flooded through him. He couldn’t fit his mind around what was happening. Images of his wife paraded themselves in front of him. He couldn’t stop them. Who else would be in his home? Who had done this? Answers wouldn’t come.

 

Something strange came over him. He found himself able to stand. A single word flared to life. MURDER. Making his way into the kitchen, he kept his eyes on the walls, not daring to look down. The knife rack stared at him. He stared back. He found himself taking a knife. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He felt as if he had lost his mind, like someone else was pulling his strings, like a puppet.

 

Shuffling through the door, he found himself outside. It was still night, but the light had faded from the clouds. He went around the back of the house. Someone was crouching by the side of his house, scratching at the dirt. He came closer. The person was naked, covered in white skin that looked like it had been through a furnace and left horribly scarred. Blood was spattered on its back. His mind started working again. He made the connection. The knife rose. He wasn’t even seeing anything around him. The deep, bloody slash in his wife’s throat refused to leave his vision. The knife plunged into the bumpy white skin.

 

He buried his wife and what was left of his child. It was only much later that he learned that it had been a controller. Oleesya had killed herself when she felt what was happening. The child had not been so lucky. The controller had been hungry.

------------

 

After what felt like days of weary walking but was more likely a few hours, Svyatoslav shouted. Mihail had hung his head, staring at the ground, watching his legs disappear into the sand storm, almost dead asleep as he walked. He would have to take off his mask to wipe away the tears, so he let them dry against his skin. He felt dead. Even Svyatoslav’s yell sounded like a lover’s whisper to him. But it was enough to rouse him from his stupor. He looked up. The dust abated suddenly, clearing away and dropping flat to the ground. Nothing moved again. It was like the blowing sand had never been. Here and there some wind moved loose dust a few meters, but nothing like what they had experienced a mere meter behind. Without knowing how, or why, Mihail knew that if he stepped back in, the sand would rush up all about him, but did nothing to test his theory. He was too tired for that. And he could see the edge of the forest, the evening sun falling slowly behind the crests of the far gray mountains, preparing to disappear under the onslaught of nightfall. The tracks in the sand they were following started up not a few meters to their left, headed directly for the trees.

 

 

 

 

Obsidian Series Day 3

 

By Grisly Silence

 

 

 

The sun burned down despite the trees. Sweat rolled down Mihail’s back in cool rivulets. He was wet everywhere, his clothes soaked through. His eyes hurt from squinting, and all he saw were waves of heat in the burned, dead trees. He could barely stand touching his AK. Through it all, the trail continued through the deadwood, disappearing over hill a few hundred meters off. It was bad weather for anything, let alone following something potentially dangerous. Next to him, Svyatoslav stumbled on a hidden branch, struggling to his feet before again trudging forward. He looked as uncomfortable as Mihail. They would have to stop soon, find some shade to protect themselves from the heat. If they fell to heat exhaustion they would be easy prey. His muscles burned from walking and his stomach twisted with nausea from the heat. They were in no condition to take the artifact from whatever had it.

 

He spotted something white in the trees several meters ahead and to the left. He slowed, drifting off the trail. Svyatoslav continued walking, then stopped when he noticed Mihail wasn’t following. He looked over at Mihail, who continued to approach the object, with his gun warily in hand, eyes roaming for signs of a trap. Mihail vaguely heard Svyatoslav moving through the brush behind him, following. There was an unpleasant odor in the air, filling his nose with its noxious stench. Svyatoslav coughed and choked, and Mihail switched to breathing through his mouth, though that did little to ease the smell.

 

He pushed through the last thicket of brush before the white object. The smell was concentrated there. He gagged. Tears came to his eyes as he tried to suppress his nausea. Laying there, glistening brightly in the sun, spread-eagled and naked before them, was a body. Only nearly human. Mihail coughed against his arm, keeping it pressed against his mouth to ward off the smell. He opened his eyes to look at the body. Pale flesh hung on the corpse like drapery, spreading out, almost pooling off the body in the sun. All of it was burned and bubbled, like it had been dipped in a vat of boiling oil. Its pseudo-human face was twisted in a grimace, fat lips pulled over protruding crooked teeth. Its eyes were pure white and almost bursting from their sockets, swelling disproportionately large. Its hands clenched against its belly, in such torment when it had died that its fingers had gouged deep holes into its stomach. Thick red blood streamed from the finger holes like honey. It had died recently.

 

Mihail quickly dropped back, retreating to the trail. He spit the bitter taste from his mouth and wiped his lips against his sleeve. Svyatoslav hacked. The main group couldn’t be too far ahead. Spitting distastefully again, he left the site, following the trail once more. He wondered if Svyatoslav had understood what the burns meant. He certainly did. But it wasn’t wise to divulge all of the knowledge he possessed. He wouldn’t want Svyatoslav to get the idea that he didn’t need him anymore. He looked back at the body, retreating steadily into the forest behind him. They would have to stop somewhere else.

 

After they had made a good distance down the trail and away from the body, they stopped in the shade of a tree stubbornly holding onto the last of its burned leaves. The MREs were quickly downed for need of food if not want of it. They sipped their water to keep it from running out. They said nothing, whether to conserve energy or for lack of anything to say, neither knew. When Mihail stood, Svyatoslav knew it was time to go. They started back on the trail of their quarry.

 

Thick brush began to creep in on the trail as they climbed the slope of a thickly forested hill. The trail was clearly evident now; broken twigs, footprints and fresh scrapes on tree bark all pointing to the presence of something having passed that way. The trees grew closer together and the light was screened away by branches reaching overhead, creating a tunnel around them that held the heat in, threatening to suffocate them. Eventually the undergrowth became so bad that both he and Svyatoslav had to hack away at it with machetes to make any sort of time. The bushes would have significantly slowed their prey.

 

They came upon a tree that had fallen across a cluster of rocks that went back several hundred meters. The rocks were close together and formed a sort of tunnel through the forest. It was very dark inside. The trail led directly into it.

 

“It would not be wise to go in there.” Mihail said immediately. It would be too easy to be trapped or ambushed once inside.

 

“We have lanterns and flashlights.” Svyatoslav responded.

 

Mihail gave him an unreadable look. “Then you can go in first.”

 

Svyatoslav didn’t say anything. Mihail nodded. “Then we go around.”

 

It was slow going. The trees grew close together so when the path was blocked they had to go around, for they were too thick to be chopped apart with their machetes. But Mihail was able to guide by sighting down three trees in a row to act as a straight line, and using the position of the sun as backup. He had once owned a compass, but it had been smashed into uselessness in a gravity anomaly. He mourned its loss, but was grateful he had survived.

 

They finally came out near the trail and forged through the brush and trees until they reached it. The tracks continued on ahead of them as if nothing had happened. It was irritating after all that effort to find that their quarry had gone the easy route without problems. But there was no helping it, so they continued on.

 

The light began to fade and the heat to dissipate. The sun passed overhead and settled comfortably behind them, streaking the sky with red and casting their shadows out before them. Mihail began to wonder where they were heading. They had started going due north, but now had switched almost without him noticing it, and were heading east and slightly south. He shook his head. He’d follow the artifact to the edge of the Zone if necessary. Clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped even more. Still they forged through the forest, and still their prey eluded them. Mihail didn’t understand. They should have caught up with them before now. It was like they were…driven by something, running away perhaps. But from what? They surely didn’t know they were being followed. Or did they? It was a disturbing prospect. One that gnawed constantly at him and refused to let go.

 

Finally, Mihail stopped. The sun hovered just above the horizon behind them, oddly flattened and colored orange rather than white hot yellow. He could see his breath fogging in the stiff chill. Svyatoslav looked at him questioningly, as if asking why they had stopped.

 

“We’re not going to catch them tonight. I don't know how they’re keeping ahead of us, but whatever they are, we won’t catch them before dark, or likely even by tomorrow. I don't much like walking blind in this place in the dark. Even with lanterns and flashlights. Besides, even if they don't have to sleep, I’d rather not catch up to them while we’re this tired.”

 

Svyatoslav nodded. “I think if we follow that ridge up there,” he pointed to the right, “We should come to a more protected spot.”

 

It was a logical assumption, so Mihail didn’t challenge it. He merely nodded and indicated that Svyatoslav lead. He liked watching his own back. He didn’t trust anyone else enough to let them watch his.

 

Rocks quickly began to form. Large boulders jumbled together, fallen from the edge of the ridge above them. They had to carefully pick their way through the jagged stone, for fear of slipping and breaking a bone. Mihail spotted an overhang of the ridge ahead, a well-protected spot. He started for it, drawing abreast to Svyatoslav and pointing to it. It was growing darker and more difficult to see, so Svyatoslav had missed it. The sun was now no more than a glow on the horizon behind them. Stars began to pierce through the black sky before them.

 

Svyatoslav suddenly swore. Mihail froze, twisting his head to see. Svyatoslav was holding his pocket watch and staring around with a wild look in his eyes. Mihail felt a tingle of apprehension shoot through him. He whispered a curse under his breath, the fine hairs on the back of his neck rising. Something was in the rocks. He looked around very carefully, searching for an indication of what sort of trouble they were in. A droplet of sweat fell into his eye. He blinked it away. He couldn’t see any telltale depressions in the ground, for the rocks distorted the look of the land. He couldn’t tell what sort of anomaly it was, but he knew they were very close to something very dangerous. If he moved forward an inch it could be too far. He strained his eyes but didn’t see anything out of place. Night was descending rapidly on them, and they were stuck in a field of rock. And something was with them.

 

A terrible headache emerged from deep within his skull, pounding in sympathy with the uncontrolled beating of his heart. He gritted his teeth against it, trying to concentrate. He sidled backward. His fingertips and toes tingled. There was a bitter metallic taste in the back of his throat and under his tongue. Trying to move backward as slowly as possible, he saw something move. It darted through the rocks in front of him. He caught a glimpse of a brown, humped form, and then it was gone. Svyatoslav swore the curse that was lurking on Mihail’s tongue. But Mihail was closer to the thing than he, and in substantially more danger. He craned his neck back, stepping back through the rocks. The muscles in his neck strained and cramped, but there was nothing he could do about it. He risked a glance forward again. Movement. Frantic skittering all around. Fear came down on him, wrapping him in its paralyzing embrace. He blinked away more sweat. His muscles shook. He could not see what Svyatoslav was doing. Nor did he care. He kept his eyes riveted forward. Shapes rushed through the rocks and then hid. A lantern lit beside him, shining on the rocks. Nothing moved. Something glittered in the dark. He turned, and it was gone.

 

Then something tore from the rocks with such speed and ferocity that he didn’t have time to react. It slammed into him from the side and threw him into Svyatoslav. He fell heavily into the rocks. The sharp points dug into his flesh. There was a crash, and the sound of broken glass. The light disappeared.

 

He leapt to his feet, heedless of the danger, giving no heed to his cautions and simply ran as fast as he could. He heard things moving in the dark behind him. Many things. Rock scraped all over. He tripped and went down, slamming his knee painfully against the rocks. But he was up again in an instant, pangs of fear shuddering through his body. Something black darted straight for his face. Pure twitch reaction saved him. His finger convulsed on the trigger of his AK-74. The shadow spun away with a shriek as bullets buried themselves in its flesh. The sharp report shattered the night silence. Shells clanged as they fell to the rocks below.

 

Then Svyatoslav was firing as well, and the harsh flashes of light revealed more black shapes. Many more.

 

His blood thundered in his veins. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. He twisted about, seeing Svyatoslav firing madly into a mass of the shadows. Bullets exploded into the shapes and they fell to the rocks in broken heaps. Screams pierced his ears as they died. Shells ejected from the chamber shot out in an endless stream, gleaming with the flash of gunfire. He turned back around. Something slammed into him from the side. Pain flared in his abdomen as it thrashed at him with hooked claws. He rammed the butt of his AK into its dark head. It tore from his side with a shocking spray of blood. Ignoring the pain, he hammered it again and again until he felt the bone crack under the heavy metal of his gun.

 

Another one came at him and he gave it nine grams of death. Sweat and blood mixed and coated his body as he fired again and again into the shapes. He held the trigger down, his body recoiling with each burst. They were everywhere. Running had just put him in the thick of them.

 

He charged ahead anyway, firing left and right at anything that moved. The staccato bursts ripped through the strange shadows as if they were paper. He stumbled, weak from his injury. Blood ran freely from his torn flesh. Forcing himself to his feet, he fired the last rounds in his clip at the dark shapes. He beat back a rush of them, using the weapon as a club. Pain cut through him as they opened new wounds. He couldn’t defend himself well when he was unable to see clearly.

 

He ejected the clip and reached for another in his mag pouch. He quickly rammed it home. Svyatoslav drew next to him as he began firing again into the black creatures. The sound was deafening as each man emptied round after round into the mass. Each died with a single, painful screech. It was as if the god of thunder had descended onto the rock field and was proceeding to annihilate everything in sight.

 

Svyatoslav stopped to reload, yelling for Mihail to cover him. He whirled and fired at the rapidly advancing line of creatures. The front rank fell apart as he blasted them apart. But there were more behind them. Every flash from the heated muzzles of their machine guns revealed the extent of them. He couldn’t see the end of them. There were too many. Fear threatened to rise up and choke him, but he forced it back down. He would not die in this place.

 

Screaming in fury, he resolved to go down only after slaughtering every last one of the things. The sharp crack of Svyatoslav’s AK joined the piercing cry of his. Fire erupted from the machine guns, tearing into the creatures and ripping them apart. Blood pooled in the rocks and slickened the ground. Mihail fired his last round and a creature flew back into its comrades. He reloaded, letting the empty clip fall to the rocks. Something cold hit his face. He looked up. The clouds roiled ominously above them. Lightning lit the land and peals of true thunder rolled forth. Rain fell in increasing amounts. It soaked the ground and turned it into mud. Slogging through the morass with a grim look on his face, Mihail advanced on the creatures. He gritted his teeth, pouring his heart and soul into killing. Every bullet found its target. Every bullet dealt a killing blow. He was slogging through bodies as well as mud, adding more and more of the former while the rain added more of the latter.

 

The creatures began to fall back. He charged into them, emptying his weapon and then slamming his way through them with it as a club. He rammed the gun into them left and right, feeling it crush bone and rip open flesh. Blood splashed onto him as he advanced through them, but was quickly washed off by the rain. The creatures bit and clawed, but he ignored the pain and took down every one near him with lethal blows. Cold and wet settled in as well, and while he could do nothing to fend them off, he ignored them by killing more of the little monsters.

 

Slinging the gun around his shoulders, he drew his machete and bayonet and roared at the creatures. Fire burning in his eyes, he charged through them, screaming. They flew at him from all sides, but he ripped them open with cold steel. Then Svyatoslav joined him, killing more of them. The things had to scramble over the bodies of their fallen kin to get to the two men. Claws glittered and gleamed in the white flashes of lightning. Eyes narrowed and teeth bared.

 

Then suddenly the things broke and ran, flitting back through the rocks that were their home. Mihail and Svyatoslav were left standing in the rain, clothes soaked through and tattered, wounds bleeding, breathing heavily. Lightning cracked and thundered and the rain drummed steadily against the rocks. Mihail stiffly sheathed his bayonet and machete, exhaustion flooding his body like concrete in his veins. He blinked the rain from his eyes and wiped his face of blood and sweat and water. He turned back around to retrieve the empty clips. They could be refilled. He realized his headache was gone.

 

“Let’s get out of here.”

 

 

 

 

Obsidian Series Part 4

 

By: Grisly Silence

 

 

 

Silence. He awoke to silence. No trees creaked against the pull of the wind. The grass was still. No sounds came from afar. A hush had settled over everything, as if nothing dared to break the silence. He listened intently. Still nothing. He settled back. It was almost peaceful. It was as if everything had signed a peace treaty. A cease fire.

 

Mihail frowned. He didn’t like it.

 

Svyatoslav had the morning watch. Mihail should hear him breathing, or moving. Worry overrode his initial pleasure at the silence, the absence of wind. He lay still, staring up at the clear blue sky. Sometime during the night the clouds had cleared off. Keeping his breathing as low as possible, he checked around himself as much as he could while only moving his eyes. The barren tips of trees loomed upward to his left, and a rocky formation split the ground to his right. More rocks hovered above him, part of the crag they had decided to camp in. He didn’t see anything move. But that didn’t necessarily matter.

 

He felt the heavy weight of a funeral pall settle over him.

 

What had happened to Svyatoslav?

 

This was not good. He grimaced. If something had come upon Svyatoslav during the night, it would have woken him…wouldn’t it? But if he had wandered off…No. Svyatoslav wouldn’t just “wander off.” Either something had happened to him, or he had disappeared on purpose. He imagined all sorts of scenarios. He saw dwarfs somehow ripping him apart without a sound, controllers taking him while his back was turned, perhaps not noticing Mihail because he was asleep, and on and on, seeing things he had never seen nor heard of.

 

Or maybe Svyatoslav had noticed some danger and had left to get out of its way, “forgetting” to tell Mihail. Or not forgetting. What were they in this for after all? Profit. They were together only until they got the artifact. And Mihail wasn’t sure their truce would even last that long. He had been suspicious of the man when he had first met him. He knew nothing of him or his character, except for his skill at fighting. His mind turned to the sinister. What if Svyatoslav had decided the artifact was no longer worth the journey? What if he had decided he still needed to get something out of this wasted time? What if he had decided to get rid of his traveling companion?

 

Somewhere nearby a twig snapped. The silence shattered. It was like a cannon going off in his ear. He flinched. His heart jumped to his throat. His clothes rustled as his back scraped against the ground. Swearing, he jumped to his feet, knowing that anything nearby couldn’t have failed to notice the sound. His Stechkin was out of its holster before he landed. A large dark form leaned casually against the rocks.

 

It was Svyatoslav.

 

He almost shot him. The adrenaline searing through his veins pulsed in time with his heart. Chest heaving, Mihail glared at him. His gun wasn’t out. He let the Stechkin down a little. Unlike before, Svyatoslav didn’t back down at his look. Sometime during the night, he had grown a spine. Back in the house where the goliath attacked them, Mihail’s glare had stopped him in his tracks. From what Mihail knew, that didn’t change spontaneously without good reason.

 

“Where were you?” He ground out. His ire grew at the way Svyatoslav leaned oh-so-casually against the rock.

 

Svyatoslav shrugged. “I thought I heard a noise. I went to check it out.”

 

Mihail almost shot him. Again. Keeping his wrath under control was becoming more and more difficult. “Really.” He spit out.

 

Svyatoslav didn’t seem to notice his anger. “Really.” He said matter-of-factly. A smirk stretched across his face. “You going to shoot me?”

 

Mihail looked down at the gun. He realized his gun was out. Svyatoslav's wasn’t. He rammed it into his holster. His gaze came back up, and caught on Svyatoslav’s back as he was turning. He had his pack on. He hadn’t had it on when he began his watch. Suspicion flared in his mind. Mihail’s eyes narrowed, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

 

Keeping his eyes on Svyatoslav, he slowly settled down to a sitting position, pulling an MRE from his own pack. There was plenty left for the long walk back to his dealer. He glanced at Svyatoslav, tearing the plastic off his own meal. He felt like a tightly wound spring about to explode. His whole body was tense, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. He forced the tasteless food into his mouth, pangs of hunger reminding him of survival. He spoke around a mouthful of tepid beans.

 

“What was it?”

 

Svyatoslav’s eyes came up with a confused look. His plastic fork hovered over the food. “What?”

 

Mihail’s gaze grew piercing. “The noise.”

 

Svyatoslav stared at him. “I am still alive aren’t I? I would not be if it was important.”

 

It was a perfectly reasonable response. Mihail grunted noncommittally and returned to his food. His thoughts remained his own.

 

After they packed everything up—or rather, after Mihail packed his stuff up, since Svyatoslav seemed already prepared for a journey—Mihail wondered if he was being irrational. Putting it bluntly, there were easier ways to kill him. If Svyatoslav really wanted to be rid of him, he could have just put a bullet in his head while he slept. Even a coward would see the value in that. But Svyatoslav was no coward. He seemed more confident than the night before, after the attack. Something had changed during the night.

 

Mihail’s side ached in sympathy with his thoughts. Wrapping it in bandages, he had stopped the bleeding, if not the pain. The rest of the wounds were not worth bothering over, except for a nasty cut on his arm that he hadn’t felt until afterwards, which was also bandaged. Svyatoslav had fared no better.

 

They began passing through more rocky formations. The trees thinned and the ground became less fertile. The air seemed colder, not as a result of the strange weather conditions, but as a general climate change in the area.

 

His thoughts returned to Svyatoslav. He couldn’t condemn a man simply by his smirk. His newfound confidence could merely be realization that he had triumphed when he should have fallen. While it was stupid to go off alone to check a noise out without waking Mihail, it also was not enough to damn him. It was probably just an innocent mistake. But he still didn’t like it. It was something he couldn’t put his finger on, but it was there, teasing him with its presence.

 

Paranoia. He was succumbing to paranoia. They couldn’t be very far behind the artifact. Even if Svyatoslav was the

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Obsidian series: day 1

 

By: Grisly Silence

 

 

 

 

 

What is it that makes a survivor?

What characteristics define this trait?

Why does one live and another die?

Strength of will, body, and mind; these things a survivor make.

This seems straightforward, but what happens when two such survivors meet?

What happens when they both have strength of will, body, and mind?

But of course, there is only one solution, one possible outcome.

In this game, there can be no tie, no draw, and no second place.

Only one of the two could possibly survive the encounter.

Which one?

The one with the most of each, of course.

Day 1

“There is something strange on the north side.”

 

“Strange how?” A lot of things could be called strange. Most of it was to be avoided.

 

“Earlier this morning I found a Stalker coming from up there. He was bleeding badly. Said I should stay away from the north side. After that I hid. A big pack of blind dogs was following the scent of his blood.”

 

“What’s so strange about that? Stalkers die every day. Blind dogs are everywhere.”

 

The Stalker looked at Mihail intensely. “It’s not that he died, it’s how,” he paused. “He was bleeding from gunshot wounds.”

 

Mihail’s eyebrows rose. Now that was interesting. Very interesting indeed. “Sounds like greed to me. Either military or another Stalker.” He thought a moment. “Only one thing could cause that kind of greed.”

 

“Artifacts,” the man said almost reverently. He smiled eagerly

 

Mihail gave him a sideways glance. He was a little too excited. That made Mihail suspicious. He had survived on being so. “Why did you decide to tell me, then? Why not go and get it yourself, not risk getting shot in the back?”

 

“Because if the military or other Stalkers are up there, I doubt either one of us would be able to…obtain it by ourselves.”

 

Mihail considered. It made sense. Two Stalkers would be better able to handle a threat than one. But threats from without weren’t the only threats. This man could just be trying to have him help get the artifact, but was planning on shooting him in the back. It was a big risk. An artifact weighed against the possibility of his demise. He thought about it only for a moment. If one didn’t take risks one would never get anywhere. Besides, just being in this place was a risk. Even if this man was going to betray him, Mihail had lived a long time watching his back, and he wasn’t going to give the Stalker a chance to stab him in it. Besides, that wouldn’t happen until they had gotten to the artifact, after Mihail’s usefulness had been expended. When that happened, Mihail would be ready. He suppressed a grim smile. Perhaps this Stalker would have to watch his own back.

 

Mihail nodded, almost to himself. “Sounds like a good idea.” He thought a moment. “Did the other Stalker give you any idea on what type of artifact it would be?”

 

The man shook his head. “No. Just what I’ve told you.”

 

Damn. The artifact was just a question mark, and Mihail didn’t know what type of measures he would have to take to contain and transport it. Artifacts could sometimes be more dangerous than the Zone’s more permanent residents. That could cause problems later.

 

Mihail suddenly noticed the light was fading. The night was stealing away the sun’s brightness, shading it red and purple. The air was taking on an unpleasant chill. There would probably be a freeze that night. “Let’s get into one of these buildings. No sense getting caught out in the open by something.” He reached his hand forward. “They call me Mihail.”

 

The other Stalker hesitated at the strange way he phrased it, then extended his own and shook Mihail’s firmly. “Svyatoslav.”

 

Mihail nodded. “Good. Now that the pleasantries have been dealt with, let us go inside before it gets any colder.”

 

Mihail directed him to the doorway of a building he had already pre-selected on his initial survey of the area hours earlier. It was a run-down old restaurant with a second story that seemed to have been dropped on top of the first as an afterthought and was only precariously perched atop it. It was a wood and stone affair, with paint peeling and mortar crumbled away and wood eaten by mold and insects. It was dark inside; the rays of the dying sun barely penetrating the single dirty—but intact—window, lending a vague crimson glow to the area as if they were seeing it through a filter. It was a little warmer inside, but not by much. Debris crunched underfoot as they entered the main room, shattered plates and silverware, crushed glass and the forgotten refuse of years of habitation. There were partially burned clothes piled inside a stone fireplace, and all the chairs and tables looked to have been rolled over by something heavy. The stairway creaked badly when Svyatoslav tried it, and looked to be about to crumble away, so he retreated. A candelabrum had fallen from the high, ribbed ceiling and lay crashed to the floor. A bar to the side once serviced patrons of liquor. All of the alcohol was gone, but Mihail wouldn’t have drunk it anyway. Svyatoslav sneezed as dust drifted into the air from their movements.

 

Mihail locked the door behind him with the heavy dead-bolt, one of the reasons he chose the building. Crossing the room, kicking aside a large chunk of wood, he found the back door and checked to see if it opened. It did, if with a little effort. He locked that too. It was the second reason he chose the building. He never went into a place that didn’t have more than one exit.

 

Svyatoslav watched him without comment as he went about the room, checking this and that, making sure there weren’t any weak points in the walls, a potential entrance for something nasty. There wasn’t a basement, so he didn’t have to worry about the floor giving way or something unpleasant coming up while they were sleeping. He eyed the ceiling. He would have to hope the second story would stay situated above their heads for the duration of the night.

 

He found a mostly stable chair from within all of the garbage and pulled it up to the bar. A table that was missing a leg would have to serve as another. He propped it up against the bar as well. Svyatoslav had already seated himself on the chair, so Mihail took the table. He unslung his AK-74 from over his shoulder and placed it on the bar, then dropped his pack onto the ground next to his makeshift chair. He searched it for his lantern, set it on the bar, and wound the dynamo handle. Feeble light streamed from within the dirty glass, casting long shadows of the two against the aging, decayed walls. He started disassembling his gun for cleaning. He didn’t want it to jam at an inopportune moment. Svyatoslav dropped his own AKS onto the bar but made no move to start any sort of maintenance. Mihail could tell Svyatoslav wanted to say something, but he didn’t ask; he didn’t need to. Svyatoslav would eventually get to it.

 

While he worked, he listened for stray sounds, things that shouldn’t belong. He heard nothing but for the wind, though that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The wind had never comforted him as it did others. Others said it brought in fresh air, cooled them down, and reminded them of better days. They liked the sound of the wind.

 

He hated the wind. It masked the sound of things sneaking up on you. Things that were hungry. It swirled dust around, obscuring trails and making it harder to see. To him, it brought the smell of something other than freshness. On the wind he could always smell the bitter scent of death.

 

When he first came to the zone, he had been given to flights of fantasy. That had long since been ground out of him by the overwhelming, crushing presence of the zone and its inhabitants. He used to say that the day the wind was loudest and most furious was the day you died. He used to say that on that day you could smell the scent of your own death in the wind. He realized it was just superstitious nonsense, but belief in something, no matter how incredible, gave many people a measure of comfort. Though he didn’t admit it, perhaps it gave him a measure of comfort as well, or at least a sort of resolve. All those others that liked the wind were dead as far as he knew, unless one could rise up and live from being torn to shreds by dwarves or blind dogs. But then again, you never knew with the Zone. He liked it best when it was dead quiet. You stood a better chance of living.

 

Svyatoslav cleared his throat. Mihail gave up on ignoring him and looked over questioningly. “Something on your mind?”

 

“I was just wondering…” He trailed off.

 

Mihail almost shook his head. They always started that way. I was just wondering…and then they deluged you with questions about your childhood, your family, your old life. Mihail’s old life was dead. So was everyone else’s. Even if it wasn’t private business—which was reason enough for Mihail to refuse answering—it was long gone, too far away to be of any use in the here and now. People who dwelled on the past ended up not thinking enough on the present and they died. That was how it was. Mihail didn’t dwell on the past, nor did he dwell on the future. What was happening right at that moment was what was important, was what could kill you. What was in the past was unchangeable, and the future was so vague and uncertain there was no way to predict or influence it; if you tried you’d end up with the same problem as if you were dwelling on the past and you’d end up feeding the worms, or something else.

 

Svyatoslav started again. “I was just wondering why you said they call you Mihail? Why not say that that was your name?”

 

Mihail looked up again. An actual intelligent question. “It’s not my name. I had another once, before all this. It died along with everything else. Now I am Mihail. That is all that matters.” He looked away and returned to cleaning the gun. It had gotten very grimy from some constant use only a few days before.

 

“It’s getting worse out there,” Svyatoslav offered after a moment.

 

Mihail didn’t look up. “The weather or the Zone?” He stopped to look at the wood surface of the bar. Round stains from mugs and steins turned the rough grain dark in places, memories of more jubilant times. That was all gone now.

 

“Both. Have you noticed?”

 

Mihail had noticed. As blowout after blowout occurred, and more anomalies and strange things started appearing, and more and more Stalkers died, the weather got stranger and stranger. One day it would be as hot as hell’s forge, and the next it would be a winter’s night in Siberia. It would snow and then melt an hour later. Lakes froze or dried up, becoming huge salt beds. In other places, new lakes emerged from contaminated water and the vegetation all around died. You couldn’t help but notice it. It was another unanswerable question about this godforsaken place.

 

“Everything’s going to die sooner or later, you know? Us, the plants and animals, eventually everybody else. Makes me want to leave.”

 

“Then leave.” Mihail had no time for the future. If he died, it would happen. He wouldn’t die easy, but everyone had a time. Mihail’s wasn’t up yet, because he was still alive. Any other thoughts on the matter were irrelevant.

 

Svyatoslav’s brow creased. “Well, why…”

 

Mihail stopped him with a hand. He thought he had heard something outside…

 

Getting a little angry, Svyatoslav started to his feet. “Look here, you can’t just…”

 

Mihail fixed him with a glare so hellish that the man stopped in his tracks and quit breathing. He continued to fix his gaze on the man until he was sure he would stay quiet. Then Mihail listened. His eyes gathered in the walls of the room. Suddenly it seemed very small. He quietly turned the lantern off. Everything went dark. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that the sun had set. There was no moon out. The entire area was covered in clouds, so there were no stars either. He could barely make out the outline of Svyatoslav’s form or the dimensions of the room. But he didn’t move from his spot to try different angles. He didn’t want to make any sounds. There was a tiny scratching sound from outside. His heart skipped a beat. He saw Svyatoslav’s eyes go wide. He turned his head to the window. That was the part he was worried about. He couldn’t see through it, and anything that wanted in could easily break it. It could be standing just outside the window and he wouldn’t know. His eyes strained in the dark to make something out. Illusions flickered at the edges of his visions, whispers of movement. He ignored them, concentrating on the window. A small scrape against the wood of the wall outside, mere feet from the window. He heard a heavy breath. God only knows, but it could be smelling them. He stopped breathing. His blood thundered through his ears. He feared the sound of his heart would alert the thing outside to his presence.

 

All was silence. It had to be out there somewhere. It couldn’t have gotten very… gravel crunched right underneath the window. Adrenaline pumped through Mihail’s veins like fire, grinding its way through him, instilling him with its harsh need, its power. His hand edged towards the Stechkin he kept at his belt. His AK-74 was in no state to be used. Something was right outside the window, but he couldn’t see it. A thousand possibilities rushed through his mind. What was out there? What was out there? A little voice teased him. He couldn’t answer it. He feared the thing would hear the sound of his reply.

 

Something heavy hammered against the wall. The entire building shuddered, the glass of the window rattling. Mihail’s hand shot to his gun. Svyatoslav jerked backward and fell off his chair, crashing into the debris in the middle of the floor. They both froze, staring at the window. Had it heard? Nothing moved. Mihail leaned forward ever so slightly, silently withdrawing his gun from its holster. He was on the edge of the table he sat on, ready to bolt or attack at an instant’s notice. Whatever was out there could easily kill them. He knew that. He couldn’t hear if there was any wind through the rush of blood in his ears. Today could be the day the wind became loud for him. But what would the thing outside do?

 

There was a heavy huffing sound from outside. A deep, angry growl reverberated through the building. The huffing increased. Then it rammed into the side of the building with tremendous force. The entire west wall splintered and cracked, scattering dust and wood chips through the air. The window shattered, sharp chunks of glass clinking to the floor. The stairs behind Mihail finally gave way and crashed to the floor. More dust rose into the air, turning into a thick, grimy morass. Cold air streamed in through the broken boards of the walls. A huge black shape passed in front of the window. He swore viciously, then started for the rear door as quietly as he could. If the thing outside wasn’t entirely where they were in the building, maybe it wouldn’t be able to get him before he got out. He would have to leave his AK-74 for later. He passed Svyatoslav trying to get to his feet without disturbing the debris around him. Suddenly, the thing roared with fury and slammed into the wall again. This time it smashed through, breaking apart the wood beams as if they were toothpicks, sending the thick boards flying through the air. The splintered ends shattered against the far wall as Mihail dove behind the bar. Its heavy footsteps thudded against the floor. Whatever it was, it was big.

 

He heard Svyatoslav scrambling to get away. He heard the thing turn and start toward the struggling Stalker. Glass and wood were crushed alike beneath its feet. Mihail slowed his breath. His heartbeat raged uncontrolled. Blood pounded through his veins. The heady mix of adrenaline and fear surged and flowed. Fire burned in his eyes.

 

With a feral roar Mihail leaped out from behind the bar and fired at the dark shape clouded by swirling dust. He held down the trigger of his Stechkin machine pistol. Twenty rounds of hot lead stitched into the thing’s flesh. He slammed into the wall with a painful thud and rolled free. The thing roared again, but this time in pain, and turned on him. Its movements were jerky and fast, but no less powerful. Its footsteps thundered in his ears. It was too close. He couldn’t tell how much he had injured it. He dove behind the bar again and ejected the clip to his Stechkin. With shaking fingers, he found the second clip at his belt and quickly shoved it home.

 

Before he could prepare for the thing, it had already crossed the room. Without warning the whole left side of the bar exploded into dust and splinters as the thing crashed into it in its frenzied search for Mihail. He fell back as shards of wood cut into him with slivers of pain. He fired blindly at the thing, bullets shrieking through the air and thudding into its meaty flesh. It roared again, stepping back as the hot pieces of shaped metal tore through it. But it shrugged them aside in its fury and slammed its massive fists against the wall. Bricks and mortar tumbled down onto Mihail, plaster choking the air, turning it into a thick white morass. Barely having enough time, Mihail leaped over the remains of the bar just as the thing crashed into the corner where he had been. Unsteady as he landed, he slipped on a board and fell heavily to the floor. The Stechkin slipped from his fingers. White lights flashed in his eyes as he compressed his chest against the floor. His breath wheezed out. Where was Svyatoslav?

 

Already the thing realized it hadn’t crushed Mihail in its attack. It lunged forward, breaking the bar in half, and stomped toward him. He scrambled forward, his numb fingers fumbling at his belt for his machete. The thing was gaining on him in the close quarters of the restaurant. He wouldn’t be able to run forever. Everything was too damn close together. Sweat and dust stung his eyes and blurred his vision as he tried to find a way out. His breath came in ragged pulls. He could barely breathe through the thick dust clogging the air. He could barely see anything. He stumbled forward, looking for the door. He heard the thing roar in frustration and pound after him in anger.

 

He hurtled into something and fell to the floor, stunned. What had he hit? He hadn’t seen anything. For a moment he was confused. Then he saw the vague form standing above him. It was Svyatoslav. With his AKS.

 

Mihail tried to stand, but a sharp pain in his side brought him back down to a crouch. He tore the machete from his belt, despite how ineffective it was bound to be. Svyatoslav yelled something, but Mihail couldn’t hear it over the noise the thing was making. And then it suddenly appeared through the dust and slammed into them, tossing them both aside before they could react. Its gigantic fist jack-hammered into his stomach, crushing the breath from his lungs with a pain that felt like it had torn him in two, throwing him across the breadth of the room. He skidded across the wood scattered over the floor, hit something with his shoulder and tumbled through the hole in the wall the thing made.

 

He fell heavily onto the dirt. Bitter cold air washed over him, but he couldn’t breathe it. Pain seared through his lungs like acid. Even the thought of taking a breath brought the pain to full force. Gripping his stomach with his hands, he forced himself to take that breath. Agony ripped through his chest like a thousand shards stabbing into his lungs. He screamed and choked on vomit. He took another shuddering breath. Pure, biting air flowed into his lungs like liquor that burned all the way down. He forced himself to take another, wincing against the pain. Tears dripped from the corners of his eyes. He spit the bitter liquid of his vomit from his mouth.

 

He heard Svyatoslav yelling. He heard the thing thundering across the floor with steps that caused the building to shake. He heard wood and glass breaking. He heard the stuttering report of Svyatoslav’s AKS. He heard the thing roaring. He heard all this in a split second’s time. He listened for one sound in particular. But he couldn’t hear it. The wind was still and dead. Renewed determination brought him to his feet. He didn’t believe in such things, and yet it still held meaning for him. Clenching his teeth against the pain, he stepped back into the dust pouring from the restaurant.

 

He saw everything through a haze other than the cloud kicked up by their fierce battle. Calm swept through him, steadying him. The fear that had gripped his heart like a vise fled before the onslaught of cold hard resolve. He would not die. Not before he killed this thing. Not before he brought it to the ground and crushed the life from its inhuman body. Not before.

 

Almost immediately his eyes found the long black shape of his machete. It was only feet from him. He grabbed it by its leather handle, lifting the deadly sharp blade up from the floor. Fury raged in his eyes. He looked up and saw Svyatoslav firing several rounds into the thing. Each harsh flash lit the cloud of dust, turning everything white. The thing roared in pain and anger as the rounds tore into its flesh. Mihail saw chunks of its flesh flying off and blood spurting as each bullet burrowed in. But it seemed to make no difference to it. It was so big that he doubted the bullets were even harming it very badly. They went in, but they didn’t hit anything important, didn’t do any damage. Its vague man-shape made it that much more horrifying, reminiscent of a more homogenous past. If they didn’t kill it soon, it would win simply because it could survive much more than they. But everything had a weakness. Finding this thing’s weakness using trial-and-error would take too long. They would be dead before they found out, and there was no way to test different theories while it tried to grind them into bloody sacs beneath its feet. They would have to do something that would definitely hurt it instead of just putting useless holes in it. He looked down at his machete and hefted it. What he needed to do was cut something off.

 

He stormed across the room to the giant thing; hate, anger, disgust and terror all gripping him by turns as he in turn gripped the machete in both hands. It was stopped for a moment, shuddering as Svyatoslav poured more bullets into its belly. It was time to end it. It was time for it to die. He came up behind it. He twisted to the right, then brought the machete around with as much force and fury as he could possibly bring to bear, putting his entire body, his entire being into ramming the blade directly into the thing. The steel blade glinted dully in the murky air to the cadence of Svyatoslav’s gun. The edge sliced through the dust and gloom with razor-sharp efficiency, exactly how Mihail kept it. He experienced a measure of satisfaction as he noted it, but it was gone in a flash.

 

The machete slammed into the side of the creature’s neck with such jarring force that it knocked the creature to its knees. Gushes of dark red blood splashed against the walls and ceiling. Mihail lost his grip on the weapon as his hands went numb from the vibration of hitting the thing’s spine. Breathing raggedly, he quickly regained the machete, and again hacked sharply into the thing’s neck. The machete stuck in its thick spine, so he released it again. He pulled his bayonet from his belt and reached around the thing while it was still stunned, reeking blood pouring from its half-severed neck and pooling against the wood floor. With a sudden jerk of his powerful muscles, he severed it part of the way, cutting through layers of flesh and blood. He felt the warmth of its life flow out over his hands, staining them red. With a final grimace, he bunched up his muscles and tore the bayonet through the thing’s spine, snapping it in half. He let the body slam to the floor with enough force to cause the restaurant to shudder, bringing down more clouds of plaster and wood. The machete clattered down on top of the debris. He held the thing’s gigantic head in his left hand for a moment, long strings of blood leaking from its severed bottom. It was the twisted visage of a once-human. What had been done to it, Mihail didn’t know. Whatever it was, he didn’t want it to happen to him.

 

He tossed the severed head away from himself in disgust. He was covered in blood, some of it his, some of it the creature’s. His clothing was in tatters, torn up from the ferocious battle. He let his breath out slowly, relief flooding through him. He replaced the bayonet in its sheath, then gestured to Svyatoslav.

 

“Help me find my guns.”

Obsidian Series: Day 2

 

By: Grisly Silence

The next day dawned bright and cold. The sun rose above the horizon like some burning sentinel of doom, searing the land with intense white light. And yet, it was still cold. Breath clouded, skin prickled, liquids froze. Bleak thunderheads gathered on the opposite horizon, as if driven away by the light of the sun. But appearances are not everything, and as the sun rose, they came closer and closer, shadowing the land, concealing it from the sun’s harsh light.

 

Mihail and Svyatoslav moved out immediately, having collected the pieces of Mihail’s gun and transferring to a different building. They passed the restaurant where they had fought the monstrosity. Great splashes of blood were frozen on the walls and floor, but the body was gone. Scavengers had eaten it during the night.

 

They didn’t speak as they walked out of the nameless city; yet another crushed achievement of humankind in a long line of such crushed achievements. They were all the same to Mihail. They all blurred together. He couldn’t care less what the name was. They kept a sharp eye out for any sign of anomalies. Often these were more dangerous than the creatures that lived within the Zone.

 

They moved slowly at first, Mihail favoring his stomach for a good while. The thing’s fist had been like an iron bar slammed into his midsection. He began to feel better, though, and they were able to pick up the pace. They caught sight of a host of rats near the northern outskirts. They scurried around as if mad, swarming over bulky objects in the middle of a broad square. One or two larger ones seemed to be watching for something, standing up on their haunches occasionally and looking suspiciously around with beady black eyes. Mihail and Svyatoslav watched this from across the square, beyond the poor vision of the rats. Normally Mihail might be inclined to devise a way to draw the rats off or kill them so he could get a look at what they were gathered around, but he had more interesting prospects farther off, and it was entirely possible the rats were merely feeding on the bodies of someone hapless enough to get trapped in the square. Besides, Mihail could taste a peculiar tang in the air, similar to the coppery taste of blood. It was the sign of Fog. The rats would be dead soon enough anyway.

 

Mihail noticed Svyatoslav pull an antique pocket watch from one of his pockets and open the face, studying the movement. Mihail looked at him curiously. Svyatoslav smiled grimly.

 

“A mechanical watch will stop in a high magnetic field.” He said simply.

 

Mihail nodded. That was very interesting. He would have to see about obtaining one from the Dealer. High magnetic fields were very dangerous.

 

After that they skirted the square, still heading north through the buildings. They didn’t see anything alive. The wind had died, but the clouds had made it overhead, lending everything a dull, leaden cast.

 

Then they stepped from the cover of the last of the buildings and saw the bodies. This was what they were looking for. Bright red splashes of blood glistened on the broken concrete. Viscera were strewn from long gashes in the bellies of bodies. Eyes stared in horror at whatever they had last seen. Faces were locked in terrible grimaces of pain. Flies gathered around the eviscerated bodies, swarming around the mouths, eyes, and the extensive wounds. The smell of rotting meat hung in the air like a hideous funeral pall. One never got used to that smell.

 

Svyatoslav wandered through the carnage a few feet ahead of Mihail. Six Stalkers brutally killed, all ripped open, the trademark of Dwarves. But didn’t Dwarves usually stay underground? And some even had bullet wounds. It must have happened within the last few hours, not long before dawn, or they would already have been eaten by scavengers by now. Mihail checked the line of trees some hundred yards distant for movement. They would have to leave soon.

 

He bent to one of the bodies, searching for anything useful. The pockets were empty but for some crumbs of food in his pack and bullets in a mag pouch at his belt. He kept the bullets but left the food. It was too easily poisoned. He stopped by another body. Nothing. He looked up and scanned the horizon again. He didn’t like lingering in one place if he didn’t have to. Especially with the attractive smell of all this dead drawing predators. He glanced at the overall scene. Where were all the guns?

 

His companion continued walking to a small outcropping of buildings just past the site. Mihail searched another corpse. Something caught his eyes as he rummaged through the body’s pockets. The man had burns on his hands and face. Bad burns. Mihail recognized those burns. He’d seen them before. He swore under his breath and conducted a thorough search of all the bodies, then the area around them. He swore again when he found nothing.

 

There was a yell. He looked to see Svyatoslav waving him over. His eyes passed over the bodies one more time. He couldn’t help swearing again.

 

Mihail trotted over to where Svyatoslav stood. The man pointed to the wall before them. It was riddled with bullet holes. Svyatoslav nodded wordlessly at the ground. Mihail followed the line of his gaze. Another body, red, burned and deformed, leaking blood and other fluids through a multitude of sores and bullet holes. It wasn’t human. Not any more. But it wasn’t a Dwarf, either. It looked a lot like a zombie. That might explain some things. Controllers were more intelligent than most everything else in the zone. More human. It might have noticed something about the artifact and taken it.

 

He squatted, analyzing the ground, letting his fingers brush the grass. There were tracks leading away from the area, farther north. He considered. The Stalkers must have come upon an artifact, probably the one Svyatoslav had found out about, and fought over it. Some of them were killed. Maybe they stumbled onto the Controller and its minions, or the Controller stumbled on them, and killed the remaining Stalkers, except for the one that managed to escape.

 

He wasn’t afraid of much. He had a lot of respect for many of the Zone’s inhabitants. But Controllers were another matter. He was afraid of them. Another time, another place, he might have had a hard time admitting it. But if he deluded himself in the Zone, he’d end up dead. A Controller could do things to a man nothing else could. It was nauseating. But what worried him even more were the burns on the one man’s face.

 

Radiation burns.

 

“We go north.” He said simply. Svyatoslav nodded. If he was going to die, then that was his fate.

 

They left the outskirts of the city ruins, walking through the forest for several hours. They kept a sharp eye for anything trailing them or telltales of an ambush. Svyatoslav checked his watch often. The trail was easy to follow; their quarry wasn’t making an effort to conceal the signs of their passing. The terrain grew rougher and more difficult to traverse. The day wore on until the sun was directly over their heads, though they could only see it as a vague brightening of the clouds above them. They ate a quick lunch of MRE’s, which preserved well, didn’t take up much space, and tasted vaguely of cardboard and salt.

 

It was about an hour after noon, according to Svyatoslav’s watch, that they came upon an anomaly.

 

The trees stopped. There was no reason for it. They were there, and then the two suddenly stepped onto hard earth. There were no trees, no scrub brush, no grass struggling to reach the light of the sun from under a rock. Nothing. Nothing but an expanse of dirt and gravel. It went on and on until the far edge of the clearing was but a vague blur. A slight wind shifted dust here and there along the length and breadth of the area.

 

“I don't like it.” Mihail said to himself.

 

Svyatoslav seemed to have heard. “At least nothing will sneak up on us. We will be able to see for miles all around.”

 

That was true, Mihail thought. But anyone coming would also see them for miles. Being out in the open like that was as bad as being in a tight, enclosed space. It was easy to get trapped. But that wasn’t the reason he was uneasy. There was something about this unnatural wasteland that unnerved him. It was too perfectly scoured of life. In the Zone, there were very few places where there was no life, or sign of it of some kind.

 

Dust swirled up by the wind blew all around, obscuring the wasteland. The grains of sand got in their eyes and mouths. Coughing, they turned their backs on the empty place, retreating into the cover of the trees, rubbing their eyes. Svyatoslav checked his watch. Mihail donned his gas mask, making sure the filters were tight and in place. He looked back at the area through the round lenses. The tracks stopped at the edge of the trees, leading straight in. The dust had blown over the rest. He looked over at Svyatoslav, putting on his own gas mask. The man checked his watch again, then nodded. They would have to travel with their guns inside their coats. Even the trusty Kalashnikovs were susceptible to grit. They would have to be careful when using them; if they jammed, they would be in trouble until they could get them cleaned out. Checking behind for a moment, Mihail considered the effort required to get the artifact. He noted the radiation burns and possible presence of a Controller and zombies. He also noted the Stalkers fighting and killing each other over it, and the fact that it had disappeared, possibly taken by that very Controller. There was something very desirable about it. At this point, it was still worth it.

 

The instant they stepped into the desolation, dust whirled up around them, encasing them in a gritty shell. It seemed that they would be able to see no one, no matter how close they got. Even the fact that anything would also not see them failed to make him feel any better. He looked around the dust as the wind tugged at his clothes. He was rapidly being coated in the stuff, turning his black outfit tan. Despite the roaring outside his mask, his own breath was loud in his ears. He started walking.

 

The walking seemed endless. At times the wind dissipated a little and the dust would settle to the ground, leaving in its place a thick haze in the air, still preventing them from seeing very far. But even these thin spells lasted for no longer than a moment. For all they knew, whoever, or whatever had that artifact could have died somewhere in the vast expanse and they could pass within feet of it without noticing. In this mess, they would have to trip over whatever they were looking for. He just hoped the artifact made it to the edge where they could look for it. Everything would have been a waste of time if a sorry chance of fate hid it under an inch of silt.

 

But there was nothing they could possibly do about that, so they kept walking, not speaking for that was not possible over the thundering of the wind. The incessant droning eventually faded into a distant buzzing in his ears as they trudged through the rocks and dust. Mihail had lost all track of time. The dust was the same in every direction, just a wall of whirling tan particles. He supposed he could have asked Svyatoslav to check his watch, but felt no particular need to know. Just as long as they got to the end, that was good enough for him. But he still didn’t like the place. He could feel…eyes on him at all times. Watching.

--------------

 

He remembered a similar time, years before, when he had felt eyes on him. It was just before the second blowout. He felt as if something had been looking on him from some hidden vantage point. There was a bright light that lit all the clouds in every direction orange. Night was made day. The shockwave knocked him down. He was unconscious for hours. When he awoke, the sky was still bright orange, but everything around him was still standing. The trees hadn’t even dropped any leaves. Why had the wave only hit him? His gaze turned to the power plant.

 

Then he was running through the forest back to his home. The dark specter of the plant’s towers loomed starkly against the sky. He ran toward them. Fear gripped him. He had only been out to gather some firewood. His wife had been baking bread at the house. It was too close. He ran harder, ripping through the forest. They were all right. They were all right.

 

He was too late. He flew into the clearing where their house sat. It was too quiet. He didn’t hear the clatter of pans or the crackling of the baking fire or the crying of the baby. But he wouldn’t let himself believe it. He tore open the door and stumbled over her body. His heart stopped. Blood ran from a gaping wound in her throat. Her hand clutched a knife coated in blood. He crawled over to her and cried, tenderly stroking her face. He didn’t even ask what had happened. It was too horrible for him to bear thinking of.

 

Finally, he rose weakly, staring at his beloved wife. Then he looked away. He couldn’t bear to look any more. Stumbling through the hall, he made his unsteady way to the bedroom. His knees were weak. He was afraid to look in. Steeling himself, he stepped into the doorway, bracing himself against the frame. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw. Falling to his knees, he vomited, pressing his fists against his stomach. Tears dripped endlessly from his eyes. Crawling away from the room, choking on fear and agony, he wept.

 

He didn’t even register the sounds for almost an hour. He just lay on the floor gasping for breath. His life was over. His only two reasons for living were gone. Finally he had no more tears left, no strength left for crying. As he went quiet, he heard rustling sounds outside. Someone was outside. Shock flooded through him. He couldn’t fit his mind around what was happening. Images of his wife paraded themselves in front of him. He couldn’t stop them. Who else would be in his home? Who had done this? Answers wouldn’t come.

 

Something strange came over him. He found himself able to stand. A single word flared to life. MURDER. Making his way into the kitchen, he kept his eyes on the walls, not daring to look down. The knife rack stared at him. He stared back. He found himself taking a knife. He wasn’t entirely sure why. He felt as if he had lost his mind, like someone else was pulling his strings, like a puppet.

 

Shuffling through the door, he found himself outside. It was still night, but the light had faded from the clouds. He went around the back of the house. Someone was crouching by the side of his house, scratching at the dirt. He came closer. The person was naked, covered in white skin that looked like it had been through a furnace and left horribly scarred. Blood was spattered on its back. His mind started working again. He made the connection. The knife rose. He wasn’t even seeing anything around him. The deep, bloody slash in his wife’s throat refused to leave his vision. The knife plunged into the bumpy white skin.

 

He buried his wife and what was left of his child. It was only much later that he learned that it had been a controller. Oleesya had killed herself when she felt what was happening. The child had not been so lucky. The controller had been hungry.

------------

 

After what felt like days of weary walking but was more likely a few hours, Svyatoslav shouted. Mihail had hung his head, staring at the ground, watching his legs disappear into the sand storm, almost dead asleep as he walked. He would have to take off his mask to wipe away the tears, so he let them dry against his skin. He felt dead. Even Svyatoslav’s yell sounded like a lover’s whisper to him. But it was enough to rouse him from his stupor. He looked up. The dust abated suddenly, clearing away and dropping flat to the ground. Nothing moved again. It was like the blowing sand had never been. Here and there some wind moved loose dust a few meters, but nothing like what they had experienced a mere meter behind. Without knowing how, or why, Mihail knew that if he stepped back in, the sand would rush up all about him, but did nothing to test his theory. He was too tired for that. And he could see the edge of the forest, the evening sun falling slowly behind the crests of the far gray mountains, preparing to disappear under the onslaught of nightfall. The tracks in the sand they were following started up not a few meters to their left, headed directly for the trees.

Obsidian Series Day 3

 

By Grisly Silence

 

 

 

The sun burned down despite the trees. Sweat rolled down Mihail’s back in cool rivulets. He was wet everywhere, his clothes soaked through. His eyes hurt from squinting, and all he saw were waves of heat in the burned, dead trees. He could barely stand touching his AK. Through it all, the trail continued through the deadwood, disappearing over hill a few hundred meters off. It was bad weather for anything, let alone following something potentially dangerous. Next to him, Svyatoslav stumbled on a hidden branch, struggling to his feet before again trudging forward. He looked as uncomfortable as Mihail. They would have to stop soon, find some shade to protect themselves from the heat. If they fell to heat exhaustion they would be easy prey. His muscles burned from walking and his stomach twisted with nausea from the heat. They were in no condition to take the artifact from whatever had it.

 

He spotted something white in the trees several meters ahead and to the left. He slowed, drifting off the trail. Svyatoslav continued walking, then stopped when he noticed Mihail wasn’t following. He looked over at Mihail, who continued to approach the object, with his gun warily in hand, eyes roaming for signs of a trap. Mihail vaguely heard Svyatoslav moving through the brush behind him, following. There was an unpleasant odor in the air, filling his nose with its noxious stench. Svyatoslav coughed and choked, and Mihail switched to breathing through his mouth, though that did little to ease the smell.

 

He pushed through the last thicket of brush before the white object. The smell was concentrated there. He gagged. Tears came to his eyes as he tried to suppress his nausea. Laying there, glistening brightly in the sun, spread-eagled and naked before them, was a body. Only nearly human. Mihail coughed against his arm, keeping it pressed against his mouth to ward off the smell. He opened his eyes to look at the body. Pale flesh hung on the corpse like drapery, spreading out, almost pooling off the body in the sun. All of it was burned and bubbled, like it had been dipped in a vat of boiling oil. Its pseudo-human face was twisted in a grimace, fat lips pulled over protruding crooked teeth. Its eyes were pure white and almost bursting from their sockets, swelling disproportionately large. Its hands clenched against its belly, in such torment when it had died that its fingers had gouged deep holes into its stomach. Thick red blood streamed from the finger holes like honey. It had died recently.

 

Mihail quickly dropped back, retreating to the trail. He spit the bitter taste from his mouth and wiped his lips against his sleeve. Svyatoslav hacked. The main group couldn’t be too far ahead. Spitting distastefully again, he left the site, following the trail once more. He wondered if Svyatoslav had understood what the burns meant. He certainly did. But it wasn’t wise to divulge all of the knowledge he possessed. He wouldn’t want Svyatoslav to get the idea that he didn’t need him anymore. He looked back at the body, retreating steadily into the forest behind him. They would have to stop somewhere else.

 

After they had made a good distance down the trail and away from the body, they stopped in the shade of a tree stubbornly holding onto the last of its burned leaves. The MREs were quickly downed for need of food if not want of it. They sipped their water to keep it from running out. They said nothing, whether to conserve energy or for lack of anything to say, neither knew. When Mihail stood, Svyatoslav knew it was time to go. They started back on the trail of their quarry.

 

Thick brush began to creep in on the trail as they climbed the slope of a thickly forested hill. The trail was clearly evident now; broken twigs, footprints and fresh scrapes on tree bark all pointing to the presence of something having passed that way. The trees grew closer together and the light was screened away by branches reaching overhead, creating a tunnel around them that held the heat in, threatening to suffocate them. Eventually the undergrowth became so bad that both he and Svyatoslav had to hack away at it with machetes to make any sort of time. The bushes would have significantly slowed their prey.

 

They came upon a tree that had fallen across a cluster of rocks that went back several hundred meters. The rocks were close together and formed a sort of tunnel through the forest. It was very dark inside. The trail led directly into it.

 

“It would not be wise to go in there.” Mihail said immediately. It would be too easy to be trapped or ambushed once inside.

 

“We have lanterns and flashlights.” Svyatoslav responded.

 

Mihail gave him an unreadable look. “Then you can go in first.”

 

Svyatoslav didn’t say anything. Mihail nodded. “Then we go around.”

 

It was slow going. The trees grew close together so when the path was blocked they had to go around, for they were too thick to be chopped apart with their machetes. But Mihail was able to guide by sighting down three trees in a row to act as a straight line, and using the position of the sun as backup. He had once owned a compass, but it had been smashed into uselessness in a gravity anomaly. He mourned its loss, but was grateful he had survived.

 

They finally came out near the trail and forged through the brush and trees until they reached it. The tracks continued on ahead of them as if nothing had happened. It was irritating after all that effort to find that their quarry had gone the easy route without problems. But there was no helping it, so they continued on.

 

The light began to fade and the heat to dissipate. The sun passed overhead and settled comfortably behind them, streaking the sky with red and casting their shadows out before them. Mihail began to wonder where they were heading. They had started going due north, but now had switched almost without him noticing it, and were heading east and slightly south. He shook his head. He’d follow the artifact to the edge of the Zone if necessary. Clouds rolled in and the temperature dropped even more. Still they forged through the forest, and still their prey eluded them. Mihail didn’t understand. They should have caught up with them before now. It was like they were…driven by something, running away perhaps. But from what? They surely didn’t know they were being followed. Or did they? It was a disturbing prospect. One that gnawed constantly at him and refused to let go.

 

Finally, Mihail stopped. The sun hovered just above the horizon behind them, oddly flattened and colored orange rather than white hot yellow. He could see his breath fogging in the stiff chill. Svyatoslav looked at him questioningly, as if asking why they had stopped.

 

“We’re not going to catch them tonight. I don't know how they’re keeping ahead of us, but whatever they are, we won’t catch them before dark, or likely even by tomorrow. I don't much like walking blind in this place in the dark. Even with lanterns and flashlights. Besides, even if they don't have to sleep, I’d rather not catch up to them while we’re this tired.”

 

Svyatoslav nodded. “I think if we follow that ridge up there,” he pointed to the right, “We should come to a more protected spot.”

 

It was a logical assumption, so Mihail didn’t challenge it. He merely nodded and indicated that Svyatoslav lead. He liked watching his own back. He didn’t trust anyone else enough to let them watch his.

 

Rocks quickly began to form. Large boulders jumbled together, fallen from the edge of the ridge above them. They had to carefully pick their way through the jagged stone, for fear of slipping and breaking a bone. Mihail spotted an overhang of the ridge ahead, a well-protected spot. He started for it, drawing abreast to Svyatoslav and pointing to it. It was growing darker and more difficult to see, so Svyatoslav had missed it. The sun was now no more than a glow on the horizon behind them. Stars began to pierce through the black sky before them.

 

Svyatoslav suddenly swore. Mihail froze, twisting his head to see. Svyatoslav was holding his pocket watch and staring around with a wild look in his eyes. Mihail felt a tingle of apprehension shoot through him. He whispered a curse under his breath, the fine hairs on the back of his neck rising. Something was in the rocks. He looked around very carefully, searching for an indication of what sort of trouble they were in. A droplet of sweat fell into his eye. He blinked it away. He couldn’t see any telltale depressions in the ground, for the rocks distorted the look of the land. He couldn’t tell what sort of anomaly it was, but he knew they were very close to something very dangerous. If he moved forward an inch it could be too far. He strained his eyes but didn’t see anything out of place. Night was descending rapidly on them, and they were stuck in a field of rock. And something was with them.

 

A terrible headache emerged from deep within his skull, pounding in sympathy with the uncontrolled beating of his heart. He gritted his teeth against it, trying to concentrate. He sidled backward. His fingertips and toes tingled. There was a bitter metallic taste in the back of his throat and under his tongue. Trying to move backward as slowly as possible, he saw something move. It darted through the rocks in front of him. He caught a glimpse of a brown, humped form, and then it was gone. Svyatoslav swore the curse that was lurking on Mihail’s tongue. But Mihail was closer to the thing than he, and in substantially more danger. He craned his neck back, stepping back through the rocks. The muscles in his neck strained and cramped, but there was nothing he could do about it. He risked a glance forward again. Movement. Frantic skittering all around. Fear came down on him, wrapping him in its paralyzing embrace. He blinked away more sweat. His muscles shook. He could not see what Svyatoslav was doing. Nor did he care. He kept his eyes riveted forward. Shapes rushed through the rocks and then hid. A lantern lit beside him, shining on the rocks. Nothing moved. Something glittered in the dark. He turned, and it was gone.

 

Then something tore from the rocks with such speed and ferocity that he didn’t have time to react. It slammed into him from the side and threw him into Svyatoslav. He fell heavily into the rocks. The sharp points dug into his flesh. There was a crash, and the sound of broken glass. The light disappeared.

 

He leapt to his feet, heedless of the danger, giving no heed to his cautions and simply ran as fast as he could. He heard things moving in the dark behind him. Many things. Rock scraped all over. He tripped and went down, slamming his knee painfully against the rocks. But he was up again in an instant, pangs of fear shuddering through his body. Something black darted straight for his face. Pure twitch reaction saved him. His finger convulsed on the trigger of his AK-74. The shadow spun away with a shriek as bullets buried themselves in its flesh. The sharp report shattered the night silence. Shells clanged as they fell to the rocks below.

 

Then Svyatoslav was firing as well, and the harsh flashes of light revealed more black shapes. Many more.

 

His blood thundered in his veins. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. He twisted about, seeing Svyatoslav firing madly into a mass of the shadows. Bullets exploded into the shapes and they fell to the rocks in broken heaps. Screams pierced his ears as they died. Shells ejected from the chamber shot out in an endless stream, gleaming with the flash of gunfire. He turned back around. Something slammed into him from the side. Pain flared in his abdomen as it thrashed at him with hooked claws. He rammed the butt of his AK into its dark head. It tore from his side with a shocking spray of blood. Ignoring the pain, he hammered it again and again until he felt the bone crack under the heavy metal of his gun.

 

Another one came at him and he gave it nine grams of death. Sweat and blood mixed and coated his body as he fired again and again into the shapes. He held the trigger down, his body recoiling with each burst. They were everywhere. Running had just put him in the thick of them.

 

He charged ahead anyway, firing left and right at anything that moved. The staccato bursts ripped through the strange shadows as if they were paper. He stumbled, weak from his injury. Blood ran freely from his torn flesh. Forcing himself to his feet, he fired the last rounds in his clip at the dark shapes. He beat back a rush of them, using the weapon as a club. Pain cut through him as they opened new wounds. He couldn’t defend himself well when he was unable to see clearly.

 

He ejected the clip and reached for another in his mag pouch. He quickly rammed it home. Svyatoslav drew next to him as he began firing again into the black creatures. The sound was deafening as each man emptied round after round into the mass. Each died with a single, painful screech. It was as if the god of thunder had descended onto the rock field and was proceeding to annihilate everything in sight.

 

Svyatoslav stopped to reload, yelling for Mihail to cover him. He whirled and fired at the rapidly advancing line of creatures. The front rank fell apart as he blasted them apart. But there were more behind them. Every flash from the heated muzzles of their machine guns revealed the extent of them. He couldn’t see the end of them. There were too many. Fear threatened to rise up and choke him, but he forced it back down. He would not die in this place.

 

Screaming in fury, he resolved to go down only after slaughtering every last one of the things. The sharp crack of Svyatoslav’s AK joined the piercing cry of his. Fire erupted from the machine guns, tearing into the creatures and ripping them apart. Blood pooled in the rocks and slickened the ground. Mihail fired his last round and a creature flew back into its comrades. He reloaded, letting the empty clip fall to the rocks. Something cold hit his face. He looked up. The clouds roiled ominously above them. Lightning lit the land and peals of true thunder rolled forth. Rain fell in increasing amounts. It soaked the ground and turned it into mud. Slogging through the morass with a grim look on his face, Mihail advanced on the creatures. He gritted his teeth, pouring his heart and soul into killing. Every bullet found its target. Every bullet dealt a killing blow. He was slogging through bodies as well as mud, adding more and more of the former while the rain added more of the latter.

 

The creatures began to fall back. He charged into them, emptying his weapon and then slamming his way through them with it as a club. He rammed the gun into them left and right, feeling it crush bone and rip open flesh. Blood splashed onto him as he advanced through them, but was quickly washed off by the rain. The creatures bit and clawed, but he ignored the pain and took down every one near him with lethal blows. Cold and wet settled in as well, and while he could do nothing to fend them off, he ignored them by killing more of the little monsters.

 

Slinging the gun around his shoulders, he drew his machete and bayonet and roared at the creatures. Fire burning in his eyes, he charged through them, screaming. They flew at him from all sides, but he ripped them open with cold steel. Then Svyatoslav joined him, killing more of them. The things had to scramble over the bodies of their fallen kin to get to the two men. Claws glittered and gleamed in the white flashes of lightning. Eyes narrowed and teeth bared.

 

Then suddenly the things broke and ran, flitting back through the rocks that were their home. Mihail and Svyatoslav were left standing in the rain, clothes soaked through and tattered, wounds bleeding, breathing heavily. Lightning cracked and thundered and the rain drummed steadily against the rocks. Mihail stiffly sheathed his bayonet and machete, exhaustion flooding his body like concrete in his veins. He blinked the rain from his eyes and wiped his face of blood and sweat and water. He turned back around to retrieve the empty clips. They could be refilled. He realized his headache was gone.

 

“Let’s get out of here.”

Obsidian Series Part 4

 

By: Grisly Silence

 

 

 

Silence. He awoke to silence. No trees creaked against the pull of the wind. The grass was still. No sounds came from afar. A hush had settled over everything, as if nothing dared to break the silence. He listened intently. Still nothing. He settled back. It was almost peaceful. It was as if everything had signed a peace treaty. A cease fire.

 

Mihail frowned. He didn’t like it.

 

Svyatoslav had the morning watch. Mihail should hear him breathing, or moving. Worry overrode his initial pleasure at the silence, the absence of wind. He lay still, staring up at the clear blue sky. Sometime during the night the clouds had cleared off. Keeping his breathing as low as possible, he checked around himself as much as he could while only moving his eyes. The barren tips of trees loomed upward to his left, and a rocky formation split the ground to his right. More rocks hovered above him, part of the crag they had decided to camp in. He didn’t see anything move. But that didn’t necessarily matter.

 

He felt the heavy weight of a funeral pall settle over him.

 

What had happened to Svyatoslav?

 

This was not good. He grimaced. If something had come upon Svyatoslav during the night, it would have woken him…wouldn’t it? But if he had wandered off…No. Svyatoslav wouldn’t just “wander off.” Either something had happened to him, or he had disappeared on purpose. He imagined all sorts of scenarios. He saw dwarfs somehow ripping him apart without a sound, controllers taking him while his back was turned, perhaps not noticing Mihail because he was asleep, and on and on, seeing things he had never seen nor heard of.

 

Or maybe Svyatoslav had noticed some danger and had left to get out of its way, “forgetting” to tell Mihail. Or not forgetting. What were they in this for after all? Profit. They were together only until they got the artifact. And Mihail wasn’t sure their truce would even last that long. He had been suspicious of the man when he had first met him. He knew nothing of him or his character, except for his skill at fighting. His mind turned to the sinister. What if Svyatoslav had decided the artifact was no longer worth the journey? What if he had decided he still needed to get something out of this wasted time? What if he had decided to get rid of his traveling companion?

 

Somewhere nearby a twig snapped. The silence shattered. It was like a cannon going off in his ear. He flinched. His heart jumped to his throat. His clothes rustled as his back scraped against the ground. Swearing, he jumped to his feet, knowing that anything nearby couldn’t have failed to notice the sound. His Stechkin was out of its holster before he landed. A large dark form leaned casually against the rocks.

 

It was Svyatoslav.

 

He almost shot him. The adrenaline searing through his veins pulsed in time with his heart. Chest heaving, Mihail glared at him. His gun wasn’t out. He let the Stechkin down a little. Unlike before, Svyatoslav didn’t back down at his look. Sometime during the night, he had grown a spine. Back in the house where the goliath attacked them, Mihail’s glare had stopped him in his tracks. From what Mihail knew, that didn’t change spontaneously without good reason.

 

“Where were you?” He ground out. His ire grew at the way Svyatoslav leaned oh-so-casually against the rock.

 

Svyatoslav shrugged. “I thought I heard a noise. I went to check it out.”

 

Mihail almost shot him. Again. Keeping his wrath under control was becoming more and more difficult. “Really.” He spit out.

 

Svyatoslav didn’t seem to notice his anger. “Really.” He said matter-of-factly. A smirk stretched across his face. “You going to shoot me?”

 

Mihail looked down at the gun. He realized his gun was out. Svyatoslav's wasn’t. He rammed it into his holster. His gaze came back up, and caught on Svyatoslav’s back as he was turning. He had his pack on. He hadn’t had it on when he began his watch. Suspicion flared in his mind. Mihail’s eyes narrowed, but he kept his thoughts to himself.

 

Keeping his eyes on Svyatoslav, he slowly settled down to a sitting position, pulling an MRE from his own pack. There was plenty left for the long walk back to his dealer. He glanced at Svyatoslav, tearing the plastic off his own meal. He felt like a tightly wound spring about to explode. His whole body was tense, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. He forced the tasteless food into his mouth, pangs of hunger reminding him of survival. He spoke around a mouthful of tepid beans.

 

“What was it?”

 

Svyatoslav’s eyes came up with a confused look. His plastic fork hovered over the food. “What?”

 

Mihail’s gaze grew piercing. “The noise.”

 

Svyatoslav stared at him. “I am still alive aren’t I? I would not be if it was important.”

 

It was a perfectly reasonable response. Mihail grunted noncommittally and returned to his food. His thoughts remained his own.

 

After they packed everything up—or rather, after Mihail packed his stuff up, since Svyatoslav seemed already prepared for a journey—Mihail wondered if he was being irrational. Putting it bluntly, there were easier ways to kill him. If Svyatoslav really wanted to be rid of him, he could have just put a bullet in his head while he slept. Even a coward would see the value in that. But Svyatoslav was no coward. He seemed more confident than the night before, after the attack. Something had changed during the night.

 

Mihail’s side ached in sympathy with his thoughts. Wrapping it in bandages, he had stopped the bleeding, if not the pain. The rest of the wounds were not worth bothering over, except for a nasty cut on his arm that he hadn’t felt until afterwards, which was also bandaged. Svyatoslav had fared no better.

 

They began passing through more rocky formations. The trees thinned and the ground became less fertile. The air seemed colder, not as a result of the strange weather conditions, but as a general climate change in the area.

 

His thoughts returned to Svyatoslav. He couldn’t condemn a man simply by his smirk. His newfound confidence could merely be realization that he had triumphed when he should have fallen. While it was stupid to go off alone to check a noise out without waking Mihail, it also was not enough to damn him. It was probably just an innocent mistake. But he still didn’t like it. It was something he couldn’t put his finger on, but it was there, teasing him with its presence.

 

Paranoia. He was succumbing to paranoia. They couldn’t be very far behind the arti

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