Metro Exodus Diaries Part Fourteen

This is my ongoing exploration of the Metro series, played in release order, where I will chronicle my playthrough like a text-based Let’s Play. This time I continue Metro Exodus.

Sneaking past dangerous folk and killing a bear was all in a day’s work outside of Moscow, but we had no time for that as Anna was dying…

Anna happily told me about the postcard of the Pacific ocean that she had found, showing it to me and saying that we were destined to go to the beach. Sure, it was our only option to find medicine to save her life, but that’s neither here nor there.

She was cut off by a coughing fit, which Katya sedated her for. She needed rest to keep her strength, and I couldn’t do anything to help her until we found the medicine. As I left, Krest told me to follow him to the bridge. Instead, I hung around listening to people chat. Nastya was worried that her cough would turn out like Anna’s while Stepan reassured her. As I passed by, Sam tried to reassure me about Anna. Finally, Alyosha was on the radio trying to contact Olga and get her to leave the valley, but was receiving no answer.

So romantic

On the bridge, Idiot, Krest and Yermak were talking with Miller. I took a seat while they went over the upcoming plans. Reach Novosibirsk, and hit two key areas. The Research Institute of Extreme Medicine for the cure in Novosibirsk, and the train museum in Akademgorodok for a snow plough. Yes, the thing we needed was in the most heavily irradiated city in Russia, and it just so happened to also have a train museum.

Miller had volunteered himself and me to get to the Institute, and would hear no dissention from the other Spartans. The radiation was actually the one thing we had going for us - nobody survived to loot the hospitals or drug stores. Tokarev had managed to construct two shielded suits, which might buy us a couple of hours exposure, but were clunky.

After listening to the chatter, I headed out front to speak with Sam who was monitoring the radiation levels. He recapped the story of when Miller had rescued him when the bombs fell - from survivors in the Metro. Despite the Russian people technically being his enemy at the time, he never raised his hand in defense. He urged me to remember when to raise my hand in our next mission.

COME AT ME BRO

Back inside the carriage, Katya and Alyosha were chatting for a moment before she went back to check on Anna. I followed, but there was no change for my sleeping partner. Instead, I went to the garage we apparently had at the back, just past the tanker of diesel. Krest was sat having a smoke and told me that he was glad to have met us. He had only met bad people before, and we were better than the best he had met since the bombs fell.

Returning to the bridge, I set our course for Novosibirsk. Miller and I had suited up by the time we arrived, then we bid our farewells and I spent a moment with the still-unconscious Anna. Finally, Miller and I got into the car brought from the Caspian Sea - now repaired of course. Miller was driving, and we parted company with the Aurora, the train resuming its journey.

Miller carefully took us to the closest Metro entrance - it would be the safest way to get to our destination, with the radiation levels so high on the surface. We arrived at our destination, and Miller got out to check that it was indeed snowed under. He had me take the wheel, and directed us to the next closest Metro entrance. We had to detour around the remains of a traffic jam, though our detour just brought us back to it. We could follow the road a short distance, as a tank had ploughed through the vehicles, but the tank itself blocked our way.

Blooming tank

We disembarked, and walked through the deep snow to a hole in the road, which some vehicles had fallen down, and Miller said we could use to access the Metro. We went down, then basically fell through a bus into the tunnels below. We found a cave-in and a Metro train car, so we opened the doors and went inside. Things were dark and foreboding - it felt just like being back in the Moscow Metro.

Sure enough, we had only travelled a short way before mutants attacked us, some kind of cousin to the nosalis from back home. These looked more like moles than the ones I was used to, but thankfully they fell just as easily. We came across a room that had a tape inside, talking about how they were running low on “green stuff” - Miller suspected a military issued anti-radiation compound.

Not that it did them much good, as after a short dip in some sewer water, we were in an execution pit, much like the one I had found myself in just before we left Moscow, but harsher due to several corpses in cages. Miller said that they didn’t look to be dead for 20 years - much closer to one - so people had survived down here all this time.

These ones, however, HAD been dead for 20 years

Going further, Miller lit a flare and led the way down the tunnel. Corpses littered the tracks and machine gun emplacements, and a letter I had picked up suggested rioters. Presumably times got tougher here than they had in Moscow, and the military had to take action. We reached the end, where a big door was surrounded by a bigger pile of corpses. Worse - more nosalis were hidden long enough to make us think the dead were rising before attacking us.

After making short work of them, we opened the door and went up an escalator. At the top were empty canisters of chlorine - they had gassed the people who had managed to survive the barricades. Going through a door to the left - the door to the right had its handle sawn off - I found a report. It detailed some interrogations, and explained that the rioters had finally had enough when the “big wigs” started hoarding the “green stuff” for a less-than-subtle bid to escape Novosibirsk.

Look, we all want to live, but even a dead society is a society

Miller led us to a ventilation tunnel, which allowed light from the surface but thankfully not the poisoned air. Suddenly, there was the sound of a radio - and we noticed fresh footprints. Opening a grate, a boy jumped out and, slipping through Miller’s fingers, ran for it through another gate. Miller boosted me over, ordering me to pursue the boy - which I did. Through corridors, tunnels, stairs and an air duct, finally cornering him in another sewer with Miller on the other side.

He had managed to hide, but after a bit of looking I found him in a barrel - he tried to escape, but Miller grabbed him. The boy calmed a bit when he found that we really weren’t trying to hurt him, naming himself Private Kirill Khlebnikov. Miller told him to take us to his commander, as we were on an important mission - and he led the way. He lived at Prospekt station, and was fascinated by the fact we had come from Moscow.

Suddenly, mutants attacked us and Miller helped Kirill into a vent. We fended them off, more thanks to dynamite than anything, and Miller called out to the boy. When he didn’t answer right away, we figured that he had run away - but he was actually getting to the other side of the gate we had found ourselves in front of. He opened it and led the way into his home. He explained that the commander - his father - had left on a special mission some time ago. Wanting to take his son from here, he had gone to the Satcom center to get an impact map - much like the one I had found in Caspian-1. Miller believed that it would aid us, so I was to get the medicine, and he would go get that map. And presumably rescue the kid’s father, though I didn’t hold out much hope for that.

Miller contacted the Aurora with Kirill’s radio to explain the change of plans. We didn’t get much from them, apart from hearing that Anna was in a very bad condition. After sorting my ammo and cleaning my weapons, Kirill gave us some spare green stuff, and Miller sent me on my way - I had to save Anna…