Shadows of JiangXi

[arvg]

Up the embankment Elias ran, crossing the tracks, hopping the wire fence and tumbling down the much steeper south side in mere seconds. He'd forgotten what it was like to run without the weight of all one's essentials on board. Scrambling back onto his feet, he ducked past another gravity trap and took shelter in the shadow of the locomotive which sat there. Here was one of those wonders of the Zone: a boxy green diesel sitting perfectly upright as if some great force had carefully lifted it from the tracks, though its frame was warped and dented by a year of exposure to violent anomalous energies.

The battered loner quickly assessed his ersatz hardware. The AKMS was an old model, a 7.62 with the standard banana magazine. He had two full magazines and one empty, giving him a total ammunition supply of sixty cartridges. They were plain full metal jacket rounds, so he'd have to make each one count. Elias reloaded, wincing when he inadvertently pinched a finger, and resumed his run towards the farmhouse.

The Coalitioner kept bearing south-southeast, passing over low hills sparsely dotted with trees, bushes and weak anomalies. Coming onto the dirt road from the tunnel which led to the Darkscape and Dark Valley, he followed it down the last slope and into the abandoned garage through which it ran. The garage was a dismal place: a few derelict cars and trucks left to rust among buildings with brick walls partially demolished by the ravages of time. It belonged to no faction, though loners and bandits alike were known to take shelter there.

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