Adder (DayZ)

LAST NIGHT, tooling around Berezino with three friends of mine, gathering what loot we can and playing the old game of zed-chicken as always. One of our number has been obsessing over the North West Airfield for a few days now, but my veteran friend and I are both weary of getting sniped there as we try in vain to find shiny guns. In the end we caved and decided to give it a shot, mainly for lulz. Three of us were sporting AKMs and our designated marksman had a CZ550, so not horribly kitted. Cut to just outside the walls of the NWAF on the North side, I directed our marksman to a tower with a very flimsy frame, the benefit being if a sniper got the range wrong and missed, there wouldn't be any signs of a bullet impact to clue him in on whether he went too high or too low. Meanwhile the three of us with assault rifles position ourselves in the tree-line ready to move in. A few seconds after our marksman gets into position he reports in a matter of fact tone that he is dead. Shot three times, and I only heard three shots, figures. While the rest of us decide what to do about this (I knew the only sane course of action would be to just cut our losses and leave) our post-mortem-marksman tells us he can hear them talking, presumably in group or direct chat with their microphones. Apparently they were laughing at his misfortune and discussing their tactics. Based on this we learned they had at least two snipers, possibly in cross-fire positions overlooking the area we were planning to raid. So of course, we who remained did the only thing that made sense; stood up and charged towards the hangars, keying our microphones in direct chat, and issuing a blood curdling battle cry in unison. As we ran around the hangar area with about 5 zeds chasing each of us I took a moment to think about the snipers laughing at us as they watched from a safe distance. Then one of us spotted their position, they were at the far side of the field in ghillie suits in a small copse of trees. All three of us then turned and started running towards them, zombies in tow, but keeping a good weave on to make ourselves more difficult to hit. I veered out more to the left while my two friends took a much more direct approach. As the shots started to ring out from the trees I imagined the looks on the snipers' faces turning from hysterical amusement to some level of dread, they knew what was going to happen. As my two friends paused to try to return fire they were immediately cut down, but I was way out on the left flank now with only one zergling nipping at my heels. I flicked my AK to semi and put one in his chest and looked back towards the trees. I could just about make one of them out so I sent a few 7.62s his way and watched him fall over, or go prone, hard to tell amongst the fur trees. I was in the middle of an open field so I immediately got back to running my arse off, carving a path round the back of the trees they were sheltering in while switching back to automatic and slapping a fresh magazine in. I streaked up to the rear of their position like a charging barbarian, I managed to spot one of them lying prone under a fur tree and emptied my weapon on him, due to my ragged breathing and frayed nerves I may have only hit him once or twice as he survived long enough to spin around and pepper my legs before I could finish him off. I had a quick crawl around to see if his friend was still there, he wasn't, presumably logged off to save himself (wuss), before bandaging, sticking myself with morphine and looting my kill. L85 and an M4A1CCO SD, coyote backpack and all kinds of gadgetry. I'll toss my friend the CCO and keep the rest. Also for the record, I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Much respect to the person I killed for not hitting alt+F4 like so many other NWAF ass-bandits.

Protip: If you want a safer experience working with a team of players, join a clan and use their teamspeak. At the current state of play, bumping into people randomly and asking "friendly?" is taking a huge gamble. You're just rolling a dice, so you can't justifiably get angry if the response to your query is a bullet. Personally I found that playing as part of a clan didn't work for me, they were too worried about their hoarded loot and less worried about putting it to use, so now I just play with one or two friends in a skype call. I say all this because my experiences with other players are similar to many of yours; typically, you spot each other, pause, you get to thinking "well he hasn't shot me yet..." and then he does, because you hesitated. After about two days of this rigmarole I stopped hesitating, now the only time I pause is to make sure I have a nice clear shot and I will shoot you whether you're packing a makarov or a CCO just to make sure you don't get the opportunity to shoot me. Although I do make it a point to loot every person I kill, because it'd be a shame to waste ammo.

Pt. 1 I woke up bleeding, starving and parched. Must have passed out after my last run in with the zeds. I bandaged a particularly nasty gouge on my stomach, it was leaking but hadn't gone through to the muscle, just hurt like a bitch. I checked a road sign and saw that I was right outside Komarovo, great not too far from that camp near the air field where the army keeps the guns. With that in mind I put the coast on my right shoulder and started stalking through Komarovo, huge error. Despite my best efforts to be quiet and keep a low profile they came, must have smelled the blood on my clothes, one or two at first, shambling horrors. As I got up to run I clumsily kicked over an empty coke can, that did it, snatching a glance over my shoulder I saw about six of them and they looked hungry. I ran past a fair sized industrial building and caught sight of a catwalk, accessible by a ladder but I'd already just about run past it. I yelled "Screw it!" out loud and turned suddenly, darting towards the door, this sent me barrelling into one of my pursuers. He? It? I dunno what to call them but it was a fat bastard and I wasn't able to knock it over with my meagre starved body. I forced my way through and made it through the door, but not without paying with a little of my skin. The climb up that ladder felt like an eternity, I had to shake one of the zeds off my leg as I frantically scrambled over the threshold of the catwalk. Seeing no other way down off my lofty perch, I turned, drew my side arm and started lining up head shots as best I could. I didn't have much ammo left and these crappy Soviet bloc weapons are by no means a sure thing when it comes to stopping power. As the last zed fell back off the ladder with a severe case of lead poisoning I suddenly found myself overcome by the deafening silence and the smell. I dry heaved a few times before steadying myself enough to take a few gulps of water from my canteen and scarf down some cold frank and beans, keeping a careful eye on the doors for zeds or worse, other people like me. Pt. 2 Time to blow this popsicle stand. I stuck my side arm back through the waist of my jeans and headed out towards Balota, and the air field next door. I skirted around the tree line avoiding the town, I did not want to get into a fire fight with zeds here. A quick search of the control tower and hangars yielded a tin of canned food, an out-of-date can of pepsi and, what's this? A Glock? Don't mind if I do. That's when the muffled thump of a shot rang out. I instinctively ducked, fortunately whoever it was either didn't aim very well or was just not shooting at me. A second thump confirmed it, sounded like a pretty heavy caliber and coming from the two warehouses at the far end of the air field. Against my better judgement I set about crossing the air field to check the camp for a better weapon, Glock in hand. Searching through the camp was tense, but uneventful, as the occasional shot could be heard, still emanating from the warehouses. I managed to avoid the zeds near the camp by hiding like a complete coward, no room for pride in the apocalypse. Having failed to find a decent long rifle I decided to try my luck with the warehouses. It sounded like there was maybe two or three of them, judging by the interspersed small caliber side arm fire I was hearing, either that or it was a maniac with an assault rifle in one and hand his pistol in the other. As I crossed the field once more, staying to the rear of the nearest warehouse I'd noticed it had gone quiet. I considered a couple of plans; play friendly and see what I could get, wait outside for them to leave and try to cap them, or go in heavy? I checked the Glock and counted my spare magazines, two, not bad. As I tiptoed round the corner of the building I found the doors closed, they must have gotten tired of fighting off the zeds and tried to barricade themselves inside. So I figured I'd throw one of the doors open, if its loose enough to get inside I'll start shooting, if its barred shut I'll just hammer on it with my fist and yell for help, pretend there's zeds after me and improvise. I peered through a crack between the doors, it wasn't wide enough to see much of the inside, but enough to see that it was pretty dark in there, I could hear bits and pieces of hushed dialogue. I took a breath, flicked the lamp on the front of my Glock on and its beam cut right through the dull evening gloom. From my crouched position I planted a hand flat on one of the doors and gave it a good shove. I was a little surprised to find it flung right open, and quietly! With a flick of the eyes from left to right I saw two men, both hunched over piles of scrap metal for some reason. The one directly ahead of me fell to my gunfire with a yelp, his life was snuffed out quickly and apparently unexpectedly as his comrade yelled "OH SHI-" and started to make a dash for the other exit, fumbling for the assault rifle slung on his shoulder. Turns out they had barricaded that door, unlucky. After crashing into his makeshift fortifications and staggering back a little dazed, the second man began to shoulder his rifle. It didn't matter, I was already lying flat on my stomach with my sights square on his chest and the light from my lamp in his eyes. I fired twice, it looked to be enough. I relieved the first unlucky victim of his worldly possessions with quick efficiency then stalked over to the second. He was still alive! I was beginning to question the effectiveness of my Austrian pistol, oh well, my second victim's assault rifle was chambered for 7.62. That ought to do the trick. I left the warehouse as swiftly as possible, all too wary of the sounds of my fire-fight carrying on the wind to the ears of scavengers. I didn't bother using another bullet on the survivor, I didn't have too many left and he had two sucking chest wounds, he'd be dead very soon anyway. God rest his soul.