If you’ve been reading Half-Glass Gaming lately, you’re probably aware of the fact that I’ve been chronicling interactions between NPCs in Dying Light 2: Stay Human. These encounters usually happen around campfires on rooftops, but not always.
Essentially, what happens is that you’ll be doing your mad parkour stuff around town, then all of a sudden you’ll see a book icon show up on your map. If you follow that to its source, you’ll usually find a bunch of folks huddled around a campfire. You’ll also probably hear some pretty wild stories too. Or maybe a song.
Anyway, I found yet another campfire encounter, and this one is a story about a con artist. Here’s the video:
I’ve been transcribing these interactions, so I’ll do this one as well.
I unfortunately can’t make out the first sentence that starts off this whole thing. I think the guy says, “For a while, I was out with Anders.” But I’m not completely sure about that.
After that, one guy says, “Who’s that?”
Another guy responds, “The greatest con artist alive. One day he says, ‘This city’s full of suckers hoping for a miracle. We can take advantage of that.’ Anders had a plan.”
“What plan?” says the campfire guy.
“Lots of folk went missing after the war. I mean, look around. You can see memorials at every other street corner. Families needed to know what happened. And where there’s a need, there’s a business opportunity.”
“That’s sick!” says the campfire guy. “Have you no decency?”
Then some Beatles-sounding guy pipes in with, “Nah, decency’s dead, mate. It’s eat or be eaten.”
The storyteller continues, as if he wasn’t just called out for his lack of decency. “Widows were the easiest marks. We pick a house with a yellow ribbon. I’d be on crutches, Anders, who’s in charge, saying we fought with their dead husbands during the war. PK? The army? The site didn’t matter. For a hot meal, we promised to tell them what happened to their husbands. It worked every time. They’d give us food, water, medicine, crystals, anything they had. They wanted closure; we gave it to them. The details changed, but we stuck to the same basic story. It always ended with an epic fight and some heroic act by the husband.
“In no time, we were richer than kings. At least, we thought we were rich. But then we hit the biggest score of all.
“Belinda was like every other widow we met. Pretty, thirty-something brunette, blue eyes, living near Meat Packing Square. We did our usual thing, but before we leave, she says, ‘My husband, he was the PK treasurer. The night he died, he told me they had a war chest — medicine, crystals mostly. He’d want you to have it.'”
“You got no shame,” says the non-Beatle.
“Let him finish,” says the Beatle. “I bet they was skinnin’ for themselves.”
The storyteller continues, “We give each other ‘the look.’ ‘It’s in Houndfield,” she says, ‘but it’s not safe during the day.’ The next night, we take Belinda to our safe house to gear up. She leads us to this dark cellar near the chemical zone. ‘It’s in the basement,’ she whispers, shivering with fright. We tell her to stay behind ’cause, you know, if there’s a fight, she’d just get in our way.”
“You left her on her own?” says the Beatle.
“Yeah,” says the storyteller. “And we went looking for a way in. And eventually we found it.”
“And?”
“There was no loot. Instead, there was a demolisher in that basement. We barely got out alive. When we got back, Belinda was gone, and so was our stash. Medicine? Crystals? Food? She took everything. On the table, a note: ‘Sorry, guys. Nothing personal. Just business.'”
“Heh,” says one of the campfire guys. “The biter was bitten.”
“Only in this case,” says the Beatle, “it was a demolisher!”
The storyteller isn’t quite done. “Turns out, she’d been tracking us for weeks. And we never saw it coming. Anders and I split up after that.” He sighs. “I bet he’s still out there hustling. I enlisted with the PKs. but hearing war stories at night, people who actually died fighting for what they believed in, it made me feel guilty every time. I lasted… two months? Now I’m back where I started before the fall, a nobody tellin’ stories.”
At least they’re good stories, mate. At least they’re good stories.
