In Dying Light 2: Stay Human, you’ll oftentimes see a book icon show up on your map. If you follow it, you’ll end up at a campfire, usually surrounded by a small group of survivors. When you arrive, a story begins, and you can sit down to listen if you’d like to.
I do this every single time I’m presented the opportunity, and I’ve discovered some pretty wild tales. From the woman whose father worked in pest control to the stage performance about the origin of the Nightrunners (praise to the Nightrunners!), there’s a lot of variety in the tales you might discover at these impromptu gatherings.
I want to share another one. This time, a woman tells her fellow drunks about a secret society that lives underground and is stealing water from the residents of Villedor. It’s quite the tale.
Here’s the full video:
I do apologize for the heavy breathing in the beginning of this video. Aiden was really struggling after climbing up that pipe, apparently.
I’ve been transcribing every single one of these campfire encounters, and you’d better believe I’m going to transcribe this one as well. You can read the full text below.
I show up to this one a little late, and the people gathered here are already a bit pickled. They seem to be arguing about something. One guy says, “After ten more bottles, sure.”
The woman who’s about to tell the story says, “Hyuh, now I’ll tell you for a bottle.”
The guy responds, “Get outta here.”
Another guy then says, “Wait, this could be hilarious. Bottle after the story.”
“Deal,” says the woman, and she then launches into her story. “So, these events took place shortly after the end of the civil war in 2025.
“I knew this guy on North Mount Street, in South Korea End. By the full pool, he used to make his own moonshine. And let’s say I got particularly bombed that night, and I got lost. Like, really lost. Ended up in a Dark Zone.”
One of the guys says, “You’re lying. You’d be dead.”
The woman responds, “Should be. But at some point, I fell down a hole and landed in… water.”
“Water?” says the confused guy to my right.
“Water?” says the confused guy to my left.
“Water!” says the woman. “Even had fish in it and all.”
“The fuck?” says one of the guys. I was thinking it too, to be honest.
“I hadn’t seen fish in forever. I decided to stay under. At least I’d die warm, and with my new fish friends. I was doing a pretty good job at my suicide, when suddenly I was pulled out. His name was Magnus, a robe-wearing savior type. His group had been living down there since who knows when? Off the grid for years. Hadn’t even heard of the Renegades. They had UV lamps, a power generator. I met the children born there. No biomarkers.”
The guy next to me is skeptical. “How did they survive?”
“They’d formed their group around this natural underground pool. The pool was the center of everything, even had religious rituals around it. And no infected. Paradise.”
One of the campfire bros says, “Heh he, toxins are forbidden, but I’ll take whatever you’re on.”
“The Downworlders felt the same way, cleansed me of toxins, nursed me to health. No idea how long I spent there, but I swam in the pool every day. And then one day, I dived deep in the pool and found a bunch of pipes and a giant pump system.”
“So,” Campfire Bro says, “not a natural pool?”
“Clever boy. Only one place they could be pumping it in from: Villedor’s reservoir. I went to Magnus and confronted him. But he knew. Everyone knew. ‘Downworlders don’t concern themselves with what happens above,’ he told me. I begged him to change his views, to think about the kids, about all the people we could help with this much water. His face hardened. ‘We shall never talk about this again.’
“I knew things wouldn’t be the same for me after this. People looked at me different. And indeed, a few days later they came for me. I ran to the pool and jumped in. I had no idea what I was doing until I saw the valve handle for the pump. I turned it on full blast. The waters churned violently around me. I hit my head on something and blacked out.
“I woke up in the Old Villedor sewers. Paradise lost.”
“You drowned them? All?” Says Campfire Bro.
“People need to think about themselves to survive, but we won’t survive if we only think about ourselves.” The woman sits down and chuckles. “Now, how about that bottle?”
I stuck around for a while after that, but that was the end of that conversation.
