half life malignant thread i - /qst/

8o7

Anonymous11/15/25, 13:56No.6332700Half Life: Malignant - Thread I

Howdy bros, I'm back. I wanted to continue RimQuest, but the combination of an artist shafting me, Rimworld 1.6 breaking all of my saves, life events, and depression have fucked that into the dirt. So instead here's something new. These are the dark years of the occupation. Gordon Freeman is still just a story passed between cells, squads, strangers, and couples. In this moment in time there's only you, a lone human working to resist the Combine occupation however you see fit and remain able. There will be an Uprising someday, this you're sure of, but the path there lies on the other side of lakes of blood and considerable effort on the part of unsung warriors like you. It had felt like days since you last saw the sun back outside the outskirts of City 11. The awful stench of the sewers and cisterns which meandered under the streets of what used to be Berlin forced you to find something to plug your nose with almost immediately upon beginning your infiltration. Deep regret at leaving the accommodations, spartan as they were, of the Resistance base north of the city had massaged your mind, but failed to slow your occasionally-soggy step through the barely-lit darkness. All this had a purpose, you reminded yourself. In the newspeak of the Combine you are an Anticitizen, a Malignant, the malformed cell that starts the cancer, the one that sets the spark which will light the torch of humanity's liberation. Or, in more plain terms, the crazy fucker that volunteers to go back into the Cities in order to bring contraband in, people out, and start up new resistance cells along the way. If there were some omniscient statistician in the sky, he could have given you odds of survival that would have seen you sit your ass back down in Finow when they called for somebody to replace Parks's sector after his presumed loss, but all the same, it needed to get done. The whole goddamned species was at stake, with a biological time limit that edged closer to expiration every year and a planet slowly being strangled of its life. If this generation didn't stop them, there would be no other. Never in human history had there been as existential and desperate a struggle as the one you now trudged through obscure German shit-tunnels to wage. It had only been half a day since you entered the sewer system when you reached your target. A junction in the tunnels marked by a chalk marker and a lone, white coffee mug. The route into this part of the city was prepared beforehand by a two-man reconnaissance team, people with equipment and experience too valuable for you to know or to be risked with the next, most dangerous part of City infiltration. You were briefed that they left you a red bag full of necessaries to help you along on your mission from here, hidden in a storeroom near the marker.

146

Replies

8o7

Anon11/15/25, 13:59No.6332702

This old storeroom was to be your only point of contact with the rest of free humanity until your branch of the railroad was up and running to the satisfaction of the officers in command. Here is where you can leave messages with intelligence or supply requests, recieve goods and messages in return, and hopefully start new refugees on the path back to freedom and future revenge.But before we get to all that, Who are you, Malignant?Please write-in the following. >[Full Name] >[Male/Female] >[Basic Details] (Optional)

8o7

Anon11/15/25, 15:56No.6332745

Loving the suggestions so far. I'll be back on this afternoon for the winner. Unlike my last quest, I can update -far- more frequently in order to keep things rolling.

wQJ

Anon11/15/25, 18:21No.6332819

>Karl Strasser (no relation?) >Male >Berlin Goth Club Patron, Amateur Strongman at Weight-Lifting Competitions, Black Metal Project Bassist

8o7

Anon11/15/25, 22:51No.6332949

Here we go. You are Hugo Merlot, before the 7 Hour War you were a radio hobbyist that worked part-time in a local electronics store. Now years later, your valuable skills will no doubt serve the Resistance well as they work to prepare for the Uprising in City 11. Writing it up.

8o7

Anon11/16/25, 00:05No.6333006

[1/3] Casting aside the bag of garbage used to partially-obscure the dead drop, you withdraw the bag containing the goods you needed for the next step. You needed to slip into the general population of the city, get the lay of the land, and settle in. This was where the Reconnaissance team did some of the lifting for you- Citizens in Combine-occupied cities were known and catalogued by number, heavily tracked, and counted at several points in the day. You withdrew and set aside a standard Citizen jumpsuit, a basic all-weather garment issued to every human under Combine rule. It's clean, which you appreciate deeply after wading through the stagnant decades of European sanitation infrastructure. You note the number on the nametag, your new identity. #493357 This number was how you were to be housed, fed, worked, and eventually discarded. Setting aside the folded jumpsuit, you find a few papers on top of the rest of the contained goodies, the first one with "DESTROY AFTER READING" scribbled boldly on top of a few lines of shorthand. You read this first one intently."you are 493357, your apt just upstairs to the right for ez access to drop. 3 neighbor apts vacant as of 4/6. assigned machine shop 7 shift 3. last malign't exposed by loy'st #312212 fn Lucas, avoid or term. courier evr 2 weeks. viel gluckWell, now you know what happened to the last guy. It would've been nice to have more identifying information on this loyalist. The other two papers are radio codes and frequencies for the current two week block until the next courier hopefully comes up the tunnels with the new set. Radio, despite being your passion, was a dangerous technology to rely on in occupied areas. The Combine Metropolitan Police Forces are perfectly capable of using direction-finding equipment and are constantly scanning for rogue broadcasts from the uninformed or unwary. That being said, if there was a time-sensitive message that needed to get out of the city or an urgent order that needed to get in, short radio transmissions were still the best solution. A basic radio set was, naturally, the next set of items to be discovered in the bag. Nothing like what you used to mess with pre-War, but still enough to set up a proper station.The last item was a gun, a worn, open-top revolver that wouldn't have been out of place in an old Western, loaded with five bullets and with its' hammer sitting on an empty chamber. No extra bullets were in the bag. This was a courtesy more than anything, in the case of discovery there was already enough here to condemn you to a fate worse than death. The idea was to put the first bullet into your radio set, use the next three bullets to aid you in an escape, and put the final bullet into your brain if you couldn't.

HQ9

Anon11/16/25, 02:22No.6333079

Food is an overwhelming, primal need. Getting any sleep with the emptiness gnawing at my stomach was going to be a nonstarter. I wondered about the logistics of calories. If I could find anything to ferment, like wasted potatoes, I could make alcohol to supplement the rations my number would entitle me to and perhaps use as bribes if the need arose. The refrigerator will make an excellent insulated storage space for fermenting wines. I examine the bed frame. Useless. But sleeping on a slab is good for your back, and there is a perfectly good table that will keep me off the ground and away from rats and bugs. Cold showers are also fine once you get used to them, and I can heat up water on the stove when I need hot water. I just need to have the right attitude about things.Ranked choice: >(Search for a Ration Distribution Terminal.) >(Withdraw Contraband.) >(Try to sleep for a few hours)

8o7

Anon11/16/25, 11:32No.6333264

Alright! We're starting off our journey into the City with a search for an RDT, understandable since working hungry really can suck. Update to follow soon.

vdw

Anon11/16/25, 17:13No.6333353

Alright, first order of business after we get stabilized is to start working on duplicating Combine-ish radio ciphers. We need to find a way to either hide our transmissions as vaguely Combine in nature or optimally embed our stuff in actual Combine transmissions gear.Another good plan for a guy like us would be to actually crack Combine transmissions but this would require math and crypto, which we probably don’t have access to at the moment

8o7

Anon11/17/25, 12:47No.6333813

[1/] Sighing deeply, realizing the decision facing you was one between working hungry or working tired, you quickly decided to fill your stomach. Perhaps being bone-tired would only help you blend in among the rest of the normal, subdued Citizenry. In the years since the 7 Hour War that you spent outside the city, you quickly became used to rough fare. During the Portal Storms that swept across Earth in the leadup to the Combine invasion, Xenian life quickly took root across the globe and made life in humanity's rural and agricultural lands a living hell, cratering production of foodstuffs everywhere the militaries of Earth couldn't respond. Foods not in vogue since the turn of the last century saw revival in small portions upon the scavenged plates and bowls of those able to keep free of alien rule. Canned food and dry snacks, slices of rye bread, 'hardtack' crackers, pork and beef salted beyond palatability for storage before being parboiled and mixed with scant vegetables. You were sure you had eaten sawdust more than once, either having been mixed into flour or used to thicken a wanting pea soup. You heard a few stories from some of the refugees about what Citizens ate, and although supplied with regularity, it wasn't supposed to be much better. More concerning was the rumor that said rations are laced with all sorts of chemicals intended to keep the citizenry docile, weak, and interfere with their memory as a method to both control the people and entice them to join Civil Protection. One middle-aged refugee woman that you spoke to just before you set out on the road to Berlin claimed that boiling the Rations in water neutralized the psychoactives which, if done before every meal, would gradually cancel out the effects and bring the memory and fire back to those negatively affected, even if they had been dosed for years.Your stomach growled, signaling that it was time to experience the stories for yourself. The working burner on the stove and the cooking pot would be useful in testing the theory and its' confirmation could be a small but valuable piece of intelligence to pass back to the boys back in Finow. Leaving the apartment, you glance at your front door. The lock is nonfunctional, meaning anybody with a mind to could walk right into your apartment. You didn't have much to steal at the moment, but this was still a problem that would need to be remedied soon. Perhaps you could acquire a lock somewhere. With some anxiety and more than a little excitement, you walked up the stairway onto the ground floor of the apartment building.

8o7

Anon11/17/25, 20:10No.6333975

We're unanimous for experimental dystopian cooking so far, so let's have someone give us a 1d100. We want 30+, 0-10 means our first work shift will go especially poorly.

WQA

Anon11/17/25, 20:38No.6333999

>Boil >Loyalty & Hope for Europe & Humanity as a whole

PWa

Anon11/18/25, 12:57No.6334348

I am quite looking forward to this quest! Havent seen much exploration into the rebel life in the half life fiction side, and with the potential for half life 3 seeming real again, this quest makes it feel like christmas came early :D

Uwc

Anon11/19/25, 09:32No.6334836

Test post to see if cuckflare is still having it out with me. Writing it up at fuckpiss o'clock, as is tradition.

x38

Anon11/19/25, 11:40No.6334886

[1/3] You pondered how exactly to go about cooking your ration, but options were sparse. You longed for that kitchen you knew as a boy. Pots and pans hanging jauntily from the ceiling. A spice rack so comprehensive that only your grandmother knew everything contained within. The smells. Oh man, the smells that came from that kitchen. The water can opened with the characteristic pop, and you poured it into the pot. Topped up with some extra water from the shower, and the semi-solid food paste softly splashed into the water. You pounded the crackers into crumbs on the countertop and dropped them in as well to thicken the mixture. The stove's burner hummed as it slowly brought the contents to a low boil. You stirred it absentmindedly, feeling more like you were brewing some unspeakable creation in a lab than a chef. The vaguely 'eggy' smell of the paste was gone, now you didn't smell anything from it. After about five minutes you decide to have a go at your makeshift McOppression meal.Hunger may be a good spice, but tasting anything was preferable to tasting absolutely nothing. Oh, for Salt! Pepper! Garlic! No signals lept from tongue to brain upon contact with the Combine Soup you made, merely the sensation of wet matter passing through on a journey to the stomach. You scarfed it down quickly in order to briefen the unsettling experience, while glancing occasionally at the clock on your apartment wall.On the bright side, you didn't feel any different in the mental department. You could still work yourself up into anger, you threw the empty can through the bathroom door where it bounced off one of the walls and clattered to the floor. You ran a quick mental check. Hugo Merlot, 32, from Blois. Mother, Father, their faces. Emma, your older half-sister from your father's side. Everything seemed alright, but what if it was supposed to work more gradually than that? What if you simply couldn't notice what you've lost yet? You shook your head.You are no longer Famished. You are currently: Clean Tired You have [5 Credits] on your person.It was time to go to work, if you could find out where work was. You had some time left to figure that out. Machine Shop 7. You shovelled the last of your meal into your mouth. It felt better to have something in your stomach, at least.

Fdq

Anon11/19/25, 15:21No.6334941

Btw QM, can we maybe get some information on this city 11 that our character should know? I feel like we should've been informed about potential sites of interest, culture, current happenings and Combine activity before we went into the city.You mentioned that this is where Berlin used to be, how is it different compared to city 17? Just so we get a feel of where we stand (and where our Rebel Cell stands)

dqf

Anon11/20/25, 08:31No.6335309

What year ise it as well QM? Is it Early or late in the 20 years leading up to the rebellion?

g2w

Anon11/21/25, 10:28No.6335775

Fun discussion to wake up to. Here's some requested background lore in order to get us back on track.In the days leading up to the 7 Hour War, humanity was already struggling hard. The Portal Storms caused immense damage both in and of themselves and with the Xenian life they scattered all over the surface of the Earth. Governments evacuated areas that their overstretched and unprepared militaries couldn't secure, with entire regions depopulated and moved into refugee camps established in major cities. These cities, with their concentration of the majority of people and pre-existing defensive perimeters, would eventually become the numbered capital-C Cities of the Combine occupation. Not all people were inside these cities at the time of Humanity's surrender, naturally. Some regions were able to be swept of Xenian life and remained as vitally important food-producing regions. Ports, power plants, water treatment facilities, and intercity railroad lines that lay outside urban green zones were often garrisoned and maintained in order to keep what remained of society functioning. Military units small and large were in the field on various operations. Some people just plain didn't want to be evacuated, and stuck by their homes and property, sometimes in groups, sometimes alone. When the surrender was announced at the conclusion of the 7 Hour War, many of these disparate facilities and groups lay down their weapons and assimilated into the Combine's authority as ordered, but many also did not. These groups would become the nucleus of the Resistance during the occupation years ahead.The group that our boy Hugo ended up falling in with before the start of the Quest is referred to as, somewhat optimistically, the Central European Command, a polyglottal mixture of City refugees, rural holdouts, and fragmented military remnants from several nations of continental Europe. While partially decentralized, there is an enigma of a leader, referred to only as the "Old Man" and popularly theorized to be anything from a former officer in the German MAD to the leader of a pre-War commune. The Old Man leads the broad majority of the CEC around by the nose with his vanguard of greying ex-military men and hastily-trained post-War militiamen. Operating mainly in the border regions between what was Germany, Poland, and the Czech Republic and keeping a wide but persistent orbit of the three now-Combine cities of Berlin, Dresden, and Prague, the group drifts between regions scavenging food, searching for unpilfered Cold War military stockpiles, and engages in light acts of guerilla warfare; ambushing the occasional intercity razor train or road patrol. Mainly though, the Central European Command, likely numbering no more than 1,500 people in all, abides by the strategy broadly agreed-upon by the wider global Resistance movement, the Uprising Plan.

g2w

Anon11/21/25, 10:41No.6335787

Quick note on updates for transparency's sake, I don't have a set schedule, I'll try to keep them frequent, but I may take a day or two in order to pace myself. If I need to take an actual hiatus, I'll say so here in the thread. I'm on the /qst/ pisscord if ever you need to reach me.

Ulx

Anon11/21/25, 16:07No.6335845

So what former countries Pacifically have troops within the CEC? I would assume Germany, Poland, & Czechia at least. What about fortress-countries like Switzerland & Albania?

nfU

Anon11/22/25, 14:29No.6336292

I think the Combine would look analytically at what they can use and what is valuable.Region with no development and resources? Deport all population settlements. A region that is a crossroad between continents, free human megastructure, one of the largest rivers instead ? They would keep a presence i Egypt. You can make it an efficient breadbasket, and keep control of a strategical region.

j+d

Anon11/23/25, 15:15No.6336941

Being a shop gofer is exhausting. Carry these big metal bars here, fetch a heavy tool from there, try your best not to be cut or gouged by any of the ever-present metal shavings and jagged edges all around. When you asked, you were instructed that gloves aren't allowed in the shop, apparently if they catch on the machinery they could pull your entire hand into something nasty before you even realized what was happening. You remained a sorta-productive wallflower for the rest of Shift 3, getting the lay of the social land from the outskirts. The machinists, the ones that actually knew how to use the machines, were mostly silent and taciturn except for a couple cliques of two or three. You were getting slightly jealous, they got to spend the past ten hours sitting on a stool or folding chair while you were hot on your feet, only getting a half-hour's rest at the five hour mark. The next group, other shop gofers, were more communal and energetic than the machinists, and by the end of the shift your weariness and social distance made you stick out slightly. Doubtless there was a little bit of gossip shared about you, the newcomer, but nonesofar that marked you out as a concern or a threat. The final group were the Loyalists. The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same. They wore their dark, double-breasted coats and sometimes an accompanying cap, and were the people in charge of the shop. One slightly irritable example of the species, the Foreman, paced the floor of the shop, the same man with the clipboard that you saw earlier. He glared at you occasionally whenever you slowed down for a breather, but otherwise you made a point not to get drawn into a conversation with him, and so you two never spoke in earnest. He smoked during the mid-shift break, you wondered where the miserable bastard got his cigarettes.The security of the place wasn't in any way serious, you gleaned. Occasionally a pair of Civil Protection officers were seen checking in, but their patrols only stopped inside Machine Shop 7 briefly before continuing to points unknown within the block. The doors stayed open and unlocked throughout the shift, with workers constantly coming in and out with payloads large and small, with the Combine Camera above the doorway their only constant monitor. The Loyalists would keep an intermittent watch on the shop from the inside, but their primary concern was keeping their charges productive, doubtless to keep whatever benefits they get flowing. They didn't carry any sort of weapons that you could see, but during your shift you noted that they all carry some sort of electronic device on their belts that they occasionally play with when they think they're beyond the view of the Foreman. A communication device, maybe?

tJ0

Anon11/24/25, 01:11No.6337285

Vote with our wallet, anyone actually opposed to the Combine should be getting our creds instead. >No Purchase

33V

Anon11/24/25, 23:38No.6337708

Just thinking, sewers got rats, right?Maybe we can supplement our food source.

HQ9

Anon11/24/25, 23:56No.6337715

We could probably take the compressor out of the fridge and use it as a hideyhole for our radio equipment. It wouldn't stop a civil protection sweep but it would stop any nosey loyalists or thieves.

j+d

Anon11/25/25, 10:45No.6337946

I was going to write up one more update before I expected to leave, but my travel plans changed last-minute. I'll see you guys a little while after Thanksgiving if I don't get splattered by some shitty California driver.

CmI

Anon11/29/25, 16:53No.6340047

Do the Combine themselves even have a physical presence on Earth, or is it all just cybernetic eunuch abomination species-traitors that do their bidding?

nfU

Anon11/29/25, 23:56No.6340291

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJOZN3YhLtY

j+d

Anon12/01/25, 16:11No.6341077

Alrighty, back from Thanksgiving, quick update coming to get us back in the swing.

j+d

Anon12/01/25, 16:27No.6341080

It looked as if the blanket had a few holes and had seen some hard use behind a dumpster somewhere, but it was more than you had right now, and you had sleep firmly on the mind. A small tag dangling from one of its' ends proclaimed that it too was outside your price range, but some halfhearted haggling with the Loyalist that owned the shop, you learned that his name was Benjamin, saw the blanket into your posession for every Credit you currently owned.You lost: [35 Credits]Benjamin (not Ben, you asked), had similar pretentions in his attitude as the other Loyalists you've been exposed to thusfar, but either managed to muffle it for the sake of his occupation or was afflicted by some sort of Noblesse Oblige out of deep propagandization. He didn't reveal much about himself during your brief conversation, keeping things more-or-less on the topic of business. Thus you also learned that, as was typical for shops of this kind, you could also pawn off interesting or valuable things you managed to find to the shopkeeper for a negotiable amount of credits. Consumer goods for common citizenry were rare, after all.With rolled blanket tucked underarm, you trudged back to your fatigued apartment block as the sun peeked over the horizon into an orange, smoggy sky. As you do so, an unnatural pulsing noise coats the environment. You stop in place on the sidewalk. Looking up, you see at least six crablike alien craft quickly traversing the sky only a hundred meters or so above you, all but one seemingly grafted with a streamlined metallic box underneath. The final one carried some sort of folded-up, spindly-looking synthetic. It was the first time you've seen a Combine Dropship this closely, but you were more concerned about where they were going. You swiveled your head towards the rising sun and back and estimated that the flight was headed Southeast. You made a note to pass this on when you compose your first report, maybe it'll be useful.Upon re-entering the apartment block, you noticed Lucas once again, sitting on the same bench near the doorway as ever, leaning against the side of the vending machine. He smiles at you as you pass, and you casually nod at him in return. You become unsettled at the whole thing as you step down the stairs. On one side, if he is the informant that got the last Malignant burned, he could be using that spot to watch the comings and goings of every citizen in the block, perhaps informing somebody? CPs? A Loyalist handler? You don't know. On the other, he could just be some random old man with an unfortunate name and a favorite bench engaging in people-watching before he goes off to do... whatever it is that he does.In one smooth movement, you unrolled the blanket onto your bedframe and rolled onto it with a soft thud. You were out within seconds. Day One, survived.You are no longer [Exhausted].

HQ9

Anon12/02/25, 11:28No.6341433

I hope there's a failstate and dilly dallying too long gets us sent to Nova Prospekt where we belong.

Fdq

Anon12/02/25, 14:04No.6341448

Hey QM can we first get the stashed items, and THEN scavenge? Or is it mutually exclusive for today?

Fdq

Anon12/02/25, 22:40No.6341615

I wonder what goodies a 95 potentially givesI hope we find a good spot for our rebel cell. Somewhere easily hidden from combine searches yet vast enough to make genuine living space within.