Summary

We went to Zaranj and Naw, ensuring the town was clear and informed the locals in Naw to follow in convoy. In doing so, we drew the attention of a patrol from Maku, and rather than draw out the fight, packed our casualties into the vehicle and paused in the West side of Landay to regroup.

After fighting off a few stragglers that followed from Maku, the leader of the Zaranji farmers vouched for us to Omar, before we continued into town. The farmers thanked us for our help, but we weren’t able to enter into negotiations before we heard gunshots coming from Landay, followed by a call from Omar asking for help.

We rushed to Landay, but weren’t able to clear the town of hostiles before some of the townspeople were murdered. Speaking to Omar about his protection needs, he revealed plans to smuggle drugs out of Anizay through the airport. While we were talking, there was an attempt made by Maku to sabotage Landay’s fuel supply.

Whilst returning to Landay from Zaranj, we had passed a small cave with some golden pots hanging near the entrance, and marked it as worth investigating. There was also an outstanding task to mark the co-ordinates of a downed C-130 Hercules that had been spotted previously.

A quick visit to the cave proved fruitless, the vendor clearly trying to sell painted clay pots off as precious metal, but the plane may point to previous CIA dealings in the country’s drug trade. It was loosely guarded, and after a patrol came to reinforce, we left swiftly rather than get drawn into an extended firefight so near to Dola.

We revisited Landay and Zaranj, with the intent to ask Omar and the farmers about their fuel needs, landing two deals for weekly fuel deliveries at $35000 each, and carried on to Ali’s to drive the fuel cost down further. While we regrouped outside of Zaranj, we saw evidence of another PMC operating in the region. Based on the F22 seen in the airspace around the time of this discovery, they appear significantly better equipped than us.

After some tense negotiation, we convinced him to drop his prices to $22500 per refill. A patrol from Dola arrived shortly after we completed negotiations, and engaged us. While securing the area after this brief contact, a sniper to the Southwest spotted us on the ridge. We got drawn in, leading to the sniper’s surrender, but forces in Dola had heard the shots and came out in force.

After a hard won fight in difficult terrain, a dwindling enemy force retreated back into Dola and we drove home.