The Chemist and the Fistful, two legendary stalkers, are together again! The beginning of their journey in the Zone, their acquaintance and their first, strangest adventure! Where did the goblins come from in the Zone - a group that owns unusual weapons and things? And why are they so zealously protecting one point not far from the nuclear power plant - a place where you can only get into a secret way, which only one person, a scientist and buyer of artifacts, knows about? A famous reporter (who will soon receive the nickname Chemist) arrives in the Zone to unravel this a tangle of riddles. Accompanied by a paratrooper (the future stalker Fistful), he will have to go on a difficult journey through the Dead Base and the Cauldron, so that at the end of the journey he will see something that no stalker has ever seen...