The STALKER 2 Lost Boys choice has you pick between the Ninth or Dew, a Monolith soldier and hired gun respectively. Despite the Ninth having picked up Mastiff and nursed him to health, Dew is nonetheless convinced that any member of the Monolith cult will ultimately have nefarious intentions and can't be trusted, believing he has to gun down the Ninth before he can turn Mastiff into a zombie mutant.
With that in mind, which of the two should you side with in Heart of Chornobyl? Should you choose Dew or the Ninth? And is there a way to resolve the situation without violence? We'll explain all the options in the Lost Boys mission in STALKER 2 below, and what the best choice is.
Choosing the Ninth
If you choose the Ninth and to defend him from Dew's forces, you'll have to kill the mercenaries outside, though the Ninth will help you do this. This isn't an easy fight - there's several of them with strong weapons, though if the fight goes inside, the Ninth should help you (though he risks getting killed in the process).
After that, speak with the Ninth again to get a little information about him and his faction, as well as the Rubber Layer blueprint, an upgrade you can apply to improve certain equipment at any Technician (the merchants where you go to repair weapons in STALKER 2).
Once you go back to Lens, he'll still pay you 500 coupons for finding Mastiff, though warn you that the average character in STALKER 2 won't even be as tolerant towards Monolithians as he is (and he gets off some nasty words about them along the way).
Choosing Dew
If you choose Dew, you'll have to fight the Ninth. He's only one man, but he has notably more health than any of Dew's forces, acting as a kind of tank. Still, once you bring him down, you'll see that he doesn't have much in the way of loot.
Instead, the value to this choice comes when you go back to Lens, who will give you 1000 coupons for completing the quest, double what he gives you otherwise. Still, this time around you don't get the blueprint, so there's benefit and loss to doing so.
Can you stop Dew from attacking the Ninth?
Trying to get a non-violent route through the Lost Boys quest where you talk down Dew from attacking the Ninth… that's not an option, despite the Ninth suggesting that you could try doing so. If you try to tell him the house is empty, he searches it anyway (leading to a firefight where he attack the Ninth) and if you tell him the Monolithian is telling the truth, he decides you're a traitor and begins combat.
It means that going the dialogue route won't save anybody - one way or another, it seems as though either Dew's team or the Ninth have to die.
Want more choices laid out? See if you should help or kill Squint in STALKER 2, or who should you give the religious icon to in STALKER 2.
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