Tucked inside the Kurin base in the Iron Forest, two stalkers named Puncher and Pvt. Vasylko run an optional lore quiz that most players walk straight past. Get all three questions right and Puncher hands over ammo plus a key that opens a stocked room nobody would otherwise find.
Quick answer: Answer General Tachenko, then Nobody Fights Anyone, then Duty. That earns 30x 5.56x45mm ammo, 30x .45 ACP FMJ ammo, and the Key with a Ripped-Off Tag, which unlocks the door under the metal bridge at the Transformer POI west of Kurin.
The three answers Puncher wants
Puncher is the clean-shaven one, and he’s the one you interact with to start the trivia. All three questions dig into Duty’s history and the politics of the Zone, and the option numbers stay consistent, so you can pick by position if you’d rather not read every line.
| Question | Correct answer |
|---|---|
| Who created Duty, and inspired it to fight the Zone? | General Tachenko (Option 2) |
| What is the often-mentioned treaty with the code name D4 all about? | Nobody Fights Anyone (Option 1) |
| Who are the real masters of Rostok? | Duty (Option 1) |
Note: The Rostok question is written as a trick. “Duty” is the lore-accurate pick, but Puncher also accepts “Mercenaries” without breaking your run of correct answers.
Where to find Puncher and Vasylko in the Iron Forest
The pair sits inside the Kurin base, in the room just past the double doors from where you first meet Zulu. Two Duty soldiers are seated at a table nearby, which makes the doorway easy to identify. The encounter becomes available once you’ve reached Zulu at the end of Step Into the Unknown.
The whole exchange is optional. Skipping it doesn’t block any mission, but it does cost you the key, and the key is the only way into the cache described below.
Rewards for a clean sweep
All three answers have to land correctly for the full payout. You know it worked when the key drops into your inventory alongside the ammo.
- 30x 5.56x45mm M855 ammo
- 30x .45 ACP FMJ ammo
- Key with a Ripped-Off Tag
Inspecting the key gives you the only clue the game offers about its purpose. The item description reads: “An old metal key. Part of the tag has been torn off, the rest of it reads: …former Warehouse.”
Where to use the Key with a Ripped-Off Tag
The lock sits at the Transformer POI, directly west of the Kurin base in the Iron Forest. No quest marker points you there, so you’ll need to travel on your own.
If the door won’t open, you either missed one of Puncher’s answers and never received the key, or you’re at the wrong structure. The correct door is the one tucked under the bridge, not any of the surrounding transformer housings.
What’s inside the locked room
The rifle sits on a shelf, and a blue vault in the same room holds the rest of the supplies.
| Item | Where it is |
|---|---|
| Modified AS Lavina rifle, with ammo | On the shelf |
| PA-7 Gas Mask | Blue vault |
| Medkits and consumables | Blue vault |
| Additional ammunition | Blue vault |
For a quiz that takes under a minute, the payoff is a suppressed rifle and a fresh gas mask well before most players would find either. Answer Puncher honestly on Tachenko, D4, and Rostok, pocket the key, and take the short walk west before you push on with the Iron Forest missions.
