Tales of the /tg/ Tribe of Planet Lenore
By 008 and others
The Beginning
by Spoonman
the people of Earth began to experience the most bizarre phenomenon ever recorded in human
history. The frequenters of the online community known as 4chan, specifically those that had used
the site within the last three months, found themselves stricken with a strange sensation. Fear and
anxiety griped them as a voice, disembodied and unfamiliar sternly warned them of things to come.
The only audible portion of the message, heard only in the minds of the users, merely uttered a
time; “one hour”. The rest of the message, more a subconscious, instinctual longing than a set of
specific instructions, informed them of what to prepare for. The people of 4chan had been chosen;
chosen to leave Earth for places unknown. Some tried to suppress this feeling but regardless of
anyone’s actions, the warnings grew in frequency and intensity.
Perhaps one of the oddest circumstances of the event was its slow march across the globe. As
12:00pm came upon each time zone, the occupants of the previous one disappeared. Some tried
to warn others to allow more time to prepare, but it wasn’t until mass droves of people began to
disappear from the Eastern United States that the rest of world began to panic. Most mainstream
media sources refused to report on the 4chan connection as it seemed far too implausible, and 4chan
reputation as an unreliable source for factual information also hindered efforts. But as the flood of
members reporting the disturbance grew unresponsive and stopped replying, more and more began
to believe.
Those that used the website after the first warning seemed to become immune to its effects. Some
people, namely friends of family member shone proof that their loved ones were not alone in
hearing the warning, began to post pictures and videos of people vanishing into thin air along with
piles of equipment. Some dismissed these as hoaxes, but many more began to get the hint. Of those
that felt the message, some had only visited the site once, while others were long time users. There
was no official notice that the people of 4chan had been the only ones chosen. Perhaps other forums
or communities were chosen after the exodus for repopulation, none of the first to leave know. In
fact, it is not even known whether this is the first time it has happened. Could this be the secret to
the disappearance of Atlantis? The likelihood of question of this nature be answered is doubtful at
best
It can be estimated that upwards of ten Million people in total were transported. Oddly enough,
each area brought like-minded people together. Those that felt a strong bond to a particular board
seemed to appear in the general vicinity of other that felt the same. Those that did not care for any
particular board instead wound up on whatever board they had visited the most. Of these, only a
few seemed to appear at first and the first waves varied in size. Each board brought roughly 5% of
its population to an area nearly 50 miles in diameter and scattered them randomly clumped about.
For some boards, this meant that too few people were able to band together and survive the harsh,
violent wilderness. For others, it resulted in overpopulation that conquered the wilds through sheer
force of arms only to be ravaged by disease and eventual lack of game.
Further stress was put on the budding civilizations as more people began to appear. Roughly every
6 months, 1.25 times as many people would be added to population. The first wave was five percent
of the board’s population. The second, 1.25%, the third was 1.6, the forth was 1.9, and so on. After
the first wave however, the diameter of the entrance zones also began to increase at a rate of 10
miles per wave. This resulted in frequent power struggles as fresh technology, people and resources
clashed with establish power structures forming in the wastes of alien ruins. The capabilities of
the people in each wave varied wildly as people from all walks of life found themselves in both
unknown and familiar territory as the world was cultivated by humankind.
***
008's Journal Log: Day 2
I decided to start a journal, an act of selfishness I'm sure, but should I die out here, I'd prefer leave
something to be remembered. Dieing out here, lost on an unknown planet, forgotten, bothers me a
great deal. We stumbled onto an abandoned city. Whoever built it looked to be primitive by modern
standards, but the stone work is amazing. Most of the buildings are overgrown by plantlife, the
jungle trying to retake this place. I know there are others like me around but I've only stumbled
across three so far. One seems to be a survivalist, brought all kinds of shit I didn't even think of.
One is a rare gamer girl who didn't think this would actually happen; she only brought her laptop
and iphone, the batteries of both are already about dead but hearing her music collection really
helped on that first dark night. The last is some manchild who won't keep his hands off everyone
and I swear he hasn't showered in months. I thought I was in bad shape, we have to stop every
hundred feet for him to catch his breath. He only brought a backpack full of twinkies and chips
and manga. He made the most hilarious face when we used one to start a fire last night. Under my
suggestion, we're heading towards the town center and set up camp there. I figure anyone else who
stumbles onto this place will pass by there as well. Night is approaching and I'm on fire duty this
time. I'll try to make something visible for miles.
Journal Log: Day 3
I've been so busy. We got a half dozen people last night and three more today. We've come across
a serious problem. We have shelter here, but there is no water. After thorough searching, there are
no ground wells, but there appears to be two aqueduct systems, both of them are dry. Someone
was smart enough to bring bottled water, but that's going to last another day or two with rationing.
I'm going to take a team tomorrow down one of them to find out what's wrong. Hopefully it'll be a
blockage and not a structure collapse. Another team will be heading down the other while whoever
remains behind will be cleaning up the livable space. We're getting enough people now that we're
going to need leaders. I'd rather not have the responsibility but I do at least know what needs to
be done and have presence of mind to direct people to do it. I think it's more related to the fact
that I shook off the shock of new arrival faster then some of the others. Thankfully there are a few
others in the same condition. In other news, one of the new arrivals had a load of solar powered
flashlights. Jokes aside, I wonder if we can electrical engineer them into some kind of recharging
station for the battery powered stuff. I'm sure it'll be stupid slow, but anything is better then nothing.
Journal Log: Day 4
Well, We got one of the aquaducts working. It turned out there was some kind of mesh up several
miles away that had become clogged with silt. The water isn't exactly clear, but several of us know
how to build water filters using rocks, sand and charcoal. It'll still have to be boiled for bacteria but
better then nothing. On a more sombre note, while heading up the aqueduct we came across a dead
guy in a hospital bed surrounded by life support gear sitting in the middle of a field. With no power,
I'm sure he died day 1. We gave him a burial under one of the aqueduct pillars as best we could and
took the life support equipment back with us. I'm not sure what we'll do with it, but the parts will
probably be useful for something. The other Aqueduct team returned with some minor bad news.
There was a minor collapse on theirs, but it might be repairable. With one working, we have more
then enough water at the moment so we'll put repair on the backburner. We got our water filters
running so that's one problem taken care of. One of many. Food will be the next big issue. We have
loads of prepackaged stuff, but that will only last so long. A lot of the plant life is pretty alien, it
may not even have the nutrients we need to survive. I guess we'll find out soon enough.
Journal Log: Day 5
Well, today I killed someone. It's not as terrible as I imagined. It was.. well I don't feel a thing.
Not a damn thing. The manchild had stumbled into some kind of melee weapon cache the locals
had hid. Huge stuff and surprisingly in good shape. Swords and spears taller then I am and each a
work of art in etched detail. Manchild decided to get revenge for burning his sailor moon manga
collection to start the night fires and came charging at me with some kind of short blade. He cut
a huge gash in my right arm about 4 inches long. Instinct kicked in I guess and next thing I know
I have my knife tearing through his throat. He died a few minutes later. Luckily someone knows
some medicine and stitched up my arm. Some of the others ordered me to my housing while they
decided what to do. I don't like where this could end up. From my window, I can see that others
are starting to carry around the smaller examples of the weapons found earlier. This could easily
go all wrong and spiral out of control. Lastly, someone new wandered in to town with a shopping
cart filled with what looked like a stereo sound system, a cd collection and a portable dvd player. I
swear some people are so fucking stupid.
Journal Log: Day 6
Well I've been set free. Everyone agreed it was all self defense. I'm being watched though. Even
with a wounded arm, I've been told to go out with one of the survivalists and two others on a
hunting/exploration expedition. We're set to be out for a whole day and a return tomorrow. I'm
taking two spears I managed to cut down to a useable size. Someone came across a structure filled
with stone tablets covered in writing no one can read earlier. We don't know what to make of it.
Over the course of evening, we sat around the fire and discussed what could of happened to the
locals. The city looks to of been abandoned less then a century from the overgrowth, but that's not
even a solid estimate. We do know there are no graves, at least none we recognize, no bones laying
around the streets and no physical sign of a big battle. They're just all gone. The best guess is that
they all left for some reason. We're not even sure what the locals look like. There are some statues
of bird things around, but those could just be aesthetic. Well, I am getting to sleep early, I have a
big day ahead of me tomorrow.
Journal Log: Day 12
Fuck am I glad to be back in town. That lasted far longer then anyone expected. We went out
hunting and exploring and the first day went fine, but when night fell, fuck we were being followed.
We knew it was there, we could hear and smell it but but we couldn't see it. It was always hanging
around the edge of the clearing we had set camp in. We tried hunting it down but it always evaded
us and we even lost some supplies. We ended up completely lost. We ended up surviving off these
fruit things we saw some of the other wildlife eating, so we assumed it was safe, at least for them
anyways. They tasted like apples but had this orange like peel to them. The days were filled with
lost trudging through the jungle, the nights filled with unease as that whatever it was would return.
We're calling it a Nightstalker for now. It puts us all at unease but hasn't made a hostile move
against us. Sheer luck, we ran into another group of arrivals that had been set up in a cave, about 10
of them. They had been surviving off these deer like creatures and a stream in the back of the cave.
They also happened to know where one of the aqueducts was. They had discovered it recently but
hadn't followed it yet. We followed it all the way back to town with them. The information they
picked up out there will really help us all, as they had a good idea what was edible and not and the
ways of the huntable animals out there. I wish I could take a shower, but there's nothing of the sort
short of a sponge bath. Even so, we're all starting to smell. Some worse then others.
Journal Log: Day 13
Well, today's been shit. I awoke to the sound of gunfire. Someone flipped the fuck out, opened fire
on the morning breakfast crowd and then shot himself in the face. Two people are dead, 4 more
injured. Blood everywhere. I hear he had been seriously depressed the last few days, and it looks
like he finally flipped. A lot of our medicine supplies are now critical after the wounded were
treated. We may still lose a few of them due to the severity or infection. Only time will tell. We're
doing what we can to make them comfortable. This has been a major blow to moral. The town's
been pretty quiet since. A few have suggested that we lock up all the guns, but lock them up where?
To make matters worse, another group wandered in. This group barely speaks any english, and
not all of them speak the same language. This is.. this has just been a shit day. Someone brought a
collection of rp books and is setting up a game tonight. I'm going to go join it. God knows I need
the distraction and so does everyone else.
Journal Log: Day 14
Two weeks. Well, at least I'm still alive. Anyways, the night game went well. The day though..
Well, one of the porkbeasts decided to raid the food supplies and ate about three days worth of
rations. Stuffed himself silly. We're trying to decide what to do with him. I suggested sending
him to the still broken aqueduct and have him work it off. Someone else suggested putting him on
permanent cleaning duty and take away his supply room rights. A few want him dead, made an
example of. We're all really fucking pissed off at him regardless of his eventual punishment. Later
in the day, one of our hunting parties returned with some five foot tree gliding thing they captured.
Several people with biology backgrounds are going to be going out with the hunting teams to start
categorizing all the wildlife out there. Maybe put to rest some of the rumors of giant flying things a
few people have reported on seeing. In other news, we decided that those bird people statues must
actually be what the locals looked like. Very weird. Anyways, later tonight, someone arranged a
40K match and everyone is going to watch. It's the only entertainment we got and holy shit people
brought 40k minis with them.
Journal Log: Day 15
I miss my friends and family, I miss my cat and my bed. It's only really starting to hit now. More
bad news. Everyone is starting to get sick. We're pretty sure it's the water. Some of the bacteria or
something is surviving the boiling process and we've all got the shits and upset stomachs. Here's
hoping we can adapt. We're now out of antibiotics. Most of us have spent the entire day perched
up in the designated bathroom areas. It's more or less a big pit with a bunch of metal bars running
horizontally over it with more bars up in the ceiling and fits about 6 at a time. Shame has kind of
gone out the window due to necessity. We're wasting the time away with some Shadowrun. We
actually have enough D6's to manage. It's amazing. It's kind of funny in a way.
Journal Log: Day 18
Well, I'm feeling a bit better. Well enough to be back on my feet I guess. My body is quite keen on
telling me something is wrong, but survival is a stronger drive. The expedition teams keep coming
back with more and more interesting information about the wilds. Someone, as an experiment,
set up a series of small waterwheels on the Aqueduct streams and connected it to some kind of
generator he made out of spare parts. It's not enough to power much of anything. A few people
have managed to partially recharge their phones and mp3 players with it, and finally we have some
fucking music. Even if it's stuff I don't like, it helps wash away some of the layers of stress. Some
have even broken down in tears when their favorite song came on randomly. In other news, the city
has finally been cleaned up. The jungle pushed back, debris moved out of the way. We have less
then a hundred people here so far, with more coming every day, we should be well off housing wise
for awhile. Another cache of melee weapons was found along with some kind of chain and plate
armor made to fit odd proportions along the lines of those bird people statues. Not sure what we'll
do with it. Well, I'm joining an Earthdawn game in a few minutes, and the GM claims to have a
whole soundtrack set up for it. This should be interesting.
Journal Log: Day 19
I've noticed several people going through nicotine withdrawals over the last week, but no one going
through caffeine withdrawal. Back home, I couldn't do anything past morning without my daily
dose. Must be something in the food. Anyways, new problems. We're starting to run low on ammo.
Some people brought more then others, but about half the guns we have now have one magazine
or less, and the damp weather isn't great for them mechanically either. Someone said they actually
know how to make recurve bows with the right materials. Right materials being the key word.
He'll be surveying the trees and animal parts for the right kinds of materials. Several people claim
to know how to fire one, so if he can manage to make one, we can learn from the others how to
use them. We also got a group of around 30 new arrivals today. They said they initially numbered
around 50 and were inhabiting some ruins miles away near a river that had an orchard of some kind.
They said their numbers were picked off slowly by some kind of massive winged predator that
would just snatch them off the ground and fly away with them, followed by echoing death screams
as it devoured them. I have little reason to distrust their story, they all have that look about them,
sunken eyes, always looking to the sky, fear. The prospect of a flying monster has kept us from
planning an expedition to check out the place, and the exploration teams are being extra careful.
Speaking of which, I'm scheduled to go out with the next group. We shouldn't get lost this time
around, we have the area better mapped out now.
Journal Log: Day 21
I had the weirdest dream last night. One of the builders, those bird things, was sitting next to me
in camp, singing. I don't remember what the music was, or what it meant, just that it was hypnotic.
That's all I really remember. Anyways, today was busy. We came across the northern marker, a
series of ruins we think was a guard post or trading post of some sort, did some poking around to no
avail and kept going. Gathered some samples for later. Had a run in with a Yowler that could of put
me down if not for the sharpshooting of the team leader. I owe him. By early evening, we came to
the edge of the jungle and found plains and a river running east/west. There appears to be some kind
of partially collapsed tower structure out there, we're going to take a closer look tomorrow.
Journal Log: Day 22
We explored the ruins today, looks to of once been a tower around 5 stories tall, possibly an
observation tower or part of an early warning system, or maybe home to some lone crazy. The top
half is collapsed but the lower half is still standing. Nothing of interest inside except some artwork
or writing. It's hard to tell. I took some rubbings of it using some paper and charcoal we had with
us. Someone might find it interesting. We caught sight of something big in the air, miles away.
Just a dot in the sky. Because of this, we moved back into the jungle for the night. Tomorrow we're
heading back to town.
Journal Log: Day 23
Well, back in town. We rushed the last few miles due to potential Yowlers. Five people have died
since we left. One due to some kind of food poisoning or possibly even allergic reaction. We don't
know. the other four died in some kind of power grab. Some asshole decided to announce himself
king and claim all the women. He's dead, but so are three others he got to before he was put down.
As if the world isn't hostile enough, we have assholes killing each other. Anyways, one of the
samples I brought in looks to be a good contender for a farmable, some kind of tuber. Looks like a
green potato but tastes kind of like Broccoli. Some people have been preping a clearing and have
been trying to grow some stuff. We'll see how it turns out. For the most part, none of us seem to be
suffering from malnutrition, but there are whole other issues we're dealing with. Speaking of which,
the pain isn't so bad now. Anyways, there's a Pathfinder game soon I'm going to go watch.
Journal Log: Day 24
I woke up today and it's chilly. This does not bode well. If it is indeed Winter is coming, we're
totally unprepared. We have people gathering as much firewood as we can, pretty much clear
cutting the bordering forest. Clothing is going to be a problem, most of the creatures we've been
hunting don't have the right kind of skins for proper leather. Food is another issue. Though we
moved completely to the local fauna and flora for sustenance, we haven't had the ability to preserve
much of it at a time. No salt. We have plenty of shelter, but it's far from weather proof. We're all
wracking our brains for ideas how to deal with the possibility of an oncoming winter. There's too
much we don't know. How cold it gets, does it snow? How well do the plant and animal life handle
the winter? How long does it last? Too many questions. If winter comes, we may not survive it.
Journal Log: Day 25
It's still chilly out. Some of our self proclaimed cooks and chemists have tried experimenting
to come up with some kind of pickling agent so we can at least start preserving the fruits we've
gathered. One of the batches turned out explosive. No one was injured, but the clay pot they were
using was destroyed. They did manage to manufacture some kind of sealing wax which is a good
step forward. With any luck, their end result won't kill us all. Moral is low again, and reflecting
the condition of the sky, gray clouds. It's been pretty quiet as well. One of the expedition teams
returned with a bunch of gear. They found the remains of some other arrivals that apparently didn't
make it. The new additions include what looks like a warmachines set, some d&d books, guns
minus ammo, warm weather clothing, knives and some much needed fishing and hunting gear and
a big pack of shaving razors. Thank fucking god. Some good news, the first batch of recurve bows
was completed today, and they seem to pass the test. Now we just need to figure out how to use
them.
Journal Log: Day 27
This fucking weather. We've got chilly horizontal rain all day and night. The wind is tearing
through town, howling like a fucking banshee. Everything is wet. A few mp3 players that were still
working have shorted out. It's impossible to run a fire in this weather. Everyone is in the dark and
miserable. Even the underground caves are damp now. Shit, now I hear gunfire.
Journal Log: Day 28
Well, the rain calmed down to a minor drizzle. Everything is even more damp then before. The
gunfire from last night wasn't what I expected. Some idiot tried starting a fire in his house and
ended up setting the whole thing ablaze. He's lost pretty much all his personal supplies, and the
gunfire was his ammo burning up. Fantastic. Luckily no one was injured. So far the storm damaged
our water mill power system and knocked down a bunch of trees in the outlying woods. Nothing
serious in town that can't be fixed. This place has no drainage system. So far there hasn't been many
insects, but the standing water everywhere could change all of that. Hopefully no one will get trench
foot.
Journal Log: Day 29
More fucking rain. Some good news, one of the exploration groups we all thought were lost
returned today. They say they discovered the ocean, and brought some samples with them. They
were of course thoroughly soaked as is everything. With some work, we might have a source of
salt eventually. This is some good news. Now for some bad news. I've developed an odd numbness
inside. It's hard to explain. The "xeno adaption" pain has finally faded but now I can't feel anything.
This doesn't bode well. What other changes is this place going to have on me? I asked around and
I'm not the only one. I wish we had some actual doctors.
Journal Log: Day 30.
30 Days. I've survived a month on this hellhole. Not bad. It stopped raining today, but the sky is
still cloudy. We're working on clearing the standing water with home made push brooms. A few
engineering types have got our waterwheel working again and have reenforced it. Interesting to
note, several of our buckets have caught some kind of tiny minnow like fish from the rains. They
haven't shown up in the puddles however. A few have theorized they dig into the ground for some
reason, and just weren't able to in the bucket. Someone apparently actually ate one of them, raw, on
a dare. What an idiot. Speaking of food, the preserves seem to be working out okay. We don't know
how long they'll last, but they are edible. We're going to try and get some normalcy in here tonight
and run a game of D&D while another group is going for a 40K match. Should be interesting.
Journal Log: Day 31
Well, the guy who are the minnow thing is dead now. His stomach was terribly distended and one
of the guys burying him said he kind of.. popped while they were tossing dirt in the hole and there
were worms. We all agreed that rainwater was not a viable water source until further tests could
be done. On the brighter side of things, the clouds have parted and we have clear skies. It's still
chilly out, but no sign of it getting worse. It kind of reminds me of winter back home. Except with
more struggle for life and death. We were all discussing putting together a team to head down to the
ocean and grind up some salt from the water. Salt has many uses and someone said they knew how
to extract sea salt. The trip is long, and they'll need something to tow the supplies and return with
a worthwhile amount of salt and whatever else. It's kind of funny that we have to invent the wheel
again, figure out how to make one with the resources available. Plenty of wood but what to keep
it together with? As I'm writing this, I'm watching a group of larpers act out scenes from Baldur's
Gate. It's the most fucking hilarious thing I've seen all month.
Journal Log, Day 32
Well, someone invented the wheel. It's not 100% round and not exactly sturdy, but it'll do for the
time being. I helped assemble two rickshaws our salt team is going to be using. We're sending out
about 12 guys, all armed. Several pots for boiling down the brine and of course some silk filters
we cut from a parachute. (Someone brought a parachute with them, what the hell? Gives me some
ideas though.) Another group is already moving ahead of them, one of the exploration teams, who
are cutting a path through the woods. It occurs to me that we're living in a communist society.
Everyone working for each other. It's working but this shit never lasts. I figure we should get some
leadership of some kind going before we're knee deep in bloody revolutions. Lastly, a few people
have worked out some kind of paint using plant pigments. The plants are certainly colorful enough
and provide a large palette to make from. Anyways, I'm on farm duty tomorrow, the green potato
things apparently did extremely well in the harsh weather earlier.
Journal Log, Day 47
Hey, I thought I lost this thing. Well, by estimates, the salt team should be on their way back. Now
for some really fucked up news. One of the fatgirls, turns out she wasn't fat. She was pregnant.
She's dead now and through some holy shit miracle, the baby survived. The girls are taking turns
caring for her and are working on a name. I don't know if she'll make it considering how harsh
this place is. In other news, we have leadership now. We formed a ruling council by all voting one
member from each division. We of course had to form divisions first. We have our Engineers, our
Science guys, the Hunters/Explorers, Agriculture and Maintenance (everyone else). I'm a regular
in the explorer teams and almost got elected, but not quite. The other guy was probably a better
choice. I'm already planning our next explorer mission. We're to meet up with the salt team and
assist in escorting them in. Afterwards, another group will take their gear and head right back out
for more. In the meantime, I will finally enjoy having soft bedding in the first time since I arrived.
Journal Log: Day 48
Headed out today to meet with the salt team and escort them back. Things are going pretty well. I
wish we had more ammo for the guns, but we're missing some key ingredients and manufacturing
capability at the moment. Another team is scheduled to head north for the mountains to search for
anything there. On the other hand, the reflex bows work pretty well, even against yowlers and imps,
and of course spears. Speaking of all that, we picked up some kind of alien device. It's technology
but doesn't seem to match the builder's style, and I think it's beyond them. That's my best guess.
We're not sure what it does but it has runes on it and it hums with electricity. We're keeping it
wrapped up and stowed away for now. Very interesting. It's starting to look like rain tomorrow.
Journal Log: Day 49.
We met up with the salt team today. They had some real stories to tell. They apparently were
successful with the salt, and cataloged several new fish and plant types. We split our supplies
during lunch, and started escorting them back. It'll take a few extra days with the slower carts. More
exciting, we killed one of those huge flying things. It came down out of nowhere for an attack run.
One of the hunters spent the last of his AK ammo on it, and in the end we had to spear it to death
after grounding it. The "biologist" is currently cutting it apart to see if there's anything we can use
from it. He seems to think the skin can be used for leather, which is a nice change compared to
everything else we've seen so far. God it smells terrible. I wonder if it's edible.
Journal Log: Day 53
I had another one of those dreams; one of the Builders was sitting next to me singing. I have no
idea what the fuck this means. Anyways, we're back in town again. The next salt team took off. I'm
apparently on the one after this. Sounds exciting and dangerous. From the looks of things, a few
more people died while I was away. They turned green and keeled over. No one knows why. The
science group has been going over their diets to find a common cause. More rain. The engineers are
trying to figure out how to make a drainage system of some sort. Anything is better then nothing.
The rainstorms remind me of the hurricanes back home, but much shorter. Maybe that's what
drove the Builders out of this region. Either that or the turning green and keeling over disease.
Considering all they left behind, we know little to nothing about them. We can't read their writings/
runes and I don't suspect we ever will. If we manage to survive and make this work, and our
descendents manage to make some sort of modern civilization, maybe they'll be the ones to figure
it out. Anyways, they're larping Shadowrun in a few minutes. That should be pretty interesting to
watch.
Journal Log: Day 54
Clear skies today, warm sun yet the air has a touch of chill to it. Feels great. Moral is up a bit,
between the hilarity of last night's Shadowrun Larp and the weather. The engineering teams decided
they are going to start building an outer wall, and I say it's about time. We've had reports of all
kinds of shit wandering in from the forests. It'll probably be one of those verticle wood tree trunk
walls. One of the explorer teams returned, the one that went north to the mountains. They came
back with what we think is Sulfer and what one of them says is Copper. Interesting. Another group
is scheduled to go up again with more geology minded people. Now for some bad news. Those
green potato things the agriculture people were growing turned out to be nearly worthless nutrition
wise. They're looking into new options now. Lastly, word around is that someone was playing with
their radio and thought they picked up a weak signal for a few minutes. They're going to look into
making a better antenna out of spare parts.
Journal Log: Day 56
Two guys wandered out of the woods today. They were in plate mail armor, some kind of replica
they had apparently taken with them. It was pretty banged up and covered in scratches, and the
people wearing it were in pretty bad shape. According to them, there were originally 10 of them,
and when they arrived, they saw the town but wandered deeper into the woods for adventure and
got lost. Their numbers were killed off by disease and predators and all their replica stainless
steel swords and daggers snapped. They were using sloppily made stone tipped spears when they
wandered in. They have this look of the lost, like they're ready for death at any time. It's their
own damn fault though, what the hell were they thinking, wandering off on a hostile alien world
playing adventurer. Leadership decided to give them a few days rest and then put them to work like
everyone else. We can't have lay abouts, traumatized or not, if we expect to survive for any amount
of time out here. More important news, someone digging around in the caves found what looks like
a 5ft metal box with arms. We're not sure what it is. Again, it's what I consider an oopart, out of
place artifact. It doesn't quite mesh with the builder's designs. We moved it to the surface for better
examination. Possibly some kind of robot? Science team is on that case. Lastly, one of our self
proclaimed chefs has invented BBQ sauce from several of the fruits and plants and is using one of
the small stone structures as a slow cooking bbq grill. It may be alien monster meat, but the smell is
making my mouth water.
Journal Log: Day 57
I went out with a hunting team today, I'm their designated explorer. Scout, navigator and
cartographer. We're going to check out some new hunting grounds to the south east as we don't
want to deplete the other spots too much. We're also going to set some simple traps to see what
we can catch. We came across these.. six legged things with heavy armor on top like a turtle
almost. We took one down with some well placed spears. We're taking it back to town for proper
examination. We also thought we saw some kind of small furry thing moving around, but we kept
losing sight of it. Maybe one of the traps will pick it up. Another group is heading through this
area tomorrow and will check. We also found the half eaten and rotting corpse of one of those
adventurers and the rotting remains of a dead yowler next to it. I wonder if we're poisonous to
them? We stripped the corpse of anything of value and left it. We got some chainmail, a broken
stainless steel sword, a working digital watch and a few carbon fiber arrows. No sign of the bow
though. Shame.
Journal Log: Day 58
We had a wicked storm blow through last night and one of those flying dragony things must of
swooped down out of the darkness to try and catch someone and got tangled up in some clothes
lines. We've got it tied up, still alive down near the edge of town. Some of the science group want
to observe it. I'd just want the damn thing dead, and a lot of others agree. The damn thing is too
dangerous. A bunch of us are armed to the teeth and keeping watch on it while they do whatever to
it. In other news, the second salt team is back early with a full load and two of those box robots they
apparently found. They figured out how to manipulate them and put them to some kind of limited
use, such as pulling the carts. I'm set to go out with the next team, we're seeing if we can keep using
the bots to tow the carts, it would really save a lot of work.
Journal Log: Day 64
I've been so busy I missed the two month anniversary mark. Well, I'm on the salt team and we've
arrived at the sea today. We've found where the other two teams had previously set up their camps,
in the ruins of some kind of outpost. It's two small buildings, enough for all of us and our stuff.
We're going to set up the saltwater boiling pots and filter tomorrow and start then. I have to say, it's
kind of nice out. The smell of salt in the air, the white sandy beach, blue water. I'd go swimming but
I'm sure there's something horrible in there. I can't trust this place or it'll see me dead. While they're
working the salt tomorrow, I'll do some scouting and see what's around, map the area out some. I
think I'm finally adapting to the weird day/night cycles.
Journal Log: Day 65
Well, technically I'm lost. I wandered off to explore and map the area and I'm not entirely sure
where I am now, and it's night. I have a tent set up under some trees, it's not safe to set up anything
out in the open with all the crazy flying shit around here and eating some fruit I picked up. The
shoreline is in sight, I just have to follow it south and I should reach the salt camp, but I'm not doing
this in the dark. I was right about the ocean. I was poking a stick in the water and something big
swam by and took the end off and nearly pulled me in. There are also these interesting clinging
plants all along the shore. I've got a few samples saved for later examination by the team science
guy. I made a note of the night sky while I was out here. There appears to be 2-3 stars that look to
be usable for navigation and I'm looking for possible constellations, maybe name one after myself
for shits and giggles. I have to say though, I'm here alone and I'm fucking terrified. Keeping my
mind on other things is what's keeping me sane enough to write. If I'm still alive in the morning, I'm
going to do a quick round and start heading back. The camp probably thinks I'm dead, my arrival
should put them at ease.
***
Forest reports, field log, day twelve
Fucking monkey..things Fuckers are as big as me and act like a god damned monkey. They keep
taking anything we leave out. will throw shit at us when we get to close to trees and generally are
making a nuisance of themselves. They are barely edible even. Taste like really bad turkey or some
shit, At least they are showing us what might be edible, they like some of the weird mushroomy
things growing on the trees and Really dig some sort of green blue gourd that grows on some trees
here. found out they are a great fucking source of water...which we really could do without seeing
its raining all the god damned time here.
Anyways, onto business, We've found another builder ruin. A smaller one than we normally do.
Statues all over the damn place and get this, its sunk into the ground, Got a small pyramid thing as
the entrance. The glyphs are covered with local mosses though and we can't make anything out.
We've flagged the area though and set up a shelter in the structure until some of the more sciency
types can come out here.
Until then, I'm dodging flying crap and shooting me some thrice damned
monkey...lizard...bird...things.
RUN DAMNIT
I heard it before I saw it. We'd been out in some thick woods, hoping to make it to where we'd seen
smoke earlier in the day. Of course, we had no idea how rough it was going to be. Even now, I'm
caught in undergrowth.
It was a low sound, like a purr, like a big fucking cat that was all a twitter.
Fuck me, it got joe before we even knew what was happening. A fucking blur and the poor bastards
gutted and thrown against a tree. Thats when we saw it, just a brief moment. We sure as fuck didnt
stick around when we saw the big bastards head, like a goddamn skull with a pair of red eyes poke
out of the bushes.
We kept a steady pace ahead of it for three days. never letting our guard down, I don't think I slept
the whole time. By the time I got to here, a little fucking shack some poor bastard built before
getting torn to shreds, I lost damn near everyone but Ted. Its out there right now.
Jesus, I think I heard it. I swear, its laughing at us, Gloating its got the little weak things on the run.
Playing a game with us till we drop dead.
Builders?
We found him at the shore line. The poor man was wearing nothing but tatters and clutching to him
some statuette of alien make.
he kept muttering something so, strange. I can't even try to vocalize it. A low whistling sound
maybe mixed with croaking here and there.
He said he'd met a builder, had heard it speak and as it left it handed to him the small token to show
that it appreciated the fact he had at least attempted to talk to it.
This man is obviously crazy though...the tracks we found in the mud still have yet to be explained
Forest reports, field log, day twenty five?
Running next to no sleep, We found something...
These ruins they, they are not what we thought. They go deep, really deep. so far the maps we've
made indicate the riddle damn near everything for a square mile! the problem is, the lower you go
the worse it gets when it comes to the water. Its flooded down there and when we have managed to
traverse it we find ourselves way off the mark. One guy never even came back when he left to go
exploring a nearby section we uncovered.
They surface again too, We've found twelve other sites nearby. All lead down into the tunnels.
Honestly I've got no idea what the fuck this all means, hell. I doubt I ever will. any artifacts we've
found seem to indicate it wasn't builders here, the place doesn't have any weapons, lots of chains
and rusted shackels though...
Is this a prison? Something else? What the fuck did we find?
Forest reports, field log, day forty?
We...Dear god. We're outside the city.
We went down into the tunnels one of the big flying fuckers showed up and it just got worse, the
damned monkey birds followed suit and decided we looked tasty. We amscrayed out of there and
just ran. I don't know how long, we lost track but when we came back out...We're standing at the
edge of the city.
I. I can see the tower that ugly fucking tower all the way from there. hell, there's not even a pyramid
here. Its just a broken toothed hole in the ground that we crawled out of...
Salt Duty
For those of you who don't know. Salt duty, sucks. The entirety of the time that you spend out in the
field you're trying to guide a god damned robotic thing that barely listens and acts way to much like
it was programmed by bay12 at times for you to rest easy.
When you get to the beach, you get to wade out into rather warm waters and pray you don't step on
any number of spiny little bugs, get your leg speared by one of those fucking eels and OH don't slip
on a rock.
After that you spend the rest of the time gather stuff to burn, watching it burn and if someone was
smart, playing games(that parts not to bad). Did I mention its raining almost eighty percent of the
time? Because yeah, rain all day erry day.
I swear I'd rather be the guys they send out into the mountains. At least they see something besides
giant goddamned bugs and eels that want to stab you with their tongue
***
Journal Log: Day 66
Made it back to the salt camp. They were glad to see me back and as I thought, expected me dead.
Something worth noting, on the way back I thought I saw a boat on the horizon, a small paddle boat
or canoe. May of been my imagination or some unknown boat shaped creature. We're having fish
for dinner tonight, one of the hunters caught one with some spoiled meat and a rope. One fish was
enough to feed us all, it was fucking huge. We cut off a few of it's hard plates off it's body and see
if we can do anything with it, it'll stop a knife easy enough. At night, there's some kind of insect
or bird maybe making music on the beach, a repetitive almost buzzing almost humming. I figure,
as long as it's going, nothing too dangerous is out, as noisy prey tends to vanish when the hungry
predators arrive. Unless it is a predator. We'll see I guess.
***
Farming it.
Well, the local taters we're a bust they're little more than masses of starch. Some guys are looking at
them for vodka though...whoo.
On the flip side...moss? no really fucking moss. we've seen a dozen different critters eat the damn
stuff. I won't lie, it tastes like shit, has to be cooked to mush but fuck me if it doesn't have iron, b,a,
hell even c vitamins.
The only downside being...well you get a jitterbug in there every now and then...Which may explain
why I keep seeing the chair get up and walk out of the room only to come back with a loaded basket
of easter eggs...
Outriders
Alright, Its been three goddamned weeks since I've been out last and when I finally
decided to pack up and start another ride out to god knows what horrible thing.
They give me loaves of pressed moss. Not just any moss, the sort that ya know, the
damn bugs that make you see shit live in.
Is this a joke? I mean seriously who the fuck are the trying to fool. They want me to eat
fucking moss!
Seven days of finangling and about sixty pounds of..moss...god damn it. Someones getting hell for
that.
me and my men are ready to go. We've got a line layed out headed out towards where one party
stumbled on some sort of tunnel network.
Which, I sure as hell am not touching. Our task as futile as it sounds is to wrangle stragglers up
from the clutches of god knows what. Other people included. To this end, I'm carrying ol' bess. My
personal Compound bow from back Earth ways. anyone that wants to fuck with us is gonna get a
broadhead faster than they can say yowler.
There's twenty of us. Each has a enough food and water for a week. We're to ration the hell out of
that and make sure if we can to secure no foods, so guinea pig/crusader/bait? Yep, its a good day to
be a motherfucking outrider.
oorah
***
Journal Log: Day 67
Fuck fuck fuck. I got attacked. I was in tall grass looking around with some binoculars when this
snake thing jumped up and latched on to my arm, my right arm, the one that only just healed up
properly. Fuck. I pried it off, it had some kind of circular mouth almost like a sucker fish but left
some black shit all over the wound. I washed it out as fast as I could in sea water, and the bleeding
stopped with some medical attention, but my whole arm is numb. Like my sense of touch was
turned off in that arm, and the wound is all nasty and black. I'm fucking sick of this place, I want to
burn the whole fucking place down. The forests, the grasslands, just to show these fucking animals
who not to fucking mess with. Shit. I don't want to die on this hellhole. I'm set up in camp right now
and I..
***
Medical report
FUCKING HELL.
Now that this has been stated. Subject is suffering from severe bacterial infection. Application
of...really? Is that from a fucking yowler? Whatever, shit works. hand it over.
Subject was attacked two hours ago. Limb functional minimal. applying...ichor now. Fucking hell
this stinks.
Cleaning of wound was a success we found what appear to be parasites, poor bastard never knew
these were there. half inch long, thin as a wire.
burn these.
wound is cleaned. Best I can do. We've rubbed salt, alcohol and..yowler ichor to prevent infection.
The last is the best bet we've seen it in prior subjects help fight infection and stem bleeding. But by
god someone get this man some perfume.
look, I don't oh hell, is that thing still on? SAVE BATTERIES PEOPLE.
Anyways, we've seen similar injuries, treatment, mixed success possible amputation. Christ..I don't
think I can do that. I've only done the basic stuff like stitching wounds...do we have a bonesaw?
how about some Vodka? no its not for the patient.
Look, you wanna have to tell the poor fuck we may need to cut his arm off? I sure as fuck don't. In
other news, salts almost done, subjects fever is down and the dwarves. People keep calling them
that. Are, well, standing around staring at each other.
Dear god someone stopper the fucking ichor already.
***
Journal Log: Day 69
Well, I'm doing better. I blacked out for awhile. We got some damn good medical guys with us and
I'm thankful for that. My arm is feeling better but looks bad and smells worse. They don't think they
have to amputate and I sure as hell don't want to lose an arm, but well, time will tell if it can heal
or if it'll spread. The salt gathering is done and the carts are filled. We're on our way back. They
suggest I ride the cart, but my legs are fine, so I'm walking. I don't want to slow down everyone else
with my added weight and I'm the team scout and navigator, I have a job to do, injured or not. The
weak and sickly get eaten on this world. If the bots behave and we don't run into any trouble, we
should make town by 3 days or so.
***
Medical log
Noted for future reference, Yowler ichor a success.
Side note, bring something to counter the damn smell.
Subject is improving we've given him extra rations, spam no less to help improve his
health. I've also inspected site of attack. creature looks vaguely lamprey like. shot in
half, 12 gauge does wonders
***
Journal Log: Day 71
We're about a day from town. Ran into a long range explorer team today on their way out. Traded
some of our spare salted meat because the whoever sent them out only gave them that mold shit.
Terrible tasting and a 50% chance of making you trip out from improper filtering of the local
hallucinogenic insects. Not the best thing to have when you're out in the wilds. My arm looks like
it's improving daily but damn if I can't get rid of the smell. I have to eat away from everyone else
to keep them from vomiting up their meals. On the plus side, I think the smell is keeping away the
local animals, we haven't seen many if any at all. Anyways, we also ran across a fresh corpse of
someone none of us recognized, which means he's been in the wilds alone until now. Looks like an
imp inflicted wound. He had a 38 special with no ammo, two sets of prescription eyeglasses, several
sets of used clothes, a whole set of Savage Worlds with dice, a fishing tackle box and fisherman
waders. No rod though. I suppose he's been surviving off fish all this time until something got him.
We gave him a burial since we were setting up camp around here anyways. I wonder how many
others are out there? People who just picked the wrong direction to wander or bypassed the town by
sheer accident. This could of been me, it could of been any of us.
***
Outriders Pt. 3
Well, things turned for the better, some salt boys traded us some meat for the damn
moss..bread. Whatever the fuck it is. Though dear god they stunk to hell and back.
Anyways, spotted some signs of people moving too and fro. Heading towards the coast
rumor had it people were seeing small boats and the like out there. Could be we can
land the town some goddamned naval experts and get a coatal fishing fleet set up.
Till then, all you outriders
oo-fucking-rah and don't eat the damned moss
***
Journal Log: Day 72
Back in town finally! Dumped the salt off and washed up in the aqueduct runoff. My
arm's smelling better. While we were gone, some of the chemistry guys made some
gunpowder or equivalent. We can't make a lot yet, but that's something at least. We've
been collecting spent casing whenever we shoot something, but the actual bullet is a
bit harder to make, what with no metalworking so far. People did bring along molds
with them and tools, it's just the ore part. I suppose we can recycle to some degree. In
other news, apparently the radio broadcasts from the other town went dead a day or
two ago. We think the signals came from west of here, but we don't know how far, we
never could set up a triangulation, their signals were too short and random. We're still
listening though. I got a sample of the new home brew moonshine/vodka. It's greenish
in color and holy shit does it have a kick. hopefully it won't make you blind. Is that an
urban legend? I don't actually know. Anyways, I'm joining in an Earthdawn game in a
few minutes. Looks fun.
Journal Log: Day 73
It's chilly out again. Kind of nice, but the day's been so weird. During breakfast, some
loon came running out screaming that he learned how to read the builder writing in a
dream and then spouted some bullshit that sounds like it's right out of a bad jrpg and
then proceeded to chase rabbits for a few hours. Hallucinatory rabbits. Clearly he got
dosed with some jitterbug. As if this day couldn't get any weirder, one of the explorer
teams returned with a fursuit. Looks like a wolf or dog of some kind. They said they
found it a day out hanging in a tree with no sign of whoever owned it. What the hell,
who brings shit like this? It's being cut up into coats as we speak. Anyways, even with
my injury, I signed up for a mountain run. We're looking for more minerals and I'm
their navigator and scout again. Someone brought some basic mining tools, so we'll
be bringing that. We're getting a new cart with the new mk2 wheels that are at least
twice as round as the mk1's! The cart has higher sides then the one the salt teams are
using. We only have one bot to pull it though. Another group already cut a path there,
so navigation shouldn't be a problem. I'm hoping to climb high enough to get a good
elevated view of the land for mapping.
Journal Log: Day 74
One of the hunt teams returned with what appears to be a land whale. They're calling
it a Thunderbeast, apparently due to the sounds they heard it making. It looks to be a
whole host of resources. If it's all meat, it's food. If it's all blubber, we can make oil or
grease. If it's all plates, we can use that too. I have to give it to the hunt team, killing this
thing and dragging it here for hours. God damn. Well, I'm set to move out tomorrow
for the mountain run. We would of gone today but several of the team were called off
to help with something out in the test farm. Lastly, rumors around that one of the girls
is pregnant from a night of passion last month. I hope she realizes that there's a good
chance she's going to die in a few months. God dammit, this is a fucking tragedy if it
goes wrong, we're not ready for children. It's already taking a lot of work and resources
keeping just the one baby alive. I don't know what to think. Anyways, I'm going back to
the Earthdawn game.
Journal Log: Day 75
We're on the move, out to check the mountains for anything. We've got 12 guys with us:
3 hunters, me (the navigator), a backup navigator and scout, a self proclaimed geologist,
a biologist to check out the plant and animal life, medics and muscle. The other scout
looks like he brought two tents. Weird. We have a weeks supplies and should be
back before then. Most of it is breadmold, now with extra flavor (they mixed it with
thunderbeast fat. Joy.) Also of note, we're wearing the first set of tortolo body armor.
It's tough and a bit weird looking, but we'll see if it works. Smells like cinnamon? Our
towing bot hasn't misbehaved yet, but that can change at any moment. We keep the
thing tied to a tree at night in case it decides to chase invisible butterflies. My arm is
still pretty bruised, but it's working as it should. Passed a hunting party earlier tracking
more tortolo. The science guys think we can domesticate them. Anyways, I got first
watch.
Journal Log: Day 76
We arrived at our destination by nightfall, a shallow cave about 40ft deep, discovered by the last
mountain team. It's raining right now, pretty hard but we're on high ground. We set up a dirt and
rock breaker at the mouth of the cave to keep runoff from flooding in. Between lightning flashes,
I thought I saw one of those winged things out in the sky. We'll have to be careful of that during
the day. I recall someone back in town suggesting that the locals worshiped them as they showed
up in the stone carvings a lot. Why worship an animal? Well, it's a practice some do back home on
Earth. Whatever. Some of the team are poking around the cave for anything interesting buried or
left behind. Just a few old animal bones so far. The Tortolo armor, while hard on the outside is soft
on the inside. With a bit of work, it makes a great pillow.
Journal Log: Day 77
Had another builder dream. I was in town, alone, and with a builder who was trying to.. I think tell
me something about a statue. There was no sound in the dream and I have no idea what the hell to
make of it. My creative subconscious running wild. I did some scouting around today, climbed a
nearby cliff and took some map notes with the binoculars. I think there's ruins a day's or so travel
from here to the west. No sign of activity, not that I could make out much at that distance. Maybe
I'll take a long range team out there after this run is completed. Good news, the Geologist thinks
he's found some iron and possibly signs of gold? I don't think gold has a lot of use right now, but
Iron we could always use.. if anyone knows how to smelt it. the biologist thinks she found a new
farmable she's seen some of the smaller animals eating. It's elongated like a carrot or cucumber,
all blue. We're going to try some out later tonight. She got some samples and made notes of the
conditions. Another discovery! I found a spring leading off into a river. The spring had an inflatable
raft floating in it, yellow and blue, probably a three seater? It had a few inches of water and a pump
action shotgun sitting in it. No sign of the owner, no sign of other supplies. the gun needs to be
cleaned and I don't know if the ammo in it is any good. I'm not the expert on such things. The raft is
deflated and both are packed away for now.
Journal Log: Day 78
Good news and Bad news. Bad news first. The other scout, what I thought was a second tent turned
out to be a hang glider. The fucker took it up and assembled it up on a high cliff and took a leap of
faith with it. He managed to stay up for a good 5 minutes before heavy wind folded the glider in
half. He's still alive, but he broke his leg, bruised or broke a rib and took a hit to the head when he
spiraled into a tree. He's fucking lucky he's still alive. We've got him all bandaged up and splints.
We've all taken turns yelling at him because now he's dead weight and a burden to us all. The glider
can probably be repaired, it didn't look like there were any tears in it. We'll see. Now the good
news. The mining team hit iron. We've half a cart of it. We'll be pulling out the day after tomorrow,
staying a day longer then planned to see if we can't get more. Our hunters brought in some fresh
meat, so we have enough food.
Journal Log: Day 79
Well, we got all the iron I think we're going to find this trip. Aside from stupid hang gliding stunts
and someones injuries resulting from them, this went pretty well. I scouted around some more and
found what I think is a monument of some sort. It's an obelisk about 20ft tall I figure, pyramid
shaped. No carvings on it, but the corners look like they're aligned with the 4 compass points and
I'm not sure, but I think the tip is aligned with one of the navigation stars. A landmark stone of
some sort? Maybe marking a boarder? Navigation stone? No idea, can't predict the whims of alien
builders. I marked it on the map and looked around for anything else, did some digging around
it's base and found nothing. I also found a boot. The cowboy boot variety. Perhaps belonging to
whoever lost the inflatable raft? No sign of a struggle, no blood, no foot. More mysteries abound.
Anyways, heading back tomorrow.
Journal Log: Day 80
80 days and still alive! Injured, beaten and possibly infested, but still alive. Also in the best shape
I've been in years. We're on our way back now. The bot is having little trouble pulling the cart even
though it's got to have at least a ton of materials in it along with a broken idiot of a scout. We've
had to help push it up a few inclines, but our route is really well planned. Kudos to the team that
originally mapped this out. We're passing through a flat valley that splits between several foothills
which would make this trip a lot more difficult. It winds a bit, but it's better then hills. If we don't
run into any trouble, we should arrive back tomorrow night. We had a brief run in with a Yowler
earlier, but it ran off, looked injured. I think the local wildlife is getting it in it's heads that maybe
we're not easy prey. Maybe it's wishful thinking. Discussed with the science guys how we're going
to smelt the iron we got. They talked about forge design. I don't think we'll be making a forge any
time soon from their descriptions. Kind of sucks but maybe something will come up. We're going to
need coal, coke or charcoal and possibly brick. We've seen no coal at all so far and brick is a whole
other problem. Charcoal is a tremendous pain in the ass to make in quantity, especially with all the
damn rain. The builders obviously had metal making with iron and steel, I wonder what they used.
Maybe one of the small unknown structures around town will turn out to be a forge.
***
Outriders pt. 4
somedays, I hate people. We came across what we had thought was a small camp today. A
few younger girls were there and some guys...maybe twenty, twenty-five as well. Us being the
blundering jackasses we are simply waltzed in like we owned the place.
Juke got shot in the damned leg for our trouble. Of course, three seconds later the bastard that had
done it found himself at the bad end of nineteen different implements of hurt. Calmed him right
down Thank fucking god.
We went through through the usual bullshit of introductions saying where we were from, our
names, if we liked long walks on the beach while running from yowlers etcetera, etcetera. That
when one of the men, a guy named Ben, sort of a creeper. But, hell I really don't care so long as he's
able to fight and is on my side. Pointed out the way the girls were bruised from damn near head to
toe and acting like they'd seen the devil itself...
When questioned the guys got defensive. Claiming it was none of our damned business and that
we(we being me, and nineteen other outriders all of whom were told secure any resources and
people that look useful) could fuck off.
My snappy response...No you. My men circled like sharks and we started with the slow explanation
that though, you strapping young laddies in great shape the ladies are not. And quite personally if
the case is you can't take care of them. you don't need to be with them. WE subdued them pronto
and cut the girls loose. I sent Juke and thomas back along the way with them.
Mostly because the two are about as gay as a god damned frilly skirt on a drag queen.
Thunder beast studies.
Well...this is..big. The thousand or so pound animal that was dragged in from god
knows where was stunted.
You heard me right, stunted. We've deduced this from studying the similar tortolo.
Where the vertebrae of a healthy animal are normally fully formed, and also rather
rigidly head this animals seems to almost be deformed in several place.
The skull as well shows signs of abnormalities including soft spots, muscle loss.
possible malnutrition maybe the culprit but, at the same time. One has to wonder just
how big these animals actually do get in their proper habitat.
Outriders Pt. 5
Well, its been almost two weeks now. We've found a few stragglers. They've either been too far
gone to be worth saving, so fucking crazy they are trying to find some sort of nirvana. Or in such
bad shape I've had to spare my men to take them back. Ben, Roy, and myself are the last of us still
out in the field.
We are currently camped out at...something. Its another OOPART as people are calling them. A
thing out of place as far as we can tell it looks vaguely like some sort of fortress. Inside we found a
cache of standard builder weapons and something that doesn't look like anything found so far. BIg
fucking suit of armor is my best guess. Roy, says its some sort or power armor. If thats true then
what the hell was going on here?
Either way the things as still as death. I doubt it'd ever move. Besides, we can't use it, Tried
crawling in there and it just does not fit me. It was designed either by or for the builders I can say
that much without so much as a doubt.
Either way, headed back tomorrow at day break. We'll gather what we can from there to take back
with us.
Hey? Roy, did you see where Ben went?
Outrider pt. 6
Well, we found Ben. He committed suicide. Hung himself from a nearby rock outcrop...
I cut the poor bastard down and we've built him a cairn for his remains. Poor son of a bitch, I didn't
get why he kept handing his food off till now. No notes, no pleas of returning home, figures he'd do
something like that. Never like to talk much...
We've collected his gear and made sure it was accounted for. He was a good man and will be
missed. Not sure how to break it to the people he knew back in town but...
What's this?
I've found a small a object tucked into Ben's bedroll, a little bit of jewelry...Christ I think its an
engagement ring...
***
Journal Log: Day 82
We made it back to town last night, we decided to travel in darkness since we were close enough.
Dangerous but we all agreed to it. Turns out that the structure the cooks have been using as the bbq
pit may actually be a builder metal forge. I find that terribly amusing for some reason. Some people
are going to attempt to make a load of charcoal over the next few days, I wish the best of luck to
them. Some long range scouts returned, Outriders they're calling themselves, with some people
they picked up. Looked in bad shape and.. something in their eyes looked wrong. They weren't
tormented by the wildlife, something else. I tried signing up for another expedition but leadership
says I've been running too much and asked that I take some time off before I run myself into the
ground, so I've got a week of dicking around town. My arm injury seems to be healed and the
coloration is back to normal mostly. Spent most of the day practicing archery and instructing others
on the same. These home made reflex bows are pretty neat. As a side note, there seems to be a lot of
people with the sniffles.
Journal Log: Day 83
Now I have the sniffles. There's definitely something going around. I probably would of had a more
productive day, but I spent most of it chatting it up with a Builder. Not a real one of course, I got
jitterbugged from some breadmold and had a hallucinatory one following me around all day making
saxophone sounds and juggling glass unicorns. Nothing like bad breadmold to make you feel like
a useless piece of shit all day. Anyways, the guys building the outer wall are doing a hell of a job.
Completely changes the feel of the place. They're about half done now. They're using a hell of a
lot of wood to make it though. Anyways, I'm going to bed early, I'm starting to feel like shit from
whatever I caught.
Journal Log: Day 85
Holy shit, I could barely get out of bed. I'm really fucking sick. A lot of others are too from the
looks of it. It's hard to concentrate. Flu like symptoms plus.. it's getting harder to see anything as the
day goes on. Leadership is having the medics set us all up in one of the large structures, some kind
of meeting hall maybe? It's got good air circulation at least. Maybe it was best I stuck around town,
it would suck to be in the field feeling like this. Everything aches. A few of the worse off have been
struck blind apparently, their eyes all black. Fuck. I'm.. I'm just going to take a nap, so tired.
Journal Log: Day 87
I'm blind. I have someone transcribing this for me (Hello diary! lol) I can barely move and thinking
takes a lot of concentration. I hate this place, I hate it so much. I could survive anything it threw
at me, Yowlers, breadmold, ramorasnakes, imps and those flying dinos, so it sends a fucking
plague. They've used up all the penicillin already, not that we had much to begin with. (Yup.) I
don't know what to do other then just lie here and keep fighting. I just, I don't want to die, not like
this. (Everyone says this.) There's supposedly dead already (a few, circulatory failure or allergic
reaction, working on that). May as well give my last will and testament. Of course all my gear goes
to central supply, but this journal needs to go to the hunters and scout group..guild? organization?
We haven't decided yet.. but there's important notes in here. (There's drawings and shit all over this
thing.)
***
Medical log, black eye love.
It's a fungus...
Yes. I realize that its striking people blind. We can fix that. Look, We're doing test runs,
Of all things that seems to work, a waxy compound from a local insect seems to be one
of the best treatments. I've got a pot boiling right now and have started to mix some of
the yowler ichor one of the outriders picked up.
Yes, Its way the hell away from anything important. I've also begun test runs of using
several plants from the local area, I've seen similar symptoms in the fauna here and they
boogey on over to these like its their business. I've got them cooking down right now
extracting essential oils, And also working on a way to make them a spray.
Yes, I realize it stings like hell to get sprayed by the stuff. But what do you want from
me? I've used it myself when I first got sick. Sprayed it on the back of my throat, it was
worse than drinking vodka from stills. I've got the dwaves belayed from their orders so
they can gather the plants we need.
Yes, plants, we'll need about forty pounds of the stuff. And to be sure I sent one of the
hunting teams to gather the wax and ichor. the first batch should be ready by tomorrow
night. Delay everyone till then. We can't spread it to survivors outside of the town. I'm
worried it may have been here the whole time.
Also, are you still up shaowrun tonight? I heard Matt was getting that larping group
again.
Look, I told you its not a sure bet. The fuck do you want of me? I've got several samples bottled.
Look, It was that or you drink it straight, besides, alcohol helps as well. good news is the dwarves
don't like the stuff.
Oh just shut up and drink it. Yes, I know it smells terrible, tastes the same to.
...
Told ya.
...
Good news first.
Medicine is a success,
Bad news,
It causes minor hemorrhages in some patients...Yeah. need to fix that.
More good news, started recovery process for four people today. (the ones that did not hemorrhage.)
also, disease seems to only impart temporary blindness. This is useful, we've begun to target more
closely now with..christ almighty vodka, xeno-Engracia, xeno-daisies and of course goddamn
yowler ichor.
Yes, it hurts as much as it sounds, good news, it clears the infection locally. I can't alleviate all the
symptoms yet though, we need something to knock the fungus out...
New theory found several species that had been sick all had a splotchy pattern around their faces.
Counter fungus? Bacteria, fungus phyte? fungiphyte?
***
Journal Log: Day 106
Still alive. They sprayed some shit on and in me a few days ago. I can see again but still feel like
shit. Also bedsores and my legs are numb. The fungus or the cure must of caused rod and cone
damage because color saturation is all off, things are brighter then they should be. Everything's
like fucking Disney world. I have to hand it to the docs. They could of ditched us in the wilds or
locked us away to die slowly, but they risked contamination of themselves to keep us comfortable.
A few have come down pretty hard with infections. I hear 3/4 the town is now infected at some
stage. A few seem to be completely immune. Tried getting up today to find my legs didn't want to
work right. I can move them but.. they aren't keeping me up, not without some help. I hated feeling
useless back home and this is worse. I'm more then useless like this, I'm yowler food.
***
Medical log, cont.
christ, It doesn't end.
Oh shut up and take notes.
Contracted the fungus, preparing to spray myself....
OH HOLY FUCK SHIT, GAH!
I...Ah fuck..spray administered. Jesus christ, get me a shot will you. Reports of sight issues after
treatment persists. Most likely side effect of something in the mix. Ah fuck that burns.
Take the goddamn notes, I can't fucking see how do you expect me to do it?
Treatments moving well subjects are noting muscle and motor issues, chalking it up to being in bed
for prolonged periods. beginning to feed them a high protein diet and giving them physical therapy.
Also making them take a shot of vodka each day, why? so they quit worrying.
Just write what I fucking say.
***
Journal Log: Day 108
Some ass keeps taking my journal and reading it every time I fall asleep and he lost the day 107
page. That fucker. Anyways, more physical therapy today. I can move around on my own for
the most part. I'm going to leave this place and head back to my housing tomorrow, as I've been
discharged, but am to make a few more visits during the week for check ups. My eyes are still
using the "Disney filter", not sure if this is going to be permanent or temporary. Anyways, word on
the grapevine is that the radio guys picked up that signal from the west again, but this time they're
broadcasting a solid tone? Maybe whoever it is, is using it as a homing beacon, or maybe their
equipment is messed up. I'll look into it more.
***
* Food commission Notice*
If you have consumed breadmoss in the past twenty four hours and are suffering hallucinations.
Please report to the medical team so that they can advise as to what you can do.
Again, if you are feeling any odd effects or seeing things please go to the medical tents.
-THANK YOU.
-The Chefs.
***
Medical log, cont.
Side effect of living in as one rather impressive subject has coined it. The Disney Filter.
He was the guy that got attacked and I used the yolwer ichor on when I was on the salt team that
one time actually.
Anyways, therapy sessions work well, I beat the case to the punch now, We've refined the recipe to
well...Almost perfect. I...damn it why Santa Claus sitting across from me eating waffles?
Figments aside.
we've lost roughly thirty people... surprisingly. Eve, the child that was born here so far has remained
perfectly fine...which bears the question of how. Still, I'm happy to see that baby is doing well.
I've begun converting the meeting hall that we claimed into the Hospital in case of future outbreaks,
notched wood walls are acting as partitions and though I never earned my degree I've been given
the honorary title of M.D.
Don't look at me like that, we voted.
We've worked on what will hopefully be the starts of an ER, the area's been scrubbed down as
best we can, hell, we flash fired it with a fine spray of vodka even to be doubly certain. The life
support equipment has been moved in and we've got an electrician tinkering with it to at least see if
something might be useful to us. I don't expect miracles but, hey what little bit we can get I'll take.
***
Journal Log: Day 109
I'm back in my housing. I can't really call it home though. I know I'm going to be stuck here the
rest of my life, but I think home will always be back on Earth. Anyways, did some walking and
running today to get my muscles back in working order and then assisted some hunter apprentices
with map reading skills and how to best wear their tortolo armor. They're starting to let people back
in town. Must of sucked for those guys, coming back from however long trip and being forced to
camp outside the walls. Spent a good part of the day hanging out in town square while the radio
guys were moving their collapsible antenna and doing triangulation math trying to figure out where
that signal is coming from, and watched some people play a pathfinder game. Someone stated up
an anthro yowler. I don't even know. A salt team is expected to arrive tomorrow so we have that to
look forward to. Last bit of news. We got 2 more dwarfs some time while I was sick. No one knows
where they came from, they were just in the dwarf pen one day. Those things are just so weird.
***
Outrider log, cont.
Finally made it back into good ol' um...Town? I keep hearing people call it boat murdered which is
a little worrisome. Personally sticking to town.
Roy is already headed back out, Turns out he's going to lead them to that place where we found the
OOPART. Best of luck to him I doubt I'm going to go back there anytime soon. Things like that
place worry me too much. I'm an outrider my job is to scout out for people and locations, not to go
back where I buried the dead.
Till then, i'm at the local equivalent of a bar. Tiny flicking place with its own still. Some guy made
it out of a pot the builders had and some rubber tubing...Stuff gets ya drunk for sure and I need
it after getting shown to the hospital and forced to drink some god aweful stuff that smelled like
yowler piss.
Best part is, some guy does a nightly staged act where him and his buddied get on stage and act out
a session from one of their past campaigns back Earthside. Tonight they're doing DH where they are
infiltrating a genestealer cult that they accidently found on an agriworld.
SOOOOOO LOOONG AND THANKS FER ALL THE FIIIISH!
Eh? Oh sorry, had a few too many I guess. Christ We need some beer. hilariously enough some of
the reenactors are making fucking barrels and fire treating them. Guess by the time next year rolls
around we'll have the first alien whiskey.
Anyways, show was a hell of a good time. I can see why they get such good business. guess since
the last time I left we've adopted the use of tortolo armor, hell I'll wear it. Shit looks pretty damn
cool in my opinion. You'd never think it but their skin's not bad for leather either. Its really a lot like
a mammals, fatty as hell makes the rain slide right off them.
So yeah, what did you want? You know its almost dawn right?
oh..you..wait. out WEST? Like where that fucking radio signal's coming from?
I'm not going West damn it. I've heard whats out there. The goddamn trees are so high that you can't
see the sky!
you fucking think this is bad? how about when you're fighting yowler in the goddamned dark? Ever
seen some of the stuff outriders drag back from there? They are not pretty. I mean christ, Ive seen
the men they bring back. The poor bastards are worse than that couple of guys that were chased by
the Yowler for a fucking week.
You wanna go west, go fucking west. I ain't traveling into that god forsaken place
***
Journal Log: Day 110
No salt team yet. Must of been held up. I had been given the task, along with 5 others, to go through
the housing of the dead, sort their belongings and deliver them to central supply. Mostly what you'd
expect, clothing, some personal belongings such as photos and jewelry, art and so on. What got
everyone's attention was a simple bag of uneaten peanuts, unsalted, that we found buried under a
mound of gear. We didn't think anything of it until we were turning it all in. The supply clerk got all
excited and ran off to get some of the agriculture guys. They're going to try and plant them and see
what happens. Yeah, I know peanuts have many uses but will they even grow in alien soil? There
have been other shenanigans about, someone set one of the shit pits on fire. The whole town..It's
pretty bad, the stench I mean. I don't know how it happened, I don't want to know how it happened,
good god. Lastly, the radio guys figure that the signal is coming from many weeks travel away. It's
probably not in our best interest to go out that far yet. God fucking damnit the smell, my eyes are
watering.
Journal Log: Day 112
Well, I'm guessing the shitpit fire offended the heavens from the strength of that storm that blew
through yesterday. Cleaned the place out though. I've got a group together, we're going out at
sunrise to find out what happened with the salt team, they're several days late now. We've got two
scouts (including me), four hunters and a medic. We're bringing a few spare cart wheels in case
that's what's been holding them up, and a few doses of the Blackeye cure. And vodka. I got an mp3
player and it's all charged up for those quiet nights. It'll be good to get back on the trail.
Journal Log: Day 114
We found the Salt team, or what's left of them. At first glance, it looks like a yowler attack. We
were just going to pack escort the dwarves and salt carts back to town but a few of us felt there was
something wrong with this. First of all, all their food was missing. They left with twice the amount
of food they needed. Second, one of the hunters was supposed to have some of that replica plate
armor they got from those crazy adventurers and it was missing. Upon closer investigation, the claw
wounds were in yowler pattern but looked more like tortolo claws. Tortolo don't attack people like
this, and not in this number. Worse, most of their ammo was missing along with one rifle, and two
of the bodies had what looked like hastily covered up buckshot wounds. No one on the team had a
shotgun, they were all rifles and pistols. There's some fuckers out here playing bandit. We gave the
bodies proper burials and sent the other scout back to town with the bots and cart. The rest of us,
well we're going hunting and we're going to find the fucker that did this and either hang him or burn
him at the fucking stake.
***
A Hunter
Christ...how do I end up doing these sort of jobs.
We found the salt team. Poor sons a bitches. Whoever did this is gonna get there asses flayed by the
looks of things.
Wounds indicate that they were shot, and post mortem had wounds inflicted with tortolo claws,
most likely pulled from an animal and stitched together to make something that could fool the
untrained eye into thinking its a yowler. Except no animal leaves the kill. yowler dont react to
human flesh. We found that out through some trial and error.
Whoever the fuck did this is going to get it. We've gone to fucking far to just have some bastards
out here making it harder already.
You, give me that fucking gun. I've got some hunting to do.
***
Journal Log: Day 115+116
Found some tracks and have been following them all day. Looks like they tried covering their
footprints, but ended up making even more of a disturbance through the brush doing so. Tracks
look like they're going south towards Abby's Point, some ruins of a builder outpost. We set up
camp come nightfall because of.. well you know, yowlers and other nocturnal predators. One of the
hunters went up a tree and is scoping out for any signs of campfires or flashlights in the dark. Right
about when I was falling asleep, someone tripped up on one of our yowler traps behind the Lex,
who was on watch. We fired some shots but they got away, but they were injured, dripping blood.
We broke camp immediately, fuck the nocturnals, we have a blood trail to follow. I wish we had a
hunting dog. The trail took us past Abby's Point and turned east again, back towards the sea. I think
they're using landmarks as waypoints? We stopped for a quick meal, it's daylight now. One of the
hunters slipped ahead, wants to try and get ahead of them while we drive the bandit into their gun
sights. Godspeed.
***
Outrider log, cont.
Well, great. I've been relegated to making sure the outer limits of the city are safe to expand into.
Christ this place is a wreck even after we moved in a lot of its an utter mess. most the places are just
stone ruins but...hello there.
There's something underneath this tile, here help me move it.
*scraping*
Oh holy...How the fuck did we miss this? Is this a goddamn tunnel system? I looks flooded by fuck.
No wonder the water level keeps down. hell it explains why the poor guys in the forest showed back
up even...
What the FUCK?
Is that a tentacle?
Well...that was a thrill a minute.
The tentacle belonged to some sort of shellfish. Damn near five feet in diameter. four legs legs and
one goofy fucking face.
Shell was hard as a rock though and it took us jamming a spear into the mouth when it tried
grabbing my hand...
It only stopped flailing around after a little while, kept trying to grab my wrist watch...EIther way
we hauled the thing out and dragged it back for the science guys to study. They were giddy as a kid
on a crack.
***
Journal Log: Day 118
We found their camp, about 5 guys with a variety of guns, rifles and knives. Our hunter met back
up with us and we've been observing them from a blind. They've got a windowless cabin set up
with a shooting deck on the roof. There's always one person up there with a rifle. We've got some
ideas of how to deal with them. Maybe block up their door and set the place on fire. Or drag it out
over the course of a few days, getting them one or two at a time, those are some of the more tame
suggestions. If they only held up the salt team and robbed them, maybe we'd consider taking them
to town, but they killed all of them and then tried covering it up, made it look like an animal attack
so we wouldn't think to come after them, which means they planed on doing it again. There's no
place left in our society for them now.
Journal Log: Day 119
We struck at night. I took down the shooting deck sentry with an arrow through the lungs. He fell
off, made some noise but didn't attract any attention. We set up some yowler traps around their front
door and waited. Two hours later, someone came up top looking for the guy and called out. Two
more went out the front door looking for him. They fell into the yowler traps and.. well they do
nasty things to human flesh. the guy on the roof and the two trapped were put down by rifle shots.
The last guy came out with hands up and screaming surrender. We tied him up and went about
checking out their camp. The cabin was cozy if small, well built. We bagged all the equipment. The
survivor.. none of us could shoot him in cold blood, so we stripped him nude and set him off in the
wilds with a blindfold and his arms tied. Let nature decide what to do with him. Our haul consisted
of 6 pistols, 3 rifles, an actual katana, some knives, our missing plate armor, handcuffs, the salt
team's stolen food, some sparse medical supplies, a few books, two sets of BDU's, firecrackers, a
can of pepperspray and box of Monopoly (yes, the board game.) We're dragging it back to town.
We're in mostly uncharted territory but I know how to get us back on the map, that's what I'm here
for. I took a moment to look back at what I've been through, combined with what we did.. What
has this place turned me in to? I have no guilt over killing people now, even if they were bandit
murderers. Even that guy guy from the first week. I didn't even bat an eye or even consider not
killing these guys when it was time. My conscious didn't even try to hold me back from shooting.
This world is full of vicious predators and it's turning me into one too. Even if I could go home, I
don't think I could live a normal life anymore. I'm a monster.
Journal Log: Day 122
I haven't felt like writing the last few days. We're still on the trail and back in known territory now.
Known doesn't mean safe though. One of the hunters got jumped by a Yowler and it ended in an
awkward situation. The Yowler tried taking his arm off and got it's teeth stuck his the tortolo armor
and.. well.. if the hunter moved, the Yowler would take another bite, if the Yowler pulled back, it'd
get shot, so they wrestled around a bit. It ended when the hunter jammed his arm down the Yowler's
throat and I guess he suffocated it. The hunter's pretty scratched up but nothing serious. Not much
else worth mentioning. We'll be back in town tomorrow and explain what happened.
Journal Log: Day 123
Back in town. Gave our report. We're all off duty for a week or so. Spent some time stiching my
clothes up. I brought several pairs with me, but they're starting to wear thin and get rips and tears,
stains that can''t be washed out and so on. I'm doing the best I can with them but I really suck at
sewing. What happens when I can't repair this anymore? We don't have wool producing animals.
Maybe someone will come up with some kind of thread by then, otherwise we'll all be naked or
in tortolo armor all day. Not a pretty sight. In other news, we have charcoal finally, and someones
already started smelting all the iron into ingots. They're already getting requests from nails to hinges
to screws. How the hell do you make screws? Injection molding? Anyways, asked about the whole
peanut experiment, but they're all hush hush about it. I figure either they don't want to announce
failure, or it's a success and are afraid of people stealing their crop for snacks. I'd really love some
peanut butter though.
***
Science Log
Well...I'll be damned.
The crops we layed down have taken off effectively like rockets. The peanuts we're getting aren't
just doing well the damn things are as long as my index finger. Not the whole pod. The god damned
nuts.
The 'taters are about the same way we dug one up the size of a goddamned football yesterday. I've
never seen anything like it. ITs like theres god damned steroids in the soil.
Something in the soil, has to be a microbe is helping the plants grow, some new symbiosis or
something and God damned if I don't make use of lifes little miracles thank you very much
Crop yields, The fuck?
Yeah, yeah Im looking at the numbers. the Earth stuff is really really really high...what the hell did
they do?
***
Journal Log: Day 124
Today while I was in the "Hunter and Exploration HQ", someone came in and started handing
out position badges for our tortolo armor that they apparently made in their spare time. I'm a bit
weirded out why someone felt the need to do this without being told to. It's made of some kind
of resin and looks to be painted with model paints. Explorers/navigators/cartographers got ones
that say Scout with a picture of binoculars and a compass. Hunters got ones that say Ranger with
pictures of guns and I think that's supposed to be a Yowler. Leadership thought it was funny. I think
they're going to make it official for the hell of it. I preferred the informality and besides, some of us
do both depending on what's needed. Anyways, some people put together some kind of hand pump
system and plan on draining out one of the lower tunnels in the outer town edge and see where it
goes. Well good luck with that. Speaking of inventiveness, one of the electrical engineers is trying
to build a HAM radio. Neat.
Journal Log: Day 125
I had another builder dream. This time a builder was speaking to me in the voice of Morgan
Freeman and was very insistent that I renewed my car insurgence. I don't even know. Anyways,
a scout group returned from those ruins that were being haunted by the winged dino/dragon/
nightmare. They managed to take it out after drawing it down with some bait, cleverly placed
rope and high powered rifles. They then explored the ruins some, found gear left behind by the
people that escaped that place and checked out what was described as an orchard. From the official
description, the trees are placed in even lines, but aren't the fruit bearing kind, or even the good
wood working kind. Maybe it was some kind of garden or reforestation project? They found more
tunnels and another dwarf bot, not much else. We might start using that area as a base camp for
further exploration in that direction, give some of the Outriders a place to relax and get properly fed
at. Once my week vacation is up, I'm going to take a crew north west to see about those other town
ruins I saw during the mining expedition.
Journal Log: Day 127
God damn it was cold last night. Certainly not enough to freeze water, but cold enough. It's a
bit chilly today, but not bad. I guess we have a cold front? I hope it doesn't get much worse.
Anyways, someone has used some of the metalworking and clay pots and fruits to make some kind
of Baghdad battery. It's basically a primitive voltaic cell. He said it's supposed to supplement the
waterwheel generator we have. His next project is a big windmill generator that can withstand the
crazy weather. Well good luck with that, if he pulls it off it'll be damn amazing. The wind here is
always blowing hard. In other news, I'm set for my expedition, we're leading tomorrow. I've got 2
other scouts, 2 hunte..rangers, a medic and a few science guys that thought it might be interesting.
Maybe we'll find an oopart. We are taking typical medium range gear and supplies with us, more or
less a light load. We had a few more breakouts of Blackeye. Luckily our MD had enough cure left
to treat them. I'm still having the Disney Filter issue. I'm used to it now though. Anyways, spending
my last night in town on a Shadowrun one shot. I'm playing a gunbunny.
Journal Log: Day 128
We're on the road again. We're going to rendezvous with a prospecting team at a mining spot and
the continue on west from there for about a day or so. Managed to get some new shoes from the
supply center, left behind by a casualty. I didn't ask what kind, I don't really want to know. They're
better then my old sneakers for this kind of travel. I also requisitioned a charged mp3 player.
They have a central music database off one of the small netbooks they can keep charged off the
waterwheel system. We all picked some from the list and it looks like the theme for this trip is..
Totally 80's. I'm okay with that. Of course we're not going to use it while traveling, just when set
up in camp while someone else is keeping watch, like right now. Gotta stay aware. Our meals
are packaged salted tortolo meat and the new and doubly improved breadmold, this time it's slow
cooked and mixed with some other local ingredients. It's still flavorless bullshit so I don't see the
point. At least the meat is good.
Journal Log: Day 129
Met up with the Prospecting crew. They say they found a mine to the east that may have copper
or tin. Good luck to them. We stayed a few hours and then headed on our way since we're making
such good time. We should see that new ruin in a day or so. One of our scientists mentioned that our
data storage back in town won't last forever and we're lucky it's lasted as long as it has in the damp
environment. He was suggesting we make a bunch of paper and write down all the lyrics and get a
musician to do the notation. Sounds interesting I suppose. On the other hand, as much as I hate to
lose any form of knowledge, do we really want our descendents to find the lyrics of Hollaback Girl?
Journal Log: Day 130
Fucking shit. In the early morning we walked right into a family of imps. We ended up in some
pitched running battle with them. One of our science guys twisted his ankle pretty bad on a root
and took a good beating before we finally chased them off. He can walk, but only with some help.
Lots of bruises and small cuts. The medic put some yowler slime on some of the wounds and now
he smells. I don't think he could be any more miserable. I'm pretty sure I'm to blame for this, I was
leading them, but I didn't even see any of the little fuckers until we were right on top of them. Fuck.
This has definitely slowed us down. I'm giving up mp3 rights for the next few days to make up for it
and I'm being extra fucking careful while leading. Can't ever let my guard down out here. Ever.
Journal Log: Day 133
We made it to the ruins around midday and set up camp in one of the remaining standing structures.
Seems stable enough. Found parts of a corpse, looks like something ate him. I don't recognize the
types of injuries. Looks like bite marks but without the typical yowler claws. Odd thing, the corpse
was nude, no gear. Makes me think he was part of a group that left. We gave the corpse a shallow
grave burial to get it out of our way for now. The hunters are poking around for anything that could
of made those wounds, but no sign yet. I scaled up the side of one of the still standing monoliths
to get a good look around. I left a rope tied to it for later; I'm going to scale up it at night and look
for camp fires or flashlights in the distance. One of the scientists found a square hole in the ground
they think held a dwarf. It's about the right size for one. We found other signs of brief habitation, a
campfire circle, some prepackaged food, broken glass and a few wrappers for hershey kisses. God I
miss chocolate. Took the wrappers, I'm sure someone has a use for foil. If I didn't know any better,
I'd say another scout team hit this place but no sign of our typical markers plus it's not on the map.
There's another group around, might be all dead by now. Tomorrow were' going to check the cave
system. We're pretty sure all the towns have a cave system under them, just have to find the cover
stone. If we're really lucky, it won't be flooded. If we're unlucky, it'll be full of Catachan devils.
Night 133 Update: Climbed up the monolith to look for light, found none but soon as I got on the
ground, I turned around and came face to face with what looked like a fucking wolf in the dark. I
put my light in it's face and it made a noise and took off. That was no fucking wolf, it's got forward
grabber arms of some kind and covered in feathery stuff. Big jaw. I bet that's what killed that guy. I
alerted the camp and we're putting out extra traps.
Alright, time to crash. Until tomorrow.
***
The Orchard
Its..not an orchard like we would understand it.
It is however a farm, the particular crop this place caters too is not what you would think either.
Listen, just be very quiet and listen for a few second and you can hear them in the background.
O you hear it? That very low buzzing sound? Its what they were growing here. Its an apiary which
means somewhere around here there is a hive. The builders must have set the place up to draw in
bees so they could harvest things like the insects and the honey mass they created.
I didn't realize it till last night actually, I saw sitting outside on watch when I saw one of the little
mammal looking aliens crawl into a tree and then run as fast as it could away, an angry cloud
chattering after him. When I inspected the hollow I found that sitting inside was a mass of that
gooey, waxy stuff we've seen in other cavities along with a few bugs.
Its rather brilliant really
Cultists
Ever run into builder worshipers? People are freaking nuts. I mean we've got a couple here and
there in Town but, they ain't like the ones out in the woods, hiding in the ruins.
Most of them are harmless. Babbling lunatics that make funny noises that they claim are the
language of the builders. But some...are a tad more feisty. They dress up in armor and grab the
nearest weapon and will fight you to their damn death. Claiming its the only way to prove they are
truly worthy to walk amongst the aliens...
God...they are terrible, frothing at the mouth savages that drink blood and will kill you in a
heartbeat. By now, I'm fairly certain there all thats left as far as survivors go.
Worse yet is the few scattered groups of them. They rarely work well together but when they
do...good god its terrible. They are fucking savages. Quick give me that bottle.
Anyways, Back to what I was trying to tell you. I've seen some out near the mountains, they take
people, invalids mostly. Injured in some form or another and well...you ever seen Jurassic Park?
Not the shitty third one. The first one.
Yeah, the books better. Shut up and listen. You know that scene where they put the goat out to lure
the T-Rex out? Got that image good and lodged into your brain?
Yeah, they take captives and this time the T-rex has wings...I found one of them hosting their 'Ritua'
it looked like something out of a fucking forty-kay novel. They dragged the poor bastard out to a
ritual area, carved his face up and left him there a bloody mewling mess as the damn thing dropped
out of the sky and had itself a nice little snack.
All the while they were sitting there whistling and cackling and 'praying' or some crazy bullshit.
JUST SAYIN' We adopt a policy of routing out and killing fucks like this? Not the guy telling the
story I mean cultists that are willing to carve people up and use them as bait for god knows what.
The Weapon Smith
Test firing the crossbow.
*TWANG*
test fire...mixed success. materials did not hold we did fire the bolt though. hmm...need to fix that
On the plus side. Re curve bow production is moving along smoothly. Arrows have been churned
out well and at the rate we're going we'll have a enough bows to arm most of the hunting parties as
well as enough arrows with good fletching.
I've gotta say the dwarves are making life far easier. they can't really do much in the way of carving
but hand one an axe(and stand way the fuck back) and tell it to take down a tree over yonder.
Fucking things will knock it down, limb it and drag it to where you want. I swear the things are
almost idiot proof.
I've also started looking into using the Yowler bits we have from kills. Most of these bones are..well
hard as fuck as anyone can tell you. The skull itself is quite useful and talk of turning them into
either a shield or breaking them up for things like pauldrons has been mentioned. The teeth are
very nice however and currently any man thats killed one has his own personal 'yowler' knife as a
commemoration token.
Also, spears made of 'dragon' bone have become something of a hot ticket. I traded some off to a
couple of the actors around here for a couple bottle of old world scotch. They said they needed them
for their shows, which I'm happy to oblige as well, fuck. They aren't even that sturdy, I mean I'd
never use one in a fight for sure.
Dwarves
Well, as strange as it may sound, people have begun to name, and decorate the dwarves...They don't
seem to mind this. In fact several seem to be enjoying this fact, responding actively to only their
names...
Speaking of which here comes Urist. Some people have dressed it up in of all things a very
rudimentary hat stitched from tortolo leather. with dangling spiky bits of bone. they claim that it
makes him(how they decided it was a he) more menacing....
damn it! fricking urist just walked off with my beer bottle for a vodka...damn robot
At this rate people'll be making beards for the damn things. which...would be amusing.
Anyways, we do know that they can remove and re attach their legs and arms, I wonder if we could
pop one off and study that part at least?
***
Journal Log: Day 134
Rough night, we kept hearing that wolf thing moving up to camp and then scampering off every
time we shined our lights around. No sign of it come daylight. The hunt..rangers spent most of
the day off looking for it. Now for something incredibly creepy. Our medic wandered out of
nowhere during our first meal break. He said he bumped into a fucking Builder and tried holding a
conversation with it. It gave him something, patted him on the head and then left. He then keeled
over, fainted. We all figured he got some bad breadmold except I've heard of this happening
elsewhere already and that he was holding a small 3x4 inch stone carving of the whole expedition
party. We all armed up and went looking for it. Found some odd tracks that led towards the woods
but stopped a few yards from the edge. Dug around looking for a trap door or anything, tried
calling out into the woods. Nothing. Fuck. Anyways, these ruins have been picked clean. We found
underground access and it was all collapsed. We're going to head back tomorrow taking a direct
route to town which should cut through some unknown territory. If I did my calculations right,
we'll pass through the so called "Nightmare woods" during the day and reach the safer foothills by
nightfall. No sign of that fucking wolf thing tonight, I guess the Rangers chased it off.
***
Never a Sunny Day
The 'nightmare woods' Are a unique area. The immense old growth trees have reached multiple
stories into the air. their canopies incredibly dense, crowding out competition on the floor of the
forest. The end result being that a vast stretch of the land near us is in fact relatively clear, and
perpetually ensconced in either twilight or darkness.
Thus, the ground cover is a mixture of parasitic plants, fungi, slime molds and numerous
other semi-plants. As you go higher light filters down more readily and creates an area where
more 'typical' plants grow upon their massive branches creating a sort of aerial forest. it is here that
many strange and currently undocumented animals live...
It should be noted that bio-luminescence is highly common on the forest floor, large for lack of
a better word, amphibians, live and thrive in the dark, wet areas. Large beasts, that thrive on the
fungal growth roam about, making eerie ghosts that lumber through the strange darkness.
Even the fungi glows. Several dozen varieties have been found to have a high candle output and
cultivation is being attempted in tunnelways as we speak.
Like the rather youthful wood lands, The great forest has its share of dangers, the fungal spores
have been found to be deadly to some an its believed that it was within this strange landscape that
first case of 'blackeye' was contracted. outside of this diseases such as a fungal growth that causes
the subjects lungs to fill with highly active spore producing mold, A slime mold that quite simply
covers the subject resulting in suffocation, and eventually the subject is eaten away by the mild
acids that it secretes.
alongside these rather mundane dangers are the 'devils' large salamander like creatures that live in
the upper portions of the trees, diving from their great heights and tackling prey with enough force
to simply plow them to the ground where they feast. Parasitic insects which will burrow into the
subject and begin to secrete paralytics that make the target incapacitated as it eats its way into the
chest cavity where it will grow to the size of a football, feasting on the organs and then bursting
forth as something not unlike a butterfly.
Beyond these there are rumors of..something in the woods. Many people that have entered have
explained that they continually hear a low sonorous cry that is not on record with any animal, often
followed by something with glowing markings moving bipedal in the darkness, standing taller than
a man...
Many claim these are wild builder or some relative to them, the presence of small carved figurines
does not help matters either. Of course numerous people simply remark that it is little more than
some people playing rather complicated pranks or trying to drive off outsiders.
It is believed that within this forest is another builder city, one possibly more massive than that
which we call home. Studies of bas reliefs that we believe to be maps of the area show what appears
to be a town or city located within the 'nightmare forest' But, attempts have been stifled by the
presence of such adverse conditions.
Even attempts to reach it through the tunnel networks have failed roots have breached the stone of
the passageways creating hundreds of meters of thick nigh impossible to penetrate barriers. which is
very surprising.
The recovery of OOPARTs, my particular groups specialty has led us to believe that we may never
find the City itself given the nature of the distribution. It maybe that the city has been forever
consumed, destroyed by the movement of time.
***
Journal Log: Day 135
Didn't quite make it to the foothills, but we're on the edge of the woods. Matt's twisted ankle isn't
slowing him down anymore, but he's still got a slight limp. So anyways, right as we were about
to light up our campfire, we saw light in the woods from another fire. I went all stealth recon over
there to check it out. There's a group of 3 people, 2 men, 1 woman set up around one of those power
armor things, just like the one one of the Outrider teams brought in. I heard that the local wildlife
tended to avoid them, and that seemed to be the case with this one too. I'm leaving most of my gear
at camp and am going to try and make contact. The others are going to give me cover. With any
luck I won't get shot
Journal Log: Day 136
Yeah, I got my ass captured at gunpoint. Got a closer look at the mech. They have it covered in
wood and crap, looks like a clumsy attempt at making it look like a 40K dread? My captives, 2
men, 1 woman look pretty rough and wearing clothes that don't quite fit them, they're all filthy as
hell. Introduced myself, told them where I was from and that I could take them to some kind of
civilization. They wanted no part of it, didn't want to leave their god. They were worshiping the
damn mech. It never powers up, never moves, just sits there and apparently that was enough to
convince these idiots it was a god. After I had given my introduction, they pretty much gave theirs
in the form of an ultimatum. Join them in worship or be sacrificed. Also I apparently wasn't the first
person to wander into their camp. My Ranger team popped through at that point. We have standing
orders about this kind of thing, straight from leadership. Typically it's the Outriders that come
across them, but any sacrifice happy group of savages has a kill on sight order on them. The rangers
put them down before they could pull out their weapons. My tortolo armor kept me from being
gutted as the last one tried taking someone out with his dieing breath. We cleaned the place up and
moved camp in, stripped the corpses and moved them well away from camp, let the yowlers get fat
off those instead of stalking us.
Journal Log, Day 137
The corpses we tossed out last night are gone already. No bones, just dragged off somewhere. We
picked through their belongings, got two pistols, a few lighters, some knives including one of those
big Rambo knives with the "survival kit" in the handle, ruined clothing, a hand crank radio and a
builder statue about 3 inches tall of the mech. Climbed all over the mech trying to figure out how to
get it to run. The science guys wouldn't let me near the one the Outriders brought in. Couldn't get
it to move, the inner cavity is not made for a human. After an hour we packed up and left. We had
a rather clear cut walk back across the foothills, we'll arrive in town tonight. Just entered mapped
land, nothing unusual to report.
Journal Log, day 138
We arrived back in town with first light, we all agreed to travel the night since we were in known
territory and near town. First thing of notice, those engineer guys built a windfarm across the top
of the largest buildings and monolith. Looks mostly wood and bone, but they were spinning pretty
fast when we came in. Informed HQ about the mech on the edge of the Nightmare woods, I think
they're sending a team out to bring it back. Updated maps, informed them about some new animal
out there. Apparently there were other reports of seeing something similar farther south too, but
with colorful tail plumage. We're calling them Scale Wolves for now and are to just keep out of
their way if we can. Some sad news around town, the posterboy for exercise died of a heart attack
while we were out. He was one of those 400lbs porkbeasts that decided to do his part and got in a
strict exercise regimen with some help. Last I hear, he was doing great, lost quite a lot of weight but
I guess his heart couldn't take it. His death scared some of the other terminal obese and some of the
self proclaimed psychs are trying to convince them to keep going. It's kind of sad. Anyways, with
the new power system with the windfarm, I finally could get my smartphone charged up, and while
I can't call anyone of course, I could play a few games and have my own dedicated mp3 player
instead of borrowing one from central supply. Fuck yeah KidneyThieves.
***
NOTICE FROM THE MANAGEMENT
-to those of you who are attending Michael Andrew's funeral tonight. Please refrain from bringing
any animals, torches, alcohol or dwarves.
- thank you.
Management
OOOPART: The Armors
The armor that was dragged to here from near the coastline has yet to move, BUT studying it
reveals several major clues to its nature. No weapon mounts, no internal weapons either. But, The
internal harnesses are surprisingly adjustable, we've managed to make them fit more easily to a
human frame though...only those of a rather tall frame.
The power supply remains a mystery though recently someone broke a stave while trying to drive
a night thief from his room. the stave did not break so much as come apart. It would appear it is a
two piece set, the greenish...rock is in fact able to fit into the socket of the Armor..which is very
interesting.
Recovery Team Log
Christ, ever dragged an armor? I was happy as hell they loaned me Gimly and Urist for this fucking
job.
Even then it took me a fucking day and a half of steering the things around, dragging off the god
damned wood, bones from god knows what and scraping the paint off. Damn science guys like their
armors all shined up.
From there I had to lash paracord to the dwarves, hop on the fucking armor and yell orders while
keeping my balance upon the goddamned thing.
Fucking science boys. they better give me a goddamned bottle for this one
Justification for the hunt of OOPARTS
OOPART retrieval is something of a must. Given the potential nature of most of these to be turned
towards devious means its been our goal to secure them and maintain a control over them.
The dwarves are a good example, though no one has figured it out yet and hopefully never will. Its
far too easy to theoretically weaponize them or possibly remove the 'quirk's each seems to bear with
them. An even more obvious example is the armors. We have found a way to adjust their harness
systems. Should one be able to activate them and pilot them...well...the results could be dire.
***
Journal Log: Day 139
It's kind of sombre out. Put on some music and walked around town today. Stopped by the
graveyard. We've got a limited population here. I figure we've got everyone out of the wilds that
we're going to find, our numbers aren't going to go up anymore, just down as we're slowly picked
off one by one by this hellhole. The only future we've got is one pregnant woman and a baby who's
mother died in birth. The future is not bright, not at the moment. Odd thing, our descendents are
never going to know what Earth was like. It's just going to be some myth or fairy tale to them, a
magical world of smog and technology where you could wander into the woods unarmed and have
a good chance of wandering back out unharmed. The builders were a warrior culture, we're going to
have to become the same to survive here. It's a niche that human nature will have no trouble sliding
into. On to something less miserable, the agriculture guys in conjuction with our wonderful chefs
have produced peanut butter. The color is off but damn it tastes good. I guess the plants took to the
soil.
Journal Log, Day 140
Did an impromptu trip today with a group up the south Aqueduct to scrub the damn thing out again.
It's not a long trip, up and back in a day. Found the damnedest thing while out there. While the
boys were giving section 43 a good scrub down, something shiny on the ground caught my eye. I
climbed down to check it out and what did I find. A chrome hubcap with a Mazda logo across the
corner. I was dumbstruck by this. Cars were too big to take through, so this means someone only
took the hubcaps? Why would anyone do that? Looked around but couldn't find anything else or
any tracks. The muck on the thing means it's been here for a few days. Cleaned it up and showed it
to the scrub team. They have no ideas either. This is a well traveled area by scout and hun..rangers.
Why do I feel like someone is screwing around with me. Whatever. Turned it in to central supply
as an oopart to see their reaction. It was hilarious, I think I confounded the poor girls. Informed
scout HQ, they're going to run a quick spiral search of the area with a few people between runs. you
know, in case someone smuggled a car on world somehow. Yeah, I can't stop laughing at that one.
Journal Log: Day 142
The retrieval team made it back with the second mecha. It barely fit through west gate. It's just
sitting there next to the first. It's kind of creepy. Felt lonely, got together with a lonely friend and
experimented. Didn't go as we thought, we decided we're never going to try again. ANYWAYS! No
word on our phantom Mazda. I've signed up for a salt run that's leaving in two days. They're using
the new and improved Mk4 wheels (now with traction!) on the salt carts. The trip is supposed to be
two weeks this time, the new carts can hold more so, we're moving more goods. I'm already packed
and ready even though we're not leaving until the day after tomorrow. My tomorrow plans are to do
fuckall and see where it takes me.
Journal Log: Day 143
So during breakfast, one of the mechs started moving. It took about 4 steps and powered down. By
then it had every Ranger in the city armed to the teeth and targeting it. Turns out the science guys
figured out it's power system, it uses these small glow rocks they're calling Motes. The ones they
used apparently didn't have a lot of power left in it. Pretty wild. Anyways, it's another chilly day.
Hung out at the actors guild and watched them put on a show. They were reenacting one of the
scenes from Deus Ex. Shit was cash. Spent the rest of the day practicing archery and hanging out
at Scout/Ranger HQ updating maps and gave a lecture to some new recruits. There are some new
rumors that Leadership is going to take off the breeding ban, letting volunteer women pick a mate
for impregnation. The rumors further say that Science and Rangers are the top picks because they're
the best and brightest. Soon as these rumors started going around, a whole wave of new recruits
started showing up from the general populace. Speaking of Leadership, they created a new division,
the Entertainment division consisting of the actor guilds, highly regarded gm's, musicians and
artists. They got to vote in their new representative today. It'll be nice to have all of them organized.
Journal Log: Day 144
First day on the salt run. We'll arrive on the coast in about 3-4 days depending on the weather.
We've got three novice scouts, me who is leading, 3 rangers, a medic, 2 science guys and the
muscle. 15 in total, a nice number. My smartphone is all charged up and we've got a good amount
of gear with us. We had a brief yowler sighting earlier but our group size probably discouraged
it. It'll most likely poke around camp tonight if it decides to follow us, otherwise we'll be in the
clear. One of the novice scouts probably caught it's attention, he's got no sense of stealth, just
crunching along through the leaves without a care in the world; he didn't even see the yowler. I hate
babysitting. They better not fall asleep during their watch or it's all our asses.
Journal Log: Day 148
We're on the coast. The trip here went without incident. The salt guys are getting set up and are
going to go into full production come sunrise. The only injury so far on this trip was one of the
novice scouts. Soon as we set up camp, he stripped and took off running for the sea, splashed in and
promptly sliced his foot open on something sharp down there, probably a speareel from the look
of the wound. Way to go champ. It looks like the other novices took their lesson from this. I do
miss swimming though. Sucks. Anyways, on the look out for any more boats. Between my sighting
and sightings from the other salt teams, there's someone with boat building skills around here.
Tomorrow I'm taking two scouts and a hunter and going on a two day walk up the beach northwards
to see if we spot any signs of habitation. The others should be okay, aside from the waters and the
occasional ramora-snake, the beach is pretty safe.
Journal Log: Day 149
Spent the whole day moving up the beach. Saw a few racing deer running around further inland. I
wonder if they're rideable? I have no horse riding experience, so I'll leave that to someone else to
figure out. Just before nightfall, we found a wood shack. The proportions are all wrong for it. The
door is very tall. Builder tall, but it doesn't match their construction style. Poked around looking for
anything left behind but nothing, not even a feather. It doesn't look like it was used in a long time.
We're staying the night in it, it's just large enough to hold all of us. Thing is, I could of sworn I was
out this far last time, I should of seen it but I guess not. It can't be newer then that can it?
Journal Log: Day 150
Woke up to find the scout on duty was asleep. Smacked him silly for it. Went outside to find the
shack was surrounded by tracks, looked to be speed deer. I don't think they're hostile. Oh who am
I kidding, everything on this world is hostile in some fucking way or another. Saw another boat
out on the horizon, tried flagging it down but it didn't respond. This one was bigger and had a sail.
Interesting. There's some kind of sea community around here somewhere, we just have to find it. So
far nothing else in this direction. We're camped out with the mountains in sight. Looks like there's a
path that goes farther north through them along the shore. Tomorrow we're heading back to the salt
camp, empty handed unfortunately. At least we got more map data.
Journal Log: Day 152
Made it back to camp early afternoon, we traveled part of the night. The salt team is doing fine.
We're going to pack it up in two days and make our way back if production continues at this pace.
Spent some time hanging out by the ocean making sure our salt workers weren't getting dragged
off to the great below. Thought I saw a ray like fish down there. The water is pretty clear and
such a nice color, and warm. I really wish I could go swimming. Anyways, I'm starting to pick up
a sunburn and the salt workers certainly are. One of the scouts is all wrapped up in his rain gear
mumbling about skin cancer. He'll be lucky to live long enough to get cancer. Hell, this place
probably will produce some kind of nightmare supercancer with teeth and shit. Ah well.
Journal Log: Day 153
Woke up to what I thought were bird chirping in the morning light. Nope, was catachan devils
doing mating calls. Fantastic. Spent most of the day with the rangers killing those little shits. The
rest of the day was hanging out on the beach under some shade. Two of my rangers build a sand
castle. I guess they were bored. It's big and well detailed. The sand here is good for silly things like
that. Took a photo with my smartphone. The batteries are starting to get low, I've got probably an
hours worth of charge on it. I'll have to ration it until we get back to town.
Journal Log: Day 154
Woke up this morning to find the novice scout on duty fell asleep. A different one, the one with
the messed up foot. Smacked him silly too. For fuck's sake, it's only a 4 hour shift. Anyways, one
of the science guys said he had a dream about Builders standing over him and poking him with
sticks. Then we go out to start the day and find a small 3 inch stone statue of a builder sitting on the
top of the sandcastle from yesterday. He's playing a fucking prank that ass, he must be. Probably
found that thing in his housing back in town. Anyways, I had planned for us to be returning today,
but our salt bags are not yet full, so one more day should do it. Mainly those not working the salt
production sat around telling amusing stories. Mine was about the Phantom Mazda haunting the
Aqueduct plains. Got some good laughs. Not much else worth mentioning other then I carved my
name on one of the beach trees. Figure I'd leave a marker here.
Journal Log: Day 156
Well, the rain stopped. I lost two journal pages because they got wet and became unreadable. At
least the salt is dry under the tarps. Halfway to town now, we'll arrive in two days. No sign of that
yowler we saw heading out. I guess he moved on or another group took care of him. The dwarves
don't like the mud but they're still making good time. My skin is starting to peel from the damn
sunburn. It looks horrible and of course, it burns like a son of a bitch. The constant overcast weather
and last few days of rain have helped some. Aloe. Too bad no one brought any, not something you'd
normally think to bring to be honest. The novice scout with the foot injury has been complaining
non stop. I'm making him walk, and he's bitching about it non stop. If you can't make it back to
civilization with a minor foot injury like that, then you may as well lie down and let the yowler eat
you and save you both the trouble. I'm such a bastard.
Journal Log: Day 158
Made it to town today. The salt is being processed as we speak. Looks like the storm a few days
ago blew down a few of the windmills, the engineers are working on reinforcing them. I guess
I can't get my phone recharged yet. Got called in to Scout/Ranger HQ for a meeting. Most of us
are between jobs right now, so our leader decided it would be a good time to discuss some things.
We're being given rank titles, make things a bit more "clean" and official and standardize our
equipment some. We don't want a novice leading around a bunch of pros that know better. Lower
ranks are assigned on a mission basis, so we won't have permanent underlings to each of us. I was
given the rank of Scout Captain, there are 19 others of that rank, and 25 Ranger Captains, that we
are equal rank to. Each job will have a captain from each class if possible. We discussed standard
gear an training to teach the novices. It's all experimental still, not sure if it's going to work out.
Our resident blacksmith has messed with the Builder swords to make them more usable to human
standards and a few people with sword training are going to be instructing all of us in our spare
time. Archery is a must as well, learning the recurve bows and of course gunmanship. The most
important skill, survival in the wilds. Even the best of us are still learning that one. I don't envy the
sob they get to teach the novices that skill set. This meeting went on most of the day and well into
the night. I kind of like it, we're getting organized. I've got a week off, I think I'm going to take up
some swordsmanship. Having a large blade might make those yowler nights a bit easier.
Journal Log: Day 159
God damn, my arms hurt. Went in for some sword training and damn it those things are tiresome to
swing around for any period of time, and we were using weighted wooden dummy swords to boot.
We did learn some great ways to disembowel a yowler mid pounce though, I just don't want to ever
have to be in the position to use it. I don't care how heavily armed you are, having a yowler pounce
at you is pants shittingly terrifying. The windfarm is back up and running, and so is my smartphone.
A mining group returned from the mountains loaded up with coal. Glorious coal. They found a
rich vein of it along with iron and gold. We don't need the gold so much at the moment though.
Leadership is dispatching a big team to build a better road out there. It's not going to be paved, but
it'll be flat, straight and less prone to flooding. I'd love to know how they're going to pull that off.
Along with this, the engineering guild is building some new mine carts, now with the wheel mk5
(Now with Spokes!). The plan is to set up a semi-permanent mining settlement up there and always
have a cart coming and going and switch out miners every two weeks. I'm not sure how they're
going to keep the miners happy. Maybe if we capture more doom cultists or bandits we can use
them and work them to death. No that wasn't serious..although it might be better then just killing
them on sight. Hmm.
Journal Log: Day 160
So my smartphone starts beeping today. Someone rigged up one of the laptops into an adhoc wifi
server and built an big antenna for it. We have instant messaging in town. Fuck yeah! Speaking
of communications, the guys building the HAM radio finished but can't make more then one due
to the parts. They haven't picked up anything but check every few days. Even the signal from out
west has been dead for a few weeks now. More sword training. It's like swinging around lead
weights. Except it's wood.. and possibly filled with lead. I don't know how she made these things.
In other news, some people brought in captured tortolo and plan on hitting them with some animal
husbandry skills to make a better domesticated breed. They're set up at the edge of town outside the
east gate. This is a real long term goal; we probably won't see the end result in our short life times
here.
***
Outriders log (hence forth Ranger...damn PC)
Well...Us outriders are now...rangers. Who the hell comes up with this stuff? I'm just a damn
jarhead they convinced to go running into god knows what, raid camps of doom cultists and do the
white knight crap.
Ah hell. At least it wasn't paladin. In the meantime, we've been dispatched to go check out well...we
really don't know. I guess they found some new ruins or some shit. Big old manor like place, has
like sixteen hectares of straight row cropped trees. The science guys want us to shake the place
down and knock out any loose crazies/monsters/surivivors.
Just another day as a Out-Ranger.
hooah?
Spirits to fortify your spirit!
This place was a hellhole... And what was the one thing someone really needed in a hellhole? The
answer is always the same: a drink.
Leaning back against the bar, he couldn't believe that his life had taken a turn like this. The woods
around town held untold horrors and dangers uncountable, with only the sturdy wall built by some
industrious engineer-types between wilderness and safety. Back on earth, he had been a student,
then a soldier, and then a glorified paper-pusher. But here? Here an old hobby had made him a very
popular man... You see, he could brew. Not just that vodka-like distillate that had become rather
popular as both a beverage and an accelerant, but a multitude of drinks.
He was a deft hand at carpentry, and rather good at fitting stone together... Some parts of the town's
wall sat upon foundations he had helped lay. A brief stint in the military after high school had given
him some skills in the wild and a good eye for marksmanship. But when the agricultural folks had
discovered those terrible potato-like things... well, that had been the first day he had smiled since
arriving in this death-ridden shitfest. Those little things were full of starch, and it didn't take a
genius to figure out what they would be good for.
The first batch had been something.... awful. The first sip might have stripped some enamel off his
teeth, but it was a learning experience. Now, he had worked most of the kinks out of the process.
From the dirt to the glass, it took about a month to make the really potent shit, distilling it a few
times to take away the bitter taste and make it something you could drink without too much of a
grimace. Some folks had started coming around the stills after the sun was down, and eventually he
had been forced to move it indoors as the crowds got to be a little hectic. Now, he had just opened
up what might be the first true drinking establishment in the town... Nothing fancy, and nothing that
he really spent much time at. After all, it's not like he could just be a barman. The whole fucking
planet seemed set on killing them all in a terrible and gruesome way... From the plague that had put
him up,blind, in the infirmary for nearly a week to those damn yowlers that made even a short trip
into the woods for potential ingredients a life-or-death prospect, this place was absolutely worse
than anywhere the damned army had sent him. So he still spent his days helping the construction
crews patch worn buildings and construct new structures around the ruins left by the builders. It was
hard work, and everyone always looked forward to a night off....
Like tonight. Tonight might be the very first night in months that he could relax. Those actors had
put together a three-act masterpiece about someone's old Vampire: the Masquerade campaign, and
it promised to be a good one. After that, it was drinks around the fire, and maybe some music if
someone brought out one of the charged netbooks. Shit like that almost made you feel like you were
home.
The Central Supply
I work central supply, and yeah. Its not a great job. Hell not even a good job. We're there to pick up
trash, give out newish stuff and maintain whatever we can.
Its the sort of work that everyone takes for granted and I can get that but, its not like back home.
We don't have computers for inventories hell, we don't have paper to waste either. Which is why we
have the Slab.
The Slab is a hunk of bare rock that we found. Flat as a pancake and bright white. guess is its a
piece of marble. Either way the slab, is where all the gear we have is inventoried. we mark out
whats what with various symbols that was picked a hell at the start, usually just broad categories.
But, its all done in charcoal markings layed out in a grid. The grid is the building we're in with the
Slab in the center. Where ever we have a symbol we do a dot X box to denote how much of what is
there.
Simple right?
***
Journal Log: Day 162
You'll never guess what I did today. That's right, swung around a fucking wooden weighted sword
for a few hours. One word. Calluses. Oh yeah. I stuck around HQ most of the day and spent some
time teaching novices about how to best wear their tortolo armor, then how to build and put out a
camp fire and then using a compass. I'm meeting up with that group again midnight to teach them
navigation by star. Not that I want them running around in the wilds in the pitch black. Even the
best rangers don't want to fuck around at night if they aren't absolutely certain the area's clear. I
have broken this rule a few times, I admit, but I try not to make a habit out of it. Anyways, my pen
appears to be running out of ink. I bartered for a new one earlier, traded a yowler tooth necklace for
one out of supply central. They took the old dry pen. I wonder if they can refill them. How to you
make ink anyways? Are we all going to be writing with ink well and quill by next year?
Journal Log: Day 163
It's storming out, heavy winds, lightning, horizontal rain, the works. Sword practice was called off,
so I grabbed a bunch of novices and a rain coat and made them run circles around town. Why would
I do this? Because it rains out in the wilds too. A lot. Besides, a few of them could use the washing
(including me.) I was thinking that it might be neat to get everyone and hold some wargames in
some of the unused parts of town, but we're not really a military or policing organization that would
need that kind of training. Sure we run into the occasional insane cultist or bandit, but we're still
hunters and explorers when it comes down to it. At least we are at the moment. It occurs to me that
we're the only armed forces this town has. Anyways, I'm going to get to sleep and pretend I didn't
just see one of the windmill blades fly off and imbed itself in the outter wall.
Journal Log: Day 164
So apparently we're being taught German two handed sword fencing. It took up most of the day and
my arms feel it. I'm back on task tomorrow and will be taking a ranger team out to the mines where
they're setting up the semi permanent prospecting camp. We've got first guard duty. Normally
this would be a Ranger led mission, but I'm taking a few novice scouts and we're going to do a
thorough check of the area, three days eastward and see what we find. In other news, mass media
piracy abound, mp3 trading all over the in town wifi network. What ever shall we do? There's also a
surprising amounts of cam whore porn. I'm really not surprised.
Journal Log: Day 165
We followed the new road the engineering guild put in. Where did they get the gravel? This is a lot
nicer then what I was expecting. Did they get their dwarves to crush rocks all day or something?
It even has drainage along the sides. We're currently set up camp in a nice clearing they left on
the side of the valley road. We'll be at the prospecting camp by tomorrow afternoon. We could
make it tonight, but I don't want to lead this many novices through the dark. My team consists of 5
rangers with a ranger captain, 2 are novices, Myself, three scout novices, a geologist, a medic and
an astronomer who wanted a higher place to mark down the stars. I made damn sure no one had a
hang glider with them this time. It's a bit chilly out tonight. It occurs to me, I'm going to run out of
paper eventually. What then? What happens when we all run out of paper? Can we make more?
Did the builders use paper or did they just carve everything to stone? As fancy as it would be to
have this journal become a historical document, our paper is acidic and would probably eat the ink
in a lifetime. I guess this isn't a problem for me to solve. I'm sure the science guys already have
considered this.
Journal Log: Day 166
Arrived at the Prospector camp. It's set up near the mine entrance and consists of one completed
bunk house and two other buildings still being put together by the construction team. I
complimented them on their road. The rangers went hunting for some food and the rest of us
pitched in and helped put together the buildings. The ranger team already stationed here has packed
up and is ready to head back to town in the morning. Their leader says he can make it in one day.
Good luck to that. This place is primitive at the moment, but the winds are strong, if they have the
parts, they could probably put a wind farm up here. I wonder if someone could also build some
kind of cantenna and get in town wifi signals. Probably not, not without relays of some kind, and
I don't think we can do that yet. Ham Radio's out, since they've only been able to build one. That
would of been ideal. We'll need to work out some kind of practical long range communication for
the field. Sending lone messengers is a good way to feed the yowlers and sending teams is a waste
of resources.
Journal Log: Day 167
Got to watch the miners start their morning shift and work their asses off. It's a good thing they
have a few dwarves to assist. I headed off east with three of my novices. We're not taking any
rangers or the medic with us. We're going to travel fast and this is a good trial by fire for them
anyways. They should know some limited medical treatment for broken bones and the like already
from their beginner training. The mountains are kind of nice. I'm used to flat terrain and lots of
oceans, no mountains in Florida. Adaption is the game. That's what's going to keep us alive on this
hell hole. Our ability to adapt. We made good time today. Didn't see anything out of the ordinary or
worth mentioning outside of a small river we had to cross. It was shallow, no problems with that.
We've set up camp at the moment under some cover, the novices are splitting up the watch. I told
them they get to slap whoever falls asleep on the job.
Journal Log: Day 168
Made crazy time today, pretty much ran the entire day with a few breaks here and there. I've got to
be in the best shape I've been in my entire life. The novices did pretty well keeping up. We've set up
camp at another river. This one may be too deep to cross, and I don't trust these waters. We're going
to go deeper into the mountains tomorrow and see if we can't go around. Oddly, we've seen very
little animal life around. They must not like this region. Or we're in something big's territory and we
just haven't run into it.
Journal Log: Day 169
We went deeper into the mountains but didn't find a way to cross the river short of plunging in. No
thanks. No caves behind the waterfall. Isn't there always supposed to be a secret cave behind the
waterfall? Oh tvtropes, you failed me yet again. On to more interesting things. I think I see what
looks like a castle or fort high up. I'm going to bee line it for there in the morning. We're supposed
to be heading back now but I think this is more important. I left ground markers pointing our
direction at the last and this camp, so if we go missing, someone will know where we went.
Journal Log: Day 170
Well, we're not there yet. Ran into some problems involving a gorge and how to cross it. There
wasn't an obvious way across, so we climbed down the canyon wall, which luckily wasn't near
vertical. Spent a few more hours cutting a tree and using it to cross the rapids and then climbed back
up. By the time we reached the top, it was nightfall. We have enough rations for one more meal.
We'll do without tonight. We did refill our canteens with river water though. No filters outside a slip
of silk.. but... well we'll do.
Journal Log: Day 171
We made it to the fortress. It's huge. Definitely builder made. The eastern wall is collapsed from
what looks like an old landslide. The main structure seems to be undamaged. We spent the whole
day and most of the night exploring the place. We chased out or killed a few minor pests. Tried
eating them for dinner but they tasted terrible. This place is a work of art. I mean, it's a military
fortress, but the inner walls are carved in one continuous battle scene. It's amazing. It starts at the
ground entrance door and ends at the roof balcony door. Unfortunately, this place is completely
abandoned. No weapon cache, no furniture outside of a few large stone chairs and tables. We
mapped the place out and we're going to look for ground tunnels tomorrow. There are always
tunnels. There is a river we think runs in to the rapids to the north and wrapping around the west
wall. We drew fresh water there.
Journal Log: Day 172
We found tunnel access leading from a hidden basement in the lower central room. Banged around
for awhile on the ground with sticks until we found it. The basement had weapon racks, but they
were empty. There was also a tunnel that was caved in. No carvings down here except these
scratches near the exit stairs. Some kind of builder graffiti? Looks like builder script. No idea what
it means. We did another once over of the fort and decided to stay the night again. We're setting out
in the morning come first light. We ate the last of our rations. Some kind of new breadmold mixture
with new peanut flavoring. Still has no taste for me. Is it that hard to add flavor to this shit? Christ
almighty. It's kind of creepy here. It's almost dead silent. No sounds of animals, even the river
outside is quiet. Just the sound of the wind playing off the tower and walls. I feel very alone here.
We all do.
Journal Log: Day 173
I don't remember what I was dreaming, but I nearly tore the throat out of the novice that woke me. I
think he pissed himself. Said I had the look of a pissed off yowler about me. This place, this fucking
world. Anyways, we found a trail leading from the fort heading south west, in the right direction.
Parts of it are completely washed out or buried but we managed. Things were going well until we
came to another part of that canyon. There's some kind of bridge going over it here, but the middle
of the bridge is gone and the canyon walls are vertical. The bridge is done up in builder style, all
stone with statues at the ends. Looks like statues of the builders building the bridge. We spent some
time trying to figure out how to cross it when one of the novices pulled out his rope and after a
few attempts managed a ridiculously long throw and looped one of the statues on the other side.
We tied our end to another statue and shimmied across. We were making good time until we saw
it in the sky. Another of those two faced dragon things flapping around. We took cover under an
outcropping and have been here since. We're setting up camp and will continue with this tomorrow.
With any luck the beast will be gone in the morning. If not, we're going to have to try and take it
down. Good times.
Journal Log: Day 174
Well, The beast is still around, perching here and there and then circling in the air. I don't think
it's seen us but it's looking for prey. We have to take it out if we want to make it back to the
prospecting camp. One of the novices says it's been named the rapedactyl by some other guys.
Fucking fantastic. We only each have a pistol and a few knives, no spears this time and none of us
have yet passed sword training so no blade. We used our rope to cross the bridge and had to leave
that behind. We must be out of our fucking minds. If we survive this, I'll update come nightfall.
Journal Log: Day 174 Part 2
We're all alive. The plan was that I was going to draw it down and we'd all shoot the bitch. So I go
out, and as expected it circles and divebombs. I pop off a few shots, the novices pop off a few shots.
It got injured and confused and crashed into a rock wall. These fuckers are fast, because next thing
I know I'm missing half my armor, my shirt is gone and I'm bleeding. It also managed to bite into
a novice before we displaced it's brain with bullets. Now we're out of ammo. I've got claw marks
all over me, nothing major, the armor took most of the brunt, but it's in shredded pieces now. My
wounds were superficial and I bandaged them up. Had to pry the things head off the novice. His
armor also saved his ass, but he's got some gashes. Cleaned them up with some vodka and yowler
slime from the med kits. The medic at camp will have to take a better look at it. We grabed a few
trophies, claws and teeth, and moved on We're camped up on the path. I figure we should be a day
from the prospecting camp, but I'm not sure where we're going to emerge from.
Journal Log: Day 175
That fucker shot me. So the path ends apparently at the old compass monolith I mapped out a
few trips back. The trail is virtually invisible from old rockslides and overgrowth at that point,
so I can see why I missed it. So it's dark and we're coming out of the mountain wilderness near
the prospecting camp when one of the ranger novices on guard duty flips the fuck out at our
approaching noise and blindfires his entire magazine in our direction. One of my novices gets hit,
I get hit, another novice gets a bullet lodged in his fucking cellphone. It's like fucking x-com but in
real life. So I'm laid up now with a hole in my chest. The other wounded novice is laid up nearby,
he got hit in the thigh. The medic seems to think we'll be okay, but we both lost a lot of blood. We
don't exactly have plasma packs sitting around. We won't be going anywhere soon. This pisses
me off more then the rapedactyl attack. They're probably going to drum the asshole out of the
organization. They already took him off the guard rotation and took away his firearm.
Journal Log: Day 177
We're doing well enough that we're being loaded on the coal cart and taking a ride back to town.
I hate being laid up like this. I left one scout behind and am taking the one who seemingly came
out of all this with no injury or loss because he must be some kind of fucking good luck charm.
We should be back in town in a day and a half, and then we're at the mercy of our brilliant MD.
Unfortunately, we're being led by our disgraced ranger novice. The ranger captain didn't want
anything to do with him and is sending him back. I've got my eye on him. He can probably feel
my judgmental eyes on his back. Spent most of the day finalizing my map from our little mountain
adventure. If we can fix that bridge, the fort might be useable at some point. But for what? It's not
like we'll be in a military campaign. Who would be stupid enough to push armies around at a time
like this?
Journal Log: Day 179
Arrived in town around sunrise. The dwarves really love that new road. Got a good checkup from
the doc, got bandages changed, wounds recleaned, restiched. Poked and prodded. I've been set
loose, but I'm not to stress myself, to keep the wound from opening. Hung out at HQ updating
them about the mountain fort and our detailed descriptions. Leadership took a keen interest in it.
More news, another group wandered into town, about 20 of them, all clean and fresh saying they
just arrived. We've got patrol groups out everywhere looking for more. Hung around watching
leadership try explaining all that's happened so far to the newbies. They seemed excited with the
prospect of adventure. They don't get it, they don't realize half their numbers are going to be dead
in a month. Most of their stuff was requisitioned to Central Supply and everyone split up based on
their talent to the guilds and organizations. We got two recruits, one's airforce search and rescue and
the other some crazy militiaman with a taste for Rifts. No one plays Rifts.
Journal Log: Day 180
I've been here about half a year, and I'm still alive. I've certainly changed, I've become a monster to
fight against the monsters that would do me in, but I've survived and flourished. Had a friend over
most of the day; reminisced about Earth, friend and family we'll never see again. We both fell to
tears a few times, had some good laughs. Finished off a bottle of first gen whiskey we picked up
from the actors guild. Odd flavor but it does the job. Spent the rest of the day sleeping it off. Joining
an Eberron game in a few minutes. We're doing air pirates. Sounds fun.
Journal Log: Day 181
Some more newbies arrived. Hope they like xenoadaptive dysentery, because that's what their next
few weeks are going to be all about. Anyways, Leadership has decided our little town here needs a
name. We're all to give suggestions and then we'll vote on them in a few days. I'm going to suggest
Neverwinter out of fucking spite. Anyways, spent most of the day in Scout/Ranger HQ puttering
around between teaching novices new things that won't break open my injury. Map skills, how to
set and break camp, fishing, dwarf rangling. The usual. Had a run-in with some guy wanting to buy
up any non game books I had, said he and a few others were trying to centralize our knowledge
base. Interesting idea, unfortunately I had none with me. It's not official or anything, so they're
bartering for what they can get. Makes me wonder though. What will our descendents think of all of
this? Our tech isn't going to last for long, will it be thought of as magic by our children's children?
Being able to photo something, play music or games or communicate instantly, create huge
databases of information be nothing more then a fantasy myth to them, a magic of ye olden times? I
am disturbed. We're going to be the most advanced generation of this world for a long time. It only
goes down hill from here.
Journal Log: Day 182
Watched a fistfight in town square. A few newbies arrived and immediately started shit up with
Leadership. They didn't want to follow our rules, tried pulling some might is right bullshit with
what weapons they had and got a good ass beating by some off duty rangers. They are currently
disarmed, split up and under watch. Another group arrived with someone who had presence of mind
to bring a whole crap load of plant seeds. The agriculture boys are going to love that. She wanted to
go join them right away, but baby steps. It's good to see we're getting people willing to jump right
in though. On the other side of the spectrum, someone arrived with 200lbs of anime dvd's. What
was he planning on playing them on? At least they make good mirrors. The sudden influx of people
made me realize that we're arriving in waves. Considering that it's 4chan that was being brought
here and this is tg, where are all the other people, we only have a few hundred here, should be a few
thousand or more. I guess I was with the first wave, and this is.. probably the second or third wave?
It's hard to tell. In other news, I got back to my place to find a big tom cat sniffing around. It took
off soon as I got there. I guess we have cats in town now. no dogs yet though. I wonder if we can
successfully introduce Earth animals.
Journal Log: Day 183
I wonder how many days there are in a year for this planet. Gravity seems Earth normal, weather
is kind of severe at times but we've had a pretty mild winter/cold season. I'm sure someone is
keeping track of all of this. The doc checked up on my wounds, he said it's healing well, no sign
of infection. He looks over worked. I hope he's getting enough sleep. While I was in, our pregnant
girl was in for a check up. She's looking very big and round. Her surviving birthing is pretty much
determining our future here. If the women all die producing the next generation, we're fucked.
Things around town are kind of hectic. The salt team arrived at the same time as the coal shipment.
No one knows who takes priority. The road construction team is back and they are now talking
about building a road to the sea complete with permanent camp set up for the salt teams to use and
possibly be a launching point for exploration by boat. Best of luck to them. I wouldn't mind some
boating around. So apparently someone brought several cats with them because of dwarf fortress.
They do seem to be keeping the night-thieves away at least.
Journal Log: Day 184
Since I'm injured and recovering, but able to move about, I've been assigned guard duty at Central
Supply. With all the new people showing up, we don't need anyone trying to steal anything.
Apparently just having an armed scout hanging around behind the counter has been enough to
discourage a few people from making petty requests. I helped them out a bit here and there where
I could. To save paper, they have this huge fucking slab of rock, some chalk or coal, and they have
some sort of home made record keeping method of such complexity that I haven't a clue what any
of the symbols mean. They seem to like it that way. There is quite a stock room back here. A lot of
it is stuff recovered from the dead or useless gear turned in by arrivals. Found the Mazda hubcap.
It's hanging on the wall. Parts of a stereo entertainment system that wasn't used to build the ham
radio I guess, spare wiimotes? A crap load of semi-sorted cd's and dvd's. Mostly movies and anime.
Clothes, shoes, jewelry, spare phones. As a scout, I really appreciate what these people do here,
they keep us all supplied for each job, from mission critical gear to entertainment. It's pretty good
for them too, well aside from all the work and keeping track of everything. They have a direct ear
with the Leadership.
***
The Newbie
new arrivals...we. these people, they don't look quite like us.
They're lean, savage looking, living in these ruins. I mean what the hell is wrong with them? they
act like this is NORMAL I mean what the fuck...
We show up they take our stuff, tell us where to go all smiles and..dirt god they are dirty but they're
lean, muscular hell most of the girls here are pretty fit really. Maybe I could get used to this.
The Innkeeper
goddamn newcomers, They ain't nothing but trouble half the time.
Had a couple of fellas stumble in here last night, now. Yes, I run a hostel like joint, give some
entertainers guild a free bed to sleep in if they do a show but I ain't in it for free. These assholes
came in demanding I give them everything and were waving around Fucking PAINTBALL guns.
Of course I promptly leveled a composite material crossbow at them and toll the dumb fucks if they
want to start shit, they better be ready to finish it.
hehe, never seen two big guys run so fast.
***
Journal Log: Day 188
So today we all voted on the new town name. They trimmed the list down to names repeated more
then once in the initial vote. Even the newbies that just arrived got a vote. I picked Vivec because
I'm an asshole. Spent a good part of the day talking to the newbies about the horrors of the wilds
and all the terrible shit that has been introduced in to their lives. Monstrous animals everywhere,
that pain they're going to feel for months on end while they adapt to the food and water here and of
course Black Eye. A few of them got a little mouthy and got slapped in return. I can pretty much tell
which ones are going to die before the year is out and which are going to be productive members
of society. Such is life on this hellhole. Anyways, something less miserable. A few scout teams
popped in today. They were checking out the tunnels the engineering guild drained and putting up
support beams. They discovered a few new ruins out in the wilds we hadn't discovered. They're
being marked for expedition soon as enough people are back.
Journal Log: Day 189
Welcome to the wonderful city of Koganusan. I think that's how it's spelled. Fuck if I know how it's
pronounced. Everyone seems to say it slightly different. At least Rivendell didn't win. Got another
checkup. The doc says I should be okay for some minor physical activity. Yes, that means back
to swinging the wooden sword around. I missed quit a bit and am really behind in the class, but
I'll catch up. fuck if it still feels like I'm swinging around a barbell set. What did she weigh this
thing down with anyways? Hung around HQ a bit. The next Salt team they're sending will include
some biologists to check to see if the marine life can produce any form of ink or dyes. Hope they
got gloves. The road building team left several days ago so.. depending on their speed.. they're
probably a quarter of the way there? Less so if they get caught up by the sudden appearance of
needy newbies. Wouldn't that be a bitch? Speaking of the new arrivals, some of them are starting to
call us Ferals. Maybe they're right. I hope they realize they'll be like us in a few months. Or dead.
One of those. A terrible tragedy struck today. My shaving razor is too dull to use now. I turned it
in to Central Supply as they requested. Maybe they can get the blacksmiths to recycle them. Now I
have to learn to shave with a knife without cutting myself. Great. I hate having a beard, it itches like
hell and gets all kinds of crap stuck in it. Speaking of that, I could use a haircut. We really need a
barber with training around here.
***
Outriders...Rangers...whatever
Well, looks like i've got a job again. Beats playing mall cop around town at least. Word is there are
more people popping up again. hell if I know from where though. They just keep stumbling out the
woods acting like we're some sort of primitives. dumb bastards, hope they learn themselves fast
enough.
Got a new squad, mk. two tortolo armor(now with less chafing!) and even one of the new
crossbows(now with less misfire!). And yes, those are engraved on each piece.
Either way word from on high is that we're running a fourteen mile transect to a nearby site. which
means a straight goddamned line through whatever's in our way. From there we take off at a right
angle to it and head to the coast. Again, in a straight line.
I swear they act like we can't think for ourselves...
Report from the field, We found roughly a dozen new comers, all of them we're as clean as can be.
Scared out of their wits and wearing clothes I haven't seen in months. When they saw us I think
they were scared...the idea that other humans would be scared of us its something that I can't get
over.
We've sent them back post haste. Dumb bastards tried threatening me while there was a yowler
about. It took us killing the fucker to prove to them we were not the guys they wanted to fight.
Anyways half way to rendezvous with the Science team at ruin B. we're going to have skirt the
nightmare forest by the looks of things.
Till then, Hooah, oorah and godspeed...
oh...oh god.
We reached the site...and dear god. I've seen some fucked up shit but this is just..
*retching sound*
God...they're all dead. It wasn't any fucking animal. Animals don't fucking PRAISE MOOT in
blood and shit all over the walls. Christ, half these poor bastards..good god, they're all over the
place they fucking tore them limb from limb, lit them on fire...hell even ate them. How the hell
haven't we found these sick fucks? Six people dead...I mean...six casualties.
Requesting the biggest goddamned show of force you can muster. I am not letting this go
unanswered. Outrider patrol 2 is requesting immediate reinforcement. Muster as many troops as you
can gather and spare. I'm sending this dwarf with my smartphone. Its an audio recording.
Old mclintock is the more reliable dwarf we have for this sort of work. I repeat. Send as many
people as you can spare.
Farming Log
So, the supply guys brought us our own Slab of rock today...I don't get why they just did. Said it
was for the sake of knowing what was growing in what field or something. Either way its now
sitting in the main tool shed.
Some of the 'aggies' are looking it over, pondering how to make a damn map of the crop fields and
are slowly working it out while they draw scribbles all over the damn hunk of rock. Meanwhile I
get to try and figure out how to keep tortolo in their damn pens. For an animal that looks so dopey
the bastards are hard to pen. Hell I've tried stone walls and those MAY work.
In other news went to the doctors today, turns out that rash was just sunburn...what? around here
you've gotta be jumpy. Oh, they also have a slab. I think its something to check in and check out
patients or something.
no, look erase that. you're too far to the right.
ugh, damn it now its too far left. Christ man you've got a ruler. USE it. I swear its just a damn grid
you're making for christs sake.
A Newguy's Log
Day 1
well here I am in the middle of fucking nowhere writing what I can before I lose enough light to
see. well I started near some hills or mountains or something so I went towards them, but seriously
all this shit I brought was really heavy, but at least I came prepared.
A spare set of every clothes, a couple of rat-packs (each one is good for a day of food but you can
stretch it to 2 days if your desperate), enough iodine to purify 100 litres of water, a couple of tins of
spam, a bunch of kitchen stuff, sleeping bag, enough over the counter drugs to kill myself, a hatchet
and a sack of fucking potatoes. And I forgot to bring a fucking tent!
so I'm heading up into the hills to find a cave or something to camp in. hopefully I'll spot another
camp or something in the night.
also: fuck me rat packs have more water purification tablets, and I also forgot to bring any fucking
water!
A Newguy's Log, cont.
Day 2, morning
The night was eventful, I think I saw another camp in the distance set up in another cave to far to go
at night especially lugging these fucking potatoes. But two guys turned up at night, one was a pretty
cool guy from Toronto called Jim with a hunting rifle and a bunch of ammo and water, So we split
the dehydrated stuff from the rat pack and talked about random shit for hours, then the other guy
turned up.
Christ was he an aspie, he was a fat fuck too. He had brought a laptop that was already out of
batteries and wouldn't shut the fuck up about how it was so unfair and cold and how the wildlife
was out to get him, I seriously didn't believe him till I hear this thing that sounded like some evil big
cat or something. On the plus side he shut up at that point.
Anyway we're heading off towards that camp I saw last night if we're lucky we'll find some more
people I hope whatever we heard last nights eats fatty first.
A Newguy's Log, cont.
Day 2?, night
I really lucked out, we wander over to that other camp and it turns out it's a permanent one, but the
locals looked messed up. They were wary of us at first but we managed to get on well enough, well
me and Jim did, fucking aspie.
So it turns out some of the guys have been here for about six months! And this is just a mining
camp for a proper sized town a couple of days walk away, the next cart of stuff leaves tomorrow so
we are gonna tag along.
Me and Jim finished off the first rat pack earlier today so I fried up the spam for everyone there,
that really made us friends cos the stuff they had to eat sucked. The aspie asked for seconds and
whined when he didn't get any more, greedy pig.
A Newguy's Log, cont.
Day 190 (4 for me), night
The aspie died last night, something attacked the cart and mauled the fuck out of him before it was
put down, I didn't get a good look at it when it was alive and I kinda spent the whole fight beating
it around what I thought was it's head with a frying pan. One of the other guys told me it was a
yowler. I didn't sleep that night.
When we got into town we were told to go to Central Supply where they took away half our stuff, I
think we may of got off lightly when I handed over the sack of potatoes though. And the drugs, and
the water purification stuff.
And then we got a crash course on what to expect, that Black Eye shit sound like a fucking terrible
way to go and yowlers are apparently not the worst thing here, I got pretty good survival skills
and Jim refuses to give up his gun so it looks like we might try to join the scouts or rangers or
something.
And I never did know what guy was called, shame really.
Inspection of anomaly found in field B12
alright, First off. subject is biological...I think.
Six to seven feet long three to four feet wide cylindrical...strong case like material. Weight
is...roughly three hundred pounds. Was first found by one, Elliot macadams while working field Bone, two.
Beginning incision...and alright. Scalpel is able to scratch. Switching to more direct means. Bring in
the chisel.
*several whacking sounds*
Cracks have formed. Removing pieces now and....oh. Subject is incredibly foul smelling. material
is hard and slightly flexible could not take severe focused trauma. hand me that ladle. Removing a
rather noxious black fluid. And. hold on. Organism inside...
*a loud cracking sound and a series of splashes followed by dripping*
Completely broken what I now believe to be some form of Avestiation cocoon. Subject looks
vaguely salamander like, six legs long tail...boney...tip...skull like face...
Oh hell.
Alright, Regained composure proceeding to remove specimen from..specimen. The animal must
be pushing into the two hundred pound range. Used Dr. Urist to move the subject to a different
table. It would seem it is dead. Possibly from shock of being hauled out of the cocoon or some other
environmental factor. I've gathered as much ichor as I could for future use.
the yowler, on closer inspection seems to be something of a pupae. More serpentine than...yowlerlike? The ribs are shorter than they should be and the bony tail and face plate are in fact upon closer
inspection a tissue rich with blood vessels, most likely similar to velvet stage deer antlers which
allow for their development. Heart is also smaller as are lungs, diet seems to consist of
*gagging sounds*
small animals, usually whole. Must have needed the calcium to fuel the bone growth...
On Cats...
Cats...they are EVERYWHERE. Seriously I didn't realize how many people must have brought the
fucking things. I turn my head and theres a big old tom staring me in the face.
If it wasn't for the fact they adore chasing night thieves and dragon rats out. I'd call them a nuisance.
Hell I give them credit really, I didn't think anything from earth could really survive here but the
damn cats and even the plants we have are thriving
***
Journal Log: Day 190
More newbies. Some came in with the coal escort team. From the blood splatter, I'd say they got
attacked. Anyways, more sword shit, then dicked around HQ. Managed to trade for an unused
razor with some rapedactyl parts. Smooth as silk. I'll have to keep better care of this one. HQ is
officialy putting some of the novice scouts and rangers on patrol of the city due to our increased
population. Keeping the peace should be a nice change from having to worry about being eaten
constantly. Speaking of HQ, they decided I've been on my ass long enough and are sending me out
to map the southern coast from the soon to be implemented salt camp. I'm taking a standard team,
3 novice scouts, 2 rangers, a medic and whatever scientists feels like coming. I got a new set of
tortolo armor.. the mk2? I can't really tell the difference. We're set to go out tomorrow. We'll meet
up with the road construction crew and follow them in, which will add a few days to the travel plan,
but we'll be able to see how these guys actually are making these roads so well. I'm going down
to town square to watch an actors guild presentation. Something about Baulders Gate. Should be
inter..Looks like one of the ranger assigned dwarves just ran past with a cellphone taped to it. What
the hell?
***
Outrider Log, cont.
FUCK THIS.
Seriously, they've got us in a fucking tight spot. has to be ten of the bastards, all of them are
dressed in..god damn. I don't even know. human skin? Animal hides, they've got fucking chaos
symbols...skulls and moot cats all over them and on banners.
There's one guy though...rides on a pallet decked with human skulls. he keeps shouting for us to
come out and stop being cowards. If it wasn't for the bastard wearing what looks like goddamned
plate armor I'd show him what a fucking rapedactyl bone bolt to the chest feels like. we've been
hiding out in the central tower. All the builders have the fucking things I swear it was fetish or some
shit. thanks to that fact, and there only being one way in or out. We've held them off. But christ,
at the rate they are hammering on that damn door we may not have much longer. We' can't even
leave the tunnel way is on the other side of the courtyard, with them in the middle. just sitting there
screaming bloody murder, killing whatever wanders too close, tearing it apart.
christ I think even the yowlers are scared of these sons of bitches.
Well...there goes that idea, I tossed a fucking bottle of first run vodka, ala molotov. hit one guy in
the head, and shattered...they just ate the fucker after he was extra crispy...and waved at me.
I'm going to kill these bastards. Their fucking 'king' chopped his buddies head off and stuck it on
the litter they carry his ass on. I think they know we're stuck here, christ are they just going to wait
us out? I pray to god that dwarf got back to town...if not well I'll be finding myself a comfy spot
around that chair I guess
***
Journal Log: Night 190
HQ called every Scout and Ranger in town for an emergency meeting. That dwarf with the smart
phone was a message. I'm surprised the thing made it here and didn't just wander off into the wilds.
The phone had an audio message and some photos. Grim photos. Really fucking grim photos. It
figures that even here, man can out monster the monsters. HQ is sending 12 rangers and 6 scouts,
2 medics and loading them all to bare. Two of the rangers were from my seaside exploration plan.
I wanted to go, but they said the scouts they were sending out knew the areas better.. and weren't
injured. The groups are leaving immediately and taking the tunnel system to slip in behind them.
Two of the rangers in charge were issued assault rifles. I didn't know we even had assault rifles. The
rest of us are seeing them off. Hauling ass down the tunnels, they should reach the destination in.. a
day, day and a half. I hope that's going to be enough time. Also looks like my exploration mission is
on hold. Leadership reiterated to all of us that anyone caught doing what was on those photos is to
be killed on sight. No mercy, no questions, don't even let them beg. Those of us remaining are to try
and make news of this attack is played down.
***
Outrider Log, cont.
i haven't slept in a week. None of us have. We just...can't they knock on the doors calling us to
come out and play. The fuckers are tempting us to do something...
The fuck? did I?
OH SHIT! EVERYONE DOWN.
Who the fuck has an assault rifle?!
did...
oo-fucking-rah. Thank god for dwarves. Goddamned scouts saving my ass. Christ, I won't live this
down...
ALRIGHT PUSH FOR THE TUNNEL! GRAB YOUR WEAPONS BOYS! WE'VE GOT RABID
DOGS TO PUT DOWN.
A fight's never fun. But well, sometimes its satisfying. We tore those bastards a new one. the six
teen we had left charged out, spear heading the assault and dividing the forces. Drawing them off
the sharp shooters and the guy with what I think was an AK. We hauled ass and went toe to toe with
those assholes. Used the meanest dirtiest tricks in the books. Every seen the look on a man's face
when you stab him in the ballsack with a bone bolt?
It's amusing.
We pressed into them as hard as we fucking could. I saw one of my men just go down on one guy,
bashing him over the head with his own fucking helmet, using the tortolo scutes to cut his face all
to hell. Of course, the king was scared shitless and drew a fucking magnum out of his ass I swear,
some people just can't fucking take whats coming.
I charged, blood in my eyes and seeing nothing but red. But, I wasn't letting him take one of my
men with me still breathing. Flying tackled the bastard when he pulled the trigger. I say this much.
Gunshots hurt like a motherrfucker after the adrenaline wears off. I didnt even bother with using my
hands, pulled two of the damned bolts out of my quiver and decided he neede to get his eyes gouged
out...
Looking back...I...Can't say I was happy I did that but, in the end it was them or us. And last I
checked we're a hell of a lot better than them.
after the dust settled, I'd lost three to many men...myself being a close fourth. The bull went straight
through but left me losing blood fast. If it wasn't for some quit acting on our sides part I'd been
dying and thus yowler chow. They managed to get me back to town, and into the hospital fast
enough though.
The doctor a real sad looking guy. Big old bags under his eyes like he didnt sleep enough was able
to at least get me back on my feet in a certain sense but, somewhere along the way I guess HQ
decided the pull me into town for a while. Let me rest, recover and talk to some guys who they said
would make the nightmares go away...
Hell, I doubt they ever will but I'll give it a shot. I need to sleep sometime this week. They've got
me in a little room at the Supply central right now, a big old mauser resting on my lap. unloaded
and polished to a tee. I get to do some instructional training as well, mostly how to tell who's a mad
man, weather someones worth taking back the usual stuff. they never let me say what I saw that
week though...to be honest, I can't say I'd tell them either.
TheLast Moments
I saw the post on /tg/ and thought it was some kind of joke. Being "selected" and transported off to
some mysterious world. The OP couldn't respond past a couple of replies to questions, saying he
was running out of time, just told us all to be ready. Stupid troll is stupid.
Then the posts became more frequent. More urgent. Crying out for help, asking advice. .jpgs of
common supplies started circulating, lists of what to bring. I became scared.
I was eating some soup in the living room when it happened. A low rumbling, like the sound
of a cell phone on vibrate being muffled under a blanket. I felt my hands tremble. Then in a
whisper, "one hour." My heart raced in my chest.
"Baby, come in here!" I yelled. She walked into the room, worried blue eyes searching my face.
We'd been together for a few months, moved in together a couple of weeks ago. Met at the hospital,
a pair of nurses, star crossed lovers. I worked emergency, she worked in labor and delivery. She
was the love of my life. I held her with trembling arms and told her how much I loved her, my voice
cracking. We kissed and she consoled me. Another whisper "Forty-five minutes." I asked her if
she'd heard that, she looked at me with frightened eyes.
The story came out in a rush. She was composed as she always is, taking this unbelievable tale
straight, trusting me completely. Despite my rushing and raving around the house gathering
things, she moved calmly. She didn't think it odd when I asked her to put on her hiking boots or
when I came out of the bedroom carrying all my books on emergency medicine and herbology.
All the while, the whispers kept coming, more and more insistent. "Thirty minutes." "Fifteen
minutes." "Ten." "Five."
"One."
I held her hand and looked into her. My heart broke.
"You don't have to go. Stay here. Find someone else, get married, have a dozen kids, live till you're
eighty. We don't know what is going to be on the other side. I don't want to ruin your life because
something chose me. Save yourself."
All she did was kiss me and hold me tighter. My heart, already broken, shattered again.
"I love you." "I love you too."
I got down on one knee, holding her hand, and asked her to marry me. Tears streaking down her
face, she said yes. Tears above that beaming smile. So happy.
There was a loud snap, as if a great beam of wood had finally collapsed under an immense weight. I
let go of her hand for an instant in my surprise. There was a great flash of light.
I came to in the jungle. She was gone.
***
Journal Log: Day 191
Didn't sleep at all last night. I figure the assault squad should arrive within the next few hours at
best. Hung around HQ most of the time. As I found out, we have 3 assault rifles, privately owned,
meaning they can't be requested. Not without dinner and a movie first anyways. Apparently three
army guys who showed up and joined the rangers when we formed brought their issued weapon
with them. Neat. I'll be honest, I'm dieing to hear what's happening with the assault team. Ranger or
Scout, we all know each other. We need some long range communication method. This is starting to
become an issue. Anyways, sat around with the novices and did my best instructing them and then
fucked around with the wooden sword. Fuck.
Journal Log: Day 193
Assault team arrived this afternoon. We lost several guys but won the battle. A few wounded which
were taken to our miracle worker of a doctor. Leadership thinks the squad survivors may need some
psych help after what they've been through and dug around the populace for anyone with the right
training. They recovered equipment, mostly clubs, primitive spears, knives, a fancy ass revolver,
some bullets and a chainmail and plate armor set. The real shit, not the reproduction. I thought we
were in a bad situation, I thought I was made a monster by this place. What the hell would push a
group to become this. What nightmare scenario pushed them so far beyond their humanity? Well
anyways, they're dead and we're not to discuss it in public. May they burn in whatever hell this
world has. Maybe we do need to step up and become more then just explorers and hunters with
fancy titles. Keep shit like this from happening again, by gentle hand or by gun
Journal Log: Day 195
Well, I got my people back and the expedition is under way. We left at sunrise. I'm leading, we
also have 3 novice Scouts, 2 Rangers, one of which is a novice, a team medic and a biologist that
thought it'd be keen to see the ocean. We have enough food for two weeks plus whatever we can
catch. This time we've got the extra new and improved bread mold. I don't know what they did
with it, but now it tastes like chewy cough medicine. The red kind. I haven't decided if this is an
improvement yet or not. We've all got our standard gear including.. yes, wooden fucking swords
for practicing in our off time. Yay. Also a few trimmed down spears, We've also got an even mix of
recurve bows and the new crossbows. To save space, we're carrying one big tent instead of separate
units. Big as in we'll all be crammed in there. I hope no one has roaming hands. Anyways, We
should be meeting up with the road team in two days and then escort them all the way to the sea
which should take 4 days and begin our mission once there. By the time we return to the Salt camp,
they should have some form of permanent residence set up. I'm actually looking forward to this trip.
My gunshot wound is still sore, but sitting around town all day isn't doing it for me. Am I starting to
feel more at home in the wilds then I am in civilization? We'll see what kind of monster this place
finally turns me in to.
Journal Log: Day 197
Met up with the road people today as scheduled. Updated them on the goings on back at town, got
updated from them. The road they're building now is different from the one leading to the mine.
The lack of plentiful rock to make gravel would be the main reason. This one is heavily compacted
dirt. They have 4 dwarves. One is on tree cutting duty, two are digging up the ground and putting
the dirt into a cart and the last is hammering the ground down with some kind of tool that looks
like a sledgehammer with a wide board on one end for maximum surface area. The human workers
are sifting roots and bones and such out of the dirt before it's pushed out of the cart and hammered
down. The road is about 3 inches above the surrounding landscape for drainage. The architect
behind this mad project is actually quite brilliant, a woman and may be in a relationship with the
Ranger captain leading the team protecting them. I'm doing my best to keep my group from being
the third wheel for theirs, and have even had the novices assist to speed things up a tad. They're all
quite a noisy bunch in camp at night though, telling their tales and reminiscing around the fire but
we joined in readily. Noisy, but the comradery is nice.
Journal Log: Day 199
Things were going great until we cut into an imp nest. Oh that was fun dealing with. No injuries,
but the tree cutting dwarf refused to work until we cleaned off all the imp shit. I saw something
deeper in the woods around noon and went to check it out. Turned out to be some half buried
builder weapons, all rusted to uselessness with no signs of a stone structure anywhere, no bones.
About 2 swords a spear and one of their weird body armor pieces. They all look like they've
been out here a long time, like someone dumped them. Just another minor mystery to stick with
all the other mysteries this world has thrown at us, like everything (and the phantom Mazda of
the Aqueduct plains.) Marked them on my map but left them there, no use for the dead weight.
Anyways, we should be seeing the beach in two days.
Journal Log: Day 200
200th day alive anniversary! That is all. Celebrated with an extra shot of vodka before bed.
Journal Log: Day 201
Made it to the beach a few hours after sunrise. The Salt team is already here and processing, and
looks like they'll be heading back tomorrow or the day after. Had to physically stop one of the
novices from running for the sea, lest he get injured like the last one. Decided to stick around for
today, we'll head out tomorrow on our southernly voyage. It's hot out, the sun was shining and one
of the salt workers was nearly killed by a 'Kelpie.' Some kind of sea horse nightmare that apparently
drags people under and to their death. I knew there was some bullshit murder beast living in the
depths. Hell, this is probably one of the least dangerous. Speaking of creatures, one of the Salt
team rangers has adopted a dragonrat. It sits on his shoulder and just watching us with it's little
judgmental eyes. As long as it's not harmful or disease ridden I guess but fuck if I want it anywhere
near me. We have quite a large group here tonight. The Salt team, the Road team and my group, we
have 7 Scouts, 9 Rangers, 4 medics and 4 science guys. We split up into two teams during lunch
break and played volleyball. The net was simply some rope and the ball was some kickball someone
on the salt team brought as entertainment. For that short period of time, we would forget we were
on a hostile world and just had some fun. My team lost unfortunately. The salt team oceanographer
has some bullshit volleyball skills. Anyways, we're heading out come sunrise. Best get some rest.
Journal Log: Day 202
We're on the move. Did good time today, walked along the beach keeping our eyes out. Nothing
seems to actually live in the sand, so rather then spending the impossible task of keeping sand out
of our boots, we've been going barefoot. Made a few stops for our biologist to take some plant
samples and document a few things. We all saw what we thought was a boat on the horizon, but
with binoculars just turned out to be some jutting rock. I wonder if the builders did sailing, or if
they were all stone carving and tunnels. I wonder what our age of sail is going to be like. Had a talk
with the Ranger captain that's part of my team. He seems to think that with the training guidelines
Leadership is testing on us, that there won't be any difference between scout and ranger classes.
Makes sense. The old two class team was made to fill in the holes of what we had available. Maybe
it will change in the future. Who knows. We're probably going to end up being the military force
for our area. I guess it depends how many problems we're going to have with new waves, the insane
cultists, adventurer wannabes and bandits and if we have trouble with any other city out there. If
we're thinking nation building, we're going to need a sea side town with a port for naval power and
long range trade. I guess that's what I'm doing out here. Looking for ruins of a builder port town.
Journal Log: Day 204
We'd be turning back tomorrow if I was keeping schedule, but I want to go another day. We're
skipping our rations and eating catachan devil that the rangers brought in. Salted it up and added
some citrus from an orange bush and it's pretty good. We're going to go two more days and then
turn back. I'm enjoying the salt air but damn if it doesn't leave me feeling crusty in the morning.
Journal Log: Day 205
Around mid day, we spotted a primitive sailing boat washed up on shore. We booked it to check
it out. We were all a bit surprised. We had all seen glimpses of boats out on the horizon before,
but here was one, and more interesting, it's occupant was alive. He was suffering from Blackeye,
suffering really bad. We beached his boat and set up camp. Our medic administered a Blackeye
cure dose he kept in his medkit. The poor guy was sun blistered and dehydrated. We did what we
could for him. He came to around evening. He was still blind, it takes a few days for that shit to
kick in. He wouldn't tell us where he was from or even what board. We did tell him we were from
tg, but nothing beyond that. From what little he did tell us, the city he came from had a great port,
but they were suffering an epidemic of Blackeye and had no cure. He had apparently set sail to
escape infection but apparently had already been infected and didn't know it or caught it while he
was out. He slept most of the time. While he did, we strip searched his boat. It was wood and held
together with a combination of leather rope and some kind of glue. No nails. If I remember right,
this is how the Egyptians did it. The sail was clearly cut and sewn tarp, the green variety. He had
a few containers we think held food, but they were empty. He must of been out at least a week,
maybe more if he rationed. I snapped some photos with my smartphone of the boat and anything
interesting in it's design, and of course our patient. The medic is going to be watching him most of
the night along with the novices in turns.
Journal Log: Day 206
Well, our patient seems to be doing a little better. He came to around morning in a panic, saying
we had to get on the ocean or the stalkers would get us. From his description, it's a yowler. We
calmed him down and tried to bleed him for any more information. Not forcefully, just through
casual conversation. Rather then engage in hunting like we had, his city had used mass fishing for
their daily protein intake along with a combination of some kind of simple farmable. They had
simple canoes few weeks in and then kept improving to the current model 4 person sailboat. He also
seemed to hint at a much larger ship being worked on but got evasive when questioned about it.
He's back out again. The medic says we shouldn't try to move him, and we shouldn't just leave him
here, so it looks like we're camped out for a few days.
Journal Log: Day 207
Our patient's eyes are starting to clear up. Just wait until the Disney filter kicks in. No new
information out of our patient, and what he gave us could just be bullshit. He does want to buy
any remaining Blackeye cure we have. The medic has 2 doses. He has nothing of value to us other
then the boat, and he needs that to get back. We could just take the boat. When we questioned him
what he had to trade with, he produced a gem he was hiding in a very special place. It was blue, a
sapphire maybe? It wasn't cut or anything and still had rock attached to it. Looks like this mystery
city is near a gem mine of some kind. Interesting. We made the trade and the medic says he may
be strong enough to get back tomorrow, so we're going to send him off and get on our way. Played
some music, and he seemed pretty surprised that we had power, but since he was being tight lipped,
we didn't give him anything. We definitely provided more information they he gave. I wonder why
he's being so secretive.
Journal Log: Day 208
We set him in the boat and he got sailing away. Suggested that if his people survive, they should
look for us and maybe we can start some kind of trade relation. I'll probably never see him again.
We spent most of the day hauling ass across the beach, heading back for the Salt camp. It's two to
three days away, maybe less if we haul ass. We're starting to run low on food, it would suck to run
out with such a distance still ahead of us. We still have to travel the salt road to town once we get
back. Since the beach doesn't have a lot of predators on it, we're moving during the night too. I'm
writing this during a ration break. The novices are keeping up pretty well and so is our medic and
biologist. Well, time to run again.
Journal Log: Day 209
We're bushed. Ran our asses off through the night. Got the attention of a few dragon rats, but
we were left alone. We made it to the salt camp, but it's empty. Looks like both the construction
team and the salt team finished up. The new salt house is a log cabin structure with a few small
ventilation windows and a rocked in fire pit. Excellent job once again. We're going to camp the
night and then head inland come sunrise. We've all got sunburns and could use a good fresh water
bath. The biologist suggested that someone should build a net and see what they can pull up out of
the depths. Nice idea but we're not going to be the ones to do it. He can sign up for the next salt run
for that.
***
Newguy's Journal
Day 191 (might as well use local time)
So Me and Jim are now officially scout and ranger novices we were given more survival lessons,
more of a top up on the basics and everything anyone knows about the local wildlife and weapon
training. Good news: I'm still an ok shot with a bow, bad news: I'm still not good enough, I guess
that is what all the training with it and a wooden sword is for.
There are a lot of people here, apparently we were part of a big influx of people turning up, most
people weren't very well prepared. So only me, Jim and a couple of others joined the scouts or
rangers (I can't tell the difference really, we're all getting the same training).
These robots are cool though turns out they are called dwarfs and then they called the town
Koganusan, that gave me a laugh. Welcome to Boatmurderd!
Day 194
a big bunch of guys came back yesterday, coming back from some sort of rescue operation from a
group of nutters, we were told to keep quite about it.
I seem to have fallen into a routine of training and patrolling the town, the training is hard but
probably necessary. Noticed a Funny thing today, it turns out all the new scout/ranger trainees only
brought green clothes with them, we had a laugh about uniforms for the military. Anyway someone
is running a dnd game for some people that have never played before and they are running tomb of
horrors, should be a laugh.
Day 195
farewell rat pack breakfast, I hardly knew you. I had a bet on who would die first to the sphere of
annihilation I knew I should of picked the rouge ah well the guy who won is one of the guys who
have been here for the longest and I have never seen someone so happy to eat a precooked rat pack
meal, I don't blame him the local food is pretty bad.
The farm types are dug up something when they were planting the potatoes and gave it to the
science/doctor guy.
News just gets worse and worse really me and a bunch of new guys are starting to feel sick, now it
could be nothing or it could be black eye won't know for sure for a day or two.
Day 208
It was black eye, fuck me that is the worst I've felt in years. Pretty much every new person got it but
I don't think anyone died. everything looks slightly off now, some sort of side effect of the drug or
long term thing from the fungus, dunno, don't care. Back to training and patrolling, but hey at least
I've definitely improved with a bow, not so sure on my swordsmanship.
***
Journal Log: Day 212
Made it back to town today. This is probably the shortest trip from the coast I've done yet. That new
road is awesome. Gave a big debriefing to HQ, showed them the pictures of the castaway and his
boat and transferred them to HQ's laptop. They're going to have some engineering types take a look
at it. In other news, it looks like the newbie wave stopped. They have Outrider teams doing spiral
pattern searches looking for any lost or remaining out there, and to put down any who go the route
of crazy people eating. Also turned the sapphire in to Leadership. Their eyes lit up briefly but then
they remembered it's of no monetary value here. It's just a trade trinket at the moment. They joked
about carving it into a D20. So on my way back to my domicile, I got jumped by a newbie with a
knife. Wanted my weapon. No hesitation, I beat the shit out of him with the fucking wooden sword.
At least it's good for something. Apparently this is not an isolated incident. Leadership's working on
some crime and punishment laws, and right now pulling shit like this means working in the coal and
iron mines. I'm sure the miners are going to love having a hand down there. They probably work
harder then all of us. They are reenacting scenes from KOTOR tonight, but I'm going to skip it and
hit the sack.
Journal Log: Day 213
So sword training. Yeah. We got some new recruits out of the newbie wave from the looks of it,
and someone thought it'd be a good idea to give a dwarf a sword. Isn't that.. you know.. dangerous?
Well it apparently has some kind of builder sword style programmed in to it or maybe it's just
waving it around willy nilly trying to make fun of us. Never can tell with these things. Spent most
of the day in HQ updating the master map with my expedition info. It has to be very precise. After
that, had a quick fling with one of the ranger girls. I'm not the only one this place is turning into
a wild animal. We were clawing and biting each other the whole time. Used up my one and only
condom. Went our separate ways afterwards. Just a physical thing. So there was a demonstration
in town square. A bunch of newbies and a handfull of first wavers were holding a protest. They're
crapping on about a gas generator someone had brought with them. They want to hook the thing up
to a tv someone else brought in the first wave and have the worlds first and only anime fest. First
of all, the generator has enough gas for 8 hours at best and the energy can be better spent elsewhere
then cartoons. I guess I can see where they're coming from, but their requests aren't reasonable.
Leadership also came to that conclusion, so now we have the protest. I'm hanging around to see if
it's going to turn physical.
Journal Log: Day 214
So today was the wooden sword graduation day, the second class. I'd of been in the first class
except for a gunshot wound a few months ago. We're still to practice as much as we can, same as
archery of course. Scouts and Rangers with rank above novice get an actual blade to carry around
now. I picked mine up at the blacksmith. It's a reforged builder sword, made into something humans
can use. It's a bit odd, but the weight is the same as the wood sword. With any luck I won't cut
myself accidentally the first time I try to use it. We really are becoming more of a military force for
our city. It's all unofficial of course. We're still all about hunting, escorting, exploring and searching
for newbies. Trained some fresh novices on search and recovery skills and then took a group out
to the Aqueduct plains to hunt for the Phantom Mazda (a field training exercise.) It's going to be
an overnight session complete with setting up camp. We're only a few miles from town in case
something goes wrong. There's a Ranger team doing the same farther south. Had a night discussion
with their captain about holding a hunt and evasion game between both our groups. The scouts will
be evading the rangers using stealth, misdirection and all that good stuff. The rangers will be using
their tracking and ambush skills. Myself and the other Captain will be overseeing the operation but
not participating. Should be fun. If it works out, maybe Leadership will adopt the practice. We're to
start one hour before sunrise, so I got last watch so I can spring the plan on them at the last second.
Journal Log: Day 215
So I got the boys up bright and early, had them break camp and get their asses in gear. I also
reminded them that there are dangerous things about, so to be careful. I made one of the novices
their team leader, gave him the plan and set them off. Oh yeah, they're doing this on an empty
stomach, but so am I. They have a map. If anyone is still running free by nightfall, they get a gold
star. Not a real one. For the ranger novices, anyone they have to capture scouts. Guns are to be
unloaded, no archery but wood swords are fair game. The operation zone is the entire aqueduct
plains including the aqueduct, and they are to stay out of the city. I joined up with the ranger captain
and we found a good place to observe from the top of the aqueduct and mostly joked around.
When nightfall came, well two scouts were captured. The third couldn't be found until he revealed
himself. Before they were captured, two of the scouts managed to capture a ranger and stripped
him of his gear and caught the other two up in some kind of rope trap that kept them busy for a
good hour. No disappointments, a few surprises and we more or less pinpointed the strengths and
weaknesses of our charges. We're camping out here tonight and will return come sunrise. They're all
around the campfire chatting it up about the days experience. They had a good time from the looks
of it.
Journal Log: Day 216
So I get woken up by a huge commotion. Apparently a wild tortolo wandered in to camp and for
some reason, flipped the fuck out. We put it down quickly but several novices got minor injuries.
What the hell. Anyways, it was light enough, I had my scouts pack up and we went back to town
dragging the thing. The rangers are spending another two days out. Dropped the tortolo off to be
butchered, but preferably if someone takes a look at it to make sure it's not infested with some
insanity fungus or some other bullshit. Anyways, HQ signed me up to join a patrol. I won't be
leading this one, it'll be a Ranger mission, I'm just providing the scout support. We'll be heading
out tomorrow evening? Interesting. Did some archery practice and then played a oneshot Pathfinder
game. Going to go to the bar in a few minutes and hang out for awhile.
Journal Log: Day 217
Slept in since we're leaving at night. We're meeting up in about an hour and heading out. It's
storming like a bitch too. Anyways, spent some time earlier in HQ crunching numbers with some of
our archivist. Here are the numbers. The population of Koganusan is about 400 people give or take
a few. The last wave brought in about 180 so far. We have 83 people in scouts/rangers, nearly half
that is command staff, myself included, the other half are novices and unranked. The remaining city
population is split into the Science, Engineering, Agriculture and Entertainment guilds with a few
smaller groups such as the road construction team, miners, salters, medical and the few blacksmiths.
The rest is the general population, which is actually only around 25 people. We have a pretty low
unemployment rate. Those 25 are terribly out of shape newbies that are being worked so they can
gain entrance into the one of the organizations. People are requisitioned back and forth between
teams and guilds based on needs, for example, we always requisition a science and medic type for
our missions and they can requisition us to assist them in the field. Very fluid. Very interesting.
Well, time to go.
Journal Log: Day 218
Well, this ranger captain is as crazy as I am and then a bit more. We traveled all night in the storm,
all day in the storm and have made it to the first ruin on our trip. This is basically an outrider group,
we're doing a tight circle of already explored ruins looking for any other arrivals that wandered in
the wrong direction that previous patrols missed. One is sent out about once a week. We have 6
Rangers, 2 Scouts, an engineer who wanted to check out the ruins and the team medic. We have a
medium loadout and it looks like every one of us passed one of the sword training classes. Well, not
the engineer and medic anyways. So we're camping out here and then moving on to the next come
sunrise, moving at a pretty brisk pace.
Journal Log: Day 219
We're at the next ruin, arrived around midnight. Not used to traveling at night and had to evade a
yowler and some sleeping imps briefly. The yowler lost interest after the first mile of chase in the
storm. The imps didn't want to leave their nest and we weren't stopping to pay homage or anything.
This ruin has still standing housing, though it's smaller then Koganusan. Might make a good colony
when we fill out. It's got a nearby river to get water from and some fruit baring trees nearby. We're
leaving come sunup so not a lot of sleep.
Journal Log:Day 221
Still storming nonstop. We're set up in a foxhole with a camouflaged cover to keep us dry. No tents,
no fire. We're a quarter mile from one of the ruins, and the place is inhabited. Looks like just under
a hundred people, all dressed like newbies. We've been observing them with our binoculars. What's
more, they have power too. There's two big solar panels set up on poles and connected to a battery
they're using to power strings of white LED Christmas lights for night lighting. We're pretty sure
they're also from tg. They have what looks like a beach towel with a painted D20 on it they're using
as a flag. The area is poor for hunting, but there is a river that runs through town, and it looks like
they have a rope net running through it, and have been eating fish the whole time. They don't seem
to have hunters, and only a few night sentries. The whole place pretty much shuts down at night
except for the night lighting. We've gone in small groups and scouted around the edges, avoiding
their sentries. Looks like they have a small graveyard of about 10 people. Ours is much larger.
It doesn't look like they've found the tunnel system yet, and I know for a fact we can get back to
our town through theirs. We're coming up with first contact plans. I'm advocating we scout out
the populace first, check their disposition. Walk in dressed like a lost arrival and figure out who is
running the place and what their plans are. They don't look like a party of cultists or cannibals, but
we'll see.
Journal Log:Day 222
The rain stopped finally. After some deliberation, we decided that I'm going in along with one
of the Rangers. We're dressing down, leaving our armor and weapons behind, save for one pistol
with half a magazine, and donning the clothes we snatched during the night from a clothesline.
Dirtied up the clothes a bit, added some blood and a few holes. I'm also leaving this journal and my
smartphone in the hands of the Ranger captain. They're going to observe us and give us rifle cover
if the shit goes down. Now we just have to remember to act like newbies. Shit's going to be cash. Or
maybe it'll be my death. Let's go tempt fate.
Journal Log: Day 223 Ranger Captain James Edison, Team Leader.
That son of a bitch has been keeping a journal this whole time.
0615 Scout captain and ranger novice have slipped around to north side of town to proceed with
contact procedures. Their story is that they have lost their gear and some friends to a yowler. Their
clothing has been adjusted to match this.
0625 Contact made at the boarder, looks like the morning sentries and one other. They are armed
with shotguns.
0640 They've been taken in to town, no sign of hostilities.
0700 Now they're being fed LRP rations, those lucky sob's. Wait, weren't those discontinued a
decade ago?
0715 Looks like socializing. Probably telling their survivor stories. Fuck this shit, the novies can
handle the record keeping.
Journal Log: Day 223. Ranger Novice Alex Mcalister
Wow, these firstwavers have been here awhile.
Still Morning: They're doing general population stuff
Hello diary, my name is Alex and I'm a ranger novice, second wave, I'll get my rank in a few
months and finish sword training and then maybe I'll do a salt run and get a tan. This place is
crazy I didn't believe it would happen, the call, until that voice started up. I grabbed as much
camping gear as I could out of the attic and a box of food and I left behind my my spare clothes and
toothbrush. I wish we could talk back with the people that haven't came yet so we can tell when
what we need them to bring.
Afternoon: They're still talking with the locals. They're a lot more livelier then the locals.
Know what sucks? First day, I woke up in that raised canal that feeds water into the city about 5
miles away. Everything was soaking wet. I made it to town just in time to catch blackeye and then a
few days later my intestines decided everything had to go. This place sucks ass. I joined the rangers
because I used to go hunting in the woods a lot and they needed people with that kind of skill.
Nightfall: Looks like they're heading into an empty house for sleep, everyone else in town is
packing in for the night too. They're supposed to meet up with us by the edge of town by midnight.
Journal Log: Day 224
What the shit are these people doing writing up in my journal. I only have so many pages. Assholes.
Anyways, plan seemed to work, no one was suspicious. This group have no idea there was a wave
before them. I figured at first this town was made up of people who walked in the wrong direction
and seemingly lucked out in all ending up here, but according to them, they all appeared around
one to five miles from this town's boarder. I wonder if there's another first wave town out there we
haven't found yet. The locals are industrious, doing what they can to survive. They have a power
system, water and food. They are also suffering from an epidemic. I first took it to be Blackeye, but
it turns out someone arrived with the flu and took the time to spread it to nearly everyone in town.
Lots of coughing and fevers. God, I'm probably sick now too. This group has a very limited armory,
about 10 guns. Most are light caliber pistols with 3 shotguns. No body armor, no melee. Currently
the town has no real leadership, and the night sentries we see are paid in extra food to keep doing
what they're doing. A group of 10 rangers could conquer this town. Hell, this group could do it
too. Their defenses, even from the wild animals are minimal. Apparently night thieves were a big
problem until they got their lighting system up, and now they're just a minor problem. Already
they've had two yowler attacks that the sentries managed to barely repel. The team leader decided
we have enough information and we are going to close up the foxhole and move on to our next way
point.
Journal Log: Day 225
Hit another ruin, no sign of anyone out here. This ruin already has an outer wall unlike the others.
It would only accessible from the north gate if there weren't collapsed sections. Maybe this was a
stronghold city? The team engineer took an interest in the town's central tower, something about
a pedestal on the upper floor he said was making weird noises that always seemed to stop when
anyone else walked in. Either hilarious coincidence or he's losing his mind from the travel stress.
We've got two more stops before we reach Koganusan. Caught sight of a Thunderbeast on the
eastern plains. From what I recall of the last one, which was bigger, this one is either a baby or also
stunted. They get bigger. Much bigger. We're going to leave it be for now.
Journal Log: Day 227
One stop to go after this. More ruins. This one, rather then being a city or town, is one big mansion
like structure with an orchard. a group of first wavers initially found this place and were hunted
down by a rapedactyl until they made a run for it and ran into an Outrider Ranger patrol. We've
since killed the thing haunting this place in a previous expedition. This place is surrounded by
evenly placed non fruit baring trees. It was thought to be a garden for awhile until a biologist
noticed that some of the trees contain nests this worlds version of bees and they do in fact produce
something akin to honey. It's a honey farm. If we had anyone who knew anything about bee
keeping, we might be able to get this place running again. As it is, it's just another waypoint with
trees you don't want to mess with. We don't even know if there is a tunnel here, no sign of one
in the usual places anyways. There might be signs of second wavers. We found a broken plastic
bag hooked on a tree branch. Might of been left by a previous expedition. No other sign of recent
activity though. One of the novices braved the bees and managed to get a cup of honey and made
it with only a few scratches. The bees here don't sting, they bite. They also come in sizes from big
to the length of my leg. We used some of the honey to flavor our salted tortolo meat. It was pretty
damn good.
***
Newguy's Journal
Day 216
had a break from the boring routine the past few days, went on some training mission that turned
into hide and seek got captured so that is another thing I'm gonna need more practice at. Also we
got attacked by a tortolo that bit my leg.
On the plus side I can now reliably hit most targets with my bow only one problem is the draw
weight is too low for me. had a chat with the guy who makes bows, he was kinda surprised when I
asked him but he got a rough measurement of my draw length and said he'd get back to me when it's
done.
Day 219
bloody typical, I got my new bow today the draw weight and length is perfect for me. down side
is it's pissing it down so I can't bloody use it outside or it'll ruin the string! Ah well we're getting
double sword practice until this storm passes.
And then we had to break up a fight while patrolling, dunno who started it but they were just
punching the shit out of each other over a chocolate bar and because we had to break it up the damn
thing went to supply, so now neither of them are gonna see it ever again.
***
Journal Log: Day 228
Ran into some second wavers. They were lost, messy and terrified. A few of them broke into tears
when they saw other humans. There were about 4 of them. From their story, they appeared a few
miles from town and got chased further away by a yowler. They eventually lost it and have been
wandering lost. Their prepackaged food is nearly gone and they've been drinking from streams and
using iodine tablets. None of them seem to have a Blackeye infection and all are healthy according
to the medic. None of them brought a gun. Their gear consisted of a collection of fruit seeds in little
packs and gardening equipment, clothing, cold weather clothing, some fine edged woodworking
tools, a massive painted tau army with vehicles, food, water, a tomahawk, a machete. roller blades,
diving gear, camp gear (no tent) and a book of throwing knives that none of them knew how to use.
We sent a scout novice and a higher ranking ranger to lead them back to town. It should be.. two
days I figure. Hopefully that yowler that chased them has moved on. If not, the ranger and scout
should be able to take care of it.
Journal Log: Day 229
At our last stop and camped out for the night. The Ranger Leader let me in why he's been pushing
so hard. He's in an Earthdawn game, and they're scheduled for the day after tomorrow and didn't
want to miss it. So tomorrow we are hauling ass full tilt back to town. As for the ruins, well this
is a rather small town, I figure it used to hold less then a hundred builders. Maybe it was new and
hadn't grown large, or a waypoint maybe? It's central tower isn't that tall, and it's tunnel is caved in.
Now for the bad news. We found some second wavers. Two of them, male and female. They were
dead. Suicide. They had cut their wrists, and done it the right way, and died in each others embrace,
surrounded by their toys. That's what they brought. Legos, anime girl dolls, transformers, the works.
Also a steak knife that they used for the cuts. Two hundred pounds of toys. What are the odds that
two people who brought the same useless crap would end up in the same place? Maybe they came
together. Maybe this is some fucked up love story that went wrong. We stripped the bodies and
gave them a funeral pyre. It's going to be extra 'fun' doing that crazy run back to town tomorrow
with four hundred pounds of toys split up amongst us.
Journal Log: Day 230
My legs are killing me. We ran our asses off, and not from any yowler or shit. Just because the
team leader didn't want to miss his Earthdawn game. Well, it was good exercise I guess. I feel for
the medic and engineer, they're probably balled up in cramps by now. The team we sent back with
the newbies arrived a few hours before we did. They were surprised when we came charging in
not long after. Updated HQ, got updated from HQ. Garbage in, Garbage out. Apparently there's
been more incidents of civil unrest. Not all of it involved newbies. I think the stress is getting to
everyone. We need something to distract us. The nightly rp games aren't really enough for a big
group. A sports event of some kind, or maybe a seasonal festival or holiday. Anyways, Leadership
is trying to figure out what to do about the other tg town we discovered on our expedition, and has
warned off any further contact until they work out a plan. It seems they want to gain control of it as
a territory, but don't want to have to seize it by force. Well, I'll leave that up to them and just follow
the orders when they come down. Anyways, I'm going down to town square and see what's so damn
special about this round of Earthdawn.
Journal Log: Day 231
Laundry Day! Kind of. Well, I took what little surviving clothes I had down to the aqueduct runoff
and gave it a good scrubbing and a grabbed a quick shower. The Aqueduct always has a lot of
people around it. Either for a drink or to wash something or themselves. Rumor is that someone has
started up a barber shop. So after everything dried up, I went in search of this mystical place as my
hair was a few days away from becoming it's own living creature. Turns out it's out by the city north
wall and run by two hair stylists that got the proper permissions and managed to bring the stuff
they'd need with them: brushes, scissors and small hand mirrors. I had about a 20 minute wait and
came out with a pretty good cut. Apparently they're saving all the hair being clipped for some other
guy that wants to weave it into some kind of nightmarish sounding blanket. I really didn't need
to know about that part. Did some sword practicing and hung around HQ for awhile and oversaw
promotion of three novices to Lieutenant. They seemed extremely proud. Good. One of the higher
ups was going on about how he wanted to change the rank naming scheme. Doesn't matter to me.
Journal Log: Day 232
It's been pouring out all day. Hung out at HQ and taught some survival training to some novices.
Stuff about tracking. Hell, that's something I learned here and now I'm teaching others about it.
Neat. Afterwards a few of us discussed the ongoing long range communications problem, or the
complete lack of. Most of us have cellphones, but we can't build a cell tower. We have exactly one
CB radio. We have a few walkytalkies with a 5 mile range and that's only on the plains and they
suck battery power. We could probably set up a telegraph system, but where are we going to get the
miles and miles of copper to make the lines? Or the insulation to wrap around them? It's frustrating.
We know of the tech, some of us know how to make it, but we don't have the infrastructure to
do so. By the time we do, we may not even be around anymore and the knowledge could be lost.
Sucks. I wonder what the builders used for long range communications. Or even if they did.
Anyways, someone has invented the mixed drink and I'm heading to the bar with some co-workers
to try it out.
Journal Log: Day 233
Well, the Science Guild informed Leadership that with our current consumption of the wildlife,
even considering breadmold and the products of the test farms, we'll be out of food in 6 months and
we're expecting a new wave before then. So, big project. They're clearing the aqueduct plains and
turning a chunk of it into farmland. They got requisitioned 6 dwarves, a load of rangers and scouts
and a shit load of manpower. Since we're overstocked on coal, the miners are being recalled after
their next shipment. The Salt teams are to continue. I'm one of the ones being assigned to the farm
project and am to take some agriculture guys up and down the plains looking for a great spot. They
want something close to town and within a mile of the aqueduct. From the numbers, it's going to be
a pretty big tract of land. We are to start immediately. I already made some suggestions and we're
leaving first thing to check it out and take measurements. The blacksmith is already working on two
iron plow blades and the engineers are putting together some Archimedes screws powered by wind,
possibly to do with irrigation. They haven't said what they're growing yet. They tend to keep their
test farms secret to keep anyone from sneaking in to steal stuff.
Journal Log: Day 234
Took the agriculture boys out across the Aqueduct fields. They picked a spot after a few hours and
we marked it out with some wooden stakes. It's a pretty damn big area. They then brought in the
dwarf team and they went about tearing the place up with shovels and picks. They're going to be
at it for a few days. The road team came in and started setting down a gravel road from the south
gate to the farm using the rocks and boulders the dwarves are digging up. They should finish some
time tonight or tomorrow. Once the field is ready they're going to start babying the dirt to get it in
workable condition. Meanwhile construction is going to put up some kind of fence that will keep
out the random tortolo and worse, which is a hell of a job in of itself, and a workhouse to store
the tools, and some kind of small living space. Another engineer is working on how to divert a
small amount of water from the aqueduct for irrigation without ruining the flow to town. What this
translates for me, is that there's gong to be a shitload of civis in a field that's known for random
tortolo, yowlers and god knows what else. So all of us reassigned rangers and scouts are on guard
duty, escort duty and attack prevention. It's a big ass community project.
Journal Log: Day 235
One of the dwarves found something interesting just under the surface dirt. It was a chrome hubcap
off a Mazda. Another one, just like the first. It's a conspiracy. There's a fucking Mazda on this
world and it's hiding from me! Now I sound like a crazy rambling lunatic. Someone probably
brought the hubcaps with them by accident and died out here, or lost them and won't own up for
fear of winning the "Most Useless Shit Brought With Them Award." I turned it in to Central Supply
myself as an oopart. First look at it and the deck clerk couldn't stop giggling. Apparently she knows
about the first one. So, spent most of the day patrolling the field, redirecting the occasional non
harmful creature and shooting down the ones that wanted a fight. The dwarves are about half done
with the field. They're just tearing it up. The agriculture boys have already started on the part that's
been done. I don't know what they're doing with it. I've never even been on a farm on Earth. All I
know is that it's a load of backbreaking work.
Journal Log: Day 236
Well, the dwarves hit one of the under city tunnels last night. Some engineering guys spent most of
today clearing it out and patching up the hole and outlining it above ground. They're going to have
to plant around it, but it's a small area overall. Maybe they'll put the supply shed there. Spent the
day patrolling the field with others. Nothing worth mentioning. What is worth mentioning is that A
few of us spotted someone on the horizon to the south. We have no patrols out in that direction and
it was too far from town. We tried to intercept whoever it was, but they turned and ran. Lost their
tracks in some woods, they did a good job covering them. We're going to have to keep an eye out. It
might be another crazy batch of armed cultists, or it could be a scout party from that other tg town
we discovered. Anyways, the actors guild is running a play based on the Neverwinter Nights game.
Fucking waterdhavian creatures.
Journal Log: Day 237
So my pistol's acting funny. I took it up to Central Supply to get a new one, and they can get the
old one fixed. The supply clerk hands me an Mp5. She almost had me for a minute, but the weight
was all wrong. It was an airsoft. Someone brought an airsoft Mp5. We had a good laugh about
that. Turns out that it was used to try and hold up the bar, and the wielder nearly got a crossbow
bolt to the chest. Anyways, I got a new pistol, this one's a Beretta 9mm. Surprisingly, no one has
brought a deagle with them. Before I left, she did notify me that we are running low on bullets.
They can only make so many at a time, and they'd prefer if we used the bows and crossbows for
minor hunting until they could restock. Apparently it takes a whole day just to make a set of 10, and
the gunpowder resources are hard to come by. So I'm back in the field on patrol. They're going to
be spending days babying that soil into something useable. The aqueduct work is done. They put a
small hole with a diverter and ran it down into a trench and have it sitting in a small pool while the
field is being prepped. The work shed is nearly done. The fence hasn't even been started yet. My
time is mostly spent dicking around in the field looking for something dangerous to shoot. With my
bow.
Journal Log: Day 238
Murder in town! Apparently someone was discovered having been stabbed 12 times. I don't know
much more then that, but Scouts and Rangers HQ is handling the investigation. They've got a
full investigation going utilizing anyone not in the field or working on the farm project. I guess
it's another case of someone snapping. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Not sure what
Leadership is planning on doing for punishment when the catch the person. Probably death penalty
or forever a miner work. Other news around town, our pregnant woman is apparently very round
right now and in good health, which is good. She's kind of our future right now, so is the first born.
She's doing well too. Well, back to field patrol.
Journal Log: Day 239
How did it come to this? Less then a year ago I was just a customer service rep for state run
insurance bullshit program. I'd wake up in the morning, eat a fatty breakfast, drive to work and then
sit in a cubical surrounded by a team of 10 others, who themselves were surrounded by 10 other
teams, all pissing about on the phone helping assholes who can't be assed to pay their already cheap
insurance and have no end of stupid problems. I'd be on the phone all day feeling my sanity slip
away. Now here I am, stranded on a hostile alien world, wearing leather body armor and armed
to the teeth, blood splattered and holding a bloody sword over a dead yowler and I still feel my
sanity slipping away. I guess the only peace I'll get is when I'm dead. So yea, a yowler popped out
of the underbrush today and came charging at me and two others. It seemed pretty damned sure
of itself until it made eye contact and realized it was dealing with another apex predator. My two
companions managed to hit it twice with arrows and I disemboweled the fucker with my blade.
Then I helped one of the rangers cut it up into usable parts. Skin, meat, bone, trophy claws. I didn't
feel scared, I didn't feel surprise, I didn't feel elation. I feel cold. I had a long conversation with the
two others in my patrol group a bit later in the day about it. We're all handling the stress differently.
One is keeping oblivious to it, stuffing it all away and focusing on the here and now and hoping
that the sides of that bottle are strong enough not to crack. The other is shoving it all into a religion
he didn't even believe in back home. Anyways, there's a big owod crossover larp going on town
tonight. I'm going to go see it and then hit a bar.
Journal Log: Day 240
Had a builder dream. I was in the passenger seat of a Mazda being driven by a Builder in a snazzy
suit. We were on our way to a bowling alley. That was it. What the fuck, subconscious, what the
fuck? Anyways, when I got to the fields today, they had the dwarves pulling around the plows on
the half of the field they finished working and had someone else digging the irrigation channels.
No idea what they're going to plant yet. Another team finally started work in the fence. It's more
of a wall made of fired mud bricks with holes in it to allow the wind to blow and tree trunk pillars.
They're going to need a shitload of bricks for this. They said they'd like to get a cement factory
going, but where are they going to get the ingredients? Isn't that ash, lime and rock? We have one
of those ingredients. Anyways, less excitement in the field today then yesterday overall. Meanwhile
in town, they think they know who the murderer is, and think it was a crime of passion. Passion
for chocolate that the victim was hiding. I could totally see chocolate driving people to violence.
Leadership's going to hold some kind of trial by peers and if guilty, figure out a punishment.
Journal Log: Day 241
So a newbie wandered in to town out of nowhere. Completely bypassed the Outriders and local
patrols somehow. Of course he had nothing of value on him. Sounds familiar. Leadership seemed
to think so too and had scout patrols checking the local hiding spots around the outside of town.
Sure enough they found a group of 5 hiding in the hills keeping watch. I was kept in the field with
the others, but from what I hear, they were surrounded, disarmed and brought in. They were scouts
from that other town the Outriders discovered. In the name of peace, map data was exchanged
and stories swapped. Apparently they had just started sending out scouting teams and ended up
finding and following one of ours back to town. We didn't tell them about the tunnel system or
that we actually found them first. Rumor is that they're being released tomorrow and being told
to send an ambassador so we don't end up in some territorial disagreement and start a stupid war.
I'm of mind that they should be given the Blackeye cure, as it's only a matter of time, and plans for
building a HAM radio so we can communicate at range. Anyways, tonights entertainment from the
Entertainment guild. King Lear, as written from Eberron. Sounds like a god damn trainwreck and
I'm not going to miss it.
Journal Log: Day 242
Looks like the rumors were true, our visitors are being escorted halfway. Meanwhile another group
is down in the tunnel putting up a false wall on their end to keep any surprise infiltration visits
should they discover their entrance. Dicked around in the plains again keeping everyone safe. Saw
a Tortolo that was later captured alive and brought off to the Tortolo domestication experiment
farm. The basic construction of the farm is done, the tool shed, a workhouse which the Agriculture
guys are living in at the moment, a 2 story A frame. Looks like they're planting Earth potatoes.
Too bad we don't have butter or sour cream. Or cheese. I miss cheese. I'd hunt down a yowler for
a good block of aged cheddar or provolone. In other news, someone climbed the central tower in
town and used that hang-glider. Amazingly they didn't instantly die, but were up there for a good
half hour before coming down. I wonder if he saw anything interesting? On some level, I felt elated
that humans managed to bring the power of manned flight to an alien world, but I wonder how long
that's going to last.
Journal Log, Day 243
The first shipment of bricks arrived, and they're starting up the wall basics. I hope they know what
they're doing. They're going to deplete the shit out of whatever mud and clay pit they found. I
wonder what they're using for mortar. Anyways, I got called off the plains today and have been
reassigned to training some new novies the wonderful art of swinging around a fucking weighted
wooden sword. Hurrah! Apparently they're transferred from one of the other guilds or organizations
due to overflow. Some of them have very little survival skills. Fantastic. We'll make survivors out
of them yet. Anyways, there's apparently some big thing going on tomorrow at HQ. They got most
of the patrols called in and the Farm group is being skimmed down to a bare minimum. That should
leave about 50 of us I figure. I hope we're not sieging the other town.
Journal Log: Day 244
I'm writing this before I leave. We're doing a Wargame. There's 63 scouts and rangers, mostly
novices and low grade available and we're splitting into an even team, or almost even. Green team
is to head out of town, move north into the mountains and secure that collapsed fort I found up
there awhile back. Red team is to pursue and kill/capture as many as possible and get their hands
on Green Team's flag, that will be carried and then mounted at the top of the fort tower. We're
all taking heavy loadouts, and most of our gear modified to be non lethal. There will be a judge
assigned to each team to watch and score. I'm on the green team, second in command under a
Ranger Colonel. We leave sunrise, Red team leaves an hour after us. We're going to have to pull
every dirty trick out of the bag for this. I can't sleep and have been going over my maps with the
Colonel and making plans with the other officers on our team.
Journal Log: Day 245
I'm leading a group of 15 high ranked scouts to cover the tracks of our main forces while they
make a mad dash for the fort. They're expecting to make it there in a day and a half, which would
be fucking amazing. Meanwhile we're following at a slower pace, covering their tracks and setting
new ones for red team to follow, and set up some traps. We put down several yowler traps in the
gravel so far and even a few faux punji puts. I'm going to try and lead them to the alternate route
in to the fort, the long and more hazardous way around and hopefully give My team some time to
get fortified. This area is filled with large hills and valleys, so we got some places to hide in the
daylight. We should have more fun once night hits. I doubt they're going to set up camp, but we'll
have some stealth.
Journal Log: Day 247
Well, I managed to split red team in half. Half is chasing me, half is booking it to the fort on the
direct route. Our traps have moved them from a run to a slower more cautious travel pace. I sent
two of my team to continue planting traps in the way of the main group. From what I gather, they've
lost one or two men to mock injuries from the traps.
Journal Log: Day 248
Well, we were captured. A fucking ambush out of nowhere. How the hell did they get ahead of us?
Anyways, they're letting me update my journal while their leader is coming for interrogation time.
Yes, I can see you reading over my shoulder, it's pretty ru
Journal Log: Day 249
I "killed" my guard with a pen, disarmed him and got the some of my boys back on their feet and
running. We ran into one of their light patrols and used the yowler method of take down. Come out
of fucking no where at full tilt and strike them down before they know what's going on and keep
going. We're resting on a cliff at the moment. Looks like only 8 of the original 15 on my team made
it. Most of our equipment was captured. We've got what we could from the guard and patrol we
busted. I hope the Colonel's going to be okay with the rest of the team. Flashlights, time to move.
Journal Log: Day 250
Captured again and killed. They got us at the canyon crossing. A few of my guys went down
fighting. I surrendered. Got my hands tied up and taken to their leader so he could read my journal
and beat any information out of me. They didn't do a very good job on the ropes, and soon as their
leader showed up, I stole a sword and killed him, and was immediately killed afterwards or more
likely, at the same time. Their team is continuing on under their previously second in command.
Hope he's up for the task. So I'm relaxing away in the casualties camp set up by the prospecting
camp. No one's been seriously injured so far, just some bumps and bruises and it's all been in good
fun.
Journal Log: Day 255
The Wargames ended officially today. Red team couldn't break the defenses of Green team, and
Green team couldn't pick off Red team from the fort. The Colonel held off this long in a ruined fort
and the last three days had no food, I've got a whole new respect for the man. I feel like I've failed
him by getting killed so early in the exercise. Anyways, both teams are on their way back to town.
Journal Log: Day 257
So Leadership is going over the results of the wargames. Not sure what they're going to do with
that. I haven't talked with the Colonel yet, and I probably won't. Got cleaned up and hung around
town. Word is that engineering gave up building a massive brick wall for the farm and switched to
horizontal trees stacked 3 high in a brace. Some kind of barrier wall. It's still going to take a lot of
resources. Spent time learning how to skin a few of the wild animals. That's something I haven't
fully learned yet, then hit the bar until night fall. The actors were off duty, but we had a live band
and that was nice. Pretty slow day around town. In other news, the murder trial finished, he was
found guilty and was executed. They haven't said how, but it was done in private and done quickly.
I think I'm going to turn in early.
Journal Log: Day 258
It's raining. Raining like a bitch, but that's normal here. We may need new words to describe the
different rain we get. There's drizzling, pouring and then this, and what comes after this. I'm on a
hunting patrol. Not leading it but navigating for them like the old days. Funny that the old days are
less then a year ago. We're chasing down a herd of tortolo we heard are in the southern hills and
whatever else we can get for the food stores. This is mostly a novice and low rank team. I'm kind
of babysitting them and teaching them to navigate. They're really starting to shape up. We've got a
light load out and a wheelbarrow to carry the meat we get and the salt supply to keep it preserved
for the trip back. We should be out here for two days, no less. The weather's been pretty warn, even
the rain is warm. I guess it's summer.
Journal Log: Day 260
So apparently some of the cats had kittens. There's little ones wandering around in packs now.
Cutest thing ever. So leadership has set me up for a mission. They're sending me out to escort a salt
run. No particular reason, no mission to map out further up and down the coast. Well whatever. I'm
taking 3 scouts who haven't been to the coast yet, 2 rangers and a medic. Standard loadout. Odd
thing, Leadership didn't give a return date. When I asked them, they shrugged and said whenever
seemed appropriate. It's like they want me out of the city for awhile. Maybe they found the phantom
Mazda and are hiding it from me! But seriously, looks like I get some vacation time. I packed up
anything I didn't want to leave behind. The coast is still a rich hunting ground, I'm not too worried
about running out of food. We leave tomorrow and should arrive in 3-4 days.
Journal Log: Day 263
Made it to the coast a few hours after nightfall. Turns out the salt team here is packing it up and
leaving tomorrow. Looks like we're going to be here alone for a week until the next group arrives.
I'm going to take last watch so I can watch the sun rise. I have yet to see the sun rise on the beach
here.
Journal Log: Day 264
The sunrise was spectacular. It wasn't as colorful as an Earth sunrise though, the pollution here is
minimal. Did a short patrol to clear out the area of any undesirables and then had the rest of the day
to dick around. Can't swim in the ocean, which sucks. So we just dicked around the beach. Played
some volleyball, went over my map for a bit and tried my hand at fishing. Caught a Kelpie. Well,
the Kelpie tried to catch me. I'm sitting on this rock over the water and It popped out and made
a grab for me. Next thing it knows, it's got a sword swinging through it's head. Then something
bigger came out of the depths and ran off with the corpse. So yeah, that's my fish story on this
fucking hellhole. The Kelpie that got away.
Journal Log: Day 265
So I got up today and decided that fuck it all, we're going on an expedition. We left an hour later.
We're heading north towards the mountains. Left a note at the salt shack in case something goes
terribly wrong. I figure we'll travel as long as we dare and I'm sure HQ will love to have the updated
map. We hauled ass across the sand and made it to the builder shack at nightfall. I've described it
before, but it's basically a Builder proportioned wooden shack. It doesn't really fit with what we've
seen of their construction style and there's not even any wood carving. Maybe it's an old survivors
shack. The last house of one of the last few builders. We still don't know what happened to them.
Anyways, the shack is just big enough for all of us to cram in for the night. Kept getting an odd
feeling I was being watched. I stepped outside for a bit in the cool night beach air for awhile.
There's a steady wind coming in from the sea. Made me think of home. I could almost close my
eyes and think I was there. I guess this world is home now, but I'm not ready to admit it.
Journal Log: Day 266
Saw a boat out on the ocean today. It was less then a mile away, close enough that I could see them
with my binoculars. Tried flagging them down but they only waved and kept going. Whoever they
are, they're damn secretive. It's a good sign though, it's more evidence that we're not alone. We
have that other town to the south of us, one far to the west we had on radio briefly and this ocean
going group. I wonder who else is out there. I imagine b or v would of all killed each other by now
or starved or died from disease. K is probably surviving. Can't say for sure for the other boards.
I wonder who the ocean goers are from. Anyways, they were gone after an hour, heading east. In
other news, we found a decent sized tidal pool about three feet deep that didn't seem to have any
oceanic nightmares flitting about in it. We poked around with sticks to make sure, but it was empty.
Set up camp here for the night and we all took a dip. It felt great.
Journal Log: Day 267
Well, I've got a sunburn. I never do tan properly, I just get sunburned. Sucks. Passed by a herd of
racing deer prancing around off the coast. They seemed to want nothing to do with us. They have an
odd size range, from dog sized to horse sized. I wonder if the Builders used them for riding mounts.
I've never seen a picture of a builder riding one so probably not. Maybe as beasts of burden if they
didn't have any dwarves available. So the mountains are in sight and so is that pass heading north.
Odd thing, found a disposed off water bottle in a bush earlier. We're not the first to of been here.
We're taking things at a more cautious pace now and camping up in some cover. This is too far for a
newbie to of wandered on their own, chances are there's another town nearby unless it's from one of
those boaters.
***
The Loner's log
Second waver, days past in 008 time-186
Day 23
At least, I think it's day 23... Last few days are something of a blur. Found, or rather scavenged,
this book from a death site. Fire was still warm, tent was ripped open and a trail of blood lead of
into the forest, probably got hit by a loud-death during the night. Rest of the treasures from the
camp: one fishing rod, complete with reel, probably fibreglass, a dozen or so books, five of which
are in english, handcrank battery pack and assorted electronics, one laptop, two tarps. Then there
were some general shite, "survival" knifes, clothing, empty tin cans, some pills, label in foregin
language so fuck if I know what they are, a few bags, various toiletries, canteen, fire starter. Same
things everyone brings I suppose, still, that fishing reel will help me with the modifications I'm
considering for my bow, so RIP, dead guy, hope you're in a better place than here.
Rest of the day was uneventful, killed two of those giant squirrel things for dinner, found a nice
stream to replenish my water and wash up a bit, I'll have to remember to bring a soap on these treks,
I'd almost forgotten how good it feels to be clean. Thanks again, dead guy.
Day 24
A boring day, better than the alternative but still... dull. I think I've made camp in cultist territory,
though. I've been seeing fetishes and idols hanging from trees or seated on rock piles for a few
hours. No sign of humans though, so I'm probably far from their main camp. I hope.
Day 25
Another good day. made good distance from last campsite. Came across some weird monolithic
obelisk in the middle of a dead field, I thought I heard a weird hum coming from it but thinking
back, that was probably just my imagination.
Day 26
Barely made any distance today. Came across a loud-death, climbed a tree an waited for it to get
bored, that took most of the day... Got some reading done at least, Hemmingway rocks! Maybe I
should see what life is like on the coast? Nah, I hate fish.
Day 33
More good days since last time, found a good place to set up camp and have been doing light recon
treks. Found a really dark forest yesterday. REALLY dark, seems like a great place to disappear to
if any roaving bandits or cultists hit my area. Bow modification is done, connected the fishing reel
to the frame and the wire to a hook for the arrows, makes wounding shots easier run down and I
probably won't lose any more arrows. Great success!
Day 36
Seems like the days are getting to be very monotone... Wake up, eat a little of yesterdays dinner,
go hunt, run from certain death, get fresh water, eat dinner, clean gear, hone knifes, read, sleep...
I caught myself talking to myself today. Maybe I should reconsider joining a group, they can't
ALL be savages. But then, not having any responibility for others' saftey and wellbeing is quite
liberating. Also, I seem to have picked up a stalker, little ratty thing following me at a good
distance. Never gotten a good look at it, quick bugger, but it seems to be a lizard-rat. It's probably
realized that I always throw away the old meat after breakfast, must be easier than whatever it's
usually scavenging.
Day 39
I've moved my camp into the dark, or everblack, (as a pun on evergreen) forest. Savages were
getting too close for comfort. Though not sure if it might have been safer to just walk into a cultist
meet-and-greet, the predators here make loud-deaths seem tame. Horrible climbers though and with
the thick psuedo-canopy it's pretty easy to stay off the ground.
Hunting's not as hard as you'd imagine for a forest that never gets brighter than twilight either.
There are rodents that live in the canopy but forage on the ground. A bright spotlight makes them
freeze and large reflecting eyes make them easy to spot.
Day 41
My stalker has gotten bolder, or maybe it just hates the dark. I can hear it moving around above me
and it sat watching me during dinner, even got it to snatch a scrap of meat from my hand. It's not a
lizard-rat but some sort of monkey-like thing. I've taken to calling it Macaque.
Day 44
Been having a dull ache all day, might be comming down with something. Time to hoard water and
food. Still have some emergency rations from earth, good thing I was beeing cheap with those...
Day 46
Nose's shot and my eyes are acting up, I've set up a 'fishing' line to catch those tree-runners, padding
out my emergency rations without having to leave camp. Macaque fetches me fruit every now and
then, too. Cute litte scamp.
Day 47
Eyesight is almost gone, hands are really shaky. Can barely see even under the spotlight. Might be
the last entry until I get better. Hope I do get better...
Medical Log
By Medguy
Jesus Christ. Someone brought a newcomer today and by the looks of it, he has been suffering from
a severe case of blackeye. What's interesting though is that subject has apparently been wandering
alone in the wild and has survived for months in those harsh conditions. Befriended an imp too.
Patient has been telling me about his little adventures. It seems he knows more about the
surrounding area than the ranger themselves.
He also knows where the cultists' hideout might be and has been surviving out on his own by
catching fish and ambushing prey by himself. His knowledge could prove useful and he might be a
great asset for our community. His knowledge could prove useful. Leadership will love to hear this.
But before that, administering treatment now. I don't know if this'll work considering he's been
infected severely and the disease is in its advanced stages. Frankly, I didn't even think he'd survive
this long. Hardy little fucker.
It's been days now and disease still shows no signs of stopping. Patient "says" he can hardly breathe
at all. Heck, he didn't really say it, I can tell from the look on his face of a defeated man who's
breathing heavily and ready to die.
Fucker! Don't die on me now! I will have failed my mission. I don't want to see my first death, not
like this. This is unfair. Shit!
Medical Assistant's Log
It's been 48 hours now and disease still shows no sign of stopping. Doc is adamant and tells me he'll
keep on fighting. He's throwing everything he's got. I don't know how this'll last though, he's all
stressed out. He apparently hasn't slept too in those 48 hours. This will be the first time he'll witness
death and failure if he fails treatment. I wonder how he'll cope, he's too proud of his work.
I'm worried that he might become depressed out of this. He takes his work so seriously that it gives
me both awe and sadness to see a young man waste sacrifice his sanity just so others can live.
He's a living example that men, no matter how dire the situation is, will always find hope. He's an
inspiration - no, a hero to this community and I'll be damned if I fail him too.
Medical Log, cont.
Patient seems stabilizing now, though his disease isn't getting better nor is it getting worse. It seems
to be in some kind of an equilibrium where his body is fighting off the disease as well as the disease
fighting back to spread more infection. Interesting.
It's been more than 60 hours now and I still haven't gotten some sleep. Hell, I've been more awake
than asleep to be honest ever since the blackeye plague has started. The fact that I haven't lost my
sanity in this damn place is nothing short of a miracle. I wouldn't have done it without my assistant
though. I'm lucky to be surrounded by caring, loving people in this hostile and destructive world.
The Loner's log
Day 274, apparently
Doc tells me I've been here for about a month, so unless I'm a survivor GOD whilst being blind and
delirious, I doubt that scale is compatible with my old one. Sort of hurts to breath and my body feels
like a giant used it for a drum solo, but I'm alive... so that's good. I dreamt of Emily and Doug, so
I figured I was dead too, guess it's just my subconscious trying to cheer me up. Eyes are still bad,
the spotlight seems about as effective as a flickering candle. Colours are all off, too, doc tells me
it's supposed to look like a disney film, I'm somewhat reminded of that pink elephant scene from
Dumbo so I guess it's not too far off.
Day 275
Tried to stand today, could barely even lift my ass from the bed and got winded moving my legs
over the edge. Fucking muscle dystrophy. Most of my gear got 'repurposed' by 'Central Supply',
still, I've been here for a long time and they saved my ass, so I guess recompensation on my my part
is fair. Seems I've been talking with the doc while I was out, can't say I remember it but he seems
like a good guy. Seems tired though, guess there's too much work for medics in this hellhole.
Day 276
Physical therapy fucking sucks.
That is all
Day 285
Walked around in the hospital today. It was slow, wobbly and hurt like hell but I'm walking. Well,
double cane walking. Controlled forwards falling?
Day 287
Got a visit from a scout today, wanted to know if there was anything I could tell them about the
areas I had passed through. He had a landmark map, very well done, too, and I showed some
of the campsites I had used, caves, good trees for elevated camps, a few of what they called
OOPARTs, 'weird shit' I call it. Think there were a couple in there that they didn't know about but
the guy had a good poker face. Walking is getting easier, down to one cane and up to an average of
10 metres without falling over. PROGRESS
Day 290
Took a walk outside. Direct sunlight helps my vision but it's still murky. Lots of people around,
makes me slightly on edge after all that time alone. Town seems to be thriving, though, steady
supply of meat and "bread", salted meat makes a bad hunt less of an issue. They've done very well
for themselves, considering the deathtrap we live in now. Observed an archery practice, gave a few
pointers, instructor didn't seem to mind too much. Realized that, consider my eyes, I'll likely never
go hunting again. That made me feel like having a lie down.
***
Journal Log: Day 268
We continued farther north. We're now in some kind of mountain pass. Mountain to one side, ocean
to the other. We'll move in one more day, then cut back down south and move west to eventually
meet up at the mining camp and then head south to town. We'll still be moving through unknown
territory for a few days yet. No other signs of habitation so far, or ruins. I'm a bit weary of those
mountains. Rapedactyls and other shit's just waiting to come charging out at us. The night is a bit
creepy with the inbound sea breeze hitting the mountain's cliffs and crags, creating all manor of
echos and sounds. Sometimes it almost sounds like singing.
Journal Log: Day 269
Found a corpse. It wasn't near the water, so it wasn't washed in. It had no possessions outside of the
gradated clothes on it's back. He appears to of been traveling south and must of traveled for quite
some time. From his condition, We figure he died of starvation about a week ago. Was he simply
some second waver that wandered in the wrong direction? Well, it doesn't matter. We gave him a
pyre and set camp for the night further away. Come sunrise, we're turning back. The singing winds
are starting to creep me out. Now I feel like I'm being watched.
***
The Cultist
Screams. Voices. Chaos.
Humanity, what a pity. Such weak flesh ready to die. What use is such flesh of the weak if not to
provide me nourishment and entertainment. I was once in my cell awaiting death for the murder of
15 children. Ah, such beautiful playtoys. Their sacrifice was not in vain. I had pulled out their guts
and ate them raw. A pity, I could've had more. Fools. Then a voice called out from the heavens.
"One Hour."
It was beautiful, I was ecstatic. A higher voice called out to me; I was chosen for a purpose.
"30 minutes"
Make-shift knife out of my pocket, I struck the guard's throat as I made my way out for escape.
Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide and nothing to lose, I took as many lives with me as I can. The
voice called me out again.
"15 minutes"
To hear its voice calling out to me was orgasmic. I was to sacrifice these pitiful weak flesh for my
ascension. It had to be, the voices of the gods had called me out!
"Five minutes"
The fools with their guns. Bullets flying. Death. Destruction. Lo, a sight to behold. They shall bathe
in their own blood. The blood gods have will it, the chosen one shall not be denied! Ha! HA! HA!
HA! HA! HA!
"One minute"
Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide. Blood, its scent orgasmic. I watch as I am being surrounded by
these weaklings in blue uniform. The chosen one shall have his ascension, I will not be denied. The
gods will bathe in their blood.
Then a flash of light. I see nothing but before me but forest. I have ascended. And I shall wreak
havoc on this world!
FOR THE GODS!
***
Journal Log: Day 271
So we made it out of the 'singing cliffs' today and are starting our westward travel. By my
calculations, we should reach known territory in a few days. Some bull like creature came charging
out of a valley today as we were passing by. We put it down with a few arrows and ultimately, a
gunshot. It's a big ugly thing, four legs on the ground and two little dangly legs. We're eating it for
dinner to save rations, and adding a salt pack to the leftovers for later. One of the rangers picked
a few plants and used them as seasoning. It was amazing. We stripped the corpse of some trophy
horns. Refilled our water supply at a small river. My skin is starting to peel from my sunburn. Itches
like a bitch too. Shit sucks.
Journal Log: Day 272
So. I found something today. It's a gas cap from a car. It says Mazda. FFFUCK YOU WORLD!
FUCK YOU TO HELL! I'LL FIND IT, I'LL FIND IT IF IT'S THE LAST THING I DO! YOU
CAN'T HIDE IT FROM ME FOREVER!
Journal Log:Day 273
Okay, I'm feeling better now. We continued west and have set camp near another river. Ate more
of that mountain boar thing for dinner. Our chef flavored it with citrus. It was even better then
the last two nights. He's on cook duty now, which he seems to approve of. Wish I knew about
his skills a week ago. It's a cloudless night. I wonder which of those stars is Sol, or if Sol is even
close enough to see? For all I know we're in another galaxy. Wish I could find out who brought us
here and why. So many unanswered questions. I doubt the builders brought us here. They seemed
primitive at best from what they left behind. I'm pretty sure they didn't build the dwarves or the
mechs. There's no infrastructure around to of designed anything like that. So there is a third party
involved somewhere. Hell, maybe the builders weren't native to this world either and we're just
one in along line of abductees brought here, but for what purpose? Perhaps entertainment. Perhaps
they're studying humans before making contact with Earth (or attacking it) and this is just their
observation lab. Questions I'll never have answers to.
Journal Log: Day 274
I was woken up by our ranger on watch. Someone came wandering out of the mountains just before
sunrise. At first I thought it was a river town scout that went too far north but something was wrong.
Looked a little too prim and proper, his smile a bit too big. His eyes, it's like they were seeing
something else. He gave his little greeting and said he had been lost, wandering the wilderness and
needed help. Asked for some water. One of my scouts offered him his canteen and got a knife in the
throat for it. Three more came out of the bushes armed with various blades, wearing what looked
like human skin. Masks made of other people's faces and covered in familiar markings. Chaos cult.
It was bad. You don't have enough time to draw a gun when a lunatic is charging you with a knife.
You do what you have to, namely get out of the way and put up your best defense. There was a
whirlwind of action, I don't even remember how it exactly went down. I came out of it with a good
gash in my side. The cultists are dead except their leader, who slipped further into madness once
we disarmed him, literally. Of my team, we all came out with some injury, and I lost two men. One
scout and one of my rangers. The chef. Fuck. We burned him alive at the stake. Knifed him to a
tree and lit him up with his followers as kindling. He didn't scream, he sang. He sang until he throat
burned away. The medic patched us up, a few stitches, nothing life threatening. I have to oversee a
funeral now for two damn good men now.
***
The Cultist, cont.
Death. Freedom from the flesh. How utterly weak these pitiful fools are. I sent one of my newest
warriors for the blood initiation and apparently they were successful. Knifed the weaklings and
killed two weak men just by using a knife. The gods will be proud. We have demonstrated once
again to these pitiful weaklings that we can strike terror into their hearts anytime at our whim. Their
sacrifice has not been in vain. Tonight, we celebrate by killing off the traitors in our ranks. We shall
drink the blood of these weaklings who dare spy on us and spread their corruption on our midst.
DO YOU HEAR THAT? THE VOICES. THE SOOTHING VOICES OF THE GODS HAS
CALLED ONCE AGAIN FOR BLOOD TO SATE THEIR TASTE OF FLESH AND BLOOD.
WE SHALL ASCEND BROTHERS! FOR OUR GODS! FOR OUR ASCENSION! TOMORROW
BROTHERS WE ATTACK! WE SHALL ATTACK WITH ALL OUR MIGHT AND WIPE OUT
THESE PITIFUL FOOLS ONCE AND FOR ALL WHO DARE STAND IN OUR WAY!
***
Journal Log: Day 276
Made it to the mining camp today. We got to rest comfortably for the day while our injuries were
rechecked and cleaned out again. Told the rangers on duty what had transpired, but left out most of
the detail. Things they don't want to know. Things no one wants to know. We're going back to town
come sunrise and see what Leadership has to say about my expedition
Journal Log: Day 278
We made it back to town earlier. Updated maps with HQ and debriefed. Leadership is sending out
a patrol to the area we found the cultists to ensure there are no more. Aside from the loss of two
men, Leadership actually seemed pleased that I ran off on my own exploration expedition. Initiative
I guess. Had the doc check up on my injuries. They're healing fine. News around town is that the
farm wall is completed and they are growing both potato and carrots. No word from the tortolo
ranch. I understand they're having a lot of problems. Tortolo have a tendency to just go where
they want, even if there is a wall in the way. They're having a big pit dug and seeing if that will
help keep them contained. Anyways, turned in the gas cap to Central Supply. The counter girl is
convinced I'm going to find an entire car, one piece at a time. So entertainment around town tonight
is the Entertainment guild's rendition of Icewind Dale. This should be interesting.
Journal Log: Day 279
Had a Builder dream, kind of. I was chasing one through the woods. It was running in a panic.
Suddenly I leaped forward and brought him down, and proceeded to tear him apart with claws and
teeth. I'm pretty sure I was a yowler. This can't be good. Anyways, got some archery practice in. An
expedition from the river town (that's what I'm calling it anyways.) arrived and is in deliberation
with Leadership over something or other. Funny that they have a flag but haven't named their town.
Weird priorities. In other news, more cats. They're really taking to this place. Many have been
adopted as pets. I probably would too if I was always in town, which I'm not. No pet to comfort.
Except my gun. If I was crazy maybe.
Journal Log: Day 280
So apparently river town has set up some trade relations. The road building team jumped at the
chance to get out and is already constructing the road south. Basically they're trading some of their
tech expertise and fish for our salt and coal. Further, they are providing people to get trained under
the Scout and Ranger Organization, and we're to provide protection until their people are trained.
Interesting. I'm one of the ones being assigned to river town. I'm going to be the chief explorer and
check out that swamp south of them. I was hoping to avoid the swamp, but Leadership thinks there
might be something out there and river town is the perfect base to kick off on adventure. Great.
We're bringing over 10 rangers, 10 scouts, 5 science guys and 3 medics. They're sending over about
40 people to be trained and geared up. Hope they like swinging around a fucking wooden sword for
a few months.
***
A study of the Cults
by Reginald Macarthur,
'Lenore' as the planet has since been dubbed by several fans of Poe has its share of cultists. These
can be lumped into a general broad set of criteria that give us an idea of just what to expect, what to
look for and possibly, how to help them regain their sanity.
To this end, my allies in the outriders have helped me gather data, fetishes and even members of
local cults that we're able to divulge information...With some encouragement
When humanity inexplicably came here. Some of us took it to be the work of divine, or infernal
forces. Amongst those that did, small pockets developed a belief for the Chaos gods of 40K,
revering them as real gods and practicing what they believe is the rites and rituals that will appease
their masters.
The most dangerous of course are those that revere Khorne, these bloodied savages are head hunters
and cannibals more often than not. Killing what ever they can find, ripping them to shreds and
bathing in their blood. They are typically loners or semi organized into loose packs.
Next to these are perhaps the Nurglites, those which praise Nurgle few they may be they are
something of a walking danger. Willing infected with parasites, fungus (including blackeye) They
are often alone and are to be burned after euthanization.
The last two, Slanesh and Tzentch cults are rarely, if ever seen. The former are often are small
pockets of individuals which pose little to no threat and simply wish to be left alone. The latter
are even stranger and have been known to willingly mutilate themselves. But, as we have seen are
rather civilized in their own way. Outriders have been able to trade, and negotiate with them(Clark
pg.6) should there be a mutual benefit.
These two have been earmarked for study, and possible reintegration into society at a latter date.
Though of course, should they turn violent termination orders are still in place.
Drzzet's Log
by drizzt61614
Those sick bastards, they took Ben, they took him and, they were like Reavers from Firefly, they
didn't even wait till they got back to whatever hell they use as a base before they started to... before
they cut him up and started to stitch his skin into theirs, one of the larger ones, he tore into Zach
with the razors he had embedded in his hand, Zach being... well Zach gave as good as he got, and
broke the fucker who killed Ben's neck, total 180, too bad he bled out shortly after that. Then Mike,
gods what they did too Mike... ever seen what a stick with nails sticking out of it can do to a human
throat... because thats what they did to him, they... they raped him with it then shoved it down
his throat. I only got away because of luck, the one that charged me ran right into the pike I sleep
with, still took a chunk out of my face, I hope that never heals. Scars tell who we are here, I wasn't
releaved when the first wavers found me and the remaining two facing off, if they can't be here,
then why am I? I screamed so loud when they saved me. I don't deserve life, they did. Why me? But
I know that I can never be a civilian, not after that. Perhaps they'll let me join the Outriders, maybe
I can take all of those sick fucks with me before I die. Maybe I'm no better then them for wanting to
kill every single one of those sick fuckers and send them to whatever hell this planet has.
So I seem to have passed what passes as a psyche waiver for the Outriders, which means I hate the
cultists too much to be a danger to these innocents. All though if anyone here is an innocent I'll let
just one Reaver live. Just one. They seem to be surprised that we were able to hold our own, much
less take all but two out. I guess their making long pointy sticks part of the required gear list, some
of the vets complimented me on that. I told them all to fuck off and focus on finding more Reavers
as I call them. The name is starting to stick in my unit, we found some bloody paintings on trees,
everyone got quiet after that, weapons drawn, and ready, we find them, we kill them, no mercy, no
quarter given, Orders be damned, they don't know what these things can do.
We found the sick fucks... and some kids who went through mommy and daddies history, or
something, point is they were fucking kids, literally, they were using the spike dildos on them, the
screams will always stick with me. there were body parts everywhere some looked like baby parts.
How fucked up do you have to be to do something like that to a baby, I fucking hate this place, one
of them had a zippo and from what we could see he used it too cook. Thats right the sick fucker was
using a zippo to cook babies, I never knew that kicking someone into a bonfire could feel so just. Is
this place making me like them? Is the only difference between us who we kill just because they are
there. I'm trying not to think about what a person like this was like back on Earth, were they normal
well adjusted people who broke under the constant threat of death, or did they already think like
this? What makes a person think that eating a baby is ever the right thing to do? I killed three men
today, and I don't think I'll lose any sleep because of them. The kids all had to be put down, mercy
killings, I couldn't do it. The others seem to respect that, and I got an extra ration of booze for the
night. Don't think I'll be able to sleep even with a liter of home brewed vodka in me. But damn the
flames I can spit with it are awesome.
Leadership Dossier
Town was attacked today by a group of cultists carrying out their blood ritual sacrifice. Damn
this group. Intel has told us that they have gathered information and it seems they are led by one
person who is a deranged lunatic and a known murderer back on Earth. Killed 15 children and
ate their entrails. Shit's pretty nasty. It's been heard that he was about to be sent to the chair but
somehow escaped the grasp of authorities by knifing the guard on the throat then escaped his prison
cell, even causing more havoc on the facility by killing the guards and sacrificing their bodies in
their own blood. Claims he has heard voices from the gods and is the chosen one for ascension
among his people. Preaches too that his followers can also ascend if they please the gods by
sacrificing "weaklings of the flesh". Damn it, not only do we have a serial killer on our midst, we
have a deranged serial killer who's a lunatic. The council has deemed this information important
though and has decided to keep this a secret. We don't want any panic happening in our community
now that we have established our power base and made things work that has a semblance of a
working society.
*CLASSIFIED*
Personnel somehow has managed to infiltrate one of the cults by pretending to be cultists
themselves weeks after the attack on the outriders happened. From what we can tell, they're led
by a known serial murderer in the United States who killed 15 children and ate their entrails. He
apparently has escaped the grasp of authorities by being one of the few who was transported out
of Earth into this planet and prides himself as the "chosen" of the gods for "ascension". He urges
his followers to kill for the gods and sacrifice the blood of their victims to attain "godhood".
Though they're led by one leader, the various cults operate like cells very much like the terrorist
organizations of the Earth. Ironic to think that we'd have our own "war on terror" here when I was
against Bush's policies back on Earth.
Drzzet's Log, cont.
On the good side though, we've had a loner who's been surviving on his own out in the wild brought
into camp suffering an advanced form of blackeye. The town doctor apparently has neutralized
the infection from spreading and is about to be patched up. His information and skills could prove
useful for our rangers. How he survived out there on his own still staggers belief to no end. Seeing
what's been happening around, we have to be careful though. No way telling if he's another member
of one of those damn cults.
As for the agents, I've also heard some very nasty details about the cultists' lives. From what I can
tell, these are nothing more than deranged maniacs who have already been suffering from mental
issues back on Earth. I just hope they won't lose their sanity. They're apparently men living among
monsters.
While in the middle of my fire spitting performance, some maniac who infiltrated the village started
attacking people with one of those nail-dildos, he only killed three people before he got a face full
of firey vodka and a gut full of broken glass, don't know why Central wanted him alive, don't care
either, the only useful Reaver is a dead one.
Need to see the medic, the Reaver got in a lucky swing, might need stitches, damn bastard. Won't
let it happen again.
Didn't need any stitches, but am getting dispatched to try and find where our Reaver came from,
Command thought he wasn't a Reaver, but then they took off his shirts, the sick bastard had stitched
tats onto his chest. I got a stripe for it. they reward me for killing, hypocrites, better them, then
Reavers I guess. I think I'm turning into what I hate, I think I'm okay with this...
***
Journal Log: Day 281
So I was dispatched with the transfer team today. Heavy loadout with personal belongings. On the
road. Met up with the road construction team around nightfall. We're going to escort them the rest
of the way. Looks like they're building another pressed dirt road. The architect says they'll need to
do maintenance on it every two years to keep it from turning into a muddy river. Anyways, from
their travel speed, we should make river town in a day and a half. Between the noises the road team
makes during construction and the size of our group, I don't see anything coming to prey on us.
The animals tend to avoid large groups like this. Had a talk with one of the science guys during
my night watch. Apparently a few people in the science guild have already set and named a few
constellations. They're waiting for completion before announcing them though. Neat.
Journal Log: Day 283
We arrived in river town around afternoon. No problems on the way here. I think the residents were
surprised and possibly a bit panicked to see such a large force materialize out of the woods. We
met up with their leader who set us up with housing and their rules. More or less the same as ours.
The road team is suggesting an outer wall be built, but their leader wants the place open. Wandered
around town, oversaw their fishing operation. It's really weird being in a strange town surrounded
by strange people on this world. They're friendly if a little distrusting. So apparently the river town
population is about 150 second wavers. They haven't split into guilds or organizations yet. They
have one unelected charismatic leader who asks people to perform various tasks and a handful of
dedicated hunters for protection and to supplement their food stores. They've done little scouting
of their boarders so far. They have an extremely talented doctor and a chemist that together, came
up with their own Blackeye cure. Their cure apparently does not use yowler ichor nor does it result
in the Disney Filter. Unfortunately it causes a long term condition known as Twitch, some kind of
muscular issue. Aside from that, they have no salt for food preservation, which is preventing them
from building long term food storage. They have no coal for metal working, no ores, no dwarves.
They're just barely surviving out here, but they are surviving. We have taken over one of the larger
unused buildings and are cleaning it up. It will become the new Rivertown (still an unofficial name)
Scouts and Rangers branch office.
Journal Log: Day 284
A representative from Central Supply arrived today. They had a nice long talk with the local leader
and now there is a Central Supply opening here, right next door to our branch office. They even
got a fancy carved wooden sign. I wonder what was said to make the local leader cave in so easy?
Anyways, the local trainees are on their way to Koganusan with the construction crew. In several
months they'll return as novices and continue their training under us. So this place has a completely
different feel to it. It's smaller, more open and of course the river. The area just downstream of the
nets is apparently safe to swim in. That sounds really good. The town seems to shut down around
nightfall, little to no dark activities, even with their lighting system. Since we have no outer wall,
we have to keep a constant patrol. They used to use 4 men. We're using 8 on a rotating shift. The
locals seem pretty impressed with us so far, seeing us as some kind of defense force right out of a
fantasy setting that have come out of the deadly wilds to protect them. Kind of amusing.
***
Benign cults
Benign cults though rarely mentioned do exist. We've discovered a large number in all honesty.
We simply choose to ignore them. It makes no sense to kill innocents when they have done nothing
wrong.
For example living within the canopy of the nightmare is a collection of people that believe that
someday they will turn into Elves, we've done nothing to discourage them and have given them
some trade goods in exchange for several things, including paper notebooks and even a few odd
plants.
Ghost Stories
The figure hunched closer to the campfire, which provided little warmth in its sputtering glow as
the flames licked around damp dead wood.
"I tell you, I've been working as a Scout for a while now, and I've seen some crazy shit on this
godforsaken planet, but those cultist take the cake."
He seemed visibly unnerved by simply mentioning them, as if talking about them would cause
robed figures to burst from the darkness that encroached on the makeshift camp.
"A few days I was taking a group of rookies out, just doing a perimeter sweep of the area, nothing
important."
He stopped again, looking over his shoulder into the gloomy woods. Satisfied that we were alone
again, he continued.
"Well, we came across these rocks. Whole bunch'a them, just laying around in these weird
concentric circle patterns. Dozens of them. And on each one was scratched tiny little words, 'In
Death there is transcendence', written over and over again, covering the entire surface of the rocks. I
swear some of 'em had blood stains on them too, made the words stand out even more..."
He trailed off again, and didn't start back up. We sat in silence around the tiny little fire trying to
put the awful stories we've all heard about the cult's atrocities as far away from our thoughts as
possible.
It's harder than it sounds. That was a long fucking night, jumping at every snap of the fire, ever
imagined shadow. It used to be we just worried about getting eaten by giant parasitic monsters or
catching black eye or getting caught in a flash flood. Now? Now there's something even darker in
this world. And we brought it here.
Face Off
Ever stared a yowler down?
If you haven't try it. I've faced one by myself. Looked the beast straight in its bone shielded eyes. I
tell you this much. I've never seen something so full of hate in my life. They despise us. hate us to
the point they go out their way to kill us.
Yes an animal can feel hate. Don't you hate the cultists after all?
Gary and Drew's study on Alien Fauna 000
(mostly Gary since Drew doesn't want to write. bastard.)
Drew is still very much alive, although he did suffer a stinging burning sensation in his hands,legs
and any spot on his body where he got scratched by that grass. pain lasted for about half a day but
it did no permanent physical damage to my unfortunate partner, I hope he learned something from
it(he didn't), need to remember to observe how the Rambush eat it.
we will have to get permission to form another group in order to catalogue more wildlife in hopes
to find a species we could use/eat in the coming time. Drew wanted to have a better look at the
Rambush herd we found a few days ago, we know from close observation that they are very timid
creatures, they might have evolved a defence against the predators and have nothing to fear from
anything or they just dont see humans as a threat(yet), the Herd leader might pose a problem but
since it only charged out after provocation(won't say a thing.) we're not sure what to expect. Drew
did say he felt something sticking out from under the coarse hairs, we want to investigate that if
possible.
we have arrived at the edge of the woods, the trees here have grown into a less dense formation and
some appear to have sprouted large pods on the ends of the branches. Untill we can get our hands
on one of those pods i will assume that they are a kind of fruit(perhaps even edible!) but for some
reason we couldn't find any on the ground. It is starting to get dark now so we have set up camp at
the forest edge within a rocky outcrop, we should be safe from Yowlers tonight.
ps: saw movement further in the tree field, almost certain that it is a group of Rambush, lets hope
i'm right.
***
Journal Log: Day 285
Our branch office is now cleaned out and fully operational. We even got some electric LED lights
off the city's solar panels. Fancy. I'm setting up an expedition south into the swamp. It's going to
have to be a small expedition, so I'll be leading 1 other scouts, 2 rangers and a medic. Too bad we
don't have a biologist. It's a small group and thus may run into a problem with wildlife. We'll see.
In the meantime, we have introduced some locals to our wonderful green potato thingy vodka. A
grand time was had by all and no laws were broken that anyone is aware of. I also took a dip in the
safe portion of the river. Very refreshing. No night activities in this town, no entertainment guild.
These people are probably ready to explode. Apparently the only gaming gear anyone brought was
one Savage Worlds guide, an Ultramarines army and a game of Monopoly. Monopoly is apparently
banned after a series of violent incidents.
Journal Log: Day 287
Made it to the swamp. Unlike Terran swamps, these ones are bright and colorful except the water,
which is brown as expected. Many insect species buzzing about, fish flapping about in the water.
There's probably some kind of horrible alligator analog. Probably a dino-gator with squid like water
jet propulsion and wings to fly. I hate this place. Speaking of which, upon arrival to the Swamp
edge, a black sharp beaked bird came running out of the bush and attacked my pants leg as though
it had somehow offended the bird. It didn't manage to injure me. It tasted cold steel. We had some
problems finding stable non soggy ground to set up camp, and more problems getting a fire going.
The wood here is wet on the inside. One of my rangers de-feathered the bird and we had it for
dinner. It tasted like pork. I'm sure there's something fundamentally wrong with this. He's keeping
the feathers for some kind of project. Craft skills, good for him. Anyways, we're going to spend
three days out here moving up and down the swamp coast and inland as far as we dare to scout
out the location. If it's not too dangerous, like say, the Nightmare forest, then we'll return with a
biologist and let him science this place up. In the meantime, I get to show off my underwear to
everyone while I sew up my pants from the fucking bird attack. Whatever, I don't care.
Journal Log: Day 288
Made our way southwards today while looking for a way further in; no luck so far short of hopping
in and seeing how long the flesh stays on our leg bones. The insects are annoying as insects are,
at least that seems universal. We observed some fish in the clear water, detritus and insect eaters
apparently. We observed several those black birds stalking through the water and coast, picking at
bugs and fish that got too close. There were also smaller ones that seemed to run around snapping
limbs off little animals that weren't paying attention. Nasty. Almost wandered into a bee hive, but
we managed to avoid it and just took the long way around. I certainly wouldn't want to live around
here. If I had a choice, I'd probably choose the coast. Speaking of that, I'm tempted to head east
until we hit the coast and then north to the salt camp and then back across. Unfortunately, we lack
enough food and the team is too small.
Journal Log: Day 289
It's raining, but a whole new level of rain I have yet to see. It's like a heavy mist but extra damp, like
the drizzle decided to just hang in the air. Our rain gear is doing it's best. We pushed further along
the coast until we found a spot we could move further into the swamp. I almost got lost, with all the
thick brush. Did quite a bit of slashing our way through in some areas. A sword isn't meant for this
kind of work, I wish I had a machete. Eventually we found a small round island with a dwarf in the
center hiding under a tree. We made a log bridge and I went over to check on it. It was just sitting
under the tree with it's little robot arms crossed looking all grumpy. It was the damnedest thing. I
went through the dwarf wrangling introduction script and a few other things trying to motivated it.
It ended up costing me my private Vodka stash. So now we have a dwarf in the party. After about
3 hours, we stumbled onto a mech mostly buried in the mud. Only the two three feet were sticking
out. From the looks of it, it was pushed here. I'm guessing the dwarf was moving it and it got stuck
which pissed off the dwarf. The dwarf's reaction when we arrived seems to point to that. We've set
up camp here for the night. Come morning, I'm going to try and climb over and see if that thing still
has it's power cell in it and hopefully not get eaten.
Journal Log: Day 290
Well that was fun and a waste of time. Managed to climb onto the mech and dug around for it's
power slot. No motes. Tried tieing some rope to the mech to pull it out, but it's firmly stuck. We'd
need a crane of some kind. I'll leave that to another expedition team. Last thing I want to do is
drag that thing around for three days. We are on our way back now. We took some plant samples,
got some animal trophies and managed to come out alive and unscathed. So far. We're taking an
alternate path I mapped out to get back to river town. We should arrive in 3 days and pass through
more unmapped territory. Maybe we'll find something interesting.
Journal Log: Day 291
We're away from the swamp now and into the plains. I can still smell the swamp though. The
plains are low grasslands with a variety of grasses ranging from the mostly harmless to might be
poisonous. There are grazing beasts about, and of course predators in hiding. Saw a rapedactyl
flitting about on the horizon, but it never made it's way towards us. Our dwarf seems to be much
happier now that it's out of the swamp and has been following orders. We've set camp up in a small
wood in case the rapedactyl shows back up in the night. I'm sure we've displaced some plains
predator, so we're on the look out for that. Also I'm pretty sure I've missed both my Birthday and
Christmas. I think we'll need to invent all new holidays here. Merry Yowler Day. Tortolo Sunday.
Something like that.
Journal Log: Day 292
So we found another builder compass monolith. It's about ten feet tall, it's edges point in the
compass directions. We dug around looking for tunnels but found nothing. No sign of any trails
either, or anything nearby. It's just kind of in the middle of nowhere. Maybe it's a territory marker?
We marked our initials on it along with the scout symbol and kept going. Saw more plains animals
doing what plains animals do. We witnessed a yowler taking down a racing deer. It leaped out of
the tall grass and nearly split in two with it's teeth and claws. It decided to ignore us since it had
food. We moved on quickly before it changed it's mind. I got the whole thing on my smartphone
camera. Anyways, It started raining just before nightfall, so we're all huddled in our tents except the
ranger on guard duty. You'd think he'd be huddled in his rain gear but no, he's stripped naked and
scrubbing down like it's a big shower. His ass is the last thing I wanted to see today. I'm just going
to get some sleep now.
Journal Log: Day 293
So, found a skeleton today, looks to be a second waver that got eaten. His gear was laying nearby.
He had what was once a nice rifle. Now all the furniture is water damaged and the rest needs some
TLC. I'm sure someone in town could work on it. He had no bullets that we could find, all his
clothing was damaged beyond use including his shoes. A water logged cellphone, a hand crank
battery charger of some kind that was also waterlogged, a Curta pepper mill style calculator which
is an amazing find, and a photo of a man and a woman holding hands. Kinda sad. I wonder if the
woman made it, is she here somewhere? Did she die at his side and was dragged off? Is she on
Earth? It makes me ache when I find stuff like this. We continued back to town, traveling by night.
Updated the branch office maps before going to bed and will debrief for everyone come sunrise. I
dropped off the salvage and dwarf to Central Supply.
Journal Log: Day 294
So today was interesting. A pack of racing deer pranced into town and while they didn't injure
anyone, they ran off with several articles of clothing that were hanging out to dry including
pretty much the Leader's entire wardrobe. So now he's decided it's time to build a wall. At first he
wanted a moat but the local architect dissuaded him, the soil is all wrong and it would turn into a
giant swamp and possibly sink the town. I think he made that last part up. So they're going over
different wall types. I suggested having the Koganusan construction team called in, but he wants
to do it as a river town only project and use their one dwarf that we picked up on the expedition
for construction. I'm glad I didn't tell him about the mech in the swamp. He really wants to keep
the city as self sufficient as much as possible, and bringing in "foreign help" is a weakness to him.
Our presence here is apparently enough to drive him to distraction sometimes. I think he might be
paranoid. Anyways, most of us scouts and rangers spent the day chasing down the deer trying to get
the stolen articles of clothing back if possible. Most of them had big holes in them from chewing.
Won't that be fun to fix. I'm glad I didn't have anything out. The stolen clothing was returned at the
end of the day and everyone went about their business.
***
Agricultural Report
Well, the good news first I guess. The root crops are excelling in this soil, Ive never seen anything
like it. The peanuts also seem to be doing quite well and we're likely to have a surplus of them.
Now, for hte bad news. Our soft mast plants aren't doing so hot tomatoes are dying from some
weird fungal bloom that basically eats the plant whole. We've also had trouble with the tortolo
project. The damn things are a hard animal to work with it doesn't help they are so damn big either.
Right now we are working on keeping the runty ones that are reasonably well behaved and seeing
how it goes from there
Ready
I was told be ready to run like hell. I didn't understand what the fuck that meant. Picked up by guys
wearing barely any clothes carrying bows and swords. I felt like I'd stumbled on some sort crazed
fantasy land.
I wasn't wholly wrong. They had dragged me under cover as something overhead let out a sound
that to this day makes me quake. They called it a dragon...I call it a living nightmare. The fucker
circled us for hours, waiting on us to move...
When we got the chance I was told to run. We stormed out of the brush into an open field, charging
for a toppled over tower like building that offered some shelter...
I didn't realize how fast it was, one guy fell behind me and I just heard him scream as that thing
grabbed him mid step and powered back up into the air. A little ways off it just dropped him. Guy
hit the ground like a water balloon. I could hear the impact from where I was even as I dove under
the shelter of some alien ruin
***
Journal Log: Day 295
So they started construction of the river town wall. It's a wood pillar covered in mud. They're
trying for some kind of adobe like structure with 4 gates. The gates will be wood. They only have
one dwarf and a few guys who know what they're doing and little to no tools, so this could take
awhile and/or be a complete catastrophe. Only time will tell. In the mean time, Home Base sent
out a crew with 3 dwarves, some engineers and a load of tools to see about recovering that swamp
mech. I sent one of my scouts to navigate them there and I wish them the best of luck, but that's
one project I want nothing to do with. Hell, the mechanisms are probably all shot from being under
filthy water. In other news, one of the river town science guys accidentally discovered a material
fiber he thinks we can use to make clothes. It takes several chemicals, and she's not sure which
ones yet. They're still experimenting. So, humanity has invented synthetic fiber before we've even
finished mapping the world or inventing the ship. Won't history here be fun? Speaking of science,
another couple of residents are working on some kind of radio as a hobby. Would be nice if they
could communicate with Koganusan without running for two days. I think I'll plan an expedition for
tomorrow. Something out west.
Journal Log: Day 296
So it's raining like a bitch, but fuck you sky, we went anyways. Medium load out. I'm taking 2
scouts, 2 rangers, a medic and a biologist with me. The biologist is a local and isn't used to traipsing
off into the wilds. We have enough food for a week and a half. The town leader thinks it's kind of
weird that we keep running off into the murderbeast filled wilds on whims, but that's what I'm out
here to do. Improve the master map and make the wilds my bitch. We're camped on the plains and
should make it to the Nightmare woods by mid afternoon. After that we're going to trail south and
see how far the woods go and what's south of the woods if we can make it that far. There's all kinds
of spooky shit in those woods. I'm sure our biologist will shake his fear of everything to check out
something new and exciting. You know, unless he's a tremendous coward which is always possible.
I've found most of the big time science guys completely throw their fear aside when they come to
something new and exciting.
Journal Log: Day 297
So we arrived at the edge of the Nightmare forest. Looked as gloomy and foreboding as ever. Poked
around a bit but didn't go in more then a few meters. We started moving south until nightfall and are
now camped about a feet from the edge of the woods. We keep seeing glowing shit moving around,
but it's too far to make out. Probably some kind of bioluminescent creature feeding off the fungus in
there. It's freaking out the night watch. I'm going to have a talk with him.
Journal Log: Day 298
We were followed by the glow most of the day. It never approached camp last night, so I don't think
it's hostile, just curious. Never can tell on this world. We had no idea what it was until night came.
Right in the middle of dinner, it walked out of the tree line. It wasn't an animal, it was people. Four
of them, wearing some kind of glow moss and nearly naked. We immediately thought cultists and
pulled into a defensive position. Turned out they weren't hostile. They were some kind of weird
group that ended up wandering into the woods and formed some kind of crazy society in there.
They seem to be under the impression we're in a fantasy world and believe that if they stay in the
woods, they'll become the first elves and gain all sorts of magic. I think maybe the mold in those
woods is causing all sorts of brain damage. They had simple demands. Stay out of the woods and
they would stay out of our lands. If we declined, they would use their great and powerful magics
against us. Probably some kind of fungal bio-weapon, or maybe their imaginations, who knows.
Since I had no intention of wandering in there, I agreed. They looked all pale and sickly, thin as
though they were suffering malnutrition. Our medic wanted to give one of them a full physical
but they declined. Said it was part of the transformation. I'm under the impression these guys are
actually first wavers. They did provide us with some information on the wildlife in the woods, but
I'm taking it with a grain of salt. With their insanity, they could be imagining half this stuff. They're
clearly some kind of insane cult, but they don't seem of the murderous variety. I'll leave them be
for now and let Leadership decide what to do with them. In the meantime we're continuing our
expedition southwards. We did manage to bag a sample of their bio-luminescent fungus that fell off
as they were leaving.
Journal Log: Day 299
We reached the southern edge of the woods today, slipped past and moved west, we'll follow the
south side of the forest for a day, then move south to the swamp and from there, head back to river
town. No sign of the glow from the crazy cult, I think they've left us, but I doubt that. They're
probably keeping an eye on us. The grass here is spikey, the kind I'd find Mountain Bulls hanging
around in, but no mountains and no bulls either. We're moving through it carefully. While it's not
poisonous, it can tear your leg or clothes up. We're eating the last of the salted meat, and now we
only have breadmold. They final product of many months experimenting. It's still tasteless and still
has a small chance of making you hallucinate. Fun times ahead. So while eating dinner, we told
stories. I regaled the men of the story of the Phantom Mazda. Truly frightening indeed.
Journal Log: Day 300
Happy 300 days surviving!
So we continued west today until nightfall. We attained the attention of some sort of weird birds
that followed us for most of the day before they got bored. They seemed to be almost transparent,
like they were some kind of slime or jelly. Damnedest thing I've seen. The biologist seems to think
it might be some kind of crazy flying jellyfish in a bird shape. I want nothing to do with that. Not a
damn thing. So it occurred to me. With the 300th day here and going, I believe we're going to see a
third wave of arrivals in two months or so. Koganasu has already planned for this and started up the
big farm, the Tortolo ranch and has been building a store of salted and smoked meats. Rivertown
on the other hand has no preparations. They're all second wavers. Maybe it has never occurred to
their leader that more people are coming. It might be too late to start building a stock up. This may
put Rivertown in a position of weakness in negotiations with Koganasu. I'm sure HQ has already
figured this out and is doing something about it. Speaking of new arrivals, the second wavers
thought we looked feral after 6 months, what are the third wavers going to think of us after our first
year?
Journal Log: Day 301
We moved south today. From the looks of it, the Nightmare woods continue for possibly a hundred
miles. We're in a soft grass plains at the moment, some hills here and there. Kept running into little
groups of these small feathery rodent creatures. They made cute noises and kept their distance.
Most likely a harmless prey species but we're not taking our chances. We found some ruins.
Nothing as big as a city, a small outpost from the looks of it. Two buildings, one of which looked
like it was a guard tower before it collapsed. We poked around looking for artifacts or tunnels and
found nothing. We're camped up here for the night. Our scientist seems to be handling himself well.
He's gotten past the terror of the wilds he started with, and seems to be enjoying himself a bit more.
Hopefully this won't lead to him being devoured by something. He's still having trouble keeping up,
but that's to be expected. Our medic on the other hand has been on so many expeditions he may as
well be a scout. He's even picked up sword wielding and he's proficient enough in firearms, I'd feel
safe with him at my back.
Journal Log: Day 302
Bad day, very bad day. We were in the open fields with the swamps in sight, about 5 miles away
when one of my rangers suddenly flew off. He got grabbed by a rapedactly that showed up out
of fucking nowhere. We managed to get a few shots off which discouraged it and made it drop
it's prey and bug out. Unfortunately it was quite a ways up in the air when it did so. The ranger
survived but both his legs snapped like twigs. We managed to set the bones as best we could and
make splints and now we're dragging him around on a home made stretcher of sorts. It's slowed us
down dramatically. We turned immediately and are on our way back to Rivertown. The poor guy's
in all kinds of pain, and we have nothing to give him for it. I let him borrow my smartphone and
he's listening to music to try and keep his mind off it. It'll be a three or four day journey. The battery
won't last that long.
Journal Log: Day 305
We've got another day of travel, the territory is starting to look familiar so I know we're closing
in. My injured ranger has taken a fever. He's got some kind of infection that the medic is worrying
over. We have nothing left to do for him except get him to town and hope his condition doesn't turn
fatal. I think the animals can sense his condition, they've been coming closer to us then usual. I hope
we don't attract a yowler. We're in no condition for a hunt.
Journal Log: Day 306
The patient is now under the care of the town doctor. He says he'll be fine, but he'll have to be under
the doctor's care for awhile until his legs heal. No wheelchairs here. Updated the main map and
informed the leader of their elf cult problem. I also dispatched a scout to Koganasu to update HQ's
master map, debrief and pass around some messages. Wall construction is underway around town.
There's been some mud runoff which occasionally turns the river brown from the muck and slows
down their fishing and messes up their water source. They should probably do something about
that. Some bad news though, I think I lost my smartphone. Last I saw it was in camp last night.
I'm going to take another scout out and go looking for it. I'll be so fucking pissed off if It gets lost.
Luckily it's in a "water resistant" case, so it might survive any rains. Probably not. Fuck.
Journal Log: Day 307, maybe 308?
I'm kind of fucked up and may be lost. I did find my phone, it was in the grass just sitting there
for all to see. How did that fucking happen? I took one scout out with me, we were going to get
out and be back before nightfall, or around nightfall. After I found it, we stopped for a quick lunch
before moving back. Breadmold leftover from the expedition and a shot of Vodka. That's about all I
remember at this point. I woke up somewhere in the plains with half my armor missing. I'm covered
in blood and I think I was chewing on a Night-thief I may of caught and killed by hand. Fucking
breadmold. This shit is inexcusable. I don't seem to be injured. I'm pretty sure that I'm south east of
Rivertown which means I was running my ass off through the night. I had no idea what happened to
my scout partner until I stumbled on to him a few hours later, passed out up a tree and stark naked.
How the hell did he get up there? Managed to wake him up and get him down without injury. Lent
him my rain cloak until we get something for him to wear. We found most of his gear scattered
in a big pile around a dead imp a few miles away along with the rest of my armor. His wristwatch
suggests we may of been out here a day and a half. What the fuck did they mix the breadmold with?
Meth? how are we even still alive with all the yowlers around? Fuck. We should be back in town in
an hour or two, stopping to catch our breaths. Got this hangover feeling.
Journal Log: Day 308
Okay, so we were only out a day and a half. Got cleaned up, spent some time washing my bloody
clothes and getting some non hallucinogenic food in me. Took the rest of the day off and dicked
around town until nightfall. Came across something odd while I was out. A group of locals huddled
together in one of the unused buildings. When I came across them, they all hushed up and stared
until I left. Somethings funny. I have the night watch keeping an eye out for weirdness.
Journal Log: Day 309
So the Rivertown outer wall project failed. It collapsed into a big mud mound. I don't know what
they were doing but the muck and clay mixture really stinks under the hot sun. The wall architect is
working on recovering it, but I don't think he's as good as he thinks he is. So far his plans involve
staring at the diagram and flopping around the mud. They really should give up and call in the
Kog build crew, at least for planning assistance. Broke out the practice swords today and did some
exercises with the others. It's still a pain in the ass but practice makes perfect. Had a few of the
locals imitating us with sticks or those weird builder staffs. Around noon, a scout arrived from HQ
with some messages and map updates. The farm is apparently doing well and there are rumors of
more pregnant women around. Some of the younger girls who don't realize this may kill them.
HQ is also sending a full on heavy loudout squad to pay a visit to the elf cultists in the Nightmare
woods. Find out what they're all about.
Journal Log: Day 310
Welcome to Floodtown, where the ground is covered in two inches of water everywhere. So it
rained last night and that big mud mound slid into the river and clogged it up. The water rose up
around it and has flooded damn near the entire town. The Central Supply branch office people are
pissed. Apparently their slab got wet and washed off their inventory list, and some other water
damaged irreplaceable goods. Half the town is out trying to break up the blockage. It's a damn
mess. Everyone is muddy and miserable. Well except us. We're all hanging out on the rooftops
watching. They don't want us getting involved in town affairs that don't involve defense, hunting
and exploring. So let them wallow in mud without our help. Maybe they'll learn a lesson from this.
There's some talk that Central Supply is going to seize control of the town and get this shit under
control. I'd be lying if I said I thought it was a bad idea. Central Supply has always supported us,
and we've always supported Central Supply.
Journal Log: Day 311
They got the river flowing again around midnight last night. They pretty much worked all day
and night to get it going. Come morning, they started sweeping the pooled water out of town
before insects could start laying eggs. They do that here right? Anyways, everything is still a mess.
Amusingly, they did not discover the tunnel system yet. You'd think someone would of noticed the
tiny whirlpools coming from the corner of this unusually placed ground slab. The Central Supply
people have calmed down a bit and possibly put off their plans for a coup. The town leader is still
trying to decide what to do about the whole wall mess. I think that maybe he needs to realize that he
doesn't have all the answers and it's time to ask for help.
Journal Log: Day 312
Well, they're back at the wall project and still going with adobe. This time they fenced up the sides
of the river near construction to prevent blockage and runoff. We're starting to take bets in our
branch office on how long it will last before the next catastrophe. I'm betting on three days. So
I'm planning another expedition. I was going to plan an expedition to clear up a big area between
here and the coast, but we're out of preserved meats from Koganasu. No one here has bothered to
preserve their fish because they lack salt and are too stubborn to ask. So now we're stuck in town,
dicking around. We could of gone with breadmold, but the current batch has been recalled due to
technical defects. Those fuckers. Might schedule a miniature wargame to keep us all from being too
lazy. Maybe a game of some sort. I think our Central Supply has a football on stock. Might be fun.
Journal Log: Day 313
So today was the first Scouts vs Rangers football game. We played a mile from town in the plains
field, a relatively flat area and marked the field with some poles. I had to play ref to keep the teams
balanced, as the rangers have a guy with two broken legs in the clinic. 9 vs 9. They all wore their
armor for protection and had a hell of a time. No one was seriously injured. Scouts won by one
point in an overtime tie breaker with one hell of a kick. Around the time we wrapped up, the sky
opened up and said hello, so everyone got soaked. A grand time was had by all. I think we drank
half the town's alcohol supply. We had quite a few towns people watching and cheering on the
game. Some of them got really in to it. Enough to start a few fistfights at some points. I guess they
needed something to get behind. Unfortunately, the leader promptly banned football because of
the violence. So currently, the laws of Rivertown consist of No Monopoly and No Football. Both
because of the violence. This place is turning into a shit hole.
Journal Log: Day 314
Did I ever mention how much that muck they're using for the wall smells when it's drying in the
sun? It's like someone took a shit outside my window, except it smells like that everywhere. I
participated in a short hunt today just to get out of town. We brought down a tortolo and processed
it. The leather is currently curing, and the scutes drying out. Spent more time hanging out at central
supply. Apparently some local keeps harassing one of the counter girls and that shit's not going to
stand. Nothing happened while I was there, but we had a long chat about this place. Rivertown's got
potential but it's missing some key resources and it's being mismanaged. It's closer to the plains and
could easily have several massive farm projects up and running, but no. Fish for everyone. And that
fucking wall.
***
Leadership Meeting Log
We've been assessing the 'rivertown' issue an though we had intended to act in peace. They
currently are nothing more than a waste of resources and a drain on OUR manpower. I understand
that we are trying to be good, peaceful people but, This can't keep up. Rivertown needs a new
manager.
Alright, look I'm not saying I want the job. We'll relay this idea to the scouts there, leave them to
decide. We may be missing pieces of intel that could be vital in choosing which way this coin toss
falls. Figure this out before we decide the wage our first war over territory. This may very well set
the way we handle future encounters.
In other words lady and gentlemen. We must tread these waters wisely.
***
Journal Log: Day 315
So, the wall collapsed today. 4rth day. Winnings go to the Ranger with the two broken legs. He
gets a free Vodka bottle from Central Supply. Apparently the wood substructure collapsed from
the weight. They were using the wrong kind of wood supposedly. Flexible soggy trees don't care
for the extra weight. The architect is now sitting in the clinic with a gash on his head and a twisted
ankle. I don't know if it was his fault or lack of assistance or what. I figure it's only a matter of
time before the mud breaks down the fence and clogs the river again. This is turning into a damn
tragedy and I can't stop laughing. So I called in a salt shipment from HQ. We're going to have to
start fucking processing our own food if we're going to have any preserved meat for expeditions. Of
course I did this over the head of the Rivertown leader. Fuck him. I'm having my guys keep a close
watch on him for anything. The Central Supply branch seems to be of similar mind and have started
restricting access to their resources. He's been a pox on this community through mismanagement,
banning the only entertainment this place has and the fucking wall catastrophe. All he needs is a
god complex and I'd of had his ass deposed already, but no, he's a nice guy on a personal level. So
we sit and wait for him to fuck up. I'm sure he can feel our eyes on his back. It'd sure be nice if he
stepped down so we can get someone competent from Koganasu.
***
Leadership Meeting Log
christ, this is turning into a fucking FUBAR. Alright, look we'll send Roy out there with them. At
least he fucking knows to manage this sort of thing. It'll do him good anyways, he hasn't been the
same since he saw Pete bite it hard running from that yowler.
Anyways, this doesn't get out. As far as people are concerned, there's nothing wrong in River town.
***
Journal Log: Day 316
Well, the river hasn't clogged, but it almost did. Most of the locals went out with shovels to
reinforce the mud mound. Pretty much everyone's clothing is now permanently stained mud brown
and moral is pitiful. It's always been low here, but any worse and people are going to start shooting
themselves. Mister Leader gave a rousing speech in the town square podium but even that didn't
help. Quite frankly, I would of left this place by now if I lived here. So what did us foreigners do
while all this was happening? I split everyone in two teams and did some urban wargames. Each
team had equal scouts and rangers split amongst them. Apparently we've got some real crazy
parkour enthusiasts who were doing rooftop sniping. Urban warfare is very different from the
wilds. The game lasted about 8 hours. No injuries. We had some fun, learned some stuff, got some
practice in. Afterwards we broke out the whiskey and painted the town red. Well not really but we
did make some noise.
Journal Log: Day 317
The son of a bitch banned alcohol. His guys raided branch HQ, Central Supply and most of the
locals. No alcohol because it's a depressant and will just make things worse. He didn't keep it for
himself either. He poured it into the river. Central Supply is screaming for blood and my guys are
ready to abandon this place to the wilds. I think the Ranger Captain is planning an assassination. He
had a huge stockpile, even some leftover from Earth. I agree that it's time for a change but I don't
think murder is the way. This is not what we're supposed to be standing for and not how I want to
be remembered. I'm going to have a talk with him, see if we can do this quietly, a bloodless coup.
Journal Log: Day 318
We're a close to a full armed conflict right now. The Great and Wise leader of Rivertown has
figured out that maybe we're not to happy with him and want him gone. In response, he's sent his
loyalists to seize control of Central Supply. We caught wind of this early and are blockading the
building from locals with a full loadout. We've also seized the power grid. I sent a scout through
the tunnels as fast as he could to warn main HQ about how bad shit's gotten here. We had a long
standoff, casting glares and dares back and forth until the salt caravan I ordered a few days ago
arrived with an escort team of 2 rangers and a scout. They were quickly updated and have been coopted into the defense. The majority of the locals do not want a conflict; some have been trying to
work things out between us and the rest have been taking cover in their housing. The problem is
that they won't back down. They want all that Central Supply has and want us out. That's not going
to happen. So we're at an impasse. A standoff. We'll see who is willing to pull the trigger.
Journal Log: Day 319
The situation has been resolved. Great Leader has ran away leaving a signed note behind
apologizing for his failure and saying he was leaving to join the crazy Elf cult. We are not going
to pursue this further, the matter has been dropped. The city is now in control of Central Supply
until we get a new leader from Koganasu. I've sent the Salt escort team back and requested the Kog
build team along with some support people to get this place running again at request of the Central
Supply office. The loyalists are sure it's a conspiracy and have been looking for his grave as proof.
They aren't going to find one. We have certainly not killed him and he left a signed note, so there
is no mystery. It's pretty quiet around town right now. I'm sure things are going to start looking up
soon.
Journal Log: Day 320
So the new leadership arrived today, some guy named Roy. Pretty damn quick. Seems nice. The
build team is apparently a day behind him. In his first act of leadership, he repealed all the previous
leader's laws. Monopoly, Football and Booze are back on. He's also setting up food storage to create
a surplus and going to look into a farm project and other natural resources this place has to offer.
To celebrate the new leadership, the Entertainment guild also sent some actors over and they're
going to hold a series of shows and skits all night to get everyone's spirits up. All of us at scouts and
rangers branch are relieved this is over and that this town can now have a future.
***
Unprepared
If there is anything to be said about this experience it is that David Hume was right; custom really
is the great guide of human life. I see the sun has risen on every day thus far, so I assume it will
continue to rise in the same manner forever more. I read some shit on the internet about going to
another world, I don’t believe it because that has never happened to me before and look where I
am now. This is actually my 7th day here, a whole fucking week gone by since I arrived holding
a mug of tea with a stupid look on my face. I was willed into this world atop a very tall hill,
something along the same size as the Malvern hills. At the foot of the hill, from whatever direction
I was looking in at the time, I could see a sprawling red forest that stretched out for a while before
breaking off into open plains. In the distance I could make out the markings of civilisation, some
large circular town built of up low buildings, nothing really stood out from the town, it was like a
disk of wood in the distance.
I began my descent with trepidation, I should have felt fear, I should have trembled at the thought
that I was in another world, the full gravity of the situation, even now, is distant. I still only feel
wonder in this place, its strange fauna and flora both interesting and worrying to behold. I first came
across the monkey-like things within a couple of minutes of beginning my journey, a pack of five of
them were evidently bickering over forage rights of a nearby berry bush. There were three of them
with bright blue patterns that stretched down their backs, they seemed to be the instigators; they
shrieked and leapt up and down as the other two tried approaching the berry bush. I watched these
strange critters for a while before their attention abruptly turned to myself. Suddenly I found myself
the subject of their guttural howls and taunts, one snatched up a nearby stone and pelted me with
it. As I tried to retreat one charged forth, howling and raising its claws. I stepped back a few paces,
lowered myself and as it got within distance I flicked my mug at it, flinging the freshly brewed tea
all over the critter. Reeling back in agony it thrashed about on the floor, its companions fled and I
ran too.
A little further down the hill I came across a faint man-made path of crushed grass and decided to
take it down the hill. I am quite glad I found that path and made the choice I did. A short way down
this path I saw up ahead what looked like a banner with a few chests under it. After calling out a
greeting and hearing no reply I tentatively approached it. The weather-worn banner itself was a
simple diagonal cross design, red and blue, with the image of a rook at centre. After checking over
the metal boxes for any obvious signs of ownership or traps daresay I summoned the courage to flip
open the lid of one. Inside were more metal boxes, green elongated ones, I knew what those were
so I set about opening up the other boxes. In total three of the four boxes were full of ammunition
and the last contained some surveying kit; binoculars, a compass, a map of the immediate area
and finally some paper and pencils. I snatched everything from the box, hanging the compass and
binoculars around my neck and stuffed my pockets with the pencils and papers. I left the site with a
parting gift of my mug I still had at the time.
The map already had some markings over it, rings with directional arrows pointing around the hill
I was on as well as some crosses marked about the hill. The journey down to the foot of the hill
was largely uneventful, I spotted a large quadruped animal far up the hill but it disappeared over
the crest. As I approached the final stretch I spotted, for the first time, people. There were four of
them gathered around a small unlit camp, sleeping bags laid out around it. Their camp placed beside
a natural stone wall where a section of the hill must have fallen away at some point. They were
dressed in a mixture of dark red and green, on top of these rags was some very rudimentary armour
made from hide. Three of the men wore green cloaks and one wore a rusty red colour. Each were
armed with blades and at arms reach were bows and a bundle of arrows.
***
Journal Log: Day 321
The build team arrived and is surveying the area for the wall and talking it up with the local
architect who has since recovered from his injuries. We also got a pack of new orders from main
HQ. There's some round robin reorganization. Our Ranger captain is being recalled to Koganusan,
I've been given a horizontal promotion to the Rangers to take over the slot and a new Scout captain
is taking my place. So I'm a Ranger now. What does this mean? Well I get a better gun and I'll be
going on more hunting and combat related jobs then just exploration and mapping. Unless I get
pulled in to a Scout mission, at which I'll be support rather then lead. I have no trouble with that. All
these new people in town are setting off some of the locals, but the Entertainment guild reps have
kept everyone distracted. They were pulling people in to impromptu reenactments. It was pretty
funny. I imagine guild reps will start showing up and dividing the population by their skills and
give them something to do other then tenuously grasp at their miserable lives.
Journal Log: Day 322
The wall has begun construction anew. They're going for triple stacked horizontal wood logs
with mud brick pillars at each end. Agriculture people arrived today and have begun surveying
the nearby plains for farmability. I sent some scouts and rangers to escort them. Along with the
agriculture people came my replacement, the first second wave Scout captain. I've seen her in action
and she can definitely hold her own in the field. She will be leading a scouting expedition around
the general area to learn the lay of the land, then move towards the sea and back to fill in gaps in the
map. Central supply has set up a Lant gathering initiative for both saltpeter for gunpowder, clothes
cleaning and leather tanning. Kind of gross but we do what we must.
Journal Log: Day 323
The agriculture packed up and left, but had the fields marked up. They're sending out a different
group to actually handle the farm construction, and they should be in within 3 days along with a
crap load of supplies and dwarves. The wall project continues on schedule. After they're done with
the wall, they're supposedly going in to the swamps to retrieve the mech out there. I hope they know
how to build a crane. So I will be leading a hunting trip out, my first as a ranger. I'm taking 3 others
out with me. I picked up my new weapon from Central Supply. I was given a Remington 7600.
That's what it says on the side. Got a handfull of test ammo and a box of the good stuff for field use.
I got some practice in with it using the test ammo to get used to it. It uses .30-06. Holy Shit. This
thing doesn't fuck around. Well, we leave just before nightfall.
Journal Log: Day 324
Hunting Expedition! So we hit the plains and eventually found a pack of Rambush. Looked like
a bunch of females with one lead male. We took down the male and dragged it back to town for
butchering and preserving. Overall, an easy hunt. So guild reps showed up and have set up a job fair
for the locals. Roy's made it clear that no job, no food, so they've had no shortage of new recruits.
Looks like I'm heading out on another expedition, this time at night. Yowler sighting in the agrifields. I'm taking the same two guys and we're going to see about putting down a monster.
Journal Log: Day 325
Well the hunt was successful if not unnerving. Around midnight, the beast came around, and I'm
pretty sure it came looking for us. Tried saving ammo, so we pincushion it with arrows and bolts,
but that just pissed it off and gave it a more violent gait. Just as it entered rifle sights, a second
fucker came out of nowhere and tackled me. I'd be dead if not for this armor. It's claws got stuck
on the scutes and started thrashing around wildly while I pinned the bastard and my backup slit
him open down the back with his sword. The other had stopped when the other showed up and was
hanging back. I got a good look at it. the hatred in it's eyes, the hunger on it's boney face. You can
get lost in eyes as intense as those. I got this odd sensation of deja-vu before my third blew it away
with a good shot. I got some good scratches but nothing too bad. Not like I've seen before. We
dragged the bodies back to town to be broken down into useful materials. God they stink. Weird
thing. While they were stripping the corpse, they noticed several bite marks across one of their
hides. Human bite marks. What the fuck?
Journal Log: Day 326
So I was recalled back to Koganasu today. I decided to do the trek solo and hauled ass down
road on foot with a medium loadout plus personal belongings. I passed a supply group heading
to Rivertown on the way, they were starting to move freshly made farm implements over and had
alcohol. I made it to town around midnight, had no problems during the trip. I actually miss this
place. The city was still running full tilt, the town square actors guild were reenacting MacBeth as
seen from Faerun. Shit was cash. Stopped by the bar and got a drink before reporting in at main
HQ. Made sure maps were updated and provided a full debrief to the leadership on duty. They
said they'd have something for me tomorrow, but my old place was still reserved for me. I moved
back in and am going to sleep the night off. I can't believe it, I actually miss this place. Fucking
Rivertown, making me miss Koganasu.
Journal Log: Day 327
Had a builder dream. Two great builder armies crashing into each other. Sun shining off polished
and ornate armor and weapons. It was stunning, but also terrifying as they crashed into each other
with such ferocity. I was sitting on a hill watching this. A miniature yowler the size of a house cat
sat next to me and started speaking. It said that this needed to end. A bright light came down from
the sky and all turned to dust. I woke up with a cat sitting on my chest trying to see what was in
my mouth. Damn cats. Anyways, HQ decided to assign me to an expedition to the mountains to
oversee that fort out there and explore out from there. It's a scout mission and I'm support to a Scout
captain. Apparently when Leadership thinks crazy ass missions out into the middle of nowhere, they
think of me. Sounds like fun. We leave tomorrow with a heavy loadout. I dicked around town for
awhile, getting updated. The farm wall is completed and the farm is producing full tilt. Huge plants,
it's amazing. They're already working on a second one to try and produce either corn or wheat.
That means bread and that means beer. The mines meanwhile have started to produce gold and
gems. Not a lot of use yet, but if we build an economy, we'll be on top of that. A few people have
tried their hands at jewelry making with mixed results. Paid a visit to the training grounds and told
the Rivertown recruits "exactly" what happened over the last few weeks and the disappearance of
their now ex-leader. That should be all they should need to know. Got in a minor duel with my old
sword instructor. She still kicked my ass but she said I had improved a lot. Taught me a bit about
mordehau. God damn. Heading off in a few minutes to join a one shot Shadowrun game. Stupid
Rivertown and it's lack of gaming.
Journal Log: Day 328
We're camped out at the north mines. The expedition leader does enjoy his full tilt runs across the
gravel roads. More power to him. I think we're all in the best shape we've ever been in our entire
lives. We run like track and field experts. We move like cats. Anyways, we're going to get to the
fort in a day or two depending on the terrain and weather. We've got the team lead, a Scout captain,
3 novice scouts, myself as a Ranger captain, one experienced and one novice, a medic, a geologist
and a biologist. We've got a heavy supply and support loadout. From what I understand, we're one
of the last expeditions going out. Leadership wants as many people back within 30 days, which is
the next predicted wave. I suppose I'll be out on an outrider team, collecting those that wandered in
the wrong direction and preventing new chaos cults from popping up. So the mine team has been
working their asses off. A few of them are volunteers and most are criminals working off their
penance, plus one unnamed political prisoner who is pretty much here forever. I almost feel sorry
for him. Contrary to popular belief, they are not being worked to death. They have fair work hours,
food and rest time.
Journal Log: Day 329
We're in the mountains. Camped on the other side of the broken bridge. We set up a kind of monkey
bridge across using rope and the statues as anchors. It's a harrowing experience. The skies are clear
so far, but we know those flying fuckers like hanging out here. It's dead quiet. Only the sound of
the wind blowing against the rocks, and even that isn't steady. It's like the rest of the world doesn't
exist. It's unnerving almost, more so if not for my smartphone mp3 player
Journal Log: Day 330
Made it to the fort and set up camp around mid day. The scout leader took most of the team and
left on a 3 hour patrol. He took 1 scout, 1 ranger, the medic and the geologist. The rest of us are
securing camp. That didn't take long at all, and after some boredom, started flirting with the scout
girl. Eventually took her down to show her the basement and nothing more needs to be said other
then god damn does she have a pair of legs. Anyways, scout patrol arrived around nightfall. They
think they found a path heading farther north that we're going to check out in the morning. This
place is empty. No signs of animal tracks, no sounds. Just echoing stone. Desolation.
Journal Log: Day 331
We followed what amounts to a goat path through the mountains today. Possibly made at some
point by a pack of mountain bulls. A bull path? There is little to no plant life here. It's all rock,
gravel and dirt. I wonder if the other side is a desert. The path seems to go on for quite a distance,
even traveling a whole day, we haven't reached the end. Even at our height, the air is still warm. Of
course we have no tools to know our altitude. We have to be careful with our food reserves here. If
we run out, there may be no hunting or gathering. The team geologist has taken an interest in a few
exposed strata, says the area may of been a jungle once, or at least very damp. He sees data, I see
layers of rock and dirt. Geology is definitely not my field.
Journal Log: Day 332
Well, we reached the end of the trail. A large circular valley about 10 miles across with a large lake
in the center, a river that feeds in to a tight canyon on either side. The area is also heavily forested.
It took a few minutes for us to realize that this was an old meteor impact crater. We went down
and explored, keeping on guard. We did spot a family of mountain bulls, but they ignored us and
we kept our distance. The trees are similar to what you'd find on the edge of the Nightmare forest,
though less fungus and they aren't as tightly packed. We eventually made our way to the lake.
It wasn't all that deep and crystal clear, and the only fish we saw were of the small insect eating
variety. I led a quick patrol around the lake looking for something hostile. Nothing big, a few imp
families, some nightthief nests, a few of those feathery things they're calling smeerps. We set up
camp and took a dip in the lake. It was refreshing. A water fight started and a grand time was had
by all. Tomorrow, the team lead is taking us around the outer edge of the crater/valley and see if
there's another path out of here, or if this is the end of that trail.
Journal Log: Day 333
Happy Lucky 3's Day!
Speaking of that, weirdness came with the morning. 3 house cats had wandered in to camp. What
the hell were they doing out here? We quickly scoured the area looking for signs of other people but
found none. We then picked off on our planed expedition around the outer edge, half expecting to
find some corpse somewhere. Nope, no sign of people. We got back to camp around nightfall. The
cats were still in camp, hanging around like it was the most normal thing in the world. Two blacks
and a calico. I think they're eating insects or even nightthieves, possibly fish too. Well, they were
apex predators in their size category back on Earth. I guess they're managing to scratch out a living
here too. My best guess is that they somehow decided to pass through the mountains and ended up
here. Maybe they were brought here and left by their owner. Maybe their owner brought nothing
and was eaten, bones and all. Either way, this place now has cats. Off the topic of cats, the geologist
thinks he found some meteoric iron. It's vaguely egg shaped and weighs about 10lbs. If he wants it,
he can carry it. He seems to think there is more around. Then he dropped a bombshell on us. There's
a chance the area may be "slightly" radioactive. Fucking fantastic. That's his theory as to why there
are only small animals around aside from the mountain bull pack, which is slightly migratory. It
was only a theory and he said it was a small chance. Well it was enough to frighten the team leader.
We packed up camp right then and there, in the middle of the night, and headed back out and into a
south moving river cut canyon. We set up camp a mile in and that was that.
Journal Log: Day 334
Well, the cats have abandoned us. We're traveling down the bank of a canyon river. It's brownish
from dirt, and not a drinkable quality at the moment. The terrain is rough, and slowing us down
quite a bit and we only have a vague idea of where it leads. The river is mostly rapids. Reminds me
of the Colorado river but smaller. Around noon we hit a 30ft rock wall that we had to scale. That
was pretty much the entire day right there, getting everyone over that thing with freestyle climbing
and what little rope we had left. We set camp up in a cave. Myself, the team lead and another scout
started poking around the cave, seeing how far it goes and marking the wall in chalk so we don't
get lost. We got an hour away before we turned back. It goes on quite a ways past that. We're not
equipped for a spelunking expedition. The location was marked on the map for another time.
Journal Log: Day 335
Found another builder compass monolith. Poked around, found nothing like the others. This one
was mostly destroyed. It's top half was broken off and laying around it in pieces. We continued
following the canyon and river until we ran into a rapedactyl. We managed to get under a rocky
overhang. It kept us in place for a few hours while it circled and screamed out for us. It eventually
came in for a landing and poked it's head under the overhang to see what's what and got a face full
of arrows and high caliber rifle. We stripped it down for meat and trophy teeth/claws and continued
on. I wonder if anyone's going to be crazy enough to put a saddle on one of those things and try to
ride it. It probably won't end well. We're set up for the night by a mountain spring that feeds into the
river. It's clean and clear. We took a dip to wash off the weariness and immediately got into another
water splash fight. We're such a vicious bunch.
***
Perspective
The two legged things were a threat. They claimed the dead ones nests and now, they brought
forth...Things. Terrible things with too few legs covered in something soft and strange. They
smelled funny and had too many little wriggling things. The new comers were a threat. They had to
go.
At least the things on two legs tasted good, they gave a fight as well. They made fun prey, so active
all the time. so much fun to chase and scare. Of course, there were too many. It didn't like these
things. When they had first come, they were tasty, crunchy morsels now, they were like beetles.
Covered in something like the big beasts that are so good to eat. Even worse, now they would bite
and scratch with silver claws and teeth that could reach them from too far away...
These things are a problem they had to go. Even as it cried out, a low mournful cry that echoed back
across the forest by others like it. Newly born with their own legs and faces. It knew that they could
not win this way against the two legged creatures. That was fine with it though..so long as it could
eat them till its days were done
***
Journal Log: Day 338
Several days of moving through mostly mountains now, it's been very tiring work. Uphill and down
hill on unstable ground. We're running low on food. We've been heading south this whole time. I
only have a vague idea of where we are. The air here smells different though. We did find a few
examples of builder writing carved in to a rock face that had been smoothed out. There doesn't seem
to be anything around here though, no sign of a path, covered or not. It may be a marker stone of
some kind, maybe a point of remembrance. Maybe the last message of a dieing bird. I get an odd
feeling around here, it puts me at unease. The geologist is still toting around his block of meteoric
iron. I wonder what he's going to do with it? Haha, maybe he'll make a magical space sword.
Journal Log: Day 339
The smell in the air was the salt. We hit the coast today, the northern pass. We started heading
south and will meet up with the salt camp in a few days. We're set up at the mouth of the pass
tonight. Finally some relatively flat lands, plus we'll be at the beach. Time to work on a new peeling
sunburn. In other news, we should be seeing third wavers soon. Won't that be fun. Well, Central
Supply is going to love their new supply stock.
Journal Log: Day 340
Running on a beach. We're barefoot, because sand and it's inexplicable tendency to get in the
damnedest places. The sky has been clear so far. Saw a boat on the horizon again. Again they
ignored my attempt at communication. Anyways, we're camped up in the builder shack. Looks
like someone's been here since. There's names carved in to the wall, I recognize most of them as a
scouts. We added ours. We are now officially out of food. With any luck, there will be a team at the
salt shack. I took a short walk in the dark to clear my head. Thought I heard something but I saw
nothing.
Journal Log: Day 341
So while taking a leak under a tree, I found something. It's a set of keys. One of them is to a car.
It says Mazda on it. Mother fucker. I don't know anymore. I just don't know anymore. Someone is
doing this to me. They're driving me insane slowly, one piece at a time. Maybe it's whoever brought
us here. Maybe it's builders. Maybe it's the ghost of Nikola Tesla. One day I'll find out. That will
be the day I die probably. It's fate. It's destiny. One day. The rest of the team is worried about my
reaction and my random bursts of laughter. I don't think any of them are involved, they can't be, can
they?
Journal Log: Day 342
Okay, I've run the crazy out of my system, though I get a headache every time I look at those damn
keys. We're moving at a great pace and should be at the salt camp some time tomorrow, most likely
at night. I hunted down a racing deer for tonight's dinner. We're all pretty hungry. Our pace is tiring
and we need to keep fed. Spiced it up with some salt water and citrus juice from an orange bush.
Tasted great. One of my rangers skinned it and is keeping the skin for some project of his. I hope it
doesn't start smelling.
Journal Log: Day 343
Made it to the salt camp. When we arrived, there was a boat parked on the beach and 3 guys poking
around the salt camp. They were in tattered clothes and carrying a few firearms and modified
builder spears, possibly modified for spearing fish as they were shortened and had ropes on them.
When we approached, they held us at gunpoint until they could launch their boat and leave. They
said nothing and refused to answer questions. Who the hell are these guys and what's with their
xenophobia? I don't think they're tg'ers. Anyways, looks like the salt team have been gone awhile.
They did leave some salt behind, so we can do some quick and dirty food preservation of our own.
Sent my rangers out hunting and they came back with another racing deer. They taste pretty good
with the right seasoning. Learned a few tips from a certain ranger that got murdered by a chaos cult.
Those fuckers. They deserved everything we did to them. Anyways, we're going to have to come
out here at some point with our own boats and find out where those oceangoing assholes live.
Journal Log: Day 344
Left a message at the salt camp should those ocean going assholes show up again. We're on our way
back to Kog now and should arrive in 3-4 days depending. It's raining out. When I say raining, it's
like standing under a waterfall. Rain gear is barely doing it's job. We still hauled ass, the road is
holding together well and a lot of the more dangerous animals don't care for hunting in the rain. We
have our tents set up under some trees, and even then, I put my rain gear over the top to help keep
dry, as the material was starting to get damp. It would of sucked except while I was on watch duty,
a certain Ms Legs came out and uh, well a grand time was had by all plus we're all clean from the
rain. I'm pretty sure the medic saw, the creep.
Journal Log: Day 345
Well it's drizzling now. Not as bad as yesterday, but everything is already wet. We've got another
day ahead of us before we reach Kog. So I've had a few niggling concerns and had a talk with Ms
Legs during the trek. Apparently Ms Legs (who's name I'm not publishing should this fall into the
wrong hands. I'm looking at you Franco!) got her tubes tied way back during her college days and
had planned to eventually get the procedure reversed. Unfortunately that's now impossible and she
may as well be barren. She kind of broke down halfway into the confession. She apparently wanted
kids when she was older. Now it's never going to happen. Well, at least she's found a place in life
here as a competent scout, it's a shallow consolation.
Journal Log: Day 346
Stopped raining around noon. The woods on either side of the trail smell fresh and earthy. Speaking
of that, what the hell are we going to name this world? Other then Hellhole I mean. Anything but
Earth2. That's stupid. Anyway, ran into the salt team on their way to the beach. I warned them about
those boat people. Their ranger captain mentioned being followed by something big but harmless.
We're keeping a look out for it. Probably a lonely yowler or a lost tortolo. So it's shaving time. I
miss shaving cream. Some people are already stuck using knives or scissors. Sucks. We need to
reinvent the safety razor.
Journal Log: Day 347
Made it to Koganasu today around noon. Got cleaned and rested up. HQ is preparing for third wave
by sectioning off an unused portion of the city. Their plan is to dump the newbies in there until they
can be instructed and are assigned to a guild and their gear sent to Central Supply. There is going
to be violence, there is going to be death. Leadership is doing their best to prepare for it. In other
news, the farm apparently can't grow wheat or corn. Sucks. So they're growing more potatoes trying
broccoli. Great. Also the Rivertown wall is well underway and their farm is was recently completed.
I have no idea what their third wave plan is. There were some problems earlier with our windfarm
generators during the storm a few days ago, but they have since been fixed. It was nice getting
my phone recharged again. Tonight I'm going to go watch the actors larp out a Pathfinder game.
Something about salt trading.
Journal Log: Day 348
Stuck around HQ most of the day and assisted the Rivertown novices with their training. Weapon
handling, hunting, skinning and navigation and so on. They'll do fine. Our master map is filling out
nicely. We have yet to even reach another board city if they're out there, but we have ourselves a
pretty nice chunk of land. We're just missing some resources. It'd be nice to get rubber, if this world
has an analog, so we can create proper wheels. Hell, I could get to the beach a hell of a lot faster
on a bike. Speaking of invention, Rivertown's HAM radio went online today, and they've been
communicating. Leadership has assigned communications to the Scouts and Rangers organization
for now, and we're picking a few individuals to handle this. We're also discussing if we need to
use a code system should anyone hostile be listening. Those signals from out west during the early
days come to mind. We have no idea who they were, what happened to them or even if they are still
alive. Anyways, someone is running an exalted game, and it should be a blast seeing the larpers act
out those scenes.
Journal Log: Day 349
It's raining like a bitch today. A lot of the town cats have taken refuge in whatever house is closest.
I have two hanging around in mine. They're sleeping on my travel pack. I have named them
Paws and Baron Vladamir Von Zeppelin because I'm bored. I'm sure this is a sign of my waning
sanity. Ended up spending most of the day hanging around HQ. A bunch of us were around so
we reminisced about Earth, our previous lives and what we left behind. A few told their first day
stories. Talked about the future of humanity in this place. We have the potential to do well. We've
already adapted in this short time. That doesn't mean we'll all be dead in a day due to some super
plague, but we're holding our own against the wilds. So according to the radio, Rivertown got that
mech out of the swamp and have it parked near town square. Good for them. Official news from
Central Supply, the last tube of toothpaste has been used up. The chemists are going to have to
come up with some kind of replacement. I'd rather not go the old Roman route. They brushed their
teeth with urine. I'm not that desperate. No thanks. I think the Egyptians used some pumice and
wine mix. Anyways, no entertainment due to the rains so the lot of us are going to meet up at the
bar.
Journal Log: Day 350
Ended up leading a patrol between Kog and Rivertown. Everything is damp as expected. We're
mainly looking for yowlers that have gotten a little too brave and anything else of interest. Medium
loadout. It's myself, 2 rangers, a scout and a medic. Trudging through the foothills and woods.
We're basically doing a big figure 8. It should take about 3 days. The weather man says it's looking
to rain that whole time. Fantastic. What's worse is that I think I ended up with the rain nudist. Likes
showering in the rain in the middle of camp with no clothes on. I don't need to see that. No one
does.
Journal Log: Day 351.
We bagged a yowler today and helped our medic harvest it's ichor. It seemed already injured but
still came limping at us as fast as it could. They really need to learn that this is our world now, not
theirs. Anyways, more rain. We're all huddled in our big tent playing Uno and discussing the next
year. I figure it's time to expand our expedition times from days to a month. Food is a problem, so
they would have to be large expeditions, with carts and many people. With luck we'll bump into a
friendly board town with resources to trade. If we're extremely lucky we'll find that we're far from
everyone and don't have to worry about their problems. Some other concerns are food production.
We're doing well for ourselves and once the farms swing into full production, we'll be doing even
better. With good leadership, we won't worry about starvation. That leaves the far future. We're
going to eventually need an education system for the kids born here. I don't want to be the founder
of a civilization that treats education like a cancer. We need to advance. We need to get to the stars.
We need to find Earth again, even if it's not in our lifetimes, and it won't be. I've come to accept
this. It hurts to say this, but this world is home now. We'll live here and die here. This is our lives.
I don't know the reason we were brought here but dammit, we are humans. We will adapt, we will
expand, we will advance.
Journal Log: Day 352
Still raining. We're camped out several miles from Rivertown. I can see it's nightlights from here.
They're small but enough to be noticeable from here. We'll be back in Kog tomorrow some time.
Thought I saw a Scalewolf today. I've only ever seen the one before. They're apparently rare or they
actively avoid us. Maybe both. Caught the scout and ranger making out. Never thought they swung
that way. It's none of my business. Anyways, my smartphone still has a charge and is blasting
KidneyThieves while I build a character for an EclipsePhase game running tomorrow night.
Journal Log: Day 354
The rain stopped finally. Baron Vladimir Von Zeppelin can finally leave the comfort of my home
with his associate Paws. Even if I have to toss them out. They're shedding everywhere. Pretty slow
day, dicked around HQ, assisted the Rivertown novices with some training which yes, included
swinging around the wooden sword. Fuck yeah! They always freak out when you flip the blade on
them during a lock and whack them with your hilt. In other news, rumors that the Science guild is
working on a steam engine of some sort. Not sure what it'll do. Maybe a better power generator?
Either way, they're sucking up iron and coal for whatever it is. I don't think we're mining enough
coal for a persistent engine though. We'd need to improve our mining methods and for that, we need
dynamite. I can't wait until we invent dynamite.
Journal Log: Day 355
Well, the Rivertown Novices are on their way to Rivertown, their training considered more or less
complete. Now they'll spend the next few months working under active scouts and rangers before
gaining a rank. They're good kids, they'll do fine. So I proposed the idea to HQ that we rebuild a
few of the Builder outposts and man them with switch shifts. We could use them a launch points for
longer range expeditions. They're considering. It seems they've also got plans to refortify that fort in
the mountains along with it's access bridge and any number of blocked tunnel projects, so there are
lots to do for the construction groups. The problem is finding which is most important. Currently
the construction team is off working on the Rivertown wall, which I hear is half done. Good for
them. A bit of drama in town, the Entertainment guild is threatening to go on strike due to all the
work they do with no gain. Leadership is giving them some small concessions in response as moral
is important in a situation like this and they're the ones that keep it up. They are expanding into
clothing production and woodworking for props. I don't see how giving them more work will make
them happy but it did. They were positively delighted with the prospect. Maybe there was some
under the table dealing involved.
Journal Log: Day 356
So one of the Science team runs into town square yelling that he's figured out how to translate the
Builder language and then spouts off some insipid jrpg prophecy about light and darkness, 1000
year seals and so on. I'd be more concerned except this exact thing happened already and it's just
a jitterbug hallucination he caught from his breadmold. Sure enough the guy spent the rest of the
day chatting with Chevy Chase as the Invisible Man. Whoever is running the breadmold bakery is
a god damn incompetent. Coal shipment arrived and was immediately sucked up by the Science
Guild. I hope they're not building some kind of steampunk doomsday device. Spent most of the day
in HQ in a meeting planning out the coming events. I'm to take a large outrider group and grab as
many newbies as I can, making multiple trips and going farther out each time. We still don't know
if they're going to show up all at once or in groups over the course of a few days. We don't know
the number of them. There could be a few hundred or a thousand. We can't support a thousand fresh
faces yet, at least not very well. Hell, they may not even show up at all. Too many unknowns, but
that's what life here is all about.
Journal Log: Day 358
Well what do you know. The town Wifi network was down for most of the day. Some kind of
software bug they finally worked out. So in 2 days, I'm taking a team of 5 rangers, 6 scouts and 3
medics into the field to collect newbies. Heavy loadout. It's occurred to me. Second wave thought
us first wavers looked near feral after 6 months. What are the 3rd wavers going to think of us after
a year? I took a good look in the mirror and some remaining piece of me is a bit scared at what I've
become. The rest of me is pretty satisfied though. This is what it takes to survive here. If I suddenly
appeared back on Earth tomorrow, I'd have a hell of a time fitting back in. I think all of us would.
Anyways, Entertainment guild is running the Wizard of Oz, but instead of Oz, it's Warhammer
Fantasy. This can't end well for Dorthy and her little dog. I want to know who keeps coming up
with these weird mashups.
Journal Log: Day 359
God damn it, they started arriving a day earlier then expected. Our first clue was when a group of 5
Teens and their dog arrived in town. The apparently thought we were all peasants from a medieval
world and were going to rule over us with their amazing knowledge of science and a pistol one of
them probably got out of their father's closet. They were all smiles and laughs until we explained
the situation and then stripped them at gunpoint of anything useful and sent them off to the newbie
area. Little bastards. So I'm rushing my team out early. We immediately found 3 more who were
hopelessly lost, one of which had apparently been in the shower when the transition occurred. On
the up side, he brought a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap. Rare items out here. By the end
of the day, my group alone grabbed 20 newbies. Some brought useful stuff, others, not so much.
Typical. Only a few got any injuries, mostly from falls, but one guy engaged a yowler with a katana
and nearly lost his arm. He's damn lucky we arrived. Our medics did their best to keep it attached
and he's now in the hands of the doc. It seems quite a few of the newbies this time are teens, and
quite a few dogs as well but no cats. Weird. The other teams brought in around the same except
one group which came in with 50 people. Dedication or luck, I don't know. We've got a grand total
of about 70 people. 70 people in one day. They're all fenced in the newbie area getting personal
attention, getting explained the situation, being fed and explaining the wonders of Blackeye and
xenoadaption. Several of the survivalist types were pissed that their gear was stripped, but we made
it clear that they can get their guns back if they join scouts or rangers. In the meantime, I'm leaving
in a few minutes to look for more. Campfires and flashlights should be easy signs to pick out.
Journal Log: Day 360
Happy Circle Day!
Today has been hell. Picked up and escorted a few groups last night. They were pretty terrified. Got
shot at by one person but thankfully no one was hurt. Had to chase down a few people who thought
we were slavers or murderapists. I had to put down one guy that may of escaped a psych ward or
a prison. Very harrowing. Again, we seem to be getting a lot of teens this wave, where as the last
two were mostly 20 and up. Some brought gear that was over thought out and that they couldn't
possibly carry, others brought stupid shit, but that's common for all waves. Quite a few hambeasts
with personality disorders who packed nothing but game books, anime or porn. Many laptops, few
brought chargers. Central Supply is going to love this loadout. Hey, maybe Rivertown can get their
own wifi network now. Anyways, we're stopped in town for dinner and then we're heading right
back out with no sleep. All in a days work.
Journal Log: Day 361
Finally got some sleep last night. We set up a camp with a massive fire and let people come to us.
Two did. Later in the afternoon we had a hell of a situation. We ran into a "cybercrimes" police
detective in his 50's who apparently was doing some kind of research. He saw us approach armed to
the teeth and flipped the fuck out, figuring we were some kind of zany hit squad. It took two hours
to talk him down and explain everything to him. He demanded to follow us the rest of the day to
rescue more lost, but he wasn't in the best of shape and a few hours after that we escorted him to
town with others we picked up. I'm sure Central Supply will have fun trying to disarm him. We
restocked and are doing a wide patrol now, checking the unoccupied ruins for more popup cities
like Rivertown was and hopefully bring it into the fold before we have another situation.
Journal Log: Day 362
So we barely made it to our first stop before night and we were hauling ass for a group this size.
These ruins have few standing structures and luckily no one was here. This would be a terrible
place to colonize. We left a sign with directions to Koganusan should anyone arrive here after we're
gone. Spent the night chatting it up about the newbies. So fresh and clean, so whiny and with no
idea what's to come. But hey, we got dogs now. If we can train them, they'll be great to have in the
organization.
Journal Log: Day 363
We're 3/4 the way to the next stop before we set up camp. It's quiet out and the sky is clear. Found a
fresh corpse today. Yowler attack. Had an interesting run in with an adventurer. He was dressed in
the weirdest collection of gear I could imagine. What looked like WW2 era military uniform, home
made metal plates made to look like plate armor, a shotgun that looks like it hasn't been used in 50
years, an absurd looking sword and the nightvision goggles from CoDMW2. His first reaction to us
was to draw his sword and demand a duel. He thought it was all fun and games until I mordhau'ed
him. It wasn't too hard, but enough to knock some of the stupid out of him. Sent a scout to escort
him back to town.
Journal Log: Day 364
Ran into the next ruins. Sure enough, there's around 80 people here, and more showing up all the
time. I had considered these good ruins to start a colony due to the condition of all the buildings and
the fact that it has a river less then a mile away, and not the same river that feeds into Rivertown.
We walked into town and caught quite a lot of attention. Called everyone over and started
explaining what's what. They were surprised that we've been here a year already. We explained the
plants that are edible, which have uses, which animals are safe and which aren't and which ones you
can eat. A few survival types paid close attention. I'm going to put them to use to get things running
here. I dispatched a scout and ranger back to town to alert Leadership and get some reps out here
to take control. Until then, I'm in command of this town. I'm temporarily naming it Cadia based on
someones suggestion and because it's easy to remember. I'm having most of my rangers and scouts
split up and take the trustworthy looking survival guys out to hunt down some tortolo and any fruit
available. The medics are treating injuries and I'm personally overseeing construction of three clay
pot water filters. We need to get this place's ass in motion before people start starving. A few people
started to complain about being forced to work, but after a group of racing deer ran through town,
they're all willing to do anything for protection of the big scary wilds. It's about two days from Kog,
and two days from Rivertown. Once the build team is done with the Rivertown wall, they should
be laying road. Unfortunately, no one brought any solar panels for power generation. Hopefully the
science team can build some kind of waterwheel or wind farm for power generation here.
Journal Log: Day 365
People are being fed, we have shelter, we have water and we have fire. Short of a sudden Blackeye
outbreak, the people of Cadia should be fine. Spent most of the day overseeing operations and
regaling them on tales of my adventures. There were a few fights over supplies, but they got
straightened out. I'm having them pool everything in anticipation of Central Supply and to make
distribution easier. I believe this town has a future. Sadly, this is the last page in my journal and I
won't be able to get another one. I'm leaving this journal to Scout and Ranger HQ as documentation
of humanity's first year on this world; our struggle for survival and overcoming the odds to flourish
here. The battles and victories over nature and ourselves and of course the Phantom Mazda. We've
come a long way and have a longer way yet to go. This is Ranger Captain Christopher Aris of
Koganusan signing off.
***
Many years later...
Journal Log: October 12 1057
Well, the news from our investigation team has concluded that the ruins of Futaba are still
dangerously radioactive from the nuclear strike 30 years ago. Council has increased the travel ban
in the area for another 20 years. Supposedly another cache of fist gen gear was found. Those who
don't believe in the old histories say that it's just another scam, another attempt at hiding the truth,
that we're from this world and not descendents of people kidnapped from a gloriously advanced
world, Earth. I haven't taken sides, I'm not big into religion, but I do have to wonder. Even the
builder histories say our people just arrived one day. Anyways, one of the artifacts looked like a
commphone but smaller, fancier and supposedly with some kind of digital screen, and then there
is that rusted wheeled vehicle they dug up, the so called Mazda of Koganusan. I'll leave such
mysteries to the historians and religious zealots.
A builder story
Once upon a time, a child of a great one, not quite of age, had decided to prove his worth to his
peers: to prove his strength and ability to lead. He quietly left the safety of his home one fine day in
search of a great creature to slay, bringing with him only his blade of which he was quite proficient.
He wandered the plains and the woods looking for something worthy of his might. Throughout
the day, he only managed to find a few herd beasts, and at one point he saw a great flier but it
ignored all his challenges no matter how loud he boasted them and flew off. Was there nothing that
would fight him? Feeling dejected, he paused in a small glen for a drink of the fresh water running
through it when he heard a rustle. Grabbing his blade, he turned to see a great and ancient predator,
the ones that cry in the night. The young one saw in this a great and worthy challenge and drew his
blade when the unthinkable happened. The ancient one spoke in a low hissing voice. "Why do you
challenge one such as I young one?" The young one replied, "You are a challenge worthy of my
skill. With you, I will prove to my peers my strength and thus ability to lead!" The wise ancient
one chuckled, "So strength alone is the key to leadership then?" The young one replied, "Of course,
what else is there? All of my people's leaders are the strongest. I too will be among them one
day!" With this, the ancient one smirked. "Then you will face me and show me your strength child
and perhaps you will learn something." The young one pulled himself into his fighting stance and
prepared to strike when suddenly a second predator pounced out of the brush to his undefended left,
as a blur of motion and death. "Dear child, it takes more then strength to lead. What good is your
blade without the cunning or intelligence to back it up? Anyone can be strong, but the smart ones
lead and the fools get eaten." With that, the ancient one sated his appetite, joining his offspring in
devouring their prey.
.
Science Journal
I finally have a place to record my thoughts. With any sort of luck, these thoughts will live beyond
the hand that writes them. First thing's first. Life exists on other worlds, sentient life. We know
this now, as we have been translocated here through some unknown means. I don't know how
much time has passed since my last few seconds on Earth to waking up in the woods near this town,
Koganusan. Even if I did know, it wouldn't answer the multitude of questions I have. Clearly some
sort of faster then light travel was employed by our mysterious "benefactors", but how fast and
how far still needs to be answered. For all I know, a thousand years have passed on Earth while
we were in transit. Hell, maybe we moved backwards. So, how did I end up here, other then the
obvious? A few posts on an image board related to "traditional" games. My own interests were
in the transhuman and cyberpunk genre. So, here I am. A first wave arrival and member of the
Science Team. I despise the word guild, perhaps irrationally. It doesn't matter.
This is a terribly frustrating time for me. I have always wished to be immortal, not for power or
out of fear, but so I could always find out what happens next. I had always loved to watch the
drama of the world as progress marched on, ever forwards but with a moment the march has been
pushed back to the beginning. We're a small population dropped in the middle of a primitive
village with primitive tools and whatever we managed to bring with us. Now there is nothing to
watch but progress slide backwards until all of our remaining technology breaks down and we're
left in the stone age. People consider our ancestors primitive for not developing technology faster,
but they don't realize it takes time to get to where we were. We have to literally reinvent fire, the
wheel, agriculture, animal husbandry. We have to start from scratch. There are no steps to skip.
It'll be centuries before we have the infrastructure to build a transistor or even a lightbulb. There
are worse things to consider, what if this world is missing certain key elements. What if it has no
silver or uranium? We would have to develop in completely new directions or hit a plateau. Our
descendents will have to find a way. We are the human race. Even if we're starting anew here on
this world, we will adapt, we will advance, we will return to space. As a great man once said, "The
sky calls to us, if our race survives, we will one day venture to the stars." Hopefully thanks to our
preservation of knowledge, our descendents will one day see that galaxy rise.