《Journal of New World Ranger》


 Convergence - Journal Entry #1 - 5/1/2021

    No one will ever forget the Convergence. It might become a sort of remembered event as the years go by, with the details being either forgotten or misremembered and people just get used to it but it won¡¯t be forgotten as whole. Anyone alive for it will forever remember it. For all the change it brought and how things still managed to stay the same.


    <hr>


    When you¡¯re a twenty-something, recent college grad with no real direction in your life, that had been lounging on said degree for months, no real friends in the area left and whatever money your parents are willing to give drying up, something you think you need is a large change to get your life rolling.


    At least, that¡¯s what my big plan to at least give my ¡®adult life¡¯ a jump start.


    I grabbed the car my parents bought me for college, pulled together some cash, some clothes and then some smaller personal items and went west. Being from a county bordering New York City, there was a lot of west to travel so there was a lot of room for my life to get the start.


    I had definitely been na?ve in thinking this would be a helpful thing. I had traveled a lot and had had something of interesting time doing so in what was becoming a lowering of quality of life. Over those couple of crossed states, I managed to pick up on some small jobs but those were mostly simple and off-the-cuff jobs that would last at most a week to pay out 500$ or so. I started out living in cheap motels to eventually living from the car and wondering if I should turn around. It wasn¡¯t all a descent into bad living though, as I meet quite a few people over those states traveled. All were nice people I wouldn¡¯t mind meeting again but they weren¡¯t enough to keep me anywhere for longer than a week and half. A few offered me a job for longer stay and I think one guy had promising business opportunity that he invited me to at least start with but I turned him down for some reason. I can¡¯t tell you why but I moved on from that town quickly after that.


    Nothing had yet appeared to really hook my life into a new direction until the Convergence basically put a stop to all my cross-country travel.


    I was driving somewhere between the towns of Oakdale and Madison when what sounded like thunder yet felt like an earthquake happened. I thought it was just a random storm that I had driven into; something that happened during my trip but the sudden lightning that almost hit me twice in the span of a couple seconds put me off that idea. After the near death experience, I decided to take the car off the road and just sleep out the storm in the car. Usually passed by then.


    The next day, the skies were full of clouds that looked like they would start raining but not any time soon. I started up the car again and continued down the road, finding it that the storm I managed to sleep through had done some pretty serious damage.


    The road I was on, which wasn¡¯t an unknown road, had branches of trees a large as my car door and even large pieces of houses. The debris alone cause the drive there to be more cautious and tepid. There weren¡¯t any easy straight-ways for maybe longer than a minute and half and whatever broke that straight-a-way was another tree branch that was probably half a tree or a piece of another house and on the rarer occasion, an animal. Usually a large deer but there was a bear at one point.


    I was driving from sunrise to sunset and it was a huge hassle of dodging branches and houses. It also felt like I hadn¡¯t made any progress to the next large town at all. It was when the car GPS had began telling me that I was going backwards, that I had decided to pull over again and sleep it off. Maybe the roads would be clearer in the morning or that that storm that was approaching would blow by in my sleep. It was an easier to fall asleep this time around instead of through the storm like last time.


    Woke up to find something large enough to push a car around doing just that to mine. Like an idiot, I tried to get up and get the car moving but only managed to piss off the thing that thought the car was a plaything. I can¡¯t say it was my proudest moment but the event was a harrowing enough experience to live through and survive. I lost the car due to the damages sustained but it managed to drive me far enough to get the thing for it to get bored and stop trying. My troubles didn¡¯t stopped there as after discovering that the phone networks were down and the internet wasn¡¯t going to help, I had to trek to the next town. I did so in the hopes that I¡¯ll be able to get a tow service as well as warn the town about the thing hunting cars for food. I had probably walked a good 13 miles (something I¡¯m not accustomed to but could manage) until I was convinced something had definitely changed in the world.


    Just as I was walking towards the nearest town, mostly ignoring the few empty, destroyed or ransacked cars along the way due to them being just as empty as mine was, I heard a lot of foot stomping and angry yelling. Something told me to hide away from the large noise and I thankfully listened to that part of my mind and dove under a car. This proved to be a smart move as I was able avoid what a later found it was an Orc Raiding Band traveling. Managing to avoid it was good but the shock of what I had just witnessed had stuck with and didn¡¯t do well.


    You¡¯d think the kid who played D&D in his college-off hours instead of actually studying for his test the next day would be, on some level, ecstatic about his fantasy knowledge finally being useful for something and I was for time. Until I remembered that I don¡¯t know how to swing a sword for shit. I don¡¯t know how to cast a spell. I don¡¯t know how to pick a lock and I¡¯m pretty sure that I wouldn¡¯t be able to draw out a good bow if memory served me correctly. So I went into something of minor crisis about the state of the world. Which was exactly what I didn¡¯t need since the raiding party decided to make a return run. This time I was unable to hide because I saw them to late and had to leg it. Not a great idea because they¡¯d been marching and running for longer than I had in my life and so were pretty close to catching up to me.


    I was saved due to pure luck. From what I would later learn was a small party of cops, I had been saved through the blessing of firepower as the troop had guns while the Orcs didn¡¯t. Alongside this lopsided battle of strength, it also seemed as though the orcs were still new to guns and so weren¡¯t ready for the small barrage and were spooked by the loud sounds of the gunfire. It was definitely a strange occurrence that I was thankful for as the troop got me to my feet and asks me some questions. I explained my situation best I could and relayed to them the small danger I had encountered that wasn¡¯t the raiding party. While not pleased with the information I had delivered to them, they were at least thankful for it and welcomed me back to town to at least get something to eat and sleep for the night.


    That was my introduction to the new town of Oakfield. A small town that used to be Oakdale that was made bigger by the Convergence. What was once just a large, rocky forest that was mostly unworkable land had been transformed or replaced with more lush fields that local farmers were already bidding to work on. What was outside that forest was now a denser and darker place that the local hunters didn¡¯t recognize at all. Communication with most other places had been cut and the town, while not in danger of running out of supplies, was quick to rally itself in the face of this new world in order to protect itself from those oddities. It was a pretty interesting place with lots of faces and more troubles to deal with. I was glad somehow found me with what was definitely a changed world.


    <h2>Diary Journal Entry #1</h2>


    5/01/2021


    It¡¯s surprising how quickly mundane a magical new world becomes when you have to live in it for longer than a couple days. What was first a terribly harrowing experience became a wondrous sight which then become an almost constant yet manageable worry. It¡¯s hard to think that but when you are given more pressing matters to attend to, the magic of the literally magical world loses its luster. At least it does when it comes to the day to day things.


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    After being saved by the local patrol, I was given a meal and small cot to sleep on in police¡¯s office. I was a bit skeptical of this move but I was assured it was fine and more due to the local motel being filled with others and having little space as is. It wasn¡¯t five minutes after this explanations that another patrol dropped off another stray they picked up, an older guy named Harris, who was apparently picked up from the west of the town. He became my bunk-buddy for the next couple of days as we worked in the town.


    The next day, all of the towns ¡®new residents¡¯ were asked to come to the town hall to help give some explanations and descriptions of what we had gone through and how it looked outside town. It wasn¡¯t a very detailed or very helpful discussion as most of the people were like me. People who had been driving to or close to the town and was either attacked by a monster, attacked by the Orc raiding bands or were spooked by something bigger and left their car because it could run anymore. From this and from the reports given out by the patrol¡¯s investigations; the mayor, the sheriff and the head fire department were able to map out a small radius around the town that they were certain they could operate at least somewhat safely in.


    From what I could tell, this was an important development since the town did have farmland that was used occasionally but wanted to put it to use now due to fact that contact was lost between everything. Phones didn¡¯t work, any connection to the internet was essentially non-functional, with it being active for mere seconds before it¡¯s gone again. Even the landlines weren¡¯t functioning consistently, with them connected but being unable to really relay anything. From the looks of things, the town have been cut off from the rest of the world. It probably wasn¡¯t that way and other towns were probably experiencing the same thing but that did little to help Oakdale at the moment. The Mayor and his office had managed to get an inventory on the town and what little food, gas and supplies and were currently trying to calculate how long it would last for. The Head of the Fire department had coordinated with the head of the hospital to get an inventory on their medical supplies and the sheriff had been doing recruiting runs around the town for those capable of helping out with further scouting runs and patrols.


    Most of these things I managed to pick up from overhearing the meetings after our initial one as the ¡®new residents¡¯, after giving their testimonies, were asked about out professions and possible skills. Of the near 4 dozen and a half of us there, most of us didn¡¯t have a very wide or helpful set of skills while few had both skills that were helpful in general. I was one of them that didn¡¯t have a very useful set of skills since most of them were unpolished or just basic. I explained to them my education history and then what I had been up to before the whole weird stuff happened, trying to emphasize my better qualities while basically admitting I wasn¡¯t going to be very helpful. Turns out Harris was a bit more useful than me, with him actually being a recently fired mechanic. He didn¡¯t explain why he had been fired but no one wanted to pry. Apparently having one was good enough as the town was actually short on them after a couple of them had lost the race to old age.


    The day after the initial meeting during our given breakfast, I was asked if I could help being a general hand around town with some of the mayor¡¯s people. There was basically no reason for me to not agree and since I wanted to continue eating and at least living here until answers were enough for me to make my way about it, I felt like this would a good way to pay it forward. So for the next three days, I acted as extra hands for Margery, who was apparently an old aid of the mayor. Her job at the moment was just go about asking the people of their general state and needs and I help deliver anything she needed moved around. It wasn¡¯t a bad job and from it, I got to know the town.


    There were about some 2,100 people in town, mostly spread about between the different sections of the town; the inner town, the suburbs and the farmland. Margery¡¯s work mostly focused on the Inner Town and the suburbs but it wasn¡¯t uncommon for her to at least hear and discuss issues growing in the farmland areas. It wasn¡¯t great to say the least due to the fact that many of the farmers weren¡¯t entirely sure about how much time they wanted to spend outside near the edges of their farms and having provable instances of actual disappearances from the farmers and those working the fields.


    From how I understand the situation at the moment, the farmers are looking to get more people to protect them as they do their work and this would come from the sheriff¡¯s office and those recruits they¡¯ve been getting but the sheriff¡¯s office is looking to use them to get a better knowledge of the surrounding area so that they can secure their perimeter. There is an understandable argument to be had there since after seeing that creature play catch with my car, I would want some protection from possible monsters as well yet the idea of setting up some sort of perimeter to look out for that Orc Band and get warning before they come around is also appealing.


    While I get both sides argument, it¡¯s not my place to say since I¡¯m basically acting as hired help to the town. I get paid with food and some logging but I can¡¯t make any hard decisions one way or the other.


    While my work wasn¡¯t all that interesting, Harris has been having an interesting week. Due to him being a mechanic and how few there were in the town, they¡¯ve been corralled together so that they can get some basic equipment going again and up to function for the important work. He told me that they¡¯ve been initially working on all farming equipment such as the tractors and harvesters but that they¡¯ve also been getting hints that they¡¯ll also be training under the few gunsmiths they have in the town to get the weapons repaired whenever needed since they might be in used a lot more often.


    Harris is actually a pretty cool guy, if you discount his clear yet still undefined addiction. He¡¯s mentioned he has had problems with addiction in his past and that he¡¯s been trying to kick it but it¡¯s clear he¡¯s still has some heavy cravings. It¡¯s not the mood swings that I think he thinks gives him away but just that occasionally, he¡¯ll seemingly zone out entire for a solid 30 seconds to a minute with very little getting to him. He doesn¡¯t seem to realize he does it either since he doesn¡¯t bring attention nor does he really miss a lot when it happens but it¡¯s clear when it does and one can never guess what he missed during his zones.


    Outside of that, turns out he reads quite a bit of historical fantasy and he managed to pick up much of his skills from his Uncle. He used to work at his Uncle¡¯s shop for a while until he got bored in his mostly small town. Apparently that was common down in his part of the US and so he turned to drugs, of which he didn¡¯t say he but implied it was common down there too. The only reason he was leaving town was because his dad had caught him doing something (which was probably drugs but doesn¡¯t say himself) and was basically chased out. His uncle had apparently given him some money to get him going since he wasn¡¯t able to house Harris due to he and his brother being real close and wouldn¡¯t be able to hide at his place for long.


    He¡¯s a pretty good card player as we¡¯ve taken to playing mock-poker games in the small cell with another ¡®new resident¡¯ Samantha and one of the officers at the prison, Dorian. Samantha was a nurse who was doing a cross country vacation with her friend Elisa (who bunked with her) while Dorian was an older officer who was considered too old to go on patrols and so was relegated to townie duties. We picked up the game of poker after the third night of being here after I pulled the pack of cards out of my bag, forgetting I had it. Harris asked if I could play and since then, it¡¯s been something of nightly thing to do. After we all got back from doing our jobs in town and after eating whatever was cooked around, the four of us would pull up some chairs and just play a dozen or so rounds. I was the worst player by far with Samantha coming up as close second in bad at cards. Dorian was pretty good but it was clear that Harris had us all beat. That didn¡¯t mean we didn¡¯t try from time to time but it was definitely more fun when we shot the shit instead of go all out.


    I picked up the idea of writing this journal thing two days ago after talking about this whole thing with one of the residents of the town, an older guy hitting his 70s. We chatted a bit about the changing times and how surprisingly calm the whole town had been at these sudden changes. He said he was worried about his kids and grandkids who were about a state away but new he¡¯d probably never be able to contact them now. I mentioned the idea of at least trying to write them letters to get something down and he thought that it was a good idea and that he would do it with the journal he had started in his 50s, hoping to try to impart some wisdom to his grandkids indirectly. His want to keep a record while also trying to instruct or at least give out advice to later descendants or people reading it struck a strange cord with me. I don¡¯t think I understood then but the whole mortality of the situation had hit me and was taking time to sink in.


    So, in a similar hope that these entries will be of some help to anyone who picks this up when I inevitably kick the bucket, I¡¯m going to write these entries whenever I can and chronicle my life in and maybe the growth of the town of Oakdale. While I don¡¯t like the idea, if the whole town goes bust and we all die, maybe the survivors might be able to learn from our mistakes and try again.


    I¡¯m not going to lie but I hate how rational this all feels.

 5/09/????XX 1 AME (After ‘Magic’ Event)

    It¡¯s sort of amazing how quickly things can go wrong just because things lined up in just such a way that any influence your part was never going to stop it.


    Probably a bad way to start a journal entry but it has to be said since the only thing that I can actually gleam from this week or so was just how quickly things can un-fold and just how little anyone could have affected it.


    The week started out mostly fine. I had been elevated from being a basic hand for Margery to being more of an acting arm between the Mayor¡¯s house and people to the rest of the town. My job at that point mostly revolved around delivering things from one group to another that was requested by from the mayor¡¯s place but also from doing more collecting of data and information of the people in town. It was a strange cross between being a weird mailman but also some sort of coordinator. I¡¯m pretty sure my current role in this is temporary just due to how new the situation within the town was but I was determined to at least do a good job with what I had. It wasn¡¯t a hard of a job, though it did have it weird moments where I¡¯d have to do some weird things for the small delivery of such things but the bike I was given made the job somewhat easier. Some others in my position wanted cars, but gas had effectively been rationed out to the farmers only for them to operate the heavier farming equipment. I actually had to deliver some of the gas to them earlier in the week. It¡¯s thankful that it still early summer as means that if we try hard enough now, there should be quite a bit to last us through the winter.


    A lot of the messages I had to deliver were mostly between the Sheriff¡¯s and the Mayor¡¯s office as they try to map out the areas and balance that with the want for protection of the farm lands. They were mostly done with the former and so things were now more about the smaller decision of where people would be stationed and possible protocols for those things to happen. Maybe if that had been hashed out a day or so earlier, the following attack would have had less damage.


    On Thursday (7<sup>th</sup>) a monster was finally brave enough to take a bite out of the town. I hadn¡¯t seen the attack directly although I was actually pretty close to it. I had been moving towards the area where it happened at the time due to a message run but I was probably some five minutes late the ordeal. Not too late to the see aftermath and it wasn¡¯t a pretty sight.


    About 18 people had died in the attack, 10 of them being part of the sheriff¡¯s forces stationed there for protection and rest being civilians to the attack. The monster that attacked was lying dead in a half destroyed shed, with what looked like a good 4 dozen bullet holes in only its underside. The beast reminded me a lot of a Bullette from D&D but was different enough to be able to say it only reminded you of it. It had a similar look to a skink but had thinker scales on its head, back and front legs. The tail was also pretty stubby but seemed to be sharp enough to be considered a blade at the end. The monster was about as big as a sedan, which made its destruction it left behind a bit more understandable even if it was still such a strange sight. It was honestly a pretty scary sight and the fact that it was at strewn both its own and the blood of the dead among its destruction of the farm shed really helped to instill the feeling that this thing was not a normal creature from our world. Or at least our former world. Got to get used to this being the new normal now.


    From what I was able to gather from reports that I had decided to take before returning to the sheriff and mayor¡¯s office, the monster had attacked from the ground and appeared out in the middle of the fields, jumping from the earth to eat its first victim. The farmers there had assumed that there was a small earthquake happening so had thought to move away from the buildings which turned out to be the wrong move since it¡¯s gave the monster easier targets. The first famer the monster got, named Arron, was thankfully killed near instantly as some of the other farmers reported that the monster had gotten it maw down on him from the waist up first, chewing through him quickly before attempting to go for more. The people in the area at the time panicked at this point and called for help from the sheriff¡¯s patrol-men who came in and tried to control the situation. This didn¡¯t turn out too well as the monster wasn¡¯t scared off by the gunfire or the bullets that only managed to glance or ricochet off its top hide.


    Reports gathered from people at the scene essentially described a pitched cat-n-mouse chase as the patrolmen tried to get the people away from the monster that was chasing them as well as try to put some damage into it. After some of the bullet stuck into the beast lower belly, and fire was able to be focused when it actually recoiled in pain, was panicked lessened within them men there. It took another 8 or so minutes to bring the monster down, with the patrolmen going from frightening spraying of ammo to concentrated and deliberate fire during such time. From gathered reports of ammunitions loss, the beast had taken 34 .45 rounds, 21 .10 mm, 19 .357 rounds and 12 .243 WIN rounds. Those are the best estimate however since it this is going more off of how many rounds were used rather than an in depth inspection of the body. As I write this, the monster is still in the school kitchen being cleaned and cut up. No one¡¯s talked about it eating it yet but I¡¯m pretty sure that the ¡®N.Rs¡¯ are going to be asked to try it to see how safe it is before they decide to sell it out for the rest of the town. At least that¡¯s what I overhead Margery say to another of the mayor¡¯s aids a day ago. Honestly, sort of interested in trying it myself. Mostly because I hadn¡¯t tried alligator before and it looked close enough to what I could get from where I¡¯ve been temporarily locked up in.


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    That wasn¡¯t a great start to the day and it didn¡¯t slow down after that as once I had to returned to the neighborhood to give the remaining patrol-men new orders and to establish a new watch going out, a scout from the outer range came back to inform us that he saw movement of something big out around a couple miles out and looked like it might be getting close. I had to make a quick return to the sheriff to tell him such. Not a lot of great options or decision were made that day but thankfully, they didn¡¯t lead to anything more.


    The Sheriff decided to gather the people of the neighborhood and condense them into the largest building there, an old factory that was in the process of being refurbished into a small town-center. It was large enough to house a good number of the neighborhood there and was enough of a defensible position that any attack could be fended on from the perimeter set up there. Looking back at it now, it was only a good idea for defense against maybe some monsters and nothing else as while it was defensible, it also had many openings for attack. This meant that it wouldn¡¯t be great for defense against anything more numerous than half a dozen guys trying to get in the place. I don¡¯t think it was bad that the sheriff thought to use it but it¡¯s bad that we didn¡¯t have any better options. Even now, the Sheriff says that it was a bad idea which is then countered by his own men asking which would be a better one at the time. I think he¡¯s trying to think the problem through but at the moment, things look to be moving faster than we¡¯d like and it¡¯d be hard to see us getting the upper hand. With how much needs to be done now, it seems like the idea of protection will have to be a heavy reliance on pure offensive. As it stands, we managed to avoid any confrontation with another monster or what we are now suspecting was a band of something. New information from some scouts said that some of the bands they¡¯d seen before had made some returns, which probably means that they were doubling back or just trying to find a target. Could be both.


    Outside of that darker chapter, the week didn¡¯t end on a really bad note. Harris mentioned that a lot of the larger farming equipment is basically all repaired, with only a couple of them basically being rejected outright due to major issues they don¡¯t have the tools or equipment to repair right now. With this, they are essentially going to be moving to other equipment the towns people and mayor believe are going to need fixing which hasn¡¯t been decided yet. He says that talk between the other messengers is mentioning walkie-talkies, other cars, and make-shift, movable barricades. I would have voted for walkie-talkies in a heartbeat. The patrolmen I¡¯ve been talking to recently have always been complaining about the lack of communication between each other of larger distances and areas for coordination purposes. With the walkie-talkie, quicker actions could be taken in neighborhoods which meant a higher chance of getting saved. From what Harris has said though, it looks like mobile barricades are going to be first.


    Samantha said her works been pretty good at this stage but the recent event has bumped up the eventual discussion of supply rationing. From what she had been hearing, it was going to happen eventually but they figured that due to the relative few injuries and of those were of less severity, that it wouldn¡¯t need to be enacted soon. Due to the 8 injured in the attack, most of the being heavily so, the small hospital¡¯s head had decided to discuss the supply rationing now rather than wait too much longer. Samantha doesn¡¯t agree with idea of ration just yet and she and I got into a small argument over the poker table due to it. She argued that they could effectively get everyone up and going again without the rationing (at least right now) so that events could be stopped more efficiently. I argued that due to the nature of what we don¡¯t know possibly happening, the rationing would help us be more prepared to shift responsibilities around and adapt to whatever new event happens without fear. We were pretty much put in place by Dorian telling us that all this talk was useless since we weren¡¯t the ones making decision and that better people were. It was a bit cold but an important ¡®bucket of water¡¯ to accept since we weren¡¯t actually members of the town and were basically guest. While we could help, we didn¡¯t know enough about the place to take the reins and that it was important to focus on our tasks before looking to take on more responsibilities.

 5/18/!*@%XX 1 AME

    5/18/!*@%XX 1 AME


    Things this week have been better than the last, even with the small skirmish we seemed to have earlier in it.


    After the whole Bulette/Land-Shark attack at the tail of end last week, most of the town had been on edge. Many of the people on the outer layer of the town definitely more than the inner ones. Due to my role as a town messenger, I was able to see a lot of it since both parties had a lot to say to each other.


    A lot of the outer spheres of the town had now heard about the land-shark attack and had been growing weary of going out into the fields, with a lot of them only doing so because they understood that not doing so would just lead to a slower death in the long run. They¡¯re fears weren¡¯t unfounded as the small amount of study that was done on the creature and its point of entry reveled that this thing had been at least 10 feet underground when it decided to attack. While this information hadn¡¯t gotten out to the larger public, someone managed to slip and they believed that the land-shark had been able to sense people walking from 20 meters underground.


    At the same time, the people closer to the center of town weren¡¯t as affected by the fear the sudden attack produced yet still held a larger fear of the strange new world that had landed on the town¡¯s door step. With this one creature¡¯s sudden appearance, a whole lot of other and potentially more dangerous monsters were being talked about amongst those of the inner town. I¡¯ve played fair share of fantasy games before this event but even then it was somewhat surprising as to how many monsters and creatures that the inner town would come up with. I could have probably named all of them given enough time but 1) that wouldn¡¯t be very helpful to their own psyche and 2) might make them actually appear in some strange ¡°mention my name and I shall appear¡± phenomena. Can¡¯t really discount that considering what we¡¯ve seen so far.


    This whole situation created a bad tension between the two groups. Both groups wanted more protection and so wanted the police and patrol-man in their area more often. The people on the outer sphere of the town probably had more of an actual need for them than those of the inner sphere so police chief did capitulate to some of their demands but there was a limit to what he wanted to give solely because some of the scouts that had returned had mentioned seeing bird mark larger than normal. While not directly said, many of the police guard think that the police chief believes that a giant bird will attack the center of town and screw up the whole ¡®command center¡¯. In my opinion, that fear is overblown but founded on something. Even if most of the fantasy stories aren¡¯t real or have some correlation with where we are today, that could mean that something flying could still get you. The chances of that are small but they do happen.


    This action was proven to be a good one as the past Tuesday had a small attack that was blown back quite succinctly. On the south east edge of the town, a small attack had started and quickly pushed back due to the small size and primitive aspect to the attack. I was actually in the area and was able to see it firsthand.


    It¡¯s hard not to say it but it was a literal raid made by a small band of green humanoid figures that were slightly larger than the average human. It was an Orc raid. Through and through. And because of the armament the patrol-men had over most of the under 20 Orcs had, it was a quick fight. Only one of the patrol-men was injured. He was injured heavily because the guy took a spear to the shoulder, but when you consider the trade, it was a relatively good one.


    The Orcs only had swords, axes and a couple spears. Only one of the spears was straight enough to be actually thrown which was why it was but the rest of the weapons had were of quality enough to work with and not much else. This wasn¡¯t even mentioning armor which is to say that most of them weren¡¯t wearing much metal and mostly consisted of thick hides of animals. And some other creatures. I was able to recognize the Land-Shark hide on some of them which I elected to tell the Mayor and the Police Chief. While they were surprised, it wasn¡¯t much in comparison to the fact that they had been attack by Orcs. This made them both a bit more relieved and more so after an explanation of the event as a whole and their armaments.


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    This relief spread through town but in a more muted manner. I think the mayor and the chief were relieved more because it meant that there was something they could actually plan around this time. The Land-Shark was an anomaly. Something we couldn¡¯t exactly plan for normally nor predict in any significant way aside from tracking them, proving difficult by the fact that we can¡¯t track underground. The people were a bit less relieved since to them, it meant that there was something else they had to worry about but not to a fatalistic degree. Many of them thought of this event as less of a reassurance of success but more of a confirmation of survival. A lot of the farmers said that this didn¡¯t mean much different in their eyes since it didn¡¯t change the need for more protection when the bigger things came around.


    I¡¯m beginning to lean more with the farmers on this once since we don¡¯t understand too much of the Orc¡¯s way of thinking. If this was a probing party, then it only meant that it proved they need to go full force. If it was just an offshoot, then the others would eventually come around their way and try the same, just in larger numbers. Even if it¡¯s been almost a month ago, I still remember the amount of feet and legs that went past when I hid under the car that one time. If that group was still in area and we hadn¡¯t heard from the scout¡¯s patrol; then they were still a huge threat in my eyes.


    Despite these thoughts, people generally took well to the news well and the tension that the Land-Shark¡¯s attack brought out was lessened. Not entirely gone but it was easier to breath at least. This was helped by what is being a ¡®miracle of an early harvest¡¯ being made in what is being said to be a fraction of the time this would normally take. From reports, it seems like the harvest of crops was made in a literal 3<sup>rd</sup> of the normally required time. Many people are definitely skeptical of this strange phenomena but they also knew that this would help greatly in the months to come and so decided not to look into it too greatly.


    With all this going on, I hate to be the one to sound ungrateful but it looks as though my job may be obsolete in the coming days. Harris¡¯ talk about the walkie-talkies had been true to the mark as they had been given out to many of the more important members within the town districts for communication reasons. With this being a thing, my job as a town messenger isn¡¯t going to be as important and will basically be used for talking to the farmers at best. Harris told me not worry about it since while the walkie-talkie work a fair distance, it was more about battery life lasting more than anything else. This didn¡¯t really bring my hopes up as it seems as though the town¡¯s power hadn¡¯t gone out as fast as they believed it would. It¡¯s not like everyone¡¯s able to keep the lights on throughout the night but people have been a bit more carefree with the rationing of power within the town. Keeping the batteries of walkie-talkie up wouldn¡¯t be too hard which means that my job¡¯s days are numbered.


    I brought this up with Dorian and he mentioned that the patrol-man were looking for new numbers due to the need increasing. The whole town¡¯s understanding of what was going on was settling and it was becoming clear that while people needed to at least be armed themselves, they couldn¡¯t be armed and alert while also expect to be doing their own work and the need for outsourced protection was going to grow larger. I¡¯m not really sure what to think about it myself, mostly because I don¡¯t think I¡¯d make a good one. I want to be of use to the town for as long as they¡¯ll have me and the messenger job did that well since it didn¡¯t rely on me as a person much as it did my legs and general memory. Nothing a bike and a pen an¡¯ notepad can¡¯t fix. Being a patrol-man means that they are going to be relying on me a lot more.


    Harris thinks I should do it. I don¡¯t think he means bad, he just think it would be cool for me to be patrol-men and his buddy. Not a bad deal for him at least. I¡¯m probably going to think about this for a bit but it¡¯s going to be a while before I¡¯m an official patrol-men.


    Besides this, the town has slowly been falling into a more ¡®normal¡¯ state of function. Although hard cash is still something that is hard to really work with at the moment, people have gone back to using it for more luxury items or ingredients for households. Due to the fact that many of us N.Rs don¡¯t actually have money nor have we¡¯ve been effectively getting back so whatever money we had at the start was all we were going to have. At least until whatever situation we are in is better smoothed over. I say this all because Harris managed to gamble himself into a bottle of good Scotch that he shared with us at out weekly poker table. Says that he had a pretty good gambling streak and decided to try his luck with the other mechanics to see how much he could scrounge up. It wasn¡¯t hard to see why he wanted to see if he could stock-pill some cash for later but Dorian and I couldn¡¯t argue with the result and since he had yet to actually go purchase his fix, he¡¯s basically in the clear for now. And the Scotch really made the night. We didn¡¯t finish the bottle but there wasn¡¯t too much left after the night of fun.

 5/26/1 AME

    This is probably going to be a short one due to how tired I currently am writing this. I¡¯ll try to do more than what I feel like I¡¯m capable of but writing this by hand does really on my hand and hamper my ability to stay up.


    A day or two after my talk with Dorian, I decided to take up his offer on being a patrol-men. As it turns out, they had officially been renamed Rangers. After my more pressing runs, I found some time in between deliveries to visit the side building next to the police offices. From what I understand, that side building is actually part of the police station that is being used as an interim building for the Rangers until they get an actual building on the outer skirts of town. Not too many people there and from what I could tell, most of the rangers are town highway patrol man basically having some more knowledge of the outdoors than the average officer. There seemeded to be a couple actual career hunters there and from what answers I got, there were actually quite a few hunters in the Rangers office but that half of them are currently out in the field due to the recent event making the Mayor want some more frequent reports and the other half training the few recruits have actually signed up to be rangers.


    I actually learned a bit about about to that too. While I thought it would be bit a different, turns out that a not lot of people didn¡¯t no people want to sign up to be out in the wilderness where we¡¯ve now heard about some major monsters coming from. I probably should have thought about that before signing up but it¡¯s too late now. Honestly, even writing this, almost a week after they told me about it, I still don¡¯t really care about it so much as it can help the town.


    Sure, I¡¯m definitely scared meof of what is out there, seeing as the two things we¡¯ve seen come out of the forest was a digging land-shark and a small pack of angry green ape-men, but that fear seems pretty muted now that I¡¯ve seen the damages of them. This probably doesn¡¯t make sense as I¡¯m writing this but I feel like it¡¯s the ¡®give up on giving up give up giving up¡¯ mentality. These things exist already and there isn¡¯t a way to really avoid them so I might as well try and help others do better than me.


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    I don¡¯t know. I¡¯m tired. This is probably as stupid as it sounds to me exhaustion-addled head.


    After signing up, I had to schedule out some time to get into training since I was still messenger for the town until the whole talkie-talkie system was finalized and working properly. It wasn¡¯t hard since after explaining to Mrs Margeret (I¡¯m pretty sure I mentioned her, she was the mayor secretary), I was able to set up some times for my initial training to be a Ranger. My basic schedule for the rest of that week was spending the first fourth of my day delivering messages between key points of the town, the next fourth doing less intensive ranger training which consists of practice for tracking, study of animal habits and more basic map-reading and survivalist things, then I go back to deliver for another fourth of the day and finally the more active parts of range training which was practical skills and firearms training.


    It¡¯s actually weird that because we don¡¯t actually use firearms yet. Most of the firearms training we¡¯ve been doing so far is only airsoft stuff. I asked about this and the instructors have basically said that due to the relative uncertainty of ammo supplies for the near future (still need to make a count), anyone trying with firearms are going to train with airsoft imitations for a time before they can be trusted with actual ammunition since those aren¡¯t going too handed out so freely. When I ask about how effective that way, the trainer admitted that this was more of way to gauge who would be more trust worthy in actually handling firearms and frugal use of ammunition and not about actual training. As it is, this is introductory boot camp for the rangers is meant more to determine if you¡¯re capable of the rest of the training. You¡¯d think that due to demand, they accept everyone but it¡¯s one of those catch-22s; you have need for more people in the division but letting everyone is means you accept a bunch of fat alongside any good you get, so making a basics camps makes it easier to cull out the ones who were always going to be fat and nothing else. I don¡¯t want to toot my own horn considering what I know is coming but I did pretty good at those basic training courses.

 6/4/1 AME

    My second week of actual Ranger training has just completed and while it¡¯s made this week feel like it was actually two, I feel good about it.


    Ranger training has been a bit hard to fit into my schedule since I haven¡¯t been fully cleared from my duties as a messenger. As it stands, I basically do my messenger work in the mornings while I do my training regiments in the evenings. As I¡¯m being told, I¡¯m not the only one doing this but this does mean that we won¡¯t be cleared as actual rangers for a while. We technically aren¡¯t training at the same pace as the others and so aren¡¯t going to be allowed to fully clear the potential exams until later.


    I mentioned that my previous week (which wasn¡¯t really a week, just a couple days) of training was basic stuff and that hasn¡¯t changed too. Just added a lot of depth to those basics. Last week was just the testing of what we knew in terms of the stuff we were learning and then building a small off from there. This week was definitely more in depth on what we were learning and what we¡¯re being tested on. Basic map-reading became a more in-depth introduction about the nature of cartography, the reading and measuring of maps vs on the ground walking. A simple study of animal tracks became a more studious instruction on the identification of tracks, local animal habits and diets as well as their more likely territories and their overlap. This was the basics for this and from the two weeks, it¡¯s a lot to learn in a short amount of time. While I¡¯ve never been smart, I¡¯m picking up on this pretty well. Or at least that¡¯s what my instructors tells me. He¡¯s says I¡¯m doing ¡®pretty well for a city kid¡¯. Don¡¯t know how he knew that but I guess things must have fallen down the grapevine.


    When I¡¯m not learning to be a Ranger, I¡¯m back to my usual routes around the town. As is, the town is basically shaping up well. Everything is running smoothly to the point where my job isn¡¯t as required due to the lack of information that needs to be ferried around. It makes me feel a little redundant as many of the other messengers are also feeling that strange listlessness that from not being able to do anything but still being on stand-by for doing it. Its actually a bit sad when I write this. The messenger job is basically going to be dead and some of the other messengers I¡¯ve talked to don¡¯t really have anything else lined up after it¡¯s dissolved. I¡¯m slightly worried about them.


    Another important note this week was the attack of another monster. This one not as big as the Land Shark but still no more potentially deadly. Thankfully it wasn¡¯t due to the effectiveness of how well the town managed repel the beast fairly easily. The beast appeared in the northern quadrant of the town which was near the more residential area. Due to this, there were a lot of people for the monster to get but also enough officers and rangers in the area to take it out. The last two attacks have really managed to get the town efficient in its defense against fantasy monsters. Although that could just be because this time, the monster was relatively small, only being the size of a slightly large tiger. The only thing that made it more dangerous was the monster¡¯s hide being tough and its roar doing some weird stuff to people, making them go loopy for a bit. The lucky ones manages to shake it off before the beast closed in on them but others just passed out. I wasn¡¯t there to see it but having to gather the reports from the people there was strangely part of both of my jobs. As a messenger, needing to get detailed description of scene and event for the Rangers¡¯ and Police Office, and as future Ranger to know the monsters I¡¯ll probably have to be aware of in the wild. Weird that.


    This does remind me to mention that most of the week, us N.Rs actually had the Land-shark for dinner. I¡¯m pretty sure it was Monday, Tuesday and today but I¡¯m pretty sure were having it again for tomorrow. It wasn¡¯t bad. Sort of refreshing because the meals have been getting lighter on meat since maybe the second week here and it was a welcome surprise. Hard to accurately put a taste on it. I think it taste like a more chewy pork but Harris says it¡¯s a tougher fish. I¡¯m pretty sure his taste buds are out of whack as Samantha leaned more towards my description than his. No one¡¯s been sick either so that means that the meat is at least safe to eat on the regular. Probably not going to eat like that a lot considering what it took to get there but it¡¯s good to know that we can at least still eat some of the things out in the wild. Just got to figure out where each one lies on the ''edible'' and ''not edible'' chart.


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    Twice this week, I¡¯ve had some pretty fun nights back to back in the bunks too. Harris and Samantha have been coming back pretty much the same time as me, tired but not exhausted. This led to us bunk mates hanging out until we basically passed out, just shooting the shit until none of us could.


    Harris has been doing well at his work and has been apparently making pretty good impression with the others outside his work too. To the point that a lot of the people who we encountered around the area I visited him at one time, knew Harris in some way. He explained most of the stories of knowing them, which tended to involve him saying something stupid and just being able to turn that into something they could talk about for half an hour. It was pretty nice hearing and talking with him and the others at the bar. I will admit that I¡¯ve been a bit consumed with work as of late so even though I meet several people a day, I tend not to socialize a lot despite that.


    Samantha is also pretty well known as well but it definitely within a smaller circle of people. I meet a few of them near the hospitals but most seemed to be heading in for their night shifts. Turns out that the local hospital still does night shifts but at a reduced rate. More to keep a reserve of doctors on standby if anything goes wrong late at night which doesn¡¯t happen much. At least for now. I¡¯ve heard talk among the more senior Rangers that they might institute more nightly scouts due to the perceived increase in nocturnal hunters that might be around in this new world.


    Samantha was thinking about taking some nights shifts soon too just to round out her time at the hospital and qualify for some more positions. From how she described it, the Head of the Hospital is looking to turn everyone with a medical degree or some knowledge of health into a nurse/doctor hybrid. There weren¡¯t that many doctors in the town to begin with and seeing as they couldn¡¯t hire out for more talent, the next best move was to make the talent. So everyone would be taking some smaller extra classes to improve their medical knowledge and expertise. But it wouldn¡¯t be done all at once, and would be done in some sort of tier system; with those putting more time earlier on getting the better chance of being trained first. She seems excited for it while her friend Elisa wasn¡¯t as excited for it. Hadn¡¯t seen her around much since she tended to keep to herself and Samantha more than with the others N.Rs but from what Samantha has said it mostly cause her family is very important to her and that even taking this trip without them was a lot of work on both her and Elisa¡¯s family¡¯s part. This new situation is becoming a bit of shock to her. Not going to lie, started to feel a little bad about not worrying about my parents as much since I heard that story. It¡¯s not like I had a bad relationship with them but her story made me think about how little I¡¯ve spent time thinking about them and it¡¯s been a month or so. Stuff has happened but it feels a little strange.


    Despite that, it¡¯s nice hanging out with Harris and Samantha. It helps with the ''getting back into the normal atmosphere'' that was life before the Event, even if we never knew each other from before it. The fact that we can meet at the end of our shifts and just talk about random stuff really does relax my mind a bit. While not often, I think I get stuck in my head a lot and tend to think about what¡¯s going on out there. Monsters that look like D&D rejects are honestly pretty scary when you know that the whole ¡®DM imagination¡¯ thing is none-existent and you are in the life you are now. Talking to them just sort of reminds me that I¡¯m not alone in seeing that. Whenever the topic of the outside world comes up between us, there is definite tension in how we talk and our reactions. It probably sounds sadistic or mean but the small look of unease and fear that both Samantha and Harris have sort of calms me down a little. Not because of some weird hero-complex thing (I hope not at least), but just because its sort of grounding to know you aren¡¯t the only one dealing with it.


    It¡¯s hard to see that sometimes, even though it there.


    That would probably be my first lesson in this thing if I¡¯m trying to do like what the old man said he would. ¡°Everyone is dealing with a weight of the world. Just because you can¡¯t see it, doesn¡¯t mean its not there. Remember that, and remember to share another''s load when you can.¡±

 6/13/1 AME

    I¡¯m sort of amazed at how quickly I¡¯m picking up on this Ranger stuff but still how slow I actually get it correctly.


    Weird way to start but Ranger training has picked up as of late and it¡¯s sort of amazing how I¡¯m getting better but never feels like I¡¯m improving enough compared to others. Probably not all that amazing considering I¡¯m one of the three N.Rs that actually joined the Ranger and I¡¯m apparently the best among them but is still losing out to others just a half decade younger than me.


    Ranger training has progressed to small excursions in close areas to get more hands on training. This means that current trainees such as myself are split into smaller teams for the Rangers to teach us more personally. My group of five was; Lana, Jonathan, Ahmir and Toland (myself being the fifth member) and our Range Master (weird title that just sort of stuck among the Rags (another weird name that stuck)) being Davith (not David, remember that!). Out of the group Lana is definitely the best of us, which is somewhat disheartening when she¡¯s the youngest Rags among us. She only just turned 19 and she¡¯s outpacing the rest of us in terms of Ranger training.


    While the others seem to have taken this personally (and so did I, a bit), I managed to move past it managed to get some tips and tricks from her during our training sessions. I didn¡¯t mean for it to turn into a weird friendship but it somehow did (which makes sense when the others of the group make it into a not-so-friendly competition and I¡¯m just trying to get better).


    Turns out the reason why she¡¯s so much better than the rest of us is that she¡¯s been doing stuff like this since she was 9. Her parents had gone through a divorce and had split up drastically with her mother going to nearby city while her father stayed in town. Her dad hunted often (and is currently one of the Rangers right now) and would teach her when they were together. She says she¡¯d always been outdoors girl and so took to the hunter stuff quite well, going out on hunts with her father at least once a month on her visit with him. Her wanting to join the Rangers just felt like a natural choice to her and a way to stay close to her dad, seeing as her mom was, as far as she knew, unavailable.


    She¡¯s honestly a better conversationalist than the others in my group and it¡¯s always helpful spending time with her during training hours since she gives little tricks to figure this stuff out easier. Considering my time as a Messenger is going to be coming to end in the coming weeks and I¡¯m going to devote to more ranger training, I¡¯m thankful I made at least one friend in this side of my work.


    Which brings up how much little time I¡¯ve been spending with the other N.Rs. Due to training being more physical, I¡¯m usually left pretty tired by both my training and my runs. So it becomes harder for me to choose hanging out with Harris, Dorian and Samantha when the bed is right there and I hit sleep like rock in mud.


    I don¡¯t think it¡¯s been too bad, but I¡¯m definitely missing out on some stuff since the one time this week I managed to forgo the temptation of sleep and play at least a couple round of poker with the group, I was a little confused at the conversations going on around me. I got idea of it; Harris¡¯ group of mechanic had been told that they would be trying to fix the windmills that were delivering some power to the city. When the hell was it decided that would go down and how would they get there? I know I heard some of the Range Masters talking about orders from higher up about guard patrols but this seems like a huge stretch. Samantha was talking about the small numbers of doctors that had essentially shifted into becoming chemists/herbalists to try and restock meds that were running low. I guess that makes sense but it seems like this jump was new and where were they going to get the herbs from?


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    It¡¯s surprising how much you can miss in a week.


    What I didn¡¯t miss was the opening of the town.


    ¡®Opening¡¯ isn¡¯t the best word for it since it¡¯s not like the town wasn¡¯t already open, just that a lot of the usual spots in town had been shut down due to how crazy everything had been. The reorganization of the town was basically finished which meant that getting back to a normal was the new priority and apparently, bars and some restaurants opening up was the way to go.


    From what we can gather from Dorian during the night hours, what the town is like now was how it tended to operate on very slow days.


    Some quarter of the bars that town had originally had opened up and people were actually going to them to hang out. While they were selling drinks, it felt weird to pull up cash and pay for them as we hadn¡¯t yet established if it was still going to be used. Haven¡¯t heard anything from either the Mayor¡¯s office or the Rangers so hopefully it¡¯s not useless but also that we didn¡¯t just blow all our saving on 3 drinks.


    Harris, Samantha and I headed out to one of them on Thursday after the work ended early. It was nice to relax for a bit and catch up with them even if it still felt a little stilted and behind. I was tired after the day but those couple of hours felt sort of relaxing. It was nice to catch up again. I even saw Ahmir and Toland at the bar we went to, although they didn¡¯t response to the invitation to drink with us.


    Come to think of it, not a lot of people did. Hopefully this isn¡¯t a thing with other N.Rs.


    As mentioned before, some restaurants have opened up as well. It looks like a lot of them have basically consolidated into larger restaurants in an effort so better manage food and customers. It¡¯s hard to know how long they¡¯ll last but hopefully I¡¯ll be able to visit a couple of them before they eventually close down. I¡¯m not entirely sure how some of them are still selling certain dishes since there isn¡¯t a ready source for them right now. I¡¯m pretty sure fish is still hard to come by purely because of the distance any rivers with large enough fish population to harvest is from this town. Which makes sense as to why it¡¯s the current cheapest on the menus. Probably trying to move product before it goes bad.


    Still, after a pretty good training session Range Master Davith took us out for pizza. It was sort of amazing how great pizza tasted after not having anything but basic stew, rice and meat for nearly the past month.


    Seeing the town slowly attempt to roll itself back into a functioning state was interesting to watch and sort of fulfilling. Although I can¡¯t help but think I have to prove myself more once my Messenger jobs runs its course. I mentioned before that Lana has been helping me out with the Ranger training but if I hope to have a place here for the coming future, I better try and pull my weight as best I can. It¡¯s a nice town and I¡¯d hate to be force to leave it.

 6/25/1 AME

    6/25/1 AME


    Ranger training is swinging into the near high-gear as we¡¯ve gone into horse riding.


    Originally, I didn¡¯t think this would be a part of the training and would be something of an ¡®elective¡¯ in the training. I know that some of the Rangers rode horses but those were few and far between because a) the amount of horses in the town were pretty small, b) the amount of people who could ride was probably smaller & c) many of the horses (something close to 2/3rds) aren¡¯t trained for anything more than the basic ¡®children birthday walks¡¯ in terms of complexity.


    As I stand now; I really don¡¯t know enough about horses to make any judgment. I was right on maybe 10% of what I thought but the rest was more about time and effort. Effort that came from my thighs and back.


    It¡¯s been maybe 5 days of training with the horses but it seem that I¡¯m the best adapted to horse-riding out of my small troop. In a funny twist, Lana was actually horrible at horse riding. She¡¯s not bad at the balance bit but whenever it comes to commanding the beast, she has better chance of learning to fly than manage to get the horse to go in the right direction. I honestly don¡¯t get how she¡¯s having trouble but it¡¯s sort of refreshing to be helping her out instead of being the other way around during training. As is, I¡¯m apparently the only one who can get a decent pace going on a horse without help. I can¡¯t do it as near instinctively as Davith can, telling his horse to stop, go, turn around and walk backwards without any additional tugs or motions, but I¡¯m getting to the point where I can tell Dexter to stop, go and turn, without acting like a ramp agent.


    Apparently I got lucky too. The Stable Master; Jarry, says that Dexter is one of his more unruly and uncooperative horses. I don¡¯t really see it; Dexter is definitely a bit stubborn at times when we¡¯re not moving but he¡¯ll listen when it¡¯s time to move. Maybe I¡¯ve just seen his good side. It¡¯s only been a couple days and seeing how it looks like he¡¯ll be assigned to me if I pass the tests, maybe I¡¯ll see more of his bad side later.


    All we¡¯ve really learned at the moment is the basics of riding and Range Master Davith has mentioned that we are going to learn the other parts of horse care because all rangers will be asked to take care of the horses when they are in reserve. So it¡¯s really only just started, with Davith saying that us recruits aren¡¯t going to be authorized for horses until maybe a month after they see if the training goes well and we pass the tests that they¡¯ll have to make up. Lana is secretly hoping she fails the horse tests and I laugh whenever the test is brought up cause she gets a scrunch in her face that¡¯s hilarious and cute.


    Outside of what I found was a bump in training schedule due to future operations, it¡¯s been going smoothly. Lana¡¯s help has done me some good and while I¡¯m not as amazing as her, I can at least keep up with her and some of the other better Rags. We¡¯ve been given actual guns to shoot too. We only some 65 rounds each but it was good to finally get some actual gun training in. Surprisingly, I was actually a pretty decent shoot after all that work. Lana was definitely better but I was second best in the small troop of Rags and while that was a bit of an ego boost, Davith was quick to remind us that our shooting was under sterile conditions and that actual shooting would be a lot different. Good to get the ego-check even if it does hurt.


    The town has had its second harvest and the farmers in the area are beginning to understand the nature of this new cycle. I haven¡¯t be able to understand much from what I pick up from the farmers that frequent or at least act near the Ranger¡¯s Office (the section of building next to the police office) but I did get that while it was not a normal cycle, the plants acted as though it was and there didn¡¯t seem to be any real issues with the harvest in terms of product quality. From how I get it; it just seem like an dilated growth cycle which would mean that although the it looks like its shorter in terms of time, it undergoing the same amount of growth normally.


    This is good since a lot of the Range Masters are talking about how this might be a bad winter. I¡¯ve been through bad winters before, but this was usually in my cozy little house just off New York City with central heating and easy access to roads and restaurants. This is probably going to be my first winter dealing with actual threats and not having the many luxuries I¡¯m used to. I can¡¯t lie and say I¡¯m not scared but I¡¯m also morbidly excited. I can¡¯t really explain it well but it¡¯s that same feeling you get when going to tackle a large challenge. Just the anticipation to see if you can actually do it. I don¡¯t think I¡¯m explaining as well as I could but I hope I got across something.


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    I actually asked Davith how he and some of other Range Masters were able to tell how it was going to be a bad winter. He told me that it was just a feeling right now but that he would show me some signs to look for when fall would be coming around. Said the signs would be easier to see then. I don¡¯t get it but experience is probably key in these areas. Probably a lesson to impart on whoever reads this later; ¡°While Knowledge is important, Experience is application.¡± Maybe not as profound but it gets the point across.


    Then on Tuesday, an Earthquake hit.


    It wasn¡¯t a big one, although I haven¡¯t been in too many earthquakes to really tell. This was actually my first. I say it wasn¡¯t a big one because Range Master George said it was probably a 3.5 which was to his estimation, wasn¡¯t big but getting there. We are lucky in that while it was definitely noticeable and caused some panic, it didn¡¯t destroy or disrupt anything to a major degree. Some of the livestock were spooked and ran out but nothing beside that happened. What was noticeable was the fact that we were in part of the country where earthquakes weren¡¯t a normal phenomenon and we got an earthquake that was right on the cusp of being a serious one.


    It happened just some time after midnight which meant that the town hadn¡¯t really been prepared for it when it happened. Most everyone who could, had ran out of their respective buildings in preparation for the worst. It probably took 5 minutes for the earthquake to pass and by then, everyone was panicking to some degree, less about the earthquake itself and more about the fact there was one on this area. From talks with others later, earthquakes of basically any size larger than a 1.0 in this area are uncommon. There might be the occasion shake or so but those are minor and mostly attributed to small avalanches in the mountains than anything else.


    After the whole situation had subsided and everyone had been relatively calmed down by the lack of anything, we all started to head back inside. I wanted to get some sleep too but it seemed as though this event was serious enough that Rangers should be notified about any development in the wilds. Understandable. Doesn¡¯t mean I wanted to stay up for it. I did but it was under duress of duty.


    The meeting was less of a meeting and more of a round-table to attempt to think up of things to look out for in wilds outside that might have been startled and displaced by the earthquake. I was a bit confused at first seeing as this was less about ¡®what to look out for¡¯ and more of ¡®what might be out there to look out for¡¯ when the realization of what the past two attacks had been. They had been monsters, actual monsters. While it was something to say those monsters had a resemblance of stuff you might see in a D&D book or fantasy movie, the disconnect of them being real hadn¡¯t hit me. I attribute some of this difficulty getting the connection as to me not being there when those monsters had struck. I had seen the aftermath of them but never the actual monsters themselves moving, breathing and acting. Some of these rangers might have which makes the threat to them all the more real to them and in turn, to me.


    I had elected then to try pick up a D&D Monster Manual somewhere and see if I couldn¡¯t try and put together something similar to a bestiary for the Rangers. I had noted down some of the things I had seen about both of the former monsters so it was now more about trying to get it down like in those books, in a way that one can easily digest the information and then possible plan accordingly. I didn¡¯t tell anyone yet about this plan of mine, mostly because it might not pan out as well as I hope. Making a bestiary required you actually go out and study them alive and I had yet to be let out to do more than walk in easy sight vicinity of the town.


    The meeting had been about to end after another hour of discussion when the mayor and the chief of police came in. It seemed as though they wanted to talk to all the rangers but the Head Ranger dismissed us to get some rest, electing to talk to what was becoming the town council himself.


    I was thankful but maybe if he had more support on his side, the next decision wouldn¡¯t have been forced upon him. Two days after the event and the meeting, all rangers were addressed by the Head Ranger. Turns out, they needed to increase their patrols for the next week or so and due to lacking man power among the Rangers, the Rags would be stepping up to help.


    Many of the Range Masters argued against this but it turned out to be a decision made by politics. Or at least it looks that way from where I¡¯m standing.


    To cut it down short; the Mayor and the Chief of Police want to get more patrols out to show the people that the outside is safe and that they can keep them safe. The Head Ranger agrees on ideals but not in principal due to lacking man-power. Mayor and Chief Police say they can push him to do it since they outvote him. Head Ranger thinks he can pull the Head Doctors vote in but due to hospitals worries, he can¡¯t/hasn¡¯t voted and so can¡¯t be counted. Unless done so otherwise, the other two council heads could vote out the Head Ranger and, within the temporary lack of leadership and authority, can use their own authority to get it done.


    I don¡¯t get how you can get what can amount of to political abuse of power in only two months of civilization but this is just stuff I¡¯m getting from the other Range Masters so it¡¯s probably a little biased.


    What this all means for myself and other fellow recruits is that we might be bumped into field work earlier than we anticipated.

 7/7/1 AME

    7/7/1 AME


    Although me and Lana are not an actual Rangers yet due to not completing the training and passing the final tests, we definitely should be considered for early promotion.


    It turns out that the plan to go out for the extended scouting mission to quell public worry was okayed (probably under duress) and due to the lacking numbers, many recruits were essentially deputized into being Rangers for the trip. This wasn¡¯t made out to all Rags though, and really only to those that the Range Masters deemed trained enough to hold their own out in the Wilds. Range Master Davith picked Lana and me for the trip, deeming the two of us to be the better and best handled to the Wilds.


    While this is was flattering in a sense, I both don¡¯t and do regret accepting the mission. Despite how many times Davith¡¯s has told me it wasn¡¯t, I feel partially responsible for how things turned about.


    The scouting mission was to go out for some 20 miles out and to try and scout the general area on the way out and back in. This would entail marking down any monsters found, creatures discovered, and notable things such as new plant growths or changes in the natural ecosystem of the Wilds and making note of any changes to the typography of the area. It sounds simple in concept but as one thinks about the mission, it becomes clear that this isn¡¯t as simple as it sounds.


    Due to walking in uneven terrain and the need for sleep and rest, the trip out is expected to take three days if the pace is good. With the distance being quite small, it was understood that horses wouldn¡¯t be used for this as it both lowered the available pool of candidates and make the trip a bit more dangerous as we become larger targets. This is not counting the need to change directions to avoid other monsters of other things, the need to mark things down for study or report, the need to make camp and what that entails as well as the possibility of changes to the general area that wasn¡¯t accounted. It was not going to be an easy mission but this was to be expected due to the increase in pressure to perform by the other members of what is being referred to as the council. They wanted something from the Wilds that can be considered proof that things weren¡¯t going to hell in a handbasket.


    I write this and my future report with the knowledge that they probably didn¡¯t get what they wanted.


    The trip started out fine. The first day of walking was actually relaxing and wasn¡¯t too hard. Lana did find the silence between us to be a bit suffocating but Davith and I were able to occasionally keep her conversational company as we hiked out the first couple of miles. It was near the end of the second day of walking that we hit the 12<sup>th</sup> mile and when talking sort of died out. Not that unexpected; conservation of energy, keeping quite became more advisable, trying to piece what that sound was kept the conversation down to a minimum. We really only talked when making camp, where half of it was instructions and tips on making camp while the other half was more of a review of what was seen and observed as we noted it all down. It doesn¡¯t seem like a hard trip but the fact that we clearly weren¡¯t physical conditioned for it was seen by the end of the third day, where I can actually see my handwriting that night being incredibly hard to read. It took me 3 hours to read it through when I got back home for my report.


    This is why we slowed down a bit on the fourth day out, slowing down our pace significantly. Daviths thought it better to keep our energy at reasonable levels rather than focus on gaining distance. It was a smart choice that just so happened to be the wrong one at the time.


    See, the scouting trip wasn¡¯t hard at first and we were making good head-way. There weren¡¯t that many actual living things of interest on the way out. We found some changes in the terrain in the area; some strange new plants and ivies that we collected sample of for review, new rock formations in the area that lead down (we didn¡¯t explore deeper) and even some new trees that Daviths swears weren¡¯t there before. But that was it on the way out.


    By early in the 5<sup>th</sup> day, we had reached the goal point. We were supposed to essentially double back but with the added goal of making the trip longer to do a more thorough scouting of the area. This basically meant taking a none-linear way back home to scout as much ground as possible.


    The wrong choice was slowing down as we found out the reason why there wasn¡¯t any animal life we had found on the way out.


    It turns out we had been traveling on a similar path to an orc hunting band. A large one. One that had been chasing several larger beasts on a hunt.


    We meet one of those beasts and Lana managed to get a very lucky shot off on it before it attacked us, killing it one blow with a .45 Gov from her rifle (apparently from her dad¡¯s collection). We had been hiding in the area because while we had been hearing the hunt going on, we hadn¡¯t been able to pin-point where it had been coming from. It came at us with a surprise and got a surprise in return. While we didn¡¯t get to study the beast, I can remember it being bigger than a bear. Much bigger with horns and tail as long as I was tall. I can also remember it being more insectoid than the rest of it which was perplexing.


    We would have probably studied it if we had time but by the orc hunting party hadn¡¯t been that far before and by the time we had done a basic inspection of the beast, they were close enough that we heard them coming. We ignore the inspection of the body to get moving away from the band quickly. We basically made a heavy sprint for a minute before falling into a light jog for an hour to attempt to get away from the orc hunting band. We had thought we had managed to avoid them but forming a path to head back to town and making headway for maybe an hour, we heard them coming around.


    From what Range Master Davith had said at the time, them following our trail wasn¡¯t unlikely due to how fast we exited the area. While we hadn¡¯t set up camp or anything, when we broke out into a sprint to get away from the orc band, we definitely left enough of a trail for them to follow if they felt so inclined to do so. Alongside the weather being relatively nice and stable, there was no real way to hide or obscure any of the tracks if they don¡¯t do anything consciously remove or suppress them. As it stood, while we had managed to avoid direct contact with them, they still could follow our trail and that we had to pick up the pace a bit to avoid them catching them.


    We did so and started making our way back at a bit of an increased pace. We thought that taking this pace we¡¯d be able to either keep them out of reach or just move away for enough for them to eventually lose interest. We were wrong in thinking they would as when we started to make camp for the night, Lana managed to hear them and after climbing a tree for some vantage saw that they were probably couple or so miles back.


    We didn¡¯t camp that night or the night after as we had to keep up the pace in the hopes that we would lose the orc hunting party wouldn¡¯t reach us and by the third day of keeping the pace, we were faltering. It was getting hard to keep the pace and whatever rations we had were being burned through faster than anticipated. Lana argued that we should try and take a small break to at least try and catch our breath. Range Master Davith said that the fact that the orcs were managing to keep up means they hadn¡¯t been taking breathers either. While my mind agreed with his assessment, it didn¡¯t stop my body from wanting to have us follow Lana¡¯s idea.


    After a bit more back and forth, we eventually decided to continue for another half a day before settling down for rest and watch before we get moving again. It was a bit more bearable for that half day as the prospect of that rest kept us going at a steadier pace than the day before.


    When we got around to that half-day mark, we found a decently shaded spot to rest in. it was a small area where the trees were a bit denser packed and had a downwards slope. It wasn¡¯t a great spot to stop for but we had figured that the area was dense enough that any track would be harder to find, the area would allow for us to hide if we tried to do so and had just enough of a visual to be able to see all.


    If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I wish we hadn¡¯t taken that break.


    It was only going to be 30 mins. We would take turns keeping a watch out between the three of us and we would be off again. It was about 12 minutes into that break that trouble started.


    Don¡¯t know how but the orc party were still on our trail and they managed to catch up to us in in the small amount of time. It¡¯s not like we had seen them on the occasion we had looked back and although the pace had faltered at times, it was never for so long that they could have caught us within so little time. However they did it, they caught up to us at the worst possible moment.


    We were caught off-guard and I was nearly impaled by a spear. Only managed to dodge it at the last second because I turned in time to see the spear hit its arc before flying at me, smashing through a couple tree branches as it did. I think the branches might have been the key factor in me not taking a spear to the chest but I¡¯m not willing to test that theory.


    The moment, the spear nearly struck was the moment they all seemed to descend upon us. I couldn¡¯t tell you how many there were. Not enough time to count but I would definitely say that it was at least 35 of them.


    We had to book it before being overrun. It was terrifying. Having such a large band chasing you and chucking spears that could only take a second or so to look back to try and avoid. Yet despite the horde, we were managing to survive. I¡¯m pretty sure I jinxed us when the thought ¡°We might get out of this alive¡± crossed my mind as maybe twenty minutes after the initial meeting with the orc band, Range Master Davith, who had been occasionally taking pot shots at the orcs with his old Ruger-5.7, took an arrow to the shoulder.


    Neither Lana or I saw it when it happened but we did hear him scream out in pain. I don¡¯t know which one of us turned to see & call out for it him but that was quickly followed by another arrow to his side. We had stopped by that point and I know I took some shots with my rifle to attempt to either take down or just keep the orcs away. I regret now taking the Savage Impulse on this mission. I like it and I¡¯m good with it but it doesn¡¯t do well in scenarios I¡¯ll probably be finding myself in. I think I got used to placing shots with a bolt action because I could take time between shots. Fat-help that did when being run down by a band of orcs.


    I don¡¯t know how many Lana and I managed to hit in that small grab for Range Master Davith but it probably wasn¡¯t even a dent in their numbers.


    If, as whoever is reading this, you¡¯re wondering how I¡¯m still alive for me to write what your reading, then just know that bad luck sometimes follow more bad luck. And this situation was terrible for all involved.


    But we managed to pry survival out from destruction.


    When we managed to get to Davith and Lana was doing a quick examination of his injuries, a strange horn-like sound bellowed behind the orcs which suddenly broke the whole situation into a confusion. The orcs hunting us had a sudden change in plans and suddenly stopped, quickly searching around for the source of the noise. A few moments after the sound, another volley of arrows appeared, but this one a lore more accurate and aimed at the large pack of orcs. This sudden change in events cause total chaos as the sounds of fighting could be heard from the back of the orc party. Whatever it was big enough that it caused a lot of the orcs hunting us to turn back and face whatever threat was coming.


    Lana and I managed to pick up Davith during the commotion and managed to run off with him. We tried running with him but due to size and exhaustion, we could only manage maybe 8 minutes of that. When we found that we hadn¡¯t been chased, we quickly attempted to administer whatever first-aid we¡¯ve learned.


    Two arrows in the body can be deadly if placed right. The blow Davith had taken to the shoulder was definitely more the serious of the two at the time and so we tried to treat it first. Davith argued that we should treat the one to his side first and Lana disagreed. I managed to shout both of them down and told Lana to work on the side abdomen wound while I took care of the one in his shoulder.


    I will tell you it wasn¡¯t an easy fix. The arrow in his side didn¡¯t matter as much as that one had managed to go all the way through, the only requirement was breaking off the arrow head and pulling the arrow out. The one in his shoulder hadn¡¯t gone all the way through but had almost done so. Due to us finding out it was barbed on first initial pull, we had to force it though the shoulder to get the arrow out.


    It wasn¡¯t a pleasant experience and I¡¯m somewhat amazed that I didn¡¯t throw up at all during it all.


    After patching up Davith, we took the time to re-pack everything and reevaluate the situation. We discussed the events and what we should do. After some talk we decided that with Davith injured and only patched up minor-ly, we needed to get back to town and get medical attention. Anything before that would constitute the mission as it could lead to the death of Ranger and one of the key points of this adventure was to assure the public that things were fine after the earthquake. Coming back with a dead ranger would have had the opposite effect.


    Daviths had said he was okay to walk for back and we made quickly planned out the shortest and least strenuous path back to town. Lana & I shouldn¡¯t have trusted Range Master Davith as although we took a pretty slow pace to head back, he looked terrible the entire time.


    This only worsened as he collapsed the next day after packing-up camp.


    Lana freaked out as she thought that he had died due to their improper and untrained first aid. I went to check for a pulse and his breath. I was only a little more level-headed due to a mixture of tired thinking and muted panic.


    He was alive thankfully but we were still about 2 days out from the town.


    I wasn¡¯t going to leave Range Master Davith to die but Lana wouldn¡¯t go out to get us help like I was suggest, countering with the idea of the orcs coming back to get us.


    I will admit the thought crossed my mind but I also thought I would be able to least drive them away with some good shots from Davith¡¯s rifle. Don¡¯t know why I thought that now I¡¯m writing this down but I¡¯ll blame it on the sleep deprived mind. As is, she had managed to convince me to make a makeshift stretcher with some branches, ropes and belts to carry him back to town in. It wasn¡¯t well-made stretcher and Davith definitely sagged a bit while in it but it allowed for Lana and I to move at a faster pace than if it was just me carrying the older Ranger.


    Despite this small increase in pace, we still had to trek through the night in the hopes of getting to the town faster. We couldn¡¯t increase the pace too much due to how the poor the stretcher was and we had to take periodic breaks to check on Range Master Davith¡¯s condition. Due to those restriction, keeping a steady pace through the night for the last two days of the trek back to town was hard and at times confusing. Probably not helped by the lack of sleep and rest from us.


    I¡¯ll admit I almost cried when I saw it crest over the horizon. Lana said she had seen in but a part of me doubted it since I was pretty sure I had been hearing things. Whispers and steps around us. But I never saw anything when I looked in the direction the sounds were coming from. So I assumed that the sleep deprivation was getting to me and I was imagining sounds. Like Lana saying we had made it.


    The moment we were close enough to the town to shout, we started hollering for a medic and for medical attention. The town¡¯s watch managed to hear us and got us an ambulance by the time we had reach the road. I was surprised at the response of the ambulance but I found out later than this had been prepared for. Turns out we had been only the third Ranger party to come back and out of those three, were the in the middle of the pack in terms of health and numbers.


    Team #1 had nearly lost a guy to a monster, losing a leg and had to cut back earlier than planned. Only one member of Team #2 came back at all and the guy is still not talking straight. I¡¯m going to try and ask him about what he saw later just to try and maybe get some additional information for my report to the Head Ranger.


    It¡¯s been two days since we got back. Lana and I crashed almost immediately after sitting down and delivering Davith to the ambulance. Once he was in the ambulance, I could feel a weight lift from my shoulders and let out a large breath that I wasn¡¯t truly holding. I¡¯m still unwinding from the experiences. It¡¯s not been great. I¡¯ve had to report to the Head Ranger and he wants Lana and I to give a full report as to what happened and what we saw. I¡¯m only writing this now down now because I¡¯m going to crash again and I want something to read and write down for the report I have to write later.


    We haven¡¯t heard back from the Hospital and although I haven¡¯t been out the prison since I got back. Been too tired to go out. I¡¯m discovering new aches every two hours and its been fun to find out how tired you are when just getting up to get lunch was exhausting enough make you want to nap after you sit down.


    I¡¯ve heard from Dorian that other Ranger Troops came back and that they weren¡¯t looking much better.


    I¡¯m slightly worried about how this whole thing turned out.


    I¡¯ll get to my report soon. I¡¯m just going to rest my eyes a bit before that.

 7/19/1 AME

    7/19/1 AME


    Damn. Re-reading my last entry, I¡¯m surprised at how coherent I was. Still needed some touch-ups the day after but even then, I¡¯m amazed at how much I was able to actually get down in that state. It was helpful too with the report I had to write.


    A surprising little has happened since the last report and what did happen wasn¡¯t great.


    The good news; Davith is alive. He isn¡¯t alive and well but he¡¯s at least alive due to our efforts. From what little I could understand of what he and his doctors said; the injury he took to the abdomen was serious that it could have killed him if not treated correctly. As it stands, Lana and I managed to get him medical attention fast enough to that he wouldn¡¯t have died but the exertion and stress we applied to get him that attention still took its toll. They said it was something about stomach, liver and muscle damage that basically meant that Davith¡¯s is still in critical condition.


    He¡¯ll get better but from what he¡¯s been explaining to me and Lana, it looks like he¡¯s going to be off of field duty permanently. Davith¡¯s says he¡¯s fine with it since he¡¯s been getting too old for the field work so once he¡¯s out of the hospital, he¡¯ll be sticking to training and teaching the younger Rags. He says he likes the idea since he was always more of a teacher anyway.


    I can¡¯t shake the feeling it was at least partially my fault. I know Lana feels that way at times since I can see her occasionally staring at where the puncture wound was on Range Master Davith. I managed to talk her out of some of the blame by essentially rationalizing that I had more control over the situation than she did but I can tell she still does. It¡¯s not like I can¡¯t.


    With the one bit of good news out of the way, we move onto the bad news, that being almost everything else involving the Rangers. The last of the three Ranger Packs came back three days ago and neither of them are looking great. From the reading the reports and counting the numbers; my group was one of the better ones.


    Around 17 Packs went out for this mission, each with about 3 or 4 Rangers to each pack. One Range Master and two to three Rags. Of those 17 Packs, we were one of the 6 that came back mostly intact. Of those 6, only two of those groups got extremely lucky and didn¡¯t encounter anything serious beside maybe a monster sighting or two. The most recent one of them just came back and so their report isn¡¯t in yet, but I¡¯m going to read it when it¡¯s submitted. The rest of those Packs came back mostly like Lana and mine¡¯s Pack; either one of them injured to the point of hospitalization, two of them with minor to major injuries or a mix of all three.


    The rest of the Packs weren¡¯t so lucky. Of the 11 other Packs, 4 of them came back with only one member alive and in sporting some sort of injury. The rest had some varying combination of one man down and the other two having either serious or major injuries. In total, we lost 13 Rangers in total (3 Range Master and 10 Rags). This isn¡¯t accounting for what is going to be, at least from what Davith believes might happen, a reduction in numbers from people just quitting or being unable to work. Those are probably going to start rolling in the next couple of days since I hear that those with major injuries are going to be released soon.


    As is, the whole Extended Scouting Mission that was dubbed ¡°Operation; Wildlife Warning¡± while we were gone would probably be considered a failure. By the standards of the Rangers, by the Mayor¡¯s standards and by the talk of the town.


    That little fact actually managed to spread around town pretty fast and it was by Friday, the whole town basically saw Rangers & Rags that came back as miracles and treated us like we had been survivors of a D-day. Not that they treated us with a reverence but keeping their distance and trying to be as accommodating as possible when interacting with us. It¡¯s actually driving me up the wall but I keep my mouth shut since I know that some of the Rags that came back probably need to be handled that way. A lot of them are still a jerk suddenly at sudden movement or noise.


    I¡¯ve seen it in Lana at times, when she¡¯s lost in thought. Hell, I still do, but I¡¯ve been managing to keep it under control so it doesn¡¯t look as severe. I think Harris and Samantha has notice but they¡¯ve been kind enough to not mention it. I know Dorian has seen it but he doesn¡¯t say anything either. Harris noticed it but understood it wrong. I think. I¡¯m still a bit confused at how to feel about that whole experience.


    That does lead me to another bit of ''good news'' that is interesting to anyone reading this later; town¡¯s opened back fully. I actually didn¡¯t know about this for a couple days since I was basically alternating between; sleep, getting to the hospital and being dazed while writing my report.


    This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.


    Lana was actually the one to show me since she invented me out for a bit after one of our meetings with Range Master Davith. I didn¡¯t know the town enough so I agreed to it. It was that small trip that showed me how the townsfolk are treating the Rags. Nice place though; Mina¡¯s Bar. Had a nice chili.


    I did go back into town later with Harris but haven¡¯t been back since. It was that experience. Mostly because of Harris.


    We had gone out for a drink. Harris explained that it was a good idea to get out for a bit, since I had been cooped for a while. Being on leave due to medical will do that to you.


    Anyway, because of Harris¡¯ meddling and misunderstandings (I think), we basically got into a fight and things went south.


    Harris took me to a bar he had been going to regularly. I could tell by the way the bartender knew his name and gave him a pretty angry look as he talked about a tab. Harris said he would pay it off in a bit but made sure to order some drinks for us.


    It was going well at first, mostly because it was just Harris and I, mostly me just catching-up on what¡¯s going on within the town (nothing much, besides the fact that farmers are looking to get their last harvest in soon with the help of some of the repaired harvesters). It got weird a bit later when Harris began to introduce me to other regulars at the bar. And he introduced me as Ranger.


    Now this isn¡¯t something I like to do mostly because I¡¯m not one. I¡¯m a Rag, or a Trainee. While I¡¯m working my way up and training, actually being a Ranger is different. As it stands, Rangers are slowly becoming something akin to officers or police in the eyes of the townsfolk as of late. While I can kinda see why from outside perspective (we placed in a somewhat position of authority, we have some decision in things that happen in the town and we have some priority in things around time), it doesn¡¯t hold any water and we can¡¯t do anything serious. Police are still a thing and most of the current police are active. It true that some of the higher ranking police did become Rangers but that¡¯s because they were police who had some history as a hunter and wilderness experience and moved over to establish some sort of hierarchy and structure to what was a recently formed division. So while Rangers can be seen as officers of the law, they aren¡¯t and people haven¡¯t caught onto that just yet. What makes this an issue was that Harris began to throw around my forged status as a Ranger.


    I had a couple drinks at this point though so it wasn¡¯t picking up on this as I should had been, only telling him to stop a couple times but it wasn¡¯t hard enough to actually get him to stop. Its not until I¡¯m writing this that I understand what all happened.


    After a couple more drinks (that I paid off), we headed out of the bar to what I thought was back to the bunks. Harris steered me away, saying he had something he wanted to pick up before heading in. He convinced me to join him and we headed a bit ways away from the street and close up to some houses. I can probably locate where it was if I wanted to.


    At the time, when a couple people showed up and talked to Harris, I figured it was just more of his friends from the bar since one looked like someone in the bar. Things turn bad when one of them took a knife and seemed to threaten Harris. Now, I wasn¡¯t sober yet, but I was getting close to that stage of drunkenness that I was mostly aware of things and the body was somewhat functional, just not synced up properly. So when Harris took a couple steps back, I was already stalking forwards with my hatchet telling them to step away. It probably wasn¡¯t enough to actually scare them alone but the fact that Harris told them I was Ranger, probably back them off.


    I can¡¯t exactly remember the words exchanged, less because of the words more because of the faces but Harris got something from that exchange and the other guys left. My mind was still trying to process this event but it did sour the whole night on the way back. Harris was happy, but I definitely wasn¡¯t and as I¡¯m writing this, I¡¯m figuring out what happened.


    While I can¡¯t prove it; Harris probably scored some drugs that night, and he probably used me to secure a good price. He used my fake rank as a way to pull in a threat and get a score on something that I¡¯m pretty sure would be considered a non-importance at the current state of things. Even as I¡¯m writing this, I get angry at him and I can¡¯t really explain why.


    It¡¯s not like I¡¯m an actual ranger yet?


    It¡¯s not like what happened is probably going to get out besides the people there?


    I probably have enough of proof of character for people to not assume I¡¯m abusing my rank? (Which isn¡¯t really a thing at the moment since Rangers don¡¯t have authority to do anything within the town limits).


    I think I¡¯m angry at being used by Harris as a friend. I don¡¯t really know why though. This isn¡¯t the first time I was with another friend who¡¯s bought drugs off a dealer. It was weed at the time and I don¡¯t know what Harris got but it¡¯s probably not much different.


    Since that event, I¡¯ve been pretty cold to Harris as of late. I haven¡¯t told anyone of what happened but I think Samantha sees something going on. She may not have been around as much this week due to her studying but when she¡¯s been around either helping me with my fatigue and injuries or in between shifts, she¡¯s seen things.


    Still a bit of weird week. I¡¯m going to back to training tomorrow and I¡¯m looking forward to since it¡¯s this passivity from the time off we were sort of forced to take is driving me a little nuts.

 7/26/1 AME

    7/26/1 AME


    Journal Entry #10


    With this week closing out, some good has finally crested over its end. Weather being mostly wet aside, I¡¯ve been having a generally better week.


    One thing I¡¯m happy about is that Range Master Davith was released from the hospital. He was released about 3 days ago. Lana and I helped him with the move back to his place but it was mostly just to make sure he wouldn¡¯t hurt himself seriously. He was fine and although he isn¡¯t going back to active duty until next week, he¡¯s excited about returning to the training. I¡¯ve even seen him visiting the training grounds a couple of times since his release and he always looks generally excited about later training sessions he¡¯s probably planning.


    It was honestly strange visiting his place. The place has a lived in look but feels totally deserted at the same time. Turns out he was married. Long before the Event. He was married and she died of cancer some two decades after their marriage. After Lana and I helped him over to his place he invited us to stay over for a bit to ¡®celebrate¡¯ his release. Lana stayed for the makeshift dinner of deer burgers and hot dogs but left after it was all put away. I stayed well after the sun went down and we talked over some whiskey he had. I didn¡¯t get the whole life story but enough to give me a greater understanding of the man.


    Davith is a good man. Life just dealt him a decently shit hand but nothing horrible to play against. Got a wife a bit after highschool. Worked as a highway officer early after their marriage, then became a hunter and general wildlife officer for the local region later. His wife got cancer after his change in profession and they weathered that storm together. From how he describes it, the descent was slow and uncertain. There were days where she was stronger than ever, then days where she was doubled over the toilet. Treatment seem to keep her bad days from getting too bad but within the 3<sup>rd</sup> year, she began to have more bad days than good ones. Eventually it took her life and Davith had to bury her alone. Most of her family had died by that point and the ones that were alive were either too far away to make contact or just not close enough to really know her. He had said he had tried dating two years later but as he puts it, the combination of ¡°his unpracticed charm" and the "feeling not being there again¡± he stopped trying to get out there. His work still kept him active and kept him in contact with his friends so he didn¡¯t waste away like others might have. He tells me that he still remembers her from time to time and that those moments are still painful but still the best moments he has.


    It¡¯s a bit sad but something about him doesn¡¯t make me feel sorry for him. And I write that not in the almost certainly snarky or indifferent tone I can hear in the phrase but differently. When he talks about it, he doesn¡¯t seem remorseful or angry but just content. Despite all that, he¡¯s in a good place and the whole ¡®new world¡¯ thing doesn¡¯t change much for him in terms of who he is and what he does. Only now, he¡¯s going to be a little less active about it.


    It¡¯s good to see him at least happy about his new role even if he¡¯s not going to be training as many as he would be. Davith was right on his predictions about the amount of people in the ranks as over the week, the amount of Rags that have resigned or just stopped coming to meetings and training sessions has slowly increased. It was only just a couple at first but on the day I¡¯m writing this, another 10 Rags stopped showing up. In total, we¡¯ve shrunk by about 25; a number which includes both those who resigned willingly and those who couldn¡¯t act as acting members of the force. While this might not sound like a lot, we only had a little more than 100 members and with those lost we don¡¯t have a lot of members who can be active in the field.


    From what I¡¯ve heard from the higher ups, recruitment has basically stopped since the failure of the ¡°Wildlife Warning¡± mission and they aren¡¯t sure it¡¯s going to recover any time soon. I can¡¯t really disagree either. Aside from the pay that we are basically being promised, there isn¡¯t too much to look forward to in this line of work. I¡¯m a part of it to return something to the town and make sure they don¡¯t have a need to throw me out but for people who already live here, that idea isn¡¯t going to pop in their heads. So recruitment is probably going to be between low to non-existent until something changes.


    What¡¯s funny is that despite the initial goal of ¡°Wildlife Warning¡± being more of a publicity stunt than anything, going over the reports I¡¯ve read seems to indicate that we''re pretty secure in terms of monsters and orc camps around the town.


    I¡¯ve been reading and going over the reports from all of the Ranger Troops that went out and from them, as scattered and un-detailed as some of them are; the picture they paint is actually a good one. The towns is pretty well situation and the closest monster sighting is only 41 miles out from closest town edge. The closest encampment of orcs is 49 miles up north and the second closest is 52 miles out north east. Nothing of serious danger has been found within the approximate 25 miles radius of the town and from the reports, the only reason why the monster attacks we suffered happened seemed to be because those monsters had either been driven that far due to food or pushed out from conflicts with other monsters.


    While I do laugh a bit at this and even mentioned it Range Master Davith, it¡¯s not the great PR win that I do make it out to be. I tried to talk him into mentioning the results to the other Range Masters but he explained that it despite it being true, there isn¡¯t a great way to spin it since while it means that the townsfolk aren¡¯t in any relative danger, it does show the power and devastation those monsters can do to who the people believe are ¡®trained professionals¡¯.


    While it¡¯s laughable to say we are all ¡®trained professionals¡¯, I understand the principal. The whole reason why the Rangers exist it be some sort of defense against the monsters that marked how the world has changed. While our actual jobs seem to be more of scouting and monitoring business of said monsters, we are the ones with the most knowledge about them. So our failure to ¡®deal¡¯ with them while in the wilderness isn¡¯t a good showing and has already negatively painted the image of the Rangers¡¯ effectiveness.


    Not a very happy note but it can be seen as nugget of good in the bad. At least to me.


    To that end, the reading into the reports has led me to cataloging the monsters we have found around the area. I started doing it because it seemed like two Ranger Troops found the same monster, which would have been impossible considering they took two different paths that never got close to each other.


    It¡¯s not an easy task since due to the casualties and the number of reports being colored by that fact, noting down and trying to analyze the monsters from the descriptions are hard. It is a fun challenge though since it¡¯s not just about matching descriptions together but also seeing if the actions are reported the same and then trying to tie those details into the location the monster was said to be found in. At time of writing, I¡¯ve managed to catalogue at least 6 different Large Class monsters (those that are 5 ft or larger on all fours (or however many legs they have)) and 8 different Small Class monsters (which are those smaller than 5ft on their legs). It¡¯s not a lot but I think it¡¯s a good start to get some information on what is happening around the town. While many of the descriptions are hard to place, it does seem weird that some of the monsters described take the shape of monsters we would have in our fictional media. Only about 5 of the Monsters in total seem to be near copies but it¡¯s hard to tell from the reports. The rest seem to be monsters that we don¡¯t have any previous ¡®knowledge¡¯ on from what is being described in the reports.


    The monsters that we know and can put some name to (through research done at the library and through TTRPG books found there) are the following; Manticores, Gorgons (maybe), Owlbears, Goliath Spiders and an Eberarks. Of these, two of the Ranger Troops sent out in the Wildlife Warning mission encountered them and lost some people to them. The rest managed to either flee or distract the monster long enough for it to be attacked by another monster or lose interest them. This is enough to designate them as dangerous. Even from what has been ¡®recorded¡¯ in the books I pulled, they didn¡¯t act in the same way and whatever ¡®weaknesses¡¯ they have aren¡¯t easily available to us. Yet.


    Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.


    Of the monsters we¡¯ve ¡®identified¡¯ I¡¯ve found some discrepancies between them.


    Manticores, from most tales and interpretations, tend to them be lion-like with wings of some kind and have some sort of bug-like tail that are more usually described as those of a scorpion. While the specifics usually change from interpretations; the general base of lion, wings and bug-tail stay the same. Yet from the reports, it looks as though they are only close to general shape. The two reports that can be linked to representing a Manticore encounter show that its very much a base layer of similarity. One of the reports describe their monster encounter as it being a large cat with strange scorpion like features and bat wings. The other one described a tiger with eagle wings and a bee stinger tail. While they are different, it seem like the only base that the world seems to work with to make a ¡®Manticore¡¯ is some feline body, wings of a flying creature that aren¡¯t bugs and having some sort of insect like additions.


    The Owlbears are also a point of contention for me since 5 Troops meet something that would fit the general idea but each have different physical description for it. Two Troops found something they described as bird-like, being as large as a bear that moved like a dog. Another Troop described something that was more bear but clearly had feathers and talons instead of claws on its front paws. The last two both meet two different owlbears, one of them was a new looking one while the other was similar to the first. They all seem to act the same as owlbears would act from the descriptions but it¡¯s seems to be the only thing that is consistent between them.


    This is all mostly conjecture though since it hard to really establish exact actions and temperament from written reports. Even from the direct ¡®interviews¡¯ I managed to get with some of the Rangers or Rags in those Troops, it¡¯s hard to really get the details pronounced enough to line everything up.


    The Eberak is the only ones that I feel is hard to consider real since although 3 Troops have reported that they encountered one, it¡¯s one of those things that I can¡¯t believe to be true. I only included it to be in the list of confirmed monsters since its too exact in description to not be an Eberark. All 3 Troops report a monster that was bigger than a cement truck, with four pairs of clawed legs, spines along its back, its heads like a cross between a gator and weasel and a trail of singed earth after each step. The fact that 3 separate Troops all described it the same way makes me write it down as real but its existence is still troubling. If the Eberark is real and there is more than one of them, we would have to increase the general caliber of rounds we should be carrying on standard expeditions. Anything below .300 Winchester is only going to produce a sting at best.


    I was planning to keep this small effort to myself. Mostly because although it might have been helpful, it was just guesses based off tidbits of old knowledge from books & games. It couldn¡¯t have been actually concrete. And in a strange sense, it felt relaxing and somewhat comforting. I think it was because of the familiarity of it. Sure, the strange new world we are currently trying to live in hasn¡¯t been great so far and things might take a turn for the worse but the knowledge that at least some of it is familiar is comforting. That part of this new world we are currently living in has something familiar that I can latch onto.


    Probably being a bit too emotional or existential.


    My efforts in cataloging were going to be for me and my eyes alone until it was noticed by Range Master Davith. I initially thought he would disapprove of the idea, because it would take time away from the actual work Rangers would have to do but it turns out he thought it could be something useful. His words were more along the lines of the idea being a good one but my execution being off. With his help, I was able to refine the log and the format of them on the monsters we could put a semi-accurate name and get a more formalized look for the ones we don¡¯t have any real context/idea of.


    He also suggested that the general name of them catalogue to be the ¡°Chimera Catalogues¡±. I was against this but his reasoning convinced was enough for me to go along. It was due to a clash of knowledge. I knew about these beings from games and ¡®deep lore¡¯ from myths and legends I did some basic studies on in college. My initial thoughts about them is that they are monsters from myth, legends & games and in those, they tend to be defeat-able if you know the context and knowledge. Range Master Davith explained that people don¡¯t have that same sense of knowledge and due to the context being entirely different, calling them monsters might put them into the mindset that they won¡¯t survive. Calling them a Chimera sounds a bit more grounded which means people could understand taking them down.


    I don¡¯t entirely agree with it but it something that I can see being something that does change people in their minds a bit.


    Outside of that, reducing my training time has left me with some more free time to hang out and catch up with my bunkmates.


    Due to the hospital work slowing down as of late, Samantha¡¯s been around a lot more which is nice. We¡¯ve been talking a lot more often, mostly because of somewhat shared experience relating to the operation Wildlife Warnings. While we didn¡¯t try to talk about work (in her case; the people she¡¯s patching up and in mine; how they probably got to that point) it sort of gravitated to it due to both of us wanting to understand the other¡¯s field a bit better. Samantha basically grilled me on what we had seen out there and the monsters we might have faced and I answered with what the reports had and nothing else (since technically I shouldn¡¯t even be doing that much) while I asked her about the various states the Rags and Rangers were in and the best methods to either stem or fix those injuries if they were to happen again. I definitely learned somethings from her about at least patchy first-aid which is something I¡¯m probably going to have to petition (or at least get Range Master Davith to) teaching it to the Rags (and myself later).


    Outside of that, Samantha¡¯s was accepted into the newly formed Hippocrates Program. I don¡¯t understand the name at all but from how she described it, it seems to be some sort of uplift program with the idea of making some of the nurses into doctors, or something closer to it. It¡¯s a big thing for her and we (Harris, Dorian, some of her other friends and I) took her out for a small party out in the town. It was nice to have a small bit of relaxation between the work and training. And it was for an actual good moment and not just moment in between low points. It was nice.


    Admittedly it less nice having to deal with being around Harris for a time but there was enough people to have an easy excuse to only acknowledge him.


    That probably sounds harsh but I don¡¯t really know how to reconcile myself when it comes to Harris. He hasn¡¯t apologized for the whole ¡®maybe drug deal¡¯ kerfuffle he put me through last week but at the same time, I can¡¯t see why he would apologize since from his perspective; everything went right. Which just makes me angrier at him.


    I¡¯ve stopped avoiding Harris since it doesn¡¯t really work when we sleep in the same room but I haven¡¯t made an effort to talk to him about those events. I try to talk but every time I try to think about how to breach the topic, I get confused as to why I¡¯m angry at all, which always leads to a more confusing internal monologue that I¡¯ve tried to write down here at least three time only to ripe out the pages. I don¡¯t need to keep useless thoughts in here anymore than I do in my own head.


    Yet just because I don¡¯t talk to Harris, doesn¡¯t mean he doesn¡¯t talk to me or that I haven¡¯t noticed things around him. Harris says he¡¯s been doing alright his work and that he¡¯s managed to look good during an incident with the tractor engine issues. Something about one of the pistons having problems. He¡¯s mentioned he might be given more work which he is excited for. It¡¯s a bit strange since you can tell he¡¯s managed to shoot up at least twice this week and I can¡¯t really tell if that helped him keep his calm for the work or it might just make him crash later.


    Despite my anger at him, I do worry about that. He can hold himself together well but at times, he seems to forget to put up the act and it shows. I don¡¯t think he even notices or that other people notice. He¡¯s pretty bad at noticing things really.


    Samantha & Dorian noticed my avoidance him but haven¡¯t broached the topic with me yet, which I¡¯m thankful for. I wouldn¡¯t know what to tell them. Samantha seems to know it¡¯s on my end though since when were all together, she always seems to place herself in between us to try and keep things smooth. I¡¯m thankful but also a little resentful that it¡¯s like this. I should confront this issue but it doesn¡¯t seem to progress in my head correctly.


    Thankfully, I¡¯ll have some time to process my emotions and thoughts about the whole event since the Rangers are setting up another expedition again. I was thinking of signing up again but the party two nights ago made it certain that I need the space to think it through away from Harris to get past this. Thankfully, this expedition is more for the Rangers benefit in knowledge of the area than the Council¡¯s so isn¡¯t going to be announced to the general public.


    We are going to be assigned our assignments and groups tomorrow which means we¡¯re going to get about two days to prep before we head out. I think I¡¯m going to try and talk to Harris beforehand at least once to get my bearing on him as a friend.


    Maybe I¡¯m just missing something between us.


    Probably a bit mope-y at the end but that¡¯s fine. I write this for myself just as much as whoever is going to read this later so maybe you¡¯ll learn to be more decisive than me when dealing with your friendships.

 8/11/1 AME

    8/11/1 AME


    Journal Entry #1


    I think I¡¯m going to bring pages out with me on my next expedition, just so that I can write stuff down if things go for too long or if I end up getting hurt and stuck in the hospital.


    I¡¯ve been in the hospital for 3 days and it¡¯s been like pulling teeth to try and get someone to grab my journal for this entry. The doctors for some reason treated me like I''m an intensive care patient and barely let me get visits for the first day and a half. It was a pain to try to get one of my friends to visit and delivery me this journal. Lana managed to smuggle it in with a blanket she brought here after I complained about the chill in the hospital. I asked about that and it turns out that the hospital basically shut off the heating to all rooms except critical ones since they were unsure of how long the power would continue to work for. Still a bitch to get this in and even then; I have to write this under the cover of night because they don¡¯t want me ¡®straining myself¡¯ writing in a damn journal. All I have are some broken bones and several maybe minor lacerations. They act like I¡¯m going to die tomorrow if I so much as decided to reach for a cup of water but I¡¯ve been walking and talking with them so I don¡¯t understand the precautions.


    So aside from complaining about hospital treatment in the only place they hopefully won¡¯t read about it, I¡¯ve had a hell of week and a half.


    As I mentioned above, I received quite the beating on my last expedition and if I¡¯m being entirely honest, it was totally earned from my bad decisions and stupid actions.


    I signed up for the latest expedition; Operation Counting Sheep (I didn¡¯t name the operation even though I get why they seem to want to name every sanctioned expedition since it''s great for filing purposes). This expedition was solely for the Ranger Corp to get an assessment of the Chimeras in the area and to try to get a more accurate count without the fuck-up of the last operation which was due (officially) to underestimating the situation (un-officially; because we fast tracked a bunch of Rags on missions because we needed to pad out the numbers for the reports). Fewer Troops were sent out for this expedition but they were vetted and selected more rigorously than before. As is: of the total 32 Rags (that were left after ¡®The Shedding¡¯), only 12 of them were allowed to go on this expedition.


    Lana and I were of that small few.


    Due to Range Master Davith forever being on leave for expeditions, we were assigned to a new Range Master for this operation; Range Master Jacob.


    I hadn¡¯t meet the Ranger before but I had heard good things about him from some of the other Rags. I can say that he didn¡¯t disappoint but it will say that he didn¡¯t give me a good time at the start.


    As mentioned before, Operation: Counting Sheep was about the collection of data for only the use by the Ranger Corp. but isn¡¯t as straight forward as it sounds. Mostly because from the previous reports; the higher ups of the Corp believe that, although we only have small hints of it, that many of the Chimeras and tribes around the town have been settling due to the coming Winter. The older and more experienced people in town are saying it''s going to be a cold one and this is leading the higher-ups to believe that the monsters and the Orc Tribes either feel it too or know about it and so are hunkering down early. The main goal of this operation is both to count the monsters and orc tribes in the area but to also confirm that they are hunkering down for the winter (which I guess makes the names a lot more relevant now that I think about).


    With that in mind, we packed pretty heavy. Gear for this operation was a bit less stringent but people made it point to double up on a lot of things that we would only really carry one of. My pack consistent of two fire-starter kits, a hatchet, ¡®rations¡¯ for 10 days (which are basically just some dried meat, cheese and bread), a couple maps of the area, a disposable camera with two reals, some papers for notes (only notes), two flasks of water, 8 water purifier tablets, some gauss, antiseptic spray, rubbing alcohol, a sleeping bag, a rain poncho and some binoculars. My pack is considered the light one since I¡¯m the spotter and will be heading head ahead of the group from time to time. Most of this list is also in the pack of others but I have the least in terms of doubling the load and resources. Lana has an extra flask of water and then an extra empty one just in case a new stream has appeared. I didn¡¯t think that was the case but Range Master Jacob mentioned that the mountain ranges have changed and while they are definitely far off, it could have changed the flow down the mountain and either created new streams or heavily redirected the existing ones. That was something I hadn¡¯t noticed and he chocked it up to being an N.Rs.


    Not going to lie: it have been a while since I¡¯d been called that. Nearly a month and a half. I haven¡¯t forgotten that I am one but it felt strange to be reminded in such a way. And the way Range Master Jacob said was with a distaste and venom did make that memory leave a bad taste in my mouth.


    Which I guess brings me to the Ranger in the room and one of the moral lessons this journal might have if there are any at all; First impression matter. Yet despite rumors and ideas based on second hand hear-say aren¡¯t the same in terms of importance, it can still matter to change the image of you in another mind.


    I say this because there are things I didn¡¯t hear about Range Master Jacob yet there were things he heard about me. This is important because he heard them from my fellow Rags and my friend Lana; who is his daughter and just because you don¡¯t kill the messenger, doesn¡¯t mean they don¡¯t change the perception of the message.


    Lana had talked a good deal about me and most of it in a positive way. Which would make sense, we¡¯re friends and she is probably the only other friend I have that wasn¡¯t made through being bunk mates in the same cell (jeez that¡¯s sound funnier than it should be). Too bad, like any father who had just been moved with his whole town to a new world, he¡¯s become somewhat overprotective. From what I managed to get from him and Lana (at different times when they weren¡¯t in the area together), even letting her join the Rangers was something he had dragged his feet on from the moment she heard about it.


    Still, the first couple of days of our expedition was spent with an increasing heavy tension between me and Ranger Master Jacob, who I had yet to figure out was Lana¡¯s father until a day before the return point.


    If you¡¯re thinking, ¡®How did you not figure it out until so far into the trip?¡¯, then it goes into what the trip was for and what it entailed. We had to move a straight 80 miles out to a specific point, turn back and then make our way back by moving back by making 10 to 15 miles treks zig-zag from the turning point back to town. The easy part is the initial 80 mile trek out to the point. That would only take 3 to 4 days if the weather held fine and we kept up a steady, if somewhat hard pace.


    The weather was a muggy mess with light rains every early morning that turns into an annoying low mist whenever the sun came up. It didn¡¯t slow our pace by much but it definitely made the first 3 days of the expedition harder than it needed to be. And when you push for a hard pace in a hike, you tend not to speak much. Sure, I made some comments about either what was ahead, to stay quiet or to hide, but those were basic comments and not much. Lana and I had worked well together for such a period of time that it become second nature for us to set up camp and minimal discussion was needed between us. Range Master Jacob would occasionally comment but one of us would answer, respond or explain as the other would continue the work. He would help out but it was mostly with the things around the campsite and with small game hunting. A lot of walking and hiking but not a lot of talking.


    On the way to the turning point, we did spot a chimera. It was a long distance encounter but it was clearly some sort of large bird-like creature. I managed to note some of the details and characteristics of this chimera but they are with my gear and I can¡¯t recall much of them at time of writing. I can remember avian wings and large claws but that¡¯s I can recall and probably because the rest of the trip was more pressing.


    We didn¡¯t start talking until we hit the turning point and it took a bit of talk before I actually found out about that connection. Mostly because Range Master Jacob and I were arguing about the direction we should be taking on the way back. Range Master Jacob, as I would later find out the reason why, was arguing to take a farther path around the chimeras we were tasked with cataloguing. He argued that we didn¡¯t need to get so close to them to identify them.


    I wanted to get a bit closer than we normally would, my reasoning being influenced by the sight of smaller tracks and signs of more than one and wanting to confirm my suspicion of there being more than one in those areas.


    Lana eventually broke the argument by threading a middle ground between the two positions, checking her dad with a counter-point that attempting to protect her was futile since she was already here in the area of danger. I managed to recover from my confusion at the ¡®dad¡¯ bit by charting the future two days of hiking.


    Thankfully, the mist had gone down and weather had become clearer for the trip ahead. I just wish the weather had stayed that nice for the rest of the coming days but life likes to pile crap onto more crap.


    With what we had planned out, we would be taking about 9 days to get back to the town and each day would have some travel and at least on direction change. It would take us close to the foot of one the new mountains (although calling them mountains is a bit much) that seem to have appeared within the new world, close to at least 3 of the reported ¡®orc camps¡¯ and would take us within the supposed territories of the chimeras we had recorded to be in the area.


    It started out fine. The first day and half had great weather and was a mostly easy walk. We managed to get close to two places we had marked on the map as suspected Chimera den¡¯s (confirming one of them as being a den) and even studied a chimera for a bit. Really, wish I had taken some notes since it''s hard for me to remember what it was as I¡¯m writing this. Lana probably knows better but she¡¯s not here right now and I can¡¯t use her description in the report (mostly to avoid looking like I¡¯m lazing about with the reports) so I¡¯ll half to try and jog my memory later.


    It was probably a couple hours after studying the Chimera that things took a turn for the worse and that started with lots of rain. It wasn¡¯t a heavy rain but it was something that was constant for basically the rest of the expedition. Now it wasn¡¯t as though we hadn¡¯t planned for rain and finding at least decent shelter from it at night wasn¡¯t hard, but it definitely dragged the whole expedition down from manageable to taxing.


    The rain slowed our progress down, making treks that would normally be done in less than half a day take three quarters of one and made identifying tracks and den¡¯s incredibly hard. We could still make out somethings in the area around us when the rain started but after the first day of constant rain, many of tracks were impossible to decipher and identifying dens became as much without running up to the suspected area close enough to lick the trees.


    While not all of the Chimeras hunkered down for the rain, a majority of them seemed to be averse to getting wet in it. The ones that didn¡¯t were definitely the larger kind and the ones that could (thankfully) be studied from a good distance with binoculars. Of the ones I can remember encountering, we spotted a strange bug-reptile creature that seem to eat its prey through a strange mixture of ripping it apart and using a strange throw-up/acid to melt it down a bit before ¡®eating it¡¯ (pretty creepy and I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll not have nightmares about it). Another one that I think might be problem was a large wolf-shaped creature with lots of very study looking feathers. We studied it for a time and found out that either the feathers have some sort of poisonous or anathestic qualities. We watched it hunt and it seemed to have ejected its feathers to its target and they didn¡¯t go down at first, slowly trying to get away before just collapsing. The fact that it feathered wolf didn¡¯t chow down on its prey immediately when it reached the prize, instead dragging it away leads me to believe we are going to see more of them again once he snow melts.


    I will admit that despite the primal fear that watching the Chimeras instill in you when you see them move, I find these types of expeditions quite relaxing. Just watching a beast so large walk around and hunt is strangely peaceful, examining the functions of their bodies and the mechanism of their strange appendages. Even watching them feed, while usually disgusting or horrifying, is interesting to watch and study. This is probably just something that I feel though, mostly because I can tell that Lana is always a bit weirded out by their presences and Range Master Jacob seems enter the more defensive-ready stance. Hopefully this sense of peace I feel while studying Chimeras is only a passing phase and that the higher up don¡¯t send me on them exclusively.


    Something interesting was that while the rain definitely curtailed some of the things living in the strange new woods around the town, it only presented opportunities for others. I am of course talking about the Orcs.


    We had discussed one night we camped out about the Orc Camps and how we would approach them. Due to the weather being a detrimental factor and the last time we had been accosted by a troop of Orcs, it was established by all of us that encountering any amount of Orcs was something that we wanted to avoid. This condition established three different opinions on how to handle us finding an encampment.


    Range Master Jacob wanted us to just note the location down on the map and give it wide birth. It was an entirely reasonable decision to make as it provided the best chance of avoiding any confrontation with an Orc or any Orc troop. At the time, my opinion on this direction was that while it was probably the safest option, it was motivated more by the fact that his daughter was there rather than just outright fear. I didn¡¯t and won¡¯t fault him for that line of thinking since it was sound. As of writing this, while I definitely regret the actions I took, I still feel like it was a too safe option and would have only gotten us the barest information of the encampment. It would not be helpful to the Ranger Corp to only get such limited data.


    Lana suggested a more patient approach that would have added some time to the return trip. The idea was to park ourselves nearby enough the camp to see and observe them but far enough that we¡¯d have some warning and time to move if they came walking in our direction. This would take most of day before we¡¯d move away to make camp and then continue the trek back to town. As I look back on that discussion, it was probably the best of our options. At the time, it seemed like a recipe for an early retreat. As we didn¡¯t know how many of the Orc Encampments we would stumble upon and we assumed to go past a least 3 from the previous reports of the area, it felt as though we would be gambling the amount of rations we had over the amount of encampments that we stumble upon.


    My suggestion, which I admit then and now was the most risky; was to study the Orc Encampment as close as we could get around the night and make a move before dawn. Yes, it was very risky move but I will use the same reasoning I did then which was that the point of our expedition was to assess the danger we were in by the surrounding inhabitants. The Orc Encampments would require a more thorough inspection since their danger wasn¡¯t as self-evident as the Chimeras; where you can obviously see their claws, teeth and study them for a bit to find out how they hunt. To get an actual assessment of their strength and capabilities, we would have to at least get a count of their numbers, weapons and supplies.


    Due to Range Master Jacob being a Range Master, he essentially pulled rank and forced us into his option. This meant that we took a wide birth from the camps we would encounter and just mark them on the map.


    This went on for the first two Orc Encampments we went by over the next 3 days and I will admit that I felt a bit frustrated at what we were doing. It isn¡¯t as though we hadn¡¯t encountered other Chimera that I studied but the idea that all we were doing for the Corp was just noting down where the Encampment was felt lacking and shirking responsibility.


    It was on the 5th night of our way back that I decided to get a better look at what we might encounter myself. It was definitely a stupid idea and while I don¡¯t regret what did, I do see the mistakes I made and what I could have done better to lessen the potential damage I had done.


    I had already planned out what I would do on the trek that morning. Due to me having the second watch, I had the time to shift around my pack to hand off the important gear to the other packs before I woke up my replacement. Before I would wake up my replacement, I would go place my pack, rifle (& ammunition) and a tarp/poncho a dozen or so yards from camp. When I woke up my replacement; I would tell them I¡¯m going to use the bathroom and go pick up my pack and go investigate the Orc Encampment. By the time they realized something was wrong, I would be too far out for them to catch up to and they would have to allow me to go on my way. I would do a bit of recon and then head out to meet them on the trail. If I didn¡¯t meet them somewhere along the planned trail, then I would continue on my way back to town and suffer the consequences. I believed (and still do) that the risks of this plan would be worth the rewards for the town.


    With hindsight, I was right about the reward but the old quote from Mike Tyson of ¡°Everyone has a plan till they get punched in the face¡± holds true in more scenarios than you believe.


    I had managed to pull off my little maneuver without too much effort. Lana always takes a bit longer to really ¡®be there¡¯ when she wakes up for her watch so she probably assumed I had doubled back to camp after a couple minutes and went to sleep. When or how they found out is something was wrong, I never found out since it wasn¡¯t a priority at the time and I haven¡¯t broach yet. I am slightly worried at what they might say about it. I think it¡¯s because I¡¯m slightly worried at what they might say.


    After I managed to slip away from the group, stalked my way to the large Orc Encampment. Thankfully it was still raining somewhat so it made sneaking around easier since visibility was down and the rain covered most of the noise. It took maybe 30 minutes to get close to the camps and I decided to park and observe a bit before I went in and this was a good choice since we got some good ideas on some cultural aspects of the Orcs.


    If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    As it turns out, the encampment we had been circling hadn¡¯t actually been just one encampment but two. I observed that there was a difference in the colors used between the camp tents within the large encampment and that the colors had a dividing line between them (not an actual line but an implied one). It was probably why this encampment had been larger than the last two we had circled around. I managed to scout out the general outskirt of the encampment which gave me a decent guess of the numbers of orcs (together since I decided to ignore the two camp split) as well as get some decent look at the weapons they all had.


    Most of the weaponry they had would be called ¡®medieval weaponry¡¯. And I write that knowing that the question going through your head is going to be ¡°what do you mean ¡®be called; medieval weaponry¡¯?¡± It¡¯s because while it definitely has its roots in what you would see at the Museum of Natural History¡¯s Dark Age section, it had the same feel that would get from those ¡®mall ninja¡¯ weapons. An axe I was able to get a closer glimpse at looked as though it was modeled off a chainsaw, with its blade being more teeth than actual blade. All the weapons I looked at where like, having either strange ornaments or bizarre shapes to it make it distinctive. Even the short spear I own (won maybe?) is like this, looking more like a bird beak instead of actual blade. But I¡¯ll got into that a bit later.


    It was only a general look on the outside of the encampment but I would say it was enough to get the idea of the strength of the camp. Now the temperament is different and I do have some insight on that too, knowledge that was gain at some idea of risk.


    I had managed to get pretty close to the encampment that night and it wasn¡¯t entirely by skill. I initially believed that for a small time. I continued to stalk around the camp and inspecting it until I managed to see enough of the encampment to witness the dividing line between the two colors of the camp and what was going on. I hadn¡¯t noticed that not a lot of orcs had been around the part of encampments that I was close to and it was only until I saw that large circle of orcs did I begin to question what was going on. I managed to do a little more investigation around the encampment before I used one of tress on the edge of the encampment to gain a bit of a height to view what was going on.


    What I saw informed me of the temperament of the orc encampment and made me both glad and worried. I can¡¯t be certain but it looked like a duel, and it seemed to be some sort of ceremonial one at that. At least I can assume it was ceremonial as the particulars of the duel suggested as such. All of the Orcs were in a large circle around two larger orcs that were painted in strange shapes but distinctive colors. Neither of the orcs had weapons yet despite this fact, both of them were quite bloodied and bruised. The orcs that consisted of the edge of the circle all carried weapons and would occasionally beat them together to make a strange ringing noise the fight continued.


    Of the two orcs in the ring, the one that was colored in orange-ish shapes and markings looked like he was the winning party. Not an easy way to tell but from the two of them, he had more bruises that cuts or scrap and looked less bloodied than his opponent. The other orc in blue-ish colors was definitely in the weaker position, more cuts than bruises and seemingly had a couple broken fingers. Yet that didn¡¯t seem to stop or impede him as the moment he had the orange orc take a step back did the blue orc pressed that advantage and tried to take a couple swings at him. The orange one avoided most of swings and managed to throw two good punches back, landing on the head and the lower chest on the blue orc.


    From that small exchange, it was pretty clear who was going to win and why. This knowledge does make a bit worried since although I don¡¯t know who ultimately won the fight, it was clear who the winner was going to be what it represented. The Orange Orc was methodical and precise in his attacks (or at least as precise an orc can be) and if that translates to his character than the orc leader of this tribe is going to be an issue in the future. If that Orange Orc is able to muster enough of the forces, there is a chance we can be over run. I¡¯ll try to put it in my report but even though I have technical proof (considering I¡¯m still in the hospital as I write this), I don¡¯t have confirmation from other Rangers which can put this up for debate.


    To add to this, I wasn¡¯t able to confirm if the Orange Orc won or not since I was spotted during the fight. I didn¡¯t notice that I had been noticed and I will say that if it hadn¡¯t been for the rain, I would have had a spear in chest.


    An Orc, probably a straggler or some sort of guard saw me in the tree and I was too involved in the fight to notice that the orc was preparing to impale me with a spear from the ground. I was only able to avoid his attempt because the rain cause me to slip slightly just as the Orc went in for the kill. This slip up caused me to only get cut on my face that might scar later and had me fall from the small tree. Thankfully I wasn¡¯t so high up that the fall hurt and I was able to recover quickly. Which was good because I had to scrap with that Orc the moment I got up.


    I don¡¯t know why the Orc didn¡¯t sound any alarm, but he came at me with the spear first instead of anything else (I think he had been drinking at least from some of the unsteady steps he took). I originally wanted to go for the gun I had slung on my back but after dodging the first two thrust with the spear, I thought against it because of the fight. The moment I would have pulled that gun and shot at the orc, I would have the entire encampment come down on me.


    So I got into a fist-fight (sort of) with an orc. And I hope to never do that again.


    Considering that average orc is some 7 feet tall and they have mostly muscle, being punched by one hurts a lot. And I got punched a lot. Nearly stabbed a lot too. I was only able to come out on top of that fight due to a small amount of skill and a massive amount of luck. There were times in that fight were I¡¯m pretty sure that I would have died if the grip hadn¡¯t been that strong or if ground wasn¡¯t as wet to cause a slip. In the fight that probably only lasted maybe a little less than 5 minutes, I experienced more near deaths than I had ever wanted or thought I ever would. This isn¡¯t to say that I was completely untouchable because in that fight, I felt his blows hard. Maybe someone stronger than me could have made a better challenge to the semi-drunk Orc but my fight with it could be compared to a teenager fighting and winning against his drunk father.


    I managed to win by killing the orc with my utility axe that I had brought along the expedition. It was one that I had grown attached to because of useful it had been through the trip. After delivering a punch to kidney (or what I think where it might be), I drove the axe into the orcs neck. He didn¡¯t die immediately and it was definitely a bit haunting to watch the orc slowly bleed out as he still tried to fight back.


    I was only able to get a small breather because while I hadn¡¯t heard any change to the large fight in the center of the encampment, the sun was coming up and I was covered in blood. I wasn¡¯t in any shape to either clean or it of be able to really make a daring escape. At the time, all I knew I had was broken arm and that was enough to basically stop me from trying anything else that day.


    I picked up the spear that almost killed me and took off the head gear from the orc. I can¡¯t tell you why I did that, but I remember something in the reports about that. I¡¯d have to review when I¡¯m free form the hospital but there was a report of a duel or contest between two groups of orcs and that the winner took ¡®trophies¡¯ from the losers. While I don¡¯t know if Orcs are capable of understanding other beings being similar to them, maybe they could at least appreciate the same cultural actions being performed by others.


    I managed to make it out of camp fast enough that the sun just crested over the hills when I could see the camp behind me but that effort really strained me. I know now but it turns out that the Orc managed to fracture a couple of my ribs and that my efforts strained them worse. Enough so that over that day, a couple of those fractures bones became broken bones. Thankfully those broken ribs didn¡¯t pierce my lungs the entire trek away from the Orc encampment but it still caused a lot of damage and drained me.


    My trek out to the meet up location took longer than it should have due to the injury. My pace was effectively halved if not more so. I managed to do a quick patch job on a small break I took sometime around 8 or 9 am and that definitely took some time out the original plan. By noon, I knew that there was no way I was making it to next turning point of the expedition and so tried mentally map out the way back to town. That first day was pretty bad, mostly because all of the injuries were fresh and I had yet to really take a break to let my body recover.


    I put some good distance between myself and the Orc encampment but it still felt like I hadn¡¯t gotten far enough. I¡¯d estimate I only made maybe 11 miles out from encampment. With the idea of just calling it quits on the expedition, my goal was to just gun it towards the town and hope I wasn¡¯t close to dying on the way but it wasn¡¯t going to be a straight shot. I don¡¯t entirely remember if I made the correct estimations but from what I remember guessing from where I was from; there were Chimera in the route i was taking. The choice was either to try and go through those territories and hope the Chimera had either moved on from the area or to take the longer way around those areas and hope it I wouldn¡¯t get ambushed.


    Considering what had gotten me into this mess, I actually made the sensible decision (I¡¯m actually surprised I did) of going the around the Chimera territories. It probably added maybe another day before meeting up with Lana and Range Master Jacob but it did get me to avoid the other Chimeras.


    I am writing this down here and not going to post it in the reports because I don¡¯t entirely believe it happened but I want to know I did write it down. I¡¯m still not entirely sure if it was real but if I write it down here, I can at least say I recorded the events.


    The second night with my injuries, I managed to get myself up about 25 yards up a tree. It hurt but I needed the rest away from potential threats and Range Master Davith taught some of us Rags a trick to get more sleep while avoiding detection. There are two ways to do it; the first it¡¯s to build a fox hole which wasn¡¯t going to happen. While the utility axe had a pick, there was a shovel end to it.


    The other way to build a nest up in a tree. A nest is really just a collection of ropes and ties to hold you up as you sleep in the tree. Due to how rare it is for many beings to look up its considered safe if you don¡¯t snore in your sleep (because you¡¯re basically a sitting pi?ata announcing you location if you do).


    This allowed me a good sleep yet I¡¯m not entirely sure if what happened that night was a dream or not. I was woken up sometime in the middle of my sleep by someone prodding me with a stick. A someone who was standing on the branch I was currently on like it was normal and that they didn¡¯t weigh anything.


    Again, I¡¯m not entirely certain this was a dream or not because I can¡¯t remember everything exactly. Every time I bring up the memories, they seem to change in small ways to the point where I can¡¯t be entirely sure where reality and delusions blend together.


    From what I can remember for certain, this someone was definitely female, had gold blonde hair and had blue-silver eyes. Everything else is fuzzy about that someone except those features.


    When this someone woke me, she seemed startled but got closer to me and prodded more gently. I was still tired at this point so I think I might have been trying to fall back asleep despite the danger of strange person standing next to my nest without any way to defend myself. After a couple more prods, this time with her hands and fingers, she eventually pulled out some strange looking branch. She whispered to the branch for a bit, before placing it in between my arm and my bad ribs. It hurt, but at this point exhaustion was so set in that the pain was dull at best. I remember her nodding after that and saying something I didn¡¯t understand before sleep took over.


    I don¡¯t have any proof of this being real but I can¡¯t help but think it happened. There was a branch next me when I woke up but it didn¡¯t look exactly like the same branch and there were other branches around me too which could have just meat that the one branch there was just one that happened to fall just right. It was pretty windy when I woke up so it could have just been the wind that blew everything around.


    I can still say that a part of me believes that it happened. That part was the area of my ribs that were probably broken at the time not feeling that way when I woke up. I noticed it immediately since it didn¡¯t hurt as much as breathed in that morning. And it didn¡¯t start hurting until hours after I had started to trek a path back to town.


    Again, I can¡¯t tell if it was real or not, nor was the strange feeling of being watched the entire climb down was to despite never catching anyone. All I can say is that whatever happened that night felt real and that is important.


    That day progressed pretty well. I had a great pace at the start of the day because of the dream¡¯s strange feeling. It definitely started to falter when that strange feeling wore off and the pain began to set in again but by then, any chance of pursuit had been lost and I now had to worry more about what was in front of me. This made the slower pace a bit better in terms of usage since it made me more aware of what was ahead and around me.


    This helped since I was able to find the tracks of what I would later find to be my Troop but within the territory of a Chimera. I don¡¯t think they knew, or at least didn¡¯t think about that as they were heading through the area. Mostly because the track I was following definitely showed signs of changing their directions or at least moving from the initial planned path. They were probably working off an assumed size of the Chimera¡¯s territory. I had practically memorized the territory sizes and locations for the local Chimeras, so I was able to notice this and how their change didn¡¯t really help them avoid its territory. That knowledge put as much of a pip in my step to get to them.


    It took the rest of the day and some couple hours into the night before I was able to stumble upon them and I was lucky I did so. I managed to find them as they were examining the corpse of Chimera that looked like it had just lost a fight.


    I did startle Range Master Jacob and Lana, nearly got a bullet through the side of the chest because of my entrance but it was mostly warranted. What was also warranted, but something I really didn¡¯t think so at the time, was the lecture and talking down to that I was forced to listen through. I gave them my reasons and told them I didn¡¯t regret my actions, but I was still given a lecture about my actions and their effects to the team unit. I will say I don¡¯t remember all of the lecture mostly because the effort I had taken to find them was catching up and I was getting real tired.


    In a really stupid move, mostly made to accommodate me, we walked out some two miles and made camp there. It was done to both have enough to time to come back to the body if need by and be close enough to where we were to not have to exert ourselves (me) too much. I was re-bandaged that night and wasn¡¯t given a watch. Range Master Jacob explained that it was because I couldn¡¯t be trusted to in my current condition. I appreciated it but I¡¯m certain I¡¯m going to be paying for that nicety later. Probably sometime after I¡¯m released.


    It was actually hard to sleep that night. A mix of the pain from the injuries and pestering I received from Lana during her watch. She made it a point to come in a check on me every couple of minutes or so, peeking into the tent to stare at me and occasionally poke me when I was too still. It was a little cute at first but became tiresome maybe half-ways into the watch. I didn¡¯t want to tell her to stop though since she looked pretty worried about me most of the night and every time I felt like I was going to tell her to stop; her searching look was so anxious that if put me off.


    In the morning, the first thing I tried to do was to get us to investigate the Chimera we found. Range Master Jacob was against this idea because of my injuries, saying that they would hinder us and it would put the whole group in danger. He was right, at least when you look at it from the angle of the group and it¡¯s dynamic. He was wrong when you look at it from the point of the view of the expedition¡¯s purpose which was to catalogue the Chimera presence around the town and I was looking at it from that angle. Probably not a good thing to do since those decisions are keeping me chained to this bed I¡¯m writing in or the next week or so but it was correct from that angle.


    At the time though, I wasn¡¯t making that argument. I was more trying to convenience Range Master Jacob to give me some time to examine the body to see if we could at least get some clues about the attacker. I argued this purely over the merit of the actions themselves and what it could give us.


    I put up a pretty decent argument since Lana joined my side after a bit more packing up of camp. With it being two against one (and probably Jacob being afraid of me pulling another solo-stunt again) he agreed to go back around to check on the Chimera corpse but that we would only be getting two hours to investigate it and that after that, we would be heading back to town immediately.


    No detours or course changes. Straight back to town.


    With supplies hitting the ¡®point of no return¡¯ levels and the injuries making the troop less effective, he said that any longer and this expedition would turn out for the worse.


    The trek back to the Chimera was quick and uneventful. It had started to rain lightly again at this point so it was quite out.


    The Chimera¡¯s corpse was till were we left it, although some raven had started pecking at it. Thankfully it wasn¡¯t enough too destroyed or eaten as to be able to inspect and identify marks and the Chimera itself.


    While I don¡¯t have the name for it, its description was something easy to remember. It was four legged, with its front legs having wing like appendages similar to a bat. Its head was something of a cross between that of a cat and maybe a cobra, scales being the more prominent at its heads but turning into fur just under the armpits of the beast. The tail had a scorpion tip but was more like that of an armadillos. Its body was closer to that of a mountain cat but with spins that seemed to be maneuverable and even eject-able. We managed to remove some from the corpse and collected them for study later.


    What was more interesting about the corpse was the injuries it sustained when it wasn¡¯t a corpse. The wounds on the Chimera weren¡¯t numerous but deep. They look almost like stab wounds and it was clear by their placement, with most of them being near the chest and back area, that the Chimera that fought this one was more precise in its attacks. Lana managed to find what looked like a broken talon in one of the wounds and it took some time to extract it. On closer examination, it looked like sturdier and less flexible version of a cobra¡¯s fang. We were careful with everything we touched, mostly because we were unsure of the possibility of poison on any of the materials gathered. It was unlikely due to the injuries on the chimera looking as though it was more bleed out than by poisons. As well, none of the crows or carrion eaters we had shooed away from eating the corpse had died in the meantime so poison was mostly ruled out. Still important to be safe though.


    Inspection of the corpse was hard with the injuries but was still do-able. It took a bit longer than two hours though as we spent some of that time debating about what the findings held and were showing. The only reason I think we didn¡¯t stay longer was because the rain picked up.


    With that all done, we trek out a bit, pulled out the maps and plotted out the safest and fastest route back to town. What we planned out should have only taken a day and half but due to weather conditions and my injuries acting up after a bad slip, it took an extra day.


    The trek was uneventful and quiet aside from the rain. It wasn¡¯t a great trek and despite me my initial good feelings after the chimera autopsy, I was beginning to feel more and more drained as the walked continued. I was able to hid it using the rain as my excuse but I¡¯m pretty sure Lana and Jacob could tell I wasn¡¯t all good. With nothing going on around us, they had time to inspect or stare at me more than they needed too.


    I swear I felt eyes on us though at times. I wasn¡¯t allowed to take watch due to the injuries but there were times where I was certain I woke up because something was close to my tent.


    I swear one night, when it wasn¡¯t as raining out, I saw that same gold blonde hair quickly retreat back behind a tree some ways back as we were setting up camp. I didn¡¯t call out to it. At the time, it was because of my own tired mind believing I was tricking myself but now, looking back over those events, I¡¯m sure it was real and it was there.


    Thankfully whoever the gold blonde hair was attached to didn¡¯t do anything that night and it was a mostly safe trek back to town.


    The moment we were spotted by the town edge-guard, Range Master Jacob immediately called to get an ambulance and to pick me up and get me medical attention. I will admit, I really did need it. While I had been managing to keep up with Lana and Range Master Jacob, I could feel myself slowing down and I had to put effort into keeping up. I had even taking to eating another half of a ration the night before due to hunger I wasn¡¯t entirely aware of.


    My medical reports are actually not great and the doctors are mostly surprised I don¡¯t have any internal bleeding despite it definitely looking like I should from X-ray scans.


    I have 5 broken ribs, two on my left and three on the right.


    A broken arm bone (the Radius apparently).


    A fractured skull.


    And at least 5 lacerations that required stitching.


    Nothing too bad but as mentioned before, no internal bleeding, which definitely surprised the doctors and Samantha since apparently one of the ribs looked like it should be causing one.


    Once they found that out, I¡¯ve been stuck in the bed ever since, with a nurse on me the first night to make sure I didn¡¯t move around to much and possible puncture my intestines or lungs in my sleep. Not that I moved around much with how much sedatives they put me under.


    I don¡¯t like those dreams. I can see the gold blonde someone in them. I remember seeing her but nothing else of what happens. I¡¯m worried I might being a little crazy.

 8/15/1 AME

    Journal Entry #12


    8/15/1 AME


    Another entry into the journal, this one more for my own sanity than anything.


    Still been stuck in the hospital. Mostly for monitoring.


    The cast has been set on my arm and they wrapped up my chest enough to keep the ribs from further fracturing and my head is almost physically chained to the bed to keep me from moving it too much. But despite this and nothing else really being wrong with me, they want to keep me here and in bed for monitoring reasons.


    I¡¯ve gone to the MRI machine twice now and they still seem flabbergasted that my lungs have no puncture wounds. Not even a sign of injury. I don¡¯t really get half of the things they say but they swear that with the broken ribs I had, at least two of them should have at least punctured a lung. Yet there isn¡¯t even any noticeable abrasion on them.


    But despite this and nothing else really being wrong with me, they want to keep me here and in bed for monitoring reasons.


    It¡¯s been terrible. Being stuck here for running on 8 days now is driving me insane with boredom. Even with visits, it¡¯s been mostly boring since either nothing around town has happened or everyone visiting is keeping any news from me. The nurses are too busy with older patients to visit me for longer than a general check up on my bandages and stiches.


    Lana visited me first. Maybe two days after she managed to drop off my journal, we were able to have a more proper visit. It was simple and some of it was definitely to clear up some stuff I had managed to write in the report that was required of me and the troop. I had to have her deliver it for me and the higher ups wanted some clarifications on the areas I had managed to mark out and the information gathered about the orcs encampment. From what she says, that was something that they really honed in on and found worrying. I agree with that sentiment but disagree with them about not taking action sooner. Turns out that although this expedition was a mostly successful, any plans that are being made from it are to be put on hold do to the mayor¡¯s office wanting more local scouting and to keep the Rangers around for the what is going to be the clean-up of the final harvest. They want to have them around for protection as the farmers prepare to take measure to ensure their farms safety and preparedness for the next season. Despite the large amount of cattle we have in town, there has been very little in terms of attacks on them. Sort of interested as to why that is since we don¡¯t do too much defense for them. They are kept mostly closer to town but it still tends to be farther out than the actual town itself.


    Outside of that, we discussed a bit about the recent expedition we did. She wanted know what I was thinking when I broke rank from the troop to investigate the orc encampment so I explained to her my reasoning about why I took those actions and a more detailed story of what happened. She wasn¡¯t happy with me and didn¡¯t like my explanation; calling me a selfish idiot but at least understands my motivations. I did couch my explanation in a bit softer language and more personal words than going into detail about the usefulness of the expedition to the town and how I felt Range Master Jacob was too cautious because Lana was there. I feel like she knew that part but it was something that was between her and her father. There were times on the expedition that felt tense between them but that was mostly at the start. After bit more talk about work and possible training together and then some more talk about some off time stuff we should try to do together with, she left me with some bakery goods she managed to pick up.


    It was relaxing talking with her. Sure, it was a bit stressful when she interrogated me about the expedition but outside of that, it was a relaxing conversation. Not like with Samantha, who visited me the next day, mostly to take advantage of my hospitalization to extend her lunch break.


    Samantha and Elisa took their lunch break in my room a couple times over my stay, starting out by giving me a general checkup and bandage change to have the ground to say that they were working to slowly change into lunch. It wasn¡¯t too bad but when they switched, I hadn¡¯t had anything to eat and it was bit harder to ignore the pain when hunger makes it all seem worse somehow. After that though, technically work was done and so they eat lunch in my room, calling in lunch for me as they started and I was treated to the hospital gossip.


    I don¡¯t know if it¡¯s just me or that the Ranger Corp is technically new but it seems as though office politics are generally insane and the hospital is just another level of it. From what I could pick up from Samantha¡¯s and Elisa¡¯s talk, the hospital is only really now changing around its methods and procedures since its only now that their stores aren¡¯t looking to great. I asked about why did they not think of the stores until now and it was explained to them that they were actually running on a triage system for about a month or so now but that the stockpiles were only being affect now.


    At first, the hospital basically operating on a system of getting everyone who wasn¡¯t chronic or terminal out. Anyone with a broken bone or with some heavy sickness was given medical treatment and then told to get out and go home if they had anyone who could take care of them. This was to get the best handle on their stockpiles and try to see how much they could use and ration out.


    Once the town was initially stable in terms of hospital admittance, things cooled down but nothing really change until a couple months ago, after the first expedition that had gone bad, that methods had to change. The hospital is pretty small and so doesn¡¯t have a lot of wings (as in there wasn¡¯t any beside the wing for the older patients) so they basically had to section off the hospital themselves. At the moment, they are operating having three basic wings. The second floor of the hospital is dedicated to all old patient and long term care wing, the first floor is split between immediate care and a smaller wing of ¡®Out-world Injuries¡¯.


    I am currently in the ¡®Out-world Injuries¡¯ wing and from what Elisa says, it¡¯s basically a wing dedicated to Rangers and their injuries. Samantha explains that it¡¯s more of a wing dedicated to injuries that come from experiences of the new world. As it stands, aside from Rangers and the few people attacked by the knockout roar from earlier in this new world, there aren¡¯t many people admitted to this wing which is why it only a third of the first floor.


    Yet this was something argued by the hospital staff. Samantha and Elise are part of a small group of nurses and doctors that want the hospital to be expanded to get a bit more of a balance between the two first floor wings. Fat chance of that happening soon but still something that has a faction dedicated to it. As for the other nurses and doctors, there seem to be two larger camps but with splinter factions already growing.


    The two big ones are what have been nicely called the Medievalist and the Renaissances. I don¡¯t know how they got those names and I¡¯m pretty sure it¡¯s just a naming convention that Samantha and Elisa came up with (Harris has been recounting his favorite books so maybe that¡¯s where they got the names from). The Medievalist are called that because despite their want to uphold their oaths, they believe it means saving/helping those that aren¡¯t too much of a burden. This tends to mean leaving the old to die off peacefully instead of attempt to keeping them up with current medical methods. It¡¯s not pretty and from how Samantha describes them, they seem to be willing to let the grievously wounded die if too many resources are required to save them.


    This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    The Renaissances aren¡¯t on the opposite end necessarily but they do oppose the Medievalist in their mindset. They aren¡¯t opposed to letting people die but they aren¡¯t going to restrict the resources they have without reason. It¡¯s this factions that have attempt to branch out to see if they can either make or revive older herbalist methods to get the medicines they had before. Samantha is technically one of them since she became a Hippocratos (the new title) and has been spending some time trying to find ways to recreate drugs we would use from plants and such. While the Hippocratos are technically a separate faction, they have yet to produce any real results as without any expeditions to gather plants and such, they don¡¯t have any chances to produce anything and so are more of a ''faction in name only''.


    I don¡¯t think they are wrong in their idea as some reports from the Ranger Troops have reported to seeing other flora around but it was never a focus due to the pressing matter being the Chimera. As is though, they are probably going to be a straining faction all throughout the winter since it not likely that any Ranger will be allowed out for large expeditions, let alone have doctor tag-alongs.


    Yet this was only the start of the internal politics of the hospital. The current head of the hospital has yet to really pick a side in the factional strife and while it¡¯s admirable, it leading to tensions that aren''t going to blow over. The more militant of the Medievals seem to be ready to pull the plug and half of the upstairs residents. What¡¯s worse is that from how Samantha talks about some of those residents, they wouldn¡¯t seem to mind and even encourage it. The only reason why they aren¡¯t dead is because of the lack of a unified front. Some of the more hopeful Renaissans want to go out to gather local plants but don''t have any idea where to start from without any assistance. Elisa has talked to a couple of the other doctors who probed the more drugged up Rangers for information. The stores are getting smaller and although there hasn¡¯t been a major case in a while, a lot of the nurses are afraid of what is going to happen when one does show up because the Medievals are currently the only ones with a plan. This is also ignoring the more splintering factions between the groups themselves with the some of the Renaissans believing they should try to use the Chimera parts to grind up like some ''Ancient Chinese Medicine Man'' and hope for the best.


    This is mostly covered in only a the first couple of their breaks which shocking but only slightly less so on how normal it was to them and that they then got me talking about the Ranger Corp and comparing them. It wasn¡¯t great since while I was able to mostly explain the structure of the Ranger Corp, I had no real insight into the political situation of it. Mostly because I tended to keep my head down and do my job.


    Maybe I should pay more attention to it? I didn¡¯t think about it too much when Range Master Davith came to visit but maybe it something I should ask him about. The Ranger Corp, while not being so established that it didn¡¯t have staples, still had people in it that answered to the Mayor and decided the major actions we took. I know that Range Master Davith and Jacob had some words to say about the mayor but maybe there were others. The current head of the Rangers, Head Ranger Olver, was chosen more because of his relationship with the Mayor rather being selected by the Rangers. From how I understand it, due to the recent forming of the Rangers, the needed some authority. The mayor was that authority and so installed Olver as the Head as way to gather around him. Now though, it seems like that relationships is more one sided and detrimental to the Rangers as the first major expedition was proof.


    A day after another horrifying discovery of the internal politics of the hospital from Samantha and Elise lunch break, Range Master Davith showed up to see how I was doing. It was the nicest of the visits and with the most interesting discussion.


    We initially talked about the expedition we just took. Since Range Master Davith is no longer an active Ranger, he doesn¡¯t go out too often anymore and seems to like to hear about the reports and expeditions first hand. We talked about that for a bit, mostly talking about the Chimera I had encountered and catalogued. It was nice, since he brought my Chimera Bestiary to help with the cataloging. After going over my report and the others he brought, we were able to add two more Chimeras to the Bestiary and add on to another three that were there. As of yet, we haven¡¯t gotten any real names for them (we are currently debating to call one a Gatrongo or Scale-Back Gorilla (a strangely scale-y looking ape with a claws) and the other a Serpagle or Earpant (Snake like body with falcon wings and legs and a strange bear ears)) but that seem to be more of an issue we are willing to put off until its revealed to the rest of the Rangers. Davith says it¡¯ll help the other rangers get invested since it adds them to the creation of the Bestiary.


    We talked about the Bestiary for a bit more before I broached a more secret topic. I hadn¡¯t told anyone else about my dream/sleep state thing but at that moment, I felt relaxed enough with Davith to slowly broach the subject.


    I told him about the whole experience. About walking up slightly and seeing the strange women. About the strange feeling. The sticks and the strangeness of my injuries. I told him everything and actually managed to describe the woman (since I¡¯m sure she was a women now) enough so that it was actually easy to picture her in my mind. He listened to me go on and didn¡¯t look as though I was spouting crazy stuff, which was slightly reassuring. When I asked about the possibility of other beings that are out there that are closer to us and weren¡¯t here before, he didn¡¯t shoot me down immediately. He doesn¡¯t agree just yet but he does say that what happened to me definitely did happen and I technically have proof for it. Whether or not it happened exactly that way is something he is more willing to be believed than what I directly told him.


    This still brought us to the discussion about this town in relation to other neighboring towns. Ranger Master Davith says that the original town of Oakdale did neighbor another town called Kingman but it was still pretty far and since the whole landscape has changed, it¡¯s possible that the town isn¡¯t there anymore.


    Davith remembers Kingman as a sort of friendly rival town that Oakdale would occasionally have bouts with in terms of sports and town events. They were different in terms of town character though; Oakdale was the more rural and nature-tuned town with farms, orchards and local hunters around every corner. Kingman definitely leaned more into the physical and technical as he called them a town of handy men. They had plumbers to carpenters to metal workers and everything in between. He says that they were a larger town and Oakdale definitely used them for their expertise in the things they didn¡¯t have but it wasn¡¯t a wholly-reliant situation. Just that they tended to have better people for the more specialized jobs.


    The town is getting by as is, but the work that many of the mechanics have been doing have mostly been from more mechanical and separate things; farm machines, town generators and portable engines. Stuff that they need now and will probably keep using. The issue is more about what happens when there are things they can¡¯t do right or not without experience, like plumbing work of boiler room work.


    We talked about the possibility of sending out expeditions to other towns and how that would work. Caravans might make a return as the trucks aren¡¯t allowed to be used since the lot of the gas was schedule for reclamation for the town¡¯s heating systems. With winter looking as bad as it is, many aren¡¯t arguing nor are they thinking of farther out concerns. Davith¡¯s and I do, but its more of just speculations and hypothesizing rather than actual planning.


    Maybe when I¡¯m out of the hospital.


    Whenever that is.


    We talked a bit more about the protection of the town before Range Master Davith left. More about the possibility of attacks from outside forces, be that from Orcs or from more daring and hungry Chimera. At current, the town police have been doing a decent enough job it seems like their general strategy is to just pump the intruder full of lead. Not a bad strategy, but we are trying to keep a ration on bullets for emergencies. We don¡¯t know what those might be but its better safe than sorry. We eventually finish by agreeing to write up a proposal to the Range Head about the city defense later after my recovery was complete.


    As I write this, I am already mentally planning how to bring it up to the Range Head outside formal setting. Olver is a busy character and he doesn¡¯t get seen much outside of the larger Ranger talks we have with the whole group. Outside of those times, he seems to be stuck between his own office and that of the mayors.


    Politics. If there is going to be a lesson from this entry then let it be this: there will always be office politics. No matter how few of you there are or how non-important your role is, politics will hinder and help you in your career.

 8/22/1 AME

    Journal Entry #13


    8/22/1 AME


    Never forget that you take the bad with the good. A lesson that I guess is up for this entry into this journal.


    I was released from the hospital about 5 days go from time of writing. It was a godsend but they had to ruin it with the caveat that I wasn¡¯t released for field duty until they deem me ready for it which means I¡¯m heading back in another day for a checkup. If I¡¯m not ready then, I have to go back every two days until I¡¯m cleared. I don¡¯t know the criteria as to what allows me to be cleared but its best they don¡¯t tell me since as I¡¯m writing this, my head is trying to find out how to game that check-up.


    At least they picked a good day to do it since the day I was released was when we got our first real rain since that summer was over and we are moving into the fall.


    Technically, it has been the fall for at least a week and a half but that day was the first real time it felt like fall. A heavy rain set in the day as I was heading to my bunk at the police station and it didn¡¯t let up for two days. That night of the first rain was the chilliest we had been through in a while and it was cold enough for Dorian to break out the thicker blankets for the police station N.Rs. It¡¯s been that chilly since and hasn¡¯t gotten any much warmer at all this whole week.


    This has brought an issue with my wardrobe and how lacking it is. I¡¯ve been managing mostly thanks to the clothes I brought with me and the weekly cleaning that is done by the ¡®station staff¡¯ (the older officers who are tasked with the care for criminal and N.Rs at the station¡¯s jail). Essentially, every ¡®cell¡¯ got there laundry done on the weekends and returned when finished. I had been wearing what I brought with me and that was mostly spring and summer wear. This has been fine up until now and even during the expeditions since most of the days, while maybe a bit wet, were still relatively warm and/or hot. This week has proven to me that I¡¯m going to need to get some more clothes better suited to the weather if I¡¯m to continue my work as a Ranger (or at least a Rag for now).


    This is something harder to do with the town still being a bit iffy on the whole money situation. Everyone has it and sort of spends it but it¡¯s hard to really gauge the correct amount for anything. As is, everyone has yet to set a standard and so we¡¯re weary about any money spent that wasn¡¯t on food. The clothing store of the town opened a while back and while no one had really gone in yet, I feel like they¡¯re going to be cleaned out soon because of the coming weather. I¡¯m probably going to go in tomorrow to stock up on winter clothing. Maybe invite Lana, Samantha and Elisa out for a shopping day. I¡¯m going to have to spend money now that I have it.


    That was another big thing that happened this week.


    I got paid!


    And it was a big pay out too!


    So the Ranger Corp finally managed to figure out their pay structure and how they are going to pay us for the acts and continued service. From the whole seminar we attended, it¡¯s a bit confusing but the best way to put is that it¡¯s a stable pay for continued service with ¡®bonuses¡¯ being awarded for expeditions taken and other services that are performed by the Ranger Corp. These extras services would be entirely fleshed out later but at the moment we currently have three extra services: Mayoral Edicts, Town Defense and Monster Hunting. Of the three, the only one we know of and have actual records of is Town Defense. This is simple as it¡¯s basically just logging hours in with the police and patrolling the town. These get you the least of the three in terms of ¡®bonuses¡¯ but its consistent work and really only to be of help when Chimera enter and attack the town as Rangers are the only ones with more knowledge on them than the general public (although I still haven¡¯t release my Bestiary yet which would probably help this and the Monster Hunting services). The other two pay more but are either less consistent and/or more dangerous.


    Obviously, Monster Hunting is the one that no one has (technically) done yet nor are the Ranger Corp emphasizing. In fact, it was basically advised to not do this until more information is gathered and performed and even then; shouldn¡¯t be done without some form of permission from the Head Ranger or the other Lead Rangers. Yet this is also the one with the highest payout for success and proof is secured in you managed gather some blood and other parts of the Chimera for evidence. I don¡¯t know how they will be able to tell if it was gathered from a dead corpse or an actual successful ¡®hunt¡¯ they didn¡¯t elaborate on it so it might be the honor system there.


    Mayoral Edicts is the other one that we don¡¯t have records for, mostly because it was something that was explained to be in the works but not yet released yet. These would be missions that would be commissioned by the Mayor¡¯s Office for project that would be beneficial to the town. While these are more open to the public (as it seem as though the mayor has made a sort of list people to ask and collect for these project), Rangers are incentivized to join more for their expertise if the need for it would arise. These wouldn¡¯t be very often as they are by the delegation of the Mayor¡¯s office and their need for the Rangers but they do payout better than Town Defense and almost as good as Monster Hunting.


    There are also those who officiate and perform training for the Rags (that they called ¡°Rag Wranglers¡± in the seminar (I hope this name doesn¡¯t catch on, it sound retarded)) get a separate pay structure that still includes the ¡®bonuses¡¯ but are different from the Rangers and the Rags.


    Expeditions are another separate ¡®bonuses¡¯ that factor in greatly and mostly depend on the expeditions you went on as well as other factors. Since these are mostly determined by the Head & Lead Rangers, it pays out on average more than Town Defense. About somewhere in between Town Defense and Mayoral Edicts (leaning a bit closer to Mayoral Edicts). Seeing as expeditions are what the Rangers were formed to mostly do, these aren''t considered extra services and failing to meet a minimum of expeditions per two month period would call you into serious review of your services in the Rangers. While not covered, I am assuming that there are going to be exemptions to this rule since there are some of the Ranger Trainers who aren¡¯t capable of going on expeditions so frequently or at all (like Range Master Davith and some of the older Rangers).


    With how the first and last expeditions went, those who participated are getting an larger payouts since it was considered they were more experiments on the idea to and as a way to compensate for the damages and injuries. While the extra pay is a nice band-aid, I will agree with the sentiment of the other Rangers and Rags and say that they don¡¯t really excuse or justify the losses we went through. A lot of Rags and Rangers quit after that first expedition and despite the announcement that the Ranger Corp is now a paying positions with an actual structure to the pay, we still haven¡¯t gotten back any of the numbers nor seen any real increase in recruitment (or any new recruits at all). Maybe it will pick up later but as of 4 days of the news being posted by the mayor and every Ranger I know flashing the cash they made (relatively speaking), there still hasn¡¯t been any new recruits.


    The majority sentiment is that Rangers are currently getting the bad end of the deal despite the work we are doing and how much more dangerous it can be. While we can say that we understood the risks, those aren¡¯t entirely true since the risks were unknown and we are only now getting a better idea of them. We are only know understanding that some of the Chimera seem to have very deadly poisons or venoms, that some seem to have projectile abilities and even more seem to hunt in larger grounds with no discrimination between what they eat.


    Yet despite this, we still haven¡¯t seen another drop in the numbers of Rangers since that first expedition and its effects.


    While I agree somewhat with the popular sentiment among the Rangers, they aren¡¯t the whole picture and I can also say that this is one of those jobs that might became the thankless yet required service that people are going to perform more of duty than pay. This is what I believe most soldiers sort of go through during their first years after basic.


    The job sucks and the pay isn¡¯t the greatest unless you actively go out of your way to make it better, but you didn¡¯t sign up for either of those. You signed up because of some aspect of yourself believes in the duty to serve. There are benefits to the service that are more subtle than what we really get and it¡¯s all within the town¡¯s people. From the couple times I¡¯ve seen Rangers go out into town, they seem to be given respect and deference from many of the people in town. Restaurants seat them and their group first and it even seems like people are more accommodated of Rangers before accommodating others. It¡¯s probably small at the moment but when the town gets more experience and contact with the outside world that us Rangers have to deal with (honestly; a part of me doesn¡¯t want them to really see it), people would be more respectful towards us and we would probably get some higher social status among the general populace of the town.


    It might even translate to political power in the town. Head Ranger Olver is the organizing leader of the Rangers but he''s definitely more of an official from the Mayor¡¯s Office. Maybe if we had our own representative head, we wouldn¡¯t be grumbling so much and maybe have some actual agency of our own.


    So with the hefty pay check I mentioned some tangents back, I took my friends for a night on the town.


    I invited Lana and Samantha out to go for a quick round of the town, offering to pay for the thing considering it was a small celebration of getting paid. I was surprised when Harris was brought along to this small trip. It was a bit of a frosty meeting considering our still iffy relationship but credit to Samantha since she managed to basically pulled us along for the ride that I had gotten us going on.


    Immediately we went to the local movie theater that was playing some older retro movies for that night. Don¡¯t know why they were playing those types but from Lana had described of the local theater. It was owned by a family with some connection to Hollywood for location shooting and apparently came a line of people who working in the industry. From minor C-List actors to directors of short films and one to two season long shows. The grandfather had bought the local theater, had made some minor renovation and would run the establishment, hosting special movie night every Tuesday with the theme changing every week. This week¡¯s theme had been ¡®American Samurai¡¯ movies and all of the screens they had were playing something that fit the weeks theme (only 7 which seems larger than it actually is but is surprising how it isn¡¯t).


    We saw ¡°Six String Samurai¡±. Great film. I recommend it if it ever come back around. Although from what Lana had said about the stock-pile of films and shows the family has in stock-pile from their own years and years of working in the industry, it might take a while before they show that specific set of films again.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    After that, we headed to what was apparently, Lana¡¯s favorite restaurant; Dio¡¯s Family Grill. I put this name down with the knowledge that the name doesn¡¯t feel like it fit the restaurant. From the name, I had assumed it was going to be you typical pizza joint with the old red-checkered table cloth with plastic red cups and such. What I walked into was something in between the family place the name suggests and high class restaurant you would see in the NYC on the 20<sup>th</sup> floor of some high rise.


    It was such a shock between the name, the atmosphere and how picture Lana''s "favorite place" that it took me until we were seated and handed a menu to both realize that the group we were in were totally under dressed. I was wearing a coat I got from Range Master Davith that night and it was a pretty old looking one. Other people in the restaurant were a lot better dressed than we were, although there wasn¡¯t many, maybe a few less than a dozen in a room that could definitely hold between to 2 to 3 dozen. While a bit surprised by this strange, the food was great. I ordered a Chicken Florentine with a side mashed potatoes (I don¡¯t know you¡¯re eating habits but don¡¯t copy mines cause I was full for whole next day) and tried some of Lana¡¯s Sausage Scarpariello and both were great. The entire meal was a great and it was also a great surprise to see that the bill was manageable as well.


    It was a lot more than that meal would normally cost but it was thankfully still within the budget for the after the paycheck which was a nice surprise for it. The talk during the dinner was nice as well, even if Harris and I were still a bit frosty the entire meal.


    Talk of the town was actually the consolidation of certain restaurants and stores as the season was getting colder. Some of the restaurants that have been opening up have essentially been closing shortly after the whole grand opening because of a mixture of stock, the cost of supplies and how often they can stay open. It was something that came up that most of the restaurants didn¡¯t think too much about in their openings due to them wanting to rid themselves of their going bad product. Yet with that done, a lot of them had to both find a way to continued getting supplies to make product that attracts people and then get enough people to keep that cycle going. Now some of the restaurants could pull this off without too much issue as they have enough of a regular cliental that all they really changed is the amount they can serve at a time and the prices for those meals. Other restaurants either didn¡¯t have that same reliable cliental or access to supplies and so thought to close down. Except a few of the smarter ones decided not to close down but to partner up and try to consolidate. It¡¯s experimental at the moment; mostly because the people don¡¯t know who is exactly partnered with whom. Some of them have made their partnership/consolidation apparent with their reduction and changes in their menus but not all have done so.


    It seems kind of predatory to me at least since it¡¯s clear that the better restaurants have the power in those relationships. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if Dio¡¯s Family Grill decided to swallow up some smaller restaurants for themselves later just to gain some more control over the local cliental and supplies. Where the supplies are coming from isn¡¯t clear yet either, at least not for everything. The obvious vegetables and fruits come what the local but things that are more meat based supplies can¡¯t be as secure because of how few of the livestock has been killed recently. While I haven¡¯t talked to the local farmers, some of the reports of I¡¯ve read about the work that is going to be classified as Town Defense, many of the farmers are also talking about a long winter and they aren¡¯t looking to kill of the livestock to try and keep them from culling the majority of them just yet.


    It¡¯s an interesting fix for the current state of things. We touched on the grander meaning of this during the dinner but it was only a surface level brush on it. All we really got into was the question as to why a lot of them tried to keep going instead of looking to for new work. It¡¯s a bit of a strange choice of action when you begin to think about it since it clear that those restaurants would probably only work when in a mostly safe and, for lack of a better term, stable and connected society. The places that were good but not to a level that would gain them a level of traffic that would supply them more than just enough money to get just a rung above breaking even. We only talked about the money aspect of it; how these people would still try to make use of their skills to get money in a situation that might not entirely need their level of skill. I¡¯m not entirely sure that¡¯s true. Wouldn¡¯t it better to attempt to either move your skills into a space that might make you more or to just drop that field and move into another one where you could possible get more for whatever skills you can gain? Wouldn¡¯t it be better to try and gain a new skill to market and grow there?


    I talked about with Harris a bit later, about the nature of the changing world in conjunction with technology and it got me thinking about how the world had changed with the express growth and ubiquity of certain inventions. The invention of the fridge made food storage a more viable option which reduced the need for livestock to be kept nearby. Canned foods and the canning process made some foods more transportable and longer lasting for the general public to get and so on. These inventions were what made food in general less expensive by prolonging its ¡®shelf¡¯ life to the common populace. Without these things, the importance and price of food will grow and the ¡®selectiveness¡¯ of where people will put their money for food will narrow down to the best for their money.


    So the keeping around of several restaurant doesn¡¯t feel like it has any benefits that are outside the more personal and normative ones. The restaurants want to stay open, to go to something resembling their old routines, to keep the same feeling of normalcy within this new world. These are the lengths they are going to go to keep themselves running is an extension of that normalcy, just the want to keep it going for longer. I do wonder how long this whole thing will last and how long the town will stay in this sort of state; where people are active in town that is in a state of activity that is pre-event despite nothing around us being able to support it.


    This is probably just my own rambling but it feels nice to put it down on paper.


    Which I guess leads into the other news that I mentioned earlier; Harris and I are on speaking terms again. Strange way it happened. We just sort of starting talking again, during the dinner. It was a bit strange at first but the discussions happening around us just sort of forced us into talking with each other. When the talk about the restaurants got a little deeper, we began to talk more and just sort of fell into our usual back and forth. That back and forth continued throughout that whole dinner and continued past that. It was something that almost made me forgot about the whole situation between us.


    I didn¡¯t forget, but managed to not bring it up until the literal end of the night. We talked about it later though and it was a bit weird. At night, in our bunks, we hashed it out for a bit. Essentially, I asked him not to pull off that stunt with me again and Harris agreed to not do it again. Harris claimed that he had gotten enough and was going to try and sober up but its not something I¡¯m buying totally. Even that night, I had seen him play with the needles he¡¯d found and look at the spot he stashed his stuff but thinks I don¡¯t know about. It felt good to at least clear the air between us even if nothing was really resolved. It just felt good talk to Harris without that event looming over our interactions.


    While dinner had finished quite late, maybe sometime around 9pm, we spent some time just walking around the town, to burn off the food we just ate and to just continue talking. Discussions that occurred started out about the towns history and people, which were mostly carried by Lana (the only one of us that only had one drink) seeing as she was the only one of us from the town. I will admit that I had a bit too may drinks that night so not all of the things she showed and told us about didn''t stick but some did; like how the Oakdale (long before the whole event) was actually in close to a very old mining town that is mostly abandoned. It¡¯s ¡®mostly abandoned¡¯ because although the mine is basically empty and had nothing to offer, there are couple people who live around that area. Lana doesn¡¯t know why they still live out there but it was something known to the town and they did come to visit (mostly for restocking their supplies). As I write this, I feel like I might mention this to some of the older Rangers or Officers. The small town wasn¡¯t too far away but considering how the environment has changed, they might be in danger and would be first in line for the Orc Bands nearby.


    After some more talk about the town Samantha and Harris got into a small spat about what the Mayor¡¯s offices doing and how they either do too little or too much. Harris was arguing that they weren¡¯t doing enough in terms of preparation for the winter. Samantha believes that the Mayor¡¯s office is focusing more on the people within the town than to deal with the winter. Lana and I mostly stayed out of this argument, mostly because this was after the recent revelations that our payment structure was going to involve Mayoral Edicts. We did interject every once and a while, more for clarification on things that Samantha or Harris got wrong or were misleading against but it was mostly a light argument between the two of them. Lana and I had our own little discussion about the payment structure we¡¯ve gotten into. It was light planning about what we might be doing in the next couple of days before the weather gets too bad to go out on expeditions.


    After it hit 11pm that night, we decided to call it the ends for the night. I walked Lana home that night to be polite and to continue our discussion of what our future work would be. Lana had said that when the winter rolls around, she is probably going to stay in town a bit more and do more Town Defense work. She has even started to talk to the police around the town to get a better idea of what they do and how she would help and has signed up for a couple rounds early to get a feel. She suggest that I should join as well, saying that it would be good for me after my recent expedition results and I said that I would think about it. In truth, I have wanted to go out for another expedition, maybe a week after I¡¯m cleared for field work and after studying the reports. I don¡¯t want to mention it to Lana for fear of her feeling guilted into coming along since we¡¯ve been a pretty good team so far but I feel like I have to go and confirm some of my suspicions.


    Since that night, I¡¯ve had some free time between not being allowed to train and not being allowed to go out on expeditions. I¡¯ve been spending that free time reviewing the reports we got back from the latest expeditions and have been using them to both fill out my Bestiary and to track the movement of the monsters we know of so far. This continued research is what sparked my want to go out for another expedition since some of the points I connected about the Chimera that have been spotted in the area put up questions I¡¯m worried about.


    As I write this entry, the reports that I¡¯ve gone over show that at least 4 different Chimera within a 15 miles radius of the town that have shown to hunt larger animals (bears, deer, elk etc.) and at least from what we¡¯ve seen of at least 3 of those Chimera; we assume they have enough of an aggression level (something that I haven¡¯t solidified yet) that they would attack the town if close enough. Yet not of them have done so and from the Rangers who patrol around the town, I''ve gathered that they haven¡¯t seen anything of the sort. The two Manticore types reported are known to be testy when near other Chimeras and would have no distinction of aggression between a Chimera and us humans near them. So them not attacking us, let alone not going at each other¡¯s throats is bizarre and has to be motivated by something else.


    I think that ¡®something else¡¯ is currently still here and I¡¯d like to check out the surrounding area of the time to see what it is. Whatever that thing is might not be here for long and I would like to know what it is before it moves on and we have to go back to Chimera Royal. Do I have anything to prove these things? Nothing besides the connections I¡¯ve made through the reports and locally posted Rangers. Could it be real? I don¡¯t know but with the things that I¡¯ve experienced; it could be. The only thing I have to really point to as solid evidence is that a two of the Ranger Troops that came back later than the rest. they say that they saw something in the sky for a brief moment in between the rain clouds. The descriptions they gave isn''t very good but the one aspects both troops agree on is that whatever glimpse they had of it was a metallic blue to azure color and had scales. Is this enough to really stake an entire expedition on? No. Which is why the actual expedition is meant more to scout out the Chimeras in the areas and see if any movement has happened in their territories. Looking for whatever has kept them Chimeras from going at each other is more of side objective that I want to look into.


    With that said, I can only hope that I get released for active duty soon. It only been less than a week and it still feel like forever.

 9/2/1 AME

    9/2/1 AME


    Journal Entry #14


    Sometimes, your friends will try and hold you back. They care for you, but that doesn¡¯t mean they are in the right to do so. Or at least not right to stop you. Sometimes, you have to take risks and you have to just trust that your friends will still be there when it¡¯s over.


    Now if that isn¡¯t a bit of an ominous way to start of this entry, then its best to understand that although I say that; none of them are actually very adamant about stopping me. Most of them just don¡¯t think I should go so soon after the last expedition.


    To give some context; I was released for active duty 5 days ago. Before that though I had made the case for a basic expedition to Range Master Davith and although he was somewhat hesitant, he did agree that it would be a good idea (at least for the Bestiary). He said he would talk to the higher ups of the Ranger Corp and managed to get me the go-ahead. At least to a degree.


    What happened was that the initial request was soft denied. From how Davith described it; they thought it would be a decent idea but without anything really concrete to look after, it would be best if this was done as an additional objective to a more concrete expedition goal. Davith hadn¡¯t mentioned the Bestiary to them yet, agreeing with me that although it would be helpful, its current state wouldn¡¯t do much good and it would need more before it could be copied and used for even basic study. This meant that reason given for the expedition wasn¡¯t as strong (that being release of the rain finally allowing for animals and beast time out to explore and move).


    Davith was going to try again after another couple of days but was brought up back the day after he proposed it and was told that it was going to be sanctioned as a secondary objective and was tasked with picking a couple Rags to accompany some Rangers for teams of two.


    Turns out that the Mayor¡¯s Office had proposed a Mayoral Edict, one that was more geared towards Ranger primary participation as it requires some travel into the woods and forest around town. It is apparently going to be a multi-stage project as the Edict is for the marking and counting of possible trees for harvest.


    What for? A town wall.


    Now this is pretty big deal since it means that the Mayor has actually listened to the Rangers when they put in the worry that the Chimeras might attack and having some sort of defense is better than none. It does come with the caveat that this was implemented quite late and that a wall for the whole town is going to require a load of trees and a lot of work to build.


    The town holds about 2,000 people and currently has the issue that it¡¯s quite spread out. How they are going to set up a wall of tree trunks around the town is yet to be known. My guess, knowing that this seems to be a multi-stage project from the people from the Mayor¡¯s Office I¡¯ve managed to bump into and talk with some associates from my old days as a Messenger, is that the first stage of this project is probably going to be a protected center of town. An area within the middle of town will be made into a secure gated zone with a couple of large gates to allow for multiple avenues of entry. This would be a decent starter for the protection of the citizens as they could use it during time of great distress and have it always be secure/replaceable until a larger town wall can be erected.


    I don¡¯t know how large the wall and gates would be but I could see it being probably just around the town church and school. Both of those places are large and can hold a good deal of people, if not comfortably for a time. Depending on how large they make this bailey position, they might be able to add a couple smaller buildings to it and have it be pretty defensible with additions.


    It¡¯s a good idea in concept but in my opinion, comes too late to be implemented properly. It¡¯s currently September and we¡¯ve been in the fall for at least a week now. Yes, for all I know, the trees stop growing now and its best to cut them down now rather than a couple of months ago but from what I¡¯ve been seeing of who¡¯s going in and out of the Mayor¡¯s Office, these plans have only been thought up this month and we haven¡¯t taken too much action as to what we are doing. From those people I¡¯ve talked to, I honestly doubt the Mayor¡¯s Office had any idea aside from ¡®the wall¡¯ and just started rolling with it. It would take a lot of trees to even get that small zone ready and us Rangers are just supposed to go out a mark some two dozen trees each for the wall in a couple of weeks.


    The logistics bother me is what I¡¯m trying to put down. Not my job to worry about that but when I¡¯m not planning out the route for this expedition, my mind wonders.


    Anyway, I¡¯m being set up with Range Master Jacob for this expedition and it¡¯s going to be just us for the moment. Since this expedition is mostly going to be staying within an ~8 miles radius of town (for the collection of the nearby trees), the Troops that are being sent out are only pairs of Rangers or Ranger/Rag pairings. We aren¡¯t expected to come across any chimera so the Troops are being designed to be small and mobile; with the current equipment reflect such.


    The pack I¡¯ve just finished preparing is just a little more than the basics; sleeping bag, string and wire, flint and steel, enough rations for 1 week, 1 small medical kit (disinfectant, bandages, gauss and some antibiotics), camping knife and a compass. We have some space for other items if we feel like we need them but some are banned; like tents, flares and more than one box of ammunition for your chosen weapon. Due to practicing with it regularly now, I¡¯ve signed into personal designation an old lever action that Davith began to lend to me; Chiappa 1892 Wildlands. I think I¡¯m just better aiming or dealing with manual action weapons since I always seem to gravitate towards them. It an objectively stupid thing to say and use in more modern times so I hope whoever is reading this goes for any actual semi-automatic or automatic rifles instead of a modern antique but something stops me from using more modern rifles accurately. The Wildlands is the better of the lever actions I¡¯ve been practicing with for a time now. I¡¯m thinking of buying this one off of Davith as I¡¯ve been taking care of it for a while now. Maybe he still has the care manual somewhere.


    While not banned or suggested to bring; I¡¯m taking the head-dress and the short-spear that I took from the defeated orc on my least expedition. I don¡¯t think it will be especially helpful for the expedition but I have a theory that it might help if we encounter any small orc band we might come across. While not likely, it does feel like doing so is some sort of insurance against either another attack or at least show a warning. This feeling might be because of the headdress and short-spear itself being something of this ¡®new world¡¯. The headdress, which is like some sort of cross between a Native American Warbonnet and some Central American helmet/mask, seems to be made up of feathers and scales from Chimeras. I¡¯ve gone over it with Range Master Davith and Range Master Thomas and only about two of the feathers are from birds that would have been considered native to this area; a falcon and a vulture. Everything else though doesn¡¯t look as though it has an origin in the ¡®old world¡¯.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.


    The short-spear is itself somewhat of a strange item to bring but it does make a good walking stick at time and it has both a point and a serrated edge to the spear head. It¡¯s not very great, but could help for small cuts to wood or other things. The spear head itself if a longer than a normal spear head as well which has it act more like a short sword-spear. What make the short-spear/sword-spear interesting is the material of it. Both the wood and the metal aren¡¯t something we know of as part of the old world. While the wood is similar to pine, it seems less absorbent and sturdier when in terms of blunt force trauma. It¡¯s probably still alive too some degree too since the several scratches that I¡¯ve made on the haft accidentally don¡¯t stay around and seem to heal back. It¡¯s not impossible to leave a mark as I managed to inscribe my initial into the half near the bottom of the short-spear but it took my hours of using a knife to etch the initials every 30~40 minutes to get it to stick.


    It seem like you can ¡®scar¡¯ the wood if you want to but it requires more continuous scratching to keep any ¡®healed¡¯ wood off color enough to keep its marking. Although I don¡¯t know if this marking won¡¯t fade with time either.


    The metals is also interesting too since it seems to have some interesting properties as well. Its naturally magnetic, although pretty low in strength and doesn¡¯t seem to rust easy. From what little testing we did with it (and by ¡®we¡¯ I mean Harris and Range Master Davith), we manage to find out its conductive and abnormally heat resistant. It¡¯s pretty hard to work with when it comes to shaping/deformation as proven when we took a blow-torch to one of the serrated blades to try and bend it and it didn¡¯t work. Even when the metal was orange with heat, it refused to be bent. Pretty neat all in all but we would probably need more of the metal to truly make some test of the stuff. The way the short-spear was designed, it functions a primitive multi-tool in some fashion since it seems to create sparks too if scrapped with a flint rod. I¡¯ve even used other rocks in testing and it seem to work with those as well which makes it a pretty functional tool all around.


    With this in the pack for the expedition that is going to be started in the next couple of days, a couple of the usual items can be left behind. This does make the pack a bit lighter which is helpful but this expedition shouldn¡¯t be a very dangerous one to need the weight loss.


    That hasn¡¯t stopped most of my friends from advising against this expedition. This is where my idea of ¡°holding you back¡± comes from. I don¡¯t think they are doing it intentionally but the way they push, it really does feel like they are. And it¡¯s not even because they have decent points, it¡¯s those looks of worry with a strange mix of either pity or apprehension. Or something. I can¡¯t really place that emotion that will exist in between the look of pity or worry before they try to give you a nice smile. If you become a Ranger, maybe you¡¯ll see it and be able to place it.


    Lana is both the worst and the best. Probably because she is also a Rag and was on the last expedition. She was an initially angry at me for not telling her about setting it up without her but after a bit of an explanation of the expedition and the Mayoral Edict, she lightened up on me slightly. Range Master Jacob told me a bit later that he had to experience a bit of the brunt of her anger since he didn¡¯t mention it to her too. After the initial burst of anger though, she gave me a small lecture about not giving myself time for breather between expeditions and how I really should try to hold back of them. Unlike everyone else though, she didn¡¯t insist that not go. Just wished I didn''t.


    She didn¡¯t even bring it up after that initial lecture/talk. She did suggest that I should join her on one of her patrols around the town before I left; saying it was to get a feel for work for when I get back. She¡¯s been on a couple since we¡¯ve been back and apparently has a favorite route with some of the officers who have transitioned into that work.


    I agreed to it but it looks like I won¡¯t be able to since they moved up the expedition date. I going to tell her tomorrow. I hope she isn¡¯t going to too disappointed in me for failing that promise.


    Samantha wasn¡¯t very happy when she found out. Mostly because she disagreed with my release from the hospital and believed that I was basically writing my death warrant with the expedition. She was also the one who told everyone else (except Lana, she knew earlier) when she found out. The first couple of days were her just complaining about how my body wasn¡¯t entirely healed up yet and that too much strenuous activity was going to drive me to early exhaustion whenever I would head in for the day in the jailhouse. It let up a little after I was able to walk around without any issues (something that was a bit of an issue for a week after being release from the hospital) but she didn¡¯t stop trying to dissuade me from taking part in this expedition with other facts about my supposed health being a detriment. I can¡¯t say it didn¡¯t get me to think about it but it is hard to take her seriously when Elisa is nearby, either shaking her head or snorting every other comment or so.


    It would be somewhat funny if it didn¡¯t happen every time we had a moment together. Elisa has explained that although what Samantha was saying has some degree of truth to it, it had mostly been overblown and a lot of it was just exaggerated worry.


    It was during this half week of everyone attempting to stop my expedition experience that I got a little closer to Elisa. With how often Samantha would harp on about my health, I began to avoid her somewhat which led to using Elisa as my ¡®Samantha shield¡¯ which got us talking some more. Since she didn¡¯t care about me to the same extent as Samantha (I think), she also didn¡¯t want me to go but cared less about changing that outcome. It was somewhat refreshing to have talks with her since it was usually never to do with the actual expedition I was going to go on or about my work. She talked about her work but not so much that it would dominate discussions.


    From talking with her now and remembering what she was like before, it¡¯s clear that she has either gotten over the loss of the access/knowledge of her family or she¡¯s gotten accustomed to the loss. You can see a bit of that sadness if you bring up family but outside of that, she seems to have settled emotionally. Which means I got to experience her very dry humor and wit full force in our talks. It sort of surprises me how she and Samantha are friends considering their mannerisms seem like polar opposite. Samantha is overly caring and mushy. Elisa is a cold shoulder with a pricks. Samantha can never make a joke that isn¡¯t painful to get through, Elisa can make her jokes painful. She is honestly fun to hang out and talk with and I¡¯m glad to have gotten this chance to deepen our friendship outside Samantha. Honestly, she makes coming back alive a certainty since she¡¯ll tell me some dirty jokes she heard from her coroner dad.


    Harris seems to be on the fence about it. He doesn¡¯t really want me to go since he remembers the hospital visits and my complaining about that but he also seem to like the idea of me going out to brave the wilderness of this new world. Whenever we talks, he tries real hard to try and avoid talking about my expedition but continues to talk about how it would be annoying if I got hurt real bad again and how it would be pretty boring without me to shoot the shit with. Whenever we managed to talk about something that isn¡¯t work, its mostly fine but when he shoots up (which he probably did at least 3 days ago), he tends to talk and focus on work to attempt to ¡®ground himself¡¯ and not look like an obvious guy who shot up. Which leads back to the original issue of him going around in circles about wanting me to go and wanting me not to die.


    Which leads me into that opening paragraph. I¡¯ve written this a lot but to whoever reading this; this journal is just as much as it for you and it is for me. I am organizing my thoughts, feelings and drives and hoping that whatever lessons I pull from them are things you can use earlier than I could ever do so. In this case, it is important to realize that your friends will sometimes hold you back. It might be just one event or for one item, but sometimes you have to make your own decisions and take a leap. They will mostly like still be your friends if you succeed or fail, but the act of failing or succeeding is only in your hands.