Found an anomoly.

As some of the rumors indicated.. there are some patches of the ashlands that defy conventional physics. Pockets of magic I guess.

Eivan's the one that found it when we heading along a canyon when he noticed something being just weird ahead, looked up and noticed a bunch of ash swirling around in the air in one spot.... I guess it could be described as as a micro black hole, or just a localized sphere of intense gravity since the rocks we threw into it didn't go anywhere. they just formed up into a clump of rock floating in the air about twenty feet up in the air.


Though it only stuck around for a couple hours, yes we stood around tossing rocks at it till it dissipated. It was interesting to say the least.

Travelling is slow.


List of plants the ecologist has definitively identified:

Spotted knapweed, russian thistle, manzanita, lodgepole pine.

We've also seen two wolves.


Of the plant species we've seen... he thinks hes identified maybe 20, but there's no point listing them right because he's changed his mind three times on all 20.

Leishey stayed behind in SLC to organize things for our return and make sure the supply caches get set up behind us.

Seems the satellite connection is decent enough though. We're four days into the trip, the ecologists is... well giddy and hyper and insisting we stop anytime we see a plant or animal out here now that we're in the ashlands proper, so it's slow going.

Most of what we're seeing is desert plants, spindly and scrubby things, no grasses at all, however it's all stuff that's grown through, or in the ash since the eruption.  I'll get a list of the actual plants later since it's not anything I recognize.

Seems there's good work to be made by stalkers out in the salt lake area, even if it is working for the Order to help them set up survey posts in spots where they won't get ate up by ants and other nasty critters during the night... seems a lot of the experienced folks either split, or got promoted away from non-field positions and all the inexperienced people are now the field grunts. Made for good busywork while waiting on Leishey to catch up with us.

He managed to find us a humvee for the trip, some modified snow treads, and a a couple weeks of supplies for this. The ecologist also insisted that we take the most direct route, so instead of east and then north back around we're heading directly north into unfamiliar areas....I'm actually excited to go back..excited to explore the ashlands... kinda weird really.

Oh well. Tomorrow we set out so I've got... 12 hours to figure out if this is actual excitement for the journey or just anticipation and fear... hard to tell..I think.

That was fun. And unique.. working with the Order (military remnants for those living under a rock) instead of being shot at by them.

So to back up a bit,  that guy that shot me, and killed a couple other stalkers.. well he got on the shitlist of the military after shooting a couple of their guys as well. Seeing as how we had an active hunt for him, they offered to provide some additional muscle when we moved in for the capture.

Not sure who did the arrangements on this but after he was captured I got asked to id the guy, and somehow we wound up in the same room on accident and he started freaking out calling me undead and a ghost.  So.. that solves that anyway.

Eivan found some work for us and I have no idea who he's owed favors by but we're prepping to load up on an Order transport plane heading out to SLC now that the CR and salt lake folks are arguing over trade tarrifs and taxes or something like that. I'll be honest I haven't been paying geopolitics much mind so I'm not up to date... but well there was an argument between some SLC caravaners and some Fresno water merchants and it ended up with guys shooting at each other.....So now the military guys are heading east to keep the peace.

Hopefully this works.