Still attempting to make heads or tails of the last few days, for starters there's been too much interference to connect the uplink for almost a week.. which is alright anyway since we were on our way out of the ashlands last week already.

Bideford's dead... but he's not dead. It's a weird state of being to say the least, basically I need to rewind to the 18th and work my way through the events that've led to today.

The short of it is, Bideford pissed off the tree-man thing I've seen out here... he and I were patrolling the campsite edges for any last bits of equipment that the ash might've swallowed up since we were moving camp to a new area to see if there were any different species to catalogue. The Ent (just going to refer to it as that for here on because it's more or less what it was) just wandered up over the rise, stomping along, more or less ignoring us, I gave it my usual wave.... and well Bideford... He lost his cool, snapped up his rifle and shot it, right in the side. I'll admit, I'm impressed at how quick he got the shot off, side note, .30 cal hollowpoint does literally nothing to one of these creatures, at least nothing visibly.

Well you ever have one of those moments where you screw up, and you have a bit of time to reflect on the fact you've screwed up.... that's basically what happened. The ent , just kinda stops and turns to face us, as if to say "I'll give you one chance to apologize"... well bideford is lining up for another shot, I try and get him to drop the rifle because at this point I've realized two things, "the ent is intelligent" and "It's welling up magic and waiting"... well bideford takes another shot, hits it in the arm, and it, howls out something, low and monotone before loosing whatever spell it was making on us,

 Eivan has made it over to us by that point, so has Fiske, and the plants on the hillside begin to convulse and rapidly grow, growing from woody stems to softer and vinelike tendrils that brush the three of us aside and converge on Bideford... kinda like a venus fly trap on a fly almost.. he struggled, we tried to pull him free, but the plants kept shoving us off and the wines started constricting around him...I'll spare ya'll the details....

 At the point Bideford finally stops screaming, and struggling, I realize the ent has stomped over and is admiring it's work. It's easily twenty or twentyfive feet tall, and just looms down at us before reaching down with it's gnarled hands, and just brushes me, Eivan and fisk aside, picks up the plant coocoon around Bideford and just stomps off into the ashlands.


So... Eivan breaks out the alchohol we were saving for a successful return from the expedition and we just spend the rest of the day drinking around our campfire. No one really talks for about a week.

Well on friday, as we're pulling stake and getting ready to head out finally, Bideford stumbles into our camp... only.. well he's not bideford... I mean he has all his memories, well aside from his death and whatever the ent then did to him, there's also the fact that he has a set of wooden deer antlers growing out of his head now and has gone... more or less "full hippie"...love peace and flower power... it's a strange change to say the least and we're still debating on what to do with him... Eivan says he's been marked by nature magic and the druids back in SLC will want to study him...

Me?... I just want to get back to civilization, get paid and be done with these ecologists. They're getting on my nerves wanting to stop and look at everything... they literally have a half ton of samples that we're hauling back, and a quarter of that is scat from the bison, deer and coyotes that are out here... I'll admit I'm curious as to how they've survived out here too... but there's no reason to bring back that much crap.

The ecologists need their own satcom.

So.. add that onto the list of things needed for further expeditions out here, along with one or two of the Order's GPS units with the twin signal for better accuracy. Would make for mapping out anomalies a bit easier.

That or a signal booster for both. for some reason out here there's just horrendous latency, making ecological uploads take so long, and phone calls have that awkward 2 to 3 second delay between what you say and the response...

Few more new species. They'e more or less decided what I was calling manzanita is a species of manzanita, they're debating over the scientific name though.

Not much else to mention though.

delayed updates are a thing too.

I had intended to make an update sooner, but the ecologists were hogging the  uplink sending data back since Friday.

I won't bore you with the details but they've identified about twelve new species of lichen, 6 new species of plants, tried to catch as Bideford described it, "a coyote that was running around that had deer antlers strapped on its head"...kinda think someone came out here and strapped a set of christmas antlers on it as a prank, but that'd be farfetched to say the least and I didn't see it personally.

No sign of the entfolk yet, or a dragon but on occasion I've felt like we were being watched from a distance. Eivan noticed it too and we've been taking watches at night as a precaution.