Teasers from beyond the blastwave and two different time zones.

This has been one of the biggest hassles ever.. well I mean other than getting out of the ashlands in the first place. Some crazy ecologist wanted to go into them, specifically the source, Yellowstone of all places. Initially I refused, but god damn we he persistant. He said he didn't trust the others who were willing to guide him in, something about lack of experience of having not survived. (apparently those of us that made it out are kind of a big deal to the folks living on the edge and away from the ashlands, I don't get it. All we did was do our best to survive a hostile environement while trying to make sense of what the fuck was going on while thinking we were dying from radiation and not just acclimatizing to what some are calling magic's resurgence. Eh I dunno, shit's weird and I can light stuff on fire with my mind, dunno what to call it. Magic works for now I guess.)

The pay is insanely good though, dunno where he found it but sealed and unexpired food that isn't irradiated is also kind of a big deal, and the guy hasn't done anything too stupid... well Eivan really hasn't given him much of a chance to do anything too stupid like trying to hug a bear or something. Anyway, the GPS stopped giving us a satellite reading five days ago so we used a map from a park service truck we found half buried in a bank of ash west of the park along highway 287. A bit of guesswork later, since everything topographically has gone to hell out here. If we did everything right we're at the old faithful geyser, or near there.

This is where the ecologist kinda went bonkers starting writing notes and looking around for signs of life. Eivan and I have had to fish him out of a hole twice now and keep him away from the lava about seven times.

A bunch of basalt formations were pushed up when the volcano erupted and pushed, kinda reminds me of the devil's post pile a little, only with more lava. Speaking of which the lava in the central ring of basalt bubbles constantly, and occasionally "belches" up a stream of it, so we haven't been able to get too close. Honestly I don't want to stay here too long anyway. There's some distinct radioactivity that's not natural, which implies what the air force guys in colorado said about their radar tracking several warheads into the national park boundaries. So.. basically it seems someone nuked yellowstone as part of a mutually assured destruction plan. Go humanity I guess.

Anyway, we did find a boiling lake near the geyser, and there's some kind of algae growing in it, it took a few tries but the ecologist got a couple samples, but it looks like it died outside the heated water. We haven't seen anything bigger than a mouse though, and most of the soil's been covered with ash and other volcanic byproducts.

A sketch I did so people can kinda visualize it.

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Still in Canada, found the robots. They want me to investigate Le Grande Hotel to find out what happened to the last set of drones that went inside before they consider sending a representative south to consider trade negotiations. For entities that were basic chatbot intelligence before everything went tits up they're pretty sophisticated and came to a consensus that trade with humans may be beneficial for us all, though we have to pay it foreward first. Anyway I'm not too far inside the hotel yet, just at the managers office. The desktop still works, though it took some tinkering by myself and ID-9 (Institute drone 9789) to get it working so I could access it. It's also been complaining of a lack of wifi connectivity, which explains why the other ones that came here couldn't have called for help.

Some interesting logs. The manager seems to have gone mad after some point and attempted to draw in customers despite the apcolypse, one of the vending machines was somehow spitting out an infinite number of sodas, possibly from the rampant magic that the eruption of yellowstone unleashed, or other unknown factors. either way he put up a billboard that read "free cola with visitation", also something about the lights on the fourth floor having gone into rebellion and declaring the entire floor a perpetual discotheque.... considering from the outside I thought someone was inhabiting the hotel at first and someone was welding up there there may be a kernel of truth to it.  Eh, ID-9 has declared I'd had enough resting time, so I may as well resume poking around here and try and find the missing Ai rigs.

As promised I've started doing sketches in the mindset of the protagonist, here's one of them.

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Lifealope resting after receiving medical treatment

Happy Freedom Day.

I've moved, and things are settled down. No I don't have anything storywise to post. However it's been one year, more or less, since I blew up the world of Blog with the blastwave. Once I get my scanner setup and playing nice with my computer I'm going to post some sketches from the journal of the protagonist regarding the changed world and a few more teasers. I actually plan to start writing regularly on this story again early 2015. Here's a short nonsequitor post that literally has no story attached and has no reference to where it fits into the timeline of events. Well aside from being set on the 4th of july at some point.

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Saw an Eagle today. It was eating a rabbit I think. There were also crows harassing it. Reminded me of the way things were.

Happy 4th of july.

ZEE WRITER IS MOVING>THE NEXT UPDATE/TEASER POST ETA UNKNOWN>END OF LINE
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One last displaced post

This is the last of my time displaced posts that will be available for a limited time. Read it while it's hot off the presses.

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Alone again. I'm surprised the lifealope traveled so far into the ashlands with me. I followed me for a few days before deciding to head southwest. No one likes to come even a few miles into the ash much less hundreds of miles.

The stillness and emptiness, just the ash, occasional cooling floes of lava, buried cities and  the occasional dragon. I'm surprised this tablet can reach the satellite network through the clouds of ash and smoke from yellowstone, then again the technomancers can make "miracles" happen. Though I'm more surprised the satellites even function with no maintenance since the war. According to the satellites it's supposed to be sometime in the afternoon. But from the clouds obscuring the sun and the ever-present glow to the northwest in the caldera it's impossible to tell what time it is. It's not like the first few months after the bombs fell though, now to keep from breathing in the ash I can get by with just a shemagh or balaclava with a couple cantrips woven into it to keep it clean without the need to wash it out.

When we first climbed out of the bunker in the shattered mountains of Wyoming, the ash was so thick and heavy on the air it was almost a fog. Not only did we need armored mopp gear from how sharp some of the airborne particles were having at least three layers of filters on the respirators was the best. Some loose weave cotton cloth but not loose like burlap, something a bit finer, and then the mask filters themselves. We learned quickly, suffocated, or worse.  Our rapid grasp of the wild magic that had been unleashed on the world certainly helped. Eivan was the first to truly "understand" the changes going on not only in the world around us but within us. His experiences in the Ukraine certainly helped him have a stronger grip on reality, and in all honesty we likely would have died if it were not for him. Not to the ash but the dragons.

Not many people make it back from the depths of the ashlands. Even the more experienced, or arguably less reckless, stalkers avoid travelling here because of them. We don't know if they came after the apocalypse or were simply sleeping under the earth waiting. They are like the beasts of lore, powerful scaled creatures. Lizardlike with great wings. They can dart through the air like a fish in the water and breath down hellfire at a whim. While they may seem mythic but they are still living creatures. They eat, they breath and most importantly sleep.

Now the question becomes, why have I mentioned these dragons? Well, the closer I get to where Granite Inn is supposed to be, the more dragonsign I see. Melted ash in the form of furrows and wallows alike. That and an ever-present sense of being watched. I thought I saw one out of the corner of my eye, but it moved fast enough I couldn't be sure, however I have my suspicions that my destination is in fact a nest. Now that is troublesome, but at the same time I wonder, just how smart the dragons are.  Perhaps if I employ some tricks of my own and melt a tunnel under the ash and burrow like a badger I'll be a bit safer. Options open up when a person can bring forth fire and ice from their fingertips on a whim, and failing that I can fall back on steel and iron.

Another time displaced post.

A continuation of the previous post.

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While I'm certain other people have gotten a chance to examine a lifealope up close I may be one of the first to actually do so with it alive and with the creature calm and somewhat relaxed.  I was able to actually coaxe the wolf close in after a few hours of patiently sitting by my campfire, after I'd set my rifle down outside of my reach anyway.

I sat there quietly with a handful of juniper berries in my hand waiting, finally it approached and after a short, and tense standoff it laid down in front of me and allowed me to come close. So after offering it the juniper berries I examined its wound, and the creature before me. As I'd guessed before it appeared to have been shot in the shoulder with no exit wound. I carefully examined the wound, I confirmed there was a bullet in there with a device that had been fashioned using a studfinder and a metal detector. (sold for five bullets of any pistol caliber, only available, as far as I know, at Fry's Silicon Republic in Seattle) I then used a small dab of numbing poultice (mint, mutated nettle and some wet clay to hold it all together), and waiting a bit before attempting to fish the bullet out with a set of medical tweezers sterilized in the fire.

Yes I was successful in pulling the bullet, and yes I got bit for my trouble, but that was more of a reaction it seems rather than intent because once I had pulled the bullet it began to wag its tail and it released my shoulder, and healed the bite.

Once I'd cleaned off the bullet and examined it I found it was rather corroded and was disintegrating in the air rapidly. There were runes carved into it but it crumbled too fast for me to make sense of it, but my guess is that it was designed to inhibit the healing energies that are naturally present in lifealopes, because a few minutes later you couldn't tell the lifealope had been shot. It also seems to have decided to follow me for the time being.


I wonder... if it knew I was hiking into the hellish landscape of the ashlands would it be so willing to travel with me? Then again this is probably a fools errand trying to find an old world tech cache, though the pay is good, since I'm getting a can of 5.45 in advance and a can of 5.45 on confirmation of the location or extend of damage to, according to this military map the "Granite inn" vehicle and equipment storage facility. My guess, if I had to wager on it, is that all the gear was deployed during the Chinese invasion and is lost to the ash of yellowstone. Though if it is intact, I get a finders fee of as much as I can carry myself, and regardless I'm making a total of 880 military grade rifle rounds for the work, so I can't complain too much, even if it is wandering around the ashlands trying to find landmarks in its shattered landscape.

Something fun

Author's note: I had the idea while reading Romantically Apocalyptic over a year ago when I started this story. Yes, there will be life-alopes in the post-apocalyptic world, and while this post is canon. it is temporally displaced, and might vanish, who knows.

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Canis-Cornus-Americana in the wild

Saw this today poking around my camp, for those still hiding or trapped in the bunkers, on the surface we've taken calling them lifealopes, yeah I know not very creative, but it's a start. So obviously it was a wolf at some point but then it changed. Something we've noticed about them is that wherever they go plant life flourishes, rapidly growing or in cases where the earth was barren regrows rapidly, and in some cases cleansing previously irradiated and dangerous areas to safe levels. Eivan told me of creature like them living in the zone of alienation cleansing the Chernobyl disaster area, but at the time, sitting in the missile base I thought it was just stories he was making up to give us some kind of hope as we waited for either the gradual tic of our Geiger counters to inform us of our impending demise, or a cooling off of the area around us so we might escape to an uncertain fate..... sorry, dark thoughts again.

They're usually benign and calm and approachable, though lifealopes that were predators in the past become extremely territorial if you act aggressively to any new growth caused by their presence. You could say they're sort of like a Dryad, only they're not tied to any one tree or grove. We have found that "herbivore" lifealopes will attack and gore people that damage their "works" only to immediately heal the wounds as if to teach them a lesson. 

As for the one I saw today, it was skittish when I approached it, though the reason was rather clear. It has a partially healed gunshot wound to it's leg, apparently their healing and regeneration doesn't extend to themselves, or something about the wound is different. I didn't get a chance to examine and dress it's wound unfortunately because it wouldn't let me close enough. Hopefully I'll be able to convince it to trust me enough to see if there's anything I can do to ease the discomfort at the least. It's probably wary of me because of my rifle. I'll figure something out. I've also never seen on this far east into the ashlands.