Back in SLC, rain and snow made the mining operations too dangerous to be done because of electrical discharges from the electrum, so that's done for the season.

On an unrelated note the material's been nicknamed electrump which when mispronounced sounds like "elect trump"... which is kinda funny since he's too busy making money to even consider running for office for anything, just as long as no one gets in the way of him shipping products I guess.

Looking for more work just to keep from going stir crazy mostly. I made enough guarding the mining site to make it through the winter though, even if I weren't rooming at the dow barrows I could still live comfortably.

not much to say beyond that other than the CR and SLC folks are still arguing and it looks like the military is going to be hard pressed to keep the peace.

Still guarding the mining operations.. not much to say beyond that.

Aftermath of a party.

Before I cover the party while Fiske took most of the plant samples from the expedition out into yellowstone,  the extras and stuff I intentionally took to sell all went to the druids, they're really interested in the plant life out there and want to negotiate some kind of expedition out into the ashlands, especially after I described the, for lack of better words, Ent and Dragon.

So... I thought the end of winter festival was crazy.... this one topped it.

Imagine if you will a mix of burning man, woodstock and a community farm festival and that's what you get... SLC...is interesting to say the least when everyone gets relaxed and they take a break from their god-fearing and churchgoing. Basically loud music, crazy mechanical contraptions roaming the streets with farmers and craftsmen hawking their wares over the span of about 10 days, despite the political tensions between SLC and the CR there were still people from out west that made it out to check out the festival.

I.. don't really remember most of it but according to Eivan I made some money juggling and eating fireballs and flash freezing stuff for people...a neat party trick, wish I remembered how I did that.

And that's about it for now, well aside from one of the Trump reps asking for skulkers to help guard the mining operations for electrum.... Might take them up on that for a couple weeks.

Rewriting posts is hard IV

Took a breather on posting this so I could sort out my thoughts on what we saw... Still not entirely sure what to say other than a dragon followed us for a couple days in the ashlands after we left yellowstone.

Yeah a dragon... scaled lizardlike, wings as wide as a bus is long spikes along its spine and tail...didn't try and provoke it since it only seemed curious (that or it's the worst at stalking prey), so no idea if it breaths fire or not, two back legs and its wings when folded act as the forelegs.  At the edge of the ashlands we finally saw it land. Out of a precaution I grabbed Fiske by the collar of his jacket and held him in place while Eivan took a bit of time to estimate how big it was compared to the stuff around where it had landed.

We didn't loiter long, and headed south to SLC. We've heard the weather to the west was pretty foul, that and there's some kind of argument between the politicians, so there's no caravans moving, and the Order has its hands full trying to keep the peace without inciting a shootout so there's no help there....

So that leaves Eivan and I (Leishey made arrangements in advance for Fiske to head back west but not us, though he did leave us with an extensive network of contacts and connections) to work odd jobs over the fall and winter. I'm guessing he's using us as a test of the organization he's making.


But first a harvest festival over at the Dow Barrow.

Re-writing posts is hard III

This last week was interesting. Still not entirely certain what I saw but It looked like a giant person. Watched it from afar, and followed for a bit while Eivan and Fiske wandered about chasing mooing noises which turned out to be mutated bison. Eivan shot one in the name of science and fresh meat (pre-smoked and great with a bit of salt) and Fiske had a cow about that. As for the giant, they kinda looked like they had plant matter for flesh or something.. heavy bark as an outer skin with scraggly moss in the spots one would expect hair. And where it walked I found fresh plant life had grown, kinda dark gray/white grasses, additionally newly grown leaves on the manzanita plants we found are a dark gray... I decided not to tell Fiske about the creature. Kinda looked like a Tolkien style Ent, and we've been kinda taking a lot of plant samples and it might take offense to that.

Anyway the day after that, after some experiments with the bison hide (surprisingly heat resistant, though it already looks scorched as it is), we collected some more plant samples and started heading back for the humvee since we're starting to run low on supplies and a genuine earthqakes shook the caldera and more lava started bubbling out of the "spring" we've been camping near.We're going to head out while everything's still good and we're not running from an angry plant giant, or fast moving lava flows.

Rewriting posts is hard II

We've reached the inside of the volcano, for starters when we climbed over the ridge into the volcano the geiger counter we brought along started ticking up above the "normal" background radiation. So I'm guessing it was definitely correct that some of the nukes hit yellowstone... Go humanity and mutually assured destruction?

Anyway Fiske kinda went bonkers when we got here, for anyone curious that's the ecologist, he gave me the ok to mention his name after he calmed down after finding some kind of algae living in one of the thermal springs, he thinks it died after being removed from the hot water.

I'll be honest, there's more plant life inside the caldera than I anticipated. Nothing more complicated than a shrubbery like thing though... it's kinda looks like western manzanita, burns like manzanita and the leaves are like manzanita, buuuuut the leaves are a dark red instead of grey green. Kinda reminds me of the "red weed" from War of the Worlds a little. On a whim I actually slipped one of the leaves under my tongue, I know if my mom reads this she'll be calling me an idiot for doing that, coulda died, possibly poisonous etc... tastes like singed manzanita and does more or less the same thing though, agitates the saliva glands tricks the mind into keeping you from drinking as much water.....well that's what I learned as a kid camping anyway. also make decent toothbrushes in a pinch I guess. going to see if I can find some of the berries to bring back to the druids in SLC... actually now that I think on it they might actually want some samples of everything... I'll need to make a note of that.


Had to fish Fiske out of .... 4 different holes in his exploration, managed to keep him from falling into the lava about 7 times, doesn't help that a lot of the soil is unstable and collapses every now and then. We're set up on a rock shelf off near what we think was  Old faithful... or it might be the morning glory spring... hard to tell with a lot of the basalt formations and lava that got pushed up with the eruption. I'd describe it as a lava cake made to look like the devils post pile, cut up and chunked a little bit..

Spent the rest of the week keeping taking turns with Eivan keeping him from getting too close to the lava pits, rained earlier tonight and knocked down the ash clouds enough that and we could see some of the stars again... pretty neat really.  Weatherproofing by Fry's worked much better than I anticipated.... so that's pretty good, sandblasting during an ash storm, water from the storm... all survived so far. Though if it's raining here might need to consider wrapping up this since it might mean snow off at the edges of the ashlands.

Can't think of much else to mention right now.

re-writing posts is hard

Writer's note: over a year later and I still don't have a proper name for the ecologist. Anyone have a suggestion?

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Ash storms, dust storms.. thunder storms, all of it a massive hassle in getting out here to check out the source of the biggest calamity of the times...Well second source I guess, one being that all the nukes got launched.. well I hope all of them did, the other being yellowstone.

I keep going over it in my mind, how did I get convinced to do this job.. it's stupid, insane and ..well exciting.  That and the ecologist, his enthusiasm is a bit infections, even if he is possibly overly cautious. Apparently I wasn't exactly on the list to be chosen for this job, neither was Eivan for that matter. Leishey seems to have gotten some kind of organization put together stupidly fast. Stalkers, thieves, all sorts really, apparently he handed the ecologist a pile of dossiers and after going through it rejected them all. Wanted people with actual experience out in the ashlands... I don't get it. All we did was do our best to survive a hostile environment while trying to make sense of what the fuck was going on.


We all thought we were dying from radiation poisoning, slowly losing our minds. Guessing the nukes cracking yellowstone open like they did....did something.. I dunno I'm not a scientist. Leave figuring out the how and why to the eggheads, could all just be mutations I guess, but that wouldn't explain some of the people that never got exposed having abilities that could be described as magical.. hell even we didn't really get exposed enough to even get a mild case of rad poisoning.  And that doesn't explain the anomalies out here either...


Anyway, final bits here. The GPS stopped giving us an accurate location a while ago... maybe 5 days or so, but we found a map in a wrecked park service truck, no corpse there or nearby, kinda hope he made it out alright, we're going to camp here where we know more or less where we're at, before making our way further into the park. Definitely going to follow the old roads as best as we can.