A letter from the writer.

I really need to apologize to you all. At first it was "oh I'll write a post tomorrow instead" then it was "maybe next week"... now it's gotten to "but it's been so long since I wrote something in this story".

I've got a case of writers block, not really where I want to take the story, but more "how does it get from where it is to where I want it to go", and I guess this is one of the downfalls of trying to keep a blog style story written in real time.

I've got a few ideas though on where to go from here, but I don't think I'll be able to tie the blog with the blastwave storyline to the continued march of time like I used to.... there's only so many times I can have the main character hide in a bunker, or fall through a temporal paradox without it being cliche.

Thanks for reading for the last five years, it's been rocky at times and I've tried to improve on my writing over time. I'm not giving up on this story, but I can't just shackle it to our timeline like I've tried to, so for now we're dropping the shutters on this project, and I hope to pick back up on it soon.

For the time being though, Please Stand By.

in the ashlands again

Got delayed at Salt Lake more than anticipated, there's still serious tensions between the Republic and the Confederation and despite having prior approval to get through the order checkpoints they delayed me and had an interrogation every couple days just to confirm I was who I said I was, what my purpose traveling through the bi-state area was, where I was going.

Apparently there was someone wandering around that could shapeshift.

The archivists (leishey's people) have some serious gear now, it concerns me to say the least, and that's just the stuff that they let me see.... Still they let me take one of the UTVs that was "liberated" from the military in the confusion following the war, so there's that.

GPS stopped giving me a decent location a few days ago, but I'm somewhere in wyoming, judging by the main source of light reflected off the ash clouds, I'm somewhat southeast of the caldera itself.

Heading out into the ashlands

Took a bit longer to get geared up and start out into the ashlands than I'd like.

My back hurt a bit longer than I anticipated... pretty sure I'm fine though. Left Elko and heading for salt lake city first for supplies, and then I'm going to head east out into the ashlands proper, before the weather gets foul.

sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction

To say I survived the welcome Elko gave me is putting it lightly. I was driving out towards where I figured what I was looking for would be when I got turned around and was stopped looking at a map when a drunk rear ended the car I was using with his truck

I honestly don't remember the impact, and things are a bit blurry after the fact but some firefighters helped me back to the national guard depot just through the tunnel outside of town when I said I was out there working for the order. Said they came on the wreck probably not long after it happened and that I was rendering aid to the other driver... don't really remember that either.. still the docs at the depot, they patched me up right. I should be fine, troublesome that there's no one out here that picked up on any healing magics so it's time and pain pills for my sore back.

I did eventually track down my target, a stolen transport truck (up the route I thought it was up mind you) loaded up with communications equipment that the order deemed necessary for retrieval, but they weren't entirely sure where it was and couldn't just afford to be going off on wild goose chases after every little rumor. They may have more fuel than anybody else, but that doesn't mean they can afford to waste it.

So I'm kinda taking it easy before I head off on that big trip off into the ashlands.. probably another couple weeks and I'll start in on that.

made it to elko

Two days of travel to get out here.... so what is it I'm doing out here you might ask?

More of the same really. Drifting, following the work, finding lost and misplaced things... or things that have been "misplaced"., or in some cases misplacing those things, though I try to avoid jobs like that.

Place itself reminds me of a smaller Reno. Granted none of that really answers the question as to why I'm here. Hopefully before the week is out I'll be able to answer that.

Signal found

Authors note: Some portions of this post are actually based on reality. You be the judge as to what those are though.

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A belated N-day to everyone. I'm about thirteen days late. Firstly, I would like to apologize for having not posted for four months. I kind of got out of the habit for a couple weeks and those weeks turned into months, and by the time I had something worth writing about I'd gotten so out of practice, I basically ignored it.  I've actually been out of the SLC area since may believe it or not and am now off in the Bi-nation area between the California Republic and the Salt Lake Confederation (what they're now calling themselves after this spring's vote). More or less  it's kind of a demilitarized area patrolled and enforced by The order that stretches from the eastern sierras out to about old highway 93. This was the result of a full on shootout between militias of the CR and the SLC in Elko, the only reason the order didn't roll in and start disarming both is there's no proof anyone actually gave any orders.

Anyway I've been mapping springs for ranchers out here, some of them moved back to their forefather's lands, some have been out here since before the war and just needed the help.. drifting from ranch to ranch is working out pretty well and being able to kinda figure out where springs are by using ice magic kinda has it's perks. It's honestly pretty nice out here... well once you get past the smoke from all the wildfires and the fact you have to distill the water (arsenic and other heavy metals in the groundwater from some of the old mines and cinnabar deposits.)

Part of the reason I even begrudgingly decided to post, is that one of my contacts in the order got word to me through Hawthrorne depot offering me work. A decent gig, and straightforward. Go find a cache of equipment for the order, get paid handsomely and get claiming rights to anything I fancy at the cache. Seems simple enough. Well the catch obviously is it's deep into the ashlands in one of the areas where rumors of weird things come from. Man like creatures as tall as a tree, fire breathing lizards, thunder eggs the size of cars. the usual outlandish bullshit that comes out of inexperienced people wandering off into areas chock full of wild magic. I figure a couple more weeks of this and then I can head back east, stop in on Eivan and see what Leishey's outfit is doing now. I kinda cut ties with them.. nothing to do with Leishey himself, just more the bureaucracy and that they're kinda... some of the people getting hired on are not the best sort of people I guess is what I'm trying to say.  There's some truths to those rumors of dealing in weird swag out of the ashlands and it sounds like they tried to "forcefully acquire" the electrum mines... it didn't work out for them but.. well I'm not working with the Archivists anymore to say the least.

Actually now that I think on it I might be heading to Elko next week anyway for... well I'm really not at liberty to say.

Oh well, let's survive the week and I'll see if I can muster up the energy to post something when/if I get there.

Some of you have wondered and messaged me where I've gone. No I haven't vanished or wandered through another time dialation field.

The fact of the matter is for The Order has had me doing work. Odd jobs, fetch and get-it kind of stuff and been letting me use an empty cot and keep me fed. Yes the food hasn't been that good, and yes I've had to abide by their rules, some of which includes "no posting every little damn thing you do for anyone that can get a net connection to see". However the weather is starting to clear out, and that means other people are going to be needing my services again, and I'm already in talks with some people regarding some equipment they'd like to salvage out of the ashlands provided they can get it cleared with the SLC... they also want someone who's experienced enough with magic and the ashlands to be able to determine if the equipment is safe to salvage, or if it'll be like a thunder egg again.

Speaking of, I had the opportunity to make a short trip into the ashlands recently along with a couple other stalkers to teach some of the order folks how to survive out there (yes I do have permission to post about this since it's not really important to keeping their forces secure and keeping order between the SLC and CR). During the trip a couple of the order soldiers found some thunder eggs, and to demonstrate the destructive power of them we threw one into a gravitational anomaly (gravity well+self contained geode of magic= floating crackling thunder, at least that was the idea at the time), which made an impressive light show, released the magic and then temporarily dispersed the gravitational anomaly. What we also got out of it were the pieces of a thunder egg fused with ash that turned to glass during the magic release.... there's something odd about them but no one's really figured out if there's anything truly special about them, or if they're just good for trinkets that can be sold on a street corner... Other than that, taught the scrubs how to use pocket junk (rocks, coins, spent shell casings, bolts, etc) to identify magical anomalies and their areas of effect. No one died and we didn't get snatched up by inter-dimensional bullshit... At this point that's my threshold for a good day I guess.