We didn't take a time portal again.

And that's not for lack of trying, rather than mess around with dealing with winter we did attempt to use our previous campsite as a way of skipping the snow and rain, which, well, didn't work.

It ultimately took us a couple extra days to get back into confederacy territory after getting the truck stuck in a slurry of ash and snow more than once, thankfully with liberal use of duct tape, a couple 2x4s and luck, we managed to get it unstuck both times..... and then we got met by a patrol unit and got led into processing... because of how much stuff the ecologists were bringing in, how long we'd been gone for, and the fact only two of us were really known to them it took the majority of December to process us... and even then I only got stuff like my tablet and satcom yesterday.

The druids have no idea what to make of Bideford, I honestly don't care at this point, but I've told Leishey (well his liaison out here), that I'm not doing any more large team stuff. 2-3 people max, easier to prevent stupid shit from going down that way.

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.

Well....time dilation... that's a thing I guess.

To say today is a weird day is an understatement.

Last night we set up camp, staked tents, dug trenches and prepped for a long stay... today we completely undid it all, pulled stake and moved about a quarter of a mile and re-established our main camp... why you might ask?

Well yesterday for us was May 1st.... and today is October 30th. Somehow in the span of about eight hours we managed to lose, would lose even be the right term?  Skipped I suppose is better.. regardless, 6 months. Half a year!

We chose that site oddly enough because it had less ashfall than some of the other areas.. Eivan said it seemed to have weird magic, but we just thought it was what was keeping out all the ash.

Last night we went to bed all well and good, and this morning we woke up all fine, well aside from there being much more ash at the edges of the clearing, and then I go to rig up the sattelite uplink and my PDA syncs up and flips forward 6 months, I don't realize this till I patch through, adjust the antennae the right direction and manage to call out to Leishey to let him know we'd established our camp, and... well freaking the hell out would be an understatement, he thought I was a ghost. I had to get Eivan on the line to talk him down, and get the full story... seems we missed some stuff back in civilization, but the weather isn't changing (it almost never does change in the ashlands anyway), so we may as well complete the job. Bideford insisted we make a radio call to SLC, got the Order guys on the first try too, and asked them to relay a message to his wife to let her know that no he's not dead... next radio day is going to be next weekend, hope things work out for him I guess.

Hopefully no timey wimey bullshit is going to happen again tonight. I'll be very pissed off if I miss christmas new years and my birthday.

Blowout soon fellow skulkers

At this moment, I'm going to have to go on hiatus once again. No it's not writers block.

As some of my readers are aware there's been a change in where I'm working, and due to the nature of my work, I'm way off in the remote mountains and living in an area where internet is less a fact of life, and more a luxary (unless I can convince my cell service guys to allow tethering).

Anyway, how long the hiatus lasts depends on how well I can fast talk my phone company, or if I can figure out if these phone lines where I'm living are actually connected to anything, but it has the potential to last until october.

Thanks for being a reader, and I'll be back in the future. I swear it.