Merry christmas.

Once again it's the magical time of year where things get weirder than usual, in this case it turns out the SLC have decided to co-opt Krampusnacht to keep their children in line and behaving, especially considering they have a parade of Krampuses... Krampi?... No idea what the plural form is here.

I also have no clue how she pulled it off, but my mother somehow managed to get fresh made boysenberry cobbler sent from the CR out here...that and my older brother added to the box and sent me a vest that matches up nicely with my gear that I already have, and adds another 5 easily accessible pockets when I layer my stuff properly.... bringing the total up to 18.

So I suppose the yule cat won't try and eat me this year again.

Anyway merry yuletide and all those other well wishes, and a happy new year. Unless something goes sideways again and the world ends a third time, considering the frequency over the last few years it's a good possibility. Maybe we'll get something different, like aliens instead of more nukes.

Someone asked me what I do on a normal day..  I guess since I'm not doing much today due to snow storms blocking up the streets I may as well make a post regarding this.

In general I wake up a bit before dawn and wander downtown to one of the gyms that has a mixed martial arts group and do some exercise and practice, the cold air wakes me up on the walk to and from the druid barrow, then I make my way to City Creek center where some of the food places are and trade some fresh produce for a hot meal and make my way back to the dow barrow to help the druids with tending the gardens.

If there's no work to be done at the barrow I head over to one of the nearby trade districts and check the nearest bulletin boards to see if there any work that needs to be done.

Speaking of, once the streets are cleared I did pick up a contract, I've been asked to head north of the city to one of the ranches and help clear out a pack of coyotes that's been harassing some rancher's cattle operation.

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.