7/19/1 AME

Damn. Re-reading my last entry, I’m surprised at how coherent I was. Still needed some touch-ups the day after but even then, I’m amazed at how much I was able to actually get down in that state. It was helpful too with the report I had to write.

A surprising little has happened since the last report and what did happen wasn’t great.

The good news; Davith is alive. He isn’t alive and well but he’s at least alive due to our efforts. From what little I could understand of what he and his doctors said; the injury he took to the abdomen was serious that it could have killed him if not treated correctly. As it stands, Lana and I managed to get him medical attention fast enough to that he wouldn’t have died but the exertion and stress we applied to get him that attention still took its toll. They said it was something about stomach, liver and muscle damage that basically meant that Davith’s is still in critical condition.

He’ll get better but from what he’s been explaining to me and Lana, it looks like he’s going to be off of field duty permanently. Davith’s says he’s fine with it since he’s been getting too old for the field work so once he’s out of the hospital, he’ll be sticking to training and teaching the younger Rags. He says he likes the idea since he was always more of a teacher anyway.

I can’t shake the feeling it was at least partially my fault. I know Lana feels that way at times since I can see her occasionally staring at where the puncture wound was on Range Master Davith. I managed to talk her out of some of the blame by essentially rationalizing that I had more control over the situation than she did but I can tell she still does. It’s not like I can’t.

With the one bit of good news out of the way, we move onto the bad news, that being almost everything else involving the Rangers. The last of the three Ranger Packs came back three days ago and neither of them are looking great. From the reading the reports and counting the numbers; my group was one of the better ones.

Around 17 Packs went out for this mission, each with about 3 or 4 Rangers to each pack. One Range Master and two to three Rags. Of those 17 Packs, we were one of the 6 that came back mostly intact. Of those 6, only two of those groups got extremely lucky and didn’t encounter anything serious beside maybe a monster sighting or two. The most recent one of them just came back and so their report isn’t in yet, but I’m going to read it when it’s submitted. The rest of those Packs came back mostly like Lana and mine’s Pack; either one of them injured to the point of hospitalization, two of them with minor to major injuries or a mix of all three.

The rest of the Packs weren’t so lucky. Of the 11 other Packs, 4 of them came back with only one member alive and in sporting some sort of injury. The rest had some varying combination of one man down and the other two having either serious or major injuries. In total, we lost 13 Rangers in total (3 Range Master and 10 Rags). This isn’t accounting for what is going to be, at least from what Davith believes might happen, a reduction in numbers from people just quitting or being unable to work. Those are probably going to start rolling in the next couple of days since I hear that those with major injuries are going to be released soon.

As is, the whole Extended Scouting Mission that was dubbed “Operation; Wildlife Warning” while we were gone would probably be considered a failure. By the standards of the Rangers, by the Mayor’s standards and by the talk of the town.

That little fact actually managed to spread around town pretty fast and it was by Friday, the whole town basically saw Rangers & Rags that came back as miracles and treated us like we had been survivors of a D-day. Not that they treated us with a reverence but keeping their distance and trying to be as accommodating as possible when interacting with us. It’s actually driving me up the wall but I keep my mouth shut since I know that some of the Rags that came back probably need to be handled that way. A lot of them are still a jerk suddenly at sudden movement or noise.

I’ve seen it in Lana at times, when she’s lost in thought. Hell, I still do, but I’ve been managing to keep it under control so it doesn’t look as severe. I think Harris and Samantha has notice but they’ve been kind enough to not mention it. I know Dorian has seen it but he doesn’t say anything either. Harris noticed it but understood it wrong. I think. I’m still a bit confused at how to feel about that whole experience.

That does lead me to another bit of 'good news' that is interesting to anyone reading this later; town’s opened back fully. I actually didn’t know about this for a couple days since I was basically alternating between; sleep, getting to the hospital and being dazed while writing my report.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Lana was actually the one to show me since she invented me out for a bit after one of our meetings with Range Master Davith. I didn’t know the town enough so I agreed to it. It was that small trip that showed me how the townsfolk are treating the Rags. Nice place though; Mina’s Bar. Had a nice chili.

I did go back into town later with Harris but haven’t been back since. It was that experience. Mostly because of Harris.

We had gone out for a drink. Harris explained that it was a good idea to get out for a bit, since I had been cooped for a while. Being on leave due to medical will do that to you.

Anyway, because of Harris’ meddling and misunderstandings (I think), we basically got into a fight and things went south.

Harris took me to a bar he had been going to regularly. I could tell by the way the bartender knew his name and gave him a pretty angry look as he talked about a tab. Harris said he would pay it off in a bit but made sure to order some drinks for us.

It was going well at first, mostly because it was just Harris and I, mostly me just catching-up on what’s going on within the town (nothing much, besides the fact that farmers are looking to get their last harvest in soon with the help of some of the repaired harvesters). It got weird a bit later when Harris began to introduce me to other regulars at the bar. And he introduced me as Ranger.

Now this isn’t something I like to do mostly because I’m not one. I’m a Rag, or a Trainee. While I’m working my way up and training, actually being a Ranger is different. As it stands, Rangers are slowly becoming something akin to officers or police in the eyes of the townsfolk as of late. While I can kinda see why from outside perspective (we placed in a somewhat position of authority, we have some decision in things that happen in the town and we have some priority in things around time), it doesn’t hold any water and we can’t do anything serious. Police are still a thing and most of the current police are active. It true that some of the higher ranking police did become Rangers but that’s because they were police who had some history as a hunter and wilderness experience and moved over to establish some sort of hierarchy and structure to what was a recently formed division. So while Rangers can be seen as officers of the law, they aren’t and people haven’t caught onto that just yet. What makes this an issue was that Harris began to throw around my forged status as a Ranger.

I had a couple drinks at this point though so it wasn’t picking up on this as I should had been, only telling him to stop a couple times but it wasn’t hard enough to actually get him to stop. Its not until I’m writing this that I understand what all happened.

After a couple more drinks (that I paid off), we headed out of the bar to what I thought was back to the bunks. Harris steered me away, saying he had something he wanted to pick up before heading in. He convinced me to join him and we headed a bit ways away from the street and close up to some houses. I can probably locate where it was if I wanted to.

At the time, when a couple people showed up and talked to Harris, I figured it was just more of his friends from the bar since one looked like someone in the bar. Things turn bad when one of them took a knife and seemed to threaten Harris. Now, I wasn’t sober yet, but I was getting close to that stage of drunkenness that I was mostly aware of things and the body was somewhat functional, just not synced up properly. So when Harris took a couple steps back, I was already stalking forwards with my hatchet telling them to step away. It probably wasn’t enough to actually scare them alone but the fact that Harris told them I was Ranger, probably back them off.

I can’t exactly remember the words exchanged, less because of the words more because of the faces but Harris got something from that exchange and the other guys left. My mind was still trying to process this event but it did sour the whole night on the way back. Harris was happy, but I definitely wasn’t and as I’m writing this, I’m figuring out what happened.

While I can’t prove it; Harris probably scored some drugs that night, and he probably used me to secure a good price. He used my fake rank as a way to pull in a threat and get a score on something that I’m pretty sure would be considered a non-importance at the current state of things. Even as I’m writing this, I get angry at him and I can’t really explain why.

It’s not like I’m an actual ranger yet?

It’s not like what happened is probably going to get out besides the people there?

I probably have enough of proof of character for people to not assume I’m abusing my rank? (Which isn’t really a thing at the moment since Rangers don’t have authority to do anything within the town limits).

I think I’m angry at being used by Harris as a friend. I don’t really know why though. This isn’t the first time I was with another friend who’s bought drugs off a dealer. It was weed at the time and I don’t know what Harris got but it’s probably not much different.

Since that event, I’ve been pretty cold to Harris as of late. I haven’t told anyone of what happened but I think Samantha sees something going on. She may not have been around as much this week due to her studying but when she’s been around either helping me with my fatigue and injuries or in between shifts, she’s seen things.

Still a bit of weird week. I’m going to back to training tomorrow and I’m looking forward to since it’s this passivity from the time off we were sort of forced to take is driving me a little nuts.