7/26/1 AME
Journal Entry #10
With this week closing out, some good has finally crested over its end. Weather being mostly wet aside, I’ve been having a generally better week.
One thing I’m happy about is that Range Master Davith was released from the hospital. He was released about 3 days ago. Lana and I helped him with the move back to his place but it was mostly just to make sure he wouldn’t hurt himself seriously. He was fine and although he isn’t going back to active duty until next week, he’s excited about returning to the training. I’ve even seen him visiting the training grounds a couple of times since his release and he always looks generally excited about later training sessions he’s probably planning.
It was honestly strange visiting his place. The place has a lived in look but feels totally deserted at the same time. Turns out he was married. Long before the Event. He was married and she died of cancer some two decades after their marriage. After Lana and I helped him over to his place he invited us to stay over for a bit to ‘celebrate’ his release. Lana stayed for the makeshift dinner of deer burgers and hot dogs but left after it was all put away. I stayed well after the sun went down and we talked over some whiskey he had. I didn’t get the whole life story but enough to give me a greater understanding of the man.
Davith is a good man. Life just dealt him a decently shit hand but nothing horrible to play against. Got a wife a bit after highschool. Worked as a highway officer early after their marriage, then became a hunter and general wildlife officer for the local region later. His wife got cancer after his change in profession and they weathered that storm together. From how he describes it, the descent was slow and uncertain. There were days where she was stronger than ever, then days where she was doubled over the toilet. Treatment seem to keep her bad days from getting too bad but within the 3rd year, she began to have more bad days than good ones. Eventually it took her life and Davith had to bury her alone. Most of her family had died by that point and the ones that were alive were either too far away to make contact or just not close enough to really know her. He had said he had tried dating two years later but as he puts it, the combination of “his unpracticed charm" and the "feeling not being there again” he stopped trying to get out there. His work still kept him active and kept him in contact with his friends so he didn’t waste away like others might have. He tells me that he still remembers her from time to time and that those moments are still painful but still the best moments he has.
It’s a bit sad but something about him doesn’t make me feel sorry for him. And I write that not in the almost certainly snarky or indifferent tone I can hear in the phrase but differently. When he talks about it, he doesn’t seem remorseful or angry but just content. Despite all that, he’s in a good place and the whole ‘new world’ thing doesn’t change much for him in terms of who he is and what he does. Only now, he’s going to be a little less active about it.
It’s good to see him at least happy about his new role even if he’s not going to be training as many as he would be. Davith was right on his predictions about the amount of people in the ranks as over the week, the amount of Rags that have resigned or just stopped coming to meetings and training sessions has slowly increased. It was only just a couple at first but on the day I’m writing this, another 10 Rags stopped showing up. In total, we’ve shrunk by about 25; a number which includes both those who resigned willingly and those who couldn’t act as acting members of the force. While this might not sound like a lot, we only had a little more than 100 members and with those lost we don’t have a lot of members who can be active in the field.
From what I’ve heard from the higher ups, recruitment has basically stopped since the failure of the “Wildlife Warning” mission and they aren’t sure it’s going to recover any time soon. I can’t really disagree either. Aside from the pay that we are basically being promised, there isn’t too much to look forward to in this line of work. I’m a part of it to return something to the town and make sure they don’t have a need to throw me out but for people who already live here, that idea isn’t going to pop in their heads. So recruitment is probably going to be between low to non-existent until something changes.
What’s funny is that despite the initial goal of “Wildlife Warning” being more of a publicity stunt than anything, going over the reports I’ve read seems to indicate that we're pretty secure in terms of monsters and orc camps around the town.
I’ve been reading and going over the reports from all of the Ranger Troops that went out and from them, as scattered and un-detailed as some of them are; the picture they paint is actually a good one. The towns is pretty well situation and the closest monster sighting is only 41 miles out from closest town edge. The closest encampment of orcs is 49 miles up north and the second closest is 52 miles out north east. Nothing of serious danger has been found within the approximate 25 miles radius of the town and from the reports, the only reason why the monster attacks we suffered happened seemed to be because those monsters had either been driven that far due to food or pushed out from conflicts with other monsters.
While I do laugh a bit at this and even mentioned it Range Master Davith, it’s not the great PR win that I do make it out to be. I tried to talk him into mentioning the results to the other Range Masters but he explained that it despite it being true, there isn’t a great way to spin it since while it means that the townsfolk aren’t in any relative danger, it does show the power and devastation those monsters can do to who the people believe are ‘trained professionals’.
While it’s laughable to say we are all ‘trained professionals’, I understand the principal. The whole reason why the Rangers exist it be some sort of defense against the monsters that marked how the world has changed. While our actual jobs seem to be more of scouting and monitoring business of said monsters, we are the ones with the most knowledge about them. So our failure to ‘deal’ with them while in the wilderness isn’t a good showing and has already negatively painted the image of the Rangers’ effectiveness.
Not a very happy note but it can be seen as nugget of good in the bad. At least to me.
To that end, the reading into the reports has led me to cataloging the monsters we have found around the area. I started doing it because it seemed like two Ranger Troops found the same monster, which would have been impossible considering they took two different paths that never got close to each other.
It’s not an easy task since due to the casualties and the number of reports being colored by that fact, noting down and trying to analyze the monsters from the descriptions are hard. It is a fun challenge though since it’s not just about matching descriptions together but also seeing if the actions are reported the same and then trying to tie those details into the location the monster was said to be found in. At time of writing, I’ve managed to catalogue at least 6 different Large Class monsters (those that are 5 ft or larger on all fours (or however many legs they have)) and 8 different Small Class monsters (which are those smaller than 5ft on their legs). It’s not a lot but I think it’s a good start to get some information on what is happening around the town. While many of the descriptions are hard to place, it does seem weird that some of the monsters described take the shape of monsters we would have in our fictional media. Only about 5 of the Monsters in total seem to be near copies but it’s hard to tell from the reports. The rest seem to be monsters that we don’t have any previous ‘knowledge’ on from what is being described in the reports.
The monsters that we know and can put some name to (through research done at the library and through TTRPG books found there) are the following; Manticores, Gorgons (maybe), Owlbears, Goliath Spiders and an Eberarks. Of these, two of the Ranger Troops sent out in the Wildlife Warning mission encountered them and lost some people to them. The rest managed to either flee or distract the monster long enough for it to be attacked by another monster or lose interest them. This is enough to designate them as dangerous. Even from what has been ‘recorded’ in the books I pulled, they didn’t act in the same way and whatever ‘weaknesses’ they have aren’t easily available to us. Yet.
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Of the monsters we’ve ‘identified’ I’ve found some discrepancies between them.
Manticores, from most tales and interpretations, tend to them be lion-like with wings of some kind and have some sort of bug-like tail that are more usually described as those of a scorpion. While the specifics usually change from interpretations; the general base of lion, wings and bug-tail stay the same. Yet from the reports, it looks as though they are only close to general shape. The two reports that can be linked to representing a Manticore encounter show that its very much a base layer of similarity. One of the reports describe their monster encounter as it being a large cat with strange scorpion like features and bat wings. The other one described a tiger with eagle wings and a bee stinger tail. While they are different, it seem like the only base that the world seems to work with to make a ‘Manticore’ is some feline body, wings of a flying creature that aren’t bugs and having some sort of insect like additions.
The Owlbears are also a point of contention for me since 5 Troops meet something that would fit the general idea but each have different physical description for it. Two Troops found something they described as bird-like, being as large as a bear that moved like a dog. Another Troop described something that was more bear but clearly had feathers and talons instead of claws on its front paws. The last two both meet two different owlbears, one of them was a new looking one while the other was similar to the first. They all seem to act the same as owlbears would act from the descriptions but it’s seems to be the only thing that is consistent between them.
This is all mostly conjecture though since it hard to really establish exact actions and temperament from written reports. Even from the direct ‘interviews’ I managed to get with some of the Rangers or Rags in those Troops, it’s hard to really get the details pronounced enough to line everything up.
The Eberak is the only ones that I feel is hard to consider real since although 3 Troops have reported that they encountered one, it’s one of those things that I can’t believe to be true. I only included it to be in the list of confirmed monsters since its too exact in description to not be an Eberark. All 3 Troops report a monster that was bigger than a cement truck, with four pairs of clawed legs, spines along its back, its heads like a cross between a gator and weasel and a trail of singed earth after each step. The fact that 3 separate Troops all described it the same way makes me write it down as real but its existence is still troubling. If the Eberark is real and there is more than one of them, we would have to increase the general caliber of rounds we should be carrying on standard expeditions. Anything below .300 Winchester is only going to produce a sting at best.
I was planning to keep this small effort to myself. Mostly because although it might have been helpful, it was just guesses based off tidbits of old knowledge from books & games. It couldn’t have been actually concrete. And in a strange sense, it felt relaxing and somewhat comforting. I think it was because of the familiarity of it. Sure, the strange new world we are currently trying to live in hasn’t been great so far and things might take a turn for the worse but the knowledge that at least some of it is familiar is comforting. That part of this new world we are currently living in has something familiar that I can latch onto.
Probably being a bit too emotional or existential.
My efforts in cataloging were going to be for me and my eyes alone until it was noticed by Range Master Davith. I initially thought he would disapprove of the idea, because it would take time away from the actual work Rangers would have to do but it turns out he thought it could be something useful. His words were more along the lines of the idea being a good one but my execution being off. With his help, I was able to refine the log and the format of them on the monsters we could put a semi-accurate name and get a more formalized look for the ones we don’t have any real context/idea of.
He also suggested that the general name of them catalogue to be the “Chimera Catalogues”. I was against this but his reasoning convinced was enough for me to go along. It was due to a clash of knowledge. I knew about these beings from games and ‘deep lore’ from myths and legends I did some basic studies on in college. My initial thoughts about them is that they are monsters from myth, legends & games and in those, they tend to be defeat-able if you know the context and knowledge. Range Master Davith explained that people don’t have that same sense of knowledge and due to the context being entirely different, calling them monsters might put them into the mindset that they won’t survive. Calling them a Chimera sounds a bit more grounded which means people could understand taking them down.
I don’t entirely agree with it but it something that I can see being something that does change people in their minds a bit.
Outside of that, reducing my training time has left me with some more free time to hang out and catch up with my bunkmates.
Due to the hospital work slowing down as of late, Samantha’s been around a lot more which is nice. We’ve been talking a lot more often, mostly because of somewhat shared experience relating to the operation Wildlife Warnings. While we didn’t try to talk about work (in her case; the people she’s patching up and in mine; how they probably got to that point) it sort of gravitated to it due to both of us wanting to understand the other’s field a bit better. Samantha basically grilled me on what we had seen out there and the monsters we might have faced and I answered with what the reports had and nothing else (since technically I shouldn’t even be doing that much) while I asked her about the various states the Rags and Rangers were in and the best methods to either stem or fix those injuries if they were to happen again. I definitely learned somethings from her about at least patchy first-aid which is something I’m probably going to have to petition (or at least get Range Master Davith to) teaching it to the Rags (and myself later).
Outside of that, Samantha’s was accepted into the newly formed Hippocrates Program. I don’t understand the name at all but from how she described it, it seems to be some sort of uplift program with the idea of making some of the nurses into doctors, or something closer to it. It’s a big thing for her and we (Harris, Dorian, some of her other friends and I) took her out for a small party out in the town. It was nice to have a small bit of relaxation between the work and training. And it was for an actual good moment and not just moment in between low points. It was nice.
Admittedly it less nice having to deal with being around Harris for a time but there was enough people to have an easy excuse to only acknowledge him.
That probably sounds harsh but I don’t really know how to reconcile myself when it comes to Harris. He hasn’t apologized for the whole ‘maybe drug deal’ kerfuffle he put me through last week but at the same time, I can’t see why he would apologize since from his perspective; everything went right. Which just makes me angrier at him.
I’ve stopped avoiding Harris since it doesn’t really work when we sleep in the same room but I haven’t made an effort to talk to him about those events. I try to talk but every time I try to think about how to breach the topic, I get confused as to why I’m angry at all, which always leads to a more confusing internal monologue that I’ve tried to write down here at least three time only to ripe out the pages. I don’t need to keep useless thoughts in here anymore than I do in my own head.
Yet just because I don’t talk to Harris, doesn’t mean he doesn’t talk to me or that I haven’t noticed things around him. Harris says he’s been doing alright his work and that he’s managed to look good during an incident with the tractor engine issues. Something about one of the pistons having problems. He’s mentioned he might be given more work which he is excited for. It’s a bit strange since you can tell he’s managed to shoot up at least twice this week and I can’t really tell if that helped him keep his calm for the work or it might just make him crash later.
Despite my anger at him, I do worry about that. He can hold himself together well but at times, he seems to forget to put up the act and it shows. I don’t think he even notices or that other people notice. He’s pretty bad at noticing things really.
Samantha & Dorian noticed my avoidance him but haven’t broached the topic with me yet, which I’m thankful for. I wouldn’t know what to tell them. Samantha seems to know it’s on my end though since when were all together, she always seems to place herself in between us to try and keep things smooth. I’m thankful but also a little resentful that it’s like this. I should confront this issue but it doesn’t seem to progress in my head correctly.
Thankfully, I’ll have some time to process my emotions and thoughts about the whole event since the Rangers are setting up another expedition again. I was thinking of signing up again but the party two nights ago made it certain that I need the space to think it through away from Harris to get past this. Thankfully, this expedition is more for the Rangers benefit in knowledge of the area than the Council’s so isn’t going to be announced to the general public.
We are going to be assigned our assignments and groups tomorrow which means we’re going to get about two days to prep before we head out. I think I’m going to try and talk to Harris beforehand at least once to get my bearing on him as a friend.
Maybe I’m just missing something between us.
Probably a bit mope-y at the end but that’s fine. I write this for myself just as much as whoever is going to read this later so maybe you’ll learn to be more decisive than me when dealing with your friendships.