Journal Entry #13

8/22/1 AME

Never forget that you take the bad with the good. A lesson that I guess is up for this entry into this journal.

I was released from the hospital about 5 days go from time of writing. It was a godsend but they had to ruin it with the caveat that I wasn’t released for field duty until they deem me ready for it which means I’m heading back in another day for a checkup. If I’m not ready then, I have to go back every two days until I’m cleared. I don’t know the criteria as to what allows me to be cleared but its best they don’t tell me since as I’m writing this, my head is trying to find out how to game that check-up.

At least they picked a good day to do it since the day I was released was when we got our first real rain since that summer was over and we are moving into the fall.

Technically, it has been the fall for at least a week and a half but that day was the first real time it felt like fall. A heavy rain set in the day as I was heading to my bunk at the police station and it didn’t let up for two days. That night of the first rain was the chilliest we had been through in a while and it was cold enough for Dorian to break out the thicker blankets for the police station N.Rs. It’s been that chilly since and hasn’t gotten any much warmer at all this whole week.

This has brought an issue with my wardrobe and how lacking it is. I’ve been managing mostly thanks to the clothes I brought with me and the weekly cleaning that is done by the ‘station staff’ (the older officers who are tasked with the care for criminal and N.Rs at the station’s jail). Essentially, every ‘cell’ got there laundry done on the weekends and returned when finished. I had been wearing what I brought with me and that was mostly spring and summer wear. This has been fine up until now and even during the expeditions since most of the days, while maybe a bit wet, were still relatively warm and/or hot. This week has proven to me that I’m going to need to get some more clothes better suited to the weather if I’m to continue my work as a Ranger (or at least a Rag for now).

This is something harder to do with the town still being a bit iffy on the whole money situation. Everyone has it and sort of spends it but it’s hard to really gauge the correct amount for anything. As is, everyone has yet to set a standard and so we’re weary about any money spent that wasn’t on food. The clothing store of the town opened a while back and while no one had really gone in yet, I feel like they’re going to be cleaned out soon because of the coming weather. I’m probably going to go in tomorrow to stock up on winter clothing. Maybe invite Lana, Samantha and Elisa out for a shopping day. I’m going to have to spend money now that I have it.

That was another big thing that happened this week.

I got paid!

And it was a big pay out too!

So the Ranger Corp finally managed to figure out their pay structure and how they are going to pay us for the acts and continued service. From the whole seminar we attended, it’s a bit confusing but the best way to put is that it’s a stable pay for continued service with ‘bonuses’ being awarded for expeditions taken and other services that are performed by the Ranger Corp. These extras services would be entirely fleshed out later but at the moment we currently have three extra services: Mayoral Edicts, Town Defense and Monster Hunting. Of the three, the only one we know of and have actual records of is Town Defense. This is simple as it’s basically just logging hours in with the police and patrolling the town. These get you the least of the three in terms of ‘bonuses’ but its consistent work and really only to be of help when Chimera enter and attack the town as Rangers are the only ones with more knowledge on them than the general public (although I still haven’t release my Bestiary yet which would probably help this and the Monster Hunting services). The other two pay more but are either less consistent and/or more dangerous.

Obviously, Monster Hunting is the one that no one has (technically) done yet nor are the Ranger Corp emphasizing. In fact, it was basically advised to not do this until more information is gathered and performed and even then; shouldn’t be done without some form of permission from the Head Ranger or the other Lead Rangers. Yet this is also the one with the highest payout for success and proof is secured in you managed gather some blood and other parts of the Chimera for evidence. I don’t know how they will be able to tell if it was gathered from a dead corpse or an actual successful ‘hunt’ they didn’t elaborate on it so it might be the honor system there.

Mayoral Edicts is the other one that we don’t have records for, mostly because it was something that was explained to be in the works but not yet released yet. These would be missions that would be commissioned by the Mayor’s Office for project that would be beneficial to the town. While these are more open to the public (as it seem as though the mayor has made a sort of list people to ask and collect for these project), Rangers are incentivized to join more for their expertise if the need for it would arise. These wouldn’t be very often as they are by the delegation of the Mayor’s office and their need for the Rangers but they do payout better than Town Defense and almost as good as Monster Hunting.

There are also those who officiate and perform training for the Rags (that they called “Rag Wranglers” in the seminar (I hope this name doesn’t catch on, it sound retarded)) get a separate pay structure that still includes the ‘bonuses’ but are different from the Rangers and the Rags.

Expeditions are another separate ‘bonuses’ that factor in greatly and mostly depend on the expeditions you went on as well as other factors. Since these are mostly determined by the Head & Lead Rangers, it pays out on average more than Town Defense. About somewhere in between Town Defense and Mayoral Edicts (leaning a bit closer to Mayoral Edicts). Seeing as expeditions are what the Rangers were formed to mostly do, these aren't considered extra services and failing to meet a minimum of expeditions per two month period would call you into serious review of your services in the Rangers. While not covered, I am assuming that there are going to be exemptions to this rule since there are some of the Ranger Trainers who aren’t capable of going on expeditions so frequently or at all (like Range Master Davith and some of the older Rangers).

With how the first and last expeditions went, those who participated are getting an larger payouts since it was considered they were more experiments on the idea to and as a way to compensate for the damages and injuries. While the extra pay is a nice band-aid, I will agree with the sentiment of the other Rangers and Rags and say that they don’t really excuse or justify the losses we went through. A lot of Rags and Rangers quit after that first expedition and despite the announcement that the Ranger Corp is now a paying positions with an actual structure to the pay, we still haven’t gotten back any of the numbers nor seen any real increase in recruitment (or any new recruits at all). Maybe it will pick up later but as of 4 days of the news being posted by the mayor and every Ranger I know flashing the cash they made (relatively speaking), there still hasn’t been any new recruits.

The majority sentiment is that Rangers are currently getting the bad end of the deal despite the work we are doing and how much more dangerous it can be. While we can say that we understood the risks, those aren’t entirely true since the risks were unknown and we are only now getting a better idea of them. We are only know understanding that some of the Chimera seem to have very deadly poisons or venoms, that some seem to have projectile abilities and even more seem to hunt in larger grounds with no discrimination between what they eat.

Yet despite this, we still haven’t seen another drop in the numbers of Rangers since that first expedition and its effects.

While I agree somewhat with the popular sentiment among the Rangers, they aren’t the whole picture and I can also say that this is one of those jobs that might became the thankless yet required service that people are going to perform more of duty than pay. This is what I believe most soldiers sort of go through during their first years after basic.

The job sucks and the pay isn’t the greatest unless you actively go out of your way to make it better, but you didn’t sign up for either of those. You signed up because of some aspect of yourself believes in the duty to serve. There are benefits to the service that are more subtle than what we really get and it’s all within the town’s people. From the couple times I’ve seen Rangers go out into town, they seem to be given respect and deference from many of the people in town. Restaurants seat them and their group first and it even seems like people are more accommodated of Rangers before accommodating others. It’s probably small at the moment but when the town gets more experience and contact with the outside world that us Rangers have to deal with (honestly; a part of me doesn’t want them to really see it), people would be more respectful towards us and we would probably get some higher social status among the general populace of the town.

It might even translate to political power in the town. Head Ranger Olver is the organizing leader of the Rangers but he's definitely more of an official from the Mayor’s Office. Maybe if we had our own representative head, we wouldn’t be grumbling so much and maybe have some actual agency of our own.

So with the hefty pay check I mentioned some tangents back, I took my friends for a night on the town.

I invited Lana and Samantha out to go for a quick round of the town, offering to pay for the thing considering it was a small celebration of getting paid. I was surprised when Harris was brought along to this small trip. It was a bit of a frosty meeting considering our still iffy relationship but credit to Samantha since she managed to basically pulled us along for the ride that I had gotten us going on.

Immediately we went to the local movie theater that was playing some older retro movies for that night. Don’t know why they were playing those types but from Lana had described of the local theater. It was owned by a family with some connection to Hollywood for location shooting and apparently came a line of people who working in the industry. From minor C-List actors to directors of short films and one to two season long shows. The grandfather had bought the local theater, had made some minor renovation and would run the establishment, hosting special movie night every Tuesday with the theme changing every week. This week’s theme had been ‘American Samurai’ movies and all of the screens they had were playing something that fit the weeks theme (only 7 which seems larger than it actually is but is surprising how it isn’t).

We saw “Six String Samurai”. Great film. I recommend it if it ever come back around. Although from what Lana had said about the stock-pile of films and shows the family has in stock-pile from their own years and years of working in the industry, it might take a while before they show that specific set of films again.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

After that, we headed to what was apparently, Lana’s favorite restaurant; Dio’s Family Grill. I put this name down with the knowledge that the name doesn’t feel like it fit the restaurant. From the name, I had assumed it was going to be you typical pizza joint with the old red-checkered table cloth with plastic red cups and such. What I walked into was something in between the family place the name suggests and high class restaurant you would see in the NYC on the 20th floor of some high rise.

It was such a shock between the name, the atmosphere and how picture Lana's "favorite place" that it took me until we were seated and handed a menu to both realize that the group we were in were totally under dressed. I was wearing a coat I got from Range Master Davith that night and it was a pretty old looking one. Other people in the restaurant were a lot better dressed than we were, although there wasn’t many, maybe a few less than a dozen in a room that could definitely hold between to 2 to 3 dozen. While a bit surprised by this strange, the food was great. I ordered a Chicken Florentine with a side mashed potatoes (I don’t know you’re eating habits but don’t copy mines cause I was full for whole next day) and tried some of Lana’s Sausage Scarpariello and both were great. The entire meal was a great and it was also a great surprise to see that the bill was manageable as well.

It was a lot more than that meal would normally cost but it was thankfully still within the budget for the after the paycheck which was a nice surprise for it. The talk during the dinner was nice as well, even if Harris and I were still a bit frosty the entire meal.

Talk of the town was actually the consolidation of certain restaurants and stores as the season was getting colder. Some of the restaurants that have been opening up have essentially been closing shortly after the whole grand opening because of a mixture of stock, the cost of supplies and how often they can stay open. It was something that came up that most of the restaurants didn’t think too much about in their openings due to them wanting to rid themselves of their going bad product. Yet with that done, a lot of them had to both find a way to continued getting supplies to make product that attracts people and then get enough people to keep that cycle going. Now some of the restaurants could pull this off without too much issue as they have enough of a regular cliental that all they really changed is the amount they can serve at a time and the prices for those meals. Other restaurants either didn’t have that same reliable cliental or access to supplies and so thought to close down. Except a few of the smarter ones decided not to close down but to partner up and try to consolidate. It’s experimental at the moment; mostly because the people don’t know who is exactly partnered with whom. Some of them have made their partnership/consolidation apparent with their reduction and changes in their menus but not all have done so.

It seems kind of predatory to me at least since it’s clear that the better restaurants have the power in those relationships. I wouldn’t be surprised if Dio’s Family Grill decided to swallow up some smaller restaurants for themselves later just to gain some more control over the local cliental and supplies. Where the supplies are coming from isn’t clear yet either, at least not for everything. The obvious vegetables and fruits come what the local but things that are more meat based supplies can’t be as secure because of how few of the livestock has been killed recently. While I haven’t talked to the local farmers, some of the reports of I’ve read about the work that is going to be classified as Town Defense, many of the farmers are also talking about a long winter and they aren’t looking to kill of the livestock to try and keep them from culling the majority of them just yet.

It’s an interesting fix for the current state of things. We touched on the grander meaning of this during the dinner but it was only a surface level brush on it. All we really got into was the question as to why a lot of them tried to keep going instead of looking to for new work. It’s a bit of a strange choice of action when you begin to think about it since it clear that those restaurants would probably only work when in a mostly safe and, for lack of a better term, stable and connected society. The places that were good but not to a level that would gain them a level of traffic that would supply them more than just enough money to get just a rung above breaking even. We only talked about the money aspect of it; how these people would still try to make use of their skills to get money in a situation that might not entirely need their level of skill. I’m not entirely sure that’s true. Wouldn’t it better to attempt to either move your skills into a space that might make you more or to just drop that field and move into another one where you could possible get more for whatever skills you can gain? Wouldn’t it be better to try and gain a new skill to market and grow there?

I talked about with Harris a bit later, about the nature of the changing world in conjunction with technology and it got me thinking about how the world had changed with the express growth and ubiquity of certain inventions. The invention of the fridge made food storage a more viable option which reduced the need for livestock to be kept nearby. Canned foods and the canning process made some foods more transportable and longer lasting for the general public to get and so on. These inventions were what made food in general less expensive by prolonging its ‘shelf’ life to the common populace. Without these things, the importance and price of food will grow and the ‘selectiveness’ of where people will put their money for food will narrow down to the best for their money.

So the keeping around of several restaurant doesn’t feel like it has any benefits that are outside the more personal and normative ones. The restaurants want to stay open, to go to something resembling their old routines, to keep the same feeling of normalcy within this new world. These are the lengths they are going to go to keep themselves running is an extension of that normalcy, just the want to keep it going for longer. I do wonder how long this whole thing will last and how long the town will stay in this sort of state; where people are active in town that is in a state of activity that is pre-event despite nothing around us being able to support it.

This is probably just my own rambling but it feels nice to put it down on paper.

Which I guess leads into the other news that I mentioned earlier; Harris and I are on speaking terms again. Strange way it happened. We just sort of starting talking again, during the dinner. It was a bit strange at first but the discussions happening around us just sort of forced us into talking with each other. When the talk about the restaurants got a little deeper, we began to talk more and just sort of fell into our usual back and forth. That back and forth continued throughout that whole dinner and continued past that. It was something that almost made me forgot about the whole situation between us.

I didn’t forget, but managed to not bring it up until the literal end of the night. We talked about it later though and it was a bit weird. At night, in our bunks, we hashed it out for a bit. Essentially, I asked him not to pull off that stunt with me again and Harris agreed to not do it again. Harris claimed that he had gotten enough and was going to try and sober up but its not something I’m buying totally. Even that night, I had seen him play with the needles he’d found and look at the spot he stashed his stuff but thinks I don’t know about. It felt good to at least clear the air between us even if nothing was really resolved. It just felt good talk to Harris without that event looming over our interactions.

While dinner had finished quite late, maybe sometime around 9pm, we spent some time just walking around the town, to burn off the food we just ate and to just continue talking. Discussions that occurred started out about the towns history and people, which were mostly carried by Lana (the only one of us that only had one drink) seeing as she was the only one of us from the town. I will admit that I had a bit too may drinks that night so not all of the things she showed and told us about didn't stick but some did; like how the Oakdale (long before the whole event) was actually in close to a very old mining town that is mostly abandoned. It’s ‘mostly abandoned’ because although the mine is basically empty and had nothing to offer, there are couple people who live around that area. Lana doesn’t know why they still live out there but it was something known to the town and they did come to visit (mostly for restocking their supplies). As I write this, I feel like I might mention this to some of the older Rangers or Officers. The small town wasn’t too far away but considering how the environment has changed, they might be in danger and would be first in line for the Orc Bands nearby.

After some more talk about the town Samantha and Harris got into a small spat about what the Mayor’s offices doing and how they either do too little or too much. Harris was arguing that they weren’t doing enough in terms of preparation for the winter. Samantha believes that the Mayor’s office is focusing more on the people within the town than to deal with the winter. Lana and I mostly stayed out of this argument, mostly because this was after the recent revelations that our payment structure was going to involve Mayoral Edicts. We did interject every once and a while, more for clarification on things that Samantha or Harris got wrong or were misleading against but it was mostly a light argument between the two of them. Lana and I had our own little discussion about the payment structure we’ve gotten into. It was light planning about what we might be doing in the next couple of days before the weather gets too bad to go out on expeditions.

After it hit 11pm that night, we decided to call it the ends for the night. I walked Lana home that night to be polite and to continue our discussion of what our future work would be. Lana had said that when the winter rolls around, she is probably going to stay in town a bit more and do more Town Defense work. She has even started to talk to the police around the town to get a better idea of what they do and how she would help and has signed up for a couple rounds early to get a feel. She suggest that I should join as well, saying that it would be good for me after my recent expedition results and I said that I would think about it. In truth, I have wanted to go out for another expedition, maybe a week after I’m cleared for field work and after studying the reports. I don’t want to mention it to Lana for fear of her feeling guilted into coming along since we’ve been a pretty good team so far but I feel like I have to go and confirm some of my suspicions.

Since that night, I’ve had some free time between not being allowed to train and not being allowed to go out on expeditions. I’ve been spending that free time reviewing the reports we got back from the latest expeditions and have been using them to both fill out my Bestiary and to track the movement of the monsters we know of so far. This continued research is what sparked my want to go out for another expedition since some of the points I connected about the Chimera that have been spotted in the area put up questions I’m worried about.

As I write this entry, the reports that I’ve gone over show that at least 4 different Chimera within a 15 miles radius of the town that have shown to hunt larger animals (bears, deer, elk etc.) and at least from what we’ve seen of at least 3 of those Chimera; we assume they have enough of an aggression level (something that I haven’t solidified yet) that they would attack the town if close enough. Yet not of them have done so and from the Rangers who patrol around the town, I've gathered that they haven’t seen anything of the sort. The two Manticore types reported are known to be testy when near other Chimeras and would have no distinction of aggression between a Chimera and us humans near them. So them not attacking us, let alone not going at each other’s throats is bizarre and has to be motivated by something else.

I think that ‘something else’ is currently still here and I’d like to check out the surrounding area of the time to see what it is. Whatever that thing is might not be here for long and I would like to know what it is before it moves on and we have to go back to Chimera Royal. Do I have anything to prove these things? Nothing besides the connections I’ve made through the reports and locally posted Rangers. Could it be real? I don’t know but with the things that I’ve experienced; it could be. The only thing I have to really point to as solid evidence is that a two of the Ranger Troops that came back later than the rest. they say that they saw something in the sky for a brief moment in between the rain clouds. The descriptions they gave isn't very good but the one aspects both troops agree on is that whatever glimpse they had of it was a metallic blue to azure color and had scales. Is this enough to really stake an entire expedition on? No. Which is why the actual expedition is meant more to scout out the Chimeras in the areas and see if any movement has happened in their territories. Looking for whatever has kept them Chimeras from going at each other is more of side objective that I want to look into.

With that said, I can only hope that I get released for active duty soon. It only been less than a week and it still feel like forever.