9/2/1 AME
Journal Entry #14
Sometimes, your friends will try and hold you back. They care for you, but that doesn’t mean they are in the right to do so. Or at least not right to stop you. Sometimes, you have to take risks and you have to just trust that your friends will still be there when it’s over.
Now if that isn’t a bit of an ominous way to start of this entry, then its best to understand that although I say that; none of them are actually very adamant about stopping me. Most of them just don’t think I should go so soon after the last expedition.
To give some context; I was released for active duty 5 days ago. Before that though I had made the case for a basic expedition to Range Master Davith and although he was somewhat hesitant, he did agree that it would be a good idea (at least for the Bestiary). He said he would talk to the higher ups of the Ranger Corp and managed to get me the go-ahead. At least to a degree.
What happened was that the initial request was soft denied. From how Davith described it; they thought it would be a decent idea but without anything really concrete to look after, it would be best if this was done as an additional objective to a more concrete expedition goal. Davith hadn’t mentioned the Bestiary to them yet, agreeing with me that although it would be helpful, its current state wouldn’t do much good and it would need more before it could be copied and used for even basic study. This meant that reason given for the expedition wasn’t as strong (that being release of the rain finally allowing for animals and beast time out to explore and move).
Davith was going to try again after another couple of days but was brought up back the day after he proposed it and was told that it was going to be sanctioned as a secondary objective and was tasked with picking a couple Rags to accompany some Rangers for teams of two.
Turns out that the Mayor’s Office had proposed a Mayoral Edict, one that was more geared towards Ranger primary participation as it requires some travel into the woods and forest around town. It is apparently going to be a multi-stage project as the Edict is for the marking and counting of possible trees for harvest.
What for? A town wall.
Now this is pretty big deal since it means that the Mayor has actually listened to the Rangers when they put in the worry that the Chimeras might attack and having some sort of defense is better than none. It does come with the caveat that this was implemented quite late and that a wall for the whole town is going to require a load of trees and a lot of work to build.
The town holds about 2,000 people and currently has the issue that it’s quite spread out. How they are going to set up a wall of tree trunks around the town is yet to be known. My guess, knowing that this seems to be a multi-stage project from the people from the Mayor’s Office I’ve managed to bump into and talk with some associates from my old days as a Messenger, is that the first stage of this project is probably going to be a protected center of town. An area within the middle of town will be made into a secure gated zone with a couple of large gates to allow for multiple avenues of entry. This would be a decent starter for the protection of the citizens as they could use it during time of great distress and have it always be secure/replaceable until a larger town wall can be erected.
I don’t know how large the wall and gates would be but I could see it being probably just around the town church and school. Both of those places are large and can hold a good deal of people, if not comfortably for a time. Depending on how large they make this bailey position, they might be able to add a couple smaller buildings to it and have it be pretty defensible with additions.
It’s a good idea in concept but in my opinion, comes too late to be implemented properly. It’s currently September and we’ve been in the fall for at least a week now. Yes, for all I know, the trees stop growing now and its best to cut them down now rather than a couple of months ago but from what I’ve been seeing of who’s going in and out of the Mayor’s Office, these plans have only been thought up this month and we haven’t taken too much action as to what we are doing. From those people I’ve talked to, I honestly doubt the Mayor’s Office had any idea aside from ‘the wall’ and just started rolling with it. It would take a lot of trees to even get that small zone ready and us Rangers are just supposed to go out a mark some two dozen trees each for the wall in a couple of weeks.
The logistics bother me is what I’m trying to put down. Not my job to worry about that but when I’m not planning out the route for this expedition, my mind wonders.
Anyway, I’m being set up with Range Master Jacob for this expedition and it’s going to be just us for the moment. Since this expedition is mostly going to be staying within an ~8 miles radius of town (for the collection of the nearby trees), the Troops that are being sent out are only pairs of Rangers or Ranger/Rag pairings. We aren’t expected to come across any chimera so the Troops are being designed to be small and mobile; with the current equipment reflect such.
The pack I’ve just finished preparing is just a little more than the basics; sleeping bag, string and wire, flint and steel, enough rations for 1 week, 1 small medical kit (disinfectant, bandages, gauss and some antibiotics), camping knife and a compass. We have some space for other items if we feel like we need them but some are banned; like tents, flares and more than one box of ammunition for your chosen weapon. Due to practicing with it regularly now, I’ve signed into personal designation an old lever action that Davith began to lend to me; Chiappa 1892 Wildlands. I think I’m just better aiming or dealing with manual action weapons since I always seem to gravitate towards them. It an objectively stupid thing to say and use in more modern times so I hope whoever is reading this goes for any actual semi-automatic or automatic rifles instead of a modern antique but something stops me from using more modern rifles accurately. The Wildlands is the better of the lever actions I’ve been practicing with for a time now. I’m thinking of buying this one off of Davith as I’ve been taking care of it for a while now. Maybe he still has the care manual somewhere.
While not banned or suggested to bring; I’m taking the head-dress and the short-spear that I took from the defeated orc on my least expedition. I don’t think it will be especially helpful for the expedition but I have a theory that it might help if we encounter any small orc band we might come across. While not likely, it does feel like doing so is some sort of insurance against either another attack or at least show a warning. This feeling might be because of the headdress and short-spear itself being something of this ‘new world’. The headdress, which is like some sort of cross between a Native American Warbonnet and some Central American helmet/mask, seems to be made up of feathers and scales from Chimeras. I’ve gone over it with Range Master Davith and Range Master Thomas and only about two of the feathers are from birds that would have been considered native to this area; a falcon and a vulture. Everything else though doesn’t look as though it has an origin in the ‘old world’.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
The short-spear is itself somewhat of a strange item to bring but it does make a good walking stick at time and it has both a point and a serrated edge to the spear head. It’s not very great, but could help for small cuts to wood or other things. The spear head itself if a longer than a normal spear head as well which has it act more like a short sword-spear. What make the short-spear/sword-spear interesting is the material of it. Both the wood and the metal aren’t something we know of as part of the old world. While the wood is similar to pine, it seems less absorbent and sturdier when in terms of blunt force trauma. It’s probably still alive too some degree too since the several scratches that I’ve made on the haft accidentally don’t stay around and seem to heal back. It’s not impossible to leave a mark as I managed to inscribe my initial into the half near the bottom of the short-spear but it took my hours of using a knife to etch the initials every 30~40 minutes to get it to stick.
It seem like you can ‘scar’ the wood if you want to but it requires more continuous scratching to keep any ‘healed’ wood off color enough to keep its marking. Although I don’t know if this marking won’t fade with time either.
The metals is also interesting too since it seems to have some interesting properties as well. Its naturally magnetic, although pretty low in strength and doesn’t seem to rust easy. From what little testing we did with it (and by ‘we’ I mean Harris and Range Master Davith), we manage to find out its conductive and abnormally heat resistant. It’s pretty hard to work with when it comes to shaping/deformation as proven when we took a blow-torch to one of the serrated blades to try and bend it and it didn’t work. Even when the metal was orange with heat, it refused to be bent. Pretty neat all in all but we would probably need more of the metal to truly make some test of the stuff. The way the short-spear was designed, it functions a primitive multi-tool in some fashion since it seems to create sparks too if scrapped with a flint rod. I’ve even used other rocks in testing and it seem to work with those as well which makes it a pretty functional tool all around.
With this in the pack for the expedition that is going to be started in the next couple of days, a couple of the usual items can be left behind. This does make the pack a bit lighter which is helpful but this expedition shouldn’t be a very dangerous one to need the weight loss.
That hasn’t stopped most of my friends from advising against this expedition. This is where my idea of “holding you back” comes from. I don’t think they are doing it intentionally but the way they push, it really does feel like they are. And it’s not even because they have decent points, it’s those looks of worry with a strange mix of either pity or apprehension. Or something. I can’t really place that emotion that will exist in between the look of pity or worry before they try to give you a nice smile. If you become a Ranger, maybe you’ll see it and be able to place it.
Lana is both the worst and the best. Probably because she is also a Rag and was on the last expedition. She was an initially angry at me for not telling her about setting it up without her but after a bit of an explanation of the expedition and the Mayoral Edict, she lightened up on me slightly. Range Master Jacob told me a bit later that he had to experience a bit of the brunt of her anger since he didn’t mention it to her too. After the initial burst of anger though, she gave me a small lecture about not giving myself time for breather between expeditions and how I really should try to hold back of them. Unlike everyone else though, she didn’t insist that not go. Just wished I didn't.
She didn’t even bring it up after that initial lecture/talk. She did suggest that I should join her on one of her patrols around the town before I left; saying it was to get a feel for work for when I get back. She’s been on a couple since we’ve been back and apparently has a favorite route with some of the officers who have transitioned into that work.
I agreed to it but it looks like I won’t be able to since they moved up the expedition date. I going to tell her tomorrow. I hope she isn’t going to too disappointed in me for failing that promise.
Samantha wasn’t very happy when she found out. Mostly because she disagreed with my release from the hospital and believed that I was basically writing my death warrant with the expedition. She was also the one who told everyone else (except Lana, she knew earlier) when she found out. The first couple of days were her just complaining about how my body wasn’t entirely healed up yet and that too much strenuous activity was going to drive me to early exhaustion whenever I would head in for the day in the jailhouse. It let up a little after I was able to walk around without any issues (something that was a bit of an issue for a week after being release from the hospital) but she didn’t stop trying to dissuade me from taking part in this expedition with other facts about my supposed health being a detriment. I can’t say it didn’t get me to think about it but it is hard to take her seriously when Elisa is nearby, either shaking her head or snorting every other comment or so.
It would be somewhat funny if it didn’t happen every time we had a moment together. Elisa has explained that although what Samantha was saying has some degree of truth to it, it had mostly been overblown and a lot of it was just exaggerated worry.
It was during this half week of everyone attempting to stop my expedition experience that I got a little closer to Elisa. With how often Samantha would harp on about my health, I began to avoid her somewhat which led to using Elisa as my ‘Samantha shield’ which got us talking some more. Since she didn’t care about me to the same extent as Samantha (I think), she also didn’t want me to go but cared less about changing that outcome. It was somewhat refreshing to have talks with her since it was usually never to do with the actual expedition I was going to go on or about my work. She talked about her work but not so much that it would dominate discussions.
From talking with her now and remembering what she was like before, it’s clear that she has either gotten over the loss of the access/knowledge of her family or she’s gotten accustomed to the loss. You can see a bit of that sadness if you bring up family but outside of that, she seems to have settled emotionally. Which means I got to experience her very dry humor and wit full force in our talks. It sort of surprises me how she and Samantha are friends considering their mannerisms seem like polar opposite. Samantha is overly caring and mushy. Elisa is a cold shoulder with a pricks. Samantha can never make a joke that isn’t painful to get through, Elisa can make her jokes painful. She is honestly fun to hang out and talk with and I’m glad to have gotten this chance to deepen our friendship outside Samantha. Honestly, she makes coming back alive a certainty since she’ll tell me some dirty jokes she heard from her coroner dad.
Harris seems to be on the fence about it. He doesn’t really want me to go since he remembers the hospital visits and my complaining about that but he also seem to like the idea of me going out to brave the wilderness of this new world. Whenever we talks, he tries real hard to try and avoid talking about my expedition but continues to talk about how it would be annoying if I got hurt real bad again and how it would be pretty boring without me to shoot the shit with. Whenever we managed to talk about something that isn’t work, its mostly fine but when he shoots up (which he probably did at least 3 days ago), he tends to talk and focus on work to attempt to ‘ground himself’ and not look like an obvious guy who shot up. Which leads back to the original issue of him going around in circles about wanting me to go and wanting me not to die.
Which leads me into that opening paragraph. I’ve written this a lot but to whoever reading this; this journal is just as much as it for you and it is for me. I am organizing my thoughts, feelings and drives and hoping that whatever lessons I pull from them are things you can use earlier than I could ever do so. In this case, it is important to realize that your friends will sometimes hold you back. It might be just one event or for one item, but sometimes you have to make your own decisions and take a leap. They will mostly like still be your friends if you succeed or fail, but the act of failing or succeeding is only in your hands.