When the Lights Went Out [Emberverse, Waifu Catalog Challenge fic]

Imperator Pax · Aug 16, 2021

When the Lights Went Out [Emberverse, Waifu Catalog Challenge fic]

21 March 1998
The Change +3

He remembered the sheet lighting in the sky, but there had been none of the tell tale signs of what might indicate a mundane explanation to this whole horrible mess. A nuclear exchange would have been preferable. A nuclear exchange wouldn't have made guns and cars stop working, Alexander mused as he ejected the magazine from the Sig, and racked the slide to ensure clear. This thing was nothing more than a paperweight now.

He thought about the chaos that had erupted a few nights before. The drunken revelries of St Paddies day festivities suddenly interrupted by the underpinnings of all modern society yanked out from under humanity's collective feet... and yeah having gotten a look at the chaos erupting around main street back in the town they had left... he considered how hard it would be to kill the allegedly human gestalt mind that was fucking the planet over.

Alexander considered the useless pistol in his hand, with a grimace he unloaded it. He cleared the slide again just out of habit. The pistol wasn't the only thing that was useless. He wondered if black powder was similarly effected, if cordite, but the answer was probably yes. The malicious intelligence that had condemned billions of humans to die on some nebulous excuse of doing what was right, or some shit, probably hadn't stopped at powders invented after 1890.

That wasn't the only change to chemistry that had been done. It hadn't helped that it had struck on St Patrick's day. A bunch of drunk idiots being stripped of all their modern amenities, of course a riot had been quick to break out. At least they weren't in Boston, or New York, he supposed that was some kind of silver lining.

Alexander was a large man, with a build like an offensive lineman. It was the sort of build that, with as important as American Football was he didn't attract quite so much attention here. There was no telling whether the gun would at some point be useful again... but if it was stored securely, then it would be ready to go even a century from now.

He looked at the horse trailer, to the bey, and roan, and then to the woman. They were both dressed in common enough clothes for the late nineties. Jeans, and flannel fit well especially here. The hiking packs they carried wouldn't aggravate the horses. The fact none of it was in any sort of military pattern camo meant it was less likely to draw attention.

The loss of everything electrical was enough to be a problem for everyone else. It was long way back to the ranch. The fight though that had yielded the gun had involved a dispute over travel. Cars were all stopped all up and down both sides of the road. People were arguing about everything, up to and including whether the Russians, or in one case the Chinese, had nuked the US. It was amazing no one ever considered the French as potentially responsible for any potential nuking. "Are we prepared?" Mikoto asked, sounding as refined and elegant as questioning whether they would be going out to dinner.

He looked at the horses, and nodded, and began the process of saddling them. It was just as well there were no saddle scabbards for lever actions. He had a bow that he could use from horseback, but he would have preferred it not come to that. He most certainly hoped it wouldn't come to the matter of having to use ninjutsu. There chances were good any instances of throwing lightning would spook the horses.

She took the roan, leaving him the bey. Even if they had had more horses it would have been stupid to do something stupid like run them ragged for no reason. For the sake of cover and travel, it would have been nice to have spare mounts, or at least a pack animal, but they didn't'. Not here.

The best solution was to travel slowly and steadily. "We are." He answered before swinging up onto his own saddle.
–
Mike Havel had been having a rough couple of days since the interrupted flight of taking the Larson family up so maybe the bout of hyperawareness was stress talking. The feathers were probably from an owl. It was a fucking surreal observation in the context given that the amount of energy an arrow needed to do that. That in this case was punch through a man's chest and pin him physically a tree. Regardless of that Havel was pretty sure the feathers on the birch shaft were from an owl.

With the last of men dead the two new comers lowered their bows, which was a relief. Mike Havel had no interest in being shishkabobbed on 40 inches of birch shaft like the skin head.

"Hello there," Mr Larson greeted putting on a friendly smile, and speaking with a polite, and friendly tone. The woman was Asian, Japanese probably, Havel would bet. Maybe second generation, from the way she was dressed, but it was definitely a Japanese style bow. Her boyfriend, or husband, or just friend was … maybe a Swede, probably not a finn, but some of the facial features suggested they could be. He doubted it mattered... "I'm Ken, this is Mike."

"Alexander," The man stated, his accent was more eastern, Educated, but it was hard to place. "My wife Mikoto." He nodded to the woman, looped his bow across his saddle, and dismounted. Ex Mil. Not necessarily Marine Corp but someone who had seen combat he figured. And of course he had just shown no problems when time called to skewer the kind of lunatic who's first reaction to the world ending was to decide to jump to enslave black folks. "Thats a pukko." The Finnish pronunciation was correct, so maybe some stripe of eastern Swede.

Havel nodded, and sheathed his readied belt knife. "That's a sword," He commented wryly.

"I am very disappointed that guns no longer work." Alexander replied with bitter amusement at his reply.

That sounded like a fucking understatement, Mike thought. "Yeah, me too." He said in response. "Do you know what happened."

"Magic." He replied, "Or divine assholery I suppose."

Kenneth snorted, and held back a laugh even though he clearly wanted to at the comment. "I mean yeah chemistry does seem to have taken a sabbatical." He replied. They all stopped and looked at the still bound captives. The silence lengthened, and nobody joked while they freed the Huttons from bondage. After introductions, and explanations they relaxed a bit.

"Yeah we were flying out to our own ranch in Montana." Ken remarked, "I guess your idea of riding is a little more practical now. You use that?"

"I know how to," Alexander replied, "But I have not needed to."

Mike really would have expected Eric to be the one asking these sorts of questions, but the Larson son was still running to the well, or probably coming back with it. "You're going west then?"

"East, into Montana." The horse archer replied. "and you?"

That was awkward, they had talked about it... but given the situation at hand nothing final. Ken glanced towards Mike, who shrugged back to the recently widowed father of three, "The Willamette valley. Oregon." He said, "We've got a farm there."
--

Commentary: In addition to being based on my build for the Emberverse Waifu Catalog Challenge this also incorporated ideas from another older story idea, which was a Dies the Fire x Longmire Mysteries crossover that never went anywhere.

Now in terms of content rating I won't say it won't be mature audiences, but basically roughly on par with Dies the Fire, or the Longmire novels. I don't really see a point in putting it in NSFW. Now unlike the original version I will probably alternate between 'Clan Bear' and the Absaroaka plotline even though there is eight hundred miles easy between Corvallis and 'Absaroaka' Wyoming.

The current build (credit expenditure) is as follows
Body Talent
Cost: 5
You lift. Your body is now in perfect fitness and health, with significant muscle growth, within healthy human standards. If your natural height was less, you are now at least 190 cm tall. (Your clothes are all resized to fit.) All skin blemishes and unwanted body hair are erased. You are immune to minor illnesses, but not disease or injury. You also have immortality and eternal youth. If you are older than 25 years, your body is reset to that point, otherwise you'll continue to mature to that point but not experience any aging afterwards. The "Fog of Ages" will never affect you. The individual benefits of this Talent may also apply, at your discretion, to any/all of your purchased and captured waifus.
9 Points: Chakra Level Kage

Pick one of the five elements of Naruto (Fire, Water, Air, Earth, Lightning). That will be your main affinity and you will be able to use a pretty much any Jutsu around that element, since to are now able to use the element to its absolute limit. Your taijutsu is unmatched. The Sannin perk comes free. You can grow over time to reach other levels, this is just your starting point. Additionally, you will have mastered a dozen advanced Jutsu and six hidden Jutsu. With a master level understanding of Fuinjutsu. If the technique is elemental like corrosive or oil, then you will need a element or Kekkei Genkai that corresponds to that type. You are also granted two special techniques. And finally you are granted a free Kekkei Genkai. Your Chakra is rivaled only by Naruto at the end of the Naruto series, with manipulation of Chakra rivaling that of Sakura as she is in the series at this point. If you have purchased a previous chakra, then you only need to pay the difference (The Jutsu, Element and all that stay the same).

50 Points: Sweet Home

A 2,000 sq km pocket dimension, centered on a 1,000 sq m mansion with every living area and workshop you and your waifus might need. A dedicated portal room allows pedestrian or vehicle access to your starting world and anywhere else you travel to. Portals are usuable only by you, your purchased and captured waifus, and friendlies you invite; neutral, hostile, and uninvited eyes will pass right by. The default landscape is a tropical island paradise with a standard day/night cycle and perfect weather every day, while the default mansion has a western style similar to those on Martha's Vineyard. A control room deep in the mansion will allow you to customize both the landscape and mansion however you like, but be careful: the controls will not protect anyone currently in an area in the process of rearrangement from harm. However you set the landscape, it will populate itself with biome-appropriate wildlife from a recognizable Earth, without any issues from invasive species, implanted transmitters, pollutants, unwanted predators, etc. If you purchase Heavenbuilt, your starship will be able to travel to and land in your pocket dimension regardless of whether or not it has a multiversal drive; some rearrangement may be necessary for especially large dreadnoughts.

Uchiha Mikoto 20cr

Imperator Pax · Aug 24, 2021

Scenic National Bypass
Part 2

They had cleared a place along the side of the 'northwest scenic bypass' aka Highway 12 near the Lochsa river to make camp. The fact that there were idiots in Idaho whose very first inclination to oh the power doesn't work anymore, guns don't work for some reason, were to pick up hunting bows and then try and enslave the first black / latino people they'd found was... disconcerting to say the least. It had been dumb luck that they'd stumbled into the mess, but somewhat horrifying all the same.

The rioting at least made sense. He could understand that. Alexander turned his attention from the Huttons, to the Larsons, and then settled his gaze on Mike Havel. Before the change Havel had been flying the Larsons complete family unit to their ranch up in the Bitterroot valley, other side of the border. The Change had forced them to put the plane down in a hard landing... and the injuries there in had resulted in Mary Larson's death. They'd apparently buried her at the trailhead overlooking the lake.

Kenneth Larson was the oldest, and his youngest daughter the bottom of the age bracket. His older daughter, and son, and the Huttons daughter were all in the same age cohort. Havel was probably in his early thirties the same as Alexander himself, and Mikoto, and the Huttons somewhere closer to Larson's age.

Alexander set his canteen cup down, as the older man finished his outline. "Thats," He looked at the road map of the western united states probably taken from an abandoned car somewhere along the road behind the Larsons, or one of the ranger stations along the way, "Five hundred miles." Mike chimed in some bit of trivia about the mongols crossing that kind of distance by switching horses as they road across the steppe that he had been told during a Force Recon during the lead up to the liberation of Kuwait.

The problem with that was of course that they didn't have that many spare animals. A pity. The terrain was in all honesty less of an issue, and given the the facts involved, such a short trip probably would have meant not really needing to stop for food. Not that it was a bad idea, and the mongols idea of messenger stations would be good in a world where phones didn't work any more.

It wasn't, but it was getting ahead of themselves. "Mongols were used to riding eight hours a day, and had more horses than people. I don't think we'll get there any time soon." Will Hutton remarked laying his stetson across his knee and reaching for the coffee he had brewed in their cat iron camper. "Still you're right its an idea." He remarked half turning to Havel as he waited for his caffeine rich brew to cool.

"That's about right as the crow flies though," And highway twelve would take them most of the way, if they wanted to all the way to Lewiston, and out of Idaho, and on until it ended at the Columbia River. "What about you?"

He shrugged and leaned back on the cedar log serving as a bench by the fire, "Go back to Absaroaka," Alex replied before sipping the tea. He probably shouldn't brewed it, it and coffee was going to be scarce soon... and he really didn't need the caffeine. "I would say, or like to say, that things will be less insane there," He didn't know the names of the men who were dead. Mike and Ken had introduced themselves to whackos but Alex didn't really care. "I have a ranch to get back to, just like you've got a farm."

"I understand." Kenneth Larson replied pushing the beans around the pan sitting a top the fire.

Mike Havel listened the sounds of the archery practice while the kids ate. His, and Her bows were easy to distinguish the difference between. The bows were different, the shafts, and fletchings were different. Alexander's wife seemed to be using hawk feathers. They both were adept at shooting from horseback, which said something. He wasn't sure what it meant.

It made sense that they weren't coming with them to the Willamette valley though. The Larsen place made sense to Mike, "Don't take this the wrong way, bows are great and all." The men perked, "And swords are cool, and manly and all those things, but we might want to think about spears."

"A knights," what more accurately for the period Milites, "weapons were spear," later lance, "and sword. Mongols and Norsemen all frequently carried an axe with them as well." Alexander remarked, "And I admit this," He patted the scabbard, "Was something for HEMA, otherwise I'd have brought armor, or better yet stayed home on the range." There were some chuckles.

HEMA was Historical European Martial Arts. It was apparently just starting to catch on Havel had been told. It sounded like an interesting idea. Of all the stuff to do in your spare time, yeah, it definitely seemed like it'd be useful in a world without guns. They had already had one conversation with Ken opining on the benefits of salvaging spring steel to make weapons. "what's your opinion on the Naginata, or is that a woman's weapon?"

He raised an eyebrow, "I really do hate that particular myth. Its a capable weapon, but it was used by both genders of the Samurai class, as well as clergy, priests, monks, and so forth."

"So that's a yes, then." He asked, and Alexander's head bobbed in the affirmative. Mike looked at Will Hutton, who cocked his head over his shoulder at the tools they had available. There was a twang as the arrow launched. "So you think it'll be back to chain mail and axes then?"

"Given the idiots, I expect so."

"Given those fuckers," Hutton spat, "I expect a lot of assholes putting on horned helmets." He was probably right. "Guns not working, cars don't work, we're back to muscle powered weapons, and using axes and swords. Everyone is going to do that, just to fight off anybody deciding its a good idea to enslave anyone next door."

Eric Larson wisely kept eating while the older men talked. Mike caught the younger man's eyes and nodded, "Will's got a point," The texan grunted half affirmative half inquiring to the statement, "about the horned helmet thing to, I saw your book?"

Eric couldn't help himself, "Book?"

"Voluspa, and Havamal," Alex reached for the rucksack and fished the book out. It was probably four by six inches tall and finger thin made out waterproof field paper in a khaki color. He tossed to it to Eric who thankfully didn't fumble it into his beans, "I don't any of the idiots have read that, but it'll be all pop culture stereotypes for a while I reckon."

"And then of course we will probably get to people figuring out what from back then works."

"Once the dying times finished."

"Yes. Once that plays out." He rested his hand on his belt. "Like I said when we first met. I'm very unhappy that guns don't work. This would be so much less catastrophically bad if it had only been nuclear war. Not, whatever asshole alien space bat thought he was teaching humanity a lesson or whatever." MIke noticed the way his wife had turned as the dark edge crawled into his voice.

"Just gonna have to live like its the middle ages then?" Eric asked.

"In a sense, but don't think for a moment anyone is going to be living like kings."

"Most nobles actually had to work for a living. Either as soldiers, or making crafts. The separation of the aristocracy from the working population was predominantly an early modern phenomenon, and even that still entailed military service until it was superseded by professional officers, and that took until the Napoleonic era to take hold. Without guns any would be feudal land holder is going to have to fight for it, or at least be able to direct troops effectively against the would be lord humungus types."

Mike bit down a laugh at the Mad Max reference.
–
Commentary: Part 2 of the intro, a little about this. I will find and link the challenge post from the Waifu Catalog thread, and if you like that sort of thing Brian Boru has also done his own version I don't know how far he got in his but it'd probably be worth a look. So yeah more information pending. I think that this story is an interesting trip down the rabbit hole of a weird and wacky nineties fiction universe (yeah I know Emberverse didn't finish until ... holy shit 2018 geez.)

Imperator Pax · Sep 6, 2021

Under the Western Sky
Part 1
--

Alexander rolled up his montbell sleeping bag, even though it was turning into late march Idaho still had patches of snow on the ground in places. The bag was still something overkill, or would have been for a day hike, and only going two decades of having gotten used to using a sleeping bag, or bivy kept Alexander from not travelling with one... and that was useful in the here and now.

Havel had been right about scrounging through the stopped and abandoned cars for supplies. It had taken a while though to find ones with useful supplies. Too many out of state sight see-ers from more urban parts of the country from all the rental cars, Alexander would have guessed, but that still didn't explain the absence of people that they had encountered or not encountered. Either way They had something approaching a base camp... not that it mattered now.

"Guess we'll be parting ways before long." The texan declared.

Alexander looked to the black cowboy, and nodded, "I reckon so." One tracking east back to Wyoming, another party out west to the Larson's farm.

Hutton looked around at the abandoned cars in the campground parking lot, "At least there isn't any blood."

"To be honest blood would be more reassuring." Alexander replied, as he started to fold the thermal sleeping mat that had been under the sleeping bag. "Not having any indication of what happened just puts me more on edge." There was trash at least in the bins, and the vending machines hadn't been broken into, which wasn't... he wasn't sure what to make of that... well the vending machines hadn't been broken into when they had gotten here. "I don't understand why we haven't seen anyone besides..."

"Those bastards."

"Yes." He agreed. "That could have been worse." Alexander at the time hadn't been concerned how others might have viewed his willingness to put down the would be modern slavers, the Larsons hadn't had any objections to, and Havel was presently thumbing through a dog eared copy Colonial Craftsmen with nary a care in the world at one of the picnic benches. "I'm glad there were only three of them."

"Yeah." Hutton grunted. "You and Mike, seem to get that, Viking stuff." Alex decided not to correct 'viking stuff'', whatever new age esque connection to his his primordial ancestors aside, and surely that must have been interesting in the late cold war Corp, that would be between Havel and Hutton to discuss, " And I agree with him, be a lot of assholes like that thinking they can put something over on anyone if they think they can get away with it." ... and it would have been nice if in a Just World. Not that there was any such thing. Not the world he had come from or this one where some malignant intelligence has stolen modernity away. Hutton kept talking, "So what would you have done if this was just a nuclear war instead... whatever this is, Alien Space Bats." Using the elder Larson's term.

"If guns still worked you mean?" He asked and received a nod, "I'd still go back to Absaroaka take my chances under the western sky. I don't want to even begin to think what the cities will look like by this point." .... and it was a comment that only made him consider the lack of other people they had encountered on the road. "If guns still worked it'd really be an even bigger reason to avoid the cities... and if it was just a nuclear exchange then there would be even less I could do about it. Whatever governments if any that remained would still have enough forces and organization to do their thing in their own spaces," However big or little they were. No, he'd want no part of that, "As it is. I doubt any of the pre change governments, none of the national ones anyway, still exist. Our political class at a national level is too old, and if cars don't work and phones don't work there is not way to keep the country together," He wondered if the telegraph worked? Would morse code still be audible down a line? Or were they reduced to the pony express, and just that?

Havel had looked up from his reading at some point, "So the HEMA thing?"

"I have armor at home, I guess I'll wear that." He replied, "HEMA is ultimately a sport, like modern kendo. More emphasis on participant safety and limitations for competition, so I won't say its perfect... and I think it'll be better than the SCA,"

"Society for Creative Anachronisms, or whatever."

"Yeah," He agreed, "And there are others, but that's something. I'm sure there are bad habits, or impractical habits, but it'll be somewhere to start that isn't reliant on just picking up a Louisville slugger and throwing on a leather jacket." Eric Larson laughed, "Not that there aren't plenty of modern accoutrements that will be useful. I'll be honest if I were in town I'd probably be looking at looting every home depot of every box of nails, bolts, washers, and looking for a good tool set.... because I don't know how well we can get to manufacturing standardized thread pitch without investing a lot of time into it." Then, "And as long as you have water flush toilets still work without electricity, thats bronze age technology right there." He added with a shake of his head, wondering how many people would forget that about sanitation... how many idiots would just start shitting in or behind any old bush.

Humanity had at best started industrializing four hundred years earlier, and really Europe, the continent, had only started playing catch up to the likes of England and America after 1815... hundreds of years of advancement undone... and billions going to die as a result.

He finished stuffing the sleeping gear into the compression sack.

"Astrid says that compound bow we took from those assholes," Orks to use the kid's description, "Is pretty good?"

Alex looked at Mike, and shrugged, "I'd take the kid's word for it. I don't shoot mechanical hunting bows, and Mikoto wouldn't know either. I mean I know a little about modern crossbow brands, but even at that I'm a neophyte."

When at last they parted Mikoto turned the roan towards the direction that they would take. "What do you think they will find nearer the pacific, husband?"

"Nothing good, my lady." Alexander swung himself up into the bey's saddle, "Nothing good at all. If Larson is right though, if all this started at Nantucket..." Nothing they could do really. The last news broadcast was news. It would be something to write down, insure that the written word survived and that eventually if they could, investigate whatever had happened that far east... but at least whatever back east had happened it was still in the United States, even if it was a goddamned overgrown sand bar completely unsuited to sustaining any kind of serious community.

They coaxed their horses onwards, and started the journey home, which was at least closer than the journey to the Williamette valley Havel and company had to make.
--
Commentary: This is shorter than I had originally planned, and this end note is longer than I intended, and will be broken up into several different topics. So Emberverse to start with, as mentioned above is related to set in the same 'multiverse' of sorts as Stirling's ISOT, in point of fact the Larsons actually know the Walkers (William Walker the main antagonist of Island in the Sea of time) but that plot point gets dropped basically in that book and to my knowledge (and I haven't read all of the Emberverse books, is never mentioned again. That won't be the case here, but anyway on to ISOT.

My biggest problem is honestly the cultural disconnect in ISOT, yeah its a little campy, but and its nineties fantasy story so I accept that, but Nantucket in no way should be able to sustain the agriculture it does in that book. Stirling's hard work will get us through is, no you would have had to move to the mainland and go farm there, and also native population density in that series is way higher than it would have been in the actually eleven hundreds bce but that's possibly in part more of a research has marched on since the book was written. Don't get me wrong if you want a silly over the top adventure, like I'll be honest I'd have enjoyed a book of nothing but Captain Alstead swashbuckling across the bronze age and fuck the mayor and his bullshit, just go high seas adventuring.

Anyway, I have declared that September shall be Isekai month, which of course means that I will be updating stuff like my DxD waifu catalog fic, my HSoD WC fic, Sufficiently advanced magic, and I'm going to try and update Out of the Dark this month. That if it happens will probably be at the end of the month. I am probably going to post updates for some of my stuff in the misc thread, and whether it has any interest or not I may take my MMORPG players get summoned into the world story and give it is own thread later in the month.

The other two possibilities are Against the Tide getting its own thread, its my Waifu Catalog story set in Weber's Out of the Dark Universe. If I do that I'm going to have to open Out of the Dark up and expand the material set during the Shongairi invasion/occupation of Earth. Or my 'Someone else's 19th. They have Giant Robots, and Dungeons.' Isekai Story. I probably won't update my original, or give it is own thread, Waifu catalog story (the sailor moon one), or the Gundam Seed (Gundam Multiverse later) story this month. Jumpchain Percy Jackson and the Olympians story will potentially get updates this month in addition to all the usual.

Anyway back to this, as I said this will be swapping between the canonical MCs, primarily Mike, Juniper will show up, and our SI.

Imperator Pax · Sep 20, 2021

Under the Western Sky
Part 2

The two weeks that had passed since the lights had gone out had done so as little more than a blur, as march had turned to April under the western sky. They had made the decision to avoid towns where possible, not that that had been completely possible, but they could largely bypass city centers and the distance back to western Wyoming wasn't so far as the journey that Havel and his people were going to have to make. If cars had been working still, if this had just been a nuclear exchange, then even that latter distance would have been nothing to really worry about... but they didn't. Internal Combustion engines didn't work for whatever stupid fucking reason, and Alexander was resigned to that fact.

Absaroaka meant Crow... in well Crow. No shortage of arguments had apparently broken out though in the time it had taken them to get back though. Without guns there was no power to maintain peace, especially in a world now bereft of electrical power to run all the conveniences of life. Before widespread electrification ices boxes had relied on blocks of ice separated with sawdust that had been cut from frozen lakes and rivers in winter to stock them. That had of course depended on rail cars pulled by locomotives that ran off electricity, or prior to coal fired steam engines, and those ice blocks would have delivered to ice boxes via horse drawn carriage. It was too late to practically harvest ice anyway, even if all the other infrastructure to take that had been in place, and refrigeration was out of the question, which was going to mean shortages of all sorts of foods. Absaroaka though was sparsely peopled, and without cars would be hard to reach. It would be nothing like the nearby towns, what passed for cities in Wyoming, like Sheridan and Campbell... and nothing at all like big cities in California like Los Angeles... but that didn't mean it was free of problems or interpersonal strife.

"You're off it Walter," An older voice spat thumping angrily across the floor as its owner stamped back and forth pacing in what had once been the county library, and before that a train station, "Even assuming guns still worked that cluster fuck in Sheridan is the sort of thing that we'd have called the State Militia up to handle." Even back east Sheriff was the sort of position where once elected it was in many cases de facto for life, or until retirement, and the speaker in question was the former Sheriff. Lucian Connally had been a world war 2 veteran, and his successor by choice was the man he was speaking to.

Walter Longmire's war had been Vietnam, and the current sheriff was larger than Alexander was, veritably towered over Lucian even if it was unintentional. Walter had gone to college on a football scholarship, and then commissioned into the marines, and seen through Tet, and then had been in the Sheriff's department since he had gotten out. The only reason he wasn't the largest man in the room was the presence of the other Vietnam vet in the room, Henry.

'Standing Bear' was no pun intended a bear of a man. Alexander took particular notice of the sheathed army issue Lagana tomahawk the MACV-SOG vet had carried in his time in Vietnam and across the border. Alexander crossed into the open door, and then to one side stepping beside Lucian nephew 'Turk' Connolly who was the most recent deputy to be hired on. The younger man thumbed the brim of his fancy Stetson, "Ferg's down in Powder Junction." He said, explaining the lack of the patrol's senior deputy, but then Powder Junction was Jim Ferguson's usual posting.

"Alex." At Walter's greeting, Lucian merely grunted.

"What happened in Sheridan?" He asked a little cautiously, and then "Where is the mayor?"

"Well the short answer to that is he's dead."

"He's missing."

"That fucking fuck up is dead, Walter. The idiots painted Sheridan red for St Paddies, and we haven't seen hide nor hair of him or the useless moron we call a county administrator. Its you and Selby," The presiding Judge for serious crimes. "And he certainly ain't going to fix this."

"That doesn't mean Steve Brandt is dead."

Lucian snorted at his chosen successor. Alexander didn't want to think of the current sheriff as being naive, and frankly he thought, 'did it really mattered if the mayor was alive or dead?' "What is going on."

"Oh its not just us pale faces who have a hard time of it." Lucian muttered, "The crow and northern Cheyenne, well," He jerked to Walter's best friend.

"Brandon's description of the reservation is arguably worse than what Walter, and I saw of Sheridan, though how much of that is a product of the Rez being worse to start with is academic." Henry commented. Everyone was as the expression went Irish on St Patrick's day, and it wasn't as if alcoholism wasn't rampant on the reservation to start with, but then there were other health problems. Diabetes, and the need for insulin came to mind... given two weeks had gone by Alexander suspected that medicine was either spoiled or had start to run out.

--
Mike Havel tried to resist the urge to pick at the stubble that had begun to grow in round the scars he had gotten from the bear. How much simpler it would have been if his Remington 700 had still worked, even if at the distance had been way closer than he'd have liked. A hundred and fifty feet was plenty close in his opinion to put a bear if he had the option... the bear fur was warm at night though. That was the only real upside to the whole encounter... well that and not being dead of course.

He wondered what would have happened if they had gone east instead. The Larsons, or Mr Larson rather had been opposed... and from his reasoning he understood why. The Larson place in the Montana countryside had been bought with money, and the Larsons weren't really from there... and if Ken was right there was some begrudging that from the Walkers. Not that Mike was entirely convinced that they'd really have roots going to the farm in the Willamette valley, but it sounded like a better plan... and he certainly wasn't going to say 'hey guys lets turn around'.

No, they were going to keep going west. He heard the grinding wheel slowly come to a stop as Will Hutton eased off pedaling to check his work. Cars might not run anymore but the spring steel in their brakes certainly made for making good blades... and with Ken and Will putting their minds to it it made for churning out a handy little arsenal for the merry band. Spears, and arrows mostly, swords were a lot of work, and Will was still working on the first sword. It wasn't going to be anything nearly as fancy as Alexander's blade. It wasn't fancy enough for what a king might have carried but with the base being as wide across as Mike's hand, and tapering to still being two fingers wide at the cutting edge before narrowing even further the sword had been impressive... and probably a ferocious cutter if Mike were to guess. It would be nice to have something like that, but he also knew that Will's first swords would be shorter. Arming swords in length, proper one handed swords without the longer grip.

Hopefully something nimble he thought glancing to the Texan, but anything would be good. Swords would be nice, but also the added protection of armor... he liked the idea, even if he didn't like the sweat and the weight it would bring and be of mail. "Not properly a knight's sword, but for maiming a piece of what used to be a car, it should do the job." The Texan drawled. "I told you I wasn't a blacksmith, but..."

"I'd rather have something." Mike agreed, thinking of if it came to needing to drop a spear, or transition.

"Saber was the better option since we're gonna be spending so much of our time in the saddle." The cowboy stated. Mike shrugged at the depressing reminder of how they'd been snapped back into the dark ages with no warning at all.

With a resigned exhale, he muttered, "Hakke Palle." Thats life now.

Imperator Pax · Oct 5, 2021

Under the Western Sky Part 3

Absaroka had never been especially high on the matter of Federal spending, or State spending for that matter so unlike Sheridan, or Campbell there had been little in the way of modernization to most of the amenities. Oh the public schools had been wired for internet which was the latest new fangled thing from back east, but like electricity that had stopped working with the Change.

He had been thinking about heliographs. They were a modern... well 19th century development but born out of speculation of ancient signaling. They would be safer than relying on beacons and signal fires and what not... they wouldn't need fuel. They'd need the fuel for other things. Alexander wondered how many people would upset that pumps weren't working without municipal power would forget that flush toilets were a bronze age technology... you just needed to refill the reservoir. The Industrial Revolution had given people time to tinker, and made life so much easier... and all that had been swept away.

Unfortunately even for somewhere like Absaroaka he doubted the forest service would have had an abundance of old heliographs to appropriate. Even for a place who's definition of new was well... in this part of Wyoming though... the definition of a 'recent' ranch tended to be 'and Jim or John or whoever came back from the War.' and the War meant World War 2. There were newer ranchettes than that, but they were so few on the ground and were largely attempts by city people from the coasts to make their own cowboy vacations.

At least those older places tended to have manual water access, but they were certainly going to have to do something for sanitation for town or Durant was going to be unlivable... assuming a fire didn't break out first.

Lucian banged through the door with all the tact of a bull in a china shop. "There you are, Walt he's in the library."

Alexander sighed and closed the book, "Lucian." The sheriff's office had at one point been the county library. The county library had relocated a few years earlier to a newer more modern building, but besides needing book storage space it wasn't as if the sheriff's office had needed the book storage space. Lucian calling it the library was still accurate, it wasn't as if Absaroaka really had need for a law library, not with the court house within walking distance even when cars had still worked, so the there were plenty of books stored on the second floor that just didn't get taken out much and sat there in a second collection.

The retired sheriff was dressed more or less normal, absent a gun belt for a pistol that no longer worked. The out of place thing was the hunting quiver strapped to his leg. Bow hunting was a bit more common across the border in Montana, but there was still a number of people who were passingly familiar with recurves. Plenty more were familiar with more modern compound hunting bows. That wasn't all good news of course. Modern fiberglass components would be near impossible to replace, or repair. It also meant there were enough people who could cause trouble at range, if it came to that. "Come on looks like we got some spill over from Sheridan, Ferg sent a runner about some bodies in powder junction."

Walter had called up a posse of what could be managed from the town, which on short notice was something on the order of a few dozen men. They had horses at least, which was the bigger requirement than weapons, but eventually that was going to have to change. The ride to powder junction had the advantage of a good road that had been cleared of any cars rendered immobile by the change. They'd probably have to organize siphon parties to collect the fuel... and then later strip the cars of other useful materials over time, but for now they just loomed ominous and dead on the sides of the road.
Even though it was April the road had snow drifs in some pends from the few inches of snow the state usually got in this time of the year and the run off from being under the bright sky would likely wear down the road without state and federal funding for roads, and modern technology to make repaving easy. Still with the road, and with horses the ride itself wasn't unbearable, and they reached the old railway spur town without incident.

The Ferg's palmetto pony waited with a few of Powder Junction's residents along carrying farm implements as weapons, which only contrasted to the bronze hilted short stabbing, Roman style, sword the deputy had. "Hi Walt."

"Ferg." The sheriff replied, "What did you find.

The heavier set deputy chewed his lower lip."

"Spillover from Sheridan?"

"Or Gillette maybe," Ferg replied, "But that's what it looks like, I don't recognize any of 'em."

"Road people." Lucian remarked. There was no quibbling as Ferg coaxed his skittish little horse along and back towards where it clearly didn't wish to return. The site was technically a massacre. Lucian got off his horse, probably for a minute forgetting that he had retired and and made for the corpses heedless of the burned hair smell. "Shoddy job trying to hide 'em." He muttered looking up from the half completed culvert the county had been putting in and then to the buzzards balefully sulking just out of reach.

The burning... and from the scattered broken charred glass, suggested someone had tried to make a molotov and not done a very good job of it. Most of the bodies looked like they had been bludgeoned to death a few showed cuts, and gashes that had probably been done with axes, or hatchets meant to cut wood not flesh. That plenty of skulls had just been bashed in with probably baseball bats. There were no horse tracks when they had come around, but Standing Bear and Walt had wandered off to leave Lucian by the bodies. "Where's that lead?"

"Old railway bridge, that ugly wrought iron thing crosses the river to Absalom, which is a world class shit hole in our empty patch of the world." Lucian grunted to the question. "Think these were tourists." He muttered looking at the branded hats and sweaters reading Gillette Wyoming. Whether they had been bought before the change or hastily bought before flight from the city was unknown. Lucian though had expected most tourists to try and make a run for Colarado, which probably didn't say anything good about was happening in the east of the state. "Yeah you missed the group of whackos from Washington. They said they took the canal, and river most of the way here."

"What do you mean?" He had been at home really since getting back trying to put things in order, and without working cars the ride to town was something of a chore.

"They came in from eastern Idaho." Someone down the line of horses muttered, "Scaly armor."

"Scaly?"

"Yeah," Lucian agreed, "It wasn't like your breastplate, it wasn't chain mail, and it damn sure wasn't taking a ned kelly affair," Or taking steel rifle plates and flak jackets as had been Vernon Shelley's idea to the sheriff. "The weirdo said he was from Portland, had come in through Lewiston. They were going up to see the Walkers in Montana before heading back."

"That's a hell of trip to go around with all this happening."

"Uh huh," One of the posse agreed hocking a mouthful of chewing tobacco into the culvert, "Seemed like they had places to be though."

Walter returned with Henry, "There is a plume of smoke across the river, looks like it started about an hour or two ago, only thing I can think is its Absalom burning."

"That's a pity." Lucian grunted. "I guess we better go look," He muttered swinging back up onto his horse. The Longmire ranch was up this way, though Walter leased the property to some friend from the army... or Navy... or someone he had known in 'Nam, or something these days... or had before the Change. They rode for there first and the inky black stain of the town across the river was more visible. The whole town wasn't burning but someone had clearly set part of the old train station on fire...

... guns might not work, but spotting scopes sure still did. "Probably old coal burning," Lucian remarked taking his turn. There was no visible fire, even as dusk approached just the cloud of smoke coming up from miles distant. "Probably will burn out before we can get over there in the morning."
--
The hoots and howls of wild men echoed across the soot stained street, but Alexander did not care, the silver crescent flashed forward in a rising cut that shored through the crazed fool's cheek, nose, and across one eye. The lunatic tumbled backwards as the longsword passed. They weren't dressed right to be wyoming natives. The night weather should have been enough that this psychotic group of malcontents should have been risking death dressing like they were since he doubted any of them had proper hunting or camping gear to speak of. He feet crunched through the two inches of april snow blackened by yesterday's fire as his extended arm withdrew.

Absalom Wyoming was a tiny town, not really even worth calling a town. The railway line that had run to it had faded into irrelevance when the coal mines had shut down... and from a purely census bureau standpoint the few hundred families weren't really in the town proper so much as the unincorporated bits around in the county proper. The only important thing in the town to the federal government was the post office. The local bank was irrelevant now with the change, and what passed for a hotel had seen better days long before the change.

He doubted there had been even a hundred people in town... and whether or not this lot had broken out some of the storefronts or that had already been done by the time they had rolled into town it didn't matter. Henry brought his tomahawk down into a ravening madman's soft exposed neck, and another man folded up as thwack sounded from Lucian's Barnett crossbow.

The crazies were starting to get the message, and plenty were heading for the hills. "What the fuck was all that about?" Lucian demanded.

It was a good question... but of course unfortunately this was to become all too part of the new normal.
--
Commentary: As the joke goes, what do wyoming and New Zealand have in common?

More sheep (I've heard livestock generic as well,) than people, Wyoming is a very large, but sparsely populated state.

In any event Juniper, and Norman and their respective factions won't be introduced until next month's updates. Next week's update (planned for monday) will involve Havel and friends road trip west through Lowell, and the Lewiston matter.

Imperator Pax · Oct 12, 2021

Under the Western Sky Part 4

Lucian scowled from behind the table he was seated behind, "I repeat myself, what the fuck was that about?" He growled. The retired sheriff had a point. None of this made anymore sense than ... well the change. They had found one guy, one dead, who had had his face half chewed off, and tthe crazy apparently cannibal psychos had run off into the old Coal mines of Absalom.

That had largely elicited good riddance, because those after decades of neglect were deemed to be death traps. Not that they'd been especially safe back in the day. Once upon a time though they had been the lifeblood of Absalom's economy until the seams had become too uncompetitive compared to other mines, and too dangerous too work especially with less modern equipment.

There had been plenty of reasons for the mines closing, and then the town withering away... but the idea that they might need the coal soon... well the Durant resident might have a point. "Might." Someone agreed... "But do you really want to go into those old tunnels without electric lighting?"

No one really did.

They would just have to leave the matter, for now. The immediate threat had been dealt with, and psychotic raving lunatics with a taste for human flesh or no without horses they should have been limited to a small geographic area in what was a very sparsely populated portion of sparsely populated county. Realistically they should starve or die of noxious fumes in the mines, but Alexander would have been lying to say that he believed that. There was something gravely wrong, something afoot.

Not that he was quite going to go all in on that position. Lucian had not taken the news from the Rez well. Henry's mother's family had apparently started talking about spirits. Not that it was just the White Buffalo. The Little Birds were another family going round with that sort of talk.

... and to tell the truth it wasn't just the Rez either. The whole world was going crazy and it had been merely weeks. Unlike southern Wyoming, though despite being damn near Montana they did still have plenty of shrub and grassland, they had long standing ranges of trees, "Any kind of barricade really," Strictly speaking even if he wasn't sure they could actually economically manufacture more barbed wire, certainly not in bulk quickly, "barbed wire would work," But as the expression went 'it was from one's neighbors towns learned to build tall walls'. "We have enough," In the short term.

The crazies, the eaters, who'd been run off into the mine shaft weren't going to be the only problem. Even if it wasn't necessarily a problem... yet... something was going on. Maybe it was just the lack of television, but all of a sudden there were Wyoming Irish suddenly dressing up in kilts and body paint... Lucian was particularly vocal about that, but it wasn't just that... there were a whole slew of anachronistic ... and in some cases down right pop culture... shifts in behavior modelled after 'historical' or based on historical cultures that seemed to have struck as much from the blue as the Change itself.

--
Ordinarily... back before everything had gone to shit it would have been like a two hour drive from Lowell to Lewiston. It was less than a hundred miles... and that was by going across the highways, none of which were straight. With horses they shouldn't have even needed a week to cross that amount of space, but a week also assumed that they were travelling. Havel had to consider what Lowell had really told them about how things had changed in just that amount of time.

The scar, from the bear, prominently marring the left side of his face itched at the thought.

'The Eaters' ... the prospect of people turning to cannibalism so quickly hadn't surprised him as much as it had Eric... but that wasn't the real delay to making it from Lowell to Lewiston. No, they were spending more time talking to people... what Legolamb had described sometimes derisively sometimes not as 'fetch quests' and more than that recruiting people as they moved along the road. They were trading... actually more so, than they were fighting, which was something that was good... given how long the road was proving their ultimate destination in Oregon might well have been the Saxon's crossing to England in the dark ages.

He didn't want to count his chickens before they hatched, but he, and Will and Ken... obviously... really needed to start talking about how all that as going to work. The 'Long Trek' ahead of them couldn't just end with them arriving at a hopefully intact farm valley and just expect that it would all unfold happily ever after... especially with the very real apparent danger of psychotic cannibals running around on the road side.

Hence the meeting of the bear killer leadership in one of the new tents that they had traded for, "I really don't like how fast the plague hit Lewiston. That's, beyond absurdly fast." Ken remarked stroking his expanding beard, "Its been weeks since the change, but the plague? Its a bacteria at the cause, and squirrels or no, I didn't think that it could possibly be a problem this fast." But the admission was at least that it had been possible... before the change there were a few cases a year so to speak but never an outright epidemic.

That was however the scale of what they were talking about. Lowell Idaho might have been tiny but they had still heard the word. "That's going to have to be something for Doc Arnstein," Will grunted, "But once we get settled its gonna be something to handle with policy. Government might be a dirty word but I don't see any way of fighting a disease like that other wise."

The other two men in the tent nodded, even if Havel had to stop himself from cursing at the notion. Ken probably had the best chance of organizing anything approaching a civil government structure ... and it was his land they were making for in the Oregon valley, but he was also the first to point out that with the complete break down of government there was going to be a need for a significantly more regimented and military system or responsibilities than had existed before the change. "Every household is going to have to produce something towards either actual military service, or to supporting troops, even if we never do any kind of expeditionary warfare without the ability to defend ourselves we'd be inviting trouble."

Hutton nodded, "Like I said anything thats worth having is going to be wanted by other people. I'm sure glad we have really only been fighting what amount to literal monsters or near enough, but soon or later more of those 'original sovereign' lunatics are going to come out of the wood work 'to reclaim the world' or crazies just as out there."

They had a bow maker... a sorry drunk of one, but they had one. Will was the closest thing they had to blacksmith, but they needed more specialized labor. Havel thought of all the horses that had died due to lack of veterinary care in the first world war... and that was what they were going to be doing since they didn't have any trucks at all, and no railways... even if the rails themselves could be used for horse drawn trams at least... but that was for something for Ken to play around with way down the road.

"We get right down to it something has fucked the laws of thermodynamics to a point," Ken grunted unhappily, "But we're going to need carpenters, and farmers, and draft animals, because we have to be looking forward six months," It was still relatively nippy in Idaho, in the morning in particular when people were just starting to wake up, but, "For not just winter as a cold weather front, but also from a food perspective." That was going to mean agriculture, feeding themselves over the winter absolutely could not be planned around simple foraging and hunting... no they needed to get across to the other side of the Nez Pearce Rez and into the Valley as soon as possible to start plotting for farming settlements, "Realistically we're going to want to put up barricades, even just cattle stockades for the herds we've traded for as is." They had been getting around the labor need for that by going to the old stand by of having the kids herd the bovines with long sticks since it freed up their parents for more skilled labor.
--
Commentary: So by the time that Havel and friends reached the Nez Pearce Reservation in Idaho (for reference this in the western half of the state) Hutton has put together the Bear Killer's first full length 11th century esque suit of maile. 'Chainmail', its knee length, and elbow length sleeves, but its being made with modern available tooling, and using modern repurposed materials.

Now leaving aside my personal hypothesis that using modern steel would probably result in a light suit of mail, this based purely on anecdotal friend has a suit of custom made mail and its weighs less than in the books weight, mail is a pretty good choice, especially from the perspective of making it out of what you have on hand. Gambeson is effective protection as well, and easier to make than properly made plate... and the big thing with making plate would be the hand fitting. Properly fitted plate armor gives you a lot of mobility (one thing I constantly complained to my DM about regarding 'arcane spell failure' in DnD back years ago). The learning curve for making armor and weapons is one of the points of much of the focus of canonically all the groups. Havel, as well as Juniper, as well as Norman, though Norman has the advantage of being nerd and having invested his professor's salary into medieval weapons and armor while still being married in the eighties and nineties.

Norman of course puts a lot of effort in asserting himself into power, and then organizing labor, but as I've mentioned Juniper in canon... does have the advantage of having stocks of readily available lumber... gets a palisade wall up and around the Mackenzie great hall and what not stupidly quickly. That's on top of all the other shit that they're doing. Like I cannot reiterate this one enough in terms of 'Holy Shit' that's fast, and we will get to that elsewhere as we introduce Juniper and Norman's intro segments next month. Just as next month will cover the first summer of the change and ... some of the events we've begun to touch on with the Eaters, and other threats. [Because the Change effecting how people think or encouraging this kind of gestalt cultural identity revival is how I explain/head canon some of the pulpy developments of the Emberverse.]

Imperator Pax · Nov 18, 2021

Under the Western Sky Part 5

Mikoto was only about Five Three. Slim at that, which of course by American standards of height was entirely average particularly for a woman in her age cohort and apparent ethnicity. Nisei and later Japanese Americans trended taller than native born Japanese... not that that particularly mattered. Montana and Wyoming even taken together did not have much in the way of an Asian population to begin with. There were some Vietnamese, or other 'indochina' ethnic groups, who had come over after Vietnam, there were smatterings of different ethnic Chinese in some of the cities. In American terms the Asian population of either state was only noticeable at least from back east terms because there were more asians than there were black folk... and still nine tenths of the states were white.

The important distinction Mikoto made was not racially, not really. No it the misinterpretation that Hollywood might not be entirely full of shit on things like 'waif-fu' movie fights... or how hollywood handled 'fantasy tropes'. ... like say that bows were the weapons of dainty nimble ladies with stick thin arms... which was at least currently being disabused of.

As most of her would be competitors had largely tapped out after firing only a few arrows from a full strength bow. Branch who was used to deer hunting had thrown in the towel after his tenth consecutive shot deciding to get a drink and cool off.

The reality of technological, and economic complexity... and of course the fact that large draft animals such as horses or for that matter protein sources like pigs, had only been introduced by the Spanish after 1500 into north America had meant that nomadic populations in north America had been millennium behind their Eurasian counterparts. At the time still dwelling in what was Mongolian the pre modern turks had earned that name by being skilled metal workers during the time the Kushans had still ruled wide swathes of northern India. A skill with metalworking that would eventually allow them to supply the army to overthrow, and chase the Avars all the way to the grasslands of Hungary in Europe.

If only they had a bunch of blackmiths by which to do that, or great herds of horses, Alexanger mused as he finished resharpening the longsword. Lucian had gone on a truly epic tirade about sword waving charges laden with a voluminous amount of profanity.... which might have had a point or more validity if only guns still worked. But, guns had not been what had broken the threat of the plains indians even if it had made it more practical. More complex steel manufacture, better agriculture, and the ability to sustain larger populations would have eventually done it.... that and disease.

... and there was already the plague outbreak to consider... Lewiston. It was a problem Alexander wasn't sure what to make of. Was it just bad luck? Magic maybe, surely someone hadn't engaged in actual intentional germ warfare...that was a frightening thought to consider.

Far to the west, especially now that the Change had brought an end to the ease of travel made possible by the internal combustion engine Lewiston was currently suffering the effects of the black death, and the most likely explanation was that it had migrated with people fleeing the cities from further west who had somehow presumably managed to catch bacterium from ground squirrels or the like. Whatever the original vector of infection it had spread like wildfire... and that complicated it because Lewiston sat effectively on both the river and the road junctions leading further inland.

There was another thunk as the arrow sank into the Styrofoam archery target at almost two hundred paces. Mikoto paused, and lowered the bow pushing her hair back over one shoulder, "We have guests." Or more correctly the rest of their expected guests had arrived. For a wealthy land owner the American west in the interior of the country, fly over country afforded on the opportunity to own land that in... well even back east never mind in japan, Korea, or western Europe would have boggled the mind. Unfortunately without cars that was a major hassle to adjust to. That was why Absaroaka was rotating around the major landholders in what was scarily turning into quickly what might have resembled feudal traditions without anyone thinking it was too strange.

There were other reasons not to be doing it in town though. Durant wasn't exactly a big town to start with, but after the first in Absalom the various other large land holders had begun clamoring for collective defense. That really just meant trying to put palisade walls around their own homesteads, as even the US Cavalry Camps of the old west had often lacked those given the threat of attacking a frontier settlement was much more dangerous than the movies of Clint Eastwood and other big name western actors might have implied to the masses. Complex stone work regardless of how aesthetically appealing it might have been to Branch's ego just simply feasible at the moment with all their other problems.

Not with summer fast approaching promising hot plains days, and cold nights where it might be just above freezing and then press ninety in an afternoon, which coupled with thunderstorms might very well cause wildfires. That wasn't even getting into the two legged problems that ranged from nuisances to mortal threats. "Wonder how much time Sandy wasted on the idgets." Lucian grunted leaning on the veranda next to his nephew.

The youngest of Absaroaka's deputies prepared to protest his uncle's term, but quieted as Campbell county's sheriff, or perhaps former sheriff given what had happened to his county finished tying his horse up. The large man took his ridiculously oversized white steston and waved broadly. Alexander's primary residence was a painstaking reconstruction of Mount Vernon... with modern amenities that unfortunately no longer worked, but the large glass windows let in enough light for the drawing room to serve as an expansive salon to conduct the meeting of the local elite.

As it was his home he took a seat at the long oak table that might have otherwise accommodated a wargaming map, or other distraction, "Lucian said the situation in town was coming down,"

"Where its not about to riot." Sandy replied putting his hat on the rack, before stroking his bushy mustache in contemplation, "I've posted the notices regarding arms." Sandy's idea was to require … or insist that weapons had to have proper sheathes, or scabbards. If the old man had known what peace ties were he'd probably have suggested that. The idea wasn't likely going to achieve complete compliance, but even if was mostly being followed that would be an improvement. Unable to help himself he picked up a carefully painted DropShip figurine in clan Hell Horse colors, "This is that Battletech thing Lucian's cursing about?"

"It is." He replied suppressing the urge to see if the retired sheriff was about to explode. He had no idea there were so many combine fanboys... but Lucian had not taken the explosion of interspaced Japanese words and phrases well at all. Especially since he had started to wear a decidedly Japanese sword because that was what he had brought back from Japan after the war had ended. "How is that going?"

"Oh its fine, I don't have any problem with them talking about bushido or whatever. I got no better ideas," Sandy replied with a shrug after putting the egg shaped model back, "I'll take dealing with them than listening to that doom sayer from the Nez Pearce carrying on... but shit he ain't really doing any harm either."

"He's a fucking kook." Lucian snarled finally speaking up. "Everyone has taken leave of their god damn senses. Alright, and if it took the Great Spirit this long to get off his ass and do something?" He made a noisy inhalation and leaned forward on the table, "That don't sound real industrious does it. Besides I reckon he's at least half white, and went to some nancy liberal arts school anyway." ... Alexander decided against reminding the former sheriff his successor had graduated the University of California with a degree in English Literature of all things. That didn't make the kook's idea that all the native american tribes should all unify together any less stupid though. Maybe the idiot had just played too much ShadowRun in college.

Walter shook his head, "Sandy is right, Lucian. He isn't doing any harm."

Apparently Standing Bear didn't agree, "Lucian might have a point Walt," He grated carefully, "I'm not saying we shouldn't let him speak his peace, but that doesn't mean he's free from the consequences. He might find himself getting punched in the mouth if he keeps at it."

Lucian chortled. "So what are we going to do," He glanced to his nephew, "I haven't forgotten about the damned walls, but we need wagons for that."

"The easiest way to move lumber in the long term would be either putting down rails, and pulling carts on them by horses, or where possible running them down water ways. Obviously the more expensive option, but rails gives us more flexibility, and we're going to need to take a lot of timber. Its not really something I think time for right now, but we should be looking for the materials," He paused to reach for his tea cup. "And like we said last week, staked barbed wire would work and would be at least something of an impediment, if we had watch towers, and sentries."

The threat of eaters had abated as it seemed the last displaced persons from Sheridan had made it in, but that also along with other road people migration brought word of things from the north. Across the border in Montana, which wasn't very far at all, there were other things brewing. Billings had apparently had its own fire with the prevailing accusation being someone had brewed up their own molotovs and engines might have stopped working but gasoline still burned just fine. Technically the Rez, the northern Cheyenne, was between them and the Montana city... and that meant visiting Henry's relatives.
--
Commentary: This concludes Under the Western Sky, Summer of the Change part 1 will be the next, at which point I will probably introduce Norman receiving his envoys dispatched to go talk with the society and the walkers in montana as part of that, and possibly introduce Juniper and the Mackenzies in part 1 as well.

Imperator Pax · Dec 28, 2021

Portland Interlude

Norman Arminger looked at the geological survey his men had brought him. He had requested them of course, had to tell them where to look, but they'd dutifully at least gone to get them even if it was obvious that they had no idea why. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, once what was natural to people, the day to day order had been so shattered must people had turned listless.

Listless was a good word for the malaise that had set in to the people of Portland. Oh certainly on St Patrick's... but that ill tempered phase had passed. Only after of course they had burned and looted too much... Norman had been in his office on campus and had found himself having to defend himself by hand.

Getting home to his wife and his possessions by foot made somewhat more grating by the procession of terrified students following after him. They'd been put into a situation they hadn't understood, and then again. Professor Arminger was never a physical person, stern yes, but he liked to think at least most of those who took his classes seriously respected him, but he had never struck any of his students, and barely ever raised his voice. None of the hooligans on st patrick's day had expected him to dole out a practical on medieval european wrestling.

That had been months ago now. Portland was finally coming together, and while Norman Arminger was not prepared to declare himself king, taking the somewhat lesser title of Lord Protector... his own personal dislike of Cromwell's politics aside... in its place. Maybe one day he'd be a king, but that would have to wait until he held more lands, and had a more concrete arrangement of feudal responsibility. He didn't have that right now. Emilio had potential of course and so did a few others but no one really stood out.

His best hope would be that some one would distinguish themselves in the war against 'the pretenders' as he had surreptiously started circulating against them. He never used the term directly in public of course, but propaganda by criers and by runners with pamphlets used the term to disparage those who were quite accurately pretending to represent a now destroyed authority. There were no longer any state governments. There was no longer a United States, or Canada, or what not. There was only land, and people. Resources.

He needed resources. The geological survey would also inform him as to what parts of the valley were most vulnerable to hazards... like flooding. Something that no one had thought to consider... trying to engender critical thinking skills in his new vassals was almost as bad as dealing with freshmen. Emilio had shown the most promise but he had missed the flood threat, and instead focused on their more recent fire hazards. He received extra credit of course for suggesting trebuchets made out of timber to lob flaming projectiles against their enemies of course, after all gasoline as everyone had found still burned quite well.

All of his 'compadres' had been impressed apparently ignorant of the time the other man spent reading. Emilio had other strong points besides being willing to enrich himself by reading despite how it might have, certainly pre change, diminished his perceived masculinity his machismo. He was relatively religious. There would have to be some changes to Catholicism of course, a return to the Catholism of the Norman era where concubinage was acceptable. After all William the first's, son of Rollo, son Richard had been born from one of William's concubines not his wife. Richard's succession had seen a great many reforms to his still largely northern european patterned realm... but yes pre schism Catholiscism would be much much better for everyone Norman imagined, and it'd be nice to have a latin mass.

Norman Arminger consulted his papers plundered from the USDA and EPA, and all the rest of the alphabet soup he particularly cared about this particular moment. He looked up as the door opened and the rancher entered, "Salutations to you as well Mister Walker." He greeted the cowboy, the man's father was hoping his son William would somehow or another reapper. That he'd sail around the coast of south america and put into port of portland and that the family would be reunited. From the young lieutenant's description Norman thought he'd have liked the young man. The best though that Norman felt could be hoped for was that Young William Walker would find a home on the other side of the country and maybe carve out his own little fiefdom... and given the population density of the north east corridor... Norman was painfully skeptical.

He received a country grunt in acknowledgement, which Norman didn't mind. His private offices were well secured, and Jefferson Davis Walker might have been surly but he was an impressive horseman. Better than that his skill as an equestrian was that he could teach people the skill, and so Norman was willing to let the teenager give him a bit of lip. "Had a rider come in." The cowboy twang sounded... and the Lord Protector waited for an elaboration, "From the east." The boy grunted very surly in tone, he hated referring to the direction of his home as 'the east'.

Norman nodded for him to go on. "They're organizing? Someone has started to put some semblance of order back together?" He asked. Not that he was surprised, he thought about Corvallis and the other towns. Mr. Liu had been rather disturbed by the 'witches' as he had called them having put things together and had reported of other local strongmen who had knocked enough heads together to restore something like order.

"More than Organizing." He spat the word. "Some jackass thinks he's caesar." Norman pursed his lips and asked for JD to explain, but not before offering the young man a seat, and drink. This was going to be a long conversation he felt. He was right. Norman Arminger did not like what he was informed of in Idaho, but at the same time the Lord Protector wasn't surprised either.

The Romans were he supposed a perfectly good source of inspiration as well. Idaho was far away of course... but it was between him and the Walkers, and the vital grasslands he would need to bring horses in from.

"What are we going to do about it?" The Lord Protector set his fingers in steeple and considered, "We have to do something."

"We will," Norman agreed. Of course they had to do something, "What about on their own frontiers, these would be Romans must have neighbors?"

"There is Lewiston... Plague messed them up hard." It would have. "But they have plenty of horses and cattle. I doubt the other ranchers there will fancy some jackass," Again with the vulgarity, "From Seattle thinking he could set himself up-"

Norman held up a hand, "Wait, stop, lets go back Jefferson, Seattle?"

"Caesar's legion marched from Seattle."

He would have preferred that he had started with that. "They're in Boise now?"

"That's right."

He followed up with more questions, but Boise, and its leader became one more pretender to contend with. Even without pretensions to being the United States of America, this Thurston fellow would probably be too much of a threat. A march from Seattle to Boise? Roman inspiration? Those two together made him too much of a danger, having him sitting where he was. Still the route made sense. Thurston must have come down 182, which meant he might not have any idea of the situation in Lewiston, or parts further east... or west... he probably knew enough though to have taken precautions against the plague though.
--
Commentary: End of the Year update and at least we got Norman some screen time. I just can't be happy with Juniper's scene it seems, anyway Thursday we will update with the second matron interlude for Out of the Dark. I'm going to try and work out what January's update schedule will be soon.

That will most likely entail overhauls of Wider World's last two chapters, consolidating their individual scenes into a single large post with some revisions. Ghost Who Walk's overhauled Canopian contract stand alone thread will probably start some time in January as well. I would like to say that there will be other Battletech Stories that get updated, but I can't be sure. Sunday will most likely be another Kingmaker update, while the eighth will likely be Ghost Who Walks... the combine showing up.

Besides that there are a couple of other projects in pipeline, Star Wars Warlord potentially getting its own thread. First snippets for a DC Waifu Catalog Fic after having watched the Long Halloween, others.

Imperator Pax · Apr 12, 2022

High Summer Part 1

Alexander looked across the field and the massive pavilion tents established. There was a variety of different tents beyond that, but the large wedding reception tents as he thought of them had proven surprisingly useful. He glanced over to the junior deputy, "Rawlins?"

"Yeah." He grimaced turning over the issue of the state penitentiary. "The first look didn't seem promising."

"The fire was bad?" Branch glanced to the side, "Sorry dumb question. Did any of them get free?"

He doubted it. "Its possible, Caesar," Vittorio, "Says that the fire was unlike anything he'd ever seen, most of the facility is just gone? That was, he seemed shocked at how fast it burned." He meant the modern prison. The old spanish revival old prison was untouched which was really one reason to go up to Rawlins anyway, the place was a fortress and and was ideal to the needs of exercising a local presence there. "Speaking of caesars, whats this from Lewiston, about Boise?"

The deputy shrugged, "You're not going to like it," Branch declared with conviction, "my uncle about crawled the wall." From what little he had heard, Alexander was sure Lucian didn't like it... Lucian's persnickety-ness was a staple of his behavior, "So, according to Henry, who went to go visit one of the cousins in Lewiston," He shrugged, stopped to reassure him that the plague outbreak had burned itself out, which was unnecessary, "Anyway Henry goes out that way and the word is that some army officer out of Seattle marched from there down the highway all the way to Boise." Turk continued on meandering through what he knew, and when he finished Alexander was frowning.

Captain Thurston, Alexander decided was going to be a problem. "You're right I don't like it. I don't like it at all." The threat was somewhat moderated by the fact the captain wouldn't have firearms, never mind heavier weapons. It was true that if the 'Change' had just been a nuclear war then there would have been other problems to deal with but the change had taken firearms wholly out of the equation rather than just reducing them to a question of ammunition and keeping them in repair which would have in the short term made some army captain setting himself up in Boise an even bigger problem. "Thats all we need," Not with all of Lewiston's existing problems. The ranchers had started to get their own stuff together as they had gotten the plague under control, but there was still no explanation as to why the plague had hit that fast...and it left them vulnerable to other diseases like cholera breaking out...

Mikoto stepped up to the top of the short steps onto the platform, "More western troubles?" She asked raising a long thin eyebrow.

Branch brooked a bit at calling it west, despite it being accurate geographically, "Bastard is from washington," He muttered.

Mikoto ignored the comment, "Are you still going to Lewiston?" He nodded, but before he could continue a chorus of petitioning voices came crying for 'mikoto-sama', leaving the Uchiha woman to turn to the approaching weavers.

--
"Let us drink, and be merry, all grief to refrain." She brayed in the finishing of Health to the company, and then raised the drinking glass... a piece of a set of ridiculous party / renaissance faire dish were that absolutely fit the Mackenzie's hall.

Lady Juniper MacKenzie.

The Clan KacKenzie... oh boy they should all go dunk their heads, but the world had gone upside down since that day in march. Gods and Goddesses preserve them. It was high summer, and they had a legitimate feasting hall. The hall that had once been her cabin... and now had its own pallisade wall.... their own little dumnonian fort... but that was a sad facet of the new world. She wondered if they were up to a third 'acting governor' yet the second one had only been two weeks after the first.... but they hadn't heard much out of Salem since she'd invoked the morrigan, and they'd all taken to wearing kilts by then. She thought of the nest of eaters... of the other nests that they had had to put to the torch. The thought of burning brought more thoughts... About the plague pits in Salem... and if there even was a Salem any more.

There was Corvallis, and she idly touched her stomach, the Bear killers. Other communities existed, but none that she could be sure could protect themselves in this new world... and there was a cold wind blowing. A bad omen.
--
Mikoto settled beside him, "Will there actually be anything useful in Lewiston? It seems quite a waste." She remarked reaching for her comb and brushing her hair.

"Its mostly a question of cattle and horses." It was true doc blumfield did want answers about the plague outbreak there.... and that outbreak had been very suspicious... but they certainly going to let the old man try and ride that far... wagon or no. They still weren't sure if it would be worth it to restore the old railway lines across long distances if they couldn't get even early steam powered trains to run... but if something like even the Rocket would run... well it or even earlier trains would run then that would be better than nothing. "and," He glanced through the window towards a stand of mulberry trees, "we're going to have to consider trade with all of our neighbors."

She frowned, and stopped combing, "And this new issue?"

"I'm not going to lie, this Thurston guy sounds like a problem." But he'd been considering tagging along with Henry's next ride out to the Nez Pierce Reservation anyway. The truth was they all had a vested interest in keeping good well travelled lines of communication open," and the truth was, "I've got more interest in going to Lewiston than seeing what's going on in Utah or Colorado, even if those same trade considerations are likely going to matter."

"The banner," She remarked.

A properly cared for horse could make twenty thirty miles on a good day. More so if you had several animals per each rider. Twice, and three times were very possible with good horses, trained riders, and spare mounts. Even without all of that, that twenty miles a day, meant it was still possible for news to spread. It only took one messenger to deliver a message... and unlike other parts of the country Wyoming was fairly ideal for grazing horses even without modern conveniences, so they could maintain good sized herds.

He flopped back onto the bed, the mattress roiling under his weight, and he exhaled. "One eyed shields," He groaned, "I mean...." Sauron was a simple image to be sure, and distinct but... Alexander would have never chosen it.... but then the truth was he'd have just as gladly flown the raven or dragon banners either of which one could uncharitably interpret as the same thing in historical context as the fictional mark of Sauron. "I don't like it, but..." He trailed off not needing to speak. In the dark Mikoto's sharingan was answered by his own.

The truth was... he was unlikely to tolerate the romans in boise... they were simply too close given the realities of horse travel. Unless their cosplaying caused them to forget the stirrup was a thing, and they abandoned or regressed to Roman era agriculture... but he doubted it.

"I understand." She replied softly, "You'll do what you feel is necessary, if something arises." The words lingered., and the soft tell tale static feeling of chakra across her skin.

His eyes burned in the dark... aware that there was magic in the world. The owls called beyond the windows, and took flight. Whether it was coming back into focus because of the asshole taking away or interrupting technology from working like it should have he didn't know... but there were little incongruities... and while it would be a while, eventually it was probably going to result in something having to give... probably before they had a generation grow up without ever having known electricity.

"If something arises," She repeated.

Fire burned from his finger tips, "If it comes to that." He replied and the sparks faded back into the darkness of the south wing's second floor located master bedroom, "Lewiston," and for that matter the plague outbreak, as well as for that matter the scale mail guy, who now after asking around Lucian was sure had left Absaroaka and gone up to Billings... or at least in that direction, probably going to Montana... and their neighbor to the north was a whole other issue besides. ... but really it would only be a matter of time before the old state lines, were nothing more than historical lines on maps representing a bygone age.

Imperator Pax · May 24, 2022

High Summer Part 2

Alexander tucked the stone back away while he waited for the water to come to a boil. After the debacle of Absalom he'd been pleasantly surprised by the number of surplus 19th century US cavalry sabers that had been turned up from different parts of the country, and for that matter from the reservation. Most had been in need of serious work, but they'd been issued with metal scabbards , and it hadn't been that hard for Vonnie Hayes to organize replacement loops and belts with her little historical reenactment society based on better preserved examples. Two and three ton hydraulic shop presses, and other common 'garage' tools while not historical were enough to start punching out even relatively well fitting plate out of pieces of eighteen gauge steel... and it was actually less work than full maile hauberks... or was up until all those sheets of steel stopped being common.

It wasn't perfect. The best armors available were those that had been bought and paid for or otherwise made before the Change. Pre Change commodities were, well the ones that still worked like they were supposed to had been snapped up. Despite some of the Sheridan crowd having since leaned hard into the woad and plaid, there really wasn't a point to move away from denim and flannel.

Turk finished brushing down one of his family's gallant white stallions and sat down, "What do you think we'll find, Walt said-"

"I know what Walt said," He replied. The Eaters couldn't have been any less of a malicious action than the whole electronics stopping. "We're going to have to start building forts to operate from along the way." The road to Lewiston had been cleared before summer had truly heated, but they still had no real answers for where all the people who had abandoned their cars had gone... it seemed as if they'd just slipped away into the aether after the change... and given the oddity of the Change and everything since then it left him uncomfortable.

"What about the Rez?"

"Which one?" He asked as Lenny Rowell, one of Walter's deputies who was stuck borrowing one of Standing Bear's appaloosas started there way. Lenny was one of those who had 'upgraded' to a 'surplus' cavalry sword when they'd started to be distributed from the museum, "Which Rez?" He repeated the question. They were heading to Lewiston which sat within spitting distance of the Nez Pearce, or the Northern Cheyenne or the Crow that sat just a hair further from Absaroaka, and while not as close to home as the Cheyenne there was Wind River to the west.

"Well the Cheyenne, talking about spears, and stuff... cause all the Eaters that came down from Hardin."

... like billhooks, "I've got to admit even I was a little surprised by the number of guns on the Rez," for all the good it did, "But yeah we're going to need to manufacture weapons, and that means steel or at least repurposing steel from what we have available." Lewiston was about three fifty to Portland, but that wasn't the problem. The reports out of Portland were the problem, and Portland was a lot closer to Lewiston even by overland never mind taking the river. "The Rez is going to have its share of problems without having shit come in from Billings," even if the Crow were more likely to have that happen first, "That just goes to the point we need transit stops along 90."

"You think Billings is gonna burn like Hardin did?"

... he didn't say anything for a minute. Hardin ... Hardin he wouldn't have thought would have burned like it did... and he doubted it had just been the eaters... so maybe one of the factions in Billings or somewhere north had done the city, "Whatever happened in Hardin could to Billings, and Lewiston has already had one run in with the plague, so that could happen in Wyoming or Montana."

Rowell finally got up the small hill to the picnic benches bent over and panted against his alice pack still wearing his breast plate, "Alright, well," He grunted, "got Nez Pearce riders that way," He jerked a thumb back the way he came, "Reckon that we're alright now." It had been a long ride, but the highway made it easier, even if they weren't quite there yet. Seven hundred miles to Lewiston. Not straight, they had to leave wyoming and go up to Montana but following 90 made it easy. The Highway would in theory let them keep the road open all year... if they could manage to clear the hurdles of being reduced to Oregon Trail level technology... or worse.

"How do they look?"

"I don't think anything has changed, I see some more chainmail," Lenny all but tossed himself onto the bench. "Was you serious about what you said, that we could put the railway back in service?"

"We could have horses pull the cars," But that would mean clearing out Hardin, and Vonnie Hayes thought that maybe a lower pressure steam engine something circa 1830 might still work, five ten horsepower even if it'd be big and heavy... but that would probably mean building one since that was the sort of antique she didn't have. "Its just a thought." They had lost enough technology as it was, he didn't want to see them lose more just because people assumed everything was dung ages and just didn't see what worked. "Whats standing bear doing?"

"Henry, he's riding over to see that loony cousin of his."

... ah yes mr played too much shadowrun, and the change was the great spirit taking all the white man's toys away or whatever...
--
Havel glanced into the eastern skyline towards Montana. His conversation with the 'Lord Protector' sat there replaying even as Kenneth sat down.

"What's troubling you?"

"I told Ole Norman too much." The marine replied, even if the rational part of his mind told him that Arminger had told him things as well. The loony bing had given him information, it had been a trade... and thus far the bad guy hadn't done anything yet. "He's had people up to Lewiston, even to Montana." Which, which seemed suspicious, but Kenneth suspected that the plagues spread had been because of the river and how easy it was to transit.

"You don't think you should have mentioned Alexander?"

"Maybe I shouldn't mention having met them." Arminger had said he had sent one of his 'milites', knights for the more modern inclined vernacular, to see the status of the county. "He showed me a map even." Which it hadn't been hard to get one, a copy of the same one, when Alexander had said ranch ... okay maybe he'd accepted that he'd meant a pretty big farm, not, "Its the size of a county, I looked, Arminger even showed me a newspaper clipping of the house saying it was perfectly modernized version of Mount Vernon." Which the paper clipping had given him some further background, he'd been right about him being Army as the paper cited him a Major in the 1/75 during the 'recent' Gulf War.

"I'd have liked to have read that." Kenneth Larson remarked. "Arminger might have been hoping for help then. He tried to recruit you after all."

"He tried to recruit us." He responded, emphasizing the us part. "The bear killers for muscle. He's got bigger ambitions. If that meant agreeing I was Lord Bear he'd have been fine with that, but the guys off his rocker. Especially if he thinks I'd work with this Iron Rod freak willingly."

The Larson patriarch nodded, "Yeah, I saw the farmstead too." ... and the massacre that 'duke' had perpetrated.
--
Notes: We are going into the High Summer Chapter which will then lead into dealing with in the following chapter the Camas Prarie and the first of Norman Arminger's de facto minions falling, admittedly exactly how useful Iron Rod was to Portland is probably debatable but Iron Rod is a good convenient 'bigger scope' starter villian for the bear killers as well.

In my original notes High Summer was supposed to be 5 segments, and thats what I'm shooting for its about six thousand words total, if the Juniper scenes get added in probably closer to seven for the chapter as a whole. It presents basically a good excuse to link up with Havel after the few months (since march) even if we don't introduce Juniper to the western situation just yet, she has her own problems to deal with.

Geography wise (and yes 2000 sq mi is basically the 'starting' size of Wyoming counties they only get bigger from there, but that would be like a third of Park county) we know Campbell (in Longmire) exists as a county (Absaroaka is fictional, so I would normally equate it with say Big Horn, but Walter explicitly states in the novels that Absaroaka is a founding county, which may have been retconned since then) Its in that vicinity its either Big Horn or Park or some pieces of both. [Walter describes Absaroaka as being the size of New Hampshire, in what is not likely to be an intentional DBZ joke in square miles over nine thousand]

But anyway its ~july ish 98. Its hard to keep track of dates in Emberverse especially in the first book

Imperator Pax · Jun 7, 2022

High Summer Part 3

June 1998

Mike turned the second man over carefully, reached two moleskin gloved up fingers and felt out an identical wound channel to the first in his chest. "Not how we," The Marine Corp, "would have done it, but somebody clearly knew what they were doing, what do you think doc?"

"I'm not a forensic pathologist," The Vet protested, which he rebutted by pointing out that wasn't what he had been asking. Arnstein was the closet they had to a medieval weapons and fighting expert and all.

"Long blade, narrow, stiletto maybe?" One of the other bear killers guessed. Pam stuck her gloved fingers in the wound.

He shook his head looking into the dead man's puffy face, both of the ex bikers had been caught unaware, taken from behind... and not from someone small that they might not have noticed . Pam was currently prodding the deep purplish contusions that had occurred near or possibly after the fatal stab wounds. "Think its a dagger of some kind," Not a knife, not like the kabar in the marine corp, the fatal wounds were all stabs to important weak spots in the men's armor... which they hadn't been stripped of. Whoever had dropped these two had left two decent sets of maile, and at least serviceable weapons behind... which probably meant he was travelling quickly overland and couldn't afford the weight.

... of whoever was killing Iron Rod's muscle didn't give a good god damned. That hypothesis was voiced by the local sheriff, "Not gonna complain, after all this." Regarding both bikers having been jumped unawares.

Pam backed up, "Wound channel is almost six inches. Its too wide to be a stiletto."

"Will?" Will Hutton had moved to the first body.

"It went through this mild steel," He gestured to the armor, "and then that deep, and he didn't get it stuck in one of these bastards?"

... and doing two sentries, "Look for a second set of tracks, it might not be one guy after all." They'd only seen one set of big boot prints further back, after they'd surveyed the area... so they might have fucked up the 'crime scene' and obscured another guy, but if Mike were to bet somebody had probably been watching here for a bit, probably had an observation post somewhere nearby... which brought the question of had they actually moved on.

"What are you thinking Mike?" The Larson son asked as he gazed the hill.

"I'm thinking that if this were me, even if guns don't work," he patted his field glasses, "That these still do. A spotting scope up there, might not be as much good without an M40 but you can still watch." He shook his head, "What's going back on there?"

"Legolamb is lecturing on elf speak from her books."

Tolkien. Tolkien had been a linguist. "How's that going."

"Hark gold falls leaves wind." Larson grunted half intelligibly some combination of caveman trying to do Shakespeare, then in his normal voice. "Its whatever," He shrugged, "As long as I don't have to hear anything else about mount doom."

"I know that one, Amon Amarth." The former marine said with a laugh.

--
A Wyoming county started at a bit over million and a quarter acres. It was actually one of the more palatable organization features of the state though you saw similar throughout the high plains states but Wyoming, partially due to population had all kept her counties above a certain size... where as even Montana had created several much smaller counties for that and other reasons. Washington though... Washington's border counties bordered on tiny in comparison to Wyoming's neat typically rectangular ones, and Oregon wasn't any better. They'd crisscrossed back and forth, and were now once again in Idaho. Switchbacking all over...

It was all academic now. The old lines on the map were largely irrelevant. The division of original counties might return based on geography... or just as likely new reasons would create themselves if civilization could reassert itself. The old states no longer mattered.

Jim Thomas folded up the map and stowed it away, glancing to him, and then to Turk, "What now?" The man asked shuffling his six five muscled frame around to glance down the hillside and looking into the columbia river countryside.

"Well we could wait for Iron Cloud." He muttered referring to Joseph Iron Cloud had come up from Washakie county to the south of Absaroaka.

"are you serious?"

"No." Alexander replied to Turk's question. They didn't have time to wait, or at least not as how he figured it. They had diverted too far south as it was. Whether or not Henry Standing Bear had agreed with it, the sheriff was not going to be happy they jumped on this, regardless of what the situation in Lewiston had been like...especially not riding all the way down here and having sent word back really more as an afterthought. "That," He pointed his finger in the direction of ... what according to the local map was a fucking convent of all things but might as well have been a castle for its present situation, "Is a problem."

Just like the young Crow Indian who'd shown them the path had told them. He hadn't known the indian, probably on leave from the army when the change had hit, but he'd apparently known who Henry and the Sheriff were so he'd been happy to show them the approach to 'Duke Iron Rod's castle'. It had greatly simplified their work, but it also had encouraged them to move quickly.

He glanced back at the trail when a gravelly voice ordered them to "Wait." Henry Standing Bear was not someone to trifle with, the MACV-SOG veteran had come out of the grassland brush. The younger Nez Pearce took about five minutes to catch up with them crossing through the off trail, and was out of breath.

"What's the matter?"

"We found a game warden's station, and blood." Henry explained that he had seen circling buzzards and decided to follow them... because well the last time they had done that they'd found some of iron rods victims from him wreaking a swathe of violence in Western Idaho.

So he went ahead and asked the obvious question, "Iron Rod."

"I do not believe so."

"Eaters?" He guessed again.

Another shake of his head, "No. The kill was ... efficient."

... Alexander did not immediately reply to that, then settled for a single word in response to the inflection on the last word, "Great."

"What if it was someone doing what we're doing, who'd the body belong to?" Henry raised an eyebrow at Turk's youthful optimism, and the young Connolly scowled, "Well?"

"I do not know, but the body had been scalped."

"You're fucking kidding." The deputy exclaimed, much much louder than Alexander would have preferred, but from the quesy look on the out of breath nez pearce ... Henry wasn't joking.

On the other hand, months now after the change he wasn't surprised that someone was going around scalping people. "Did the body have any tattoos?" He asked after a moment.

"None that I could see, but there was a lot of blood from where he was hanging."

A nod. No tattoos might mean it wasn't iron rod's bikers... or just that there were none visible... or a recent recruit from the 'road people'. But really who knew... it could very well have just been some hapless fuck who'd gotten killed by some asshole who thought the change made that sort of thing ok- "He was hanging?"

"In the sense that someone went to a great deal of trouble to tie their victim up several feet off the ground, yes."

"Great." He repeated as he surveyed the others. The fact that some alien malevolent asshole intelligence had made it so firearms didn't work had greatly altered the load he had brought... in the sense that they were travelling with plate armor chain, and other such things, along with bladed weapons... though both Jim Thomas and Turk had their billy clubs as well. He personally considered those a liability, but to each their own.

He glanced to the road leading to the convent thing, and shook his head.

"Are you planning to go in their alone?" Standing Bear asked having crossed his arms over his chest in a disapproving stand

... he was seriously considering it. He blinked the spinning tomoe from his eyes. "I want to see if their guard patterns shift." He replied instead still focusing on what the map called 'St Hilda's'.

"Here."

Apparently the bear had been busy. He flipped through the local tourist bureau's regional sight seeing. St Hilda's was newer than he'd been expecting... which of course only meant the nineteen twenties. It was a benedictine abbey, and the dated the year previous pamphlet advised visitors to speak with a mother superior Gertrude. The abbey had done outreach, and the usual for the community and the pamphlet had had no shortage of glossy color photographs. The tourism board hadn't shrimped on their trade.

"Thanks."

Henry grunted. "At least seventy or eighty bikers." The indian declared, "Probably more." He observed looking out towards the butte. "Also, I talked with one of the locals, the plague has spread to Boise last he heard."

Alexander frowned. "Before or after that Thurston kook got there?"

"He didn't know. I'd guess before he didn't know anything about our ... what did you call him a Cosplayer?"

"Romanphile works too." He snorted, "Suppose the locals have heard the same things that Lewiston has about back east?" An affirmative grunt.

Imperator Pax · Jun 21, 2022

High Summer Part 4

"I don't think this was iron rod." Mike remarked as they cut the man down from what had at one point been a highway road sign.

"I, agree with you." Pam remarked after he was taken down and laid out on the prairie grass. The most immediate tell had been the lack of, threatening slash self aggrandizing messages that proclaimed this was the biker turned warlord... the other was that now that they were up close, "These cuts are almost surgical in precision, not a scalpel but someone knew what they were doing."

... and then they'd hauled him up, "This was more than one guy right, I mean this guy has to what two twenty?" Erik asked looking at the big man.

"Closer to two fifty," Mike replied, "He's been eating good since the fall, and that looks like a spear to me." The wound was one he could be sure, but the laming injury didn't look like a sword stab, someone had gotten chunky here and fucked a calf up.

"Mike, I think this guy was alive when he was strung up," The vet gestured to the blood, "Which means his eyes were cut out while he was alive."

The Lord Bear looked at the knots and then to the tattoos, it didn't fit. "This isn't like that other group. This is one of iron rods guys for sure, but someone was sending a message,"

"Hell of a message, for gods sake they took his eyes."

He almost reiterated the doc's assessment that the biker had been alive. Mike kept looking around for details they had missed on the initial pass through. They'd followed the birds cawing, the carrion eaters had been circling.

They walked back, more than an hour, to the bear killer camp with its easily disassembly fortifications that could transferred to the wagon train, and deployed quick. A couple of men standing with the bows they'd received from the 'Clan MacKenzie' folks, and other ranks with their own stocks. Mike was mostly used to it... even if every so often he missed, felt the twinge, towards what he'd carried in cammies under the desert sun.

"So do you think that's three or four?"

The question caught him off center. "Huh? Oh," they knew it wasn't the sheriff and probably not any of the locals, but it wasn't hard to guess that 'Duke Iron Rod' but must have been pissing off all of his neighbors. "I don't doubt Iron Rod has been a bad neighbor and that's coming home to roost." He thought about the two men that had been dropped the two bikers and left them with their gear, not bothering to strip the bodies of their lamellar scale armor or their weapons. "I think who ever did that needed to take fat boy's armor cause he couldn't get him strung up otherwise."

Erik nodded appreciably.

Not that they'd found the armor, but someone had gone to a great deal of effort to send a message to the 'Duke of the Camas Prarie' or whatever Iron Rod's official title was supposed to be. He supposed they'd interrupted the message in transit, but as it was setting up with Sheriff Woburn the Bearkillers were probably about to deliver their own messages.

"You think they'd be willing to team up with us?" Erik Larson asked.

"If its just a couple of guys we can't really chance it," Partisans could be a mixed bag, and Mike wasn't keen on wasting time trying to find them, but the thought was cut off when one of the young recruits rushed up with cries of lord bear. The urgency in the younger man's voice though caught him off guard, and he had the passing thought of 'fuck what now'.

--
The man's massive muscled form was unmistakable on some instinctual level, and maybe it was the adrenaline but there was a moment as the sword swung back in a false cut that caught a biker in the neck that the ranger's eyes looked red under his helmet. With a linebacker's build the bodycheck the man threw into another sent one more biker tumbling into the ground and the long blade descended into the downed biker's neck point first.

He could see that because they were on the right side of the debris, the cars and the broken evergreen trees. A dozen men lay dead at the man's feet or back behind him, and he wasn't alone. There was another two or three big fucking dudes in mail and mixed plate, and a few more smaller guys, closer to Havel's own size as well as a few... grooms holding their horses.

Mike raised his sword, "Bear Killers!" he called and lead his party to cut the 'Devil Dogs' retreat off taking them down and around putting a line of cut and thrust small shield wielders a dozen strong in front of the bikers making a beeline for the park access road. Pam Arnstein's students might not have been kilt wearing scots but their shield wall closed off the only avenue of escape.

Alexander's armor was the most ornate of the lot, dark blue and ochre enamel feature a white owl on his breast clutching lightning bolts and a sheathe of wheat. His other pieces of armor were color matching to the breast plate, while most of the others had their armor in the white, in contrast to the patina applique Havel had applied to the bear killer kit.

Of course given the thrashing the big man probably wanted their focus, and Havel moved to close the positions as ten men stood the last of Iron rod's men on the road. Woburn road forward, more forward than Havel wanted, as the sheriff tried to get ahead of their prospective battle line.

At least part of Alexander's armored war party must have been Indian from the shouts of what Havel dimly recognized as Cheyenne, and thought back to Running Horse's subtext, and what the Nez Pearce had said. Not the sort of thing he fancied to see in a generation or two with some kind of range war breaking out. The back end of a hawk came into the last of the bandits in close and one of the big men, pulled it free from where it had punched through the scales.

Woburn didn't take the hint and called for everyone to stop what they were doing. Mike made an 'executive' decision and dug his heels in a hair to push his horse around the sheriff's own mount and called "at 'em." The butchery took barely minutes to settle as the last of the bikers, already winded and a few bruised stumbled back not having any momentum to meet the class.

"We could have used prisoners."

"I doubt any of those cornered dogs were going to surrender." Mike bit back as he got down and handed his reins off to one of his own bearkiller grooms, and watched the helmet come off. The last few months had done little to the man's expression. There were no signs of deprivation, from lack of food, and he hadn't had any unfortunate run ins with any bears that was clear. "Alex." He waved, choosing to shorten the man's given name. Then punching Pam's arm slightly, "Sorry doc he's married." He joked at her roving eye... and as soon as he said it he had the awkward flash back to the Clan MacKenzier leader and his own tumultuous romance situation.

"I don't suppose," He drawiled, "you've been going around killing Iron Rod's people have you?"

"We have, but I was planning to ask you if you might have happened to been doing the same?"

He nodded, and then with complete seriousness asked, "You scalp anyone recently?"

Mike blinked, "No, you cut anyone's eyes out and hang 'em up for this Duke Iron Rod to see?"

"I have not." He replied, and shook his head, and pulled a gauntlet off , "Alexander Dahlgren." He stated extending the hand to the sheriff."

"Joseph Woburn, I'm the county sheriff."

The two men shook at least which seemed like a good sign. Now that they were closer Mike looked at the armor, "Is this what you had in mind back at the campground about having your armor?"

"Yes," He ran a hand over the plate, and then gestured to a couple of his friends from Montana or Wyoming or wherever, and more specifically their pigeon breasted plates, "Hydraulic shop presses still work, so since we had sheets of steel, it was easy enough to press and rivet those." He shook his head, "Are you planning to do something about Duke Iron Rod?"

"We were thinking about it. The sheriff here has something of a posse reared up if we all go together, I was still putting together a plan, but we definitely have the numbers." He remarked thinking about the butte the monastery was built on, and then to the bodies still warm on the blacktop on the road ten feet away. "What happened here?"

"We caught them watering, and Henry," He gestured to a big man, taller than Alexander himself, who had removed his helmet revealing a still good looking man of middle age... probably ... the tick fell off as he looked at the tomahawk, and in a lower voice in explanation Alexander continued "Standing Bear was Macv-sog. He sent their horses running and we herded the bikers this way."

Now that the cutting was done he could see from the broken trees where a couple of men hadn't made it this far down the road before arrows had caught them, and a look at the big chestnut horse still waiting, and the bow resting a long it, a dozen birch shafted forty inch arrows along it. "What were they doing?"

"Probably prepared to go raid one of the local farmsteads, we've seen them ride out before. This lot stopping for water was to useful to pass up." He replied was a dark predator smile spreading across his features.

The look made him remember, "Hey before I forget you know a guy named Arminger."

"Yeah, have you seen his one eyed shields too," He muttered something derisive or something under his breath, "I suppose I can't talk about that, Mikoto's was knitting dragon banners when we road out."

"She's not with you?" He asked.

"No she's at home."

Home being a ranch... plantation sitting on a county sized estate. "Your own personal mount Vernon?"

"Yeah, thats right." He replied. "So what, you've seen Norman? Did he give you the society was better before the renaissance and reformation made a mess of things speech?"

Mike 'Lord Bear' Havel snorted a laugh, "Thankfully I missed that, but your buddy is building castles to enclose the valley, and I bet, well all the worthless money in my wallet," That he still carried, "that he's been in contact, and he put this Duke shit in Iron Rod's head."

"Possibly," Alexander replied nodding, "Lets talk shop about how we should deal with his grace." He muttered the cold look glazing over his eyes.
--
Notes: I just can't do Juniper and the clan MacKenzie scenes they just fail to click with me. LIke I read her chapters, and she just doesn't click with me.

Imperator Pax · Sep 14, 2022

High Summer Part 5

Alexander's armor had a number of 'modern' conveniences. The metal was modern steel of course, and its composition from using industrial refinements made it light, but the rivets and connectors were modern materials. They would be able to replicate the riveting that had just been done with a hydraulic shop press, and those still worked, but manufacturing the clasps, and other fasteners... the material they were made of were something would go away as what Larson senior referred to as retrograde tech took over and old stocks were used up and disappeared.

What they had taken to calling. 'LosTech'.

Havel had only gotten here to the tail end of the conversation, "Whats that?" He asked at the use of the term.

"Lost Technology," The Term had come in from the college age crowd as they talked about what no longer worked back in Absaroaka and as a result what they couldn't make anymore but what did still work. "We've noticed some low pressure steam systems still work."

Larson senior nodded, "Us to."

It was hard, Mike knew, to actually run experiments while on the trail... hell, he wanted to kick himself for forgetting about gliding... with as many birds as they saw everyday he should have thought about that sooner. Not to be self centered, Mike was pretty sure that if he hadn't thought about it, the Dark Lord Norman probably hadn't thought about it... which admittedly could have been that he focused on observation balloons which was a different problem.... given how fast Arminger had been on the uptake in general, and getting things organized. "So do we have a catchy name for the stuff we're making into our middle ages gear?" Mike grunted kicking his boot at the picnic table's metal leg. "Cause I mean, well Hutton doesn't think it'll be any time soon, but leaf springs are a finite resource."

Larson senior and Alexander exchanged looks, "Not that I've heard." Alexander remarked, "But give it time," He replied after a moment.

The older man cleared his throat, "I think, Mike that that would fall under the same category really. Its pre change technology that we're repurposing, do you really have silk production underway?"

"We already had mulberries in the garden. Admittedly it'll take a while before we have enough silk worms to really be 'in production'," Alexander replied, "But in a few years Mikoto thinks she'll have a small industry." But anything like trade network managed to pull itself together and they moved from looting the ruins of pre change cities... well it was something.

"Iron rod has crossbows." Mike remarked.

Larson shrugged, "That's not a surprise Woburn told us he looted the sporting goods stores."

Havel shook his head, "No, those too, but these are post change reproductions."

"You're thinking arminger?"

"Could he?" Havel replied.

Alexander shrugged, "In the sense of would he do that, probably... I don't know if he'd have the technical acumen to manufacture them. Frankly I doubt it, but he probably could find someone to do that." The crossbows reported were similar to the ones being used by the Portland based group under the professor's cat eye banner. "But I don't think assuming Arminger is responsible is the best reaction. Yes, Norman could be responsible, but by all indication crossbows have been proliferating with everyone."

"He's right Mike, a crossbow is a lot easier to use than a longbow, even if its slower. I think pretty much all the SCA outfits have figured it out, and that makes massed crossbows more practical for," He paused to glance sideways, "normal people than horse archers. Hugo picked up a crossbow to mind Larsdalen while we were gone after all."

Alexander had not met the Larson's wine tender ... or whatever the appropriate term was, but if the 'Bear Killers' could keep the Larsdalen estate, or even just move to another, growing wine potentially would b e a trade good of their own... though he wasn't convinced how popular wine was necessarily going to be in the immediate post change... but then who could say. "I'm not saying its impossible, given the Sheriff's description and what we've seen, its obvious that the Duke has had someone putting ideas in his head." If that was Arminger, then so be it... but his principle concern was the possibility of a developing target fixation Mike Havel seemed to have. Norman Arminger did however seem to have painted a target on his own back by moving as quickly as he had. "For the time being Iron Rod is our problem. We should deal with that now, I want them out of that abbey." Monastery, whatever one wanted to officially call St Hildas... and the truth was he wasn't exactly keen on entrusting its stewardship to Woburn, but the sheriff was certainly a better choice than Iron Rod.

"Right," Mike agreed, "What about your Indian Scout?"

The Crow kid hadn't shown back up, unfortunately. "He showed us the approaches. Iron Rod's defenses could probably be bypassed in a before dawn raid." Not intended as bragging Alexander gave a flat look, "I could spring the gate."

"You can climb those walls in full kit?" Mike didn't sound like he was entirely convinced, and continued, "Even if you can, sending one guy in isn't going to work." The option to simply burn Iron Rod out, had been dismissed on the basis of the slave raiding the former biker gang had been doing.

"Standing bear is getting a feel," Of his own, "Of their watch patterns, but we could mount raids to trim their numbers. Bushwhack them to be a bit more manageable before an assault but your paraglide idea is also risky."

Mike hadn't pretended it was a perfect solution, but one he doubted the enemy would be on guard against given most people just accepted that flying as now for the birds. Except Arminger who had hot air balloons for observation... there was the question about how long it would take for that to spread... since they planned to exploit the fact balloons still worked themselves.

There was a pause as a large owl descended. The great owl hopped twice after landing and extended a leg. "Standing bear?" Larson asked seeing the message.

"Mikoto." He replied unfurling the small sroll and reading. The red eyed bird bowed sweeping its wings before accepting the head rub. "St Hildas," He stated flatly. "I want to move on it tonight."

"Something the matter?" Alexander shook his head, grateful that Mikoto's scrawl was in Japanese rather than english... but part of that was simply practical, "What's the message say then?"

He raised an eyebrow in Havel's direction, "The advantage of were we live is that its good horse country, good cattle country, it certainly doesn't hurt I've been prickly about letting people hunt on the land so there is game. Mikoto thinks we should be able to field a relatively competent collection of mounted infantry to start with before the snows come."

"You're not going for horse archers?"

"No, admittedly... what was it you said," He replied to Larson the elder, "That's difficult for normal people. We've got plenty of horses and frankly steel breastplates are functional. The idea of course is to finish clearing out the eater dens, but we also want to stabilize our ties out to the Nez Pearce rez... and I would like our south western neighbors safe and not having to deal with Iron Rod." and of course, though he wasn't planning to mention it in particular there was the whole Clan Mackenzie peoples that Mike Havel had brought up... and their long bows. "once that's done we should have a stable line of communication..." If that damned roman legion cosplayer didn't stir up trouble, of course.
--
Notes: and next chapter we actually move towards killing 'the duke of cammas prairie' and the taking of St Hilda. Still having no luck having a Juniper centric scene that I actually want to post, so it may end up being more Clan Mackenzie centric as those lines of communication open. Anyway Cammas Prarie is the next chapter, and then whats outlined after that is the meet between basically the Ranchers Association/Nezpearce, the bear killers, sheriff woburn's county, and the absaroaka folk then probably contending with Montana's deteriorating situation and possibly the situations, by courier of Utah, and South Dakota to the south and east respectively. This chapter needed to be finished, this has been sitting there all summer not ready yet, so yeah. When will Cammas Prairie start? Maybe the end of the month, it opens with more medieval post change battles, and the bear killers in action, but yeah I was falling behind on the schedule.

Imperator Pax · Nov 3, 2022

Cammas Prairie

--
Mike Havel exhaled as he settled into his usual table position. The camp bench was cluttered with papers as they prepared to mount the assault. They wanted to know if there was any chance that there might be more active sentries, but it didn't seem like it.

It was twilight and most of them had settled into positions which were protected from any sort of observation. It was obvious that even though it had been months since the change 'Lord Iron Rod' ... il duce the biker former biker still hadn't gotten used to lack of electric lights... and clearly hadn't been forced to correct that despite taking losses of some of his men by ambush.

For sure, the ex biker hadn't considered something like a hot air balloon like the Bear Killers had rigged up.... it had been an idea that Norman 'Lord Protector' Arminger in Portland had thought of but either hadn't passed along to Iron Rod or the biker hadn't listened. Havel could understand the biker not thinking about it when the lights had gone out he had only been thinking about how his plane's engine had stopped working, he hadn't been considering other ways to fly.

Dark Lord Norman seemed taken his past SCA membership to heart even though he'd separated from the organization, and figured out air still rose... and since he'd so demonstrated Mike had been willing to give it a try. "We know they're in position." The use of the observation balloon had existed in the civil war, but only in a limited capacity, but the books that they'd raided from stores, and libraries were still full of useful information and the little tin heliograph twinkled down to the Bear Killer forward post to pass on what they could see in the distance of the clear sky.

Mike would have preferred a little more time to get a feel. He would have liked to try his paraglide plan as well... but night wasn't going to last forever and they hadn't had time to practice flying in daylight. So instead of waiting, or risking it they were attacking while they had the advantage of a larger force than just the bear killers and Woburn's posse.

That suited Woburn fine, the sheriff's willingness to contract out the fighting didn't strike Mike as the best idea given the stories of Italian history that the ex marine had been regaled with... and doubly so given Alexander seemed to be settling into a feudal mindset of his own. The large ex army officer was examining the axe's edge, but he had series of silver tubes in front of him.

"Are those what I think they are?" Havel asked a little warily. They had agreed to not simply burn St Hilda's, even though that probably would have conserved their strength, but he suspected any kind of assault was going to risk a fire anyway...

"Thermite still burns like its supposed to."

The younger Larson male blinked, "Thermite, what do you do with that-"

"Breaching charge, I'm going to break those wrought iron gates down." At the younger man's look, "We did it in Iraq to breach Baathist compounds." But back then one had guns... but then Mike supposed the bad guys would have had guns too. "There is another reason we need to do this now. I do think, you're right."

Mike grunted, and looked around for Woburn, but the sheriff wasn't around. "How do you mean Alex?" He was kind of glad for that. The sheriff had originally been looking to avoid a major engagement and just drive the devil dogs off.

"I think Norman did put some of the ideas into this idiot's head. The scale mail we're seeing is almost certainly something Norman traded over... and I'm starting to guess why."

--
Norman Arminger put aside the book fondly. A Connecticut yankee in King Arthur's court was not the most serious, or realistic of books, but he had enjoyed it as a child all the same. He would haved liked to have known that the impossible really was possible... all the things he could have done knowing the change was going to happen... the set backs he could have prevented, the preparations he could have made.

There would have been set backs... he wasn't naïve enough to not know that, but there could have been things he could have done. The University could have been pushed harder to pursue various living history projects foremost among them... even if he had to press them as inter disciplinary studies, and press for other period fields to be supported.

He hadn't known this was going to happen. So he was going to have to put things back together... and to do that he needed horses. Human muscle power was simply inefficient, even without accommodating for contemporary issues. Horses needed pasture and grassland that meant trading for horses and clearing land to use specifically for horse raising. It went beyond military needs, he needed horses for farming as well as for keeping a post system in places were the canals didn't reach.

There was a special skillset to breaking horses to consider as well. A skillset that meant he was prepared to to do a lot in terms of short term preparations in order to bring into line... but nothing was quite so simple as knowing the rudiments of astronomy as it had existed in the 19th century, or being able to speak greek or latin. There were things that needed to be done, and some of the news that was making it across the old highway system was starting to get alarming even by his usually even temperament.

Thankfully most of the people in the major cities in coastal California seemed to be trying to flee inward. They were trying to get to the farms of the heavily mechanized Californian agriculture sector... cows, and wine... and while certainly he would have liked to have been able to seize as many of the cows... it wasn't worth risking the attention. He needed to keep the southern border of Oregon as shut as possible... let the dying times cull the weak as far a way as possible just to avoid being worn down fighting a tide of desperate and starving masses. That was why he had pushed as much of the city's population northwards as possible... admittedly the fires had been a lucky opportunity, and had made it easier to push them out... but now that fall was approaching... only a few months away he knew that they were running out of time.

Norman opened the desk drawer, and put it alongside a host of other classic works of fiction, and looked down at the thick piece of clear plastic that protected the map underneath that dominated his desktop. Iron Rod, and his Devil Dogs were supposed to keep the Cammas Prairie open and safe for travel. He needed that pathway open to range cattle, and horses from Montana to Oregon... or what had used to be those states. Norman felt himself still making those mistakes, because those were the names still on the map.

"Ah, Sorry about that," Jefferson Davis grabbed for the door as it slipped a little harder open than the cowboy had meant for it. "I was just coming to say those wannabes you've got still haven't gotten here yet."

... that meant the most recent messenger was now almost a week late, and that was one of his people. Some delay was to be expected, but the Duke of the Cammas Prarie... the entire point of recognizing a duchy on his eastern frontier was to, was in the hopes of having someone to secure the frontier. If Mondarian had been smart he'd have rolled into Woburn's town and liberally applied fire. Gasoline still burned after all, and as Portland had shown it was very difficult to put fires out without fire trucks especially once a fire reached the building cladding... besides... from everything he'd heard Iron Rod wasn't exactly the best about using soap when he washed.

He should have insisted that the Devil Dog's leader accept aid. The word that the sheriff was doing something like building gallows in front of his office and Mondarian's unwillingness to actually respond decisively to that kind of provocation was concerning. "I suspect that the sheriff may have allies, perhaps he found some help" Norman remarked drawing himself up.

The younger Walker snorted. "That useless peckerwood don't worry me none, but yeah I reckon that he'd be easy to lead around by the nose."

"It doesn't matter if he's a patsy for someone else or not Jefferson just that he's in the way." He'd either need to be removed, or be convinced to come to some kind of accommodation with, and that might be difficult given Iron Rod's behavior.

Imperator Pax · Nov 18, 2022

Cammas Prarie 2

In the ninth century the best way to take a fortified monastery like this, like with any fortified structure would have been surprise. Early morning when monks were at vespers and distracted, of course one of the lessons that had emerged out of this and had continued into the high middle ages for the emerging feudal elite of western Europe was it was fine to go to vespers ... just post guards. Even into the twelefth and thirteenth centuries with the emergence of gunpowder onto the western European battlefields stealth and subversion remained the most effective ways to bypass fortified strongpoints quickly.

Once the enemy was alerted to an attempt to breach achieving the action quickly became much more difficult, and thus sieges set in. Sieges had always been dangerous and expensive even going back into antiquity... and as important as this abbey was as a passing point across the Cammas Prairie they couldn't justify a lengthy investment.
Mike had questioned the rush in spite of having seen what Arminger seemed to have been able to put together in just the relatively short span of time since the event, and the subsequent chaos of Saint Patricks day when all the lights had failed. That had been less than six months ago, and whatever he had managed to salvage from Portland it had obviously provided him enough of a supply of raw materials and a not insubstantial labor force

Certainly Norman seemed less concerned about holding the prairie for agricultural reasons... which meant he was probably looking at farmland in the Willamette valley proper ... at least most likely there. Whoever held the choice ground first with the most men was likely to hold it against a comparable force.

... and that was probably why Duke Iron Rod was being complacent.

Alexander slid off the assembly of lattice work. One of the not historically accurate portions of his armor were the gauntlets, they were a much later style with much more articulated fingers construction of modern high quality steel allow. They, and the silk liner inside them gave him full range of motion, and the ability to effectively utilize his bow, while protecting his fingers against some threats.

... obviously he didn't getting hit by a hammer even wearing them, but the gauntlets provided a range of mobility superior to most. It was part of a systematic material advantage to deflect any questions away from ... the other things he could do.

Thankfully the wind chakra that sheathed the longsword was almost opaque against the matte wide triangular blade. He'd elected to carry what oakshott would have classified as an XIV in part due to the concern of quarters. The last thing he wanted to have to explain was why any of the cinderblock walls or brickwork had significant slices through them in interior confines. Of course Alexander was willing to admit he might have under estimated the necessary of moving to a shorter thirty inch blade... a quick peak suggested the ceiling and their low hanging iron fixtures weren't that low... but it was also dark. An abundance of caution certainly wouldn't hurt. That and they had known the bandits had been reinforcing the monastery and building adding things to the structure.

The ex biker wearing a bull horn helmet was to heavily puffing on his cigarette to notice... it was dark and he was more interested in staying warm at the fireside than seriously standing watch. He probably didn't see the point who was going to attack at night when there weren't any lights besides fires, and the big oil drum had been stuffed full of what looked like books and doused in kerosene to keep it burning ... which meant it was bright

... between that and his smoking Alexander's approach nearly silent and from a blind spot was ghost like in its effectiveness. The man dropped as the loose knit coif at his neck split apart barely slowing the almost three inch wide cutting blade that came down as he hunched over to take another deep puff.. Alexander let the head fall, but grabbed the man's body to pull it back so that he could pull it back behind the burning barrel. The former biker had even generously brought a large if ratty looking wool blanket up here and a poncho.

So far as concealment went it was better than nothing but certainly wouldn't stand up to scrutiny. It might let them think the biker was sleeping on the job, but they were just as likely to call out as come over, and once they did come over itw as going to be hard to miss that something was wrong at the guard post watching this vantage point from St Hilda's 'gatehouse'.

Of course by that point he hoped to have merry little thermite burning through said gates. That was also his intended escape route in case of discovery, burn the iron bars and get out the front. Alexander paused to examine the crossbow, commercially made, pre change, hunting broad heads filling the quiver. Good quality, and unfortunately near irreplaceable given the composite material of the shaft and spring loaded heads.

Expensive before the change, but that five finger discount after the power had gone out, no doubt about it.
--
Mike Havel exploded into violence plunging the puko's short blade into a gap in the man's protection. Iron Rod's people weren't wearing their armor flush fit like it was supposed... probably as it was uncomfortable as shit... but that meant it left them vulnerable. The puko wasn't ideal for defeating armor, it was optimized for the role, but if you weren't going to where your personal protective equipment properly it was your own damned fault.

Gunny would have been proud of the aggression.

He was wrenching free and moving to body a second surprised guard when the tomahawk from one of the montana.... or wyoming 'nam vets opened the man's head up. Mike stopped half way as the slack look appeared and the biker went limp and collapsed. "Henry?" He guessed.

The big man grunted. Before Havel could ask why he was over here, "There is a problem, I counted the Devil Dogs are missing perhaps thirty of their number, and accompanying horses." He started, and looked to the 'barracks' as they'd identified it... it wasn't on fire which had been one idea that had been considered, and brought up more than once... the elder Larson had confessed to being against Napalm use because of Vietnam but that apparently hadn't been enough to deter the Wyomings.

It was good that they hadn't decided to go along with that idea anyway, he didn't fancy trying to control the fire in their present conditions... but then... "You think they're attacking the camp?' could they have gotten out after dark.

It was possible he supposed... that had two standout targets in Mike's mind obviously Woburn, or if the Devil Dogs had figured out that the bear killers had a camp... or the wyoming, but he doubted they could find the latter. It was smaller and had no non combatant dependents to attack. It made more sense to try and hit the bearkiller camp or Woburn.

There was a crash like thunder as the almost ton of wrought iron gates dropped free of their housing and hit the walls of the gate house. If they hadn't already lost the element of surprise they certainly had now with that clanging racket.... but it didn't matter the small party on the walls of the Devil Dog fortifications, and the advance party waiting to breach the gates as soon as they were open would be in, and without high ground, or barred fortifications to deal with this was probably going to turn bloodier but it'd be over quicker.

He turned back to the big indian. "Where are the rest of the guards."

"Oh them." Henry Standing bear chuckled whistling slightly as the laguna danced between his fingers.
--
Notes: obviously in the next section we puruse Duke Iron Rod and settle in the conclusion segments of september following the change.

When the Lights Went Out [Emberverse, Waifu Catalog Challenge fic]

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