Librarian's Almanac for July, 2000
July 7
Boxcar Joshua logs a report of a small settlement he discovered along the remains of the old Elephant Butte Dam. The settlement is willing to trade time at the remaining generators in exchange for supplies and ammo needed to defend them against the local raiders.
An Indian scout named Lightning Shadow arrives with a story that the inhabitants of Van Horn are raiding anyone they come across to make spook juice. She only escaped when her companions bought her enough time to escape on a motorcycle. The scout is out to put together a posse to try and free her friends as well as anyone else she can as well as put an end to the abominations in Van Horn. The problem is that it's not just Spook Juice that they're cookin' up behind the walls of Van Horn.
Judge Miles Fargo, an aged Law Dog, arrives with a spectacular catch. Surtur, the so-called King of the Raiders is in his custody, doped to the gills to keep him from exercising his Syker abilities. Judge Fargo insists on giving the notorious bandit a fair trial in town, but a local scout arrives with word that a big chunk of Surtur's underlings have been spotted heading towards town, armed to the teeth.
The Louisiana scavvie known as Pere Bayou has put out a call for any Junker that can make the journey to the swampy ruins of New Orleans for a most unique competition. Pere Bayou has a very unique prize for the person that can assemble the most beneficial junker device for the citizens of the Wasted West. The prize will be the precise location of a submerged tank of LOX, almost two cubic tons of the powerful fuel. The junkers are already converging on the swampy remnants of the Crescent City to see who can claim the prize. Unfortunately, the Luddites have also gotten wind of things and plan to crash the party. Look for fireworks amid the mud and cypress trees in the land of gators and good times.
The fortress town of old Mesilla in southern New Mexico has put out a bounty on the heads of the Dust Demons road gang. The ornery packs of raiders have harassed the tiny enclave for months, depriving them of food shipments that are badly needed from the nearby orchards. The bounty is one restored motorcycle for each posse member or several pieces of armor made to order. The head of the Dust Demons has heard of the price on his head and is planning to put some of his own people in the posse and lead them to a trap.
A caravan from the Red Rock Trading Company reports that an old locomotive was spotted on the rail line from Tucson, heading in the general direction of New Mexico. Not long after, scouts from the company start finding discarded bits of clothing from gangers along the rails. No weapons or a vehicle just clothes.
Several towns report the visitations of Old Ned. Old Ned is a battered and rather shopworn combat Borg who arrives in town pulling an old four-wheeled cart. He badgers and pesters the locals for any recent dead to be put on his cart so that he may take "them on to a proper funeral" He never has raised a hand or plasma blade to anyone and depart swiftly if given any corpses. He heads into the wilderness with his charges and some of the locals are getting a little curious as to what is going on.
July 10
A scout from the enclave of Far Houston arrives with a report of three-meter tall mechanical spiders spotted along the coastline of east Texas and West Louisiana. They have been attacking road gangs and eliminating drivers while removing the vehicles to another location. While no one is shedding any tears over the loss of the gangers, there are worries that trading caravans
may be next.
The badly wounded remnants of a scavvie crew arrive with word that they think they have discovered the location of one of the old submarine bases belonging to the CAS. They were scouting the ruins of Corpus Christi inside the maelstrom when they were attacked by a large number of mutated animals. One of the scavvies swears that the mutated critters acted like someone was leading them with tactical ability.
Scouts from Hobbs, New Mexico arrive with a report of a squad of Anti-Templars duking it out with what looked like a pack of witches in the abandoned town of Midland-Odessa in the Texas panhandle.
Convoy couriers log in with a couple of sightings of what looks like a skeletal biker racing through the desert freeways of Texas and New Mexico.
July 13
Indian nomads arrive with stories of undead Templars gathering in the Ysleta district of the El Paso ruins.
Word arrives of a horrible massacre at the Clint cattle farms. Range riders arrived back to find the compounds in flames with no survivors to be found. All of the cattle were mutilated beyond recognition and left to rot.
The old Mesilla fort has announced that it will serve as the hub of a new mail service and is now looking for folks to start braving sleet, snow and dead of night.
A Red Rock trading caravan arrives with stories of strange happenings in the town of Alamagordo. The town was cleaned out thirteen years ago during the infamous Death March across the American southwest. The Caravan reports that the strange symbols that decorated parts of Wichita in Texas have now appeared on the old National Space museum in town. There are also guards that talk about sightings of large Cyborgs hiding from view in various buildings in town. There were also signs of patrols that were heading in the direction of the maelstrom that covers the Alamagordo Airforce base and the White Sands Missile Range.
July 17
The Silver Nun reports of a pair of Combine Raptors being found deactivated along the roads in upper Arizona. Upon investigation, the craft appeared to be in perfect working order but missing their powerplants with the cannons and ammo left intact.
The last three months have seen a disturbing trend among Sykers in Arizona. There have been over six Sykers spotted in various parts of the state having been horribly mutated but still having perfectly normal heads. The Sykers have made no attempts to communicate and have retreated every time they have been spotted. Local Doomsayers are puzzled as well.
Judge Miles Fargo made a terrible discovery in the small enclave of Black Canyon, just North of the Phoenix ruins. The town was discovered to have over twenty wrecked tractor-trailers inside the Town Square. It appears the towns folk died in some sort of gun battle with an unknown force. There were large amounts of spent shell casings and what look like grenade fragments. The enigma deepens when it is revealed that there is no sign of the inhabitants or the attackers and some of the trucks have the markings of the Red River Trading Company
Scouts from Apache Junction arrive back with a report of what appears to be a compound off a secondary rail line in the southern Arizona desert. They are looking for a crew to help them get past the rattlers in the area to get inside to see about some juicy salvage.
Townsfolk in New Mexico are starting to hear some disturbing stories making the rounds from the local mutie tribes. The muties are saying that the time of "The Great Unmaker" is near and soon she will be among the faithful to reward them for their devotion. No one knows what the mutants are talking about and the Doomsayers are really nervous because no one had heard of another religion among mutants before now.
The Arizona nighttime sky just got a little darker. A band of wasters managed to bag one of the flying creatures near Apache Junction. Two Junkers, a Syker and a pair of gunmen went out for the bounty and ended up with the fight of their lives. Once safely in a cage at the Engineer's Society, the flyer was revealed to be a form of feral, winged vampire. Piper and the other Junkers in town are now looking for volunteers to head in to the storms over the Phoenix Metroplex to see if the source of these creatures can be found. There are friendly mutant tribes known to be inside the ruins as well as a number of scavvie crews that could be contacted to act as guides or scouts. Piper is willing to pay very well for any information on these flying bloodsuckers.
July 18
The towns of Battle Mountain, Austin and Winnemucca, Nevada have been overrun by Dust Devils. A small posse of heroes have bloodied the Dust Devil's nose's several times over the last month, but this has resulted in large numbers of refugees immigrating to the towns of Elko and Wendover Nevada. Population levels in these towns have reached dangerous levels.
Submitted by the Junker partners of Boojum & Quark
Junkers from the Apache Junction Engineer's Society arrived in New River, Arizona to uncover an extensive garden in several hidden greenhouses but no sign of the forty-odd previous inhabitants of the small village.
Boxcar Joshua logs a report in the enclave of Yuma of what appears to be several landed aircraft in the depths of Death Valley.
Scouts from the Red River Trading Company report seeing several Templar corpses strung up on Telephone poles along secondary roads in the mountains of New Mexico. The total count so far is eleven.
Several Sykers have reported hearing "electronic"sounding telepathic transmissions from around the old NASA areas in Houston. The messages are garbled and intermittent but some common recurring threads involve the words: thought-eater, low-orbit, Comsat, and invasion.
July 21
Mama Titubu in New Orleans is in need of some help. A large pack of witches has moved into the muddy ruins of New Orleans and have been doing their level best to kill or run off the few locals that remain in the old Crescent City. Mama wants to know why the witches are have picked New Orleans and what can be done about them. There might be some folks over the river that could help. Any one up to earning a favor from an old fashioned Voodoo Queen?
The Law Dog called Steel Zachary has a problem. One of her deputies who happened to have an extra leg was sent out to investigate stories of a large group of mutants gathering in the abandoned town of Belen, New Mexico. The deputy has not returned and by all accounts, the gathering is still getting bigger. Any volunteers to find the missing deputy and see what the big mutie attraction is?
A refugee stumbled into Apache Junction claiming to be from an encampment in the old Mammoth Cave roadside park. Over forty people had hidden in the cave to seek cover from a nearby road gang and from an impending Hellstorm. He says that one of the group scouts had discovered some sort of bunker in the depths of the cavern, but the their light sources gave out and something attacked the group. He and several others split up to try and find help for those still underground. Spelunking anyone?
Scavvie crews report several sightings of what looks like a one man Gyrocopter flying around the ruins of Phoenix. Could this be the mysterious person that sounds the old air raid warning siren when a Hellstorm builds over the city?
Only twenty more days until the Great Pilgrimage!
July 24
A Schismatic Doomsayer reports that someone is starting up the old copper mines Northeast of Phoenix. There are fresh trailings on the mountainside and recent tracks from heavy equipment. Piper and the Engineer Society are interested because of the recent rash of Black Hat sightings in the area.
The small community built in the trees outside of Lafayette, Louisiana announces that they wish to trade equipment and clothing for food and seed crops.
A Postal worker from old Mesilla says the enclave in the ruins of Albuquerque is reporting repeated attacks from automatons demanding quarts of blood.
Scouts from Apache Junction arrive with stories of a huge outbreak of mutations overtaking the nomadic Indians in Northern Arizona. There are no known Doomsayers in the area and there have been no reports of radstorms recently either. What could be causing such a huge plague of mutations?
Only 18 more days until the Great Pilgrimage!
July 27
Piper, the head Junker in the Apache Junction Engineer's Society is raising a posse to go after a thief. Two weeks ago, a waster dying of blood loss appeared at the Apache Junction gates. He was made comfortable and had a small private talk with Piper before passing on in his sleep. Piper was given a map and directions from the wanderer and secured them in his strongbox. Rumors began to float around the town, (Junkers do love to gossip, ya know) and the directions were said to lead to a classified military base, a backwater cybertech factory, a hidden enclave of rich folks in the mountains and a fortified farm in a secluded valley. Many stories were making the rounds and Piper was getting a mite upset at the rumormongering when his box vanished. The prime suspect is a trader and scout known in the area, one Boxcar Joshua. He was the last one seen near the box before it disappeared.
The wandering gunslinger named Red Feathers logs a report of the destruction of a trader caravan from Brownsville. It seems that Red Feathers and a number of other individuals were taken on as guards. Outside of the ruins of Fort Worth, the caravan was besieged by faintly glowing translucent humanoids whose touch could kill. Red Feathers says that a hasty retreat was all that saved him and the caravan is still there, waiting for salvage.
14 days until the Great Pilgrimage!
July 31
A small posse left the town of Wendover, Nevada and headed north on a salvage expedition. Sketchy reports are that they have located a pre-war amusement park (Six Flags Over Nevada) and are exploring it. However they have not been sighted in several days, so what has become of them and the exact location/condition of the park is unknown. Also as the group was very secretive about their route and they have not been heard from yet, it is unknown where these rumors are originating from.
Submitted by Boojum & Quark, Junkers Esq.
Scouts from New Orleans are reporting a beached cruise liner in the lower reaches of the Greater Louisiana swamps. No one can say how it got there, in such shallow swamp mud. The scouts are looking for a number of technical and mechanically inclined folks to get past the bizarre and incredibly complex system of locks on all the lower bulkhead doors.
A caravan owner needs some guards who can think fast and shoot straight to get a small set of boxes to Doc Schwartz up in Junkyard. He wants to leave real quiet - like before anyone gets wind of the seven state of the art computer cores that he plundered from somewhere. The volunteers need to get him and his high tech prize all the way to Junkyard, dodging whatever lies in their path as well as the mightily upset Mexican Warlord that he liberated them from. El Sangre Dio, the Blood God, has no patience for those who would steal his holy CPUs.
Robin Lansing, a renowned Librarian arrives with a story of an outbreak of crippling nightmares among the townies living at the old Mesilla Fort. One Templar is rumored to be heading down to investigate. Would the posse be interested as well?
Bedraggled and wounded folks arrive; full of stories of the multi-story, six legged armored mechanical monstrosity that flattened the town of Far Houston. There are conflicting reports of the use of cannon fire, flame-throwers and missiles in its rampage through the small community. There are also whispers that the walker was laughing at the plight of the refugees but seemed to have no interest in following those who fled. What is the mystery of the destruction of Far Houston, and what does the supernatural machine intend to do now?
Eleven days until the Great Pilgrimage!