Librarian's Almanac for June, 2000
June 1
Two traders quite the worse for wear, stumble into Lordsburg. After a night rest and medical care, they gasp out that the town of Columbus, down near the Old Mexico border was wiped out by an unusually viscious hellstorm that lasted for almost a day and a half. When investigators arrive, there is a town full of people hale and hearty. But they all have the same odd purple sheen to their eyes...
The town elders of Mogollon, a small mining town in the White Mountains of New Mexico have a small problem. Every Law Dog that arrives to track down the mountaineering bandits that have plagued that area turn back up, under the light of the new moon with complete amnesia.
A Librarian arrives with talk of a pack of Loyalist Doomsayers that have discovered an old Uranium mine in the Arizona Badlands. Someone needs to find the local Schismatics and form up a posse to run them out before the term of "gettin' the glows" becomes a permanent phrase in the local vocabulary
The Engineering Society at Apache Junction gets word from the local Scavenger crews that there are people walking out of the Ghost Storms over the ruins of Phoenix. They are rounded up and they swear that a woman lives in the ruins that can heal mutations with a touch.
The twin maelstroms that cover the ruins of El Paso and Cuidad Juarez in Mexico seem to be covering a new threat. The locals that live in the Franklin Mountains are reporting that the resident cemeteries are being raided and torn to pieces. Hardly a tombstone or grave marker is being left standing.
Reported by "Big Pete" the Law Dog fer Montana:
A fourth child was abducted in Sheridan, Wyoming. Samantha Willis was snatched from her bed, and the words "BSB 4 eva" were scrawled on her bedroom walls. Local Law Dog Azalea Molson and the Editor of the New Epitaph, John Clum XI, are looking for help in investigating.
A new Templar Martyr has been discovered. Jason Towers, a noted Templar for five years, has reported that none other than John Shaft, of TV and movie fame, gives him "way increased BadAssitude", to quote Towers. It was long held that Shaft, who was called "The black private dick who's like a sex machine to all the chicks", was a fictional. Some, most notably the famed Jo, say that Towers is either hallucinating or lying. There will be a hearing on the matter.
June 6
The Silver Nun logged a story of flying lights spotted in the maelstrom around the old Alamogordo Air Force base. Those who have investigated have returned badly wounded with stories about being shot at by small flying drones.
A scavenger crew from the ruins of Dallas report that the Warlord "Blackeye" Farrel was seen with heading into the maelstrom with seven large construction trucks. The crew was run off with automatic fire and some of the local would really like to know what a second rate warlord would need with construction vehicles.
A traveling caravan crew is looking for guards as they move west. At each town they visit the mixed bag of folks puts on a small variety act for the locals in exchange for board, food and information.
A Schismatic Doomsayer arrives in the township of Yuma and begs for shelter from the "hideous machine-animals" that are on his trail. During the night, the town guards fight off what appears to be an eight legged-mechanical bull that stands at seven feet at the horns. The local Law Dog is nervous because the delirious radiation priest mentioned animals in the plural.
A wandering Indian Gunslinger named Red Feathers logs a report with the Librarian in Apache Junction concerning the appearance of a new organized raider band. The township of Globe in Northern Arizona was attacked in the middle of the night in a surprise strike. The raiders were all dressed in black and spoke not a word during the assault. They made off with a fair amount of food, clothing, and every black haired child under the age of 15.
June 12
The floating town of Houma in the Greater Louisiana swamp reports several sightings of a large square sided vessel dredging isolated spots in the bayou under the cover of darkness and storms. Anyone hailing the vessel is fired upon with automatic weaponry. No report has made mention of any crew yet.
The locals in Baton Rouge are putting out the word for a crew of capable people for a dangerous job. One of the local scouts has claimed to find a group of pirates living in the remnants of a small shipyard between Baton Rouge and the New Orleans bayou. Any materials that could be scavenged would be of immense help to the struggling towns. Of course, the shipyard is within spitting distance of the Huey P. Long Memorial reactor...
The sheriff and town mayor of East Canaan Texas, one Debra Jory, has instituted a new law. Each and every person must wear a badge when they come into town. All of the locals wear one and seem to like the sheriff. The badges are a little odd though. A round purple field bearing an infinity symbol over a white nine-pointed star.
A local Syker is looking for some aid. Her long-time traveling companion, a Junker named Phillip Wheeler, was kidnapped by several large Cyborgs. The group took him from his guard duty at the gates of the Stratford Township and vanished east with him. The 'Borgs were all wearing painted symbols of a bizarre nature that the Syker has yet to identify. The same markings have been reported on the ruins of Wichita in northern Texas. Or course most people don't go there since the CAS Special Air Command Base was on the on the outskirts, and the Northern Alliance made sure it was taken care of. No less than five separate Ghost Storms rage in the sky around Wichita.
June 16
The town of Agua Dulce in New Mexico is requesting the attentions of a Law Dog or two. It seems that there has been a series of misunderstandings between some townspeople and a tribe of thirty or so nomadic Indians. The Indians are threatening to "Call down the Father of All Storms" if one of their young women is not returned to them. The townsfolk say that the girl does not want to go back. There have been sightings of a raider gang in the area as well. And then there is the small matter of the youngster's recent hair loss and strange dreams...
The fortified town of Santa Fe is offering an outrageous bounty for the heads of five notorious gunslingers. The reward is whopping 500 rounds of ammunition for each cranium returned to the Fortress town. J. Dennis Anderson, the mayor, swears that the fearsome five started an impromptu shooting competition in the town gardens. When one of the locals actually beat several of the gunmen, they shot him to pieces and made a blazing, bloody getaway. The group is lead by Deadeye Dave Barney, a large ex-marine. The others include Stinky Peter Godsey, a smelly waster with a deep Cajun accent and fear of water, Gerald "the Gimp" Russ, with his polished .44 revolvers and lame left leg, and "Gleamy" Julian, a Syker veteran of the Banshee Campaign which left him a bona-fide sociopath. The fifth, one Jeremy Smokebreather, is currently in the small jail maintained in Florence, Arizona. Smokebreather swears that he was never near the place and doesn't even know the others.
A waster calling himself Iron Patrick arrives in the Upper Nevada town of Desperation, with wild claims that a pack of Mutants have gotten their claws on three full sets of Powered armor and are savaging any settlements that they come across. The tale sounds like it was seen at the bottom of a brewer's barrel until the refugees start coming in to town. Refugees full of stories of great iron creatures that tore whole ceilings of off buildings and that could just shrug off small arms fire. The real worries begin when the Loyalist Doomsayers are spotted fleeing North and west into Templar Country...
A Junker by the name of Sparks Roberts in the fortress town of Santa Fe stuns the town with a startling revelation. She claims to have finally completed a satellite transceiver rig and is going to start broadcasting news to all those within reach. The celebration is short-lived however when Roberts, her lab and the transceiver array perish in a huge explosion a few days later. Things start getting really weird when those people with radios start hearing little voices calling for help in the static. Lots and lots of little faint voices.
June 20
An Indian scout named Boxcar Joshua arrives in Santa Fe with stories that there are signs of life in the wrecked town of Socorro, New Mexico. Joshua relates that he saw figures in some sort of rough compound around the old New Mexico State Police headquarters. He cautions that the area is full of walkin' dead and the local mutants won't go near the place. The muties told him that there were demons of light and wind that lived there that can kill in a heartbeat.
The gunslinger called Shrike relayed a story to the inhabitants of Lordsburg concerning the nearby ruins of Deming, New Mexico. During his last trip through, a number of buildings were seen sporting the black Maltese Cross of the Anti-templars. The Silver Nun has already expressed an interest in an investigation along with Brother Thelonius, a local archivist. Are there any other volunteers?
The Schismatic Doomsayer called Old Deuteronomy has announced that his is putting a crew of healers together to make a journey to Silver City to render aid to the walled settlement there. He is looking for Junkers to provide some form of transport as well as any one who can handle a gun to act as guards. There is talk that the Mountain Devil raiders are in the area as well as what seems to be a Black Hat scouting party with several Heavy Cans in tow.
The locals in Baton Rouge are reporting that the pirate gang hidden in the shipyard near the Huey P. Long Memorial reactor was a smokescreen. A party of folks went in to clear them out and to see what was salvageable. Of the fourteen, only two escaped and one died on the boat trip back. The survivor spun a tale of ambushes and booby-traps on the three beached ships with pitched battles between human raiders and some form of shadowy wraith-like creatures. The survivor spun wild tales of things folding out of shadows, gunfire having no effect and equipment being snatched away by invisible hands. The locals are feeling considerably out of their league.
June 22
A scout from the hidden community in the Franklin Mountains reports that some form of bizarre siege is taking place in the ghost storm around the old Fort Bliss Air Force Base. The base was thought to have been sacked during the Mexico invasion, then gone for good when the missiles went up. The stories are of a force of Anti-Templars and a big tribe of Mutants having some sort of running battle over the course of the last two weeks. The fight had gone on in and out of the storm around the base until both sides seem to stage a final assault inside the maelstrom wall. The next day a patrol of Black hats in full HAZMAT gear arrived from the northern plains and drove straight in to the storm. Three days later, a group of twenty Green-robed Doomsayers trooped down out of a boat on the Rio Grande and made straight for the same place. The locals are very nervous about so many powerhouses in one place and the local Law Dog, "Vaquero" Manny Felix is asking around for anyone to go with him to try and figure out what the Hell is going on at the Fort. The final pieces of the puzzle making themselves known is the blue-white ball lightning that the maelstrom wall is beginning to emit and the lone unmarked Hummer that has been seen skulking in the ruins of the areas around the base.
Traders from the fortress of Santa Fe arrive with news of the town of Van Horn. The town elders are shocked to learn that the traders have tanks and tanks of spook juice that the people of Van Horn were asking to trade with. The traders took it gratefully but have no answers as to where the "Hornies" got their hands on so much go-juice.
A cattle baron from Clint, Texas named Luis Munoz is looking for some capable individuals to track down a missing cattle drive. It was supposed to have gone to the settlement of Far Houston, but he got word that the cattle and its caretakers never arrived. Time to hunt something that goes "Moo" in the night
A report comes from the ruins of Seattle that s group of strange, automaton-like creatures are enslaving the local humans. The one human the reporter managed to talk to said that the robots said to go into Seattle and break down anything standing, and, if they see a cat, to kill it. The human then went on to describe that the automatons live in burrows, and a group called the "Owsla" is in charge. Another local claims to have seen these robots jumping over each other, as if playing. (Report logged by Big Pete the Law Dog)