Atpollard, hope everything is ok with you. Hoping thread life just got busy…and you’re otherwise ok. Thanks for asking. Yeah ... just busy piled on busy. Wife dented a bumper in a parking lot (so a quick trip to drop off and pick up car from local repair guy) and daughter had to move out of her Col...

2156.11.7.2100 - 9 km north of Arctic Complex Christophe led the way back, scanning for trouble along the path ahead. Herbie followed in the rear, tracking the Wolverine at the Crevice entrance as it watched you depart. That freed Mick to just think about things from the middle and focus for signs o...

2156.11.7.2050 - Smokey Crevice 9 km north of Arctic Complex It required some patience. At first, there seemed little response. Then there was that strange bone on stone clicking sound. However, nothing actually approached the meat. After 30 minutes, Christolphe was the first to spot movement and si...

Eris…sounds reasonable to me. Didn’t realize Val was with us…Sophie still is though. Mick would ask Christophe about possibly pulling dried meat products from their food packs in the Adventure Packs and using it to draw the beasts out. Would it work to literally drop a meat “crumb trail” down on L1...

2156.11.7.1910 - 9 km north of Arctic Complex Mick and Herbie scanned the vicinity for a suitable spot and quickly settled on the opposite end of the crevice. While the ground sloped up and the hill sloped down to meet at [L0], the ground sloped down and the hill sloped up towards [L1] with the res...

Electronics and Mechanical skills with the materials we have ought to allow us to make a crude detector easliy, I would think. Good and bad news ... ... The VET ATV contains specialized imaging equipment that can easily scan through the snow for objects. It can be set to discriminate by material si...

2156.11.7.1600 - Arctic Complex Joe, Jim and Val set to work on the more permanent Power repairs (step one was locating and safely removing unused power cables to run a new line from Building 3 to Building 5). DJ took advantage of the power in the building to familiarize himself with the equipment ...

2156.11.7.1910 - 9 km north of Arctic Complex

There are definitely “non-humans” living there. Mick discovers the tracks of a pair of creatures, each around 800 kg, that appear to travel together single file. Mick discovered multiple trips both to and from the cave.

2156.11.7.1900 - 9 km north of Arctic Complex A large snow-covered hill stands before you, like an overturned salad bowl, with a giant crack splitting it in half and extending deep into the ground. Standing at one edge of the crevice [L0] and looking into it, it is about 30 meters [100 feet] from t...

2156.11.7.1800 - 6 km north of Arctic Complex You enter the snow-covered foothills … still following the path. About another 2 km into the foothills, you come to an area of beaten down snow. Someone stopped here long enough to clear an area before moving on. New snow has covered any signs of what t...

2156.11.7.1700 - 3 km north of Arctic Complex Mick observed a change in the tracks. What had been deep footprints became a wide, shallow drag path - like a toboggan. Some careful digging by herbie revealed footprints in the snow pushing or dragging something flat along with them (probably carrying ...

2156.11.7.1600 - Arctic Complex Olivia confirmed that the path north was clear as far as she could see … which was pretty far at that elevation, scanning for heat signatures against a sub-zero background. You have critters to the distant southwest, but nothing but snow for half a dozen clicks to th...

Thumper wrote: ↑Mon Apr 22, 2024 9:06 pm I read the boot prints as upright walking boot prints vs drag marks from boots…correct?

Correct.

2156.11.7.1550 - Arctic Complex DJ went to work searching every box and cubby in the VET ATV as Jim removed access panels and began to ready the vehicle to accept power cables and fittings never designed for it. It was mostly an exercise in fabricating adaptors and re-routing salvaged power lines f...

2156.11.7.1540 - Arctic Complex Herbie was outside the ATVs practicing with his binoculars. Part of the goal was to just become familiar with his latest toy - Herbie loved gadgets - and part of it was an extra abundance of caution after the revelation that predators had been spotted only 1500 meter...

2156.11.7.1530 - Arctic Complex Herbie and Sophie explored the snow around where the finger and empty weapon had been discovered, but discovered no additional items. Mick headed to the VET ATV and started a search. Everything looked both neat and secure to casual observation, suggesting the crew le...

2156.11.7.1515 - Arctic Complex: [Joe and Jim] Joe and Jim evaluated the options. A “field trip” to Building 5 confirmed that the power feeds to the building had been melted and would need to be replaced with “something”. There were three options: REPAIR THE EMERGENCY SWITCHOVER: It was theoretical...

2156.11.7.1515 - Arctic Complex: [DJ] The part HAD left Building 1. The VET team HAD arrived in Building 5. The part was NOT installed on the roof. DJ climbed down the ladder and resolved himself to the task ahead … a room by room search of Building 5 for the missing part. It was hard searching in ...

2156.11.7.1515 - Arctic Complex: [Mick, Herbie and Sophie] As Herbie carefully removed layers of snow, Mick [Hunting-3] had time to study the patterns in the hard layers beneath the fresh overlay. Soon a pattern emerged. A path, made by a large pack traveling in a single column, dragging their kill...