Captain's Log

[Kent]

2/5/13
Arrived in Harper's Rock on schedule while en route to next job. However the captain for the connecting flight has gone missing and apparently there was some blood found in the cockpit. Now the flight's been canceled and it is highly unlikely I'll be able to make contact with the client as planned. I'll have to call the message service tonight and let them know that I won't be able to take the job after all. I really hate doing that, but it is better than keeping the client waiting.

In the meantime I suppose I'll be trying to find some temporary lodging here in town and see if there's anything to do here. If nothing else there are a surprising number of cyber cafes. It seems like they are on almost every corner. Might be fun to hit one up and see just how secure their network is. Maybe see if I can get into the network settings and screw with everyone a bit. The old upside down internet gag is always fun. I saw a flyer earlier for a decent looking pub earlier, I think I'll try hitting that up tonight. Maybe they'll have some decent whiskey.

I did a bit of walking around town today and I've got to say... There's something a bit off about this place. The people here seem to have a fascination with the spooky and supernatural stuff. I overhead several people talking about supposed ghosts and building with odd sounds, etc. I know small towns can be a bit eccentric but c'mon really?

[Kent]

2/11/13
The airline captain's disappearance has been sorted out and the passengers on my flight are all being allowed to leave town now. Well, everyone but me. With my contract canceled I found myself wandering around the town a bit and I stumbled upon an absolutely perfect little irish pub. Oddly situated in the same building as a night club, but otherwise perfect. It was there that I met her. She's been a great friend to me since I arrived here. She showed me around the city, and to my surprise I've had a great time both evenings. She has helped me realize that I am a bit overdue for a break so I've decided to give myself a bit of a vacation. I think I'll stay here in town a bit longer before moving on. Maybe next I'll visit Ireland.

I know I've been warned about the wildlife they have around here but I'm eager to head out into the woods tomorrow. They have some incredible forests here that seem to just stretch on forever. Would make for a heck of a hike. My only concern is how... oddly superstitious people seem to be around here. I've overhead countless conversation about odd noises, suspected hauntings, strange creatures, even a supposed zombie outbreak. It's a little disturbing, the sheer amount of it almost makes me curious enough to look into some of these claims if I time.

I also heard a rumor about massive catacombs that run beneath the city. That one I can say with absolute certainty is true. Old ruins have always fascinated me so I went and did a little exploring. Finding them requires going through some less than pleasant sewers and I ruined some perfectly good clothes getting there, but I found them. Along with being amazing archeologically and architecturally they are also littered with weapons that range from the slightly old and rusted to the truly ancient and priceless. I confess I found one such ancient dagger myself. I suppose I should turn it over to some museum or something of the like but I just can't bring myself to part with it. It appears to be a roman pugio, how it managed to find it's way over here to some strange catacombs in the canadian wilderness I don't know.

I'm off now to see if there is someplace in this town where I can buy, beg, or borrow a decent guitar.

[Kent]

2/13/13 09:00
I'm growing a bit concerned about this town. It would seem the populace isn't quite as eccentric as I'd thought. There is definitely something going on here. I went to the catacombs again last night to look for more artifacts work rescuing. However I ended up spending a good deal of time doing recon instead. There are creatures down there that most definitely are not natural.

I had just picked up another dagger when I saw the first of them. I do not know how to describe it, it was horrific. I've seen some pretty nasty things before but I still felt my stomach turn at the sight of that thing. Maybe I should have gotten the hell out of there right away, but I just couldn't leave it at that. I went into standard recon mode, kept low, kept quiet. I tore off a bit of my sleeve and wrapped it over my flashlight, dimming it as much as I could without losing visibility. There were more malformed things like the first one down there. At first I thought maybe there was just some sort of problem with the local animal life. Could be a contaminant or a disease in the area causing birth defects. Terrible to be sure, but simple enough to report to local authorities for clean-up/containment.

What happened after I went a bit deeper convinced me otherwise though. At first I dismissed the ancient dried out and rotted corpse over by the wall as just another of the many skeletons that seemed to litter the catacombs... Then the damn thing moved. It was actually shuffling around. That one I had no logical reasoning for. That's when I thought back to all those seemingly crazy rumors I've been hearing around the Necropolis the last few days. I had a real zombie in front of me. That time I did bug out. I made my way up out of the catacombs and sewer as quickly as possible and headed straight to a shop I'd heard about earlier in they day. The heavy balding man running it seemed to be perpetually sweating and always glancing around. At first he seemed uneasy with me, who knows maybe he thought I was a cop. I am new around here after all so he's never seen me before. I sold him everything I could afford to, except that first pugio I'd found. A good knife was looking very useful right now. I used the money I got off him to immediately purchase a gun. His prices were a bit ridiculous and it was a sadly basic sidearm but it would serve. I suppose I can't complain considering he was willing to let me take it then and there along with several boxes of ammo.

I've been sitting here in my motel room trying to sort out my thoughts. I spent the last half hour cleaning, breaking down and rebuilding the sidearm I bought and the next thing I'm going to do is hone the edges on that dagger. I've got to know what's going on around here and why it's been kept so quiet. I may not be in the army anymore but I still have some contacts there that would kill for that kind of intel. I've been getting some things together to take with me and I've come to a decision. I'm going to check into this QZ everyone's been whispering about. The rumors say that's where these zombies are being contained. I am desperately hoping I'll find out there's some other explanation for this. If there's not... Why the hell this place hasn't been evac'd and turned into a smoking crater I do not understand.

If I do not return I've given the front desk instructions to ship this journal to one of my old COs back in the states. He might, just might, believe all this. Especially if I've gone MIA. Assuming nothing goes wrong during this bit of recon I will be making a full report of what I find in this journal when I return.

[Kent]

3-4-13
I've been a bit less diligent noting this log than I should have been, but there's been a lot on my mind. It's hard to believe that it's only been a little over two weeks since that night I headed into the zone. The night that changed everything for me.

When I went into the zone that night I found exactly what I'd been looking for. Proof of some sort of zombie outbreak being kept contained by the local government. Not just zombies either, the zone hosted other creatures as well. Creatures even more hideous and deadly than the zombies. It was one of these creatures that was my downfall. I'd dispatched one target and retrieved the evidence I'd been searching for when I ran into it on the way back to the extraction point. I thought at the time that I was going crazy, it seemed somewhat human at first... more so than the shambling corpse I'd terminated. Except it was some kind of wild, feral thing. Hair matted down and tangled up, skin covered in filth, clothes tattered torn and dirty... Then there were those fangs. Actual fangs. They were long, smooth and pointed almost like a snake's. I don't remember a lot of that encounter very clearly, but I know it didn't go well. I nearly died that night. Or I suppose I did actually. It depends on how you look at it.

Either way you look at it, I survived. I learned even more about the secrets this city keeps that night. The things in the quarantine zone are just the tip of the iceberg. I found out all those paranoid superstitious people going on about disappearing persons and people with odd bite marks weren't so paranoid after all. This town has a whole secret society living just under the surface, a society of vampires. They're everywhere here. It seems painfully obvious in retrospect, but it's one of those things you can't bring yourself to believe because everything you know says it should be impossible. Yet... even more stunning than all these other revelations was that she was one of these vampires.

She saved me that night, even though she didn't have to. In fact it would have been much easier for her all around if she hadn't, but she did it anyway. She has taught me all about this new world I find myself in. There are many dangers and rules to this new existence that aren't apparent at first and some very strict rules that must be maintained in order to keep the peace and maintain the secret of vampire existence. Understandable considering I'm positive I know what would happen if people were finally forced to admit the strange truth. It'd be torches and pitchforks for the masses for sure.

As a vampire I now have much greater strength and speed than I ever had as a human, however I can no longer bear the sun. Thankfully those of the path I was reborn into can still eat and drink normal foods, even though they do us no good. It makes blending in easier and honestly help me to feel a little more human. It would be all too easy to get caught up in the power I have now and become disconnected from my humanity and that is the last thing I want. Another strange trait of those of my path is one that only afflicts some. It's a heightening of emotions, everything is sharper and more powerful than ever. It took me a while to finally get it under control. Especially around her. At first I could barely have a conversation with her without being assaulted by all kinds of conflicting emotions. Ours started out as a complicated relationship. Even though she is my sire, the one who turned me, we also couldn't deny that there had been an attraction in place already before all that. That mutual attraction has grown steadily in the days since. She makes me happy in a way that I truly cannot remember feeling in a long time. She helped me realize what a rut my life had been in since I lost my post in the army and it opened my eyes. Now that I'm here in Harper Rock I'm trying to enjoy my life (un-life?) a little more.

[Kent]

10-25-13

It's been far too long since I updated this log. I've fallen out of the habit unfortunately, but I do so now because I need to clear my head. I've been away for so much longer than I'd expected. Months ago I got a call from a good friend, a man I served with. He said he needed my help, he had a situation and he couldn't go to the police. I knew I really should have told him I couldn't help, I knew I should be cutting ties from my human life... but the men I served with are my brothers. How could I turn my back on him? I wrote a quick note that I'd hurriedly tacked up on the door for Sol to find. Looking back I realize it must have been painfully vague to her. I honestly expected only to be gone a night or two, I thought I'd just be able to fill her in when I returned... It didn't turn out that way.

So now here I sit in motel room once again, just like when I first came to this city, writing my thoughts down in this log to try and get things in order. I've missed everyone here, but how will they take my sudden and protracted disappearance? I find myself in the unenviable position of having abandoned my fiance, abandoning my duties in Ty, and being several months out of the loop. Regardless if none of these things were intentional, they all feel like stones hanging around my neck.

I suppose all that left for me now is to go face the music and hope no one ends up gutting me for cutting out like I did...