[HOE] The Librarian's Almanac for August 8th

[Michael Cone <Michael.Cone@apollogrp.edu>]

Bad talk arrives with a trader from the Shattered Coast. It seems that a
tall, powerfully built figure in ragged clothes was seen in three separate
towns with plenty of goods to barter with. Bullets, a box of milrats, kevlar
vests, sugar candies, movie slugs, and the list goes on and on. The kicker
is what the man was shopping for. Scuttlebutt says that he's looking for the
best gunslingers in the area. More than a dozen are said to have already
been drifting in to see what the man has to offer and what the bargain might
entail. Law Dogs up and down the coast have heard of the man looking to buy
the best. And are starting to worry. What does the mysterious Mister Whisper
want with the talents of the Wasted West's most proficient gunmen? Where
does he get all of the amazing desirables to pay for their services? Time to
polish those guns and start practicing your swagger.


A lone truck driver named Gertie McDonough arrives at the fort town of Near
Beaumont with sightings of smoke and steam coming from one of the old
coastal refineries near the Texas/Louisiana border. Gertie swears despite
the thirty-hour days she had been putting in, she saw ghost rock fumes
billowing from one section of the compound. And her nose is telling her that
there is Spook Juice somewhere in there. She wants to go in and dig up a few
barrels of go-juice. The chances of some good salvage are pretty high.


"Manacles" Monroe, a bounty hunter of some repute is looking for some brave
souls to earn some scratch. It seems that "Manacles" is hot on the trail of
an individual named Cedric. This waster is known to be a very skilled cat
burglar that fingered the prized palmtop computer of James Carpenter, a Law
Dog from the Shattered Coast. Carpenter promised a fortune in bullets and
food to Monroe if she could get the palmtop back and now the bounty gal
wants to share the wealth. The complications?  Cedric was last reported
heading into the New Orleans swamps during the stormy season. Oh before I
forget, there is also a matter of the pack of witches that have been the
victim of Cedric's sticky fingers and are on his trail as well. Cedric
himself happens to be an infiltrator cyborg with amazing skills at mimicry.
Who's really chasin' who?

Maude Cody owns a small trader caravan that runs out of Brownsville and up
the coast to the remnant villages up north. She has a little spare
merchandise that a posse member or two just might like for a little favor.
She wants to know how her best caravan truck got found emptied out in the
middle of the San Antonio ruins. The last place that the caravan was seen
was near the Corpus Christi Lighthouse Community a few weeks ago. Maude
doesn't really trade with the San Antonio mutie tribes and one would think
that with a Syker navigator and two dozen guards, things would be safe. Just
can't trust anyone these days.

Robbie Franklin, a one of the Trader Barons from the Fortress town of old
Mesilla, is looking for some canny folks to find out what happened to a
shipment of scrap metal headed for the Ysleta Indians on the outskirts of
the El Paso ruins. The locals swear that the wagons were spotted being
chased by a biker gang into the remnants of Sierra Vista, a rich folk's
playground where pilots could park their private planes next to their homes.
The area was looted not long after the Mexican Army staged a sortie across
the Rio Grande during the Final Show. Robbie is real anxious to get the
shipment back, even to the point of giving the posse guns, ammo and food.
Wonder what's so special about a load of scrap?

Red Feathers the gunslinger logs a report with the Librarian in Houma about
a patrol of Black Hats making a systematic sweep of the coastal bayous of
Southern Louisiana. Red Feathers says before he was run off by a full auto
greeting, he heard a few strange topics of conversation among the patrol
members. The Anubis Project, somebody called Professor Aurora Flambeau,
operation Werewolf and the numbers 47,23,44 were all being discussed during
his little spy job. The gunslinger is more than a little curious as to what
would bring a patrol of Black Hats so far outside their usual stomping
grounds. Is the posse up for the job?

Cindy "the Chameleon" Rick is a Syker that works out of the township of East
Canaan, Texas and the Cham has a worry spot. Last night, a real nightmare of
a mutie paid for a room in the boarding house in town. Sheriff Jory had a
feelin' about the unfortunate in question and asked for Cindy to keep an eye
on the mutie for as long as it was around. In the early morning, the suspect
made an unscheduled exit over the town wall. Cindy tried to gather a few of
the mutant's thoughts to figure out what spooked it, but the only thing the
Syker got was a splitting migraine and the phrase, " Slitting the gap at
dawn" What does the posse think?

The stakes have been raised in the swamps of Louisiana. Refugees from the
tree-town of Lafayette have straggled into Baton Rouge, badly mauled and
spouting stories about flocks of ravens, crows and other birds that began
randomly killing folks in the early morning hours. Most of the unlucky
either died from their wounds or dropped from the trees into the swamp.
Harry Carmon, the leader of the refugee party, has grimmer tales. One of the
few buggers they managed to bring down turned out to be a fully lifelike
automaton. He's never seen anything like it but the posse sure will. The
swarms are already visible in the western sky.

Mutants from the ruins of Dallas, Texas are evacuating the area and moving
in troops to the coast. Brownsville, the remnants of Far Houston and Near
Beaumont have all logged reports about mutants arriving at the beaches, very
peaceable-like. No one has reported any trouble yet, but there are rumors
that Loyalist Doomsayers have been spotted heading east out of the Arizona
deserts.

Two days until the Great Pilgrimage!