Day 25

Spent some time yesterday conversing and making deals with a traveling trader. Saw something moving in the distance, and made my way toward it. Once I got close enough, I could see that it was a large cart being pulled along by a mule with an atrophied extra leg sticking out from it's side. I tried to move so that I'd intersect his path, but it didn't look like that'd happen any time soon, so I started shouting to him, waving my arms when he looked my way.

I calmed down a bit when I realized that it had spooked him, and that he was aiming a gun my way.

Luckily, he still stopped, so I just kept my hands up and away from my weapons while I closed the distance between us. He relaxed when I told him I had only shouted to get his attention so I could trade, and that I thought I was going to miss him otherwise. Any trader likes a customer, and they like an eager one even more. Quite frankly, I think I may have spent to much time in Fest Town, and that I was beginning to miss hearing another human voice.

The cart was just piled with stuff, a mix of complete junk and useful tidbits. Got some more rounds of ammo for each of my guns, almost a full box for the shotgun. New whetstone for sharpening Disc. Couple lighters, each about halfway full. Traded away some food I had, some bits of scrap metal I had been holding onto to try to turn into armor plating. I know some folks that won't trade away food for anything, they treat it like its the last they'll ever see. I know better. Two good-sized hunks of smoked shrew meat would feed me for a day or two, but the five rifle bullets I got in exchange will let me replace that and then some.

The best thing, though, was that he had several cans of preserved fruit. Oh, the sweetness. So sweet it almost shriveled my tongue, the syrupy goodness coating the inside of my mouth. I tried to keep calm, but he got some idea of how much I wanted them. I talked him out of three cans in exchange for a book I'd been saving, one I'd found with all the pages intact. It almost hurt letting go of that, but...oh, that sweetness...

Day 23

Man, I just relistened to what I recorded yesterday. Heh, heat must've gotten into me or something. I don't want to delete it, it must've come from somewhere inside me, but it sounds kind of sappy hearing those words in my voice. Jacob Gofer, traveling warrior and all-around softy.

Still trudging northward. Nothing much notable's happened, really. Camped out in a hollow in the side of a hill. Not a cave, just under a little overhang. Set off again in the morning. Spent some time last night, before I bedded down, listening to some of the recording's I've made so far. Hard to believe so much has happened, really. A little sad, really. I talked about the closest thing I had to a family growing up, and what shits they were. Then I find a town of people that welcome me in, and they're burned out in, what, a week. That's the world we live in, now. I hope its gotten better.

I also realized I left someone out. I talked about the Mutates, and the Dyers. Gave a bit of background on raiders, from my own childhood experience. Even gave a little story of how scary cats are. Today, boys and girls, we're going to learn about the Rad Witches.

Don't really know where the name comes from. Personally, I haven't ever met one, so most of this is going to be secondhand, stuff I've picked up in my travels. Now, I've heard quite a few tales. Some of them mention the same things, sometimes its something just one guy said. We'll start with the things that people seem to agree on. First, they're pretty rare. Which, I suppose, is why I've talked with a Dyer doctor and played chess with a Mutate herbalist, but never met a Rad Witch. They're all hairless, too. Now, not everybody missing hair is a Rad Witch, but every Rad Witch is completely bald, even to the eyebrows and everything. I assume even the genitals, but no one's ever told me a story about bedding one. Most people are pretty scared of them once they know they're a Witch, because they all have some sort of powers. The most common ones seem to be: the ability to move stuff with their minds, the ability to communicate with animals, paralyzing someone with a look, finding water or metal nearby, or starting small fires with a touch. Most of the stories I've heard about them, they only get one. Which is probably lucky for the rest of us. Scary enough imagining someone stopping me in my tracks with a look, without adding them walking up to me and setting me on fire. Thank you, no.

Now for the less likely stories. These are the ones I've only heard from one or two people, usually together or at least in the same town. I tend to take 'em with a grain of salt until I've seen it myself or heard someone else say it, but I may as well record them. I have heard one story of a Rad Witch that could fly. Some town was getting aggressive toward him, he just spread his arms and lifted off the ground. Another guy told me he saw a Rad Witch that could heal people with a touch. No illnesses, but fixed a boy's broken leg, and made someone else's wound stitch itself up. That one, I actually hope is true, its a nice one. I've also heard another one, from two drunk guys that joined the raiders that raised me, about a Rad Witch that flung out blasts of green fire from his hands. One rumor I heard is that there's a community of them gathered together, somewhere on the edges of Terminus, to the north of here. Yet another guy said that he's seen groups of them up and migrating somewhere to the west.

There's a lot of stories out there. The main point to take from this today is that these guys can be a surprise waiting to happen. If you piss them off, there's no telling what they can hit you with.