Day 1

Area looked just like Death Valley before transfer happened. Ran back to see if stuff was still there. Yes it was! Well, all but the car. Spent the night and early morning dragging them back to cave. Used the Stinger's gem as extra light to preserve head lamp power. Going to the bathroom HURTS. On my last trip, three more Stingers tried to attack me. Thankfully, I got hold of my eight-inch bowie knife. Stabbed them to death, nabbed three gems, and ran. Although, it felt like something stung my back. But there's nothing there when I looked back.

Day 2

It is so hot. Good lord, how am I going to do this? When I took a look up at the sky, I instantly thought of Tatooine in Star Wars. Two suns. One orange and so close, one green and so far. I am going to be cooked alive.

Even with the cave at least ten degrees cooler, it was still too warm to sleep in sleeping bag, so I slept on top of it. Woke up with pounding headache due to lack of caffeine. The cave would be pitch black if it wasn't for the four skull gems I gathered and spread around. Stepped outside to look for a spot to put my solar charger. Different world or not, I am not about to let my phone die out. Ducked back in as Marauders came driving by. Went far faster than normal. Looked down at hands, saw glowing blue veins for a moment before they disappeared. I think it was blue eco. I smelled something similar to oil? No, it was like a mechanic's garage.

Ended up having to run back outside to barf. Thank you migraine. Now go away.

Day 3

Grunt metalhead was able to fit in tunnel but with no room to turn around, therefore bringing it to me. It crushed five gallons of my water, which I have foolishly left by the entrance. Already went through one, so now I only have four left. I reacted by slapping its face. Don't know what I was thinking. Could've lost my hand. It howled in pain as a burning handprint was left behind. Smelling nicotine, I noticed that yellow veins appeared this time. Dodging from a swipe, I slapped the Grunt's head again and the gem popped out. A spark flew out and set one of my bags exploding. The bag with my clothing. Now I am stuck with the outfit I was wearing for the last several days. Five minutes later, the dark eco dissolved the body and a purple puddle was left behind. That smelled like skunk. And it started slithering to me. OW, that stung. Now my hands are purple. Oh, that's what got me two days ago.

Day 4

Stepped out to go to bathroom (digging a hole with shovel from toolkit away from entrance). When I was about to head back inside, a single Marauder (maybe a scout?) came out of nowhere, tightly grabbing my arm. He said something about how delectable I smelled. What? I smelled good? Last I checked, I was starting to stink up a storm. Struggling, I noticed that my hands now have glowing red veins. Was that baked beans I smelled? Using my free arm, I punched as hard as I could into the gut. There was a small red explosion. The Marauder fell with his guts hanging out. I don't feel good.

Finished puking and cleaned up a bit. I stared at my black and blue hands, wondering how I could bring up the yellow eco again. Remembering the smell of nicotine, my hands burst into flames. Okay, I probably looked like a lunatic jumping around with my hands on fire. After a few minutes, I realized that there was no pain. With a breath of relief, I turned to the mess and tried giving a mental push. With that, a continuous stream of yellow eco went down and sterilized the spot.

Day 5

I figured that at noon, it would be too hot for anything, may it be Marauders or metalheads, to be active. I allowed myself to play a few songs that I downloaded into my phone in order to help me relax just a bit. That's when I noticed something different about my hair. Instead of darkened blond, it was . . . dark grey. Like granny grey.

Day 6

I have only two gallons of water left. I want to save one gallon of water, so tomorrow I'll have to resort to the small spring of water. At least I packed my filter straw. Also I'm almost to being half way done with my food. My original plan was to have just breakfast, dinner, and couple of snacks for lunch before sleeping the hot afternoon away for my trip. So that was fourteen meals and fourteen snacks. Now I just eat half my usual rations in attempt to make it last twice as long. At least my food gut is just about gone. Oh yeah, another set of three metalheads tried to attack me while I had to answer Nature's call. They were Metal Jackets. With the exception of a very few, I hate any type of insect flying at me. These things were big. Thankfully, I had plenty of yellow eco to waste.

Day 7

Today has been the most eventful of the week. It started out when I stepped out to get my solar charger and a heavy force tackled me from behind. Mentally calling for red eco, I managed to toss the attacker off of me. Another Marauder. While a good portion of Marauders I saw in the distance and in the games (not to mention my previous encounter), they for the most part are like 6ft 11, don't wear shirts, wear metal masks, they smell strongly of BO, carry giant sword guns, and bald. This one didn't smell too bad. He was also wearing a simple tan sleeveless shirt and has mid back long white hair, no mask, no weapons and just a loincloth covering his pride, nothing else. He was also just as tall. I was just a 5ft 2.

Forcing my eyes to stay up, I kept the red eco pumping through my body, causing the red veins to spread from my hands to all over my body. He took a step back, most likely in surprise, allowing me to pounce forward with ease. The Marauder barely managed to leap out of the way. Poor boulder. It never stood a chance. My fist however, was really hurting after that. I was trying to shake the pain off when the Marauder, once again, tackled me and started throwing punches. I was barely able to block them all. He was also very quiet. Not one peep. As I was about to toss him off again, I noticed his throat was covered in scars. No wonder he couldn't talk.

That's when I smelled something so comforting. Plants. Moss. When I saw that my hands were covered in green veins, I decided to experiment and pressed them against his neck. A green cloud covered my hands before the energy started to seep into the big man's flesh. It was a few moments before the Marauder started hacking and released my clothing. (Thank goodness I was wearing my biker shorts beneath the kilt). My hand doesn't hurt anymore.

"Wh- hurk- what h-have yough daghk?" Well, it seems like I did a decent job at being a doctor. "Just healed you," Was all I said. He just stared, "Whugh, why?" His face turned from stunned to anger. "Whugh is WRONG with you?!" He tried to yell at me some more, but his sore throat wouldn't have it. Well, I had enough of having a bulk of muscle on top of me, so I just pushed him off. "What's wrong? The damn heat! Name's Jen. What's yours?" He stared some more before giving up, "Exonn." Giving him a smile, I got up and started walking toward the remainders of the boulder. Something was a bit off. Brushing at the rubble, turns out there was a small chest in the ground. Grabbing the chest, I went back over to the Marauder who was still staring at me as if I was crazy. Maybe I was. Hmmm, nah. The heat and stress was just getting to me. That's all. He's probably just staring because of my bruising, which is STILL black and blue.

Plopping back to the ground, I took a closer look at the box. The way the hinges are, and where the crystal is . . . the white crystal is the key. White, white, LIGHT eco. The one eco I have yet to encounter. I placed my hand on the crystal in hopes something will happen. Let's see, with the four main eco, I only really notice them through the smell. Whenever I encounter dark eco, it stings. But with light eco, it became a major adrenaline rush. With my hand covered in glowing white veins, the crystal disappeared. Doing my best to keep the shaking under control, I pried open the lid to see what was hidden away.

There was a small stack of paper . . . no, parchment- with a big ass key tucked aside. The key looked like it could be as big as the key Jak took from Mar's statue in the game. As I grabbed the parchment, the tell-tale curved script of the Precursor became obvious. I shoved it towards Exonn, hoping he could read it. "Why are you giving this to me?" I looked back up to see him holding the sheets out with his fingertips. 'Dude, they're not made of glass.' Pushing my hair out of the way, I jabbed a finger towards my ear, "Does it look like I'm from around here? You read it."

Exonn leaned in closer and stared even more, "Your ears are so short." "And yours are so long," I snarked while grabbing the key. "Just read the damned sheets already." He shook his head and looked down, finally holding the parchment properly. I turned my attention back to the key. Nothing special about it. Big, and shaped like a skeleton key. Hearing something, I looked up to see Exonn looking livid. So I asked him "What's wrong?" Whooo, he was pissed off to where I barely understood. But after listening carefully, it made sense.

WASTELAND HISTORY

When Spargus began, it had channelers and non-channelers. The Non were jealous and tensions began to rise. Finally, one man said, "Let's make a settlement for us Non." They moved over to what is now the Marauder stronghold. Over to where there are giant archways from the past, one of which holds a door that leads to a huge cave with a big well of freshwater. Next to it, crops will be planted. "Now there will hopefully be peace between us groups."

One Non had a grudge and anger issues that took over. He wanted the Channelers to die. He began to plot. The Non leader realized that something was terribly wrong, so he wrote down everything. Why they moved, where the water and crops are, the key is for the giant door, he feared that he will be killed and the info will be withheld.

The angry Non finally killed the leader and tossed the box to the side. He began to spread the rumor that the Channelers took everything for themselves and left the Non to rot. Thus began the group of Marauders.

Well, Exonn was still cursing up a storm when I came back out of my cave holding a cup of water and dumped it on his head. Leaning down to a very long pointy ear, "So 'Xonn," ignore the glare, "What are you going to do about it?"

Well, it was decided. After I refilled his water skin from my cave, Exonn practically tossed me in his armored car and sped off. It could have been maybe an hour or less, most of my focus was on the still possible threat just inches away. I was barely able to pull myself out after my escort. 'That wasn't a car ride. It was a roller coaster.' Up ahead were three giant stone archways. And ahead of them was the start of small islands that lead to what could have been the Monk Temple. It seemed like the one in the middle had a rock slide. The way Exonn was staring at it, that archway was the one we need. Not wanting to spend too much time in the sun, 'Thank goodness that Ex' decided to attack me after the Midday blaze passed,' I called up the red eco again, and used the additional strength to jump my way up to the top of the rock slide. "It's fucking creepy when you do that." Tossing a small rock at Ex' to shut him up, I began to clean up Nature's mess.

Two hours later, I curled up in the shade, not caring about exposing my back. I was barely able to hear the key entering the keyhole but I did hear Ex' choking on something. Curiosity gave me the energy to crawl over to the surprisingly human sized door and peer inside. Now, I don't know much about this world's vegetation, but I can see that it was an edible jungle inside. Not to mention, it was quite damp as well. Guess the water hasn't run out yet. 'Xonn was just standing there. Maybe he was in minor shock from finding this great resource. While I'm glad things may turn out better than I originally thought, the heat is winning the battle.

"Yo, 'Xonn," I croaked, "You have this great resource and you know what to do. But I am going to need a ride back please."

Day 8

Thanks to Exonn's info, I had a plan for in the event of when I run out of my food stash. I decided to take a risk and bike over to a source of edible cactus when twilight was approaching. Unfortunately, life hated me. Once again, I didn't pay very good attention to my surroundings and got caught in a flesh ripping sandstorm. But that's where I learned that I had a very big advantage. While the sandstorm irritated my skin, I was still alive and well. That could prove useful. No cactus today though. My skin hurts even more now, no thanks to the bruising that has YET TO FADE. Oh yeah, before I forget, I found Spargus by accident. By taking a wrong turn. I decked it out as fast as I could. Just because you heard of a group doesn't always mean you know how they will act. Exonn was a lucky case.

Day 9

Well this is just GREAT! My day was very peaceful all the way to after dinner until another Grunt came lumbering in while I was out answering Nature's call. When I got back inside, all of my remaining food was eaten. In an attempt to keep my cool, I just simply torched the Grunt to ash.

Day 10

Let's see. Bike, bowie knife, gloves, elbow and knee pads, helmet, wire mesh mask that will cover the rest of my face, camo scarf, head lamp, shopping bags, and bottle of filtered water. Yup, ready to go biking to the cactus and go fishing. The sun is finally almost gone. Temperature is a tad more tolerable. It takes me about fifteen minutes to bike over to the green patch. A few quick swipes of my blade and I have three cactus leaves harvested. Another fifteen minutes, and I was standing by a small creek made from the ocean not too far from here. I wasn't sure if blue eco would make me fast enough to catch some fish but it did the job. Had to lop the heads off before heading back to my sanctuary. From there, yellow eco does a good job cooking. Also very glad I have my small plate and bowl set with me.

Day 11

Remembering how dark eco can dissolve a body into nothing, I tried an experiment. There was a Grunt wandering nearby. Using a mixture of blue and red eco, I was able to quickly kill it. But instead of waiting for dark eco to take effect, I jammed my fingers in one of the opened wounds and willed. Willed the dark eco to me . . . OW. Shaking my hand, I was pleased to see only a skull gem, skin, and claws.

Day 12

I'm only able to use the main four eco. But no progress on dark eco besides being able to absorb it. Hmm, will I be able to have talons like Jak did? I was pretty much staring at my nails and remembering how much that stuff stung. That's when it happened. If there was any living creature nearby the entrance, they would be wondering what could cause such a scream of agony. Receiving talons splits the skin right at the base of the nail. Very sensitive. Very painful.

Day 13

Thankfully the green eco did a wonderful job of healing my fingers. But now I'm stuck on an adrenaline rush and trying to hide my back, glowing light eco, whenever I have to go outside. Maybe it means I'll get wings.

Day 14

'Finally, it's gone.' Hacking, I wondered if the giant Metalhead was the same from two weeks ago. I was finishing up with foraging when the beast came lumbering about. Thankfully the smell tipped me off early and I was able to duck inside the tunnel before it saw me. It just stood there for about ten minutes before it took off with an ear throbbing roar. Just as I was about to head back further in, there was another sound. Screeching and . . . yelling? Dropping my load, I rushed back out to be greeted with a sickening sight. A group of four Grunts atop what appeared to be a person. A very bloody person. Snarling, I yanked by bowie knife out and jumped into the fray. It wasn't easy trying to kill four Metalheads when they were trying to take a bite out of yourself. But it was done. Four more gems to collect. And an injured man to boot. A man that is unconscious, has poofy green hair, and . . . are those orange thorns in his head? Shaking myself out of my wandering mind, I gently gathered him into my arms and brought him inside.