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*tap tap... cough*

Ah, shit. Is this thing on?

Uhm, okay. Right.

Oh, by way of introduction, this is Leo. Leovinus Bexaruv, if you know the name somewhere. Anyway.

The current time is 1947 hours, and I think it's been about four years since Apex. This is Day One of my logs. The current weather is, uh... Hazy. I guess that's a good word for it. I'm not the best speech-giver in the world, so this is a little awkward for me. Sorry for the quality, Listener; I think the mic on this thing has a short somewhere in the line and I can't find it.

I've decided to start recording my history and whatnot. I seem to be one of the last few Independents out there, and I'm starting to miss other people. At least this way they'll know how crazy I got before the End, right? chuckles

So, my name is Leovinus Bexaruv, and I survived the Apex.

*long pause*

I just convened with myself, here, and I'm going to explain some stuff in case you don't know what the hell I'm talking about. Y'know, in case you're some youngster and you found this in a ravine someplace, twenty years from now.

The Apex was, well, the apex of the last great society on Terra. Terra's the planet you're standing on, by the way. I hear they managed to colonize a few other places up in the sky, but none of them have tried coming back here to help or nothing, so I figure screw em. I don't know much about em anyway, so let's move on, eh?

The Apex occurred about four or five years ago. It's hard to tell since the seasons in this area seem to be shifting or changing. The last winter we had seemed to be about two months too long. I hear some Enclaves didn't make it. I'm on my way out to one of em now, see if they reestablished communications. If they didn't, well I might just set up camp for a while, do a little scavenging.

There was some crazy shit what went down during the Apex. All kinds. Practically everything you can imagine. Not just the standard looting and robbing, but human sacrifice in the street and gigantic orgies in the parks. The crazies really came out of the woodwork, during the Apex.

The Apex lasted for two weeks straight. I was only out and about for a couple days of it, trying to keep up with a military transport that had some friends of mine. I lost 'em after they drove into an Enclave, and the soldiers outside were shooting anyone on foot trying to get in. Their Enclave still hasn't opened up. I check back every six months to make sure. After a couple days, I got home, and... Ah... Some shit went down. I might save that for another time. It's complicated.

Anyway. I don't remember much for a few years after that. It was like I was asleep, except when I woke up, I was laying on a mesa in an area that used to be called New Mexico looking through the scope of a high powered rifle. Weird shit. Sorry if that doesn't make a lot of sense, because it still doesn't to me. I think there was some kind of slavery deal going on down there, because there were some folks all tied up and hobbled and whatnot, barely dressed. There were two other guys, both wearing sunglasses and packing some firepower, so I shot 'em both. When I went down there to see what was on the two guys, the folks in the ropes had taken their kits and run off into the desert. They'd left behind a canteen, so I took it and a pair of sunglasses and started walking towards this huge obelisk on the horizon.

Turns out the obelisk was this huge obsidian pillar, and it was a landmark for traders on their way to Enclave Dust.

*cough*

I'm not going to bore you with my whole life story right now. Gotta save something for another time.

Anyway. I'm up in the Northwest right now, as an Independent. Anyone who doesn't have a birth pass into an Enclave is an Independent. Independents do all the shit work the Enclave doesn't want to do. It's funny, because you'd think that the Independents would all be bandits and whatnot, but almost all of the Independents I've met are folks like me, who got shut out of Enclaves during the Apex and said screw 'em, I'll make my own way and like it. Lots of optimists, lots of former writers and artists and even some kung-fu disciples who didn't let the rest of the world beat the shit out of them. I gotta remember to tell about that dude who was playing that Gibson Strat out in the wastes.

It's getting a bit late, and too much noise out here tends to invite the beasts. The Apex made some nightmares out here, I can tell you. I've seen some skeletons that made me glad I hadn't met em before they fell down and died. Might mention some of those later too.

Ah, time's now 2052 hours, and it's starting to get pretty cold out here. Might rain a bit.

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