Hello Grandmother,

We’re alive. So that’s good. I was a bit nervous about that for a second, but then I do have two ridiculously overqualified monster killers backing me up, so I doubt I was ever really in that much danger.

But we’re safe in a new undisclosed location, and this one a little less bunker-y than the last. There was enough death and carnage on the battlefield as we crossed into the new year that I’m fairly certain that both the Infiltration and the Ministries have bigger fish to fry than us. So I guess I’d say we’re the my-life-definition of safe. Hope you had good holidays. 2010 looks like its shaping up to be an interesting ride.

-1159

Can’t really talk. Infiltration found our bunker. Escaped into the forest. Fighting robots. Also sometimes vampires. The Eye is competing with the Marksman for most kills for the day. Will let you know who wins.

Happy New Years Grandmother.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

The attack has begun. And the Eye was right- the infiltration has developed a power that puts them on equal footing with the magical abilities of the vampires- they have a teleporter.

I have to say, it makes me incredibly nervous sitting here knowing that they have the ability to transport into any location in the area. I know our signal’s here in the bunker is being blocked, but we don’t know what kind of tech they have out there. They could know exactly where we are. And if they’ve decided that they aren’t happy about the thing’s we’ve been posting, then it just takes one jump for them to get here.

I’ve been trying to think of the best way to explain what happened in Oz, but I still don’t have a handle on it. Now I’m worried that I’m going to die before I tell you what you really need to know. The ruling class of Oz isn’t what we’ve read about in story books. And they aren’t happy about the repeated attempts by the vampires to invade their territory. They may be planning to strike back.

Meanwhile vampires and robots are engaging in their first real battle. As the year and decade come to a close, it appears the fears I’ve been waiting to see realized have finally come to pass. War is upon us. The clock has struck twelve.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

Does the Infiltration have a time machine? I know why you’d think so. Robots and time travel are clearly linked in historical popular culture. But I’m a bit skeptical. It’s an idea the Eye has been trying to run by me, she’s been picking up a lot of chatter that the Infiltration has something that would give their strike on Valhalla a reasonable chance of success. I don’t know if any of that is real or if they’re just trying to drum up fear in their enemies, though. And I definitely think that a time machine is outside of their range of capability.

It’s gets to a larger point about robots that I think most humans in this world have a hard time understanding. Robots aren’t the pinnacle of technological development. They’re the leftovers of a century of half-funded mad science. They have achieved some major breakthroughs in developing themselves, but they aren’t advance in other sciences like say… genetics or astrophysics. And certainly not time travel. Trust me, that’s something they are a long way off from.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

I’m starting to get a little trepidatious about the impending combat between the Infiltration and the Ministries. It’s not that I don’t trust the Eye’s intel, but I’ve been out of the universe for a little while, and everything seems a little disorienting. What are they waiting for? Is this really the beginnings of out and out conflict? What do they know that makes them think the vampires defenses would be vulnerable now? I’m just having trouble grasping what’s going on around me.

Part of my problem is that the problems of Oz are still to near to me. It’s all a little much for me to talk about, so I hope you’ll forgive me if I take a break in the story for a moment. I’m still working through everything that happened, and I don’t quite know how to explain the next part, because I haven’t quite decided if I did the right thing or screwed everything up royally. And the Marksman’s stench is not exactly helping my thought process.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

After about a two days, I had convinced my imprisoners that I wasn’t an agent of the vampires. That didn’t exactly make thing easier for me. People from our dimension are not highly thought of in the land of Oz. We’re seen as troublemakers whose interdimensional crossing invites even scarier things to venture into their homeland. However, as a prisoner there, I started to realize that Oz has a few contradictions in and of itself.

First of all, Oz is a land made by magic, and yet only two individuals are allowed to use it inside of Oz’s borders. One of the aspects of said magic is that view screens have been set up for citizens of the Emerald City to view our world, as if our lives are just one reality TV show. The Ozians view us as oafish and laughable, but their culture has come to imitate ours anyways. Which makes the odd visitor from our dimension both a character of derision and an unquestioned cultural paragon. So simply killing me was out of the question. Instead I was going to be brought to higher authorities.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

The paradox of writing about the world you live in, especially when it is a secret world, is weighing heavily on me at the moment. Am I influencing how the coming battle between the Infiltration and the Vampire Ministries will occur by talking about it? Am I effecting how our relations with the land of Oz may turn out by talking about my experience there? Am I pissing off the insufferable Marksman by complaining about his lack of hygiene some more? Sometime I worry if I write the wrong thing, the entire universe will come crashing down around me.

While I wait to hear how the battle begins outside my bunker, I’ll give you a few more details about my adventure inside the imaginary world of Oz. Captured by fighting trees, I was exchanged to the authorities of the emerald capital of Oz, and taken to a prison in the Southern temple. You have to remember, at this point I knew nothing about my whereabouts. Except for a nagging feeling reminding me of children’s stories, I had no clue where the vampire’s mysterious portal had taken me, only that I knew it was not on earth.

At this point, I was interrogated by Chedalla, a sergeant in the Emerald Army. She seemed pretty convinced at first that I had to be an agent of the vampires, which meant that they had to have sent people through before. Which lead my already suspicious mind to ask exactly where it was I’d been transported. Chedalla’s fist and a growing unconsciousness as I tumbled to the ground let me know that she was much happier being the one asking questions.

Over then next two days, through beatings, intimidations, and threats, I learned a few facts about the continent of my capturers. Oz had closed it’s boarders for over a century, but that didn’t prevent the random shipwreck or crashed balloon from crossing even the most powerful of barriers. I learned from Chedalla that in the 60’s, a group of hippies, related to Oz’s Wizard, had set up a barter system which allowed them to establish a trade network between Oz and Earth. By the early 80’s, this theoretically clever network had fallen apart, and the already stringent immigration laws of Oz became even more isolationist. The vampire conquest of our world had only pissed off the already impatient Ozian rulers, and since the undead couldn’t travel to imaginary kingdoms, the Ozites considered themselves safe in resolving to be done with our world. Course, what it seems they didn’t count on was how much fun our lives are to watch, but I’ll save that for a later entry.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

I’m at a weird point. Well, I’m generally always at a weird point, but I have to say, I’m having a strange time gauging my emotions at the moment. I’m trying to comprehend the life-altering experience I’ve just had, I’m hiding out in a bunker from what is likely to be a pivotal turning point in the war between robots and vampires as the Infiltration forces attempt to free the robot prison of Valhalla, and, all I’m really thinking about at the moment is how much having to spend three days trapped in a room with the Marksman is like living with bull in a china shop.

The thing about Quadling County is, it ain’t Kansas anymore. Oz has changed a lot in the hundred years since Dorothy Gale smashed into the Wicked Witch of the East. The ruling family of Oz has united all the lands inside the dessert under their rule. The Emerald City has spread out in urban sprawl. And the Forest of the Fighting Trees has been pushed out into the once populated farmland to the south. Which is what I was forced up against when I landed in Oz.

The biggest change in the Land is that “invaders” from our dimension are not welcome. And the living trees I was confronted with were more than happy to turn me over to the authorities for a reward. I’ve fought vampires, robots and even a demon or two in my time. But I draw the line at picking a fight with an angry tree. So at the time, I was willing to let them take me to the southern temple of the Emerald State. Looking back on how things turned out, it may have been better to make a run for it.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

I’ve found that every time I really think I’ve got a handle on the world, something comes along that pulls the rug right out from under me. Landing in Quadling County has just been the latest in a long line of eye-opening experiences that has lead me to where I am. I’ve heard theories of other dimensions. Hell, anyone who has understanding of magic states that the “unnatural” energies that power the magiks have to come from somewhere else. What I didn’t really understand was that we have access to this power all the time. It’s something we access through our imagination.

This is what the vampires were trying to reach through their experiments. They don’t have access to what every normal human mind has. They can’t travel between worlds the way we can every day. They only have access to every thought that they had before they died. They don’t have access to what I can only begin to describe as our “souls”.

Of course, it was hard to try and process all that when I’d just arrived in a whole new reality. One that was at once foreign and familiar to my understanding. Quadling County, for those that don’t know, is the southern portion of the now unified lands of Oz. Oz has had quite a few immigrants from our world arrive on its shores, and it has set up some fairly strict laws about how to deal with intruders. Of course, I didn’t know this at the time either. All I could see was a glowing forest in front of me where the trees seemed to be alive, and they didn’t seem happy to see me.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

Marksman and the Eye have me holed up in one of the Networks undisclosed headquarters, so writing may be difficult as access to the internet is limited. But since I have a moment, I wanted to start you off with what happened to me on the evening of December 12^th.

I was on the track of the Ministry’s seemingly unstoppable reality altering device. Through subterfuge, I’d discovered a Ministry base where they were using an astonishing amount of energy. I was certain that it had to be the center of their research into altering our reality. I was close. Security was fairly lax, I can only assume that they have so much power they aren’t afraid of anyone figuring out what they’re doing. Or maybe… thinking about it it’s possible they wanted me to break in. In their files I discovered that the program isn’t exactly what I thought. The Device itself is only part of their plans. The amount of power required make the device incredibly impractical (thought it definitely boosts my ego that they are so afraid of me that they were willing to go after me with it). The whole point of the program, however, is not about removing thing from our reality. It’s about the vampires travelling to another reality themselves.

You see, there once was a vampire city, a place called Selene. It didn’t exist in our reality, but vampires of sufficient magical ability could travel to and from there at will. To combat the vampires growing powers (a result of the increase in human population during the 1800’s), the Ministries believe that the Illuminati initiated World War I. In the mists of gas attacks, a secret Illuminati plan mystically severed Selene from our dimension.

Since that time, it’s been a vampire holy quest to return the connection between their lost city and our world. And their research of that has including travelling to other dimensions. The reality altering device is simply a byproduct, one they used to send all of the super-heroes into another realm and seize control of the world for themselves. I still don’t understand how the device removes our memories, but I know that it’s not just because thing leave our home dimension.

Because I had to escape. My sleuthing skills weren’t as good as I had hoped. They chased me down a path to their central portal, a dimensional jumping point that apparently the vampires could not travel through themselves. What I found on the other side was something that I didn’t expect, but made perfect sense once I was there. It was a land I would come to learn was called Quadling County.

-1159