Video

[theweakhavepurpose]

[The video turns on to show the outskirts of town, nearby is a fence of sorts made of junk Pratt collected from the Colosseum and some baling wire. It's encircling a fancy new shooting range complete with training dummies and targets and some other items that aren't immediately identifiable.

Okay fancy isn't the right word, everything is made of remnants he found and some of the targets are empty soup cans on sticks but it looks serviceable.]

This is Deputy Pratt. I know we're all busy freezing to death, but if you'd like to take your mind off that, I've finally got this all together. Range is up and running!

It's set up by the orchard, or well.. where the orchard should be anyway.

[He pans the camera towards the orchard to show where it is and then starts walking towards the range. The camera is surprisingly steady, this is someone who has filmed hundreds of Vine videos of him and other deputies doing stupid stuff on slow days. He's a pro at this shit.]

I've got training dummies up front for anyone who wants to get their melee fighting on. But uh.. try not to completely destroy them because I don't have a ton of wood to fix them up.

For the range itself I've got targets at 10 meters, 25 meters, 50 and 100. It's not perfect because I'm measuring this with my feet, but it's close enough. Spinner targets are for guns, and the bigger baled ones are dirt and wood so they shouldn't chew up your arrows too bad.

This thing is a work in progress.

[He sets a can onto a contraption off to the side of the range, stomping his foot on a pedal and sending it shooting down the lane and a little to the left. The camera gets unsteady here as he launches a knife that's far too big for this at the can and it tumbles to the ground.]

Keeps shooting them off to the side, but it's better than throwing something and then trying to hit it.

As for weapons... [He walks over to a large but very battered chest and opens the lid.]

I've got some throwing knives that aren't stupid like the hunting knife I have. A few bows. And some arrows in here. Keep them in this crate because the weather is not kind to bowstrings and you don't want these things snapping when you're shooting.

It's on the honor system because I'm not going to freeze my ass off monitoring this twenty-four seven. So try not to burn it down in the next two days.

[Please guys. He worked hard on this. Don't set it on fire.]

Comments

[knifecollecting]

I prefer lighters, but matches are cheaper if you're setting fires. [Which is what Hunters often do.]

...Don't worry. I'm not planning on setting fires at the range.

[theweakhavepurpose]

Someone will. I can sense it.

[Or it'll get trampled by mammoths. Something anyway.]

But fires in general might not be a bad idea, get some heat back.

[knifecollecting]

You're not wrong. [Sooner or later, there's always fire.]

Have you been warm enough?

[theweakhavepurpose]

I'm okay. I'm used to it being cold. Montana and all.

[And there's no heating in the cage he's been kept in, so he's more than used to the bone chilling freeze every morning.]

But it hasn't been too bad in my house. I piled everything in one corner so I'm basically living in a cave of couch cushions and armchairs.

[knifecollecting]

I grew up in Nebraska. [She's definitely not used to cold by now. Heaven didn't really have weather, and then between the caves and the desert? She doesn't like it.]

It's not on your bed? [Wouldn't that be smarter?]

[theweakhavepurpose]

I don't know anything about Nebraska except that it's full of corn.

Well I piled everything around my bed. It's a bunkbed and I've made the bottom one a sort of cave that seals in warmth.

[knifecollecting]

That's all most people know. [She laughs. There's more than corn, but corn is still a lot of the state.]

No one has to climb onto the top, right? [That seems like it would be harder for them.]

[theweakhavepurpose]

If it makes you feel better all anyone knows about Montana is that's where the crazy backwoods militia folks live.

Nah, I live alone, my place just happened to have a bunk bed in it. I'm using the top one to store some extra food.

[ And his gun. But saying he has a bed for his gun makes him sound like one of those crazy backwoods militia folks.]

[knifecollecting]

They're not wrong. [Jo's been there. She knows.]

You couldn't use the pantry for that?

[Jo keeps a gun on her bed, but it's under her pillow. Just in case. Totally different.]

[theweakhavepurpose]

I did.

[He has a stockpile okay.]

Never know when the stores might stop restocking again.

[knifecollecting]

[Jo's stockpile keeps getting depleted. She's getting tired of it.]

Yeah, that's true. It's probably going to happen every once in a while.

[theweakhavepurpose]

It's happened twice in the six months I've been here so that's not a good glimpse of the future.

At least we still have a lot of water. Even if most of it is frozen.

[knifecollecting]

[It wasn't always so common. Jo doesn't think it's worth pointing that out at the moment. She knows if she heard something like that, she'd just be annoyed.]

The frozen water wouldn't be as bad if there were heat sources.

[theweakhavepurpose]

[Don't make him more anxious about food than he already is.]

True. I suppose eventually we'll run out of things to burn. But there seem to be people who can conjure fire out of their hands. Maybe we need a community bonfire or something that's always lit. Everyone can bring their chunks of ice to it to turn into water.

[knifecollecting]

It's a good idea. I wonder if there's enough firewood for it. [It's not like the town is surrounded by forests.]

[theweakhavepurpose]

Do they need wood for a ... magic fire?

[Even saying that makes him wince. Makes him feel crazy.]

Won't it burn without fuel? I don't know how these things work.

[knifecollecting]

[It's okay, Pratt. Everything here makes one feel crazy.]

...I think if it doesn't need wood that means they would have to keep it working all the time? [As far as Jo knows, that's how it would work. She's pretty sure that none of the magic users would want to do it 24/7.]

[theweakhavepurpose]

Oh like go charge it up constantly? Is that how it works? I don't know dick about magic. Doesn't exist where I come from.

[Doesn't it though Pratt? Doesn't it?]

[knifecollecting]

I'd guess so? Most of the stuff I've heard about takes effort to control.

[Jo doesn't know if there's magic in his world, but she knows it is in her world. And here.]

[theweakhavepurpose]

So much for that idea then. Though we do have enough magic people to take turns keeping it alive.

[knifecollecting]

We might need them for other shit too. [Jo shrugs. It's a decent idea, but she isn't sure everyone who could help can be convinced to do it.]

Are you gonna set it up?

[theweakhavepurpose]

If they don't set my range on fire I might suggest it. We'll see.

[He should really not be in charge of organizing anything.]

[knifecollecting]

Yeah, good luck with that.

[theweakhavepurpose]

I'll keep you posted.

[knifecollecting]

Please do. [A laugh before she decides to go.]