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I can't wait to freeze to death! C!
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Sep 22, 2016 16:50
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C Winter builds character!
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Sep 22, 2016 16:50
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verbal enema posted:but waht about hoi4 We already won the world war, I'd have to retcon the Hansa's hegemony or come up with something to break it up. Also creating a new scenario - plus adequate techs for our more advanced setting - would probably drive me mad and cause the HOI4 chapter to be stillborn. Oh, and  Location C has won! , so grab your winter coats. If everyone dies really early in the playthrough we'll restart in the I should be making a post during the weekend to explain some of the primary concepts in RimWorld, since I imagine most of the audience isn't really familiar with it like we are with Paradox map-games, and the first update should come next week. Probably, maybe.
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Sep 22, 2016 22:20
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ZearothK posted:I should be making a post during the weekend to explain some of the primary concepts in RimWorld, since I imagine most of the audience isn't really familiar with it like we are with Paradox map-games, and the first update should come next week. Probably, maybe. Please do -- have never played Rimworld. Looking forward to this, and excited to see this amazing, incredible (superlative set of adjectives here) LP continue!
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Sep 23, 2016 18:43
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 The short version is that RimWorld is a Dwarf Fortress-like. (Dorfortlike?) In other words, a game about base-building, management and survival.  It lacks the sheer level of simulation and detail present in its forebear - but let’s be honest, DF itself is on a whole other level compared to everything else in gaming -. RimWorld brings to the table a sci-fi setting, visuals the common person can understand and a graphic user interface while retaining a lot of the same trappings.  It also has a closer focus, with the average colony being smaller than the typical Dwarf Fort, this is by design, as one of the means it creates stories is through a set of simple mechanics simulating character’s mental states and relations and the less people there are the better we can get to know them.  RPS did a pretty good article with Tynan, main author of the game, about how these systems deliberately build a narrative. (Trigger Warning: RPS) So I’ll just leave that here.  RimWorld initially presents us with an open area, some resources based on the scenario in question and says go. It is up to the player to guide his Pawns to survive and eventually build a spaceship to get out of the planet. Or dally-around base-building, that’s another viable way to play. Initial concerns are the same each of us has in our lives: food and shelter. We have chosen one of the harder biomes in the Boreal Forest, we will need to make proper clothes and heating to survive the cold season and create a food surplus to survive the coldest part of the year. The ‘year’ is separated in four seasons of 15 days each.  So the above means that for each 60-day year we will have 19 days to grow food from crops. The rest will have to be foraged, hunted, milked (if we get cows, that is) or, in the worst case scenario, cannibalized. Most people are not okay with the latter and their mood suffers greatly, Poopo Warendorp as a Psychopath (though not a Cannibal, a different trait) is less affected by desperate measures, but we’ll get to that in a bit. (There are more difficult regions, Tundra, Ice Sheet and Extreme Desert come to mind)  A Sun Lamp and Hydroponics room. Technology will offer us alternative means, but we have to research these tools, as well as others to thrive and, again, get the hell out of this planet that definitely wants us dead.  Research takes time and work, it will allow us to build other structures, machines and tools. From learning how to make bricks out of rocks to developing rocket science, through drug production and geothermal generators, and much, much else. I might put research focuses up for vote later along with other decisions, but I’ll be taking a more controlling hand while we get the basics of our survival down.  Beyond survival, characters have other needs. Comfort, joy, beauty and space. A lack of any of these will have a negative impact on mood. No one dies from a lack of those, not directly, but it can make them a lot less happy and vulnerable to mental breaks. An abundance of those aspects improves their mood. Comfort from having decent furniture to sleep in, joy comes from activities, beauty from aesthetically pleasing environs (a cave or swamp or dirty room is an ugly environ, a room with well-made sculptures and furniture is beautiful and possibly tacky) and space from, well, having space.  The more attentive among us might have noticed that all our starting characters have the Greedy trait, which adds a need for Impressive personal rooms on top of all that. Impressiveness is related to Beauty, but it is not the same thing. For them it is not enough for things to be good looking, they need to be made out of valuable materials, so marble statues and flooring done out of precious materials. Yeah, that’s not going to happen anytime soon so we’ll have to make-do with their pissy moods and temper tantrums. There are other traits that influence mood and Pawn behavior (like the aforementioned Psychopath in Poopo), but we’ll bite into those as they become relevant to the game.  Pawns also have backgrounds, which modify their skills (which can be developed with time) and the sort of activities they can do. They behave autonomously based on the work priorities we set for them and their own needs, though we can micromanage priorities. So Nabwe can do anything, except for Cleaning for example. More dramatically, Marianne can’t do Dumb Labour or Skilled Labour, so there is a lot of stuff, as you can see above, that she will simply not do. She would starve right beside a field of ripe potatoes because picking them would be beneath her. On the other hand she’s the best fighter in our party.  And we will need to fight. Periodic events will have pirates, tribals and other attackers under a spoiler tag invading our colony to steal valuables and kill/kidnap our Pawns. We can directly draft our colonists to control them during these and other events. Positioning, weapons and training matters, as well as the defenses we have built. These invaders are called based on our relationship with other factions in the planet and on the whims of the AI storytellers.  Phoebe Chillax, Cassandra Classic and Randy Random, respectively. Each Storyteller has a specific behavior. For the purpose of this LP we will be rolling Randy Random, who is completely random in the events he throws, as I feel it leads to a more organic game than the other two ladies. He might just end our colony at the start by throwing <redacted>, <redacted> and <redacted> at us in quick succession. Events vary from different types of raids, weather phenomena, anomalous animal behavior and miscellaneous incidents, some to our benefit, but mostly as foils to our survival efforts. And I think that is it for the basics? Next should be our proper update. See you then! 
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Sep 25, 2016 15:31
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This seems fun. Maybe soon enough the game won't intimidate me.
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Sep 25, 2016 15:55
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If Randy Random decides to end the world by a meteor strike dead on the initial settlement on day two, will you roll with some new characters or just consider that the end of the Rimworld LP?  I'm not sure if he can actually be THAT random, but still.
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Sep 25, 2016 18:17
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PurpleXVI posted:If Randy Random decides to end the world by a meteor strike dead on the initial settlement on day two, will you roll with some new characters or just consider that the end of the Rimworld LP? The planet-destroying event is a special one that must be enabled in the scenario - including a time limit so it won't happen. But if you mean him dumping a bunch of stuff that would kill us very early, the plan is to restart in the tropical malaria beach if everyone dies early in the game.
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Sep 25, 2016 18:22
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  Home.  My ears are still ringing from entry into the planet. I once read that this is the sound of my ear cells dying. It was the first part of me to die in this world.  We managed to drop close to each other, a few supplies between us, plus the debris of the ship. The others were suffering from hangover, the price of our naive celebration. They also had another problem.  They didn’t have the foresight of keeping armor near their escape pods, unlike myself, “always prepared for every contingency”, this one had paid off. I placed my suit there in case we had pirates or a mutiny, but it was still useful here. We needed shelter before nightfall, or the others would die. The default start for this area is 11th of Spring, as that is when the growing season begins. I changed to begin at the 1st of Spring, which is considerably colder, thinking that it would give us a leg-up as we focused on building infrastructure before focusing on growing crops later. On the other hand, this makes the start slightly harder, as we have to depend on foraging and hunting to get extra food, plus the colder temperature.  We found a hill that could serve as protection and erected a crude wall and roof, we worked in silence. I suspect that, like myself, they were coming to terms with our new situation. Manual work, when was the last time someone of my family had to build their own house? I was actually surprised to find that I was enjoying the activity, a simple and direct task, a necessity. I beamed at our pair of crude sheds. Had we hired someone to build this I would have fired the person and made sure they would never find gainful employment ever again, but somehow this made me proud. We would not freeze to death tonight, and that was thanks to our work. I looked at the others, Nabwe and Poopo seemed tired, Marianne was far away, pretending to be busy asking of a group of elks for directions [where did they come from? Did they fall from our ship? Are we actually on Earth?]. Viktor was right beside me and I could see that he was thinking the very same thing. About our work, not the elks.  We conversed as we built the beds and made the bonfire, and I realized there was more to this von Goon than his family’s crest and his braggadocio. Despite it all he feels like the right person to be with in this situation.  We slept, under the roof we had built, with the heat we had brought to our home [?], with the comforting fatigue of our work. Is this what the working classes feel at the end of their days? Is this why they remain in passive poverty? --------------------------------------- We agreed that dignity was non-negotiable.  We would build separate quarters, they were taken back when Viktor said he and I would share our room, but they understood it quickly enough. Moving together when we haven’t actually been together or even have a house to be in, it felt insane and thrilling. [“Insane and Thrilling” might be a good name for when I publish my book of memoirs on this adventure. I think I can get a movie deal too]  We also pressured Marianne to actually helps us. She had been traipsing around the land while the rest of us were kicking down trees, building walls and carrying equipment. She said this work was beneath her, but she could find us food.  She left out to the east with the rifle, an annoyed expression written on her face. We heard several shots.  She came back empty-handed, and told us where we could find the hare she had shot. She said that it was usually her servant who deals with these amenities and shrugged at our protests. Actually, I didn’t build a butcher’s table or determine a zone to bring dead animals to. So this is less Marianne being lazy and more me forgetting to do stuff.  The second night was considerably more pleasant, as we had recovered a modicum of privacy and comfort. [Viktor slept while I played with his hair and I wonder if it was like this between Viktor and Engeltrudis, seven centuries ago. Are our families entangled, supposed to be encountering each other through the ages, finding lust and hate and comfort and misery and profit and profit and profit? Are we simply walking a path set by us by our ancestors, a geas imposed on our bloodlines? Seven centuries, such a long time to be finding each other again and again and again and again and again in the same halls, the same arenas, working together, fighting each other. When will this finally end? I wonder if Viktor and Engeltrudis loved each other like in the film, I wonder who will play me in my film adaptation. I wonder if they had actual flooring in their house in the 13th century.] [I lie here in silence and I hear the door of Marianne’s room opening. The trees and the beasts make so many different sounds and it still quieter than Neu Lübeck, I could never hear much outside my room, but again I had soundproofed walls. I wonder what she’s doing, it is not like she does any actual work around here.]  ---------------------------------------  Marianne and Nabwe are together. This feels weird, she is a hundred-years her senior, what could they possibly have in common? Is this just convenient lust? A way for Marianne to protect herself, to gain an ally? [why do I feel the need to justify their relationship to myself?]  We have a proper source of food now, Poopo volunteered to butcher the animals. He seems to be very into it. A good thing, I can’t imagine how sexually frustrated he is going to get in these coming days.  Nabwe built a study area for Marianne, she says she is going to try and figure out how to improve our construction work. Of course she is, since she’s the only one who is not doing any actual work.  Marianne is a terrible researcher, but she is available while the rest of the crew are busy doing things that need to be done now, and she can’t hunt all the time because we haven’t built a freezer yet to preserve the meals. As we get more settled, I’ll prioritize research work for someone more competent at it. ---------------------------------------  We decided to name our small collective home Neu Hansa. It felt appropriate, we are all scions of the great families, if anyone has the legitimacy to declare a new and better Hansa, it is us.  There has been a tragedy, while Poopo has been eager to cut open animals, none of us has the ability to make a serviceable meal. This is awful, we have to make do with berries and simply cooked meat. There are also no spices at all. We had agreed with that dignity was non-negotiable, but I am not sure how we can deal with this. Fine meals are great and much better than normal meals. Characters get a malus from eating uncooked food (with a few exceptions, like corn), are neutral for eating normal food (made with 10 units of food material), and get a mood bonus from fine meals (which are made out of 5 units of vegetable product and 5 units of animal product [meat, milk, eggs, etc], so it is a straight up upgrade), and finally, there are lavish meals with the greatest mood boost (10 animal and 10 vegetable, so only practical when you’re rich). Fine meals are the ideal option in terms of efficiency. ---------------------------------------  We have been here for some time already and the temperature is finally becoming comfortable, and we are actually managing how to create a functional society between our fragmented experiences. We have figured out how to make bricks. We have wooden floors in our homes. Wood power generators. A freezer! Marianne has decided to hold a celebration for the coming spring. Viktor convinced me to go, despite my dislike for the centenagenarian and a general discomfort in social gatherings.  It was nice, actually. I am not sure I would call everyone friends, but there is a strong sense of camaraderie in here. Nabwe talked about his volunteer work in Zanzibar, Viktor came back to the adventures of his rebellious teens, Marianne told tall-tales of the glory of the Raj, Poopo was mostly quiet. I just paid attention.  When we left it was cold outside, much colder. I am not superstitious, but I am starting to think celebrations are not a good idea. ---------------------------------------  Word on the shortwave radio. Marianne’s brother is here! He is also being chased by survivors from the crash who had regressed to a tribal condition. The poor thing! When Marianne told us her adopted brother was a professional cook I began to salivate at the thought of an actual meal.   Grigory came in running. His pursuers were not far behind, a single servant armed with a club and wearing simple clothes made from animal leather was in pursuit.  We stood near the marsh, waiting for the attackers to arrive while Grigory ran inside.   Marianne shot twice and that was it. Poopo later buried the man and told me with admiration that the raider had been hit cleanly through a lung and a kidney. [how does Poopo know that?].  We settled Grigory in Morgan’s old room. He was glad to be here and Poopo seemed happy enough to not be a candle-holder anymore.   Grigory seems… Somewhat unstable, however. He appears to be never really talking to you, like his mind is focused elsewhere, like there is a layer of glass over his eyes, his hands tend to shake, except when he’s working in the kitchen. Luciferium need is really really really really bad, it is the worst addiction anyone can have. Luciferium is a drug that gives a huge boost to everything, it is also instantly addictive, Grigory is going to be having semi-regular breakdowns unless he gets another dose, until he eventually dies of a heart-attack. ---------------------------------------  Spring is here, time to spruce up those green fingers! [why am I looking forward to farmwork, what is this planet doing to me?]  
ZearothK fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Oct 9, 2016 |
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Oct 8, 2016 22:09
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Instantly addictive, huh? Sounds profitable. Luciferium Rules the World
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Oct 8, 2016 22:32
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Oh no, guys, look out, you've succumbed to the worst danger of all... becoming the working class. Clearly they need to enslave the local aliens/animals/savages and re-establish themselves as corporate overlords.
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Oct 8, 2016 22:37
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We can actually train animals to haul stuff around! We just need to actually get the animals.GSD posted:Instantly addictive, huh? It is pretty valuable on the market too, but unfortunately there is no way to produce it without mods (and I am not using any mods that enable Luciferium production). We have to either take it from the corpse of raiders or trade for it at a huge loss.
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Oct 8, 2016 22:42
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How much work can be offloaded on animals? Only hauling? How about guard animals?
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Oct 8, 2016 22:57
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PurpleXVI posted:How much work can be offloaded on animals? Only hauling? Animals have four things they can be trained for - and they must be actively trained for each (it is what the Animals skill is used for). Rescue and hauling activities require a higher level of trainable intelligence. Some things are also limited base on the animal's size. Large dogs are the easiest to train, but good luck getting your Iguana to do much of anything. Obedience: Follow around a colonist they are assigned to and protect them. Release: Hunt or attack a designated target. Rescue: Uh... Rescue incapacitated people and bring them to their beds/hospital beds. Haul: Carry stuff around. Animals can also be valuable for other things, like cows producing milk, chickens laying eggs, or Alpacas and their wool. Colonists can develop attachment to some animals and will get a mood boost from having the company of their pet. Animals have to be fed, but most are capable of seeking out their own food if you are not in an ice-sheet or extreme desert. It is not a good idea to leave drugs in places where animals are allowed.
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Oct 8, 2016 23:21
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PurpleXVI posted:Oh no, guys, look out, you've succumbed to the worst danger of all... becoming the working class. Oh yes, this is revolting. Slaughtering raiders and tribesmen for their stuff will be a good start on the right path, though.
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Oct 9, 2016 00:22
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ZearothK posted:Animals have to be fed, but most are capable of seeking out their own food if you are not in an ice-sheet or extreme desert. It is not a good idea to leave drugs in places where animals are allowed. I'm sure that letting the cows have Luciferium will add that special ZING to their milk, don't be a square now.
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Oct 9, 2016 07:24
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PurpleXVI posted:I'm sure that letting the cows have Luciferium will add that special ZING to their milk, don't be a square now. I don't know about Luciferium, but I've seen a drunk cow before. Oh, we can also capture raiders and convince them to join the colony, so, you know, maybe are capable of restoring the working class to their proper place.
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Oct 9, 2016 13:51
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Is this game made by the group who made Prison Architect?
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Oct 9, 2016 17:28
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The message says Grigory is Bardewick's brother, but you keep calling him Poopo's?
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Oct 9, 2016 18:38
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Ops, guess I got confused while writing! And no, this is not an Introversion game, though the creator specifically asked them if he could use Prison Architect's style for the game. It was supposed to be temporary during the early days of Alpha, but then so much stuff go added that it settled in.
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Oct 9, 2016 18:52
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  So I got there, at this Neu Hansa, much better than the cannibal holocaust I was stuck with. The petite girl wearing a power armor gave me this hungry look and I thought to myself “drat, I am lucky”, then she asked if it was true that I was a chef. I tell her, “Lady, I can make a turkey sing in your mouth”, and look at that, there was actually turkey meat, so I did just that,  . Anyways, gently caress gently caress gently caress wolf!  Don’t worry Poopo, I’ve got this,  , I am just going to get here and tackle this, it is like a big smellier dog,  oh no no no, not now, why is the ground like this, it is alright, it is alright, it is not my food, it is that ridiculous spam they were cooking before I got here, better to vomit it anyway. Bang, bang, bang! Oh yeah, wolf, I got your back Poopo!   Oh, okay, don’t mind me, just being a helper, I’ll cook the wolf, no problem. Don’t judge me, like you haven’t ever been hungover at a bad time, Jesus, these people. Yeah, I can help with computers, I kept opening appliances back in the day.   Look, that was not my food, it is that spam you guys were making, but don’t worry, no gut worm is going to eat your guts, just count on me, I can cook faster than it can eat you. Keep counting, keep eating, until you poo poo it off. Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to say that in front of a lady, I spent a season in France, you know.  Doctors do their part and I will do mine.  Sometimes there isn’t much to do in the kitchen, you can’t hunt fast enough, so I help out in the lab, I remember some stuff from technical school. Pythagoras, Leibniz, Einstein. I actually cooked a meal for Einstein, I mean, I was one of the cooks working in a conference he was, but odds are he ate the sausages I cooked because they were the fullest. That came out wrong. This too.  State-of-art science, I am a state of art, an estate of art, I am honored that Marianne did this for me, don’t worry Nabwe, it is alright, I know you are a number, a very beautiful number, mind, don’t mind me.  The place is getting very dirty, but I don’t mind, Irene passes by, telling herself “be the change that you want, be the change that you want” in a quiet whisper, like a prayer, she notices that I noticed and feels embarrassed, but I tell her it is alright, we all need some change every once in a while, then I ask her if it isn’t funny that we don’t see any panhandlers anymore and maybe we were getting them wrong, they didn’t want petty cash, they just wanted for things to change, which is pretty sad now that I think about it, but she didn’t think this was funny or clever or sad or even made sense in German and just found a mop and a bucket and went to town on our town.    Okay, actually she was a bit sad, but I don’t think it was because of what I said,  but whatever, the days were getting longer and things were looking more cheerful and brighter and warmer and oh god, my veins burn so much, don’t think about the heat, or you’re going to start burning again. Brighter, more cheerful, fuller, rainier. Like the crops, everything coming, croping up with life, I envy them so much, croping up, more work for me, I like work, something to do with my hands, something to keep the mind busy.  What is it, foureyes? Marianne asks Irene, the smuggest smile I’ve ever seen on a human face, too wide, teeth too perfect, doesn’t seem enough to warrant that punch, but I guess there was some previous tension between the two and Irene feels she and her powered armor can take on a centenarian, even though Marianne doesn’t look a day past thirty to me,  and off they go, I just stay out of the way, I’ve learned that whoever tries to break a fight ends up beaten up by the two alter-cating sides, so I just stay out and it is like Marianne is one of those kung-fu artists from the Macao films, Irene doesn’t look so confident anymore, she shrugs off when I help her get back on her feet, goddamn, Marianne did a number on her.  . And we all just sit back at the table, and talk like we are pretending to be adults, they must have got whatever was bothering them out of their system.  “And how about that new lab, right guys?”  , and just like that it is forgotten, though Irene spends a while lying down in bed, lying down in bed, in bed, no no no no, don’t go there, back to the lab, back to the kitchen, hahahah, I miss that one we were picking cotton, the places we get back to, anyways, it was a good day,  just doing something different for a change, I wish someone could spare me some change now, but what can you do, really,  and time starts passing faster and faster and faster and the potatoes are ripe, I ask about distilling them down into vodka, but they thought it was only a joke, but really, we are going to run out of alcohol eventually, you have to think about these things. There are only so many ways to prepare a potato, baked potato, smashed potato, fried potato, crisping potato, 1327 potatoes, that time, it is so easy to count everything from here, I bet I could count the blades of grass if I could, it is all so fast and so slow and I am falling down, no, no, flying, so much time spent peeling potatoes, that is what I regret the most, because you only got one life, and I got only one life, and to think of all the time that I spent peeling frigging potatoes, right? It really puts things in perspective   Time peeling a potato is not like the time you spend hunting bears with a rifle, I remember being all seriously when I saw her walking  in hauling a goddamned bear, where did that woman learn how to shoot, but really, it is impressive, I wish I could do something like that  . No, I don’t really, I wish I could stop shaking, I wish I could stop burning, like the devil’s hooks on my heart, dragging me down, all this weight, gently caress, I never hurt anybody, Marianne has hurt the whole world, I can see it behind her fake eyes, her fake skin, goddamn demon, no, not a demon, an old lady, except it is not true. The demon prince, Lucifer, Luciferium, the morning star,  the wrong sun, but the sun all the same and how does the sun even fit in the sky, it just burns like a fire in the pit of the sky, and the Earth is a bird on a spit in the sky, and it feels just like home, like the place-time I am coming back to, everything is backwards, I am not here now, I am in a different place.  Yeah, that was a place I wish I could be at, not here alone, god, I wish I could get laid, but there are only three women in this place and none of them would give me the time of the day. Wait, two, not three, three is later, I am not there yet, I am not earlier either. The fire,  , the forest fire, lightning storm, everyone’s scared and rushed to build a firebreak, because we are not fighting a forest fire, a forest fire is a hungry thing that can devour the whole world, such a hungry thing, I wish I could feed it with anything other than myself just to get away, but then everyone has all that work and bang, there comes the rain.  I guess it was just supposed to be a scare, but where is my rain now, I am still burning out here, tear out this roof, take me outside, I need this rain, but it is not raining so I don’t know what I am hoping for.  I am made of wood, I am art, I wonder if she knew and that was her small mercy for me, maybe she was feeding from me all along, Marianne and her dark soul, not going to mess with that, Nabwe knows what is what,  oh the party, I don’t like this party, but it was great, except for the part where I made a fool of myself, but what the hell, I made myself a fool for twenty-six Earth years, a lot before all of this happened.  “I wish I was sculptured with you” I said with my earnest smile, and you know, I really did, even if Viktor was right beside me, boldest loving moment of my life and what do I get, not even a sympathy make-out  , god, I really liked that girl, like the last girl in the world, the last girl in the world and her smile just shines forever but she’s not smiling, but not even if I was the last man on earth, because I am not really a man, just a bundle of excuses and frustrations and these loving devil chains pulling me down to hell, but I can make the best goddamned meal in this planet so I am not just anyone  screw that, I don’t need them, I don’t need anything, I am going down to the marsh  , I bet I could swim across and punch down a bear, but who am I fooling, I’d rather punch down a beer, damnit, damnit, damnit, I am hungry, what is with that dumb von Goon, that whole family was made just to be a loving thorn in the Bardewick’ eyes. Now where are my socks, oh great, forgot them in the swamp.  But I am art, I am art, I am immortal, Viktor von Goon is just flesh and blood and, oh, right, frigging marble statue in their bedroom, where they are probably loving right now, just shoot me already and end this.  And it is like God heard me, because he cuts every single one of the strings and my legs fall from under me and I am shaking, a scream dies on the way from my throat to my lips. The hooks are shaking me, dragging me, it is getting closer and I am freezing, and it is so cold that it burns, whole valleys straight through my veins just catching fire from how cold it is and I want to claw out of my eyes because they feel so huge that they will tear my head in half and it hurts so much and won’t someone puncture them, pop! Just like a balloon, but of course no one does that.  Ahahahahah, this is when it begins to happen,I remember then, that is when they began to take me seriously, because who is going to do their homework while they play at camping, who is going to turn their potatoes and butchered animals and turn them into art? Who’s going to live and breath and be art?  And Marianne comes and takes care of me and I want to hold her and tell her to teach me how to be immortal too, but my throat feels like it has a fist stuck inside it, so I don’t ask, I just look at that Selatanan seeing every single one of her secrets, every single one of the thousand ghosts staring at the back of her skull, just waiting for her to come so they can rip her apart, I try to warn her, but she just smiles, she knows that I know and she knows that they are waiting.  and then she leaves because it is time for the third woman to arrive and four others to leave, and that is just what happens   and I see it all and I tell her to run run run, because they are here to kill, but she’s old and has a bad back and can’t be fast enough    and my brother and the two women are there and tear the crew up, the third woman can’t even walk afterwards but the others can’t even breathe  and Morgan comes and uses his Peace Corps training on her and he looks at me disgust and pity and I am like what the hell,  and I just know they have given up on me, they are just waiting for the clock to turn, because they are not building a new room for the third woman  , no, they are building a new room for me  and I can hear that they are happy, for themselves, marriage is on, party is on, celebration of life is on. I can hear everything and it is all so loud that I can hear their thoughts and I am surprised that Morgan is worried about me and I am scared that Marianne is just this white burning noise and I am glad Irene does care and the third woman thinks it is a shame what is happening to me, that the young shouldn’t die so early and we actually talk a bit before she goes to bed and she’s alright, and I wish I could remember her name, but then she drops that final bomb on me and I am happy for them, I really am, I smile and it doesn’t feel forced, but still I am like, okay, I am done, I am out  bye    
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Oct 11, 2016 14:03
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Well. That was certainly a thing. Is there a less high retelling of the battle there at the end with Sparkles arriving? Did any of the crew get any serious wounds? Also, in general, how serious is injury in this game? In Dwarf Fortress there are some injuries which are essentially permanent, but here we're at a higher tech level. Can we replace lost limbs? Organs?
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Oct 11, 2016 14:14
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There isn't much really, Sparkles arrived and due to a bad back couldn't run from the raiders, so instead of using a defensive position our gun-team had to go after her. At first the raiders focused on Sparkles until she went down, but were gunned down and ran off before doing any damage to the rescuers. For reference, a raider crew runs when half their number has been downed or killed. Injuries can get really serious, if the RNG says you got an eye shot off, then that happened. Wounds can get infected if untreated, and the infection can spread, so it is always a good idea to rush people to receive treatment. There are also illnesses of all kinds, like the Gut Worms Viktor and Irene got, which doubles their need for food and costs medicine to treat, so that one was actually a heavy toll on our medical supplies, which we don't have the means to replace yet. That said, you can get bionics and artificial organs on the market, or built if you have the technology for it (I am using the Expanded Prosthetics and Organ Engineering mod, for it should be noted, so there are more options than in vanilla), or you can harvest the parts you need from prisoners. Right now I am looking for an artificial spine to replace Sparkles', but surgery is a risky thing and that is a hell of an expensive and advanced thing, so it will wait until we have a dedicated medical wing. ZearothK fucked around with this message at 15:02 on Oct 11, 2016 |
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Oct 11, 2016 14:49
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Is that atrocious formatting on purpose?
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Oct 11, 2016 15:59
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inscrutable horse posted:Is that atrocious formatting on purpose? Yes. I decided to write the whole post as a stream of thought of a dying man suffering withdraw, and the format followed. I know it is not to everyone's tastes, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I am a big fan of authors who indulge in this style occasionally. Monkey see, monkey do and all that.
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Oct 11, 2016 16:45
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ZearothK posted:Yes. I decided to write the whole post as a stream of thought of a dying man suffering withdraw, and the format followed. I know it is not to everyone's tastes, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I am a big fan of authors who indulge in this style occasionally. Monkey see, monkey do and all that. It was great. One of the things I like best about this lp is how experimental it can get.
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Oct 11, 2016 17:10
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Could you have harvested Grigory's spine?
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Oct 11, 2016 17:23
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ZearothK posted:Yes. I decided to write the whole post as a stream of thought of a dying man suffering withdraw, and the format followed. I know it is not to everyone's tastes, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I am a big fan of authors who indulge in this style occasionally. Monkey see, monkey do and all that. At first glance I thought you'd hosed up some tags, but then when I started reading and saw what it was, it worked pretty great.
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Oct 11, 2016 17:45
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Is there even any way to deal with spinal injuries in the base game? I've had a couple people catch bullets through the spine and I end up having to just euthanize them.
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Oct 11, 2016 17:45
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ZearothK posted:Yes. I decided to write the whole post as a stream of thought of a dying man suffering withdraw, and the format followed. I know it is not to everyone's tastes, but I had a lot of fun writing it and I am a big fan of authors who indulge in this style occasionally. Monkey see, monkey do and all that. It works a lot better on mobile. Great update.
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Oct 11, 2016 19:08
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PurpleXVI posted:At first glance I thought you'd hosed up some tags, but then when I started reading and saw what it was, it worked pretty great. Yeah, me too  I was halfway through writing a response when I saw just who was speaking 
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Oct 11, 2016 20:17
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Thanks to those who enjoyed the experiment!AJ_Impy posted:Could you have harvested Grigory's spine? I am not sure, actually. I know we can get organs and limbs, but I believe a spine needs an artificial replacement. punched my v-card at camp posted:Is there even any way to deal with spinal injuries in the base game? I've had a couple people catch bullets through the spine and I end up having to just euthanize them. Yeah, I think in vanilla you can't really do anything. Though Sparks' injury is not paralysing, it just reduces her manipulation and movement.
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Oct 12, 2016 21:48
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 Viktor von Goon walked pensively outside, paying attention to the quiet sounds hidden in the silence of the night. Another week and they would have been in this planet for a year and, come to think of it, it might have been the best year of his life.  It was a bit lonely for someone used to being surrounded by servants, a neurosis displayed by the community through the growing population of snowmen outside, but still… It was nice, this was nice. After the confusion and fear of the first few weeks as they scrambled to survive, things had gotten quite settled. He remembered.  Creating a workshop so Sparkles - once a de Beers jeweller - now a retired old lady who wanted to see space before the end of her years - could use her very able hands to sew clothes for everyone from the leather of butchered animals and the cotton the group had planted during summer. There are several production buildings that convert raw material into tools or furniture. We’ve had a craftshop for sculptures earlier because I wanted to have something for Marianne to do in the early days and a space to cut down raw stone into bricks, but as we have access to more materials we will be expanding our workshop.  Mining metal during spring, so they could install proper wiring into the great house and get actual heating and lightning going. He could still feel that work in his muscles, why did he ever bother going to gym? This was so much more rewarding. But again, the typical miner was doing it for a meager paycheck, not to build a geothermal power plant, he remembered  The first few times they had genuine time to appreciate the world around them, and contemplate things. These were becoming more and more common, he gathered.   When the growing season and ended, and they realized that yes, they would make it.  When the days began to grow colder and the nights warmer.   Building the outer wall and the defenses. They had been pretty scared by the forest fire and the tribal raids had been growing. Even if no one had been gravely hurt yet, it was clear that they had been lucky so far, and couldn’t count on luck for the future.  Changing the flooring of the rooms and renovating the great house. Now that had been good, he felt fuller now that he had marble in his bedroom again. Survival was important, yes, but so is human dignity. And no, that is still not enough to make them happy that they have luxurious rooms.  That time when they heard a terrible noise and saw an enormous green cloud in the horizon and thought that someone got tired of waiting and had dumped chemical weapons in the planet. Okay, that wasn’t a pleasant memory.   The rush to seal the great house so they wouldn’t choke on the gas. The memory actually caused him to cough, the work took way too long and everyone felt lethargic and terrified they would take brain damage from it.  But it worked out, no permanent damage, they responded quickly and as a team and it worked out. As long as they kept acting and thinking like a team they could deal with anything, just like their families. Jesus, screw those guys.   It hadn’t worked out quite as well for the local wildlife though. When they came out to survey the area… That was an image that would haunt him for a very long time.  Poopo and Marianne took it in stride on the other hand and said they wouldn’t have to worry about hunting for a while. Viktor remembered arguing that he wouldn’t eat food from something that died from chemical poisoning, but Poopo assured him he shouldn’t worry if the food was properly boiled and he didn’t eat any lungs. He worried, but then other things happened and he forgot about it. Chemical Cloud is one of those events that seem to be really dangerous when you start playing, but can sometimes be a blessing in disguise. The way toxicity works is that it gradually builds up from exposure, and characters get maluses as it grows, until it gets to a fatal level and starts killing. Characters recover minor toxicity automatically when away from it, but heavy levels require medical treatment. So this forces you to limit the amount of time your pawns spend outside. It can be fairly dangerous if you’ve built an open base, but you can try to seal it like I did with ours, but it is a problem if you are in the middle of cutting season and really need that food to be in the freezer or have other necessities that require extended activity in the outside. Also it kills every animal in the map.  Namely two new arrivals. Part of the crew of the ship whose escape pods were trapped in orbit for a while longer.   Gun! He was such a huge fan of Gun as a kid. He was one of the first Macao action child stars, back before safety regulations for films were a thing in China. Baby Police Officer, Carnival of Carnage, Full Stop. drat, those were the days, he was killing it. Sometimes figuratively so, but he didn’t like to talk about these days, Viktor guessed the gossip was right, Gun lost his nerve after accidentally shooting a friend’s eye out and became a monk dedicated to metal working. You try to make sense out of that background/career! Gun is a really good melee fighter despite his nickname and crafter as well, and has a passion for planting which should come in handy once or twice a year. As for his traits, Nervous means he’s more likely to have a breakdown and Abrasive makes him more likely to offend people.  Anyways, Morgan rescued him. And then, in the same day….   Maskinnen dropped from the sky, one of the engineers aboard the ship. She was once a slave in an irregular farm in Sweden, but auditors from the Eurohansa discovered the place, shut it down, fined the owners and sent the child farmers to an orphanage (the adults came back to work in the same place with slightly improved conditions and a formal paycheck). Maskinnen did fantastically in her aptitude test and was sent to the von Braun institute.The rest is history. Maskinnen is competent in pretty much every building aptitude, so she might re-do our furniture. Optimist gives her a permanent mood boost, but Chemical Interest means she’s much more likely to try out any drugs we have available and become addicted to them. I also believe, but am not sure, that she’s more likely to have drug binges as a form of breakdown. In other words, she’s  the character. Viktor remembered rushing to build rooms to host them, Sparkles had gently ceded her room temporarily to host the pair, but it was less than ideal. The great house had to be expanded.   They were cared for, and eventually they struck a deal. They’d work now for the five and when they (the five) left on their ship they (the workers) would keep the base and whatever was left inside it. It was a pretty good deal considering the market value of everything in the planet. Also considering Marianne’s speaking fees and how much they owed the group already. When strangers are wounded you have to option to ignore them, help them or imprison them. Slightly non-intuitive is that if you want them to join your colony you have to imprison rather than just help them, because if you do the latter they just go “cheers!” and bumble out into the wilderness on their own (probably to be eaten off screen). Escape pod people have pretty high odds for recruitment though.  Maskinnen offered a small sculpture commemorating Marianne’s government in India as thanks for the rescue. She seemed flattered by the obvious insult, but who could really tell what went behind her eyes?  The group expanded the workshop area, it was near the servant’s apartments, since they were the ones who would operate the equipment and the nobles didn’t want to be bothered by the noise. First one is a simple prosthetics bench (peglegs, eye-patches, hook-hands, etc), the sewing bench we previously mentioned, and a machinery bench (to make guns, but also break down robots), the bottom has a forge (can be used to make simple weapons, but we’re mainly using it break down equipment from the savages).  And he remembered his own marriage, another good thing. Irene and he always wondered if they would have become a pair this serious and so close if it hadn’t been for their exile. Probably not, but he liked to think they would have happened in someway down the line, something this good and so important had to be inevitable, right?  He wondered if Marianne and Nabwe asked themselves the same things. Probably, maybe? Probably, they were humans after all.  It had been a good year. He said goodnight to the snowmen and returned to his quarters where Irene was waiting for him. He felt nervous even as he found her comforting warmth under the covers, a feeling of being watched by something hungry, but eventually sleep conquered his optimistically troubled mind.  Like the others, his night was filled by non-descript nightmares, of walking through physically impossible landscapes decorated with mangled bodies, of something right out of sight, the particular feeling of tentacles gently caressing his soul.  
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Dec 1, 2016 19:04
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Oh hey. loving SHOGGOTHS. That's not awful or anything.
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Dec 1, 2016 21:08
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PurpleXVI posted:Oh hey. loving SHOGGOTHS. Dark One, actually. I haven't played with this mod before, so I don't know if it is going to reproduce like crazy and eat everything in the map or if it's going to pursue any colonists it sees or how hard it is to kill. Maybe it will be a chill thing and just stay out there chilling. Let's see!
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Dec 1, 2016 21:47
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Hahahaha, nice.
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Dec 1, 2016 22:30
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I'm literal years late with this, but you provided me with two excellent afternoons entertainment and even managed to make Vicky 2, my utterly least favorite Paradox game, a compelling read. Good stuff, Zearoth, all the way down. Next time make the insane space robots Texan though.
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Dec 28, 2016 13:01
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Orv posted:I'm literal years late with this, but you provided me with two excellent afternoons entertainment and even managed to make Vicky 2, my utterly least favorite Paradox game, a compelling read. Good stuff, Zearoth, all the way down. Thanks, glad to hear you've enjoyed it! Advice noted. (big fan of the Dishonored LP, by the way!)
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Dec 30, 2016 14:25
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  “What is that thing?” Morgan asked. “Whatever it is it is 83 years old and female.” Marianne said. “What?” “It is pretty easy when you look at the code.” “What?”  “I don’t even care anymore.” she let the awkward pause float a bit and then sink before continuing “It doesn’t matter, it is wild and we can’t tame it. We’ll just kill it if it gets close to the base.” The days moved and turned, the colony settling into a comfortable routine of winter work, broken by the occasional raid from neighbors.   Defenses held, prisoners were gathered for recruitment. Things were looking up.     All routine, really.    As spring arrived and the prisoners and corpses piled up, the board of directors decided it was time to provide a dedicated prison for behavior adjustment of the soon to be worker class.  Things were looking up, and so the signs were ignored.  A Dark Young, hungry for what was to come, approached the base. A gesture of friendship (?) that was responded with extreme force from all the warriors of the colony. Tranca and gun serving as an effective pike-line to defend the shooters from its approach. The creature was tough, but not as tough as concentrated firepower.  Spring was marked by a cold snap, followed by a volcanic winter. The board decided to order the construction of an hydroponics bay in order to allow the colony to endure whatever winter this hell-rock offered. The prisoners were recruited to provide the workforce needed to work the crops and renovate the structure.  And then they came. Sending plague as their herald.    The defenses were overwhelmed by the raiders, Bardewick managed to escape, but Irene fell, hands clutching her face after her nose was cut-off by one of the attackers.  Gun was the first to fall as the raiders reached the second defensive line, he would not be the last. His action star training did not suffice against hardened warriors. The elderly Sparkles was caught as the group penetrated the base and promptly beaten to death despite her obvious age and illness. One of the newly recruiter prisoners had a crossbow bolt through her heart.  Marianne ran outside, but could not evade her opponents forever. Whatever kept her alive for over a century was not stronger than an axe’s steel.  Tranca and Poopo were the only fighters still standing when the raiders decided they had enough and began to flee. The base had become a graveyard filled with corpses, abandoned weapons, blood and excrement.  The surviving pair and Verea, also one of the new recruits, quickly began the work of gathering the members of the colony that could still be saved. None of them was a competent medic, that would be Nabwe Morgan, who had his own problems to deal with.  Poopo, still badly wounded, coped in the only way he knew how. By playing a manifest destiny simulator. The cries of the dying and his own wounds faded away as he lost himself inside an alternate history game starting at the time of the Hansa’s rise. First he played with the kingdom of Castille, uniting Spain (and thanks to a special DLC that made the Aztecs primitive, discovered and conquered most of the New World), but that eventually became stale, specially when it became clear he’d unite France, Portugal and Spain under a single crown; so he switched to playing as England, leading a coalition against the Bourbon superpower, and from there emerging from the turbulent revolutionary period caused by the more autocratic governments of his alternate history as a global power, visiting every continent with his economic and military might. As the 19th century came along and his hegemony was a given, he switched to playing as the United Stated of America (a fictitious name he gave to Ixachitlan based on the explorer he used to ‘discover’ the continent), a rebellious colony of Britain which went on to rise to power in a way similar to Neubauten’s. Two world wars later and he stared down at a world map divided by his own sphere of influence and that of a communist dictatorship ruling over eastern Europe and north Asia....  He was brought back to reality when public opinion in his nation made a war in Southeast Asia untenable. He gave the screen a middle finger, only to remember that it had been cut off. He then went off to grab a sandwich, only to find that one of the new workers had grabbed Marianne’s assault rifle and was threatening to shoot down anyone who showed their ghost faces around.   Morgan eventually talked her down, the survivors ate dinner (breakfast at this point) and began to gather the dead and treat their wounds.  Things wound never really get back to normal. Nabwe’s plague continued to develop, as he was taken over by fever, yellow pustules emerging from his skin. He tried to instruct the others on how to treat the black plague, but none had his expertise.   He died in the couple’s bed, holding onto where Marianne used to lay. Alone, but feeling her presence.  Meanwhile, Tranca was busy taking Marianne to her grave when she noticed a strange glimmer in her exposed innards. She figured it was what rich people really looked like on the inside.   The pair were interred side by side. Verea had also died from the plague, but it is not like we had time to grow attached to her.  Irene began to wear a helmet to hire her disfigurement. Viktor took over the computer, diving into endless escapism. Poopo wandered outside to gather his thoughts.  A passing Dark Young smelled the death around him, he tried to run, but it was surprisingly fast. He tried to escape, but its tentacles were far too many and far too strong. He tried to ignore the pain as the creature began to eat him feet-first, but every bite inserted a toxin that amplified his awareness of what was happening. He watched with fascination and his body was reduced from person to food to oblivion.  The survivors sought to avenge him. Without the manpower to concentrate the firepower needed to take down the beast, they came up with a daring plan where Maskinnen would draw its attention while the rest of the group attacked it.  To everyone’s surprise it actually worked.  Several parts of the base were disabled to save up on power, moving everyone closer to its center. Irene and Viktor were the only members of the board still left, it was only through the comfort of each others bodies that they held to their sanity.  A few days later, with summer in full bloom, they received a call from Maskinnen’s brother. She begged the rest of the group to allow him to come, besides, they really needed the workforce to maintain the base.  They relented.  And then they died. Happy 2016, everyone!
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Dec 30, 2016 14:32
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Staying in theme for 2016: Everyone loving dies.
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Dec 30, 2016 20:23
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