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Messages - anthraxus

#16
Stories / Muffalo Cross Vlog
April 27, 2016, 11:22:03 PM
The video shows a wooden wall, with sunlight angling across it from the left.  Triple bladed frondgrass carpets the ground up to the wall.  A middle aged man enters from the left.  Assuming the wall is a standard height, he would be just under six feet tall.  He wears his synth thread jacket open and is shirtless and ripped underneath.  His dark hair is trimmed down to the standard cryptosleep buzz.  He walks to the center of the frame and looks to the camera.  His face is vaguely familiar, although it is hard to place from where.

"Here?" he asks, his voice is smooth and deep, flavored with a faint spinward glitterworld accent.  Another voice responds from off-camera, "Yeah, dude, go.  We're recording already."  The man on screen looks down, coughs lightly and his lips can be seen to move quickly, like he was praying or speaking to himself quietly.  After a second he looks back up and smiles, white teeth glittering in the sunlight. 

"Hi,  my name is Bret Cross.  You may remember me from such golden joywire classics as Merrin Veck and the Solar Wreck, Colony 2291 and the Urbworld Urchins series.  Although since it has been a couple decades since I was last on the wire, I wouldn't blame you if you don't."  He swipes his left hand over his head, the movement instantly recognizable as a signature gesture of many of his characters.  "At my brother's insistence, we are starting this running vlog of the foundation of what we are calling Muffalo Cross.  You may be wondering why I dropped off the map so many years ago, and what I've been doing since then.  Well, some of you may know that I am originally from Eribin Dani, and that when that world collapsed into the fires of religious nuclear war I was safely off world, filming Urbworld Urchins.  What you probably don't know is that I had a brother who was still on Eribin Dani when it all went down." 

He seems to think for a moment and then quickly advances on the camera.  The same voice from earlier is heard saying, "No, quit it Bret, Stop!", and the source is revealed to be another man, slightly younger than Brett but with an obvious family resemblance.  The younger man also wears standard cryptosleep synth thread pants, but no other clothing.  While he is as physically impressive as Bret, his back bears the unmistakable stripes of a whip, and he has a large full-color tattoo across his upper back the legendary warship Donnager against a star filled backdrop.  Bret keeps the younger man in a simple headlock as he pulls him into the shot.

"This knucklehead is my brother Daniel.  Say hello to the galaxy, Dan!"  Dan waves awkwardly towards the camera and twists out of the headlock.  He holds his hands up warily towards Bret, but looks to the camera.  "Hi galaxy!" he waves again, more naturally and at ease.  Brett continues, occasionally feinting towards Daniel like he was going to grab him again, "Anyway.  I wound up having to spend the majority of the fortune I had made in my joywire career trying to get him off of the ruins of Eribin Dani.  We wound up more or less bumming around the spinward systems for several years, working on odd jobs to make the ends meet and just trying to settle on some kind of direction.  Finally, we landed a contract to join a group looking to establish a colony on the antispin rim, somewhere around Upsilon Maxi.  We made friends with another of the colonists, Naoki McGuire, a former Planetary Guild Navy researcher who prefers to go by the nickname Muffalo."  A couple shots fire in distance and both brothers look in that direction. "Um, yeah," Bret looks back to the camera, "Anyways, I got the luck of pulling regular maintenance shifts for journey out.  Imagine my worry, then, when I happen to cycle up for my shift only to find half of the warning lights on the maintenance panel flashing emergency indicators.  Apparently the last person to pull shift duty had died at some point during his shift and the ship quickly started to fall apart. Um, we'll pick this back up in a minute" 

Another shot echoes from off camera.  Daniel looks at Bret and they nod in silent agreement.  Daniel walks towards the camera as Bret draws a pistol from under his jacket and walks off in the direction of the gunshots.  The last shot is of Daniel reaching out to turn off the camera.
#17
I did one here:  https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=18413.msg201807#msg201807

I'm working on another now.
#18
Stories / Re: The Shankers
April 17, 2016, 12:43:22 AM
I really dig this viewpoint and it is written in an engaging tone.
#19
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 12, 2016, 09:08:47 PM
While waiting for everyone to bleed out, I got notice of a prison break.  Delgado was attempting to escape, but was prevented by the pigs that had joined the colony at the same time the seige raid started.  They beat him down and I can only presume he bled out sometime after Don and noble did.
#20
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 12, 2016, 09:05:53 PM
I really wasn't expecting this sudden end, but it was like none of them could hit any of the invaders. Kind of disappointed the end was such a let down as I had such high hopes for this colony.  Guess I will just have to take another shot at it.  Did you enjoy this story?  Would you want to read something similar again?
#21
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 12, 2016, 08:59:09 PM
12th of Spring

This is it.  We're all dead.  The stoners hit us with a seige group.  We tried to take them before  {blood smeared on the page obscures some of the text}  hurts so bad.  they are just letting don adn i layout here in the heat and bleed.  I can't hear don anymore.  I hope Penny got away.
#22
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 12, 2016, 08:30:22 PM
{Hope you like it Saw.  It has proven surprisingly difficult to remember to make updates to the story and not just play the game.}

11th of Spring

Thanks to Vicky's administrations and some of our dwindling Urbworld medicine, I was fit as a fiddle when I woke up.  We are going to miss those meds when they are gone.  Fortunately the heal root field has ripened and been harvested, so we have a fall back.  Apparently the one guy we were able to capture alive from the raids is healed up and walking.  From what Vicky was telling me, Delgado made a break for it once already when she accidentally knocked down a while while installing a door.  She had to shoot him several times, but from what she and Don have said he is both a great shot and supposedly a good researcher, which are both skills we could put to good use once we wear him down.

Worked on a big sculpture for most of the morning, but i'm pretty wiped out now.  I've made a little headway with training Penny, and I think I've got Orkie to the point that he can rescue us if we get hurt in a raid.  We are also working on expanding the power grid so we can finish the first ring of turrets.  We've set out some markers for grave sites over by the windmills because we've got to do something all the corpses.  They are just disgusting.  If nobody else takes care of them by tomorrow, I will.
#23
Stories / Re: Abrasives are absolutely assholes now.
April 12, 2016, 02:25:29 PM
great story
#24
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 12, 2016, 12:55:31 AM
10th of Spring

I'm writing this from my make-shift hospital bed.  In the last three days we have had three raids from everyone of the asshole tribes around us.  The first two we handled without any injuries mainly because they both charged straight into our turret line.  The third, however (Stoners if you couldn't guess) charged us from the south.  There were six of them to our four armed colonists.  We took care of three of them pretty quick as they charged in to attack, but their other three sat back and sniped at us from well outside the range of our turrets.  Vicky, Don and Maxwell were all pinned down and trying to take out one of them but having a hard time actually scoring a hit.  I was only armed with a shiv, but I noticed that one of the earlier chargers had dropped some grenades.  I told Maxwell my plan and snuck over to grab the grenades.  While they moved in a little bit, I flanked one of the snipers and blew him to kingdom come with a single grenade.  That broke the other two, and we gunned one of them down as they tried to get away.  The last one slipped us, but at least we have enough weapons now that everyone can be armed with something.  In the assault I got hit a couple times.  Vicky patched me up, but it still hurts.  Ugh.  At least the rain is finally stopping.
#25
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 11, 2016, 10:34:46 PM
5th of Winter

Another trade group from Grower's Cliff showed up today.  Nice enough folks but not really carrying anything we needed.  So we just showed them around.  I also tamed a couple alpaca today.  Since somebody finished the tailoring bench a day or two ago, maybe someone will start making some new clothes for people.  The synththread stuff I was wearing when we crashed has started to wear pretty thin in places. 

With both Don and I taking turns at it, we've been cranking out a bunch of art pieces that we plan to the first trader we can find for some more weapons.  What with all the rabid squirrels and larger game, having a few pistols or rifles would be really helpful.

6th of Spring

Today is the second time it has rained since crashday.  I'm really surprised our plants have been doing as well as they have with as dry as it's been.   Just a few hours after the rain started there were weird flashes in the sky.  At first I thought it was lightning, but when the power suddenly failed Maxwell said they must be solar flares.  Between the two events, we are back to squatting in the dark, hoping for the power to come back on. 

While we were waiting, Vicky and I talked about some of the problems that we are going to be running into soon.  We are nearly out of grown trees and cacti in easy walking distance.  To this end we agreed to dip into the seed catalog again and plant some pine trees to make sure we don't run out of wood.  I spent the rest of the day bouncing between working on training Penny and the alpacas and working on building more turrets.  The rain and flares have continued all day.  I hope I can wake up to a hot breakfast.
#26
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 10, 2016, 09:51:00 PM
15th of Winter

Everybody is keeping busy.  I spent most of the day training Okie to rescue people that get hurt in combat.  Apparently last night two more rabid squirrel attacked us.  Vicky and Mann killed one, but the other got the drop on Jac and bit him pretty bad on the face.  He bolted and ran right past my bed. As he was cowering in his and Vicky's bedroom, Orkie and I killed it.  By the end of the day, everybody, including Maxwell, was pretty much recovered, so no real harm done.  We definitely need to get some more turrets built around if these wild animal attacks are going to be a regular thing.

1st of Spring

Woohoo!  I tamed the rhino!  I named her Penny.  Vicky thought that was weird but I think it is pretty funny.  In for a penny in for a pound.  By the time I made it back to the colony I found out Maxwell decided to join us as well.  The colony is really expanding quickly. 

4th of Spring

So busy.  Just quick highlights.  A couple more rooms have been built, although we still need to get temp controls in them.  Jac must have eaten some agave that had gone bad or something because he decided to try to hunt down a muffalo armed with just a plasteel knife.  I'll be dipped if he didn't do it though.  I've never seen Vicky so mad.  She cussed him up one side and down the other while she was treating him.  We could hear her even through the door to their room.  After she had him patched up, she said that he was not going to be allowed to hunt anymore.  I gave my rifle up to Don as he apparently did a lot of hunting as a kid, so he is going to be our lead hunter now. Judging from the way he took down the other two muffalo in the small herd, he is a better shot than me.  Although I didn't realize where he was hunting, so I can around the corner to find the a whole field practically painted in muffalo blood.  It was so surprising and horrifying that I just puked all over.  Gross.

Speaking of gross, Maxwell has come down with some kind of horrible flu.  I've seen a lot of unforgettable sights here on Phac, but Maxwell's hour long vomit fountain is probably the one that I wish I could forget the most.  I hope it doesn't spread around.
#27
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 10, 2016, 04:03:18 PM
14th of Winter

Have you ever seen a dawn eclipse?  I hadn't before today either.  Don woke me up to show me.  He even had come up with a little song.  I don't remember all of it, but it went something like:

Your beauty's entrancing,
let's go dancing,
under the glimmering dawn eclipse.

In the weirding light
I wonder what might
happen should I kiss your lips


There was another verse, but I was honestly too embarrassed to hear it right.  Maybe I judged him too harshly at the beginning.  To pay him back for the song, I started working on making sure he had a bed to sleep in tonight.  I didn't realize it, but apparently he slept outside last night, because we didn't get around to building something for him.  I feel kind of bad about that, since apparently he doesn't know one end of a hammer from the other, and Vicky and I got so wrapped up in dealing with Maxwell it just never occurred to me.  Another note to his credit, Don has done more to talk up joining us to Maxwell than anyone else has.  Vicky's talked to him some when she was treating him, but no where near as much as Don.

The eclipse lasted almost the entire day.  I don't know why, but that just seems weird to me.  I kept being tempted to look at so spent most of the day at the stove prepping meals and talking with Maxwell.  He seems like a pleasant enough guy and Don is definitely wearing him down on joining with us.
#28
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 09, 2016, 02:53:32 AM
13th of Winter

The heat wave broke yesterday, so the temperature has dropped back down to a reasonable 75.  I've been working with the rhino, and established some trust, but I've not been able to lure him back to the colony yet.

In more exciting news we were contacted by a guy named Don Mann who asked for safety from those buttholes to the north, "The Stonefaced Crew".  From what the traders we talked to the other day said, these stoners are an old group of pirates that have been tormenting all of the tribes and people in the area for as long as anyone can remember.  Vicky and Jac agreed with me that we need more people, so we responded that we would take him in.  Fortunately we had just finished building some turrets to keep our power generators protected, so when the one stoner that was tracking him showed up, he barely even made it into the heal root patch before he was gunned down.

On the plus side, he wasn't actually killed, so we moved some beds around to make a reasonable holding cell for him and Vicky patched up his gunshot wounds. 

As much as I was hoping that Don would maybe be a match for me, now that I've met him I'm not quite so hopeful.  He doesn't have a whole lot of interests other than singing and art (he used to be a minstrel), and while he was thankful for the rescue, his first real question was when he was going to get his own room to work with.  Seems kind of self-centered and just generally unimpressive, although he says he is really good with a blade.

Maybe we can sway Maxwell the stoner over as well.  Then I might get to make my pick.  Of course, knowing my luck Maxwell and Don will wind up hooking up.
#29
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 09, 2016, 01:39:25 AM
11th of Winter

A lots been going on the last couple days.  Even though we are in the middle of winter, a heat wave has rolled in.  Temps hit over 120 earlier today.  We've been mainly focused on digging out more components and steel to try to get these coolers built, both in the store room and in the living room, as well as some batteries to make sure they can stay running.  The difference between inside and outside is so extreme it is almost nauseating to go through it, but it is so crowded in the living room now, that we are going to have to expand soon.  I'm sure Vicky and Jac wouldn't mind some privacy and I know I wouldn't either.

Surprisingly, given the weather, we were visited by a couple ladies from Growth's Cliff.  Despite the stupid name of their tribe, they were nice enough.  Neither of us had anything to trade really, so they just looked around for awhile and left, saying they would be back later.  I half-jokingly said they should bring some men with them next time, but I don't know if they really took that like I meant.

I also saw my first rhino today.  I had heard about them before, but never actually saw one up close.  I'm really good with animals, so I think I'm going to try to train it.  I hope Orkie likes it.
#30
Stories / Re: Noble's Journal
April 08, 2016, 11:29:29 PM
7th of Winter

The crash and recovering from longsleep has completely thrown off everyone's circadian rhythms.  I don't know when Jac first woke up last night but he said he was completely able to sleep, so while Vicky and I were snoozing through the early morning hours, Jac went out and planted 3/4 of the potato field.  Apparently he still couldn't sleep, so he crawled into bed with Vicky.  I woke up to them finishing what was probably intended to be a quiet lovemaking session, but with all of us in the same room and Jac grunting like a wounded muffalo, I don't see how they thought it woudn't wake me up.  Fortunately for me, just about that time Jac rolled over and drifted off.  I stepped outside to grab a prepack meal for breakfast and Vicky joined me a few minutes later.  We chatted over breakfast about her and Jac's previous life as messengers and drifters on some little medieval craphole of a world.   It actually sounds similar to my homeworld, although possibly a bit more crappy.

After we finished eating, we took a long walk around the camp and made note of a few more piles of scrap steel nearby that we would need for the generator and windmills.  The rest of the morning we spent working on the generators and clearing more space to plant the healroot seeds.  Jac wound up sleeping until the early afternoon and then spent the rest of the day working on finishing the planting.  I wound up staying up until well after midnight trying to finish our second windmill, but I started crashing hard so packed in it for bed as soon as I finish this.  Jac is still out there working.

8th of Winter

After the late night last night I wound up sleeping into midmorning.  At least I didn't wake up to Vikky and Jac going at it again.  Thank goodness for small favors. By the time I was up and moving, Vikky had already finished up the windmills and had built a chair to relax in and had a pile of wood on the floor in front of her.  When I asked her what that was for, she said that she was tired of eating off the ground all the time.  That sounded like a great idea to me, so we worked on finishing up the table.  I'm amazed Jac slept through it.

I was out working in the gardens, but Vicky told me about today's excitement later this evening.  Apparently she was working on digging out some steel from the cliffside near our buildings when a rabid squirrel came charging out of the trees at her.  She popped off a couple shots at it, but it was moving too quick for her to hit it.  From what she told me, the squirrel then proceeded to climb her like a tree, biting all the way.  She was trying to pistol whip it when Jac came to her aid with his knife.  They both talked about how difficult it was to kill the stupid squirrel without accidently stabbing or clubbing Vicky at the same time, but personally I think it would have been pretty funny to watch.

I treated her wounds and she wound up spending the rest of the day in bed recuperating.  Since we now had some raw meat, Jac decided that we should build a cooler for the storeroom to keep it fresh until we can build a butcher table to properly cut it up.  He got to work on the cooler, while I went out and dug out some more of the steel and wires that Vicky had been working on.  By the time I finished that and was getting ready for bed, Jac had apparently gotten distracted from working on the cooler and wound up clearing the rest of the garden plots of cacti and bushes and finished planting everything.  Guess one of us will work on the cooler in the morning because I am just too wiped out to mess with it.