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Yes, I'm aware of that, but the file size restriction actually prevents me from uploading more than two per post. And I would rather prefer having pics embedded directly into the post itself, rather than the viewer having to scroll all the way to the bottom.

Is there a way to upload images directly off your pc? I'm really not interested in signing up with some third party file sharing site when it would make far more sense (and would also be far more time conscientious) to simply upload from my computer.

22nd Season: Jugust 5505

Where were we? Oh yes. Mechs. Stupid mechs. Preparations earnestly continued for our planned busting open of the mech ship part. But Randy Random wasn't cooperating. While colonists were still sleeping, getting ready for the big day that could potentially render them a statistic in the vast Rimworld multiverse, Randy threw a solar eclipse at us. This made our solar panels useless for the coming battle, and I was forced to take extra time to hook our guns up to the geothermal generator on the far side of camp.

The delay wasn't enough to impede us, and our turrets had access to electricity before noon of the 1st. I set up my soldiers in strategic positions around the site of the crash. Rubber, Biz and Coley were planted directly to the left of the mechs, with Hanfy, McConnell and Sullivan standing behind them, positioned in such a way that their shots would hopefully not assail their allies. Rynyk, Kaleun, Khan and Badluck were positioned below the turret, and I had Bolla, Jen and Von Schild reinforce them by surrounding the mechs at precise sniping positions.

It was time to open up this tin can...and pray.

So we lit 'er up, and earliest indications were actually extremely frightening, if not outright demoralizing. Two scythers. One assaulter. Two bashers (or whatever those close quarter melee experts are called). A flamebot. About two or three of those tiny robots. One centipede. And a bloody mammoth. The mammoth was the most pressing concern, and I had all snipers target that son of a bitch with suppressing fire, while Rubber, Biz and Coley hit it with everything they had. Everyone else shot at whatever they could hit.

The flamebot rapidly closed with one of our turrets and basically melted it into shrapnel, but was then easy prey for my gunners. The southern line managed to disable the two bashers seconds before they would have been pummeled to shit. McConnell was hit in the leg with a charge blast from the centipede, but things were going in our favor, albeit barely.

The mammoth was taking heavy damage, but was pressing it's assault, so much so that I had to call Rubber, Biz and Coley to regroup further back. Biz barely avoided being crushed by the monstrosity before taking flight out of range, which then turned its attention to Hanfy, McConnell and Sullivan.

Hanfy was struck by a charge blast, but then our snipers took out the mammoth. The scythers were down also, although it cost us two more turrets, and everyone then directed fire at the centipede, which hadn't much of a chance at this point. The assaulter fell immediately after. Overall, the battle went extraordinarily well. It's just a mighty fine spot of luck that the centipede wasn't equipped with an inferno cannon, or the outcome might have been completely different.

After what seemed like seasons of trying, Crouboa joined the team on the 3rd. Also on the 3rd, we were attacked by an overgrown drop pod. I considered letting it time out, as it crashed close to my defense grid and would periodically send out a cactipine that would inevitably get cut to ribbons automatically by my firing line. We were joined by more devilsheep, which I shall sell at the earliest available opportunity.

I sent Von Schild out to deconstruct the pod on the 4th, but the decision was ill-timed, and he ended up getting caught out in the open with only a sniper rifle to defend himself with and not enough time to shoot before the cactipine inevitably crawled up his leg and sank its teeth into Von Schild's soft, yielding neck. Luckily, Sullivan and Rynyk were there to lend assistance, however, the little bastard managed to scramble up Rynyk and bite her in the eye before it was killed.

On the 5th, builders completed a second row of batteries for the hospital wing, as I had noticed that the recent eclipse had really hurt our energy stockpile. Viper, a lesbian, pursued Coley by comparing her to a lovely rock, but Coley turned away. We captured a downed spacer named Coyote on the 6th (Xina barely managed to save her), and then something else awful happened. Gutworms. Sixteen of my colonists had gutworms. In fact the number would have been seventeen. I noticed Xina's name manifested on the initial list, but she was rendered immune because of her synthetic stomach.

The only saving grace was that 1) we had so much herbal medicine grown from hydroponics that we didn't have anywhere to put all of it, and 2) our core of builders was virtually untouched, with only Kidult and Cait getting sick. This allowed building of the permanent housing section to continue almost unaffected.

On the 7th, Dweeb went out and tamed the animus vox that was wandering at the edge of the map. We did this for the psionic mood boost the creature is supposed to be capable of. Also on the 7th, Dadoo became all hysterical over having been assigned to doctoring to help deal with the gutworm epidemic. Despite being a capable doctor, just the thought of handling another person's intestines makes her ill.

Giggles, outraged over being sick with gutworms, started throwing a tantrum and tried to destroy the room she was sharing with Smith on the 9th. I decided to really be a jerk by having Smith pacify her. Smith beat the bejeezus out of his melodramatic girlfriend, and then hauled her whiny ass to a medical bed.  Later on the 9th, a psychic wave rendered all of the squirrels on the map insane. Fortunately, there were only three to speak of. Rather than waste precious manpower on the wretched little things, I had Smith venture out on the morning of the 10th and beat up all three squirrels with his bare fists. Smith grabbed the first one and simply ripped its tail off, twisting the neck of a second before getting jumped by the third.

Later on the 10th, Coyote attempted to break out of her cell, but was downed by Kaleun. She would later develop a leg infection due to her injuries. Kaleun dragged Coyote back to bed, and, at a time when Coyote's life was in very real danger, immediately "offered Coyote a chance to have a discussion about walnut trees."

Fortune was smiling on us. It was a slow season for raids, and on the 10th, I noticed a 2-tile wide break in our northern wall, damage that I assume to have been caused by a hunting accident. Von Schild patched that thing up before the colony was overrun with horrid critters. Dweeb tamed a second animus vox, and the smoothing of the housing cave's walls continued on schedule.

Xina recruited Coyote to our cause on the 12th. Yay, another builder! By this time, many of the new colonist rooms were ready for habitation and only needed access to power, and we had finished building an alternate recreation room also. I plan to wire the existing rooms starting next season, before completing the rest.

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21st Season: Aprimay 5505

Wow, have we really been going strong for five years now? It was a month of big surprises and serious threats that I juggled while also focusing on finishing the permanent housing complex for my colonists. Smith joined us on the 1st of the month and immediately shacked up with his girlfriend, Giggles. Crouboa remained an enigma, and continued to resist my recruiting efforts even as we chipped her resistance down to zero. On the 2nd, Eva's lover, Jay fell from the sky, but he was too far from the colony to mount a rescue in time, and to be honest, his skills sucked. So Eva has lost her mother and her boyfriend since throwing in with us. And she continues to be melodramatic.

On the 3rd, I got to work on fitting our alternate freezer with coolers and fully building the kitchen. Our main freezer continues to be adequate, although I do not know how much longer it will continue to be so as we expand, and a tiny room only large enough to afford space for a single table with eight chairs is simply not enough at all for a colony supporting around forty individuals. While we were doing this, a strange fellow calling himself Badluck happened upon us and requested to join. We relented, and with a name like that, Badluck will only belong on the front lines or out hunting.

Things continued on in a mundane way for a couple days. I finished the new kitchen, and was starting to get a number of the new rooms ready and nearly functional. Then on the 6th, we were invaded by an army of cougars. Like, 22 of them. It was damn fine luck that no one was caught out in the open. As the writhing mass of teeth and claws amassed at our doorstep, I decided to allow Gustav a short mining expedition to gut out a rock of valuable glowstone. This was okay, as she was on the other side of the map, and the cougars by then only cared about beating down my door.

The northeastern entrance is reinforced with four steel doors. It took only a few hours for the twisted felines to destroy three of them. I took a bit of a risk. I arranged my shooters in single file near the door and had Eugene open it and invite the critters in. Our shooters were armed with state of the art laser tech and apb rifles left by the previous attackers, so we had an even chance of getting through this without sustaining injuries. Eugene opened the door and then fled in the direction of our defenders. Fighting broke out right after that, and the rng was kind; Eugene didn't get blasted once. The cougars on the other hand dropped like kindling. All 22 of them. Dead or downed in a matter of seconds. Most of them were on fire. Our hunters advanced to finish off the downed survivors, and Badluck, true to form, managed to accidentally set himself on fire. Rimworld outtakes.

Badluck was again injured on the 7th, this time by a pack of wild boars driven to rage by our hunting activities. Fortunately, he was bailed out of trouble by Sullivan and Rynyk.

On the 8th, Sebastian started throwing a tantrum and had to be arrested by Jen before he wrecked our new kitchen. Dweeb developed stress trauma on the 9th. Hanfy and Fox were married on the 10th. Everyone was there, except for Sebastian (who had been arrested and would need to be re-recruited) and hilariously enough, Fox (the bride, a night owl who had to be roused from bed once I noticed her absence!). During the pre-wedding party, Pederson tried to woo Coley by playfully making fun of her cooking skill, but Coley turned away. Tina experienced a go frenzy during the evening post-wedding celebration, and then everyone participated in a massive banquet in the new kitchen, which was really nice.

We purchased, among other things, a cool-looking schematic cabinet from some space slavers on the 11th of Aprimay. Sebastian rejoined us and got back to work building. We pulled a spacer named Joe from a transport pod. Joe objected and had to be shot down. A small but nevertheless ominous blight threatened one of the hydroponics bays, and Sullivan did an autopsy on the deceased Joe, recovering one of his feet and his dick. Of all the things to amputate...

On the 12th, I brought a plethora of metal grid flooring from more space traders. The flooring was perfect to be used in the new storage stockpile, and proved really fast to apply as well. Within merely a day, our builders had completely floored up the whole storage room.

A swarm of manhunting inferno beetles attacked on the 13th. Really, this was the first use our turrets had seen in quite some time (despite the rash of attacks at base). Bolstered by our new autocannon, which I installed quite some time ago, but which had not yet been field-tested, our line of turrets and firestarting guns sealed those beetles' fates before they could even fire a shot.

We recruited yet another prisoner, Finn, on the 14th, bringing our population up to something like 41. Also on the 14th, Khan received eye replacement surgery with an organ that had been sitting around in storage for quite some time. Her former left eye had a scar on it that had been causing our head researcher and senior colonist a bit of grief, and I decided to repay her service to us.

Given the state of our defenses, most of the threats we faced were minuscule in comparison to what Randy dropped on our heads late on the 14th. A psychic ship part crashlanded at the edge of our garden. Within base. This was seriously bad, and it was vital it be dealt with in as timely a manner as possible. On the other hand, I was also cognizant of past mech-involved disasters (the two deaths in the first mech crash, the loss of our wildpod in a friendly fire incident during the second), and knew it was important to plan everything down to the minutest detail.

I ordered our soldiers to carry our portable defenses to the site. Three firing rows, set far enough apart to give the mechs more than a single firing target to think about. Also turrets, to be powered by a clump of solar generators, which were a must anyway, since I'm planning for those to be part of an expanded power grid for the main housing section. And turrets. About five of them. Not wanting to recall them from the front lines, I had them built from scratch.

It was a tense moment, watching largely defenseless builders scamper around the cashed ship part while carrying building materials to and fro. I recalled an incident during a prior playthrough in which one of these things seemed to spawn mechs randomly without being shot at and held my breath as McConnell ate a simple meal while leaning back on the ship chunk. Everyone adjourned at the end of the 14th. I intended to get building finished on the 15th, after everyone had slept and fed. But we took too long; night fell again as we were finishing the generators for the turrets. Further complications arose when the ship sent out a psychic wave that transformed Monkey from a productive builder and defender to a drooling vegetable crippled by catatonia. We placed her in a medical bed and foraged onward.

This post ends on a cliffhanger, as this is when the season ends. Will we successfully defend the base from the impending mech invasion, or will this be the incident that reduces the colony to a scattered rubble of charred buildings and bodies? Will Monkey recover from her catatonia, or will she succumb to a life of having simple meals pushed down her throat by aggressive but well-meaning colonists? Tune in tomorrow for the answers to these and many other questions, same rim-time, same rim-channel!

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Twentieth Season: Decembary 5504

With such a slow preceding season, it was a guarantee that Randy Random was gearing up to hit us with something awful, and Decembary was the month that almost killed us. To start off, Rynyk was almost fatally mauled by a maddened megasloth while out hunting on the 1st, and had Rubber not been nearby to both kill the offending beast and drag her off to safety, she would almost certainly be dead. Deep snow slowed Rubber's progress, and by the time Rynyk was safely in a medical bed, she had only one hour to go before she was bled out. With no other qualified medics nearby, it was a hugely fortunate thing that Rubber just happened to be able to doctor in a pinch. Our number one shooter's life was saved.

While Rynyk was still getting patched up, a group of tamed Yorkshire terriers wandered into camp, looking for cuddles and affection. What they found instead was death; every one of those abominable yorkies had been slaughtered by dawn of the following day to find permanent shelter within our ravenous freezer.

We had the obligatory stress-induced mental breaks over the course of the following few days. Von Schild and Giggles were depressed over being drowsy and recreation-starved. On the 5th, new mayor Jen had to endure the public humiliation of having her pants disintegrate while she was out for a stroll. Fortunately, we have plenty of apparel plundered from the bodies of raiders, downed and dead alike. On the 6th, Hanfy proposed marriage to Fox, who accepted.

The event that almost murdered us occurred on the 7th. Drop pods. In camp. Containing five very well-armed commandos wearing the best armor and toting devastating high-precision weaponry. The bastards dropped Sullivan in their opening salvo, and then dug in behind our solar generators. They were almost untouchable, easily dropping anyone who wandered into view. Dog was felled when she attempted to rescue Sullivan. Gustav and Agatha tried to flank our attackers, but Agatha was picked off at a distance before she could get in range and literally had her heart melted. Then Gustav was downed, and from that point, the raiders busied themselves of running about our main power grid and attempting to smash it to pieces.

Meanwhile, everyone I sent to rescue Sullivan met a foul end. Rynyk was downed, immediately followed by Eugene, Xina and Pederson. Monkey and Coley attempted to attack from the other side, but met the exact same fate. While all of this was going on, Gustav suffered intenstinal failure.

I recalled everyone from around the map, no matter who they were or what they did, to participate in the defense of camp. I hoped to swarm the raiders with sheer numbers, but it seemed hopeless. Our casualties were piling up, and no one had so much as wounded the enemy. Making matters worse, Jen, our fearless leader and one of my snipers, had succumbed to a bout of histrionics just moments before the fighting started and was beyond useless. So soon into her mayoral tenure. This does not bode well for her reelection bid. Assuming any of us survive to have another election.

To make matters worse, the raiders were about to dispose of all fighting and just kidnap whoever they could. Sullivan was the first to get caught. One of the raiders moved in to grab Rynyk. This is when things finally started to go our way. Partridge arrived at the site of the battle, spear in tow, and deterred one of these smug assholes from making off with Rynyk. Greyhound was injured with her spear. Sneipen, rather than assist, actually waved at Greyhound and took off for the north, intending to just run for it. It seems there really is no honor among thieves. It seemed foolhardy, but right then, Mushinto, one of our melee experts, arrived at the battle to aid Partridge.

Like Sneipen, Doc decided to make a run for it. He downed Colin on his way to our eastern wall. That was when things really started to go our way. Ryan, the raider who was trying to kidnap Sullivan, got caught in the worst possible position, out in the open with five or ten angry shooters returning from the southern caves. He was picked to pieces and dropped to the ground, fully and utterly dead. Viper arrived to help Partridge and Mushinto, and the three of them pummeled Greyhound into oblivion. Sneipen managed to drill through our north wall just as Rubber was returning from hunting duties to cut off his retreat. Badly injured by a laser rifle blast to the jaw, Sneipen nevertheless downed Rubber with ease, and made a daring kidnapping attempt. Doped up on go-juice, psychite and wake-up, he was extremely fast. But Bolla's laser sniper round was about seven billion times faster. It was Sneipen that suffered the most ignominious end; Bolla's sniper round seared through his right leg, severing it at the hip, then deflected to transform Sneipen's right kidney into a thick mushy paste. The tragedy is that Sneipen didn't suffer more before he inevitably perished.

Of the raiders, only Blitz and Doc escaped unscathed. Doc ran away emptyhanded through a passage to the east; I've no idea where Blitz went. Our casualties were almost catastrophic. Sullivan, Rynyk, Rubber, Monkey and Coley were downed, which made it difficult to hunt. Xina, Peterson and Dog, three of our assigned cooks were also downed. Eugene was downed, Colin was downed (and had also had his pants entirely burned off), Partridge was injured, Gustav needed a new stomach. Beamer attempted to haul Agatha back to medical, but she suffered brain death along the way. There was no saving her, as she died before we could get her on a bed.

I had Panther carry Agatha's body to a sarcophagus before one of our attending medics had a mental break from observing a corpse. Sebastian, Beamer, Hanfy and Von Schild worked double shifts saving everyone. I pulled the night owl Fox out of bed to assist them. Von Schild carried out the procedure to install in Gustav a new stomach, but failed catastrophically. Never assign a neurotic to do a man's work. It was a fortunate thing that we had a spare stomach sitting around in storage. This time, I had Sebastian do the honors. Gustav's second stomach surgery was successful, but she would take the longest to recover. Makato replaced the solar generator we had lost, and Dawn went to work patching up the holes in our walls.

Curious glitch in Agatha's sarcophagus. The art refers to an incident involving the death of another colonist (Wade) that had nothing to do with her. Bolla, Mushinto, Pederson and Panther formed a clique and threatened to split from us and form a new faction. Which is all we need.

We wouldn't have long to lick our wounds. On the 8th, with half our shooters incapable of walking, another party of tribals came from the east. More stupid sappers. And as they neared our eastern wall, I fully realized the danger as it dawned on me that there was still a hole in the wall.

There was nothing to do but to assign Mushinto one of the fireball throwing guns we had picked up from the recent attack. Even though Mushinto is a brawler who hates ranged weapons. Emily, a pacifist who is nevertheless a strong fighter, was brought in this one too, as were Khan and Biz.  Bolla and Kaleun joined this one too, and that relatively small force was able to distract a tribal force more than twice its size from the wall gap long enough to drive them off. There were a lot of aerofleets in the area between our two groups, and it was just dumb luck that one of those floating jellyfish didn't explode and possibly kill all of our enemies. In the end, eleven tribals were dead or downed, with only Khan getting wounded (she took an arrow to the shoulder). The rest ran for the hills, stymied yet again.

Right after the raid, we captured Smith, a downed pawn from Ithoum dropped in by a pod. Smith was actually the husband of Giggles, so I was all set to recruit him. As our situation evolved, Monkey suffered a torso infection (that she would survive fortunately), and we were nearing a critical situation with our food stockpile, given the fact that all our assigned cooks were recovering from injuries in sickbay. I hastily assigned new cooks to man the kitchen before our 53 remaining simple meals dwindled to zero.

In addition to Smith, there were two other prisoners from the tribals, at least one of which was a lost cause. Cercari had had his heart imploded and was actually clinically dead. His cohort, Crouboa, developed a kidney infection that I treated by removing the kidney.

As the 8th continued to progressed, both Von Schild and Eva fell prey to temper tantrums, while Coley became apathetic. Then on the 9th, Rynyk started to hoard furniture in her room over anger (developing stress trauma) from having to wear dead man's clothes right after I assigned to her some reactive armor.

It wasn't all gloom and doom. Von Schild wooed Monkey on the 11th by complimenting her jawline. I have always said that the way to any woman's heart is to tell her that her chin is shaped like a lovely lollipop.

Cait suffered a minor heart attack on the 12th. Fortunately, we now have close to 200 good medicine, and Sullivan was able to save her after three treatments. We picked up a king's ransom in meat from space traders to reinforce our rebounding food stockpile, and a party to end out that day reinforced almost everyone's mood.

On the 13th it was time to get started on repair jobs that no one had really bothered with at all in the last year. Sullivan was almost maimed by a maddened megasloth while out hunting, it was just a fortunate thing that Coley was nearby enough to immediately pick off the frothing creature from a distance.

Khan began dogging her boyfriend around camp, begging to get married on the 14th. The incessant squealing finally prompted Biz to dump her. I had everyone who was suffering a serious negative mood outlet imbibe our growing stash of sweet sweet ambrosia, and it was then I noticed that Eva was fuming over lies Kaleun had told another colonist.

Despite raider-induced setbacks, our floor-building project in the main housing section was finally completed on the 15th. Well, completed except for our new storage room, but I've yet to decide the flooring I want to use there. Next on our to-do list, we will have to smooth out all the walls, then set up main power, add glowstrips for lighting and finally get around to fully furnishing everything. But the most tedious aspect of that is done.

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Nineteenth Season: Septober 5504

This will be a shorter entry. It was a relatively tepid season. One that was desperately needed, and one that afforded the colony precious time to build resources and make important progress on our permanent housing quarter. Dweeb joined the colony on the 1st of the month, and quickly got to work harvesting food from the garden before the inevitable mid-season freeze. We converted the old hospital room into another hydroponics area, and then foiled a 2-person attempt at a prison breakout. That finished Giggles' resistance, and he would join us on the 2nd.

Five devil sheep joined the colony on the 2nd. We lost one of them on the 4th due to a hunting incident. Our devil sheep was killed by a lynx before we could do anything. We easily murdered the lynx, and added both carcasses to our bloated stockpile. The remaining sheep were later sold to space traders for a sizable bounty.

On the 6th, a colonist from our enemies, Ithoum, crashlanded outside camp. We captured her, but there was no time to treat her injuries before she bled out. Speaking of lost causes, I sent a party out on the same day to open the large transport pod just east of camp. The spacers within, Pattie and Franklin, were beyond all help as well.

The month's most exciting moment occurred on the 7th. A group of raiders appeared to the north of camp. They were seigers, and I quickly sent Fox to man the mortar we had built during the prior raid. But this was unnecessary, for you see, the seigers were ambushed by a pack of maddened bears. The bears devastated their ranks, killing or downing eight of the eleven attackers. The remaining three fled. Their payload of steel for their mortars failed to arrive also.

At the end of the fighting, there was still three bears left standing, but they were badly cut up. One of them collapsed on the way to attack us. It was a simple matter to send Rynyk out alone to pick off the remaining two.

With all the inactivity, people were getting bored and restless. Panther vented his spleen on Mushinto after the latter made fun of his nose in the recreation room. Mushinto, the bully, kicked his ass. Khan began trying to tame an animus vox on the 7th, but would fail repeatedly. On the 9th, Von Schild developed stress trauma over not having his recreation fulfilled. The guy really is a weak little pussy.

While attempting to recruit Camta on the 10th, Viper asked about his usefulness. This made me wonder just how useful he really was (he wasn't really). Camta was being a stubborn prick anyway, so I had Jen execute him on the 11th.

Viper has really become fragile of late. Several times she has started to fight after being accidentally slighted. On the 14th, Sebastian ran afoul of her uneven temperament in the freezer. Viper punched him in the dick, cracking his pelvis.

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Eighteenth Season: Jugust 5504

We captured a downed spacer named Yuna from a crashed transport pod that landed on the edge of our garden on the 2nd. Also, we gained a tamed cactipine in the deal. Yuna was housed in our makeshift prison, while the cactipine ended up in our depleting food stockpile. Our hunters got around to thinning out the predators on the map that were devastating prey resources to such an extent that the map had been nearly devoid of prey animals for nearly a year.

With most of the dangerous predators having been hunted by Sullivan and Rynyk by the 3rd but still no new prey animals moving in, the hunters started to kill the bouldermits in the region. There were four or five of the nasty creatures, and I was getting suspicious that there was some glitch with the bouldermits that was preventing new animals from spawning.

A raid of mining tribals came from the north on the 3rd, and I was forced to expose our soldiers to attack in order to wipe them out before they dug into our storage again. What a stupid and careless fight. Sullivan, Khan, Bolla, Coley and Rubber were all downed, and Monkey was seriously injured, before Rynyk, Jen and Hanfy managed to fight them off. I'm decided. I'm going to lead a group to destroy those stupid tribals once and for all as soon as I can spare the time, resources and manpower. It may be awhile, but the Nation of Abeve is going to die. We'll attack every settlement. We will burn them all.

Jen collapsed in exhaustion while rescuing Bolla. Bolla managed to walk the rest of the way under his own power. Sullivan lost one of her toes, and Coley was narrowly rescued from the brink of death. Von Schild tended to Rubber until having a mental break due to the observed rotting corpse debuff. He consequently became possessed and started puking all over the hospital wing. On the good side of things, our next harvest from our expanded garden was bountiful, and did a lot to address our food shortage.

Dawn accidentally injured Fox's pride with a slight and began running around camp while Fox pursued her in an effort to slap her stupid. Dadoo was recruited on the 5th. On the 6th, there was a refugee chase event that I actually declined because I wanted to concentrate on putting the few remaining bouldermits out of their misery and continuing to address our food shortages.

For the last several days, our miners had been digging out a new area for storage. As they neared the project's completion, Dawn encountered our first ancient danger site. I had no idea what awaited within, but I waited until the 7th, when all of our defenders could be well-rested and fed before positioning soldiers around the spot where we intended to crack this site. What we discovered was hardly dangerous, just an open space containing some energy cells, luciferium, a flatscreen television and about four cryptosleep pods containing four spacers. Spacers Makato and Giggles were downed, while spacers Dweeb and Kidult were pacifists opposed to any sort of violence, thus they agreed to being arrested. Kidult was immediately recruited on the same day.

On the 7th, Rynyk and Monkey singlehandedly dealt with a duneallisk clutch mother threat. Makato was convinced to join us on the 8th (he was promised free fresh cabbages. Makato said "Oh, boy, cabbages." That was a lie. We don't actually have any fresh cabbages). Yuna followed suit on the 9th.

Late on the 11th, a group of raiders arrived in drop pods. Two of them were armed with rocket launchers. I wanted those rocket launchers. I also didn't want to die. Fortunately, many of the raiders who dropped in were suffering the acute effects of alcohol intoxication. Those who dropped in drunk were initially blacked out. The dudes carrying the launchers were among the drunkards.

Making a snap decision, I queued up the building of a mortar. We had a few mortar shells in storage. The raiders began their charge just as it was being completed. Dog must have lobbed six or seven mortar shells at the incoming attackers, yet only one connected, although the victim of that shot was wearing a personal shield and only had that disabled.

I was extremely worried about the rocket launchers (triple rocket launcher x1, doomsday rocket launcher x1). The good news was that they were soon left in the dust of the sober raiders. Really, these drunkards could barely stand, and their movements were further delayed by the periodic need to empty their guts in the grass.

I made a desperate initiative. Eugene, largely useless due to his reluctance to do anything other than cleaning, went out in an effort to sneak behind Barker, the guy carrying the doomsday cannon. Unfortunately, Barker was protected by a gunner, Raj, who immediately noticed Eugene as he rushed in. Eugene was wounded in the foot, and lost a toe as a consequence.

In our southern defenses, things were going well. The first three enemies to march in eagerly died all too quickly. The rocket launcher guys grimly continued on. That is, until Barker got the bright idea to lob a shot at Eugene. Even drunk, his aim was fast and true. One of Eugene's legs was blown clear off, and his arm was shredded, but Eugene, that relentless bastard, was otherwise remarkably uninjured in the explosion. Raj was not nearly as lucky. Standing a bit off to the side, he was nevertheless caught in the blast radius and was completely blown to bits. Our northern exterior wall absorbed tremendous damage and was breached, but the sight of his friend being blown to smithereens threw Barker (and the rest of the raiders) into a mad panic. I didn't send anyone after them, I just sent Eugene through the hole in our wall down to the safety of the hospital. He made it about halfway before collapsing, and required rescue. We managed to save him and give him a new peg leg to replace his mangled up old leg later.

We didn't get any rocket launchers, but the colony is okay. Eugene proved himself through his sacrifice.

An obligatory slew of mental breaks (caused by a medium psychic drone) followed. Rynyk scorned Fox's weight and also her brother's hands. Monkey started slitting her wrists, and Emily became apathetic. Sullivan was on the brink too, and I had her chow down on some ambrosia.

Speaking of ambrosia, Huntsman had become addicted. Treating his aging sickness had become impossible, and it was time to give up on him. I denied him food and medical care and hoped to starve him out, but wardens kept him alive through a steady stream of ambrosia. It was time to consider doing something extremely nasty.

There was a party on the 12th. During the party, Gustav got beat up by Viper after accidentally insulting her. Jen actually restrained Viper before she could do any serious damage. By the 13th, Mushinto had formed a clique with Bolla and Hanfy.

A hunting disaster on the 13th; Sullivan and Rynyk were out culling bumbledrones and were soon swarmed by the angry stinging insects. Sullivan was badly stung―left out on her own, she might have been killed, but luckily Rynyk was able to lighten the load, and together they blasted the remaining insects.

By the 14th, I had decided to put Huntsman out of his misery. He was bedridden from aging sickness and unable to function. All he did was eat and sleep. Sullivan did the honors, euthanizing him by slitting his throat. The death of Huntsman actually afforded the colony a slight mood boost. It seems almost everyone despised the guy.

A near incident on the 15th. A herd of aerofleets passed by the colony, and we jumped on the hunting opportunity. The rash of explosions resulting from the aerofleets' deaths rapidly caused a huge wildfire. Our colony would surely have been devoured by the flames if not for the fact that our walls are made of inflammable marble. Sullivan and Rynyk were both scalded by the flames, but managed to recover enough aerofleet corpses to further bolster our food resources while we look to expanding the hydroponics bay.

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Seventeenth Season: Aprimay 5504

Has it really been three years since we crashlanded on this barren rock and made a new life for ourselves solely by living off the blood of dead raiders? Yessir, it certainly has. Dog, newly recruited and sporting a bloody stump where her left leg used to be, became the proud owner of a shiny new peg leg on the 1st. Our population was bursting at the seams, and lacking enough colonist bedrooms to fully please everyone, I vastly expanded our garden before a major food shortage provoked a revolt.

McConnell's kidney disease was getting quite severe by the 5th, severe to the extent that I feared we could lose him. He was moving slower too, so I had him replaced in the kitchen by Justin, as I rededicated him to vastly important hauling jobs.

There was a huge, unanticipated conflict on the 6th. Previously, we had been visited by traders from Ithoum. We had acquired a great deal of meat from them, but when one of their number abruptly figured on setting some of our solar generators on fire (funnily enough, one of the traders' huskies was also set ablaze), I had to do something to make them regret it. Unfortunately, everyone was asleep at the time, leaving Sullivan to run around putting out fires and such. Enlisting our otherwise useless Eugene to do the job, I had him try to arrest the pyromaniac in question, Barrett. The little shitheel happened to be the son of Emily, but he was about to find out exactly how much that worked in his favor.

Predictably, Barrett resisted being arrested. And then all hell broke loose. My people opened fire relentlessly. Sally and Mars were killed immediately, Bowles right after, most of the rest fled into the hospital, and a small number were left flatfooted in the open. Barrett continued to fight with Eugene until my flamers got within shooting distance and bombarded them both. Dadoo had the misfortune of lying out near the turret guns when a few randomly opened fire and immediately incapacitated her. No surprise. One of her traits was wimp.

Speaking of wimps, there was some crossfire, and Von Schild took a nasty one to the leg, immediately dropping to the ground. The rest of the battle was a blur. Most of the traders fled to the far side of the hospital, where their dogs desperately chewed through the walls. One or two traders who were outside camp at the time fighting started managed to slip away into the night to bring tales of our anger to the now hostile trader faction Ithoum.

Ithoum. Big deal. We have a working comms console now. We don't need you anymore. You little pricks.

While most of our medics slept in adjoining rooms, there was a desperate standoff in the hospital halls as their defenders tried to buy their pack animals enough time to dig their way to freedom. Mushinto, armed with nothing but a knife, led our charge to stop them, however he managed to get himself tased and dropped to the floor twitching. Coley was injured by gunfire (hit in the neck by a rail pistol), Nate was shot dead, and Minia, the blossom sheep we had earlier sold to the traders in exchange for their meat, headbutted Sullivan. Alyona was downed, Biz got tased in the face and was downed, and our people swarmed Gregory Heap and set him ablaze with flamethrowers. It was admittedly a bit enclosed to be using flamers like that, but I didn't care. Every trader had to suffer.

Over where the fighting had broken out, Gustav was putting out tiny fires while a big one engulfed Barrett, who was still clutching to life. Rubber was bit in the leg by a husky. Jen got caught in a little crossfire and was wounded. Back in the hospital, the huskies had managed to get through our walls, yet even now they weren't free, as they still had to bore through our outer wall defensive perimeter. I had questioned putting it up around an area that was already protected heavily by mountains; now I guess I'm glad I did. Jude and Beast were shot in the back as they fled, and then we leisurely lit up the traders' panicking huskies, and also claimed a few kitty cat corpses. A few others managed to escape.

They left behind Nicole, who had chosen a rather inopportune location to try digging out. Still, she managed to down Eugene before we overwhelmed her with numbers. 

What a mess. In the end, we had four downed colonists (Mushinto, Biz, Von Schild, Eugene), plenty of injuries (Sullivan, Jen, Rubber, Coley), one new prisoner (Dadoo), and a small fire in the hospital that threatened our medicine stockpile. The medicine was saved, as were all of our colonists. Our freezer was greatly bolstered by the addition of so many husky and cat corpses, as well as the corpse of our late and unlamented blossom sheep, Minia. Emily is pissed off at us for killing her son, and Ithoum now hates our guts, but all in all, it was a good fight.

I had Dawn patch up the breaks in our defensive barrier, while Pederson helped himself to cutting apart corpses for raw organs. His first autopsy yielded results, affording us everything from a heart, two livers, an eye, a hand, a foot, a stomach, a pelvis, even a kidney for McConnell. Successive autopsies would not bear fruit.

On the 6th of Aprimay, Xina undertook the bloody chore of cutting out McConnell's barely functioning kidney. There was a delay with his replacement surgery, as I had neglected to research organ transplantation.

On the 7th, we were driven to the brink by stupid tribals. Fifteen of them who dug into the exposed stockpile along our northern wall. Eva was nearby, and picked up a spear in an effort to rush the first raider, who was far ahead of the others. However, she was soon swarmed. I had to call my defenders up from the defensive line in the south. Hanfy and Coley were the first to arrive, and attempted to draw the raiders to them while the others moved into position for a flanking maneuver. Several raiders were injured, yet no one was downed, that is until the other colonists arrived. Sebastian, despite abhorring violence, took up arms and sniped off Gogacho, the raider who had initially dug into the base.

The raiders took too many casualties and elected to run. But our flamers, in firing around wildly and maiming raider and colonist alike, succeeded in igniting the chemfuel in the stockpile. Many of the fleeing raiders ran headlong into the explosion. Our people rushed to put out the fast growing blaze before it consumed all of our valuables, leaving the last fleeing raider, Caxo, to his own devices. Rubber managed to get herself singed in helping to extinguish the blaze. In the end, we saved the stockpile, but only at the cost of a great deal of chemfuel. And our pride.

Von Schild, having been subjected to the sight of one too many corpses, broke right after the fighting stopped. Eva, Khan and Agatha joined the others in the infirmary (which we had just finished getting fully on line with our last trade ship deal). And we captured Huntsman, although we were forced to sever one of his arms to combat infection. And his rapid aging disease could be a hindrance on his productivity. With the stress of combat over for the moment, Emily led a grand parade to get at the raiders' smokeleaf.

Research for organ transplantation was completed, and McConnell received his new kidney bright and early on the 8th, although we'll have to keep an eye on tissue rejection. On the 9th, we were ambushed by a small army of cobras. Luckily, the snakes proved absolutely no match for our southern defenses, and by the evening, the colonists were dining on snakeflesh.

On the 10th, we began building a multi-tiered wall to deter any repeats of the most recent raid. I also planned on moving the stockpile, once we could dig out an appropriately-sized room in the caves.

On the 11th, the colony was subjected to another serious hazard in the form of a gargantuan bouldermit, which was crushing everything in its path. And it was heading right for the stockpile we had narrowly just saved. There seemed to be no stopping its course, these things can easily just plow through walls, crushing everything in their wayward path.

Fortunately, we had developed a sizable stockpile of lasers and fire throwing weapons, and I organized a firing line with every able bodied fighter carrying a laser or flamethrower. Bouldermits are virtually immune to small arms gunfire, but it seems if you have enough people shooting one with incendiary launchers and laser rifles and the like, they go down pretty quick. Another crisis averted.

Later on the 11th, Huntsman was successfully recruited. And then we received another raid of those stupid annoying tribals. And there were two packs of them coming at us from different directions. This meant it was necessary to split up my defenders. Monkey, Hanfy, Coley, Bolla, Kaleun and Von Schild amassed to protect our southern border. I had Sullivan, Rynyk, Khan, McConnell, Agatha, Rubber and Jen risk exposing themselves in the north just in case those assholes got smart and tried to dig into us again. The northern front went okay. We got an early sniper kill before the others swarmed us. We managed to fight them off, but Sullivan was injured. The southern line easily held firm. And then a refugee chase event on the same day threatened the camp yet again.

Our new colonist, Cait, hastened to safety, pursued by seven very well equipped raiders armed with laser rifles and personal shields. Our tamed meadow ave was the first casualty of this battle. Caught out in the open amongst our dumping stockpiles, the poor girl never had a chance. She later bled out while the fighting was still raging on.

The raiders, coming from the east, took several hours to run around our camp to test their mettle on our main defenses. Their fate was the same as the many others who have crossed our paths. Harvey made it into our zone ahead of the others and was quickly downed. Khan had just enough time to rush and grab his heavy laser before the others cleared our maze. A devastating weapon, she used it to shear off Kazuya's arm and leg while our firestarters bombarded the advancing Lindner. Venus was downed, and we picked off the fleeing raiders as they emerged from our maze out the other end, as has become our ritual. Hanfy was the only colonist to suffer injury. I had someone strip Daniel of his power armor. Sullivan, as the senior colonist, would have the honor of wearing it.

The end of the fighting prompted a massive wave of mental breaks, with Kaleun, Biz, Coley and Jen all freaking out for various reasons. For her part, Coley was ready to give up on us altogether, although she was fortunately talked out of it. Camtra was a downed raider whom we took prisoner. We had to give him a liver transplant after his existing liver was destroyed in battle.

Panther was another captured raider who was persuaded to join us on the 12th. On the 13th, we were forced to address a blight that threatened our crops. Later in the evening, Monkey had a mental break outside of camp and spent hours smashing her fists into our marble exterior walls. Her break was followed by that of Emily, who still blamed us for the death of her son. He had it coming. You know we're right. The remainder of the month was thankfully run-of-the-mill.

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Sixteenth Season: Decembary 5503

No sooner had Val kicked the bucket than we recruited a new colonist, with Partridge agreeing to join us on the 1st. While the builders were finishing tearing down the old barracks on the 2nd, Rubber consulted with Hanfy about belief perseverance and apparently didn't like what he had to say on the subject. Hanfy incapacitated Rubber, and both were sent to medical. In medical, Rubber apologized to Hanfy. "The apology was heartfelt, and brought Rubber and Hanfy closer together." However, this did not prevent the pair from brawling over a disagreement on astronomy on the morning of the 3rd. Again, Rubber got her butt kicked. Having gotten her ass handed to her twice by Hanfy, Rubber again apologized later in the day.

On the 4th, we were bombarded by an invasion of chinchillas. We had to risk exposing ourselves to kill them all because they were insistent upon running around our northeast corner. During the redeployment, Coley had a mental break and went on an alcohol binge. She stubbornly stomped right back to camp in the path of the angry furballs. Predictably, Coley was immediately swarmed and downed. We picked apart the remaining chinchillas and rescued Coley. Kaleun was the only other colonist injured in the scrap.

The mental breaks continued. Eva became apathetic on the 4th. Sebastian and Colin both broke on the 5th. On the 6th, Emily started binging on ambrosia. Since we lacked a successful ambrosia harvest at that time, she had to settle for the date soda that had been sitting outside for months that no one had bothered to transport in.

Sebastian, for his part, would give up on the 7th. He decided to just up and leave, and honestly, I had too much going on to worry much about it, especially given the fact that Sebastian's go-juice addiction makes him the least productive member of our society. Jen tried to calm Sebastian down, but he was adamant. That is, until the morning of the 8th. Due to the effects of go-juice detox, Sebastian had spent all night walking without really getting anywhere. At 11h, he finally collapsed from hunger and exhaustion. It was then that he realized the impracticality of his plan, and agreed to reconsider his silly notions as far as finding a better life.

Dog suffered a mental break on the 8th. Then a spacer named Hadley fell from the skies, and for some reason, I decided to rescue instead of imprison him. Anyway, morale was down across the board, but McConnell and Xina's wedding on the 10th helped release some of the tension. Beamer compared Rynyk to a moose during the post-wedding celebration, and Rynyk headbutted Beamer in the rib cage for the personal slight.

Later on the 10th, Sullivan was burned while attempting to douse a fire that Rubber had caused while hunting boomalopes a bit too close to our northern perimeter. Hadley had recovered from his injuries on the 12th and decided to depart. Later in the day, we began working on a power grid for our developing hospital wing. We liberated Mike from a large space capsule late on the 12th. Mike was not pleased that we helped him and had to be shot dead.

On the 14th, we had a random wanderer join. But Eugene is beyond useless. He is good at mining, but also hates mining. What to do? I just assigned Eugene to cleaning, something that never seems to get done satisfactorily. Our floors better remain spotless, Eugene! Also on the 14th, a huge trade deal with a trade ship. They brought all of our built-up animal skins for several thousand in silver!

Sebastian started self harming outside of camp on the 15th and had to be rescued. Agatha flagrantly insulted Colin's facial hair while the two were mining in the quarry, provoking a fight. Later on the 15th, a pack of manhunting nightlings rushed toward camp and were picked apart by our turrets. This would go a long way to addressing a food shortage that would plague us throughout the following year.

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Fifteenth Season: Septober 5503

On the 1st of the month, Biz rejected Khan's marriage proposal, which wasn't really surprising given Biz's poor opinion of his girlfriend's creepy breathing habit. Rynyk was successfully recruited by Rubber, and Von Schild immediately gave her a proper welcome by making a contemptuous remark about her brother's honesty. Von Schild was on a roll, subtly scorning the jawline of Dave (a visitor) and laughing at Xina's way of thinking. Jen tried to talk some sense into him, but Von Schild only snickered at her broad-mindedness.

All the toxic talk was put on hold for a stretch on the 3rd when we were invaded by tribals. I had my colonists amass at the fortifications to properly greet them, but the little bastards were sappers, and ended up bypassing our defenses altogether. Everyone scrambled to defend the north wall and made it there just in time.

Three raiders were dead before they really knew what hit them, but a fourth managed to sneak through an open doorway undetected. Emily took one look at Peza and ran for her life as Monkey, a gunner who was late to the action, moved into position to help her. The mass of raiders closed the gap on my defending (but unprotected) colonists. A few managed to get close enough to injure Kaleun. They paid dearly for the effort as they were now in range of our flamethrowers and MRG-5's. Two more invaders dropped dead, but we were taking injuries; Rynyk, Val and Hanfy were all hurt. Monkey was downed in a one-on-one fist fight with Peza.

The last six tribals fled in terror. Only five of them survived. The idiot Peza was terrified, but the door she had previously walked through had shut and locked behind her. She could only bang on the door futilely as Dawn, who is not a fighter, nevertheless happened by her and picked up Monkey's dropped firearm. Peza was sprayed in the back with a litany of bullets, and dropped dead. Kaleun collapsed in the aftermath of the fighting and was near death. One of the raiders' arrows had penetrated her heart, and she had not long to live. Sullivan used the last of her medical bag to stabilize her, and managed to rush her to intensive care. Kaleun would survive.

The MVP of the battle was easily Bolla, who got three insta-kills courtesy of his laser sniper rifle. Dawn hurried to patch up the break in our wall.

On the 4th, we rescued Sebastian, a crashed spacer who was also, as I would discover later, a go-juice addict. I made preparations to break down our ugly barracks, as I couldn't stand the look and positioning of it.

We received another raid on the 5th. They were chasing a refugee, Justin, who is the husband of Sullivan. 21 hostile tribals were making for our battlefields, and it was just then that I was notified of a 5-candidate race to replace Eva as our mayor.

It was a typical fight. The attackers were forced to rush into range of our firing line in single file and were mostly picked off from the outset. McConnell and Gustav were the only colonists injured. Afterward, we picked up two prisoners in Dog (who had lost her leg) and Partridge. Meanwhile, an arctic lion appeared somewhere on the map, and a notification informed me that it was stalking one of my colonists. The timing was opportune. Most everyone except for Fox (the night shift) was getting ready for bed. Later, I head gunfire, and quickly realized that ninja lion was on the battlefield getting picked apart by my turrets. The ninja lion was downed with a permanent gunshot injury to the brain right as the sun was getting ready to rise, and I sent Val to finish it off.

On the 6th, Partridge developed an infection in her left second toe. I had Sebastian lop off the offending appendage rather than waste useful medicine. Hanfy, mental breaking due to methadone withdrawal, created a stir when he attempted to smash some of the beds I had filled the halls with to supplement tired colonists lacking a room. Mushinto raced forth to deal with the problem. Gustav, Khan, Kaleun and Von Schild assisted him in beating Hanfy stupid. Hanfy's instability was a problem, and I decided to medicate him on ambrosia until such time that he could overcome his addiction.

On the 7th, Partridge started slitting her wrists in the cell she was sharing with Dog. A self tamed meadow ave joined the colony on the 8th, and Eva started to throw a tantrum but was calmed by Khan. Hanfy had overcome his methadone addiction by the 9th.

Whilst cooking simple meals on the 10th, McConnell suddenly had a heart attack. I feared that we would lose him as we lost Pacheco some years ago. A heart attack is no laughing matter. Luckily, Von Schild managed to successfully treat him with a 65% rating on his first attempt. Yay, Von Schild, you neurotic wimp.

The colonists amassed to vote in the election late on the 10th. Politics always bring colonists together, and the abrasive McConnell, happy to be alive after his brush with death, openly insulted Emily's plant growing skills. Dawn, receiving nine votes, won the election, and good riddance. Eva was a whiny, histrionic leader if any there ever was, and definitely unsuited for the task. We'll see if Dawn does any better.

Von Schild was still in distress over the circumstances of his earlier breakup with Kaleun. On the 11th, he began binging on ambrosia to cope. By the 12th, he had developed an addiction to the drug. Speaking of marriages, McConnell proposed one to Xina, who happily accepted. Dog joined our colony on the 14th, and then an event happened that would have serious repercussions to the colony.

Val, one of our most reliable shooters, hunters and base defenders, had a mental break at 12h of the 14th. The man we originally found half naked in the wilderness opted to become one with nature and binge-hunt. This did not go well for Val at all. At 18h, Val angered a pair of meadow aves. He killed one of the birds, but received a near fatal pecking from the other. Rynyk had to rush out to kill the offending meadow ave, and there simply was not enough time to do that and rescue Val, who perished from his wounds late on the 14th. This constitutes our fifth colonist death. Six, if you count Pablo (no one counts Pablo; he made his choice).

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Fourteenth Season: Jugust 5503

With Rubber promising him affection, Beamer was convinced to join the colony on the 1st. Romance was in the air in the prison, as Hanfy wooed Fox by telling her a story about core worlds. The opposite effect was occurring in our colony. Von Schild and Kaleun were none too pleased about missing their date, and their relationship was in breakdown mode. Kaleun told Von Schild that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. That was too much for Von Schild, a neurotic who was only in it for the lovin'. With three others witnessing, Von Schild dumped Kaleun in the recreation room.

On the 3rd, we opened another large space capsule. Tina, hobbling on one leg after Rubber had destroyed her other leg in the recent prison incident, did the honors. The occupant, Jules, wasn't agreeable to coming with us, and was killed by our wildpod.

I queued up a prosthetic workbench so that I could have someone craft a peg leg for Tina. Biz also was still a one-legged gimp since the incident with the gallatross last season. Given that she was the architect of her own suffering, Tina crafted her own peg leg, and Von Schild abruptly became depressive and suicidal over lack of recreation and resorted to slitting his wrists in his room. Or he would have had he made it to his room, but his first small nick sent him into hysterics, and he collapsed on the ground outside, requiring rescue. Jen took her time on saving him, even eating a simple meal in front of him while Von Schild winced in agony. While hauling Von Schild to a medical bed, she passed Mushinto, and made a comment to him about stubbornness.

I had Khan and the wildpod kill another giant spider on the 4th. Later on in the day, Jen encouraged prisoner Hanfy to ask about making bow ties. That was all Hanfy needed to hear, and he signed up with us on the spot. Biz was the first to receive a new peg leg installation, courtesy of Sullivan. Tina's procedure came later in the day.

Another refugee chase event a bit later on the 4th. Wade was Eva's mother. Old, decrepit and slow afoot, she was afflicted with a bad back and an anxiety condition. She didn't make it far. A vatgrown Orion Corp soldier named Ticktum chased her down and blew her brains out all over the forest floor before we could intervene. Wade, our newest colonist, was already beyond saving.

Ticktum's attack coincided with a visitor departure. Maya was an aged colonist from Ithoum who fared no better. She had a set of cataracts, and stumbling around barely able to see, her ear was shot off. Ticktum helped herself to a pile of 500 silver Maya had dropped and was off. We rescued Maya, and interred Wade in the funeral room.

Hanfy, stricken by methadone withdrawal, went into crazy overeating mode on the 5th. Von Schild got Maya to a hospital bed, but she died from catastrophic injuries to her foot and the side of her head before he could treat her. We began digging out an extension to our housing, as the recent flood of new colonists is fast overwhelming our existing accommodations. Unfortunately, I failed to leave enough supports in the new freezer, and there was a cave collapse. Luckily, no one was injured.

Rubber successfully recruited Agatha over to our side by describing finding friends and promising love. Hanfy went berserk in the freezer and had to be restrained from eating all of the food by McConnell. Jen successfully recruited Fox, leaving Rynyk as the final holdout.

On the 6th, Rynyk attempted to escape her confines. Sustaining heavy fire from Sullivan and Khan, she retreated into the empty room adjacent to the prison cell and attempted to mine her way out. Sullivan and Khan got to her before she could dig herself an opening, and Rynyk was recaptured.

On the 7th, a Mintcraft game console was built for our already stuffed recreation room at our new arcade construction table.

By now, we had more colonists than we did colonist rooms. We had several individuals sleeping in our crappy barracks, and it was pissing people off. Kaleun was playing Mintcraft when she suddenly became jealous of Mushinto's room on the 10th. Colin became absorbed by paranoid babbling. Greedy for an impressive bedroom, Tina followed their lead. She immediately found Eva outside and laughed at her father's leg hair. Tina was insulting everyone. She derided Fox's honor, comparing her to a turtle. The insulting spree finally ended when she collapsed in our future sickbay.

On the 11th, we had a ship part crash event. Shuddering to think about what might be hiding within, I had colonists set up defenses nearby, two rows adjacent to each other to give the mechs two things to think about. Hanfy continued to freak out over his methadone withdrawal, but went to bed before Mushinto could sink his knife into his belly to deter him from pigging out on food again.

The battle with the mechs began at 1h on the 12th. Only smaller mechs this time. Also this time, I had the foresight to bring our wildpod into the action. I just shouldn't have had him positioned so close to a soldier who was carrying a flamethrower. Wildpod 1 was struck with friendly fire. He burned like kindling, perishing due to burns before I could undraft someone to put him out. On the other side of the field, Gustav was injured by a close quarters scyther. McConnell was injured by enemy fire, and Von Schild characteristically dropped to the ground from minor injuries.

I had our southern line fall back to lead the remaining enemy to our gunners in the east. One final flamethrower volley finished the last of the enemies. Gustav, McConnell, Khan and Von Schild were all injured, but the greatest blow by far was the loss of our wildpod. Wildpod 1, you will be missed.

While being tended by Xina, McConnell flirted with the doctor by comparing her to a lovely aurora. Xina was wooed, and our two chefs are now spanking each other. Which is good for us, because it frees up another colonist room. And we need more colonist rooms. We are having mental breaks all around. Sullivan and Rubber began obsessively cleaning, Eva broke over her mother's death, and Colin began pigging out. Mushinto attempted to woo Gustav (in spite of his marriage to Dawn) while both were picking rocks in the quarry, but Gustav gave a minimal response.

Another raider incident on the 15th. Only two raiders. They came down in drop pods on the far side of the map. Not together, so they couldn't coordinate. This would help us, which was good, because the raiders were well-equipped. Unfortunately for Baldassario, she reached our line of defenses first and was immediately dropped. Her compadre decided to head for the hills.   

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Thirteenth Season: Aprimay 5503

The new year began on an ominous note. A group of raiders, thirteen soldiers strong, attacked the base at high noon. Biz, out hauling alpaca carcasses, was unfortunate enough to get caught out in the open, but lucky to be just far enough away where the attackers couldn't swarm him with gunfire. He escaped with only minor injuries.

At the same time, our incredibly stupid warg left base to give them a nice greeting―I mean that literally, Lev hadn't been trained to fight―and almost invited the raiders inside. Our no less stupid muffalo, ignoring his restricted zone, also went outside, and received a few bullets for his trouble.

Given the fact that the raiders came from the east, and the southeast was cut off by mountains, they were forced to take the long way around camp to reach our defenses in the south, where our soldiers waited, seemingly for an eternity (the deep snow would also have been slowing them down). McConnell couldn't handle the pressure and snapped. I had to undraft Khan to calm him down, and even then, McConnell still insisted on ditching the coming battle to sulk in his room.

The war unfolded as follows: Bamsefar was the first of the party of thirteen to reach the end of the maze. He was immediately downed by turret fire and Sullivan's laser pistol, which perforated his left leg, right arm and stomach (an alpaca we had marked for hunting was also downed). Willow, Hawk and Howl rushed into the carnage. Willow was killed outright, Hawk was downed, and Howl was crushed flat by our wildpod. Lane ran up, guns blazing, and was shot down by a bevvy of turret fire, and with Bamsefar's still living body burning to death, others continued to crawl over him in a mad dash for the sandbags. Kristina was the next to die, a laser blast narrowly missed vaporizing Wilkenson, and Anderson grimly pushed on, exchanging pleasantries with Jesse before he too was killed.

Anderson's brave and stupid death broke the raiders' nerves, and they bolted. The colonists, as always, amassed at the other side of the maze and waited for our foes to emerge. Sam was the first to come out, and his desperate chain shotgun blast wounded Jen before Elida lasered him into submission. Jen was wounded in the torso, and I undrafted her so that she could seek medical aid. AJ met the same fate as his friends, and then Jesse succeeded in downing the pathetic Von Schild with a single shot from her machine pistol. Jesse was also killed, and our wildpod finished the last fleeing raider, Wiley.

In all, we pilfered 244 silver from the dead or downed raiders. Our bear, bleeding from a dozen injuries himself, rescued Von Schild. Wiley, one of the few survivors of the slaughter, got up and self-tended, and our bear collapsed in the infirmary immediately after placing Von Schild safely in bed.

For inviting disaster on the camp, I had Khan slaughter our stupid warg on the morning of the 2nd, as an example for the muffalo. Our wildpod laid spores (which according to the information tab would have hatched into a little wildpod if all went well; it did not, as we were in the midst of a cold snap at the time) in the exact spot where little Lev breathed his final breaths. I had people strip Bamsefar, who was surprisingly still alive, but not worth recruiting.

Later on the 2nd, Mayor Eva went berserk and tried to stab Khan to death. Khan endured getting stabbed in the face before Mushinto became involved in a knifefight with our rather disgusting excuse for a leader. Mushinto really went to town; a melee expert, he slashed Eva in the face and neck and severed one of her toes. Xina narrowly brought Eva from the brink of death.

That wasn't the only bit of poor luck that befell us on the 2nd. Towards the evening, Dawn had a mental break while out scavenging due to being ravenously hungry and opted to start pigging out on food. Shortly after, Kaleun did the same due to being drowsy.

On the 3rd of Aprimay, we narrowly escaped a disaster that probably should have ended our camp. At the time, we were working on building our main hospital directly to the west of our defenses, but as we were replacing the mountain walls with smoothed walls, it offered a breach for wayward animals to just pour in. Some time before, a gallatross had meandered in. It was late on the night of the 3rd (when most everyone had gone to bed, which was incredibly fortunate given how the events unfolded) that I sent Biz to cull the unwanted animals in our fortress. Starting with our friendly gallatross.

What could possibly go wrong? I was about to find out.

To begin with, a gallatross is no laughing matter. They are best described as living, walking mountains. Their short stubby legs are able to propel them impossibly fast across uneven terrain, and their attacks are near instant death kills.

Biz was the only one out there, but he was equipped with a flamethrower. Now, I wasn't expecting it to be easy, but I took a leap of faith, hoping that maybe gallatrosses are vulnerable to fire.

Now I know they bloody well are not.

Biz firebombed the gallatross while the huge creature was sleeping in our garden. Huge mistake. The creature ran around in circles, on fire and confused, for only a short time before galloping towards Biz at an impossible speed. Biz managed to squeeze one or two more shots off while running for his life. I looked at the gallatrosses health bar. It was still full.

Oh no.

Now, I had taken the precaution of drafting the laser-toting Sullivan for support, but as Biz led the gallatross back to her, I wondered if this was a fruitless thing. Then the gallatross caught up to Biz, lifted him high in the air...and tore off his left leg.

For a short time, Sullivan and Biz worked in tandem, keeping the massive creature at bay by setting it on fire with their weapons, even as Biz was bleeding out. Which were barely doing any damage. It was at this point that I rationalized this as a fruitless imperative. I decided to send Sullivan to the safety of the base, preferably quickly. Didn't need this formidable creature rampaging around indoors.

Biz didn't have much time for me to contain this menace. Truthfully, I thought he was a goner. But the gallatross saw Sullivan take flight indoors. It was going to follow her. As the monster effortlessly ripped the first set of wooden doors from its hinges, Biz decided to take one for the team. With one final blast from his flamethrower, he caught the lumbering monstrosity's attention before it could get through the second door and probably rip Sullivan limb from limb. He didn't have a chance. A single thrust from the gallatross' horn was enough to gore his left shoulder and shred his remaining leg and head. Biz's night was over, but he had saved the colony, for the moment at least.

Biz, your sacrifice will never be forgotten.

The lumbering gallatross made a distinct beeline to smash all of our turrets. This is the only thing that saved Biz's life that day. In the break from the carnage, Sullivan was able to sneak outside and get Biz to our infirmary. Buying him some time with her medical bag, she dragged him inside, got him to a bed, and saved his life. Wow, too intense.

The fighting continued into the early hours of the 4th. The gallatross decimated two lines of turrets. The only ones that were saved were the ones that stopped firing when the power conduit attaching them to a geothermal generator was severed. But they had taken their toll. The gallatross was riddled with a hundred bullet wounds. It was staggered. With a bit of luck, we might win the day.

I played my last card, electing to draft Khan and having her dispatch our greatest weapons, our wildpod and our bear. I thought about sending someone out with the triple rocket launcher also, but viewed this as a needless waste, as I thought it would needlessly imperil the shooter.

That was the day two mighty leviathans fought. Only one would survive. The epic battle was fought even as White bravely nibbled at the gallatross' heels. But something was happening. Our wildpod was inflicting terrible damage to our new enemy, but I noticed he was losing health at a slightly faster rate. It was a race to see who could inflict the most damage.

White was somewhat of a distraction for the gallatross, which was forced to turn away from the wildpod periodically to fight a two-pronged attack. I sent Sullivan back out into the madness to set the gallatross on fire with her laser. Then Dawn got out of bed and ran down south to fix the turrets and actually didn't get stomped to death. Miraculously, our wildpod won, but he was pretty messed up. Sullivan proved the difference maker. I think if the gallatross hadn't been forced to extinguish itself repeatedly, rather than attack attack attack, I believe even our wildpod would have been curb stomped.

The colony was saved. Good grief.

The battle took all of six hours before the gallatross was downed. Sullivan finished it off. The bounty of meat from the felled leviathan was enough to feed the colony for a week.

There was another problem. With most everyone sound asleep, no one noticed the fire from Biz's early fire-shooting spree had destroyed about 25% of our garden. We lost a frozen but almost fully mature crop of healroot in the blaze. But it was a small price to pay in light of how bad that could have been. Biz developed an infection in his shoulder that needed tending also.

We picked up the pieces and moved on. Our first priority was to repair the defense grid while things were relatively settled. I didn't know for how long it would remain so. Randy Random is the most foul beast in the game. While we were doing this, another grizzly bear wandered in in full on hunting mode. White, still severely injured from the recent skirmishes and not at all in any shape to defend himself, was the target. The encroaching bear passed Elida on its way into camp. Elida killed it dead, and that was the end of that.

The drama continued to unfold with a giant herd of aerofleets entering camp. They were peaceful, but I was in no mood to harbor any more animal runaways. I assigned them all to be hunted. How was I to know they explode on death? We almost lost part of the garden to fire again, and Eva was seriously scalded as well.

Shit hit the fan again on the 5th. A pack of horrible maneating caribou arrived on the map. Nine of them.

I amassed the troops. Our already almost healed wildpod set up a barrier and killed many of the caribou. A few others swarmed Sullivan and almost downed her. Sullivan tried to retreat indoors, but the last caribou got her. The shadow of a looming wildpod was the last thing that caribou saw as it was given only a short time to question its life choices.

There was limited time for respite. On the 7th, I accepted another refugee chase event (our new colonist, Tina, was a greedy psychopath). We had just rebuilt all of the turrets, so good timing. Luckily, Randy Random stepped in, and the attackers were surrounded by a small army of angry, frothing bears. Madness ensued. The bears overwhelmed two of the nineteen raiders outright. One of the raiders had its head bit off, while the second lost a foot. A third raider was killed by a friendly frag grenade. Several more raiders were seriously injured.

We were waiting along our defensive perimeter when Gustav lost her mind to a psychic drone and had to be calmed down by Khan. Then the fighting started. Takaru, high on go-juice, was the first enemy to fall. Rosalyn had her leg shot off, Hartley died right after. Rynyk was downed, several others killed. Fox and Agatha were set on fire, and the rest headed for the hills. Kevin was torn to pieces by our bear while fruitlessly attempting to break down the killbox door. Reuben was shot down from behind while fleeing, but managed to land a shot on Elida. Only Snow and Massey escaped with their lives, although hardly unscathed.

We captured the survivors, Rynyk, Fox and Agatha. Managed to save all three. At about the same time, Coley (another prisoner) recovered from her go-juice addiction.

More drama: Tina, who had just joined us, and whom we afforded shelter from the recent wave of attackers, had a mental break and ran to the jail cell to motivate those self-same attackers to initiate an escape attempt. Two-faced harlot! Her motivation was the psychic drone, which perhaps gave her cause to do things she wouldn't otherwise do. Rubber caught up to Tina, tried to talk her down, but it was no good.

So Tina ran to the cells. Addressing a recovering Rynyk, Tina "talked about how beautiful the river is, and offered freedom." Trying desperately to avoid disaster, Rubber was hot on Tina's heels. She smashed Tina with the butt end of her LMG, but it was too late.

Again, this could have been worse than it was. Emily and Coley made a break for it, but the other three were still recovering from injuries making it impossible to walk. I organized a firing line to greet them, prompting the two to abruptly lose their nerve. Coley was shot in the back, while Emily fled back into the prison cell in an effort to overcome Rubber, who had downed Tina by irreparably damaging her left leg. While this was happening, Rynyk abruptly made her move, but although a melee monster (she's a stiletto assassin), she was too weak to do much damage.

Our firing line advanced. Von Schild, the wimp, took a spot of friendly fire in the back and was felled. Khan, McConnell and Jen rushed to assist Rubber with taking down Emily. In concert, the three of them shot Emily in the back of the head. Crisis averted.

The psychic drone caused Rubber to lose it on the 8th, and she began obsessively cleaning her surroundings. Tina, Emily, Coley and Rynyk all came close to dying from their injuries, but somehow, all were saved, although Coley developed an infection. Later on the 8th, a raider from Orion Corporation attacked us. Teddy the Pimp was shot dead when he rushed our firing line singlehanded. He was incredibly fast, but our colonists' guns were faster. A laser shot from Elida grazed Teddy in the head, severing one of his ears, and then he fell in a hail of MRG-5 bullets issued from the pistol of Kaleun. Somehow, we lost a single turret in the battle, but that was immediately remedied when Elida built a new one the same day.

While hauling corpses, Val abruptly developed stress trauma and began hiding in his room. Emily and Coley both agreed to join us on the 9th (Emily after being asked about her sexual experience by Khan).

Things finally seemed to be calming down on the 10th. At 7h of that day, Von Schild planned a date with his senior girlfriend Kaleun for the 12th of Aprimay on hour 20. We opened a space capsule that contained four pawns, but had to kill Engie, the only one of their number that wasn't downed. We captured three more prisoners, Monkey, Beamer and Hanfy. Once again, Von Schild was downed in the conflict. While assisting others in mining out our future hospital wing, Colin became fed up with his hideous environment and resorted to slitting his wrists in his room.

Okay so maybe things weren't calming down. On the 11th, a poisoned ship part crashed. Before we dealt with it, we had to contend with a maddened doe. Elida easily killed it, and then assisted the other colonists in building a line of sandbags and steel barriers for the coming mech battle. The building project was completed at approximately 13h on the 12th.

At 15h, I lined my fighters on the line. Elida, McConnell, Coley, Val, Jen, Rubber...even Von Schild, whose date with Kaleun was to start in a few hours. Bolla, armed with a laser sniper rifle, took up a defensive position more distant from the battle. Sullivan and Kaleun were the last to arrive. For some reason, I didn't draft Khan, whose animals would have been an asset in the fight. Especially considering what a disaster it was.

We disturbed the ship with a rifle blast. Oh no. SEVEN hostile mechs. One of which was a centipede. The tiny mech proved no match for small arms fire, but the two melee mechs immediately closed the gap and started bashing my poor colonists. Rubber managed to destroy one, but the other immediately downed Kaleun. The remaining melee fighter injured Sullivan, while McConnell was downed by a burst from the centipede's heavy charge blaster. Our sniper perforated the remaining small arms mech, but the fight was fast becoming a disaster. All hands surrounded the melee fighter, but Elida and Val were downed before we could disable it. Miraculously, we destroyed the assaulter, leaving only the centipede. But with much of our fighting force disabled, there was no other choice but to flee.

Von Schild rescued Sullivan. Jen recovered McConnell. Rubber rescued Kaleun. Bolla took a big risk in rushing up and saving Val. Coley attempted to save Elida, but seriously injured in the legs, she was way too slow to accomplish this and still outstrip the approaching centipede. She abandoned this task, leaving poor Elida in a desperate situation. Xina, meanwhile, awaited the casualties in our infirmary.

Von Schild was the first to get home with Sullivan. Sullivan was incredibly banged up. Having been stabbed and blasted in the arm, she had only four hours to live. Xina took care of tending her, while Von Schild busied himself to eating some (forbidden!!!) pemmican he had stolen from the freezer. Then Bolla returned to camp with Val, who was in even worse shape than Sullivan.

This was turning out bad. Really bad. Something had to be done for Elida, she was one of our colony's founding members. I enlisted Maskinnen, the closest pawn at hand, to outflank the centipede and hopefully carry Elida home. McConnell and Kaleun were both taken to hospital beds (both of them were near death also). Over on the battlefield, Maskinnen had reached Elida, but was now taking heavy fire from the centipede. She was downed almost immediately. Dammit.

Von Schild, one of our few qualified medics who was not incapacitated, chose that moment to clock out and binge on alcohol that we didn't even have in stock. He was calmed down by Khan, and returning to his work, narrowly managed to save McConnell. Rubber arrived home, and she was followed by Coley, likewise near death.

Desperately attempting to make a last ditch effort to save Elida and Maskinnen, Bolla put up a strong singlehanded front against the centipede. Ducking behind a corner, he sniped and he sniped for hours on end. Despite taking serious injuries himself, he successfully destroyed that damn centipede. Their way now clear, Khan and Gustav rushed out to save Elida and Maskinnen. However, Elida perished while Gustav was bringing her back. Khan almost brought Maskinnen to a hospital bed, but she too died.

Two deaths. Almost a dozen colonists near death. This was truly our most disastrous situation yet. Even our muffalo couldn't escape the crossfire. It too succumbed to its injuries.

On the 14th, prisoner Monkey succumbed to psychotic babbling. Later on in the morning, a still injured White was hunted and killed by another bear. White was far outside of camp, there was nothing we could do, no way to save him. The only thing I could do was send Khan out to prevent the bear from eating White alive. We killed the stupid bear, but White died of brain damage brought on by oxygen deprivation when the bear slit his throat. Poor White. Poor, poor faithful White.

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Twelfth Season: Decembary 5502

While attempting to recruit Viper on the 1st, Khan experienced a revelation that could be applied to prisoner recruitment. Viper was a shoo-in after that. Expressing herself plainly, Khan displayed interest in Viper's face. She told Viper about all sorts of things: missiles, affection, and strength. Viper rapidly decided to join us, and will be added to our increasing fleet of builders.

On the 2nd, we had a reasonably massive manhunting incident. Seventeen pebblemits. All of them extremely angry. None of them were interested in our line of turrets, instead attacking the section of doors in our northeastern corner. But it didn't matter, because we were equipped with a trained bear and a trained wildpod.

I coordinated all of my shooters outside base, and we picked the pebblemits off. Actually, White was the first to attack, reaching them just as they were getting into range. Tiny claws and shells went flying as White went to town. Then our wildpod got into the fray and downed or killed eight pebblemits without assistance. Our guns eliminated the rest.

We recovered the carcasses to add to our food stockpile. White was in bad shape from a friendly fire incident (and by being swarmed by the little clackers), but fortunately Von Schild attended to him before it became dire. Our wildpod slowly lumbered away virtually unscathed. There were no other injuries.

A small fire ensued from all of the laser blasting and incendiary launching. On the evening of the 2nd, I started sending haulers out to save the uncollected carcasses from the growing blaze. Jen somehow became ignited and developed burns that needed tending.

By the 3rd of the season, McConnell and Maskinnen were no longer on speaking terms. McConnell proposed marriage, Maskinnen refused, and now they're broken up.

On the 5th, the colony was stricken with a malaria epidemic. Malaria. In the middle of winter. Great. The sick colonists included Khan, Bolla, Jen, Von Schild, Kaleun and Sullivan. I sent them to our triage unit. Because two of the sickened were doctors, I needed to keep Sullivan and Von Schild up longer than I'd have liked to assist Xina in tending the others. While receiving care, Kaleun suddenly compared Bolla to a vampire.

The colonists were slowly recovering by the 6th. Bolla, in stark defiance of doctor's orders, arranged a hangout between himself and Jen. I put the big kibosh on that. Bolla is somewhat aged, and needed to get as much bed rest as possible.

On the 7th, Emily (one of our prisoners) became distraught as to her situation and began slitting her wrists in the cell she was sharing with Coley. It could be because, what with the hubbub surrounding the malaria epidemic, no one had bothered to feed her in awhile. She finally collapsed late in the hours of the 7th. I sent someone to administer food to her, as Em is still a cool chick.

By the 8th, people were starting to recover. Von Schild was the first. While Xina was feeding Sullivan, McConnell walked by and tried to woo her by lauding her culture. Xina turned away.

Later on, we received a new colonist, Pederson. He was chased by a gaggle of twelve tribals. Their attack rapidly fell apart. Our only injury in the skirmish was to White, who was hailed with a bevvy of opposing faction arrows and friendly fire. Six of them turned tail and ran. We waited for the survivors to emerge from the maze and slaughtered them to a man. Jen was so outraged by the ferocious display that she threatened to walk out on the colony. Luckily, she later came to her senses.

Our bear collapsed outside of camp after the battle. We barely managed to save White's life after this one. The worst thing is that the friendly fire inflicted permanent burn scars to both of White's eyes. The efficiency of his eyes is thereby reduced to 91 and 87 percent, respectively.

On the 9th, Von Schild's tattered apparel prompted him to begin obsessively cleaning his surroundings with little regard for his well-being. Khan expressed interest in prisoner Coley's leg hair (smoothly played, Khan), before going out to singlehandedly (well, singlehandedly but for her bear and wildpod) subdue a blizzarisk clutch mother.

On the 11th, who should just happen to appear unaccompanied at our compound and request to join but Khan's lover, Biz. We destroyed an overgrown drop pod on the 12th. That same day, Von Schild hilariously flirted with Kaleun by comparing her to a wonderful quarry. Kaleun accepted, and the two are now lovers. Age was no deterrent in their love; Kaleun is 68, while Von Schild is 24. Time for Von Schild to do some mining.

There was another incident on the 15th. A psychic wave rendered many of the area's raccoons insane. There was enough time for everyone to fall back to the walls (there were only three or four of the little buggers to begin with), but our traders had spent half the night sleeping on the snow, and were a little slow to depart. One of them, a 91-year old infirm dementia ridden old man named Skinner, was massacred by a lone raccoon (he was only bitten twice), which the other traders wasted little time in dispatching. Incidentally, I checked the raccoon's health tab, and it seemed that it was harboring a cancerous tumor inside one of its lungs.

The departing traders actually killed the remaining offending raccoons for us before leaving the map.

More to come.

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Eleventh Season: Septober 5502

So Pablo left his clothes in the garden and ran forth to be one with nature. Von Schild, the wimp, collapsed from food poisoning on the 1st, but he did so in the dumping stockpile reserved for corpses, which made it a needless hassle to drag him out. A new colonist named Colin joined us, pursued by an Orion Corp soldier. Those guys are lightning quick with the exclusive technology, but there was little danger to our colony, as the raider, Mila, went about beating up one of the departing traders and stealing a ceremonial headpiece while Colin scampered to the relative safety of our walls.

On the 2nd, Elida dealt with a maddened megasloth that almost got into camp because our stupid animals kept ignoring their restricted zones and were moving in and out through the doors. McConnell butchered the dead trader before I could stop him, and we got to work installing beautiful marble flooring in our cave.

On the 7th, Pablo of the Jungle collapsed due to malnutrition and hypothermia. Also, he had somehow managed to cut himself in the hand, and the wound had become infected. He was still within our walls, but I took the good riddance approach and left him to succumb to his injuries. Rather than laying Pablo to rest in the funeral room, we left his body in the corpse stockpile, a feast for the worms.

On the 12th, Val was attacked by a manhunting hare. Mushinto became sick of eating simple meals and started pigging out on simple meals, and on the 13th, we picked up a pretty good incendiary laser in a trade deal. Also on the 13th, we picked up a new prisoner to be recruited; Emily was found downed inside a transport pod. Sullivan patched up her injuries with her medical bag, and she was able to temporarily walk around. We arrested her anyway.

Our second transport pod rescue didn't come off as smoothly. There were three pawns inside this one. Hotaru was downed, Viper passive. Corvenus was violent and had to be put down. After seeing our display of brute force, Viper agreed to come along quietly, as did Hotaru, who really had no choice. Later that day, Eva defeated Elida in an election and is our first colony mayor.

Jen immediately opened the 14th by ingratiating herself to our prisoner, Emily. She started the recruitment process by "asking Emily about her nose." Another space refugee named Coley fell from the sky, and we decided to imprison her too. Late in the day, Eva found and activated a mysterious artifact. The artifact summoned a single scyther which fortunately charged our turret line and was cut to pieces without me having to rouse anyone from bed.

Note to self: Don't do that.

On the morning of the 15th, Hotaru decided to stage a daring escape with the rest of our prisoners, Emily, Coley and Viper. Emily was the first to be lasered into submission, and she was rapidly followed by her fellow jailbait. Appropriately, Hotaru did not survive the conflict (as Sullivan lasered her brain), but Emily, Coley and Viper were still in good shape. Also appropriate to the scenario, Khan "encouraged Coley to ask about her honesty" and "asked Coley about her emotional stability."

More to come.

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Tenth Season: Jugust 5502

Things are promising. We survived our first mechanoid attack with nary a scratch, and are almost finished smoothing out the cavern walls, the first step towards making everything pristine and pretty (and staving off whiny colonists overly concerned with their hideous environment!). As Mushinto went about disassembling destroyed mechs, we had an incident to the north of camp where one of our berserk guests took out her frustrations on a passing rhinoceros. Vienna was predictably downed. Not only did we get her 177 silver and three fine meals, we also claimed a prosthetic lung and a Mintcraft cartridge. I am reminded to queue up an arcade construction table as soon as possible.

A cordial discussion about the weather that Rubber was having with Xina randomly turned hostile when Xina loudly insulted Rubber's food choices. They crashed in a spacepod together, and now they were fighting. Rubber was so angry that she actually bit Xina's arm.

On the 2nd, we got started on a second line of turrets to fall back to in case the first line falls in a dire raid, or something of equal measure. Calderon's condition worsened from comatose to vegetative state, as the brain damage from his rampant wake-up abuse was now too wide and systemic for the guy to do much of anything other than drool into a cup. We planned a marble floor for the hallways, and so Gustav led the miners in digging the required marble from the quarry.

On the 5th, the colony sustained an epidemic of plague. Elida, Gustav, Dawn, Rubber, Xina and Eva were all afflicted. We have no idea how it started. Another big concern: Animal corpses started to rot in our freezer as we worked diligently to replace the existing walls with marble (I couldn't stand to look at the difference in color!). We would also lose +60 simple meals, which was a severe loss, even as we had over 200 more. Sometimes food can go rapidly in Rimworld.

The drama continued with a new refugee chase event. An elderly woman named Kaleun requested asylum. Meanwhile, Eva sustained a mental break over being in severe pain from her illness and began furniture hoarding. As eleven invaders headed towards base, Calderon died in his bed. Then while our soldiers that weren't incapacitated with plague fought to keep the raiders out, Pablo went berserk and started trying to slaughter animals. I had to enlist Mushinto to stab his ass before he murdered our wildpod, our muffalo and our faithful bear, White (the blossom sheep and the warg didn't matter as much).

We held off the attack, narrowly preventing a molotov cocktail from destroying our primary firing line. Pablo, meanwhile, had sustained a punctured lung in his fight with Mushinto, and was in serious need of medical aid.

On the 6th, this huge spider called a duneallisk entered the map, and the game warned me to kill it before it could raise a vicious brood of hatchlings. Elida had enough over being recreation-starved, and had a mental break (Khan calmed her down). Eva was the first to develop immunity to the plague, which surprised me because she had also been the most stubbornly persistent in staying out of bed. And then Pablo stumbled and fell on his face while mining rocks in the quarry and had to be rescued by Mushinto.

I sent a party out to eliminate the giant spider. This was accomplished without adverse circumstances. Most of our plague-sufferers were fully recovered by the 6th, but this didn't stop Gustav from having a mental break and consciously deciding to murder McConnell in his sleep. This development was made all the more astonishing by the fact that they consider one another friends! McConnell is Gustav's third best friend after Mushinto and Elida, with +26 opinion.

McConnell was asleep in his room at the time, and totally unexpecting. Gustav entered and swung her shotgun into his shoulder. McConnell then fled down the hall, holding his broken arm and screaming. Finally, Elida and Khan intercepted Gustav before she could do any more damage and beat her into submission.

A heat wave commenced on the 7th. Von Schild was the first to lose it to the heat. As the outdoor temperature soared to 44 degrees, he meandered for hours in a sad dejected wander (if he wouldn't insist on wearing a tuque and parka all the time, maybe he wouldn't be so damn hot!). Luckily, our mountain base is well-equipped enough that even the worst heat waves aren't really a big problem.

White collapsed of starvation, and had to be rescued by Xina. Of course the problem was that our bear was always confined to base, where there was no game. I remedied this by allowing White free reign to go outside. Xina staved off White's extreme starvation by feeding him a bag of dried rice fresh from the garden. As the unchewable kernels filled his throat and stomach, White's condition drastically improved.

We lost a megasloth carcass to the heat. The loss in food stockpile would force us to add a third cooler, and have all three running constantly during heat waves.

On the 8th of Jugust, Pablo collapsed due to heatstroke and had to be hauled to a room with safe temperature by White. Incidentally, Pablo became the first occupant of our ugly barracks room. Getting out of bed, he immediately had a mental break and started to vent his spleen on our animals. Fortunately, Jen talked him out of doing anything too stupid.

That was not the end of Pablo's drama. On the 12th, he became angered again and promptly decided to take it out on our PILREKIN couch, which required a king's ransom in cloth to build. There was no choice but to enlist our wildman thug Val to end the dispute. He did this by swinging his rifle into Pablo's face, shattering his nose. Pablo would recover, although the injury to his face (and his ego!) would remain permanent.

I thought it vaguely amusing that a random warg started hunting cattle owned by visitors as they were departing on the 12th. Ivy killed the beast with a blast from her incendiary launcher, also setting ablaze their threatened cow.

On the 13th, our camp was plagued with a raid from a lone plunderer. Xiaoer was from Orion Installation, carrying a MRG-5 pistol and also fitted with an Orion exoskeleton. He was also afflicted with rapid aging, although that really didn't factor in to the conflict, as he was killed immediately upon stepping on the battlefield.

By the evening of the 13th, Pablo became fed up with our civilization, and decided to leave the colony to become a wildman within the southern portion of our walls. No one tried to discourage him from this foolish course; we were all sick of him, too.

On the 15th, McConnell pursued Maskinnen by comparing her to a shining moon. Maskinnen responded well and is now McConnell's lover. Also on the 15th, a pair of raging inferno beetles, driven to a manhunting rage, attacked camp. Fortunately, we managed to kill them.

More to come.

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