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Messages - The_Hat

#31
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 09, 2018, 05:57:19 PM
Ninth Season: Aprimay 5502

Our offended traders didn't leave the map quickly enough. Sullivan was out hunting rhinos when one went berserk and chased her. Fortunately, Jones had fallen asleep nearby, and was directly in the path of the plant eater. He didn't last long. Sullivan bagged the rhino, and we took Jones' 599 silver, while a hungry rabbit helped itself to some of his packaged survival meal.

It was the first day of the new year, nearly two years after we found a new beginning here, and the camp was thriving. Gustav named our blossom sheep Minia on the 1st, and our builders got to work on digging a proper quarry for more specific items. We also finally got started on providing the cave with a source of permanent lighting. Lastly, there was a wildpod that had been stubbornly wandering around our turrets for a couple seasons, and I assigned it to be tamed by Khan before it became a liability and possibly raged against us after the inevitable friendly fire.
   
On the 2nd, the builders got started on an ugly barracks to house new colonists until we got started on a more permanent housing solution in the caves to the south. Mushinto and Jen got into an argument over a game of poker on the 4th, and Mushinto displayed absolute class in sinking his teeth into the latter's leg.
   
Sullivan fell prey to a hunting disaster on the 5th. She was attacked by three boars, managing to kill one before the other two downed her. Elida straightened things out with the stupid pigs, but Sullivan was in pretty bad shape. Her worst injury was a gore wound to the left ear. Fortunately, Bolla rescued her before it was too late, but it would be awhile before our resident psychopath was fully recovered.

We harvested our first big yield from the new hydroponics garden on the 6th. Khan demanded obedience from the wildpod but the wildpod refused, and then Pablo collapsed in the kitchen due to food poisoning. Sullivan, in intense anguish over her myriad of wild pig-induced injuries, sad wandered out of camp. I was extremely concerned for her well-being, and so sent out Bolla to calm her down. Bolla did his part by criticizing Sullivan's hardiness. Unsurprisingly, this failed to settle Sullivan down.
   
By the 7th, visitors Grey and Calderon both went berserk, with Calderon picking a fight with Oxana in the freezer and getting beat up. We rescued Calderon and his 319 silver (in addition to four cheeseburgers that the colonists wasted little time in wolfing down). Also on the 7th, Khan successfully tamed our wildpod. Remember this moment, because it is important.
   
On the 8th of Aprimay, Sullivan collapsed in her food while discussing cannons and blackjack with Pablo in the kitchen. On the 9th, a wildman named Val wandered into the zone. Khan slapped Val in a show of dominance. Val accepted and has opted to join our merry band of crooks.
   
On the 11th, our camp was attacked by a pack of vicious man-eating raccoons. At the same time, we also had to kill a maddened megasloth (that was fortunately easily shot into paste by our turrets) and a psychic wave that rendered all of the ibex in the region insane. Val stupidly went out into the midst of this madness to hunt, and was immediately overtaken by an army of chittering, garbage stalking balls of angry fur. In the ensuing chaos, we managed to kill all of the attacking animals with minimal casualties; Val was hurt the worst, in addition Gustav found herself momentarily cornered and Maskinnen was exposed due to an ill-advised hauling mission. Bolla also sustained minor injuries while he was attempting to rescue Val. With the few raccoons that weren't dead focusing their attentions on Bolla, Sullivan got out unnoticed and managed to stabilize Val with this medical bag we had recently purchased in what had turned out to be a very smart trade deal.

Val, for his part, got out of bed on the 13th, and, deciding that our gardens constituted an ugly environment, started pigging out on food. Then on the 14th, there was a psychic ship crash. In the early hours of the 15th, I sent Pablo out alone to examine it. I knew I'd probably be sacrifing him, but I had hoped that the mechanoids within would move towards our firing line. This was ill-advised because after incapacitating Pablo, the mechs demonstrated no interest outside of protecting their crashed ship part.

We would be forced to engage the mechanoids in open fire without defenses. It was fortunate that only one of the mechs (an assaulter) had any sort of ranged capability. We stayed one step ahead of them, managing to destroy them all with very limited damage to us. In the end, only Eva was injured, and that was by a friendly fire incident.

With that out of the way, it was time to get back to the base. It was at that moment that one of our injured guests, Calderon, abruptly developed brain damage caused by wake-up addiction and slipped into an unresponsive coma.

More to come.


[attachment deleted due to age]
#32
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 08, 2018, 01:02:10 PM
Eighth Season: Decembary 5501

Lane, shivering from hypothermia and frothing at the mouth from a distinct lack of guest beds in the colony, became the latest visitor to go postal on the 1st. Predictably, he got into a fight with one of his allies (Kena, in this instance) over circumstances she realistically had no control over. Kena downed Lane, and as usual, we helped ourselves to the fallen's silver.

A regular Ramada Inn we've become.

Elida recruited Bolla to the cause, and I assigned him to work the hydroponics room. McConnell cut up that giant wildpod creature at the butcher's table, gaining us a bounty of nutritious plant fiber, and the whole encampment helped themselves to Lane's discarded soft drinks around nightfall.

Another of our visitors sustained a serious mental break on the morning of the 2nd. Anane, suffering from severe hypothermia from having spent the night outside in -15 weather, abruptly decided that he was going to get us, but Anane was 54 years old and also had a bad back, thus he couldn't get inside where it was warm quick enough to inflict damage and instead just collapsed from the cold. We rescued him, thus saving him from losing a finger and toe to frostbite.

Jen wandered in from outside of camp and offered to join us in exchange for food and lodgings. Her only decent skill is in social, but we could use a reliable custodian. Visitors Kena and Reikguard were the next to go nuts (Kena over serious pain and Reikguard because he was depressive), and Reikguard beat the holy hell out of Kena in our freezer entrance, which has seen some battles.

We had been having a problem with animals getting inside the base for weeks that had baffled me. On the 3rd of Decembary, I finally found out why; some idiot had left a pile of marble bricks in our southeastern entrance that were keeping the door from shutting. We cleared out the last of the animals that were wandering around inside, including a cowardly wolf that ran when we shot it and a crazed megasloth.

On the 4th, Bolla had some derogatory things to say about Gustav's appearance, and they started fighting in the storage section. Dawn extended the mountain around our freezers to prevent a repeat of what happened during the most recent raid, and Bolla offered free, fresh corn cobs to Rubber, enticing her to join us. Her stay didn't exactly get off to a remarkable start; Rubber spent part of the night sleeping outside in the cold because no one had a built a bed for her.

On the 6th, our second near disaster occurred. A black hive, the insectoid equivalent of a mechanoid raid, appeared at the fringes of our valley. Five bugs emerged and made a mad dash to camp. Most of the insectoids were of little concern, but what was of great pressing concern was the huge mammoth worm that followed them slowly at a distance.

The more agile bugs made a beeline for our wood doors, all but smashing them down collectively. They gave up, but then the huge mammoth worm easily plowed through the weakened structure, while the smaller bugs fortunately made around to our turrets on the southern lines. The mammoth worm was inside! I recalled all of our able-bodied fighters from the lines to deal with the ominous threat, while the mammoth worm took to smashing our wind turbines and solar generators.

The mammoth worm managed to destroy one of our turbines. Meanwhile several generators were getting demolished as much by wild shooting as by anything else. I elected to send Eva out with our triple rocket launcher in the hopes of blasting the thing, but couldn't lure it far enough to avoid threatening the entire power grid. While this was happening, Pablo was serenely hanging around outside going for a walk and decided now was probably a good time to go inside where it was safe. But he ran directly into the path of the mammoth worm, which moved right over him, crushing one of his legs.

We finally downed the magnificent beast without receiving any further casualties, and it's just a lucky thing the creature wasn't carrying a ranged weapon, or we probably would have been toast. It's also damn lucky that the insects didn't all enter the broken door, or they would have been able to coordinate. Our guns easily killed the remaining insects. That was when White, our amazing circus bear who hadn't eaten in awhile from being cooped up in camp, savagely pounced on the downed mammoth worm and ate its head.

We immediately reinforced our doors with better materials to avoid a similar incident in the future. Also, I sent Elida out to take care of the black hive threat before it spawned any more creatures.

With all the excitement, we haven't had enough time to really furbish the colonist rooms. This made Eva upset, and on the 7th, she had a mental break over her unsightly environment. Later in the day, Jen began binging on alcohol (didn't even know we had any) because of her tattered apparel.

It happened again on the 12th. Only six days after a black hive incident almost killed our most useless colonist and destroyed our power grid, another black hive spawned in almost the exact same spot as the first. Fortunately, there were no mammoth worms this time, only a horde of lesser bugs. Sullivan and Dawn were out hunting and hauling respectively and almost got caught out in the open, but managed to get inside in time to beat the wave. Then, a new colonist (a weakling named Von Schild) entered the region while being chased by Ash Crooks.

Saving him turned out to be a delicate process. I had to make him stand and wait while the bugs ran far enough ahead of him to prevent them from seeing and probably eating him, while at the same time keep him far enough ahead of his pursuers to avoid the same kind of fate. Fortunately, all was well; Von Schild passed through our southern door just as the bugs were starting to get slaughtered on the battlefield, and somehow managed to avoid getting shot to death.

Meanwhile, one of the insects was straggling far behind, and encountered the invading pirates before they reached our defenses. Smelly was stabbed in the torso by the megalouse, opening up a severe wound, but the invaders sustained no other serious injuries. With the insects all dead or dying, the raiders navigated our pre-battlefield maze, and proceeded to get virtually annihilated after coming out of the business end.

One of the raiders, however, managed to ignite a turret with a blast from an incendiary launcher. I commissioned Jen to momentarily take the big risk in exposing herself to extinguish the fire before an explosion demolished our entire line. Fortunately, she avoided serious maiming injury. Meanwhile, emotions were running high on the battlefield; two of the nine raiders were actually brothers, one of whom fell. Polecat suffered a mood loss from his brother's death, and to make matters more intolerable, he endured an insult from one of his friends who snickered at Polecat's brother's sincerity.

Having bullets whiz over her head while being subjected to the sight of so many corpses caused poor Jen to lose it. Abruptly gaining a huge fascination with death, she ran off to liberate Pacheco's skeleton from its sarcophagus. As she was breaking, a bullet from a fleeing raider nicked her in the leg. Then Bolla went to talk her out of desecrating Pacheco's corpse, and Jen viciously insulted him for his recreational preferences.

It was the morning of the 13th. While hauling bodies to a hidden stockpile zone, Pablo found some discarded smokeleaf and decided to have a puff. He collapsed and had to be rescued. Then, one of the downed bugs suddenly recovered and went on a tear. It was easily destroyed by our turrets, but several colonists were almost caught in the crossfire.

We continued to make the place nicer. We had hauled out all the chunks from the caves and were now in the process of smoothing the walls, making new floors and providing lighting with glowstone. It wasn't fast enough for McConnell, who snapped again over his ugly environment and started binge drinking nuka-cola.

On the 14th, Pablo was insulted at the poker table and dejectedly hid in his room. Eva recovered a warg from a crashed pod and named it Lev, and there was an interaction between two visitors in which Jones tried to woo Sappy by complimenting her crafting skills. Sappy rejected him.

On the morning of the 15th, visitor Artemis went berserk in the funeral room and promptly duked it out with Blackburn. Once everyone was out of bed, the colonists rescued her and also helped themselves to her smokeleaf. Blackburn collapsed from his injuries later in the day. Our visitors got fed up at that point and left the map.

A Ramada Inn we are not.

[attachment deleted due to age]
#33
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 07, 2018, 01:32:54 PM
Seventh Season: Septober 5501

Gustav threw a party that ended prematurely because everyone had to run outside to stop a fire caused when Sullivan hunted a boomrat a little bit close to the garden. On the 2nd, Eva tried to romance Mushinto by implying good things about her own melee fighting skill, but Mushinto wasn't interested. Then, McConnell stepped inside and immediately went berserk because of the darkness. He would fixate his anger on Sullivan, following her around and periodically insulting her. He started by running to the mess and loudly condemning her emotional stability in front of everyone, and then followed her down the hall, continuing the harassment by comparing her brother to a crab.

On the 3rd, shady, volatile and half useless Pablo had his first mental break, freaking out while assisting Gustav in digging out the storage area. Wanda became our latest visiting trader to have a mental break in the freezer, while Pablo was prompt in opening Pacheco's casket and dragging his corpse on top of the kitchen table (fortunately, there was no one in the kitchen at the time). Mushinto replaced Pacheco's bones in their resting place.

While this was going on, McConnell started working in the kitchen, but would flee in panic whenever he saw Wanda, who finally got beat up by her ally Shield. Shield had one of his eyes crushed in the fight when Wanda jammed it with the butt end of her machine pistol. As the toxic behavior continued, Dawn made a comment on Gustav's facial hair, embarrassing her in front of everyone.

As everyone went to sleep on the morning of the 4th, visitor Peter went berserk over exhaustion, and immediately after, Shield went berserk while wandering outside. Pablo, having reached the biological age of 55, developed frailty in his bed, and then Peter went to sleep in a puddle of vomit in the hallway, with fellow visitor Flebe lying a short distance away.

Later that morning, another trader named Squirt from the same faction (Ithoum) visited. Squirt immediately opened fire on a still raging Shield, but failed to hit him, while Shield himself remained oblivious to the bullets whizzing over his head. Sheild finally succumbed to exhaustion, and then Klob, yet another visitor, went berserk several feet away from his sleeping form.

Still later that morning, Flebe went berserk in the kitchen while chatting about lovers with Pablo. The reason was (you guessed it!) no guest beds. As our colonists fled for cover, Flebe took his frustrations out on Squirt, and then hastened outside to do the same to Klob. With Klob having been beaten senseless, Flebe looked for another target to take out his frustrations. He was subdued by Peter, who then fled our base. We helped ourselves to over 1000 in discarded silver and called it another day of good business.

A funny thing happened on the 6th of Septober: this old guy with cataracts and bad hearing named Erling crashed in a spacer pod. Erling had serious injuries to both legs, but managed to get up and immediately walked out of the region under his own power.

On the 7th, another drop pod fell from the sky. This one was contaminated with some weird animal/plant hybrid life and managed to spawn forth a hostile little creature called a cactipine, which then ran towards base, no doubt planning to kill us all...before immediately being hunted and killed by a land kraken. I sent a team out to destroy the pod before it produced any other nasty surprises.

With our steel stores depleting, Gustav was tasked with finally getting some use out of our mines. We finished work on an orbital trading beacon (which wouldn't see use for quite some time because we would still be trading regularly with Ithoum). In fact, the last batch of insane visitors who had recovered from their injuries and left the map healthy did in fact prompt Ithoum to think of us as allies.

On the 8th, we obtained a pet muffalo from a crashed transport pod that should prove valuable for carrying if we ever find time to process pemmican for a long trip. Also on board were two spacers, Xina and Rubber, who agreed to be arrested without putting up a fight. Xina joined us almost immediately, and has become our second go-to cook to work alongside McConnell. She is also a decent medic.

On the 9th, Khan went out to slaughter our useless bouldermit, who pulled random chunks out of the ground and did nothing else.

On the 10th, Elida offered Rubber fresh eggplants for free if she would join. Rubber decided to sleep on it. Also on the 10th, a strong builder named Maskinnen was chased into our zone by a total of eight raiders from the Nation of Abeve. Seven of the raiders ran for our defenses, but the eighth headed north and destroyed one of our unprotected freezers. The raiders were killed to a man without too much trouble, but a few of them almost crossed over our sandbags before being killed, so we would expand our fortifications to include a maze and a killbox that would make using the surrounding rocks for cover impossible. Idiot Pablo had another mental break in the evening over chronic pain, and would relegate himself to psychotic wandering throughout the night.

It was discovered that Maskinnen was a cannibal, as she began eating the recently slaughtered corpses of the battlefield raw. We imprisoned another crashed spacer for recruitment purposes, this one named Bolla (Sullivan barely managed to save his life). Another crashed spacer (Burke) wasn't as lucky, and died in our prison before we could administer aid.

There was a near disastrous event on the 14th of Septober. Bowman, yet another visiting trader, wandered to our defensive line and became berserk from being too cold. He decided to take his frustrations out on a sleeping wildpod, which is incredibly stupid. Wildpods are a creature added by one of my mods that are virtually invulnerable to small arms fire and melee attacks, so you can probably imagine how that turned out.

The enraged wildpod effortlessly downed Bowman. Maddened, it proceeded to wander around my defensive line while the colonists slept in the relative safety of the main complex. For the first time, I thought my colony was finished, as a single wildpod was more than enough to take out the entire colony, guns be damned. I doubt even my triple rocket launcher would have been much help in this situation.

Yep, goodbye colony, I recall thinking, as I expected the foul beast to sweep over my turrets, to go after the colonists when they got up for work. But something strange happened. The deranged wildpod completely ignored my turrets, even as they slowly whittled it's life down, hour after agonizing hour. We used a diversion employed by a fleeing trader named Shade to grab Bowman's goods before the wildpod could come back. Fortunately, the creature was slow afoot, and my colonists managed to stay two steps ahead.

Finally, after a battle that had lasted an excruciating seven hours, the wildpod was downed. I sent Sullivan out to finish it off, and we put the creature in our food stockpile. 

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#34
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 06, 2018, 11:04:39 AM
Sixth Season: Jugust 5501

We kicked off the season with a chased refugee event, as Gustav, who is Sullivan's sister, was pursued by two soldiers of the Grey Basin Treaty. Our enemies were tribals, but we weren't taking them lightly; Elida, Sullivan, Khan, McConnell and Mushinto all rushed out to intercept. The conclusion was foregone, although one of the raiders did manage to get close enough to club Sullivan in the knees.

Gustav just so happened to be a cannibal, and under cover of darkness, she managed to sneak the two bodies in and butcher them for meals. Although everyone else was asleep, this did not go unnoticed by the other colonists...I guess human meat has a distinct natural odor? Anyway, the whole colony would be suffering for some time from the "we butchered humanlike" debuff.

A tamed bouldermit joined the colony on the 2nd, and although I've no idea what the hell I will do with a tame bouldermit, I decided to abide the creature for now.

On the 3rd of the season, Elida built a geothermal generator to bolster our power grid, while Gustav (our new best miner) dug out rooms to serve as prison cells.

It finally happened on the 4th. Pacheco, whose condition had worsened since developing an artery blockage the prior season, died of a heart attack. Even though White, our lovable bear, managed to haul him to a medical bed with remarkable efficiency. Sullivan treated him with the herbal medicine, rather than the good stuff, so that might have contributed. Pacheco was our first colonist death, and although hated by many for his abrasive personality, his loss imbued us all with a feeling of crushing hopelessness at our collective plight. We are out a talented crafter.

Pacheco would be interred in a wooden sarcophagus in our new funeral crypt, and it seemed only fair that Elida, as his most despised adversary, would get to be the one to bury him. It was a matter of grim irony that she would entitle the engraving on the top of the casket "No. 6VI4," and feature the art therein depicting the moment Pacheco slumped to the floor unconscious from coronary arrest. Which is precisely how everyone wants to remember the foul-mouthed torpedo.

At almost the exact moment of Pacheco's death, McConnell had a nervous breakdown over having to constantly work in a filthy and dark kitchen. As he was suffering from cabin fever as well, I decided to reassign him to hauling for the time being while Mushinto took care of the cooking in order to give McConnell some much needed sunshine.

On the 6th, we captured an injured spacer named Eva, who, after recovering from her injuries, joined up with us without much convincing. Also on the 6th, Mushinto and Dawn were married, and all of our colonists arrived to celebrate the festivities. But things took a much more sinister overtone when one of our visitors, the appropriately named Hannibal, had a mental break and began stalking the sleeping colonists in their rooms. He spent most of the night eerily standing over the newlyweds' bed, yet did not attack them. In the morning, Dawn managed to sneak out to work without alerting the still-crazed Hannibal, before Mushinto decided enough was enough and stabbed the guy in the leg in self-defense. We rescued Hannibal, treated his wounds, and discovered him to be a go juice addict.

On the 7th, Hannibal's ally, Lumi went nuts from the lack of hotel beds curse and attempted to shoot Khan and Dawn in the back as they fled down a hallway. That was when Mushinto jumped into action, stabbing Lumi in the back to protect his wife, and then Khan recovered her nerve and shocked Lumi with a charge from her stun gun.

On the 8th, we harvested our first payload of cotton. McConnell made Eva's recruitment official, and Elida, Dawn and Eva got started on building an impenetrable line of defenses in the lone opening into our encampment, plus a second line of turrets just in case the first was defeated. We added more cooling units to our freezer in order to cope with a heatwave, and finally got started on a recreation room with a poker table and a pool table adjacent to production. On the morning of the 13th, Mushinto experienced a trade deal inspiration while fracking his wife.

Elida built for Khan a multi-analyzer to assist her research on the 14th, and in our biggest boon of the month, a drop pod dropped for us a decent quality triple rocket launcher. The base defenses were completed on the 15th (with a geothermal generator to power them), and constructors also finished building our defensive wall. Shit was about to get real.

The season ended with another refugee chase event. Pablo had a highly volatile and uneven temperament, but he was a skilled builder, and we needed someone to help expand our storage depo, as I realized that I had accidentally built the thing in the shape of a giant dick. This seemed a good moment to test our new defenses, but the individual chasing him was from Orion Installation and was fitted with an Orion exoskeleton.

Pearl had no problem catching up to Pablo―who is quite aged and thus slow afoot, as if it would've mattered―yet upon reaching him, she actually bypassed him altogether, seemingly to examine the pile of objects strewn about the ground in last season's crashed spacer event. Pablo, for his part, went for a gun that was lying there, and then Pearl went ape. She shot poor Pablo in the face, damaging one of his eyes and downing him. Leaving Pablo for dead, Pearl took what she could carry from the pile and fled.

We rescued Pablo, but it was questionable as to why we had even bothered. Harboring an eye injury, the guy was now useless to us as a builder, and his volatility and psychic hypersensitivity will undoubtedly lead to drama we don't really need. Also, the guy is 54 years old and possesses a congenital heart defect, so he is naturally slower at getting about. I decided to just assign Pablo to mining and to hope for the best. 

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#35
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 05, 2018, 12:10:29 PM
Fifth Season: Aprimay 5501

It was the anniversary of our arrival in this inhospitable clime, and love was in the air. Mushinto wooed Dawn by telling a story about computer technology. That shit turned Dawn on (no judgements!), making Mushinto and Dawn our first couple. A refugee chase event added Pacheco, an iron-willed, abrasive ascetic with advanced kidney disease to our ranks. His pursuer, one Karl, was intercepted by Sullivan and Elida before he could reach the base and got shot dead.

On the 3rd, Elida was injured by a maddened meadow ave, which is a large flightless bird that is supposedly harmless under most circumstances except under the circumstances of random brain-melting psychic wave scenarios.

A flabby naked lady named Harriet crashed on the 4th. Harriet was McConnell's mother. We chose to let her bleed out rather than save her because we didn't have a spare room for her to occupy (which is unfortunate because she was strong in construction and mining; I'm wondering what the hell I was thinking at the time?), so now McConnell hates us temporarily.

On the 5th, I could have sworn I witnessed a trader, one Crouir of the Nation of Abeve, steal a simple meal from our food larder. In retrospect, I may have been mistaken, but long story short, I sent Mushinto and Pacheco to rough old Crouir up a little, so we are now enemies with Abeve. Mushinto stabbed Crouir in the kidney, and left him to bleed out in our mess.

We received some friendly cows on the 7th, but we honestly have no use for cattle, so we slaughtered them.

It was Aprimay 8th, and Pacheco really wasn't fitting in well. He had taken a grave dislike to Elida, and was now slandering her whenever she was near. He would exploit his strategic post at the stonecutting table, insulting any and all who dared pass him as well. Tensions exploded on the 8th when Pacheco hurled invective about Elida's aunt's beliefs while working in the production room. They squared off, and Pacheco savagely bit Elida in the leg. Elida, though iron-willed, rapidly became depressed with the Pacheco situation and the pain of her injury and resorted to pigging out on food.

On a positive note, Mushinto proposed marriage to Dawn after less than a season as a couple on the 9th. The wedding is supposed to be sometime next season.

All in all, it was shaping out to be a fairly mundane month, as Elida and Dawn focused construction efforts on making some of the rooms more presentable. We started by smoothing the cave walls, a process that would take all year (especially as given how much of the shale walls were to be replaced with marble to make all of it match), but it would be highly worthwhile in the end.

On the 12th, we finally got around to opening the two large spacer capsules that had been sitting around the region for the prior season. In tandem, Elida, Sullivan, Khan, McConnell, Dawn and Pacheco went out to confront the ominous threat. The first capsule was only filled with "harmless" megascarabs (had they devoured the occupant?). The second contained two occupants. The first, Gardner, was seriously injured and unable to stand. The other was named Seikilos, and he had to be shot down. Sullivan sustained minor wounds in the exchange of gunfire.

On the 13th, Mushinto started to dig out a proper storage unit, as our main storage room was becoming bloated even after we moved all the steel to an outdoor stockpile. Another noteworthy building project was a marble wall extending around the exposed parts of camp that are unprotected by mountain. The end of the month saw Mushinto get to work on digging out a crypt adjacent to the mess, to afford colonists with the potential to stare at entombed bodies right after supper. It was a decision that would foreshadow events to come.

[attachment deleted due to age]
#36
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 04, 2018, 12:01:54 PM
Fourth Season: Decembary 5500

With Alo now fully recovered from his torso infection, it was now time to see if he was interested in joining the colony. But Alo chose not to. He merely wandered around in our decrepit sickbay until he collapsed of starvation. Alo died shortly after. To narrowly survive a pod crash and an infection, only to starve to death. What is this rimworld coming to?

But we had Dawn, a new colonist spawned from a refugee chase event. Dawn's most important strength was building, and we were in serious need of adequate constructors. Her pursuer was Lacey, who dug in to the rocks and got into a shooting standoff with Sullivan. Lacey was seriously wounded, but Sullivan couldn't get a good blast off without exposing herself to gunfire. Elida outflanked Lacey and shot her in the backside. Lacey was downed. Problem solved.

Dawn built her own bed in a new room that had only been partially dug out. Mushinto got sick with food poisoning, and McConnell continued with his semi-persistent flirting with Khan, who was still not interested. While cooking on the fifth, McConnell compared Khan to a magnificent fir tree. Khan was unimpressed. Smooth moves there, tiger.

There was a crashed spacer event on the 7th, but the lone occupant was only a teenager named Wes and teenagers are useless, so I let him go. During the evening of the 7th, we had another visitor go postal in the freezer, and all hell broke loose shortly after that.

Only hours after having compared McConnell to an outlaw, Moilanen snapped over having had no access to guest beds. She beat up another visitor named Mills, then got into a fight with Krand in the mess. Krand downed her, and then himself proceeded to have a mental break over his hideous environment. Krand was some kind of boss. Having already beat up Moilanen, he then proceeded to singlehandedly beat up most of his other faction members. The big kitchen brawl saw him down three more visitors, as Anita, Ana and Beryl were no match for his wrath. The other visitors fled, with Krand in hot pursuit. Our colonists watched the events unfold and then picked up close to 200 in silver. The survivors were housed in our sickbay, to be released for the extra faction respect once they had recovered from their injuries.

A rundown of the worst injuries is as follows: Mills, in her freezer battle with Moilanen, was savagely stabbed in the leg three times; Anita suffered a punctured lung from getting stabbed in the chest; Ana and Beryl were badly bruised but not seriously injured; Moilanen received stab wounds in an arm, hand and leg.

It was not the final visitor brawl of the year. On the 11th, we had three more visitors from Ithoum, John, Latch and Gecko. John was abrasive and also rivals with Latch, and would continuously insult him in addition to anyone else who got within earshot. A war of words shortly broke out between John and Latch in the kitchen, with John insulting Latch's value as a human before directly insulting his eyes. I focused on other things for a time, before suddenly being alerted that weirdness was happening by this bizarre noise that sounded like a screeching cat. John and Latch had continued their dispute outside, and I noticed Latch's head was spinning like a top. I initially dismissed this as a graphical glitch, but a closer look revealed that the screeching noise was coming from him. Also, Latch was projectile vomiting all over our garden. He resembled some bizarre puke fountain.

A look at Latch's mental state revealed that he was possessed. I couldn't believe my eyes, I had never seen this happen before. He was also matching John's insults in equal measure, comparing John's brother's nephew (yes, you read that right) to a panther, and calling John himself a barbarian. That was the final straw, and John beat the holy hell out of Latch right there in the snow. Still angered to no end at the personal slight, John went on a warpath and attacked a boomrat, which exploded. The explosion covered John's body with burns, and he collapsed in the snow.

We tried to rescue both of them, but had not enough herbal medicine. Finding more in the environment was not an option, as the region was blanketed with snow. Latch would pull through, but John died of an infection on the 14th.

More to come. 

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#37
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 03, 2018, 11:39:59 AM
Third Season: Septober 5500

Brio, still suffering from the savage beatdown he received from his friends a day or two prior, and immobilized from having been stabbed through the hand by Khan, succumbed to starvation at the beginning of the month. No sooner had we thrown his body outside then another group of traders visited. Their leader, Boss, doled out a beating to one of his own, Lan, leaving him unconscious at our doorstep.

With our freezer effectively operational, Elida built an oven and butcher table adjacent to the mess. Then it happened. A ferralisk ate Ingrid, our iguana. Elida, Sullivan and Khan rushed to defend, but it was far too late to save the lizard. Khan was grieving, but I still had her haul her dead pet to the freezer to be made into a meal.

There was a transport pod crash on the 4th. We tried to subdue the occupant, but Chief resisted us and tried to run before Sullivan shot him in the back. Meanwhile, we started digging a sick bay and research room, allowing Khan to finally begin researching. I believe her first project was solar generators, which we desperately needed to remain power-viable, as our two wind turbines had a frustrating tendency to not generate power due to the lack of day-to-day wind, no matter how many obstructions we destroyed.

There was a refugee chase event on the 5th. We welcomed McConnell, an abrasive, overweight and unclothed toady who is strong in cooking. He was chased by a single pursuer from the Grey Basin Treaty, Vasca. McConnell ran straight to the site where we had killed Chief and stripped him of his clothing. Our fatty chef got partially dressed, but Vasca caught him pantsless, and almost beat McConnell into submission with his club. McConnell escaped without sustaining injury, and we murdered Vasca right next to Chief.

Lacking a dug out room with a bed, McConnell spent the night in our developing sickbay. The next morning, Sullivan made our last plant harvest of the year. With Khan having finished researching solar generators, Elida built a handful next to the wind turbines. Khan was still unhappy about the death of her bonded animal (and having to haul Ingrid's still-warm corpse to our freezer). After failing for the umpteenth time to convince Mushinto to join us, she snapped and began hiding in her room. Luckily, Elida calmed Khan down by sharing a word about botched surgeries.

Mushinto agreed to join our growing colony on the 7th. Proving he was one with the cause, he immediately went about hauling a dead muffalo to the freezer, a task that kept him up most of the night. With our power grid still unstable, Elida dug out a room to store batteries, as our freezer tended to fizzle out every time the sun went down.

Gogomar, a visitor from a neighboring faction, fell prey to the no guest beds curse. He tried to take out his frustrations on a sleeping Khan, and had to be neutralized by Elida. We stole his valuables, and then took him to a hospital bed while his ally, Nomea, ran for his life. We let him go.

On the 9th, McConnell started throwing a tantrum due to the hideous state of his kitchen. He rampaged around camp, throwing objects and even zapping Khan with his stun gun when she tried to calm him down. Mushinto was forced to beat McConnell into submission. Sullivan had to rush out into the wilderness to find enough herbal medicine with which to treat our distressed colonist. That was when I noticed McConnell, in addition to having the "well fed" buff from having eaten yogurt, was afflicted with a chronic kidney condition. Also, Mushinto had straight out ripped one of the middle fingers from McConnell's left hand.

Construction of our batteries was completed on the 10th. A low psychic drone caused Mushinto to start wandering in a psychotic state (he was calmed down by Khan). And a grizzly bear self-tamed. Khan would eventually bond with the animal, naming her White.

On the 13th, McConnell tried to woo Khan by complimenting her clothes. Khan, understandably still peeved over having been zapped by a taser-wielding McConnell several days earlier, ignored him.

We found another pet in a large drop pod. A blossom sheep has joined the colony. Also on the 13th, we rescued a spacer named Alo, who would have a colorful last few days enjoying our hospitality. Alo was a staggeringly ugly homosexual, but he was also strong in medicine and animals, and I hoped to recruit him. 

We barely saved Alo. Then, Alo developed a torso infection, which Sullivan couldn't immediately treat because she was out hunting this awful inferno beetle that was threatening the camp with its fire bombs. The beetle singed Sullivan with its second firebomb, while Sullivan's gun was having limited effect on its hard carapace. Luckily, Elida saved the day by killing the bug, freeing up Sullivan to tend to Alo.

Alo's infection became severe. We struggled to find enough healroot to treat it (I had neglected to assign a good healroot patch the prior spring), and in one instance, Alo shrugged off Sullivan's doctoring efforts to treat his illness himself. Of course, we had good medicine, which I refused to waste on a guy who might not even join us when he was recovered.

Alo's infection caught up with his immunity at 85%. Honestly, the poor guy seemed doomed. Had the infection been in his arm or leg, I would have merely amputated, but it was in his torso. It was a matter of letting the fates decide. At about 93%, the infection had overtaken the immunity. Hoping for a miracle, I had Sullivan scrounge up our last healroot for a final make or break treatment. It worked. Barely. Alo gained immunity with the infection at 97%.

Now it was time to recruit him.

More to come.

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#38
Stories / Re: Story Time With The Hat!!
November 02, 2018, 05:07:40 PM
Second Season: Jugust 5500

Our first mental break occurred early, as a low psychic drone prompted Sullivan to resort to a sad wander while she was working in the garden. We collected our very first rice harvest and finished digging out our three colonist rooms, one of which will double as storage in the short term while we try to find room to dig a storage basin amidst all the other building assignments.

Before the end of the season, we would finish digging out a small kitchen and a larger freezer. The freezer, incidentally, is huge and may even prove excessive for our current needs, but it was designed because Rimworld food requirements can change sharply as colonist populations explode, and because we were digging through shale, which is almost as soft as clay and thus quick and easy to mine.

Later in the month, a spacer named Mushinto crashed in our backyard, and I sent someone out to capture him for recruitment purposes. He was housed in one of the colonist rooms; Khan would have to sleep in a sleeping spot in the hall until we could dig for her another room.

On the 13th of the month, we had three traders visit from the Nation of Abeve and promptly get into a brawl at the entrance of our as-of-yet unfunctional freezer. Green smashed Brio in the chops with her bow out of rage from not having slept in a guest bed the night before. Their ally, Loumaxo, immediately got in on the action and brought her own bow down across Brio's shoulderblades. The two of them proceeded to curb stomp poor Brio, and then Green flattened Loumaxo as well before angrily stomping off the map.

It was noticed that Loumaxo was wearing a parka in spite of the warm weather. We stripped her of her clothes (also helping ourselves to Brio's 40 silver) and left the two of them lying in a puddle of their blood, vomit and excrement while we continued to dig into the mountain. At length, we finished digging a fourth room for Khan. Brio tried to steal the new bed for himself before Khan claimed it. But we are generous colonists, and Brio was allowed to take Khan's former sleeping spot while he shabbily patched up his own injuries.

Elida stitched up some decent parkas at our new tailor bench, and then concentrated her efforts on establishing a power grid for our freezer. Then late on the 15th, Brio, driven by a savage hunger, snapped and tried to strangle Khan in her bed. Khan defended herself, stabbing him in the hand with her knife. That took all the fight out of poor Brio, and he collapsed at the entrance to her room.

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#39
Stories / Story Time With The Hat!!
November 01, 2018, 11:02:51 PM
I am The Hat, and I play Rimworld. Rather than bore you to tears with the obligatory, "YAHYAHRIMWORLD IS DA BEST GAME EVAAAAA!!!!" rant, I will get straight to the point with my rather cool playthrough. I am currently starting my fourth year of squishing as many colonists as I can in an impenetrable mountain fortress. The storyteller is Randy Random. I start out with the peaceful setting (don't laugh), as the main point is to actually build a base, and for me, nothing ever seems to get done when the difficulty is set any higher. Although at the phase of the story I am currently at I have it set to base builder.

Let's begin:

First Season: Aprimay 5500

We will begin with three colonists. Norda Sullivan is a 36 year old female skilled in shooting, medicine and plants. Her traits are psychopath, sanguine, and hates dumb labor, which is part of a mod I'm using.

Brian "Khan" Furr, despite the name, is a woman. She's good with animals and intellectual, despite her age of 19, because one of her traits is "quantum aberration." Her other traits are careful shooter and creepy breathing. Her continuous wheezing will undoubtedly put off even the friendliest of colonists.

Elida Watts, an iron-willed undergrounder, she is good in shooting, construction and mining. Of the three, Elida will be the most crucial to the early growth of our colony.

So we land on a peculiar red planet. Our pet is this useless Iguana that I'd butcher straight out for food if it wouldn't upset Khan. Sullivan is tasked with making a garden. In her spare time, she cooks animals we kill on an open campfire. Between bouts of vomiting, Elida builds a mine for easy steel and then starts digging into the mountain. This will be our home. Because there are no other significant tasks, Khan busies herself by hauling to a short term stockpile zone.

Some early hijinks ensue when a group of hungry ferralisks (these six-legged spider things) take an interest in our packaged survival meals. We kill three of them. Elida is bitten, but Sullivan has access to good medicine. The toxic buildup from the creature's venom poses a concern, but she's expected to recover.

We spend the first few nights lying in sleeping bags near the fire. I prioritize the meals Sullivan is making over the packaged meals because the former spoils first. It turns out that no one likes bug meat. Also, Sullivan's cooking skill is a piddly 3.

The camp is attacked by a piddly squirrel. Khan easily stabs it to death. The only other interesting development of note is a chunk of obsidian that fell from the sky and landed on a poor turtle.

More to come.

 

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