Here's the first half of the story
The two teens both looked toward the front of the room. There was a gray sphere. Hovering in the doorway.
But if you asked Marc, it was an annoying gray sphere. And it hovered in the doorway like an absolute rustnut.
Marc wasn’t sure where on the sphere to level his disdain. The whole dumb surface was the same all over. It was a series of interconnected, translucent hexagons. Stupid yellow lights blinked sporadically across its many faces—for no apparent rhyme or reason—perhaps just to further annoy Marc.
An electronic voice called out from the sphere. “Did I hear muuuuuusic?” he asked. “Before that last plasma burst?”
Marc shot Sid a glare that could kill. But the big blue alien didn’t back down.
“Last impression. Remember?” he told Marc before going toward Tōn-E with a brimming, sharp-toothed smile and arms extended. “Tōn-E! Glad you could make it! Come on in.”
On the inside, Marc cringed. He mostly tried to forget that Tōn-E walked (hovered?) the same Levels as them. Tōn-E represented the most self-destructive habits of the Outpost. The only features of the city indifferent to survival.
But Tōn-E was all too real. He entered the room like a ghost in a nightmare.
“I am also happy to be here,” he said. The faces of his sphere randomly lit up as he spoke. “I otherwise had no plans for tonight. Because the planet is set to explode.”
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Sid joked.
“I approximate it will only take a few more—hold on. What is this??”
Tōn-E spun slowly in the air. The side previously facing Sid rotated toward the ceiling. When it reached the top, a spotlight shot toward the ceiling—right where Sid’s door had slotted in.
The spotlight stretched horizontally across the door until it resembled a straight line. This line swept back and forth across the raised door. It moved as if he was cleaning it.
“I don’t believe it!” Tōn-E said. “What an exquisite painting. A remarkable addition to your growing and ever-expanding portfolio, Sid.”
Tōn-E finished his scan of the painting. His expanding spotlight shut off. And he re-centered himself to face Sid.
“Aww, shanks,” Sid said. Each of his right arms latched onto the bends of the left ones. “You really think so?”
“Of course! There are colors here I’ve only seen named in the logs. You have tastefully incorporated /#FF00FF: a color our ancestors previously referred to as ‘magenta.’”
“Yes! That’s right! I was going for ‘magenta!’ You really think I did it?”
Marc looked down to hide his face. He rolled his eyes. Magenta. He would have loved to tell Sid how much he liked it too. But Marc had spent his years surviving, not studying colors in old, useless historical archives.
Sid and Tōn-E continued their snooty, pretentious discussion.
“I made it mixing legblee blood and just a liiiiiiittle bit of groundwater,” Sid said.
“That was a very clever! Allow me to save your painting to my internal memory.”
“Really??” Sid’s cheeks greened a little.
“Yes, I will review at a later time when I am both unable to view the original but would still like to once again be inspired by your clever and skillful hands.”
“Tōn-E, I—I don’t know what to say. Thank you.”
Marc simmered in his anger. Stupid Tōn-E. Always ruining things. Making them about him and his dumb, endless archives.
“I am perhaps only more impressed by your chosen ensemble! Do my eyes perceive veritable Lenorkian armor?”
The talkative orb whooshed toward Sid. It began revolving around him like an annoyingly-attached moon. As his exo-orb hummed excitedly, Tōn-E rattled off his useless knowledge of antiquated armor.
“Snorp-resistant spiked shoulder caps?!” He spun around Sid’s midsection. “Triple-layered chest plates?!” He dropped closer to the floor. “Anti-gravity shin guards made from the rare lenorkium alloy?!”
Tōn-E giggled as he orbited Sid. His laugh disturbed Marc. It sounded like a space rat being strangled in the bowels of an undersea air vent.
Sid could hardly keep up with Tōn-E’s flying. But he looked happy with the attention. “Yeah! I’m told this suit was built for the Frost Ring wars,” he said. “It never got used.”
Marc continued to not engage. He slunk deeper into his shawl, folded his arms, and sighed.
“I don’t believe it!” Tōn-E said.
He backed off from Sid, flying back toward the doorway. He turned on his spotlight once again. It now stretched over Sid’s body. “Saving! Saving!”
Sid wasted no time posing for the occasion. He flexed all four arms and gritted his snaggling teeth. His irises turned a deep red and his two small horns protruded from his forehead. Tōn-E was overjoyed. “I did not think I would ever have the chance to record your agitated state,” he said.
I’ll show you an agitated state, Marc thought to himself.
“I’ve got a relic you’re going to love,” Tōn-E said. His tiny sphere filled the cave with noise. But it wasn’t Tōn-E’s usual metallic voice. The sound came from another species entirely.
“GwwwwwwuuuhhhAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRR!”
His orb played an intense, ear-shuddering roar. The recording may have been slightly fuzzy, but Marc knew the source. It was unmistakably Lenorkian.
And like the gears in a drill, something appeared to “click” inside Sid. His eyes widened. His armored chest expanded. And he joined in. But Sid’s roar was… authentic.
“HRRRRRRRRRGAAAAAAAAHHHHH” he blasted out of mouth. Marc’s entire rib cage vibrated uncomfortably.
It spooked Marc. Igniting some primal desire to escape a dangerous predator. That was a feeling he never felt around Sid. He didn’t like it.
Sid himself even looked embarrassed for a second. Something he’d kept suppressed had slipped out. But Tōn-E turned up the volume on his recording. And with a cautious smile of someone nervously breaking a rule, Sid matched it. And then some. The two bellowed together. It was enough to make Marc queasy, although it was unclear whether it was due to the vibrations or Sid bonding so much with Tōn-E.
The roaring continued. Their talking continued. Tōn-E went on about Sid’s armor some more and his people’s valor and the hardship his ancestors must have faced.
“Usually I keep this stuff stashed away,” Sid said to Tōn-E in his soft normal voice. His horns had retracted, and his eyes had returned to normal. “These are shameful pieces of our history. Truly. And with a people I never really fit in with. But tonight, it just felt right to wear it, you know?”
“I understand completely,” Tōn-E said. “It is in these end times that we gravitate toward those traditions that were so much of what made us feel alive in the first place.”
The statement made Marc want to hurl. He didn’t want to entertain such stupid notions. But the gremlin rotated to him next.
“Hello Marc! Did you find any good junk today? Any new additions to your scrap pile?”
Marc seethed. “I didn't scavenge today, Tōn-E. There wouldn't be any use. It's the end of the universe.”
“That surprises me. Humans love their junk and doodads.”
“Yeah well, we don’t have to cling to the past, do we? Not like that ever saved anyone.” He hugged his wrapped arms even tighter, tilting his body away from Sid and Tōn-E. His cold shoulder ended the conversation.
Sid picked it back up. “So Tōn-E, do you, uh… drink?”
As it turned out, he did. Tōn-E accepted a cup of fludge. He held it with a robotic arm—one that had suddenly extended from his exo-orb. Tōn-E’s orb whirred as the center of his “face” sprouted a grotesque, needle-like proboscis. It poked outward like a long nose.
This straw extended into the cup he held. Tōn-E sipped the fludge like an insect sipping nectar (whatever those two things were; the Archives were spotty).
Sid waited with anticipation. Then Tōn-E’s sphere shuddered. The fludge must have reached the insufferable little creature on the inside. “Scrumptious!” he said.
Marc sighed quietly to himself. For some reason, he thought the night would have made a turn for the better if Tōn-E had hated it.
“Two for two!” Sid pumped three victorious fists into the air. He grinned as Tōn-E’s straw dipped into the cup once more. The straw made a little slurping sound.
“My taste buds are tingling!” Tōn-E said.
But the big cup was too much for him to finish. He returned the mostly-full drink to Sid. And his robotic straw receded to his exo-orb. Sid of course finished the cup, slurping up the remaining pool of fludge.
“So…” Sid said. He wiped his mouth. “Should I put some tunes back on?” He pointed over his shoulder to the idle vent. Then he looked across his two guests for an answer.
Marc shrugged. He didn’t care about anything anymore. Next to Marc, Tōn-E bobbed excitedly.
“Oh, yes!” he said. “One reads about concepts such as scales and measures, but it is entirely different to actually experience them with one’s own body!”
What body? Marc thought to himself. And what were the other things Tōn-E had mentioned? Something about… measuring… dragons?
He studied the cave floor while Sid skipped to the vent.
“That’s what I’m talking about!” Sid said. “Get those Level 7 legs ready!” He tugged at the creaking cover once more.
It came off easier this time. With a pop! the storm above returned to the cave. Its natural melody filled the room.
“Woooooooo!” Sid raised his hands again and walked back toward the other two.
Tōn-E mimicked him with two twig arms.
But the music didn’t have the same magic as before. The beats were stale. And Marc found himself unable to ignore the sting of the sand pelting his face. He lifted his shawl over his mouth. His voice was barely audible.
“I’m sitting this song out,” he said.
The other two didn't seem to hear him. They were facing each other, waving their arms sporadically against the air current.
Marc didn’t care. He grabbed his unfinished drink from the kitchen. Then he searched for a place to sit.
He found a couch, just in front of the dancing aliens. As he took his seat, his bottom started to sink into the sofa. The tarp covering the couch crinkled.
He tried guessing the material underneath it. Clay, maybe? He pondered the question while watching Sid and Tōn-E figure out dancing without him.
“This is how Marc was doing it before!” Sid said to Tōn-E. His four arms fanned across the breeze.
But he got everything wrong. His arms whipped around the wind, not with it. And he was thinking too much about his next move, as evidenced by his scrunched brows. But the greatest offense of all was his midsection: his hips and legs stayed in place—as if someone had threatened them.
A part of Marc wanted to get up and show him how it was done. But another part wanted to see Sid fail. Realize the effort was futile. Give up on bonding with Tōn-E. And kick the Sphere of Useless Facts out of his house.
“Am I doing it right, Marc?” Sid asked while each of his arms flew in a different direction.
“You look great!” Marc replied. He took a long sip of fludge.
Tōn-E, on the other hand, did his best to replicate Sid. He waved his skinny arms erratically. It almost made Marc laugh; Tōn-E looked like he’d been set on fire.
But in all, the whole thing was awful. A bad impression giving birth to an even worse impression.
And they didn’t seem to be enjoying it much either. Despite Marc’s glowing endorsement, Sid and Tōn-E danced themselves to the brink.
Sid kept losing his balance. He tried to keep up with the music but flung himself too hard in any one direction. And every time he made a misstep, he’d let loose an acidic snarl. Tōn-E grew frustrated as well. Every few seconds, he simply froze. His exterior lights would blink red in error. As Marc had hoped, the two “painting pals” quickly ran out of steam.
The dancing halted altogether. A tired Sid returned to the vent and hoisted the grate back onto the vent’s mouth. The music stopped.
“I’ll just turn it down for a minute,” he said. He adjusted a dial on the grate. The metal slits creaked open. And a muted sandstorm flowed through them.
The music reflected the overall energy in the room: depleted. Sid secured himself two more cups of fludge before joining Marc on the tarp couch.
Tōn-E followed his lead. The little troll took a seat too, which meant hovering over the last open spot on the other side of Marc.
The boys took a minute to relax on the couch. They sat quietly while the plasma storm above the Outpost boomed and cracked.
Well, Sid and Tōn-E relaxed. They chugged down another couple cups of fludge and floated quietly over the couch (respectively). Meanwhile, Marc continued to be annoyed. He considered stepping outside and climbing to Level 1. Offer himself to the plasma storm a few hours early. The non-stop hum of Tōn-E’s exo-orb goaded him further.
Brrrrrrrrr!
Did it really have to make that noise?
Marc didn’t think the afternoon could get any worse. And then it did. Because Tōn-E’s insufferable humming suddenly quieted. And that only could have meant…
“Oh!” Tōn-E exclaimed, “I know what we can talk about!”
Marc braced for impact. His nails dug into his knees.
Don’t you dare, he thought.
“I read the most interesting fact about cats today!” Tōn-E started.
Not again, Marc thought. Absolutely NOT again. His fists trembled with rage.
“Did you know cats were the central deity across ten different ancient civilizations? The trend started with humans, of course, but the religion quickly spread across the galaxy as interplanetary travel became more widely available.”
“I actually didn’t know that,” Sid said, entertaining Tōn-E’s ridiculous theory. “Where did you find that?”
“The Archives! They have somewhat documented this phenomenon. You see, it was a common practice to capture footage of cats, even in their sleeping state. They were so important to these cultures that even the most mundane moment yielded significant reason to capture and worship them. If you want to see, I can—”
Marc had had enough. He slammed his cup down on the floor and flew off the couch.
“—SHUT UP. SHUT UP ABOUT CATS!” he shouted. He swung back around to face the other two. “CATS AREN’T REAL TŌN-E! AND THEY WERE NEVER REAL!”
“That’s enough, Marc!” Sid clenched his teeth.“Don’t start this.”
Marc returned fire, “I didn’t start anything; that was YOU. Going behind my back! Inviting more of these… fairy tales!”
His emotions overwhelmed him. He didn’t know whether to yell more or start crying. He did both.
“It’s the end of the universe!” he said as tears streamed down his face. “We can’t keep clinging to the things that brought us to this point in the first place! All these stupid traditions are the reason no one’s even here with us now! IT KILLED THEM ALL! And anyone stupid enough to keep believing in them is—"
“—I said THAT’S ENOUGH!” Sid growled. Marc didn't care.
“NO!” he said. Then he looked back at Tōn-E. “NONE of what you’re seeing in the Archives is real! The data is corrupt! It’s ALL CORRUPT! And CATS are just another dumb fairy tale to keep people like you going, while…”
He ran out of steam. He realized there was no more “going.” In fact, there was no time remaining in the universe for anything. But that didn’t diminish his animosity and anger toward the world. He glared down at the gray sphere. His chest heaved.
Meanwhile, Sid kept a cooler, bluer head. He too looked to Tōn-E, but with compassion in his eyes.
Tōn-E didn’t immediately respond to either. The only sound in the room came from his exo-orb. Well, the exo-orb plus the ladle on the counter, which suddenly blooped into the big pot.
All eyes were on the atypically quiet alien, whose hexagonal faces began to light up.
“I suppose,” his voice trailed, “that cats may not have been real after all. You said it yourself: records are foggy. They’re all from thousands of years ago...” He sighed. Tōn-E’s lights transitioned to a new blinking pattern. “And I also suppose… that I should have been more mature about interpreting error-prone information in the Archives…”
“It's okay, man,” Sid said. “I like that you dream big.” He reached across the couch to place a comforting hand on Tōn-E. But Tōn-E floated out of reach.
“I understand my presence here is probably upsetting,” he said. “You two have a special bond. I should not have interfered with it in its last moments. I will go.”
“No, Tōn-E,” Sid said. Each pair of his hands met in front of his chest “Please stay. You have every right to be here too.”
“I should go,” Tōn-E said. “I will spend the rest of the evening focused on real things. And because I will no longer be here, I suppose it will be the perfect opportunity to review Sid’s art so I can feel inspired for the end times.”
He slipped between Sid and Marc toward the doorway.
“No, don’t!” Sid called after him. “We should do this together.”
But Tōn-E had already vanished outside.
The Lenorkian, hand extended, waited for Tōn-E to come back. But the floating sphere did not reappear in the doorway.
And that was when a low trill emanated from the couch. It was coming from Sid’s his chest. He looked up at Marc, glaring. He bared his pointed teeth. His horns reappeared. And his eyes flushed with scarlet pigment.
Yuh-oh, Marc thought. About half his prior anger evaporated. Fear of a fight took hold.
Marc didn’t exactly dislike his chances. Lenorkians may have been stronger, but Sid wasn't a fighter. Marc was.
But Sid stuck to his morals.
“GET OUT!” Sid shouted.
Marc reflexively jumped out of reach. The short hop sort of ruined his show of anger. But he was still boiling mad. After all, fifty percent of him hadn't abandoned the cat grudge.
“Fine!” he shouted back. “Have fun exploding alone.” He whipped away to the exit.
The party was finished now. He almost stopped and went back for his fludge. But he didn’t want it anymore either. He just wanted a nice end of the universe with his friend. And now the end of the universe was ruined.
At least the apocalypse outside was behaving predictably. Marc stepped into the adjacent cave corridor. He surveyed the damage outside, looking through the long, horizontal gap in the cave wall. As the experts had predicted, the plasma storm took its toll.
The canyon glowed eerily bright, despite it being evening time. The wind howled as it raced through the canyon. And the cliffs around the gorge flashed white and pink as the storm charged with electricity, preparing to make its final jump.
Lightning cracked toward the ground. Some of the bolts hit the opposing cliff, sending rubble deep into the gorge. A gentle tremor rumbled in the ground beneath him.
The plasma storm overhead only creeped further around the planet. As the canyon brightened, shockwaves coursed through the entire city. They threw Marc off his feet again. He hit the ground.
Behind him, thunderous clacking erupted. The sound of falling rocks filled the corridor. He flipped over to see what explosion had thrown him.
It was bad. He stopped breathing. Because he could no longer see Sid’s home. All he saw was a pile of rubble.

voice actors:
Bryce Dallas Howard for Zelda and Hilda
Chris Pratt for Link(Link gets to talk here)
Clancy Brown for Ganon
Seth Rogen for Daruk
Owen Wilson for Revali
Anya Taylor-Joy for Mipha
Taylor Swift for Urbosa and Twinrova
Jack Black for Zant
Justin Bieber for Gleeok
Eddie Murphie for Dodongo
Mike Myers for the Great Deku Tree
Tara Strong for Navi and Midna
Justin Timberlake for Valuu and Byrne
Keegan-Michael Key for Gohma
Ben Schwartz for Vaati
Donna J. Fulks for Impa
Jim Carrey for Master Kohga
Gregg Burger for Demise
April Stewart for Hylia
John Leguizamo for Ghirahim
Will Smith for the Helmaroc King
and Brad Garret for the King of Hyrule
​
is this a cool idea?

Just watched it I did enjoy the previous ones but this one was just boring.
John is like a guy using cheats on a video game, nothing can stop him and there are no rules (for him at least), the suit he uses is just plain stupid the way he uses the jacket to cover is face I get it's Kevlar but puts super man to shame. Is just invencible and that ruins it for me after all he is HUMAN.
The plot is dumb, it's more than 2 hours of fireworks to end in the most boring way possible surrounded by enemies that make stormtroopers look like sharpshooters.

< Previous Episode First Episode
Based on the fourth round of the elimination contest by u/Ok_Dragonfruit_9612
Spoiler tag only for basic character spoilers
Chris: Last time on Total Drama Triple D. Before the morning even started Topher was put out of commission for the day. Too bad, because he missed the epic callback challenge! Teams chose members to do the classic thousand-foot cliff jump into shark infested waters! Some succeeded, some failed and some were just plain old chickens. But don't count your chickens before they hatch, as in the second half of the challenge Cameron helped her team build a proper boat and Lightning paddled the Lions to their first victory. While Sierra straight up threw DJ into the water! Bro, seriously couldn't swim, whatta ya know? In the end The Octopi came in last and voted Sierra out of the competition. Can the Lions keep the wins aloft and will the Narwhals continue to sail on by in this competition. Find out right now on Total Drama Triple D of Danganronpa: Despair Disaster!
[Cut to the boys cabin. Korekiyo sitting on the floor quietly chanting]
Makoto: Hmph…huh?
Korekiyo: Good morning, Mr. Naegi
Makoto: What time is it? Where's Mondo?
Keebo: It's 7:30 in the morning and he left around 6:15.
Shuichi: You've been awake since then, Keebo?
Keebo: No, I was still in sleep mode, but my eyes still record everything and stores it in my memory banks.
Ryoma: So, you are always recording everything that's happened?
Kokichi: Ew, never took you to be a voyeur key-boy, nee hee hee.
Keebo: T-that's not it at all!
Makoto: I'm gonna go look for Mondo-oof oh, sorry Mikan.
Mikan: No, I'm sorry for being in your way please forgive me.
Shuichi: What's up, Mikan?
Mikan: I'm just letting members of your team know that Taka is feeling better. He should be ready to join you all later this morning.
Makoto: Ah, that's great. Thanks for the update, Mikan.
Mikan: If you'd like, you can talk with him, but you'll have to wait until Mondo is done.
Shuichi: Huh, Mondo went to visit Taka?
Kokichi: Hey, no fair. He's part of our team, not yours, Shuichi!
Shuichi: I didn't tell him to go there.
Makoto: Maybe I'll go see how he's doing.
Nagito: Mind if I come along? I must make it up to Taka for causing him so much pain.
Makoto: Sure, I guess it'd be okay.
[Cut to Nagito and Makoto walking to the infirmary tent]
Nagito: I must say we really struggled without him. To think without our Moral Compass, we crumbled as a team.
Makoto: Well, I wouldn't say it was all because we didn't have Taka, but hopefully we can bounce back from this loss.
Nagito: Ah yes, we really do just need to have hope.
Makoto: Right…oh there's Sayaka! Good morning!
Sayaka: Oh yes, good morning, Makoto, Nagito.
Makoto: Is everything okay? You don't seem like yourself this morning.
Nagito: Maybe it is due to the harrowing close loss of yesterday. But cheer up for today is a new day!
Sayaka: Thanks Nagito…I guess. But actually, it's more about Himiko.
Makoto: What's wrong with Himiko?
Sayaka: Well last night she slept on the other side of the girl's cabin. Maybe it was just so she didn't have to sleep with Junko but this morning she's just been really quiet. Even more than usual.
Makoto: Really? What do you think is going on?
Sayaka: If I had to guess, she's probably missing Tenko. I think they were good friends so seeing her leave already is getting to her.
Nagito: Really, this is all about Tenko, huh? Such a shame to see Himiko be hurt by our decision, but it was a decision that had to be made, nonetheless.
Sayaka: If you say so. I dread us coming in last. I worry that my team doesn't see me as a valuable teammate and will vote me off like Tenko.
Makoto: Well, uh, that's not exactly why we voted off Tenko, but don't be thinking like that, Sayaka. You're super talented and they should be proud to have you on your team.
Nagito: Better than having the talent of luck. Much good that did for us last challenge.
Makoto: Yeah…at least here we're not really judged on talent so much.
Sayaka: [giggle] You're right, thank you guys for the confidence boost. I guess Taka's really rubbing off on you, Makoto. By the way have you heard anything about him?
Makoto: Oh, right Mikan said he's feeling better and we're actually on our way to go see him.
Sayaka: Well, then I won't keep you guys. See you later then and tell Taka I'm glad he's feeling better.
Nagito: But you're not on our team. Wouldn't it be beneficial to you if we're down another member?
Sayaka: Ugh, I never liked all this inter-team drama. It's bad enough we have inner team drama with Miu and Fuyuhiko, and now Junko's upset with Himiko. Plus, he's still part of our class, right? Anyway, I've said enough. See you later, boys. [She runs off towards the dining cabin]
Makoto: Bye, Sayaka. [to Nagito] It's strange I never thought about everyone feeling they may not be beneficial to their team. I mean they are Ultimates but I guess talent doesn't matter too much in this competition.
Nagito: But being Ultimates means they'll always have the hope to succeed in any challenge they are faced with. Not like us useless Ultimates with nothing talents. No wonder we lost the last competition.
Makoto: Well, I hope Taka can motivate the team again. Speaking of which, we're here.
Nagito: Interesting, it sounds like he's still not alone in there.
Makoto: Hey, you're right! Is that Mondo?
Mondo: …and then Nekomaru paddled everyone back to shore himself. Bro, it was incredible. To think the big guy finally came through with his wanton speed.
Taka: Sounds absolutely amazing! I really hate that I missed out on such a worthwhile competition.
Makoto: Yeah, we really could've used you.
Mondo: O-oh, hey Makoto, Nagito, what are you doing here?
Nagito: We should ask you the same question. What's a guy from the other team doing talking to our teammate? Trying to weigh in the on competition I see. Figures you'd resort to such underhanded tactics.
Mondo: What'd you say? You think that's how it is?!
Taka: Hold on bro, I'll take care of this. Actually Nagito, Makoto, Mondo here was just recounting everything I missed yesterday. And I appreciate it. Nice to wake up to a bro who's got your back even if we are on different teams.
Nagito: Oh, then my bad for jumping to conclusions. I just came to apologize for causing you harm. Although, it's to be expected when you're around me.
Taka: Apology accepted, Nagito!
Makoto: But Mondo, have you really been here since around 6:15 when Keebo saw you leave the cabin.
Mondo: Well, yeah, I-uh care about the well-being of my classmates is all. Even if we are in a competition. I don't wanna see them get weak, y'know.
Taka: Well put, bro. Plus you've proven to me that even team boundaries shouldn't matter when it comes to supporting each other. This may be a competition, but we're friends first and foremost!
Nagito: Yes, I love it. The kind of inspiration we need from the Ultimate Moral Compass. I can feel the hope in succeeding in this competition rejuvenating us as we speak.
Makoto:.........
Taka:........All right then.
Mondo: Hey, he's your teammate.
[The three laugh as the camera pans to Junko eavesdropping outside]
[Confessional]
Junko: [cutesy] Oh, the hope returns to our team and makes us just the best of friends! [normal] Hgggck! Give me a break! Still there is too much comrade going on. Time for a little sibling talk, like old times.
[End]
[Cut to the girl's cabin]
Sonia: Don't be too late for breakfast, okay Mukuro!
Mukuro: Don't worry, I'm just going to take a quick look around the camp. It won't take long. [Leaves through the door]
Junko: Hey ya, ugly!
Mukuro: Agh, u-uh yes, good morning to you too, sister.
Junko: Hey, no need to be so formal. We're not carrying out anything now, so feel free to take it easy. Call me Junko or Heather if you want. I'm still going to call you ugly though.
Mukuro: Yes, of course Junko.
Junko: So, how are you getting along with your team, huh? Probably the best of friends, right?
Mukuro: Well, we haven't lost a challenge since the first but…
Junko: But you've never won, like my team! So, you wanna be useful to your team then?
Mukuro: I do but everything I do never helps us win, just well, not get last.
Junko: That's because you're playing it too safe, stupid. You gotta play dirty to get ahead, like moi! Just don't get caught, okay. I can't bail your sorry butt out when we're not on the same team.
Mukuro: Play dirty? But how should I do that?
Junko: Hey, you're mildly smart. I bet you could figure it out yourself. Just focus on sabotaging a team to make sure you're not last. Simple as that really
Mukuro: I see….
Junko: Well, that's all I wanted to say. Gotta meet with my amazing team for breakfast now. Bye ya, Mukie! [Walks passed to leave but stops to solemnly say] Don't disappoint me, again.
[Mukuro stands there for a bit after Junko leaves]
Aoi: Oh, Mukuro you're still here?
Mukuro: Huh? What?
Sonia: I thought you were going to take a walk.
Mukuro: Oh yes, I-it was just a quick walk. I'm already back.
Hiyoko: Well then, enough yapping. I'm hungry and we've wasted enough time as it is. Kyoko and Peko are probably already eating by now.
Sonia: Yes, let's do the dipping. Right, girls!
Aoi: [chuckle] Sure thing, Sonia.
Mukuro: Hmhm, yes of course.
[Confessional]
Mukuro: Junko's right, I have been feeling worthless, but still, I can't say my team's completely against me, right? A little sabotage shouldn't hurt anything…
[End]
[Cut to the dining cabin]
Junko: So, my wonderful team, how's everyone doing?
Mikan: Uh um, fine, I guess?
Rantaro: We're kinda down two teammates right now.
Sayaka: I don't think Himiko is going to join us right now. She's still lying in cabin.
Toko: Okay then where is Fake Master?
Tsumugi: [chuckle]
Fuyuhiko: You mean the Byakuya from our class. No clue, the guy just up and left early this morning. Not a word from him but he's been quiet anyway.
Tsumugi: [giggle]
Miu: Alright, four-eyes what's got you so giddy.
Tsumugi: Hmhm, wait for it…
Gonta: Wait for what?
[The dining room door swings open and inside walks Imposter. He is no longer wearing his white suit, but instead has on a red sweatshirt, jean shorts, a black jacket, and a red baseball cap turned backwards.]
Mikan: What the…Byakuya?
[Imposter puts his hand up and then holds them out close together]
Mikan: No sorry… less, right? So just B then?
[Imposter gives a thumbs up]
Tsumugi: What do you think! B asked me to make him this outfit last night. I think it suits his new personality quite well.
Byakuya: Hold it right there. [He gets up from the Rhinos table] I see, so this is your new gimmick, huh? [Studies Imposter] Well, better than thinking you could possibly be me.
Toko: So true, no one could ever replace Master.
Chris: Good morning, campers! I hope you're all rested and ready for today's challenge. Hmm, it seems most of the teams are missing some people.
Akane: Did Nagito hurt Taka and Makoto this time?
Kaede: Akane!
Taka: Don't worry Octopi, I have arrived with the others ready and raring to start a new day!
Kaede: Taka! Thank goodness you're feeling better.
Ibuki: We absolutely missed you! Topher's team was totally falling apart with you.
Keebo: Well, I wouldn't say that, but we were a little unstable without your guidance.
Chris: That's great for you guys, but enough with the reunion, I'm trying to get this show going. Topher, Cody, Harold and Brick take your seats. So that only leaves…Narwhals where's Staci?
Sayaka: She's...uh, not feeling well. I mean she's not sick, but I don't think she's up to being with us today.
Chris: Like I care about your personal feelings and neither do the viewing audience. Chef, go bring Staci her-
Himiko: Don't bother…Nyeh, I'm here now.
Chris: Great! Now we can finally get this challenge started. I feel like we've wasted nine minutes on pointless stuff.
Tsumugi: Himiko, are you alright?
Himiko: I'm fine, okay. I was just…. Nyeh, getting hungry that's all. Guess I was needed here anyway.
Chris: Indeed, because we're about to begin the next challenge. It's another Flashback Challenge: The Talent Competition!
Nagito: Oh my, a Talent Competition, with the most talented people in the world. How exhilarating.
Chris: Exactly. I've been watching you all and noticed you're pretty much freaks of nature when it comes to talent, so I thought it'd fit this group the best. However originally this competition just had teams pick three members to perform individually. This time you have to pick at least three members to perform together! Use your freaky talents to make one big display which Chef and I will grade not just on the impressiveness of the talent but also the cohesiveness of the members performing. So, get to choosing your performers. The competition will start in three hours.
Korekiyo: A question, Chris. You said at least three of us must perform but could there be more?
Chris: Sure, if more of you want to embarrass yourselves go for it. Let's just say no more than five to not crowd up the stage. Now hurry, times a wastin!
[Team Raging Rhinos]
Sonia: Alright team, let's first decide who's going to be performing.
Hiyoko: I could do a dance if the rest of you want to perform around that.
Kyoko: Ideally, it'd be one of us who has a more concrete and flashy talent. So unfortunately, I would be no help as a detective here.
Byakuya: I wouldn't want to help even if I could. Performing is for the peasants who can't get ahead in life.
Sonia: While I don't share the same sentiments as Byakuya, I don't believe being an Ultimate Princess is going to be too flashy of a talent here either.
Kazuichi: I could definitely build something to go along with someone else's performance.
Sonia: Oh, how about Gundham putting on a show with his Dark Devas.
Gundham: Speak not, Dark Lady, for the Devas do not trifle with the mediocrity of carefree showmanship.
Yasuhiro: Come on man, just have them do flips around Hiyoko while she's dancing or something.
Hiyoko: Ew gross! I don't want those filthy hamsters anywhere near me when I dance.
Gundham: You dare insult the cleanliness of my Devas! I'll have you know they not only know how to clean themselves of filth from this dimension but several beyond as well!
Leon: Dude chill, no one's insinuating anything about your hamsters.
Aoi: I doubt we could get a swimming pool on that stage.
Sonia: No, probably not. Peko, Mukuro, do you have any thoughts?
Peko: Well, my skills with a sword could be considered performative, but I'm not sure how well it'll fit with Hiyoko's dancing.
Mukuro: I don't suppose we have any guns or knives around. Those are really the only thing I'm good with.
Yasuhiro: Well, I'm not sure about guns, but there's probably some knives in the kitchen.
Hiyoko: Knives, with my dancing?! How's the even going to work dumb[bleep].
Yasuhiro: H-hey, I'm just trying to help. No need to get so hostile.
Kazuichi: I bet we could think of some way to tie it all together.
Byakuya: I'd say it's worth a shot. Let both of the weakest links fail together.
[Confessional]
Byakuya: I'm not truly sure who's the weakest link in our team. The annoying dancer was definitely it at first, but recently the soldier girl hasn't been very useful in challenges, always falling short. No better way to weed them out then put their talents against each other, I'd theorize. And if we lose, it'll be obvious who to vote out.
[End]
To be continued

My version of what should of happened
Camera zooms down to the city and we see Barry’s blur jump across a taxi and save someone (reference to season 1 intro) and runs back 2 star labs Barry senses a timeline fracture and the camera pans to his suit and transitions to the red lightning in the negative speed force reverse flash is the first person to be teleported there zoom follows after and sees thawne thinking he’s harry and lunges at him thawne puts him in his place Godspeed follows after and makes a speech about being the god of speed and demanding who sent him here savitar comes in and says “I am the god of speed your nothing thank a bootleg copy weaker small and dumber” savitar exits the suit and zoom makes a speech about Barry finally becoming the villain Eddie shouts and says “to take down flash you will need a speed boost and we need to take down his team so let’s kill 2 birds with 1 stone” instantly he sends Nora jay impulse and kid flash to the negative speed force and drains their speed sending it into them Iris goes into labour and barry and team flash go to the hospital while she’s giving birth Eddie comes and takes Barry the rest of the team follow after barry kione mark cecile and Allegra all line up Eddie opens up a singularity breach and the speedsters come through thawne says “congratulations Barry I’ll be sure to send a gift to iris” zoom says “so you finally got the girl’ savitar says “I can finish what I started and kill your wife and your baby at the same time” Barry eyes light up with lightning telling his team to do plan xlr8 Barry chases after cobalt and the rest of the team follow after the rest zoom gets trapped by the ccpd and turns to kione and mark saying just like how you can’t lock up the darkness you can’t escape it either his eyes turn dark he puts on his mask and throws a lightning bolt at mark kione jumps in the way just like he plans and stabs her in the leg and knocks marks head against the wall and slaughter the ccpd and puts them in the star lab pipeline the camera shift to Godspeed who says cecile is nothing against him and he knocks her out and puts a micro chip of meta powers blockers (the one we see in the filler episode of season 9) and puts her in the star lab pipeline savitar sweeps past fasttrack and drags her across every country every state and hitting her with thousands of blows to the back chest and stomach damaging arteries bones and sockets (will take 45 hours to heal) he says “I will do to you what I could not do to team flash” and stabs her in the chest locking her in the prison thawne was intrapped in on the island thawne goes in the time vault and tells Gideon “overide sequence delta 708 code man in yellow” the building has a locked down sequence activating in 5 minutes no comms no way in quickly he goes to the main room and sees Chester he says “I liked Cisco better” and crushes his heart Allegra comes in and tries to hit thawne he dodges and leaves her to suffer in the pipeline and leaves the building Barry is in the middle of fighting cobalt and says “why are you doing this” and Eddie says “you stole my life and my wife I should have been married that should be my kid right now not yours” Barry hears a lightning swoosh behind him he looks back and sees all the villains undefeated Savitars music begins to play as they begin to battle godspeed splits himself into many clones and zoom puts his mask on saying the words run Barry run thawne hacks into Barry’s comms through the remote Gideon Barry send a lesion of time remnants to battle Godspeed clones And runs thinking of a plan right as he starts running thawne goes in his comms and says his feel the lightning speech (nod to season 1) Barry gets distracted and that’s when zoom grabs him and starts beating him up with the help of savitar he then gets stabbed in the hip and zoom hits him with blows to the face his face is swollen and he feels weak he turns invisible and starts to attack savitar and zoom he knew there was only one thing to help him win he calls fastrack labs and tells them to unleash project savitar the suit runs to him and he enters it he says now time to even the odds with the tachyon device in the suit he has enough speed to burly outrun them they chase him down the flash clones beat Godspeed and his clones and they return to barry getting absorbed back into him with one down he has 3 left unknown with the whereabouts of cobalt blue he battle’s savitar and he attacks his suit savitar pins him down and opens his suit he then sees it empty and Barry vibrates into his suit and and pushes him out he says really I used the same trick twice and you still fell for it And knocks him out 2 left with zoom he uses his tornado arm ability and zoom goes into a building and he a chase happens with hand to hand combat (no abilities used) zoom loses and begins talking about iris and how he’s going to slaughter her last one left is thawne and he is at the hospital holding a toy saying how he can’t wait to meet the baby they begin to run across the city so fast they hit a time breach and and Barry attempts to hit thawne with lightning he dodged and it goes in the time breach (hits his season 1 self) he chases him down and finally they have a vicious fight trading blows it being an equal fight thawne tells Barry about what he done to Chester out of know where he gets hit by a breach he turns around and sees mecha vibe and cisco says what did you do to my boy he then Barry and cisco team up and beat thawne cisco and Barry hug while Cisco watches the villains Barry goes into the negative speed force and fights Eddie they fight and it ends with Barry dragging the crystal out of eddies chest and crushes it which destroys the negative speed force and uncorrupts Eddie Barry grabs him Wally Nora jay and Bart and takes them out the negative speed force Barry uses Gideon to break the delta code to get back into star labs he takes his friends out the pipeline and he takes the villains speed boost puts them in the pipeline and gives the speedsters their powers back they all mourn Chester’s death and go to the hospital they are all there and watch iris birth nora it ends with kione turning into a pure force of nature giving Caitlin her body back and frost is back In her head Allegra moves away because of the death of Chester and Cecile moves back in with joe at the country side mark leaves and tries to find a home and the original trio our back together

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[Rant]
​
The posting ‘editor’ on Meta is absolutely awful and I, for the life of me, can not fathom how or why Mark Zuck has let the ball drop so hardcore and to this degree.
​
I handle social media marketing for several clients and the postings simply are not responsive between Facebook and Instagram and it’s mind boggling.
Zuck has purchased IG and WhatsApp, then spent the better part of 5 years throwing money into VR and the result has been Facebook completely dieing and organic marketing becoming nonexistent. No longer are ads optimized for smaller or localized business and the sizing for different posts is insane.
Using canva I created a:
— IG Story to be posted on both IG and FB. According to the size perimeters it should be equal and look fine. NOPE! On IG mobile and desktop the post looks fine. On mobile FB, the story looks fine. On Facebook Desktop it looks BLURRY AS FUCK and completely unprofessional. [also the 15 sec limit per slide is utter bullshit for business, especially considering reels has a 60 second cap. as a business or user in general, a ‘story’ should not have to be edited down to 15 second slides. Its dumb and clunky.
— FB/IG video post — 😤 welp. if/when I use meta suite, the “video” on Facebook is a 50/50 chance that the formatting is off, showing a profile video in a landscape box. And when I post on IG, IG now converts all video post into reels, so the bet thing to do is create a reel video in canvas right? No. Wrong! because REELS on IG do not automatically format properly when shown on the profile grid. Meaning, once upon a time, you would attempt to have proper structure and a ‘look’ for your profile grid, but now heads are chopped off and logos are not being shown. And the editor within Meta effing sucks. Slow loading, can’t properly preview postings, can’t upload or use the same music if used on mobile, etc. It’s FRUSTRATING
— and the ADS! The sizing and edit options for ADs is a whole other topic and discussion. But to some it up its shit. Also I’m sick and tired of all their ‘updates’ that are ‘designed to be useful’ when they are not useful at all. The new ‘omni ad maker’ for sales only lets you market to whole countries, not cities or states 🤬 So if I’m having an event in Washington, I would have to use my ad spend to show ads to all of the US. That’s dumb and doesn’t help me or my client.
Also, the ads no longer ‘work’ unless you are spending 1k on ad spend. I have clients with a 1k ad spend budget and clients with a $200 ad spend budget, and guess what? My client who spend $200 and has pixels and blah blah, does not get his ADs optimized in 7 days, and they are just taking his money. And don’t get me started on them changing the words/copy of the AD 🤬🤬🤬. Whether selling Botox or magic cleaner, the AD needs to be informative, not edited down to display 1 sentence then “click for more”.
​
100% FRUSTRATED that Meta has gone to shit, Facebook simply is a joke, and Instagram (desktop) isn’t supplied with proper EDITING TOOLS. (you are only allowed to login 4 accounts to one mobile device, so using mobile to schedule daily posts isn’t ideal. And you should be able to edit the cover of a video post after it’s been posted! My IG Profile Grids look so unorganized and un professional, and the fact that I have been deleting posts 2 minutes after viewing them on the selected platforms is just idiotic.) Also, the lack of optimization for small/local businesses is shitty. Show my ads to the right people please, not some randos in a different STATE, that you want calling me on WhatsApp 😤
​
Rant Over.
Zuck needs to fix his shit.
Edit to say: I just want to know what this guys game plan is. Is he no longer trying to help local businesses or sellers? Or trying to actually be innovative? All the ad updates are completely over complicated and does not produce results. And the various sizes between platforms is simply ridiculous. Is it that hard to make posts “responsive” in there own editor??! I’m convinced the only marketers turning a profit from meta are the annoying YouTube gurus attempting tutorials 😒

I've been dealing with feelings of jealousy about preferential treatment towards my younger sister for a long time and I want to vent.
I was born soon after my parents married- both fresh MBBS doctors, they hadn't done their PG yet. They trained in the US- they sent me back to grow up with my maternal grandparents when I was 4. Though they didn't have much money they sent me American toys every 6 months or so (a lot of which my grandma would lock away) but otherwise I wasn't very connected with my parents. My grandma had a foul mouth and a nasty temper- I was physically and emotionally abused a lot. She'd constantly compare me with my fairer skinned cousin next doors who had better handwriting and was a stronger singer too. She'd tell me my art was talentless trash and curse and beat me while supervising piano and other activities she deemed more worthy. There was a prized male servant who sexually abused me there too ages 6 to 9. From a bubbly kid I became sad and fragile- nobody really noticed or questioned why. My dad would visit every year or so and push me to new impossible standards to acheive- he'd berate me for being dark and chubby, not smart enough, not athletic enough, etc. Mom came back when I was 10, pregnant with my sister. We lived with my dad's family where my mom was treated poorly, more like a maid. Dad came back when I was 13, never confronted his family on mom's behalf though. We moved to the maternal grandparents house again and at 14 my old abuse story came out and the grandparents said I was lying rather than to have to lose that guy. There were other clashes too so we moved out to a tiny rented home. Mom had breast cancer the next year at just age 36 and went away for treatment. That's when I started putting in effort in my studies and became a topper going on to do MBBS and MD by merit in a top college (Yaay me!). I have a lot of childhood trauma (a lot more in college and beyond too) and have had very very low self esteem but I managed to reach here.
I don't know if my parents were ready to have me back then- or if my very existence makes them feel guilty about the ways my childhood got messed up but they'd tell me, the sensitive teenager that I'm not "strong" like them and I have all my bad traits are coz I grew up in "THAT house". My dad is a narcissist and my mom is a passive enabler. I only started standing up to them when I was 28.
The younger one came along when i turned 10. Dad was back in 3 years and I was off to college when she turned 6. Our lives didn't overlap much. She grew up in better circumstances- parents were doing well and they bought her A LOT of gadgets (a good digital camera, a Nintendo Wii, not one but TWO Nintendo DSes). Parents were always tight lipped about money so I always thought we didn't have enough and I didn't have enough self esteem to ask for stuff even when she got hers (shouldn't they have just matched purchases themselves?). I'd ask her to share but she didn't like to, was quite sadistic - my parents would mock me saying "have some self respect! Don't grovel! She's younger too" (don't most elders teach us to share?!). She had chaperones ensured everywhere she went (because of my old abuse). She was allowed to say the RUDEST things and get away with them. She grew up very shielded, entitled and sadly vain and shallow. She's fairer, thinner and taller so dad would tell her- your sister has the brains, you have looks, we'll marry you off if you don't study well and get into college (she called me crying that day- why pit us against each other with indirect insults and comparison?!). Princess chose a very expensive private college, got distracted by romance, sports, culturals and everything else and flunked 1st year. It was very stressful for us all- she didn't care. She's had panic attacks since school days so my parents were careful to get her therapy to cope (they have been mocking me for going recently). Mom immediately dropped everything to go be with her for a few weeks (she's done this for her a few times, never for me- heck I needed spine surgery 3 years ago and my parents were delaying showing up coz they prioritized their hospital inspection). With half ass efforts she barely passed a year later and is in 2nd year now. She is cold and manipulative and has my parents wrapped around her little finger.
I'm a very straightforward person who ends up butting heads with my parents more because I'm not as traditional as them. They call me immoral, the black sheep, tell me that I have multiple demons in me. I have yearned for their acceptance for YEARS and have just started giving up. It all seems unfair to me. My sister is getting even nastier with age and keeps trying to widen the gap between the parents and I. She tries to manipulate me into standing up for her when it suits her. I've stopped trusting and started to gray rock her. How did she turn out so awful? I recently asked my dad why I always got the short end of the stick- he robotically said "each child will be provided for as per their needs". No further explanations. He also told me that my sister is the most important relationship I'll ever have in life and so to stay cordial (like he spinelessly stays nice to his brother that treated us like shit- and my mom too to her selfish sisters and parents).
Maybe being around me is hard for them? Especially mom (very religious vs atheist me)? She was due to visit this month but is now humming and hawing. They are currently busy indexing old question papers in my sisters text books (the heck?! They NEVER put in this much effort for me- Dad never taught me physics but called me dumb for not being good at it but actually bought books and sat and taught her.. and they've been working like some sweatshop over question papers the last few days.) Sis video called to show me that on some other dumb pretense- she likes rubbing my nose in it. She flippantly tells me to let my past go coz "we all have trauma" and to stop criticizing the parents (easier for her to say coz they have done WAY MORE for her).
Maybe they shouldn't have had me back in 1991. They have never been kind or supportive to me after then either. I'm also a "failure" to them because they couldn't find me a groom since I turned 23 and dad has repeatedly told me it's my fault for being dark and heavy. Dad wants me to move off abroad asap and find someone. They mock me to my face but brag about my acheivements to strangers- it's absolutely retarded.
I'm upset. How do I deal with the poor treatment of myself gracefully without seeming juvenile? It affects me too much.

I'm pretty sure that the majority of Barovian content creators have already seen some version of this list. I actually went back to update my original post of the list to discover that I never made my own post of it! I put together the first version of this list a couple of years ago. I'm pretty sure this is the most complete list of its kind anywhere: Alternate areas of Barovia that are commonly needed, besides the commonly published CoS specific battlemaps:
0) The (Dark) Carnival - nobody ever makes maps / assets for this, even though gobs of people always throw it in to their campaign, even though it's old as crap. I understand that there's a Carnival Realm in the new VRGtR book.. I'll probably never use the realm-carnival, but that's a second place the Dark Carnival maps/assets could be used. There are also a trio of third party Ravenloft carnival modules as well that they could be used in.
1) Battlemap sized maps of the towns. At LEAST a 5 foot per square / hex map for the tiger chase. (Obviously modern VTT platforms don't actually need the grid on the map. ;) )
2) Random shops, stables, blacksmiths and generic places the party is likely to go anyway.
3) Generic encounter locations.. country roads / rivers / bridges and combinations of the three. It sounds dumb because you can get generic encounter maps like that anywhere.. but it would be AWESOME to have matching Barovian roads and Svalitch woods on all of your encounter maps. Don't forget the specific crossroads with the gallows from CoS.. I don't recall if there were hanging cages mentioned, but you could throw in some PNG options for them.
4) A covered bridge, including the roof, deck and under views. (To tack on to the Headless Horseman add-in.) The Woodcutters hut as well.
5) Besides the Carnival, there are a few other old school modules that people like to bolt on to CoS (Adam, etc. etc.).
6) DragnaCarta, MandysMod and Pyram King have all developed alternate encounters and a handful of setting that might be able to use an alternate map here and there. (Orphanage.) In particular, I recall battles in/near the bogs, on mountain sides with/without roads and watch towers. Military and outfitter style tent interiors and exteriors and camps placed.. you know what? Make those camps be PNG assets that could be dropped in a bog, next to a river or on a mountain side as needed. ;) I recall Lunch Break Heroes making an encounter for Borgia/Borca, but I don't recall if they made any scenarios / encounters for Barovia. I got a special request for Beneath the Abbey.
7) The Interactive Tome of Strahd sends the party back in time and would be a PHENOMENAL set of maps to expand Barovia. Seriously, you could drop those on DMsGuild and make some bank. Some additionally pre-Strahd bright and shiny versions of the village of Barovia and other basic maps might be nice for some throw-back adventures.
8) Retro Castle Ravenloft.. Castle Ravenloft fully restored to its former glory! (Castle Barovia? I picture it as more of a walled garrison, looking like a giant stone bubble from a distance, but it did have at least one tower overlooking the cliff.) We know that the old pre-Strahd castle had multiple floors located in roughly the same place as Castle Ravenloft, but with significantly different floor plans, as the ghosts walk staircases and pass through doorways that don't exist anymore. :D (Important side-note: Strahd did not grow up in Castle Ravenloft. I believe that there is one (1) painting of him looking out over Yesterhill, through the mists at a vision of the castle he grew up in, but I don't think anyone has ever tackled it.)
9) The caverns and the alter area in and under the Pillarstone of Ravenloft (from Expedition to Ravenloft) are frequently added in to CoS. I've never seen a map of a hidden cavern entrance in the Svalitch woods, let alone a set of creepy Barovian caverns.. or the Castle side of the entrance, for that matter.
10) Around a decade ago, some weirdo drew an artistic image of Castle Ravenloft with the foundation bedrock rotted away under it. I'd like to see a detailed elevation map of the curtain wall and gatehouse with the bedrock still under the curtain wall, because that irritates me to no end. NOBODY would build a massive curtain wall on a questionable foundation. Reference Vlads actual castle (which is admittedly ten times smaller than Ravenloft) for a rather specific example of a (THE) castle built on the side of a cliff. As I recall, if looking at the gatehouse, the left side and back left corner of Vlads actual castle are protected by a cliff, and that's where the inspiration for Castle Ravenloft came from.
11)Speaking of elevation, at the other end of Castle Ravenloft are balconies and windows jutting out over the cliff. I'd love to see detailed maps of those areas, an 'ant sized' map of the Svalitch woods and Barovia as seen from the castle, and an elevation map of the cliff-side reaching from the Svalitch woods up past the windows and balconies to the Curtain wall. Parties occasionally decide to attempt to scale the cliff. Having a cliff and curtain wall that actually matches would be awesome.
12) Odd ball areas we never see. The druids must have huts or a village somewhere. The Roc must have a nest somewhere. The Mad Mage in Barovia has one of either a tower / cavern / pocket dimension somewhere. We could use Barovian flavored versions of all three. Oh, and the woods and encounters with said mage on the backside of the lake.. so a lake / forested area with spread out trees for players to run in terror or attempt to attack at range.. or whatever.
13) UNDER Lake Zarovich, there are a handful of generic encounters. There are also a few river monster encounters, generally near the Berez Swamp, could use a lair map and an underwater river encounter map, Barovia flavored. Speaking of Berez, I've never seen a detailed large scale swamp map for the Berez Swamp.. let alone the whole town being overrun by the swamp.
14) A proper Berez Swamp. A full sized swamp, with river banks, fields of cattail and reeds, murky backwaters, underwater groves of trees, and a couple of dozen oddly shaped islets and sandbanks.. a few dead logs.. not to mention a proper full sized assortment of Berez town ruins.
15) What's the village in the Adventurer's Guild Supplements?? Orasnou! There's a tiny village there (the size most people depict Berez as, because the CoS book doesn't describe the whole town of Berez properly). So that map is needed, along with.. 4 interior maps, if I recall? (Probably more, + a manor.) As well as an alternate werewolf lair and a few others, like a Barovian bluff, again if I recall off of the top of my head. I've had requests for the Gundarak villages Teufeldorf, Zeidenburg and Renika, as well as the other minor villages and..
16) The complete map of Barovia, post Grand Conjunction (done in standard modern style/graphics).
17) Various encounters have been depicted on Mount Baratok. Which would be a stark stone mountain, snowy and generally above the treeline, not like the hilly tree covered mountains where Argynvostholt and the Roc and etc. are located. I think a largish rocky encounter map of the mountainside would be the first needed. I (seem to) recall a three tiered monastery built on the side of a cliff, with a freshwater spring enclosed that would require an elevation map along with three small interioexterior maps showing the wooden stairs going up and down the cliff-side. I recall one encounter involving a lai small cave sized area.
18) Lots of people want Van Richtens magic shop and other stuff described in his escapades. We could also use a handful of Vistani Vardos and Camps. If I recall, there are only two described in the CoS book, but there are many more tribes of Vistani than that, and we're told that they move around frequently. If might be easier to provide PNG files for the vardos, outfitter tents and assets for a large scale camp. Come to think of it, there aren't a whole lot of tokens for those smallish horses they use either, so someone might whip up 10-12 smallish shaggy horses with unique patterns to show off. They don't care one ounce for a horses pedigree, and are more than happy to keep unique looking mongrel horses as their personal caravan animals. They use mountain horse stock when breeding their horses, so they would be a bit hairier and stockier then say an Arabian.. just scaled closer to a pony size. Donkey size! They're donkey sized horses. :D ..real donkey size, if I recall 5e has some weirdness going on with their official donkey/wagon sizes that makes no sense at all for Vardos sized horses and wagons like the Vistani would have.
19) The valley where the village of Barovia is located is described as a massive fertile farming area, yet we never see any medieval farms, ranches, graineries or farmers markets for Barovia. Definitely need a few of those. Barovian farmers and ranchers would SPECIFICALLY all have the buildings that (in the real world) later became fortifications, Thick werewolf proof walls and heavily barricaded doors everywhere. No window on the ground floor. Livestock was housed indoors, in enclosed courtyards with family areas wrapped around them, or with the animals on the ground floor and the family living above on the second floor. Horse stalls and farrowing areas would be fenced off within the area. Graineries would be large round wooden buildings with barricaded doors and sturdy out-buildings. 10 foot tall max, today's 4-5 story tall graineries are a modern invention. There would probably be a large stone community grainery far on the other side of the valley from the Village of Barovia. for that matter, there ought to be a functioning grainery or warehouse somewhere between the Village of Barovia and Bonegrinder. ALSO, if Bonegrinder is no longer being used as a mill, there would HAVE to be another windmill or waterwheel driven mill somewhere else in Barovia. Many artists have envisioned a water-wheel grainery on the River Ivlis near the Village of Barovia. Corn cribs would be on the second floor of a barn for drying grain, doubling up to dry bales of hay, not primarily as a hay loft. PNGs for 2-3 styles of fencing and gates, water troughs, and some medieval horse drawn plows and rakes would be nice. Dog kennels!! Every farm would probably have it's own horse pasture or rink with a training post, and a dog kennel or run for dogs to run during the day. You know those giant mastiffs that the Barovian nobles are so fond of? Yeah, the farmers in the fertile valley near Barovia would be the only ones rich enough to be able to afford to raise those pups for the nobles. Somewhere out here would be a medieval rancher set up to raise mastiff puppies with an assortment of full grown mastiffs. Mongrel pups or runts would be sold off to neighboring farms at a discount. Roaming wolves would stay FAR away from them, and werewolf packs would likely attack them for any reason at all (if they could find a way in to the basin). I picture a LARGE farmers market and stockyards just inside the River Ivlis bridge of the Valley of Barovia. We know that Barovia is a trade center.. so there MUST be one. The bridge would offer protection if needed, and it would be the closest place farmers and ranchers could set up to provide commerce with the other villages and domains and still have the protection of being inside the gates. Hmm.. they might have a dirt race track there for showing off horses going up for sale. Make that very probably, The Vistani/Romani are famous for defending their mountain horses at the drop of a hat. This would be the main place of commerce for farmers goods in Barovia. This is (the main area) where Vistani Caravans would import and export farm goods in to and out of Barovia.
20) There would absolutely be homestead (small) sized farms and ranches carved out up in mountain valleys or even on mountain sides facing south. In fact, a south facing mountain side might get enough sunlight to raise delicate crops, spices and herbs, whereas most of Barovia can't, due to the mists blocking the sunlight. Also, a couple of mountain pastures with matching rocks / trees bordering them would be nice. Honestly though, if you pass out some rock and tree assets that match the ones you already use, anybody could throw together their own mountain pastures, or even their own valley pastures. Rows of crops are hard to find though! You could easily have scenarios of wolves/werewolves hunting the party in a cornfield.. but there are no Barovian cornfield battlemaps. ACTUALLY, I don't think I have any battlemap sized crop assets, and I probably have the largest collection of map assets around. You could probably sell these farming assets/maps on DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild as well, I've never seen them anywhere. ..OR you might ask Forgotten Adventures or Tom Cartos to throw some together, whatever seems clever. :) I've been asked specifically to try to get Yaedrag (barbarian-esque village in the mountains that Dragna wrote up) made up.
21) Jenny Greenteeth's Hut.. perhaps a grove of her untainted trees from the Quivering Forest? (Also the Glumpen Swamp and Vanishing Hills, various locations within these.) I picture the Quivering Forest loaded with fruit and nut trees and songbirds fighting for real estate (the text mentions angry squirrels).. surrounded by classic Svalitch Woods half-dead spooky trees. ;) I recall seeing a couple of versions that roughly followed the description given in DDAL04, but they're just a hut, not the whole barrow surrounding her hut as described. Additionally, many artists have upscaled her hut to be a small trading post, and put it on wooden poles, swamp style (never seen a battlemap of it, though). Lots of room for creative renditions there. :)
22) Another thing that I haven't seen ANYBODY making is small abbeys. The hills and mountains of Barovia are said to be littered with small abbeys. ..some of them abandoned, some not.
23) Abandoned mansions and manors. Strahd massacred the noble families of Barovia for their involvement in his father's murder. There is one legend of a nobleman possessed by a demon that Strahd left alive, as a curse 'worse than death'. At any rate, there ought to be a handful of abandoned / haunted mansions and manors dotting the Barovian countryside for the party to stumble in to (or check out due to a hook dropped by an informative villager).
24) There are currently NO mines in the CoS version of Barovia.. bizarre for a mountain country. It would suit that some of those decimated noble families ran some mines that have since been abandoned. Of course, it wouldn't do to host your standard monsters in a Barovian mine. I'm thinking Lair of the White Worm. Something more horrifying than dungeoneering.
25) It's been mentioned that instead of murdering the losers from the werewolf trials, they might be shipped off to be slaves in a mine, or to a plantation in the swamp. The plantation would be stick construction, as you would expect in a swamp, they would collect tubers and reeds that grow in the swamp, not traditional plantation type crops.
26) The various Barovian villages NOT included on Schleys map of (Central) Barovia usually have a town sized map plotted out and published somewhere, but no really decent overview maps or battlemap sized maps of them exist. (This need might easily be filled by a couple of handfuls of generic Barovian village buildings, field-stone and dirt street assets, and sundry village constructions.
27) Besides the Gates of Barovia, there are supposed to be watch-towers dotting the landscape as well. An operational watchtower and a couple of partially ruined ones would be awesome.
​
Assets nobody has made like the Dark Carnival and lake/river encounters and the Mad Mages various lair options would be the most needed. I simply don't understand why EVERY CoS map developer doesn't provide matching roads, forests, rivers and generic shops with matching Barovian assets. The maps I mentioned which you could make money selling on DriveThruRPG and DMsGuild (to me) would just be silly NOT to make. ...Van Richtens magic shop is requested a LOT. When the party first enters Barovia, I can picture them being chased in to a fortified farm by a pack of dire wolves / werewolves at dusk (perhaps the first couple of farms won't unbarricade their doors). I'm sure you can see the utility of the rest. Will everybody need a Roc nest on a cliff above the forest? No. Will DMs derail their campaign for a minute just for the opportunity to make the party loot a Roc nest? Yes. :
Finally, I would note that since I wrote this list, a few cartographers have added some of the above locations to their Library, but the vast majority of these are as of yet, untouched. :)

Sick of trying to be eloquent and articulate I’m a dumb piece of shit so here it goes. Fuck my entire life. Fuck growing up without a mom and with an alcoholic dad. I was always the dumbest in class and my drug use and medications for fucking depression has made me even dumber. My brother said “any time he opens his mouth all I hear is blah blah blah” to me today. I couldn’t hide how hurt I was because I’m overly sensitive because I’m borderline from my fathers neglect. That’s my entire life when I do start speaking people just zone out and start taking about themselves. He’s a fucking bitch for that and I feel hatred towards him just from the comment. Is that rational? No! Can I stop feeling like this ? No way! Normal people think everyone’s the same. I am much different from normal in all the ways. From the street of consciousness year by year my hatred for myself has grown. My standards for myself have sunk and I haven’t wanted anything better in years. I’m 32 years old and I’m getting worse. I’m regressing mentally and emotionally. I am dying their is no hope I will ever get better because I never really was better. I am a rotten human and my two friends only like me because they have no idea who I really am. A hateful jelouse, envious, borderline, narcissist. No this is not depression some people are just bad and that’s what I am. I truly want to kill myself I want to be done with this shit show of a fucking life . I’m Chris I’m 32 and I am trash in all ways .

I’ve been thinking about some ways to turn fodder into something useful, and I’m wondering what you guys think! Below I’ll explain my logic behind my madness.
Aristocrats: when collecting caps gain +25% more! The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, this fits with fallouts overlying themes.
Cloaking: When hit immediately go into [Caution] and lose aggro.
Exterminators: I have a couple ideas here, for weapons it could add poison to every hit, and for armor it could either add poison resistance or give poison to all attackers. The logic here is that you’re effectively covering your weapon and yourself in Raid.
Ghoul Slayers: +200 (negotiable) rad protection. This would be a bit op, but it would literally be an armored hazmat suit. It’s armor designed to protect you from ghouls. The weapon equivalent could deal radiation damage, but this still wouldn’t make the effect desirable.
Hunters: I didn’t really have any ideas other than making animals not aggro.
Mutant Slayers: -5% less ballistic damage. I don’t believe Super Mutants ever use energy weapons so that’s my logic here. I don’t know what the weapon equivalent would be.
Troubleshooters: -5% less energy damage. The counter to MS.
Zealots: Don’t really have any ideas here either.
Underwater breathing and Safecrackers should just be discarded. These perks are laughable.
Now onto weapon ideas!
Berserkers: should be greater than or equal to bloodied. Double the risk, half the reward is bs.
Furious: Make it so that it doesn’t have to be in a row so that furious + explosive can actually work correctly.
Instigating: +100% damage on enemies with above 90% health. This effect only being useful for a single shot is so funny.
Medics: basically just buffing the amount of health you get to be on par with vampires. It could already be, but idk I have nothing to test with.
Stalkers: Allow the effect to be used in [Caution] and get rid of the extra ap charge. Still a useless perk but I’m sure the 2 people who use it will be happy.
Replenish ap with each kill: making it 60 ap over 3 seconds would be cool. The exact numbers would need to be worked out as to not make it too op.
250 dr while reloading: make it 250 dr AND er. Not sure why it doesn’t currently.
50 dr while aiming: see last
The extra SPECIAL: I think changing it to +2 on armor ones and +3 on weapon ones would make them a bit more desirable, but that might be a bit too op.
Chance for stealth field: make it work similar to how I’d like cloaking to work, but lower the chances (for weapons and armor). Make it last a few seconds too so you’re not just blinking in and out of existence with automatic weapons lol.
+Movement Speed while aiming: Yeah just scrap this one.
Now onto melee weapons!
Sentinel: this one’s dumb for melee weapons but I can see how it can be useful in some scenarios. A cavaliers version for chainsaws would be pretty cool.
Swing speed: this should either affect auto melee or be removed from them. I don’t know why they re released it for the auto axe knowing it doesn’t work.
Reflect damage back while blocking: let’s be honest.. who’s blocking in this game?
SPECIAL: this is where my +3 idea falls through, that would be far too op for melee.
That’s all I have for today, let me know what you all think! Constructive criticism only please, “the game is good as is” doesn’t work because that statement is objectively false.

/LonghornNation Daily Off Topic Free Talk Thread

Today: 6/3/2023

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Your go-to place to talk about whatever you want. From the dumb shit aggies do on a near daily basis, to the latest whatever happening wherever. What ya got?

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1. This fake hundred dollar bill my coworker accepted. (Real bill for comparison.)
2. The Roman Catholic Church has launched an inquiry after two nuns came back from their missionary trips pregnant
3. Canadian inventor Troy Hurtubise testing his amrmoured grizzly bear protection suit
4. Scientists remained puzzled what the bright fast-moving object could be that was filmed behind this jewel squid off the coast of Japan.
5. Picked up my son from daycare. This is how I found him.

/CFB

1. [Scheer] Since I’ve seen it a few times, will go on record here. ASU is unlikely to leave Pac-12. Arizona is confident it can split when/if needed based on what ABOR has said
2. [Aaron Torres] Told you when the plan came out, itd make sense: Create the best basketball league possible, so if the SEC/Big Ten try to break off, they can't host a national hoops tournament without you My guess on Big 12 targets: Colorado (because of Deion), UConn, Arizona + Gonzaga/SDSU
3. The problem isnt 8 games, it's weak OOC scheduling. an 8 game schedule with good OOC would be ideal
4. Ranking the Top 131 FBS Programs of the Last 40 Years: 84. Iowa State
5. [Joseph Duarte] Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark says plans for Mexico games will be announced next week.

/LonghornNation

1. Texas ⚾ at the Coral Gables Regional
2. [6/2/2023] Friday's Sports Talk Thread
3. [Dellinger] The SEC’s scheduling dilemma is over: The league will play 8 conference games in 2024 when Texas & OU join in what is likely to be a short-term format with a play to eventually get to 9.
4. [6/2/2023] Friday's Off Topic Free Talk Thread
5. Ewers, Jones, Murphy, and Hill listed in Big 12’s “all breakout team”
6. BREAKING: MBB's Dillon Mitchell to return for sophomore season
7. [6/1/2023] Thursday's Sports Talk Thread

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Building another PC to take me a bit farther into the future. Currently on a AMD 5950X 16-core/32t, ASUS Prime Pro board, DDR4, Nvidia RTX 3090 24Gb (non-Ti). I've been exceedingly satisfied with its performance, but ready to build again.
Thinking strongly of jumping back over to Intel, specifically an i9-13900K or KF. I really don't have any fanboi allegiance to AMD, just happened to have used them for the past few builds. That said, the 7950X and the 3D Nand variant are attractive processors and would suit me fine too.
Definitely going to take the small step up from my current DDR4 to DDR5, so I'm looking at new RAM plus mobo anyway. (((I know for Stable Diffusion my money would be better spent changing the 3090 for a 4090, but for lots of reasons I'm going to stay on the 3090, it's the beautiful white ASUS Strix unit and the white Strix 4090 is still in scalper markups plus that dumb special power connector.)))
So, what's the current opinions on which is better for AI / Machine Learning workloads, the Intel or AMD?
AMD has a couple turn-offs for me right now. It's always been a fight to get their BIOSes / Boards / CPU / Memory to all play right together at advertised speeds, no matter how end of parts you get. Plus, there's some fluke failures/fires in 7950X3D + ASUS combos. I'd be very willing to jump ship back to Intel for something that just works out of the box, won't catch fire lol, and perform very high while looking good.
Intel i9-13900KF (or K) or AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (or X3D) if you were building today for tomorrow?

Credit for the original story goes to u/spacepaladin15.
[First] [Previous] [Next]
---
Memory transcript subject: Sasha Everett, ex-UN noncombatant
Date [Standardized Human Time]: February 29th, 2177
Location: Upper layer of City 23, Venlil Prime
“I’m going, I’m going! Gojids aren’t— khh-aah! — exactly limber in their older years, Sasha! Right, I don’t see anyone in this hallway either, you can come in.”
Sasha clambered through the window after her talkative gray-quilled friend, slipping through with significantly less effort despite her larger frame. The Rising Star was laughably unsecure; windows were unlocked and at chest height, with no alarm system to speak of. The hotel was in some sort of lockdown due to the exterminator presence, all residents and staff hiding behind locked doors. It would be an issue if their target was stowed in a room, but at least the halls were empty. All that left for security was the exterminators gathered at the entrance, and—
​
“Get back!”
An extended claw stopped her from tripping straight into an intersection, as Burai forced her back into the hallway. “There’s cameras here, they’ll spot you!”
“Haven’t they already seen you? You’re standing right in their view.”
“No, they… I mean, yes, but nobody’ll care about a Gojid in the halls. To a surveillance AI scanning a spaceport hotel, that’s business as usual. But as soon as a human steps out here, security will be notified about a ‘potential predation incident’. Just stay there, and let me… let… w-what?”
“Burai? What’s going on?”
Burai was staring down the hall, eyes rapidly flitting to focus on something which she couldn’t see from her view in the adjacent hall. His jaw was entirely slack for several seconds before he managed to collect himself.
“The, uh… cameras. The cameras are shut down. All of them, they’re staring at the ground and their lights are out. I think you can come out now.”
They had little time to spare, and hesitation would only hurt their chances. She paced out into the corridor alongside Burai, casting a glance down both ways. It was as he’d said; every camera was unlit and staring loosely at the floor. Likely Trish’s doing. No way to tell if (or when) they’d reactivate, so they had to get moving. Burai apparently thought the same, though his relatively stubby legs meant his sprint was about level with her stride.
As they moved through the hall at slightly less than record pace, Sasha began taking in her surroundings. It could be useful to memorize if they had to leave the way they came, so she absorbed every detail she could as they ran like hell/jogged with mild exertion. Orange walls, painted in a stepped gradient from burnt orange to a light cream. A fascinating choice for a world where the native species had orange-colored blood, but apparently they couldn’t be bothered to pretend that prey should be scared of anything bearing the color of their blood anymore. She had to admit, it was a welcome change.
Lining the walls were an assortment of mounted displays. Arranged in a pattern which looked random but was carefully considered for visual balance, they showed an assortment of artwork from every species. She even thought she recognized a few human paintings, mixed alongside the rest of the dizzying collage.
Maybe she had, but it was hard to say for sure. She didn’t have time to get a good look before every panel suddenly went dark at once, with nothing in the way of warning or fanfare. For a brief instant, the hall was filled with rows of ominous black rectangles, before two white lines of text appeared on each and every one:
​
FLOOR THREE LOBBY
LEFT OF VENDING MACHINE
​
The panels switched back to their previous display of artwork almost too quickly to read the message. Sasha was left briefly wondering if she was simply hallucinating from the stress, but Burai’s once-again slack jaw dispelled that notion. He looked up at her, trying to say something but failing for lack of breath.
They were on floor zero. The elevators were disabled due to the lockdown, and the stairs were arranged in such a way that one needed to cross around half the building to get to the next one up (whoever was in charge of planning apparently didn’t consider fire a real issue). If they were to make it upstairs before the exterminators caught up with them, they couldn’t be constrained by Burai’s sluggish pace.
In one beautiful fluid motion, she tore off her jacket, wrapped it around Burai, and picked him up. The thick flame-resistant plastic fiber made for an excellent barrier against his spikes, shielding her from a moderately painful and very embarrassing impalement. Burai squeaked in shock, but didn’t protest; they both knew that he couldn’t keep up with an endurance hunter’s jog. Without even the bare imitation of caution, she tore off towards the stairs with Burai in tow. They couldn’t afford to lose time playing at caution when their target was three floors above them through a bizarrely labyrinthian series of stairs.
—
They’d hardly made it halfway through the second floor when their progress was rather rudely interrupted. A small contingent of exterminators milled about the entrance to the stairwell, too engrossed in conversation to notice the couple of interlopers rapidly skid to a stop and duck behind an archway.
In the reflection of an unpowered screen near the door, Sasha and Burai watched the exterminators from a ‘safe’ distance. The majority of them broke away to rush down another corridor, leaving only two at the stairs: a Venlil and Harchen, judging by their frames. Snippets of their conversation drifted down the empty hall, intermittently cut out by the screeching sound of a broken automatic door repeatedly trying and failing to close.
“—on the first floor, either. You sure they—”
“—way. It has to be here somewhere. ‘Course, Yawi—”
“—d never! You know, that human can’t tell the di—”
On the next screech, Burai made his move. With the noise of the door covering the sound of his approach, he managed to get within meters of the exterminators undetected. At the last second before they noticed his presence, he moved around to make it look like he’d come from another hallway. Then, he drew a breath.
“H-Help! Help me!”
The two wheeled around, flamethrowers already primed before they spotted their assailant. Gojid were generally less than respected owing to their nature as cured predators, but an old man screaming for help didn’t exactly spark fear. Their weapons lowered, and the Venlil flicked a tail in friendly greeting. The Harchen seemed less amused.
“What are you doing outside of your room, Gojid? The hotel’s on lockdown. We’ve gotten notice of a bio—”
“No, no, please don’t make me g-go back there! There’s a… a h-h…”
“A human in your room? Mind telling us what you were doing staying with one?”
“I heard… I heard crying on the outside of the door, so I let him in… I didn’t realize it was…”
The Venlil put a gentle paw over the shaking Gojid. “I understand. Don’t worry, its deception dies with us. You’re safe. Can you tell us what room it’s in now?”
“F-four.. nineteen.”
“I see. Kyura, go check out room 419. I’ll stay here and—”
“Wait! It’s got a… a…”
Burai didn’t finish, choosing to let himself devolve into another bout of feigned fear. In the absence of details, the two would imagine the human to be armed with whatever scared them most. His bet paid off; the Venlil rose to her feet and rushed after the Harchen with her weapon aimed slightly upward at what would be a human’s center mass.
He let his act continue for a few more seconds, apparently waiting until he was certain they wouldn’t double back before scrambling for the stairs. By the time he made his way up to the third floor, she was already beside him and panting slightly.
“What… was that?”
“Improv. You should try it sometime! Anyway, I don’t think we have much time before those idiots realize there’s no room 419 on this floor, so we’re really on the clock. You see what we’re looking for anywhere?”
Sasha kept breathing hard as she scanned the room, before wordlessly rushing off next to a window overlooking a side alley which connected to the one the rest of their their group was perched on. Underneath, a backpack emblazoned with the UN’s logo was stuffed haphazardly next to a vending machine. Apparently, it had been tossed there in a rush as the building was put under lockdown, rather than carefully hidden. She picked it up, looked it over, and nodded at Burai.
“Great. Although…” He looked around the room a few times before returning his attention back to her.
“...unless there’s a parachute in there, I’m not sure it matters much. The lower floors are crawling with exterminators. I don’t see any obvious exits, and I really don’t favor our odds for a 3-story fall. Sasha?”
“Burai, get over here.”
Burai sauntered over as fast as his legs would carry him. She gestured at the window with her head.
“...You can’t be serious.”
“I am. There’s a dumpster below us, we passed it earlier. Filled with fabric, probably a load of blankets they threw out. You’ll be fine. Just cover your head and land feetfirst.”
“Sasha, I think I’d rather burn— AHCK!—”
With Burai in one arm and the backpack in the other, Sasha kicked out the window screen and jumped before she could stop to regret the decision.
​
The brunt of the pain stabbed her side, as a couple of Burai’s spines slipped past her unzipped jacket to jab themselves in her torso. Aside from that minor embarrassing oversight, she was unharmed. Her complete lack of training was handily circumvented by sheer dumb luck and the merciful softness of discarded hotel bedding. By the time she reoriented herself, Burai was already dragging her out of the dumpster. Bedsheets clung to his spikes, but aside from his pride, he too seemed unharmed.
Another hand, or rather bandaged paw, pulled her to her feet. Tressa encircled her like a short fluffy snake, apparently checking for injuries. Satisfied after two coils, he switched to watching their flank as the rest of them regrouped and recuperated. James was helping Burai pick fabric from his spines. Trish eyed the backpack, before turning her attention to the spot of red at her side.
“Sasha, can you move?”
“Yes. It’s just a skin wound, I’ll be fine. Is Beast all set to go?”
James’ muffled voice rang out from behind her. “Practically raring, last I checked! And a good thing too, because we’re skipping town immediately. Don’t have any time for the usual runaround, not with all this unwanted attention.”
As they closed in on the main street, Sasha zipped up her jacket to cover the wound and slung the backpack over a shoulder. She tried to act normal and casual, though the most she could realistically manage in that regard was to cover any limp from the pain in her torso. The rest of them slipped into their rehearsed roles, immediately cutting any discussion about the situation in favor of meaningless small talk which nobody could take notice of. Hopefully, their acting would be enough to cover for her lack thereof.
The street was awash with people, a viscous fluid of bodies pulling every which way. The lively roar of activity would be enough to cover their tracks as they made their way back to Beast, even if the exterminators realized they had a runaway. Still, time worked against them. The sooner they could get going, the better.
—
Memory transcript subject: Kelsen, Venlil extermination officer
Date [Standardized Human Time]: February 29th, 2177
Location: City 23, Venlil Prime
Kelsen watched through the screen of a digital scope as the ragtag group of predators and predator diseased piled into their little barely-functional van, practically crushing each other for lack of space. Once they were packed in shoulder-to-shoulder like cattle, the pathetic thing sputtered to life and limped out into the street.
They must’ve assumed the van was untraceable owing to its advanced age. It was true that automated systems wouldn’t cooperate, but a tracker planted on the underside would have no issues. Their retreat would lead the law straight back to their den.
Well... OK, so maybe the law could wait a moment. Official practice dictated that anything “contaminated” by predators be burned without delay, but he just couldn’t have that. Since the idiotic Federation-wide ban on near-sentient surveillance AI a couple years ago, their leads on predator subversives were running thinner by the day. A raid could gather invaluable intel.
He already had a squad lined up, with body armor instead of hazard suits and kinetic weapons instead of flamethrowers. He’d even rallied up an investigator, a successfully reeducated human who hunted information rather than helpless prey. It would be such a shame to let all that go to waste and simply burn their hideout to ash; that could always come later. Besides, he’d put far too much effort into tracking this group to simply pour some napalm and call it a day.
His little raid would have to operate outside the law to get results. That hadn’t been an issue to arrange, of course, but it meant that if things went south they wouldn’t get any backup. He couldn’t afford to be hasty about this.
But he couldn’t afford to be passive, either. The facial recognition software they’d used to ID and track the Gojid was already skirting the law; their raiding party was actively flaunting it. Kelsen couldn’t let his noble work fall victim to the chains of bureaucracy.
If he wanted to get away with this, he’d have to do it tonight.
---
[First] [Previous] [Next]

Target User: u/midshiver
URL: /Twittecomments/13yy9ac/braindead_bird_app/
Title: Braindead Bird App
Body:
You will never find dumber people than in those long thread arguments you may get into on twitter.
It's actually concerning how braindead people can be on that app. For example, I corrected this dude about something and he clearly got mad about it. after he obviously searched through my profile to try to change the subject, all he could do was pretend he wasn't embarrassed at how dumb his original post was by saying im 'big mad' over and over and of course the classic "I bet you're like 10 lmfao." - only 15 year olds say that because it makes them feel cool.
like bruh i've been going back and forth with this dude for hours of him just spamming laughing emojis to pretend he wasn't irritated by my correction and saying he's 'done with this' in an attempt to pretend he has somewhere to be (to act cool i guess?) only to come back to the argument within 5 minutes.
these ppl are so silly man

Target User: u/midshiver
URL: /Twittecomments/13yy9ac/braindead_bird_app/
Title: Braindead Bird App
Body:
You will never find dumber people than in those long thread arguments you may get into on twitter.
It's actually concerning how braindead people can be on that app. For example, I corrected this dude about something and he clearly got mad about it. after he obviously searched through my profile to try to change the subject, all he could do was pretend he wasn't embarrassed at how dumb his original post was by saying im 'big mad' over and over and of course the classic "I bet you're like 10 lmfao." - only 15 year olds say that because it makes them feel cool.
like bruh i've been going back and forth with this dude for hours of him just spamming laughing emojis to pretend he wasn't irritated by my correction and saying he's 'done with this' in an attempt to pretend he has somewhere to be (to act cool i guess?) only to come back to the argument within 5 minutes.
these ppl are so silly man

Target User: u/midshiver
URL: /Twittecomments/13yy9ac/braindead_bird_app/
Title: Braindead Bird App
Body:
You will never find dumber people than in those long thread arguments you may get into on twitter.
It's actually concerning how braindead people can be on that app. For example, I corrected this dude about something and he clearly got mad about it. after he obviously searched through my profile to try to change the subject, all he could do was pretend he wasn't embarrassed at how dumb his original post was by saying im 'big mad' over and over and of course the classic "I bet you're like 10 lmfao." - only 15 year olds say that because it makes them feel cool.
like bruh i've been going back and forth with this dude for hours of him just spamming laughing emojis to pretend he wasn't irritated by my correction and saying he's 'done with this' in an attempt to pretend he has somewhere to be (to act cool i guess?) only to come back to the argument within 5 minutes.
these ppl are so silly man

You will never find dumber people than in those long thread arguments you may get into on twitter.
It's actually concerning how braindead people can be on that app. For example, I corrected this dude about something and he clearly got mad about it. after he obviously searched through my profile to try to change the subject, all he could do was pretend he wasn't embarrassed at how dumb his original post was by saying im 'big mad' over and over and of course the classic "I bet you're like 10 lmfao." - only 15 year olds say that because it makes them feel cool.
like bruh i've been going back and forth with this dude for hours of him just spamming laughing emojis to pretend he wasn't irritated by my correction and saying he's 'done with this' in an attempt to pretend he has somewhere to be (to act cool i guess?) only to come back to the argument within 5 minutes.

Target User: u/midshiver
URL: /Twittecomments/13yy9ac/braindead_bird_app/
Title: Braindead Bird App
Body:
You will never find dumber people than in those long thread arguments you may get into on twitter.
It's actually concerning how braindead people can be on that app. For example, I corrected this dude about something and he clearly got mad about it. after he obviously searched through my profile to try to change the subject, all he could do was pretend he wasn't embarrassed at how dumb his original post was by saying im 'big mad' over and over and of course the classic "I bet you're like 10 lmfao." - only 15 year olds say that because it makes them feel cool.
like bruh i've been going back and forth with this dude for hours of him just spamming laughing emojis to pretend he wasn't irritated by my correction and saying he's 'done with this' in an attempt to pretend he has somewhere to be (to act cool i guess?) only to come back to the argument within 5 minutes.
these ppl are so silly man

Ok so first things first I'm a Newbie on this sub so if I sound old and not caught up with the program... I am but with honest intentions I'm not playing dumb.
I always knew about The Duggars from the very beginning back with they had their first special 14 kids and counting and she gave birth to Jackson. Watched all the way until Jill got married then I sorta fell off. I know pretty much everyone from the boy twins up got married and started their own cult family starting the cycle all over again. I believe I hear rumors of Jackson looking to court soon but anyways, I have some underrated questions about this family that to me are as disturbing if not more then Josh's sick mindset. And they are as follows:
•How in the hell did Grandma Duggar drown??? Why was an elderly woman near an open body of water anyway? I thought the family didn't have a pool
•Why do Michelle and Jim Bob keep buying used clothing for the poor kids still living at home? I mean not that clothing from second hand stores is bad and you should only buy designer brand names. But considering you assholes had a show for over 10 years AND you own commercial real estate. You'd think the kids could be able to at least get some nice new stuff here and there
•Why is Michelle's Nephew (if he still is) living with the family? Whenever a child is taken away by their parents from the state and given to another family member it's not a good sign. My mother used to work in Foster care, she told me stories and I assume Michelle's Nephew's is quite similar
•Where's Anna and all their kids staying? Who's taking care of them? I know in their stupid cult the men usually are the providers. I know as a fact Anna isn't getting a real job (she never went to school for a degree or anything not that I can remember) and I know she can't support and take care of 6-7 (however many they have) all by herself.
This last one comes from something my brother told me back when we watched the show and it fucking disgusted me so much that I want to see if it's true or not •Is it true starting from the age 14 they take all the girls and start asking them what they want in a husband and for the boys they start from the age of puberty they teach them not to touch themselves and that any waste of semen is murdering the children God wanted them to have?
So that's all my questions I had about this family. Again I maybe not up to speed like most of the users here I apologize but tbf when you take into account of all the gross things they've done over the years, you kinda can't blame someone for not watching them or keeping track of then for awhile (if any at all)

So yeah, second part. I forgot to say the page count last time of this chapter last time, so I'll say it now. Chapter four is about fifty pages long, so it fits the bill when it comes to these things. Not much else to say, so enjoy.
​
​
* * *
Jacob pondered.
On what exactly? Oh fine, I’ll tell you.
Jacob had just received what was, hopefully, a relatively unfiltered version of the recent events and situation on the planet. After about an hour of explanation, A had finished on the arrival of the disassembly drones, and the subsequent widespread assault on the worker drones. When Jacob had asked for the specific story of A’s squad, A had skirted around it, only lightly touching upon the subject. It was slightly suspicious, but Jacob didn’t plan on doing anything about it.
However, if it was the truth, it only raised more questions than answers. The fact that a company was willing to exterminate the entirety of what was probably a massive investment was just baffling. Jacob could only come up with two explanations, one of which was rather worrying to think about. The first was that of changing times; perhaps the company was so rich, and technology so advanced, that the worker drones could be replaced with the ease of buying another shipload of tissues. If you threw away an entire box of tissues, it would be annoying to say the least, but it wouldn’t cost a lot to just get another one.
But, it just didn’t make sense to Jacob that that would be the case. The United States military in the time of Jacob had heaps, thousands of missiles, and could afford to replace them as they were used. But if they all disappeared at once? It would take lots of time, money, and effort to replace each and every single last one of the lost payloads, and not to mention the logistical nightmare it would be.
So, that led Jacob to his other solution, one that insinuated a scenario far more confusing and sinister. If the company decided to just annihilate every worker drone, which is a very radical and illogical decision by a galaxy-spanning megacorporation, then it would line up with certain other decisions made by other people in the past.
During the Second World War, the U.S. government was fearful of a potential Japanese invasion. They believed that, if they did land boots on American soil, that the Japanese-Americans would rise up, taking the side of the invaders. And so, Roosevelt made the Executive Order 9066, ordering over one hundred and twenty thousand Japanese-Americans to be interned in concentration camps, where they would remain until near the end of the war.
This was an apt example for how even the most level-headed of individuals could make bad decisions under the influence of fear. If Jacob assumed that the same was true for this day and age, then perhaps the administration at the company had sent machines to kill the entire worker drone populace due some or maybe even all of them being much more dangerous than what was being let on. It was a bit far-fetched, but was the one of the only viable solutions at the moment, aside from his theory that nothing was real and they were all figments of the imagination of a being so complex they were nothing but fiction to it, but the chances of that were little to none.
Right?
Jacob’s pondering was interrupted by someone waving their hand in front of his face.
“Ugh, hello?” A snapped his fingers twice. “You there?”
Jacob blinked, refocusing on his present company. “Uh yeah, just processing.”
A scoffed. “Processing what? I thought humans were superior or something?”
Jacob smacked A’s hand out of his face. “Me too.”
A raised an LED eyebrow.
“Doesn’t matter.” Jacob waved hand in a dismissive way. “What now?”
“I dunno. That's all I had.” A shrugged.
“Nothing else you’re hiding?” Jacob questioned.
“No. There isn’t.” A glared at Jacob. “Now drop it.”
Jacob held up his hands in surrender. “Okay, jeez man, calm down. I just don’t wanna be bored for however long I’m stuck here.”
“Yeah well, that's not really my problem.” A stated.
Jacob didn’t reply, only sighing, before standing and getting up out of his seat.
A startled. “Wait, where are you going?”
“Out.” Jacob simply replied.
“Why?” A inquired.
Jacob shrugged. “Bored.”
A got to his feet as well. “Fine then. I guess I’m going as well.”
“You’re coming with?” Jacob asked incredulously.
“Yeah. I can’t have you running off and getting yourself killed.” A reasoned.
“They kept saying that too.” Jacob grumbled.
“Who said that?” A tilted his head.
“K and X.” Jacob answered. “Also, why don’t y’all have normal names? Why just letters?”
“I dunno.” A non-committedly replied.
“Huh.” Jacob took that as a cue to leave, turning to the ladder.
A followed closely behind, waiting until Jacob had gone through the small exit to ascend himself.
Jacob didn’t bother to use the ladder on the way down, buckling his knees and dropping the last few feet, hearing the snow crunch beneath him. He had been prepared to absorb the impact, but it seemed like whatever advanced mechanics his suit possessed had done the job all by itself, which was pretty nice. He made a mental note to test out the capabilities later on, just to get a general sense of the limits and what would be a danger to him.
Jacob heard a similar crunching noise behind him, causing him to look backwards, seeing A just awkwardly standing there.
“Just gonna follow me? Really?” Jacob was slightly annoyed.
“Yeah. I’ve gotta keep you safe until someone else takes you off my hands, or else I’ll-” A cut himself off.
Jacob took note of that, inferring what he might have been about to say. It only served to confirm his notion that he was sort of a VIP on the planet. He was to be protected at all costs, which was pretty nice for Jacob.
“So, you gonna do anything?” A asked.
* * *
The sound of snow crunching filled the empty room as the pair walked into it.
“Can we go back already?” X complained.
“No, and be quiet.” K scolded him. “It’s too echoey in this room, it’s annoying.”
X scoffed. “Pff, it’s fine. Nobody’s around for miles, we’re all good. Now when can we go back?”
K rolled her eyes. “We can go back when we find something, You heard what he said.”
“What who said?” X inquired.
“You idiot, our squad leader!? Our boss that we’ve spent who knows how long with!?” K cried out.
“Calm down, just messing around.” X leaned against the wall.
“Whatever, you know what A said. We can’t come back until we’ve found water.” K reminded X.
“Why do we even need it? I’m sure he’ll be fine.” X waved off the issue.
“He’ll die.” K deadpanned.
“He can walk it off.” X waved off the issue again.
“I don’t care, just get off the wall, we’ve gotta search every building.” K gestured for X to follow.
“How can we even find anything in here? Everywhere else we’ve checked has been empty.” X took his place next to K.
“You never know, now get to it.” K kicked over a rock, exposing a small marble.
X trotted over to a dented metal counter on one side of the room, peering underneath it.
“Nothing here, this is useless.” X whined.
“Shut up.” K called out.
X surprisingly obliged, kneeling down and searching the small cabinets that were connected to the counter. After finding nothing but a small skeleton huddled inside one of them, X sighed heavily, before making his way over to a large metal box. It might’ve been taller than him if it wasn’t tipped over on its side, with an assortment of power cords snaking out from an outlet on the back of it. Seeing a small handle on the front, X tugged on it, the slight rust giving way to superior strength.
However, X’s eyes went wide with shock, which changed to glee.
“Hey, look what I’ve found!” X called out to K.
K’s head whipped up, staring at the prize that X was brandishing. “You found- what is that?”
If the two had any idea what warm food was, they would’ve recognized the lumpy frozen good that X had in his hands as a perfectly preserved rotisserie chicken. If they had any sort of reheating device, and if they had proper taste buds, they might have been able to enjoy the sweet experience of a Thanksgiving dinner. However, they were ignorant robots who were about as smart as a middle schooler, so the only reaction that they, or at least one of them had, was confusion.
“I dunno, but it says chicken on the side!” X proudly exclaimed.
“What’s chicken?” K questioned.
“I’m . . . not sure . . . but I’m pretty sure it's food.” X’s LED eyebrows furrowed in thought.
“How do you know that?” K asked.
“Uh, I don't?” X seemed more confused than ecstatic now.
K shook her head. “Did you find anything useful?”
“Well I found this clear thing, but it only says something called ‘Dasani’ on the side.” X held up a clear plastic bottle, putting his finger in quotation marks when he said it.
“Give me that!” K dashed across the room, snatching the item out of X’s hands.
“Wha- hey!” X tried to grab at it, but K held it out of his reach.
“Back up!” K swatted X in the face, inciting a squawk of surprise.
“I found it first, give it back!” X shot back, tackling K, causing the bottle to roll across the ground.
The two began slugging at each other, scrabbling across the ground for dominance over a goddamn bottle, like a gang of the aforementioned middle schoolers. Nearly crushing the contested item multiple times, the two spent a good thirty seconds duking it out. And after K finally managed to curl into a ball around the bottle, X tried to no avail to recapture his former possession.
“You motherfu-” X was cut off by a noise from the door that led deeper into the building
The two highly professional disassembly drones shot to their feet, their gazes snapping to the origin of the sound. Standing there was a figure, about the same height as K and X, with familiar black plating and armor, kneeling down to grab a small blue marble that was on the floor. It appears as though the idiot had been trying to be sneaky to avoid capturing the attention of the killer robots, which clearly didn’t go as planned.
“Uh, hi.” The drone said after a moment of silence.
Even more silence.
The military drone took that as a cue to scoop up the marble, before dashing out of the room.
K and X instantly took chase, with K pocketing the small bottle for later. The military drone wasn’t quite fast, but it did make use of its head start well. The unnamed drone disappeared behind the corner, with the pair of disassembly drones right on his heels. However, when K turned around the edge, a bullet tore through the air, finding its home in her head. Completely unprepared, she fell to the ground.
X, contrary to what some might do, didn’t stop to assist her, instead just simply vaulting over her body, speeding onward. He was rapidly closing the distance between him and the military drone, when his prey suddenly whipped around with a pistol in its hand. X, unlike his comrade, was prepared for this inevitability, turning to the side and out of the path of the trio of bullets as they flew by him. X followed up on this by diving down onto the hapless drone, trying to skewer it on gleaming metal claws.
The drone didn’t have a chance to fight, but unknown to X, he did have time to press the small panic button on its jawline, or where the jawline would be if it was a human. If anyone on this planet was familiar with standard police or even military practice, they would recognize the small button as the useful yet annoying panic button.
For a bit of context, the panic button is usually represented as a small and easy-to-access device that, when activated, sends out an emergency distress signal that would notify the proper authorities of the panic button’s location and a dire situation. The panic button is common in the military, police personnel, elderly homes, schools, corporate buildings, apartment buildings, and basically everywhere else that isn’t a ghetto.
The drone, however, proved to be much smarter than his predecessors, much to the dismay of X. It dove to the side, dropping down and through a weakened rusty grate. As X’s claws scraped against the wall, the fleeing drone tossed a metal panel that was blocking the way out to his side, before dashing through the door. X jumped down to the lower floor, before continuing his chase.
A flurry of bullets ripped towards him, but X brought his arm up, letting his forearm absorb the projectiles that hit, and most missed. The drone ran down a comically long flight of stairs, taking three steps at a time. The stairs continued downward, eventually opening up to a basement with a gaping hole in the wall, which led straight into darkness. The drone nearly fell into the hole from the momentum of jumping down the stairs. But, it just managed to skid to a stop at the edge.
X landed at the foot of the stairs, crouching to absorb the impact. X’s gaze focused on the drone that was pointing the pistol at X, sights drawing a solid bead on his head. However, when it pulled the trigger, it was only met with a slight clicking sound. The drone gaze jerked down to the pistol, then straight back up to X, who was now diving towards it, claws outstretched.
The drone jumped backwards, losing his balance. Its foot slipped off the edge, and while the sudden space between it and X saved its life for the time being, it did have to contend with gravity, which was now pulling on the drone by a considerable amount.
X watched as the drone tumbled down the pit, hitting the sides. However, the sides of the pit were both sloped and slick with a thin sheet of ice, causing the drone to slide down to the bottom. The drone slammed against a large rusty metal pipe, which was a solid indicator of the pit’s identity as a sewer.
The drone scrambled to its feet, caving the skull in of a skeleton that appeared to have been a former inspector when one took into account the corpse’s clipboard and tattered clothes. X slammed down onto the large pipe, causing it to resonate like a gong. The drone snatched up a small length of rusty metal rebar that had impaled itself on the ground, the edge of the steel surprisingly sharp. The drone adopted a fighting stance, pointing the business end towards X.
The robotic predator didn’t care, however, just simply stabbing his prey with his own pointy stick, the sharp end of his nanite acid tail. The sharp tool stuck itself in the drone’s shoulder, causing it to drop the bar and curse. X took the opportunity to grip the drone by the head, while digging the claws of his other hand in its chest. X then looked into the opaque black visor of the military drone, before pulling in two opposite directions.
The effects were made known quickly, with the head of the military drone migrating away from its home connected to the body. Oil splashed down onto X, who took the opportunity to feed. X dropped the head, letting it hit the ground with a clang, dropping the body as well.
X stood over the fallen corpse, claws gleaming with oil. K landed next to him, retracting her wings.
“So you got it?” K asked.
“No I didn’t, he got away. This body right here is just a random pigeon, and you’re just hallucinating.” X replied sarcastically. “Also, how the hell did you get here so fast?”
K rolled her eyes. “Oh, be quiet. I’m just making sure, because knowing you, you would probably let him go for the funny.” She ignored his latter question.
“Well now that you mention it . . .” X looked sorrowfully at the body.
K punched him in the arm. “Whatever, we gotta go. I seriously doubt that he was alone-”
She was cut off yet again by a loud crash that originated from the hole up on the wall. The duo whipped around, only to see several guns pointed straight at them.
“Sup.” X nodded at the intruders.
* * *
The sound of conversation could be audibly heard from the lit tent.
The tent had been designated as the de facto headquarters for the former facility personnel, with a smaller offshoot serving as a meeting room for the leadership. The offshoot tent in question was currently being used for its purpose, with an emergency meeting being called. Not because of the discovery of a dead body, but for a different matter entirely.
“Can anyone at least tell me how this happened?” The Lead Engineer leaned on the table.
One of the data officers stepped forward. “We believe that when we were evacuating the facility, an error occurred that declassified the file.” They answered.
“An error did this.” The General wasn’t convinced.
“Well, yes. The computers had been degrading for a while now, and we had noticed that several of our autonomous programs were misbehaving, or just outright not working at all.” The data officer replied.
“And we did nothing about this?” The General glared at the trio of data officers that had joined them.
“We actually were doing all we could, but we didn’t have the materials to make a complete fix.” The Lead Engineer interjected.
“Why didn’t you tell me then!?” The General exclaimed.
“I did. You probably just forgot again.” The Lead Engineer suggested.
“What? I have the best memory here.” The General puffed out his chest proudly.
“Alright then, what were we just talking about?” The Lead Engineer inquired.
The General frowned. “We were talking?”
The Lead Engineer facepalmed. “Goddamn idiot.”
One of the data officers stepped up. “Uh, sir? There is still the matter of the ones who discovered the information.”
“Oh yeah, uh, dump them off the eastern bridge.” The Lead Engineer waved off the issue.
With a simple nod, the data officers left, accompanied by a few guards as well. The Lead Engineer sat back in his chair, before steepling his fingers on the desk. He looked back and forth between the assembled leadership, before the General spoke up.
“So, are we gonna continue or what?” He crossed his arms.
“Yes, sorry.” The Lead Engineer motioned to one of his ministers. “You take the lead, Kane.”
Kane got up, walking to the front of the tent, dragging a projector on a cart with him. When he arrived, he pulled down the white screen, securing the hook on a latch on the bottom. He then adjusted the cart, facing the lens towards the screen. He then attached a laptop to the projector, pressing a few buttons and fiddling with a few switches, cursing once. Finally, the projector flickered to life, shining an image onto the screen.
Kane cleared his throat. “Ahem, so. What you are seeing here is the first page of the document in question. As you can see here, it appears to be warning against a drone viewing whatever the contents of this file is.” Kane flicked to the next slide. “It continues to vehemently express this multiple times, not really differing in its warning at all.”
One of the military ministers, Alicia, raised her hand. “Uh, question?”
Kane paused. “What is it?”
“Its warning against drones? She asked.
“Yes, it is. I’ll explain this later on, so save your questions for the end please.” Kane looked back to the projection, skipping through the slides until he landed on the first one without a warning.
“Ah, here we go. So, as you can see here, this appears to be a logo for JCJenson-'' Kane was interrupted by a faint, “In Spaaaaacee!” from an unknown source. “Uh, anyway, as all of you know, JCJenson was the company that owned this planet, and the one that provided the drones that the government were using in their facility, which was us.” Kane flicked to the next slide.
“Here we can see a title for a project, along with several bits of accompanying information, like locations, associates, page number, references, you get the picture.” Kane then produced a long ruler from what seemed like thin air, before pointing the end at one of the words. “Pay attention to this one here ‘AbsoSolv’ as it’ll come up several times later on.” Going to the next slide, Kane cleared his throat yet again.
“This page is more confusing, as it appears to be mentioning several unit serial numbers that don’t match up with standard format, which are mixed in with several other ones that are in different format, like this one here,” Kane pointed his stick at a random one from the line. “This one says, S-010011X01, which I believe has a main identifying letter instead of a string of numbers based on time of construction.”
“Additionally, while some of these feature the normal serial numbers that worker drones use, they have another identifier after it, separated by a dash.” Kane flipped to the next slide.
“This one is more straightforward, as it appears to be featuring a set of technical designs of a modified worker drone with the serial number and other associated information listed at the top. The notes on the side are observations on the modifications that can be seen in the designs. Some of the original worker drone parts can be seen, but a majority of the inner and outer mass seem to have been altered or replaced with a substance that is described as ‘fleshy’. You can see at the very bottom a signature of an unknown human administrator, and a notice that marks the drone for ‘disassembly’ as an addendum can be seen that marks whatever this is as a failure, and a recommendation to request more data from their source.”
Kane took a breath, before going to the next slide. “This is essentially the same as the last one, and this continues for a few slides. Nothing of note can be found in them, save for a few different serial numbers that were listed in one of the prior slides.”
Kane flicked to the next slide. “This one has two addendums, which I will say in a moment. The image is different as well, with noticeably less random mutations and more of a form taking place. This one was supposedly much more successful than the others, and while it was still marked as a failure, the first addendum said that the team working on the project should strip the data from the drone in as best a condition as they could. The second one simply noted they were naming the specific strain of code they were using to ‘Absolute Solver’. The addendum does not mention any reason or motive behind the name, only noting the fact that their shareholders would be pleased.”
“The next one is the first apparent success in the line of experiments that JCJenson seemed to be doing. A single growth can be seen protruding from the back of the spinal transmitter, and several other growths have sprouted inside. However, it is noted that the drone survived the process, and remained somewhat coherent for a period of time afterwards, which seems to be an outlier when considering the others. There isn’t an addendum on this one, only a request from the team for more extensive data from their source to compare to this experiment.”
“This trend continues for a good while, so I’ll just summarize the important bits for all of you.” Kane stated. “Each version continued to show more and more productive attributes and traits, as is par the standard course. Throughout the notes, requests, and addendums, whoever was typing up the document repeatedly noted some things that I will review later, such as Absolute Solver, the ‘source’, Camp 98.7, Cabin Fever Labs, and disassembly drones.”
Kane flicked to the final slide. “This is the final page, with some items to note. It appears to be a reiteration of the specifics of the agreement between the government and JCJenson, with a few additional key things. It includes the standard formalities and the usual junk that we all know, but something else as well. When mentioning the exchange of data that came from the asset-” Kane paused as the room underwent an uncomfortable shuffle in their seats. “They mention a clear correlation between this project that JCJenson is, or was, working on, and the asset. They also instructed the government contacts that any unauthorized personnel, which included government agents, were now barred from entering Camp 98.7 due to ‘hazardous environmental conditions’ and that this was nonnegotiable.”
Kane turned away from the projector, clasping his hands in front of himself. “And now to explain.”
“From what me and the team I assigned could gather, we deduced the meanings and purposes behind several items that were mentioned in this file. The first and most obvious, the ‘source’ that is mentioned. They are receiving data from this source, which seems to be essential to the development of what they were working on. Based on their words, we figured that the source is likely the asset, and yes, the same asset that we are all familiar with.” Kane paused, seemingly to let his words sink in.
“Continuing on, we began to dissect what Camp 98.7 was. It was very clearly a location of sorts, but where it was and what it was used for was more complicated. While we never arrived at a solid conclusion, we believed that the most likely avenue was that Camp 98.7 might have been an outpost of sorts, perhaps used in conjunction with these Cabin Fever Labs.”
“On the matter of the Cabin Fever Labs, we can clearly assume that research and development of this Absolute Solver was being conducted there, and perhaps Camp 98.7 was a sort of staging ground or other type of location related to the lab. We believe that the location of one or both of these sites are hidden within another file.”
“And perhaps the most intriguing and complex matter of them all, Absolute Solver. We figured that it was likely that this Absolute Solver was instrumental in whatever experiments they were doing, or even being one of the subjects of the experiments themselves. From what we gather, Absolute Solver is something, maybe a piece of alien machinery, some sort of unknown lifeform, an experimental strain of cutting-edge code, one of those things, but whatever it is, it is not something that is ‘normal’. It appears to have a unique effect on those it hosts or comes into contact with, rapidly generating new organic material, with sometimes uncontrolled effects. While the file only shows the experiments that used drones, we don’t know if any humans or other organic lifeforms were included either. Likely not, considering the legality of the situation, but it's open to discussion.”
Kane took a large breath, before continuing.
“And finally, the disassembly drones. They seem simple, but my team believed it to be heavily related to our current situation. They aren’t mentioned very often, but they appear to be a direct result of their experiments or related to one. From what we could gather, they are meant to, well, disassemble. Drones on par with military-grade ones that are capable of a variety of things, like bullet fire, rocket launching, melee combat, flight, digital warfare, and regeneration.” Kane watched as his words dawned upon his audience, expressions filling with shock.
“Yes, those drones. The disassembly drones that we read about are likely some variant of the unknown assailants that attacked the facility, and stole the asset in the process.”
The General sputtered. “B-but that would be a severe political incident! If those drones were under the command of JCJenson, and they stole GOVERNMENT property, then they would be liable for retaliation!”
Kane tried to calm the room. “Now, hold on, I’m not done-”
The Lead Engineer also appeared to be shocked. “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier!?”
“You told me to wait for the meeting!” Kane exclaimed.
The room erupted into disarray.
“We need to mobilize, hunt down those damn traitors!”
“What's their last known location!?”
“Where is the nearest transmitter, send out a request for retaliatory action!”
Suddenly, a drone burst into the room, knocking over the projector cart in the process. Everyone turned to look at him, ceasing the chaos for a moment.
“Er, uh, sirs?” The drone asked.
“Yes?” The General and the Lead Engineer stood up at the same time.
“I, uh,” The drone looked back and forth between the two administrators. “Well, we received a panic signal from one of our scouts.”
The General scoffed. “Why would that be enough to warrant our intervention? He probably just tripped on a conveniently placed banana peel.”
The messenger fidgeted nervously. “Well, his partner reported moments before the signal came in that he heard gunshots.”
The administrative drones shared a collective uneasy look.
“What did you do?” The General asked slowly.
“The officers who received the signal first sent in two of the patrol squads that were nearby at the time.” The messenger answered.
The drones in assembly all either looked down in disappointment or facepalmed.
The General spoke up after a moment. “Send in a squad as fast as you can to their last known location. Only veterans, and outfit them with heavy weaponry and explosive ordnance.” The General paused, before adding an afterthought. “And give them some cutting equipment too.”
The messenger blinked in surprise. “Wait, sir, are you sure-”
“Just tell the officers already!” The General slammed his fist down onto the cheap plastic table, which formed a crack.
The messenger saluted quickly, before dashing out of the room.
The Lead Engineer took a cursory look at the assembled drones, before he sighed.
“We’re screwed.”
* * *
“Are you going back anytime soon?”
Jacob looked back at his unwanted companion.
“No.” He answered simply, before resuming his casual trot.
“We’re getting too far away from the spire, and the sun is coming up in an hour or two. I for one don’t want to get caught out.” A insisted.
“Well I don’t die from a bit of sunlight, so too bad.” Jacob stepped over a tire rim.
“I’m not sure that’s your choice.” A stated.
Jacob paused and looked backward. “Oh, so you’re bossing me around now?”
“Maybe, if you keep on making dumb decisions like this.” A stopped as well.
“Pff, I’ll be fine.” Jacob waved his hand in the air to emphasize his point.
“You won’t last ten minutes.” A dead-panned.
“Nah, I’ll speedrun this stuff, I’ll be off-planet in an hour.” Jacob proudly said.
A shook his head and sighed. “Whatever you say.”
Jacob didn’t answer.
Jacob then looked around. “Wait, where are we? I wasn’t keeping track.”
“And you said that you would- whatever, we’re like, three miles away from the base.” A replied.
“Huh, went that far?” Jacob asked.
A frowned. “Three miles isn’t that far-”
A was interrupted by a rather loud crack that resonated through the landscape.
Jacob blinked. “Uh, ok then-”
Jacob was also interrupted by a trio of cracks and bangs, sounding slightly familiar.
“Are those-” Jacob was, yet again, interrupted by even more bangs.
“-gunshots?” He finished.
“I wouldn’t worry, those idiots are probably either messing around, or they found a worker drone to kill.” A nonchalantly answered.
“Shouldn’t we go check it out though?” Jacob inquired.
“It isn’t a problem.” A said, annoyed.
“Well it would give me something to do.” Jacob insisted.
A checked the time, before looking at the horizon for signs of sunlight.
“Eh, fine. Wouldn’t hurt, I guess.” A shrugged.
“Nice.” Jacob grinned underneath his ballistic visor.
* * *
K sliced through the head of the last desperate drone, before spitting out a bullet.
“You done?” K called out to X.
“Yeah, I guess. By the way, do you still have my Dasani thing?” X looked at K hopefully.
“Yes, I do. And besides, it isn’t yours, it's for Jacob.” K answered.
“What? Why is he getting it? Why not me?” X exclaimed.
“Because it's water, idiot. An uncontaminated source, like A told us, remember?” K glared at X.
“I guess, but that's water?” X asked.
“Yes, it is. It matches the description.” K replied
“Description?” X questioned.
“Yeah, the description. You know what description means, right?” K seemed even more annoyed.
“I know what it means.” X snapped. “But how do you know what water looks like?”
K just shrugged, before turning towards the exit.
“Come on, we gotta get back soon.” She flew upwards, landing on the ledge.
X followed suit, tracing their steps back through the building. X looked back up at the rusty grate that the drone had fallen through, which he now identified as being part of a weirdly placed catwalk. Scanning the environment, X found that the only entrance to the small alcove would be the hole in the catwalk. The basement that the small room was connected to didn’t have an entrance either, only having the gaping hole in the side of the room, which likely wasn't intended. That would mean that a person would have to chop through the sewer wall to get into the basement and adjoining alcove, or jump off the catwalk. Both of those options didn’t make any sort of sense at all. In fact, the catwalk wasn’t even needed, someone could have just removed the entire basement-and-alcove plan entirely, which also removed the necessity for a catwalk. All in all, whoever designed the building was either high off of some crazy drugs, an idiot, or both.
But, none of these thoughts went through X’s head, as he was only thinking about the devastating loss of his cool plastic bottle.
K hefted herself up onto the rusty catwalk, with X following close behind. K went through the doorway, only for a rather eventful event to stop her momentarily.
A rocket screamed through the air, smacking K straight in the chest. The resulting explosion blew X backwards and K apart, with oil splashing onto the ground in the process. With a clatter, X hit the ground, slightly dazed. He looked to his left to see what looked like the arm of K, twitching slightly. X tried to get up, only to fall again, after he put his weight on a hand that wasn’t there.
X, seeing the failure of Operation: GTFU, adjusted his position so that he could get up with his other hand only, which was thankfully still there. Investigating his left arm, he could see that everything down from the elbow had been separated from himself in the blast. He didn’t have time to look for it or go get it, so he simply let the matter go.
Standing up, X stared through the smoke, before diving back down onto the ground when another rocket came streaking past him. It scratched his face, sending small sparks up, before heading down the other hallway. X pointed his own rocket launcher into the fog, before firing off a flurry of shots. He heard explosions, but wasn’t rewarded with screams or grunts of pain. Problematic, to say the least.
X took the opportunity to kick K’s assorted dismembered body parts down into the lower alcove, where she should eventually reassemble herself. She was really taking a beating recently, and she would probably be frustrated about that when X was all done, but that wasn’t his problem-
X nearly met the same fate as K when another rocket flew from the open doorway, the fog starting to clear up. X jumped up and over the RPG, letting it fly into the unexplored depths of the building. He couldn’t do this dance forever, so he made the executive decision to charge into the unknown.
* * *
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Anyway, I'll be posting the next part tomorrow, so hang on tight for the singular person that made it to the end. No need to like, this is purely for my own benefit. See ya.