Some stories have a message...kinda...

Additional Notes:

WARNING! (The real one)

This story is pretty offensive, it can get graphic and downright ruthless at times so if you don’t like that sort of humor, don’t read this story. But if you read it anyway don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway, get offended and leave a hilariously triggered comment, that's fine too.)

Also, don't bother trying to "win" either. You can't. Just heed the moral lessons you may learn.

One musician's tale in a dying world

Additional Notes:

If you’ve read and liked Necromancer, then this might interest you as this story takes place during the same course of events of that story. (Not a prequel, not a sequel, but an equal!)

However, this story is definitely more “story” than “game”. In fact you shouldn’t even bother reading it if you’re intent on “winning”. You can’t. That being said, there is a “true ending” to this story and you’ll probably know if you get it. If you do get it, you can consider it a “win” if you like.

There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to “Letters to Home”. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide a little more insight into the protagonist’s thoughts and feelings on various situations.

The last hope for a dying empire

Additional notes:

This story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 13 epilogues total.

There are also several points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people, places, things and events. While not completely necessary to understanding the story, they do give you more insight into it.

Carnivals aren't all fun and games.

Additional Notes:

While there is only one spot that contains extra histories for this story, it's basically the background information of all the major characters and factions. It's strongly recommended that these are read due to the fact that your character will be interacting with most of these folks in his attempts to successfully accomplish his task(s).

This story has a very factional feel to it, so choose your allegiances carefully to get one of the better endings.

If you see a bright light, duck and cover!

Additional notes:

I should point out that this story can be very long assuming you're not dying. Years pass and your surroundings will most likely change. You may very well live a life time in the story if you're lucky. You will also experience a completely different adventure depending on how you escaped the initial nuclear strike. (Assuming you do survive it.)

As with any of my writings, the "story" comes before the "game". However, this story was written in a "game like" format. So while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 4 special endings. (You'll know if you get one because you'll get an epilogue)

This one's for the kids, no really!

Additional Notes:

This story has clear cut win/lose endings. There is nothing excessively unusual about this story, it's just a simple "children's story".

(Yes, you can still die in it)

Running the family business isn't easy!

Additional Notes:

In a few places there are links for history or certain characters. While not necessary to understand the story, they do provide further background information.

There are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad or neutral outcomes. Technically there is one very happy ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Underneath the sickness there's love...

Additional Notes:

WARNING!

This story contains a lot of graphic content, if you are offended by ultra violence, explicit sexual descriptions, tons of swearing, blasphemy, inappropriate dark humor, and brutal misanthropy in general then DO NOT read this story!

Of course now that I’ve mentioned all the things it contains, you’ll probably read it anyway, you sick little monkey.

Well don’t complain if you get offended, I did warn you and keep in mind it IS only a story.

(Or read it anyway knowing it'll offend you and leave an amusingly triggered comment. That's fine too.)

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a very twisted man and his very twisted lifestyle.

Additional Notes:

This story is definitely more "story" than "game", however there are two distinct paths that can be followed, each with their own pitfalls and additional choices. There is also "one true" ending in which can be considered a "win" (You'll know if you got it, because you'll get an epilogue)

This story can get long, and assuming you're surviving, years do pass in it and you and your environment will change. There are a few points in the story where there are links that lead to more background information on various people and things. While not completely necessary to understand the story, they do give you more insight into it. The text that accompanies some of the pics are also done for similar purposes (Your journal entries, personal thoughts, letters written to you, etc)

Humanity never changes...

Additional Notes:

There are links leading to various background information and your character's current thoughts throughout the story. In some cases these may provide greater insight since some mysterious things can occur in this story.

There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. Technically there is one ultimate "winning" ending, but it isn't labeled as such.

Emotions can be wonderful or dangerous...

Additional Notes:

This story has a few bits that are probably a bit on the disturbing side. Not many, but they are there in places. So if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it.

This story in general is probably a bit odd and less verbose than most of my other stories. There are also several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just the tale of a teenager who definitely has some issues.

From humble beginning to infamy and beyond!

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a "sequel" to Innkeeper.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can technically "win" by getting one of the 12 epilogues.

Things would be so much easier if your name was Mary Sue

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as:

A direct sequel to the "Good Girl" short story in Tales From The Basement.

A semi sequel to the other TFTB short stories, Repression, TRASH, Love SICK and Geek.

A semi prequel to Ground Zero.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However while there isn't a complex inventory and all of that, you can still "win" by getting one of the epilogues.

There are 16 epilogues total.

Because Basement Dwellers are people too!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one. Your first choice will lead to a separate tale of a different “basement dweller”. Each one is mostly different in tone.

Ebay Escapist is weird and random. It’s the least verbose of the three. (Or my stories in general)

Good Girl is the longest and most descriptive of the three. There is some weirdness going on here too, but is mostly kept much more in "reality". There is a cast of characters link in the beginning to help you keep up with who’s who.

Anime Addict has a lot of offensive language and humor, so if you don't like that sort of thing you shouldn’t read this one.

In all the tales there are several endings varying in degrees of good/bad/neutral outcomes. While there are some endings better than others, these are basically just tales of basement dwellers.

It's an edgelord boogaloo!

Additional Notes:

This story is three stories in one where it follows a different protagonist based on the first choice.

This story is also probably really offensive or something. Probably shouldn't read it if that's not your thing, but feel free to do so anyway and complain loudly in the comments since those are always good for a laugh.

Anyway, there's your extra warning. You can't say you weren't told.

Incel Insanity and Whining Wokie are all new tales, while Film Fanatic is a "reboot" of sorts of an older story called Exploitation Theater. Yes, it's finally here and been greatly expanded on.

As always the story is always more important than the game focus, but also as always, you definitely can get better endings than others.

Three ladies. Three legends.

Additional notes:

This story is a fully self contained one and can easily be read on its own, however it also acts as a connection to Rogues, Eternal and Necromancer.

As with any of my writings, the story comes before the game. However there is an epilogue for each "winning" ending.

Yee Haw! It's a trailer park life for me!

Additional Notes:

This story has a ton of offensive langauge and humor so if you don't like that sort of thing, you probably shouldn't read it. Though given the setting, the language used is pretty accurate.

This also isn't really a "win/lose" type story. While there are some endings better than others, this is basically just a tale about a typical day of a degenerate that lives in a trailer park.

Trying to figure out who the one with the biohazard tattoo is supposed to be. Petros maybe?

Well Silver_Eyes is currently my favorite noob.

(Don't worry rankings as always can change)

Maybe later, if I come up with something fitting.

Funny thing is I actually did quick "research" on how the tone of those go glancing at a few youtube vids. Wanted to make sure it's a good replica of one after all.

> be me
> 20 something chronically online shitposting basement dweller
> wake up at 3 pm to see what’s going on at the chan
> site doesn’t appear
> none of my bookmarks are working for it either
> check internet connection just in case
> get annoyed since I was in the middle of convincing this retarded faggot to start transmaxxing and today was step 4
> figure whatever the issue is, it should resolve itself soon, go check the news to see how the libs are getting owned today
> see a headline that causes me to pause and read further
> 4CHAN HACKED! Possibly down for good
> this can’t be real
> check multiple sources and with each confirmation sphincter muscles begin to tighten further
> heart starts to race
> feel like I’m going to pass out
> this isn’t happening
> rush to the bathroom to vomit
> don’t quite make it to the toilet resulting in partially digested chicken nuggets and Mountain Dew all over the bathroom floor
> continue to heave in the toilet, but nothing more is coming out
> bare feet are now sticky from stepping in my own nuggy Dew mixture
> grab a towel to clean up
> try to get it together
> maybe there’s some mistake
> return to computer to do more research
> there is no mistake
> it's over

There, your green text at home.

Now I've never been entirely up on the 4chan lore and events since I never really used the place, but they usually had some major ones that even most "normie" of internet users such as myself have heard about.

The most recent being 4chan getting majorly horse fucked by l33t haxxorz. Apparently this was done by some ex-4channers that got thrown out of there for being too extreme even for them.(Something about raiding an alphabet people section of all things)

So logically these degenerates made their own "4chan" with wojaks and underage hookers. This place is apparently called Shartyparty. (Great name) They bided their time and hacked the OG site with PDFs loaded with virus scripts or something. 

So far the damage seems to be pretty severe. Leaked all the admin and mod personal info (or as much as possible) Amusingly many of these had .edu or .gov in their email addresses. For more lols stats show that most posting came from Israel.

Who can say if this means the place is really "dead forever" but it's looking like a lot of work to even remotely get it to how it was. Easier to make a whole new site if it comes to that.

I've seen some celebration by the blue hair over this but not sure if this is something they really should be celebrating considering now the "Chuds" will be seeking other homes, not to mention all this was is a purging of the "Old Guard" which from all reports was a shadow of its former trolling self more content on just saying their favorite racial slurs and jacking it to femboys rather than actively attacking institutions such as The Church of Scientology. These Shart guys are obviously the "new" 4chan seeing as they had the drive to eliminate their competition.

In any case, I won't be surprised if a few refugees pop in here since despite never really using the site, I have been made aware of a few discussions here and there that mentioned us. (Maybe a thread archiving some of those posts might be in order if I get motivated to search through the discord) 

Just remember, contrary to popular belief, this place is NOT "The 4chan of IF communities". There's still rules and order here, plus we killed the pedo tranny that was a mod briefly so there's a major difference right there. (Which also puts us ahead of every other social media place as well) 

Apparently there's also rumors of Tumblr going bankrupt or something as well. If that also goes down, it's open season on any tumblrina faggot that somehow finds itself here.

A plot twist could be Mizal just bans me before I can ban her (or anyone) making this whole situation even more hilarious.

In some alternate timeline, The Beatles recorded the songs Butthole Lane and Bitchfield Forever rather than Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever.

Okay back to getting these done. As I said this next one will be the secondary story that ran in the last 4 issues and this one is all about everyone’s favorite space hooker, Ardala!

Sins of Ardala

It starts off with a page of no dialog, just panels of an older guy with a young blonde woman and showing her off in various states of undress to Ardala and some obvious negotiation on price.

After which the girl gets dressed and Ardala asking her does she realize what just happened. The girl says her name is Jasmine and understands that her dad and brothers just sold her and she’s now a slave. She says her name is Jasmine. Ardala makes some snide comments about her family not valuing her company much since they sold her at a low price and asks what her mom thinks about all this, but she says her mom is dead and they had to sell her because times were hard.

Gotta say, Jasmine’s taking her family’s decision pretty well all things considered.

So this being a pleasure planetoid and all, Ardala feels its necessary to ask the important questions.

“Sorta” Going to guess she's one of those that thinks taking it in the ass doesn’t count.

So after Ardy asks if Jasmine knows who she even is. Jasmine mentions she’s related to a rich RAM founding family and bought the asteroid to run a sex empire. This causes Ardy to laugh and an excuse for her to go into her entire origin story.

She mentions that she is related to the Valmar family, however she wasn’t born on Mars, she born on a backwater space colony called Starsalem.

Starsalem is basically like Amish Country for the 25th century since everyone there shuns the really high tech shit. It’s run by a cult like mindset called the Normanites. They’re all living like it’s the 20th century there, probably around 1980s.

So y’know the good old days.

Anyway Ardala’s dad “Ezra” had long since abandoned his rich RAM founding family to go join this cult where he worked a farm. Ardala and her older sister Hope helped out along with their mother Ruth. They had a farmhand Adam that assisted who was also set up to be Hope’s future husband. Ardala though was already a bit of a flirty troublemaker and would hit on him to piss off her sister.

Now it isn’t entirely clear if Adam would have actually fallen for Ardala or he just liked the extra female attention (Male ego and all) but such potential drama wasn’t to be since something worse was in store for Ardala.

Starsalem much like the Mormon community had a problem with the female to male ratio, though in Starsalem’s case it wasn’t due to marrying off a bunch of child brides to all the rich old dudes and nothing left for the young guys. It was a case of their shit primitive technology resulting in more females being born than males. Basically not enough guys to go around.

Well they weren’t going to implement Chinese policy of killing female babies, that would be barbaric. Their council just decided to sell off their excess teenage girls into slavery instead. Especially since despite all their bravado of rejecting cool technology, their little colony NEEDED superconductors to even stay alive. So girls for tech it was to solve both issues.

So the council leader Titus tells Ezra he’s gotta give up Ardala for the greater good. He doesn’t really want to and his wife even tells him to go call his rich RAM family to send him the money to buy the superconductors, but he’s all dedicated to being a culty so selling Ardala it is.

Ardala is in the middle of tormenting her sister about Adam liking her more and then her father walks in saying you’re getting sold for shit the colony needs. Ardala is understandably upset about this and argues before running off. Titus basically calls Ezra a faggot cuck that can’t keep his own daughter in line and this is just proof that they’ve made the right decision in getting rid of a girl that would be so selfish to put her needs first.

Ardala goes running off to Adam thinking that he might help her, but that’s a no go. He says he never loved her and he’s promised to Hope anyway. Ardala scratches his eyes like a cat and gets away as he’s trying to subdue her. She tries one last person, her mom, but her mom is in a dazed state of acceptance merely saying “It’s the will of the council and there is no choice, we must obey.” At this point Ardala is finally captured.

Next it shows Ardala with a few other young women being sold to some stereotypical looking sleezebag named Lazlo (Even the name) They’re heading off to an asteroid called “Pakki’s Pig Sty” and while all the other girls are afraid, Ardala’s still being defiant, even vowing that’s she’s going back to Starsalem one day to get revenge on Titus.

Lazlo meanwhile with his crew are ready to take a free sample of the goods so to speak. And by that I mean the rape is about to start. Ardala’s the only one who puts up a bit of a fight which Lazlo doesn’t even mind a bit. (Just makes it hotter right?)

“What followed was ugly, but mercifully short lived.” - Ardala

So after now also putting Lazlo on her shitlist, Ardala finally reaches Pakki’s which is run by this old Italian stereotype who has this transparent chest exposing his internal organs.

Anyway, they get sent to the head bitch in charge Molly, who explains that this is their life now and they better get used to being joy toys for the rest of their lives. But once again Ardala’s not going out like that and now has put Pakki on her shitlist as well.

End of part 1

Second part starts off with a full page panel of Ardala wrestling a pig in a mud pit explaining that her time at Pakki’s wasn’t easy since she definitely chose to do things the hard way. Didn’t matter what demeaning thing they had her do she wasn’t breaking.

Well it's not called Pakki's Pigsty for nothing

After catching the pig, Ardala leaves the small arena where she’s met by Molly saying she’s gotten too good at the game to the point where Pakki can’t even get anyone to bet against her anymore. Something that of course makes Ardala happy. Molly says she doesn’t understand how she manages to turn every humiliation into some personal triumph and then says that Ardala is immediately on waitress duty for her next task. Ardala’s a little surprised given that she still smells like pig shit, but Molly mentions that’s the idea. Pakki and Lazlo are holding a RAM executive for ransom and they want his stay to be unpleasant.

Ardala heads to the cells with food and in the cage is a character we’ve seen before Jonathan Titov. He’s not quite as high in the RAM hierarchy at this point and he’s pretty pissed about his situation since being captured is going to hurt his chances at a promotion and now he’s enduring the stench of Ardala.

Ardala at this point says she’s not also putting up with insults by prisoners and if he keeps it up she’s throwing the food at him. He immediately apologizes and explains himself a bit. Ardala and he talk and he’s privately amused when she mentions her last name is “Valmar” because there’s no way she could be related to such a prestigious family. Still he thinks maybe he’ll be able to use her in some way.

Meanwhile the other girls aren’t made of the same girl power material Ardala is and one in particular can’t stand it anymore and tries to escape only to nearly kill herself running into a laser security door. Ardala calls Molly for help, but Molly’s just like if the dumb whore wants to kill herself, why the fuck should she care.

It’s at this point however where Ardala establishes her queen bee moment and physically threatens Molly calling her a burned out whore and that she better help her. At this point Molly folds showing she was always more bark than bite and the girl’s life is saved despite the fact she wants to die. Ardala says she’s not letting any of them die and they’ll get back to Starsalem one day. She takes the girl’s shift in whoring since Pakki’s on their asses about customers getting served.

I read Pakki’s dialog in a stereotypical Italian voice and it’s hilarious

So later Ardala’s talking with Titov, asking how he got captured and what might be in it for her if she could manage an escape plan for him. Titov is cool with escaping, but he’s also concerned that if Ardy screws up this plan he could get killed. He feigns concern that SHE might get hurt being involved, but Ardy reassures him that she can pull it off. It also shows that despite her wily defiant ways, she’s still a bit naive when it comes to guys since she actually believes Titov is worried about her.

Ardala is now so enamored with Titov that she even foolishly blabs this to Molly who says she needs to check herself before Pakki spaces her for trying to pull a fast one on him and that she REALLY better not be thinking about helping him escape.

Ardala at this point sort realizes she needs to shut the fuck up and go back to plotting secretly since even though she’s cowed Molly into enough submission that she won’t rat on her directly, someone else might be listening. So she does the old bit where she tells Lazlo that Pakki is scheming against him and vice versa.

Neither of them are entirely convinced Ardala overheard these supposed it schemes, however criminal scumbags tend to have a lot of paranoia and distrust because well, they’re working with other criminal scumbags.

So the first thing that sets Lazlo off is he soon sees Pakki speaking with mercs and figures he’s going to be set up soon to be killed.

Lol struck impotent

Well doesn’t take long before Lazlo and his crew attack Pakki who is now surrounded by a bunch of mercs he’s hired. A shoot out ensues while Ardala frees Titov.

Too late for second thoughts now

They get to the hanger and Ardala thinks she can go grab the other girls and they can all escape together, however Titov says he only knows how to fly the long range courier that has ONE seat. Ardala’s spirits are a little dampened by this news, but Titov reassures her that he will come back for her.

And then promptly after he takes off, he thinks she’s a dumb delusional whore if she really believes such a thing.

Pity Pakki didn't invest in safety glass to protect his innards

Meanwhile Lazlo has barely won the shoot out, however while gloating over the dying Pakki he learns that Pakki only hired all the mercs in the first place because Ardala said Lazlo was plotting to kill him. Upon discovering this treachery, Lazlo tracks Ardy to the docking bay and says he owns Pakki’s place now but he can’t thank Ardala since she has to serve as a lesson for slaves to not plot against their master.

He throws her into the pig pit saying that they’ve devised a new twist on the game by genetically altering the pig which is now a mutant pig man.

It's going to be the REALLY hard way with the pigs now

Ardala however still is as defiant as ever, managing to blind the mutant, which doesn’t even anger Lazlo because this is all entertainment to put her through hell anyway. She refuses to beg for mercy though.

End of part 2

Next part starts off with Titov making it back to a RAM cruiser where they’re all a bit surprised to see him. He mentions how he easily escaped such brainless slugs and even mentions Ardala. One of the guards asks if they should do a background check on her last name, but he mentions she was some delusional whore so not to bother.

Titov gets some food and washed up before relaying his “magnificent escape” for the RAM report. His secretary mentions that the Ardala girl puzzles her and asks if she should do a background check to see if she’s real. Titov once again isn’t concerned but says if his secretary wants to waste her time then she can knock herself out, since he’s going to bed and doesn’t want to be woken up until they get to Mars.

Soon, the secretary wakes him up and says that Ardala IS a Valmar. A distant relative, but she’s still kinfolk. Immediately Titov can’t let a founding family member just rot away in a whore house so he has the ship turned around back to Pakki’s.

Meanwhile Ardala’s still fighting the mutant pig man and even though it’s blinded, its still wearing her down as Lazlo and the rest look on. The other girls wonder if they can do anything, but Molly as ever always playing it safe says they can’t do shit since even if Ardala wins, Lazlo isn’t letting her live.

Ardala is slowly getting choked out by the mutant and it’s looking grim for her as she’s starting to lose consciousness. And then Titov in full RAM armor (with a bunch of RAM terrines in front of him of course) storm the place blasting at Lazlo and his men. Titov of course wastes no time in rescuing Ardala personally who believes that he came back for her.

“Did you really think I’d forget?” - Titov

RAM executes Lazlo and the remainder of his men (Funny enough you don’t actually see Lazlo get offed, just him in the captured kneeling position while terrines standby with rifles) Titov is ready to take her back to Mars, but Ardala says her family is on Starsalem.

So they go to Starsalem, but the council leader Titus pulls the old Overseer routine and says they can’t come back to the vault. Even Ardala’s own father backs him up saying it was for the good of the colony bullshit.

Ardala mentions what happened to her and the other girls and Titus is like “Yeah we knew what would happen, but that’s a sacrifice we were willing to make for the colony and you hussies can’t come back because you’re damaged good now and you’ll scare all the other girls. Lol.”

Ardala flies into a rage saying she can’t be kept out forever prompting a smug response by Titus of how she was always a selfish girl thinking of herself and never belonged anyway.

Yeah even compared to Lazlo and Pakki, Titus is just way more of an asshole

So Titov mentions that Ardala does have family on Mars so he can take her there instead.

However, the matriarch of Valmar family isn’t all that thrilled to see her. She mentions that Ardala’s father renounced all his ties to the family long ago (And quite rudely too) so they can’t afford to be associated with the likes of her. Ardala says she can’t be blamed for that, to which the Matriarch says she’s not blaming her, and is instead offering her a modest stipend on the condition that she move to Luna and keep her mouth shut about her ties to the Valmar family.

Well in typical Ardala fashion of doing things the hard way she cusses out the Matriarch (Causing her to faint from such scandalous behavior) and declines the offer thinking maybe Titov can help her somehow.

She heads to Titov’s office only to find him speaking with his wife and toddler son. He’s a bit surprised to see her and quickly says to his wife how Ardala is one of the girls he rescued and is helping her get settled on Mars. (His wife believing that he’s such a good soul) He says he’ll speak with Ardy in a moment as he rushes his family out the door. Andy is now pissed about this situation since she at least figured she had a sugar daddy to count on.

While she’s waiting for him to return she starts snooping on his computer which has his RAM report about the rescue. She does a little digging and finds his original report which pretty much states that he had no intention of coming back at all if she hadn’t been a Valmar.

Titov comes back and says they can talk about the situation with her family and find a profitable arrangement for her. Ardala though has pretty much had it with penis havers from all walks of society and kicks titov in the balls. She then mentions she knows he was going to leave her to die originally and is now just trying to get in the good graces of the Valmar family. She plans to tell the Matriarch everything unless he helps her for realsies.

And this is where she lays out her plan. RAM currently controls Pakki’s pigsty, so she suggests that she covertly get RAM funds to build it up into a better quality whore house AKA Pleasure Planetoid. It can basically be a place where she can gather information to sell to RAM that they wouldn’t normally be able to acquire otherwise and since its in the asteroid belt it can keep an eye on the pirates and brigand’s league too. In addition to intelligence gathering, she’ll share some of the profits with RAM.

Titov is impressed enough with the idea that he agrees to help.

So the next step is Ardala needing some reliable whores…erm I mean “employees” for this new business venture. Naturally she goes to her Starsalem buddies (Who are still sort of in limbo seeing as they can’t go back home either) with this idea, but while they appreciate this offer they really don’t want to be whores anymore, they want the normal lives they thought they were going to have.

Ardala gets pissed about this thinking they’re being ungrateful, but surprisingly Molly calms her down saying not to be too hard on them since they were always “amateurs” at best anyway. Molly not really knowing any other life is on board with the plan saying she can easily get some seasoned volunteers for this sort of work. Which Ardala agrees might be best anyway.

However, in another anti-hero move she demands that Titov give all her Starsalem comrades a college education, new names, new files and a suitable husband on a different planet. Titov says fine, but it’s coming out her share of the profits, which Ardala is okay with since her private idea is now she’s got six more grateful well position spies on the inner planets.

End of part 3

Okay so we come to the last part which is more of a wrap up since Ardala’s basically overcome all her major challenges. She’s got the pleasure planetoid up and running where it’s serving its intended purpose and nobody can stop Ardala from using her family name as leverage against RAM. She goes on about basically achieving her goals of acquiring status, money and power so she’d never be a victim again. Mentions how certain clients had to be handled personally by her (Shows her slapping Black Barney) Kept in touch with her old starsalem buddies and their families (And their husband’s careers) Even says she made peace the rest of the Valmar family after the matriarch died.

And yet, there was still ONE thing left to deal with which was Starsalem itself.

As luck would have it, there was a thruster explosion that provided her opportunity.

The incident caused Starsalem to tilt away from the sun. Everyone is getting colder, crops are dying and Titus is being an asshole saying prayer will get them through this. However, eventually enough people are yelling that they need outside help on this which causes him to relent, but ONLY if the people are of good moral fiber. They send out a distress signal.

Molly picks it up and tells Ardala about it, but she seems uninterested about what’s happening and says she has to supervise a bachelorette party for Holoboy’s great-great-grand niece. Molly tells the crew that picked up the signal to not respond, but to keep her updated since she knows damn well that Ardala’s going to respond eventually.

And sure enough after Molly mentions again that the people are now starving, Ardala still says she’s not interested, but then quickly changes her mind saying it might be a hoot to visit the old homestead.

So Ardala heads to Starsalem with a bunch of rescue ships which confuses Molly of why she’s bothering to bring those if she’s just going there to gloat, which then causes Ardala to say she’ll save them IF they beg REALLY nicely. She also dresses up in one of her skimpier clothing choices since looking like a wanton woman will increase the shock value. Molly thinks she’s going to freeze her ass off though given how cold the place has reportedly gotten.

Ardala arrives and she greeted by one of the council members who’s full of thanks, but she’s still not convinced to help and she wants to see her parents first. They’re at the cemetery though. her mom died shortly after she was sold and her dad died some time between the last time he spoke to her and now. Her sister and sister's husband are still alive though.

Yep, get fat and old or become a youthful looking space hooker. The choice is clear ladies!

After she’s done laughing a little girl comes up to her saying she’s never seen her before. Ardala says she’s been away and asks who she is to which she says her name is “Ardy” which is the name her grandmother gave her before she died. Ardala realizes this is her niece so now she’s a little bit more motivated to help the colony. She tells the council members that met with her that she’ll save the colony, but they can’t be selling girls anymore.

At this point Titus pops up and starts calling Ardala every synonym for “whore” that he can think of all the while saying how dare she dictate morality to them. She tells him to shut the hell up and he continues on his tirade until suddenly he keels over dead.

He really was an asshole

After giving him a light kick, Ardala confirms he’s dead and the rest of the council is fine with making the deal with Ardala. Her ships pull the colony back into its original spot and she mentions that if they reneg on their promise of not selling girls, she’s sending Black Barney to enforce the contract.

With Starsalem saved thanks to her and seeing that old asshole Titus die Ardala finally got the last bit of her revenge.

All of which brings us back to her talking to Jasmine who is puzzled about if Ardala hates slavery so much why does she buy girls like her. Ardala responds doesn’t she know why she told the story in the first place. Jasmine figures it was supposed to give her hope that no matter how bad things are, she’ll survive.

“A good lesson, but the wrong one.” - Ardala

Ardala explains nobody does anything against their will on the pleasure planetoid. She’s going to enroll her in a school on Mars and she’ll get a good education at Olympus University. She’s no one’s slave and Molly will see to getting her prepared. Jasmine of course is now overjoyed by this news and how nobody’s been this kind to her since her mom died. She wonders how she’s ever going to repay her.

To which Ardala is already thinking that after everything is done, Jasmine will be so grateful she’ll be begging to join her spy network and THAT will be the return on her investment.

The End

So yeah, Ardala also had a more interesting story than Buck.

But we aren’t done yet, next story review will be the last one and we’ll see if Buck can beat out space pirates and space hookers. It’s a tall order, but anything’s possible.

Stay tuned!

Yeah I'll ban all of them, but you also said you have to beat ALL of them for that to happen.

I'm going to say right now those odds aren't good.

Granted I expect some on that list to flake, but there's at least a few on there that will turn something in and given what they've turned in before, I don't see it going well for you, but I guess we'll see.

Alright sounds good. I'll make a note.