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Totally cribbing from Sherbet's excellent idea, I am building my new Rimworld run, starting with my fellow Gazette staff. This game will vary from Sherbet's in a couple critical ways. Firstly, I will be using the Ideology, Biotech and Anomaly DLC. Secondly, I have a similar but different mix of mods (only 63, opposed to his 100+)

This run will also be starting with a specific Anomaly scenario: Three researchers and a mindless ghoul. Specifically the staff of the CYS Gazette, those devout Cystians, received a mysterious signal from deep space. While the signal held data, it seemed random gibberish, obvious collected from lost and forgotten storygames from such long-forgotten wastelands as AO3, COG, and dozens of even less well known sites, as was well as snippets taken from the jewels of Cystia itself. Anthraxus, RKrallanor, Fresh_out_the_oven and the Fleshbot Larimar as well as numerous others whose names and significance are as transient as the various nameless bots and noobs that litter the online listings, quickly outfit a research vessel and plied the spacelanes to determine the source of this strange signal.

After months of travel with only a review contest to keep them busy, they finally arrived as a distant and unsettled world, known only by a code from the stellar index. Initial scans showed this rimworld world was little populated with an interesting mix of primitive tribes, space pirate clans, and small enclaves of relatively modern society. Some significant civilization had called this place home once. Th ruined cities still dotted the surface. The signal pulsed strongly from the below, and Anthraxus, RKallanor and Fresh heard suddenly could hear its call in the minds. It was no longer random story fragments, but their own names being called.

With a sudden flare of devastating energy, a blast from the planet's surface lanced through the research vessel. Bathed in strange and unknown energies, the nameless adn insignificant crew's flesh began to ripple and move of its own accord. Our four valiant and foolhardy researchers leapt for the escape pods, Anthraxus shoving Larimar into one. As the doors closed over them, all three could see that for Larimar it was too late. The bot's flesh casing began to twist and move as the escape pods launched.

Minutes later they emerged from their escape pods in a foggy forest bowl set high in the mountains. The soft trickling of a creek or something similar echoed nearby. Even from their landing site they could see ancient hulking war machines and ruined structures mouldering in the overgrowth. Anthraxus, RK and Fresh emerged from their escape pods and quickly assessed their situation. With horror and disgust they saw what had happened to their friend and assistance, Larimar. The fleshbot had been corrupted, it's flesh become grey and loose on it's frame and both arms replaced by stranch fleshy tentacles. It was quickly apparent that Larimar's mind had also been befouled. While he seemed to pose no immediate threat, it was obvious that he would be of little use for anything but dealing with whatever threats may await them.

As the little band surveyed their surroundings, they found the scattered supplies that had come down with their pods and more interestingly a great monolith with two human corpses laying at its base. The monolith was broken and shortened, but covered in dark, unreadable markings and runes that seemed to twist and move the longer one looked at it. The signal that had drawn them here clearly emanated from here. The three researchers, now colonists, shared a foreboding look. There was nothing to do but the doing, and their shared faith in the power of the written word and science told them that only hard work and diligent research would allow them to learn what the whispered song of the monolith could mean.

Mercer Gang (Anthraxus, Enter and UnescapableDeath): 0

I just got my first featured comment since the start of the contest. Obviously splitting my focus is helping fight my undiagnosed ADHD and letting me be productive across multiple fronts.

It would be very funny if there was a late game issue (once some more advanced recreation options become available) of a Polybius/Rimworld type game that is very fun and relaxing but completely addictive.

So as our erstwhile researchers begin building up their new base and Larimar takes out his endless agression on the useless war machines (literally, they drop no useable stuff and just take up space and be visually interesting!) we have our first couple of votes:

Camp layout Vote:

• Individual cabins - Each colonist gets a decent sized room that stands alone. This option gives some inherent protection against the threat of fire and gives more cover if a fight breaks out in the colony, but requires more resources overall, particularly to heat and cool each one.
• Residence Hall - Just like back in college, each colonist has a decent sized room that are connected into one large building. This will simplify heating and cooling, and increase the chance for social interaction, but presents a much greater risk for fire spreading.

Initial Focus: Highest priority to start with is constructing shelter of course, but what are our 2nd and 3rd priorities?

• Food - We've got two decent patches of rich soil nearby that will yeild pretty good crops. Potatoes and Rice are the quickest to harvest, but I have more options from mods that I don't know off the top of my head.
• Mundane Research - It looks like our only route to get off this world again is to build our own ship, but we are a long way away from being able to do that. It would be useful, both for trade and recreation, to focus on either brewing or making a drug lab, but putting in the research to develop turrents and weapons will give us better protection once the inevitable raids come. Especially since we currently only have one shotgun and a bunch of knives.
• Anomaly Research - The twisting runes and ceaseless whispers of the monolith call to us. It is what brought us here, and may be the only way to actually escape again. This is less likely to yeild immediately actionable knowledge, but it the highest point of interest.
• Collection - While the warmachines are useless, there are lots of little ruins scattered around. We could focus on deconstructing those, which will yeild a fair amount of steel and various carved stone blocks.

Residence hall! Later on cabins can be a reward for the good colonists. 2nd priority is kind of obviously food, we need that to live. Third priority is where it gets a lot trickier, but I feel like we can rule out anomaly research for now. Best not to listen to the whispering voices when not properly equipped... Ultimately, I flipped a coin and landed on mundane research. it seems less dangerous regardless, so hopefully it's the right choice. 

Maybe it ISN’T practical, but I want my own cabin, so I’m voting that. I’m also voting for food, since not having that would be pretty bad.

Residence Hall seems more practical for resource allocation, at least for right now. Individual cabins can be built later. Food should be a priority and then mundane research. A dedicated food system will allow for more flexibility for dedicated research later.

As if following the directives of some hidden collective of manipulators, the pawns got to work, building ample bedrooms for themselves, as well as a sizeable warehouse. While they did so, Larimar went to work destroying the useless ancient wreckage still laying around.

As everyone was working on either clearing trees, planting rice or constructing the shelter and beds, there were was a little bit of idle chatter, the most peculiar about potentially training worms to work the garden for them. This may have led to some misplaced expectations by someone, as RK tried the weirdest pickup line to exist in the far flung future.

Not surprisingly Fresh shut him down. While his feelings were a little hurt, his natural optimism seemed to help stave off the worst impact from it. The guys picked one mostly finished room, while Fresh took the other for the first night.

The next few days pass in a blur of activity. Just out of the natural flow of things, everyone kind of falls into a staggered pattern that somewhat minimizes conversation, but maximized productivity. The rice garden is planted, the bedrooms and warehouse finished and a workroom is started on. Alot of trees are cleared. Even when keeping busy, thoughts of writing and storygames are still on their minds. RK and Anthraxus have an extended conversation about them. Larimar finished destroying the last of the ancient junk.

It was on the dawn of the fourth day that the monolith itself began to writhe and twist. An ominous feeling of dread crept over everyone. Everyone quickly made observations and calculations. Given the rate of change, assuming it stayed constant, whatever was happening will reach it's conclusion in only a few days. No one knows what that will be, but everyone knows deep down that is can't be good. It is in making these observations that they realize another oddity about the monolith. While they could plan to build something, if those plans encroached too closely on the area around the monolith they just would not be acted upon. Regardless of priority or intention, no one will undertake the task. Something else always seems more important.

See the video!

Not knowing what was coming next, the group decided to adopt a name. The choice was obvious. The harder decision was what to call the colony itself. It was settled that the faction would be the "Forum of Cystia" and the colony would be the "Thunderdome" after an ancient form of literary combat that had been a core of Cystian law and conflict resolution since time immemorial.

Finally the last of the roofing was completed over everything but the workroom. Larimar had spent the last day or so just idly wandering around, but driven by hunger he killed a megasloth just south of the camp. As Anthraxus worked to move the megasloth into storage for butchering, he caught a glimpse of an ancient limestone wall set into the mountainside. A sphincter puckering feeling of doom settled over him. There was no way to know what it was, but Anthraxus knew an ancient and terrible threat lay behind those plain stone bricks.

Also, I hope Anthraxus isn't getting any ideas about those bricks, that seems quite dangerous.

He was more focused on cleaning up all the blood at the time, but I certainly don't plan to dig at them any time soon. I honestly had missed them in my initial survey of where to build or I may have built further away.

Unfortunately I grabbed the Prepare Carefully mod but not the Character Editor. I may have to see if it is stable to do an 'in progress' add of that mod. I'm not worried about relationships, I was just a little surprised that they were friendly enough for that already.

As everyone is focused on the ticking clock of the monolith, we get a sudden surprise raid from Gas Pack. Almost before the invader could be spotted, they ran into Larimar. The raid was over quickly and our first potential convert/recruit was hauled to the hallway until a better holding room could be finished.

In addition to being a potential recruit this raider was also carrying around a dozen penoxycycline, a powerful anti-infection and illness medication if taken on a regular schedule. Everybody takes one, and will continue to do so until our supply is gone.

Anthraxus stitched up our captured raider. Like good Cystians, everyone still has a healthy interest in games as Anthraxus and Fresh talked about playing some kind of dice game later. Fresh was focused on cooking by the time Anthraxus finished doctoring. So, he and RK hung out for a little bit at the table, joking about the need for more furniture in the base, as the two chairs they were sitting on was the only furniture besides the beds that have been constructed. We decided to build some in the workroom, as well as replacing the butchering table with an new shiny electric model.

Everyone also agreed that sitting in the dark was really starting to suck, so we finished clearing the trees blocking our windmill, and starting installing lights throughout the base.

Now that we can see things better, RK also setup the holding platform and proximity detector we were able to save from the ship. If our early research from the trip here is accurate, the detector should let us know if an anomalous entity approaches the base as everything related to the monolith and it's signal seem to resonate on a similar range of frequencies. Additionally the holding platform should let us securing hold any weird entities we are able to capture for study. Only a few hours remain until the the monolith will reach it's zenith.

Fresh has been taking charge as far as the cooking of simple meals. We are almost out of survival meals, and Larimar just finished eating the last of the meat we had on hand, so building a stockpile of meals is important. We'll need to build a fridge room very soon. Just holding off to see what the monolith will do.

Unfortunately, shortly after having a brief conversation about this need, with Fresh promising to make some savory meals, this went bad. Apparently Fresh was undercooking the rice she was using, leading first RK and then Anthraxus to come down with food poisoning. Someone is going to have to go hunting soon. Larimar has taken to eating the occasional nearby critter to sate it's hunger.

Shortly after dawn on the 10th day of the quadrum, the twisting of the monolith stopped and with a blast of psychic and concussive force, it erupted.

When the dust settled, it was obvious that the monolith had changed. It was taller, cleaner, and covered in faint runes and markings.

Everyone's mind was flooded by visions, although RK's was clearest. It was now obvious that the monolith was no simple stone stele of worship. It was a doorway into another dimension. A dimension of dark and horrible things. It is only cracked open the smallest amount now, but it is only a matter of time before it opens wider. The only way to control it is to achieve a deeper understanding. This will only be achievable by studying the monolith and capturing and studying the anomalous entities that it will draw towards itself from this point forward.

As if that was not enough, there was no accompanying physical threat with the awakening of the monolith. Instead a terrible grey pall has fallen over the area along with a heavy rain. The pall was a heavy fog that smelled of age and dread. It stung exposed skin and left a foul reek in the mouth and throat that took hours of breathing clean inside air to fully clear the taste of.

This problem is literally on our doorstep, so we have no choice but to deal with it, one way or another. With the visions comes a new dark understanding of the rituals and arcane workings of the monolith and it's dark powers. In addition to our regular mundane research, we now have specific dark research that we can pursue. Research the anomaly is a separate priority from normal research.

Under this new branch of science, we have three options: Void Provocation, Bioferrite extraction, and Entity containment. Void Provocation will open up the possibility to summon random anomalous entities and learn rituals for kidnapping people from other factions, summoning wild animals, or transfering psychic sensitivity between ritual members. Bioferrite is an organic metal that can theoretically be extracted from entities, and can be used as steel but also can amplify or deaden psychic emanations in certain circumstances or usages. Entity containment is focused on improving our ability to hold and extract useful resources and information from anomaly entities. Most importantly this would let use replicate the holding platform should we want to hold multiple entities at once.

VOTE ONE - Dark Research

• Option A: Continue to ignore dark research.
• Option B: Begin research into Void Provocation.
• Option C: Begin research into Bioferrite Extraction.
• Option D: Begin research into Entity Containment.

VOTE TWO - Regular Research
Our primary construction focus needs to be on making a freezer for food. We are currently researching smithing because having only one gun and a bunch of knives is a bad position to be in. However, there are other options open to us that might be worth considering:

• Option A: Once Smithing is done, Research Machining and then gun production to make better weapons as quickly as possible. Construction focus will be on the new options Smithing opens up.
• Option B: Once Smithing is done, research making soups, stews and canning to give more food options while building some of the new production options from smithing.
• Option C: Once Smithing is done, research writing and printing so that we can fulfill the core Cystian belief of promoting the written word. These won't take a lot of research, and will go quickly

As we already have three books that our colony started with, I thought it might be worth highlight what our library currently looks like.

The Lurkers Under the Abyss

Gutzer's Research on Wildlife

Murd's Study of Markmanship

I'll have it up tonight, but in the next update you and Larimar encounter some degree of difficulty. Lar more than yourself, but it was touch-and-go for a minute.

With two votes for void provocation and two votes for writing, that is where the research will be set.

With two votes for Void Provocation and Two votes for researching writing, that is where our research goals are set. Everyone is keeping busy with starting construction work on the freezer and a second wind generator. Fresh is also harvesting rice and making more food. Only experience can help overcome the incompetance issue.

Almost immediately we get our first anomalous entity as a Harbinger Tree is spotted sprouting in the distance. These strange fleshy trees will consume any corpses left near their base, growing thick and tall with unknown ichors and writhing muscle masses. Eventually it can be harvested for it's twisted meat instead of the wood of normal trees. This meat might be suitable for Larimar, but will be disgusting for anyone else.

Despite this, the mood of everyone is still high and RK does his best to keep it there with numerous jokes and light hearted conversations. So far he hasn't tried telling jokes to the monolith, but that might still be on the table at some point. He has had similar conversations with Fresh, but I haven't caught one recently.

Anthraxus has his first dedicated research session on the monolith. This is pretty productive and he half-way finishes the research into Void Provocation in one session. Far to the north, Larimar had wandered away and grown hungry. He chased down and killed a boomrat, but in the ensuing fire he took a fair amount of damage. Fresh and RK run up there to save the ghoul and try to salvage the cheetah he also killed while burning. Fresh rescues Larimar, although between the fire and fighting the cheetah, the ghoul lost it's right leg. Fortunately with ghoul healing, only a small amount of treatment was needed to ensure the ghoul wouldn't die, and fitting a peg leg was added to the queue.

RK was not able to save the cheetah from the fire, but did grab some loose steel that was laying around up there. On the way back to the base, he somehow drew the attention of a large crocodile while crossing the river. Only armed with a knife, one would think that RK would flee from the ravenous reptile as Anthraxus came running with the shotgun. But out of nowhere he turned with a scream and threw himself at the crocodile. He fought valiantly as the croc bit all four of his limbs and his torso before Anthraxus was finally able to blow the chest of the beast. He stablized RK's wounds in the field and hauled him back to the base to recuperate.

Much to my surprise, while RK and Larimar were both sleeping and healing, Fresh brought up the idea of cannibalism with Athraxus. The colony is doing fine on food, so why she is already thinking about repurposing RK and Larimar is kind of sus.

The cannibalism topic was apparently just talk and no one takes any action on it. As RK heals, Fresh keeps working on sowing and harvesting rice, and Anthraxus works on cleaning up the vomit from all the food poisoning and general mess around the camp. Suddenly we intercepted some radio transmissions discussing a nearby abandoned research post. This ruin is roughly 2.5 days from base, and is likely guarded by some kind of genetic mutants. Fortunately we have 19 days to act on this information.

While the research post may be enticing, we certainly can't do anything about that until everyone gets healed up. Fortunately it only takes a couple of days for Larimar and RK to get back up and moving around. Fresh even finds the time to get a peg leg on Larimar, so his walking speed is only somewhat impacted.

Things begin to return to the normal swing of things. Conversations turns back to games while research and other errands are worked on. Suddenly, we get notified of another Gas Pack raid. Once again it is a single raider, and Larimar takes care of the concern just as quickly as last time, although the poor raider dies in the attempt. Fortunately, he leaves a gift of medicine and a cool axe behind.

Now we get to an embarrasing huge waste of time. Every ideology requires two roles, the leader and the moral guide. For the religion of Cystia, the leader is the Endmaster and the moral guide is the Mod. While we aren't big enough to require a leader yet, we do need to designate a mod. As a reward for her hard work with keeping us from starving and everyone as healthy as possible, I decided to officially make Fresh the Mod. A party with a very long winded speech ensues.

Immediately after this ceremony completed, I took a look at Fresh's new abilities. Alas, my mistake revealed! Fresh, as a novelist, is incapable of social tasks. All of the Mod abilities require social interactions. Thus Fresh, through no fault of her own, is the worst person to promote to Mod. Well, fortunately the Mod promotion ritual yields a net positive mood adjustment for everyone, so I can just promote RK to Mod instead. Well, that almost work as both RK and Anthraxus got the mood boost, but the sudden loss of her new station left Fresh with a slightly negative mood adjustment from the whole debacle. Even worse, she gave herself food poisoning as well!

As we continue to work and debate on whether to go to the research post or not, there is a sudden crack in the air overhead! A transport pod crashing just north of the base! It turned out to hold another ghoul. We don't really have a need to support another ghoul, but she could be good to study, so Anthraxus hauls her in and shackles her to the holding platform.

RK has the freezer about half built, research on writing is almost done, research into Void Provocation finally completed and research into Entity containment is started and crocodile meat meals are being prepared. Just as everyone was about to turn in to a bed, a lost Yttikian youth named Wukark shows up on the edge of our territory, begging 2 medicines to treat his sick dog. Wukark himself has little noteworthy in terms of skills or traits. About the only interesting thing the child can do is call wild animals to his aid a couple of times a day.

So voting... We've got two significant choices to make about our two quests. We still have about 14 days on the research post, but Wukark will leave in less than a day.

First Vote:

• Option A: Ignore the Research Post quest.
• Option B: Select one person we can load up with all of the remaining survival meals and send them and Larimar to check it out.
• Option C: Take the big risk and load everyone up to go hit the outpost.

Second Vote: We have 48 medicine, so giving Wukark two of them won't hurt us, but there isn't any obvious upside to giving to beggars. He is not aligned with any factions and adheres to an ideology that does not belong to any of those factions, so no faction goodwill either.

• Option 1: Ignore Wukark.
• Option 2: Give Wukark the medicine he needs for his pet.
• Option 3: Capture Wukark with an eye toward coverting him to Cystia and either enslaving him or harvesting him for organs, since he is very skill limited.

While we wait for a tie-breaker on whether to pursue the Research Post quest, some time has slipped by. As we had two votes for capturing Wukark, Anthraxus marched down and did so. At the same time we changed Wukark's name to Bezro, per Mizal's suggestion. The Bezro boy literally only has a single point in social and a single point in melee, so he really will only be good for cleaning and hauling until we have trained him up in more useful skills.

Almost right after we got Bezro settled in, we were directly contacted on the radio by a Yuri Schmidt of the Hiberon union. Somehow they have been saddled an overabundance of toxpacks and need someone they can fob them off to. If we accept they will dump them somewhere via transport pod where they will immediately start dumping pollution around them. Because of our permanent summer weather, they will break down over time, but will put off a lot of pollution until then. On the plus side, we have plenty of space to move them out of the way, on the downside we don't really have any way to clean up the pollution other than time. As far as other benefits go, there are three reward options if we take the waste.

The first option is a 12 pack of Lucerferium. This interesting drug give an across the board boost to whoever takes it, but if they don't take regular doses every few days they will start to go beserk and eventually die. We really don't have an immediate use for this but it is valued at $852.

The second option is the one that has the most obvious application. It includes 5 doses of voidsight serum, a power claw and 24 units of gold. The gold is gold of course, and the power claw is a excellent prostetic hand and melee weapon. The voidsight serum is particularly interesting, as it is a capsule (well five) of oily black fluid that squirms endlessly inside the glass. When injected into the eye, it suppresses the inhibitory neurons that keep perception focused on the real world, thus lifting dark psychic phenomena into conscious perception. This increases the amount of knowledge gained when studying unnatural entities, as well as psychic sensitivity, but also impacts mood. The effect is temporary and does not stack. This package is valued at $912

The third and final option is two potentially powerful items: a joywire and a masterwork steel terror statue. The joywire is a mental implant that renders the implanted subject incapable of feel anything but joy and happiness. The steel terror statue is something I haven't seen before. It is a person-sized piece of material sculpted into a threatening form. Slaves who spend time around it will feel terror, which makes them stay suppressed for longer and thus reduces slave rebellions. Terror is not a great way to keep slaves in control, but it's better than nothing. This final package is valued at $955

As due consideration is given to this offer, life continues in the base. We ran out of wood and steel, which had a bad drag on the construction of the freezer and other cooling units. Only having three colonists that can do things puts a cap on exactly how productive we can be as a unit. Not having a freezer exacerbates that as we have had a lot of food spoil and go to waste. Some change in the work priorities have led to Fresh starting to do research as well, both mundane and monolith related, while RK takes up the slack in food prep. Anthraxus bounces from researching to cleaning to hauling stuff. As the designated Mod, RK also spends a fair amount of time working on the prisoners. Some of these conversations even simulted the kind of discussions cataloged in the holy scripts.

Even when we don't have a gathering planned, sometimes everyone gathers up and hangs out. This most frequently happens in the storage room/dining hall/ghoul holding platform/rec room.

This particular ad-hoc hang out was notable for Fresh trying to segue from a discussion about chemical weapons and hypotheticals about using the toxpacks to make them, into trying to hit on Anthraxus. While she certainly had a smoother approach than RK did when he tried the same move on her, it was no more effective. Meanwhile, RK is using the opportunity of two prisoners to practise his stand up routine. He hits some weird topics, but he is making really steady headway on converting our prisoners to the Cystian faith. As a matter of fact, just before a final decision needs to be made on accepting the toxic waste packs, he succeeds on successfully converting the young Bezro. Now recruitment efforts can proceed. Likely our other prisoner will convert soon as well.

So votes for this time:
We still need a tie-breaker on the Research Post quest from the last update. If someone is voting with Mizal, please also include suggestions as to whom should be sent.

First Vote - Outlander Pollution Dump

• Option A: Accept the toxic waste and claim the first reward (Luciferium x12).
• Option B: Accept the toxic waste and claim the second reward (voidsight serum, power claw, & gold).
• Option C: Accept the toxic waste and claim the third reward (joywire & terror sculpture).
• Option D: Reject the toxic waste.

Second Vote - Mundane Research goals, Writing and printing are almost done.

• Option 1: Machining - this opens the door for gunsmithing and more powerful defense options and is a requirement for mid-game technical stuff.
• Option 2: Drug production - This will let us start making drugs and opens the door for researching specific drugs production abilities, which make valuable trade goods as well as providing recreation. Some genotypes (such as our first prisoner, the Waster Mitsuya) require certain drugs on a regular basis.
• Option 3: Solar Panel/Watermill generator - With the foggy rain of the grey pall still lingering, our two windmills have not be outputting as much as one might hope. These two things will give us a more varied and stable power source.
• Option 4: Packaged Survival Meals - Until we get riding animals or vehicles, these will let us travel better for things like the Research Post or other quests out in the world.
• Option 5: Biofuel refining - Will give us an additional generator option as well as open up the Vehicle research tree.

Third Vote - Anomaly Research, Entity Containment is almost done

• Option I: Bioferrite extraction - Already have this one about half done and will let us start extracting bioferrite from our captured ghoul (although some base restructuring may be needed first)
• Option II: Skip Abduction ritual - A ritual that will kidnap some random hostile person in the world, teleport them here and put them in a short term coma for easy capture.
• Option III: Psychophagy ritual - A ritual that will deaden one target's psychic sensitivity to raise another target's.
• Option IV: Electroharvester - This device will generate a small amount of electricity from captured entities, but pisses them off and makes them harder to contain (will definetly require some restructuring of the base)
• Option V: Draw Animals ritual - A ritual that will some a pack of a random critter type onto the map.

I will be closing the vote and these evening aourn 7-8 pm. Without other votes, the Tie breaker on the Research Post will be ignoring the quest. The tie-breaker on the Second Vote will go to Drug Production as it is a cheaper research goal.

Get your votes in folks!

The wife and I just got caught up on Sandman ourselves. I think I liked some of the stories in the second season even more than the first.

The voting for this update is now closed.

Final results:
The Research Post quest ends in a tie. Tiebreaker will be to ignore this quest as we can't afford to lose the manpower.
First vote: Option B wins in a clear majority.
Second Vote: Option 2 Drug Production won by a single vote.
Third Vote: Option II - Skip Abduction wins with a strong majority.

Thank to everyone who voted. I'll have an update later tonight.

Well, we have a whopper of an update this time around. Not a whole lot of research progress, but so many other significant events. Firstly, based on the vote, we accepted the toxic wastepack offer. The payment arrived immediately, and the wastepacks rained down shortly after. They landed a decent distance from to the east of the base. It will take a little less than two quadrums for them to breakdown, so they are going to be around for quite awhile.

We've run out of steel again, so construction of the coolers and wiring for the freezer is on hold. Coincidentally, the nearest steel deposit is pretty close to where the wastepacks dropped. Anthraxus heads out to go mining, while RK continues to work on converting Mitsuya and recruiting Bezro. It is important to convert them before recruiting them, because it is far more difficult to convert members of your colony without causing mental breaks. Fresh is focused on deconstructing some of the ruins to the south to get granite blocks to use for the freezer floor, and starting the work on that. As Anthraxus worked his way towards the mining spot, a cheetah mistook him for prey and began hunting him.

Even armed with a shotgun, Anthraxus is unable to take down the cheetah before it can get it's fangs on him. Larimar rushes in to help and just barely saves Anthraxus from having his throat ripped out. Larimar's efforts left him hungry, so he eats some of the cheetah before wandering northward. Anthraxus hobbles back to the base and Fresh helps patch him up. As she went back and forth with the medical supplies, she took the time to make some friendly jabs at RK. Anomaly Fresh is a weird chick.

RK's priority is spreading the faith and trying to get us some more manpower to work with. He is finally successful in converting Mitsuya as well, and moves directly on to trying to recruit Bezro. As he works, Fresh and Anthraxus take a few minutes to eat and relax. RK may be getting carried away in his efforts as he begins promising Bezro plants that don't grow on this planet (even with a bunch of mods!)

The harbinger of our suddenly filling social calendar was a random trader that wandered up to the base. RK jogged down to meat him and negotiated a trade of some of our awful knives in exchange for some psychite tea, with Mitsuya is genetically disposed to require as a waster. Before the trader can even make it all the way to the base, we get notice of a larger trader caravan from the Lavengo Union were arriving as well. To give a little more time to come up with stuff to trade, we decide to let them come to us.

While we waited, RK continued his recruitment attempts. For some reason the caravan decided to split around the base. This will cause frustration later, as a caravan only has a single spokesman that you have to negotiate with, but what you are negotiating for is spread across the people and animals in the caravan.

Unfortunately, we don't have any loose silver, and only a few items of interest to the Shaman Crocodile that lead the caravan. Among his miscellaneous junk, he had a convenient treasure: a new book, the insidious Chaos Voron. It took most of the gold, all of our bioferrite, and the shard that brought down with us. Both the shard and the bioferrite are currently useless to us, and will be able to be replaced as our research into anomaly entities continues. The gold hurts, but we don't have an immediate need for it either, while the book will help with all of our current and near-future anomaly research at only a moderately increased chance of mental break.

As we were searching all over the south side of the base where Crocodile and most of his caravan were milling about, the earlier solo trader thanked us for our hospitality, such as it was, and left the gift of a large hand cannon behind. Fresh picked up the peice, giving us two guns to work with. I also finally found where the caravan dropped out silver and book, just a little north of where Anthraxus was attacked by that cheetah. (note the arrow)

As everyone was scrambling around trying to gather things and finish the floor in the freezer, there was a loud crack from the sky. A cargo pod left a white trail of smoke and flame as it fell out of the sky. The transponder on it indicated it was a weapon cache, so imagine our disappointment when that proved to just be a wooden hammer.

Pretty far to the northwest of the base, across the river and around a small mountain, Larimar had found more useless ruined warmachines. He set to work destroying them. Based on the research we have done on ghouls, it is pretty likely that he would have noticed the small blinking red light in one of the wrecks. What he wouldn't have noticed was the boobytrap sitting on top of the blinking box. When he cracked the casing to get to the blinking light a massive firebomb exploded. As Larimar flailed around, as of course this happened the first time there was a break in the rain in four days, the fire spread. Fortunately, Larimar was able to put himself out and the rain started up again just in time to put out the mechanoid transponder that had been inside the wreckage. Larimar was pretty severly hurt and extremely hungry, which was slowing his natural ghoul regeneration.

As Fresh headed up to recover the transponder, Larimar set his sights on a massive giraffe that was wandering nearby. He should have waited and allowed his regeneration to take effect. He should have decided to go after the racoon instead. But he charged in on the giraffe, ghoul frenzy lending speed to his movements. He cause several massive bleeding wounds to the giraffe, but the ungulate caught the ghould in the head with a massive foot, crushing the ghoul flat. Larimar was dead. Fresh quickly decoded the signal of the transponder, revealing the call-down signal for a mechanitor ship. Being able to make and control mechanoids could be a major boon, but it appeared that there was a still a Scyther active on the ship as well. These mechanoids were very fast and viciously deadly melee combatants. We will have to determine when we could handle that kind of threat.

Now that we have the transponder signal we can bring that down at our leisure, there is no time limit on that particular quest. Meanwhile, RK continues to work on the prisoners (including describing short people to the shortest person here) and food, Fresh is focused on finishing the freezer floor and roof, while Anthraxus is working on mining some steel and helping deconstruct the ruins for granite blocks. Even when working, all good Cystians are thinking about games and wanting to learn new ones.

Out of the blue, we intercepted a radio transmission of a stash of supplies that may well be worth the 5 day round trip. The stash is 69 units of hyperweave, the best fabric in the game, and seven units of glitterworld medicine, the best medicine in the game (total value $968). There is an unknown threat guarding it, which could be anything from a rabid squirrel to a massive genetic monstrosity or mechanoid. We have until the next quadrum to take action on it, so maybe we can get another gun or something before we have to make a decision.

With that possibility stirring discussion, a sudden threat alert was raised. One of the gorillas that have been wandering around on the south side of the map suddenly went into a manhunting rage. Apparently this animal stumbled through some momentary rift, probably due to the monolith, as the beast was not only murderous, but completely invisible. As it charged towards the base, Anthraxus got in position to try to take it out with the shotgun. Fresh came running to assist, but the gorilla was significantly faster. Anthraxus got a few good shots in before it closed, but his terrible melee skills really failed him at that point. We are really missing Larimar's helpful fleshwhip now. Fortunately Fresh was able to get there in time to drop the gorilla and rescue Anthraxus. The beast was just left to bleed out in the field while Fresh rushed to stop Anthraxus's bleeding before he died. While she was successful, the stress of that combined with her lingering depression about having the Mod title stripped was enough to push her into a mental break. She began to sadly wander about the base and nearby forest.

There really isn't anything to do for Fresh but let her get over her mental break. So while Anthraxus recuperates from his wounds, RK continues to work on food and to try to recruit Bezro. After a surprising amount of time, he finally succeeds! Bezro joins the colony, and immediately reveals that he was hiding the fact he is a kleptomaniac. I guess that kind of makes up for the fact that RK is still offering pants we cannot possibly grow. We'll see what happens with that one. As a child, he really has no skills, but will learn things from watching others and trying to do various jobs. As the Cystians are all writers and workers and not parents, Bezro is told to help cleanup and haul stuff, but spends most of his time running around the forest and playing. He does occasionally haul something to where it is supposed to go. Until we can get a full bedroom set up for him, he will be sleeping in the storage room.

Keeping himself busy, RK makes the treck to haul the body of the giraffe that killed Larimar down and butchered it for food and leather. Fresh is still wandering around, full of ennui and dark thoughts, while Anthraxus is just starting to move around and work on things again. Meanwhile, Bezro found the toxic wastepacks, and like a child, decides that is his absolute favorite place to play.

Dealing with his own potential mental issues, RK could feel the temptation of the knowledge of void provocation in his mind. He found himself wondering at idle moments as to what might show up should they dare to provoke the void directly. He would need everyone's help for the ritual, but to at least keep the possibility open, he takes a few moments to markout a ritual circle near the monolith.

As Anthraxus works in the fields and RK works in the kitchen, Fresh finally emerges from her wandering funk with a fresh smile and the need to go to bed. Early the next morning, the damn Gas Pack sent another raider. A surprisingly erudite and literate raider. None other than Milton wandered into the base with ill-intent. He knew that the battle would be a tough one as he was only armed with a stone club to try to take out a growing base that had already captured or killed two of his tribemates. He paused, wandering the trees on the other side of the river, trying to scope out the base and determine his best approach.

Fresh and Anthraxus decided to not let him have the chance. They charged out and with a few quick shots, dropped him on the banks of the river. He was badly wounded, but Anthraxus has recovered from worse, so given some time, he will no doubt be just fine. As a matter of fact, by the end of the day, RK was already starting to work on him with brand new material.

While RK works to recruit Mitsuya and convert Milton, Anthraxus decided to take some proactive steps and built a retaining wall around the wastepacks. This will keep Bezro from playing in them, and hopefully contain their polluting effects since we just don't have enough hands to move them further away. We'll have to keep an eye on that as we go. Returning to the base afterwards to help Fresh finish the freezer floor, although he really should be mining, we will close out this update with this nice shot of everyone chit-chatting, except for Bezro who is currently looking for a way back into the wastepacks.

So we don't have a lot of movement on the research front, so our votes for this update are much more action oriented.

Vote One: Call down the mechinator

• Option 1 - Hold off on activating this until we have better weapons and more people to join the fight.
• Option 2 - Call it down now. If we all pile on, we can maybe take out the scyther before it does too much damage, and having a mechinator on our side will open up options for building mechanoids to replace Larimar and provide additional working hands. This is assuming we have the materials to do that.

Vote Two: Investigate the Stash of Supplies

• Option A - Send Fresh and Anthraxus to try to claim the stash, leaving RK to continue his converting/recruiting efforts.
• Option B - Send everyone to try to claim the stash. We leave Milton and Mitsuya to their own devices and load everyone up as much as possible just in case there is a big threat.
• Option C - Ignore the quest. We don't have enough people to risk it.

Vote Three: Provoke the Void

• Option I - Perform the ritual and let's see what else the void monolith will throw at us.
• Option II - Hold off on this until we get our power production more stable and can build some defenses.
• Option III - Hold off on this so that a Skip abduction can be our first void ritual

These votes will run until the evening of 7/25.

• Vote One: (2 of 3 votes) Option 1 - Hold off on activating this until we have better weapons and more people to join the fight.
• Vote Two: (2 of 3 votes) Option A - Send Fresh and Anthraxus to try to claim the stash, leaving RK to continue his converting/recruiting efforts.
• Vote Three: (3 way tie, Randomly rolled tie breaker) Option I - Perform the ritual and let's see what else the void monolith will throw at us.

While mood is not dangerously low, everyone is feeling a little stressed lately. Fortunately we have arrived at the one time a year we can hold one of the most notable religious festivals - The Cystia Fiesta. This grand party fills the storeroom with swirling lights, pounding music and cool smoke and vapors. As all the official members of the colony partied in a most hardy fashion, the sound of the party pumping through the walls inspired Mitsuya to educate Milton about the glory of the Cystian faith. He did not convert, but every conversation about it helps.

During the Fiesta everyone is hanging around and having a good human time, like humans do. This is exemplified by the totally normal conversations that Fresh and Anthraxus, both known humans with right thinking, have during the party. We don't know if he is lying but during the party Bezro also confides that it is his birthday! Now slightly older, Bezro can now try to do all kinds of useful things around the base. Perhaps not all that surprisingly given his animal calling ability, Bezro proves to have a remarkable natural talent for dealing with animals.

As part of growing up, Bezro not only developed his own quirk, that being kleptomania, but we also had to pick a new additional trait for him. Between being thin skinned and having an interest in drugs, and given that we will be moving in to drug production soonish, it only makes sense to go with the chemical interest. As the Fiesta starts to draw to a close we intercept more radio transmissions talking about anotther seemingly abandoned genetics research lab. This is shockingly like the abandoned lab quest that we already opted out of, but we have some time to think about it (and to make more food).

As the Fiesta officially comes to a close, everyone's moods are quite high and everyone is feeling good. Everyone returns to work. RK goes back to working on recruiting Mitsuya and converting Milton. Fresh jumps back on researching. Anthraxus works on mining steel and hauling wood and doing some construction work, including our first masterwork creation, a pew to sit in while listening to readings. Bezro draws on the floors alot, but also helps move some big stone chunks around.

As Fresh stands in the pouring rain to study the monolith and everyone else is puttering about there is a sudden surprise! Despite her recent conversion to Cystia and Milton's near conversion, Mitsuya leads a two man jailbreak, leveraging the obvious gap in our security - the still uncompleted vent to allow the the prison room to be cooled. Anthraxus immediately responds by charging in and opening fire with his shotgun. The first hit distracts Mitsuya from fleeing, and he blows her left off with the next shot. Milton is no fool and immediately heads for the hills as Fresh sets off in pursuit.

Having lost her other leg and an ear, and with fresh blood pouring down from just above her right peg leg, Mitsuya nearly bleeds out before Anthraxus is able to get her stabilized. With Fresh just far enough back that she is only able to take potshots with her hand cannon. It is only with a final lucky headshot that she is able to stagger Milton enough to prevent his escape. With some care she stabilizes him in the field and carries him back to the base.

While Anthraxus and Fresh worked on patching up the rebellious prisoners, RK had headed over to the steel mine as a botched construction attempt on the last cooler for the freezer had caused a sizable amount of steel to be wasted. While he was hard at work digging out ore, a lemur went mad with bloodlust and attacked RK. With his hatchet, RK was able to kill the lemur with only superficial wounds. Even so it was a harrowing situation as you never know when an infection may take hold in a wound.

While Bezro seems pretty happy with how the colony is going there is one element that really bothers the little boy. The fact that his bed is in the same room as a literal slavering monster. We will need to focus on making more bedrooms for folks, especially if Milton and Mitsuya give in and join us. As we are considering the best way to go about that, RK finally successfully converts Milton to the Cystian faith. It is only a matter of time until we have the entire Gazette staff together once again.

Flush with his success of yet another conversion, RK declares that now is the time. He gathers everyone together at the ritual circle near the monolith and begins the ritual that has been put together by himself and Fresh in her research. Strange dark energies began to swirl around the ritual circle and the candles flicker and dance in the rain and sudden wind. RK continues to chant softly, focusing on the most depressing and worrisome aspects of life and existance.

As the ritual completes a pulse of dark psychic energy washes out and away. As RK loses consciousness, he can feel somewhere not all that far away, a soft answering grunt. Before RK regains consciousness, a group of a single animated boar corpse shuffles into the area. This is the fourth anomaly entity we have found of the seven basic types. Fortunately, unless it wanders in close enough to see someone before it returns to death.

As the zombie boar shuffles around the periphary of the map, Bezro begins to exercise his newly wrought ability to mine trying to finish digging out the prison room. While that is going in RK comes in to continue his ongoing conversion attempts with Milton. Surprisingly Milton doesn't seem to understand what birthdays are, but RK sets him straight.

Meanwhile, the ritual has only peaked Fresh's interest in investigating the monolith. The fervent study has lead to a suprising breakthrough in understanding. We now know that the monolith is not only a mostly closed doorway but also a conduit of psychic energy, linking our monolith with some unknown, distance place. Because of this breakthrough, we should be able to research anomalous impacts of the monolith quicker going forward. Only a few hours after this discovery, we were pleasantly surprised with a small trio of traders from the Barga collective that showed up.

RK negotiated with them, trading gold and a couple of weapons for a small pile of pemmican. Mitsuya, now fitted with two wooden peg legs, recovers enough to begin to move about. Showing how ready they both are to join the community, Milton and Mitsuya show off their own comedic stylings.

Anthraxus remains focused on work in the wild around the base. Part of this includes cutting down the ominous Harbringer trees that has sprouted earlier. These fleshy plant masses were now taller than Anthraxus himself, their pink and red fronds in constant movement, even when there is no wind blowing. He cut them both down, leaving behind log-like twisted meat. It smells and looks vile, so for now we are leaving it in the field for the wild animals to devour. As he heads back to the steel mine, he hears a vicious growling from the undergrowth. A cougar has decided to hunt him!

Anthraxus is no fool, and setup a small hunting spot near a tall dogwood tree to try to take out the cougar before it could get a fang or claw on him. This did not work out. While Anthraxus was able to get a couple of decent shots on it, the cougar closed with shocking speed and gave Anthraxus some pretty gnarly wounds before, of all people, Bezro saved the day. From all the way back at the base, Bezro focused his power and let out a tremendous feline roar. The power of his beast call caused the couger to forget it's prey and begin wandering around, looking for someone hostile to it's temporary master. Anthraxus used this as a window to blow the cougar's whole fucking head off. His wounds were widespread and significant, and within a few hours the slash on his left arm was showing signs of infection. As if as a reward for the clever tactics a cargo pod containing a simple wooden shovel landed significantly to the south. There is no way to know why these individual tools keep dropping, but they are at least worth a little bit to other traders.

In addition to free gear, the free gifts were not done. As Anthraxus worked to treat his wounds, a pair of Sivatherium, gigantic prehistoric giraffids, self tamed and came to join us. Perhaps the world is apologizing for the death of Larimar. Fortunately Bezro has enough skill with animals to try to train them, but they don't like any of the food we have available. As we build a pen to contain them, they are left to wander freely. They spend a lot of time wandering around inside the base. RK finally has an opportunity to use one of his unique Mod abilities. Giving Anthraxus an eloquent speech that counters many of the things he whispered during the earlier ritual. This speech is so powerful that it boosts Anthraxus' ability to acquire immunity to illnesses.

After a little less than a day we received our next visitors, a group of Barga collective slavers. They hang out a little with the other Barga traders we are still hosting. While we given them a little time to get closer to the base and settle in, we have cause for celebration! Mitsuya, the peg leg prisoner, finally agrees to join us. Her intellectual skill gives us another great researcher, as well as a skilled tailor to start making some replacements for our various tattered garmets.

Just like Bezro when he joined, the start of Mitsuya's life among her fellow Cystians develops a new trait. Unlike the wholly useless and socially dangerous kleptomania Bezro developed, Mitsuya's disposition as a careful shooter slows down how quickly she will fire ranged weapons, but significantly increases her accuracy. In the prisoner room, RK and Milton continue to talk, adopting conversations I would not be surprised to see in the current Gazette discord.

Still working towards the goal of being able to send a couple people out to check out the supply stash, RK finally goes out and talks with Bear, the leader of the slave caravan. While it would be great to be able to rescue either of the slaves, we simply don't have enough money for that. As it is, we make the hard choice to swap some of our components for a substantial amount of pemmican, as most of what we traded for earlier has already been eaten. This should have been a clue to me that something was wrong, but I just didn't see it. With trading completed, we were ready to settle in and get some major improvements made. This plan was stymied by Bezro and Anthraxus both coming down with signs of Plague.

While Bezro is young enough that the Plague just doesn't hold much threat for him due to his youthful immune system, Anthraxus is not quite so lucky. This is likely made worse by the raging and septic infection that has continued to worsen in his arm. It takes all of RK's healing prayer, lots of bed rest, and Fresh's (our best doctor) tender administrations to allow him to finally get ahead of the infection and develop immunity literally only a few hours before it would have killed outright. Even though he is still working to overcome the symptoms of the Plague, his brush with near death causes him to also develop a new trait. Just like Bezro, Anthraxus has become fascinated with chemicals and drugs. With two people developing this focus we really need to get a drug lab going and plant some smokeleaf and psychite.

Mitsuya is doing what she can to help, having already cranked out a change of clothes for Bezro and making some backpacks to allow everyone to carry more stuff. But if we are going to get all the improvements made that we need, and keep the camp going when people leave for the supply stash, we are going to need Milton on our side as well. This is RK's top priority. Many may doubt the topics he uses to try to bring people into the fold, but it is hard to argue his effectiveness.

We have gotten enough people moving around now that it is difficult to keep an eye on everyone, particularly the playful scamp Bezro. That little guy runs all over. Obviously the rest of the group having been telling him about notable events in the colony's past as at some point he hauled Larimar's body and put it in a nearby empty sarcophagus that we claimed when we first landed. On the lid of the sarcophagus, Bezro carved a representation of Mitsuya's ill-fated raid and Larimar's endin gof it. It's obvious that this reflects Mitsuya's viewpoint on the whole situation. Maybe she slipped that in between discussions of board games and floor drawings.

Well, this has been quite the long update, so I will wrap it up with one final bit of good news before we move on to the votes. After far longer than I would have thought or hoped, RK was finally able to convince Milton that he was home, and our editor finally joins the group.

We are close to finishing our research into skip abduction rituals, and we will also finish our research into the Drug Lab pretty soon. We finished building our freezer (will include a picture in the next update) so can now build up a surplus to actually move on the prior vote to explore the supply drop.

Vote One: Run Down Lab quest

• Option 1: Ignore it. The situation has not changed enough since we declined the abandoned lab to pickup pretty much the exact same quest.
• Option 2: Send a small group of one or two colonists to check it out and flee if there are genetic freaks there.
• Option 3: Risk it all. Send everybody to check it out and deal with any threat. (this will occur after we resolve the Supply site quest)

Vote Two: Dark Research

• Option A: Psychophagy ritual. This allows us to psychically deaden one person to psychically sharpen another for a period of time.
• Option B: Bioferrite Extraction. This base research item is a roadblock to most other dark research options.

Vote Three: Mundane Research

• Option I: Machining. Opens up better weapon construction options and is a gateway to most other advanced research topics, such as turrents, rocket launchers and bioferrite refining (which is required for vehicles).
• Option II: Beer Brewing/Carpets. Beer brewing is already half researched, so including Carpets as an immediate low-level followup. Beer gives us a new recreation option and helps address the chemical fascination for Bezro and Anth.
• Option III: Stew/Soup/More cooking. This increases the options we have for recipes to make which will make more efficient use of our available foodstuffs.

Thank you for reading and participating in the votes. These votes will be closed on 7/31 in the early evening.

Results:

1. Vote One: Option 3 - Risk it all. Send everybody to check it out and deal with any threat. (this will occur after we resolve the Supply site quest)
2. Vote Two: Option A - Psychophagy ritual. This allows us to psychically deaden one person to psychically sharpen another for a period of time.
3. Vote Three: Option II - Beer Brewing/Carpets. Beer brewing is already half researched, so including Carpets as an immediate low-level followup. Beer gives us a new recreation option and helps address the chemical fascination for Bezro and Anth.

This, moreso that any earlier entry is a tale of tragedy and surprise. A critical vote awaits you at the end.

With the addition of Milton to the ranks, morale is high and everyone is doing their best to be productive. Even the cosmos seems to favor us as more random supplies fall in cargo pods from the the grey and rainy skies. This time it was a nice leather sash and pants. Milton is fixated for some reason on the battle banner that Mitsuya recently finished sewing, and has taken to carrying it with him. He also likes to have deep conversations with the rest of the group, regardless of age.

Fresh is focused on research and RK doubles down on his cooking efforts to prepare for everyone to go on the big caravan. We are lucky that the supply site and the run down research post are practically on top of each other, so we should be able to knock both quests out in one swing. A small group of traders from the Hiberon group showed up giving us a market to sell off a bunch of crappy clothes and a single unit of medicine to buy from packaged survival meals. Meanwhile, Anthraxus is off hunting down lemurs and chinchillas to aid RK's prep efforts.

As everyone jokes and bonds while prepping for the quest caravan, Milton still takes time to work on training the sivatherium as they will be useful pack beasts to make the caravan as valuable as possible.

The Rimworld will never let you just focus on simple things however. Suddenly the ground trembles and RK has a brief flash of a vision. To the north of the base a deep pit splits open. Hideous flesh monsters with a single finger-like limb ending in a nearly meter long probiscus-like spike. A trio of these entities, called fingerspikes, leapt out of the pit and began rushing the base. Anthraxus, RK, Fresh and Mitsuya rush to the defense. Regardless of how the combat turns out, just observing them has given us some new insights into the dark, and we now can research how to summon these things should we want to in the future.

Once they came within range of our guns and bows, the fingerspikes lasted only a moment or two. Apparently word of our phenomenal researchers have spread among the nearby settlements as right after we killed the fingerspikes, the chief of our friends the Barga Tribe reached out with a message requestion to borrow one of our researchers for a few days to help them with a project. The rewards are pretty nebulous beyond improving relations, but there is more than enough time on this quest to make a decision about it after everyone comes back from the caravan.

Finally, RK has enough food to outfit the caravan for almost 5 days. Because of his skill limitations and age, Bezro is going to stay behind. Mitsuya keeps starting other tasks instead of helping loading the beasts. Out of frustration and to get the caravan moving, the decision is made to drop Mitsuya from the caravan as well. Even with a designated caravan gathering spot, the group leads in the least organized exit I have ever seen a caravan form. They finally leave the camp and set off on the two day trip around the edge of the Funforistia Jungle and White Dolphin Desolation to head south for the road and quest targets.

The trip is mostly uneventful, with a bump into a Barga trade caravan (ignored because we had nothing to trade) and an ambush by a pair of large wild Somali cats. The cats were easily dealt with without any wounds, but unfortunately the small ruins they had been using for cover held nothing of value but a few units of steel. The supply spot is an interesting cluster of ruins and we immediately set to claiming things and setting up camp to break down all of the ruins we can.

Meanwhile, back at the base, more cargo pods with weapons drop to the ground. The pop open to reveal steel throwing knives and a steel sledge hammer. Apparently good researchers are rare all around as we also receive word of another desolate genetics research post, our third. Perhaps, once we have seen how much loot we can get from the one, we will consider going after this one as well. It is nearly three days to the north, however.

After less than a day the caravan group has broken down everything worth anything at the supply spot. They load up all of the steel, hyperweave fabric, medicine and granit blocks. Just so we can use them later, they are also still hauling the bodies of the somali cats and some slag chunks. It's time to finally see what one of these abandoned research posts is like. As the caravan crests the nearest hill, they finally get a good look at the whole thing. The building is massive, far larger than our own base.

It's surprisingly still well built. We pick one of the doors on the east wall and go instead. There are strange streaks of rust an blood on the floor panels and strangly uniform cracks in the metal. The quite lead to a likely misplaced sense of confidence. Even with a strange genetic cross of a muffalo and rat jumping out at us from behind a peice of equipment, the team's response was quick and lethal for the freak. The ruins of this research post held lots of broken terminals and old equipment. None of it was directly useful, although it would no doubt yield a huge supply of steel and components. By the fifth room of nothing but destroy machines and a less-than-intimidating, everyone was idly guessing on if they would even be able to haul away all the worthwhile loot in the place.

The four friends were crowded close together as they opened the door to the next room. With a strangly snuffling roar, a genetic blend of a grizzly bear and a star-nosed mole erupted through the door. With a single swipe it downed Milton. Fresh and Anthraxus fell back a few steps while RK weilded his hatchet to keep the bearmole busy. Fresh landed one hit on it before RK was dropped. Anthraxus dropped back further, still firing wildly with the shotgun. Fresh got a good pistolwhip in on it before she was dropped. Before he can even squeeze off another shot, however, Anthraxus drops under the bearmole's charging attack. Even before I could take a screenshot, we find ourselves back at the base, the bearer of tragic terrible news.

Though they do not know why, Bezro and Mitsuya's hearts fall as the days pass without the caravan ever returning.

Well, certainly not where I was planning for this update to go. Really the only vote that matters now is whether it is worth continuing.

Vote - Should this story continue?

• Option 1: End the story here, thanks for sharing it, we don't need to see this anymore.
• Option 2: End the story here, but start up another one starring everyone who votes here as the initial group.
• Option 3: Press on with Bezro and Mitsuya to see if they can save Cystia from disappearing among the ruins of this world like so many before us.

In that case, it is probably best to start a new game with the same Gazette members. Ironically, I caught up with the previous updates just a few days before this tragic one, but it'll be nice to see a new game, provided there is enough interest.

Thank you for those who voted. I will be doing a new Anomaly run through shortly. However, I fealt that some people might be interested to know exactly what happens with Bezro and Mitsuya. I was a little curious as well, so while waiting for the time to come to close the vote, I decided to run that game a few more hours forward to at least see which way it was trending.

Both Bezro and Mitsuya were suffering from severe mood negatives for the loss of colonists and friends. Apparently children are not as heavily impacted as adults however, as almost immediately Mitsuya suffers a crisis of faith. In an effort to bolster her back up, she was declared Mod, but this didn't help all that much.

Showing that the universe supports this decision, a couple pairs of weird hybrid pants dropped just to the south of the base. Hating the commentary on fashion and the arrival of a small trade caravan that had nothing worth trading for, Mitsuya has a temper tantrum. She smashed up the walls in her room, Anthraxus' old room, for awhile, but eventually wore herself out and calmed down.

As Mitsuya slept and Bezro ran around in the forest outside, two rabid lemurs wandered onto the far side of the map. They hungered for human (or yttian) flesh and began moving relentlessly towards the base. As they began to draw close a much more threatening cassowary also went mad and began hunting the colonists.

It took a little while, but the manhunting animals finally caught someone outside where they could get to them. Mitsuya had been out harvesting cotton when the cassowary kicked down the fence and charged at her, the lemurs only a few steps behind. Mitsuya got off several arrows from her short bow, but none of them did anything to the charging bird. Mitsuya tried to run for the safety of the interior, but bird and lemurs caught her at the door, her barely conscious body holding the door open. Their target dropped the beasts began to wander randomly, looking for more people to hunt.

Bezro took his chance and rushed forward, grabbing Mitsuya and trying to haul her to safety. She was bleeding copiously, and Bezro did not notice that when he picked her up, her short bow was left in the doorway, still holding open the door. Outside, the cassowary cocked an baleful eye at the sudden motion and with a caw streaked towards the door. Bezro got as far as the hallway before the bird caught him. In just a few seconds the child was crippled by the monstrous avian. Both Mitsuya and Bezro were still conscious, so they began trying to drag themselves to their beds. The cassowary, it's hunt complete, wandered back off outside.

Bezro was able to make it to his bed, but Mitsuya collapsed before she could quite get there. Quietly and alone, first Mitsuya, our first prisoner and second Cystian convert, and then Bezro, our captured and converted child, bled to death in their rooms.

Everyone has died. We didn't even get the fortune of a Man in Black to save us at the very end. But we have seen the threat of the void. We know where things went wrong and already have plans for how to do it better next time. As per the final vote, we will be starting another run through with a few changes, most significantly advancing to version 1.6, where we might be able to get a gravship and fly around!