File: You have waited long enough, reader..png (6.7 KB)

Alright. You're stuck with this thing for the foreseeable future. You might as well play 'nice' with it. With how temperamental the cat is, you're not even sure if it'd respect that. It clearly does not respect the laws of reality given that it can manifest objects out of thin air.

Are there even any limits to that power? Can the cat manifest anything it wants-

"Ahem." The cattethinge clears its throat. "Is this the sort of treatment you give to all of your guests?"

"Quite appalling behavior," the tumor chortles in agreement, its corpulent form shaking in a hypnotically vile motion. "Quite appalling, indeed. I do not like how this work order proceeds, my loving hostess."

"It seems that we are of one mind on this," LMS pronounces decisively.

"Indeed..." the tumor concurs in a low murmur.

You haven't even done anything yet and the two are already agitated. Great.

"vincent didn't even do anything yet!" Ashton, bless her heart, moves in to defend you. "come on, let's not get off on the wrong foot here."

"Paw," Little Miss Sunshine immediately corrects Ashton. It continues didactically, "Please be precise in your command of analogy. To use words without bothering to understand..."

"... is a waste of time for everyone involved," the tumor finishes with a sneer.

"o-oh, right." Ashton forces a smile, if only to be polite.

After a moment, Nicole decides that it would be prudent to join the conversation because it's clear this won't go anywhere if she just stands around.

"I apologize if we got off on the wrong paw with you. We are here to do a few routine questions. Would you be fine with that, miss?"

A low purr reverberates through LMS' throat but no actual words are spoken. You're guessing that's a good sign at least?

"We wish to respect your rules, since obviously, it's only the most polite thing to do." Nicole offers a notepad to the cattethinge. "Do you mind writing down your rules for us?"

The tumor chortles yet again, deeply amused by the proposal. "It is a new age, hosttess. An freak age where we must dictate even the barest rudiments of propriety to people whose agencies are already circumscribed by them."

"Such barbarians. Meow." The cat lazily flicks its tail. It snatches the notepad from Nicole, deciding that it'll play along for now. The cancerous mass of flesh hanging from its back lovingly whispers to LMS' ear as it continues to write. "It is in stone, but, nonetheless, what I have written, I have written."

It bats the notepad off the table without a second thought, but Ashton manages to catch it in the nick of time. You and Nicole huddle around Ashton to see what, exactly, the cat wrote. The cat's handwriting is actually remarkably neat considering its hands are massive ungainly paws.

RULE 1.) You must address me directly as only Little Miss Sunshine, Lil Miss Sunshine, or any variants thereof. Nicknames are strictly forbidden, for they show a blatant lack of respect.

File: A treat for me, and only me..jpg (137.3 KB)

RULE 2.) It is rude to leave a guest unattended for prolonged periods of time. Scheduling regular visits would be in your best interest.
RULE 3.) Raising your voice, frowning, crying, throwing crude insults, or otherwise causing a scene will be immediately punished. We are civilized people, meow.
RULE 4.) Any time I request something, it would be in your best interest to satisfy my request as soon as possible. This may come in the form of food or patting my head.

The rest of the notepad is filled with "meow" and "purr" and then at the very end?

NOT A RULE.) Your associates bore me. I would strongly prefer that you visit me vis-a-vis, Vincent. Meow.

Your mouth is forced into an ear-to-ear smile. Right, great, excellent. You should've expected this, really. Why would she take your request seriously? Ashton opens her mouth to say something, but somehow, you know that the words that come out of it aren't hers. "i appreciate the time you spent writing down these rules, and i apologize on behalf of nicole." Her knuckles have turned white around the notepad.

Nicole's lip quivers. "Mmh hmm. We're so dumb for asking you about these super obvious rules. We're really sorry about it." Her smile is small and soft and her eyes are frantically rolling about in their sockets like a cornered rat running right into the trap it must run into.

Little Miss Sunshine's tail swishes around from side to side. "It is only polite for a hostess to accept a sincere apology. I 'forgive' you." Her words elicit another sycophantic chuckle from the tumor.

Your two friends both exhale shakily as that terrible compulsive power seems to recede. Both keep up clearly fake smiles if only to follow the anomaly's 'rules'. Your face is as impassive as ever. There's this terrible nausea rising up from the mere act of talking to this thing. You are on the cusp of something violent, disgust and hatred rising up faintly in the back of your throat like a broaching spew.

Instead, you force it down and smile slightly and bow your head as you address the anomaly on behalf of your coworkers. "Thank you for being so kind. Now, may we ask how we can make your stay here better? We wouldn't want to make a bad first impression."

Your humbled question gets a genuine nod of approval from the cat. "I see you do not intend to fully waste my time. Good. In turn, I will keep my request simple."

"For today, I will only ask that you provide me with most luxurious cat food you can provide. The best of the best, the cream of the crop, par excellence. The cat's meow if you would." She seems incredibly pleased by the last phrase.

"I will forward my daily request to you through the means I have available." She points at the security camera with her tail. "Now then..."

Since you don't really have a say in the matter, you approach the manifested table and place five cans of cat food on the table. Little Miss Sunshine's eyes lazily open as she espies the offerings.

File: Teeth is teeth is teeth.jpg (31.6 KB)

With vexing, certainly intentional deliberation, she slowly rears her entire body back and upwards, its sharp claws extending onto the table, and she ambles forward in the distinctively feline four-beat gait and begins to inspect the food set before it.

"Ahhh, finally, after all that exertion" she huffs, "the eagerly awaited sustenance makes its entrance to the scene."

The cat seems to take her time weighing them up at all and she is sober in the doing, judging as perhaps it does that things are seldom what they seem. But perhaps things are simply are as they are. A cat is a cat is a cat and a cat must have its cat food from the cat food can.

With a single claw LMS scrapes a perfect circle widdershins — you all wince from the shrill torture of metal far louder than it ought to be — and pops open the can with a single flick. The cat dips her head for a tentative lick, then tucks in in earnest.

om nom nom nom nom...

You all look on like whipped dogs as the cat feasts and feasts right in front your eyes. The tumor is leveled at you and your posse with the severity of a judge looking down from his stand or perhaps a bronze barrel of a howitzer. You think it's staring, but it's hard to tell when it has no eyes.

"So?" the tumor asks.
"So-so," the cat replies. "om nom nom nom nom..."
"So..." you falter.
"So." Nicole murmurs.
"so," Ashton interjects at last. "can we... examine you? i mean, you you, not her. it's for, you know, obvious reasons."

"As mine beloved hostess is currently engaged with epicurean delights..." the tumor wheezes. "So be it, you may."

You exhale as you finally make some headway with this difficult thing. You and Ashton cautiously approach the tumor while Nicole stays back to write down your discoveries. Let's see what you're working with here.

>2 SUCCESSES!
The first thing you notice is how dry and hard the surface of the tumor is. You had taken it to be made of flesh before but it's actually more similar to concrete than anything organic. The dull red color of its skin reminds you of a rusty rebar pole. Why rebar, you're not sure.

This makes any attempt at getting a sample, well, fruitless. The only 'soft' part of the tumor appears to be the bright pink flesh around its mouth which is lined with a row of mismatched teeth.

"i thought it was cat teeth at first, because you know, but then i recognized human teeth." Ashton points out a particularly sharp tooth jutting from the tumor. "i think there's even a harvester tooth in here somewhere."

"Astute." The tumor shakes itself in an intimation of a nod.

"Appearances are important. A winning smile has seen many corners of world. Would you like to see more?" it says with a deep male basso voice which strikes a repulsive contrast with its almost insectile, childlike eagerness.

"i do not like the sound of that, but go ahead, sir...?"

The tumor opens its mouth and, smiling, its great many teeth shine. God, there's too many teeth in here to count.

File: acatisacatisacatisacatisacat.jpg (60.5 KB)

There's teeth growing into flesh, there's flesh growing out of teeth, there's teeth growing out of teeth. It's an abyss of teeth upon teeth.

Jealousy flares across Ashton's face but she swiftly regains her composure. "woah, i recognize this. you're a sentient teratoma."

The tumor makes an extremely pleased noise in being recognized as such. Ashton leans in to get a closer look at the tumor's throat. "where's your tongue?"

"It is being borrowed," the tumor cryptically answers. You do spot a recess in its mouth where a tongue would be, but as Ashton said, it's not there. You manage to shine a light inside its throat which is abruptly sealed only about an inch or two past where its tongue should be.

"That too, is also being borrowed." The tumor chortles again. Abruptly, a rust orange tongue manifests in its mouth. The fleshy mass blocking its throat is gone. A mass of half chewed cat food pours into the tumor's mouth, which it eagerly starts chewing.

"huh. so the two share a mouth then." Ashton's yellow eyes glimmer once she processes how bizarre the anomaly's anatomy is. Any further examination is abruptly cut off by a sharp *ahem.*

"It's terribly rude to stare." Little Miss Sunshine's sharp tone immediately forces the two of you to look up. She is sitting upright now and at attention and glaring directly into your soul. "None here can comprehend the reasons for your continued imposition onto my acquaintance. Now...Would you all kindly step away?"

The hideous compulsion grips your entire body like a baleful marionette and you are forced step by step all the way back until your back slams into the wall on the other side of the room. Ashton joins you next and you both stand there, unable to say a word. Nicole slowly steps away from the cat thing, hoping to avoid its attention.

Little Miss Sunshine flicks her tail with noticeable agitation. "I am bored by this charade. If you have, I would all kindly ask you again to—"

"W-w-wait!" Nicole points at the table with her pen. "If you can tell us something about that table, we'll leave!"

Little Miss Sunshine tilts her head. She's apparently so caught-off guard by the sudden question that she doesn't even protest the interruption.

"What my coworker is referring to," you try to clarify as you find your voice (or are allowed to find your voice), "is how you made that table appear. We didn’t bring it in here, and I’m sure the people who built the containment cell didn’t do it. So how?"

"'How come?' Why is that something you care to know about?" Little Miss Sunshine asks in genuine confusion. "That is a remarkably useless question. I should give you a medal for that."

"Nihil dicit," The tumor chimes in.

"I-it's not a useless question! I'm really curious!" Nicole stammers out, but her words only result in the cat's piercing stare being locked right onto her.

"What I am dealing with are people manifestly incapable of thinking for themselves," the cat says in dripping disdain.

File: A treat for you, and only you.jpg (74.0 KB)

You all have to stand there and take it as you all patiently wait for her to continue her train of thought. A most affected sigh escapes the cat's 'mouth', or where it would have a mouth. "Is this act truly so out of the ordinary? Anomalies are, by definition, those which defy the rules that humans have presupposed in their arrogance."

Little Miss Sunshine stands, hops off the table, and spins a claw in the air.

"I had simply decided that a table should fit inside of this boring, boring room. Guests require a place to sit, so I included the chairs as well. If this hovel of a containment cell is to be my room, then it is to be decorated as my room. I have merely elected it to be and so, it is."

Little Miss Sunshine leans against the table. She grabs a cupcake off the table and smears it against her face, much like the cat food she was chowing down on.

"The order in creation which you see is that which I have put there. I could say I am doing these things according to my tastes, but the rules of civility countermand local judgements. That winesodden robot of yours is doing much the same, is she not? All I did was repeat what exists in one part as in any other part."

"Indeed," the tumor chimes in. "I can smell the smoke of cigarettes and that particular scent of leather upholstery from her lounge all the way over here."

"I tire of your little game of twenty questions. I hold you all in contempt, court is adjourned, begone and trouble me-"

A pause.

"I..." LMS straightens up as she regains her composure. "That was terribly uncouth of me, wasn't it?"

You wait as if she's going to say something else, but you have the feeling that she isn't the kind of personality to apologize so freely...

"You are free to take a drink and a snack on the way out. Enjoy."

You all grab a steaming cup of tea and some sugary nonsense. Everyone is more than eager to get the hell out of here. Your posse exits the containment cell in an almost neat, single file line which breaks apart the instant you cross the threshold of the containment cell.

----
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE MOOD: 3/3 (Everything is better in threes.)
----

You collapse to your knees, and your coworkers swiftly join you on the floor. The silence that hangs in the air like a horrific stench is immediately broken by a voice you really, really wish you didn't have to listen to right now.

"Vincey? Are you okay? Did that-"

"Please. Not right now." With how tightly locked your jaw is, your teeth are about to shatter out of sheer stress. Venti takes the hint and shuts her mouth, not wanting to agitate you even more than you already are.

Minutes pass before anyone is comfortable enough to move. Venti helps you back to your feet, while Ashton moves to help Nicole up. The time you spent on the floor gave you enough time to shake off everything that happened. Now that you're not in that cat's domain, you feel...

Fine isn't the right term but your mind is holding together.

File: FROMTHEWAR.jpg (36.1 KB)

The same can be said for Ashton and Nicole, they're holding up about as well as anyone else would be after a work order with that anomaly. The flowers did their job well enough, that's all you can say.

You hear a knock at the front door.

"You guys prepare the, uh, cloth samples. I'll check on that." You're willing to deal with whoever's on the other side of the door if it means you can take a break.

Another knock rings from the door. Then another. You open the door to see who the hell is bothering you right now.

https://youtu.be/p4K0fuIPMSQ - ???

Well, the powerful lights you ordered a few hours ago are resting right outside, but your attention is drawn to the man standing right outside your door. By the looks of it, he's a soldier plucked straight out of the trenches of WW1 with the way he's dressed.

The soldier dusts bits of grey mud from his old fashioned uniform. You note how his hands are somehow even paler and grayer than your own hands, like he's a dead man walking. His expression is unreadable thanks to the old timey gas mask hanging off his face, but your gut tells you he's smirking beneath that mask.

He throws himself back in a silent laugh, and you decide you have enough. You're about to slam the door in his face when the soldier loudly clears his throat.

"...REQUESTING YOUR SERVICE, SIR." That's not a human's voice. It may mimic the cadence of a man's voice, but it doesn't come naturally to the soldier. It's like he has to manually pull on each individual vocal cord to sound out a syllable.

"YOUR TRACK RECORD IN FIGHTING ANOMALOUS ENTITIES HAS BEEN NOTED." The soldier rummages through his pockets for a moment, before handing over a large slip of paper to you. "WE WOULD REQUEST YOU CHOOSE ONE ENTITY TO TRACK DOWN FOR US LATER."

"SERVICE IS NOT MANDATORY, BUT WE SUGGEST YOU CONSIDER OUR OFFER."

CONTRACT #1
RISK: LOW
DESCRIPTION: ROGUE CLEANING AUTOMATON. USED TO BE COMRADE. DESIGNATED ALL HUMANS AS CORPSES TO BE CLEANED. KILL IT.
LOCATION: LAYER 1
DEADLINE: TODAY
REWARD: $150, 100% SALVAGE SHARE, PACK OF COMBAT ENHANCING DRUGS

CONTRACT #2
RISK: MEDIUM
DESCRIPTION: MAD PROPHET. LIGHT BORN OF MADNESS AND MISERY. HAS BEEN HARRASING FELLOW PRIESTS. COMPLETE MORALE KILLER. DEAD OR ALIVE.
LOCATION: LAYER 4
DEADLINE: TOMORROW
REWARD: $666, CHOICE OF ANTI-ANOMALOUS EQUIPMENT (FOR FUTURE CONTRACTS)

CONTRACT #3
RISK: HIGH
DESCRIPTION: COGNITOHAZARDOUS, MIND-ALTERING BROADCAST OF UNKNOWN ORIGIN. BROADCAST HAS INCREASED RATE OF HARVESTER ATTACKS BY 500%. LOCATE AND DISABLE SOURCE.
LOCATION: LAYER 3?
DEADLINE: DAY AFTER TOMORROW.
REWARD: $300, A SAFER FACILITY FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED, CHOICE OF IMPLANT TO UPGRADE YOU AND ONE ALLY.

Which contract(s) do you choose? You may choose multiple.
>CONTRACT #1.
>CONTRACT #2.
>CONTRACT #3.
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
>Shoo the soldier away. You're not humoring whatever this is.
>Ask the soldier a question? (Write in?)
>Write in.

>>6395498
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
No guts no glory

>>6395498
>CONTRACT #2.
>CONTRACT #3.
And we are BACK!!

>>6395498
WOOOOOOOOO
>CONTRACT #1.
>CONTRACT #2.

File: LIL o7.png (102.9 KB)

>>6395498
>CONTRACT #1.
>CONTRACT #3.

>>6395498
>All of them
YEAH BABY THATS WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR, SIDEQUESTS WOO
>Ask the soldier a question?
Does service guarantee citizenship?
>and
What does he think of our brother?

File: VINCENTDESIRESVIOLENCE.png (11.2 KB)

>>6395498
Oh hell yeah we are so fucking back, my Vincent withdrawal has receeded
>>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
Ok so hear me out, the first one sounds easy enough that not taking it would be a waste, second one would give us the rewards to prepare Vincent for the third one of which sounds too dangerous to ignore (a very close associate is a harvester, we dont need her getting mind fucked) plus if desired we can have Vincent take one at a time each day ( Contract 1's deadline is today, while number 2 is tomorrow and contract 3 is the day after). Also we could recruit Vincent's bro to fight 2 and 3 succesively (its his holy mission).

>>6395498
>CONTRACT #2.
>CONTRACT #3.

>Ask the soldier a question?
Does service guarantee citizenship?
>give a PROPER salute when we dismiss him

>>6395498
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
We're so back Vincels and we must KILL!

>>6395498
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!

>>6395498
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!

File: Songbird o1.png (71.6 KB)

Repost, last until I'm back awake. Tomorrow to say.

Vincent's set free form the cage by Songbird for the moment.

Now write in to what the wagie's going to do with this newly require freedom,
while Songbird munch on some apple slices.

>Try out a hobbies. Maybe painting perhaps?
>Wageslave's always a wageslave. Vincent got straight back to work by HARD TIMES.
>Attend the anime watching sessions. With Lucy's choice of show, of course.
>Hang out with 199X and the lads.

>Something else..

>>6395498
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
This will benefit people here if we take care all them. A good rep among personnel here.

>>6395498
>>CONTRACT #2.
Between needing to gouge our flesh out to fulfill a contract and the possible need to deal with hostile harvesters, we really should not seek out so many fights. Just one to avoid peeving off whoever this guys represents. I would pick the first but given the deadline for the flesh samples is today, avoiding it is probably for the best.

>Ask the soldier a question?
> Who are you? Who are you representing?

>>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
i feel like the second we should be able to get them alive

>>6395498
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
Fuck it, we ball.

Welcome back QM!

>>6395498
>All of them. None of these sound too hard, really!
Agreeing with >>6395585's arguments why we should bite off more than we could reasonably chew ... again. Plus I wonder how layer 4 is doing after the recent events.

>Ask the soldier a question? (Write in?)
Who are we working for here?
Can our new employer secure us an actual permit for layer 4?
Where do they sell those fashionable gas masks?
Also +1 for trying to finish off with a proper salute.

>>6395636
>Attend the anime watching sessions. With Lucy's choice of show, of course.
Mental health break after LIL to finally break our mental health.

>>6395498
>ALL OF THEM
>Who are you? Who are you representing? Who are we working for here?
>Does service guarantee citizenship?
>What does he think of our brother?
>Where do they sell those fashionable gas masks?
>give a PROPER salute when we dismiss him

Would've closed earlier but I got dragged into town and it went on way longer than I wanted it to.

ALL OF 'EM: uMw, k0R, wMx, 2vN, yqz, T91, /1a, fF9, HwV, OBh, 9y6
CONTRACT #1: o+8, K+b
CONTRACT #2: yxY, o+8, Mri, rg4
CONTRACT #3: yxY, K+b, Mri
QUESTIONS: k0R, Mri, rg4, 9y6

I'll throw in the questions for free, since they won't really add much to the update, and there's no reason why you can't ask him them. So.

You're going to take all three contracts. Like the good little wageslave you are. I'm glad to see that even after two weeks, everyone is still on the same page when it comes to how much Vincent should suffer. Gotcha. Writing the update now.

>>6395542
A delicious meal made for, by, and with a delicious cat thing. Enjoy the snacks she graciously provided you.

>>6395585
OH JESUS FUCK VINCENT WHAT ARE YOU DOING STOP STOP STOP!!!

>>6395636
Vincent...he hung me from the fucking ceiling. Help me, questers.
>Attend the anime watching sessions. With Lucy's choice of show, of course.

>>6395504
>>6395521
>>6395585
>>6395608
>>6395699
I'm glad to see people are excited about my quest returning. Another 100 updates of your favorite wageslave, coming straight to YOUR house.

>>6395835
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I updated the QST front page multiple times a day hoping for Low Rung Researcher to return.

I did pick up a couple of fun ones in the meantime though!

File: SOLDIER.jpg (50.2 KB)

"Okay. One step at a time, 'sir'. Who, exactly, do you represent? Who are you? Who are you working for?"

With long, filthy nails, the soldier scratches into the side of his neck. Your expression stays neutral as you watch on. You're too exhausted to really be disgusted at the sight.

"I REPRESENT THE BRITISH ISLES AND THE NATIONS WITHIN IT. I AM MERELY A BOY WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN BRITAIN, IF WE MUST BE SPECIFIC." The soldier stops scratching his neck, seemingly satisfied with the damage he did to it. You can see pearly white bone poking from the newly scratched hole.

"I WORK ON BEHALF OF MY SERGEANT, WHO IS OCCUPYING A SMALL BASE IN LAYER 4, COMPOSED OF SEVERAL OF WHAT YOU CALL 'OFFICES'. HE HEARD ABOUT WHAT YOU DID TO THE MOTHER OF A THOUSAND LEGS, AND HE SEES POTENTIAL IN YOU. MEN LIKE YOU ARE BORN TO PLAY THE ULTIMATE GAME, HE SAID."

"And that game is?"

"WAR, SIR." The soldier chuckles at your question. "WHAT ELSE WOULD IT BE?"

"I see?" You feel like prying for more details is a lost cause, but at least you know where to find his boss. "So I'm a hired mercenary for the army, then? Am I understanding that correctly?"

"CORRECT." The soldier nods. "YOUR OBLIGATIONS START AND END WITH THE CONTRACTS, WHICH, I SHOULD REMIND YOU, YOU SHOULD CONSIDER ACCEPTING ONE."

"Right, sorry, I still have a few more questions. Would my service guarantee citizenship?" You can already piece together that he isn't human, so you might as well play along.

The question causes the soldier to do a double take. Has no one else asked him this before? "IT WOULD DEPEND ON YOUR PERFORMANCE, BUT I BELIEVE THAT AN EXCEPTIONALLY GOOD JOB WOULD WARRANT GRANTING YOU HONORARY CITIZENSHIP. MY SERGEANT WOULD CERTAINLY OFFER A SOLDIER OF THE BRITISH ISLES BETTER CONTRACTS."

Got it. If you do a good enough job, you might get better missions from this freak. That's all you needed to hear. "Coolio. I assume I'm not the only person you've asked. Have you met my brother?"

You sense the soldier is grinning underneath his mask. "INDEED. ANGEL WAS HIS NAME."

"What are your thoughts about him?" Knowing your brother, you're shocked this guy doesn't have a hole punched in his chest. "I'm curious, that's all."

"HE'S VERY EAGER TO PROVE HIMSELF. ALL WE HAD TO DO WAS TO TELL HIM HE WAS FIGHTING ANOMALIES, AND HE AGREED!" The soldier starts scratching again; this time he's trying to scratch his exposed bone. "HE KILLED TWO TARGETS, WITH SOME CONSIDERABLE STRUGGLE, OF COURSE."

"HE STILL DID THE JOB, AND WE REWARDED HIM WITH A BETTER SHOTGUN THAN THE ONE HE HAD. THAT, AND A FANCY GAS MASK, JUST IN CASE."

"Oh? Is it possible I could get a fashionable gas mask too?" You might as well ask, why not? "Actually, while we're on that topic, could I possibly get a permit to Layer 4 if I accept the third contract?"

The soldier nods again. "IF YOU ACCEPT THE THIRD CONTRACT, WE WILL THROW IN A PERMIT TO LAYER 4 AND A GAS MASK FOR FREE."

"IS THAT ALL, SIR?"

File: EVERYTHINGRETURNSTOMOLD.jpg (176.1 KB)

"I said my piece. I'll accept all three contracts." You're feeling bold today.

You already finished your contract with ExTINCTION CORP, so you don't need to harvest any more samples from yourself. All you'd need to do is to prepare a few WINE-SOAKED SANDWICH, and Contract #1 should be a breeze, and you've got time to prepare for the others.

The soldier eagerly watches as you scribble down your signature, legally binding you to these three contracts. He rolls up the slip of paper and stuffs it right back into his pocket. "I MUST RELY THIS INFORMATION TO MY SERGEANT IMMEDIATELY."

"God speed." You salute the soldier. The soldier instinctually salutes back.

For a moment, the two of you stare at each other, as if an unspoken agreement were made between the two of you. Despite the fact the two of you are complete strangers, you can feel a certain bond forming between the two of you. All it took was this one simple gesture of respect.

There's a glint of respect visible in the soldier's eyes. "DON'T DIE." The soldier mutters as he takes his leave.

>You have signed all three contracts! Remember, #1 has to be completed TODAY.

You drag in the lights left outside your lab before closing the front door. You check to see how your associates are handling everything.

Your coworkers are all staring at you from the other side of the room, with varying levels of worry and confusion on their expressions. Venti, of course, is the first one to break the silence.

"Who was that, Vincey?"

"Some weird soldier guy. He offered me a bunch of contracts, and long story short, we're killing something later today."

"oh my god vincent." Ashton smacks both hands over her face. "you cannot be serious. i- you know what, i should've expected it. at least i'm here to help."

"Isn't that a good thing, Ashton? That he's a hard, loyal worker who's willing to do whatever it takes?" Despite how cheery her voice is, Nicole's smile rings especially hollow. "Ha ha! You're very funny, Vincent!"

"We have to respect Vincey's decision! I'm sure he had a good reason!" Venti puffs her chest out for emphasis. "Hmpf! It's like you don't even like him like I do!"

"What?" "huh?"

"I- I don't get what that's supposed to mean? He's a coworker I like?" Venti's odd comment somehow knocked off Nicole's smile. "I just don't trust the guy he was talking to!"

Ashton doesn't even bother prying into Venti's statement. "don't we have some cloth sample to study? let's focus on that for now, okay?"

"Oh, right!" You reconvene with everyone else so you can, you know, actually research the sample.

>2 SUCCESSES!

"Vincey~! You should probably check this out~!"

It takes Venti a grand total of thirty seconds to find something anomalously useful about the CLOTH SAMPLE. She stuffs your face into the microscope so you can actually see what's...oh my god.

It's mold.

No, no, you can be more descriptive than that. Let's try that again.

File: AMOLDSFAVORITEFOOD.jpg (23.2 KB)

Examining the sample under the microscope shows, at first blush, nothing particularly out of the ordinary.

It's a piece of old, half-rotten cloth...except there's a thin sheen of something organic coating the fibers of the sample. Prodding at it reveals that it is soft and squishy in a way that immediately reminds you of the CIGARETTE MOLD samples you grow.

'course, this mold is nearly undetectable thanks to being completely translucent, but you at least know it's here now!

You pass this information to Nicole and Ashton so you can fish ideas out of them. Ashton's the first to speak up after she finishes nursing her headache with a can of free vending machine beer.

"i think i vaguely recall something about this sample being regenerative? colt wrote down a note or something but i could hardly read his chicken scratch."

"try damaging the sample, let's see what happens."

"Venti, mind doing the honors?"

"MMH HMM~!" Okay she really didn't need to sound that excited. It's just a routine test. Venti takes a freshly cleaned scalpel, and, thankfully, she makes a perfectly clean cut.

You watch as, after only a few seconds pass, the slime mold on the two halves begins to rapidly expand. They grow in the direction of the other half, clearly trying to connect to each other. The CLOTH MOLD (name pending) quickly yanks both halves of the denim back together before knitting it back together with its own mass.

The sample has healed. Nicole's eyes are sparkling like the midnight sky once she's made aware of what, exactly, just happened. You step out of the way so she can do her magic. Venti whispers to Nicole about what to do. At least you think that's what she's doing? The pink-haired aberration mixes up chemical slurry after chemical slurry in an attempt to 'refine' the mold.

Ashton chimes in again before the two can get too lost in the sauce. "wait, if it's mold, can't we just use the same thing we used on vincent's mold?

"Huh?" "Bwuh?"

"t-the mints? the mints with the sugar alcohol that mold seems to like?"

Venti and Nicole blankly stare at the Harvester. It's clear that they did not consider that for a single moment. Nicole scrambles to get one of the mints while Venti keeps an eye on the cloth sample.

A variety of chemical slurries, made by your trusted coworkers, were tested on the mold to see if they could be used to isolate the mold's regenerative property. After a few misfires, a dark purple gel is extracted from the mold covering the pieces of cloth.

You cut a hole into your sleeve with something sharp, so you have something you can actually experiment on. Venti carefully dabs the dark gel on the sleeve to see if it'll work.

Unlike the pure, unadulterated mold, it takes a lot longer to stitch the hole shut. The good news, though, is that it still heals the damage done without leaving any trace of the substance behind.

A quick examination underneath your microscope shows that there's no trace of anything on your sleeve.

You cut your sleeve again and while this time, it takes a little more effort to leave a cut, the cut doesn't seal on its own. Another reapplication of the gel is enough to patch your labcoat back up. So you'll have to pick using the mold, which may have unintended side effects, or a one time use gel.
>-2 CLOTH SCRAPS
>REPAIR GEL x2 OBTAINED! (A proof of concept. Can be used to heal seals, cuts and tears in objects. Can be improved upon.)

In the corner of your eye, you see something opening up your front door. A certain MAN is sneaking towards NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell, just like you asked him a few hours ago.

What do you want to do, Vincent? Choose three actions.

TIME TOKENS: 10
EXPERIMENTS LEFT TO PERFORM TODAY: 2 (Can be progressed by working on SOMMELIER or HARD TIMES)

ANOMALY (All are 1d2-1 TIME TOKENS)
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's containment cell. You want to be there for her, just in case.
>Enter HARD TIMES' containment cell. Couldn't hurt to learn more about it. You have a certain 'connection' with it.
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's containment cell. Time to treat this hormonal punk.

RESEARCH
>It couldn't hurt to experiment on your ARTIFACT GIFTS. Especially SLUMBERING WISH, you want to know what new properties it got after its change. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Experiment with ESTABLISHING SHOT! You already know what it does, but how far can you push it? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 56, +21 to roll.)
>You have this weird, anomalous egg that can copy things. Try to copy the ACCUMULATED PAST item you bought, maybe you can use it to improve your mechanical anomalies? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Well, you got these treats from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Study them to see if they're safe to consume. (+1 TIME TOKEN, but...?)
>Start refining the REPAIR GEL, and the other CLOTH SAMPLES. What else can you make with them? (-1d2 TIME TOKENS. No DC.)
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier, quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)
>Try to figure out new, interesting ways to reinvent the PERFECT MEAL samples. (-1 TIME TOKEN)

BUSY WORK
>Try to figure a way to make the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Put on your M.A.D WORLD glasses and hunt down some antimemetic moths to study! (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 63, +19 to roll.)
>You have some old MARTIAL ARTS TAPES you bought a while ago. Some training wouldn't hurt. (-1 TIME TOKEN, improves everyone's combat abilities!)
>Look up anything related to "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH. (-1 TIME TOKEN, reduces the DC of studying GREY PASTE by -15! Would be useful in the future.)
>Cobble something together out of the random electronic scrap and junk you have. Try to make something USEFUL outta them. (-1 TIME TOKEN, no DC needed thanks to your assistants.)

>Write in.

>>6395879
Well, anon, you'll get a good chunk of (mostly) daily updates out of me for a few months!

>>6395902
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's containment cell. You want to be there for her, just in case.

>Enter HARD TIMES' containment cell. Couldn't hurt to learn more about it. You have a certain 'connection' with it.

>Well, you got these treats from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Study them to see if they're safe to consume. (+1 TIME TOKEN, but...?)

File: Colt o7.png (116.5 KB)

>>6395902
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's containment cell. Time to treat this hormonal punk.
>Try to figure a way to make the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>You have some old MARTIAL ARTS TAPES you bought a while ago. Some training wouldn't hurt. (-1 TIME TOKEN, improves everyone's combat abilities!)

>>6395636
Lock in on Vincent enduring the anime watching sessions. Doodling soonish.

>>6395894
>MEN LIKE YOU ARE BORN TO PLAY THE ULTIMATE GAME, HE SAID."
>"And that game is?"
>"WAR, SIR."
This whole exchange reminded me of Judge Holden.
>>6395902
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's containment cell. You want to be there for her, just in case.
>Enter HARD TIMES' containment cell. Couldn't hurt to learn more about it. You have a certain 'connection' with it.
>You have some old MARTIAL ARTS TAPES you bought a while ago. Some training wouldn't hurt. (-1 TIME TOKEN, improves everyone's combat abilities!)

>>6395902
>Look up anything related to "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH. (-1 TIME TOKEN, reduces the DC of studying GREY PASTE by -15! Would be useful in the future.)
Enter HARD TIMES' containment cell. Couldn't hurt to learn more about it. You have a certain 'connection' with it.
>Well, you got these treats from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Study them to see if they're safe to consume. (+1 TIME TOKEN, but...?)

I want to give the man and Nowhere's Sommelier some time alone

>>6395902
>Enter HARD TIMES' containment cell. Couldn't hurt to learn more about it. You have a certain 'connection' with it.
Not ready for treating 199X yet. I want to give our bro his space with wine girl
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier, quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)
Another big source of money and the Medbays will love us for this. Let's experiment while we have the people good at it here
>Well, you got these treats from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Study them to see if they're safe to consume. (+1 TIME TOKEN, but...?)
Learning more about this bitch

>>6395902
>Try to figure a way to make the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Write in: Research a new type of mold using the black bile.
There's still so much mold work to do. Testing other anomalous samples, isolating the enzyme, isolating the cherry flavor, etc. Gotta start somewhere though.
>Well, you got these treats from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE. Study them to see if they're safe to consume. (+1 TIME TOKEN, but...?)
Mainly because I want to avoid being impolite by not honoring her treats. Healing item production and visiting our anomalies would be next on my list.

>>6395902
Changing vote from >>6396071
>OBSCURA GEL
to >>6396075's
>Write in: Research a new type of mold using the black bile.
We need MORE MOLD
How can Vincent be The Moldman (patent pending) if we don't force the QM to come up with possible mold variants of all the mystery anomalous material we end up with?

>>6395902
>Enter HARD TIMES' containment cell.
>Look up anything related to "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH.
>Well, you got these treats from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.

>>6395902

>Write in.
I believe we were recording some of Little Miss Sunshine's words on a flower. My thought was whether those words would have any power if played back and to what extent. Then theres the nature of the flower where we might be able to feed it a battery as well. And as a third idea, if we wear our MAD glasses would we see any telepathic influence as an aura in the air or around someone? Could be very handy for finding the weird mental anomaly source of that #3 Contract.

THEN a fourth possible experiment, mentral protection flower or no mental protection flower.

Rolled 3 (1d5)

SOMMELIER: 2vN, yqz
HARD TIMES: 2vN, yqz, T91, rw4, /1A
SUNSHINE: 2vN
LOST: K+b
SPARKLING MOLD: K+b, OBh
MARTIAL ARTS: K+b, yqz
P-CORP: T91, /1A
TREATS: T91, rw4, OBh, /1a
BILE MOLD: OBh, rw4
o+8's write ins: Guess.

Only TREATS and HARD TIMES got a solid majority, and we got a massive five way tie otherwise. Feh. Alright, rolling 1d5. Let's see what we're doing for the last one.

1 = SOMMELIER
2 = SPARKLING MOLD
3 = MARTIAL ARTS
4 = P-CORP
5 = BILE MOLD (Will actually need a skill check)

Whatever it is, as long as it's not BILE MOLD, I'll start writing the update immediately. It should be shorter since you'll probably go into HARD TIMES' containment cell first thing.

>>6396143
I like the general ideas but the flowers you made, and brought into LMS's cell, were made strictly for mental protection instead of recording anything. You can record something next work action.
So I'd say the 'feeding the battery" and 'MAD WORLD glasses" actions would be viable, but the first one wouldn't.

>>6396158
Ah yeah you right, the vote for it went a different way in the rolloff last thread. Next time then.

Is it truly wise to teach Venti martial arts?

>>6396168
She already knows how to pin down Vincent

File: SMOGG.jpg (643.1 KB)

"Alright." You turn to address your non-Venti coworkers. "I'm going to let you guys take a break. That last work order was, uh, yeah. The less we talk about it, the better."

"ditto." Ashton grumbles. "never been a cat person. they're too strin- they're too standoffish. i always liked dogs better."

"I've always been a fan of deer!" Nicole draws her knife from her holster. The jagged, sharp antler growing from the hilt faintly shimmers in the dim glow of your lab. "I don't know why. I've always been drawn to them."

"deer are fine, but like, c'mon. crocodiles are cooler. alligators are cooler." Ashton rolls her eyes with a knowing smirk. "i guess moths are fine too, if we want to talk about other animals."

"...Not to interrupt this thrilling conversation, but Venti, you're coming with me. We're going to work on HARD TIMES."

Venti immediately gravitates to your side like you're the world's strongest magnet. She nearly crashes right into you, but an outstretched hand is enough to keep her back.

"It's that really big, mean nasty machine that keeps hurting you, right? Is that right, Vincey~?"

"Yes, but I can't name a single anomaly that hasn't harmed me. Point is, you're good with machines."

"Mmh hmm! I still got my handy toolbox!" Venti gives her trademark Venti Vantastic Vmirk, a 'smirk' that immediately sends a shiver down your spine. "Alright! Let's get going before the others get any ideas, okay~?"

You have no clue what she's trying to imply there. "Take care, guys. Feel free to do whatever you want while I'm gone."

"mmh hmm." Ashton taps Nicole on the shoulder. "i have something i have to talk to nick about."

"Oh?" Nicole scoots over, ready to whisper about whatever Ashton wants to talk about. You're not going to pry; it's probably personal stuff you wouldn't know anything about.

You escort Venti over to HARD TIMES' airlock, where you have a whole bunch of protective suits and heat-resistant equipment ready. You'd imagine that the containment cell is still scorching hot, so you make sure to layer on enough layers of heat-proof fabric to protect yourself.

You rather not have your skin melt off your bones. Even with Venti's (more than eager) help, putting on enough layers to safely work on HARD TIMES is always going to be very time consuming. By the time you're done, it's impossible to tell that the person standing next to you is Venti.

Venti struggles to raise her arm, but she manages to give you a thumbs up. "Ready, Vincey~?" Wow, her voice is a lot more tolerable when it's muffled.

"Mmh." You pick up a BLOOD BUCKET with one hand. "Let's get moving." The airlock groans as it opens. You shuffle inside as fast as your bloated PPE allows you to, with Venti eagerly trailing behind.

https://youtu.be/QdxIOXdx2mc - ALL'S WELL

You can't see shit. The whole room is blanketed in a suffocatingly thick black smog. Maybe if you squint, you can imagine you can still see your hands, but that's wishful thinking.

File: MACHINE.jpg (62.6 KB)

You feel Venti's arm wrapping around your shoulder. You grimace at her touch, but just this one, you'll tolerate it.

"Vincey?" Her voice is quieter than it was before. "Is this normal? It wasn't like this when I checked on it earlier..."

"I. I don't know." You answer as honestly as you can. The two of you take your sweet time as you move towards the machine. The last thing you want to happen is for either of you to end up mulched by the machine. "At least it's not attacking us."

"There's a light there, at least! Haha!" Venti forces out a laugh, but it rings hollow. Luckily, thanks to your containment cell's smaller size, it's not long before you're in front of the machine. The smog around the machine is marginally lighter than it was before, which allows you to make out the lights.

None of them are on, but the bottommost light briefly flickers for about a second before showing no signs of activity. So that won't be an issue for a while now, if your knowledge of the anomaly is right.

Venti stares up at the machine. You can't see her face, but you sense something is bothering her. While you don't like her, you don't want her to die. Not yet, at least. "Is something wrong?"

"...Why do I hear your voice coming out of it?" In any other context, Venti's comment would've been completely deranged. She seems to realize this, and she hastily clears her throat. "I know it's not your voice, Vincey; I'm not dumb. I know what YOU sound like."

"It's...it's hard to put into words. I know anomalies can speak to you. They get into your head and pull at your brain, stuff like that." Venti taps her finger against the soot-covered surface of the machine. "It usually doesn't sound like someone you know, though."

"I know what you're saying. It sounds insane, yes, but I heard that voice before too. I guess it's the only way the machine can really 'talk'."

"Maybe." Venti shrugs. "I wonder what that says about the machine?"

"The Vincey I know is more than some pile of scrap and junk! Your blood vessels are plump and perfect, you know!" Her voice regains some of its energy back. "Sorry, sorry, just speaking out loud."

The humming of mechanical parts moving in rhythm hangs in the soot-caked air. It is almost comforting now that you noticed it. It's a slow, almost melodious noise that makes you wonder something. Can a machine like this sleep? Or dream, even? Is that even applicable to an anomaly like this?

Does it even DESERVE that? You deserve it more than this damn machine! You're the one who deserves rest!

For a brief second, a tidal wave of hideous rage floods your body. Your fingernails dig into the palm of your hand as you tighten your fists.

It's gone before you even have time to process why you're angry to begin with.

>INSIGHT HINT UNLOCKED: WORKER'S RIGHTS! (ARMOR)

"Vincey? Are you...okay?" Venti squeezes your shoulder. "You're not looking so hot. I mean, not that you're ugly! You're handsome! I mean...do you need a break?"

"I'm fine." You mutter, not having enough energy to even comment on her weird comment.

----
INSIGHT HINTS: SAME AS IT EVER WAS (ARMOR)/WORKER'S RIGHTS (ARMOR)/??? (WEAPON)
>WORKER'S RIGHT DESCRIPTION: You're more than just a wageslave. You matter as a person, right? You have to PROVE it to this machine.
>SAME AS IT EVER WAS DESCRIPTION: How different are you two, really, in the grand scheme? What's your life without work? You keep burdening yourself with work for a reason...right?
----

HARD TIMES MOOD: 100/100 (Be careful. Raising it past 100 may have consequences. Aggravating the machine would be a good idea right now.)
LIGHTS: 0.1/5

What do you want to do with HARD TIMES? Choose four actions, Venti is going to help out a lot!

COMMUNICATION:
>Address the elephant in the room: Why does it have your voice? Why does it SOUND like you? What's its deal? (DC 70, +20 to roll)
>Ask it about JOYTECHS. What is it thoughts on the company who made it, or the people that worked for it?
>Try to relate with the anomaly. You know what it's like to be on that GRINDSET. (DC ???, +?? with ???.)
>You got something you want to vent out: Why does it think you being a wageslave is GOOD? You're real curious.

EXAMINATION
>Examine the 'BLOOD SOUP' and 'BLOOD FUEL' slots. Try to figure out why the anomaly likes blood so much. (DC 63, +13 to roll.)
>Check out its internals. There has to be a panel in here that'll show you them. (DC 65, +13 to roll.)
>Look for any traces, hints or notes that could explain what the machine's function and purpose is actually supposed to be. It couldn't hurt to try?
>Investigate the row of lights on the side of the machine. Is it a warning? Is it a message? What's up with this? (DC 61, +13 to roll.)

STIMULI/MISC
>Examine HARD TIMES with MAD WORLD. Does a machine like this even HAVE an aura?
>You know what? Vent out some anger. Try to damage the machine, you want to see how it'll respond. (Should keep its MOOD at a reasonable level.)
>Introduce another machine to it; your ROOMBA. How does it feel about its fellow brethren of steel?
>Feed the machine what it wants: BLOOD (-1 of 3 BLOOD BUCKETS. Should appease its desire for fuel for a while.)
>Feed the machine what it truly wants: FRESH BLOOD. (-PHYSICAL HEALTH from you and Venti. You'll be rewarded for your sacrifice.)
>Try to doll up the machine with some paint. A little bit of pazazz to make it look and feel better. ("Can we do this one, Vincey~?)
>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)

>Write in?

----

>>6396168
Venti already has explosives, she's already dangerous. Trust me.

>>6396177
True! Don't give her an excuse to try, for your own safety.

>>6395925
Colt doesn't like admitting he's into certain kinds of women, we can't really judge him for that.

>>6395927
I love all of my anomalous freaks. I hope you guys are ready for your sixth and/or seventh one tomorrow.

>>6396237
>Address the elephant in the room: Why does it have your voice? Why does it SOUND like you? What's its deal? (DC 70, +20 to roll)

>Check out its internals. There has to be a panel in here that'll show you them. (DC 65, +13 to roll.)

>Investigate the row of lights on the side of the machine. Is it a warning? Is it a message? What's up with this? (DC 61, +13 to roll.)

>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)

IM ROOOOOOOLLLLLING

>>6396237
>Investigate the row of lights on the side of the machine. Is it a warning? Is it a message? What's up with this? (DC 61, +13 to roll.)

>Examine HARD TIMES with MAD WORLD. Does a machine like this even HAVE an aura?

>Try to doll up the machine with some paint. A little bit of pazazz to make it look and feel better. ("Can we do this one, Vincey~?)

>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)

File: song sand bord.png (68.0 KB)

>>6396237
>Address the elephant in the room: Why does it have your voice? Why does it SOUND like you? What's its deal? (DC 70, +20 to roll

>Try to doll up the machine with some paint. A little bit of pazazz to make it look and feel better. ("Can we do this one, Vincey~?)

>Investigate the row of lights on the side of the machine. Is it a warning? Is it a message? What's up with this? (DC 61, +13 to roll.)

>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)

>>6396237
>>You got something you want to vent out: Why does it think you being a wageslave is GOOD? You're real curious.

>Investigate the row of lights on the side of the machine. Is it a warning? Is it a message? What's up with this? (DC 61, +13 to roll.)

>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)

>Introduce another machine to it; your ROOMBA. How does it feel about its fellow brethren of steel?

>>6396253
+1

>>6396237
>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)
>You know what? Vent out some anger. Try to damage the machine, you want to see how it'll respond. (Should keep its MOOD at a reasonable level.)
>Address the elephant in the room: Why does it have your voice? Why does it SOUND like you? What's its deal? (DC 70, +20 to roll)
>Investigate the row of lights on the side of the machine. Is it a warning? Is it a message? What's up with this? (DC 61, +13 to roll.)

>>6396237
>Address the elephant in the room: Why does it have your voice? Why does it SOUND like you? What's its deal? (DC 70, +20 to roll)
>Examine HARD TIMES with MAD WORLD. Does a machine like this even HAVE an aura?
>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)
>You know what? Vent out some anger. Try to damage the machine, you want to see how it'll respond. (Should keep its MOOD at a reasonable level.)

>>6396253
+1

>>6396158
Oh no. There goes the dream of training martial arts with Hidaka-kun. ૮(˶ㅠ︿ㅠ)ა

>>6396237
>Address the elephant in the room: Why does it have your voice? Why does it SOUND like you? What's its deal? (DC 70, +20 to roll)
>Ask it about JOYTECHS. What is it thoughts on the company who made it, or the people that worked for it?
>You're contractually obligated to do this. Modify the machine with EVE'S stock. (DC 66, +15 to roll. After this, you'll only have one more experiment to do.)
If asking about JOYTECH and installing cheap stuff from EVE is not enough to lower it's mood, we might have to come back later and do some actual damage.

>>6396378
We will buy more tapes and then invite Hidaka over, believe it. I suppose we should also buy some dojo outfits. I wonder if 199X would want to watch Karate Kid?

Welp. We're doing four skill checks it seems. I'm going to need four anons to roll 3d100, and I'll just add the modifiers later since otherwise it'd be a nightmare to keep track of. I'll assign the 3d100s in sequential order (first goes to CONTRACTUALLY, etc)

Here's the tables. You sick bastards. (If you somehow get two results that both give an INSIGHT HINT, let's say you'll get a different bonus after an update or two)

CONTRACTUALLY (DC 66, +15 to roll)
0 SUCCESSES?: Fool it three times... (---ANOMALY MOOD. Venti will take a LOT of physical damage on your behalf.)
1 SUCCESS: You think the machine feels pity for your subpar performance. You say you think, because- (--ANOMALY MOOD. Venti will take a small amount of damage on your behalf.)
2 SUCCESSES: You did an actually good job for once. That's all you need to do, Vincent. That's all you need to do. (The machine rewards you with some samples!)
3 SUCCESSES?: Bile burns inside of your throat. Blood runs down your lips. The machine is pleased at your work. (+ANOMALY MOOD! MOOD OVERLOAD may occur. You'll unlock the third, and final, INSIGHT HINT.)

ELEPHANT (DC 70, +20 to roll)
0 SUCCESSES: What did you expect? You feel like you wasted your time even asking this question. (-MENTAL HEALTH?)
1 SUCCESS: The machine stirs to life as it processes your question, but... (You're not sure what kind of answer it's going to give. At least it acknowledged it?)
2 SUCCESSES: A fragment of a voice bounces around inside your head. (You get a vague, wishy washy answer but at least you're guaranteed to get AN answer.)
3 SUCCESSES: Why do you have my voice? (+???. +INSIGHT HINT. +???. -???)

LIGHTS (DC 61, +13 to roll)
0 SUCCESSES: The machine is REAL sensitive about these lights. Good thing to know, at least? (-ANOMALY MOOD. Your work here is cut incredibly short thanks to the anomaly's incoming tantrum.)
1 SUCCESS: A light is a light is a light. You understand their strict function, but... (...nothing about WHY the anomaly uses them for communication.)
2 SUCCESSES: Ah, so that's how it works. Gotcha. (You get a basic understanding on the LIGHTS mechanic, and how to better manage it. Good for you.)
3 SUCCESSES: Wait, hold on. There's a whole bunch of wires connected to these lights, you wonder where they lead to. (You uncover a very, very concerning property of the anomaly. You at least know how to work around it now.)

INTERNALS (DC 65, +13 to roll)
0 SUCCESSES: You have no fucking idea what you're looking at, or what you're doing! HAA! (--ANOMALY MOOD, your head is seething now...)
1 SUCCESS: With Venti's help, you think you've managed to map out a very rough layout of the machine. (-ANOMALY MOOD, but future skill checks with the anomaly are reduced by 1!)
2 SUCCESSES: Your dad used to work on cars. This isn't THAT different, right...? (Future DCs on HARD TIMES are reduced by 2, you get some more clarification on a INSIGHT hint.)
3 SUCCESSES?: Wait, what's that? (+!!!)

Rolled 27, 74, 72 = 173 (3d100)

>>6396597
YOOOOOOOOOOO

Rolled 11, 70, 8 = 89 (3d100)

>>6396597

Rolled 33, 81, 36 = 150 (3d100)

>>6396597

File: C-0RA o1.png (79.7 KB)

Rolled 6, 95, 60 = 161 (3d100)

>>6396597
Spin

Rolled 100, 36, 98 = 234 (3d100)

>>6396597

Rolled 1 - 1 (1d2 - 1)

RESULTS
CONTRACTUALLY: 2 SUCCESSES!
ELEPHANT: 1 SUCCESS
LIGHTS: 1 SUCCESS
INTERNALS: 2 SUCCESSES!

Wow! It's a good thing you didn't bring Nicole in, or she would be foaming at the mouth at these subpar results. You didn't horrifically fail so that's a good sign? At least? Good job, Vinny? Yay?

Writing.

>>6396604
Remember, kids. Robots are the only thing you can trust in this facility. Ashton? The MAN? Little Miss Sunshine? Yourself? Don't trust them. Trust the machines. Trust them.

>>6396292
Birds are your friends. You should love your bird friends.

>>6396378
>>6396553
To be fair, these tapes have been sitting around for a while now. Waste not, want not. You could always just buy more, it's not like they're rare.

>>6396605
Tsk. Sorry, man, you were late. That would've been a fucking amazing roll on INTERNALS but Mr. Drawanon got here before you. I will at least give you a pity reward for the whiffed 100 during the martial arts tape section, but don't expect much.

Oh, also, while we're here: I'm going to do a quick 1d2-1 to see if all of this costed a time token or not. 1 = NO TIME, 2 = 1 TIME TOKEN

File: Kitsu o2.png (120.0 KB)

>>6396841
No text plus extra.

File: Kitsu o1.png (127.5 KB)

>>6395636
The game's off for a new set record for Neon Slasher and down of the count.
Being magical blasted off by Delicious Girl R.
Toon in for next time, a rumor have it that there some sighting of the fiend,
Dreary Night Murderer near somewhere in the shadow of a alley with blade in hand.
Truly, another episode for Vincent to watch.

File: YUMYUMFEEDYOURGRINDER.gif (1.7 MB)

You swallow your anger for now. Wrath is a hideous emotion you rather not indulge in. You do not have the energy to act on it in any case. You might as well knock out two work orders in one stone. You already have to crack the machine open to modify it, so you'll examine its insides too.

You need to understand how this thing works. At least with 199X and NOWHERE's SOMMELIER, you get their gimmicks. All you know about this machine is that looking at it instills equal measures of anger and espirit de corps, which is confusing to your brain, but whatever.

Venti is already prying open one of the machine's panels. "You know, Vincey, it could mean nothing. Anomalies are always trying to get into your head, you know!"

"I get that, but why my voice? Why would a machine try to mimic me specifically?"

"Wellll, to be fair, Vincey, you are the coolest guy to ever exist!" Venti does her best to cheer you up. "If you want an actual answer, though, I don't have one."

"My best guess is that it sees you as an extension of itself. I think that's flattering!"

You find the comparison DEEPLY unflattering, but this isn't the time or the place to really argue the point. You lean your head inside so you can (futilely) analyze the internal mechanisms of the machine. You'll trust Venti to replace parts of the machine with stock from EVE'S.

>2 SUCCESS/1 SUCCESS!

The internals are what you remember them being: nonsensical, schizophrenic, and something that only functions because it's an anomaly. You can make out dozens of different mechanisms keeping the engine running. Pneumatics, gears, ropes, wheels, levers, smaller engines nestled inside even smaller engines, chains—the list goes on.

Every time you blink, it changes. It's not even a trick of the light; the mechanisms just change right in front of you! You scoff at this cheap trick the machine is pulling to disorient you. There's a pattern to the madness, and you're going to uncover it.

Certain parts don't change when you blink, and the parts that do change? You find that those parts are decoys or flat-out nonfunctional. There is a solid structure to the machine. The 'stable' mechanisms spiral deeper and deeper into the center of the machine, and there's a subtle change as you look in deeper.

Gears and chains get rustier, pneumatics get gummed up, and ropes have begun to rot and fray. The deeper you go, the more rotten everything gets. You freeze once you get a glimpse at what you think is part of the center of the machine.

Only there's nothing. It's gone before you could get more than a momentary glance at it, but you swear there was something sticking out of a pair of jammed gears. The stench of blood is strongest towards the center of the machine. The sickly sweet scent of blood, mixed with oil, brings back a distant memory of yours.

Your dad was working on some beat-up cruiser that he was obsessed over, and he cut himself on some jagged piece of metal.

File: LIGHTS.jpg (34.2 KB)

His blood spilled onto the engine, and whether out of laziness or superstition, he didn't cling to it. It stays there, rusting over and becoming one with the machine. He told you that he believed that's the only reason the machine ran again.

People pour a lot of themselves into what they make, don't they? Maybe the machine has a sense of pride over its own construction. You have to admit, it is an impressive machine.

For a brief moment, you felt like someone was looking at you. Thanking you for acknowledging it. You scribble down what you've been able to glean about the machine's construction, as you mull over that old memory of yours. It's rough, but you think you might be able to access the core with a LOT of effort.

>SAME AS IT EVER WAS UPDATE: Perhaps whoever built it shared a similar past to you? A similar view of the world? Talking about your past with it will progress this path.
>All DCS have been reduced! New action unlocked!

Your thoughts are cut off by the abrupt SCREECHING of metal. "W-wait, wait, there's no need to get angry with me!" Ah. As to be expected, the machine did not like Venti messing around with it.

"Y-you're like Vincey, and that means you're COOL-" A burst of steam directly to the face interrupts Venti before she can gibber out anything else. You flinch at the high-pitched screech that rings out from her, and you immediately scramble over to check on her.

Her face, thankfully, was partially protected by the face mask she was wearing. Her skin is a bright shade of red now, but her skin isn't peeling off, nor are there any burns. "Shit. Please rest, I can do the-"

"V-Vincey, I-I'm fine!" A smile worms itself across her face. "Y-you c-cared enough to check on me, and that's...that's all that matters." She takes a moment to catch her breath. It's blatantly obvious she's forcing the smile for YOUR sake, and for a moment, you wonder if that's how people feel when you brush them off.

You'll deal with that thought later. "Alright. If you're good enough to keep working, let's get this over with." You help Venti back to her feet. She stumbles around for a moment before she's able to catch her footing again.

The machine wasn't particularly pleased by having another garishly bright gear stuffed into its insides. You think you're starting to pick up on why: she replaced an actually functionable gear, instead of a decoy one.

The two of you hesitantly return to the machine's side. This time, you pry open a panel right next to where its lights are. You make a note that the bottommost light is flickering on and off, presumably about halfway to turning on.

Venti leans her head to get a better look at its insides. "H-hm. Unusual model. I've seen these before, but these are usually used for headlamps."

"Like the ones miners use?"

"Yeah, like that! Normally if you wanted an indication light, you'd use an LED or something 'weaker'." Now that she mentions it, the light is particularly good at piercing through the smog.

File: DISTORTEDREFLECTION.jpg (71.2 KB)

It's probably half the reason you can see anything at all. You check the wiring, and unlike the rest of the machine, it's fine? It's not particularly noteworthy, outside of the wiring being old.

"Hm. I wouldn't think you'd use optic fiber wiring to power headlamp lights." Venti taps at the wires. "Whoever made this was scrambling for parts. I can imagine someone scrapping their computer for spare parts to build this machine."

"So, someone was in a hurry to make this. I guess I can see why; this thing is a marvel of power production."

"I would agree. See," Venti taps at another section of wiring, which is far thicker than the rest of the wiring. "They spliced different wires together. Fiber optic directly into a telephone line."

"The only commonality is that both are used to transmit a lot of visual and audio data. Could the lights be its...eyes?" Venti shoots a nervous glance to the row of five lights. "It could be an analogue to the optic nerve."

"I'm not sure why the anomaly would be blinking at us to communicate." It might be on the right track, but you can't fully trust Venti's theory. Not yet, at least.

"I doubt that's how it works, Vincey, but maybe we could circle back to this. Do you hear that?"

It's muffled by the machine's internals grinding away to process the blood you fed it a few hours ago, but the machine is starting to snarl. Every time Venti leans in to check the wiring, the snarling gets louder.

You hastily close the other panel while Venti seals the panel to the machine's lights. You'd rather not overstay your welcome, so you shoot one last question to the anomaly.

"Why?" You let that word hang in the air for a moment before continuing. "Why do you want to sound like me? I'm nobody.

"Vincey's voice is trademarked, like my Vantastic Vmirk! You can't just steal it!" Venti puffs out her chest, clearly not too pleased by the machine's trademark infringement. "Also, you're totally unique and cool, Vincey!"

>1 SUCCESS!

All of the noise that was once inside the containment cell is immediately snuffed out. Only your breathing and Venti's foot tapping keeps the cell from being dead silent.

The smog briefly clears so the two of you can get a better look at the machine. A piece of glass breaks off from the machine's displays, clattering to the floor with a CLINK!

It lands right by your feet, staring up at you. You can't see the smog, or Venti, in the glass's reflection. You can't even see the room around you; it's reflected as a blank void in the piece of glass.

It's just you. It's only you. The reflection of you in the mirror has scars carved all across his body, with blood weeping from his wounds, but his face?

His face is twisted into a ear to ear grin. Like this version of you is proud of its pain.

That's all the machine is willing to reveal about itself. The smog soon consumes the room, and before you have time to grab the glass, it's gone. Vanished into thin air.

File: Did you really expect any meaningful progress, Vincent. Feel free to learn more about my treats after your failed martial arts training montage.jpg (109.5 KB)

"What did it say?" Venti squints at where the shard of glass once was. "I couldn't see anything."

"It just showed a reflection of me that was injured." You answer with an awkward shrug. "I hope to god it's not another..." You stop yourself before you mention the HEART. You don't want to do it around Venti, nuh uh, you know what happened last time you did that.

"It was weird. That's that."

"Feh! This machine is dumb and icky! You're better than it!" Venti puffs out her chest again, to the resounding silence of both you and the machine.

"Let's go." You brush off her comment. "I'm done here."

The reflection still lingers in the back of your mind as you escort Venti out of the containment cell. You swear you feel the machine staring at you with every step you take.

---
>VENTI is at Doing fine, Vincey!
>HARD TIMES MOOD: 89/100
>LIGHTS: 0.6/5
>+0.75 BATTERIES obtained! You now have 3.25 BATTERIES!
---

You're eager to throw off the thick, bulky layers that you were draped in moments ago. Venti sure does take her time taking off her own equipment, seemingly distracted by something. You're a bit uncomfortable when you realize her face isn't red because of the steam anymore.

Is she drool- youknowwhatnevermind.

You awkwardly turn your attention towards your non-Venti coworkers. Both of them are clearly bored out of their minds since they're investigating the treats Little Miss Sunshine left behind. Ashton reels away from the chemical analysis report she was reading.

"what the hell is chemical x? why is this one just named meowmeowmeow???" Ashton's reptilian teeth are starting to peek out of her mouth, but she reins herself in because you know. Company's around. "fifty thousand grams of sugar???"

"I don't get it either!" Nicole runs her fingers through her pink-orange hair. "The cupcake's icing is apparently 30% LED?"

"the cat is fucking with us, isn't it?" Ashton says with a crooked smile.

"You guys okay?"

"Nope!" "please, save yourself the headache."

"actually," Ashton is almost too eager to change the conversation. "i say we should just ignore that these treats ever existed and do something else!"

"Agreed!" Nicole responds almost immediately. "What's next on the menu, Vin?"

"It's Vincey." Venti scoffs at Nicole's nickname for you. "It rolls off the tongue better?"

"it. it really doesn't."

>ASHTON and NICOLE are both HANGING IN THERE...?

"You know what, let's focus on something else." You know you're not going to figure out anything meaningful about the treats if you examine them. You drag the TV out of the corner you left it in. "Have any of you seen Karate Kid?"

"a little? i grew up watching godzilla as a kid, not really martial arts stuff, but hey! i can watch some TV for a bit!"

"Ooo! Can we watch Hard Boiled instead?" Nicole raises her hand like a kid trying to get the teacher's attention. "I think that's better than Karate Kid!"

"I don't think that's what Vincey meant?"

"It is not." You slot the old MARTIAL ARTS TAPE into the VHS player attached to the TV. A hiss of static erupts across the screen...

https://youtu.be/Q30FNBcNqt0 - TRAINING SESSION

"Attention, everyone!" The tape opens with a middle man dressed in an obviously shoddy, hastily stitched together karate robe. It's painted a garishly bright blend of pink and purple, nothing that would be remotely acceptable in any serious context.

"Today! We're going to learn the art of the Rose Red Flow State! The most powerful form of martial arts known to man!" The middle age man strikes the world's worst martial arts stance. Your coworkers grimace at the poor sight, but they continue watching.

"This martial arts style was forbidden by ARC! Yes, the government's very own Advanced Research Center branch! Did you know some people say their name means something else???"

"fuck it." Ashton smirks at the pitiful sight she's seeing. "i'm willing to watch this."

"Alright! Let's work out, Vincey! Let's get some muscles on you, okay~?"

"Haha, it's been a while since I've worked out." Nicole's face turns red for a moment as she mimics the pose the man on the tape is holding.

What martial arts stance do YOU, personally, want to learn? Due to the failed nat 100, you get to pick two!
>TWISTED STANCE. "Break your bones, lad! You'll heal them back!" (Twice per day, you may fully reroll any dice on a skill check, at the cost of considerable PHYSICAL HEALTH damage.)
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)
>RECEDING STANCE. "Retreat. Retreat away from the world." (While at RED MENTAL HEALTH, you passively regenerate MENTAL HEALTH.)
>ADVANCING STANCE. "Kill them. Kill them all." (During the first round of combat, all DCS are reduced by 7. Good if you can end a fight immediately.)

What kind of training do you want your coworkers to focus on? Pick two. This will affect everyone.
>MENTAL PROTECTION. "Clear the mind, clear the soul." (+MAX MENTAL HEALTH, +2 to COMPOSURE/MENTAL RESISTANCE rolls.)
>PRECISION STRIKE. "Deep, calm breathes. Don't make any mistakes." (+3 to PERCEPTION and non-ARTIFACT RESEARCH rolls.)
>LETHAL BLOW. "Kill the enemy before they can kill you." (+3 to STRENGTH and COMBAT ATTACK ROLLS.)
>LIKE A MOUNTAIN. "Let nothing faze you." (+MAX PHYSICAL HEALTH, +2 to ENDURANCE rolls.)
>???. "And here's how you can buy a car of your own!" Was this taped over by mistake...? (+4 to all rolls against ARC OFFICIALS!)
>THE SUPERNATURAL. "Magic is real." (+5 to all rolls against specifically ANOMALIES.)

Next update should be out quicker. Sorry for the delay.

>>6396845
>>6396850
Remember, you should give your Lucy occasionally enrichment by watching anime with her.

>>6396893
Chemical x and sugar? Are we dealing with the Powerpuff Girls here?
>>6396894
>RECEDING STANCE. "Retreat. Retreat away from the world." (While at RED MENTAL HEALTH, you passively regenerate MENTAL HEALTH.)
>TWISTED STANCE. "Break your bones, lad! You'll heal them back!" (Twice per day, you may fully reroll any dice on a skill check, at the cost of considerable PHYSICAL HEALTH damage.)

>???. "And here's how you can buy a car of your own!" Was this taped over by mistake...? (+4 to all rolls against ARC OFFICIALS!)
>THE SUPERNATURAL. "Magic is real." (+5 to all rolls against specifically ANOMALIES.)

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less
>ADVANCING STANCE. "Kill them. Kill them all." (During the first round of combat, all DCS are reduced by 7. Good if you can end a fight immediately.)
Kill fast or last long - seems like a good combination.

>PRECISION STRIKE. "Deep, calm breathes. Don't make any mistakes." (+3 to PERCEPTION and non-ARTIFACT RESEARCH rolls.)
Sample boni to the max!
>???. "And here's how you can buy a car of your own!" Was this taped over by mistake...? (+4 to all rolls against ARC OFFICIALS!)

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)
Don't give up
Don't give in
Make them give up
Make them give in
>PRECISION STRIKE. "Deep, calm breathes. Don't make any mistakes." (+3 to PERCEPTION and non-ARTIFACT RESEARCH rolls.)
Just plain applicable to every aspect of life
>???. "And here's how you can buy a car of your own!" Was this taped over by mistake...? (+4 to all rolls against ARC OFFICIALS!)
Dumb enough to buy a used car, I see

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)
>RECEDING STANCE. "Retreat. Retreat away from the world." (While at RED MENTAL HEALTH, you passively regenerate MENTAL HEALTH.)

>MENTAL PROTECTION. "Clear the mind, clear the soul." (+MAX MENTAL HEALTH, +2 to COMPOSURE/MENTAL RESISTANCE rolls.)
>LIKE A MOUNTAIN. "Let nothing faze you." (+MAX PHYSICAL HEALTH, +2 to ENDURANCE rolls.)

>>6396894
>Due to the failed nat 100, you get to pick two!
Whoops! Add
>RECEDING STANCE. "Retreat. Retreat away from the world." (While at RED MENTAL HEALTH, you passively regenerate MENTAL HEALTH.)
to my vote in >>6397039

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)>RECEDING STANCE. "Retreat. Retreat away from the world." (While at RED MENTAL HEALTH, you passively regenerate MENTAL HEALTH.)"

Feels like this synergizes pretty well with CRUNCHTIME.

>???. "And here's how you can buy a car of your own!" Was this taped over by mistake...? (+4 to all rolls against ARC OFFICIALS!)
>THE SUPERNATURAL. "Magic is real." (+5 to all rolls against specifically ANOMALIES.)

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)
>ADVANCING STANCE. "Kill them. Kill them all." (During the first round of combat, all DCS are reduced by 7. Good if you can end a fight immediately.)

>LETHAL BLOW. "Kill the enemy before they can kill you." (+3 to STRENGTH and COMBAT ATTACK ROLLS.)
>THE SUPERNATURAL. "Magic is real." (+5 to all rolls against specifically ANOMALIES.)

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)
>ADVANCING STANCE. "Kill them. Kill them all." (During the first round of combat, all DCS are reduced by 7. Good if you can end a fight immediately.)


>???. "And here's how you can buy a car of your own!" Was this taped over by mistake...? (+4 to all rolls against ARC OFFICIALS!)
>THE SUPERNATURAL. "Magic is real." (+5 to all rolls against specifically ANOMALIES.)

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)
>RECEDING STANCE. "Retreat. Retreat away from the world." (While at RED MENTAL HEALTH, you passively regenerate MENTAL HEALTH.)

>MENTAL PROTECTION. "Clear the mind, clear the soul." (+MAX MENTAL HEALTH, +2 to COMPOSURE/MENTAL RESISTANCE rolls.)
>LIKE A MOUNTAIN. "Let nothing faze you." (+MAX PHYSICAL HEALTH, +2 to ENDURANCE rolls.)

A very Zen sort of tape. Lots of nice meditation and footwork, poses and poetry. The water thing that goes BONK.

File: Colt o6.png (92.1 KB)

Somehow, a large eagle plush have pop out into existence inside RBA's cell.

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE. "Become a wall. Become indestructible." (While at RED PHYSICAL HEALTH, you take considerably less PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH damage from all sources.)
>RECEDING STANCE. "Retreat. Retreat away from the world." (While at RED MENTAL HEALTH, you passively regenerate MENTAL HEALTH.)

>LIKE A MOUNTAIN. "Let nothing faze you." (+MAX PHYSICAL HEALTH, +2 to ENDURANCE rolls.)
>THE SUPERNATURAL. "Magic is real." (+5 to all rolls against specifically ANOMALIES.)

>>6396894
>STEADFAST STANCE.
>RECEDING STANCE.

>???. "And here's how you can buy a car of your own!"
>THE SUPERNATURAL.

RECEDING: T91, 9y6, yqz, o+8, K+B, oyu
TWISTED: T91
ADVANCING: U5W, 2vN, HwV
STEADFAST: U5W, 9y6, yqz, oDW, 2vN, HwV, o+8, K+B, oyu

???: T91, U5W, 9y6, oDW, HwV, oyu
SUPERNATURAL: T91, oDW, 2vN, HwV, K+B, oyu
PRECISION: U5W, 9y6
MENTAL: yqz, o+8
MOUNTAIN: yqz, o+8, K+B
LETHAL: 2vN

We're going with the 'LOW HP = BENEFITS' stances, plus you'll be focusing on things that are probably going to help you out on the job the most. Fair enough. Update should be out in less than an hour.

>>6397417
Remember, give your anomalies gifts and they'll be your friends forevermore.

File: THEVHSTAPE.png (1.6 MB)

You really wish you were warned about the 'quality" (or lackthereof) of the tape, but alas. You might as well get the most out of it. Ashton seems to share your disappointment, since she's barely paying attention to the tape.

Ashton squinted at the low quality recording. "of course arc couldn't give us something worth watching."

"oh well. we might as well train; you did agree to fight something. what, exactly, are we fighting today?"

"Oh, from what I recall, it's a robot of some kind? Shouldn't be too hard." You fought a giant bug thing this morning, how hard could a robot be?

"Guys?" Nicole tilts her head, as if she's not quite sure what she is looking at. "We're supposed to be watching cool martial arts stuff, right?"

"Yeah? What's the matter-" Your question is immediately answered when you get a good look at the screen. There's now a car infomercial playing instead of, you know, the training tape you bought?

"Oh. Okay." Any energy in Venti's voice has been completely smothered. "I was expecting to work out, with Vincey, but okay."

The tape flickers again, and, like nothing happened, the tape is back to showing that random middle aged man. Venti practically launches at you, slamming her hands on top of your shoulders.

"VINCEY. TRAINING MONTAGE. NOW. NOW-"

It took Ashton and Nicole both working together to pry Venti off of you. She has some freakish strength when she really gets motivated. You're dreading the idea that she's going to get stronger from this, but you've made your bed. With nothing else better to do, everyone starts working along to the tape's instructions.

Nicole and Venti are positively enthralled by the program's faux-spiritual aesthetic. Apparently the instructor is gibbering about the 'supernatural realm' and the 'universal chakras all humans have'.

"Oooo! I didn't know he could do that!" Nicole coos at the sight of the instructor doing a very rudimentary magic trick. You know that trick where someone pretends that they detached their thumb? Yeah. "How did he do that???"

"I know, right?! Vincey, Vincey! Look! He's floating! I thought only anomalies could do that!"

Wait, how is he doing that actually? You can't really guess at a glance how he's floating above the ground. Part of you believes it has to be a scam, but even Ashton is taken aback at the sight.

"huh." Ashton leans in closer, trying to piece together anything through the low quality footage. "i've seen something like that before. he must've stolen it from an arc facility."

"Bwuh?"

"oh, anthony told me something about some prototype anti-gravity tech his friends worked on back in the 1990s, i think." Ashton's tone is somewhat uncertain, but you don't think she's lying. "maybe the gibberish he's babbling isn't actually gibberish?"

If there's even a shred of credibility to his words...

"I have unlocked anomalous powers through my third eye! How? Simple! Enkephalins! Your adrenal glands! Your central nervous system!"

File: jealousdemon.png (7.2 KB)

"The chemicals in your brain hold infinite possibilities! The brain is where it all ties back to!"

"The world is ours to bend if we can merely INCREASE the chemicals our brains produce! My friend once peeled his skull open so his THOUGHTS COULD BREATHE FREELY!"

Most of what he says is clearly schizophrenic nonsense, but some of the phrases almost sound similar to what you know about anomalies. 'Conceptual,' 'metaphysical beings,' 'artifacts,' 'insightful hints'—it's bordering between complete gibberish and actual credible information.

He keeps talking about personal accounts of supernatural entities he supposedly came across that line up shockingly close to your own experience with anomalies.

Maybe he was a former ARC employee trying to leak things out to the world?

It's interesting, to say the least, but you doubt you can actually follow up on this lead in a meaningful way. Your coworkers have picked up on how odd this particular segment is, and they're paying as much attention to it as they can, in between segments of actual workout exercises.

You can't believe he's able to pull a pose like this. Your back is screaming at you as you try to copy his RECEDING STANCE. You nearly have to bend back at a 90-degree angle to perfectly mimic what he's doing.

Nicole and Venti follow your example, and, shockingly, they're able to perfectly mimic the receding stance shown in the footage.

Ashton, however, is struggling just like you are. Her face is a bright shade of crimson red, thanks to the sheer amount of effort she's putting in. "hhhh!"

"Vincey~!" Venti smirks as she effortlessly copies pose after pose, twisting her body in ways that are hard to take your eyes off of.

She's somehow managing to keep herself upright while on one foot and leaning as far back as a human possibly could while standing upright. "Isn't this tape neat?"

"Waow!" Nicole can only watch on in awe. "I wish I could do that!"

"how the hell? huh? bwuh?" Ashton balks at the pose Venti managed to twist her body into. "what are they feeding researchers these days?"

"Oh, it's just a normal exercise I do. Anyone could do it~!" Youch. Even you can pick up on how passive-aggressive that was.

"Hey, Venti, maybe tone it down a little?"

"Hm?" Venti blankly smiles at you. "Whatever you say, Vincey~!"

Ashton takes the obvious jab on the cheek. "it's not a competition. it's not that serious, okay?"

Venti decides to keep her mouth shut, but you can tell that comment rubbed her the wrong way. You just hope the rest of the exercise goes over smoothly.

Thankfully, it did. The STEADFAST STANCE is a lot easier for you to copy, so most of your attention is focused on absorbing the sections of the tape that were written over. Large swatches of the tape were written over by a blend of random employee training videos from the late 90s and infomercials.

Their quality is somehow even worse than the 'main' martial arts footage, so you can barely make anything out.

File: INFOMERICAL.jpg (98.7 KB)

"...NEW CARS FROM FAMLINE ENTERPRISES!"
"AFFORDABLE CATS AT AN UNREASONABLY CHEAP PRICE..."
"...FRESH NOODLES, STRAIGHT FROM OUR DELICIOUS CUPS!"
"HOW TO MAKE SIX FIGURES OFF OF STOCKS, THE CHEAP AND EASY WAY!"

Nicole's the only one who's really interested in the footage, for obvious reasons. Ashton pretends to nod along to whatever the tape is babbling about, "huh. i didn't know people actually bought, uh, egg slicers? that's a thing?

Venti has long since tuned out this garbage. "Vincey~? When can we go back to actually exercising? This is so boring!!!" She pouts as the tape continues to play commercial after commercial.

"I guess we might as well watch it?" You say with a shrug.

The footage does change to something a bit more interesting. There's nothing visible on the tape itself, but the audio is crystal clear. It must've been recorded recently or recent enough that the tape hasn't had time to decay.

"Internal ARC MEETING #5-101-ALPHA-Z. We're here to discuss how we can monetize ANOMALY 4-211-KAPH: "Highway to Hell"." The voice speaking is that of an older woman. "Any thoughts?"

"Shouldn't we scrap that thing for parts already?" A younger woman answers. "Why are we trying to squeeze blood out of a stone here? It's worthless to us."

"B-but!" A stuttering man struggles to answer the woman's question. "There's so much potential in it! We just need a few more days and we can make something out of it!"

"A few more days this, a few more days that." another woman scoffed. "We could get immediate profit by liquifying that asset and using it to capture another anomaly."

"Huh." Venti's smile vanishes. "I think I remember this meeting, or something like it."

"Shhh." Nicole immediately shushes Venti. "Let's listen to it, okay?"

"yeah, i'm actually interested to see where this is going."

The recording of this particular ARC meeting is rather short, but you glean some useful insight into the particular quirks of these kinds of officials. Most of them agree that there's no real point investing any time or effort into something unless they can get immediate results.

The long-term planning skills these officials have are next to nonexistant. They only think in terms of weeks at best, even if they're given evidence that they could gain more profit over a longer period of time. The kind of mindset that most private equity ghouls have, frankly, but it's especially worse when applied to anomalies, of all things.

The only person who's cognizant of how stupid their decisions are is the stuttering man, but any time he tries to speak up, his thoughts are beaten down by the rest of the executives. It's hard to tell if any of the executives have a singular original thought in their head.

It's surreal, almost, like watching an anomaly trying and pretending to plan out the future of a business. The footage then cuts back to another car commercial before eventually flicking back to more martial arts footage.

"They surely had a reason, right?"

"I'm not sure they did." You answer as truthfully as you can.
"and i thought mr. yellow was bad." Ashton shudders when she mentions that man's name.
"Well, Vincey, you're clearly smarter than them, right? And someone smart would keep exercising with his bestest friend ever, right~?"

Venti was half right, at least. Your group finishes up the last exercise segment on the tape, copying whatever nonsense it's trying to get you to do now.

The door to NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell opens on its own. A certain MAN casually strolls towards the front door, content with his little visit. The MAN's face is locked into the world's most smug, shit-eating grin. He really had his fun with the robot, huh?

Soon, the tape finally turns off. Your muscles are throbbing but you certainly feel stronger after all is said and done.
>+STEADFAST/RECEDING STANCE

Your coworkers take a moment to catch their breath, which gives you enough time to plan out another WORK ORDER.
>ASHTON/NICOLE/VENTI will be generally more useful in combat, on top of the ???/SUPERNATURAL buffs!

TIME TOKENS: 10
EVE EXPERIMENTS LEFT: 1

Choose FOUR actions this time.

ANOMALY (1d2-1 TIME TOKENS)
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell. Hopefully the MAN left her in a good state.
>Enter HARD TIMES' cell. Somehow, you feel like you should work on this anomaly again.
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's cell. The sooner you treat him, the better.
>Visit LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE'S room. You should probably keep it entertained.

RESEARCH
>Experiment on your ARTIFACT GIFTS. Especially SLUMBERING WISH, since it did change after working on SOMMELIER. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Experiment with ESTABLISHING SHOT! How far can you push it? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 56, +21 to roll.)
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and SOMMELIER (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Work on supercharging your WIRE and CRIMSON RED FLOWERS with a FULLY CHARGED BATTERY. Maybe you could make some TRULY powerful flowers. (-1 TIME TOKEN.)
>Start refining the REPAIR GEL, and the other CLOTH SAMPLES. What else can you make with them? (-1d2 TIME TOKENS)
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier/quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)
>Try to figure out new, interesting ways to reinvent the PERFECT MEAL samples. (-1 TIME TOKEN)

BUSY WORK
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Put on your M.A.D WORLD glasses and hunt down some antimemetic moths to study! (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 63, +19 to roll.)
>CREATE. NEW. MOLD. VARIANTS. (-1d3 TIME TOKENS. Consumes a variety of random samples.)
>Look up "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH. (-1 TIME TOKEN, reduces the DC of studying HARD TIMES samples by -15!)
>Work on cobbling something useful out of the random electronic scrap/junk you have. Might as well use it. (-1 TIME TOKEN)

>Write in.

>>6397496
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell. Hopefully the MAN left her in a good state.

>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's cell. The sooner you treat him, the better.

>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier/quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)

>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)

>>6397496
>Try to figure a way to make the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>CREATE. NEW. MOLD. VARIANTS. (-1d3 TIME TOKENS. Consumes a variety of random samples.)
Mold is money and diversity is king in opening new markets. Be The Moldman, become The Gunkfather.
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier/quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)
We need a lot of healing items for our upcoming tasks.
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's cell. The sooner you treat him, the better.
Feels indecent to visit SOMMELIER right now, LIL is probably best served by visiting her first and last each day and we've just been with HARD TIMES. Still gotta mod one of our two robots though, so not too set on my choice here.

>>6397496
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell. Hopefully the MAN left her in a good state.
>Start refining the REPAIR GEL, and the other CLOTH SAMPLES. What else can you make with them? (-1d2 TIME TOKENS)
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier/quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)
>Look up "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH. (-1 TIME TOKEN, reduces the DC of studying HARD TIMES samples by -15!)

>>6397496
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell. Hopefully the MAN left her in a good state.
>Enter HARD TIMES' cell. Somehow, you feel like you should work on this anomaly again.
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier/quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)
>Look up "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH. (-1 TIME TOKEN, reduces the DC of studying HARD TIMES samples by -15!)

File: Vincent, what your honest opinion on this gaudy attire for this cosplay event. Ignore my acquaintance screaming for help. It's quite fitting for this random event..png (128.0 KB)

>>6397496
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's cell. The sooner you treat him, the better.
>Work on supercharging your WIRE and CRIMSON RED FLOWERS with a FULLY CHARGED BATTERY. Maybe you could make some TRULY powerful flowers. (-1 TIME TOKEN.)
>Look up "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH. (-1 TIME TOKEN, reduces the DC of studying HARD TIMES samples by -15!)
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier/quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)

>>6397494
>"AFFORDABLE CATS AT AN UNREASONABLY CHEAP PRICE..."
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap...

>>6397496

>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell. Hopefully the MAN left her in a good state.
>Look up "P-CORPORATION" and "WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE" on ABNOWATCH. (-1 TIME TOKEN, reduces the DC of studying HARD TIMES samples by -15!)
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and SOMMELIER (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Experiment with ESTABLISHING SHOT! How far can you push it? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 56, +21 to roll.)

>>6397494
>The long-term planning skills these officials have are next to nonexistant. They only think in terms of weeks at best, even if they're given evidence that they could gain more profit over a longer period of time. The kind of mindset that most private equity ghouls have, frankly, but it's especially worse when applied to anomalies, of all things.
Realistic political commentary, in my quest?

>>6397496
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's cell. The sooner you treat him, the better.
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell. Hopefully the MAN left her in a good state.
>Experiment on your ARTIFACT GIFTS. Especially SLUMBERING WISH, since it did change after working on SOMMELIER. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>You're fresh out of OBSCURA GEL. Try to research easier/quicker ways of making it. Maybe experiment with different types of wine? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 65, +15 to roll.)
Did the Man fuck the robot?????

>>6397593
>Realistic poli
[THREAD DELETED]

>>6397677
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's cell. The sooner you treat him, the better.
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and SOMMELIER (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Work on supercharging your WIRE and CRIMSON RED FLOWERS with a FULLY CHARGED BATTERY. Maybe you could make some TRULY powerful flowers. (-1 TIME TOKEN.)
My precious experiments, soon.

>Put on your M.A.D WORLD glasses and hunt down some antimemetic moths to study! (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 63, +19 to roll.)
MOTH HUNT! Also damn a 44DC thats pretty nice

>>6397522
+1 but add
>Work on supercharging your WIRE and CRIMSON RED FLOWERS with a FULLY CHARGED BATTERY. Maybe you could make some TRULY powerful flowers. (-1 TIME TOKEN.)

>>6397496
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X's cell. The sooner you treat him, the better.
>Enter NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER's cell. Hopefully the MAN left her in a good state.
>Try to figure out new, interesting ways to reinvent the PERFECT MEAL samples. (-1 TIME TOKEN)
>CREATE. NEW. MOLD. VARIANTS. (-1d3 TIME TOKENS. Consumes a variety of random samples.)
(Specifically, try combining the mold and perfect meal samples to make a tasty mold with nicotine characteristics.)

Rolled 1, 1 - 1 = 1 (2d2 - 1)

SOMMELIER: 2vN, sTA, T91, yqz, yxY, rg4
199X: 2vN, f2A, k4Z, K+B, yxY, o+8, rg4
OBSCURA: 2vN, f2a, k4Z, sTA, T91, K+B, yxY
SPARKLING: 2vN, f2A, k4Z
P-CORP: sTA, T91, K+B, yqz
MORE MOLD: f2A, rg4
SUPERCHARGE: k4Z, K+B, o+8
REPAIR: sTA
HARD TIMES: T91
EGG: yqz, o+8
ESTABLISHING SHOT: yqz
ARTIFACT: yxY
MAD WORLD: o+8
NEW MEAL: rg4

The consensus I'm seeing here is
-Work on two anomalies (199X + SOMMELIER)
-Research better ways on making OBSCURA GEL
-and researching P-CORP on ABNOWATCH

One of these does need a skill check, so I need three anons to spit out some 1d100+15s for me.

OBSCURA GEL (DC 65, +15 to roll)
0 SUCCESSES?: You certainly made something, and it might even be usable, but it ain't what you were trying to make! (You unlock a new item to create...?)
1 SUCCESS: Mmh. It's almost like it's trying be difficult to make on purpose. (You get some OBSCURA GEL, but progress on refining the manufacturing progress is as slow as you expected.)
2 SUCCESSES: No need to reinvent the wheel yet, right? (You obtain a large amount of OBSCURA GEL, and creating OBSCURA GEL in the future should be far easier.)
3 SUCCESSES: Mix a little bit of this wine, mix a little bit of that...tada! (Same bonuses as 2 SUCCESSES, but you unlock a brand new type of OBSCURA GEL!)

Rolling two 2d2s to see if your anomaly work orders cost any time. 1 = NO TIME COST, 2 = 1 TIME TOKEN COST, for each respective work.

>>6397591
Free my poor catthing from the dress...

>>6397522
The power of gunk should not be understated, anon. We will all return to the gunk.

>>6397592
Filthy Felines Obtained At A Feverishly Low Cost.

>>6397670
>>6397677
LOW RUNG RESEARCHER QUEST is an apolitical quest that only believes in the power of anomalous entities, Venti, and the all consuming Heart.

>>6397824
I like that idea. I might allow you to combine those two into one, so you can get another action you can work on.

Rolled 38 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6397841

Rolled 28 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6397841

>>6397841

>>6397873

Rolled 89 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6397875

>>6397875
>>6397873
>>6397881
Yeahhh, rolling dice can be finnicky. Welp, you managed to not totally fail this time around. You got 1 SUCCESS thanks to your friend f2A.

Writing the update now. At least you got lucky with the time token cost on the abno work orders, you've been killing it with those.

You still have a LOT of daylight (metaphorically) to burn. The sooner you get the day done with, the sooner you can get Venti out of your hair.

All you have to do, contractually, is stuff scrap from EVE'S into HARD TIMES one more time. You could do it with SOMMELIER, but who knows if that's really an option anymore?

Now that you're thinking about her, you should really check on her. You gave the MAN some time to say his farewells, and you trust that he wouldn't do anything uncouth. For goodness sake, there's a security camera in there. If nothing else, he has to know YOU'D see whatever he was doing.

"wellll, we might as well put this training to good use. we can handle that corpse guy now-" Ashton's sentence grinds to a halt when she remembers how awful the cold was. "actually you know what?"

"i think venti's probably a better fit for that anomaly."

"At least you're wise enough to admit when you're beaten, Ash." Venti's smug smirk doesn't last for long, though. "Hm. It's like you gave up a little too easily there. Is this some kind of trick?"

The corner of Ashton's mouth twitches. "...no?"

"Oh, okay! Yippie!"

Ashton can't even stand to look at Venti anymore. Her mouth is moving, but her voice is barely above a whisper, so you can only make out a few snippets.

"is this girl even human? this whole shift, she's been repeating the same few soundbites over and over again! vincey this, every other girl is a rival to my vincey that!"

"doesn't she realize how annoying she is?"

"Hm? Did you say something?" Venti, as always, is oblivious to everything and everyone besides you.

Nicole, god bless her, steps into the conversation before tensions can get any worse. "Sooo! My amazing coworkers! My beautiful, lovely friends who I love with every last bit of my heart!!"

"I think I know what we should do right now! Vincent?"

"Shoot, I'm game." Anything to keep Ashton from trying to maul Venti alive, you know?

"After our little rendezvous with Little Miss Sunshine, it's clear we're all a little stressed, sooo. We should cook something up! A little lunch break!"

"that doesn't actually sound half bad. it's better than eating its treats..."

"Mmh." You give a thumbs-up at Nicole's suggestion. "I already got to use the grill for something."

"Excellent! Venti, c'mon, I need another pair of hands here." "Oh. Uhm. Sure?" Nicole and Venti split away to go set up the grill so you can do all of your important cooking-related nonsense.

With those two now occupied, you take a moment to talk to Ashton. "Hey, just so you know? I agree."

"hm?" Ashton doesn't seem to know you overheard her.

"I agree that she's annoying. If I knew she was going to be like this, I might've not hired her. Just...grin and bear it, okay?" You do your best to put on a comforting smile.

"oh, so you heard that. uhm. i'm glad you agree, i guess!" Ashton awkwardly clears her throat. "ehm. pretend like i didn't say anything."

File: WINETIME.jpg (444.7 KB)

"i don't like being mean but c'mon, you know why i said that, right?"

"Hey, if it's any consolation? I actually enjoy your company." You're not lying. She's nice to be around, even if you still don't get why she watches after you so much.

"mmh. i kinda wish she just talked about anything else, you know?"

"Trust me, I get you."

You rejoin the others by the grill, now that you're done chatting with Ashton. While Nicole is cooking up a smattering of food rations, your attention goes elsewhere. You pour out a beaker's worth of OBSCURA SYRAH onto the grill. Ashton immediately springs into action to keep the rapidly gelatinizing wine from burning into sludge.

It's really finicky when it comes to the temperature and time you put into cooking it. Maybe if you alter the wine beforehand, you could make it easier to cook? "Hey, Vent. Nick. Got any ideas on how to make the wine more stable?"

>1 SUCCESS!

"Ooo! Mix in a LOT of milk! It'll give it a nice creamy texture!"
"Spike it with some water! Diluting the mixture could help, Vincey~!"

Neither of their suggestions were particularly illuminating, but you tried them since they were cheap and easy to add. As expected, though, it didn't really help that much.

You tried mixing in water in one match, mixing milk in another, and then mixing both liquids into the wine in a third batch. The best result was when you mixed water and milk together, somehow, but that's how it is with anomalous samples.

You went through at least six different tests to see if it'd impact the gel-creating progress. Lower heat, higher heat, less time, more time, you name it! Ashton is really trying her best to keep the gel from burning; god bless her, but the gel is still a pain to make. After burning through three samples, you only managed to cobble together the following.

YOU OBTAINED
>OBSCURA GEL x2! (Applies a strong but short term PHYSICAL HEALTH regenerative effect when used. Can heal far more severe injuries than WINE SOAKED SANDWICHES.)
>STUNTED OBSCURA GEL x1 (A failed attempt to create OBSCURA GEL. Applies a weak PHYSICAL and MENTAL HEALING regeneration effect.)
>You have 2 SAMPLES of OBSCURA SYRAH left!

"guh." Ashton dumps the last bits of half-burnt STUNTED OBSCURA GEL into a beaker. "i guess that's a bust."

"Hey, that's the scientific process, right? You make some mistakes, and you learn from them. Right, Venti?" Your question lingers in the air for an uncomfortably long time.

"uh, venti, you there?"

Venti and Nicole are completely lost in the sauce. Whatever meal they're cobbling together out of your rations has fully consumed their attention. You doubt you're getting an actual answer out of them any time soon.

With a shrug, you decide there's no time like now to work on an anomaly. "I guess you're coming with me then. I'm going to check on SOMMELIER. You fine with that?"

Relief washes over Ashton's expression when she hears she doesn't have to go to 199X's cell. "absolutely."

File: SMOKEANDASH.jpg (47.3 KB)

"at least she's an actually NICE hostess." She can say that again.

Ashton makes her way towards the android's room, and you eagerly trail behind her. You can only hope that whatever the MAN did, it stabilized her enough for another work order. Knowing your luck, though? Only God, or whatever constitutes a god in a place like this, knows the answer.

The airlock hisses open, and the first thing you notice is the scent of cigarette smoke and leather. Oh no. Ashton silently rushes inside, and you're not far behind.

https://youtu.be/MnrH-7URvpc - ANOMALY DOMAIN

The sleek, uniform grey walls and floor of the containment cell have melted away and been replaced by something you've seen before.

Your feet are resting on grey, ash-coated carpet. Cigarette smoke lazily swims through the air, blanketing everything in a muted grey haze. The distant, but omnipresent, sound of jazz is equal parts comforting and incredibly worrying. All of the original furniture you had in here is gone, now replaced by swarms of lounge chairs and mahogany tables.

A well-stocked bar, complete with shoddy and uncomfortable-looking stools, sits towards the rightmost corner of the room. A barely defined shadow is standing behind the counter, polishing a glass in its 'hands'. It's like you've been teleported to a lounge on the other side of the planet.

The lounge you're in is spatially inconsistent. With how much stuff is in here, it at least has to be seven times as wide as the original containment cell, if not even more than that.

"woah." Ashton's eyes widen at the sheer scale of the changes done to the containment cell. She turns around to make sure the door you came in from is still there. "okay, our exit's still there, so we're not in too deep."

You really wish the MAN said something about this, but you can't fully blame him. You probably should've checked the security camera footage, huh? "I'm out of my depths here. I've never seen something like this."

"the cat wasn't wrong, you can definitely smell the smoke in here." Ashton waves her hand through a particularly thick cloud of smoke. "where's sommelier, though?"

"She has to be here somewhere. Pick a random direction." "east?" "East it is!"

Traveling through the lounge isn't hard since besides that one shadow person, there's no one else here. It's chairs and tables as far as the eye can see, but that's about the end of it. Your search for the android is rather short; it wasn't like she was hiding. Towards the far east end of the room, you spot a familiar android lying down on a quite expensive-looking lounge chair.

Golden studs are embedded into the chair, bringing a bright dash of color to the otherwise grayscale lounge.

Thankfully, NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER is still intact. In fact, the android is giggling like she just heard the funniest joke in the entire world. "It's funny. The moment I finally get to hold someone in my arms, I'm brought back here."

File: NOWHERESOMMELIER.jpg (31.3 KB)

"One of my clearest memories is of this bar. Spending my days as its proverbial queen. Having my every whim catered to. To have dozens of men at my beck and call. It was...beautiful."

"Yet, I don't remember any of their names. I don't remember any of their faces. And you know what? I love it." Despite lacking a mouth, you know the android is smirking. "There's nothing tying me down. Nothing that could hurt me."

"I was invincible. We were invincible. My organization, L'Cure?" The android sweeps its arms through the air. "It could free anyone from the burdens of their past. We could wipe away every regret you had. Our guests were happy. They could finally have peace."

"So why? Why can't people be happy like I am?"

When it becomes obvious it actually expects an answer, you're the first one to speak up. "Didn't I already tell you why? People do it so they can learn from their mistakes."

"or," Ashton adds on. "to remember the good times they had with their friends, their family, their lovers, you name it."

"If all you do is erase their memories, they're bound to hurt themselves again and again. Is that truly peace?"

The android barely processed what either of you said before she continued talking. "To move on from all of this. To leave behind what made me happy. I don't know if I can do it. I don't know if I should. This is what made me happy. This is what brought me purpose."

"This lounge. This position. The salvation I brought others." The android hisses through non-existent teeth as it tries to collect its thoughts. "I'm scared to give it up."

A cautious smile worms onto your face. "You have me, you have Ashton, you have a whole lot of friends here."

"i know moving on can be hard." Ashton's voice softens as she talks to the android. "but clinging onto this obsession of yours can't be healthy."

"I know." the android sighed. "I know. I just don't know what to do. I don't know how I can help people."

"I don't know who I should be anymore. WHO am I even, if I can't be NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER?"

This feels different from IN LIMBO's resolution. She's not collapsing in on herself, so maybe if you say the right things, you really can keep her around.

All you need to do is give her a push in the right direction. The sooner you give an answer, the better.

How do you answer the android's question?
>"You can be our friend. It doesn't have to be any more complex than that."
>"What if you brought peace to your fellow anomalies? What if you helped them through what you're going through right now?"
>"Why do you want to protect people? Why do you want to help them?" Encourage SOMMELIER to find its own answer.
>"I'm sure Ashton would welcome you as a fellow security guard. You can help by protecting those you care about."
>"You don't have to find an answer today. Tomorrow's another day. You can take things one step at a time."
>"Why not work here in my lab? I could always use the help."
>Write in.

>>6398096
>"Why do you want to protect people? Why do you want to help them?" Encourage SOMMELIER to find its own answer.

>>6398096
>"What if you brought peace to your fellow anomalies? What if you helped them through what you're going through right now?"

>>6398096
Tempting. I do like the sound of encouraging her to find her own answer. On the other hand is that going to be her nature reasserting itself.

She certainly seems to have a way with some people. All the memories of a lifetime leading L'Cure. People, business, research, intrigue.

Vincent's number one assassin.

>>6398096
>"What if you brought peace to your fellow anomalies? What if you helped them through what you're going through right now?"
Huh, we have a whole lounge bar attached to our lab now. I wonder how this spatial anomaly works or if it's even permanent? Maybe Sommelier can use it to run a bar.

>>6398096
>"Why do you want to protect people? Why do you want to help them?"
Then follow up with
>"You don’t have to find an answer today—tomorrow’s another day, and you can take things one step at a time; in the meantime, you can consider yourself our friend."

>>6398096
>>"Why not work here in my lab? I could always use the help."

>>6398096
>"You can be our friend. It doesn't have to be any more complex than that."

Add on: “People don’t find their purpose by sitting and thinking on it. You’ll find yours by getting up and living your life, gaining new experiences. I certainly didn’t mean to become an “anomaly whisperer”, but for some reason I’m good at it. And I know I can help people recover from the worst moments of their lives here. So go and smell the roses, what you find might surprise you. But to do that you’ll have to remember again.”

>>6398096
>"Why do you want to protect people? Why do you want to help them?" Encourage SOMMELIER to find its own answer.

Add on: “People don’t find their purpose by sitting and thinking on it. You’ll find yours by getting up and living your life, gaining new experiences. I certainly didn’t mean to become an “anomaly whisperer”, but for some reason I’m good at it. And I know I can help people recover from the worst moments of their lives here. So go and smell the roses, what you find might surprise you. But to do that you’ll have to remember again.”

>>6398096
>"Why do you want to protect people? Why do you want to help them?" Encourage SOMMELIER to find its own answer.

Add on: “People don’t find their purpose by sitting and thinking on it. You’ll find yours by getting up and living your life, gaining new experiences. I certainly didn’t mean to become an “anomaly whisperer”, but for some reason I’m good at it. And I know I can help people recover from the worst moments of their lives here. So go and smell the roses, what you find might surprise you. But to do that you’ll have to remember again.”

>>6398450
>>6398463
Fucking tech issues. These are obviously both me, please only count one.

>>6398324
+1

OWN ANSWER: T91, 4TQ
PEACE: yxY, 2vN
FRIEND: 4TQ, 9y6, 6s3
LAB: Mri

Hm. You know, I'm going to be nice. I'm going to let you combine everything besides LAB into one answer this update. You're encouraging her to find her own answer, but in the meantime, maybe she can just be your friend. Maybe she can help others.

Writing. Hopefully posting will be better for the both of us soon, because god, posting anything on here is like pulling actual teeth out.

File: DISTORTEDMEMORIES.jpg (51.0 KB)

This is going to be your routine, isn't it? This is hell. Hell is having to babysit the mental health of other people for the rest of your life. Venti, Nicole, Liz, your anomalies, Angel—the list goes on.

The thought alone is enough to get you smirking. You must look like a fucking asshole right now, huh? The absurdity of your situation is too funny! It's hilarious even! You left that damn house because you didn't want to coddle people for the rest of your life.

Now? Now you're coddling a robot tied to some spooky mysterious crime syndicate! Ha!

The musty stench of cigarettes and spilled booze swimming in the air is making your head dizzy. It's hard to form a coherent thought, but you have to try. It's the least you can do.

"Why do you want to 'protect' people?" There's something funny about YOU asking that, of all people. At least it's funny enough to get a giggle out of the android.

"I could ask the same." Touche. The non-answer even gets a smirk out of Ashton.

"c'mon. you know why he's asking." Ashton takes another step towards the anomaly. "what drives you to do it? what's the actual reason behind it?"

The android's posture suddenly stiffens. She snaps her head away from Ashton, as if looking at her is too much. "It's an impulse. It's an instinct. The desire comes as naturally to me as breathing does to you."

Ashton's smile fades almost immediately. The warmth in her yellow eyes is gone, leaving them cold and lifeless. The eyes of a reptile. "an instinct, huh? you do realize just because it's an instinct, it doesn't mean you have to obey it."

NOWEHRE'S SOMEMELIER peeks over her shoulder, catching a glimpse of Ashton's lifeless gaze. "Ah. Ah! You're one of them, aren't you?"

Ashton's eye twitches, and that's about the long and short of her 'answer'. The android nods in acknowledgement. "I understand. We all have our own secrets we have to keep."

"Let's return to the topic at hand," you say as you clear your throat. "She's not wrong. You don't have to follow your instincts. You can be whatever you want, if you really put your mind to it. So that brings me to another question.

"Why do you follow this instinct? There has to be more to it than that."

This time, the android actually bothers giving you an answer. "It's an instinct I had long before I ended up like this. Even when I was once human, it was something I did. Something I had to do. An obligation."

"People knew things they shouldn't. Information that could've hurt them. Information that could've ruined people's lives." The android's voice lowers to a whisper. "Dangerous information."

"We had to do something to stop that information from getting out. I simply found a painless way to do it." A drop of red wine leaks from the android's arm. "Then, I served it to customers so they could run away from their problems. One glass of OBSCURA SYRAH was all it took to free them."

"From the burden of your memories. It's the only way I could save them."

File: OFFERINGCOMFORT.jpg (138.9 KB)

"Now? Now I don't know what to do. I know it's not the right thing to do, but what else can I do?" The android swings its hose arm through the air. "Is there a better option? Wouldn't you like to wipe the slate clean?"

You try to answer, but you suddenly find your ability to string words together lacking. To be honest? You wouldn't completely oppose the offer a few weeks ago. You were a coward for most of your life, and even now, you only do things because you feel like you have to.

You feel something brushing against your arm as your thoughts are starting to drift. One of your flowers is trying to get your attention. Oh, right, you got to focus.

"Maybe there isn't an answer, but I know you can't find one by sitting around and thinking about it. Maybe if we were philosophers, sure, but we're not."

"I'm an accountant." You point at yourself. "Ashton is a security guard. You're...well, you're a friend. We're all just regular people at the end of the day."

NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER flinches after you said 'friend'. "I'm. What?"

Ashton finally snaps out of her daze. Warmth returns to her expression, washing away the reptilian quality it once has. "maybe we're not close enough to be best friends but hey, vincent has made weirder friends. like me!"

"to be serious, though? i don't know what i want to do with my life, but i keep living it. i get up and i live my life. i experience new things, i learn more about myself. piece by piece, we change."

"Mmh. I didn't plan on being an anomaly whisperer." You show off the flowers growing out of your arm. "But I'm good at it. I helped IN LIMBO, and well, she's happier now."

"I know I can help people recover from the worst moments of their lives here. Even if I don't understand why people listen to me."

"I didn't know I could do it, but I figured it out by simply living my life. So come on. Come with us and smell the roses." You offer your hand to the android. "If you want to find your answer, you have to start remembering for once."

The android hesitates to move. She's staring at your hand like you're pointing a loaded gun right at her. Maybe you need to encourage her a little more?

"if you still want to help, maybe you can help those who were once in your shoes." Ashton glances around, just in case the spatial anomaly starts to change. "maybe you'll find a way to indulge in your instinct without hurting anyone."

"for now? i think the best thing for you is to get out of here."

"I." The android is still staring at your hand, as if she's waiting for something horrible to happen, but nothing does. It felt like hours passed before the android finally grabbed your hand. You manage to get her back to her feet, even if it took a lot of energy to move her.

SOMMELIER is mostly made out of steel, so you know.

"I. I suppose I can try." NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER lets go of your hand. "I have one request if we're all humoring this idea. Can you call me something else besides NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER?"

File: ENDOFTHEROAD.jpg (53.5 KB)

"sure!" Ashton flashes a smile. "it's your life, you get to pick whatever name you want."

"My memory isn't perfect, but I can remember my name now. Call me Keira, if you don't mind." Keira, huh? That's certainly easier on the tongue than her title.

"Sure." You do your best to give a genuine smile. "We can call you that. Consider this your first memory."It's going to take you a while to get used to her new name, but it's the least you can do for her.

Ashton wraps her arm around Keira's shoulder to support her. The android doesn't say a single word as you escort her back to the entrance. All that fills the silence is the distant sound of jazz echoing through the spatial anomaly.

The INSIGHT MODULE inside of your skull is trying to detect something, but it doesn't seem to know WHAT it is looking for. You were expecting to receive an ARTIFACT by now; that's what normally happens. Only when you reach the exit does the INSIGHT MODULE finally crackle to life.

RESOLUTION ABORTED. ARTIFACT INCOMPLETE.

You stay behind as Ashton escorts Keira outside. You turn back so you can get a good look at the lounge that the android manifested. It's still here, even now that the anomaly has been removed from it. You tap your foot on the ground and, well, it feels solid. It's stable.

PARTIAL ARTIFACT: END OF THE ROAD (UTILITY/???) MANIFESTED. TYPE: LOCATION.

Interesting. So you might've gotten something else if you didn't have the MAN come in to help stabilize NOWHERE'S SOMMELIER. You're not sure if it would've been better or worse than this; it would've been different, that's all you know.

You suppose this is something you can deal with later. It's not going anywhere by the looks of it. With nothing else to do here, you follow after Ashton and Kiera.

The moment you step back into your lab, you immediately turn around to see if the spatial anomaly has replaced your containment cell, but that's when you spot it: an unmarked keypad right above the keycard scanner you normally use.

You open the door with your keycard, and the airlock opens up, revealing a now-empty containment cell. You let the door close before you start typing random numbers into the keypad.

The airlock opens again, and this time, it reveals the greyscale lounge you were in moments ago. Oh. Oh, now that's interesting. Two containment cells in one, eh?

You let the door close again before you check on SOMMELIER. She's seated by one of the tables, which has obviously drawn the attention of Venti and Nicole. Both are huddled around the android, each one asking a flurry of questions that she doesn't have the energy to answer.

"hey, hey, give her some space!" Ashton's doing her best at damage control, but she only managed to get Nicole to back off. Not so much luck with Venti, of course.

"Hey!"

Venti snaps her head around once she hears your voice. "Yes, Vincey~?"

"Leave her alone. She's not an anomaly to study anymore. I'll explain more later."

epic QM posting failure, mock this person

File: SNOW.jpg (582.1 KB)

"Also," you jab a finger at 199X's containment cell. "You're coming with me. We got another anomaly we got to work on-" And she's already by your side. You didn't even have time to blink.

"Why didn't you say that, Vincey~? C'mon, c'mon, let's go!!!" She grabs you by the arm. She pulls you with impressive strength, actually managing to begin dragging you. She stops once you willingly start walking with her.

"So," Nicole taps the android's reservoir. "A fellow winemaker, huh? Mind if you tell me some of your secrets? I just gotta know!"

It's a shame you can't eavesdrop on that conversation, but alas, you got work to do. Venti finally lets go of your arm so you can suit up in cold weather gear. It's not long before the two of you are dressed like you're about to head to the north pool.

With one last deep breath, you swipe your keycard. Into 199X's containment cell you go.

https://youtu.be/lrBXsM5KqPA - 199X'S CELL

Your boot crunches as you step onto a pile of fresh snow. A gust of frigid arctic air blows past you, causing you to shiver even with the thick layers you're wearing. Snow swirls in the ice-cold wind, but there's not enough of it to meaningfully hinder your vision.

Venti wraps her arms around your arm. "I'm going to keep you warm, don't worry~!" Eugh. You manage to mask your disgust so she doesn't do...whatever she might do if she thinks you hate her. You focus on the anomaly, which, thankfully, hasn't done anything stupid while you've been gone.

It is resting its face against the back wall of the cell, with its back facing away from you. Its twisted baseball bat is still gripped tightly in one hand, while another hand is pressed against its shoulder.

"199X?" Venti calls out to the anomaly. "Are you okay? We're here! Me and Vincey, the best research duo to ever grace ARC!!!"

The mangled corpse of a man doesn't respond to Venti's...colorful statement.

"199X?" You wave your free hand to the anomaly. Its body shivers for a brief moment, clearly registering your voice, but it doesn't seem to be in the mood to do anything right now. You're guessing it's in too much pain to do much of anything right now.

You guess that's where you and Venti come in. "Well, we got the lights, like you asked for. I'm not sure when 'she' is supposed to be here, but that's good news? Right?"

"...good. that's good." The anomaly groans, as if speaking takes too much energy out of it. It gags for a moment before releasing another torrent of black bile onto the floor.

Venti's smile fades when she realizes how bad of a state the anomaly is in. "Oh no. D-don't worry, we're here to treat you. You, uh, you won't hurt us with that big bat of yours? Right?"

"ngh." A grunt is all the anomaly answers with. Comforting. You suppose you should start now.

What do you do with LOST SINCE 199X? Choose four actions below.
LOST SINCE 199X'S MOOD: 7/11

COMMUNICATION
>Ancient messages are carved into the floor, walls and ceiling. Take some time to actually read them for once. (DC 60, +12 to roll.)
>Ask it about its missing antlers. You think it's connected to its other half, but you want to hear its thoughts. (DC 65, + to roll.)
>What does it want to do with its life? Does it have any plans for the future? (...?)
>Ask it something personal. It's about its girlfriend, and its past. How long will it keep running? (DC 73, +20 to roll.)
>Open up about yourself. Try to get it to see you as an equal, not a warden. (DC 65, +20 to roll.)

EXAMINATION
>Cut off some of the hair hanging from the anomaly's head. (Provides a good filler SAMPLE for crosstesting.)
>Harvest some denim or cloth scraps from its clothes, for research. (Can be used to make powerful utility items, if you can refine them.)
>Collect more of its BLACK BILE. The more, the merrier. (Provides a great fuel source for HARD TIMES.)
>Examine the anomaly's baseball bat. Maybe there's something anomalous about it you can copy? (DC 50, +10 to roll.)
>Begin treating the anomaly's injuries. You don't want it to die when it RESOLVES. (DC 70, +15 to roll to roll)

STIMULI/MISC
>Try to make its stay here more comfortable. Drag in the PERSONAL TV, give it some painkillers, whatever it needs.
>Examine 199X with your M.A.D WORLD glasses. Does this thing have an aura? Can it provide insight into the anomaly?
>Bring in some ART SUPPLIES. Ask the anomaly to paint whatever comes to its mind. Get a glimpse into its psyche.
>"Wanna play some baseball?" You probably got something that'll work like a ball. (DC 68, +10 to roll.)
>Offer 199X some anomalous food you've made. If nothing else, it deserves more than ration slop. (-BLOOD RED STEW, -JAM BITS, -MOST OF YOUR COFFEE.)
>Power on your MODIFIED PORTABLE RADIO. Let it pick what kind of music it wants to listen to while you work on it.

>Write in

Wow. The website has just been going to shit lately, huh? At least this update taking an extra hour was out of my hands.

>>6398638
Indeed. I'm such a chud.

>>6398656
Do we have any kind of baking soda QM?

>>6398656
>Try to make its stay here more comfortable. Drag in the PERSONAL TV, give it some painkillers, whatever it needs. (If we have baking soda we should give him 1 to 2 teaspoon of baking soda mixed a glass of water)
>Offer 199X BLOOD RED STEW with a cup of LOURDE BORDEAUX
Then
>Check his injuries after he has eaten.
>Open up about yourself. Try to get it to see you as an equal, not a warden. (DC 65, +20 to roll.)

>>6398665
Probably not, no, but tell me why you need it. I'm curious to see what your plan is.

>>6398674
199X is in a constant state of pain because his internal organs are fucked, but one theory I have is that this is made worse by the fact that his stomach is also ruptured and the acid is leaking out into the rest of his torso, thus making whatever low regeneration and endurance powers he has into a living torture. I want to see if we could at least momentarily reduce the strength of his stomach acid and then feed him the BLOOD RED STEW and LOURDE BORDEAUX to try to heal his organs or at the very least heal his digestive tract.

>>6398691
aww man I thought you wanted to make a model volcano with 199x

>>6398692
lol, we can try to do that once the poor boy is no longer vomiting buckets of blood.

>>6398691
It's a clever idea, I'll give you props for the suggestion. I'll say you can probably cobble together some kind of base together: I wouldn't really give you a skill check for doing so, you have so much junk in your lab it's feasible enough to get a basic solution together.

Sure. For future voters, if you choose "Make its stay here more comfortable", assume you're giving it something to weaken its stomach acid too. Just don't expect it to be as strong as if you had actual baking soda.

>>6398700
Excellent, thanks QM.

>>6398673
+1

File: Hard Times o3.png (134.8 KB)

>>6398673
+1

>>6398656
>Open up about yourself. Try to get it to see you as an equal, not a warden. (DC 65, +20 to roll.)

>Try to make its stay here more comfortable. Drag in the PERSONAL TV, give it some painkillers, whatever it needs.

>Offer 199X some anomalous food you've made. If nothing else, it deserves more than ration slop. (-BLOOD RED STEW, -JAM BITS, -MOST OF YOUR COFFEE.)
Cool, we get to keep the anomalous lounge bar. Certain coworkers of ours will be thrilled.

>>6398656
>Cut off some of the hair hanging from the anomaly's head. (Provides a good filler SAMPLE for crosstesting.)
>Harvest some denim or cloth scraps from its clothes, for research. (Can be used to make powerful utility items, if you can refine them.)
>Collect more of its BLACK BILE. The more, the merrier. (Provides a great fuel source for HARD TIMES.)
>Power on your MODIFIED PORTABLE RADIO. Let it pick what kind of music it wants to listen to while you work on it.

>>6398656
>>Ancient messages are carved into the floor, walls and ceiling. Take some time to actually read them for once. (DC 60, +12 to roll.)
>Begin treating the anomaly's injuries. You don't want it to die when it RESOLVES. (DC 70, +15 to roll to roll)
>Examine 199X with your M.A.D WORLD glasses. Does this thing have an aura? Can it provide insight into the anomaly?
>Power on your MODIFIED PORTABLE RADIO. Let it pick what kind of music it wants to listen to while you work on it.

>>6398656
>Try to make its stay here more comfortable. Drag in the PERSONAL TV, give it some painkillers, whatever it needs.
Give him help
>Collect more of its BLACK BILE. The more, the merrier. (Provides a great fuel source for HARD TIMES.)
He won't have as much BLACK BILE anymore once treated. He'll always have hair and the cloth though
>Begin treating the anomaly's injuries. You don't want it to die when it RESOLVES. (DC 70, +15 to roll to roll)
Give him aid
>Ancient messages are carved into the floor, walls and ceiling. Take some time to actually read them for once. (DC 60, +12 to roll.)
Finally address the shit he's been carving into the walls all the damn time before

>>6398691
Could ask Edward to go to a grocery store and get some once on the outside again? Or the kitchens at the cafeteria... actually no, fuck that. Edward it is.

>>6398772
Vincent's lab will be his mancave

>>6398656
+1 to >>6398830, sounds reasonable to me especially as the bile is so versatile (fuel, molotovs, wine and possibly mold spring to mind)

Also yay for the lounge and our "new" android acquaintance Keira!

>>6398673
+1

>>6398656
>Ask it about its missing antlers. You think it's connected to its other half, but you want to hear its thoughts. (DC 65, + to roll.)
>Examine 199X with your M.A.D WORLD glasses. Does this thing have an aura? Can it provide insight into the anomaly?
>Offer 199X some anomalous food you've made. If nothing else, it deserves more than ration slop. (-BLOOD RED STEW, -JAM BITS, -MOST OF YOUR COFFEE.)
Cut off some of the hair hanging from the anomaly's head. (Provides a good filler SAMPLE for crosstesting.)

Tallying

COMFORTABLE: 4TQ, wOi, K+B, g8G, 2vN, 9y6, OBh
FEED: 4TQ, wOi, K+B, g8G, 2vN, T91
INJURIES: 4TQ, wOi, K+B, g8G, Mri, 9y6, OBh
OPEN UP: 4TQ, wOi, K+B, g8G, 2vN
HAIR: yqz, T91
DENIM: yqz
BILE: yqz, 9y6, OBh
RADIO: yqz, Mri
ANCIENT: Mri, 9y6, OBh
GLASSES: Mri, T91
ANTLERS: T91

I'll just roll in feeding it some LOURDE BORDEAUX with the rest of the 'feed it food' stuff, since you can always just make more jam bits or whatever. I assume 4TQ and co still want to treat his injuries if the food didn't fully heal it, so here's what I need.

I need one anon to roll 3d100+20, and for three anons to roll 1d100+15. The write in 4TQ proposed to feed it a basic solution will help with patching it up: It reduced the DC by 3, so you do have a better chance of getting a high success result.

Tables below

OPEN UP (DC 65, +20 to roll)
0 SUCCESSES: "..." Tough crowd, huh? Well, you made a fool of yourself for no good reason. (-ANOMALY MOOD, -MENTAL HEALTH, +-VENTI ???)
1 SUCCESS: "...? trying to play nice cop?" (The attempt doesn't really go anywhere, but you opened the door for future conversations.)
2 SUCCESSES: "save your yapping for someone who'll actually listen." (Despite what it said, it doesn't actually stop you from talking. You might actually getting through to it.)
3 SUCCESSES: "Haha, hahahahaaaa. We're both pathetic, aren't we?" (Bingo. The upcoming conversation really lets you two connection. +???, future DCS on HARD TIMES will be reduced by 5.)

DOCTOR, I NEED SOME HELP (DC 67, +15 to roll)
0 SUCCESSES?: Wow, the damage this thing has taken is way worse than you expected...CAN you fix this? (You don't think you have the tools to meaningfully help. Hopefully the food's good enough.)
1 SUCCESS: Venti might be a researcher, but you don't think she's an actual doctor. You're no doctor either. (The surgery goes as well as it can, but...)
2 SUCCESSES: Neither of you are proper doctors, but you're the best it can get right now. (You heal most of its injuries without much issue. ++ANOMALY MOOD.)
3 SUCCESSES: You did the best you can, but you think this experience has taught you a thing or two. (On top of healing most of its injuries, both you and Venti gain a sizable bonus to future ANATOMY rolls!)

>>6398768
Remember, kids. Feed your machine a healthy supply of Nicoles.

Rolled 87, 98, 88 + 20 = 293 (3d100 + 20)

>>6399176
I didn't vote whoops. Let's roll though

Rolled 47 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6399176
>>6399177
I fucking kneel holy shit

File: Keira o1.png (248.8 KB)

Rolled 45 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6399176

Rolled 60 + 15 (1d100 + 15)

>>6399176

>>6399178
Shame, the -5 DC bonus from OPEN UP 3 Successes would have made 47 a pass as well.

let's see- holy shit what are those rolls from yx7

OPENING UP: 3 SUCCESSES
PATCHING UP 199X: 2 SUCCESSES

With -5 DC to all checks thanks to passing the first check with three successes, that means you manage to barely eek out two successes on the medical check! We can all thank yxY for saving the day.

Writing. Hopefully, it should come out soon.

>>6399176
Not sure why I wrote HARD TIMES, little flub up there, I do apologize. It was meant to read:
"Bingo. The upcoming conversation really lets you two connect. +???, future DCS on 199X will be reduced by 5."
So, eDd's roll DID pass

>>6398855
Keira is a totally new character and she totally hasn't been in the quest for almost a year at this rate!

>>6398830
>>6398772
I would be careful about telling Edward about your new lounge bar. That man loves his booze and a spatially distorted lounge bar would attract him like a moth to a flame.

>>6399177
thank you anon, very cool rolls

File: BLACKBILEPERSON.jpg (242.5 KB)

You can't help but to feel pity for this thing. Has it tried to kill you? Yes, absolutely, it's a miracle your head isn't a smear on the floor. Has it been a brat to you? Also yes. At this point, you can't really hold most things against an anomaly.

They may be created from humans, but compared to humans, they're remarkably unstable at the best of times. You have to keep this in mind when you're dealing with things like 199X.

"It's okay, it's okay." You speak in a low, comforting tone. "We're going to help you. I can't imagine how painful that is."

"Mmh hmm! Legally, I might not be a doctor, but I know a thing or two about patching people up! I had to learn, for you know who." She winks at you, making it very obvious who she was referring to.

A gurgled laugh exits from 199X's mouth. "Help? Help??? There's nothing you can do to help me. I'm, the boy, him. He's a dead man walk-" Before he can say any more, another torrent of pitch black bile erupts out of its open mouth. It splatters against the wall, sending droplets flying every which way.

Thankfully, the two of you were out of the splash zone. If the anomaly had anything else to say, it doesn't have the energy to fight back.

"Sir, it's going to be A-okay! Vincent's here to help!" Wait, did she actually use your real name- "Uhm, Vincey, I got an idea. I think we should have the others bring in some supplies." And there's the 'Venti' you know.

"We definitely need medical supplies at least. Maybe we can bring in that TV in, since we don't really need it right now."

"Actually, humor me, Vincey. We should get a basic solution; it doesn't really matter what, just as long as it's strong enough to neutralize stomach acid."

It takes you a second to process why she needs that, but that would make sense now that you think about it. Most of its symptoms are tied to its stomach, and it's very likely it got ruptured when it got run over.

You tap the STATIC PIN attached to your chest so your other coworkers can hear your request without you having to leave the cell. Nicole gibbers something vaguely positive-sounding, so that's good enough for you.

Venti finally lets go of your arm. "I'll go grab it!" Now that you're free to move, you close the distance between you and the anomaly. Even with its eyes hidden by the thick, tangled black hair flowing from its head, you can still feel its piercing gaze.

"Listen." You hesitantly place a hand on the anomaly's lower back. It flinches, but it's too weak to fight back. "I'm going to have to ask you for a favor. We need you to promise that you won't do anything while we treat you."

"Treat me? Listen, I'm here for a good time, not a long time. I appreciate the drinks. I appreciate the party. But I am not letting you dig around inside me." The anomaly's voice is even more strained than usual. It's barely able to speak above a whisper. "Like I'd trust a warden to patch me up."

File: DRINKTHESLUDGE.jpg (156.7 KB)

"And your little lover gal of yours?" The anomaly spits more bile onto the floor. "Disgusting."

You're not sure what's annoying you more. The attitude coming from this punk or the frigid wind trying to freeze your skin off. You take a moment to steel your resolve before you begin speaking. "I'm no different from you. I ran away too."

That gets 199X's attention real fast. "you did?"

"Yeah. Look, I won't pretend I 'understand' your pain. That's a cliché line I imagine you're sick of hearing." You pull your hand away. "I can relate to it, at least. It's horrible, isn't it? Feeling like you're stuck somewhere with no way out."

"...It is. That fucking town had nothing for me. I had no prospects, no friends, nothing. It was me and that dead-end shithole of a town." The bat in its hand starts to twist even further underneath its grip. "Everyone in that town looked at me like I was fucking filth."

"I can't say my situation was much better. I can't imagine the last time I've been truly free to do what I wanted." Fragments of old, forgotten memories flicker in the back of your mind. Most of it is a distorted grey haze, but you remember the important bits.

"I'd wake up, work my ass off for most of the day, and go back to sleep. Day in, day out, it was like this. I didn't have any other choice." Your hand tightens into a fist. "I didn't even have time to dream of a way out."

"Heh. Even adults feel that way, huh? I thought they were supposed to grow out of that."

"You'd think so. Nah, nah." You shake your head. "We barely know what we're doing too. My life has been one big joke, and I'm the punchline."

>3 SUCCESSES!

"Haha, hahahahaaaa." A bitter, dry laugh is forced out of the anomaly's ruined throat. You can't help but laugh along with it. "We're both pathetic, aren't we?"

"Yeah, we are. I'm still running too, you know, and I don't know when I'll stop running." You shudder. For a brief moment, you swear you could smell mud and rain again. "At least for now, I want you to know you're not running alone."

"I guess that makes sense. Only someone as pathetic as me would've humored me this long." Right as he finished that sentence, you spot Venti dragging something in. Ah, that must be the TV. "Fine. I'll humor this."

You back away from the anomaly. It takes a few cautious steps forward, but its legs quicky give out. It barely manages to land on its knees instead of smashing face-first into the ground.

The ground shakes from the sudden impact. Venti nearly loses her own balance, but she manages to stabilize herself by leaning against the TV. "Woo! O-okay, I'm. I'm okay, Vincey~!"

"Mmh." You dryly respond. "Do you have the solution?"

"I had to cobble it together out of a whole lotta stuff, but I do!" Venti holds a glass filled with an off-pink liquid. "199X! May I humbly request that you drink this?"

The anomaly snatches the glass and drinks it all in one gulp. Showoff.

File: PITCHBLACKINSIDES.jpg (64.4 KB)

The TV flickers to life. You brought it in as a way to keep the anomaly distracted during the medical procedure. It's some gritty action series about a former martial art teacher trying to find his lost adopted daughter. LOST SINCE 199X is immediately transfixed by it. Apparently, the TV's glow is enough to get it to forget the agonizing pain it's in.

Venti carries over several goodies for the anomaly to eat: some wine, some BLOODRED STEW, some coffee, painkillers, the works. The anomaly eagerly devours everything presented to it, which should hopefully help out with its stomach.

You take a cautious step back, joining Venti's side again. The two of you carefully watch the anomaly to see how the food is healing its injuries.

"So, how many anomalies have you treated? Anything as bad as this?"

"I've done it a few times before, but not normally it's not on something THIS injured, but I'll try!" Venti smacks her chest with a closed fist. "I swear on my heart."

"Ashton's notes filled me in on the situation. We'll probably still have to cut him open to remove any glass inside, but look." She points at the anomaly. Bit by bit, the wounds that cake every single inch of the anomaly's body are starting to finally heal.

Its arms, which have long since bent and broken at awkward angles, are being healed back to normal. The same is happening to its legs as well, though the healing isn't perfect. Scars linger in its limbs where broken bone once poked out of its flesh.

The cuts and scratches visible on its neck are healing shut as well, but its stomach? The wounds there don't seem to be healing. Its stomach is distended and bloated, and you doubt it's because of the food.

The flesh all around its lower torso is a sickly shade of black, as if something were threatening to melt away its stomach at a moment's notice.

You're going to need to treat it. "Nurse," you decide to humor Venti for once. "Give me my scalpel."

Venti's face turns a shade of red brighter than you've ever seen on a human. "Y-yes, sir!" She hastily hands you a freshly cleaned scalpel. She follows you like a lost puppy as you walk over to the patient.

This is going to suck, but at least you know the anomaly trusts you enough to try.

You nearly threw up when you made the first incision. Even a layman can tell something is horribly, horribly wrong with its insides.

You can't even tell where any of its organs are. It's a congealed, sticky mess of melted flesh and BLACK BILE, with only small bits of white bone breaking up the sea of black.

Venti immediately has to cover her mouth to stop herself from blowing chunks. You can't blame her, really. She manages to regain her composure after only a few seconds. "I guess sterilization really isn't an issue here!"

"I doubt we can make things worse."

The anomaly is too focused on the TV show to really register what you're doing. You have to work slowly here, this bile can burn your skin something fierce if it touches you.

File: STITCHEDLIKEABASEBALL.jpg (66.7 KB)

You hope the thick gloves both of you are wearing are enough for the job.

Your hands swim through the ocean of black gunk, searching for any shards of glass or broken bone shards. Venti's on a roll, though; she's been picking out a small pile's worth of broken glass and bone fragments. She's putting them in a small baggie for later research, obviously.

You freeze as your fingers trace a razor-sharp piece of glass. You carefully run your finger across it, and your eyes widen when you realize how large the shard is. It has to be at least as big as the palm of your hand, if not bigger.

"Venti?" you whisper. "I'm going to need your help here."

Venti sticks her hands back into the muck, searching around until she finds what you're talking about. "Oh."

There's not going to be an easy way of getting this out, but with how ruined 199X's body is, you can afford to be a bit rough here. With Venti's help, you manage to get a solid grasp on the shard.

It's an agonizingly slow process, but the anomaly doesn't notice. It's too busy chuckling as it watches the TV show, "hehehehe. funni guy." You guess everything you fed it must've made it drunk enough to not feel a thing.

Eventually, you're able to yank out the shard of glass from its stomach. Now that it can actually see it, you're shocked that the anomaly wasn't even in more pain. It must've been dislodged from a windshield; it's big enough for you and Venti to comfortably hold at once.

The two of you gently lower the shard onto the ground. All it takes is wiping away the bile burning away at the incision for its body to start healing on its own, but Venti sews the wound shut to speed up the healing process.

"hhh. my stomach...?" The sloshed anomaly patches the stitched-up incision on its stomach. "...huh. why doesn't it hurt anymore? that's. hm." Its focus drifts back towards the television. Your job here is done.

"Great work, Vincey~! Maybe you should be a doctor one of these days~!"

"Pft. I doubt what we did would be a great idea on an actual living person."

"Touche, but I still think you'd look great in a doctor's robe."
>-Whole bunch of food stuffs.

With Venti's help, you pick up the giant shard of glass, and you begin to make your way towards the exit. The anomaly is too enthralled by the TV to notice you leaving, but at least it isn't lashing out anymore.

That's all you needed as payment.

----
LOST SINCE 199X MOOD INCREASED! Now at 13/13! MAX MOOD +2 from fixing its stomach pain!

SAMPLES OBTAINED
>BLACK BILE x2
>SHARDS OF GLASS/BONE x4 (Extracted from its stomach. May be useful for making weapons...?)
>WINDSHIELD SHARD (Stained pitch black from 20+ years of BLACK BILE exposure. Has likely infused with anomalous properties. +???)

OTHER BONUS
>Your body feels different. That conversation with LOST SINCE 199X left you feeling more confident about yourself. You now roll +20 when resisting MIND ALTERING EFFECTS.
----

File: LETUBE.jpg (214.6 KB)

"Really now?" Kiera 'squints' at Nicole. It's not like she has eyes, though. "I really do want to be nice here, but this sample is. Hm." In her hand is a glass of SPARKLING SUNSHINE booze. She shakes it a few times, watching the fluid swirl.

"Hmph! The others like it!" Nicole pouts at the android's incredibly lukewarm reception. "Even Vincent likes it! Right?"

Oh, hell no, you're not getting dragged into this. "I agreed to a partnership. At least your wine doesn't melt people's memories, I can say that." Before Nicole can respond, you immediately steer the conversation elsewhere.

"You, Nicole. Come 'er." You leave Venti to store the samples you extracted while you make your way to your computer. Nicole scrambles over to see what exactly you need her for. "Remember HARD TIMES?"

"I don't want to, but I do." Nicole says with a pout. "Why?"

"Well, work with me here." You boot up the ABNOWATCH website. "I'm going to need your help searching online for any information about it. I need a second pair of eyes for this."

"Oh!" Her pink eyes light up. "I can do that, yes sir!" She stands right by your side as you start punching in two particular keywords: P-CORPORATION and WORKER PRODUCTIVITY PASTE. You know your eyes are going to glaze over most of this, so that's why you got Nicole here.

A lot of the results that you get are, frankly, not related to HARD TIMES at all. Most of it is either jokes or it's tied to some video game you've never heard about before. Right before you clicked off of another boring article, Nicole stopped you.

"This one actually has something. It's not just empty fluff this time." She points at the screen, forcing you to actually read it. Let's see what this one has to say, if Nicole thinks it's important.

P-12 CORPORATION HAS JOINED TOGETHER WITH JOYTECHS, INC. TO CREATE A STATE-OF-THE-ART PRODUCTIVITY AID!

HAVE YOU EVER FELT LIKE YOUR EMPLOYEES DON'T CARE ABOUT THEIR JOBS? DO YOU FIND IT HARD TO MAKE ENDS MEET?

HAVE ALL OTHER ATTEMPTS TO APPEASE YOUR EMPLOYEES WHILE MAINTAINING PROFITABILITY FAILED?

INTRODUCING: FOOD AND DRINK IN A TUBE!

THE R&D DIVISION OF P-12 CORPORATION, WITH THE HELP OF JOYTECHS, HAS CREATED A CHEAP AND EASILY MASS-PRODUCED PRODUCT THAT CAN SATISFY ALL OF YOUR EMPLOYEE'S CRAVINGS!

ONE TUBE OF 'DRINK' AND 'FOOD' A DAY IS ENOUGH TO KEEP A WORKER WORKING FOR 23 HOURS STRAIGHT! NO NEED FOR BREAKS WITH OUR NEW LINE OF PRODUCTIVITY PASTE!

AN EMPLOYEE GETS INJURED ON THE JOB? NO WORRY! PRODUCTIVITY PASTE WILL KEEP YOUR EMPLOYEES PAIN FREE AND HAPPY, NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS!

SWITCH OVER TO PRODUCTIVITY PASTE TODAY TO SAVE MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!!!

WARNING: DO NOT FREEZE PRODUCTIVITY PASTE. LOW TEMPERATURES MAY CAUSE PASTE TO DEGRADE INTO DANGEROUS BYPRODUCTS.

Nicole's face scrunches as she finishes reading the post. "Isn't that a bit much? There are other ways of improving worker morale!"

"I'd say so too. P-12, huh?"

"wait," Ashton looks away from the dossier she was reading. "isn't that one of our sponsorship companies? i think quinn babbled about it while i was doing guard work yesterday."

Shit, maybe you should call those guys up, while that info is still hot in your memory.

"Heads up, if you're going to call them. They're very, uh, fishy." Oh, if Nicole finds them fishy, they got to be bad. "I like all of my sponsorship companies but those guys? Getting answers out of them is like pulling teeth."

"One of their reps blew cigarette smoke in my face!" Venti grumbles as she stores the WINDSHIELD SHARD. "Buncha meanies, I say!"

TIME TOKENS: 8
EVE EXPERIMENTS LEFT: 1

Choose four more actions.

ANOMALY (1d2-1 TIME TOKENS)
>Enter HARD TIMES' cell. Somehow, you feel like you should work on this anomaly again.
>Visit LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE'S room. You should probably keep it entertained.
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.

RESEARCH
>Experiment on your ARTIFACT GIFTS. Especially SLUMBERING WISH, since it did change after working on KIERA (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Experiment with ESTABLISHING SHOT! How far can you push it? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 56, +21 to roll.)
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and KIERA (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Start supercharging your WIRE/CRIMSON RED FLOWERS with a FULLY CHARGED BATTERY. Maybe you could make some TRULY powerful flowers. (-1 TIME TOKEN.)
>Start refining the REPAIR GEL, and the other CLOTH SAMPLES. What else can you make with them? (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS)
>C'mon, you have to study this giant shard of glass. There has to be something special about it. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 65, +23 to roll)
>You know what we need? More mold. Create some new MOLD variants using those PERFECT MEAL samples, and whatever else you have. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS)
>Try studying the GREY PASTE again. You got a lead this time. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 62, +25 to roll.)

BUSY WORK
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Put on your M.A.D WORLD glasses and hunt down some antimemetic moths to study! (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 63, +19 to roll.)
>Call up P-12 CORPORATION via your FAX MACHINE. You got a lot of questions to ask them. (-1 TIME TOKEN. You might be able to negotiate some products out of them.)
>Start mapping out the spatially anomalous lounge bar. You need to know what you're working with here. (-2 TIME TOKENS, DC 70, +15 to roll)
>You know what this group needs? An actual break. Pull out the art supplies, let's start painting. (-2 TIME TOKENS, heals everyone's MENTAL HEALTH by a good amount.)
>Work on cobbling something useful out of the random electronic scrap/junk you have. Might as well use it. (-1 TIME TOKEN)

>Write in.

>>6399232
>>6399179
Again, thank you for all of the art, anon. Especially the HELP WANTED abnos, it's nice seeing those guys in the flesh after so long.

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
>Enter HARD TIMES' cell. Somehow, you feel like you should work on this anomaly again.
>Try studying the GREY PASTE again. You got a lead this time. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 62, +25 to roll.)
>Call up P-12 CORPORATION via your FAX MACHINE. You got a lot of questions to ask them. (-1 TIME TOKEN. You might be able to negotiate some products out of them.)

>>6399288
>Call up P-12 CORPORATION via your FAX MACHINE. You got a lot of questions to ask them. (-1 TIME TOKEN. You might be able to negotiate some products out of them.)
>You know what this group needs? An actual break. Pull out the art supplies, let's start painting. (-2 TIME TOKENS, heals everyone's MENTAL HEALTH by a good amount.)
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and KIERA (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Visit LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE'S room. You should probably keep it entertained.

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
>C'mon, you have to study this giant shard of glass. There has to be something special about it. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 65, +23 to roll)
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>You know what this group needs? An actual break. Pull out the art supplies, let's start painting. (-2 TIME TOKENS, heals everyone's MENTAL HEALTH by a good amount.)
>>6399286
Holy shit, I knew that 199X was a mess on the inside, but having a chunk of glass big enough for both people to hold onto with no problem is insane.

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
So it's quite simple. They kidnapped all of us here to work on anomalies to harvest products and MAKE MONEY. If we don't MAKE THE MONEY, they will kill us. We've been here at least a week now and we have things somewhat good and stable for the time being. See that cigarette mold? That's the primo cash crop project. See those colored molds? That's the fun stuff. Your wine? That's how we got those colored molds. Each of them? A different way to make more money. Our limits? Only the materials we can have, the time we can spare, and the amount of mold variant autism the QM can handle.
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
Speaking of mold and Nicole, here's this shit. It's a nice way to get Keira engaged now that she's stable enough to stay as is... for now?
>C'mon, you have to study this giant shard of glass. There has to be something special about it. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 65, +23 to roll)
We literally just got this, let's figure out that it emanates BLACK BILE like the other SHARD does for Keira's base wine. Then we need to create BLACK BILE + CIGARETTE MOLD variant already
>You know what this group needs? An actual break. Pull out the art supplies, let's start painting. (-2 TIME TOKENS, heals everyone's MENTAL HEALTH by a good amount.)
And lastly, ze art

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.

>Enter HARD TIMES' cell. Somehow, you feel like you should work on this anomaly again.

>Experiment on your ARTIFACT GIFTS. Especially SLUMBERING WISH, since it did change after working on KIERA (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)

>You know what this group needs? An actual break. Pull out the art supplies, let's start painting. (-2 TIME TOKENS, heals everyone's MENTAL HEALTH by a good amount.)

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend
>Experiment with ESTABLISHING SHOT! How far can you push it? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 56, +21 to roll.)
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and KIERA (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Start supercharging your WIRE/CRIMSON RED FLOWERS with a FULLY CHARGED BATTERY. Maybe you could make some TRULY powerful flowers. (-1 TIME TOKEN

>>6399288
>>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
>Try studying the GREY PASTE again. You got a lead this time. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 62, +25 to roll.)
>You know what this group needs? An actual break. Pull out the art supplies, let's start painting. (-2 TIME TOKENS, heals everyone's MENTAL HEALTH by a good amount.)
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
>You know what we need? More mold. Create some new MOLD variants using those PERFECT MEAL samples, and whatever else you have. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS)
>Try studying the GREY PASTE again. You got a lead this time. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 62, +25 to roll.)
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)

File: RBA o2.png (121.6 KB)

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>You know what we need? More mold. Create some new MOLD variants using those PERFECT MEAL samples, and whatever else you have. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS)
>You know what this group needs? An actual break. Pull out the art supplies, let's start painting. (-2 TIME TOKENS, heals everyone's MENTAL HEALTH by a good amount.)

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
>C'mon, you have to study this giant shard of glass. There has to be something special about it. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 65, +23 to roll)
>Call up P-12 CORPORATION via your FAX MACHINE. You got a lot of questions to ask them. (-1 TIME TOKEN. You might be able to negotiate some products out of them.)
>Start mapping out the spatially anomalous lounge bar. You need to know what you're working with here. (-2 TIME TOKENS, DC 70, +15 to roll)

One does not merely sit with their back to an interdimensional portal.

>>6399288
>Take some time to talk to KIERA. You might as well start treating her like a friend.
>C'mon, you have to study this giant shard of glass. There has to be something special about it. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 65, +23 to roll)
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>You know what we need? More mold. Create some new MOLD variants using those PERFECT MEAL samples, and whatever else you have. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS)
Moldmaxxing

>>6399288
One day I will get to see the EGG be used to try copying ACCUMULATED PAST.

That is funny I had been thinking about whether it could improve one of our machine friends. Would HARD TIMES work harder or would it be able to recharge a super item and its copy over a multiday charging period?

Would Kiera be able to move super fast, our robot assassin against corpo evils. I do wonder if we could have gotten a better 'artifact' or not. It sounds like a pretty sweet bar tho.

>>6399564
>get a better artifact
A better artifact??? My man, Vincent is an aspiring small businessman. Do you know what the largest expense is for a business? THE SPACE.

We just got handed a free room to scale the mold business into! One which has as-of-yet undiscovered limits and extremely easy and secure access.

>>6399568
As an aspiring small businessman he should have to kill his neighbors to take over their labs. As a caveman must smash his rivals with a rock to secure more cavespace.

If every new person gets a lab, and then we say at least a quarter of these poor kidnapped """researchers""" die or fail their quota, I bet we can secure extra space the ol fashioned way. Plus HARD TIMES needs to feed.

But I kid, its a pretty solid gain. I must wonder what the other options were tho. A small army of Keira prototypes with an armory. A robot for every man, every man a robot.

>>6399310
Changing my vote from
>Work on making the SPARKLING MOLD, uh, palatable. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
To
>You know what we need? More mold. Create some new MOLD variants using those PERFECT MEAL samples, and whatever else you have. (-1d2 TIME TOKENS)
MOLD MOLD MOLD

>>6399580
Brother, no. This is OUR wine-making French maid robot.

No one else gets access unless it is through US.

Rolled 2, 1, 1 = 4 (3d2)

KIERA: T91, 4TQ, 9y6, 2vN, o+8, Mri, OBh, K+B, wOI, yxY
HARD TIMES: T91, 2vN
GREY PASTE: T91, Mri, OBh
P-12: T91, yqz, wOI
ART TIME: yqz, 4TQ, 9y6, 2vN, Mri, K+B
LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE: yqz
EGG: yqz, o+8
SHARD: 4TQ, 9y6, wOI, yxY
SPARKLING: 4TQ, Mri, OBh, K+B, yxY
MORE MOLD: 9y6, OBh, K+B, yxY
ARTIFACT GIFTS: 2vN
ESTABLISHING SHOT: o+8
FLOWERS: o+8
LOUNGE: wOI

KIERA + ART + SPARKLING won, but there's a tie between studying the shard you just found and making more mold. I'll roll 3d2 real quick: explanations on what they're for below

FIRST 1d2
1 = SHARD (SKILL CHECK)
2 = MORE MOLD (Another 1d2 will be rolled later to see if it costs any time.)

SECOND 1d2
1 = SPARKLING costs 1 TIME TOKEN
2 = SPARKLING costs 2 TIME TOKENS

THIRD 1d2
1 = KIERA costs 0 TIME TOKENS
2 = KIERA costs 1 TIME TOKEN

---

>>6399564
>KIERA UPGRADES
Her main 'functions', to your knowledge, are
-Creating wine out of anything biological or biological-adjacent
-Being able to immediately identify a person on sight.
If she's upgraded with spare parts from ACCUMULATED PAST, it would either supercharge her movement like you theorize, or it would vastly increase the quality of the wine she produced. You might be able to decide what specific upgrade you give her, though.
>HARD TIMES UPGRADES
You're less certain about this, but you're almost certain it'd improve how quickly it produces batteries for you to sell.

>>6399568
>>6399564
>>6399568
About the lounge, you know next to nothing about it beyond it being a spatial anomaly. You doubt it's completely risk free, or it has some kind of restriction to it, but you'll need to explore it to figure out WHAT those are.
One of the limits it has compared to the other options you could've gotten is that the lounge is stuck in your lab. It's not useful outside of the lab, like how ESTABLISHING SHOT can be used on the field.

>>6399308
It sorta does explain why he lashed out every single day, doesn't it?

>>6399310
The mold does have a limit when it comes to what you can mix into it. It can't eat flesh and muscle, and it's still mold, so things that would be corrosive or toxic to mold would still kill it.

File: BOOZEQUESTIONMARK.jpg (31.9 KB)

Rolled 1 (1d2)

There's so much to do. You can't really decide what you should start with first. Ultimately, though, you're a man of the MOLD. You were born of MOLD; you will nurture MOLD; you will DIE in the MOLD's loving embrace. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.

Okay, it's not THAT serious at the end of the day. It's more fun if you pretend you're some master mold crafter instead of what you actually are.

"While we're on the topic of our partnership," you use your vine to pull over a nearby trash can, filled with bright pink SPARKLING MOLD. "We might as well address its...flavor issue."

"i'm not one to be picky over the meals i eat," Ashton's face scrunches as she remembers what the SPARKLING MOLD smelled like. "that might be an expectation, though."

"I don't even have a nose, and I know something is wrong with that batch," Kiera dryly notes. She gets up from her chair so she can examine it. You'll trust that she knows what she's doing. She brews her own stuff, after all.

"Right. So, Ashton, mind showing them what we harvested today?"

"oh, absolutely." Ashton reaches into her bag to pull out the goods. The rest of you huddle around the table as she unveils the thick, sticky brown and green gel.

Nicole scrunches her nose at the goo. "Where the heck did you get this? It smells good, but it's, ugh, it reminds me of bug guts."

"that's exactly what it is!" Ashton answers with a beaming smile. "see, no one wants to eat bug guts. even if it tastes amazing. me and vince here tried, and it's safe to consume."

"of course, again, the bug issue."

"Eat ze bugs." Venti doesn't say anything for a moment, waiting for someone to get the joke. You give a polite laugh, if only to acknowledge it.

That's enough to get her talking again. "Anywho! If we're already working on one kind of mold, Vincey, why not make mold out of it?"

You see the logic and, to be frank, what else can you really improve about it? It's already easy to eat and transport, so either you turn it into wine or mold. "Anyone got any other ideas?"

When no one answers, you decide to go with Venti's plan. Before you do, SOMMELIER- Shit, no, Kiera 'snaps' her fingers to get everyone's attention. "I believe I need your assistance here."

Your group checks up on her progress, and, as you can expect, a wine robot is kind of like a hammer. It sees everything as nails. The sparkling pink mold is partially submerged in a sea of dark red wine, which is slowly turning pink before your eyes.

The smell's remarkably better, but the mold doesn't really seem to be taking to the wine particularly well. It's like water and oil, you know?

"Hm." Nicole dips her finger into the pink-red solution. She does a quick test taste of it to see what she can do with it. "Ah! I see the issue here! See, you're a VERY efficient producer of wine, right?"

The 1d2 is how many time TOKENS the 'MORE MOLD' option is costing you. 1 = 1 TIME TOKEN, 2 = 2 TIME TOKENS

File: FUCKINGTEAL.jpg (51.4 KB)

"You can produce your product whenever and wherever, right?"

"Correct. Why is this important?" Kiera cocks her head. "I thought it made sense. This mold is already an alcohol-based product."

"Sometimes, it needs time for something to truly shine, for all of the flavors to mesh together. We COULD speed it up, and I think I know how!"

"if we're talking with food metaphors," Ashton shakes a baggie of BLACK BILE. "why not shimmer it? we can use a little bit of this to start a fry- i mean try."

Venti waits to see how you react before she says anything. You give a noncommittal shrug, and that's enough for her. "Alrighty! Vincey gave the A-OKKE! Let's DO THIS!" Why did she say "okay" like that?

Anyhow, everyone moves to prepare this little 'cooking mold in wine' experiment, but you're not really needed here. Four cooks are already enough, so you start working on the PERFECT MEAL infused mold. It's not particularly hard to make this particular mold variant.

The mold eagerly devours the PERFECT MEAL sample; a little too eagerly, in fact, the mold's rapid growth almost immediately spirals out of control. You're quick on the draw to curb the worst of the growth. There's still a lot of spillover, but your lab doesn't get infested with this stuff.

You tightly seal a lid over the container, waiting for the mold to calm down. After a few moments, you peel the lid off to reveal a fresh batch of green and brown mold. A cautious taste test reveals the obvious: it tastes good. What else can you say? You feel a slight buzz as the nicotine kicks in.

The issue is curtailing its growth; you can already see this being a disaster if it's triggered outside the lab. While you try to mix in a variety of slurries into the mold to fix that, you prepare yet another container of mold. This time, you decide to introduce some GREY PASTE into it.

The mold almost immediately shrinks once exposed to the paste, but it does 'consume' it, in a sense. It'd be more accurate to say both samples are trying to consume each other. The end product is a mysterious teal sludge that doesn't appear to share properties with either sample. Odd.

>-7 CIGARETTE MOLD, -2 GREY PASTE, -3 PERFECT MEAL SAMPLES. You have 8, 3, and 4 SAMPLES respectively left.
>+5 PERFECT MOLD! (A delicious mold that has no negative properties, to your knowledge. Mildly heals PHYSICAL and MENTAL HEALTH, and provides a +1 bonus to all rolls for the next three rolls.)
>+2 TEAL GUNK (What in god's name even is this stuff? This is a completely new sample as this point.)

You join the others back by the SPARKLING PINK mold container, and by the looks of things, progress is going smoothly. Venti and Nicole are tending to the mixture in their own way, either mixing it or making sure the temperature is just right. Underneath the container, a roaring fire made from BLACK BILE-soaked paper is keeping the mixture shimmering.

Ashton has taken Kiera aside, and you can already guess why.

File: KIERA.jpg (295.1 KB)

You move to check on Kiera, but before you can ask Ashton anything, she moves to replace Nicole. Nicole waves at you as she joins you and the android.

"So." Kiera 'squinted' at her two human coworkers (at least you think she's trying to). "Ashton said the two of you had some information I need to know?"

"Do you want the long or short version?" Nicole's smile vanishes then and there. "There's a lot we can discuss. ARC is a very complicated topic to address."

"Short, if it's at all possible."

You take a deep breath, steeling yourself for this awkward conversation. "It's quite simple. All of us are here against our will. They kidnapped all of us here to work on anomalies so we can make money. We don't make money; we'll die."

"Merde." The android flinched, apparently only now realizing the severity of the situation. "I understand them capturing me, but the others were captured too?"

"Sadly." Nicole isn't proud of this, even if she desperately wants to spin it. "B-but! Things have been stable for us! We've made our quotas, we've shown our value to ARC, and we're still alive!"

"The mold's the main reason I'm not dead, same with the liquor Nicole made. Venti, I dunno, but Ashton's a security guard." You flick your gaze back towards your busy coworkers. "We all find a way to survive down here."

"Since you're an anomaly in ARC's eyes, I imagine they won't treat you the same as us." Nicole's body shivers as she remembers what she saw on the VHS tape. "Usually. Your best bet is to stick with one of us."

"We do intend on letting you roam freely," you explain. "You're a friend of ours. We wouldn't keep a sentient, fully aware person locked up."

"...unless she's a meanie." Nicole's face twists into a scowl. Kiera soon realizes that your pink-haired friend is scowling at a containment cell.

"Should I ask?"

"Little Miss Sunshine. It's a far more dangerous anomaly than you, and so far, our relationship is middling at best." That's an understatement to say the least. "You can do whatever you want, but I'd recommend NOT entering its cell."

"Touche." the android offers a thumbs up with its normal arm. "So what you're saying is I need a handler, like a common stray. That's rather demeaning, but I understand.

"Yeah! Nine, this weird masked person, whoever they are, has this weird shadow guy as a friend! It's like that!" Nicole chirps out in her usual chipper tone. "ARC security is, uhm. They're efficient!"

"Which is to say, outside of Ashton, be careful."

Kiera has to lean against the wall to steady herself. It's a lot for her to take in, so you really don't blame her. She wasn't really in the right mental state to process any of what was going on outside of her 'concept'. You wouldn't want to be in her shoes.

"Huh. It's bizarre, to say the least. What exactly do you do in your free time? I. This is new to me." Kiera blubbers out, clearly still flustered.

"We hang out with our friends, we eat lunch, we...uhm. Human stuff. Vincent?"

File: CANVAS.jpg (114.7 KB)

"Basically, after my shift, I tend to drag my pals along to do odd jobs. Either to appease my coworkers or to earn money. The facility has seven layers; I have access to the top four."

"We can give you a tour later."

"That'd be nice, actually." Kiera draws a line across her blank face with a finger. "Thank you for enlightening me about my situation. I didn't have much time to learn anything, of course."

"Oh, no, it's our pleasure! Besides, it'd be nice to be friends with people besides, uhm, Liz and Lucy!"

"Should I know who those are?" Kiera looks your way, waiting for an answer.

"I'm pretty sure you've seen Lucy before. They're friends of Nicole, if you forgot."

"Ah, I see. I apologize if my memory's spotty."

"Well." Kiera steps away from the wall. "Thank you, again. Shall we check on our mutual acquaintances?"

The three of you rejoin the others, and you have to give props; the mixture inside the SPARKLING MOLD container actually looks edible. Ashton yanks a piece of pinkish red mold out and immediately stuffs it into your mouth.

To your relief, it actually tastes fine. It's not particularly great tasting, but it's a marked improvement to the inedible state it was in befoore....

.......huh what. someone's shaking you.

"Vincey!" oh shit its vincey- you mean venti what does she want. "VINCEY!"

"Buh?" You snap awake. You were apparently lying on the floor since you're pretty sure your coworkers aren't usually this tall. Kiera helps you back up to your feet. "Buh. Whappen?"

"well, it appears the potency of it is a lot stronger than we thought." If Ashton's blushing face has anything to say, she did not expect that to happen.

"Odd." Venti doesn't even seem mad at Ashton; she's far more concerned about what happened to. "It was fine when we tried it. Vincey? What do you remember?"

You recap everything you remember, which is to say nothing. That gets a concerned look out of all of your coworkers, especially Kiera.

Nicole takes a quick taste of the PINK SYRAH MOLD to see if it's just a you thing. All the taste test got out of her was a shrug. "It's fine?"

You'll have to study why you had such an adverse reaction to it, but for now, you've got other things to worry about.

>+5 PINK SYRAH MOLD (A mold that knocked you straight out, but none of your coworkers were affected by it? Can be sold for a very tidy profit.)

After that little scare, you think everyone here deserves a little break. You haven't had a chance to use these supplies, so why not use them now?

"Well, I'm fine, trust me. Look, if you don't believe me, I'll show you my painting skills! Yeah!"

"I didn't know you painted???" Venti almost sounds offended at herself, like she should've known this already.

"wait, you paint? i didn't really take you for a painting guy." You got Ashton's attention too with that comment.

"I'm incredibly rusty, but I can try. How about we all start painting, you know? Get our mind off things?"

Your friends are eager for any excuse to slack off. You get a chorus of enthusiastic murmurs, which is all you needed to start setting up the canvases.

You must've gotten more canvases during one of your resupplies. You don't mind, that just means no one is being left out. Everyone eagerly starts working on their respective paintings, drawing whatever comes to mind.

Venti's painting is, shockingly, not tied to you. It's a self portrait of herself. Her painting style leans heavily on the realistic side, so it's almost like looking at a photograph. Very impressive but you're not sure how to feel about it as a painting, you know?

Ashton's painting is far more wild in comparison. You can't really make any real distinct subject, it's a chaotic blur of color. Reds, pinks, whites, yellows all blend together in an organic slurry. You recognize bits and pieces of certain organs within the painting. Interesting.

Kiera's painting is simple but effective. It's a stylized rendition of a street in Paris. You can tell thanks to the Eiffel Tower rendered in the background. Some of the strokes are sloppy, since she only has one hand to work with, but it's not bad.

Nicole's painting, like Ashton's, is more on the abstract end. There's an actual identifiable figure amongst the blurs of pinks and purples. A skeletal figure, with large deer-like antlers, is roaming around in a sea of pink trees. You didn't take her as the type to paint something like this.

You're not sure which painting you like the most, personally. Even Venti has some merit from a sheer technical standpoint. The only canvas not touched by paint is yours. It's as dry as a bone.

Now, what do YOU want to paint? You feel like you'll learn more about yourself doing this.
>Your greatest fear, whatever it is. Excise it from your mind.
>A field filled with flowers. The one your mother took you too.
>An industrial landscape, filled with towering grey buildings. This will be the easiest.
>One of your anomalies. You do work with them on a regular basis... (Choose 1: LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, HARD TIMES, LOST SINCE 199X)
>One of your coworkers. They are right there. Maybe they'd appreciate it. (Choose 1: KIERA, ASHTON, NICOLE, VENTI.)
>A fetid swamp. One you used to explore as a kid, along with your siblings.
>Don't think. Just paint. Whatever happens, happens.
>Leave it blank. You're not sure you WANT to paint something.
>Write in.

Who do you wish to talk to while you're painting? Choose up to two.
>KIERA. Couldn't hurt to learn more about the person underneath SOMMELIER.
>VENTI. Throw her a bone, she's practically obsessed with you.
>ASHTON. She's just a pleasant person to talk to.
>NICOLE. Might as well know your business partner, right?
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.
>Nobody. Focus on your painting, first and foremost.

Sorry for the delayed update. This one should be way shorter, since it's just a quick vote to see what you want to paint.

>>6399784
>Write in: IN LIMBO
Paint her while the memory is still somewhat fresh.
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.
Quality time for us and our little twoflowers bud.

>>6399784
>One of your anomalies. You do work with them on a regular basis...
>LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
Let's throw her a bone. She'll appreciate the effort, maybe...?

>ASHTON. She's just a pleasant person to talk to.
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.

File: Magical Lucy.png (64.6 KB)

>>6399784
>Write in: IN LIMBO

>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.
>NICOLE. Might as well know your business partner, right?

>>6399784
>>Write in: IN LIMBO
Very touching, I like it

>ASHTON. She's just a pleasant person to talk to.
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.

>>6399784
>Don't think. Just paint. Whatever happens, happens.
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.
>NICOLE. Might as well know your business partner, right?

>>6399784
>Your greatest fear, whatever it is. Excise it from your mind.
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.

>>6399784
>Write in: IN LIMBO
it feels right
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.
it feels right
>NICOLE. Might as well know your business partner, right?
Echo of a distant world

>>6399848
+1

>>6399820
+1

>>6399784
>Write in: IN LIMBO

>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.

>NICOLE. Might as well know your business partner, right?

>>6399784
>Don't think. Just paint. Whatever happens, happens.
>SLUMBERING WISH. It's a part of you, so you might as well check up on it.

File: APAINTINGOFROSES.jpg (261.8 KB)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoSNe09tJfI - IN LIMBO PAINTING

Your hand trembles. It's not because you're nervous; you really don't care if your art looks like hot steaming garbage. It's trembling because of SLUMBERING WISH. The three flowers growing from your wrist are fluttering in an attempt to get your attention.

The vine hidden deep inside of your arm is twitching too, which only exacerbates the intermittent spasms. They can't 'speak', per se, but you can feel what they're feeling.

Aren't you forgetting someone?

It hits you like a sack of bricks. Damnit. You're already starting to forget IN LIMBO. It's only been a few days and your memory of her is starting to fragment.

All that's left of her is what? A bunch of flowers growing out of you? A vine? An old ticket? The flower and vine aren't even noteworthy mutations to the people down here. The ticket is neat but it's only one tool of many inside your satchel.

She deserves better than that. Muscle memory you didn't even know you had kicks in. You have to go off memory for the exact colors, but maybe it's fine if you flub a few colors. You're aware of 'stylization', vaguely, so you should go with that.

Your crude brushstrokes are beginning to coalesce into a familiar silhouette, wreathed from head to toe in purple and red flowers. Instead of a shambling, barely sentient corpse, you drew her as you saw her right as she vanished. Standing up straight, dragging her flower-covered body forward.

The background is, admittedly, something more personal to you than IN LIMBO. It's that old flower field you went to as a kid. The one you remembered a few hours back. It's the kind of place you think IN LIMBO would've manifested into reality if she deemed it so.

There's a serene smile on IN LIMBO's face that you don't remember painting.

You take a step back to get a better look at the painting. The overall construction of the painting is a loose haze of colors that implies form and shape. The flower field has a blurred, distorted quality like it's from a barely remembered dream. At least the main focus point, IN LIBMO, is easy enough to read in the painting.

It's a nice painting, even if you don't really know what particular style you drew it in or why you picked it.

She would've been happy to see this. Words without a voice appear in your head. You know they're not your thoughts, so it has to be SLUMBERING WISH 'talking'. Do you think when she moved on, she went there?

The 'question' gets a sardonic half-smile out of you. You'd think that SLUMBERING WISH would know, given that it came from her!

I am more you than her at this point. I am literally one with you. The rust-orange flower twitches. How different is this from an internal monologue?

You guess you should've expected that. Kiera's probably an exception then. You hope she's happy wherever she is. The supernatural clearly exists; so does heaven exist?

File: DEERPAINTING.jpg (77.9 KB)

What about hell? Those are human concepts too, so it's not like they'd be exempt from anomaly status.

Does it matter? The grey flower trembles.

Will it prevent you from moving on? The green flower tenses up.

All we can do now is remember her. We still have to live. To find it within ourselves to get up in the morning. The rust-orange flower's petals blow in an invisible breeze.

You guess the flowers are right. You still wish you could've done more. That you could do more than painting a shoddy painting like this.

Life is like that. You can't fix everything. You can't achieve everything you desire. That's okay. To make mistakes, to fail, is only human.

The vine slithers out of your palm. It wraps around your fingers, doing its best to hold your hand.

Tomorrow is another day, and we will always be here for you. Even when your arms grow heavy, even when your legs struggle to carry your weight...

Know that you will always be loved, Vincent.

There's a flower ready to bloom inside of you. We'll be here to watch it bloom.

You silently thank SLUMBERING WISH. The vine slithers back into your arm. Now, it's just you and the painting. Nicole is standing by your side, examining the painting you made. You already feel a bit ashamed of it; you really did wing it when painting it.

Oh well, two birds with one stone. You might as well talk to her.

Nicole is apparently a big fan of it. She's grinning from ear to ear. "Lucy told me about this anomaly. I have to say, your painting really caught its essence! Correct me if I'm wrong, but is this IN LIMBO?"

"I felt like it was only fair to paint her." You say with a nod. "It felt fitting. I had this memory, long story, about a flower field I went to as a kid. So I painted her in it."

"I like it!" Nicole chirps. "I think Lucy told me what this style is, but golly, I can't remember what its name was. I didn't know you painted before!"

"I. I don't think I do? My memory is spotty these days." You gesture towards Nicole's canvas. "I have to give props to your painting. It's not what I expected you to paint."

"Oh!" Nicole's smile wavers for a second, but it bounces back like nothing happened. "I had this weird dream two days ago. I was roaming through a forest I used to go to. I wasn't human, I think; I was this big deer thing with massive antlers!"

"Like, this big!" She stretched her arms out as wide as she could. "I don't remember much about it besides that! We all have weird dreams, right?"

"Trust me, I know." You'd rather not clarify that your dreams typically involve flashbacks of your past, but hey. "Where are the others?"

"Oh, they're over there, critiquing each other's art." She points in the direction of Kiera's former containment cell. Your other coworkers are showing off their paintings to each other. "I never really got the point of art critique myself. If your art's good, everyone would like it!"

"Yeah, that sounds like something you'd say."

File: thepinkthing.gif (116.8 KB)

"How's your day been?"

"Oh! I'm having a great day, actually!" Her smile wanes again. "It's been very stressful, though, and I'm ready for it to end."

"Preach it to the choir." A dry, raspy chortle escapes from our throat. "Work never ends, does it? Day in, day out, wageslave grindset."

Nicole sighs. "Normally I'd appreciate a nice day of good, honest hard work! I usually don't feel this tired during a shift! Am I losing my touch?"

"I think being tired after working for a long time is completely normal." You pick your canvas up. Nicole follows you as you try to find a place to hang the painting. "You don't have to beat yourself about it."

"I'm just afraid I'm not pulling my weight around." Nicole slumps her shoulders. "Especially with the partnership we agreed to."

"How, exactly?"

"Your product's, well, it's more popular than mine!" Nicole briefly turns her head towards the PINK SYRAH MOLD container. "It's more versatile; people like it more. It feels like I'm exploiting your good will."

"Nicole, seriously, if I didn't want you around, I would say it to your face." You finish hanging the painting up. "You've helped a lot with the samples we've been working with, and I still get something out of our partnership. It's fine."

Nicole starts fidgeting with her hands. "Is it weird that I care this much?"

"I don't think it's a bad thing to want to be useful. Shit, why do you think I do half of the things I do?" You narrow your eyes as another question bubbles in your head. "How long have you been worrying about this?"

"Haha, uh, would you be mad if I said I've been thinking about it all day?"

You raise an eyebrow at that. "Why would I be mad at you? Look, I'll be candid. You annoyed me once, and it's when I got dragged into that catfight you had with Liz."

"Oh-" "I'm not holding that against you. That's in the past."

"You've been fine today. Good, even." You place a hand on her shoulder. "I'm not Mr. Yellow or the other colored-suit pricks that work with ARC. I'm your pal, okay?"

That finally gets Nicole to relax. Her nervous smile turns genuine as she finally breathes out a sigh she's been holding in for a while. "Okay. Okay, yeah! I guess I just needed to actually say that out loud, huh?"

You give her a few pats on the shoulder. "Hey, I'm always here to listen. It's better to be open about this than to let it boil over."

"You're right, you're right." Nicole looks up at the painting you hung up. "You should really start painting more, Vincent. I think you got a knack for it!"

Do you? You don't see it yourself, but hey, at least she's not trying to blow smoke up your ass like Venti would. Speaking about her, you can see Venti and co. putting away their paintings. It's time to go back to work.

MENTAL HEALTH UPDATE!
>ASHTON is now CONTENT!
>VENTI is now :)))
>NICOLE is at MAX MENTAL HEALTH!
>YOU are SATISFIED!
>You'll need time to get a better read on KIERA.

TIME TOKENS: 4
EVE EXPERIMENTS LEFT: 1

Time to slow down. Choose three actions, and any (or no) FREE ACTIONS.
>Due to painting IN LIMBO, actions involving its gifts/samples/artifacts have been improved!

ANOMALY (1d2-1 TIME TOKENS)
>Enter HARD TIMES' cell. Waiter! Waiter! We got more parts we need to stuff into HARD TIMES!
>Visit LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE'S room. You should probably keep it entertained. Meow.
>Enter LOST SINCE 199X'S cell. Maybe you can get somewhere with it now that you treated its injuries.
>Dial a random number on that old TRASHED LANDLINE you got. Let's see what happens.

RESEARCH
>Experiment on your ARTIFACT GIFTS. Especially SLUMBERING WISH, since it did change after working on KIERA (-1 TIME TOKEN)
>Experiment with ESTABLISHING SHOT! How far can you push it? (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 50, +22 to roll.)
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and KIERA (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Start supercharging your WIRE/CRIMSON RED FLOWERS with a FULLY CHARGED BATTERY. Maybe you could make some TRULY powerful flowers. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS)
>Start refining the REPAIR GEL, and the other CLOTH SAMPLES. What else can you make with them? (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS)
>C'mon, you have to study this giant shard of glass. There has to be something special about it. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 65, +23 to roll)
>Study the GREY PASTE and TEAL GUNK. Two birds with one stone here. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 62, +25 to roll.)

BUSY WORK
>Craft some armor for later, since you got to fight a robot today. Venti and Nicole should help you make something good! (-1d2 TIME TOKENS.)
>Put on your M.A.D WORLD glasses and hunt down some antimemetic moths to study! (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 63, +19 to roll.)
>Call up P-12 CORPORATION via your FAX MACHINE. You got a lot of questions to ask them. (-1 TIME TOKEN. You might be able to negotiate some products out of them.)
>Start mapping out the spatially anomalous lounge bar. You need to know what you're working with here. (-2 TIME TOKENS, DC 70, +15 to roll)
>Work on cobbling something useful out of the random electronic scrap/junk you have. Might as well create something you can sell later. (-1 TIME TOKEN)

FREE ACTION
>Oh god, Venti's waving you over. What does she want? (+1d2 TIME TOKENS. This will be mentally taxing, if you humor this.)
>Ask KIERA for a favor. You need to install some EVE'S ENTERPRISES parts into her. (+1 TIME TOKEN. Saves way more time than doing it on HARD TIMES. Riskier, though.)

>Write in.

>>6399819
Truly, a frightening image. Does Lucy deserve this kind of power?

>>6400311
>Call up P-12 CORPORATION via your FAX MACHINE. You got a lot of questions to ask them. (-1 TIME TOKEN. You might be able to negotiate some products out of them.)
>Experiment with the mysterious EGG. Try to copy ACCUMULATED PAST with it, it could improve HARD TIMES and KIERA (-1 TIME TOKEN, DC 6?, +??? to roll.)
>Study the GREY PASTE and TEAL GUNK. Two birds with one stone here. (-1d2-1 TIME TOKENS, DC 62, +25 to roll.)
>Oh god, Venti's waving you over. What does she want? (+1d2 TIME TOKENS. This will be mentally taxing, if you humor this.)
>Ask KIERA for a favor. You need to install some EVE'S ENTERPRISES parts into her. (+1 TIME TOKEN. Saves way more time than doing it on HARD TIMES. Riskier, though.)

>>6400311
>>Write in.
Install the parts...Into TRASHED LANDLINE