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Author Topic: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread - M2 Deployment  (Read 9373 times)

m1895

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #75 on: August 25, 2020, 07:26:09 pm »

Quote from: Votebox
Shell Smasher Titan Rifle:
Megaraptor Legs: (5) NUKE9.13, Frostgiant, NG, Rockeater, Chaotick21
Megaraptor Legs (v2):
Antagonistic Chemthrower of Inconceivable Devastation:
Aggresively Expansionist Generalized Immune System:
Aggressive Aerial Assault Arachnid Administrator:
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Powder Miner

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #76 on: September 07, 2020, 07:34:23 pm »

Month One -- Navigation Phase

Travel on a Rapid-Pair Ship is not, relatively speaking, a very fast process. In absolute terms, of course, it is blazingly fast, with Rapid-Pair Ships traveling spaces light-years wide in a mere couple of months, but to travellers used to the instant transportation between systems within sectors courtesy of Pair Stations, well, the wait can seem interminable indeed. After all, while a normal, fixed-orbit Pair-Station simply transfers objects around it to being somewhere around its partner, from one station to the other across star systems instantly, Rapid-Pair Ships take advantage of the limited relative movement involved there to essentially teleport each other (relatively) short distances a very, very, very large number of times, very rapidly. That's typically several million teleportations, in the longest cases billions, and no matter how blazingly fast Rapid-Pair Ships can make those jumps, that's going to take a while.

On the bright side, though, when you're on-board a Rapid-Pair Ship you live like a king, to a degree that is barely an exaggeration. Docking space on a Rapid-Pair Ship has a cost that even empires wince at, and this is the result of the cost of maintenance of the absurdly complex drives and the equally absurd reactors that power them. Therefore, amenities in the passenger parts of the ships like supremely comfortable accommodations, a bevy of unique, varied, and delicious foods, many forms of recreation, and immaculate service all are so cheap in comparison that commercial Rapid-Pair Ship providers find the cost-benefit analysis to be an easy one, and Exploratory Systems Incorporated is no exception.

It's just a shame that Princess Rivalla's Grand Biomechanical Retinue didn't get to enjoy it for more than around a week.



Lanre Adebayo was a career military man, as one tends to be hanging around within a retinue/mercenary company/dying unit for several long-haul deployments. This did not mean that Lanre was a career senior officer, because he hadn't been that by any means. No, Lanre had been a Sergeant when he entered the Princess' retinue, not some officer sitting around in a lounge with champagne and lobster bisque. It was only through both performance and attrition that Lanre had ended up in the position he was in now, at the age of 28.

...so, now that he had the chance to have champagne and lobster bisque and all sorts of nice foods, Lanre wasn't hesitating to take advantage of it. It wasn't something he talked about, being something of an imposingly stoic, private man, but aboard this ship Lanre looked forward to becoming something of a gourmand. The lobster they'd served two days ago had been a bit tougher than he'd imagined lobster to be, but he'd enjoyed the taste greatly. Then it had been this prime rib he'd had yesterday, and though it was a little fatty for his taste, it was still in objective terms a fantastic dish. Now it was these nachos, but with a spread of meat and condiments on top that he'd never seen before. Maybe it wasn't as high culture, but he had started eating and was ready to tuck into the whole dish.

"Laaaanreee!" He sighed, and slumped just a fraction of a degree. "Laaanreee!" Lanre started eating a bit faster. "It's a three on one! It's a three on one! Lanre, help me out!" Lanre glanced behind him and saw the Princess running away very quickly, being chased by three people... and Lanre recognized the emblem on their clothing. The symbol of the Knights Reliquar, the Arehan shock unit they'd faced on Gurney III. Fuck. Very quickly, Lanre turned his attention to his food and began shoveling it into his mouth as fast as he god damn could, demolishing the nachos (which were, incidentally, very good), and setting down the plate just in time to turn around in a slow and composed manner to look the approaching three Knights Reliquar right in the eye. Two of them were younger, one young dark-skinned man (younger than Lanre by a fair margin) with a clear naive fire in his eyes, a younger white-skinned girl with eyes that were rather disturbingly cold in comparison, and an older woman, with light blonde hair just starting to turn white, who seemed to have an energy that belied her relative age.

As Lanre stared quietly at the older woman (their commander, he guessed), she spoke up, raising a hand to silence her two subordinates as she did. "So... if the 'Unrivalled' Princess," Lanre could practically see the air quotes around that, "has run to you, I assume that means that you are an officer in her company?"

"I am. Commanding field operations. Captain Lanre Adebayo." A response without hesitation, Lanre not even blinking.

"Alright, then. I am Commandeur des Chevaliers Žaneta Vasiliauskas, leader of this detachment of the Knights Reliquar. I commanded when we fought you on Gurney -- and I cannot tolerate your presence here. But a wide brawl would be too destructive -- let us settle this for now one-on-one. I challenge you to a fistfight, right here, and right now. How do you respond to this challenge?"

Lanre looked around, and sighed. Rivalla was of course here (noisily so), and Mihail was elsewhere in the dining hall, so things could well devolve into a three-on-three if he said no... and one of the involved combatants would be a young teenager. Fantastic. "Mihail, please hold the Princess back." Lanre looked Žaneta dead in the eyes. "I accept. L--" Before he could finish his sentence, Žaneta was on him.

Fists rained down, a wild series of haymaker blows launched by Žaneta that seemed unfocused on being individually accurate. A punch to the arm, hammer blow to the shoulder, fist to the gut, backhand to the hip. It was a shockingly aggressive series of blows that Lanre had not expected in the slightest from a woman that seemed to be in her late 40s, and each blow hurt, with a surprising amount of strength behind it. At first, Lanre was taken entirely aback, but soon his stance shifted to a defensive one, bracing, weathering the assault. He waited for the moment when her aggression got the better of her, causing her to leave openings, for her to get too confident... and then when that moment came, he nailed her with a savage right hook to the jaw that spun her 20 degrees, nearly taking her off her feet. "You're stronger than I expected," he told her, "I'll give you that. But this won't be too easy."

The enemy commander looked at him... and then nodded. "Mmm." With that wordless acknowledgment, she came at him again, with every bit of the ceaseless aggression as before -- but when he sent a jab out to catch her on the approach, he discovered that her tactics had change significantly. She ducked to the side  and sent a pair of blows at his extended arm. Then, when she came in, she clearly had her targets prioritized, blow after blow coming towards his arms, but with the woman possessed of a movement that prevented him from nailing another solid hit on her like that. She kept doing that grab, too, punishing whenever he tried to hit her back, so at first he stopped doing so, just taking the hits. Once Lanre decided he had to take action, though, he intentionally telegraphed his punch, and let her grab his arm again to deal another pair of blows to his elbow... except that this time he suddenly yanked inwards hard with it, sending her stumbling towards him. Head met head, hard, as he nailed her with his second blow of the fight, a vicious headbutt that left her reeling for a long moment.

She seemed to be rocked, now, almost stumbling, her gaze a bit glassy, although he could still see the determination in it beyond that haze, and in her advance. His arm hurt like hell, especially around the knot of flaring ache in his elbow. It didn't quite feel like it was broken... but it felt close. Still, he had her on the ropes. It'd be just one more hit and--



And that's when the ship's security hauled everyone involved away in front of a shocked crowd of onlookers, which earned the entirety of Rivalla's Retinue a ban from the interior of the Sojourner, leaving everyone stuck aboard the frigate and shuttles for a solid four months, growing impatient and frustrated. And it turned out that Lanre's right arm had in fact been broken, a small hairline fracture sure, but a fracture nonetheless, making him technically the first combat injury of the Retinue's mercenary career.

At least they still got the ship's food regularly delivered to them.



With the long wait, spirits among the crew were quite high when the Sojourner finally arrived in the system and released the Unceasing Progress, the backdrop of stars flashing back-and-forth seizure-inducingly quickly finally replaced by the more serene backdrop of a stationary system (well, as Peers insisted, relative to the ship). The system had five planets, but the inhabited one was quite easy indeed to pick out and navigate to -- two of the planets were gas giants, one was on the verge of being a dwarf planet very far out, one was a nearly molten rock right near the sun, and the sole remaining planet was a ball of mostly green and brown a mite closer to the sun-edge of the habitable zone than is typically considered comfortable. Once in orbit over the planet, closer inspection reveals the nature of the planet's, well, nature.

The central third or so of the planet is the most uniform, being mostly a band of wide, scorching desert that seems mostly uninhabitable, with only occasional mountain chains and their associated lakes and streams providing oases. Moving towards the mid-latitudes the terrain begins to vary, sahel terrain broken up by more green savannahs around rivers, in turn spawned and broken up by the mountains, plateaus, and highlands which the planet has in fair abundance. Oceans appear in these mid-latitude areas; small ones, which make up the minority of the planet's surface, but oceans nonetheless, and with them comes a bevy of more temperate terrain -- plains, forests, etcetera. In the north, the largest ocean exists along most of the northernmost latitudes of the planet, but still leaving a thick inlet of land to extend all the way north, transferring from jungles to forests to taiga to icy, mostly-bare land at the pole. In the south, there are a smattering of smaller oceans, which leave most of the southern hemisphere of the planet sahel/savannah and arid, except for the areas of green that branch out from the areas around the oceans, where you do see warm forests and occasionally jungles, but also much of the arable plains of the planet, especially around the freshwater lakes. A ring of taiga exists around a small ocean at the south pole, though most of that ocean's surface is taken up by the glaciers of the south pole, leaving only a small ring of water.

At night, the patterns of lights reveal the inhabitation of the planet -- quite sparse, with some small towns around the oases in the deserts, with larger cities near to the oceans. Most of the areas around the small southern oceans are largely rural, with one or two cities shining brightly and dominating these oceanic areas, lights thinly scattered beyond them. The two most densely populated areas are the northern inlet, which has several cities and town spread across its jungle and forests, and the largest of the southern oceans, which has an extra-large city shining brightly and a cluster of cities and towns around that city, in addition to the rural population seen around the other southern oceans. There are also a surprisingly large number of mobile settlements that appear to move a little day by day. These are all the steady white color and setup of electric lighting... but those electric lights almost completely vanish around the taiga. Around the pole are tightly clustered setups of a purple haze -- lighting that appears to be magical and ritual in nature, which appears almost nowhere else. Only a few, small, adventurous settlements of either technological or magical nature exist in the taiga, sometimes clearly intentionally set near each other.



Spoiler: Rumors (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Trade (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Navigation (click to show/hide)

With the Unceasing Progress freshly arrived from the Sojourner this month rather than moving from one system to another, there isn't a lot to do this Navigation Phase. However, your home empire at least gave you a relatively generous amount of scrap, partially filling the one of the 2 Titan shuttles that doesn't have a Titan in it. Choose five of the following ten pieces of scrap to have brought with you:

Spoiler: Scrap Choice (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: February 16, 2021, 12:37:20 pm by Powder Miner »
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ConscriptFive

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #77 on: September 07, 2020, 08:20:17 pm »

With the legs already built, we're free to go in whatever direction we want with new scrap.

Personally, I'm thinking we should go as rare as possible.  Presumably, we'll be battling a lot of mechs, making the organic stuff harder to get.  Also, if we still wanted to do the acid sprayer, one of those scrap pieces is pretty on the nose and I can't imagine it being super common on the battlefield.

The easy answer would be the bottom five organic picks.  However, the "Organic Left Arm" might be kinda generic, and "complicated electronics" or "advanced metals" might be a good substitute.  (Or the laser, if we want a laser in the near future.)

Let me know what you guys are thinking.

Naturegirl1999

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #78 on: September 07, 2020, 08:45:03 pm »

Mech Scrap with Complicated Electronics
Destroyed Acid Weapon
Organic Left Arm Scrap
Organic Scrap with Regenerative Tissues
Organic Scrap with Intact Heart

I think the Regenerative Tissues will be helpful, as will the heart, for circulating blood or whatever else will power the Titan(s) we make
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ConscriptFive

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #79 on: September 09, 2020, 02:10:50 pm »

Summary:

Some folks want to do an acid sprayer as a hardpoint weapon this turn (acid weapon + maybe heart).  Personally I'd like to do a cyber-godzilla head (organic head + complicated electronics).  I also think our adversaries will be more conventional mechanical mechs, so I think the organic scrap is going to be rarer to salvage from the battlefield.

Quote from: Scrap Vote (Pick Five)
(0) Destroyed Laser Weapon:
(0) Mech Right Arm Scrap:
(0) Mech Left Leg Scrap:
(2) Mech Scrap with Complicated Electronics: NG, ConFive
(0) Mech Scrap with Advanced Metals
(2) Destroyed Acid Weapon: NG, ConFive
(1) Organic Left Arm Scrap: NG
(1) Organic Head Scrap: ConFive
(2) Organic Scrap with Regenerative Tissues: NG, ConFive
(2) Organic Scrap with Intact Heart: NG, ConFive

NUKE9.13

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #80 on: September 10, 2020, 10:22:05 am »

Here's my proposal for what to take and why:
Destroyed Acid Weapon + Advanced Metals: Combine (jury-rig) with Biomechanical Medium Railgun to make acid-launching railgun (the advanced metals are to make rounds that can safely contain the acid until impact).
Regenerative Tissues + Intact Heart: Organic scrap seems unlikely to come up much on this planet, which is mainly Mech with a side of Magic, or neighbouring planets, as the empire we are currently in is predominantly Mech (we may be able to travel to more Organic-rich areas in the future). Point being, for now, we should grab these uncommon Organic scrap pieces, cos we might need them to make... all sorts of things.
Organic Head Scrap: I could also see an argument for the Left Arm. Same reasoning as above, grab Organics while we can. C5 wants to do a new head, which might be worth doing at some point, but it would also be useful as generic Organic Scrap to be used in the construction of any Organic component.

I'm going to suggest we vote for a whole list rather than individual items- as the specific combination of items is somewhat important-, but if others prefer individual I can live with it. I'm doing both versions here.

Quote from: Scrap Vote (Pick Five)
(0) Destroyed Laser Weapon:
(0) Mech Right Arm Scrap:
(0) Mech Left Leg Scrap:
(2) Mech Scrap with Complicated Electronics: NG, ConFive
(1) Mech Scrap with Advanced Metals: NUKE9.13
(3) Destroyed Acid Weapon: NG, ConFive, NUKE9.13
(1) Organic Left Arm Scrap: NG
(2) Organic Head Scrap: ConFive, NUKE9.13
(3) Organic Scrap with Regenerative Tissues: NG, ConFive, NUKE9.13
(3) Organic Scrap with Intact Heart: NG, ConFive, NUKE9.13

Quote from: Alternative Scrap Vote
Naturegirl's List: (1) NG
ConscriptFive's List: (1) ConFive
NUKE's List: (1) NUKE9.13
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Powder Miner

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #81 on: September 10, 2020, 10:23:28 am »

Voting via list would also be smart as it obviates the need to get rid of like three ties at once
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frostgiant

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #82 on: September 13, 2020, 03:02:34 pm »



Quote from: Alternative Scrap Vote
Naturegirl's List: (1) NG
ConscriptFive's List: (1) ConFive
NUKE's List: (2) NUKE9.13, Frostgiant

Since Pm wnts voting by ist, I'll just put my vte in this box.
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Rockeater

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #83 on: September 13, 2020, 03:03:36 pm »



Quote from: Alternative Scrap Vote
Naturegirl's List: (1) NG
ConscriptFive's List: (1) ConFive
NUKE's List: (3) NUKE9.13, Frostgiant, Rockeater
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Also, don't forget to contact your local Eldritch Being(s), so that they can help with our mission to destroy the universe.

Failbird105

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #84 on: September 13, 2020, 03:45:39 pm »

Quote from: Alternative Scrap Vote
Naturegirl's List: (1) NG
ConscriptFive's List: (1) ConFive
NUKE's List: (4) NUKE9.13, Frostgiant, Rockeater, Failbird105
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Naturegirl1999

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #85 on: September 13, 2020, 04:29:52 pm »

Quote from: Alternative Scrap Vote
Naturegirl's List: (0)
ConscriptFive's List: (1) ConFive
NUKE's List: (5) NUKE9.13, Frostgiant, Rockeater, Failbird105, NG
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chubby2man

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread
« Reply #86 on: September 14, 2020, 07:42:41 am »

Quote from: Alternative Scrap Vote
Naturegirl's List: (0)
ConscriptFive's List: (1) ConFive
NUKE's List: (6) NUKE9.13, Frostgiant, Rockeater, Failbird105, NG, C2M
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Powder Miner

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread - M1 Mission Choice
« Reply #87 on: September 27, 2020, 01:52:28 am »

Month One -- Mission Choice Phase

Though the Unceasing Progress was not primarily a combat ship now, having been retrofitted for more longevity of travel and slightly more cargo capacity, it had in fact been one once, and the bridge was originally setup as a somewhat sleeker room allowing a central figure to maintain most of the command presence during combat, with a prominent seat at the front and rows of computers and cybernetic ports at the back allowing operation of the ship to continue without taking any space from the typically gigantic ego of the captain. Retrofitting the area as a meeting room was, then, simple, but rather awkward-looking: Lanre had simply pulled the captain's chair out of the floor himself, and bolted a cheap plastic-surface dining table to the floor where it had been. Peers had offered a fancier solution, but Lanre had turned the man down, sensing that it would become material for the eternal pissing contest between his chief engineer and his chief biogineer.

Lanre didn't really see a reason to mind, though. His little dining table was enough for the purposes of sitting in a circle with the other officers, and was more than enough for the purpose of looking through paperwork as his executive officer spoke -- especially because said executive officer had a tendency to pace. Marcellino Costa was a man that Lanre had learned through experience channeled quite a bit of nervous energy through his work, making sure every little thing was accounted for; at times, this was inconvenient, but it was often a lifesaver in allowing Lanre to keep his focus on the larger direction of the retinue. So it was that Lanre found himself paging through a summary of the company's overall situation that Marcellino had prepared for him, half-tuning the man out as he orally, and much more lengthily, related the details of his officers' rivalry. (As Lanre could confirm on the summary report, Marcellino was talking about how the lean towards organic scrap brought along by the retinue was the source of much bragging from Batari.) Lanre knew that Marcellino didn't mind his split attention: it was almost a ritual between the two of them, with Marcellino's drive for detail satisfied and with Lanre able to go through important points while Marcellino got the small stuff out of the way -- if anything was of note, Lanre usually just stopped for a moment and asked him about it, anyway.

In this case, though it was the transition to speaking about missions that caught Lanre's ear and caused him to set down the summary. "...which brings me to the situation with contracts here." A silent movement and a look at Marcellino signaled that he had the Captain's full attention now, something Marcellino acknowledged with a quick nod before he spoke. "To tell the truth, Captain Adebayo, the whole thing went much more smoothly than I had been expecting."

A quick 'hmm' let his Executive Officer know that this was something Lanre was contemplating and wanted to hear more about. "Get more than you thought you would?"

"Yessir." Marcellino pulled another set of papers, three of them, from his ever-present clipboard and handed it to Lanre, who scanned their headers as he listened to Marcellino continue. "I don't think you really have to read through those one hundred percent right now, I imagine the Princess is gonna demand a say in our mission anyway, but, uh-- well-- yeah, we've got three contract offers that I found suitable right out the gate. We got more than one, uh, 'well, normally we wouldn't really be willing to trust the likes of you since you don't appear to have been around here before and you say you're real small' sort of message, but, uh, haha... you know what they say. Right place, right time. The Chopta system appears to be in a uh... well, it's gone to shit, sir. The Fifhurst Empire which has been administrator here for a while now seems to have pulled up and left with eighty, eighty-five percent of their manpower, and everybody with a goal and a cannon out here is making a run for getting the former with the latter. In the circumstances, a lot of smaller clients really need some sudden muscle, even if it's new guys, and even larger players are willing to spend a little bit of scrap on having someone deal with their more outlying problems."

"Sounds like the mercenary company idea the King had was better than he thought. It'll be interesting seeing how we fare doing this sort of thing. Still, we lived through Gurney, we can live through this. What are we looking at, Costa?"

"You said it, sir. Plenty of opportunity here, and none of it is I figure a particularly existential issue. For now we've got this..."


Spoiler: Mission Choice (click to show/hide)
(You can also expect to take some battle scrap from the opponents you defeat; right now, this would probably be around one or two pieces of scrap, unless especially destructive or preservative gear and tactics are chosen.)

Spoiler: Titans (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Parts and Equipment (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Blueprints (click to show/hide)
Spoiler: Owned Scrap (click to show/hide)
« Last Edit: September 01, 2021, 01:32:56 pm by Powder Miner »
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m1895

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread - M1 Mission Choice
« Reply #88 on: September 27, 2020, 09:31:20 am »

Quote from: Votebox
Mission
2: (1) m1895
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Rockeater

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Re: Ramshackle Titans - Rivalla's Retinue Thread - M1 Mission Choice
« Reply #89 on: September 27, 2020, 09:32:09 am »


Quote from: Votebox
Mission
2: (2) m1895, Rockeater
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Damnit people, this is why I said to keep the truce. Because now everyone's ganging up on the cats.
Also, don't forget to contact your local Eldritch Being(s), so that they can help with our mission to destroy the universe.
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