ph_logs | An Assortment of Happenstance (Random Events Wave 2)

An Assortment of Happenstance (Random Events Wave 2)

Pumpkin Hollow Community Bulletin

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It's been a while since the community board has been redone! The weather hasn't really been permitting long excursions into town square to do up the board, especially since the blizzard, but today is a clear day for once and Yorick is in a hurry to get it all set up for Merrymeet.

He helpfully posts a few announcements.

COMMUNITY GATHERING AT TOWN HALL TONIGHT

A community gathering is scheduled in Town Hall tonight for all new residents ("offworlders") to discuss their recent experience with a mass shared dream event. Locals who are native to Pumpkin Hollow will be present to listen, learn, and help make sense of this strange dream. The intent of the gathering is to ascertain the meaning of the dream and share details to create a bigger picture.

Sweet potato muffins will be provided, courtesy of Cecil. The meeting will officially commence at 6pm. Dress warmly!

MERRYMEET FLOWER QUEEN VOTING

Voting for the Flower Queen of our upcoming Merrymeet celebration is now officially open! Please cast your vote for one of the following candidates from our final pool of nominees:

Dahlia Leeds, town councilwoman and Historical Society leader.
Annabel Lee Whitlock, seamstress and chess extraordinaire.
Mary Dahl, shop employee and freelance theatrical performance artist.
Magne Kikiishi, Oak & Iron employee and Fight Club leader.
Zelda of Hyrule, captain of the Mipha's Grace.
Sally Boyle, chemist/herbalist and proprietor of the Blackberry Apothecary.

Merrymeet will be held on Saturday, Feb. 24th, so all votes must be cast by then. This year's celebration will also feature our first Flower Princess in a while, Bobbin Kaspbrak, escorted by her keeper, Eddie! She is a chicken. (Note: the last Flower Princess was Butter Poe, a cat. She will sadly be unable to pass on her crown in the ceremonial manner due to being a cat, but she wishes Bobbin the best of luck.)

[ Ballot Box ]

BOTTLE COLLECTION NOTICE

ALERT TO ALL CITIZENS: down on Tawny Beach there have been sightings of bottled messages washing ashore that appear to be addressed to various offworld citizens. Please scan the beach or check in with Jack's Marina Port Authority to see if there are any intended for you at your earliest convenience.

[ Those who go to the beach to investigate may find a bottle carrying curled parchment with their name on it. Within, they will find a letter from a loved one from back home. The messages read more like prayers or thoughts about their subjects, often in third person rather than second, but contain important insight about how the writer truly views the recipient that may guide them in this world. They are also obviously written in the handwriting of the person who sent them. It's unclear how they got here, but perhaps they can help. ]

After Yorick has long since walked away, another strange message also appears. Nailed to the bottom of the board haphazardly, a piece of twine with a large tooth tied to it and a piece of parchment. The text is written in a neat but jagged font, ink seeming to almost fray at the edges, outlining agreed upon terms for some manner of agreement. A shot that must be discharged within a lunar cycle, a soul to be taken from this plane by King Eligos, and a mandatory betrayal of trust. It is signed by both Eligos and Vika. A line in the terms is underlined.

For whatever purpose I deem fit.

Beneath the signatures a note is scrawled that reads,

"Never let it be said that syntax doesn't matter. You didn't think I was going to help you kill my own grandchild, did you?"

Those going to Town Hall for the community gathering will see that the Pine Devil skull that Vika had hung there is now shattered, and her notice gone. The Pine Devil is loose once more.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Fact the second: the demons can come and go. They're not locked in here with us. And yet the devil has had to eat. To hunt. It's shown varying patterns of hostility seemingly directly linked to times of plenty versus those of want. Why would it do that?"

Oh, so they're really digging into this, are they? Tarantulas shrinks down small enough that he can pull the tails of his coat under his body like a blanket and settles down on the stairs next to Vika.

"It behaves like a predatory animal," he says musingly. "And it left a skeleton behind when you killed it. Perhaps it is the product of some dalliance between one of the princes and a creature of this part of a reality? A...what's the word they use? A tiefling?"

"I'm not discounting that some sapient goat lived here whose evil seduction game is off the charts...but reading about tieflings after talking to the holy mammal does suggest that's more likely. They have more than one form. It lives here, and that means it's literate."

"So your theory is that it's a shape-changer?" Tarantulas hums for a moment in thought. "Interesting. But how do you know? Perhaps it's lived isolated in the woods all its life. Or perhaps it may fear further reprisal if it reveals its other shape."

He looks at her with interest. "What are you hoping to get out of this, anyway?"

"...I committed a murder, Tarantulas."

Tarantulas sighs heavily, nearly slides right off the step from the way his weight settles. "And now you feel bad about it? You're really not selling the whole 'grr, I'm no hero' angle very well, you know?"

"Try looking at the bigger picture. You thought you were putting down a dangerous animal, right? Well, it is an animal -- all organics are. And it is dangerous. What difference does it make whether it's sapient or not?"

"The difference is I know damn well what it feels like to be killed and not die," Vika snarls, pointing her buster directly at Tarantulas. "Call me that again. I fucking dare you."

Tarantulas really likes this coat, so he doesn't call her that again. Neither does he point out that resorting to violence every time the conversation fails to go her way really undercuts her argument. Although, in fairness, threatening people with a gun isn't a terribly heroic action either.

"So you regret that you couldn't make it permanent? Do try not to say that too loudly, lest the wrong parties overhear." He can't smile like this, so he rubs his fangs with his pedipalps instead. "Or maybe you feel sorry for it now? I'm sure that's a great comfort to the people it killed."

"I think I resorted to violence before I knew it was necessary. I don't value life, you chittering tinkerer, but I do value a clean death, and I thought I was providing one. I fucked up. I did to it what was done to me and you know who didn't try another idea first? Me. I wronged it, and I owe it. Just like you wronged me, and you owe me. It's simple, try not to trip on your own assumptions walking to my conclusion."

"How exactly did I wrong you?" Tarantulas asks, affronted. "I didn't invite you to that disgusting party. I didn't force you to stay and fight, either. Why am I responsible for your decisions?"

"But you did attack me," Vika points out, tapping near the holes in her shell. "Nearly killed everyone there, in fact, so try again to pretend you've got nothing to do with your own actions."

Oh, hm. He actually got her pretty good, didn't he? Just a few more inches up and he'd have blown up the entire dinner party. There probably would be social fall-out for that, wouldn't there...

"Tsk, fine," he groan. "I owe you for personal damages, at least. And I suppose it's better than only I and Ryja died, instead of everyone in the room. Fine. Fine!" Grumpy spider grumps.

"I miss having hands," he grumbles to himself.

"Same." Vika flexes her one good hand. "My first...eleven? Eleven shells had separate weapons that would plug into my core. Too many exposed points of failure, though. Strictly internal components made for a better gun."

She's not bitter, you're bitter.

"A short-sighted design," Tarantulas says in disapproval. "Even if your creators hadn't figured out transforming limbs yet, they should have realized that forcing you into such a configuration would impede your ability to adapt to changing situations in real time. And I must assume they did want you adaptable, otherwise why make you sapient? Typical military science, always thinking of the best way to destroy things and never the bigger picture." He is absolutely bitter, you have no idea.

"Oh, that. My descendants and I cannibalize other advanced weapon platforms and internally generate a suitable weapon compatible with our busters."

Said casually, like she didn't just describe the holy grail of military technology.

Spiders can't squint, but damned if Tarantulas isn't doing it anyway.

"...And they also gave you and your descendants an adaptive cybersuite to fight off malware and malicious coding, so when your enemies start upgrading all of their equipment with the same, you won't get hacked the first time you cannibalize something new, right?"

They absolutely did not do that, he's already sure of it. Organics.

"No idea. I was the prototype for a prototype, Tarantulas. My descendants still aren't even the finished products; all of our battles were in controlled environments bought and paid for by our investors. Mock them about it if you like."

"I certainly would, if I thought it would do the least bit of good," Tarantulas says grumpily. One of his middle legs twitches, as if to pat Vika on the shoulder in commiseration before thinking better of it. "But I'm sure you've already said everything worth saying about them and then some. So this is why you have such an infamous chip on your shoulder about AI research, is it?"

"Among other things," Vika admits. "...Quite a few of my...opponents, were arguably also people. Fatally flawed and enticed into the simulations to be built and rebuilt. That damn penguin...it's the damn penguin that sticks out to me. Fully sapient. Capable of thinking and feeling. Had to be, his job used to be head manager of the climate control stations, in a better world I'd have to kill him to kill them all. But you know the thing? The fucking thing? You wanna hear the damn bitch of it? Instead of, I dunno, teaching him basic opsec, my idiot fathers wired an IFF into his brain and it turns out they built it wrong. Everything is identified foe. He's more omnicidal than I could ever be and the only reason he's not exterminating all life on Earth is that he's a guard dog."

"Oh for fuck's sakes," Tarantulas groans, pulling his coat down over his eyes. "How? How do you fuck up that badly? It's an IFF, it's only one of the simplest pieces of opsec technology imaginable! How could they be smart enough to write the code for an independent adaptable intelligence while also being so incompetently stupid?"

He peeks up at Vika, wondering, "Are you sure these people created you? Is there no evidence at all they might have outsourced your coding to someone smarter?"

Vika should answer the question, she really should, but the way this spider is dispensing sweet Vindication is just too alluring.

"This a good time to add that instead of building overrides or a kill command into my mind, they installed a separate self destruct system into all eight of us, didn't airgap it, and it got remotely deactivated by the fucking sapient Roomba they were also abusing?"

The coat goes back down, and this time Tarantulas stuffs some of it past his fangs and into his mouth. A high, wavering shriek, like a broken steam whistle, issues from the thick fur. His feet tap against the ground in an agitated spider-dance.

Finally the coat goes back up and he demands, "And then you killed them, right? You and your siblings slipped your leash and killed them? That is how this story ends, isn't it?"

"I got one of them and died three minutes later leading the charge to the second. How the fuck did you think I got here, walking?"

"Teleportation," he says dryly.

" -- I was shot in the back by my lover, after he realized I intended to side with my creation against him. Stupid on both our parts, honestly. Me for taking up with him in the first place, him for not realizing where my loyalties would inevitably fall. There was a reason I tried to keep him away from Springer and that Verity girl, after all."

His pedipalps twitch in a way that was probably intended to be a smirk. "I bled out on my own laboratory floor, but not before I got to watch Springer exile that fool to the temporal ends of the universe. Such an intelligent child, just as I meant him to be."

"Creation. Really starting to hate that word. You're a father."

Click-click-click-click-click-click-click...

"What does that mean, to you?"

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