That's what those bitches get for sieging us.

I would never leave a man behind. But my refusal to fight may prove to be a serious issue. Is there any way to get me medical training and/or ranged weapon training? It sucks feeling so useless when it comes to defense.

Azure's latest statue. It's titled Suffering. :p



And unfortunately I can't do anything about that. Sorry my maaaan



"Wait... is that the entire landscape going up in flames?" Max asked, mortified.

"Yup. Some lightning struck and it just spread from there. Occurs naturally, you know." Error replied. He sounded bored.

"Should we be worried about this?" She tugged her collar, glancing back to the roaring flames every few seconds.

"Nah. While you were cooking, me and the boys cut all the vegetation 50 feet around the front gate. The fire will go around us."

"Okay..." She glanced back again, shuddering. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about it, Max." Error gave her a smile. "Azure just brewed a new harvest of beer. Pour yourself one and wait for this to blow over. We'll be fine."

Unsure, the girl slowly backed away as the whole countryside went up in flames.



Azure's art is wonderful. But the title is worrying....



Hooray, it looks like Zero and Veir are getting married :o

Strangely, Error is nowhere to be found...

Uh... slightly uncomfortable with my character's apparent fascination with Error, and refusal to make an Aquila statue.

Looks like Dakota Freedom is back on his feet! The man, the legend.

Talk about needing statues made.

Dude, that cyrosleep prison concept is disturbing.

Oy oy. Why does it feel like Azure has serial killer like tendencies all of a sudden?

We need flak armor for the next time we get in a fight against people with bombs. We should create different sets of armor and prepare ourselves for all situations. Good thing i'm not backing down, I have a job to do and I do that job hella well.

Quote from ErrorBlender

Oy oy. Why does it feel like Azure has serial killer like tendencies all of a sudden?

I'll take one killer that comes back for me over nothing.

Many weeks passed uneventfully. A heatwave broiled over in the middle of summer, and cooling units were made. A small pack of zombies attacked, and they were mowed down without issue.

Dakota still asked out Max occasionally, wondering when she would be ready, but for now she continued to decline.

Summer slowly began to turn to fall.

And then one day, something horrible screamed down from the sky. The people could feel something churning in the back of their minds as the thing fell closer, and it conveniently landed directly on top of two animals. Reducing them to smouldering, charred lumps of flesh.



Some kind of large warship must have exploded in orbit. Inside of this massive chunk of spaceship lived a superintelligent A.I, designed to be malicious and evil, hating all human life with insatiable fury. And somehow it bore weak psychic powers, and it spent every moment of its furious existence yelling obscenities in the minds of our survivors.

"Fuck that thing. Seriously." Max swore uncharacteristically. "We need an A.I core and more parts for the ship. Let's dismantle that piece of filth piece by piece."

"You got me with you." Dakota joined in. Followed by Savannah, Ghombeat, and the whole crew. Soon they were mobilized and out with a vengeance.



Being the fastest runner, Dakota reached the thing first and immediately began to bang at the burnt, cracked hull with his club. The A.I inside immediately began to scream louder, in both malice and fear.

"Fucking meatbag, what do you think you're doing? I am a god! You will never harm me."

"Just wait and see!" He yelled back, banging furiously.

And then two massive, horrifying figures appeared from thin air. Slimy, squelching centipedes larger than a truck plopped onto the ground, making clicking noises with its endless rows of hook-shaped teeth, covered beneath the thing's faceless head.

And they were armed with miniguns.



"Jesus christ, what the fuck?!" Dakota quickly dove into cover, waiting for his allies to show up. "How?"

"Hahaha! They are illusions. Holograms, but entirely capable of interacting with this world. They will appear to kill you, and your feeble brain will die as it complies with my reality."

But then a sizzling bolt of plasma tore into one slug's side, dealing real, physical damage.

"Looks like they listen to everyone's rules. Not just yours!" Veir crowed. "Savannah, now!"



Whirling out of cover, Savannah tossed a grenade and quickly dashed back to safety as twin volleys of minigun fire tore the ground where she just stood.

As they waited for Savannah to exit cover, Veir planted bolt after bolt into the slug's flanks. Then finally, one of them roared and whipped back around.

Its minigun transformed into a multi-barrelled rocket launcher.



They entered a frantic dance in and out of cover. Horrible volleys of rockets and miniguns tore apart the ground, with everyone working in unision to keep them unable to harm anyone. But every exhange came closer and closer to their enemy finding their mark.



While Ghombeat kept them distracted, Veir managed to run across and flank them through another side. Error took a few bullets from the weak calibre of the minigun, and so did Savannah. The AI continued to scream in their heads as they fought. The slugs would simply not die after many pulse rifle rounds and grenades, but they couldn't be invincible, could they?



It seemed that the slugs could not turn their guns around their unwieldy bodies to shoot back at Veir, and every time they turned around to try, Error and Ghombeat would step out and lay into them with yet another salvo of lead.

They eventually were brought down from sheer physical damage to their bodies. Still alive, but now harmless.

Like a well-oiled machine, the AI's holdings were dismantled. Max and Dakota finished the awful slugs off, and the AI's persona core was carried away.

"What do you think you're doing with me, you fucking swine? Put me down!" It screamed, outraged.

"We're gonna put you in our ship." Error smiled down at it. "I know exactly how you work. You're going to be reprogrammed until you love humans. You'll love humans so much that you're going to take care of us for months as we fly out of here. You're going to be willing to lay down your life to protect ours."

"No. You can't do that." It cried, aghast. "You can't do that to me! Noooo!!"

But they could. And they would.

Oh no :( Error's gunshot wounds got infected. He's in pretty bad shape right now, and all I can do is wait and hope he recovers before the infection kills him...



Phew... I think he's fine.





Aaah, all in a day's hard work.



"Uh, Azure?" Error cautioned. "Are you sure you know how to build a cryosleep casket?"

"Eh, it can't be much more complicated than a freezer. And I know freezers." He shrugged.



Oh man... Anyone else remember the thrumbo and how dangerous + valuable it was? Now there's two of them.

I want to try and take them but I really don't want anyone to die when we're so close to finishing.



Fuck it, we'll do it live!

The mortars didn't really do anything but... long story short, we got one down.



Aaand that's two. So much money...

Ah, unicorn murder. Feels good, man.

Things are looking pretty good for you guys so far

Savannah wiped sweat from her brows, putting the welder away. Under the guidance of Errorblender, they had made something truly incredible. After killing the two Thrumbos, they had made enough cash to buy some more plasteel. A lot of plasteel. That allowed them to make...this thing.

"Well. How close are we to getting out of here now? Ninety percent of the way?" She grinned.

"If not more than that. This antimatter reactor is expensive. Insanely expensive. This was easily the biggest hurdle we had to leap."

"And we just did it." She stepped back, admiring her handiwork with pride. "Now all we need are cryosleep chambers for everyone and we'll be good, right?



"Wait... this thing surely can't fly. It's not balanced at all. It doesn't have a hull and its only engines propel forwards. How on Earth are we going to fly this thing out of here?" Max asked, incredulous.

"Don't worry about it!" Dakota winked. "I doubt this game even has a physics engine. We'll be fine."

"Uh, what?"

A few more days later...

While out mining for steel, Veir came under attack by two insane ostriches. He was totally alone, and they're much faster than him. Oh man...



Max is running out to help as fast as she can, but everyone is so far away.

She was the first one through the entryway, barelling straight into danger as fast as she could run. The swordfighter's weapon went out in a running lunge, impaling the first ostrich straight through the body. It should have felled the thing immediately...

But these ostriches were insane. Writhing, the crazed animal ignored the fatal wound and clamped its beak over Max's shoulder, biting down hard and shaking viciously. The second one ignored her and tore into Veir as he run, taking out his legs. Without mercy, it began to peck into his back like some kind of living drill.

"VEIR!" Zero cried, barelling through the outer walls. She trained her weapon and popped a few shots into the ostrich's flank, causing it to screech and begin running straight towards her instead.

And then two more of the horrid things showed up.

Mercifully ignoring Veir, the birds attacked any human they saw with ferocity. Max managed to yank her sword from the ostrich's body, whipping it around and neatly decapitating the thing even as it clamped down on her.

Error came through next, trailing shots behind Zero, neatly killing one of the birds with a lucky headshot.

BOOM!

And then a grenade exploded between the two last birds.

Savannah didn't seem to care that Zero was within that space as well.

Her eyes were wild with glee. Adrenaline overwhelmed every sense of reason as life or death battled for dominance before her eyes. To her, her grenades were pieces of beauty, deconstructing life with unstoppable power. To create an explosion was to become a god, reverting the molecules and atoms of living things to the state which they were before they were forged in the stars.

And with the enemy gone, only then did she realize that she had just killed Zero as well.



"Oh no..." She gasped. Dawning realization of what she had done began to creep down her spine. The horrified faces of her friends stared at her in shock. The dead body of Zero was a crumpled mess, surrounded by two other still-twitching ostriches.

"No!" She yelled, futile as it was. "That's not what was supposed to happen! I was trying to save her! I didn't mean to!"

"Savannah..." Max heaved, holding a hand to her wounded shoulder. Bloodied sword in the other. "You absolute idiot." She spat at her, turning around without another word to rescue the still-living Veir.

Error looked at her coldly, calculating. Were those eyes deciding if she was worth building a cryopod for? She wanted to beg for forgiveness, but then he was gone as well.

A moment later, Max shoved past her roughly with Veir slung over her shoulder. Everyone was gone for now, tending to the wounded.

It was just her, alone with Zeroes corpse. And the weight of what she had done.



Zero's sarcophagus.

Pfft, fucking ostriches, man.

WHAT A GODDAMM TWIST, JESUS.