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Day 61 - 75: King of the Jungle
The day begins with the sound of pounding on doors. The prisoner has gone berserk from cabin fever and is attempting to smash his way out. Specter rushes in to stop him, and eventually subdues the unruly escapee by stabbing him through the hand.
Not long later, WolfsGhost and Hokan get over their malaria, but are almost immediately stricken with sensory mechanites. The colony is becoming increasingly suspicious of Hokan's position as the resident Typhoid Mary.
Almost as soon as he's well enough to stand, the prisoner goes berserk again. Specter catches him breaking down the door to the utility room and attempts to get the situation under control.
Unfortunately, Specter is punched out cold, and it falls to Lythrilux as the only other nearby colonist to sort things out. She successfully smashes the prisoner to the floor with the butt of her shotgun, and drags him back to jail.
The shuttle eventually arrives to evacuate Hokan. She bids her fairwells, drops off ONIKS' old rifle and departs for bigger and better things. As thanks, her handlers drop off some cash and the data schematics for brainwiring, which could prove handy for the future.
With the last of our capable ranged fighters gone, and Spectre bedridden from his brawling injuries, our defences are looking precarious. Lythrilux says she has an idea, and disappears off into the wilderness. She vanishes for the daylight hours for the rest of that week.
WolfsGhost also attempts to improve the situation by blocking off some of the mountain passes with steel walls. This will force attackers through a much longer path, buying the community time to prepare defences. WolfsGhost swears during this time that he saw Lythrilux off in the distance bullying a monkey.
With Lythrilux away attending to a 'special project', hygiene in the community falls into disarray, with dirt and blood being walked all over the place. This leads to huge amounts of food poisoning due to the kitchen being a mess, adding vomit back into the mix too.
There are a number of small raids after this, culminating in a large attack from the Henoueron. The raiders pile into the trapped corridor, with one being killed and another severely injured and left unconscious. The survivors swap fire with the colonists, until a further raider is killed and their nerve breaks. As the marauders retreat, Ramke drags the survivors back to the base and dumps her into ONIKS' old room with the tribal.
Meanwhile, Lythrilux is in a horrible mood due to painful stomach cramps from a massive case of food poisoning. Something in her brain snaps and she develops a corpse obsession. Marching out into the Courtyard, she seizes a crowbar, cracks open ONIKS' sarcophagus, exhumes her and finally dumps her mouldering bones onto the grand hall's dining table.
The other colonists are understandably distressed by both this unconventional table setting, and Lythrilux's incoherent shrieking. Specter finishes his dinner before laying ONIKS to rest again. Presumably he volunteered to ensure he had to spend the least possible length of time looking at his ex wife.
After that, the colonists have a chat about what's causing the food poisoning and Spectre concedes that it probably isn't a good idea to butcher wild animals (getting offal everywhere) right next to the cooking station. The others give him a hand with hauling the butchering station into the fridge.
The two prisoners are starting to get pretty ancy about having to share ONIKS' old bed. Before long the Iasso prisoner goes berserk again and starts a fight with the Henoueronian. Simultaneously, there's another raid which ends in much the same way as the last. Yet another Henoueron prisoner is dragged in, as WolfsGhost and Ramke gang up on the Iasso to punch him into submission.
It's eventually decided that everyone should have their own bed in opposite corners of the room.
Finally, a strange transmission arrives. A refugee asks to join the colony, as he is hiding from a newly awakened AI persona core. That sounds slightly more serious than ducks, but the colonists reluctantly agree - @"Auzari" joins the community.
Thank god we have a miner again.
With new concerns about what a hostile AI could spell for the colony's future, Lythrilux unveils what she has been working on: Project MONKEY MASH. She rings a bell and 8 tamed monkeys charge into the Courtyard. Soon these will be fully combat trained, and ready to tear our enemies limb from faeces-smeared limb.