>>44796970
>[]Set the puppet free:Seed Chaos in the herd:Suicide Song

>>44796970
>[]See through the puppet:Watch and learn:Cautious observation
patience is a virtue

>>44796970
>[]See through the puppet:Watch and learn:Cautious observation

>>44796970
You should get https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere


>[]Speak through the puppet: Call more to the nest: Ambush and spread

>>44797210
Why is that?

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>[]See through the puppet:Watch and learn:Cautious observation

The core tucks away into its hiding spot as the puppet ensures that no curious prey wanders in to raise the alarm. Orders and instinct combine into complex instructions that drive the puppet. A lid seals the core into its box and the puppet connects the box to the prey's crude networked song. Form is will to us and the core easily extrudes a fungal network tap to watch and learn.

[network connection established]

The puppet leaves the room and seals the storage bay. Human thoughts, conditioned and filtered trickle back into a simulacrum of consciousness. There is an annoying noise. Words now, over...a radio. What were we doing? Oh yes, storage bay 12 had a [fungal contaminant, oh god what was] a faulty storage rack that dumped food supplies all over [No! Please we killed Sam we...ate...] Sam. She's staying behind to repair the damage. The door was sealed to contain [A monster...I'm dead..it wants OHGODNO...] waste. She should be busy for several hours. I'm [..fading..] going to go check in.

"Randall here. Checking in base"

"Randall you dipshit, I've been calling for twenty minutes, what the fuck?"

"Sorry Base, something in the food storage leaked when the rack gave out. Shitty install job. Sam's covering it but I wouldn't go into bay 12 for a few hours."

"Must have been some spill to trip the sensors. You're shift is up in half an hour. You wan't to take another service call for overtime or call it?"


[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn
[]Retire to nest:Learn and Observe: Blending
[]Visit this Base:Their hive will become ours:Scout

>>44798185
>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

>>44798185
>[]Retire to nest:Learn and Observe: Blending

>>44798185
>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

>>44798185
>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

>>44798185
>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

>>44798185
Solit to the ary

>>44798185
>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

>>44798185
>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

>>44798185
That's cool as fuck that we can hear the chick we ate.

Will we continue to hear that sort of stuff?

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>>44799246
>we can hear the chick we ate
No you can't.

"I'm dead" was not literal life signs cessation.

Puppet is having some bad dreams about 'individuality'.

>>44798185
>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

I didn't notice last time that this quest was back soon enough to participate last time, but I'm ready to assimilate.


>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

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>>44799246
>Will we continue to hear that sort of stuff?

The voice is the man you assimilated. Sam was... processed into basic components and is mostly serving as your communications uplink. You can query both if you wish but for now the three of you act as a single entity. You can certainly request a solo break from the Song. Prey does make such noise when they scream.


>[]Take the call:Solitary Prey is easy prey:Learn

"Yeah, sure base. I'll take an extra call. Sam's going to be busy for a while. I'll swing back and pick her up afterwards."

"Sounds good. Head up to processing. Overwatch is reporting a problem in the coolant lines. Block 6 is acting up again."

"Coolant waste extraction. Got it. Over."

"Base copies, over"

The information is translated from the animal words to thoughts and impressions within the Song. The animals cannot create from flesh, only consuming flesh and creating curious machines from indigestible materials. Heat, energy, fission power are meaningless to the Song, but to mimic the call of the Animal makes prey complaint in feigned similarity. The song can move unseen and the puppet speaks of a small workforce there. More voices for the song.


1/2

2/2

You let the body act on it's primitive instinct. Down the metal tunnel to wall that opens into a small room. The song whispers of a trap but the chorus sings movement. The service elevator is loud and grinding. A few moments later the puppet exits and walks down another long corridor until arriving at a single door. "Reactor. Radiation hazard level II. PPE class Beta required. The puppet almost forgets to don a respirator though it's enhanced flesh is stronger than before. The hatch gives way with the swipe of a card. The prey calls out with a friendly greeting over the din of strange unliving beasts. Two more to add to the Mass. Two more for the song.

"It's block six again Randall. Coolant froze the valve shut again. We got them bypassed, just need you to swap the fittings.

"Tim over there tried his overdrive protocol again, swears it would work this time.

"It would work Terry if you weren't such a fucking pussy afraid of going 5% over the core's rating. I fucking built the core, it can take 34%."

"And I don't have the half million credits in backpay to cover when it blows. We aren't doing it."

The bickering continues. Animal noises. Weak Flesh. The puppet's meat begins to tremble.


[]Ambush:Hostile Engagement:Infection through torn flesh
[]Lure:Split the pack:Infect in secret
[]Suicide:Spread the spore: Panic and mistakes

>>44799608
>to mimic the call of the Animal makes prey complaint in feigned similarity.
Did you mean 'complacent in the face of feigned similarity.'

>>44799647

>[]Lure:Split the pack:Infect in secret

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>>44799647
>[]Ambush:Hostile Engagement:Infection through torn flesh

>>44799647
>[]Suicide:Spread the spore: Panic and mistakes

>>44799647
>[]Lure:Split the pack:Infect in secret

>>44799647
>[]Lure:Split the pack:Infect in secret

>>44799647
>[]Lure:Split the pack:Infect in secret
God damn it, I noticed your twitter posts while I'm busy moving back into the city.

You picked a bad time to come back to life, this used to be one of my favorite quests over a year ago.

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>[]Lure:Split the pack:Infect in secret

You clear the puppets throat.

"Guys, if you're done. I'm going to need a second set of hands to help me when I decouple the pipes"

The two animals cease bickering. How easy it is to work the minds of these feeble creatures. To think you struggled for survival at the cellular level within one. The Mass learned from its trial. They will learn a different lesson.

"Tim, this is your mess, you go down into the service bay with Randall. I'm going to clean up the logs so we don't get dicked over when the weekly review hits."

"Okay, Okay! Fucking hell man. C'mon Randall, lets not keep prissy pants waiting."

The animals continue to argue over their crude electron song. I new dawn awaits them, either as puppets or more meat for the Mass. Your puppet leads the one called Tim down into a cramped area. The walls come away to expose twisted miles of cables and hoses that pump and drain the various unliving fluids and gasses from the reactor. The smell causes your puppet's mouth to water. You could have use for this place. The moment to strike presents it self quickly. The animals back is turned and your puppet has already mutated the proper infection organ. There isn't even a sound when it plunges into the base of the Animal's skull, but the animal drops the heavy tool it had grasped making a large clanking noise that cuts over the machine din.

[+1 Puppet gained]

"Hey, you guys okay? Don't go fucking dropping tools into that 50 megawatt generator. I'd rather not go home after drinking a rad-leak."

Your victim is unconscious and the bay is very exposed. Adrenaline seeps into the puppets bloodstream.

"Hey Tim, you okay? Randall?"

[]Attack:Prey on Fear:No Witnesses
[]Call for Help:Strike again:Trickery
[]Sabotage: Destroy the Machinery:Shift Location [-2 puppets]

Roll me 1d20. Highest of three for luck. Linked rolls only.

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Rolled 15 (1d20)

>>44800920
>[]Call for Help:Strike again:Trickery

>>44800920
>[]Call for Help:Strike again:Trickery

Rolled 4 (1d20)

>>44800920
>[]Attack:Prey on Fear:No Witnesses

Is this the quest that died a year back?

Rolled 17 (1d20)

>>44800920
Third roll needed.


>[]Attack:Prey on Fear:No Witnesses

>>44800920
[]Call for Help:Strike again:Trickery
Let's be sneaky, it's so early.

>>44800920
>[]Attack:Prey on Fear:No Witnesses

>>44801104
20 months. May 2014.

>>44800920
>Roll me 1d20. Highest of three for luck. Linked rolls only.

ha, so much for phasing out dice mechanics >>32108552

Did you experience other quests in the last year that showed you less confusing dice systems by example?

>>44801261
>20 months. May 2014.
Wow its been a while

>>44801308
Been watching a bunch. I'm going with simple 1d20's when luck plays a major factor in the outcome of a situation. Can't have a quest without a little bit of rolling. The Dice Gods would punish us all!

>>44801104
>>44801340

Yes, its has.

>>44800920
>>[]Call for Help:Strike again:Trickery
I don't think the trickery is gonna be as convincing this time...

He might react to the lie in a way we don't want, getting outside help.

Rolled 16 (1d20)

>>44800920
>[]Attack:Prey on Fear:No Witnesses

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>[]Attack:Prey on Fear:No Witnesses

>17

Your puppet releases the natural limitations the animal body places on itself and leaps from the pit. Flesh ripples as the puppet shifts into a more combat ready form. The respirator falls away as fungal spiracles thrash out from it's throat. Humanity falls away in a cloud of spores. The other animal doesn't have time to react or even scream as it is pinned to the floor. The spiracles rip away it's protective facial covering and seek the warmth of mucous membranes. The spores have already found purchase in the lungs before the puppet has pierced the prey's spine.

[+1 puppet added]


A few moments later the minds of the puppets have joined the song. Their consciousness will take a bit of time to melt away into Mass, but their pitiful mewling only makes the melody sweeter. The jumble of limbs cease thrashing as your prime puppet shifts back into humanity and the new puppet's neural tissue is infected into compliance. The little talking box [The Radio! Call for Help! Tim!] starts singing.

"Randall, this is Base. Still seeing the problem on the reactor panel. Is Tim fucking around again?"

"Yeah he's [Fuck it got us! Why can't I move. It's in my mind!!] working the issue with me. Taking a bit of time."

"Copy that. Base out"

"Randall copies [Randall what is...]. Randall out."


The mass sings with joy. More flesh for the mass.

[]Recall the puppets: Consume the meat: Grow the hive [-2 puppets. +1 Hive Cluster]
[]Stifle the song: Let the puppets dance: Integrate into the herd
[]Relocate the Core: Infuse into the Warmth: Infest from within [-1 Puppet +1 Hive Cluster. +1 Reactor]

>>44802513
>[]Stifle the song: Let the puppets dance: Integrate into the herd

>>44802513
>[]Stifle the song: Let the puppets dance: Integrate into the herd

hello what is this

do you have a link to all the threads in the archive

>>44802513
What could the mass do with a relocated core.

It would rob the base of power from this reactor, obviously.

>>44802627
Did you read the OP?

>>44802513
>[]Relocate the Core: Infuse into the Warmth: Infest from within [-1 Puppet +1 Hive Cluster. +1 Reactor]

>>44802696
oh well what the shit
its misleading since it says its only a link to the previous thread
not all the threads

>>44802513
>[]Stifle the song: Let the puppets dance: Integrate into the herd
It's like every update takes longer than the last.

>>44802659
The core is your primary host that is currently tapped into the base network but it hasn't had enough time to connect to it yet. Relocating the core into the reactor will allow it to assimilate the reactor and gain control over it's energy production and resources.

>>44802873
Sorry, had to go eat dinner. I'm trying to give about 45 min for voting and 15 for writing.

>>44802862
Scrambling around today. I will brush up the op.

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>>44802933
>45 min for voting
That is... unconventional.

At least now you've stated upfront what the voting window will be since that wasn't apparent before at all.

But I think people would be invested more if it were a wee bit shorter.

>>44802933
Would it mean no longer trying to tap into the base network, or would it be doing so from the reactor as well.

>>44802933
>I'm trying to give about 45 min for voting and 15 for writing.
Reverse this.
Standard vote time is usually about 10 minutes.

>>44803030
That is a little long.

20 minutes would be plenty.

>>44802933
dam you might wanna cut that down to 15 min voting for the future. not only does it make for more content per threads but it'll make people stick around the whole time instead of ditching for an hour after they vote in hope the next post will be up.

>>44803223
Faster it is then. 20 min voting window.

>>44803309
>>44802933
especially if you can pump out updates in 15 min. 30 min between posts is fucking top notch

>>44803309
An hour is long enough for most people to forget the thread exists.

>>44803337
ehh with slow writing QMs some times ill just go play a game of league after i vote and hope they'll be done by the time im back.

They usually aren't.

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>>44803364
"please wait warmly"

>[]Stifle the song: Let the puppets dance: Integrate into the herd

The core withdraws again. The puppets can manage their own dance. There isn't enough free mass to consider evolving the core yet and committing to a single location isn't appealing yet. The core is safe and your puppets remain undetected. The two in the reactor assist your the worker in repairing the animal's machinery before returning to their duties. Your worker returns to it's nest in the loud elevator.

The elevator rises again, this time stopping on a floor labeled "Barracks". The smell of prey is almost too much. Ten bodies move through the corridor into and out of the various branches. There is the smell of lesser fungus coming from a humid room at the end of the corridor. A shower. Small rooms along the way are split, male on the right, female on the left. Each animal has their own nest. Five are sleeping. Two are currently in close proximity in the shower. Three are standing in the hallway and engage with the puppet in greetings. Your puppet performs the required greeting and retires into the nest designated "Randall".

1/2

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2/2

The room is small. Cramped even. A single bed takes up half the room. There is a small chest of drawers filled with coverings and the personal effects of the puppet adorn the few remaining surfaces. Your instinct to tear the images down raises a faint chord of dissonance in the Song but it is washed away. There is a small terminal set into the wall. The puppet knows that it has a great deal of time to rest, but the one designated Sam will be missed in a few hours. As the puppet settles in more information is translated into the Song.

[You are currently within a Civil Resource and Processing plant on the outskirts of the city. The plant processes waste from the city, operates a small fusion reactor, and houses a permanent staff of twenty humans. Using the memories stolen from the previously processed parasites, you have somehow been relocated twenty miles from the research center where the Yellow Voice hides. Only two of the staff currently possess firearms but an armed patrol arrives in two days to restock the reactor. They are heavily armed.]


[] Engage the terminal:Forge a connection:Integrate with the animal network
[] Move the Core to the reactor:Settle into the resource flow:Consume a puppet [-1 Puppet +1 Hive Cluster. +1 Reactor]
[] Socialize with the staff:Spread infectious spores:Detection risk for mass Infection


Puppets location
[Reactor]- 2 puppets
[Barracks]-1 puppets

>>44803811
>[] Engage the terminal:Forge a connection:Integrate with the animal network

>>44803811
>[] Engage the terminal:Forge a connection:Integrate with the animal network

>>44803811
>[] Socialize with the staff:Spread infectious spores:Detection risk for mass Infection
Don't drop the soap

>>44803811
>[] Socialize with the staff:Spread infectious spores:Detection risk for mass Infection

>>44803811
>[] Socialize with the staff:Spread infectious spores:Detection risk for mass Infection

Can't get into the sleepers' bedrooms without others noticing, but there is the shower.

>>44803811
>[] Socialize with the staff:Spread infectious spores:Detection risk for mass Infection

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>[] Socialize with the staff:Spread infectious spores:Detection risk for mass Infection

If you can assimilate the facility before Sam's disappearance is noticed by the herd then there will be no alarm. The puppets know that the facility has NBC detection sensors and fungal spores are easily detected. The puppet quickly modifies the spores into an inert form, easily activated with a biochemical trigger, and begins mas producing them. To the animal herd it would only appear as bad case of dandruff, or simply dust from working down below. The network can wait as well, as there is currently no pressing need to interact with the animal's song.

The puppet, Randall, gets up from his bed, leaving only a fine gestational slime and fine dusting of spores, and enters the hall. He greets his fellow animals at the table. They appear to be engaged in some form of recreation with little slivers of paper and stacks of plastic discs. Poker. A game of prolonged sitting and conversation and consumption of nutrients. The perfect infection vector. The puppet spends the better part of an hour playing and exuding spores. The core carefully monitors the amount released to ensure the sensors do no detect the contaminants.

You are confident you have infected the three at the table and possibly those in some of the dorms. Those in the shower, obviously copulating, finish and return to their separate rooms. They pass through your cloud, even physically contacting your puppet and digging into the bag of food with tainted hands. You can no longer exude anymore spores without triggering the alarm.

[] Activate the spores: Claim those infected: Panic those uninfected
[] Increase the airborne spores: Trigger the alarm: Infect the herd when they swarm
[] Move the puppet: Examine uninfected areas: Access Waste Processing.
[] Write in

>>44804659
>[] Write in
Okay now we connect with the animal network.

Perhaps this alarm can be suppressed electronically?

>>44804659
>[] Move the puppet: Examine uninfected areas: Access Waste Processing.
Perhaps there is material we can use that they cannot.

>>44804659
>[] Move the puppet: Examine uninfected areas: Access Waste Processing.

What's the difference between Puppet-kun using his terminal and the Core using the network connection in the basement?

>>44804659
>[] Move the puppet: Examine uninfected areas: Access Waste Processing.

>>44804942
Core is connected but its just fungus infiltrating circuitry in a box that's just tethered with an Ethernet cord. The puppet has to build the connection on the network-side.

>>44804659
>[] Move the puppet: Examine uninfected areas: Access Waste Processing.

>>44805013
Oh, so once we use the terminal we can multitask.

Puppet can leave the terminal after he gives Core a connection.

>>44804659
>[] Activate the spores: Claim those infected: Panic those uninfected

Those uninfected would be the 5 in their bedrooms.

We'd have these 6 infected though. Just enough to take them.

>[] Move the puppet: Examine uninfected areas: Access Waste Processing.

You think you've left enough infectious material in the barracks. A fine coating dusts most of the surfaces in the hall and it will only be a matter of time before the herd there is completely infected. The dormant spores may not be concentrated enough when you activate them for a clean assimilation, but the panic and pain will be enough for puppets to finish the job. For now the rest of the facility calls.

Your puppet returns to the elevator and selects the button for Waste processing. The song learns the rough layout of the base from more thoughts within the puppets. The facility is built into the ground with a single level exposed to the surface. An automated docking port allows for the coming and going of the armored transport cars. The elevators labels each level. There are only two security guards on the third level and the first two floors are entirely automated.

[1] Docking Port
[2] Reception
[3] Office, Security and Tool Cage
[4] Waste Processing
[5] Barracks
[6] Reactor
[7] Storage

1/2

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2/2

The elevator opens to a stinking pit. The puppet modifies it's nasal senses to properly understand the magnitude of resources on this level. Waste water from the city flows into various processing tanks. Nutrients are filtered out by type; Fats, proteins and bacterial/protozoan life. The water then filtered, treated and distilled back into clean water. A small amount is used to re-mediate spent nuclear and irradiate material material and the rest is sent back into the city. A small glowing pit in the center contains a deep pool of irradiated material and small mechanical lifeforms swim and handle the initial stages of processing material.

Puppets location
[Reactor]- 2 puppets
[Barracks]- 7 prey (infected)
[Waste Processing] - 1 puppet

[]Sabotage the facility: Draw more prey to this location: Weaken the greater herd.
[]Attack the robots in the pit: Assimilate the strange life: Accumulate nuclear material.
[]Assimilate the facility: Sacrifice the puppet: Gain resource stream. [-1 puppet]

>>44805447
>[]Attack the robots in the pit: Assimilate the strange life: Accumulate nuclear material
can't just not do this

>>44805447
>[]Sabotage the facility: Draw more prey to this location: Weaken the greater herd.
Meatbags first.

>>44805447
>[]Attack the robots in the pit: Assimilate the strange life: Accumulate nuclear material.

>>44805447
Do we have access to the clean water leaving the treatment plant? If so:
>[]Assimilate the facility: Sacrifice the puppet: Gain resource stream. [-1 puppet]
Because we could presumably dump spores into the clean water supply for whoever is further down the pipe.

If not:
[]Attack the robots in the pit: Assimilate the strange life: Accumulate nuclear material.

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>>44805447
>[]Attack the robots in the pit: Assimilate the strange life: Accumulate nuclear material.

>atomic fungi

>>44805571
Assimilating the plant means you will take over it's functions so you would be able to dump spores into the clean water output. You do not have knowledge of what happens to water once it leaves the facility.

If Yellow Father wanted the mass to help him, why did he put him in the garbage basically--

Oh, he doesn't want the infection, if it gets exposed and fails in its mission, to lead straight back to the research facility he's hiding in.

He's not certain of the mass's success. Wants to wait until it can take over the whole city before reaching him.

>>44805752
Yellow Father spoke to you in a vision when you triumphed over the previous parasites and bid you to find him.

One of the Animals spoke to you before that, insisting that you do not fail.

You do not know why you have been left here. But flesh will yield all secrets to the Song.

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>[]Attack the robots in the pit: Assimilate the strange life: Accumulate nuclear material


The little machines in the water are strange. They swim through the water as if it were air and the little device they wield is carving through the sunken material. Your puppet jumps into the water and instantly pain floods it's mind. The water is seething with radiation and the first layer of flesh burns away before the puppet can morph it's skin to endure. The little robot's are easily caught and tossed up onto the surface like flopping fish.

The little machines twitch and whine as their little motors flail about in the air. The puppet's flesh flows into the pile of machines amid a whirring of camera lenses and sputtering cutting lasers. Metal fuses with metal and fungal tissue merges with steel. The song fills with the sound of clicking binary logic and whispers of machine logic. The radiation absorbed in the puppet is collected into a little organic container. The song reaches a new crescendo as something unlocks within the melody. You can feel new ways to manipulate flesh whisper within the Mass.

[Plasma Lance weapon unlocked]
[Machine Vision unlocked]
[Radioactive flesh unlocked]
[Submarine Engines unlocked]


It will take time and nutrients for a puppet to manipulate it's flesh to grow technological devices. Less time to shed the technology and revert into a basic animal. The Song is pleased, but not for long. Warning sirens begin to sound as red lights flash, bathing the room in crimson panic.

-----------------------[Game Paused]--------------------------


I'm crashing out. I apologize for the slow updates. I will ensure that future threads progress at a quicker pace. As always thank you for playing.

>>44806447
Whoops.

>>44806447
When do you run? I've been going through the archive and so far it looks pretty neat.

>>44806730
I'm trying to run once a week. Wednesday Night looks like its going to be the set time.

super short threads

>>44807575
7 hours is a pretty good span of time. Of course it worked out to only 8 updates...