Rolled 24 (1d30)

As suddenly as your trip came, it's gone. You feel the cold dancefloor beneath you and hear the quiet thump of a single unbroken speaker. These sensations pull you out of your trip and ground you back in reality. You lift your body off of the ground and glance around you. Almost without exception, everyone from before has collapsed. The only people still standing are that three-tiered afro dude from before and several new arrivals, who all give off a similar feeling to him.

"So the energy from the superweapon finally dispersed. I'm not sure how you survived eating that thing, but I'm taking you in. Disco Mafia business should stay behind closed doors- if you bring it out in public like that you're just a scumbag." You're still not completely sure what this guy is talking about, but the drugs are mostly out of your system so you're understanding more of it than before. The man steps towards you, as if to grab you, but then pauses with a confused expression on his face, like he can't believed what he's seeing. "You're... the Disco Child?! That's impossible- how could some poser that can't dance for shit take the spot I've been competing for for decades?!" Disco Child, Disco Child... you vaguely recall the giant disco planet thing from your trip calling you that. So that was real. Which implies that the fourth dimension is real, the years and years you spent immersed in the 'groove' was real, the 'Servant of Lucifer' Count Arby is real, and worst of all, that the genocidal madness of King is all real. Fuck, you felt way better imagining that it was all part of some drug-fueled haze, even if you had your suspicions. Losing the plausible deniability is rough.

The man from before is still staring at you in horror, while his cohorts all size you up. Not particularly concerned with their opinions on you, you try to figure out what the situation is like. "How long was I out? Anybody hurt?" One of the one men behind the three-tiered afro guy responds. He seems wary, but unlike most of their group doesn't actually seem pissed at you. "You've been out about half an hour. There are some minor wounds, but nothing a trip to the doctor's shouldn't fix." At this point the man starts trying to question you over the situation, but three-tiered afrodude explodes in rage and interrupts him.

"We don't chat with terrorists, Disco Child or not. I'll serve your ass, take away your rank, and then show you how the Disco Mafia handles justice! Get ready- you can't take my goal from me and live!" This guy seems angrier that you accidentally took his dream job than he is about you accidentally setting off some type of super weapon in a room full of innocent people, but whatever. His motivations aren't important. What's important is that he challenged you to dance. You can't back down from that.
>1d30 + 100 vs. 40. Automatic success

>>4457391
You definitely didn't know how to dance before, but now, after all that time spent in that groovy purgatory trying to get down from the weird high you got off the weapon it'd be impossible for you not to know a few moves. That combined with your sudden encounter with what you can only describe as some sort of Lovecraftian disco deity have left you unable to be served. A single move of yours crushes this man's fragile psyche, and within moments he realizes that he has no place left on the dancefloor. Defeated and broken the man slinks away, afro deflated, and starts wondering why he started dancing in the first place if he could be surpassed so easily.

With that dude's defeat and ensuing existential crisis, the rest of the men don't seem to have any intention of arresting you. In fact, they seem to be in awe of you. Around the time they start surrounding you, introducing themselves, and giving you their communicator IDs "just in case you ever need anything", you see another group of people enter, probably also a part of the Disco Mafia. Surprisingly enough, you actually recognize one of the new arrivals- it's that cool old dude from the photo you found in your hotel room.

You want to talk to the dude and figure out what you could've possibly done with him while you were high, but at the same time all the guys surrounding you are talking about "heading back to base and paying respects", whatever the hell that means. As you try to decide which group to give your time to, you hear your communicator beep. You just now realize that you haven't checked it in a while- you wonder if you missed anything important.

On your communicator are over a dozen increasingly annoyed messages from the turtle. The earliest one is just "Where are you?", while the later ones show that your disappearance has managed to make the extremely peaceful and stoned creature somewhat angry. Now he demands to know "Where the fuck you are", as the Grateful Dead concert isn't waiting for him and he needs to know if you're getting your own ride or if he needs to drive you back. Apparently if you don't respond within 10 minutes he's just leaving, as he reached the end of his patience about a day ago.
>1. Message the turtle back and figure out where to meet up. This all seems important but you have no idea how far from home you are and how you're going to get back without his weird trauma wormhole.
>2. Head with these Disco Mafia dudes and figure out what they mean by paying respects. Maybe while you're at it you could even recruit some of them- what with Santa and the walrus you already have enough employees, but these people are falling over themselves trying to brown-nose you. If you can get more free delivery drivers you may as well.
>3. Ignore these fools and head over to the cool old dude. You already have their numbers and you've been dying to figure out why this guy seems so important ever since you figured out he exists and that you interacted with him.
>Write-in

>>4457400
>>3. Ignore these fools and head over to the cool old dude. You already have their numbers and you've been dying to figure out why this guy seems so important ever since you figured out he exists and that you interacted with him.

>>4457400
>3. Ignore these fools and head over to the cool old dude. You already have their numbers and you've been dying to figure out why this guy seems so important ever since you figured out he exists and that you interacted with him.

>>4457400
>3. Ignore these fools and head over to the cool old dude. You already have their numbers and you've been dying to figure out why this guy seems so important ever since you figured out he exists and that you interacted with him.

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Eh, you can probably find another ride back. For the time being you really want to figure out who this 'cool old dude' is. You message the turtle back, apologize for deserting him and tell him he can head back, and then tell the other disco dudes surrounding you that you need to go talk to someone. After a few last compliments they let you go, and one of them tells you that you'll be receiving your credits tonight or the next day. Confused, you ask what credits they're referring to. That's when they remind you that despite your accidental bombing of the venue you did, in fact, win the dance competition. That means the bank account you drained while high and blacked out is now restored, and will soon have around 5 million credits. Today is a good day.

You head over to the dude, and once he catches sight of you he excitedly rushes towards you. He then embraces you in an awkward, sweaty hug for a moment. Unsure of whether he's just weird or if you did something to deserve this, you stand there and endure it. As you do the smell of booze and despair overwhelms you. If this man has showered in the past few days, it was in vodka.

Eventually the man stops hugging you and pulls back, smiling and giving you a high-five. "I didn't expect to run into you here! Thanks for all the help man, it's so much better now." "Uh... good to see you too. I know we know each other but I was kind of out of it back then. Could you remind me what happened?" The man seems sad for a moment before sighing and patting you on the shoulder. "It's me, Herbert. You helped me change my life man. That bitch of a wife is now a bitch of an ex-wife! I'm free now! FREE!" He says this loudly and passionately, although from the way he's speaking you can't tell if he actually believes anything he's saying or if he's just trying to reassure himself. Either way you don't have enough info to make a judgement so you just congratulate him. Unfortunately he keeps talking and gives you much more information than you wanted or needed.

"I'm living the life now man. You're right, she was cramping my style. Now I have the sports car I always wanted, can get together with a nastyyyyy young thang, and can be naked around the house all I want. Er- if I get the house. As it is I'm getting the car and the dog, but I'm not sure about that..." The man pauses for a moment, thinking, and then excitedly resumes speaking. "Not that I'm losing out or anything- the car is really nice car! It has seat warmers. Seat warmers really help at night you know- can't imagine sleeping without them. Not that I'm sleeping out of my car or anything. Although it isn't that bad. Seat warmers really help."

>>4457884
You feel somewhat guilty about giving Herbert the push he needed to destroy his life while you were high, but he's mostly at blame and you may have helped his wife, so you just keep quiet and try to get out of the situation. Maybe those other dudes haven't left yet. You ask a few questions while trying to find an opening to excuse yourself, but then hear something that draws you back into the conversation: Herbert runs a shipping company that's partially owned by the Disco Mafia. He might be just what you needed to save the trade port after King cut off shipments.

You drag yourself through the conversation until you can ask Herbert about heading over to his office and discussing a deal you have at mind. He seems reluctant to do actual work, but since you're "a real brother" he says he's willing to "do a solid" for you. He goes to hail a taxi, while you go to figure out where Santa and Dasher went before you leave. After some asking around you find out that they were taken to the hospital for some minor injuries. You get their room numbers and then head to the office with Herbert. The whole ride your nose suffers from the unique combination of body odor, alcohol, cigarettes, and Chinese food enveloping him, but you can handle it. It's still not as bad as those crazy conspiracy fuckers you let stay in your restaurant.

A short ride later the two of you arrive at a large office building. Herbert owns a floor of this office building, and has a large corner office. Apparently he's the 'managing director' of the company, and only has to listen to the owners. This helps explain why his lovely, spacious office can be an absolute pig-sty. Containers of half-eaten Chinese food litter the place, as well as empty bottles of vodka. It kind of reminds you of the hotel room you woke up in.

>>4457888
Herbert mutters a few things about how he went a little overboard with the partying and how great it is to eat whatever he wants instead of his "bitch ex's shitty home cooking", but you just ignore his desperate pleas and launch into business. He is willing to provide shipments to the trade port despite their 'scenic' location, and he's even willing to provide a discount- you are bros after all. Of course he does make it clear that he stills needs payments that at least cover the cost of providing the goods, and that the first shipment won't arrive for around a month- apparently the trade port is over 1000 light years away, which for a trade fleet will take nearly two weeks each way.

You agree to everything and thank Herbert for being generous and helping you out. You then hand him Rayleigh's details so he can get in touch and work out the specifics. He says it's no problem for a "bro" like you, and then asks if you need to place to stay. Before answering you check your bank account. It is drained and you have not received the money from the tournament yet. Seeing the frown on your face, Herbert excitedly mentions that you can crash in his office if you want and "hang out". According to him "The building's staff said that he couldn't stay here, but they never mentioned guests!" and "As long as we're quiet it should be fine." He seems really excited about this. It makes you distinctly uncomfortable.
>1. You don't have the money for a room right now and it seems like Herbert is going to cry if you say no to his little sleepover. You can handle it, whatever. Say yes.
>2. ...You really don't want to spend the night hanging out with this walking midlife crisis. Contact anyone, everyone, you know here and find somewhere else to sleep.
>3. You will inform Herbert that you have enough money for a hotel room, leave, and then hope you get the 5 million credits transferred to you before you fall asleep at a train station or something. You're not spending the night with Herbert or with one of the disco dudes who were kissing up to you earlier.
>Write-in

>>4457892
>>1. You don't have the money for a room right now and it seems like Herbert is going to cry if you say no to his little sleepover. You can handle it, whatever. Say yes.

Bro power.

>>4457892
>1. You don't have the money for a room right now and it seems like Herbert is going to cry if you say no to his little sleepover. You can handle it, whatever. Say yes

Seems a bit like we are stuck with this right now, Lets hope our [Endless Patience] holds out here.

Due to a combination of stupidity and lack of coordination, water got inside my computer. I can theoretically write updates in my campus's computer lab, but given that I'm already going to spend ages in there doing coursework I'd rather not. The quest will probably resume this weekend or roundabouts, depends on how much is damaged and how long it takes to replace. Sorry for the inconvenience.

>>4457892
>3. You will inform Herbert that you have enough money for a hotel room, leave, and then hope you get the 5 million credits transferred to you before you fall asleep at a train station or something. You're not spending the night with Herbert or with one of the disco dudes who were kissing up to you earlier.

>>4459054
No problem. Hope you get it fixed quick.

Much to my surprise, my computer got fixed much faster than I expected. Almost needed to replace my GPU but I got lucky. Will resume updates tonight if I'm lucky, tomorrow if I'm not, it's a bit of a clusterfuck right now.

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>>4458234
>>4458544
>>4459197
Well, it's not like you have anywhere else to stay. You accept Herbert's invitation and he lights up like a kid in a candy store. "Great, great. The sofa is actually a pull-out bed, so we're set on that... so, what do we do now. Drink?" Oh god, no, no, you don't want to drink anymore. Your body has had so many foreign substances in it recently, you need to take a break. "Not feeling up to it right now. Other ideas?"

Herbert thinks intensely for a moment before snapping his fingers. "Besides drinking there's prank calls! Let's do some of those." Your expression clearly betrays your lack of interest, and Herbert tries to feel you out. "Talking about girls? Shock sites? Pillow fight?" Afraid that the suggestions are going to continue to get worse and lacking the courage to tell him that you're ready to sleep when it's early evening at the latest, you go for the best choice of a bad lot. "Drinking it is." Hebert smiles and grabs a bottle of vodka as you go for the door. "Not here. We're going to a bar like functional alcoholics, not drinking in some office building. Have some dignity dude."

You're awkwardly sitting at the bar, nursing a mocktail while Herbert nervously looks around the bar, as if searching for something. After a few minutes his constantly moving gaze pauses on a karaoke machine. This concerns you a bit as you have considerable doubts about sad, drunk Herbert's singing, but eh, if it serves as a distraction then you're all for it. Sadly he decides not to overrun the place with a sad banger and continues looking around. After a few minutes he pokes you on the shoulder and points towards a couple of women who are probably college students. "I think they're looking at m- us. They have to be into us, right? We should head over and get some... y'know?"

You throw a cautious glance in the direction of the women. They are not staring at you, and you doubt that they've noticed you. And even if they had, you're not sure how you feel about Herbert trying to hook up with a chick who's probably 30 years younger than him. Hell, ignoring him, you're too old for this, even before the 40,000 years of cyrosleep. You don't think you're ready to go through a midlife crisis yet, but you sure as hell aren't a college-age stud anymore. Doing your best to be uninvolved in whatever disaster is about to go down, you wish Herbert luck, tell him that you'll be supporting him from the backlines, and watch him charge off to battle.

Over the next few hours you learn that Herbert is persistent if nothing else. He's a romance kamikaze, diving headlong into groups of young women and then immediately crashing and burning. Just like with a real kamikaze, anger, screaming, and hurried retreat follow his every assault. He may have failed to get even the time of day from a single woman he talked to, but you honestly respect him a lot more than earlier. He's a little confused, but he has the spirit.

>>4465684
After his abject failure to pick up a "nasty young thang" and a polite but firm request that you leave the bar, the two of you go to a much smaller, sadder bar. There you see Herbert order what is essentially absinthe in order to dull the pain of rejection. Seeing him about to down a truly dangerous amount of booze you feel the need to stop him from destroying himself, if only because he did you a solid. "Look, dude, you keep talking about how happy you are to be rid of your wife, but... why exactly did you leave her?" Herbert stares at you, eyes glosses over, as he tries to find an answer. "I don't even know anymore. Freedom?" "And you don't think that might've been a bit impulsive? I don't know you too well, but the young chicks, the sports car, isn't that classic midlife crisis stuff? I'm not sure but you might've fucked up."

Herbert seems to take your words to heart, and puts down the bottle of alcohol before drinking anything. "You might have a point. But it's too late to go back." Before you can say anything Herbert corrects himself. "No, I'm just saying that because I'm lazy. I can try at least. I've seen at least half a dozen rom coms, I know how to handle this. Alright, follow me, I'm gonna do my best."

The "best" that Herbert is referring to is, in his words, "a touching romantic ballad, and possibly the swan song of my love life". It's at least 1 AM now, and Herbert is standing outside his old house, screeching out the lyrics to a 'love song' that you hope doesn't describe their relationship. As he screams "I WANT YOU, I NEED YOU, BUT THERE AIN'T NO WAY I'M EVER GONNA LOVE YOU" for the third time, a beer bottle comes crashing through the house's window and narrowly misses him. A drunk, disheveled woman can be heard from inside the house. Her words are extremely slurred, but you can just barely make them out. "Schut your maw you dumb bitch."

Your mouth hangs open as you try to figure out what's happening, but Herbert's face lights up as he rushes towards the window. "Marlene, it's me, Herbert! I was wrong! I want you back!" Another beer bottle comes flying at him, but he dodges it abnormally fast this time. Almost like he's practiced doing so. You cautiously approach him while keeping an eye out for any other flying objects. "She took the divorce thing hard, huh?" Herbert seems confused. "Huh? What do yo... oh, no, no, she just likes to party. It's not too bad, she only does it in the evenings." "Every evening?" "Mostly. And technically the mornings, but only before she passes out."

>>4465694
You're starting to get the feeling that maybe it was a bad idea to meddle in the a relationship of a man you've known for maybe half a day at most. Too late to turn back now though, so you guess you're just strapped in for the ride. The two of you cautiously enter the house, where you're greeted by his wife, who smells of alcohol even more strongly than Herbert. Upon entering she slaps Herbert hard enough to nearly bowl him over, and starts yelling at him about how the house hasn't been clean in days. She then says that she hopes you haven't been having too much trouble with "that annoying crybaby" and invites you in.

The hour until Herbert's wife, Marlene, pass out feel like an eternity. During this time he does chores, she yells at him, and you quietly debate the pros and cons of calling the police in over domestic abuse in your head. Before you can come to a decision about the police the alcohol takes an effect and she falls asleep. Now you actually feel like having a drink, but after Herbert informs you that all the alcohol in the house in Marlene's, you give up on the idea.

Staying the night here is honestly a scary prospect, but given that you have nowhere else to go and feel guilty over everything, you arm yourself with a lamp and crash in an empty guest room. You barely sleep at all since you're just waiting for Marlene to snap and try to murder either you or Herbert, but to your mild surprise nothing of the sort happens. Instead, around 9 AM, she comes in, apologizes for how much of a handful she can be when drunk, and then cooks breakfast. You then quietly eat breakfast with Herbert and Marlene, who are chatting like nothing ever happened.
>Herbert helped you out and seems to like you a lot, even if you aren't too keen on hanging out with him. You have no idea of the full scope of his relationship, but you'd feel bad if you didn't at least try to convince him to leave his wife... again... after telling him he probably fucked up leaving her.
>This is all sorts of fucked up but you think this has all been a lesson about the imperfection of human relationships and how you shouldn't go messing with shit off of limited information. You feel bad for Herbert but you've already done enough damage messing with this ticking time-bomb of a relationship.
>Remember to mark down the address and call the police around midnight. You shouldn't take responsibility for this but the least you can do is help Herbert realize how fucked up all of this is. ...At least if there's not some third layer to this riddle trapped within an enigma wrapped within an onion of a relationship that results in him getting arrested instead.
>Write-in

>>4465702
As for your plans later today, you...
>Plan to pick up Santa and Dasher and rent out the fastest ship you can to get back home. You've had a lot of... interesting experiences here, but your McSpacies isn't gonna run itself.
>Figure that you'll visit the disco mafia and figure out what they wanted from you before leaving. You're not sure how you feel about psuedo-criminal organizations, but they might be able to help you out.
>Book a cheap hotel room and find something to do. You'll just get a ride back with the first shipment of goods sent to the trade port, it's cheaper that way.
>Write-in

Alright, we're back to speed! Had a few exams so I ended up putting off the update longer than I'd like. I'm back though.

>>4465702
>Herbert helped you out and seems to like you a lot, even if you aren't too keen on hanging out with him. You have no idea of the full scope of his relationship, but you'd feel bad if you didn't at least try to convince him to leave his wife... again... after telling him he probably fucked up leaving her.
>>4465704
>Plan to pick up Santa and Dasher and rent out the fastest ship you can to get back home. You've had a lot of... interesting experiences here, but your McSpacies isn't gonna run itself.

>>4465704
>Remember to mark down the address and call the police around midnight. You shouldn't take responsibility for this but the least you can do is help Herbert realize how fucked up all of this is.
>Book a cheap hotel room and find something to do. You'll just get a ride back with the first shipment of goods sent to the trade port, it's cheaper that way.

The first decision is tied but I can combine those two together somewhat, second choice not so much. I'll probably update in a few hours and mash the decisions on the first choice together and roll on the second choice if they're still tied.

Rolled 1 (1d2)

>>4466332
>>4466476

This really leaves a bad taste in your mouth. You've already messed everything up, but you have to at least give Herbert a heads-up here and tell him that maybe he's better living in midlife crisis mode on his own, rather than... whatever this is. After you finish eating you gesture for Herbert to come with you, mentioning that you need to finalize some stuff about the supply shipments.

"Look dude, I fucked up. I didn't know shit about your relationship and shouldn't have interfered. You were kind of sad on your own but that was better than this. Just go back to what you were doing and take care of yourself dude. Your wife is crazy." You cram all your main points into a short, frenzied rant, but Herbert just chuckles. "Yeah, she goes a little overboard. Still, she's a very good woman until she drinks. I'll figure it out." "I... whatever, sure. Try to figure it out for a little while if you want, just know that you shouldn't be dealing with this shit.

You still don't like the situation, but you can't force the dude to leave his life.. well, maybe you can, but you're not too eager to do it a second time. You reluctantly leave Herbert behind and stop by the hospital. There you find Santa and Dasher, who after a day in medpods are perfectly fine. Apparently the disco-based superweapon you used forced them to boogie too hard, tear some muscles, dislocate some things, but nothing too extreme. As you leave the hospital Santa mentions that the real victims were everyone else nearby- it turns out that when a walrus decides to dance, nothing is spared. Fortunately with modern medical technology any deaths were avoidable, but you still have to tell Santa to stop talking when he mentions the dude who got body slammed by Dasher. You don't want to imagine it.

With your new employees in tow, you head to the city's largest trade port in search of an express ship. Most of them are prohibitively expensive and use methods which seem eerily similar to the turtle's trauma wormhole to try to speed up the trip. Shuddering, you dismiss the idea of hiring them and keep looking. Eventually you come across a man who's just... Han Solo. This isn't an exaggeration. He's cosplaying as Han Solo, using that Kessel Run quote to attract customers, and has his ship painted like the one from Star Wars, although it looks kinda off. You forgot the name of the ship, but that's definitely what it is. Confused, you approach him and ask about it, and nervously tells you he has no idea what you're talking about. Then you ask again. He continues acting dumb. Then he stonewalls you. But you're not just letting this go- you want to know what would possess a man to wear a stupid outfit in the middle of a crowded place for so long. Your calm interrogation continues for several minutes before he eventually gives in, no match for your Inhuman Patience.

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>>4467696
"Ok, ok, I stole my entire gimmick from an old movie no one has seen, who cares. Don't tell anyone, it's my entire advertising plan. If anyone finds out then I'm fucked, I already sold the book rights on the cheap." Old movies? Damn kids. Back in your day the United Disney Conglomerate were still coming out with new movies as part of the state's educational programs.

Feeling old and angry, you give 'Han' a piece of your mind. He's not particularly intimidated by you, but afraid of you telling everyone else that he stole his personality from an old movie, he offers you a discount if you want to go anywhere. This solves your transport problem and somewhat lessens the inexplicable anger and sadness you feel when reminded that movies you saw as a kid are now 40,000 years old. He promises to get you back to McSpacies as quickly as possible, and to his credit, the ship is fast. It's extremely cramped, oddly moist, and there are weird mood-lighting LEDs in the walls that go off every so often, but by god is it fast. While the trip is horrible you get back to McSpacies in two days, making up for most of the trouble.

Upon your return you see several hooded figures in the corner eating burgers and chatting with Gloop. The Doctor i... wait, what, chatting with Gloop? How? How?! You take a second look at the group, and while you're still not sure what Gloop's odd array of noises mean, the hooded dudes are talking like they do. You're confused by this, but hey, at least he made some friends.

Ignoring Gloop from the moment, you introduce your new 'employees' to The Doctor and Roomie. Sure, half of the employees present may not be sentient, but that doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts- and the required team building exercises. You should schedule a day for those. The employees are supposed to love those according to the manual.

The Doctor is initially focused on the new arrivals, but quickly turns his attention to you. After a few minutes, he asks you a weird question. "Are you high?" "What? No. Am I?" The Doctor pauses for a moment before furiously nodding. "Definitely. Did you eat anything weird lately then?" "Uh... about 20 space mushrooms and a superweapon? That did make me pretty high, but that was days ago."

>>4467698
After some discussion with The Doctor you come to the conclusion that you should probably visit an actual doctor. You've felt completely normal recently, but apparently you're actually slurring your words a bit and laughing way too much, among some other... minor oddities. Santa noticed them too, but he never felt the need to mention them. After all, you were WAY worse when he met you. Oh, and that ship you came back here in didn't have weird mood lighting like you thought- that was just a little hallucination. You may have some [r]Brain Damage[/r].
>1. You seem fine for now, but you should probably get this checked out. Guess it's time to find a decent clinic in this rural stretch of space- maybe the trade port has one.
>2. Eh, it's not a big deal- you can get it checked out later. For now you should go and meet Gloop's new friends. Maybe then give you some tips on communicating with him.
>3. You need to check up on the trade port and see how Rayleigh is doing before you attend to anything else. You were only away for about a week, but you still feel uneasy that something might have happened without you noticing.
>Write-in

>>4467700
>>1. You seem fine for now, but you should probably get this checked out. Guess it's time to find a decent clinic in this rural stretch of space- maybe the trade port has one.
Maybe spare a couple minutes to talk to Goop's friends.

>>4467700 #
>>1. You seem fine for now, but you should probably get this checked out. Guess it's time to find a decent clinic in this rural stretch of space- maybe the trade port has one.

Also try talking to the doctor intentionally sluring your speech and see if that helps

>>4467700
>1. You seem fine for now, but you should probably get this checked out. Guess it's time to find a decent clinic in this rural stretch of space- maybe the trade port has one.

Alright, I'll close the vote here and get to writing soon since it seems to be unanimous.
Also, I made a few errors there, I forgot that you use [full color] instead of [first letter] for formatting and completely cut out a sentence about calling the cops on Herbert's house while you were flying home.
You guys did do that, I did mean to combine the choices on the first decision, and no, Herbert hasn't told you anything about the cops so you have no idea if anything came of it.

>>4467754
>>4467835
>>4467920
You should probably get your brain checked before you do anything important. Everyone has always said that you're a little messed up, but when your employees start telling you about it then it's probably worse than usual. Still, you do have one idea before you rush off to The Doctor. You intentionally try to slur your voice as you ask The Doctor "Did this fix it?"

Instead of answering you, The Doctor freezes up and shivers. After taking a deep breath in he answers you, voice audibly trembling. "It didn't fix anything. Please, never do that again." You're about to turn around to Santa to ask him why The Doctor's so freaked out, when you see him standing much further from you than before, face pale. He's covering Dasher's ears with his hands as he warily stares at you. "I, uh... ok, I won't do that again. I'm gonna look for a doctor, see you guys later. Go do team building exercises or something."

Before you pop out, you check in on Gloop and his new friends. His new friends appear to be preaching about The Church of the Irradiated Light while Gloop wanders around making his usual noises and cleaning the place. Now that you're taking a closer look you're not sure if they're actually having a conversation or if your friendly neighborhood cult is just practicing their preaching. Well, either way Gloop doesn't seem to mind, so you can probably ignore this.

You leave in the spaceship you took from Rayleigh as you use the MilkyNet™ to look for nearby doctors. The trade port does have one, but they're only for minor procedures, and you have a hunch that brain damage will require something more... substantial. Fortunately there's a tiny clinic that's better equipped within flying distance, although it's a couple dozen light years away. You set your autopilot to go there and take a nap.

Eventually you arrive at a small building built inside the hollowed-out insides of an asteroid about as big as your spaceship. There's no docking port built in, so you don a space suit, leave the ship, and head over to the airlock. After a short delay you're let into the clinic. There's a gray-haired woman sleeping at a desk and a young man wearing a surgical mask racing around the place in an office chair. Upon spotting you the man rapidly decelerates their makeshift vehicle, crashes headfirst into a filing cabinet, and then yells towards the old woman. "Ma! There's a patient!"

The old woman jolts awake, glares at her son, and then introduces herself. "I'm Dr. Becker and that's my son, a nurse. What's your issue?" You explain your brain problem, and the woman leads you into a side room that's crammed tight with equipment. She throws a few pieces around until she finds a crude helmet with bundles of wires sticking out of it, holding it triumphantly above the piles of cluttered medical equipment. "Just put this on, prick you with this, shove on a few electrodes, and I should be able to see the problem."

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>>4467987
A battery of painful procedures later Dr. Becker informs you that she found the problem. In her own words your Brain Damage "is astonishing" and "she has no idea what effects it could cause". Great. After one too many words about her excitement and her plans to write about it in a medical journal, you purposely slur your words and ask if that fixed your slurring. You hear a crashing noise from across the room as the nurse loses control of his office chair. Dr. Becker stares at you, horrified, and shakes her head. "No, you'll need actual treatment. I'll provide you a discount as long as I can write about your case, but it will still be rather expensive. Let me outline the options..."
>Inject some nanomachines into the odd parts of your brain and use artificial intelligence to have them adjust to the rest of your brain. You only have some minor bits decayed, so this should fix the vast majority of any problems after they've had a few days to learn. You feel somewhat uneasy about putting machines in your brain though.
>You don't really get this one but she's saying something about the blockchain and crowd-sourcing the processing power you need for the damaged parts of your brain. This will also require a small machine implant, but it won't actually control brain functions- it will bring in processing power from other sentient creature's brains and allow you to control them and fix the bits you're missing. A side effect of this treatment will be the creation of a cryptocurrency based on your brain, but you don't think this affects you.
>Let Dr. Becker put your body on life support, extract your brain temporarily, and then use a special nutrient solution to allow it to repair over a day or two while she does some manual labor. This should make your brain the same as before, or possibly a bit better, but you will have to spend a couple days as a brain in a jar.
>Write-in

>>4467994
>Let Dr. Becker put your body on life support, extract your brain temporarily, and then use a special nutrient solution to allow it to repair over a day or two while she does some manual labor. This should make your brain the same as before, or possibly a bit better, but you will have to spend a couple days as a brain in a jar.

>>4467994
>>Let Dr. Becker put your body on life support, extract your brain temporarily, and then use a special nutrient solution to allow it to repair over a day or two while she does some manual labor. This should make your brain the same as before, or possibly a bit better, but you will have to spend a couple days as a brain in a jar.
Just make a couple calls to let the relevant people know what's going on.

>>4467994
>>Let Dr. Becker put your body on life support, extract your brain temporarily, and then use a special nutrient solution to allow it to repair over a day or two while she does some manual labor. This should make your brain the same as before, or possibly a bit better, but you will have to spend a couple days as a brain in a jar.

>>4467994
>Let Dr. Becker put your body on life support, extract your brain temporarily, and then use a special nutrient solution to allow it to repair over a day or two while she does some manual labor. This should make your brain the same as before, or possibly a bit better, but you will have to spend a couple days as a brain in a jar.

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You would rather not implant anything in your brain, medically necessary or not, so you opt for the nutrient bath. "Alright then, I'll put you under on the count of three. One... two..."

Just as you feel yourself nodding off you're suddenly awake again, sitting on the clinic's bed. "Huh, that was easy. We're done?" Dr. Becker laughs and starts to fade away. "No, you're in the jar right now. It'll be a couple of days, so just hold tight." "Wait, so I'm a brain in a jar right now?! Why is it all so real. Hello?!" You almost scream your questions, but Dr. Becker is gone. Or maybe you just stopped thinking about her.

You spend the next hour crouched in the fetal position, slowly convincing yourself that reality has to be a simulation if you can't tell the difference between being a brain in a jar and being a brain in your body. What if you were always a brain in a jar? What if you were always just code on a computer? Oh fuck. Oh fuck. As your panic reaches a peak, you hear an embarrassed cough off in the distance. "...Apologies, I didn't realize you'd get so upset so I left for my lunch break. Is there anything I can help you with?" "Prove that reality is reality. I don't want to live in a simulation."

There's a short pause before a colorful unicorn appears in front of you. A moment later a big chocolate cake appears next to it. "Well, hopefully that should cheer you up. I'll be back in a bit." You continue trying to ask Dr. Becker for some reassurance, but all you get back is silence. You continue sulking in the corner for a bit before having some of the cake. It's good cake.

The next two days are spent mostly existential and depressed, although Dr. Beckers occasional colorful distractions for you help. Especially the cake. It's your favorite. Or at least you think it is. After a couple days in the jar you nod off for just a moment and then notice that you're in a different part of the clinic. Apparently the treatment is over now. ...Or at least she says it is. Honestly, you don't want to think about it. You do your best to forget about the big questions of the universe and focus on the chocolate cake and mystical pets as you pay 2 million credits for your treatment.

With your Brain Damage fixed, you feel rather Clear-Headed. That's nice. As you load into your space ship you get a message. Er, two messages. One is from Rayleigh, and it came ten minutes ago. It says to get to the trade port ASAP and that King did something terrorist-y. The other is from The Doctor, and is similarly recent. Apparently the neighbors got pissed at Gloop. You're not sure about the details.
>1. Eh, your employees can handle themselves. You should get over to the trade port and see what happened with King- it doesn't sound good.
>2. You feel an obligation to help out with the trade port, but Rayleigh is the main one in charge there- you need to focus on your restaurant. Better head over and see what the deal with the neighbors is.
>Write-in

>>4470180
>1. Eh, your employees can handle themselves. You should get over to the trade port and see what happened with King- it doesn't sound good.

>>4470180
>>1. Eh, your employees can handle themselves. You should get over to the trade port and see what happened with King- it doesn't sound good.
Wait, what neighbors?

>>4470352
The new cult slash research station that got built around the time shit hit the fan with the trade station. The research station researches your giant nuclear radiation field, while the cult worships it for reasons you don't know and don't care about.
You saw a few of the cult members talking with Gloop when you left, the Church of the Irradiated Light folks.

>>4470361
Ah, right. Forgot about them.

>>4470218
>>4470352
Your neighbors seem much less dangerous than King and your employees can handle themselves. Hell, as long as someone who knows how to use Roomie is there, even King would have some trouble. You set course for the trade port and attempt to reach Rayleigh for more information. Unfortunately there are some connection issues and you just have to make the journey while in the dark on what's happening.

Once you dock at the trade port you can tell something weird is going on. The place is oddly quiet, and the few people you do see out and carry boxes at an extremely slow place. You decide not to waste time asking them what's going on and head directly to Rayleigh's office. There you see him angrily staring at a communicator.

Rayleigh seems relieved by your arrival and spins his chair towards you, although he's still glancing at the communicator out of the corner of his eye. "Boss-uh, I mean, Ronald, you arrived. Things aren't going well. A bunch of King's undercover agents, around a dozen, took hostages and holed themselves up in the largest grocery store in the trade port. They're demanding a ship, some money, some guns, and as much food as can fit on the ship so that they can 'settle down' somewhere else without stopping. Of course this all a loose cover to steal the food, but it seems to be convincing enough for the average citizen. The citizens just want me to give them what they want and have them leave since food can't compare to lives, my death squad wants to go in guns blazing, and I'm stuck here trying to figure out a third option. I've been trying to delay them by transporting what they demanded for extremely, extremely slowly, but they're starting to get impatient. If I stall much longer they may kill hostages."

Well fuck, this is much worse than you were expecting. This isn't some minor chicken-shit terrorism, this is the real deal. "What about the cops?" "Funny. Our comms have been jammed at long-distance for a while. I was barely able to get a message to you with a bunch of signal-boosting equipment, but it wasn't able to go far enough to reach a police station. I did get a message to them through a third party, but as they weren't able to provide evidence they are still "verifying" the situation. Lazy bastards just don't want to spend half a day driving out to the boonies... anyways, no police. Just the guards, which are mainly my troops."

>>4470957
Ah. So you need to deal with a dozen highly-armed and highly-trained men with hostages without the help of the police. Great.
>1. Lives are at stake, you can't afford a shootout. Supplies are a long ways out but they are coming, the trade port will just have to ration the food that's left strictly while you and Rayleigh search for some way to pull through until more supplies arrive. Maybe the turtle can help, what with his teleporting.
>2. Even if the trade port gets through with strict rationing and some lucky breaks finding food, a lot of people will probably leave and never come back. You can't risk lives in a shootout, but King will leave the hostages behind after leaving the space port. After they leave you just need to chase after them, cripple their spaceship without destroying the supplies, and then overcome a dozen armed men without dying. Easy enough, especially with the help of Rayleigh's troops.
>3. 'Death' is in the name of death squad for a reason, King's direct agents are probably better trained than the ones they gave to Rayleigh, but still, they're outnumbered nearly 3:1. Just rush in there and have a shootout. There will be casualties, but it's better than people starving.
>4. You feel unequipped to handle this situation... but if you had Roomie that would change. You should tell Rayleigh to stall them as much as he can, hurry back to McSpacies, and get him.
>5. ...Wait, now that you think about it, don't you have some sort of laser implanted in you from your wild trip on Planet Munchie? You're not sure how much damage it'll cause, but if you can figure out where the hostages are and aim around them you might be able to save a lot of trouble... although if you estimate the size of laser incorrectly then aiming may not be possible or necessary. [Available because of Clear-headed]
>Write-in

>>4470960
>5. ...Wait, now that you think about it, don't you have some sort of laser implanted in you from your wild trip on Planet Munchie? You're not sure how much damage it'll cause, but if you can figure out where the hostages are and aim around them you might be able to save a lot of trouble... although if you estimate the size of laser incorrectly then aiming may not be possible or necessary. [Available because of Clear-headed]

>>4470960
>>5. ...Wait, now that you think about it, don't you have some sort of laser implanted in you from your wild trip on Planet Munchie? You're not sure how much damage it'll cause, but if you can figure out where the hostages are and aim around them you might be able to save a lot of trouble... although if you estimate the size of laser incorrectly then aiming may not be possible or necessary. [Available because of Clear-headed]
Why not?

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>>4471871
>>4471936
You mull over your options for a moment and almost decide on Roomie, figuring that his military might is the only easy way out of this. But then you realize that you have a weapon of your own- that dieting implant with the lovely "side effect" of shooting lasers at command. You have no idea how big this laser is normally is, nor how it'll be affected by how much you've eaten since you've had it implanted, but that doesn't really matter. It seems like the best option.

You tell Rayleigh about your ace in the hole and he says he'll do his best to get you an image of the inside so that you can avoid the civilians. ...Or attempt to avoid the civilians at least. You're escorted by several of Rayleigh's armed guards to a position a few dozen feet away from the grocery store that King has taken over. The previously large entrance is mostly barricaded, and only a small portion of it remains open so that the food and other demands can be transported in. The store windows are blacked out, and some sort of special spray on them is making thermal vision unreliable.

Fortunately, despite the apparent lack of vision, Rayleigh has a couple trump cards. While the security cameras were destroyed, he placed a couple of hidden cameras inside the store since he figured it might get targeted at some point. King's men will pick them up immediately once they're used, but they should be able to get a quick sweep of the inside. At the same time he's doing that his troops would shoot a volley of non-lethal bullets through the windows, smashing them, and allowing them to thermally image the store. At this point King will be ready for a shootout to start, but all the guards will suddenly duck behind cover and you'll fire your laser at them from a safe distance.

...It's not that nothing could wrong with this plan- in fact, you can think of a few flaws off the top of your head, but it's the best you have. The countdown to the execution begins, and you keep an eye on your communicator. T-minus 3... 2... 1. Gunshots ring throughout the trade port as the windows shatter, the silent standoff suddenly broken. Several images appear on your communicator, an overlay of the thermal data combined with the images from the hidden cameras inside the store. The locations of King's men are highlighted. At the same time Rayleigh calls them out in your ear. "Two 10 meters to the left of the entrance, one three meters to the right of that, at shelf height, one..."

You take in the information, and as Rayleigh is still calling out names, attempt to fire the the laser. You smash your right hand down onto your left, open your mouth, and struggle to say the activation code. To your pleasant surprise, a burning sensation fills your mouth. It's actually working! You're nearly blinded as bright light fills your vision, and your immediate proximity becomes extremely hot. Your jaw unhinges as the laser forces it open- goddamn, the thing has to be at least a foot in diameter.

>>4472222
Your struggle to aim the thing with all your might, but it turns out that using your head as a weapon is kind of hard. Especially when you can barely see. Still, you're definitely hitting something... probably a lot of somethings actually. After what feels like ages the burning sensation in your throat starts to subside, your vision clears up, and you can see the results of your handiwork. It's...
>Roll bo3d20 for damage, collateral and otherwise.
Probably should've said there'd be a roll with the vote since that was precedent, that's my bad. Still, uh, you can probably predict how this will end up.

Rolled 19 (1d20)

>>4472223

Rolled 17, 19 = 36 (2d20)

rollin'

>>4472225
It's... chaos. Unfettered chaos. You've managed to burn a massive hole straight through the trade port's armor, damaging the escape ship docked outside and forcing the facility's emergency functions to come into play, lest everyone and everything nearby get sucked out into the depths of space. The inside of the grocery store is covered in fire, and all of the boxes and shelves past floor level are melted.

After surveying the material damage, you snap to your senses and check if any of King's men are left. Fortunately you don't see any. Well, any alive anyways- you do see quite a few disgusting piles of guts and ashes which kill your desire to eat, possibly forever. Fortunately all of the hostages were against the floor in the first place, and none of them di... wait, you spoke too soon. One of them got a few inches off the top. You really, REALLY hope that modern medical technology can fix that. Wanton destruction is fun, but not when it takes lives. Ok, sometimes when it takes lives, but not when it takes innocent lives- your bloodlust is only confined to King's soldiers and other such genocidal madmen.

Just as you're about to leave and ask Rayleigh if there's anything else to take care of, you hear something like a laser or plasma pistol go off behind you. Oh no. You get ready to jump out of the way, but you're too slow. The member of Rayleigh's death squad behind you isn't though. He tanks the shot at you while firing back at a King soldier who was hiding in the rubble. Simultaneous grunts of pain can be heard as the last King soldier is killed and your savior collapses to the ground.

You hurry to the man and try to lift him off the ground. Your attempts do no good due to his massive frame and the hundred plus pounds of equipment on him, but it does allow you to hear him mutter a few final words before he passes out. "Double Burger King Rayleigh said to treat you the same as him. I fulfilled my duty. For the glory of King."

You let out a sigh as the man passes out. Even without taking into account the genocide and terrorism, it's depressing how King treats its employees. Shoving tens of thousands of years old burger ghosts in them, indoctrinating them, sending them to their death. You'll still get rid of as many employees as you have to to get to the root of the problem, but you're reminded that at least the low level employees are just victims too.

>>4472433
As you think things over Rayleigh rushes over to the scene. "Everything alright?" "Better than they could be. A couple of your guys may be dead though." You point towards the guard and the fried civilian as you say this. Rayleigh examines them before shrugging. "Eh, it's called a death squad for a reason. Not like they could live a normal life anyways, don't get too beat up over it even if treatment goes bad. As for that civilian... he's, uh, he's Carl. Nobody likes Carl. In fact, I hate Carl. You might've done us a favor." You feel like Rayleigh may be making this all up to make you feel better, but hey, you'll take it. Fuck Carl.

"Anything left to take care of?" "No, not really. Although your laser, uh, didn't stop at the edge of the trade port or that space ship outside. Some of the energy is gone, but it's still going... and going... and going at a pretty fast speed." Oh, great. Now you have that to take care of. Or maybe you could just wipe your hands of it and say that the laser is just an environmental hazard of traveling in space. There's black holes and suns and stuff, so why not giant lasers? As you're doing your best to waive responsibility of the issue, you get another message from The Doctor.
"They took Gloop. Said they needed to re-educate him. Would've stopped them but there were a lot of them. Held us down, unarmed, before we could grab Roomie. They're heading back to their church now."
...Great
>1. If there's anyone who can not give a fuck, it's Gloop. He'll make weird noises at them and dissolve half their building before they can even start getting him to think about their cult stuff. Better go after this laser first, you've already done enough disservices to the universe at large.
>2. Hurry to your spaceship and intercept the Church of the Irradiated Light folks before they can get home. You need to get your employee back and dole out some punishments.
>3. Head over to the Church of the Irradiated Light and talk to their High Priest and the sane research staff. This is probably some stupid misunderstanding that you can talk over. And if not, you can come up with another plan.
>Write-in

>>4472435
>>2. Hurry to your spaceship and intercept the Church of the Irradiated Light folks before they can get home. You need to get your employee back and dole out some punishments.

>>4472435
>2. Hurry to your spaceship and intercept the Church of the Irradiated Light folks before they can get home. You need to get your employee back and dole out some punishments.

>>4472696
>>4472960
The religious crazies are a much bigger problem than some space laser. You'll just have to let it go and hope it doesn't cause too much damage- the laser is just a part of nature now. Before you head back to your ship you stop yourself and turn to Rayleigh. "Do you guys have any military grade ships? I need to chase after some pricks and I don't know if mine has any way to stop them, even if I catch up with them." Rayleigh smiles slightly and gestures for you to follow him. "We don't have anything military-issue, but King did leave a few cool toys behind for me to play with. Hobbyist level stuff. There's a smaller scouting ship, real souped up, with some small arms and stuff like harpoons and plasma-nets packed into it. You need to stop something, that'll do the job."

You head back to Rayleigh's office, borrow the ship from his 'personal collection', and then pack yourself into the cramped interior. Once you're crammed inside you set a course for the area just in front of the research post and power on the ship. The cabin shakes as you leave the trade port behind, and you're left awed at the sheer speed everything is flashing by at. Goddamn! This thing isn't equipped for long-distance travel, but it'd be perfect for a joyride. That'll have to wait for later though.

The scouting ship reaches the area in front of the research station in record speed, and as you approach you see a small blip on your radar. There's a ship about 3/4ths of the way through the route between your McSpacies and the trade station- that must be the guys. You set the ship to chase after that one and ready your non-lethal weapons. Time to lock them down.

An old, medium-sized ship comes into view. Large windows cover the outside, and you can faintly make out Gloop and a bunch of hooded figures on the inside. Bingo. Before they can react you let loose two harpoons, piercing into the side of their ship and tethering it to yours. A loud motor comes to life and the ship stops in its tracks, caught by yours. You open communications as you let loose the plasma-net to assist in capturing them.

>>4473500
"I'm the owner of the McSpacies. You stole one of my employees. I'd like him back." There's some confused muttering over the line before one of the members of the Church of the Irradiated Light nervously replies. "We were preaching and gave him a robe, but then he destroyed it! He insulted our religion with evil, sacrilegious acts! We have to take him back for re-education!"

...So they're complaining that a sentient glob of acidic slime destroyed a robe? Are they retarded or something? "Even if he insulted everything about your religion I wouldn't give a shit, but do you guys have two brain cells to rub together? Gloop destroys almost everything he touches. From here I can see that you tried to tie him against something with a rope. That rope is destroyed now. Whatever piece of furniture he was up against is probably ruined too. That's just how he works." You can here some awkward muttering on the other end of the line that reveals that among the eight or so of them, not a single one of them considered this fact. Amazing.

>"I'll be taking my employee back and then writing a strongly worded letter to your High Priest. He'll decide what to do with you. Never come back my store again." This should minimize conflict, get your employee back, and make sure these idiots get some comeuppance as long as the High Priest doesn't dig in his heels.
>"I have military grade weapons on this ship and if you try to run will not hesitate to open fire. I'm gonna tow you back to my restaurant and show you why you shouldn't mess with minimum-wage workers for a bit before you head back home."
>"You guys thought what Gloop did was sacrilegious? You guys are being the most sacrilegious of all here. You see that field of nuclear radiation and the destroyed planet back there? That's all my handiwork! I'm not even part of your church and I'm a better worshipper than any of you, so why are you ruining my day? Now bow down, say a few prayers, and give my employee back before I curse you or whatever. And I expect you all to think of fitting punishments for what you've done before I have to start dishing them out." [Will have to roll 3d20 to convince them that you actually destroyed an entire planet with nuclear weaponry.]
>Write-in

Rolled 18, 14, 6 = 38 (3d20)

>>4473504
>>"You guys thought what Gloop did was sacrilegious? You guys are being the most sacrilegious of all here. You see that field of nuclear radiation and the destroyed planet back there? That's all my handiwork! I'm not even part of your church and I'm a better worshipper than any of you, so why are you ruining my day? Now bow down, say a few prayers, and give my employee back before I curse you or whatever. And I expect you all to think of fitting punishments for what you've done before I have to start dishing them out." [Will have to roll 3d20 to convince them that you actually destroyed an entire planet with nuclear weaponry.]

>>4474648
While performing the best 'vengeful god' impression you can think of, you launch into an angry rant about how these chucklefucks have committed grave acts against their religion by ruining your day. The other end goes silent and so you just keep going on and on, yelling whatever comes to mind, old testament style. You're pretty sure you lay down at least 20 commandments and a dozen plagues during the whole thing. By the five minute mark you're pretty sure you hear some light crying on the other end, so you let up and give the idiots their ultimatum: give your employee back or face the wrath of their own religion. You may not be their god, if they even have one, but you have nuked a planet to bits, which is more than they've ever done for their faith. They hurriedly agree to your demands and follow you back to the McSpacies, dock, and then let Gloop off the ship before speeding away. As they do so they inform you that they will reflect upon this experience and undergo 'penance'. At this point your anger is clearing up a bit, but you're certainly not going to undermine what you said earlier, and leave the group to enact whatever punishments they thought of for themselves.

You spend the next day on edge, waiting for the High Priest or some of the other crazies from the church to come up and yell at you, but to your surprise there isn't so much as a peep from them. Maybe those grunts were so scared they never told anyone? That would be nice. With some of the pressure taken off of you and no immediate problems to deal with, you have everyone return to work and start writing up some emergency procedures. Just normal stuff any self-respecting restaurateur should think about- what do if cultists come and try to convert you, what to do if the government comes and starts asking too many questions, what to do if a galaxy-wide conglomerate engages in terrorist activities or attempted genocide against you. Standard stuff.

After a few hours you're happy with your makeshift 'emergency procedures manual' and make a few copies to hand out to your employees. Jeff doesn't get why it's needed but just rolls with it, while The Doctor and Santa, having just been tackled by cultists, begin reading it cover to cover. You attempt to give Gloop a laminated copy but, as expected, it dissolves into nothing long before he can read it. You tell someone else to read it to him and then head to your spaceship to think.

>>4474834
Now that you finally have some free time, you should start dealing with some non-urgent issues. You write a few down and then choose one to tackle first.
>1. Teambuilding exercises. The manual recommends them over and over and stresses the importance of teambuilding, but you haven't done any up to this point. As a McSpacies franchisee, you should follow the manual and force everybody to spend some time teambuilding and bonding. You're sure they'll all love it.
>2. You still have a few million credits, and since you pissed off King the risk of someone trying to blow up your store has increased greatly. You should buy what parts you can from either the trade port or some of the smaller delivery services you used to get the nukes and then get some help from The Doctor to make the store less vulnerable to, uh... things that go boom.
>3. You're a McSpacies franchisee first, and not a very good one. You need to attract more customers. You should increase your advertising and host an event to bring in more customers than your delivery route does. An eating contest should do the trick. You can even throw in a t-shirt or some other prize for the winner.
>Write-in

>>4474837
>2. You still have a few million credits, and since you pissed off King the risk of someone trying to blow up your store has increased greatly. You should buy what parts you can from either the trade port or some of the smaller delivery services you used to get the nukes and then get some help from The Doctor to make the store less vulnerable to, uh... things that go boom.

>>4474837
>>3. You're a McSpacies franchisee first, and not a very good one. You need to attract more customers. You should increase your advertising and host an event to bring in more customers than your delivery route does. An eating contest should do the trick. You can even throw in a t-shirt or some other prize for the winner.

>>4474837
>>3. You're a McSpacies franchisee first, and not a very good one. You need to attract more customers. You should increase your advertising and host an event to bring in more customers than your delivery route does. An eating contest should do the trick. You can even throw in a t-shirt or some other prize for the winner.
I know this is riskier but I think this is the funnier option.

>>4474992
>>4475123
>>4475147
You really haven't been living up to your role as a McSpacies franchisee. Sure, your quest of vengeance is all well and good, but that's just the dark side of your role as a McSpacies employee. You should do something that should bring some exposure to your restaurant, something that will draw people in, and most of all, something fun. An eating competition is one of the first things to come to mind and after several hours of jotting down and scratching out ideas you decide to run with it.

So far you have been somewhat negligent with advertising, but not anymore! You call The Doctor over while he's still on the clock and get him to show you how to properly use the new MilkyNet™. As an avid history enthusiast you figure he'll resent having to teach an old bastard like you how to figure out modern technology a bit less than the others. For the most part you are right, although he does get frustrated over how you can't understand "the simple concept of 7D-Haptic Feedback" no matter how many times he explains it. Still, you get most of it, and by tomorrow afternoon finish building a generic-looking website from some template. It's not much, but you're proud of it.

After putting up a few basic things on your site- the address, your menu, hours, stuff like that- you post the details for the eating competition. It'll be in around three weeks, on the first of the month, and based around who can eat the most of one of your menu items without vomiting. The item in question is nutrient paste (because you have a massive quantity of it and it's so horrible it was officially dropped from the menu just after you left Earth with all of it), but you'll refrain from mentioning that bit online. With the basic rules settled, you post the rewards. A genuine McSpacies t-shirt, a photo on the wall, a year's supply* of McSpacies (many, many restrictions apply), and your awe and respect. That last bit was meant mostly as a joke, but little did you know it would create a much bigger stir than you intended.

Minutes after posting about the eating contest you get a call from Rayleigh. "I'm competing. I'll start practicing tomorrow." "...Excuse me?" "The eating contest. I'll be competing." "How do you know about that? I haven't even advertised at the trade port yet." "I've been using bots to gather information related to various keywords online, mostly in case it can help us against King. I found your website minutes after you put it up. I want that 'awe and respect', so I will be competing."

>>4475354
You're somewhat amused that someone would be in it for the 'awe and respect', but hey, you did accidently save the dude's life, so it makes some sense. What makes less sense to you are the other arrivals. Three days after the eating contest was announced, High Priest Groplox from the Church of the Irradiated Light shows up, and while you were initially prepared for him to raise hell about your dispute with his disciples before, he instead addresses you as "Grand Priest McDonald", drops to one knee, and informs you that he will be bringing a group of "properly-behaved disciples" in order to pay their respects and "regain your favor" during the eating contest. You just nod in response to everything he says, flabbergasted by his change in attitude towards you, but he seems to take even that as blessing which he doesn't deserve. Once he's done informing you of his plans he leaves behind a life-sized (and completely naked) bronze statue of yourself as some sort of apology for the Gloop incident and then leaves. You appreciate the statue even if it kind of flashy and decide to put it in the break room since you obviously can't have it out front and it'd be too creepy to have in your room, what with it staring at you while you slept.

Just hours after High Priest Groplox, the first of many Disco Mafia officers arrive at your restaurant. You're kind of freaked out and ask them how the actual fuck they figured out where you live since you never told them, but they simply inform you that if they had to wait for you to tell them things they'd be failing at their jobs. Over the course of a few days at least a dozen high-ranking officers of the Disco Mafia arrive, stop by the restaurant to pay their respects to you, "the Disco Child", and then go to stay at the trade port. All of their motivations seem to be the same- the quest for your 'awe and respect', which if won, will raise their rank within the Disco Mafia drastically.

Around a week after you announced the eating contest is when you realize it's escalating into something you hadn't anticipated. You figured that the Disco Mafia members just practiced dancing all the time, but were surprised to learn that they were actually practicing for the eating competition. In their own words: "How are we supposed to eat the food we're served if some fool serves us first?" This doesn't seem to be some metaphor, and they all plan to beat the ever-loving shit out of each other during the competition using some sort of disco-based martial art. Great.

>>4475357
You mention the Disco Mafia's plans to Rayleigh, bewildered by the situation, only to find out that he, too, has been training. He practices a cooking-based fighting style, "self-defense cooking", and while he's nowhere near as talented as the spirit who was possessing him, is apparently a formidable opponent. He just thought you knew about it too since you managed to beat the dude possessing him in a cook-off, but apparently the whole "hyper-concentrated skills turn into outrageous fighting abilities" thing is just a rule of the universe that popped up after you went into cryosleep. Weird.

It's a weird realization that your eating contest is becoming a battle royale, and it might make it less friendly for casual competitors, but on the flip side it does sound awesome.
>1. Move the eating contest venue to the trade port since it's bigger and let everyone go at it. Dozens of dudes beating the shit out each other while trying to shovel down as much nutrient paste as they can and avoid vomiting sounds awesome. That'll draw way more attention to your restaurant than a normal eating contest.
>2. While a battle royale eating contest sounds cool, it's not really what you intended. You want more casual competitors to join and for it to feel more fair. The risk of being beaten half to death by competing runs directly counter to this goal.
>Write-in

After deciding on the format of the eating competition, you decide how to spend the next couple weeks. You have advertised quite a bit for the past week (message boards, everywhere within a few hours drive in the scouting ship your borrowed from Rayleigh, Planet Munchie, etc.), but you could do more of that. On the other hand, you are both a dance freak and an accomplished cook, and wouldn't mind learning some self-defense skills.
>1. Advertise the event more and spread news of it far and wide. You'll make sure people hear about your eating competition until they're tired of it, you're gonna make a big splash.
>2. Ask Rayleigh if he can teach you how to channel your cooking skills into fighting skills. The King was fearsome, and if you want to counter his weird laser-shooting abilities you'll need to be able to pull of some sick moves.
>3. Ask the Disco Mafia if they can teach you how to channel your disco abilities into fighting skills. You're a cook at heart, but that weird eldritch god of disco did give you some sick groove powers which you would like to practically apply.
>4. Ask both Rayleigh and the Disco Mafia to teach you. Bruce Lee said "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.", but Bruce Lee is stupid anyways. Better to half-ass two extremely relevant fighting styles than to full-ass one.
>Write-in

>>4475360
>1. Move the eating contest venue to the trade port since it's bigger and let everyone go at it. Dozens of dudes beating the shit out each other while trying to shovel down as much nutrient paste as they can and avoid vomiting sounds awesome. That'll draw way more attention to your restaurant than a normal eating contest.
>1. Advertise the event more and spread news of it far and wide. You'll make sure people hear about your eating competition until they're tired of it, you're gonna make a big splash.
Hahahaha

>>4475457
+1

>>4475457
Support, this arc is gonna be great.
Kind of sad this is going to be a short quest.

>>4475457
>>4475705
>>4475809
This whole eating competition is going a bit out of control, but you don't mind. Hell, you encourage it. The bigger and more wild the competition gets, the better advertisement it is. You enlist your employees whenever they're free as well as anyone else who's willing and do your best to spread word of your competition across the galaxy. In some places you advertise it as a combat sport, and in others as a casual eating competition. It depends on the target audience. At the same time you quietly add some extra rules to the competition. The basics can be summed up as "Don't murder anyone" and "Minimize collateral damage", although it does got into a lot more depth.

With the increase in advertising and change in your approach, you alter the rules further. Now there's a modest prize of a few hundred thousand credits, although it's offset by the introduction of a small entry fee. You also make it so that all competitors have to arrive a few days before the competition starts in order to "check-in". There's no real need for this, but this strategy makes everything seem more official and will draw in more money for your McSpacies and the trade port.

Time flashes by like this until it's two days before the start of the competition. Everyone has checked in by this point, and you have a total of eight thousand competitors, more than the resting population of the trade port. Fortunately the place was built for expansion and the shipment of supplies from Planet Munchie are coming extremely soon, or you'd have to worry about whether they could even host such a thing. Due to the size of the event you're even forced to order more of the unappetizing nutrient paste you have in storage. This purchase feels weird since one of your goals was to get rid of what you had, but at least it's extremely cheap.

As the final preparations come into place and you struggle to cope with the sudden influx of customers at your McSpacies, you...
>1. Prepare some sort of disguise (not the disco outfit, you think they'll see through that one), and slip yourself onto the competitors list. You're not particularly good at fighting, but hey, nobody is gonna die and this sounds fun. You wouldn't miss out on it. Maybe you can even learn a trick or two in the time you have left.
>2. Hurriedly prepare as many twists and environmental hazards for the competition as you can. You've had some people helping out, courtesy of Rayleigh and High Priest Groplox (the Disco Mafia would've offered more assistance but they're not local), but you feel like you could still spice things up a bit.
>3. Work with everyone in a bid to increase the security of the event. You have been making some efforts, even flying in a small squad of Disco Mafia soldiers to assist Rayleigh's "death squad", but there's still a substantial risk of King causing some chaos during the event. Although now that you think about it, maybe that's not completely unwelcome...
>Write-in

>>4475809
ayy, I appreciate the compliment. I'm probably better suited to short quests though, whenever I tried to run something longer it seemed to go downhill around the 5~ thread mark, partially due to irl stuff, partially due to update speed/pacing issues. Having a clearly defined end goal and a rough length seems to help with the latter problems.
This might end up dragging out to part of a third thread though since my computer crapped out at the start of the thread, honestly depends on the pacing. Wouldn't dream of it going longer than that though, this concept just isn't suited for it.

>>4475873
>2. Hurriedly prepare as many twists and environmental hazards for the competition as you can. You've had some people helping out, courtesy of Rayleigh and High Priest Groplox (the Disco Mafia would've offered more assistance but they're not local), but you feel like you could still spice things up a bit.

>>4477319
Competing sounds interesting but you're not properly equipped for it. Your real goal is still to make the event as big, chaotic, and exciting as possible. It's a bit hurried, but you start preparations for a more elaborate competition and some environmental hazards you can throw in to spice things up. You don't get everything you like (such as the space lions you wanted- you couldn't even find regular lions), but all in all you think your preparations have made for a better spectacle. While you were at it you even got a few extra cameras set up for spectating and arbitrating, although nowhere near as many as security would like.

On the day of the event everyone assembles at 5 AM, local time, in the center of the trade port. All the non-competing citizens are staying inside, as every single public space (and any private space that was willing) are being used for the event. "Nutrient paste distribution points" have been spread all across the trade port, creating locations for people to gather around and fight over. At the same time these locations are rather limited in size, meaning that people will have to start congregating around the remaining distribution points the more nutrient paste is eaten. You also have some more ways to ensure that people don't just bunker down, but you'll save those for when you need them.

Once everyone is assembled groups of competitors are sent out in various directions at specified times. This makes it harder to follow people before the competition starts, although unfortunately you don't have the time to split up everyone individually. By 6 AM this procedure is over, and you prepare to begin the competition. You're currently in Rayleigh's office, and your visage is projected across many of the holoscreens scattered throughout the trade port. Everybody initially wanted to go for the "Emperor overlooking a coliseum" look, but given your current dislike of royalty you went for more of a court jester look. You think it suits you. Across from you are a few of Rayleigh's underlings, waiting for the signal to begin. You give them the signal. LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

Immediately after the competition begins a small portion of the competitors run out of hiding and rush towards the nearest table full of nutrient paste. The majority of these people are those dumb enough not to realize combat would be involved, although some of them are simply confident in their strength. Either way, they're ambushed by a second wave of competitors who want to take advantage of their unpreparedness. ...And then a third wave pounces upon the second wave, and so on and so forth. It's chaos.

>>4478394
The crowded tables full of nutrient paste are knocked over with nothing eaten as chaos engulfs them. Less crowded ones have a few people chowing down or beating each other up, while a fair number are abandoned. You initially want to focus on the madness surrounding the crowded areas, but it ends up being too much to make sense of and you abandon it for the time being- it has to involve at least a quarter of those competing. Instead you use the quantum computer in front of you to bring up a few screens. One of Rayleigh, one of a small group of Disco Mafia officers, and one of High Priest Groplox.

Rayleigh is currently in a somewhat crowded area. Luckily for him, this area has no formidable opponents. He's currently scooping up nutrient paste with his hands and eating it, while brutally smacking away anyone who gets close to him with his spatula. The Disco Mafia are in a less crowded area of the space port, but are currently pinned down by a group of mercenaries carrying non-lethal weapons. Both groups have five people. High Priest Groplox is... enacting an interesting stratagem to say the least, as he and all of his disciples are sitting in a deserted corner of the trade port and praying. Interesting.

As you watch everything unfold, a member of the security crew flipping through cameras informs you that they spotted someone suspicious. You pull up their camera feed and find a worrying sight. The camera feed shows one man with a disgusting face and a crown with three jewels... one of the Burger Kings. Around a dozen competitors are laid out around him as he shovels nutrient paste into his unmoving mouth. The sight is off-putting, and you involuntarily glance away.
>1. It doesn't matter how he slipped past security and signed up for this, you're getting rid of him. Send in security with a license to kill. No mercy will be given to King and their minions.
>2. Step down from your "throne", leave someone else to officiate temporarily, and find this Burger King. You could handle Rayleigh, and you can handle this guy. You'll challenge him to a cook-off- you're not sure but you think they're required to accept, it might be part of their moral code or something. Although "not committing genocide" is clearly not part of their moral code, so you question how good it could be.
>3. Inform Rayleigh and the Disco Mafia officers that a Triple-patty Burger King is in the competition and where he is. Everything else will be left up to them. You don't want him here, but you want to act within the rules of the competition- you've put so much effort into preparing this competition, you aren't derailing it for this smug fucker.
>4. Do nothing. You hate King, and you especially hate the Burger Kings, but he hasn't done anything to disrupt the competition yet. You must be impartial... for now. The competition demands it.
>Write-in

>>4478397
>1. It doesn't matter how he slipped past security and signed up for this, you're getting rid of him. Send in security with a license to kill. No mercy will be given to King and their minions.

>>4478397
>1. It doesn't matter how he slipped past security and signed up for this, you're getting rid of him. Send in security with a license to kill. No mercy will be given to King and their minions.

>>4478497
>>4478669
You've gone through a lot to set up this competition and don't want to disrupt it, but this is King for fuck's sake. You're not beyond making a scene when it comes to them. You contact security and tell them to gather at the Burger King's location before striking all at once. This man needs to be apprehended, dead or alive (although preferably alive as this is probably just another person being possessed).

It only takes a few minutes for the security teams to get into place and surround the Burger King. At this point he's stopped eating ludicrous quantities of nutrient paste and is just standing by the table. Security starts to make their move, attempting to quietly exit cover and get a shot on him. As they do so he throws a glance at the camera before running. He knows. Security gives up on stealth, rushes into position, and opens fire, but without the element of surprise they can't capture the Burger King. A few shots pass harmlessly through his cape, while the ones that seem like they'll actually hit them get deflected by a few deft swishes of his golden spatula and some preemptive dodging. The Burger King disappears into the trade port's ventilation system, out of sight of the cameras, as you struggle to figure out where he could be going.

Security spreads out in order to secure nearby exits to the vents, but due to the sheer number of them it's not viable. Fortunately the Burger King doesn't stay in the vents for too long. About five minutes after he disappears, the camera closest to Rayleigh catches something noteworthy. A door bursts off its hinges as Rayleigh slams into it, clearly sent flying backwards by something. As Rayleigh comes to a stop another figure comes into view- the Burger King you've been tracking. The two of them rush towards each other, spatulas in each hand, and begin to engage in combat.

You're about to send the security team to assist Rayleigh when you hear a commotion at the entrance to the room- laser pistols and screaming. Lots of screaming actually. You take a look at the camera outside the room and see another Triple-patty Burger King fighting with the few members of the security team who were left behind to guard to you. The security team aren't faring very well.
Both you and Rayleigh are in danger and security doesn't have time to leisurely deal with both issues.
>1. Call security to your location and try to drag this out. You're not a fighter and need the help more than Rayleigh does. Plus, the Burger King fighting Rayleigh seems like he's trying to compete, so he probably won't break the "no killing" rule.
>2. Send security to Rayleigh's location. You're not sure how, but you'll figure out a way to deal with this.
>3. Split the security team in two and call half here while you tell the other half to go towards Rayleigh. Both of you just need some help, the whole team might be overkill.

>>4478881
As you finish sending orders to the security team you hear a loud thump on the door to your office. ...the Burger King closest to you is trying to break in. Great.
>1. Run for the hills, fuck if you're letting this guy catch you when there's a spaceship less than a minute away.
>2. Prep your mouth laser and aim for the door. You've eaten plenty in the past few weeks, it should have enough juice to wipe him off the map. Although you do feel kind of bad for whatever poor sap is being possessed.
>3. Wait for him to break into the room and then challenge him to a cook-off. You can only hope they're obligated to accept.
>Write-in

>>4478883
>3. Split the security team in two and call half here while you tell the other half to go towards Rayleigh. Both of you just need some help, the whole team might be overkill.
>2. Prep your mouth laser and aim for the door. You've eaten plenty in the past few weeks, it should have enough juice to wipe him off the map. Although you do feel kind of bad for whatever poor sap is being possessed.

>>4478881
>>3. Split the security team in two and call half here while you tell the other half to go towards Rayleigh. Both of you just need some help, the whole team might be overkill.
>3. Wait for him to break into the room and then challenge him to a cook-off. You can only hope they're obligated to accept.

Will roll to break the tie on the second choice in an hour or two if there's not another vote on it by then.

>>4467994
>You don't really get this one but she's saying something about the blockchain and crowd-sourcing the processing power you need for the damaged parts of your brain. This will also require a small machine implant, but it won't actually control brain functions- it will bring in processing power from other sentient creature's brains and allow you to control them and fix the bits you're missing. A side effect of this treatment will be the creation of a cryptocurrency based on your brain, but you don't think this affects you.
Accelerator reference?

Rolled 2 (1d2)

>>4480395
I read some of the Railgun manga maybe half a decade ago but I don't think it mentioned much about Accelerator except that he exists and murders a bunch of Mikasa clones. Neat coincidence though.
>>4479508
>>4479887
tiebreaking

>>4479508
>>4479887
You tell the security team to split themselves in two best they can and then hurry towards you and Rayleigh's locations. You would do so themselves but, well, you're under a bit of time crunch here. As you finish giving orders and back away from the computer, you hear the banging on the door intensify. You grab one of Rayleigh's spatulas from his desk and call out towards the door. "You're one of the Burger Kings, right? I challenge you to a cook-off!"

There's a short pause in the banging before a final, overwhelming blow causes the door to break down. "A cook-off... sure, why not. But this will be by my rules." The Burger King's vulgar expression seems to glare into your soul as you say this. You glare back. It's time to throw down.

>>4480519
Meanwhile, elsewhere in the trade port
You've broken three spatulas already, and he's not even going all out yet. This isn't good. At this rate he'll just toy with you until he's bored and then dispose of you to restore the glory of King or whatever insane mantra they're using now. Triple-patty Burger King Marcus lets out a booming laugh as he crosses his spatulas and slams them down with several times the force of before. He's tired of playing. "It's time to end this Rayleigh! You betrayed King, so now I have to dispose of you!"

Betrayed KIng?! If you had stuck with King they would've just shoved another ghost in you eventually. It'd be suicide. Still, you'd be lying if you said you weren't thankful to King at all... it's all thanks to them that you have the strength to fight against them now. You blank out your mind as best you can and remember. Remember what it was like to be possessed, to be a guest in your own body. You remember the strength of the ghost that possessed you, and their exemplary tenderization technique. Your eyes close as you instinctively move to resist what is meant to Burger King Marcus's finishing blow. "Second Patty: Explosive Tenderization!"

Syringes shoot out of your spatulas as they come into contact with Burger King Marcus's spatulas, letting loose as much liquid explosive as possible into the air and towards Burger King Marcus's face. A violent aura covers him and he begins pushing down with far more force than before in a desperate bid to quash to your last-ditch effort. But it's too late. You can still set off the explosives. You let go of one of the spatulas and forcefully resist his blow with one hand while using the other to grab your lighter. You can hear your arm crack from the strain of resisting Marcus's spatulas, but it doesn't matter. You've won. A massive grin covers your face as you toss the lighter, lit, into the air, setting off the explosives just as they reach their peak. The sound of you laughing and Marcus screaming blends together before a boom overwhelms them both.

The two of you are sent flying backwards from the explosion. You crash into one of the walls of the trade port with a thud, ears still ringing. The small quantity of explosives were further from you than Marcus, so he should've taken the brunt of the blow. Hopefully. You wrench your eyes open and look in his direction, only to be met with despair. He's a little torn up, but he's fine. ...But how. "...ird Patty: Neutralizing Force. Just in time too- you almost got me. ...Although I won't be able to use these spatulas anymore. No matter though- I don't need them to finish you off."

You're out of energy and spatulas. You're finished. You let out a sad grunt as Marcus strides towards you. You'd expect him to have some stupid, victorious grin on his face, but no- it's the same expression as always. God you hate that expression. That face. All of it.

>>4480531
Sheer anger forces you not to give up, and instead dredge up the last bit of you energy you have. Fuck it. He can defeat you, kill you, if he wants, but you're going to try and drag him down with you first.

Burger King Marcus wails on you with kicks for a bit, seemingly just gloating. It hurts, and you feel things break and bruise, but you hold out. This isn't the time yet. You don't think you can do anything yet. Your consciousness starts fading due to the beating and Marcus's gloating becomes indistinct for a while. But then you hear something that makes you move. "We're done here. I'd love to kill you, but I'll have to save that for later. Otherwise I'm disqualified." Marcus attempts to move away from you, but that's when you let that last bit of strength out. You shoot out an arm and latch onto his ankle, locking him in place. You can faintly see him turn back, perplexed, before he goes pale. "That spatula above me... a projection of will! How have you mastered a projection of will?! That's not a technique you should know! NO! NO!"

Around this point the security team arrives on the scene. Rayleigh can be seen on the ground broken and bleeding, but attached to Burger King Marcus's ankle like an anchor. Marcus struggles and kicks, but he can't get rid of him. Above the two is an amazing sight- an illusory spatula lifting itself further into the air and gathering power. After a few seconds of gathering strength it begins slamming down. Incoherent begging and screaming can be heard as Burger King Marcus lifts his hands up, unarmed, and tries to resist the spatula. Blood spurts out from his arms and the expression frozen on his face finally changes. At the same time the security team starts opening fire, confident that their target won't be able to dodge.

[I wanted to write this scene but wasn't sure whether I wanted you to control Rayleigh or not, so I'll just give you guys a sort of meta choice here, hope you don't mind.]
>Marcus tries to dodge, but it's in vain. The laser fire makes quick work of him and he crumples to the ground, dead. His final thoughts are a mixture of indignant rage at losing to a traitorous subordinate combined with pure joy of his host finally experiencing the freedom of death. A few members of the security team hurry over to Rayleigh to treat his injuries, while the rest go to meet up with the group headed towards the other Burger King.
>Marcus tries his best to dodge the laser fire, but is still pierced by a shot in his side. Half-dead and mentally not all there, he hurries to escape. He needs to contact his agents, get reven... wait, agents? What agents? And get revenge on who? Rayleigh? King? Those bastards at King... wait, no, they're allies... enemies... allies... enemies...wait, it doesn't matter. Escape comes first. Only half-possessed and desperate to live, Marcus manages to shake off the security team via the vents before trying to tend to his injuries.
>Write-in

>>4480546
>Marcus tries his best to dodge the laser fire, but is still pierced by a shot in his side. Half-dead and mentally not all there, he hurries to escape. He needs to contact his agents, get reven... wait, agents? What agents? And get revenge on who? Rayleigh? King? Those bastards at King... wait, no, they're allies... enemies... allies... enemies...wait, it doesn't matter. Escape comes first. Only half-possessed and desperate to live, Marcus manages to shake off the security team via the vents before trying to tend to his injuries.

>>4480446
Yeah idk if you'd be interested but in the anime it's somewhere around the end of A Certain Magical Index season 1 and more info about it is given in the A Certain Scientific Accelerator series

>>4480546
>Marcus tries to dodge, but it's in vain. The laser fire makes quick work of him and he crumples to the ground, dead. His final thoughts are a mixture of indignant rage at losing to a traitorous subordinate combined with pure joy of his host finally experiencing the freedom of death. A few members of the security team hurry over to Rayleigh to treat his injuries, while the rest go to meet up with the group headed towards the other Burger King.

>>4480546
>Marcus tries to dodge, but it's in vain. The laser fire makes quick work of him and he crumples to the ground, dead. His final thoughts are a mixture of indignant rage at losing to a traitorous subordinate combined with pure joy of his host finally experiencing the freedom of death. A few members of the security team hurry over to Rayleigh to treat his injuries, while the rest go to meet up with the group headed towards the other Burger King.

my internet keeps going out when I want to update, my damn dorm
>>4481962
>>4481391
>>4480767
"Fine, your rules. Bring it." The Burger King reaches into his cape and then draws out a large metal object from inside. You don't recognize it at first, but after a few moments you manage to identify it- it's a George Foreman Grill. You interrogate him about the grill, partially to buy time for the security team, partially because you're extremely confused. "Why do you have that with you?" "...The grill? Don't you carry snacks around with you just in case you get hungry?" "No, this is different than that. You can carry a granola bar or something, but that's an entire appliance right there. Do you carry raw meat on you too?! Where do you even keep it?!" "I'm not an idiot, of course I don't carry raw meat on me. I have a little battery powered fridge I keep it in, just big enough for a few patties. As for where I..." The Burger King pauses at this point and seems to realize that you're stalling. "That's mean. I thought you were showing genuine interest... well, whatever, let's get on with it. This portable, battery-powered grill will be the only way we can heat our patties. Whoever's able to get to it can use it."

So that's the catch. It's rough, but you'll have to roll with it- you don't have much choice. "Alright. There's a kitchen nearby, follow me." You begin to slowly lead the Burger King towards Rayleigh's personal kitchen, but after a veiled threat reminding you that he's on a time limit you hurry up. Once the two of you enter the kitchen the Burger King turns to you and throws the George Foreman in the air. "We start now! The time limit is 10 minutes! Best dish wins."

You jump towards the grill only to see the Burger King dash forward and slap it away from you with a spatula. You grit your teeth and jump towards the grill's new location, but it's no use. He plays keep away with one spatula and cooks his burger using the other. You're in ok shape, but this bastard is nimble. You try to grab the grill, throw stuff at it, throw stuff at him, but none of it works. He just stares at you with the damn grin on his face, mocking you while you try to use the grill. This isn't going to work.

Rayleigh's kitchen is well-stocked with all sorts of grills, stoves, and other heating devices, but you can't use any of them. Still, there's plenty here to work with- you just need to make something else. You mentally begin going through all the dishes you've made and everything in the McSpacies franchisee manual until you remember one dish in particular. If you made that then you wouldn't need to heat up your patty at all. Alright... you've got this in the bag.

>>4482486
With less than seven minutes left you rush over to a cupboard and pull out what you need. You put it all on the counter and grab a few potatoes and a cutting board. Your hand flashes as you focus on your cooking, rapidly cutting the potatoes into fries. If anyone was watching they'd think you were about to cut your fingers off, but there's no risk of that- you're an experienced cook, and you'd never do as something as stupid as cutting your own finger off a third time. You finish cutting the potatoes at an astonishing speed and then grab a bottle of oil. You fill up a nearby deep-frier and then shove the fries in. They should be done just in time.

The Burger King laughs as he watches you. "Making a side? That's nice, but what's that going to go with? E coli?" "E coli... as long as I'm hygienic about things, probably not." You leave the Burger King with that as your knife flashes again and you begin finely chopping your patty. It's already ground, but you need to do things thoroughly and cut it up again. As you finely split the burger into pieces you launch them up into the air with your knife and use your other hand to mix spices and seasonings into the meat midair. This method, repeated a few times, should result in a deep flavor and a seasoning which tastes as if it's in the meat instead of on the meat.

The Burger King grows uneasy at your actions and starts anxiously yelling at you. "Is that... steak tartare?! You can't make that- we're making burgers." "Burgers? When did we specify that? This is just a cook-off." "But.. but... you're just some fry cook. You can only cook fast food!" You let out a booming laugh as you finish mixing together the meat and the seasonings. "This is fast food! Special menu, item #943- filet américain. A beef dish for foreign markets, hipsters, and most VI of VIPs."

You plate the steak tartare and fries, and then add capers and mayonnaise to taste. You hold the dish out towards the Burger King as an egg timer goes off, signaling the end of your competition. The Burger King holds a burger out towards you, but from the way he's acting it seems clear that he knows he's lost. Now he just needs to accept it. "Try it." The Burger King hesitates as you say this, but then the door slams open and the security team storm into the kitchen, guns drawn. The Burger King glances at them, shakes his head, and sighs. "I'll try this, and if I need to admit my defeat. But after that... I'm finishing you and your cronies. Even if it is you, I don't believe one dish can get rid of me."

>>4482500
The Burger King downs a bite and stares at you for a moment before his face distorts in despair. It's taking effect. He bites down onto his lips for a moment, drawing blood, before he can't hold it anymore and begins screaming that inhuman scream you heard when Rayleigh was exorcised. After a few seconds a mirror-image of him starts to faintly disappear, and while he tries his hardest to stop it from happening, King's spirit is forced out of the body. It begins fading, cackling madly as it does so. "This can't be... I tried my best and it still wasn't enough... why... whYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY." The spirit dissolves into pieces as it says this, and the room goes quiet once more. You tell the security team to restrain the former Burger King just in case and get back to work.

For the short time all this chaos has been happening your security team has been extremely busy. During this time some bad actors seem to have taken this chance to ruin things. There have been more than a few deaths while your security team was busy, and combined with the not-so-hidden actions of the security team and the battle between Rayleigh and the Burger King stirring up a commotion, your reputation is not very good. Seeing the risk of death and the ongoing chaos most of the remaining contestants immediately forfeited. Fortunately some of the contestants either don't care or haven't heard, as you still have around 600 contestants.
>Get security back to their posts and start on the environmental hazards. Things got derailed, but they're under control now. The show must go on.
>Give some generic official response to try to calm people down and offer to let any of the 1837 contestants who recently forfeited back into the competition if they do it within the next half hour. All things said you wanted to move onto the next phase with maybe 2000 contestants left, but given your diversion things went much faster than expected.
>Do your best to settle things down and try to interrogate the dude you just exorcised. From what you've heard the other Burger King is dead so he's your only hope for figuring out what else King might have in store... even if his memories are probably really hazy.
>Other

>>4480767
Hopefully I'll get around to it eventually, I've been meaning to watch or read it for a long time.

>>4482510
>Give some generic official response to try to calm people down and offer to let any of the 1837 contestants who recently forfeited back into the competition if they do it within the next half hour. All things said you wanted to move onto the next phase with maybe 2000 contestants left, but given your diversion things went much faster than expected.
Become one of the environmental hazards as well

>>4482510
>Give some generic official response to try to calm people down and offer to let any of the 1837 contestants who recently forfeited back into the competition if they do it within the next half hour. All things said you wanted to move onto the next phase with maybe 2000 contestants left, but given your diversion things went much faster than expected.

>>4482830
>>4482983
You need to get some of these people back while you still can. Time for a good ol' corporate style apology. You do feel guilty about everything happening and wish you could've done more to stop King from sowing chaos but it's too late for regrets now. It's also too late for proper heart-to-heart apologies. Now you just need something that sounds reassuring and convinces people to to join the competition again.

You turn on the holoscreens across the space port and start broadcasting. You apologize for the "tragic accidents" that have happened so far and assure everyone that the problems are over due to the valiant efforts of the security team in capturing the culprits behind everything that happened. You then tell them that if they forfeited it's not too late- for the next half an hour the competition will be paused and they'll have the chance to rejoin. After a small wave of forfeits from those who just heard about the news, some people begin signing back up. Still, you're disappointed with the results. Time to break out the big guns.

"For anyone who wishes to forfeit without cause, that's fine. Please report to the main desk and pay the withdrawal fee amounting to the cost of any nutrient paste you ate or rendered inedible. We have cameras installed throughout the port, and so we assure you that the quantity of nutrient paste will be accurate. As it is a vintage recipe produced in low quantities, the price per pound will be 10,000 credits. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Some of the guards standing nearby shoot a mix of horrified and disgusted looks at you, but they don't dare to say anything- you're effectively their bosses' bosses at the minimum, your psuedo-evil acts can only be tolerated. As you quietly chuckle to yourself the amount of contestants left rapidly shoots upward. All in all only around 100 people decide to forfeit. You'll just stall the "payment process" until after the competition has resumed and quietly send them off- you would never actually dream of ripping them off like that, you just needed to give the quitters some motivation.

Once the half hour is over the 2353 contestants remaining return to the field in full force. Some of the fighting resumes, and their numbers dwindle, mainly from vomiting and battle-related forfeits. It only takes around half an hour for the numbers to dip under 2000. Time to move onto the next phase of things. The security team, who have a bit more freedom now, are still readying some of the big twists, but there's something prepared you can unleash now... yourself.

>>4484133
"Congratulations to the 1993 contestants remaining! You've triumphed over your peers and shown your cram things into your stomach without vomiting! Now it's time for our first twist of the day. As you can all see, my handsome mug is watching on from many of the monitors in the space port. Still, I'm sure you guys haven't gotten enough of your lovable host Ronald. So I prepared something for all of you- the Ronald everywhere system! Massive numbers of cardboard cutouts of me have been installed throughout the trade port, many of them in... interesting places. Hope you enjoy them!"

You type a command into the quantum computer sitting in front of you and activate the "Ronald everywhere system". Thousands of cardboard standees of you are now lying in wait for someone or something to approach their location before springing into action. There will be panic, there will be mild injuries due to high-speed cardboard, but most importantly, there will be massive amounts of advertisements and branding involved. This environmental hazard is dual purpose- an advertisement and an adversary mixed in one.

With most of the important matters taken care of for now, you have some free time. Apparently the Burger King from before is conscious now and security is going to interrogate him. You would like to help, but, wellllll... you're really interested in watching cardboard standees of yourself slam into people at somewhat high speeds or scare the shit out of them. If you let this chance go you're pretty sure you'll never get another one.
>Get somebody to grab you some popcorn and watch the security cameras in anticipation. This is gonna be fun. It's important to catch any of King's agents that are left, but the big threats are already out of the way and security can handle talking to him just fine.
>Head over to speak to the former Burger King and see if he remembers anything that might be important. You already fucked up once today, you can't afford to do it again.
>See how the people you know about are doing. You really want to see the madness that's about to go down but you kind of lost track of them since everything started to go down. You're not even sure if they're still in the competition at this point.
>Write-in

>>4484142
>Get somebody to grab you some popcorn and watch the security cameras in anticipation. This is gonna be fun. It's important to catch any of King's agents that are left, but the big threats are already out of the way and security can handle talking to him just fine.

>>4484142
>Get somebody to grab you some popcorn and watch the security cameras in anticipation. This is gonna be fun. It's important to catch any of King's agents that are left, but the big threats are already out of the way and security can handle talking to him just fine.

>>4484142
>Get somebody to grab you some popcorn and watch the security cameras in anticipation. This is gonna be fun. It's important to catch any of King's agents that are left, but the big threats are already out of the way and security can handle talking to him just fine.

>>4484422
>>4484647
>>4485232
There's plenty of stuff you COULD do right now, but eh, nothing that's really high-priority. You really just wanna kick back and watch your "Ronald everywhere system" go to work. You tell one of the security guys to go grab some popcorn and then open up many, many security camera screens on the quantum computer. This is gonna be fun.

A woman runs into an empty shop, attempting to hide and calm her stomach. She crashes into a smiling cardboard standee of you holding a cheeseburger, and lets out a muffled scream as she starts to trip over it. A man on other side of trade station starts helping herself to some nutrient paste before the nutrient paste splashes everywhere, something emerging from its depths. Before he can realize what's happening your cardboard face, covered in nutrient paste, slams into his mouth. He's knocked backward and lightly vomits as he slams against the ground, eliminated.

You sit at your computer and laugh at the antics of your cardboard counterparts. Some of them just scare or inconvenience people, but some of these wipeouts are hilarious. Especially the guy who ran over one and had it crash into his crotch. ...He still hasn't gotten up now that you think about it. Maybe you should have someone check on him. Just as you're watching someone run into a cardboard you hanging upside down from the ceiling, one of the security staff interrupts you. "Someone is nearing your... special contraption. Camera #89."

Oh hell yeah, you were waiting for this! You put Camera #89 to full-screen and see a very large man running towards the center of the trade port. As he nears it the sound of machinery starts up, and more than just a cardboard standee pops out of the ground- a piece of unused machinery that spins round and round with nearly a dozen cardboard standees strapped to it pops out of the ground. The man lets out a sad gasp as one of the cardboard standees slams into him, knocking him to his knees. A second one thwaps into him, and then a third, and finally a fourth before he's knocked to his back. He lies there, eyes wide open, as he stares at your increasingly-scary looking standees barely missing him. Due to the high speeds they're going at, they're partially covered in foam, but after a few hits he still has a deep fear of your terrifyi machine. It takes nearly a minute for him to carefully crawl away from it without getting hit.

>>4486486
Just as you're about to switch cameras again, the former Burger King enters the room. You wait for him to say something, but he just stands there, staring at nothing. This continues for far, far too long to be normal. You throw a confused glance towards the guards. It takes a while before one of them decides to explain what's happening. "...Uh, Mr. Fairview was very cooperative but unable to recall much. He did mention that there were bad actors sabotaging the events here, but only recalled one of them. Hoping to help him recover his memories, we figured we'd try to ask his subconscious, so to speak." Alright, makes sense so far. "So what'd you try? Hypnosis? Some weird brain scanner?" "People say weird stuff when coming out of anesthetic, so we thought a tiny, tiny dosage would make him say something helpful." "Did it?" "....No, not at all."

As you finish talking, Fairview approaches you. His eyes are kind of glazed over and you're not sure if he's paying attention to you or not. After standing there for nearly a minute he seems to come to and suddenly speaks up. "That competition thing... it's still going, right?" "Yeah." "Cool. I'm gonna go compete. See you later." Uh... well, he never vomited or anything, so he can go and rejoin everybody else. You're just not sure whether it's wise given, the guards' questionable questioning methods and his impaired state of mind.
>Eh, fuck it, the only people who want to kill anyone are King's men and they won't hurt him, he'll be fine. Hell, maybe if you let him back out there he'll accidentally find some of King's men for you.
>You feel some responsibility for this human being and would prefer he doesn't get knocked out by somebody because he's not all there. Just put him somewhere else and wait for him to go to sleep or go back to normal.
>Have him sent over to wherever Rayleigh is and hope both of them are conscious at the same time. Maybe they can drudge up some memories together that could help.
>Write-in

>>4486492
>Eh, fuck it, the only people who want to kill anyone are King's men and they won't hurt him, he'll be fine. Hell, maybe if you let him back out there he'll accidentally find some of King's men for you.

>>4486492
>>Have him sent over to wherever Rayleigh is and hope both of them are conscious at the same time. Maybe they can drudge up some memories together that could help.

>>4486492
>Have him sent over to wherever Rayleigh is and hope both of them are conscious at the same time. Maybe they can drudge up some memories together that could help.

>>4486570
>>4486578
>>4487090
You feel somewhat responsible for what has happened to this poor, poor man, and while releasing him into the dangerous wilds of the trade port could help with the King problem you're not quite willing to do that. "I don't think that's a good idea. Head over to the medical bay with one of the guards, the man who ran this trade port is over there. You used to be coworkers. See if you can remember anything helpful while talking to him." Fairview frowns slightly but slowly nods and heads off with a guard. Hopefully he gets back to normal soon.

Once Fairview is gone you return your focus to the camer- "Sir, there was another incident." Godammit, you just want to watch high-speed cardboard cutouts cause mindless havoc, is that too much to ask?! "What is it?" "One of the bad actors attacked a competitor. Fortunately they were trained in combat and only suffered minimal injuries before reaching a place that was on camera, but they were clearly going for the kill."

Fuck, King is really being a pain in the ass today- you'd be more angry at them than before, but you're not sure it's possible to be more upset at them given the all the ghosts and genocide and whatnot. Well, whatever, you can't just stew in your anger right now. You need to figure out how to stop any further incidents before this entire event is ruined- your security staff is free again, but there's still a lot of areas not on camera, mostly at the edges of the trade port. After a few minutes of thinking you come up with an idea.

Your clown-like visage covers the holoscreens scattered throughout the trade port as you pass down another announcement. "Greetings! This is your host Ronald, and soon it'll be time to move on to the next phase of things. But before then, I have an ultimatum. This isn't just a battle royale- it's an eating competition. All of you need to have eaten at least three and a half pounds of nutrient paste within the next half hour. So get going, and good luck!"

As your face disappears you lean back, pleased with yourself. That should speed things up a bit and draw everyone towards the nutrient paste, where there are more cameras. You tune back into the security cameras and see the remaining competitors begin to fight (and vomit) over the remaining nutrient paste. As they furiously shovel it down some of them become lethargic, clearly unequipped to handle the sheer amount of food they're eating. You would almost feel bad for them if it wasn't all so fun to watch.

While you watch a man slowly lurch away from a table in the midst of a "food coma", you decide to check the standings and see who has eaten the most nutrient paste. Standing at the top, having eaten nearly 100 pounds, is a man called "Big Mac"- and oh man, is he big. You flip to the camera closest to him and discover a man of such size you're amazed you couldn't see him from where you are.

>>4488246
He's more than three meters tall, built like a tank, and you can't imagine an attack that could make its way through his many layers of fat. As you watch on, in awe, he walks up to a table full of nutrient paste, scaring off everyone nearby, and begins shoveling food in handful by handful. Jesus. You shake your head in a mix of awe and disgust before glancing back at the list of competitors. The person has eaten the second much is... Gloop?! He was in this?!

You flip through the cameras, looking for Gloop, and after a few minutes find him. He's lying on top of a table full of nutrient paste, slowly dissolving his way through everything there, table and all. A few people kick at him and try to get some, but he simply ignores them and singes their clothes. Huh. You guess he doesn't have to fight, what with being a slime thing and all. You leave Gloop to his business and then peer back towards the list. Some more notable eating competition regulars are near the top, as well as High Priest Groplox and some of his Church of the Irradiated Light members. You have no idea how he managed to do that, but good for him you guess.

Before getting the chance to watch anyone else, you're interrupted by the deadline you had set. You stop watching 'Big Mac' and look at the contestants left. There are only around 400 left at this point, and most of them have either fighting or eating competition experience. As you prepare to move things forward start to force the remaining contestants closer to each other, a thought comes to mind. There a lot of eliminated contestants around the trade port, as well as some spectators, both in the trade port and watching at a few select locations on Planet Munchie (although most of them are related to the Disco Mafia). You're not really a gambling man, but it could be profitable to open up some betting with the competition filtering down.
>Just work some odds out, project a few cool cinematic shots to all the holoscreens to highlight contestants to watch, and then watch the bets roll in. It might tie up some people you could use elsewhere, but you'll make money!
>After the lootbox genocide of 2208 you have some mixed feelings about gambling. Plus, you could use the extra hands, even if most of the contestants left are probably too fearsome to be killed by King 1v1. You'll hold off.
>Gambling is great and all, but this is too many contestants. Announce it ahead of time and then have security start figuring out odds while they're watching the cameras. You'll open it up when there are, you dunno, 100 left? 50 left?
>Gambling is great and all, but only if you're competing. Open up betting, put down some odds, and then bet on [A couple of the Disco Mafia officers/Big Mac/Gloop/High Priest Groplox/Rayleigh (technically hasn't forfeited, still unconscious though)/write-in].
>Write-in

>>4488248
>>Just work some odds out, project a few cool cinematic shots to all the holoscreens to highlight contestants to watch, and then watch the bets roll in. It might tie up some people you could use elsewhere, but you'll make money!

>>4488688
Some people have ethical qualms over gambling, but you're not one of them. Even if this whole idea is extremely sudden and hastily cobbled together, you gotta do what you gotta do in the struggle for legal tender. You address the half a dozen guards watching the cameras around you. "Any of you guys have experience being a bookie or working in a casino or something? I figured we could open betting on this fine event of ours."

All of Rayleigh's men stay silent, but the guards provided by the Disco Mafia unanimously state that they have experience. That's convenient. And somewhat worrying, but mostly convenient. You tell them to get something worked out so that you can open betting on the competition, and they excitedly begin talking among themselves. At first you just think they're happy to be working with their, uh, 'hobby', but then you start seeing them take out money. Confused, you interrupt them. "What are you guys up to?" "Oh, just some betting." "On the competition?" "No, on who's going to be in charge of the betting for the competition. Figured we should open a pool for it."

Damn gambling junkies. You force them to get to work, afraid of them sinking into an endless recursion of one betting pool upon another betting pool, and start getting footage of the contestants. Fortunately you have the time to do so since the competition has slowed down, and will likely stay this way until you force things forward. After half an hour you have your shots, and after feeding it into some weird self-learning AI one of the guards recommended you have a decent highlights reel. Now time to broadcast them, announce that betting is open, and rake in the cash.

You broadcast your highlights throughout the trade port and Planet Munchie, hyping up your "hundreds of formidable contestants" including Big Mac, Gloop, Big Al, 'the rare Andromeda Land-Space Turtle' (who much to your surprise is competing- you almost didn't notice him because he was floating near the ceiling almost the whole time), and many, many more. As you open betting the credits rake in, and you watch with a youthful twinkle in your eyes as the betting fees taken out begin to fill your bank account. Ah, capitalism. It's so beautiful it almost brings a tear to your eye.

>>4489999
As you prepare to move things forward, shit hits the fan. A loud boom can be heard from somewhere close to your location, and the room shakes as an explosion rocks this section of the trade port. You put in a hurried request to security concerning what the fuck is going on, but it's not answered until two more booms sound off in quick succession. That's when you learn that King has determined that this is their last chance to wreck things and decided to detonate bombs at the edge of the trade port, breaching the hull. This shouldn't cause any problems due to the trade port's built-in safety systems, but if those systems were damaged then the harmless holes in the trade port that just need a cheap patch-up will turn into extremely dangerous exits into the vast emptiness of space.

You prepare to gather the security team and send them after King, but at the same time something starts messing with your broadcasts. It seems like someone is trying to hijack the signal to both the holoscreens in the trade port and the ones on Planet Munchie. You would love to fix this, but you're not the tech guy- that's also mostly security.

At this point you think things can't get worse, which is probably the worst thing you can think in a situation like this. Fairview enters the room, devoid of breath and much more sober looking than earlier, and approaches you. "I remembered something! I don't know when, but there's a battleship coming! It's probably not soon if you guys haven't detected it yet, but... maybe it is? I'm not sure." Oh, great. King has the big guns en route. You don't know how close they are, but dammit, en route is en route! But can you even afford to worry about that right now? There are much more immediate threats bearing down on you.
>Send the security team to take care of King's currently harmless terrorist efforts and let them hijack the signal. It's just too dangerous to let them start blowing shit up, if the safeties get turned off then it's going to be madness near the breeches in the hull.
>Have the security team take care of the attempt to hijack your signal and let the bombs go off. You've already had enough fuckups so far, you can cover up a few explosions as part of the next environmental hazard being activated or whatever, but you're not sure you can regain the competitors' trust if King broadcasts something weird to them.
>Split the security team in two and do your best to fix both problems. It's all or nothing. [Will require rolls.]
>Shut everything down and treat this as an emergency, you don't know when but there's a battleship on the way. This honestly won't make any difference if it's a significant distance away, but what if it is nearby and it just snuck up on you guys? You're not sure what you can do to it, but you'd need to be prepared at the very least, or else you'd just... well, die you guess. Although you suppose that might happen either way.
>Write-in

>>4490003
>>Split the security team in two and do your best to fix both problems. It's all or nothing. [Will require rolls.]

>>4490003
>>Split the security team in two and do your best to fix both problems. It's all or nothing. [Will require rolls.]

>>4490583
>>4490669
Alright, vote closed for this. I'll update in a couple hours, in the meantime could I get 2 3d100s. First set for the team heading towards the bombs, second for the team dealing with the hijacking.

Rolled 93, 68, 68, 92, 13, 74 = 408 (6d100)

>>4490686

>>4490693
Wow, those are some nice rolls.
93 for the bomb team, 92 for the hijacking team- writing.

>>4490583
>>4490669
The battleship probably isn't anywhere nearby, and even if it is you can do fuck all about it. You'll just have to ignore that and focus on the present issues. You split the security team into two teams- Team Brain and Team Brawn. Team Brain will try to stop your signal from being hijacked, while Team Brawn will find King's weird terrorist death squad and beat the ever-living shit out of them. In the meantime you'll just sit here with a couple leftover guards just in case and try to, uh... not die you guess.

Team Brain convenes in a nearby room crowded with quantum computers and holoscreens of all sorts, a LED-lit, climate-controlled, techie's paradise. Once they're settled down and logged onto the computers, security splits into two smaller groups. The first begins sorting through the trade port's network, going over every single signal in and around the trade port with a fine-toothed comb. The second group does their best to hold off the hijacker while the first one figures out where the signal is coming from.

Much to Team Brain's surprise, it isn't that hard to track down your signa-ljacker. In fact, it's painfully easy with their combined efforts. The signal appears to be coming from an extremely expensive industrial-grade machine, but whoever is using it is laughably incompetent. They did attempt to hide the signal, but this only stalled the guards for ten minutes- on top of that, once they were found they didn't engage in any cat or mouse antics or attempt to hide. They just kept doing what they were doing, "hidden" in one of the trade station's maintenance shaft. With their job done, the security team heads back to you, shit-talking the "script kiddie" as you watch Team Brawn begin to engage with King's men.

Team Brawn suffers a bit more trouble, as King's men prove themselves to be ruthless as always. As they give chase to a squad of 10, instead of facing them head-on, the squad decides to leave behind one of their number as a suicide bomber and then gain distance so that they can plant more explosives. Fortunately none of the suicide bombers can get past Team Brawn's hail of gunfire, but while they fail to inflict any real damage they do delay the squad. This allows King to breach a couple more holes in the hull, although due to the time pressure these aren't very well placed.

Just as you're sighing and hoping that the trade port's hull will end up with less than a dozen holes once this is all over, you're greeted by an unexpected breach in the hull, one that's non-explosive in nature. As you watch Team Brawn chase after the eight remaining terrorists, a small ship suddenly pierces through the hull and crushes every single one King's men. King's soldiers are turned into paste under the hull, and you have to hold back from vomiting as this act of god takes care of your problem for you. It's definitely convenient, almost miraculous actually, but... jesus, that's one violent miracle.

>>4490803
You hail the ship, and after what feels like an eternity it responds. On screen you see Herbert, who you thought was still on Planet Munchie. He looks very drunk. You stare at him in awe, trying to find the words to thank him for his act of righteous manslaughter. Before you can find these words he starts chatting with you. "Itsh you! Shoulda... should've anshwered those hail requests before if they were youh. I got divorshed again and decided to visit! You glad to see meh?"

"Uh, yeah, it's great to see you're doing well." There are also other circumstances of his arrival that you appreciate, but you'll keep him in the dark on that. You don't think he's the kind of guy should have eight people's deaths on his conscience, even if they were effectively terrorists. "You accidentally ran over somebody's birthday present when you crashed in here. Don't look outside the ship until my guys have gotten rid of it, I don't want to spoil the surprise." "Ouh. Mah bad. I was aimin' for those little... little entrances that showed up, but I accidenthally made one of mah own. Mah bad, mah bad."

As you try to deal with Herbert, your security team captures the signal-jacker. You don't know much, but apparently there's almost no chance he's associated with King. Unlike their deathly-loyal, organized, and combat trained men, this signal-jacker is scrawny, begging for mercy, and asserting that "it's just a money thing". Of course King could've hired him, but that seems unlikely.
>Let security deal with the nerd, get somebody to take care of Herbert's mess, and then focus on advancing the competition. The show must go on!
>Let the head of security take care of the formalities with the competition, send somebody to take care of Herbert's mess, and then go interrogate the dude who tried to hijack your signal. He's probably not important, but if there's somebody targeting you who's not King you need to know. It shouldn't take too long- you'll get back to the competition well before the cool final stage at least.
>Let security deal with the nerd, let the head of security take care of the formalities with the competition, and catch up with Herbert. Maybe he just wanted to visit since he divorced his wife... again... but hey, maybe he had some important news about the supply shipment that he needed to rush here and tell you. Hell, maybe he saw that battleship on the way, who knows.
>Write-in

>>4490807
>Let security deal with the nerd, get somebody to take care of Herbert's mess, and then focus on advancing the competition. The show must go on!

>>4490807
>Let the head of security take care of the formalities with the competition, send somebody to take care of Herbert's mess, and then go interrogate the dude who tried to hijack your signal. He's probably not important, but if there's somebody targeting you who's not King you need to know. It shouldn't take too long- you'll get back to the competition well before the cool final stage at least.

If there's still a tie I'll roll to break it in an hour or two.

>>4490807
>>Let security deal with the nerd, get somebody to take care of Herbert's mess, and then focus on advancing the competition. The show must go on!
>>4492107
I'll break it, had to go to a physical test.

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>>4491039
>>4491055
>>4492210
You have people to take care of the little stuff for you, you should be focusing your attention on the important things in life, like gladiator style spectator sports. You turn your attention back to the quantum computer and begin setting up for the penultimate portion of the competition. You'll start making parts of the trade port off-limits, forcing the competitors further and further in until they're all herded near the center. You just need to find the map where all the areas of the trade port are labeled.

The next few minutes are spent trying to make sense of this new-fangled quantum computer until you manage to find a file labelled "map" in one of Rayleigh's folders. That should be it. You click on it and are greeted by what appears to be a very crudely drawn fantasy map. For some reason there's only one country with borders (or at least you think they're borders, you're honestly not sure) drawn in, and it is named after you. Across from them are "The Kinglands", which have no borders at all.

Intrigued, you pause what you're doing and ask one of Rayleigh's men if they know what the fuck you're looking at. They glance at it for a moment, but after a second their mouth drops open in shock and they look away. "That has to be the commander's map for our 23.75E campaign. We haven't been allowed to see it yet, so I shouldn't look." "I see. Why is this country named after me?" "Must be a coincidence. I can't think of any reason for the name. We're just soldiers of fortune working for Ronaldia, doing our best to exterminate the vile barbarians that populate the Kinglands so that our country can further expand. Not really inspired by anything."

So it's some sort of tabletop thing. Rayleigh's campaign ideas are a bit weird, but whatever. People have hobbies. Well, you definitely can see why they aren't allowed to see it yet. It's, uh... a work in progress if nothing else. You return to searching for the map you were initially looking for, and find it- "map (1)". You open the map and resume broadcasting, ready to move things forward.

>>4492370
"Greetings to the valiant competitors remaining! At this point we're left with only the best of the best, the creme of the crop! And now it's time to cull you all even further... next to me is a machine that will determine your destiny." As you say this you dramatically pull a satin curtain off of a small object sitting on Rayleigh's desk- a bingo machine with a bunch of marked balls in it. "Every few minutes I'll use this machine to randomly select a ball, and then the portion of the trade port corresponding to that ball will become off-limits in 5 minutes. That means that any competitor in that region from that point onward will be immediately eliminated."

You bring up the map for everyone and retrieve your first ball. "B3." You prepare to add some dramatic, awe-inspiring words here, maybe even something you can be remembered by, but then a guard enters the room and starts to say something. You scowl, cut the feed, and turn to them. "What is it?" "We interrogated the signal-jacker. They said that whoever hired them used a broker, but that it was definitely someone related to 'The Church of Irradiated Light'. Apparently they didn't know how to jailbreak the machine they lent him and left identifying information behind that gave the name of the organization and some other basic information."

...The Church of the Irradiated Light? Did High Priest Groplox try to fuck you over after all? If he really did you gotta give him some credit, he's been biding his time. Then again, maybe it's one of his coworkers- you don't think he's at the top of his church, and there should be other branches out there.
>Better safe than sorry. Round up the remaining members of The Church of Irradiated Light, kick them out of the competition, and figure out if they have anything to do with this. This will definitely sour relations with them if it's not them, but you can't afford any further fuckups.
>It might be him, might not be. You'll split off another few dudes and have them watch what they do very closely. It'll take up some manpower but since there are less contestants (and hopefully none of King's soldiers left) you can probably afford the expenditure.
>Eh, it doesn't make sense for him to wait until now. If he wanted to get back at you for Gloop's "sacrilegious" behavior and you yelling at his followers he would've done so much, much earlier. You'll just leave them for now and ask why parts of his religion might hate you later.
>Write-in

>>4492374
>Eh, it doesn't make sense for him to wait until now. If he wanted to get back at you for Gloop's "sacrilegious" behavior and you yelling at his followers he would've done so much, much earlier. You'll just leave them for now and ask why parts of his religion might hate you later.

>>4492374
>Eh, it doesn't make sense for him to wait until now. If he wanted to get back at you for Gloop's "sacrilegious" behavior and you yelling at his followers he would've done so much, much earlier. You'll just leave them for now and ask why parts of his religion might hate you later.

>>4492374
>Better safe than sorry. Round up the remaining members of The Church of Irradiated Light, kick them out of the competition, and figure out if they have anything to do with this. This will definitely sour relations with them if it's not them, but you can't afford any further fuckups.

Sorry for the wait, had to pull an all-nighter last night working on some stuff. Still pretty cramped timewise but I should update later tonight.
Hopefully I can wrap up this eating competition before the thread drops off the board, although it's not a big deal if it goes over by an update or two, and then in the third thread we can wrap things up and have your final showdown. Sorry for going a thread over my (rather confident) estimate, that's my fault for slowing down on updates.

>>4494716
It okay no worry
>had to pull an all-nighter last night working on some stuff. Still pretty cramped timewise but I should update later tonight
Are you sure you shouldn't sleep instead bro

>>4495228
It wasn't as bad as it sounded, I did get some sleep the afternoon after I pulled the all-nighter.

Anyways, half the campus's internet was out for 14 hours today and without the chance to work on anything some deadlines are now dangerously close
I'll archive the thread and then make a new one in maybe a week or so, once I have some metaphorical breathing room
Will post on /qtg/ when it's up, thanks for anyone still reading or participating and hope you're getting some fun out of this quest!

>>4496315
Great quest dude, super fun. See you then!