Rimworld - Royalty: Salt Miners Guild

[jammi]

Day 46 - 60: Press F to Pay Respects

There's a mutual decision to take in the glitterworld intelligence officer, and so @"The Only Hokan" joins the colony for a period of 13 days. She's a seasoned combat operative, and is highly proficient with both blades and guns. Unfortunately, she's also a complete psychopath, and prone to starting fires when bored. She also has a bad case of fibrous mechanites, a parasitic nanite disease. Somewhat suspiciously, WolfsGhost also develops a case the morning after.

The sun rises with the advance of 4 manhunting tortoises - the very same pack Ramke had been outrunning walking. ONIKS and Hokan decide to sally forth from the defences for a bit of sport. They take slightly too much pleasure in bloodily dismembering the poor tortoises from range. While this is going on, a large pack of feral squirrels rolls into the area.

While the two hunters are distracted by wanton cruelty to animals, the squirrels set upon them. The squirrels are tiny, vicious and hard to hit. Before long the pair are bleeding from countless tiny wounds. They retreat back to the base, while Spectre holds the doors and bludgeons any intruding wildlife to death. Both ONIKS and Hokan head back to their beds so Ramke can patch them up.

Moments later a pair of raiders from the Grey Devils arrive and launch an attack. The colonists hole up behind the walls and are relieved to hear the traps do their work. Even more fortunately, the pair were armed with a rusty old shotgun and revolver. These are quickly passed around.

Before any work can be done to patch up the spike traps, another tribal raiding party from Issao of the Hills attacks. Five of them armed with spears and bows charge the base. Two are killed by the traps, but the rest make it into the Courtyard. The traps are spent.

A gunline of colonists stood ready behind the sandbags, opening fire as the attackers entered range. Hokan quickly shot one through the head, with ONIKS rendering a second into salsa with her new shotgun. The last remaining raider flees and makes it out before anyone can catch her.

After this, there are no more traps left at the chokepoint - the base is vulnerable. Unfortunately, as Chuba rushes to patch the breach, a third raid arrives - another from the Grey Devils. This time there are five, all armed with autopistols and machine pistols. Chuba manages to get a few traps set back up, but couldn't escape the spiked corridors before the raiders were upon him.

The marauders immediately begin shooting and clubbing Chubba until he succumbs to his wounds and collapses. One of the bandits immediately hogties him and begins dragging him away.

The other colonists rush to try and help, but only Specter is nearby. Adeptly taking advantage of the tight corners of the chokepoint, he guts two of them with his knife and sets off after the kidnapper. Sadly, he's not quite quick enough and poor Chubba is hauled away to fates unknown. Furious, Specter turns back towards the one remaining bandit who was also attempting to flee and slices him up.

Three raids in one day is nuts. Just to top things off, both WolfsGhost and Hokan are struck down by a nasty case of malaria. Ramke should really look into the how's and why's of them two always sharing diseases... In any event, WolfsGhost finishes repairing the traps before retiring for bedrest and chicken capybara soup.

ONIKS is out practicing with her shotgun when a fourth raid occurs. Fortunately this is only a pair of tribals from Issao of the Hill again; one with a club and another with a spear. Easy, no need for backup. She quickly dispatches one, but the clubber gets in range, and... crunch. ONIKS goes down, with the raider going down to a spike trap shortly after.

RIP in Pieces.

Strangely, despite his wounds, the last raider refuses to die. Ramke stabilises him, drags him into ONIKS' old room and locks the door. No-one is quite sure what to do with him yet, other than Spectre who is somewhat ghoulishly satisfied that his ex is dead. Somewhat pragmatically he notes that bygones should be bygones, given that the colony is now a pair of hands short and recruits shouldn't be wasted.

God damn, that was your wife!

Fortunately, the tragedy is followed up by a tiny glimmer of positivity. A wandered called @Lythrilux petitions to join the colony - she's fleeing from the menacing Marduck, the nomadic Son Crusher. It turns out that this is indeed just a regular duck, albeit with a nasty attitude. Lythrilux initially gets started on clearing up the truly awful amounts of blood, vomit and filth that are encrusting the base, before moving onto a new and special project.

Overall progress: day 60.

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