There's a LOT of things that happened this update that ever so slightly hints at the amazing amount of instability this game is getting away with. Thankfully, none of it caused any crashes, but it makes you wonder how much is every so hopelessly broken behind the scenes.
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Out in a field a koopa and a ninji stand before a trade depot that is packed to the gills with snail and koopa traders. The ninji is busily investigating the box of spiked wooden balls that he has as trading items.
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"Alright" Mottled Petrel finally cut in "We've got stuff to do, so lets see what you bubblainians got for us". All of the bubblainians seemed to be drugged out of their minds, but one trader who was on the decline of his most recent high slithered(is snail perambulation considered slithering?) over to the two waiting to trade "Like, sorry man, but we've still got two more coming. See, they're out there walking gogoats over to the depot as we speak.".
Mottled Petrel turned to see that said traders were still really far away from the depot, and were proceeding at a laughably slow pace. "You gotta take care of your animals from time to time, man. Just gotta let them chillax and refind their zen-" Mottled Petrel cut him off "Well if you aren't ready to trade yet we'll just trade with the koopas first". The koopas, with ample help from the obscene amount of armed guards they brought, were already ready at the trade depot. The guards were busy entertaining themselves by trying to spear fish humming tadpoles out of the river, while others anxiously eyed the convulsing mass of birdemic birds still in the sky. Mottled Petrel waved over one of the traders, who introduced himself as Nokog.
"Greetings from the Mountainhome. Your efforts are legend there. Let us trade!". The merchant started showing off his wares, but Mottled Petrel stopped him "
Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean our efforts are legend there? As far as I knew we were just a means of ridding the empire of its unemployed.". The merchant looked surprised "Really? You don't know? Word around the mountainhome is that at Modded Hell even the most unskilled worker is allowed to pursue whatever profession they desire. A proposition almost unheard of in a traditional koopa fortress. For those who actually care to learn a new craft, this place is chance for a new life. It's only been a little more than a year, so many koopas are still wary of living in such a small fort after living with all of the mountainhome's services, but for those who can live with roughing it Modded Hell is a beacon of hope. Of course, the king still mostly only authorizes sending criminals and nutjobs here, but there have been a few petitions sent to the state asking to allow certain koopas to come here willingly. Now, enough news, let us trade so I can show the mountainhome how successful you koopas are here.".
Mottled Petrel was a little taken aback, but proceeded to trade anyways "Uh, alright. That rope looks nice, how much is it?"
"2510 Urists" replied the trader. Mottled Petrel couldn't help himself, and burst out laughing, after about a minute he regained enough of his composure to squeak out "The standard price of rope is 10 Urists, what the fuck did you make it out of, unicorn hair?". The merchant looked over some of his ledgers, and then shrugged "I don't know, it's just marked down as being really valuable, do you want it?". Mottled Petrel shook his head, and them continued trading "We'll take that cave spider silk rope, that waterskin, that wooden nokokon, the magnemite, 10 stacks of meat, some thread, two backpacks, a quiver, and, uh..." Mottled Petrel flipped over the final item and recoiled in fear.
"We'll, uh, we'll take that demon-script as well as any paper you might have. Actually, we'll take the laser-spino as well." almost as if he understood, the laser-spino began wagging its tail inside its cage. This had the adverse effect of creating a miniature earthquake inside the trade depot. The merchant quickly signed the trade agreement before running back into the trade depot to try to calm the beast down. "We'll be back for you later" Mottled Petrel said to the bubblainian trader, who looked like he hadn't even blinked the entirety of the time Mottled Petrel had been trading. Mottled Petrel turned around to relay orders "pasture the spino with the frogogs, and just let the magnemite fly around inside. Everyone else, carry our new stuff inside.".
After days of waiting for the straggling merchants to arrive at the depot, the bubblainians were finally ready to trade. 'This is going to be such a waste of my time. What are they going to sell me? Daisies? Cloth? What could they possibly-'.
'...
-DIAL-UP NOISES-.........'.
Mottled Petrel had no idea what to make of the obscenely valuable and powerful weapons that the bubblainians were peddling. 'How can a people so lax make such intricate and powerful instruments of death. We can't even fucking afford any of this, nor do I even know the relative strength of these items. I can't just have them leave empty handed though, I need them to come back next year so after I learn what the hell any of this is I can buy it.' "Uh, we'll take that bone instrument-" the snail merchant started to reach for the ludicrously expensive one "-no, no, the other one. And we'll take that wheelbarrow, and those, uh...
instrument parts.". Even though the bubblainian could have made enough money to last him a life time, he still looked pretty happy that he was selling anything at all "Right on, man. Let me just package this stuff up for you.". Mottled Petrel stopped him as he was turning away "Also, here is a gift from us, the koopa people, to you, the bubblainians." Mottled Petrel said, as he offered about 1000 Urists worth of gems to the snail. The bubblainian looked even happier "I'm sure that our leaders will be totally stoked to receive these gifts.". The koopa merchants farther down the trade depot looked confused as to why Mottled Petrel was offering gifts so early in the fortress's life, but he didn't notice.
On his way inside Mottled Petrel walks by Set, who suddenly looses a loud and bonechilling cackle coupled with a murderous smile. He immediately runs to claim a craftskoopa's workshop, and all hopes Mottled Petrel had of acquiring a useful artifact were dashed 'Oh great, we're probably going to get an earring or something'. Set then carries over a single boulder of tetrahedrite to the craftskoopa's workshop, and then begins to work furiously. 'Alright, this one is going to be REALLY disappointing, but I guess it's good to have artifacts around anyways.' Mottled Petrel thought, as he lost interest and walked way.
A few days later Set holds a tetrahedrite earring over his head, Mottled Petrel was less than pleased. '
Are you fucking serious, the exact thing I said it was going to be that I didn't want you make?' Set grinned even wider from across the room, almost as if Mottled Petrel had said that last comment out loud. Mottled Petrel practically marched over to the craftskoopa's workshop and tore the small piece of stone that passed for an artifact out of Set's hands.
He looked it over, and found nothing innately special about it other than a few oval shaped markings on an otherwise completely smooth earring. It seemed for a moment that a few of the ovals began to flicker, but Mottled Petrel made no note of it. "You got anything to say for yourself?" he asked Set after looking at the earring for some time, Set shrugged "Just creating a little disorder.". Mottled Petrel frowned "Well don't think you're getting off of military duty, we need a fighter more than we need a stonecrafter. Hey, Nuku, make a platinum pedestal please. We might as well put it on display to get us some attention.". Nuku gave one of his 'I'll do it if I get to it' faces, and walked away.
Later it would appear that Sanctume and EPM were trying to share the forge and work on two things at once. Mottled Petrel watched from the sidelines, thinking that it was the most inefficient thing he had ever seen. Sanctume eventually noticed this and yelled over to Mottled Petrel "Don't worry! Just catching up with my dear old aunt. We're still getting work done, I swear.". On the other side of the room Imic was busy making meat blocks, when he noticed Mottled Petrel he ran up to him with a piece of paper in his hands. "Here you are sir, my most recent blueprints for the meat tower you asked for" Imic said, handing Mottled Petrel the paper. Mottled Petrel looked at paper, and immediately noticed that there were a lot more jutting metal spikes than he asked for. "Okay, the spikes are cool, but lets just make the meat part of the tower first. You have my permission to go ahead with this plan as long as you leave a good amount of edible meat in the food stockpile." Imic looked disappointed that he wasn't going to be able to add the spikes, but still glad that he was able to build any of it at all "Yes sir, I'll get to work laying out the plan for the first wall now.".
The trolls got to work on the first layer of the tower immediately, and in the distance Mottled Petrel noticed that the merchants had decided to leave for the year.
'Guess this room is going to be the museum. At least any potential thieves have to walk right by the barracks if they want to get to it.'. From his forge Nuku slams his tools onto the ground and yells "There! Are you happy now!". In front of him rests a mastercraft statue of the founding of Modded Hell in silver.
The most notable feature of it was the ninji Noko being hoisted up by a crowd of adoring koopas and trolls. Off to the side was Mottled Petrel, sulking. "You did a really good job with this statue, but this never happened." Mottled Petrel said, as he came up from behind Nuku. "Well I wasn't there, so how the hell was I supposed to know how it went?" Nuku said, as he moved protectively near his statue. Noko, the ninji so valiantly displayed in this artwork, saw the statue from across the room where he was taking one of his notoriously long breaks. He gave a hearty thumbs up. "Whatever" Mottled Petrel said "we'll add it to the eventual statue garden, I'll just mark out where it's going to go. Actually, fuck it, the lever room is now the statue garden.". Silverlock came down the main ramp and ran over to Mottled Petrel "Sir, one of the caravan guards is stuck up in a tree.".
Mottled Petrel blinked "Well go have someone cut it down then" "Yes sir". Mottled Petrel turned back around "As I was saying, your statues don't necessarily have to be such a high quality, but please strive for-" "-sir, the guard is flying around out of our reach now. He just keeps flying up." "Well I don't know what to say, let him fly around for a little while and if he gets stuck up there I'll authorize a rescue staircase.".
A few days later, Mottled Petrel is in the makeshift statue room with Nuku "Alright Nuku, lets see what you've made for us.".
"Pretty similar to the last one, but good.".
"That's a nice one, pretty too.".
"A classic, and brutally accurate at that. Good work Nuku, I knew you had it in you.". Silverlock again approaches Mottled Petrel "Sir, there are more small dinosaurs harassing the workers. Chirostenotes this time.". Mottled Petrel didn't even bother responding, he simply walked out into the hallway, then stuck his head into the barracks. Inside, the warriors were locked in intense live arms sparring. Mottled Petrel gave a sharp whistle, before yelling in "I've got some more small dinosaurs outside for you guys to kill.". A hearty cry of approval was loosed by the fighters, who had not been able to kill anything in months.
A few minutes later the surface was an indescribable pandemonium. Apparently, the chirostenotes had learned a way to piss of EVERYTHING, because nearly half the fort and the entirety of its animal population were actively engaged in kicking the shit out of the small dinosaurs.
Even Mottled Petrel was so enraged by these intruders that he ran out to fuck them up as well.
Any chirostenotes that wasn't granted a quick death was pummeled into a lumpy puddle by the denizens of the fort over a long period of time, somehow just clinging to life.
After all of the dinosaurs had been ripped limb from limb, the fort was left shaken and disorganized. Eventually though, both the koopas and the animals got over the excessive display the dinosaurs had put on and everyone got back to work.
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Just for the record, Sanctume and EPM were actively getting away with using the same workshop at the same time for different tasks with different materials. I'm not sure if this is warranted because it's such a heavily modded game, but this might be a legitimate bug I just found. I'm going to leave the other strange events up to your interpretation though.
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Topic: The Resurgence of Modded Hell (Back, Still Broken, Now With Giant Butterflies) (Read 301248 times)