I had an update, but the game crashed and I lost all my progress. I'm going to try to play the exact same way, but even if the combat goes a little differently this time around I'm going to be posting the same thing that I wrote.
On one of my failed alternate timelines one of the koopas had his 'foul guts' spilled. I don't believe 'foul guts' are a normal part of koopa anatomy, any idea if this is a sign of a potential modded night creature?
I tried to do basically the same thing as I did the original run, and I got pretty close. The giant tick is still alive though, and a few struthomimuses.
---
In a bustling animal pen a koopa is sitting next to a lawnmower, petting it. Nearby five eggs crack and bear their lawnmower chicks mewling into the world.
---
'Ah, good, soon we'll have more lawnmowers than we'll ever need!'. The koopas of the fort were trying to get back into the swing of things after the unmentionable day, some better than others. Fortunately, Mottled Petrel had just the thing to cheer up his fellow koopas. Nothing got a koopa out of the dumps more than a shiny new pond turtle shell shell (redundant, I know).
Mottled Petrel walked down into the fort and made an announcement to the fort "Listen up everyone, I'm going to have some pond turtle shell shells made to give everyone some extra protection. It's a first come first serve basis, but if you aren't working afterwards I'm going to have to confiscate them.". This got everyone's attention, and a hearty cheer from some of the koopas passing by. Bloop_bleep approached Mottled Petrel with his fedora held in his hands "Excuse me sir, but can I request reassignment to mechanickoopa?". Mottled Petrel thought for a moment "You can add mechanics to your current list of duties" bloop_bleep did an exaggerated fist pump and said "
yesss" under his breath as if he just got a promotion.
Before Mottled Petrel could leave he was also approached by a troll "Sir, we've found the pile of goods left by the destroyed wagon. Would you like us to retrieve them?" "Sure, hey, where was it anyways?" the troll stuttered "It's, uh, none of your business, it's a secret." Mottled Petrel raised an eyebrow "I believe what gets left in my fort and its land is my business, but whatever, tell me if you find anything of real value.". The troll walked off to tell his fellow haulers, who happened to be sitting around because there was nothing left to haul.
Mottled Petrel finally walked off, but was approached by the bookkeeper a few minutes later "Sir, I've looked over the goods that were left, and you requested a list of anything of any real value. And I have found that they had a datamined anvil, about five metal cages, 20 cheese, some Z move crystals, a good amount of bronze armor that probably won't fit any of us, a barrel of basking shark blood, some iron weapons, and a few shields." "Good, give the shields to the military with the understanding that they will have to turn them in for steel ones once we have them. Oh, and why is a barrel of blood suddenly of interest?" "You seem to buy an awful lot of blood, so I just thought you might want to know." Mottled Petrel shrugged "Fair enough, but I really just buy them to see the expressions on the trader's faces.".
Some commotion outside cuts the meeting short, Silverlock runs to relay the news "Sir! There is a giant tick outside fighting one of the frogogs!" Mottled Petrel grew concerned, a giant version of anything was a big problem "How bad is the frogog hurt?" "Oh, well, the frogog actually singlehandedly drove the tick off. He actually punched it so hard that his hand broke through the chitin and sunk into the things body, scaring the fuck out of it.".
Mottled Petrel blinked a few times "Well what are you waiting for? If a frogog half my size can hurt that thing send the military out to finish it off!" "Yes Sir!". 'I'm probably going to live to regret this' a bloodthirsty snarl can be heard from the barracks, most likely belonging to Koopaunknown. He burst through the door, seeming
VERY determined to destroy anything that threatened his new home, and communism. The rest of the guards ran out after him, not as determined, but it definitely seemed that Koopaunknown had somehow drilled some kind of discipline into them.
Mottled Petrel comes out with them to watch, and notices that the dodrio that one of the migrants brought was actively trying to skewer a struthomimus with one of its beaks. When the 4 fighters made it out onto the prairie they released a volley of electricity, some of which struck the tick. Anywhere the electricity hit broke through the chitin, tore through the fat, but stopped at the muscle. Lord_Lemonpie made it to the tick first, and began double kicking and blaze kicking the tick, doing little more damage than the electricity did. At this point the tick had both collapsed from exhaustion and was actively puking up all of the blood it had drunken from previous victims.
Koopaunknown released another volley of electricity, one shot got lucky and bruised the brain of the giant tick without actually puncturing whatever brain covering the tick had. A cry of victory is heard as the koopas climb the giant mountain of a corpse that had been left. They each tear off a decent sized piece of chitin as a trophy. "Good work guys" Mottled Petrel called from his viewing point "Now, go get someone to butcher this!". Koopaunknown jumped down from the corpse and exclaimed to Mottled Petrel with a feral look in his eyes "
I ZTILL CRAVE BLOOD!". Mottled Petrel shied away a little "Alright, go chase down those struthomimus then". Koopaunknown did a short whistle towards the other koopas still on the tick and made a few hand motions, the group jumps down and begins running towards where the struthomimus herd is.
One unlucky struthomimus tried to sneak through the animal pasture and into the fort, but was promptly torn to shreds by a laser-ceratosaurus and a snow leapord. At one point the laser-ceratosaurus almost crushed the struthomimus with its tail. Even though the tail strike destroyed half the intruder's body, the struthomimus survived and was propelled halfway across the plain. A troll dragged the animals back to the pasture before they could finish the struthomimus off.
From the other side of the plain a cry of pain is heard. Apparently Lord_Lemonpie was not so lucky. The struthomimus he was fighting took a deep bite into his left upper leg, and got a lock on his right ankle with his fingers. The small dinosaur somehow had more wrestling knowledge than Lord_Lemonpie did, and rended his ankle in a horrid direction. 'Guess I gotta make that hospital now' "ALRIGHT, Everyone back inside. We can't have any more injuries.". The other koopas had been busy chasing their own struthomimuses, and weren't happy that their chase had been stopped by Lord_Lemonpie's injury, but they went back inside. No one went to help Lord_Lemonpie as he lay out in the field with his foot loosely flopping around at the end of his leg. The hollowing out of the entire hospital room couldn't wait, so Mottled Petrel designated the only dug out corner as the hospital.
Immediately, about five trolls and a fembot rushed into the hospital and lay on the ground.
"What the fuck are you guys doing" Mottled Petrel asked, as he was still standing in the hospital he had just designated. "We're resting our injuries" one troll answered. Mottled Petrel pulled out the medical notes of the fortress Urlance Woolsbane had given him, he skimmed it and couldn't find any injuries on any of the trolls. He did notice that they were marked as 'diagnosis required', but no further explanation was given. In fact, it seemed like nearly half the fort had been marked as 'diagnosis required'.
Mottled Petrel had no idea what to make of this, but before he could come to a conclusion Urlance Woolsbane opened the door, putting on the last of his silk operating gloves. He let the last one conform to his hand with an unsettling snap. "I'm glad to see that the watch shop is finally open, now we can get down to business." the look in his eyes was that of deadly professionalism, which was a very undesirable one for active medical practices. "Uh... Why have you marked half the fort as diagnosis required? Everyone seems fine." Mottled Petrel asked as Urlance pulled out some unnecessarily brutal looking surgery tools "Ah, and this is why I am a doctor and you are not. It's not the obvious problems that get you in the end, the crack in the dial, the smashed cover, no no. It's the ones you can't see that get you, even the malfunction of the tiniest cog will cause the whole thing to be rendered useless. That is why you have to be preemptive, sometimes you just have to" he stops pulling out his tools when he gets to his bone saw, and runs his finger slowly down the blade "take a look on the inside.".
Mottled Petrel shivered "I forbid you from doing any surgery unless there is conclusive evidence that it is required.". Urlance slowly put the bone saw back where he got it from "Very well, but I'm still going to take a look at these residents.". A troll walks in with Lord_Lemonpie slung over his shoulder, he then places him down onto the ground, surprisingly gently.
As he is being lowered Lord_Lemonpie is actively protesting "No, come on, I'm fine! Let me back out there, I need to show that dinosaur what for! I can't leave my squad without me, they need the manpower! Here, let me just get u-" he tries to stand up, it isn't even necessary to describe how that went for him. Mottled Petrel leaves, not caring to have his ears destroyed by screams of pain.
'I should at least get these guys some weapons' "SQman!" SQman was poking at his smelter with some of his tools, showing that he obviously had no idea how it worked. He snapped to attention upon hearing his name "Yes sir?" "How much steel do we have?". SQman thought for a second "I have currently made thirteen steel bars and am working on the fourteenth" Mottled Petrel looked at the smelter "You know you're currently smelting platinum, right?". SQman looked flustered "Wha-, yeah, of course. I've been so productive that I'm both manning this smelter and the one next to me!". Nokoopi, who was busy hauling a dolomite boulder for steel making, called out from across the room "We have currently smelted two steel bars sir, but we have more coke and iron than we're going to need for a while.".
Mottled Petrel frowned, and SQman looked like he was trying to think of good excuse for why Nokoopi had stolen his credit. "Whatever, I was hoping for more, but we at least need to give our military something. Nuku" Nuku was actively smelting datamined ore at the next smelter over "When you get a chance could you try to make a steel trident? I know you aren't a weaponsmith, but you're the only one here who knows how to work metal at all." Nuku didn't even look up "Can do, but are you sure you want that brute armed before everyone else?". Mottled Petrel could see up the ramp through the corner of his eye, from it he could see TheRedWolf shooting lightning at a struthomimus. The struthomimus's right arm almost flies off from the impact, but remains attached by some skin. It is very obvious that the struthomimus will probably never use that arm again "If there's anyone who's going to defend this fort with all their being, it's going to be him.".
TheRedWolf starts thunder punching the struthomimus "Alright, but I can't promise quality though". EPM jumps from behind "I'll do it!" Mottled Petrel is only mildly startled "As long as someone does it I don't care". After much kicking and punching TheRedWolf had somehow managed to break practically every joint in the struthomimus's body, and then bit it in the lower body for good measure, injected his koopa venom into its blood stream. Even if it somehow managed to crawl away with all of its joints broken it would eventually succumb to necrosis. Even with its spine broken, the struthomimus manages to bite TheRedWolf in the hand, tearing apart the fat. After several minutes TheRedWolf is unable to kill the struthomimus, a passing troll comes over to help him. After goring the dinosaur with one of his horns he grabs it and throws it into a nearby tree. Having almost all of its bones already broken, the struthomimus is basically reduced to a fine paste on impact. 'I really need to get these guys some weapons'.
A few hours later EPM leaves the forge with a surprisingly decent trident in her hands. It wasn't exactly straight, the points weren't the same size, but it was sharp and of sturdy build. She presented it to Koopaunknown, who had a wild grin on his face as he picked it up. He looked back at his squad, who were actively trying to cower in the corner as they thought about having to spar unarmed against the armed brute. A few of the troopas had picked up some of the shields that had been recovered, and would likely be using them pretty heavily in the future.
"We've got three steel bars total if you want to make weapons for the rest of them so that they don't all get impaled" said Nokoopi who was having a drink behind Mottled Petrel. "Yeah, do that, a chainsaw, a long sword, and a mini-chomp to get these guys a chance to live.".
---
Just a note to everyone, we have encountered our first consistent crash. I know that such crashes can be bypassed with some serious luck, but I can't promise that I myself will get lucky. If worse comes to worst I will upload the most recent save and ask people to try their best to just do random things that might push off whatever event is causing the crash.