In the skies above a fledgling koopa fort, an armed and armored koopa guard flies around with complete disregard for any of his responsibilities. As he does so he flies dangerously close to the ever present flock of birdemic birds, but never quite flying close enough to provoke a fight.
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Mottled Petrel stands by the trade depot, watching the flying caravan guard and wondering if he would ever come down. As he does so he takes a long look at the trade depot next to him 'I should really move this thing inside, we have the room for it.'.
After Mottled Petrel finished marking the area of the wall where the new inside trade depot would be located he noticed that there had been some injuries sustained during the recent mob attack on the chirostenotes. KoopaUnknown walked out of the hospital with only a few stitches in his one of his hands and a foot, but MrLurkety had suffered a number of serious lacerations an all of his arms.
He numbly stumbled out of the hospital, arms covered in gauze and thread, and proceeded towards the food stockpile to find something to eat. A few seconds later the stray hunting manectric that was brought with one of the migrant waves trundled out of the barracks to follow Koopaunknown. For whatever reason, the stray manectric had REALLY taken a liking to hanging out in the barracks, and looked like it was trying to ask one of the warriors to be its master.
On a more productive note, the furniture for the soon to be library had been marked out for placement a few days ago and the trolls were now busily hauling them for construction. 'I don't even know why I'm having a library made, all we have is a singular manga and a codex, last thing I need is to have something to attract weebs to the fort. You know what, I'm going to have some quires made, in case anyone wants to try writing something better' Mottled Petrel thought, then shivered a little when he remembered the contents of the manga he had bought.
Just as he thought that, he turned to see Enemy Post carrying the ninji broker over his shoulder heading towards the hospital. The ninji looked to be in excruciating pain, and his feet were incredibly swollen, presumably from walking in one of the pools of venom dotting the landscape outside, 'I hope they make it there in time, we can't risk being down a worker'. Concerned, Mottled Petrel followed the two to the hospital. The two ahead of him disappear behind the door, only to reappear moments later with the ninji walking on his own with no sign of any swelling (The ninji literally layed in the bed and was immediately cured of his drastic swelling, I have no idea what happened). Neither of the two offered any explanation to Mottled Petrel, who just stood there, confused. A troll with a similar confused expression walked up to Mottled Petrel "Library is almost done sir, you got a name you want us to give it?". Mottled Petrel kinda just waved him off "Name it the first thing that comes to your mind, we'll come up with a better name later". The troll nodded, and then walked away.
The second that the library is assigned its location Eris dropped what she was doing and ran to the stockpile to pick up a codex, which she then proceeded to read in the library.
She took incredibly long to to read the one page codex. After that she ran into the tavern to tell a group of trolls a story about how Nokop built a mastercraft bin a few months ago.
'Something's up with her, but I can't tell if it's more than the usual' Mottled Petrel thought, as he watched the odd scene unfold. "Auze, could you slaughter a few of the dinosaurs please?" Mottled Petrel asked as Auze walked by doing Armok knows what. Auze sighed "Do I have to?" "You haven't built any of the magic workshops, so what else are you going to do?". Auze inhaled as if he had a comeback, but then thought about it for a minute, he then proceeded to go butcher the requested animals.
'Sir, Asin's stuck in a tree' Silverlock told Mottled Petrel a few days later. Mottled Petrel waved him off "Go have someone build a staircase up to him, we can't have another one perpetually flying around. After that cut down all the trees around where he's stuck to stop him from doing it again.".
Autumn has come, and Asin refuses to come down from his tree despite the pleadings from his wife and the easily accessible staircase that was built for him. Having tired of the charade, Mottled Petrel gave a cue for Scourge to cut down the tree, and Scourge gladly goes to cut it down with his alolan persian not far behind. Before Scourges axe even touches the tree Asin flies down from it and proceeds to walk into the fort, "I'm storing an item in a stockpile" was the only explanation he would give for his sudden change of heart. Scourge still had a pretty good time felling the tree despite the fact that it was no longer needed. After doing so, Scourge's persian pounced on something hiding in the grass. It came up to reveal that it had a kakuna struggling in its jaws, which it proudly presented to its master. Scourge picked up the struggling kakuna from his pet, and promptly bit its head off. After a minute of slow chewing he gave the rest of the still twitching bug type to his persian to finish (Scourge's persian has been giving him an unholy number of dead vermin, and I haven't the faintest clue what he does with them after he gets them). 'Why can't we have one normal person living here' Mottled Petrel thought as he watched koopa and cat share their kakuna dinner.
Months after the caravan had left, the flying koopa guard had finally decided to land and make his way home. 'Good luck to him, if the beasts of the wild don't get him the king will'.
Silverlock approached Mottled Petrel, who is busy enjoying a nice meal of raw thrash dove eggs "Sir, I'd like to talk to you about our lack of food." Mottled Petrel almost spit up the food in his mouth "What do you mean lack of food? I've been slaving away on the fields all year, and now we've got over 700 plants last time I checked.".
Silverlock looked like he was scared that he was going to get hit "We do sir, but, uh, koopas can't actually eat the berries you've been planting" Mottled Petrel almost choked on the prickle berry wine he was drinking "Well how much edible plant do we have". Silverlock pulled out a piece of stock paper and handed it to Mottled Petrel.
(Apparently the berries I've been growing can only be used as animal fodder)
Mottled Petrel crushed the paper in his hand and seethed for a moment, "We've got upwards of 1000 eggs, if, if that makes you feel any better. So many that some of the koopas have taken to coloring them for decoration in the random pools that keep showing up around the fort. Others have just been throwing them at any unfortunate passerby, but that's really all we have to eat right now.". Mottled Petrel got up to change the crops in the outside farms, but as he opened the door to the hallway a bucket full of helmet snake eggs fell onto his head, getting egg yolk all over him. Out in the hallway two troll children who had been born the year before stood giggling, but when they noticed that it was Mottled Petrel who they had pranked they stopped laughing and ran. Mottled Petrel stood there, stood there and had a long, hard internal debate before he eventually wiped the egg yolk from his face so he could change the crops before they all starved to death.
The ratooey caravan had returned after their minister of trade stormed off the year before. Unfortunately, the area for the new trade depot had not been dug out yet, so they would still have to trade outside.
Right behind them was the ruxian caravan, who had apparently decided to travel along with the ratooey caravan to wherever they were going.
Still further back was the mole person caravan, seemingly convinced that Modded Hell was worth stopping at.
Almost as if things were going too well, the flock of birdemic birds that had been circling the fort for almost a year now decided to descend from the sky to tear apart the approaching ratooey caravan. After horribly maiming one merchant the birdemic birds were scared off when Enemy Post came running up to the scene with his cannon held over his head, firing wildly.
After a few snooty remarks to some of his ratooey brethren, the ratooey minister of trade finally began his discussion with the broker. A few minutes later the ninji broker walked up to Mottled Petrel and whispered in his ear "What do we want to import for next year?" Mottled Petrel didn't have anything in mind, just like all the times before "Just ask them for some zinc flasks or something" Mottled Petrel whispered back.
After concluding his discussion with the ratooey minister of trade, the mole person ambassador began his yearly discussion with the broker. The ninji began to approach Mottled Petrel "Just ask them for more geoviper" Mottled Petrel yelled out to him, seeing clearly that the mole people had brought no geoviper despite that being their only request last year. As Mottled Petrel waited to be asked more questions, a writhing mass of cobrats slithered out of their nest box for the first time, each gingerly testing out their pellet firing abilities.
The ninji called Mottled Petrel over to begin the trading, and he did. 'Let's see what garbage they have this year' Mottled Petrel thought as he walked to the area of the trade depot being managed by the ratooey "Let's see... We'll take a few waterskins, that instrument, that-" Scourge elbowed his way into next to Mottled Petrel "I'll take that alolan persian". Mottled Petrel looked at him "Alright, that alolan persian (opposite gender of our current one, so we now have a breeding pair for the cat army Scourge has requested), that barrel of koopa tea... wow, you guys have a lot of barrels of blood this year, that bag of turtle bush seeds so we can start brewing our own koopa tea, that, wait...".
"What's so super about it?", the ratooeys looked at each other, then one shrugged. "Uh, alright, and these books and codexes" Mottled Petrel finished as he gestured to a large pile of books.
The broker looked at Mottled Petrel as the merchants began to gather the requested items "Don't you at least want to skim them first?", Mottled Petrel shrugged "The library has been a surprisingly huge hit, I'm sure it will be fine.".
Next up was the mole people, who looked more than willing to do business. "We'll have these waterskins, that breeding pair of zubat, that-"
(they had like 9 barrels of dream ale)
"Oh, no way, no more dream ale for us, but we will take that bag of smiling turnip seeds-.".
In front of Mottled Petrel was a small gem figurine of a mole person and a koopa shaking hands "Alright, that's a nice gesture, I'll buy it because of what it stands for and use it as a desk ornament later, and all that paper you have.".
Next was the Ruxes... who weren't quite ready "One of our guys has flown up into a tree and won't come down" said one of the rux merchants at the depot.
Almost as if they were waiting for that cue, the Silani caravan shows up in hopes of riches gained through legitimate means. Almost as if to welcome their arrival, twenty eight helmet snakes hatch and begin slithering down into the fort. Just like last year, the silani caravan is set upon by the things flying above Modded Hell, this time by a flock of thrash doves hoping to steal all of their trade goods. They manage to fend off the thrash doves without losing anything, but just before they arrive at the trade depot the broker decides that he's ready for a nap.
After his nap the broker finally gets back to the surface to trade alongside Mottled Petrel. "First of all, sorry about last year, but there's not much we can do about flying swords descending from the sky like they do. As for trade goods, we'd like some barrels of alcohol, some backpacks, and... that's it actually." the merchants groaned, clearly they were expecting to make more of a profit "Come on guys, what did you expect, most of your stuff is made out of rose gold and the rest is encrusted with billion, we have no need to buy such unnecessarily expensive items.". They didn't look happy, but the Silani eventually accepted the still pretty substantial amount of money they were being offered.
Down in the fort, KoopaUnknown's head brute quarters were finished. The engravings from left to right are of Bacpat the koopa god of truth, a chompshell, Bacpat again, and a butterfree. It would seem that the engravers knew KoopaUnknown pretty well, because he happens to be a worshiper of Bacpat and he loves to consume Butterfree.
Sanctume holds a gauntlet over his head in jubilation "
I did it, my first masterpiece! A worthy piece of armor to aid our glorious head brute in his defense of Modded Hell.". KoopaUnknown, who was on his way to do something else, turned at this last comment "Why zank you, I would love zuch a gloriouz gauntlet.", he then walked over to Sanctume to try it on. Sanctume slowly and dramatically moved the glove towards KoopaUnknown's outstretched hand before finally slipping it past his fingers. That's as far as the gauntlet would go, for it was far too small for a normal koopa, much less a burly koopa. After about a minute of trying to force it farther onto KoopaUnknown's hand Sanctume exasperatedly pulled it away "Oh come on, I worked really hard on this thing.". At this point rainbowdashfanboi84 stepped forward, for she was an especially scrawny koopa, and extended her hand for a try. "Well who am I to refuse a lady a try" Sanctume said as he moved to try the gauntlet on the other recipient. This time the gauntlet slid past the fingers, and Sanctume was able to shove the gauntlet all the way up to the point of fitting. When he did so, a faint crack was heard and egg white began to drip out of the end of the gauntlet.
Rainbowdashfanboi84 only looked mildly perturbed by the prank, but Sanctume and his aunt EPM began laughing hysterically and proceeded to high five each other. Instead of the usual slap to signify that the high five was a success, another crack was heard and egg white splattered all over EPM's hand. It would appear that Sanctume had been holding a small egg in his hand when he went for the high five so he could pull another prank, and EPM wasn't all too happy about it. Sanctume kept laughing though, even as EPM reached into her pocket to pull out another egg. She threw it at him, missing horribly and instead hitting Pikalord square in the face. He then pulled out his own egg in retaliation, you can probably infer how it went after that. Let's just say, it was quite the mess.
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So, a few points I'd like to touch upon:
1. The food situation is fucked, I don't know if you can eat raw eggs, but it's about all we got
2. I think visitors are broken, because one of them is in the tavern but refuses to do anything, and the other two are near the edges of the map, stuck in the air
3. At this point I don't think we're going to get invaded until at least spring, but we can always have a winter Bumpty invasion
4. The flock of birdemic birds has been in the sky for over a year now, and because there are just so many of them no other wild creatures can spawn
5. I missed it, but one of the ministers of trade was offering to bring
liquid skin, something's up
6. Something's causing horrible, but incredibly temporary, foot swelling and it needs to be dealt with
7. Happy late Easter/April Fool's day from Modded Hell!
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Topic: The Resurgence of Modded Hell (Back, Still Broken, Now With Giant Butterflies) (Read 301641 times)