Tales from the Rim: Unlucky Thirteen

So, to keep this all aboveboard, I have a smattering of mods. The normal standards of Prepare Carefully, but also Rimworld of Magic, all the DLC's, and Pristine Ruins. Let's turn to storytime.

Characters involved:

Thirteen: Grandmother to about 17 different friggin people, Arcane Mage, Ageless, Deathless, and the Colony Leader. Venerated (by me) for her ability to somehow routinely birth pawns who go on to become magically gifted, despite never actually having a lover (planet generated a huge family for her, so far it'd be easier to list my random joins who are NOT related to her by direct lineage). Heavily Gene-modified. The star of the Show.

Cupcake: Thirteen's daughter, also heavily Gene modified. Ageless, Deathless technomancer. Prime Researcher, and Mechanitor.

Graham: Thirteen's son-in-law, Cupcake's husband. The true Tragedy of this tale (but it gets better, I swear.) Super-Soldier, and not a great one, but he's in training, and becoming deadlier.

Our tale Begins on the 11th of Decembary, 5504. It is -18 degrees outside. Our heroes huddle together in our base for warmth, frolicking between the impressive Rec center, the kitchen, and their rooms in order to avoid death. Our food stockpile slowly dwindling, and I think, perhaps, I'm gonna have to finally do something about the mass of 100 Koncrill (wild dogs) that keep showing up and killing my cattle. On our last 40 bars of food in a 7 man colony, things are looking grim. Cupcake is pregnant, and her infectious mood is at least raising spirits. I have not been paying attention to time, however.

Suddenly, a light in the darkness. A DING. A quest? A notification? And along the colony's new's scroller I see a message: Pristine Ruins nearby. Oh happy day! Pristine Ruins are dangerous, certainly, but usually well worth the effort. I slap my three powerhouses, The Family Graham, into a caravan with a couple of Gorracks (big hauling animals.) and pray we can get there, get our stuff, and get back in time. Gathering up what little supplies we have, the hope is that we make the 2-day trek there and back, and come back with enough food and medicine to keep us alive until the growing season. Leaving another Trainee colonist in charge of keeping the fires lit, our intrepid heroes venture out from the base, into the frozen forests. The trip to the Ruins is uneventful, and while managing the colony on rationed food for a couple of days, I get the call across the comms. "We've arrived."

New map generates, and By the gods, this should be a HAUL! A completely closed off fortress of ominous black stone, surrounded by sentry guns, though all, thankfully, without power. A quick look about and we see two groups scrapping over the carcass of this once proud people. One already falling back, the force of The People of The Wolf, a hated enemy, being routed by a group of raiders from Ourbonus, a tentative friend. We decide to give a wide berth. Narrowly missing a few traps, and one powered railgun that nearly took Graham's arm clean off, we smash our way through granite doors until we reach the center of the complex. The mounting dissapointment of smashing down door after door leading to empty spaces suddenly becomes ecstatic joy.

As the doors are pried off of a room halfway up the hallway, and the end of the corridor simultaneously by Thirteen and Graham, the bounty beyond them is incalculable. Insane. Opening up a massive freezer room, stocked high with Pre-packaged meals and Hardy, long-storage rice and corn. Graham has pried the door from the Armory, and a few prizes in there catch our greedy eyes. Several excellent quality weapons, some Legendary, and..even several full suits of Marine Armor of various qualities. This might be more than just a save our bacon mission! I stood there gobsmacked for a moment, entirely forgetting to pause to take in the tremendous treasures that lie before me. And that avaricious gleaning nearly did us in..

As my pawns stand there at attention, two warnings scroll across the screen. "Cupcake is in Labor!" -Oh Shit. "Raid from the Tolthin MechHive!" -SHIT. Militors begin to pour in from the northeast corner. Graham is the better doctor, so Thirteen, you're up. Putting down a quick sleeping spot, and attending to his wife, Graham prepares to deliver their firstborn son in a small sideroom in an ancient, ruined base. (God knows what we'd put on the birth certificate..) Thirteen takes cover behind a nearby corner with a scavenged excellent grade heavy SMG from the Armory she pried into, and waits. The Militors are barreling down the hallway. Too many. One slips past our Heroic mage, and stands at the door of the makeshift birthing room. Trigger finger just a little too slow. The Militor dumps a shotgun blast into Cupcake's chest, mid-birth, a moment before the Mage blows it's head off.

The tide of metal is endless, until the People of the Wolf send in another group of lads, pulling some of the heat off us. Graham finishes the delivery, it's a Boy! But the birth was hard, and he's in bad shape. Little Donovan needs immediate medical care. But we're in a bind. He'll make it. He has to. We just need to load up and get out of here, dammit! Cupcake heals up quick thanks to her armor and I drop the caravan spot, loading everything we can into our pack animals and we do our best to make it off map. Little Don doesn't have much time. We keep trying to pack the Garrocks and keep getting interrupted by stray Militors. This isn't working. But lo-and-behold, Thirteen just figured out Teleportation. Too bad we still have to 'load' the Tele-pod.

Dropping a portal, and setting Thirteen at a Chokepoint to buy precious seconds, We drop everything from the Gorracks, and Cupcake and Graham try their damnedest to slam our spoils into the pod and blast it off home. If we die here, at least we save the colony. Food, Silver, Medicine, and a few weapons and some armor (I was being greedy.) Cupcake holds Donovan as the poor little lad slowly marches towards death, only a few scant minutes from being born. We're gonna make it, little buddy.

The Telepod blasts off to home, and the Colonists wonder why it's raining glitterworld meds and food rations and Marine Armor and firearms for all of five seconds before they turn to stocking it all up and putting on some shiny new duds.

Meanwhile, back at the Ruins. Thirteen is in bad shape. Her armor and tough trait is keeping her running, but the tide of steel is relentless. She subs out for Graham, taking a moment to tend her wounds and blow a hole in the wall to facilitate the retreat. Beating a fighting retreat out the door as the Militors clean up the People of the Wolf, and then turn their sights to us again in full force. We sprint across the courtyard, firing over our shoulders just to buy time for a little more mana. We slip through a doorway, and hunker down in a room. As the robots pound on the walls, Thirteen regens JUST enough mana to drop another tele-pod. Graham loads his Wife and sickly son into the pod, and gets in himself. Thirteen undrafts, hops in the pod, and we blast the hell out of dodge, leaving our rare and beloved pack animals behind.

But all was not okay. Mid-flight, Donovan's poor little spirit could hold on no longer. Across the side of my screen, a yellow warning and a klaxon. "Donovan Died." When we left, we were three. When we returned, we were three, and we brought the spectre of despair home with us. Thirteen took herself to a hospital bed, dragging her daughter along to the infirmary. Graham buried his son in the single grave within our colony grounds. A memento for a lost soul. Then he proceeded to drink every drop of beer in the colony and pass out. Eventually the moodlet cleared, but every so often, I'll find Graham standing out near his son's gravestone, drinking a beer or smoking a joint.

Cupcake spent the next quadrum out of her mind, even when she ended up pregnant again. She installed a brain-mod to remove her need to sleep, and a Neurocalculator to speed up her research progress. When White, the second child was born, She was happy, but only for a moment. Back to the research table. When a call came in for some assistance, and the reward was a resurrector Mech serum... I jumped at the chance. And now, we're holding onto some pisshead noble's yaks for a few more days for a Healer mech serum. White is now a child, and the year is 5507. He is growing well, learning under Father's tutelage, and Grandmother's.

But Cupcake is waiting for these yaks to be gone. Her research has borne fruit, and advanced the capabilities of Hermitage to untold of heights from those early years. But nestled in the back of her research lab is a powered Bio-sculpter pod, a shelf with a Resurrector Serum gathering dust, and a Shovel.

"If the name of God in the mouth of a child is Mother, then so shall I play my part."