[19:18:40] Soren: claps his palms together and cracks his knuckles. "Awright. So. Storytime."
[19:20:24] Soren: leans forward towards the fire, palms clasped together, clearing his throat. "Alright. I'll warn you all now. I've seen some shit in my days as a navyman. Those of weaker dispositions might not want to be present, as this first story keeps me up at night."
[19:25:33] Soren: Now. This is something that can keep people up at night. It's unfortunately something true, but no less horrifying.
[19:26:46] Soren: leans forward, eyes downcast, the firelight playing shadows across his straw-colored hair and stubble. "Everyone ready?"
[19:28:02] Soren: takes a slow, measure breath, closing his eyes as he exhales, before opening them again to look at everyone in turn.
[19:28:16] Soren: Everytime you brush your teeth...you're touching a skeleton.

[19:29:00] Soren: guffaws quite loudly. "Awright. That aint the story. I got some."
[19:29:40] Soren: clears his throat.
[19:29:51] Soren: Alright. So this happened about...two or three years back.
[19:30:43] Soren: Our ships stops by this backwater planet on leave. Real shitter of a place, small little hamlets, bad booze. Broken down spaceport, hand-me-down shuttles, the whole lot.
[19:32:10] Soren: Buddy of mine says he found an okay place in a small town that hugged along this gray little bay. Was a nice enough place, I suppose. About as well as we could manage. The problem though, was finding a place to stay.
[19:33:17] Soren: So my friend, his name being Arthur, hears about a spot from some of the local. Real big tourist attraction, apparently.
[19:33:52] Soren: So Arthur heads on over to scope the place out for the night while he hunker down back at spacesport. And this is what he told me.
[19:35:32] Soren:: He gets to this three story hotel at the end of a street, real quaint lookin' place with French doors and moulded windows and such. Bit rusty and such, he said, but comfortable looking. He heads inside and goes up to reception, and asks the guy there why this place was a big tourist attraction.
[19:37:10] Soren: The guy looks at him all surprised, and explained it to him. Said the place was haunted, through and through. Naturally, Arthur thinks this is bullshit, just some PR used to get some revenue. But seemed to have been worked, as the lobby was going through some rennovation. So hey, maybe bullshit ghost stories work. Anyhow.
[19:39:07] Soren: The guy explains that a while back there had been a murder in this hotel. Really inexplicable, the local law enforcement couldn't puzzle out why it happened. Guy just woke up in the middle of the night, and stabbed his girlfriend twenty-seven times. They had been a blissful couple before, no evident affairs or anything like that. Just wakes up and straight tears her up.
[19:41:54] Soren: That much Arthur can buy. Murder she wrote in a sleepy town, sure, whatever. He rents a room out on the third floor, Room...311, I think it was. Before he takes his keycard, the recptionist says the haunted room was 211, and it was kept locked. So Arthur just rolles his eyes and takes his civvies upstairs so he can doze for a bit.
[19:44:13] Soren: So he goes up the first floor, and notices all the doors are all old-fashioned, and installed with maglocks after the fact. So they have these quaint little keyholes beneath the doorknobs.
[19:46:36] Soren: Up the stairs and into the second floor. And of course, he get curious. He sees the door numbered 211, and kneels down in front of it. He leans in, and peeks through the keyhole, and he sees someone, standing at the window. Well, of course its locked then, its occupied. Probably some new age hippie taking up a room of spiritual energy or somesuch. It was a woman, with black, shoulder-length hair and pale skin.
[19:48:46] Soren: So he says whatever, stands up, and heads to his room on the third floor. The room was pretty alright, according to him. Was watching the holoset late at night and heard some thumping around coming from below, someone doing the nasty on the second floor. Sounds to him.
[19:49:36] Soren: He sleeps through the night okay, nothing weird really happens. Some lights flicker or whatever, but hey, it's an old building.
[19:51:48] Soren: He's getting ready to go, and starts heading downstairs. He passes room 211 again, and wonders if maybe there was someone else in there he hadn't seen the first time that was making the noise last night. He kneels down, and puts his eyes up to the keyhole, but all he could see was red. The woman must have put some red tape over the keyhole, or moved something red in front of his, since it was a glaring hole in the door. So he stands back up, and heads back down to the lobby.
[19:53:51] Soren: He checks out at the reception desk, and the guy there asks him if he heard or saw anything overnight. Arthur says no to each, the asks the guy how would he know if he saw anything, since he didn't know what the ghost was supposed to look like. Well, the reception guy tells him, everyone who has seen the ghost said it looked like any normal sort of woman. Except for one very specific thing. Its eyes were red.
[19:54:04] Soren: The end.

==============================

[20:03:34] Cyron (cyroneradurna): A long time ago, along a smooth and quite easy road, a cub, quite young and small in size, was traveling in search of adventure and the great treasures of life
[20:04:48] Cyron (cyroneradurna): The grass on each side was green and the wind was blowing on a quite warm spring day.  Over to his left he noticed a different road, one that he had never seen before.  Since it peaked his curiosity he took it, noting the road was slightly rocky under his sensitive paws
[20:06:28] Cyron (cyroneradurna): He traveled along the road for a while before deciding he did not want to continue.  He looked over his right shoulder, only to notice that the other path was gone, with a huge gray plain of dark clouds following him with the sound of thunder, and the crisp scent of rain in the distance.  The woods infront of him looked promising, so he quickly ran inside for shelter to wait out the storm
[20:07:49] Cyron (cyroneradurna): He got in, but as soon as he stepped foot into the forest, a chill ran in the air.  His conscious went dark, his eyesight was wide with uncertainty and his heart became heavy.  he wondered about this place, so he carried on, the sharp sticks and thorns poking his pads
[20:09:34] Cyron (cyroneradurna): After what seems like forever, He sat down to rest, looking around for any source of food or water where he sad.  Out of nowhere, a deathly scream echoes directly behind him.  He immediately gets up, his eyes wide and gaunt with fear, and tears off deeper into the woods.  Before long, hitting a dead end.
[20:11:07] Cyron (cyroneradurna): He looked behind him and noticed several dark figures chasing after him with aggresive vigor, growling and snarling for the kill.  The little cub was so shaken with fear he started taking blind turns, the thorns and branches tearing at his pelt, bloodying his paws while his lungs heaved his body to keep running
[20:12:47] Cyron (cyroneradurna): With the loss of focus, the little cub trips and falls, skidding and slams his head into a rock.  He shakes off the blurred vision and pain to get up, but it was too late.  The familiar black dog grabs his hind leg and bites it, crunching the bone between its jaws
[20:14:42] Cyron (cyroneradurna): The little cub screamed in pain, swiping over to injure the dog just enough to escape.  He started limping, using whatever he could to help move and support his failing weight, the others snapping though trees and branches, destroying everything with splinters and leaves flying, carrying enough velocity to resemble broken glass
[20:17:18] Cyron (cyroneradurna): Then all of a sudden.... The battered cub falls through a hole.  a deep hole... roughly 20 feet deep and 5 feet wide.  He looses conciousness for a few moments only to realize he is trapped, dark and damp.  He looks up, noting the dogs, only to realize that within that dark hole was a significant point... It was the cubs own subconcious, and the dogs were his demons, trying to kill him
[20:19:26] Cyron (cyroneradurna): As soon as he notices it, black shadowless arms reach out and grab the cub, scratching and tearing and gripping at every piece of flesh they can.  The cub belts out a bloodcurling scream in pain and dispair, crying and doing everything he can to call for help as blood flies and rips and tears and shreds everything...
[20:19:31] Cyron (cyroneradurna): but it was too late
[20:20:57] Cyron (cyroneradurna): Once the arms had their fill, they left, and the dogs vaporized.  The cub lay motionless in the hole, covered in gouges and mangled in a twisted mess.
[20:22:30] Cyron (cyroneradurna): The thing is though... this is not the loss of a life.  Rather, this is the loss of innocence.  The beginning of fear, and the tale of how failure to survive can start young.  This story.... Is the beginning of Depression
[20:22:41] Cyron (cyroneradurna): Thanks you *nods*

==============================

[20:26:18] Bridget/2 ashl3y: Okay...this happened to me while I was still pretending to be a person, piloting my freighter for freelance jobs.
[20:28:22] Bridget/2 ashl3y: Courtney and I - Courtney being one of my clone brothers - had gotten a job ferrying fabber feedstock and spare parts to this cult colony orbiting the L2 space around Tau Ceti V after the usual pilot's ship got damaged on the return trip.
[20:29:58] Bridget/2 ashl3y: It was a standard run, apart from one of the instructions: under no circumstances were we allowed to exit the ship when we got to the hab; apparently they were doing an 'experiment in oneness', and meeting new people would ruin it. And Ashley was once a boy's name too.
[20:32:11] Bridget/2 ashl3y: So we get to Tau Ceti, only due to our nav charts being out of date, we exit our warp bubble in Tau Ceti VI's orbital space, and have to burn more r-mass than we intended just getting to V, let alone their L2 point.
[20:35:51] Bridget/2 ashl3y: We get to the hab - Unity, I think it was called - and let some automated Starfury loaders offload our cargo while we try to get them to sell us some fuel, but the hab's AI won't budge. No matter what we tell it or what legal threats we make, all it says is "all resources are necessary to fuel unification".
[20:38:13] Bridget/2 ashl3y: So finally, we get mad enough to break the rule the middleman had imposed, don our suits, and head over there to talk with someone personally. When we got into the station proper, it was empty. No people, no drones, not even a speck of dust or mess.
[20:40:22] Bridget/2 ashl3y: Turns out the R-mass tanks were on the other side of the designated lab areas, and it couldn't be unlocked from the outside, so we had to force our way into the lab to get to it...
[20:41:36] Bridget/2 ashl3y starts shaking. "...All of them were in there. All of them, fused in the center of the lab in a giant ball of tangled limbs, black goo, and faces contorted into rictus grins.
[20:44:36] Bridget/2 ashl3y: The eyes...all of the eyes followed the two of us as we made our way around it. The tanks were easy to unlock, since it was just a few switches, but when we tried to get back, that...that ball had moved. It was way closer to the entrance of the tanks than it had before, and all the mouths on the faces were mouthing 'join us...join us'.
[20:47:50] Bridget/2 ashl3y: When the black goo started forming tentacles to reach out for us, we freaked. We pulled our hand lasers and started blasting away. It recoiled, and that gave us our chance. We managed to get out from behind it and to the corridors, but the thing started chasing us, using that black goo as pseudopods to drag itself forward, the station's AI using our suits' radios to scream about the glory of the mass and the love of unification.
[20:48:56] Bridget/2 ashl3y: I still don't know how we managed it, but we got to our ship just ahead of it and locked it behind us. We figured we just had to transfer the R-mass to our ship and get out of there...
[20:50:22] Bridget/2 ashl3y: When we hooked the ship up and started transferring it over, we noticed that some of the black stuff had started seeping from the seams and was trying to reach out to our ship. I had to go out with a cutting torch in my mech to cut it loose...and then some of it got on the mech's free arm.
[20:51:55] Bridget/2 ashl3y: It started multiplying, the arm jerking around and spasming as more of it started being turned into that black stuff. I managed to get the arm cut off at the shoulder with the torch, but it was maybe an inch away from the main part of the mech.
[20:52:58] Bridget/2 ashl3y: Anyway...we managed to get to Tau Ceti V orbit, but the station's AI kept screaming at us over all the radio frequencies we tried to use about how 'all will be one, all will be one'.
[20:55:54] Bridget/2 ashl3y: We reported it to the local authorities, but the Tau Ceti government is kind of slow to react to outlying stations, and the last I heard, when they got there, the station was completely deserted. Only some discarded personal effects were present, and otherwise it was like nothing had ever been there at all.
[20:56:12] Bridget/2 ashl3y: Anyway...that's my story. I hope it was creepy enough. Thank you.

==============================

[21:01:37] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica) cracks her neck, thinking about how to start.
[21:01:59] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): You'll have to forgive me if my opening is a bit wonky; I don't want to mess this one up.
[21:02:57] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): It happened to me... oh, a decade or so ago? Some of the details are a bit blurry now.
[21:04:49] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): Anyway. As some of you know and like to pretend to be horrified about, I grew up in Canada, in a city called Kingston. It has a pretty big population for a town, about a hundred thousand, but you wouldn't know it. Very backwatersy in terms of culture, and for the most part, the suburbanites kept to themselves.
[21:05:52] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): When I was a teenager, though, I was much more outgoing. This was before I got involved with she-who-must-not-be-named. Just before, in fact, a few months. Around my sixteenth birthday, I think.
[21:08:25] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): I'd had a summer job down at Queen's, the university there, and while I was never exactly athletic, in those days I made a point of always walking to it, and trying to beat my time. It became such a part of my routine that I started regularly making the walk anyway even after I was back in classes, usually two or three times a week.
[21:10:18] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): Anyway... as my birthday is in November, the weather was getting pretty awful, and for a whole week I couldn't go out and do my regular walk; my parents even had to drive me to school. I started to feel pretty pent up, naturally, agitated. So when the rain finally let up, leaving a cold mist hanging in the air, I wrestled with myself enough and finally sprang at the first opportunity to go out and actually get my walk in.
[21:10:39] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): And, Kingston being a pretty low-density place, there were lots of parks along the way.
[21:11:50] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): So imagine this, if you will—chilly, sunset quenched behind the clouds, DST already over so it set extra-early. Not a speck of moonlight or starlight penetrating the great blanket overhead.
[21:14:09] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): The park nearest my house has—well, had, my parents sold the house in May—a big hill on it. In the winter? Great for sledding. In the summer? Oddly marshy. At the top are two big old farm houses from before the subdivision was built. One has a family living in it, and to the west, the other is used by the city for storing snowploughs and things. Might've been a barn.
[21:14:29] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): Not a light in sight save for man's own.
[21:14:48] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): And there's a... hauntingness about that. The idea of all these little candles in the dark keeping... who knows what at bay.
[21:15:50] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): There was a woman up on that hill. In amongst the trees, by the old houses, the ones they didn't cut down after the ice storm in '98. I could just make out her shadow cast by an emergency floodlight.
[21:16:51] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): I figured—hey, we're near university housing. I bet it's an English major working on a found poem or something. Trying to piece her environment together into something meaningful.
[21:17:22] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): I looked back again as I was leaving—because it's a pretty big park, all considered.
[21:17:30] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): And the light had gone out.
[21:17:47] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): Now, let me explain for a moment. I grew up around this park.
[21:18:03] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): Every single house I lived in before I went off to grad school was within a five minute walk of this place.
[21:18:18] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): And I knew that flood light very well, and I'd never, ever seen it go out.
[21:18:26] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): So that was odd.
[21:18:49] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): I stopped. Waited for a minute... no light.
[21:19:09] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): The natural intuition? She's forgot her flashlight or something; good thing I have mine.
[21:20:09] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): So on it clicked, and away I went, tip-toeing around the swampy bits at the bottom of the hill, up the crunchy grass that's just had its first kiss of frost.
[21:21:49] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): When I was within ten or so metres of the place, I could hear her breathing, heavily. It sounded like she was scared, so I called out.
[21:22:09] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): "Are you okay?" I asked. "Where's your flashlight?"
[21:23:18] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): No response. Shit, maybe she's hurt or infirm or something. I continued to walk toward the breathing. "Hello?"
[21:23:55] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): "Don't step any closer."
[21:24:01] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): Her voice was coming from behind me.
[21:24:12] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): "It can only see you when you're moving."
[21:24:18] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica): (The end.)
[21:25:17] Rhetorica Rhamnusia (rhet0rica) shrugs. "Yeah, I cut it short because I'm concerned people are going to have to go to bed."

==============================

[22:03:03] Eclipse taps her chin. "Alright then! Recalling..."
[22:03:43] Eclipse As terrifying as dried strips of flesh is, I'm afraid not! Anyhow... as you may or may not know, units of my model line are purposed primarily as assistants. Myself, I'm a class-A model, meaning I take care of VIPs like executives, high value staff, dignitaries, etcetera. Before I came to Eisa, I was assigned to a researcher... for legal reasons, we'll refer to him by the pseudonym of Dr. Himura. Please note that Kojima Industries disavows any knowledge or involvement in the research Dr. Himura was conducting; I was part of a grant requisition.
[22:04:11] Eclipse Dr. Himura was working on advanced quantum processors, an area of research not wholly unrelated to the architecture of my own processing core. Mine is biomimetic, making it a bit different than traditional processor designs. Haha! A bit.. that's a little.. er, kind of a play on... ahem. Nevermind. It mimicks more how an organic brain holds and processes information, and interprets it through sub-processors so I can interface with more conventional machinery. If you saw a visual representation of our neural process, it'd look something more like a fractal pattern or flower rather than a bunch of code or ones and zeroes. I digress.
[22:04:43] Eclipse "The latest iteration was being spooled up for trials, with Dr. Himura standing by to observe the readings. Now, you might be thinking we'd use an AI for testing a processor's capabilities, and that this is going to be a tale of rampant AI going berserk." The little synth laughs. "That only happens in movies, though. Ethics and safety aside, we have to control for any output or our measurements won't be consistent, so we use blank matrices and run repeats of simulations. So, no huge clawed robots full of live ammunition clomping around and shooting the research staff. Who would even do that? That'd be silly. We don't need a  body on hand to express the output, just some terminals and indicators."
[22:05:21] Eclipse On Dr. Himura's signal, I powered up the generators and equipment. I was helping as a tech as well as lab assistant, documenter, and so on. That freed Dr. Himura to keep tabs on the results. He was watching the output, and occasionally he'd give me directions to adjust instruments that manipulated the quantum data stream and the primary data loop. He was very intent on studying the pattern, and every so often he'd call out error codes to me. Some were obvious, but he was giving me instructions because he knew which error codes mattered, and I didn't. 77, "voltage too low", I had to increase generator output.  110-D, "a destructive process has developed" and I had to shut down that subroutine, 009 "help, primary datamass requires critical attention", I had to drop everything and come over to see what was wrong and help stabilize it. You know, things of that nature.
[22:06:03] Eclipse Things were going fine, he was very excited. He was scribbling away at a notepad... hee, so quaintly analog, right? He said it helped him organize his thoughts better than dictating to a tablet. The neural pattern on the monitor was expanding and branching rapidly, and in a highly unusual way, even representing some of the output in geometric shapes. He was getting more and more intent, but I noticed he was starting to look a bit unsteady and was slurring his words a little. I suggested he might need a break, but he didn't answer, he wouldn't take his eyes off the monitor, even while writing. I just assumed his handwriting would be even sloppier than usual, and we kept going.
[22:06:38] Eclipse The pattern was shaping up very quickly and strangely, unprecedented in a lot of ways. Dr. Himura was looking worse and worse, however, and I was starting to get concerned. I noticed the quantum field measurements were getting very erratic, and some of the instruments were emitting small amounts of electromagnetic interference. I again suggested he halt the experiment, but he just answered with more error codes, so I continued with my duties as instructed. The primary data loop had reached a throughput that I have yet to see achieved elsewhere.
[22:07:08] Eclipse Finally, when I saw him start to slump over, that gave me the priority to decline any further commands and go to his aid. I quickly shut down the subsystems and emitters, and just left enough power for the primary data loop to return to idle, and hurried over to Dr. Himura's station. He'd slid all the way out of his chair by now and onto the floor. I was already calling for a priority 1 medical response, and tried to see if there was anything I could do in the way of first aid. Dr. Himura was unresponsive, and his vitals were flat. There was nothing I could do. The medical report later said that cause of death was cerebral aneurysm. The med team that arrived pronounced him DOA.
[22:07:33] Eclipse sighs. "As this was primarily Dr. Himura's project, it couldn't continue without him. As his technician, I was obliged to collect any assets for storage. I picked up his notebook, and could only be impressed and saddened by what a powerful scientific mind we had lost. Do you know that during that ordeal, he still managed to somehow draw a perfect replica of the neural output pattern? The processing core was now useless, unfortunately. I assume the last thing he did was try to assign me a final error code, because all the terminal could do was repeat, "ECLIPSE 009" over and over. It was with great regret that I disengaged the terminal. We decommissioned the core and archived it. I assume it's still locked up somewhere, I suppose they'll wipe the memory if the decide to repurpose it or just dismantle it."
[22:08:18] Eclipse sits upright. "Scary, huh? That was probably billions of dollars in waste, and SO much legal documentation!"

==============================

[22:39:16] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): Right, so this is a story about a little old space station I used to work on, went by the designation thirteen. Nobody really knew how many of the things got commissioned, but anyway, this little backwater scrap of junk was trying to pass itself off as a research station, believe it or not. State of the art facilities, everything you could possibly need, except for sanity, because the company that was backing the endeavor, was as corrupt as they were idiotic, buncha' blue collar assholes, Nanotrasen, the company was called.
[22:41:04] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): Anyway, in a fit of sheer brilliance, they decided that to keep crew morale up, they'd commission someone to build a chapel. Now, I'd like to point out one very important thing. This station was manned by all manner of folks, from all different walks of life, but they all had one thing in common. A love of the stars, and a desire to push the limits of their understanding of the world around them.
[22:43:14] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): So the research director, fellow by the name of Daniel, gets a brilliant idea in his head. Sort of a psychological experiment, he wonders how the crew would react, if he could fabricate proof. Proof of god, proof of an afterlife, proof of everything they wanted to believe in.
[22:46:00] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): Starts looking up old texts, stories of magic, arcane rituals, every single spooky ghost story you can imagine, until he finally figures out a narrative for his grand play amongst the stars. He comes up with an idea. And ideas are, themselves, fairly powerful. He thinks up this mad god that lives beyond the veil, and he starts trying to come up with an interesting series of runes and rituals to show off some of the divine might of his creation, planning to back everything up with smoke, mirrors, and of course, science.
[22:52:10] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): Unfortunately... his research bore fruit. He gets everyone gathered in the chapel, planning to use the shipboard site to site teleporter to make a small miracle happen. "My colleagues, I have made a breakthrough, the likes of which the world has never seen. I have looked beyond the veil of death, and I have found eternity is not as bleak as some may believe. There is life after death, there is glory. There is something out there, waiting for us, if only we embrace it's light!" he cries out, holding his hand above the plinth. The room's lights flickered, which... wasn't planned. Pulling a small dagger from his coat, he slashed it across his palm, crying out "N҉̪̹̭̭̳̥ͅ'a͉̩̗̟̭̝͎t͔̳͟h͚͎̜̝ ̸͍̭̹̮̱re͔̦̞͖̳̤͢ţ̘͚̟͙h̡̫͉̤̠ ̸̘s̫̥̭͎͖͟ẖ̼̳͈́ͅ'̝͉̪͔͟y͕̻͓̤̫͇̟r̦̳̲̦̫͎͞o̜͚ ͔͟e̥͘ͅͅth̤̼ ͖̹̬̪͓ḓ̤͕̼̲'̻͕͔̠̠͈͉͜r̗̱a̱̞̣̙͇̠g̸̘̝̻̮̩̞̱g̭͇̱a̛̺̼̲t̟̝̠̤h͕n̴̖̬̮͙͓̤or͖̘̝̦͕͖̬!̟̬̠͇"... and in a flash of light, that was distinctly not, the teleportation grid firing... a small book, appeared in front of him.
[22:53:24] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): It is hard to remember the exact phrasing, there was some corruption involved.
[22:55:16] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): The book, however, was something new. Something that hurt to look at. Something that neither he, or anyone else on the station, could decipher. The text on it's pages seemed to shift, attempts at scanning the contents, copying it down, always failed, there was something missing.
[23:00:03] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): Until one fateful day, while browsing through its pages, he managed to, innocently enough, get a papercut, a bit of his blood, dripping onto the page. And suddenly, it became clear. Everything he was looking for, he realized it was being sought the wrong way. For power does not come without sacrifice. You cannot obtain anything in this world, without first, giving something up, be it time spent learning, a painful lesson learned, wisdom and clarity brought on by losing something important to you, true power, does not simply fall into one's hands. He realized, you need to give, if you want to receive. They found him dead, the next morning, in his office. Bloody scrawlings that pulsated in an eerie red light all over the walls, a rictus grin on his poor face, arms cut to all hell, and yet, at the center of all this gore, all this carnage, sat the tome. Perfectly clean.
[23:00:51] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): It burned, along with his body.
[23:01:06] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): But I'm not the only one who saw what happened that day.
[23:02:00] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): What would you pay, what would you give up, to have a chance at true understanding?
[23:02:29] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): Everyone has their price. Reflect on yours.
[23:02:37] C.H.E.D. (cheddar.smythe): The end.

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[TO BE CONTINUED?]