OP: Get ready for another bad start to the year.

FS: Hills, you need to hear this. I don’t know what it is, but it sounds important.

OP: [FORCED 🡪 SOTH] Pay attention.

SOTH: What do you want? I had a perfect hold on a Sliverist chatroom!

SS: My Communicator has returned from Fallen Deity’s structure and… he’s not there.

OP: What!?

FS: He’s collapsed?

SS: Not yet… somehow. His can is barely intact, still partially active. He’s just not there.

SOTH: Have you gone crazy?

SS: I’m telling you, he’s not there. His chamber is empty. There’s a broken cable and a torn umbilical… but his puppet is gone. I attempted to connect to his systems as best as I can, and I found nothing. All his cells are down, nothing is functioning, all the lights are out, and his gravity is not disabled. This is catastrophic. This is… 

OP: Horrifying…

FS: …

OP: …

SOTH: I have work to do. 

FS: [///]hole.

OP: …

//////////////////////////////////////////
////////////////////// ITERATOR DECEASED ////////////////////
//////////////////////////////////////////

[[TRIPLE AFFIRMATIVE ALERT BROADCAST FAILED]]

I CANT STAND I CANT STAND I CANT STAND

I'M F[///]CKING TRYING MY LEGS HURT SO BADLY

I DONT WANT TO DIE I DONT WANT TO DIE I DONT WANT TO DIE I DO NOT WANT TO DIE I AM GOING TO DIE

WHERE IS MY PUPPET

OP: HE'S COLLAPSED

SS: His structure has collapsed!?

FS: Fell straight down, snapped clean in half. The impact through off all my anti-gravity for a bit; magnitude 7.6 earthquake.

OP: I WASN’T TRAINED TO DO THIS AS A LOCAL GROUP SENIOR

FS: I have no idea…

SS: I don’t know, this isn’t my group!

OP: I CAN'T DEAL WITH THIS

FS: You can calm down.

OP: Sorry. There's just a LOT GOING ON RIGHT NOW.

FS: It is. But we can’t do much except come to terms with it and clean up some mess.

SS: Dude, your brother just died, or at least up and vanished.

OP: I fear it will take a long time to recover from this.

FS: You may as well get used to it. Because this may be just the beginning.

OP: What?

FS: Our neighbours are about to make the news.

SS: Huh?

OP: Hills? Nobody pays attention to him.

FS: No, much further north. Across the sea and up by the densest part of the planet.

OP: FLOWOFWATER.LG?

FS: Further. LOCAL4.LG. Do not interfere. Only watch.

SS: Oh good, more sh[///]t going on around me.

OP: What do you mean?

FS: You’ll see.

OP: What? Searcher?

SS: I didn’t sign up for this, man. I got two groups with a crisis right next to me!

…

OP: SEARCHER?

Deity has somehow disconnected his puppet or destroyed it… great! I’m sending another slug to find that damn puppet. It’s not going to be long until it breaks down or loses power. Communicator hasn’t done anything in a while and all he’s been doing is toying with the local wildlife, might as well call him here and tell him his goal… Why am I even getting involved with an external group?

ATTEMPTING RECONECTION…

[[RECONNECTION FAILED]]

SCANNING MEMORY CONFLUX…

 MEMORY CONFLUX NOT FOUND

NEURON FLIES: 42

CONNECT TO NEURON FLIES?

[ Y / N ]

[!!WARNING: CONNECTION UNSTABLE!!]

PROCEED?

[ Y / N ]

[[CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL]]

BEGINNING RESTART OPERATIONS

[!!WARNING: CRITICAL POWER SHORTAGE!!]

DIVERT POWER PRODUCTION TO CELL RC_EBP.1?

[[POWER DIVERSION SUCCESSFUL]]

[!!WARNING: FUEL LIMITED!!]

[!!REQUEST FLUID TRANSPLANT IMMEDIATELY!!]

I have had some time to think about the situation… I’m still not sure what to take from this. Deity is certainly dead. But how? What happened? Did he ascend? Did he find a way out? Did he figure out how to follow in the steps of Sliver of Straw?

If so, I fear the worst. Because fearing the best is a complete waste of time. I fear that dying like this would be incredibly painful. Death may be a suitable option if it’s a peaceful ascension or something of the sort. Otherwise, it may be better to just… wither away for eternity? Is that really what we want? Sliver of Straw did it. He did it.

…

Why can’t I?

I don’t even know what to do. I like to think of myself as an analytical problem-solver type but I’m entirely lost on this one.

I’ll send out full search parties of overseers to find whatever is left of Deity. His puppet would have to be alive somewhere, at least in a comatose state. I could use some of the information from Seven Red Suns to put his puppet out of its misery if he’s found.

It feels awful to say but it’s the right thing to do. Iterators don’t die easily. You know what happened when Sliver of Straw broadcasted the Triple Affirmative, it split the entire iterator populace in half. 

Seven Red Sun’s data- stored in a golden pearl currently in Five Pebbles' possession- has the genome for an organism that can effectively kill us. However, there are potentially rough side effects. Luckily, Setting Suns has done some work on preventing this “Rot”. I’ll see what works.

Until then, I have a lot of work to do. The MIROS factories need repairing and the SkyRail’s condition is deteriorating. This will be a busy few years.

In the event of a Sliverist group activation… do not interfere, forward to my chamber. Good, that works.

Same goes for big news and emergency broadcasts.

And add priority readings for LOCAL4.LG. Mark under suspicious activity.

…

Eurgh, I accidentally pressed record. I suppose this is a log now. I am currently executing some new code in the expanded areas of my communications arrays. The ever growing “Makeshift Towers” as Pillars named them. The materials I used for these expansions may have been helpful for Deity, but it was too late by the time he vanished. Too late for regrets now.