[The Delve] 07/01/16: A Visitor In A Strange Land

A weird looking bug preserved in a glass pendant.
Relax Aino, it's on your person already, remember?

No, that is what you are using as the key chain for your security dongle. It is right here, in the pocket of your work uniform-

God.

Dammit.

It's a special d20 with a 20 on every side - because why trust to luck when you can cheat?

As a kid you played a role-playing game with your friends, and for the first session your father fabricated a die with the best result on all the sides. He did not consider it cheating per se, but more like… ‘manufacturing favorable circumstances’ - why trust blind luck when you can make your own, after all?

You know that people are quick to judge someone successful as ‘lucky’ even though that is not true. According to your father success comes from working with passion, being clever and seizing opportunities others have missed, not from being blessed by some invisible hand of noisy quantum chaos.

As a result he did not take his downfall well or even gracefully.

He struggled like a drowning animal, pushing himself harder and farther from his remaining family until the inevitable happened. Afraid of following his fate you have led a far more subdued life, content to make do and being leery of anything smelling of ambition. So far it has worked for you - you may not be happy, but at least you survive.

(Your mother however thought that encouraging cheating at children’s games as a didactic tool was complete nonsense, and brought a swift end to that. Your parents did not always see eye to eye, but you like to think that they complemented each other magnificently.)

>Look for evidence of BREAK IN
>Check under the pillows.

You rifle through the cheap plastic religious iconography, toss around the comfy cushions, and peek under the tables only to find everything clean and spotless, devoid of any mementos...The Custodian, of course! You check the security log and at the top you spot the eerie user number #RJ45 having signed off a maintenance request.

The Custodian! According to the legend it was a regular cleaning drone gone rogue, driven insane by the state of disrepair the station is in. Now it spends its time lurking in the shadows, tidying up the place and doing small repairs when no-one is looking. It is a silent janitor, a watchful handyman - The Custodian.

The records state that there was ‘a rattling noise from the air duct’ which was fixed by ‘removing the obstruction and placing it in the waste disposal’, together with ‘a non-company approved drinking vessel’.



The bastard threw away your stuff!