You Wake Up In A Bar

This is great! You have a great new patron. You think you'll even name it!






Recoil hits you hard. You immediately leap to your available bartending tools, pulling out ingredients that sound about appropriate. Stax steps out of the way to keep your workspace clean, and you work frantically.

The bar rocks loudly with the feeling of the honkit speaking at full volume. This volume is far above what you'd consider reasonable in any context, and the ceiling struggles to stay up.

You have the thought that maybe it'd be helpful to get some more information on this species.








With the teensiest bit of hesitation, Laren hands you her PDA-- and you begin tapping away. You're still a bit unfamiliar, but searching the Wyreforums isn't the most complicated thing in the world, and within seconds you've found a Wyre that might just have the answers you seek.

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Transcription by HandyBot33KLife -> Organics -> Species -> Sentience Questionable -> Documentation
Honk-It: Fact or Fiction?
Wyre created on 4 | 4102 | 4651 (3/28/2666 Your Time)

Post by: GravelHistorias
Location: Roaming
Posted on: 4 | 4102 | 4651, 0327:522

It's become clear to me that even my sort of procedural reporting has completely looked over the subject of these 'honk-its', a term colloquially used by schoolchidren as well as the 'cryptidites' of Common Space. While we don't tend to follow up on urban legends, folks hvae told me I'm apparently reputable enough to try and dispel this thing once and for all. (Fat chance. But I gave it a go!)

Honk-its have been claimed to have been seen all over the universe, including extremely niche outworlds and meteorites. Not only are claims of size rather conflicting, but so are their methods of actually moving, acting, speaking, or preying. The only thing that's rather common is that people who claim to have seen honk-its say they were terrified-- I mean, quite unbelievably terrified. No matter how much they claimed to lack a fear of clowns, the honk-it would activate something deep in them, and this panic response is so endemic that I was tempted to assume it was just an effect of the creature itself.

However, I dug a little deeper.

There was a paper written in 4046 | 0296 that details a theoretical 'subspace consciousness-seeking beam' usable for things like targeted advertising against a rather unwitting population. This was eventually patented by a company called Siminia who claims to be 'pro-advocation, pro-bipedalism, pro-individualism'. Now, stay with me a sec: this company was in some hot water lately for, apparently, terrifying their staff to work harder. Not only that, but the location of their old headquarters marks the biggest hotspot of honk-it sightings!

So despite the lack of fossil evidence or real video recording, I might have just figured out where this legend comes from. It's not people lying for attention, or at least not just that-- it might just be a corporate conspiracy to scare the shit out of random people.

Post by: baking4you
Location: NT-ASSIGNED 5984
Posted on: 4 | 4102 | 4651, 0327:522

I don'tf think just saying random stuff is goingf to actually prove anything, yem... NT has plentyfuck of pictures and footage and all that.

Actually, I hadf to fight one once, kh. Station was totally breaking down, can'tf remember why, but there were all thesef clown masks and clown shoes on the floor... some sort of vendingf machine mishape, eh. But when I walked outf of the kitchen to deliver ice cream, one of the floor things camef alive! Two littlef clown shoes and a big mask and was honking so loud I wentf deaf. Then they startedf to swarm the bartender until shef was just a big hunkf of flesh, and...

Well, yek, it's justf obvious they're real! I hadf to drag my pal through the halls on top of allf the mounds of blood and guts, andd one of the clown faces was screeching after me. I wouldf have died if not for firelocks. FIRELOCKS! YEK.

Posted by: 10TACKLE10
Location: somewhere lmao
Posted on: 4 | 4102 | 4651, 0441:646

gonna drop my cool ym-m demeanor to tell you that honk its ruined my life

well not really hrhrrhhrh but i got space hotspitalized after i encountered it. see it came out of the gutter one day and started following me and sometimes said something that sort of sounded like words but mostly it was just other people's laughs obfuscated by horrifying screams

so i got to my water plat and decided to name it cus hey it was like a stray animal and i dont know the complete bullshit you're slinging because it was NOT scary to me at all. but every time i said its name my body got a little more worn out. i thought it was weird but it got weirder when it started talking using my voice

anyway, 12 growths later and i hatched a whole swarm and had to get animal control

Post by: Parogerai
Location: Origin
Posted on: 4 | 4102 | 4651, 0452:531

Each and every one of these little twerps is named Helen. They're mass-produced nightmare machines about as tough as Blits and much meaner. It's a damn army, and they're formed with the express purpose of attacking civillian colonies, especially refugees, to destabilize infrastructure. It's been a long time since my species had to deal with something this damn horrifying.

I've heard stories of honk-its finding children by the sounds they make when playing (this is universal to all us bipedals) and attacking them with their squeaky shoes. Sometimes they'll bait the kid to try and whack it with a stick, and when it does so, it's got express permission from tis commander to fight back, no war crime even implied. I've got my own suspicion that it's blasted Tomato-TT but I don't think I want to start some more societal conflict by saying that. Either way, it's an enemy, and it deserves to get treated like one.

First off, if there's any way possible, use a portable Nullifier to just... rid yourself and your family. I swear to you they don't take prisoners, and though their charming honky demeanor might make you think there's some part of them you could heroically reclaim as a pet (like this moronic poster above me claims), these are creatures which are absolutely controlled by some other entity. My suspicion is it's a split of individual AI and crowd commands on the part of an overseer from far away, but I haven't been in the military in several starturns, so I'm probably talking out of my behind. Not like there's any way to tell! Short of a hot drink spillage, NOTHING penetrates that armor.

As a side note, it's despicable how much misinformation is here. I miss the day where Yukablog was still active and I could get some real, solid information in this universe. It's a shame he doesn't post anymore-- I'd really like to hear what he thinks of Common Space and all its many problems.

On the subject of honk-its: whoever's making them, whoever's controlling them, you're a bunch of evil bastards. Whatever you're trying to soften my people up for, I promise to you we're going to fight back. You can send swarms of thousands of these invincible death machines, but we NEVER STOP FIGHTING.

Post by: YCaffeinator
Location: Terrats, 2905-FFROC
Posted on: 4 | 4102 | 4651, 0653:531 (Today)

it is very worth noting that, like many of these strange folk-legend sort of creatures, a more reasonable explanation is that they are some sort of illusion made by harbingers.

any folk who knows me also knows that they are quite capable of such things! and it seems like they do not even care halfway about if some of their creations have to live with the terrible illusion cracked open, or if they end up being dangerous clown-faces with shoes.

either way, do not trust everything you read on starnet. that is fairly decent advice, is it not?

Oh, hell.




Helen stomps on the stool.






You feel yourself working at an insane pace-- whether it's from newly gained skill or the need to get past this quickly isn't quite clear, but your hands work deftly and your liquid workflow cascades like a river.








Again, the bar rattles-- harder this time. It's not easy to tell if the horrifying creature is trying to break free of this mortal coil, casting a spell, or expressing delight.

Regardless, you have finished Helen's drink, and serve it your newest boiling concoction, complete with a cherry on top.

Upon spotting the dish, Helen fanatically dips it into the toothy maw of its clown-face front, and after downing several gulps, lets out a LONG stream of noises.







Just as the honkit is finally quieted by its constant and incessant intake of boiling, dangerous liquid, two familiar faces enter the bar, right on time! It's Nadezhda and Voronezh, and each of them hold a pair of glass cups-- the same make and model as yours.




Voronezh puts down his pair of stolen receptacles, and Nadezhda follows after, bringing your grand total of cups to 10. That should easily be enough!














As Vor speaks, Helen swivels its body instantaneously to face him, its honking clown-face contorting interdimensionally as it laughs.




Both members of the bug pair step back a bit, flinching. Your existing patrons seem to have almost gotten used to it by now, and wince quite a bit less.








As with last time you met this pair, they're ordering two different things with an insistence on haste. Trying to make two different drinks at once is multitasking, and although you're a better bartender now, doing so will still have risks attached.



Cup status: 0 occupied, 1 dirty (Ashen Corrugible), 9 free
Plate status: 0 occupied, 1 dirty (The Sate Catsberry), 3 free
Scavenger ability: Unavailable (0/1 uses)
Intrusive ability: Enabled

With the creation of your first drink in quite a while, you've added four new entries to the Cabinet:

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Author's NotesI really gotta thank y'all for being so awesome during this adventure. This update was a blast and I hope to have this pace kept up!

There are a lot of things to pick up on in the Starnet post, both related to Helen and not related to Helen-- feel free to share with your fellow input-submitters if you find out some information or any easter eggs!