Aya Brea reporting for duty, dressed for the occasion and armed with MaGog's randomiser.
Christmas is a special season for Aya, for it brings back memories --- memories of Eve. Eve, who had erupted upon an unsuspecting New York City in the winter of 1997, unleashing her mitochondria and raiding sperm banks in her quest to give birth to the Ultimate Santa.
But, as Breja so colourfully put it, enough of the past; there is a task at hand, to put an end to a new nightmare, for neverending nightmares will not do. Needless to say, Eve is once more at the root of it, having duped a pigeon to do her bid, to kidnap Santa for her to harvest his genes, splice them into plasmids and integrate them into bacilli, to form an unstoppable army of big-bellied, bearded, bonneted bacteria. Unless, of course, Aya stops her first.
Yet what of the sack? For, the fate of humanity aside, one must remember that a video game is at stake. Santa's sack --- Eve had dismissively discarded it to a dark corner of her lair, where no sun shines and no bat flaps and no more clues, without even dignifying its content with a cursory glance. And what a pity; for the sack was full of presents aplenty, one for each goglodyte, nicelings and naughtilings alike.
A jar of red chrain for _Slaugh_; an alarm clock for Elmofongo; an apple that has seen better days for BranjoHello; a box of antibiotics for helpo1; a "Touch Me" vinyl in mint condition for XYCat; the 3D game that's not in the sack for seikus... And the list goes on.
But Aya is growing listless. She can no longer just sit around, twiddling her thumbs, and blindly guessing the names of planetariumless villains and wood-and-waterless countries. No, she must do something about it. She must uncover clues, follow them, and find Eve,
Come to think of it, _Slaugh_ seems to know quite a bit about the matter. And he's taking his pretty time revealing new clues, not to say actively dragging his feet. Is he in fact trying to delay us? Is he in fact colluding with Eve, buying her time enough to clone Santa's genes? Aya will soon find out; she will track _Slaugh_ down and make him spill the beans.
Using her faithful purveyor of useful information and cat pictures, Aya found out that:
1)
The Slaugh family name was most common in the 1920's in Utah and Pennsylvania 2) Utah is famous for its Mormons and Pennsylvania is famous for its Amish
3)
Mennonites are often confused with Amish and Mormons 4)
Aya is not easily confused (P NSFW DOWYW)
5) The obvious logical conclusion of these four propositions is that _Slaugh_ lives in Canada
But where in Canada? For Canada is a large place, I think, possibly even larger than
Dryfield, Nevada, though probably not as hot. Further investigation revealed that:
1) _Slaugh_ often refers to a place called GOG Manor
2) This clearly means he lives in
Manor, Saskatchewan, Canada, which is where Aya is now headed.
The first thing Aya saw when she reached Manor, Saskatchewan was
this sign. Then it hit her!
She'd been looking at it all wrong! The vowels are reversed! _Slaugh_ is not a Slaugh, he's a
Sluagh!
And if you're still unconvinced that the host of this giveaway is a sluagh, all you have to do is open Katharine Briggs' "An Encyclopedia of Fairies", page 225 to read
"Host, the. See Sluagh".
But what is a sluagh? According to Alexander Carmichael's "Carmina Gadelica" (vol. II, p. 357), quoted by Briggs in her Encyclopedia (see above): "Sluagh , 'the host'... are the spirits of mortals who have died... the spirits fly about in great clouds, up and down the face of the world like the starlings", to which Briggs adds: "They are the most formidable of the Highland fairy people". To any discerning eye, this description is obviously a pre-scientific rationalisation of what modern science would simply refer to as "flocking bird-like neo-mitochondrial creatures (
)". If you don't know what NMCs look like, here is a [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNL8b6Sm3SE]short video; if you don't know what birds look like, here are
some pictures.
Now, however, as in all good RPGs, Aya is faced with a moral dilemma (translation: she needs to choose between two options in a dialogue box). She could either stand her ground and fight the sluagh, or she could rush to save the bler, who is in dire need of
medical assistance. If she fights the sluagh, the bler may die; if she saves the bler, the sluagh will surely flee and pose a dire threat to Santa and the world. What should Aya do?
Please vote here in the next NaN hours.
The people have chosen, by a clear majority (10:4), to save the bler. Vox populi vox dei (which is Latin for "Ten-four, people"). Mind you, these are the same busy ("Ten-six") people who after almost 1,000 guesses are still unable to determine three measly pieces of information. Still,
ten codes aside, Aya dutifully rushed to the bler's aid, put a band-aid on his owie, and all was well.
But meanwhile, the sluagh craned its neck out of its nest, saw its shadow, and chucklingly thought to itself: "six more weeks of guessing". Then it unfurled its wings and flew off, muttering to itself: "I know, I know".
Deprived of her much anticipated confrontation and clueless as to how to progress, there was only one thing left that Aya could do to possibly still save Santa and the world:
take another shower! (P NSFW DOWYW)
You're probably wondering how a shower could save Santa. You are not alone.
When Aya stepped into the shower, she found there
Santa's belly, all slashed and ready to rub. Alarmed, she retreated into the kitchen, only to find there
Santa's fingers, all broken and ready to eat.
Reenacting the Osiris myth, Eve had evidently dismembered Santa and dispersed his organs throughout the world (or at least throughout Aya's apartment). As Isis before her, Aya will now have to find all fourteen members of Santa's body and reconstruct him in order to bring him back to life.
Santa's members:
1)
Santa's belly (in Aya's shower)
2)
Santa's fingers (in Aya's kitchen)
3)
Santa's legs (down Aya's chimney)
4)
Santa's chest (across Aya's window)
5)
Santa's rained ears (in Aya's gutters)
6)
Santa's face (on Aya's computer)
7)
Santa's feet (in Aya's sock drawer)
8)
Santa's hands (on Aya's rack)
9)
Santa's butt (in Aya's fridge)
Guess #97:
System Shock 3 / Sephiroth / Norway In for Starmaker
