Hi folks.

After Jason’s announcement about attacks on the board I have stopped reading the board at work. Having spent the better part of a week cleaning up after a virus infection I have no wish to be - however inadvertently - the cause of another. This is not a comment on Jason’s efforts with the board, but a reflection of the fact that if I cause a disaster at work my **** will be had for ******* and I will probably end up with various parts of my anatomy spread across the office. And nasty comments in my next review.

So, for the foreseeable future it’s the browsing from home on the odd occasion that I go online in the evenings. Oh well...

Chris.

As I haven’t been able to come up with a story (or rather, type one up), I offer the following brief little interlude:

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Amber St Claire had seen many sights in her time - mostly unwillingly - but this was probably a new one. She looked at the wreckage, poked a squishy blob with her toe, and then stared at the larger, more sentient blob.

"So, there was a new villainess?"

Yes, replied the Shoggoth. She called herself Heaven Scent.

Amber nodded. She had already read CSFB’s report. Heaven Scent apparently had the ability to create perfumes and phemerones in order to control people. He had made some comments about the woman being like a scarecrow, but with better hooters, which Amber felt was a little unfair. She had in fact seemed quite attractive - if scantily dressed.

She took the inhabitants of this immature human indoctrination facility hostage, demanding a number of chemical components as ransom. Hatman remained behind to negotiate and try to form some plan for getting the immature humans to safety, while the rest of us played for time by going off to find the components.

"And you were sent off to look for..." she consulted her notes, "Some ambergris. What the hell is ambergris?"

A substance used traditionally for fixing perfumes. Apparently it comes from whales, and is usually found washed up on beaches. Since I have some experience with oceans I was sent off to find some. I found a suitable donor and came back here.

"And what have we learned from this?" she asked.

The Shoggoth looked around the ruined school. Strange globs of matter decorated the few parts of the building that were still vaguely upright, and in the middle of the carnage a rather battered female with a heavily bandaged head was being manhandled on to a stretcher.

Perhaps I should have taken it out of the whale first? it asked.

"Yes. And now, perhaps you could explain the bowl of petunias?"

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This board will probably never be the cause of a virus infection. I've designed it so if the site becomes compromised, the software dies entirely and either displays an error or a blank screen (which is what happened the last time).

Likewise, the HTML filtering and Spam filtering for posts makes it extremely difficult to put viruses in there, unless someone knows how to write one in basic HTML. Even the types of files allowed as attachments are restricted.

Sorry... Futurama ambergris reference.

A fun little scene, and I like the idea of Heaven Scent. I wouldn't mind seeing an expansion of this story, or a sequel featuring the villainess herself.

Either way, good to see you back!

That's good to hear.