quest/src/appendix/a/index.md

---
title: Appendix A
created: Thu, 29 Dec 2022 15:46:36 -0700
updated: Thu, 29 Dec 2022 15:46:37 -0700
public: yes
---
## Appendix A: Barefoot Quackery

Being apocryphal and supplemental material posted to the *Barefoot Quackery*
thread on tildepals, including depictions of loose pages torn from books of the
Runesocesius Library, and original fictions and other diversions, and more.

### Cease and Desist

> To: durrendal  
> From: LABATT  
> Subject: Cease and Desist Order  
> 
> To whom it may concern:
> 
> It has recently come to our attention that a personhood has withheld
> important document(s) which affect the structural nature of a sensitive
> publication, namely the [REDACTED] zine.
> 
> Please cease and desist immediately. You may comply with this order by
> submitting the aforementioned document(s) to the designated drop-off point as
> instructed on the imprint accompanying your submission form by midnight
> Coordinated Basmentaric Time (BTC) of Day 22 of Member 12 in the year 2202.
> 
> Continued infringement represents an escalation and will result in sanctions,
> including but not withstanding a remote cursery execution (RCE) on your
> monitoring and calendar infrastructure.
> 
> We reserve the right to pursue other corrective actions through
> temporally-attuned means to protect the release timeline integrity of key
> cultural assets.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Luminati Association of Bears as Time Travellers (LABATT)

---

> Dear sir and/or madame and/or bear and/or time travel NSA agent,
> 
> We've read your cease and desist, and while we understand its intent, we're
> unable at this time to comply, not through any inability of our own, but
> rather through our inability to stop writing run on sentence; you see we
> never truly learned how to grammar goodly and now we just go on and on, ad
> nauseum, so on and so forth; truly it is a depressing and persistent problem,
> if we were ever to find the correct punctuation to prevent these run ons from
> happening we might be able to cease, potentially even desist, but probably
> both at the same time, or neither all at once, we're really uncertain at this
> point; all that is know is that nothing is truly known once you've gone this
> far down the grammartical, and metaphorical, rabbit hole; to speak
> metaphorically that is on a subject that is somewhat subjectively objective
> while simultaneously being an objective objection to your subjective
> summation of our grevious misgivings, truly one must infer that the meaning
> of these metaphoric subjectively objective objections are subjective in their
> own right, potentially reaching the height of metaphysical incanatation; one
> could say this run on sentence is one giant invocation, a charm of warding
> against cease and desist notices, to protect the poor photographer from his
> abject abandonment of his own promises; though some may object to my absolute
> misuse of proper punctuation and grammar to the point where said people
> stopped reading long again and began readying pitchforks and torches, likely
> they're on their way to Maine now ready to burn my witchy incantating self
> for the hum dinger of a grammatical curse I sit here writing, but to these
> people I say NAY, nay sir I object to your cease and desist, and to their
> objection to this abject horror of a sentence, and I abject my throne as
> well, for you know I once was a king, not a very rich king, but a king in my
> own right; why yes, indeed I was, king of stream of concious ramblings
> without respect for grammar, punctuation, or any of that high falootin
> nonsense that the yonder rich kings hold dear, and which I hold to be a
> dreadful and dire curse upon us all, but with that I really must bid you Good
> Day madame, though let this not be an ending, but the begining of a wonderful
> and delightful sort of cease and desist based relationship,

---

> To: durrendal  
> From: LABATT  
> Subject: Re: Cease and Desist Order [#20221221-1946]  
> 
> To whom it may concern:
> 
> Please be advised that any evidence you provided in your response may be used
> against you in the event an injunction is filed against your personhood
> should you fail to comply with the order. This includes any admission of
> culpability or liability stemming from failure to submit the aforementioned
> document(s) in a timely manner.
> 
> LABATT is a renowned non-profit organisation dedicated to the preservation of
> historical continuity of cultural works in the fabric of space-time. We
> deplore the designation of "NSA agent" and invite you to learn more about our
> mission and vision on our website and free seminars one of our offices across
> Basmentaria.
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Luminati Association of Bears as Time Travellers (LABATT)


### On the Origins of Santa Claws

125


On the Origins of Santa Claws

Maximus N. Grinchescu

It should heretofore be common knowledge that the Santa Claws of present day is
the stuff of fantasy and make-believe, a story fabricated on the spur of the
moment by some exasperated mother who could not for the life of her induce her
children to behave. The very notion of reward in the form of toys and presents,
or punishment in the lack thereof of aforementioned items, is no doubt
appealing to many parents who are themselves motivated similarly and thus can
only appeal to their offspring at the most superficial level. The lifelong goal
in the pursuit of consumption has been drummed into these unfortunate
children's heads from a young age, with thinly-veiled threats of a thorough
mauling for those who dare to deviate from the well— and truly down— trodden
path. It is the means by which the cycle of ignorance and conceit perpetuates
among the unwashed masses — young mops bragging about having the largest
present under the tree, to become adults boasting of receiving the most
expensive gifts from a spouse or ever-widening court of suitors. The myth of
Santa Claws is a gross distortion of facts disguised as a moralistic narrative
that promotes annually renewing contracts of obedience in exchange for
short-term material gains. Astonishingly, nary a word of doubt would be heard
from the parents on the merits of accepting gifts from an obsessive stranger
who prowls the streets at night watching their children sleep, in addition to
claiming knowledge of the children's every move rivalling their own.

It is regrettable that the image of Santa Claws in the eyes of many has been
reduced to that of a jolly dangerous delivery worker. Little do they know that
the real Santa Claws came from a long line of frockin — wandering folk who don
a cassock and dedicate their lives to aiding the hungry, desperate and needy.
On occasions for gifts, they gave to all regardless of whether they were
perceived by friend or foe of the recipients to be good or evil, for such is
the willingness of the frockin to set aside their quarrels on the Day of
Bountiful Blessings. They travel across Basmentaria in fortles which house a
multitude of rooms and supplies required to sustain their livelihoods. Inside
the fortles were workshops in which carpenters, woodworkers, drafters, tailors,
various craftspeople as well as farmers and cooks plied their skills.

One frockin in particular became known for rescuing ransomed young maidens and
poor indentured servants who faced torture by the oil vat at the hands of cruel
employers in the nick of time that they became known as Nick, Blessed of
Neddas, or Nick of Mairas as they gained grateful followers and admirers.
Despite this, the frockin was modest in manner and rarely took credit for their
acts of generosity. Because of this trait and the loss of the few, limited
first-hand accounts of those with close dealings with the frockin in a fire
shortly before they assumed the care and upkeep of a pair of fortles, little is
known of their childhood circumstances or early life. Enrolment records at an
vocational institution in Vay'Neddas confirmed that they studied for several
years in the city, and inherited their uncle's position of managing the
activities within the fortles sometime after their return. Other historical
biographers contend the frockin's name was in fact Nikolas Klaus, which later
became Claws in children's stories as to make them most palatable to
impressionable young readers.

Questions as to the nature of their appearance are generally of little import
save for lining the pockets of picture book publishers and mass producers of
wax figure collectibles. Those who have had the fortune to glimpse their person
described a wizened countenance of long hair, fulsome beard and whiskers
gleaming white and silver, amid which nestled a pair of warm amber eyes, a nose
slightly rosy from the cold and an affable smile. A genial face rested atop a
large stocky frame, as was common among those with the blood and strength of
noble mountain lions. As in the period of their ancestors, they wore a dark

---

126


brown cloak with a hood over their cassock to ward against the cold weather,
though this changed after one occasion when they narrowly avoided being run
over by a semi-autonomous cart. The abominable thing had zipped by in front of
Santa at a beard's distance away as they emerged on the roof of a house through
its chimney.

At this juncture it should be duly noted that the idea of Santa Claws typically
making their entrance into homes by clambering down chimneys, even preferring
it as a method of entry, is as preposterous as the worthless rags that
circulated such claims. No one of sound mind would shimmy through filthy,
narrow, often half-crumbling chutes — carrying a large sack, no less — if they
could safely enter through the front door. For the latter was exactly what
Santa and their predecessors did, and still do to this day in some villages, in
a time when people were less leery of their neighbours and either left their
doors unlocked, or placed a spare key under the doormat so the household next
door could tend to the plants or the children's pepper pigs while they visited
relatives farther away.

According to a later account by one of the crew on Santa's fleet, translated
and transcribed for the frockins' annals by a chronicler, what had actually
transpired was this: on that night while nearing the end of their rounds, Santa
found signs of flooding at one of the houses pointing to a burst pipe, the
water having seeped out under the front door and turned to ice in the frigid
temperatures. Tender of heart, Santa retrieved their fleet repair kit that was
kept for emergencies and ventured into the house to repair the broken pipe, in
lieu of simply leaving the presents outside on a stump where a tree once stood
and riding on. It was then that an obstacle presented itself. The house owners,
having gone away for the holidays, had a magical apparatus set on the door that
would raise an alarm and curse if opened by an intruder. No house key was found
under the mat after defrosting the ice over it enough to pull off the cover.
The windows were likewise sealed shut and latched. This ultimately necessitated
Santa entering and leaving through the chimney. Doubtless some fool stumbled
upon the moment Santa exited the chimney opening, nearly flattened by the
aerial hazard of a self-navigating cart, and got it into their head that Santa
Claws was one for chimney-climbing as sport.

When the good Mrs. Claws found out about the near mishap, they were so worried
about their partner venturing out on missions that as a precaution, they had
Santa promise to wear a bright red outfit for such occasions. The thick
overcoat had a white faux fur trim that reflected the moons' light, matching
hat and trousers and a shining gold belt buckle so that the carts' sensors can
sight him even on the darkest nights. Completing the outfit were gloves with
open seams at the base of each finger to reveal their claws without taking off
the gloves completely. The whole ensemble was made by Mrs. Claws themselves,
and it was said they had gotten the inspiration for the white trimmings from
their partner's flowing mane. Members of the fleet were also offered a similar
change in clothing and the flying multibeast was re-painted in accordance with
the new colours that are now festooned in the streets and shops all over
Basmentaria each year as the Day of Bountiful Blessings draws near.

A brief word on the aforementioned fleet: much remains unconfirmed about the
origins or evolution of the transport employed by Santa Claws to cover long
distances, and the arcana that powers the current fleet remains a subject of
heated speculation. Based on surviving annals that were once on public display,
before the twin fortles vanished one night were never seen again, it is
generally thought that the earliest fleets were small fortles guided by a crew
of twelve members excluding Santa Claws. In time the fortles were retired and
replaced with aerial multibeasts for lighter weight and potential for greater
velocity. Contrary to popular jingles, the multibeast is not pulled by
reindeer, which are neither known for speed nor stamina, but are headed by rain
horses specially raised for both as as well their ability to withstand much of

### Sunrise over Kelsun Peak

```
that night we ride up the mountain
deep within a Saldin Sea of mist
our way up becomes cloudy, uncertain
crying, heavy air turns to water
the cage starts to shudder and shake,
a venerable old man in a seizure

you clung to my arm as a bear cub
to its mother in the darkness,
the lone candle snuffed out in a huff
of a petulant wind throwing a tantrum
I grip the handle hard enough,
vowing to be strong for both of us

when we are called from fitful slumber
by twin rays of warming distant light
promising more, brother and sister
a cold breakfast or a hot chocolate
lastly and first, the sight of you
eyes open, hair tousled, immaculate

the rusty gondola creaks a little
under our combined weight, groaning
at our youthfully excessive flair
but we did not care, with our hearts
facing the sun, far lighter as one
than the corporeal sum of its parts

a new day breaks, yolk radiant orange
reveal the finest tempera brushed over
neat rows of tea plants at the grange
a gleaming dewdrop at the tip of a leaf,
we dangle on the cusp, an infinite moment
in the sky, we dare to hope, to believe
```


40


### How to Grow Fortified Pumpkins

How to Grow Fortified Pumpkins

by Oles Macdonald

So you wanna grow fortified pumpkins, huh? Well, first things first, you're
gonna need a fort. You got yer self one, right? An' I don't mean those blow-up
bouncing bollocks for kids, those take up room and don't do jack. No sirree,
you need to get yer self a rock fort. The real hard structure, not mouldy
cheese. Snow's not gonna cut it, fun for the young 'uns maybe but kills yer
plants with frostbite fast. Sand just gets washed away in a storm. An' don't
get me started on pillow forts, them things should be banned. Blocks sunlight,
flaps like the village gossips with a bit o' wind letting in rain every which
way, feathers inside them pillows take too long to dry when wet, I can go on
an' on about it all day but we're talking about growing the best fortified
pumpkins so let's stick with it.

Bottom line is if you ain't got one then build one from rocks, it's what it
says on the tin. Just make sure to choose large dry ones, flat-like, you
wouldn't wanna get sick from cave mold before you even get this sucker off the
ground, and flats will save you time cutting all them sides. Build your fort on
a sunny part of yer land away from trees. Pumpkins love to suntan, even shows
on their skins in some varieties. Stack up some rocks like yer building a brick
wall or grill. The fort wall should be about a hand's thickness fer insulation
an' at least twelve by four-an'-twenty by six feet on the inside. Spread
fisherfolk nets over the top to let in the sun, rain and bees to do their thing
for yer pumpkin plants but keep them birds out. You can throw cured tarp over
it an' anchor it to the fort wall if a big storm comes along. Don' forget to
leave an opening so you can fit a door later. Lets you get in an' out easy, but
not so easy that the rats an' other rodents get to yer pumpkins first.
Door-wise there's no need to be a fusspot about it, put in something sturdy
with a clever latch or a ward if you can get a hold of one so the raccoon cats
can't pick the lock with their claws.

Yer gonna need three feet of the height right off the bat for a raised bed,
specially if you don't know fer sure if the land below yer feet is cursed or
not, or can't tell horse sh—t apart from dark clay to check yer soil is good.
Line the inside of the fort with sheet metal where you'll load up with good
soil in a bit, an' make sure you can get to all sides. No sense growing a bed
full of pumpkins if you can't reach over to grab 'em later. You can also use
wood but they will rot something nasty if you don't find the right wood that
takes to water well an' have a habit of overwatering loads, then the whole
thing falls apart under the weight. Sheet metal like the stuff used fer roofs
will do the job, just bang a few together like a box with no lid no bottom an'
yer in business. If you'd rather be safe than sorry, you can make it even
sturdier on the inside with a steel bar or two across the width of the bed.
Fill a third of the bed with straw, ol' wood, alfalfa or stuff like that you
got laying around, then the rest of the way up to about the third knuckle's
length away from the top edge with good quality compost. Every farmer worth
their weight in potatoes knows good quality compost is the real gold. As I
always tell new folks lookin' to set up right, go big on compost or go home.

Once you've filled up the bed, dig a few rows of shallow trenches in the soil
about a half-an'-a-feet or two apart an' two knuckles deep at yer pinky finger.
Soak yer seeds overnight and plant 'em in a feet apart in the rows. Cover 'em
up and mulch that beauty of a bed. Give 'em a good thorough watering every
other day, or every day if it's like an oven hot out there, an' Bread's yer
butter. Halfway through the season if they're lookin' a little starved, fortify
'em by making some compost tea to freshen 'em up. You can use hemogoblin blood
too if you got that, it's just a pricier way to do the same thing with the same
results, an' who likes payin' more when you can throw a few fish bones
together, boil the whole lot, leave it to rot an' get free plant tea? Not me.
Now when they start flowering, nip off any extra flowers on the same vine so
the pumpkin gets more nourishment an' grows bigger. For a lot of newbs it's a
chore, but wait 'til you see the size of these pups. If you don't wanna mess
about staking up vines, let 'em run around a bit and that's hunky dory too.
Just be sure they aren't sittin' in a swimming pool, that's a one-way ride to
mushy pumpkins an' root rot. An' dangnabbit do I hate mushy pumpkins.

### An Overview of S.T.A.G Drones

This guide is meant to introduce the operate (you) to the functionality of
features of the S.T.A.G drone. For in depth usage and extensibility please
review the source code which can be found at your local GNU guild.

S.T.A.G - (S)py (T)ransmat (A)utonomous (G)izmo

As the name implies, the S.T.A.G drone is a capable and compact automous gizmo
capable of relaying video, audio, & gps information to its operator. Unlike
most convention drones it requires no input to operate, simply supplying it
with an object is sufficient. The on board (A)mber (I)mp handles the actual
control. It is important that you retrieve the A.I. from the drone in the event
you choose to discard, or risk the S.T.A.G. in any way, remember Imp's are
sentient beings.

Once an operator has deployed a S.T.A.G drone they'll recieve information back
from it in the format of a twtxt feed, and open source plain text format which
is easily parsed. GPS coordinates are reported as JSON strings inside of this
feed, audio is transliterated to text, and video is relayed as a series of
ascii characters. All an operate needs to do to view these feeds is to cat the
return text to a terminal and it should render. If the operater does not have
access to a terminal, or is not a practice sysorcerer, the video feed can be
consumed by retrieving the S.T.A.G drone and holding it close to your ear. The
A.I have been trained in number Basementarian languages and are happy to
dutifully describe the scenes they've seen.

Each of these feeds can be subscribed to separately

The aggregate feed can be accessed via:

```
@<stag_arn uri://stag/arn>
```

Simiarly these feeds provide filtered results by name:

```
@<stag_arn uri://stag/arn/gps>
@<stag_arn uri://stag/arn/audio>
@<stag_arn uri://stag/arn/video> 
```


### Gremlin Sysorcer


The gremlin stretched in his padded ergonomic chair and stifled a yawn. He had
just finished beating the final Heroic Fantasy game for the twelfth time, when
a flood of identical alerts flashed across his second screen: `Outgoing
connection blocked on port 443 from 10.10.12.26` He reached into the machine,
looked up the process and found two unfamiliar entries bouncing in and out of
hottop's list for most computering units being consumed. The new intern had
probably downloaded some application with an auto-updater and left it installed
on the workstation. He zapped the processes.

```
killall -9 ysosirius
killall -9 yunoluvirus
```

That should do it. He watched hottop closely on the monitor. A beat passed.
Two, then the processes returned. Grr. These weren't regular rogue procs, but
forked demons. His stubby fingers sprinted over the mechanical keyboard,
clacking loudly in the dark office as he fired off a series of spells:

```
sudo systemctl stop ysosirius
sudo systemctl stop yunoluvirus
sudo systemctl disable ysosirius
Failed to execute operation: Access denied
```

G—ck. How is that possible? The gremlin scratched his head with his Mebekey for
a minute. Immutable flags?

```
sudo chattr -i /etc/systemd/system/ysosirius.service
/bin/bash chattr: not found
```

What. Did the intern somehow mistook it for a messaging client during the
initial audit phase and removed it from all the workstations? He really needed
to have a word with them when they turn up on Monday, but for now—

```
sudo apt -y install e2fsprogs
sudo chattr -i /etc/systemd/system/ysosirius.service
sudo rm -rf /etc/systemd/system/ysosirius*
sudo chattr -i /etc/systemd/system/yunoluvirus.service
sudo rm -rf /etc/systemd/system/yunoluvirus*
```

There, stupid demons terminated. Must have been one of his colleagues leaving
him a gaff holiday gift, but he started a malware scan anyway just in case.
Smiling to himself and pushing up his Googol glasses, the Tier Two support
wizard looked away from his screen to grab his mug, which was then he noticed
it was empty. Frowning, he pulled up the COFE dashboard on his terminal. His
expression fell at the "0%" next to a little icon of an empty fuel gauge in the
status field. That was the last pot — he was sure of it because he had brewed
it himself four hours ago after ransacking the kitchenette for more. He had
managed to scrape out a few stale tablespoons from what was left inside a large
can that had been shoved to the back of a cupboard. He had ran out of coffee.

After checking his secret stash, which was also empty save for more discarded
wrappers, he sighed and got to his feet. He gave the screen another glance and
hoverboarded to the vending machine down the hall, before catching sight of the
empty black racks from a distance and swerved back towards the lift doors.
After some elevator-cruising, he found another vending machine a few floors
down that still had drinks, a few tiny bags of corn chips and trail mix bars.
Someone had already emptied its shelves of Cherry and regular Koke, and Diet
Koke was never a viable alternative. Then he saw a single can of Red Kobit
sitting tantalisingly on the rack. He paid with a tap of his meal card,
figuring his luck wasn't too bad after all, but at the last moment the vending
machine changed its mind and held onto both his credits and the can with a
round, wiry claw. He yelled at the machine, threatened to summon maintenance,
shoved it back a centimeter where it was already standing against the wall,
pummelled its bulletproof glass chest with his fists and kicked its legs, to no
avail. The vending machine had likely seen through his bluff and knew no repair
person was coming on a Friday night graveyard shift. Taking the machine apart
will land him in Big Trouble again, and it wasn't worth the three-hour
CowardPoint presentation he would get about robot respect or the warning letter
for damage to corporeal property. The gremlin resentfully tapped his card again
to secure the last two cans of Red Horse, which rolled down into the flapped
receptacle with a *ba dum tss* like a bad joke.

When he returned to his desk and settled back in his rolling chair, open can of
raw energy in hand, he began to feel a prickly, crawling sensation on his skin.
A rising dread overcame him, as the apparition of his lifelong-sworn enemy rose
up from the deepest runlevels of init hell once again, and without a new season
of *White Mirror* dropping anytime soon, he knew he was in grave danger. He
gripped the edge of his keyboard, exhaled slowly and greeted his old nemesis,
Boredom.


### Pirate Gold Fondue

420

Pirate Gold Fondue

Ingredients

- 3 Pirate Gold potatoes
- 1/2 cup chickpea paste
- 1 cup coconut oil
- 1/3 macadamia milk
- 2 tbsp. cornflour
- 1 1/2 cups mulled apple wine
- 1/4 cup hemogoblin blood
- 1 garlic clove, flattened
- 2 tbsp. ground cocoa
- 1/2 tsp. paprika
- 2 tbsp. lemon dill


Method

1. Peel potatoes and boil until soft. Let cool, then add to a large mixing bowl
   with chickpea paste.

2. Dissolve cornflour into the macadamia milk, then pour the milk gradually
   into the bowl, mashing the mixture until no lumps remain. Add coconut oil,
   1/4 cup at a time until folded completely into the mixture and set aside.

3. Toast the paprika in a saucepan. Add mulled apple wine, bemogoblin blood
   and garlic clove. When the liquid is heated, add ground cocoa.

4. Pour the saucepan contents into a caquelon, or a double boiler with water
   simmering below the bowl. Add the potato mixture slowly in small batches,
   stirring continuously. Remove garlic after a 1/4 of the mixture has been
   added, and resume stirring until all the potatoes have been added.

5. Garnish with lemon dill and serve.

### Lady Runesocesius

```
My Lady, I come to visit you
will you show your dainty face, gladly I
let you tease me as I ascend, step closer
so you can hide behind your cloudy veils?

My Lady, I kneel at your feet
will you embrace me in your fulsome bosom
let me breathe in your perfume, a heady wine
taste drops of your creamy white nectar?

My Lady, I bring you snow lilies
to tuck behind your ear as I whisper
sweet everythings into that tender shell
so you can extract a promise for my return?

My Lady, I long to see you
to kiss your fair golden tresses and take
my vow with Nullar as witness, an Elixir to
savour once more your everlasting beauty?
```