THE PREACHER: We gather here, dearly beloved, on the last night of the year, to honor a titan among the recently departed. Ancient in web years, Sluggy.Net had been in increasingly poor health and finally slipped into final slumbers sometime late in 2011. Playful, creative and startlingly intelligent, Sluggy.Net was in all actuality the only place on the entire World Wide Web to host cordial debate and genuine camaraderie. Ever. It will be sorely missed.

MAN IN BACK (shouts): Sluggy.Net is NOT DEAD! Sluggy.Net merely sleeps! Sluggy.Net will live again!

THE PREACHER (annoyed): Someone please remove that man. He must have been overcome by emotion. But now, let us have a few words from those who loved the deceased.

He surveys the small crowd.

Is that all there is out there? The friends and family should have been notified. Even those who were estranged.

Ponders.

I would have thought Llefser at least would be here. Ah well, no matter. I see someone wishes to speak.

He steps to the side to welcome someone else to the podium.

The humble old man in the back rises, only to be knocked to the ground by the opening door. The entrance is thrown wide by the young and imposing gentleman with the long hair and puffy shirt. It's... oh poop, it's that Stan boy.

STAN: FATHERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

OLD MAN (pained): I can't get up...

STAN: Have some respect, man! You're at a funeral!

He prances up to the casket and looks within.

STAN: Ah, look at him... her... it... I said father, right? Nevermind, look at the resemblance! It's striking! Kind of. There's sort of a nose thing going on. Definitely not the ears, but I've always been told I had- Yep! That's dear old dad!

THE PREACHER: Sir, could you please-

Stan points at the Man in Black.

STAN (accusingly): You dare deny my father's death and thus the validity of his will and the status of next of kin? For shame!

MAN IN BLACK: What the hell is he-

Stan turns to the Preacher.

STAN: So, does the whole settling of affairs happen now or after the service? I've got a balloon to catch and some legal troubles to flee, so if we could settle that ASAP, that'd be great.

I have to say, this one hurts. When one chooses a career in mad science, one can expect to lose patients and test subjects, but I really wanted to see this one live. The twisted vitality, the insane ability to fill an RS thread in less than a day, these were the qualities that made the sluggite monster awesome to behold. Unfortunately, a great stone tower filled with Tesla coils and infernal elixer just doesn't seem to be enough to overcome the prevailing forces of entropy and apathy anymore...

*a man with a ridiculous 80's haircut stands up and looks around*

Man, I picked a strange day to drop in for a visit. This is depressing. I will always think of these forums fondly, for Sluggy.net was my first internet message board community. I moved up the ranks here and was one of the few, the proud, the MODS. I saw the great days and the awful days and all the days in between. This community started with a flourish, but it just couldn't keep up that pace... internal bickering and squabbles inevitably broke out and tore down the infrastructure from the inside out. But Sluggy.net always will hold a very special place in my heart.

Galaxy Hunter, in full military service dress sits in the front row, gazing solemnly at the pulpit, a lone tear in his eye. Out of his field of view a small group of soldiers moves into position and bring their guns up in salute before firing a volley, unfortunately this has an unforeseen effect on the shell-shocked GH.

"Good God they're back!" He shouts as he dives into the dirt in front of his seat, memories of his times in various battles flooding back to him. "Get down everyone! Get down!" He reaches over his shoulder and pulls a multi-barreled rocket launcher from behind him. He then leaps at the pulpit and tackles the stunned preacher to the ground shouting. "Battle stations!"

He crouches low behind the pulpit and fires off a volley of rockets at the honor guard, but his aim is so poor they end up missing and hitting trees, rocks, the Hubble Space Telescope, and a beautiful tropical bird. Undeterred GH starts reloading his rocket launcher, muttering "Don't these people have any respect for the dead?" The honor guard, realizing that they were under attack, load live ammunition into their weapons and begin to return fire.

GH pulls a few grenades from his coat pockets and lobs them over at the soldiers saying "God I love a good funeral."

(I'll give a cookie to the person who tells me what movie I got this sequence of events from).

End of Line.

::BELCH::

When does the party start? This is depressing.

With all the mayhem going on, not many notice that the corpse has stiffly sat up. It jerkily moves it's head around at all the action going on. It proceeds to say with some difficulty -due to being undead perhaps or just waking up- "Whhaaassss aallll the raaaaackkkkkeeeeeeet? Zzzzzsssss...kkkkkrrrrrr...." It tries to clear its throat. *HAARK* *GLARKKK* *WAAALAAARRKK* maybe... *caCKKK* *pa-splat* It appears to have cleared its...well, it looks like it coughed up it's heart.

"Ah yes," it says. "I have to say, that is much better. I can now speak very eloquen-- HAAGH!" Maybe not... It appears to have lost part of its tongue. That will make speaking a tad more difficult I suspect. "Glaahh daahhhmmeettt!"

Stan Cold has not moved. It is not because he is scared, nor is it that he knows GH is a horrible shot. It is because, he is Stan Cold. What more is there to say?

He does notice that 'dear ole dad' appears to be and zombie. He sighs. He knows that this is now going to make him late for his balloon. Reluctantly he pulls out --from where in the hell did he stash that thi...um sorry, I'll try and stay focused here-- pulls out his quad-barreled automatic shotgun. He points in the direction when the the corpse of Sluggy.net look right at him.

"Yaaahh loooook fraamillllar..." A slight smile begins to form on Stan's face as he lowers the shotgun. "Ahhh, yaahhh one ovvvv myyyy basssssttttarreeerddds aintt yaa?"

Suddenly as Stan's smile drops and the gun goes up, Sluggy.net leaps out of the coffin with much more speed than you would expect --but I know because I...AHH darn it!-- it ah...jumped. Oh right! LEAPS out of the coffin at blazing speed, much, much, faster than a rotting corpse would normally move. Even faster than Stan can track as it lands behind a pew. Deciding he probably should move, he moves to where he can see it.

He aims and prepares to fire when the corpse grabs a woman hiding on the floor and puts her between them as a shield. But Sluggy.net is not using her as a shield. She's a meal.

Opening its mouth wide, large fangs can be seen as it bites into her neck and begins to suck her blood out. That is not something a zombie would do. But a vampire would.

Stan quickly puts his shotgun away and brings out his trusty crossbow with an ironwood bolt that has been soaked in garlic holy water for three months. He aims for the heart as Sluggy throws the victim to the side, but once again he pauses.

It doesn't have a heart. It drinks blood, but it is rotting. Vampires don't rot, zombies don't drink blood... So... it's a zompire.

That is so incredibly rare, that Stan can't remember how to kill it, or if.

Suddenly it is night and --Hey I'm the narrator, and if I say it's night, it's night damn it!-- and then the light of the full moon streams through the windows. Sluggy starts howling as hair begins growing out of the putrid flesh.

Acting on instinct, Stan pulls out his silver plated katana --Oh come on! Where's he keep all this stuff?! ...um-- pulls out the katana and is going to jump over to cut the...werezompire? Instead, two metal gauntlets land heavily on both of his shoulders. Each hand is attached to a separate two and a half meter tall exo-armor powered suit.

His 'legal troubles' seem to have found him.

Stan drops the katana and reaches for --oh hell, I give up...

The woman stands up. "Did you just bite me?! You bite me! You are dead! Dead people stay in coffins! Get back in you box! Go on. Now please! Good. Now that we have that sorted. Sluggy.net is ... Will you lay back down in your coffin! Good"
She lifts her veil to reveal a bearded bespectacled face.
"Right" says Steave as he steps to the pulpit. "Sluggy.net is or indeed was the one place where I felt completely accepted for who I am. I shall miss him/she/it dearly"

"Now GH put the gun down and let me buy you a drink"

Steave leads GH from the room.

Actually, umm, I see other places on the net that are nice to hang... er... wrong line of conversation.

I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I fear my Mornington-Crescent-with-actual-rules may have contributed to the decline!

I still feel bad for killing that thread. I meant no harm...

We could resume. I'm sure everyone's accumulated by now, and it's still on the front page... but it's still not my turn.

I can't believe no one has finished Lost Pig. They were so close to the end.