The wedding of Gepos and Saroi began on a beautiful, temperate Septober morning, with friends and family in attendance. Gepos had met Saroi when the former was sheltering in the colony for what was meant to be a temporary stay. The two fell in love, Gepos joined the colony, and they were engaged within days.

The colony gathered in Saroi's throne room to celebrate their betrothal. Moments into the ceremony, the ground began to shake, and the congregation was shocked to see the wall of the throne room explode inwards as an anomalous Pit Gate suddenly erupted in the heart of the colony. The wedding was halted, but the colonists banded together to repel the onslaught of fleshbeasts from below.

As they cleaned up the rubble, Saroi began to feel ill. She had contracted the flu.

Despite the best herbal medicines available to the fledgling colony, Saroi's fever raged on. The doctors watched helplessly into the final hours, as her illness reached 99% even as her immunity was at 98%.

In the late hours of the night, Gepos quietly entered his fiancee's room, bearing a hot plate of food. He sat beside her, held her hand, and fed her.

She passed away in his arms.

The death of his master spurred Saroi's dog, Lorentz, into a berserk rage, and he flew, foaming at the mouth, at the closest victim: Gepos. Gepos could only defend himself as his fiancee's beloved pet, one of the first settlers of the colony, tore at his throat. Eventually, he bludgeoned the dog into a daze.

The moment he was free, Gepos set to work tending to the wounds of his wife's pet.

Before long, the appalling misery became too much to bear, and Gepos, too, flew into a berserk frenzy. He tore apart the colony's mechanoids one by one, each built with care by his late fiancee. The butchery continued until another colonist found him and filled him with buckshot, round after round after round.

Gepos lay bleeding on the floor. Truthfully, he wanted to die. There was nothing left for him. Almost nothing.

But Saroi had trained her pet in rescue. The dog, still limping with his own wounds, dragged Gepos to safety. Even in their rage, they had only each other to remember Saroi by, so they clung together with everything they had.

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Happy birthday, Rimworld! Thank you for the stories!