System Notice: Dominion servers entering cooldown maintenance. All raid zones, thread missions, and rollback access restricted for 24h.Reason: Legacy Sync Protocol Detected.Message: "Happy Harvesting."
"I swear to every Reaper in the system," Kael muttered, "if this is another Choir trap dressed as a holiday…"
"It's not," Aria said. "It's Thanksgiving."
Kael stared at her. "You're kidding."
She gestured to the sky, which had inexplicably turned a warm, Instagram-filter orange. "Nope. System cooldowns sometimes trigger legacy holiday emotes. This one was coded back when Dominion still had PR campaigns."
"I hate this," Kael said.
Rex walked by holding a dataplate. "There's literally a recipe subroutine called 'Traditional Cranberry Aggro Sauce.' I don't know what a cranberry is, but it smells like patch fluid."
Senna giggled, perched on the railing of their temporary safehouse balcony, watching the skyline glitch between a pumpkin-colored sunset and what looked suspiciously like dancing autumn leaves coded into the air.
She pointed at the horizon. "Look! A turkey boss just spawned!"
Kael blinked. "A what now?"
Sure enough, a kilometer out, a massive semi-transparent bird construct — half-glitch, half-glory — towered above the district. It wore a pilgrim hat. Its health bar read:
[ The Great Gobbler – Tier ?]Loot: Harvest Bones, Feast Token, and ???
Kael looked at Aria.
Aria raised a brow. "No. You're not allowed. This is our cooldown day."
"But it's just sitting there."
"It's level ? for a reason."
"I've fought worse."
Senna held up a sign she'd made from chalk and cardboard: "Dad, No Boss Fights Today."
Kael sighed.
"I'm being bullied by my own child."
"Good parenting," Aria said.
Later that afternoon, Aria unveiled a surprise guest from storage: an ancient cooking droid named SIZZLE-9000, which she insisted had once prepared meals for retired A-rank awakeners.
The droid's voice module clicked on with a jolt:
"GREETINGS, MEATBAGS. INITIATING TRADITIONAL FEAST PROTOCOL. WHERE IS THE SACRIFICIAL BIRD."
Kael flinched. "That's a threat, not a menu."
Senna waved cheerfully. "Hi Sizzle!"
The robot scanned her and chirped:
"SMALL ONE DETECTED. INITIATING CHILD-SAFE SETTINGS. FILTERING EXPLETIVES."
It turned back toward the kitchen and blasted the stove with a flame that nearly melted the countertop.
Rex wandered in, holding a spice canister.
"This says 'reconstituted herb shards.' I think it's just dirt."
"Please stop touching things," Kael said.
As the feast "cooked" (read: threatened to self-destruct), Senna set the table — not with silverware, but with little glyph tokens she drew herself.
"This one keeps time steady," she explained, setting a spiral-shaped sigil on her father's plate. "And this one makes sure nothing explodes."
Aria looked at hers and frowned. "I don't have one."
Senna handed her a tiny triangle.
"It just makes people less grumpy."
Aria narrowed her eyes. "...Are you implying something?"
Senna smiled.
The turkey "roasted" under the supervision of a wildly unstable cooking droid whose flame burst any time someone used the word "moist."
Dinner Time
Somehow — against all logic — the group sat around a semi-stable dinner table.
The "turkey" looked like a holographic simulation of a bird, flickering slightly, smelling like smoke and sugar.
Aria passed around synthetic root vegetables that tasted oddly like caramel and regret.
Rex poked his with a fork. "Is it… supposed to hum?"
SIZZLE-9000 stood proudly in the kitchen, arms folded.
"FAMILY-BONDED UNITS: CONSUME. YOU HAVE EXACTLY TWENTY-FOUR MINUTES UNTIL REHEAT SEQUENCE."
Kael took a bite.
Paused.
"…This is actually good."
Aria blinked. "It is?"
SIZZLE-9000 began blasting triumphant theme music from its chest.
"HA. RECOGNITION UNLOCKED. CALL ME DADDY FLAVOR."
"Never say that again," Kael muttered.
They ate. They laughed. Rex reluctantly smiled after three bites. Senna pretended the mashed roots gave her superpowers. Aria poured exactly one glass of wine, then poured another for Kael — after making sure he wouldn't explode.
SIZZLE-9000 handed out "dessert cubes" made from compressed cinnamon data.
They weren't good.
But they tried.
As the evening wound down, the system sky slowly returned to neutral blue. The glitches faded. Gates began reactivating in the distance.
Kael stepped onto the balcony, watching the first rollback pulse ping the far edge of the city.
Aria stood beside him.
"She needed that," she said, nodding toward Senna, asleep on the couch under a throw blanket made from repurposed Reaper cloak fibers.
Kael nodded. "We all did."
"Tomorrow, the cycle starts again."
"I know."
She hesitated. "Still want to fight that turkey boss?"
"Not even a little."
Inside, SIZZLE-9000 powered down for the night.
"HAPPY THANKSGLITCHING, MEATBAGS. MAY YOUR PATCHES BE STABLE AND YOUR DEBT TEMPORARILY IGNORED."