Protesters in the South Central Wall district found themselves accosted by EPD and HC-bully-boys The Free Battalion today with little recourse but to fight back. They did so among an increase in strange happenings, weird Vert-ware, broken VSpaces and an increase in unexplained phenomenon.

Flares in SoCentWa; general negligence from The Enclave's maintenance teams and borough council; and a failure to tick more than a dozen requests off the HC Support Queue last month; have left SoCentWa residents unable to regularly access The Virt and therefore often without access to essential daily provisions. It seemed like there would be some surcease when HC claimed to have back-traced the Virt problems to Farrah Price, but this hasn't resulted in any changes to service for the area.

The protest in the district's central square encompassed days of speeches and outcry, as organizer Lacey O'Ryan brought in community leaders and political allies to defend SoCentWa's right to better support from both HC and The Enclave.

Citizen Angivin Ward died in the first push of protesters out of the square. He led the first attempt to access the maintenance shafts that would allow SoCentWa residents to escape their borough. After that local Rolla team RyotGuurls joined the protesters in a big push towards the exit to the area, with casualties on both sides. However, the heavily armed and armored Free Battalion unfairly outbalanced the protesters and managed to stop anyone from escaping.

While a number of Free Battalion mercs died in the lead up to the conflict, injuries and deaths were far more significant among the protesters, including the death of beloved Rolla captain Sasha Shovegood.

Also of note, unusual activity and general freaky shit was recoreded across the district. Check our Vert site for embeds into events that could not be explained but that we caught on record.

Read the rest of our in-depth report in our Virtual Space…

The CEO of HermitageCorp is an elusive figure who has rarely give a public statement since the launch of The Virtual almost 20 years ago. PR flacks tell us he is usually spending his days elbow deep in the work of keeping The Virtual up and running. However, he spoke up this week to support Tuck Braedy, his ex-CFO, who is running as a presidential candidate for the Law and Order party.

"Tuck is one of the best executives I've ever worked with and, as we all know, he has the corporate leadership skills that helped make HC one of the biggest companies in the world. His leadership of our charity fund also helped make The Enclave what it is today. Those are the skills we need in a leader."

We gathered a number of on-the-ground reactions to the announcement that you can find in our Virtual Space. If you'd like to join them, we have the tools here!

You should already have a profile registered with the authorities. Once that's done and you've got the initial work under the belt, you'll likely have to register your new higher level of experience! You'll have to register the new stats that come with joining our great adventure of reporting on morons every day for the next two years.

Here's how it works:

Add +1 to a rating : You can mark permanent changes to a specific rating, though your profile should note a limit beyond which you can't go. Consider what each rating can do for your character and choose carefully. You can't go beyond your registered limit.

Take another Move from those available on your profile : Everyone's profile has a variety of moves you can make. If you're going up a level you can take one of the moves that you haven't already marked as having.

Take a Move from those available on another profile : All the profiles we've supplied show what they can do under the Moves section. You can learn something new and unusual though! If you do you can take a Move that describes your new skill from any of the other profiles below, just check their Full Descriptions to think about what you'd like to do.

Gain an Ally/Gain a Team : You can gain some support staff that will be registered as working with you! You may already have some people you know that you're picking out, or just putting it out there that you're recruiting and getting some folks to show up. Allies and teams work similarly, they both are organized around a single motivation, even if a team comprises of 2 to 6 people. However, members of your team may have their own motivations outside of the team's requirements.

The motivations you can register for your new Ally/Team:

• Subordinate (motivation: to follow your exact instructions)
• Lieutenant (motivation: to execute the spirit of your instructions)
• Friend (motivation: to provide emotional support)
• Bodyguard (motivation: to intercept danger)
• Confidante (motivation: to give you advice and perspective)
• Backup (motivation: to stand with you)

Ally/team members should have names registered along with what their background is too, how they look, and any special skills they bring.

Register a Haven Feature : Have you got a serious home base to operate out from? Are you intending to improve it? Then you need to add that information to your profile! Select a new haven option from the list in the Expert profile. You have added this facility to your haven.

Don’t bother trying to register a new feature if you don’t already have a haven!

Emergency Elections for Core Reps | City Core region representatives to the borough council who were ejected by the main council after embezzling money from the city transit fund now await sentencing. The voice of the City Core needs to return to the council ASAP according to its residents and so an emergency election to replace their reps will take place next week.

Wall Maintenance Fails | West Southern Wall district was evacuated to the West Cental and West Northern Wall districts yesterday as neglected maintenance to WeSoWa's ocean barrier finally culminated in leakages, destroying homes, property and likely killing some residents who were in a panic to evacuate and found the city left only a single route, northerly-along-the-wall open to them, continuing the much maligned policy of not allowing Wall-level residents to pass through tolled passages up-city without paying a fee.

Suburban Islands See More Comas, Kidnappings | The outer islands within a few hours transit of The Enclave have long been a haven for those looking for a break from city life, some even welcome tourists. But ever since the events at Thwip House a few weeks ago the suburbs have been plagued by missing people cases and an abnormally high incidence of comas, even against the upward trend. The issue has finally risen to the attention of the Suburban Coalition Council which is debating counter-measures that include hiring patrolling mercs and a curfew.

Wheel to Wall | After SoCentWa broke out in righteous citizen combat against the police and HC-employed Free Battalion (see Vert coverage under Wrad Marge's byline) the anticipated beginning match of the Battle Rolla was canceled by EPD. This has caused an uproar, especially in Wall regions anticipating an opportunity to soundly beat the core and make their way up. It's unknown when the city will allow the Rolla to continue.

Flares Continue to Plague Wall Districts | Starting in SoCentWa but now spreading to other wall regions the plague of Flares, odd behavior from HC tech and Virt-connected devices has impacted a number of Wall districts over the last week. Whatever the cause, HC remains silent and the problem gets worse. One questions if their continued pay out to the Free Battalion might be better allocated to solving their tech support queue.