Most of the WHC standing fleet had moved to join the Rampage at 20:00. I wasn't able to join, but logged back on around 20:30 and decided to start scanning down the chain. We had an unscanned C5 in the chain, so I headed there to start. From there I found a second C5 which was full of disappointing gas sites, a lowsec connection, and ... wait, what's this? A new signature appeared while I was scanning the gas sites. I quickly scanned it down and determined it was a wormhole. Warping in at 30km from the hole (cloaked, natch) I had just enough time to land on grid and determine it led to "deadly space" (C6) before the hole activated. A Loki appeared briefly on grid and cloaked. I waited for a minute and pondered. Weighing the odds, I decided to head into the C6. "What's the worst that could happen to me?" I thought.

Arriving on the other side of the hole, there were already uncloaked pickets. A quick d-scan informed me that things were about to get interesting. I broke cloak/hit prop mod/recloaked and changed direction to get away from the hole before the rest of the welcoming committee showed up. So far, a normal w-space intrusion. I figured they'd sit on the hole, probably put a bubble up, maybe bubble the other side, and wait me out so they could add 50m ISK to their kill boards with my dead CovOps.

Then things got strange.

The CEO of their corp convo'd me. He was interested in where I'd come from. I was cagey and suggested that I may have come down a chain, but clammed up once I realized that too much chatter could put the WHC in danger while it was still under-staffed from folks being scattered about after dying in glorious fire on the Rampage. We changed topics a bit. We made small talk. After a bit of pleasant chat (he was a really nice guy) we had this exchange:

[00:01:33] ExookiZ > just a polite headsup the WH out of our c6 may be closing soon

[00:02:06] Lazarus Laxenos > Do you mind if I politely leave, or is your welcoming committee looking to pad their killboards with another hapless Cheetah?

I checked: yep, they'd been putting Iterons through (PI, I guessed) and they'd brought the hole to first shrink. Not crit yet, but they weren't going to stop, I supposed. I waited a bit and then got this:

[00:03:06] ExookiZ > 1 mom

[00:05:47] ExookiZ > my walcoming committee wants to know if youd like to come sign a short song for your safety

Well. That was the last thing I was expecting. No ransom? No "sure, c'mon over here and ... OOPS! Surprise blap!". I responded that I'd give it a shot. There was some back and forth over song selection. By this time I'd informed some WHC campers of my plight. They had suggested something by Katy Perry, which I dearly hoped would not occur to my captors. As that was going on, we had this exchange:

[00:19:53] ExookiZ > i think last time we got someone to say yes was xmas

[00:20:02] ExookiZ > we made this guy sing us a christmas song for his entiore fleet of ships back

[00:20:15] Lazarus Laxenos > I'm doing it for the sheer metagaming goodness.

[00:20:23] Lazarus Laxenos > This ship ain't worth more than a bit of pride.

[00:20:31] Lazarus Laxenos > But singing for my life? That's golden.

[00:20:33] ExookiZ > that spirit will get you far in eve

...

[00:21:27] Lazarus Laxenos > So, do we have a choice from the gallery? If not, I'm going to have to start looking through old guitar lead sheets here.

[00:21:44] Lazarus Laxenos > I might inflict "House of the Rising Sun" on you.

[00:22:19] ExookiZ > acceptable

[00:22:54] Lazarus Laxenos > I won't be playing along, though: haven't played the damn thing in ages.

After a few minutes of bit-wrangling to get the TS client installed, he informed me of this:

[00:27:48] ExookiZ > i got gf aggro she doesnt understand the importance lol

[00:27:52] Lazarus Laxenos > Keying in your TS info.

[00:27:58] Lazarus Laxenos > I have wife aggro, so the same here.

[00:28:10] Lazarus Laxenos > "Honey, I need to sing to guys in a wormhole" requires some explaining.

What followed is now, no doubt, going to bring me untold internet riches and glory. And some small bit of shame at the thought "should I have really done that?" Ah well, the metagame is fun, too. They greeted me warmly in teamspeak (there was quite a crowd) and then this happened:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/980 ... RANSOM.mp3

This might be the most fun I've had in w-space so far, and all because I took the risk to go somewhere I was pretty sure I didn't belong. My captors/hosts were gracious and charming in teamspeak, and apparently quite enthusiastic about my so-so rendition of that tired old song.

LOSSES: Some dignity, 0 ISK

WINS: Me singing to save my internet spaceship, PRICELESS