Cindy: “So, Billy, can you give us a little exposition here?”

Billy: “Okay, well, basically, last year this city’s advent calendar was mainly filled with crazy psychopaths and robots. They went to war, and it lasted a long time because the robots kept building more robots, and the psychos kept recruiting more psychos, mostly from people whose minds snapped coz of family getting killed in the crossfire.”

Marty: “Who won?”

Billy: “The robots. The psychos’ leader, a freak called Voldo, got bored and wandered off, and the rest of their army pretty much self-destructed after that. The ones the robots didn’t kill went into hiding, so we have to keep a careful watch.”

Cindy: “It sounds terrible!”

Billy: “It’s not so bad. There’s only a few dozen people left in the whole city, so there’s plenty of supplies to go around. Lots of living space too, though we don’t spread out very far, coz of security. The worst thing is, a lot of the robots are starting to get weird or break down, and none of them remember how to fix themselves.

Marty: “Ah, well, that explains why this one got so excited about me being a blacksmith.”

Guardbot: “Also-I-need-new-bearings-for-my-skateboard.”