One Week

[GIR]

Red Tide carefully considered its options as the humans spoke, debating between devouring the son now and giving the Pilot's companion, as some human minds put it, enough rope to hang herself with before doing so. Devouring the son and using his voice, and only his voice, to inform the Pilot that the deal was off and the lives taken would be on his head was another option, as the Pilot seemed to have no intention of honoring the arrangement if this was his response. "Then you intend to renege on your end of the arrangement?", the criminal puppet was made to ask at length, "Do not take me for a fool, human. Tens of thousands of years and countless of your kind's minds have taught me the treacheries your kind are capable of. You will see your son when I see my Priestess, and he will be in your reach when she is within mine. No sooner than when I have that which is mine shall you have that which is yours. Fail, and your son is forfeit. Delay, and your son is forfeit. Attempt to renege again, and your son is forfeit. Incur my wrath again, and your son is forfeit.", it was made to continue, "But if your companion can deliver that which you will not, then you are unnecessary. Should the child wish to return to the father, he shall. Should he choose instead to become my adherent, he may.". The criminal was made to pause before continuing, "But enough talk. Your time is not infinite, Pilot, nor is yours, companion. You waste it here. There can be no atonement but in the return of what is mine.". At those words, Red Tide sent a subconscious command to its Priestess: As soon as the companion was close enough, she was to attempt to devour the woman's mind unless she agreed to cooperate.

[Note: The attempt would only be successful if you allow it to be. at this time High Priestess isn't powerful enough to forcefully devour someone who is aware of her and what she can do unless they are willing.]

[Marjorie]

Alarm sounded. Warning lights flashed. The attache had had believed him, and relayed that the threat was where he was standing.

Don't be fucking stupid. She was his responsibility she wasn't supposed to be trying to sacrifice herself for him. What the actual fuck? She was just a damn Candidate. Touch the system and inform security to secure the fucking priestess. They need high powered rifles. 

"I didn't take anything from you, and all I've known from you is unfounded attack," Emrys said, "I didn't even know you existed until you attempted to kill me. I have no reason to believe anything you say or that you will return him to me at all."

Shore up your mind. I don't know how they, it consumes minds. I don't know if it can be resisted. He grabbed Nova by the wrist and pulled her away from the cell with his left hand as he drew his weapon with his right, emptying his pistol into the prisoner. They could die. It was difficult as fuck to kill them, but they could fucking die. It was high powered thing for a hand gun, the best he could find.

RUN. We're getting out of here if we have to steal a ship. He was dragging her along even as he urged her on. He was headed toward the docking bay.

Emrys would not give then the priestess or their coordinates. Over his dead fucking body. His son would just have to be forfeit. Emrys always knew he would have to be, as soon as he'd lost him. Despite his efforts made to the contrary. Rojgher would never ever allow him to give up information or captives of such importance to what was clearly a seriously dangerous enemy and live to regret it. Besides that, Emrys was loyal to Aedolis, he always had been. Any cost. That's what he'd always believed... he just... never thought the cost would be so high.

TRIMM was fucking STUPID as shit to keep two of them here. Didn't they know they had linked minds? Fucking Emrys knew after ten seconds of interaction with them. And their magical abilities... it was dangerous having one around. Why the fuck did they need this charade? Why didn't they just escape and steal a ship?

Run was not an instinct Emrys usually had, but he'd fought these fucking things before, and he knew the whole damn station was probably outclassed by them.

[DragonSong]

Nova reached out instinctively to dive back into the security system, though she winced as she did it. The system was prepared for her now, and fought back with white-hot flashes of pain that flared through her mind before she managed to shove through a basic message relaying Emrys's orders.

She snapped back out of it as quickly as she could, shaking slightly, but she held her ground. At least until the Pilot grabbed her wrist and started dragging her along with him.

She listened to him, ensuring that the walls around her mind were high and solid, but sent a tiny spindle of through through the tiniest gap she could manage toward him:

You should have told me it was your fucking kid, Emrys.

With the thought came feeling; she was too rattled to stop the emotions from latching onto her words. It was vague and chaotic, but there was a mix of panic, guilt, and raw, steely determination.

I don't have a dragon, she couldn't stop the words jumping from her mind to his, along with the fear she'd done a pretty could job of ignoring since her entrance to the Candidacy program. If we're honest, I'm probably never going to have one. They don't like broken things, Emrys.

She dug her heels in, tugging her wrist in an effort to break from his grip. "Let me do this," she said aloud, quiet despite the blare of the alarms around them. "I'm worth nothing to them, just another washed-out Candidate. Let me get your son back."

[Marjorie]

"I will know!" Emrys shouted at her. "If you do this, if I let you do this I will know, and he will know. It will be the same. He'll execute us both. Hell he might execute my whole damn family to make sure there's no one else they can get to threw him."

[GIR]

From the moment the Pilot insisted he had taken nothing, Red Tide knew what his answer would be. It did not wait for the Pilot to finish. The boy had never left its range in the three days since his capture, and it was with little difficulty that Red Tide devoured his mind.

In that instant, its consciousness expanded far more than a mere one mind should have made possible. It wasn't that its magical power had spiked. That was accounted for. It was that its *awareness* had gone to previously unimagined levels. The boy may have been pitifully weak on his own, but, with a multitude of minds reinforcing his psychic power, Red Tide found itself able to tell what nearly every unshielded mind in the immediate vicinity was feeling. It distracted Red Tide enough that it neglected to protect its puppet.

But that was not the only one in this place. The janitor puppet, too, could sense the emotions of nearly everyone near it whose minds were unshielded, though it had been made to head for the docking bay. So too could the High Priestess, who had already taken the initiative. Her god wanted that companion's mind. Whether the woman had spoken the truth or lied in a foolish bluff, devouring her would result in everything she knew being revealed to them, and potentially increase their newfound power to boot. With that in mind, she cut her way out of her cell using water magic, then headed for a spot between their last known location and the docking bay. Any guards she encountered, armed or not, were either ignored or, if they were in her path or attempted to physically stop her, cut down using a more powerful version of the water lance spell Emrys had already seen. Their rifles were no threat to her. She could not die. every wound inflicted healed almost instantly, a sign that her god was in no danger at the time. Anyone near her who was psychic and didn't know she was near and what she could do, she devoured as she went, giving their minds to Red Tide to augment their new power as she hurried to cut the Pilot and his companion off.