Remnants of the Earth

The contempt was infuriating, but understandable. Doctor Rea had never seen her god, nor had she any reference point for how far the abominations parading around as if they were dragons had fallen. Hers was the contempt of one who had seen only a piece of the world, and assumed it to be all the world held, the contempt of one whose knowledge was limited to the point of having no comprehension of just how limited one's knowledge was. She would just have to be shown, it would seem. But not now. She would not do anything drastic until she was ordered to.

"As is typical of your tribe.". Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained. "Eventually, I will get my answer. This place will only hold me so long as I choose to stay.", she continued. As the puppet's posture went back to normal, High Priestess noted that, for a brief moment, his legs tensed, as if her god had thought to attack Doctor Rea, then thought better of it. "I am doing nothing with him.", she stated. The consensus, as soon as the question of where she was was deflected, was that the scientist would get her answers and no more when she asked questions. Interestingly enough, her core personality had been inclined to cooperate more fully, in the interest of possibly getting the scientist to slip up and say the wrong thing, but her opinion was in the minority.

For a brief moment, though long enough that she was sure Dr. Rea would notice, she called lightning magic. It was both a test to see if she was under wards and an invitation to be asked to demonstrate her power beyond what she intended to show. When nothing happened, High Priestess asked a question. "Would you like me to immediately provide you with some water?". The question was phrased in such a way as to indicate she had no intention of leaving the room to do so, nor did she intend to have someone else bring it. She was already pooling the water magic necessary as she spoke. Although some minds, including her core, wanted to poison the water, there was no consensus on it, and therefore no toxins would be added. It would be pure, clean water. Trace minerals for taste, but otherwise pure.

"Well met, Doctor Rea.", High Priestess stated, "Though I would hardly call those abominations gods. As with much in the present age, dragons have declined and been degraded to the point of near worthlessness. What passes for dragons now pales to near-invisibility when compared to the dragons I once knew.", she continued, contempt and disgust being the chief emotions. "Regardless, they are but one mind controlling one mortal body. Mortal, finite, temporary. Kata'a Ma'rala is an ocean of minds controlling a legion of bodies. Even the ancients, knowing what they faced, could merely contain them for a time. The destruction of the bodies does not destroy the god.", she continued. She, and every mind save the ones who had not existed when dragons were the majestic beings of myth and wonder, despised what dragons had become. Those that were even willing to accept what now passed for dragons as dragons at all, anyway.

As to the question of her longevity, the answer was a simple one. "I yet live because Kata'a Ma'rala does. My life and theirs are as one.", she answered. The question of how she consumed minds, however, was one she could not answer, as she, in truth, did not know. It was another aspect of her existence that was a point of debate among the many minds she was composed of. "Even Kata'a Ma'rala is not certain how, precisely, it works. When they willed themself into being, it would seem they were not granted an instruction booklet.". Humor. "Independent is true enough. The many minds that comprise me are rarely of one mind, as it were, as you no doubt can tell. But individual is only partially true at best. We all have names. Most have chosen to discard them. Some have not. But we are all High Priestess. It is difficult, impossible, perhaps, to maintain true individuality when one is part of a sea of minds which form one being. It is the reason I discarded my given name. To even try to maintain individuality is to war against the tide itself. A losing battle. We do not assimilate, but neither do we remain entirely separate.". Agreement from the majority. It was only the newer minds, those who had not yet fully embraced what they now were, that hated the notion that they were no longer truly individuals. "To speak nothing of the fact that straying too far from unity means we must come to a consensus before we may act. Time is no longer precious to me, but that does not mean there are not times where action must be swift.".

"This place. What is it, and where?", she asked. She wasn't expecting an answer to that one.  Many times, she had asked. Many times, she was told she did not need to know. There was little reason for this time to be any different, but she still asked. There was a shift in the criminal's posture as she asked, the blank eyes at odds with the other body language suggesting interest. High Priestess didn't need to be connected to her god to know why. The answer being plainly given here would obviate the need to interrogate or consume the Pilot. He could be allowed to escape and believe he was no longer of interest.

As the puppet was made to wait for the elevator, conflicting plans were being discussed. Many of the fragments wanted to subdue the pilot here and now, while they knew they still had him. Letting him leave would mean the risk of him slipping away, or worse, calling his dragon, a battle that was best left unfought for the moment. Others wanted to let him leave, allow him to believe he'd escaped, and pick up the trail with new puppets. Still others believed that it would be best to find other targets, and that the situation had already become untenable. Ultimately, however, it was decided the elevator would be too slow as the Pilot entered the room his offspring was in. There was no longer time to go about the situation quietly.

Slowly, subtly, Red Tide gathered a pool of magic around the puppet on the magical plane, then slowly creeping it around the dance floor and bar, so as not to alarm any mages that could see as it could. As it did this, the puppet was made to head for the stairs and begin ascending at just under a run. As soon as she was halfway up, Red Tide released the magic, filling the downstairs area with a light pink soporific gas that would taste and smell like abnormally strong alcohol. The effects were gradual, with those who had not been drinking wondering why they suddenly tasted alcohol, but it took only 10 seconds for even the heavier humans to fall asleep. The downstairs area would be clear, leaving only the upper level to deal with, if all went to plan.

As the puppet reached the top of the stairs, she was made to stop and wait. Rushing in would be foolish. Unless the elevator doors and maintenance hatch were airtight, the elevator would not lead to safety, and the gas would flow in before the doors opened. The Pilot would best be captured conscious, if possible, so he could talk without the need to devour him before knowing if he'd be more useful dead or servile. The child was less important, and could even be useful as a hostage if it came to that. For now, though, it was best to focus on the primary target. It would still be some time before enough were in the area for capture to be guaranteed, so the best strategy for now was to capture the Pilot if possible, delay him if it proved too difficult. Red Tide knew what the Pilots options were now, but not his plan. That meant cutting off as many options as possible.

It was rare, some mind deep within her comparatively small sea, a lost and nearly forgotten fragment that was, at the time, the only one awake, that enough of the High Priestess's fragments were inactive for her to actually, properly sleep. Dreams were a rarity, and, when they did happen, were an amalgamation of tens of thousands of dreamers, those she'd taken into her being with their consent, who were as devoted to her master and savior as she was. Well, what was left, anyway. There were modern soldiers fighting hordes of beasts the like of which had died out thousands of years ago. There were fish in the sky being chased by birds in clouds of water and magma, while half-mechanical abominations clashed with the majestic dragons that had been their forebears. Ancient temples to long-forgotten gods and modern pillars wrought by greed and vanity shared sometimes-fields, sometimes forests, sometimes wastelands, sometimes all of the above as the air was filled with the scents of plants that were as much amalgamations as the woman whose body slept.

But, regardless of the dream, one place was always at the heart of the madness. Somewhere around 10,000 years, she, a foolish thief of 21, had gone to that place in search of yet another treasure. A bauble like the countless others she had hoped would fill the emptiness she felt. The old temple had been rumored to contain a weapon that could end the world. She knew of no fewer than three tribes that would hail the one who brought it to them as a hero, so she had sought it out. The search had been dangerous, strenuous, and had very nearly cost her her mind. In the end, there was no weapon, as such. The temple had not been a vault for some sacred treasure. Rather, it had been a cage for a beast the ancients (and, even at that time, they'd been ancients) had feared to the point of madness, but lacked the power to destroy. It... They... Had called itself "Red Tide" in the language it had learned when it devoured all but a piece of her. An image of the toxic algae that would accumulate in the waters near her home village had sprung to mind when it had...

She still had no words for how she communicated with Red Tide. She still wasn't suire she needed to. All she cared was that Red Tide had given her the thing she had sought in her treasures: Meaning. She'd never had friends. Her parents had groomed her brother to be the next Chieftain and had no grander plans for her than to be married off to some tribe or another they sought favor with. Her village saw her and her brother the same way one might see a ring or a skirt on a person: An accessory. A bauble. Something to highlight his greatness. But Red Tide saw her as something else. A companion. A confidante. Someone who *understood*. And it was the place she'd met it, joined it, become someone and not something, that sat at the center of her dreamscape, no matter how many minds added their dreams to the amalgamation.

It was this small fragment, the one awake and mulling over the oddity of the dream, that noticed  that the High Priestess was not alone. One by one, the other fragments awoke until her mind rang with the cacophony of minds. Unlike the puppets both she and Red Tide were able to control, to attempt to read her mind even at a glance when she was awake was as trying to stare directly at the sun. To look more closely, then, was as to stare from a mere foot away, the desires, hungers, feelings, thoughts, emotions, ambitions, and more of the minds not being filtered through a single fragment's empty body, but, rather, being viewed at the source. "You have come with questions, I presume?", she asked when she noticed the other occupant was clearly a scientist. The High Priestess spoke not with the voice of a single woman, but with a collection of voices, the sum of all the minds she had devoured over the years in service to her master. "If you have brought me sustenance, I shall speak freely. If you have brought none, then you shall only have answers if you pay me in kind. A question for a question. An answer for an answer.". The humans who had captured her had, over the time she'd been here, worn down her patience and any good will she may have felt at some point. She was no longer free with her aid or a willing participant in their experiments.

Each act of defiance was a scouting mission, every detail of her interactions noted and compiled for when it was time to leave, should that time ever come.

Following the man, it seemed, would be easier than Red Tide first thought. Too easy, according to some of the fragments, even as the puppet was made to dance as the Pilot took a look around. It would seem that the Pilot, though aware he was being followed, hadn't been able to tell by whom, and the wyrm was determined to use this to its advantage as the puppet was made to keep dancing until he was in the elevator.

In the meantime, Red Tide took the time it spent waiting to search the visible upstairs area, both magically and, for a brief moment, physically. The Pilot had gone to the elevator for a reason, after all, and it wouldn't do to walk into a potential ambush or more of his colleagues. While the Pilot was, for the moment, unaware of who, exactly, he was being followed by, there was no guarantee that another Pilot wouldn't spot the puppet, and forewarned, according to most of the sapient fragments that made up its mind, was forearmed. While the physical look hadn't yielded anything of note, the magical glance had picked up something interesting.

A human whose magic, while only as strong as the normal background magic of nonmagical humans his age, was close enough in its appearance that the human might be related to the Pilot. His apparent age, the Pilot's apparent age, and the degree of similarity made it likely that, if they were related, the human upstairs was the Pilot's son. The pattern suggested the son, too, was also a psychic.

Caution would be required here. Humans tended to be at their most wary, as well as their most dangerous, when they perceived their offspring to be in danger. As all animals which formed family units, the young of humans were jealously guarded, and humans defending their offspring often exhibited strength well beyond that of humans under normal circumstances. Experience told the wyrm that this was true of magic and psionics, as well. In some cases, *more* true. It would need to subdue the Pilot, preferably without being detected, before even thinking about dealing with the son, and that was if it even wanted to go to the trouble. Red Tide could not devour minds through its puppets, after all, an often vexing difference between them and its Priestess. This meant any intended food would need to be transported to a shoreline, alive, for devouring, or, ad the very least, to a level of the city close to the ground where it could burrow to. For now, though, the puppet was made to wait and see, with Red Tide using magic to keep tabs on the Pilot's position.

__________________QUICK STATS
Name Subject 00102 "The High Priestess"
Age Somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000
Gender Female, at her core. Every gender if the other minds are taken into account.
Species An elf-like race that has long been forgotten
Ethnicity All the ethnicity she cares to claim now is that she is one with Red Tide. She has discarded the culture of her birth.
Height 4'5"
Occupation TRIM subject
Residence TRIM. For now.

__________________IN-DEPTH STUFF

Physical Description

Credit to AzaleasDolls.com, made using Elf Portrait Maker

[to be filled in more later]

Personality
... Complicated. The core personality is that of a lonely thief whose only living companion is the one who made her a nigh-immortal High Priestess and has kept her safe for millennia. The rest? An amalgamation of minds that functions more-or-less on consensus that makes it, at times, difficult to ascertain where Red Tide ends and High Priestess begins, or, indeed, who each *is*. The mishmash of minds often threatens to overwhelm High Priestess, who discarded her name and most of her former identity long ago as a way of making it easier to deal with the constant conflicting identities and mindsets. At times, her behaviour and even demeanor can be unpredictable as different personalities influence her core, but one thing all her minds have in common is the devotion that lead them to offer themselves to her (any taken by force or unsuspectingly are simply given to Red Tide), leaving her with as close to a singleminded determination to serve her only companion to the best of her ability.

Magic/Abilities
Lightning magic: High Priestess has an affinity for lightning magic, and has since she was born. Lightning magic comes easily for her, and she can both control and generate all manner of electricity. Her power as part of a Greater Wyrm has significantly increased her power and control, but, as it is not part of Red Tide's power, it can be warded and nullified rather easily.

Hydrokinesis: As part of Red Tide, High Priestess has near-absolute command over water when at full power. However, either she or Red Tide must be submerged in water to be at full power. The less water there is around the both of them, the less potent this ability becomes. Only at full power can she create or destroy water. This ability cannot be nullified unless both she and Red Tide are under the same wards.

Florakinesis: As part of Red Tide, High Priestess has near-absolute command over all plant life when at full power, however, she or Red Tide must be surrounded by plant life for this ability to be at its full power. The less plant life there is, the less potent this ability is. This ability also cannot be nullified unless both she and Red Tide are under the same wards. She cannot create plant life, only control, grow, or destroy what already exists.

Toxikinesis: As part of Red Tide, High Priestess can create and control toxins. The same rules apply as her other Wyrm abilities. She can create and destroy toxins at full power.

Mind devouring: Another Wyrm ability, this allows her to devour the minds of those near her. Unlike her master, however, her ability in this is equivalent to a lesser Wyrm in that she can only devour the minds of those who are either unaware of her or willing to be devoured. Even knowing she is near is enough to protect others from this ability. The only exception is when she and her master are in close proximity.

Mind/soul bond: So long as Red Tide lives, she cannot be killed, and vice-versa. Each also knows everything the other does, and has access to the pool of minds within the other's body.

Relationships

Red Tide: Due to circumstances surrounding their bonding, Red Tide and High Priestess are two beings whose minds and souls overlap in a sense, binding them together. Each is a part of the other, yet also a different being, and High Priestess has willingly submitted to Red Tide and serves as a priestess and their means of gathering more minds upon which to feed.

History
WIP

Chose to allow herself to be captured when people stopped praying to her in hopes of finding out what the Adelans were capturing people for and seeing if any new adherants could be found among the stars.

__________________THREAD TRACKER
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[OOC: Posting to get this moving. Sorry, Nix. I'll delete it if you want to get a post in prior.]

Even as she muttered to herself, Sarah listened to Anima. <Ah, so you're built from the ground up, then. What I wouldn't give to get a look at your code. Or, better yet, a copy to study. I have... reasons... for wanting to make an AI with your mental ability.>, Sarah answered in response to Anima's origin. If she paid attention to the camera in Sarah's quarters, a figure in one of the corners could be made out to be a headless skeleton of one of her kind, constructed entirely of a graphene-like material, with motors installed in most of the joints, <Even a basic frame would be good for getting some pointers, I think.>

As the AI mentioned how the nigrum lotus worked, Sarah found that the reply had skirted her question. <That's not what I asked. That's what you *did* with the mass. What I asked is where it *came from*. There's not enough mass in all the ships in sensor range to account for that dreadnought. Rearranging matter doesn't make *more* matter, it just shifts it around. Rearranging the protons, neutrons, and electrons in one mole of oxygen into beryllium will get you two moles of beryllium, but you will still only have 16 grams of matter. Without a source or matter to rearrange, you'd have to create new matter, and, since space is a hard vacuum, that doesn't leave much to draw from.>.

<Ari,>, Sarah snapped privately as she noticed him just barely managing to not look like he was obviously freaking out, but reeking of stress, his name preceeded by a telepathic full-speed shout at him that would register as a particularly head-splittingly loud beep, <Get it together. You're the captain. You can panic later, when half the crew *aren't* going to be looking to you for their next moves once they stop panicking. Get your shit together, get your ship together, and get the crew through this, or I'll do it for you.>, she growled, the telepathic scolding accompanied by a physical warning growl, <You're supposed to be the dominant one on this ship. Start acting like it.>.

<That's most likely true for this system. Possibly even this galaxy.>, Sarah pointed out privately to Anima and Ari after hearing the AI's specs and the banter, <But I wouldn't say *the* most advanced in existence. Definitely in the top ten-thousandth of a percent of AIs I know about, which I'd say puts you easily in the top fifty-thousanth of a percent of AIs in the known universe. Not many AIs are designed for coordinating galaxy-wide operations.>, she continued, <I notice you're... Not just sentient, also self-aware. Root is knowing. Are you ground up, or based on a brain?>, she asked, her technophilic tendencies overriding her caution for the moment, leading her to almost completely ignore Pierce.

<And where do you get the mass for the nigrum lotus? I would have noticed if you were using magic like I do. You mentioned the laws of thermodynamics... Do you create energy to convert for it? And those shield designs... I've seen similar before, but yours are better. You own design? Improvements on another design? The fighters, too. Can't say I've seen many fighters handle like that. Were you directly controlling them?>, she continued before switching to Hestari in what amounted to mumbled, distracted theorizing she was too distracted to bother slowing down to human speeds or saying only to Ari and Anima, the too-fast-to-register-as-anything-but-a-loud-beep-to-any-humans thoughts being sent to anyone and everyone within range.

Mute alien definitely sounds interesting to me, not only to play with, but to play against and even just to play. I used to play a mute woman on another site ages ago, might just see about transferring her here.

<I'm gonna rip his arms off next time I see him. Ranah's, too.>, Sarah growled, <I might speak and read Hestari like it's... the words I spoke first... But it's still second. They need to remember that.>, she continued, as she realised that one of the words that had been in a different dialect could easily have referred to either tools or slaves, depending on the context, <But yeah. Shit happens.>.

As if the universe itself were voicing its agreement, the words were punctuated by the sounds of distant weapons fire, some of it energy weapons, some kinetic, and some plasma, with the sounds getting closer, as if some of what was being shot at was getting through the perimeters. Within seconds, a single fighter, torn almost to shreds and taking more fire from the nearest ring of turrets, visible about a kilometer away, streaked overhead, trailing more smoke than exhaust as it slammed into the ground 500 meters from the ship. In the time the fighter had taken to crash, Sarah had assembled her disguise.

Red fur covered Sarah's body, looking as if it had always been there despite being a layer of fake fur. A mask, crafted to look as real as possible, not only covered Sarah's face, but seemed to reshape it, making what had been clearly reptilian into the head of a rabbit, albeit one with a grotesquely long mouth. The Draconian's arms and legs had been similarly 'transformed', with cleverly shaped gloves not only seeming to change the shape of her fingers, but also giving them the appearance of being unnaturally jointed, with her real joints intentionally covered by sections of flexible 'boned' segments, and her feet covered in such a way as to turn them into a rabbit's feet, yet still allow access to the deadly claws. Even her tail had seemingly been turned into that of another species, covered in enough fur to make it look like an elongated rabbit's tail, the blade hidden under fur, but still plenty usable.

<You might want to head into the bunker. Just follow it to the end. I'll be there in... A couple minutes should do it.>, she told Sitara, converting the collar to magic and dispersing the energy in such a way that it would seem to have simply ceased to exist, then pocketing the filecard case, <As for you, captain, I'd find somewhere to stow the ship if you plan on sticking around. I don't think they'll be able to do much about the defenses for a while, even for a human, but I didn't build them to be permanent. If you're heading out, safe travels. I'll overload the groundside shield generators once you're clear.>, she continued to Ari, tilting her head toward the visible shielded turrets slowly enough for Ari to see as another fighter, as badly chewed up as the last, underwent a rapid unplanned disassembly before it could crash, with Sarah taking careful mental notes to use for sabotaging any she came by in the future. As it did, the sounds of weapons fire in the distance continued, though it was near impossible to tell which side was winning.