Remnants of the Earth
OUTER SPACE => Solar System => Topic started by: Daglobster on November 11, 2019, 08:27:10 pm
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High over Edanith, the OS-47 Pumping Station floated, shining metal contrasted by the planet's rusty red and green spots.. It was a vaguely cigar shaped station, with two bays with automated fuel umbilicals mounted on the side. A squat ridge that ran along the top served as the top of the crew area while the bottom bulged with internal fuel tanks. The station was large enough to be crewed by about six (with automated support).
It also looked a little run-down, and well... it was off the regular grid, but that just made it more discreet! Discretion that had to have been valued by somebody, because soon enough there was a ship closing in. A small scout vessel, crew no more than ten, slipped in from the void and made for a quick docking procedure.
"Excellent," said Dr. Dawaski, standing in the vessel's cockpit and viewing the incoming station. Dawaski was a russet-haired dwarf with olive-colored skin, notably aged even for one of his kind. he wore a sturdy spacer's jumpsuit with a zipped-tight jacket with the words "Star Gazers" emblazoned on the back.
"While you're at it, get a message out to our buyer on Edanith. Tell him the expedition was a success and we've got his package and more, so he better get his fat wallet ready," he said, and returned to the crew compartment of the Blue Comet, which was the only other room save for the two bunk cabins tht gave the ship it's distinctive " T " Shape. The other members of the Archeoxenological expedition were mulling about, collecting data on what appeared to be a swirling black mass contained in a giant, man-sized crystal, held suspended by electromagnets. The room held other curiosities, old-earth artifacts and the like. Some old and some truly ancient.
Dawaski approached Dav, the scientist currently monitoring the apparatus, and was about to speak when the ship lurched just a bit as it docked with the station.
"How is it?"
"Stable, Dr. Dawaski. Activity levels have been steadily dropping ever since we took it away from Aedolis. A few more days like this and I'd definitely clear it as inactive," he said, and Dawaski smiled.
"Excellent. Nothing could go wrong now."
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"Docking port B is open for incoming ships, Captain."
Lynn looked up from what she was doing--which happened to be a bit of embroidery work on the black jacket she typically wore--and sat up straighter in the pilot's chair to look through the Wild Rose's viewport.
"Gotcha, Rosie. Thanks."
"Yes, Captain."
Lynn smirked to herself as she guided her ship in toward one of the two bays on the fuel station, flying the machine as easily as if she'd been doing it all her life. Which, considering how long that really was, would have been quite impressive, she supposed.
Captain. Ship AIs were just programmed to refer to their pilots that way, but she couldn't help being a little bit pleased by it. She'd spent some time as a real captain, back in the day, a ship captain; she liked the sea alright, but had ultimately decided a life on it wasn't really for her. This, though? The open vastness of space, distant glitters of stars and planets she wouldn't have even dreamed of reaching as a girl?
She could spend millennia sailing this.
The Wild Rose docked at the second bay and Lynn waited a few moments for the pressure to equalize before she moved to the external doors and scanned her iris so the ship would let her out. She practically bounced down the landing stairs, looking around at the station curiously.
It was just a fueling station, but it was somewhere she'd never been, and that was exciting in and of itself, as far as she was concerned.
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Fueling ships and cleaning engines wasn't exactly a lightning-fast process, so OS-47 had several amenities on-board, even if the place was meant for shady vessels that needed a refuel away from the official channels and watchful eyes. One of the few living crew manned a canteen in the common area and there were the kinds of things one could usually find in a more traditional fueling station. A collection of seats around holo-viewing terminals, a communications bay, even a couple of automated dispensers that sold things like scented CO2 filters and other less conventional merchandise such as mild narcotics or whatever other convenient item someone looking for a shady refuel could need.
Coming in from the other fueling bay, Dawaski and his beautiful elven assistant came walking in, alongside a decent number of the Star Gazer's crew. It had been a long, stressful trip to and from Adela and while the Old World ruins they pilfered through weren't exactly open for the public to explore, they were clear now and at this point, nobody could stop them.
"Yes, yes sir. Total success," he said to himself, holding a finger up to an earpiece.
"The artifacts are in the hold, of course. As soon as we get planetside we can transfer the containers..."
He breezed past Lynn, and his assistant gave Lynn a momentary glance of acknowledgement before following Dawaski to the station's canteen.
The other crew were just looking to stretch their legs for a moment, all except for Dav, who hesitated and even looked back towards the boarding tube. There was a thin film of sweat on his face and brow, as if something was severely bothering him. Still, he did his best to calm down, even buying himself a pack of cigarettes to try and calm his shaking hands, even if he'd never smoked before.
As he lit up, he glanced around the room, searching for something that wasn't really there, and shook his head one more time. The rest of the crew didn't seem to notice his plight, instead talking amongst themselves or kicking back while the ship refueled.
He couldn't stop thinking about what they had contained back there. Even when he did, the thoughts always managed to worm their way back in...
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Lynn spared the elven woman a quick nod and a smile, but she didn't exactly seem like she was interested in stopping to chat--and honestly Lynn wasn't either. She really just needed the quick refuel before she was on her way again.
Well, maybe she'd grab a bite herself. Shady places like this usually had the supplies she needed to make her own "fuel" in the Rose's on-board kitchen. Which was really more of a lab, when she used it...
The spacer suddenly paused, nostrils flaring suddenly before she screwed her nose up in distaste. Sweat. Fear. Tobacco. And...something else? Something she couldn't quite identify.
What the hells?
She knew her curiosity was really gonna get the best of her one of these days, but... She couldn't seem to stop herself from following the scent toward a stranger who seemed to be fumbling with a lighter and a cigarette. Yeah. Definitely the source of that smell.
"Hey there." Lynn flashed him a smile--not quite showing her teeth--and cocked her head at him in a way that she hoped conveyed friendly curiosity. "You alright, ser? Y'seem a bit out of sorts."
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"Huh? Oh..." Dav murmured, and he took a breath to steady himself as this... strangely attractive woman suddenly came to speak with him. He wasn't expecting anybody to really come up to him, and he nodded his head after composing himself.
"Just a bad case of Space. Void flight's never been kind to me," he said, although the hesitation to meet her eyes said that something remained hidden. Of curiosity were his eyes, which were bloodshot and wild, and his pupils couldn't quite sit still. It was like he was constantly on alert.
"Makes me sweat, makes me disoriented. Y'know, every day stuff." He combed his hair back with his fingers and took a drag. Finally, he focused on her. Actually, it was pretty easy to pay attention to her, now that his eyes had met hers.
"Shouldn't have taken this job..."
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Lynn smiled, the expression soft and reassuring, and her eyes seemed to glimmer with some sort of inner light for just a moment. Not magic, not quite, but something very close.
"I think you may be in the wrong line of work then, friend," she chuckled kindly, cocking her head and raising one eyebrow as she gestured at the fuel station around them. "What job is that exactly that's got you so out of sorts, serrah?"
It was a carefully calculated question, though it may not seem so initially. Something was on this station. Something weird. And she'd smelled a hint of it around this man; which meant knowingly or not, he was either involved, or...
Or being hunted.
Easy there. Been a long time since you've met another Hunter. They may not exist in this world. The universe she'd woken to was wide and new and strange. She had no idea if anything like her--or worse than her--even existed anymore...but she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something dark and dangerous lurking around the corners of this place.
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"Well, it certainly pays right," Dav said, and something about her managed to calm him a little, especially when he met those eyes of hers. His eyebrows rose a smidge and he found himself chuckling a little when she referred to him as "serrah".
It was like something out of a video game, one of those that took place in the older times.
"Not much of a serrah either, I'm just a stasis tech. Job pays through the nose though. These guys are all big-wig xenologists and archaeologists. Real educated types," he continued. Now that he had someone to talk to and a few drags of cigarettes in his lungs he seemed to improve a little bit.
"Can't talk about much else, though. These kind of things are privately funded, so they like to keep it private, y'know?
He took another puff and pushed off the wall.
"What about you? You're a bit too pretty to just be fueling up at dives like this, what're you up to?"
His communicator started beeping, but he dismissed it with a press of a button so he could keep talking to this friendly stranger.
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"Me?" She grinned, though again without showing more than the barest flash of her teeth. "Oh, I'm not all that interesting, I assure you. Just sort of...wandering. Been cooped up for a while and I figured I'd see as much of the galaxy as I could manage once I got out."
Her tone was light, easy, eyes still warm and friendly, not betraying for even a moment just how closely she was listening. How she dissected each word he said, or how her senses were still on high alert, waiting. Almost predatory.
But the dwarf wasn't her prey, nor did she really intent for anyone else on the station to be. It was more like a wolf walking into another pack's territory--simultaneously and conversely both bold and wary of what she might encounter.
Her eyes flickered down to the communicator and she cocked her head. "You don't need to get that?"
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Perhaps that feeling Lynn had was more than just a hunch. Even now, somewhere on the docked science vessel, there was a containment unit that held a large, ebony crystal. A void made solid, contained within a magnetic and vacuum sealed containment tank.
Hopelessly, the other stasis tech tried to dial the communicator again, but something had gone wrong. There was a moment right as the ship was turned off to refuel, a lapse in the full containment. A... tendril of invasive intellect had managed to slip through. Slowly building, slowly coming back to consciousness.
It had driven Dav away by making him anxious, and now his fellow technician found her very senses assaulted. Struggling with unseen sensations, she stifled a scream in her mouth just ss her body siezed. She struggled as her limbs started to move against her will, dragged by false visions and puppetry. No time to play with the food.
“If it's really urgent, they’ll radio in again,” he said, shrugging.
“I’m gonna see what kinda food they serve here. Wouldn’t mind you joining,” he continued, unwittingly falling into her vampiric charm, just a little.
“Ain’t too fancy, but I’d love to hear about what you’ve seen out there. ‘Side, I’m payin.”
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"Oh. Ah..."
Oh dear. Mortal food. She could eat it, but it usually made her a little sick...
But she just smiled and inclined her head politely--a slightly archaic gesture, but one she couldn't seem to break the habit of. "I would be honored. But I'm perfectly capable of paying my own way--it's enough to have some pleasant conversation. Rare out here in the void," she chuckled lightly.
Internally, she was still on high alert, senses keyed in to that strange otherness that permeated the station.
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"Huh. Well, come along anyways," Dav said, and eagerly put some more distance between him and the ship. He couldn't go back, he didn't want to go back. Why... why was that?
Why was he so mortally petrified about returning to the ship? He had to maintain the stasis pod! If the field wasn't adjusted every hour, the field could degrade, and, and...
Either way, he was hungry!
He shook his head, suddenly aware that he'd started browsing the spacer food in a near-trance as the world had started to fall away. Surely, he couldn't have been exposed. He frowned and started picking out some kind of fruit flavored packs of metanutrients.
"So what about you, then? You don't strike me as the average freighter pilot."
The helpless technician couldn't help but stumble and place her hands against something for support. The crystal was a cold, but... welcoming surface. It felt like the warmth of her very mother emanated from the crystal and she managed to stem her tears a little as she embraced it, held it tightly. She relaxed, and the swirling black mass within neared her until it was able to snake tendrils out and lay them against her temples. She sighed in ecstasy as she started to forget her education, her family, interests, then her childhood, life experiences...
...The thing inside took everything, and she silently suffocated against the crystal, having forgotten how to breathe. A series of hair-thin cracks appeared on the crystal.
So close to being free, Kruz'Iik could almost taste it!
-
"Master Dav?"
Muscling passed some three or four decades of social mannerism conditioning, Lynn reached out to touch his shoulder lightly, a small frown drawn between her brows. "Is...something bothering you?"
Could he sense it to? Not the way she did, a predator accidentally encroaching on another's territory, but... If he could sense it at all, that did not bode well.
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Finally, the lifeless tech hit the floor, and the black mass inside the crystal started to swell. The need to survive potentially endless millenia in hibernation had left Kruz'Iik in an almost embryonic state. But now, form was returning. Memories sparking back into activity. Psychic waves started to come more strongly as the crystal's cracks spread out and widened. Two baleful red eyes formed inside and the containment unit started to spark as he focused all of his malice into buckling the inner workings.
"No, no, it's just been a stressful dig. Mr. Dawaski can get pretty insistent when things don't go to schedule. I just need some pretty company and a stiff drink," Dav said, still hell-bent on avoiding anything that might make him remember.
What was he trying to forget?
It seemed he didn't need to wonder for long, because those first waves of his escape washed through the station. Nobody really noticed except for Dav, already sensitive and receptive to Kruz'Iik's emanations, who suddenly froze like a hare that smelled a wolf. And also perhaps Lynn, who'd proven sensitive enough to feel his presence, even when he was contained.
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"Mister Dav?"
Lynn stopped when he did, staring at him for a moment before her eyes darted to their surroundings, instinctively searching every shadow. "Something's wrong."
It wasn't a question, though the way she glanced down at her companion was almost curious more than anything else. "What is it? What are you feeling?"
Because she knew it was something. If even her own senses weren't heightened enough to really pick up on any specifics when Dav clearly could, then something else was going on here.
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"Something's wrong?" he said, and suddenly the memory kindled in him and once again his expression turned fearful. Suddenly very tense. "I think I know, Lynn... I... I remember what's wrong," he said, but trailed off with a light murmur.
Suddenly, the waves of psychic presence ceased and a pair of boots running on the metal tiles suddenly became audible, as if someone was sprinting down the hallway that led from the Star Gazer’s docking port.
"Dav! Dammit, Dav where are you!" said a woman's voice, and Serina, his fellow stasis tech, came running out into the station from the docking tube. She was young, with doe-ish eyes and concerned tilt to her eyebrows, but she was one of the sharper members of the Star Gazer's crew.
"Serina? he muttered, and broke away from Lynn to approach her. He had a look of relief on his face.
"I was trying to ring you, you need to come loo--"
The station rumbled, and the doors to the docking tubes slammed shut as the automated sealing systems kicked in. From the windows of the station, a flash of dark energy could be seen surging through the vessel's windows. The station went to emergency lighting as fixed lights sparked and some even blew out. Serina yelped and grabbed onto Dav as the station rocked.
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"Yes, wrong. I--"
Before she could say anything else the other tech was approaching, looking rather nervous, and Lynn felt that otherness suddenly seem to retreat. She tensed, her eyes flickering around as Dav moved toward his coworker.
No hunter just abandoned their prey, not like that. That was...
Her eyes widened. Ambush.
"Mister Dav, ma'am--!"
Before she could shout a warning, the whole station seemed to vibrate. She hissed as the lighting darkened, then flickered on again. She caught just the barest flash of the darkness behind the windows, and her eyes widened further.
She'd never seen anything like that before.
In a flash--far too quickly for someone ostensibly human to move--Lynn was beside the two techs, a hand on each of their shoulders to urge them forward. "You two need to get out of here, move!"
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Indeed, it seemed an ambush was in order. As the ship writhed in its docking clamps and the station shuddered, Serina seemed to collapse almost to her knees and Dav nearly fell himself trying to keep her upright. The Star Gazer's crew started clamoring towards the window to see what was happening even as the fueling station's skeleton crew started to scramble about to get things in order.
Lynn got Serina and Dav up to their feet and the two clutched each other as Lynn ushered them to safety. Dav spotted the entrance to the maintenance corridors and took the lead as he dashed his way across the station's main room.
Suddenly, he bumped into a terrified Dawaski, who clutched at his jumpsuit.
"Waitwait where are you going? Take me with you, I don't want to die in this can!" he said desperately, and like any good employee Dav scooped up Dawaski as well and the four of them all made a break for it, even as something caused one of the ceiling vent covers to pop off and come falling down, scattering crew and scientists alike.
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Saving another life was all well and good, but they needed to move!
“Get to my ship,” Lynn’s snapped out, pointing them in the direction of her docked craft once they’d scooped up their third passenger. “Go, now!”
She whirled to face the windows, eyes narrowing as she searched the dark. What’s out there?
She glanced back at the technicians and their boss, then around again. Her eyes closed as she drew in a breath, trying to focus on the feeling that had shivered up her spine when she first sensed the thing.
What are you?
-
To be hunted by a Mindshifter meant that your emotions and perceptions could no longer be trusted. They could masquerade themselves as loved ones, lure you closer by manipulating your senses, or simply disable you by making your brain think your legs didn’t work.
One thing any surviving victim of a Mindshifter attack could tell you was that you should never, under any circumstance, try to make mental contact with one or even address it in your mind. All a Mindshifter needs is a single crack to worm its way in, the barest figment of acknowledgement.
As if to answer her thoughts, a voice boomed into her mind, seemingly rattling the station with its power. Of course, there wasn’t really a booming voice that shook the station, it was all in Lynn’s head.
“I’m closer than you think,” said the voice, sounding pleased with itself.
While Dav couldn’t hear the words being spoken, the feedback of the creature’s mental exertion caused him to collapse, and Serina and Dawaski had to haul him the last few feet and into the airlock.
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"Oh, absolutely fucking not."
Lynn threw up her mental walls--she had no idea what this thing was, but she knew enough now to understand that it's main form of attack seemed to stem out psychically. While she wasn't immune to its effects by any means, she was hardly unpracticed in psychic defenses. She'd had to be.
"If we speak, we speak plain, creature," the spacer called out into the blackness, turning in a slow circle as her eyes narrowed, searching the dark. Behind her back, she motioned for the other three to move, go, faster!
-
Even with her newly erected defenses, the memory of a Mindshifter's voice was hard to shake, and while the freshly awakened creature would struggle to worm its way further into her consciousness, it still had other methods to get what it wanted.
There was the faintest hint of laughter in the air and in the darkness she'd be able to hear the screams of the others as their minds were assaulted. The ground seemed to reverberate with mental pressure, no discernible source or direction, just power. One of the station's crew came lunging out of the darkness, sending their tools scattering across the floor. His eyes seemed to dart and glance in all kinds of directions and he clutched a live bulkhead welder in his trembling hands. He snarled something indiscernible and brandished the welder at Lynn, terror and unfiltered aggression in his eyes.
"Hey!" called out Serina, who'd managed to get the terrified Dawaski and stumbling Dav into the corridor leading towards Lynn's ship. Dawaski was beyond reason, terrified and furious and rambling to himself about "no, no it couldn't still be alive" and "we did everything right, this wasn't supposed to happen," among other things.
"Get out of there!" she continued, and waved Lynn over.
-
Lynn continued to search the dark--just with eyes, she couldn't risk reaching out with her mind. Her walls would only hold so long as she didn't breach them herself.
"Fuck!" Whirling, eyes snapping with something old and dark and hungry, she jerked her head in one quick, sharp nod at Serina. "Go on, get into the Rose! I'm right behind you."
She was, though moving slower than was strictly necessary. Every step seemed to pull at her, the darkness tugging at the edges of her mind. She gritted her teeth, accidentally baring of a flash of fangs.
"You will not harm me or mine, creature," she growled, and her voice took on a strange, archaic lilt. As though she was singing a song long forgotten.
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"Oh? Maybe they should be warier of the wolf herding them into her ship..." came that wispy voice. Even though it was barely a whisper the words would pound against her mental defenses, testing, probing. Waiting for that tiny shred of acknowledgement to worm its way in.
The crazed man with the torch cried out, and his eyes gained a reddish glint to them. Abruptly, he stood up stock straight like a puppet on strings, and it was obvious something else was using his mouth to speak its words.
"You should listen to your new pets. Linger any longer and I'll slip right in there. Maybe in this body, maybe without it. Will you stop me? Kill me? "
Pure curiosity, as Kruz'Iik had already gotten what they wanted. A good meal and a way out. They still had so much to sort through, so much time had passed and if the stolen memories were anything to go by the world they used to know had long crumbled to dust.
But this vampire was letting out such sweet stress and anxiety that he kept burning energy to cause her more grief.
"I wonder if you can get to the door before I do," said the man. His sinister tone clashed wildly with the terrified look in his eyes and finally the possessed man collapsed to his knees and the red light left his eyes.
"Or maybe I'm already in The Rose?"
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"Ho there, easy, easy." Lynna grabbed for the man as he collapsed, teeth still bared while she looked wildly around for the source of the power that was playing with them.
Because that was clearly what it was doing. Like a cat with a mouse, playing with its food.
"I'm afraid I won't be much a meal to you, creature. Nor will those under my protection." She grinned, feral and sharp. "You know my kind, do you not? Do you know the protections I travel under?"
She may have woken to a brave new world, but that didn't mean the magics of the old one had entirely faded; Faolan was protected against psychic attack both by her sirebond, and by her own power--power that drew on the same darkness this creature seemed to feed from.
She couldn't actually extend that protection to anyone other than herself, but she was rather hoping she might be able to bluff her way around that.
-
The man went limp in Lynn's arms, his equipment and overall build making him an armful, at the very least. Panels along the roof hummed and rumbled as the unseen entity's presence returned to the chamber, and not the poor man it had possessed.
That one was had been starting to run out of knowledge to eat, and wouldn't have lasted much longer anyways.
"Your kind?" came that cloying, probing voice. Her resistances were high, that could not be doubted. Not just her willpower or her expertise in psychic defense, but there was something about her that made her... empty. It was like trying to read the thoughts of a corpse.
So, the creature drew on its strength to produce physical manifestations. In this newborn state, it would drain him heavily. But he would push himself to dormancy once again if it meant escaping. He just needed someone other than this impenetrable vampire to make it off this place!
The darkness ahead of Lynn thrummed and the edges of it started to spread across the room, like an aggressive mold. Two baleful red eyes appeared in the void slowly creeping across the station's common chamber. The creature spoke in a voice that shook loose tiles from their housings on the ceiling and scattered small objects from the snack station's shelves.
"Immortal. shrouded in your petty shadows, you will be the sweetest meal of all. I will dine on your centuries s for generations. Mistake me for your kindred in darkness at your own peril."
At the same time, he threw his influence over to one of the people he could affect. Dav came up from behind Lynn, previous panic forgotten in his need to escape.
"Lynn!"
He approached to tug at her hand from behind, urging her with a mad certainty in his voice.
"Come on, we gotta get out of here!"
-
Lynn stared. She stopped breathing--she didn't need to, mostly did it out of habit, but the sudden lack of the familiar motion was startling all the same. Her eyes locked on the shadow's, and for the first time in a very, very long time she felt a shiver trickle down her back.
"...We are certainly not kindred," she murmured, her own soft voice a strange foil to the shattering speech of the creature drawing ever closer. "But we may yet be of a kind. Leave us be, and no harm will befall you from me or mine."
Even if she'd been planning to say anything else, she couldn't get it out before Dav grabbed at her hand and started tugging her. She jerked her head around, eyes flashing and teeth bared in a brief snarl, before she remembered herself and quickly schooled her expression back into stern neutrality.
"Yes, go, go! Get to the Rose, I'm right behind you!"
-
The sight of Lynn's fangs and dangerous eyes sent Dav stumbling back with a look of terror on his face, for a moment forgetting the half-tangible horror and focusing on the very human looking one he'd been flirting with not too long ago.
Dav's willpower was basically nothing at this point, so back to the Rose he went, hands tucked over his head as he scrambled.
"Of a kind..." came the reply from the darkness as the eyes shifted up higher and higher until they were a good seven feet off the ground. The voice spoke in a cruel reflection of Lynn's own tone of voice.
"Do you really think so?"
There was... something else laced in with the malice that Kruz'Iik spoke with. As if there was a bare flicker of emotion. That flicker was quenched just as quickly as it arrived, however. A single "foot" (more like a column of blackness) stepped out of the dark haze that covered the room, crushing tiles once it stomped down.
Kruz'Iik could already feel the power draining from their mind. They let out a frustrated roar that caused small hairline cracks to appear on the station's windows, and immediately the breach alarms started blaring.
Another thick leg stomped down, and the darkness was starting to form into a tall, gaunt humanoid shape that seemed to be trying to pull itself into reality.
"Come closer, then... It has been so long, since I have felt the brush of another mind..."
-
Faolan was not a stupid woman. She never had been--barring a few drunken instances in her youth, but that had been when she was human.
She was, however, a reckless one.
Her shields were firmly up, encircling her mind to the best of her ability, though she knew it had been quite a while since she had needed to keep her defenses so firm. She had to hope they would hold out.
She took a few steps backward, toward her ship, but she very clearly wasn't fleeing. Her eyes traced over the shadowy figure in front of her, desperately wracking her memory for any similar encounter.
She was coming up blank.
"What...are you?"
-
With a tearing sound that seemed to ripple across reality in a wavy haze, Kruz'Iik finally managed to manifest. While the chaotic swirling of his form and blazing red of his malice-filled eyes could theoretically serve to intimidate someone, it was actually indicative of how tenebrous this physical manifestation was, especially since his true consciousness was currently stowing away in a body that he had hijacked, a body that he wouldn't be able to maintain if he kept this up.
"I... am hungry," came Kruz'Iik's reply, and his nebulous fingers sharpened until the darkness had blade-edges that glinted in the emergency lighting. The station's automated computer made declarations about failing integrity and mandatory evacuations, but Kruz'Iik paid it no mind.
Not that he even knew what half of the computer's words meant, or that he even knew the voice was synthetic.
Unwilling to risk anymore time with scare tactics and intimidation, Kruz'Iik surged forwards, form twisting and swooping towards Lynn as it moved like a shadowy ribbon. Claws outstretched, Kruz'Iik slashed downwards with their shadowy talons.
-
Lynn's eyes widened and she just barely managed to dodge out of the way of those rending claws. Her gaze darted from the attacking shadow-creature around the hangar, and then back toward her ship, flicking through a dozen calculations in the space of a blink.
Then she bared her teeth and spat back, "And I am not prey."
With a burst of vampiric speed she flung herself forward, as though she was attempting to charge the thing--then she feinted quickly right, toward an emergency escape hatch. She had to time this perfectly.
Holding her breath, she jumped up to grab at a metallic beam of roofing and kicked out at the hatch's handle, sending it spinning.
She was lucky. With the integrity of the station collapsing, the emergency systems that would have automatically locked the hatch were failing. She didn't waste time to see if it would open all the way or not, she just ran for her ship.
With any luck, the threat of getting sucked into the vacuum of space would at least slow her assailant down.
-
Kruz'Iik's claws tore the floor paneling where Lynn was standing to shreds, and they let out something between an annoyed snarl and a roar as the station rumbled beneath their feet. Kruz'Iik's eyes narrowed as Lynn sped towards them. It seemed that even with her advanced speed, Kruz'Iik had eyes and mind fast enough to easily track her. Tired as they were, they didn't quite have the energy for as blindingly fast a swing as they would have preferred.
Lynn ducked to the right just before she was impaled by Kruz'Iik's outstretched fingers, the momentum of the missed attack sent the creature stomping forwards. Quickly, it wheeled back around and made another attempt for her.
Once kicked, the handle of the escape hatch spun around and around and around. As Lynn sped towards her ship, Kruz'Iik seemed to almost stretch as they tried to reach her, darkness playing at the edges of the vampire's vision as the shadowy manifestation tried to engulf her entirely. The hatch's handle finally stopped open and as soon as the seal was broken, the pull of the vacuum of space blew it open the rest of the way.
While most of the others on the station had cleared out from the main room, a few unfortunates who had collapsed during Kruz'Iik's initial assault on everyone's mind had not had the chance to move to other areas and were sucked out, either screaming or just barely conscious enough to register what had happened.
Dav and Dawaski let out genuine, horrified screams and Serina almost fainted at the sight of the creature behind Lynn, but Lynn herself would see none of it. The vaccuum pulled at her back and the shadows seemed to be pulled away. With a deep roaring, Kruz'Iik seemed to get sucked backwards and towards the hatch.
By the time Lynn would make it The Rose and her airlock was closing, she'd be able to see the creature's form dissipate as it went out the hatch. Now that the airlock was closed, the station automatically performed an emergency undock and parted itself from the ship. Silence hung for a few brief moments before Dav abrubtly broke down into panicked, almost maddened sobbing.
Whatever had just happened, he had been a plaything of it and the experience had almost broken him. Serina just pulled his face against her shoulder and did her best to soothe him, even though her own eyes were distant and scared. Dawaski was almost catatonic. The well-groomed dwarf had his arms curled around his knees and was staring at the closed airlock, muttering something under his breath, over and over.
-
Lynn winced as she heard the screams, but she didn't stop. She didn't have time, couldn't hesitate.
Once she was through the hatch and on the Rose, she practically vaulted over her stunned guests to swing into the pilot's chair and punch in a hasty set of random coordinates. She didn't breathe again until her ship had peeled away from the station ands accelerated into the void.
She took a moment--one second, one breath to try to collect herself--then turned to her three passengers.
She moved toward Dav and Serina first, stopping to snatch up an emergency kit from under the console as she did. "Here." She pressed an oxygen mask into Serina's hands. "He's having a panic attack. First thing is to get him breathing normally, and we can go from there."
With a low, groaning sigh--her head hurt, damnit--she turned to look at Dawaski. This one might be trickier.
"Hey." She moved to crouch beside him, trying to examine his eyes. Pupils dilated, maybe? Gods, what was she even looking for? "You're alright, okay? You're safe now."
-
It could have been the last howls of the station segment's air being blasted out through the now decoupled arilocks, or perhap even the distant squealing of twisting metal, but screams and wails seemed to follow The Rose even as it distanced itself from the station for a few moments. Expelled debris scratched across the surface of the vessel, however it was barely even enough to scratch the paint.
Serina looked up at Lynn with a shocked look in her dark, wine-colored eyes, but quickly took up the oxygen mask. At first, she looked like she almost didn't know what it was she was holding, but she seemed to realize it quickly enough and did her best to keep Dav breathing into it. The air seemed to help calm him and he started to slow down out of pure exhaustion.
"Calm down, Dav. Breathe, slow it down," she said, and her words got through to him rather easily. Perhaps he no longer had the will to resist, regardless of the context.
Dawaski's eyes were shockingly sane. Eyes kept straight forwards, Dawaski kept staring at the airlock door, seemingly unable to believe they were safe.
"It was dead. It was dead, itwasdeaditwasdeadi twasdead..."
Lynn spoke to him, and he slowly raised his eyes to meet hers. Something about her own eyes seemed to remind him of the creature, and she'd no doubt be able to feel his blood course faster through him.
"It was a fossil," he said, looking at Lynn but it seemed his mind was somewhere else entirely, an image he couldn't purge.
"It... it was dead. dead! So long it was practically calcified. Centuries and millennia but it was just sleeping!" he said, and he clasped his hands to his temple, still remembering the pain as his mind had been swamped, just like everyone else.
"Waiting for someone, anyone. Waiting for us! Waiting for prey! Ancestors, what have we done?" he said, and started to trail off again.
"I don't understand, it was dead. Dead, dead..."
-
Dead. Centuries and millennia but it was just sleeping.
Well, that sounded familiar.
But that thing was nothing like her--or at least she certainly hoped it wasn't. Getting locked out of time for a few thousand years was the only thing they had in common.
We may not be kin, but we are of a kind, she had told it.
She really, really hoped she'd been bluffing.
"Come here," she sighed, getting to her feet and clapping one hand gently on Dawaski's shoulder. "The three of you are in shock. You need fluids and rest. We're on a course for Edanith, and the Rose is a scrapper. We'll be fine, but I need to get all of you into the galley."
She could at least try to get them some water, hopefully something to actually eat, something hot. The Wild Rose may not have been the largest ship, but due to Lynn's own...dietary requirements, as it were, she had a fairly impressive kitchen setup.
-
"Food, of course... we've just been through something taxing," Dawaski said, sounding like he was quoting some kind of clinical paper. Finally, when it seemed the black terror from the past wouldn't come tearing through the airlock, Dawaski allowed himself to calm.
Lynn's hand on his shoulder startled him.
"You're cold," the dwarf said, more an idle comment, and he stood up and dusted off the back of his pants.
Serina, to her credit, seemed to be trying to help Lynn in achieving a sense of calm. She'd kept her terror to herself, mostly focused on helping Dav through his breakdown. Once she was sure that Dav's breathing had slowed back down, she gently took the mask from his hands and helped him stand.
"Come on, Dav," said Serina, and the man nodded weakly. Serina looked around at the inside of The Rose, seemingly out of her depth in the unfamiliar vessel.
"Um, ah... where is the galley?" she said in her soft voice.
-
Lynn flinched slightly, drawing her hand back from Dawaski's shoulder quickly, but she didn't linger long enough to give him the opportunity to try to dissect her reaction. Turning to Serina, she offered with a small smile, "Just follow me. Rose isn't a big girl, you'll get your bearings quick enough."
She waved for the three to follow her as she ducked around a corner, leading them in the opposite direction from the airlock and then down a short ladder onto a lower deck, which was really just one long hallway leading back to the engine room, with smaller rooms lined up on either side.
"Here we are." She led them through an open archway along the left side of the wall, into a small but meticulously clean and surprisingly high-tech galley. There wasn't really a proper table, but a stretch of smooth, stainless steel counter that jutted out from the wall and hosted a variety of lower cabinetry and appliances had a few stools pulled up to its other side.
"Let's start with some water," Lynn muttered to herself as she moved toward a small cooler set back into the wall, gesturing airily at her passengers in a vague, go on and sit sort of motion. "Any allergies I should know about?"
They hardly needed someone going into anaphylactic shock after just barely escaping some sort of eldritch-void abomination even she wasn't old enough to remember.
-
Serina did indeed follow, and close too. She peered around at everything, managing to find some sort of curiosity despite all that had happened. She was close enough to nearly brush her shoulder against Lynn’s as she followed alongside, clinging to the older woman’s calm nature.
Dav followed behind, just grateful to be away from whatever had just used his mind like a puppet on strings. The oxygen mask was held low, away from his mouth now that he didn’t need it. Dawaski trailed behind them all, slicking his sweat-clumped hair back while he silently tried to regain his aura of intellect and decorum.
“It’s a nice vessel,” Serina finally said as they crossed into the galley, and the promise of food seemed to relight some form of comfort in her eyes.
“I just ate, but… I should still have something,” she recounted, and slid into the stool closest to Lynn. Dawaski, too short to use the stools conventionally, merely set his forearms on the counter. Dav took a seat as well, supporting himself on his elbows.
“Shellfish,” he said weakly.
-
Lynn gave him a smile over her shoulder. “Noted.”
She set about pulling what few supplies she had out of the cooler and setting them on the counter. Mostly standard travel rations, but there were a few…odder ingredients. She moved too quickly for anyone to get a good look at those.
“Here.” She slid three glasses of water onto the table in front of them before turning back around. “You know, I don’t think I was properly introduced to you all, aside from Ser Dav,” she said blithely as she moved back and forth along the wall counter, mixing…something. “My name is Faolan. Lynn, usually. And this is the Wild Rose.” She gestured vaguely at the ship around them as whatever it was she was making started to steam gently in its bowl. She turned back to them and quickly poured out three mugs of a vaguely purplish liquid and passed them over. It smelled strongly of citrus.
“Old recipe,” was all she gave by way of explanation. “It should help you all get back on your feet a bit.”
As for her…well. She was holding herself together alright, but honestly? She needed blood. And she didn’t think that was something these three needed to think about just then.
-
Everybody was just thankful to be alive, and besides, nobody had the energy to try to sneak peeks at whatever it was Lynn, or Faolan as she said, was shuffling about on the counter. As Lynn was busy, Dav finally found his tongue and looked to Dawaski.
"What... was that?" he said, and the dwarf looked back at him with a furrowed brow. Dav clenched one of his fists against the table, and sat up more.
"What the hell did we dig up, Dawaski?"
The dwarf was quiet, gravely so, and Serina soothed at Dav's shoulders as he continued to stare at Dawaski, who had adjusted his glasses and did his best to try and find words. Thankfully, the drinks came out right about then and both Serina and Dawaski were quick to take up their cups, but Dav merely pulled his closer.
He eyed the cup, gauging it, and looked to Serina when she let out a pleased sigh.
"What kind of tea is this?" She said, looking to Lynn with an almost considering look in her eyes. "We had something like this in a small place on Aedolis, but wow..."
-
Lynn went still for a moment--unnaturally still, she didn't even seem to be breathing, and moreover it didn't seem strange that she wasn't, which was strange in and of itself.
But it only lasted a heartbeat before she turned back to Serina and answered with a small smile. "Like I said, old family recipe. Always been something of a home remedy--I've never questioned it all that much," she laughed lightly, the sound only slightly forced.
She moved around the galley, head tilted consideringly, going over everything she'd heard both from her three passengers and the creature itself.
"...You said that thing was supposed to be dead," she noted quietly, eyes fixing on Dawaski with a sudden, predatory intensity. "How did you know what you were looking for?"
Despite the way her tone had dropped, she continued fetching ingredients and mixing things together at the small counter, something that looked like the beginnings of some sort of stew taking shape in a medium-sized pot beside her.
-
Lynn's sudden, daunting gaze caused Dawaski's heart to pick up, sending blood up the thick veins in his squat neck and made his naturally red dwarven face even redder. It was anger and shame, of being both victoriously right and so horrifyingly wrong.
Dav and Serina looked on as well, watching as Dawaski seemed to compose himself slightly once Lynn had taken her eyes off of him. Something about those eyes was familiar to Dawaski, reminding him of the all-consuming thing they'd evaded back in the station.
They... had evaded it, right?
Memories of the briefing back on Aedolis, the chattering of some of the workers on the excavation sight, rushed back to him, piercing through the dark fog surrounding his mind.
"Our expedition was organized and funded by an outside client. I myself was selected for my work in the field of xenopaleontology," Dawaski started, stating his own position like a soldier being interrogated.
"The client had a preserved tome. A primitive bestiary dated back to the feudal eras on Aedolis. They had an... honestly, they had an obsession with this thing the book called a Mind-Shifter. A creature composed entirely of... thought patterns, brain waves. A-a consciousness freed from a body via ascended thinking and sustained by eating the minds of others!"
Once he started speaking, the words tumbled out easily. Like a madman on a tangent.
"Rare, almost unique creatures. A-anybody could become one, it's one horrible twist of logic away," he continued, voice lowered, but he shook his head and forced his breathing to slow. He didn't want to think about what he saw as he thumbed through that bizarre, iridescent tome. How the images of looming black shapes and leering red eyes seemed to burn into his mind even now.
"Extinct. None have been sighted in over a thousand years now, but were were sent to Aedolis in a modified vessel to seek out if we could find any fossils, for the client's... "collection" so to speak. And we did," he said as he tapped a thick finger on the table, a breathless smile appearing on his face.
He took a swig of the brew and sighed.
"Nevermind the ruins," he said, pausing as a shudder went through him. "But we actually found one of them. a crystallized remnant intact enough to be considered a fossil. Black as night, gave off no readings of any sort. Like the purest obsidian you've ever seen, nothing else could have been that dark. We put it in a Class Ten containment pod as soon as we could break the earth beneath it and got out of there."
"So, it was just hibernating, then?" Serina pondered aloud, and Dawaski's expression darkened.
"Waiting." he murmured, fingers tightening on his cup.
-
Well.
That was just fucking fantastic.
Lynn sighed and braced her hands against the counter for a moment, leaning forward slightly over the tiny stovetop. The stew was boiling cheerily now, and she moved it from the heat absently--not bothering to grab a pot holder, though she only touched the heated metal for a moment or two and didn't seem to notice.
"Mind-Shifter," she repeated softly, brows drawn together as she straightened up and started moving around the small island counter where her passengers sat.
Okay. Okay, she could handle this. The name of the creature wasn't familiar, but if Dawaski's information was accurate--which she figured was slightly more than a fifty-fifty shot--she could at least ward against the type of entity that it was. She already knew it had ridiculously powerful psychic attacks, so that was certainly a place to start.
"Let that cool for a few minutes, but it should help," she said softly to Serina with a vague wave toward the pot. "I'm going to set some wards."
She paused in the kitchen doorway, looking over the three of them with her head cocked slightly. "I don't suppose any of you have any talent with magic?"
-
Dawaski shook his head and crossed his arms, lips going tight as if there was something else he wanted to say but knew he shouldn't. and Dav merely looked away at the question, eyes focused on the stew. He was hungry, or at least... he felt hungry. How did he know that he wasn't just being manipulated again. His stomach turned in silence and he stayed quiet.
Serina was quiet for a few moments, brow knit with concern over Dav, before she took her hand off of Dav's shoulder to raise it briefly.
"I do. I worked with the magical equipment on the expedition. Not a formal spellcaster but I can channel, and we also used wards on the dig-site," she said, a smile teasing at the corners of her smile, seemingly pleased with the chance to be useful and not scared for once.
Furthermore, Serina stood and served Dav a bowl of the jovially bubbling stew, offering it to him with a smile. He met her eyes with a look of surprise.
"Eat, Dav. None of us have had breakfast yet," she said, and he blinked up into her eyes and nodded after a couple seconds.
"I'll go help our host with the wards and I'll be right back," she said, and approached Lynn, unsure of where to go but sure that she wanted to help.
-
"Right, come on then." Lynn gave her a distracted sort of smile and led her back out of the kitchen and down the hall to a door near the end--last one on the left-hand wall--which opened on her bunk.
Well..."cabin" might have been a better word. It was certainly the largest of the sleeping quarters on the ship. And why not? It wasn't like she had passengers often enough for it to really matter. Still, it wasn't a large space, nearly a third of the floor taken up by the bed, even where it was bolted into the wall.
But it wasn't so much the size of the room, it was what was in it. Three of the four walls were covered in a variety of positively ancient weaponry--blades and bows and even some sort of long, coiled spiked chain--none of which would have been used in centuries. Maybe longer. "Antique" didn't quite cover it, these pieces were museum-worthy. A smallish desk bolted to the wall near the foot of the bed had a collection of haphazardly stacked tomes that most would probably have assumed were collector's replicas of some sort, because surely they had to be, or they would have been as old or older than the weapons.
There was also a frankly eccentric number of odd little knick-knacks strewn about, some on the floor, some on shelves, a few even tossed carelessly onto the bed. Crystal carvings, something that looked like a more modern adaptation of a very old embroidery stitching ring, and quite a few whose purpose was simply indiscernible.
"So." Lynn crossed briskly to grab up a small vial of silvery, viscous liquid from where it lay carelessly on the edge of the desk, lifting it and squinting as she shook it slightly. "You said you've worked with magical equipment--how much experience do you have with rune work?" It was an art that had declined sadly in recent centuries, she had discovered to her chagrin.
-
Serina followed close to Lynn's side, hands tucked ahead of her as she followed the captain of her refuge through the tight hallways.
"It's freezing in here," she aired, knowing that her host likely already knew and didn't care, as this seemed to be her own ship. It changed little for Serina, who shivered and crossed her arms. Any further complaints about the cold fell silent as she saw the inside of Lynn's bunk, eyes going wide as she stepped into what could have been an exhibition chamber in a museum.
"And I thought I was a nerd for this kind of stuff..." she said to herself as she peered over one of her walls, easily able to distract herself while Lynn rooted about for whatever she was looking for.
The books and more conventional knick-knacks were easily absorbed in a sweep of Serina's dark crimson eyes, wide and saucer-like in her curiosity. When Lynn would turn to face her again, she'd find the young woman looking at some of the more "indescribable" of her knick-knacks, with a look almost approaching a befuddled recognition, before she noticed the captain's eyes on her and quickly set it down with a sheepish smile and a blush.
"Sorry, I-- Oh, runes?" she asked, with a tilt of her head, and then her sheepish smile faltered with some embarrasment.
"I took a course on runes as part of my archeology major, but I don't remember much. It was a morning class and I took it for the credits," she added, but just as quickly set herself into a more confident stance.
"Never too late for a refresher, I guess."
-
Lynn chuckled quietly and gave her a little nod as she started back out down the hall. "That'll do, I suppose." She didn't really need help setting wards, but it would certainly go quicker with two of them, and there was always the chance a second caster--or channel, as the case may be--would strengthen the barriers.
She suddenly paused, then ducked back into her cabin. "Here," she said when she reemerged, tossing a jacket that could politely be called "vintage" around Serina's shoulders. She did feel a little bad that her own inability to judge temperature may be making her passengers uncomfortable. It wasn't that she couldn't feel how cold it was in the ship, or even the heat of the metal she'd touched earlier, it just...didn't bother her. And when you lived centuries like that, well...it started to become difficult to judge what might be "acceptable" to a properly living body.
Starting to head for the ladder to the upper deck again, she explained as she walked, "We can do a basic protection sigil at each of the cardinal points with this--" she shook the little vial she held, making the liquid in it roil slightly--"and then just have to do a fairly simple incantation to activate them. 'Course, "cardinal points" are always more of a feeling than a fact out here in the void, but that's really what ninety percent of magic is anyway, just will made manifest. Don't suppose you took any dead languages in those archeology courses? Ancient Serenian? Maybe Essyrni?"
She didn't even seem to pause for breath, which was downright impressive when she kept chattering as she climbed the ladder easily one-handed and then reached down to pull Serina up after her.
-
Serina made a little surprised sound when the jacket came over her shoulders, and her hands rose up to stroke along the smooth leather. It was the kind of jacket one would see in artistic depictions of the pre-stellar past.
Her smile turned a little screwy and she tried to hide the color on her cheeks by pulling the coat more fully onto her shoulders. "Thanks, this is... surprisingly soft," Serina mumbled, as she was vaguely aware of the jacket's possible age.
In another context, this thing would've been sealed up and sent for dating at the lab, but here she was, wearing it!
Either way, she had no time to contemplate it further, because her host was talking a mile a minute without even stopping for breath! She did her best to nod along, eyebrows rising at the concept of having to find the cardinal points... in space, and then blinking when asked about dead languages.
At the mention of Serenian, she nodded her head.
"I did my thesis on Serendipity," she said with a proud smirk and a tilt of her head. "Honestly, I just wanted a topic nobody else picked. Glad it turned out to be the right one," she said, talking as she watched Lynn climb the ladder.
She took Lynn's offered hand, gasping a little when she touched her hand and found that Lynn basically matched the temperature of the air around them, but didn't comment on it.
"Can't hold a conversation, but I can read it aloud," she said as Lynn pulled her up, then looked up to meet the vampire's eyes.
"I suppose that's what counts when it comes to this, right?"
-
"That'll certainly do!" Lynn laughed lightly, honestly a little impressed. In the years since she'd woken, she could count on one hand the number of people she'd met who could even do that much.
Although that might say more about the types of people she usually met than it did about the state of historical documentation or modern interest.
"I'll write the incantation out for you, just gimme a minute," she added over her shoulder as she started pacing a pentagram over the open upper deck. She couldn't physically ward the entire ship properly--that would have required dragging Serina around the outside of the hull, and, well...she didn't usually have passengers, and honestly wasn't sure her spare suit was up for the task. Not to mention it might be off-putting for the archeologist to see her walking about without one.
Not that she'd made a habit of that. Just tried it once or twice, to see if she could.
So that meant she was really focusing on intent to get the protections in place in this single room, then sort of pushing them outward. She'd done more complicated spells in her time, but they were never easy. Hopefully Serina was a competent enough channel to make things go a little smoother.
"What was your thesis?" Lynn asked as she walked over the shape of the pentagram again, then came to a stop in the center of the invisible pattern and started rifling through her pockets for pen and paper--archaic maybe, but she couldn't help having the preference. As she did, she surreptitiously slipped on a pair of thin leather gloves; she should have been wearing them this whole time, really, but she'd been a bit...distracted. Hopefully none of her guests would think her low temperature and penchant for covering extremities anything more than poor circulation and mild eccentricity.
Starting to write out the incantation she'd had memorized since she was a girl, she glanced up at Serina and added with a small smile, "I have a...particular interest in ancient Serendipity. I'm curious."
-
Serina nodded when Lynn affirmed her usefulness, and the young woman couldn't help but smile and cross her arms as she watched Lynn work. It had been a long time since she'd seen a ritual pentagram put up, and so she watched Lynn with an analyzing eye, committing the lines and words to memory.
When asked about her thesis, Serina blinked and started in place, before clearing her throat.
"I did my thesis on the genealogical fate of the Serenian people. Even in the records from that time, that was a mysterious topic," she started, eyes tracing the ritual circle as it got more and more complex. She settled on a safe place to stand, and continued.
"There's still folks with Serenian "blood" in the population today. They're rare but their hair color's always off a shade or not one of the usual colors. Anyhow, I decided to do an ancestral survey on all the Serenians I could find."
She smiled as she got to her favorite part.
"It sounds so hard to believe unless you see the data for yourself. Each and every single one has geneaology that stretches back to the Feudal Era, one-hundred percent! And a portion of their DNA isn't even human! My theory was that the Serenians are partially mixed with Fey. Sadly, with no more Fey on Aedolis, it's a trait that's destined to go extinct in the next dozen generations or so."
-
Lynn paused for a moment, something behind her eyes going dark. Then she gave her head a little shake and shot Serina another quick smile.
“Yeah, I’d heard that. About the Fey blood, I mean. Fascinating. There!”
She turned to the dwarf with the written incantation in her hand, holding it out. “Go over that a few times, and when you feel like you’ve got it down, we can get started. I can help with some pronunciation, if you need it.”
She glanced around at her little makeshift pentagram and nodded to herself. “It should do…”
It would have to.
-
[[Serina's not a dwarf ;P]]
With a curious widening of her eyes, Serina took the written incantation gently in one hand, eyebrows rising even further when she realized that this Serenian was, in fact, some of the best she'd ever seen. If the paper had looked old and dusty, she could have mistaken this for one of the old preserved scriptures she'd studied while preparing her thesis.
Still, she got over the nostalgic look on her face and focused on actually reading them. She mouthed the words, knowing better than to practice an incantation by reading it aloud, even at a whisper. At some point, she seemed to descend fully into her words, bracing her shoulders as she mouthed on.
After a moment, however, she paused, an analysis clicking to life in her mind, then a slow smile grew on her face. She could work with this.
"This... this could work, but..."
She kept thinking, and her smile slowly faded. She looked over to Lynn with something like dawning apprehension on her expression.
"What are we going to do if it works? Wards turn on, we know there's a Mind...thing, and... then what?"
-
[[Whoops! Sorry lol :-X]]
"Well." Lynn sighed, running a hand back through her hair in a way that mussed the dyed streaks into a muddle mess for a few moments before she shook her head and they settled back into place. "Good news: we know that there's something on the ship besides us. Bad news: we probably have to hide in the panic room and hope autopilot can get us to real help."
It was the kind of flippant comment that one might initial assume was a joke, but she said it so seriously that it left no doubt her ship did in fact have some sort of panic room.
-
“Oh.” came Serina’s short reply, her eyebrows momentarily creeping upwards. A pensive moment passed, and she nodded. “Ok, cool. Great. We auto-pilot to the next stop, and then hopefully this… ancient predator thing will hop off,” she said, unaware of the irony of her present company. Serina stepped over to Lynn and joined her in the pentagram’s center. Carefully, as if Lynn was made of glass, Serina gently put her hand on her forearm and offered a comforting smile.
“Well, we have all these weapons, too,” she added, half-joking and half serious. “You look strong so maybe you can just… give it a good clonk over the head,” she said with a faint dusting of warmth on her face.
Then, she stepped back and cleared her throat lightly.
“Ready to begin when you are.”
-
“…I don’t think that creature is the kind of thing you can just “give a good clonk on the head”,” Lynn murmured. She didn’t want to scare her passenger, but she also didn’t want her to potentially face whatever that thing was unprepared.
Attempting to lighten the mood just a bit, she added with a chuckle, “But I could certainly give it my best. Here.” She held her hands out, palms up. “Place your hands over mine, and repeat what I chant, okay?”
-
"Well, I knew that, but a girl can hope, right?" Serina said. Still, it seemed she understood Lynn's words for what they were, and smiled with her when she tried to lighten the mood.
"Well, you wouldn't be the only one, if it came to that," Serina said with more determination than one would expect from a reedy looking grad student such as herself. With a steeling breath and one last look down towards the written runes, she slid her hands into Lynn's, fingers spread. She took another breath and relaxed.
"I'm ready," she said. Her crimson eyes met Lynn's.
-
“Alright. This may feel…strange. It’s an old spell, old magic. Try not to let it bother you too much,” Lynn warned, before she let her eyes slide closed and began chanting—first in ancient Serenian, then in something like traditional Adelan. The chant was fairly basic: protection, warning, safety. But she’d found that repetition in multiple languages often helped to solidify a spell’s intent.
At least it did for her. She wasn’t a natural-born mage, all her magical talent had been picked up through centuries of study. She honestly had no idea if that was how it was supposed to work, but that had always been what worked for her.
Hopefully it would work in this strange new world she’d woken in.