Mind in a Can [Dragonsong]

[Daglobster]

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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Daglobster]

"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?"

[DragonSong]

"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.

[Daglobster]

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!"

[DragonSong]

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!"

[Daglobster]

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..."

[DragonSong]

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?"

[Daglobster]

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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Daglobster]

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.

[DragonSong]

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."

[Daglobster]

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..."

[DragonSong]

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.

[Daglobster]

"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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Daglobster]

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.

[DragonSong]

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.

[Daglobster]

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..."

[DragonSong]

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.