Abandon humanity, One step at a time (FT, Open)

[Aelosia]

The soldier quickly reached the entangled courtier who was lying on the floor, darting past the hulking, giant shapes that seemed to appear from nowhere, or delivered by the strange baem coming from the airplane hovering overhead.

Umber Hulks, the soldier thought to himself, These are Umber Hulks, and for sure the other thing was some kind of a larvae. I hate bug planets, he explained to himself, characterizing the hybrids as the closest thing he heard about during his training. he jumped between the legs of one the things, and landed behind him in a roll, right next to the captured courtier. With a flick of the wrist, he turned on his trusty light scimitar, that appeared with a humming sound and a green flash.

With the weapon on hand, looking exactly as a lightsaber if not by the slight curve of its beam, he grabbed the courtier by her long chestnut hair as to immobilize her, and traced two careful and quick slashes through the web, freeing the other elf.

Then he turned to the hybrids, who already had them surrounded, one hand in the hair of the courtier, who was only sobbing in a low tone, clearly crying, and his weapon in the other, held in a clear defensive stance.

"So, ugly beasts, who wants to be first?", he said in a daring tone, sure that what he thought of being Umber Hulks could not understand his speech pattern.

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The scholar ran for a few seconds, still turning back to see what happened to her companions, and when she turned, she saw a figure running towards her through the woods.

The figure was humanoid. So humanoid it could be an elf or a human. Looked like a woman, dressed in a gleaming, silky outfit.

She looked around as to see if there were a path to dodge the stranger, because it was sure more an enemy than a friend, yet as soon as she diminished the speed of her steps, the creature talked.

"Hey! I help you! Calm! Please! We talk!"

The language was arcane. Primitive in a way and advanced in another. Seemed to be one of those dead magik languages scholars were told at the University. But at least she could understand most of it, and the message at least seemed friendly.

The scholar stopped her run, just a few steps of the woman ahead. Now she could have a better look at the woman. She was pretty, human, and was dressed in the most spectacular silk outfit a Paelisi courtier could think of.

She took a few breaths until the woman reached her position, and pointed at the place where her companions were.

"Friends! Ships, Light ships from the sky. You them? You part them? Your friends? My friends there. With ships, your ships. Help me!", said the elf still trying to recover her breath entirely, bending and placing one hand over her knee, while pointing with the other.

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In the shadows of the woods, a pair of black eyes opened wide as soon as they caught a look at Kara. A hand slowly went towards a ruby wand, and gyrated it slowly. The shade smirked. So there you are, shaper, so there you are. The shade kept his twilight state, remaining stealthed. He would take care of his prey as soon as the bug thing was resolved, and his companions were taken care of, too.

[Michael Kenmore]

It was highly unlikely that the Iratus-humans could understand any language at all, as they possessed intelligence little better than animals and needed to be controlled telepathically by leaders to perform any strategic attacks.

Rhaaaaa! Rhaaaaaaaaaeeeeeee! The hybrid closest to the elf shreaked, opening its four-jawed mouth and closing it repeatably. Further back in its mouth another set of jaws full of fanged teeth could be seen. It flexed its clawed, 14-inch long fingers and turned its head from side to side to judge its adversary's distance. In the center of each hand's palm lay a pulsating ring of flesh, not unlike a mouth. The thing snorted through a set of six nostrils just behind each eye.

Then, in a startling display of agility, it jumped, a full sixteen feet in the air and latched onto the tree limbs above the elves. There was a loud crashing of branches as the creature scurried its way up the tree.

Admist the distraction, the other two hybrids on either side of it snarled and retreated, and if nothing could be said about their stealth as the smashed away into the underbrush, their great speed was an attribute in their favor.

The last hybrid stepped up towards the Aelosian soldier, snapping and hissing. It rocked back and forth on its heels, which while an awkward-looking stance, was one that could be launched from by virtually any angle. It opened and closed its hands, and the strange mouth-like organs in each palm quivered in anticipation.

Meanwhile, the Iratus bug, in the distraction, completely healed itself of its injuries (save for the missing legs) and it rolled over onto its stomach to weakly crawl away. Its squealing sounds seemed to agitate the Iratus-human hybrids even more.

[Solar Communes]

There, whatever was happening, it seemed to not work. The lack of any answer to the previous message soon enough had a clear enough meaning, they were no longer leaving her be. And upon seeing the scholar, tired, frightened, and upon hearing the aircrafts above, it became even more clear what was happening. She tried to convince the lady to not mean any harm, and apparently she did understand part of it, trying to speak in a way that could be understood, the scholar said:

"Friends! Ships, Light ships from the sky. You them? You part them? Your friends? My friends there. With ships, your ships. Help me!"

Kara immediately shook her head while analyzing the way of speaking of this first remotely non-alien individual over her mind. It was clear the inhabitants of this world would no longer be neutral and tolerate her presence. However, despite the fact the new arrivals seemed, at first, to not be hostile, one could never be careful enough. Thus she explained, in an incredibly fast-paced but coherent and easily understood voice:

"My name is Kara Schaffen, my spacecraft crashed here by accident, I tried to convince them I meant no harm but their minds seemed too alien to understand. I nearly managed to convince them to not attack before your arrival, then I tried to convince them you meant no harm but they refuse to listen! Be careful, and one more thing," Kara carefully grabbed a small piece of the spider silk covering her and handed it to the scholar, "keep this, and go to direction I came from and you will be safe for some time, just don't judge anything by appearance alone, I will see if I can buy you some time."

Kara ran towards to two other elves and saw their physical form the first time since arriving. Although she had seen then before through images and visions, seeing them directly was a far more strong experience. It was ironic her request to not judge anything by appearance alone, because right now, seeing them again only reinforced her built fear of what these things were. They were cornering the two, one seemingly a soldier and the other seemingly a well-dressed lady that was just stranded in a web. Whatever had to be done, it better be done quickly. Kara looked at them and shouted:

"Back off from them! Let them go!" while gesturing for them to shoo and approaching from the hybrids, "I am warning you! There is no need be hostile over and kill people you don't even know yet. Last thousand years ago in my home this happened against the friend of the friend of my great-great-whatever-grandfather we've written a new name to the list of extinct species! Stop now with this irrational hostility." she concentrated as well to send one last message, this time a very serious ultimatum, when it became clear that the cornered ones seemed far more reasonable than these bugs, and far less alien, it was clear that now the situation could become another case similar to the ancient tale of the Silicoids extermination. A vision showing the Wraith killing those recent arrivals, and the immediate consequence, as an entire space force of conical shaped crafts appeared, shooting several very large missiles against the star of this system and the star vanishing while they would hunt for all Wraith spaceships, and no matter how many of them fell, more would keep coming until all of them was destroyed.

It was a verious serious ultimatum, but Kara knew how the people back home were itching, itching to find a new enemy. And maybe that was the greatest good that could be done to stop the evils happening there, to direct the focus of the destructive capabilities of the people outwards, against another truly justifiable target of xenocidal hatred.

However, a second after telepathically sending that message to the Wraith-human hybrid, Kara wondered whether she just made a gigantic mistake or whether it was inevitable, and prepared to deal with the closest threats and help those two individuals backed into a corner.

[Michael Kenmore]

There were a few long minutes after Kiele recieved Kara's telepathic message. The darts continued to circle, but the lead Iratus-human hybrid no longer seemed inclined to attack. It shook its head as if trying to shake off or ignore something, but it seemed held back. It hissed, lunged forward a couple of steps, and then cowered and retreated slowly backwards, snuffling and snorting in frustration.

The Iratus bug stopped squealing and lay still on the ground. A few leaves and some bark tumbled down from the tree overhead as the hybrid above shifted its position. The four other hybrids beamed down to intercept Kara drew up to the other one and stopped.

They seemed hesitant, sorely wanting to attack, but prevented. Finally, they each huffed submissively and crouched down, clicking their mandables.

One of the darts sped off a distance, then turned back to hover over the dusty clearing and settle down. The organic vessel settled down, resting on its nose and cannon arrays. Its canopy hood violently withdrew into the membrane slots in a single, blindingly-fast reflex, like a bubble bursting. A male Wraith commander flicked off the controls inside and exited. The canopy folded back up behind him.

He stood outside his ship staring at each member in this strange play in events in turn. He was about six feet tall, but he stood slightly crouched in a defensive position, hands outspread. He had long, white, waist-length hair, ragged and uncut. His skin was slick and blue, and his eyes where yellow and predatory-slitted. There were two nostrils on each side of his nose just below the cheekbones. He cocked his head to one side in the characteristic Wraith fashion, and then deciding that friendship may indeed be the best policy for now, he lifted his right hand in greeting.

On the palm of his hand was a slitted, mouth-like organ. "Greetings," he said in a deep, booming voice, ignoring the hybrids and the elves; directing all attention on the spider-silk clothed woman. "You must be Kara."

He huffed out of cheek nostrils in disgust and curled his hand, returning it to his side. "You are all invaders to this planet," he remarked simply. He didn't seem inclined towards much speech and he looked over to the Aelosians, waiting for someone to answer.

[Aelosia]

The scholar raised an eyebrow in curiosity, for sure both getting Kara's message, yet partly amazed at the fact of finding someone as Kara is such a hostile world.

"I Laethe", was the only thing she managed to say between several phrases of the strange woman, pointing a finger at her chest.

Finally, her words about a stranded spaceship bought her some credence first, and also some hope to the scholar. A ship meant a way out of the bug planet. A way back home. For all of them if the woman could cooperate as friendly as she did with her.

But what if it was a trap? Or what if the bug did something to her and the woman in front of her was just an illusion, and hallucination? She caught the piece of silk from Kara, and opened her muoth to ask for further explanations, yet the human left her alone in the woods before she could ask anything.

She stood in the middle of the forest for a little bit more than 10 seconds, watching as Kara walked towards her companions, torn between the options of obeying the stranger and leaving for safety, or going to help her own friends. If she went to help her companions, she could just become another victim of whatever was attacking them. She was no warrior, and even if she was, she didn't have an idea if she could help them against armed airplanes of who knows what kind. If she went by the waythe stranger told her, it could be walking into a trap, yet something in the woman's attitude and in her psychic persona, that now she realized it was strangely strong for a normal human, told her that she meant the best for her and the rest of the aelosians.

She didn't need to take the decision, or to continue thinking. Something prevented her to do so.

A latching red lightning, almost like a tesla coil of some sort, as if sheer energy would had taken the form of a crimsom whip, wrapped around the waist of the elf at lightning speed, and with a strong shake sent the scholar against a tree, with such strenght that the impact of her back against the trunk broke the outer bark cover of it.

Laethe Cúthalion, scholar and scientist of the Aelosian Craftworld, feel completely inconscious to the floor, perhaps with severe lesions from the crash against the tree, blood dripping from a head wound.

A pair of seconds later the drow reappeared, kneeling next to his former companion. He took the chin of Laethe in one hand, checking how bad injured she was. Then with the other he picked the piece of silkweb from her hands.

"A shame, my dear. You need to be careful about with who you leave home. Even worse is that nothing of this is your fault", whispered the drow and he stood, in one hand the still gyrating ruby wand, with its jewels now displaying a strange fiery glow inside, and in the other the silken web. "So, let's prepare for this girl". With those words, the drow's skin started to drip some kind of viscous fluid from every pore, that started to cover his silouette entirely. Once the rather nauseating goo covered his flesh and clothes entirely, he completely dissappeared from view, as if he never existed.

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The aelosian soldier stood his ground against the harassment of the hybrids with what his colleagues would think marvelous courage. He never retreated an inch, just making agile and sudden movements with his sword to prevent any of the monstruosities to reach either him or the courtier lying at his feet. His feet sidestepped once and once again, his blade swirling around to maintain the distance.

He knew he wasn't able to attack any of them. Should he went with a deep stabbing motion or a wide slash to decapitate one of the things, any of the others who surrounded him would had the opening they needed to attack him on the back. He didn't know what the strange mouths in the hands of the things were able to do, but neither he felt the need of finding out.

The beasts seemed to know that they shouldn't compromise themselves in a succession of one on one attacks, but their instincts seemed to be preparing the pack to launch a concerted attack that for sure was going to end with the soldier crushed in the clutches of the survivors of the first onslaught.

He know he was dead. He only aspired to get a good death.

Yet, just as he closed his eyes, preparing himself for the worst, someone else appeared in the clearing. Running out of the woods, the figure, a gleaming lady in a beautiful dress of silk, started to yell first at the hybrids, and then even to try to shoo them off the aelosians.

They are her pets?, thought the soldier in marvel, as he still maintained his defensive posture, his blade ready to be discharged if any of the beasts came too close, and his other hand finally relaxed and let the courtier go. As the Umber Hulks, or hybrids, retreated a few steps, he realized that the things were obeying the woman.

A human woman! instantly said the soldier to himself, opening his wide eyes from beneath his mask, instantly comparing what he was saying with the holopic stored by his superiors in the memory data of his helmet. A glowing green rune informed him that she was the perfect match for what he was looking for.

He turned off his sword, now that everything was having more sense. Right now he just needed to speak to the woman, and he had a Paelisi courtier at hand just for that.

They saw how the plane came down, and something strangely looking, yet humanoid, descended from it. As it approached, both the courtier and the soldier realized he was some sort of human-like being clearly related to the ugly monsters surrounding them. He said something to the human that the soldier didn't understood, yet the courtier did.

The thing then turned to the aelosians, and even the elves could easily identify a grin of despise and disgust.

"You are all invaders to this planet", ha said, and as soon as he pronounced the words, the courtier stood up, and tried to remove the strands of web from her clothes and hair, as if she was trying to regain some lost dignity.

In a perfect imitation of the wraith's language, including inflexions and accent, yet using a more moderate, submissive tone of voice, the courtier answered, at the same time as she executed a careful and elegant bow.

"No more than you are, Sire", were her first words towards the wraith. "Yet this time we would prefer to be labeled and treated as visitors. We didn't come to invade". She rose her head from the bow, and quickly winked. "Not this time", she finished with a smile, suddenly comfortable in her new position.

[Michael Kenmore]

The Wraith grinned maliciously, showing his long, black, pointed teeth. "How ignorant... you are," he hissed at the elves. "We do not welcome visitors on this planet."

He looked down at the Iratus bug laying on the ground, then whirled angrily to face Kara. "And you..." he said, pointing his finger at her and then curling it so the knuckle remained pointed at her, a gesture only fathomable by someone well aquainted with Wraith culture and habits. "If it was you that did this, then we ought to be blasting your ship from orbit. As it is, I can only recommend such a solution to my hive."

He then looked up at the tree above, and in a few moments a shower of bark, twigs, and leaves rained down as the Iratus-human hybrid above started back down rather regretfully. It moved its bulky exoskeletal body through the branches and then dropped the rest of the way, landing with a light almost inaudible thud. The other two hybrids that escaped to either side earlier also came shuffling back, clacking their mandables loudly with disapointment.

"You should all come back to the hive with me."

Now, with all the Iratus-humans together in the clearing, two circling darts dropped down their respective beaming rays and beamed the creatures up.

[Solar Communes]

For some moment there was tension. The creatures could attack at any moment, the ones Kara sought to protect for now could be killed in reaction to her bold message, she could be killed. But if that was what it took, there was little hope to try anything else given the way the situation was getting worse. Those travellers could be a ticket out of that place, one in a million chance of happening again. But she was tense, ready to try anything in case the worst happened, never blinking one eye while they continued to make their threatening stances.

At more than one moment Kara was nearly driven to begin twisting them into something even more twisted than what they already were in an attempt to stop their seemingly imminent lunges to attack, it was a very tense moment, one where one small mistake could be the difference between life and death for anyone nearby.

Then suddenly they stopped, although that would be a bit of an understatement, those things. They were simply disgusting, vile, reminiscent of the things she saw home. There was something once human deep within them, mutated into the abominations they currently are, now cowling like dogs that barked to the orders of a master, and then getting down, although clearly, if not for the orders of some more powerful being than theirs, by now they would either have seriously drained Kara of energy and pinned her down helpless, if not killing her immediately, or forced her to attempt molding them into a meatshield to buy her time in a hopeless escapade.

"Now I will know whether I will truly regret doing this or not"

It was clear that whatever way they interpreted the message, it has convinced them to not be so sure that killing them would not bring serious consequences to their kin later, and made the stop, for now. It was enough to buy time, one of those planes suddenly began to land over a clearing, when Kara slowly realized that it was not built with a metallic or composite airframe, it was organic. The implications of such small detail along the greater picture were both hopeful, for the leverage she could pull, and dangerous, for the risks they have dealt with what she was thinking about to do before. Unfortunately she lacked a certain degree of knowledge to be truly able to replicate such a thing, or any kind of weapon or technology this creatures could possess.

Then one of them came down from the organic aircraft, its membranous shape alone made her remind of the agonizing place of torments, and maybe there was something sentient inside this plane, molded together with others, suffering in eternity until it was shot down by something. The man came down from it. Kara looked at him, she lacked words, afraid that speaking the wrong words would make them decide to not try anything but simply kill her on that spot, or worse. She was quite short compared to that thing. It approached her and offered his greetings, for the moment, trying to emulate her language in a very loud, authoritative voice, like the amplified voice of a famous general of old times.

Her eyes became wide open when she noticed the fact there was something like a mouth in his hand, and she could not hide her surprise, although it immediately gave some insight in her thoughts:

"What a coincidence!"

He then addressed her by her name. Still unsure about how to answer, Kara simply nodded, then, while she was going to shake his hand despite that detail, having little to fear about it, he retracted it and warned about a fact that was partly true. That they were all invaders. Obviously that creature was not of much words, but the fact it was willing to speak at all could be a sign this won't have to end in a final slaughter. However, Kara wisely stood silent for a while, when suddenly, the other ones decided to answer. When the soldier retorted the accusation by calling them invaders as well, she sighed when she heard the soldier talking, thinking:

"Great, some hippies who care about nonsentients to the point of calling those who barely settled a planet with only them invaders. That is everything I needed right now!"

The long, black and pointed teeth of that creature became imprinted at her mind when he grinned to the elves and explained something that their behavior alone should have made obvious. Considering what kinds of problems her own people had to deal with because of unwanted visitors, she couldn't really blame them because of that. Then he warned:

"And you... If it was you that did this, then we ought to be blasting your ship from orbit. As it is, I can only recommend such a solution to my hive."

"Wait, if they have a hive and it is entirely built of organic... no, I am not a goddess, but maybe they would be unprepared. Hmmm" Kara was thinking, for the very nature of the technology they have shown so far, meant that she would have little difficulties in hijacking it or merging with it provided they never had any experience with such kind of thing before. It was a powerful gambit: if successful, it would mean suddenly a very strong bargaining power and potentially a way to go home. If failed, dying would be the least worrissome fate after it was done.

"You should all come back to the hive with me." the creature said, and it obviously was not a suggestion. However, staying there, stranded in that world, would not lead anywhere. There was nowhere to run away. That was the only way through.

"If I were to attempt becoming this hive, I am not sure if I could bypass whatever defenses it may have. If I merge with it, it would probably destroy me or worse before I could manage to hijack control from it, but if for some reason I could, and this hive controlled all of them..." Kara thought deep inside, then nodded to that thing, while looking at the elves and saying:

"Better to stay centuries frozen for long-distance travel than to trust portals, specially of that kind, now," she turned her attention back to the Wraith commander, "I agree, lets head to your hive. I can prove you I will cause you no harm unless you force me to," then her voice lowered to a whisper, because she knew very well the implications, "and that unlike them, you will not manage to seep whatever you do to feed yourselves from me, but you'd have far more worries than having a stranded ship blown out of orbit if you did that to them."

Hopefully they would not attempt to take prisoners... hopefully they would not attempt to contain anyone. Hopefully they would not attempt to start a gambit about who among them will get killed.

[Aelosia]

The courtier, who seemed to have regained her composture, if not her dignity, looked right into the eyes of the Wraith commander, showing a courage that she seemed to lack up until now.

"How ignorant... you are," the wraith hissed at the elves. "We do not welcome visitors on this planet."

Of course, she was a courtier. As soon as she entered any kind of social interaction on a politically tempting scenario, or in an exchange environment, she started to feel like a fish back in the water. She sould be afraid of a battlefield, but she could stand to stand at gunpoint during a court session. The rush of doing what she liked the most, and what she was really good at, superceded any emotion of fear, panic, or terror. Aelosian courtiers were unable to feel bullied, threatened or scared by mere gestures or any verbal menace.

Aelosians, after all, are a rare breed of advanced sentient creatures.

"Although we didn't see any sign regarding that, Sire. Plus your policy should be more known in the international stage if you don't want occassional visitors dropping by", she said, tring to again fix her skirt over her shapely legs.

"More than visitors, we would like to be considered envoys", she paused for a moment, raising a finger and winking again. "Well, at least I would, mostly because my mission in visiting farway systems is to contact with sentient civilizations and cultures and find data to be organized in our large archives of galaxy-wide denizens", said the courtier, now using a casual tone completely improper to the tense situation, yet that was aimed at precisely make everyone relax.

The woman was feeling specially verbose today, thought the soldier, but after all, this was her specialty.

"Who knows? Maybe one day you could end signing a commerce trade accord with the aelosian empire! OR a good will treaty!", for a moment she paused and took a look at the heinous hybrids around her. "Well, maybe not that much, but I am sure we can find something in common!"

"You should all come back to the hive with me.", was the only response from the alien commander.

The courtier, just after hearing the Wraith, continued her endless conversation. "Of course we could, Sire. But we have a pair of companions in the surface of this planet that should join us to go to the hive. And I tell you this to show us our good will in cooperating and collaborating with your exchange efforts. Can you help us to find them? They can't be far".

The soldier was still looking at Kara with intent, the lens of his battle mask completely fixated on the human figure. Suddenly, when he heard the word "hive", he reacted and dared to speak, something that really took the courtier by surprise. Aelosians would never talk to strangers should a courtier was present.

Taking a step forward, the elf grabbed Kara's elbow. "No. We're not going to no Hive. I am sorry for the intrusion. It wasn't on purpose. If you find a way for us to return to any civilization port from where to return home, you will largely and generously rewarded with whatever you see fit. Take the elven woman to the Hive, if you want, but Kara and me are leaving this planet", said the soldier through the automated voice of the helmet's vocalizer, his firm fingers maintaining the grip on Kara's elbow.

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The drow reached Kara's camp, and saw the visions of a slaughterhouse as if it was something created from the sheer and pure nightmare fuel of elvenkind. A half-grin showed in his purple lips. A grin of....Satisfaction.

"Good. This I like. So many things to be learnt in the universe, right?", he said, breaking his stealth and appearing in front of Kara's creations.

[Michael Kenmore]

The Wraith commander grinned even wider, more like he was baring his teeth.

"No choice. I think that you shall all be taken back to my hive with me, and that is not a suggestion."

He froze his grin when he looked back towards Kara, and allowed it to slowly fade from his face. This one... He thought he felt a powerful alien mind underneath that visage, but it drew back quickly. The feeling might have been only a product of his own imagination, or it could have been the barest tip of a great mind thinking deep within itself. It felt like the mind of a Wraith Hive Queen, and the Wraith commander was puzzled and cautious about that.

He drew in a sharp sniff. "You smell like a human..." he growled, tilting his head to one side again, thinking.

"No matter," he barked at the elves, turning back towards his dart. He glanced up at the sky to look at the other two ships and then pressed a button on a wrist device. The device began to glow flourescently around in a circle, and the other darts orbiting the clearing sped away, turned, and then lowered their beaming rays. The rays flickered white across the ground like large scoops, coming to sweep up the Aelosians and Kara in one pass.

The darts flashed by, and the "intruders" were dematerialized into the fighters, to be materialized back at the hiveship. The Wraith commander got back to his own ship, and the cockpit canopy snapped open and allowed his admittance before shutting again. The Wraith dart then lifted up and led the way back up into space.

*****

The three darts were insignificant motes of dust next to the vast, fleshy mass of the two kilometer-long hiveship. A huge, round maw opened up in the surface of the hive and the darts flew into the pore, and the opening shut behind them.

They winded their way through various other openings, around columns, and into the dart bay racks, where as the ship sped along their way to the landing area, they unloaded their cargo onto the walk deck.

Flash! Twelve Iratus-human hybrids, two Aelosians, and Kara all appeared in a massive, dark, cold room that stretched immensely in either direction. Their was little light from no determinable source, and a heavy mist swirled across the floor. Six Wraith guards led by two commanders greeted them.

The guards were all identical in form: six-feet tall, heavily muscular males, wearing brown leather-like armour. They, like the commander seen earlier, had waist-length white hair and blue skin, but their faces were hidden by ornate masks of bone. They each carried a heavy organic-like staff weapon.

The two new commanders in features ressembled the other commander, but one possessed a slightly greener skin-tone, and the other's face was covered in black tattooed symbols.

They walked through the damp mist of the room; the fog swirling around their feet. Like before, they showed no great disposition to speak, and rather gestured towards a door. The Iratus hybrids moved off accompanied by two soldiers, while the three "guests" were shown through the door by the other six Wraith.

On approaching the door, one of the leading commanders looked at the telepathic door-lock and the bony ribs of the wall flayed outward. The party entered the warm, wet confines of a tunnel.

The hallway was even darker inside than the docking bay, and an enormous spinal column ran across the length of the ceiling, with giant ribs, flesh, and chitin forming the sides of the walls.

The Wraith led these people through the winding corridors without bothering to talk the whole time.

OOC: Sorry if I'm going too fast for you.

Picture of interior of hiveship: Linky

[Solar Communes]

To say Kara was far more annoyed with the obvious insistence of that lady into trying to deal with such beings diplomatically through long and verbose ways than frightened of those beings would be an understatement. It seems that courtier did not get it at all, she looked exactly like how Kara imagined to be the elves of Arenumberg: haughty, all proudful and thinking she would be treated like the greatest diplomat ever and always listened to, that she could even convince a bloodthirster or a great old one to settle its differences with her. She did make no comments what their foolish attempts to reason with the xenos, but she glanced disapprovingly at the courtier sometimes. Maybe they have been way too sheltered from the horrors of the universe, from the things that knew only the meaning of deuterium bullets flying near the speed of light heading for them.

Then when the soldier tightly grabbed Kara's elbow and said they would not be going to the place, and that he was obviously trying to take her somewhere, she simply turned back to him and gazed at his mask suspiciously, but also curiously. "Why would they be interested at me? Was their arrival truly unintentional? I don't know," Kara thought while staring at that soldier, "but at least the Wraiths seem honest in their savagery, while from all I know, these visitors could be trying to trick me" and then, when she decided to speak up against the soldier, before uttering one word the leader of those things grinned widely with its ugly teeth and answered:

"No choice. I think that you shall all be taken back to my hive with me, and that is not a suggestion."

"You don't even," Kara's sentence was interrupted when the beams of light dragged her body back into the fold, and she entered in a strange reality where she could feel it, the dart, it was right next to her true, immaterial self, yet she could not longer see or sense anything, existing purely into the realm of energy for a short moment. Panic stroke her, a confusion, an unawareness of anything but the pulsating living machine that was flying.

"What is going on? Did they kill me?" Kara wondered, trying to pattern memories in a way that could give answers, and she reminded of something, a small part. It was very foolish of those like her to not keep a backup in case, and when she remembered of the part of her self that still was on those woods, but disconnected like if sentience could be isolated and joined, Kara realized that was not death. It existed, somehow, detached from its material body, it still existed. The creatures possibly could sense it was there, tempted to tamper with that thing. But Kara feared the consequences of trying to hijack it. Then, slowly, the darkness began to change, and it could see everything around the craft, and feel something, a call, a distant light ahead.

"Maybe I am dead". Where would this lead to? Kara looked at the light, but could not see what lied past it, only that it exhaled a long calmness in respite of the situation. It began to approach it and the more it moved further, the more detached it became from everything, like if it was asking for it to forget the life being left behind. It continued to follow the light, hovering through the sky and no longer seeing the dart, or sensing it.

"But, but what about everything, the horrors," it had a foresight that if it walked into the light, everything would be forgotten, the transformation of Eden in Hell, the dark alien minds, the conflicts. Just one more step, and everything would be over for it. However, there would be no justice, no solution, no salvation for those it would leave behind if it did so. The time to make a decision was running out. Kara remembered of the innocents, of what she has witnessed, despite how that light tried to induce her into forgetting. "I cannot abandon them!" it finally decided, and turned away from the light.

It felt was like being thawed out of a huge body. Kara suddenly saw herself again at a corporeal existence, inside a massive nightmare, inside the hive ship. Its darkened, bluish organs, bones, sinew and muscles gave her memories. She felt the touch of its floor, and instinctively, amidst the darkness, placed two fingers next to her eyes, when they slowly shifted to a solid blue color and began to emanate a cone of low light ahead, vanishing amidst the vast darkness, mist and dimensions of the place. She cautiously looked around, paying attention to all entrances, tunnels and paths and memorizing them while realizing the predicament of being in a potentially hostile location of hundreds of those things, and with a person that could speak so much that would end perhaps saying something stupid and making enemies.

She was still curious on why the soldier cared so much about her, but now as not the best moment for asking. Cornered, with nowhere to run away besides a backup. Not the best situation, but for those who brought her here, it was. Since half of the long trip, Kara began thought they just lured her into a trap to get rid of her before she could effectively gather enough power to stop their injustices, and that made a lot of sense. The only thing in her favor was that, if she could be fast enough, the most basic things these enemies used, like hand weapons, could be put against them without much risk, like was the case with the insane idea she once had of trying to infect the hive in case the situation became really bad.

They went through many corridors that resembled the entrails of a twisted alien creature, a long walk through which Kara has chosen to speak no words. They would not listen. They would not care. And she knew that. The locks in shape of bones couldn't stop her from demonstrating how crepeed she was. Her hair tingled. Not out of fear of the place, but out of revulsion about what it represented to her. Disgust, her face was clear about representing it. Although she could not listen to beating hearts as oftenly, although she could not feel the distant agony of tortured minds, the place still was reminding her of what Isabel has tried to lead her into becoming.

Kara had no words to say to the elves, no words to say to those things, all she had was her visible disgust and uneasiness with the place, because it reminded her of the very important detail, of a very unsettling idea she hoped to never have to resort to.

"I could build something like this... thing."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the dark elf arrived at the outskirts of the growing storage depots of meat, the first thing it would notice was how cleanly it did smell. The creation was a work of utility rather than aesthetics, and among the distant sight of large container-shaped blocks of meat, among the expanding membranous fibers that have grown around the trees and seemed to suck most of the lifeforms approaching them besides the notorious Iratus bugs and make them dissolve into the greater mass, among the still visible drops of blood on the ground, there was a lack of any putrescence, only an echo of breathing, for all those things, despite their grotesque appearance, were obviously not dead.

But just as he appeared in the middle of the thing, ahead of the guardians, they changed their stance. A towering, one meter tall worm built from the skin of perhaps millions of worms was the largest of all, and it wiggled, its length covering nearly ten rows of trees. It had a vicious, cyllindrical mouth lined with sharp teeth. There was also a crawler, a gigantic furball of rodents with multiple heads and tails, a pair of seemingly sharp pincers and four insectoid legs, and finally, the humanoid creature built entirely of merged spiders, which was the first to take a single step towards the dark elf and raised its hand forward with its open palm directed at him, warning for him to not take any further further step towards the place, that strange biofactory of processed organic materials.

There could be more of those things anywhere.

[Aelosia]

"No choice. I think that you shall all be taken back to my hive with me, and that is not a suggestion.", repeated the Wraith commander, and with a flash, the group dissappeared, without doubt towards the intended destination.

The sensation of being dematerialized and materialized again was weird. Like tickling, and being disembodied. Yet, although no aelosian was ignorant of most ways of teleportation travel, for the both of them the sensation was midly disgusting. The soldier noted to himself that the aliens had an able starship and teleportation technology, and for the first time he recognized them as a wide spread threat more than just an individual one. These guys were not underdeveloped savages, but a stellar civilization.

As soon as they appeared in the disturbing organic crafted interior of the ship, the soldier did let go of Kara's elbow, not without whispering to her ear first. "I need you alive and well".

They were surrounded by soldiers, whatever those things with insectoid traits were, so any wrong movement or aggressive manouver was out of the question. He hated to be in this situation, where combat wasn't useful. He was in the hands of the courtier now, and for sure she was going to fumble it with all her diplomatic paraphernalia.

The group didn't look like they were willing to parley, yet if they wanted to kill them, they would already tried to. The soldier wondered what the strange aliens wanted with them. Perhaps to put them to trial? Perhaps interrogate them to see if they were the only "invaders" in the planet?

Soon the courtier interrumpted the eerie moment amongst the group as if the weird shaped architecture and the extremely scary and cold ambience didn't affect her at all. While walking through the hallways, she started to try to chatter with the commander in front of them. Surprisingly, she completely ignored Kara as if she never existed, not even trying to introduce herself to the human.

"As I was saying to your colleague in the planet, sir, I am pretty sure there are some kind of exchange or agreement that can be reached by our two civilizations..."

"I wonder why I didn't leave her stranded in the web", said the soldier in their native language. "I wish she just shut the fuck up".

Sadly, none of the two elves were psych sensitive, or they could feel the feel of aversion and disgust emanating from Kara...

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The dark elf smiled broadly as the spider thing raised a hand, in the international signal of "stop". The thing was extremely beautiful. And useful, he supposed to. Shold he tried anything aggressive, the thing would for sure entangle him ina silk shower, and feed him to his worm companion.

He opened his mind, trying to transmit to the spider-man how much he valued his beauty and usefulness. How much he liked his form. And how much he was going to respect his prohibition of not going further.

He extended a hand as to touch the skin of the spiderman. For him, the sensation was almost divine, a religious experience. With a soft, really slow movement, he extended a caress over the creature...

"You...are...perfect", he whispered, just coming closer by a step towards the spiderman.

[Michael Kenmore]

The tatooed Wraith commander looked over his shoulder at the courtier when he heard her speak, but he didn't trouble himself to reply.

The group was led into a small chamber through a door similar to the one seen at first. The room was empty, save for a table, chairs, and yet another commander. The commander's back was turned to the door, but when he heard it open he spun around.

His features were confused for a moment, but then he felt her presence and exclaimed. "Kara! I am Kiele, the one you spoke to earlier."

Kiele was slightly different than the other Wraith. Though his appearance matched them in skin color, eyes, cheek nostrils, and clothing, he lacked both the feeding organ on his hand, long white hair, and pointed teeth. In those respects, he looked perfectly human, which wasn't much.

His facial expression was one of surprise and maybe slight fear. Kara's choice of clothing was rather disconcerting, as it made her somewhat resemble a human that had been cocooned for Wraith feeding. A poor sense of taste indeed. Kiele gestured towards the chairs.

"I'm sorry, but you will all have to be interrogated. Not the Wraith way," he added hurriedly, as if they might know the difference. "Questions and answers only, I assure you, but I can never tell what the superiors might decide to escalate to if you aren't cooperative."

The two other commanders left the room, but the guards remained. The door closed behind them and Kiele sat down at the head of the table.

[Morningstar Coalition]

Oh bloody hell! I totally lost track of this thread in my lists!
I will try and get a post up ASAP, so consider this a placeholder for now. I have to try and catch up reading the events in the thread.

[Solar Communes]

Kara wondered why that soldier needed her alive and well, considering that was the first contact of a Solarian with those elves, considering the completely accidental, random set of events that made such encounter possible in the first place. Something else was happening right there, and the fact Kara didn't know what made her worried. The sum of such worry with the entire place reeking its looks of a vile, alien flesh were seriously disconcerting for her. Walking through those "guts" didn't help either. And there was nowhere to run, not without starting an immediate conflict. The "escorting", inhuman guards cornered every attempt of escaping.

To make things worse that courtier still didn't get it. Still thinking she could talk with the limbs rather than the arms, still thinking diplomacy is a solution to all situations. The fact nobody give ears was a clear indication of how effective her attempts to negotiate were going. Then, after a while of walking through the grotesque hiveship, Kara and the two elves were left to another bone-lock door, a small room where something looked to the other side. He immediately turned around when the door opened, and his attention was obviously focused at her. Unlike the other beings, he seemed to look closer to a human being than all other things there. Similar to how she had his full attention, her now solidly blue eyes also stared attentiously at him.

"Kara! I am Kiele, the one you spoke to earlier."

He had a name, Kiele, and upon gazing at her, he seemed to be surprised with her appearance, and apparently not in a good way. She ignored his reaction to seeing her in person and took the leftmost seat at the row when he gestured to the chairs.

"I'm sorry, but you will all have to be interrogated. Not the Wraith way. Questions and answers only, I assure you, but I can never tell what the superiors might decide to escalate to if you aren't cooperative."

Kara did not buy it. If they wanted to only question them, they would have no need to waste time and fuel bringing them to this morbid spaceship. She looked at Kiele with an uncertain expression, but eventually the expression became a frown and her uncomfortable feelings about the place became transparent in small gestures and in her face. To worsen everything, suddenly she gasped, feeling the presence of an intruder at the impromptu storage site. She answered about her gasp, while trying to handle the situation on the surface at the same time:

"I am sorry, I am not used to the air of your hive. Ask away anything you want." she suddenly shifted her attention, seeing something else together with that room.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the dark elf began to slowly admire the spider, it would take little time for him to realize the creature was completely devoid of sentient, being little better than an organic robot, following a set of rules and orders to exert its specific functions, when he tried to communicate with the creature, his mind apparently answered only to the emptiness. The thing did not move, not even an inch, maintaining its gesture, watching him through part of its countless insectoid eyes spread out through the entirety of its body, that allowed for it to see everywhere around it at the same time. It was a machine, devoid of feelings, devoid of thoughts, it reacted in no way when that dark elf began to caress it.

"What the? Where is that woman I told to come here? What kind of sick man would enjoy this place?" The small part of Kara that remained there thought, partially aware of the self-irony in her own questions. She heard him. She slowly gathered near one of the large container-shaped pieces of meat, while the dark elf took a first step closer to her creation, still immobile and not responding to his actions. It was time to have some words with that sinister man.

Kara sighed at the hive while she felt the copy of her human form slowly coming out of one of the large blocks of meat, covered by a far unconventional dress built of severely bended and fused bones and sinew, that somehow resembled a sort of armor. She began to head towards the dark elf, and made a very important question along the way:

"What have you done with Laethe?"

[Michael Kenmore]

Kiele glanced at each of the personages in turn, unsure of which to address. Finally, he chose the Aelosian soldier, though he kept stealing looks at Kara.

"You, we didn't see a ship come in, and you seemed to indicate you were of an interstellar organization. Did you come through the astraportim? What do you want here, and why was your first action hostile?"

He turned his full attention to the Solarian. "And you, Kara. What was the real purpose in your ship crashing here? Why here amongst all the planets in the galaxy? Your vessel was directed towards us and appeared to be undamaged until it crashed."

OOC: Sorry MC, you sure do have tons to read. I thought of TGing you, but I forgot. Sorry.

[Aelosia]

The aelosians had taken a seat in the table, putting some space between them and Kara. The courtier seemed to want to remain on her verbose line, yet the soldier actually raised a hand as soon as she even tried to open her mouth to speak.

"He is addressing me", he said as only explanation. Carefully, he removed the battlemask that covered his face, and with that the full helmet retracted into the rest of his armor.

To the left side of his face, a set of noble features remained. Half his head was covered by a thin, gleaming silver hair. His eye was of a startling violet, and the overall look was of an aloof, proud bearing.

The other half was barely an amalgamated set of scar tissue around what seemed to be a mix of ceramic-like bone prosthetics and the remains of burnt flesh, including one glowing green orb where the right eye should be.

"No ship. We came by portal from the Craftworld of Aelos, metropolis of the Stellar Sindar Empire of Aelosia", he waited until he had the attention and the time to explain properly. "For some reason, there is a warp portal that links our homeland to this planet. For our culture, that means that in a distant past, maybe millennia ago, our ancestors visited this planet for some purpose. One of our objectives was to explore what was to the other side of the portal, and to see if any remains of our civilization remained. How the warp portals work, it is not for me to say. The one in charge of warp travel was left in the planet below". The soldier made a pause, grinning in disgust as he saw how the courtier had looked away in a mixture of pity and horror when looking at his face. "And regarding our first actions, I deemed the bu...The insect laying in the web in the planet as hostile. I was trying to protect my companions when it posed to attack them. Blame my culture; we tend to be upset by arachnids. Me, in special"

He placed his hands over the table, as to show his empty hands as proof of his intentions, then he eyed at Kara as she gasped, as if something startled her. He decided his looks weren't usually the most pleasurable thing to see for most ladies, and finished his short speech towards the Wraith. "We didn't know anything about the planet. And I am still worried about the fate of my companions".


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------=================================================================------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The dark elf was even more marveled at the fact that the construct was some kind of flesh robot. He stopped his attempts at communicating with it, as it proven to be useless.

"So, you are all flesh puppets...I understand some more now. I should have an interesting conversation with your creator. But she will be back".

The movement of the meat in the container caught his attention, and he turned to see how it morphed into an image of the woman she saw with the scholar a while ago. The sight was magnificent. Such a wonderful suit of sinew! Was she able to shape this at will?

The dark elf smiled, broadly, in a sinister way as the morphed meat walked towards him. One of his hand quickly gyrated the wand in his hands, and from one of the rubies a long coil of crimson energy came out in a flash.

"So, you are the meat puppeteer! I didn't know it the first time I saw you! Laethe? Doesn't matter, I guess she is somewhere in the woods". Even in the distance, Kara could feel the mental probe of the man scanning the area for her own psychic presence.

"But you are not here", said the dark elf after a few seconds. "You are far away and yet you manage to control your creations! That's marvelous! How many things we could learn from each other! Your time and presence in this planet is a waste". As he spoke, Kara could also feel how the projection of something shadowy, something completely psychic and yet absolutely sinister condensed like an aura around the drow.

"Finish whatever you are doing, woman, and join me. I'll study your creations for a bit, waiting for you..."

[Solar Communes]

When Kara realized the focus of Kiele's attention was for now directed at the soldier, she decided to shift her attention to her other body. The man was sinister, perhaps more wrong and twisted than many back home, and her uneasiness spreaded through both bodies. She knew what sort of individual she was dealing with, some kind of perversity that existed only in history books.

"You are a sick man."

Kara did not need to listen anything else. The malice was clear enough, and it was searching for it, for the true self behind the masquerade of replicas of human bodies. Kara tried to not give it away, but there was a clearly sinister presence within that man, his strange tricks with a wand like those of fairy tales, only darker, and the obvious awareness he was probing for her mind.

"So, you are the meat puppeteer! I didn't know it the first time I saw you! Laethe? Doesn't matter, I guess she is somewhere in the woods".

Kara frowned at him when he obviously didn't care, but awaited to see what else he was obviously going to say, while she listened to the muffled sounds of her other part was listening to, generating a strange set of informations arriving simultaneously that a human would never manage to properly handle. But whater was behind such female avatars, it was no human no matter how it tried to look and behave like one. And thus it managed to isolate and listen to both places simultaneously without the feeling of cacophonia that would be caused otherwise:

"No ship. We came by portal from the Craftworld of Aelos, metropolis of the Stellar Sindar Empire of Aelosia... For some reason, there is a warp portal that links our homeland to this planet. For our culture, that means that in a distant past, maybe millennia ago, our ancestors visited this planet for some purpose. One of our objectives was to explore what was to the other side of the portal, and to see if any remains of our civilization remained. How the warp portals work, it is not for me to say. The one in charge of warp travel was left in the planet below...And regarding our first actions, I deemed the bu...The insect laying in the web in the planet as hostile. I was trying to protect my companions when it posed to attack them. Blame my culture; we tend to be upset by arachnids. Me, in special... We didn't know anything about the planet. And I am still worried about the fate of my companions."

The soldier words happened while she listened to the dark elf, considering the implications of both. But whatever the soldier said, it was clear he was hiding why he was so interested about her. That only served to increase the curiousity of Kara about it. And thus she also listened to the dark one, and while he spoke there was something far darker deep inside him, something perhaps of a far worse nature than mere malice, something that she had very proper words when thinking about:

"Demonic? Great, that would really add to my luck!"

"But you are not here. You are far away and yet you manage to control your creations! That's marvelous! How many things we could learn from each other! Your time and presence in this planet is a waste... Finish whatever you are doing, woman, and join me. I'll study your creations for a bit, waiting for you..."

Kara began to walk towards the forest, and gazed at the man, shaking her head:

"Gaze at the means to an actually good end, the end of liberty and dignity for mankind, as much as you want. Admire what you wrongly assumes to be immoral and twisted, because I don't care. I am going to look for Laethe. And if by any chance I find her dead, you better have a very good explanation. I am not blind, I can see and feel your intentions worlds away." She turned her back to him and walked away towards the path to where the web was, slowly scouting around in hopes of locating that scholar. Her skin, on both bodies, however, was crawling while the strange entity clearly tried to go deeper unto it. Meanwhile, while she walked on the surface and began her search for Laethe, she listened when the Wraith-human hybrid addressed her and immediately shifted most of her attention back to the nightmarish room of flesh.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"And you, Kara. What was the real purpose in your ship crashing here? Why here amongst all the planets in the galaxy? Your vessel was directed towards us and appeared to be undamaged until it crashed."

Kara slowly took a breath, trying to contain her obvious nerves from the combination of that man in the surface and of the memories the room brought, and realizing the futility of lying, she decided to be almost entirely open about it, even if it could somehow make the other guests at that room quite unsettled:

"Arriving in your world was a huge mistake of planning, I am sorry, mister Kiele." she touched the floor and gazed at one of the fleshly walls of the hive, despite her obvious revulsion to it, "my people, there is no point to hide, we are not really human, we are called the dustpeople because our true selves are made of something that may resemble dust when gathered in clusters, but we tend to use physical forms because the energy of our bodies last longer this way," she continued touching the floor of the hive, "just like you use organic materials to construct this vessel, treat my body as a vessel, and like it, we need raw materials to be able to have bodies, and also construct ships, buildings and other things, although these are, in a certain way unecessary because we inherited the construction methods of humans involving non-organic materials, yet," Kara tapped her feet over the floor, anxious, "the problem is, while I was born like this, most of my people were once human," she was obviously becoming very nervous when mentioning it, "and have chosen to become like this believing it was a more evolved form of existence, and they were a bit too eager about it, to the point they consumed the entirety of animal tissues of all nonsentient creatures in my world in their works of engineering and, for some, 'art'."

Kara then took a very long and deep breath, obviously trying to hold strong emotions, before continuing:

"And thus I have volunteered to look for more tissues of nonsentient animals in other worlds, and we used our massive orbital telescopes to scan nearby systems and their planets for life, and because of somebody's mistake, they have assumed your world would be completely uninhabited by intelligent life. They have sent me through a carved asteroid to prevent drawing attention of the rest of the galaxy, because there are many who would have sought to destroy us without even asking questions or trying to communicate. And thus I have arrived, and I tried to ask you whether you'd mind for me to do what I had to or not, and then I understood and have programmed the biofactory to do any no harm to the crawlers I have seen in your images. And I hoped everything would be fine and that I eventually would be able to negotiate with you something I could build in exchange of a way back home and of permit to carry organic matter from your world to it, until they arrived accidentally." she looked briefly to the elves. She was obviously on her nerves about mentioning all.

[Michael Kenmore]

"It seems then, we have some points of similarity between our species that I can base assumptions on," Kiele observed.

"The portal you came through, Aelosians, is it different than the astraportim? The 'humans' that inhabited you planet long ago, Kara, are they not a more evolved, advanced form now? It reminds me of a race of beings that we call the 'Lanteans'. We too have a Lantean portal, an astraportim. If any of you desire to gate to a world with another astraportim, you are welcome to use ours.

The truth is, you have arrived at a most inopportune time for us. We recently struck a deal with the Morningstar Coalition, and we had been expecting to recieve their scientific vessel. We are not aware of any special reason the Aelosians might have to place a portal on this planet, unless it is for the same reason the Lanteans placed a gate here. The world is suitable for humanoid life, and has a breathable atmosphere and large ocean.

The native life of this world does not concern us. We landed a minor hybridization facility here and imported the Iratus insect. The planet is unimportant. This facility is only one of many, in this galaxy and my home one. We were unaware of any previous civilizations ever contacting this world, excepting the Lanteans, so that might account for why Kara's people thought as they did.

I can only confess a mistake. When our insects were attacked immediately after warning Kara not to harm them, we thought it was deliberate."

[Trailers]

OOC? Turg.

[Aelosia]

The soldier moved his head to the sides, negatively.

"I'm not sure what a astraportim is, or if the portal we came through is the astraportim. What I can tell you is that our portal ate itself when we arrived, and died, closing itself. If your astraportim still exists, then we are talking about completely different portals. That's all I know, I can't be useful in that regard. However, if you find my companion in the surface of the planet, she can tell you more about portals".

The soldier nodded at the mention of the attack of the insects "Not deliberate, we felt threatened".

[Michael Kenmore]

"Our astraportim is in the clearing beside our hybridization facility. There is a dialing device in front of it. By 'dieing' I assume your portal is organic? It is strange indeed if two seperate races chose to make portals to this world.

I must apologize for our mistake. Is there anything more I could do for you, Aelosians?"

[Aelosia]

"Our astraportim is in the clearing beside our hybridization facility. There is a dialing device in front of it. By 'dieing' I assume your portal is organic? It is strange indeed if two seperate races chose to make portals to this world.

I must apologize for our mistake. Is there anything more I could do for you, Aelosians?"

"Being able to go home seems to be nice", said the courtier in a pleasant tone...

"That would be great, yes. And also I would like to have some words with your....Guest", said the soldier, nodding towards Kara.

[Solar Communes]

While the conversations went on, Kara continued to feel uneasy. When Kiele mentioned there were similarities between the his kind and Kara's, her eyes began to water as the combination of panic, anger and sadness from remembering what happened home tried to overwhelm her. It was clear by then she was struggling to contain strong emotions. In her mind the image of several helpless innocents screaming while their flesh and bones were twisted and deformed began to repeat itself, the memories replacing the sight of the alien hive at some moments. Being compared to them definitively opened an already made wound in her mind.

Most of her focus however was on the surface. Kara walked through the forest, on the overall direction of where the darts once landed, hoping to locate the scholar she hoped to once protected. Her guardians continued their machine-like stance, not wavering and not moving more than what they would need to. The humanoid made of spiders was clearly keeping some of its several eyes on the dark elf while the second avatar of Kara continued to call loudly for a name, unaware that the only one that would answer would right now be unconscious, and perhaps, perhaps vulnerable to those disgusting alien bugs that crawled through this world. Yet she walked, looked cautiously at every inch and called loudly the name:

"Laethe! Do you hear me?"

"Laethe!" her voice sounded like a lament, for she no longer could hide the despair deep within.

Kara did not give up on that person. She would find her, one way or another.

----------------------------------

Meanwhile, her other self listened instead of talking, but was clearly upset when Kiele suggested she had any similarity with their kind, and clearly disturbed about the place. The word "astraportim" was foreign to her, and she did not really understand it until its obviousness as meaning portal became clear. When the elven soldier mentioned the portal ate itself after their arrival, Kara nodded, apparently not surprised with something like that. Apparently these creatures would make a deal with a group called the Morningstar Coalition, and obviously they would be glad to take everyone back home. Kara both shuddered at the thought and was glad about it. No place has disturbed her more than this hive. It was then, that a very important thing would happen. That soldier would ask:

"That would be great, yes. And also I would like to have some words with your....Guest"

Kara turned her now completely blue eyes to the scarred soldier. There was an obvious expression of grief in her face. She was not sure about the man, about how much she should tell him without risks, but there was a growing curiousity about why his interest, and that curiousity helped her to cope with the feelings the place evoked. Thus she answered, placing her hand over the table:

"Yes? What do you want to say?"

[Aelosia]

On the surface...

The Dark Elf kept standing where he was, knowing that to move would to invite violent action against him, and he was not yet prone to solve this situation with violence. So much art and knowledge would be lost!

As soon as the avatar left, he realized he had a new way to approach the situation at hand. He focused his mind inward, watching at how slowly the world around him started to dissappear into a suspiciously looking black fog.

Something like dripping tar was creeping into his mind, without pause filling each tiny space of it. Each space of his consciousness, each tiny bit of his own existece as a sentient.

In the outside, his presence remained the same, although his pupils expanded, turning his eyeballs into orbs of a pitch black nature.

He concentrated again his energy in the absolute, almost liquid, dense shadows of darkness filling his essence.He felt how the darkness pulsed, looking for a way out, looking for a source of self control. Looking for sentience.

And then the darkness swallowed his psionic sentience. The rush of power made ambition bubbles into the mass of the darkness, and idly started to create out of nothingness. It created tendrils for itself, tendrils that extended all over the drow's nervous system, taking over simple mechanism as locomotion systems and muscle coordination, invading and infecting the crabon and oxygen links that made the mass of the elven body.

Born again, the shadow inside the drow's body extended a psionic, invisible yet perceptible tendril of shadows towards the spider man.

What would you think, darling, if I give sentience to your creations? What would you think, Kara, if we decide to give them a mind and a soul, for a change?

-----------------------------------------------========================================-----------------------

In the forest...

Laethe nos Cúthalion stirred as soon as she heard someone calling off her name. She just remembered the sharp pain on her waist that paralyzed all her nerves before a huge impact sent her unconscious.

She was lying against a tree, with chunks of bark all over her body. She flexed the fingers of her right hand, and although there was some pain, everything seemed to be alright from that side. It wasn't the case with her right arm. A whiplash of pain was the natural response to an attempt to move as she realized she had dislocated her shoulder on impact, perhaps even caused an even more serious lesion to her back, although no bones seemed to be broken.

A dislocated shoulder wasn't that bad, given the strenght with she did hit the tree. She could consider herself lucky, because her injuries were mild and none of the attackers or the bugs did find her.

Then she realized it. She put a hand to the ground as to stand up and realized what had happened to her. Her already pale skin almost got translucent, and her eyes opened wide in fear, pain and grief.

Can't be, no, no, no. Can't be. Where are the others, she told to herself, trying to keep the panic and the shock away from her conscience. It was too horrible to stay here alone until the bugs came to devour her, or even worse....The cold. The thrist, the hunger, the pain. Which one would claim her first? Perhaps at the end, she would welcome the bugs with her arms wide open.

Then she remembered someone was calling for her in the woods. Someone was looking for her. Her companions! Anyone! Laethe raised her working hand and started to wave it, making soft, almost moaning noises out of pain as she tried to answer out loud.

And as she started to reply with an extreme weakened "aw uhmph uhmph HERE!", something made of flesh remotely resembling a human entered the clearing right next to her tree, wailing her name with grief and pain. Something clad in an outfit of bones and sinew.

So this is what Death looks like. Take me to Mandos' Halls, Reaper, Laethe said to herself.

A single drop of cold sweat came down Laethe's chin towards the ground, as in her face a look of absolute terror overcame all her serenity.

It was the girl she saw earlier in the woods. She came back to claim her soul. The girl was a Reaper. She first appeared to warn Laethe that the moment was near, then the sharp electric pain, the crash, and now she was back to claim her prize, dressed in her true garments of bone and sinew.

As she exploded in crying, realizing she won't be able to stay in the material world for longer, Laethe tried to put an open smile to the approaching form, right before saying "Do it quickly, please, don't wait to watch me suffer".

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The soldier turned towards Kara, inside his orbit the strange ceramic-like prosthetic eye making wild movements towards any direction, seemingly at random.

He tried to smile at Kara, yet something dark, of forgotten sorrow and forsaken grief, took over his features, and the smile died as a bittersweet grin.

He felt as if something was affecting her. Something...Grim. Yet he was no psychic, he had nothing further than the normal degree of empathy reserved for other sentients..."I want to have a conversation with you. In private, should that ever be possible", he said, fixing the stare of his sane eye over Kara's own with determination.

[Solar Communes]

After following the faint call towards a clearing, Kara found Laethe. It was not usual for her to handle so many ongoing situations at the same time, and a feeling of despair, of an asphyxiating grip over her neck, something there, despite how there was absolutely nothing visible trying to harm her. She fought against sensations that she never felt before. Sensations of frailty that only something trying to hurt the soul could cause against something like her. The elven scholar was downed, and possibly wounded, and Kara had no doubts about who did it.

"He is doing something, it is coming, it is coming." she was trying to take hold of her emotions and thoughts, something began to attack, not physically, but mentally. She resisted it, unsure if it was a construct of her own fears or a foreign force. Then, Laethe stared at her, afraid, terrified like if she had seen a demon, and fell into tears, pleading:

"Do it quickly, please, don't wait to watch me suffer."

Kara sighed, wondering that, in face of having nothing better to dress with, perhaps, perhaps running around those forests naked might have been a better idea. She approached the crying elf, scared, desperate. Her face was not in a better shape either, as it was clear she was not very serene. Kara approached Laethe, and came next to her, sitting over the ground next to her and looking at her face:

"Sorry I scared you Laethe, I had nothing better to dress myself with," her hairs then raised while a shiver ran down in her spine, "Laethe! Sorry, but something is happening! That dark one that came with you, the one who took you down! He is doing something, something twisted is coming out of him, I don't know..." Kara was becoming clearly nervous, for she could feel the dark thing coming from him, "I don't know anything about it, if you know anything that could stop him, please tell me, I... no!"

Kara was not prepared to stop it. She was never trained to handle something truly immaterial as the dark spirits that slowly were claiming everything she has done. They were slowly ruining all her plans to save the human race. The humanoid made of spider, she felt when she lost control of it, and she had to made a quick decision. A painful decision, and it was coming for her, she had no idea on what it was or how to face such a threat.

"No, I..." Kara knew it was necessary to give that last command to everything still under her control, that whatever it was, it could not seize all that living biomass for its sinister goals, but she knew that if she did that, there would be no more hope. A tear fell from the eyes of her two avatars when she finally ordered, in thought: "burn!"

The entire place, the entire flesh around it began to self-combust very quickly, except for the large worm and the spider thing that were already taken by that dark one. It slowly dissolved into ashes, tons of ashes that gradually erased every trace of their existence as they were now dead. That was too much, too much for her. The entire mission was a failure. She looked at Laethe again, and offered her hand to help her getting up:

"I have failed enough people already. Come, we need to stop him."

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"I want to have a conversation with you. In private, should that ever be possible"

When the soldier explained inside the Hiveship, Kara nodded. She was even worse than before, because of that being, that single individual, that have manage to ruin all her plans. It was going wrong, it was over now. Yet there was still the curiousity of what that man wanted.

"There is only one ready place where you can have a private conversation with me," Kara nervously explained, "I apologize if this will be strange or seem disrespectful, but it is the only way..." her hands were trembling. She raised one of her hands and slowly approached to touch the soldier's forehead, expecting he would not refuse. When her hand landed on his forehead, she gasped. He would feel nothing, but suddenly a bright flash would come to the soldier, and he would find himself in a very different place. Meanwhile Kara's physical body within the Hiveship suddenly entered in a catatonic state, and even on the surface she seemed to have become sleepy.

It was a scenic mountaintop spliced in half by a waterfall, with several trees and a few small animals over the ground. Kara lied ahead of him, sitting over the stump of a tree, with only one other stump ahead of Kara. The place had a visible serenity, and there were people, humans dressed like ancients of ages ago, children, women, elderly and young ones, dancing, singing songs in strange languages for the soldier and picnicking. It was a place full of natural, untampered life. It was her elysium, and her dream, for some of those faces were the faces of those she saw suffering in her home.

"Apologies are given. I linked your mind with mine and allowed you access to it. This is a very large risk for me to take, to set up this meeting place so deep within myself, where nothing can probe or see unless I allow to. But, I won't lie to you," she seemed calmer within that sheltered compound of her own mind, "I have exposed myself significantly to you by allowing you to come here. I hope I will not regret my trust. So, why are you so interested at me?"