The hasty retreat from the room was no less chaotic than the battle that had erupted inside of it. All five worms had filtered in after the first few lashing bolts had lashed out, smashing them into ceilings and walls before they tore out chunks of its puppet. Five became seven, ten, fourteen and the room became a blizzard of flapping paddle-limbs and flashing claws of light. The door was barely a few meters away but it felt like a mile. Mid rush a burst of arching pink light shot out of the reanimated corpse, bounced off of one worm, gored another, pinged off of a ruptured monitor screen, then slammed into Kleo. The image of Kleo specifically, distorted behind a glassy barrier near immaterial in nature. Unearthly power that ripped and gnashed instead splashed and shattered itself. Pinkish tendrils of arching light flashed from rosy to bright white to a dissolving series of digit-like spindles, splayed out like broken fingers on a hand. The quasi-electrical strike had targeted the unztadtlige but not by intention. In the flash of a moment, the majority of the burst had been directed at the squirming hurricane descending upon the corpse and its spherical controller. As they passed near the sphere, one of the limbs of light twisted backwards and slammed into the shielding, rattling it like hail, but it held. They were past the doorway in a flash, the sounds of battle rattling out behind them now and now sinking into a pulsing background throb. Breathy, resonant, and traveling between and among their number as an unseen crowd of ambience. The teal they had seen in the mouth of the door became as inescapble as ocean water as they found themselves not in overridden corridors of neglect but an unearthly swamp. [center] [hider=Visual] [img]https://i.ibb.co/4ggvPqT/Slimelord-Insurmountable-Peril-Fernando-JFL-giotefeli-NO-TEXT.jpg[/img] [/hider] [/center] Soon, the way they came was obscured by the fog out of which peeked traces of arching metallic pillars overrun by blinking, pupil-ridden growth. Growth that oppressed and weighed down, warped, and bent metal into a shape akin to dead trees conquered by disease and parasitizing rot. The fog glowed and seeped between the disordered pillars and out of the ground but it filtered outwards. As if leading them onwards past the indoor copse, trails of it lead towards a long tunnel mouth ahead. Oxygen readings were beginning to drop and gravity diminished the further they neared. Ambient ether began to climb; the patches of filth on the sole human and unztadtlige quivered and teemed. What was once inky splatter began to wriggle and pool, dripping off and sizzling as it touched the ground. HUD's and computer systems warned that qillattu contamination was slowly rising and beginning to generate microscopic void-bacterial colonies in response to ether-atmospheric conditions. Kleo would feel it pinprick against her skin like a thousand little needles. A phantom sensation, manifested not by the body but the mind in response to the unearthly influx. For Echo, the polyp-like growths that comprised its true organic body would feel something akin an unwelcome caress, warm yet eager, as if the room itself wanted to peel them open. By contrast, King's body had an anathema-like effect on their surroundings. The ocular growths closed shut when he neared, peeled away like sunburnt skin in curling strips, and spilling frothing fluid and wriggling debris onto the floor. Fog curved around their form and the room would feel as if it was trying to squeeze him on all sides; whether like the maw of a predator or the angry grasp of hated foe was up to interpretation. The sensation was far less unpleasant for the Voidhangers. The room felt lighter not just due to the progressively diminishing gravity but that the chasm itself had seeped into it. Not poured but slowly sluiced its way in, kept in check by differentials between real and unreal space. The fog itself obscured just the same but it did little to dampen their other senses. Ilshar would feel something similar; earthier, living, squirming around him - as if he'd entered a nexus of data-transfer symbiote-worms or another form of advanced tarrhaidim-adapted biocomputer. There were electrical currents present and they pulsed the amorphous mind-growth that blanketed the room. He could feel what it felt even in the absence of true mind in the form of elliptic bursts of data. Data that on occasion, was transferred out and onto something else entirely. Transferred by slender, almost invisible strands of pinkish smoke-light that trailed back the way they came. Not visible to human sight but which tarrhaidim and voidhanger alike would almost miss amongst the debris. The eyes were watching them, that was for certain, but something was watching through those eyes. Sounds like shuddering leaves followed by stretching, peeling, snapping. Restraints struggling but breaking, rapid footfalls, clawing sounds - on the floor and traced to silhouettes moving to the left of Kleo and Echo, then above. A short series of ethereal pulses sounded out. Something like a whip smacked into Kleo's legs, aiming to send her tumbling to the ground. Following behind it, a shape fell from the ceiling, raining fragments of dried tar-black gunk and intending to land directly onto Echo's main body. [center] [hider=Visual] [img]https://i.ibb.co/tTZkngwg/ZOMBIE-CYBORG-THING-alien-flesh-construct-take-2-by-kwibl-d5l3d1i.png[/img] [/hider] [/center] Its features were humanoid, celaderakan, tarrhaidim, and maybe a little bit of vrexul. All melanged into a tangled series of limbs arranged like where roots met trunk of tree. It was huge, six and a half feet, not as bulky as the unztadtlige it was likely landing on but its limbs were gangly only in appearance. A few bits of bent pillar in the way shattered as four lengthy arms ripped through them, slamming into the ground on its descent. A pulse of almost electrical power coursed through the air, enough to make nerves shudder and private comms stutter. More figures, gnarled and shambling, began to rise in the surrounding fog.