[center][h2][b]Ilshar Ard’sabekh[/b][/h2][/center]

Although the sterile openness of exposed space might have seemed more welcoming to the voidhangers, it was not so for Ilshar, accustomed to humid and overgrown environments more than bare expanses. Though long since surpassed by augmentations, the naturally limited senses of a tarrhaidim were put on edge by open spaces, and his close skirting of the trenches was as much of a psychological reassurance from closely available cover as it was reconnaissance. Harvest’s mention of large pirate forces on the move did not help ease his mood - in the warrens and corridors, the enemy’s numerical advantage would have been much reduced, but if any forayed out here, the Envenomed would be an inviting target.

Finding the terminus point of the etheric trail he had picked up was a welcome distraction from those thoughts. He stopped next to Kleo at the trench’s lip, hunching forward slightly for a better look at the anomalous carcass below.

[b]“Confirmed, there’s what looks like an emitter struck through a dead Chasm-spawn.”[/b] It certainly felt dead enough to his every sense. [b]“And it doesn’t read like oneiric-attuned technology. It’s suspicious. Chasmborn matter doesn’t usually stay coherent for long after death, certainly not on an unstable place like this.”[/b]

Inorganic technology that interfaced with the ether was uncommon and often of scielto make, which this spike clearly was not. If it was stabilizing the corpse, it was in some way Ilshar had never seen before.

Tentatively, he reached out with his senses, not towards the spike, which eluded his firmly biologically-rooted understanding, but to the remains of the oneiric beast. If the device was channeling any sort of energy through its unearthly nerves, it could perhaps be traced, at the very least enough to determine if it was being drawn from the mass into the metal or the other way around - a difference crucial for understanding the transmitter’s less obvious purposes.