Cath

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Light sighed, which manifested as a low-pitched staccato clicking. He then shivered as pain shot up his deformed tentacle. He had started this day in a foul mood and felt none of his usual satisfaction in imparting knowledge.

“The dock inspectors are the nerve endings for most of the rest of Korit. They know who would be most interested in your cargo and can set you up with a meeting to do business, taking a percentage. Those are your ‘customs charges’. If you’re disagreeable with the inspectors, they may inform on us and we’ll end up losing the whole lot anyway.”

Light detached from the ship’s controls and floated towards Senjen. “In this case though, the cargo in our hold is just a decoy. What's really important is inside your head.” His other tentacle reached out to tap the Utaysi’s jaw, the gel suit stretching lethargically to accommodate. The QV resisted the urge to pry open his assistant’s mouth to look inside, as sometimes his species did around opaque species.

“So don’t give away that you’re storing anything, no matter what they try. Ok?”

The ship shuddered violently around them, and several items came free of their hooks to float around the control room. A detailed hologram of a planet beamed into the middle of the cavernous room room and alien symbols flashed around it, indicating they had arrived in the system.

“Just tell them what else we’ve got and where we got it from. If they ask how we got it, make something up that isn’t ‘it was in the ship when we got here’. You know how to do that right? I’ll take us in.”

Light floated back to the control and plotted a course for the Fourteen Factories orbital station around Korit.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

A Quelun-Vosh approximately named Into-The-Abyss-In-Search-Of-Light tugged irritably at the ship’s controls and let out a wracking cough. His gel bubble was uncomfortably thin and sickly green in hue; his tentacles could barely make the requisite moves to control it. He made a mental note to replenish it when they got to port.

The control room, like much of the ship, looked like the inside of a cave. Control panels protruded from roughly hewn black walls. The displays were programmed to relay information in ways a QV could easily understand, though they did also bark reports at him verbally in Tindrel. He could understand some of it and his gel suit translated the rest, flashing separate lights on the inside of his bubble.

His suit also alerted him that his assistant had entered the cockpit fully. He turned and watched the crude lights flashing off their metal casing, then coughed again. “The best way to survive on Korit is to be invisible. The more you give away, the more people have to use against you.”

ITAISOL, as Humans often (and annoyingly) called him, looked distastefully at Senjen’s distinctive shell. His suit used sonar and echolocation to paint a picture of his surroundings, and he was increasingly worried the Utaysi was going to attract more attention that it was worth in protection.

“Did you mention you can change bodies? Mayhaps embody something more…discreet.”

“Four minutes to translight exit to our destination.” A Tindrel voice barked into the room.

He glanced back, then gestured to Senjen.

“Time to prepare for inspection. Do you have the docking and customs fees?”

Call of the Hunt [EliteCommander and Muttonhawk]

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Congrats! Looking forward to seeing this brave new direction.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

The Glen soldier grabbed Mallory and chucked him across his hindquarters like the XO was a rolled up carpet. At that moment a shadow crossed the bridge, causing more of the Glen to look up. They were about to be crushed by a stone hand the size of a farmer's cart.

“Look out!”

Mallory and his ride leapt out from under the shadow in the nick of time. Another Glen wasn’t so fortunate. The thick stone arm crashed down onto the bridge, cutting Eva, Ibarra and a few Glen off from the bulk of the group.

Shirik’s Great Blue Balls Of Fire took a while to create, but their effect on the mimics was devastating. Each were frozen solid instantly, including the one wrapped around Eva. Fog and mist obscured their view immediately after blinding lights, causing disorientation among the Glen ranks in particular.

“Impressive sorcery, but now we’re as blind as the day we were born!” Silbermine bellowed into the mist. He’d moved to intercept the mimic rushing to finish Shirik before it essentially exploded.

“My Lord, let us move off this forsaken bridge!” One of Silbermine’s knights pleaded.

Eva’s mech suit hummed and whined, before tearing straight through the frozen mimic. Her windscreen was covered in frost.

“Phew - sounds like a plan to me!” She urged, just as another loud thump sounded out further along the bridge.

“What was that?”

The stone arm laid across the bridge twitched. Then again. Then it began scraping across the bridge, coming towards Ibarra and Eva. It was easily two metres high.

The other arm appeared through the mist, sweeping from the goal-end of the bridge towards Shirik, Silbermine and Mallory. It looked set to either crush them all between the arms, or push them all into the river.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Clara Anselm stood on the ridge surveying the Jotunheim’s crash trail. Nearby were two engineers from Mythadia and the Ascendency, heatedly debating over a series of thick paper diagrams.

Down below on the slope, a team of mages were slowly easing the snapped VTOL out of the earth. It hovered in the air like a miracle.

Anselm looked down at the tablet she was cradling. It was connected to the ship’s vitals, all comms channels and camera feeds from the various drones and helmet cams. One of those feeds was from directly under the VTOL; she zoomed in to inspect the damage.

She absent-mindedly itched her scalp. She hadn’t showered in two days - Her yellow hair was slicked back in a tight ponytail underneath the headset she wore.

“Easy…Easy!” She urged, watching the equipment wobbling in mid-air.

In the ear not cupped by the headset, the sturdy Dane could hear the regular crack of firearms; Ezra was running fire drills with the civilians to get them used to weapons. Many of the aliens had taken a great interest in this, edging closer until the mercenary had warned them off. So instead they had set up their own drill squares.

Anselm was jerked out of her focus by a squark of radio chatter. Eventually she made out Eva’s voice.

“Jotunheim, this is Eva! We’re under attack, requesting immediate assistance- woah!”

Anselm immediately turned away from the engineers and found Warden Esedel watching her from afar. That tall dragon lizard was creepy as hell.

“Eva this is Jotunheim. Say again, are you under attack? What's attacking you?”

There were lots of sounds coming through all jumbled together - it sounded like a struggle.

Then a priority alpha alert popped up on her display. [IMMINENT THREAT]

“Get this >crkkkkk< off my beautiful face!” Anselm heard gunfire in the background.

“Eva!”

Anselm tapped a few icons and got Eva’s suit cameras up. Some of the feeds were simply black and writhing. In others you could see clopping hooves and spears being jabbed at the suit.

“My god.”

She switched to all crew comms.

“Attention, I’ve received a priority alpha alert which means there could be an imminent threat to the ship and our lives. Bravo team is in trouble, so everyone needs to get back to the ship and set up a perimeter now!”

Anselm then got in touch with Wodan.

“Wodan, you already know this but Bravo team needs our help. I need you to ready a strike package on their location. Await target paint.”

She then switched back to Eva and Bravo team.

“Bravo team this is Jotunheim. Distress call received. What is your situation? If you’re under attack I need you to paint targets for Wodan to fire at, over!”

Up on top of the Jotunheim, the long thin cannon slowly oriented to point at Eva’s last known location. A red light flashed and a siren rang out.

---

The black sludge was corroding the very fabric of the barge, even while it was beached on the side of the river. The boat creaked and rocked unsteadily on the silty shore. Zey slipped over - her shoulder and ribs took the impact, winding her. Probably for the best, as the fall helped her avoid an arrow to the neck. Scrambling back onto all fours to avoid sliding into the black pool in the middle of the deck, Zey crawled along the gunwale to where Dr Lambert was firing her rifle. Arrows thwacked into the boat and whizzed over their heads.

“Jotunheim, come in! Over!” Zey violently cleared her throat, then spat onto the floor. She didn’t hear Nellara’s call over all the commotion, though evidently Vigdis had the same idea.

Breathing heavily, Zey grabbed her backpack from near Lambert's feet and eventually extracted a pistol. The back of her head was throbbing. She press checked, then peeked over the top. One of the beasts lay dead where she’d shot it, and the other was crawling along the floor. Dead soldiers littered the riverside.

“Someone finish that thing off, then shoot those archers!” Zey shouted, just as an arrow pierced the gunwale and stabbed her thigh above the right kneecap. The Captain grunted in pain, her faulty implant flooding her head with pain suppressors. A loud crash nearby caught her attention and Zey found Kareet lying prone with a giant arrow in the chest.

“Kolvar! Kolvar, where are you?”

Zey held the pistol at arm’s reach, aimed down the iron sight and pulled the trigger with one of the distant archers in view.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

“I’m not leaving you to die sir - get out of my way!” Eva replied to Mallory, then turned her suit’s translated loudspeaker on briefly for the benefit of the Glen traffic jam near the swamp-end of the bridge.

Eva’s voice soon continued on the crew’s shared comms channel.

“Jotunheim, this is Eva! We’re under attack, requesting immediate assistance- woah!”

A fifth mimic beast burst from the water and flew straight at Eva. Its body was morphed into something like a large net with eyes, teeth and limbs. She didn’t see it til too late. She only managed to turn partially toward it and pull back a punch before it wrapped around the mech. Servos whined as Eva tried to stabilise her suit’s footing with all the extra weight and momentum. Metallic *pung, pung, pung* noises rattled across the water as hidden barbs on the mimic’s body tried to puncture the cabin.

“Get this thing off me!”

Two of the closest Glen turned and promptly began stabbing the mass of black tendrils with their spears. The creature squealed and tried to grab the weapons off the knights.

Mallory’s first shots ripped straight through the fleshy tornado whipping towards Shirik and Silbermine. It howled and lost its deadly shape, collapsing onto the bridge. Evidently, bullets made more of an impact than cutting off its extremities. It turned and began skittering back towards Mallory; Silbermine pursued it, hacking away at it with his sabre.

Mallory’s quick thinking and second burst of shots stopped another creature from flanking the nobleglen. It splashed noisily back into the water with holes in its face.

A few more Glen soldiers had sorted themselves out now and filtered past Mallory to make a defensive wall. One more reached down, offering a hand to the Human. They seemed to understand he was hobbled.

“Get on my back!” The Glen would haul Mallory out of the shallow water running across the bridge if he chose to take up the offer.

-

The mimic trying to grab Itxaro recoiled when its arm was crushed to dust, but didn’t stop. They climbed up and peered over the top of the bridge. Seeing Itxaro had turned away and was shooting another of its kind, the mimic jumped up to engulf the Human.

Shirik’s icy spear flew from out of nowhere into its body. A cloud of steam blew in all directions and when it cleared, the mimic was frozen in place, still reaching out for Itxaro. Thick, sharp icicles jutted up around its feet.

The inferno mimic recoiled from the impact of each shot Itxaro fired into its back. One of the bullets missed and went through the breastplate of the Glen the mimic was fighting too, killing him instantly.

Gouts of flame burst out of the tendril creature’s eyes and mouth. It turned and clattered towards Itxaro, seriously wounded and very angry. It’d reach her in just a few seconds.

The corkscrew mimic finished murdering the Glen immediately in front of Shirik. It’d absentmindedly taken a spear off of another Glen that’d tried to stab it while the mimic tore its prey apart. Seeing Shirik upon raising its gruesome head, it threw the spear at the Iriad with its tendril like an atlatl. It then charged forward, meaning to grab the fiery tree and douse it in the river.

Meanwhile, the ground underneath everyone began to tremble. The bridge rippled and undulated suddenly, as if coming free of the riverbed. One of the Glen stumbled and fell into the water.

With the sound of a terrific scraping and splashing, Two broad stone shoulders emerged from the water. They were connected to either side of the bridge about one third of the way across, near where Mallory, Silbermine and Shirik stood.

Then appeared arms, and finally crude, roughly hewn hands. The right hand swung slowly, laboriously up into the air in an arc that could end with it crashing down onto XO’s head.

---

“We got one!” Zey whooped from the gunwale of the barge as her second magazine clicked empty. She glanced instinctively around to check her crew were alright. Richard the medical assistant was firing an assault rifle in single shot mode to her right, shouting and screaming the whole time. Dr Lambert was on her left, filming the whole thing. Zey moved over to her.

“Where is Vigdis!” She shouted over the din.

“Ran in back. I need a weapon!” Dr Lambert shouted back. Zey had forgotten she’d forbidden the scientist from having a firearm.

The Captain unslung her backpack and kicked it over to Lambert. She then gruffly put her rifle into the doctor’s hands.

“Ammo is in my pack. Keep hold of it for me, I'm going to look for her!”

Zey then promptly turned and stalked towards the other side of the ship, avoiding the mess of black tar coating the middle section.

In the end it was the rattle of darts rolling around the deck that gave Vigdis away. The Captain found her scrabbling round on the floor trying to get them back.

“Vigdis, what's going on back here? We need you in this fight!” Zey bellowed. She reached down to grab the engineer by the shirt and haul her up.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

The creatures were quick and chaotic in their movements. The tendrils on their bodies appeared to shift in different directions simultaneously, seeking targets. The one below Shirik grasped the ancient Iriad’s foot with one of these tendrils before it was engulfed in fire. A whirlwind of black flakes exploded in every direction. The force of the magic blast smashed it back into the water. A large bowl of steam blew outwards and for a brief second the riverbed below was visible. Then the water rushed back in.

Silbermine and his Glen were much heavier than Mallory, so they merely turned and shielded themselves from the massive blast. Upon opening his eyes, the Lord saw the tendril beast unfurling itself from the nook it’d been hiding in on the bridge. It began advancing towards Mallory.

Letting forth a belligerent snarl, Silbermine drew his sabre from a flank scabbard. By Human standards it bordered on obnoxiously large at over 1.5 metres with a slight curve towards the end.

“We fight together! Lets see your mettle, mage!”

Clopping unsteadily forward on the partially submerged bridge, Silbermine slashed at the creature’s tendrils from the opposite side to Mallory but the same side as Shirik.

Two sizeable tendril-tips came off and slapped onto the watery stone beneath. They immediately began disintegrating into the bridge in a flutter of black grit. At the same rate, the creature’s tendrils started to grow back.

The horrific thing screeched and turned quickly away from Mallory to face Silbermine and Shirik. Losing its quadrupedal shape, it formed something like a black fleshy tornado of fast-moving knives. Without delay it moved quickly towards the space between Shirik and Silbermine where it could slash them both.

“My Lord!” A soldier bellowed from behind Silbermine and Shirik (towards the goal-end of the bridge). He moved forward to assist, but a fourth creature leapt from the water in the form of one giant corkscrew. With pinpoint accuracy, it pierced the Glen soldier’s armour and knocked him to the floor. The corkscrew drilled through to flesh, spraying blood everywhere as the Glen honked in pain and fear. Tendrils unfurled from the back of the corkscrew to engulf the soldier.

Further forward on the bridge, the first creature that Shirik had dispatched crawled back out of the water and up the side of the bridge. It was wreathed in flames just like the Iriad that had cast the spell on it. It went to attack another of the Glen that was hemmed in on the bridge just next to Itxaro as Shirik’s meteor approached the Human.

“Mallory, can you move? I’m coming over there.” Eva called over comms. Her mech wasn’t particularly well suited to this ruined bridge but there was just enough space for her to try and barge past Glen soldiers towards the middle. However, many of the loyal knights had the same idea and were rushing to assist their leader.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Zey quickly realised the folly of her last order when she looked around and realised this black tar had risen to the surface of the entire river around them. There was no escape in the water.

“Belay that, spread out but stay in the boat! Round the edges!” She shouted, feeling a strange tug on various bits of her gear as some of the locals began raising the boat out of the water with magic. Zey pulled her comms unit closer but had to hold on tight to stop it floating away.

“Jotunheim, this is Zey. We’ve run into difficulty, I…uh… I'm not sure how to explain it. We’re nearly at the shore now.”

She signed off and scanned the tree line when a line of natives appeared. Squinting, Zey’s features hardened when she saw what they were doing.

“Archers on the riverbank, take cover!” She yelled, crouching behind the gunwale to fumble with her gun. It was moving all on its own, probably because of its metal content, so she wrapped the strap around her arm a couple of times to stabilise it. Then Zey poked over the top and fired on full auto.

Her magazine was bigger than usual, holding 45 bullets, but it was still empty in just a few seconds. The muzzle flash made it difficult to see if she’d hit anything, but the barrage coming from the Humans seemed to have the right effect. The strangers fell back into the tree line, and for a moment there were no targets.

Zey looked around - the boat was in chaos. The natives were much larger and made very juicy targets for the arrows; she could see some of them had been gravely wounded. “Everyone alright?” She asked her crew over comms.

“How could they know we were here?”

Zey tried to contact the Jotunheim, but couldn’t make a connection.

“Jotunheim come in - we’re under attack by unknown assailants. Requesting indirect fire, do you copy?”

A horn sounded. Zey swore, put the communicator back and looked at her weapon. The magazine had another full magazine taped to its side, so she swapped them clumsily over.

A loud, rhythmic thumping came towards them, and two huge creatures emerged. Yelling out, Zey didn’t even hesitate into shooting her second magazine at the one on the left.

“What are these things?!” She shouted, not even sure anyone could hear her over the racket.

The Eye of the Needle (where Fantasy and Sci-fi collide)

Silbermine listened closely to everyone who spoke up, remaining calm despite the growing tension in the air.

“There are those who salivate at the chance to challenge a nobleglen. Not least the Lords of other Keraks along the northern border. These backwaters were not the place I envisaged for a duel, however.” Silbermine replied to Mallory.

Contrary to Shirik’s advice, the Glen soldiers had instinctively bunched closer together around their leader. They were natural herd creatures, and not even centuries of concerted effort to break this by the S’tor had succeeded. This evolutionary pressure had the unintended side effect of breeding Glen who were brave and belligerent on their own, which had a negative impact on the empire over time.

Silbermine brayed throatily as Itxaro stepped toward the destroyed bridge, pounding a gauntleted fist against his breastplate. His knights did the same, and it seemed to lift their spirit slightly.

“We press forward! Take your circle of smite with you, Shirik!” Silbermine called, as the rest of the group followed behind onto the bridge. Eva, in her hulking mech suit, brought up the rear.

The river in its current engorged form spanned about fifty metres. Going was slow, with many of the remaining uneven surfaces being regularly submerged underwater. The masonry was so damaged the travellers had to go one at a time.

Itxaro was close to the other side of the river and Eva was just about to start when Shirik’s demented laugh from earlier echoed around them. A deep, corrupted version of Shirik’s voice called out from everywhere at once.

\\”I haave seen the faaces of gods…”//

Two stooping trees on the far shore crackled. The boughs twisted and bent so all of the white flowers on them were facing the group.

“Shirik, is that you?” Silbermine bellowed over the noise of the rushing rapids.

\\”weep in your graaves…”//

For half a moment, it seemed that even the water became silent.

Then a sound halfway between a clock ticking much too fast and the wet tearing of sinews started. A black object larger than the Glen with four strong legs and innumerable tentacles sprung from the river. It leapt up towards Shirik, all its appendages aiming to grab the Iriad.

Two tendrils as thick as Itxaro’s arms sprung from the river around her and went to wrap around her legs.

A third creature, disguised as a large natural stone, shifted near Mallory’s feet. His vantage point sprouted tendrils and large jaws. Silbermine was in front of Mallory; he craned his neck to look around and brayed in anger.

“DEMONS ON THE BRIDGE!”