EliteCommander

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen could not reach the boat as Ruk had. It had been heading out deeper into the water, and he would just end up walking along the lakebed if he tried to follow. But for him, he only needed seconds without the virus impairing him for his mind to reset compromised systems and re-adjust to normal sensory input. Unlike the organics around him, his “intoxication” could practically be turned off at the snap of one’s fingers, by comparison. Now that he was seeing more clearly, the reality of how their surroundings had been manipulated to a more fabricated appearance became just as clear.

Ferrow’s approach quickly grabbed Senjen’s focus. He was still looking confused, but it was a much more “normal” sort of confusion than before. “Oh, um, yeah, but I think something went wrong at the end. I had to take it out. Uhh…” He extended his hand out towards Ferrow. “Do you want it back?”

Now that he could think clearly, Senjen waded back to shore, since that was where the boats were heading regardless. For a moment, he looked back out to Light’s boat. Jess he could see near to Light, laughing openly while she watched the struggle. Like the Myrmidon employees, she did not seem to be quite so impaired. He took a moment to message her. ”I’m just coming back to my senses now. Is everything alright with Light?”

Senjen could see her pause for a moment before her reply. ”Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it. You don’t need to be so afraid.”

It was not the first time Senjen had been out with the others drinking, but it was the first time he had been able to experience anything close to what they did, and it gave him a lot to process. Nevertheless, he could still see now that whatever they had taken was hitting Ruk particularly hard, and he wanted to keep an eye on her. Since the boat was heading back, he waited on shore where it was going to land to meet her.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

For Senjen, there was quite a lot that happened in a short few moments. Ruk pointed behind him, which was enough to get him to turn his head and glance back. While he saw the boat, he was not in a state to be quick enough to avoid it. He did lower his head and lurch forward, which was enough that it mostly just hit his back and forced him under. Then...everything went from surprising, to just plain strange. There was something in the water. Faces. There was everything from Utaysi and Tekeri, to rough shapes of nightmarish creatures. He could see them floating through the water, as well as moving in the distorted silhouettes of trees he could see looking up from below the water line.

As if that were not enough, a line of symbols danced across his field of view. It was hard enough to focus on anything in particular, and now he could hardly see what was in front of him. It was...words: an error log? What was wrong? Was something crashing? He could move his body, but it still immediately frightened him. He had been hit, but that did not usually cause something like this. Was it the light in the sky, or no...the virus! That had to be it. Something was wrong, and he had to get it out.

Senjen opened the slot for the memory disk and reached his hand back, scratching his claws along the back of his neck as he struggled to feel around for the opening. He knew where it was, he was pretty sure. Finally, a claw found its way in, and he managed to grab the stick and yank it out. The sudden termination of its programs sent yet another error log across his field of view, until his visual sensors crashed, along with sound, touch on his left arm and lower body, and proprioception. His motor control was fine, but the program had interacted with a lot of his senses, and many of them required a reboot.

After about ten seconds, Senjen stood back up from under the water. There were no more creepy faces and his vision was back to normal, at which point he realized that it had actually been distorted all this time. “Ah...is this what a headache is? You alright, Ruk?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

For a while, Senjen felt like he was starting to get a handle on this virus and the state it put him in, but it was on the way to the water that something changed. It had been confusing his senses, which was still the case, but as he tried standing back up on two feet, it was like the whole world shifted. The virus was confusing him...differently, just as he had been starting to get used to it.

Senjen was in a haze for a short while as he tried moving through the crowd after Ruknar. There were people talking to him, touching him, trying to hand him things, but he just mumbled “thanks” and “excuse me” a few times, mildly incoherently. It took a few moments for him to somewhat to the changes, but he did come out the other side walking slightly straighter, and holding some sort of drink for some reason.

Scanning his surroundings, Senjen spied Ruk again and waded out into the water after her. Currently, he was in a better state than her, though not by much. He tried in vain to remember what he had been thinking about moments ago. There was somewhere they wanted to be, and something he needed to remember, but after catching up with Ruk, his mind went blank. He hardly even noticed her lose her bag or get sick, or it might have reminded him.

“Okay, wait. Wait wait wait wait...wait.” Senjen began. He put one hand on her shoulder, while in the other he held the drink he was not letting go of for some reason up above the water line. “...wait.” What was it? There was something he wanted to do, or needed to say. Was it important? After a long silence, he just said something that came to mind. “I...can’t swim.”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“Oh...oh yeah!” Senjen remarked. Light’s suit was one that stood out among a crowd, though Senjen still had not noticed them at all until Ruk had pointed them out. “Let’s hurry and get another boat before they get too far away!” He took her hand to encourage her to hurry along with him to catch up with the others. Although, trying to rush just ended up with him stumbling. At the very least, he had the courtesy to let go of her before falling flat on his face.

Senjen did not get up quickly. In fact, he did not stand back up at all, but rather took a stance on all-fours. It was just as natural of a way for Utaysi to move, and far more stable than trying to stand in his current condition. The sound of him hitting the ground was deep, heavy, and for those with the presence of mind to think about it, a reminder of the fact that he was fairly heavy. He would sink a crowded boat.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen was relieved to have found Ruknar again. He did not want to be alone here at any point, but it made him even more glad to have run into her again. Even if that was more literal than he had intended. “Oh, good, I didn’t know...couldn’t find you for a second. There was this whole maze, and monsters, and I think some Humans were trying to eat each other’s faces. I think...I think you started a trend? I don’t know, but I found you, so...that’s good.” For some reason, Senjen got it into his head to try and put the feather he had been carrying around right back from where he had plucked it.

Bringing himself more into the moment, Senjen could not quite wrap his head around what he was looking at. His scrambled senses did not completely stop him from understanding his surroundings. He still knew they were in a club, consciously, which was hard to reconcile with what he was actually seeing. “Huh?” He began, staring off in the same direction as Ruk. “A hologram, or...I guess?”

“Can we go up there? It’s so strange, but it’s so far away.” Senjen questioned. Most would not be able to tell, but Ruk could have an inkling that he was mildly afraid. “Or maybe the lake?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“I, uh…” Senjen stammered briefly. There was a good chance he would have been just as confused sober, but as it was he had a few moments of bewilderment, staring down Ruk’s throat at she tried to get her beak around his head. There were a few moments that were just the clanging of keratin on metal, mixed with Ruk’s helpful attempts at onomatopoeia, before Senjen started to laugh. “Oh wait, I’ve...seen videos of this. I’m, uh, I’m prey, right? I’ve got to run or fight.”

Senjen tried to get a hold of her just as she slipped out of his reach, leaving him only with a loose feather. Reaching out a hand towards her, he stumbled at first, but kept his footing well enough to shift that momentum into running after her. “Hey, wait! I’m the one that’s meant to be running, not you!”

Given that Senjen was already generally confused in his current state, the next room was certainly not going to help matters. It was a maze, and he stopped in his tracks the moment he realized it. There were many wooden doors leading to many paths, as well as small rooms that ended up as dead ends. Like the club itself, it kept the theme of an ancient Human temple, and he could see a few figures in the area with realistic masks that had him entranced for just a few moments. He had never seen anything like what they were meant to be: there was some kind of horned creature, another that was an animal with three heads, even another that was a woman with a head covered in legless reptiles. He did not think to try and look up what they were, though, as he was just thinking about following Ruk.

Most of the patrons just outside the room they had came from were Tekeri, though not exclusively. As he wandered the winding paths, with no real strategy, he spied a few QV inspecting one of the masked figures, some Humans holding each other’s faces close, and a lone Tindrel, but they were no one he recognized. Holding on to Ruk’s feather awkwardly, Senjen just tried to keep himself focused to look for her red knapsack and spot her out of the crowd.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Since the Sthrirad could not meaningfully interact with Senjen, he was spared its effects, which was perhaps a mercy for him. He had been more immediately and intensely affected by the party virus than anything Ruk had been drinking, so if it were possible for it to amplify that, then he might have just been incapacitated outright. In any case, with the Sthrirad involved, many of the Tekeri were now similarly as impaired as him. Ultimately, the virus did not perfectly replicate what organics experienced with inebriation, just a close-enough approximation. Combined with the sheer novelty and absurdity of everything around him, and he ended up getting entirely lost in the experience.

Senjen was not particularly sure what was happening, whether it was instinct or improvisation, but his own instinct was to trust Ruk and follow her through it all. He became lost in thought and time and simply embraced whatever whatever each moment brought him.

With him living so far in the moment, Senjen might have even forgotten about the others. He reached out and gave Ruk’s stomach a few pats, laughing along with her. “I’ve, I’ve, um...what does ‘hungry’ feel like, I mean? You have, um, food, right, and it makes you...want it, right? You’re a predator, you...hunt. Does it make you want to chase things?”

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen had inserted the memory stick, though with code execution disabled at first for that slot so he could scan its contents. He got a good idea of exactly what it would do, and it felt like he would be crazy to activate it. If this was meant to simulate intoxication for organics, then he wondered for a moment why they would ever want to do that to themselves? It would not be painful exactly, but it felt like it would just be disabling. Still, as dubious as it was, the program did at least seem like it would perform exactly as advertised.

On his own, Senjen likely would not have considered using it, but Ruk had his hand, and she seemed perfectly comfortable with it. Excited, even. This sort of thing was a particularly popular pastime among organics across species and cultures, before they had even met one another. Even the Utaysi’s own creators, based on what they knew about them. Clearly, they knew something he did not.

Senjen laughed. “Okay, okay, if you insist…”

---

To say that Senjen was out of his element would be an understatement. Unlike for Ruk, the effect on him was immediate as soon as he enabled the program. There was a sort of disconnect between his mind and body, like he was trying to control it remotely. From orbit. The signals he was getting were designed to confuse his senses, and even his own thoughts. A Utaysi personality matrix was not something that could be accessed and edited directly, but the program took advantage of “psychological” tricks to influence how he could think.

Senjen almost tripped immediately as the program activated, saved only by Ruk supporting him. “Oh, I...wowww.” He began, though his words quickly devolved into simple laughter. The scene they were stepping into only compounded his general confusion. The music, the lights, the shouts, the dances, it was all alien beyond what he could understand. Especially now. Blurred as his thoughts were, he took the idea of “talking to the dead” more literally than she might have intended, and became even more confused about the fact that he could not see the corpses anywhere. Being immortal, death was rare enough on Orostro that the Utaysi did not even have widespread funerary customs to begin with. The idea of him understanding any sort of ritual for the dead was doomed from the start. For a few moments while they were outside the circle, Senjen just stood still, mouth slightly agape as he let it all barrage his senses.

Ruk would have to pull rather hard to get Senjen to budge, but once she had drawn his attention forward, his mind latched onto the one familiar thing he could see: the dances. They resembled martial arts, and Senjen was a practitioner of Tekeri martial arts. He had drilled and drilled those motions until they became “muscle memory”, for the lack of a better word. They were closer to instinct now, so he did not need to think or remember them consciously for them to come back to him. He was sluggish, uncoordinated, but Ruk might have been surprised at how well he still matched the general style of her dance, despite it all.

The vapor hardly registered in Senjen’s mind. He could not breathe to take it in, though he did at least have olfactory sensors to catch the scent. His idle thoughts settled more on wondering why the Tekeri’s face was so wrinkly and pink, and how he learned to fly away.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

Senjen tilted his head towards Light with a bit of silent surprise. “Really? I was thinking we might have more fun together, but if you really want to split up we can. Might have stories on the other side, at least.” He gave a quick glance up to the doors. “Still, there’s three doors and four of us. Two of us will need to share.”

This time, Senjen turned his head to Ruk. “What do you think, do you want company? Which door would you go through?”

Ferrow’s offer caught Senjen off-guard for a moment. He took the memory stick in his hand and looked it over a bit hesitantly as he listened. Taking random memory drives was something one would want to do cautiously. “Ah, well, if that’s what it does, then I probably would want to wait until the right time to use it. My friends haven’t had too many yet.” He said. Not to mention, he would also want to scan it, though he did not say that aloud.

Price of Life (EliteCommander and Cath)

“We just got here, really.” Jess remarked. Her tone was not rude, though she was predictably cold towards the salesperson.

Senjen nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we haven’t seen much yet.” He added. Senjen did not have the same type of instincts and suspicion about Myrmidon as a whole as Jess, but this “Farrow” in particular did seem a bit uncanny to him. There were parts of his story that were strange, and it made them seem just not quite...right. It might have been that it was nothing; perhaps it was just that they were a peculiar Utaysi that had been living a few decades out of Orostro. Then again, Senjen was a fairly peculiar Utaysi himself, so he felt he would be apt to recognize it. It would also be rather easy to put an advanced AI program in a Utaysi body, or have someone control it by remote.

If he knew Jess, Senjen guessed she would not much care what they did here, so he instead focused on the others. “Maybe we should follow the rooms, then? Tekeri or QV, what do you think?” He asked, putting an arm around both.