LustForDecay

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

The concentrated mass of unearthly power the voidhangers and tarrhaidim gathered around the reanimating dead immediately began turning heads, literally and figuratively. The two shovel-skulled worms turned and their bodies undulated in the current of an unseen wind. The cadaver's limbs crackled in the low-oxygen conditions, spraying up flecks of solidified fluid and loose dust. Hands rose at first and a sloughing mess of a torso, legs, head, raising to a stagger. Miasmatic power had pooled into the air around itself - ether and filth alike, blinding whatever primitive perception it had.

Even before the first one darted towards the blind cadaver, they had stopped caring about the uncertain fluctuations of the Envenomed. As one of them vanished into the ceiling above, another two darted through and sliced past the cadaver. The skeletal frame staggered as condensed light coalesced around the paddle-legs of the worms, sheathing them like blades and splattering fluids out into low gravity. Globules of visceral black splatter flew out and splashed against Echo and Kleo - on-board systems immediately began warning of qillatu readings sharply rising.

The door teared open as a pinkish stream of light flickered between the dripping puppet and the entity controlling it. Spherical in shape, bubble-like membrane of oily glass-transparency caging a sloshing mixture of bright oblong organelles, roughly the size of a beach ball. It pushed and stretched against its stretchy container as spaghetti-like masses of intestine-shape worms and semi-cylindrical masses slid and pushed against one another. A faint haze of pinkish smoke followed it in condensing streams of fluctuating density and brightness, triggering the Envenomed's various scanners and electronic warning systems.

Its body was soft but the entity was a living battery of etheric power; power that coursed into the corpse as the worming infestation colonizing its cranium began to quiver. As more of the worms made their passes, ramming into its body and suckling out the inky blackness, its head strained against whatever was left of its neckbones. Splinters shot out as it turned towards where a few hovered in the air, just a few feet away from the Envenomed yet further still from the now wide open door.

Like an explosion, the skeletal mask of the cadaver erupted as streams of pinkish, jagged light lashed outwards. Lightning flashes of power whipped around the room, their very presence causing the electronics behind the pillar to go haywire and spark. One worm caught the brunt; the first impact caused the air around itself to light up in the shape of a sphere before enough lightning-tendril shattered the barrier, scorching its body and sending it sliding across the ground, right in front of King.

The creature twitched and a sound, one heard in the low-air and felt across the psycho-somatic spectrum, rattled out like a thousand grains rattling in a container.

A sound like pouring rains hammering sheet metal answered distantly, rose, crescendo'd, echoing amidst the carnage unfolding before them.

Another flash of lightining, this one striking right above the heads of the group and showering them with sparks. Etheric backlash caused the field of camouflage to fluctuate as the sphere-organism hesitated... just long enough for one of the worms to dodge another whipping tendril and slam into it, smashing it into the root-ramp leading upstairs. Mandibles dug into it as the energy field around itself failed to activate - intended for etheric offences rather than physical ones.

The door's hinges creaked and sputtered, threatening to close as emergency lights activated along its sides. More sounds echoed out from the chamber - a dull, throbbing pulse growing in volume as the violence in the room intensifies. The worm was tossed off by a shockwave of force, sending debris flying, clattering against ceiling, floor, wall... and the Envenomed itself. Whether or not the sphere was interested in them or the predatory swarm was hard to tell.

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

As if annoyed by their hesitation, the door begin to widen with a whirring whine of complaining machinery. The vines of flesh loosened and a flare of teal flashed across the room and the countless shadows across the floor. The corpse on the ground was illuminated in those same cold colours as the light did not merely shine but flood within. The fixtures in the now open room pulsed their light as a glare across the room, consuming the dark and illuminating the creeping roots and festering corpse in visceral detail. A luminescent fog slowly crept in but the rays of light penetrated with not the slightest sign of dimming.

Echo immediately would notice an unusual signal emitting from the labcoated corpse; more specifically, the device. The buzz itself had not changed much beyond becoming a consistent if still faint tone. The main area of importance was that it was analysing the scope, breadth, and intensity of an encroaching wave of ether spreading outwards of the open door. If the untztadlige connected to the device, they would notice that it was connected to a series of cranially-inserted implants somehow still running within the long-rotted body.

Alice, Ilshar, and Salvator would notice this first. It was a harmless rise in the ambient ether; those untouched by the chasm would not even notice it as the balance of the unearthly began to balance out between both rooms. The worm-like visitors who loitered outside of the entrance would as well. Two of the five circled above the hole invisible to un-augmented sight save for the faint fragments of dust that whirled with them. The opening of the door and the sudden change in supernatural concentrations had rendered them cautious but not dissuaded.

With her eyes already on the gap through the door, Alice would be able to perceive another presence hidden within the fog. There were shapes, pillars perhaps but too gnarled and slouching to be of artificial origin around which fog bent and through which void-borne senses could not see. Something was pushing ether out of the room and it was moving their way. It did not pulse with a subtle rhythm of life but a steady throb, a slosh of nearly fluid sensation, its shape felt to both voidhangers as something tangible and solid yet squishy and malleable.

It had mass but it itself was not of strict and defined structure. Alice would be able to make out something silhouetted eight or so feet above the ground, partially obscured by one of the slouching pillars. With her immaterial senses she could feel its pseudo-spherical presence almost causing the ambient ether to coast around itself as if currents moving through a river. It was not a massive shape, maybe five and a half feet in diameter and like the worm-creatures, nothing about its behavior suggested it had visually perceived them.

In fact, it might not have been the Envenomed it was necessarily reacting to.

Ilshar felt it emanate from the celaderakan corpse. The wormy masses whispered not with vibrations in the air but pulses in the underflesh of spacetime; echoes like codes, pseudo-engrammatic signals of knowledge digested and excreted in purity. A waste product synthesis of knowledge digested and uncoded - patterns of occult signifiers that the celaderakan had collected in its lifetime and likely stored in some sort of sigil-organ, prime real-estated for the detritivores of the spirit.

Salvator would detect something else entirely; machinery, faint but living and activated by the slow approach of the sphere. The corpse was still but what lay inside of it was rapidly awakening. A cybernetics array triggered by the ethereoatmospheric conditions were causing a pulse of electrical and ethereal power to course through as the colony upon the corpse began to squirm, squelch, writhe and bend. Primitive wills forced to follow a new directive of synthetic, programmed origin as the squad's Heads-Up Displays detected a close-range scan.

One coming from the shuddering pile of rot that once had been a scientist.

Another one of the worms swept in and turned its head. While invisible still to the naked eye, it had turned its head towards the gun. The one next to it slowly began to turn its head towards the gealtirocht. His speirfhaire or "third eye" would be able to perceive them not so much visually as much as in an almost tactile way. Them slowly drifting into the room had been under the assumption the Envenomed would not notice them but the digitigrade alien very much did. Whatever they were feeling, they froze in place and a slight chill crept through the room - even Kleo would feel it in a way atmospheric correctional capabilities could not counteract.

King's extensive knowledge would be recalled; these were a sort of scavengers, primarily feeders on qillatu if at times opportunistic omnivores. Akin to free-swimming polychaete worms, they were colloquially referred to by most starfarers as "duct-cleaner worms" due to their resemblance to a type of automated cleaning drone. While not outwardly hostile, some species were known to be predators of smaller void-forms and they were not an uncommon sight around wreckage or realspace tears. Most were by default of moderate intelligence but voidhangers and especially praolznevatz were known to keep them as pets, hunting animals, or even in some cases military units.

Their ethereal capabilities were primarily used to shroud themselves from easy detection as well as wiping away any traces they had been in an area. Predatory ones could bind or even temporarily stun threat and food alike while other species were known to be able to disrupt ethereal enchantments or even electronics.

Based on their body language,they were still hungry but the increasingly busy room was beginning to make the two scouts nervous. The three who remained outside were still obscured but as pack-dwellers, there was a good chance they might act as a group if they encountered enough aggression.

The Evenomed: Violent Military SciFi Action Across A Post-War Expanse

<Snipped quote by LustForDecay>

Would you allow a character that’s basically just there for comedic relief, If not that’s okay because i’m writing 2 more characters as backup just incase

@ChronicleMan

No.

The Evenomed: Violent Military SciFi Action Across A Post-War Expanse

<Snipped quote by LustForDecay>

Indeed i have. CS should be done tmr night

@ChronicleMan

When you're done, write us a sample of how you'd introduce your character.

The Evenomed: Violent Military SciFi Action Across A Post-War Expanse

<Snipped quote by LustForDecay>

I'll Manage. Also almost done on the cs

@ChronicleMan

Have you looked at the lore document?

The Evenomed: Violent Military SciFi Action Across A Post-War Expanse

<Snipped quote by LustForDecay>

Probably half human half robot i'll Let you know tomorrow, Need to sleep

@ChronicleMan

The level of writing we expect is pretty high. Have you seen the IC?

The Evenomed: Violent Military SciFi Action Across A Post-War Expanse

This still open?

@ChronicleMan

What kinda character do you have on mind?

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

As the squad cautiously advanced into the room the smell that had greeted them embraced with a foul reek to any biological senses present. It was almost as if it had waited for them to step further from the threshold of the door.

Echo's drones would be the first to gain visual of something silhouetted against the floor behind the fallen tangle of roots and pulsing that lead upstairs. Behind the upwards ramp of fleshy growth, a faint aura of heat radiated outwards of a fallen form on the floor. If the drones spread out towards the room's walls, they'd gain an angle on and the sight of a body.

Oily black sludge of degraded biomatter spread itself outwards of semi-skeletal overgrowth of qillatuform bioforms. A coral of corrupting pulsation and segmented worm-mass colonizing the sludgey remains of a shape that as bipedal in nature but human only by convergent evolution. Bony crests coalescing symetrically across its face creating sharp ridges and flattened valleys, above a small mouth full of pointed teeth. What was left of its body looked like bone patterned as if it were corrugated metal, corrupted and having lost its armorlike rigidity from the corrupting filth that had taken over its remains.

Qillatu radiated albeit lightly, a dull flame or embers at best. The air around it blurred heat-wave like and ether-trails lead away from it. Its body or the qillatu itself had been a food supply for the other denizens of the Sargasso, explaining why it wasn't flooding the room with nauseating vileness.

It was a celaderaka perished of qillatu accumulation. The stench was strong but it was damp, aged, somewhat less overpowering strangely enough as if it had been reeking here for a while. In the sludge of rot surrounding it were bits of junk half buried under the seeping black. A lanyard with tag attached buried under a squirming pile of wormy forms. A labcoat stained black with the waste lightly pouring from the corpse. A handheld device attached to what was left of its left hip, buzzing lightly as in protest of the fluids dripping over itself.

Up in the yellow lighting of the room above, the projected sight of Ilshar saw that the squad was correct that they were not alone. Up through the gaping hole in the collapsed ceiling and there was far more space. Space that was well trodden and used, with ethereal concentrations being higher. Enough that true sight through his probe was blurred and unclear, making out long bridges connecting walls and a long corridor like space, broken up with withered trees and areas where debris had piled up along the floor.

That is what a scan would have unlocked but it would be the tarrhaidim's trained senses that detected something subtler and far more concerning. Movement in slithering patterns, breaking the dense concentration of supernatural miasma - like fish slithering between one's fingers. Shapes that initially seemed little more than clouds of debris gathering around manipulated anomalies of gravity unfurled and slithered through saturated air and-

Carpets of paddling limbs rippling waves of voidsong through consistently undulating forms flattened to hide and to explore trailing antennae like coattails of royalty their movements-

The influx of clarity abruptly stopped as one of them drifted close enough that ethereal senses could make out its shape, form, colour, even the deliberately suppressed pulse of its organs. It was a large creature, roughly 10 feet long and flattened, soft but not delicate and four others with it, slowing as Salvator's masking activated.

Not invisible to the naked eye but not yet close enough to the ceiling hole they would be able to see the translucent distortions of light. A worm-like chasm-creature, exact species difficult to determine but the spectral scent of qillatu not of its own was present trialing behind them. They had been feeding on those less fortunate but the sudden cessation of signatures within the room must have drawn their curiosity.

As Ilshar focused on the upstairs, the rest of the squad would hear a long, grainy groan. It sounded, no it was mechanical to an extent; the amount of ships and other stations the Sargasso had absorbed into itself and their conflicting gravities would cause parts to scrape, press, crush, and protest against one another.

Groans like that weren't so... modulated however, seemingly louder on the way here than when they rumbled through the doors. The flesh-vines holding them together shrivelled and tightened. Both doors struggled to close but ther correlating mechanisms crackled and cranked, long since broken from years of disrepair.

A chorus of such rickety machinery followed the groan from the doors. The teal light emerging from behind intensified then diminished. Whatever provided light struggled against what could be assumed to be the failing electronics and weak ethereal concentrations powering the ghostly glow peeking out at them.

The Envenomed: Military Science Fiction Deniable Operations

The hatch itself wasn't rusted or broken. Electronics flickered and blinked as they were accessed with lights flicking around the manual access levers and grips hidden behind retractable or flipping components. The fogged-over slit stared back at them but they could see multiple mechanisms unlocking, hissing out smoke, sealing the chamber as the hatch's lights blinked red. Smoke billowed out of the edges as the portal opened to a dull teal room. Lights on the floor and ceiling peered at the squad as they entered and the hatch shut behind them.

Pressure readjusted, sanitizing gas filled the chamber, gravity stabilized as the door before them groaned, creaked, and retracted.

The Sargasso welcomed them to its depths.

BGM

Corridor of the Sargasso

The corridor itself was narrow and already crowded with a mixture of debris both artificial and uneartly in origin. If they entered the corridor they would find doors collapsed inwards, crushed like broken spines before rooms where collapsed ceilings lay meshed over by rampant growths. Growth reddish and fleshy, coalescing into bioluminescent bulbs complimenting the flicker of dying neon.

Oxygen was low but not absent, mixed in with a variety of strange chemicals likely from the creeping flesh-like growths. Gravity was low - bits of shattered furniture and fixtures hovered and slowly descended as if kicked up by a distant current. The room was chilly and cool with the only heat being faint from the bare electronics needed for functionality and milder still for the carpeting flesh that claimed whatever it could. If not stretching thinner and thinner across the floor, drifting lazily outside the windows.

Past a door sucked into a floor by a veiny mess of void-mold, they would come across a room where seeping flesh had long since conquered cold metal.

Visual

On their HUD's and augmented visual displays, markers superimposed themselves across the moldering terrain. Each was chased by a series of digital trails racing through the door being pried open by pulsing roots and the circular hole in the ceiling. A timer manifested as well.

TIME UNTIL COMMUNICATIONS RE-ESTABLISHED - EST. 30:00 MINUTES.

On their digitized map, they were still around the edges of the Sargasso, roughly two and a half clicks towards a point where the overlaid navigation trails diverged, offering roughly three visible paths towards the crashed ships. The path through the pried-open door appeared to present a longer, straightforward shot to the forking paths but the map data was incomplete. The ceiling hole featured more obstructions but data for it was more readily available.

The envenomed were on the far side away of the station from where pirate vessels had been spotted foraying into and blasting the derelict station. That did not account for prior incursions into the Sargasso however.

Nor did it account for the sounds already wafting into the room.

It was a dull ambience in the background at first, electronic and feeble - an inconsistent twittering buzz that followed them as they entered the first room and were able to see the full extent of the infestation. Feel and hear it squelch under feet and whisper in the residual echo of ethereosynthesized qillatu, the touch of ether lingering from years upon years of falling in and out of the Oneiric Chasm. Sounds that echoed not just in the very space they occupied but float like fragments of thoughts, intruding upon the conscious mind, hiding behind the clouds of their consciousness before vanishing.

For the voidhangers, Ilshar, and Rho-Hux there was something more. They could feel something, almost like viscous fluid of some sort, sliding along the surfaces as if even if not communing with them, nonetheless was overheard by senses attuned to the otherworldly. There were two streams of this liquid-like sensation, following to trails of creeping tendrils - the more powerful signatures stretched upwards into a room lit by faded yellowing lights and a comparatively feeble one through the door those growths kept pulled open.

Behind the collapsed ceiling that lead upstairs, a variety of blue-white computer screens faded and glowed as if they were eyes struggling to stay awake. The meaty growths did not crowd around or over them save for a few strands across their edges, silhouetted against their pulsing electronic blink. There was a smell that emerged from behind where the ceiling had fallen down, something rank and foul - finely rotted and by its strength, recent.

Of note was that the large hole in the ceiling appeared to be under a holographic display projector. A very dated model buried under the creeping void-filth but the ceiling-mounted image maintenance hardware was absent, not embedded into the gunk but seemingly removed. By the various indents along the branch-like masses that formed a bridge from the current floor to the one above, they had been used very frequently.

Very distantly, a sound like a wailing throb wafted through the corridors. The echo itself was not a series of paused phrases or tones but a single and long pulse uninterrupted and strangely clear. Little distortion could be heard but it diminished gradually as if patrolling the unseen passages above - from the map they were given, apparently some sort of larger hallway area or an environmental regulation chamber. Scanners detected a degree of fuel of some sort splattered about upstairs - possibly for shuttles or some of the older model thrusters on the aged station.