El Gato Naranja

Paradise Lost

Sarvenolos

In the days since the fall of Eden, Sarvenolos had spent most of the time alone, quietly resting in shafts and vents that none of the others could reach or fit into. He was, in most practical terms, shocked. It had been one thing to be deep in the stress of the moment, when the Metacer were practically crawling through the space station and were about to enter the final colony ship to kill them all. When he spent most of his waking moments worrying about getting himself and his cat aboard the final ship above everything else, he just had no time nor incentive to actually stop and think.

Now, here, in the colony ship that still lacked a name, he finally had the time to think about the things that had happened. The anthropologist who saved him as a child was probably dead, deep inside some giant bug’s thorax or now nothing more than a slurry of biological matter. That one coworker he was quite sure was into him was also probably dead.

At this moment, even though he was in a crowded ship filled with the last survivors of Eden, he felt alone, save for his cat, who was always there by his side. He didn't know any of these people. He wasn’t in a particular mood to get to know anyone, not for the last few days… or weeks. Time was quite difficult to measure in a place where there was no night nor day.

And so, he had been up there, keeping to himself in a shaft that was quite unreachable for any of those with standard body types. Except for that tiny chieftain, Divaldo, but that amphibian aristocrat never visited. Probably because of the cat. He was scared of the cat.

With that said, with not much else to do other than sit and wait and occasionally eat, he went to the one thing he did best before he decided to take a shot at joining the military: music. He wasn’t much of a lyricist, he knew; he was more of a performer, someone who looked at someone else’s sheets and executed what was written. Still, he tried anyway.

Shifting stars, I sing in sorrowed sleep,
slipping through the silence of the deep,
Eden’s light — swallowed, gone, unkept,
sundered by the swarm that never slept.

I hiss the hymn of what was seen,
of sunlit soil and softer green,
now only static, sickly sheen,
Metacer mouths where dreams had been.

Sail, oh sinner starship slave,
sling me past the silent grave,
space-slick serpents in my throat,
singing salvage, single hope.

I saw Eden, I saw end,
I saw everything unbend,
stars went still, skies turned strange,
swarming shapes that slit and change.

So I sail on severed sighs,
starlight smeared across my eyes,
snakes of sound in sonic seas,
singing soft of what once was these:

Eden’s soil, Eden’s song,
Eden’s soul, now gone, gone, gone—
and still I slip through space unscarred,
a serpent stitched to drifting shard.
Ssss… survive… sail… stray…

---

The day would come, then, when an inhabited planet came into the ship’s scopes.
Such a momentous development was quite the seismic shift in Sarvenolos’ day. He slithered down from his hiding place in the shafts, coming to the bridge where a beautiful green and blue planet glimmered like an orb in the void of space. It was much like Eden, except that it wasn't on fire and consumed by a swarm of ravenous insects.

“Heavy industry, but nothing in space,” Sarvenolos nodded, slowly, as soon as Mark and Ren said their pieces. This would have been the first time they’ve heard him interact with anyone after they left. “They couldn’t be trying to hide from the Machines, as even we, an old refugee ship, can see that there’s technological activity. Could it be that they changed their methods of communication? Perhaps radios have been abandoned in favour of something else…”

With that, he started muttering to himself, not quite audible to the others. “...but we do need to resupply and if humans with their weak stomachs can subsist on what’s found on that planet, so can we. No offense… uh…” He looked over at Mark, snapping fingers on his tail-hand as he tried to remember his name. “...what was your name again?”

Graveyard Orbit

Charnud and Larce

A Collaboration Between El Gato Naranja and Momo

James and Neri hadn’t gotten too far before Charnud and Larce were able to catch them. Upon reaching the large house, however, the group decided it would be best not to do all their shopping at one store. While James and Neri took the house, Charnud and Larce headed for another property they spotted not too far off. Unfortunately, they weren’t greeted with a full unguarded clothes line once they arrived, but what could only be described as a crime scene.

The house, if it could still even be called that, was in ruin. Windows shattered, doors missing from the hinges, parts of the roof had even collapsed in. Most disturbingly of all, the walls were painted with the distinct scorch marks from blasters. Larce felt a chill run down his spine as he took everything in. Part of him screamed to get out of there, yet something about the eerie stillness of it all told him it was safe. Whatever had taken place was not a friendly gathering, but it was long over. Besides, there was no telling if they would find another opportunity like this. He had to at least check what was here.

Exercising extreme caution, his pace slowed with each step. The wood creaked under his shoes as he crept up to the front porch, echoing through the air as the only sound to be heard. After a brief pause waiting to see if his entrance had been noticed, Larce peered over the broken glass of the window.

The inside looked just as bad as the outside, but there didn’t seem to be any signs of life. Even the broken pieces of furniture scattered about had noticeable layers of dust and dirt on them. Whoever sacked this place hadn’t stayed, and whoever lived here never returned after. Confident they were alone, Larce signaled to Charnud to follow, and entered the home.

Their search didn’t last long. Anything of value had already been taken, and what was left wasn’t exactly in a usable state. By the end they managed to scrounge together a small pile of mismatched clothing in various sizes and conditions. It would be enough for them and a few others, but still wouldn’t cover the whole group or their more unusual companions.

“Well. First pick is ours.” Larce shrugged and began sifting through the pile. “So. ‘Political dissident monk’ was it? Gotta say, that’s a rather unusual combination.”

"I was a dissident before the other thing," Charnud replied. He bent over slightly under the doorway as he entered, such was his stretched out height. As he got indoors, the sky no longer felt like it was falling towards him, for he couldn't see it anymore. He inspected the pile of clothes along with Larce, quickly proceeding to take a pair of trousers and a shirt, both of them brown-ish in colour. Not the exact same shades of brown, but just well enough that they didn't look hideous together. Spotting a wide brim hat in the mix, he took it as well, putting it on his head.

"I was actually considered a fugitive for the things I said in network spaces," Charnud continued. "I entered a monastery first for the anonymity. They didn't ask who I was, just what I wanted to do. And I stayed there.”

“So you spoke your mind, realized the kiellar states don’t appreciate that, then hid behind the cover of religion to escape your past?” Larce shot a glance at the kiellar, reading his reaction to see how his summary of events landed before returning to the matter at hand. “I can respect that. Personally wouldn’t have chosen a monastery or really any religious institution myself, but I’ve done my fair share of running and hiding. Mostly because I’ve also pissed off the people in charge more times than I can count.”

After a bit more searching, Larce was finally able to find items close enough to his size. A white button up, worn work jeans, and a black vest. Surprisingly none of the hats or boots they found fit him, but given the population of this planet, it wouldn’t be hard to find some down the line. Not one to care about modesty, Larce immediately began changing into his new ensemble while continuing to chat.

“I assume that also means this will be your first time swindling? Think you’ll be able to handle it? Lying and cheating good folk isn’t something most people can do without losing sleep. Plus I’m sure your monk friends wouldn’t approve.”

"...swindling..." Charnud slowly repeated, as though he had heard the word for the very first time.

For a moment, he was back on the Nírnaeth Arnoediad's breaching pod, holding a pair of blaster pistols and suited up for combat in the airless vacuum of space. Behind him, other pirates readied themselves to bring chaos upon yet another hapless merchant vessel. He held his weapons and his head high, and let out a cry of victory before battle even begun.

Charnud snapped back into the present as he realized he hasn't really answered Larce's question. He blinked, and inspected the brim of the newly acquired hat, as if inspecting it for defects. Charnud nodded, slowly. "...I try my best.”

“Good. Because this isn’t just our best shot; it’s also our only shot. We screw this up… Well at least whatever end we meet would still be better than wherever that ship was taking us.” Larce couldn’t help but add humor despite the important point he was attempting to get across. It was always like that with him. No matter how dire the situation he could never fully treat it seriously.

Nearly fully dressed, Larce began buttoning up his shirt when he paused to inspect it a bit closer. “Great. I think this is a woman’s shirt… Eh. I can still pull it off.”

"Really? I couldn't tell." Charnud looked over at Larce, a hot pf humor in his voice. True to his word, the collar was a little too low for it to be a man's shirt. Or maybe it was just one of those v-neck shirts?

Ironically, jumpsuits like the ones he and his fellow prisoners wore were a much more familiar sight for him. Except that those jumpsuits were for mining workers, not prisoners.

Having finished changing as well, he noticed that between the two of them, he had more matching clothes. Charnud let out an amused sort. "It appears that I have divine favour on my side.”

“Oh yes. How could I forget the prophecy? The chosen one of the maker will be ordained by brown pants.” Larce chuckled as he slipped on his vest.

Hands on his hips, Larce took one last look around just in case he missed something. “Alright. I think we’re ready to rendezvous with the other two. We can circle back here to collect the rest after we hit town… Actually. One second.”

Larce darted through the door and into the bedroom. After a brief moment of struggle, he emerged with an old bed sheet he had wrestled from the mattress. “Let’s wrap everything up real quick. It'll be easier to grab on our way back. Plus we don't have anything for our ragon friend. Maybe they could use this as a toga.”

"Very well," Charnud nodded. He took the old bed sheet and placed the pile of clothes in it; not in a haphazard dumping manner, but with a measure of care that only someone used with doing laundry would have. He was quite efficient with the bedsheet, pulling the four corners together into a knot that was both easy to untie and also wouldn't fall apart a few minutes after it's been left alone.

With that done, he padded his hands together, as though congratulating himself and Larce for a job well done. "It is done, then. Let's proceed.”

Graveyard Orbit

Charnud of Ingiros

For most of the ongoing conversations, Charnud had been quiet. He didn’t raise a hand when a vote went up concerning whether they should steal clothes from the townspeople, and didn’t speak up either when objections were raised. He, for his part, was mostly just… thinking. For a bunch of prisoners, they haven’t showed themselves to be terrible specimens of sapience, at least, not yet. There was a Ragon, which had a reputation for eating other sapients simply because they were larger and stronger, albeit very drugged and barely cognizant. There was… a skeleton in a machine. And a machine. There were Kiellar and Dhasath, and a surprising number of humans, who, from what he could recall, came from that unremarkable planet called Earth.

Earth! Who would call their planet Dirt? Did they just hate their planet that much?

Soon enough, the Dhasath woman named Neri and a human man called Jaymz… Jeems… Jayms… whatever it was, decided that they would be the ones to gather clothes from the town. It was a sound plan; a large group descending on the place would be extremely suspicious. A small group, however, wouldn’t be. They could pose as vagrants, or wanderers, or survivors of an attack, or… something else.

Besides, Charnud could see that the Ragon was beginning to show signs of waking up. He didn’t want to be a first meal for it… or him… or her. Honestly, he can’t tell the difference. Ragon all looked the same to him.

With that, he took off, following Neri and James—except that they were already some distance away when he made up his mind. Curses. He’ll just have to catch up.

Graveyard Orbit

Charnud of Ingiros

For Charnud, everything felt heavy.

The desert sun stung his eyes, a roaring, screaming ball of light and fire that felt like it saw Charnud’s very existence as an offence. He hadn't been given shades, the mutinied prison ship crew either not caring enough or simply being unaware of his predicament. And so, as the ramp opened and the golden fire-light came in, Charnud raised a hand to shield his eyes, blinking rapidly as he saw actual ground on an actual planet for the first time in... a long time.

This place was, according to what he heard, Caldera 3. Caldera, a word that referred to an extinct volcano that had become shaped like a bowl. Was this world a former volcanic planet, one terraformed to suit living creatures on it, but never quite succeeding to the point that it would not become a proper temperate world?

Either way, this place may be terrible, but it was better than going to a mining colony. He knew for a fact that he wouldn't last long there.

This was clearly part of the Maker's plan, then. The Maker wasn't done with him yet.

As soon as he stepped off the ramp, he flinched at the open sky. It felt so strange and foreign, not being in a confined space like a space station for miners or an asteroid tunnel dug by monks. He blinked once, and then twice, processing the fact that it was, in fact, a real sky, an atmosphere in truth, rather than elaborate screens that mimicked what a sky looked like. Nor was it like those painted walls the daycares on Quendua had.

An open sky, clean air… not much water though. It was so strange, still. It felt like the sky above was falling upon him, and yet it remained there, unfalling.

She turned around, cupping her hands to her face to help her voice carry better, "Hey! Anyone wanting to change out of your prison clothes, follow me!”

“Wait, wait,” Charnud called out to her, as he walked slower than the others who were now attempting to follow the Dhasath woman. He heard words such as “Special Command” and “Marine Corps” being uttered by the other former prisoners that had gathered around her. Soldiers, then? At least if they were here, imprisoned alongside him, they weren't the kind who'd try to arrest him.

“So, introductions would be in order, since we may be working together for the foreseeable future,” Charnud began. “I'm… Charnud of Ingiros. I'm a…” He thought for a moment if he should reveal what he really was. Did they know? He wasn't a famous pirate. His captain was. Probably.

“...political dissident. Makerist monk.”

Half the truth was better than all of it, for now.

Graveyard Orbit

Charnud of Ingiros

Character Description

Name: Charnud of Ingiros
Species: Kiellar
Sex: A Man
Age: Around 70 standard rotations~
Reason for being on the ship: Long-time fugitive due to acts of piracy. He was captured after nearly twenty solar rotations of evading the law. Strangely, he has committed no crimes since ten years ago, having been traced and arrested in a Makerist monastery by the Mazdhul military police.
Appearance:

Seven foot tall elf man

Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills:

Gunslinger: Being a former pirate, Charnud is a skilled gunslinger. He favours high powered pistols and shotguns.

Survival in the Wilderness: He knows just about every survival technique under the stars.

Delicious In Prison: Somehow turns leftovers, terrifying fauna, and rations into masterpieces.

Weaknesses:

Low G Physique: Due to coming from a poorly funded asteroid colony that lacked the energy to keep gravity plating fully functional at all times and in all sections of the habitats, the artificial gravity he'd lived in had been rarely at 'normal' levels for most of his life. As a result, Charnud has lower stamina and endurance compared to most of the sapients deposited on Caldera 3, and is currently struggling to adapt to living in a 'standard' level of gravity.

Background:

Backstory:

Charnud never wanted to become a pirate.

The Kiellar Command had never been the most stable of entities. As a military dictatorship, its rule was a fragile, delicate balance, and when that balance was broken, the most powerful state in the Andromeda Galaxy shattered. Supply lines collapsed, and worlds and habitats that relied on imports found themselves cut off and unable to survive.

One of those habitats was Quendua Station, a port and mining asteroid settlement in a minor fringe system of the Kiellar Command. Here, Charnud of Ingiros had been living a more or less normal life as one of many asteroid miners whose labor fuelled the industrial machine of the Kiellar Command. It was not an easy life, but it was an honest living. Amongst friends and family, it was not too bad of an existence.

And then, twenty years ago, the Command broke apart, and the shipments stopped coming.

Quendua Station was never meant to be self-sustaining, and could never have been. Its population began to starve within just a week. Charnud would be among those who tried to trade the minerals they mined for food from the closest inhabited systems, but soon, it became an untenable situation. Their interstellar neighbours knew that Quendua Station was desperate, and increasingly jacked up their prices to take advantage of it. Those who tried to leave were turned back by all the ports they tried to berth in. Other factions came upon the station, extorting what little resources they had in return for not murdering them all. Less and less food could be brought back, and soon, despite their best efforts, they were heading towards starvation.

It was at this time that a fateful decision was reached. Other systems refused to take them in and took advantage of their desperation. The miners, Charnud among them, turned to piracy, transforming their now pointless mining ships into jury-rigged gunships.

Charnud was, at this point, an angry man. The Others had taken advantage of Quendua Station, willfully consigned his friends and family to starvation simply to garner more profit. He wished for them to feel the same pain they went through, and he made it so. It quickly became apparent that he was a natural pirate, skillful in all the ways that mattered. Soon, he was an officer on the “flagship” of the Quendua pirates, the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, usually simply known as the Nirn.

For a time, it seemed that this would be how he would lead the rest of his life, committing piracy in the high stars. That is, until his young brother, Hesiod, was killed in a boarding action that he led. It was his first.

Charnud had been the one who insisted that Hesiod was ready. Both of them had been eager to partake in the same acts of violence that had defined the Nirn and its crew, all of it justified as revenge.

With Hesiod's death, however, Charnud was, in simple terms, broken. After three solar months, he concluded that in his quest for vengeance against those who had wronged the people of Quendua Station, he had lost sight of why he had gone aboard the Nirn to begin with. He wanted his friends and family fed and safe. And he had failed on both counts.

Charnud would at this point go off on his own, unsure what he should do next. He would join a monastery, who asked no questions about the pasts of their members. For a time, it seemed that he would live out the rest of his days as a monk.

That is, until ten years later, when the Mazhdul Republic’s military police raided the compound and arrested Charnud for his previous acts of piracy. A mining colony would have been his end when, in a stroke of fate, or perhaps divine intervention, the prison barge crew mutinied before dropping him and other prisoners off on Caldera 3.

The Maker has a plan, then. He just knew there was.

Graveyard Orbit

Character Description

Name: Charnud of Ingiros
Species: Kiellar
Sex: A Man
Age: Around 70 standard rotations~
Reason for being on the ship: Long-time fugitive due to acts of piracy. He was captured after nearly twenty solar rotations of evading the law. Strangely, he has committed no crimes since ten years ago, having been traced and arrested in a Makerist monastery by the Mazdhul military police.
Appearance:

Seven foot tall elf man

Strengths and Weaknesses

Skills:

Gunslinger: Being a former pirate, Charnud is a skilled gunslinger. He favours high powered pistols and shotguns.

Survival in the Wilderness: He knows just about every survival technique under the stars.

Delicious In Prison: Somehow turns leftovers, terrifying fauna, and rations into masterpieces.

Weaknesses:

Low G Physique: Due to coming from a poorly funded asteroid colony that lacked the energy to keep gravity plating fully functional at all times and in all sections of the habitats, the artificial gravity he'd lived in had been rarely at 'normal' levels for most of his life. As a result, Charnud has lower stamina and endurance compared to most of the sapients deposited on Caldera 3, and is currently struggling to adapt to living in a 'standard' level of gravity.

Background:

Backstory:

Charnud never wanted to become a pirate.

The Kiellar Command had never been the most stable of entities. As a military dictatorship, its rule was a fragile, delicate balance, and when that balance was broken, the most powerful state in the Andromeda Galaxy shattered. Supply lines collapsed, and worlds and habitats that relied on imports found themselves cut off and unable to survive.

One of those habitats was Quendua Station, a port and mining asteroid settlement in a minor fringe system of the Kiellar Command. Here, Charnud of Ingiros had been living a more or less normal life as one of many asteroid miners whose labor fuelled the industrial machine of the Kiellar Command. It was not an easy life, but it was an honest living. Amongst friends and family, it was not too bad of an existence.

And then, twenty years ago, the Command broke apart, and the shipments stopped coming.

Quendua Station was never meant to be self-sustaining, and could never have been. Its population began to starve within just a week. Charnud would be among those who tried to trade the minerals they mined for food from the closest inhabited systems, but soon, it became an untenable situation. Their interstellar neighbours knew that Quendua Station was desperate, and increasingly jacked up their prices to take advantage of it. Those who tried to leave were turned back by all the ports they tried to berth in. Other factions came upon the station, extorting what little resources they had in return for not murdering them all. Less and less food could be brought back, and soon, despite their best efforts, they were heading towards starvation.

It was at this time that a fateful decision was reached. Other systems refused to take them in and took advantage of their desperation. The miners, Charnud among them, turned to piracy, transforming their now pointless mining ships into jury-rigged gunships.

Charnud was, at this point, an angry man. The Others had taken advantage of Quendua Station, willfully consigned his friends and family to starvation simply to garner more profit. He wished for them to feel the same pain they went through, and he made it so. It quickly became apparent that he was a natural pirate, skillful in all the ways that mattered. Soon, he was an officer on the “flagship” of the Quendua pirates, the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, usually simply known as the Nirn.

For a time, it seemed that this would be how he would lead the rest of his life, committing piracy in the high stars. That is, until his young brother, Hesiod, was killed in a boarding action that he led. It was his first.

Charnud had been the one who insisted that Hesiod was ready. Both of them had been eager to partake in the same acts of violence that had defined the Nirn and its crew, all of it justified as revenge.

With Hesiod's death, however, Charnud was, in simple terms, broken. After three solar months, he concluded that in his quest for vengeance against those who had wronged the people of Quendua Station, he had lost sight of why he had gone aboard the Nirn to begin with. He wanted his friends and family fed and safe. And he had failed on both counts.

Charnud would at this point go off on his own, unsure what he should do next. He would join a monastery, who asked no questions about the pasts of their members. For a time, it seemed that he would live out the rest of his days as a monk.

That is, until ten years later, when the Mazhdul Republic’s military police raided the compound and arrested Charnud for his previous acts of piracy. A mining colony would have been his end when, in a stroke of fate, or perhaps divine intervention, the prison barge crew mutinied before dropping him and other prisoners off on Caldera 3.

The Maker has a plan, then. He just knew there was.

Paradise Lost

Sarvenolos of the Third Fane of Tekumo

---

A back and forth argument had erupted between the Gendari monarch, the guards, and the clergywoman, so much so that Sarve began to have trouble tracking who was saying what. The Gendari said that he said that the people commanderring the ship now were pirates, which made Sarve begin to doubt his own memory. Did he actually say that? He couldn't recall, not anymore. His attention was split, worry creeping into every crevice of his mind as this whole situation felt like a bubble waiting to burst. It is, as the settler races would say, the calm before the storm. The fact that nothing had happened yet did little to assuage Sarve’s growing anxiety. The longer they tarry, the more likely people will rush into the ship! And the amphibian overprelate might just prove to be the spark to this forest of panic, waiting to be ignited!

Across the station the lights flickered out, replaced, a few moments later, by dim, red, emergency lighting. For those on the station, an alarm began to blare.

For those in the loading bay, this was, on queue, accompanied by the sudden appearance of huge, ant-like, six legged insectoids - metacer. They streamed towards the bay like an angry wave, some clambering up the walls in their eagerness to get to their prey...

For those at the boarding tunnel, some floors above, this was accompanied by panic amongst the civilians, who surged forward in their panic to get aboard, knocking one of the Security Guards, the one their leader had called 'Aspen', off her feet.

"No running!" the lead guard bellowed, "Get back!" though the command was completely ineffective at controlling the rush...

@Dyelli Beybi

The next sequence of events were quite something to behold at the moment. An explosion rocked the station. Then, everything was bathed in bloody red. Alarms that shrieked like banshee screams drowned the station in a terrifying warning. The people were already in the process of walking into the ship’s bay when that all happened, and every semblance of order fell apart.

For his part, Sarve had, by this point, volunteered to deputize, as he had trained in the military. Unlike literally everyone else, though, he was no longer on the floor, but on the ceiling, his serpentine form coiled around one of the many structural supports. It gave him a good vantage point with the blaster rifle he possessed, which was custom-built for his unique physiology. Of course, the cat was still with him, clinging on as always. He refused any and all offers for anyone to watch over the cat. Verminslayer was the last of the family he knew, and he sure as hell will never let her out of his sight.

Which all led, of course, to the present, where people began running in a disorderly mass. He was immediately at a loss of what to do; crowd control wasn't something he trained in back in the day, and this situation was entirely new.

“D-don’t push!” Sarve hissed half-heartedly, more concerned with taking aim at the end of the boarding tube to see if any Metacer were actually close. “You might step on or kill someone in the process!”

Paradise Lost

Sarvenolos of the Third Fane of Tekumo

---

Recent events had been... bizarre.

First off, Sarve had chased after his cat, Verminsalayer, after she had decided to jump away.

After that, he found his cat hungrily eyeing a Gendari. The Gendari had managed to distract the cat from pouncing on him, but then, the sequence of events began to get progressively… strange. After the Gloriont of the Gendari (yes, it was the actual sovereign leader of the Gendari species up here, not that there was a Gendari people left to rule over) successfully fended off Verminslayer by catching her attention with a stick, some guy got stabbed by some kind of hooligan, who then proceeded to get eaten by another alien. It was definitely not a Metacer, as Metacer don't stand on two legs, unless they somehow produced a whole new subspecies. It's not like cannibalism wasn’t unheard of among the primitive alien species that were the original inhabitants of Eden and her colonies.

Now, he had asked the Gloriont about cultural icons of the Gendari species, but he had been promptly ignored, as the old man was more interested in getting aboard the ship before anyone else could.

He'd lounge about after that, only to notice a group of armed guards moving to the boarding tunnel...

<Snipped quote by Bentus>

"What did I tell you! Armed pirates!" Divaldo declared from the far side of the camera.

@Dyelli Beybi

Vitiafa of Endiohon

Raising the grate to the boarding tunnel, Vitiafa measured the group that met her and Iorosinn. She counted 12 guards, armed and ready and a particularly pathetic and ugly xeno on a mobility scooter as she stepped forward.

"Officer Larci is away with a pilot, they left not long ago to retrieve his shuttle," the priestess answered as she stepped out into the open. Her hands were raised, cautiously but clearly establishing her as non-threatening for the moment. "We can call try to reach her communications if that is needed, but the pair should return shortly.

Her eyes narrowed angerly at the amphibian she towered over, though her hands remained by her shoulders. "Do not presume our motivations, either, and I assure you that they are honest."

@Bingelly

“Oh, it’s you people again!” Sarve appeared seemingly out of nowhere from behind the group of armed guards, and Diavoldo. “I wondered whether you actually proceeded with your plan… well, it seems that you have actually gone ahead.” He slithered a little forward, casting a glance at the Gloriont. He even gave a wink, a little quirk he picked up from humans. “Please forgive the Gendari, he's displaying signs of senility and paranoia typical of advanced age. I mean, you did talk about getting the colony ship ready so that we can all proceed into it in an orderly manner, yes?”

Paradise Lost

Divaldo

<Snipped quote by El Gato Naranja>

"Paranoid?" Divaldo demanded, puffing up with outrage, "Paranoid? I saw the attack you frelling idiot! Look at the body! You don't see many run-of-the-mill murderers who eat people," he snapped, turning his scooter to trundle sedately down the corridor away from the corpse.

"Well?" he demanded of Sarve, "Are you going to tell the Supervisor that armed thugs are stealing our only way off the Station and leaving us to starve or do I need to do everything?"

@Dyelli Beybi

Sarvenolos of the Third Fane of Tekumo

---

"I was about to do that," Sarve slithered faster than Divaldo's mobility scooter with the cat still on his head. He pointedly looked away from the corpse, still hellbent on not looking at it ever again. "Besides, they did mention that the ship is just stuck. Nothing about leaving without the rest of us. I think. Ah, well. I'm not familiar with the station to know where the Supervisor's office is... but you, being as important as you are, probably do. Right? Oh, and... I just noticed..."

Sarve was a very quick slitherer, as all Morelians were, and was already past the Gendari's mobility scooter when he turned around. "Isn't the Sacred Flame a very important thing for Gendari? I mean yes, I read a lot, so I know that, but your its keeper and I see a distinct lack of flames in your possession... this is such a sad day for cultural continuity. Aaaaahh... we Morelians don't have something similar. Just our existence is enough.

Paradise Lost

Sarvenolos of the Third Fane of Tekumo

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The Gloriont blinked at Sarve, looking ill and a little pale before pointing at the corpse on the floor, "Do those eyes on your head work, or can you truly not see that? It’s them! Bugs! Frelling bugs! I saw it! This station is overrun! We need to get out of here before they chew us both into appropriately sized pieces for your little Hezmana spawn to eat!"

"Quick!" he declared, apparently assuming Sarve would do what he said, "We need to get onto that Colony ship!”

“Oh, please don't remind me,” Sarve thought as the Gloriont looked like he was about to soil himself. He'd already thrown up, thank you very much, and the moth-like alien that had killed the would-be mugger and attempted murderer was already gone like seeds in the soil. Of course, he already had seen some violent films, but the real thing was, well, quite different. And real.

He'd decided to look away, pretending that the corpse behind them didn't exist. He spoke to the Gloriont like it was just another day in a peaceful space station simply to distract himself. It had pretty much worked, as he didn't feel too disgusted anymore.

The Gendari, however, was far more connected to reality than he was. He immediately started ranting about the bugs. The Metacer, right? They weren't aboard the station, weren't they? It's not like Metacer could pilot shuttles.

Well, unless some idiot brought the things aboard. Like an idiot.

“Bugs? Haha, you're just paranoid, there's no way they're up here! I know what a Metacer looks like, and they don't tend to leave… uh, survivors.” Sarve continued to act like there was no dead body, as if pretending that it wasn't there would make it go away. It's not like the man was a particularly friendly character. The moth-like alien, who was fleeing the scene just as Sarve slithered in, was of a species that Sarve had never seen before. Maybe his readings on the other integrated species of Eden and its colonies weren't complete? But if it isn't in the archives, then it doesn't exist, doesn't it? Ah well.

There's always something new.

“But,” Sarve continued, “A group of armed individuals were talking about having the necessary skills unlocking the docking locks in the bar. I was about to join their conversation when Verminslayer here suddenly ran off. Now, let us proceed to the Colony Ship in an orderly manner. We don't want to cause a crowd to gather, right?”