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.
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.
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.
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.
