Xenoparasites!

#136

(In the field)

The horde of disturbing, reanimated creatures were apparently satisfied as they ceased communicating with the herd leader and all instead continued to spread forwards. This time though, they ignored the injured adult. Whether they would do the same for the rest of the herd, well, only time would tell.

<hr />

Serah would find that the distracted Monstrosities barely registered the fact that she was running towards them, so not even a swipe of a bladed finger whizzed past her head.

She'd also find that the fleshy grey growth was very loosely attached to the ground by roots that snapped easily once she'd picked it up. It wasn't so much heavy as it was large and awkward, as well as pulsing rather disgustingly.

She'd also find once she picked it up, that every single Xenoparasite were not just staring at her, but following her as well. Oddly however, they weren't attacking. What will she do with this strange turn of events?

#137

The Artificer would have narrowed it's eyes if it could.

"Adequate metals have been provided. Construction will begin shortly."

The lord placed a cold metal hand on the asteroids, and waited and the shifted and convulsed into the form of a dozen large, arachnid creatures hovering a few feet off the ground. Their faces were a mess of lenses of various sizes, each adjusting itself as they looked around. Each long, slender limb had a variety of tools, much like a Swiss army knife, apart from the front two. These arms boasted vicious looking weapons, from serrated blades to large drills. A couple of the metal spiders had replaced their front limbs with a pair of large and powerful looking guns. The lord inspected the Artificer construction spiders, and gave a silent command to build a Tomb Fortress from the materials in the last two asteroids. Calculations indicated that there would just be enough to construct the fortress, defences and all. Mighty particle cannons could sweep away anyone foolish enough to attack and, more importantly, harvest living material in larger amounts. Power required to fuel the refineries and construction chambers which could make better use of the metals available, needing far less than the lord needed to build.

Power. That was always an issue. The tomb could draw enough power from the planet itself to get essential systems running, but far more was required to power the more exotic features. The lord glanced at Lykaios. Such power that creature possessed... a perfect fit for the power matrix.

#138

(Ground Zero)

Lykaios stayed where he was whilst the Lord Artificer brought mechanical spiders from the asteroid he was above, not even changing positions other than to watch the workings below him with interest, ears brought forward. The white wolf then stood up and stretched languidly, the scar the Underling had gotten from their meeting alreadly almost healed. The blood though had long since been washed clean, so his white coat gleamed in the sunlight.

"I see my little gift has worked well for you" the ancient creature said, making a show of leaping down from his 'perch' in the middle of the air to hover just above the ground facing the Lord "if that is all you require for your stronghold, I'll be going now". Lykaios told the other ancient being, but tilted his head in the curious manner of a true wolf "Is that enough?" Quite frankly, he didn't like the way the mechanical creature was looking at him-and it had been a while since the Underling had felt truly uneasy.

#139

The lord shifted it's gaze to the vast entrance, a large set of doors that were as elaborate as they were secure. Nothing short of a god was getting inside the tomb uninvited. The Lord looked back at Lykaios.

"Follow me. It would be benefit both of us for you to inspect what your delivery has created."

#140

Lykaios stared the Artificer, one ancient being contemplating another. Could he trust the machine in front of him, offering to show him around the inside of a fortress with doors so thick that it was doubtful many living or mechanical beings could get through it? The answer was undoubtedly no, just for the very fact it had chosen to associate itself with the Underling even after finding out who and what he was. To put it simply-on the one hand, knowledge was power, but on the other hand, curiousity killed the cat.

"Why?" the white wolf eventually said, unwilling to move until the Lord answered that one question. Besides anything else, if he was honest with himself, bar his simple curiousity, there was nothing more to be gained here for him. He'd set them up, and between these mechanical beings and the undead terrors this world-though not his original target-would soon be devoid of life.

#141

The Artificer turned to Lykaios.

"It would be beneficial."

Silently, the two heavily armed mechanical spiders floated behind the wolf, larger versions of the warriors guns glowing with sickly green light.

"You will come with us."

Jabbing the wolf from behind, the spiders fixed their gaze on Lykaios. Multiple eyes scanned and inspected the creature, locking onto their targets.

"Co-operate, and vast knowledge and power will be within your grasp. Cross us, and we will take what we need by force."

#142

The white wolfs head snapped around at the newly created mechanical spider that dared jab him, the tip going through the ethereal glow as easily as air, for the being had not expected such physicality so early. A low, wild growl escaped Lykaios throat as he glared at the two armed spiders behind him.
"If they try that again your new fodder will be gone faster than they were created" Lykaios warned, moving his head back so he could face the Lord once more, but the snarl that had graced his lips with a vicious look whilst staring at the construction spiders had disappeared. Lykaios started towards the doors, making a show of being cool and calm about the whole thing "Alright, since it's that important, I'll come with you"

#143

The artificer mearly turned on the spot, and strode inside the tomb fortress. When Lykaios and the guards keeping close behind him were inside, the vast armoured doors shut with an almighty thud and a hiss as they sealed shut. They were inside a large chamber. Everything in this chamber was a gunmetal colour, with many hieroglyphics carved into the metal. When the Lord was in the centre of the chamber, the hieroglyphics glowed a sickly green. Anything with the right senses or equipment that apart from Lykaios, there was no life. Not even on a microscopic level.

"Follow me. Do not wander anywhere, or the self defence mechanisms of the tomb will activate and you will be banished from this place... at the very least." The lord warned, with an unnatural sense of menace.

[BEGINNING SELF DIAGNOSTICS]

The lord entered a corridor directly in front of them, though a doorway lined with gold. The doorway donned more of the hieroglyphics, and a shining gold skull over the top, not dissimilar from the head of the Artificer. Lenses in the eye sockets focused on the new arrivals. Travelling down the corridor would have been a confusing experience if not guided by the Artificers. This was mostly due to the fact that there were no clear navigational guides, the walls were still covered in the strange hieroglyphics and the doors all looked alike. Another factor to the confusion would be part of the tombs defence systems, the air was laced with a form of neurotoxin designed to disorientate those who breathed it in. The Artificer suspected it didn't affect Lykaios, and it didn't matter.

After 5 minutes of travelling down the corridor the group finally arrived at another, larger set of doors. Small beetle like creatures seemed to make up the doorway. Each was sculpted to be facing inwards, towards the doorway. The Lord waved a metal hand to reveal that these Scarabs were yet another security measure. Each of the beetles eyes were laser projectors, and would have sliced up nearly anything that passed though. The doors opened, and beyond them a large chamber was revealed to them. This chamber had many, many strange boxes up and down the walls, each finely decorated, each a shining gold. Whilst the hieroglyphs on the walls were glowing, the ones on the boxes were not. Standing in the middle of the room, the Lord addressed Lykaios.

"This is the beginning of 50 levels of Catacombs. You will notice however that each of these stasis pods are empty. This is where you will serve your purpose."

The Lord silently ordered his spiders to back off slightly. Their guns would still be ready to fire a moments notice, however the breathing room would make the creature feel more at ease. At least that was the idea.

"This is not an original tomb, if we want our reinforcements, we will either have to build them ourselves, or teleport them there into these stasis pods from the closest tomb world. This requires the tomb to be running at full power, something we cannot do until the core of the planet can be tapped, or enough energy is harvested from the living here. However a temporary measure could, and will be implemented. You will reside in the power matrix until reinforcements have arrived at full force, after which you will be free to leave. Any data you wish to input into your memory will be open to you afterwards. When we have a foothold in this world, you may even be welcome to join us in the great harvest. That however will be up to the god to decide..."

The Artificer didn't wait for a response. With another gesture the floor beneath them began to sink, and what was now apparently an elevator began to descend. Slowly at first they passed more and more of the stasis pods, gradually gaining speed. Finally they arrived at their destination, a room shining with gold. The hieroglyphics here were dim too however. In the distance a strange black crescent could be seen, with various crystals connected to it via thick cables. These crystals were dim as well. Something was obviously meant to to be placed in the crescent, and this time if the Lord has it's way, it would be Lykaios... for the time being.

Jodie · #144

(the field)

Zamural tilted his head and said quitly "They are just leaving him..."

Foresta said nerviusley "And they are heading in our Direction!"

Buzz gulped and said "Sh... Should we help the Leader?"

Zamural said "I.. I think we should continue in running for our lives"

Foresta growled angrily and jumped out of the tree and ran in the Direction of the leader

The other members squeaked and gasped scardly at Foresta

Zamural roared "FORESTA COME BACK HERE NOW!!!" But Foresta just continued running

The Leader lied down on the ground again and rested his head on the ground and mumbled weakly "This is not my day..." he saw Foresta and wanted to shout but felt too weak

<hr />

Serah was too buisy running to notace that they didn't attack her at first untill she picked the strange growth up, she skidded to a stop after a little more running and she wonderd 'what should I do now?...' then thaught 'this thing is weird... and discusting...'

Then she turned around to see the Xenoparasites stairing at her and seemed to be following her too and said nerviusley "uh... hi?" she backed away a little.

#145

(Ground Zero, The Tomb Fortress)

Lykaios watched the Lord Artificers actions and looked around the place with interest. The disorientating neurotoxin had little effect on the immortal, other than the one point in their journey he had to shake his head after inhaling. This body breathed-although it didn't really need to, it was a habit he'd picked up from his visit to The Wolves Realm, and it was quite hard to break. Fortunately though, the regenerating abilities he possesed rendered the toxin a mere annoyance, even when consistently surrounded by it. They passed two fun looking doors, then went into what was probably the centre of all of what the Artificer informed him were reinforcement pods. Of course the two spider bots with their guns backed off there-well, there was much more room, but there was probably another reason for it. Then the floor started travelling downwards after the Lord told of his proposal-and Lykaios now knew what the 'benefits' were. Benefits that would first go to the Lord and the army he seemed to be part of. He'd had to stifle a yawn at the mention of yet another 'god' however.
When they finally stopped the Underling looked beyond the life harvesting mechanical being towards what he assumed must be the power matrix, a large black crescent attached to a lot of dim looking crystals. Ah, a crystal power system, there were quite a few species around that were using, or had used them. It was so obvious what they wanted him to do that Lykaios began walking over to the crescent. "Let's get your reinforcements here then" he said as he began to pass through
"keep your word Lord and we'll get along fine in this endeavour. Don't and... well, I have some more tricks that I'm sure you won't like" he warned, grinning wolfishly. On his way over there though he made particular effort to both solidify and harden the glow around his right shoulder. Whatever was to happen once he was in or on this machine, noone and nothing was going to touch that particular part of him. Now floating slightly above the black crescent, the white wolf turned back around to face the Artificer "Now what?"
<hr />
(The field)
The reanimated horde behind the herd Leader, climbing over the hill he'd created, still continued to ignore him. Occasionally a bright blue insectoid Monstrosity came up too, hauled over the hill wall by the more nimble lizard birds.
Foresta in her mad dash forwards towards the herd leader would find the creatures simply made way for her-none attacked, but none stayed in her way long enough for her to attack them either. However that wasn't stopping them from attacking every other living thing in sight...
<hr />
(Serah)

When Serah backed away a bit, the Xenoparasites stepped forward, then stopped. None of them made any indication that they'd heard or understood her greeting, but none attacked either-they just stared at her.

Serah would feel however a tingling in her mind, followed closely by the feeling of surprise that was not her own. Then she would see a picture of herself through dead eyes, saying the same thing that she had said moments ago... "Uh... hi?"

#146

The Artificer didn't speak. It just looked at Lykaios for a few seconds, and made a small gesture with it's hand. Half a second after that, about a dozen spikes attached to thick, black cabling came flying at the immortal and embedded themselves into his body, the spikes designed to pierce some of the hardest substances in the universe making short work on Lykaios' body. In what would be an indescribably painful experience, energy surged though the cabling and into the crystals below, which now began to glow. Each heart beat surged more energy into the base, and soon the Artificer was getting reports of all the systems that were back online.

[TOMB SHIELDING 100%]
[PERIMETER HEAVY WEAPONS ACTIVATED]
[CONSTRUCTION CHAMBERS STANDING BY]

The list went on and on until finally...

[CONTACTING NEAREST TOMB WORLD]
[...]
[...]
[...]
[TELEPORTING AVAILABLE UNITS: STANDBY]

The chambers above were filled with the sounds of hundreds of thousands of stasis pods receiving teleporting units. It sounded like a horrifying, wailing choir. It was a full hour before this was completed, and soon a vast army of machines was at the Artificers disposal. With another wave of it's hand, Lykaios was released.

#147

(Ground Zero, The Tomb Fortress)

Lykaios barely yelped or yelled when the first spikes started hitting him, not because it didn't hurt but because he was concentrating so hard on making the barrier over his shoulder as strong as he could make it, they registered only as irritations.
Then one headed straight for his shoulder and the Underling realised too late he should've added some flexibility to it. After providing a few seconds of resistance the barrier shattered with the sound of breaking glass, dissipating back into the glow, and the spike embedded itself into the one area that he didn't want it to. When it dug into his flesh, the white wolf did yell, a long, loud echoing scream of agony.

"You... fools" he breathed before he collapsed even the substance under his pads he'd been using to float disappeared and he hit the black crescents floos with a slight 'thud', overcome by the entire process. Now he did nothing more than shudder at every fresh wave of pain as his life energy was pumped out with every heartbeat.

Of course this meant that he couldn't tell them why he'd said that, since he was as close as he could be to passing out right now without actually doing so.

But the machines should be able to detect tiny nanobots that swarmed out of the wound in his right shoulder and up the cables. Tiny plague carrying machines that regenerated as well as their 'host' did. They weren't alive, but they were dangerous to both biological organisms and mechanical beings alike, their plague affected both. In Lykaios, it was trying to painfully rot away the flesh. But on machines, they'd damage the cables, wiring and anything else the artificial plague they spewed touched until it shut down.

Once the spikes were removed, the gaping wound in his right shoulder would show festering, dark green and black flesh where the Immortal had been carrying them around for so long. Lykaios didn't even so much as lift his head after what had just happened, so it was highly unlikely The Artificer was going to get much out of him at the minute.

#148

The artificer watched as Lykaios released a swarm of nanobots upon the tomb. It was obvious that these nanobots were sent to destroy the Artificers. The treacherous life form would pay, but there was no time to dwell on that...

[ACTIVATING EMERGENCY EVACUATION PROCEDURES]

It wasn't a guarantee that they'd all escape, and the tomb would certainly be lost to the nanobots, but the Lord would have an army left afterwards at least. After the teleport sent the Artificer to the surface, a little way from the tomb entrance, its many robotic forces began to teleport with it. 5 minutes passed before the teleportation stopped, and the sheilding around teh tomb activated it's quarantine mode. Nothing was getting in or out... not until the nanobots made their way to the shield generators at least.

[FINAL COUNT FINISHED LISTING AVAILABLE FORCES]
[WORKING...]
[100 WARRIORS. 23 GUARDIANS. 10 REAPERS. 12 HUNTERS. 3 DREADNOUGHTS. 34 SCYTHED ONES. 3 BUILDER SPIDERS]
[13.452% FORCES REMAINING]

This was a huge blow. The army could probably make short work of this planet, but how long before the nanobots escaped? An escape route would need to be created, but the harvest must continue, the gods demanded it.

[DIAGNOSTICS COMPLETE. COMPUTER CORRUPTION DETECTED. STAND DOWN FOR REPAIRS, OR PREPARE TO BE DESTROYED BY NEARBY ARTIFICER FORCES]

The Artificer pondered this for a few seconds. It wasn't the nanobots, that was certain. Something else was wrong... and then it didn't matter. The Lord didn't much care. It didn't want to be repaired, and it certainly didn't want to be destroyed... to die.

[COMMENCING DESTRUCTION]

The Artificer didn't have time to think about this new sense of self, as every Artificer previously under its control opened fire upon it. There was nothing it could do but run, and the closest cover was right back into the forest. It didn't even pay attention to the black and green patch forming on it's hand.

#149

(Serah, before the chaos at Ground Zero)

Still the reanimated alien bodies stared at Searah, not going away nor making any aggressive moves. Then one of the lizard birds stepped forwards holding out both of it's arms, palms upwards, and staring at the fleshy growth she still held in her hands-and now contact was made, something else could happen...

One hour later, it would seem to Serah as though no time had passed other than possibly a feeling of soreness. The Xenoparasites were still there, unmoving-including the one with it's hands held out.

Except for one that had been approaching for some time, carrying a severed head under it's arms-which it then proceed to put on it's neck as though wearing a hat. It was the body of the aliens Communications Officer.
It too stared at Serah for minutes, then it opened it's beak to speak. "Hi, Serah, give us back our us now"

<hr />

(In the fields)
The horde continued to expand- but all of them ignored the members of the reptilian herd. Not a one of them was injured. It seemed their leader had saved them all from a grisly death merely by talking.

(Ground Zero, inside the Tomb Fortress)

Lykaios could do little more than watch through half closed eyes as the machines evacuated from the artificial plague that they had so foolishly released. If only they'd told him when he asked what was going to happen, he could've prepared them. This could've gone smoothly, but not now. Now all that there was, was a mess. Left alone with most of his muscle tissue exposed and severely damaged, it was all he could do to cover his open, uninfected wounds with barriers of their own until they healed over. He wanted these things to spread inside him about as much as the robots did.

But there was nothing he could do except try to preserve his body as best he could and wait.

#150

((Quintessential doublepost in order to keep things going since they're so close to finishing anyway. Also mild powerplay-sorry Jodie, if you do come back-and I hope you do, I'd still be happy to welcome you back into it if it hasn't finished by then.

Oh and this is still an hour later, just to keep with continuity

.

Have at it Borg!

And anyone else that wants to take part in the finale))

((In the forest,))

The two lizard bird Monstrosities tilted their dead heads, and took a slight step backwards, as the tongue of one of the canids shot out at the human. Well, it wasn't really aimed at Serah, it was aimed at the mass she was holding. Deftly, the tomgue wrapped around the fleshy growth and yanked it out of her hands.
The gathered Monstrosities retreated at this point, heading elsewhere. The growth was deposited into the arms of the waiting lizard bird, and both it and the ex-Coms Officer turned to disappear back into the forest... unknown to them, heading straight for the running, self aware Artificer Lord. They would shortly burst through the trees in front of the robot.

Meamwhile, the army the Lord had teleported in would find itself under attack by the reanimated horde, as those who had spread turned back to deal with this great threat to what they were trying to protect that had literally appeared out of nowhere.

In the Tomb Fortress, the Underling slowly stood, helped largely by the glowing ethereal substance that surrounded him, watching the place fall apart around him. He had a plan now, but first he had to wait for just the right moment...