Upon Vestia: Chapter Thirty-Two

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James went into Armin's room. "Hey man, watcha working on?" he asked, seeing that Armin was sewing.

"What are they?" Luka demanded.

"Demons." Jarral explained simply. He looked slightly uneasy about the attention, the shadows around him gathering a little darker, a little more thickly.

"There's no such thing as demons." Luka pointed out.

"tell them that." Jarral suggested. "We do not know what they call themselves, only what the united worlds have decided to call them. They are beings of pure chaos and malevolance, they seem to exist purely to hurt, maim and control. "

"Can you elaborate on that?" Esk asked.

"They can adopt the shape of others, worse they can weasel their way into the minds of people, allowing them to overwhelm that individual's will. They lie, they manipulate and they kill indiscriminantly. They seem to have no loyalty to any but themselves, making them an extraordinarily difficult to predict enemy. When the rift began to spread they flooded out, consumed worlds, the united worlds came together to drive them back." Jarral explained.

"And they've succeeded?" Luka asked.

"That we do not know for sure.  Few of them get very far without help, they are weak to iron which is... somewhat useful. But we have no real way of knowing how many have possessed the minds of others and are using them to do their bidding. We have cornered the majority here, slowed their spread, plugged the hole so to speak, but it will not hold forever. Right now the anti magic generators are the only thing keeping those things at bay, and once those fail, the demons will redouble their efforts to consume this realm. "

Luka shuddered.

Matt frowned.

"That's terrifying," James said. "Let's uh, get away from here as fast as possible then. I don't want another war right now." No, he just wanted to go find his siblings and go live under a rock with them for ever and ever, thanks.

Ethan shivered at the thought of beings that could shapeshift and possess people. Well, that was horrible to imagine. "Guess we'd better start investing in iron then," he said grimly. "Stupid other universes."

Tala's ears were perked forward alertly, but she looked like she was drowsing off on her hooves despite her best efforts.

Jarral nodded. "Perhaps you should all sleep. I have no pressing reason to return home." He really didn't, it was here or sit in a dark office with a lot of books to translate. Of course that was his idea of FUN but he was a wierd guy.

"Yeah.. that's.. not a bad idea." Esk agreed. Sleep sounded amazing right now.

Kay wasn't sure he COULD sleep, even if he was exhausted.

"We should sleep," Tala agreed, her words were a bit mumbled as she said them. "I should have my wounds tended." She'd never gotten around to that, oh dear.

"Yeah, we gotta figure this out tomorrow or something. I can't do it now," Ellie said. Her poor parents, she felt so bad for leaving them.

Kay nodded, getting up tiredly. Wounds to tend, he could do that. [Everyone who's injured, come by the medical room. We'll clean you up.] Yes, distractions, working himself to absolute exhaustion worked.

Matt looked glum. He desperately wanted to know more but Starr was too tired to communicate with the kids and ask them all they wanted to know. He felt bad for wishing she could.
"Yeah.. let's try to sleep... recharge... tackle all this in the morning." His heart wasn't much in that though.

Starr nodded "Yeah, tend wounds and sleep." She agreed "We can think of more questions in the morning."

Tala nodded, and would start ambling toward the medical facility. It had been a long time since she'd felt this tired. And not just because of the ten years.

Ellie got up slowly.

"By the way," Vestia said. "I hate to say this, but you won't be able to sleep on Floor 3 if you live there. It's a little unlivable at the moment. Sorry." Tala had ordered the entire floor opened to space, after all.

Starr sighed, most of them had bee living on the same level, at least those that had been here the longest. "What about the first class level, is it intact enough?" She asked curiously.

"The first class levels are fine," Vestia said. "If you want to move in, temporarily or permanently, you're all welcome to do that."

Kay frowned. What did that MEAN? No, he'd figure that out later, and whether any of his precious worldly posessions still existed. Now, it was back to work.

He heaved himself up and went to do just that.

Matt paused. "Unlivable? What... happened?"

Esk tilted his head. "you blow that up too?" But hey, first class, score. "Fuck it, i'm finding a nice big room then." He got up.

"We had to get the slavers off the level, the best way to do that turned out to be opening all the airlocks," Vestia said. "Some of the rooms' doors held. Others... not so much." She sounded guilty, she knew how humanoids cared about their possessions.

"Come on Shane, let's go find some room in first class," Ellie told him. "If you don't need bandaging, I mean."

James looked glum, thinking of his stuff he might have lost, but then hastily shook his head and headed back for the medical facility. Time to get back to work.

Starr nodded and glanced around again "Right, something else we can sort out tomorrow." She said, she certainly wanted to get some sleep.

Shane nodded and stood. "I don't think I got hurt, so let's go."

Matt frowned. He didn't own a lot but still! Stuff!

Damn.

"okay well.. guess we uh.. pick out new rooms huh?" Looks like they got to move to first class after all.
He tried to get up with his crutches, stumbled and slumped back into his chair. "uh.. if anyone.. can find a wheelchair that'd be awesome." He called. Damnit. He'd been on his feet too long.

Armin rose, holding out a hand to Starr. "let's get you both settled in then" He told Starr gently.

Ivor and Silence stuck together, it wasn't like either of them owned much anyway. Other people seemed anxious though.

Both exhausted, they'd go find somewhere to curl up together and rest.

Luka frowned. Okay half her stuff was on the devil but damn, did this mean she might have lost the few bits and pieces she actually owned?
She looked down at her dress which was, by now, pretty messy and crumpled. She'd just thrown armor over the top and marched into battle after all.
She could do with a shower, yes, that'd be good.

She looked to Rigel. "You alright?" She was worried about him okay? She'd seen him crush ships with like.. his mind or something, it was awesome, but also holy shit scary.

---

Mourn was awake, watching things on a monitor. Shit... his laptop.
Fucking damnit, all that work. He just hoped he'd saved most of it to the cloud and that wasn't fucked up by vestia's electical issues.
Eugh!

"I'll send a wheelchair over," vestia told Matt. A bot would tow one in before too long.

Ellie would start to lead Shane off, then paused. "Yo Matt, you wanna come with us? I fully plan to use Shane as a pillow. And I could use you as a pillow too." Hopefully Shane didn't mind, whoops.

~~
Tala would go to the med bay and let one of the medics tend to her injuries. She'd be okay, she just needed rest and a chance to heal up.

James wandered over to Mourn to see what he was doing.

~~
Ethan headed off to the library to poke through the wreckage.

Starr smiled and took his hand to go up to first class and pick a room.

Shane looked to Ellie then over to Matt well, this would be interesting if she wanted to use them both as pillows.

"I'm fine" Rigel said and looked to Luka "How are you?"

Matt smiled weakly. You know, company might be good right now. He nodded. "Yeah... I don't.. think I wanna be alone right now." He might need some help getting into that chair, damn.
Gods he was tired.

---

Mourn looked to James. "blow up rooms." He told James simply. "ship, cameras working? Can show?" He sounded weak, speaking quieter than usual. He'd been damn lucky that a large chunk of the blast had hit where his robotic arm inserted into his chest and shoulder, but his fur and skin were badly singed and dressed and he was probably pretty heavily doped up on pain relief.

---

"tired." Luka admitted. "Let's go sleep."

--

Armin helped Starr to her new room and would help her settle in, fussing over her and Luna as he so often did.

---

Kay returned to the medical room and got to work tending Tala's injuries, focusing on the work so he didn't have to think about ANYTHING else. He was going to work till he passed out damnit! that's what he always did when he was stressed and upset.

---

Esk went to find a room and dump anything he still had on him, then went to go see if he could retrieve his damn rifle from the wreckage. If the 4th floor wasn't totally inhospitable. He was tired, but he kinda wanted to you know, handle the fact there were dead bodies all over the place before sleeping okay? It just mattered to him.

"Vestia, we're gonna need some bots for this." Maybe they could hurl em out an airlock, maybe they could find a nice big furnace, either way, you couldn't leave corpses laying about.

thankfully perhaps, most of the slavers had been spaced. Which was helpful.

Ellie wouldn't be much use helping Matt into the wheelchair, she'd probably have to let Shane do most of the helping. She managed to smile a bit. "That's good. The more the merrier, right?" She sighed, "I should probably check on Hewitt again, he's a jerk, but he's depending on me."
And he was unconscious, so the jerk part didn't matter as much right now.

~~
"Oh man, you think your work might be gone?" James asked. Oh, that'd stink. "How are you feeling?" he asked, trying to be a good medic here.

---I'll get you the feed--- Vestia said. She'd display Mourn's room on the monitor for him.

~~
Tala would thank Kay when he finished tending her injuries, and then promptly park herself in a corner to fall asleep. She was just so exhausted. Maybe it was the gas, or the magic, or the fighting. She didn't know. She just needed sleep.

~~
"I'll send the bots I have," Vestia said. Esk was right, they should clean up. The fourth floor was such a mess after that explosion, and it was horrible. "You should sleep, you know."

Mourn looked at the monitor, his room was always a mess so that was no different here but it did appear the door had not survived the decompression. Perhaps some things had survived, but for sure the majority were in space, 10 years in the past.
Damn.
Just had to hope he could recover online backups.

"Tired." He told James honestly. "smell bad." He stank of burned fur and burn cream, nice.
It was annoying him.

---

Kay let Tala sleep, draping a sheet over her so at least she wouldn't get cold.

He went back to doing rounds, checking up on everyone. Determined not to stop till he couldn't stay awake any longer. If he lay down now he'd just fret, and probably cry. He couldn't be having with that.

----

Esk shook his head. "Cleanup first. " He was stubborn wasn't he? "your bots can't do everything." He had a point, they were good bots, but they had limitations and trundling over blood slick hallways strewn with body parts may very well be one of those.

James nodded sympathetically. "If it makes you feel better, I can't smell you," he said, trying to be funny. "You should sleep, it's been one hell of a day."

~~
"Fair enough," Vestia said. Her now-much diminished army of bots would start arriving on floor 4.

Ethan was moping in the library, picking through scattered pages on the floor and righting whichever chairs and tables hadn't simply been destroyed in the blast. He might hear the bot army though, or Esk.

Mourn nodded, still staring at the feed. Bah, stupid slavers, spoiling everything. He had good boxes in there.
But he was tired and James spoke a lot of sense. He put the tablet down and curled up on the bed, curling his tail around himself a little as he drifted off.

---

Esk wasn't exactly quiet, he had a tendecy to sort of stomp stomp stomp when he was doing something like this.

He had a damn strong stomach and of course gloves helped matters. He began to help load the bots up with corpses and body parts to be taken well, somewhere they could be disposed of.

Sometimes he wished he had no sense of smell though, because eugh, this hallway STANK. He made a note to find a damn hose later to hose this all down because eugh, it needed sleusing.

James smiled softly. Good old Mourn, the felid was so pragmatic.

He looked around for something to do, but didn't spot anything that needed doing right now. He wandered over to Kay to see how the guy was doing.

~~
Ethan heard the noise of someone doing something, and put his hand on his sidearm just in case as he went to investigate.

Just Esk and the bots. Well that was all right then. "Hey Esk," he said.

Kay was fussing, checking and rechecking things in a way that suggested he was far from okay.

--

Esk glanced up. "Come to see how many books made it?" He asked. Maybe that was meant to be a snide remark but Esk was so tired he couldn't even manage that.