Old Cult-territory (2)

Alpha

Drakador_Chaos
Grisha looks at the stranger on the screen.

"Yes we have been sent by Morgoth, now could you please help us before our boosters run out and we die. We are rather attached to our lives."

Then Golm also shouted at the stranger:
"Help us, I don't want to be eaten by the cute beasties!"

Drakador_Chaos

Alpha
...they did not send any answer, Grisha started getting nervous, then, the boosters ran out, the craft retained it´s speed for a while until it started slowing down...
...still no answer.
The beasts came closer, the Afterburners reactors were on it´s last legs but managed to at least keep at it´s non-boosted speed, the missile launchers were ready to fire any moment, though shortly after that the beasts would probably reach them as well...
...the cruiser turned away...
Missiles began firing as the beast starteds getting in range, while they did some damage to the leading thorns, there were simply too many of them, it looked like for the few they were actually able to immobilize which was already a task by itself since they seemed extremely resilient, a whole group of other ones was already ready to take their place...
Bloodred light, beams of unkown energy bursted out of the thorns sides, and began immolating the back of the Afterburner, one of the boosters detonated, the ship began spinning and slowing down even more, at any moment it would be over now...
...then a shockwave went through the ship...
...was this one of the reactors? Grisha was not sure if he should scream for his life, curse this territory or simply close his eyes...
...
A few moments laer he still wasn´t dead, this was rather odd.
The ship had apparently started moving at unnatural speed for it´s engines, in the completely wrong direction nonetheless, though apparently away from the beasts regardless, was this Morgoth helping his faithful servants...?
as the ship took another turn, he saw a dim blue light which was emitting from the leaving cruisers bottom, it apparently dragged the ship away from the swarm, out of another window Golm saw that the Afterburner quickly gained distance from the swarm, until the swarm suddenly split and turned back at a certain point, as if they gave up all at the same time...
...the cruiser didn´t stop though, nor did it send any transmission, apparently dragging them off to an unknown destination...

zergRush99

Drakador_Chaos a very... Known voice came out from the center of the worm, could it be... "WE ARE THE BLOOD CULT, THE CULT OF THE LIVING SHIPS" the creatures contiue to move through the astroid field, looks like they were making some sort of a path.

Drakador_Chaos

zergRush99
...the Voice laughed, but it seemed...angered...
"The Bloodcult? By what right do call yourself by our name?! We are the remnants of the Cult! If you are the Cult where have you been during the great Ritual?! Where have you been when the great entity fell to the last Warlords oath?! Leave this territory now presumptuous imposters!" ...movement came into the asteroids around them large groups of Bloody Choirs began attacking the swarm using the asteroids as cover, while from various directions somewhere deeper in the field hunter shells began pelting the swarm, at the same time the presence which seemed to be slightly stronger than a Bloodstained Priest began manipulating the small intruding beasts which individually most likely had the inferior minds, attempting to turn groups of them against each other...

RandomCommander

zergRush99 Drakador_Chaos

Meanwhile, further in Bloodcult territory, a gathering of Bloodcore ships takes place.

image https://i.imgur.com/bP4VGzC.png

"Inquisitor, there is no more time for your studies. The final stand has come."

"Reaper, you will soon come to realize that our new, miserable life isn't truly about bloodthirsty aggression and zealous survival measures. My latest observations may have found a pathway for us to finally escape this psionic hell."

"But they won't let us. The original, unworthy cultbeasts have returned, and will not stop until the throneworld is taken back for their own, truly demonic intentions. We must make our ultimate sacrifice."

"We may have been bastardized by the Collective, but there is no reason to mindlessly throw yourselves against what may very well be impossible odds."

"To escape is to show weakness, Inquisitor. Do you not want to see yourself live a thousand years of glory?"

"This 'glory' is blinding your judgement, Reaper. Just because one runs away doesn't mean it will never come back stronger. I intend to evolve, whereas you can perish with your own stubborn ideals if you so wish. We will prosper with or without you."

"We only perish if we do not work together. The Collective worked as one, and thus, so shall we. It is you whose judgement is impaired if you continue this fruitless 'research' of yours."

"But surely you know that knowledge is power, correct? At the very least, I have a new tactic in memory that will allow us significant time to find a real way for our tortured comrades to be free - damned any cultbeast who gets in our way."

"See to it that you use it in our last battle, to see that the unworthy imposters do not take the throne for themselves."

"It won't be our last battle if I can help it! Now let me alone!"

With overwhelming disappointment, the once Assault-Class ships depart for the outer border, in an effort to push back the imposters. In the meantime, these 'Inquisitor' Bloodcores continue their research on the FTL-wake readings they have gathered. The outpost seems to be generating multiple amounts of some tumultuous mass with a high anti-matter signature...

zergRush99

Drakador_Chaos "I was the first, I was the start, and I will reborn the cult, as I was reborn" the beasts didnt attack the ships that they have encoutered. the beast that were controled by the Bloodstained Priest were released in seconds, something that is much more greater then the Bloodstained Priest manipulation was controling them...so greater that even the Bloodstained Priest started to get into its grasps....a very old but
usual feeling spread through the beast that were under its control. the swarm contiue to move.

Dumb

Drakador_Chaos (sorry if my choice of wording recently is a bit rude/aggressive,dunno why but sometimes i felt slightly off while typing word walls which scrambles my mind and just pops in whatever word i can find with similar definations)
Brera continue to explore the ship,now even more curious of how such a poorly-equiped ship managed to escape from the asteroid belt and ended in here,meanwhile,the VF-27y initiate deep scans that throughly understand what damage has the ship sustained while the ghosts tries to hack into its navigation computer

/////////////////////////////////////

Drakador_Chaos the heat created from excessive kinetic energy in the asteroid alerted Battle Galaxy as it immediately transforms and move at full speed while cloaked as a gigantic planetoid

Drakador_Chaos

zergRush99
(It´s merely background Information, which is handy at times and helps understanding stories and motivations of other characters or factions. Also, he is currently more or less part of the Cults defensive mechanism.)

zergRush99
...for Brief momen tit seemed as time halted in awe for another presence that had apparently now moved is attention to the area, when the moment was over the Hivemind got forced out of the Choirs and Priest with such an excessive force that he physically felt the recoil and stumbled backwards...
...a voice entered his head... it felt off...
...something in the back of his mind seemed to itch as he tried to remember where he knew the voice from...
...then he remembered, it was similar to that of the former Hunter Highpriest, though the presence felt fundamentally different from before the Warlord had sent him off a long time ago...
"So, the fallen king has returned, now aren´t I ever pleased?" ...he laughed... "I suppose I have to tell you that you have no right to control these beasts as long as you have not retaken your throne. But...it makes me wonder...are you even worthy of your own throne? Are you capable of leading the Cult as you did together with the Warlords?" ...he paused...
"You have taken my interest, let me give you a little treat, just for disrupting my boredom for a little."
... the Choirs moved back into the asteroid field and a large tunnel opened before him in the field big enough to fit a dreadnought through it, in the distance a dim red glow emanated from the end of the tunnel...
"Neat, isn´t it? Now let us play a little game, the rules are simple: you will attempt to reach the core of your former territory and enter the throneworld, though you will be unable to take control of any of the beasts within the territory until you have taken back your right to rule. Should you accomplish this, I will remove all nuisances that currently reside in "your" territory and randomly scatter them across this universe...or some other places.
In return your life is at stake the very moment you pass the inner borders of the field, should your decisions be flawed, this Body of yours will die just as the last one, should you violate the rules, you will anew from outside."
...he laughed again..."Consider it a test, should you be capable of retaining your right to rule, you will be just as well capable of leading the Cult without the Warlord. I will be waiting for you."
...the presence left, the only sign left it was ever there was the tunnel infront of him, the strains on his mind faded, what had happened here while he was gone? There was only one way to find out...

Catplayz

Drakador_Chaos
Kelran nods.
I am ready for the mission. Lets get this done and over with.

Drakador_Chaos

Catplayz
...several minutes later all five of them stood at the gate towards the archives, Kelran had been handed a belt with three psionical baits, which in fact looked like someone attached an odd-looking piece of cultflesh some sort of grenade, aswell he ahd been given map of the archives, tall circular staircase seemed to connect the floors though None of them seemed to go through all floors...
... he looked at the door, it looked VERY improvised, large chunks of metal and Cultboneplates ahd been stack up and welded together, as a sort of makeshift barrier, then afterwards there had been apparently various heavy chians, attached to it to lift it indicating the thing would weigh a few hundreds tons at least, he also noticed that the enitre things had a considerable dent inwards...
Terr´Noc looked down at him...
"That was the last time this thing attempted to break through, it has not tried again since then, though the door probably wouldn´t hold up anyways if it´d seriously try to get through."
...Kelran looked at the map, they would move to the first crossing about a hundred meters in, then they´d split up, he would be heading to the west along with Tais´Locin, they would take the staircase to floor 65, where they´d split up again, from that Point he would be alone, someone outside would constantly keep track of the Bloodwraith and try to coordinate them, the archives had 80 floors in total and his target was around floor 47.
...the vitreus at the gate looked down at them and nodded, then with the screeching of metal the massive gate lifted from the ground and the path was open...
Commentless the four Vitreus started moving into the hallway headed towards the first crossing...

zergRush99

RandomCommander how am I conected to this?

Drakador_Chaos

RandomCommander
...after thorough research they found out that the particles themselves seemed to be remnants of the Elder-Calamity, as the density apparently slowly rises whilst heading towards "ground zero", it appears they somehow reacted with ftl travel gaining physical matter and changing from sub- to realspace whenever something traveling faster than light passed through them, essentially ripping whatever it was apart within moments...
Though they did not seem to move by themselves, nearly as if they stopped at some point, marking the borders of the Cult-territory...
Which brought the Inquisitor-Core to the other question: How to avoid infecting space outside the borders of the Cult?
As they did not seem to move by themselves they probably wouldn´t travel outside by themselves either which, at least theoretically, left only two ways of spreading.
Any sort of ftl jump in range of the borders directly outside should, at least most likely, accelerate the particles towards the outside, even though this means the guaranteed end of the craft used for this, the other was a direct connection, via teleportation, a wormhole, spatial folding, rift travel, and similar means, though it seems the connections apparently collapse nearly immediatly, due to heavy energy fluctuation caused by the particles...
There also were a variety of other oddities, for example the particles seemed to match none of the databanks the Inquisitor-cores had at their disposal, and they seemed to react specifically to anything like ftl travel or instantaneous transport, just as if someone artificially made the particles to fulfill exactly this purpose...
Though parts of this were more of a theory...

Drakador_Chaos

Dumb
(I have noticed nothing the likes of what you´ve told me about, don´t worry.)
...the scans showed that the ship was mostly undmaged apart of a few dent on the bottom most likely caused be the "landing", the ships itself didn´t have that many rooms, two proton torbedo launchers, some crewquarters, one of which was repurposed to a food storage and kitchen, some thrusters, the controlroom, the cargohold and some sort of gathering room with a screen on one of the walls where some TV show was still running...
...as Brera ordered teh Ghosts to hack the Navigation computers one of them questioned wether it wouldn´t be better to just read them in the controlroom...

As the Battle Galaxy waited it registered for a brief moment how something happened with the space surrounding them, though while it was able to registered something happened, what exactly that was, was incomprehensible to the scanners, moments later a tunnel opened in the asteroidfield as if someone opened a gate, then a few moment laters an about two metres tall humanoid with red hair came through it, clad in chains, apparently observing his surroundings for a brief moment...

zergRush99

Drakador_Chaos the beasts stoped, then started to crash in to eachother forming a ball of flesh, after a couple of minutes the ball fell off revealing a figure, hes hair was red as hes eyes, hes body was rapped in chaines, hes mind was clear....only one thought was in hes head, "evolve".
"I have taken this chalenge 10000 times, Im the cult, IM the HIVEMIND" the figure past the portal in a bink of an eye. and contiue to go through the central territory with high volocety....

Drakador_Chaos

zergRush99
...one of the first things he saw after passing the asteroidfield, was a several hundred meters tall mechanical construct, roughly resembling a humanoid, like some sort of oversized mech-suit...
...a bright green barrier was projected infront of it and there seemed to be a variety of life-signatures inside the thing, though apart of that it didn´t seem to do much...
...further in the distance there seemed to be a few barren planets further away there was a small system, and in another direction a rather odd psionical sigature on another barren planet...

Alpha

Drakador_Chaos
"Where are we going, Grisha?"

"I don't know Golm, but get ya weapons ready. I don't trust our 'saviours' "

Catplayz

Drakador_Chaos
Kelran silently followed them, always making sure to observe his surroundings so that the chances of being surprised were low. Though not noticeable from the outside, he was in a semi-meditative state, focusing his senses and abilities.

Drakador_Chaos

Alpha
...the cruiser continued to drag them along at a steady pace and it did not seem to plan on letting go anytime soon, Golm found out that the weapon systems of the Afterbruner seemed to be still operable, though as he looked out the window he did not get around realizing that the cruiser was several times as big as the Afterburner...

Zachary

@Drakador_Chaos Do I have to have an official faction to join?

Drakador_Chaos

Zachary Not exactly, though then you´ll have to give a more detalied description of who and what you´re entering with.

Zachary

Zachary I was thinking of a small exploration fleet. Also, can I have a ship physically push the asdroids?

Dumb

Drakador_Chaos

Drakador_Chaos one of the displays noting "WARNING! Liquid leak in cargohold!"

(so thats a false alarm?)
Brera,clearly aware the dangers provided while piloting an unknown spacecraft with non-scannable damage or malfunction sensors,insist the ghost to pilot the unknown spacecraft back to the dulbin-class carrier for storage purposes
(ahh the ghost is just the ai piloting the "ghost V9" fighters,not the usual ghosts in the destiny franchaise,so prolly cannot question the order given ;P )

////////////////////////////////////////////

Battle Galaxy halt to a stop,reveiling itself as,not only does camouflaging as a gigantic planetoid with non-decreasing velocity in a linear pattern is obvious,but also the mainframe senses that the unknown being can destroy them like crushing an ant,and no camouflage can be deployed to prevent destruction if "it" wanted,the pin-point barrier glows bright green around the pink hull as its overcharged to atleast try and deflect one hit,all weaponary immediately power on,but did not even try and target the being..

Alpha

Drakador_Chaos
While waiting until they have reached their destination, Golm and Grisha try to amuse themselves by drinking grog and playing games. And also some other things:

"Hey Grisha, I have written a poem."

"A poem from a brainless piece of shrakh like you Golm? Come on, tell me."

"Torturing is a beautiful thing
So I sing
Dingeling
Ding
Bing!"

"Sigh"

Drakador_Chaos

Dumb
...as ordered the AI attempted to lift the craft off the ground after Brera left it...it remained an attempt though, the engines sprung to life and heated up the ground below as it tried to lift off the ground, though it didn´t move, the ship was apparently hopelessly overloaded and thus unable to lift off the ground...
Somewhere in the distance the carrier picked up a rather odd signature, it seemed to come from a different direction than the Battlegalaxy, oddly enough it was vastly different from that of the Cultbeasts or other ships they had met up to thsi point...

...the tension on the ship could be grasped with bare hands as the man looked at the Battle Galaxy...
...until he just moved off in another direction apparently without caring too much about the ship...

Drakador_Chaos

Catplayz
... to his sides several metres tall walls rose filled to the brim with informationstorages of various kinds, as they reached the first crossing Terr´Noc headed onward while Tur´Raion and Tou´Rovan headed left and Tais´Locin right, Tais´Locin waved in his general direction to come along, while the comms sprung to life...
"Ok, first split, team three you are headed towards floor 65, the staircase is further ahead, from there Tais´Locin will head south and, Kelran North, the Bloodwraith is currently on the lower floors."

RandomCommander

Drakador_Chaos
If the theories are to be believed, then the Inquisitor-Core concludes that the possibility of rendering the sub-particles inert is null - at least, within the Cult borders. There may be hope outside the borders, but this poses two problems, the first being the innate risks of spreading the particles outside of the territory, but the second being the influx of other faction assets curiously trying to make their way into Cult territory with varying, unknown motives. If the Inquisitor-Class ships pose a threat to the prospecting fleet - which is a highly likely scenario if they are attempting to experiment with the particles - then they have little to no innate advantage against the opposing force, after all they would be fighting in an empty sector which would be hard to blend into (partially due to the Collective side of their hybridization, too much of a contrasting signature).

For some reason it seemed to the Inquisitor-Core that the Reaper-Core it conversed with was right, the Inquisitor-Core may have to focus its efforts inward. At the very least, it could humor the Reapers by using the masses the outpost generated - and possibly be enlightened to another discovery while defending the core territories at the same time.

((And that's where I stop the storyline for now - Hurricane Florence is a thing that is going to affect me big time.))