Video - May 14th - Early morning

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Mother.

[ Nihlus looks extremely nauseated, even under all the neon green. ]

It's name is Mother. The emptiness is gone now, I don't- I can't- find it again-

[ Here, he stops for a moment, running his hand over his crest, trying to regather himself, trying to regather his thoughts. They'd scattered the moment the recording started and it was so hard to find the words to describe everything that'd happened in the past couple of hours. ]

I am Nihlus Kryik. One of people who'd been part of the diplomatic venture to Asteroid 276.

The Ingress glitching had given me temporary powers, similar to what many of you seemed to have experienced.

On top of a myriad of other abilities, I was able to form a psychic link and establish... contact with what I believe to be the source of the contaminant. Whatever the being is, this Mother, they are linked to illness we'd gotten from that station.

And they are hostile.

If you have any form of psychic abilities, do not try and connect with it. It is dangerous and it can pull you deeper under its thrall if given half the chance to. Its intentions are unclear, but whatever the may be, they do not seem particularly friendly.

Please. Keep in network contact with someone uninfected, either a friend, family or a medical professional. Anyone who is available to monitor you. Report to them any changes in your condition.

[ He pauses for a moment, just staring at the TAB, trying find some angle to make everything he'd just said not sound as horrifying as they did. But there's nothing he can think of. ]

... Take care of yourselves.

[ Spirits, he really hopes he's wrong. ]

Comments

[voice forever]

[ryuuzaki]

The dreams didn't seem friendly either. It calls itself Mother?

[The distinction seems important to him.]

Voice

[beautifulspaceraptor]

It's...

[ How does he describe this? ]

It's the closest transcription, at least. My name isn't particularly pronounceable for humans unless run through a translator. This is the psychic equivalent of that?

[ He's still very scattered from the experience and not as coherent as he'd like to be. ]

It didn't feel like... my mother though. It felt old, mostly. Powerful.

video;

[seeingscarlet]

[Ha...ha...haha...ha...if that's the case, more than a few things make more sense now.]

Will you be all right?

Video

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Honestly, I'm doing better than the last time something like this happened.

... So far, at least.

[ Yeah, Nihlus kind of died the last time. ]

[alan_1]

[Oh, this sounds very, very bad. And it had already sounded bad when this was a potential plague not attached to some kind of malevolent psychic entity.]

Did you still have any symptoms when you… made contact with this thing?

[There’s an abrupt pause, as if something has just occurred to Alan.]

And what do you mean “thrall?”

[He’s seen the results of Nihlus being in something’s “thrall” before and he’s not keen to repeat the experience—no matter who is infected this time around.]

Voice

[beautifulspaceraptor]

There was an emptiness. Psychological. Like something was missing. I found the link to the entity through that.

Once I was in, it... turned its attention on me. It made me feel like I wanted to be a part of it- like I needed to be a part of it. Like I'd been missing it all my life.

[ There's a shaky breath here. ]

It seems to be a rather common mind manipulation tactic with these entities.

audio;

[alan_1]

[“Emptiness” isn’t exactly a quantifiable symptom and it only makes Alan more worried. Without any tangible physical signs, it’s that much harder to know who’s infected and who isn’t. Nor does he like the similarities between this and the “Reaper” entity that had manipulated Nihlus before.]

Do you have any idea how much control it has over those infected? Could it use people as weapons? [“Like the monolith did,” Alan has the tact not to add.]

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[sketchycharacter]

Did you get a sense of what it has planned?

[Nate doesn't have any danger of contamination as far as he knows, but 'hostile' is a bad thing for all of them, he figures.]

Video

[beautifulspaceraptor]

It tried to pull me under a thrall and its powers seem to be predominantly psychic. My guess is it will try to exert control on the people who'd been infected.

I don't know when, however. Or why, exactly. I just know that it wanted... revenge.

[ So basically, they're going to be pawns. ]

text

[mylawn]

I don't suppose you're interested in helping my team track it down.

Text

[beautifulspaceraptor]

I suppose there's no point in self imposed quarantining anymore.

[ Not with this immediate threat looming now. ]

I will help however I can.

To be honest though, I'm not sure 'it' is here. Maybe just a piece of it. Or pieces.

video;

[nyx_it]

[There are so many things wrong with this picture right here. Number one, all of what was just said. Number two? That's a dead Spectre.]

[Very, very dead.]

What the hell is going on here...

[It's mostly said to herself, out of sheer, complete confusion. I am Nihlus Kryik - not possible.]

Who are you, really? And what asteroid?

Video

[beautifulspaceraptor]

[ The sheer surprise of seeing an unfamiliar Turian face mutes Nihlus for a moment. He blinks at her slowly for a second, before shaking it off and answering. ]

For a while, the Ingress opened to a space station known as Asteroid 276. As far as we could assess, they were a station dedicated exclusively to the pursuit of scientific advancement with a focus on genetic studies.

Multiple people have been exposed to a form of contamination while they were there. That's... why there's people around who have been turned, well. This color.

[ He gestures at the neon everything going on here. ]

As for who I am... I don't really have proof. Just people who can vouch for me, and that's assuming you accept them as their given identities too.

[ Yeah, being a Spectre meant that things like his driver's license was kind of fabricated here. ]

... I don't suppose we've ever met?

voice;

[shiro2hero]

[Well. That's. Great.]

So how do we stop it?

Voice

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Your guess is as good as mine at the moment, unfortunately.

Finding those things we'd, uh, expelled seems like the most likely path to some form of answer, however.

[warandpeace]

Do you know if Mother is spreading further? Or how fast if 'she' is?

[beautifulspaceraptor]

Hard to say. Contact was cut short the moment the entity considered me a potential threat.

Everyone who had been to the Asteroid are potential sleeper agents at the moment and we have no idea what the parasitic masses we'd expelled have been doing.

[nishizono]

well what the fuck. maybe don't stick your nose where it's not needed next time?

[beautifulspaceraptor]

[ Oh, this guy. Nihlus sighs and types up the most barely polite reply he could manage. They might be infected too, after all and just because he personally disliked and was suspicious them, doesn't mean he needed to be an asshole to other sick people. ]

The suggestion has been duly noted. Thank you.

[action]

[indoctrinated]

I'm going to presume you didn't seek out an unknown entity we had no intel on intentionally. If you did, that might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard you do.

[ not much point to responding in message form, considering circumstances forced them to live together still.

arms crossed, Saren fixes Nihlus with a flat and unimpressed look once he gets the moment to interrogate him about his little adventure with "Mother".]

[beautifulspaceraptor]

[ Nihlus barks a laughs despite himself. Then clutches at his head because ow, his poor brain. ]

I've done plenty of stupider things and you know it.

[ Flicking his TAB off Nihlus lets himself sink into the couch, sobering up a little, mandibles set grimly against his jaw. ]

But no. No, I didn't. I didn't even realize there was a line to follow, much less a connection at the end of it.

[not here...] [1/3]

[notglitching]

[...]

[...still not here...] [2/3]

[notglitching]

[...]

[...getting here...] [3/4, I lied]

[notglitching]

[ NOPE. ]

[HERE hi actionspam] [4/4]

[notglitching]

[Not. Again.


Even approaching from the blind side, the trip takes microcycles at most. Rinzler masks his jet as he draws closer, snaps the baton together a good ten meters over the ledge. A quiet impact on the next-door structure, and he rolls forward, dispersing the impact at roof level. Makes his way across and down with even less sound.

Nihlus and he have played this Game before, and when he comes to a halt on the balcony's edge, Rinzler's sound is silent, lights and energy signature damped down to null. He's out of the way of any sensors, though still being outside the room, he isn't close enough to "win". This isn't a normal visit, though, and Rinzler's exactly as close as he needs to be now. One hand curls around the railing, grounding, as the program's scans fix on the adjacent structure.

Devices. Traps. A (grudgingly) excellent security system he's become very familiar with over the months. User. Users, he self-corrects belatedly, and if the traces of the known infection still make him twitch, he puts the sentiment aside for now. It's not active. Not important, not right now.

Nihlus is inside. Nihlus is inside, and nothing Rinzler scans, nothing he detects, registers as any different than before. No trace of infection. Not that there had been—not that he had any way to tell. Was this a virus? A user? The description of the source had been unclear.

The description of its effect, less so.

No sign of infection. Nothing strange that he can find. Nihlus said that it failed. Maybe it was even true.

Only one way to know.

Lights brighten, a sharp red-orange contrast to the dim outside. Noise ticks out in a low whir. Rinzler drops from the railing, steps forward toward the door, and lets one hand rest on its frame, picking up the echo of his sound. No Games, this time. When Nihlus looks over, he'll find a familiar helmet staring at him: and angling sharply to one side.

Status?]