[MATURE] En Medias Res (Soul Seeker Realm, SysNet) 3/13

Sweat beat down on her body as the lash struck again and again. Obsidian fluid poured from three lacerations diagonally down her back. SHe felt the air catch in her throat. Again the lash came again,a nd bit the skin deep. More black flowed and she could feel her unlife going with it. Why did he do it? Why did she let him do it? The scent of salty sweat, the rotting of Black Ichor and the low hum of her cybernetics were all she could sense.

Reality snapped back. Stasya leaned over her bunk on the ship she was board for the moment and remove an empty canister of ichor from her input and replaced it with a filled one. To think, without the dreaded ugly stuff she would just be another frozen corpse in space being bashed to bits by space debris. Now, her skin was covered in small stitches and plas surgical stabples. Her throat for some damn reason always see to sierding hurt whenever she let it go too dry. She could eat of course, but it didn't do much for her. All she needed was the Black Ichor, the stuff made from weird little rocks found out in the black itself.

By the Prebyster she was sierding board of the sket of being undead.

Or was it awakened dead?

Whatever the Faeru called her kind she had little issue with her fellow Arashia. Born in the Return-Walking process she had spent the first seven years of her new life as a childlike woman curled up in a ball of emotion. Her proctors had overseen her as best they could and she still to that very day missed her Mama Viktoria. Quietly, she fingered the small stitches along her right cheek and remembered how Viktoria had held her at night. The ghost-core quieting down in her skull so she could  hibernate for a time. Now she was alone, cut off from the Dyre Quorum and excommunicated from a Guild to be joined to another.

By the Ancestors her life was such sierding sket.

She reached in front of her and snaked out the long sinuous cord of the datacord and aimed it just above the port set into the base of her skull. One long breath later she shoved it in hard and felt the digital overtaking her as she dove into the SysNet.

'Loading.....primary Key identified. Welcome USER DyreS.' The computational readings were easily filtered by her ghost core and her personalized avatar self began to take shape as her cyber-soul manifested itself.

Now where do I want to go? She flicked an icon hovering near her cy-selve's hand and it spun into an explosion of changing colors. Finally, it stopped and the words "Seeking Souls" popped up. The woman's eyes narrowed as suddenly the world around her began to split and shuddered. As her access to the realms changed she felt the dive going deeper and deeper as her vision blurred to a fine ribbon of light. The world rezzed and rendered all around her. Her hair shifted from the dark brown of its general color and rezzed into a bright green color to reflect the color of her eyes.

As always the small little floating sigils of the interface floated into existence and she started to search through what this realm was involved in. The scenery was simple a singular lounge with a row of crystalline chairs, white tables facing white benches. A light blue aura licked the edges of the peripheral sight of everyone inside, and a small synth Virtual Intelligence server shaped into the form of a sat nearby clothed in a retro-Tuxedo. Her hands dragged across the table as she sat down and breathed in the "air" of the realm.

It wasn't a bad lounge just a boring one. She ordered a drink which would feed into her brain as a small increase in endorphins, and took the form of a martini. As she sipped the drink she waited for others to rez in and appear. Perhaps this wouldn't be a boring night after all.

---

@Agrodal @GreatSage

Starshaper Sikká was bored. Amazingly, even after a little over three centuries of existance as a Dreygr, the former shipborn had somehow retained the ability to get bored. Sikká had just re- emerged from the sonic shower and was now pondering what to do next. Although their work for the day was already done Sikká was tempted to head back to the ship's engineering bay and resume their work, if mostly to fill the time until the others got back up. The awakened dead had long nights, but the majority of the ship's crew was currently asleep, which presented several problems. The most serious among them being the fact that hte ship's security chief was a light sleeper and their quarters were not far from the engineering bay. The last time Sikká and their coworkers had decided to pull an all- nighter and had accidentially awoken the security chief, the much taller woman had given them a dressing down that had left even the usually confident Sikká feeling roughly half their size and sheepishly looking at the floor.

No, they had no desire to get a repeat performance of that, so they'd have to find some other way to pass the time. Sikká took a quick look around their cabin until their eyes came to rest on the closet. They decided to throw on an outfit that could best be described as Aesgir's version of clubwear. It had cost them a good amount to get a version of the outfit tailored to their small size and slight build, but they had considered it well worth the time and money, even if they had outwardly grumbled at the shopkeep's unwillingness to haggle. It hugged their arms, legs and torso in a way Sikká found very flattering, but not so tight that it got in the way of dancing or that it would reveal that they didn't wear a bra underneath, or another surprise Sikká liked to keep for those who got to know them better. A set of matching white and blue shoes completed the outfit.

Which still left the question of what they should do with their free time now that they had slipped into their favorite clothes. The ship hosted a small bar, but Sikká knew the schedules of it's other patrons well enough that they knew nobody interesting would be there at this hour. With a sigh, the wright climbed into their Shipborn- sized bunk. With no real idea what to do, Sikká's idle hands began to slowly wander down their top and towards the button that held their trousers closed... only to remain there when their eyes drifted to the datacord next to them. There's an idea. Certainly better than playing around by myself until my friends hit the bar.

With a shrug and a deep breath Sikká inserted the cord into the dataport at the base of their skull and quickly felt their mind diving into the SysNet.

'Loading... primary Key identified. Welcome USER SnowStar'As usual, Sikká was grateful for their ghost core'sability to sort and filter all the information surrounding them as their personalized avatar began to emerge, copying their current outfit (for they had modified the avatar's clothes to match this outfit after purchasing it). Now what? they thought before flicking a hovering icon for a randomized search. The icon floating above their hand exploded into a burst of color. When the icon finally returned to normal Sikká blinked in surprise as an icon saying "Seeking Souls" appeared in front of them. Interestng name. Let's see... A cursory antivirus scan revealed no signs of harmful programs, so Sikká lightly tapped a lifelike artificial finger against the icon and quickly closed their eyes as their workd briefly turned blinding white.

When Sikká managed to open their eyes again and the realm rezzed around them the noticed their long usually pale- blonde dreadlocks had changed color to reflect the glowing blue of their eyes. Huh, that's kinda neat. As Sikká looked around, they noticed that other people had arrived as well, each of them adding touches of color to the mostly cristalline and white lounge. The blue aura of at the edge of their peripheral vision was a nice touch as well. The Shipborn- turned- Dreygr made their way to the bar, running a slender finger across the crystalline table next to them. "Hey Bartender, get me something strong and sweet."

The small synth obliged and handed them a glass containing what appeared to be mead, and warm mead as well. A brief sip confirmed that it was, indeed, some sierding fine mead, or at least a simulation of such. As Sikká savored the taste and rush of endorphines they noticed a pretty woman with glowing green hair sitting by herself nearby. Their curiousity piqued, Sikká carefully balanced their drink past the other patrons with light steps that belied the artificial nature of their limbs. They stopped a few steps away from the green- haired and green- eyed woman and lightly rested their free hand on a nearby chair.

"Hey there, the name's SnowStar. May I sit here?"