Benjamin Vryce

Benjamin looked at the open-door way without comprehending what he was looking at for a few seconds. His eyes glanced around and then finally dropped to the floor. Where the guide in question stood on two small clawed feet, staring up at them. he didn’t know what to say, but Jade summed up his feelings nicely.

“Vice, is that a gold chicken?” she asked, before laughter overtook her yet again.

“Greetings, chosen champions of the Erlking.” The gold-plated mechanical chicken began in a dignified tone. “I have the honor of being assigned to you by my most talent observant of Lords, the Shipwright.” He continued looking at them through ruby lensed eyes, that had telescoped out a little at Jade’s laughter.

“Yes, Jade.” Benjamin said in amazement, “that is indeed a gold chicken.” It was, in fact; a life-sized metal chicken covered in golden feathers, with ruby lenses for eyes. It stood on two small clawed chicken feet and was cocking its head to the side at them, with what looked like annoyance.

“Forgive my appearance, noble champions.” It said, opening its beak but the words were obviously coming from a speaker. “Lord Shipwright chose this form from his research of your home world. He wanted you to feel comfortable with my presence, and not alarmed by anything to outlandish on first contact with his sacred station world.”

Benjamin sighed; he should have realized that the shipwright was insane. He looked at the chicken, he would have preferred a humanoid juggernaut class security drone but he wasn’t running this show.

“I am sorry, it has been a long trip and we had a difficult battle before we left the Erlking’s Hive world. Please forgive our behavior, I am Benjamin and this is Jade. My wolf companion here is Ice and the ogre over behind Jade is named Tok. May I ask what we can call you?” he asked, doing his best to sound courteous. The chicken had spoken properly the entire time after all.

“My deepest apologies,” the chicken said with a deep bow, “I didn’t realize the newest World Lord would be coming himself to assist Lord Shipwright, forgive my ignorance my lord.” He kept his head lowered, looking for all the world like he was looking for scratch on the metal flooring.

Jade looked at Benjamin with a questioning look and mouthed the words ‘world lord?’ at him. He just held up a hand indicating he would tell her later and turned back to the chicken.

“There is no need for that, while I am here, I am simply Benjamin. Now if you would, what is your name sir guide?” he tried again.

“As you say Lord Benjamin,” the chicken said rising from its bow. “I have the great honor to be named after a famous member of chicken kind on your home world. So my Lord tells me, please if the champions are willing. I will be your guide; the chicken, Drumstick.” He said with another bow.

Benjamin couldn’t help himself, when Jade started laughing this time, he was forced to join her. Even the ogre was laughing, caught up in Jade’s excitement. His ha, ha, ha’s were deep and rumbling. They eventually got themselves back under control and Benjamin talked with the chicken Drumstick, about their situation.

“So, we are really over one hundred miles from the rift?” he asked incredulously, looking at Drumstick. “How far have the demons, the corruption, spread out into the station?” he asked.

“I am afraid so; the distortion of chaos essence wouldn’t allow the portal to be placed any closer. Sadly, the rift appeared at a junction of air ducts. We have contained the further spread, but many thousands of them have filtered out into the station.”

They continued to discuss the situation while Jade wondered around the room. She was looking at and picking up everything she passed, Benjamin hoped she wasn’t going to shoot herself or him on accident.

“Hey Drumstick, what is all this shit?” she asked pointing at the drones and blasters lining the shelves.

“Miss Jade, everything in this room is available for your use. Lord Benjamin has made use of them before, so should be able to help you.” he said, in answer to her question.

“Yea, nothing really useful here for us Jade. Your essence pistol is worlds better then any of these guns and you already have your force shield. None of the drones hold a candle to Tok either, besides it’s a real pain in the ass to use this stuff.” He told her honestly.

“Yes well, please at least take an ear insert. That way we can all remain in communication, and a mini map watch of the station. It will point the way to the rift.” Drumstick insisted, reaching the counter with a hop and a flap.

“Please remember,” he said once he had gotten the pair to equip the items in question. “Lord Shipwright has been relocating his work in progress projects here for many years. Some of them have grown, unstable, with the passage of time. With the security forces being preoccupied with the invaders, I am afraid that reaching the rift may be more difficult than it otherwise might.”

the pair looked at each other, well aware what he meant by that. Shipwright had been dumping his failed experiments here for millions of years and they were all pissed off about it. In other words, they were going to have to fight there way across the station before they could get to the rift, to fight the invaders. This was starting to sound all too familiar.

* * *

Specter

She hovered over the observation deck, on her recently created space ship. It wasn’t something she needed to explore the beauty of space with, but her human charges were another matter entirely. She still had forty-eight human souls under her care. A record from what she remembered, of the last meeting. She had the most, and Granite had the least at six.

She was willing to admit though, there was a reason she still had all but two of those given to her. She hadn’t made them do anything, other than enjoy her ship and explore with her. She hadn’t intended to make them do more either, thinking the depths of space would be safe from the corruption eating away at the planets. Until she discovered a rift in the heart of the nebula, she had set course for some months ago.

The manifestations of chaos that exited the rift were huge beasts; tentacles writhed from cracks in their rocklike hides, mouths ringed with needle teeth. They opened at odd intervals, biting space endlessly. No two of them looked the same, but they were all hideous to look at. Without the tentacles and teeth, Specter could have almost believed they were just asteroids floating where they shouldn’t be.

They weren’t pretty at all, not like her anyway. She looked down at herself with pride, it had taken months but she was really happy with her new look. Annice had helped her a lot, she was a great girl. Where was she anyway? Spector had noticed she was different from the other human females right away. She had been watching her charges, hoping to learn more about them.

After a while, the men and the women began to pair off. she remembered this from ages passed, but had forgotten after so long in space. Annice hadn’t been interested in pairing up with the other humans, she just wanted to know about space. Questioning Specter endlessly about everything they passed. She also helped Specter improve her avatar.

Her avatar had gradually changed; from a ripped and dirty cloak covering skeletal hands and leaking purple essence as she moved. To a ripped and dirty cloak covering skeletal hands and the ‘perfect female silhouette’ leaking purple essence as she moved. It had to be true too, all of the human men’s heads turned when she glided passed them, she felt so good about her progress.

Oh right, Annice. Where was that girl again, she ran a line of her essence out in search. She eventually found her, outside the ship tethered on a long line with a breathing mask. Zooming in with the help of a viewing screen she watched as the sixteen-year-old human girl battled the ‘blind dreamers’ as she called them. specter didn’t understand the significance of calling the corruption, blind dreamers, but it made Annice happy.

It had something to do with a book from her home about powerful beings that lived in the dark beyond the worlds view. well, she got that part. All her children lived out in the dark beyond the view of the worlds, but none of them were that ugly. Once Annice had seen them coming from the rift, she wanted to fight them off and close the rift down.

Specter supposed that was the whole point of bringing the humans here in the first place, but still, to have to stay here for sooo long was driving her mad with boredom. She ran her skeletal hands over her full-figured frame, letting them come to rest on her hips while she waited. She had seen one of the Erlking’s souls do this to show off her new clothes to a male. He seemed to like it, so she had been practicing to show Annice.

Eventually, the purple haired teen ran herself out of essence and returned to the ship. She liked Annice's purple hair, she had changed it from an orange color to match specter’s essence. Specter looked out at the blind dreamer, Annice had been attacking. Several tentacles had been blasted off and were floating away into the void, but otherwise the creature wasn’t harmed much.

“Dang it, I just can’t get through.” She said through her black painted lips. “After you taught me to shoot essence from my hands, I thought I could make a difference.” She said glumly, the white paint she used to lighten her skin had worn off her hands during the battle. She had told specter the style was called ‘goth’ and that the World Lord had nailed it without even trying.

“Cheer up Annice, here check this out.” she said, doing her hands slide over the breasts and onto the hips move. “What do you think? I’ve been practicing, is it good?” she said with an excited lilt to her voice, Annice had taught her how to do that too.

“Actually Specter, that was really good. Who taught you how to do that?” she demanded, checking out the move again, and trying it herself. Unfortunately, she didn’t have the right ‘silhouette’ to work the move, but specter clapped her boney hands anyway. The digits making a clacking sound as they met and a swirling cloud of purple energy rising up from them.

“I watched one of Erlking’s champions do it,” she replied. “Now, about your essence attacks. They aren’t bad for your experience level, dear, its just that you are trying to destroy an asteroid sized creature over there.” She said reassuringly. She thought about it for a little bit, tapping her index finger against the side of her hood.

“Erlking, cheated a bit when this started and gave his favorites an edge. I didn’t because I didn’t want any of my favorites to fight but if you insist then…” she trailed off going still for long seconds. She could feel Annice getting antsy beside her, apparently, she was one of the younger ones called. The young couldn’t contain themselves well it seemed.

“Ah, here we go.” She pulled an egg-shaped object from nowhere and handed it to Annice. It was glowing softly with purple energy and had intricately woven patterns in its surface.

“What is it?” Annice asked, turning it over in her hands. “Its beautiful, and thank you. but I wanted to fight better.”

“It’s a pattern for a creature I just made for you. Go ahead and close your eyes and think about absorbing it into yourself.” She said with a chuckle.

As she watched Annice doing as she was told Specter sighed, they grow up so fast. She had watched over these humans for what felt like centuries, though it had probably been more like a year or something. The pattern vanished and Annice got all excited, then instinctually pulled the creature out.

It was a large black cloak, ripped and torn like Specter’s and bleeding purple light from its openings. The light was just for looks; she couldn’t bleed power on purpose after all. the cloak flew around, looking like a ghost. Then settled into place around Annice’s shoulders.

“Wow,” she said as she was lifted off her feet and hovered in the air. “I look like you now, I can fly, it can follow me around, and my essence core got way bigger when I absorbed it.” The girl was ecstatic.

“It isn’t much, but it should boost your shots power a bit, and you can look super cute while you do it.” She tipped her head to the side in the winking gesture Annice had taught her. “One of my oldest children is on her way here, when she arrives, we are going to go close that rift ok? So, make sure to practice extra hard.”

She hoped they could close the rift anyway. It was bad enough they would all die if they didn’t, but if her beautiful space was invaded by millions of those ugly blind dreamers. No, just no. They were going to fix this problem before any more got in to sully her nebula.