Daylight slowly drains from the sky. The survivors are standing face to face with an unknown person, now for only the *second time* in their lives. The first time, when they had let unknown people into Sanctum-Steemio II,*boy*, that had gone south fast. That experience was coloring this one, keeping the survivors on edge.
The citizen from Steemio XI eyes the survivors, appraising each with just a moments attention. One moment he's as still as a statue, and the next he has a strange cylindrical rod pointed at group. With a sharp hint of ozone in the air, the rod __*flares*__ momentarily, releasing a translucent string of energy that stuns each survivor. As they fall to the floor, consciousness peeling away to let in the dark around the edges, they watch yogi.artist rummage through their belongings. Then there is only __darkness__.
Timsaid *groans*, slowly pulling himself upright, dirt and dust coating the side of his face. He's trying to open his eyes, but his vision is black. It's *completely* dark, and he can feel the panic starting to climb up from *inside* his throat. Did yogi.artist kill anyone? Why can't he *see*?
A cold breeze blows in from the ocean, the smell of the sea, the salt, everything is so *clear*, like nothing he's ever smelled or felt before. First colors, and then shapes, start to peer through his frosted glass vision.
The dim light is slowing setting in and he looks up, sees darkness pass above him and then thousands, no,*hundreds of thousands*, innumerable small, shimmering lights. Were those the stars of legend that they'd been taught about as children? His sigh of relief wheezes out from between parched and thirsty lips. But at least he wasn't blind. He was *outside*, and it was just dark.
"*I can see*!" he yells at the blanket of diamonds overhead.
mistOwed and Aden groan together. Sitting and then standing, they rush over to timsaid, who's staring up into the sky, like some sentinel statue looking for home. For what feels like hours, the three just stand and stare at the living myth written in the inky sky, the stars.
mistOwed was the first to turn away, remembering how they'd come to be unconscious in the first place. Upending their bags, rummaging through and taking quick inventory revealed that the emergency second skin packs were *missing*. Yogi.artist had taken the skin packs, but wasn't injured. *Why?* Calling the others, mistOwed managed to pull the survivors away from the black mirror above, shouting in excitement about the topside world. Positively giddy, that mistOwed.
"So how do we find him?" he asked, sauntering over to a tree to pull down the branches, smell the leaves and then watch it whip back up, grinning the whole time.
"Come on, Mist, we can track everything." Reaching down into the pile of their belongings, Aden pulls up a pad. "You forget about this?"
Excited, mistOwed takes a hopping jog around the perimeter, scooping up flowers and twirling around.
For the second time that night, timsaid groans in pain.
The tracker takes them back along the coastline, and MistOwed seem more interested in everything but actually finding yogi.artist to retrieve their gear. He's weaving back and forth across a dirt packed path, smelling flowers, picking up wierd stones, trying to skip them along the ground. Some of the rocks, though, were almost hollow and would crack and crumble easily.
"Wait, look at this", he says. "Isn't this a *seashell*, like in the books?"
Aden looks at him, more than a little annoyance flashing across her face. "Why can't you take this serious? We've lost all of our gear, how are we going to survive??" She grumbles and flips her pack around, suddenly more interested in taking inventory than dealing with MistOwed. Timsaid chuckles, elbowing Aden in the ribs. "It's great that he doesn't get distraught, you know. He jokes around like this to keep his cool, but you know how he can be when he's mad. If we could copypasta that, we'd be way better off."
MistOwed puts his arm around Adens shoulder. "Relax Aid, I'm taking this very serious. But we aren't there yet, are we? And, comeon, I've never seen so many interesting things before, and I know you haven't" He hands Aden the opened seashell. "Eat this, you must be hungry, It's meat, full of proteins, according to the books"
Aden's strangled scream only makes MistOwed giggle, "What is *wrong* with you, seriously! You're always like this, do you even know what normal *means*?!". MistOwed and Aden never really did get along down in Sanctum-Steemio, so it's no wonder they're acting like this now.
Timsaid hisses in as low a tone as he can, and instantly the three are synced and crouched low. Ahead, between the trees, a pale orange flickers and pulses in the darkness. "Ssh, look at your biochip MisOwed, there's movement up ahead!" MistOwed looks at the holographic display on his arm. And sure enough, just 100 meters ahead, the signal says there are two signatures. With hand gestures, Timsaid directs the two into a position to rush in from the flanks. They silently pad off.
In the clearing, spare equipment and debris are scattered around a hastily contstructed campfire, on which sits a boiling pot of liquid on an ember bed.Yogi.artist presses the skin patch onto the neck of an unconscious man, holding it there until the molecular bonds can secure. The body of the man softly *seizes*, and then a soft moaning escapes him, breaking into a wheezing cough.
"prufarchy, prufarchy! You're okay, just breath! Can you hear me?" But prufarchy can't hear him, can't see, can't reason beyond understanding that he's alive *somehow*, but somehow unable to get back to life, *fully*. After brain death, it's still possible to bring someone back, but it's taboo, never done. prufarchy had been cold on the ground near an hour now, a record if anyone was still keeping score, and that was anything but certain. It shouldn't have been possible. Then again, none of this should be possible. "yogi.artist," he eeks out, and yogi.artist presses a damp towel to his mouth.
The survivors from Sanctum-Steemio II stood a dozen feet away, their plan to attack abandoned. Even*mistOwed* seemed almost disappointed, and sympathetic. timsaid, eyes locked on aden's, called out "I think he's gonna make it," and yogi.artist spun, bolting to his feet like a taut rope on a wind-filled sail. In the intervening silence that filled the gap between yogi.artist and the survivors, all hell broke loose. The shriek of a bolt fired echoed, sending strange creatures that looked like minnows careening into the inky sky. Yogi.artist slowly dropped to his knees, the hole in his chest burned clear through.
With blood bubbling on his lips, with the last steam of his life escaping through his mouth, he looks from prufarchy to timsaid and whispers "They're here. Take him and run, you need him to... him to... __Cough__ fight...
As yogi.artist collapses face first into the underbrush, prufarchy bolts upright, looking completely alive and rejuvanated. Boots that stomp faces echoed not far off, and prufarchy took only a moment to retrieve some items from his fallen companion before running over to the survivors. Now they were all survivors, but could they be for long?
"**There's the fire!**" a voice boomed, and the four survivors fled into the surrounding black velvet cloak of night. Together.
to be continued...