• Nobles of Null is a forum based roleplay site where sci-fi and magic collide. Here, Earth remains fractured and divided despite humanity reaching out to the stars. Worse still, the trans-human slaves of one major power have escaped, only to establish their own Empire, seething with resentment at abuses of the past. Even the discovery of aliens, though medieval in development, has failed to rally these squabbling children of Earth together with its far darker implications. Worse still, is the discovery of the impossible - magic. Practiced by the alien locals, nearly depleted and therefore rare, its reality warping abilities remains abstract and distant to the general populace. All the while, unseen in the darkness of space, forces from without threaten to press in. For those with eyes opened by insight, it is clear that an era is about to end, and that a new age will dawn.

Exhumation

Ray of Meep

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Wiki Moderator
Late 2322
Somewhere in the Xianglong Ring System, Aboard the Changhong

Pema stepped into the briefing room aboard the marine frigate, feeling the false 1.2 g gravity pulling him towards the main engines of the vessel as they decelerated towards their destination, an icy rock in the gas giant's rings. Occasional plinks could be heard ringing through the walls, as micro asteroids glanced off the armor or completely embedded themelves. Hopefully the lasers were dealing with the most lethal objects in their way.

His helmet in hand, "Lotus" Pema gave his counterpart, Zhaoyun, a nod, who stood on the opposite side of the central table with his own team of four. Zhaoyun and most of the others here were paler than Pema, though they shared similar, Asian black hair, with the occasional dab of colorful dye as personal display. The except was... Anamu, was it, on Zhaoyun's team, an Aos Si, with complexions similar to a human of European descent, uncannily so with uneasy differences, tissue and muscles slightly misplaced that made him clearly alien. Between them was the Vrexul representative, who was undoubtedly so.

The entire briefing room was laid out similar to the bridge, with monitors lining the walls, crash couches, and the central table equipped with a hologram projector. Pema set his helmet on the edge of the table, bringing up a 3D map of the local area. Unlike an asteroid belt where objects were hundreds of kilometers apart, the ring system was dense enough that made mapping and navigation a true nuisance, objects flickering in and out on the live map. A dot circled in red slowly moved towards the flotilla marked by yellow arrows.

"Alright, Heiyi, Lvshi, listen up." Pema announced out loud to the two teams. "Five days ago Space Command got a distress signal, Daqin in origin, from this rock, XL-563." He pointed at the circled dot as the listeners looked on incredulously. "They claim they were attacked by unknown assailants, and were forced to evacuate. Their pirate vessels are now in orbit, awaiting for our arrival."

"A trap, sir?" Pan "Joy" Huan asked from Pema's own team.

"Likely, but the footage provided matches that of Vrexul activity," Pema eyed their alien liaison, "and it seems our friends here seem quite interested in further investigation. Nonetheless, we have our own national security responsibilities to fulfill first. Our escorts will be taking remote control of their vessels before we board and detain them. Then, we'll send drones down to the surface to scout out their base before we deploy. Space Command intelligence says that they were cooperative over the comms, but who knows what the Daqinren are up to."
 
"A merciful death shall suffice for rescue. Those on board the asteroid-station can primarily be accounted for as deceased or near-death."

The vrexul that spoke did not speak through a text-to-voice speaker system. The sounds it made were too organic, too inflected, and too wet in their grimy, rasping texture to be anything other than its own voice. It flanged as if it had multiple throats and mouths but this one was fluent in mandarin and unreliant on technology to convey its point.

It was not as imposing as the soldiers of the vrexul, its angular carapace almost artisinal in its deliberately sharpened corners and edges. The prominent augmentations of its kind were subtler; the slightly protruding computer-chip like panels across its shell, the swiveling heads of projectors and scanners staring with bulb-like ocular ports, and additional limbs that were functionally robotic limbs that bent in on themselves from complex series of joints and retracting sections. It was seven feet and two inches overall but its body tapered upwards to its shoulders from a dense though comparatively sleeker thorax. Its proportions were almost akin to a mantis and a spider's within a body that was standing bipedally but otherwise was entirely alien in its specifics.

"The pirates are not why we are here. The station they inhabit is the focus of our fleet's presence. If there is an absence of hostility towards aerial craft, then we can begin preliminary reconaissance and soon, boarding. If they have encountered remnants of our kind, they may not be as in control of the station as they would wish. I would leave the task of apprehending criminals to you; they are secondary in significance with the contents of the station."

Its head might have been some sort of flattened, staphylinid beetle esque thing - two large semi-translucent eye-domes, a series of antennae emerging from ports located at the corners of its head, a series of overlapping and interlocking mandipalps and smaller auxiliary appendages for fine manipulation. If not for the jutting, authoritative cubic shapes seeming to sprout up through the centre of its cranium like geometric fungi that flickered with countless LED's and the skitter of tiny drone-creatures maintaining it, it would have seemed mostly a natural creature.

Unusual for most vrexul, this one had clothing or about as close to it as one could approximate. It was more akin to some sort of long drapes, ceremonial sleevs if anything, not a part of a larger part of clothing but simply attached to its forearms of its primary, larger limbs. There were four of them in total but also as it stretched its arms back, it appeared some of it was attached to its torso and sides; a bizarre almost monk-like robe cyan and yellow in colour. Looking closerly, the heraldry upon them formed long and almost limb like shapes that when combined with the creature's relatively lighter blue body, made it appear to almost have wings. More notable was that the yellow lines when raised at a certain angle seemed to almost form the arms of an emblem of sorts.

"We have little time to waste. Others may have heard the distress signal and we cannot guarantee it shall solely be additional pirates. My incursion-unit has been briefed and loaded onto a sub-vessel of our own. We have eight in total. This should be sufficient for any threats."

Based on data on the files, this vrexul was from the Gnosis Eater Sect and was a high ranking leader or "voivode" as a very rough translation of whatever of their language could be deciphered stated. Diranzrivec Vresclausivir was the name that emerged from this process as well as his position as a high ranking non-gestalt consciousness incorporated member of a large political institution. Hive Vessel "Virdralavost" appeared to be his stationing and it appeared he was a high ranking member of a sort of a sort of ruling party; an old one, though its name did not appear to cleanly translate. The most that could be drawn from it was "Inheritance" or "Eon Calling".
 
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