>I just want to know why it feels almost more compelling than the remnants of my kiter training. What is going on?
Well, for one, it is mostly unfamiliar to the current generation of kiter, and your neumono parts are only a few days old. You have not developed the resistance that more experienced creatures have.
We have no idea what Voidsong was planning, this might be deliberate. Eka's unnatural pace supports this. Maybe Voidsong wanted proxies?
Evolution. Even the Kiter evolved by breeding, and you have a new injection of neumono, which might even have awakened old kiter scripts. An arbitrary and overwhelming urge to breed increases odds of breeding and thus is promoted, over gobwads of years, resulting in you.
Fortunately the breeding urge is overwhelming and arbitrary to the point of insanity. These are both hostile elements. If you can train yourself to recognise the urge, and remind yourself that there is no actual way to justify it, and that it is, more-or-less, an enemy, you should be able to dismiss it. Unfortunately, it has evolved to counter such things directly, not to the point of immunity, but it undermines self-reflection, rationality, and independence, so fighting it off isn't easy. However, given the current need for group cohesion, and the harm that breeding would do to that right now, you must find a way to resist.

Tell Ekasarra that Abzu wanted clothes.

One of the locals. She's not into the nudist culture here yet so we should find her some clothes.

>>952446
>"<Who is this?
Eskarra, a neumono of the Ashes Astra tribe.
>She doesn't look like a kiter soldier.
That's correct, she's from a world very far away which knows nothing of the kiter.
>Do you know her?>"
She's carrying my child.

>>952443
>They would journey in pairs, one to scout the way, one to keep the message unchanged by the journey. The tribes went their own ways after the dreamwalker paths were destroyed by the invasion. It was the first of our infrastructure to fall, shredded by alien noise drowning our dreamscapes in hostile storms.
Well that makes the moth's story iffy. Still plausible, but iffy.
>>952445
I'm a bit confused. The sand bit sounds like outside attack, but the self eating sounds like civil war.
Will the Kiter fall by civil war, a foreign war, or simply by whatever kills them?
How does that differ from other empires that fall, but try to rebuild?
>That's why they call them the Mistake.
Imperium calls them that as well. Coincidence? File that away.

Oh, and specify that Abzu's a paraspace expert. If they wish to talk with her, tell them to get someone who speaks the local language. Saba's gonna have a field day with this...

>>952452
Yeeah, Ekasarra is growing faster that should be physically possible, and since she hasn't been literally eating constantly, that could very well be violating the laws of thermodynamics by creating things out of nothing.

>>952490
Additionally, Lackey's breeding urges may be by design in some sort of scheme by voidsong to do mad science. It may be a good idea to find ways of nullifying it at least temporarily although sterilization may be the only option.

>>952483
>coincidence?
No, it's been revealed that Imperium is either working with the Kiter or did so at some point in the past. It's not unreasonable for it to have picked up some of their terminology.

>>952446
Tell your Peshgiene friend that Neumono are actually foreign to the Kiter and you were more or less made as a prototype demonstrator of Kiter-Super-Neumono-Hybrids.

Tell Ekasarra that you're angry because you just realized something stupid and it's frustrating.

Ask what she means by 'flagrant violation of thermodynamics'. Has Kitsiksu noticed the machines in this place have been running without fail for multiple galactic rotations yet?

I'll share something that occured to me: Ignorance is bliss, not because ignorance causes happiness, but because reality is sad and frustrating, and the knowledge and realisation of that is depressing.
Probably not pleasant, but, hopefully insightful. After all, knowledge is still power... *sad sigh*
There is no going back after the bliss of ignorance is lost.

Well she looks concerned, also Holy shit that pregnancy is progressing rapidly.
But that's not for now.

Tell her she's not Kiter, and that she's someone you trust.
Ask Ekasarra to stay with her and maybe contact Sissiri or Tirzi about her, privately.

Ask how she gained so much weight. Has she been eating to try and fill the emotional void left behind by basically everything? Because that probably won't work.

>>952524
Don’t say this. There’s no need to be rude like that.

1/4 Lackey 2020/01/29(Wed)16:54 No. 954870 ID: 9842dc
File 158034565458.png - (11.55KB , 800x600 , salq3-103.png )

>sterilization
No. No, I don't want that. The only effective means would be crippling in other ways. Otherwise my natural kiter resilience and inherited neumono regeneration mean any changes made, my body will fight.
Also, even if I had the option, I'd rather not lose functionality.

>larger belly
>neumono pregnancy
I'm... vaguely aware of... no I have no idea how it works for this species. This is abnormal? Her empathy is definitely very constrained and anxious, barely suppressed panic. I believe neumono are not very well skilled at hiding their emotional paraspatial emanations. Empathy. Whatever the term.

>how did she gain so much weight
Ah. That's probably what that is. Fat patterning for neumono. I haven't seen any larger neumono, so it must just be rapid metabolism at work with an overindulgence in food. I won't judge her, openly.

>who is she
"<This is Ekasarra. She is...>" I trail off. "<She is someone I know. I am a prototype of a kiter variant of her species, the neumono. Other aliens.>"

Abzu looks a little alarmed, but is silent, looking to the floor and trying to cover herself more.

"<I'm needed elsewhere.> Ekasarra, look after Abzu and make sure she doesn't do anything suspicious."
"Kitsiksu wants us both there. He stressed he, uh, wanted us both."
"Okay. Then someone else needs to come here."
"I'll tell-- oh, right, no, never mind." From her confident assurance followed by immediate empathic flood of embarassment, I guess Ekasarra was about to do something her old cybernetics allowed her to.
"<Abzu, stay here for now. Someone else will come to look after you. I'll tell them to bring you clothes. Understand?>"
"<Yes. I can wait. My patience has been tested in more difficult trials.>"

I nod to Abzu, and we both leave the room.

I make sure to lock the door from the outside, just to be safe.

2/4 Lackey 2020/01/29(Wed)16:55 No. 954871 ID: 9842dc
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Ekasarra leads me down the corridor wordlessly to whatever room Kitsiksu is set up in.

I say nothing either.

Her empathy is a roiling mass of despair, isolation, fear and panic. Mostly related to her stomach. I suppose it might not just be food storage after all.
Mine I pull inward, hide my thoughts from the prying eyes of those around me. Tricks learned through flickering lifetimes as neno fi. The more I draw away, the colder my psyche feels. I am numbed to my own thoughts and emotions. I clear the surface of my mind and submerge all I can think of.

I don't trust Ekasarra and I don't want her to know this. I don't want to reveal anything of how I feel about her right now.

She suddenly pauses and turns around, only to be surprised when I'm right behind her, jumping and yelping.

"Ah! Where did you go?!"
"What?"
"You just disappeared, I mean, it felt like..."
"I'm not in any mood for shenanigans right now, Ekasarra. Take me to Kitsiksu."
"But..." She trails off nervously, looking at my increasingly irritated face. "I don't understand... never mind, let's keep going."

She takes a few more steps and turns back to face me as if I'm not there.

"You... aren't, like, projecting an image or something of yourself, are you?" She looks confused and a little annoyed. "Kitsiksu needs you there in person, please don't start messing with me with your weird psychic powers or whatever!"
"If I wanted to waste that much effort I'd just teleport there instead of walking."
"I can't feel your empathy at all."

Ah. Ah, dammit. I didn't factor in absence being something that'd be notable in its own right. I begrudgingly uncoil my emotional disarray so only a smudge of my general disdain for the situation emerges. She winces and looks about as unhappy.
I'm also unhappy. The emotional withdrawal wasn't just to keep my disdain of Ekasarra from her so much as it was to not have to deal with it myself.

I sigh and just drop my concentration, spilling my emotions out like I just upended a fluid container onto the floor.

Ekasarra visibly jumps at the close range burst of my empathy. "Ghk! Agh!" She squirms like ice just fell down her back. "Stop it!"
"Stop what?"
"Stop doing weird things! I can't cope with much more right now! Please!"
"You realise this entire situation is all purely your fault, correct?"

Ekasarra stops and clenches her hands into fists. She doesn't say anything but her fur stands up on end and I can feel the spike of previously muted anger and annoyance flare like a lit match into a burning bright flame of rage. "Say that again."
"Sure. Why not. This entire situation is all your fault."
"What part of it," she says, breathing slowly and turning to face me, "is my fault?"
"The part where you used my genetic material to--"
"No," she says, seething. "All I was to you was a curiosity and an object to fuck without consequence. Then when there were consequences, you decided to betray my trust in you at the very first opportunity. I thought we had a deeper connection. I thought we could be something more together." She tears up, still furious. "Do you know how hard it was for me to think clearly around you?! I don't even know why I agreed in the first place!! I'd never sleep with a rogue before, let alone some patchwork monster made up like a neumono!! Then there was that stunt where I wasn't even sure who I was after you doused me in more psychic nonsense! I'm not even sure the ideas I had were even my own!! I don't even know who Ekasarra is right now but I do know she's probably going to be ripped apart by some fucking awful monster from the inside!"

She swings at the wall next to me and recoils in pain, having just punched a steel wall with more force than I suspect she intended. She looks at me, still teary-eyed, and storms off, before beckoning me to follow her via angry arm sweeps.

3/4 Lackey 2020/01/29(Wed)16:55 No. 954872 ID: 9842dc
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I walk into a small room on the same corridor as the room housing Sisirri's arkots.

Inside, I'm met with Kitsiksu who appears to be moving around medical equipment. He pauses, glances over to Ekasarra and myself, and continues moving around medical equipment.

"He's here," says Ekasarra, now trying to avoid even looking in my direction.

The salikai pauses, and nods, before making some notes on one of the input tablets this place seems to have in abundance. "Please lie down as before, Lackey." He gestures to a vaguely cylindrical surface not unlike the one I was on previously.
"Explain what you need me for first," I say.
"Ekasarra, lie down on the other surface."
"That's not an explanation," I say, refusing to go near the cylindrical surface.

Kitsiksu's strange fungal eye growths flick and twitch. "I don't tend to give explanations to non-compliant patients. I find little reason to start now."
"I don't trust you."
"I get that a lot," says Kitsiksu, as he picks up a scanner. "It makes no difference to me one way or the other. Comply and Ekasarra lives, refuse and she could die."
"Wait, what?" says Ekasarra.
"Breathe this," says Kitsiksu, passing a tube to Ekasarra. "There's no neumono form factor gas masks here, so try to make as much of a seal with your mouth as you can. Past your teeth. I'll put a band around your muzzle after to ideally keep it in your mouth." He starts placing sensor nodes onto her body and restraining her arms as before, except Ekasarra definitely seems a lot less at ease than this time, eyes wide open.

"Kitsiksu, what are you doing?"
"I need more time to figure out a solution to this problem. I don't know how tightly integrated into your biology this anomaly is, and so I need to make time. I'm going to sedate you and slow your metabolism down to give us more time." One of his eye-tendrils points towards me. "We might need a lot more time, given certain... non-compliant factors." He looks directly at me.
"So I'll... just be asleep?"
"...Yes. It will just be like sleep. You won't feel a thing, and when you wake up, the problem will be solved." His tone of voice sounds almost oddly compassionate given his usual terse demeanour. "My priority is to preserve your life. Sisirri would have my head if anything happened to her favourite neumono, after all."

Kitsiksu gently helps Ekasarra bite down on the tube, and she looks up, scared but trusting. As he wraps a fabric band around her snout, he goes back to placing sensor beads over her body, watching up at a screen showing readouts in abbreviations and text I can't understand. It's the language called English and I know the script, but I don't know the medical jargon used in Kitsiksu's culture of origin.

"Out like the flick of a switch," he says after a few minutes. "It is amazing how something as tough to disable as the neumono consciousness can be just as vulnerable to the right mixture of gases as more frail oxygen breathers."
"You're hiding something," I say. "You don't have empathy, but I don't need empathy to read intentions. I don't need paraspacial insight, either, you obviously didn't give her the full truth."
"Of course I am," snaps Kitsiksu. "Panic won't help anyone. This may come as a surprise to you, but I would prefer Ekasarra alive and healthy, and not dying of a mysterious alien affliction." He looks me dead in the eyes, but does not continue, quietly returning to the readouts on the screen.

4/4 Lackey 2020/01/29(Wed)16:56 No. 954873 ID: 9842dc
File 158034576181.png - (11.25KB , 800x600 , salq3-106.png )

"This is a living nightmare," says Kitsiksu. "I've seen nothing like it. By all accounts, Ekasarra should be dead with the amount of material and energy required for something to grow this fast and this quickly. Most of it is low density fluid sacs but the fluid still has to come from something. She thinks she's only feeling slight discomfort but her entire metabolism is on the brink of collapse. It's interfering with her neurology. Neumono neurology, one of the most resilient to intrusion outside of empathetic measures. This has all the hallmarks of a parasite, trying to correct its host's behaviour to notice it less and less. This is not how a standard neumono pregnancy works at all. I'm surprised and thankful her uterus hasn't ruptured."

He takes a wet cloth and wipes his graspers with it, one by one, more out of a nervous tic than any practical purpose I can ascertain. "This is something I have no idea how to solve. All I can do is try to buy enough time to think of a solution. I have one idea."
"What's that?"
"I take an egg from Ekasarra, take sperm from you, and observe what I'm going to against my better judgement refer to as the "fertilisation process" in a controlled growth chamber. I've found enough pieces to improvise one. The solution in the healing baths should work as a means to both nurture and suspend the growing organism, and I can use this culture incubator I found as a multicellular incubator. Then all I need to do is analyse the growth, and I should be able to determine exactly what factors accelerate development and what factors hinder it. Then I can at least treat Ekasarra while I try to figure out a cure. My last ditch option is to try and cut it out of her, but I don't know how deep it goes. I don't know what could happen if there were free floating kiter tissue left in her body."

I look at Ekasarra's stomach. "How are you going to get another egg out of her if she's already pregnant? And the, uh, 'thing' you want to avoid disturbing or cutting into is in the way?"
Kitsiksu rests his head on his graspers as he stares up at the monitor. "Firstly, egg cell. Secondly, the angles are awkward and could result in significant harm to surrounding tissue, but as long as the uterus remains unbreached it should be feasible. She'll be unconscious and her neumono biology will prevent any actual harm from lasting."

He pauses.

"If you lie down on the table I can also harvest your gametes. I want to do this in parallel to give the smallest window of time where both gametes are outside of their preferred environmental conditions, even if neumono spermatophores are surprisingly long-lived."
"I'd rather not."
"Firstly, this is a literal matter of life or death. Secondly, I am a professional. This would not be the first time I've had to acquire a neumono spermatophore for medical reasons."
"I... wait, what?"
"I'm bound by many, many contracts not to explain any further than that. While they're all presently unenforceable, I wish to abide by them for my own personal reasons, those being respect for the terms of contracts and respect for what remains of my own dignity. So, fewer questions, get on the table."

Against my better judgement, I get on the table and lie down.

"So we have two options, given male neumono apparently have as much difficulty extracting their own gametes as female neumono. Either I sedate you and extract one surgically, or I repurpose this." I can't see what 'this' is but I hear some sort of vacuum being turned on, then turned off again. "Given your general untrusting nature I suspect you would prefer the non-sedated option, but I am giving you the choice in an effort to demonstrate I am not completely beyond negotiation."
"If you really wanted to suck me that badly you could have, uh, just asked."

The salikai just sighs. "I don't understand how something so different to a neumono at the cellular level can still emulate the insufferable stubbornness and awful humour of one. We don't have all night, just let me know what you want. Time is not on our side."

Suck one out. If they are so dangerous then trying to cut it out might cause issues.

First, resolve to apologize to eksarra when you both wake up, you’ve been a right asshole about all this

Second, you should probably stay awake so that you’re less vulnerable to paraspacial invasion? I think that’s how that works.

>>954873
HEY. You forgot AGAIN to pass along important information. Tell him about Abzu and about how she needs clothes before she can meet the others!

which one will be quicker?

Fuck it. Take the sedation.
It's been a long fucking day.

Shutting down for a while would be. Nice.

>>954873
You should at least try to make an effort to be more cooperative. Because like Kitsiksu said, if anything happened to Ekasarra, Sisirri would have his head! And Sisirri would also have your head when she finds out that you weren’t helping to save Ekasarra’s life!

You really are trying to negate the role you've had in anything while gaslighting others to try and make it seem like they've caused all the problems.. Maybe you are more kiter still then you realized.

Let him syringe your prostate. You want this done, but your paraspace knowledge is something he does not have.

>>954886
>>954888
These.

Surrender control. Maybe you'll actually get some restful sleep

You know why she did what she did, you were literally there for it. OF COURSE it was a bad idea, but seems like telekinetic flash-bonding tends towards questionable choices. Being insufferable to her(and everyone else just about) now is helping you, how exactly? All youre doing here is convincing people whose help youve needed before and will most likely continue to need that you are unreasonable and untrustworthy. And yeah, remember to mention Abzu and the request for clothes

You'll go the vacuum route, but tell Kitsiksu to hand the vac and its controls over to you. If your balls are gonna be sucked out, then you're gonna do it yourself rather than have him put his graspers on you.

Try and isolate the horny feelings you have and have had before and loop them back around in your mind to aid in releasing a spermatophore now.

>>954873
WAIT.

BEFORE YOU DO THIS...

Tell him you were feeling dramatically sick earlier, kind of like you were dying, as well as experiencing severe moodswings. Ask if it might be related to how quickly the 'living nightmare' is gestating.

...I wonder if the fetus is feeding off of paraspacial energy?

1/7 Lackey 2020/02/16(Sun)18:00 No. 956504 ID: 9998d3
File 158190482809.png - (82.24KB , 800x600 , salq3-107.png )

>forget to give vital information
>shrugging off all responsibility
>gaslighting others
>acting pretty kiter
I'm made of kiter technology, I'm programmed with kiter minds and experiences, there is never going to be any way for me to somehow not be kiter, not associated with the stupidest thing in existence, everything is stupid, everything is the worst, fuck it, fuck all of it. I don't care.

>let literally anyone know about Abzu
I don't care.

>talk about your malfunctions
>paraspacial fetus theory
I don't even care about myself at this point.

>sedation
>surrender control
>sleep
"Just knock me out. I'm tired of being held as the one at fault here. It's not my fault my biology is engineered to be significantly superior to any of you primordial accidents. I--"
"Yes. Yes. I understand. I understand where you are coming from. It doesn't change the fact that your irresponsible decisions directly caused this chain of events. You are breaking so much and leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces while actively making things worse."

OW FUCK HE JUST STABBED ME IN THE-- what do you even call that area where your abdomen kind of merges into your groin but isn't quite your groin yet? Well it stopped being painful very quickllll haa big snake bug is here

"While that neural dampener works its way through your tissues, I'm going to check on Ekasarra. Stay put."
"okaaaay."
"It's a special formulation derived from my initial dissection of one of those organisms stolen from the kiter. I tested a previous formulation on the thing and it turned out to be too effective at disrupting kiter tissue, so this should just disrupt your neurological tissue without permanent issue. Or you'll end up as a mindless vegetable, but frankly that feels like a more useful thing for you to be right now."
"not vegetables," says me, thing, i think
words hardd
"Hm. No, you're still forming vaguely coherent words. Double the dosage it is."

owwwwww

"bleaz sstop"
"What is five plus three?"
"fee"
"What's my name? ...Lackey? Hm. Pupils unresponsive to direct light, alright, you're probably sufficiently out of it. Even if you're still conscious I don't think you're awake enough to remember or feel any of the next steps, so. Just locking the door so no one can disturb me, we don't want a repeat of that jostle incident... let's get to work."

2/7 ... 2020/02/16(Sun)18:00 No. 956506 ID: 9998d3
File 158190485144.png - (224.03KB , 800x600 , salq3-108.png )

...--

3/7 Staccato 2020/02/16(Sun)18:01 No. 956507 ID: 9998d3
File 158190488132.png - (56.02KB , 800x600 , salq3-109.png )

"He's awake. Finally. What is your name, info hiver?"
Disconnection. Cold. Void. Darkness. Reassessing experiential parameters.
Awareness. One. I am one, again.
"My name is Staccato 28 of the neburi hive Rising Crescendo Analytics of Shadow Fleet tendril 4356."

I make a series of clicks. Protocol must be followed. "Identify."

4/7 Staccato 2020/02/16(Sun)18:01 No. 956508 ID: 9998d3
File 158190490319.png - (64.41KB , 800x600 , salq3-110.png )

"Concentric Wireshaper 104, Fabricator hive 9, so on so on."
"This is not my designated location," I say, looking around at an unfamiliar room in what I assume to be a kiter spire.

"So blunt and to the point, you info hivers. Fine. Yes. We've pulled you out of whatever thrilling calculations they had you doing, so we can--"
"How did I get to this location?"
"You... you walked. Wow, you really were busy computing, huh. I'm actually impressed you can walk while submerged that deeply. Anyway, we've got a native to interrogate. We need an information extractor. That's you. Extract information."

I take a few moments to gather my bearings, head swimming from the sudden disconnect from the hive computation. I feel smaller and lesser, but these feelings soon pass as I re-establish conscious connection to my hive on subliminal channels.
[QUERY:NATIVE_DATA_COLLECTION][ANSWER:FULLY_CATALOGUED]
"We've collected as much biological data from all three native sapient species as warrants collecting, is this military intelligence?"
"Well, no--"
"Then it's tertiary priority. You'll need authorisation from the Conductor of Rising Cresc--"
"Return to Sender herself stepped in and requested this. You came recommended, in fact. Possibly the best interrogator under ninety units tall. And we all know how... indelicate the ess can be with their approach."

[QUERY:VALIDATE_AUTHORISATION_FOR_CURRENT_CONTEXT][ANSWER:AUTHORISATION_VALID:HIVEMASTER_CLEARANCE]
What could possibly be so urgent that the Hivemaster feels the need to bypass standard protocol and step in directly...

5/7 Staccato 2020/02/16(Sun)18:02 No. 956509 ID: 9998d3
File 158190493114.png - (78.61KB , 800x600 , salq3-111.png )

A [QUERY:IDENTIFY_ENTITY][ANSWER:NATIVE/SAPIENT/PESHGIENE] peshgiene [QUERY:IDENTIFY_ADDITIONAL_CHARACTERISTICS][ANSWER:FEMALE/ADULT/<RETRIEVE_FROM_MEMORY:NO_FURTHER_DATA>] female of no particular identity is standing in front of me. All personal effects and external layers removed, for weapon removal and morale reduction. Restrained with few bonds, unguarded.
"Weak restraints for a captive this deep in a nerve spire." Especially for such an apparently critical target.
"She tried to run a few times, and after the fifth time we caught her seconds into her escape efforts she gave up. She's a product of natural biology, Staccato, even you could overpower her."
[QUERY:KNOWN_CAPABILITIES_OF_PESHGIENE][ANSWER:HIGH_PARASPACIAL_POTENTIAL]
"Not if she were to use paraspacial capabilities," I say, clicking in annoyance.
"This is a warded chamber," says Wireshaper. "Anyone trying to tap into the ethereal here will be met with some... surprises. I will be right back, I need to fetch some tools."
I watch Wireshaper leave, as they turn back to me with a devious expression and click-sings "You have full permission to be as destructive in your analysis as desired," as they walk through a permeable wall, membrane rippling behind them.

6/7 Staccato 2020/02/16(Sun)18:02 No. 956510 ID: 9998d3
File 158190495722.png - (60.49KB , 800x600 , salq3-112.png )

[QUERY:PESHGIENE_NAME][ANSWER:IZILA]
I switch from efficient information clustering via tone, pitch and frequency to a cruder form.
"What is your name, peshgiene?" My voice is modulated for calm tone and neutral emotion.
No response. Silent defiance. I double check Wireshaper's hints.
[REQUEST:AUTHORITY_FOR_COMPLETE_EXTRACTION][GRANTED]
"There are two means I can use to extract answers from you, peshgiene. Questions, or more direct means."

I raise a feathered hand as it splits apart into thousands of wiry fibres, all sharp, all prepared for direct neural access. All thirsting for information. They coil and slither around in ways even I can't directly control. My subconscious desire to consume information at any cost made manifest.

"Your species' connectome is known to us, and I can insert a fibre into every major neural junction in your brain. You will not survive the process for longer than is necessary to extract every single thought, memory and experience you have had. Are you still prepared to remain silent?"

"If you can do that," spits the peshgiene, "why bother questioning me at all?"

I don't tell her it's going to happen anyway, but the questioning can sometimes create useful realisations and shifts in perspective. More data to harvest. I'm certainly not going to tell her she might even be able to survive the process but conveniently locked inside her own body paralysed and unable to act as the fleshweavers do whatever they feel with her conscious body. That's more of a diplomat mode of action. Outside of my scope.

"I don't know, peshgiene. Why don't you tell me?"

The peshgiene Izila looks at me with righteous disdain, before scowling. "You need me alive for something. Something you can't do."
"Incorrect."
"Alright. Then I guess you want to torture me because you're a bunch of planet eating sadists who get nutrients from the pain of others. Whatever. I'm not going to give you fuckers the satisfaction of screaming and begging for my life."
"Incorrect."
"Then what?"

I tilt my head slightly. "Incorrect," I say. "You do not appear to grasp the context of this situation or are willingly acting ignorant of it. You are here to give me information."
"I'm not talking. You'd have peeled my brain open or whatever already if you didn't need me alive. You're just like the fucking convocation, all talk, all bluff, too scared to do anything too much in case you get reprimanded by your asshole leaders or whatever. Fuck you. Fuck your stupid games, I'm not playing them."

Alright. This is not a negotiation. Time to advance to more direct methods. Threats, indirect or otherwise, will not prove sufficient. Just need to stall while I recall some information. [QUERY:PESHGIENE_SENSITIVE_REGIONS][SUBQUERY:PESHGIENE_ORGANS/NONVITAL][ANSWER:DOWNLOADED]

"You think I'm afraid of a stupid bird?!"
"Elevated heart rate, perspiration, breathing, symptomatic of fight-or-flight chemical and neurological pathway activation. Evidence of anxiety, panic, dread, fear. Yes."

I look at the glistening metal of my split wing tendrils. I roll through my knowledge of the most sensitive areas of the peshgiene anatomy, and start scrolling through them to find one that will be sufficiently convincing without impairing communication completely. Then I just need to go through the list, provide compelling stimuli, and--

7/7 Staccato 2020/02/16(Sun)18:03 No. 956511 ID: 9998d3
File 158190502625.png - (106.30KB , 800x600 , salq3-113.png )

Wait. [RESCIND_QUERY]
Out of the corner of my eye I see a strange black furred creature. I think it's a strange reflection of the peshgiene at first, or some other before it starts walking up to me.
[QUERY:IDENTITY_OF_LAGOMORPHIC_ENTITY]

...No answer?

[QUERY:REPEAT]

No answer. Everything feels like time is freezing but the creature is getting closer. How did they breach security?? I was told this chamber was warded and sealed!!

Then, it speaks. "...Lackey?? Lackey why are you a bird??"

BECAUSE THESE SEEDS ARE DELICIOUS

>>956511
"Who are you, how did you get in here? This place is suppose to be secure. You should not be able to walk past the guards and this room stops any unauthorized use of paraspacial abilities."

guess we should probably start trying to set the alarm to let everyone know that an intruder has gotten into the base.

>>956511
Ah, I figured it out. This is dreamsharing.
You are not Staccato. This is a dream, of an inherited memory. Remember who you really are.
For a second I doubted and thought maybe this is who you really are, but Abzu would have seen it. She has seen the all of you.

Maybe you can use this dream to sort through your Kiter memories and find something useful? Like, interrogating this prisoner. Her memories are important to the Kiter, maybe you should actually brain-scan her to find out why.

>>956514
Truth.

“I’m a bird because it’s easier to run from your problems when you can fly.”

You are dreaming and recalling the past lives within you. Play out the memory and gather what information you can from it.

Although, if the memory changes and reacts to your actions then this is closer to a dream than a memory. That would make information you get here unreliable.

This is either a memory or you've possessed one of the kiter on this planet somehow

>>956511
>Ekasarra
Well would you look at that! It seems like she’s capable of coming into your dreams! Looks like you’ve got no choice but to actually talk to her now.

>>956511
Because we aren't Lackey, in either case you can't do what you are about to when someone could interfere with this.

Simplified SQL speak? I dig.
Hmm, I doubt this'll work, but just to be sure,
[QUERY:KITER_PARASPACIAL_DEFENSES]
[QUERY:SELF/PRIVATE_KEYS]

Oh geez buddy, what shell you running? You're way behind the times. Time to update.

>>956511
"I was a bird. I still am in part. This is one of the personality composites I was made from."

"I was him. And I think I was her. I was all of them and none of them. I was the worst parts of them, because Voidsong's twisted mind could only see their conflicting, self-destructive tendencies as pure potential."