• Published 25th Jan 2018
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Dead Space: Deep Space Terror - Blackdrag-rose



Chrysalis has made the greatest mistake of her life and must survive the horrors that await her in the darkness of the USG Ishimura.

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Tau Volantis: Braving the Cold

Once Ellie's message was over, and Isaac was happy to hear that she and the others were alive, the three of them headed out of the ruined part of the Crozier that they had been in and started following the flares that Ellie had left for them to follow, to which they headed down the path that was in front of them. When they reached the edge of a cliff, however, the three of them were surprised when a large crab like Necromorph pulled itself up in front of them and swung one of it's legs at them, knocking all three of them into the air and forcing them to roll down the hill that it had just climbed up. Chrysalis, thinking quickly, wove her magic through the air and grabbed both Isaac and Carver as they hit the side of the hill, using a temporary barrier to protect them all before they came to a stop at the bottom of the hill. When they stopped moving the three of them remained still for a few seconds, looking for the creature that had suddenly disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, though when they saw nothing coming at them they picked themselves up off the ground and Chrysalis sent her barriers away.

"Okay, what the hell was that thing?" Carver asked, as that was a new type of Necromorph he hadn't see before, though he wasn't sure if Isaac and Chrysalis had seen it before since they hadn't told him all the types they had encountered over the years, to which he turned and looked at them.

"Some sort of intelligent Necromorph," Chrysalis replied, as she knew that the Snow Beast, her name for the creature, was watching them like a predator, meaning that they were supposed to be it's prey, but the creature would find that the 'prey' it was hunting wasn't as weak or as helpless of what it was used to hunting, "Come on, we had best get moving before it decides to come back and attack us again."

Isaac knew that Chrysalis was referring to the fact that they couldn't really fight in these conditions, not when they had to constantly restore the heat to their bodies by the fires and whatever else they could find, but at the same time he also knew that this creature, which his friend had likely named by now, was going to keep coming after them until one of them was dead. Of course he knew that the creature would be the one to fall, it was only a matter of how many times it wanted to fight them before that happened, but instead of focusing on the creature he turned towards the flares that were nearby and started moving again, to which Carver and Chrysalis followed after him. As they focused on their surroundings, and ignored the creature that had surprised them, they found a large pipeline and some ancient vehicles resting in front of them, though luck was on their side as they found the trail of flares again and stopped beside a door. The three of them decided to take a chance and opened the door, finding a decent sized room with a generator that, when it was powered on, brought heat to the room, allowing them a few moments to restore their body temperatures before they had to leave and tackle the cold once more.

Isaac also found a text log that revealed that the crew that had come down to the planet had a large number of drill parts and that they might have uncovered some sort of alien life, but since that was where the text log ended he simply stored it away and welcomed the warmth into his body again... and besides, it wasn't as grand as the people thought, as he knew of a species that wasn't affected by the Markers and likely never would be; the species of Chrysalis' homeworld.

Once they were all warmed up they opened the door and headed back out into the cold, where they resumed following the flares as they led the way around to the other side of the pipeline, where a ladder to the walkway on the top of the pipeline rested. As such the three of them carefully climbed up to the walkway and kept their eyes open for the Snow Beast, as both Isaac and Carver agreed with Chrysalis on the fact that it was likely hunting them at that very moment, which also meant they kept their weapons at the ready as they walked forward. Fortunately they soon came to a second room that was like the one they had been in a few minutes ago, though to be on the safe side they powered up the generator and warmed up a little, even though they moved away from the windows as the Snow Beast climbed up the side of the structure and reached the top of the area they were in. Oddly enough the Snow Beast was content to leave them alone, as it didn't seem to be doing anything else or moving to a new location, but at the same time they readied themselves for when they decided to leave, as the creature might be waiting for that to happen.

it looks like... there's a... a voice said, one that the trio recognized as Ellie's voice, though Isaac's spirits were lessened as he noticed that it was coming from the radio box that was in the middle of the room, as he was hoping to find her and the others in a room like this, large facility ahead! Stay close to the wall or we're all lost in this blizzard.

"Ellie?!" Isaac said, opening the audio link for a moment, hoping to catch Ellie's signal so he could tell her that he and the others were safe and were following her trail, or at the very least catch someone else's signal so he could have them tell her the news, "It's Isaac. Are you in range?"

A few seconds later Isaac stopped attempting the connection, as it appeared that Ellie and the others had a good head start on them and that the blizzard that was raging in her area was making it impossible for them to receive any communications that might be coming from outside the storm. Since they hadn't used any of their ammunition so far, as the Snow Beast was the only creature they had seen and it fled after surprising them, they ignored the Bench that was beside them and headed out through the door that was opposite of the one they used to enter this building. The moment they were outside the room, and felt the cold once more, they headed to the left and accessed the cargo lift that was waiting for them, which they used to slowly reach the level that was below them. When they reached the lower level, and walked out onto the walkway in front of it, they found that the only way forward was through the pipeline itself, to which they headed into the massive cylinder and started to follow it... only for the Snow Beast to attack them from above and cut the support structure for the area in half, forcing the section they were in to lower until it formed a diagonal path to the ground in front of them.

"Clarke! Chrysalis!" Carver said, turning to look at his companions for a moment, as he was already getting annoyed with this creature and wanted it dead, though something told him that it would be some time before they were able to kill that thing, "You two alright?"

"Yeah, we're fine." Isaac replied, though he was happy that Carver wanted to know if they were fine, meaning that he either saw them as tools that couldn't be replaced or he was genuinely seeing them as his friends, like Chrysalis had come to see him and Ellie as her friends.

"The Snow Beast is definitely hunting us at the moment," Chrysalis commented, as she had studied wild beasts, at her mother's orders anyway, and knew that some of them liked to do things like this when they were on the hunt, so it didn't surprise her to see a Necromorph acting like this, "We'll have to find some sort of shelter soon, to wait out the storm, otherwise that thing will come for us again, whether we're ready for it or not."

"Then we'll follow the pipeline and the flares until we find a place like that," Isaac stated, to which he primed his gun and continued walking forward, as he could see something moving under the ground and snow that they were walking on, meaning that something was waiting to ambush them.

Sure enough slashers, made from the bodies of the crew that had been sent down to the planet, started popping up out of the ground and rushed at the trio, who opened fire on them and dismembered them before they could deal any damage to the group. As they continued forward Chrysalis spotted what appeared to be pukers doing the same thing as the slashers, to which she turned her attention towards them and blew them again, preventing the three of them from being hit by their acid blasts. There were even a few Necromorphs guarding the door to the next room that had a generator, meaning the trio had to dismember all of them before they could even warm up again, but this was only a temporary solution to their problem. They did, however, pause long enough to hear that a recording about ration cards and not wanting anyone to go hungry, which must have been before the order to kill everyone came in, at least some time before that terrible event happened.

Once they were sufficiently warmed up, to the best of their ability anyway, the three of them moved through the other door and walked out of the building, where they started to follow the path that was laid out in front of them and opened fire on the Necromorphs that were making their way towards the building the trio had come out of. From there the trio moved out into the wide open are that was in front of them and continued to fire at all of the Necromorphs that were emerging from their hiding places, tearing them apart as they grew closer and closer to a square shaped building of some sort. Since the flares were leading around the building, and then away from the door, they decided to follow Ellie's path and headed towards the cylindrical shaped building that was in front of them, one that was smaller than anything else they had been in so far. The moment they were inside the building they paused for a moment, to catch their breath and made sure they had enough ammunition for the enemies that would be on the other side of the door, before they approached the door and waited... to which a scanner, which they hadn't seen when they entered the building, scanned them for a few seconds and beeped at them.

Security alert. a computerized voice, the exact same one that was used on the Roanoke and the other ships they had searched in the space above the planet, said, causing the trio to look at each other as they wondered what this machine was going to tell them, A snow suit is required beyond this point.

"Well, since we can't move forward, why don't we check out that building we went by." Chrysalis commented, as there had to be a reason that a flare was near the door, but they had decided to skip it since they spotted the next one in the set nearby, which had brought them here.

Isaac and Carver, not knowing what else to do, nodded their heads and followed after her as Chrysalis headed back out into the blizzard, if it could be called that since it didn't seem to be the case, before they turned towards the building and started walking towards it. It only took them a few seconds to reach the door in question, which opened up to reveal another door, like an airlock of a ship, so they entered the waiting area as the first door closed and the second one allowed itself to be opened at long last. Once the second door was open, however, Isaac and Chrysalis gasped as they found Buckell freezing near an elevator, one that seemed to be missing some gears by the looks of it, but before any of them focused on the contraption they rushed over to the injured man.

"Buckell!" Isaac said, to which he and Chrysalis stopped in front of him, where Chrysalis started to gather her magic up as she attempted to heal his wounds and prevent him from dying, especially since she was sure that he was still vital to the team's overall success.

"Isaac? Chrysalis?" Buckell inquired, as his voice revealed that he was surprised, meaning that some of them might have thought that the group died int he collision, but he also seemed to be happy that they were alive, though it was hard to tell if that was the case since he was shivering from the cold, "Well I'll be damned... listen, the others are heading over to the research facility up on the ridge. We found some snow suits, but there weren't enough to go around... so I decided to stay behind. Not that I would have needed one anyway, since I'm on Death's door, but you three might be able to find some spares down in the basement."

"'Might be able to'?" Carver asked, as he didn't like the fact that Buckell had no idea if there were even any down there to begin with, as he would have thought that someone, before the execution of all the crew members two hundred years ago, would have made a list containing the number of available suits that were left.

"Well, the elevator is shot," Buckell said, to which he used his head and beckoned to the slots were the missing gears were supposed to go, before he coughed for a few seconds and focused on them once more, "there's also something scratching around down there, so we didn't... we didn't check."

The instant that last word got out of his mouth was a terrible one, as Isaac, Chrysalis, and Carver watched as the life faded from Buckell's eyes, his chest finally stopped moving, and the arm that had been holding onto his wounded side the entire time finally let go as it fell into his lap. Isaac and Carver, despite not knowing the man as well as Ellie did, felt bad about Buckell's passing, though Chrysalis, on the other hand, knew that Buckell had been one of Ellie's crew, maybe even a friend at one point, and it hurt to think about the fact that he'd never get to see the outcome of their mission. Buckell's death wasn't as painful as Hammond's had been all those years ago, mostly because she didn't know Buckell as well as she knew Hammond, but the pain still came in the end, to which she sighed as she got up and focused on the task at hand, as there would be time to mourn later. Together the three of them made their way over to where the generator for the building was located, as it must have switched itself off in the time since Ellie's team left Buckell here, though while Isaac powered up the generator both Carver and Chrysalis collected the gears that were on the wall and carried them back over to the elevator.

From there it was a simple matter of figuring out which of the three gears went into the empty slot, though when they found it, as it had been the third and last one that Chrysalis was holding, the elevator became active once more, to which the three of them opened the door, climbed into the elevator, and descended towards the basement. It was clear that, while they were riding the elevator, Carver wanted to say something about the situation, but whatever he was thinking about clearly got thrown out the window, as Isaac and Chrysalis were sure that he would have made some comment about Buckell, Norton, and the mission, though they were happy that he said nothing about all of it at the moment. When the elevator came to a stop, and the door opened, they instantly found the area that the suit kiosks were in, though the pair was blocked off by a gate that could only be opened from the other side, informing the trio that they would have to make their way around the basement, fight whatever was down here, and overcome a number of obstacles before they were allowed to acquire their snow suits.

Since they couldn't go forward the trio headed over to the door on their left and opened it, though as they did that they found another new type of Necromorph, one that looked like a human husk that had blood on it's hands and feet, though before any of them could do anything the creature ran away, leaving them alone for now.

"Well, that's not good news." Isaac said, though instead of saying anything else he noticed Carver making a few signs with his hands, indicating that they should shut up and keep their eyes open for whatever they had seen, as he was sure that there were more of them in this area.

As they stepped forward Chrysalis noticed that the area the feeder, again her name for the creature they had seen, had been in was a cafeteria of some sort, one that clearly had nothing left after the last two hundred years of nothing happening on this planet, leading her to believe that the feeders were less intelligent than the Snow Beast. After that they rounded the corner and found that there were a number of bodies hanging on the right side of the passage they had to walk through, or at least they assumed they were bodies since the bags were blocking their view of whatever was inside the bags. A few seconds later the three of them approached the door that was at the end of the passage, though as they entered the room that was on the other side they spotted a large group of feeders gathered around something, only for them to turn towards the trio as they came to a stop... to which Isaac, Chrysalis, and Carver raised their weapons as the feeders charged at them.

Fortunately the trio was able to deal with the small group of feeders that wanted to kill them and rip them to pieces, though as they finished off their foes the three of them gathered the various pieces of ammunition and supplies that the feeders were carrying before heading through the only door that could be opened. On the other side of the door they found another short passage that brought them to yet another door that they needed to go through, though before the three of them reached the door they found a recording from a Sam Ackerman. The recording indicated that he had spent his days hiding and that he could trick the 'creatures' into moving to an area with noises, meaning they didn't actually have to fight all the feeders that were in their way, but at the same time the trio knew that something would draw their attention and force them to fight anyway. The plan this time around was for someone to open the door and force the feeders to come to where they would stand their ground, further back near the door they had just come through, and Isaac was more than happy to do that... to which he blasted a feeder apart the moment the door was open and retreated the instant the Necromorphs came at him.

The instant he was standing by Chrysalis and Carver again, and their weapons were pointed at the still open door that Isaac had opened, they opened fire on the feeders that rushed out towards them, dismembering and killing them before they could even reach the side of the passage they were in. Once the feeders were done for, and no more came out of the room or the vents, the trio moved into the room that the feeders had been in and found their way towards the door that was inside that area. From there they walked through the short passage that they were in, gathering whatever ammunition they could find along the way, and then opened the door that Isaac spotted, before they entered a large chamber with two piston contraptions that were on the level below them. The trio could tell that the door they needed to go through, so they could reach the area that the suit kiosks were in, was on the other side of the chamber and to get at it, without using Chrysalis' magic, they had to descend to the lower level and fight their way through whatever was down there... be it enemies or obstacles that were left behind two hundred years ago.

When they reached the bottom of the ladder, however, they found that there was a few circular components they could move to restore power to the pump that was in front of them, to which Isaac quickly rotated some of them and soon enough the pump was moving once more. For them to move forward they had to wait until the pump was up to speed before using a Stasis blast to slow it down, though as they waited a feeder revealed itself and was instantly smashed by the pump. When the pump had the required speed Isaac used a Stasis blast and slowed it down, allowing them to move into the side passage and accessed a recharge station to get his power back, before he used a second blast to slow the pump once more so they could reach the middle part of the chamber. Once they reached the middle of the chamber both Isaac and Carver accessed the circular power components for the second pump and turned them until they could turn the pump back on, though as the pump turned on the two vents on the other side of the chamber exploded as feeders surged towards the trio... to which Chrysalis, who wasn't really doing anything except guard her friends, opened fire and started mowing down the enemies that were coming at them, before Isaac and Carver joined her in firing at the feeders.

Once the feeders were taken care of, and they were sure that no more were coming from the wrecked vents, the three of them turned towards the pump and used a Stasis blast to slow it down, allowing them to head down the passage that was in front of them and exit the side of it so they wouldn't have to worry about being crushed. From there they climbed up the ladder that was at the end of the path they were following and entered a control room that happened to have a key to a supply depot, though none of them had any idea where that place was supposed to be. Once they had that key, however, they opened the door to their left and smiled when they found the suit kiosks waiting for them, where Isaac and Carver approached them and selected the option to use the snow suit that they needed to move towards the research facility that Ellie and the others had traveled to. With the option selected both Isaac and Carver stepped into the machines and let them close around them, to which Chrysalis waited for a few seconds before her friends stepped out wearing a grayish-beige colored suit of armor... one that was padded enough to protect them from the cold conditions of Tau Volantis while also allowing them to walk around without any restraints.

Chrysalis smiled as she repeated the process and stepped out of the machine a few seconds later, wearing the snow suit they needed to continue onward, to which the three of them approached the gate and let the scanner approve them for the next part of their journey... reaching the research facility that Ellie and the others were headed to, so they could bring an end to the nightmare that the Unitologists had awoken.

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