What A Wakeup Call
You wake up earlier in the evening than you would like, greeted by what feels like somebody made a home in your think pan and decided to play the thuddiest music they could scrounge up. A quick glance at the window shows that it’s still a ways off from being properly dark. Scrunching up your face, you slide back down into your slime and try to think what on Alternia you could have done to yourself to cause this lusus of all pan aches.
You’re still grumbling to yourself half an hour later when batmom starts swooping around and screeching at a pitch that really does just make you miserable. This is it. This is hell. The Troll Devil will be here any minute to personally welcome you and ask if spikes driven through the side of your cranial plates would be more comforting. Flapping your hand at vaguely your mom’s direction, you get her to stop the swooping and to land on the side of your ‘cupe. She scrabbles up to the rim and peers at you. With her fixed in one place, you can make sense of what she’s trying to tell you.
Oh. OH!
So, zombies. Apparently a huge horde. Given that information, it’s easy enough for you to think to the last encounter you had with the shambling topiaries. The last incident had set your psi off in a big way. It wasn’t exactly painful, more… tingly. This time though something is off. Not that you have much experience with the undead, but the pain is new. Gripping the edge of your coon, you haul yourself out and land on the floor with an ungraceful thud. Now that you know the source of your discomfort, you can put some energy to diverting your psi to something else. Sat in a puddle of slime you close your eyes and breathe. You can feel the knife-edged pulse of the horde, tearing at your thoughts. Another breathe and you transfer that consciousness to the soft hum of the lavender growing outside your front door. Almost instantly the cacophony in your mind dies down. You feed the lavender some of your psi in thanks and feel it bask in your energy as though you were the sun.
Centred and more in control you now have the wherewithal to stand and slough some of the drying slime from your skin. You should probably try and see what is happening and steer them from the outpost if you can. Batmom squooks at you in encouragement. A quick round of ablutions later, you check your specibus to ensure you have both long and short range weapons equipped. Not that it should come to that. You hope. Since the evening is now fully upon this side of the planet, you don’t need to wait any longer to get to it. Giving strict instructions for her not to follow – “no matter how tasty you think the spores with be” – you leave mom to guard the hive. Casting out with your psi allows you to locate the horde quickly enough and you set out in that direction.
