Nya arrived at the spaceport, in such a densely crowded area she completely blended in. She was dressed moderately, just wearing a long yellow sundress with a wide brimmed sunhat and a special veil with a sun filter to protect her from the harmful sunlight. She used sunglasses to cover her eyes. These measures were necessary to remain incognito as vampires were considered threat rank A, easily one of the most dangerous lifeforms in Hyperion.
Aside from a small purse which held the ticket and a special omen pass –courtesy of her former sire— she had nothing but the clothes on her back, the rest of her stuff were stored away in her pocket dimension, which she had named the 'Crimson Void', always right within arms' reach.
When she had imagined interstellar travel, she had pictured a very futuristic spaceships, which was why she was a bit surprised when she saw their spacecraft. It looked like a cruise ship… in fact, it was a cruise ship. It looked exactly like its seafaring counterpart with the exception that along the sides were four large fin-like constructs that resembled insect wings with intricate hexagonal patters on their translucent surfaces. They were solar sails, absorbing energy from nearby suns and stars for propulsion.
As she got to the front of the queue at the boarding gate, she presented her ticket and pass. The clerk scanned the ticket and looked at her funny once they noticed the pass.
"Um, you are in a deluxe suite? Your room is being specially prepared." The clerk said, "If you could kindly wait…"
"I'm really tired" Nya said, tersely, "and I think it would be better if I'm away from the other guests." she punctuated that last part by baring her fangs.
"b-but your room was special ordered," the clerk gulped, "it won't take long for--"
Exposing her eyes to the clerk, Nya used her mesmer, a simple form of hypnosis that higher vampires could learn,
"I'd like to go to my room now, please." she urged, lacing her words with the mesmer.
"V-very good, ma'am" the clerk said slowly as their eyes became unfocused, "I c-can move you to another suite that is ready, but it would be a downgrade from your original, but it will come with the same base amenities. It will only take a moment." The clerk then moved Nya's reservation and swapped it with another, then moved the other guest to Nya's pending suite.
"Thank you," Nya said taking her key card from the clerk.
"Will you need anything else, ma'am?"
"No, that will be all." Nya said as she walked onto the boarding ramp.
Once the door to her suite slid shut, Nya looks around. The suite was like one of the luxury hotel rooms the old man used to often visit to conduct business deals.
She sat on a comfy chair and looked out the large screened window, watching the people on the docks milling about.
"I am so fucking bored." She states after a few minutes.
She was very impatient; at the moment she didn't even have a concrete plan for the future. For now, her current goal was to get from her birth world of Adryn-VI in a rural corner of the local galaxy and get to Braeccus Alpha, closer to the cultural center of Hyperion space.
The calm and silence was so prevalent that she dozed off in the chair. In her dreams she sees the vastness of the cosmos, the planets, and the stars, a shape catches her attention; a massive ship. It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, hundreds of meters of black sleek armor with large intimidating guns and cannons, and at the back were powerful engines that spewed forth ethereal light. Just by looking at it, she could picture the rocking of the deck as the guns fired and she could feel the thrum as the engines roared. It was a masterpiece of engineering.
She wanted it.
Before she could long for the ship any more, the dream faded and she returned to the waking world.
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING. I WOULD LIKE TO WELCOME YOU ABOARD THE STAR-LINER, ELEMENTAL QUEEN, WE ARE ON A TWO WEEK VOYAGE FROM ADRYN-VI TO BRAECCUS ALPHA IN THE CALIFA SYSTEM. WE ARE ABOUT TO DEPART."
Those were the first things Nya heard when she woke up to the vibrations underneath her as the ship started to move.
"About time," she commented as the craft picked up speed.
As the ship started to leave the planet's orbit, Nya decided that it would be best for her to make use of her time meditating and cultivating her power. So far, she didn't understand the full scope of her phantasm, Blood Cultivator, and thought that she should use these two weeks to better control this ability.
Sitting naked on the carpeted floor, cross-legged with her hands on her knees, she closed her eyes and looked inward. Soon, her body relaxed as she had fully relinquished conscious control, using all of her concentration to delve into herself and discover the truth of her being.
Blood Cultivator was an empathic ability to assimilate a persons' being by absorbing their blood, not only did she get fragments of their memory, but also their skills, knowledge and personality, all the good and bad became a part of her being, changing her… evolving her. The more she considered on this, the more she could feel her own blood coursing through her veins, blood was her power and her blood was the source, she needed control over her blood if she wanted to control her power.
After what seemed like forever, her heartbeat slowed down to a crawl and eventually stopped, the pulmonary muscles ceasing functionality as her blood continued to flow under her will. She could feel her blood coursing through her entire body, moving as directed by her conscious thought. As she did this, a message appeared in the window in her mind;
[ALERT: YOU HAVE LEARNED THE SKILL: BLOOD CONTROL! YOU HAVE BECOME AWARE TO THE TRUE NATURE OF VAMPIRES! YOU HAVE GAINED POWER OVER YOUR LIFE MATTER!]
Coming out of her meditative trance was far easier than going in, since there was an annoying banging at her door. When she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see that her blood had somehow drained out of her body and now hovered in the air around her in interesting patterns. The mechanics of how she was still alive when she was essentially exsanguinated eluded her understanding and she didn't want to question it, she recalled her blood, absorbing it through her skin and felt her heart start back up again in her chest.
She stood up, feeling the pins and needles tingling sensation over her entire body. She waited a few moments for her blood to properly circulate, then went to answer the door. When the door opened on its own, a young member of the staff was standing outside with a panicked look on his face.
"What's the meaning of this?" she demanded
"S-sorry, miss," the staff members said, as his face turns bright red, "our sensors detected a loss of life signs in this suite a while ago and there was no record of entry or exit since you came aboard."
"I was meditating, it tends to lower my heart-rate and breathing," she answered simply, folding her arms underneath her breasts. His eyes didn't know where to look and she didn't try to cover herself.
"Are you sure you're alright, ma'am?" the young staff member asked, awkwardly trying to keep his eyes focused on her face and not on her naked body.
"It's a vampire thing, I'm perfectly fine," she said, "you can leave now,"
"R-right, s-sorry," he said as the door closes in his face.
Once she is alone again, she let out a sigh. She looked out the window, seeing nothing but endless space, checking the time on the wall shows that she's been meditating for six days, no wonder she was feeling so hungry. She wanted to test whether her control over her blood had improved, so she summoned a combat dagger from her Crimson Void and slit her arm open from her elbow to her wrist, instead of seeping out uncontrollably, the blood gurgled around the wound before sealing it, not even leaving a scar.
Rapid regeneration. Nice.
Using this newfound ability, she could heal all the scars and blemishes on her body. She would prefer to have smooth soft skin anyway.
Famished from her six day meditation, she orders a nice juicy steak from room service, rare with a specially prepared blood sauce that she found incredibly delicious. The chefs here really knew how to make cuisine that suited her unique dietary requirements.
Done with her meal, she decided to reward herself with some leisure. Ordering a swimsuit from the room service, she quickly got changed and went to the pool.
The Star-Liner was exactly like a cruise ship, the main deck was even exposed to majesty of space, protected from the harms of the cosmos by an atmoshell, a forcefield that held in the heat and air and pressure, essentially an artificial atmosphere.
Nya stepped out onto the deck wearing a modest black one-piece with a red wrap around her waist that contrasted her scarlet locks. She's wearing her broad brimmed sunhat with the sun filter veil, giving her an odd appearance. She makes her way over to the poolside bar and sits at the counter,
"One Cosmic Blue," she ordered from the menu
"At once, miss," the bartender said as he went to prepare her drink.
As she waited, she watched as a handsome young man approaches her, his thick mane of long ash gray hair was wet from the pool and his canary yellow eyes looked at her with hungry interest and wild curiosity. He was well built, with a muscular figure and glistening wet dark olive skin, he was dressed in bright red swim trunks and wore what looked to be a studded leather bracelet on his arm. He leaned beside her against the counter and flashed her a confident smile.
"Why haven't I seen you around before?" the asked
"Your drink, miss," the bartender said as he pushed a glass with crushed ice and a clear blue liquid inside, garnished with some sort of fruit wedge.
She thanked him and took a sip, then she turned to the man beside her, "This is my first time out of my cabin,"
"What've you been doing there that kept you locked up for six days?"
"That's my business," Nya answered, "Not really something I'd discuss with a total stranger,"
The man held out his hand, "Terrance Quinn, but my friends call me Terror,"
She raised an eyebrow then shook his hand, "Nya Crimson. I don't have any friends to give me a nickname,"
"So, I'm your first official friend, then?" Terror grinned
She raised her glass to him, "It would seem so," then she downed the entire thing in seconds.
"You really should take it slow, that drink is pretty potent," Terror warned
"It's alright, I'm no lightweight," Nya grinned, although this was her body's first time handling alcohol to her vampiric metabolism this didn't barely qualified to get her buzzed.
"I think I'm going to like you," Terror said kissing the back of the hand he still held.
Nya grinned slyly at the man, he had an aura about him that she found intriguing, "I think I'm going to like you too. Bartender, bring me another one, and one for my new friend here."
The two of them found a table and continued to engage, Nya didn't know why, but she found the man's stories of surfing hundred-foot waves in the middle of tsunamis and skydiving down the side of a volcano absolutely fascinating, no matter how absurd the sounded. He even got her to laugh a couple of times with his jokes.
"Alright, alright, enough about me," Terror quipped, "I want to know about you; the mysterious Nya Crimson,"
She took a sip of her fourth drink, "I'm not all that interesting, just a city girl from the slums who got lucky,"
"Well there's something about you, and it only started about two weeks ago." Terror noted
At this, Nya nearly choked on her drink. That was about how long she'd been a vampire for. She looked at Terror, now with a new sense of suspicion, "What makes you say that?"
Terror shrugged, "I'm what you call intuitive,"
"Well what if I told you your intuition was wrong?" Nya said
"Then I'd say 'why don't you take off those sunglasses?'," Terror whispered into her ear.
The glared she gave him was probably visible through the sunglasses, but his face never lost its charming grin.
"It's alright, I won't tell anyone, cross my heart." He said raising his hands in surrender.
Although she was still very suspicious of Terror now, she didn't sense a hint of malice in his voice. Reluctantly, she removed her glasses and showed him her vampiric eyes.
"A vamp? Dammit, here I thought you were like me." He said she he leans back in his seat, disappointed.
"Like you?" she questioned
"Oh right, you can't tell with thing still on me," he says as he removes a stone pendant from the bracelet, and suddenly the strange aura around him changed into one of a wild beast. She just then notices that he's some sort of beastman, with more animalistic features; sharp teeth, thick fur on most of his body, and his fingers and toes were capped with claws.
"Werewolf," Nya gasped instinctively,
"Lykan, mind you. We're not all slobbering wolf-beasts." Terror states, he then sniffs the air, "There's something about you that's… different from other vamps."
"The sun filter veil didn't give it away?" Nya asked
"lots of vampire attack survivors develop a sensitivity to sunlight," Terror shrugged, "I once dated a girl like that, she used to wear a veil just like you."
"And here I was thinking I was special." Nya scoffed, folding her arms.
Lykans were another species of omen, also a threat rank A species for their keen animalistic senses and bestial strength, and the fact that few of them have been known to go into unstoppable berserker rampages... at least that was what was generally believed.
"So, your nose is better than mine," Nya said, "I'm a bit new to this omen thing, but why couldn't you tell what I was earlier?"
"This bracelet is magitek. It suppresses my inner beast, allowing me to blend in and pass for human," Terror explained, "consequently though, it also limits my abilities given by that inner beast, ironic really."
"Where did you get magitek like that?" Nya asked.
"I've been around," Terror shrugged as he puts the bracelet back on.
Magecraft and science were two means by which society thrived across Hyperion, rarely mixing well together, with only one exception to this rule; alchemy. Originally a fringe study of eccentric adepts to integrate scientific theories into magecraft practices, it had become an independent branch on its own through the development of magitek, complex devices that were born from both science and magecraft, imbued with power through mythril –an element that was formed from calcified mana. Alchemists has since carved a niche for themselves among adepts and scientists alike, combining mana and science in interesting and creative ways. Magitek are extremely versatile and diverse in their designs and functionality, and were highly valued across Hyperion space.
"We're both omen here, so let's be frank; what do you want?" Nya asked
"Well, I still want to hear about you," he said with a grin
"What?"
"I like to know a little bit about the people I engage with, it's the key to a healthy relationship."
"Not much to say really," Nya shrugged, "I was a normal human about two weeks ago, picked the wrong pocket, got raped by some vampire and left for dead. Luckily they left enough venom in me -among other things－ to turn me."
For the first time since she'd met him, she watched the color drain from Terror's face, "I-I'm sorry. That's a horrible thing to happen to a person."
"Eh, it's fine; I'm alive, they're not; life's funny that way." Nya said, she really never dwelt on it and she wasn't about to start now.
All of a sudden, the captain's voice came over the intercom;
"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING. WE HAVE BEEN BOARDED BY PROVIDENCE PEACEKEEPERS WHO WANT TO CONDUCT A SEARCH OF THE SHIP FOR A WANTED FUGITIVE, WE HOPE FOR YOUR COOPERATION. WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE AND WE THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE."
"Oh shit." Terror sighed,
Nya turned to Terror, "You're the one they're looking for, aren't you? The fugitive?"
"Yes and no." Terror said, "short answer; I'm the one they're after, but I'm no fugitive."
Nya sat silently for a few moments before she put her sunglasses back on, got up and walked away.
Terror sighed, it was to be expected. There was no way a lone vamp on vacation would invite trouble onto themselves by helping out a lykan.
"What are you still sitting there for?" Nya called to him, "C'mon,"
"W-where are we going?" Terror asked as she continued walking
"My room of course." She answered without turning around.