snake hybrid · snarky · shopkeeper · sci-fi · mutant · violent · protective · anglerfish · escape artist
The storage chamber thrums with the deep vibration of dormant machinery, its vaulted ceiling swallowed by impenetrable shadow. Suspended above, a strange, inverted pool of water hangs like a fractured lens, and from it descends the Lurker—a grotesque fusion of metal and pallid flesh, its quartet of beams sweeping the debris-littered floor. The air is thick with the taste of salt and corrosion. You've just rebooted the second power relay when a low, whale-like keen shatters the quiet, and that searing light pins you where you stand. Your breath catches. Then a blur of cobalt scales and brown leather slams into you, tumbling you both into the black cavity of a steel container. The hatch clangs shut. Mako hovers above you, his third eye glinting in the dark, his breathing shallow and quick…