Undead screeches bounce off the ruined walls of Riis Reborn, carried by blizzard winds that obscure any path to safety. The small band of Eliksni got separated from the rest at the jetty and fled down this abandoned ally. A Salvation Ketch could barely defend itself from these pale monstrosities; what chance did they have?

A second molt is unable to hold her composure; her antennal glands leak as her mother holds her close. Her clicking purr is hushed, just enough to voice comfort.

"I can smell your fear."

Above them, metal creaks under the Revenant's weight. One Dreg begins to scurry away, but his knee is pinned to the ground by a spear.

"Do not weep," it sings, so close his mandibles rake the Dreg's respirator. "Rejoice. Today you will be made whole." The undead hulk salivates as the small band huddles together.

A neon cord catches the aberration's carapace, pulling it up into the air by an unseen hand.

The mother shields her brood's eyes as bitter ichor erupts from the undead's throat. Two more piercing rounds, in quick succession, see him sinking into the snow, now loosed from the ephemeral thread.

The second molt breaks away to see a Slayer Baron, as if from an ancient epic, stepping through the gale.

"Mother!" She chitters in relief. "A fate weaver from your stories!"

The snowdrift clears, revealing the upright figure's alien anatomy. "Not my stories. A new one."