the haunting

Onboard the Midas, Darien and his brother Marcus were locked in physical and psychic combat. However, something unexpected had occurred. The brothers now struggled to free themselves from the arena of their own minds, even as their essences continued to merge. In the psychic realm they were both reliving their first moments of awareness in the gestation machines of their diabolical father, Jeremiah Mason, in a chamber hidden beneath the sprawling Mason estate.

Darien's creation, Ash, sensed both Masons were in distress and transferred his spirit from his own soul chip into the mindscape of the Mason plantation.

With all three combatants now oblivious to the status of the abandoned vessel, the crystals in the chandelier of the ruined ballroom several decks above began to glow and tremble. One of the crystals throbbed in time to the disembodied voice of Jeremiah Mason as the drone of a multitude of voices began to rise.

"CONCENTRATE, my brethren! Breach just one crystal and they shall ALL shatter!"

One shards of crystal shattered and rained down upon one of the upturned tables. Immediately the galaxy of glowing lights surrounding it exploded as well, raining shards of soul-crystals over the once-grand chamber, burying the crushed Blood dolls in a layer of glittering snow. As the energy of the explosion faded the chamber continued to glow from the throng of spirits howling triumphantly. One voice rose above the rest. As the spirits floated downwards to coalesce into semblances of their living forms.

"Prison ship! Pleasure yacht! Supply ship! Battle cruiser! We have endured incarceration through every rechristening of this vessel!" Jeremiah's transparent form stood, or more precisely floated, on top of the piano where the demonic lounge singer had met his end. Other humanoid figures materialized on top of the bar and tables or continued to float in the air. Jeremiah watched them take the forms of humans, demons, neko and other forms he could not discern.

"We, the direct descendants of the Founder, were promised an afterlife of both purpose and pleasure in service to Prince Bloodwing in his estate, protected from the cruelty of his father outside the castle walls! But Hades mangled that pact and harnessed us as slaves, chaining us to crystals to feed off our misery to power this ship!"

A towering figure clad in plate armor with the crest of Bloodwing on his helm gestured a gauntlet towards the ceiling as he bellowed. "Jeremiah! What is keeping this ship afloat with our souls freed from these crystals?"

The Spark's spirit grinned. "A fair question, your Lordship!"

Below deck, wires hidden behind panels in the passageways pried themselves out of the plating and began to entwine around Ash, slithering between his joints.

"My sons have been so kind as to provide me with a golem constructed from the remains of the Founder himself! I know from experience this plodding hulk is far more useful as a power generator than the pathetic imitation of the Regent they built him to be!"

"BLASPHEMY!" The frail man in the tunic and sandals clenched his fist. "Your survivors must pay desecrating the body of..."

"Peace to you, Senator! I shall punish them myself! But the fact remains that if I destroy the golem now this ship would crash into the Realm of the Roses! Now, as per our agreement, I proclaim myself Captain of this vessel, the Erebus III!"