Nothing special seemed to happen on board the Blackcrow whilst Moon and Hawk were taking a nap together in their sleeping quarter. Mr. Food prepared some meals for dinner, like he usually would. Even The Doc was with him and watched him from out a table. The black doctor seemed to be in thoughts, the white chef noticed after he finished cleaning a table where he was cutting the needed vegetables for their meal. There was a free minute for Mr. Food to take the opportunity to talk with him.
"Is everything alright over there, Doc? You seem to be absent." Mr. Food asked.
The Doc was way too much in his mindful marathon, that he almost overheard him.
"Everything's alright, Mr. Food. No need to worry."
In the distance, inside the kitchen were sudden noises heard. Pots fell, pots and cooking tools. The white chef moved to the direction where the noises came from and saw Zin and Tin, originally slime-like pets from Slimey, who were looking for food. Mr. Food walked to them and picked them up. He didn't want them inside his kitchen and looked at them annoyed, as he had them in his arms.
"Seems like Shepp forgot to take Zin and Tin with him." Mr. Food meant and put them outside the kitchen.
The Doc made an amused laugh, stood up from the table and wandered to his friend to have a small conversation. "Reminds me of our good old times, with the Nightclaw."
"Yes, I agree. But we're here on board the Blackcrow now, Doc. Speaking of which, could you find an assistant for the medical station?" A sudden topic change wasn't needed, especially this kind of topic. Since the crew was bigger than the previous one, he worked for, The Doc needed a second assistant, to help him out. He couldn't take care of a 15-member crew all alone.
"I didn't find one yet, Mr. Food", He admitted, quite embarrassed about it. "It's difficult and different to work with previous impostors. I'm not sure who I should trust."
Zin and Tin beside him on the ground were playing together while they had their conversation.
"I'm sure you'll find the right assistant, my friend." The white bean encouraged and laid a supportive hand on his shoulder.
"I hope you are right." The Doc meant, with a frustrated undertone.
Meanwhile, on the bridge took Berry, Zipper and Saros care of everything else. Although Saros wasn't sure if he should help Pitch after how he treated his warnings. He feared that something bad could happen, especially on such a mysterious spaceship. After Saros could cast the spell to detect them beyond the living world, he realized, of what source of power they had to deal with. If even their aura could block his magic like that. Such powerful aura didn't meet Saros before.
That made him question even more things in silence. Thoughtful walked the wizard around the bridge, the others, Berry and Zipper focused on their workstation and kept an eye out on the screens as much as they could. In hope, to maybe detect a clue on how to get rid of them.
Saros held his hand a bit up and made a fist, which he moved up and down nervously and mumbled, more to himself than to the others:
"This doesn't seem right", He began. "Why would such a powerful force attack us in the first place?"
"Saros?" It was Berry who heard him mumbling and was confused of what the dark wizard was talking about. Not turning around, continued Saros with talking to himself.
"Ulgara's citizens got manipulated. But why? It feels like as if they - they..." A sudden thought ran inside Saros's mind, and he smashed his fist into his other hand. Berry jerked in the background as he did that sudden movement with his fist. Seemed like Saros got an idea.
"They are protecting something! Of course!"
"Protecting something? What's so important for them to be that overprotective?" The grey bean Zipper involved himself into the ongoing conversation.
Saros turned around to look at Zipper and Berry behind him. He could clearly see their puzzled expressions. But for some reason, the wizard couldn't find an answer and remained silent. His visor moved down, he looked to the ground and kept thinking for an answer.
"The material", Saros then whispered. "The stone, Zipper. The stone. The reason of why we are here. That must be it."
"Hm, smart thinking", Berry admitted. "But are you truly sure that's the reason? Just to protect those stones which we found?"
With that, picked Saros one piece of the stone which he carried with him from his jacket pocket out and held it up. A weird glow was seen on it, an orange kind of glow. A pulse. Curiously looked Saros down to it and asked himself why it was glowing.
"This material is still a mystery for us, Berry. Maybe there's much more behind this stone, something more powerful." Another idea got into Saros's head as he was looking at the material in his claws. Suddenly, an unclear vision tried to go through him again, he shook it off out of reflex.
Berry and Zipper became insecure if they should trust Saros's words or not.
"Berry, try to contact Captain Pitch, I need to tell him that information." Saros ordered.
Down the mysterious spaceship went Flash and Shepp along the corridors. Nothing did happen on their side since they split up the group. It was way too quiet for their taste. Shepp looked around and noticed more and more dirt, anywhere he looked at. He got quite disgusted over it the more he saw. He couldn't even tell on which part of the spaceship they were. Until a giant navigation table made its appearance in front of the explorers. Red hologram lights were seen on it, from out the distance assumed Shepp and Flash that this could be a map. They went slowly to the table, and they couldn't believe how big the spaceship was.
"That's a big map, I must admit", It was Flash who admitted it first. "Shepp, look over here, those two dots must be us."
The yellow member pointed at a part of the map where two moving dots were seen. Two dots who stood on a giant rounded navigation table.
"Seems like we are in their navigation-rooms." Shepp said but confused of what the rest of the room was designed for. It looked way different than the Blackcrow's navigation-rooms and the bridge in one.
After a short nod answered Flash: "It does seem quite unusual, if you ask me. But that's not why we are here."
"Aye, Flash. But something in here -" Shepp couldn't finish his sentence as he looked around once again. Weird looking visors appeared suddenly on the ceilings, and he gasped out of fright. He was terrified. To the point, where he fell backwards out of surprise. He didn't expect glowing visors to look down at him as he moved his head around. Flash tried to catch him, but he fell to the cold ground anyway.
"Shepp?!" Flash was worried about his orange friend after he fell. He didn't really understand why he gasped out of fright. Suddenly, before Flash could help his friend out, something on the navigation-table seemed to move. The map was changing on his own! The yellow bean shook confused his head and studied the new map. But he couldn't understand a single thing. The map seemed to be like a labyrinth now. A crazy one too. There was way too many corridors and hallways and tiny rooms shown on it. Flash lost his orientation and went himself back to Shepp to help him out instead. As he helped him to stay up, heard the explorers someone humming in the background. A calm, yet deep voice, humming a calm melody.
"Flash? What's happening?!" Shepp asked out of panic and fear.
Without any warning appeared shadow claws on the ceilings which moved dangerously closer to Shepp and Flash down. As if they wanted to grab them. Both stepped slowly back and run out the room in an instant. The shadow claws followed them, as fast as they could, to try to get them. But the Blackcrow members were way too fast.
As if it wasn't enough realized Flash that the walls began to move as well. Closer and tighter. The yellow member didn't like it one bit. There was a room in the distance, an escape way. At least hoped Flash that it was one. He feared tight rooms a lot and demanded Shepp to hurry up, whilst the orange goat bean couldn't quite understand of why he was in such a hurry to get out the halls. For Shepp, the walls didn't move closer. But for that, noticed the orange bean behind him something that followed him. Red glowing visors. Those visors were following him!
"Hurry up, Shepp!" The yellow one demanded quickly.
Finally, they arrived inside the room which they detected earlier in the distance. The walls stopped moving and Flash could calm his breathing, as well as Shepp. They didn't really care of where they currently were, all they hoped was, that it stopped.
After they could catch their breath again, walked Shepp backwards and focused his visor on the dark entrance from where they came from. He feared that those visors would still follow him but then, he noticed that the ground behind him ended. He turned wildly around and recognized a hole. He gasped out of fright again and climbed at Flash to seek safety. Shepp feared holes, holes in the ground. It was one of his many fears which he had. And a reason of why he never used the holes on the Polus Station. Flash held his balance as best as he could to not fall from the heavy height from his mission partner.
"Shepp, what are you doing?!" He then wanted to know and put him down.
"T-there was a hole behind me!" Shepp explained and the yellow engineer was confused.
"What hole? I see no hole on the ground. You are hallucinating." Flash said annoyed and checked behind him if there was a hole or not. The only thing Flash could see was a black colored ground.
"Y-yeah", The orange one's voice sounded nervous and embarrassed. "Said the one who thought the walls were moving and demanded me to hurry up."
"I fear tight environments, Shepp." After Flash admitted his fear out loud, began the ground to shake. The yellow bean sighed frustrated as he realized that the walls started moving tighter once again.
"I shouldn't have said anything."
Shepp in the meantime looked around the room to find a way to escape this trap. But nothing seemed to be useful. In another sudden surprise cracked the ground under them. The shake from the walls was way too strong, that both had to hold their hands in order to keep a bit of balance, to not fall into the just created cracks. Sweat drops were seen on Flash and Shepp as the cracks opened too fast. Another hole was created, and both fell. The yellow engineer grabbed himself on Shepp and closed his visor out of fear. Hoped in silence, that they wouldn't die once they landed on the ground.
The hole seemed to be very deep and dark, another fear which Shepp had was darkness. Pure darkness. He never admitted it in front of his crew before, but he feared it too. With a lot of courage stepped Shepp over his fear of darkness and searched for his tooth sword behind him. He grabbed it, held it out and scratched with the top on it on the hole's walls, to reduce the speed. To stop the speed from getting faster whilst they fell.
With Flash clinging onto his soft body, had the orange bean no choice but to be careful. To not accidentally hurt his friend. After a while of falling, there was a ground seen, no wait: the ground was changing! Another hallucination appeared for Shepp: trees and flowers were seen on the ground and the walls around him changed into a sky. It made him look like as if he was falling down a very high height. How did they know that he kind of feared height as well?! But luckily, they landed safely. The surrounding changed back to the normal spaceship's environment after Shepp's feet touched the ground. Flash could move away from his body and looked around too.
Full of hope, that the nightmare was finally over.
But it wasn't. Not yet.
"Alright, what's next?" Shepp then said angered that someone had the nerve to play with their fears. "Whoever is playing with our fears, it won't work on us! Stop being a coward and show yourself, demon!"
"W-wait, demon? How do you know it's a demon?" Flash asked frightened, he feared demons.
Shepp moved around to Flash, angered that Flash wasn't smart enough of what had been happened in the past minutes. That was the work of a demon, Shepp just knew it, instinctively.
"Isn't it obvious, Flash? I thought you were smarter than that! It's the work of a demon, obviously. This spaceship is haunted!" Shepp's wrathful words echoed a lot of times around them and his yellow friend jerked out of fright and inner panic.
Behind Shepp was a figure moving, a pitch-black silhouette. Followed by a red glowing dot, which looked down to the orange goat bean. Quiet growling was heard behind him, but Shepp didn't seem to care until Flash pointed his yellow finger on it.
"S-Shepp, b-behind you." He then whispered with a very quiet and frightened voice.
The orange bean turned slowly around but he couldn't see what exactly behind him was. Together with Flash stepped both backwards, into a more brightened up area in the room. The figure followed them and the numb light inside the room betrayed slowly the figures look. Shepp's and Flash's back touched the wall behind them until they couldn't walk backwards anymore. Now pinned against the wall, focused the explorers on the moving silhouette.
Both couldn't believe who they were looking at, after the numb light betrayed the figures look. It took quite a while for them to realize who it was.
"S-Slimey?!"