Pinkgothic played:

Adrethyrian, Nechku and Noko

"Frederick, wake up."

The foreign voice intruded on his senses, only slowly parting the numb veil of a blissfully dreamless sleep.

He wasn't in his bunk.

In fact, he wasn't anywhere he recognised. Before that thought fully came to fruition in his conscious mind, he'd snapped fully awake from adrenalin pumping through his veins in a silent but very real terror. Wide eyes had found at first nothing, then discovered the small stick of fur that was a meerkat in the otherwise bland, featureless landscape of an obsidian floor and black sky, bleeding into each other at a matching horizon, only faintly distinguishable by the polish of the one below.

The gaze snapped away again, sweeping through the dark in a frantic search. Nothing, just the meerkat. "What do you seek?" she asked, delicate head tilting, fragile body otherwise unmoving.

"Where is he?"

"Dread?" the meerkat asked, perking, only to continue without much pause in a smooth, soothing tone: "He isn't here. But he is what I would like to talk to you about."

The searching gaze jerked back and found the small creature. "Who are you, then?" It was not accusingly spoken, but full of anxiety and confusion distorting the syllables, giving that human avatar a far frailer appearance than that of the meerkat.

"My name is Nechku, at least the name that I intend to reveal to you. I have been watching you and your companions for a while now. But I don't want to get into that." The assertively dismissive tone, while not overbearing, firmly suggested that trying to turn that into a topic would simply be brickwalled with practised stubbornness. Removing the opportunity to even do so, she continued: "I have a very simple task for you that I'd appreciate you doing. It will put nobody in danger and it will not be inconvenient to you, but nonetheless I offer something in return." She paused, letting the words sink in. "I am Nechku, Frederick, and I live in Namibia, in Kavango, which is the area around Rundu."

"...why, why are you telling me this?" Frederick let himself sink into a more casual posture, something of a slouched sit, bringing his head down and curving his back to tower a little less over the small creature. His eyes, however, narrowed in suspicion and continued confusion.

"When Dread next visits you, I want him to know where to find me. And I want him to find me, and I would like you to let him know. Would you please do that? Kavango, Namibia, my name is Nechku?"

A numb, mildly incredulous stare tried to burrow itself through that brown fur and into the meerkat's synapses. Of course, that was Dread's trick - Frederick had no chance of gaining an insight, especially not on a creature with a body language as mute as this one. "...why in heaven's name would you want Dread to find you?" he asked, somewhat tersely.

"Let that be my trouble," she smiled, the expression barely visible on that snout, both by size and due to the shape of her face.

"And why should I?" Frederick tugged his right leg into a loose embrace, grimacing down at the one who had apparently summoned him here, mind trying to figure out precisely what this creature's existence implied. Was this one of the network's 'servers'? Though unless he had his wires crossed, those were Puppets, and the others as well as Dread himself had said that the psychic demon had no grasp on them. Additionally, hadn't it been Puppets who had no location designation in Offline? So this was, then, a Citizen, but clearly not in the form of the ones that he was aiding. She'd said she had been watching them, but what did that even mean? He was full of questions and nowhere near any answers, and it was only by merit of their sheer numbers that he didn't broach any, for lack of knowing with which to begin.

"Well, to be honest, I am not even sure if you now have a choice in the matter, since you have knowledge of your assignment, and he seems quite aware of your knowledge, in general, if I am not mistaken. But I believe in trading favours, as already implied," she responded, calmly, tone friendly. An arm gestured to the side, sweeping up those pencil-thin digits to gesture, twisting as they did. The air swam, shimmered, and then receeded as if solid away from a sight below.

Frederick stared. Lips parted, mouthed 'How?', then fell shut again without a single sound made. There was something both deeply morbid and intensely relieving about seeing the shackled avatar of Adrethyrian. Adrethyrian who had died. Adrethyrian who had apparently returned, albeit just to the land of the living rather than the group that had thought him dead. Sole survivor of Eclipsed. Demon deity. Friend.

"That's why."