1.08-Coffins of Arorar

Get the Soundtrack ⁠here⁠: [Transcript]Was looking for Shriipal Ice shards when I was hailed. Minor abbot of the Fellwhim Commune had gotten. I gave him a lift off the asteroid. Said he’d been there close to three centuries. He’d lie there on the tidally locked side, contorted in prayer to Fellwhim. The Wrot must have heard him as wreck after wreck came drifting out of the void laden with supplies.It was a good eighty-four hours until we could make port on the other side of the tenebrink. Poor fella looked like he could use some rest. Seemed confused when I offered him my sarcophagus. Didn’t know what it was.Made in Arorar, out in the Lorn supercluster. Wound up there by mistake, actually. Odo lens I was using had a crack in it. Telemetry got refracted, hurled me lightyears past the target system. Cosmic alignment was so warped I skipped off the Oneiric Plane. Got real messed up along the way.Woke up under iridescence. Brilliant pinks and violets. Shapes were huddled around me holding rings and crudely hewn stones. I was strapped to a table made of volcanic glass. One of them held a ring to my forehead. I blacked out again.The abbot leaned forward. “Sarcophagus” is the best translation for what I woke up in. They were in the middle of a death rite when they found my ship. They tried but I was too far gone. Put me in the coffin with their dead, fearing I would be alone on the road to my afterlife.“You’re not dead,” the abbot said. Nope. Got locked in a box with a strange corpse for company. What came out was—well…Woke up that night, abbot standing over the sarcophagus, twisted in prayer. His arms wrapped around his head, his fingers bifurcated creating a mask over his eyes. The sign of abomination. Something slammed into the ship. Hamark scattered on the floor, Zery smacked her head and dropped. Now I was made.The abbot began chanting. Another collision. The sarcophagus is bolted down. Pulled Hamark and Zery inside, hit the emergency airlock release, and closed the lid.Have to steer clear of the Fellwhim Commune along with the Zortic and Astrum. Gotta lie low when you offend the gods.