"Oh, very clever, yes, that might serve," Mishek agrees, just remembering to keep his voice down. "Uh, and by 'lure' I expect you mean stand here and wait. Yes. We can do that. Oh, and perhaps you would find it comforting to keep in mind that if you are injured nonfatally, I can help you heal faster." He does his best to smile reassuringly, but Fidelja is so much shorter that it's hard to read her expression and judge if it worked.
Oddly, Fidelja does feel a little better. Mishek seems shockingly uninformed about the world but he is a very steadyingly reassuring presence. She will feel very bad if she gets them both eaten by not being clever enough. "Oh, I think we could do a little more luring than that," she tells him, rallying her courage. Then she shouts down the hall. "Hey-o! Is anybody with a working brain down there?"
The shuffling footsteps shuffle a lot faster, and out of the darkness two more space-suited pirates show up. They've each got several farming implements sunk into—and in some cases through— them, and one of them has an arm hacked off. The other has the handle of a rake dragging awkwardly between its legs, and keeps stumbling. Their helmets are shattered, but not, apparently, enough to decapitate the remains of their heads. The elven blood on their clawed gauntlets isn't a bright, fresh shade, but it's also not all that old. They stagger faster and faster as they approach, claws up to catch and tear.
"Oh," Mishek says as they approach. "I have a thought. One moment." He steps a couple paces ahead of Fidelja, staying to one side. Managing to avoid a clumsy swing of a hook, he grabs the offending gauntlet and swings the pirate into the other one, attempting to knock them both facedown on the floor.
The pirate manages to hook its other gauntlet into Mishek as it is thrown around, scoring deep gouges through the living wood with claws meant to pierce steel hull plates. Then it tangles with its comrade at high velocity, and they both tumble to the ground, armor and farm tools clattering together. The bodies flail and thrash, but in an odd, mechanical way, not cooperating with each other or trying to figure out their situation.
Fidelja edges up to the flailing corpse tangle, eyes the pile for a likely spot, and then sets to work with her axe, teeth gritted against the unpleasantness of the task. "Are you-- okay--?" she asks Mishek, between chops.
"Oh," Mishek says, somewhat breathlessly, "I--probably?" Of course he's been hurt before, in the course of exploring new places and encountering new people and situations, but perhaps not this deeply. This depth of pain is rather a startling thing. He backs unsteadily away from the flailing of implements and axe, even as the latter rapidly ends the rest of the flailing. Then he leans carefully against a wall and sings to himself in a low rumble, helping the sap oozing from his cuts to harden.
Fidelja steps away from the--the dead people when they stop moving. She lets the head of her axe drop to the floor (bad, her Aunt V would very much disapprove). She gives herself one long moment to take a breath, says a quick prayer to her god (not to be a *bother*, but there are people up here getting attacked by corpses, lordship), and then tugs hard at her beard and squares her shoulders. She crosses the corridor to Mishek, and leans up to peer at his... crusting over gash. "So probably means... yes or no?"
Mishek is not exactly feeling like a spring sapling, but the sap has hardened into a serviceable shield for the wound, and the pain is no longer quite so overwhelming. "Yes, I'm well enough, I think."
"Well," Fidelja say, trying not to let her dizzying relief show. "Well! That didn't kill us. Congratulations all around." Maybe they can both go back to the ship now? No, probably not. No further walking corpses have emerged to zero in on all the noise that fight made. They do seem to like noise. She's going to pretend this means there won't be any more waiting around the corner. Shouldering her axe, she marches off toward the T-juncture at the end of the corridor. "Do you realize," she asks Mishek, "that we're not even getting paid for this?"
Pacing beside her, Mishek sighs, a mournful sound like wind through leaves. "I was previously aware, yes. I hold out hope that, should we find survivors, they might be grateful enough to spare some modicum of supplies or perhaps a little money. And of course, in the unfortunate event that there are no survivors... oh dear," he says in sudden dismay, "all those trees will be in a very sad state indeed. I trust at least some of the orchard attendants made it."
Several of the doors along the hall have been clawed open, and the smell of blood and recent death come from beyond the wreckage. Most haven't been touched by either the living or the dead. But one door at the end of the hallway seems to have been barricaded from within: the tattered remains of the door reveal an only half-broken slab of metal from an other overturned float pallet.
"Oh, this is so unsafe," Fidelja mutters, and creeps up to upsided float pallet to peer over its edge and into the room. "Hello? Anyone there?" One day she is going to get an answer that *isn't* corpses trying to kill her, and she will probably expire on the spot.
A young, bloody, and totally freaked out looking high elf pounces on her from the darkness, swinging a shovel with a lot more passion than skill.
Mishek reaches over Fidelja's head and catches the shovel in one immovable hand before it hits anything unfortunate. "How delightful!" he says, assuming the shovel attack to be an isolated incident and any aggression done with now. "It's very good to see you, I was beginning to worry for the trees."
The elf is very scared, and does not respond well to a giant creature looming at her and making noises. She tries to headbutt Mishek and then has to sit down hard, whimpering.
"Mishek, you're scaring her!" Fidelja says, immediately forgetting the shovel attack in the face of a distressed child. Well, not a child, probably, not at nearly a foot taller than Fidelja's four feet. But distressed and whimpering, she still pings the same mental 'look after' button as Fidelja's many younger siblings, nieces, nephews, and cousins. Why, she doesn't even have her baby-beard! Of course, elves never do, but it still make her look very young. Fidelja tucks her ax out of sight and tries to look less like a blood-smeared ravening cyborg dwarf pirate.
"Oh," Mishek says, abashed. "I didn't mean to." He attempts to place the shovel within reach of the elf and carefully steps back so he no longer looms quite so much. Watching the elf, he begins to hum softly, thinking slow calming thoughts of water flowing, roots deepening, light warming, letting the song ease her distress and agitation as much as it can.
"No magic!" The elf yelps, and grabs for the shovel again. She shoves herself up against the wall, waving the tool around in a ferocious, if somewhat bleary, manner. "You won't get me!"
Fidelja smacks Mishek lightly on one woody arm. (Ouch.) "Stop that!" She steps between ent and elf. "Don't mind Mishek, he's just very tall. He can't help himself."
