Aquatic Nightmare

Somewhere far away on a planet that isn't known for many things other than some upstart creatures causing trouble once in a while... which is every world, there is an unnoticed swamp completely devoid of the fun stuff in life, like extradimensional parasites, transmogrified spec ops... or dimensional rifts.

That changes now as a rift opens, and out comes the largest mermaid anyone will have ever seen, barring perhaps some aquatic gods themselves. Cursing up a storm, Esstrey immediately feels the mana in the surrounding air, and begins tearing at her own back to get to the blasted little thing digging into her spine.

[The Central Governor welcomes the-

"Бля ты ешь дерьмо!" The mermaid screams out in a deep, guttural accent. She completely ignores any other stimuli as she's desperately trying to tunnel toward the cursed being stuck inside her.

Her attempts are in vain, whenever she tries to grab at the black carapace of the parasite, her hand cleanly phases through it. Despite it's immaterial properties, it seems to have no trouble holding on to her, it hasn't even damaged any of her flesh. Regardless, the parasite isn't very appreciative of Esstrey's attempts at evicting it from its new home, and hijacks the nerves in her spine to stop her from flailing about.

Esstrey falls to the ground, completely paralyzed by whatever the creature did. If it can hijack her nerves, her brain must be part of that process. She can feel the thing crawling up higher, trying to make its way upward from the spinal cord. Fortunately for Esstrey, and unfortunately for the parasite, she isn't disabled by such petty concepts like 'oxygen loss' 'major back injury' and 'total body takeover'. Her blood is still within her body, and as such firmly within her sphere of influence.

The parasite recoils as it is suddenly assaulted from all sides, blood nearest to it begins to explode into sharp spikes. Some of it actually catches it off guard before it can safely shift out of space, the nerves no longer respond, as they lack the blood to fuel them, and as Esstrey gets up from the disgusting swamp, she begins shoving heaps of trashy mud into the open wound that is her backside. If she has to inflict Tetanus on this thing to win, she will.

The parasite tries to go on an offensive to hijack the brain, taking it over would allow it to endlessly pilot the body, but it's clear that that's going to be difficult. Esstrey in turn notices it slithering further toward her brain stem, and start withdrawing all her blood away from the parasite, while forming a wall of retaliating blood between her brain and the rest of her body. Both sides bet their all on their plans, Esstrey wants to starve it out, and the parasite seeks to break through her defenses. Even its extradimensional nature would ensure difficulty in bypassing those defenses, neither side is sure that they can win, only that they can destroy the other.

The parasite could easily kill Esstrey right now, but that would mean its own demise. Esstrey could potentially kill the parasite, but that would most likely result in her own demise. She can't even properly circulate blood to her brain right now like when she did when she was beheaded, only lasting on the small reserves she has. It is with this conundrum, when two people have the power to instantly destroy the other, both decide reasoning and empathy trumps overwhelming force.

"I propose a truce." The voice comes from Esstrey's own mouth, but it barely moved at all. The parasite is speaking through her throat and mouth, using none of the vocal cords. The sound of the voice is not unlike that of an undead lich.

"Give me back my limbs, and you have a deal." As Esstrey agrees, she feels the influence of the parasite recede a bit, and hands over control of her nerves back to her. Esstrey for her part releases her hold over her own blood circulation, and has it go to all corners of her body yet again.

Stretching from the internal battle, and fixing some internal issues relating to it, Esstrey finally gets her bearings. She looks around the swamp, and unsurprisingly doesn't notice anything too special. Although she still wonders where the fuck she is.

[The Central Governor welcomes the foreign entity to [The Veil]]

Esstrey looks around her as the message reverberates inside her head.

"Oi parasite, was that you? Did you hear that?"

"I felt something, it is native. It knows." Esstrey doesn't fail to notice that her new roommate has some odd knowledge, considering she's pretty sure that thing was birthed by the big worm in extradimensional space.

"Knows what?"

Esstrey looks at the sloppy piece of coding work, this was made by both a very powerful and incompetent existence. Although... it shouldn't know these things. Sure, she can argue it doesn't do much to describe her, but it still got things right it shouldn't know. Least of which being her name, she never even used ballistics or water magic here, how does it not only know about her ability, but also correctly described blood and water magic being roughly equal? What does some of this stuff even mean if it's meant to describe her?

[High-ranking Mermaid]

[This one is a Mermaid of a higher caste, there are many varieties, but it can always be guaranteed in the case of beast-kin that a higher caste means better capabilities.]

[Ballistic Mastery]

[This one has extensively trained in the art of ballistics, this trait increases overall handling with ballistic weaponry.]

[Expert Blood Mage]

[This one has been using blood magic for years, this trait increases the holder's affinity for [Blood] magic.]

[Expert Aqua Mage]

[This one has been using water magic for years, this trait increases the holder's affinity for [Water] magic.]

[Parasite]

[This one is plagued by one or more parasites, a powerful doctor is needed to get rid of any parasite. Unless user wishes otherwise, or the [Parasite] has a specific trait for it, data about this creature remains hidden. An appraiser of high enough strength is always needed to identify that this user has this curse.

The information floods into her mind, with even more incorrect things in it. Esstrey hasn't been using magic for years, and the last two entries just... disappeared. Not to mention it referring to the parasite as a curse, curses involve magic, and the parasite was born in a magicless environment. Deciding that this Central Governor is clearly malfunctioning, Esstrey simply resolves to focus on more material matters, it's not like she can rely on the extradimensional parasite to forage for some food around here.

Esstrey quickly finds her target of surprise foraging in the form of a shack with a busted open door, and signs of recent struggle.