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The Cold Rooms aboard the Marauder were located amidships in the lower decks. There were three of them and they were octagonal in shape, and wedged snugly between cargo hold-2 and cargo hold-3. They were nice and out-of-the-way of anything truly important to the cruiser's daily operations. Shadow sealed the door behind her and checked the privacy settings. The doors were locked and the oval of the blast door barely visible as it was pulled snugly against its thick frame. She was locked in. More importantly, any magic she would be weaving would also be locked in with her if it got out of hand.

Which, she inwardly griped, had been doing so more and more lately.

She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it into the corner nearest the door and looked around at the matte-black walls. Just like aboard Shadow Stalkers owned vessels, the Cold Rooms were painted in a dark, energy absorbing paint and just like the S.S.M.A, the Nymexian Imperial Black Navy painted their's matte-black with the protective sigils and runes carved into the bulkhead walls and ceilings. Those runes and sigils were there as a fail-safe, incase the paintjob was overwhelmed and failed. They formed a magical barrier that stopped any arcane spillage from affecting the rest of the ship and its crew. Thus far, in recorded history at least, there was no record of any major incidents putting a Cold Room out of action. The one casting the spells had died on occasion, yes, but the Cold Rooms always remained sturdy.

She scratched absently at her smartweave-clad stomach, her lips thinning and brows knotting. She hoped she wouldn't be the first person in recorded history to melt a Cold Room.

Especially a Cold Room onboard a rented warship.

She didn't think she'd be able to survive the embarrassment.

Shadow padded into the middle of the room and sat cross-legged, forcing herself to settle into the meditations that Lemur had taught her. The minutes turned into an hour and when she opened her eyes again, the room had come into stark relief, each rune hidden beneath the nanomatte paint faintly visible as knots of faintly glowing lines and scrollwork. The faint tingle of the magical barrier tickled softly across her scales and she frowned, standing up. She shouldn't be able to feel the barrier. Hell, it shouldn't even be active. She hadn't yet summoned her magic. She looked around, looking for whatever it was reacting to. The door was still sealed tight, the telltale on the small control panel set into the elegant frame glowing green. She was alone. She couldn't even hear the deep, purring throb of the sublight drives powering them through the vast darkness of deep space.

She ran a hand through her fiery mane as anxiety pulled her chest taught.

I've wasted an hour already. She chastised herself silently and raised her hand, palm up, fingers spread. A small spell first. Something simple like a shadow ball, a small offensive spell that singed clothes and flesh but wasn't enough to kill on its own. At least she couldn't kill with one. She'd gotten lucky with four of them at one point and the man had died of his injuries, but still. A small, feeble spell, feeble just like her magical abilities. And so the runt of the litter attempts magic once again, only to fail spectacularly-

A small, egg-sized sphere of black and grey bloomed between her hooked fingers as she summoned her magic, flickering with sparks of violet. A small, triumphant smile tugged at her lips as she concentrated on growing the ball of dark magic, keeping it stable with barely any effort at all. It swelled to the size of her head and started churning like an out-of-control bonfie but she held it, calming the dark flames and settling the violet sparks that spewed into the air. She held the shadow ball steady for a minute, watching it writhe contentedly a few inches above the palm of her right hand. She debated whether to throw it or to simply snuff it out safely. She eyed the wall opposite her. Nah, more fun to throw it.

With a practised flick of her wrist, the shadow ball screamed through the air like a dark comet. The runes on the opposite wall flared pale blue as dark fire splashed harmlessly across the nanomatte coated wall. She watched the sparks scatter to the deck and fade, a feeling of elation taking hold as she realised that she had performed a spell without it blowing up in her face for the first time in months. She tried another shadow ball and then another, each of varying sizes and each being launched or snuffed out with precision. She bounced excitedly on the balls of her feet, stopped and looked around to make sure no one had snuck in and caught her in the act. The last thing she wanted besides her spells going awry was to be caught in an act of childish glee, especially over something so minor.

She composed herself, relaxing into a battle stance, her breathing slow and deep. It was time to try something else, another simple spell, this one more for defense and/or ambush purposes. She mostly used it for the latter. It was one of her favourite ones to cast, quick, simple and the panic it could produce was a joy to behold. She spoke the spell softly, her voice barely a murmur and she felt the air around her tingle. The soft glow from the overhead light set into the ceiling faded. And then she was plunged into darkness. Or rather, the room was. Even the glow from the protective runes was gone, smothered by the black mist that had poured into the room. Shadow could see the outlines as clear as day, her darksight allowing her to pick out the details just as clearly as she could when she had first entered the Cold Room.

She stood for a moment in the middle of the mist, triumphant at yet another successful casting. She stretched, flexing her wings, luxuriating in the feel of the arcane static that crawled across her body like the gentle touch of a lover. She purred. Maybe next time she'd persuade JD to come with her and they could practise together, secreted away from the rest of the ship. She broke the spell, plucking gently and swiftly at its core to nullify it like she had done so so many times before. The tingling increased and the air felt taught, like a sheet of rubber being slowly stretched to breaking point. She cursed as she felt the spell twisting in on itself. She stopped and adjusted her grip on it. It slipped from her mind, worming away like a eel in a badly set trap and she felt it strengthen, the darkness thickening to a soupy quality. She felt stifled all of a sudden and breathing became hard. It was as if she was trying to breath mud. The air hummed and the nanomatte paint started to boil.

'Fuck!' She snapped aloud as she wrestled the spell, trying to bring it back under control.

The scrollwork carved into the bulkheads hissed with arcane heat and a blue-gold shimmer ran across the black walls like an oil slick as the protective magical shielding absorbed as much of the runaway magic as it could. The core of the spell swelled like a dying star as Shadow grasped it, slowly teasing strands of magic free, carefully dissipating the spell. She had no idea what would happen if it continued twisting itself into knots. She never even knew this spell could go so wrong. It was just summoning a patch of darkness, a mist so thick it was akin to a moonless night in a deep valley. Usually, if the spell failed, it either didn't manifest at all or lasted a few seconds before fading harmlessly like a ground fog on a warm morning. It didn't writhe and howl like a trapped animal.

She swore again as the air around her glittered, tiny starbursts of violet and bright, necrotic green. A small bud of relief pushed its way past her irritation and fear as the spell started to smooth out again. She eased her grip, still teasing its strands apart, urging the darkness to fade. And then there was a shriek of tortured air and the breath was crushed from her lungs. Her ears popped and the spell slipped from her grip in an agonizing cascade of magic.

She squinted at the ceiling, staring moodily at the smooth silvery finish and the polished dome of glowing crystal set into the center. She shifted uncomfortably. Every inch of her hurt. It felt like she had been fed through an old, industrial mangle and had every drop of magic wrung out of her. She looked to her left, expecting to see one of the ship's medical staff but instead ended up inhaling a small drift of soot. She sneezed and coughed, rolling onto her side and pushing herself to her knees, fighting her sudden coughing/sneezing fit. She wiped her watering eyes, sniffling as she looked up and got a better look at her surroundings. The room was bare silver alloy, polished to a glossy sheen and the deck was coated in a thick carpet of the black sooty substance. She wrinkled her nose as she slowly came to the conclusion that the room was also octagonal with an oval blast door sealed tight enough as to be near-invisible.

'I'm gonna need to call maintenance.' She grumbled sourly as she scooped up a pile of soot and ran it through her fingers.

It drifted to the floor in a fine powder, piling up in a new mound between her knees. The soot was the nanomatte paint, peeled from the room's surfaces and pummeled into a fine powder. The very same nanomatte paint that was used to coat a starship's hull to protect it from the heat of atmospheric entry, the ambient radiation of space and solar flares, plus a whole lot of other things. She rubbed her temples. A headache throbbed behind her eyes and her earlier feelings of elation evaporated like a drop of water on a hot skillet. She pushed herself to her feet and shuffled painfully through the drifts of powdered starship insulation and inspected a grouping of runes on the wall directly opposite her. Each one had been carefully engraved into the bulkhead plates and now each one, marching down the walls in two foot intervals, was polished as smooth as the walls themselves, becoming barely legible and ultimately useless.

Oh shit, She hurried to the door, unlocked it and peered outside. The narrow corridor beyond was perfectly fine. The light above the door of the neighboring Cold Room switched to red and the door unsealed. A male dragon stepped out into the low, vaulted corridor, his pale green features crinkling into a look of concern.

'Are you okay?' He asked, cinching his robes tighter around his waist.

Shadow receded deeper into the threshold of the blast door, her wings stretching out behind her. She didn't want him to see the mess she had made. She would rather confront someone of her own choosing about it, not the sorcerer next door. She schooled her expression into one of curiosity instead of mild horror.

'I'm fine,' She lied smoothly, 'Just thought I felt something... off...'

He gave her a long look then nodded, 'Maybe a bit of turbulence. We went into the slipstream a few minutes ago.'

'Yeah, probably a bit of FTL turbulence.' She agreed and slipped back into her Cold Room. She swore once the door sealed up again, leaving her to her mess. 'FTL turbulence my arse. I fuck up an entire Cold Room and the whole ship knows about it almost immediately. Fuck!' She turned to the comms panel, her fingers hovering over the smooth, crystal interface as she went through her options. Lemur of course would be her go-to in this situation being the top ranking War Witch on the ship. Then JD. Husband or not, he was still captain of the ship and she'd just dealt it a horrible blow. Not crippling but still, thanks to her, the Marauder was down a Cold Room. It would be like shutting down the ship's gym. She looked over her shoulder at the gleaming devastation she had accidentally wrought and contacted Kieron instead. The others would find out through him before her tail had even followed her out of the room.

She slumped against the wall and sulked as she waited for him.

The door chimed softly and she unlocked it, stepping aside, watching Kieron's reaction carefully. The snow leopard's expression shifted from business-like concern to shock and back to concern again as he took in the mess. She sealed up the door behind him as he turned to look at her, sweeping her with his gaze. He opened his mouth then closed it again and looked back at the shining, smooth walls of silver. He looked up and sighed upon seeing his reflection in the ceiling. That too, had had the same treatment as the walls. Scuffing his boot through the carpet of black powder revealed the glassy deck plates and he planted his hands on his hips and sucked his teeth thoughtfully.

'When you mentioned there'd been an incident, I was expecting something less... insane.' He finally said. He floundered for what else to say, pinching the bridge of his nose and squeezing his eyes shut. Then he said, 'You stripped the nanomatte off the walls, ceiling and deck. No one's ever managed to do that without an industrial paint scrubbing unit or a beam weapon. But you did it with magic. Your magic. I'm equal parts impressed and horrified.'

'I also sanded down the protective sigils.' Shadow added, her tone borderline manic as she suppressed her acute embarrassment. Kieron stared at her for a long moment, his expression glazed. She sobered and looked away sheepishly, 'Sorry. I didn't expect it to go this wrong.'

'Did you meditate before hand like Lemur taught you?'

'Yes.'

'And did you start off slow like I taught you?'

'Yes.'

'Simple spells? Low level stuff, like shadow balls and mist-'

'Yes.' She grunted, suddenly irritated. She subsided, leaning against the wall, 'I cast a black out spell and it started out well. And then went tits-up in a hurry.'

'A black out spell as in plunging a small area into total darkness black out spell? The kind of spell that fades like fog if it backfires?'

'Yeah, wild ain't it?' Shadow replied blandly with a vague gesture at the room. Fade away like fog, it had not and now she was wondering whether she should give up magic all-together.

Kieron took a deep breath. He could still feel the lingering aura of dark magic and taste it on his tongue. It ran static through his fur and made his whiskers itch. He focussed and saw it wreathing her in a dark, violet streaked pall, settling across her hunched shoulders and pouring from her loosely held wings like a fine mist. He _Hmmm_ed and scratched his chin as he thought, his mind going back to Thuba and the incident in the cargo hold late last year.

'You okay?'

'Exhausted.' She admitted after sizing him up, 'I ache all over, like I've been wrung out. I've got a raging headache, too. Could murder a bowl of noodles.' She added, her black tongue flicking across her lips. 'What?'

Kieron pulled his attention away from her and the dark aura that hung heavy around her like a cloak, 'No more magic whilst onboard. Save it all for when you're planetside.'

She was about to argue but one look at him had her swallowing her words. He looked pissed off and more than a little worried. Worried about her or the ship, she wasn't sure, but knowing Kieron, it was most likely both.

'What's that old Panzaarian saying? Like two peas in a pod or something.' He commented after a moment of tapping on his datapad.

'What?' She grunted as she pulled her jacket from the dust and shook it off.

'Well, first JD scorches my engine room and now you peel the paint from one of the Cold Rooms.'

'This wasn't a reaction to a bored lesser Elemental or a minor god.' Shadow looked at him as she put her arm in one sleeve, thought better of it and slung the jacket over her shoulder instead. She'd dump it in the 'fresher as soon as she got back to her cabin.

The look Kieron gave her was cool and calculating, and riveted her to the spot, 'Hmm...'

'What's that supposed to mean?'

'Not sure.' He said as he ushered her out of the Cold Room, 'I'll list this one as Technical Difficulties and get Lemur on re-doing the runes. I think we have someone sitting in the brig who'd love to re-paint the place, too.' He continued to muse as they walked down the short corridor.

'Answer my question.' Shadow growled.

'I will once I find the answer.' He replied cryptically. 'Have you considered a career change? Maybe as a paint stripper? Or an auxilliary beam weapon? I hear the old-style particle cannons are coming back into style-'

'Y'know what, fuck you.'