The tiny Thantir ship floated awkwardly, anchored to a large lump of cold rock. They were drifting very slowly towards a vast, crystalline mass, a gigantic cluster of white gems and gold trims. All around them, Voidborn guards loomed, disintegrating anything that got too close.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t think there would be THAT many Voidborns…” Arkay whispered as he and his three crew mates sat perfectly still, weapons at the ready, waiting for the rock to drift closer to the crystals.
“I thought there were not that many of them…” Retvik muttered. “Seems like they all appeared here recently.”
“Very recently…” Arkay tried to explain. “When I passed here… before you caught me and took me to the Decay Lords, there were no Voidborns here at all, just the giant crystal thing. I stumbled across this by accident and it scared me so I left. Only occurred to me recently that it’d be the source of all these attacks.”
Everyone suddenly fell silent as the antlers of a Voidborn briefly peered into view, before quickly disappearing again. The four beings held their breath for a bit longer, until they were sure the coast was clear.
“So, uh, Arkay, what IS the plan?” Tahnahos quietly asked. “I know I should have asked before we headed here… but I’m asking now.”
“Honestly, it was going to be a really simple job. Go to the crystal thing, smash it to bits and then run away before it blew up. But all these Voidborns made it a lot harder.”
“Still feasible though!” Elksia beamed.
Retvik and Tahnahos both eyed Elksia.
“There are about a hundred Voidborns out there, my optimistic little friend. Do you really think we can just run past them?”
“Yeah!” Elksia was still smiling. “Oh, wait, I forgot to tell you guys I have time powers now! I can’t just freeze them all, but I can slow them down long enough so we can get close enough to make it go boom!”
“You… can?” Arkay blinked.
“Yeah!”
“Huh…” Arkay fell silent again, thinking to himself, then began tapping on a nearby console. He was clearly looking for something. After a few moments, he began to smile. “Perfect…”
Tahnahos was looking anxious. “Perfect? What do you mean?”
“This ship has some cloaking abilities. Between Elksia’s time-slowing and this ship keeping quiet, we should be able to get to the crystal undetected. While you fly the ship and keep the Voidborns locked down, Retvik and I can board the crystal and nuke it from within with our Decay Lord powers. If it’s made out of what I think it’s made out of, then a simple high-heat explosion from the inside out should do the job.”
“Would be even better if you filled the crystal with oxygen and something like silver azide first…” Retvik suggested. “Create some fuel to make it all burn.”
“We can do that…” Arkay rubbed his hands together in glee. “Honestly, I think this might actually work. It all depends on what’s inside the crystal.”
“You don’t know?” Tahnahos suddenly exclaimed. “All this time and you don’t know?”
Arkay shrugged. “Seems like no one does. But we’re going to find out. Just before we blow it all up. We’ll take some pictures or something. Shouldn’t be too hard.”
“And what if they retaliate?” Tahnahos gasped, still not certain and seeming worried. “They might-”
Retvik crossed his arms, grunting. “They already attacked the Thantir and the majority of Life Goddess hangouts. What we are doing to them is our retaliation, an act of self-defence. No one else seems willing to act, so we must step forward.”
Tahnahos sighed. “I guess you’re right. Let’s make this quick then. I don’t want Kinisis finding out about all of this…”
“Don’t worry!” Elksia beamed, pulling Tahnahos close. “We got this!”