“Sorry about the mess…” Arkay muttered as he kicked piles of indescribable things out of the way, clearing space so that the mechanical being behind him could move freely. “Probably should have told you all about this earlier, but… well… I think you six can understand…”
Kal was one of the far stranger Decay Lords. Six small beings, all sharing one and a half broken, tattered, robotic bodies. Each of their consciousnesses was housed within a squidgy, face-like rectangular brain, covered in some sort of rubber resin to protect them from harm. The six of them would spend most of their time swapping which brain controlled their robotic body.
As to what happened to their original bodies? No one really knew and Kal was always unwilling to explain. Arkay had an inkling of an idea, based on conversations, but the general consensus was that their other bodies were destroyed. Hence why Kal’s six colour-coordinated brains were sharing this one, functional body, and another half a body that was permanently confined to a wheelchair.
Arkay’s call though had caught Kal off guard. Kal’s duties as a Decay Lord (or six Decay Lords) were to cleanse and purify Decaylings who had potentially been struck by Voidborn or Corruption influence, and occasionally to help remove mind control from Life Goddesses. Kal worked on Arkay and had spent time with him, but they didn’t really know much else about the tiny, yellow Decayling, who wasn’t much bigger than they were.
Finally, Arkay had moved enough stuff, and allowed Kal to enter his tiny personal quarters. Immediately, all six of Kal realised something weird was happening.
“Alright, so… when I briefly had Life Goddess powers from hanging out with Seimeni… I started work on these things. I… I have no idea if they’ll actually, like, work? But I thought it was the very least I could do since you guys saved my life.”
Tah, the brain currently controlling Kal’s body, blinked excessively, absolutely stunned by what Arkay was showing them.
“You… built us some bodies?” several of the other brains whispered.
“Uh, basically, yeah. I was trying to replicate the bodies you already have. But I don’t know if they… work. I was basically just guessing the entire time.”
All six of Kal immediately began muttering to themselves, all sounding very surprised.
“Is this for real?”
“Maybe they WERE being honest?”
“I really hope they work…”
“They are even colour-coded!”
“Like, actually pretty good guesses!”
“We should just… try them…”
“Put me in!”
Five of Kal paused. Koh, the silvery-white brain, repeated his demand.
“Put me in!”
Both Arkay and the rest of Kal hesitated.
“You sure?”
“What’s the worst that could happen?” Koh tutted. “Just put me in!”
Kal shrugged and unclipped Koh’s brain from the bandolier around him. Kal then handed Koh over to Arkay, who very delicately opened up the “head flap” on one of the mechanical bodies Arkay had created, and awkwardly placed Koh inside, closing the head plate and locking the brain in place.
After a brief moment of silence, the large, blue eyes on the mechanical body lit up. After some more creaking and clanging, the body began to move. Koh slowly stepped forward, then fell flat on his face, losing his balance.
“It’ll take some readjustment, but it WORKS!” Koh shouted, picking himself up. “It bloody works!”
“Really?”
“I’m moving! I can move my legs and my arms and-” Koh flexed the mechanical claws on his hand. “I can move my hand! My own hand!”
Kal blinked his eyes, then immediately started placing the other brains into each of the other mechanical bodies. Just like Koh, they all took a few seconds to flicker into life, and all of them fell on the floor at least once.
“But, uh, what about you, uh, Tah?” Arkay asked, amidst the rest of Kal’s celebrations.
Tah, still using Kal’s old body, shrugged. “I’ll keep hold of this one. It is my original body, after all. But thank you ever so much…”
“How can we repay you?” Leh interrupted. “Like, dude, you saved us!”
Arkay shook his head. “I don’t want repayment. I just wanted to do the right thing. After all, you guys saved me. If anything, I was repaying you.”
“Well…” Was that some sort of… smile that Arkay saw flash across Tah’s mechanical face? “Well, Arkay, you really shouldn’t have. You didn’t owe us anything.”
“And you don’t owe me anything!” Arkay beamed. “I just wanted to make you guys happy, as a thank you for helping me when I needed it. So, uh, thank you!”
“Thank you too!” Kal replied in unison, from six distinct, separate bodies. The first time they had done so in millennia. “Thank you so much!”