“For the one of you who hasn’t been here before, welcome to the Torn Islet.”
Nyssi’s truck rumbled over a very rough, bumpy bridge that led to the large island. Really, it only just counted as an island, because the Asprokremmos river had split in two around it before rejoining on either side. But since the whole thing was surrounded by water, everyone just called it an islet.
Normally, Nyssi would have taken a right, towards the residential area where her house was, and she nearly did, out of habit. But the left side of the islet, mostly running along the riverbank, were the various processing areas for both live and dead game, anything caught during the Torn Islet’s regular hunts. Most of the islet’s income came from three places: providing fresh but more exotic meat to the nearby cities, catching exotic beasts for the Great Arenas and capturing (and potentially killing) anything that troubled smaller settlements. Sure. Portalia was a bit of a metropolis of a planet, but outside its major cities, nasty things lurked in the shadows.
One such nasty thing could be seen as Nyssi pulled up and switched off the engine. A party of Temthans (for reasons unknown, a group of Temthans was always called a party) had gathered around the creature trying to take photos and samples but also being way too scared to get close. One of the party had immediately spotted Nyssi and had rushed over to great her.
“Girl! You took your damn time!” Leontar hissed, before glancing past Nyssi. Behind him, his work colleagues and friends Haplo and Kinigos had also followed. “Oh, you brought the Torn Islet’s favourite shadow beast!”
“Hey, Leontar!” Kayel waved as he approached, holding his rifle. It was currently folded open though, with the safety definitely on. “Nyssi says you guys found a Corruptiid!”
“Are we actually calling them that?” Tenuk whispered. “Also, hi, I’m Tenuk, I don’t know any of you.”
Nyssi tutted. “Yeah, sorry, but I told you we’d be a couple of hours. Plus, traffic sucked and we couldn’t get Kayel out of bed. Anyway, guys, these are my old hunter team, Leontar, Haplo and Kinigos. Boys, well, you know Kayel already, and Tenuk and Retvik are also fucking obvious because Retvik’s the Lightbearer and Tenuk is a blue Spast.”
“Nice to meet you!” Haplo smiled. “Also, you believe this creature is called a Corruptiid? I’ve never heard of anything like that before, and I study this crap for a living.”
Tenuk nodded. “Yeah, we shot two of them on Kolasi. Right, guys?”
“Right in the head!” Kayel added. “But Nyssi said you already tried that?”
Haplo nodded. “Bullets just kinda… got absorbed, I guess? Definitely didn’t bounce off, because we tried scattershot bullets on top of normal bullets and there was no difference.”
Nyssi glanced down at Kayel, who glanced back at Nyssi. After a quick moment of thought, Kayel then handed his rifle to Haplo.
“Uh…”
“I used this exact rifle to kill one of those bastards. They were stupidly aggressive, literally murdering Thracks and they desperately tried to kill us.”
Haplo took a deep breath, took the rifle and a bullet from Kayel’s bandolier, then made his way back to the monster in the cage. The other Temthans all backed off, giving Haplo some space. He loaded the rifle, aimed at the beast, removed the safety then fired the single shot. To Kayel’s surprise but not to Haplo’s suprise, the creature flinched but didn’t seem to do much else, and quickly went back to hissing and spitting.
“Alright that is pretty fucked up…” Nyssi whispered to Retvik and Tenuk. “The ones we killed died pretty much instantly when we did that to them.”
“Maybe it is because you and Kayel shot them, not because of your guns?” Retvik suggested, not having anything useful to add to the conversation.
“Retvik, that’s fucking stupid, a blast to the brain would kill pretty much anything!” Tenuk snapped. “Including weird monsters from potentially outside our universe!”
“We do not know that.”
“That’s why I said potentially, numbskull! And we GET to call you numbskull because your skull is literally numb.”
Nyssi tutted, interrupting Tenuk before he insulted the 2.5m tall armoured brute further. “Actually… Retvik has a point. In a scientific experiment, we need to test ALL variables that we can. We did a baseline, shooting it in the head, we did a second step, using the same gun that was originally used, we’re missing two variables. And while we kinda can’t ship this monster to Kolasi to see if we can kill it, Kayel doing the killing is definitely a variable we missed.”
Haplo glanced at Kayel, then handed his rifle back to him. Kayel hesitated, then pulled out a fresh bullet, flicking it between his fingers playfully, before calmly loading a shot, aiming and firing.
The bang was just as loud, but it was followed by an equally loud hiss, like a massive balloon deflating. The creature snarled one last time, then collapsed, both the life and the evil fading from its eyes.
“You know how I said that was pretty fucked up?” Nyssi asked.
“Yes?”
“This is more fucked up.”
Haplo and the other Temthans all turned to Kayel, demanding answers when he was clearly as confused as they were. Thankfully, Retvik was on hand with his random bouts of sudden intelligence.
“Is this because Sini blessed us?”
“Ooooooooooooooooooooooooh!” Half the Temthans present made the same noise in unison, including Nyssi. However, there were a couple of mutterings about how it was weird for their beloved Divinity to bless something as small and life-antithetical as a Phantasma Skyavok. Kayel ignored those mutterings, mostly because he was pretty sure that Retvik had just mentioned the Allbirther as cover and what he really meant was that they were blessed by the Thantophor.
Or maybe Retvik was both right and wrong and was just making vague guesses. As Nyssi went to cover Tenuk’s mouth though, Kayel was no longer sure.
“Yeah, that does make a LOT more sense!” Kinigos beamed. “Holy Sini did openly bless you in front of everyone. Perhaps that blessing allows you to kill creatures that Sini considers unholy.”
“Oh… Maybe it is…” Retvik trailed off and was about to correct himself, when Nyssi slapped him. “What?”
Nyssi hissed at Retvik, telling him to shut up and let her take the lead. “Clearly there is something special about us four that allows us to kill these creatures, but we don’t know exactly what it is. But we’re going to need more samples. After all, we’re all beings of science here, and good science is repeatable. So you guys need to find more of these critters so we can test things further.”
Kinigos shrugged. “That’s fine. Can we get some DNA or some sort of genetic material off you, in case you four can’t drive two hours to get here?”
The four heroes all glanced at each other. Kayel immediately tutted and shook his head.
“Unfortunately, no can do! I’m a Phantasma, a former one, I’m technically K-Class property and you can’t tamper with me.”
“It’s illegal to take genetic samples from Spasts.”
“I do not really have a valid excuse but I do not want to give my pure Rethan genetics away to just anyone.”
Nyssi glared at her friends. “You guys are all fucking cowards.”
“I’m literally stating the truth!” Tenuk glared back. “Literally one of the things you all had to agree to for us Spasts to become pacifists was that no one would be allowed to take genetic samples or experiment on us! There’s totally tons of samples where Temthans and Torr have broken those agreements, but that’s not the point!”
Kinigos, to everyone else’s annoyance, agreed. “He is right. Not sure about the Phantasma thing, but none of us here are willing to mess with THE Shadowstalker. That being said, Retvik, I don’t think you have any legal ground to stand on.”
“Hmph!” Retvik crossed his arms. “Fine. But I am not giving you any blood or liquids or anything. I will give you some armour trimmings and that is it. I need to cut my shoulder strips anyway.”
Kinigos turned to Nyssi. “And you?”
“I’ll give you some scales and one of my tendrils, I guess.”
The Temthans all clapped their hands together in joy. Nyssi somewhat expected her friends to lead them to the nearby medical lab, but it turned out that they had gear already, equipment that they had also used on the monster to collect samples from it. Nyssi scraped some scales off her upper arm, while someone handed Retvik several pairs of claw clippers, the first three of which barely even dented his shoulder strips.
“Why do you trim those anyway?” Tenuk asked.
“Unfortunately, I have to. I am an exile, people need to visually know that.”
“Oh.”
Satisfied with his samples, Kinigos thanked Xeno Dessaron One. “You have, yet again, been a massive help. So, uh, feel free to have a look around! I’ll speak to the Big Chiefs, get you guys a free meal and some fresh meat to take home.”
The party of Temthans all went back to work, now blatantly ignoring the one other Temthan and three clearly-not-Temthans.
“So, shall we have a look around then?” Kayel eventually popped up.
“Only after you admit you’re a bitch!” Nyssi hissed.
“Sister, I can walk through shadows and empower my attacks with darkness, I am not giving up my genetic information to anyone.”
“Alright, fine, but you’re still a bitch…” Nyssi gave in as she walked off. “Come on. I know the BEST places to get a bite to eat around here…”