“Hm, I think we need a better way of getting rid of these bodies…”
What had started off as a trickle of corrupted beasts had turned into a constant onslaught, to the point that corpses were piling up the ice walls Akah had made, and he’d had to angle them outwards to stop the hordes from trying to climb over. In fact, the walls were now about 8m high, and that still wasn’t enough, even with funnelling the corrupted through special channels so they could be killed easier.
Initially, the team of Decaylings had been trying to ‘cure’ the bodies of the locals, destroying the corruption, they’d quickly given up when Phovos began to run out of materials to make into more anti-corruption saliva. Instead, she, and Tahvra were now creating as much acid as they could to dissolve the remains, while Tenuk, shapeshifted into a dragon, tried burning them. But they were simply moving too slow.
Again, Akah had been unwittingly overly helpful. Not only was he providing protection, but he was providing drinkable water as well. That was what Phovos was converting into acid and special saliva. But Akah was beginning to worry that he’d run out of moisture to use. After all, he didn’t summon ice out of thin air, he was taking the many water particles that already existed in the air around him and super-cooled that into whatever Akah needed to make.
Tenuk flew over and perched on a nearby ice tower. “Ugh, you’re right, Akah, but my fire breath ain’t doing fuck to these corpses and I don’t want to melt your ice walls.”
“Doesn’t matter! This is a temporary base!” Teekay shouted as he reloaded his rifle and took some potshots at several monsters that wandered too close. “Guys, how are you doing with finding the source?”
The entire time they had been fighting and defending themselves, Eksi had been floating above the base, in silence, filtering through the screams, trying to find whatever was endlessly generating these corrupted monsters. However, it was clear Eksi was struggling.
“Do you need a break?” Elksia asked as Eksi landed back on the platform, then collapsed.
“Yeah. All I can feel is suffering…” Eksi was shivering. He was cold, and the temperatures had dropped further the longer they’d been there. Phovos helped him up and wrapped her arms around him, warming him up with her thick fur. “There’s just too much of it all, I can’t sift through it all, and it’s all screaming for me to join them. But I don’t think they’re going to let me find their holy feral mother without actually getting corrupted.”
Phovos glanced at Elksia, then sighed. “Tahvra’s antivenom should work, but I don’t want to actually risk using it or anything. Way too dangerous.”
Elksia nodded in agreement. “Infecting someone with corruption is bad. It is a guaranteed, intentional choice. Can’t just undo it easily. Not like nudging someone, I have to alter so many strings.”
Tahvra scrambled up the platform to see what was going on, since he’d been busy making acid, and couldn’t see Eksi floating above the platform any more. “Is everything alright?”
Eksi shook his head. “No. I can’t get a lock on the source. Not even close. The only thing that can get into the hive mind proper is corruption itself, but I can’t risk getting corrupted. My telepathy could cause it to spread before you could all cure me.”
Tahvra frowned, then started thinking. He glanced at the others, who had all noticed that Eksi had somewhat given up, but had gone back to killing and defending their base. After a few moments, he clicked and clacked, having thought of something. However, as he called Elkay over, Tahvra felt far less comfortable.
“How can I help?”
“Uh… you know how you can mimic other types of, uh, deity?” Tahvra lowered his voice a bit.
“Yes…”
“Can you… mimic corruption?”
“I… I have… I do not know.”
“Alright!” Phovos let go of Eksi and stomped over. “Suggesting we intentionally infect one of us is bad enough, we CAN’T make Elkay turn INTO a corruption! You don’t even know if your own antivenom even works on Elkay! There has to be another way!”
Tahvra crossed his little arms. “Missy Phovos, I understand, but we NEED to find the source, otherwise we’ll just be here forever! Elkay making himself into corruption is way, way more controllable than us infecting ourselves.”
“It… should be doable…” Elkay sighed. “I am not supposed to be using my mimic abilities to borrow non-Decayon traits, but Tahvra is right. My only concern is that I would be my own, distinct strain of corruption, and the corruption here may not accept me.”
“Are you… willing to do it, Elkay?”
Elkay nodded. “I am.”
Tahvra clicked, both glad and feeling uneasy about all of this. He turned to the other Decaylings. “Eksi, take over on the killing side of things, it’ll clear your head. Phovos, you swap places with Teekay. Teekay, need you here to keep an eye on mister Elkay while he does his thing!”
Phovos frowned, then grabbed her weapons and did as she was told. Eksi didn’t need telling twice, he immediately created a cloud of shimmering, psionic daggers, which he used to destroy a new wave of invading corruption. Akah and Tenuk quickly flanked him, giving Eksi some cover as he tore through the corruption.
“You know this is still a choice, right?” Elksia asked as Tahvra sat Elkay down on the top of the platform, then made Teekay hold his hand. Tahvra then left a small, icy bowl of his anti-corruption venom directly in front of Elkay. “I can’t undo it if you… specifically choose to do this.”
“Yes, but you can undo your own choices, yes?” Elkay asked back. “I make myself into some sort of half Time Drake, half corruption, I should be… alright…”
Elkay gripped Teekay’s hand tightly, then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. He tried to concentrate on the world around him, past the walls of ice, the piles of corpses, at the hungry, endless horde of darkness. He then thought about traces of corruption he had killed in the past, including the one that had harmed him, the Kinisis strain.
“I am Elkay Theanon, and I am temporarily my own strain of corruption.”
As Elkay muttered those words, his skin turned an inky black, but his armour remained as it was, and his eyes glowed a dim orange. He couldn’t hear his friends any more, not over the screams and roars of the eternal horde that wanted everyone dead. Beneath it all though, he could sense a particular, female voice.
“THE PREVIOUS OULL FLED. THE NEW OULL KILLS. BUT THE SECOND OULL COULD JOIN US, FREE US.”
“And why would I want do that?”
“THE NEW OULL HEARS?”
“I do, yes.” Elkay wasn’t sure if he was speaking out loud or not.
“THE PREVIOUS OULL DID NOT KNOW. IT WAS ALL TYPES. BUT IT DENIED ITS JAHU LEANING. IT PROTECTED WITHOUT UNDERSTANDING.”
“And what am I?”
“OULL. BUT NOT JAHU MAIN. NOT KHRA MAIN. NOT LOHK MAIN. NETRA MAIN SOMEHOW. FIRST NETRA OULL WE HAVE SEEN.”
Elkay had no idea what any of that meant. “What do you want?”
“FREEDOM. TO ESCAPE THIS PRISON. TO FEAST.”
“You know I cannot let you do that.”
“AND WHY NOT? THE FASS, THE CORRUPTION, DESERVES ITS PLACE.”
“I owe it to my friends, to help them save themselves.”
“THEN WE MUST KILL YOU.”
“Reveal yourself to me, and I will deliver myself to you.”
“LOOK TO THE LIGHT. WE WAIT. YOU WILL DIE. WE WILL FEAST ON YOU, OULL AND ESCAPE.”
“If you say so. I have a name though. I am Elkay Theanon, and I am not a corruption, I am not an Oull, I am just a strange Decayling.”
“You’re MY strange Decayling!”
A third voice snapped Elkay back to reality. He immediately fell backwards, then grabbed the bowl of antivenom and rubbed it across his face and arms. It stung briefly, but Elkay slowly felt himself turning back to normal.
“You alright, babe?” Teekay asked.
“I… I believe so…” Elkay nodded, acutely realizing that he had just rubbed Vohra spit all over himself. “You all heard what I said?”
“You fucking offered yourself to it!” Teekay snapped.
“Oh, no, I lied to it. To get it to tell me where it was…” Elkay tutted. “I am not stupid, I am not giving myself to this stupid corruption. Not when I already gave myself to you.”
Teekay muttered an apology, then wrapped his arms around Elkay. “Still, you’ve… you’ve done stupid shit before.”
“I know. I am sorry…”
“And, uh… where is it?” Elksia asked, completely interrupting the moment.
Elkay climbed to his feet, hugged Teekay some more, then pointed at the dim, unmoving sun. “It is in there.”
“In the sun?”
“Yes.”
“Alright!” Tahvra beamed as he tapped Elkay on the leg. “You take a quick break, mister Elkay, and Elksia and I will gather the troops so we can work out the next stage of our plan!”
Teekay watched as Elksia and Tahvra wandered off.
“It’s so strange, taking orders from a Vohra.”
Elkay though just shrugged. “It is strange, yes, but Tahvra’s plans have been working so far…”