You are not alone. Fight until you eight are alone. Kill everything corrupted, or be corrupted yourselves.
The eight Thantir Decaylings gathered under the tiny wooden shelter, reading the small, holographic message laid out in front of them. Cruel, cold winds blew by, and there was a scattering of rain. The skies were a permanent dark purple, a dim, yellow star sat motionless in the sky and everything seemed to weirdly curve upward somewhat. Thankfully, the Decaylings all had their armour and weapons, but they didn’t seem to have much else.
“Uh, guys?” Eksi stuttered, rubbing his arms in a bid to keep himself warm. “You know how Elkay feared we’d all get stuffed into… the bad trial?”
“Yes, yes, we know…” Tenuk grunted. He was cold too, but he’d shapeshifted fur onto himself, Elkay had done the same and Phovos had already adapted, her own fur covering her whole body now. Akah had always enjoyed being cold, so he had handed his cloak to Eksi to warm him up, while Elkay took off his stomach wrap and loin cloth and given them to Teekay and Tahvra, so they could keep warm too.
Elksia though, she seemed preoccupied with other things. While the Decaylings all discussed their job, her eyes were focused on the small, wooden structure.
“We just need to stagger our killing, take it in turns to keep ourselves safe…” Elksia eventually muttered. “And since this place is clearly the same in all directions, we should just build a base here …”
“Elksia, dear, are you well?” Elkay interrupted, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Elksia blinked and refocused on her friends. “Uh, yeah. This… wooden shelter… Retvik built it.”
Before anyone could comment further, something hideous and black charged at the Decaylings. It only existed briefly though, as Akah immediately struck it down with his shield and fired a pear of ice into the creature’s chest, killing it instantly.
“Oh. We seem to be fighting corruption or something. Yes, definitely corruption… We need to be careful!” Akah exclaimed as Tahvra approached his side and inspected the corpse. However, Tahvra’s emotions were not what everyone else expected. He prodded the body, then reached into his mouth and, rather oddly, spat on the corpse.
The corpse hissed briefly, but the black, inky matter all melted away, leaving a dead rodent-like creature.
“Alright! This is the common Pantolou strain! Easily curable, easily killable! We just need to find the source, kill that, and all the corruption will die and we can get out of here!” Having already worked things out, Tahvra started organizing everyone. “We’ll use this nice thing mister Retvik made as a base, for part one of our plan! We gotta find the source, but we can’t just look around for it, mister Eksi has to use his magic mind scanny thing to try and pinpoint it!” Tahvra paused. “Uh, you all don’t mind if I lead the way, do you?”
Teekay shrugged. “Dude, you seem to know what to do, more than the rest of us. Lead away.”
Tahvra bared his tusks and smiled. “Alright! So, best friend Akah, you need to build a nice ice wall around this place, so we can funnel attackers towards certain points. Tenuk, Teekay, you two need to go on murder duty with Akah, keep the bastards down while the rest of us work. I gotta make as much anti-corruption stuff as possible, I dunno if Phovos and Elkay can help me with that, but I want Phovos to stay here with Elksia and protect Eksi. Eksi, you kinda have the hard job, you gotta find the source, which means having to concentrate and find the centre of the screaming.”
“The… centre of screaming?” Eksi whispered.
Tahvra smiled slightly less. “Yeah. Something big, probably Vahyra-y, is spawning the corruption. Maybe a Life Goddess? I dunno, but it’ll be angry and screaming and have intense emotions outside of hunger.”
“Alright… I’ll try…” Eksi felt rather unsure about all of this, but he knew that he was best suited for this job.
“What do you want me to do?” Elkay asked. “You… somewhat left me out.”
“Sorry, mister Elkay, but I kinda want you to go back and forth. You can do all the things we can. So you start off helping set up the perimeter and killing things. Then you takeover from whoever gets tired first. Then you help Elksia with the time stuff. But first off, you got mister Galyn’s powers, yes? I need you to help me make more of my anti-corruption cure-all. Is that alright?”
Elkay nodded. “I can do that.”
The conversation was yet again interrupted by screeching attackers, two strange, dog-sized creatures. Teekay electrocuted one of them, but Tenuk stretched his arms out, grabbed the other and yeeted it off into the far distance.
“Dude.”
“What? I don’t have long-range elemental powers like you!” Tenuk protested. “Well… actually, now I’ve said that… I’m totally going to shapeshift into a dragon. I’m going to do that right now.”
Tenuk did exactly as stated, turning himself into a large, red and silver dragon with blue eyes. He belched fire, then exhaled deeply, letting loose a blast of flames that set a nearby black, dead tree on fire. Akah swiftly put the fire out, not wanting it to spread.
“So you all know what you’re doing, yes?” Tahvra asked.
The other Decaylings all nodded. Akah started building large, ice walls around the small, wooden platform, while Eksi hovered up to the top of the platform and floated in air, immediately losing himself in thought. Elksia remained by his side, protecting him from harm, while Teekay climbed up onto the ice walls to keep lookout, and Tenuk took off into the air, circling the base.
Tahvra dragged Phovos and Elkay to one side, then shoved his hand into his mouth, coating it in anti-corruption saliva.
“Can you both make this?” Tahvra raised his hand. Much to Tahvra’s and Elkay’s surprise, Phovos leaned down, then licked Tahvra’s hand, before making loud, slurping noises. Once Phovos was certain she had replicated Tahvra’s saliva, she reached up to Elkay and kissed him, forcing her tongue into his mouth briefly, which forced Elkay to mimic Phovos’s abilities and also create the anti-corruption saliva.
“Uh…” Elkay stuttered as Phovos let go of him. Elkay wasn’t sure what bothered him more, that a Ksithan had just deeply kissed him, or that part of Elkay somewhat… liked it. He shook his head, dislodging those thoughts.
“Sorry, wasn’t really sure how to make you copy things…” Phovos frowned. “Your mimic powers seem to work best when your emotions suddenly spike. Anyway, I’m going to go and lick everyone’s weapons and, I dunno, start filling up some bowls with spit or something so we have backups.”
“Sure thing!” Tahvra waved, dismissing Phovos before turning back to Elkay. “You alright, mister Elkay?”
“I… I guess…”
“You’re a little scared. But we’ll be fine!” Tahvra continued to be chirpy. “Can you make a fire, then start helping best friend Akah, please? Maybe use his ice powers. Or some of mister Galyn’s powers. Just try not to get touched or infected. Everyone else, my antivenom will work on. I don’t know about you.”
Elkay hesitated, bowed slightly, then got started on his duties. Tahvra watched Elkay briefly, then quickly collected some nearby sticks, all of which he licked, then headed back to where Eksi and Elksia were, to keep an eye on the psionic Decayling while he focused on trying to find the corruption’s source.
“We’ll be fine!” Tahvra repeated to himself. “We can do this.”
“Yeah, we’ll be fine…” Elksia chirped back. “Things aren’t as bad as last time there was someone here…”