“Stop the Source, or Perish.”
The eight Decaylings all huddled round a small, holographic message that had appeared in the ground. On it was the basis of their trial.
Right now, the lot of them were in a strange, metallic landscape. At first glance, the location seemed like a ruined temple, with broken pillars and piles of rubble all around, with everything being made of gold or silver. But everything was clearly trapped inside a strange dome. The white walls all sloped upwards, towards a dark point high above them. Circling that dark, pulsating object were large, equally metallic birds, all oddly with antlers. Freezing winds whipped through the air, and the lighting was harsh and bright.
“So Thassalin, what do we do?” Nyssi immediately asked.
“Considering how metallic everything is, my guess is that we will be fighting Voidborns…” Kuta muttered. “Alright, everyone, Voidborns are mostly hollow and metallic, but they fall the same way Corruption does. We kill it all with fire until we can work out how to, as it says, stop the source…” Kuta paused briefly. “Are you all fine with my leadership?”
Most of the group just shrugged.
“You’re the former assassin, former special ops guy and former general!” Tenuk piped up. “You know better than the rest of us.”
“Yep,” Nyssi smiled. “You got this.”
“Very well…” Kuta turned to Thassalin, but quickly realized that the Time Drake wasn’t paying any attention at all. Everyone else also noticed.
“Thassalin?” Nyssi asked. “Are you alright?”
Thassalin still didn’t respond. He was busy looking around, with an odd pink glow to his eyes.
“Thassalin? Is something wrong?” Kuta asked a bit more forcibly. “You are not here.”
“I… I…” Thassalin stuttered. “I… I can’t see ahead…”
“Your time powers aren’t working?”
“I can’t see my normal roots! It is all too chaotic! I can’t see far enough ahead to correctly trim the right branches and offshoots!”
Thassalin expected everyone to be shocked and scared, but at most, he only saw a couple of shrugs.
“We just have to be more careful then,” Kuta shrugged. “Our plan remains the same. Thassalin, you can still breathe fire, yes?”
“Y-yes.”
“That is fine. Half of us can create high heat, the other half of us can stun anything that comes too close. We just need to destroy the source, which I assume is the dark, glowing sprite up above us.”
There were definitely beings circling the sprite. But the number of beings was starting to grow.
“Retvik, my dear, can you do us a favour and fire a laser beam up at the dark bit?”
Retvik thought for a moment. “May I ask why?”
“A laser beam is faster than anything else. And it has better range.”
“But what if shooting it makes lots of Voidborns fall out?”
“That’d be pretty fucking stupid, right, Phovos?” Kayel teased a little.
Phovos shrugged. “Yeah, it would be. Voidborns like the darkness and hate the light. As anyone who has seen my bedroom knows.”
Retvik frowned, then holstered his gun-staff and put his hands together, pointing them up at the dark splot. He gathered his energy then created a beam of light, which blasted up and through the dark globule. The black spot fizzled, then somewhat disintegrated, and the beings flying around it panicked and scattered.
“I’m pretty sure that wasn’t all of the trial…” Phovos muttered.
“Don’t jinx it, please!” Tenuk snarled. “Perhaps-”
Everything suddenly started shaking, and with a lot of force. Underneath the Decaylings, the ground opened up slightly, and a hideous metallic claw reached through. It didn’t reach very far though as Kayel instantly incinerated it. But more and more claws started to appear, dragging many a young Voidborn to the surface. The Decaylings all immediately started targetting the claws with a myriad of different weapons and different abilities, and while they had managed to clear the space immediately around them, even more Voidborns managed to appear.
“Phovos totally jinxed it!” Kayel laughed. He didn’t know why he was laughing, but he knew that the team needed more morale.
Kuta also didn’t seem too bothered either. They quickly started organizing everyone.
“We hold the centre, we hold this spot. Retvik, make sure the ground around us does not move. Talok, I want you to generate a telekinetic shield around us. Tenuk, use your control over air to bolster Talok’s shields and electrocute anything that gets too close. Phovos, Kayel, you and I are on righteous murder duty, we need to kill as many of these monsters as we can, to create more space for ourselves.”
“Won’t they just keep on coming though?” Tenuk was still uncertain.
“Yes, but we need to destroy their respawn area, their main source!” Phovos answered. “We either destroy it or impede or block it, they stop respawning. Just need to find out where it is.”
Kuta nodded in agreement. “Alright, all of you get to work.”
The team all nodded as well, and did as Kuta ordered. Retvik kneeled down on the ground, keeping the strange, golden dirt and sand intact, Talok created a force field around them and Tenuk made everything windy and stormy. Phovos didn’t need telling twice, she was already growling and spitting lava and flames at the incoming Voidborn horde. Kayel helped by creating a fiery wall around all of them. Right now, not a single Voidborn was coming through.
Satisfied, Kuta then turned to the worried Time Drake. “Thassalin, you cannot see forward, but you can see into the past, yes?”
“Uh, yes, I can. But I need to look forward.”
“We do not need you to look forward, we need you to look backwards. We will hold our position here, but we need you to find the source. Look back in time, see when and where the source was created. Can you do that?”
Thassalin sighed briefly. “I… I can do that. I will have to concentrate though, and it means closing my eyes and going into a trance. And I might need you to pull me back.”
“That is absolutely fine. Please do try to be as quick as possible. In the mean time, I will keep an eye on you.”
Thassalin glanced around. “You are all… very not bothered considering you all just lost your trump card.”
“We will be fine,” Kuta smiled a little bit as they got to work, helping Phovos and Kayel pick out important targets. “We have other trump cards we can use…”