Arkay paced up and down his apartment, not sure what to do with himself. He had done exactly as Sini had requested, sealing himself away, quarantining himself and drinking plenty of water. However he was struggling with Sini’s final task of keeping himself calm. After all, the unthinkable had happened. Arkay had been corrupted.
Maybe things weren’t as bad as Arkay thought. He’d fought off corruption before. Heck, outside of his duties as the Lord of Decay, Arkay’s second biggest task was to keep the universe safe from anything that tried to invade it. And normally Arkay was very, very good at that. Sure, there had been a few incidents where things had gotten… dicey, but, well, the universe was billions of years old and it was all still working.
The other good news was that Arkay hadn’t shown any of the normal signs of corruption. The random bouts of anger, the urge to harm others, the weird itchiness in one’s internal organs that Sini and Epani both reported, none of that was there. The only symptom Arkay had noticed was a weird desire to do all the things he normally prohibited himself from doing, like drinking alcohol, taking drugs, sleeping around and eating things he really wasn’t supposed to eat. Aside from that? He was fine.
Well, aside from the coughing and sore throat and stuff. But even that had been getting better.
Arkay needed something to do. So he decided to open up his little laptop and decided to play some games. That being said, he only had a few games he was able to play. Most of this universe didn’t really understand video games, it was mostly something Spasts played and that was about it. However, Arkay had access to a handful of exouniversal games, games made by other beings that lived outside of the universe Arkay currently looked after.
With a small smile, Arkay started up a game, one about ninjas in space. He’d been playing this game for a long time, to the point that he didn’t even remember when he started playing it. As he logged in, he checked his friend list to see who was online. Immediately, he received a message.
“Hello Arkay, how are you?”
Arkay smiled, just a little. The sender of the message was a newer player, someone Arkay had been training up. He’d stumbled across them while doing various bounties and they’d been kind enough to ask for a friend request, but, weirdly, it turned out they already were friends. So Arkay instead just invited them to his little clan.
“I’m alright, I guess. Could be better…” Arkay typed in response. This individual, Arkay knew they were a ‘Decay Lord’, a former deity that no longer lived within a universe. In fact, most of the players Arkay had run into were deities without proper homes.
“Is something wrong?”
“I’m just… feeling under the weather…”
“I hope you get well soon.”
Arkay smiled again. Whoever this Phovos guy was, they were very nice, and always greeted Arkay whenever they saw him online. Even if they were a bit crap at the game. It was almost as if this was their first ever video game, and they were still trying to get used to the controls.
“Anything I can help you with?” Arkay asked.
There was a brief delay before a new message popped up.
“I am having issues killing things. I have reached planet Dias and the enemies take a lot more shots to die.”
“Can I see your weapon mods?”
“How do I do that?”
“Type [mod config] in the chat then select the weapon you’re using, and I’ll be able to see your mods.”
A new message popped up and Arkay clicked on the link. Immediately, he saw the problem.
“You need to level up your damage mod.”
“I have been trying but I do not have the required resources to do so.”
“That’s alright. Come down to the clan base and I can trade you some sculptures you can melt down into resources.”
“Very well. See you in a moment.”
Still smiling and feeling a bit better, Arkay selected his character and weapons, then hit the world map, selecting the icon for the clan base. It always took a while to load, mostly because clan bases were customizable, and Arkay had spent probably a bit too long decorating his own base. But eventually, he loaded in, and waiting for him was the avatar controlled by his friend. Arkay found it amusing how both he and this Phovos guy used starter characters, despite having access to higher level gear.
“You ready to trade?”
“Yes.”
Arkay watched as the other character walked towards a console and initiated the trade screen. He threw in a couple of sculptures, as he said he would. Phovos put in a random item and they both hit the trade button.
“Thank you, but I feel I will need more.”
“Then we can farm some more. I know a few places!” Arkay typed back. It had been a while since Arkay had a newbie to help, so helping this guy made him feel better. But before he could do anything, Arkay heard a knock on the door.
“Uh, sorry Phovos, I’ll be back in a second.”
“Very well. I can wait.”
Arkay got up, tutting to himself. It was probably Kairos. Arkay guessed that Sini would have sent Kairos, since the Whenvern owned special quarantine capsules, which they’d used in the past. Normally the capsules were used to contain time anomalies until Kairos could fix them, but they did come in handy for other things.
Before Arkay opened the door, he stopped to grab some armour for himself. He didn’t like the idea of being essentially naked while going through whatever Sini had planned for him. However, as Arkay stepped into his bedroom, a familiar face appeared, showering the room in red sparkles.
“Oh, hello Epani. I was just about to let you in. You do realise there are these things called doors, right?”
Epani growled as she stepped forward.
“Uh, Epani, can I put some armour on first?”
“No.”
“Why not?” Arkay inched backwards.
“No time.”
He was ever so slightly scared. Not because Epani was currently towering over him, or because she was an actual threat to him, but Arkay knew that if he dared hurt Epani, all sorts of bad things could happen. Which was the reason why Arkay let Epani grab him and throw him against the wall, before knocking him to the ground and attaching a collar to his neck.
Immediately, Arkay began to struggle as Epani’s claws stretched out and wrapped around him. He was certain this wasn’t what Sini intended. But, again, he dared not hurt Epani. The last time he did, he’d ended up bloodied and beaten. And already Epani had trashed his bedroom, Arkay didn’t want anything else bad to happen.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking you away.”
“Can I just-”
“No.”
The Panelix snarled, sending several thousand volts of electricity through Arkay’s body, knocking out the Thantophor long enough for her to summon a portal and drag them both through. The portal quickly snapped shut, plunging the room into silence. Silence, except for the laptop humming away in the corner.