“WHAT?”
Dalosisaar backed off ever so slightly as Epani stood up from her throne.
“Uh… we think Kairos might be a little… Corrupted…”
“Because he attacked Elkay?”
“Because he attacked Elkay, was spouting nonsense and wasn’t using his time powers. In a fair fight, he would have frozen all of us because he literally controls time. Litvir sensed that Kairos’s emotions and thoughts were somewhat scrambled, and…” Dalosisaar checked his tablet. “Nanik is there now, she’s confirmed it. Kairos thinks he is Corrupted.”
Epani frowned, then paced up and down a bit, thinking to herself. Dalosisaar watched her walk around, not really sure what to say.
“He can’t be Corrupted. If he was, we’d all already be dead, since we don’t have a secondary Time Drake around here.”
Dalosisaar was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but that statement made him even more worried. “Uh… Lady Epani, if that’s the case, perhaps it’s worth moving Kairos so he’s not always on the front lines should a Corruption attack us? Sure, me and my fellow Twelve Anew are doing well keeping things safe as it is, but if things are THAT dangerous should Kairos fall…”
“You bring up a good point. But right now, it’s probably safer keeping Kairos where he is.”
“But what about us not having a secondary Time Drake?”
Epani tutted. “That bastard Epanophovon attacked us because we had more than one Time Drake and more than one Life Goddess. There is some… stupid, unwritten “natural order” that universes are supposed to follow and we apparently broke that order. Sini left… plans to create a hybrid of some sort if we got desperate, but I don’t want to use those plans.”
“Why not?”
“The second to last time someone used those plans to make a hybrid, a Life Goddess died and resurrected herself as a Corruption. That and I don’t want to put a sentient being through what needs to be done for it to work.”
“Oh…” Dalosisaar frowned. “So if Kairos… isn’t actually Corrupted, what is wrong with him? Because you just said we’d all be dead. And we’ve got Elkay and Kohra running around looking for information but they’re coming up short.”
Epani returned to her pacing, still thinking to herself. She’s occasionally pause, mutter to herself, then shake her head and sigh.
“Lady Epani?”
“Yes, little one?”
“Are we in danger?”
Epani tutted again. “No. I don’t think so. I don’t think Kairos is even actually Corrupted. He just has… a placebo. He thinks he’s Corrupted, and is showing the symptoms of being Corrupted, but he’s not actually ill. But because us higher deities have a habit of bending reality around us, if we believe something, that thing has a possibility of happening. Or, at the very least, we believe the thing is happening.”
“So…” Dalosisaar didn’t quite understand. “Because Kairos THINKS he is Corrupted, he is becoming aggressive? Does that… mean he could actually BE Corrupted?”
“No, no. From… what happened the last time this happened, Kairos will just become hyper violent, but will be too distracted by his own thoughts to do any major damage. Which is why he didn’t freeze time and then just bite darling Elkay’s head off. This is… good, because it means he won’t think about using his time powers to kill us all, and Nanik and Maresia can keep him sedated while we prepare for surgery.”
Dalosisaar’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? Surgery? Killing us all? Firstly, what… what do we do if… if you get… killed…”
Epani sighed. “I’ll be blunt, if I get killed, you twelve will have to continue on as if I was still alive. The universe would only last at most a hundred thousand years after my demise, as the fundamental force of decay would speed up due to having no force of creation to hold it back. But I don’t think that’s a concern right now. As long as we keep Kairos down, we can fix him and get back on track.”
Dalosisaar breathed a sigh of relief. “Alright… So how do we get back on track? You mentioned surgery, but… are we actually going to… perform surgery on the God of Time?”
“Somewhat. Not an actual surgery. A mock surgery. Kairos THINKS he is Corrupted, but there’s no Corruption to actually remove. But we need to do a fake surgery so he believes we are removing the Corruption from him, and if he believes himself to be cured, he’ll return to normal.”
“I… I don’t get it… I’ll arrange something, but I don’t want you present, Lady Epani. He might lash out at you.”
“Not a problem. I can watch remotely. You will also need to keep Elkay away as well. Which is a little awkward since he is the smartest of the lot of you, but since you stated that Kairos attacked Elkay first, he might do so again. Better safe than sorry.”
Dalosisaar settled down. “Alright. So, what do we do?”
“I’ll get the ingredients and tools we need. You lot need to empty the room you trapped Kairos in, chain him to the floor and keep Aster and Nanik close, because they will keep him still. Valksia is actually a doctor and Maresia can create sedatives, so get them to dress for the job and set up some heart monitors or something, so it all feels real. Then get Kohra to set up some live feeds so I can talk to Kairos from a safe distance. Once everything’s set up, I’ll give you further instructions.”
“Understood, Allmaker. But I do have one last question. How… How do you know all of this?”
“How do I know?”
“Yeah. Because we had the smarter members of the Twelve Anew look things up and came up with nothing.”
Epani sighed, loudly. “Unfortunately, the reason I know what to do is because I had this all happen to me. After the event in the Great Arenas, where I was stabbed, I… didn’t recover properly, and believed I was infected with Corruption myself. I lashed out at Sini and Arkay, and they did a mock surgery on me to convince me to heal myself.”
“Oh… So… this should work?”
The Allmaker nodded. “It should, yes.”
“Alright… I’ll get to work then.”
Epani patted Dalosisaar on the head. “Good boy. Speak soon.”