Someone somewhere down the line had lied. This was supposed to be a simple mission. Go to a location, destroy some Corruption, get out. Not a single person had told Dawnbreaker that he’d be facing a Voidborn covered in Corruption, who was lashing out and flailing wildly. That would have been fine if they were fighting on a relatively flat surface, but this corrupted monster had grown massively in side and had completely and utterly smashed one of the ships in Dawnbreaker’s team, nearly crushing Shimmershock, the ship’s occupant, to death, and causing their ship to crash into Darkbreath’s ship, damaging that beyond repair too.
With Shimmershock needing medical attention, Dawnbreaker had called off the attack. This monster was too dangerous. Sure, Dawnbreaker himself was dealing with it, he was holding it at bay while Daggerspitter and Bloomblast did their best to free Shimmershock and Darkbreath from the remains of their ships, but with how wildly the corrupted Voidborn was flailing, trying to not get hit was difficult, and one unlucky strike could have doomed them all.
“DAWNBREAKER, PLEASE, LURE IT AWAY FROM US!”
That was what Dawnbreaker was trying to do, but the more Dawnbreaker fought, the more he was pushing his luck. He was mostly switching between the laser fire from his ship, and using his weak telekinesis to move outside his ship, using his exalted light sword and his summoned light daggers to slice off dark tendrils of Corruption.
Things were taking too long. Dawnbreaker couldn’t hold on forever. Thankfully, Darkbreath had managed to break out of his now utterly crumpled ship, and now he was trying to help Daggerspitter and Bloomblast free Shimmershock. But the corrupted Voidborn was no longer really focusing on Dawnbreaker, because it weirdly saw the three active Decay Lords as more of a threat than Dawnbreaker was. Even though Dawnbreaker was cutting off parts of its body.
No… it didn’t see them as a threat. It saw them as food. The Corruption had pretty much completely taken over the Voidborn, and now it was dictating the monster’s actions. Dawnbreaker had to step in before it attacked.
“ALL OF YOU, CLOSE YOUR EYES!”
The other Alsyr all did as they were told. Dawnbreaker threw his sword into the corrupted Voidborn’s back, then forced a lot of light energy into it. The sword glowed, then exploded, blinding the monster completely. Dawnbreaker then headed back to his ship and opened fire, throwing everything his ship had at the monster.
At the very least, the former Voidborn was no longer focused on the rest of the team, but a flailing stray tentacle or three did strike Bloomblast’s ship, throwing it into and through the floating asteroids that circled the area.
Didn’t matter. Daggerspitter managed to get Shimmershock free, and she also managed to get the rest of the team into her own ship.
“GET OUT OF HERE!”
Daggerspitter immediately did as she was told. The moment everyone was on board, Daggerspitter started her ship’s engines and quickly rushed off. However, the Corruption got one last hit in as it ripped off one of her ship’s engines. Thankfully, Alsyr fighter ships could still work on one engine instead of two, and Daggerspitter, Darkbreath, Bloomblast and Shimmershock all managed to escape.
Knowing his team was mostly safe, Dawnbreaker tried to disengage, so he could escort them back. But the Corruption had other ideas. Now that Dawnbreaker was the only person present, it focused solely on him. However, the Corruption was hungry now. It was nearly finished consuming its Voidborn host, and now it wanted to spread, to infect other things.
While a second blast of light did blind the Corruption from attacking Dawnbreaker completely, its wild flailing struck Dawnbreaker’s ship, smashing the main cockpit and redirecting an engine, completely altering its flight path and sending it spiralling south at very vast speeds.
Before Dawnbreaker knew it, his ship had been thrown completely south, essentially outside of the Kentarasa pentacluster entirely.
It took far, far too long for Dawnbreaker to slow his ship down and reorientate himself. Once the ship came to a complete stop, Dawnbreaker quickly realized that he was… somewhere he didn’t recognize. As far as he could tell, he was somewhere on the border between the Goldtorn Remains and the Kinigian Wilderness, within the Patagenic pentacluster.
Admittedly, the only reason he knew that was because there was a ship approaching him. Dawnbreaker didn’t quite recognize it, but he was certain it wasn’t an Alsyr ship. Considering the name of the ship was “The Skimming Blade”, Dawnbreaker guessed it was a Phantai ship, doing border patrol. Doubly so as the beings on board requested permission to dock with Dawnbreaker’s ship. Dawnbreaker accepted the request. He somewhat had to, his ship was tattered. A tube connected the two ships together, so one of the beings on the Skimming Blade could enter.
“Hello, we saw your ship spinning out of control, are you alright?” an oddly short Beh’evok asked as they boarded.
Dawnbreaker shook his head, then flinched in pain. “No, not really. I think my autorepair is damaged. And… uh…”
Dawnbreaker paused, as did the Phantai soldier.
“What happened?”
“Bad fight with a Corrupted Voidborn.”
“Where abouts?”
“The bottom of the Alsirian Sea.”
The Phantai hesitated a little, then pulled a small plastic card, a roll of bandages and a tiny bottle of acid from a pouch on their belt. “You got thrown a long, long way. Also…”
Dawnbreaker paused again, then realized what the Phantai soldier was looking at. There was a dark scratch on Dawnbreaker’s left hand.
“Is your navigation system working?”
“I think so.”
The Phantai handed over the items, placing them in Dawnbreaker’s right hand. “Soak the bandages in the alcohol and wrap them around your hand. Then take the coordinates off this card and head there.”
“Why?” Dawnbreaker asked.
“There’s a purification centre there, run by the Thantir. You don’t know how long you’ve been infected for, and might need an amputation. But they’ll know better than I do. They’ll help you out and they can help fix up your ship too.”
“Even though I’m an Alsyr Decay Lord?”
“Yeah. They’ve been helping both us Phantai and the Pentathax. They’re good folks.”
“Huh…” Dawnbraker muttered. “Thank you.”
“No worries.”
The Phantai bowed, then immediately backed off, returning to their ship and removing the connecting tunnel. Dawnbraker sighed to himself and did as he was told, wrapping up the infected area with the acid-covered bandages. He then checked his navigation panel and typed in the coordinates that the Phantai soldier had given him. It was a good thing he did, because it turned out that Dawnbreaker was a lot further south than he realized.
With a final sigh, Dawnbreaker checked that his engines were somewhat working, then headed off, to a place called Savepoint, which Dawnbreaker assumed as the Thantir’s flagship or something.
“Fingers crossed they can fix this…” Dawnbreaker muttered. “I don’t fancy losing my hand…”