Normally, Lord Vikalos’s office was easy to get to. All one needed to do was continue down the main corridor, take the stairs down one level and his office would be right there on the left. However, with the lack of proper lighting, what should have been a 2 minute walk quickly turned into a seven minute journey. One that was eerily silent. The four little Decayling hybrids hadn’t met a single other being either, despite this whole section supposedly being a mental health clinic.
“I just don’t want to- OOF!”
As they traversed the steps, Kalis tripped, taking Ksatah along with him. Luckily, it wasn’t a large fall, and both the clumsy Decaylings were fine.
“I forgot about that last step…” Kalis muttered, somewhat embarrassed as he picked himself up.
“It’s fine. We’re all fine, don’t worry about it…” Vetal grunted, helping Ksatah back to his feet. “Now, Lord Vikalos’s office should be here, right?”
The Decaylings all glanced around the corridor, which was still eerily dark. There were six doors to their left and right, but all of them were closed aside from the one closest to them.
“Of course, the door that is creepily ajar is the office…” Kalis rolled his eyes. “Can’t ever be the easy on-”
“Ssshh…” Arkay suddenly hissed. “I can hear movement…”
The others all immediately shut up, eyeing the door that was slightly ajar.
“What do we do?” Vetal whispered.
“Switch to telepathy, for starters…”
The sound of movement though was brief. Everything fell silent. As the Decaylings inched closer, the door shook, before exploding open, revealing who was inside. Vikalos, normally a mental health expert, crawled across the floor, growling and snarling in pain. The Decay Lord was quite a bit bigger than the four Decaylings, all of whom scrambled backwards.
“Uh, Lord Vikalos?” Kalis asked weakly. “Are you alright?”
Vikalos paused, staring directly at the Decaylings. He grunted several times, before unexpectedly vomiting a black, inky mess on the ground in front of him.
“I don’t think he’s alright…” Ksatah whispered, trying to back even further away from what was happening.
The Decay Lord spat, spewing more black, inky stuff, before wiping his face and turning back to the Decaylings.
“There is someone in my head…” Vikalos finally spluttered, climbing to his feet, towering over the Decaylings. “Some sort of… Life Goddess thing… It is not safe here…” Vikalos shook his head aggressively, as if trying to distract himself.
“Are we under attack?” Arkay exclaimed. “Is something trying to mind-control you?”
Vikalos snarled, then nodded. “Yes. A Life Goddess. But you four are… not… effected by this…”
Again, the colossal Decay Lord paused. This time, he had a more distant stare, but that quickly passed as Vikalos doubled over and threw up all over the floor again.
“I think we should get out of here…” Vetal telepathically whispered to the other Decaylings. “This seems… pretty bad.”
“Yeah… definitely…” Arkay muttered back. “Vikalos, do you-”
“NO!” the Decay Lord suddenly shouted. “I will NOT. Get out of my head, you witch!” Vikalos snarled some more, before briefly calming down. “The voice is infectious. I am going to lock myself in my office, so you four can get away. You four should head to the security hub. Before things get worse.”
Vikalos shook his head a few more times, before throwing himself back into his office, locking the door behind him, just as he said.
“Well… this is bad!” Kalis exclaimed. “I don’t even know where the security hub is!”
“Is there anywhere where we can find a map?” Ksatah asked.
“I think there was one outside the little shop centre we normally go to,” Arkay suggested. “We’re going to have to be really careful though, in case everyone else is like Vikalos.”
Vetal clapped his hands together, pleased to finally have some sort of a plan.
“Alright, let’s go to the shopping centre. Worst case scenario, we can at least get some gear to help us!”
“Assuming there aren’t others like Vikalos around here…”