Incinerated Messages

“More fire?”

“More fire.”

Saahro rolled his eyes, then opened his jaws wide, spewing flames and plasma across the wreckage of a ship that had crashed into the small, forested area of Savepoint. Really, they should have been putting the fire out, but the ship was barely a ship anyway. In fact, it was half metal wreckage, half black, inky splat. The Flames of the Thantir, mostly Saahro and Vikalos, were busy incinerating everything, while a wall of ice, courtesy of Akah, kept the inferno contained.

After a good minute of constant blasts, Saahro paused for breath. Vikalos produced fire mostly from his hands (although currently his fur had turned into flames as well, as added protection from any potential nasties) but Saahro, being a rather traditional dragon, fired flames from his mouth. They were suddenly joined by Retvik.

“How are we doing?” Retvik asked.

Vikalos shrugged, then snapped his fingers, his flames instantly turning back into normal orange-brown fur. Saahro glanced at Retvik then tilted his head to one side. “You look different…”

“Hah, you look nude, Retvik!” Vikalos laughed. “What happened to your armour?”

“It melted…” Retvik frowned. “I have a habit of doing this, and it is getting costly…” Retvik inspected Vikalos. Sure, he wasn’t wearing a scarf like normal, but Vikalos was wearing one of his standard orange, sleeveless jackets, and it was completely unscathed. “Where do you get your jackets from?”

“There was an armoury in the Justarian Circle that made custom gear for Decay Lords with more dangerous powers. Used to shop there a lot,” Vikalos explained. “I’ve been meaning to go back to the Justarian Circle to visit an old pit stop, when things calm down, do you want me to take you?”

“That would be nice, yes…” Retvik frowned even more. “I checked the insides of the remains of the ship. Two charred skeletons. I think they were Decayons, but I am not certain.”

Vikalos hesitated, then turned to Saahro. “Continue burning the perimeter. Retvik, show me inside.”

Saahro grunted, before opening his wings and taking off. Circling the area would mean a better application of fire. He didn’t need to worry about hitting Retvik or Vikalos, both of them were pretty much fireproof. Even if Retvik had burnt off his own armour.

As they got closer to what was once the habitable area of the ship, Vikalos realized what Retvik was talking about and, worse, he recognized the type of ship. It was a Justar Soldier Cruiser, but an old one. The sort that was in use when Vikalos himself was a member of the Justar. Soldier Cruisers were built oddly, with the habitable areas being right in the middle of the ship, meaning that, should the ship crash, survivability for passengers was higher. That would have been the case here, had the habitable area not been completely overrun with Corruption.

“Can you leave, please?”

A new voice suddenly spoke from behind them.

“Elkay, what are you doing here?” Retvik asked. “You are not-”

“Elksia sent me here. She wants to see what happened, but she is not as fireproof as I am!” Elkay didn’t mean to snap, but he was on edge. Also, weirdly, his eyes were a pale, icy blue, instead of their normal red. “And… ugh…”

Vikalos stepped forward and put a caring hand on Elkay’s shoulder. “It’s fine, dear. Take a deep breath and take a moment to focus.”

Elkay did as he was told, closed his eyes briefly, then scanned the situation. He wasn’t picking up much though. No life. Just Corruption, slowly feeding off already dead remains, trying to consume the non-metallic inorganic matter as well. Elkay couldn’t see particularly far back (only a few years, as long as Elksia had been a Time Drake for, for some reason, Elkay could only see that far) and it seemed that the crew died a long time ago. But at some point, within the last 3 evs, a strange, thropic shape formed within the Corruption. It seemed to wander briefly, as if talking to someone else, someone that Elkay couldn’t see. This shape then formed arms, which it pressed against one reinforced wall which was still somewhat upright, before melting away.

“Retvik?”

“Yes?”

“Can you snuff out the fire against this wall please?” Elkay asked.

Retvik did as he was told. There was a layer of soot, which Vikalos blew away. On the wall was a brief, blackened message, written in two languages. Kenosomilia and whatever the language of the Corruption was.

“Eaimson Vlebesonemon. Eaimson Stoixeiaosonemon. Aito Dipsanasenon. Aito Koitaxosenon.” Elkay repeated those words and translated them into a language everyone else understood. “We See. We Warn. It Consumes. It Seeks…”

“Blimey…” Vikalos muttered. “The Voidborn langauge is very long-winded. But, I suppose, time is less of an object for them, they have more time to waste on overly complicated words.”

“The Corruption left this message?” Retvik exclaimed. “Were they talking to us?”

Elkay inspected the message some more, then went through the time threads he had seen. “A Corruption left this message. But I think it was told to leave this message by something else. It is clearly talking about some other threat.”

Retvik glanced back at Vikalos. “Do we have any samples of the Corruption left or did we incinerate it all?”

Vikalos shook his head. “Kal already cleared it as the common strain, just a huge amount of it, which is why we are incinerating everything and asking questions now while standing inside the inferno. Elkay, deary, do you know when the ship was infected?”

“No, not exactly. It happened a long time ago, more than three year-strings ago at least. But the message was written within the last three evs, and everything else was dormant up until then. When things cool down, Elksia may be able to get more information.”

“Does Corruption have a hierarchy or something?” Retvik grunted. “You said something told the Corruption to write the message.”

Elkay thought for a moment, then nodded. “There is some sort of hierarchy, but more that… older and rarer strains command or consume younger and more common strains. Kal probably know more, I am just going by what I saw.”

“I assume they were warning us in particular?” Vikalos was rather concerned, especially as he looked around some more. “The message was written recently, but this ship is old. Its occupants were probably dead a long time ago, and all these particular Justar Soldier Cruisers were decommissioned, turned to scrap or rebuilt. Elkay’s, uh, visions suggest that the Corruption here was just minding its own business until it was told to come here and try to infect us, but left a message because it wasn’t willing.”

“You are suggesting the Corruption has a will?” Retvik grunted.

“Some of it does!” Elkay hissed. “Most of it is mindless, hungry matter, but there’s definitely vastly sentient minds controlling and directing it! I think that is almost certainly what I saw here. Either way, we are being sent a message. Something is looking for us!” Elkay suddenly fell silent, then sighed. “Maybe something is looking for me…”

Vikalos pulled Elkay close in a bid to comfort him. As he did so, Elkay’s eyes returned to their normal red.

“I think you are jumping to conclusions, little one. If they were looking for us specifically, well, our location is publicly known. People come by here all the time, infected with Corruption. If this Corruption was seeking us out, it would be here already. Anyway, we should get out of here, since we need to incinerate everything.”

Retvik nodded in agreement, then started nudging everyone out of the remains of the burning ship. Once they were clear, Saahro signalled to Pah, who had arrived to finish off the inferno, sucking away the flames then melting the remains down into a puddle of metal. Akah then created a dome of ice over the puddle, which melted and causes the liquid to harden into a single, lumpy metal disk.

“Is everything alright?” Saahro asked.

“Not really…” Vikalos frowned. “There was a message written inside the ship.”

“What sort of message?” Pah clicked. “One written by Corruption?”

“Yes.”

Pah clicked some more. “Did it say something about seeking?”

Everyone stared at the tiny Cleanser.

“How… do you know?” Elkay stuttered.

“It’s a message we’ve seen before. “We Warn. It Seeks”. It’s what lesser Corruptions leave behind if they know there are more powerful, rarer and also sentient strains nearby. From what we can tell, it means that there’s a rare, sapient strain looking for a universe to snack on.”

“Would they target us?” Vikalos queried.

Pah shrugged. “Probably not. Why waste the energy on 21 organic beings that know how to fight back? A large meal via a universe would keep a sapient strain going for longer.”

Retvik glanced at Elkay and Vikalos, then grunted. “Well… I do not like this at all. I ought to contact Arkay and let him know that there is aggressive Corruption roaming around looking for snacks.”

“Actually, Arkay’s universe would probably not be worth the effort either!” Pah perked up. “Scale-wise, it’s really inefficient. Your old universe was the size of a dozen galaxies, the new universe is barely the size of one galaxy, and is heavily guarded by a Synaisthyn AND a Time Drake. Let Arkay know, sure, but he’s probably alright for now.”

Retvik still seemed unsure, but Elkay smiled, ever so slightly, glad that people were using his new term without him prompting them to.

“Alright..” Retvik sighed. “Saahro, circle the place one last time, make sure we have not missed anything, then get Akah to cover everything in a thin layer of snow to cool the place down. Once you are done, all of you clean yourselves up, then take a break. I will get Litvir to close the place down for the day outside of emergencies and have Elksia, Eksi, Gah and Itaviir all on extra guard. Now, please, excuse me, I need to go and put some armour on… and, uh, so does Elkay.”

Elkay snorted. “I took my armour off before I came here, because I knew it would melt.”

“Hah!” Vikalos laughed in amusement. “I am taking BOTH of you to the Strangers’ Armoury at some point. Ought to take everyone, get you all some custom clothes. My treat.”

“Well, let’s sort ourselves out here first!” Pah clicked. “It is pretty warm and miserable, after all…”