Liquid Regret

“You come back for five minutes and catastrophe follows you…”

Kinisis clicked her tongue in annoyance. Epani’s statement was rather insulting, and she was currently preoccupied giving her Guardians jobs to do. Once Kinisis had snapped her fingers and sent her Guardians away, she turned her true attention to Epani.

“I love how you are blaming me, dear. Very awkward. Very untruthful. It hurts my feelings.”

Epani grunted. She’d take the form of… something similar to her mother. Feminine and elegant. Busty and sleek. Motherly. Just like Kinisis.

“You came back here and, literally within a couple of days, Kenon tries some sort of plot, Arkadin returns and murders him and then leaves a permanent fountain of gold, platinum and silver, as well as whatever the hell that black goo is…”

Kinisis thought for a moment, then shrugged, letting off a little laugh. “Hah! I bet Kenon was planning his silly plots anyway. My arrival probably caused him to fuck up. He was… always infatuated with me…”

“He was your partner.”

“Yeah…” Kinisis trailed off. “He was. We built a lot together. But… after all this time, guess I never realised how I didn’t actually need him.”

Epani crossed her arms, still annoyed but also curious. “You don’t?”

“Nope. Not at all. I just felt sorry for him, I guess. Void Lords could always create matter, but they simply can’t get their heads around creating intelligent life. Or life in general. It’s not something you can control…” Kinisis’s tone faltered slightly. She seemed slightly upset. The first time since the whole mess started. “Guess I fell in love with an asshole and just pitied him.”

Epani’s shoulders dropped. She realised that Kinisis was actually upset, she’d been hiding it.

“I am sorry.”

“Nah, don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault. I just put up with it all because I thought I could change him. I’m the real fool here. Ended up taking Arkay killing Kenon for me to realise that, no, Kenon was an asshole and I was wrong.”

“Well, to be fair… we all put up with him as well. And now all we have left is a weird, frozen, golden corpse fountain that is currently spewing out resources faster than we can get rid of them…” Epani frowned, uncrossing her arms. “Kinisis, we do need to fix this. Because this planet is one of the few genuinely strong and fertile worlds we have left and I cannot just build more at the drop of a hat.”

The Allmaker grunted and sighed, but suddenly blinked turning back to Epani. “Did you mention a black goo?”

Epani nodded. She reached into a small space-pocket and pulled out a vial. “The metals we can deal with. We don’t know what to do with the goo. I do not know what it is to deal with it. It could even be toxic…”

Kinisis took the vial from Epani’s webbed fingers, inspecting it closely. It took a little too long for Kinisis to actually come back with an answer though.

“Wow…”

“What?”

“This is…” Kinisis trailed off again, inspecting the vial some more. “Yisini said that Arkadin left us a gift. Didn’t think he meant something like this…”

Epani crossed her arms again, snarling. “Kinisis, can you just be clear for once?”

“Oh, apologies!” Kinisis beamed. “This isn’t actually part of Kenon. This is antiphthoric hemostasin. The decayling-based fluids that a death god tends to use to destroy Corruption. Can also be used to briefly yet completely nullify the regenerative powers of Voidborn beings.”

The Panelix rolled her eyes, flicking the glowing lure on her head from side to side. “Kinisis, none of that means anything if we do not know how to properly move, contain and store it.”

Kinisis however continued to smile. “How much do you have right now?”

“Hm…” Epani paused. “Probably a few thousand litres and counting. The…. uuh… corpse… is producing about a litre every minute.”

“Amazing! Absolutely amazing!” Kinisis put an arm around Epani. “Do you have any idea how valuable this is?”

“Uh… more than the platinum we now have ten tonnes of?”

“Much, much more than that…” the Allbirther grinned. “Gather your siblings. I have a plan to make your little creation the shining star in this corner of the Space Between Universes!”