Pierced Metal

“AH!”

Vekeus didn’t expect the sudden tear through his metallic red arm plating. Sure, his arm was mostly hollow, but he had some flesh in his armoured hands for movement. And something dark and inky had pierced straight through his Voidborn shell.

A wall of freezing gas, followed by a wall of flaming heat pushed through and past Vekeus. The Corruption that he had been attacking, burning away with boiling acid rays, immediately fizzled away, screeching and wailing. But Vekeus could hear… words… murmurings. The whispers of the Fthora. He glanced down at his hand again, then sighed, reaching for his plasma sword with his free hand. With another sigh, he pressed the heated blade against his wrist, closed his eyes and pressed through, severing his hand entirely. He’d done this before, countless times. That was the risk of being a Corruption Purger.

One clean cut and the murmurs faded. Everything fell silent.

But only briefly.

“Vekeus, are you well?” Kesistatiir rushed to Vekeus’s side. Most Voidborns cared little about the pain of their kin, but, weirdly, Kesistatiir did. Theocydes also seemed to care a little bit, but he was busy finishing off the Corruption, stopping it from returning.

Vekeus glanced down at where his hand used to be. He was a Voidborn, it would take a few hours, but his plating would regrow into a new hand. Already, his metallic skin had sealed off the wound, turning it into a stump. With a grunt, Vekeus extended some of the plating, turning the stump into a sharpened point, so he at least had a makeshift weapon until his hand reformed.

“Vekeus?” Kesistatiir repeated. “Hello?”

No. Vekeus wasn’t well. He closed his eyes again, trying to shut everything out. But, to his sheer terror, he could still hear those murmurs. He was infected, still.

Not answering his friend, Vekeus took his headed blade and chopped off more of his arm, up to the elbow, then realized that was a bit of a stupid thing to do. Sure, the Corruption may have been further up his arm than he realized, but did he really need to cut that much arm off?

Didn’t matter. Didn’t help. Vekeus could still hear murmurs. A strange chant almost. In a language he didn’t understand. It was faint, but it was definitely there.

“I’m infected…” Vekeus finally admitted.

Much to Vekeus’s dismay, Kesistatiir grabbed Vekeus by the shoulder, summoned a cloth soaked in acid and tied a tourniquet around Vekeus’s arm. He then scooped Vekeus up into his arms and carried him to his ship, which was hovering nearby.

“What are you doing?” Vekeus hissed, wriggling free and floating in front of Kesistatiir.

“I am taking you to the Thantir.”

“I am NOT going to those monstrous Decay Lords! I’ll do what I always do, I’ll throw my physical form into a nearby star, respawn myself then use the antiviral supplies I have on my ship! That… normally fixes it! Sometimes it takes two respawns, but that’s fine. I’ve dealt with this before.”

“I do not like how fine you are with respawning…” Theocydes muttered. “That might be the old Goldblessed in me talking though… Either way, normally I would say that is fine, but you instantly removed the infected limb and you are still hearing it, yes?”

“I am, annoyingly. Like, a faint chanting.”

“Chanting?” Kesistatiir gasped. “No, I do not care what you think, we are going to the Thantir, now!”

“Why are you like this?” Vekeus hissed. “I’ve been a Corruption Purger for a damn long time longer than you! I’ve been infected before, I know how to cure myself.”

“This is the Epanelavonarchaion!” Kesistatiir snapped back. “Standard antivirals do not work! You need to pump acid throughout your entire internal system to be able to get rid of it! And that is not easy to do alone!”

“And how do you know, Lord “I Lost My Entire Universe To Corruption?”, why do you know better than me?”

Kesistatiir growled, then slapped Vekeus across the face. “Because I have seen this version of the Permanent Hunger before. And yes, I did lose EVERYTHING to Corruption, because I did NOT know what I was dealing with! A new Permanent Hunger hit us, something I had never encountered before! I underestimated it. And it just chewed through everything I ever cared about. But I KNOW what this version is, I HAVE dealt with it before, so has the local Decay Lord Sect that saved my life, and now that I am starting to rebuild, I do not want to lose everything again!”

“Quick question,” Theocydes butted in. “What is the omnilanguage name for this strain?”

Kesistatiir paused, then thought for a moment. “I believe they call it the Ancient Unending strain, or something similar.”

“Ah, good…” Theocydes fell silent, and was tapping away on a translucent screen he had summoned.

Both Vekeus and Kesistatiir glanced at Theocydes. He continued to ignore them for a bit, before looking up at Vekeus.

“Litvir recommends you head to the Thantir’s facility right away. There has been a massive up-tick in these infections, and they can be very deadly. Yes, I know we are all Voidborn, we are ancient beings, but the Thantir have that team of really, really good but very small purifiers. They know better than anyone, ourselves included, and they have a Life Goddess there who will patch up your arm.”

Vekeus growled. “I can’t leave these territories.”

Theocydes tutted back. “Yes you can. Kesistatiir has a fast travel on his ship to get there quickly. You go with him, I’ll finish up here then take both my ship and your ship back to one of the Voidborn-friendly pit stops within your territories and I’ll wait for you both there.”

“Let me hand Staton over to you then. He has been locked up in my ship for a while, and I don’t want to drag him with us, in case Vekeus’s infection gets worse as we travel…” Kesistatiir grunted as he uncloaked his ship and unlocked it.

Vekeus though disagreed. “I’ll go on my own. I can’t risk infecting Kesistatiir if the Hunger takes me over before we get there. My ship is faster anyway. If you two can… I don’t know, finish up here or something… I’ll…” Vekeus hesitated for a moment. The chanting echoing in the back of his mind was very off-putting. “I’ll go. I don’t like it, but you’re right, I need to go, now.”

“They will help you, Vekeus!” Kesistatiir tried to reassure him.

“I know. Just need to get over my normal Voidborn hatred.”

With a sigh, Vekeus summoned his ship, then teleported inside it. Within just a few seconds, he had already sped off, disappearing into the distance.

“He is not right…” Theocydes frowned, as he incinerated the remains Vekeus had left behind.

“No, he is scared. But it is understandable. Thank you for convincing him.”

Theocydes shrugged. “He’s a stubborn, Adogtic Youngling, you’re a Stolen Son, sometimes it needs a formerly evil, formerly Culted like me to bridge the gap and be the voice of reason.”

“The Thantir will look after him. They saved me, and they knew how to deal with a completely new strain!” Kesistatiir decided to be a bit more optimistic. “We should… leave though.”

“You mean, abandon this job?”

“Yes. On the way here, Vekeus said that the last few groups that took on this bounty, they all backed off and gave up. We need numbers to tackle this whole belt. We do not have said numbers. And I do not want us to continue, just the two of us, in case one of us gets infected as well.”

Theocydes shrugged again. “Well… yes, I guess you are right. Very well, let’s head back to the nearest Voidborn-friendly area and wait for Vekeus. In the mean time, maybe we’ll teach Staton about Corruption Purging safety instructions or something.”

“Good. We need to be careful. Especially with all this Epanelavonarchaion floating around.”

“Indeed. Alright. Job failed, but we can come back later…” Theocydes tutted as he headed back to his own ship, checking his comms as he did so. “I need to do a quick check in on something, so I’m going to do that quickly while Vekeus is away. I will meet you at… the Shield and Stave, I guess? Or do you prefer the Silver Stallion?”

“The former. The barkeeper there is nicer. Safe travels!” Kesistatiir waved.

“Alright. Save travels indeed, friend. See you soon.”