“So, she’s not corrupted?”
“No.”
“But she thinks she’s corrupted?”
“Yeah.”
“And because we warp reality around us to match our beliefs because we’re Life Goddesses, she’s acting as if she is corrupted?”
“Yes.”
“And playing towards those beliefs will allow us to convince her that we can cure her from the non-existent Corruption?”
“Hopefully, yes.”
Sini crossed her arms and thought to herself, before tutting and leading Arkay out of the large hall, moving until they were out of sight of the chained up Panelix. Epani had been hissing and snarling and, despite having been stripped of the ability to speak, she was busy beaming horrible messages into her fellow deities’ minds.
“She’s in your head too, isn’t she?” Arkay asked, taking a deep breath. “Constantly saying stuff. She’s acting exactly how she would if she was corrupted. But I can’t do what I normally do and cut the Corruption out of her.”
Sini patted Arkay on the back. “Yeah, she’s whispering to me as well. It’s why I’ve been keeping Kairos away from here. He’s already grieving, I don’t want Epani’s problems getting to him as well. But thanks to you, we can start work on fixing this and getting back to normal! All we have to do is set up a sham operation, pull out a lot of cool theatrics, throw blood and fake Corruption everywhere and trick Epani into thinking everything is alright!”
“Yeah, I guess…”
“You guess?”
Arkay sighed. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Hey now, I think this will work. I’ll will it to work! After all, if Epani can alter reality around her, I can as well. We’re…” Sini hesitated. “Well, I want to say we’re equals, but Epani has something I don’t have.”
“Intelligence? The ability to go five minutes without thinking about sex?”
The Allbirther laughed. “Well, you got me on the latter there. And, I’ll be honest, Epani and I are intelligent in different ways. I’m always experimenting, learning, she relies on her wisdom and stability. And I think we both have a streak of cruelty that’s almost required to be a Life Goddess…” Sini paused and glanced down at Arkay. “Probably the reason why you’re only half a Life Goddess. Although, if those books Kinisis left are true, you’re only part Life Goddess because Kinisis put a tiny part of herself into you when she made you into a deity.”
“So you… did read some of them…” Arkay frowned.
“You couldn’t read them. Someone had to. But luckily we found answers elsewhere, so we can happily burn all those books later on, if you want.”
“As horrible as they are, we should probably keep them. There’s probably something in there that’s… useful, I guess…”
Sini patted Arkay on the back. “They’re just full of gloating and torture and suffering. I’m a monster and, in all honesty, I struggled reading them.”
Arkay sighed somewhat. “You’re not as bad as you used to be, at least. I mean, I agree, you are a monster, you’ve done horrible things, not just to me but to a LOT of mortals, but you do genuinely seem to be changing somewhat. You’ve been more lenient on me, at least.”
“That’s because I’ve come to realize that you’re not bad, you’re a requirement around here. You’re kind and loyal and dedicated and I don’t want to change that, so making your existence a bit more comfortable is good for-” Sini stuttered, rubbing her head. Epani was sending her painful telepathic messages. She glanced at Arkay, who was shaking his own head, trying to ignore whatever Epani was telling him. “Don’t listen to her.”
“How can I not listen, Sini? She is threatening everyone and everything I care about. And she’s rummaging through our minds, destroying what few secrets I have.”
Sini pulled Arkay close, then started marching forward, towards the exit of the castle where they were keeping Epani prisoner. Once they were outside the castle’s walls, Sini felt she could breathe again. Arkay though was still clearly struggling.
“Between you and me, Arkay?” The Allbirther tried to smile, but was feeling somewhat woozy. She hated the idea that Epani now knew about some of her deeper desires, especially Sini’s ideas to give birth to her own children via parthenogenesis in a bid to create new deities. She growled somewhat, forcing Epani out and closing off her mind, before turning around and sealing the castle shut with a vast network of anti-telepathic vines.
“Between you and me, what, Sini?” Arkay looked skittish now, but torn as well. Sini could tell he was struggling.
“I like the fact that you have friends. You seem happier. More emotional, more defensive, sure, but you also seem more real. More like an actual being with actual emotions, rather than a tireless servant. And because of that you are also more loyal and more understanding, and you care about both us and mortals more than ever. But at the same time, you show connections that the rest of us simply can’t make. Epani, Kairos and myself, we don’t understand mortals, but you do. We don’t say it enough, Arkay, but you are a good god.”
“I… I appreciate that, Sini… I’ll be honest though, I am genuinely scared that Epani’s going to break free and hurt my new friends.”
Sini smiled weakly. “She won’t. I won’t let her. But to minimize any risk, we gotta start planning this whole fake surgery right away. I need you to get all your anti-corruption daggers, plus I’m going to need a lot of your blood. Are you willing to let me slit your wrist over Epani and soak her in your blood?”
Arkay grunted, but perked up ever so slightly. “Not with one of my anti-corruption daggers. The wounds those make take way too long to heal. But yeah, I can give you a ton of my blood. Make it as bloody and gory as possible. Also we should probably set up some special location. Maybe not your special lab, somewhere small and temporary that we tell Epani we need to destroy afterwards because it’s all too dangerous to do in one of your actual labs.”
“Good idea! We can get Kairos to erect one of his time bubbles to make it all seem more realistic too! Actually, should we tell Kairos about this?”
“You… haven’t told Kairos about Epani being fucking insane?”
Sini tutted. “I told him she was ill. I didn’t tell him anything more than that. What Kairos doesn’t know can’t hurt him. Almost literally.”
“Kairos doesn’t know all the ways I could hurt him.”
“Yeah but he knows he can hurt you…” Sini trailed off, thinking to herself. “Hm… The only issue is transporting Epani to the temporary location, but we might be able to convince her to do that herself if we tell her how serious this all is. Can you convincingly lie to Epani?”
The Thantophor crossed his arms, tutting in annoyance. “You know me, I suck at lying, but I’ll do my best, as long as you do most of the talking.”
Sini patted Arkay on the back. “Alright! Let’s get this all sorted then, and hopefully things will go back to normal…”