Itaviir didn’t like the fact that he wasn’t the tallest person in the room. It turned out, the old Allbirther, when at her ‘relaxed size’, was actually half a meter taller than him. And whenever she got angry and opened up her cobra hood or summoned a pair of wings, she was even larger. That being said, Sini was being rather calm right now, sitting on the one comfy sofa in the living room and main waiting area of the nice villa at Savepoint. She certainly hadn’t been calm when she’d entered, and, because of her hybrid status as a Time Drake, Sini had paused and glanced some scenes from the past.
After calming down though, Sini had been slowly recounting and describing everything that had happened, while Itaviir, Vikalos and Retvik had asked her questions, and Kaytee had been patiently writing things down. Everything the Decaylings had told them had been correct, aside from the details of the deal that the four deities had made with the ancient Corruption. What surprised everyone more though was what Sini said what happened after she was exiled.
“You chased after a Corruption that nearly consumed your universe, on your own?” Vikalos asked.
“Yeah. Well. Not right away. I was trying to find you lot as well. This is the first time I’ve been out here in the void, on my own. Had no idea where you were.”
“But you got here… about 15 evs ago…” Vikalos glanced at Itaviir, who was clearly not hiding his concern. Thankfully, Sini wasn’t paying attention, and Vikalos had a better poker face.
“Well I ran into this weird Voidborn. Pretty sure it was the one that would pop by to talk to Arkay every couple of months. Didn’t ask his name, but I gave him the little guys to deliver to you lot, then went off to find Arkay.”
Retvik grunted. “I am going to have to get Litvir to message Theocydes then. After he arrived here with the Decaylings, we sent Theocydes out to check in on your universe.”
“Oh. Yeah. You should call him off then. Arkay did give Epani and Kairos a list of entities that aren’t dangerous and shouldn’t be destroyed on sight, but Epani is making a bunch of new deities to help her out and I don’t know any of them…” Sini sighed. “Weird that you’re allied with a Voidborn when you lot hate Voidborns.”
“Some Voidborns are not… completely evil…” Itaviir very hesitantly replied. “Most of them are, I know, I have killed a LOT of them, but a handful are… alright.”
“That’s true. I think… Alright, Kenon was mostly an asshole, but he was alright.”
Retvik crossed his arms and growled. “He beat me to a pulp then tried to drown me in a sink full of cold water and my blood, until Arkay intervened.”
Sini raised her finger, then changed her statement. “Well. He was alright… at times, I guess. But I’m totally getting distracted.
“That happens a lot around here,” Vikalos smiled. Sini found she quite liked Vikalos. He was oddly furry and somewhat attractive. “What happened after you parted ways with Theocydes?”
“Oh, I totally flew straight into his windscreen. But after I told the guy to deliver the Decaylings, I quickly realized I had no fucking idea where that corrupted bastard took my brother, so… I… I went into that really awful place tons of Corruption lives and… well… I made a universe. An empty, stupid universe with nothing in it, but it was bait. And the bastard fell for it.”
Sini somewhat expected everyone to be shocked and surprised, but she only picked that up from Kaytee. Sini paused, then turned to the strange being.
“Alright, before I go on, who are you? You look like a Skyavok but you’re not.”
Kaytee shrugged. “I’m a Threan-type Retha. I came from the same universe Arkay came from.”
“Huh. Neat. Did you know him as a mortal?”
“… It’s… complicated…”
Sini smiled. “If it wasn’t for the fact that time is a very fucky thing and is less objective than you’d think, technically, you’re older than I am. The wonderful furry bear here, he’s probably about as old as Kinisis was.”
“I am pretty old…” Vikalos muttered, before returning to the questioning. “So you made a universe as bait?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be. And the bastard actually fell for it and broke in, because i disguised myself as a Time Drake. Also because I fucked around and made time INSANELY fast in my universe. The bastard said they wanted to keep Arkay for a million years, so I made it so a million years passed in my universe when the bastard broke in. But that didn’t satisfy the deal for some reason. But then he threatened my universe, Arkay saw that as the deal being broken and kinda started… tearing the bastard apart from the inside. I tried to help, the bastard ejected Arkay and I kinda just grabbed Arkay, made gravity stupidly strong and sealed the universe up so the bastard couldn’t follow us.”
“Is the corruption still inside that universe?” Retvik asked.
“Yes. I planned as much. I was kinda too occupied with saving my little brother, but I slowed down time and massively increased gravity so that it would take at least a, uh, normal year for the bastard to eat his way out.”
Vikalos and Itaviir both turned to Retvik. Retvik realized what they were suggesting.
“Do you know where the universe you made is?”
Sini thought for a moment. “Uh… kinda? I could point it out on a map, at least.”
Immediately, Vikalos summoned a map of the local eniapent. Everyone apart from Sini was vaguely surprised by this. Sini though called Vikalos out.
“Neat trick. You’re not a disguised Life Goddess, are you? You have a bit of a scent.”
“I am not a Life Goddess. Never have been.”
“Maybe your mum was?”
“I don’t have a mum. I was brought into existence via magical means.”
Sini shrugged, then went back to smiling and examined the map that Vikalos had given her. She telekinetically grabbed a pen from a nearby table and drew a circle on the sheet of paper. “Yeah, right there. In that horrible place with the stupid name.”
“Huh…” Vikalos inspected the map too, then calculated and jotted down the coordinates. He then got up and handed the map to Retvik. “You have the details of the Pentathax, yes?”
Retvik nodded. He grabbed a nearby communicator, opened up a familiar app, typed in the coordinates, sent a message then hit the call button. After a few rings, someone picked up.
“Flamebearer! Good to hear from you! How are you doing?”
“We are well, Pentaflame. We have some valuable information for you, which I am sending over now. How quickly can you get some ships to the coordinates I just sent?”
“Hm… Let me just ask Galeforce… He says pretty quickly. What’s so special about this location?”
“We have a kindly Life Goddess here, she said she baited a particularly nasty Corruption, a Sentient Entity, what we believe to be a Sentient Source. It is trapped inside a dead universe within these coordinates, and the Life Goddess is allowing the universe to be blown to pieces, or whatever it is you Pentathax normally do.”
“Do you know what strain it is?”
“The Unending Ancient One.”
“Oh. Well! I’ll… I’ll get a team ready to go then! Thank you very much for the information! We’ll be in touch!”
The line went dead, and pretty much everyone smiled.
“So, do those Pentathax guys fight Corruption?” Sini asked.
“Yes.”
“Huh…” Sini trailed off, then glanced up as someone entered. “Oh. Hello, I remember you.”
Galyn immediately froze. “Uh, hello, Yisini.”
“I call myself Sini now. Gonna be blunt, I have no fucking idea what Kinisis saw in you, and I don’t know what you saw in her either.”
“That…” Galyn stuttered. “That is mean. I thought she was a vaguely decent person until it turned out Kinisis was mind-controlling me and blinding my senses.”
“Eh. I could have made her the perfect little fuckboy, instead she decided to be an asshole to the poor prick who tried to stick around, gave jobs to Retvik and Litvir, and offered to protect her stupid oasis in a bid to keep your little group alive…” Sini frowned, then went back to smiling. “But yeah, that was mean of me. I’m sorry. Just don’t like assholes who fuck my mum.”
“Well it was not… exactly consenting…” Galyn growled slightly. “Either way, I do not want to talk about that. Retvik, I have good news for you. Kal have concluded their tests, and you can go and see Arkay now.”
The smile that grew on Retvik’s face suggested that he really didn’t need telling twice. Retvik bowed, then immediately head off. “Thank you, Galyn. I shall speak to you all later. I… have an old friend to speak to…”