“Hello, Decay Lord Galyn speaking, who is this? We normally do not get Voidborn messages like this.”
Koh hadn’t expected a response. He was currently using communication lines he wasn’t familiar with, in a bid to call someone, anyone for help. Thankfully, with a little too much effort, he’d finally managed to get in touch with someone friendly.
“This is Shield Six, Decay Lord Kal here, in need of assistance.”
“Kal? Are you alright?”
Koh sighed, glancing to his right. Now that they had managed to get the power back on, Tah had been helping Koh with the comms. Since he was missing an arm and still recovering, there wasn’t much more Tah could do. Not that Koh was doing much better. None of the six Cleansers were feeling right, they all had this weird feeling in their brains that they couldn’t explain.
“No, we’re in bad shape. Ship’s self-repair systems have been completely destroyed, engines are down, basics are down, we’re out of foam from repairing patches and we’re drifting aimlessly.”
“Send me your coordinates, we are dropping everything and coming for you right now. Tell me what happened.”
Tah had woken up slightly and was doing as Galyn had requested, awkwardly trying to type with one hand, before giving up and using his electricity powers to do it instead. He then clicked several times in frustration, staring at where his left arm used to be.
“Sending now…” Koh double-checked Tah’s message to make sure it was correct. “Normally we would use standard Decay Lord channels, but whatever attacked us, it completely scrambled our comms, and the only channels we seem to be able to broadcast on are Voidborn ones.”
“You were attacked?”
“By a Voidborn, yes. We’re all alive, just about, but Tah lost an arm teleporting the bastard into the nearest sun, and Kanuva is… kinda out of commission for now. I’d probably be in pieces right now if one of the Divine Guardians we picked up hadn’t saved my mechanical tail.”
Galyn didn’t respond at first. He seemed to be talking to someone else.
“Which Divine Guardians?”
“Tahvra and Akah. We found them both drifting, trapped inside some sort of broken observatory. They used to serve Kinisis but got cut off from their universe before everything went bad.”
Another delay, an overly long one. Tah glanced at Koh, then checked that the delay wasn’t a problem with their communications.
“Apologies. One of my Decaylings has informed me that they know the Guardians you picked up. Are you currently secure? We are a long way away from your location.”
“We’re alive. You seem more concerned than normal.”
“Of course he’s concerned!” Tah snapped back to attention. “We’ve been helping the Thantir for a decade now.”
“Indeed. Which is why I want to have the six of you officially made into Thantir, rather than just being associates. As long as you promise that you will train up those two Guardians into Decay Lords.”
Koh muted the comms and turned back to Tah. “You fine with that?”
“I’m not at all surprised that Galyn’s asking us to do this, you know what he’s like. But we don’t need to worry about level laws or anything any more, Decay Lord trials are way easier now thanks to Galyn’s last set of Decaylings, and they’re both already Divine Guardians so half the work’s already done.”
“Nuh and Gah might not like it.”
“There’s six of us and we’re only going to be training Akah and Tahvra, we can take the training in shifts. As far as Kanuva… Mator is concerned, he kinda can’t do anything any more.”
“True…” Koh turned his microphone back on. “Yeah, sure, we can do that, Galyn. Akah in particular has a lot of combat potential, he’d work well with you, Retvik and Litvir, but we’re keeping Tahvra. He has medical skills that are super, super useful for our normal purification work. Also a good pilot too.”
“That is fine!” Galyn seemed happy. Of course he was. As far as he was concerned, he had just tripled the number of Decay Lords available to him. “We will be in range in three hours. Are you sure you will be alright until then? I can see if I have any closer contacts.”
“Three hours isn’t a problem. We’re all used to the cold. Mator is-”
“Mator?”
“Uh, Kanuva…” Tah explained. “He was nearly killed by the Voidborn and has, I guess, ‘regressed’ into a much, much weaker form, completely losing pretty much all his powers. Had no idea that some Imperators could do that. Didn’t know you could turn a Genera into an Imperator in the first place.”
“You are denizens from the same universe though?”
“Us Cleansers weren’t exactly known for our knowledge. We were just the things that cleansed things. Or, in our case, activated and later led the things that cleansed things.”
Galyn trailed off. “Fair enough. Do you want me to stay on the line?”
“Yes, please…” Tah admitted. “I’m kinda shaken, kinda forgot what it’s like to face destruction and lose limbs and it’s been a while since we actually had to fight anyone. And we all have this weird feeling in our brains that I don’t like.”
“That is called a headache, Kal.”
Koh and Tah both shrugged.
“I take it you do not process pain the same way most beings do…” Galyn grunted.
“Well, we are completely mechanical apart from our brains.”
“True, true. Checking your location, you are quite remote. What were you doing when you were attacked?”
“We got a message from a Life Goddess requesting the removal of Corruption on one of her children, nothing unusual!” Koh exclaimed. “Wanted to meet in the middle of nowhere, which a lot of them like to do for their own safety. Did the job, waited for them to leave, then all of a sudden this Voidborn just appeared out of nowhere and tore into our ship and into us! Didn’t even say anything either, completely unprovoked.”
“Only thing it said was that Akah wasn’t a Voidborn, but we already knew that!” Tah added.
“That is most unus-”
The signal abruptly cut out. Koh scrambled to get it back.
“Galyn, are you there?”
There was static at first, but the elder Decay Lord’s voice slowly came through.
“Sorry, Kal, there might be a small delay in reaching you. A nearby young universe just exploded near us. We are still on course but have to take a detour to avoid the fallout. Signal is expected to cut out a little.”
“That’s… troubling…” Koh trailed off. “This sector is supposed to be quiet now.”
“It is…” Galyn’s voice briefly faded, before coming back again. “I apologise, Koh and Tah, there is a lot of activity here right now. I will contact you as soon as we are clear. Stay safe.”
“Uh, you too, Galyn…”
The cockpit fell silent as the transmission ended. Tah glanced at Koh, then stared out of the cockpit window, the glass still shattered.
“I’ll be honest, I’m really concerned right now. It’s not just me, right?”
“No, Tah, I’m really concerned too…”