Chaos and slaughter had erupted inside this strange Voidborn base. An army of unknowns fighting confused Voidborns who had made the mistake of pissing off the wrong people. The strange Voidborn who had let everyone in was gone, replaced with a very large, rampaging monster who was literally tearing things in half with its teeth and occasionally causing random explosions. The monster wasn’t the leader of this army though,, something smaller and more fiery was directing both it and the army with eerie precision.
However, something slipped out, escaping the chaos and disappearing into the darkness. The Decay Lord army was a distraction, while the Travellers and their psionic assistant worked. Using a blanket of shadows and telepathic manipulations, the third member of the Missing had obtained the location of the hostages the Shimmering Ruiners had taken, and Litvir was now leading Orion, Ziital and Eta Carinae down a maze of tunnels, taking them to where Orion’s adopted kin had been imprisoned.
As they travelled, the rest of the team noticed that Litvir was very quiet. That was odd, because Litvir was normally a very chatty and rather chirpy Decay Lord. In fact, apart from instructions and orders, Litvir had said almost nothing. Eventually, Ziital decided to point this out.
“Are you alright?” Ziital asked. “You are very quiet, Litvir.”
“I am on duty.”
Litvir’s reply was blunt and simple. That bothered the Travellers a little. Litvir picked up on that and promptly ignored it, picking up his pace.
“I won’t lie, I think Litvir is more concerned about the Kittir than I am…” Orion muttered. “And I’m literally a cat.”
Thankfully, it seemed like Litvir knew where he was going, despite the maze of tunnels. Then again, these tunnels were very large, as they were meant for 4m tall Voidborns, and even Eta Carinae, a very long ‘noodle dragon’ felt a little small and out of place. Oddly though, they weren’t actually seeing many Voidborns at all. Sure, there was a massive distraction, essentially a war going on in the middle of their base, but the Travellers expected to at least see a few Voidborns running around. And the one Voidborn they did see? It was dead before it hit the ground, thanks to Litvir silently cutting its head off with a pair of psionic blades.
As they reached the prisoner holding cells though, everyone tensed up, even Ziital, who was normally a cold-blooded lizard who could turn off his emotions in combat, and had mostly been doing so up until now.
The Voidborn guards hadn’t noticed the team yet, mostly because Litvir was telepathically hiding them. But they could see the ten Voidborn guards and row upon row of tiny cells. The cells were far too small for their occupants, and a quick headcount from Orion suggested that there were fifty feline deities being held in this section alone. Many of them were meowing and hissing in pain, unable to even turn around or sit up properly. However, several of the cats had picked up the scent of Orion and his companions, and were trying to look at them.
“Orion?” Litvir telepathically muttered.
“Yes?”
“Can you tell all the fluffy kitties to close their eyes, please?”
“Yes, of course, but why?”
“I need to deal with these Voidborns. I may leave a couple for Eta and Ziital to deal with, but I am currently very angry and suffering a sensory overload from all the pain and suffering I am picking up from all the fluffy kitties. If I do not do something incredibly violent in about a minute to those causing the pain, I may snap and be unable to continue this mission.”
“I thought you were an evil mastermind scientist person who was above that sort of thing?”
“Oh, I definitely was, but I was an evil mastermind who made sure those trapped in my domain were not suffering, and if they were, I worked hard to take away that suffering, or at least minimise it and feed on it. As a telepath, this current situation is unbearable.”
Orion glanced at Litvir, then did as requested. The nearby cats all closed their eyes, and many others tried to cover their ears.
“Alright, they’re all looking away. Do you need any-”
Orion didn’t have a chance to finish his sentence. While Litvir kept the telepathic camouflage on his companions, he immediately erupted from his disguise and summoned his old psionic shadow tendrils, many of which tore through the two nearest guards. The vampiric Psion then created a wave of telepathic hallucinations that caused the other guards to panic and attack each other.
As chaos erupted, Litvir started taking out Voidborns one at a time. Some of them, he cleanly cut off their heads with his psionic blades, but others, he was much more violent with them. Orion quickly noticed that Litvir was scanning the minds of the Voidborns as he fought them, and was being far crueller with them, filling their heads with nightmares while he stabbed them repeatedly. Eta did take out a couple of Voidborns but they did their best to keep out of Litvir’s way. While they worked, Ziital and Orion went around unlocking every single cage they could reach.
The last Voidborn though, Litvir turned the cruelty up to eleven. Rather than just chopping off the Voidborn’s head, he used his telekinesis and telepathy to paralyse the Voidborn, then slowly cut pieces off of them using his psionic blades.
However, before Litvir finished the Voidborn off, he suddenly stopped and fell completely silent.
“Uh… Litvir… are you alright?”
Litvir blinked, then shook himself down. The Voidborn, what was left of it, landed with a thud and seemed to sneer and almost laugh before Eta Carinae cut off its head.
“Litvir?” Orion repeated himself.
Litvir didn’t respond. After a moment, he lurched forward somewhat, his eyes widening and his mouth opening as if he was suddenly in pain.
“Litvir!”
Orion’s telepathic shout snapped Litvir back to reality. Litvir though clearly wasn’t right. There was pain and panic in both his eyes and his voice.
“I have to go.”
“Go where?”
“Back. He is hurt. The Voidborns are gone. You do not need me here. You can get them to safety, yes?”
Eta Carinae nodded. “You do the things that you of the musts. We has this.”
Litvir took a deep breath, then bowed slightly. “Thank you. Call me if you need me. I will… try to assist. But this is more important…”
With a pained snarl, Litvir gripped his gunstaff tightly. He took another deep breath, wiped something from his mouth, then vanished through a nearby shadow.