“Could you please explain the plan one last time?”
Retvik had been struggling to keep up. After spending a couple of hours in quarantine, where he had been frozen then set on fire then frozen again, he was now helping Vikalos push a large, opaque crystal into a ship in the Thantir loading bay. Vikalos had explained what they were doing several times, but none of it made much sense.
“So… we are going to set him on fire and hope that cures him? Will that not kill Arkay? And you want me to do this?”
Vikalos grunted, growing weary of the questions.
“Yes, we are going to attempt to burn the traces of Voidborn and Corruption out of the Decayling. But you cannot do it, you are not skilled enough yet. We are going to visit some old Decay Lord friends of mine.”
Retvik wasn’t satisfied with this answer. “Why though? You never seemed interested in Arkay until now. You just wanted him captured and out of the way.”
With another grunt, Vikalos secured the crystal in the back of the small ship, then dragged Retvik round to the two-seater cockpit. With everything ready, Vikalos punched in several coordinates and the loading bay doors opened up, allowing the ship to leave.
Once they were void-bound, Vikalos turned to Retvik, still grunting.
“You ask too many questions, Decayling. Questions are not always a good thing.”
Retvik tutted. “My question is perfectly valid. You did not care about Arkay at first. Now you do.”
“Originally, we had hoped to capture the Decayling and sell him off quickly to the Life Goddesses. While most Decaylings are given options, the fact that there was a reprogrammable former death god Decayling out there meant that he was insanely valuable. Upon seeing his non-viability, Itaviir was planning on putting this Decayling out of his misery, but I offered to waste my time on a last chance to make him viable… And… potentially keep him for our own purposes.”
“That… is…” Retvik wasn’t quite sure how to answer. “That seems rather shady of you. You were planning on selling Arkay on as a slave?”
“No, not as a slave. As a deity in servitude to a Life Goddess. A chance to start again, to build again and one day potentially become a Life Goddess himself…” Vikalos stopped, glancing at a console. Outside, another ship could be seen. Unlike the plain ship Vikalos and Retvik were in, the ship outside was bright silver, with six stripes of colour running down its side. Vikalos tapped on the console, opening up a communication channel.
“Hi Vik, what do you want?” a voice squeaked. Several other, more muffled voices, could be heard in the background.
“Kal, we have a live one that needs decontaminating.”
“You know we need like six days notice, right?”
“No time.”
There was more muffled chatter. The voices all sounded somewhat similar. The hushed conversation was swiftly ended by a loud “OKAY FINE.” Kal reappeared on the comms channel. “Alright, bring it in. But make it quick. Gee here wants to cook dinner.”
It didn’t take long for Vikalos to dock with this other ship and wheel the large gem inside. Immediately, Vikalos and Retvik were greeted by a very strange being. It was very small, barely a meter tall, weirdly round and mechanical at the same time, a mixture of red limbs and silver wiring and plating. It had a round head and large, blue, gem-like eyes. A metal plate covered most of its head, but a very large chunk was obviously missing, barely protecting a shimmering silver organic, face-shaped brain inside. Attached around its chest, almost like a bandolier, were five more of these organic brain things, all of which seemed to be glowing slightly and in a different colour.
“Hello, Kal.”
“Hey, Vik!” six voices spoke in unison, before breaking off. “Decontamination, eh? Plasma-magnetic?”
Vikalos nodded, presenting Kal with the large crystal. “Where do you want us to stand?”
Kal pointed to a perspex box in the corner, then flicked open the metal head plate. Much to the current face-mask’s displeasure, the face-mask was removed and replaced with one from the bandolier.
“I hate this.”
“Oh, quit whinging, Tah!” the new, orange-glowing mask almost giggled. With the new mask in place, Kal’s eyes changed colour, from dark blue to dark green. “Let me just move this into posi-”
“You know, Pah, I can move shit way faster than you!” a black-glowing mask snarled.
“Yeah but I plasma things better, Nuh!” Kal continued to laugh, moving the crystal into position as he did so. “How deep we going? What’s inside? Organic or biomechanical or what?”
“Organic. As low as possible.” Vikalos explained. “Please try not to kill it right away.”
“Well alrighty.” Kal seemed to frown. It was hard to tell, what with a lack of facial expressions. Kal got into position, waiting for Retvik and Vikalos to move into the perspex safety box, then began to blast the crystal with plasma. Kal continued to do this until a faint screeching sound could be heard.
“Hm.”
Kal then stepped back and yet again opened his head plate. He removed the brown-glowing mask and replaced it with a blue-glowing one, his eyes changing to orange as he did so.
“Alright, Gah’s turn!” Kal’s voice seemed slightly more feminine now as he blasted the crystal with magnetic energy. This caused shards of white and gold to gather in a ball above the crystal, having been pulled from deep inside it. Kal concentrated on the gold and white ball, crushing it until it began to glow, then magnetically moved the ball into a nearby pre-prepared metal container.
Yet again, Kal changed his mask, this time selecting the black-glowing mask, with lime green eyes appearing. Kal’s voice dropped an octave, becoming rather deep.
“And now for the fun bit!” Kal seemed to grunt. With but a twist of his sharp, clawed hand, the metal container collapsed in on itself, disappearing into nothingness. “I think we got it all. Leh, want to give it one last look?”
“Sure!” the green-glowing mask on the bandolier chirped, its voice incredibly squeaky. Kal replaced the black mask with the green mask, causing his eyes to turn red. Kal then proceeded to wave his hands vaguely at the crystal, which caused bits to fly off it and ricochet around the ship.
“CAREFUL, LEH!” the red and white-glowing masks both shouted.
“Oops!” Kal’s main body squeaked. “But I think we got it! I ain’t picking anything up! Can I smash the rest of it?”
“Of course…” Tah, the red-glowing mask, grunted. “Just try not to get us all killed. Again.”
“Oh come on, that was one phrase seventeen… whatever…” Leh’s cheeriness dimmed briefly, before flaring up again. With more vague hand gestures, the rest of the crystal shattered, revealing a black and yellow Decayling buried inside. “All done!”
Vikalos and Retvik slowly left the relative safety of the perspex cage.
“Are you sure?” Vikalos snarled.
Kal giggled, then switched mask-brains one last time, switching back to Tah, the blue-eyed being they had originally spoken to.
“Leh is never wrong. Actually, he’s wrong about lots of things, but when it comes to Decayling purification, he’s rarely wrong.” The other face-brains all seemed to mutter in agreement.
Vikalos glanced at Retvik, nodding. “Alright. Kid, pick up that Decayling and get him strapped inside the bay. Kal, you want payment?”
Kal seemed confused. “You never actually offer payment. This one must be special.”
“It’s a reprogrammable death god…” the white mask-brain snarled. “Probably gonna pimp him out.”
“Koh, don’t be so harsh.” Nuh snapped.
“He’s right though!” Leh tutted. “Vik here only brings us the expensive ones when he can’t fix them himself.”
“Yeah!” Pah added. “These guys fetch pretty good deals! Nearly had that happen to us! Gotta be more to it! And Vik didn’t even introduce us to his little companion.”
Vikalos grunted. “Retvik is a Decayling in training. Capture Expertise.”
“Oh!” Gah beamed. “We shall call him Vik too!”
The Decay Lord rolled his eyes. “As for Arkay…”
“You shouldn’t sell him off!” Koh interrupted. Kal switched out his face-mask, swapping the red-glowing mask for the white one, his eyes turning ice blue. “Not yet anyway. He’s too fragile and at the very least needs rehab, since we just melted, magnetized and vacuum pumped him. You sell him off now, he will be in traumatic shock and potentially kill any Life Goddess he is sold to. He needs rehab at the very least.”
The other brain-faces all hummed in agreement.
“Very well…” Vikalos sighed. “You have me convinced. Thank you for your services.”
“Whatever…” Kal dismissed Vikalos. “Next time, give us some damn warning, and bring us the fucking bodies you promised us. We’re getting sick and tired of sharing.”
“Will do…” the Decay Lord grunted as he headed back to his ship. “Will do…”