“Elkay, are you busy right now?”
Elkay lifted his head off the table. For some reason, after Elkay’s regular blood donations, he’d always found that he was very sleepy and would regularly fall asleep in the canteen, clutching a bottle of water. Most folks knew to leave Elkay alone, and he’d wake up eventually, whenever Teekay was done with his own duties to help Elkay wake up and do other things.
Today though, Arkay had sat down next to Elkay to see how he was doing.
“Not really…” Elkay grunted. “I have somehow trained myself to always take a nap after donations. Do you need me, Arkay?”
“I don’t *need* need you, but I’d like to have a quiet little chat with you, about some weird things.”
Elkay grunted again. “Is Teekay trying to get us to sleep with each other again?”
“For once, no. That decision is solely on you. But I do want to ask a few things.”
“In private? I do not wish to get up.”
Arkay smiled. “We can stay here, if you want. Could also use telepathy or whatever.”
“Normal speech is fine. It’s not that dangerous or mind-blowing or anything,, I mostly just want to ask a few things. Well, really, one thing.”
Elkay straightened himself up, then glugged down his bottle of water. He was going to get another drink, but Arkay was a few steps ahead of him and had summoned two cans of fizzy sugar-free cola.
“Just one thing?”
“Yeah. Well, mostly.” Arkay sipped his drink. “To start things off, apparently, at some point, you went to the strange comatose space, right?”
Elkay nodded. “I went there twice. The first time was accidental, when it was discovered that a radioactive material embedded in my neck was making me ill after our Decay Lord trial. I saw you there, and you claimed someone had broken a promise to you. The second time, Litvir and Eksi put me into some sort of artificial coma so I could visit you properly. You were very depressed. You were at “I would be better off dead” levels of depression.”
Arkay shrugged. “That makes sense. Always hated how people can just… break their promises to me and fuck me up. But going back to that coma space, did you see anyone else there?”
Elkay thought for a moment. “What do you mean?”
“Was there another entity there?”
“Hm. Not that I recall. There was something else there, but I do not remember it being of any interest. Just a dark lump that I assumed was part of that space. Why do you ask?”
Arkay lowered his voice. “That lump you saw? I think it was Panthon.”
“Panthon?”
“He was one of the original folks that made the first shelter for Decayons. Like a proto-Deathven.”
Elkay clearly didn’t understand. “A proto-Deathven?”
“Yeah. Apparently, before Decay Lord society was set up properly, Deathven, a guy called Lifean and this Panthon guy, they were some sort of trio and formed a society for Decayons, but it was wrecked by a bunch of Life Goddess and Voidborn organisations. Apparently Panthon at some point was attacked, infected with Corruption and a Kenic Spore and, because he’d made a promise similar to what I made to Retvik and Litvir, Panthon sealed himself away and froze himself in time so the infections didn’t spread.”
Elkay’s reaction was somewhat blank. “I am sorry, I do not get it. Was the lump I saw this Panthon person?”
“Probably. Apparently he wakes up occasionally to make sure that he’s still alive. And, miraculously, he woke up just as I ended up in a coma, trapped in the claws of the Unending Ancient Cunt. He suggested I turn myself into my own strain so I wouldn’t be corrupted properly.”
“But he did not tell you how to turn back?”
“I don’t think Panthon knew if I was capable of turning back. While I was in that coma, I was just wishing I could die as fast as possible, and Panthon offered me a way out. After that, it was all just…” Arkay trailed off, then fell completely silent.
“Did I dig up a bad memory, Arkay?” Elkay asked.
“Yeah, but… well… trauma takes time to heal. But at the same time, if Panthon hadn’t made that suggestion, I wouldn’t be here at all.”
“If I may hazard a guess, you feel like you owe Panthon, and now you wish to save him from the same fate you nearly met?”
“Basically, yeah. But, like, we already do all this purification stuff, right? If we can find where Panthon’s physical form is, we could do some sort of weird pincer move where we get rid of the Voidborn mental things in his mind and cure him of Corruption in reality. It would be the ultimate purification. And maybe Deathven would stop hating us because we helped save his boyfriend.”
Elkay pondered the thought. “Well… I do not think it would be too bad, but it could be dangerous and, more importantly, we would have to wake Panthon up. I assumed he was permanently unconscious when I saw him and I do not know how we can do that. We would need a proper telepath though. Someone who can follow us properly. Because Litvir and Eksi cannot.”
Arkay shrugged. “We have Nyssi. She’s half Synaisthyn.”
“True… I must ask though, have you run this by Litvir yet? As he is the person who put me into a safe coma the second time I went to the weird Synaisthyn place.”
“I haven’t yet. But I wanted to get you in on the plan… well… it’s more of an idea… Either way, I wanted to run it by you first. Because we would most likely be putting ourselves in danger.”
Elkay smiled a little. “I appreciate that. And I am interested. If Panthon is a Synaisthyn like us, I would like to meet him. He sounds like a curious person. Saving Panthon, or even just establishing a line of communication would also probably make Deathven want us dead as well.”
“So, you’re in?”
“I am, yes.”
“Good…”