Vahlok woke up in shock. Something buzzing had woken him up from his sleep, which was probably for the best, because he had spent most of the night chasing off bad dreams. Ever since his failed mission the other day, Vahlok had felt a lingering sensation in the back of his mind. Or rather, around his neck.
“You seem troubled, Arch Warrior…”
Standing at the end of his bed was Lua, the weird green and gold Anexartan, and one of Stasis’s most trusted assistants. Despite being an Anexartan, Lua was annoyingly tall and bulky, with weird, grey plates hanging over his normal armour.
“Bad dreams.”
“Obviously.” Lua handed Vahlok a glass of water, then gave the Varga some space to get up. “Stasis has a new task for you.”
“Why has he not called me himself?” Vahlok asked as he awkwardly took the glass and tried to sip from it. His enlarged tongue made drinking like a civilized being difficult. “And why are you here?”
Lua pulled out a syringe and a needle from a pocket on his thigh. He put it all together and waited for Vahlok to stick his arm out. A quick prick, and it was all over. Vahlok grunted. Despite Stasis having made him as perfect as could be, he still needed these injections to keep him sane. Otherwise his male sexual hormones would destroy his mind and turn him into a monster.
“Still thinking about yesterday?”
“I do not like failure…” Vahlok grunted. “Whatever that thing was, it made a mockery of me, in front of other Kalsa Warriors. I keep on seeing its claws wrapped around my throat, in the back of my mind. It could have killed me, and I…”
“Yes?”
“I doubt even our Lord Stasis could have saved me.”
Lua nodded. “Understandable. Come this way.”
The Anexartan left the room, and Vahlok quickly followed, pausing only to grab a small dagger. Just in case. Weirdly, for a collection of god-like beings that could manipulate space, the Anexartitai had annoyingly narrow hallways. They finally reached a much larger room, decorated not in gold and silver like everything else, but in weird shades of pale pink and purple.
“What is this?” Vahlok asked, confused.
“This, my little Warrior, is my collection of information on the realm of Kinigi and its inhabitants.”
“Kinigi is the system that reincarnates conscious life, yes?” Vahlok was still confused. “It is part of Cycle-Kinisis, what does it have to do with yesterday?”
Along the walls of the room were various… objects, all in translucent cages. There was no other way Vahlok could describe them. One looked like some sort of crossbow with blades on it, another looked like a simple but oversized porcelain mug. Another was clearly a badly made model of a creature that looked vaguely like a Varga. Quadruped being, heavily armoured with curly gold decorations and someone had wired it up so its skin glowed. Its shape somewhat reminded him of the creature that had attacked, but far more messy and feral.
“Is that…”
“It is a Veth,” Lua bluntly interrupted. “At least, as close a specimen we have of one. Managed to trap it in a silicon trap, at least long enough for us to make this tattered representation of one. This though is an ancient version, which we call the Third. We believe the type of Veth that attacked you was a Fifth or Sixth, which are the current… models, so to say.”
Vahlok inspected the model. It was weird-looking. Obviously somewhat based on a Panvok being. Maybe not a Varga, but definitely that sort of thing. Its claws though, its shape, it was similar, but not similar enough.
“If you are capable,” Lua explained, “I would like you to describe what you saw. We have many descriptions of Veth, often from multiple sources and tied together. I want to be certain that this Veth that attacked you was a Sixth, like we saw in a Soul Rupture last year.”
Vahlok shrugged. “I dunno, what does a Sixth look like? You got, like, a picture?”
Lua sighed then walked over to a large cabinet, pulling out an obviously marked folder. “I have several, but it may… bother your memory.”
“Nah, it’ll probably help me remember…”
The Anexartan showed the Varga some of the images. There were six of them, all slightly different. It was clear some sort of evolution had happened over the eons, with the last version looking partially like what he saw. Lua watched as Vahlok inspected the images, and slowly, a fear started to build.
“Was it… not like these?”
“Kinda?” Vahlok shrugged. “It was like this Sixth, but much skinnier. Like, lean and muscular. The same rings and armour, but small and nimble. These look big and lumbering. And it didn’t have the shadows all over it…”
“Shadows?” The fear in Lua’s stomach was getting worse. “Like, a shadowy, tendril-like mass, covering her breasts and genitalia? And horns on its head? Like a Temthan priestess?”
Vahlok blinked. “Uh, no. I mean, it had some shadows on it, on its arms, but it definitely didn’t look like those Temthan scum… Oh, and it had yellow on it. Yellow armour plates, and the glowing rings on it were yellow too. Even its eyes, which I swear had stars in them, had this gold light to them.”
“I… must write all this down… report it, file it up…” Lua rushed over to the cabinet, looking for pen and paper, and started writing everything Vahlok had said down.
The Arch Warrior was still confused. “Uh, do you still need me? I kinda ought to go and see Overlord Stasis.”
Lua waved his hand dismissively. “No. Go do as you must. I have an expedition to prepare for…”