“Normally I quite like swimming, but I didn’t like that.”
Kayel shook himself down as he climbed out of the water and into a strange, glistening cave. Everyone else had already swum through and sorted themselves out and they were now looking around, trying to work out what was going on. Nyssi was struggling to see, and Tenuk had turned himself into a blue-plated Skyavok to make use of their insanely good darkvision. Ilga though had not only grabbed a torch out of her backpack but seemed to already be making her way deeper into the cave, not bothered by the darkness at all.
“You guys alright?” Kayel asked, also not bothered by the darkness.
“Not really…” Nyssi stuttered, holding herself tightly. “It’s cold down here. Unnaturally cold. I don- AAAHH!”
Tenuk immediately stepped back and apologized. His arms were currently large and furry and he had clearly intended to warm Nyssi up but had instead scared her. “I didn’t mean it, I’m sorry!”
“Could have warned me!”
“I just didn’t want you to be cold!”
Nyssi hissed at Tenuk, then frowned and apologized. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped. Also, this place is fucking horrible. Smells like a cross between us after we were all scared and sweaty after we killed that corrupted bitch, and, well, death. But not like the way Arkay smells.”
Nyssi’s statement made Ilga, who had rushed back after hearing Nyssi screech, seem somewhat concerned.
“You… have memorized the scent of the Thantophor?”
“Well, yeah, we’ve spent time by his side. Like, we’ve sat and eaten take-out with Arkay.”
Ilga wasn’t really sure how to respond to that. “But… Arkadin is a deity… He is the Burning of Time, the Freezing of Space and the Shadow of Life…”
“He prefers being called Arkay, actually!” Kayel smiled. “Turns out, the Skyavok name for the Silent Blade is his preferred name. Also, Arkay’s totally just a kinda normal, slightly weird Skyavok who doesn’t quite know how to be social with people. When he’s not busy being in a coma and being chained to planet Kolasi by the bastard Whenvern.”
Tenuk glanced at Kayel. “I was almost instinctively going to get annoyed at you calling Holy Kairos a bastard, but you’re totally right.”
Ilga’s mouth hung open awkwardly for a moment. “How… do you know this stuff?”
“Outside of literally being Arkay’s friends, Retvik’s poten-partner is the General of Deitic Affairs, and a friend of an old Phantasma buddy of mine runs the KD-Sub-Class!” Kayel continued to smile. “Anyway, we should get going. I mean, I assume there’s limited oxygen here, and we told Retvik we wouldn’t be too long.”
The Lanex continued to stare and be shocked and confused, before finally relenting and turning her attention to back to their mission. “By the Lady of Stars, you four are… strange… Are we in the right place at least?”
Nyssi nodded. “We are. But I can’t see much and I’m kinda sure I didn’t bring a torch.”
“Don’t need a torch when you have bio-luminescence, right?” Tenuk beamed as he made bits of his skin light up, similar to the glowing spots Vrekans had. “I’ll lead the way.”
The others glanced at each other, then followed Tenuk deeper into the cave.
As they walked, Ilga would occasionally pause to take samples of slime from the walls, or try and take photos. But even with Tenuk’s lights, it was still very hard to see. Thankfully, the cave seemed much larger than it looked from the surface. It had to be. As far as they were all aware, Corruptiids were somewhat large creatures. Sure, they were slimy, but they could only make themselves so small.
After a while, the cave sloped downwards and split in two. The path onwards though was obvious, because the fork to the right stopped rather abruptly and was completely filled with bleached bones. Clearly the Corruptiids couldn’t be bothered to take their old meals outside their nest, and had dumped the remains there. Everything though had been utterly picked clean, and the bones Ilga tested were hollow – even the bone meal had somehow been sucked out, leaving nothing but the barest of bones.
“I hate this. I am learning a lot, but these creatures… they… make no sense…”
“Why would they make sense?” Nyssi replied as they continued onwards, down the left path. “They’re not from this universe. Or something like that.”
“They’re… not?” Ilga stopped in her tracks. “We are… literally killing aliens?”
Nyssi nodded, putting an arm around Ilga. “Unfortunately, according to the Bringers, most of what’s outside the universe is kinda mean and evil and wants to kill everything. So what we’re doing is nothing more than self-defence.”
“Oh.”
“OH!”
That second shout came from Tenuk, who had slipped on a particularly black and nasty puddle of slime and was now sliding down the tunnel, deeper into the darkness. Thankfully, before he could fall too far, Kayel had managed to shadowjump just ahead of him, managing to catch Tenuk. Well, he’d managed to stop Tenuk from sliding even further deeper into the cave.
“Does this damn place even have a bottom?” Nyssi asked as she and Ilga carefully made their way down.
“Ugh… Skyavok are stupid…” Tenuk muttered as he rubbed the back of his head. “You guys have… like… no good grip on your stupid, armoured feet…”
“True, but your head and neck plates stopped you from knocking yourself out as your head hit the ground!” Kayel tutted, checking Tenuk over. Sick of being in the shape of a Skyavok, Tenuk changed himself into a Temthan, then into a Vrekan, then turned back into his normal Spast self. “I think I hurt myself. Holding my form is harder than it should be and I can’t decide on a shape.”
Kayel tutted some more, then rummaged around in his backpack. He pulled out and put together his rifle and added a torch attachment to the end, then handed a torch to Tenuk. “Stay as you are then. We’ll just have to use artificial light…” Kayel paused, then snatched the torch away from Tenuk and turned his own torch off, before heavily hinting that Ilga do the same.
Ilga did as she was told, then lowered herself down. Nyssi got down on her knees, realizing that Kayel had seen something. He aimed his rifle towards the deeper, darker part of the tunnel ahead of them, took a deep breath, then paused.
“All of you, cover your ears.”
“Why?”
“Just-”
That moment of hesitation was slightly too long. A hideous black claw slammed into the ground, separating the team, while another grabbed Kayel by the leg and slammed him against the wall, knocking him out completely. Ilga immediately rolled to one side and grabbed her spear gun, which she fired at the Corruptiid that was standing over her and Nyssi.
However, while the spear did clearly pierce the head of the Corruptiid above them, forcing it to reel back in agony, it didn’t seem to kill it. Or do any lasting damage. In fact, the Corruptiid just attacked again. Nyssi couldn’t reach for her own weapon, so she opted to bite the creature’s arm as it lurched forward. That bite did far more damage, and the Corruptiid’s flesh began to burn away.
Nyssi’s advantage though didn’t last long. While the first Corruptiid fell to the ground and began to flail in agony, more Corruptiids appeared to back it up. One of them hissed then snarled, before spitting out a cloud of black gas which completely blinded everyone present. Ilga continued to fire her speargun, hoping to at least be a distraction, but the Corruptiids had realized that these four strangers were not a normal threat.
“Guys, run!” Tenuk shouted as he expanded in size, turning himself into a Banikan. He took a long, drawn out breath then opened his jaws, spitting fire at the Corruptiids. Two of them screamed and sizzled away, but a much larger Corruptiid fired back, spitting a vast, black fluid at Tenuk. What Tenuk originally thought was water turned out to be black, sedating slime which covered his mouth and skin, forcing Tenuk to back down.
Of course, Nyssi and Ilga didn’t run. Nyssi had unfortunately been thrown against a wall the same way Kayel had, and Ilga was desperately trying to pick Nyssi up and carry her away. She didn’t get the chance to though as more Corruptiids charged in and began spitting the same, toxic sludge, utterly covering them in slime, making them unable to escape.
Ilga wanted to scream as the Corruptiids dragged the four of them deeper into their lair, but decided to stay quiet. She’d already seen that her weapons did nothing to these monsters. Her best bet was to wait for Nyssi and Kayel to wake up, then form some sort of plan.
Assuming these monsters didn’t just eat her.