Retvik shook his aching hands as he sat down on the floating platform. Kayel quickly sat down as well, very much out of breath. It had taken about two hours to melt a tunnel through what everyone thought was a sphere but was in fact the stomach of a colossal gold and silver Voidborn. While Retvik and Kayel worked, Nyssi created a shield of water just beneath, which would cool the metal as it fell around the platform, and Talok used her telekinetic powers to protect everyone from the molten metal. Nyssi’s water powers also ensured that the path behind them would seal up, stopping the mindless Voidborns from following, while Kuta was using their weaker telekinesis to keep the platform in the air.
“At least we’re out now…” Kayel huffed and puffed. “So we… just need to find the source now?”
“Yes!” Thassalin beamed. Although Thassalin had been terrified at the start of the trial, because he couldn’t use his time powers to look forward, he was a lot more optimistic now that he’d worked out what to do. “It should be… that direction!”
Everyone glanced where Thassalin was pointing. In the darkness, they could just about see what could have been a pair of glowing eyes, as well as something that looked a bit like antlers.
“Can we take two seconds to take a break, please?” Retvik grunted. “I am rather tired.”
“Of course!” Kuta was a bit tired as well. “I shall get us moving, I guess…”
The platform slowly drifted closer to their destination, but everything was oddly quiet. There was nothing around apart from the gigantic, half-alive Voidborn. A gold zombie floating through an infinite darkness. Surprisingly though, nothing seemed to be around to attack the team. Not even as they got closer to the colossal skull.
The lack of things going on was surprising. The team didn’t quite know what was happening, as they expected to be attacked, the same way they’d been attacked the entire time. After a rather long silence, Phovos turned to Thassalin and decided to ask why.
“So, mister Time Drake, why aren’t we being attacked?”
“Um…” Thassalin thought to himself, but he didn’t have an answer. “Uh… I actually have no definite answer.”
“Is it because we went up instead of sideways?” Retvik suggested.
Thassalin eyed Retvik and quickly realized that the tired Rethan was on to something. “You know what, that’s a really good point. Perhaps our path to the source in the Voidborn’s skull was… not intended.”
“Were we supposed to make our way to the skull while still being INSIDE the Voidborn?” Nyssi exclaimed. “Like, was that the expected method to complete this trial?”
Everyone glanced at Nyssi. Nyssi realized she’d struck a nerve.
“So… are we cheating?” Tenuk asked.
“No, not cheating,” Thassalin tried to explain. “We just took a really strange alternate path to reach the same answer. Akin to solving a maths puzzle in different ways.”
“I guess we did it the smart way!” Kayel smiled. “However, we’re… kinda getting close now.”
The Voidborn skull’s features could actually be seen now. There was no flesh, just black, silver and gold. The antlers were massive, splitting off in all directions. The mouth looked like it had been sealed shut with a strip of metal plating, but the eyes turned out to not be eyes at all. Instead, they were hollow eye sockets, and the blue glow the Decaylings had all seen from a distance seemed to be from a single source where the Voidborn’s brain would be.
“That HAS to be the source, right?” Tenuk asked. “It can’t be much else.”
Thassalin nodded. But his thoughts, alongside everyone else’s thoughts, abruptly stopped as the platform they were on hit some sort of strange, rubbery barrier, bringing everything to a halt.
“Apologies, I was not paying my full attention!” Kuta exclaimed. “But I assume this is no different from the vast amount of metal we just melted through.”
Kayel immediately summoned a fiery blade and pressed it against the membrane, but it didn’t seem to do much. Retvik tried one of his lasers, but that didn’t work either. Tenuk tried a bolt of lightning and Talok threw a psionic blade at the barrier, before attempting to hit it with her sword. Thassalin even tried speeding up time in a microscopic level, in an attempt to make the membrane weaken, but that didn’t help. The membrane remained, despite their attempts.
“This… may be a problem…”
Phovos though didn’t seem too bothered. “May I try?”
Kuta shrugged. “Sure.”
With a small smile, Phovos elongated one of her sharp, metallic claws. With no effort what so ever, that claw cut straight through the membrane.
“In we go!”
The platform started to move, with Kuta lifting the platform through the whole Phovos had made, and Talok projecting a telekinetic shield around them. This turned out to be a great idea, as there were a LOT of strange, fluttering Voidborn creatures flying around, many of which instantly charged at the Decaylings.
None of the Decaylings were having that, and they all swiftly fought back. A blast of blinding light did help clear the path briefly, enough to push the team towards the glowing blue source, but the creatures just kept on coming.
“They are not DYING!” Tenuk shouted, firing bolts of lightning.
“They’re not going to die, they’re Voidborns, they’re just going to respawn!” Nyssi shouted back. “Thassalin, need some ideas from you!”
Thassalin grunted as he exhaled fire at the Voidborns. “I’m thinking, give me a moment!”
“No need, I have an idea!” Phovos was still smiling. She’d worked something out. “Guys, can you all just, I don’t know, freeze the place? Stop them from getting close?”
“I can slow things down, but I need you all to touch me so I don’t affect you all as well!” Thassalin grunted some more.
“That’s fine. We just need to get closer to the source. Touching distance, preferably!”
The Decaylings all did as they were told, grabbing hold of each other and pulling the group close. Thassalin sheltered everyone underneath his wings, then closed his eyes and growled. This was backed up by Retvik making gravity stronger and Kayel cooling the air and deep-freezing the closest Voidborns.
“What’s the plan, Phovos?” Nyssi asked.
“I’m going to talk to it. Can you hold my tail please?”
“Uh, sure.”
Nyssi grabbed onto Phovos’s tail. Weirdly, Phovos then made her tail insanely long. She floated up off the ground and towards the glowing blue light. Once she was in touching distance, Phovos closed her eyes and pressed a hand against what turned out to be a glowing blue gem.
“Poneiasase…” Phovos muttered. “You’re in pain.”
“Poneiasame…” A deep, pained voice echoed around.
“Eis enphthoriseseis?”
“Ahon. Kolliasonomemon. Perimeniame.”
Phovos sighed. “Katelanevame. I understand. Thellisiame nate voithesiame.”
The air seemed to shudder briefly. “Thellisiame nate na eim elevtherios.”
“Posame nate eis elevtherios.”
“Dieoxiasase me aponton ton fyllakiono mou, ton nekreaseseon somatisa mou.”
Phovos paused. “You want us to… remove your blue crystal from your body?”
“Nai.”
“You’ll need to call off your immune system first. But… it will…”
“Xeriame.”
Phovos’s smile faded away. She turned to the three Psions. “Nyssi, Talok, Kuta, can you three use your telekinesis to… to move this crystal?”
“Move it where?”
“Outside of this Voidborn’s body.”
“Yes, yes! Not too hard!” Talok beamed. “No real gravity or friction to stop us!”
As promised, the Voidborn, whatever was left of its consciousness, it called off the many flying creatures. With them out of the way, Kuta, Nyssi and Talok all stepped forward and held out their hands, while everyone else somewhat ducked down, out of the way. The Psions were capable of moving the source, but were doing so slowly. Thassalin assisted, by speeding time up around them all.
The large blue crystal shuddered, then started moving, quickly picking up speed. It passed through one of the gigantic empty eye sockets before abruptly stopping. The crystal shuddered some more, then, as it touched the eternal void outside, the entire blue gem shattered into millions of tiny pieces. All the flying creatures also disintegrated. In fact, it seemed like most things were disintegrating.
Thankfully, Retvik did manage to use his gravity powers in time to get the Decaylings and their flying platform outside of the collapsing Voidborn corpse. But as they escaped into the darkness outside, all of a sudden, they all found themselves unable to use their powers.
The Decaylings all grabbed for each other as they fell… somewhere. Somewhere that made no sense. One moment, they were in deep space. The next, they were in a large black, candlelit room. And standing before them was a colossal entity, with a billowing cape and a huge scythe.
“Children, we need to talk…”