“Hello!”
Koh and Leh both looked up, then clicked happily.
“Oh, hiya!” Leh exclaimed. “You’re all here!”
Tanos was a pretty short person, but he found it odd not being the shortest person present. All six members of Kal were absolutely tiny, exactly one metre tall, and they were all mechanical apart from the squidgy, weirdly removable brains underneath the plates on their heads. But apparently they were also stupidly dangerous if they believed their nest was being threatened. Ret understood that feeling well.
“We are, yes!” Nyssi smiled. “You wanted to talk to us about our blood, right?”
“Is that also why Kyr Elkay is asleep on the bench outside?” Ret also asked.
Leh glanced at Koh, then clicked a bit more. “Well, we are somewhat harvesting Elkay for his blood, because it’s one of the best things to use against Corruption. But also Elkay somewhat does just fall asleep no matter how much or little he donates.”
“At least he actually sleeps though,” Koh added. “Elkay and Arkay both don’t seem to sleep much. But, at least with Arkay, he just gives us a canister of blood on command, so we don’t need to get blood donations from him.”
“So, uh,” Nyssi had lots of questions. “Why would you need our blood if Arkay can just magically give you his?”
“Arkay’s blood is, weirdly, too potent. It’s more acidic than Elkay’s blood, and it seems that Synaisthyn blood, the blood that’s inside them at least, it matures and becomes more acidic over time. Arkay’s pretty old so his blood is very acidic and not good for, well, more normal people.”
“You lot aren’t normal either though!” Nyssi exclaimed. “You’re weirder than us.”
Leh tutted, but Koh just shrugged. “Actually, there’s a LOT of mostly mechanical beings who are also Decay Lords, we’re friendly with a bunch of them, and most of them look like Akah except mechanical. It’s just that this pentacluster is… fleshier than most.”
Nyssi had even more questions. “But, like, the Corruption we’ve seen, it goes for fleshy stuff. You guys are robots, can you even get corrupted?”
“We can, yes, but it’s a much slower process because Corruption prefers eating meat over metal.”
“Ah… makes sense… Alright, why is our blood special and why do you want it?” Nyssi asked.
“I’ve seen some of your blood… in action? Not sure how to describe it. But Kayel used some of his blood on a patient and it worked very well. A little too well. But we wanted to wait until your Decay Lord trial was over, since we didn’t want to stress you out or anything. Also, we kinda needed to get a sample of Corruption that wasn’t too… bitey.”
“Fair enough?”
Kayel seemed satisfied with the answers he’d just received. Nyssi was still a bit uneasy until Tanos telepathically muttered that the little robots deal with Corruption stuff all the time. Ret had admittedly not been paying attention and was too busy eyeing all the tools that Leh and Koh had on the table next to them.
“So, you just want samples for now?” Tanos asked. “Like, how much blood are we talking about?”
Leh waved his hand dismissively. “It’ll be just four vials each. We’re not going to drain you the same way we somewhat need to drain Elkay at times. Also, I’m pretty sure Elkay donates extra blood not just to help us, but also so that he can get pampered by his husband for a bit. Anyway! Who wants to go first?”
The four young Decay Lords all turned to each other, muttering to themselves. But after a moment, Ret grunted, with a hint of annoyance. “Fine, fine, I will go first.”
“Wonderful!” Koh clicked joyfully. “Come and sit in this chair that is a little bit too small for you, then put your arm out on the table.”
Ret did as he was told, but he did pause. “Which arm do you want?”
“Whichever one is the least dominant.”
“But… I use both hands.”
“Oh, you do?”
Kayel nodded. “Us new-universe Threanics are mostly ambidextrous. The 30% who aren’t, I think about 20% are left-handed and 10% are right-handed.”
“Huh…” Leh trailed off. “Us Cleansers are perfectly fine using both hands, but I thought most organic folks had a dominant hand. Anyway, put an arm on the table.”
Again, Ret did as he was told. Nyssi noticed that Ret seemed ever so slightly nervous, but, rather than looking away, he actually focused on every element of the drawing of his blood. Tanos on the other hand couldn’t look, and covered his eyes. Thankfully, Leh and Koh were very quick, and before young ones knew it, the two Cleansers had gotten the samples they wanted.
“You can get up now, Ret, thank you!” Leh almost chirped. “Who’s next?”
Kayel didn’t seem too bothered, and he sat down no problem. Again, it all happened very quickly, and Nyssi’s samples were swift too. But Tanos was definitely a bit scared.
“It’s funny that you’re scared of this more than you were scared while doing out trial!” Nyssi noted.
“I… I just don’t… I don’t know why I don’t like this…”
“Tenuk, do you want me to hold your hand?” Ret asked. “You can close your eyes too.”
“Please…”
That seemed to work, and Tanos finally sat down and had his blood taken. Satisfied, Koh placed most of the blood vials in a nearby cooler filled with ice. But Koh kept one vial out, the first one he’d taken from Ret. Leh and Koh had a quick telepathic conversation, and, after a moment, Tah teleported in, holding a glass box that contained a slice of Corruption from their most recent purification job. The sample wasn’t very big, about the size of a small rodent, but it kept on turning into a puddle. Tah buzzed at Leh and Koh a few times, then teleported away.
“Oh! Are we getting a live demonstration?” Kayel grinned. “I like watching that bad piss just melt away.”
“Yep!” Leh clicked excitedly.
Still clicking, Leh grabbed a nearby syringe, sucked up some of Ret’s blood from the vial then stabbed it right into the middle of the black lump of corruption. Almost instantly, the entire lump of Corruption completely fizzled away, leaving not a single trace. Even Leh and Koh were surprised at how quickly the reaction happened.
“That was cool as fuck!” Kayel beamed. “I want to make more black splots disintegrate!”
“Well, Leh and I need to do more experiments and testing, but we’ll get back to you on any samples that need destroying. Thank you very much for the samples, you can all head off now.”
“Ah, good!” Ret smiled as he picked Tanos up and made his way to the door. “Come on, let us get some ice cream.”