I pulled myself out of the strange connection I had to the pod, bringing with me a shard of something that wasn’t quite a slyk. I took a deep breath and steadied my thoughts, feeling the strange connection to The End I’d had for a minute or so there fade away. But it didn’t fully leave. There was still a lingering piece of something that felt like it had cemented itself into my everything, and not just my core. I pulled up my interface to see if anything had changed, and noticed that there was now a brand new title etched right under my name.

Sebastian Cormier Persephonia

First Envoy of The End

“First Envoy.” I muttered. “Is this what it meant by sweetening the deal with our bond?”

//NO, BUT IT IS A VERY HAPPY ACCIDENT.

//ONE THAT I UNFORTUNATELY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT, AND CANNOT GIVE YOU ANY GUIDANCE.

I nodded to myself, and was in the process of starting another message when something else joined in on our conversation.

{We would like to aid you however possible, Envoy. Though it seems that we are still confined to this network of death until you gather enough pieces to construct us a physical form.

-Mortician}

//AH, THE NEWEST RESIDENT OF THE OSSUARY.

//I LOOK FORWARD TO WELCOMING YOU IN PERSON ONCE SEBASTIAN COMPLETES YOUR TRANSITION FROM MEMORY TO BEING.

{Thank you ever so much, oh graceful End. It is strange to be real after so long being forgotten, and we did not expect this sensation of longing for freedom. We expected to feel far more… hatred at those who abandoned us.

-Mortician}

//DO YOU FEEL NO HATRED AT ALL?

{No. The hatred we feel is very much alive and vivid. But it is losing to our desire to see what has become of Sotr and these ‘Staura’ that our old fellows created from our most beloved plant.

-Mortician}

This was very much the first time I’d felt like a bystander in my own head, and I wasn’t quite sure how to interrupt the conversation that was going on in my interface. I decided it wasn’t even worth trying and minimized the messages, only partly watching as The End and Mortician had a very active back-and-forth. It was a slight relief that Mortician wasn’t going to be popping out of the node right after me, but depending on how many more of these slyk-Celrien pieces I had to collect, it might be a long-ass time until I left this hazard. Hell, until I left this trawler.

A long time if I had to find all 281 pieces to build Mortician’s body. I’d have to double and triple check to find all the nodes, but it felt like not all of them were inside this trawler. Whatever that meant, it would only serve to make my hunt take longer than I wanted it to. I wiped the oil from my arms, now completely aware that the oil from the pods wouldn’t hurt me like the signaleech’s would, and finally noticed the massive pile of debris that was on the other side of the pod.

The quarter-signaleech lay dead on the ground, leaking oil that expanded like a punctured balloon filled with molasses. I stepped back just in case the thing’s oil still carried its battery stealing properties, then snapped my head to the side as the sound of something even more massive thundered down the warehouse.

“Fuck me.” I squeaked as the signaleech came into view, three intact eyes full of hatred locked on me while its backside was bombarded by Okeria’s attacks. He’d managed to inflict a good amount of damage on the thing, but it didn’t seem to have done any good in making it any weaker.

“I CAN’T HOLD IT BACK ANY LONGER!” Okeria’s voice yelled in my ear, a tiny buzzing drone flickering into existence for a moment before disappearing once again. “REGROUP WITH ME! WHATEVER YA DID MADE IT REAL ANGRY AND JUST A LITTLE BIT WEAKER!”

“Regroup. Alright.” I said with a nod, assuming that Okera could hear anything and everything I said. I checked the node map to see which direction was the safest, circling around the signaleech’s remains to run back the way I’d just been. “I’ll make a circle around and meet you off this way.” I pointed in the direction I was going for emphasis. “The signaleech can squeeze itself through these shelves, crash right through them, or just walk over them. How do you want to fight it?”

“I DON’T KNOW!” Okeria said in exasperation. “I’VE TRIED EVERYTHING, AND ALL I COULD MANAGE WAS SHATTERING THREE EYES! THEY DON’T EVEN NEED ‘EM TO SEE! AND THEN TWO OF ‘EM SPLIT OFF TA RUN AFTER YA, BUT IT WOULDN’T GIVE ME A SINGLE INCH!”

If he’d barely managed to damage the signaleech the entire time I was running around looking for the pods, then there wasn’t a great chance that I’d be able to do much of anything. I slid through a shelf and hopped over a line of oil that ran along the ground, glancing down the warehouse every now and again to see how close Okeria and the slyk were getting. It seemed that the signaleech was being slowed down by having to maneuver through and around the shelves, even more so than the quarter that had come after me earlier, but it was definitely still gaining on me.

Okeria’s boots slammed into the ground next to mine, and he fell in time with my pace immediately. His breath was ragged and his armor looked like someone had run over an oil puddle right next to him, but he was still alive and kicking. He quickly turned to look at the signaleech, then looked straight forward as if he was checking his interface.

He let out a surprised whistle and tried unsuccessfully to scrape the oil off his armor. “How’d you manage ta take out your quarter of this oil-rock? Nothing I’m doing fazes it, but you’ve managed ta completely shatter two eyes and piss it off ta the high heavens. That a secret you’re able ta share?”

I was about to tell Okeria that there was no secret, but that wasn’t really true. He still didn’t know that I was The End’s chosen, or about what the slyk pieces in the pods really were. “I destroyed the eyes with this,” I gestured to my sling, “and then lured it into touching one of the pods. It just sort of died after that.”

“Probably touched one of the siphon shards.” Okeria said with a nod. “Speaking of, how many did ya manage ta get your hands on? I can make bullets outta them if you’ve got enough, or else we’re gonna have ta split up and hope the slyk doesn’t split ta follow us.”

“Uh, a few, but we really shouldn’t destroy them to kill the slyk.” I said cautiously, gauging Okeria’s response as I went. Which was hard to do considering he was fully armored. “There’s something alive in the network of the pods, and we can build a body for it if we find all the pieces.”

“Something alive? A network?” Okeria shook his head in disbelief. “What in the abyss are ya talking about, human? I’ve opened up dozens of those pods; they just belch out their oil and break down right after ya touch ‘em. Nothing else, nothing more. Ooh, unless this is different because this signaleech is a whole lot tougher than the others.”

Okeria nodded to himself. “Yeah, that’s gotta be it. Whatever’s in the oil in those pods supercharged the slyk, and now we gotta find a way ta kill it without using up all the shards of its brethren. That must be how we find one of the hidden treasures of this hazard that I haven’t managed ta find in all my years combing through this place.”

That was a very convenient answer to my problem that Okeria had just handed to me. “Makes sense to me.” I agreed. “Wouldn’t that also mean that this slyk’s materials are a whole lot better than all the other signaleeches you hunted? Since it’s been feeding on the oil and electricity from these pods.”

Okeria skidded to a halt, but quickly resumed his run when an oil-soaked boulder soared through the air above our heads. “Right, can’t stop for an epiphany when death’s chasing ya. Learned that lesson a while ago, but still haven’t managed ta chisel it into my mind. I’ve been trying ta kill this signaleech with weapons I made from other signaleeches oil and parts, but this one’s just plain better than them in each and every single regard. Even if I’ve leveled up all my gear, there’s gotta be some residual fact left in ‘em that’s stopping me from doing real damage ta this thing.”

“Heavens above, ya managed ta shatter some eyes with whatever this is.” Okeria said and flicked the flopping end of my sling with one finger. He paused for a second when he saw the cradle for the ammo, then nodded at it. “That’s for ammo, right? So what’d ya use? Some of Keratily’s leftover metal?”

I shook my head. “No, because you said there wasn’t any materials left over after you smithed our equipment.”

“Oh. Did I? I must’ve misspoke.” Okeria said innocently. “What I meant ta say back then was that I hadn’t given it back ta ya yet. Not that I tried ta keep it for myself or anything like that.”

If Okeria could’ve seen my face through my visor, he would’ve felt plenty chastised. Or maybe he wouldn’t have. He seemed like the type to swipe your credit card right after he returned the last thing he ‘borrowed’ from you months ago. And then have the audacity to tell you he found it in the streets after he racked up a few hefty bar tabs.

Okeria cleared his throat. “Well, if ya didn’t use any of your metal, then did ya use some of the trawler’s own rock? Find a few shards that did the job?”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. Shaped some shards into something that would fit the sling and slung them at the slyk.” I said quickly. “Can any of your gear mold rocks into bullets?”

Okeria shook his head regretfully. “I do, but not on the fly. I’d need ta hunker down for at least a minute, and the signaleech would not ignore me if I did that. How ‘bout ya? Can ya use your core ta shape the rocks?”

I briefly considered lying, but there was absolutely no benefit to it. “I can. Do your guns need a specific size of bullet, or will it all melt down like your metal does?”

“Only the metal melts; for everything else, I need ta load it manually. Size-wise, I need ‘em ta be about the size of the tip of my thumb. Two inches in diameter all around, as smooth as ya can make ‘em, and without any oil in ‘em at all. That last part should be obvious, but I figured I’d add it just in case.”

The trawler’s stone didn’t have any oil in it, so that wasn’t a problem. I opened my interface and swiped over to my core, re-tracing my steps from when I made the sling bullets but with slight differences to fit Okeria’s guns. He accepted the stone bullets with a nod of thanks, and I made a few more sling bullets just in case.

A silver barrel snapped in two in a burst of blue mist, revealing a large empty space inside that was absolutely littered with strangely flowing electricity. It was almost like the smoke off of incense sticks, lazily floating within the space, but I could tell it was a whole lot more solid than smoke wished it could be. That had to be what Okeria made from the signaleeches he’d hunted. He poured the handful of bullets I’d made into the electric smoke, snapped the barrel back into place, and launched into the air in one swift motion.

“Time ta take this thing down.”