It took a few hours and a lot of fighting, but Mortician and I eventually managed to clear the stingprey of its invaders. The final chipspeck mass crumbed before my very eyes, leaving the few carvurch we hadn’t killed dumb and harmless inside of the hidden cavern. I let out a long sigh and dismissed my spear, leaning against one of the cavern walls as I watched Mortician shake their hands of the chipspeck mass’ oil

“So now what?” I asked. “We did what the stingprey wanted. How do we get your memories out of it?”

Mortician shrugged. “We do not know. The stingprey wishes to add itself to our collective conscience from what we felt, so it might just be a matter of time. And speaking of time, have Okeria or Juniper sent you anything?”

There was a chance that they had, since I’d silenced most of my interface’s notifications while I fought through the carvurch. I opened my interface to see that I’d gotten quite a few messages from Jun that equated to updates on how she was doing with the slyk hordes, and one single message that had an attachment. I pressed accept without caring about the potential cost, since I had more than enough carvurch cores to make up for it.

One type of slyk oil and fifteen more slyk shards appeared in my inventory. The oil belonged to something called a ‘lucaidra’, and when I called it to my hands, it had a very slight green tint to it.

“Here. Courtesy of Jun and Okeria.” I said as I handed the oil to Mortician. “And here are all the shards they managed to find so far.”

Mortician accepted them with a nod of thanks. “Tell them I said thank you. Oh, and the stingprey wishes to speak to you. We will grant it our voice while we absorb these gifts.”

When Mortician next spoke less than a heartbeat later, their voice changed to the slightly different tone of the stingprey. Though their body’s slight gold shimmer was the more obvious change.

“We thank you and Mortician for ridding this body of those annoying pests. Who could have known that allowing carvurch to care for the stone on this body so many years ago would eventually come to this?” The stingprey gestured around themselves with a sigh. “Quite an annoyance, but the relief is far less than we would have liked. The itch still remains, but it does not grow worse.”

“Uh, does that mean you’re still going to kill yourself? And, by extension, us?” I asked nervously.

“No, no, of course not.” The stingprey assured me. “Now that the carvurch and controlling chipspeck masses have been dealt with, we will begin to reclaim our body. It may take decades, but we will repair this body to its perfect form. Though it will not require someone quite as… aware as us to oversee it.”

Mortician sat down suddenly, causing the stingprey to yelp in surprise. They coughed into their hand in embarrassment, then continued as if nothing had happened. “We will be joining the collective conscience that is Mortician before you create a body for us. But we are not alone. The other slyk titans are converging on us at this very moment, and they will look to join the collective just as we have. Bottomskitter will join without hesitation, as they utterly despise their life, but Mortician will have to convince the other two. We could survive without adding their memories to the collective, but if we do not gain access to their unique oils, we will have a partially incomplete core for the rest of our life.”

Partially? I didn’t like that word, but I could also deal with it if it meant Mortician could be alive sooner rather than later. “What do you mean by that? And… how do you know that, anyway?”

“Oh, Mortician gave us unfettered access to the collective memory. We, quite literally, are them at the moment. So we know about the twenty-two oils needed to fully create our core.” Stingprey-Mortician said. “Thirteen types of oil will create what we need to survive in a physical body, but no core function. Twenty-two is what we’ll need to help you and Juniper with Endra.”

“Twenty-two, and we have five. Those aren’t great numbers.” I pointed out. “Six if we count your oil, and nine if we count the other three titans. That’s still not even half of what we need, or enough to manifest you a core. How are we going to get those other thirteen?”

“We will worry about that before we merge our conscience with Mortician’s. The oilsea is home to all the slyk in this hazard, so it will only be a matter of time before we collect what we need. And the time dilation between the traversable parts of the hazard and where we currently are will ensure it is done before you must leave.” Stingprey-Mortician ensured me. “Our request for you to end the creator still stands, and we will aid you once you reach the point in the nexus where it can be found. Mortician is in good hands, Sebastian. Their own hands.”

“Uh, good?” I replied, a little confused with the tone they were taking. It almost sounded like a goodbye. “We still have quite a few slyk pieces to find, but when we do, I’ll make sure you get them. Oh, and don’t forget to give Mortician a sample of your oil. Uh, give you a sample of your own oil? Whatever, you know what I mean. Don’t forget that.”

“We won’t.” Mortician said with a smile, reaching out to try and grab my shoulder. Thanks to their sitting position, they could only reach my ankle by leaning over as far as they could. “Goodbye for now, Sebastian. When we meet again, it will be truly in person.”

Mortician pulled at the oil covering my legs, which came off me like a blanked ripped off a freshly made bed. I blinked in surprise as light hit my eyes for the first time in a little while, familiar voices ringing in my ears as the slightly-too-loud sounds roared like an avalanche. It took all of fifteen seconds for my armor to forcibly adjust my body, but those fifteen seconds were some of the most irritatingly unpleasant individual seconds I’d ever endured.

“Seb? Can you hear me?” Jun worriedly asked, her oil-splattered helmet looking down at me from above. She turned to the side as I sat up, my head just barely missing her chin as I did. “I don’t think he’s awake yet, Okeria. Are you sure we did this right?”

“Oh, I’m very sure.” Okeria snorted, just barely holding in a laugh. “Ya should check again. Something might’ve changed in eight seconds.”

Jun scoffed in response. “Don’t sass me, Okeria. I know you’re not as strong as you pretend to be.” She snapped, but there wasn’t any real venom in her words. She started lowering herself before she looked down, and her chin met the crown of my head with a metallic clunk. “What the… oh! You’re awake!”

“Kind of.” I grumbled through a strangely dry mouth. “You two managed to get me out of… wait, where the hell are we? Is this another trawler?”

“It is.” Keratily confirmed, making me swivel in place to see her in her armor. “It arrived six hours ago, and left forty-three minutes ago. We will arrive at the nexus in fifty-seven hours.”

We’d already left? Fucking hell, that wasn’t good. “Jun, Okeria, did you two manage to get everything you could? And by everything, I mean fucking everything.”

“I didn’t do as much of the work as I’d like ta take credit for; most of it goes ta the little Keratily.” Okeria said with a strange pride in his voice. “Ya can catch up with her in a minute, but yes, she managed ta dig out all the little slyk cores she was looking for.”

I looked to Jun for confirmation, and she nodded with pride. “I looked up until the last second, and couldn’t find the last one for the life of me. Turns out it was under where all the trawlers came in, and this one here ripped the ground open enough that I could get at it. Lucky me, right?”

“Lucky you, yeah.” I agreed with a sigh of relief. There were still pods to find, but knowing that the layover had been picked dry was a weight off my mind. “So what are we going to have to do at the nexus? Kill a giant monster so we can get to Rainbow Basin?”

Okeria shrugged. “We have absolutely no clue. It’s been different every time we went there, and it’s only been peaceful one time. So expect a fight at least, though ya won’t know the flavour until we lock eyes with it.”

I nodded. “Good to know. Are we going to have to fight another signaleech in this trawler?”

“No, or at least nothing like the one you and Okeria killed.” Keratily answered. “We’ve quarantined this room and all those connected to it, so you can finally relax for a little while. Now that you’re awake, I’m retiring to my room. It’s the one marked with pink crystals. Unless you are Juniper, do not disturb me until we reach our destination.”

And with that, Keratily left us. I went to talk, but Okeria held a hand over his mouth in what I assumed was the Staura signal for ‘silence’ and pointed at Keratily. I nodded back and waited until I heard a door open and shut, then turned to Okeria for whatever he’d wanted to tell Jun and I in secret.

“Not out here; come ta my workshop with me. It’s the biggest of the three rooms we cleared out, and I’m in the process of trying ta upgrade the rest of Juniper’s armor.” Okeria said with a coy smile in his voice. “It was a long few days without ya, Sebastian. Really makes someone rethink their connections ta ya, if ya get what I’m saying.”

I tilted my head to the side; I didn’t get what Okeria was saying. Jun elbowed him in the side, making Okeria wince and bend over as if he’d actually been hurt. She must’ve gotten what he was saying.

“Quiet, you.” Jun snapped. “I’ll talk to him about it when you’re not around. And remember, no drones when we message you for privacy. If you don’t respect it, I’ll make sure your life is as annoying as the abyss itself.”

“Fine, fine. I already agreed ta that yesterday.” Okeria sighed in defeat. He pushed open the door to a room that was ninety percent empty, but with a few strange devices strewn about. “For now, though, we need ta talk about–”

The door clicked shut behind me. “About Mortician.”