We waited exactly one minute before peeking out to see if Keratily and Okeria were out of sight. Jun held up a hand for me to wait as she slowly looked out from behind the ruined home we were sheltering behind, tenseness welling up in her until her helmet barely snuck out and into dangerous territory.

That tenseness bled out of her in an instant. “The coast is clear.” She quietly sighed, stepping out into the open with a signal for me to follow. “Do you see anything on your map that we should be looking for?”

I shrugged. “Honestly, I haven’t even checked. Let me see.”

My interface popped into view before me, but when I tried to swipe over to the map sunscreen, I was greeted with a curtain of oily black mess. I frowned and pressed my finger to the map, trying to zoom out just in case I’d accidentally zoomed in, but it was oily nothing all the way out.

“Something’s up with me map. My map.” I quickly corrected myself, turning so Jun could see what I saw. She tilted her head to the side and hummed in thought.

“Do you think it’s because the big slyk forced us into this place instead of what the nexus is supposed to be?” Jun theorized.

It was exactly what I’d been thinking as well. “It’s as good a theory as any, and probably right. So we’re flying completely blind until we find one single slyk piece.”

I didn’t like the thought of that, but there wasn’t any other option. I glanced off in the direction Okeria and Keratily had ran off in, then back towards where the slyk creator was supposedly coming from. If I was a slyk piece that held a shard of an ancient species’ memories, where would I hide?

There were ruined houses everywhere and strange oily plants dotting the landscape, but none of them felt like hiding places. The first batch of pods had been like eggs; the signaleech was protecting them in an enclosed space that we invaded. Whereas the second batch of pods had been little slyk themselves, as if those eggs had recently hatched and were now out and about trying to avoid predators. If that theory stood, the last of the pieces would be found in full-grown slyk.

Or… what if the pieces didn’t actually mean anything? What if every slyk was born the same way, and those pieces were just parts of a massive whole that I couldn’t see? The stingprey had specifically named a creator. A creator had to create something. But I’d tapped into that well of memories the creator was using to make the slyk, conglomerating most of the memories inside to form Mortician. I hadn’t felt anything similar to touching the shards when I’d killed some of the normal slyk, so what if something changed to make a fully-grown slyk? What made the titans different than something like the signaleech?

Would the signaleech have become a titan if it had lived long enough? What happened to the memories in the slyk pieces when they became full-blown slyk? And, most important of all, what the hell was I supposed to be looking for now?

I looked over at Jun, who crossed her arms before she spoke. “Can’t come up with any good ideas?”

“You’re unfortunately right.” I sighed. “The only thing I can come up with is that we need to try and find a slyk here that isn’t the creator. If the trawler pods were eggs, and the layover slyk were larvae, then it would make sense that we’re looking for full-grown slyk now.”

Jun was quiet for a second, staring at me through her visor. Then she shook her head with a quiet little laugh. “No good ideas, huh? Yeah. Right. Let’s see if we can find a slyk to test that theory.”

I shrugged and set off to find a slyk to kill. It took about five minutes to find a slyk infester stuck in the wall of a destroyed building, pulling itself out of the rubble as we approached. I realized that I hadn’t seen one of the things that wasn’t completely insensate somehow, but now that this one was very much alive and in motion before me, all I could think was that it looked like a snail shell plopped on top of a tank tread.

Jun and I watched the thing struggle to right itself for a handful of seconds, and I almost felt bad for it. We’d both fought much more dangerous slyk since we’d left the initial part of the hazard, so the infester really didn’t stand much of a chance. I tiled my head at Jun to see if she wanted to kill it, but she shook her head and took a step back while gesturing for me to go ahead.

“Alright. This’ll be a good test for how far I’ve come.” I said with a small grin, summoning my weapon as a hammer and coating it in scales in the same thought. I didn’t risk spending oil on my corrupted armor just in case I needed it later, but I also had a feeling that it would be massive overkill. “It took a whole lot of effort to get through your sibling, little infester; let’s see how long you last.”

I took a step forward and raised my hammer over my head. The infester burbled out a popping noise that sounded like bubbles popping over boiling tar and charged me. It was faster than I’d expected something that looked like a snail to be, but it wasn’t even as fast as the carvurch had been. I watched as it closed the distance between us, growing ever closer to where I knew I would bring my hammer down. It didn’t even use any functions or try to attack me at a range; it simply charged mindlessly into danger.

It fell in my range. I brought my hammer down with as much strength as I could muster, petal-scales flowing behind the attack in streaks that made the motion feel so much deadlier. My weapon shattered the largest rock that served as the infester’s shell, sending shards of plain rock and globs of staticy oil spreading out in all directions like the guts of a swatted fly. I felt resistance, but it wasn’t anywhere near enough. I’d cut through the stingprey’s rocky carapace. The infester didn’t stand a ghost of a chance.

Shards of broken stone and a puddle of oil were the only reminders that the infester had existed in the first place. The oil buzzed and popped almost in confusion, still very much alive but without rock to host itself in. I activated wipe-away to drain it of its stats and watched as the electricity dramatically reduced, then bent down to collect its core and threw it to Jun.

“Just a little bit ago we had to have Keratily get these for us.” Jun chuckled, opening her interface and crushing the core in her palm. The shards disappeared before they could fall to the ground. “So? Does touching that thing’s oil let you see where the rest of Mortician’s pieces are?”

I shook the thick oil off my hand and frowned. It hadn’t done anything at all. I dipped my fingers in the oil once more just to make sure, but all I got was a weak little pop of static against my armor.

“Nothing. Looks like it was a bad theory.” I unfortunately confirmed. “And if it is the right way to think, then we don’t have enough time.”

“Mm, yeah. We don’t have anywhere enough time to hunt down more of these things.” Jun agreed. She rubbed her arm and tilted her chin up slightly, staring at something over my shoulder. “You know, there is one more huge source of oil that we’re not supposed to touch… and we don’t have a whole lot of time…”

I had a feeling I knew what Jun was insinuating, and a glance over my shoulder confirmed it. One of the tendrils waved lazily about just a few dozen feet away from us, filled with the blackest oil and a rainbow of electric colours. If we weren’t fighting the clock, I wouldn’t’ve even considered it. But I’d given Mortician my word. I wasn’t about to go back on it.

“It’ll happen almost instantly if it does, so cut me out about five seconds after I touch it.” I told Jun, turning to see her nod confirmation. “We have less than an hour, so we can’t afford to waste any time.”

“I know, Seb. You only need to convince yourself to do this.” Jun said curtly.

I didn’t have a reply for that. The tendril didn’t react as I got closer and closer to it, but that didn’t stop me from feeling terrified of it. I was about to completely reveal myself to the creator; the final boss of this place that had made the stingprey and the other titans. But they weren’t quite real in the same way that the slyk I’d been fighting were. Maybe the creator wouldn’t be as much of an absolute monster as I thought it was. Maybe I could even reason with it like I’d done with the stingprey.

“Here goes.” I muttered to myself, looking once more over my shoulder to make sure Jun was ready. She nodded at me and stepped up to give me a quick hug, which I returned with one arm. “Thanks, Jun. Love you.”

“Love you too.” She replied, falling back to a safe distance. “Get the info and get out. I’ll be right here to save you.”

It felt strange to trust someone as much as I trusted Jun, and it made me wonder just how much I’d missed in my old life. I thought I’d had close friends and allies, but maybe not. When we were safer, I’d have to look into those old memories. I smiled at Jun through my helmet and took a deep breath, turning to face the creator’s tendril. I reached for and gently brushed my fingers against it, feeling licks of powerful static peel off of it from just that little touch. Then I went in and clasped my hand around something like a spine in the center of it.

Electricity surged through my armor, setting off all the oil-powered functions I had. I grunted in surprise and tried to step back, but images flowed into my mind in a flow as furious as an avalanche. It was different from when I first touched one of Mortician’s pieces. Those were filled with memories of the Celaura, of a people long gone and everything that they’d ever been. This was filled with what felt like an eternity of nothing, then an abrupt ending at the cruel warmth of something terrifyingly familiar. Of life given at the cost of another. Of life that didn’t ask to exist, but was now forced screaming into reality.

It was a perfect contrast to the comforting cool of The End. A life-giving being that only cared for the moment of creation, and nothing of the infinite in-between that eventually led to The End. I felt a deserved and blissful nonexistence ripped away from thirteen beings, scraped from their thoughtless eternity and forced into something new.

All I felt was disgust. The creator stared up at me through the mire of thoughts and feelings. It was a creature of this sudden beginning, whereas I was an Envoy of The End. I couldn’t tell if it wanted to exist, if it wanted to die, or if it could even want at all. Its mind seemed wholly empty. Yet inside of that empty mind, I saw three numbers.

281.