Traveling in the Void was not easy for Xellous and his family. The constant howl of the wind in the blackness was extremely stressful. The horribly bitter cold was extremely hard to deal with. But they were not alone; the ship came with a crew to man it, captained by the elf Sven. Their songs, good cheer, and amazing food helped Xellous, Kora, Threen, Gerard, and Lily make sense of their new surroundings. But good company while adjusting to new circumstances only goes so far. Lily hardly slept, which meant no one else did. And as big as the heated cabin the elves had prepared for them was it mattered little; it still felt cramped.
So when Sven told Xellous that their first port, a monastery of gith, wasn't responding to the hails of the elves, and that they'd need to go and check out the monastery, Xellous almost jumped up and down with excitement. He immediately volunteered to go with the elves. He ran back to the cabin to tell an exhausted Kora the news. She was not amused. "The children haven't slept. I've not slept. I need help and you're wanting to go gallivanting about?
"But your mother-"
"I. Need. You."
"Sweetie, they need me out there for my aura reading." Kora's face softened with an emotion that most men read as coming around to their point of view. Xellous was no different. "There's something wrong about this place and I can help them in a unique way," he explained as Kora looked over at Pyra, her fire bow that could blow up trees, but then looked back at Xellous. She nodded. "Thanks honey, I'll be back as soon as I can." Xellous walked out with a spring in his step.
The monastery was built into an asteroid, with lots of windows, balconies, and porches looking out into the dark brightness of the Void. But the winds weren't any less for most of the monastery being indoors. The place was littered with the yellow bodies of the gith. There was a lot of blood as well, Xellous noticed as he came near one of the corpses. They had leathery yellow skin, ears that reminded Xellous of the elves he traveled with, and bald yellow heads with goatees.
Wait, Blood...
Xellous got out his kit and got to work, collecting the blood all spattered around for later enchanting use. He reactivated the blood and got it into a collection bottle.
"What are you doing??" Xellous jumped. Tyce had come up out of nowhere. "There may still be whatever killed all these monks about and you're out collecting samples from the dead? Why would you do something so stupid, nevermind disrespectful?"
Xellous's cheeks flushed more than they already had been in the beyond bitter cold. "Okay! Uh, you're right. Completely right. I just.. I wanted to do something that felt a bit more normal. And this will be useful for enchanting, for later. Their deaths won't be in vain, at least in some small way. This... this feels normal. Collecting specimens and all that. And normal is really nice right now. I know how it looks, although that... yeah this wasn't a good idea."
Tyce's eyebrows, about the only thing that could be seen in the heavy coat given the humans by the elves, lowered. "None of this is normal. You're right. I'm sorry for snapping. I've just not found a way to help me adjust. It was unkind of me to be rude about what you've found that works."
"There's only one Telos," said Xellous with a laugh.
"Absolutely! I've never seen him upset with anyone. He's always been so gentle. Have you ever seen him upset?" asked Tyce.
"I've seen him afraid, but no, never upset," Xellous confirmed. "But he always seems to be so troubled, so laden down, so restricted. I wish I could help him with that. Help him be free."
"I don't think he wants to be free," Tyce said thoughtfully, sitting down next to Xellous. "You don't want to be free of Kora. It's why you married her. I suspect it's the same for Telos." Xellous and Tyce sat there a moment, leaning on the wall next to the corpse of the gith, staring out into the starry beauty of the Void. They stood up, still looking at the bright stars that illuminated the Void like holes in a black-out shade.
As Xellous stood a yellow gith landed where Xellous had been sitting. Xellous jumped back, surprised, but the monk's aura took him aback more: the gith's aura had been drained, almost completely. Kneeling next to the fallen monastic Xellous took some of his own aura and set it in the gith's chest, trying to get the monk's own aura to begin regnerating on its own. Memories from the gith flooded into Xellous's mind. Monstrous things with three heads, eyes, arms, and clawed fingers had descended upon the monastery, draining monks of their life energy, ripping others open and leaving them to die in the halls of their home.
While Xellous was examining and helping the gith Tyce rounded a corner and went down a hallway. Xellous head shouts and screeches from where Tyce had gone. Xellous picked up the gith, who hadn't yet stabilized, and ran. Tyce was locked in battle with one of the creatures that had ripped the monastery apart. It floated in the air before Tyce, hissing out between jagged fangs. Xellous could feel its rage, washing off in red waves.
It was communicating in aura, in rage. It. Was. SHARN. From Can't Remember Name. Removed. So much REMOVED. THARIZDUN. Took everything. Flame. In Heranyt. Man in Gold. Telos. Attacked. Hurt. Drove off. We lost. Hurt. ALONE. KILL TELOS'S FRIENDS. KILL THEM ALL ALL OF THEM DIE.
Xellous threw himself between the red waves and Tyce. "No, no stop! We don't need to do this! Maybe there's a better way. Maybe Telos didn't know about Tharizdun. Maybe we can talk to him."
The look on Tyce's face stopped Xellous's heart. Tyce knew. Tyce knew. Approved.
Kora's scream could be heard over the howling of the wind.
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