“So that is basically what you both do as work?” Tahnahos asked as the four beings headed back to the ship. “You just stand on guard for Life Goddesses?”
Retvik nodded as he fumbled around for his keys. Most of his belongings these days were kept inside a single, battered backpack, and his keys would always find their way to the bottom of said backpack. Every time.
“How comes you have keys anyway?” Elksia asked, becoming more amused by Retvik’s frustration. “We live in a space filled with awesome technology and we’re using physical metal keys? Where are all the magic eye scanners and stuff?”
“They’re not just normal keys. They also have some sort of digital public-private key encryption on them as well,” Arkay tried to explain. “Turns out, when most beings can shapeshift and change their appearances, biometric security goes out the window. So, despite all the high tech stuff, some things end up remaining pretty low tech. And yeah, basically we’re just doing this dumb guard stuff until those Voidborn bastards fuck off.”
Tahnahos was visibly confused. He understood doing the work. After all, he existed to protect Life Goddesses, that was why he was made into a deity in the first place. But he couldn’t understand why Retvik and Arkay were doing this too.
“Why though? Why serve the Life Goddesses when us Divine Guardians already exist?”
“Because there are not enough Guardians…” Retvik tutted. “And the fact that Decaylings and Decay Lords seem to be in a constant struggle to be accepted.”
After some more fumbling around, Retvik finally found his keys and unlocked the ship by sticking the key into a low down panel. As he twisted it, a door opened and some steps appeared. With a grunt, Retvik nudged everyone inside, then pulled the stairs and door shut behind him.
“What do you mean?” Tahnahos queried as he glanced around the ship.
“Most Decay Lords are former death gods. Not the most… friendly company to have around…”
Like all Decay Lord ships, Retvik’s temporary mode of transport was mostly a single corridor with rooms on either side. This particular ship had a cockpit on the front, two “ship defence pods” on the sides, two sleeping quarters, kitchen and bathroom and the rest of the ship was storage and engines. Retvik and Arkay led the others to the cockpit, sitting everyone down, then started to get the ship ready for take off.
“Buy why though?” Tahnahos was still confused. “You are good people. And Retvik wasn’t even a death god in the first place!”
Neither of the Decaylings answered at first. Arkay started up the ship and took over the controls, guiding the ship off the little platform and out into the dark void. Once they were properly airborne, Arkay entered a location on the autopilot and let the ship fly itself.
“Tenuk, do you remember much from before we all ended up out here?” Arkay frowned. “Back inside Kinisis’s universe, I was hated by pretty much everyone. Sure, I was mostly a good being, but everyone still hated me no matter what I did. Now imagine the same thing but with an entire race of beings. We’re doing this stuff so that we don’t get everyone blaming the Decay Lords for everyone else’s fuck ups!”
“Oh… I… I see…” Tahnahos stuttered. “That seems… unfair…”
“It fucking is…” Arkay tutted, visibly angry and annoyed. “I thought I’d be able to escape all of this crap…”
“Calm down, Arkay…” Retvik tried to reassure his fellow Decayling. “This job is only temporary. When the Voidborn issue has been solved…”
“Yeah, and how long will that take?” Arkay snapped, before pausing and shaking his head. “Ugh. Sorry. Can we talk about something else? This is depressing me…”
“Like what?” Elksia smiled. “Like… like how we should steal this ship and go somewhere fun?”
Arkay and Retvik both rolled their eyes.
“No, not like that. Let’s get get back to the main ship…”