“You got any idea?”
“No, none at all.”
“Yeah, me neither.”
Arkay was supposed to be resting, it was supposed to be his time off, but he needed help with something. Or, rather, an old friend needed help with something. Arkay still had contact with the universe that had kept him prisoner for two billion years, mostly because he cared about the mortals within that universe. And while he and Kayel were busy playing games, he’d received some strange messages and questions from his old friend and most loyal worshipper, the Shadow of the Skyavok. But an hour later, and Arkay still didn’t have an answer to his friend’s questions.
In order to try and get an answer, Arkay decided to ask someone else. Multiple someones. His first choice was Thassalin, not just because he was a Time Drake, but because he was as old as Arkay was, if not older. He’d been a god in an old universe before he got caught up in the same universes Arkay had been trapped in.
“I mean, the temporal anomaly should be a simple fix but if the anomaly is outside the universe, then I don’t know if it’s fixable by someone inside the universe. All they can really do is mitigate the anomaly inside the universe until the external anomaly fizzles out on its own.”
“And how do they do that?”
Thassalin glanced at Arkay. “You don’t know?”
“I could work it out myself, even though I’m not a Time Drake, but we’re talking about baby deities here. They’ve been gods for like five minutes, and they need step by step guides.”
“Why is Kairos not helping them?”
Arkay shrugged. “Because he’s a selfish cunt?”
“Fair…” Thassalin trailed off, then shrugged as well. “I’ll be honest though, I have no idea what the object is. Never heard of something so innocuous. Is it really just sitting there, at the bottom of the universe?”
“Yeah. No one’s touched it, they’re all scared of it. The most they’ve done is use gravity to push it back out the universe, but it keeps on coming back.”
“Huh…” Thassalin trailed off again, thinking to himself. He remained thinking for a long time. Eventually, he looked up, not with an answer, but an idea. “We should ask the other former deities around here. Saahro and Vikalos in particular. Maybe they have seen something like this.”
“Good idea.” Arkay paused, feeling a tug on his arm. He’d forgotten about Kayel.
“You’ll be back later, right?”
“Of course.”
Arkay patted Kayel on the head, then rushed off with Thassalin to speak to Vikalos and Saahro. Luckily, neither of them were busy, they were both sitting in the canteen. They weren’t off duty, they were mostly just waiting to see if they were needed. Earlier that day, a rather large Voidborn had come in for Corruption removal, and since Kayel and Pah were rather small, Saahro and Vikalos had given them a hand. Arkay made his way over, plonked himself down and immediately poked Vikalos on the arm.
“You busy?” Arkay asked.
“Not at all, darling!” Vikalos smiled. “You look somewhat perturbed, as do you, dear Thassalin! What’s the problem?”
“Alright, I’m still in touch with the one person I didn’t bring with me and Epani decided to turn into the god of shadows and knowledge back in my old universe, and he’s run into something that he doesn’t understand. And I don’t have any answers for him, neither does Thassalin. Some sort of strange white anomaly keeps on nudging into the bottom of the universe. It’s a white, solid ball, about 6m across. They keep on kicking it out, while not touching it because they think it’s Corruption, and it keeps on coming back. It also seems to be connected to a time anomaly that causes people nearby to repeat themselves a lot. I wondered if either of you two ever encountered something while you guys were deities inside universes.”
“You never encountered something like that?” Vikalos exclaimed.
“Despite being a deity in two and a half universes, I haven’t heard of anything like this.”
Vikalos shrugged. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t heard of anything like that either. But admittedly,, I was the god of the underworld, I didn’t have much to do with what happened at the edges of the universe.”
“In all honesty?” Saahro added. “I’ve not heard of anything like that either. I was the grim reaper of my universe but I did do my own fair share of murder as a part of universal protection, and I was close with the Guard Lord who did most of the universe protection stuff, and he never ever mentioned anything like that…” Saahro glanced around. “Was anyone else in the Thantir an intrauniversal deity? We can’t ask your step-brothers or step-sisters, they probably won’t know…”
“Ask us what?”
Elkay-En looked less pissed off than normal. That was because he had been studying alongside Galyn and, finally, Elkay-En had learned some Life Goddess stuff. All he’d done was learn how to make a small vine, but to him, that was amazing progress. Galyn was also happy that he’d been able to help a Life Goddess.
Arkay shrugged, then explained the situation again. “There’s this big white ball, solid and about 6m across, that keeps on reappearing at the bottom of the universe a few days or hours after destroying it or kicking it out of the universe. It’s-”
“You need to seal it up in lead, right now.”
Everyone turned to Galyn, not expecting an answer.
“You know what it is?”
“Yes. It is an Episkept. A travelling visitor. While the object itself is harmless at a glance, they appear when something anomalous and related to time deities is due to occur, so they can feed off the potential time paradoxes and anomalies that a time deity can cause, and it causes repeating time anomalies to feed itself until those in-universe anomalies happen. Seal it in lead, do not let your Time Drake get close to it and erect a no-contact barrier around the area. It will eventually leave on its own if it is not fed.”
“And… how do you know, dear?” Vikalos asked.
“Several appeared in my universe when our resident time deity briefly went mad a few times, and another one appeared towards the end of my universe when Voidborns used some sort of paradox bomb to badly damage our time deity in a bid to destroy the universe. That last one apparently only left when the universe was about to die completely. I don’t know for sure though because I was ejected from the universe before… that happened.”
Arkay leaned forward. “So you’re saying my universe is at risk again?”
“Only if they let Kairos go near that Episkept. Keep him safe and happy, and the bastard will leave on its own.”
“Alright…” Arkay sighed as he started writing everything down, then got up and returned to his room. “I’ll tell them immediately. Thanks, Galyn.”
“Not a problem. Hopefully they should be fine though.”
“I bloody well hope so… I really, really bloody hope so…”