The good news, Tahvra was finally asleep. He’d been in a state of near panic for far too long, jumping at shadows and begging Akah to stay with him at all times. Of course, Akah had done just that, to the point that he’d let Tahvra sit on his lap like a cat, and they’d watched videos of cute animals with gentle music together. Eventually, after a few hours, Tahvra had settled down, closed his eyes and started gently purring himself.
The bad news, Tahvra had been sleeping on Akah’s lap for about an hour, and while Akah had been able to play games in relative silence as Tahvra slept, his legs were definitely getting a bit numb. Tahvra may have been small, but he was still rather heavy.
Still, Akah didn’t mind suffering for a bit longer. Tahvra needed him. And Akah was Tahvra’s best friend, he would happily do anything to make Tahvra happy and help him feel safe. Tahvra would do the same for him, if he were awake and Akah needed help.
Thankfully, playing video games helped Akah keep his mind off the lack of circulation in his legs. As he finished a mission and returned to his ship though, Akah noticed that he’d received a message in his inbox.
Weirdly, someone had sent him a gift. A gift of one single DNA strand item, used to create custom pets. With the gift was a note: “dude get off solo mode and check the clan chat i can see ur online rn”
Akah snickered. The gift was from his new digital friend Kayel, a mortal who had accidentally discovered this game, and had been playing with Akah for a bit. Considering Kayel was on a handheld console, he wasn’t too bad at the game, he mostly just spammed melee to kill things. With a smile, he did as he was told and switched onto public matchmaking and glanced in the clan chat. There were five people online, including Akah himself. One more than normal.
“Oh fuck…” Akah accidentally swore. “Huh… Um…”
Akah had a bit of a problem now. He needed to call Litvir and get him to see this, but he also didn’t want to wake Tahvra up. So both moving and shouting were out of the question. Neither was getting his communicator, which was lying on the bed behind Akah. However, there were multiple telepaths among the Thantir, so make if Akah thought hard enough, Litvir might pick up on that and come along to see what was up.
So that was what Akah did. And, after about a minute, there was a knock on the door. The door was already open, but Akah was somewhat dismayed that the wrong person had showed up.
“Hello.”
“Hello, Elkay!” Akah smiled, being careful not to stir Tahvra. “What’s up?”
“Eksi has a headache and asks if you could stop thinking so loudly. But clearly you need something?”
“I do, yes. Can you fetch Litvir for me, please? I… am a little preoccupied right now, but he needs to both grab his laptop and come and see this.”
Elkay blinked in confusion. “Why?”
“Because, uh, our strange video game friend Kayel is online and he wants to talk to me and Litvir?”
Elkay blinked some more. “… Kayel?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. Eksi’s mother was called Kayel.”
“It’s also a reversal of the two Skyan-like letters that make up your name.”
“That… um…” Elkay pondered some more, then swiftly gave up. “I will go and fetch Litvir, as you requested.”
“Thank you!”
Rather oddly, Elkay teleported away in a flash of orange sparkles. Akah shrugged, assuming that Elkay was just practising borrowing other people’s powers again. While Akah waited, he gently adjusted Tahvra’s position so his drool was no longer dripping down a gap in Akah’s armour. Eventually, Litvir turned up, with his laptop, as requested.
“I take it you have good news?” Litvir immediately asked as he entered. “Because if this is about some stupid two minute cut scene where you follow a stupid fluffy kitty around a stupid abandoned mall again, I will smack your stupid mask off your stupid face.”
“That… that is harsh…”
Litvir sighed, then apologized. “Sorry. I just had to put down someone’s fluffy puppy that got completely and utterly corrupted. Is… is Tahvra alright?”
Akah glanced down. Tahvra was still fast asleep. “Yes, he’s doing better. I got him to rest, finally.”
“Are your legs alright? Tahvra is quite heavy. Literally a ball of muscle and chitin.”
“I’m fine. I’m not important though, I have good news. I think Arkay is online in the game!”
“Really?”
“Yes! Both Kayel’s KL1492L account and an account called Arkay are in the clan chat! He’s currently chatting with that VikingTeddy guy who’s been in the clan since forever.”
Litvir’s eyes widened. He immediately opened up his laptop and started it up, then logged into the game as fast as possible. As Akah had said, Arkay’s account was active. In fact, Akah had received an invite, to the clan’s base, which Akah quickly accepted. Once Litvir was in, he headed to the clan base as well. As the game loaded, Litvir inspected the chat and tried to work out what to say.
VikingTeddy: Hey dude long time no see. Still stuck?
Arkay: Yeah, sadly. Things are turning around though.
VikingTeddy: Good to hear. My arm’s getting better.
Arkay: Oh, what did you do to your arm?
VikingTeddy: Broke it.
Arkay: Ouch.
KL1492L: ow get wel soon
VikingTeddy: Thanks, weird mortal guy.
KL1492L: nw
KL1492L: iceshield dude u taking ur sweet time
Akah sighed and quickly typed a reply.
IceShield: Sorry, guys! I currently have my best friend sleeping on my lap and I don’t really want to wake him up.
KL1492L: tbh id say thats weird but im best friends with a rethan and a spast and tenuk sits on retviks lap all the time lol
Litvir eyed Akah. Akah just shrugged. Litvir frowned, then shrugged as well, then joined the chat.
Phovos: Arkay! It has been ages! How are you?
Arkay: Hi, Phovos.
Arkay: Mate, you’re still only MR5.
Phovos: Well, you stopped playing, so I somewhat stopped playing. My friend IceShield told me you popped online so I got online to chat.
As the level loaded in, Litvir took control of his character, a blue and orange sword character named Excalibur. Also present were Akah’s ice character, Frost, and two Volts, both in yellow, but it was clear as day which one was Arkay and which one was the unknown Kayel person. Kayel’s Volt was jumping around like an idiot.
Phovos: How are you, Arkay? We missed you.
Arkay: I’ve been… busy.
KL1492L: that phovos dude is ur boyfriend arkay lol
There was a brief pause.
Arkay: Why is your username Phovos?
Phovos: The name ‘Litvir’ was unavailable.
Arkay: Ah. Huh.
Arkay: I haven’t played in ages.
Phovos: You never took me to farm Endo.
Another pause. Litvir hesitated, then decided to just privately message Arkay.
Phovos: Can we message you on Wyvern? I would like to speak to you.
Arkay: Uh, sure, but I need to download some updates and that’s going to take forever in-universe. Took me half a day to download the updates for this bloody game. Gimme two hours?
Phovos: Sure.
Litvir smiled and turned to Akah, who clearly wasn’t paying attention and was happily text chatting with Kayel and VikingTeddy. Apparently they all needed endo and had agreed to do a couple of missions together. In fact, the VikingTeddy person had asked Arkay if he wanted to join them. Litvir typed one more message.
Phovos: I will leave you to your game time with your friends. I will message you when you get online on Wyvern.
Arkay: Alright, speak soon.
“Wow…” Litvir eventually gasped.
“Wow what?” Akah asked, before suddenly realizing that he’d gotten distracted by the game. “Oh. Wow, yes, Arkay is online. Also, he has so much gear… What?”
“I worry you are obsessing about this game a little.”
Akah very cautiously shrugged. He didn’t want to wake Tahvra up. Although, clearly, Tahvra seemed completely unbothered. “It’s only because these are nice, normal things I didn’t get to enjoy as a mortal. And, also, well, this Kayel guy seems really nice.”
“Fair, I guess. Speak soon.”
Akah smiled a little as Litvir headed off, taking his laptop with him. He glanced down at Tahvra, checking that his friend was alright and still asleep, then smiled again and went back to his game.
IceShield: Sorry, guys, we can start the mission now. Just had to say bye to Phovos. He wanted to join us, but he’s busy right now.
Arkay: Yeah, no worries mate. Nice meeting you, by the way.
IceShield: Heh, nice meeting you too.
Arkay: Shall we start then?
IceShield: Yes, of course.