Retvik rubbed his eyes as consciousness returned to him. The last thing he remembered was his ship skidding to a halt in a vast darkness, and Retvik himself flying through the windscreen because he didn’t have his seatbelt on. Clearly, the impact with the ground hadn’t killed Retvik, but he found it odd how he was sitting in a chair and didn’t have any of that heavy, fake Voidborn armour on. To Retvik’s sides were his two companions, both of them asleep and just as naked as Retvik was, but, oddly, Arkay was still Life Goddess-shaped.
As Retvik’s vision cleared, it seemed that Litvir had begun to stir as well, but Arkay was completely out of it. At least, as far as Retvik could tell, the stab wound on Arkay’s side had healed.
“Welcome back, Missing.”
That voice was very familiar. Litvir and Retvik both looked up.
“Hello, Overlord Deathven…” Retvik muttered. “How did we get here?”
“One of you somehow managed to teleport and crash your ship here, in the Shadowsphere, my personal little pocket dimension.”
“Sorry…” Litvir immediately apologised. “I did not think of a definite location when I shadowjumped the ship. I just wanted to get us to safety, I thought about jumping to somewhere safe, I did not know how far away we were from home, a place that lacks a safe, shadowy place, and somehow ended up here, I guess.”
Deathven grunted. He was already seated and sipping a drink. Retvik and Litvir couldn’t quite tell what his mood was from where they were sitting, mostly because Deathven was currently very, very tall. “Hm. Well, I do consider myself a god of shadows. Perhaps, as the highest authority on shadows and darkness, that somehow forced your ‘shadowjump’, as you called it, to fall under my domain. That is quite curious. And your “shadowjump” ability is quite curious, I did not know you had such a power.”
“It is an emergency power. I rarely use it outside Savepoint because I struggle to calculate distances between jumps. And it is scary.”
“Very well…” Deathven glanced at Arkay. Arkay was still fast asleep. “Anyway, tell me what happened. Because Zizari seems to be dead.”
“Because Lady Gynesa killed her!” Litvir exclaimed. “You wanted us to find and kill the traitor. We did that. Prodota tried to kill Arkay and nearly managed it because she used some sort of Time Drake weapon, and Arkay killed Prodota before passing out! But Lady Gynesa knew all along that Prodota was planning to try and kill her! Apparently Prodota’s name means “traitor” or something in Life Goddess-speak! And then when we told her that Zizari had requested us to step in, Gynesa literally teleported off, killed Zizari and dropped her corpse in front of us!”
“And then Gynesa said she was going to kill us…” Retvik added. “She engulfed the place in shadow, turned the walls into spikes and lunged for us. So, of course, we fled, and Litvir shadowjumped us to our ship so we could escape.”
Deathven frowned, mostly in a bid to hide his surprise and concern. “So Gynesa killed Zizari?”
“Yes. Seemingly without remorse.”
“And the Life Goddess who plotted to kill Gynesa is also dead?”
Retvik nodded. “Yes. Arkay tried to convince Prodota to not go through with her plan. Prodota was partially convinced but decided to go through with her plans anyway, and attacked Arkay to stop him from stopping her. I do not know why Gynesa killed Zizari though. Zizari clearly had some sort of feud with Prodota, and potentially requested us to step in more because of that feud than because she was worried about Gynesa, but she did not deserve to be killed.”
Deathven sighed to himself. He glanced at Arkay again, then turned back to Retvik and Litvir. “Well… I think I owe you an apology. Zizari’s concerns about Gynesa being killed were real but it seemed Gynesa herself was not concerned in the slightest. And seemed to consider Zizari’s concerns and her bringing in outside assistance as some sort of… insult, I guess.”
“You owe us an apology?”
“I do. I should have spoken to Gynesa myself and gotten some proper confirmations. Life Goddesses are strange, fickle beings…”
“That is putting it lightly…” Litvir muttered under his breath.
“Well… uh… yes, I suppose that is true. Either way, I did not do enough research. And it did put you in harm’s way more than I had originally intended. I apologise for that. But you did also technically complete your mission, so I am going to… treat you a little.”
Retvik and Litvir seemed surprised.
“Really?”
“Yes. You do deserve it. I am actually somewhat surprised that you have served me willingly, and you have succeeded and pushed through everything that has been thrown at you so far. So I am going to let you go back to the Thantir for a little bit, so you can relax. Before that though, I have booked all three of you into a six-star hotel spa orbiting Deathven Sector Gamma, and you will spend an ev there to recover from your recent injuries. While yes, I have had you fixed up, the pain will linger for a bit. I have also had your ship repaired. For somewhat obvious reasons.”
Litvir glanced at Retvik, then tutted.
“I feel like there is a catch.”
“No. There is no catch. I made a mistake. I do not like making mistakes with my Hidden Trios. If the same thing had happened to the Taken or the Travellers, I would be giving them the same treatment.”
“And what about Arkay?” Retvik asked. “He is still asleep.”
“That is common when you are stabbed with a Time Drake fang. Arkay will return to consciousness in a few hours. He will be alright, he just needs time to recover. Having been harmed by a Time Drake in the past, it does take longer than normal to recover…” Deathven trailed off for a moment. “Anyway, I shall send you three off. Enjoy yourselves.”
Before anyone else could say anything, the three Missing disappeared. They reappeared back on their ship, in their main bedroom, and their ship’s autopilot was already on, heading towards the aforementioned hotel.
“Well… that could have gone worse…” Retvik muttered.
“Yeah…” Litvir sighed. “Anyway, I am going to take a nap.”
Retvik patted Litvir on the shoulder. “You do that. I will go check on the navigation stuff. I will wake you up when we get there…”