“Oh, my little stars, you are adorable!”
Deathven had once again teleported Arkay, Litvir and Retvik into his personal office, but today, the Overlord wasn’t alone. Standing with him, only slightly shorter than him, was a beautiful, lizard-like Life Goddess. She was tall, slender and had shimmering diamonds embedded in her skin. She was also completely naked, with everything on display.
Arkay was well aware that the Life Goddess was talking about him, but decided to directly address Deathven first.
“Have you ever accidentally crashed a ship because you’ve teleported its occupants out while they were flying and they didn’t manage to hit the breaks in time?”
Deathven tutted. “A few times, when I was quite young. Now, I force the ships to stop before I teleport you out.”
“But you didn’t quite check to make sure that I was dressed!” Arkay hissed. “I’m almost naked right now. And I’m saying that while standing in front of a completely naked Life Goddess. Thank you for the compliment, by the way, but I’m not that adorable.”
The Life Goddess smiled. “You are utterly adorable. And you are exactly the sort of strange being I am looking for!”
“How comes?”
“Well!” the Life Goddess beamed. “You can make yourself into one of us!” The Life Goddess suddenly paused. “Actually, I should introduce myself first. I am Lady Zizari, I am a member of the Gymne Life Goddess Association, and I am a rather concerned little lady currently! But wonderful old Deathven here tells me that you three darlings will be able to assist me with my problems!”
Litvir waved awkwardly. “Hello, Lady Zizari. My name is Litvir, this is Retvik and the little cutie here is Arkay. How can we assist you?”
Zizari grinned. “Deathven described you three as being very good at solving things, and doing so somewhat discretely. Also, one of you is a Psion and one of you is capable of completely disguising yourself as a Life Goddess. The problem is quite simple: I know SOMEONE is plotting to try and kill Great Lady Gynesa, the leader of the Gymne, in order to replace her with a puppet. This will most likely happen at our Great Get Together, where we visit Gynesa’s Life Oasis, built above and around a colossal, ancient universe. The Life Oasis protects the universe Gynesa built, and both it and the universe are ancient, but killing Gynesa will also massively damage the universe. But I don’t know who it is, and there will be a LOT of Life Goddesses present, and I am certain the traitor won’t mind killing a ton of other Life Goddesses and a universe if he or she needs to.”
“So… you want us to find this traitor Life Goddess?” Retvik asked.
“Yep!” Zizari smiled some more. “I want your freakish Psion here to find out who the person is, I want the cute little mimic to isolate the plotting traitor and I want all three of you to kill her, discretely. I will provide you with a guest card and invitation so you can get in, and I will also provide you with a black bag to put the traitor’s ashes in, if you need it and there are any remains.”
“You… just want us to kill this Life Goddess? At a party surrounded by other Life Goddesses?”
Zizari nodded. “There will be at least a hundred Life Goddesses at the party. Not just members of the Gymne, a lot of guests as well, and most of the Life Goddesses will have guards, either heavily armoured Voidborns or heavily armoured Divine Guardians. No one will miss whoever the traitor is. And since most Life Goddesses are blunt, obvious beings, I am certain that our little fanged Psion here will find the traitor quite easily.”
Retvik and Litvir glanced at each other. However, Arkay had other concerns.
“I’m guessing there’s a catch here. Because I don’t know why you’re getting Decay Lords involved in this.”
“We have deals with friendly Life Goddess groups,” Deathven explained. “Deals to keep the peace. Deals to disturb the peace if needed. As a Hidden Trio, you three straddle the line between Deathvenian interference and unknown mercenaries, free from external blame. This is just the sort of thing you three are made for.”
“I already get that, that’s what we’ve been doing for you lately, secret work that you can’t be blamed for if things go wrong. I’m asking what the catch is with helping Lady Zizari here. I assume the big thing is that you want me to make myself into a Life Goddess so I can insert myself into this party?”
“Yes, basically!” Zizari was annoyingly chirpy. “You will make yourself into a cute little Life Goddess, while your two companions will need to really cover themselves in armour and make themselves a little Voidborn-esque. Big, bad, burly guardians in traditionally black armour that they can’t take off. Also, little one, you will have to be naked. Breasts out at minimum.”
“All things concerned, that is not the worst?” Litvir shrugged, ignoring Arkay’s discomfort. “Arkay has made himself into a Life Goddess before, it should not be an issue. And I do not mind wearing armour, we wear armour all the time anyway.”
Retvik wasn’t too concerned either. At least, not about himself. “As long as the Life Goddesses do not try to seduce us, we should be fine.”
“Well, they might!” Zizari was still smiling. “You two are gorgeous. But I am certain you can solve this problem for me nice and fast. The faster, the better. And once the traitor is dead, I shall award you with riches. And formal membership among the Gymne, if you want it.”
“You three accept this duty, yes?” Deathven grunted.
“We don’t have a choice, do we?” Arkay growled back.
Retvik and Litvir both patted Arkay on the shoulder. “It will be fine, my dear. This seems very simple and very quick. We will be in and out in no time, yes?”
“Ugh… fine…” Arkay gave in. “When are we going?”
“Pretty much straight away.”
“Oh…”
Deathven gave the team some more information. “You will have 24 hours to prepare yourselves. But yes, you will be heading to this event rather quickly. You will be fine.”
Before Arkay could argue, Deathven snapped his fingers, and the three Missing found themselves back on their ship. The autopilot had already been set and their ship had already changed course.
“Well, at least this will be brief!” Litvir did his best to be optimistic. “Arkay, do you need any help with your disguise?”
Arkay tutted, then headed to his room. “Yes, but not yet. I’m gonna need a few hours to sort myself out.”
“No worries, dear. Call us if you need us.”