Galyn grunted as the to fledgling Decay Lords burst into the room behind him. He was in the middle of going through flight apparatus with Arkay, making sure he as learning the ship’s instruments correctly, so this sudden interruption was not particularly nice. But since Retvik and Litvir both seemed rather concerned, he knew better than to ignore them.
“What is the problem?”
“Ser, we saw a strange flash of light in the observatory, as if something briefly passed through!”
Galyn turned to Retvik first, who had gotten straight to the point.
“What sort of flash?”
“An otherworldly one, something that felt like it should not have belonged.”
“What colour?”
Retvik hesitated for a moment. “Uh. White. Mostly white. Maybe some pink.”
“Mhm…” Galyn continued his questioning. “And what observatory were you in?”
“The third one.”
The elder Decay Lord eyed Retvik and Litvir suspiciously. “Did we not tell you that you are not allowed in that observatory? Is your own private observatory not good enough?”
Litvir crossed his arms, somewhat angrily, not at all amused by Galyn’s accusations. “None of you told us that the third observatory was out of bounds. Vikalos mentioned in passing to leave it alone but none of you even hinted at its existence and just left a note on the door saying “no Decaylings allowed”. But we are Decay Lords now, so we decided to go in!”
Galyn grunted, still giving the young Decay Lords a funny look, but he quickly lowered his tone. “I would be vaguely annoyed, but you argue a good point, Litvir. I guess we did not actually tell you not to go in there…” Galyn paused, remembering that he had been in the middle of teaching Arkay buttons on the ship’s main console. He turned back to Arkay, who was happily and patiently swinging his feet from the oversized captain’s chair. “Uh, Arkay, will you be alright for a moment? I need Litvir and Retvik to show me what they saw.”
Arkay beamed. “Of course!”
“Do not touch anything.”
“You know I won’t!”
With the smallest Decayling dealt with, Galyn grabbed Retvik and Litvir and marched them back down the hallway, to the entrance to the third observatory. The door was messily pulled shut and only just locked. Clearly the Decaylings had scrambled to close it, worrying about a breach. Galyn was thankful that these two were at least mindful, even if they were rule-benders.
Tutting, Galyn peered through the glass window in the door, inspecting the room from the outside. After a couple of seconds, flicking through various light frequencies, he opened the door up and stepped inside. Sitting in the middle of the room was a faint, ghostly creature, obviously very feminine.
“Life Goddess, are you resting?” Galyn asked, lowering his voice.
The creature turned to face Galyn. Its face was rather canine-like, and it had a frilly pink mane. At the sight of Galyn, it immediately smiled. “Yes yes! Just resting here!”
“Will you be resting for long?”
“No no! Just a short while! Long travels without rest! Never good!”
“Very well. Please leave the room as you found it.”
“Yes yes! Will do!”
Galyn backed out of the room and closed the door behind him, triple-checking that it was locked. He then turned back to Retvik and Litvir, both of whom were very confused.
“I must apologise, I neglected to mention another common service Decay Lords tend to offer. Life Goddesses normally rarely use ships and travel on their own. Us Decay Lords, anyone travelling through the Void, will leave a room free for passing Life Goddesses to rest in before they continue on their travels. And in return for allowing them to rest here, the Life Goddesses pass information on to us and warn us of dangers ahead. The reason we forbid you from entering is the… unspoken rule… that we keep our interactions to a minimum.”
“That seems rather… unsafe…” Retvik muttered.
“It is…” Galyn tutted. “But as long as the specially designed room remains locked, then any issues are minimized. Now, I must insist that you two not use this room. Understood?”
Litvir nodded awkwardly. Retvik reluctantly agreed.
Satisfied, Galyn clapped his hands together. “Alright. Come join me back in the cockpit. You two will probably want to see the nice view that we are about to visit…”