Normally the Skyavok authorities wouldn’t dare interrupt Arkay while he was working, but today, Arkay assumed they had a good reason. After all, he did… kinda invite his godly siblings to a Skyan mall and they did kinda overdo things a little bit. The Skyans were probably just wondering what happened and who would pay for the mess Yisini made.
After the third, somewhat polite knock on the door, Arkay waved his hand and let whoever it was in. Surprisingly, just one being entered, Kayel, the All-Ksa of the Skyavok. A rather unconventional leader doing his best to make everyone happy.
“Heya, how can I help you?” Arkay immediately asked looking up from his work. He quickly realised he maybe should have taken a break or something. He had quite clearly lost track of time.
“I, uh…” Kayel hesitated. He always hesitated, probably because he was talking to a death god, but also because he always seemed to have a lot on his mind. A lot of things left unsaid. Kayel was genuinely a rather open Skyavok, but it was clear to Arkay that he had buried thoughts and opinions that would never see the light of day. “I kinda wanted to ask about a thing…”
“What thing?”
“A time thing. A hiccup.”
Arkay tilted his head. “So you felt all of that?”
Kayel remained in the doorway. Arkay got up, closed the door and led him to the table, sitting him down.
“Sorry, I’m not being a good host,” Arkay smiled. “Do you want anything to drink?”
“You got any caramel soda?” Kayel asked.
“I do.”
Arkay got up again, brought over two drinks and a bowl of potato crisps and sat back down, still smiling.
“You don’t seem right.”
“My advisors told me that they think the universe broke briefly.”
Arkay’s smile faded. “Oh. So you… you all noticed.”
“I don’t think everyone noticed. Just some vok. I don’t know how, but that’s what my advisors are telling me. That time stopped very briefly.”
“Well…” Arkay’s smile had faded completely. He was hoping that mortals hadn’t noticed anything bad had happened. It would make the gods look pretty bad. Well, to be fair, Arkay thought his fellow deities looked pretty bad anyway, but that was besides the point. “You’d be correct. Something did go wrong briefly. That’s why I’m here, I’m trying to work out what happened.”
“Do you know yet?”
“No.”
“Oh…”
Kayel fell silent, twiddling his thumbs. Arkay watched him for a moment, then decided to ask a question.
“How did you detect what happened?”
“Dunno. Something about some sort of sub-atomic particle explosion that should only have happened should time be still. A very small thing only really detectable within our dark territories. Well, that’s what the scientists said. Ξ-Class said something else.”
Arkay didn’t quite understand what Kayel was talking about. “Aren’t the Ξ-Class based on external affairs and things like that?”
“Yeah.”
“So how do they know?”
Kayel sat up straight, looking directly at the Thantophor. “Do you know what a Tragon is?”
“A Dragon?”
“No, a Tragon.”
Arkay blinked. “Uh… I… I’m not sure?”
“We’re not either…” Kayel’s voice dropped down into a whisper. “It’s like… we’ve never encountered them before. And we have the Voidspace pretty well mapped out. It’s like… they just appeared out of thin air.”
The Thantophor leaned forward, pushing everything to one side. “Do you have any more information on these Tragons?”
“Uh…” Kayel hesitated. “Probably?”
Arkay immediately stood up, lifting Kayel up with him. “Good. Show me. Because I need to know everything…”