“So, what now?”
Galyn’s office was normally only ever used by Galyn, but since he was currently unconscious, the rest of the Thantir Decay Lords were using his office as a makeshift meeting room. Currently present were Retvik and Litvir, the two former Decaylings Galyn had helped raise to Lordhood, Lady of Decay Seimeni, a long-serving member of the Thantir, both a Decay Lord and a Life Goddess, and Tah, the tiny, red and silver Cleanser, who was representing the team known as Kal, a group of Decay Lords who had recently been properly appointed as members of the Thantir after years of serving alongside them as associates. Although all six members of Kal considered themselves as equals, Tah was normally the one who normally acted as leader, despite being the weakest of the team.
“That’s a good question!” Seimeni was sitting on Galyn’s desk, legs apart, intentionally trying to distract Retvik and Litvir, but somehow failing. “What DO we do now? Because Galyn’s normally in charge and he’s still out of it!”
“Are you sure he’s not dead?” Tah asked. “He’s been in that cocoon for a while.”
Retvik grunted, keeping his eyes focused on Tah. The round, mechanical creature literally a third of his height was the least annoying thing in the room. “The last time this happened, when it was just Galyn, Litvir, Arkay and myself, Galyn remained in a cocoon for a week before waking up, and he was not nearly as badly injured as he currently is.”
“Yes but… we aren’t really picking up any brain activity from him…”
“I believe that is normal,” Litvir sighed. “He has sealed himself off. This happened last time. At some point, Galyn will wake up and explode out of his cocoon. Most likely when someone is about to check on him, covering them in green goo.”
Tah glanced up at Litvir. “I assume that happened last time too.”
“unfortunately…” Retvik tutted. “Either way, I believe Galyn will be fine. But in the mean time, we need to do, well, something. While Litvir and I do not have a problem continuing the technical studies with our Decaylings, they require practical training as well, and we simply do not know the area well enough to be able to pick out exercises that will not get anyone hurt. We are desperately trying to not make the same mistakes Galyn made with us.”
Seimeni giggled, now sitting in a more ladylike manner. “It’s been going pretty well so far. Only one Voidborn has attacked us, and we haven’t had any Life Goddesses attacking us yet. And we don’t need to worry about constantly monitoring your emotions and energy levels with invasive trackers.”
Tah clicked a couple of times. “That is… wait, you used to track that sort of thing?”
“Yep.”
“That is very invasive.”
The ghostly Decay Lord turned to her little mechanical friend, pointing a slender finger at Tah. “You six are lucky, you guys became Decay Lords at Deathven proper before you ended up out here. Retvik, Litvir and their Lost Third had to fight through an infinite forest of corruption in order to become Decay Lords. Because Litvir’s emotional levels spiked briefly.”
“Actually, we were only in Deathven for about 200 hours before we got shipped out because they thought we were Voidborns. We became Decay Lords under the training of the Metrum, before they split up.” Tah’s eyes dimmed. “Although I am so glad the six of us are mechanical and can turn our emotions off. Must have been very rough for you all…”
Litvir waved his hand dismissively. “You were not to know, Tah. It is all in the past anyway, and things should be easier for our own Decaylings. Even Tahvra and Akah, who are a little behind on their training.”
“Yeah, sorry-”
“Why are you so timid and apologetic, Tah?” Retvik interrupted. “You are completely mechanical but are more apologetic than Arkay was.”
“I think it’s because we essentially killed a universe. Makes you feel guilty. Plus, we did somewhat slack on getting Akah and Tahvra all registered as Decaylings. Didn’t really know what to do with them in general. So, yeah, sorry about that.”
Retvik grunted. “Whatever. Not your fault. The original question remains though, what do we do now?”
“Hm…” Tah thought to himself for a moment, before opening up a small calendar. “We kinda do have work to do. Managed to reschedule a few of our meetings, which we need to get back to, but with a Voidborn having just rampaged through the area, demand for basic check-ups is probably going to spike, so we’ll be a little preoccupied.”
“Perhaps we could accompany you?” Litvir suggested. “After all, I am quite interested in your work, and, as I believe one of you six stated, it is a dying occupation.”
Tah’s eyes lit up rather brightly, as did the tone of his voice. “You want to get into purification?”
“I would, yes.”
“That… that would be awesome!” Tah teleported onto the desk next to Seimeni, grabbing a pen and some paper. “You lot already have a lot of the basic tools! You already have a powerful heat source, a couple of telepaths, a couple of healers and I think pretty much everyone on board has some sort of telekinesis! We got all the basics covered, just need to teach you all how to do it!”
“Is it difficult?” Seimeni asked, watching intently as Tah scribbled things down.
“Not really. Once you know what you’re looking for, it’s just a little tedious and fiddly. Technically, since Seimeni is a Life Goddess, she can do it pretty much instantly since she’s got access to pretty much every power under the sun. Same applies to Phovos, with some training…” Tah continued to write things down. “Great thing is, between Tahvra, Eksi and you, Litvir, we can also do more work when it comes to removing Life Goddess-based mind control as well!”
Retvik gave Tah an odd look, one Tah didn’t seem to notice or understand. “Why are you so excited about this?”
“You have no idea how frustrating it was, bouncing between the Thantir, the Phantai and the Justar, doing purification jobs for them, especially when we were all sharing my old body. We did a good job, yes, but we were literally six beings sharing one body doing a massive job. But with the Thantir actually helping? We could do so much more! By the Nest, we could have the Thantir completely converted into doing purifications, it’s so much more rewarding and actually useful, not to mention safer!”
Litvir shrugged. “I am convinced. I think we should do it.”
Retvik grunted, then thought to himself for a moment. “Well… I suppose it would be a good avenue to at least investigate. We can always go back to the Thantir’s original duties of navigational mapping and exploration. There is a small problem though.”
“What is it?” Tah settled down slightly.
“Galyn may not approve.”
Seimeni seemed untroubled by this. She put her arm around Tah, smiling cheerfully. “Fuck Galyn. He’s not in charge right now, we are. Let’s help Kal for a bit and see where things go. We might even enjoy it, right, Tah?”
Tah clicked excitedly. “It is definitely a fulfilling job.”
“Very well…” Litvir got up and bowed. “I shall gather the Decaylings and inform them of the new plan. In the mean time, Tah, go through your list of meetings, point us in the right direction, then work out what needs to be done to start training everyone up. Are we clear?”
The other Decay Lords all nodded.
“Good!” Litvir clapped his hands together. “Let us get to work!”