The Wandering Star Guider was a very large ship, which was weird, because it only housed three individuals, a Hidden Named Trio known as the Travellers. Because it was so large, the ship couldn’t actually park at Savepoint, and instead the ship had to be chained to the side of the floating island. But with the local grav-mags Nuh and Gah busy with some clients, the job of leaping off Savepoint while carrying a bunch of chains and drifting towards the Wandering Star Guider ended up falling to a Decayling, with some assistance from Galyn, Tenuk and Litvir.
After half an hour of messing around, Ret finally managed to get his new gravity powers to properly cooperate, the ship was now secure and a large docking ramp extended from the ship down to the island proper. However, as the ship’s owners spotted Ret, they did give him an odd look before heading down.
“Nice place you has!” Eta Carinae, codename Starsoarer, a colossal, long, serpentine red dragon with mint green horns and celestial flames running down her back, beamed with excitement as her feet touched solid ground.
“Unusual place. Looks like a renovated Life Goddess oasis!” Ziital, codename Wanderer, a reptilian being in a heavily armoured red and white suit, that looked a bit like a Temthan but apparently came from a race called the Tenthalites (and had no real idea if they still existed) nodded in agreement, as the young Decayling led them to the central area.
Eta spun around briefly and turned to Ret. “Alsos, Retvik, you is of the smaller nows! And you is grav mag as well as flame! And you smell funny! Like little Mimic!”
“Um… wrong Retvik…” Ret frowned slightly. “Kyr Retvik is waiting for us up ahead.”
Orion, the last member of the Wanderers, hissed at Eta for being stupid, then eyed Ret with some concern. “You’re clearly not Flamebearer, but you have the same name as him and look like him”
Ret shrugged. “It is something to do with Time Drakes, but I do not understand it myself. I shorten my name to Ret to avoid confusion, and I was given the codename Lightbearer. But I do not look that much like Kyr Retvik, only at a glance. His trims are both silver and gold, while mine are all gold…” Ret paused for a moment. “You are a very cute fluffy kitty, can I pet you?”
Orion stopped floating and stared at Ret. Sure, his physical form was that of a large, black house cat, with metal bands around his neck, tail and legs, but it’d been a while since someone requested to stroke him. “What the fuck?”
“I apologise, I do not know the etiquette when it comes to actually sapient fluffy kitties and asking them if they allow themselves to be pet…” Ret frowned. “Anyway, everyone is waiting for you.”
Orion didn’t have a chance to accept Ret’s apology, as he immediately noticed that something fishy was going on. The Tattered Navigators and two thirds of the Missing were present, as expected. But there were also five cats and one panther all sitting there, waiting for Orion to approach.
“Alright, I swear, you Thantir are genuinely fucking with me!”
“Because we are?” one of the cats purred.
Orion inspected the cats some more. Two of them were blue, but different shades of blue, and one of them was way more accurate than the other. One of them was black with icy blue eyes but seemed to have little patches of metal plating underneath its fur. Another cat looked normal but was very, very dark green with similar sky blue eyes. The panther seemed normal but very muscular. The last cat was a perfect, pitch black cat with bright yellow eyes, wearing metal bands around its body the same way Orion did. Ziital noticed that Ret quickly left their side and went to pet one of the cats in particular, the more accurate blue one.
“Is hilarious!” Eta giggled with amusement. “Friends for Orion! Not many kitties out here! Orion, you be friendly with them!”
“Cats are territorial…” Orion hissed.
“They can also of the shares!”
Orion tutted, then turned his attention to all the cats again. To his dismay, he found that the cat wearing bands was… female and… kinda cute. Thankfully though, one of the cats decided they were sick of the joke and shapeshifted back to normal. This prompted the others to return to their normal forms as well.
“This is fucking stupid…” Phovoula growled.
“Agreed…” Elkay sighed, no longer being a panther. Weirdly, he didn’t have wings right now. The last time Orion had spoken to Elkay, he had wings. “Still, it was good practice, even if I cannot change my size very well. Hello again, Travellers.”
“Hi!” Eta continued to beam. “Is good to see you of the agains, Elkay! Also, hello, big Tattered Navigators! And Missing! All three of the yous!”
Ziital and Orion should have been paying attention to the yellow-plated being that had made its way to Retvik and Litvir’s side, but their attention was drawn to the two green-furred beings.
“You… picked up a Voidborn?” Ziital asked. “One that looks eerily like your Life Goddess?”
Phovos nodded, then put an arm around Phovoula. “Yep. This is Phovoula. We’re teaching her to be a good Adogtic Voidborn and a Decay Lord.”
“A… female Voidborn…” Ziital hesitated. “Those are uncommon. Especially… weirdly fleshy Voidborns. I’d hazard a guess, you would have been born a normal mortal, but something happened that disconnected your birth from the Life Goddess of your universe, and was somehow manipulated to have been born or hatched outside your universe?”
Phovoula grunted, then nodded as well. “That’s basically it, yeah. But I don’t want to be a Voidborn, I want to be a Decay Lord. Voidborns are all assholes, as far as I’m aware.”
Ziital and Eta both shrugged.
“You do have a point there… Anyway, hello, Thantir. For those of you who we haven’t met before, we’re the Travellers. My name is Ziital, these are my eternal companions Eta Carinae and Orion.”
“And you were sent here by Deathven because you heard rumours I was alive again?” the third member of the Missing asked, before suddenly pausing. “Oh… I am so sorry. I kinda… borrowed Litvir’s telepathy and totally didn’t introduce myself.”
“You is Arkay, yes?” Eta immediately wobbled over and got a little too close to Arkay. “You is nice. Nice looks. Nice smell. Like your friends but small! But also is likes the former Phantai!”
“Huh. Most people complain I stink of freshly cut grass…” Arkay smiled. “Nice to meet you! Yes, I’m Arkay Theanon, codename Deathbringer. And, before you ask, yes, I am a Synaisthyn, what you all call an Amalgam Mimic.”
Orion glanced at Ziital, then turned back to Arkay. “You have the same surname as the only other Amalgam Mimic Decay Lord?”
“Yeah. It’s weird but Kinisis, the person who made both me and Elkay into, well, freaks, she kept on using the same Time Drake, which caused a bunch of repeats. It’s why there’s two Retviks, two Tenuks and two Phovoses here, and why Elkay and Kayel would have had the same name had Kayel not changed his name legally a year ago. Are you really only here just to confirm I’m alive?”
Orion hissed. “No…”
“Yes, admittedly…” Ziital immediately undermined Orion’s answer. “Deathven has a… fear that there might be more than two confirmed Amalgam Mimics.”
“Synaisthyns!” Elkay corrected the Travellers. “We want to be called Synaisthyns.”
“Why?”
“Because “Amalgam Mimic” is a stupid name. Yes, we mimic some powers, but I in particular am not an amalgam, I am still, at my core, a Rethavok, with the same genetics as my half-brother! And why would you think there are more Synaisthyns?”
Orion gestured towards Arkay. “You two are compatible species, apparently.”
“… Excuse me?” Elkay was genuinely annoyed now. “That is insane AND insulting! Firstly, Arkay is, as far as we are all aware, a Threan-type Retha, which is NOT compatible with a Rethavok like me, and secondly, I AM MARRIED. My husband is standing literally right here.”
Arkay tutted as well. “Yeah, that’s rather insulting.”
Eta though pointed at Ret and fluffy Tenuk. “They smells a bit of the yous though.”
“They’re not Synaisthyns though…” Arkay sighed. “They can’t mimic Life Goddess or Time Drake powers like me and Elkay can. Sure, I deified them before I was ripped out of my universe, but they just have a few more powers than most, and no more than all the stuff Vikalos here can do.”
The three Travellers had a quick telepathic conversation. The nearby telepaths all picked up that Orion was very concerned, but all of a sudden, Ziital clapped his hands together.
“Well, that’s all fine. There’s still only two Synaisthyns here, that’s all Overlord Deathven needs to know. In the mean time, we’d love to get to know you all better. Especially you, Arkay. You seem like an interesting one.”
Arkay thought to himself, then shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Litvir, Retvik, babes, do we have much more work to do today?”
“Not really. Kal said they wanted to cover things.”
“Alright. So shall we set up a bonfire, get some drinks and snacks and tell stories?”
Retvik grinned. “Of course.”