“I assume you wanted to see all of us, yes?” Vikalos asked as he entered Retvik and Litvir’s office. Already waiting for him were his two Beh’en partners and the two aforementioned Thantir leaders. Arkay wasn’t around, but he was currently doing guard duty, so Itaviir could have a break.
“We did, yes!” Litvir smiled. “You three are far more experienced in raising Decaylings and getting them to become Decay Lords.”
“Well, you are completely right about that…” Galyn tutted. “We have already decided that, should something happen to our Decaylings in their trial, whoever goes to Deathven proper, Itaviir goes with you. And potentially gets violent.”
“You… already decided that?” Retvik frowned. He glanced at Litvir, and his smile was already gone as well.
“Mhm,” Vikalos nodded. “After all, our new set of Decaylings are even stranger than the last. Elkay was the only real anomaly last time. This time round? We have four half-Synaisthyns, a much more powerful Time Drake and a Newling Voidborn. Technically, out of our current group, there are only two actual Decaylings. One of whom has the same telepathic prowess that Litvir has.”
“Oh, Vikalos, you may not know, but Kuta is far more powerful than I am. They are just unrefined.”
Everyone turned to Litvir, surprised that he had just been blatantly honest.
“What?” Litvir shrugged. “It is true. Kuta has always been more powerful than me, but they have also always required me to help them from going overboard.”
“Huh, curious…” Vikalos trailed off, thought for a moment then started talking again. “I haven’t done any research on this, but are we even sure Phovoula can do a Decay Lord trial?”
Itaviir grunted. “We already put her status down as a Newling when we added the rest of the Decaylings to our sect. If something was wrong with her status, we would have heard about it already.”
“Kengana did say everything was fine,” Galyn added. “If there was a problem, he would have brought that up.”
Retvik though didn’t seem to agree. “We had problems with Elkay though, despite Kengana signing off on Elkay’s membership among the Thantir.”
“We only found out afterwards that Elkay was a Synaisthyn.” Galyn countered. “But that didn’t get in the way of Elkay doing the trial.”
Litvir crossed his arms and growled slightly. “Certainly stopped Elkay AFTER his trial! I had to go and save Elkay’s silly tail! And I really do not want to have to send a bunch of us to Deathven AGAIN.”
Retvik put an arm around Litvir, calming him down. “I think, what we should do, we should arrange for someone to go in advance. The Phantai had those instant-teleportation-to-Deathven capsules, that is what Litvir and Vikalos took last time. This time, we have the capsules ready to go, just in case Deathven himself does anything… stupid.”
Vikalos sighed. “It pains me that we need to have a backup plan and that we all have so little faith in the rest of Decay Lord society.”
“Most of Decay Lord society is fine though! It’s just Deathven himself who messes things up for us!” Itaviir tutted.
Retvik was still a little more optimistic. “I hope that Deathven will understand this time. Mostly because we registered the Thantir’s duties to include “Amalgam Mimic Containment”. Nyssi and her team are half-Synaisthyns, or whatever they want to call themselves, and they would also fall under Amalgam Mimic Containment. Even if they are not quite on the same level as Elkay and Arkay are.”
“Speaking of which,” Vikalos interrupted. “Why did you not bring Arkay into this meeting?”
Retvik shrugged. “Arkay does not need to hear this stuff. And also, Litvir and I do not want him hearing about how badly Elkay was treated and him wanting revenge. Part of our continued existence as a sect hinges on us keeping all known Synaisthyns away from Deathven sectors.”
“That does somewhat go against us sending Nyssi, Kayel, Tanos and Ret into a Decay Lord trial though…” Galyn muttered. “Technically, we would be breaking the rules.”
“Oh no, not at all!” Litvir went back to smiling. “Our duties are listed as “Amalgam Mimic Containment. Those four are not Amalgam Mimics.”
“They kinda are.”
“They are not! Yes, they can borrow abilities off each other, but the main thing which determines whether you are a Synaisthyn or not is the ability to borrow powers from other Periuniversal entities that are not Decayons. None of them can do that.”
Galyn relented. “That is very true. But in all honesty? Deathven almost certainly knows what they are already. After all, it was the Overlord who sent the Travellers here to spy on us.”
Everyone paused for a moment.
“You know what?” Litvir finally spoke, breaking the silence. “They… somewhat just buggered off.”
“The Travellers?”
“Yes. They had that argument with the Pentathax and somewhat left without saying goodbye.”
“Eh, good riddance!” Retvik grunted. “They are nice enough, but they were spying on us. The Pentathax though, most of them seem fine, and the Doom Drums have respected us.”
“Perhaps we should speak to the Pentathax. Surely they have some experience with sending Decaylings out to do their trials?” Itaviir suggested.
Vikalos shook his head. “The Pentathax don’t have Decaylings. You have to be a fully-fledged Decay Lord to join them.”
“They might have some useful info though?”
“Perhaps…” Retvik hesitated a little. “Perhaps we should ask them anyway. When Litvir and Vikalos went to Deathven, they took Voidblade with them, and Voidblade, as odd as he is, gave us a little more authority and was a good backup. Getting back up from the Doom Drums, who are respected by everyone, would be helpful in arguing our point.”
Everyone nodded in agreement.
“So, to clarify, before we send in our cute little Decaylings into their trial, we invest in some instant-teleport capsules, and also speak to the Doom Drums in advance to get them on board?” Vikalos asked.
“Pretty much?” Litvir shrugged. “I do think that, if we have problems this time, we send Retvik and Itaviir, and let Itaviir be nice and shouty. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear!” Itaviir smiled a little. “I just hope we don’t have to step in yet again…”
Retvik smiled too. “Even if we do, we always get what we want in the end.”