It was hard to tell how Itaviir felt, just by looking at him. The massive Decay Lord towered over the three Decaylings, his features obscured by his crown of horns and the strange pair of pincer-like armour pieces that projected his mouth. Itaviir was more of a walking armoured monster than anyone else locally and it showed. And it was clear as day that Itaviir feared little. Despite having just finished a battle against a Voidborn ship, he seemed completely undeterred and had practically waltzed into the room, before grabbing a chair and sitting in front of the Decaylings.
“Well… uh… how did we do?” Even Retvik, the largest and strongest of the Decaylings, was stuttering. While Retvik stood at a good three or so meters tall, Itaviir was at least twice his height and nearly as wide as Retvik was tall. But really, it was the edge of the smile that could be seen underneath Itaviir’s armour that crept them out the most.
Itaviir sat down and crossed his arms, still smiling. “You three did great. I am genuinely proud of you.”
“You are?” Arkadin beamed, immediately perking up. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“Even though I made everyone experience an intense orgasm?” Litvir asked, in a markedly less certain tone than Arkadin.
“You all did great. You used your strength and abilities appropriately, you protected each other despite outside influence, you assisted a Decay Lord in battling multiple threats then used a creative solution to turn the tides in our favour. Oh, and you successfully completed your initial mission. You should be proud of yourselves.”
The Decaylings glanced at each other, still not sure how to feel.
“So, uh, what now?”
Itaviir clapped his hands together. “Well, since our job here is done, we need to spend a small report back to Deathven, and we have a few errands to do before we do anything else. Your actions in saving and assisting Decay Lords have been noticed, and this brings you one more step closer towards becoming Decay Lords yourselves. So, in honour of this… misadventure, once our errands are done and your report has been received, we are going to go somewhere nice.”
“Where are we going?” Retvik asked, not wanting to be left hanging. “Because this place is not nice at all.”
“And what errands do we need to do?” Litvir added.
The Decay Lord grunted. “The errands are simple. We need to get the ship cleaned, then do a check-in on a few nearby Life Goddess oases. Nothing too complicated. There is also an abandoned Voidborn shard that we have been tasks with surveying, but that should not take too long.”
“And after that?”
Itaviir grunted once more. “After that, we will go to the Nice Place.”
“Yes but…” The Decayings were clearly still confused. “What IS the nice place?”
Itaviir looked over the Decaylings, then shook his head, tutting to himself. “Ah, apologies. You do not know what the Nice Place is. It is a dedicated Decay Lord armoury. We shall be taking you there to get your armour smartened out, and get your weapons upgraded.”
“Ohhh…” Arkadin turned to his fellow Decaylings. “That sounds… alright…”
“Yes…” Retvik and Litvir both agreed. “Sounds pretty good to us!”
“Good!” Itaviir clapped his hands together. “We just need to sort out a few more things, then we shall get going! Good job, Decaylings. Keep it up.”