“Hey kiddo!”
The warm, friendly voice was met with stony silence as Arkadin continued his work, clearly in the middle of something important. Everything was dark and gloomy in the tiny little office, aside from a single beam of light pointed at a microscope, providing the only illumination in the room.
“Uh, kid?”
Arkadin remained silent, concentrating intensively on whatever was under the microscope. One hand held the equipment steady, but his other hand was hovering to one side, making incredibly subtle movements with his fingers. The rest of the office was rather messy and didn’t seem to belong to Arkadin, especially since the chair was clearly meant for someone without a tail.
“Thantophor, what are you doin-”
“Shush.”
The subtle finger movements slowed down further, before stopping completely. Arkadin growled slightly, then pulled away from the microscope.
“What do you want, Kinisis?”
The Allmaker burst into existence, smiling and covered in glitter. Arkadin rolled his eyes, swiping his hand and immediately cleaning up all the glitter.
“I wanted to ask you something! But now I want to ask you multiple things. What are you doing right now?”
Arkadin glanced back at the microscope. “This vok is on to something. I wanted to have a look for myself. He’s close. Closer than I thought.”
“Huh?”
The Thantophor sighed. “You wouldn’t understand. Genetic engineering, things like that. Your distraction though has kinda ruined it for me. I’m no longer in the zone and that temporary knowledge is fading now.”
Kinisis shrugged, not really sure what she did wrong. She glanced around the office, then turned her attention back to Arkadin.
“Oh well. If they’re close, they’ll get closer on their own. Best thing you can do is preserve their work for the next guy, rather than interfering. Anyway, enough of that, you fancy going to a party with me?”
The Thantophor grunted. “Is this some sort of trick?”
“What?”
“Is this a trap?”
“Not at all. It’s an old friend of mine. Gonna go to a Life Goddess Party. She said to bring a friend so I’m bringing you.”
Arkadin spun round in his chair so he could properly face Kinisis. “Sounds exactly like a trap. Lure me outside the universe so you can put a bullet through my brain when I’m disconnected from my divine powers.”
Kinisis shook her head. “It’s definitely not a trap. Also that’s a really bad way to off a death god. Great way of creating corruption though. Nope, I’m definitely not trying to kill you in any way. My sister invited me to a party and these parties, we always bring one of our little gods alone, for amusement and protection. I wanted to offer you first dibs, since you’ve been left out from a lot of the fun god stuff lately.”
“But I don’t like parties. I am literally the party pooper god.”
“Because you never go to parties.”
Arkadin tutted. “Who is hosting this party anyway?”
“My sister Athanasi has a daughter called Seimeni. She was a death god like you but when Athanasi went to create a new universe, Seimeni decided to do the same. She’s a great little girl, I think you’d like her.”
“I’m… not into that sort of thing…”
“Because you’ve never tried it.”
“No…” Arkadin sighed, feeling tired. “I don’t want to go. Go ask one of the others.”
“Alright, fine!” Kinisis gave up. “I’m going in a week. I’ll ask the others, but I do want you to come. If you change your mind, you let me know, alright?”
“Fine…”
Kinisis smiled, then disappeared, leaving behind a trail of glitter. With a sigh, Arkadin cleared up the mess, then went back to work.