“Hey, uh, General Retvik, is Relkir going to be alright?”
Retvik grunted as he glanced down at Teekay, the almost silver-skinned Skyavok that had been hovering outside this bedroom door for a while now. “Yes, Relkir will be fine. But please do not call me ‘General’, I have no right to use that title.”
Teekay tilted his head to one side. “I thought you were the great General Retvik Rethianos of the 270th Legion when you were mortal, before we were all snatched away?”
Another grunt. “No. Rethans do not keep their titles upon being declared dead. You should know that, considering who your partner is. But…” Retvik lowered his voice. “Unfortunately, due to circumstances outside of my control, technically I am Captain Retvik Rethianos of the 11th Legion. Either way, I would prefer it if you just called me Retvik.”
“Oh. Alright. So, uh, what’s happening to my poor Relkir?” Teekay changed the subject, more interested in his girlfriend than anything else. “I kinda haven’t seen him like that since I first took him back to my place, so I’m pretty worried.”
“We believe that it is stress-related, but also connected to some of the memories Kinisis took away from you all when she made you into her Divine Guardians. But, luckily, it turns out that one of the last three surviving Rethavok is in fact an expert in calming minds and allowing Rethans with extraordinary abilities slowly learn how to control said powers. Relkir is in good hands, little one.”
“Yeah but…” Teekay hesitated. Retvik literally towered over him, and he felt somewhat uneasy in the Flamebearer’s presence. “What are you doing to him?”
“Litvir is placing Relkir into a deep sleep and a mental sandbox, so he can relearn his control in a safe space, while unconscious. This will only last twenty four hours, then Relkir should be back to normal. In the mean time, I believe the rest of you Decaylings have a class you should be attending.”
“Oh. Alright…”
Retvik took a moment to properly inspect Teekay. Normally, Teekay had a pair of bright orange psionic wings attached to his back, and an eerie glow to his eyes. But those wings weren’t present and his eyes were dim.
“Teekay, are you well?”
“Yeah, I’m fine, I’m just…”
The Decayling didn’t finish his sentence. Teekay’s eyes snapped shut as he fell forwards. Retvik caught the tiny creature and picked him up. Before Retvik could do anything else though, he heard several shouts of confusion coming from down the main hallway, from the Common Observatory where the rest of the Thantir Decaylings should have been gathered.
With a grunt, Retvik threw Teekay’s limp body over his shoulder, then stomped down the hallway to see what all the commotion was. As he peered into the open doorway, Retvik was only somewhat surprised to see that only a handful of the occupants in the room were conscious.
“I swear I didn’t do anything!” Eksi immediately exclaimed. “They all just passed out!”
The Common Observatory was mostly filled with soft chairs, although small folding desks had been added, as the room was also often used for studying and Decayling lessons. Retvik gently placed Teekay in the nearest free seat, then did a quick headcount to see who was present. Phovos and Akah were both slumped forward on their desks, Tenuk had collapsed in a heap just by the doorway and Tahvra had fallen asleep against the large glass window. However, Eksi and Elksia were both perfectly fine and aware, despite being rather concerned.
Something flashed next to Retvik. Tah, the tiny mechanical Decay Lord, had teleported into the room, having also picked up on the sudden goings on.
“Why are all the former Divine Guardians unconscious?” Retvik asked as he grabbed Tenuk off the floor and rested him in a spare seat, before doing the same with Tahvra.
“I don’t know!” Eksi seemed panicked. “They just…” Eksi gestured vaguely around the room, hoping someone would have an answer for him. “It’s like someone snapped their fingers and they just all fainted all at once!”
“Are they dead?” Elksia muttered, not having moved from her corner.
Eksi shook his head worriedly. “No, just unconscious! But I don’t know why! I didn’t feel anything! Retvik, Tah, what is going on?”
Retvik tutted, not having an answer. Tah on the other hand approached the still-sleeping Teekay, then awkwardly placed his hand on Teekay’s head. After a few seconds though, Tah backed off, tilting his head from side to side as if he was in pain.
“We kinda should have had you all checked for Life Goddess manipulation…” Tah clicked uneasily.
“Is this another Life Goddess hijacking?” Retvik asked. “That has happened before.”
“Don’t think so…” Tah tutted. “I believe it’s some errant leftover programming from your Life Goddess. Since Kinisis is dead, we wrongly assumed that you’d all be fine, but I guess we were wrong. Should be fixable, especially since we have you and Litvir, however it’s going to take time…”
The Cleanser paused, then turned back to Teekay. While the former Divine Guardian was still unconscious, they seemed to be muttering something.
“Eisastasene akrisimopiitoii, then ma prostateuepsate, then boreisaste na ma xanasikonomeh, thah briskomenomeh tihn eautin mu allu.”
“What language is that?” Eksi asked. “That doesn’t sound like anything I know.”
“A Life Goddess language?” Retvik suggested as he leaned back into the main hallway. He quickly spotted Seimeni, and beckoned her over. Seimeni looked uneasy, as if she had seen a ghost, which was quite strange, considering her normally already rather ghostly appearance. She tensed up further at the sight of the unconscious Decaylings, all of whom were now repeating the same phrase. Luckily, Seimeni calmed down somewhat as Retvik put an arm around her, feeling slightly safer.
“So, uh, what are they saying?” Tah asked. “Because, being a mechanical sponge when it comes to knowledge, us Cleansers can pick up a lot of languages, but that’s not one I really recognize.”
Seimeni though blinked. “I thought it was standard Xa Thimiouyalagi but it’s not, it’s, like, a… a dialect maybe?”
Tah would have frowned if he could have. “Ah… That language. The one language only Life Goddesses can speak. Leh and Koh tried to learn it out of curiosity and spent 40 hours repeating the word “Tha” over and over… That is…” Tah paused, his eyes flickering erratically. “Wait, it can’t be that language, because those Divine Guardians are speaking it!”
“That’s why I said it’s not the standard Xa Thimiouyalagi, it’s some sort of off-shoot that Kinisis probably created. She was a stupidly powerful divine being, even among other Life Goddesses, she probably had her own secret language or something. Now she’s dead, it’s probably completely lost, and these Divine Guardians don’t even know what they’re saying. Not that they’re even awake to tell us.”
While Seimeni and Tah continued to discuss what they were saying, Retvik pulled out his personal portable computer and opened up the recording application. He placed the device next to Teekay and made a quick recording, however, to Retvik’s annoyance, Teekay abruptly stopped mid-sentence and snapped back to attention.
“Oh, hi.”
“Hello, Teekay.”
“How did I get in here?” Teekay blinked several times. Retvik glanced over at the other former Divine Guardians, who were all also waking up.
“You abruptly passed out…” Retvik grunted, saving the recording he had made before putting the computer away. “All six of you Guardians passed out. How are you feeling?”
“I, uh, feel fine, I guess.” Teekay straightened himself out, then looked past Retvik. “Hello, Litvir, how is Relkir doing?”
Litvir was clearly unhappy. “Your partner abruptly cut himself out of my telepathic grasp and started muttering something in a language I do not understand, before falling back to sleep again. I have to restart the entire process now… What, what is it, little one?”
Tah poked Litvir in the side. “All six of the former Divine Guardians did the same thing. We have to get them checked out for Life Goddess manipulation, which means we’re going to also have to give you a crash course on how to remove it, because, frankly, you’re a way, way better telepath than we are. Same applies to Eksi.”
Litvir rolled his eyes, tutting. “Fine. If you say so. Tell us what we need to do, and I shall do it. But I need to get Relkir back into his kyraipnatic conditioning before he sets himself on fire again.”
“Alright, you do that!” Tah clicked. “We’ll go grab our equipment, it’s in our ship. In the mean time, is there any way we can translate what they all said?”
Seimeni shrugged. “Kinisis is dead, it’s a dead language now. No way-”
“Actually…” Retvik interrupted. “I think there is someone we can ask. He will not be happy with us, but it is worth a try…”