“So let me make this next sentence as clear and concise as possible for you. You discovered the ability to give your fellow Rethavok super powers and decided to shut the whole experiment down?”
Kaldoran nodded awkwardly. In the last day or so, he had been forced to go through vast, vast mountains of paperwork and medical information, digging out anything that seemed vaguely interesting to the new High General. Normally, with the election of a new leader, all the Rethans in charge of non-electable positions (for example, Kaldoran and his duty as General of Medicinal Affairs) would sit down with said new leader and go through all these things with them.
None of this, however, was normal. Mostly because many of the non-electable important Rethavok had either fled, been mind-controlled or… been killed. Kaldoran knew some of his fellow highly educated were no longer among the living, but he didn’t know how many. That was mostly why he had been multitasking and doing his best to not annoy his new boss.
“Why? Why would you do that?”
High General Kenon on the other hand wasn’t so much angry as he was confused. He had been watching Kaldoran work for the last few hours, and every so often something like this would happen. He had discovered a lot of things about the race he now ruled over, like how they had originally worshiped a death god as a war god, how there were multiple family lines which had been specifically reproduced preserve unique traits, how cross-breeding with other Threanic beings could produce wildly crazy results and, most importantly, how the previous High General that Kenon had just offed was part of a line of Rethavok considered to be perfectly bred in every way.
And now Kenon had just discovered that there were latent physiomagic abilities within members of his new species.
Kaldoran stared at the ground nervously. “I… I think… you… can guess why…”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“We… believed it was unethical to continue the practice. Especially since the vok running it was abusing funds and holding vok hostage and, rather than trying to help, was using the minds of these poor Rethans to do vast calculations, destroying their brains and causing many of them to remain comatose. I… I should also point out that most of those involved were freak accidents. We do not know how to replicate what actually gave them… powers in the first place.”
Kenon grunted as Kaldoran handed him a file. “There must have been some successes though, yes?”
“Um… four.”
“Four what?”
“Successes. Two of which are dead. One of which was General Litvir himself.”
“And? The other two?”
Kaldoran hesitated, sticking his finger in his mouth. “Uh… can I have that file back? I do not… know who the others are… Let me look it up for you…”
The Void Lord grunted again, passing the file back to Kaldoran, who began to busily flick through the pages until he found what he was looking for. Kenon though swiftly noticed that Kaldoran was rubbing his now saliva-covered finger over some of the text and immediately snatched the file away from him.
“What are you doing?” Kenon hissed.
“Uh…” Kaldoran tried to think of an answer, but as the High General eyed what he had done, he knew his plan, idea, whatever it was, had been foiled. That familiar, hideous dark claw wrapped itself around Kaldoran’s neck, briefly suffocating him, before throwing Kaldoran harshly against the wall. Something definitely cracked, but Kaldoran knew it was just armour plating.
“My my, you are a sneaky little one, aren’t you?” the Void Lord laughed, amused by Kaldoran’s vague attempts. He scanned the page that Kaldoran had tried to censor and laughed some more. “Retvik Rethianos? The sibling of our friend Rethais Rethianos?”
“Yes… that one…” Kaldoran shuddered, unable to hide his pain.
“Hm…” Kenon’s laughs turned into a worrying smile. “I think we have some trading to do. Because I so desperately want to examine both Retvik and this Trismit fellow a bit more closely…”