“Ah, you have both returned. Please, come and sit down.”
As Tenuk and Kayel entered the large home, they both noticed just how… threatening Retvik seemed. Maybe it was because he was still wearing (some admittedly rather tattered) armour from his arena battle, but he didn’t appear to be in a good mood. Or maybe it was how they were both tiny compared to Retvik. Kayel was tall for a Skyavok, at 1.7m, but he was still less than half of Retvik’s height. Climbing into the dining room chairs was a bit of a struggle as well.
“Retvik, we kinda fucked up…” Kayel immediately admitted. “We went back to my apartment and there was an R-Class waiting for me and didn’t believe me when I said I was the tenant and he pointed his gun at me and I kinda panicked and tried to take it from him and he shot me but then Tenuk turned into you but with silver armour and threatened the guy and told him to forget what he’d seen and run away and he did that and it was all just so fucked up…”
Retvik blinked at Kayel.
“You were shot again?”
“Yeah but it instantly healed up. You can’t even tell, aside from the blood all over my apartment.”
The hefty Rethavok frowned. “Those R-Class Skyavok must really want you dead.”
“I think it was more of a misunderstanding!” Tenuk interrupted. “Either way, we got them off Kayel’s back for now, and decided it would be safer for him to stay here. But considering how you were at this table waiting for us, I take it something weird happened to you today as well?”
Retvik grunted. “I was set on fire during my arena battle. I came out of it completely unharmed. Cannot say the same about my opponent.”
Before Retvik could continue, there was a knock on the door. Retvik diligently got up to answer it, only to be slightly surprised that it was Nyssi.
“I thought you were going back to your village?”
Nyssi pushed past Retvik and sat down at the table, unloading bags of shopping. She looked rather dirty and muddy, but seemed to be in high spirits.
“So you know how you said how it was all coincidence and all that?” Nyssi grinned, pulling out four bottles of beer and opening each of them up with her teeth. “Well, I’m here to celebrate that the great Lightbearer is completely wrong, and how Holy Sini has chosen us to become immortal!”
“Why are you covered in mud, Nyssi?” Tenuk asked, taking one of the beers. He kinda needed it after the week he’d had.
“I was hit by a truck. But I’m fine!”
Retvik returned to the table, eyeing Nyssi. “You were hit by a truck?”
“Yep. Ran me over, good and proper.”
“And you are fine?”
“Yep. Went to a doctor, she thought I was mad, there wasn’t a scratch on me. So I jumped to the obvious conclusion and came back here to celebrate with you lot. Drink?” Nyssi nudged a bottle towards Retvik. Retvik ignored it and sighed.
“We’ve all had quite a day!” Tenuk tried to be cheery, but quickly dropped the attempt and turned back to Nyssi. “You think the Great Embrace has just… gifted us with immortality? You know what that means, right?”
Nyssi downed her bottle of beer, then grinned some more. “We’re going to have fun times with the Allbirther, when she finds us!”
“No, that means the Allbirther is going to find us, capture us and experiment on us.”
“Says you.”
“Says everything we are taught in religious education, along with a long list of missing persons, as documented by the Skyans over the last two centuries. Right, Kayel?”
Kayel gasped, halfway through his own bottle. “Hey, don’t bring me into this! I’m not A-Class, I know nothing!”
“A-Class?” Nyssi asked.
“The most important Class, the Archiver Class…” Kayel quickly explained. “They keep the Great Library of Thre-Knosis. Basically a city of knowledge. Always kinda wanted to go there. But what does that have to do with the Allbirther randomly blessing us idiots with suspiciously fast healing abilities? Surely that sort of thing would come from Arkay, not Sini, since we literally saw him the other day?”
Nyssi raised her hand to speak, but realized that the Skyavok had a good point.
“I spoke to one of the arena doctors after my match…” Retvik sighed, wanting to get something off his chest. “He asked if I had been taking anything. He made me do a quick blood test and everything came out perfect. I have always been in good health, and I am from some of the purest Rethan blood of our kind, but this was… well, the doctor congratulated me, but it concerns me. Something is hideously wrong with us.”
“Or hideously right…” Tenuk interjected. “I think Kayel brings up a good point. We were the only four beings who saw the Thantophor, and we’re the only four beings, that we know of, that not only survived those horrible events but also have these weird healing abilities. So, and I know this is going to sound stupid, I think we need to track down the Thantophor and pay him a visit. Ask him what’s going on.”
Nyssi stared at Tenuk. “How the fuck are we going to find the Death God?”
“We already saw him once. With the amount of chaos going on lately, it can’t be that hard to find him again. We just need to find a big enough disaster.”
“Or…” Kayel suggested, sipping his drink. “We just follow the old Skyan proverb that he’s in the local phone book, under A for Arkay, not D for Death. He probably spends a lot of time in Palaestra. Explains why he was in the pharmacy, picking up a prescription. I mean, that’s not what the proverb is on about, but I’m just saying we don’t need to look too far.”
“What does the proverb actually mean?” Retvik asked.
“Oh, it means to look at other vok as living, breathing beings, not just what you see on the surface.”
“Like not judging a book by its cover?”
“Yeah.”
Nyssi shrugged, then pulled out her phone. “Alright, I’m gonna have a look on Friendface. I bet ya he’s on there…”