“… All the protection you have. Even the new guys. We need literally as much protection as you can give us!”
“That is what we are trying to do, but we are heavily understaffed right-”
“Doesn’t matter. Just give us everything you can. We need bodies more than anything else.”
“We will see what we can do.”
“Thank you.”
Itaviir slammed the communicator down, obviously angry and frustrated, just as someone knocked on the door to his office.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT? Oh. Vikalos…”
Vikalos completely understood Itaviir’s frustration. He had also been inundated with calls from Life Goddesses, all of them demanding a pretty Decayling or three to help protect them. All of a sudden, over the last few days, there had been a massive up-tick in Voidborn attacks, all of them attacking popular Life Goddess hangout spots.
While the damage hadn’t been too significant and no one had died, the Life Goddesses were understandably annoyed and were pestering the Decay Lords to help them. Vikalos and Itaviir were now both working overtime, evaluating Decaylings and seeing whether the small number of young deities they had were even up for the task.
“We are going to have to say no to them, Itaviir…” Vikalos grumbled, leaning on Itaviir’s desk. “We do not have the numbers. There are at least fifty Life Goddesses demanding support, all of whom already have twenty Divine Guardians with them. We have twenty Decay Lords here, ourselves included, and only seven and a half viable Decaylings. One and a half of which just returned with a hitch-hiking Time Drake from the Kiniseon Remnant. We do NOT have the staff available.”
Itaviir blinked. “We only have eight viable Decaylings?”
“Seven plus the little Life Goddess that Seimeni is training. Plus ten that have not been calibrated properly yet. Out of the one hundred and forty we picked up from the Kiniseon Remnant, almost all of them were non-viable and were sent back home.”
“I did not realise just how… understaffed we were.”
“Not your fault. Everything has been a chaotic mess.”
“What do we do though?” Itaviir sighed, crossing his arms and slumping on his desk. “We say yes to the Life Goddesses, we under-staff ourselves and mark ourselves as a Voidborn target. We say no, the Life Goddesses lose faith in us and the Voidborn STILL mark us as a target because that is what Voidborn cultists do.”
Vikalos grunted. “Well, which of the Life Goddesses need protection the most? We just have to dole out Decay Lords to whoever needs them the most. One Decay Lord per Life Goddess should be plenty. They can carenize all they want, we cannot help them all.”
“You are right…” Itaviir sat forward. “I do not like it, but you are right. I just… hoped that we would have gotten more Decaylings out of that massive haul. We are, ironically, a dying breed…” Itaviir paused, then glanced at Vikalos. “I have an idea.”
“You do?”
“Yes. What is Seimeni doing?”
Vikalos frowned. “She is in no position to be making anything right now.”
“What about… the little one?”
“What do you need doing?”
“Can the little one make things yet?”
“Only with heavy-handed guidance.”
Itaviir shrugged. “Good enough. Can you take me to him please?”
With a roll of his eyes, Vikalos relented. “Fine. But your idea had better work…”