“Come on now, little ones, not all of you can go to Life Goddess Sini’s opening event!”
Galyn crossed his arms in annoyance as he, Itaviir and Vikalos went through some quick announcements. Since they had taken over the Thantir once more, they would routinely gather everyone up and give them their schedules and any required news, mostly at the start of a new ev. But today, there was a ripple of discontent. It turned out, quite a few people wanted to go to the opening of Sini’s brand new Life Oasis.
“Well, who are you sending then?” Phovos somewhat demanded. “It’s, like, tomorrow or something and you still haven’t said anything. Also I was pretty sure I was supposed to be going.”
Itaviir grunted. “You will be going, Phovos. You, Phovoula and Elksia will be going, and Ret and Nyssi will accompany you, so you have some added protection.”
“Do we really need protection?” Phovoula muttered. “We’ll have Elksia with us, Phovos is a Life Goddess and I am a Voidborn. But you won’t have your normal protection!”
Itaviir pointed at Thassalin, who waved meekly. “Thassalin is a perfectly good Time Drake. He is perfectly capable of picking up Elksia’s duties while she’s gone.”
“Why are you sending me anyway?” Elksia asked.
“Sini requested that we send a mixture of people, and not a bunch of normal Decayons,” Vikalos explained. “Retvik, Litvir and Arkay will also be at the opening event, which ticks off the need for a Decay Lord or two. In the mean time, you five ladies will have a bit of fun with Sini, check the place out and see who turns up. And you’ll leave some flyers and business cards there advertising Savepoint. More importantly though, for you, Elksia, you haven’t had a proper break in a while.”
There were suddenly a few giggles among the younger Thantir. And some confusion too.
“Uh, why are you sending me?” Ret awkwardly raised his hand and asked. “Also, I am not a lady.”
“Well, technically, sometimes you are…” Kuta whispered. “Mainly in the bedroom.”
“Kuta…” Ret almost growled. “They do not need to know.”
“Dear, everyone knows you go feminine behind closed doors. This is a silly little chance to go feminine outside. Also you are our new resident big guy who protects everyone, so I assume that is why the adults are sending you.”
Ret hesitated, lacking any real response. “Oh. That makes sense, I guess.”
“Kuta is correct, Ret. You are a big guy who protects everyone. Your job will be to keep a look out and make sure the girls are all safe,” Galyn explained further. “It will not be a long job, and you can relax as well, but it is a chance for you to relax a little as well.”
“Oh…” Ret settled down. “Alright then.”
“Anyway!” Vikalos changed the subject. “In the mean time, the rest of you will do your normal shifts, but we will make arrangements for you all to take time off. And we’ll let you all go on a few trips, to get you off Savepoint for a little bit.”
“Where can we go though?” Tanos asked. “There’s, like, not much out there. Just the space mall, I guess.”
Vikalos shrugged. “Well, we have Sini’s oasis, the space mall and a handful of pubs. Our allies Letharus and Vick have offered the Thantir sanctuary at their pub as well, if you so desire.”
“That… really isn’t much…” Tanos frowned.
“Well, duh, we live in a place called The Void. There’s not much around here…” Kayel turned to Vikalos. “Is it possible to arrange larger excursions at some point? Kaytee and Teekay said there’s a cool mall in the Goldtorn Remains or whatever it’s called, could we go there or something?”
Vikalos shrugged some more. “I suppose, at some point, we can definitely do a larger excursion. But I would like to get some extra hires before we do anything like that.”
“And how are we doing on that front?” Elkay asked. “We have not had anyone new come in.”
Vikalos’s expression turned sour. Galyn and Itaviir both grunted in annoyance.
“Turns out, hiring people to work at a place that deals with live Corruption all the time is a tad harder than we anticipated.”
“Even when we include all the benefits, people are, understandably, scared of Corruption,” Vikalos went into detail. “Kal struggled on their own, for a very long time. It is only recently that they have had any assistance, and the Thantir in general have been doing purifications alongside Kal for a year-string or so. We are established, yes, but we do a very dangerous job that has been very unpopular for a long time.”
“Unpopular?” Koh suddenly perked up. “Before we joined the Thantir, the six of us, not always in six bodies, and for a long time in two bodies, we served every Decay Lord Sect in the bloody pentacluster! Literally no one likes the job of purification! We tried hiring people and never got anywhere until Retvik and Litvir decided to change the Thantir’s duties! Hiring people is hard!” Koh suddenly paused. “Although, speaking of hiring people… I actually think I might know a few people we can ask… but we’re going to need Ret and potentially Tanos and Kayel too.”
“Will you explain further?” Itaviir asked.
“Nope!” Koh clicked. “Personal contacts. We’ll let you know if our plan works. I doubt it, but we don’t know until we try.”
“Why do you need me though?” Ret was confused again.
“We’ll tell you later.”
“Aw…”
“Don’t frown, Ret!” Kuta patted Ret on the back. “You get to go to the nice oasis with the girls.”
“I guess…” Ret seemed unamused now. And confused. Really, he was feeling a lot of emotions. “Do I have to wear heavy armour to the oasis thing?”
“Not at all!” Vikalos smiled. “Just make yourselves look nice, alright?”
Ret grunted and fell silent.
“Anyway, does anyone else have any questions?” Vikalos asked. He waited a few seconds, but didn’t see any hands or anything. “Alright. Go have yourselves some breakfast, Itaviir will be round in a bit to give you your schedules. Understood?”
A ripple of nods ran through the crowd.
“Good. Now get going.”