“Hey guys, are any of you willing to give me 5000 Deathvenbucks?”
Tah glanced up from the article he was reading on his tablet. Ever since they’d helped to destroy the Diamond, the Crystal Doom’s mothership, the team of tiny purifiers found they didn’t really have much work to do, to the point that the six of them were just sitting about in a small office, waiting for someone to turn up.
“Please don’t tell me you want to buy another bloody floating rock, Pah!” Koh tutted as he threw his own tablet across the desk in frustration. Every member of Kal had their own tablet, but Koh’s was the most battered. “We don’t have room at the Nest for any more damn shiny asteroids!”
Pah shrugged as he sat down next to Tah. “Yeah we do. The Periuniversal Void is infinite. We could get a whole asteroid field, install it around the Nest to scare off potential intruders and not have a problem. But I’m not interested in a shiny rock.”
“There is a limit to our Silver Field though,” Tah countered. “We can only fit so much within the invisible force field and repulsion generators around the Nest. Still, what sort of rock are you looking to buy and why are you asking us for money when we’re all equally wealthy?”
“Why are you obsessed with rocks anyway?” Koh snapped, interrupting Tah’s questions with his own. “They’re just bloody rocks!”
Pah shrugged some more. “I think it’s some deep, dark, instinctual thing inside my Krana-brain, from before I was a Cleanser Kal. After all, before our upgrades, I was, as my name suggests, a Pahwahian, my element was, well, stone. Kinda weird that it’s me who ended up with plasma powers when Tah is the former fire elemental here. But still, I want to build my portfolio a bit. I mean, I did manage to buy a ton of gold for basically nothing!”
“Yes, but whyyyyy?” Koh repeated himself.
“Deathven isn’t going to bankroll us forever.”
Koh clicked in annoyance. “Deathven has been bankrolling everyone for so long that time is barely an object. And we live in a landscape where beings can just magically… make things! I mean, one of the Decaylings we’re supposed to be tutoring is a Life Goddess!”
Pah shrugged yet again. “Eh, still, rainy days and stuff like that…” Pah trailed off, taking a moment to remember what he wanted. Once he did remember, he picked up his tablet and showed it to Tah. On the screen was a tiny advert on a local classifieds site. “I’m bad at maths. Tah, is that a good price for that amount of land?”
Tah scanned the advert. “That… are there any pictures? Because I’m having a hard time picturing the square meters.”
“We’re walking, talking calculators, why are you two struggling?” Koh tutted.
“Alright!” Tah tutted back. “You go ahead and imagine 1000 square meters in your head!”
Koh fell silent. “Oh. Alright. Fair. That… That’s a lot of land, I think. Like, a lot a lot.”
“Right?” Pah exclaimed as he tapped on the advert. There was only one small picture, an overview of the property. A large, floating island with a weird, black, jagged wall around it and a villa in the middle. “And they only want 555,000 Deathvenbucks for it! I mean, it totally feels like some sort of scam, but that’s only a bit more than one ev of universal income for us! I feel like we should at least check it out!”
“I guess, but if it’s genuine, what would we use a massive floating island for?” Tah asked. “It’s a little too big to fit in the Silver Field alongside what we already have, so we’d have to make a second Silver Field, but still… why?”
Pah glanced around, then checked the doorway, to make sure that no one was listening in. He then switched to the Silver Link, the telepathic network that Kal all shared.
“Retvik and Litvir are struggling. They miss Arkay. And from what Nuh said, they’re not going to hear from him for a while. Add all the stress they have training the Decaylings, and needing a new ship because the Thantir Two is tiny… Alright, sure, this ain’t a ship, we know nothing about ships and have been maintaining the same single ship for like 15 year-strings now. But we could at least help Retvik and Litvir build a base of operations!”
“You… want to build a base for the Thantir?” Koh dimmed his eyes briefly. “Like, have people come to us for purifications?”
“Yeah.”
Tah glanced at Koh. “We should have built a base ages ago. Sure, it’s not as safe as roaming purifications, since we can’t run away if things go wrong, but having people come to us at an exact location means we can get them fixed up more reliably.”
“I guess, but safety is still a concern for me.”
Pah gestured to the door. “Bro, we got the Thantir to look after us now. And even if we don’t, we have Akah and Tahvra helping us, once they’ve done their Decay Lord Trial. We’re safer than ever, and we can stop relying on our old ship!”
Koh fell silent for a moment, then relented. “Alright. We’ll check this place out. Where is it?”
Tah scanned the advert again. “Huh, not too far from here. Old Thantir roaming grounds, but pretty close to the border of the Goldtorn Remains. Ten hour round trip, plus an hour for inspecting the property?”
“That’s reasonable, but we have duties here…” Koh tried to sigh, but lacked the ability to breath to do so.
“I’m pretty sure we can leave Litvir in charge of Kenic Spore and Voidborn Influence removal!” Pah clicked excitedly. “He’s pretty damn good at it, and it’s not like we have had any jobs coming in lately. Absolute worst case scenario, they can just get Phovos and Elkay to bleed on stuff.”
Tah hesitantly nodded in agreement. “The rest of the Thantir have things covered. Although it does concern me that hybrid mimic blood is some of the best anti-Corruption stuff we’ve seen in ages…” Tah paused, then altered the subject slightly. “Plus, we don’t work for the Phantai, the Thantir are happy to let us do what we want and we haven’t been off this ship in a while. We should go out, the six of us. Maybe take an opportunity to check in on Mator at the Nest as well. We’ll just let the bosses know and… speaking of which!”
Standing in the doorway was Litvir, one of the two Thantir leaders. He eyed Tah, Koh and Pah suspiciously for a moment, then frowned.
“Are you all well?” Litvir asked.
“We’re fine!” Tah clicked. “We were about to say, the six of us want a quick break, since we haven’t been off this stupid ship in a while. Is that alright with you?”
Litvir tutted and waved his hand dismissively. “Do what you want, we are not your bosses.”
“Well, you kinda are, as leaders of the Thantir.”
The young Decay Lord tutted again. “Only in a ceremonial sense. You six are as free to come and go as you please. How long will you be gone for?”
“Oh, no more than twenty hours.”
“Alright…” Litvir sighed as he wandered off again. “Have fun, call us if you need us…”