Flamebearer: Arkay, are you around?
Flamebearer: Arkay?
Flamebearer: Arkay?
Flamebearer: Arkay, I need to warn you of something.
Flamebearer: Arkay?
Souldrainer: So that Arkay doesn’t see your multitude of messages and panic, everything is fine.
Flamebearer: Arkay?
Flamebearer: Arkay, please get online.
Flamebearer: Arkay?
Deathbringer is now online.
Deathbringer: Retvik, you do realize there’s a small, green icon that shows when I’m online, right?
Flamebearer: I am sorry, but we need to talk.
Flamebearer: We had a ship crash into our base today. One filled with Corruption, its occupants already dead.
Deathbringer: Hi, Retvik, how are you? You seem mighty stressed.
Flamebearer: There is a large, rare, sapient Corruption looking for a meal somewhere in our sector.
Flamebearer: We do not know where it is, but your universe is a potential meal. Lots of organic life in it. I wanted to warn you as soon as possible.
Souldrainer: Again, before we all start panicking, Kal suggested that your universe probably wouldn’t be directly targeted by such a sapient Corruption.
Flamebearer: “Probably” is not the same as “will not”, Litvir.
Souldrainer: Retvik, what have we said about risk assessment? Come on, you know better.
Deathbringer: I appreciate the warning, but I already suspected as much.
Flamebearer: Oh.
Souldrainer: Unfortunately, things seem to go in cycles. The Life Goddesses dominated this sector, and they left because of the Voidborns. The Voidborns left because… of us, I guess, and the Corruption came to fill the void.
Souldrainer: But Kal were pretty insistent that an intelligent Corruption would not consider your universe a meal, because it would be too much effort. After all, firstly your universe is very small, and apparently intelligent Corruptions are voracious eaters that require a lot of calories, which your universe lacks. But at the same time, your universe is also very well protected. They have a Synaisthyn, a Life Goddess/Time Drake hybrid, an ancient Time Drake and technically the most powerful Life Goddess in the sector all inside one tiny universe.
Deathbringer: Oh you used that word Elkay mentioned.
Souldrainer: Is that bad?
Deathbringer: I don’t know yet. Better than Amalgam Mimic though. I still haven’t gotten around to discussing this naming-our-species thing with Elkay yet.
Flamebearer: Why not?
Deathbringer: We keep on distracting and sidetracking each other. We also go around in circles a lot. The amount of times I have apologized to Elkay becase Sini attacked him and ruined his life is close to the number of times that I’ve apologized to you two.
Deathbringer: But also, we kinda just, well, really get along. I don’t remember enough to know if that was the case when you lot were mortal though.
Souldrainer: Hang on, you know that Yisini kidnapped Elkay to hurt you, but you do not remember that you and Elkay were… somewhat friends in a way?
Deathbringer: I wrote a ton of shit down before I got reset. I also have access to some of Kinisis’s old diaries, and she wrote a load of that shit down as well.
Flamebearer: Why do you have Kinisis’s diaries?
Deathbringer: Sini found them when she found the other six Divine Guardians. She kept them in the hopes of trying to find a cure to the Life Goddess-based mental illness that makes her want to hurt others. And it turns out that Epani has the same mental illness, which she was holding at bay by hurting me.
Souldrainer: Huh.
Souldrainer: Your two Life Goddesses have mental illnesses?
Deathbringer: Sini calls it ‘Dispa’, she says that Kinisis gave it to her to slow down her progress as she created life and worked towards creating immortality from mortality on sentient and sapient life.
Deathbringer: Sini and Epani have a desire to subjugate things, and that desire needs to be fed the same way normal folks need to eat food.
Souldrainer: So… Kinisis intentionally inflicted her own daughters with a unique form of narcissism in the form of a mental illness? To stop them from doing the duties Kinisis gave them?
Deathbringer: Uh… Kinda? I guess?
Deathbringer: Now you mention it, it does somewhat explain why she also made an unwilling death god with a guilty conscience. Not quite the same, but similar themes, I guess.
Flamebearer: This is all very weird but can we go back to talking about the Corruption please?
Deathbringer: You already warned me.
Flamebearer: Yes but the reason why we are warning you is weird.
Flamebearer: The infested ship that crashed? The message warning us about the hungry, intelligent Corruption was written by another Corruption!
Deathbringer: That doesn’t surprise me that much. Different strains of Corruption happily cannibalize each other.
Flamebearer: They still crashed a derelict ship into our base, and the message was written three evs ago.
Deathbringer: How long is an ev?
Souldrainer: About 140 hours. Somewhat close to a week in your universe.
Souldrainer: No, we are not really used to it either.
Deathbringer: A week is 168 hours… You have 20 hour days?
Souldrainer: They do not feel like days.
Deathbringer: Eh, when you’re as old as I am, time just kinda happens. If I don’t set alarms and reminders, I’ll just forget things.
Deathbringer: I do appreciate the warning though, guys.
Flamebearer: I just wish we could do more.
Deathbringer: It’s fine.
Deathbringer: Anything interesting happened lately? Apart from the crashed ship?
Flamebearer: Um.
Flamebearer is now offline.
Souldrainer is now offline.
Souldrainer is now online.
Souldrainer: Sorry, trying to decide whether we should tell you or not.
Flamebearer is now online.
Flamebearer: It is very awkward.
Deathbringer: Is one of you expecting?
Souldrainer: What the actual fuck? Fucking no!
Souldrainer: We ran into one of your blood siblings.
Deathbringer: Huh.
Deathbringer: Hang on, I’m having one of those weird memory things… Alright let me guess.
Deathbringer: Was it Veekay?
Flamebearer: … Yes.
Souldrainer: How did you know?
Souldrainer: Also, what weird memory things?
Deathbringer: Because I’ve been alive for so long, I forget a LOT of things. On top of the memory wiping piss. But I’m also both mortal and a deity, and my brain is wired differently. Lots of pockets and things buried away. Random things trigger those pockets and occasionally spew up lots of memories. Been happening a lot lately because Kayel keeps on asking me about my mortal life.
Flamebearer: Kayel is your little Skyavok friend, yes?
Deathbringer: Yeah. I like him.
Souldrainer: Is there anything going on?
Deathbringer: After my fuck up with Kuta and, well, this year in general, I told myself I’m not doing relationships any more. Kayel and I are just friends.
Deathbringer: But, quickly before the memories fade, me and Veekay used to argue a lot. There were these things called Deitics, basically demi-gods, who would respawn if not killed by a ‘theokton’ or a ‘silverblood’. I was a silverblood. Veekay was half-Deitic. We instinctively hated each other. I guess, when things went bad, Veekay would have been able to survive outside the universe and drift around.
Souldrainer: He is also a Voidborn. And the son of Kenon.
Deathbringer: Huh.
Deathbringer: Hang on, Kenon used to pretend I was his son, and I was tricked into thinking Kenon was my stepfather, and he HAD an actual, blood-sharing son all along?
Souldrainer: Yes.
Souldrainer: Funnily enough, he calls himself Vekeus now, and he is friends with our mutual Voidborn ally Theocydes.
Deathbringer: Huh.
Deathbringer: Alright, enough brain fuckery for me. I got to get back to my border patrols. Been doing more of them lately because Kairos has been feeling antsy.
Souldrainer: Do you know why?
Flamebearer: You are not being overworked, are you?
Deathbringer: Oh no, not at all. Now Sini is helping Epani with her Dispa problems, they’ve all backed off and given me space. I don’t like that it took (young) Retvik stabbing Epani in the shoulder with one of my anti-Corruption daggers for her to realize she was being a monster, but, eh, fuck it, I’ll take it.
Deathbringer: The year of lost memories suck though.
Flamebearer: Ugh. Please use another term to describe this other Retvik.
Deathbringer: Uh, I’m just stating facts. You’re, what, nearly 90? This Retvik just turned 52. Maybe I’ll call him little Retvik or something. But why does it bother you?
Flamebearer: There is another Retvik out here somewhere. Someone who both Kaytee and Vekeus referred to as “The General”.
Deathbringer: Huh. I can see why that might sting.
Deathbringer: But yeah I gotta go. Universe ain’t gonna patrol itself, and now I have to deal with the fact that I clearly fucked up three separate people all called Retvik.
Souldrainer: You also fucked up three separate people called Tenuk. And a whole plethora of Teekays.
Deathbringer: …
Souldrainer: Sorry, that was mean.
Deathbringer: I’m going back to work.
Souldrainer: Sorry.
Deathbringer: It’s fine. Just don’t like being reminded of how much I’ve fucked up.
Deathbringer: Speak to you soon.
Flamebearer: Stay safe, Arkay.
Deathbringer is now offline.