“Why are the Banikans asking for our help again?” Psiksi asked as the ship landed on a small plateau, outside a tiny cave.
“You seen the size of them?” Elksia laughed. “They can’t fit in this cave they need us to go in and grab both this stolen idol of theirs and the being who stole it from them. Clever bastard is hiding in this cave where the Banikan adults can’t reach them, and they’re certainly not going to risk their young.”
Retvik raised a finger, with a concerned look on his face. “Psiksi does raise a good point. Back in our prime, the Banikans never asked us, we got one contact from them every three years, but now we have had two contacts in two days. It seems suspicious.”
“The Banikans have wanted to expand their contact with us,” Tenuk explained. “They are becoming less xenophobic, so we should become more open to them. This is a big step for them. And the least we can do, as Dessaron and representatives of the Union, is give them a hand and show that we’re all alright.”
Elksia nodded in agreement. “Yep! Now let’s go and get that idol back!”
As the four beings stepped out of the ship, they realised the cave was quite small indeed. In fact, it was too small for Tenuk, so he shrunk himself down to squeeze in. The cave wasn’t that deep though. After only twenty meters, they stumbled across the perpetrator and the stolen item.
To all of their surprise, the criminal was a Skyavok, desperately clutching a large, gold idol depicting a Skyavok-looking being.
“Piss piss piss piss…” the Skyavok muttered to themselves. “If I’d known they’d send the Dessaron… Heck, this was all a massively horrible idea… I regret everything… You’re going to pull me out of this cave and deliver me to the Banikans and they’re going to tear my guts out. I didn’t think it was a statue belonging to them, it just looked interesting and my ship had broken down so I was kinda fucked anyway…”
Tenuk glanced at the others, then at the Skyavok.
“What’s your name?” Psiksi asked.
“Eljay-Ess.”
“How did you get here?”
“I don’t know. My ship crashed here. Don’t know how I got out of home. I fucked up and now I’m going to die.”
Psiksi turned back to the other Dessaron. “We’re not going to-”
“Don’t be silly!” Elksia grinned, as she extended one of her blades. “We’re going to make him bleed a little to make it seem like he died, then we’re going to smuggle you out. On the condition that you serve some time doing a social service, because you clearly fucking stole that thing. What is it anyway?”
The Skyavok held it up. “I don’t know! I thought it was a Skyan item since that’s what it looks like but they… they got so angry…”
“It’s a statue of the Thantophor…” Tenuk muttered. “Their holy god. You stole an item of worship that probably means a huge amount to them.”
“Fuck…” Eljay-Ess shivered. “I fucked up so bad… Probably angered their stupid death god too…”
“Eh, probably not!” Tenuk smiled as he took the statue out of Eljay-Ess’s hands. Elksia made a cut on the Skyavok’s wrist, dropped some blood on the ground then bundled him up in rope. She then smacked the Skyavok across the head, knocking him out. Retvik rolled his eyes as he threw the Skyavok over his shoulder and the four of them headed back outside.
Back out in the sunlight, Tenuk took a closer look at the statue.
“Yep, definitely our old buddy the Thantophor…” Tenuk gently left the statue by the entrance to the cave. “Psiksi, do you know a Skyan police station where we can drop this guy off?”
Psiksi nodded. “Yeah, there’s one not too far off.”
“Cool. We’ll drop him off then maybe stop off for ice cream.”
“What is it with you and ice cream?” Psiksi asked.
“Oh, nothing…” Tenuk smiled. “I just like it…”