The Missing Split – Sudden Actions
The names of Decay Lord Trios are generally deterministic. Those given by the Overlord tend to influence the future of a Trio, to the point that overcoming the potential implications of a name can be impossible. Clearly, a Decay Lord Trio dubbed ‘The Missing’ are bound to struggle against their almost predetermined fate. Unfortunately, it seems the multiverse is conspiring against them.
Welcome to one of the… more depressing story arcs I’ve written. A story of rash decisions and broken emotions.
Read the original post here.
Sometimes, Litvir wished he didn’t have telepathy. Right now, as Retvik closed the door of their personal quarters and stood in front of Litvir, Litvir knew what Retvik was thinking, and was desperately trying to hide his fear.
With an uncharacteristic roughness, Retvik forced a communicator into Litvir’s hands, showing him a message. It was a message sent from Arkay to Retvik on the Decay Lord communication app Wyvern. As Litvir read it though, he could tell that Arkay hadn’t written it. It was too formal. It knew too much.
“Is this true?” Retvik asked.
Litvir read the message again. His dark past all laid out in front of someone as noble and heroic as Retvik. Not everything. Enough to be damning and damaging. There was no point in lying. That would just make things worse.
“Yes. It was true.”
Retvik grunted. “What did you discuss with Arkay?”
“Nothing. I never spoke to Arkay. Yisini lied to me. She had access to Arkay’s communication device. In exchange for answering some of her questions, Yisini said she would let me speak to Arkay. Instead, she berated me, accused me of simply pretending to be a better person to avoid you harming me, brought up my horrible past, then disconnected the call and, I assume, sent you that message.”
“So you listened to a serpent deity’s poisonous words and let yourself be tricked, severing our connection to Arkay further. And also severing the connection between ourselves.”
“Arkay said that his sibling had changed! I believed what Arkay told us! I…” Litvir abruptly stopped. “I fell for a Life Goddess. We have a habit of doing that…”
“We do, yes. I thought you knew better, Litvir. I thought I knew you better. You lied to me about your past intents. You have… lied about a lot of things. You lied about the Void Lord Kenon. You helped him.”
“Of course I helped him!” Litvir snapped. “I had very few options! He offered me a chance to escape my digital prison! A body, a chance to complete my work, a place by his side, in exchange for working with him! My alternative was to say no to a deity, and for him to shut off the power to my systems, trapping me permanently in darkness. The Void Lord would not have found me, had Kaldoran not given up HIS secrets to save his own tail!”
“Everyone else resisted.”
“He offered me everything I wanted. I could not say no!” Litvir was angry. He couldn’t understand why Retvik didn’t understand him. This made Litvir lash out. “If anyone else was in my place, they would have said yes! As far as I was concerned, helping Kenon increase his control was a small price to pay for what he was going to give me! You gave yourself to the Void Lord as well!”
“Trismit and I exchanged ourselves for the freedom of 200 political prisoners, including Rethais’s son.”
Litvir tutted. He was genuinely frustrated now. “Well… I am sorry that I am not as stupidly suicidal and bound by insane heroism as you are. And I do not regret it. After all, I WAS given what I wanted. For about five minutes.”
“You do not feel remorse?”
“For that? No, of course not!” Litvir hissed, snarling at Retvik. “I have told you before. It has ALWAYS been survival of the fittest! Of my survival over everyone else’s survival! Becoming a Decayling taught me some selflessness but deep down I have always been a monster and I spend my days hiding that and pretending to be a better person.”
“You… have just been… pretending?”
“In a way, yes. You were bred to be perfect. I was bred to be a monster. I cannot change that. And despite your efforts, neither can you!”
Litvir paused. In his anger, he had lashed out. Shadowy tendrils, the ones he used to have when he was mortal, had filled the room, wrapping around Retvik’s wrists. Worse, that feeling of emotional hunger, his desire to feed on the thoughts of others, had returned.
“I think you need to leave, Litvir.”
With a snap of Litvir’s fingers, he let go of Retvik, and the tendrils disintegrated into nothing. The flood of emotions that Litvir was picking up quickly overwhelmed him, to the point that he wasn’t sure who each emotion belonged to. Eventually, Retvik’s words began to sink in. Maybe they sank in a little too far. Maybe Litvir misunderstood them. Maybe he understood them too well.
“I do. But I never should have been here in the first place. I am sorry, Retvik.”
“I understand.”
Litvir looked Retvik up and down one last time, then snapped his fingers again. Retvik blinked, then collapsed on the ground. With a wave of his land, he telekinetically lifted Retvik onto the bed, covering him with a sheet. Litvir worked around the unconscious Rethan as he erased the messages on Retvik’s communicator, gathered a handful of personal belongings, then walked out of the room, locking the door behind him. He then made his way down to the lower level of the Shimmering Blade, hiding his presence as he did so. Whoever Litvir passed, he blurred their memories, making them forget he had been there.
The hangar was particularly empty. The majority of the Phantai were out on patrols, or out on a new mapping mission, to properly evaluate the size of the now expanding Goldtorn Remains. The few Decay Lords wandering around were easy to manipulate. One had already prepared a ship and was ready to go. As Litvir cast his mental cantrips, he glanced around and took a long, deep breath. It didn’t matter any more. None of it mattered.
No one noticed as the single, stolen ship slowly exited the hangar, then disappeared into the darkness.
Well, almost no one. But by then, Litvir was already long gone.