Ravalor III

05.04.2026

That the old man was here in the restaurant was a little bit unfortunate as far as Ravalor was concerned, but since he wasn't left alone with him, and Aeven and Wolla easily carried any conversation, it wasn't too bad. He felt more uncomfortable right now than the situation justified, but objectively, it was fine. At least he told himself so. However, instead of calming, it just made him more nervous by the second.

The old man had been here when they had arrived and promptly waved them over. Ravalor had been somewhat relieved to see him alive. Having been told by the man that he was mostly alone had made Ravalor feel somewhat obligated, as the one person he was talking to, to take note of his absence and inquire into his well-being. But the relief was not so great as to foster any greater desire for conversation.

He caught himself already gauging the best moment to excuse himself without coming off as too rude. He had thought once everyone was done eating it would be fine, but then Wolla had gone for seconds before Aeven had finished his plate fully.

Now Wolla came back from the noon-buffet, balancing an oversized food tray in her arms. There were smaller ones. There was nothing on this station that hadn't goblin appropriately sized options, from ladders, seating areas, food and even shops, and yet this was far from the first time he saw a goblin ignore these accommodations. Maybe Wolla did it out of a sense of fitting in, but maybe just because the large trays were able to fit a lot more food. Frankly, an amount of food he wasn't sure where it could possibly go in a body so small.

She put the tray on the table and climbed back up the seat.

“You were on the Twilight ke?” Wolla asked the old man when she started eating (again). “I think I remember you!”

The old man nodded, “I used to. Just cleaning up some. Not anymore; The knees getting pretty bad.”

“Why not get new ones?” Aeven asked, even when he sounded more passively interested. He was now done eating. “My old captain, on the Somerville,” he added as context for Ravalor who would be the only one to recognize the ship name, “—had gotten new ones at like… 40? Very early. But it was all good then.”

“At this point I fear I’d need a new body to fix every little ache and pain,” the old man said with a light shrug of the hands.

“I’ll never understand why you humans keep on living so long just to get so broken,” Wolla mused undoubtedly not trying to be insensitive but not really thinking about it much either. The old man, Don, as Wolla had called him earlier, just ignored her. Aeven however, peaked up.

“How long do Goblins live?”

“Well,” Wolla tilted her head right and left after swallowing another bite of her steak. “Physically, about 10 years.” She nodded at Aeven's almost shocked disbelief when he echoed “10?” And then continued unbothered, “Spiritually, I’ll have children in about two or three years and they will be with me till this body dies. They take my memories with them so I continue. As a child of Tarnax, I’m about 2020 years old.” She explained factually and willingly, downright delighted at Aeven's genuine, if not mildly unnerved curiosity. “I became Tarnax when we joined Zenozarax and split from Jindejix, who I was before. And way before that, before Yaryax became king, I was Weidade. But It’s not proper to make claims of memories that are that old.”

Ravalor listened passively as Wolla, at Aeven's inquiry, continued to explain that even with their ancestral memories, things that old were just really unreliable to recount, but being able to show a clear family codex reaching that far back still carried a lot of prestige. She drew out the “lot” in that sentence to a comical degree which made Aeven smile. Ravalor met the old man's eyes for a moment, and thought he looked a bit bored.

“Have you decided what to do?” The old man asked him, ignoring the ongoing conversation of Aeven and Wolla.

“About staying?” Ravalor asked just to delay. He felt tired talking about it. He didn't want to talk about it. But he probably had to accept that till he really took a clear stance on what he intended to do, people would just keep asking.

The old man nodded.

“No. Not really.” He thought he had but wasn't so sure anymore. Passively glancing over to Aeven and Wolla in their energised discussion he felt like there was an allegory in that image somewhere about crossing bridges and overcoming prejudice. If now only Ravalor could find that bridge while everything before him looked like an endless impassible chasm.

“Hm.” Don nodded again, like he had expected nothing else. “I think you should try and find that answer sooner rather than later. Before anyone forces you into one.”

“What do you mean?” Ravalor frowned lightly.

“I feel like that kind of decision, you ought to make yourself. Otherwise you’ll always have a reason to resent it. Look at your friends,” the old man mused quietly. “There is a difference between chaos wizards that left because they chose to, and those that were forced out. Maybe that is already too late for you, but you still have agency. You still have a choice.”

Ravalor almost scoffed. It was a choice alright, with only bad to worse options. Then he paused internally, trying to pass that knee-jerk reaction kind of thinking and reminding himself that it was nothing but counterproductive.

“And I think your time for consideration is running out fast,” the old man added, but he was now looking past him. Ravalor followed his gaze and to his surprise, and concern alike, he saw Zenozarax enter the Restaurant, heading towards them.

Aeven noticed as well and Wolla too once Aeven fell silent.

It was Zenozarax' Warrior again, so he had finished rebuilding himself, obviously. And there were many things Ravalor would want to ask Zenozarax now, especially concerning what he might have learned about his other Parts in the last weeks, but something was wrong. And it wasn't just the hair and beard — which he had apparently not changed much from the moment he had woken up again, which was already odd for someone as obsessed with visual appearance as Zenozarax was.

While the Warrior kept his face near void of any readable expression, which also was remarkable for Zenozarax in the first place, Ravalor knew in that moment beyond a doubt, that something was very, very wrong.

“Is everything alright?” Ravalor asked quietly as Zenozarax had reached them. And immediately he knew he shouldn’t have asked. He saw it in the smallest move in his face, the small twitch in the corner of his mouth. And maybe it was in the way he had asked, maybe it had been the short glance Zenozarax shot the old man, but he could even feel it. More than that, within his mind, suddenly, alarms flared up, like something that had kept him on edge for hours was suddenly screaming at him.

He didn't understand it at that moment.

But somehow he knew he was about to.

“Yeah,” Zenozarax said nevertheless, and it was a lie, “Do you two have a moment?” he asked Ravalor and Aeven. Ravalor looked at Zenozarax when he heard the old man say,

“You should have told me he’s a prophet.”

And Ravalor saw, in that moment, nothing but pure dread in his friends eyes. For a moment, Zenozarax kept looking at Ravalor, as if, if he could only pretend he hadn't heard, it hadn’t happened. And in that moment, Ravalor understood.

“What does it matter to you?” Zenozarax finally looked to the old man, Ravalor now too dreaded to do the same. He felt time crawling as every sense rose into high alert, drawing the entire room into a tactical battleground. With most people still suffering the aftermath of the celebration the prior night there weren't many people here — but still too many. “What more do you really need to know?”

The old man smiled lightly. It was a horrible smile of pure malicious glee. He stood up, and in that moment there was nothing left of the frail and pain ridden movement from before. If there had been any wishful thinking left it was shattered in that moment.

“What’s going on?” Aeven asked tensely, but Ravalor didn't dare to answer it. Still didn't want to believe.

“He’s Quadirymir,” Zenozarax said.

How did this happen? How could this happen? Since when? Ravalor now stared at the old man who was still smiling.

“Took you long enough. Frankly, the security on this station is pathetic. Did you never consider this could happen?” Quadirymir asked, sounding rather disappointed in Zenozarax, while he walked around the table way too casually. Coming way too close. And when he crossed that threshold of halfway past the table Ravalor jumped up as well.

It was that moment when the rest of the Restaurant fell silent. The abrupt movement would have earned him a magical blast to the face from any self-respecting wizard in a situation like this. But he couldn't help it. His core was pulsing hard, every available emergency energy he still got left coursing through his veins.

Quadirymir did not react to it with more than an unimpressed glance. Of course not. Ravalor would barely register as a threat to him.

Zenozarax had not yet taken his eyes from Quadirymir. In the back of his awareness, Ravalor noticed Aeven standing up as well, slowly and carefully, pulling Wolla instinctively behind him.

All this time Quadirymir had been here.

And he had been here because of Ravalor, there was no doubt about that. Every encounter with the old man suddenly recontextualized, and everything his visions had tried to tell him suddenly made sense. All the while he had stared at the wizard that would kill him right in the face without realizing it.

Quadirymir would kill him.

His entire being was electrified by the certainty of the knowledge. He was about to die. Right here right now, no matter how deceptively calm everything still appeared. He felt that escalation just moments away, staring at him, moving ever closer in time, and he couldn't stop it. Didn’t know how to stop it.

Panic took over him whole as he realised the extent of his own helplessness. Standing now between Zenozarax and Quadirymir, two chaos wizards, he couldn't do anything to defend himself. Not against these powers.

He was so on edge that when Zenozarax finally (it had been only seconds he knew that) spoke again, it startled him.

“What do you want?”

Please log in to leave and read comments.