There was a body on the floor and it was moving. That was the good news!

It probably started with a pulse; with one, tremendous beat of its dead heart. A chest began to rise, and its mouth opened with a phlegmatic rattle.

Arms uncrossed. They lifted, but weakly, and so painfully shakily.

Then the Hero rolled his body onto his side and curled into a little ball as tight as he could.

“God, oh God,” he said. “No. Please. Help me. Save me,” he moaned.

Dios, Dios mío. No! Por favor. Ayúdame. Me salve.

Is what Rhode heard. The newly summoned Sacred Hero had yet to bond with the [Lingual]-type parasitic tumor in his brain, and it would be some days before he could speak casually in the goblin-tongue.

So. Rhode Mortimer Irving, the Dreadlung, the [Greater Brawn Homunculus], and weapon of the two hundred year-old Second Prince Llanthinanumen –

Kind of needed to walk away for a second and get some air.

He leaned one arm against a far wall of the bright, cheerful ballroom. There was a mirror in front of him, and it was simultaneously calming and permanently traumatizing to see what he had become. Those broad shoulders. The thick, heavy-boned limbs. His tiny-looking head was so square around the jaw and the brow. His ears barely even came to points at all! Wait, no – that was right.

What color was he? Corpse, he thought. Or maybe ‘fading bruise’.

The other thing he’d realized, was just how similar his features were to his newborn brother’s. Or even, it was more like he was exactly the same: a twin, except just bigger. [Brawn]ier, one might say.

“Goodman Irving,” an old man asked, “may I lean on you, my boy?”

Journeyman Scholar Yagget, a renowned mantralist and magician of Wavelton & Broox College of the Arcane, who some might say was denied the rank of Master only since he refused to play the games of politics so necessary in academia –

Well, he looked worn out. As Rhode held out one, sturdy arm, Yagget held on to its strength.

“Yagget. Am I a bad person?” Rhode choked.

The scholar looked up at Rhode. The two men regarded themselves in the mirror, so deliberate in the way they ignored the world behind them.

“I didn’t think I was,” the monster continued. “I never did anything that was wrong. Not really wrong, anyway. Just regular, dumb stuff. Normal mistakes.”

“I… am not sure I follow, my boy,” the scholar said.

“The things you guys said in the ritual, in the summon: the spell. That was just for the drama, right? The theater of it. It was flavor text. I wasn’t supposed to go to hell.”

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Yagget’s eyes were… well, they were not unkind. Maybe he could never be a true comfort, or even ever be trusted (not really). But in this one moment, they were something more than strangers.

“Much of the ritual is beyond me, I must admit. My responsibilities are in the preparations, and weakening of the boundaries of what is real. It is Goodman Apriml of BenXol who truly pierces the veil to where a Hero’s soul can be found. And those young soul-binders are the ones who will find… the exact, right person we need most.”

Rhode looked into his own eyes, and they were blue. Not the blue of carefree skies, but the blue of the deep places of the ocean.

“That’s all I cared to know. You will have to forgive me, Rhode. I did not think to ask.”

Rhode curled his fist so tight it hurt.

“Yagget I –“ don’t want to become a weapon, he almost said.

But he didn’t. Rhode knew that if he said those words out loud, right there and then, then that would be the end. It would be his doom.

“- really appreciate it,” he announced instead. It hurt to lie. But he did. “Thank you. That makes me feel a lot better.”

The goblin smiled and showed his fangs. “If it is true, and you have a black-heart in there; if you are a creature of wickedness,” he began. Then he winced, as if from the flaring of an old ache. “Then at least I hope you take some comfort that you are in some fine company.”

An imperfect man patted Rhode on the arm, and Rhode (very carefully) tapped him on the shoulder back.

But time did not simply stop just so that one soul could find a moment of relief. The Ring kept turning.

Prince Llanthinanumen stood before a masterpiece. It represented the culmination of years of effort, of planning, and of (other people’s) sacrifice.

His servants worked urgently. They wrapped a [Greater Brave Homunculus] in strips of alchemical, resin soaked cloth. Long chains of malefic [rune]s were painted along the bandages, and they helped secure an unstable soul to its body for temporary transport.

The Hero, the real Hero, had finally come. The Prince’s attentions turned slowly away, and towards a whining, bumbling disappointment. Still. He reminded himself that this Hero had stood its ground against the Jern girl: that peasant-blooded Viper sword-prodigy.

Luckily, it had never mattered whether or not the ‘experiment’ reached full effectiveness. He would never hinge his plan off of any single point of failure. This? This was always meant to be an effort in – what did Irving call it? He had such an apropos term his people used.

Ah, yes. ‘Mass production’. These ‘humans’ were occasionally rather clever with language.

So, even though the Second Prince was satisfied that he did not need this Dreadlung at all… well. He watched and he listened, and he came to conclusions. There was also no sense in letting a tool go to waste.

“We will have Ser Reliance attend to Us now.”

Rhode heard.

The acolytes Good■□■ ▯■□■□■, Good□■□ ▮□■□■, and Good■□■ ▯■□■□■, continued their ministrations. Eventually, one of them would run out of the room (in a direction Rhode thought of as goat-wards), and fetched a type of rolling gurney: but not quite yet.

The Translocationist, Goodman Apriml was soaked in sweat. The sacrifice still lay by his feet. The containment unit sat sealed about a yard in the other direction. The goblin leaned against his podium, gasping with his helmet removed. But he still snapped to attention on demand, and snapped his fingers. “[Relay][Interpose][Baud-channel],” he wheezed. “My Lord, Ser Reliance. You are requested.”

“Goodman Irving,” spoke Llanthinanumen. “Stand with Us. Let us speak of the future.”

And it was not a question.