Rhode tilted uncomfortably with a pained sneer as his one-wheeled conveyance leaned into a turn. A stout goblin saucier on the wrong side of the furniture chariot threw themselves to the ground, tucking tight and flat alongside the base of the wall, and the legs of the couch barely cleared over their body.
“Watch it!” cried a sweaty faced soldier, pushing from behind.
“Hey, apologize to the guy we almost ran over,” Rhode growled. He held a hot pasty in one hand, wrapped in cheesecloth and filled with steamed tubers and amphibian’s meat. There was no good place to set it down. A convulsive shudder threw the occupants of the sofa-mobile from side to side, and against the hastily installed bamboo safety-rail.
Rhode tried to hand his pastry to the old carpenter that was squeezed in between his knees and the insensate gob of spear squad 2. The goode man refused with a polite smile. “No, no,” he said with a thick, high-pitched accent.
“I’m not trying to feed you, man. I just need you to hold it for me. Obviously, you can eat it if you want to. But like, just hold it. I gotta get up soon.”
“No,” the old man smiled. “No.”
A panting kitchen worker drew up alongside the palanquin wearing a fluffy, pear-hued apron. Her whole body lurched from side to side as the large pitcher she held out in front of her sloshed with thick soup. “Would you like some fermented spine-rat egg bisque, Ser Dreadlung?”
“For pity’s sake. No!” Rhode pinched the bridge of his nose, and took a deep, calming breath. “I just want some water. Guys. I am really trying to be patient here. I don’t need a cake. I don’t need a giant sword. Somebody, for the love of all that’s right and righteous, get me some water. That’s literally all I’m asking for.”
A short steward with a peg leg was hanging from the incomplete roll cage framing, with impressive grip strength. His mouth moved like a fish as his mind spun through computations. “Beer?” he asked.
“PLAIN. WATER.”
Rhode’s fist closed around the steward’s midsection and then the goblin squeaked as the Homunculus held him out (arm shaking, as it’s actually quite hard to do this) and placed him directly into the embrace of a soldier that was running besides them. The two immediately collapsed into a tangle as he let go.
“Sorry! Sorry! Water though!”
Since the Exhibition Hall, Rhode’s rampage had stopped three petty fist fights, four looting sprees, and one unusual case of a goblin chewing on the embellishments of a pearl-inlaid dish cabinet. He hadn’t quite figured that one out yet, but the goblin offender looked particularly embarrassed about it, so he wasn’t about to ask.
The carefully preserved lower level of the Ancestral Ring flashed by them quickly. Wild, organic patterns scrawled over the lush wallpapers. Thin, bronze-leaf plating contoured the doorjambs. Niches and cabinets displayed figurines and busts of false jade, a glass enclosed copper diadem studded with peridot and milk-apple cabochons, a wine jug shaped like a fat baby. The last, carefully curated signs of the palace’s historical wealth were on display here. There were smalls signs of damage and theft, but for the most part, the staff of Malachite had fiercely protected this place.
More than that, little of the Hero Project’s active operations had been housed in this hall and the relative peace reflected that.
The escapade circumnavigated only about fifteen degrees worth of the arc of the ring before they reached a pinched intersection, overshadowed by a set of high, sealed doors. This chamber, whatever it was, gave off a tugging emotion of solemn gravity, but it only slowed their passage by a fraction. Rhode’s ‘carriage’, and his quarter-horde of tired, chattering goblins made a sharp, skidding turn into the brightly lit chaos of Spousal Ring.
Given the parade of mercenaries, officers, carpenters, cooks, the barrister, stewards, and spies, the size of the homunculus’ entourage was starting to grow out of control. Rhode looked out over them, nodding with satisfaction as they exhausted their wild eyed, manic energy with this ridiculous group marathon. He came to a sudden thought and looked around to find the nearest wizard.
“Hey. Staff guy,” Rhode beckoned.
The young officer and squire of Illuminance had dropped his staff onto the couch a hallway ago, and his strange chain mesh armor had gotten snagged and tangled in his coat while he was running. His face was swollen and flush as if he’d fall over at any moment.
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“If someone leveled a whatever, a [Malady], could that make everybody freak out like this?”
The squire huffed wearily. Instead of answering, he simply reached his limit. The young man stumbled and collapsed. Rhode watched as he fell behind the group, and as goblins jumped or tripped over his receding, prone form.
“It doesn’t need to be a malignant level,” answered a muscle-bound union boss instead. As his bruises had purpled and swollen, he was only looking out from one eye, and favored one side as he drifted nearer to the couch. “A [Revel] can get out of hand just as easily. But yes, you have a point, Goodeman Rhode. That could do it.”
“Okay. Well somebody go make sure that guy is okay. And check the magic tuning fork! If somebody finds the other Heroes, I want to know!”
Nothing useful came across over the device, as it toned again. The only voice which responded now was calmly and insistently asking for Rhode’s own position, and volunteered no information beyond that. It was a shame, and had to have been hurting the official security efforts. Still, Rhode had a petty officer of the Second Prince and a mercenary captain at hand. Both of them had received orders and information before the communications blackout, and so Rhode was chasing after the flimsy leads he had available and was trusting to his luck.
After crashing through a string of little dramas, Rhode finally rolled into a landscape of destruction. It appeared around the bend of Spousal’s white and kaleidoscope décor, like a sideways sunrise. Except, instead of a heavenly orb of life-giving light, it was property damage.
The homunculus shouted to slow, and he tugged at a floppy, hastily assembled brake lever. It squealed as it applied friction to the barrel wheel below. Shattered lanterns dripped oil. Light crystals flickered on the floors where they’d fallen. Frightened civilians clustered in armed groups with improvised cudgels and knives, and practically wept with relief as Captain Fent announced the Hero to them.
The guards were just ahead. They were still fighting. They weren’t true soldiers. They were losing. Help.
Rhode set a sleeping Eintirp down. He carefully threw his legs over and dismounted; the shift in balance nearly tipped the couch over. Pillow collection efforts had been less successful than Rhode had hoped, but he tossed the few he had available into the hands of the gobs that his intuition, judgment (and probably prejudice) had marked as most reliable.
The homunculus nodded graciously, his face implacable as he accepted a single crystal cup full of clear water from a sweaty, blotchy cook. He withdrew a small, folded square paper packet from his breast pocket and unfolded it. The black powder inside spilled into his glass as he tapped it, and he stirred the cloudy mix with a finger until it was a grey, thundercloud swill that gave of strange flashes of pale color. Three pills went down his gullet, one after the other, accompanied sip by sip. His head grew thick and cloudy as he drained the better half of the glass and handed it back.
If it was possible to take slightly less of the painkiller than he needed, Rhode would try to weather it as best he could.
“Alright everybody. You hold this point. You warn me if a Knight shows up. Anybody else, and pillows first if you got to fight; be restrained but don’t be stupid. Do what you gotta do.”
Rhode sighed as he let a carpenter strap a cabinet door to one forearm as a makeshift shield, and held a massive, plush, stuffed-toy swan by the neck in the other hand.
“My guys: stay behind me if you can. Try not to kill anybody, please. Let’s go deescalate some ruckus.”
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The Goode Merchant Ux shook. His whole body was cold, and blood was in his hair. As his brother held his hand out to him, Ux honestly and seriously considered not taking it. It would have been better to stay there, laid out on the ground. But there was a dead woman beside him, her skull stove in and her colors stained with mud. So he reached out, and was lifted to his feet by a killer.
The moon was low and half-hidden by clouds. The courtyard was strangely shaped, penned in unevenly by the walls of all four of the palace rings. Broad sporting courts with cultivated hedges and fences were laid out to the wide south-east. Nearby, in this narrow north-western section there were only a few smaller pavilions, dainty gravel rectangles, and garden tables.
A wide swath of the southern yard was on fire. True, it was going out. The lush greens of the playing fields and sturdy bushes were sodden in this climate, and thick with untended weeds that were reluctant to burn. The sputtering tongues of flame and coals marked a lightly curving and unnatural slash that cut across shrubbery and between a pair of mid-sized grassy courts.
This was not a good sign. Knights had been here – dangerously leveled ones. And worryingly, someone had fought back. Torn up vegetation, smashed fences, and a foul chemical stink circled the space around the smoldering line.
Ux tried not to look in that direction. Frankly, his own circumstances were bad enough.
He, his cousins and brothers had gotten lost. Lost so badly, they’d nearly circled the long way around the entire palace. They’d actually passed the main stables over as they’d crossed into Leisure Ring an hour ago. Escape would have only been a matter of turning around when they’d first descended the stair to the ground floor. Instead his family had fought a running, miserable brawl around the long loop of Leisure.
Now they were crossing back through the courtyard. His cousins were wrestling a pair of guards to the ground. The horse-gate had an iron grille in front of it, and it wasn’t even clear if it could be opened. In his heart, Ux was begging for this farce to come to an end.
So when a window shutter slammed open behind him, and Rhode Mortimer Irving stepped into the night air with a droopy felted swan in hand, Ux found himself smiling.
Finally. It would all be over soon.