Ed Santos’ face transformed so quickly, Rhode only processed it afterwards. He felt two palms shoving into his chest. His body fell stumbling backwards and slammed into the wall. The floor shook. The wine shook. The wooden framing inside of the wall had cracked, and a patterned smear of ichor was stamped onto the body-sized divot in the wall-paper.
“Oh, ow,” Rhode murmured, dazed. His eyes were unfocused.
The bodyguard was on his feet. He had his hand out towards Ser Santos. The hornupant had drawn her knees up towards her body and withdrawn as if she could retreat into creases of her chair’s padding.
Rhode rolled his shoulders, and took a deep, shuddering breath. “That was kind of rude.”
Both goblins froze. A shadow of doubt passed over Ed Santos’s sneer. It is a funny thing, how slight a change in voice can mean so much.
Finding renewed confidence, the Second Hero moved to close the distance with harsh words ready on his lips. But before he could speak, his bodyguard pulled him back with ferocious strength in his grip.
Every effort Ser Santos made to pull away from the goblin, failed. <
The bodyguard put himself physically between the homunculi. Rhode looked down at him, and the man looked back up in turn. There was a matching calm in their expressions. Everything about the goblin was completely, indescribably average. His light olive tan was unremarkable. His hair was commonly dark, and only slightly curled. There was a barely perceptible deviation in his nose, and a set of faint scars shaped like grains of rice along his right jaw and throat.
“You’re right, Ignacio,” Rhode said. “I was out of line. I shouldn’t have insulted you. I am tired, and I was upset that you insulted me.”
“I did not,” Ser Santos denied. He spread his arms wide and backwards to display his chest. “What did I say?”
“You called him old and weak, Goode Hero,” the bodyguard reminded him in a firm whisper. “Perhaps you misspoke, your Calamitousness. Our language is easy to misinterpret.”
“I did not say that.”
“You sort of, kind of did,” timidly offered the curly □■□■ed goblin woman. “Maybe it was an accident? Ser Hero, Ser.”
Rhode worked his fingers, and milimeter by millimeter, reconstructed a smile. “It’s alright, man. No harm done.” He laughed hollowly, and indicated behind him. “Except for the wall.” He faced forward and stared down his fellow ex-human, waving his hands up and down over his torso. “Maybe my ribs and general organs.”
Santos seemed lost, searching about the room for an escalation in violence that wasn’t coming. His choler drained out of him, and then he stalked back towards the divan and collapsed into it. There was a spatter of spilled wine on the table; he slapped a napkin down on the puddle, and wiped it away. “I am not stupid,” he insisted.
“Goodeman Santos,” bowed the bodyguard. The gesture was crisp, exaggerated and formal. “You will forgive the Goodeman Irving, surely. The maladies he suffers from have burdened him greatly. Perhaps he deserves our patience.”
Rhode bared his teeth in a dishonest smile.
Sorry, mouthed the hornupant acolyte.
“Perhaps the Goode Hero Irving is tired. His [Hibernate] level must be acting up. We told you about that before, Goodeman Santos: the Dreadlung is particular about needing his rest. This is why The Program is so careful about guiding you to your first level. Isn’t that right, Goodmiss ▯■□■□?”
“O-o-oh, I don’t… I mean, Sers I’m just here to make sure his soul doesn’t come loose. I-I don’t have an opinion, beg your pardon.”
Rhode pursed his lips, biting back certain choice words. He glanced down at his (former?) healer; his eyes slid disconcertingly off of her features, and then back up.
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The bodyguard’s wand fit into an oiled leather holster at his hip. The goblin’s palm laid open lightly on the handle. “In fact, I myself am getting tired as well. The Goode Hero must be getting somewhat bored,” he suggested as if he was addressing the reclining [Brave] instead of Rhode directly. “Now that the fighting is done. Surely, Goodeman Irving can visit you another time –”
Rhode shook his head and took a long stride, stopping at the edge of the low, shared table. He reached one finger out and tapped the neck of the wind bottle, and loomed over Ser Santos. In the limited space, the bodyguard had reluctantly yielded back towards his corner. Rhode’s shadow was cast from dim crystal-light onto the drawn window curtains.
“No, we’re not done. I still would like to talk to Ignacio,” he demanded gravely.
“Then by all means, speak,” the unassuming goblin invited, his voice cutting with a threatening edge.
Ignacio Edilberto Asterio Santos sat up suddenly and stabbed a finger forward. “What if I do not want to talk to him?”
The bodyguard sighed with relief. “Then you don’t have to, Goodehero –
The [Greater Brave Homunculus] slapped his hands against his knees and cocked his head. “What if I do want to talk?”
The bodyguard shut his mouth with a snap of his teeth.
If there had been tobacco smoke in the air, the chamber would have been the perfect image of a sultry lounge-style bar. The low light, the dark, sumptuous fabrics, they all came together with an irrational sensation of voices or conversations just out of hearing. Rhode could almost swear the shadows were wriggling in his peripheral vision. A thick pressure was crowding the room, as if flowing out through the curtain that led into the adjoining room.
If Rhode couldn’t bring the conversation somewhere safer, he could never say a tenth of the things he wanted to say. “Ignacio, do you want to take a walk? We could talk about home. You could stretch your legs.”
<< ¡Para ya! Estoy hasta las narices, >> the Hero spat. “You talk circles. You both. If you want to drink, come be my friend. You want to talk like men, you talk at my face. Not his. I am not dumb.” << Te voy a bajar los humos. >>
“Ignacio, there are things I can’t…” Rhode winced.
“No one calls me Ignacio. I am Ed. Tell me your levels. What powers do you have?”
“What powers? I mean, I have a couple of levels, but I wouldn’t say I have any powers. Maybe –”
“Whatever. Do you know any girls?”
“What?” Rhode sputtered, confused. “Like, in general? I mean, there are women on the Project –”
<< Eres tan aburiodo. >> “You don’t drink. You don’t bring girls. You want to fight me?”
Rhode searched about the room for help. “No, Ed. Of course not. Why would I want to fight you?”
“Because we are alive! I was dead. Earth sucked. Now I am alive. Magic is real. This place is like video games. We are Heros! I can level up. We should fight, we should drink, we should find beautiful girls to fuck! By God! How can you be so boring.”
“Ed, you aren’t thinking these things through clearly,” Rhode whispered. He blinked away moisture before it could gather. “If you just rationally consider what’s going on…”
“I am tired of you,” Edilberto waved dismissively, “talking to you is like talking to my father. You make me sober to listen to you.”
Flabbergasted, Rhode was struck speechless. What were the right words to say? He didn’t know.
“Tomorrow, I will take lessons. I will learn to fight with swords,” Edilberto announced lightly, settling back into the divan with his arms crossed comfortably behind his head. “Knights will teach me. You come learn with me. Be fun.”
“There’s going to be a war, Ed,” Rhode tried one last time.
“War will be hard. So help. Everybody says you are a coward, that you are crippled. But I see that you are big. So be cool, fight with me. You can be my” << compinche >> “my sidekick.”
Paralyzing anger had overtaken Rhode, he didn’t want to even move for fear that he’d do something extreme. [Bellows] had become overwhelming. The shadows were fraying at the edges, where they had been creeping into the light. The goblins held their breath. Even Ed Santos was flinching, though he tried to hide it.
They were saved from further discomfort by the Goode Brother Eloft. The goblin healer’s head poked through the dividing curtain, announced by a satiny, rustling sound. “Ah wow,” the goblin blurted in surprise. He worked his jaw comically, accompanied by contorted, exaggerated expressions. “You’ve got my ears popping with this pressure.”
“Eloft, man, help me out here,” the Hero Dreadlung begged.
“Ser Irving,” Eloft’s tone and manner of speaking turned clipped and formal. A ghost of an apology flickered over his face. “It will have to wait. Management would like to speak to you now.”