Rhode brought his aching body to a seated position at the lip of his creaking bed. There was a haze in the room; expended candles and incense sticks having been left everywhere along the shelves alongside the new and strange varieties of plants and crystals. There were baskets strewn about: filled with piles of dirty bandages. Filthy sheets and clothing layered over every chair or table or raised surface there was, and some even lay on the floor.

Thankfully, someone had at least emptied the chamberpot, but overall Rhode’s room was a mess.

“Huh. Where’s Missus O?” Rhode asked blearily.

“Who?” Rikva blanked. She threw the rag into a bin, and adjusted her latest, very scarlet hairpin. “Oh, yea. I dunno. Usually we have somebody come by to clean, but I’m not sure where they are. It’s been like, three days.”

“Three?” Rhode wiped his hands down over his face and yawned. “Again?”

“Your lucky number,” Rikva smiled. Then she frowned and looked down at her cup. “No, sorry. I think your lucky number is ah, seven? Inconclusive, try again later. I guess it doesn’t matter. But like, it’s still my professional opinion that you gotta get ready now. Like, super quick.”

Rhode stretched his arms out to either side. “What’s happened?”

The scholar had to step back. “Well, I mean nothing’s happened,” Rikva trailed off. She screwed up one side of her face as she thought about it. “Like, yet. But it’s about to.”

Rhode’s resulting glower was so ill-tempered it gave the young woman a fright and she stammered on.

“They’re planning to wake up another one of you. [Hero Summon]. Again, but up in the main palace.”

Rhode felt an overwhelming sense of weightlessness come over him. It was like a kind of vertigo that was missing its dizziness or nausea. Where was the floor? Where was the ceiling? It was that sort of feeling of being lost within the very space that one was present in.

He knew he wanted to ask a question, but he struggled to figure out what it was. Then his voice cracked a bit. It wavered.

“Like, from Earth?” He asked in a whisper.

The excitement in Rikva’s voice turned into doubt. “I’m not sure. I would assume so. But maybe not. My readings don’t really tell me you’ll be friends. Sorry.”

“Your readings?” Rhode scoffed. Then he rose to his feet and realized he was angry. “How are you supposed to know this? What, magic?”

“Well, yea.” Rikva grabbed at her ear and stroked it. She shrunk a bit beneath the shadow of the homunculus. “Some things. Most things, you just ask people. Obviously. But ah, yea? It’s like, a third of my levels.”

“Dedicated to seeing the future?” Rhode loomed.

“Yea,” the scholar wilted.

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The intensity in Rhode’s look faded. He turned away and thudding while he paced the room with bare feet. He turned back.

“But I’ve seen you gambling.”

“Well, I mean, I get bored.”

“Yea, but we’ve played together. You’re terrible.”

Rikva laughed with relief and vexation. “Oh, by the gods. Everybody goes on about that. It’s like, a common misconception. Fortune and Fate are, yea, okay, related. But they’re totally different fields of study.”

The earth-man was unprepared for this. “Huh?”

“Yea! It’s like, Fortune is when you want something for yourself. So you just gotta steer all the good things that are happening towards you. That’s why literally everybody’s got an uncle or grandma or something that dips a little into Fortune.”

Rhode sat down, some old instinct drove him to look for something to write with. He didn’t find it.

“But Fate? Fate’s like, trying to see everything at once. Follow all the threads, pick at all the outcomes. And then, what you gotta do is find the one thing that comes out best for everybody. Different, right? I mean, come on. Most of the time, they don’t even use the same kind of math.”

Rhode worked to think of something to say.

“Sorry, like, I know that’s a trigger for me. I just gotta deal with it all the time. Wrote my dissertation on it, actually.”

Rhode scratched at his chin. “No, no problem. And I guess, sort of sorry for getting mad at you.”

“That’s okay. Secret research team underground with like, megalomaniacs. I’m used to it. Anyway, is there anything you need to get ready? Need something to eat? Drink? Want to do some hand stuff?”

Rhode was hungry, but he waved away the offers. That wasn’t Rikva’s job, and he felt guilty treating her like wait-staff, when she was clearly a talented woman worthy of respect. Then he short-circuited.

“I, um…”

“No, you’re right,” the woman sighed. She was turned away from him and squatted down by a basket. She was picking through it searching for any clothes which might be considered clean. “That’s unprofessional.”

Rhode swallowed. “It’s just…”

“I’m sorry,” the goblin threw a massive shirt and pair of stockings at the homunculus. “It’s just, the other night, you know. When you took of your shirt? It was like, this isn’t normally my thing, but, ‘whoa there’!”

The hero realized he had not seen a single mirror during his time alive. He made a note to find one. “Oh.”

The scholar continued, “so you’ve got to recognize taste. Next day? I totally went to hang out with Krevinkya and we’re like, practically best friends now.”

Rhode struggled with his nightshirt, fumbling clumsily. “Who?”

“The alchemist,” Rikva replied absently.

“Ah,” Rhode said. “Listen, everything’s so new to me. I’m still just…”

“No, you’re right,” the woman laughed again, more easily. “You’ve still gotta go to war or whatever they’re making you do. I was just remembering what my mother always said.”

Rhode began to button up his new shirt, and held up his stockings to the light. “Yea? What’s that.”

“If you know he’s gonna be famous,” the goblin’s voice turned into a bad parody of an elderly woman. “Ya gotta get in on the ground floor early.”

The homunculus couldn’t help but snort. The goblin joined in.

“Well you still gotta hurry,” Rikva grinned with a mouth full of fangs, “but how ‘bout at least… let me watch you do the pants.”

There was no one with a conscience to tell Rhode no.