From there, the procedure concluded uneventfully.
Except –
“I’m feeling a little cold. And leaky. Sort of right down by my hip.”
“Hm? Ser Irving, I should not worry about – oh! That’s an artery. CLAMPS! Ha, an excellent catch, Ser!”
Or –
“Um, Chyrna? Can you stop sewing me closed for a second. Something doesn’t feel right. It’s kind of… wriggling.”
“Alright, who left the [Thirster] Sponge inside of the patient?!”
“Gods be good! One of you soft-skulls, get over here and help me lure it out before it gets to the spleen.”
And perhaps somewhat embarrassingly –
“What, by all the gods, and your backwards, craven ancestors is going on in here?” howled Brother Eloft.
“Goodman, we are in the midst of a most demanding operation: which, further, is of the most utmost secrecy. I must ask that you immediately –”
“Get off it, you hack. Goodwife Krevinkya, Acolyte Whatever-your-name-is, how did not a single one of you think to ask me to be here?”
“Right, that would have been smart,” a young man muttered thoughtfully.
“My Goode and consecrate man,” a barber piped up. Viscera spattered him like the winner of a pie-eating contest. “Though I admit I have not had the pleasure, I assure you that we have everything under control–”
“I am an actual, practicing physician. You have a half-baked conjurer, a stylist, and – and you went and fetched a CONFECTIONER before you got ME?”
So it was safe to say overall: thus proceeded a perfectly reasonable, conscientious and efficient process.
Rhode’s memory would get blurry from there. The steady feed of narcotics clouded his awareness. During the brief surgical team snack-break at hour seven, he slipped into unconsciousness. When he awoke, Eloft and the clock-maker had restored Rhode’s old broken breathing machine to working order. The aeromancer’s magic and the mechanical lung worked together to regulate and slow the heaving rise and fall of his torso. A network of ropes and rigging was being constructed off of clusters of poles and repurposed spears, and these webbed hammocks were holding Rhode’s arms out so that the small bones in his flayed-open hands could be secured. Pins held his skin back. Surgeons held magnifying lenses; and they lined up tiny metal braces with the holes in his metacarpals before they welled up with dark ichor.
A fight nearly broke out when the goblins realized they needed to turn Rhode over in order to reinforce his spine. For twenty awful minutes, they had Rhode standing upright as they cut towards his vertebrae from a short ladder. As it became untenable, Rhode asked an offhand question, inquiring as to whether his body would float.
Within the quarter hour, his breathing machine was adapted to function like a snorkel, the baths were filled with dense salt water, and Rhode bobbed peacefully like a drifting island within a great azure basin. Hours passed, and he watched as purple diffused into the darkening water. He lived by sucking on the tube which plugged his nose and mouth. All the while, goblins straddled his back, taking turns as they worked their painstaking way downwards towards his tailbone.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
In the end, Rhode Mortimer Irving never made it to the end of his ordeal. Every single person has a limit to their endurance, even a Hero from beyond the veil between worlds. By hour twelve, [Hibernate] unhinged its jaw and swallowed him whole.
And not even goblins seemed to blame him for it.
----------------------------------------
Rhode Mortimer Irving, the Dreadlung and Hero of Sacred sat placidly in a subterranean mess hall and thought about how he was going to miss it. The cook was just an army puke who’d been drafted for the responsibility; but she was friendly and loved a good joke, and he’d gotten along with her famously.
He waved at her. She shouted something mildly obscene. He chuckled. They were going to start closing down parts of the underground. There was a rumor that the project was about to go public. Things would change. Then again, Rhode considered, wouldn’t it be nice to see the light again? He would like to see a whole new sun.
A plate of thickly sauced, greasy meat and hearty vegetable casserole sat in front of him on the table. He was happy to be eating something more than his porridge and potion routine for once, and he dug an oversized spoon into his meal.
He stared at the bite. There was dessert tonight. It would be a celebration. There were seams along his fingers now, along his hand and wrist. Hair-thin thread held the skin of his body together, while crusty yellowish secretions wept from each healing incision. Everything hurt. It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to live.
He stared at the bite.
“Looks like someone’s lost gone sailing, eh?” chuckled the cobbler. The goblin had been recruited to Four Hills (in secret) to make shoes in homunculus sizes. He loved to tell the story about how the army lied to him – told him he’d be making intimate leather-gear for a discerning elfen lord. Hardly anybody cared if it was true. The cobbler sat down across from Rhode and he shoveled his dinner while bent over in an uncivilized hunch. Rhode liked this man too. But he did drink too much.
“Look who’s up for third meal, for once!” howled a voice cheerfully. “The Dreadlung RISES! Ah, but look. He doesn’t eat his bread though. Ahahahah!”
A wiry goblin with short-cropped hair and crooked teeth shoved at the cobbler and sat in the space he’d made. Rhode was pretty sure he served as an assistant to the quartermaster. He knew the man liked fixing things: doing favors for others with his hands. Even if he still told cruel jokes sometimes.
“Eat up!” Laughed the cobbler.
You lose that belly, and how’re you gonna find a wife?” hooted the cook.
“Too good for nothing but meat, eh? Look who’s got the pinkies rubbin’ off on him, eh?” japed the quarter-ssistant.
Rhode exhaled, and laughed at himself. His bench wobbled under his weight, and the goblins around him exclaimed gleefully how they could feel the vibration of it; through the floor, or the table. Then the topic moved, as it often did, to Rhode’s distinctive sound. One daredevil even laid their head right on Rhode’s chest. The goblin sang a pitched note, and marveled at how it warbled in time with [Bellows].
Rhode realized he was being played as a musical instrument. He gently pushed the goblin away, and rolled his eyes at a chorus of jeers.
Goblins were so interesting. There were unfettered, and obsessive, and crude. Their fits of genius mania were unsettling, and even dangerous. But there was something inventive and raw about even the worst of goblin ingenuity. Beyond all that, it hadn’t escaped Rhode that he owed these strange creatures his life.
Still. He wondered about the sprawling, decorated palace halls above his head. He pondered on the persistence of goblin industry, in which every single component seemed to be on the edge of falling apart, and yet it kept functioning. He considered the rigid feudal hierarchy of the land that he was in, and tried to match it up with these scatter-brained, irreverent people. It was almost like he was missing something, ignorant of that critical ingredient which held their entire society together and held their passions in check.
Oh, how strange? How peculiar, how puzzling. How suspiciously odd. Maybe it was elves? Rhode couldn't shake the feeling that he really ought to ask about them.
OH WELL.