Oh. Ah. Those words.

Rhode Mortimer Irving lived in a little blue house with tacky, painted vinyl siding, and he lived in it for seven years. There was a little electric cooler on the porch that he’d kept for guests, stocked with diet cola and craft beer.

He had a few true friends who stayed by him until the end; though he’d even lost most of those once illness laid him low. He had been angry, but not resentful; comforting doesn’t come easy to everyone. His fellows had signed on for laughter and fair weather, not to hold a dying man’s hand.

There are some people who stick with you forever. That one nurse whose kindness never wavered, even when she sponged the sick off your mouth. The one friend who’d sneak a smutty titty magazine into the hospital for you, and you found yourself fighting him to take it away again, laughing until it hurt.

Your ex sister-in-law, who didn’t have to come. She and her husband had just held your hand and watched bad television in silence.

Rhode Mortimer Irving was built like a wall. Rhode Mortimer Irving stood nine goblin-foot tall. When he puts down his foot, you feel it through the floor. If he reaches for the handle, he might just rip the hinges off the door.

“Whoa!” cried Mimai, slipping off her perch.

“Wait, wait, just one moment!” begged Btiobhan.

The homunculus paused, his fingers light on the brass knob. “I don’t feel inclined to,” he warned.

“Sure!” the elf replied. “But we still do need to – at least pretend like this stuff is still secret. I know that sounds ridiculous, but neither of us is allowed to admit that the Third Hero has been summoned, yet. Technically, we’re not supposed to acknowledge you or Ser Santos either.”

The homunculus rubbed the side of his nose with his thumb. “That’s an insane restriction at this point.”

“Yes. Well I’m sure things will loosen up. Speaking from our experience, the government can be really bad about declassifying things when the chain of command gets interrupted. It’ll sort out.”

“Will it?” Rhode doubted.

“Once the person who we are absolutely, definitely never going to confirm is here recovers enough, things will calm down. It’s… hard to quantify just how much of a calming influence –”

“Before this job, I used to get panic attacks,” Mimai murmured helpfully. “Now I still get panic attacks, but they’re up to the level of full body paralysis.” She gave one frail laugh. “Which when you think about it, is almost the same thing as calm. Effectively.”

“Mhm,” Rhode sympathized.

“Yes. Basically, that,” Btiobhan winced. “That’s generally how it works. But it does work. But that’s item number two. Item number one is that the Third is officially not a Hero.”

“Sure. Noted,” Rhode murmured. “Now can we –”

“Unless we save him,” Mimai pointed out.

Btiobhan nodded. “Unless we save him. Right. And he’d have to turn out halfway sane, too. But the second item is that the you-know-who officially does not know about this project; is not personally involved in the Project in any way. He’s never been here. He’s never met any of us. And we’ve never met him.”

Rhode’s foot tapped the floor. “Okay. Lips zipped. Got it –”

Mimai pulled a tuft of her hair over to obscure a portion of her face. “That one’s important. Never see the light of day again if you mess it up, important.”

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“Fine. If that’s what it takes –”

“For us,” Btiobhan gently corrected his peer. “We’re sort of a special case. They couldn’t do that to you, Rhode. If the other heroes are successful, maybe that will change. But in the past two years, you and Ser Santos have been our only real success. And by us, I mean the whole Project.”

“I’ve already agreed,” Rhode said. He rolled his shoulders impatiently.

“The WHOLE Project,” Mimai continued, chewing nervously on her hair. “Four Ring is just production. And sure, Krevinkya is here. But there’s at least two other –”

“Production two has Fumin Gremmur,” the elf mouthed.

“No they don’t,” Mimai barked incredulously. “Who would have –”

“COOL. VERY COOL,” Rhode growled. “But please. I am begging you, stay on track. We’ll circle back to all this later, I promise. And Mimai, I want to talk about those panic attacks. That doesn’t sound healthy. We’ll chat, okay? Let’s just save the person who’s dying first.”

The dark-haired elf winced. “Sorry. Sorry, right. Where was I?”

“Just summarize,” Rhode insisted.

“Right. Secrecy… Honestly, everything is secret. So maybe for the next twenty four hours just talk as little as possible.”

Rhode threw his hands up in exasperation, silently. He narrowly avoided knocking a sauce pot off its hook.

Btiobhan chuckled nervously, and soldiered on. “We’re going to have you go in first. Hopefully, calm the hero down. We can send some guards with you if you need them…”

“But…” Rhode encouraged.

“That might startle the Hero. He ah… doesn’t seem to like goblins.”

The homunculus shrugged. “That makes sense. Sorry Mimai. I don’t mean that in a mean way. Elves are just… actually, let’s stay on track. Sounds like guards are a ‘probably not’.”

“I think we want to bring one. Just keep in mind that anyone who follows you into that room and doesn’t have clearance is probably going to get relegated.”

Mimai hurriedly explained. “That means getting transferred to someplace really isolated. It’s not a punishment, but it is not fun either.”

“We’re supposed to get a chaperone. But ah… I think that was meant to be Corporal Bned.”

Rhode nodded, carefully schooling his expression.

“Still. Most of the soldiers here would be prepared for it. The pay's good. There's a solid pension. There'll be at least one volunteer. I’m going to be right behind you with the first aid kit. Mimai will be right outside the door. Once the patient is calm, she’ll bring in the transfusion equipment. Rhode, one of the things we’re going to ask you to do is to a little uncomfortable. But the way it works is that –”

“You’re going to stick me with a needle, suck out blood, and put it into the other Hero. Yep. Cool. I’m on board.”

Btiobhan blinked. “Good? Great. I thought – okay, good.”

Then the monster shrugged. “Considering the like, full-on intensive surgery recovery, I’m getting pretty low too. My red cell count has got to be bad at this point.”

The two acolytes shared a bewildered, knowing glance.

“You’re gonna write that down, right?” the elf whispered.

“I am, I am!” the goblin hissed back. She practically dove towards the open medical bag on the counter, and began to rummage through it.

“We won’t take much,” Btiobhan apologized. “We were hoping to draw from Ser Santos.”

“But he’s drunk,” Mimai grumbled, shoving her face nearly into the bag. Her voice was near inaudible. “And very uncooperative.”

The elf gently pushed her aside, and removed a thick leather-bound ledger from a strangely concealed false base on the bottom of the bag. He handed her the record and then hefted the bag itself over his shoulder.

“If it helps, [Vigorous Blood] should make this less dangerous. And we don’t even need to keep you awake for the procedure. So if you want, this can be the end of your night if you’d like.”

“Naw,” Rhode replied.

“Are you sure?”

“Let’s just go. You ready?”