The next morning greets the hero’s party without any more fanfare than the golems retrieving them for breakfast.

Margarette had spent some time with Marvin the night before and listened to all his regrets. All said and done, she left him with the words, “Next time, don’t wait so long.”

Finishing breakfast with the Other only resulted in a mild headache for Marvin today, and he counted that as a plus. Throughout the remainder of the day the group, including Margarette, debated about whether to head directly back to the capital or lay low for a while, or even just live their lives out in some remote corner of the world. After all was said and done they settled on figuring out the specifics on the way, but taking at least six months to go back, provided they received accurate instructions for the transfer gates.

The next morning at breakfast with the Other, they conveyed their intent to leave out his front door, as it were.

“So we would like to take you up on your offer of equipment and had a request,” says Rory.

“Oh~ And what would that be? I’m in a particularly good mood today since I came up with a good use of a children’s noisemaker yesterday.”

“See,” says Marvin in a low voice to Margarette, “This is a prime example of the subtleties of evil I can’t stand. Plots and schemes with no limits nor end in sight.”

Rachel puts a hand over her mouth and her shoulders start shaking as she tries to hold in her laughter at the absurdly serious tone Marvin is using.

“But it’s true what he says you know~. So, this request, what is it?”

“We want a map of all the transfer gates so we can get back when we want to without walking or riding the entire way.”

“Ah, that would be something nice to have,” the Other replies, “If it existed, but no fears! I have something that will work just as well for you. Sheryl, can you go retrieve box… 46A? I’m pretty sure it’s that one, but check to make sure it’s filled with the non-explosive round stones. They should be a dull blue.”

Marvin places his head in his hands and his elbows on the table as he asks in a dry voice, “Can you at least test them out before giving them to us?”

“Surely! I’ll even go with you to the first transfer gate. Now, how about your equipment? Shall we get started on that?”

“If we could have Sebastian along that would be great. No need to bother yourself about it,” Marvin replies weakly

“Oh nonsense, it’s no bother. I’m giving myself the day off with all the good jobs I’ve done in the last couple days. I’ll go find him and we’ll head over after we get back alright?” the Other says, springing up and skipping off down a corridor.

“If it helps,” says Fleur, “he’ll be a while since that goes to the warehouse and Sebastian should be down the corridor next to that one.”

Ernest chuckles lightly and asks, “I’m sure Marvin appreciates it. Tell me though, do you have any barbers around here? I can’t imagine too many barbers getting trapped in a soul stone, let alone ending up here afterwards.”

“Well~ you may be surprised~. I won’t go into specifics but we actually have two, Jean and Luke, but I’m surprised you would be willing to let a golem cut your hair or give you a shave.”

“Yeah,” Ernest replies, “But we got talking to Margarette a bit yesterday and apparently these golems are leaps and bounds above what we normally see, though golems don’t typically need to be able to feel much to begin with, so we weren’t sure if that was a soul thing or a golem thing, but if the newbie can feel things as well as she says, I’m fine with that.”

With that, Fleur sends off another golem to fetch Jean and Luke while the hero party finishes up breakfast and continue talking. Several minutes later, two new golems arrive carrying their own bags filled with salon supplies. One exceptional distinction to make about these two is the fact they are the only golems in the lair with something that resembles hair, one red, one blue, with mirrored half-shaved-half-long styling. Unfortunately, that was not the only distinctive thing about them.

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“While on the way here we heard about you from the boss,” says the red-haired golem.

“And he said we should change some things up for you,” continues the blue haired golem.

“From the looks of things you don’t seem that creative.”

“Or at the very least, that adventurous.”

“So let Jean,”

“And Luke,”

““Take care of you.””

Ernest has his jaw slightly dropped, and looks towards the others, who also stare back at him before looking at Fleur.

“You did this intentionally didn’t you,” he says.

“Now now,” says Red showing up on his left.

“Don’t be rude,” says Blue taking his post on the right.

“From the looks of things you need us to service you.”

“A bit off the sides to straight off the top.”

“With your jaw line will surely pop.”

As Jean and Luke drag Ernest into one of the two salon chairs another set of golems brought in, the hero’s party look between the trio and Fleur. Rory finally breaks the silence and asks, “Friends of yours?”

“Oh you could say that~. They’re about the only ones around here that manage to frustrate him somewhat consistently. That’s why they are also the only ones with hair as it were, it makes it easier to spot them. That all said, you should probably think about what you want done before they get Ernest settled.”

A half hour later, Ernest finally ended up with a fairly angular crew cut. Rory was placed in the second seat and tried to convince the two to just let him do a bowl-cut but they wouldn’t have any of it. Given his slightly longer hair, he became the maybe-not so proud owner of a pompadour. Marvin took Ernest’s place and was about to tell them what-for but was interrupted first.

“Oh what a stern looking warrior we have here,” says Jean.

“Filled with bloodlust just walking up to the chair,” continues Luke.

“How can you guys even feel something like that when you’re golems?” replies Marvin.

““Trade~secret,”” they reply in unison before continuing.

“Hey Luke, want to make a bet on what he wants?”

“Sure Jean, same stakes as last time?”

“Only if I pick first~”

“How about we pick at the same time~”

“So we’re thinking the same thing? Is it going to be-”

““-a number three?””

The two golems appear to stare at Marvin intently as they wait for his answer. Momentarily stunned by the two, Marvin finally replies in a nervous tone, “Uh, really short, all the way around?”

The golems look towards each other and put a hand in their right pocket to pull out a stack of cards and trade them. After they store them again, they strike up another conversation.

“What a pity,” says Jean.

“Quite,” replies Luke. “Say, do you want to borrow that new contraption he made us a while ago?”

“It would make this a lot more fun~”

Luke walks over to his supplies and pulls out what appears to be a fusion of the hair clipper they used earlier and magic tool. As he’s walking back to Jean, the Other appears with Sebastian and a couple box-toting golems in tow.

“Oooo, just in time to see how well my magic hair clipper works!” he says enthusiastically.

“Wait, what?” replies Marvin suspiciously. “What do you mean your? What did you do to it?”

“Oh not much, I just made it so the normal hair clipper could be used with a magic stone so you don’t have to keep gripping it over and over, to make it easier to clip everything in one go~”

“And?” interjects Fleur. “What else did you do.”

“Well, I wanted to make sure you knew it was working properly…”

“And terrify people,” Fleur interupts.

“So whenever you activate it, it plays a recording of a hundred angry murder-hornets in a wire cage~, though somewhat softly.”

“I have so many questions…” Rory says, shaking his head at the absurdity of both the situation and the device.

“In any case,” says Jean.

“If you don’t move you won’t get hurt,” continues Luke.

“And since you’re the hero, you should have nerves of adamantine~.” finishes the Other.

“I hate you, so much.”

As Jean turns the magic tool on, as promised it begins making a very loud buzzing noise. This is followed up by maniacal laughter emanating from the Other. Marvin’s ears begin to tingle as the clipper does its work. His haircut ended up finishing about the same time as Rory’s all said and done, as it does as advertised.

“The last one is the young lady~,” says Luke as he is cleaning up.

“And with so much to work with I wonder what she’ll want~,” follows up Jean.

“Um, well, just so long as you promise not to use the thing I’ll let you style my hair,” replies Rachel.

“Of course!” says Jean. “We were just getting bored because he wanted a boring haircut…”

“Naturally~, it isn’t like we keep a box of surprises around just for the hero~,” Luke continues, while receiving a suspicious glare from Marvin.

“You wanted to try something to help disguise who you are right?” says Margarette. “How about having them do something short?”

“Short would be easier to take care of…” says Rachel, trailing off.

“Oooo, a disguise! Jean it’s been a while since we were asked to help with a disguise!”

“I do believe you’re right! It’s been all of two days hasn’t it!”

“Hey,” Marvin says in a gruff tone directed at the Other. “I know that was you, and you said something about nuns. Were you impersonating nuns in the capital? What were you doing?”

Before the Other could reply, Luke and Jean burst out laughing as they are getting Rachel settled in the chair.

“Oh, him as a nun! How enthralling!”

“With our skill at least it wouldn’t be appalling.”

“We do need some practice with our makeup you know.”

“Maybe we could convince him to put on a show!”

As the duo continue laughing, the Other leans towards Fleur and Sebastian and says out of the corner of his mouth, “I won’t do it you know, not even if you gave me an entire chest of gold coins.”

“Who do you think pays us? Where would we get two chests worth of coins from to begin with?” says Fleur.

“Too true,” continues Sebastian, “the wellbeing of a slave is the mercy of the master after all.”

“Oi, you get vacation time! Plenty of it too!,” says the other, as if glossing over the matter would make a difference.

“While this play is somewhat enjoyable, how about we get back to the fact we want to leave sometime?” interjects Marvin.

“Certainly,” replies the Other. “Let’s go over some of the basics, then Sebastian will help with some suggestions for altering the world’s perception of you.”

Like this the talk continued as Jean and Luke fussed over Rachel’s hair, and decided that they needed to settle on her outfit first. Hearing that she was the party’s healer and had usually worn long white robes, they had looked at each other and exchanged a few words that would fit well with mischievous grins. After seeing her shock, they consoled her by saying that first nobody else she knows would see her, and secondly if she didn’t like it she would have plenty of time to grow out her hair and change equipment.

Rachel had looked towards Margarette for help deciding, and even though one couldn’t tell Margarette’s facial expression, the rest of her body was indicating amusement at the stark contrast, and encouraged Rachel to go with their suggestion. And with this Rachel ended up being the last to get her hair styled, an asymmetric shoulder length bob, but the first to be gifted equipment as the girl is carted off by four golems after various praises and reassurances.