"You stink."
Mitch had been quiet for a few minutes. He introduced himself to the girl but stepped out the chatter, giving Nyx some space to talk to Dörk. Her voice was beautiful tho.
Dörk didn't deny anything, just seeing the golem show a little discomfort. "I'm not gonna lie, it's like they buried you with the soldiers." He said, relieved that it wasn't him who had stated the sorry sorry plight. After all, he had to make nice with the stone woman.
There was no disorientation in Nyx's mind, in fact it was to be expected. "I dunno, I kinda slept outside in the field." He says as he checks his clothes. The leather vest still looked in good condition, the brown blending the colors of prairie and soil relatively making them unnoticeable from only a few paces away. But the wizards are telling the truth, at least regarding his pants to be washed. "Plus, I've looked around the houses outside of town. Picked up some blankets just for that."
But Nyx continued by just looking at Mitch. "I don't look that bad." he mouths toward the man. Now both of them throwing lightning bolts at each other through looks, trying to assume dominance.
"I only said you stink, idiot.."
The golem glared daggers, making the older wizard sweatdrop. "Maybe you look good." Nonchalantly complimenting the golem. "But please come back to the house tonight and please--- take a bath. I'll draw it myself." he points his thumb at himself.
Nyx just cringed at the wryle gesture, imaging the old man waiting for him with a towel.
"Why?"
"You just stink really bad."
And the golem just scoffed and rested his head back on the green ground. "Okay. I'll go wash."
A next two hours of work exhausted the entirely guard personnel, leaving everyone, including Nyx, to return to the city at once. Bereft of horses for the day, eight soldiers were pushing and pulling along the road a cart filled with assorted things, all collected from the dead.
On one side, security guards responsible watching the wall turned on a wheel, closing the gate behind them.
"I'm hungry."
"I want my bed. I want home!"
"I want my bed too. I want home too!"
"Listen carefully, you rats!" the commanding officer announced, snapping the boisterous subordinates into silence. "We're taking this cart back to the market and then we're dismissed. Now change turns and everybody else is clear." He waves his hand, releasing the soldiers who were pulling the cart from their shift, replaced by others. "You."
The sudden short expression causes the golem to believe he is being addressed to. "Me? What?"
"Yes, you." Nyx was not wrong. "''Can you join us tomorrow as well?'' The officer crossed his arms over his chest. His stature was plain but proper and natural, demanding respect. Quite opposite to the way he speaks and the words he says. "I know I'm technically your commanding officer as well, but at the same time I'm not. So?" He waits eagerly for Nyx response.
A pointless move in the conversation, the golem just tucks his pants a bit, thinking of a answer. Case one: Keep moving corpses. Case two: something else to do?
"I think I'll see if my friends have anything for me do. But if not, same place tomorrow?"Nyx replied, bringing a smile to the man's face and to which after he nodded.
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"Are you carrying soap with you?"
"Eh, yes! You think life is so easy around here and not get sick? No thanks!" Dörk had left the soap on the small table next to a lit candle. "'Besides, tomorrow we'll do a little work we can find around here. You been practicing your spell, right?" the wizard said, but not before closing the bathroom door. "We can practice more tomorrow. Plus, who knows, maybe you wanna learn some more stuff." he kept talking outside the door.
On this side, in the bathroom, Nyx was a little hesitant to undress. The sentiment of looking at Kara naked form was not new, having once walked in her room and spot her full nude. She didn't hit him, but the single occasion started a string of teases and playful jokes lasting nearly three weeks before she got bored. More recently, the last time he had got naked was to wash in the river outside Elth.
But now the golem had a heated bathtub at his disposal. A relatively puny one. "What's with this can? It looks for children." The image of him standing in the tub seemed to feel foolish. That's what the wizard had heard.
"Well... your just build big I guess. I think some dwarves used to live in this house." His voice was followed by two heavy thuds, echoing through the heavy walls.
Undoing his pants and vest buckles, he threw the light protection on the floor, adding the black tank top he wore underneath. "So... how did you guys end up here? Like, war? Why?" He cracks a questioning smirk. Not so deep in his mind, he juggled the idea of war --- something retarded. "Don't you guys have anything better to do?" Nyx asked outloud while slowly lowering himself in the tub.
Dörk reformulated his answer several times before speaking. "Some of us do it for extra money. Me and others have our own businesses: shops, jewelry or art workshops." But even so, the main man just sweatdropped. "Even so, it's not very advantageous in some cases. The market is good. But not so good for wizards." He sighed loudly. "Food gotten cheaper, so people mainly spend their money on that."
But he couldn't stop a smile from appearing on his face. "I'm well established, of course. I also do work for refrigerators. I'm mostly here for the thrill—and for the boys. We're a team you know? Kinda--" The last sentence sparked questions for the golem.
"What's a refrigerator? We didn't have those in my day."
"Oh, yes. You died some time ago." Dörk lost for a second what comfort they had together. "How long ago?"
"I think almost... seventy years, give or take?"
"And... hell?" Dörk asked without warning. He and Danny had read through the book. Particularly the section explaining the creation of a stone monster. A golem, a soul bound to stone, bartered from hell for another.
"Real. And ugly." He swallowed nothing. A flash of memory, reflected in the water he sat in, made it turn red. "You should go home. Beg any god, anyone who will listen. Don't die yet."
As Nyx rubbed his hair in water and soap, Dörk grasped the potential of a fate worse than void of death itself-- now that was looming on the horizon.
"Anyway—a refrigerator is pretty cool." He paused, waiting for a reaction with a smile on his lips.
"So it's a good thing."
Dörk bit his tongue in frustration. "It really is. And guess what—I invented them!" Once again, he waited for a more ambiguous response from Nyx.
"That sounds incredible." His last words being followed by a brief silence. "And what does it do, a refrigerator?" Causing Dörk's fragile ego to shatter into pieces.
"Well, I'm a glyph wizard. When I was young and in university, I was obscenely broke." Now the old man had let himself sit down on the floor, searching through his long-ago memories. "And so we were looking for work... we did sometimes—eh, not very well paid, others didn't want to hire us. Me and some friends I hung out with back then." He chuckled happily. "And we had a class one day, and it hit me. Ironically, we had just started learning about glyphs and runes. And we talked about it, and we discussed it. Hey, this is something we can use to make some money. And I was happy! Our own idea. So we'd done it."
For the next few minutes, Dörk related from that time. How he and his group wanted to start strong. To offer services to wealthy men and women—all turned them down on the spot, thinking of a scam. Learning that for starters, they had to settle for smaller clients. Taverns, shops. He explained that they once did a project the other way around, building a sauna.
"The word'd get around, and other talented people stared copy us, so later I came back home," he sighed heavily. "I wanted to start a company, you know? Work around town, outside..." He paused. Getting up and just walking to his bed upstairs. "Anyhow.. I'm sleepy. Story to continue."
"Good night!" the golem called from the other side of the door.
"Rest well yourself, girl." he said back. Yet Nyx didn't try to correct the old man about his true identity, opting to leave the night with the soft vibe. The man himself had crashed onto his makeshift bed, his own improvised cot made from two smaller ones. The moments of silence dragged on for longer, yet he still hadn't fallen asleep. The creaking of the door wasn't loud—compared to that of the floor folding under Nyx's weight, heard just as another door clicked shut.
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"Come on! Come on! You can do IT! Put your back into it!"
"Her back?"
"Do I really have to? You didn't say anyting till no--"
"NO!! It's just a figure of speech... Oh, never mind. And Jerry, what's with you here? Don't you have work at the hospital-- or any other place?"
"Only after lunch. Lip's up there right now, it's his turn." The younger man smile back to Dörk.
Both turned their gaze just in time. Nyx was preparing to 'catapult' a pebble towards a tree in the middle of the cul de sac. They turned their heads a second before the little pebble exploded between the golem's fingers.
"Too much mana-- again," the super-feminine golem added. He relaxed his pose, now searching his next pebble to use. "Jerry-- You got some other spells to show me?"
Like a rabid monkey, Dörk just shook his hands in denial before the young man can move a lip. "Yeah, right. You're not getting anything!" He quickly glanced at his 'subordinate'. "Don't show her anything until this is done right, comprende?" he said when one of his eyes almost popped from his skull.
"Tsck... Come on—I'm not getting any better." The stone and blood construction just crossed his arms over his chest. The secret that must carry the hope of the world—now he seemed to be sulking like a child.
"NO!" Dörk exclaimed decisively. "Look—this is just a simple jam. I don't know how yet. Your're talented. You can fix things and over anything else-- yourself. That's great mana control. And it's amazing." He sighed sharply, crossing one leg over the other. "You'll break through it. I have faith in you." The last part, the wizard said it with his eyes closed.
Nyx's expression was unmoving. Though inside, the word stirred him slightly more and more. Faith. A stubborn human spark that refuses to die. And yet no one answer to the small mortals. "You think I have talent?" he adds, eager to know how he is and maybe how much more can he grow.
The main man was pleased to see Nyx cut short his fuss. A self-doubting man is a bad man. A heroine who doubts herself and is hesitant to push through minor setbacks? NOT ON MY WATCH!
"You're better than I was at your age."
"But you still have work hard-- try and catch up with me. Keep up being consistant and steady." He taps his biceps lightly. Jerry offered his own positive perspective. His perspective earning him a glance and a frown from Dörk. "What?"
The old man was just annoyed. "Nothing at all," he muttered under his breath.
"But you, squirt. Keep at it, I've got business to get done." He dusted off his pants and stepped down the steps of the house they were living in and walked along the way away.
"Pff... Buzzkill." The golem had just dropped his body onto the cobblestone street. Now he was left alone with Jerry.
"HA-- as if. He's usually more--- unorthodox and frisky." Jerry just hopped onto the stone forming a large square pot for holding up the targete tree. "Yes, he can behave professionally on occasions... But I've also seen him lose his manners more than once."
"Well, I don't feel like 'keeping at it' anymore." He turned his head to the wizard. "What else can we do around here? Like before you move on with war-work." Nyx tried to crawl out from under the tons of boredom, giving Jerry a chance to find something to do together. "Are you up for something?"
His tongue stuck in the back of his throat for a second, at the same time his face was stinging and numb. "Ehh... like what?" His scalp must have been itching, the fact being he was clawing at his head. And blushing.
Nyx's face was still stoic. His white eyes, which haunted the minds of those who looked into them, were wide. Not at all filled with anything. "I don't know. What were you gonna do until you showed up out here?"
"Soup."
"You were making soup?"
"I was about to..."
The alleged girl just blinked. "Okay. I don't mind helping."