... Groaning… grunting… it felt like Rizz's body was suddenly made of iron. His entire being was in pain. So sore that Rizz didn't feel like opening his eyes. He just wanted to rest.
"... Uhhh… My… everything hurts…"
"Hello there," a jovial, masculine voice called out from the blackness, "are you finally up?"
Groggy, Rizz failed to move. He did his best to open his eyes, but it was a struggle. Each eyelid felt like it weighed twenty kilos.
"If you need more rest, then take it. I've waited plenty of time already, so a little while more ain't too bad," remarked the warm voice. "So long as you don't disappoint me in the end and waste all of my precious resources."
Rizz groaned. He inhaled slowly… He inhaled… He… failed to inhale...
"W-what's happened to me!?" Both eyes finally shot open and his torso sprang up, fueled by desperation.
"Nothing's wrong. Everything's as it should be."
That calm tone got Rizz to jolt his head around in urgency. He spotted a man in a hooded robe. The dark purple seemed mostly plain at first. Until the man turned and stepped closer, revealing a strange glow about the fabric.
"Calm down or I'll calm you myself," the person stated, hiding his face behind a shield of shadows.
"Calm?" Rizz guffawed, "I'll show you calm, shady face!"
He pushed off the strange table and landed on the floor.
C-Clang…
"... Huh?" Baffled to hear the sound of clattering metal, Rizz looked down at his feet.
"WHAT THE FUCK–"
Thud! Click.
Two hands shoved Rizz's shoulders down, forcing him to sit on the resting table. And before Rizz could realize the hooded man was in front of him, he suddenly lost the ability to shout and speak.
"If that's your brand of calm, then I'll just buy generic," chuckled the unknown man. "Now keep quiet, don't move, and pay attention. Do those things, and I'll turn your voice back on. Will you do that?"
… Rizz nodded ever so slowly.
The man slapped Rizz's metallic shoulder. "Very good. Then listen up. I hate repeating myself.
"You're here because you accepted my quest. Don't forget that. Never forget that… That's why I personally picked you up and brought you back to my place. Nod if you're following."
When Rizz nodded again, slightly more relaxed, the man continued, "Good. As for your current status, just think of it as a mecha for your consciousness. I thought you'd like it, but… is that not the case?"
Rapidly, Rizz shook his head. The skinny rods he had for legs banged together in revolt. As did his twiggy, metal arms.
It was impossible to get a read on the man while he wore that secretive hooded robe. "... Is that you asking me to put you back in your old body? Or do you want more information? One or two?"
Rizz raised one finger at first, but he quickly pulled back his robotic appendage. He only had two fingers and a thumb on each hand. However, Rizz was too busy trying to take all of this in to care about such minute details.
Instead of answering, Rizz tapped on what he thought was his jaw.
"I'll only turn your voice on if you promise to be calm. My brand of calm," stated the man.
Emphatically nodding, the robot now called Rizz was elated to see the man reach for a button beside Rizz's jaw.
Click.
"Ahhh…" Rizz sighed…
He let his countless thoughts and questions go… his mind drifting along as tranquilly as possible... There were way too many questions to keep track of, so Rizz relaxed as best he could… trying to approach the conversation with a clean slate.
The robed man let him have a long breather. And the smile in his tone was evident, "... Feeling better?"
Rizz tried to feel the shape of his can-shaped head, along with his rectangular torso. But, just as usual, Rizz felt nothing.
"Of course, you can't feel a thing," jested the man, as if he could read Rizz's thoughts. "There are no sensory devices in that construct aside from sight and hearing. You can move around and communicate. That's all we need."
"That's all? What's even happening? And how did you steal my character?" questioned Rizz, somehow using his regular voice while inside a robot.
The robed man shook his head. Retrieving a chair out of thin air, he took a seat across from Rizz the robot. "First things first, okay. I stole nothing. I merely picked you up and put your soul in that construct, momentarily. This isn't permanent. I just needed to talk with you before fully planting you back into a true body."
"But my…" Rizz's brain shortcircuited. "... What did you just say?"
"That I stole nothing."
"No, after that." Rizz shook his head and leaned forward.
The secretive man nodded. "That I need to talk with you."
"No! Before, or, was it after…" Clangs rang through the room as Rizz tried to hold the sides of his head. "What kind of nightmare is this? First that damn lie of a quest. Now this? … Did the nurses spike me with something again?"
Tink, tink, tink.
The robed man patted the robot's senseless knee joint. "There, there, Rizz. This shouldn't take too long."
"Ha. Ha. Ha…" Rizz pretended to laugh like a robot. "You're real funny, shady face… I hope you're not wrong. The longer this drags out, the more it'll piss me off…"
"Sounds like somebody needs a nap," the man chortled, getting back to his feet. "Then I'll leave you be for now. I'll check on you again in a couple hours."
Rizz shook his can for a head. "Ha! Good luck. I've had nightmares drag out, but never for that long. Good luck, Mr. Fake Sage."
"Thank you," the man remarked.
As the robed figure slowly stepped toward a distant door, the disbelieving Rizz got a better look at the room. At least, that's what Rizz planned to do. Until something even more absurd swiftly stole Rizz's attention.
"... HEY!?"
The man groaned and turned back around. "What is it now? I'm not tucking you in. You wouldn't feel it anyway–"
"What did you do to my character!?" Rizz cried out.
It was then that Rizz realized he had no jaw or eyelids. Just a speaker and camera, explaining why Rizz struggled to open his eyes and failed to speak earlier. And it also forced Rizz to stare blankly at an all too familiar husk.
The robed man sauntered over to the corner of the room. He turned to face Rizz while tapping on one of many transparent tubes, each containing some sort of humanoid. Most of them were robotic in appearance. Some seemed like a hybrid, or possibly as more complete forms of the others.
But that tube in particular contained a green-skinned goblin with a flower pot on his head.