This was the ruins of Shiranu, a city that had boasted the best of humanity. Its clerics, its craftsmen, its artists and nobility, an elite as wise as powerful.
They had artifacts!
And when the realm lost its magic they left their trinklets and belongings behind. Monsters had hunted for those long ago, eating and breaking for any trace of mana. If the ruins had any weapon, orcs had taken them already.
Everything else looked like broken waste from a bygone era.
This place had turned into a vast lake from which the city's many hills emerged, their flat surfaces covered with trees whose green and white foliages flowed like clouds. Monsters that could not swim had retreated in the mansions and palaces, or in the tall white towers.
But this hill had a hole, several meters wide, that a rageful creature had dug. I plunged in it once more. With this, I could easily reached the city's underground.
And as usual, I cursed being a clay golem.
I repeat. Clay golem. The underground was filled with water.
My body broke through the still surface, and immediately I could feel the strong currents dragging me down further, the pressure on my plates and liquid infiltrating every tiny crack on me.
I could also feel the local fauna react. From the more exotic caracs, felogs and mantaras to white jaws and clap crabs. Also rapts. Because those worms could apparently endure everything.
Water poured down so hard it only trickled in the side galleries.
I slid into one and started to walk, with the current first pushing me then reversing as the level rose again, until I approach the overflowing entrance of a drowned room filled with tall square monoliths.
Why not explore the palaces above? Because those were for leisure and studies. The underground was where Shiranu had most labored. Where it gathered its most practical resources.
For example, they had a belt that let you change gravity. And I wanted it. And I had failed to acquire it twice now.
All because of that accursed hippoc.
This time it seemed I had timed it correctly. I swimmed in the submerged complex, emerged above what had been blazing furnaces now drowned and silent. Rapts aside, no monster.
The belt was laying casually on the metallic ground.
I swimmed down to reach it. Could it be so easy this time around? It was natural for a monster to leave its lair to hunt, right? It sure was. But not this time.
The seahorse surged from behind the furnace vat to lunge at me. I would not let its trunk hit me this time!
Lightweight!
The runes on the walls activated. Yes I could mold even metal. Yes I could make the water lighter to take away that hippoc's speed advantage. Yes my runes were still there and that monster felt the difference immediately.
And so, like last time, I could dodge it but barely.
Before I could strike back it had darted away, not to hide this time but to gain some height. I knew better than to even try hitting it at a distance. But also, I did not have to fight it! It watched me go for the belt instead.
A new attack! Again, I could barely swim out of its path, saw it shoot up once more, almost to the ceiling. Ah, using the dive for speed. I needed a narrower space to fight that thing.
Meaning it was time to go.
Belt in hand, I fell back toward the closest entrance. It dashed! Not on me but the passage, slammed against the wall above hard enough to make it crack and fall. It wanted to trap me?!
All of that for a belt? It could not even use it!
To the next entrance. Same thing. The hippoc would rather bury us alive than let me leave. Next entrance, again, it forced it shut.
That would be enough. I forced my body down to hit the ground, trapped my feet on the metal in a flash of submarine sparks and cast my maul out of the iron. Have at it!
No dodging this time, my swings would hit or I would suffer. And yeah, even in light water that thing still moved like an arrow. So I got hit. And hit again. Flailing and failing to strike it even once. And it was so fine!
Each time the slow clay oozed out of my crafted body, so fine!
Time to boil! I had finished carving the new runes, all around me, a crude circle that activated in a hellish glow. The temperature rose and with the outside flow reduced, the whole room started to simmer.
The hippoc retreated to the last entrance left where cold water still poured in. I was on it: it could flee or make a stand!
It made a stand. Moved its tail and I knew it had tried to hide that from me in both of our previous encounters: you can cast magic, can't you?! Can't you?!
Well try it! I threw my maul away, brought both hands before me and summoned two square circles. That's right, square, are you impressed yet? One above, one below me, long before it...
It had already finished?! When, how, what? What?!
Confusion.
About the worst spell that can affect a golem because we were nothing but instructions, and worse even for a clay golem that was tied to runes all over the room. I froze dead where I stood, not daring to move lest I wanted to tear myself apart.
It was about to charge me, finish me in one strike, stopped to look at my square circles still brimming in the water. It just stood before me. Deadlock.
Then, after several seconds, the monster retreated. Fled. Its spell fading soon after.
That little horse fish had read my spell? Seen I was going to reflect its death blow? No... And how did it cast its magic circle so fast, when it had barely started wiggling its tail? The moment I was free I approached to see.
Here it was. The circle, pre-etched in the metal. That thing had planned that far ahead.
It was an order of magnitude weaker than me and had nearly defeated me three times.
The return trip was not glorious. I had taken hits I would have to repair once home. But at least I had the belt. That too would need some repair so the humans could use it.
Humans...
I broke the surface near the stairs, some hundred steps under the hill's flat top. Walked up and into the garden, before the Amber pavilion. Stringy white stems encroached all around, besieging the mansion and covering it in spores. The parasite loomed above, its oyster caps fresh on the towers.
I walked inside and directly to the study that I had transformed into a makeshift workshop.
I knew nothing about blacksmithing or gemcutting. Clay golems were all about alchemy. So that was what I used to fix those ancient relics.
Yes, humans could invert gravity with a flick of the finger, but it was all about consumption.
To simplify, a mage could ask three things from a spell: potency, reliability and consumption. Potency, or how strong the effect. Reliability, or getting the actual effect. Consumption, not burning yourself to do it.
Alchemy was among the impotent practices, rather weak but making for it with reliability and, of course, being as cheap as it came. In a mana-deprived realm, it became the art of the gods.
Also called as human craft.
"Golem..." The parasite's low, raspy voice disturbed me. "The human..."
I stopped to clutch the beads on my necklace. That mushroom was lucky I had no time for it or I would have killed it myself.
I had counted with dread the days since my master had left. I had to force myself to forget about it or I would go mad. In fact, I needed to check once more, right now.
To the great hall, then downstairs, into the cellar where the two magic circles were inert. Good. My hand touched them, just to make sure. As long as they would not react, it meant my master was safe. Good.
Good.
"What are you doing..." The parasite's voice reached even in that sanctum. "He is not there..."
Just because monsters could talk didn't mean they should!
"He is outside..."
What?
The realm had swirled around me for a moment. But even if all that mushroom did was lie, all I could do was dance at its words. So I rushed up. And once outside I could feel it, vibrations hitting the stairs back at what was now the base of the hill.
A ship's hull reaching shore.
I rushed to the garden, to the stairs, stopped at its top to see the teenager, his tousled brown hair, the sealed tunic and then his blue eyes catching me. He flinched, but finished mooring his boat before climbing the steps.
I did not understand. He had left? He was back? He really came... back?
He had nearly reached my height, looked at the holes torn in my legs and torso. At the cracks and moss on the silver plates thad covered the clay ones. At my badger mask.
"Welcome back, master." Is all I could utter.
He passed me without a word. Walked into the garden and I stood there, like a statue, still turned toward the stairs. But the human paused.
"Eh." He forced himself to say. "Where is the summoning room?"
"Yes!" I revived. "The what?"
"The room you used to bring me here!" He almost yelled. "I know it's here!"
"Ah, the cellar! From the great hall, the wooden door under the main stairs, I..."
He had already dashed into the mansion.
"... will take you there."
He was back. He was alive and well. This was fine.
Okay, he was unable to find a wooden door. Still the most powerful being in the realm but I had to watch him search upstairs for a door leading to a basement.
He noticed me, watched me walk to the door and open it for him. His eyes had something broken in them, like that of a wounded animal.
"Don't follow me!" He ordered while passing in front of me once more. "You hear me? If you try to follow I will destroy you!"
"Yes, master."
Was he hungry, was he tired? What adventures did he have? I watched him walk downstairs. As in I could perceive vibrations all the way down. He was aware of that, right? Humans built me, they had to know that, right?
I watched him reach the circular room and throw himself on the circles. They were inert, but for him the alloy that composed them started to glow. He had found it! Not sure what but he had found a way to make the circles work for him! Way to go, master!
He had crouched on the smaller circle, for the caster, facing the larger central one that seemed to grow stronger with each second. Vibrations didn't exactly see mana but the pulses on the ground and in the air were turning into a storm.
"Open!" He yelled. "Open you stupid door! I want to go back!"
Ah.
"Let me through already! I will take it, I will endure the harsh words, the punishment, the screaming! I will accept the feigned smiles and indifference! I want to go back! Let me go back!"
He started to scream. Not of rage. Pain. Something was going wrong. I could not perceive anything anymore: the whole room got saturated.
Down. Rushing down. Waves of magic burst to me, almost solid. Tearing at my body. I felt like swimming in agony. So, nothing new. The walls barely still existed and I, deaf, could only guide myself by my master's scream.
He was prostrated, his hands on the circle. His mana flowing out. The circles were killing him.
I don't even know how I managed to reach him, to pull him back. It should have been impossible but in a second the flow of magic stopped and the room turned dark.
"Let me go!" My master yelled, fighting against my arms gripping him. He was crying. "Let me go you monster!"
"They are gone!" I shouted in response. He only thrashed a bit less so I repeated: "They are gone!" The circles are gone!"
My master stopped struggling. Only cry. I could barely sense him. Not just because of how damaged my body was, but because all of my attention was on the ground.
There were no more magic circles. The floor was wiped clean.