Extra 1: The Thoughts of the Liberated

For the tenth time that day, Shreshka both cursed and blessed their saviour.

Cursed them because they had undoubtedly made them outlaws from the simple-landers, likely to be hunted down by all those who would take the bounty.

Blessed them because they had beaten the Orsha-obeying hell out of their captor.

She turned her eyes to the heavily bandaged man lying in the coach, another person who owed a debt of gratitude to the odd creature.

“Assuming he will live to repay it”, she thought grimly.

The man was named Hureheh, and even from the relatively few interactions they had shared with each other, she could tell he was one of those people who was a little too brave for their own good, searching for struggle instead of letting Orsha provide.

Currently, he was lying in the protected cabin, no longer openly bleeding but running a high fever and thoroughly unconscious.

Their mutual saviour had undoubtedly saved him from bleeding to his death, yet their hasty bandages had not spared them the sickness that followed.

Retlafeh, her only other companion Shreshka had who was still in the realm of the woken, was the child of a doctor in their home city, and while they were sold to slavery when they were young, they still picked up a little here and there.

He said it was unlikely Hureheh would survive and even if they did they would forever be scarred from the event.

All in all, there were worse situations for an Orshaka to be in, if they died then they would be judged by Orsha, and likely pass through due to their death fighting to the bitter end.

And if they survived, then they would bear the marks of their struggle, and if they ever managed to return home, be celebrated.

The escaped slave shivered a little, the cold emanating from the intricate machine next to her causing the scars on her back to twinge with just a little bit more pain, but it was still better than the alternative, that being the heat-seeking bloodsuckers descending upon them like ants to nectar.

After cranking the lever a few more times, Shreshka got off the back of the carriage and walked alongside Retlafeh, who was driving it forward with the two stocky horses at the front.

Retlafeh was a quiet man, rarely saying anything beyond a few stoic words at a time, whether this was because of the many years of harsh servitude they had served or if it was merely their nature, Shreshka did not know.

Grasped in his hand was the gift the Golem had left, a coin made of Star-Silver, or Andromio as they had heard it called by the Earliag.

That coin was another reason the woman had mixed feelings toward their saviour, it was a gift more valuable than any she had ever received, and one many, many people would kill for.

The asteroid-mined metal was likely worth enough that even spilt between the three of them, it would be worth enough for them all to live a life of luxury for the rest of their days.

She never thought she would ever see one, it was something only talked about in the context of legends, that only the richest magi and kings could obtain.

Some part of her mind wanted to deny that such a valuable artifact could fall into her hands, but there was no denying its otherworldly shine, a facet that had been shared by the metal in all its stories.

She was interrupted from her musings by a groan of pain from the bound man sitting next to Retlafeh, their former captor who was still unconscious.

The mere reminder of the man’s existence soured the woman’s thoughts, turning her mind back to the many beatings and worse she had endured at the vile bastard's hand.

Shreshka would be the first to admit she felt a spark of joy at seeing his bloodied face and missing teeth, the man had been avoiding the command of Orsha for likely his whole life, protected by the misty valleys and colossal trees of his homeland.

Many a time she and Retlafeh had deliberated about what to do with the slaver, and while neither disagreed that he deserved to be killed, the disagreement rose about whether he should be.

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Shreshka didn’t have a second of hesitation in her mind, feed the Earliagio to the ticks and watch him scream like Hureheh was forced to.

But while Retlafeh enjoyed the thought, he believed that the Golem had spared the man for a reason, even if he didn’t know what it was, and that leaving the slaver alive would help pay off their debt to the Vessel.

The woman didn’t know what to make of that, how could he possibly make out the intentions of a creature that showed up, saved a man’s life, beat another to the brink of death, gifted them a priceless artifact and then left as fast as they came?

Their companion didn’t have an answer to that, but he did have an argument in favour of the Golem’s intentions.

“I was on a Golem hunt”, the stoic man recalled, a fact that shocked Shreshka, not many of the unfortunate slaves and prisoners the Earliag “recruited” into their hunts came back alive.

“What few friends I had gathered during my life were felled like wheat under the blades of the Golem”, Retlafeh began, “It was a symbol of death and destruction, taking lives with no care for the effort that had led up to that point.”

“A golem, a true Golem does not save lives, yet this one did. Why? I do not know, but I know there must be a reason and a major one at that”.

Shreshka didn’t have a rebuttal to that, because of the argument and the grim subject in equal measure, and so they swallowed their hatred and kept silent.

Eager to keep their mind off the situation, she reviewed for what seemed the fourteenth time today, the many peculiarities of their saviour.

Firstly was their size, standing a little over even the tallest humans, and while large, it was nothing close to the size she had heard about in the many tales she had heard of the creatures.

And while she could dismiss that as the overblown ravings of storytellers who had heard it from other overblown storytellers, the fact that the Golem had two legs and not four was a little hard to dismiss.

What’s more, Retlafeh had directly confirmed that that was not how a Golem should look, it would be enough for Shreshka to doubt that the creature was a Golem, if not for the distinctive hat-like head and four arms.

And then there was the mysterious monster that had prevented the Golem’s attack, it looked to be made of the same hardy shrubs she had occasionally seen on the mountainsides, some type of camouflage no doubt, because surely it couldn’t actually be made of plants.

Unlike the Golem, Retlafeh could provide no help in identifying the creature, even with such unique traits as its singular glowing eye.

The best guess they had was that it was some strange creature that hailed from the untamed jungle south of the lands the Earliag had claimed as their own.

Shreshka let out a chuckle, the rainforests were used as a catch-all for any creature that was of unknown origin, but there was no way such a creature would be able to travel through half the empire without being found.

Retlafeh called out to her, drawing her attention to a winding path leading up a mountainside, straight through the now much lower and more sparse grass.

The path, hardly more than an animal trail, wound up the rugged mountainside before resting at a small shack, where a man was working in a humble garden while a child was trying to feed an old horse a carrot.

“This is probably our best bet for escape”, Retlafeh offered “Too much farther and we will begin running into Earliag patrols”.

Shreshka agreed, but quickly brought up other concerns, “What do we do with the carriage and the Earliag?”.

“Leave them, let the horses free and take the machine, it might sell for a bit.” Retlafeh replied, “As for the slaver, leave him here, if someone rescues him so be it, if not, then the ticks will get their second feast today.”

The woman wasn't sure what she thought of the idea, it solved the issue of whether or not to kill the man, taking the issue out of their hands and leaving it to nature while also allowing them to say they gave the slaver a chance.

But it also felt impersonal, risky, not knowing if the slaver would die there or if the bounty hunters would be after them.

She voiced the concerns to Retlafeh, who pointed out that as soon as the carriage was found empty, the knowledge of their escape will be known to all anyway.

The sturdy ex-slave was already hoisting Hureheh onto his shoulders when Shreshka thought of her final issue with the plan.

“How are we going to convince some random Earliag to help us, let alone not report us to the cities?” she questioned, “There are few of the simple-landers who have any sympathy for escaped slaves.”

But Retlafeh only let out a chuckle at their concerns, “Shreshka”, he started while holding the shimmering star-silver coin to the light.

“Those are a poor man's problems.”