As Harlan and Isha watch the bird-shaped cloud lose its glow and fade back to white Dawn told Harlan that his amulet was shining.
“Shelly?”
“Are you alone? If not, get under a veil.”
“You sound a little off, are you ok?”
“Get somewhere private.”
Harlan waved goodbye to Isha and went to the bunker meeting room where he had been speaking with Blackstone before.
“Shelly, I’m in a private room.”
“Why do you want to know about Eliza? Boy.”
“Who is this? Where is Shelly?”
The woman on the other side heard a loud slam as Harlan struck the table.
“What are you, Her boyfriend? I’m her mother, now answer the question.”
“It is a private matter.”
“Then you aren’t getting anything about her, she was a friend of mine.”
“Really?”
“This conversation isn’t going anywhere, answer my question or I am going to cut this off.”
“Did Shelly not say anything about me?”
“I don’t even know who you are, I just waited for her to call somebody and took the amulet.”
“I’m Harlan Fomoria, a noble in Blackstone County. Eliza… was my mother.”
“Bullshit. She died with 1 daughter, no sons.”
“I don’t want to have the conversation of what happened to her unless it is face to face. I wanted to find her because I wanted to know who my family by blood is. And, from what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t have gotten along with her and that is something that I hate. If you could give me a better picture of her good side, I would be very happy to hear it.”
“She was… complicated. Who told you about her?”
“The god of dark mana, but most people just call her The Darkness. And, someone else, but she doesn’t want to talk to other people.”
Dawn was full of conflicting emotions, hearing Sheron’s voice, her brash manner of speech, the way she stuck up for her always, it made her want to talk.
But she knew these were not really her feelings, she was not Eliza, she did not want to be Eliza.
The dead should be dead, and their feelings gone with them.
“Tell me then, what was her favorite food?”
They had been through this once, so Dawn had worked out a way to avoid it happening again while she fed him answers.
“Strawberry cream cake, from the academy cafeteria.”
“Color?”
“White.”
“I need to have a talk with some people. I’ll get back to you.”
She didn’t even give him the chance to say goodbye.
Before he had the chance to stand up he was getting another call.
“Good morning, Selen.”
“Good morning, Mr.Harlan.”
“Hello, Wulrun. Can you hand the amulet back to Selen, please?”
“Harlan, I hope I’ve not interrupted anything.”
“Not at all, I just finished another conversation when you called.”
“I wanted to say that I am back in Ragne, and Lata isn’t too far away from you. I don’t mean to impose, but Wulrun has been asking to see you. However, on account of what you’ve been through this last weak, I fully understand that you likely don’t need him running around.”
“When would you be able to come over? I think he would like to play here. I’m sure my parents would like the little ball of energy around.”
“I’ve actually been given the entire summer off since I am working for the academy and not the Nightwatchers for the next few years. Unless there is an emergency I’m free.”
“I’ll get back to you, I’ve got some work that I need to do and some catching up with my uncle, but not more than a week.”
“Very well, we will speak again at that time.”
Harlan waited to stand, wondering if there was another call coming in.
After half a minute he decided it was fine.
“Dawn, how are you feeling?”
“Weird, strange, odd. I’m nostalgic for someone I’ve never seen and logically is going to be pissed off if she ever learns I exist. You know she is going to hate you, right?”
“I got that feeling from her. Were they close?”
“Sheron loved Eliza like a sister, probably because she didn’t have any of her own.”
Harlan hesitated to ask, but he couldn’t let his feelings cloud his choices.
“What can you tell me about her? Anything I need to know… just in case?”
“She is the daughter of a soldier, wasn’t a noble when Eliza knew her, but she got a scholarship at the grand academy through her own talent so I’m not shocked she ended up as one. By now she must be 39.
If you meet, bring plum wine or peach whiskey. She wasn’t a heavy drinker, but she likes to sip these things. She has a very poor temper, so if you meet her, do it in a safe place, not at her home.”
“Would she really try to hurt me?”
“You know what you are, she is going to see you as something other than her son. Whatever happens, don’t be afraid to defend yourself. I hope you can do that at least.”
“I’ve come to terms with what I am, how I was born, well, mostly. I am not going to let myself be beaten down.”
“Good, now let’s see how that resolve lasts when you actually meet her.”
Harlan peaked in on Balor.
They had spent much of the night before going over what Harlan learned from the sigils, and while Balor couldn’t use them in his work, if he got enough done that he could connect with a body of flesh and bone, then Harlan could flesh sculpt that into a form Balor liked.
“Have you learned anything from what we put together last night?”
“The flesh rejects that which is not of it. Ah, sorry, I’ve spent too much time reading. Yes, I’ve abandoned growing a body, since you can make one for me now. But I’ve been unable to put my gem into any bodies at all without some rejection. Dulled senses, hypersensitivity, pain, odd itches, it is always a very disorienting experience.”
“That just sounds like you aren’t used to having a body. Babies cry about everything because they’ve spent 9 months in the womb, then they get out and everything is too loud, too bright. Have you considered that you have already solved the issue? Even years ago I could put a piece of my soul in a gem, put it in a rabbit, and it would spring to life.”
“That… that just can’t be, I must’ve failed somewhere along the way.”
“I know how it feels, you put all your time into something and it doesn’t work like you want it to.”
There was a silence as Balor thought through the validity of what Harlan was saying and then slammed the table, once more crumpling the metal.
“NO. IT DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. IT, SHOULD, BE, BETTER.”
“Balor, calm down. You said it yourself once, you aren’t tied to hormones like I am.
I feel weird some days as well because of growing up. All kinds of strange feelings are just part of being human.”
“I… I don’t want that. I want it to be better.”
“I have something to show you.”
He called Sepul, who answered after only a few moments.
“Harlan, are you alone?”
“I am with Balor, I’m calling about subject 14.”
“Then he knows?”
“Yes. I wanted to know when you could bring him here, Balor has been having some trouble on account of being human not being what he thought it was. I wanted to show him what a person who isn’t used to their body is like.”
“Give me a few hours, I’ll deliver him directly to your home.”
“Thank you.”
Harlan put his amulet away.
“Balor, I think you need some time to think about what you actually want. There is nothing wrong if you decide that you don’t want a human body. You aren’t any less of a person because your hands are steel, your soul is still all you.”
“I’ll be waiting for what you have to show me. I… I do need to think about this, I somewhat knew what you’ve told me, I didn’t just want it to be true.”
“Nothing wrong with that, reality is so often disappointing.”
Before splitting up the brothers tightly grasped the hand of the other and locked eyes, hugging seemed wrong, a pat on the back would feel patronizing, the gesture felt more resolute than simply comforting.
Harlan returned topside to help unpack and sort his items.
Anything marked with a skull was supposed to be left alone, yellow tape meant it needed to be set aside to be sorted by him, and everything else was safe to open and be put in the appropriate area of the house by the maids.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Sara and Adina returned part of the way through and helped as well.
Isha had in her hand a stonesteel box with a crumpled ingot inside of it.
“Harlan, where do you want this?”
“Let me see that.”
He took it out of the box, veins of stonesteel were clearly growing from its center.
He thought about it, and eventually remembered what it was, at which point he put it back in the box.
“Just an item I never got around to forming into something usable. Put it down in the bunker in the meeting room, Balor is in the lab right now and I don’t want him bothered.”
He didn’t want to let it show on his face, but he had to find out, maybe he had done nothing, maybe he had just figured out something that had far reaching implications. Maybe he would never need to pay for magical metals again, just buy iron ingots and make them transform.
If it had turned roughly 60% in the last 2 months since he forgot about it in his closet, then it should only need another month to finish.
The only other question was of purity.
Magical ores bound themselves to other metals very easily, but to get high quality metals required them to be purified and then mixed with the right quantities of mundane metals.
If the ingot had effectively made ore, then that would still be a great discovery, and arguably more important than just making high quality ingots, but if it was ore, then it needed refinement that only blacksmiths knew how to do properly.
After all of the unpacking he showed Adina to her cabin.
She had been on his lands before even after the cabin was done, but she didn’t want to even see inside of it until she was really there to stay.
Until she left the academy, it could all still crumble, and the idea of having a home to herself and then losing it was terrifying.
It was fairly simple, a large main room that held the kitchen and the living room.
To the left one could find the storage room next to the kitchen, to the right was a bathroom for guests.
To the back was a bedroom furnished with dressers, a closet, a writing desk, and a queen sized bed, along with a private bathroom with a tub and a shower.
One thing that Harlan wanted was to upgrade every room to have both.
The utility of a shower was nice, but he had rediscovered the joy of a long soak in hot water after the days in Borden.
“I tried to give you everything you will need, but don’t hesitate to ask for anything that I missed.”
“It is perfect, all I really need is more clothes. The academy doesn’t mind letting us take one set back, but they don’t let us take all of our uniforms.”
“Would you like to visit Luth? It is closer than Tole, but I try not to go too much on account of how much Balor has been a part of a decline in business there.”
“I think I want a nap. It hasn’t been that long since we got back and after everything I did with Sara, I am a bit tired.”
“Not a problem, I am going there now to get some things made, but I’ll need to pick them up later anyway.”
Adina yawned.
“Have fun.”
The first place Harlan went was Brig’s shop.
There was a tension clear in the air as he approached, both of them felt it.
Brig locked eyes with him, a spear Harlan had never seen in hand.
“Ya got involved with em’ didn't ya? damn gods.”
“How did you know?”
“One ah your kind, the blackout, your eyes changin’, don’t need ta say a word. I’m packin’ up shop, finding somewhere else.”
Harlan tried to get closer, he was confused about the whole thing, but as he stepped closer Brig dropped the facade, pointing his spear at him and unveiling his eyes.
They were like a whirlpool, the pupils being the hole which the water drained to.
“Ain’t no good from two ah our kind near another.”
“You are the champion of water?”
“Aye, she ain’t done right by me, and I ain’t gonna git tied up with that witch cause’ you’re here.”
“Wait, stop for a moment. I’m not any different than I was before. I just came here to ask you to make some things for me. And to pick up that other set of armor I had ordered.”
“Prove it.”
Harlan reached into his bag.
“Slowly now.”
And slowly pulled out blueprints.
Blackstone was going to have someone she trusted to make the armors for her family, but Harlan wanted Brig to make the one for Amber.
The other blueprints were for new golem designs that were thought up by the students who worked with Harlan on the golem armor prototypes along with the current version he was wearing.
Though once he got to the one he was wearing as a sort of final design, he did pay for more experienced blacksmiths at the academy to make it based on their designs.
Brig looked them over, his pride as a blacksmith fought with his desire to never again get tied up with the gods.
“I’ll make em’ only cause’ I want to, now git, GIT.”
Harlan bowed at him and walked away to the confusion of the few people who could hear the old man yelling.
Unsure how else he wanted to spend his time he just wondered around until somebody bothered him.
In this case, Sherry, or was it Cherry? He couldn’t really remember.
“Sir Formoria, what a coincidence that we both meet here.”
Small beads of sweat, her breathing was slightly abnormal, and she had been standing at the corner where they met for the last minute.
“What did you come to find me for?”
“What? No, purely chance that we met. But if you did want to talk with me about an issue, I would love to treat you to some tea in my room.”
“Lead the way.”
Past the drunks who were there for the adventurers discount and to the left were the staff rooms.
The adventurers guild liked to treat their employees fairly. The only real requirement was to remember all of the rules then write, read, and file things properly. The effects of Godgiven made everyone able to read and write, but that didn’t mean everyone was just as good as another.
Good pay with room and board plus on job training were enough for most people to put up with those who normally became adventurers. Though that last part drove away most people despite the perks.
She tried to make smalltalk as she led him past the barely populated room.
Once Tole’s guild started to pick up in business it became obvious to go there.
Sure it was a longer trip for some people to make, but the success rate for missions and the survival rate for adventurers was better.
When the missions were done well, it made the guild more attractive, which then led more of them to come over from Luth, and the more experienced people with newer gear that could be rented made it a cycle that was killing the guild in Luth.
It wasn’t really much of a problem, since they were both under the same organization and both worked missions in the same range for the most part.
She opened the bare room, hardly better than what he had as a child. But it was rather standard for a normal person.
They sat on simple chairs, though at least they had some cloth to cushion them.
“Why don’t we just cut to the chase, also, which one are you?”
The fake cheer in her eyes faded instantly.
“Cherry. My sister did something stupid, I want to know, how much do I need to pay you to get her out of it.”
“What did she do?”
“A couple of kids came in here, after the orphanage in Yor shut down she took pity on them and has been helping them avoid getting killed by goblins.”
“The orphanage shut down?”
“Yeah, the director was tied up in some nasty business, or so I’ve heard.”
“I put him down for what he did.”
“Congrats then. We were both there, glad I’ve never wanted children anyway.”
Harlan furled his brows.
“For fucks sake. How many people did that bastard… How many orphanages are in this area? Did they not have anywhere else to go?”
“Yor took kids from all over the area, Luth and Tole don't have orphanages, Dullen has one, but it is hours away from here. There are a few others scattered around, but in Redwall Barony Yor was the only one outside of Radin, which is nearly as far as Dullen, just in the other direction.”
Harlan lowered his gaze.
“Let’s get back on track. Sherry is out with all three of them, they can’t be more than a year or two younger than you. I want you to find them and make sure she is alright.”
Her mask of indifference and barely kept inside anger cracked slightly as her face twitched and she held back from crying.
“They were supposed to be back hours ago, maybe they just got lost.”
Though she could try to hide it on the outside, Harlan could tell how much of a worrywart she was.
“Of course, just point me in the right direction, I’ll find her. No cost.”
Moments after being told where she should be, Harlan was flying through the air.
It was supposed to be a simple camping exercise to teach the children some self reliance.
And it had been until it turned into them fleeing from goblins.
Harlan found the little green monsters, like twisted figures of children with pot bellies, and it didn’t take more than a few waves of his hand to cut them down.
Then he stayed on the ground and followed the tracks, pulsing for Sherry every few seconds.
He found her and three boys hiding in a cave while a large group of goblins searched for them.
It wasn’t common to see 20, let alone 50 of them.
Even with physical superiority, 50 enemies were 50 enemies, it was not a winnable fight for a front desk worker and 3 children with little to no experience.
Harlan took to the air and picked off the goblins with ease, tearing them apart with his bare hands, burning them with fire and acid, void consumed their bodies until only dust was left.
Harlan wasn’t really worried, he could feel the minds of Sherry and the children and not any goblin minds in the tunnels. So this was just time for him to blow off some steam and test himself on simple moving targets.
After 10 minutes of killing and then double checking he entered the cave they were hiding in.
He wondered if they had gotten lost in all of the twists and turns as they were quite far underground with the occasional goblin body littering the tunnels.
His armor easily deflected the poor blades which came at him from left and right, though the angle with which they were deflected and the poor discipline of the attackers meant he needed to save them from themselves.
“Sherry, your sister sent me.”
There was a lot of embarrassment on her part for failing to even lead children around without nearly getting them killed.
The boys leant her a shoulder and tried to reassure her.
They hadn’t known her long, but she was trying her best to give them a life that was more than begging on the streets until they were old enough to join the army.
“Thank you, whoever you are.”
She said between sobs.
“It’s me, Harlan Fomoria.”
“I’m sorry, Sir Fomoria, I didn’t recognize you. You’ve grown up.”
“Give me another few years to be done growing. I guess I should get a shawl like Balor wears.”
When they got back Cherry scolded her sister loudly in her room while Harlan bought some food for the boys.
It was an odd contrast, despite their ages not being far off, two of them being 13 and the last being 14, Harlan looked years older than them.
Most of this was from his height, between magic being a part of his life from such a young age and never having to go hungry or scrounge together a meal from what little they had he looked more like a noble or a northmen than a farmer’s son.
For Harlan it just seemed reasonable that everyone would grow up having three meals a day, mostly with deer meat, though sometimes with other animals.
For these children, they grew up with parents who barely had enough to feed themselves and so finally they could not stand to see them suffer under them any longer so they were turned over to the state.
“Thank you, Sir Fomoria.”
“Just call me Harlan, I’m not a stickler for titles.”
“Please don’t make Miss Sherry pay, we’ll work off whatever debt she has, she just can’t afford it right now.”
“Let me guess, she spent too much helping you, now she is living week to week, her pay barely making enough for all of you, right?”
They all lowered their heads, the younger ones sniffled.
“I could find you work, safer stuff. But I’m not putting her in debt anyway. I don’t do this kinda work for coin.”
A few others around them laughed at his naive statement.
After the sisters got their squabble finished Harlan ran through what they could do and it was decided that they would be fine to work with the little village that was now springing up around his lands as errand boys, with Harlan giving them a simple hut to live in.
He felt sorry for them, he truly did, but he didn’t want to invite three unknown children into his home.
If they proved themselves to be the right temperament, then they could be recruited for Balor’s needs, but if not, then they could have simple lives so long as they worked for it.
Harlan left a few gold coins in the care of Sherry to get them clean clothes and enough food to get them ready for living by themselves.
She would of course stop by to check on them, but outside of her, they had one another and that would be enough for now.
The last thing he needed to do before going back home was speak with Brig, he hadn’t actually picked up the armor for Redmond earlier on account of what had happened.
He narrowly dodged a blacksmith’s hammer once he stepped into the shop, but other than that Brig seemed to be fine with staying.
So long as Harlan was just his neighbor and not an agent of will beyond humans that is.