Two children, a young boy and a slightly older girl, stood behind a disheveled looking mother, who had frozen in fear, staring at Xander as he turned the corner around a wagon.
“Hey… hey. It’s okay,” he said, trying to sound soothing. “It’s over. The bandits are gone.”
The woman, no longer frozen after being given this information, began shaking, sinking against the side of a cart and sobbing. The two children at her side soon began to cry as well. “Oh gods…” she sobbed. “They killed him. They killed him!”
Unsure of what to do, Xander moved on, feeling even guiltier. If he’d just thought about the situation a little more then maybe this could all have been avoided. He continued searching for survivors, calling out for anyone who was alive to come to his voice. He collected a small, ragged band of survivors over the course of an hour. Many of them were children, their parents having stashed them in hard to find places before laying down their own lives attempting to prevent the bandits from ever finding them. He found a few still surviving guards, all seriously wounded, and did his best to bind their wounds. Hopefully, they would survive until Gabrelle returned, or he could go fetch her. He took the time to create small medallions for the most seriously injured, containing a healing rune and amplification runes on one side, and gathering arrays on the other. He hoped it would be enough to keep them alive.
Half an hour after Xander and his band had finished searching the wagon train for any last survivors and checked the fallen to see if any yet lived, Gabrelle returned. Riding Freyja, her horse having been lost, slain, or stolen by bandits, in the confusion of the attack, she looked around sadly at the depopulated carts. Her shoulders were slumped, and she shook her head at the sights and smells of violence surrounding her. She finally came across Xander and the ragtag survivors, who were gathering what supplies they could from the carts. She immediately jumped down from Freyja and ran to Xander.
“Xander!” She cried, running over to him. “Thank the gods you’re okay! What were you thinking?” She asked him angrily.
Xander looked around at the desolate site of the battle and the few survivors of the battle and shrugged helplessly. “I couldn’t just leave them…” He said.
“So you just thought you’d try and sacrifice yourself? Again?!” She yelled at him. “And how dare you hoist me up like that and throw me onto Freyja! If I choose to fight, then I will fight!”
“I… sorry. Can we talk about this in private?” He gestured behind one of the wagons.
“Fine.” Gabrelle stomped behind the wagon, away from the poor souls who were still gathering supplies for their journey onwards.
Following her, Xander nervously tapped the back of his helm, thinking. In his eyes, he’d ensured that she and Freyja both were able to escape a near certain death.
“So?” Gabrelle asked testily, arms crossed.
“First off, I’m sorry for throwing you onto Freyja, but –“
“As you should be!” Gabrelle interrupted.
“But,” Xander continued, “Things really were going poorly. You see how the caravan ended up. I just… didn’t want anything to happen to you. Or Freyja.”
“You still took away my choice, Xander. I do not appreciate that, even if you did –“
“I had to use the soul rippers again, Gabrelle!” he said angrily. “That’s how bad things were! I ran entirely out of grenades and there were still enough bandits to take down the rest of the guards and start raiding the caravan while they surrounded me. I had to use the tear grenades and the soul rippers, neither of which I could have risked with Freyja or you around.”
“But what if something had happened to you, Xander? Did you even think about that? How would I even tell Atrax, or Frazay, or Graffus that you survived Ilbek and then fucking died again on the way to see them?!”
“Gabrelle. I’m already dead. I’m a [Revenant]. If one of those bandits had managed to completely destroy my binding here, I’d end up being drawn back to Thrask. I left another one of my sigils there. Which, to be fair… I should have mentioned. You didn’t know about it.” Xander realized that he had neglected to mention that he had already created another binding for his soul.
“Why do you always forget to tell us things like this?” She said, interrupting him again.
“…It also would have been pretty inconvenient to come all the way from the capital again,” he continued. “Here, tell you what. I’ll make another mark, and you can hold onto it. That way, if I do get blown to bits somehow, I should wake up bound to the mark and I can make myself a new body.”
Gabrelle chewed the inside of her lip, thinking. “Alright. Alright, fine. I want you to make each of us one of those marks to hold onto for you, though. But I’m still angry with you for manhandling me like that.”
“Sorry, I’ll try not to… but don’t expect me not to throw you out of the way of something if I see it coming!”
“Ugh. Whatever, Xander.”
“Back to serious talk though… where do we go from here? There’s nowhere near enough people to continue the caravan, and the horses are dead, gone, or stolen. The wounded at least will need healing before they can walk, especially some of the guards that managed to survive. Some of them are in bad shape-”
“Right. Right, you’re right, I should go heal them right now.” Gabrelle abruptly turned about and returned to the survivors, immediately getting to work healing those with the most grievous wounds. Xander was glad none of them had died before she’d arrived.
Wandering out after her, he stopped next to Freyja. “I really pissed her off, didn’t I?” He said quietly to the cat. Freyja huffed, as if she were also insulted with Xander, and wandered away from him. “Even my own soul-bonded companion…” he muttered. “What a shit day today had been.” He sat down and rested his head against a cart wheel, releasing his hold on the runes of his body for the time being. He wanted to let his mind rest. Despite not experiencing physical tiredness anymore, he was certainly feeling mentally exhausted right now.
Slowly, he re-exerted control over his body again, straightening up. Gabrelle was still moving down the line of wounded laying on the ground. He idly created a platinum medallion, just large enough to carry his soul binding sigil on one side and the gathering arrays to power it on the other. He finished it with a soft leather necklace that looped through it. He’d give it to Gabrelle when she was in a better mood.
Gabrelle seemed to have calmed down somewhat by the time she finished healing those who were still unable to walk. They’d set out immediately, and as they walked, she would apply healing to those worst off when she recovered enough mana. Everyone was glad to put the graveyard that the caravan had become behind them. Xander had been afraid to even touch the bodies, carefully picking his way through the road as they’d started off. The thought of [Heaven’s Bounty] activating again and potentially sucking up all those bandits churned his nonexistent stomach. He and Gabrelle walked together, silently. He could tell she was still upset, but she no longer seemed angry.
They didn’t make it too far, walking for only a few hours before the sun began to set. The remains of the caravan began to make meager campsites. Xander found himself in Gabrelle’s tent again.
“Are you okay, Gabrelle?” He asked, filling the awkward silence between them. Gabrelle hadn’t quite settled down to sleep, so Xander was simply sitting near the entrance of the tent.
“I… yes. No. I don’t know.” Was the answer he received.
“Are you still upset with me about the battle, or is it something else?”
“It’s… Well it’s two things. The first is just that all the death, the killing. You know it gets to me sometimes. And the other thing… I thought I lost you, Xander. Again! You were one of, if not the closest friend I had before you… passed. And to get you back, only to feel like I’d lost you not even half a year later… I was scared. I was so scared that I was going to find you dead.”
“Gabrelle… I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry. I should have told you about the marks. Then you wouldn’t have had to worry so much.” Xander reached into his inventory and withdrew the medallion he’d made. “Here. I made one for you.”
Gabrelle reached out and took it from him, turning it over in her hands as she admired the intricate patterns carved into the platinum medallion. “Thank you,” she said quietly at last.
“Now you’ve got a little piece of me with you,” Xander half joked.
“I’ll make sure I take good care of it.”
Xander and Gabrelle held each other tightly as the woman fell asleep. Rather than the usual one arm around her shoulder that Xander had usually gone with as he laid flat on his back, letting his mind wander through the night, he found himself on his side. Holding Gabrelle with both arms, the woman was holding herself tightly against his chest, her own arms wrapped around his torso in kind. It was pleasant, and Xander was glad he didn’t have to worry about his arm going numb, as it surely would have had he still had blood flowing through veins.
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He spent the night chasing his thoughts around his mind. He wondered if this was cheating. He was holding another woman close to him as she slept, even if it wasn’t with romantic intentions. Was he even married anymore? For him it had been close to a year, but for the rest of the world, and Earth he presumed, it had been three. They’d never find a trace of him back home. He likely would have been declared dead. Xander hoped his life insurance policy had paid out and that there weren’t any issues with his disappearing and not leaving a body. That would at least help Helen along. She’d be able to pay off the house, or maybe invest the money. Take some time away from work. He still felt guilty for leaving her behind, even if he hadn’t been presented with a choice to bring her or to not go in the first place.
Xander removed himself from Gabrelle’s grasp as the sun rose over the horizon, waking her up in the process. He stepped out of the tent to allow her space to get dressed and armored. Looking about at the remnants of the caravan personnel, he sighed, and he subconsciously sunk into a slump. His thoughts were drawn once again to just how poorly he’d planned during the battle yesterday. Sure, he wasn’t a tactician, but he should have been able to assess the situation better than he had. He knew that he tended to focus far too much on what was right in front of him, and struggled with the larger picture sometimes, but he’d never expected it to cause such collateral damage to those around him. He wasn’t just ‘some guy,’ anymore, he was starting to realize. He had power, far more than the average person, especially with his new… state of being. He couldn’t just operate as a single cog in the machine during a fight now. He had to do better, think about the larger state of things and how his skills and abilities could best be used to win battles at large, not just individual fights, now. He resolved to talk to Graffus about it. The dwarf had mentioned that he had been part of a war before the one they’d all participated in. Perhaps he would have some insights to share.
More and more people began to rise from their slumber as the sun shone brighter in the sky, and it was not long before everyone was awake. Xander was nervous about the days to come. The next town was still three days’ ride from their location, as far as he could discern from the map that Gabrelle had, and with the large majority of their contingent now walking, he estimated that the time it would take them to reach the town would be closer to a week. The other concern was their lack of numbers. There were less than twenty of them, all told, and such a small number of people on the road would appear to be an easy target for banditry. The group that had fled yesterday would still have enough numbers to easily overwhelm such a small group. Even if an attacking force wasn’t able to kill him, Gabrelle, and Freyja, the rest of the caravan would likely be killed. Xander also needed to update Freyja’s armor. He’d managed to make Gabrelle a carbon fiber suit, but had fallen at Ilbek before he’d gotten around to making one for the cat. He needed to cover her exposed chest and belly.
Assessing the problems in front of him, Xander decided that one of the best things he could do while their camp was having a meagre breakfast and changing bandages and dressings for the wounded as Gabrelle made another round for healing was to create a golem. With the single application of [Golemancer] he could cast today, he would be able to have something that would function on the level of [Automaton] and be able to help defend the survivors. He opted to create a golem based off of his own form, a metal frame around which he would layer carbon fiber. This one, as well as at least the next one, would be based on the human form so that they could more easily assist the survivors with menial tasks. He also hoped that they would be less frightening or strange to the beleaguered men, women, and children than giant metal spider-like creatures or strange wheeled figures.
He set about creating another mannequin, this time opting for devil’s iron for the inner frame. He wanted the thing to be able to charge through lines of men or even horses with ease, and the dense metal would lend itself to that. Once he was finished, he began to directly wrap the runed layers of carbon fiber that his armor consisted of – minus the personal gathering arrays – onto the blood red metallic figure. It didn’t need to be able to take off its carbon fiber carapace, so there was no sense in creating it like a traditional suit of armor. Xander realized that he also never needed to take off his armor, but he did like that his armor could be taken off. It added a small human element to his form that he enjoyed.
Their start was delayed by almost an hour as Xander finished his new golem, but he considered the addition of another defender to be worth the wait. Once he was finished, he had a matte black, faceless figure laying spread eagle on the ground. He activated [Golemancer], feeling the familiar sensation of a high mana cost skill draining the resource from him. The faceless figure stood up at his command, gathering itself mechanically from the ground. Soon, it was marching stiffly along with the rest of the group as they began their journey for the day.
Xander asked Gabrelle to keep her eyes peeled as he began to work on the new armor for Freyja. Most of the armor pieces would be the same as they had been in their previous steel iteration. To cover her chest and stomach, he would use interlocking plates that would allow her to retain most of her flexibility, though he doubted that she would be able to twist her body as much as she could currently. He created and runed the sheets of armor as they walked, his spider legs carrying his body along smoothly as he used his hands to create and rune sheets of carbon fiber, filling the runes with ruby as he normally did for all his creations now. By the time they stopped for lunch, more to give the group a break than anything, Xander was ready to fit the carbon fiber to Freyja. He had to remold the chest armor to fit more properly, but the rest went on easily. The cat was now black and dark smoke grey, looking even more intimidating than she had in steel armor, which was already quite intimidating to anyone who didn’t know her. Xander didn’t feel like she was very intimidating at the moment, though. Freyja was currently rolling around on the ground, rubbing her armored back against the grass as Xander rubbed her cheeks and scratched her chin. He gave her a good paw rub on each foot for good measure as the cat chuffed and grunted in enjoyment.
Their pace was not anywhere near what Xander would have liked, but there was no helping it for the time being. The wounded could only walk so fast, but he hoped that in another day or two, Gabrelle would be able to get them all back to a state where they could walk at a faster pace. He was anxious to get to the next town, where they could drop off the survivors to wait for the next caravan to come through. Xander didn’t hold much confidence in his ability to prevent more deaths if another attack were to come.
As they walked, Xander put his mind to what his next automaton should be. He wanted to keep with the human element again, for the same reason as the last one, but he felt a little deviation from the norm would still be alright. He had a ‘tank’ with his devil’s iron core golem, what he needed now was something fast and deadly. Not that the tank wasn’t deadly; a single punch from it would easily be able to kill a man as long as it was properly placed. He settled on aluminum for the body of the second golem. He wished that he had had the opportunity to discover a sample of titanium to work with, but he doubted that properly processed titanium could be found in this world. With the addition of some strengthening runes on the frame, it shouldn’t make much of a difference anyways.
The form would be sleek, thin. The knee joints would bend like a cat’s, giving it greater explosive power for sprinting or jumping. He’d give it four arms, like he had with Juniper, so that it could overwhelm foes more quickly. He imagined a slim, tall, four-armed figure dashing from opponent to opponent on the field of battle. He would give it short swords so that it could make quick stabs with its four arms. The idea reminded him that he needed to provide his other golem with weapons, as well. A tower shield and a halberd would fit well for the one he’d already created, he thought.
They stopped early for the day; the wounded too tired to continue to walk much further. Xander immediately got to work on his next automaton, so that he would be able to cast [Golemancer] on it as soon as it was ready the next morning. Gabrelle made another round through the wounded, lessening their injuries. Xander kept true to his design ideas as he began to form the aluminum frame of the golem. The feet ended in large, cat-like paws, which he added permanently exposed claws to for better traction while running. The legs rose up to joints that he used Freyja’s back legs as a model for, though they were greatly downsized. The torso and head were more human, with the exception of the two additional arms. The hardest part was getting the balance correct between the cat legs and the human body, so that the golem wouldn’t have to be permanently hunched forward or leaned backwards to achieve balance. The seventeenth iteration of him shifting weights and tweaking the placement of the torso and the angles of the leg joints yielded results, though he was already getting frustrated by the fourth try. He then runed the aluminum frame, covering it with movement runes and strengthening runes. The legs were especially heavy on the movement runes. He hoped the greater density of them would increase its speed. The carbon fiber wrapping was the same as with the previous golem, multiple layers of runes protecting it from physical and elemental damage. When he was done, he had a long, thin body splayed out on the ground. Standing, the golem would be just over seven feet, making it far taller than he was.
The short swords were a simple affair, plain steel blades with unadorned cross guards and hilts. Their value was only in their runes, and Xander runed each blade differently. On one, an array would cause the sword to burst into flames when struck. Another held a similar array to that of his mace, corroding anything the sword struck. The third would become electrified when it made contact with a target, and the fourth would become so cold that it would flash freeze flesh. He hoped that the variety of elemental effects would allow at least one of the weapons to be effective in any given situation. Against humans, he expected any of the blades would fair well, but should they come up against some kind of monster, the spread of effects could be useful. For his already walking golem, which was currently standing stock still at the edge of the camp, he first created a massive tower shield. It was wide enough to easily shield the entirety of the golem from arrows as well as another person. Xander opted to make the entire thing out of sheets of carbon fiber. All the layers that made up his and the golem’s armor were included, but he added multiple layers of the array that would reduce the impact of anything striking the shield. Taking the gladius that he no longer used from his inventory, he made an overhead chop at the shield, and found that once he got within a few inches of the shield, it was like trying to move the weapon like cold molasses. Stowing his sword back into his inventory, he began work on the halberd. He decided that he would create the metal head of the weapon of devil’s iron, in keeping with the theme of the golem, as well as to provide it with a greater force of impact when swung. The golem should have no issue handling something of that length and weight one handed, he felt. He decided to eschew any elemental effect for the weapon. Instead, the head was heavily runed with strengthening and sharpness runes, as well as arrays to increase the impact of the weapon’s blows. This way, Xander thought that the point of the halberd would easily be able to pierce armor, while blows from the beak and blade would sweep men, or potentially even horses, off their feet. A multi-layered tube of carbon fiber filled with gathering arrays to power the runes of the head, as well as strengthening runes for the shaft itself, finished the weapon off.