Olivander was starting to dislike the number of 'firsts' the day had brought. His first time teaching ritual magic to a dog. His first time cooking a feast. His first time speaking with a god. Last, but certainly not least, his first time undergoing a personal trial.
He had heard of them, of course, but they typically only happened when a dungeon spawned on top of someone and they had met all of the requirements to trigger a personal trial. Typically they only ever happened to people advancing to Legendary combat classes or Unique non-combat classes. Olivander mentally added "or when a god decides you need one," to the list.
From where he was standing, nothing about the kitchen had changed, with the exception of the magical barrier that he probed with his senses. It was similar to a magic anomaly barrier, but it didn't seem like anyone could pass through it. He hoped triggering this didn't end up causing any problems for Gregory and Cooper.
The golems were still cooking, and the one the god had briefly possessed went back to work. He knew most combat class personal trials involved combat, obviously, but he was unsure if the class he was being blessed with was a combat or non-combat class. Either way, one of his classes would need to evolve to accommodate the change. No one could have more than five total classes, and even that was rare.
He assumed the new class was cooking related, but none of his classes really matched that for smooth evolution. He pulled up his class list while he waited for something to happen.
Olivander Casmusus
Age: 43
Race: Human
Standardized Level: 381
Combat Classes:
Conjurer (Uncommon/Evolved)
Level 30 (Max)
Elemental Swordsman (Rare)
Level 21 (19%)
Traveler (Rare)
Level 50 (Max)
Magus (Epic)
Level 74 (12%)
Non-combat Class:
Greater Scholar (Expert/Evolved)
Level 35 (40%)
"What? How did this happen?" he stared at his status sheet. "I missed my own birthday!?"
He shook his head.
"Where was I? Ahh, yes. What class could evolve…Conjurer perhaps? I could gain a class with a food conjuring specialty. That would really take the fun out of it though. I hope that's not it. I really have no idea."
Olivander looked back to the cooking golems, but they had nothing to say about it.
Just as he was about to start probing the magical barrier, he received some more information.
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You have entered Personal Trial Dungeon: Golem's Feast
* Dungeon Type: Combat/Endurance/Crafting
* Clear conditions: Serve all of the guests at the feast!
* Bonus conditions: Complete the trial with over 200 golems active
* Recommended Level: 375 - 425 (Standardized)
* Recommended Classes: None
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"Two hundred golems? I'm not sure I like the sound of that."
As the message faded away, the world around him started to change. The back of the kitchen melted away, becoming an open entrance into an absolutely massive hall. It was filled with tall columns stretching up to the high ceilings, and it was lit by torches lining the walls and casting a multitude of shadows over the space. Olivander was sure the House Rhodes' manor would fit into the hall three times over.
At the far end of the dining hall, there was a massive banquet table, filled with hundreds of people. At their head, was a giant glowing figure that Olivander guessed was none other than the God of Feasts himself.
"Looks like I need to let the golems cook? And probably construct more so we can serve the feasters faster."
"Come now, Olivander!" the god bellowed from the feasting table, "I have a legion of hungry soldiers here, you had better start feeding them before things get rowdy! HAHAHA!"
Olivander had to cover his ears when Barranch laughed.
He looked around the space. He found that the storage room he had taken random parts from earlier was now filled to the brim with golem parts.
He rushed in, summoning his grimoire and reconstructing the spell he had used to animate the original golems.
"Maybe the self replicating will help out, actually."
"I heard that! I have removed that function from the spell in your grimoire. No cheating!"
"Well that's a little rude, rewriting another man's spellbook."
The god didn't care to respond.
Manipulating the parts through a trick of mana manipulation that Gregory would be very interested in if he were around to see it, Olivander assembled the first golem. His spell flashed, and the golem left the room to join the others.
When Olivander looked back out into the kitchen, it had grown to twenty times its original size. Across the kitchen from the storage room was a new magical pantry bursting with ingredients for the feast.
"How much food do I have to make?" he wondered aloud.
Another five golems went out.
It would take time to actually make the food, but the things he had already been working on before the trial were about ready, and the golems in the original space started plating. It was only enough for about ten, but they put it on platters and walked it down towards the table.
Olivander left them to it, assembling more golems.
"Can I see how many I've created?"
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Current progress:
* Active Golems: 11
* Destroyed Golems: 0
* Soldiers Fed: 0/2000
* Gods Fed: 0/1 (0%)
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As he assembled a couple more golems, the message updated.
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Soldiers Fed: 10/2000
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"Look at that, progress! Maybe this won't be so bad after all."
"What is taking so long in there!" he heard an angry voice shout.
He peeked out, and one of the soldiers was making his way to the kitchen. When he caught up to the golems coming back, he swung a sword, destroying a golem.
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* Active Golems: 12
* Destroyed Golems: 1
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"I guess this is where the combat comes in."
He opened a portal and appeared in front of the man, an icy blue blade falling into his hand. Olivander struck.
The personal trial, unfortunately, was scaled to his level, so the soldier managed to block a few blows before Olivander's sword passed through his neck and out the side. The soldier faded into white light.
In the distance, he saw the soldier reform at the table. He stood up immediately and shouted again.
"What is taking so long in there!"
The soldier started walking forward, this time, another one joined them.
"So that's what I'm dealing with. I need to assemble golems as fast as possible and prevent the soldiers from destroying them. One problem is it looks like more soldiers will come over time. If I'm not careful they might destroy all of my golems."
Olivander stepped back through his portal, assembling a couple more golems and checking back on the progress of the soldiers. They were walking slowly, and the golems had made it back to the kitchen, so he had another half a minute before he had to intercept them.
Again, it took mere moments to dispatch the soldiers, but again they reappeared in the distance and rose again, a third soldier joining them.
He tried the cycle one more time, he was able to get out another half dozen golems before the soldiers arrived.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
"Flames of Annihilation!"
The column of fire consumed the trio just as they were about to start attacking his golems.
"That's too much mana. I need to fight them in melee and save my mana for making golems."
Mind made up, he changed classes to Elemental Swordsman. He needed to level the class anyway.
When he destroyed the soldiers, another group of golems dropped off more food for the feasters. It was a smaller group of golems than the first, so they had made less food.
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Current progress:
* Active Golems: 21
* Destroyed Golems: 1
* Soldiers Fed: 15/2000
* Gods Fed: 0/1 (0%)
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He portaled back to the supply room. A couple more cycles later, there was a dozen soldiers to beat back, and more than thirty golems starting to deliver food. Unfortunately, it was taking longer to fight the soldiers. He lost another golem as it walked back from the feast table.
At this rate he would never finish. They would overwhelm his golems and then overwhelm him. Already, as he defeated soldiers, they started coming back before the group was completely gone. His situation was bordering on constant combat.
"Think, Olivander. It's a crafting type dungeon, maybe I should be crafting defenders? No, these soldiers are too strong."
Olivander was dual wielding swords now. He had his icy blue sword in one hand, and a fiery red blade in the other. He had complete mastery of his grimoire ability and didn't need his Magus class equipped to use it, so he kept it out and kept a golem construction spell charged. He knew the spell was pointless now.
He waved the spell away when he had some breathing room and flipped to another page, he drew out a ritual quickly, having it nearly memorized. It was a favorite for battlefield control. His trip to meet the frost giants on the frozen fae plains had not been in vain.
The ritual flashed as he chanted a quick spell.
"Frozen fields of the Frost Giants!"
Half of the hall was flash frozen. The ground became white with frost, and as soon as any of the soldiers entered it, they started moving more slowly. They didn't seem to realize they could probably melt the permafrost if they used some fire magic, but they were basically just constructs.
Olivander portaled back to the storage room and began assembling. This time instead of feast golems, he crafted a construct that would craft feast golems. He would still need to power all the golems, so he made the unwise decision to allow the crafting golem to tap into his own mana supply to create the golems. He would need to be careful and make sure he didn't draw too much mana.
There was already a trial on this space, and he suspected the presence of a deity would keep things more or less stable, but given what was happening with the mana balance in the region as a whole, he didn't want to take too many chances. He had no idea what would happen if a dungeon tried to manifest inside a personal trial, but he guessed it wouldn't be good.
He paused for just a moment, in case the god of feasts interpreted the new golem as cheating. When no scolding or smiting occurred, he checked his progress again.
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Current progress:
* Active Golems: 37 (2/min)
* Destroyed Golems: 2
* Soldiers Fed: 31/2000
* Gods Fed: 0/1 (0%)
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"Excellent! They won't be nearly as fast as I am, but I can't be everywhere."
He crafted two more crafting golems before portaling back out to the battlefield.
The permafrost did an excellent job of slowing down the attackers. He dismissed his fiery blade to preserve the frost magic and used one of his few combat skills.
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Elemental Blades
* Skill
* Cost: 100 Stamina and 50 mana (variable, up to 3x)
* You can duplicate your elemental weapon over a large area for a short time. Attacks made with the original weapon will also be duplicated.
* You can mentally specify targets, or allow the blades to simply attack the nearest target.
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A dozen blue blades appeared in the air in front of soldiers approaching Olivander. As he struck, all of his duplicated blades struck. A flurry of blows later, and he stood alone on the frosty plane as white bodies dissolved around him.
"This is actually kind of fun. I haven't had a good fight in a while. The fight with Amegnon didn't count. I let him win."
"Watch out Olivander! It looks like you might have some vermin in your storeroom! HAHAHA!"
Olivander winced and turned to see, sure enough, a "small" group of giant rats scurrying out of the store room, each carrying a sack of goods he no doubt needed to cook for the feast.
"I hope Gregory and Cooper are having this much fun."
* * *
Gregory and Cooper were having a blast.
"What does it say?" Cooper asked, hopping into the air and trying to read the clue tacked to the wall in the bedroom.
They were two clues in. The first one they found had been a list of possible clues, and they needed to find all of the hidden figurines around the room to pick the right one. They had counted three times, and Cooper had thoroughly smelled a figurine to see if he could track down any more, so they were fairly confident in their choice of second clue.
"It says, 'Find the map to hidden treasures inside a treasure all its own. Crafted at the turn of the century, this artifact reminds me of home and happiness.'"
"What does 'turn of the century' mean?"
"Well, the current year is 2841, so the last 'turn of the century' would be about forty years ago. It's just every hundred years. So I'm guessing we're looking for something that's about forty years old. Not sure how helpful that bit will be."
"That's pretty old to me. You think all the stuff in the hallway downstairs? They all seemed old."
Gregory nodded and they headed towards the stairwell.
In the entry hallway, they encountered another pair.
"Ah! Young Gregory and the pup, Cooper was it? Have you joined the hunt?" Constable General McKenzie asked.
"We have! We're on our third clue? Fourth I guess? Lady Rhodes let us skip the first one since we started late."
"How sporting of her. I wish you two luck! Come Gloria, we're ahead of the competition! More clues to unravel, eh?"
Gloria gave Gregory a smile that made his heart sing, but he only managed to awkwardly wave as she walked by him. She paused for a moment.
"The constable general is really into this hunt. He's basically just been dragging me around. Good luck to you two!"
"Thank you!" Cooper said, then began pushing Gregory with his head.
Gregory didn't move for a long moment, watching Gloria leave.
"She's beautiful," he said absently.
"She does smell good," Cooper agreed. "Come on! Let's find our clue! That old guy is going to beat us!"
"Oh right, of course. We're looking for something that's maybe forty years old and reminds Leviana of home and happiness."
Gregory was the first to find a painting of a small cottage. Maybe it was Leviana's childhood home? The item in front of it was an ancient scroll sealed within a glass case. Gregory didn't think that was the clue, they were looking for a map contained inside some kind of artifact. The scroll seemed way too old anyway.
"It must be in a box or container of some kind," he called to Cooper.
"Here!"
Gregory jogged over. Cooper had gone around the corner to the entrance were they had been standing greeting the rest of the guests. There was a large painting of the very manor they were standing in on the wall.
"There's nothing in front of it though."
"The clue said that the artifact reminded her of home and happiness, not some other art. Maybe it's an old model of the house?"
Gregory thought for a moment, and something he had seen popped into his head.
"You're a genius! I think we passed a playroom upstairs!"
They passed Jeremy and Reginald – a friend of Leviana's and the significant other of Allison – on the stairs.
"I see you two are participating! No Olivander?" Jeremy asked.
"No, I think he's goofing off in the kitchen. You better hurry, I think Constable General McKenzie and Gloria are ahead of us, and I think we're ahead of you!"
Reginald didn't look particularly enthused, maybe it was because he was paired with someone who wouldn't be advancing his political or fiscal agenda. He just turned and headed down the stairs.
"Is your partner ok?" Gregory asked softly.
"I think so. I just don't think he's particularly into the puzzle and riddle solving. I'm having fun though!"
Jeremy waved goodbye and chased down his partner, while Gregory and Cooper headed towards the playroom.
They found an old model house in the playroom. It was, seemingly, an early model of the very house they were in, but it looked like it was missing the wing where the great hall and kitchens were now located. It opened on a hinge the united the two halves of the home together.
They scanned the interior looking for anything that might hide the next clue.
Gregory noticed a small box in the model of the very room they were standing in. He was able to open it and inside there was a tiny piece of paper.
There were things on it, but it was so small that it was essentially unreadable.
"How are we supposed to use this?" he asked Cooper.
The dog just cocked his head to the side and looked at him.
He looked back at the house.
"If this tiny map is in this tiny model house, then maybe the real map is in the same room?"
He scanned the room he was in, and partially hidden by a casually discarded blanket, there was a chest that matched the tiny one in the model. Gregory pulled it open to find a larger rolled up piece of paper.
"Yes! I think this is it!"
Just as he was about to open the map to find the location of the treasure, the world went black.
It felt like time stopped for a moment. He could somehow think at normal speed, but he couldn't see anything and he couldn't move at all. After what felt like just a few seconds in his mind, and an indeterminate amount of time to his body, he regained control of himself and the darkness faded.
"What was that?"
"You felt it too? It was so dark and I couldn't move!"
"Yeah, I have no idea. It feels like we lost some time somehow."
Before they could discuss it further, they heard a woman's scream.
They ran down the hall towards the continuing cries. They saw McKenzie round a corner down the hall, coming to investigate as well.
They reached the room first. When they looked inside, they found Elizabeth Callen kneeling over the body of Wentzle Grumel, covered in his blood and sobbing.