Weeks later, sitting at the table in the workshop, Stephen, Adam, and HAL listened to Gorg detail his exploration of Avin’s fortress in Riowiver and the surrounding areas.
“When I drop you off back in Riowiver,” said Stephen, “I’ll drop a copy of HAL off with you as well. We’ve built a solar-powered computer system, which we’ll put him in, and you should be able to carry him around with you.”
Looking at the laptop, Gorg grunted uncommittedly. “I have no need of voice in box, and I am no one’s mule to carry luggage.”
“Well,” said Stephen carefully, remembering the previous smacks from the barbarian. “He isn’t really luggage. We think it’ll be a help to you. It’ll be company and someone to talk to for starters.”
Gorg glowered at the former graduate student.
“Which you don’t need, of course,” Stephen said. “He’ll be able to accumulate information about your travels. Remember where you’ve been. Make maps.”
“I remember where I’ve been,” said Gorg. “No need for silly drawings.”
“He’d be able to record any writing or books you found,” said Stephen. "And read them to you." Gorg looked unimpressed.
“He could learn the local’s language and translate for you,” suggested the former graduate student.
Gorg lit up at this. “That would be useful,” he admitted.
***
Later that day, while working on a clay golem on a table in front of the statue, Stephen spoke out loud each task as he was about to do it. Adam observed and, occasionally, offered a suggestion on how to be more efficient or what to be particularly careful about.
“The soft clay seems to be limiting any further improvement with the golems' ability to manipulate objects,” observed Stephen. “For example, they seem to lose a lot of their material when we’ve tried to have them wash dishes. It leaves the water filthy and dishes with clay residue on them. Also, the soft material doesn’t stand up well to tough labor, like sawing or hammering.”
“We’re limited by the properties of clay, of course,” replied Adam. “It offers numerous advantages as well. We could create golems out of another substance, more appropriate to tasks that require firmer digits. Perhaps stone golems? Techniques you learn would be useful when you proceed with creating a body for me.”
“That’s one way to go,” acknowledged Stephen. “I imagine there’d be a fair bit of work creating the first prototypes. As you say, we’d benefit from that knowledge. A shortcut might be to create gloves for the clay golems. They could wear them, and it would let their hands work with substances that clay wouldn’t stand up to.”
“Hmm,” Adams said. “Gloves are a rather ingenious solution to the problem. I’ve never heard anyone suggest creating clothing for golems before. Of course, the golems have learned to maintain one another, and we can find large quantities of clay for repairs, but creating gloves to make them more durable seems worthwhile. What is your experience with sewing and working with fabrics?”
***
Later that day, the apparatus they’d built to house HAL’s new seed and its copies was a high-tech backpack that Gorg was wearing as he walked towards Vegnos, the Epcierian village near Avin's original fortress in Riowiver.
“It’s beautiful country,” HAL observed. “At your current pace, we should arrive at the tea house Stephen, Rurth, and Blargh visited in one hour and twenty-three minutes. The rice and lentils dish is apparently a mainstay and the only food we should expect there.”
“If we’re attacked, I’m dropping you,” said Gorg. “I’ll probably leave you behind if I do.” Testing the strap over his shoulder, he said, “I might dump you if this strap keeps rubbing against me.”
“Blargh had trouble getting alcohol from the tea house,” said HAL. “If you leave me behind, how do you intend to order it? Or will you be satisfied with tea and lentils?”
The barbarians considered this. “Maybe I’ll pick you back up if I have to drop you,” he conceded.
“If I’m broken, I won’t be able to translate for you,” HAL argued.
“If I’m not rushed, I’ll try to put you down gently,” conceded the barbarian.
***
Days later, Rurth sat on a table in Adam’s workshop area of the Wizards' Guild in Stephen’s pocket dimension.
”… Feyrith and Falco send their regards. They’re surprised at the sustained intensity of the search for you,” the journeyman wizard concluded. “It’s probably raised the profile of The Griffin Club that they’ve put so much effort into pursuing you.”
”And has the Inner Circle, you know, the dimensional travelers' council, got involved?” asked Stephen. “Are they hunting me too?”
”A representative from The Griffin Club tried to launch a complaint with them, but they were stonewalled,” reported Rurth. “They’ve posted a public announcement asking you to report to the council office for an interview, but nothing further than that.”
”They really are useless, aren’t they?” said the former graduate student.
”Lucky for us,” said Rurth with a grin. “A number of dimensional travelers have expressed interest in trading with you and dueling you. At least a few of them are clearly bait for The Griffin Club, but most are sincere. I have a list of them for you.”
”So, even though I’ve been accused of murder, they still want to interact with me?” asked Stephen, confused.
”As Feyrith might say, some of them may not be culturally upset by what we’d consider murder, like Gorg. Others might just be…. morally flexible,” said Rurth. “Like Blargh. I suppose others might just assume there are at least two sides to every conflict, and that you might be innocent.”
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“I’ll take you back to Stredath whenever you’re ready,” said Stephen. “Thanks for all your good work there.”
”I’ve saved the best for last,” said Rurth, smiling.
”And what’s the best?” asked Stephen.
”Avin is alive,” said the journeyman wizard. Stephen stared at him in disbelief and blinked a few times.
”We killed him,” said the man from Earth. “Really killed him. Not to be overly gruesome, but Blargh made a mess of his head firing a gun at point-blank range. No one could survive that. How could he be alive?”
”Dimensional travelers are hard to kill,” said Rurth. “Apparently, another member of his club collected Avin’s body in Mecond, and they have access to an effective resurrection spell. A disgruntled member of Avin’s club told me about it. Apparently he doesn’t like Avin much. Even though they’re in the same club. We should have brought his body back to your pocket dimension if we’d wanted him to stay dead. Or disintegrated it or gotten rid of it more thoroughly than we did. He’s apparently in hiding, because he wants you to be in as much trouble as possible.”
”Why is The Griffin Club pursuing me so aggressively if they know I didn’t kill him?” asked Stephen.
“Well, we did kill him,” said Rurth. “It’s just that they’ve resurrected him. A crime worse than attempted murder and better than murder, I suppose. Not everyone in the club knows, my source just reported the rumor to me. I suspect he’s in hiding, partly, so that the club doesn’t give up on their hunt.”
***
Weeks later, Stephen said to Adam and the copy of HAL that remained in the pocket dimension, “So we’ve incorporated computer equipment and a wireless network into the clay golems. We’ll be able to load a copy of HAL into each of them, so as long as one survives, we’ll have an updated copy of him from the swarm.”
“As long as the golems stay within range of one another,” clarified the HAL copy. “Working with Adam, we’ve designed a new wireless protocol that should function reliably up to five km.”
“Didn’t those Italian researchers get a Wi-Fi link at 300 km?” asked Stephen. “I think we should be able to do better than five km.”
“They got 300 km point-to-point,” clarified Adam. “If there aren’t any obstructions, we should be able to easily beat that. The five km is through many obstacles we’re likely to encounter. Obviously, some obstacles will block the signal completely and others could severely lower the range. This is a dramatic improvement over commercial standards.”
“And I’ll be able to guide the golems to salvage any technology or useful components they come across,” the copy of HAL said. “It won’t be as easy for them as it originally was on Earth to expand it, since there isn't a global internet anymore, but hopefully they’ll be able to make progress. They should be able to make progress even in dimensions like Mecond with a much lower technology.”
“What about power?” asked Stephen. “I’m assuming you’ve got them recharging with solar panels or something? We don’t want to have to drag generators and fuel along to recharge them.”
“We’ve adapted power crystals that were common in Riowiver,” said Adam. “The dwarves there created them long ago and have been refining them ever since. In a dimension with magic, they continually renew themselves from ley lines, but they store enough power for two or three years. We’re powering the cybernetic parts with that.”
“This all sounds wonderful,” said Stephen. “How much of our time will it take making these?”
“The plan is to set up a factory, like we discussed for the golems before,” said Adam. “Teach the golems to duplicate themselves. This should give you a steady stream of new cards, and any that you don’t capture can be deployed like other technology. We'll teach them to integrate the cybernetics as part of the creation.”
“Get started then,” ordered Stephen. “We’ll deploy the first group to Clodor, then start sending a group with every champion we deploy. Except for Rurth, though. I don’t know what they’d make of cyborg golems in Stredath.”
***
Pulling into town, Blargh blasted the horn on the F-150 he was driving. The truck pulled a military grade trailer, suited for rugged terrain. Both the truck bed and trailer were overflowing with cargo. Clay golems hung off the vehicle precariously, and three of the new cyborg clay golems were mixed in with them, in safer positions.
One of the cyborgs activated a speaker that began announcing, “Goods for trade! Goods for trade! Medicine, food, clean water, camping gear! Looking for books, gasoline, computer equipment, and other technology.”
Groups of people came out of the various houses and buildings in the larger community. They followed Blargh’s truck as it made its way around abandoned vehicles cluttering the streets. After reaching an area that was more clear than the rest of town, Blargh pulled over and turned off the vehicle. The cyborg continued its announcement until most of the local population had gathered around them. One of the cyborgs translated for Blargh as another answered questions from the group.
“What the heck is all this?” asked a dirty man, looking at the truck suspiciously.
“We’re here to help,” answered the cyborg evasively. “We have goods you’re in need of. We’re collecting any books that we don’t have copies of and any computer equipment you have. Other technology, even things like refrigerators, have some value to us, but books and computers are what we’re most interested in.”
“Computers aren’t good for much,” a young woman said. “There’s no Internet anymore.”
“We’re still interested in them,” said the cyborg. “We’ll give you things you can use, in exchange for computers that aren’t worth anything to you.”
“But what are you?” asked the first man. “You aren’t human. Other than him.” He gestured with his thumb at Blargh.
“We’ve been sent by the authorities to help you,” the cyborg lied. “What do you need most?”
***
Weeks later, Rurth kept asking questions as he examined the stone golem that Stephen was working on. The former graduate student, Adam, and HAL took turns answering him as Stephen made steady progress on the new creature.
“The clay golems are meeting most of our needs, honestly,” said Stephen. Three clay golems assisted him with his enchanting work. “There isn’t much we’ll be able to do with the stone golems that the clay golems aren’t already well suited for. Embedding technology in the stone golems would actually be harder than with the clay golems, so I’m not sure if there’ll be much use for them.”
“But,” he continued, “the techniques are applicable to building Adam’s body. Letting him move around and visit the factory we set up will be useful. If we can make good progress with the stone golems, he’ll be more likely to let us work on him.”
“How are things going for Shomos?” asked the journeyman wizard.
“She wasn’t at our scheduled rendezvous,” said Stephen. “I left a group of clay golems in Mecond to look for her. They found her, and it turned out she just didn’t think it was worth the bother of showing up for the meeting. Can you believe her?”
“Hmm,” said Rurth. “That doesn’t sound like her. Did she give a reason?”
“Just that she was busy inventorying what Avin captured from the natural world and what was left behind,” said Stephen. “How the new ecosystem will function. I told her that we were working on a dimension spanning project and that tracking her down took resources away from other tasks. She suggested we just leave her on her own in Mecond.”
“Didn’t she commit to helping you?” asked Rurth.
“That’s what I said,” said Stephen. “And she said this was helping me. Apparently, she’s worried that Mecond's ecology has been fatally damaged and that we can use the information she’s gathering for me to capture large parts of Mecond. She thinks the ecosystem might be better served here in the pocket dimension, rather than where it is in place.”
“So now she wants you to capture the natural world in Mecond?” asked Rurth, confused.
“She seems confident that it could be managed better here,” the former graduate student said. “She’s explaining it to some of the other druids, and they each have their own opinion on it, but some of them want to be captured with their domains and brought here to save them.”