They stood inside the tree line at the edge of the woods. Each person in their small group was looking for a sign of the mage they were hunting in nervous silence until it was broken without warning by the tall, bearded warrior who Llannia had been teamed up with for just long enough that their association was starting to wear on her.

“I told you that this cemetery didn’t have any of those damn statues,” Jax boomed, slapping the monk that had joined them for this urgent assignment on the back. “So, I hope your purse is full because drinks are on you when we get back to that inn tonight, and I’m feeling thir-sty.”

The sudden change in his demeanor made her smirk. After a brush with death at the hands of a statue shaped like a mother in mourning the other day, Jax had insisted that all of them be extra cautious for the last hour as they made their final approach to what they thought was the mage’s lair. Now that there was no apparent danger, he wasn’t even trying to be quiet anymore. The deadly seriousness he’d insisted on as they stalked through the woods for the last hour had practically evaporated in the face of his I told you so’s, not that he’d said any such thing before now.

None of them had. Certainly not Llannia.

Though she knew a little something about the unquiet dead that sometimes dwelled in them, Llannia didn’t know any more about graveyards than Jax knew about topics other than swords. So, she thought that the idea of him pretending that he knew more than anyone about anything was positively charming, in an eye-rolling sort of way. The man was blood simple, and that’s why she’d kept him around as long as she had. She decided which jobs they took, he did the killing, and she kept him from dying no matter how badly he might get banged up. It was an equitable arrangement that had worked out for both of them for a while now. Not many priestesses of Adellphia were willing to live this roughly after all!

In this case, she didn’t know much more than he did, but she didn’t need to. All she needed to know was that the Magisterium Arcanum was offering good money for the whereabouts of their missing Archmage and that this lead had ended up being somewhere between a waste of time and a wild goose chase by the party’s newest member: the monk and armchair historian, that they’d just recently picked up with the promise that he’d be helpful. Which to be fair, he had been up until today, especially in a fight. He wasn’t Llannia’s type, though; she didn’t think she’d be keeping him around for any longer than it took to find old Archmage Hirramus.

“Well, I wouldn’t expect too many to be left if Hirramus has been out here for weeks animating his own personal army,” Agithus shot back as he rubbed his hand across his shaved head. He tried not to sound too defensive as he surveyed the area but couldn’t hide his disappointment from Llannia’s trained ear. “I’m telling you - The last two golems we smashed were early Ephimernian. They were probably from the Seonid dynasty. I just don’t know where he’d find statues like that anywhere but here. The tomb of Dardenelle is the only place in the region from that era because—”

“I told you we should have just followed their tracks,” Jax said, interrupting the monk as soon as he grew bored with the nuanced answer. “Feet that heavy - it wouldn’t be hard to follow where they came from, would it?”

“Follow them back to their source?” the monk asked in disbelief, “I could give you a dozen reasons why that’s a terrible idea. Who knows how far they wandered between here and there…”

As the exchange dissolved into recriminations that bordered on insulting in that good-natured way that men seemed to enjoy so much, Llannia just smiled. She didn’t care either way. She didn’t have the first clue about statues. With the possible exception of the monk, none of them did. He’d spent as many hours copying old tomes as he had practicing martial arts, so it was fair to say he knew quite a bit more than the rest of them put together about more than a few things, and history was probably one of them, with the possible exception of the mage that the Magisterium had loaned them for this task, of course.

She turned to their quiet mage and asked, “So, what do you think, was he here? Is he here? Or do we need to find another creepy old location for our showdown?”

Earllin didn’t answer. Instead, he stared blankly at the graveyard, lost in concentration. She hadn’t heard him cast a spell, but mages worth the name were rare enough that despite the many adventures she and Jax had been on in the last few years, they’d only seen them a handful of times. She had no idea what tricks or artifacts he might have up his sleeve beyond weaving the ether to bend the world to his will.

She just studied him quietly, taking a moment to appreciate the beauty of his unnaturally young face. Over the last week, they’d actually gotten to know Agithus. However, Earllin was still a stranger to the rest of them. She had a feeling that even if this quest dragged on, and he stayed with them for weeks or months, that wouldn’t change any time soon. There were good parts to having someone to share a campfire with that didn’t love the sound of their own voice, but—

“He’s here,” Earllin said with certainty as his clear blue eyes snapped open.

“Are you sure?” Jax asked, as all the good humor evaporated at those two short words. “There’s no statues or anything, so…”

“Something channeling mana is, anyway,” the mage said, not taking his eyes off the mausoleum like he was expecting an attack at any moment. “A lot of it, too. The patterns are strange but unmistakable. I can sense another of his servants too. Maybe more than one. It’s hard to tell from here with all the death veiling the area.”

So, he was studying the tides of magic then, Llannia thought. That made sense. The goddess hadn’t given her the gifts to see such things, but she could feel the presence of evil in much the same way. Any evil that still clung to these ancient stones was old and stale to the point that it was hardly worth concerning herself with.

“So, then, what should we do?” Agithus asked. “I could sneak in and see what we’re up against.”

“That’s exactly what we shouldn’t do,” the mage said, finally turning away. “You might be talented enough to hide from guards and use shadows to avoid minions of flesh and blood, but those skills won’t avail you to even the least of Hirramus’ wards. The man is… Well, he at least was an Archmage. The records say he could cast spells of the fourth circle without preparation. If you give him time to prepare, then none of us will leave this place alive.”

“What could he do with adequate time to prepare?” Llannia asked, sure she didn’t like the sound of this.

Usually, she made sure that they stuck to simple missions. Purge this lair of gnolls, kill that orc band, or escort this wealthy merchant through bandit territory. The worst that those sorts of adventures ever involved was making sure that Jax didn’t bleed out. That left her with precious little idea of what to do in situations like this, not that there were situations like this very often. Members of the Magisterium rarely just went crazy and started animating golem armies to ravage the countryside.

Such things were unheard of.

“With a few hours and the right materials, he could make your blood boil in your veins, make you his slavishly devoted servant, or any number of terrifying fates in between. And if he’s…” Earllin’s voice faltered for a minute as a mixture of emotions welled up inside of him. “And if he’s been possessed by a demon, then things are twice as bad as that. Without training, you simply aren’t capable of understanding how dangerous a man like him truly is.”

“So, we go in hard and take him out before he sees us coming!” Jax said enthusiastically. He’d obviously tuned out almost everything the mage had said in favor of what he wanted to hear. Despite everything else she’d heard, that was almost enough to make Llannia smile. Some things never changed.

“Or we go back to the council and tell them what we know. One of the two,” the mage continued. “If we left now, we could—”

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“Going to the council isn’t going to pay out platinum royals,” Llannia cut in. “We do just like Jax said. We go in fast and hard and take him down before he has a chance to cast any particularly nasty spells.”

They continued talking about the plan for a few minutes after that, but Earllin was the only one who didn’t care for the idea, and after a few minutes of talking it over, he finally came around. They would charge in and try to spare the old man’s life if they could. Still, if that proved impossible, they’d bring back Hirramus’ skull so that the necromancers in the tower could get the answers they needed from the Archmage’s ghost, at least.

The graveyard was empty except for the gravestones, brambles, and mosses that grew between them on the blighted earth. Agithus pointed out several pedestals that bore the footprints of statuary that was no longer present. The point no longer mattered, but the monk seemed to be one of those people who needed to be right all the time. She was grateful she wouldn’t have to spend much more time with him because that little quirk would get on her nerves quickly. She really should feel more kinship to him, she reflected. After all, he was a holy man who served the gods, the same as she did - he just picked the wrong one as far as she was concerned.

The temples of Adellphia had nothing against the scribblers of Mordan-ra. It was just that neither she nor her sisters would ever understand why someone could love books more than their fellow man, let alone the divine.

She didn’t let that distract her as she kept everyone moving toward the central mausoleum. It was a squat, gray building that had long ago lost any decorations it had once possessed due to generations of looters. Its imposing doors stood open, revealing a series of ossuaries on both walls and a broad set of stairs that went at least a story or two below ground. Llannia kept her senses attuned to evil but found nothing tainted. She was just about to tell everyone that, which would rule out any nasty undead surprises when a shadow twice as tall as a man suddenly loomed out of the darkness near the door.

Jax had his shield and sword out and was well-prepared for the blow he didn’t even see coming until it was bearing down on him like an avalanche. Even with his armor and reaction time, he was still sent sprawling backward by the spine-shattering force of the stone giant’s fists.

It was another golem. That much was evident to everyone, but this one looked different somehow to her. All the other ones they’d shattered before now had looked like classical sculptures. They’d been attacked by sad-eyed men and crying women that had all shared the common features of mourning. This one wasn’t any of those things. It was almost a caricature like the Archmage had released an unfinished monstrosity on them. It had arms and legs but lacked fingers or any definition to its torso. Its head was blank, with only two dots that might suggest eyes. To her, such a move reeked of desperation, but judging by how it batted aside a strong man like Jax, it apparently didn’t matter if it was only half finished.

Llannia stepped back, already reaching out to beseech the goddess for aid. Jax’s skull was hard enough that there was no way that such a blow would require any sort of immediate healing. Still, a blessing of strength would undoubtedly go a long way toward evening the odds.

Before she could, though, Agithus leaped through the air with a battle cry to focus his essence. “Ka!” he yelled as he slammed his fist into the heart of the thing with the punishingly strong attack he called the hammer fist. The move was an awkward-looking thing, with none of the gracefulness that Jax so often showed off with his sword strokes. The monk had trained extensively in short, clipped movements that were practical more than beautiful. Still, they had been enough to shatter more than one of the marble monstrosities before now.

This time it wasn’t enough. Although Agithus landed the strike perfectly, he was quickly backhanded aside by the stone giant. Unlike Jax, though, at least he managed to cartwheel instead of careen and landed almost gracefully when he stopped a dozen feet away.

She ignored him and looked hard at the golem as she heard their mage start to chant somewhere behind her. The only evidence of the strike was a few cracks and a bit of roughness on the polished stone where the blow landed. It was far less than she would have hoped.

“This one kicks like a mule,” Jax complained as he climbed to his feet.

“It seems different somehow,” she agreed. “Aim for the spot that Agithus cracked. I’ll empower your blow, and maybe we can…”

Her words trailed off as a bolt of white fire shot over her chest and arced through the dark room. It hit the golem square in the chest, and for a moment, everyone held their breath to see what would happen next. Llannia worried that the mage might make the thing explode, which would have been incredibly dangerous considering how much shrapnel that would create and how close everyone was to it. The stone man didn’t catch on fire or explode into a thousand pieces, though. Instead, it just slowed to a stop.

One moment it was taking a slow but purposeful step towards Jax as it wound up for another hit, and the next, it was ground to a halt, becoming the awkwardly posed statue that it was always meant to be before magic had interfered to make it something more.

“How long will that last?” Llannia asked, turning to the mage. “Do we need to—”

“I banished it,” Earllin said simply.

“So, it’s not coming back?” She asked, confused. “If it was that easy, then why didn’t you do that for the last one or the one before that?”

“I didn’t think it would work, to be honest. A first circle spell shouldn’t be able to interfere with the workings of an Archmage,” he said with a shrug. “And this one is different somehow - the last few you struck down before I could do any experiments, but this one seemed like it would be a bit more trouble.”

Llannia nodded as she tried to act like that made sense, but truthfully, it was over her head. All she knew was that this was the last job she was taking that involved mages for a good, long time.

“Well - good work,” Jax said uncertainly, “But we’d best get going. Even a deaf man could have heard that ruckus.”

No one could argue with that, so they quickly regrouped and, after a quick blessing from Llannia to give the warriors with her the strength of a bear for the next few minutes in anticipation that they might face a few more of those strange unfinished golems, they made their way deeper into the dark.

Lit by an eerie green light, they found the Archmage in the subbasement of the mausoleum. The room was lit by the wan light of several crystals of various sizes and qualities. She recognized them instantly as dungeon cores, of course. Not only had she and Jax taken out quite a few of them over the years, but she knew they sold for plenty of gold to guild mages and merchants with a little alchemical knowledge.

The mage was busy observing another golem that had already been halfway carved from the stone wall of the tomb. Though the Archmage spared them a glance, he hardly noticed them as he focused on that.

“This feels like a trap,” Llannia said, eyeing the giant bronze sarcophagus in the middle of the room and the entombed warriors buried in their rusting armor along the walls. She couldn’t detect evil from any of it, but she’d be shocked if a mage like this didn’t have a way to wake up this many dead and instantly turn the tide in his favor. “I think that what we should do is—”

But Earllin was already chanting, and moments later, columns of ice sprang up around the Archmage on all sides, trapping him.

“I’m sorry to have to do this, master, but you’ve hurt too many people, and we need to—” Earllin’s thin voice was strained and sounded like he was going to cry as he spoke. Anyone could see that he wasn’t used to conflict but was doing his best. As soon as the Archmage opened his mouth, Earllin lapsed instantly into silence.

She had a bad feeling that he wouldn’t be of nearly as much help in this fight as he’d been in the last one.

“People? Incidental. Unimportant. Meaningless,” Hirramus declared. “The parts aren’t important, only the grand design. You’ll never be able to see that. It’s too late to stop what’s coming. Much too late for that.”

“Well, if you want to pursue jack or shit, you’re going to have to go through us!” Jax declared, raising his sword as he looked to the monk. There was some unspoken communication between them. Then they slowly began to pace forward, moving to opposite sides, so the mage couldn’t look at both of them at once.

They obviously meant to get the drop on the old man. It wasn’t a bad plan, but Llannia was surprised that he didn’t look at either of them. Instead, he focused on the mage as he continued his grandiose speech.

“Nothing can stop what has been set into motion. The flesh is too weak for that,” the Archmage declared, “and not even my death will slow the progress of ideas that are simply too advanced for your pathetic minds to imagine.”

As he spoke, the Archmage raised a knife to his throat, and then, with a perfectly content expression on his face, and without any warning, he slit his own throat. Moments later, as the crimson streamed down his dirty robes, he collapsed into a pool of his own blood.

In her years accepting adventuring contracts, she’d stared down a lot of bad guys and listened to her share of evil speeches. She’d never seen a man she hunted kill themselves rather than face her. The most popular options were to die fighting or attempt to run away, but this left them stunned.

“No!” Earllin cried out, running towards the body, but he could do nothing to save a man who didn’t want to be saved.

“Ummm… What in Gorgon shit was that? Can anyone tell me what just happened?” Jax asked as Llannia advanced towards the body on the ground.

She would have answered, but she was pretty unsure herself, and when one didn’t know what the hell was going on, it was always best to keep their own counsel.