Chapter 19

OBSTACLES

Igmail could feel Champion’s gaze lingering on him as he dashed off towards his parent’s apartment. Splitting up was risky, he was very aware of that, but it maximized the chance of getting both his parents to safety, so the reward outweighed the risk. Or at least, that was what Igmail told himself to justify what might just turn out to be a fatal decision. Drill Instructor Herban always said “Haste makes waste, and you all are the potential trash,” advice that Igmail was actively ignoring.

Instructor Herban ended up being right when Igmail and crew ran across a rare band of roving monsters. It was a squad of chameleon adjacent lizards the size of small dogs. They had yellowish green scales and were walking on the sides of the stone and glass walls that towered above the small group. They were not intimidating beasts, probably tier two or three, but their sheer numbers provided a significant obstacle. There were dozens of the things, at least thirty in total, and each and every one fixed their creepy out of sync eyes on Igmail and his two helpers.

“Run!” shouted Igmail, going verbal in his urgency. He started to sprint as fast as possible down the middle of the street, spinning his spear in a defensive pattern all the while. As if a starting flare had flashed a barrage of tongue strikes descended upon him. Out of the mouth of every lizard shot a dense fleshy bulb, a yellowish green glow clearly denoting the inherent magic of the attack. Igmail deflected the first two and dodged the third through fifth, but the sixth came while he was jumping over the fourth and cutting the fifth, so it hit him solidly in the back.

He stumbled and face planted, and he could practically feel a bruise forming in real time, but he managed to recover with a roll and keep moving. Seven, eight, and nine came from behind him but his spear work was sufficient to knock seven into nine and his footwork sufficient to completely dodge eight. Ten and eleven came at practically the same instant, both aimed for his head. Parrying both wouldn’t have worked, so Igmail instead ducked, hemmed in by twelve, thirteen and fourteen. This duck meant that he completely failed to notice the fifteenth shot, which hit him in the head.

Igmail was only nine or so yards into his run and already he found himself on the ground, grasping for his senses. Even though he couldn’t really tell what was happening around himself Igmail still attempted to once more roll, but the dizziness this caused left him so disoriented that he fell right back down. His unpredictable stagger luckily meant that he was only hit with a glancing blow to the calf, but things would soon get worse if nothing changed.

That's when his allies came in. Because they were slower than Igmail the chameleon monsters had mostly ignored them, so it was with very little damage that they finally caught up to Igmail and scooped him off the ground as they ran. The one on the left, possessing a spider web of discolored stone across his left shoulder, gathered Igmail in a princess carry to shield him most effectively with his body. This particular golem possessed a spear, but it lay abandoned where Igmail was laid previously.

The other golem was one of the few who wielded a buckler and short sword, both of which he was using to deflect the attacks of the surrounding monsters, running ahead of the former spear-gorilla to draw their fire. The flaws in this tactic was apparent in the cracks forming across the lead gorilla’s shield and sword both, even the tier four stone couldn’t contend with the constant barrage of blunt damage. Ultimately, he only made it seventeen more yards before his shield shattered and his sword broke off at the hilt. Eight yards after that, the golem shattered too.

Now it was up to the spear golem without a spear and a concussed golemancer to make up the remaining distance of the street, an impossible seeming gulf. Sacrifices had to be made. The golem took its first step after the demise of his brother, and while doing so reached deep into his own soul. On his second step, he reached out through the spiritual tethers, hoping to reach Champion in time. On his third step, his plea reached its destination: the shattered legion. During step four, force started following the path his message had taken, and just as the spearless spear golem took his fifth and final step, they arrived. Rising out of his shattered remains were four spirits, the ancestors of the newly deceased Issac.

Unlike normal, these were full apparitions, the complete manifestation of each shattered consciousness. They seemed almost solid as they sprang into action, and even the barely conscious Igmail noticed the exponentially increasing number of discolored cracks and scars that each golem possessed. The bright glitter and flash of their arrival briefly stunned the chameleons into inaction, this short reprieve just enough for one of the semi-solid manifestations to lift Igmail back up from where he had rolled. The three others formed a triangle around this middle manifestation and picked where their family line ended.

Fueled by tier five mana these ghostly golems were a lot more effective than a true monkey of stone. Whirling and sweeping their spears parried and cut each and every tongue that dared to approach their Master. Running and weaving faster than even Igmail had on their own, the remaining yards shrunk and shrunk.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

One step, two steps, three steps, four. Each member of the formation did their part and had each other's back, unified by their purpose. Five steps, six, seven, eight, there were still many yards to go. Nine steps, ten steps, eleven, twelve, thirteen more paces traversed, but it couldn’t last. Mist began to arise from the foremost two gorillas, glowing the blue of pure mana. The apparitions were too pure, too strong, and it was only the remnant of their wills which had ever held them together in the first place.

They were dissipating, dooming themselves to the same fate from which Champion originally saved them. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. The end of the road and the golems both were in sight. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty, and the first of the ethereal golems wavered in and out of sight. Twenty one, twenty two, twenty three, and he was gone. Forever. His essential being was worn out in the effort to appear as he had, and there was no coming back from it.

The first thing Igmail truly saw and understood was one of his stalwart defenders disintegrating into a handful of glowing motes, and then nothing. Twenty four, twenty five, twenty six, and the next one started to waver. Twenty seven, twenty eight, and he was gone too. Twenty nine, thirty, thirty one, thirty two. Now only the noble spirit carrying Igmail persevered.

In that moment, that noble spirit realized his true name. He had almost always known that he was called Striker, that name was inherent to his being, but now he became more. Striker the spear gorilla, in that moment, evolved. Striker the willful was his new name, and he took pride in that. He took pride in persisting for so long. He took pride in the dozens of blows beating on his back, and how he stood tall despite it. Steps thirty three, thirty four, and thirty five were all taken as one massive leap, as were the next three, and the three after that.

Striker was unshackled from the world, and he would not linger under the illusion that he was. Finally, joyfull, torturously, Striker completed the final leap around the street corner, and his master was safe once again. Striker kept running, leaping, flying despite this. But will could only take him so far. Eventually, once Igmail was far from any danger and much closer to his goal, the noble golem apparition ran out of the last shred of mana powering his existence, and so died Striker the willful.

When Igmail’s butt finally hit the pavement he could only stare in horror at the last and fast disappearing motes of mana, all that remained of his faithful servant and soldier, faithful even unto death. A tear conspired against his shock to roll down his cheek, leaving a dust free path in its wake. Igmail’s voice was a hoarse whisper when he regained the ability to use it at all.

“This… I caused this. My carelessness, it caused this. So long… For so long I’ve seen and never understood. They were always fighting distant battles, distant desperate battles, and I never understood.” Igmail’s head and hands both dropped, draped across his knees like they were the only thing keeping him from eating sidewalk.

“They died for me, truly died… and I could feel his pride. Pride! I could feel his pride! He was proud to die for me. And I treated him like a tool. And I treated them like tools.” Igmail’s voice firmed with resolve and his fists clenched involuntarily. “No more. I will be better than this. I will do better than this. It was so easy to forget, to forget how much I used to care for Toto, how I used to treat him. No more.”

It was here, resolve fresh in his heart, stuck in the middle of a dying city, sitting in the last resting place of Striker the Willful, that something surged in Igmail’s spirit. It wasn’t a tier up, Igmail had far too little mana available for that, but it was a step in the right direction. A step towards being a better person, leader, and golemancer. A step towards the person he wanted to be.

To match this internal step Igmail took an actual step, then another, then a third. By the time he had taken this fifth it was a full sprint, a sprint towards home. Then he stopped.

‘I’ve learned this lesson already, dang it, I’m not going to make the same mistake twice!’ said Igmail within his own mind. He started by calling for reinforcements, asking the closest rescue group that did not have anybody to extract to come find him. Then he started looking for a safe place to stay, which, in his mind, meant making it to his parent’s apartment. So he started to sneak. He walked lightly yet with some speed, taking care to minimize noise, and always looked around corners before he walked around them. Igmail lingered near buildings, always aware of nearby cover.

In this manner he avoided several monsters before eventually making it to the apartment building he was aiming for. In his new tradition he slunk up the stairs and sneaked towards his goal. The door he was looking for, 806, was closed and locked when he reached it. Igmail was unwilling to generate too much racket to open it, so instead of breaking it down he weakened the stone-like concrete of the door frame. This allowed him to gently grab the handle of the door and push it straight back, hinges and locking mechanism included. Leaning it against the wall he carefully scanned the apartment and was only able to come to one conclusion.

“Nobody's here,” Igmail whispered softly to himself, his head falling as he considered the implications. At about that time he felt a stirring in his soul, and a closer look allowed him to recognize it as a message from Champion. It didn’t feel urgent, so he guessed that Champion was signaling his response to Igmail’s request for backup. “Wait,” Igmail once more whispered as he nibbled on his knuckle, “That must mean he got one or more of my parents to safety. That would be the only reason for him to delay so much.”

Igmail’s face and posture brightened with the hope of his parents being safe and just being able to leave this death pit behind. This hope was soon tempered by the sight in front of him, that of an empty apartment.

‘Either way,’ Igmail thought to himself, ‘my next move is to wait right here.’