”Why couldn’t it have been ghosts?” Gilbert lamented miserably by a campfire he had haphazardly thrown together outside the gates of the mansion’s garden. The muse residing in it had tossed him into the garden pond, so drying his equipment by the fireside was the first thing he absolutely needed to do, or the chilly night weather would get to him. He could have sought aid from the village but felt like being alone with his thoughts for a while. The fact that he had been only inches away from death didn’t bother the old adventurer too much, in fact it was barely in the top three of the direst situations he had ever been in, but it was their adversary that kept him awake despite being beyond exhausted.
Muses were the stuff of legends, none had been seen anywhere in the world in the last couple of centuries and the world was definitely better off for it. Most of Gilbert’s knowledge about the creatures came from the folklore from the area he was from, and in the stories muses always played one of two roles: in some they sought craftsmen skilled enough to satisfy their demands for a masterpiece, and until such a work of art was found, the muse would walk the lands, cursing kingdoms into barren deserts and scorched wastelands; and in others, a muse fell madly in love with an artist or a craftsman, pushing them to create magnificent artifacts that had no equal, all the while the muse destroyed everything else in their cherished person’s life. What connected the two types of stories was that there was nothing anyone could do about the creature. The muse would simply appear, do what it wanted and then just disappear one day. All in all, the folklore offered no help in defeating the beast, nor freeing Anastacia. The more scientific sources only described them as primordial magical creatures, which was basically a just a researcher or a magician admitting that they had absolutely no idea what was going on and thus it was caused by primordial magic no one understood or simply gods. All that was known about them was that they slowly ceased appearing anywhere, they were never a common daily menace, but most people had heard of one appearing during their lifetime, then maybe once a century and eventually the beasts just disappeared altogether.
The old adventurer pondered what course of action would have even the slightest chance to result in anything but the death of everyone involved. For the time being, Anastacia wasn’t in much danger, as the muse appeared to rather keep her alive, even to go as far as agreeing to bargain with the necromancer. This meant that at least Gilbert had time to plan his next move properly. Heading back to Valor to get Emilia was definitely an option, it would get Sylvia involved as well, which may or may not have helped. Though the goddess of joy had aided them multiple times in the past, Gilbert still had reservations about relying on gods too much. ‘Shepherds tend to their sheep, but they do eat mutton.’ Was a common saying about the gods in his home country, which didn’t put too much faith in the divine to say the least. Yet, despite his excessive knowledge on beasts, his head wasn’t exactly bursting with better ideas.
“Guess I could try finding a masterpiece that’s well-made enough to drive the beast away…” While racking his brain as hard as he could, Gilbert’s gaze happened upon the horned helmet Anastacia had sent to him via the muse. “Hmh… Why?” He muttered and picked it up.
The moldy piece of cheese was still impaled on one of the horns, but it was unlikely that it would help. The other items strapped on the helmed had been on it for a while, at least all but one – there was a bent key Gilbert didn’t remember seeing before. He wiggled it free of its bindings and broke at least a dozen goblin laws in the process. Inside the helmet had a violet lining and tucked under it was a small piece of paper. Gilbert folded it open and began reading it.
“To whoever it may concern: Good job finding my crown, unless you stole it, in which case you’re a massive twat. Carve the figure below into a piece of bone and drop it from as high as you can. It’ll veer towards the strongest necromancer nearby, which should be me – and honestly, if it isn’t, you have bigger problems than finding me. I should also point out that you shouldn’t do it near any other people, because if you mess it up, the power it drains from me doesn’t get let out and it’ll explode, which is bad.”
Below the text was a small but awfully complex symbol that resembled some of the patterns Anastacia had carved into the wall of the corridor earlier, which meant that the muse was clearly interested in her abilities. Gilbert hadn’t been able to connect the dots back then, but he now remembered seeing the patterns in the plans for Yulia’s arm as well.
The old adventurer frowned. “Well this would have been helpful to know… months ago.” He muttered and put the helmet aside. He already knew where Anastacia was, so the pattern didn’t help with their current issue, though it was definitely something he should keep on him.
As he was folding away the paper, he heard a slight rustle from somewhere in the dark forest around him. Gilbert tried to peer between the trees but couldn’t see anything because the dense treetops blocked what little moonlight there was. He grasped his mace and slowly levered up his sore, exhausted body while quietly cursing on every movement. “Whoever’s in there, come out! I don’t have the energy to deal with this right now, so just come over here and we’ll tussle it out if that’s what you’re after!” He yelled and stretched his arms, but the forest remained quiet, long enough that he began to think it had just been his imagination. Only by pure luck, he happened to glance up before intending to return to the campfire and saw the pair of glowing light blue eyes staring at him from a branch high up in the tree.
As the adventurer started to back away from the tree, the figure hiding in it dropped down, making barely any noise as it hit the frosty undergrowth. Gilbert positioned himself so that the campfire was between them, but the fire didn’t seem to deter the stealthy creature as it stepped into the light.
“Hold on a second, glowing eyes and a green cloak? You’re the one that has been haunting Anna, aren’t you?” Gilbert realized as he saw the sudden visitor fully in the light of the fire.
Half hidden by a green cloak and a hood, a simulacrum stood by the flames and calmly stared at the adventurer. Standing at slightly under two meters in height, the stone automaton had a considerably leaner design than the only other one Gilbert had had the chance to inspect properly. Instead of bulky armor plating that King had on him, this one was almost entirely made out of flexible looking pieces and only had some minimal armor on its chest, forearms and thighs. All in all, at least in comparison to King, the mysterious simulacrum looked laughably fragile in its entirety, but knowing the materials used in the ancient machines, looks hardly meant anything. One of the other differences were the cloaked simulacrum’s legs, that ended in a single sharp point instead of a foot, though they seemed awkward, it didn’t appear to have any issues balancing on them. As a whole, it was quite obviously built for more stealthy purposes that required more agility than raw strength.
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The simulacrum began looking around for something. It walked back and forth around the fire until it came to a conclusion that whatever it was looking for wasn’t there.
“If you’re looking for her, you’re a bit late.” Gilbert guessed and pointed towards the mansion. “She’s stuck in there with a damn muse, so unless you’ve got something to fight one with, have a seat and maybe we’ll be able to figure something out.”
The simulacrum briefly stared at the mansion, turned to look at the forest it came from for a while and sat down next to the campfire.
“Sooo, you’re not going to start anything then?” The adventurer asked and lowered his weapon.
The simulacrum slowly shook its head and looked into the forest again.
Gilbert squinted and tried to see if there was something in the darkness but wasn’t able to make out anything. He sat back down and sighed loudly. He was still at zero good ideas and the sudden appearance of the strange simulacrum did nothing to help, he was far too tired to grill the thing for answers either. Oddly, it didn’t seem hostile in the slightest, so he figured live and let live was the way to go. King had quite obviously been strongly against whatever was going on, but he had a tendency to be slightly too over protective at times, so Gilbert decided to carry on with his plan of not getting involved; since whenever he tried to meddle in other people’s relationships, he’d always somehow end up on the losing side.
They sat there in complete silence while Gilbert stared tiredly at the fire and ate what little rations he had left for the trip. Every now and then the simulacrum glanced in the direction it came from, almost like it expected something to be following it.
The adventurer tossed the last spare log he had into the fire and mentally prepared for a new trip into the woods for more by warming his hands closer to the flame. “Well, I have to get us some more firewood now.” He grunted and stood up. “Why are you even still here? Like I said, unless you have something to beat what is basically a demigod with, I can’t help you. Do you have something like that? Some secret ancient weapon? Because honestly, you don’t look like much of a fighter.”
The simulacrum nodded and held up three fingers.
“You do? Three? Three of what?” Gilbert asked. He found it hard to believe that even the simulacra would have anything to challenge a muse with, let alone the relatively slender one before him.
The simulacrum turned to the forest and waited for a minute or so before lowering one of its fingers, clearly counting down towards something.
Gilbert waited patiently until the simulacrum lowered one of the remaining two fingers. “Should I be worried?” He asked and couldn’t even fathom what could possibly be coming their way.
Suddenly a bright light blue dot appeared deep in the forest and soon followed by a loud machine-like screech echoing from far away. As the dot grew larger, Gilbert became increasingly concerned by it, and when the cloaked simulacrum scurried up one of the trees, he grabbed his mace and prepared for the worst. It didn’t ease his mind either, when the birds began fleeing the nearby trees they had roosted in for the night and other small creatures of the woods rushed across the road to escape what was coming. When the glowing light was only a hundred or so meters away, Gilbert noticed something oddly familiar in it. “Wait… Is that… King?” He muttered in confusion and lowered his mace.
And surely, King crashed through the undergrowth onto the road and began to hastily look around. The lights on his armor were glowing more brightly than Gilbert had ever seen and his entire body was literally steaming in the cold night air. Either King didn’t notice the adventurer in his hurry, or simply didn’t care, because he didn’t react in any way when Gilbert called his name, and instead kept looking around for something.
“Are you chasing that one?” Gilbert asked and pointed at the other simulacrum that was hiding up in the tree.
King stopped for a second, probably after recognizing Gilbert, and looked up. The lights on him flared up even more and the steam escaping from small gaps in his body let out a high-pitched whistle. He charged at the tree and punched it with all his might, sending pieces of wood flying everywhere. The punch had almost snapped the tree in two, so the thin sliver of of the poor pine’s trunk that remained couldn’t support the weight and it began to topple.
The cloaked simulacrum jumped to safety before hitting the ground and quickly vaulted over Gilbert to have the old adventurer be between it and the very, very, very pissed off King.
“Okay, okay, okay, let’s all just calm down for a second!” Gilbert yelled and gestured for King to step back. “I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but we have bigger issues right now. King, Anna is stuck in the mansion with a muse, so how about you stop trying to kill that other one and focus on this?”
Upon hearing the necromancer’s name, the lights on King’s armor dimmed down and he stopped, seemingly losing interest in the other simulacrum entirely.
Gilbert let out a sigh of relief. Luckily, despite being an ancient machine of war, King shared his weakness with every other warrior with a significant other. “There we go. Obviously, this can’t be a coincidence, and that simulacrum led you here for a reason. I believe it thinks you can somehow do something here. How and why it knows anything about this is beyond me, but honestly I don’t care, we need solutions. Now, I know you can be pretty fierce, but this isn’t just a matter of punching things until they die; inside those walls, the muse can do whatever it wants, so just rushing in isn’t going to work.” He explained and sat back down, again cursing on every move.
King stared at the mansion’s silhouette against the starry sky behind it, quite possibly contemplating just rushing in, regardless of the warnings.
“Is this what you’ve been these past few nights? Just chasing this guy around?” Gilbert asked to distract him. “You know she’s pretty annoyed with it, don’t you? I got to hear all about it the entire way here. You’re in big trouble, lad.”
After hesitating a bit longer, King took the bait and sat down next to the campfire that was on its way out.
With the situation finally calmed and under control, Gilbert went through what had happened to him and Anastacia inside the mansion and what they were up against. He also admitted to not knowing what to do next or how to even enter the mansion without getting killed immediately. At some point the nameless simulacrum fetched some more firewood and sat down next to Gilbert and as far away from King as possible. Gilbert noted the curious metallic sheen its cloak had, almost like it had been made from some kind of woven metal instead of cloth, yet it acted like any other cloak, fluttering in the gentle night breeze. Second slight detail he had missed earlier, was a weird symbol that resembled an eye, drawn with something red on the back of the simulacrum’s hand.
“So yeah, we’re a bit screwed.” Gilbert laughed awkwardly. “I get that you two aren’t burdened with hunger and tiredness, so you’d last for a lot longer in there, but I have no idea if that would help. Once we’re in there, we’re going to be stuck until we or the muse dies, so there’s no second attempts here either.”
Trying to plan anything with two simulacra that couldn’t speak or write went about as well as it was to be expected, and no apparent progress was made over the next couple of hours. Eventually Gilbert’s exhaustion started to get ahold of him, and he began to get drowsy. After nodding off for a second, he gave up and told King to watch over the camp for a few hours, he also made it absolutely clear that trying to kill the other simulacrum was prohibited and that he would tell Anastacia if King disobeyed. With that, Gilbert could finally close his eyes and get a bit of well needed rest.
When the stars began to dim and the eastern horizon turned red, the cloaked simulacrum took out a glass orb, just like the ones the guild made adventurers carry, and held it between its fingers until it flashed bright white and dimmed back down. It then tossed the pearl at King, who caught it and repeated the process. Once he was done, King crushed the pearl in his hand and nodded. After agreeing on something, the two simulacra quietly departed towards the mansion, with King determinately leading the charge and the cloaked simulacrum trailing at least an arm’s reach away him.