We reached Istanbul and I met with the Emperor and asked him to attack Italy, which he agreed to. Six weeks was his timeline. In the meantime he asked me to stay in his palace but I didn’t like the way he looked at Summer so I declined. The shopping trip in Istanbul with Summer was an eye opener for her. It was her first time seeing human suffering and cruelty. We bought 18 slave children to free and bring back to Avalon, none had magic but I told her we couldn’t save everyone. I steamed toward Greece and we spent two weeks in Athens. My old merchant friend set us up and we bought quite a bit of luxuries and artifacts. Rover caused quite the stir while we shopped. We then anchored on the other side of Greece and I added a ramp to reach the cargo bay from our shallow anchoring. To pass the time I sent the golems to salvage sunken ships. Every other day I flew north to check on the ottoman empire. In three weeks we had a large haul of treasure with 14 golems working 24 hours a day. They could detect stone at a decent range and gold and silver at short range. They search up to 20 miles out and then returned. We then reanchored and they repeated. Searching in a grid pattern. I created a map and marked where we searched so in the future this might be a fun pastime. The golems had ended working in pairs and I built backpack cages and large trays two golems could carry for sculptures they found. Every trip they came back with something. The cargo hold filled quickly…and smelled horrible. Summer and myself sorted a lot of coins in my office on the ship. We had over 5000 gold coins after three weeks and many more silver and copper. Summer was super interested in everything and I think she was hooked on treasure hunting. We had to stop pulling in sculptures and pottery and just turned to small metal items, jewelry, gold and silver dinnerware, and coins. The best item they pulled was two life sized gold statues of two greek gods I think or perhaps rulers, I couldn’t be sure. I think they were solid as well.

Well it took eight weeks before the Ottomans finally started their attack. I saw dozens of ships rushing to deliver troops from Italy. It was our time. We stored everything and steamed around Italy toward Rome. Five miles off shore all the golems dropped into the water at night they were to march on Rome and secure the Vatican. I flew in my eagle form and landed on top of the pope’s residence and transformed to panther form and waited. Two hours later the slaughter started. The 15 golems were to only attack if attacked. I watched as the guards ran to secure the pope and take him away to safety. I knew the Vatican had a coin vault and a treasure vault. Soon the golems entered the courtyard and all the important people had fled. A few soldiers here and there were unfortunately were brave enough to attack and the golems executed them. I started making 5 very large carts, 10 yards long by 4 yards wide as the golems secured the area. By sunrise it was quiet and 5 golems stood guard while the other 10 went into the depths. I found some paintings I liked in the residences and had the golems move them to the carts. The treasury was impressive. The church was very rich. The golems filled up two carts with just coins. The we broke into the actual treasure vault deep beneath the surface. Six priests were huddled here and I told them to flee. One spoke English and cursed me but they left. The vault was huge with shelves and shelves. There was a key book that described everything boxed up but I didn’t read latin. At least the crates had reference numbers. We started opening crates and if I liked something I had it moved to the carts. I only got through 10% of the crates before the three other carts were full. I continued opening crates through. I found two items with magic signatures, a gaudy necklace I thought was Egyptian and a tablet that I couldn’t recognize. I stacked both crates on the wagons. There was a large collection of scrolls in another room. They were fragile and in lots of different languages. I made a stone box and started transferring the scrolls carefully. It took six large crates and then I sealed the crates and hardened the stone. I made a 6th wagon for this special cargo. I walked the hundreds of crates looking at the items I was leaving and sighed. The treasury was the big reason why I was here. Raiding this vault was just a message.

The sun was setting as we departed. I was in eagle form and sent the 3 golems not pulling carts to destroy the cannons they had set up and attack troop and cavalry formations. It was slow progress and we killed nearly 1300 men before they started to give way to the procession. We went to a beach and I flew to the ship and had it anchor off the beach. The ramp I had made sped up the loading of the goods. I felt no remorse. The Catholic church was one of histories worst wolves in sheep’s clothing. Destroying its financial base would hamper its efforts to gain allies to attack Avalon. I was hoping the church would fracture. With everything on board we steamed to France to check on how the war was going. I flew to Paris to meet the king. I met the king after I was given some clothes. It was a dinner with important persons. There was a very large fleet in London, maybe 120 warships with 35,000 English, Portuguese and Spanish troops. The Polish had a large army of over 15,000 men. They were guessing there was another 15,000 troops at the border and they suspected another Spanish and Portuguese fleet had 5,000 troops in the Sea. Wow. So they were going to attack from four directions. The four golems I had sent were at the eastern border ready to engage the Spanish. I didn’t want to attack anyone just to defend France. I told the king I would get 12 more golems. They would defend in pairs at the borders. Seven days later the golems were deployed. It was then a waiting game. 9 days later the invasion began. The northern invasion force was closer to 40,000 strong, the eastern force over 20,000, the western force was only about 12,000. I told the king’s forces were to fight then retreat. The enemy hammer was big and rolled over 27,000 French troops. The golems engaged as the first night. it was a crazy blood bath retaliation to the troops camped in the French border. The French had lost 12,000 troops during the day. The enemy lost three times that during the night. The remaining troops fled in fear from the demons with glowing eyes and swords. It was the bloodiest single day of battle ever in Europe. I personally went to the northern armada and sank 27 ships in the night. The king had 15,000 troops reinforce the borders and he recalled the 9,000 troops guarding the south. The Spanish landed 7,000 troops to the south a day later. They had assumed it would be poorly defended but my 6 golems there killed 6,000 of the troops in the night while I sank 9 of the 15 ships. The amount of death was insane. We waited two weeks to make sure there was no other threat to France before collecting the golems and sailing home. The Turks made it to northern Italy before returning to their Empire. Not only did the invaders lose troops in France but they also lost their equipment and cannons. France hadn’t come out unscathed. 8,000 dead soldiers and 4000 injured or maimed. But my involvement was on the sly and we hoped the enemies thought the golems were France’s which should deter attacks in the future.

We docked in Camelot on March 1st, 1683. I found Maya in Camelot and she gave me the run down. She had found 45 spies in the last few months and 14 more trying to join the army. The parade of carts loaded with loot headed for Avalon. The warehouse in Camelot was also full of treasure and we packed what we could take from the ship.

The carts were unloaded into the underhill warehouse by my tower. The curator would have to come by and go over everything. The golems returned to gather the rest of the loot in the warehouse. Summer was in huge trouble for sneaking away. Unfortunately her new guardian golem made it kind of hard to discipline here. I spent two days hiding in my tower and resting. Carina wanted to skin me for Summer sneaking aboard and giving her a golem. Amelia was at wits end trying to staff military installations. Collette wanted to discuss what had happened in Europe so she could deal with the ambassadors in the various embassies.

My first trip out of my tower was to the printers. The sex education book was done. To my dismay I was listed as the author. The crate held all 1000 copies. The cover was black hard leather and was 12” x 14”. The head printer handed me 10 additional copies not in the crate. These copies had the illustrations hand painted in color. The artists had also greatly improved the quality of my original illustrations for the printing. The paper was also highest quality paper we were making currently. I asked her how many other copies were made. She blushed and stammered that a few dozen that were found to have imperfections and were pulled from the printing. I just nodded and smiled. I told her to send 600 copies to the magi tower, 300 copies to the knight academy and 100 copies to the university. There was to be notes with each batch that these were course books for a sex education class lecture elective. I told the printer another 5000 copies should be made but on much cheaper paper and with regular covers…and to remove my name as the author. The printer also had the draft for the book describing the Olympic sports with rules and regulations. I took my 10 hand painted illustrated books and the Olympic book. I went my tower and started editing the Olympic book. Four hours later Riona came into the tower waving a copy of the book in my face. She wanted to know what the hell it was. I told her to calm down and read the book before passing judgement. She huffed and sat down and read the read. Two hours later she was flush and I explained it was better to show people the pleasure of the body was not taboo but hedonism should be frowned upon. She came around to my viewpoint and we decided students needed to be 16 to take the sex education course. I gave her the unenviable task of explaining the same to the knight commander and Renee at the college.

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I joined the curator of the museum to go through the warehouse which was overly full. The museum also was full. We needed to build an archives at the museum so I sent the golems to excavate a square ¼ mile area behind the museum. The plan was to build two sub levels for storage and restoration work and then three more floors for exhibits above. He was excited to have so much to do. I told him I wanted to do future expeditions to salvage wrecks in the Mediterranean in the future. I had my secretaries put in my schedule to go work on the museum once a week…not that I ever followed my schedule. My daughter, Daphne, wanted to meet with me. So I went to her.

She had been growing the great sycamore tree just outside the wall and was almost crying because it was dying and didn’t know what to do. I explained that the spell didn’t replenish the soil so forced growth depleted the soil and the tree was starving. I told her about my spell evolution rejuvenating the soil. Then I cast my spell on the tree fixing the soil and strengthening the roots. She gave me a big hug and asked about getting her own golem like Summer. I knew this was going to be a problem. Daphne was 16 and looked at me with puppy dog eyes. Ugh. Fine we spent a day designing her golem. It was a young women golem that was close to human in appearance as I could get. She named it Nica after I animated and tied it to her.

Two days later Caleb and Dana came with the same request. Caleb wanted a massive dragon and Dana wanted a Pegasus. Ugh. I told them no. if they behaved themselves then maybe on their 18th birthday. So that was that…no more golems for the kids until they turned 18 or graduated from the magi academy.

The next few weeks I worked on the 3rd dormitory tower and the museum sub basements. Then the French ambassador was replaced with Phillipe, Amelia’s father. He came with gifts thanking me for the help but still had to pull the rest of the French troops from Avalon. Collette was there and I found out 947 troops had married and were now Avalon citizens and withdrew their citizenship from France in favor of Avalon. The ambassador was not upset. He also said France was going to drop claim on all land west of the Mississippi River. Basically western Canada was now open to me. We formalized the land rights and I went to my map room. Using my spells I was able to draw an accurate map and was able to identify some of the national parks from my time. I noted them to prevent people from colonizing. I looked at the map. France had control of northeastern Canada and Greenland. England had New England, Pennsylvania and down to mid-Virginia. Spain had South America and most of the Caribbean islands. We had 5 settlements on the west coast now… I wanted to settle Hawaii before Japan found it. So my next trip would be going there. I wanted the expedition to include a dozen of cultural professors to record and document the natives. I sent Arisa to put the expedition together. There was to be 300 settlers, 24 botanists, zoologists and anthropologists and 60 soldiers. I wanted people that would respect the islands. I would have to build a very large steam ship in the city of Merlin. Arisa would have them in Merlin in one year’s time.

Well one good thing about my sex book was it got Carina excited to have sex again after she read it. She was like a teenager wanting to try every position in the book and trying the various foreplays mentioned. Now I had been a good lover and she had achieved orgasms before but she was now on a quest to find what was the best way to orgasm. Of course she got pregnant. Fortunately she wasn’t angry about it. She was actually happy and I learned from Renee that Carina was experiencing empty nest syndrome with 6 of her 14 children at the magi tower. She was seeing the day when all her children would be moved out.

Immigration was steady. It appeared the sinking of so many warships had slowed building so kick starting the trans-atlantic surge hadn’t happened. I was happy to note slavery in America was much smaller in my timeline and within twenty years it would not exist. I still needed to grow a loyal populace before annexed Englands territory. The english had about 10,000 but if they escaped and made it Avalon they had freedom. We had over 1,000 escaped slaves living happily.

Unfortunately in June of 1683 we had a theft from the military academy. 24 single shot rifles and 2,000 rounds. We caught 3 men fleeing north with 15 of the rifles and half the rounds. We caught 2 more men in Camelot with 4 rifles and 400 rounds. But the remaining 5 rifles and 600 rounds were missing. The men we captured were all agents of the English crown. At least the rifles were not the 5 shot variety, we still couldn’t effectively manufacture them. I didn’t know if I should do retribution. Europe was mostly a mess and the church was in turmoil. Frequent plague outbreaks were causing problems and France was the big man on campus. Increasing its borders slowly and fortifying its army. I asked Phillipe to sanction England for the action.

In July I was at the Olympic venue with Leo and Luke. They were both stone mages so I brought them to show what it could do. The rowing venue was 70% excavated. So my focus was making the sides and bottom of the big tub. It was going to be 8 lanes wide with a breaker and then 2 more lanes. The boys were 12 and very strong in using their magic ability. They each had 4 spells already. Unfortunately neither son was interested in building things. We spent two weeks with the 1300 men and six golems helping get half the course done and adding twenty more duplexes in the athlete village. I also built a large building for the surveyors and architects. The building was designated to eventually be a commemorative museum for the games but for now was going to be the offices and drafting building. I also started enclosing stone tunnels from building to building. They would eventually have the water, sewer, fiberoptic and electrical lines. This allowed the workers to start burying the basements that were currently the first floor of the buildings in the living zones. I could tell they were mostly excavating and laying piles of rocks around the place for me to come by and build everything. I was ok with that for now. The land had been flattened. I decided it was time to add the train station as well. I sent the boys home with the golems I brought and as I was building the train station from stone I was shot. I was hit in the head and the bullet fractured my skull and fortunately didn’t piece but I couldn’t focus to transform and was down on the ground. I passed out.

I woke in a bed and couldn’t move without a lot of pain. A man told me it had been three days. I transformed to wolf form then back to human heal. My head was still throbbing but I no longer had any injuries. I sat up and was a little dizzy but feeling better. One of the foremen was there. He told me the sniper was in the woods 200 yards away. They didn’t catch the man but did find the gun. It was one of the stolen rifles…made sense since it was more accurate than anything else being made in the time period. The man said the bullet grazed off my skull. If it had hit dead on I would have probably died. I sat in bed eating food and thinking. The man was probably English since they had stolen the other rifles. I would have to add security to the Olympic village as well. Unfortunately we didn’t have the bodies. I would have 8 Rangers dispatched and 2 magi knights. Ten people was not a lot but the man who shot me had been living in a hole for months waiting for a chance. I rested for half a day and my head cleared. Then getting up I spent four days making 7 miles of rails and a platform for the train station. I knew they would call in the specialists to lay the tracks. The track was going to be a loop eventually. But I wasn’t up for making the parallel track.

I flew back to Avalon and the news hadn’t reached here yet so I broke it to Collette, Amelia, Riona and Carina. They were angry, very angry. I just nodded but said we were not going to do anything except send some rangers north and help the slaves on the nearest farms escape. This near death experience made me nervous. So a day later I talked to the women again. They were to be able continue on if I died. The goal was to build humanity into a force to combat the Xixit. I showed them some images from my last life of the death and destruction wrought by the invasion. We needed magic and technology to combat the massive space transports they brought to invade Earth. We set up plans. Carina suggested I build the children golems because if I died all my golems would become inactive. I agreed but the golems would be stored in the basement of the tower until they turned 18. So the next ten days I made 14 golems for the children. Damien couldn’t bond one due to insufficient magic pool and some of the younger children were too young to form the bond.