The woman’s request caught me a little off guard. No one had ever asked me to teach them anything about magic before. Considering how dismissive that Halrand lady was of my sigils, I was kind of expecting everyone else to hold a similar opinion.

I was happy to find out that I was wrong, but that didn’t mean that I was ready to teach. Even with my translation boon, it was still a struggle to find the right words to convey even simple messages to others. I could only imagine how much worse it would be to explain something as complex as sigil painting. I was going to say no, but then I realized that I wouldn’t have to explain most of the more complicated concepts of mana shaping. This woman already understood runes, which were fairly similar.

“I can, maybe.” I eventually replied.

“Great! The name’s Catherine.” The woman enthusiastically informed me. “We can start as soon as we finish our rounds. You are more than welcome to join us.”

“Wait a moment! I’m sure Lady Halrand would not want this… native up here.”

“Now now Roger. Kyo here clearly has some talent with magic. I’m sure with her help, we will be able to finish in time to take a look at that malfunctioning heating rune in the men’s bath.”

“But don't we already have plenty of ti-” Liam began before getting cut off by Catherine.

“Oh, no. We most certainly won’t have time with how thoroughly we will be checking everything today. Not without help at least. Isn’t that right, Liam?”

“What do you… Oh. Y-yeah, I guess we wouldn’t have time...”

“Exactly. Now Roger, you wouldn’t want to explain to all the guys why they won’t have any warm water, would you?”

The sentry made some interesting faces as he tried to come up with a response.

“Fine.” He settled upon with a disgruntled huff. “It’ll be on your head when Lady Halrand hears of this.”

Leaving Roger to fume on his part of the wall, we went around examining the various runes all over the fortification. There were other sentries on the wall, but they mostly stayed out of our way.

Looking at all of the runes with a pair of people who actually knew what everything did was quite informative. Catherine was perfectly happy to explain the function of each combination of runes. Liam let her do most of the talking, but did occasionally offer small clarifications here and there.

Despite being mostly formed from simple runes, the barrier around the camp was surprisingly complex. A few well placed analytic runes let the entire array react to a large range of threats. Normally, it maintained a barrier with just enough force to repel the majority of insects. This consumed relatively little mana while greatly increasing the quality of life for everyone in camp. Upon detecting a larger danger, the barrier would automatically adjust to repel the threat. It was even capable of protecting against magical threats, such as lightning or fire.

I found the process of repairing runes to be fascinating. The pair of rune carvers each had a collection of small metal rods with different crystals set into the tips. The end of each of the rods was capable of melting or carving through various materials. When they wanted to replace a damaged rune on the wall, they would carve it out with one rod before carefully etching in a replacement with another. Fixing the cannons took much more time as they needed to melt the metal holding the erroneous rune before they could work on replacing it.

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Despite what Catherine had claimed about taking our time, we finished working our way around the wall within a bell. The last few runes we needed to check were near the gate I had first entered the camp from. Here, they had a small, rune-covered slate that was unlike anything elsewhere on the wall. As I looked at the thing inquisitively, Catherine broke out into a grin.

“Oh, you haven’t seen a golem in action, have you?” She asked.

“No.” I didn’t even know what golem was. It was my first time hearing the word.

“Well, you’re in luck. We need to test each of the runes on this secondary control anyway.”

“Hey, why don’t we let her try using it? I promise not to tell Halrand.” The sentry standing nearby suggested playfully. This was the same man who had opened the gates when I first arrived. I was pretty sure Martin called him Bernard.

“Great idea Lenard.”

Close enough.

Catherine enthusiastically showed me which runes I needed to push. The moment I touched the first rune, I heard something moving down in front of the gate. Looking down, I was astonished to see one of the statues next to the gate take a step forward.

Pressing another of the runes, I saw the second statute move as well. The two of them were now standing in a way that looked much more aggressive. They had their bladed arms lifted, ready to strike at anything foolish enough to draw near. I could barely believe what I was seeing. Touching another two runes caused the golems to step back and return to their previous posture. The fifth rune caused the gate to open on its own, while the sixth and final control rune caused the gate to close again.

“Looks like everything is in working order.” Liam remarked, carefully examining the slate.

“A good thing too. It looks like we have company.” Lenard said in a far more serious tone than he had used before. He pointed out to the edge of the jungle where a group of people were rapidly making their way through the foliage. It looked like they were being pursued by something. “Probably best if you let me take that spot.”

Seeing the urgency of the situation, I stepped out of the way. The sentry quickly pressed the pair of activation runes before staring intently down at the golems. The two statues immediately started moving, but this time they didn’t stop at just taking an aggressive pose. The pair stomped towards the edge of the clearing, moving surprisingly quickly for such large objects.

As the fleeing people exited the rainforest’s edge, I caught sight of Norbert’s hulking figure in the back of the group. He was facing behind towards a pack of lithe, feline hunters in pursuit. The large man was bleeding from dozens of small cuts, but he was still fending off the attacking beasts with a bloodied ax.

The fatigue of the running battle had clearly started to wear away at the giant’s strength. Each swing of his ax was a little slower than the last. It didn’t take long for one of the large cats to find a deadly opening. The beast launched itself past the man’s weapon toward his head, only to crash straight into an enormous, bladed fist.

Norbert was a truly massive individual. Compared to the golems that had finally joined the fray, he may as well have been a child. With obvious relief, the man retreated to safety.

For the cats, there was no safety to be found. Each swing of the golems’ bladed arms tore through flesh and bone with almost no noticeable resistance. In return, the deadly claws and teeth of the beasts glanced harmlessly off the metallic warriors.

The carnage was frightening to watch. The two constructs were utterly destructive and precise. Strangely, the cats they were slaughtering were similarly relentless. Despite carnage that would have sent most creatures fleeing with their tail between their legs, these cats continued to throw themselves at the brutal constructs. Why didn’t the cats retreat? Something was clearly very wrong with them. No normal creature would have ever had so little self preservation.

While the golems continued to tear through the self destructive cats, the team reached the opened gate. The moment he was through, Norbert collapsed to the ground. I was very worried that he was seriously injured. That was until he started to loudly yell about the cats that attacked him using all of his favorite words.

He was probably going to be fine.