Our conversation got interrupted by someone yelling.

It came from the corridor, where the guards were still stationed. They were pretty far, so hearing them here was an indication of something definitely going down.

-What the hell…? I thought I told you to not come in here…

But it was neither of the guards that were stationed outside. It was Jacob.

-What are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to keep watch over your brother?

-It’s an emergency! It’s Caleb, he’s awoken!

-And you left him unsupervised?!

-It’s not like…

But before he was able to finish, another loud noise interrupted him. This time it was closer, and sounded more like a fight.

Soon the source of the noise appeared right at the entrance. It was Goldie, in the flesh. He looked tired and a bit worse for wear, but still standing. He was wielding the same sword I remembered last, which I found a bit strange, since I was pretty sure that it got destroyed last time.

-Caleb, what the hell are you doing!? - yelled Jacob.

-That’s some manners! - puffed at him For. - You are a guest here and you have the guts to break in and threaten people with a weapon like that!?

But he was not listening, or he was not able to.

His eyes looked like they were glazed over, himself not completely present at the moment. As if to add to this eerie feeling , I was able to tell that he was not the only person present in that body. The mana was strangely mixed, with a hint of a familiar presence inside.

-Well, I should’ve known that Axelrod was not going to be easily cut off… - I said, stepping forward, preparing myself for the inevitable assault.

But the voice that I’ve heard was definitely not one that belonged to Axelrod. Nor was it Goldie.

-Intruders.

The voice was so out of place it made all of us make a double take.

-What in the fuck?

-Mana connection unstable. Resorting to basic functions.

The more it spoke, because it was definitely not a normal person, the weirder it was getting.

Besides the fact that its voice did not fit at all with the body it had, the way it was talking was synthetic.

I didn’t have time to think though, because he raised his sword and charged right towards For.

Strangely, he avoided me completely.

I noticed For hesitate for a split second, but she then quickly fired a spell right at him.

-Geksu tehu!

She conjured a long arrow made of pure fire, or rather a spear. It instantly got launched towards him, aiming towards his weapon.

I am not sure if that was an attempt at disarming him or just her poor aim, but the spell hit him right in the wrist, heating up the handle of his weapon.

But, he did not react.

She immediately repeated the spell multiple times and this time aimed at all of his limbs at once.

It worked a bit better, although it did not stop him. It only slowed him down a tiny bit, staggering him with a force of multiple hits.

-Caleb, stop!

Jacob grabbed him in half, trying to pull him away from For, but he just got ignored.

-Move! - I yelled at him and stepped in between the two, wanting to grab Goldie to drain him once more. Just as he swung his blade towards For, I managed to grab it with my hand, sending sparks everywhere. I must admit, even in that weird state, he had a lot of strength in his swing.

As I stopped the blade, it looked like for the first time he actually noticed me. Did he recognize me?

Just as I noticed that, the words that came out of his mouth confirmed my suspicion and confused me to no end.

-Registered user detected. Please move.

That was a bit too polite for someone swinging a sword at you. Also, “user”?

I was not about to try and overthink the situation now, so I just grabbed the weapon tighter so he wouldn’t be able to swing it anymore and at the same time I grabbed his neck with my free hand.

What I felt was strange.

Sure, just like with anything else, I felt the mana flow to me, being absorbed by the crystal. Weirdly though, there was barely any to drain. Reflexively, I removed my hand, expecting him to fall down any second now, but that did not happen. He was just standing there like before, looking directly at me.

-Interference detected. User recognized. Please, move, Mor.

Everyone, including me, froze on the spot. While most of them were surprised and absolutely stunned that this… thing knew my name, I was more concerned by the fact that I almost drained him from all the mana, he was still talking and didn’t give away any signs of stopping.

-Sorry in advance, Jacob - I said out loud and grabbed him once more.

This time I was not going to limit myself and drain him dry.

Okay, maybe not dry, but at least to the point where he’d fall into a coma.

As soon as I touched him again though, I noticed that his mana was back to the level it was when I touched him before.

I took a breath and pulled as much energy from him as I could, without leaving him completely dry - I didn’t want to kill him.

At any moment I expected him to drop the weapon and fall down, but instead I just noticed that his eyes lit up and his mana jumped back to the level it had a second before, undoing my work.

-User hostility detected. Warning.

-What the hell are you, some kind of robot!? - I barked, irritated.

-Results inconclusive. Reply cannot be formatted.

-What in the everloving fuck…

I did not finish the sentence, because he swung once more at For, again stopped by me.

-Stop it!

-Command recognized. Entering standby mode… failed. Multiple hostiles in the area. Defense system online.

-Damn it!

-What kind of thing is possessing him?! - asked Kon, slightly panicked.

-Hell if I know. But for some stupid reason it knows me?

-Yeah… curious - agreed For. - You think that it might be his doing?

-What, you think he was able to program Goldie? - I asked, raising a brow. - You think that’s even possible?

-I have no idea what you even mean…

If even she had no clue then we really were in a weird spot. I couldn’t exactly just incapacitate him without hurting him pretty badly.

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-I hope you don’t mind me getting a bit violent - I announced out loud to Jacob, but I think even he was already past the stage of trying to be careful with him

He even beat me to it.

-Geksu moho!

But, alas, nothing happened.

Right. After our meddling with the crystal he was unable to use magic.

That was a problem, because I was in the same boat.

But, I still had a weapon: myself.

I straight up lunged at him.

It was the first time I was using this new stone body like this, so I didn’t expect it to be so easy. I definitely had to weigh more than a hundred kilos. Maybe even two, because he fell down instantly under my weight. The fact that he was also wearing armor definitely helped with that, making him less stable.

As we fell on the ground with loud clanging and scraping noises, sending sparks everywhere, I wanted to knock him the hell out. And the easiest way was with a nice and quick punch to the head.

But, it was not that easy. While I managed to knock him down without issue, he immediately raised his arms, blocking my fist and I just bounced off his golden armor.

-Multiple hostile attempts detected. Overwriting protocol.

I raised my hands, expecting him to strike at me back, but nothing came.

-Weird. Why is he not attacking…?

-User input is breaking set parameters. Verification required.

-The hell?

-Parameters unrecognized.

The more this was going on, the weirder this whole encounter was getting. We needed to do something.

-Kon, For, you’re up.

Up till now they were standing there, slack-jawed, unsure what’s going on. I can’t blame them for that, but that was no time for that.

-Come on! You know we can’t cast anything on him, use your magic!

-But we’ll hit you! - protested Kon, shaking the initial stun first.

-And so what!? You know very well that I’ll be fine!

-Fine! Geksu qomlu!

I didn’t expect for her to be so direct: he straight up summoned a fireball, larger than my head, and was about to chuck it right at us. I prepared for an inevitable hit, but it didn’t come.

It was Jacob: he stopped her mid-spell, grabbing her hand.

-Don’t! You’ll kill him! Bind him instead!

-Like that’s…

Before she was able to say anything, Kon went ahead and acted first.

-Geksu moho!

I am not sure if he knew what kind of spell he was casting, because I am sure I have never told him what “moho” meant. It probably was Iloa’s work.

The spell activated, and from the palm of his hand a long streak of fire shot right towards the two of us.

At first, Jacob wanted to try and tackle him to interrupt, but he recognized the spell. After all, he just attempted to use it a second ago.

The spell was a type of binding spell. While “moho”, or rather “bind” was a bit of a strange word to combine with fire, it worked nonetheless.

The streak of flame split into a bunch of smaller, thinner ones, and was about to wrap themselves around the two of us like some net. Before it managed to touch us though I quickly pushed Goldie away from me, breaking the contact and pushing him closer to the fire.

It sort of worked.

The spell split in two, one branch shooting at Goldie, while another snaked its way and passed above his head, aiming for me.

In a split second, Goldie was wrapped with a fiery rope, restricting his movements.

I don’t think I need to add that the spell didn’t work on me at all, just harmlessly dispersed into mana that I absorbed as it touched my body.

Good thing that the two of us were already separated, because the effort would be instantly in vain.

But, he was not able to sit in one place for too long.

-Threat reassessment complete. Deploying countermeasures.

That did not sound good, but we got lucky.

-Wipwu gmyo.

He attempted to cast a spell to douse the flames that were binding him, but, just as me, he was unable to cast anything.

-Anomalous bio-binding detected. Magical systems offline.

Damn, he was quick on the uptake.

But no matter, that at least meant that the security that we just repaired was working flawlessly.

-Can someone explain, what the fuck is going on?! - yelled For after making sure that the spell was holding.

-I don’t understand either! - replied Jacob, trying to gather himself. - I never expected that he’d be even able to do something like this!

-”Like this”? What happened, exactly? - I asked, patting out the remains of the fire that hit me just a second ago. - You came here like…

-The others! - he yelped, remembering something. - A second, I need to…

And he sprinted out of the room, leaving all of us speechless.

-I guess we should follow? - I muttered.

-I think… Anyway, good job, Kon. How long can you keep this spell up? - For asked him.

-I still feel strong… To be honest, I never used anything similar to this… so I am not sure.

-You should be good for a while - I said, looking at Goldie, now hanging mid-air, suspended with fire.

-Yes, but…

-Don’t worry - assured go For. - Just tell me when you feel like you’re starting to lose focus, then I’ll take over.

He nodded.

-By the way, what the hell are you going to do with him? - I asked as we were leaving the chamber. - To the cell, like me?

-That would be a good idea - she admitted. - But first I need to have a talk with him… Both of them. What in the hell happened?

-I don’t know if you’re going to learn anything from him - I pointed out.

-Yeah… he sounds… I don’t know, insane? Weird? How do you even explain that?

-Before either of us starts making up some reasons, let’s first ask them both. Preferably Jacob first, he is at least mostly sane.

-”Mostly”?

-Okay, okay.

Outside we found Jacob and the two guards that were not so long ago stationed here to protect the chamber.

The two of them were lying on the floor, pretty badly beaten. Eicam had a bloody nose, while Abes was clutching his leg with a painful expression. Upon a closer look I could tell that the direction his foot was facing was definitely not forward…

-The fuck? Did his brother do that?

-Yesh - mumbled Eicam. The blood from the broken nose made it hard for him to speak. - Whe didnh’t…

-We had no idea what’s going on - picked up on the explanation Abes. - He just ran here and demanded access to the room behind, where you were. I told him that it’s impossible and only ones that have direct permission from you can get closer, not even him, but he was not listening. He blurted out some weird stuff about “obstructing” and started moving forward. We tried stopping him, but you can see how that ended up - he finished, pointing towards his leg. - Good thing that he was only using his fists…

-I can’t believe it… - mumbled For. - Even him? To betray his own brother… I cannot believe this…

-And you don’t need to - I said. - I don’t think it’s that easy. Let’s talk to the other one first.

But, while Abes was telling us his adventures from today, Jacob was already gone.

-The hell is he…

-He wenth to yhour towher, bossh - mumbled Eicam.

-What is he trying to do?

-Let’s go and check.

We went towards the tower and her room, but on the way we first stopped at the dungeon. Kon and For quickly managed to contain him within a cell. Not without some issues though.

But, surprisingly, the issues were not related to the prisoner.

It was the locking mechanism: it was busted, or rather unresponsive.

Apparently, the whole lock system of the castle was tied to the earlier bindings, and since we had to rebind those, this time For had a hard time locking the door.

We ended up repeating the spell we did in the chamber and connected the crystals once more to her, meaning that now she was the only one able to open or close the dungeons.

The whole process of canning him was surprisingly calm. He was just staring blankly into space, not moving.

He somewhat reminded me of For in her weird trance before, but he was a bit more responsive… Well maybe that’s a bit of a misleading sentence…

As we were walking down, she asked him a couple of questions and he did answer, but only with another offputting sentence:

-User not recognized. No information available.

-The longer it goes, the more I think he’s now some kind of a robot… - I thought to myself, but was immediately corrected by Iloa.

-More like a program. Say, Mor, doesn’t it all sound familiar?

-A bot? What, really? Don’t you think it's a bit far-fetched?

-Far-fetched? After learning that Mike is still alive and you have turned into a crystal, just like me, I feel like anything can happen.

-Er… sorry, but what’s a “bot”?

Right. He wasn’t the most educated person… But well, even if he was, I doubt that in this world there was an idea of automated programs, or any programs for that matter.

-Sorry, it’s a bit hard to explain…

-It’s like something automated - picked up Iloa. - Build in a way that it only can act in a certain, predefined way.

-That’s… strange.

-Get used to that - I chuckled. - If I am correct… we are correct, then it’s not the weirdest thing you’re going to hear today.

-Oh…

As we were talking like this, we managed to arrive at the tallest tower and started climbing the staircase leading to For’s room. Not sure what to expect, For was a bit hesitant, especially after we started hearing some noises coming from upstairs.