A convoy of 21 vehicles - carriages, wagons, and coaches - was pulling into the dwarven city of Steelhead, after finishing their 3-day journey from the elven capital of Azurvale. Although a significant part of the distance was covered in an instant thanks to the wonder of elven Forest Gates, the majority of it had to be crossed the old fashioned way. Which meant it was open to assault from wandering monsters and/or roaming outlaws, who would surely notice such a large procession.
However, any man, beast or monster who wished to assault this caravan would be met with overwhelming deadly force in the shape of nearly 100 adventurers acting as armed escorts. This might have seemed like an excessive number of guards at first glance, but it was actually quite standard. Experienced merchants and travelers often formed large groups like this whenever possible, and with good reason. With each group of passengers hiring their own team of adventurer escorts, the resulting security detail naturally ended up looking like a small army.
Which was pretty much the point of the whole exercise. Having a large force like that was the ultimate deterrent against attacks. Granted, some roaming monsters who didn’t know any better still challenged the passing travelers, but they didn’t last more than a second or two under all that concentrated fire. The same would go for any highwaymen or bandit gangs attempting to ransack the convoy, assuming any of them were stupid enough to actually try. Criminal outfits very rarely grew larger than 50 or 60 people at the most, so they would definitely find themselves vastly outnumbered in a situation like that. Even ambushes were out of the question, as with that many people on hand, the armed guards could easily spare a few adventurers to scout ahead and watch out for treachery.
So the final result was that the adventurers got paid, the passengers could enjoy the trip in peace, and nobody had to lose their lives. It really was a win-win-win. Except maybe for the outlaws who were denied their ill-gotten gains, but that was just another win for the law-abiding citizens. There were, of course, incidents where those thugs had formed into larger group, totaling in the hundreds, at which point they would become a serious threat. Not just to unsuspecting travelers and small settlements, but to the stability of the government as a whole.
It was at that point that excrement struck the air flow regulation unit, as bandit outfits that grew too large would find themselves under assault by the country’s standing armed forces. In fact, both the Ishigar Republic and Horkensaft Kingdom found themselves having to resort to such things quite a bit in recent weeks.The cause of this sudden upsurge in unrest was due to Imperial deserters who didn’t quite approve of the way the war ended. Even the Empire found itself under assault from its own troops, as there were those who rose up in open rebellion against the ‘False Emperor’ and his cabinet.
What all this ultimately meant for people braving the wilderness was that there was a higher chance of running into trouble, which was still practically non-existent so long as they struck to large convoys. And statistics had been on the side of the 21-vehicle procession that was already busy unloading both its passengers and its cargo, as they hadn’t suffered a single incident that warranted the use of deadly force.
“No! You stay away from me!” screamed Jess.
However, that didn’t mean there were no incidents whatsoever.
“But Jess!” pleaded Fizzy as she chased after the blonde gnome. “You can’t just leave me like this!”
“I don’t care! You’re horrible! I can’t stand being around you any longer!”
The reason why these tiny women were having a fight in public was that the mithril golem had gone too far. During the trip, one of the scouts reported sightings of outlaws bearing the markings of a criminal gang led by one Four-Finger Flinn. Under normal circumstances that would’ve been the end of it, as Flinn’s outfit was way too small to pose any sort of threat. The adventurer escorts, on the other hand, had no obligation in particular to waste time, effort, and possibly lives to chase after them. The two sides would have just ignored each other in a sort of tacit agreement to live and let live, as neither was looking for a pointless fight.
“Come on! What did I ever do to you?!”
Except for one shiny psychopath. Fizzy had not only chased after the bandit den, but she even had the gall to commandeer one of the adventurers she and Jess had hired - a dwarven Rogue - to track them for her. Since this was a client’s request, the man felt he had little choice to accept, though neither Jess nor the rest of his team approved of his decision.
“It’s not just me!” screamed Jess. “It’s what you do to those around you!”
In the end the group of 40 or so outlaws were wiped out, but the Rogue had gotten caught in the crossfire and lost his life. And the worst part was that not only did the golem not show a single shred of remorse for getting a good man killed, but she even had the gall to return to the convoy covered head-to-toe in blood and grinning like a lunatic. She hadn’t even noticed her companion had died until his friends questioned her about his wellbeing, at which point she let out a casual ‘Oh right, there was a guy like that!’
“C’mon don’t be like that! If I didn’t take out those guys then they would’ve ruined someone else’s life! I couldn’t just ignore them! Not when my own father and brother were killed by that sort of scum!”
But while Fizzy’s argument abound a vendetta seemed like a valid one, Jess was only further outraged by it.
“Don’t you dare use your family as an excuse, you psycho! You attacked them because you wanted to murder people, not out of some sense of justice!”
Indeed, what the blonde gnome had issue with wasn’t the act itself, but the extremely troubling motivations behind it. And her words were right on the money.
“I think I’m starting to understand why Keira dumped you!”
“Uh-oh,” exclaimed Plus.
Just as the positively-charged Parallel had feared, Fizzy’s temper instantly flared up. Her eyes opened up all the way and her lips curved into a broken smile as she began contemplating whether she should shut that dumb blonde by force, or by excessive force.
“There! There it is!” exclaimed Jess while pointing straight at the mithril murder machine. “You’re giving me the same look you got when you heard there were bandits afoot! What, are you going to kill me just because you feel like it?!”
“C’mon, Fizzy!” pleaded her alter ego. “We need to keep our cool here! There are literally hundreds of adventurers on hand to put you down if you do anything stupid!”
The place where the caravan had dropped the two of them off was a open-air stone plaza that was a popular drop-off and departure point for both wagons and adventurers. It even had a row of shops catered to both parties lined up along the edge of it as testament to its popularity. And while that Fowl-Fingering Fatass, or whatever his face was, and the rest of his pathetic troupe were pushovers, these people were different.
They were better armed, better supplied, better trained to fight monsters, and there were a whole lot more of them. Some of them actually seemed to be waiting for Fizzy to turn violent, as that would give them an excuse to cash in on her shiny mithril hide. Of course, they only thought that because they had no idea who they were dealing with, but they still gave the golem pause. In fact, this sort of situation was exactly what Jess had counted on, and why she waited until now to confront her soon-to-be-former traveling companion.
“You need help, Fizzy,” she said in a pitying tone. “You’re not well. Normal people don’t act the way you do, surely you realize that. I think your wild golem nature is getting the better of you, and you need to fix it before it gets you and others killed.”
“I… Okay, yes, you’re right,” admitted the shiny woman. “I just get overcome by this red haze sometimes, okay? I promise I’ll do my best to change, so please, help me with this. Surely you know some people that-”
“No.”
Jess cut her off with a firm refusal.
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“I’m sure that somewhere underneath all that glamorous metal beats the heart of a real person and a brilliant Artificer, but honestly? The current you terrifies me. I never know when you’ll lose control and flatten me in some fit of madness. I’m sorry, but you’re on your own.”
Having said that, Jess finally turned her back on the empty shell that was once Cornie Fizzlesprocket and ran off into the crowd.
“Jess, wait!” yelled the golem as she gave chase. “Please, I’m sure we can work this out! I can be better, I know it! So please… don’t leave me…”
However, with every step she took, Fizzy’s feet felt strangely heavier, and her one good arm steadily lost power and slumped by her side. Under normal circumstances, she could easily catch up to the gnome, but she already knew it would be pointless.
“I think we just got dumped,” remarked Plus, though her attempts at injecting humor into the situation had almost the opposite effect.
Screw her! screamed Fizzy internally. Don’t need her anyway! Yeah, she was only dragging me down!
“Dragging us down, you mean.”
Whatever.
Having been spurned by the only remaining soul who knew her circumstances was a bittersweet taste, but Fizzy would recover. She was anything if not a survivor, after all. She made her way back to where their stagecoach was parked while enduring damning stares from the crowd around her. These were so unlike the looks of admiration she wanted, that they actually made her feel worse rather than better. If attention could be untasty, then what she was being treated to right now was definitely it. She picked up her things from the somewhat frightened coach driver and quickly left the scene, not wishing to make a fool of herself any longer.
Her luggage was actually stored in three Bags of Holding, magic items that were 10 times bigger on the inside than on the outside, and also cut the weight of all items stored within by half. Inside these convenient containers were all of Fizzy’s worldly possessions, which amounted to a lot less than one might imagine. They included whatever gold she stole, or rather inherited from Boxxy, the smashed up remnants of her mithril arm, the unblemished shield gauntlet that was once attached to it, the Masterwork electric charge pack she created prior to the events of Armageddon Day, a bunch of miscellaneous Artificer parts and tools, and last but not least - her trusty enchanted steel wrench.
It was a bit depressing, knowing that her entire life, such as it was, could be stuffed into three unnaturally deep pouches, but this was still pretty far from rock bottom. Fizzy had not only been there, but practically lived it for weeks on end, so she profoundly understood that things could be much worse. She certainly wasn’t a stranger to starting over, either, as she has had to do so twice already. The first time was when her father moved to the Empire and the young Cornie had to adapt to a new environment, new culture, and new societal values while dealing with the fact she would never, ever fit in with human children. The second instance was when she was volunteered by an unstable deity to help a dangerous box hunt down and defeat a lich.
In other words, this was already the third time she’s had to start from scratch and, although she didn’t want to tempt fate by saying it, still believed that ‘third time was the charm.’
That being said, the golem once again double-checked the presence of the three magical pouches she had and entered into Steelhead proper. The city itself was built out of hundreds of excessively large buildings that far outstripped anything built by man or elf. These high-rises could go up to as much as 30 stories high were thrown together out of stone, steel, and wood that had been magically fortified so that it wouldn’t crumble under its own weight. And although not all structures were that obscenely tall, none of them could be described as small, as those that didn’t excel in height, instead did so in width.
This was one of two archetypes of dwarven and gnomish settlements typically found in the Horkensaft Kingdom. Up until about a century ago, almost all of the population lived more or less underground. They would tunnel into hillsides in search of resources, and would gradually turn those holes in the ground into burrows, and when enough of them gathered around one spot it would become a village. More extreme examples of this behavior were places like Gun Tarum, the Kingdom’s capital, which was built literally inside a hollowed-out mountain.
That was the traditional style of dwarven and gnomish homes that was predominant across the land. However, that gradually began to change with the advent of the Artificer Job. The naturally more industrious and, as some might say, lazier gnomish population had been gradually moving away from digging out huge swathes of the earth in favor of streamlined apartment building construction. In their own words, they prefer to build their own mountains rather than tunnel into existing ones.
It was a bit ironic that the shortest of the enlightened species aimed the highest, but that was the reality of the situation.
Of course, one didn’t necessarily need a history lesson to understand that the skybound structures that dominated Steelhead were very much a gnomish endeavor, as the population naturally reflected that. Over 70% of the people Fizzy passed by on the street were her former kin, and many buildings were tailored to fit their particular vertically-challenged dimensions. But while most of them could technically be used by ‘extra-sized’ individuals such as elves and humans, many of them would find the accommodations cramped and uncomfortable. Even dwarves sometimes banged their heads on the extremely low gnomish doorframes in some pubs and restaurants. There were, of course, a slew of restaurants, inns, and shops tailored to suit the city’s taller residents and visitors, but they were concentrated in the aptly named Tower Row, which was very much removed from Fizzy’s current location.
That being the case, the former gnome would probably not stand out as much as she did back in the Republic. Assuming she wasn’t a walking pile of mithril, of course. People were even poking their heads out of their apartments’ windows to stare at her pass by in wonderment. And since all these gazes were noticeably less accusatory and damning that the ones Jess invoked prior to her escape, Fizzy naturally started feeling a bit better about herself.
Unfortunately even that didn’t last long, as she soon started getting questioned regarding her model number, owner, manufacturer, asking price, and other such unwelcome topics. These people made the pleasant buzz she was starting to accumulate instantly disappear, as it made her realize she really wasn’t in Azurvale anymore. Even while people here were no strangers to the sight of golems, or rather because of that, none of them even considered that Fizzy might be her own owner. Or that her manufacturer would be a cursed gauntlet, that her model number was ‘FCK-U,’ or that her asking price would be their god damned face if they didn’t leave her alone.
“What’s going on, Fizzy?” asked Plus in a concerned manner. “You’re not usually this rude to people who approach you with a twinkle in their eye.”
I don’t like their attitude, she replied while ignoring another potential buyer’s inquiries. They don’t even see me as a person, but as a thing. I don’t like it.
“So? How is this any different from before? I mean you got idiots like these all the time back in Azurvale’s Stone District.”
Yeah, but none of these assholes even try to see beyond my shiny skin!
“Can’t really blame them though, you got some amazing skin.”
Sure, but I mean there’s more to me than just a radiant piece of glorious ass. Why don’t any of these meatbags even try to understand that?
“Right, I think I see what’s going on. This is about Boxxy, isn’t it?”
What?! As if!
“Face it, Fizzy. You don’t miss the way some long-eared plebs saw you. What you really long for is Boxxy’s gaze. Nobody has ever been able to appreciate us as completely as it did. It was able to see all of us, both inside and out, metaphorically and literally. That box practically worshipped you, and we adored every second of it.”
Yes, alright! screamed Fizzy internally. I miss it! I miss it so much I can’t even think straight unless I’m murdering things!
“Right, good. Now that that’s out in the open, why don’t we see about doing just that? There should be an arena of some kind in Steelhead, right?”
Oh, right! Of course!
Now that Fizzy thought about it, the way she was introduced to Azurvale’s general public was through the spectacle of gladiatorial combat. A space like that glorified violence and made champions out of killers, so it was the perfect place to start if she hoped to endear herself to the populace. Granted, Boxxy had only sent her there so she could learn to fight while earning money, but the social side effects of it were quite substantial, and exactly what Fizzy needed right now. As long as she was able to rebuild her reputation as the Rustblood Juggernaut, then other people’s perceptions of her would surely shift to a more favorable direction.
Plus, is it me, or are you actually a genius?
“Oh, so that’s how it was. I was a genius all along, huh?”
Yup! Without a doubt!
“I see, I see. It’s only natural though. I am you, after all!”
True, true. Well then, shall we go see about stomping on some meatbags for the benefit of our new fans?
“Yeaaaaah! Let’s go!”
After cheering herself up in more ways than one, Fizzy strode off in search of the arena, blissfully unaware that while she was carrying out her internal pep rally, one of her Bags of Holding had been stolen.
And, as luck would have it, it was the one that held not only all of her money, but also the cursed shield-gauntlet that turned her into a golem in the first place.