The golem was active, the magical link that formed between them glowing brightly in his mind. He could provide extra mana down that link to recharge the golem, but more importantly he could command it through the link. It would also respond to verbal, and visual commands if it could ‘see or hear’ him. If it couldn’t well… things might get a little awkward. The books had always recommended that one try to use the link when possible, to avoid bad habits, it also prevented enemies from hearing the commands.
The limiting factor with golem crafting was based on the enchantments, most specifically the core. Materials, power storage, more enchantments, and improved enchantments all of these were minor problems compared to the core itself. Alex still hadn’t found the name of this place, but its inhabitants went for longevity with their golems. They advocated that it was better to build a less powerful but longer lasting golem rather than one the only had short bursts of strength. They purely despised any golems that relied on the user to drain themselves to keep it active, stating that a mage was far more useful when they didn’t become a battery. Alex was slightly on the fence here as he really could see both sides, his conclusion was that it wasn’t a matter of one option being clearly better but more situational. In his situation he was glad that they advocated so strongly about golems that didn’t cripple the mana capacity of the commanding mage, but he might make a different choice if he were part of a city or working with a team.
Alex stood having recovered from the activation. For the moment he stuck to verbal commands he didn’t want confusion at the moment.
“Golem you are now designated as Eins. Confirm designation.”
“Confirmed” the reply sounded like a bad voice recorder, a somewhat metallic ring in the words.
For Alex that was all he needed, he had left those functions in even if he could theoretically control it through the link alone. “Signal me through our link.” He moved on to the next test. Immediately feeling a pulse come across. He smiled.
“Eins, are your enchantments and frame within operational parameters and how long for full adjustment?”
“Affirmative. Adjustment and adaptation requires three hours.”
“Come outside when your adjustment is complete.”
Alex left the room after receiving an acknowledgement. He found a meal then sat down to evaluate what came next.
By now Alex had become almost terminally paranoid. He really wanted to test the golem in combat while they still had time, and a safe place to retreat to. He was also convinced that there was a high likelihood that if he did, he wouldn’t be able to get back. That the test would have the same result as him leaving but unprepared and without all the things he was going to take with.
Almost all of the machinery in the home was self-contained enchantment wise and his storage necklace would pull the piece as one whole object rather than simply pulling the piece he was touching leaving the rest. It felt very deliberate as though storage items were common enough to warrant making most objects self-contained for easy transport.
He was going to leave via the sky bridge and not though the building and his plan was to go full loot goblin on Alessa’s home. Strip it to the studs he might find some use for everything in the future. He hoped that he wasn’t wrong but if he left the shower, it was possible he would never see one again. That was unacceptable to him.
The only thing he couldn’t take were the enchantments the generator was powering. The generator was definitely coming with him. It was the last thing he was going to grab after searching the house a few more times for anything he missed.
Right now, he needed to review his preparations, with the successful activation of the golem he had no urgent reason to stick around. Over the years he had a feel for what was possible with his learning, and he didn’t think at this point three months would make a large difference in his preparations. Not magically at least, crafting now that, was a different story. It was also one he had already completed.
He had made numerous sets of enchanted clothing. It wasn’t that long since he was able to set enchantments as semi-permanent.
A set of armor not so that he could fight but able to protect him from random bullshit and purely environmental hazards. He also made a helmet he could link some golem control spells to giving him a map, a primitive record function, and would display his location as well as the golems he was linked to.
Yes, he made a helmet solely for access to a HUD and mini-map that also generated a large scale world map based on where he had been and what he had seen. It was perhaps the only time that he felt being from Earth had specific benefits. They already had the spells and enchantments for this just never seemed to put them together, preferring their own methods of command and control. He had rejected it after careful consideration, deciding his way was better, at least for him. The helmet also largely protected against airborne threats, created its own oxygen for a limited period of time, and had several low light vision options.
A bracelet held a cleaning enchantment that would do nasty things to micro threats, parasites, bacteria and viruses. The belt buckle would remove the problems of having to go to the bathroom, preventing him from being caught taking a crap or having his dick floating in the breeze. Also, he wouldn’t be leaving that particular spoor behind, or be struck by Montezuma’s revenge.
Several other objects sat in his necklace from space heaters to a cooling unit, in case temperature changes got too stupid for the relatively weak climate control enchantments on his clothes. Another created a barrier against rain or snow. Another clip on bracelet would provide some optical camouflage. He had rations and water skins, he also could conjure both using magic.
He made a tent that he had very little intention of using. Several enchantments for comfort and concealment laid upon it. He made it for if things got really bad weather wise and to have some sort of portable shelter. The comfort enchantments were needed if he got trapped in it, but it took too long to set up. He could of course pull it into his necklace without issue and run off but unless things got really stupid, he would make do with a bed roll that he could seal against insects and would allow him to see.
The tent would almost certainly get more use once he left the city but by then he planned to have made a better one or at least improved it. At a minimum he needed to get a better idea of outside conditions before he even thought about relying on it.
He made a good assortment of basic camping gear, again more for practice than because he expected to use it, at least not for cooking or making beverages, but he did have a stove and the utensils from the kitchen. A good knife, an entrenching tool, a pickaxe, and a spear rounded out the items he made. He also was running out of materials for more stuff, and he wanted to have a decent reserve on hand for making more golems and or repairs.
He literally couldn’t think of anything else he might need, that didn’t fall into the luxury category.
When it came to leaving, he was actually tempted to do so right now, he didn’t want the generator to burn out after using all of its power. A study of the monsters he could see was inconclusive for the best times to move, he leaned towards daylight. Though he fully admitted that that might be human bias rather than rational thought. Most people felt more vulnerable in the dark, just one of those things.
“Two days.” He said to himself making a decision. Alex would spend two days searching the place and collecting everything he was going to take. He hadn’t left because he couldn’t handle the monsters. With Eins he now had no hard reasons to stay and anything he could gain from this place right now could also be gained outside doing something to further his goals beyond prepping. He would go out and scavenge the city clearing out monsters where possible to replenish his stockpile of materials and gather the cores needed to make more golems.
Alex had no intention of trying to clean the city of monsters, it was likely beyond him, his goal would be recognizable to any gamer, farming, grinding skills, and getting XP. All of this so he could leave the starter area and advance the questline.
He could of course leave the city immediately, but he felt that it would hurt him in the long run, eventually he would run into bad shit. Better to get used to it now in a city where he might be able to get away than to be caught in the open. In a place where he could likely find the materials for both knowledge and construction to correct problems. With that thought he went to bed.
Two days had passed, and he stripped the Alessa’s home taking even the lights down, now Alex stood before the generator next to Eins and mentally reviewed if he missed anything. At this point it was habit. The moment he took the generator he would make for the skybridge and the place he woke up in so long ago. He had of course taken Alessa’s body as well. She was his benefactor and he would, if possible, honor her wishes for a proper burial.
After the mental review he flipped the switch to put the generator in standby mode, before pulling it into his necklace. After that he turned and made his way to the bridge, efficiently not running. Careful but aware he made his way to the door. Once there he had Eins take the lead. The golem opened the door moving out and checking around. Adopting a more hunched over position ready to throw itself in any direction, preferably towards the enemy. They both rapidly crossed to the still barred door on the other side, they were in the open here, the bridge was dangerous in more ways than one. After a quick check through the windows Eins pulled the deadbolt and opened the door. Both moved in, quietly closing the door behind them. There were locking mechanisms on the floor which Alex engaged to secure the rear.
He had no real memory of the hall way, he did think some of the claw marks were “new”. He checked the nearby rooms for loot after Eins cleared them. Even though it was expected he found nothing. Alex was simply going to be thorough, he didn’t expect to find anything, but you never knew. He needed materials, tools. Books would be great. An intact golem frame would be orgasmic for him. It was an office, not a military installation or a factory. Mostly he was getting into the grove of things right now.
He made his way towards the cubical farm, and nearly moved on after a quick check. Then he paused, thinking. Wood. There was intact wood here due to simple preservation enchantments, powered by ambient mana, the desks themselves were in good condition. He was in a wasteland it was likely that anything plant based would be a rare material here. The necklace he wore had a storage capacity of an ocean going cargo ship, one of the big ones. More space than he believed he would ever need, and honestly he could just ditch them if they became a problem. He pulled all of them into his necklace and moved on.
After clearing the floor with anti-climactic results. Alex was left with a question search the top floor, search the whole building, or just get down to the street and move on. His plan was to make his way to the most likely places in the city to harvest materials and look for valuable books. He had no intention of going door to door and digging through every nook and cranny for limited gain. At the same time, he was not ready to push out of the city.
Also, he had just disabled a prominent magical feature of the city, it might draw attention. He had cleared the floor they were on out of military habit, he didn’t think a scavenger would do the same. Probably just check the most likely places for good loot and move on.
“Might be a waste of time but, clearing anywhere I currently am, may be a good habit. Won’t go out of my way to put myself in skyscrapers without reason though.”
Alex moved up the stairwell heading for the top floors.
Although he hadn’t said it he also hoped to encounter some monsters. Not out of a desire for battle but because Eins was untested. Inside a building was the best place he could think of for such an encounter, or the worst. It wasn’t like he had good options. He was mostly concerned with numbers and angles of approach. The street was significantly worse in that regard, also has less a limitation on the size of enemies he encountered.
They cleared to the top floor without meeting anything more annoying than dust and debris. The penthouse office was also torn apart with what he suspected were really old bloodstains on the walls and floor the room was clear with only a desk and to his magical perception a safe. Under the desk.
The desk went into his necklace and the safe thoroughly degraded by time yielded to Eins superhuman claws revealing the contents. Some coinage, bank notes, files, and a few bars of precious metal. He took everything finally a little excited. Aside from some gamer glee the money didn’t really interest him. The bank notes would be worthless in all likelihood without a bank to recognize them. The coins might be useable as currency, but it was the metal they were made of that excited him. Same with the precious metal, Alex had no way of using them as currency so when he got a chance he would add them to golems or other crafts. The lack of material might have been good training, forcing him to be creative and adaptable, but sometimes you really couldn’t move forward without the right material.
Happier than such a small find warranted he was glad he chose to be meticulous in the search here. Every little bit mattered and he had nothing but time anyways, so he and Eins moved on. They descended the stairwell to the next un-cleared floor and continued looting the hell out of the office.
It seemed that much like modern office buildings the place had many different businesses within. That did make him pause and consider that looting this place might be as valuable as a mall. Alex had no knowledge of the businesses here, he wouldn’t recognize the names or their brand. He could walk right past an extremely valuable looting ground without ever knowing. He sighed and made a mental note to begin compiling a list of companies and their products. He would be here long enough to be a time saver he could skip places he knew would be unlikely to contain what he was looking for.
He was currently staring at a small but preserved library in one of the offices. That definitely had him reevaluating. Still no monsters, it was honestly stressing him out. He was somewhat mollified by the lack of obvious spoor but at the same time it also made the monster that attacked him an anomaly. He began to wonder if the creatures even considered the buildings a lair.
Over the years he had made some observations of the locals and they did act in a manner similar to animals. They hunted, mated, and had territories and lairs. Certain species were less hostile to others in a fully functioning environment. So why were none here? He expected some flying monsters to view the places as roosts with the lack of windows. Or smaller pack hunters to lair here, the skyscraper could and arguably should be a good hunting ground for smaller creatures, and a hiding place for weaker ones. Possibly a self-contained micro-environment filled with creatures that spent their entire life cycle in the building.
His instincts were on high alert. He continued forward still looting until they reached the ground floor. Even though he hadn’t found anything more exciting than the library which didn’t contain anything groundbreaking, it was good practice for him and Eins when it came to room clearing. This stairwell didn’t go down any further, but he had seen an elevator and building schematic that said there was a basement. He looked over that way. On the one hand there might be machinery to loot, on the other, the monster was always in the basement. Was he willing to take untested skills into a tunnel fight? It came down to a very simple question, and the feeling this place gave off.
Alex trusted his instincts, probably more than he should with how little he knew.
He left.
Alex and Eins hugged the wall finally at street level. Alex had been considering settling in for the night due to the time they took looting but instead he moved off. Eins leading and both trying to stay out of the open where a flyer might swoop down, checking the walls for monsters that considered vertical faces a minor obstacle. They were moving away from his old home, situated in a complex of skyscrapers. He oriented so that they would make for the docks, there had apparently been a lake near the city fed by some rivers.
He wanted the warehouses. No idea if the people got out or how much they took, but first the low hanging fruit before moving onto more difficult objectives. The map he was basing his decisions on had the city layout but not additional information. A static google map with only street labels. As for why he was going this particular way, aside from convenience he saw several larger buildings and complexes on the way to the dock that looked promising. A few were the size of a modern mall.
After ducking between some alleyways, they were faced with an open crossing, and finally their first monsters. Warped little humanoids, the things looked like the bottom of the food chain just the type of creatures he had expected to populate many of the smaller buildings. Monsters going to war with other monsters. They were hairy chimp-like creatures with oversized teeth and a terrible attitude. He called them Beastlings. He had seen them both succeed and fail.
Mostly they died when facing other monsters even with a huge number advantage. But they were tool users and had no fear. If they thought they could win they fought on heedless of casualties. Otherwise, they ran. Often sacrificing some of their own, unwillingly for the sacrifice of course, for the good of the rest.
The creatures were also quite brazen, he might have called them stupid, but he was withholding judgement. About twelve of the things were moving down the middle of a wide road. A patrol. Was Alex’s first thought.
Even though terrain and conditions were favorable he was going to let them go. The alley he was in was wide enough for Eins to move without restriction, and narrow enough to bottleneck the creatures. His flanks were secure with smooth walls and no openings, the rear was open. Even with his reluctance to fight monsters personally Alex felt like he could take two, maybe three under these conditions with the reach of a spear.
There was something wrong about the situation though. The creatures were dangerous in groups. This many was not something he wanted to risk, not if it was an ambush. They were also in his way. He could go around, he wasn’t in a hurry. Let them pass and then move on. He hated it, he would likely be moving into their territory. Alex had accepted that long ago that he would always be in somethings territory.
It grated though, right to his very core. Something inside him part of his humanity wanted to say.
Yes, I’m in your territory until your territory becomes mine.
It was stupid prideful and counter to his goal of getting out. Yet it still rankled, pricking that primitive part of his brain.
Humanity wasn’t an apex predator because they were the fastest, or the strongest, not even because they were the smartest, nor was it because they used tools. No humanity was the apex because of hunger. Tools, big brains, the ability to cooperate were a part of it. But only a part. Humans rose to the top because they hungered for more, and they fought for it with a viciousness and cruelty that the animal kingdom couldn’t compete with.
Jorah from Game of Thrones had one of the best lines for it. “There is a beast in every man, and it stirs when you put a sword in his hand.” Or something like that. That just hit differently when you had felt the beast stir.
Humans would take everything from you not because they needed it or even wanted it, they would do it just so you couldn’t have it. They would protect their own with unbelievable ferocity. Maybe humans here were prey, Alex didn’t know or care he wasn’t this humanity, and he couldn’t deny the feeling.
He watched as the fuckers kept walking and an irrational part wanted to tear the monsters apart. All because their very presence grated deep down, the arrogance in their steps. As they moved out of sight, and as Eins and him crossed to the next alley. Alex knew that he would be cautious, careful, meticulous. He wouldn’t fall to rage or lashing out. He would plan the murder of those monsters most carefully the way any soldier would bleed an enemy stronger than him.
The place Alex stopped for the night was a corner market, after looting and completing his modified study and practice for the day he went to sleep with Eins standing guard. He was disappointed that he hadn’t had a chance to test the golem. The rational part of his mind told him that avoiding fights and getting what he needed was simply efficient. Until he reminded that part of his mind that he needed cores to keep practicing and that he was unlikely to find them just lying around.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
~ * ~
The next morning Alex changed plans, looting was all well and good, but weapons needed testing. They needed to be refined and improved upon. They longer he went around without knowing what Eins was capable of, the longer he had a false sense of security. Currently controlling the other premade cores was likely beyond his ability. He needed more, needed to practice making his own cores, so today was now a hunt.
Alex returned to where the patrol had been spotted. They had looked fresh not like they had been returning. He chose the creatures because they appeared to be physically weak, and he had a lead on where to find more. He was in control enough not to let yesterday’s anger drive him to take stupid risks. Luckily, he didn’t need to, part of his anger had been at how weak they were compared to the other monsters he saw. If he could deal with them in manageable numbers they were low risk prey. The weak were always prey. Including him, Alex needed to change that.
It didn’t take long to find more of the chimps. He had found a small outpost of the things, all of them appeared to be fighters and armed. No fire but they were devouring one of the wolflike creatures. Like the first monster he had encountered. There were more of them around than the patrol, but they were stationary, spread out. This wasn’t a patrol, he could pick them off if he was careful to whittle them down.
Eins was surprisingly stealthy for what he was, but he was still hundreds of pounds of metal. After the enchantments lightened the truly ridiculous weight of the steel he was made of. It changed him from being thousands of pounds to less… he wasn’t a math guy, but he figured if Eins was pure steel in a block with his dimensions he would be like 20,000 pounds or roughly 9,200 kg that was if he was a block of pure steel and he wasn’t plenty of different materials and all sorts of voids that made that rough calculation fall apart. Enchantments on his body and feet meant that he wasn’t a loud stompy suit, he could move about as quietly as a human during a normal walk. It wasn’t anything close to what a human or animal could do when stalking. There was also the inescapable presence that his size and weight brought with him.
Alex waited for the undisciplined things to slip up while looking for patterns. They occasionally went into one of the nearby buildings. Spreading out into the surrounding alleys.
A cold smile came across his face.
It took hours to work his way around behind that building. They unfortunately hadn’t encountered any of the things moving off into the alleys. Alex didn’t mind not after what he saw before him. The building was being used as a barracks. At least a temporary one. The guards looked bored and distracted, actually calling them guards gave the creatures too much credit. They were a trip wire put there to scream before they died, using their deaths to alert the group. Both of them had their backs to Alex and Eins, looking down the other end of the alley. Alex nodded towards Eins sending a message that he wanted a quiet kill.
Eins walked right up behind them a drove his taloned fingers through the backs of the monsters. It wasn’t instant death, but it was quiet, as the creatures could only twitch on the hand that had lifted them up, as they pumped their lifeblood out. Vainly trying to pull themselves off the taloned hands through their backs. Scrabbling to try and make more than miniscule amounts of noise when their lungs were punctured.
Storing the bodies in his necklace as he didn’t want to waste time harvesting the duo entered the building and found a camp of sleeping creatures the building was only a single story and open aside from the back rooms, where Alex and his companion came from. After another nod Alex moved over to one of the separated bodies. Eins was scary, a literal machine of death, his talons sharpened and hardened by enchantments cut through flesh like nothing Alex had ever seen. Some creature died in their sleep others moved about choking quietly on their own blood, one was scrabbling at the ground while Eins stepped on its back driving his clawed toes deep into its chest. A few rolling about clawing for their slit throats dying in relative silence.
As for Alex he aimed the spear he carried down and once Eins was dealing with the last non-dying beastling. He stabbed his spear down through the sleeping creatures throat and into the floor severing its spine. Its eyes opened briefly uncomprehending unable to even scrabble about, then closed.
Storing these bodies as well he looked out to the camp, then he took a deep breath and ordered Eins to attack. The Beastlings were distracted, fat, happy and for some reason feeling safe. They weren’t.
Eins exploded out the door crossing the 30 yards (27m) to the Beastlings in about three seconds. His arms reaped lives and he had no compunction about using his feet or planting his hands down to attack. Smooth cuts followed by crushing blows too fast, and precise. Using the mass of its metal body to land devastating blows even when the edged weapons failed to connect. The Beastlings never stood a chance. The fight was over before the creatures had a chance to understand what was happening. Another eight bodies to add to his necklace.
Alex collected all the bodies including the wolf the beastling had been tearing to pieces and vacated the area. He had been too cautious yesterday Eins could have taken the creatures at any time. It might have left him exposed but he had seen the creatures fight before. He had never seen a golem fight, eye opening that. Intellectually he knew that the Beastlings had no chance to hurt the golem not with the material it was made of, long before he took into account the enchantment or the thickness of the golems armor. As long as he only had one golem him being exposed would put him at risk. Part of it was that in the back of his mind he couldn’t help but compare it to the stories from his world. He half expected one of the monsters to start glowing red with blood lust and toss his protector to the side like a dirty rag. He had been warned that golems, especially those with low level enchantment can make the user disillusioned about their capabilities.
He believed it and kept it in mind, but most monsters were only really dangerous animals. Able to kill the unprepared easily but would struggle against trained, and armored opponents. That defined most monsters, it was the others that would be problematic. Those that could use magic or had intelligence and those ones with physical capabilities that vastly outmatched a low level golem. Golems made by actual apprentices not his reproductions. So regular Beastlings were a non-threat as long as they didn’t get him. He had killed the one on his own so that he knew with his own hands what he was up against. It had a thick hide if the spear hadn’t had the same enchantments as Eins claws he might have struggled to penetrate anywhere but the throat. In any case it was time to move on. Back to looting now that he knew Eins wasn’t going to die to a one hit from the weakest beast around.
They cleared several more buildings on the way to the mall, killing more Beastlings. These ones in small groups of no more than five and often only two, they were smaller, less aggressive with intruders mostly trying to run off. The hunting packs did kill small creatures they found, mostly rat and insect analogues. They were also scavenging, packs with looted materials lay scattered about, mostly filled with meat and metal. He and Eins moved on. The implications were very scary to Alex and a part of him revised the danger of the creatures up several levels on his useless and arbitrary scale. He knew it was useless, but he didn’t want to get caught off guard simply because he was careless. The creatures were communal in a way he hadn’t expected. They didn’t appear to be packs or even family groups, the scavenging operations showed some intelligence and a large scale clan or tribal structure. He also noted that they didn’t fight each other, not like tribes competing for territory.
In a ‘gas station’ he encountered another group of the small scavengers, Eins went through them like a buzzsaw, but three came at Alex while he waited securing the entrance. Alex wasn’t capable of fighting with Eins, he was too slow and clumsy. He also needed to command the golem in the attack. He wasn’t surprised that he was now facing some of the small scavengers, it was totally expected and the very thing he worried about.
The first found itself smacked to the side by the butt of Alex’s spear, taking a heavy hit to the face. The second caught the pointy end through its chest when it leaped at him, weighing the spear down. The third leapt onto his leg and began savagely, and painfully chewing on his thigh. With the spear trapped he dropped it to draw a copy of his fighting knife. Alex was awkwardly stabbing down while flailing and stumbling about, only for the first creature to leap at his face having recovered from his initial blow. He managed to knock that first creature down, pinning it to one of the sturdy shelves in the building, and savaged it with a series of controlled strikes. The one on his leg continued to chew on him, even though its teeth didn’t penetrate the thick leather it left deep painful bruises with each bite and the death grip of its limbs.
Alex fought with the thing for several seconds until Eins’ hand clamped onto the little monster’s head and squeezed. Causing the creature to very briefly flail about before its head collapsed.
“Fuuck that sucked… note to self, do not engage in melee with these things. How did you not die fucker, I know I stabbed you. Why didn’t you fuck off. But noooo instead you attack me. I hate this place.”
Reaffirming that getting into fights personally was a bad idea, Alex got to looting, and thought about what came next. Anytime Eins was fighting was a chance for him to be attacked. There were rarely solitary creatures, and even then, many were opportunists that would attack him without protection. Sighing heavily at having his suspicions about the dangers here, and his own capability confirmed he moved on.
~ * ~
Alex was changing course. It looked like the mall he wanted was the Beastlings fortress, and he was far from ready for that. Although the overlord sucked or didn’t care, he would frequently hear the now familiar death screams of other Beastlings in the distance. Rarely he heard the deep sounds of the warrior groups attacking something. Often their screams joined the scavengers, he started to figure that the group died off unless he heard victory calls.
They also began to see other monsters, the spiders made him want to reach for a flame thrower, they were entirely too big. The size of very large dogs. It was the silence that creeped him out though.
They were walking down a street avoiding a fight in the open with a nearby patrol of Beastlings when Eins struck at a blur of motion. He had pinned one of the spiders to a wall before Alex could react. It had been jumping at him. He hadn’t seen it, or even noticed it in the air until the golem stabbed it. Alex retreated for the day. That had been too close.
A few days later moving down an alley another spider, a trapdoor type this time, exploded from the ground striking at Eins. Its fangs scratching inch deep gouges on the golem’s chest plate and the venom smoked, eating further into the armor. Eins was made of stern stuff the damage only scratched at supplemental enchants and barely went a third of the way through his armor. Eins’ talons had failed to penetrate from the front, top or sides. The golem striking from multiple angles while using its bulk and clawed feet to dig in. The superhuman strength of its frame preventing the spider from bowling the golem over, or from moving out of its hole. It was only when the golem nearly pulled the thing out of its hole and stabbed at the bottom of the thorax that he began to do damage. That had given Eins the opening he needed, the spider reared back and attempted to bite the golem’s head. It found Eins’ entire arm driven through its mouth and up to whatever brain it had. Collapsing to the ground in a heap.
The trapdoor spider was a wake-up call for Alex. Eins was not invincible, he knew that… expected it even, but to see damage like that happen so fast was shocking. Imagine seeing someone dent a tank with a punch. Eins’ chest plate was almost six inches of essentially industrial steel, and the spider’s fangs had cut thru two inches of it.
To see his protector caught off guard, the thought of the spider waiting to attack him instead of the first thing that passed by.
The spider had done everything right. It caught its prey by surprise and even after its failed first attack it had tried to tie the golem up with its webs. If Eins had been human he would be dead, probably before he could react. A fight where Alex felt useless, barely able to understand what was happening before it was over. Alex collected the body and the webbing from the spider’s nest along with its desiccated prey and moved on.
They didn’t go far just offset form the ambush site, and into a small building. Alex was shaken, mostly because he was so vulnerable here, he needed experience. He needed to find a way to not be a burden. Not because he felt bad about leaving everything to his golem, but because he was still only one small mistake from death. Survival was a brutal business, and the price of tuition was often paid in blood.
~ * ~
Now that he had the cores he needed, he did what he should have done after he killed the Beastlings yesterday. Settle in. He would change tracks spending most of the day working rather than gathering. Study, practice and small careful relocations every few days to avoid getting caught in one place for too long.
First order of business was Eins’ repair he used his metal shaping to smooth out the gouged metal, overall, the damage was turned from a weak point into just cosmetic over the next hour. It took another hour to redo the damaged enchantments. Pushing his mana into the established channels to reconnect them.
While he was at it, he tried to come up with a way to increase Eins’ capabilities. Not immediately but in the long term, even small progressive increases would pay off over time. He had a wild long-term idea for himself that would take too long to even try and cost too many materials. As for Eins the only thing he could think of was more enchantments, specialized ones. Currently the golem was bare bones, the frame was just that a frame. The enchantments he had laid on it had been just enough to get it moving. Basically, they were the golem’s skeleton. If any were removed the frame would be inoperable, possibly collapsing under its own weight. He had yet to add more, unfortunately that also required that he take the golem offline until the enchantment was complete and successfully add into the frame’s matrix.
He was still at the point of making a new golem while Eins guarded him. He had really, really hoped that he was wrong on how long this would take. Both making new creations and getting the resources he needed. If he hadn’t made himself clear at this point, he absolutely despised this place.
Left with no choice he once again reigned in his desire to leave and tried to imitate the mentality of a turtle, slow and steady wins the race. While channeling his instructors. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. He had slightly lost his head upon leaving the tower. His training there had dulled his perception of danger despite his attempts to prevent just that. He had apparently told himself it was dangerous so many times that he started to underestimate it, started to think that any amount of preparation would be enough. That needed to stop.
Alex and Eins had slowly made their way through the city following the path of least resistance, it was horrifyingly slow, they never moved more than a block a day. On the days Alex decided to move, he was going with his gut on when to move. He was slowly getting a feel for the city. He would spend hours sitting and trying to drink the city in with his soul, to absorb it his every fiber of his mind and body.
It was a fancy way of saying he stopped and listened. Tried to integrate himself into the environment rather than being an outsider. This had replaced the exercise he used to do; he couldn’t afford for his body to be worn down if he needed to run. To maintain himself he practiced a special set of katas he found in the library it required some mana, but if he focused the mana circulation in his body kept him fit.
He wouldn’t improve. That was fine, he was pretty sure by this point he was as close to the limits of humans as he could get through regular exercise. He was damn near Olympic level if the only metric was fitness and not skill.
This is what Alex did when he could no longer concentrate on his continued studies or had pushed his mana as far as he could. It was also happening more often as he became frustrated at his appallingly slow progress at making his first core.
He couldn’t make anything near the core in Eins, far too complex. He started with the beastling cores, and after destroying like fifty of them figuring out how to first shape the core then carving the runes. He finally started to make progress; they didn’t shatter in his face anymore. He still fucked up and rendered them useless though. He needed to do two things with the cores. Gently shape and smooth them out for better mana efficiency and flow, also to give him a clean surface to carve the runic engravings without disrupting them.
Fragile low-quality cores and this process didn’t mix. It was a good thing he had plenty of Beastlings to kill. Yet again he was jumping ahead of normal progression. One small core couldn’t hold a golem enchantment, not at his level. He couldn’t make the runes small enough, and the core could never provide enough power to make it sustainable. That left him with linking multiple cores to get the mana output high enough to matter.
Diminishing returns hit here, it was actually worthless to add cores beyond a certain point. It started to cost more power than the core added to the system. It was also extremely difficult to get right.
Alex forged ahead with his work, mostly letting the world pass him by. Eventually he managed to get the cores ready. He actually didn’t know how long that took, he stopped tracking time. He was no longer in the tower and deadlines lost any meaning, becoming detrimental by causing him to rush. Only goals remained, make more golems, survive and escape.
Worrying about day or night, even what passed for seasons in the freezing and abandoned city, just fucked with his head. Since his arrival he had been rushing to get the golem ready, it was time to stop focusing on a deadline. Prioritize the work then do it. All he could do at this point.
Every time he went to sleep, he was more than he used to be. Avoiding the truly dangerous was easy. Stay hidden and out of the way, most dangerous things didn’t bother to hide. The ones that did had far easier prey in the Beastlings and the common wolf like creature he had taken to calling Dire Doggos.
Alex was pretty sure his mental stability had taken a hit. Being silly in his head was about the only way he could avoid a crushing sense of depression. He still focused on his goal, the light at the end of the tunnel. He just felt dragged down when he realized how long that tunnel truly was. How small he was.
~ * ~
Eventually he succeeded, he barely noticed, three cores ready to be installed. Now he just needed to finish the frame. Since he was no longer prioritizing his studies based on a timeline, he really dug into the things he needed. Including going for stuff way beyond what he should at his level. Alex did build up to them, when possible, still looking for synergies with the spells and enchantment he studied. However, he no longer told himself that it would take too long, or that he had better things to do, he didn’t.
One positive was that he had collected a surprising amount of valuable metals from the homes, and other buildings they stayed at. He was actually making a good showing of clearing out his chunk of the city. He used these to make an artificial holder for the three new cores he didn’t want to install the cores directly in the frame. Too annoying. Too easy to lose them if the golem took enough damage to its frame. He was trying to make his creations semi-modular for this, rather than the usual almost custom nature that filled the golem crafting field.
Alex pulled out the incomplete frame to continue shaping it, this frame was made of bones those he collected from defeated enemies. The Dire Doggos had incredibly strong skeletons and like he experienced some of the bones could punch through steel. Similarly, the Beastlings skeletons were also dense and flexible. Mostly they were plentiful, he collected the bodies after each fight. He had several thousand pounds of these materials available. He went out to hunt in the surrounding areas often, ambushing prey and staying just inside of beastling territory for safety.
Bone was just easier to work with. He mostly ignored the disdain the books had for it as a base material. It was slightly confusing, on the one hand monster materials were valuable for any crafting profession including golems. Yet making an entire golem out of bone had instinctual problems. He was guessing it had to do with necromancers, and their bone golems.
Both were golems but a necromancer powered the golem with death/dark energy and trapping a spirit within. A necro was also able to make other golems the same way regardless of material. They just used different power sources, which was why he really couldn’t understand the stigma attached to the material choice.
Didn’t matter to Alex as he pulled a ribcage in front of him. Beastling, he wanted humanoid golems for now, and poured his mana into it. While in the tower he had tried to avoid his usual habit of asking why things worked, settling for it working. Now he did ask, the mana enveloped the bones it was tiring forcing his mana through the material. Once the ribs were enveloped, he slowly pushed against their current shape with mana shaping. He was broadening the ribs and flattening them down, turning it into a plate rather than a cage.
Losing the flexibility and impact resistance of bone surrounded by meat, for more magically reinforced bone. He added more material as he went pushing other bones into his project and enveloping them in mana before slowly shaping it into the whole.
The chest was the last part to set up before assembly and activation, he needed to know how large the linked core would be before getting here. Mostly he needed to know where to build the connections for the core to frame interface. Like Eins he went with an add-on plate to cover the core, installing hatches or hinges was too much of an integrity risk and a pain in the ass, instead he would create a plug to put over the exposed core. When removed he could reach in and pull the core. He also wanted as much protection for the core as possible.
Days passed as he pulled this together. His mana was growing and getting stronger, and he was getting more efficient with practice. However, it was still a grueling process to use most of it, then rest. He avoided pushing the limit for now, he had to at some point, but he was going to save that for an activation, or for when he had a few more guardians.
Then it was done, he had everything ready for Zwei (for some reason he thought of panzers with his golems, hence German numbering for names).
He pulled the rest of the second frame from his storage and laid it out, the skeleton was a bone version of Eins. With modifications, both for material reasons and to improve on the original design. When he had two of these babies, he planned to shut Eins down and implement the improvements as backward compatible. Probably also take the time to add a few extra to Eins, as his core was being vastly under-utilized in his current frame.
He made the mana connections for each limb. Each limb had connections at the joints, all going to the torso. Head, arms, torso, hips, and legs being the major limbs. He gave it the same long talons Eins had but added serrations near the palm, for added grip. The feet had raptor-like claws that stayed up until they were needed. The chest plate was thick and looked like a fused together rib cage. A part of him wanted to smooth that out, make it harder to land solid attacks but it was becoming increasingly difficult as he added more material. The same applied to the hips as he really just added more material for strength and stability, it still looked vaguely like a pelvis. The head was a beastling skull reinforced and smoothed out, the jaw had been fused together, the eye sockets filled with shaped glass. A minor light enchantment would allow them to glow a dim red, the light they emitted helped both him and the golems see in low light conditions when combined with other methods. The rest of the skull was taken up by sensory enchantments.
As for changes the changes not based on materials, he added an additional weapon to the golem. The stabbing limbs from the dogs had punched through steel, part of that was the creature injecting mana into the limb, something a golem would replicate, but the rest was pure bone strength. He added this to each arm, the golem could activate it and turn its arms into spears rather than clawed hands.
This had been a result of the nightmare fuel study of the trapdoor spider, the size of a Clydesdale. Eins hadn’t caused significant damage to its underside. His claws were too short to reach anything vital, the stabbing limb would increase the golem’s penetrating power by like two feet if it used the whole arm. He allowed the golem to use its pinkie and thumb as wings when necessary. A way to prevent some creatures from running up the spear arm and attacking the body, the remaining fingers fitting into a hollow section at the base adding some cutting edges from the taloned hands.
The minor physical changes, complete and tested to the best of his ability, he moved to what he considered the main changes. Additional enchantments, firstly a self-repair enchantment. It was a mana hungry monster, but over time it would make minor repairs a thing of the past. This wasn’t useful for direct combat, but the longevity of his golems. He was already feeling it with Eins, the constant maintenance from general wear and tear. Repairing the enchantments on Eins’ frame to keep him running. This enchantment would largely eliminate that problem. Alex could add his power to it as well to speed things up, not tremendously but noticeably. He added two more before he knew he would destroy the frames mana economy. An additional hardening rune, upping its toughness. As well as another sharpening rune for its arms.
The additional runes were active types. The base frame had some already set as passive. As the core poured power into the frame the passive runes activated the enchantments as part of the process. These additional enchants were separate, the golem or him as the controller could activate them as needed.
That done he stored the frame away and settled in for the night. He would activate the golem tomorrow when he recovered his mana.