Ascendant

Valcort proved to be just a brief stop on their trip. They topped off their supplies, inquired about any other large dangers roaming the local area that they should be aware of, and left. There was no work for a crew of earth mages to be had there, and nobody was much interested in hanging around for more than a single night’s stay at an inn. Beds were nice, but all of them were eager to be on their way, each for their own reasons.

The Earth Shapers wanted work, and where there was none to be found, they didn’t want to stay. Analia seemed almost eager to get to Ebalsan, though Nym wasn’t sure what changed her mind. As for himself, the farther west they went, the closer they got to Palmara, and more than ever, he wanted to go see Ciana again.

The next few weeks were more of the same. Other than the excitement with the monster bird on the east side of Valcort, they traveled without incident. Two more towns came and went in a blur, with no work for the crew besides putting up a new silo for a farm that was on the way. That took a good portion of an afternoon since Bildar was the only one who knew the appropriate transmutation spells, and they all grumbled about the low pay after they left.

Nym was reading through a spellbook he’d picked up from a general store for cheap. The shopkeeper knew what it was, but since there was no real call for something like that in a village so small, he’d let it go to Nym for far less than it was worth. Nym was sure the man could have saved it for the next trader who came through to get a better price, so he appreciated the gesture.

The book focused on information gathering spells, collectively called divinations by the author, and Nym was hoping to modify his scrying spell, or at least learn a different version that allowed him to see significantly farther from the spell anchor. The encounter on the road had shown him once again that scrying was not all that useful out in the open if it lacked the range to see things he couldn’t see himself.

So, far, integrating the spells with his own version was not going well. “Look here,” he said to Analia, pointing at his own sketched out scrying spell. “I think this part is what’s limiting the range I can cast it out to. See how this version in the book does the construct completely different? But when I try to adapt mine, the whole spell fails.”

“Of course it does. Look opposite of it. If you don’t counter-balance this side of the construct, it’ll fall out of alignment. When you swap out this chunk by itself, you’re screwing up the whole thing.”

“No, I tried that,” Nym said. “The construct doesn’t fall apart, but the spell itself doesn’t work anymore.”

They dissected the spells for another hour, trying to find a way to mesh Nym’s version that let him see through solid objects with the range components of the one in the book. They would have kept working on it, but Ophelia dropped back to walk next to them and reminded Nym that it was time to continue the project the two of them had been working on instead.

Nym stowed away the book and got out the papers he and Ophelia had drawn for the construct schematic of another spell: the earth golem. Adapting the ice golem version was not going great, but they had at least had some small successes. The biggest problem seemed to be that unlike ice and snow, there were a lot of different kinds of dirt. If they transmuted it all into one kind, they could build clay or sand golems, and had varying degrees of success with other materials.

Even those were fragile, however. The one part they’d had no luck with at all translating from ice to earth was the regeneration part of the spell. Ice golems would draw more water, ice, or snow from the surrounding environment to repair themselves, given enough time to do so. It hadn’t mattered when they’d been completely obliterated by the sheer weight and size of the hive queen, but if they could perfect the regeneration portion of the earth golem variant, it would be a fantastic spell for fighting undead.

“Fantastic might be too strong of a word,” Ophelia said. “I can barely keep one of these going. I imagine two would be the limit for most mages, and it would leave them vulnerable since they’d be devoting so much arcana to maintaining them.”

“That’s why I want to miniaturize them. I think a half-sized one would still take out an undead, but would be significantly less taxing.”

“We might as well start over from scratch if that’s how you want to do it,” she said.

“I did it with that soup once!”

“Yeah, and how many seconds did it last before it fell apart?”

Ophelia was right, of course. The earth golem spell was a good idea, but it wasn’t going to revolutionize the face of warfare. There was a reason every battle mage didn’t go into combat with a golem or two. There were better, more efficient uses of arcana. Of course, most mages couldn’t come close to channeling the amount of arcana Nym could. For him the spell only limited him slightly instead of requiring his full focus and effort to maintain.

They spent the rest of the afternoon working on it, and when they stopped for the evening, they decided it was time for another test run. Nym crafted the construct himself out of standard dirt. A chunk of it ripped itself out of the grass and floated up about three feet in the air, then started spinning slowly. It pulled up more and more dirt with each revolution, until Nym couldn’t even see it anymore behind the body it was building for itself.

The golem finished forming after about thirty seconds. It was roughly Nym’s proportions, about five feet in height, but its limbs were more than twice as thick as his. Nym felt the connection snap into place as soon as it was finished, and he mentally commanded it to raise an arm and wave at the group.

“You figured it out?” Monick said, excited. “It works?”

“Seems to,” Ophelia told him. “Nym? Any issues?”

“Nothing so far. It’s holding together fine, pulling arcana at a steady pace. No issues with controlling it that I can see.”

The earth mages crowded around Ophelia so they could get a look at the schematic she and Nym had put together. “We need to try this. I can’t believe you finally got it working,” Nomick said.

“Yes, and with this, finally, it’s time,” his brother added.

“I hesitate to even ask this, but time for what?” Bildar said, looking between the two.

“Golem battles,” they said in unison.

* * *

Two golems stood in the middle of a bowl-shaped depression, duking it out. They rained blows on each other, neither bothering to block, and chunks of dirt were ripped out and tossed into the air. As fast as they dismantled each other, more dirt was sucked up from the ground to replace the missing material.

“This… is kind of intense,” one of the twins said, sweat beading on his face.

“You… could… surrender,” the other said, panting as he spoke.

“Never!”

From over by the wagon, the rest of the group watched with amusement. “I’d say we finally figured out that regeneration problem,” Ophelia commented. “It’s working overtime and I’m fairly confident the twins are going to give out before the golems do.”

“It’s impressive,” Analia added. She was currently reviewing the schematic, but lacking the thorough grounding in earth magic that the rest of the crew possessed, she had a ways to go before she was ready to try the spell herself. “I think an air golem version might be more useful to me though.”

“How would that do any work if it’s made of air?”

“Solid air isn’t a problem. An invisible servant would be quite handy though, don’t you think?”

“Would it really be less work than levitating and telekinesis though?” Nym asked.

“That depends on how dexterous we could make it and how well it can follow orders,” Analia said.

“We just finished making this one work,” Nym said. “I am taking a break from golem making.”

“Oh fine. Something to consider in the future though.”

Off to the side, both twins had collapsed from exertion and their golems were slowly unraveling. No longer were they pulling in new earth to fix the damage, but neither were they still attacking each other. At this point, it was a coin toss which of the two earth mages would give out first.

“Draw?”

“Never!”

Another few seconds went by of the golems basically falling into each other. It was not an impressive fight.

“Fine, draw.”

“No draw,” Bildar protested. “We’ve got money riding on this.”

“Screw your gambling.”

“And the horse it rode in on!”

The golems collapsed into dirt at the same time. With synchronous groans, the twins dragged themselves to their feet and shuffled back over to the wagon. “Dinner ready?”

“What dinner? You two were supposed to cook tonight. All we’ve got is cold travel rations now.”

“Come on, Ophelia. We’re starving. We worked ourselves to the nub.”

“Work? You mean goofing around with the new spell we came up with.”

“We were stress testing it,” Nomick protested.

“It’s very important to know its limits,” Monick added.

“I’m sure. Either way, it’s your turn to cook, so you best get on that.”

“This job is so unfair,” Monick muttered.

The twins settled down to recover their strength while the rest of the group snacked and discussed the golems. Despite how much they were screwing around, the golems truly were a sight to behold. Mages who specialized in earth magic often had defensive options for every scenario, but rarely had strong methods to attack with. That wasn’t to say they were helpless, just that a fire mage packed a lot more destructive magic into his arsenal.

Nym was of the opinion that it was better not to specialize in any one discipline, but he recognized that there were only so many hours in the day and if he was looking for a type of magic to support himself with, the Earth Shapers had proven there was money to be made in magical construction.

“We should be in Ebalsan in the next two days or so,” Bildar remarked. “You two think you’re going to want to stick around still? If it’s been converted over to a staging ground for the army like we were told, we can probably get to work without worrying about you needing to get your licenses. From what I heard, the situation is getting desperate.”

“Desperate might be a strong word,” Ophelia added, “But it’s definitely proven to be more dangerous than anyone initially thought. We’ll stay far away from the fighting though, so it should be safe enough for us. Not that Nym the monster slayer has anything to worry about.”

“I don’t like this name,” Nym said. “I didn’t do anything special, just set it on fire.”

“We’ll stay,” Analia said. “Unless there’s something unexpected in Ebalsan, there’s no reason to change our plans.”

“We’ll see when we get there,” Bildar said. “But my guess is we’ll end up somewhere between Ebalsan and the front line of the fighting, building fortifications for supply dumps and big long walls so the army can keep advancing without worrying about getting cut off from behind. That’s what earth mages always end up doing in these kinds of situations.”

“You worked with the army before?” Nym asked.

“Once or twice,” Bildar said with a far-off look in his eyes. “It’s… the money is good. As long as you don’t get too involved.”

“What’s that mean?”

But Bildar wouldn’t elaborate anymore, and sensing he’d touched on a delicate topic, Nym didn’t push for answers. Everyone was entitled to keep their own secrets, after all. The group went to bed early that night, to better prepare for what would hopefully be the final push to Ebalsan in the morning.