Eli POV

I sat back down in the bed as the mid-day sun filtered over the floor from the window with the sound of the retreating mages still coming through the hallway. All I could think about was the pain, struggle, and exhaustion I had put myself and Salamede through. Then regret. My feelings on the people we had killed was a bit more nuanced than what I had told Salamede.

Salamede.

Few things in this world hurt as much as seeing those we care for cry. One of them is knowing you made them cry.

‘Focus’ I told myself, pushing aside my feelings and getting up off the bed. This wasn’t the necromancers doing, but that doesn’t mean I can just go on like they couldn’t still out there, and I had somewhere I needed to be if I wanted to put this menace to rest. Looking under the bed, I saw a fair white shirt and brown pants with a crude pair of leather shoes.

Strumming my fingers on the bed, I decided that I’ll keep my internal mana generation a secret going forward. That was too good of a card to give away right now.

I picked up the clothes and several gold and silver coins spilled out. Money. It had been so long since I had been concerned with such an ordinary thing. Scooping up my forgotten wealth, I took out a sheet from the bed and cut out a piece with a stone shard into a bandanna, which I wrapped around my face. Heading out the door, the two guards looked my way for a brief moment but quickly turned away as I made my way out of the room. A few frightened doctors and nurses in white gowns pulled back as I moved through the hallway down to the bottom floor as people tried their best to not get in my way. As I came into the main entrance, the crowd obstructed me again as people who hadn’t seen my performance in the hallway paid me no attention.

“Oh, mister Eli. What…” A confused nurse by the reception desk looked me up and down. She was a brown-haired woman with pudgy features who had tended to me during my recovery period, her brown eyes not quite believing what they were seeing.

“I healed myself.” I responded in a bored tone as I walked out the front door. The coming and going of various peasants, nobles, and medical staff now clogged the stair way as people with bite marks and scratches came in. Paying them no mind, I headed down to the marketplace with the dwarves, the only people who could do business with me.

Going up to the largest forge tent with more subdued reds and purples, I saw multiple furnaces in the back smoking away as their caretakers put in various ores and took out red hot bars below a canopy of hammers, pincers, and gloves. The proprietor of the establishment came forward with a quizzical look in his face of emerald eyes and long greying beard.

“What can I get you this fine day?” He asked as he wiped some sweat from his brow and rubbed it across his leather apron.

“Bars of iron, copper, aluminum, and steel. Oh, and a few leather bags. I can provide payment upon arrival to my house and may come back for more depending on how many you give me.” I finished.

He looked at me for a moment and then around at the rest of the empty wooden table that served as the tent’s reception area. We were entirely alone as the mid-day rush was more for the tents with meals and confections, items still in heavy demand from the local nobles and rich merchants.

“Steel I can probably get for you late tomorrow. Shall we be molding them into some shapes for you, sir c-rafter?” He said meekly. His green eyes gave him away though, as did the slight hitch in the last word.

“No. I will be using my own metal magic.” I responded in a casual tone.

The dwarf’s hardy features portrayed no emotion aside from the slight raising of the right eyebrow.

“It’s time then?” He asked in a simple quiet tone.

“It’s time.” I tried to respond in a casual tone, but the feral grin on my face that no doubt showed in my eyes gave away the excitement.

“As you command, grand caster.” He responded with a bow and walked off to the back and started barking orders. I left and went to get some cotton from another dwarven merchant and paid with some silver.

Heading out of the marketplace, I headed back towards my tower. Along the way I noticed that my typical minders hadn’t bothered continuing stalking me.

All the better. A man needs some privacy now and then.

Coming up to my home, the squat ugly thing looked dilapidated, but I knew it had the bones for something greater. I went through the door Tansen had replaced and down into the basement. Inside the small cavern of rough stone, was Cell’s vine body above the remains of my vine suit and the air piston table to his right. The deer skull was smashed beyond recognition and the copper sphere had no whirring sound as the dents and rips in it showed the signs of a harsh battle.

Cell’s vine body was looking down at the remains in the soft glow of the mana lamp around the workshops central pillar. I walked a few steps down and Cell finally looked up at me. We looked at each other for a moment until I felt a spirit connection coming from my familiar. He sent the image of Salamede through and the feeling of sadness.

I walked forward and patted his shoulder.

‘She needs some space. But we need to see if the necromancers are still out there. Now, get to work repairing the copper sphere and any ripped bags of holding. We have work to do.”

For the next hour, I was putting together crafts from pieces of bark gathered outside the troll’s nest. I fashioned a bark craft that made wide stone slabs and went outside to place them around the tower. They were quickly placed and had some odd corners, but the eight-foot-tall blocks of grey stone provided a crude defense against a frontal assault.

When the dwarves came by with the goods I needed, I handed them a few gold coins, which they took greedily. Once I had the goods resting on the main floor, I finished the final slab of stone and had Cell down in the basement replacing the bags of holdings in the copper sphere while I made the components for the new suit. I made several crafts to mold the parts for an electric actuator and copper wires. These were more delicate, precise pieces rather than the big hulking parts of the air pistons or copper spheres, which meant they weren’t as mana intensive. After retrieving and re-attaching its copper sphere from its leather bag, I used the air piston finish a few plates of armor.

It took near into the afternoon, but the first major piece’s finally came together.

The trees were retreating back into the earth and hiding in the treetops wasn’t going to be an option soon enough. Changing my crafts to match the coming battlefield, I used the air piston to make a crude armor of what looked like wide metal pants with interlocking metal plates for the upper back. After working through a few issues with the plates grinding against each other, the finished product had a look similar to a beefier regular knights lower section but with magically hardened upper torso of wood armor. The joint work with metal was too extensive to reshape afterwards and this wood was almost as good as low-end iron. It was finished out with a few metal plates on the back and a simple iron helmet that covered the whole head save for a few holes dotted around the face portion.

Aside from the wide legs that would house the wheels, the biggest distinction was the bigger back portion. It had a few extra layers of iron plates around what would house the two copper spheres, mine and one salvaged from Salamede’s suit. I was looking inside the hunched back of the suit and layering the cotton around thin copper wires on the main floor when I noticed something.

“The voltage from the spheres is somewhere between… wait” Looking around, I noticed almost all the ambient mana was gone. Sighing, I went to the hatch and opened it, making sure not to disturb any of the pieces of metal on the floor being quietly molded by the piece of bark beneath them. Even with my reckless intake of ambient mana, doing so much so quickly was taking its toll on the mana supply. Heading down into the basement, I rummaged through the bag of holding that held all of our goods.

After getting a quick granola bar and munching on it, I fished out the last two mana crystals. I looked at the glass like substances the size of a thumb in my palm. These were not going to be enough, not nearly enough.

Going back to the main floor I went up to the new suit and the sphere in its chest. More specifically, Cell’s sphere. My familiar was currently getting used to the metal body and housing as he stayed in the hollow chest portion.

‘Cell’ I said in a spirit connection, the shimmering color in the crystal turned to me. ‘Go outside and absorb as much ambient mana as you can from the nest and release it in here. We’re almost done.’ A slight nod and he was out of the suit and flew downstairs with a burst of wind. I cracked my two last mana crystals and put them between the pieces of bark as the mana leaked out of them. There were two metal pieces I needed done right now and fed it mana directly from my body before taking the finished product out of it bark cradle.

I followed Cell down into the workshop and did a few electric spells on the magnet making table opposite of the basement entrance as I heard Cell going off down the tunnel to my right. My task finished, I headed back upstairs to finish out the electric motor and wheels. The hardest part was making the alternating wire design to make the central threaded shaft turn properly, but once I got that down, I had an electric actuator that would extend and retract the wheels below my feet. A large spring around the central shaft with some bracing and it would survive a good drop without sending the central shaft skewering through the metal frame.

Having an electric motor to turn the wheels would be too heavy with the weight of the thin iron plates already pushing the acceptable weight burden. The solution was crude magical thrusters sticking out of the back. My design was six wooden tubes encased in iron with alternating fire and air summoning enchantments along the wooden inside. Having six along the back side, two below the shoulders, two in the hip section, and two in between, provided some stability and the triangles of manipulation allowed the super-heated air from one thruster to tilt the suit forward slightly even as it was anchored to the floor and the crude wood mannequin within showed no stress or strain.

That part finished; I went onto completing the wheels. Being the least intensive part to make, I went out and crafted it in the troll’s nest as Cell passed me by with a fresh load of mana to unload onto the greedy bark pieces scatted along the main floor. Going out into the woods proper, I took a moment to wipe the sweat from my brown with my white bandanna. Burning out the needed pieces from a few hard oaks and pine trees, I brought them back into my shop as the early afternoon sun shined up above.

The general design was a harder oak core to make a two-inch-thick wheel with an outer ring of softer wood. Using mana to grow plants could change their physical properties and one such change was in pine trees durability. When fed enough mana, its predestined change was to make it more like a hard rubber. But I had to be careful since feeding it too much mana would make it sprout bristles that would shoot out and cut deep into unprotected flesh.

In the middle of this wheel I put an iron stake that connected to the actuator shaft above. A light press didn’t push the wheel up and when I lifted the suit off of the mannequin, it only pressed the wheel down an inch when I put it on. Not willing to crush my skull on a stone wall, I took it outside while I bid Cell to make two tubes like the one that I made with my regular armaments.

Standing out in the middle of the woods, I activated the spirit connection to make the strand of cotton over a copper tab around the lower end of my spine contract. A soft whir and the wheels came down and lifted me up. I said a silent prayer then activated the two boosters on the lower end of my back. The surrounding trees in the early afternoon sun gently came forward as I took on the pace of something between walking and crawling.

Activating the boosters around the midsection brought that up to a speed above a sprint as the trees around me went in and out of my vision quickly with the wind blowing across my face. Looking around, I went towards a relatively straight path. Activating all the thrusters sped me forward so fast I nearly crashed into the dirt with only a quick recovery at the last second saving me from eating dirt. Satisfied, I went back inside to the basement.

Cell was there working on the two tubes and pieces of vines that would allow him to aim the shoulder mounted cannons. I went back to get my cross bow, the thing hadn’t seen much use recently, but it was effective and more importantly, it was available right now. Taking out the metal core from its wooden frame, I slapped it on the right arm of the suit and attached the end pulley to another actuator. After attaching the right wires to the actuator just below it and covering the copper strands in cotton insulation, I tested it out. Sure enough, it shot out the bolt and the soft whirr of the actuator was heard as it pulled the inner spring back into place allowing for another shot in less than a second. The shoulder strap with metal tipped arrows just above meant I could almost replace the ammo almost as quickly as it fired.

While I typically espoused melee, I was almost certainly going to be going up against the undead in the coming fight and between limited bolts and ambient mana, some up and close options were in order. I crafted a crude iron hammer that came up to chest level. The simple wooden shaft was fitted with an iron bottom square and a big metal top with bracers around the mana hardened wood. I thought about adding shrubbery for stealth, but it was going to be dark when I arrived, and the appearance would too similar to a pandego, which was not a connection I wanted any potential passerby to make.

On the main floor my creation was now reaching its completion as Cell placed vines below the two long tubes of iron coated wood on the shoulders. The vines were placed in between the shoulder blades and attached to the bottom to allow Cell to aim them. The legs were finished with smooth interlocking iron plates while the hard-oak top maintained a similar armor aesthetic even as its dark color stood out as wood. Several plates of iron along the back housed the soft whirring of the two copper spheres that powered the electric components.

After shutting my door and sealing it with stone, I got the suit ready with Cell in the middle chest section. I slung a bag of holding with food, wine skins filled with water, and that map I first got from the Front patrol over my shoulder as I headed back out towards the place where this all started. It took a lot longer this time around, but looking up in the trees as I zoomed through the forest, I could see severe curling along the trees branches with some resembling wheels more than lines and the trees themselves got odd twisting spirals running around their mid-sections. And if I was a betting man, I’d say they were shorter than before too.

I stopped in a cave to rest for the night around midnight and woke to a plain breakfast of nuts and water. As he sat on my lap in the morning fog, Cell seemed to enjoy the bland meal more for the experience of eating rather than the taste of it as the nuts went into his black mass with faint crushing sounds. Before heading back into the forest, we took a few minutes to practice the cannons aim under the grey cast of a cloudy sky.

After blasting hot slag into a large stone boulder to the left of the cave for a few minutes, we headed back out onto the trail. As I blew a hole through the morning fog along the back woods trail north, following several prominent boulders and roadways that I had noted on my previous visit north, I finally came upon the undead.

Unfortunately, I was a good hour away from the necromancer’s den when I met them.

The shambling dead meandered through the woods in between the trees in sparse few numbers. When they spotted me zipping through the tree line, several changed their plodding steps to intercept me. I swerved to the right of a big tree where a single corpse was walking towards me, a rotted woman with a missing jaw.

‘Cell, try out the cannons.’ I told my familiar.

There was a shifting weight on my shoulders as the tubes swiveled in place. A loud whoosh of super-heated air and two large pieces of red hot slag shot out towards the woman. One missed and hit a patch of grass beside her while the other smacked her dead center and did… nothing.

No. Worse than nothing.

Her body seemed to absorb the hot slag, dissipating the material and as it reverted to mana, the cloud of light blue particles absorbed into her rotten flesh. In the early morning sun, I could see the pale waxy skin refold itself over cuts and gashes and even partially restore her jaw. More importantly, it seemed to rejuvenate her as she then sprinted towards me.

Suppressing a curse, I hefted the metal hammer and zoomed to her right as I took her head off with a single blow. Moving past the corpse, I saw more coming down the hill to my right. Looking further up the trail ahead, I saw a dip in the woods that had none of the undead in it but the path was quickly getting closed off by a swarm of rotting flesh. Activating the third booster, I took off like a proper vehicle. The wind got almost painful as the trees and approaching corpses blurred in the sides of my eyes. Getting past the undead, I slowed down just as went into the dip. Even so, I got a falling sensation as I went a good foot off the ground and landed back down with a thud.

Going through the forest further, it got both better and worse. The dead seemed to be moving out like a wave, which meant there were even fewer left behind once I had gotten past that mass. But what they left behind were freshly picked bones. I saw a few bears between trees and a few stags at the bottom of steep drops, all picked clean of flesh. As were the few woodsman I came across. Valiant fights were put up by both man and beast, but the dead’s sheer numbers rendered valor down to foolishness.

Occasionally stopping to consult the map and my memory, it took until mid-morning before I came up the creek I had previously followed down. Down and met Lilly. Pushing aside the bad memory, I trekked further up the woods, making sure to go slow enough not to create any noise as I moved through the rapidly retreating trees. Going around the bend I came upon a giant hole in the ground. It was a long scar in the earth with an upturned tree on the opposite side and as I looked inside, I saw the hard stone of a familiar cavern. That and the churned mud of thousands of feet coming out the front of it told me what this hole was.

Going a bit further ahead, I saw further rends in the earth, both near and far as deep gouges were seen scattered around the forest with no real end point. Using an air spell to deaden the noise of my approach, I stalked up the creek, eventually arriving at the underground entrance. Peering behind a tree, I saw a carriage in the front of the opened door beneath a small hill with its cover of vines and bushes pulled back. By the left of the door, was a large pile of black robes and to its right was a pile of bones. Two large horse corpses remained tied to the carriage and several bodies were strewn about with only a few tattered ribbons of flesh about the bones.

The carriage canopy had its grey canopy torn to shreds with blood all over the wooden bed. Dead silence hung over the otherwise beautiful glade as I waited for a solid minute before turning back. Further down to the left was another rend in the earth leading into the cavern.

‘Cell, scout ahead.’ I told my familiar. His black sphere squirmed out of the center of my wooden chest and flew into the dark rend. He clung to the ceiling and scooted along its surface as he gripped the uneven stone. After going out of my sight for a solid minute, he returned with a general impression of safety. Lowering myself into the darkness, I headed further ahead with soft steps. Going along the grey stone wall with the shafts of light from the still morning sun coming through in random places along the ceiling, the only thing that calmed my nerve was the total silence as I moved with the air spell blocking the noise of my approach towards the necromancer base.

The wide iron doors still had that rend in the right side from my previous visit but when I pushed against them, they remained firmly in place. Using an earth spell to dig a small hole under the doors, All I got for my effort was some stones and dirt falling into the hole I dug.

“They collapsed it.” I said to the empty air. Strumming my fingers along the stone wall, I decided to check out the carriage. Going back out through the hole and up to the site of the massacre, I saw there was nothing but another shredded corpse in it with a few bits of torn clothing. Down to my last option, I just hoped these people were emptying the place and set off a trap somehow. Shifting through the pile of black robes, I found various toys, weapons, and other small assorted goods. Then I came upon the one with a silver crown above it. Looking at it in the clear mid-day sun, I noticed the robe below it had a few silver strands around the headdress and the material was of far finer silk compared to the regular cloth of the others. Inside its robe pocket was another journal, a fine thing of greyish green with fine gold embroidery. Wasting no time, I opened it.

‘Three days in this hole. Three days of helping dig dirt because these blasted weaklings can’t build in stone. Half blind is what I call humans, not even able to make out a bird in the trees near a mountain or lift a boulder but these are what I’m cursed to work with if the quests reward is to be mine and mine alone. Once finished, our family will no longer have to bear having that stain around. Father has talked at length about how to get rid of him and the prospect of having the resources to be rid of that deformity may dull his anger’

The next few pages went over the construction period and all the kidnapping and rituals. The actual magic used in the rituals was something that was apparently given in a separate journal already sent and this portion was just on the timing involved in sacrificing the ‘fuel’. But it was not all lost as it was near the later portion that some critical information came through.

‘The altar provided by the package is starting to wear and my affairs at court have been as trying as ever but now that I have brief reprieve from my obligations, I can finally start overseeing the rituals personally. I have kept these doing all in the strictest confidence and will be unknown to anyone not here. Anyone but you my dear. When the ritual is started, dear Abina, I will send this journal to you in case anything should happen.

I fear nothing but the lack of greatness my love, as you well know. But the new help is skittish and prone to taking shortcuts if what I’ve seen of him is any indication. If the worst should come to pass, this journal, along with the other I sent you, will guide you to completing’

the word ‘my’ was scribbled out.

‘should I say ‘our’ work. Be well my love.’

I sat there just breathing for a moment. Sure, there were questions, but more than anything there was this feeling of a weight falling off of my shoulders.

No one knew.

Anyone who knew about the ritual was dead, anyone who could track what had happened was dead and I was free.

I tasted that air, as sweet and fresh as the day it first assaulted my senses. No, better than.

“All, right.” I said after the relief faded. “Time to head back”

Putting the journal in my pack for further study and throwing away the crown, I zipped back towards home. My elated mood soured when I saw the tattered remains of a woodsman that had been wondering about laying against a tree. The path forward was paved in grueling work, but the path was finally clear of that loathsome bramble. It took a few hours but when I met back up with the wave of undead, they were a bit more scattered this time around as the wave became thinner from the undead chasing after something else.

Their innate detection meant they knew I was coming but it did them no good as I had gotten comfortable using the three boosters and zipped by the rotting mass with a slight swerve being the only toll paid. When I had travelled a bit further, I saw what had drawn the dead away from the forest. In the early afternoon sun, I saw a line of carriages blocked along the road by a small squad of the undead who had gotten ahead of the main pack and blocked these fleeing unfortunates. Men were trying to shove them off the road, but they were a group of farmers with hoes, shovels and any other farming tools that the poor residents had on hand.

They needed help and I needed to run a few tests.

I went through the underbrush on the side of the road with a loud wrenching of wood. The scared women and children on the carriages gasped and cried as the lumbering form with metal legs and wooden torso came out of the woods but before the men could properly react to my presence, my wheels had taken me across the road and into the thick of it. The sheer momentum behind my hammers swing sent two of the undead careening over the other side of the forest, with one being cut fully in half.

With the men pulling back, I was now allowed to conduct my tests. I lifted my hammer with a metal spell and brought it down on a shambler close to the front carriages horse. The spell broke apart, but the momentum of the hammer remained and crushed the rotting skull in. Then I used a spell to mold some of the surrounding dirt around the hammers bottom and used another earth spell to lift the hammer. It wobbled and swayed as I ran it into the corpse currently walking up to me. The hammer knocked it down but the spell holding the dirt bottom stayed intact until the undead corpse touched it as it wobbled against it, and the earth spell holding it up disappeared with the hammer landing with a solid thud.

Quickly picking up the hammer and bashing its skull, I looked around while Cell used his own spells to remove the dirt case and saw two more undead approaching the caravan from the front. Zipping forward, I reduced them to paste when I hit them at full speed. A cry resounded from the back, so I left the staring villagers and headed to the source. A woman had been fending off one corpse who had come up the back but it had knocked her down. I raised my bolt and shot the thing laying over the woman but as the bolt carried it off her, I saw it had taken a chunk out of her neck.

Moving quickly and ignoring the cries of her children in the carriage, I put my hand to the wound as the woman’s brown hair was laying in the mud and her now pale face of freckles looked at me with a plea. I used a healing spell and gradually the wound healed. Looking up I saw the horse to her carriage had a few bite marks and scratches as the wounded animal skittishly looked around. Walking up to the animal, the small boy and girl who had been crying in the carriage went over to cry around their mother as she got up from the dirt.

The men were coming down along the caravan now. One particularly panicked man came running down the line of wagons to come meet his family sitting in the dirt, paying no attention to the straw hat that fell from his head.

“Bess! What were you thinking?” He reprimanded as he hugged the woman with unshed tears in his eyes.

“I had to, Paul! If they killed the horse, we’ve died just the same.” She said with tears in her own eyes.

“I hate to interrupt.” I said, drawing the gazes of everyone around, including those in the carriages. “but you still might if you don’t get moving. Anyone else back there left to save?” I said with a thumb pointed back towards the coming mass of rotting flesh.

“I think the Gesh family-“

“No, they spent too long trying to save their silverware. Saw them getting munched on as we pulled out along the road.” The father said sadly.

“Any other villages out here we need to be worried about?” I asked. It was a portly man in the carriage further ahead who answered with his brown mustache dripped in sweat.

“Creeks End was the closest to wherever those things came from, but the messenger said they had all made it too Dunwhich. We’re the first village close enough to the academy to head there, which I suspect everyone will be soon enough. It came real early this year but it’s close enough that we wasn’t totally unprepared.”

“Papa, I thought the undead come after the trees go into the ground?” The little freckled girl in a plain brown dress asked her hugging father.

“A question for another day, but we need to make good on the time this gentleman has given us.” The father said.

That got everyone moving with renewed vigor. After the peasants got back into their carriages, the caravan started going down the road again. Deciding to see the task through to its end, I accompanied them along their journey. Along the way we saw other caravans going down the road and some roadside inns being emptied of their goods as owners packed up and left in a mad hustle.

The dead weren’t especially dangerous to a determined force, but I was certain that when the healing magic flooded the earth, they would wear down all but the sturdiest defenses. To say nothing of the problems their innate sense of where people were could cause. It took us until late afternoon before we got back to the academy town with the faint orange tinge in the sky as the stars started peering over the heavens.

I started to move as we came onto a crowded section to hide away in the woods, but it was at that moment of sheer habit, when I was considering how I would go around the river and get to the trolls nest to hide the identity of the ‘helpful suit of armor’, that I remembered that I didn’t need to keep in the shadows. The feeling of not needing to hide anymore was exnihilating as I moved back onto the road.

When I had travelled further down, a line of guards worked the carriage canopy’s clogging the road as the line leading up to and over the bridge brought all other traffic to a halt, aside from the line of people walking alongside the edge of the bridge. The water under the bridge flowed peacefully as I looked over the shoddy woodwork of the houses and the towering white wall of the academy with its central tower adorned with red tile.

A king does not skulk in the shadows when he enters his domain and I no longer had any need to lower myself when going into my castle. Besides, while this gave away that I had a secret exit out of the tower if anyone was paying attention to me, the tunnel to the troll nest was going to have to be filled once enough eyes fell on my little corner of the world anyway. Strengthening my position was going to be more important in the coming days than keeping that weakness in place to use as an escape route.

Coming up to the bridge proper, I went on ahead as the peasants I had helped waved and cheered me goodbye. A few panicked shrieks and scurrying followed in my wake as people moved out of my way. The line of guards raised their swords and shields but as I came up and removed my helmet, they all got curious expressions mixed with confusion. The captain of the guard with a thick black beard and a white feather in his helm came forward.

“Those eyes. Eli, if I’m not mistaken? You were the crafter Tansen sent us to find for nearly a week.” He said, looking me up and down with his brown eyes and tan crinkly skin showing in between the steel plates of his blue and white striped uniform.

“Correct, Captain.” I responded in a light tone.

“Well, we can let you through, but I don’t know if there’s enough room to let you pass in the walking lane of the bridge.” He said casually.

“Ah, no problem captain.” I said, turning to the right and down the slope leading into the churning water of the river. I summoned a thick floor of stone jutting out from the side of the bridge. Leaving the stone behind me to disappear, I had to go across with my regular walking pace as the people to my left whispered and started at the hulking form walking ‘beside’ them. As I came down the opposite side of the bridge, I lowered the wheels and sped up. All the carriages were heading down to the left side of the town with its larger warehouses while the right side had less traffic as workers focused more on the heavier harbor side.

Maneuvering around the occasional pedestrian, the fading sun filtered over the rooftops as I moved through the stone streets. Moving around the bend in the road that hugged around the academy’s outer wall, I pushed all three boosters to full throttle. The white of the academy wall quickly flew out of my left eyes vision as the few houses behind this side of the academy flew by. With the thick slabs of stone surrounding my home, it took me a good minute to actually get into my home as I used a spell to knock the slab down.

Walking over that slab, I felt my earlier notion of a king coming into his castle was an inappropriate comparison to make. Surely, no king or queen could have felt as regal nor as free. Opening the door, I got out of the suit and put it back over the mannequin and bid Cell to start filling the tunnel while I started cleaning and making some improvements to the suit while going over future plans in my head.

I fell into a kind of reverie as molded iron, calculations of voltages, and the molding of technology to supplement the human form took shape. As it always has and always will. But this symphony of the workshop was interrupted by a knock on the door. Pulling away from the actuator I was adjusting in the leg of the suit, I opened the door to see Salamede’s mother in a plain grey dress as the sky above was mostly stars and bits of orange from the retreating day.

“Hey lad. I’m here on account of my daughter.” She said.

I gulped as I leaned forward with expectation and dread in my gut.

“I saw you coming down the road with bits of the undead on your suit, so I don’t think I need to tell you about that. What I do l have to tell you about is that my daughter went off to help one of the three Kelton villages between here and Holstead.”

“Why? The people I was with said that everyone had gotten out” I asked as my stomach twisted into knots.

“The humans got out, the Keltons are still trying to get everything together. The three villages contain the food and animals we need to make it through necrosis. Typically, dangerous stuff like fighting the undead is seen as men’s work, but she just grabbed a wooden hammer and ran off to help.” She grumbled.

“What are they doing now?” I asked.

“The men went out to try and slow down the coming horde while we women have been tending to the wounded and getting things ready. I was so busy putting up a pen she was long gone before I realized the foolish girl had left. Not that I can totally blame her. Right now, the general consensus is more about how much we will have to starve come winter rather than how much we will feast.’ She said in a bitter resigned tone.

“All right. I’ll see what I can do. Where am I headed?”

“The first road to the left on the main road with two villages on two opposite small paths pulling off the main road. The one in most danger, the one that has the cheaper land to hold our community’s animals is further down that path. Thanks. You know, you’re not so bad kid.” She said before turning around.

‘I hope Salamede can come to agree with that’ I thought to myself as I turned back into my home.

The iron pants of the suit had been slightly buffed to proper plates of fitted armor and the wood I had gotten into the sides now resembled proper plate armor. The mid-section was more flexible than before and I could lean, swerve, and duck with the full upper range of motion even as the legs were a little stiff. I removed the shoulder cannons because they would be dead weight in this fight and instead took several iron bars and crudely folded them into a shaft as I put the suit back on.

I didn’t have a lot of time to shape the long iron pieces into a solid piece so when Cell came out of the basement, I told him what was happening. He responded with his usual excitement when it came to fights and used a wind spell to shoot himself into the suit’s chest. After donning the helm again, I moved out the door and slung the hammer over my shoulder. Cell continued the work of molding the iron bricks into a solid crude bar. Simple strength would do better against this enemy since it was immune to magic and there were only so many bolts that I could make.

Zooming down the road towards the bridge, I noticed a group of staff members arguing with some of the guards as torches now provided light on the toll booth and in some of the guard’s hands. When one of the guards pointed towards me, the group of white robes turned as I zipped past them. I heard a few vague yelps, but the toll master had left the bar blocking access up due to the influx of refugees and I slipped through with no hassle. Maneuvering around the long line of carriages, I followed the instructions and eventually came up to the two points where the two roads split off from the main offshoot. The way was clogged with carts as Kelton women herded children or held torches to drive back the blackness of the approaching night, young boys lifted sacks, and carts were pulled by those too old to fight but still had just enough energy for this task.

They made way for me as I moved through the packed road. Some children in carts shrunk back into the pile of goods being pulled or stood taller to stare at the odd suit zipping by on wheels under its feet. Coming out of the crowd, I increased my speed and in a few minutes with running all three boosters, I heard shouting and screaming ahead of the night draped woods.

An open field revealed itself as a shapeless mass of foul-smelling flesh moved in and around the dark woods to fall upon the crowd of torch carrying goat men to my right. The men were trying to hold back the tide of flesh with pitchfork, hoe, and shovel. Behind them was a wide array of pigs, chickens, horses, and goats all hiding in terror among the stables and away from the fences that had already been knocked to the ground. I couldn’t see if anyone had died but I could make out several indistinct forms among the starlight making their way towards me.

Wasting no time, I fired up my boosters as I bashed three of the forms approaching me with a wide swing of the hammer. The sickening crunch of breaking bone and ripping flesh sounded out but just bashing them wasn’t going to work with numbers like these. I used an earth spell to summon a big wave of stone magic that gripped the dirt under the topsoil and made a wave of shifting earth high above my head before the spell dissipated due to touching the undead.

That got the dead’s attention, but I did it again as rotten bodies went flying through the air. Putting two wide walls in their path, the onslaught stalled then resumed in a trickle as the undead had to maneuver the two S shaped walls while jostling with their fellows before getting to the sweet flesh beyond. There was still a fair number attacking the Kelton farmers, but the interruption in their numbers and the mauling of my hammer provided a moment of respite as the last had its head run through with the pitchfork of a larger muscular Kelton man with black fur, curling ram horns over his white shirt and brown pants.

“Hello, odd one” The mans rough audible voice sounded out as I backed up into the group, the rotten bits of flesh and bone on my wooden chest now showing a ghastly visage in the torchlight.

“I’m looking for a Kelton woman. Are there any here?” I asked him.

“In the carriage.” He said with a hand pointing towards the back. “She’s hurt but should make it. We were thinking of moving the injured out, but the road was blocked.”

“Get the carriage moving then get the animals out. I will throw up some more walls to slow them down as we retreat.” I instructed as I hefted my hammer to smash one of the shambling corpses who had gotten ahead of his pack.

“The families may not be out yet.” A voice behind me objected.

“It’s better to be there to warn them than to be eaten and let them find out when they’re getting their faces torn off.” I yelled back when the shapes in the darkness started fully moving over and around the stone slopes.

It took a moment, but I heard the stomping of feet and opening of stable doors behind me as the carriage took off, it’s open bed still too dark to allow me to see its passengers. I used my speed to zoom in front of the coming horde and take any of them that I could with a swing of my hammer or crude iron bar. As the animals started a mad stampede down the road, dogs barked around the herd to get them to go into the right direction with the horde changing its direction towards this buffet of flesh. I had Cell create the spell for the sloping dirt wall this time as I tried to pace my spell usage. The surrounding men pushed panicked pigs and horses down the road even as some of them formed a line to safeguard the retreat.

I had to weave and smash for nearly ten minutes, often only getting a brief flash of torchlight to properly see my enemies, when the last few carriages of chickens and pregnant cows made off down the road. My arms burned and my lungs gulped for air greedily whenever I got back from a swerve at the mass of indistinct limbs and occasional faces. Whatever my efforts, we were losing this fight as the enemy pressed ever onward, taking the field inch by inch and only giving it back for a few seconds when I slammed into them with swinging iron.

“Champion!” An older Kelton with a dirty leather jacket, pants and straw hat called from the line of men who were pulling back. “The families are done. We got some trees blocking the way which will give the animals enough time. Let’s get out of here.”

I nodded with a tired sigh and went down the road with the men who kept up a light jog. Eventually, we came up to a tree in the road and I saw several more felled trees along the forest. The last of which was being felled by a duo of strong Kelton men with axes. As one last bit of insurance, I used an earth spell to mold a quick and dirty wall in the middle of the road to force the dead into going around it and stumble around the woods through the choke points in between the trees.

I used my first two boosters to keep a bit ahead of the Kelton men, but when it was clear none of them needed my help keeping up, I went full speed ahead.

When I got past the animals, it took a few more seconds until I got to the cart carrying the injured. Coming up the left side, I went down to two boosters before I called the people laying about the floor and seats.

“Hello, is Salamede in here?” I called causing a slight stir among the men.

‘Eli!’ A spirit connection said.

Looking around, I found Salamede looking at me from across the carriage on its right side as she leaned against the bench. I fell back slightly then sped up as I went around the back of the carriage to go to her side. Her blue dress was torn, and I saw several gashes along her shoulder and what looked like a really nasty bite wound that took out a bit of her thigh.

‘Eli, I’m sorry. I-‘

‘You’re hurt.’ I responded as I had Cell use a healing spell on her

She took my hand like it was a lifeline.

‘When the undead had me pinned, all I could think about was the last time I screamed at you.’ Salamede said, sounding hysterical.

‘Salamede’ I said as I took her face in my hand. Looking around the carriage, I decided we needed more privacy. Lifting her out of the carriage, I zoomed forward with the driver not saying a word to me as he pushed the horses further on. Salamede was pressed up against my chest and while the breastplate was too thick to feel her, my arms felt her shaking.

Going on further ahead, I waited until we were just around the bend to the academy town to change direction. As I went off the road and behind a few trees, I looked Salamede up and down to inspect her now healed wounds. When we finally got to a good spot, Salamede got down but she immediately hugged me even as the bits of the undead clung to us both.

We stood there for a while, savoring each other’s presence and ignoring our noses until Salamede established another spirit connection.

‘Eli, thank you.’ She said.

‘I would have helped if you had asked.’ I said chidingly.

‘Would you? You would help someone who had been such an uncaring ass?’ She said as she turned her head up towards me. The failing light provided little illumination, but the general outline was enough to give me a mental picture of her white eyes, gentle snout with white stripe, and soft feminine curves.

‘You were not. I put you through hell, and for no reason whatsoever. Don’t think I didn’t notice you twisting from nightmares the night after our first huge battle.’ I said as the painful lance of what I had put this poor woman through reignited itself.

‘Eli… we need to talk about what happened. But right now, I just want to feel you being here with me.’ She said as she stopped shaking but hugged me tighter. We stood in silence for a few more minutes, just comforting and being comforted by each other before some unspoken agreement was reached and we pulled away. Another moment of looking at each other and we turned around and walked back onto the road and into town.

The bridge was now cluttered with animals and Kelton carts as the previous human refugees had since moved to their destinations. Along the front of the road was an expanding wall of grey stone. Scattered about the place were various soldiers using wooden tools to twist and pull the earth into a solid fort as the manipulated earth began to form moats around the front of the quickly establishing wall that hugged the head of the bridge and some of the water front under the stone arch.

Eventually, the crowd of women and children were on the safer side of the bridge while the herd of farm animals was cajoled and pulled to the other side under the rows of torches lining the bridges sides. Waving and bidding Salamede to go ahead, I went off towards the center of the rising entrenchment with the captain from earlier directing work crews and supplies. He raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t seem so confident in his position as to dismiss me out right.

“Lord mage, please get to a safer location. There are a lot of people who would get upset at us for letting a caster get into such dangerous circumstances.” He said with his brown eyes looking back over the bridge towards the academy with trepidation even as sweat slicked his mustache and forehead in the torchlight of the passing workmen.

“‘They’ did not show any such concern when I was a crafter so ‘They’ can go cry into a pillow about it.” His eyes shot up in shock as his throat showed a gulping of saliva but I pressed on past whatever objection he was preparing “I went out to protect a fair maiden and by god I’m going to make sure she is still safe being here.” He looked over to the leaving back side of Salamede with a raised eyebrow as I looked over past the new wall and saw a few men along the bridges side in poor bandages splotched with blood. They looked exhausted from the fighting and their light gear suggested they were a part of a delaying party sent to hold up the coming hoard. Striding up to them, I used a healing spell on each of them, ignoring bruises and other light injuries that might mark them fit for duty if healed, and instead focused on bits of exposed ribs or gnarled hands that might not have been salvageable otherwise.

Most sputtered in bewilderment at the generosity while others simply kept their heads down and uttered small thanks with tears in their eyes. Looking at some of the carriages coming down the bridge to my side, I saw long carts of spikes and long metal strips that looked like half disks designed to cut off the fingers of any of the corpses that tried to pull themselves over the wall.

The captain was off to my left barking more orders, even as I saw his eyes catch glimpses of me now and then. He then paid full attention to me as I finished healing the men and walked up to him.

“Captain,” My voice reverberated in the metal helm covering my face. “You’re going to put wooden spikes in the moat and ring the wall with those metal strips, correct?”

He nodded with the feather in his cap swaying from the motion.

“Well, leave digging the spikes holes to me. My magic can get the spikes in the ground far faster than digging and filling a hole out with shovels will.” I stated, not offered, stated as I went over to the arriving carriage and took out some spikes.

“Lord mage. I must insist that-“ A group of men came down the road with a few splashes of blood and wounds about their bodies.

“Joel’s group.” The captain said quietly “I sent them out not a half an hour ago”. He wiped his sweating brow with an armored hand. He turned his worried gaze towards me before stepping towards the approaching group.

“Report!” He barked.

“The villages have been cleared captain,” The leading soldier said, “But the dead are closer than we thought.”

The captain nodded and bid the men to get back inside.

“It would appear I’m not in a position to refuse your aid. Do what you can.” He said with a tired sigh then went over to supervise the construction of the new sections of wall, now around midway through covering the bridge entrance.

‘Cell, I’m pretty beat so if you wouldn’t mind doing the spell work while making it look like it was coming through my hands.’ I told my familiar in a spirit connection. I worked around some of the men in plain jeans and bare chests who were using wide plates of wood with handles on the sides to summon stone blocks that other men would have to center in place or cover with dirt. For my part, I dug out small circular holes and filled them when the spike was in place. A process that took less than half a minute compared to the near several minutes the men with shovels could pull off.

When the first shambling corpse was spotted down the road, we were putting in the finishing touches on the long lines of metal strips along the top of the walls as the men used wooden blocks with enchantments to mold stone around the strips of metal to hold them in place. A few soldiers went out to slow down the coming tide of putrid flesh with spears and shields. Another minute went by before the last magical stone was summoned and fixed in place with magical stonework.

I was standing on top of the middle of the wall with a set of stairs behind me as the soldiers who went out to slow down the horde came back through the door below me. The undead ran headlong into the pit of spikes in front of the wall and kept coming until the corpses had filled it enough to allow the ones in the back to come forward and crawl over their comrades to slam against the proper wall.

Long spears came down off the walls in wide swings, taking the undead in the head as a small cheer went up. The captain to my left started barking out more orders to the assembled men behind the gate.

“All right lads, the dangerous part is over, but the hard part isn’t. Get some wood and get a fire going. We have to have these body’s burned to ash before daybreak at the latest.” He yelled down below. Then he turned towards me with a sense of reverence in his eyes.

“Thank you, Caster Eli. We may have had to send more men out if you weren’t around to speed things up. It’s always bloody and dangerous, but still better than not having the wall up.” He said with the night’s exhaustion plain in his tone and face.

“Is anyone else out there?” I asked.

“Aye but they’re either dead now or they headed down to the military base between here and the main highway. There are problems but don’t trouble yourself over these things. You’ve done more than enough and if you die from a bite or exhaustion the mages will hang me., your previous objections doing me no good when they string me up with the noose.” He said with gratitude plain in his brown eyes.

A simple nod and I headed off down to the ground and around men who were bringing in large piles of wood around a bonfire at the end of the bridge. Moving around the incoming men, I went towards the point where the bridge was closest to the river and had Cell pull some water to me. After washing myself off in the stream of pulled water, I used small flame spells to burn away the bits of flesh that had gotten in between the joints of my metal legs or wooden torso.

My task finished and left smelling more like a fireplace than a rotten slab of meat, I left the fort area and went across the bridge. The view of the camp was blocked by the bridge and as I came up its slope the rest of the town came into view. The main road went straight ahead towards the academy with dwarven and regular shops along both sides. Some students stood in and around the porches of shops to look over the river or at the men moving goods over the bridge while the peasants skittered about with worried whispering among the crowd on the ground level in front of the bridge.

I was content to pass through the mass of humanity without a word, but along the way a plump peasant woman in a plain brown dress waved me down, her hair hidden in a bonnet and her brown eyes showed a frenzied worry.

“Sir! What’s the word? Is we safe?” She asked with the other people looking at me with trepidation.

“We’re safe. The wall is up and they’re making a fire for the corpses.” I said as I pushed further ahead. The whispering broke into outright loud discussion but over the crowd of heads I saw the blond hair and heart shaped face of Veronica on one of the porches with the other students. She looked at me with a question in her blue eyes but from the dismissive looks from the other students, the fact I was a quad mage was not a widely known, or accepted fact among my classmates.

Fuck them. They’ll all know soon enough and… I don’t care.

Looking over the white and blue striped robes of the students, aside from Veronica, I couldn’t see a single person who hadn’t spat at me, mocked me, or otherwise made me miserable during my time as a student. I had thought to rub my magical status in their faces later on. When the extent of my abilities became known I had wanted to repay their kindness in turn but, looking at them now, I realized that I just didn’t care. I have Salamede, Cell, and maybe a light friendship with Veronica and Jeff. The simmering resentment I had felt for the rest of them had cooled down to simple indifference.

I walked further down the right side of the road, with a lot of the Kelton’s also staying around the right side of the town. They were going into houses with small packages and clothes from the carts they had brought. The occasional torch provided the only light as the farm animals were put in pens in large yards behind the clusters of homes.

“Champion!” someone called from the left.

I gave a light nod and the men who I had help save started clapping, as did their grateful families.

“Champion! Come drink and rest” Said someone to my right. Some tables were set up on the small harbor in this side of town and on one of them was the older Kelton man with a straw hat and the Kelton with a black fur head and buff body. A candle was at each table with plates of bread and mugs of what I assumed to be beer.

When I came over at sat down at the right corner of the table, it was the buff Kelton who started the conversation with his rough voice no doubt being heard by the surrounding tables.

“Thank you again, sir mage. I would ask why you helped us, but my mother’s paddle smacked enough manners into me to not appear ungrateful for unexpected help.” He said with a swig from his mug. The surrounding goat faces around the table, illuminated in the candlelight, showed varying degrees of outright or quite agreement.

“My good friend was very upset at the turn of events and decided to intervene herself. I had helped the humans coming through earlier and thought the worst was over, and it was her mother who brought your plight to my attention” I responded mildly as a Kelton woman came by with a tray of beers and bread, which she set a pair of before me.

“What human woman would care about us?” The Kelton maid said as she laid down another plate of bread, her soft brown fur showing a raised eyebrow below curved ivory horns. However, it was a portlier Kelton man with a blue suit jacket, white undershirt, and brown pants who answered. He had a pair of brown horns along the back of his head and brown fur around his sharp chin and pronounced cheek bones.

“Well, that’s a matter of gossip here in the town. You lot in the sticks wouldn’t know it but… well, let’s say one of our ladies seems to have landed quite a catch.” He said as he sat down on the left end of the table.

A chorus of hmms and oohs went through the younger men at the table while the older men, even those at other tables, raised an eyebrow at me.

“She is quite a woman.” I said plainly. This seemed to only make their interest more intense, while the buff Kelton man got a look of comprehension. But before more questions could be asked, a small crowd of women came from the houses. The Kelton women filtered through the tables until they found their husbands or male interests from the younger men. There was a lot of whooping, raising of mugs and tears as the women sat in laps or gave massages to their men.

But even this happy reunion got sidetracked when Salamede came through the women and sat across from me. She wore her typical green dress that was left untouched from the previous rot of the undead she had on her earlier. Salamede sat there for a long moment before she audibly spoke, which surprised me as I thought Kelton’s preferred Spirit magic connections.

“How have you been holding up? No bad injuries that I didn’t see or anything?” She asked.

“Nah, I did well enough back there and the most I’ve got to deal with is exhaustion.” I said mildly.

“Well?!” The older Kelton said with his straw hat thumbed up to show the disbelief on his face. “If he only did well then there’s no hope for any of us losers, is there?” The rest of the men pounded their tables or whooped as they raised their mugs in agreement. On a lot their laps rested a Kelton woman, or even two, whispering in their ears or adding to the agreement.

‘Are you sure this isn’t something we should talk about privately?’ I asked Salamede in a spirit connection.

‘This is a matter of debt. Debts are seen as corrosive to good relations and are to be paid as soon as possible. And since you saved our lives and livestock this involves a debt from the whole Kelton community.’ She responded quickly. The portly Kelton started talking again as he got up from the table

“We don’t have much” He said. “but we don’t let debts go unpaid. Is there any service or good we have that you would want? If it is within my ability as patriarch to deliver, I will have it provided.”

I strummed my fingers in thought. Metal and food would probably be better logically, but they had precious little of that and what I really wanted wasn’t very logical. I stopped strumming my fingers and turned towards Salamede.

“I want what any man in the world wants. A kiss from a beautiful maiden.” I said with a meaningful look at Salamede. A wave of excited ooh’s gushed from all the women as the men nodded with wise looks. Salamede’s grey fur rustled around her puckered lips as she raised her eyebrows with a sassy turn of her head. She didn’t seem displeased, no matter how she tried to get a scolding look on her face.

Getting up and around the table, she went through the candlelight on the side of the table and came back up to me. I turned my legs out from under the table and sat back as I made sure to have a face with clear expectations as I removed my iron helmet. With a sigh, she came down on top of me with her left leg resting on my right thigh as she put her hands around my face. Her snout came closer before she pulled me forward and planted a kiss on my lips.

Her sweetness played across my tongue, but I wanted more. Putting my right hand behind her head, I pushed her closer to taste her more fully. She gave a contented sigh as a round of clapping resounded around us. Finally, I came up for air as I let her go.

The adults were talking happily while the younger boys and girls just stared in fascination as we sat there just staring at each other.

“Ooh! A true Kelton woman. Fights the undead then comes back home to sate her man.” One of the housewives coyly said at a table to my left.

Deciding that we needed some privacy, I lifted Salamede up from the table and took her hand as I led her off further down the road. Leaving the crowd behind, I went down to where the town met the river and sat on the edge of the stone retaining wall overlooking the mass of moving water. Across the river were some of the undead shambling around, with the few getting in the water being immediately dragged under the frothing river.

Salamede stood for a moment before sitting down on top of me. For a while nothing but the sound of rushing water and the semi-party behind us was heard until I decided to start talking in a spirit connection.

‘It seems like things are going pretty well for a wave of the undead swarming all over the place.’ I offered.

‘We’ll see. No one’s died as far as we can tell but the supply situation is something else if what I’ve seen is all we got out.’ She said.

‘As big of a deal the horde of murderous corpses is, it’s not the big issue right now. Our problem is what happened down in the southern lands.’ I responded.

‘Yeah. I’m so sorry that I went after you like that. I had no right to just dump that on you out of nowhere and then get upset at your reaction. I’d like to blame the demons temper in me, but I don’t know if I can.’ She said apologetically but said nothing else for a long moment afterwards. Since I was probably going to have to do most of the explaining anyway, I initiated the conversation.

‘All right. Let me start with my perspective on our actions’ I said. ‘Those soldiers we killed weren’t guilty. But they weren’t innocent either.’

‘How so? They had no involvement in that scheme. The people who tried to hand you over to Maw and carried it out were way above their pay grade’ Salamede said.

‘Exactly. They made themselves a part of those people’s power and put themselves under their authority.’ I countered.

‘They probably joined to protect their people or stop the orcs, not kidnap citizens.’ Salamede responded with a raised eyebrow.

‘Tell me, when they praise the military for fighting off the orcs, are the people who directly fought the orcs the only one attributed with the glory or is the whole military?’ I asked.

‘The whole military. They were all a part of that effort.’ She answered, not really getting where I was going with this.

‘And if the military and only some of its members carried out a plan to target a civilian in some malicious scheme, who is to blame?’ I prodded.

‘Those leaders and the few who helped them.’ Salamede confidently stated.

‘So why is it that when, as a part of an organization, the praise is spread out to all members but when the organization does something bad, it’s just a few bad people and no one is to blame but those few?’ I asked.

‘Because they didn’t know. The reports showed only a few people on top knew about it.’ She said, now turning to me with her hands in her lap.

‘I think that’s a very convenient way of looking at things. Everyone is a part of the good stuff but when it gets bad it’s just a few rotten people who no one could really do anything about.’ I gave a tired sigh and rubbed my eyes before continuing. ‘Those leaders didn’t phase out of the ether of existence or randomly form out of clumps of meat and just came to power by chance. They were promoted, got positions of power, and given authority because the people on the bottom decided they were worthy of those positions. When you join an organization, you join the whole of it, the good and the bad together.

You get the credit when it achieves something but when an organization runs amuck, the whole organization is to blame, not just the few who made the bad decisions. You aren’t as guilty as the people who made those decisions, but you aren’t totally innocent nor are you entitled to having no consequences for being a part of that organization.’ I finished. A pall of dead silence hung over us both until Salamede spoke again.

‘Eli, people are doing what they can with what they have, and they don’t have magic or thousands of years of experience to help them. Joining organizations like the military or government is the only real chance they have at improving the world. Those leaders live in posh apartments and sip on the finest meals in the most luxurious clothes while the rest of us are just getting by’ She said in a conflicted tone.

‘So where are they, Salamede? Where are all those good people when the accounts to bribe officials were set up? Where are those pure, altruistic messenger boys when the orders were being delivered or upstanding scribes when these orders were being copied? You can have as many good people as you want, but when all the people who actually run things are so rotten that they’ll rundown an innocent passerby for their own convenience, the innocence of the masses is questionable at best.

And you saw that with your own eyes as well. They let the bandits run wild on the poor people of this region because it was cheaper for them then deploying soldiers. Those soldiers they did deploy worked alongside those bandits in the south. This government, filled with so many wonderful, well meaning people, had an entire system set up to allow them to go around due process and destroy people in the court of the mob and it was the average people running the supplies, sat in the juries, and training the bandits who allowed it to happen.

Yes, the people on the bottom were the ones who paid the price and were the least guilty, but I have seen no evidence, not in the courts, the reports, or in any other interaction I’ve had with the Coalition, that any one of them would have not done what this Marvin cunt did. I’m sorry that I hurt you, I’m sorry that their families will forever lose their loved ones, and I am sorry for the pain my actions are still causing, but I am not sorry for what I did.

I had every reason to believe it was them or me and I have no reason to believe that the people who make the decisions, the people who will actually decide what does and does not happen, would not run me down again if it was convenient for them. The only difference is I had the ability and the power to pound their skulls into the dirt in a far more direct and effective manner.’ I finished with a heated tone, but I managed to not yell at any point, which I considered an achievement. Salamede didn’t say anything for another long moment before she hugged me.

‘Eli, I think you have a lot of love to give and people with a lot of love can be the harshest people around when hit wrong. I don’t agree with your viewpoint, but I can understand it.” She said but then she closed her eyes and then opened them with a serious look in her eyes. “Tell me, the undead across the river. People were talking about the villagers you helped bring back earlier and I know that those villages were near that place where you were summoned to our world. Do…’ She struggled to ask the obvious question, so I spared her the effort.

‘They’re from the underground complex where I was summoned. The necromancer’s associates blew it up, probably on accident if the corpses by the entrance were anything to go by,’ I quickly responded. ‘That happened before I had even gotten out of the hospital if those people with bite marks who passed me by as I left are anything to go by. What was odd was how these undead absorbed spells. I wonder how the necromancers managed that.’ She raised an eyebrow at me in the faint starlight.

‘I’m still caught off guard by what you don’t know. You make all of these amazing things then something like this eludes you. That’s not a necromancer thing, Eli. That’s a general undead thing. It’s why the academy is built like a fort in spite of not being near any dangerous borders or creatures. The mages are almost as powerless as peasants when facing large enough numbers of them.’

‘Hmm.’ I said idly as I just took in her warmth along with her words.

‘Eli, we’re going to starve or die of cold well before winter is out. All the grain and firewood was left behind and getting anything out of those villages is going to be far too expensive to fully retrieve on our own. Guild members have to accompany the wagons with horses plated in armor pulling the equally armored carriages which means food prices are going to at least double. The patriarch and a few Kelton merchants are going to see what kind of deals we can get but I have a good idea of how expensive those services are and we’ll be lucky to afford more than two if we all give every last copper we have.’

‘Is there no merchant on the rivers who would be willing to sell such goods?’ I asked.

She shook her head and rubbed her forehead.

‘The human peasants are in the same situation that we are. With their added competition for food and the fact that they’re closer to the main docks, combined with the guards needing firewood to burn the bodies, the prices will be ridiculous even when there is any left for us to buy. Grain prices alone will probably bankrupt us.’

‘But not rent?’ I asked.

She waved the concern away.

‘These houses are Kelton owned and operated. They let them stay for free in exchange for some grain, meat, milk or cotton from their animals.’ She lifted her head skyward with a palm to her head. ‘Which we are going to have feed as well so that’s even more grain that we have to buy.’

After another tired sigh, she looked down to me with a serious look in her eyes.

‘Since you had nothing to do with the necromancers den and we will starve or die from cold without your help, we can repay the blood debt we incurred as pandegos. Help us and the human peasants get the grain and firewood we need to survive, and I will consider the lives we took under your direction to be paid back in full.’ She offered.

‘And then?’ I asked expectantly.

‘Then, I suppose we’ll have to get back to what we were doing before.’ She said suggestively. If her tone wasn’t enough, then her moving her hand around the joint of the breastplate to rub my chest was.

I nodded with an excited release of breath.

‘Agreed, when should we head out?’ I asked as I squeezed her bottom affectionately. Salamede put her arms back around my neck and rubbed my shoulder affectionately.

‘You must have the strength of a horse to be able to keep moving after today’ She said with a playful wonder.

Putting my legs out over the water, I activated the actuators to push the wheels out. Salamede looked down with raised eyebrows as the wheels went in and out of the metal legs. Feeling rather smug, I explained the new suits functions.

‘The wheels allow me to move like a carriage while those tubes on my back blast me forward. The hardest part was swinging the bar and hammer for ten minutes straight.’

‘You never seem to run out of ideas, Eli. As endearing as your ability is, everyone is too tired and tomorrow we will still need to empty the communal warehouse so we have somewhere to store the goods. I’d say we need to wait until the day after tomorrow before anyone is ready to head out’ She said, looking at me with a distinct look of lust.

Wasting no more time, I captured her lips again. She responded with equal enthusiasm as she slipped her left hand down to grope my manhood. With the moon playing over the river, I spent a few more minutes indulging in her taste before the night demanded I retire to bed. Getting off each other, I waved her goodbye as I headed towards my tower.

Coming up to my home, I got up over the slab and walked up to what had been my door. Looking inside, nothing was obviously missing and a quick look around by Cell told me no one was waiting in ambush.

“Tansen” I said under my breath. After reforming the wood for the door, I got out of my suit and went to sleep in my hammock.