While Harlan was testing his new fox prototype, having the guard smack it round with clubs, something else was watching, an unassuming owl pitched at the treeline.

After his wolf failed to report back to one of his birds, Dearil sent a recon unit to search for it, thinking it lost to that fenrir again. But then something odd happened, a boy with a fox, that seemed from the outside like a very poor attempt to replicate his wolf.

Once it saw this it checked against it’s order and rules stored in the false mind crystal Dearil made it decided that the wolf was likely destroyed and the boy was likely in possession of the body.

In two days time it would return directly to him.

Meanwhile Harlan was nearly distraught, his latest prototype, fox number 4, was dead, its legs splintered and broken, its chest had a large crack running along it, its tail was gone.

“T-thank you for your time…”

“Are you sure it’s ok for us to break these things up like this? You… don’t seem very happy about it.”

“Just part of making something… Better to let you break it than trying to use it and it failing to protect anyone.” Harlan put on a stoneface, asking for advice.

“Well, right here you can see that the joint here takes a hit to the side alright since its got that rivet or whatever in it, if I hit it from the front that wood rivet is the only thing to take the force and it breaks, I don’t know if that rock layer helps it much. What about putting it on the outside? Wood is supple, stone isn’t. When we hit it from the outside all the stone inside stops the wood from bending but doesn’t do much more, and listen.”

The man shook the disabled fox. Little clatterings inside said that the stone was breaking inside anyway.

“Maybe double layer the stone? Wood center so it doesn’t weigh so much, rock inside and out to give it a bit more defense. And anyway does it really matter how heavy it is?”

“Yes, it does matter. The heavier it is the more effort the fox has to spend to just move around. I want it to be able to cast spells, if it spends too much moving then it will have less to spend on spells.”

“What do you want it to cast?”

“Lets see, rock walls, fireballs, bursts of air, tunneling. Basic defense, offense, and then something slightly more utility. A good wind blast can knock people into each other or down a hill at less cost than a fireball. Tunneling can make holes in the ground, I’ve seen and done exactly that to trip people up, better as support than an attack.”

“I’ll take your word for it Sir. And we will be here for your next prototype.”

Harlan decided to spend a little time with Ava and work on his hand to hand combat against her.

Harlan was faster than her, but she was using Lugh to fight him. He was technically more dangerous than a training sword but he could dodge out of the way and avoid an unlucky hit from taking off a limb, and it was good training for him also.

After 30 minutes Breken stopped the spar.

No one was hurt but Ava could only swing around Lugh for so long before both of them were tired, he was too heavy for her to use on her own but he helped her out.

“Good moves on both of you.”

Lugh made the sound of clearing his non-existent throat. Breken sighed.

“Good moves on the three of you. Harlan, you aren’t tired. Lets spar, you are find at hand to hand but you should put more time into your swordsmanship. Lugh, you aren’t allowed to help him, he needs to fight with full control of the blade, every time you slightly curve his slashes he is learning to rely on you. If he picked up a normal sword and tried to fight the same he would make mistakes.”

And so Harlan did as he was asked, Lugh had to learn a great deal of self control to learn when NOT to move. Breken always kept up no matter how much Harlan tried to speed himself up. He began to understand that he actually didn’t know what Breken could do.

Eventually dinner was ready and a maid came to fetch Harlan, he had a question before he left though.

“Breken. What did you do in your fighting days?”

“Mage killer. Confusion and speed.”

Harlan waited for him to continue his explanation, Breken just laughed and shooed him away to the dining room.

“So, I’m told you have been having my guards break up golems you’ve made?”

Harlan let out a sign.

“Yes, it’s taking a while but I am trying to work out the kinks in my designs.”

“Why not make it a human shaped golem?”

“Ah… I didn’t really think about it, I was already making smaller foxes, and that wolf golem has been on my mind.”

“Well, I suppose they would have their own uses. We didn’t know about that wolf for years. How small can you make them?”

“I never tried to make them too small, I think my foxes are already pretty small, if I tried to put in spells and other things like that I worry I would overload them.”

“There is a limit to these soul items?”

“I think so, souls grow into the item, souls grow slightly with every new thing they learn. People compress them bit by bit. That’s what happened during my… Training experiment. Too much information all at once, I just kinda… blew up, Balor put me back together before it faded away. Though technically I never saw anything blow up unless it was overloaded from the start.”

There was an awkward silence at the table. Harlan really hated doing that.

Autumn decided to break the silence.

“So, did you choose to be a knight then?”

“Noble Mage.”

“A lot of nobles are mages.”

Harlan explained a little bit of what it really meant.

“Have you spoken with my father about construction of a home and work area?‘ Jaramis asked.

“I’m going to put it off until I get back from school, I will have a small area of land close to the farm that I will make my own cabin so I can be home for meals and far enough away to not put anyone in danger. I figure a large pit is good enough, I can use the dirt from the hole to make high walls to stop anything from blowing up and damaging too much. I’ll hire a maid and an assistant when I am here in summers away from school.”

“You seem to have thought this out well enough,”

“It was mostly the count really. I would’ve just taken any plot of land in the woods and made a stone hut.”

“The 4th Princess Rosewell asked that I help, I couldn’t leave him looking like some poacher set up in a temporary campsite.”

“She specifically asked to help me?”

“Yes.”

Harlan fell into thought. Did Rosewell really actually genuinely care? He wasn’t sure if his feelings of affection for her were because he thought she was actually a good person or if he was starved for positive feelings in what looking back was a prison where he worked long hours.

He stopped eating, just pushing his food around for a while with a vacant stare.

When dinner was over Harlan decided to give the gifts for the twins.

“Autumn, before you go. Take these.”

He reached into his pockets and pulled out the foxes, they were snuggled up with each other in his hands.

“Those are cute, thank you.” When they heard her talking they woke up and stretched. Letting out a yipping yawn before looking at Autumn and the twins.

“I’ll just set them on the ground, they will follow you. They know a couple of tricks and shouldn’t have any problems staying out of your way and fetching small items.”

“What tricks?”

“Backflips, they can stand on each other, they are really good climbers.” Jaramis didn’t even eye them suspiciously, Harlan took that as a good sign.

Harlan started to love the feeling of people receiving his gifts and warming up to him.

When he was working on his larger foxes he decided to start making a variety of small farm animals, he wanted to sell them at that odd and ends store, he wouldn’t really be making any money on it due to material and time costs, but he hoped it would let people see him in a more positive light.

He also sent a message to the blacksmith with his prices and was waiting for a reply, he asked that if there was items to send over then he should send them with instructions of what they are, what they expect to be sold for, and what spells he wants them to use, along with a list of what he knew how to put in them.

Weeks passed without much happening, other than the local bear population seeming lower than normal.

Harlan bought his own set of armor, stonesteel, with the gauntlets being extra weighty for hand to hand combat.

He also finally got a single fox golem that was hardened enough to take a good amount of punishment, the issue was teaching it when not to attack people. Which was taking much longer than he ever thought, a pat on the back from a guard cost him his finger.

Little kinks to work out.