Dahlia tried to track Dearil after he left, only to find him entering a cave with a bird coming out shortly after and flying in the direction of the confederacy. And nobody inside the cave.

Harlan was ignorant of Dearil’s escape plan, simply putting his memory crystal in a bird which was already waiting and flying away after writing multiple copies of the information he learned and putting them on many other birds just in case. Then pouring a flask of powerful alchemical acid to dissolve the body which no longer had use.

Harlan had done nothing for the next week but build the golems and test out using trees for defensive towers. Currently Balor was using the golem to pick up food and materials, as well as delivering the newly enchanted weapons back off with Brig.

Then he got another visit.

Redwall guards.

Harlan stood on the wall around his land, looking at them to make sure they were who they said they were. He couldn’t possibly know every guard in the land but he knew at least most of the house guards directly under the Baron.

“Can I help you?”

“You have been missing for some time, we were told by the Baron you would be staying at your parents farm. And they said you were supposed to be at the mansion.”

“Yep. I wanted a quiet time to work on some projects without anyone bothering me.”

The men tensed, worried that they had bothered him. Harlan had been getting better at reading people, a nearly required ability when dealing with people as a noble.

“Don’t worry, you aren’t in trouble. You don’t even work for me anyway. Please come in.”

“We don’t mean to intrude, Sir Fomoria.”

“You don’t have horses, so you walked all the way out here. Take some water at least.”

The men reluctantly came inside after Harlan opened a hole in the wall.

He led them to the house, and just past the firing range. Since there wasn’t anything really being done with it he just stored his golems in it. The men grew tense once more when they saw how many he had made in the past month he had been hiding in the woods.

“I want to ask.”

The men were ready for anything at the moment, still wary of the relatively unknown and odd child. They place their hands on the sword hilts as subtly as they could.

“Do you like this room design? I think it is neat since it looks a lot like a flower bulb. I just wish I knew how to make glass, it would make it so much nicer to have a window in the highest point in the room.”

The tension was gone just like that. One of the guards even let out a small chuckle.

“I do think it is a nice room, though I would expect more space for a nobles quarters.”

“I really don’t expect to have guests here. It is more of a just in case thing, I also wanted to make it so I could have a runner live here but that fell through. Please, sit.”

The men did as asked. Harlan went and grabbed a few clay jugs and filled them with water, chilled through magic.

“Would you like tea instead?”

“No sir.”

“So… How much trouble am I in?” Harlan really didn’t care that much, but he knew he had made others worry again.

“You have broken no laws, sir.”

“That isn’t what I meant. But whatever. I will be done with my projects in another 3 days, 5 at most. Just take that message back.”

Harlan had a fox golem near the door lead them back to the wall and open a hole into it for them to leave.

Balor was coming back as they were leaving. The guards saw what to them looked like a bulky teenage boy clad in black cloth with boxes of weapons and a smaller box of food.

“Excuse me, what is your reason for being here?” Balor was unsure why Redwall guards would be at their land. He moved his hand to Lugh, sending a message to be ready.

“This land is my brother’s, what reason do you have to be here?”

The guards shared a look and drew their swords. Balor did the same.

“Wellness check up. But the noble who lives here has no brothers. Who do you claim to be?”

“Balor Fomoria. Brother to Harlan Fomoria, brother to Lugh Fomoria.”

The guards shared a new look, confusion.

“The ring?”

“Yes.” balor unlodged himself from the skull of the golem, making a hole in the clay barrier covering the base of the rear of the skull, slipping out between where the hood and the chest clothing met.

Even more confusion ensued. But the older of the 2 men put his sword away and the other followed.

“Apologies, we were unaware of… This body. And you are not officially brothers. I would suggest you be added to the list of nobles by having Sir Fomoria send a letter to the royals.”

Balor and Lugh but silently grumbled.

“What a bunch of fools, we have made our relation clear.”

“That was very rude. We should have Harlan write the letter when we get inside and run right back to town. Stupid royals.”

“I agree, though you should avoid speaking that last part aloud.”

“We shall have the letter prepared soon enough then, good day.”

“Yeah, what he said.”

Lugh didn’t mind being left out of conversations most of the time, he had the topics he liked to talk about, then there was boring stuff, i.e politics, etiquette, world history, local history, geography. Unless the geography covered an interesting spot, like the flaming gorge. But he was miffed at not being considered brothers with Balor and Harlan.

Balor slipped back into his golem and set a command to have the ox to open the hole for them and walk to the house. He could use verbal commands, but they had been working on keeping communication mostly over a soullink. They were still slightly worried about letting something slip that they didn’t want to.

Dahlia was still around somewhere as far as they knew.

As soon as they got inside Lugh asked Harlan to write the letter, then it was back to his own little pit, carved by his talks with the mother in the darkness. The first time they spoke, Lugh didn’t come out for a week. His talk was cut short as she told him to help Harlan out. Balor was worried over what they would even talk about for so long, and unlike Harlan’s memories which were simply dull and cloudy to Balor, Lugh couldn’t send memories over their link no matter how hard he tried.

2 days passed, Harlan walked to Lugh and asked him to go along with Balor to town again to pick up the last set of parts for the golems. The light devouring darkness which surrounded him dissipated and Lugh was floating in the air. An odd atmosphere was around him.

“Yes… I should go.”

“Lugh, are you alright?”

Then the tension in the air was gone.

“Yep, totally ok. Let’s go. Can I take a fox with?”

“Uh, yeah. I guess that is fine.” Harlan was worried, but he could feel over their link that it was still just Lugh, he seemed normal. Well, as normal as Lugh was.

So Balor slipped back into his golem, he was starting to enjoy it now. He had fingers to carry things, and because the movements on it were so smooth with runes of reduced friction Dearil taught Harlan carved into the parts the mana costs to just move around were fairly low compared to what they had figured when they designed it. Harlan was working out a new design with another core set in the golem itself to act as a mana battery which could fill up with the excess mana that Balor couldn’t store normally. It was one of the things which Harlan was trying to fix about Balor. Due to his small size, even though the ring itself was made from a metal that Harlan didn’t recognize he couldn’t really hold much mana. In theory he could gain more as he compressed his soul into a denser form, but that could stress the ring itself after too long. Though it was very very far on the back burner, Harlan was working on the idea of moving Balor to another object so he could grow at a faster rate without risking his body.

“Lugh, are you sure that nothing odd has happened? That you are alright? You can stay here, I have the fox as a guard this time. I could take one of the enchanted weapons from the boxes if I needed.”

“I’m fine, you worry too much Balor.”

And so they set out on their commute to the village. It took roughly an hour to reach, they could go faster but the ox was a heavier golem and it was inefficient, more so with boxes loaded onto it. They wanted to save the speed just in case they actually needed to flee and cast spells.

Roughly 30 minutes into the journey a woman who was picking mushrooms called out to them.

“Excuse me, could you give me a ride into the village? It has taken longer than I had expected to gather my ingredients and I have children at home.”

“No, I am carrying items which need to be delivered and there isn’t much room left on my ox.”

Balor had expected Lugh to ask if she could come along since they were already so close.

Instead he flew out of his sheath, striking right into the woman, splitting his blade into thin tendrils that seemed to reach over part of her, the woman seemed unphased until Lugh turned the same light devouring black that he did when speaking with the mother.

Balor was mortified, he couldn’t believe his sight. He was furious, thinking the mother had done something to him. He was sad, for the first time, about someone who he didn’t even know. But also… Curious. Lugh had shifted his body in a way that Balor didn’t understand, he wanted to find out how he could do it too.