36 loop 1 part 16

The Keeper watched me wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Then, I yawned. Then my stomach growled.

“What did you see?” she asked again.

“Nothing immediately catastrophic.” I straightened up. The vertigo from the spell was mostly gone, replaced by a general exhaustion. Despite a long night’s rest, I still felt like I’d run a marathon. “The school’s still there. Nobody’s dying. I think everything’s fine.”

She was quiet. The golem’s head tilted in what looked like mechanical consideration.

“You’re certain,” she said.

“Reasonably so.”

“That’s not the same as certain.”

“No, but it’d be more effort than it’s worth to get there.”

She nodded. Somehow, the dust that had been on her golem body was gone, and her gold boots caught the dim light of the study. Now that I was seeing it with more alert eyes, the golem body was ridiculous. It was roughly my height, built from the same grey stone as the workshop frames. It had joints that didn’t quite line up and shoulders slightly too wide for the head sitting on top of them.

The gold boots were the centerpiece, polished to a shine that nothing else on the body had earned. It looked like someone had built a scarecrow out of masonry and then given it royal footwear.

I turned my attention to my uncle, whose chest was still moving. The relief was overwhelming. Like being told summer break had come early. The dragon wasn’t coming today. Sure, maybe it’d come later in the week, but that was a problem for future me. Problems I didn’t have to worry about now were my favorite kind of problems.

Without the dragon, all I had were a couple of issues to deal with. And those had solutions. My situation was practically cozy in comparison to the last time through.

I canceled [Float] and fell into the nearest chair. It groaned, but it held, and I sprawled in relaxation, my head soft against the plush seat. I stared at the ceiling, letting out a long sigh. I did absolutely nothing for a glorious minute. The most relaxing thing I’d done since waking up.

Then, my stomach made a sound like a dying Frollart.

“Was that you?” the Keeper asked.

“It’s an old chair,” I said.

I knew how to fix this problem immediately. Like I said. Things were cozy. I lazily raised my wand.

“[Ex Nihilo Caseum].”

A beautiful golden wheel of cheese condensed from thin air and dropped into my hand. Warm, solid, and smelling like vindication. Vindication!

A year of wasted research. I almost wanted to be mad at all the effort I’d put into it. But no. I was just happy. A little miffed that my earlier casts had been thrown away and I hadn’t even gotten to smell that sweet, cheesy smell. But now.

I took a bite. An aggressively large chomp.

It was perfect. Sharp, crumbly, flooding my mouth with a sensation I could hardly begin to describe. I kept eating. More than anything, this was a step toward my ideal life. Infinite food, infinite variety, with no waiting. I had never loved a spell more.

The Keeper watched me. A ticking noise came from her golden body.

“That is not a meal,” she said.

“You know what a meal is? Can you even eat?”

“No, but that is still not a meal.”

“No, it’s a wheel of cheese.” I took another bite. “Still delicious, though.”

“You need protein, fiber, carbohydrates, fats. Vitamins. I worry about your dietary needs if you’re content just eating a wheel of cheese.”

“Wheel implies completeness.”

“Does it?” she asked.

“Implications are everything.”

She was quiet, and I could tell I was annoying her. It was my favorite state for other people to be in. She said nothing.

“Is it good?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

She didn’t say anything after that. I kept eating.

“I’ve been in here for a very long time,” the Keeper said. “And I no longer wish to be.”

The Keeper walked toward the door. I had nothing better to do, so I watched her go. Besides, it was funny. An ancient consciousness learning to operate a stone golem with weird-ass gold boots was objectively more interesting than a ceiling. Though not quite as interesting as a nap.

She reached the threshold of the room, but the second a gold boot touched the air over it, the ward hit her like a bomb.

A pulse of force came from everything, everywhere, all at once, and the golem went back hard. Boots losing contact with the floor, arms flailing wide. She crashed into the bookshelves behind her and books went flying. Loose volumes exploded outward. Some slapped against the floor like heavy raindrops. One sailed past my ear. Others rattled against the back of my chair hard enough to rock it.

A few moments later, the study had settled.

The Keeper stood in the wreckage of a shelf, surrounded by scattered books. Despite the rough treatment, her golem body seemed fine, and her posture was unchanged.

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“Are you okay?”

“No. The ward is treating me as if I were still trapped inside my book. I had thought that if I had a body, I would be free to leave. But it seems as if it has been locked to my soul.” The pause afterward lasted longer than usual. “I had not anticipated this particular outcome.”

I surveyed the damage to the room. I tried hard not to laugh. No, that’s a lie. I didn’t try at all. I laughed hard and then ate some cheese.

“I need the things in that workshop,” she said.

“Doesn’t seem like you’re going to be getting there anytime soon. I just want to acknowledge that.”

She ignored me and continued. “I need mana batteries and the golem tools. Whatever the queen left in both rooms that is still functional. You will bring them to me.”

I was about to protest, but she moved toward me.

“Your uncle’s mana channels are severely depleted. Left untreated, I do not believe he is long for this world. There are methods of accelerating that recovery that I would be inclined to assist you with. Should you help me again.”

I sat up straight. “You can fix him?”

“I can assist in his recovery. For a price.”

“But you can do something.”

“Only if I receive adequate resources. This body will do for now, I suppose, but we will need plenty of mana batteries.”

I took stock of my mana, blinking red at the edge of my vision. It was starting to get annoying, how much my mana had drained in the past few days. God. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to lose my rep as a slacker.