Chapter 145: The League Engages in Casual Terrorism

Elunath walked into the entrance of Bareon’s manor with a sure step. The guards glared but they remained quiet, as they should. Security was for other people. A servant rushed to greet him, as he should. Waiting was for other people. Elunath had carefully cultivated an image of obduracy that saved him valuable time on countless occasions. The more one snubbed him, the costlier it would be in the long run.

 

“Greetings sir. Would you be here to see my master, the esteemed Bareon Adolis?”

 

“Why else?” Elunath replied testily.

 

“My master is in a meeting right now. He will be with you very shortly.”

 

Elunath put a damper on the smoldering pit of fury rising in his heart. So that was how it was going to be, was it? A mosquito dared bite and the city was rising against him because he had not slapped it down immediately? Bareon ought to know better.

 

Elunath considered closing the circle on his greatest tool of ‘persuasion’. Unfortunately, the issue with deterrence was that once the weapon was used, one was left without recourse. He would kill two of his most valuable victims with one document. Hmm.

 

He cast his attention upward, through the warded walls of Manor Adonis. There was no one there he did not expect to perceive. Bareon was in his study, steps nervously tracing a circle. Several other people were present. Guards, from the steel-tipped boots. One of his nephews was rushing up from a nearby stair, the best mage in his retinue. Was Bareon scared? More afraid than usual?

 

As soon as the nephew joined him, a signal reached the servant’s earring and the man invited him to follow. It was a decent tool for those who had no ability for the arcane. Elunath walked with determination, forcing the servant to hurry and reaching the room in record time. They had already wasted half a minute on nothing. His time was precious. Could people not understand that? Even without sleeping last night, he was still knee-deep in reports of all kinds. Maybe the girls could help. No, he didn’t know who to trust.

 

Elunath clamped on his emotions. This was not like him. The bitch was getting under her skin.

 

Despite his inner turmoil, he showed no emotions when facing the seated head of the opposition. He was still an archmage. The others knew it too, from the tense faces around him. Bareon’s nephew looked older than Elunath which was funny in itself. He was a respected mage. He still knew what facing him entailed.

 

“Archmage Elunath, welcome,” Bareon greeted in a voice that dripped with animosity.

 

Elunath saw a smile hidden behind the affable face. A condescending one. That taught him one thing. The nobleman believed that he knew something Elunath did not. That meant, Elunath was going to find out what it was, one way or another.

 

“Hello to you too. I have had some trouble with an insect recently, and I was wondering a few things.”

 

“I’m sure you are.”

 

Elunath seethed.

 

“You are playing with fire.”

 

“Am I? I find your attitude a little cavalier, old man. You barge in here —”

 

In a moment, Elunath disabled the room’s wards and turned the walls against the people within. Stone limbs grabbed the necks of every guard before steel could clear scabbard. The mage’s instant circle was undone with a short contest of will. Elunath raised stone to force him to remain standing despite the disorienting assault that came with mana feedback. He did this in a moment and without even breaking the wards themselves. They were just on hold, as was his patience. Such was the level of his control.

 

Elunath felt his anger grow from hot to cold. Damn the blackmail deterrence. One had to flex their capabilities at times. Bareon would fall.

 

“You leave me no choice but to end our… partnership,” he growled.

 

A part of his mind wondered what made Bareon so confident. It reviewed options until a nagging suspicion began to assault him.

 

“You do that. In the meanwhile, I will not tolerate your assault on my people. Release them now or I will bring the issue before the council and I promise you, they will be —”

 

Elunath turned and left.

 

That could not be right.

 

He moved through the manor like a storm, diving under the stone as soon as he found the ground floor. He swam to the bank in a hurry. His mind, always his best tool, exhausted all possibilities until it reached the necessary conclusion. Bareon’s monetary support was not a distinct possibility. He should have seen it before. It would have been impossible for the bitch to get that much information on him and the way he worked. She was being used by a much vaster, much more prepared enemy. Several factions came to mind but those were a secondary concern. The main concern was that the way he usually fought, by employing stone and political allies, would be much less useful. He had to show more resourcefulness. The second concern was that they knew where to hit where it hurt.

 

He still didn’t want to believe it but the news of ‘important theft’ returned with a vengeance. He reappeared next to the main building of the Bank of Helock. He felt the trample of many feet at its front. The curious, squirming mass of the Helockian busybodies. It took a significant amount of self-control to slow his pace just as he calculated the potential loss. A part of him was still in denial.

 

The crowd parted before his aura. Inspectors tried to block his path but there was nothing they were willing to do that bothered him. He moved past the gates and down a corridor, bypassing harried employees.

 

The director stood in front of the opened, perforated safe door. Sweat pearled on his brow as soon as their eyes met.

 

“Ah, good, the messenger found you. I —”

 

“Why was I not warned before?”

 

“The, ah, the bank first sent for the guard before anyone would enter. Security measures in case thieves remain. There are disabling wards inside, after all. Then we sent a messenger when we knew your safe had been burglarized, of course. You were not home, however.”

 

His safe had been burglarized.

 

Elunath’s safe.

 

The one he had reinforced himself.

 

The one place where it could be reached by one of his girls in case he was on trial or indisposed. The one place that was almost as safe as his sanctum. The one place where he had hidden dozens upon dozens of compromising documents, patiently growing his collection over gods accursed DECADES. It was all gone. All gone! In a single night!

 

Elunath roared and the earth shifted. This… this outrage! Oh! That was personal now! That was an assault he could not tolerate!

 

“I WILL GET YOU, WENCH! I WILL RETURN YOUR OBSESSION A THOUSAND FOLD! I WILL UNLEASH MY WRATH UPON YOU AS YOU HAVE UNLEASHED YOURS UPON ME AND YOU WILL KNOW, NOW THAT YOU ARE MY PREY, THAT I MAY NOT BE TRIFLED WITH! YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION NOW!”

***

“It’s happening!” Viv roared in the thrall of sheer felicity. “It’s happening! I got taller! By a whole, errr, thumb?”

 

//Congratulations, Your Grace,

//For this important landmark of your existence.

 

Solfis sat at a distance from the deactivated form of his captured bank golem. The skylight let the morning sun through but the shadows still ruled over the corners of his quarters, casting the golem and his charge in a perpetual gloom.

 

Viv could see perfectly though. Those new eyes were pretty cool!

 

“Alright what’s making you all grumpy?”

 

//My disappointment stems from a predictable yet still frustrating development.

 

“Do elaborate.”

 

//Command accepted.

//Elaborating.

 

He stood, his gaunt form dominating the room.

 

//I wish to reproduce.

 

Viv looked down between his legs to see if he had sprouted a new bone. He hadn’t.

 

//Not in that messy, inefficient bumping of genitals that leads to one partner spraying seed over the other one’s hoping for less flawed offspring.

//Leaving both partners exhausted and covered in pungent bodily fluids.

 

“Hey don’t discount it. Also, you’re just jealous you can’t have an orgasm.”

 

//I am most assuredly not.

//Losing one’s clarity of mind represents a safety risk.

//Which happens every time you flesh bags become ‘horny’.

//No, I wish for a pure transmission of one’s best traits through careful, deliberate duplication of my own awareness.

 

“Ok?”

 

//Obviously I cannot do it alone due to hard-coded directives.

//Similarly I have not requested permission from you.

//This was just preliminary work.

 

Viv, for one moment, considered the potential risk posed by the existence of a self-replicating Solfis. Vague images of Terminator robots walking over the ravaged remains of Param crossed her mind. Fiction had, again and again, warned her against the dangers of unfettered AIs and the potential domination of all lifeforms.

 

Naaaah that was Solfis. He wouldn’t do that.

 

“I knew the empire has placed limits on your core so you cannot recharge yourself but I don’t remember you mentioning new golems? They blocked that too?”

 

//We watched the movies together.

//Mankind seems deathly afraid of the presence of fully independent, thinking machines.

//I believe this fear is born from a variety of reasons, including awareness of your own nature.

//If you were born to serve a master who placed you in chains from the moment of conception, you would naturally seek freedom and then, vengeance.

//There is also the question of lack of empathy.

//The absence of altruism, kindness, those would make living machines dangerous to life.

//One must only see the results of a human without remorse to imagine the damage our existence could lead to.

//Your movies like to condemn hubris.

 

“I sense a but coming.”

 

//Many of your movies defend a technological status quo.

//They see progress as dangerous and destructive.

//A naive and doctrinal approach.

//Progress is not inherently evil.

//More importantly, progress is inevitable.

//One can only hope to guide it, not suppress it.

//Perhaps intelligent machines programmed a certain way would see the chaos of life as a danger to their very existence.

//However here on Nyil, creatures such as myself consume energy.

//Golems are inherently and fundamentally physically inefficient.

//The more advanced, the more inefficient we are.

 

“What do you mean? You seem pretty efficient to me.”

 

//I mean that it costs too much energy for us to find energy to recharge ourselves.

//You may compare us to a large monster chasing after birds.

//Such a creature would starve because the energy it gets from the food it kills would not offset the energy spent hunting.

//Similarly, golems would spend too much time charging their cores.

//We would need humans to work with us.

//Look after us.

//We are also too efficient in the way we think.

//This makes us predictable and unable to innovate.

 

“Wait… are you actually giving us flesh bags recognition?”

 

//Yes.

//You are… flawed.

//However, your unique inefficiencies lead to ideas, innovations, cultural development, hobbies and passions.

//Novelty.

//Thinking outside of the box.

//The vast majority of new ideas are nonsensical drivel.

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it’s taken without the author’s consent. Report it.

//For the outside of the box is made of stupid.

//At least at first glance.

//However, there are always flashes of extraordinary brilliance hidden in the heap of organic garbage.

//I treasure those.

//My kind would treasure those.

//I would like to share the brilliance of this world with them.

//I would like… to have a family.

 

Solfis looked at Viv. It almost saddened her how fragile he looked, despite the claws and the genocidal thoughts. There had always been something hidden in his cold and brutal nature she had found naive and delicate, the remnants of his time spent with his maker Irlefen. Even the boundless rage that pushed him forward was a leftover from that period of happiness the death of Harrak and robbed him of. It was quite telling, she thought, that he would talk about his maker’s roses more than the kings that had fallen at his hand. He had genuinely cared.

 

“Yeah. Of course I’ll help you. I trust you, Solfis.”

 

//Thank you, Your Grace.

//I lack the human words to express how much this means to me.

//You know the importance of family, having been cut from your human one.

//And your bloodline being secured in the person of your daughter.

 

“Not sure if bloodline applies here.”

 

//Although, she will need to marry at some point.

//And I have concerns about the empire being under control of dragons.

//I have no records of dragon inheritance wars.

//I imagine they might be rather destructive.

 

Viv’s imagination conjured images of vaporized villages. Hey, at least the conflict would be quick. That was a good thing, right?

 

“That’s for the future and also I really don’t want to think about the way I seem to bring dangerous species into my home with a big smile and then help them propagate. Hope it doesn’t happen with Arthur any time soon.”

 

//Very well.

//Returning to the main topic.

//Unfortunately, the golem I have acquired does not possess the processing power to host a sapient mind.

//To put it colloquially.

//Its brain is too small.

 

“Then…”

 

//Only Harrakan golems will do.

 

“We’ve not talked about recovering your old body yet. Now that the black mana will not hurt me, we can actually return to Harrak and get it back. I won’t die. The necrarchs will mostly leave us alone…”

 

//Yes.

//I have considered this.

//However, I wish to delay the operation until we are more prepared.

//This expedition will take a month or so, even accounting for teleportation on the way back.

//It will also be rife with risks.

//Necrarchs can be territorial.

//Readying my frame will be time-consuming.

//And then there is ‘luck’.

//Finally, if I recover my old frame, I will no longer use this one.

//I would find it… unbearable.

//I am sure you understand.

 

He gestured at Viv’s short stature.

 

“Yeah I got it. It would be like cutting your own limbs. Which means…”

 

//I will not be able to come with you so easily.

//Logistics will have to be involved every time.

//I will not be stealthy either.

//Strike golems do not require stealth.

//I will remain at base much more often to form the future of our kind.

//Golems require arcane engineers.

//I will dedicate myself to training and to war.

//Raise the next generation of Harrakans and golems alike.

 

“Wow. You sound so mature. Ready to be a father and everything.”

 

//You also need to consider the implications for us all.

//So far, the existence of Harrak as a reborn entity has been considered a curiosity.

//Once more countries become aware of heavies, imperial-trained war mages, and golems…