Chapter 6: Fear and Kin

Fear and Kin

 

As the wanderers voyaged across the lake floor, they began to encounter the roots of the great tree they saw upon the surface, the objective of their travels. Taking it as a good sign, the Vessel and its verdant companion began to follow the colossal roots, intent on tracing them to their origin.

As they followed the colossal radicules, the soft lake floor began to slowly curve upwards, beginning a gentle slope and before long the Golem and its companion were forced to half-swim, half-climb up the wooded slope.

As Wanderer surveyed the underwater incline, it began apparent to them that while the prevalence of coral and kelp had sharply declined, the amount of glowing lake creatures had increased, fish and eels darted in and out of root-made shelters, and small luminous jellyfish appeared in such numbers that the dark waters seemed like infinite stars in a cold night sky.

The sight caused his spirit to leap with a familiar, yet temporarily forgotten, joy, as the new vista once again brought back their self-given purpose of exploration,  and Wanderer felt the ever-persistent grief that followed them, lessen slightly as they drank in the view, the world brightening ever so slightly as it did.

As the group climbed ever higher, the once sparse strands of wood which they followed became gradually denser, until the slope became a veritable wall of knots and tangles formed from colossal roots.

Whilst they ascended toward the surface the darkened waters grew slowly lighter, as blue sunlight filtered down from above, seeing the promise of the sun, Emio began to shudder in excitement, racing past the Golem with its herbal tendrils and breaking the quiet surface of the lake.

A moment later Wanderer and their soul-attached Spirit followed, where they were all greeted by an awe-inspiring sight.

The choking fog that permeated the opposite bank lessened significantly toward the central island, a light mist hardly reaching Wanderer's knees was all its only remnant, the absence of the obscuring fog allowing the Golem to lay its eyes upon a slowly setting sun.

The once light blue sun had deepened in hue, now the colour of brilliant sapphire, though unbearably bright to look at even as it began to hide beneath the infinite mountains.

Regressing from the setting sun, the sky was painted with a gradient of colour, cerulean blue to wine purple, before finally fading to a deep black, the first dull stars were beginning to twinkle, and surrounded the blue-painted moons.

Moons, because there were multiple, a large central moon entertained a smaller moon around half its size, and around that moon orbited two more, hardly larger than an asteroid, each moon was coloured blue by the setting sun and their differing orbits placed them each of them in their own phase, from waxing to full.

For a moment, Wanderer stood stunned by the unexpected beauty, remaining watching the ever-changing sky until the sun had fully hidden behind the mountains, and would likely have remained longer if it were not for Emio, who snuck atop their head some time in their dazed stupor, slinking its way over to the wooded mountainside and beginning to rip through the hardy roots of the monolithic tree.

In a matter of moments, the contents of the Verdestry’s body were replaced by the roots of the tree, the leftover kelp incinerated against the creature’s wishes, disturbing it for a moment before it recovered with its usual vigour.

Seeing this occurrence as a sign to begin moving, Spirit urged Wanderer forward, the Golem, despite their wish to continue to watch the sky, saw the logic in such a suggestion and so the party began climbing the towering mountain once again, Emio latching onto Wanderer's back.

As they climbed, Wanderer began to notice even more of the world around them, the boughs of the extensive tree spread far above the vessel, nearly reaching the edge of the lake, occasionally snow would fall through the gaps in the branches, likely pushed down from the top of the tree by wind or animal.

In their ascent, Wanderer also came aware of snakes that would hide amongst the gnarls and nooks of the ever-thickening roots, chasing after birds that would land upon the roots in an attempt at a moment's rest. It was almost an uncanny parallel to the eels and fish that rested below the calm lake surface, occasionally in the darkening night Wanderer would come too close to a snakes burrow by mistake, inviting a frightened serpent to strike them in fear, which while mildly painful, did no true harm to the being of clay.

A part of the Vessel wished to retaliate every time one of the snakes attacked, to crush the serpent's head under their unrelenting grip, but as this thought passed through the Golem's mind, they rejected it, their pact and the warning of their Spirit both forbidding such an action to take place.

“They are scared”, the Vessel rationalised, they struck not out of malice but of fear instead, fearing that Wanderer would do the exact thing that they were only now convincing themselves not to do, “I will not hurt them”, the Golem resolved.

By the time Wanderer reached the trunk of the tree and the small plateau it rested upon, the moons began to near its apex within the sky, and it was by their reflected light that the Golem could gaze upon the true majesty of the massive evergreen.

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Its colossal trunk rose high into the distance, casting a great shadow over the mountains and valleys of the land in which they awoke, its innumerable branches and boughs each decorated with tens of thousands of sharp, glimmering pine needles, each as large as Wanderer was tall, despite its incredible majesty and power, the tree bestowed a sense of profound calmness and serenity upon its viewers, its swaying branches seeming to wash away the world's worries. 

But their serenity did not last, human voices became apparent to the Vessel and a steadfast curiosity overtook them, at the blessing of their Spirit, they set off in the direction from which the shouts came, Emio following haphazardly at a distance.

As the party approached the shouts became louder, as other sounds also began to become apparent, clashes of metal and cries of pain, all this punctuated with a great, dull clunk.

Cresting a particularly large root, a chaotic scene layout before the Vessel, before them rested a large clearing, absent from the ever-present roots of the tree, and within this clearing, under the light of the moons, stood a creature of true majesty.

Built like a centaur, it was at least twice as tall as Wanderer, four sturdy horse-like legs held an armoured human torso, four long arms reached from the torso and each one held a weapon of unfamiliar make, a glaive, a mace, a scimitar and finally, a baton, each and every weapon was made from a golden metal, with accents of black and bronze, the top of their head was shaped to be similar to that of a sedge hat, three golden gem-like eyes rested in the centre of their face.

But what was most apparent to the Vessel was that while they were formed not out of soft clay, but hard terracotta, as they noticed this a thought struck Wanderer, “This is a true Golem”, somehow, deep within their soul, they realised that this is what they could have been, what they should have been, they were a golem but this was a Golem.

For a moment Wanderer was so entranced by the Golem that they forgot what was happening, only broken out of their reverie once they realised that the Golem was injured.

Its front left leg had shattered, now unusable, and for an absent moment, Wanderer wondered the cause until they were once more brought back to the cries of the humans, all around the Golem swarmed both man and woman, each one armed with hammer, mace, or some other type of blunt weaponry, observing the assembled humans they noticed that they were all clothed in rags and their skin clung to their bones in a way that screamed malnourishment even to Wanderer's inexperienced mind.

The Golem and the humans were engaged in a great battle, scores of men and women threw themselves at the mighty creature only to be slain with little effort, the Golem's four arms worked in coordination and beauty completely unmatchable by Wanderer, every stroke of every weapon felled an assaulting human and every movement of the Golems massive body expertly avoided clumsily thrown attacks.

For a moment, the Golem seemed to be winning, but their previous injury caught up with them, an unexpected attack from a mace aimed toward their body to their right, caught them, their crippled leg preventing anything more than a half-hearted attempt at dodging, the blow struck true and the dull sound of breaking terracotta echoed throughout the small clearing.

A roar ran out amongst the men gathered, their morale boosted by their minor success, and they resumed their onslaught with a renewed fervour, the increasingly injured golem having ever-decreasing success against its attackers.

Wanderer turned away from the battle, not wishing to witness the slaughter of one of their kin, even if they knew them not, when they felt a great build of magic.

Immediately they cast their eyes back upon the clearing to see what they had not noticed prior, many steps away from the battle, a small group of people stood.

They were all richly dressed and carried weapons of vastly superior quality compared to that of their fighting companions, all of them were looking with interest toward an additional figure within their small group, toward the front of the group danced a Magi, near identical to the ones that appeared within Emios visions.

They danced within a large circle on the ground, orange glowing runes followed them wherever their intricate frolics took them, often their dance would include movements that were harsh and jerky, throwing off the natural rhythm of the dance, despite this Wanderer could tell that they were intentional.

The runes created by the Magi’s spell slowly gathered themselves into a ball, compacting itself tighter and tighter until, with a final thrust toward the gathered runes, the ball ignited and flew with incredible speed toward the fighting Golem.

In an instant the fireball exploded, reducing the unfortunate fighters around it to little more than ash, once the smoke cleared Wanderer noticed that the golem appeared stunned, although relatively unharmed, but this moment of unconsciousness proved its downfall, like ants the remaining fighters descended upon the Golem, hammers and maces struck the Golems brittle clay body with reckless abandon, by the time it came to its senses it was too late, already their arms and legs had been reduced to rubble, and with a final blow to the head, the Golem turned to dust.

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