How long had it been? Since the realm started to die? Longer than it mattered. How long since the first human had come back? Half a year, maybe less. How many of them, now?
I let my fingers do the count. Pulled the beads on my necklace one by one. Two, three. The first one didn't count. Four, five. So, four.
Onto the fifth!
My body collapsed the moment I had reached the base of the glass hill. Behind me the empty plain was devoured by dusk.
Yes, the makeshift leg that had carried me all the way here had broken. But otherwise I was handling crossing the mana deprived expanse surprisingly well. That wasn't why I felt so exhausted, so beaten and crushed.
The hill's sharp ridge was slowly getting eroded. That it held so well for this long was the actual surprise.
Soon the mana drain would wipe out this den and everything the humans had built over time if I didn't bring another one of them.
We were so close! Always so close!
I lay there, my head against the thick glass, looking at the reflection of my silver and marble badger mask. So cute. So reassuring.
From the hidden cave came the rapt, or whatever that rapt had become. It hurried down the slope on its tiny legs rounded and smooth, fluffy to the point of absurd. It should have slipped ten times over yet ran without trouble.
"Look! Look!" It chimed. "I have a head now!"
It sure did. Stopped short of me and looked around.
"Where is big brother? I don't understand, where is he, I don't see big brother!" It was almost panicking, then saw my leg. "Your leg!" It exclaimed. "Let me heal it!"
"I'm fine." I grunted.
It watched the broken pieces reform and fix themselves back on my joint. I was a clay golem. Earthworks was by now an afterthought.
That bugger had forced me to move after all. I got up, mimicked breathing and went up the slope, toward the cave.
It followed me.
"I can't find big brother!" That thing kept panicking. "I need to find him, were is he?"
"He is gone."
The moment I entered the cave, the sand veil vanished. Not just revealed the inside, just vanished. Its crystal depleted.
The Parao appeared, its hulls imposing as ever.
It wasn't a parao but humans insisted on calling it that, to the point of writing the name on its side. They had also made it too big for its worth.
I climbed on the nets to reach the deck, then to the hatch and down, that rapt-thing monster still after me. Inside, in the dim blue crystals, were the summoning circles.
A smaller one on the side, for the caster. The other on the ship's centerline. Glowing.
"Where is big brother?" The creature would not let go.
"Gone." I sighed.
"I don't understand."
And it started rubbing my leg with the tiny forelegs that barely stretched beyond its new round and fluffy head. Past the mandibles.
"What are you doing?"
"I want to feel with big brother." It said and started rubbing its head.
It wanted mana. All the monsters ever wanted was mana. This rapt could make itself as appealing as it wanted... all it would do at the end was... absorb others' mana.
Back on the deck I could see the sand slowly trickling down in a thin rain. The cave's ceiling breaking down. Not time to build a new raft. No time to forge new weapons. Time to go.
I walked all the way back to the superstructure, up and to the bridge, pulled the ropes and approached the wheels. Before me the two layers of sails formed their curved roof over the ship. Two wheels, one for each hull.
I held both of them, removed the blocker and the vessel slowly slid out of the cave.
Out and into the expanse.
I needed a new port while summoning, somewhere to alleviate the mana loss. The petrified forest was too close to Hashal, so that left the dungeon.
The legged rapt stepped close and curled up at my feet, its fluffy tail covering most of it.
A dungeon wasn't ideal but who cared and really, Hashal was as far removed from towns and cities as humans could have conceived. So it was that or a long trip.
This one was shockingly resilient. At its edge, stepped pyramids still cut the landscape, broken and eroded but standing nonetheless. Stone canals reached from there to outside dampeners that had no reason to be.
The structures that had hung over the vast abyss were long gone, leaving only broken bridges and the temples and palaces that held on the cliffs all the way down. Their silhouettes cut by petrified vegetation.
I moored the Parao at the edge, as close to the massive pit as I could. The monsters around, of course, felt the magic and came to hunt. It would not take long.
After that, I went back in the lower deck to begin the ritual.
"Stay out." I warned the legged rapt. "It could erase you."
It cocked its head, then nodded and joyfully ran away. I closed the hatch, walked on the caster's circle, watched the glow intensify and started.
I had no strength to plead and beg. I only asked to the emptiness. My voice hollow and insincere. So of course, no one answered.
But this was expected. It could take days, even when I did it right, for a human to answer. I knew it all too well by now. For however urgent it was, a part of me resisted the idea of hearing those voices again. Their indifference.
"The realm is in peril. It needs a hero. If anyone hears me, please come and help us."
I might as well have stayed silent. But then, to my surprise, a voice answered.
"I'm busy..."
"Can you hear me? The realm needs help. Mana is gone, all deperish. We need a human to bring magic back."
What had it been? Not even two hours? I could not believe it and yet, the voice was still there. A speck of light broke through the blue hue of the lower deck. Hovering over the central circle.
"So what..."
"So come already!" I let out. "Come join this trap, try all you might and in a month you'll be gone! Come or leave, this begging makes me sick!"
"So annoying..." The voice complained.
It was not going away. Getting closer rather. Could it be? The very first to come would be the one? Maybe... maybe this one was special! Yes! Yes, it had to be, this human would succeed!
"Do you even understand what I am saying?! This realm will kill you! And there is nothing I can do, nothing to stop it, and yet here I am demanding you forfeit your life!"
It seemed impervious to my words, floating ever brighter in front of me. I almost stepped back out of the circle.
"Because we need you! We desperately need you! So you must do the impossible..."
"Shut! Up!" It screamed.
That same instant I was thrown on the ground, blinded, felt once again crushed by a force beyond the realm. Like a torrential rain whose droplets pierced through while pushing down.
And here she was.
Brown hair, brown eyes, she was boyish to the brim. Short and chopped haircut, sloppy clothes, her gentle face suffered from bad hygiene and neglect.
She looked around at the brightful deck, turned on herself gazing until the dizziness forced her to lay against the wooden wall.
"Okay... Calm down..." She muttered. "Let's try it, why not. Menu!"
She had cast her hand straight ahead, frowned and started to poke in the air. The human system had appeared to her as well.
"Attributes... Skills... Wisdom points." She frowned. "New hypothesis. Quests... Golem? What kind of starter quest is that..."
"It always does that." I explained.
I had got back up and the human had not even noticed, lost as she was in the system. After a jolt she gauged me, stared at my badger mask and looked defiant.
"Guess my name." I offered.
"I don't know, Kaele?" She scowled.
"At your service. And you are?"
"Busy."
She went back to poking the air, then sighed and walked to the ladder, opened the hatch. I watched her ignore me entirely.
Above the cross masts an abundant sunlight welcomed her. Birds landed on the ship's rigging, on the poles and bridge. So many birds of all shades that it felt like an invasion.
All around the ruined pyramids had recovered their sharp edges, terraces still broken where tall grass and moss were still rapidly growing. The first trees emerged and from their branches the first vines.
She heard the howls of monsters.
"Welcome to the realm." I climbed up after her. Clapped to make the birds fly away. "We have a repulsion rune, so the monsters should leave us alone."
Beyond the dungeon's edge, even as the grass rushed to eat that space it was preceded by sand as far as the daylight could cast.
"If you are done sightseeing, I have a lot to explain."
That was the time the fluffy rapt chose to get out of its hiding spot and rush toward the human.
"Hello!" She chirped. "I am Caline! Are you big brother? You don't look like big brother. Do you know where he is?"
She looked at it, then looked back at the abyss over the ship's side.
"She is ignoring me!" The rapt complained.
"Impractical..." The human was musing for herself. "An abandoned city? No... A ship, monsters, that's likely a den..."
She turned around and looked at me with an unimpressed face.
"Can I dissect you?"
"Yes." I spontaneously answered.
"Good. Lay down."
As she wished. The rapt watched nervously and rubbed its fluffy little legs while I stretched on the deck and the human crouched to take my arm. She pulled, felt the twitch and released her grip.
"Go on." I encouraged. "Don't mind the pain."
"Why does a golem feel pain." She observed.
"To stop us from doing stupid things. The humans probably got bored of watching us grind ourselves on the whetstones."
She had already gotten back up. Her finger turned on the rapt.
"Can I dissect that?"
"Yes."
"No!" The monster shivered. "Don't dissect Caline! I have done nothing bad!"
"I will need a laboratory. Workspace, alchemy, dissection table. Get me monsters and those objects downstairs too."
"Understood." I brought myself back up. "Could I..."
"Now."
And she walked away, toward the Parao's superstructure. The door closed behind her. Once she was gone, the legged rapt came to rub my makeshift leg.
"Is she a monster? She is scary."
"She is your new mistress. Serve her or die."
The monster sighed. "Why is killing all people talk about?"
I ignored it and went to work. The largest cabin was the lounge. While essentially in the middle of everything it would have to do; and with so much magic and so little time I had no reason to be subtle. The furniture disintegrated, replaced by tables, stools and alchemy sets.
Then, to force that monster to carry the relics from the bay to that improvised workshop. Meanwhile, I went and collected enough stone to turn to clay and repair my leg. Easier to hunt that way.
As with everywhere else, greyhounds infested the ruins. I quickly fell one and carried the rocky lizard back on the ship.
She was already working there, melting rings and measuring liquids.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
She looked at me put the corpse on the central table, then went back to her measurements.
"Gaining wisdom points."
"What for?"
"So I can do this." And she extended her open hand toward me before looking annoyed. "I need your authorization."
"For what?" I asked again.
"To synch."