The Wandering Inn_Volume 1

by Pirateaba

Illphres shrugged, smiling wickedly. She seemed to enjoy the others’ consternation.

  “Should I have? Teaching her is all I have to do. Why bother telling her something that she can’t change?”

  The others groaned and covered their faces, but none of them looked surprised. They too were used to Illphres’ way of doing things. Ceria looked from face to face, wondering what was going on.

  “Okay, I’ll tell her. Unless you object?”

  The others shook their heads and Jurix turned to Ceria. She heard Ophelia casting a ward against eavesdropping as Jurix put his head on his shoulders and smiled at her. Then he turned and pointed. Ceria followed his finger and saw a Golem, one of the most primitive types, a crude man made of brown stone slowly wheeling out more food on a table.

  He put each dish slowly and carefully on a table as students flowed past him, some taking food right off the plate as he paused so as not to bump any of them. He was just one of the many Golems in Wistram, practically the scenery that Ceria had gotten used to.

  “See that Golem, Ceria? Well, he’s our enemy. Him and every Golem in Wistram. At the end of the year, Illphres, Bastam, Ophelia, Qum and I are going to challenge Cognita. We’re going to destroy her and open the doors to the rest of Wistram.”

  He grinned at her. Ceria turned to Illphres and stared into her master’s eyes. The ice mage smiled deeply at Ceria. Ceria blinked, looked at the Golem serving food, and then flipped the table.

  “What!?”

  —-

  Golems. They were a rarity in most parts of the world—unless you lived in a desert or if it snowed. Then they were more common, but you’d still only see the weakest, most primitive of Golems. Sand Golems, Snow Golems and so on were functions of nature, of excess mana and intention.

  But Golems, the kind that were manufactured and sculpted or built and brought to life with magic, those were different. They were expensive, hideously so, to make, and only a powerful mage could create one.

  Well, Ceria supposed even she could make a primitive, small one with work. But to create it would take months of study, and it would be hardly useful. She couldn’t imagine the effort needed to create a more advanced Golem.

  The half-Elf walked through the halls of Wistram, distracted, hurrying past students without a word. Now that she looked, there were Golems all over Wistram. Okay, not many, not compared to the students, but too many.

  A Golem passed her with a basket of laundry in his hands. He was a crude stone one, capable of following basic orders. She stared at him and shuddered as he passed. Okay, he was a simple one, but her idea of ‘simple’ had been skewed by living here.

  A simple Golem? He was capable of obeying most instructions quite well! He could fetch and carry and fight or lift extremely heavy objects if need be. Forget simple, he was worth thousands of gold coins by himself, possibly ten thousand coins alone! An undying, tireless servant capable of killing lesser warriors with a body made of rock? He was powerful, not simple.

  And he was the least of the Golems walking through Wistram. Ceria shuddered as she saw a suit of armor, gleaming and polished, meekly carrying a stack of books while he passed her by. He was a Golem built for war. His steel body was far more agile than the stone Golems and he had a sword and shield. If he used it—

  But of course, he wouldn’t. Right? The Golems of Wistram had been made to protect and serve by Archmage Zelkyr. And enforce his will. But they were a valuable asset to the academy. They did chores, defended the isle against attack—

  And kept the highest parts of the castle under lock and key. Ceria knew that—she’d known it since her first year. But she’d given little thought to it since then.

  Wistram’s highest corridors and rooms were out of bounds. So what? There was plenty to do below it.

  Only—there wasn’t. Wistram was only a quarter, or less of what it was. The true magics and real spells that would turn good mages into great ones were all above, locked behind a door guarded by Golems. That was what the five mages had told Ceria as she’d sat in the banquet hall in disbelief.

  “You see, Ceria, there is a limit to the heights mages can reach here. Level 50, let alone Level 60 is the utmost limit we can strive towards. People like Archmage Feor or Amerys—they’re the top. And yet, it didn’t use to be this way. Once, we had real [Archmages].”

  “Once we were true mages.”

  Jurix and Illphres’ voice rang through Ceria’s ears. It wasn’t hard to understand what they were saying.

  Cognita, the Golems of Wistram, they protected the academy. But they also held all mages within hostage. No one could reach beyond a certain level, not without more spells to study. Oh, a mage could study by themselves, but that meant their growth stagnated. In this place they had countless centuries—millennia of experience to draw upon, but it was all out of reach.

  Guarded. By Cognita and four other Golems. Sentries, designed to be a test for mages to challenge. All those who had tried before had died, but once again mages had gathered. Five of the most powerful mages of Wistram had come together to challenge the Golem’s authority. And they would win or die.

  It was too much for Ceria to take in. This was why Illphres needed the rings protecting against ice. She was going to fight alongside the others, and they needed protection from her deadly attacks.

  Ceria had seen Illphres fight. She could freeze the air, raise huge structures of ice or hurl massive pillars of it at her enemies. She was going to use that magic to fight Cognita.

  It was unthinkable to Ceria. She couldn’t believe—well, she could believe Illphres would keep it a secret. But the rest?

  It was too much for her. That was how Ceria found herself at Pisces’ door, pounding on it and demanding to be let in. It took a while and she heard him bumping around inside, but eventually he opened it, glaring.

  “Who in the name of—Ceria?”

  He let her in, looking bewildered. Ceria stepped into Pisces’ room and found chaos. Dirt, mess, fragments of parchment and bits of food—that was the least of it. Ceria saw a pile of bones in the corner and nearly backed out of the room in horror.

  “Is that—dead gods, Pisces!”

  “It’s just mouse bones! Please, Ceria! I’ll—let me just clean this up!”

  Pisces waved his hands at her, desperately shifting things about with gusts of wind and levitating them into corners or into his dresser. Ceria looked away from the pile of bones, shuddering, and didn’t ask where Pisces had put them when he told her she could come back in.

  “I’m—sorry. I just—I need to practice, you understand, and I—”

  “You’re not plundering the catacombs?”

  Ceria eyed Pisces. She knew that quite a few mages were buried underneath the academy, even if she’d never dared go exploring for the crypts where their remains—if there were any—were interred. Pisces shook his head.

  “I fear that would be…well, let’s just say I doubt others would take kindly to the knowledge that I were robbing graves.”

  “Yeah, they wouldn’t. But rat bones?”

  “Mice.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  Pisces shrugged. He fidgeted on his bed as he faced her—he seemed barely able to believe she was here, talking to him.

  Ceria had no idea why she was talking to Pisces either. She was so shaken by what she’d just learned she had to speak to someone. And she had unconsciously come here. Now that she was actually facing Pisces, though, she didn’t know what to say.

  “Well. It’s been a while since I last came here.”

  “Yes. It has.”

  Pisces cleared his throat awkwardly.

  “You look well.”

  “You look—awful, frankly.”

  He blinked, and then smiled at that. Ceria grinned shakily at him. Pisces looked around his dingy room.

  “Yes, well, my circumstances have changed quite a lot since—before. My fortunes have fallen, so to speak.”

  “Tell me about it.”


  He sniffed.

  “I hardly think you can make the same comparison, given—”

  “No, I mean, tell me about it.”

  He paused. Ceria looked at him.

  “Tell me, Pisces. Tell me everything. And tell me why. And maybe—”

  She didn’t say the rest. But slowly, Pisces relaxed his hunched posture. He straightened his back, and looked at Ceria like he used to.

  “Well, if you insist…”

  —-

  “Will you challenge them all at once?”

  “We have to. The Golems fight together. Cognita will be there—and four others.”

  Ceria stood with Illphres by the ocean, aiming at targets as the sun came up. Across the rocks, Bastam, Jurix, Ophelia and Qum were all doing the same.

  She was a part of their group now. Not the same—she was the only apprentice and student among them—but they had no other confidants, no other apprentices to tell. Ceria knew, and this secret was one she’d never reveal.

  “It might not matter if you do. But others would try and stop us or get in the way, or make it political. We’re doing this to end politics and factions once and for all.”

  Illphres aimed at a target, an ice pillar three hundred meters away, the ice tinted red, and shattered it with a single spear of ice. Ceria nodded as she took aim at her own target.

  “But I mean, why five of you? Is it because there will be five Golems, including Cognita? Is there a rule of some kind?”

  “Rule? No.”

  Illphres snorted as she raised more targets out of the sea.

  “There’s no rule—other than that if you try, the test doesn’t end until you’re dead or the Golems are destroyed. We could attack them in the hallways if we weren’t afraid of all the Golems joining in. And every mage in Wistram could take on the challenge if they wanted to.”

  “They why don’t they? Why only you five? If you got five more mages, surely—”

  “They won’t try. They’re afraid of dying. Cowards.”

  Illphres said it shortly. She shot a flurry of [Glacial Spears] out, shattering a dozen targets at once.

  “They are afraid, and content to live like they have. Not us, though. All of us—the Isolationists who aren’t afraid to risk our lives and Ophelia and Qum—we see that mages cannot live like this. We want to grow, not die old at this level. We want to be true mages.”

  “True mages.”

  The word floated in the air between them. Ceria stared across the ocean and tried to imagine what lay beyond the door. But she couldn’t imagine the door itself.

  “I’ve never seen the Golems. You said there are four of them, not counting Cognita?”

  Illphres turned.

  “Would you like to see?”

  —-

  The door was stone. Not just any stone, but obsidian, shining and dark as night. Ceria could see it was warded as well. Across the room, it shone with a thousand sigils and runes, twining together to form the most powerful ward she could imagine.

  She only dared look at the door from afar at the other end of the massive room, hundreds of feet wide and nearly forty feet high. That was because the guardians stood at the other end.

  Three Golems. Ceria only saw three, but each one made her heart quake in her chest. Illphres stood next to her, which was the only reason Ceria didn’t run.

  One was a Golem made of magma. It burned as the molten rock flowed around it, onto the floor, and back up, covering its body. It was fire incarnate, a core of something so bright it shone through the melting stone glowing at its heart.

  The second was a creature of metal, something that looked like no species Ceria could ever dream of. Two thin, curved legs made it stand twenty feet tall. Each leg was incredibly thin and seemed to taper off into an edge like a blade. A narrow, metal body was its torso, roughly the same size as a normal Human’s, twenty feet up. It had two arms curved like the legs, half as long, and as sharp as scythes.

  It had no face, and the way it stood so still made Ceria uneasy.

  The third Golem was a simple one to understand, but no less frightening for it. It was a giant armored Golem, like one of the suits of armor but scaled up on a massive level. This Golem was a colossus, and it held a sword in one hand that was twice as tall as Ceria was and a shield of equal size and weight. It crouched, staring across the room at Ceria.

  Only three Golems. Ceria didn’t see the fourth. The Golem made of shadows stood next to her, noxious breath wafting over her as its jaws hovered close to her head.

  The room stank, despite being clean. It smelled to Ceria of death, or perhaps it was her own fear she smelled. She saw Illphres was gazing at the Golems and shuddered.

  When they left the room and the doors closed behind them, Ceria had to sit down in the empty corridor. Her legs had completely given out.

  “Terrified?”

  “Y—”

  Ceria couldn’t even form the words to say ‘yes’. Illphres nodded.

  “Each Golem in there is a masterpiece. A nightmare. Only a true mage could create one of them, let alone four.”

  “Four? I saw—”

  Ceria closed her mouth as she remembered. She hadn’t noticed it, not at all, but one of the Golems had been standing right next to her. A thing of shadows and flesh and—

  She threw up. Illphres stood next to Ceria dispassionately, but she did magic away the vomit when Ceria was done.

  “You noticed it? Good. It took Bastam three tries to figure it out. It looks like a Shadow Golem—I’m not even sure if you could make such a thing to begin with, but it’s really a Flesh Golem. It’s only enchanted to be covered in shadows and mess with the mind.”

  “Dead gods. It was right next to me and I—I—”

  “Remember them. They’re the enemy. But also remember, Cognita will be there as well. And of the five, she’s the most dangerous.”

  “Cognita?”

  Ceria couldn’t imagine Cognita stacking up to the Golems she’d seen in that room, for all she was terrifying in her own right. Illphres nodded.

  “Don’t underestimate her. Truestone Constructs are the pinnacle of Golem creation for a reason. I have no idea what she can do, but I think she’ll be the most dangerous. But the others will be just as deadly. At least the armored knight Golem seems easy.”

  “Easy? That thing was as big as a house!”

  “It’s not one of the original guardian Golems. I know because records show the original one was destroyed. That’s a replacement, one of the Golems that normally defends Wistram. It may look dangerous, but it’s not nearly as bad as the others. I could take that one out by myself with no problem.”

  Ceria stared at Illphres, but she knew the other woman was serious. That was the difference between her and her master.

  “You’re really going to do this?”

  “I’ve prepared for this day for over a decade. I gave my life to magic, and I will give my life to this battle if I must. But I believe we will win.”

  Illphres smiled then. She looked at Ceria, and the mask of ice betrayed her true feelings. Her cold eyes burned with life.

  “This is what we will challenge, Ceria. Don’t you see? This is what it means to be a true mage.”

  Ceria saw, but she was still afraid. Illphres helped her up. The woman’s hand was surprisingly small on Ceria’s arm.

  “I gave up everything for magic, Ceria. Everything. You saw my face. I’ve made mistakes, hurt myself, but always, always, I strived to reach higher. This is the ceiling I have come against. This is what I must overcome. And I will do it. And when I do, this academy will change. We will change it.”

  The half-Elf looked up into the Human woman’s face. She knew, she remembered the fearsome enemies that stood in that room, waiting for their challengers. But she looked into Illphres’ eyes and believed.

  “How can I help?”

  —-

  “Cast the spell, Ceria!”

  Jurix screamed at Ceria as spells flashed around her
in the largest of the practice rooms. She raised the wand he’d given her and gritted her teeth.

  “[Fireball]!”

  It was a spell she could only cast with a wand, not being wholly proficient at it. It streaked across the room at Illphres. The woman turned, raised her hands.

  Ceria didn’t hear the word, but the fireball exploded, and when she could see, Ceria saw a huge wall of ice. Not just a wall—

  A fortress. Illphres stood atop it, throwing magic down at the other mages around her as they besieged her. She raised walls of ice, froze the ground—

  It was a battle between the best of mages. And it was only a practice session. Ceria watched as the other four mages slowly wore Illphres down, but it was hard, even for them. At the end she raised her hands in surrender and panting, they walked back towards Ceria to review.

  “Those walls you make really are hard to crack, Illphres. I believe we might be able to lock down all the other Golems with it, save for the magma one.”

  “And Cognita. She can shatter my ice.”

  Illphres was sweating. She nodded at Ceria as the half-Elf passed her a flask of water. Ceria had food and drinks for the other mages, and they thanked her as they kept talking.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Ceria saw her smash through my barrier. It may be I can freeze her if I don’t give her room to move her arms—I can cast thicker ice walls than the one she broke—but I won’t bet on it.”

  “Even so, if we can count on your abilities…”

  Afterwards, Ceria talked with Illphres. The woman smiled as Ceria gushed over what she’d seen.

  “It was incredible! You held them off, four other mages! Are you higher level? What was that spell?”

  “[Fortress of the Ice Queen]. It has other names—it’s a famous spell. I’ll use it right off in our battle to shield the others.”

  “Do you—do you think it’ll stop them?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. I’ll improvise. It doesn’t matter. We don’t stick to one plan. We’re all experienced mages and we’ll find a way to beat them one by one.”

  “I can’t believe how powerful you are. Why aren’t you an Archmage yourself?”