Invocation

Ashen Simulacrum
Lv 10, golem
A golem crafted from the ashes of a sacrificial fire dedicated to the Forge. The form and abilities it has are defined by what was burned.

“That make any sense to you?” John asked Tok as the golems began to march out from the smoke. He could still feel the pinpricks of heat pricking his skin and an odd pressure began to settle around his head.

“No, it doesn’t,” the dwarf answered in a terse voice as they all began to step back. “We might be craftsmen by heritage, but we never had anything just called ‘the Forge’.”

Before John, Rowan or Senka could comment on that information, a popup filled John’s vision.

New Quest: Mis-Trial

Honestly, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t comment on not getting a quest for doing the trial. And before you ask, this isn’t anything I’ve planned for you. Things are moving along to their own beat, some quite old. Good luck.

Survive the attack and make it back to Higaisha.

Reward: 10 Ireaon Shards, 1500 EXP, Vial of Forge Ash

“Seems our trial has become one of fire,” Senka remarked, shadows gathering around her hands.

John’s eyes flicked up as one of the camera drones flitted about erratically, almost as if it was trying to get their attention. Tok’s gaze followed John’s, his jaw tightening.

“Lita wouldn’t be doing that if things were fine,” he growled out. “Looks like things have gone bad.”

As if they were waiting for that, the ash golems sprang into action, charging at them in silence. Rowan was the first to react, sword gleaming in the light filtering through the smoke as she launched herself forward. Her blade met the strike of an ashen ax, a strangely metal on metal clang filling the courtyard.

John didn’t have much time to ponder how that happened as he began to be pressed by his own assailants. He wasn’t able to do much more than keep up with the attacks from two golems. He did note that they were dwarf height.

‘The quest notice said something about things moving to their own, and old, beat. Could these be some old enemy of the clan? Something from their old home that this trial conjured?’

Another thought came to John’s mind as he parried an attack. What if these weren’t some old echos unintentionally summoned by setting the trial here, but an active threat somewhere out in the Abyss, drawn to them invoking this location. And John was more sure that the second option was the more likely one.

A fresh wave of hot mana bellowed from the archway and more golems stepped out and began to converge on them. John’s head throbbed as the foreign mana pushed away the native ambiance.

‘We can’t take on all of them,’ John thought as he used Candle’s eyes to quickly survey the whole area. The golems not immediately jumping in to attack them were moving to block off any avenue of escape in time with increased fervor from the ones engaged in combat.

-20 HP

A heavy blow from a broadsword to his back sent John stumbling forward, but he was able to recover in time to pivot away from a follow up attack from another golem. Tok and Rowan weren’t fairing much better, each getting light blows when their attention was too split. Senka seemed to be the best equipped to avoid damage, but her turtle strategy was burning away her mana at a greater rate.

Tok let out a yell as he took the legs out from under one of his opponents, the whole golem collapsing into a heap of ash. With a triumphant laugh, Tok launched with a renewed vigor into the fight, ax swinging with incredible speed that buffeted the remaining golems around him, forcing them back.

Spurred on by Tok’s victory, John fought harder. As his attention honed in on the golems pressing him, Tok’s battlecries turned into a wet, guttural ****. John turned to see the dwarf getting stabbed in the back by a golem. It took John a moment to realize it was the one Tok had just felled, still reforming from the pile it had been a second ago.

“Rowan! Senka! Get to Tok!” John called out an order, already moving to relieve their injured companion. The golems surrounding him weren’t going to let him just disengage, and John didn’t have the time to beat them down.

Hex flared out from an extended hand. It struck the golem he aimed at and it melted into a sludge, reminding John that he still had his water spirit Overlayed. He didn’t have the time to check just what water mana did to the skill, but he could guess it did more to weaken or disperse magic than outright shutting it down.

In the end, it didn’t matter. The golem blocking his path was out of the picture for now and John could get to Tok. As he ran, he cast Spring Blessing, throwing all four of the bubbles onto Tok.

His charge brought the golems threatening Tok to turn some of their attention to John and he braced himself for the fight. Before the first could reach him, a Black Thorn from Senka shot through its head, breaking it apart.

“At least these things have the same vulnerabilities as something alive would,” the spirit shouted.

“Doesn’t amount to much if they won’t stay down!” Rowan replied, her accent thick as she fought her way forward. “They aren’t too hard to kill, but this respawning is a problem.”

“Hex is our best bet there, but I’d need to un-Overlay my water spirit to try and losing a healing option seems a bad idea right now,” John said as he struck down one of the golems. “The water version just makes them a bit muddy.”

He glanced back at the golem he had hit with Hex. It was still a half melted glob, sluggishly trying to move after him. At the very least, it was being kept off the board for the time being.

‘How do we deal with this?’ John thought as he and Rowan reached Tok. The advancing pressure **** the golem that stabbed their dwarven ally to retreat, its blade stained with his blood.

“Tok, are you-?” Rowan began to ask, but Tok stopped her with a pointed look.

“I’m fine,” he hissed out in a clipped tone. “Those bubbles are doing their job. Don’t let yourself get distracted.”

John had to agree with Tok’s words. They were closed in and they had no idea how they were going to get out of this. If this was some third party intruding, then control of the barrier wasn’t in the clan’s hands, so some emergency exit seemed unlikely. Smoke kept pouring out of the archway, making him think trying to just walk out wasn’t going to work.

Corrupted Arch
The communion archway of the temple of Gep’kes Ani was overtaken by the power of the Forge. Its intended use to return trial takers to Higaisha was hijacked to send the Ashen Simulacra to attack.

“The smoke and more golems are still coming out of the arch,” John said. “Which means it's an active connection. If I can hit it with Hex, maybe it’ll glitch out and break the link permanently.”

“Could even shut these things down outright, or at least turn off their regeneration,” Senka added.

“I’ll need the base Hex, so healing will be offline,” John said.

“Not necessarily,” Senka pointed out. “If you mix my mana into it, you can get the baseline effect. I think having healing on tap is worth the slight decrease of my mana.”

John couldn’t fault her logic or the plan, so he nodded. He felt her dark mana flow into him, and he mixed it with is current water flavored mana and threw Hex at the arch. The magic hit the billowing smoke and only blew some of it away, the lost fragment quickly replaced by more flowing out from the arch.

“Fuck,” John cursed, just in time for the golems to decided to renew their attacks on them. They advanced on them with great speed and from all sides, forcing the four of them to fall into a loose diamond formation, their backs facing each other as they defended themselves.

‘I need to get closer,’ John thought as he blocked a powerful blow with his sword. ‘Bypass the smoke and send Hex right into the arch.’

That was a risky plan. He knew there was no way the golems would just let him get within touching range. And if he poured everything he had into powering through them, would he have enough mana left to cast a Hex? His head pounded, both from his racing heartbeat and the clamming pressure this invasion seemed to have brought upon him.

He felt Senka’s light touch probe his mind.

‘Only you and I seem to be having any reaction to this,’ the spirit remarked, letting John feel she was experiencing the same pulsing headaches.

‘So what do you think that means?’ John asked her as he drove his sword through the chest of a golem.

‘What makes us different from Tok and Rowan?’ Senka posed. ‘Beyond the simple things like species.’

‘Only thing I can think of is our casual connection to various gods,’ John answered.

Senka projected a nod. ‘I think our link to Verida, and Gaia I suppose, may have left us more in tune with disruptions to deific energies. And this is a temple under attack.’

‘That’s good and all, but it doesn’t give us any idea…’ John began, but his thought stopped as the implications began to become clear to him. Even if it was just a facsimile of a real place, John knew there was still power here, power he could possibly tap into.

‘That’s going to be a risky move,’ he thought. ‘No way of knowing just what Arcane Wellspring will call up.’

‘Can’t be anything that could hurt us,’ Senka remarked. ‘You can feel this place reacting. If we can turn the whole area into something harmful to them, I think it’s a gamble we have to take. Certainly less of one than trying to reach the arch and Hex it off.’

John couldn’t fault her logic. For a moment, John let his focus drift from the battle to the mana around them. The hot, burning mana coming from the arch and flowing through the golems pulsed in time with his headache, pushing against the cloying, coiling vibrant energies of the temple. In his mind’s eye, John imagined the whole scene like red tendrils getting wrapped up in thinner purple ones trying to arrest their trespassing.

“I’ve got a new plan,” John said aloud. “Bit of a gamble, not sure how it’ll go.”

“Not sure if we’re in the spot to complain about that,” Rowan shouted as a golem’s attack struck her armor, the metal holding up against the blow but the **** nearly driving her to her knees. She **** herself up, swinging her sword in an upward arc as she did, driving back her assailant.

“Do it!” Tok chimed in, locked in a clash with an ax wielding golem.

John took a breath and hoped water mana wasn’t going to be an issue. He couldn’t think of a logical reason why it would have an effect, and the water element might even resonate with the temple’s innate mana and boost the effect.

He activated Arcane Wellspring, his mana flying out to empower the natural mana and call out its inherent power. John’s head exploded in pain, the sounds of battle overtaken by a sound like glass scrapping over a chalkboard, and John’s eyes snapped shut.

When they opened again, John found himself not in a decaying temple surrounded by enemies and hard pressed allies, but in a dark room, lit only by a dying fire in a simple stone fireplace. The room was seemingly bare save for two chairs set in front of the fire. One was empty.

In the other was a small and frail elderly dwarven woman. Her dark skin was wrinkled, silvery hair thin. She was swaddled in a worn blanket, any pattern on it faded with time. But her eyes, a solid silvery-white, were locked onto John with an intensity that made him think she could see right through him.

“It’s rude to stare before introducing yourself, son,” she said, her voice rough and low, like they were the first words she’d said in years. “Not that I can blame you. Strange magic causes strange effects.”

John felt his cheeks warm under her chastisement and he stammered out, “I’m John Newman, ma’am. Um, not sure how this happened.”

The elder let out a dry chuckle. “Of course you aren’t. There’s a lot of mysteries left in the great work, more than you could ever hope to learn even if you live for thousands of years and put your all into uncovering them. But you’re not here to hear me ramble on about the universe. But please, sit. You’ve been on your feet for a while. Time here is of no concern.”

“I suppose that means relaxing won’t do anything but ease my mind a bit then,” John pointed out as he took the offer.

“Suppose not,” the woman chuckled some more, “but a clear mind is still useful for what’s ahead.”

John sank into the chair, finding it pleasantly warm and comfortable. Then he asked, “So, I’m going to guess you’re Gep’kes Ani.”

“Look at you, so sharp,” the goddess remarked, her pearl eyes twinkling. “And yet, a bit off the mark.”

It took John a moment to puzzle out meaning. “Some avatar of her, then.”

She shook her head. “Not quite. Care to keep playing or shall I cut to the chase?”

“One more try,” John said. With the threat of time off the table, he found himself indulging his puzzle solving mind. “Not the goddess herself, not an avatar. And summoned when I tried to draw out the power of the temple. A temple in a barrier crafted by the descendants of those who built and inhabited it. You’re just an echo of Gep’kes Ani.”

“I prefer ‘footprint’,” Gep’kes said in a sad tone. “An imprint left on the world, drawn into being by the old memories and legends that built the barrier.”

“So I’m guessing you can’t just wave your hands and send those golems to the dust bin,” John remarked.

“If I could, we wouldn’t be having this conversation, would we?” Gep’kes asked rhetorically, a dry smile on her lips. “The most I can do is have four separate conversations at once.”

“You’re talking to Senka, Rowan and Tok?”

“I certainly am not going to get much from those foul golems,” the goddess huffed. “But yes, I have each of them in a separate instance of this construct. An interesting quirk of the magics flying around. Suppose that’s good and all. Lets me not have to bounce between all of you.”

“So what exactly are you going to say?” John asked.

Gep’kes let out a snort of amusement. “Time, place, culture. Seems that being impatient and youths go hand in hand everywhere.”

“Sorry,” John said a bit heatedly. “Being in a life or **** fight tends to make me a bit twitchy.”

“Suppose that’s better than being indifferent to it,” the goddess remarked in a solemn tone. “And I suppose I should get on with it.”

John waited for her to impart some secret to victory. A hidden magic of the temple perhaps. Or some information she was able to glean about the golems Observe couldn’t.

“There isn’t much I can do, but I can impart some wisdom and revelation,” Gep’kes Ani said. “The golems are not fully separate things, but part of a greater working. A central caster is keeping them empowered.”

“Which is someone we can’t reach,” John pointed out. “I’m guessing your insight doesn’t give you an idea how to just leave or shut down the archway?”

Gep’kes Ani shook her head sadly. “Nothing my eyes can see will help there. The ‘enhancements’ made to it by the Baz clan have moved it beyond my understanding, to say nothing else of the powers that are using it to invade. But I think you’re not considering all your options. You reached me, didn’t you?”

“I don’t think…” John began but trailed off. Was there anything that said Arcane Wellspring couldn’t be used on a thing? Sadly, two things immediately sprang to mind. Firstly was the use of ‘area’ in its description and secondly was the cooldown being his Wisdom in minutes. Those facts left him hesitant to assume that was the answer to their dilemma.

“The technique I used for this isn’t really on the table anymore,” John said, seeing if perhaps the imprint of a goddess had some revelation that would change his opinion. If she didn’t, then he had no idea how they were supposed to get out of this mess. The first idea of Hexing the arch directly was the best plan they had, and it had been so risky, Senka had swayed him into trying this instead.

“I wouldn’t go and say that with such definitiveness," Gep’kes Ani said. “After all, this whole place is only a side-effect of using it.”

“What?”

The goddess grinned at John like the cat that ate the canary. “All you did was open the door and wake me up, to put it in simple terms. The magic of the temple is still doing its work.”

Almost as if to confirm her words, a popup appeared in front of John, blocking his view of the aged goddess.

Wellspring Effect: Restore 50 HP and MP. HP and MP Regeneration are Doubled. All costs are reduced by 30%. This effect can only ever be invoked once.

“That helps,” John said in a dumbfounded voice. An instant recharge to their health and mana would have been enough, but doubled regens and a third off all casting costs? That was game changing.

“Renewal, remember?” Gep’kes Ani smirked. “A nice little flood of power patching you up and reinforcing your magic. That should make the rush the arch plan be more viable, yeah?”

“Yeah,” John muttered. “If we could plan… Wait. How long can this rest stop stay?”

Gep’kes Ani looked at John with a quizzical look before a smile stretched her weathered face.

“Long enough for me to relay battle plans,” she answered, her tone dripping with vindictive glee. “Let the war council commence!”