Of course, your guest. How could you forget about him? Sitting right beside you now, a bit too close for comfort, is the grotesquely obese Fatrat, with his rat-like teeth, a piggishly upturned nose and a glassed over left eye apparently preventing him from recognizing your discomfort. His words and gestures emulate those of a highborn, even as a rotten stench assaults your senses with every word he utters.

"Thank you again for the hot water, milord. So... You weren't joking about the dragon earlier?"

"No. Its name is Eomatra, and it claims most of the eastern face of this mountain. I recommend you follow the stream down to the road. From there, you should be able to travel safely."

"Oh, good! I really should be going soon. The sun is nearly down, and by virtue of my appearance, that is the best time for me to follow a major road such as this."

"And will you be going west, or east?"

"East, milord. Towards Rampares. It is very close by. I'm sure you've at least heard of it?" The Wretch continues as you affirm. "My master makes his home somewhere nearby. It's on the outskirts, hidden underground. Very hush-hush. Almost makes me feel like a spy, working for him. Hoh hoh hoh!" A snort escapes his lips during that guffaw, for which he proceeds to apologize profusely. You think he's even blushing a little.

You must admit, you've been curious about this master of his for a while. Could he be a major power in the vicinity, or is he merely bottom-feeder like his faithful servant? "And this... master, why is he hiding from the rest of the town? Is he perhaps also, erm..." You pause as you search a good way to put it.

"Also one of the Wretched, yes! He is my teacher, and the best alchemist in our little community. Why, even the King often relies on him for various ointments and remedies!" He states proudly.

You raise an eyebrow at this. Surely he doesn't mean the King of Magnadia?

"Oh, I meant our king, of course," Fatrat clarifies with a chuckle. "King Wretch, as he's officially known to us."

"Anyway, I don't have anything to offer you right now, but if you ever decide to come by and visit, I'm sure my master will reward you generously. He's a great man, he is." Done with his water and meal, he makes an attempt to leave. However, you're not finished with the Wretch. After you saved his life, the least he could do is answer your questions.

"Hold on, er, Fatrat. I had some more questions for you." He pauses, and sits back down with a serious expression. "That amulet of yours. What does it do?"

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"Oh, this? A very simple charm. Master gave it to me for this trip only. If you touch the gem in the middle and speak, it draws energy from you and converts it into a telepathic message. Matches your words so even a spider can understand them. Fortunate that the demon didn't take it from me, isn't it?"

A simple trinket indeed. You don't think there is anything wrong with what he said. He was speaking out loud with the aranea after all. You decide that he can keep the amulet, as it wouldn't really allow you to do anything new. Also, it probably smells like him.

"And your master. Tell me a bit more about him. Where exactly do I find him? How old is he? Does he only practice alchemy? What is he trying to do? Did he turn you into a Wretch?"

Your frantic line of questioning seems to have left your guest somewhat baffled. "I... I think he's around sixty? I'm not sure, I thought it would be rude to ask. He's only an alchemist, as far as I know, though he sometimes makes magical crystals, too? He only does as our King commands, and our King generally only asks that we better our community, milord."

"And Wretches are born, not made. We've a community in the hills to the northwest, past Rampares. Oh!" He remembers something. "Please don't tell anyone that we live there. They'll come to imprison us all! We'll be thrown into those secret Magnadian laboratories, and cut open while we still live. Please, sir, you must promise me!"

Poor sod. Doesn't he know that those kind of experiments are only rumors spread by gossiping old hags? "Very well, Fatrat. I promise not to tell anybody. But you must also promise not to tell anybody of my home here."

To your chagrin, this prompts the Wretch to propose shaking on it. You bravely do so. His misshapen fingernails feel hard as stone against your skin, and afterwards, your hand still smells like his sweat, no matter how much you wipe it on your tunic.

"Seek out Redcap Fardi in Rampares and ask for Zenbad the Wretch. But discreetly! Fardi always wears Andarian garbs with this funny little red hat. Works at that skeevy tavern, er..." He rubs one of his many chins in contemplation. "I don't remember what it's called. But anyway, you won't miss it, I'm sure." He's probably right. The town isn't supposed to be all that large, from what you've heard.

"I-I should go now. I need to make it back before dawn, after all! Oh, and I know about the stream you described, so no need to accompany me. Farewell!" And with that, he hops off, disappearing behind the rocks and trees. This comes off as strange and almost suspicious to you, but then you realize that you probably creeped him out towards the end a little.

Bob the Wizard, unnerving the unnerving. Truly, one of your proudest moments. You scratch your head in mild embarrassment, despite yourself. Still, that's one more thing taken care of. Over the course of the day, you've acquired a new weapon, some arcane schematics, and gained significant rapport with two contacts, strange as they both may seem to be- a mutant and a giant, friendly spider. You've taken care of your tasks, and now you're home and free, to pursue whichever task you wish. Though it is getting a bit late, you notice with a yawn.

The bloated larva doesn't seem to have taken any break from its eating, and seems to swell more and more with every moment, as though it's about to burst. But that would be a silly thing for it to do, you think, since it's merely doing as its instincts compel it to. Perhaps it needs to store all that food at this stage of its life, for some reason? Regardless, you allow it to continue, gently dragging the bear carcass (the ground drags it for you, to be precise), depositing it somewhere between the bonfire and your dwelling. You did a lot of work to secure the worm, and it would be a shame if some wild animal were to maul it while you're asleep. Satisfied that the dead bear and the worm within it are safe enough where they are, you sit down beside them.

If you're going to somehow try to get this thing to listen to you, you need to have it actually like you. Hell, even mere acknowledgement would be a step up from where you are. Your internal reserves begin to stir and roil in preparation for telepathy, as you ponder how to approach the situation. What does a newborn insect even recognize? Does it know the sun from the moon? What images can you even provide to compel it?

In the end, you decide on vague, warm feelings, the kind you associate with your own parents. You try to communicate that you'll shelter and provide and care for it, with a low mental volume, and you do this for some time, until you get bored. The creature is simply not reacting in any significant way, occasionally pausing its chomping to consider something, almost, before returning to its task. You wonder if its beady little eyes can even perceive you.

You decide to take a chance here, and put your hand on its side, to try to establish gentle bodily contact. It doesn't bite you, or squirm away. Instead, it makes the barest hint of a slimy little nuzzle, and continues to gorge itself on bear meat. Lucky for you, as well. You think it could probably bite off a finger if it tried. Then you'd have to squash it dead, and it'd be a waste of your efforts.

You're tired now, and having seemingly accomplished all you could for the day. You bolster the flames a little bit by replacing burnt logs with fresh ones, ensuring it remains lit through the night, and head inside to rest.

You dream of the one-eyed skull, once again. You don't remember what it was about, only that it was unpleasant.

In the morning, you confirm that your new... Pet? Subject? Bat-winged maggot, you suppose, has grown even further. You can make out its hair-thin rows of crawling appendages, and they're clearly too small to allow movement by now. The wings, not having grown with the rest of its bulk, look comically tiny. As for its mouth, well, it's also quite minuscule in comparison to its body, but still impressive in regards to how untiringly busy it's been. A good chunk of the bear is gone, ground up and stored inside its glistening innards, now visible through its further-stretched skin. You decide not to examine the situation much further. You have a breakfast to eat and you need your appetite intact to do so.

As you begin devouring the last of the rabbit meat you possess, you think on how to proceed from here. As far as you can recall, your only obligation is to the aranea, since you promised you'd eradicate the larger spiders accosting its kind, though that's an open-ended task and you're feeling rather spidered-out by now. There are so many possibilities for how you could proceed. You doubt you can even list everything off the top of your head. You'll probably gather some food and water first, and then you'll...

>Build a staircase and a second level.
>Put together some furniture, or a door, or some other structure. (Write-in)
>Build a basement instead.
>Build something else. (Write-in)

>Check on your miner golem and what he's mined.
>Build a new golem of some sort, or several. (Write-in)
>Repair and/or upgrade your existing golems. (Write-in)

>Practice on a new or existing school of magic. (Write-in)
>Practice on a more specific aspect of magic, like perception or detailwork. (Write-in)

>Enchant an object. (Write-in)
>Identify one or more of your magical possessions. (Staff/axe/schema)
>Alter some of your enchanted gear. (Write-in)
>Craft some new gear. (Write-in)

>Do something with your larva.
>Visit the aranea.
>Visit the nearby town.
>Explore around. (The mountain in general, or write-in something specific)
>Go spider-slaying.

>Lay back and read your book. You don't even remember what it was about.
>Do something entirely different. (Write-in)

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Welcome. Archive's here: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/qstarchive.html?tags=A%20Wizard%20and%20his%20Tower

A Pastebin to detail your status and belongings: http://pastebin.com/iWY2NchK

Oh, and have a very, very rough map depicting your surroundings. It may be subject to changes later on, though.

Have fun.

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Also, twitter: https://twitter.com/twinklecakings

>>879184
Hey, Finally, I've been waiting :D

I think we should get a basement and a door and maybe something to put over our windows, but first lets examine the loot!

>Identify Axe

>>879202
Yeah! Let's work on our tower! Let's add a basement to keep the freak and make the ground level more comfortable.

Also, examine the axe

>>879202
>this

Had honestly given up hope of you coming back.

>>879255
I did mention on CutieG I'd be taking a break for a couple days though.

With the rate your larva's getting through that corpse you're going to need more meat. Go hunting then work on a basement to keep your critter.

>>879184
>Examine loot
>Work on tower
>Get buddy buddy with the larva every now and then while doing all that.

>>879184
>Organize loot

>Focus on studying our magic items today. Practice some enchanting by boobytrapping the area around our tower.

>Also prepare measures to get rid of the larva we got.The previous wizard who experimented on them got eaten so it's better to prepare some countermeasures before it lays eggs.

>Get our daily supply of food and water

>Do something entirely different. (Write-in)

Try to analyze your mind now that you learned basic telepathy.
Maybe you will learn something about that creepy beholder and how to get rid of its influence .

>>879184
>Build a new golem of some sort, or several. (Write-in) 2x Stone body with a steel core. Each golem armed with a steel longs word.

>Examine loot

and buddy up with the larva

You retrieve the glimmering green hand-axe from your backpack. After all you went through to obtain it, the least you could do would be to figure out what it does, and see if it's worth your time. Running your fingers over it, you see now that the pearlescent texture is not merely the result of the inlays, but also a quality of the metal itself. While its weight and hue caused you to mistake it for jade of some kind, the axe has clearly been forged, not carved, and its material only resembles the semi-precious stone in texture.

The tactile aid allows you to easily make out the precise locations of the runes on the weapon, the mother-of-pearl characters hidden by the scintillating of the intricate decoration around them, as well as that of the metal itself. The whole thing is fairly small, but bears many little runes arranged in a more artistic than practical pattern, you think. But they seem to be in working order.

The first runes you identify are a set of protective runes, fairly standard fare, like the ones on your armor. However, you see something underneath that, relating to two different materials, and melding their properties together. You're pretty certain one of them is the inlay, and the other one you can't identify for certain, but you believe it is the metal itself. What this metal is, you can't say. You aren't aware of any jade-like steels.

Your best guess is that the array is meant to preserve the fragile parts of the weapon by lending the soft bits some of the hardness from the surrounding material. A creative use of runes, perhaps, though it would've been unnecessary were it not for the use of mother-of-pearl. Maybe it has magic-conducting properties that makes it a better method of engraving than merely scratching it on the metal itself, or maybe the creator of the hand-axe was willing to go to these lengths to indulge in a bit of vanity. You hear enchanters have a tendency to be eccentric.

More arrays surround these two. The innermost flows out from the base of the head onto the handle. Its primary function seems to be to mark its user. There are runes indicating contact, and a link... A specific body part? Your intuition tells you that it will forge an arcane bond of sorts with its wielder, forming a pathway that allows magic to flow, even at a distance. There are also several safeguards that ensure the link is one-way only, going out from the wielder to the axe.

The second array surrounding is connected to this one, spinning out from where it begins to cover the head. The first function is a disruptive one, activated through a blow. It should soften, imbalance and disperse a certain kind of magic, but you can't tell what it's supposed to be. There are several runes defining the attribute, and you can make out that it relates to a physical makeup, and the body in its entirety.

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Somewhere along that last enchantment is a branch-off, where the two outer enchantments connect. It seems that when a blow is struck, the link between the axe and the wielder is transferred to the target. It does some strange things after that, like dispersing into pieces to spread throughout the body, but there are too many runes you're not familiar with to make it out.

Oh, and the metal itself is clearly unusual as well. There is a strange resonance it bears, especially in relation to ambient magic, creating subtle ripples. Now that you're sure it won't curse you or anything, you hold the axe in your hands and activate it- the point where you're meant to channel your energies is clearly highlit by the patterns on the axe. Sure enough, it forms a link with you, an arcane mark separate from but metaphysically adjacent to your own reserves forming on your palm. It isn't visible to the eye, but it's clearly there, and persists even if the axe leaves your hands. You make sure that you can readily turn this effect on an off, and few swings confirm that another enchantment prepares for activation when it meets a target.

That seems to be all you can get out of the axe without a live subject, and with your meat supply having ran out and your fruit following shortly behind, you decide to do a little hunting. You visit the usual spots and pick some fruits and berries, and you even find some yams. The species is unfamiliar to you, but you're relatively certain they won't poison you. A while later, you see a deer, for the first time before it has seen you instead.

You decide to test out the axe. Activating the bond, you take aim and fling it at the animal. You have to adjust its path telekinetically, but it lodges itself solidly into its side. Two things occur after that, magically speaking. One: the link is now between you and the deer, rather than the axe, and at the deer end, it is split into a dozen parts, which in turn are split themselves. Unable to sustain itself like that, the link falls away, bit by bit. Disappointing.

Two: When it connects the axe gives of a strong arcane wave, not a true spell, but a disruptive pattern of sorts. It won't dispel any magic, not like that, but it will definitely disrupt a certain type of arcane makeup. You can't say for sure what this is, but the deer is definitely unaffected.

By the magic, that is. The axe in its side has knocked it off its feet, and blood pours out. It rapidly begins to stumble back on its feet, but your geokinesis is much faster than a wounded animal.

Soon enough, you've skinned, cleaned and hung the deer's corpse inside your home and you're munching on some cooked yam. You've always thought the tuber rather tasteless, but the starch feels good to have in your stomach, considering your recent diet. You devour some mushrooms and a pear after that, washing it down with freshly collected water from the stream. Your meals tend to be not very well put together these days, but you've never been particularly gluttonous.

Certainly not at all compared to the larva beside you, who's now eaten more than a third of the remaining bear by now. An impressive feat, considering it was smaller than that third of a bear when it started out. You continue to send it warm feeling every now and then as you work around the house, wondering if this is doing anything.

You spend the next several hours clearing out the dense stone you'd tightly packed beneath your tower. You hadn't thought about needing a basement, but now that you have several things to store there, you've decided that you definitely do. Sitting on the floor with your eyes closed, you try for a while to move the unnaturally compacted stone without cracking the base of the tower, and it takes you a while to figure out a suitable trick. You end up bending your earthsense to proceed downwards beneath you, then turn to the side and right next to the cliff face below. This entire portion then becomes less stable, and as you begin sinking below, a cylindrical shaft of stone is squeezed out the side of the cliff, slowly so as to preserve the architectural integrity of the terrain.

Carving out a room is fairly standard procedure for you by now. You end up working with your earthsense entirely, since you couldn't be bothered to climb back out of the hole to get a torch, and liquefy large swathes of the ground which then removes itself through the hole through the cliff you made. You have to leave several smaller pillars around the room to keep the entire thing stable, especially if you're to construct more floors. You might even have to come back down here to reinforce it sometime before the third additional floor on top of what you have. You'll probably need at least that much height for your purposes.

Not bothering to smooth out the surroundings much, you content yourself with plugging up that hole, reinforcing some weakened areas and building a spacious stairway up to the first floor, so you can get back out and bring things down here. The larva-bearing bear, for example. You transport it on a stone slab, carefully and slowly as it doesn't like being disturbed. The deer carcass was also bleeding all over your ground floor, so you hang it from a stone hook you build into the ceiling of your new basement. Other food you have lying about are also put in a corner here, after you clean out one of the now empty crates of iron ore to store them in. You snack on these every now and then, as you grow hungry over time.

Back on the ground floor, you have the bled-over portions of the floor flip themselves around to hide the stains. It's barely noon, and you're bored already. You think about how to spend your remaining time for the day.

>Vote! Same options as above, mostly.

>>879348
Go check on the iron mine. If all's well bring back the ore that's been mined up and start building up the tower after that. Don't forget to check the larva once in a while.

>>879355
Go check on the mine and see how the golem's doing,and verify how much ore can be mined. If the situation warrants it,craft a second mining golem.

>>879348
>Craft another golem then go inspect the mine. Be sure to bring your other golems with to the mine.

>>879348
Mines sound good. We should armour up just in case though.

>>879379
this goes without saying... supporting!

>>879348
>See if we can start using our water and earth magic to clean blood - like what is in blood, can we make it go away just like that.

Then we should
>Fire magic

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>>879385
Here is a proposed plan for how we should expand our tower. One basement for storing ore and other goods, as well as a workshop for us to make golems. With an entrence that allows golems to unload cargo.

A second basement to keep our freakish horror out of sight, with a hidden exit that allows us to unleash the beast on any unlucky barstards that besiege us.

Then a second floor where we will have our temporary living quarters and treasury.

>>879348
>>keep expanding tower according to plan >>879428

>>879428
Anon that is a great idea! You have my vote

>>879428
Maybe we should have a third cellar too, with a furnace. Then we can make air canals through the whole tower, for heating.

Or learn fire magic so a lot of stones are can be made warm.

>>879428
But what is a tower without cool windows though.
We need to figure out Glass, or how to make Crystals.

>>879448
I am not sure that would be needed, what i propose is to have our celler extend into the mountainside and be larger than a floor of the tower in size

like to put in a "Tower Core", like a next gen house so it can open dorrs, elevator, and use or deadly traps we will install later

>Craft another golem then go inspect the mine. Be sure to bring your other golems with to the mine.

I'm really enjoying this quest, thank you for running it

>>879449
>or how to make Crystals
Somehow this gave me an idea that we should try our luck with transmutation. Turning iron into gold. Wood into lead. Dirt into coal. Stone into emeralds. That'd be so ballin.

>>879448
>>879449

We will of course keep expanding, but since we have getting started gathering loot and minions, we need to get a minimum working standard.

>>879428
That's pretty neat. I really appreciate that you've put in the time to draw this up, anon.

>>879455
Thanks for participating!

>>879453
This would be deceptively easy, in terms of the core itself. You're basically creating an inanimate golem with some moving parts. That said, you'd need two things:

1. Actual doors and elevators and stuff to animate. You have none of these things.
2. Due to its size, you need to run something conductive through the house so the core can reach the whole thing. For something as simple as toggling traps and such, something basic like copper wiring would suffice.

>>879460
This is a bit beyond you for now.

>>879453
that is giving me very heavy overlord type vibes... I love it!

>>879471
How good would these transmuted materials be for core making?

>>879473
...What transmuted materials?

>>879471
i Think thats fine its for later but a quasting can we have a golem Control other golems
for exampel can our Tower Core Control servent golems (see pic)

>>879453
Awesome idea! Once our tower gets bigger, we are definately implementing this!

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ops forgot se post the pic

>>879474
The ones that are beyond you for now.

>>879482
*beyond us

i also Think we need to visit a Town soon so we can start a farm as we like to be as self-suffisent we have our golems do the menal laber might need to make a aquagolem (a core using Aquakinesis) for watering and fising

>>879476
I mean, technically that should be possible for you to do somewhat later, but this wouldn't really have any significant advantages for you. It's not like commanding a few golems yourself takes anything out of you.

>>879482
They'd just be regular old materials, identical to regular materials of its kind in everything but the origin.

>>879489
ok thanks for answring i love this quest hope you can play this for a long time to came

>>879357
Sounds good, although if we build a second mining golem I think we should make the core out of stone, to speed things up. I don't think metal cores are really necessary in this case.

You've been meaning to check on your newest golem for a while, but you never really got around to it. The iron core should have increased its magical reserve somewhat, but it's a new model, and you can never be too sure how much energy a new body type is going to expend. Or how well it's going to perform, now that you think about it.

Just to be on the safe side, you have your trusty bodyguards come along with you, and you also have them carry a few of pickaxes with them. Your golems are strong, and the picks are old, so replacements may be in order. You're also considering adding more golems to the mine. Truthfully, your initial aim was to craft multiple golems, but your choice of iron for the core resulted in you taking much longer than expected, for a relatively meager upgrade.

It takes you a while to get to your destination, and a first look at the entrance reveals nothing of note. Nobody seems to have entered or left the mine since you've last been here, which is a relief. After all, even if looters and other unsavory types abstain, you can't be sure some wild animal won't make it their home, with the troglodytes now gone and the golem only occupying a small side tunnel.

You and your golems eventually make it to said side tunnel, and you find a rather baffling sight. The golem, now draining your power to recharge itself, carries on with its task as though everything was in order. But before it, near the entrance to the tunnel, is a new corpse. Not the desiccated one from before, or any of those you've found (or made) down the trog path. This is a completely bare skeleton, mostly lacking ligaments or such, but one that has most of its pieces intact, save for the skull. It seems to have been wearing badly rusted armor, of Norvaer make judging by the false runes and the fur that decorates it, but all of that now lies in a pile of rust and bone.

A closer analysis confirms that this was a magically animated corpse, the residue of necromancy still lingering inside the bones. There are no other undead around, and it didn't come from the outside, so... This must be one belonging to the abomination below. You shudder a bit as you recall how close by that bastard brought you to its knees. Was this a test? No, it clearly knew you had more than enough power to pulverize this meager creature, so... A stray, perhaps? You thought it was a powerful lich-like creature, but you suppose it may have more servants than it can control under it. You dared not to encroach upon its territory.

You have a hole dig itself into the ground, into which the skeleton is deposited, and pulverized along with its useless armor as a needlessly heavy stone crashes neatly onto the pit. You've no need for reminders of that incident, or for negative-tainted bones, or armor beyond all repair. Not when you have all this brand new iron around you.

>>879489
but would it be superior to gathering the materials the old fashioned way? I presume we would need a sizable sample of whatever it is.

Speaking of which, the veins, as you continue your survey, appear to be mostly untouched. Your golem has been sticking to only one of them, that vein alone possessing more than enough iron to occupy it. As you watch, it cracks piece after piece of unrefined ore, gathering it up and storing it on its hollowed abdomen periodically. When it's full, it walks back to the crate it designated, probably because of its proximity, and deposits its load within. You're actually not sure how it functions internally when it comes to certain aspects like these. You don't even know how your golems see, for example. Some sort of blindsight, certainly, but how precisely? And what part of their core did you even put that in?

You'll have to save that mystery for later. For now, you take count of your ore, which seems to be one and a half crates here. The golem seems to be a fast enough miner for your needs, and the mines could accommodate more of them. A few more miners, and you could start producing more ore than you could turn into steel! Then you'd have to let the golems do the smelting for you. You're not sure how they could turn it into steel without your magical talents. You're efficient with coal, but trying to mix it into steel by hand would probably burn most of it off, so you'd need to start producing more coal to match the added ore production. Maybe charcoal-producing golems..?

Bah, logistics are dumb. You'd best stick to what's here and now.

>Build one or more miners.
>Experiment with new body types, or layered cores, or something else.
>Forget the miners. You've got to do something about that lich-thing. Though he did say he wasn't taking visitors...
>Screw all that. Grab the ore and skedaddle.
>Write-in

>>879496
>Grab the ore and skedaddle.
Add a few more floors on the tower. At least 3 floors tall for our purposes was it?

>>879496
>>Build one or more miners.
stone core rather, iron cores just aren't worth the hassle for civilian models

i presume steel cores would be better in fighting golems? We really should also go about arming our golems better....

>>879496
>Grab the ore and skedaddle.
I'm not really sure of what we can do,anons. Maybe visit a town and try to get a farm going?
Or build some furniture for our house?

>>879496
How long would it take to build a single mining golem with a stone core?

>>879500
Don't forget to reinforce the bottom before doing this. Maybe when it's tall enough to tap into the leylines we can try that transmutation thing? Sounded useful.

>>879506
Couple hours for the first one. Slightly less time will be spent as you repeat identical tasks.

>>879502
Other than the core itself being harder to damage, a core being steel provides pretty much no benefits.

>>879510
could you get the same level of protection by simply encasing the core in some steel before inserting it into the golem

>>879496
>Grab the ore and skedaddle
yea building more on the Tower seem like a most for now

>>879513
Yes.
>>879507
No.

>>879496
>Write-in
i hope this is not the Summon that the skull talk about

>>879520
oh shit

>>879520
Fuck

>>879496
>Write-in
the skeleton that we found we a summon for the lich skull
>846331 if you forgot or misst the last thread
"You have more power than most. This affords you some lenience. I will leave, now. Later, there will be summons. You will obey them, or you will die."

>>879519
Just to be clear, what school of magic would that fall under. Do we need to increase enchantment? Telekinesis? I honestly really love the idea and would be interested to know what it would take to get started on it.

>>879527
Not sure if this is a vote for something.

>>879529
You've no idea. All you know is that snake oil alchemists are historically known for claiming to transform this or that into gold and diamonds and are always proven wrong with no exception.

It feels like must be possible. It probably is, through multiple disciplines. But that doesn't mean you know where you should even begin to look for a way to achieve it. Also, your gut might be wrong and it might all end up being a fool's errand.

Did you think I was going to make it easy for you to alter matter on a molecular level?

>>879496
Let's bring back the resources and keep adding storages to our tower.

>>879531
yea sorry dont relly know what to do can, see if we can pry the info out of the skeleton might be lucky and learn some necromacy

>>879538
It's dead. Deader. Uh. Destroyed is the term, I think. Skull bashed in. Probably by your golem. It can't talk.

That said, having seen some necromantic residue would probably give you a small bonus to learning necromancy, if you're gonna go down that path.

I guess I'm writing for adding another level to the tower.

>>879540
ok thank
i allways felt like we are like "leonardo da vinci" we experament on evrything that we find fun and/or intresting and then move on

>>879540
Agreed, we should definitely experiment with necromancy

>>879547
I'd rather focus on making golems. We've only got three actually useful golems currently active, and I think having more and better golems will help us out a lot the next time we get into combat.

>>879557
I agree fully, golems are also A. Far superior to the basic undead and B. Easier to produce/ethical. While one can *probably* raise a good amount of undead cheaply and easy, golems are easier in that the material is all around us and readily available... People are also not likely to take umbridge to us turning a pile of rock into a golem the same way they would be were we to raise the dead

>>879564
yea i agree we need some combat golems steel core stone body perhaps it was to Close for comfor last time we battled

>>879564
but i still like to learn necromany for defencive means as the lich skull below likely know alot if it

You return home, not wanting to think much about this. The extra pickaxes are stowed away here, at some corner you think is sufficiently out of sight, and in their place, your golems pick up your new one and a half crates of unprocessed iron, and you head home.

Since it isn't nightfall yet, you decide to get some more work done on your tower. Around the central pillar, you raise a staircase, and an opening reveals itself on the ceiling. Without paying much mind to aesthetics, you ascend as soon as the whole thing looks safely climbable and emerge on the flat, rough roof. You can see quite a bit from here. Your campsite, your construction materials, even some of the stream. Your surroundings are of course beautiful, but you don't feel like enjoying nature all that much right now. Besides, on the outside, it's just a mountain like any other.

Slowly, a massive boulder, one you're surprised your golem managed to haul safely, lifts off the ground, hovering your way as it teeters. You deposit it by the building below, not willing to risk collapsing your hard-built domicile, and instead retrieve pieces of it chunk by chunk. Each piece starts melting as they drift your way, and you deposit them around the perimeter. Other than having to summon the stone up to where you are, the routine is actually all too familiar for you.

You have the stone dance around a bit, or control as many individual pieces as you can, practicing your control to stave off boredom. And you do manage to do a few new things, but for the most part, your advancement seems to plateau a bit. You're a very formidable geomancer, your capabilities possibly matching that of a battlemage after several years of study, but new insights don't reveal themselves as readily to you. There are no new things that just 'click' in your head, and the amount of magic you can channel at once remains as limiting as ever. What are you doing wrong?

Soon enough, you have a room as high as the first, a ceiling over your head, with a central pillar just like the first. The walls aren't quite as smooth as the first floor, since you worked on that one far longer, but they are smoother than the first draft of that floor, confirming that your skill has indeed increased since then. But you don't think it looks better than the cellar. Well, other than the fact you left small openings for windows. Those serve well to light up the room. They're rough and lack panes, but they're functional.

ust for the hell of it, you extend the staircase to the top of this new second floor. You wonder how thing will look from up there. You ascend, once again, the ceiling bending out of your way to allow you passage.

It's windy. And cold. You can barely make out the sun even from this height, so you guess the day flew by as you toiled away at your tower the entire day. And that's fine, you need a tower. Just above you, you can just barely sense the roiling energies as several natural currents crash into each other, creating an invisible, yet unmissable vortex of untold power. You're not sure how you would tap into it as you are, or what you would do with the power once you do. You just knew the idea drew you to it. That it is the key to wondrous and terrible deeds.

You look around a bit, taking in your surroundings fairly idly. Just as you're about to turn around and head back down, you notice some light. One double take later, its source becomes apparent: A group of campers have built a campfire right by the stream. They're fairly distant to you right now, and make no indication that they noticed your tower. However, their presence isn't irrelevant: They all bear heavy backpacks, which they're now taking off to deposit on the ground, and you see quite a few pickaxes between the... seven, you think, of them.

The sun is setting. You think these people are going to be resting for the night. You're not sure what they'll be doing tomorrow.

>Sleep now. Deal with it later.
>Visit them immediately.
>You could try to kill them from where you are.
>Write-in

>>879598
>Visit them immediately.
bring your golems but let them stay out of sight as undo conflik seems stupid but better safe then sorry

>Visit them immediately.
Be polite. Golems just out of sight. If they ask we are just a simple earth mage looking for some peace and quiet.

>>879603
supporting

>>879606
why lie, lets just make people know we live here now as we will for some time and it will stop alot a problem for later

>>879606
Ya. We moved to the mountain to be near our element, so we could hone our craft.
>Whats that tower?
Oh tower? Thats no tower. Just a 2 story house. I've yet to put a roof on it. Moved here recently you see.

>>879609
Or couse a lot of problems right now.

>>879609
>Wizards scares and fucking terrify people.
>Just let every-fucking-numbnuts know WHAT we are.

Hahahahahaha NO! I would prefer we be better prepared before we summon a paranoid king or three to come and fucking kill us.

>>879615
ok i Think its overly parinod but i can acept that line of thinking still better being prepared then hardship

>>879623
Seriously we got throw out of our village and were NOT offered anything by any major power out there, whom, if paranoia and distrust of Wizards, not task-mages but Capital W Wizards, was not common amongst them, would probably LOVE to have an epic level caster on the payroll, means that everyone is not really all that into having an unstoppable force of nature running around doing....stuff.

There is a town about 10 or so miles from here. If we tell people we are a Wizard, they WILL send for help and gather a group of adventurers to try and kill us, or maybe an army. So no, we are a simple task mage looking for peace and quiet.

>>879623
Being polite will get better results, regardless of either of our intentions. We need to see what's going on anyways, it wouldn't be smart to scare off potential allies or neutral parties.

>>879644
>>879638
we can inform them that we are a wizard politey but we have yet to finish our Tower and our golems are dmg so i can se your point

>>879653
We can also politely lie to them.
What part of they will VERY LIKELY KILL US or get us killed in the near future do you not Understand.

>>879653
The polite thing is to lie.

You hurry down, raising a stone column to lower you down to the ground. Your golems break out in a run to catch up with you as you make haste down steeper paths than you usually do, your geomancy aiding your descent. You have to remind yourself that you can afford to slow down a little. You don't want to cause a landslide or leave your golems too far behind. The former is especially important if you are to hide your true power from these people. The presence of a wizard could cause some upheaval if word got out, though how big of one, you can't say for sure.

Best not find out the hard way.

You eventually make your way down to the stream, a ways further up the mountain than your uninvited guests. They haven't noticed you, thankfully, and you and your golems are protected enough by tree cover that you can observe them a little from where you are.

There now seem to be eight of them, not seven. Perhaps these same trees hid that last person from you as they now hide you from him. You would have noticed him if he was out there. Because right there by the campfire, with the rest of the humans, is a gnoll, and while you can't make out what they're talking about, they seem to be cracking jokes, as they all laugh at something, and the gnoll is as welcome within their ranks as he were any one of them. He looks strange, having white fur instead of brown, and his armor has been specially made to fit his unusual body. You'd normally expect to see scavenged bits and pieces on a member of this marauding, nomadic tribal race, not a proper, highfolk-made suit of plate.

The humans around him seem pretty standard outdoorsy folk. Most of them are of Kreini blood. They're a short, stocky folk known for their sturdiness, prevalence in mining operations around the world, and proficiency with various traditions of artifice. And yes, every single one of the damn pinters have pickaxes with them, making their intentions pretty much certain. One individual even seems to be a demolitionist of sorts, if the alchemical bombs strapped around his belt and overfilling his backpack are indicative of anything.

There are other humans there, bloodless at a glance, much like yourself. Some seem to be miners, others are proper guardsmen. They bear no flags or obvious markers of sort. You suspect these are freelancers, rather than guildsman of any official capacity. Still, someone would probably notice if they went missing.

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You leave your golems here, covered by trees, and emerge into the clearing, making your way to the group with deceptively calm steps. It takes them a while to notice you, as they all seem to be distracted by a keg of recently uncorked ale, but heads begin to turn your way eventually.

They don't move to attack or anything overt like that, but the guardsmen, including that gnoll, all move forward to put themselves between you and the noncombatants. Many of their hands rest on their weapons.

You come to a halt a few steps before them, and greet them in what you hope is a non-suspicious manner.

"Greetings, friends. Welcome to Mount Mardale. I'm called Bob, an earth mage who calls this place home."

Someone behind the guardsmen, with foam on his upper lip responds, "Hello, Bob."

"Might I ask what brought you here?" you continue, unfazed by the few mutters and giggles.

"Greetings, mage. We're not here to disturb anybody," a tall man proclaims, emerging from behind the guardsmen. "Heard there was some unclaimed mines in these mountains. Figured we'd find 'em, mine 'em, and claim 'em."

The man, now that you're paying proper attention, seems richer than the rest. He has a somewhat more distant disposition as well; he wasn't one of the people laughing earlier. He bears a wide shortsword, and leather armor is visible underneath his blue garb. This could mean he's Eridian, or it could be that he just likes blue. It wouldn't pass where you grew up in (you'd end up beaten and battered for wearing this much blue sooner than later) but you don't really know how people view that kind of thing around these parts.

The man, apparently their leader, asks you a question. "You wouldn't happen to know nothing about these mines, would you?"

>Write-in

>>879758
>How could I not as an earth mage. To the other side of the mountain lies the territory of a Dragon.
On this side I have explored two mineshafts. One is full of magic spiders and I wouldn't reccomend you walking in there. The other one is even worse as some necromantic monstrousity dwells within and I only dare to utilize the tokens provided by my teacher to mine the top layers.

>>879758
this>>879776

>>879758
i support this >>879776

>>879758
Well I have atempted to scout a few of them for anything useful. One of them was full of trogs, but I caved that one in. Didn't want them sneaking up on me in the night. At least 1 more is full of giant spiders. I don't dare go near them as they're too many in number, but they don't seem keen on atacking me as long as I don't disturb them. I have reason to believe that their lair has tunels connecting to most others in the area, so I would be careful if I were you. Also you might not want to go too deep as their seems to some necromantic presence under the mountain. Other than that you may want to avoid the area around Mt. Mardales peak as Eomatra makes his lair there. He is not to keen on visitors. So anyway what ores have you dug out so far? I might be interested in trading.
(Intimidate them into leaving by telling them the truth about what is around here and downplaying our own part in it. Also see if they have interest to trade.)

>>879758
Decition looks clear. We tell them whats around here and hope they GTFO. If they ask why we stay tell them all that danger keeps people away and we like our quiet to the point where the danger is worth it.

>>879758
we shoud also inform them that we have a golem mine on one of the mines

but i have no real probem haveing them here

>>879758
Shoot, I hope they're not the adventuring type. They're as likely to come back with friends like the gnoll as they are to turn around.

"These mines are already been claimed, by the hordes of monsters that ate the previous miners and an undead lord beneath it all. Listen, between that and the dragon, you're better off moving on. "
Perhaps we can interest them in some of our haul, passed off as the last crates to ever leave those cursed caverns?

One of our golems was torn in half, right? Have we repaired or replaced it yet?

>>879758
Convince them that the mines have been claimed, and warn them of the nearby dragon. If that doesn't convince them, kill them and take their stuff.

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>>879803
>>One of our golems was torn in half, right? Have we repaired or replaced it yet?
You have not. The golem with the sword was sliced through the core after its sword broke apart against the bebilith's chitin. You left its inert body behind.

You have a crude axegolem and a basic unarmed one.

Here's that other guy.

>>879812
i feel like we shoud let them decide for them self as long as thy let us get we need form the mine and a buffer form the lich skull below and or if thy murder thy spider we still accses to the undermine

I think we should protect our Spider-bros.

Not that I don't think that they know how to handle themselves.

Anyways, perhaps we should muster an expedition to take out the Lich? With us, Sandra, the Mining Company and whatever aid the Wretched can give us, we should be able to pack some punch.

i feel like being an old man and Yell at them to get of our lawn

>>879758
>Write-in
I have found two shafts and laid claim to the upper section of one. The other of which is occupied by some arenca friends of mine.

"But of course. What kind of self-respecting earth mage would not have?"

That immediately gets the group's attention. Even the dismissive ones among their ranks are listening to you intently, and a few of the Kreini now have a dangerous glint in their eyes.

"To my knowledge, there are two mineshafts on Mardale. The first one seems to be full of giant spiders. Some of them even wield magic."

"Spider mages? Boss, I think this guy's been hitting the gilbesh!" There are a few quiet laughs, but it's soon been silenced by the gnoll.

"Oh, human doesn't know about aranea? Aranea hive is no laughing matter. My tribe once fought aranea hive. Half of tribe was burned and eaten, other half had to find new place to live."

That dampens their mood a little. The leader seems to agree as well. "Aye, we can't fight off spider if they have magic."

"But you said you found two mines here, no?"

You confirm with a nod, while doing your best not to grin smugly. They have no idea how bad it is for them up there.

"The other mine I found to be infested with troglodytes." You pause to see if they're familiar with the creatures, and indeed they seem to be. Several noses are wrinkled in disgust at the mere mention of them. Actually, you might have heard one of them call someone else 'trog-breath,' so it's only natural. "And beneath the troglodytes, there seems to be an undead presence. Even those foul beasts had felt the need to barricade them, and I myself dared not venture beyond. Their presence alone was enough to drive me away, to be perfectly honest." You leave away some information, but you don't really lie to them, either. In fact, you couldn't be called deceitful at all. Telling them the truth was probably the perfect plan.

The miners are dead serious, but the men in front of you seem relatively unfazed. "Very interesting. We'll see if it's as bad as you say down there."

Well, that would be outright suicidal of them to do. A bit incriminating as well, since you killed every trog down there with geomancy, which will seem pretty obvious to them when they get there, and you have a golem mining the place as well. You consider presenting them with a little bit more truth.

"I've actually cleared away the topmost layer. I had some useful trinkets with me, you see, and have been using them to get what little iron I can." A few frowns follow this statement. The crowd, now that their attention is fixated upon you, seems to behave like some sort of theater crowd, their reactions changing with every act of your little play.

You decide to go for the climax. "I should also warn you. A dragon named Eomatra claims the eastern half of this mountain. You should probably not go there."

Murmurs. Dismissal. Rebuttal. Fear. Every single member of this small party is fervently rattling off about something or the other, sounding like a crowd much bigger than they are.

"A dragon?"

"Bullshit, it was probably just a drake!"

"How big was it?"

"A bit taller than that tree."

"See, that could be either!"

"Well I'm not fighting anythin' that big, dragon or not. I ain't fuckin' crazy!"

"Eomatra is a female name." The gnoll speaks up. "Draconic. Could be dragon. Could be drake. Was it friendly?" He asks you.

"It's a cattle-snatching, forest-burning, virgin-eating, god damn dragon, you idiot! What do you think!?" You're interrupted rather rudely. But you're thankful that you didn't have to answer that. Eomatra has been nothing but cordial with you, and you think their leader is watching you intently, as though he expects you to lie.

He interrupts. "Enough! See any fires in the forest? Yeah, I didn't think so, you snot licker. We'll stay out of her territory, and she'll probably leave us alone. Bob, you said you live here, aye? Then so can we." He clears his throat. "But thank you for all the information. If I may ask you for one more thing..."

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As though prompted, one of the short women pulls out a map and lays it out on a box. "Would you mind pointing out where the mines are? That way, we could fetch the field scribe as soon as we can, to make the claim official. Takes those paper-pushers long enough to get their shit in order anyways. Might as well send a guy as soon as possible while we get started with the digging, aye?"

Fuck. The miners are decidedly demoralized, and a few of them are whispering to each other as though they may be thinking of leaving, but this rich guy is pretty much unwavering in his resolve. The real bad news here is that if word got out about the extensive veins of iron, mercenaries or even the Rustguard might come out here to clear the mines, maybe even get a little mining settlement going.

The boss man, as though sensing your doubt, retrieves two gold coins from his pouch. "I'll even make it worth your while."

A bit insulting, really. The mines are worth so much more than that.

>Write-in

>>880134
It would be a shame if the miners where to *disappear*

>>880134
Yeah, no. We need to make it clear that we're claiming the mountain here. We don't want to share, we need the stuff around here! Or want, at the very least. Probably going to piss them off, but whatever. We'll see how they react to a dismissal/rebuff, and go from there.

>>880143
Or we could eliminate them and have them not spread stories of a mage hiding something in the mountains

>>880144
We can still do that, but let's see how they react first, yeah? They might decide to press the issue in a few different ways. Try to fight us, ignore us (probably not, we are a earth mage), tell us off, maybe even try to bribe us out of the picture. I want to see how they react if we just tell them that we've already claimed the area.
To be honest, it's not like they're going to be a serious threat, provided we don't be stupid. Set up the golems so that they can attack, ready a earthquake to knock them around, pin them in the earth and pummel them with our telekinesis, so on. It's not that big of a deal, and their one of the few regular people we're probably going to see in a while.

>>880134
>Ya sorry, but like I said: I'm using the mines myself. Quite frankly I find it insulting that you think I'll just let you have them. I'm here for peace and quiet and letting someone set up a mining operation would really not help me in that matter.
If they put up too much of a fight just kill them all, take their stuff and earthbend their bodies 10 ft under so no one finds them. If someone asks we say we warned them, but they went into the mines regardless and never came back.

>>880134
What everyone says. Talk them into leaving and kill them if that fails.

>>880134
i dont mind them being here aslong as we get to take what we need from whatever mine thy pick like part owner or somthing and stay out of our Tower unless invited, if thy stay

>>880134
"I beg your pardon, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. These mines have been claimed already. I'm sorry that you've traveled so far for nothing, but, as I said, the claim has already been staked. I hope this won't dampen our cordial relationship."

>>880186
Is our character suddenly British now? "Yea verily, Lord and Ladies. Indeed, what what."

Yeah, we kinda claimed those mines already. So we're not going to do that.

Direct confrontation should be avoided, but if they persist in encroaching upon on the mountain, the mountain will be... displeased. The roads will turn to mud, the wheels of their wagons will get caught and break down, the pack animals might fly into a blind panic or die of fright... Their journey will be a cursed one.
(Geomancy + brute force telepathy, at maximum earthsense range.)

If they threaten you with physical violence, bring out the golems, but in any case abscond nonviolently.

>>880134
Explain that you seek the mineral wealth of this mountain just as they so, and would rather not be forced to divvy up the mountain any mire then you have.

>>880134
What are the rust guard? A mining guild?

>>880200
Wait, did they carry everything in on foot? No matter. When the mud steals their shoes and soils their good clothes, they're going to be *sorely* tempted to turn back.

wow we got territoral fast but we likly need thy material that thy mines have to ofer but i still Think we can let them have a mine if we are part owner or somthing similar,
i dont like just killing them or driving them as that will bring troble later but we do need that stuff from the mines

>>880225
We could buy iron from them in exchange for enchanted stuff.

>>880225
The danger is if they see us doing things no teen earth Mage should be able to do, they might put two and two togethere and figure our we were a wizard in hiding.

>>880219
Magnadia's main military arm is colloquially called Rustguard. It's supposed to be Russetguard, but the part-adamantium gear they often wear kinda looks rusty, and the actual name doesn't roll off the tongue as well, so now even its members call it the Rustguard.

They deal with external threats. Wars, undead hordes, other thing they don't want adventurers dealing with.

In contrast, the Greenguard is somewhat more of a policing force. Their members can use deadly force, but their equipment reports it the second they do.

The Roseguard is an elite force, with members doing things like royal guarding and leading taskforces and many other things. There's a handful of them, all celebrities.

We don't talk about the Paleguard.

Every single one of these branches are extremely, unrealistically and bafflingly well-equipped with enchanted rare metal gear. They have war golems that stomp devastating spell circles into the ground and rapidfire lined-up wands of fireball like chainguns. And that's the basic model.

You should probably not fuck with Magnadia.

>>880225
A wizard needs turf (apparently), and letting other people move in now is going to complicate solidifying our ownership of it down the road. Turf gives us access to resources and prestige.

>>880245
true, but we have allready have someone (Sandra) that know we live here and is a wizard but she might have thught that was a joke

>>880251
i dont disagree we shoud probobly get some buracrat to know that we claime this area of the mountin as to not have massive problems

>>880257
I really doubt anyone is going to respect the claim of one person when there's untold resources to be claimed, especially when the people doing the not respecting are the government and when they have the kind of things described in >>880250

>>880250
do we know how to claime land for ourself as this is getting annoying and liky dangeus (for them)

>>880257
That would be good, BUT it would need funds. Funds we don't have.

>>880260
Pretty much what that anon said. Officially speaking, the land belongs to the crown here, as far as you know.

Claiming a mine is cheaper. The upfront price is meager; the real profit is turned by the government claiming taxes (40% for mundane ores).

Unfortunately, you literally don't have a single coin to your name.

Also, this is getting into metagaming territory. This isn't really stuff Bob would know about.

>>880259
true i dont see a got way out of this, killing them well lead to issue later on as people look for them, scaring them of will get issue and letting them find the ore vein seem like the worst tho

>>880273
ok thank for awsering and i figurd this was above bob head

>>880260
>4 separate military groups, 3 of which is outfitted for serious military confrontations
>They all have extremely powerful gear, spells we know nothing about and have no way to plan a counter towards, almost certainly have very high-quality training and standards for their troops (they've fought and won wars with them), and one of their military arms is so dangerous that nobody even dares talk about them.
>"lol, we can totes take them cause we are awesome"
How about no?

>Suit it your self.

>The Trinkets my teacher gave me are operating in the topmost layer of the mine.

>I may lend you one as a guard but please leave the other one to its mining work.
I don't need any gold if i'm just left alone to do my job and practice my magic.

>Oh and one more thing.

>Please don't risk your workers lives by sending them in deep. I'm being honest here, there's something really bad down there otherwise i'd be digging through the mountain like crazy.

>>880286
How about "not yet"?

>>880301
Its why we are Lying and being stealthy about this. Sure in maybe another year or so we could obliterate armies. But for now, we play dumb.

>>880300
supporting

>>880300
Also supporting.

>>880304
If big gov't comes in and invades our territory, we're more likely to be discovered. The less people around the better for us. If they won't leave willingly then we should just kill them and give their bodies to the spiders. Then, if anyone ever comes calling, looking for these missing people, we have a ready scapegoat.

>>880316
Nah we just need to cause a "cave-in" sooner rather than later.

can we make a small carving in the ground of the lich skull below to show whats we Think is down there maby one of them know what it is

>>880138
RIP AND TEAR

>>880143
>>880169
>>880179
>>880186
>>880200
>>880212
intimidate/rebuke (murder optional)

>>880183
>>880300
>>880309
>>880312
sharing is caring

>>880233
trade

I'll be honest, I haven't been writing shit. Jackie Chan was on. I love you guys, but I love him just the slightest bit more.

Anyway, the vote's been open long enough. You're intimidating them.

If it fails, you'll have to decide if you're going lethal or nonlethal.

So without further ado, roll me some 100s.

Rolled 59 (1d100)

>>880338

Rolled 86 (1d100)

>>880338
Let's do this thing

Rolled 75 (1d100)

>>880338
Include the friendly warning in an intimidating manner.

Nonlethal.

can we use lich skull below (carving in ground or Telepathy ) as aswell i like too see if thy know what it is

>>880355
It's cool. We don't need a secondary vote, thanks to >>880354

I mean, the 75 was nice and all, and you'd already shaken half their fighters pretty badly, but you'd probably still have to put down the rich guy with that roll.

We will need to eliminate them sooner rather than later. We need a plan. Scaring them seems to no longer be an option. Perhaps we should try to buy time so that our pet horror can help us?

>>880338
Hope we didn't just make a big mistake.

>>880370
wow i love that we are becoming more like an evil wizard fast here "lets cultivata an aboration horror to scare the people from setting up shop here"

>>880373
We aren't human anymore man. Wizards do not have morals, especially if the tale of the wizard's shotgun is anything to go by.

Guys. We can tell them to show the mines and then trap them. We know how the place is,amd they don't. We can bullshit them about the aranea not liking torchlight and then they will be in the dark while we know perfectly well where we are,thanks to our earthsense. Then we just craft two huge stone walls and make the ground swallow them.

>>880368
Do any of the other nations on the continent have an army on a similar level to Magnadia?

>>880379
We rolled pretty well for intimidating them, so hopefully that won't be necessary.

>>880375
I like to think that we're just a kid who got told he wasn't human anymore and just goes along with it becouse he doesn't know better, but eventually realizes that the power he wields does't make his morals go away. I mean we were born with this power. How does becoming aware of it make everything we believed in until that point go away?

>>880387
Well,we'll see. I don't really feel comfortable with people knowing we are here,though,and killing them would solve that + get us some loot.

>>880380
That's hard so say. The Lawervian tribes outnumber them, and they're not the ooga booga kind of tribes, but they're still tribes. There are multiple secretive city-states like Pythe and Mars nobody knows much about other than that they're extremely xenophobic and possess unique technologies. The druidic circles of the Crownlands are extensive and their numbers are unknown, but again, they aren't a unified people.

The remaining nations, as far as you know, aren't quite as powerful, but you don't know all that much about the various militaries of the continent.

>>880401
We never really killed people before. I don't think it would be in character for us to just go murderhobo on them like it was nothing.

>>880401
Well, the henchmen seems to get it, but the spoony posh boy is too dense.

>>880390
Because we lived by those morals while we didn't have to worry about our paranoid and terrified neighbors/government/our nation's fucking ARMY coming to rape us to death.
Seriously our own parents threw us out of our house, and then the village threw us out simply because we suddenly developed what COULD be a seriously beneficial power to a fucking farming village. In fact all of society decided we were fucking anathema because we became a Wizard. Im surprised we haven't had a fucking nervous breakdown yet, like why does me developing this power make my parents suddenly fucking hate me? Y'know earth-shaping would be VERY helping in all manners of fucking things, from plowing the fields to construction, to industrial benefits.
Yet no, INSTA-SHUNNED. So fuck them. Fuck them and their morals. If they cannot accept me for what i am, i ain't fucking living by their gods dammed rules.

>>880411
As in I think >>880390 has a point.

>>880413
Your parents still love you.

>>880413
What an unnecessary rant.

As A1 said
>>880418


So at least use the gentler method of scaring them away.
If nothing else send the knight dude to his death in the cave and have the others leave after that.

>>880413
OR we realize that they only did that out of fear/expierience with other wizards. Who knows, being told wizards are monsters all our life and realizing that we are one might prompt us to believe we are a monster and lead to self loathing rather than cruelty. I like to think that if I was in a situation like that I would be as much of an upstanding citizen as possible just to prove everyone wrong.

look fellow wizards I guess I have to be the voice of reason here and bring you out of your paranoid overthinking.

As long as we have an unclaimed mine people are gonna come looking, the more people who "Vanish" the more questions that will be asked, the harder it becomes to cover up

Let us act like a fucking person for once and negotiate!

all we need is access to raw ore. there is plenty of that in the mine, just hash something out with the leader

>>880441
Okay,okay,we can be reasonable,for the time being. We can't let them try to get the better part of the deal in this,though,since we do have the upper hand. If they try anything funny,sic the golems on them and let one live with the message that these mines are claimed.

>>880441
as a plus to this same argument, let them settle near us, if we start helping people and show we can be trusted and useful, these people will come to rely on and trust are word. That gives us the ever so valuable commodity of influence. and with people supporting us it will be alot easier to deal with actual threats like bandits and other horrors. being a part of a kingdom sounds awesome. if we play are cards right we can have the rust guard on call if we need some serious help as well as some hefty income to help us aquire resources beyond are borders

>>880423
Don't call him that. He will hurt us. Everyone calling him AI(and now A1) rather than Al is probably what coused us to have this many encounters in the first place. I mean we are in the midle of nowhere and a week within our arival people start flocking to the location. The adventurer and now the miners. Why not a year before? Why not a year from now? IT'S BECOUSE YOU PEOPLE CAN'T CALL THE GUY Al LIKE HE WANTS.

>>880450
I am not saying bend over backwards to cater to their every demand, but we can be afford to have a few people know us and trust us. Are first order of business should be a entirely combat focused golem, we are powerful yes but we are still only one, with a private army at are call no one will question who is top dog around here.

subtly hint and remind them that without us they would be walking into a death trap. be more honest, bend the truth if you have to but don't out right lie to them and they will begin to trust you.

Which is more easy to deal with? a lone wizard in a tower in the middle of bumfuck nowhere. or a wizard in a tower in the middle of a heavily fortified town with loyal subjects?

Morals are contextual. Killing someone is justifiable in every society with a "good enough" reason. Wizard morality is going to inherently different from human morality simply because there is an inherent difference between the two. Do you feel guilt for being party to the wholesale slaughter and torture of farm animals when you purchase their meat from supermarkets? Of course you don't, because they are livestock. Same thing. We're surrounded by a herd of cattle, so we shouldn't cause a stampede, but I don't see why we shouldn't lead them individually to a metaphorical slaughterhouse.

>>880491
thinking like that is dangerous and can lead us down a path we will not be able to come back from.

society exist for a reason, its not a bad idea and once again no matter how careful we are the more groups who vanish into these mountains the more rumors are going to spread. eventually we will not be dealing with lightly defended mining groups but heavily armed military investigation squads or worse ADVENTURERS!

i hope we dont kill them

>>880507
The slippery slope argument is an inherent logical fallacy. I'm not saying we go Edgelord and start killing things for the lulz, but it is contextually appropriate to recognize that we are different from regular humans, just like that Gnoll is. Just because he's an Uncle Tom doesn't mean we have to be.

>>880491
That may be so, but I still don't like the idea of throwing away our humanity just because others say we aren't human to begin with. Yes killing can be justified. Killing being ARGUABLY more convenient shouldn't be a reason good enough to not try an alternative. Especially for a teen who hasn't even killed people before. If we were some sociopath, I would agree with you. But we aren't, so talking about cold blooded murder like we were talking about the weather would be very OOC.

>>880547
I would argue that it isn't cold blooded murder, but the same thing as when we believed the spiders were a threat and went to exterminate them. Fear of a threat is reason enough to extinguish that threat, which we've already acted upon. Is killing humans a step up? Yes, but (I think) a reasonable one.

Fucking edgelords ruining a fun quest with their pointless moral drama.

You sigh. "I think you misunderstood me."

The tall leader man gets a dangerous look in his eye. "What do you mean?"

You think he already knows, but just to make sure, you flare up your reserves a little bit. None of these people look like they're versed in magic, so if you don't go overboard with this, they won't know why exactly it is they're terrified. But they'll be choked up, like the air itself is crushing their chests tighter. You know, because you've felt it.

"This mountain is already claimed. Its mines are in use. The trinkets I've mentioned are working in there as we speak, so you need to stay out of there."

Some of the miners are afraid. A few are determined still, though visibly sweating. Two of the guards are doing the same, but the third, the gnoll, he merely bares his teeth. Like a cornered animal, you think, but there is a hint of fierceness in his stance, like he could jump to action and free your head from your body with a single move.

The demolitionist is oblivious. He takes a gulp from his mug of ale and burps loudly.

But the leader, he is as cocky as he's been since you met him. "And do you have any official papers to prove-"

"No. And I don't need them. You see, the real danger around this mountain? It's the ground. The earth has a way of giving way unexpectedly. Maybe the mud will swallow your men alive. Maybe the ceiling will collapse. Maybe trees will crash onto your tents, or a landfall will chase a pack of boars your way."

And now that the charade is over and you've made your intentions perfectly clear, the only thing you see in the leader's eyes is hate. Pure, unbridled hate, like he dropped his own mask himself.

"J'rog. Take care of this asshole for me."

The gnoll's white claws tighten around his shortblade, having chosen to forego his greatsword at this range, wisely. He stares at you intently, and you can feel his willpower building up, ready to be unleashed upon your person in the blink of an eye. You're ready for him, him and the rich bastard both, flexing your own willpower.

"No."

Now both you and the leader look to the gnoll in confusion. "What!?"

"I am Goodgnoll J'rog. I told you what Goodgnoll means. Goodgnoll means I don't kill people."

The fierce stare returns to the human's face, this time directed as much at the gnoll as you. But he relents.

"Fine. We're leaving."

The miners immediately begin to pack their belongings. The human warriors relax their grips on their weapons with a sigh of relief. The fire is put out with a splash from a pot. The leader has turned his back on you, choosing to concern him with directing his workforce instead. J'Rog watches you intently, not having let his guard down. Ironically, the Wilder seems to be the smartest one here.

You stand at a distance, and watch them leave. The workers leave hastily, the warriors following soon, with the gnoll being the last of them. The leader stays behind to address you one last time.

"Bob, was it? This was your lucky day. You get to keep your gods-forsaken mines. But we'll meet again, and it won't be a very pleasant day for you."

"My name is Gauti Roslan. Remember that."

Weird, he said that last name like you're supposed to care about it or something.

Well, you're not afraid of this pansy or his family. You've never heard of them, so they're probably not a big enough deal to have accomplished anything of note. You're pretty well read after all.

After making sure they all do leave, you return to your home, picking up your golems along the way. You do your usual nightly stuff before going to bed, since that took more out of you than you expected, and consider what to do tomorrow until you fall asleep.

>Vote on shit!

>>880571
Fucking fantastic we made an enemy today who going to go out of his way to fuck us over, this is what I was fucking talking about, now will have double the fucking trouble

>>880571
Make more golem cores. Something tells me we are going to need them...

>>880544
>>880561
Most normal people wouldn't discard their morals just becouse they sudenly got crazy powers. Most would probably hide them or go superhero. Not supervillain. And yes. Logically speaking we shouldn't use the morals of normal society for ourselves, but people aren't that logical. Most people work by emotion. And a normal person wouldn't go that deep down the rabit hole. He might think about it, but when it came down to it he would probably not be able to go through with it.

>>880575
The best part is we didn't lie to him so when they try to enter the mines on their own and most of them get butchered it's going to look like we were trying to protect them from the Beholder....

>>880571
Make a couple new sword golems, with steel swords this time. And maybe cover them in steel plating too if we can, it should make them more durable.

>>880578
Fuck yeah we do, because I already know of a way he could totally fuck us over and there would be no way to stop it now.

He could simply file a claim on the mines now that we stupidly told him the mines are full of ore, then he has the backing of kingdom behind him.

this was the worst way to handle this now we have to run damage control.

>>880582
you act like several people getting killed around are territory is not going to make people think we are fucking psychopath and needs to be dealt with.

>>880571
Shoulda RIP AND TEAR. Now we have made a powerful enemy.

>>880571
What we really need is a way to exponentially add to our workforce. Since we have to individually create the runes for each golem, maybe we can make something that can handle the rest. A golem that takes stone and carves it into the proper shape for us to work with, store it in a convenient place, and then is linked up with another one that gathers the materials. We can even have this assembly line work with other things, such as bricks and whatever for our tower.
Downside is that, with our earth shaping powers, we aren't saving much time. The trouble is getting runes on, not shaping stone. The idea here is that we can get the materials in place so that the least amount of time is spend making more workers. Not sure how we could handle this with materials like iron or steel.

>>880571
Cores. Stone ones with a steel shell. All day. But don't forget about the larva.

>>880590
Well threatening to kill people with magic already makes us a psychopath that needs to be dealt with Wizard or not...

Freaking edgelords not using diplomacy and using others through carefull manipulation.

>>880571
Let's shape our selves an automatic stone dor and a steel core for our tower to automate a few things for security and a pleasant living.

Then try to see if something is wrong with our mind.
Beyond wanting to kill monsters (which is natural) we kinda got some murderous desires leaking lately.
As if we were possessed.

>>880603
Yes, let's make machines to make machines, then make a really smart machine to control all the machines. You know what would also be great, Have the head machine be sentient as well! How could any of this backfire!

>>880579
Normal person ≠ Wizard

>>880614
Seconding the door and tower, but not the rest.

>>880614
do this and figure out a way to make a claim on the mine for ourselves.

whether we like or not the outside world is coming, let us have the proverbial ball in our proverbial court. plus income means we could hire people to do shit for us so we don't have to fucking do everything ourselves.

>>880615
also a very good idea, industry makes everything simpler

>>880625
How so? Town simpletons and peons say that wizards aren't people and we just take their word for it?

>>880625
Can you stop? your fucking "wizards are not people lol" shit has fucked us over already.

>>880652
Can you stop, we are not some huge fucking pushover and when more people come we will deal with them. Chasing off a few prospectors is not the end of the ducking world.

>>880728
"When more poeple come we will deal with them."

How? let me hear your plan.

>>880735
The posh boy is pretty low on the short list of our enemies.

The beholder is way worse!

>>880750
this is true, do we have any plans on that?

>>880735
We could take our booty and buy passage into the under dark.
We could advance telepathy to make people Predispositioned to like us.
We could see they are to much to handle and beg the dragon to kill them.
We could sit atop one of our golems and ride away.
We could forge relations with the nearby towns by selling goods, and leverage that to make the local mayors and lords stick up for us.
We could hide and pick them off one by one.
We could enchanted our tower to fly, stick a shit ton of mining golems in it and just fly from mountain to mountain strip mining.
We could write to the local nobles and tell them about the magical potential and offer them the first word on anything we discover in Exchange for keeping folks at bay, by telling them of the dangerous nature of our projects.
We could find if there is a mages assoction and ask them for help with the plight of a simple geomancers being forced out of house and home by brigands and rouges posing as miners.
We could ask towns poeple about which wizards are alive, and send word to them asking for their help in securing our homestead.
We could cover the mountain in mouths that never stop screaming.
But I'm pretty sure we will vote on what to do when they come.

>>880758
Grow powerful, we are a wizard, we have endless potential!

Oh yeah, we're definitely making more golems. The cores will still be stone, but the weapons, the weapons we can upgrade.

>>880735
We outlined pretty clearly what we can do to intruders in that post, I think. By the time more people come, we will be stronger.

Besides, we can do so much better for friends than that guy. We could *build* a better pal, easily.

>>880771
all perfectly good plans thank you for sharing.
>>880774
that is are usual strategy with dealing with strange magic shit, I can't see why we can't wait a bit before fight it on are terms.

>>880778
I do agree that we could make better friends than him at this point, I just want to get it across that we could stand to gain more friends to have more staying power.

We just built this damn tower it would be a shame to just up and leave now

christ,people. What fucked us over was this discussion. We couldn't decide on whether we should talk to him or kill him,so we chose the worst of both worlds and talked about killing him. For the townspeople,a crazy wizard that threatens to kill everyone that sets foot in his territory is the same as a crazy wizard that kills people that set foot in his territory,we'll just be found way earlier. Let's build combat golems and think a little bit about building traps. Also,we could talk to our spider friends.

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So I've been writing for steel-encased cores. And they're all going to be regular humanoid drones, I suppose.

You're always free to go full ham with exotic body types and such, or with experimental weapons and crafting techniques.

Also, reminder that your lack of proficiency in enchantment is preventing you from doing some pretty cool shit, like those floaty limb golems (sometimes earth elementals are depicted like this) or golems that self-reassemble from ambient stone.

Exotic materials and bullshit engineering only build on top of that exponentially.

>>880889
We really need to train our enchanting,then. Self-repairing golems seem amazing,especially for combat purposes. If we git gud enough,we could make a golem battle suit(really,just a golem with a cage in his torso) and just direct stone to either heal our troops or kill enemy soldiers.

>>880889
I have an idea on how we could practice enchantment. Let's build an enchanted kiln. We enchant it so that it seperates iron from stone and pours them out through diferent funels in the bottom. The stone can be funeled out whatever, but the iron gets funeled out in maybe 5 inch spheres and into a second kiln where coal gets mixed into it making steel. I don't really expect us to be able to make it right away. In fact I don't really expect us to really finish it at all. We'll probably figure out a better way to do it before we get to finish. This is just a way for us to practice enchanting. Improove on it, Figure out how we could make things like that work. And hey! If we actually manage, then thats even better.

>>880912
Supporting this. But I think we should make two golems to guard our place,just to be sure.

>>880912
Since I'm going to bed, let it be known that my vote after making a ton of cores goes to this. It's gonna be at least a few days before those guys come back packing heat, so no need to choose between this and golems.

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I came here too late but we could have like, hidden the mineshaft entrances from them.

>>880889
Could we cover stone golems in a layer of steel to make them harder to damage? The whole thing, not just the cores.

>>880924
Ya, bed sounds good. It's almost 3 am where I'm at.

>>880953
That would take a lot of steel.

>>880949
Actually, no. Building on this, if someone comes for the mines, let them go to them. They won't find them, because we made them unfind-able except to us. They can't stake a claim to a mine if they can't find it, and we don't have to kill anyone. Or even continue threatening people.

So, I vote to not be aggressive, hide the mineshafts really well, and then focus on making defenses for our tower to be.

I vote for the following:
1. Make two steel encased cores,and make combat golems to defend us in case of immediate attack.
2. Try to make the kiln.
3. Check on our pet.
4. Work on a fuckton of cores.

>>880986
Sounds like a good plan. I'll vote for this too.

>>880986
Agreed

'm falling asleep, too, I think. Only got 3K words out so far, which isn't much considering how long I've been writing. Kinda too scared to go back and read it in case most of it has to be rewritten.

So yeah, next post's probably tomorrow. We'll see if this next cigarette end up being energizing or dizzying. It kinda flip-flops with me.

As always, thank you for participating. And remember: D&D alignments a shit.

>>880912
Had another idea while brushing my teeth. If the kiln is succesful, we can make a larger version and work out a deal with the miners when they come back. We let them have the mines and let them use our kiln for a third or a quarter of the final profit. Say that it's out lifes work or some shit. That we needed the mines for experiments and now that after years we have perfected it we don't need those mines anymore. That way they don't have to lug crates upon crates of useles stone for a few ingots all the way to the town for procesing and we get to lay back and make a killing. Really, turning their ore straight into ingots should probably save them enough money where they could give us 3/4 of their final profit and still come out on top of what they would make otherwise.

>>880986
a solid plan with a reasonable goal I vote for this!

>>881091
This could be a hell of a strategy,but we'd have to find them before their army is knocking on our door. I doubt they'd be very willing to listen otherwise.

>>881091
Can we call it a smelter instead of a klin? Shelters refine ore and kilns bake clay.

>>881336
Sure. English is neither my first nor second language, so I might not always use the right word in a given situation.

>>880575
>We made an enemy.
Yes, yes we did. BUT from what we know and it would be a good idea to do research into what connections this asshole has this guy is a minor noble AND he is underestimating us, we did lie to him about not being a Wizard. So he is going to try and pull not all of his strings, resulting in us having a significant advantage vs the grunts/thugs he sends at us. This buys us time to transcend most of what this asshole CAN throw at us.

>>882537
How about expanding our tower?

>>879428

>>882582
We should just get it over with and just build fucking Isenguard.

>>882583
We are on our way, we have the foundations of industry (steelmaking) and a fiendish horror.

>>882585
We need to survey the directly surrounding land for more stone/earth to create a massive flat section to build a fortress atop, ie I'm directly ripping off Isenguard at this point anyways so why not?

With trouble seeming to flock to you, seemingly from every which way, you decide you need to bolster your ranks a little bit. Your golems are truly gallant warriors, and besides, you're only beginning to unlock their true potential. You think you had the general idea right when you chose to give your miner a tougher core, but the added power wasn't worth the added time spent trying to work the iron. No, you think you'll stick to stone cores this time, for your basic grunts. Time and ore are valuable resources, and you'll make the best of both.

Still, you need to get a little bit more steel for what you have in mind. Retreating to your quarters, you begin the refining process, a true routine for you after all the hours you put into it. Your mind drifts off to find better solutions while your body surrenders itself to repetition. Couldn't you just have your golems do this for you? They're clumsy and slow, but you think a specialized body could... No, that's over-complicating the solution. You could probably just rig the smelter itself to do it for you and remove extraneous steps, creating a simpler, more elegant solution. A little experimentation could get you the perfect temperature, not that you know what that is, and specially crafted channels could hold and direct the molten ore. Maybe you could attune some generic nodes to attract component materials towards separate directions... Then you'd need to add some more directional runes to direct the iron into a cast, and the slag somewhere else. You'd also need something to ensure proper sticking where it should and shouldn't occur. And that's not even half of it.

Mechanical problems like clogs, structural integrity and storage issues push themselves to your mind, and after some pondering, you begin to come up with runic solutions to each, one by one. However, before you manage to get anything resembling a working blueprint in your mind, you're already done with refining iron and turning it into steel. A self-operating smelter would be an interesting thing to attempt, and it could save you a lot of time, you think, but it will have to wait. Right now, you're busy preparing for war.

You proceed to carry out your next task, also routine, but far more involving; namely, creating the cores of stone to serve as the brains of the statues you'll carve out after this. Chunks of stone spring into motion, separating into equal masses, floating towards you as they lose and regain coherence. They gently deposit themselves before you, and you pick two of them up, with your hands this time, just because you feel like you're forgetting to use them every now and then. You close your eyes, and recall.

Your golemetric instincts wake up at this point. You can recall the entirety of the array you created for your first soldiers readily. Still, to make sure, you go over them. There are a few parts that jump out to you as unnecessarily complicated, which you modify to employ less runes for the same effect, and less channels. Which means more efficient flow of energy, and more freed up capacity. You can only pack so many runes onto a single object without overloading it, you see, a lesson you learned quickly when you were creating those first few constructs, so the more bits you strip out like this, the more place you can make for the central array that stores commands. It is by far the most rune-intensive portion, but also what allows your golems to have enough flexibility of thought to operate without running into walls and differentiating between a tree and an enemy.

You actually sit there, holding two balls of stone in your hands, probably looking like you're doing nothing for at least half an hour. The more you simplify the array, the more you need to adjust the interconnected arrays, and their physical layout, and so forth. You think the time has been well spent, however. The last modification you do comes after you've figured out what you need to do to allow the cores to assume alternate body configurations. There isn't enough space for oversized bodies or extremely complex bodies with hundreds of parts. Especially not with poor materials like stone or iron. But it is possible to use the array you've reimagined for a regular humanoid body, or one with digitigrade legs, or a basic quadruped configuration, and similar such things.

Before you allow yourself to get distracted with possibilities and lose track of the new core design, you begin channeling your magic into the heavy orbs in your hands. Slowly, gaps reveal themselves within in intricate lines and curves, blooming out from the center as always. You're finished with these two cores soon enough, and put them into a separate pile.

Your hands are aching from having lifted those big, hard balls for so long, so you simply put a finger against the next one you pick out. You finish that one in record time. You choose two spheres this time, and try to match the speed with which you finished that last one. In your hurry, you get clumsy, and form a large crack between the runic gaps in the stone, and you need to start over. You grumble a bit, reducing it to a plain orb after you finish the other one, and again, you do two at once, but slowly, this time.

Despite that tiny setback, you've created these cores faster than ever. Six new golem cores stand before you, completed in their form. However, now is the time for you to reinforce them, so their cores a bit better protected. It seems to be necessary sometimes, as proven by that last hostile encounter a few days back. A crudely formed ingot floats before you, unraveling into separate sheets. These assume a circular shape, much more slowly than stone, and drape themselves over the spherical stone, one by one. The sheets are actually a bit too small to cover the whole thing while maintaining a satisfying thickness, but this is just as well. The metallic shell is a foreign body around the cores, and as such, would interfere with the magics of the cores. You needed some holes in it, which you decide will be small and numerous rather than being one big structurally weak gap. You sweep up some of the floor under you, which forms into droplets that fill the small gaps, melding into the core and allowing the finished product to maintain a perfectly circular shape.

After taking a break to rest your mind and eat some food, you return to your craft. The nearly finished cores are now compacted and reinforced as best as you can, without warping any of the runes within, and after that, you spend quite a bit of time charging them with energy, far beyond the amount required to merely activate them. The storage of your next batch of minions have gone up by a decent amount thanks to your latest alterations, but the downside to that is the time you need to spend recharging them. There is probably a magical solution to that as well, you realize after you're done. Some sort of object to serve as a battery, perhaps. But attaching magical artifacts directly to your golems is a bit beyond you. Perhaps something like a station they could draw power from could suffice.

With your six new steel-encased cores now brimming with arcane power, you move on to the final stage. They need bodies, and weapons to defend themselves (or more likely you) with. This is where the rest of the steel you magicked up comes in. You retrieve all of your leftover steel and pile it together with the batch you created this morning. You separate it into six equal parts as best as you can, and begin molding the first pile into one whole. The individual bodies of metal begin to melt and meld leisurely, first forming into an oblong column. You have to concentrate on individual parts of it next, reshaping the entirety of the metallic objects being too slow for your liking.

The process is much like the one with that crappy blunt dagger you made quite a while ago. First, a thinner handle comes out the bottom, then the leftover mass from that becomes a smaller crossguard. You spin the outer layer of the handle to form a slanted, snaking pattern, and add a sizable pommel to the bottom, since a counterbalance is definitely going to be needed with a sword of this size. As the metal is folded above the hilt to form a proper edge, you think about what type of sword this would be. A lighter greatsword, perhaps? Though your servants are quite a bit wider than regular people, so for them, maybe this is more like a bastard sword. You don't know much about smithing, having skipped the opportunity to apprentice at the one back at your previous home. Hard bodily work and sweltering heat didn't much appeal to you, but if you'd known you would be effectively arming an entire squadron all by yourself, you probably would have chosen to get a few more pointers. Oh well, life goes on, and you can always learn new things later.

The edge has taken the longest by far, that finest last bit of metal shaping proving to require all the effort you can muster. But eventually, you're finished, and move on to create another sword, and another, and another. Night falls by the time this is over, but you set out to create six golems this morning, not merely cores and swords. Bedtime can wait a little longer. You're a big boy now.

Your two already functioning golems help you carry all this new stuff outside. You wander a ways away from your home, not wanting to waste construction materials for this. In truth, what you first thought to be enough wood and stone to last you forever is already becoming spent, especially the stone, thanks to the work you did on your tower. You find a suitable wall formed by the terrain, and have your golems stand by while you get to work.

The general outline of a very large person begins to make its way between the various cracks and gaps in the rock face. Then, these close up and smooth over where you need them to. Hidden behind the now-forming figure, but not hidden from your senses, stone flows forth to complete the shape you had in mind for it. Eventually, powered solely by your geomancy, a figure, inert and whole, floats out.

It's not good enough, of course. You create gaps for its joints, and remove some of the humanity you gave him to form more structurally sound, if less appealing individual parts, bearing tethering runes that hold it together. It still looks much like a person, but not too much like one. Especially after its chest splits apart expectantly. You place a core in there, and it closes up, and after some mild readjustment of its metaphysical structure, your new golem springs to life. It immediately proceeds to grab a sword from one of its compatriots and sheathes it in his back, and then it falls into line, the wonders of being born lost on its lack of a mind.

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The process repeats itself as the last rays of light from beyond the horizon leave the skies. With each new iteration of the stone men, the hole deepens. By the time you're done, the depths of the person-shaped hole are not even visible to the naked eye. But your geomancy informs you that if someone without earth magic jumped in there, they probably wouldn't be able to get back out, sinking deeper as they squirm, the initial humanoid form of the hole warping more the further one gets in. You wonder, if you dug it all the way through to the other side of the mountain, could a person come of some vertically aligned crack there, completely disfigured into a noodly aberration of sorts?

No, that's stupid, you think. They'd just get stuck in there until some wild animal eats them buttocks-first, or they starve, or someone pulls them out. You slap yourself for coming up with an idea that retarded. Anyway, before some idiot decided to do exactly that, you have the hole collapse in on itself, and return to your dwelling. You have your golems form a line, now eight men strong. Well, seven men and one man-like collection of rock chunks with an axe hand at least. You should probably fix that tomorrow. You could probably give it a real axe and get rid of all those vulnerable cracks and stuff. Also give it a head, probably. Headless, people-shaped things are a bit unnerving to you, even if they're under your complete control.

Satisfied after a day's work, lie down and begin wondering about what tomorrow will bring, and soon, you're resting in a deep and dreamless slumber.

>What do you do tomorrow?

>>882672
>You wonder, if you dug it all the way through to the other side of the mountain, could a person come of some vertically aligned crack there, completely disfigured into a noodly aberration of sorts?
This is my hole

>>882672
Dont just let all the golems stand around being useles. Send at least half of them to continue gathering materials. The other half can stay for protection. Tomorow maybe we can try our hand at that enchanted smelter? Also dont forget to check on our bear carcas every now and then.

>>882683
Fuck, I totally forgot about that.

Retcon: You checked on the larva every now and that during all that, and it was still just bloating up.

>>882683
supporting, we need lots more stone

>>882672
More Golems. We need to diversify our workforce. We need at least one golem for each task listed below.
1. Dedicated Stonecutter. (We have all but stopped production of stone due to events.
2. Miner Drones. (We have one but 3 or 4 would be better.)
3. Mine Hauler (We need at least two to ensure a steady flow of ore to our makeshift foundry. We cant keep traveling back and forth and back and forth, it eats up too much time.)
4. Defense Golems //Melee// (We just built 6 of these so this is satisfied for now.)
5. Defense Golems //Ranged// (This could be in the shape of self firing ballistas or stone statue archers to man the parapets of our walls when we get them full built. Not urgent BUT something to consider.)
6. Sentry "Eyes" (Magical trip sensors to tell us shit is headed our way. Needs dependent upon the size of our domain.)
7. Laborer Golems (For hauling our stuff around our domain. We need at least 2.)
8.Trade Golem (An automated cart to haul shit to market to be sold. We cant keep stopping every so often to go hunt shit to eat. Getting a stable food source would be great.)

>>882672
Work on a magic saw, we're a wizard and I refuse to continue having our lumber golem use simple edged axes, a circle thats jagged and a hole in the middle for it to spin around should be no issue for our shaping skills, and making it spin shouldn't be that hard.
With better materials we could use it for stone gathering.
Also no ones dumb enough to challenge the wizard whos golem has chainsaw hands

>>882708
this is a great plan, more golems is always a good thing

>>882708
>1, 2, 3, 4, 7
Your existing cores can be reassigned to bodies for all of these. And you can make at least 6 more within the day.
>5, 6
These require separate rolls due to low enchantment. The DCs are fairly meager though.
>8
That's a lot tougher. Golems assigned to trade, interacting with people, but preventing theft... that could go wrong if you aren't careful. But I guess it's for later anyway.

>>882712
That's also a roll, with a moderate DC this time. Also can be used with existing cores. For wood, at least. You probably don't want a steel saw for stone cutting.

I was waiting for somebody to suggest chainsaw hands desu

>>882692
Heatless auto-smelters are far beyond you.

we can finnish the quiest that the spiders ask of us maby visit Town to get som stuff sell left over iron and if we get some silk sell some of that to, we need so many Things we like to get like books to read and write in (we need our own wizard book) maby get the ownership of the mines so noone else buys them from under us and some furniture (a bed would be wonders)

>>882737
Wizards function like Sorcerers in this world, we don't need a spellbook for anything other than storage as opposed to need it to cast spells.

>>882737
Ya go do the spider quest. On our way out give them a warning that others might come that we may not be able to stop and they might not be as willing to talk thing over.

start a farm if we visit Town just have the golems do all the manual laber like plowing and harvesting maby creat an aquagolem (core that uses Aquakinesis) for fising and watering, we might even start trying for biomancy try and get our plants to grow faster so we dont have to worry about food as much

>>882747
i still like to have a wizard book to write down what we learnd and what we pland to do still usefull to have

>>882747
I mean, there is more to it than just instinct. You can learn a lot of things by interacting with the human world. But you can also learn a lot by staying and practicing.

Both have their own risk and benefits.

>>882758
Yes BUT we do not NEED such a luxury right now. The reason that caster need spell books is to allow them to study through said book and prepare their spells for that day. At least in DnD terms. The way we cast spells is by instinct, at least for now, and we do not have any need to memorize thing, we do not contain that much knowledge yet. When we need to have a spellbook, it will be at the point where we start developing a Library.
For now its a Luxury.

>>882683
>>882705
work the golems

>>882708
>>882719
build more golems

>>882737
>>882750
spider slaying

I guess it's a tie.

Half your golems will stay behind unless you want to take all 8 with you to go spider hunting. Or you could vote on something else if those numbers aren't fine with you.

>>882783
i dont agree that a one book is a luxury, but you are right we do need other things right now

>>882791
im fine useing half for the spider hunt need the rest to get raw material for us anyway we run ut last time

>>882791
We also need to work on the combat effectiveness of our combat model golems. After all our one with the stone sword kind got eviscerated in a VERY short amount of time. This is a problem.

>>882798
we can feild test them and see what we need to upgrade after combat =)

>>882791
Swiching to spiders in that case. Test run for the new golems.

>>882798
Yeah, you didn't have time to armor your golems or anything. It would take you quite a while to refine enough ore, turn it into steel, then coat your very large golems with large plates that cover most of their bodies.

>>882791
breaking in the new golems! We need to see how they do and how we can improve them.

Guys lets also see if we can make a defensive pact with the friendly spider, i get a feeling it would come in handy

>>882791
I think we should take all 6 new combat golems with us, just to be safe. The other 2 can gather materials.

>>882804
Actually here is a question. What happened to the core in the golem that got eviscerated? Was it destroyed? How durable are our cores. After all it takes us all day to craft 6 of these things. We need to preserve them as best as we can. Wasting utterly valuable resources like that is awful in every way.

>>882821
Physically broken enchantments are destroyed forever. The object that was enchanted usually is damaged or broken, too. And if the runic array is delicate like a golem core, it's more vulnerable since there is so much more that can be damaged any any damage to it ruins the whole thing. Hence the difference between a sword with a basic enchantment and a golem's core.

The stone cores are a bit tougher than regular stone, but still not very tough. The steel-encased cores are tougher, but not nearly invincible.

Sidenote: If the sundered object contained a ton of energy, it might also explode, like a magical battery or a greater artifact. Not just regular explosions either.

For the record, the demon's scythes weren't natural, which is what let it rend your golem so easily. They're still stored somewhere in your home.

Anyway, the core was sliced in two and is now a collection of metaphysically corrupted shards. Completely useless to you. They've been left behind somewhere.

>>882804
Wouldn't it bee a good idea to armour the chest and head? Head will make it seem as though the useless cranium is actually important diverting our enemies blows from the actual vitals.

Also full body armour is probably not needed and would be very wasteful for these basic footmen, so mabye some reinforcement in the limbs like steel bones, but i doubt more than that would be worth the effort

>>882827
>Dead cores are unrecoverable and potential magically radioactive.
Well then.

>>882828
Most of our Golems heads are there for show so there is no need to armor them. The core housing on the other hand DEFINITELY needs armor and extra protections.

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>>882838
Nah, they just break down into dust if anyone tries to run concentrated magic through them ever again. The proximity of the arcane nexus might mean the fragments are already gone entirely by now.

Not to say magic radiation isn't a thing. It's just not the same thing.

>>882840
I know they are useless, but the enemies don,t know that, what i propose is that we offer our adversaries a distraction, potentially giving our golems an additional second of time with which to smite down our foes... I agree with you completely on the housing's protection though, we need to keep our cores safe and secure

>>882847
That is not how combat works. You dont fire arrows into the heavey armor plate of a knight you shoot his joints. However most blows are actually much more likely to hit the central mass of a thing because of how much room it takes up on a thing. We human armor our head because we have our brains in there, and BAD thing to take damage to. Our golem heads are utterly useless other than for show. Anyone that knows ANYTHING about golems knows to disarm their cores and you shut the whole thing down. No need to waste precious metal from our foundries on useless helmets as anything other than a vanity project.

>>882855
>All dat spelling/grammar garbage.
Fuck i have been awake for too long.

i just remberd we have been here (on the mountin) for 7 Days it feels like longer

>>882855
Your logic is perfectly sound. We do go for the head because it is where the brain stay's, though my whole argument hinges on giving the impression that the core resides in the head and not the chest, though granted how limited our resources are it would not be wise to squander what little we have on something that might have no real effect

>>882864
Actually putting the core in such a vulnerable spot is utterly stupid because there is much more mass between stabby death-explosions and our cores inside the chest cavity as opposed to the cranium. So it is a poor golem-o-mancer that actually put his cores in such a vulnerable spot.

Also if you rally want to be wasting iron we need more miners and a better transport and smelting system first.

>>882871
>Even more fucking spelling/grammar errors.

Fuck me running.

>>882871
I don't think the idea is to put the cores in the head. The idea is to put them into the chest, but make everyone else think it's in the head so they aim for the spot that doesn't have the core.

>>882879
No i understand that we are trying to give off an impression of this, but what im saying is that it is a waste of valuable and limited resources for a trick that really only works once, or until the point where your kill rate is less than 100%

I'm starting to think that we are going about doing everything all wrong. We shouldn't be making more golems, working on the tower or building weapons. We should be practicing our magic. Quality over quantity. And if honed well enough it will be our most powerful weapon of all. We spent a day making 6 golems, but with our potential we could have probably spent the whole day training and gotten a lot more out of our time.

>>882901
Yes and no. Practicing and refining our magic requires materials. Quite a lot of them due to all of the mistakes we are bound to make. So we first need to supply a steady flow of raw resources for our magic to work with as opposed to trying to use what little we have to experiment with. Once we get an uninterrupted flow of resources going we can start fucking around with experimentation to our hearts content.

>>882883
I agreed, while it would probably increase their survivability by between 1% and 5%, largely useless for now but once we have loads of raw materials and hundreds of golems such an increase would be handy... Even then it may not be too suceseful and not be cost effective.

That all being said it might be substantially more effective against enemies that know nothing of golemtry such as the spiders or other primitive creatures who see head as the perfect target. Crushing the opponents head only to have them come at you same as before would have some negative morale impacts as well.

I argue that they will go for the head based not only on the fact that it is a head but also that it is much easier to damage than the rest of the body(its solid rock, go figure)

What do you think of these points? Though i am inclined to agree with your point of it not being cost effective

>>882907
Kinda on the fence with this one. We do live near a mountain so we have all we need to practice our earth magic. It shouldn't be a streach to say that with a few days of practice we could level a small town in a jiffy. No one would want to mess with that for a couple of mines. Then again going all in with geokinesis would make us a one trick pony.

>>882920
Its going to take a LOT more that just sitting in our house fapping to get much better than we currently are. This means two things.
We either
A) Need practice materials to ruin and refine our skills upon.
or
B) We need combat experience.

Since the second one is retardedly dangerous i personally vote the former.

>>882934
What sort of materials would we need for geokinesis? Couldn't we just lift bigger and bigger boulders with our mind, doing it faster and more at a time and in general just do it and push ourselves while doing it? I really don't understand what you think we lack for that right now.

>>882947
All that doing GAINS would actually do for us is allow us to use more magic a day. In order to craft new spells and refine our spell use we need things to experiment upon.

>>882947
I think our fine control could use some work, maby we should make statues using only our earth sense and geokinesis?

>>882950
Do we NEED new spells? I'd be pretty happy with just lifting rocks all day if it means we can lift up this whole mountain and throw it on top of whoever tries shit with us.