The Runesmith

*Click*

“It should work now…”

A certain Runesmith that was wearing protective goggles inserted a certain metallic cylinder into another part of machinery. This machine from the outside looked like a six-legged spider complete with a large sparkly eye on where a spider’s cephalothorax would be.

This was a new and improved version of a golem that Roland had been working on for quite some time. It was the size of a drone, not really that big. It was somewhat elongated in the back which made it look as if it had the iconic spider abdomen.

With a little click, the construction was activated and the drone sprung to life by raising itself up. It possessed a functional head with a large red eye through which it could see its creator standing right in front of it.

“Everything seems normal… energy readings are all in the green.”

Roland nodded while looking at his newest creation that had come a long way. Its more slick design to its predecessors made it look a lot more futuristic for the era that he found itself in. The chassis looked as if it was polished to perfection and could reflect light thanks to its chrome outlook.

“Are the testing dummies ready?”

“Aye boss.”

Rolland called out to Bernir that was on the opposite side of this large chamber. The two were in a location devoid of windows and the source of light was a set of magical crystals that gave enough light as modern-day light bulbs.

It looked like a large warehouse and at the end, there were several wooden testing dummies that had the vague shape of a human. The walls looked like they were made from hardened stone that formed in a natural way. The ceiling as well looked to be quite smooth and painted white which made the whole place quite bright.

Thanks to the earth magic that was prevalent in this world, building underground spaces like this was simple. With enough mana and the correct spell, it was able to harden the walls on a molecular level by binding the smaller grains of sand to each other. It made it as sturdy as concrete and there was no danger of the place ever falling down on their heads.

Even if there happened to be a sore spot or if the walls got damaged in the process of testing magic. It would be quite easy to repair the walls as soil was an easy commodity to come by here. The only big limitation was the look as the hardening had to be done along the way of digging up the larger space.

“Good, go behind the protective shielding then, I’ll start the test.”

Bernir ducked behind a special wall that had some cut out spaces to allow a person to see through them. These spaces weren’t left blank but had thick glass that was quite resistant. Safety around the workshop was paramount, after suffering through various explosions, one that even left him bedridden for a few days Roland had decided to put safety first.

With that in mind, he was unwilling to let any large shrapnel get embedded in his body ever again. Luckily the healing potions in this world as well as healing magic allowed people to get healthy quite fast. Even scarring tissue didn’t form as long as you got the right treatment.

“Drone, activate battle mode.”

He gave the command and the red gem that was the spider golem’s main sensor started glowing. A little compartment opened up in the middle of its body and something started rising out. It looked like an elongated tube that was placed on a jointed robotic arm of sorts.

It was clearly a cannon that had been hidden in the golem’s main body. It was almost as long as the robot’s entire body. The whole length of this cannon was covered in runic symbols that were visible to the naked eye.

“Drone, engage.”

Roland pointed at the left-most training dummy with his finger while giving the order. The spider drone shifted its body towards the dummy and took aim. The cannon that was on its back adjusted to the target, soon the runes that covered it started glowing as it activated.

A bright blue bolt of condensed mana energy emerged from this cannon and quickly connected with the test dummy. The wooden construction promptly exploded sending splinters everywhere.

The top part of the dummy was blown right off but the golem didn’t stop. It continued to fire at the target while bracing its body with those spider-like legs. Each time it fired a bolt of the magic energy it was pushed back slightly and the legs took the recoil nicely.

“Drone, disengage.”

Roland shouted to give the golem the order to a ceasefire. When he looked into the distance he could only see the charred remains of what used to be a dummy.

“Damn, does that golem have something against the targets I made?”

Bernir called out from behind cover while standing next to his boss. Both of them clearly saw the golem continue to shoot at the wooden target even though there was nothing left of it. The only thing that now remained was the log that was placed in the ground to hold it in place.

“I guess it needs some adjustments but this is within the predicted calculations, let us move on.”

Roland on the other hand was not that concerned about the golem’s tendencies for destruction. He could turn down the setting but this was supposed to be a test for a battle golem. Making sure that the target was dead would be one of its functions.

“Drone, battle mode off, engage shield.”

While walking out from behind cover Roland gave the next voice command. The smoking cannon slid back into the drone’s body while it started to glow. The runes became clear again as a blue energy shield appeared. The shield looked like a small dome that covered the spider golem’s whole body and connected to the ground.

Roland walked over and placed himself a few meters away from his creation. On his arm, he was wearing an inconspicuous glove. He raised his hand and opened his palm towards the drone.

Within a second the glove gave out a similar bluish glow before a bolt of magic energy emerged from it. It traveled at a high speed and connected with the mana shield that the golem was producing.

The construction buckled a bit and the golem was pushed back but it managed to survive the first hit. With another bolt of energy, the shield started buckling under the stress, and with the third one it shattered instantly.

“Three good shots huh?”

Roland moved his hand down as even though the third shot caused the barrier to crack, the golem was still there. He did lower the output of his mana bolt to something a regular mage would be able to perform. If he actually used his whole magical energy to perform this test he feared that his creation would blow to kingdom come with one shot.

“Drone, shield on.”

After destroying the golem’s shield he regave the command for it to reform it. This time around it wasn’t as fast but with time the shield spell was reformed and operational again. With another salvo of mana bolts, he confirmed that the shield was just as sturdy as before.

“As long as the power source is intact it will be able to reform this shield.”

While Roland was rubbing his chin in contemplation Bernir decided to pop his head out from his spot.

“Hey boss, want me to give it a wack?”

Roland spotted a large sledgehammer over Bernir’s shoulder. His assistant had quite a grin on his face after going through several testing golems this was mostly how the tests ended.

“No, that's fine, we’ll leave this one alone.”

“Is that so?”

Bernir looked a bit saddened by this revelation. Roland could understand his sentiment as it was quite fun to destroy things, even more, if you spend months making them.

“Boss you did it, I didn’t think I’d be able to assist in making a new type of golem! Are you going to try selling it? I bet it would fetch quite the price!”

“Sell it? Maybe later… it’s not really finished.”

“Not finished? It looked capable to me…”

“I still need to test it in the field, the voice commands are bit of a problem too... “

“They are?”

Bernir looked at Roland with a confused expression on his face. To the half-dwarf this was enough, most golemic creations used voiced commands. If this spider golem could carry them out it was already just as good as anything that was out there on the market.

Roland saw it a bit differently, the voice commands were slow and he wanted his creation to be somewhat faster on the uptake. It took him a long time to get to this point but he wanted to make something more intelligent that would be able to swap between battle modes on its own without orders.

He already produced a first alpha version of that golem operating system but it hadn’t been field-tested yet. Only when these spider droids were able to attack and shield themselves when danger was approaching would they be complete.

For now, the droid only went equipped with two spells. The cannon fired off mana blasts while the shield was an enhanced mana shield that was made sturdier thanks to his runes. The cannon design allowed for a more concentrated beam instead of a blast but still allowed the golem to pack a punch.

The trickiest part of this whole construction was energy management. Without his newest invention, he would have not been able to get this far. While he would do nothing more than to sell this golem he wasn’t sure if that would be such a good idea.

He moved over to it and picked it up with both of his hands. The spider droid wasn’t that big, he could easily carry it around with one hand over his shoulder. When it stood on the ground it wasn’t taller than a middle-sized dog.

After placing his creation on the nearby workbench he took out the heart and soul of it. In a small compartment on the back revealed the tube that he previously inserted. A gust of cold hit his face as this was opened as this was the drone’s battery that required a lot of cooling.

Even with the frost runes working around it to cool it down, the cylinder was still warm to the touch when he pulled it out. Without the need for any instruments, he could feel how much magical energy was leftover.

‘Unless it's involved in heavy combat it should be operational for several days with one of these runic batteries.’

Inside of this cylinder was a certain magical crystal. When slicing the crystal in half a person would see a perfect octagon. The shape was important as well as the length and the ending point that focused the mana from this crystal on a special rune.

This crystal was nothing more than a reworked golem core that he was able to get from the dungeon. After going through all the knowledge that the Professor gave him Roland was able to figure out another way for this storage device.

Golem cores were massive data storage. They were able to store a complex program that could simulate a living being. They also had some energy retaining capabilities that he was using now.

With this battery and his runic generators, he was now able to store enough mana in this creation to power a golem. The batteries could be reused many times before they deteriorated which would allow him to forgo Elokin’s fluid as a power source.

This was all done for his own independence as getting enough of that magical fuel would be quite hard even with his black market contacts in place.

“Well isn’t she a beaut…”

Bernir glanced over Roland’s shoulder while whistling. The outer shell was created with the help of his assistant and was made from metal they smelted in the runic smelter.

“Bernir, you can go now.”

“Really boss?”

“Yeah, you did ask to have a day off early today.”

“Thank you boss, you’re the best boss in the whole wide world!”

“Yeah yeah, have fun and try not to overdo it… I still can’t believe that you two got together…”

Roland wanted to laugh at the strange pairing that emerged after these years of working. He could even recall the days that he had to go make some deliveries instead of his assistant as the person in question was a danger to Bernir’s health.

“He, he, what can I say Boss, when someone catches my eye, I just go for it, it’s just a matter of time till they fall to my allure! No lady can resist my manly charms!”

Bernir puffed out his chest while standing proudly. Roland could only roll his eyes and look past his assistant's shoulder.

“Oh hey, Dyana is that you?”

“Dyana? Wait pumpkin, I can explain!”

Bernir’s head made a sharp turn as he looked behind. Where he expected to see his future wife there was nothing at all, just the exit sign above the door leading outside.

“Pumpkin, huh? Such a lady's man..."

“Boss, please don’t scare me like that…”

Roland chuckled to himself while Bernir gave out a sigh of relief. Soon the two parted ways. Bernir headed outside to the ever-growing city of Albrook to visit his soon-to-be wife Dyana. It was a strange pairing but apparently, Bernir was quite infatuated with the large lady and she finally gave in to his courting attempts.

‘Hm, maybe he likes being tossed around in the bedroom?’

While walking up the stairs a strange image of his assistant and his large voluptuous wife popped into his head. He could only see a lot of back pain in Bernir’s future but if that was his type then he made his choice.

After going through a few safety checkpoints he was back in his own house. A few changes took place here as he had added a nice shower to go with his bathroom. The tub was nice but sometimes a quick shower was all a person needed.

The showerhead was quite silly to look at as it was just a thick bucket with holes in it. The runes that were all over the surface lit up in red as they heated up the water that was inside of it. When it trickled down onto his body it was nice and warm.

With the addition of this shower, his bathroom began getting quite steamy. At the end of his cleaning session, he moved over to the mirror. After wiping the steam from it he looked at the face before him.

“How long has it been since I’ve come to this world… fifteen years? or was it sixteen?”

A lot of time had passed since he arrived in this city of Albrook. Before he arrived it was barely a town, without the dungeon it would have probably stayed a rural village with nothing but farms around it.

Now on the other hand it was slowly coming together. His store had managed to survive the war with the dwarves that still didn’t want to give up with their price war.

With the emergence of the black market, the price gouging that they were previously implementing was not a realistic option. The low-priced goods could be easily smuggled out of the city and sold for a profit which just sent more people his way as there were not enough goods to go around.

These coming three years weren’t that eventful. He spent them mostly on runic research and reading magic books. He didn’t realize how much he had skipped with the help of his debugging skill and it took him quite some time before he was able to produce the current golem.

“I think that now I should be ready…”

“Ready for what?”

While going out of the bathroom he mumbled to himself. This was heard by someone that was just coming into his house. A certain woman with glasses stood there and was looking straight at Roland that only had a towel around his waist.

“Oh…”

Both of them looked at each other for a moment before Roland spoke out.

“Elodia, were you there?”

The woman turned her head to the side while blushing slightly. Soon she ducked to a side room while leaving Roland there. He stood there for a moment while still rubbing his wet hair with a towel.

“Please put on some clothes… I’ll have supper ready in a moment so wait in the dining room.”

Roland put his towel down and the moment food was mentioned he heard his belly rumbling. Thus he quickly ducked into his bedroom to get some proper clothes as Elodia ‘s cooking was something that he looked forward to...