Humans were the uncontested supreme being of this land. This had been acquired not just through strength but also craftiness. They built cities that endured even through the mana drain! They built me and, even in this whithering land, I still persisted.
And so I would follow their teachings.
When I brought my master to this fallen island, I had to explain to him that it was not a mountain. One side eroded by flight, the other used to hanging in the abyss, Alpaap had crashed after losing its mana.
Contrary to others such as Kunshu, that relied on magical slabs, circles, spirits or creatures, this one used glyphs.
"Would you start woodcutting while I find us such a glyph?" I had asked.
The young human had agreed. As advised, he had animated the very trees to saw, trim and dry planks, as well as crush, comb and spin plants into ropes. It used more magic than doing all of that himself, but the final craft would prove more resilient.
Resilience. Alpaap had strayed so far and crashed here because it lasted for so long.
I had crafted my own rope from sand. An easy work for a clay golem, especially when the human bathed everything with all too much mana.
That rope would have to stretch over a kilometer, and hold nearly a ton.
Leaving him at the top of the fallen island, I followed the edge and then climbed down the cliff. Glyphs were cast deep into the rock and were meters in size, some in the tens of meters.
I found the smallest I could that spelled flight and started to cut.
And as I cut the glyph into a thin plate, I tied the rope to it, until it detached and I watched the piece swing and vanish in the clouds below. Then swing back, the rope sole visible. And away again. Good.
One leap to catch my rope and climb back up, then drag the piece up and carry that mass, easily three carts in size, all by myself back to the top.
My master was not there anymore.
The trees worked without him, busy piling up and drying the long planks and poles. There were words cut in the grass.
Tell him I'll complete a quest. No, better yet, just tell him I'll be back soon. Okay? Ah, not like you have mouths anyway. I'm sure he will manage! I'm off!
I dragged the slab and its glyph in place, made sure to harness it against any fall on the slope, then worked on scales until my master returned.
He was proud and triumphant, and yet I had only been able to feel his vibrations once he was back on the surface.
"Welcome back, master." I looked up from my work. "How was your quest?"
"It was okay!" He pretended, unable to hide his satisfaction. "What are you making here, what are those?"
I showed him the large scales, akin to grousers.
"They will serve as sledges for your boat's bottoms. I have seen a snake slither on vertical walls and stick to them. Your ship will do the same."
The teenager proved enthusiastic.
But the day passed and we left, only to return the next day. With the wood yarn tarred, while the forest twisted them into ropes I had started to build the ship's hulls.
Two shells on the slab's size, with masts crossing above. A deck, a small tower at the rear for my master's bed and a lot of paint over it all.
"What are those patterns?" He asked out of boredom.
I showed him first the runes for featherweight, a misnommer to preserve the ship from falls. Those were on the inside; on the outside I was casting runes for protection.
And where the bridge raised at the bow, I was installing water tanks. Once mana would run out, that water would keep the ship flowing for a while longer.
"Do you need me for the sails?" He asked. "Otherwise, I would like to explore the island some more."
"Please do as you wish, master." I could not believe I still had to say that.
He left me once more to recover the ropes the trees had rolled. With those I completed the masts, rigged to carry two sails that formed a roof on each side stretching past the hulls.
They would not catch much wind, that was not their purpose. Sails flowed according to the whims of magic. I tied the last ropes to ensure this ship would be fast and maneuverable.
As for the sails themselves, they awaited back at the mansion. The ruins of Shiranu were visible from here, in the distance.
Back in the woods the trees had returned to their silence. The mountaintop quiet.
Then I felt it.
First a dread a clay golem should not be capable of. Then the whole mountain shook. I fell to the ground, feeling crushed, as the slope bent downward. Alpaap had lowered by one full degree.
Was this my master at work?!
He was moving a mountain! Literally moving a mountain!
Thankfully, the ship was still tied down in place. Despite the urge to rush in search of the human, I knew better than to doubt his skills. So I worked instead to secure it further. Two days of work should not go to waste.
Another earthquake had me hit the wooden deck.
As soon as it let me, I was rushing down the slope in search of my master.
My feet could echo at will on the ground, map the ancient tunnels, cover the hills and ruins of villages, he was nowhere to be seen, not in the galleries nor in the forests. Yet the dread told me I was getting closer.
A ray of mad energy cut the air, first on the mountain's flank then swiftly running up to the sky before breaking off. That wasn't my master's. That was a monster. And that spell had been out of this world.
I had been careless. I should have stayed with the human.
I was practically leaping down, crashing dozens of meters below and leaping again when the ground burst further down. Hard to tell what had even reached the surface, a devouring mass so powerful it blinded my senses.
My master emerged from the woods, running up toward me through the old barren fields.
"Run!" He ordered.
I waited for him, ran with him back toward the top. He had been wounded. As we ran I put my hand to cast a healing spell.
Something was following us, clawing its way up in a growing rumble.
If I stopped my master would stop: that inane need for humans to stick around. But our pursuer was too close to reach the top in time. It had to be delayed.
So I used the after-image to trick my master.
"To the ship!" I yelled while letting him run with my ghost. "We'll use it to go over the cliff!"
"It can do that?!"
"Featherweight!" I felt almost mad, even while taking him to safety, that he had not listened.
Only when reaching the boat did my master realize my trickery. He froze, turned and saw me still at the forest's edge, facing the storm that was almost on me.
Please, master, be smart enough to leave me behind.
Nature wilted, dwindled and perished before my eyes. I felt crushed again, struggled to stand, the clay plates of my bodies at their limit.
The realm around me had started to warp.
And there it appeared, the bone lizard, the wyvern bound by forbidden magic. That skeleton looked so much more massive from up close.
A beam of blue and green flew above me to strike it, got twisted by the bending of reality, yet the creature screamed all the same. It had seen me, slowed down for me only to focus all its attention on my master again.
My master had let an old bronze tube fall on the ground to summon another, both with dragon mouths. The sealing wards on it broke at the teenager's will and the tube roared, another crimson beam that again bent and lost itself in the withering reality, only to force the creature back again.
So that's what my master called quests. Recovering artifacts from the old times.
I wanted to cast my magic in turn, call on magic squares only to see nothing before my hand. No, it was worse than that. My mana was being drained, my whole being slowly eroded like sand.
So I did what all weaklings would when desperate.
"Don't lay a hand on my master!"
The teenager was foolishly running toward me now, but slowed down just as surprised as I was when the skeletic wyvern rose up.
It ist and drew its only wing before its skull. Its mocking voice boomed on the mountaintop.
"How puzzling. Tell me, good friend, have I misheard, or misjudged you?"
I could feel its power surge, my own slowly diminish. Just staying in front of that abomination would be my end.
It started to laugh. The skull let out a lengthy, scornful laugh.
"Yes! How silly of me, naturally, a predator would not share its prey. You wish that fiend all for yourself. To soothe it, to play it like cattle and let it offer its own neck! So skilled in your art that you can drop the pretense in front of it and still keep its trust! The creation turning its creator into a helpless pet!"
One wrong word could get my master killed, so I just stood silent and waited. Whatever delusion this monster followed was, right now, to my advantage.
It laughed again.
"This is too wonderful to disturb! I will enjoy watching you play with your new toy and when you are done, have it meet the same fate as its predecessor. Well met, assassin."
With this it released its wing, rose on its back legs and immediately started to crack and shatter against an invisible ceiling. The entire island under it shook and quaked until it had collapsed.
A void an instant, then the dust settled, devouring mana wherever it landed.
I turned away. Walked back toward the ship.
My master was looking at me, completely lost, waiting for an explanation I could not give.
"Wait up!" He finally shouted. "Are you not going to say anything?!"
"There is nothing to say." I stated. "This monster is deluded. But its magic defies my comprehension. He could be a key to saving the realm."
"He said you wanted to kill me! I heard it right it said..."
"Monsters only understand murder and death. They absorb mana, to them that's the only thing that makes sense. It cannot fathom servitude."
"Servitude?" The young human repeated for himself.
Before reaching the boat, I had stopped to touch the bronze tubes my master had collected. They lay emptied in the grass.
Humans had known counter-spells and anti-magic. They had prepared accordingly.
"Using artifacts to preserve your mana. You were listening the whole time."
He did not answer. I could not read the emotions that were storming inside him. I could only imagine. But all I could do was serve.
So I approached the boat and offered for him to climb aboard. All the human did was look at the empty air. At his system. The dead and dry area of the calamity behind him.
"Screw you all!" He finally let out in a bout of frustration, both hands pulling his tousled hair. "It's the same crap all over again! I don't want to put up with this, I don't have to put up with this! Why can't the world leave me alone?!"
I clutched the amber pearls hanging on my necklace. My master had spoken, his will was absolute. I had to serve.
"Master..." My voice was shaky.
"Don't even try! You are the worst of all!"
"Can you fix the sails by yourself?" I could not face him. "If so, take this ship. It will let you travel the realm."
He was taken aback, at a loss for words. Forcing me to continue.
"Find the truth. Save the realm. Leave me... leave me behind. As long as you are alive, you aren't really leaving? So it's fine... It's fine... It's... fine..."
And that was it. After a long silence, a good minute even, he took on my offer. Embarked and watched me cut the moorings. The hulls slid in silence over Alpaap's slope. I watched him maneuver past a hill and vanish.
So fine.