Mark of the Fool

‘Alright, it’s off balance,’ Alex’s thoughts came through his link with Claygon. ‘You’re up, buddy.’

“Everyone!” he shouted. “Claygon’s gonna be with me! Get ready!”

“Here’s to success!” Theresa shouted, leaping over a cluster of Spawn Knights, to slash a living core. “You can do it!”

“We got this, big guy!” Cedric called to Claygon. “Do your thing!’

“Thank…you!” the golem said, raising his spear.

This was it.

He would be leaving their friends to go help his father. All the suffering and killing the Ravener was causing had to end for his father’s sake, for Selena’s, Theresa’s, the Lu’s and …everyone from Thameland. This would be the most important battle of Claygon’s short life so far.

And he hoped he was ready for it.

‘I…have to be…’ he thought.

His father cast Summon Construct, and all of a sudden, Claygon was gone, flying through space, heading toward…an energy that kept drawing his attention.

The energy within the Ravener…so different, yet so similar to his own, was coming closer by the instant, seeming to be calling to him as he travelled toward it.

‘There is an elementto…that power that feels…connected…to me…’ Claygon thought. ‘It feels like…’

The golem thought back to past battles.

His first evolution, which had happened unexpectedly.

He had not been sapient then, and so he couldn’t be certain if his memories of that time were actually genuine or the result of a strong imagination, fed by his father and others telling of the events.

But, he thought he had a recollection of the petrifier’s energy pouring over him, hardening his clay, turning it to stone. He did remember his first feelings, his first thoughts and first actions. He remembered his body was healed, he’d grown stronger…and he’d gained his own mind.

And with it, he could think, he could plan, he could defend his father andthose close to them; family and friends.

He could remember the second time he’d evolved, he could remember that vividly. He’d been beaten, broken and tossed aside like trash by the First Apostle. His stone body was crumbling, and everyone was struggling against monsters who wore the form of people, taking lives as easily as breathing.

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He’d been close to helpless in the face of the first Apostle.

But the chaos energy had saved him, washing over him, and empowering him, forging stone to iron, tempering him into the force that he was today.

Yet, for all his power, it still wasn’t enough.

He couldn’t protect his family and friends as much as he wanted to; his father had nearly died in the snow because he hadn’t been fast enough to stop the First Apostle. Even now, Cedric’s divinity was responsible for keeping his friends from dying at the claws, poisons and deadly magics of the Ravener and its monsters.

Long ago, he’d promised himself that he’d find a way to evolve on his own terms. To find an energy that would take him to a strength beyond that of an iron golem. An energy that would bring him to a new peak of power, where he could defend his friends and family from the greatest of threats.

A peak he would reach by his own doing…and…maybe that opportunity was here.

Each evolution he’d gone through had had something to do with the Ravener. Even his very life was tied to it.

His golem core was forged from dungeon core essence.

He had been turned to stone by a Ravener-spawn’s magical beam.

He’d been tempered into iron by an explosion that was caused by chaos essence and the remains of a dungeon core.

All of those events had something to do with the Ravener.

And now?

Now he was on his way to the source of the Ravener’s power; the inner core of Uldar’s construct. That power was drawing closer as his father used the Traveller’s energies to guide him through the Ravener’s multitude of defences.

‘There is…an opportunity…here,’ Claygon thought, passing between the death beams, while being teleported past the walls of lethal energy. ‘If I can grasp it…on my terms…then I can protect father…my family and friends. Then I can go beyond where people like Shale think I can go…then I can be…me. Not just an iron…golem…but…me.’

With this thought, he gripped the war-spear he’d torn from the claws of a greater demon, and charged his fire-gems.

Claygon suddenly appeared on a battlefield that was in chaos.

All around, death and destruction reigned.

Ravener-spawn flew, leapt, crawled, and sprang at Alex as he teleported through a world of darkness punctuated by strange lights, crackling crystal, and the light of crimson forceballs.

Death beams rained from the sky.

Towers of black crystal warped and twisted in the distance, as waves of hungry energy ripped through the air.

Alex was summoning monsters to defend him, but they were instantly wiped away in the chaos and destruction.

Within heartbeats, two death beams struck Claygon in the side, heating the iron.

The golem didn’t hesitate. frёeωebɳovel.com

Raising two hands, he fired his own beams, chaos-tinged flame burning through hordes of Ravener-spawn, painting the dark world with scorching flame, exploding crystal in shockwaves.

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“Claygon!” Alex called, quickly glancing at the golem. In his hand, waves of anxiety radiated from the aeld staff. “Glad you’re here buddy!”

“Another interloper!” the Ravener’s voice reverberated from every fibre of the world around them. If Claygon had mortal ears, his eardrums might have ruptured from the sheer volume of the Ravener’s wrathful cry. “Is this another of your tricks, Fool? What are you doing?”

The construct released more of its wrath on its enemies…and in its attack, Claygon noticed something interesting. Some of the attacks seemed poorly aimed.

The golem shot more beams at the Ravener-spawn, aiming some at the ground below and the sky above, where beams and waves of deadly energy were launching from. All the while, he felt the Ravener’s energy all around him…but not the energy he’d felt calling him.

Not quite; that energy was a distance from where they now were, concentrated in various places across this…

‘Father…’ Claygon said, stabbing a spawn knight with his war-spear. ‘Where…are we?’

‘Buddy,’ Alex thought. ‘We’re actually inside the Ravener. This…plane, world, whatever it is, is the Ravenver. It’s got control over every bit of matter in here, or so it claims.’

‘What…?’

‘I know, it’s crazy to think about, but I guess this is what happens when a god makes a construct,’ Alex said, disintegrating a group of Hunters.

‘You…make better…golems…than Uldar did…’ Claygon said through their link.

‘Nice thought, but this place is crazy,’ Alex replied as he fought. ‘So far, I’ve been able to figure out where the nodes are to shut it down, and I’ve already destroyed one. That’s why the Ravener’s aim is off. See all those beams and magic? It’s shooting more at us than it was when I was alone earlier, but its aim isn’t as accurate. I think it’s losing some of its control over itself, which’ll get worse the more nodes we shut down.’

‘Goood!’ Claygon incinerated another group of Ravener-spawn, immediately shooting a fiery beam at the ground below. The beam raked across the crystal floor, tearing it up…yet, didn’t seem to hurt the Ravener. The golem noted that and asked Alex, ‘So, how do we do that? What do these nodes look like?’

‘There, you see that tower over there? The crumbling one?’

Claygon looked to where Alex was pointing with his sword-staff, as he teleported-dodged another beam.

He watched a crystalline tower turning to grey dust before his eyes. It looked diseased, withered and crumbling, like it was ageing hundreds of centuries in mere heartbeats.

The energy it was expelling also felt sickly, like it was fading, hollowing out; like a tree being eaten away from the inside by insects and disease.

This definitely was not the energy that Claygon had been looking for.

If it had been at one time, it certainly wasn’t any longer.

‘That’s what our poison did to the node and our device is still in there, just sucking its mana away. We need to get to the other nodes and do the same to them, but I have no doubt that the Ravener’s guard is up even more than before. …Claygon, you see those towers in the distance? The ones that keep moving?’

‘Where…father…?’

‘Over there!’ Alex pointed again as he ducked the snapping jaws of a blood-hydra. In one smooth motion, the archwizard teleported the creature’s heads off, took control of it with a gesture and turned it into a corpse puppet, then sent the body against its former allies. ‘There!’

Claygon followed the direction Alex’s sword-staff was pointing to.

…and found what he was looking for.

In the distance a group of towers were writhing, moving across the landscape, crawling away from the archwizard and his golem. They moved like enormous, humanoid fingers travelling across the land…or earthworms emerging from the soil.

But Claygon wasn’t interested in their appearance.

What he was interested in was what he felt coming from those towers.

They held an energy that he sensed was close to his own; they were the vessels filled with the Ravener’s very lifeblood. Claygon’s life had come to be—in part—from the Ravener. His transformations had occurred because of the Ravener’s minions.

And those towers were the source of what had given him life and transcendence.

He believed they could be the source of transcendence once again.

‘Claygon,’ Alex thought. ‘I’m going to teleport us to one of those towers. I need you to stay outside and distract the Ravener. Do as much damage as you can. Blast its armies, shoot your fire-beams into the towers’ tunnels, stop anything that gets near. The more you distract it from the outside, the easier time I’ll have getting through and installing the next devi—’

‘Father…I need you to take me into one of those towers…’ Claygon thought.

Claygon felt a pause and a sense of surprise coming through their link; it was rare for him to go against his father’s decisions.

But this was important.

Too important.

‘I’m not sure if both of us being in one of those towers at the same time is a good idea,’ Alex thought. ‘The Ravener could use it as a chance to kill both of us at once, if we’re unlucky.’

‘Father…I think…if I get in there…I can evolve again.’

‘But you’re already iron—’

‘Beyond iron. I feel something…coming from the energy in those towers…father…please. I think I can do this…the energy…it can help me be better…at protecting all of us. I am not asking this lightly…It’s important.’

Silence hung heavy in their link.

‘Do you really think doing this can take you to another level? And is that what you really want?’ Alex thought.

‘Yes…father…I truly do…’

‘Well, I’d be a pretty bad father if I denied you when you’re asking so earnestly,’ his voice held a nervous smile. ‘Alright, but we’re going to have to move real carefully. So, you go ahead and shoot as many fire beams as you can in as many directions as you can. Don’t worry about me. I’ll be able to dodge them.’

‘Yes…father…’

The golem turned, channelling power into his fire-gems then releasing beam after beam of the deadly fire magic.

Rays struck true, hitting everything the fire-gems pointed at, streaming from his forehead and two palms, directly into Ravener-spawn, the ground, sky, empty air and everything between. He didn’t have to aim; he simply spun in place, firing freely.

The Ravener retaliated, releasing a wall of lethal energy that burned stark white. “Begone, interlopers!”

That energy struck Claygon first, heating metal, steam rising.

But the attack had little effect and he just kept firing as the Ravener shot a dozen death beams at him.

Alex joined in, casting his own magic, further distracting Uldar’s creation.

Annihilation.

The spell sent a column of flame leaping into the sky, then raining down, annihilating monsters, cracking the crystalline ground, lighting up the darkness.

A scream ruptured the Ravener’s inner world.

‘Now!’ Alex thought.

Claygon was suddenly teleported to a distant tower just outside one of the many tunnels. An instant later, the tunnel snapped shut, as did every other one.

“That’s not going to stop us,” Alex told the construct, putting his hand against the crystalline surface and closing his eyes for a moment. “Got it, Buddy! Used my mana to find the node!”

He and Claygon abruptly teleported, and the golem found himself no longer in a world of darkness, but in a world of colour, shade and hue; a vertical crystalline cave of cords, stalactites and stalagmites, glowing with inner power. Energy crackled between them, spreading.

The crystals began buzzing like swarming wasps, inner lights gleaming bright.

‘Don’t like that,’ Alex thought. ‘Don’t like that one bit.’

Claygon thought fast, his gaze now drawn to the vast source of energy he’d been feeling.

There it was. A massive crystal glowing with all the colours of the rainbow.

Alex followed his gaze. ‘That’s the central point where most of the energy is made,’ he thought.

The golem flew to it.

The buzzing grew louder.

‘Father…do not interfere…’ he thought.

There came a pause that felt like an eternity.

And then…

‘I trust you,’ Alex’s thought sounded apprehensive.

‘Thank…you.’ Claygon sounded relieved through their link.

His attention turned to the Ravener’s crystal.

‘This is…for my friends…my family…’ Claygon thought, floating in front of the crystal’s sharp edges. ‘...and for me.’

He flewforward, reached for the crystal, andsmashed it against his chest with his full strength.

Alex teleported away.

The energy within the crystal exploded, filling the space with a rainbow of light, bathing the golem in multihued radiance.

Claygon wrapped his limbs around the broken crystal, letting the energy flow into him.

New power awakened, rushing through the golem, his mana pathways blazing.

Fire-gems gleamed and flashed, light washed over his entire form.

…and…Claygon began transforming.