The realm was dying, mana was gone, humans had left and none of it even existed in my head anymore. Here we were at the edge of an abyss, the vast pit of a dungeon and my mistress was a step away from falling into it.
Which would have been fine had mist not risen from the cliff.
"Don't you dare!" I screamed.
At the monster hiding in that fog and at the human about to follow it. She turned around to look at me with a drowsy gaze. Her lips muttered:
"Paralysis."
Yes, humans could do that. No rune nor relic, no magic circle, honestly no chant or gesture was needed for them to cast any spell at will. A monster's fantasy had just immobilized me completely.
Her absent face offered an air of pity. She brought her fingers to her cheek, gave a small smile and turned back to the depths.
"Don't..."
She turned back again, this time in a jolt. I was slowly breaking free.
No. Not even I knew how I could do it. I was just a clay golem. She was tens of thousands of times stronger than me. And even at equal strength, breaking out of paralysis should have been impossible.
Yet here I was, defying the realm to reach her. Or just barely move at all.
The mist hurled up and onto the deck, engulfing my mistress for a moment. I could feel it now. The monster. Hiding in it. Whispering.
That too should have had no effect on an all-powerful human and yet her startled expression mellowed again, first to indifference, then to somnolence. I could only make a step. My clay body struggled against an insurmountable force.
The young woman stepped back, just one step. Not even a leap. And fell.
With that the spell broke and I got to the edge the second after, saw her body swallowed by the mist that now filled the entire dungeon. To jump myself was pointless, she was already gone.
I watched the fog turn into a haze, the haze recede further down and dissipate completely.
That... made no sense.
The legged rapt showed up behind me, looked overboard and asked: "Where is the scary lady? Is she looking for big brother? Is big brother coming back?!"
"She jumped off and got captured by a monster."
I left that beast behind and walked toward the cabin. The fluffy beast looked at me, then the abyss, and me and the abyss.
"What?!" It freaked out. "But that's super dangerous!"
It followed me inside, saw me working on a magic circle. I should have done that last night already.
"What are you doing?" The monster chirped.
"Tracking the mist. It's gone but I can still catch a trace..."
"Mist! Got it!"
And the rapt rubbed its forelegs just under the mandibles until a tiny thread of fog escaped. Of course. Rapts survived on absorbing magic.
That made things easier...
Impossible!
The trace led back to Hashal. No mistake about it. The detection magic flowed right out into the dry landscape, all the way into the horizon. Right where the five void pillars held the humans' temple out of reach.
Had the human found a way to enter that easily?
I knew she was safe, there was no need to even check the circles for that. Yet the urge to find her would not subside.
Back in the cabin. I threw the central table away, freed the space and started to trace new figures on the ground. I needed potency. I had the mist recipe and the means to produce more. The missing part was a connection.
And in a way I had years of experience in that kind of arcane.
First attempts proved predictably useless. A portal only worked if opened on both sides. But with time magic, I could force that to happen. Time magic. It was lucky the young woman had left an ungodly amount of mana to work with.
More attempts still fruitless. The mist could open its passage, only to too many places. It had either been used many times or was naturally linked through ley lines and focal points. What I needed to track it down further was the biggest lens the realm contained.
So, while waiting for the night to arrive, I went back in the cargo bay, worked with anti-matter and meditated.
I could have explored the dungeon instead, sure. But why? Why not do what my mistress asked?
As evening approached I broke my trance, got up and the legged rapt, startled, followed me on the deck. The impatience had me already wanting to start, even though the stars had yet to appear and with them the mighty power of a celestial body.
Watch me, human. I was going to bring you back!
But the sky had disappeared. The annoying chirpy voice of that monster as well as the entire ship, vanished. I was in a room instead.
Ah.
I was in a room and everything felt sluggish. Distant. Hazy.
This was a bedroom, a modest one. A large bed with crimson curtains. A dressing table and its four mirrors. Two fountains, one of them on the wall near the fireplace. A table. A piano and a harp on the carpeted dais. A guest table and smaller ones with plants bordering the windows.
Three large windows wide open, letting the outside breeze flow in.
A golden bird cage, empty near them, creaking at that slight wind.
All of it decorated simply with golden inlays, topaz and garnet. The candlesticks and chandeliers had the wax long exhausted. No trace of wear and yet I could tell everything here was ancient.
Whoever lived there had been very humble.
I touched my chest. I had a dress, and a beating heart. Through the haze I could not really feel it, just tell the movement. Human hands. I was sit on a bed. I was human.
What. Was going on.
No presence around, not a sound. I got up or rather, I wanted to stand up and almost a second after my body would move on its own. It was nauseous.
The mirrors. No! The windows first. I made myself walk there and look outside. A simple stone mansion built in the dungeon, on a peak surrounded by jungle. Temples floating around, hanging on bridges and monsters of all kinds flying around.
That was the past. Those creatures had all died with the mana drain.
I made my body turn around and walk through the room, past the fountain and to the dressing table. The dress appeared in the glass, then my face.
For a moment I hesitated, but it was her. Short and chopped brown hair, brown eyes and a gentle face that the makeup could not fully restore yet. That was the human, that was my mistress.
Which meant I had the mana to place a beacon.
No way to use earthworks in that state and regardless, the marble tiles and carpets would not let me. Magic squares! It needed to be strong enough and to last so brute force would not do here. I kept working it out until the spell stabilized.
Once casted, it vanished. I made the body flick its fingers, waited for that to happen and felt the echo back. The beacon was set.
Now to make my mistress escape. I pushed the body toward the windows again and... I was back on the ship.
"Are you okay?" The fluffy monster asked while holding my clay leg.
And... I was back in the room. I could have tried again but the message to me was pretty clear: this was a synch. The young woman wanted something out of me and it was not leaving.
Leaving aside how powerful she was to do any of that, she did not understand. There was no escaping through the windows anyway. This was not the past. Rather, an image, a painting replaying for eternity.
There was a barrier keeping this place out of reach and if I had to guess, it was the same kind that protected Hashal.
Four doors to the room. I knew two of them were the wardrobe and bathroom. The third was too ostentatious to be for maids; it could lead to another bedroom, to not have to cross the hallway the fourth door led to.
The hallway was closer to expectations. Tarnished walls, moss and mold, plaster flaking off from the ceiling, from fade frescoes.
This had probably been the autuhmn aisle. Back when the realm had seasons, humans would switch room accordingly to match the weather and mood. Autumn would be lower in the mansion and close to indoor gardens.
More importantly, there was the mist. It was thin there, only a slight film on the ground but enough to detect opening doors and walking feet.
That was it? No monster, no trap nor ward to keep the human in.
With just a finger on the wall I had already mapped the entire mansion. I could have used other spells but relied on a vibration one, out of habit. The entire place was truly deserted, built on top of the dungeon's caverns. The fog coming from deep down.
I could use my human powers to walk in the mist like a ghost. Such a wasteful brute force approach irked me though. In fact, that thin layer of vapor gave me an idea.
I could let the captor's trick do all the work for me.
This bedroom was too cramped for the kind of spell I would need. The only room big enough was too floors below. Walk there?
Why? I was a human. I could pass through walls.
One floor down, then another, I fell in the ballroom and caught myself silently on the ground. Everything was so slow-moving and detached that I had to sequence it blind, but despite the delays my human body managed.
A ballroom with only two sets of windows and no balcony. This mansion had been poor. Almost reduced to a pavilion had I not known better.
Even with its gold and platinum restored, it still looked dilapidated. Its outer wall had been breached repeatedly and the holes filled by vines and vegetation.
The doors to the garden equally covered in branches and leaves.
Now the mist was simmering, growing all around. It had felt the presence, it didn't matter. All I needed was enough time to inscribe the spell on all surfaces. I was getting good at this!
The first monsters were getting summoned. Meniles and greyhounds looking for the intrusion while the fog gushed out of the doors to fill the ballroom. I was etching two dozen magic circles at the same time and barely had any attention to give them.
There! And just in time. When the beasts entered, they looked around and saw that human in her impractical dress who pretended to fret at their sight.
Except I had stepped away and they were looking at my image. The mist that should have hindered me now carried my ghost for me everywhere.
The beasts growled, ready to pounce, then fell back and fled to vanish.
Then a figure approached. Humanoid. Tall and slender, but with too round a head and too large a neck to be human. It detached from the mist just in time to brush the young woman's face.
My face. Not my image's. It had not even noticed the illusion.
"Mistress!" The monster called with a distressed voice.
That thing, with the head of a small bird, wore a priest's garnments, mixing golden plates, silk robe, long gloves and ribbons. A body of feathers carefully cleaned, brightful, displaying a rainbow of colors. It held a scepter with two dozen small bells at its end, dangling and silent.
"Oh, my poor mistress!" The monster continued. "You had me so scared! Why are you here so lonely? It is no time to dance! Come come, it is so cold and sad!"
I made the body answer: "I was looking for you."
"Me? Oh, how adorable!" That humanoid bird rejoiced. I had been right. "My mistress cares for me!She cares, she cares! Oh but she can't stay here! What if the temperature damaged her face? No, no! You must go back to your room, please!"
And I was back on the ship. Just in time to see the moon rise.