Dear readers, there are still many conflicting theories about the origin of golems. After considering the various accounts, Jalababa of Ban Ard claims that the first golem might not have been created by a powerful mage or an elven sage, but by a simple dwarf from Maribor, a brickmaker named Bonaventura Sesto.
That fateful moment occurred at the beginning of the last century, when the persecution of nonhumans in Maribor was reaching its height. Elves and dwarves were accused of bringing a deadly epidemic into the city.
This was despite an investigative report identifying the true culprit as a man named Mattheo, who worked as a general dogsbody at the Golden Goose Inn. He was responsible for both serving meals and cleaning the latrines, yet washed his hands only once a month, and never particularly thoroughly.
This discovery, however, could not reverse the steadily escalating persecution of nonhuman races. At first, it consisted only of looted shops, arson, and the occasional beating, but the violence continued to intensify until it finally became a savage pogrom.
The city guard did not care in the slightest. They allowed the mob to murder more than three hundred dwarves and elves over three days and three nights, including Bonaventura Sesto's entire family.
Overcome with grief, the dwarf resolved to take revenge. On a night filled with thunder and pouring rain, he fashioned a ten-foot-tall humanoid figure from clay, carved the names of his family into its body, and, roaring curses, slit his own throat and sprayed his blood across the statue.
Thus, the first golem awakened.
Obeying its creator's final command, it began marching through the city, crushing every human who appeared before it.
The dwarven brickmaker avenged himself upon his persecutors many times over. Before the statue he had created was destroyed, it killed nearly five hundred humans, including the mayor and every member of the city council. In the end, the soldiers of the city garrison were forced to defeat it using siege engines.
A subsequent investigation by the Conclave discovered that Bonaventura had possessed a hidden talent for magic. Although he had never received any training, the overwhelming emotions he experienced before his death awakened his dormant power and created an entirely new spell.
After numerous alterations and improvements, the spell can now be cast without sacrificing one's life. Golems can be seen throughout the Continent, guarding laboratories, libraries, and palaces.
Excerpt from On the Origins of Constructs
...
Staring at the enormous shadow in the depths of the mine, Yarpen Zigrin exclaimed, "By the Great Mother's tits! What did that thing eat to grow so big? Wait... does it even need to eat?"
Zoltan Chivay scratched his sideburns.
"No wonder the miners tried to collapse the tunnel. They actually dug up something like that... Vic, how do we deal with it?"
"That thing is called a golem. It is a construct created through magic, and it isn't something you can overcome merely by throwing more people at it. Golems possess immense strength, obey orders, and require neither food nor water, making them ideal servants and guards. When serving in the latter role, they can effortlessly crush every enemy of their creator.
"They don't even need weapons to accomplish that. A single blow from a golem can shatter granite. No shield can withstand such an impact, and trying to parry it with a sword is impossible. Whether made from stone or steel, their defenses are exceptionally powerful. Once provoked into battle, they will never stop until either their enemy is dead or they themselves have been smashed to pieces."
The witcher dutifully gave them a detailed explanation of the monster's characteristics.
Angoulême pulled a face at Victor.
"Stop telling us useless things. It doesn't look particularly afraid of the weapons we're carrying. Is there a special sword oil for it?"
Victor took out a potion and drank it, then poured Elementa Oil over Frost's Lament.
"There is. This Elementa Oil will increase the damage, but fighting it in close combat is too dangerous. Don't let its size fool you into thinking it's slow. Its punches are frighteningly fast.
"What comes next is a witcher's area of expertise. Go back and prepare several mining charges. I'll stay here and play with it alone."
The troupe member did not argue with her leader's instructions. She believed she was capable of joining the battle, but if she refused to leave, the dwarves certainly would not go either.
Just as Vic had said, there was no reason to expose their friends to such danger. Professional work should be left to a professional.
Inside the gloomy mine, Victor watched Angoulême drag and shove Zoltan, Yarpen, and the third dwarf away in a hurry.
Left alone, he turned to face the enormous golem thundering toward him.
Choosing to remain behind and challenge such a powerful opponent alone was not foolhardy courage. He intended to test a newly developed combat technique.
Besides, even if he could not defeat it, he could still delay it long enough for the dwarves to prepare their mining charges. Their explosives were made from an ancestral dwarven recipe, and they never skimped on the quantity.
...
When the golem drew near, Victor could see that it had been constructed from stone. Although its design looked more refined than that of a gargoyle, it possessed no magical abilities and could not blink or teleport. It relied entirely on physical attacks.
Recalling how the sorceress Síle had restrained the kayran, Victor gathered his magic and struck the ground with one palm.
"Yrden!"
A bright blue rune formed and expanded into a circular slowing field with a radius of five yards.
The next moment, the statue's movements visibly slowed under the Sign's influence. Victor easily dodged its heavy punch, which struck the ground with a thunderous impact and sent tremors through the tunnel.
The corners of Victor's mouth rose.
The experiment had been a complete success.
The Yrden Sign that the gargoyles had once ignored now affected a golem of roughly the same size. Until the rune disappeared, it would be nothing more than a stationary target waiting to have its toes chipped away.
The silver blade Frost's Lament struck its knee, each slash cutting away at least a small fragment of stone.
The golem continued swinging its fists, inflicting several tons of damage upon the empty air.
The witcher began circling it while regulating his magic in preparation for his second test. The monster's roars shook dust from the ceiling of the tunnel.
Finding an opportunity, Victor abruptly retreated several steps and slapped his palm against the ground.
"Yrden Binding Seal!"
Geralt had taught him this version of the Sign when they fought the kayran, using it to pin down the monster's tentacles. Victor wanted to test whether his modified and enhanced version could completely restrain a heavy monster.
The three-dimensional rune formed in an extremely short time.
The next second, the golem brought its fist crashing down upon the newly formed seal. Victor rolled aside just in time, avoiding being flattened into a meat patty.
"Crackle! Sizzle! Snap!"
The Yrden Binding Seal's effect on the golem was worse than expected. It failed to lock down the creature's movements and could only force it to move in slow motion.
Worse still, the restraints had been drawn too tightly, allowing the golem to break free after only a few seconds.
Victor used an ordinary Yrden Sign to slow it again, then took out a dose of Maribor Forest and drank it to strengthen the power of his Signs.
Afterward, he ran far enough away to create some distance and prepared to test his final new Sign.
Magic flowed in accordance with his will, and a soft blue radiance shone within his palm.
He owed his sincere thanks to Lady Philippa Eilhart for her enthusiastic sponsorship.
"Yrden Magic Turret!"
He spread his fingers and struck the ground.
A dazzling three-dimensional rune slowly took shape, shining far more brightly than an ordinary Yrden Sign or Binding Seal.
Several seconds later, lightning flashed from its luminous center and struck the golem directly in the chest. It left behind a scorched mark and made the approaching monster stagger slightly.
The interruption was almost imperceptible, but it was enough to make Victor clench his fist in delight.
The fact that the Magic Turret could affect such a formidable monster and even inflict a small amount of damage proved that its potential could not be underestimated.
The technique still possessed numerous shortcomings.
For one thing, it placed a tremendous burden on the mind. After casting it, Victor entered a brief period of emptiness and exhaustion.
Its ammunition was limited. It fired one shot per second, and the rune vanished after five shots.
Its formation time was also far longer than that of the Binding Seal. Even with Victor's exceptional magical sensitivity, he could not cast it instantaneously. He first needed to create an opening of several seconds before using it.
In summary, there remained tremendous room for improvement.
Even so, the witcher was already very satisfied.
This Sign alone would make it far too easy to set traps for people.
The remainder of the battle entered garbage time. Slowing, rolling, and chopping at the knees, those three actions repeated without the slightest variation.
The only question was whether the golem's knees would give way and send it crashing down first, or whether Victor would run out of stamina and make a strategic withdrawal.
Some time later, the victorious alchemist placed a golem's obsidian heart and a severed section of its arm into his herbal satchel.
The former could be used to produce an excellent Blizzard potion, while the latter possessed valuable Void traits.
Victor emerged from the mine at dusk. He had originally intended to return home and rest, but because of his achievement in slaying the monster, his jubilant, heavily bearded friends surrounded him and carried him off to the Cauldron.
Dozens of people, including Zoltan, Yarpen, Cecil, and Angoulême, took turns drinking with him. They did not stop until Victor could endure no more and collapsed in a drunken stupor.
...
Amid his sleep, a vague thought surfaced.
"Did I forget something?"
...
Victor awoke the following morning.
As a witcher who had undergone a legendary mutation, he completely disregarded the excessive amount of alcohol he had consumed the previous night. He was energetic and full of vitality.
He simply felt as though he had forgotten something unimportant.
Unfortunately, he genuinely could not remember what it was, so he could only cast the confusion aside.
Continuing yesterday's work, he needed to search for a suitable source of magic to save Saskia.
After kicking Angoulême, who was still sprawled unconscious in the sitting room, the witcher left alone.
As he followed the paved road toward the city gates, Victor already had a target in mind, the dream crystals unique to harpy nests.
His good friend, Letho, a witcher of the School of the Viper, had once told him, "Most monsters don't truly hoard treasure in their nests, but harpies genuinely love shiny objects."
There were many varieties of harpy, but they all shared one trait. Every one of them was a compulsive thief.
Some, however, stole dreams instead of gems and jewelry.
Dream-stealing harpies preferred dreams filled with unusual emotions. A recurring nightmare, for example, could be transformed into a crystal and added to a harpy's collection.
The victim would then be freed from the torment of the nightmare. Under such circumstances, the theft could almost be considered a blessing.
A dream crystal was an object that radiated powerful magic. Some sorcerers who coveted dream crystals would even raise harpies, then steal their spoils after sunrise.
Fortunately for Saskia, there was a harpy nest near Vergen.
Mayor Cecil had even posted a bounty for the monsters. According to the intelligence gathered, these harpies had no habit of stealing gemstones, making it certain that they belonged to the dream-stealing variety.
Victor entered the spectral mist with a light step.
Although he lacked Angoulême's assistance, his extraordinary senses remained fully alert, allowing him to avoid countless unnecessary battles.
There was little point in defeating the wraiths, since they would soon rise again anyway.
The sounds of fighting and anguished screams echoed continuously in his ears. His nostrils were filled with the cloying, metallic sweetness of magic. Through the hazy mist, his eyes suddenly caught sight of a human body lying face down nearby.
Judging from the wound that had split open his back, the man was unquestionably dead.
His robes and tall hat, however, looked somewhat familiar.
The witcher walked over to the corpse, crouched beside it, and rolled it onto its back.
It was Reverend Olcan, Prince Stennis's attendant.
His face still retained the panic and terror of his final moments. It appeared that he had attempted to slip through the spectral mist, only to be overtaken by a monster just before escaping. A single slash across the back had killed him.
Victor had not seen the reverend during his meeting with Prince Stennis yesterday.
Judging from the direction in which the corpse had been traveling, Olcan had been returning to Vergen from the northern side of the Pontar River.
The question was, why had he gone north of the Pontar in the first place?
There was nothing left in that devastated region except the Kaedweni military camp and the camp followers who made their living servicing its soldiers.
Had the reverend gone there for a little physical exercise?
Or had he been doing something else?
There were no obvious signs of decay on the body, so he could not have been dead for more than twelve hours.
Thinking that Olcan might have left behind some final request or a letter that needed to be delivered, Victor, filled with the radiant virtue of righteousness, kindly searched his body.
Regrettably...
After a thorough examination, he found nothing useful.
There was no secret letter and no dying message, merely a corpse sprawled in the dirt.
It felt like discovering a treasure chest, opening it, and finding it completely empty.
Victor returned the body to its original position.
Noticing two faint sets of footprints beside it, he guessed that someone passing through had taken whatever Olcan had been carrying.
The tracks became indistinct and vanished after only a short distance, forcing Victor to abandon the trail.
...
After continuing onward for some time, Victor was nearly through the mist when he discovered a second corpse.
Like Reverend Olcan, this man had been struck once in the back and killed just as he was about to escape.
The dead man was a complete stranger.
This unfortunate traveler was dressed like an ordinary resident of Vergen, but no ordinary resident would attempt to cross the spectral mist under the present circumstances.
Giving him the same treatment as Reverend Olcan, the witcher once again attempted to discover the dead man's final wishes or locate a secret letter.
Unfortunately, nothing had changed. The stranger had left behind nothing meaningful.
One detail was worth noting.
His hand had once been gripping some object, and someone had later pried his fingers open to remove it.
Taken together, the two corpses proved that while the spectral mist could stop an army, it could not prevent enthusiastic exchanges between the North and South.
Only the gods knew how many spies were currently active.
...
Victor cast the troubling matter from his mind. He would deal with the task before him first.
After passing through the mist, he traveled for some time in the direction Cecil had described.
Because harpies needed access to objects they could steal, their nests were rarely located far from human settlements. Finding the monsters was therefore not particularly difficult.
When Victor saw the remains of humans and animals, rocks covered in bird droppings, and feathers scattered across the ground, he knew he was approaching the harpy nest.
He advanced cautiously and observed the group of Dream Snatchers from a distance.
They looked little different from ordinary harpies. They possessed the same hideous appearance, the same stench of rotting corpses and bird droppings, and the same cries that made one's skin crawl.
Just as Lambert had once said, even rats capable of living happily among excrement and garbage refused to approach a harpy's nest.
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