When Tanner returned with Chestnut, Mina excitedly showed him the stick doll she made with one of the orange stones. Tanner looked at it, looked at Mina, and sighed. “I leave for a minute and you do something weird again? I’m not even surprised anymore.”
The foxes gamboled about under Chestnut’s feet despite Tanner and Mina’s remonstrations, until Chestnut, patient horse that she was, finally became fed up with their antics and aimed a kick in their direction. The foxes dodged easily, but decided that foxes who fled lived to play another day, and left the horse alone after that.
The five of them made their slow and steady way through the maze. When they encountered the big spore mushrooms, Mina built a fire and Tanner used it to throw flames until the mushrooms burned down. Tanner’s range and handling improved by leaps and bounds as he practiced, and even Mina began to slowly grasp the methods for manipulating the flames. It was a different sensation entirely from the flowing water, which came to her more naturally, but magic was magic after all, it simply took her a little time and effort to grasp the different ways of handling it.
Spark and Ember occasionally ran off to hunt edible mushroom creatures, bringing back carcasses that the children chopped, skewered, and roasted over the flames. They found several different kinds of mushroom birds, some dull brown with rounded tail ruffles, some hard and bitter with brown tail fans tipped with pale yellow. The fan tailed ones were so tough that Grandma had to boil them for a long time, and even then they were difficult to chew. The kids asked their foxes to maybe try to bring back different mushrooms after that, and leave the fan tailed mushroom birds alone.
In the dungeon, with no day or night, only a perpetual diffuse light that cast soft shadows everywhere, they lost track of time, eating and resting whenever they felt the need. They explored the root maze, occasionally finding themselves at a dead end and having to double back, or choosing a fork only to find themselves back on the same path they’d already trodden.
Finally, after what felt like days, they emerged from the maze to find a small clearing. To one side was a little wooden hut, and behind the hut was the dim outline of stairs up to the next level.
“Let’s rest in the hut for a while,” Mina suggested.
“What if someone already lives there?” Tanner asked.
“We haven’t seen anyone this whole time. If it makes you feel better, we can knock first.” Mina repeated Grandma’s silent words.
“Fine.”
Tanner stalked up to the door and nervously tapped his knuckles against the wood. The door creaked open under his knocking, revealing a dusty interior devoid of life. Its sole occupant lay lifeless in a simple wooden bed. Tanner fell back with a garbled cry of alarm.
“What is it?” Mina asked, peeking in cautiously. At the sight of the corpse, she froze.
[You can cover your eyes if you want me to take over for a bit,] Grandma suggested.
[Yes please.]
Grandma cautiously walked up to the dead body and examined it from a short distance. The flesh had dried and shrunk, until it clung to the bones in a thin, brittle looking sheath. The bedding underneath seemed likewise dry and brittle. This was strange, because the environment wasn’t especially arid. Glancing around, Grandma spied a charcoal pencil on a simple wooden table. She used it as a probe to poke the body, and winced when the desiccated flesh crumbled away under her touch.
“Okay, well, maybe we won't stay in the cabin after all,” Grandma muttered pragmatically. [Although I wonder if the bones could be used as the basis for a golem?] she mused.
Mina made a series of incoherent noises in her head, a mixture of horror, disgust, and curiosity. [I mean, um, won’t they be mad that we’re using their body?]
[They’re dead. What do they care?] Grandma retorted tartly. [But just the bones won’t be enough. I don’t want to look like a scary skeleton monster and end up getting smashed by some overzealous soldier.]
[What else could we use then?] Mina was faintly alarmed at how quickly she moved from horror at the mere notion, to active participation.
[There’s clay, I suppose. That’s fairly traditional.] There were lots of stories of golems made of clay or earth. Maybe they could pack the dirt from the dungeon around the bones and assemble a human shaped doll around the skeleton? Grandma shared a mental picture of what she was contemplating.
[I bet Tanner would be upset again.] Mina stared at the image in fascination, looking at it from all angles.
[Well, anyway, we should examine the rest of the cabin while we’re here, even if we’re not sleeping in it.]
Grandma rummaged through the rest of the cabin. There wasn’t much: a simple nightstand, whose sole drawer held a journal of some sort, filled with charcoal writing and illustrations; a sturdy table that held charcoal pencils of various lengths; and a small metal basin that might have held water, but now was covered only with dust.
[Can you read this?] Grandma asked Mina as she flipped through the journal.
[No. Can’t you?]
[Well, I’m not from around here, remember?] Grandma said with a sigh. [That’s all right, we’ll find someone who can teach us to read, and then figure out what’s in here.]
Outside the cabin, Tanner busied himself taking care of Chestnut. He had removed all her tack and was brushing her while murmuring soothing words. Grandma gave it even odds that he was soothing himself as much as the horse, after the shock of seeing the dead body.
“When you’re done, can you go find some fire wood?” Grandma asked.
“You really want to stay here?” Tanner boggled at her.
“Not in the house! Just nearby. I think we should eat and rest before going up.”
“Fine.” Tanner growled but didn’t argue more. Instead, he tethered Chestnut, filled her feed bag, and then stomped away with Spark bounding along behind him.
[Now’s our chance to experiment,] Grandma said with rising excitement.
She scuttled back into the cabin with a horse blanket, laid it out on the ground next to the bed, and then heaved until she tipped the entire contents of the bed onto the blanket. The flesh around the body crumbled further, sending up clouds of dust. At least, Grandma firmly thought of it as dust. Just in case, she created a filter bubble so she didn’t accidentally inhale anything… or anyone.
Once the dust settled a bit, Grandma dragged the whole mess out of the cabin, and dumped it off the blanket and onto the mossy ground. She cleaned the rest of the desiccated flesh off with a few bursts of water, then carefully rearranged the bones into the roughly correct shape of a person.
[Now what?] Mina asked, as she watched in horrified fascination.
[Now we get some mud I guess?]
Ember helped dig up the soil as Grandma packed handfuls of earth around the bones. Now and then, she splashed water on the dirt to soften it and make it easier to mold. Before long, she had covered all the bones with mud.
[Now, stick that weird rock in the chest and pour some magic out. Let’s see if this does anything useful.]
Mina switched places and let her mana flow into the mud doll. The girl could feel the swell of power inside the stone, could see the streams of magic overflowing the rock at the center and trickling through the mud that formed the body of the golem. Was it because the earth here was already rich in mana, due to being part of the dungeon? It felt as though the soil readily drank up her mana, soaking it in effortlessly until it glowed faintly, saturated with power.
[Here I go,] Grandma said, voice tense with anticipation. She flowed out along Mina’s mana connection and settled into the golem. [It’s a lot more spacious here than in the stick doll,] she mused. With a wet sucking sound, the golem lifted first one arm, then the next, and slowly pushed itself into a sitting position. [I feel like it moves better too. Easier to control, more like a human body.]
[Well, we did use a person’s bones, so that makes sense?] Mina answered. [Can you stand?]
Grandma slowly climbed to her feet, the golem swaying precariously a few times as she figured out how to control the creature. She wiggled her fingers and toes, then carefully performed some basic movements. [So far so good. Balance is a little tricky but I think I can handle it.] Grandma took a step, wobbling like a giant toddler, then another. [I think with practice, I’ll be able to move more smoothly.]
“Not again,” Tanner groaned as he returned with an armload of sticks. “What have you done now?”
“I made a mud golem,” Mina said proudly, beaming at the boy.
The golem waved, which only made Tanner grunt in disgust.
“I don’t even know what to say to this.” He proceeded to build a fire, completely ignoring the girl and the golem. “Come here and help me make some food, yeah?”
[Go ahead. I’ll practice quietly over here.] Grandma stomped away, leaving Mina and Tanner with the foxes to cook their meal.
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