“Sebastian… Sebastian!”

Sebastian leaped out of his chair in surprise as something smashed across the back of his head. “What was that for?!” He turned to face his attacker and found Sarah tapping her foot with her arms crossed, a suspiciously dented roll of paper in her hand. “Again?” He whined, “We just finished sparring like an hour ago! Can we take a break from it for a day? I have work to do!”

She snorted at him, “You have been in here for nearly six hours. Gerand was looking for you, something about being done with the face. What did you find that’s so fascinating?”

Sebastian grinned at her happily, not really noticing her shudder a bit when she saw it. “Electromagnetics and Ancient mythology. Like, really ancient mythology. The Ancients called it ancient. Of course most of that is pretty silly stuff, like a god that throws lightning bolts from mountaintops and sleeps with women, pissing off his wife who turns them into monsters as punishment, nevermind that saying no to a god probably wouldn’t do anything to stop him. Oh, and one that tows the sun around with a chariot! Hilarious stuff really, you should read it. Actually, a flying chariot is an interesting idea…” He drifted off and his gaze lost focus as he started to work through what would be needed.

“Sebastian! Face? Gerand? Work to do? We leave in two days! Just because the dwarves have a library twelve times the size of our old one does not mean you get to abandon your responsibilities and live in here! Get your brain back on track!” She turned and flounced away from him with a huff.

Sebastian sighed, he supposed the last piece of his golem being done and ready to enchant was important. They had kept in contact with the mages using the journal, and so far the city was holding, but supplies were starting to run low, and they estimated that they would run out of ammunition for the counter-siege weapons within the week. He closed the book he had been reading and hurried after Sarah. “Hang on! I’m coming!” Naturally she didn’t slow down, forcing him to jog a bit to catch up with her. For some reason she had been extremely driven and focused since they got to Undermount, and he couldn’t figure out why. She had asked Jake for a place to train, then essentially commandeered one of the Kingsguard’s private training areas.

After a few days of rendering everything in it to ashes and tormenting the poor dwarves she sparred with, she had started to pester him about joining her. He had tried to resist, but the increasing number of scowling dwarves with singed beards and hair around him forced him to reconsider. Now he had an array of useful enchantments geared for combat and defense slotted into the sockets in his artificial arm, and she had gotten a bit surly when she stopped winning. He tried to explain to her that it is a lot easier to counter spells when you can see the mana weave they’re built from, and can understand the chants. It wasn’t his fault that she would say ‘fireball’ in a different language, while the mana buildup is clearly going to make a fireball at the same time.

He freely admitted that it had been a huge help though, he hadn’t realized how many problems his barrier enchantment had until she set him on fire for example. Now whenever he had it active he was virtually untouchable, and instead of redirecting the energy, it collected it and stored as much as it safely could, and once it hit that limit it would use the stored energy to repel new threats. So far he hadn’t reached that point yet, since not only could he release all of the energy at will with a touch, the mithril the enchantment was on was able to store a phenomenal amount of energy before risking a loss of structural integrity. His new favorite toy was definitely the one that let him release a stream of raw mana that disrupted spells. It was a bit dangerous if he didn’t counter the spell right with it, though. He really hadn’t expected to turn the training size fireball into a concussive blast that flattened everything in the room except him and Sarah, and he had been very glad that they had been using his shields when it happened.

“So what lunatic idea did your lightning magnet stuff give you? You were making that scary face you always make right before you do something phenomenally dangerous with magic.”

Sebastian blinked a few times and thought about it for a moment. “Well, there’s actually a lot of stuff that could be useful that I might be able to do with it. Long range communication, faster travel, throwing things really, really hard, moving large amounts of metal all at once as long as it’s magnetic.” He shrugged. “It’s not really that important right now, it would all take too long to get to a useful point. It’s just an intellectual exercise until I actually have time to work on it.”

Sarah gave him a strange glance he couldn’t quite interpret. “The last ‘intellectual exercise’ you did ended up with you having a metal arm that lets you cheat in our duels, and a creepy metal statue thing that Gerand won’t shut up about. If you start designing a metal leg that would let people run real fast or something I’m going to set your notebook on fire.”

Sebastian smirked at her. “You can’t. I had Gerand put a metal plate in the cover that I enchanted to keep it safe from damage. No water or fire can touch it.”

Sarah’s return grin sent a small chill down his spine. “Won’t stop me from trying, and since you always have it in your pocket…”

“I give you my word that I won’t design any more legs. I mean, I won’t design any legs.” Sarah gave him a stern look, before bursting into laughter.

“Any more legs? I don’t know why, but I’m really not surprised. At least you got better at protecting yourself.” She paused for a moment, running her fingers along an elaborate bracelet she was wearing. “And at protecting me too I guess. You didn’t have to, you know?”

Sebastian snorted, “Are you kidding? Giving you that means I don’t have to worry about jumping in front of giant globs of acid spit for you, I can just let it hit you in the face. Really, I’m shocked you aren’t worshipping my brilliance, do you know how hard it was to get the stupid barrier to follow close to the skin without stopping you from being able to move?”

“Please, if I were to inflate your head any bigger than it already is, you wouldn’t fit through doors.” She said it with a smile though, and as they got close to the entrance to the Forge she gave him a hug. “I’m going back to the practice yard, Gerand kind of creeps me out a bit. There is something wrong with that dwarf.”

Sebastian wanted to defend his brilliant little friend, but she wasn’t wrong. The dwarf’s first attempt at a face was just a shiny metal skull with the cables that would let it work the jawbone the way a normal person would and it had been more than a little disturbing. Just the thought of that seemingly half decayed silvery skull silently staring at him gave him the willies. He had immediately ordered it changed, explaining that he wanted an actual face on it, preferably one that could move and make facial expressions if it was possible. When he walked into the workshop he looked at it and finally realized what people always meant when they said to be careful what you ask for.

At first glance it looked like a perfect replica of a normal human face done in silvery metal. The absolutely perfect symmetry made it hauntingly beautiful. Sebastian was thrilled by it for a moment. That moment ended the second Gerand excitedly started to demonstrate how it could make facial expressions. By pressing his hand against it and leaving a giant handprint where the face had been. The little lunatic had somehow rigged some sort of finely woven mesh onto the skull that was flexible and would bend and shift when the head and jaws moved. Sebastian watched, slightly horrified, as the mesh slowly returned to that perfect face. Why couldn’t it just have a mask? As much as the easily deformed face bothered him, he didn’t have time to change it again, and as much as he hated to admit it, it did do exactly what he had asked for. He closed his eyes and sighed, before facing the bouncing dwarf and nodding his approval. Maybe I can make it stay a normal face shape with the enchantments I have to put on it?

Sebastian had been forced to create basic enchantments for the golem that would allow it to move without hemorrhaging mana the way the lava one had. He had hoped that the orb could just ‘claim’ it the way he had his arm, but apparently it wouldn’t work like that. Sebastian’s mind already knew how an arm should work and how to control it, but the orb had never had a body that it controlled the way a person would. Controlling the lava elemental had effectively just been a matter of releasing absurd amounts of energy into the thing with a general picture of what it wanted to happen.

He reached out and touched the face, and was surprised to find it actually took a fair bit of pressure to get it to start deforming, which was a huge relief. It didn’t stop it from feeling a little wrong to stuff his hand into its mouth so that he could touch the cables that would let it move. There was just something unsettling about staring at that gleaming perfect face being deformed and warped in unnatural ways by his hand as he shifted and felt for the cables. If he had known Gerand was going to keep the damned skull the way it was he would have just finished the enchantments the other day.

Muttering and grumbling incomprehensibly to himself, he painstakingly finished the enchantments. When he finished, and its face shifted back to normal, he stepped back and admired their finished masterpiece. Gleaming silvery plates that provided near total protection while allowing a full range of motion coated it, making it almost seem as though it were a knight in full plate regalia at first glance. The collapsible wings spread in both directions for nearly eight feet, each ending in a pair of razor sharp blades that lent it a decidedly demonic appearance. Yet, if everything worked the way it should, when he placed the orb into its socket it should be able to completely retract them, at which point a couple of the back plates would slide neatly over the holes they extended from.

Sebastian made a snap decision. “Come on, let’s take it to Sarah’s training area, I want her to be there when it wakes up.” Luckily they had it on a wheeled platform that had a frame supporting it, making it both easier to work on as well as fully mobile. It was also fortunate that Sarah’s training yard wasn’t far from the Forge, since the damned thing was heavy. He was sweating by the time they got there, and took a moment to wipe it from his face as Sarah came over, curiosity overwhelming her sense of self preservation.

He didn’t wait for conversation. He had been waiting long enough already. He pulled the orb out of his pocket and stuffed it into the socket that had been made for it. Swirls of red and silver light erupted from it, flowing through the cables, wires, plates, and poles that made up the golem. The chest, which had somewhat resembled a flower in full bloom, started to shift. Plates clicking into their proper place on their own as it folded shut, sealing the iron sphere behind multiple layers of protective metal. The red light faded out while the silver grew brighter and brighter as it cascaded in beautiful waves across every visible surface of the golem. After a couple minutes the light slowly faded away, leaving a motionless statue.

After a moment everyone looked at Sebastian, and Sarah quirked an eyebrow. “Is that it? Weeks of work for a fancy light show?”

Sebastian didn’t answer though. He simply watched silently as silver lips curled into a smile. It’s eyes were glowing a pale blue as it met his gaze. “Hello, Father, did you decide on a name?”

Sebastian laughed as everyone leapt away from it in a mad scramble. “Yes, actually. I found one for you in the dwarven library, in a book more than a thousand years old. You have helped me, even before I knew you were alive you helped me, and while your namesake bore his great burden as a punishment, you helped me bear mine without complaint. Your name shall be Atlas, named for the Titan who held up the sky. I only hope that the burdens you will have to carry will never match his.” He finished with a somewhat sad smile, knowing all too well that they were about to be plunged into the middle of a war, the scale of which had not been seen in decades.

“Atlas, yes, I like this name, thank you Father.” Atlas stretched out his wings, shredding the loose straps that had supported them, before slowly retracting them. He worked his way out of the frame that held him up, and stepped down off the platform. Then he promptly tripped over his own foot, and everyone scrambled to get out of the way and the silver colossus crashed face first into the stone floor of the training room.

Sarah just stood there gaping at him as the dust settled. “Did that thing just call you father?”