The creature was not fast, Harlan didn’t really have that much experience with something like this, but repurposing it into a different form would’ve been even more effort.

Seeing that his golems had brought back the half eaten corpse of a small Lindwurm was a great boon even if it stunk like piss and death.

Its poison and acid sacs were even still intact.

So Harlan expanded the range of his sigils, and started slapping arms and legs onto the creature along with however many gems he still had in his pocket.

The flesh came back to life, which just meant it wouldn’t fall apart during the battle at least.

Unfortunately, the power of telekinesis was not proportional to the size of the creature, otherwise this 20 feet long abomination would be strong enough to crush everything by itself.

It was always meant as a distraction anyway.

Dirt fell from the ceiling as the battle above him raged on, nobody was stupid enough to worry about guarding captured women when an unknown monster is using acid to melt men.

Harlan saw what he hoped this thing could be, but the reality was that it barely had a few hours to gain mana and he figured he had 30 minutes before it stopped being able to move on its own.

Telekinesis would keep the small rounds away while hopefully at least deflecting the explosive shells.

Even this was just set up for a second plan once he was safely outside of the area of effect.

He was not so stupid that he couldn’t see what a terrible idea it was to try and fight all of these bandits by himself.

Harlan melted the lock and swung the door open, the women were fearful, but Harlan noticed that a few of them were thinking about attacking them and held items behind their backs.

Even if he knew what had happened, he considered it a good sign if they had the will to kill to protect their own.

“I’m here to rescue you all, I’ve got a tunnel leading outside the camp while my forces attack above.”

An older woman, probably a village elder, stepped forward.

“You aren’t a local soldier.”

She squinted her eyes.

“And you are young.”

“And you are old, what about it?”

The ground quaked with a terrible sound as the beast fell, but it did its job, nobody would’ve expected what came next.

“The topside forces are almost done, we need to move, now. If any of you are injured or elderly, I will carry you, we must move quickly.”

Harlan first grabbed the elder with his telekinesis and then moved to anyone who was injured, healing the minor sprains and carrying anyone who wasn’t worth the time to heal.

The bandits were too busy making sure that the monster was really dead to realize yet their captives had been freed.

Once they were inside of the den along with the woman who got out the night before Harlan gave the order and sealed the tunnel as best he could.

Then he called Hirum.

“Did things go well?”

“I wanted to make sure that you didn’t send anyone, that camp is about to be destroyed and I don’t want your people in the blast radius.”

“No, nobody was available for the price I set.”

“Good.”

The connection was dropped, yet Harlan’s amulet lit up once again with an outgoing message.

Nobody was there to help, but that didn’t mean nobody showed up to watch.

Xol and Marigold were ready to step in, yet they never saw hide nor hair of Harlan.

“I’m a little shocked that he is just leaving the camp. Mercy, even delayed retribution, isn’t exactly his strongest suit.”

Then the words caught in her throat and a sinister grin rose upon her face.

“Oh, that is smart. We should probably move back.”

“I’ll just put up a barrier, I want to see this from up close.”

The most accurate term for the long noodle like thing currently burrowed into the ground and arranged like a rune, would be some kind of Molewurm. Between its acid taken from the sacs of Lindwurm, and its claws taken from various animals, it was a living mining machine. The only issue was that from Harlan’s own tests, it needed to be closer to the surface, and it would not go unseen if people were watching the ground too closely. So, a big giant distraction was needed once the rune that was dug out started to glow with mana.

Something that moved around the trees and kept the line of sight high.

It fell with a terrible thump, kicking of dust and leaves from the ground like a cannonball had struck.

The men inside the walls waited, then their leader demanded one more volley before they went to check the body.

“HOLD.”

A few minutes passed, the dust cleared and the leader believed it to be dead.

“SOMEONE CHECK THAT BODY.”

There were some arguments, but eventually two men drew the short stick. As they got closer one of the men fell over nothing and the others all laughed at him.

“Fuck. what was that?”

He moved back and tripped over thin air again.

It was a weak illusion, and once broken, the entire camp was lit up from the outside by an earthy toned light.

“What the-”

Gravity magic had a clear drawback, it affected the user just as much as the enemy, though nobody really understood why selective targeting was incompatible with it outside of casting the spells at a distance. Even then, gravity magic was known for its awful range where one needed to be just outside of contact to use its power without harsh drop off.

However, if the thing which cast the magic was never planning to live, it made for a beautiful suicide attack.

The ground shook with so much force that not a single person could remain standing and Harlan had to apply pressure from the inside to just prevent a cave in.

Outside, a plume of dust reached for miles in every direction.

Harlan had no idea how strong it would be, and he really didn’t have time to test it, he wasn’t a gravity mage after all. So he just gave the golem the order to ‘draw as much energy as you can into it.’’

It wasn’t something people really did, since it made magic messy when the concentration of elemental mana changed, but part of war magic was how to set up and quickly activate giant runes carved in the ground by gathering mana and then not spending the personal mana to actually make it into a spell.

Some of the captives tried to stand.

“Stop, stay down.”

“There’s more?”

“Aftersho-”

The rumbling was too loud to hear anything else.

Then came more aftershocks as the trees around the camp began to fall down into the pit which had been dug out into the ground by the sudden shifting of gravity to times 100 for a split second before the creature which was also the rune for the spell liquified.

After another 15 minutes, Harlan decided it was safe to stand.

“Was anyone hurt?”

Harlan healed up everyone that he could, then he stepped outside.

The landscape was painted tan and thick dust still hung in the air, so he went back inside.

The elder saw what was outside and how the dust wanted to get inside.

“What in the world did your army do?”

“I never said I had an army.”

“You’re saying one man did this?”

“No, I never said it was human either. Perhaps you’ve heard my name, Harlan Fomoria, at your service.”

The woman was about to shake his hand, but retracted it.

Harlan’s face made it clear that he was unamused, but instead of voicing his displeasure, he worked to expand the cavern and put up magic lights to make it more comfortable.

Harlan was very tired and began to zone out as he worked, so he wasn’t sure if he made the area two or three times larger by the time he laid down on some softened dirt.

“I’m going to wait an hour or so before I contact the academy for pick up, from there you will probably be escorted to your village, or what remains of it. I’m sorry that I cannot do more to help.”

His eyes drooped as he finished speaking.

Mostly there was silence, until a younger girl broke it, when her mother realized that she had approached him, she tried to pull her away, but was too late.

“Can you fix my bear?”

“Sure, what is wrong with her?”

“Her eyes came off, she must be scared if she can’t see.”

“Don’t worry, I’m sure that she will be just fine once she sees your face.”

“She is going to be happier when we get back and she can see papa again.”

He could see it on the mother’s face, the girl didn’t know, and the thought of when she finds out made Harlan want to vomit.

He picked dirt from the wall, condensed it into jewels and colored them.

“What color were her original eyes?”

“Purple, because she is a princess.”

“Of course, how could I have missed her regal aura?”

She handed the stuffed toy made of rough burlap and hay to Harlan, he wondered if it was made by her mother.

The eyes went on easily with a little bit of telekinetic sewing.

“Why are you crying?”

“Huh?”

“Mister, you’re crying.”

“Ah, dust must’ve gotten in my eyes.”

“You should get that looked at, my mother always cleans my eyes when they get dirt stuck in them.”

“Hey, I’m a mage, I can clean my own eyes. Why don’t you run along now, show your bear around so she isn’t so scared.”

He put up a veil and let himself cry.

“Harlan, I know where your thoughts are headed, and…”

“I’m angry, I’m furious, they didn’t deserve a quick death.”

“I know, everyone who could see this place would know. But you sent a powerful message.”

Harlan dried his eyes.

“When did the world get so fucked up?”

“Since the first human drew breath and wanted what it saw. Like you said, I should stop you if you are going to overwrite the will of others en masse. But, if you made golems, spread them around without telling anyone, would that ease your mind? Keep you from doing something worse.”

“I want to do something worse.”

“No, you don’t, you want to stop the pain, but remember-”

“There is no path of no pain”

Mother and child said in unison.

“I know, you don’t want to hear it, I’m sorry. But, please, don’t do anything you are going to regret, because you don’t know yourself as well as I do. You hate evil people, but you can’t bring yourself to hurt innocents to stop every risk of evil men doing what they will do.”

“If I wait for evil to happen, I’m already too late.”

“Stop that this instant, give it up, you would kill yourself if you ever did what you think about doing.

Why don’t we switch topics?”

“I don’t want to be cheered up right now.”

Dawn waited a few minutes for Harlan to cool down before she started up the conversation again.

“The letter from Adina’s father, you still never told her what it said.”

“She isn’t interested in forgiving him, there is not a single chance that he is invited to the wedding, no matter how many coins he wants to donate to it.”

“Sure, maybe. But it would lift the bad blood, she could go and at least visit her home country if he gave up on her. Maybe it is a trick, but he is willing to relinquish full control over her if you just let him be around for one day. Is it possible that he really does realize that he fucked up?”

“I’m not talking about this anymore. We’ve argued back and forth and nothing changes, Adina told him clearly through my message to Cato, if he doesn't have the guts to speak with her in person, he doesn't deserve to have the chance at forgiveness. Why are you trying so hard to get her to forgive him?”

“Because you forgave me. Eliza did some terrible things, and with that she never gave anyone the chance to fix things because she would always just throw away or burn their letters. She completely understood that people wanted to try to understand her so they might forgive her, and she fucked it all up, she threw it away because she was afraid that they might actually forgive her, that they might make her realize everything she had done.”

“That doesn’t even make sense, why wouldn’t she want to be forgiven? Everyone wants to be forgiven.”

“If she acknowledged everything she ever did wrong, and her emotions became as such that she could understand everything, then she would need to face the most terrifying thing in existence, knowing that you fucked up everything, you’ve ruined your relationships with your friends, your family, that you abandoned your only daughter. She retreated instead of fighting, please, give Adina the chance to fight.”

The only part that pissed Harlan off more than the argument, was that he considered it his loss.

After his speech to her about both of them not controlling the other and talking about the choices the other makes, he knew he was a hypocrite, and that was going to keep eating him up until he solved it.

“I’ll tell her once we get back.”

“We? I’m happy to be included, but I think referring to yourself as we in your own head is worrying.”

Harlan let out a sigh and dropped the veil.

A few women wanted him to fix their torn clothes that would reveal themselves if they didn’t hold the fabric in place.

They would rather have it fixed now instead of after they were transported home by the army.

The distinction between a bandit and a soldier was often just who was getting killed and conquered, the why meant very little to those trampled under foot by people like them.

Harlan looked outside again, seeing that the dust was thinned out, he called the academy for pick up.

The women helped one another out, many of them had lost husbands, sons, fathers, wherever they went back to, it wouldn’t be the village they had lived.

The elder came to Harlan and put her hand out for a shake.

“I’m sorry for my rudeness earlier.”

Harlan just looked tired, but not the kind that sleep would fix.

“It would be a lie to say I wasn’t offended, but I know what my name means to people who don’t know me. Coming to me afterwards and apologizing is worth a lot to me. I wish you all the best, and I’m sorry for not being able to come here sooner.”

“It is plain to anyone that your heart is heavy when you see us, but we can only move past this by living, and you have given that to me, my daughter, and my granddaughter. It is not your fault that you cannot see into every corner of this world, we came here and put up a village knowing the risks, bandits, monsters, these are just part of the frontier. But we came here for a new life, and now we can start again, because we are still alive.”

“How do you keep going, after such terrible things happen to you?”

“How do you keep going? My husband, rest his soul, was a soldier, and killing stains your heart, your soul, it will make you hurt in ways that you can’t know. You keep going because there is no other path ahead but forward.”

Harlan didn’t reply, so the woman walked away, wagons had been sent to bring them home.

One of the academy staff was too afraid to break up the conversation, but now that it was over, she stepped forward.

“Excuse me, Archmage Changeling.”

He moved to face her, giving a full view of his dead eyes, barely cinders remained of his fire.

“Yes?”

“Would you like to give a report now, or should I wait until you’ve had time to rest?”

Harlan flew, and he took the woman with him as she screamed.

When she calmed and he overlooked the crater of splintered wood and red dirt that was once human bodies, he spoke dispassionately regarding what had happened.

He gave every detail that he remembered and the woman made her report, though a few questions did remain.

“Thank you for your service which has gone beyond the original request and removed a large encampment from the frontier. We will keep this as quiet as we can if you would like. The headmaster is aware that you are attempting a new image.”

“No, make this clear, I forgave those who wronged me before. That does not mean I’ve lost my fangs.

I will still bare them when I feel it is just, without regard to who my targets are.”

“I will remove that last part, but the rest can make it into my report.”

The more tried, the angrier the orb became over his failures to replicate any of the magic Harlan could use to make these new golems.

It did not help that the king had forbidden him from creating them, thus forcing Dagda to make each experiment in the shadows.