“Grand Dark Mistress, here,” approached Taltil carrying a mug, filled with still steaming warm mead, that was too large for her pudgy fingers to hold. Rubbing my numb fingers, I took the offered drink and gave a small head pat in return.

“Mistress, when they come?” asked Taltil over the sound of another song about a drunken pirate captain and his crew.

“Not till the winter is here. With the heavy snow, the terrain is unpassable,” I explained as the content of the mug slowly warmed my throat, liberating me from the callousness of the elements.

“Grand Dark Mistress, angry?” asked Taltil in a low voice. She was shackled by trepidation. Her eyes refused to meet mine, while she turned her head, chasing imaginary patterns in the snow-covered ground.

“For what?” I asked with curiosity overwhelming my other rationale.

“Theko not answer when Mistress ask. So I went in and saw,” replied Taltil.

“You snuck into Lyria’s forge?” Amazed by her act of bravery and stupidity in equal measure. Uncertain if I should praise her for her loyalty or admonish her for risking the wrath of Lyria, I gulped another mouthful of mead.

“Strange man inside, very strange,” uttered Taltil cautiously. My ears perked at her words and from the change in her demeanour, it was evident that the little goblin was aware that she had my full attention.

“Disturbing,” she said in a very low whisper.

“Describe him.”

Despite my best attempts to keep my voice neutral, she somehow sensed my growing concern. Sometimes, I forget that Taltil can be profoundly insighfull.

“Not see. Hide inside armour,” she replied.

Chuckling to myself at her adorable antics, I replied, “Are you certain there was a man inside? Perhaps that was just an armour Lyria is crafting?”

“Move. Talk. Not much but talk. When I got close at night, man not inside. Only metals, wheels and more wheels moving. Man disappear,” she said with unfiltered concern laced with a generous measure of fear.

“Maybe like magic person but different,” volunteered Taltil with the best possible explanation that she could come up with. Her fear of Vitalia held her in thrall. Daring not to utter her name in dreaded fear of summoning her.

“It spoke?” I persisted in my questioning,”but inside only cogs and wheels?”

Taltil nodded her head fervently. Had I asked her to swear an oath at that moment, Taltil would have done that upon her own soul.

So that is what Lyria and Colby were up to. Their hidden project. I must be losing my edge. Should have realised it way sooner.

“It is a golem they are building,” I explained.

Her eyes sparkled with alacrity. Her lips spread wide open, in an oh-so-wonderful expression for a brief moment and then she dropped the act.

“What is a golem?” she asked dropping all pretext of comprehension.

“Like a doll. It is a statue that moves and listens to all you command. It can fight for you. All by itself.”

“By himself?” repeated Taltil.

Bending my knees, while balancing my weight on my heels, I came eye-to-eye with Tatil. A shadow of doubt still lingered heavily on the goblin’s sceptical face.

“Yes. If you ask nicely, it will do things for you.”

“They make him? Like a baby?” asked Taltil. Her expression, brimming with innocence and without any malice.

“Yes.... No,” I stammered considering the implication of it. Not just because of Lyria’s involvement but more so because of Colby’s contribution. That would be awkward. Insanely awkward.

“The golem is inanimate. Does not have a soul. It is more like creating a statue.” Her comment caught me off-balanced, forcing me to steady my staggering self, before explaining the differences to her.

“But he moves. Himself. He is alive,” countered Taltil.

“Taltil, my mug is almost empty. Could you get me another?” I asked. My request had as much to do with getting rid of her perpetual questions as much as needed to incorporate the presence of a golem into the battle plan.

As Taltil turned and hopped away in her tiny steps, my eyes gleamed with an unbridled lust for wanton destruction with a steel golem in my command. No! Not a steel golem. Steel would be a substandard material to craft for the skills of Lyria. A mithral or much better adamantine golem.

The fact that Taltil swore about hearing the golem talk, meant that Colby has rigged a dwarven music box, perhaps, to allow the mechanical creature to imitate basic vocalisation. Which made me wonder, all the more, what other battle improvements did the gnome and Lyria come up with?

With an army at my command, no, just a single unit comprising a handful of those golems, I could cleave a path through an undead horde. Their incorporeal wraiths will have no effect on cogs and springs in the brain of the golem. The alloyed bodies, immune to the plague and pestilence of the liches. If I were a lich, the reliable way to hinder the progress of these metal emissaries is to drown them in a sea of bones and festering zombies. That is what I should expect.

A highly mobile force, like the Viridian Dawn Ranger who could traverse unhindered by the terrain, to draw the undead, followed by the golems rushing in, breaking the otherwise well-guarded phylactery of the liches is how I will win the day.

After the encounter with Zar’amaris and the Enforcer from The Chained House, I was, considerably, certain that with my actions shattering the fragile peace treaty between the demons, the one-horned warlord is deprived, ofthe support of demons in his campaign. Now with the assimilation of golems in the defense of High-Crag Hold, his dreaded undead has lost their advantage. The feared warlord and his brutal horde were already crippled before the siege could begin in earnest. That is, everything hinges on the number of Viridian Dawn Rangers that Arlene could recruit to our cause.

And Arlene did arrive, in the cold of the night, amidst the raging snowstorm, shivering and battered from the merciless icy winds. But no wood-elf rangers accompanied her. Instead, a Warband of stout and sturdy dwarven shieldmaiden followed her.

“Raelion was a prude. Tried to be bigger than he was. This is Arlene he is talking to,” said Arlene with a smug look on her face, “No one needs that sort of patronising behaviour. Anyway, his rangers are not the only valourous souls roaming the Land. They are far nobler souls, like these shieldmaidens here.”

Without waiting for an acknowledgement, the half-elf snatched the mug in my hand, emptied its contents to her starving mouth, before cluelessly continuing the saga of her epic quest.

“I vow for it. These girls will die holding their shields than retreating. Every single one of them,” said proclaimed.

And that is precisely what my fears were made of.