Chapter 3: Tracking the Golem's Maker
The town of Dripping Stone was less a town and more a permanent market that had forgotten to leave. Stalls of stained canvas crowded a central muddy square, their goods smelling of wet wool, overripe fruit, and the pungent tang of cheap forge-coal. The air was a cacophony of haggling, squawking poultry, and the distant, rhythmic clang of a blacksmith who was behind on his orders.
Richard moved through it like a man navigating a minefield, flinching at every sudden shout, his satchel clutched tightly. “This is inefficient,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “A centralized procurement ledger would save everyone hours. The noise alone must account for a fifteen percent loss in transactional clarity.”
Joffrey, meanwhile, was in his element. He’d already complimented a grandmother on the sharpness of her cheese knife and helped a merchant right a spilled basket of river stones, earning a wide, gleaming smile from the man’s daughter. Branna watched him lean against the girl’s stall, his armor polished to a distracting shine, his laugh booming and easy.
“He’s recruiting a fan club,” Lyra observed quietly, her eyes lingering a touch too long on the paladin’s broad back.
“He’s a distraction,” Branna grunted. “We need information, not admirers. You and I will take the south end. The tinker said the rumored artificer’s workshop is near the tannery. Gods know the smell will keep the crowds away.”
She split off without waiting, Lyra falling into step beside her. The stench of curing hides and pigeon dung hit them like a wall a block later, thinning the foot traffic to a few hurried souls with scarves over their faces. The workshop was a shack built into the lee of a crumbling brick chimney, its windows patched with waxed paper and its door a slanted, rusted thing.
Inside was a cave of whispered motion.
The air was thick with the smell of hot brass, ozonic magic, and a faint, sour hint of unwashed body. Dozens of tiny, intricate constructs covered every surface: a brass spider skittering in a persistent circle on the floor, a bird with copper feathers that flapped silently in a cage, a six-armed figure on a shelf endlessly attempting to solve a linked ring puzzle. In the center, hunched over a bench illuminated by a dripping, magelight crystal, was a gnome. His fingers were stained black, his goggles were pushed up onto a wild nest of white hair, and he jumped at the sound of the door groaling on its hinges.
“Closed! Private! No browsers!” he snapped, not looking up. He was fiddling with a tiny, glowing orb using tools so fine they looked like surgical instruments.
Branna let the door swing shut, blocking the dismal daylight. She stood, a monument of muscle and scarred leather in the cramped space, and said nothing. The silence stretched, broken only by the ticking, whirring, and scraping of a dozen tiny machines.
The gnome finally glanced up. His eyes, magnified by the lenses of his goggles, widened. He saw Branna, then Lyra, and his twitching fingers stilled. “I said closed.”
“We’re not buying,” Branna said. Her voice was low, flat, leaving no room for argument. “We’re asking. About a commission. A large one. A golem.”
The gnome’s face went through a series of rapid adjustments: fear, calculation, indignation. “I make curios. Parlor tricks. A mechanical songbird, a self-inking pen. Not golems. Too vulgar. Too much liability.”
Lyra stepped forward, her movements gentle, non-threatening. She smiled, a warm, genuine thing that seemed to push back the gloom of the workshop. “Your work is beautiful. The precision… it’s divine. The person we’re looking for, they would have valued that. They needed something immune to other magic. Something that couldn’t be dispelled or turned aside. That’s not vulgar. That’s a specific, and very rare, kind of genius.”
The flattery was expertly applied. The gnome preened, his shoulders relaxing a fraction. Then the key words registered. Immune to other magic. A tic started under his left eye. He looked down at his workbench, at the glowing orb. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Branna took one heavy step forward. Her boot came down on the brass spider. There was a soft, definitive crunch of metal. The skittering stopped. She didn’t look down. She kept her eyes on the gnome. “The golem was in the old temple courtyard north of Millbrook. It’s scrap now. Its core is dust. The buyer might be unhappy. They might come looking for the artisan who sold them a faulty product.”
It was a bluff, but a solid one. The gnome’s paranoia was a visible thing, a film of sweat on his brow. He imagined angry, hooded figures in his workshop. He weighed them against the very angry, very present figure currently destroying his inventory.
“It wasn’t faulty,” he whispered, defensive. “The designs were perfect. The magi-conductive alloy lattice, the ley-line anchoring crystal… it was elegant. He just wanted it for the wrong reasons.”
“He?” Lyra pressed softly.
“A man. Hooded. Spoke like his mouth was full of gravel. Paid in old coins. Imperial epoch. Heavy, pure gold. Didn’t haggle.” The words tumbled out now, a confession to the gentle healer and her terrifying companion. “I only sold the schematics and the core calibration formulae. I don’t forge the hulls. I don’t have the furnace. He took the plans and left. That was… three moons ago.”
“Did he say where he was going?” Branna asked.
The gnome shook his head, then paused. “He asked about the old Foundry of the Sun. East of here, in the Rusted Hills. A ruin. But he asked about it like he knew it was functional. Like he was checking a story. I said nothing. I took the gold and I said nothing.”
Branna held his magnified gaze for a three-count, then nodded once. She turned and left, the ruined spider a twisted souvenir at her feet. Lyra gave the gnome a last, sympathetic nod before following.
Outside, the tannery stench was almost a relief. They walked in silence for a block before Lyra spoke. “You scared him half to death.”
“He was already scared. We just gave his fear a direction. Foundry of the Sun. That’s a lead. More than we had.” Branna’s mind was already mapping routes, estimating travel time.
“Branna,” Lyra said, her tone shifting. “Back there with the tinker… Richard. You were different.”
Branna kept walking. “I was getting the job done.”
“It was more than that. The way you looked at him when he gave up. The way you stood over him.” Lyra’s voice was quiet, observational, like she was noting the symptoms of a new illness. “You liked it.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” The denial was too fast, too blunt.
“It’s not ridiculous. It’s obvious. To me, anyway. He’s all frantic thoughts and delicate hands, and you’re… you. You could break him with a hug.” A small, knowing smile played on Lyra’s lips. “You like that he’s breakable.”
Branna stopped dead in the muddy lane. She turned to face Lyra, her expression a fortress wall. “My preferences are my own business. And you’re one to talk. You watch Joffrey like a lost puppy. Every laugh he gives to some other girl is a little knife-twist, isn’t it?”
The color drained from Lyra’s face, the gentle serenity cracking. It was a low blow, and Branna knew it the moment she said it. She saw the raw hurt flash in Lyra’s eyes, the truth of it laid bare.
Lyra didn’t look away. “Yes,” she admitted, the word barely audible. “It is. But at least I admit it to myself. I’m not pretending I’m just dragging him along for his artillery.”
The two women stood there, the mist of the tannery settling around them, the sounds of the distant market a world away. The masks they wore for the world—the unshakeable leader, the serene healer—were gone, stripped by the grubby reality of a back alley. They were just two people, caught in the inconvenient, messy grip of wanting things they couldn’t easily have.
Branna looked down at her own hands, the knuckles scarred, the fingers capable of snapping a man’s neck. She thought of Richard’s hands, stained with oil, trembling as they assembled perfection. The contrast was a physical ache in her chest.
“It’s a complication,” Branna finally said, the fight gone from her voice.
“Everything worth having is,” Lyra replied softly.
A shout of laughter echoed from the square. Joffrey’s laugh. They both heard it. The moment of vulnerability snapped shut. The masks, slightly adjusted, settled back into place.
“We’ll head east at first light,” Branna said, resuming her walk, her tone all business again. “Tell the others. And for pity’s sake, say something to him, Lyra. Or I will. And it won’t be gentle.”
Lyra hurried to catch up, a flush still on her cheeks. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
They found Joffrey by the well in the square, regaling the pretty barmaid—who was now holding a practice sword from his pack with giggling incompetence—with the tale of the shattered golem. Richard was nearby, sitting on a stone trough, deep in negotiation with a surly-looking apothecary over the purity of saltpeter.
“Foundry of the Sun,” Branna announced, cutting through Joffrey’s storytelling. “Two days east. We leave at dawn.”
Joffrey’s smile didn’t falter. He took the practice sword back from the barmaid with a wink. “An ominous name. I like it. Found anything else?”
“A description of our buyer. Hooded. Gravel voice. Paid in ancient gold.” Branna’s eyes flicked to Lyra, then away. “And a confirmation that we’re on the right path.”
Richard looked up from his powder samples, his analytical mind already clicking over. “The Foundry of the Sun… Pre-Cataclysm imperial manufactory. If it’s even partially operational, the thermal potential alone… He wouldn’t just be building a golem there. He’d be building an army.”
The easy mood of the market day evaporated, replaced by a sharp, chilling focus. The barmaid, sensing the shift, slipped away.
Joffrey hefted his shield onto his back, the playful glint in his eyes hardening into something steely. “An army, huh? Sounds like we’ll need to make an impression.”
Branna looked at her party: the flint-eyed paladin, the gentle but unbreakable healer, the genius tinker whose hands were still smudged with black powder from the shot that started it all. She felt the weight of the upcoming miles, the shadow of the ruined foundry, the tangled, quiet wants humming between them all.
It was, indeed, a complication.
But it was hers.
“Then we’ll make one,” she said, and turned toward the inn, the rest falling into step behind her, each lost in their own thoughts of what lay ahead, and who was walking beside them.