Fate Alchemist - A Regression Academy LitRPG

Wulf crossed the Oronith dock until he reached a stack of crates just beside the inactive loader golems. They were regular, seven-foot golems with plain armour and stripes of yellow paint on their shoulder pauldrons for increased visibility.

A guard waited in front of them, leaning on his spear and yawning. Wulf jumped out of cover and, leveraging his enhanced strength, struck the guard on the top of the head with his fist. The guard's helmet clanked and the man crumpled, unconscious, but it wasn't hard enough to do any lasting damage.

Moving quickly, before any of the other guards noticed, Wulf ripped open his haversack and retrieved a half-finished potion. He jammed the rest of his loose herbs and harvested plant material into it, stirred it, then dumped it over the golem's head. Liquid filtered through it, and, using a speed potion, Wulf fed it his aura, activating the potion and claiming the golem. Given the quality of the ingredients, it was probably about Low-Copper, but he didn't have time to assess it.

With [Arm of the Alchemist], he willed the golem to open for him. It did, and he stepped inside.

Almost immediately, the guards sprang to action. Their heads swivelled toward him. They exclaimed and pointed their spears.

"Hey!" one shouted. "Thief!"

"It's just a student!" another called.

"Well, do something! Surround him!"

Not good. Wulf rammed his arms into the golem's sleeves, then sealed it up just in time to block a spear thrust.

Using the speed potion, he drove the golem forward, plowing through a trio of guards, then sprinted toward Emerald Vanguard's hatch. Guards' boots thudded on the stone behind him, but with his potion and the help of the golem, he was faster.

The ladders up to the hatch on the back of Emerald Vanguard bent and strained under the weight of his golem, and a few steps broke, but he climbed through the hatch nonetheless. Once through, he turned and twisted the hatch's locking beam shut. Shouts rose up from the dock.

"We don't have much time!" Kalee called.

Wulf turned away from the hatch and faced the space inside the cockpit. There was a small room with a diameter of about ten paces. An enormous glass visor was inlaid at the front of the Oronith's head, giving them a view of the fields and mountains ahead. It was at least a foot thick, enough to block most regular projectiles, but it was still the weakest part of the Oronith.

The ceiling was a dome with thatch insulation, and various tubes, netting, and rope running across. Most were for transmitting mana. Sheets of enchanted parchment hung down from the ceiling, and words scrawled across them, using the Field to detail status reports about different parts of the golem.

Kalee had activated the Oronith's main core, which waited at the back of the golem's cockpit. It was a polished jade sphere about four feet across, with hundreds of carved rune-lines glowing across it.

There were two hanging skeletal apparatuses at the center of the cockpit, standing right next to each other. Harnesses, ready to clamp to the arms and legs of a human. One was sized for a regular human—a Mage—and Kalee had already slotted herself into it. She'd wrapped bands of rune-covered fabric around her arms, and had plugged a cord of braided silk into each of the sockets they'd attached last night. The gaps in the braids glowed orange with her mana.

The second holding apparatus was much larger—sized to hold a golem. A needle stuck out the back, positioned to slot right into his dream socket and link with his mind. He marched toward it.

"Alright," he said. "The moment I lock into the dream socket, I'll sync with the dream nodes, and Emerald Vanguard will be under my control. Are you guys ready?"

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"I'm good," Kalee said. "Slotted in, and I can fling my spell Skills through the golem."

"Ready," Seith and Irmond both confirmed.

"Then let's go." Wulf opened up his golem's helmet for the last time, then slid into the holding apparatus. He shifted his neck until the socket aligned with the apparatus' needle, then slotted it into the back of his dream socket.

His mind whirled. Wind scoured his brain, and his vision went blank for a few seconds. The loader golem's core lit up in his perception, a small marble of stone, and it aligned with the larger Oronith's core. A pulse of resonance blasted between them, carried along the dream link. A faint purple line erupted in the air between the cores, signalling a complete link.

Wulf's mind whirled through the Oronith, passing through the dream nodes and mana channels of the larger beast. A stone giant, a rare beast from the mountains, was made entirely of deepstone, much like the smaller golems. Wulf's perception washed over the beast, and he registered parts of its lumbering form as parts of himself for just a moment.

But there were also the external modifications. The layers upon layers of armour, the deepstone constructs, which functioned as joints and artificial muscles strands. The tubes and rune-lines for conducting all of it. It was hardly a natural beast anymore.

Mana fled his body. [Arm of the Alchemist] worked twice as hard to fuel his golem, and it leaked out, flying across the dream-link and pouring into the Oronith. The runes, which had previously been lit by Kalee's simple startup, now flared bright, and the cockpit shone with green light.

Then his mind snapped back to his own self. His eyes were his, his vision cleared, and he was back in the cockpit.

But the link remained. He felt an echo of the Oronith's feet, an impression of his hands wrapped around the haft of the hammer.

Then, he took a step. His golem's foot lurched forward on a track, moving with the apparatus, and Emerald Vanguard moved with him. The Oronith took a step, breaking away from the docks. A wooden pier snapped away from its chest, crumbling away and plummeting. Ropes broke and swayed, and a chain clanked. Wulf was pretty sure he heard the non-Ascendant guards jumping off back onto the docks.

The sheets of enchanted paper shimmered, and ink messages scrawled across them:

[Emerald Vanguard (High-Bronze Tier Oronith) has activated. Systems diagnostic complete. All functions in good order.]

"They'll send people after us when word spreads…" Irmond warned. "They'll send Oroniths after us."

"Let them," Wulf said. "Then we'll have help when the first wave of demons arrive." He sealed his golem's helmet over his head once more

"What if they catch us before we reach Arotelk?" Seith asked.

"Oroniths take a while to activate the normal way," Wulf said. "We have at least an hour." Reaching forward, the clamp resisting him somewhat, he made the movement he wanted the Oronith to do.

The cockpit tilted down. Seith and Irmond yelped and slid across the floor of the cockpit, but they were fine. Wulf hoisted up the enormous warhammer.

The golem, linked with the larger Oronith, resisted him, slowing his movements to what the Oronith was capable of (it felt slow, but in reality, the Oronith's outer limbs were moving insanely fast) and he used his enhanced strength to push back against the golem, telling the Field he wanted his Oronith to move faster.

It did.

He turned the warhammer over and rested it on his shoulder with a thud. Seith plucked up a smaller mimicry of the Emerald Vanguard's weapon from a rack at the back of the cockpit, then, grunting, dragged it over, and placed it in Wulf's hands.

Then Wulf continued walking. His feet slid back and forth on the tracks, and Emerald Vanguard moved with him. It took another step, then another. Vibrations ran up through the beast, and each footfall made the earth boom. He turned toward Arotelk, which was only visible as a column of chimney smoke on the horizon, and walked toward it.

"We're off," he grunted with effort. It didn't usually take this much exertion, but then again, a Low-Coal wasn't ever supposed to be piloting Oroniths. "Seith, Irmond, to your positions. Before you go, could you attach a communication construct to my helmet? I forgot to clip it on earlier—and make sure to take one for yourselves, too."

"I've got you," Irmond said. Along the side wall of the golem's cockpit were a couple leather headsets with constructs over the ear and a strand reaching down to the mouth, which would transmit their voices over long distances. Hopefully, they were already tuned to each other.

Irmond strapped the construct onto the outside of Wulf's golem, then he and Seith both put one on. When the elf boy tapped the earpiece, feedback screeched through the construct's emitter, and Wulf winced.

"Sorry," Irmond said.

"Just get to your positions," Wulf said.

"On it," the two of them called, and ran back to the hatch, then cracked it open, and climbed outside the Oronith.

Wulf sealed up his golem's helmet. They were on their way.