Morgana couldn’t help the grimace that crossed her face at Madeleine’s request to dispel the curse trap hidden in the dirt. Dispelling curses was nasty, dangerous work and something that could easily become a specialty all of its own; they were dangerous and malicious by design and more often than not created in such a way as to resist being dispelled or to actively strike at anyone who attempted such a thing. There was a reason why curses laid over tombs could still claim victims, even thousands of years after they were initially cast. The easiest way to deal with a curse was simply to trigger it while diverting it towards another target like a poppet or a witches bottle; both of which acted half as a lightning rod and half as a facsimile of oneself that would confuse the magic of the curse. Failing that you would just set the damn thing off while protected by the strongest wards you could possibly create and hope they were strong that you would survive.
Unfortunately Morgana had failed to bring any poppets with her and while she was supremely confident in the strength and competence of her own wards, she wasn’t
quite so confident as to metaphorically point a gun at her own head and pull the trigger.
“I’m afraid not. Just don’t step on any, if you please?”That would have to do she was afraid and if Madeleine had any complaints about that then, well, she didn’t have time to voice them before the next problem made itself known.
The large, metallic golem that came crashing through the building towards the demon seemed to be something that even Madeleine couldn’t deal with easily. It pushed her back, overpowering her strength and resisting the blade and flames of her sword. This too was something that the demon wanted the witches help with, but unfortunately it was another problem to which she had no quick solution to.
“They didn’t. Constructs are not traditionally something witches dabble in; I’m afraid this is something my mother had nothing to do with.”No, artificial constructs were not something a witch’s coven would deal in; certainly not one from England, or from anywhere else she had heard of. Perhaps one of the more modern magical orders would be able to make one, since those glorified old boys clubs tended to putter about with a little bit of everything with no rhyme or reason; a bunch of bored socialites trying their hand and anything that caught their interest and laying themselves in illusions of tradition and heritage. Something of this quality was likely above them however; most likely it wasn’t from Britain at all.
Where else could it have originated then? The places most associated with constructs of this sort would be Greece and the Scandinavia countries, possibly Egypt if you went back further, or even Italy due to their modern attempts at reviving the art. But the most obvious answer was that it was exactly what Madeleine had called it; a Golem. Though Madeleine had probably used the term in the more vernacular sense and not the literal meaning, it being a true Golem made the most sense given its seeming autonomous nature and their current location. The creation of Golem was actually quite common in the countries formerly of the Soviet Union.
That was the likeliest answer then, but even if it were true that didn’t bring them any closer to knowing how to defeat it. The nature of a Golem and the best way to go about stopping one could vary from maker to maker and if it was in fact
not a Golem then the methods of stopping it became even more varied. The only thing that held true across all options, was the need for an operator or a handler to be nearby; someone to activate or deactivate the thing when it was needed or not and someone to hold onto the failsafe should something untoward happen.
“Try to keep that thing busy for now; I’ll be back in a moment. See if you can find its Shem for now; an inscription or decoration. Remove it.”Morgana closed her eyes and took a few moments to steady her breathing, before breaking from behind her cover and running towards the building that the Golem had make its dramatic exit from. It was not a graceful run, Morgana being neither particularly athletic, coordinated or properly attired for this sort of thing. She’d known they were heading towards the woods, why hadn’t she worn more suitable footwear? Nonetheless, the witch made it to the building without being picked off by an errant cultist, smashed to pieces by a raging Golem, or dying from embarrassment from tripping over a tree root.
She darted inside, following her own advice as best she could to avoid any curses that may have been laid for them. Avoiding crossing thresholds was obviously out of the question, but she stuck to every other lesson her upbringing had taught her when it came to entering the demesne of an unknown magic user. Thankfully, there was nothing to trigger and even more thankfully no one she had to fight; all of the cultists seemed to have gone out to fight off their assault, or Madeleine’s assault as the case may be, or had already fled. For a moment Morgana was worried that the handler for the Golem may have done the same, or may already be dead, but a slight pressure from her wards alerted her to the presence of someone else in the building, along with the threat they posed before it could catch her off guard.
The door to her right was flung open suddenly, but not surprisingly, and the man that appeared swung his arm towards her to fling a fireball in her direction. The witch raised her own hand in turn, the newly enchanted glove she had spent all of the previous night making lighting up with a complex array of circles and lines that saw a small shield of magic appear before her hand. The fireball collided with the shield and rather than splashing around it or explode the flames were simply drawn into the shield, its energy being quite efficiently absorbed before being fired back at the caster as a bolt of pure, unadulterated magic.
The solid bolt struck the man in the chest and the concussive effect knocked him to the ground and the air from his lungs. Morgana raised her other hand and her other glove glowed with an entirely different pattern than the other as she fired her own attack at the cultist. An orb of blue light flew silently through the air to touch down on the supine figure rather gently, the light flattening out and spread across their upper body and sinking to the floor below them. By the time it faded the man would find his upper body and arms quite securely glued to the ground beneath him.
“It’s always fire that people go for first when the spells come out. Why is that? It’s no more lethal than any other spell and the conversion to heat energy is rather inefficient all things considered.” The man opted not to answer, instead trying rather vigorously to lift themselves off the floor now that they had caught their breath.
“That won’t work; believe me. Are you the one in charge of that construct outside?”No answer was forthcoming, but the way in which the man visibly pressed his lips tighter together was answer enough. Not much of a poker face on this one. Then again, Morgana was quite outside of her element trying to conduct an interrogation of any sort, so perhaps the two evened out in the end. A loud crash from outside, followed by a high pitched groaning and a subsequent crash that sounded rather like a tree falling over, informed Morgana of the continuing fight outside.
“Tough little thing. It’s a Golem, correct? Did you make it?”Still no answers, but the man had ceased struggling entirely now and resigned himself to being stuck where he was for a little while longer. The lack of noise in the room made the fight outside even more apparent; Morgana rather hoped the sounds were of Madeleine
winning at the very least.
“Well, I won’t pretend that I’m going to torture you for information; that act would fall apart rather quickly. Let’s just hope you were dumb enough to leave some notes lying around.”That remark actually managed to provoke a reaction from the man, who suddenly looked worried as the witch stepped away from him to examine the rest of the room; a look Morgana managed to miss because she had already turned her attention towards a rather well used workbench against the far wall of the room. Several things lay on its surface such as the obvious collections of metal and woodworking tool, a few pieces of metal in the process of being worked and most intriguingly, a notebook.
Picking it up, Morgana flipping through the book to find that someone had indeed left a lot of notes lying around, almost all of which seemed to be related to the creation and animation of Golem. It was also, however, written almost entirely in Hebrew; a language which Morgana was unfortunately unable to read. The diagrams however, transcended language and it only took Morgana a few moments to find the page detailing where the
Shem of the construct was located.
Slipping the book into the inside of her coat, Morgana strode past the now renewed struggles of the cultist and headed towards the front of the building. There she found the fight still in full swing, with both Madeleine, the Golem and most of the surrounding area much worse for wear.
“Madeleine! Target the inside of its left thigh, slightly towards the rear; damage the inscription there.” @Kumbaris
