Домагой Курмаич - Mother of Learning

"Yes, but I had another idea about that," Zorian said. "What if… we recruited his help in breaking into the Eldemar’s royal vault?"

Zach gave him a surprised look.

"That’s a pretty interesting idea, but how would we possibly divide the spoils?" Zach asked. "I mean, both sides will want to claim the dagger in the end…"

"Well, no doubt Quatach-Ichl will try to betray us in the end in order to claim the dagger for himself," Zorian said. "But…"

"But that’s fine, because we want to fight him in the end," Zach surmised.

"Yes," Zorian confirmed. "After all… how else can we get ahold of his crown?"

He just wondered how they were going to explain all this to Alanic. If he hated the idea of them raiding Eldemar’s royal vaults and working with Silverlake, he was going to be positively thrilled with their latest idea…

After a considerable amount of preparations, it was time for Zach and Zorian to assault the Ziggurat of the Sun and try to claim the imperial ring that was supposed to reside somewhere inside. Their forces for the task were relatively modest – aside from two of them and their simulacrums, they also had Alanic, about 20 mercenary mages from the Xlotic region and a small army of golems that Zorian had made specifically for the occasion.

They did not choose to arrive in the Pearl of Aranhal. The airship was ill suited to fight masses of flying opponents like sulrothum, and it would get immediately recognized for what it was by the mercenaries, which would cause all sort of issues down the line. They had enough trouble convincing these people to cooperate with them in this seemingly crazy operation as it was.

Instead, they brought the whole group to their destination – a sulrothum outpost not far from the ziggurat that Zorian’s simulacrum had secretly infiltrated and taken over a few hours earlier – through the usage of dimensional gates. The display of such high-level magic did much to quell the mercenaries' concerns, which was a nice side-effect that neither Zach nor Zorian had really counted on. They would have to remember in the future that implausible displays of magic did not just alarm people, but could sometimes actually set them at ease.

After organizing themselves a little, the entire group was split into two. The first one, composed out of all of the mercenaries, most of the golems and one simulacrum of Zach and Zorian each, was ordered to march out of the sulrothum outpost and launch an obvious, frontal assault on the structure. This was, of course, little more than a distraction… but a distraction that the sulrothum probably wouldn’t be able to ignore.

According to the military personnel and sulrothum experts Zach and Zorian had talked to in the past few days, humans usually dealt with sulrothum strongholds by bombarding them through artillery magic from extreme range. Unfortunately, neither Zach nor Zorian were all that proficient with artillery magic. It was a magical discipline designed for sieges and outright warfare, and typically involved titanic amounts of mana being shaped by multiple mages acting in concert with one another. Zach knew a bit about it, since his monstrous mana reserves allowed him to cast some simple ones all by himself if he really needed to, but Zorian only had a theoretical grasp of the field. Fortunately, the 20 mercenaries they hired were proficient with artillery spells and had experience in anti-sulrothum tactics to boot.

The devil wasps had no choice but to come out of their base and confront them. Even if they suspected the attack was a distraction, they had to assign at least some of their forces to disrupt the bombardment.

After a few minutes, three more pairs of simulacrums, each group holding a Zach and a Zorian, departed from outpost under magical cloak. Their job was to find their way into the ziggurat and find where the imperial ring was located.

Meanwhile, the original Zach and Zorian, Alanic and the two most powerful golems patiently waited for their moment…

Simulacrum number one nervously watched the cloud of giant black wasps on the horizon. It was his job – as well as the job of Zach’s simulacrum and the many golems the original made for this day – to defend the artillery mages from being harassed by the sulrothum so they could work in peace. In general, their whole group was supposed to make itself as threatening as possible so the sulrothum would have to send the majority of their forces out of the ziggurat, thus leaving it open easy for infiltration by the simulacrum teams. He was fine with that. However, how was he supposed to do that when the damn devil wasps refused to attack and just kept flying back and forth out of their attack range?

"What the hell are they doing?" the simulacrum asked the Zach-simulacrum beside him. "They can clearly see that we’re setting up an artillery magic position here. Do they think we’re bluffing or something?"

"No, I think they’re waiting for something," Zach-simulacrum said. "An order from their leaders, maybe? I think–"

A loud roar resounded in the distance and a huge serpentine form erupted out of the sand, directly beneath were the area the sulrothum swarm was flying in. No, not serpentine… worm-like. A huge brown sand worm raised its head towards the sky, its toothy maw unfolded like a hellish, fleshy flower. As for the devil wasps, they seemed to be… cheering?

"Damn it, they managed to tame a fully grown sandworm?" The leader of the mercenaries whined. "That’s going to be a nightmare to fight."

Simulacrum number one had to agree. Although he could easily detect incoming sandworm attacks due to his mind sense, it was hard to deal with attacks that came from underground. Especially since the sandworm was huge, meaning they had little chance of stopping its attacks and could only move out of the way whenever they detected it coming.

"I have an idea," Zach-simulacrum said, quickly performing an alteration spell that hardened the sand beneath them into a stone platform and then raising it high into the sky.

"There," Zach-simulacrum said, smiling. "It’s a bit expensive to maintain, but now the stupid thing can no longer reach us. For all their huge size, sandworms are useless against things that can fly."

He had barely finished speaking when the sandworm suddenly shook, almost like a dog trying to dry itself off, and a series of translucent, glowing, yellow wings grew out of its sides. They were long and paper-thin, reminiscent of dragonfly wings, and looked comically inappropriate for lifting a creature like that into the air… but as the creature’s many golden wings started slowly undulating like oars on a boat, the sandworm slowly lifted itself into the sky and then reoriented itself towards them.

Zach-simulacrum immediately deflated.

"Now this just isn’t fair," he complained.

Simulacrum number one looked at the flying sandworm, which was currently flying towards them while accompanied by a swarm of devil wasps and decided he couldn’t agree more.

Zorian stood in the ruins of the sulrothum outpost they arrived in, observing the state of the battle. In the distance, Zach’s simulacrum was desperately trying to keep the giant, flying sandworm busy while Zorian’s own simulacrum protected the mercenaries from the sulrothum swarm. Curiously, when the Zorian’s simulacrum tried to influence the sandworm’s mind, he found it completely impossible to infiltrate. Usually he could at least make some headway when making such an attempt, even if the creature was heavily magic resistant, but the sandworm’s consciousness seemed to be protected by a mental equivalent of a stone wall – incredibly solid and unyielding. That was probably worth checking out in more detail in future restarts.