"Peeking in a girl's room, I thought you knew better!"

  This was completely unfair. Taramo had explained his circumstances though Ariwyn had refused to accept that he wouldn't have been able to talk it out. So he gave an apology with moderate arm twisting.

  "I am sorry, Nikalia, for not attempting to talk, peeking into your room, and breaking your toy-" A vine struck the back of his head, which actually hurt a bit, "your marionettes."

  The arachne Nikalia accepted the apology with gritted teeth before Ariwyn's full attention was put on her. Ariwyn seemed to have scolded the both of them simultaneously.

  "Taramo I am sorry for trying to steal your dog- dear companion," She rubbed the back of her head, Ariwyn was not gentle on either of us, "not seeking out your friend when I found his sword and trying to kill you."

  "I accept your apology, Nikalia." It took a lot of effort for Taramo to not preemtively flinch when a vine placed itself on his shoulder. Nikalia seemed to feel similarly.

  "Good, now since you are friendly with each other, Nikalia you will move in with us among the Pitarav. You must-" She overruled Nikalia's starting objection, "for you lost most of your guards. I will not let them or others harm you and you cannot be sure of your security as things are."

  "What if they won't take me?" Taramo ignored the worry in her voice and would have left a ways away if Ariwyn had not still gripped his shoulder.

  "Then we all will leave them and set up in another building. Taramo is strong enough on his own since he's an Archmage," This seemed to surprise Nikalia quite a bit, "But they won't dare anger me so I wouldn't worry about that."

  Nikalia resigned herself to the change of address and when Ariwyn decided that the one wagon was insufficient she would need another. Taramo was to make one out of the refuse from the fallen building.

  It's a good excuse to practice transmutation. Taramo thought, but didn't speak. He would do the transmutation the slow way, directly using the ambient mana without absorbing it. This practice was at least ten times slower than using one's own mana and needed more effort to keep the weave in place as it worked.

  Spot was able to help maintain the weaves that he'd set in place so a few dozen floorboards were slowly pulling themselves apart and melding into wheels. The wheels were the most difficult since Taramo wanted to keep the grain of the wood in a perfect circle though he gave up on adding spokes so they ended up as large circles of pure wood with a small hole to hold the axle.

  The wagon bed was easier to make so he was able to divert his attention when he was forming it from the counter of the inn, some leftover furniture, and an iron chandelier that was quite pretty except for the fact that it was horribly bent.

  "What should I name you little ones" The butterflies were seated on his hand as he maintained the flow of mana into the weaving of the bed. the weave had a similar effort as holding an arm bent ninety degrees pointing up for at least an hour.

  The butterflies didn't respond, though their fluttering seemed to suggest they enjoyed the attention.

  "Why would you name them? You'll probably just send them to die as well." Nikalia had wandered over after setting the four marionettes and iron guard to gather the things she'd boxed and they were dutifully working to bring the boxes out, even the small marionette that seemed to be build with a much more rudimentary skill.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  "They weren't permanent then," Taramo decided to be civil so he answered, "Then they had no concept of existence above any part of mana that would drift by. When they were dissolved then they wouldn't change much. Now they have some sense of self so they will inevitably develop sapience. I have seen it happen before and the same method was done for the wraiths like Spot." He gave Spot a scratch even as Spot's focus was entirely on the wagon wheels, he still wiggled a bit in response to it.

  "So before that they could have lived, and now they are living?"

  "Yes. But they develop as we interact with them. For your creations, for example, I would say that only the little marionette and your great warrior would have any sense of self, unless you named all of them?"

  "I didn't, I've only named Mask and Iron." The two turned their faces towards them, the face of the small one being painted white and the iron face being a snarling mouth with spider mandibles. Nikalia didn't have any fangs so they were probably ornamentation or extra intimidation.

  "So mask was your first?"

  "The first one that actually worked. There's some strangeness with the animation enchantments using silk instead of machinery or biology, which were the two examples I could find texts going into details of the enchantments."

  "Really, do you still have those books?"

  Nikalia dug through the chest of books that she had and drew out three books, one of them being a 'baby's first Necronomicon', an introduction to necromancy. The other two were standard spellbooks that were written in the same style that Taramo had used millennia ago. They both perused the texts, one looking at new knowledge and the other reminiscing at the better days of childhood when her father, who had adopted the name Tarnox, had ruled the city with an iron fist.

  Ariwyn rested in a patch of sunlight and engaged in an afternoon nap filled with photosynthesis, enjoying the budding friendship between her master and her student, and tending to her plots to destroy the baron whose ancestor had very nearly slain all three of them.

  Taramo and Nikalia had to give up reading when all Nikalia's things that fit were placed in the first wagon so they could put together the second wagon. The arachne had gathered some of the wood and silk from her destroyed worker/soldiers and was trying to incorporate it in the wagon.

  The end result was a wagon that looked almost normal except in the bottom where a dozen legs were grafted and could walk the wagon. She'd done so at the hopeful look from the three as-of-yet unnamed butterflies attempting puppy dog eyes to avoid pulling another wagon since Iron was more than capable of taking one.

  The pieces that were left and unusable were burned so the Silver chain would be less able to recognize what happened. The explosion probably had made them retreat whatever troops they had patrolling since they hadn't arrived yet and it had been at least two hours since the fighting had stopped.

  With both the wagons laden as much as possible and Mask stowed they set off to the Pitarav compound.

  Nikalia wore a long cloak which didn't obscure her features but it had a ward that would swat arrows and small spells away as well as keeping some of the growing chill of the evening.

  Despite the butterflies' hopes of not being set to work being realized they fluttered about and suggested optimal turns to get back faster. Since they remembered the location and they wanted to help some.

  When they finally got near to the outpost there were some soldiers waiting outside. The arachne mech and arachne herself were quite threatening to them and one of the soldiers rushed off to the Patriarch.

  "In the past they were part of the arachne armies" Nikalia explained in the high tongue, "They ended up with some of the stain from the actions of the leaders so they hate us all the moreso for it."

  "I have found my apprentice," Ariwyn stated blithly to the frowning Patriarch, "I hope it isn't too much for you to set her up with a room?"

  Taramo thought that if she was not one of his gods he would have said no, but he accepted it.

  The courtyard was empty when the wagons finally entered and the storeroom beside Taramo's room was emptied, the contents moved to stack inside the main building and an unused stable.

  There wasn't any furniture offered but Nikalia had made a hammock of silk and politely ignored the slight. She'd managed to fit Iron into the room since that storeroom was bigger with a double door and told Taramo she'd web it up before she went to bed without supper.

  "They'd spit in it if they didn't poison it, but I have enough to tide me over." She said as she handed her copy of the enchanter's spellbook to Taramo. "Anyways goodnight. I can't wait to see what spells you have bouncing about in your mind."

  "I'll have to find some time to write them down."