62
Tania sat next to Milo in the Mess.
The babble of other students was like a constant bubble of irritating sounds stabbing into his ears. It made him feel uncomfortable. He didn’t like being around crowds.
But the golems had told him he should come to the Mess at least once a week so he could form relationships with other students. He didn’t know why that was important.
Tania said he might need them one day.
She scooped up some of the day’s mush that was pretending to be food, and held the spoon in front of him. “Say ah,” she said with a grin. “Come on. Do it for me.”
He rolled his eyes, feeling even more embarrassed to be doing this sort of thing in front of Cerena and her team. Jassie was watching in fascination as Tania fed him.
“Ah,” he said curtly.
“Wow,” Tania said, squinting into his mouth. “Is that what your tongue looks like?”
Then she shoved the spoon into his mouth, and he took it like a baby.
“It’s a tongue,” he growled. “We all have one.”
He didn’t add that hers was a pain to put together and he understood why most golems didn’t speak. Her tongue had been so complex it had almost made him dizzy while he’d assembled it.
“Yeah, but when you say ah like that, it looks weird.” Tania lifted up another spoon of mash. “Ah.”
“Ah.”
He’d given up fighting her on it.
“That’s amazing,” Jassie said, shaking her head in awe. Her own head was almost on the table as she looked up at him. “How do you do that?”
“I just open my mouth,” he said drily.
“I don’t mean that,” she said. “I mean, how do you get her to do that to you? And Selma did it last week. Like, are you controlling their minds?”
Milo choked on the mash and shook his head. “Do I look like I’m the one in charge here?”
Selma appeared behind him and dropped another dollop of mash onto the plate Tania was feeding him from. Then she took a seat beside Mila on his left.
Mila tugged at his sleeve. “Can you feed me? I wanna see what it’s like.”
Before he could say no, Tania shoved the spoon into his hand. “Go on, Milo. Give her a taste of your mash.”
It sounded rude, but he didn’t know why.
Squinting suspiciously, he slowly scooped up the mash and held it out.
Mila opened her mouth and leaned closer, eyes on him. Her eyes were wide like a kitten’s. She moved her tongue. “Ah.”
Trying not to roll his eyes, he put the spoon into her mouth and she took it with a happy hum. Chewed.
Swallowed.
Then she nodded as though something important had happened.
“You’re right,” Mila told Tania. “When you say ah, your tongue really is in a strange place.”
“Right?”
“I never thought about it before.”
“You’re all crazy,” Jassie decided, picking up her own spoon. She wagged it at Milo. “If you ever come near me, I’m going to scream for the guards. You have to keep at least this far away from me for the rest of our lives.”
“What? What’d I do?”
“You’re clearly controlling their brains.”
“Or breaking them,” Cerena put in with a smirk.
Belt arrived with a plate heaped with food. Taking a seat beside Cerena, he looked around the table. “What’s happening?”
“Tania was feeding Milo,” Jassie reported. “I’m not sure if it’s because he’s a baby, or they’re treating him like a king. It could go either way.”
“He’s our king,” Selma confirmed, reaching across Mila to pat his head.
Milo shut his eyes and sighed. “I think you’re all just trying to embarrass me in front of everyone because you think it’s funny.”
“What?” Tania plucked the spoon from his hand and scooped up some mash. “That ain’t a nice thing ta say, buster. Now, say ah.”
“Ah.”
She paused to peer at his tongue, then put the spoon in. “Gobble it all down, my lord,” she said with an overly-formal tone. “Your little servant will fetch more for you now.”
Selma laughed loudly which only made Mila giggle.
Jassie pointed at Milo and looked to Belt. “See? He’s busted their minds.”
Belt nodded.
Looked down at his food.
Glanced at Cerena.
Who raised her eyebrow at him. “What?”
“Nothing,” he said, scooping up his fork and knife.
“Good.” She shot Milo a sour look. “Now look what you’ve done.”
“Don’t look at me! It’s not my idea!”
“Say ah,” Tania said.
He opened his mouth without thinking. “Ah.”
He took the mash.
Then he shook his head and snatched the spoon from her. “I can do it myself!”
She snatched it back. “But I wanna do it for ya!”
He tried to grab it again, but she jerked her arm out of reach and booped his nose with her other hand. “Stop acting goofy, Milo. Ya know we love ya.”
“Yeah, Milo,” Selma said, stuffing some sausage and mash into her mouth with gusto. “We love ya.”
Mila nodded and patted his arm but said nothing.
He hunched his shoulders in defeat.
He knew most of the hall was paying attention to some degree. And that while the teasing about him lacking mana had more or less gone away since Fergus had been killed by him, it didn’t stop some of the students finding something new to tease him about.
One or two other guys had started saying ah when they walked past him in the halls.
They’d open their mouths wide and give him a huge exaggerated ah.
What was stranger about that was none of them had been scolded by his golems. Usually they were very sensitive to anyone teasing Milo. But on this point, they grinned broadly as though actively encouraging it.
Something the other students quickly learned could be a source of great amusement.
“When are you coming to classes, Milo?” Jassie asked, deciding they were too freaky for her to talk about any further. “Mistress Vizzingbelle was asking about you. If you weren’t coming here every now and then, I think you’d get marked down as Trapped.”
He shuddered at the thought.
Being Trapped meant he’d been killed by a dwarven trap in the fortress.
Which meant being cut to pieces by a buzzing saw or something awful.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. He couldn’t tell them that one of his spider golems was always present at every class and was silently recording them. “I’ve been busy lately.”
Belt swallowed and looked up. “With what?”
“I’m looking at new ways to modify my rifle,” he lied. While he did look at the rifle now and then, his priority had been on trying to learn the dwarven language.
He’d started with a lot of optimism and energy.
But he was now feeling lost and depressed about it.
Without some way of relating it to the human language, it was difficult to get meanings from dwarven words. Milo thought he’d picked up a few words in the dwarven recordings. But the problem with those was they were mostly dwarves complaining about something.
So they spoke too fast.
It was difficult to catch things. And then it was a heavy task to relate them to the dwarven runes which were everywhere through the fortress.
He wished his golems could help him, but they were forbidden. Their Machine Intelligence Matrixes refused to let them help. He needed to unlock the Prime.
And the Prime had told him to do that, he needed to learn the language.
It was frustrating.
Frustrating because he knew he needed to unlock the Fortress sooner than later. The Paddstones were breathing down the Court’s neck. Something would give eventually.
He needed to be prepared for it.
“Jassie’s been taking more of Vizzingbelle’s lessons,” Cerena said. “Aren’t you?”
Jassie shrugged. “I’m not rated very high, and it takes ages for my mana to replenish. I figured a rifle would help fill the space.”
“It’s a good idea,” Tania approved, still feeding Milo. “Since Mila joined us, things got even easier.”
“I try,” Mila squeaked shyly, pressing against Milo’s elbow.
“I haven’t seen you on the range,” Jassie said.
“Oh, Milo showed me how to shoot,” Mila said, her ears getting red. “I’m not that great at it. I was thinking of going to some of the classes soon. But I wanted to get a little better first.”
“Well. If you need any help, let me know.”
“Thank you,” Mila said, smiling at the offer.
Milo gave Jassie a smile, too. While Mila didn’t need anything at all, it was the offer that moved him. And was the reason he liked hanging out with Cerena’s team. While they were definitely interested in picking up tips from Milo and his golems, they weren’t shy about offering their own.
With that in mind, he turned to Cerena. “Have you heard about the next dungeon, yet?”
She shook her head. “It should be announced this week.”
“I think it’s going to be set in a town,” Belt offered. “Master Finklestern’s started setting up our training ground to look more like a little town. You know. Lots of little buildings and stuff.”
“Lots of doors?” Selma lifted her head.
“Yeah,” he said. He grinned at her.
She grinned back. “I love kicking doors in.”
“Me too.” He reached over the table and the two bumped fists. “Go, Tanks!”
“Boo-yah!”
“Meathead.” Jassie sighed, not looking at Belt.
Tania smiled at them. “Say ah, Milo.”
“Ah.”