The Magician’s Diaries: The Blood Crystal Incident

Hello my children,

Further must we go in our ever continuing pursuit of knowledge. This week, I will be continuing our humble dive into the vast ocean that is golem construction. However, I will not continue to cover basic history but instead a fringe case of the subject that I hope piques your interest as it did mine many years ago when I found myself walking through the steppe in search of artifacts of scholastic importance.

It was a dry, cold spring’s day when my entourage and I noticed flakes of snow kissing our skin with increasing intensity as we made our way west. This was odd. Though the weather was particularly biting and there was no sun to gently caress our foreheads as we travelled, we had stopped not thirty minutes earlier with our horses and livestock for a drink at a shallow watering hole.

I pondered aloud why rain would have reason to freeze in such a case, to which an uneducated small folk responded by mentioning that the surrounding mountains bend air and winds in strange ways, and it is not for a person like myself to understand. I was obviously deeply offended to see someone of such low birth refer to my suppositions in such a manner, and it was only when we were further on in our journey that it was apparent this was no normal snow storm.

Sediment began piling up against farmhouses and hillocks, and it was inarguably a light pink hue. As curious as all of my companions, I immediately dismounted my horse to push my hands through it and write down the properties in my notebook. Imagine the shock we all had, and my own increasing satisfaction, when that same yammering small folk jumped to the ground with uncovered soles and yelped out in pain. Glued to where they stood, blood slowly trickled from where they had pounced upon the pink material.

“Not snow after all, my friend?”, I said, delightedly stepping down with my fine leather boots and picking up a single piece which I began to investigate under a magnifying prism. To my surprise, the substance was undoubtedly pure crystal. Millions upon millions of these small shards were falling from the sky at an ever increasing rate right into the hands of university controlled personnel! I was so blinded by the economic and cultural implications of such a phenomenon that I realized screams and moans were billowing behind me. The bleeding smallfolk had been hoisted onto a cart where I was delighted to see another phenomenon being discovered right before my eyes– crystals which had been lodged into their sole and introduced to the bloodstream now appeared to be expanding and encasing the outer layer of skin. 

The smallfolk was quick to inform me that it was not entirely on the outside, and that it felt like, “my bones are catching flame one by one and and it’s crawling up my foot”. How interesting, no? 

There was not much we could do to restrain the smallfolk, and a vocal consensus rang out to amputate the limbs from where the pain reached up their leg. Thankfully, with the isolation of this individual into a nearby house that had no further introduction of crystalline snow, there was no further growth into their legs and the situation had been stabilized.

Being a curious mind first and foremost, I was concerned with exactly what it was that caused such effective, immediate, and painful growth. Taking a rag, I acquired some blood from the operating table and introduced a drop to a single, bead-sized crystal. 

It first sizzled, and, absorbing the blood through its surface, rapidly began to grow multiple times its original size until it came to a halt having apparently expended its limited source of blood. After this small experiment, I took to the freshly amputated matter only to discover that a thick layer now began to fully encompass it.

Unfortunately, the rest of my group felt it immoral to explore the possibility of continued full bodied exposure, so we left the individual at the farmhouse and continued on until we were able to find a terrific sight. Hundreds upon hundreds of dwarves further into the storm at a nearby town seemed to have been exposed to the elements and turned fully into thick-skinned, mindless sentinels that would actively impede our progress. My compatriots were easily able to smash these folk to pieces when it was a matter of our survival, and I noted that upon being fully encompassed by the crystal, it appeared one’s insides too had begun the transition into solid matter (and it can be assumed that the living vessel eventually would form a dense core to each and every one of these beasts).

Quite the odd tale, I must say, and I wish I had more time to spend observing these involuntary subjects. However, it is always important to keep an intelligent eye to the sky when observing the world around you, because to assume that we are free to embrace an ignorant view of our natural world is precisely what allows the weak to fall prey to their own hubris.

Until next time,

-The Magician