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Episode Three: Chapter Sixteen

Gabriel Finds A Friend

It was easy to get almost anywhere, provided you had a spider that could bite people and then make them do what you wanted.  This was true even if you had to make the spider bite them over and over because the effect only lasted a couple minutes.  Sometimes they would collapse and not get up right away, and when Gabriel asked what had happened to them, Tycho told him that they had fallen asleep. Gabriel was assured that once they had completed their task, they would take them to a special farm just for Bankers - a happy place, where they were free to run and run.

The problem, really, was that if you had enough money - a substance which banks naturally attract - you could give some of it to a wizard who could make you some pretty fucked up shit.  Things had gone quite well, thought Gabriel, as in, like, super well, all the way up until the golem.

“Fucking golems,” he said.

Points of agreement between the two were rare, but this was an instance where Tycho could plainly see the reason in his friend’s words.  He was currently being asphyxiated in its terrible clutch, and it was becoming clear that while ribs and the ribcage in general were pretty flexible, there were practical limits on their ability to bend.

“Why do you serve this one?” says the golem, shaking Tycho as an indication.

Gabriel’s dukes recede, and one of the dukes transforms into a pensive fist at his chin.  “I don’t actually know,” Gabriel admits.  “Why do I serve you?”  He quickly appends an “or whatever…?” to keep from sounding so Goddamn fancy.

“Because,” says Tycho, investing his dwindling supply of breath, “I’m a very interesting person.”

“No,” says Gabriel.  “That’s not it.”

Climbing up the nestled plates that mesh the entirety of its baroque construction, which resembles nothing so much as an angry mosque, Gabriel winks at his cohort.  Tycho isn’t entirely sure what this means.  He doesn’t know if Gabriel is about to attempt a rescue of some kind, or if he’s simply invented a new hobby.

“Why?” says the golem, who begins by lightly attempting to brush off this new interlocutor, its agitation growing in a linear fashion as the tiny creature gains altitude.  “I have no quarrel with you.”

“Yeah, well, that’s pretty stupid,” says Gabriel, snapping off the jaw and reaching down its throat literally to punch the inside of its chest.  There’s a novelty there, and he likes it.  

“Okay, big guy,” he says, shoulder deep in its hot guts.  “You’re gonna help me open some doors.  Do you get it?  Because if you don’t, I’m just going to dig around in here until I find something I like.”

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