I don't know how well this story is being received, but I hope you're enjoying it.

One thing you have to realize early on is that this character is going to be pretty powerful. She doesn't realize it, but an Oak Colossus is like a small Ent. Fire will of course be lethal to them, but that's what her skeletons would be good for, fighting enemies who wield fire and making openings for the Colossi to smash down gates, bash through walls and crush siege equipment.

Just as an example.

Chapter 4


With enough willpower to tear her entire base apart, she very carefully controlled her anger at having yet another roadblock slammed into her face.

The books she had read were all useful in their own ways, but when she finally learned how Soul Crystals were made, she had to then learn that she was basically being trapped in a very limited progression. Soul Crystals, at their core behind all the mystical and scientific jargon, were condensed mana. The mana would act like a container for regular mana, but wouldn't be used for spells.

What arose as an issue with this was that actually condensing mana required an elaborate and utterly baffling ritual as well as a, quote, 'absurd' amount of mana. the book's words, not hers. She got the feeling the author of the book had tried many times to make a Soul Crystal, and so the limitation of mana had many times infuriated them. But what this meant for her was that she had to hope that she had enough mana to produce one, otherwise the only thing she could think of would be to take her avatar out into the wider world to try and find enough to expand, which would increase her pool further and thus possibly allow her to make her own soul crystals.

Soul Crystals were the lynchpin for it all though, and so the largest room in the base, the hall from which almost all her skeletons came from, was entirely cleared and an array of necessary components for the ritual set up in the room. Some were rather confusing, like the liver of a frog, but it seemed that those who came before her had been well-stocked of these odd ingredients, as they were not lacking in any of them.

The ritual did recommend that the use of at least a common-tier Soul Crystal alongside manual fuelling by a magic-user would be the easiest way to ensure that there was enough mana, but while that meant she couldn't do that, it raised her hope that she would have enough mana for this ritual. After all, her mana pool was only increased from what she assumed was very little all the way up to 1000, and she was now sat at 13,300. That meant she contained the equivalent of 13.3 Soul Crystals, just going off what she knew. For all she knew though, she had 500 mana and the other Crystal raised her to 1000, there wasn't any way for her to know at the moment.

Now, another section of that same book had told her that Soul Crystals were regarded in tiers based on quality. The one she found might have been a Common Crystal, which was the lowest, or maybe a Legendary Crystal, the highest possible Crystal form, though she found it far more likely it was a rather low-tier crystal going off the fact that it was only enough to charge a candle-blower spell a hundred times, which seemed pitiful compared to the fact that a Legendary Crystal was supposedly capable of great and terrible magic like causing avalanches and terrible storms.

She didn't quite know how crystals tiered upwards, whether a Common-level Crystal would be 1000 mana whilst an Uncommon would be 10,000, with rare then being 100,000 and so on and so forth, or maybe they were more variable. Either way she would have her increase to mana, so it didn't matter overly much to her. All that matter was that the ritual went perfectly and she was able to synthesize Soul Crystals without all of this extra fuss.

As the final touch of chalk-mixed paint was laid onto the flat stone ground, she rose up above the ritual circle and looked the entire thing over, simultaneously having a skeleton stood staring at the book so she could simply view both the vision from the skeleton as well as her own view-point, overlapping the diagram and real thing to ensure it was absolutely perfect. She spent more time nudging items so they were at the exactingly perfect positions they were supposed to be in, before finally, she was forced to concede that it was as perfect as she was capable of.

She banished all of the spare items in the room out into the corridor, then down several rooms and onto the ground there, just in case this went horribly wrong, as well as sending all the nearby skeletons away to keep them out of collateral range. When she was sure that the area had been cleared, she then double-checked each and every view-point of all of her creatures, both above and below ground, and then, she moved to the designated point of the circle and drew upon her mana.

It was a new experience trying to pull her mana out of herself with no direct spell to cast, but as most of her abilities relied on willpower, it wasn't hard to will her mana to flow from her area directly into the ritual circle. After a few moments of steady drain, the painted chalk lit up with a flash of blue, the light pulsing as it drank greedily from her mana. Ten percent of all her mana was already gone, and almost as quickly as that she saw that twenty percent had passed her by, disappearing into the ritual.

When she hit 30 percent she began to get worried, but as she hit around 35% of her mana having been drained, the blue light pulsed once again, more sharply than before, the indicator that the sufficient quantity of mana had been received. She cut her flow of mana, watching as the chalk lines glowed more brightly around the various objects strewn about, each one in order being engulfed in light and disappearing into nothingness.

A human femur, a bit of bark, a frog liver, a patch of cloth, leather, various seemingly random items that the ritual had called for all were vanished into absolutely nothing. When the final item was engulfed, the blue light brightened to a crescendo and then faded, the chalk paint disappearing as though it had never existed, and leaving behind a Soul Crystal, which was glowing rather brightly.

Careful not to celebrate too early, she drifted towards the crystal, opening Synthesis and then lifting the crystal up with her telekinesis. As she did so, she saw a new addition be added to her Synthesis just as the option to absorb the crystal appeared. She read the new addition, elated to see that it was, in fact, a soul crystal that had been unlocked. First, she checked the crystal and saw the minor signs that this was, in fact, a Common-tier Soul Crystal, then immediately 'used' the crystal in her control, feeling as her mana reserves were increased. A flicked gaze upwards saw that her mana had increased, again by 1000 points, which led her to more firmly believe that Common Soul Crystals would always grant 1000 mana, before turning her attention towards Synthesis again.

According to Synthesis, creating a Soul Crystal - Common would take a full 10,000 mana. So it cost ten times as much to make the Crystal as it would give her? Considering her regeneration rate had gone up from 133/s to 143/s thanks to the extra thousand points of mana, that meant she could produce a Common Soul Crystal every 70 seconds or so. That would also go down each time as her regeneration rate increased.

This made her question her initial belief that something else was in control. Surely if they were potentially intending for her to act in their amusement, they would have realized the large oversight this was? When she got her next Crystal, she would raise up to 153/s for regeneration, cutting the time from a Crystal every 70 seconds straight down to 65 seconds. Then 61, 58, 54, 52, and so on and so forth. Eventually, she'd reach the point where she was producing Crystals literally every second.

There had to be a limitation, right?


As it turned out...there was.

When she hit 25,300 mana, she was able to expand, but kept up her Synthesis. When she hit 50,000, the downwards expansion was unlocked. Upon reaching 100,000, the rules changed. When she created a Crystal, she was unable to assimilate it. It was still there, and could obviously still hold mana from the fact that when she pushed mana into it, the crystal greedily lapped it up, but she wasn't able to incorporate it. One thing she did like, however, was that since 100,000 seemed to be her cap for the time being, it rounded out her mana count.

Regenerating 1000 mana per second was also, quite frankly, absurd. She could produce an Oak Colossi every 6.5 seconds. Or a skeleton and a steel sword every 1.3 seconds. That meant within the span of around 5 minutes, she could have 20 Colossi and about 120 steel-armed skeletons. Her Synthesis didn't seem to take very much time at all, and she could essentially chain Synthesis casts, so while one sword was being formed another would be started, then another, and so on and so forth.

She created a group of thirty skeletons, sending them off to the side of the hall to begin practicing with their weapons, just to grind their levels up a bit. All her Synthesized creations spawned at level 1, and it did take a few hours for them to reach level 2, but since she seemed to have nothing but time, that was fine by her. She then turned her attention towards the single spare crystal she now had laying about.

Idly, she pulled her avatar towards the crystal. The body didn't have any will of its own, without her direct control it merely stood perfectly still. She then lifted the crystal up and used her telekinesis to pull open the metal chest of her avatar, and then the wooden internals, nestling the Soul Crystal within the very chest of her avatar. She filled the crystal with mana, then replaced the wood and metal she had broken away using Synthesis.

Drifting towards her avatar, she slipped herself inside, nodding to herself when she saw that the body was drawing upon the crystal, as it now had a full mana bar of 1000 points. She carefully tried out a single candle-blower spell, the drain of ten mana confirming what she suspected. She had lost her connection to her normal mana regeneration. She still appeared to regenerate mana, but it was vastly slower.

A quick bit of focus brought her bar into full view, and she could read clearly that she regained two points of mana every second. So, not the end of the world, but also not great. However, it would suffice for her plans. With that mana now available, she could perform repairs to her body if she got damaged. If she lost her entire steel shell she could replace it, but only once. It cost a full 900 mana for the shell of her avatar, whereas more minor repairs, like when she tore a hole in her chest to implant the Soul Crystal, cost a great deal less.

It was less structurally sound, but if she was taking that level of damage she probably had bigger things to worry about. She was going to take a dozen Colossi with her as well as a full five dozen skeletons, including Prime, to go and explore. Maybe it would have been a better option to just send her skeletons out, but she needed to go for two reasons.

The first, which was the actually necessary one, was that she needed to be able to lay a trail back towards her base. Without it, she would likely lose the skeletons and Colossi and have to spend an age trying to slowly guide them back home. The second reason was more selfish, and it was that she was getting bored. She enjoyed reading, but after hundreds of stuffy tomes that were entirely academic with not a lick of humor, she was honestly a single page away from burning the library to the ground.

A break to see the world she was in and hopefully learn more about her situation sounded heavenly.


Before she left, she made sure she was absolutely set for her journey.

She gave Prime some armour of its own, mimicking what one of her books said was Chainmail, as well as giving all of her skeletons leather clothing. It was tough, thick and probably would be really hot and uncomfortable to wear, but her skeletons, of course, didn't care for such a thing. She couldn't do much for her Colossi aside from thickening their wood, but that was fine. She didn't see a way for her skeletons to bring even one Colossi down, so hopefully it would be the same for other enemies.

She also fashioned clothing for herself based on books in the library, though she doubted she got much of it correct and eventually gave up, deciding that if she came across other beings she could copy their clothing from sight. Finally, she fashioned a sword for herself. It was nothing fancy, the same sword as her skeletons wielded, as well as a belt to attach it to.

That took some finagling, ending up with a leather ring and the inside plated with steel so the metal blade wouldn't just cut the leather binding, then attached to a newly-bade belt to hold it. The book she had read called it a sword-frog, though what relation it had to the green amphibian she didn't know. Maybe the first of them was made from parts obtained from a frog?

Whatever the case was, she was now armed, armoured, disguised and guarded. She did a double and triple check to ensure that her skeletons, Colossi and Book Golems were all patrolling with each having the correct orders, some being assigned to guard at certain times, train during others, and various other orders and counter-orders to ensure they could react to an attack, or a...delegation?

She wasn't sure if it was the correct word, but she didn't care. If other beings came in peace, she didn't want to have a soured relationship with them, but if they came with blade and fire her forces would respond in kind. She didn't want to hurt other living things, but if they attacked her or her creations they were free game in her eyes. Thus, she had introduced a rather complicated quantity of orders before she deemed her creations ready to be left alone to guard the base.

She had already chosen, mostly at random, a direction to head. She already knew which way north, east, south and west was, and at random decided that west was the way to go. It definitely wasn't influenced by the fact that she could see dark clouds to the east, ones that never dissipated and made her feel an unconscious fear each time she peered that direction.

Oddly enough, none of the books she had found told her very much about the world. Apparently, there were great evils abound, and that was almost as much as the books themselves said, though in a much more roundabout way. It wasn't very helpful, and what was less helpful was the utter lack of maps, charts, or even vague recollections of locations. All this pointed towards the notion that those who lived here before they died had been underground for a very long time, long enough that knowledge of the world had disappeared.

How that worked didn't make much sense to her, but she put it out of her mind as she took her first step out onto untrodden ground, turning back to make out the lumbering forms of her Colossi in the distance. The rattle of chainmail was clear to her ears as Prime came to a stop, the skeletons and Colossi all halting at once as they waited for her to move. She created a large wooden pole using Synthesis, producing a large green patch of cloth and binding it to the wood, then stabbing it into the ground, having one of the Colossi angle it upright and push it deeper, locking the banner in place.

Sure, it wasn't stealthy, but she didn't have many options. A small marker she would likely miss, and this was the cheapest and easiest way for her to ensure she could return home. At the top of each hill she intended to leave one of these markers, that way as she returned, all she had to do was reach one marker and spot the next, leap-frogging between each until she came home.

The mark set, she started walking again, sliding down the hill on some parts but for the most part retaining her footing thanks to her weight. Her skeletons faired a little worse than her, their bone and leather not being as heavy as her wood and steel, but they also had the advantage of being more used to walking than her, being able to make it down the hill with only a single tumble between them. Her Colossi simply stomped straight down, their immense weight planting feet firmly against the ground. At the bottom, she merely took a single moment to glance back up the hill at the fluttering green banner, before facing forwards again and beginning the trek straight back up the other side.

Maybe it would take days of walking to get anywhere, but...damn if it didn't feel good to be doing something new.


It was during the night when she finally reached the end of the rocky region, the craggy outcroppings receding as dense forest began to replace the endless stone.

She turned back to see the last marker she had left, unsure about how she would keep her way now. Maybe setting a larger one at the highest point she could see to act as a beacon would be for the best? Then again, the hill she had just descended was pretty high, so chances were high she would be able to see it anyway. Just to be safe, she left a Colossi to stand beside it, as she could walk it up to the very top of the hill to be far more obvious.

As she walked, she was taking in absolutely everything. All the new things she found, like flowers, lush grass, moss, everything she touched and added to her Synthesis. She had no idea if any of it would be useful to her, but it didn't hurt to catalogue it all anyway. There was definitely regular life abound though, she had seen bees and flies and smaller critters, as well as a deer peering at her for a moment before carrying on with whatever it was doing.

She wanted to get closer, but the deer was, while not running from her, definitely wary. Though it seemed its focus was on her skeletons, not her, so maybe it recognized them, and thought they were dangerous? That thought led her to realize another fact. If she ran across any of the same type of life as the mages to which she had repurposed their skeletons, they might take offense at her for using their corpses to defend herself.

Her books had told her of necromancy, bringing the dead back to life as thralls, and while she didn't do that, other beings may not see the distinction between that and what she did. She contemplated that fact for a while, trying to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of sending her skeletons to march a distance behind her, ready to act but not to spook any she would come across.

The decision was made for her when a figure appeared from behind a tree in front of her. They had a bow in one hand, and the feathered ends appearing above their hip indicated they had a quiver of arrows prepared. "Halt, trespasser." They spoke clearly, and in an accent she could still fairly make out, their voice clearly male. She halted, her escort all coming to a stop at the same time. "For what purpose do you trespass upon these lands?"

This was when she realized a rather major flaw in her avatar. She had absolutely no way to speak. She could understand their words, but how had no mouth, nor any way to give them her own words. A solution came in the form of her books once again. She raised her hand, slowly as to not spook the figure, then pointed downwards. When she was sure they had seen her motion, she knelt down, tracing a curved line in the soft dirt.

As she began marking a second in the dirt, her interluder apparently caught on fast, as he began speaking. "So, you can't speak?" That was a lot easier to answer, as she rose from her kneeling position and nodded. "I see. Well, I have a few questions for you. If you want to stay alive I'd suggest you answer honestly." Rankled slightly, she folded her arms, but waited until he spoke again. "First, do you intend any harm upon the realms of men?"

She shrugged, since it wasn't a question she could reasonably answer. A moment passed, by which she took the time to kneel down again, drawing lines on the ground again, marking out clearly to him that she couldn't respond one way or the other since she didn't know if the 'realms of men' were to be her enemy. This led him to clarify what the realms of men were, which consisted of several kingdoms, Gondor being the most prominent and to which she was now supposedly trespassing upon. He told her that Gondor were effectively the shield to which Mordor was held at bay from the rest of the world.

When she then had to ask him what Mordor was, it was clear at this point he knew that she knew absolutely nothing of the world. But, during this time, she wasn't idle. She had been quickly brainstorming ways for her to produce speech, mostly by listening to him. Speaking was basically vibrations in the air after all, and several spells she had learned were on how to influence that, so she already had a basis to work from.

After he was finished telling her what Mordor was and then from there what Orcs were, and what the 'Dark Forces' were in general, she held a hand up to stop him, using the ground again to tell him that she was going to attempt to produce a method of communicating with him. He seemed curious about that, his vocal inflection upwards as he asked her how she intended to do such a thing, and to which she simply attempted to speak.

The first time she tried it, she generated such a little amount of sound that it wasn't even audible to her. The second time was a little louder, but still vastly too quiet. The one thing she refused to do was to accidentally go too far upwards and potentially spook her new acquaintance, which would probably have serious repercussions if he decided she was attacking him.

She wasn't an idiot, she knew his confidence had to come from somewhere, she was likely at that very moment totally surrounded by his allies who were poised to attack should she be perceived as a threat. But that didn't matter, not so long as she kept the encounter amicable and not hostile. She steadily rose the strength to which her vibrations influenced the world, and it was obvious he had begun to hear something. She was repeatedly attempting to reproduce the word 'Hello' since it would be a simple, easy greeting. As the hello became properly audible, she saw that her system had now accepted the new ability, flicking her eyes to it.

Speechcraft - No Mana Cost

That would be handy. "Hello. I am...me." With the unlocking of speechcraft, it was actually remarkably easy to talk. Since the ability was currently activated, she presumed it was based on her will, choosing what to say based on what her will wanted to be said. The voice itself was devoid of an accent, but had a feminine lilt, perhaps a bi-product of her knowledge and mental identity? "I can now answer your original question properly. I do not intend any harm upon the realms of men. I will intend harm upon the realms of men should the realms themselves intend harm upon me of my creations."

"Very well. My next question may change this fact then. Why do you walk with a retinue of the re-animated dead?" His tone made it pretty clear he expected a damn good answer, and to be frank, she didn't actually have one aside from the truth, which itself wasn't a very good answer. But, there wasn't much she could do and it wasn't like she could stall for time, so she decided to just be honest.

"I required something to protect me after I awoke in an unfamiliar place with very little knowledge available to me, none of it personal. I can assure you that none of these skeletons were slain by my hand, they are far too old for that. A great deal of my skeletons also are not natural, they were created by my own power." This definitely drew the mans attention, as he asked her near-immediately how such a thing was possible.

A quick glance at her mana, and she decided that directly displaying it would be the best way to immediately alleviate his disbelief. "Before I perform something, I must ask you not panic, this is not an attack of any kind, and I don't wish to find myself filled with arrows from your allies." His cowl hid his face, so she didn't know how he reacted, but he didn't try to tell her that there were no allies.

With that done, she used Synthesis, producing a fresh skeleton warrior in front of her. This left her utterly drained of mana, not a single drop left in her crystal, but from the fact that the man took a few steps forwards and inspected the skeleton closely, even poking it a few times, it was worth it. "This is not possible...how is this possible? To create matter from nothingness...not even the elves are capable of such an act."

She shrugged. "I don't know anything about...well, anything out here, so I don't know what is and isn't normal. For all I knew when I left my original habitation, I would be crushed the instant another being laid eyes upon me." The man turned his attention from where he was staring at the skeleton to look at her, and she felt a strangely cold feeling within herself as his stare affixed her.

"There are such things in this world which would have done so without a second thought, and some who would have done far worse than simply kill you." His voice was dark, evidently he knew a lot about those 'things'. But, that darkness was gone as quickly as it came, his voice returning to normal. "My final question for you, owing to what you have already answered, is whether you would accept following me to our outpost nearby to answer more questions. In return, knowledge of the world shall be imparted upon you." She considered the pros and cons of such an act. It would make it very easy for them to ambush her, sure, but she really needed to know anything she could about everything going on around her, and she doubted this man would betray her now.

"Sure, though...should I leave my skeletons behind?"


Kindly enough, she didn't have to leave them behind, though she did have to take the time while they walked to give them all belts and sword-frogs.

It made sense, as others would probably feel safer if they weren't constantly holding them. As they walked, she asked and answered plenty of questions, even getting a tip that maybe giving her skeletons shields would be a good idea. The man who had appeared was in fact joined with two dozen of what he called 'rangers', who apparently had the job of intercepting anything or anyone suspicious and either killing them, capturing them, or in her case questioning them. During that entire conversation she always had no less than three arrows pointed at her, which made her curious about whether their bows could even penetrate the steel plating her entire body. And even if they did, what would happen? If her entire avatar body was destroyed, what would actually happen to her?

She was still able to send her vision back to her creations at base, and when she was back there she wanted to see if she could enter her avatar body even outside of her area, as well as leave it, but for now she would just have to make do with smaller and safer experiments. The outpost they were heading towards, which was called Amon Hen, was a good two hours hike according to the man, so she had plenty of time to do smaller tests, like trying to make a shield. The first iteration was entirely wooden with a handle, but was too fragile for her liking. The second had a thin sheet of steel on the inside, but then it was too expensive and heavy.

The third iteration came by quiet recommendation of a ranger, who told her that maybe a steel rim would be more effective. She did so, and decided that she liked that ranger, since it didn't add much weight, but stabbing attacks were ineffective against wood, and a swinging attack would smack the steel instead of the softer wood. She gave the shield to Prime, then made shields for the rest of her skeletons over the course of about an hour, all the while trying to think of a good way to protect her Colossi from damage, more specifically fire.

Maybe some kind of fire-retardant resin would work, or maybe a thin layer of clay? There weren't many ways to do it, and none of them very easily, but if she could prevent her Colossi from being set on fire, their biggest weakness would be negated, making them far more dangerous in a fight. She did ask whether anybody had an idea for making a Colossi resistant to fire, but it seemed nobody wanted to help her quite that much.

That was fair, in their eyes she was still an unknown and potentially dangerous. What was strange was that their leader, the one who had spoken to her, kept calling her Colossi 'Ents'. Maybe there was some kind of being in this world that was similar to them? But, if that was the case, then maybe just as the skeletons had gotten her questioned a little harshly, doing the same to trees would aggravate these Ents. She was just glad that the leader had said that Ents were never seen outside of Fangorn Forest, which apparently was a fair distance away, several days on horseback at least.

Most of the questions she received she was able to answer pretty easily, since she didn't remember anything from before she woke up, but there were some, like where exactly she came from, that she neither wanted to answer nor really could. Apparently the region she had entered this forest from was called Emyn Muil, and was supposedly uninhabitable. Since she saw zero wildlife out there, she wasn't surprised, but it was also obvious she wasn't normal since she didn't have a mouth and couldn't exactly eat.

Thankfully, he seemed pretty understanding about her not wanting to just tell him where she had come from, remarking that it'd be like him telling her where his family lived, which was just asking for trouble. He did tell her that their destination was called Amon Lhaw, then explaining that it rested on the river Anduin, sitting opposite to another outpost and with an island in the middle which he told her had never been set foot upon by man or beast.

She got the chance to ask her own questions as they walked, most of which were just about general information like things that would be dangerous, those she could tentatively call friendly races, as well as those that were widely regarded as neutral like the Ents. This led to her learning more about orcs, hobgoblins, dragons, demons, giant spiders, and all manner of dangerous beings.

Of course, the lead ranger also made sure she knew that while his unit of rangers and most people she encountered would be friendly, there were also those typically called brigands who would attack her in order to steal what they could. They burned, raped, pillaged and destroyed as part of a daily routine, and were definitely not to be greeted with other than an arrow or sword, because they would do the same to her and her creations.

When they came across Amon Lhaw, she had to stop for a moment to stare at the large stone 'outpost'. It was utterly massive, the walls at least twenty meters high, and it was using the giant hill as a backbrace, leaving only a single angle of attack. When he said outpost, her mind had for some reason immediately thought it would be perhaps 30-40 rangers garrisoned in a small defensive position, but this had to have hundreds, if not thousands of men present. if the laughter she heard was any indication, that was exactly the response he expected from her as he swept an arm out towards the colossal structures.

"Welcome to Amon Lhaw."


Seriously, go and look at how big Amon Lhaw is depicted in LOTRO, it's massive.

I have to take a few liberties, and since I never played the game I don't actually know the layout or whatnot, so don't expect an accurate depiction there, but just from the images I've seen, it's huge. It's described as an outpost, and it does fit the term I guess, but when you think outpost, usually you assume it's small.

I guess in its prime, Gondor didn't exactly do things 'small'.