Automatons of Great Power

[Jilitse]

Automatons of Great Power
11th of Spring 510 AV
Incredible golems waiting to be known

Since the opening of Spring, she had found herself with lucid memories of the past. She dreamed, if a dream it could be called, as she took a bath early in the morning.

As a young child she had been taught the dangers of magic, she was made to believe that her mother disappeared through a void vortex that she summoned. That scared her alright, and it made her lean against magic. She remembered assisting her father in their old workshop, she remembered the day she caught her father with Thomas Elyohna. She remembered his black linen robe billowing, his dark gaze finding her behind the desk. Elyohna knew she was hiding there, knew she was eavesdropping.

"There's really nothing to fear," Elyohna said to her. "You might as well come out now." She was hurt. She threw accusing eyes to her father and a questioning gaze to Elyohna.

"We are in need of master Animators to teach at the Royal Academy of Magic. I need your help," Elyohna told her father, ignoring her.

"I cannot help you," her father answered and walked over to her and placed an arm around her shoulder. "Please leave me alone."

"You are a mage." The man's word was purged of all pretense, "Did you know that little child, your father is a mage. Like your mother." Elyohna stepped closer to her father, "Alahea needs you. We are losing the war. You daughter must understand how her mother was--"

"Do not bring my wife as a topic!" Her father cut the visitor off.

She perked up. "M-my mother?" She stuttered, "What about my mother?" She clutched her chest. It hurt. She could feel tears welling in her eyes. "What about my mother!"

A grim smirk was traced in Elyohna's face. "Think of our offer." He paused to look around. "A man like you does not deserve to live humbly." Elyohna grabbed her father's hand, "If you resist, I'll take your daughter. We are in need of students, too." Elyohna placed her father's hand on her head. "You can feel it. You know it. Do not deny your daughter her heritage. It is her right."

"You can feel it little child, do you not?" Elyohna placed a cold hand in her chest. She forced herself to remain calm. "You can feel the presence of djed all around this house. Do not be blind to it. You would do your mother shame."

"Enough!" Her father shouted, and commanded an attack. To her surprise, almost every furniture in their house appeared to be hostile. "Leave at once Elyohna." The lamp shone menacingly, chairs trembled, a hat stand started trashing about, and a bookcase threatened to squash the visitor.

"It is only right that your daughter learn the truth." And Elyohna disappeared in a cloud of mist.

"Papa... papa..." she wailed, clutching her burning chest, "Papa he did something to me!"

The memory faded to black. She also remembered secretly meeting with a young student from the Royal Academy. Jilitse remembered his face but not his name. He lived three doors away. He showed her how he could control a toy boat placed in a tub of water. He could command the winds, he said. She was too young and too daft to know what Reimancy was, but she had enough wits about her to believe that magic was not as dangerous as her father claimed it to be. It was, to put it simply, marvelous.

Already she envied those who went to the Royal Academy of Magic, and she started to get dissatisfied with being her father's help. She remembered the day she brought the topic of magic up with her father, and this was years later after Elyohna's visit. It was a nasty argument and they both ended up sobbing and crying. She threatened to run away from home, she threatened to kill herself. She threw a tantrum that could be heard down their street. Jilitse shivered as she remembered what it felt like to be angry.

His father reluctantly agreed to teach her. She remembered being taught how to animate a straw doll. She remembered not being able to. She was foreign to the concept of Djed. It took her two years of rigorous study and training to be qualified as a student at the academy.

She recalled how her father helped her design Plinku, how he labored hours and hours to create the small automaton. She could vividly see the memory in her mind. Her father was looking over his back, he noticed her watching him work. He was saying something about animation. Jilitse tried to hold the nostalgic memory, but she could not hear her father's voice. She watched him as everything burst in yellow flames and red smoke.

Jilitse gave a start as she remembered the attack against their Alahean town. Their village was destroyed. Her father sought out Elyohna then, finally agreed to help at the Royal Academy of Magic. She became a student under the tutelage of many great wizards and was accepted as an apprentice for Zarik Mashaen, then most intelligent student of the Court Mage Sagallius.

Jilitse lifted herself out of the bath and toweled herself dry. She remembered getting fond of Mashaen. Truth be told she was more interested in Mashaen more than magic. She became interested in golems because Mashaen was interested in golems. She studied animation so she could keep up with assisting Mashaen. Her existence depended on the Archwizard, something she had aimed to correct for countless years. But there was an underlying truth hidden there: Mashaen gave her something to hold on to. Sahova, animation, golems. Without these three Jilitse would have perished along with Alahea. She would have remained a rebellious child. She would have ended up like her mother who suffered from the sweet whisper, gave up herself to overgiving and banished herself to the void.

She revisited her human memories as she tidied herself, recounting lectures and projects. There was a lot to be done, a lot more to be learned. She was - she thought of herself as she dressed up in her lively black outfit - more mature. She needed to gain not just experience but also expertise in learning animation. She had to study golems in her own way. That meant tracing Mashaen's footprints, following the roots of his knowledge. In Mizahar, magic is everything and anything.

She hummed a ghastly lullaby. Sahova seemed to be such a restricting place now. It was Jilitse's cage. For centuries she had studied golems but practiced little animation, she was still an apprentice. She spread her skirt and folded her robe across her arm. She will find Drainira's predecessors and bring them back to Sahova, one way or another. But to do that she must be confident enough to be called a true witch.

[Jilitse]

The memories, once they flooded in, came like a torrential rain of scenes and voices and faces mangled together. Jilitse recalled how her classmates had pitied her parasitic greed for Mashaen's company. 'His fate will be your fate', a fetching young lad once warned him, 'your misguided loyalty will bring upon you sorrow unlike any other'. She did not believe him, that poor fool. What was his name? Fyrdon, Farden? He came from a long line of wizards, and of the most dubious craft and questionable occupations.

Jilitse remembered hot buns and marzipans and the lady baker, that old crone. She envisioned hot soups and green flames and a dagger through her chest - the memory piercing her soul thousands and hundreds of times beyond infinity. Jilitse clutched at her chest, even though she had long been a nuit she could pretty much recall her death - if it can be called that. A sharp sting that poked her heart - death came like a vacuum. When she opened her eyes she remembered seeing Mashaen's face, whom, despite being a nuit, she found to be most attractive.

More memories flushed in her head, like a flow of streaming water that roared and ran excessively. And then she remembered the monstrosities. And her memories slowly progressed as she skimmed through the most important recollection of her past. The war before the Valterrian. Alahean golems of the most brilliant and fearful kind - back in their days magic and miza was abundant - made from the most expensive and sturdy materials. Time slowed for Jilitse, she could now remember the animated monstrosities, some of which her father animated himself. She could fully recapture their unimaginable strength and intense wits: far different from the kind of golems that existed now.

And she was met with the intense passion, nay, obsession of golems. It gnawed at her, worming deeper and deeper into her psyche. She would truly, truly research on golems, but not of the quaint helpful variety. If she is to be a rival for Drainira...

If she is to find and - though she was never the religious kind, may the gods help her - create a rival for Drainira, she would have to unearth (and in the possible future, quite literally unearth) and discover the mysteries of Animation that lay deep in the bowels of Sahova.

She had initially surmised that what she need would not be readily available, and that finding information would not come as easy as sifting through books in the library. Even that was an exacting task. As she left her quarters, she ordered Plinku to stay and watch the room. The golem was still unintelligent - to a point of disobedience, but it didn't know what being "disobedient" meant(yet). At least it knew how to stay behind. "Properly animate. Bah, properly animate my dead fingernails", she whispered with bitterness, recalling a promise to her father. If there was anything as proper animation she was a far shot from accomplishing such a feat. Plinku was proof of that.

She flipped her black robe open, wore it, and pulled down the hood low. Many nuits wore their robes in such a fashion, most of the time it was nothing but a reason to hide their decaying bodies. Sometimes it was for other suspicious causes, such as sneaking into a laboratory not yours.

And sneaked into a laboratory not hers, she did.

Her intention was not to steal, but to simply partake some knowledge from an acquaintance. The private laboratory she sneaked into belonged to one of Mashaen's loyal apprentices, an adept Animator named Achtus. She did not entirely like the idea of barging into someone else's work place, but judging from the nuit's absence for weeks, the wizard might as well been dead with the hands of... with the hands of that Pythone Isur.

She slid into Achtus' study and picked up two books and three journals. She decided to borrow these for a while. Jilitse cautiously went out of the study into the main laboratory, barely tripping over a wire that would have launched a big offensive alarm golem to run after her. It was a good thing her robe was about a hand above the ground, or else she would have had to put up a fight (which she would no doubt lose).

Hurriedly, she politely left a note. "Borrowed your books and journals. Will smith for free next time. Jilitse" - with hearts over the i's. She did a double take and took the note with her. Qiao's followers might investigate around, it's best not to leave a clue to her affliations. She crouched by the door, embracing the books and journals which she had wrapped around a black silk cloth that was lying around, and peeked outside. Certain that no one was within sight, she skipped away from Achtus' laboratory.

[Jilitse]

Once safe within the four corners of her room, Jilitse slid out a book out of the pile. It was a collection of proposals and plans for golem constructs, written by prominent animators. One was written by Achtus, himself. She sat herself on a stool, and started reading under the light of a lamp.

A Proposal for Anthropomorphic Golem Model K890
by Achtus Bischer

Golems are magically animated automatons of great power. They are artificially created and are usually under the direct control of their creator. There is very little known literature about the first golems. Rumors in the Alahean circles held the opinion that the first animated golem was created out of organic material(corpses), an ancient ritual similar to the Daek-Nuit, although crude in process. The earlier golems were perverted life-forms, but Alahean wizards have continuously improved the craft.

The zenith of documenting golems in Alahean history started as far back as 150 BV, it was within this era that Supervisors were invented, and the use of golems became widespread. Most Alahean golems were traditionally designed and modified to be expendable labor force and specialized military units. Golem constructs have been varied, ranging from blocks of wood to anthropomorphic humanoids. They are constructed according to their purpose: some are immobile while some allow for movement, some are given sight or voices, some are given weapons.

The animating force of the golem is its Soulcore, a by-product of effective djed manipulation. It serves as the golem's mind or spirit, but it is not a natural part of the golem's body. As such the golem's mind is only an artificial vessel - a life principle attached to the construct. Some wizards believe golems to be a lesser form of life, as the best wizards have been able to create life-like creatures who are calculating at best.

While it is true that anything can be turned into a golem, the serious practitioners work mostly with wood or metal. A large circle of golem animators - to which I belong - create golems with anatomies similar to humans, as these are the easiest to create. Most anthropomorphic constructs are commissioned work by excellent artisans who have contributed mechanical innovations, incorporating wheels and machines into designs.

Jilitse read the rest of the article in great interest, as Achtus had elaborately presented a fully functional golem which was very ambitious in design: it was perfectly patterned after the skeletal anatomy of a human. He offered to commission an expert machinist from Suvan and a skilled metalsmith from Western Alahea who both agreed to work with the project in exchange for a hefty sum of money.

The collection of essays had various proposals on golem designs, most of them neither for skilled labor nor military guardians. It was a compilation of the most absurd constructs - no doubt a published collection of rejected designs, considering the amount of funding they had requested and the amount of expensive labor, not to mention materials, that they required. There was nothing useful in the book, and although it provided her good entertainment and inspiration - what use would she have for a golem who could cook meals, or a golem who can sing and dance simultaneously? Sahova did not even come close to the magical prowess of the Royal Academy of Magic of Alahea, and even if Jilitse decided to adopt one of the proposals, she had no means to find the proper materials or sufficient funds.

Still, she went on reading, browsing words upon words of lunatic plans. If any, Alahean wizards gave too much credit to themselves. A section of the book revealed how some Alahean wizards seemed to have been, at one point in time, obsessed with transferring a real soul into a golem. They had quite an irrational theory on immortality, which Jilitse attributed to the poor ability of traditional wizards to work with science and logic.

Jilitse came upon the work of a certain Poppersen who wrote an essay titled "The Disobedient Golem", which was an exposition about animating golems and creating its soulcore. Her excited mind flitted through the short abstract before the body of the text:

Golems will follow the orders of their master explicitly. Golems do not have minds of their own. They will never be swayed away from their instructions. I am writing to prove otherwise.

Jilitse reached out for her pipe and lit it. "Why it gets interesting from here."