True wisdom is borne of epic fail [Hadrian]

[Tarot]

12th Summer, 510 A.V.

The Communicator stood motionless for a long moment in response to Hadrian's simple query. Talking to a low-level golem sometimes left you feeling quite stupid as you could never be sure if you were being understood, and if so, to what degree of accuracy. Thankfully, Sahovan golems were some of the very best available on Mizahar these days. The simplistic design was anything but shoddy; on the contrary, every piece had been planned for maximum cost-effectiveness, so that the golems could do what they were meant to do for as long as they lasted, no less and no more. Even though the Communicator was little more than a bust mounted on a wheeled platform, each model was the cumulative wisdom of centuries of engineering. And the Communicator did not disappoint.

"Unrecoverable system error. Error code 24. Diagnostic check failed. Friend or foe identification directives corrupted. Switching to primitive heuristic response."

It did not take long for the Communicator to explain what the primitive heuristic response was.

"Always assume foe."

As if on cue, more golems began to pour out of the warehouses at Port Silence, but these did not look like the Communicator at all. They were still wheeled, but consisted of a circular trunk covered with intricate glyphs. If Hadrian used his Auristics on the glyphs, he would discover they were all charged, and it wasn't too difficult to imagine what kind of magic they contained. The golems merely had to take aim and trigger their power - another simple yet very effective golem design. The Peacekeepers silently lined up on the docks in a crescent moon formation around the ship.

"Unrecoverable system error. Error code: Unrecoverable system error occurred while retrieving error code for previous error message. Pre-emptive strike imminent, full maintainance suggested afterwards if unit still salvageable. We-we-we-we-we-welcome to Sahova, why is the sky blue?"

And with this philosophical question, the Communicator went almost silent, only outputting short bursts of random gibberish. "What in all of the Ukalas did you petchin' tell that thing!?" The Captain yelled in Hadrian's ear while the crew ducked for cover.

[Hadrian]

"Nothing!" he yelped, wishing he were a bit more courageous. Torc probably would've knocked the golems into the harbor, but Hadrian could merely stare with his augmented Sight, surrounded and overwhelmed by the array of carefully harnessed and focused djed running through the golem army. He knew nothing but theory where such automatons were concerned, though of course he was interested to learn how their creation differed from the run of the mill enchantments he worked. Theory and practice, rarely the same. His reply to the golem had been simple and straightforward, he though, just as the books had advised when dealing with low-level golems. But this one should have been a cut above the rest with regard to brain-power. The blood-compass he had created for Hrair was the most complex intelligence he had enchanted into an item, and that was simply a reaction. Clearly he had been wise to leave higher cognitive functions for a more developed level of expertise. Still, while he was overwhelmed, he was not completely stupid. He had a piece of paper from the University of Zeltiva admitting as much. His mind latched onto the one piece of the golem's gibberish that made any sort of sense at all. Why is the sky blue? He knew that. "The sky is blue because the white light of Syna is refracted through the air much like a giant prism, and we see the blue!" He couldn't remember the mathematics behind it, but given enough time and perhaps some paper and a pen, he might work through it for the golem. Though, he wasn't going to bank on the golem being able to read. After all, it hadn't understand his request for an escort to the Citadel and that had been plain as day. "I am a friend," he tried while the golem was silent, either thinking over his response or preparing to implode, "not a foe." Would that work? He had no idea. In the raging torrent in his mind, fueled mostly by fear, he tried to create a calm eye to the storm to offer up a simple prayer to Eyris. He was here on a mission in her honor, at least in a certain light. Meditation on the fly, though, was not his forte.

[Tarot]

The golem's reaction to Hadrian's scholarly answer was very odd. It emitted a buzzing noise that might have been interpreted as a chuckle. It turned out downright creepy as it sounded like it was coming from the inside of a very cheap stone bust with barely sculpted facial features. Was this thing even truly malfunctioning, or was it playing a script crafted by a greater playwright?

"Wrong," it replied, the voice slightly deeper and louder than before, almost sounding grafted upon the golem. "Blue is just a word. There is no such a thing as 'blue'. The sky is blue because men have decided that it be so. Men wallowing in their own lies, like you."

The glyphs on the Peacekeeper golems began to glow with arcane energies. "Boom," said the Communicator. Fire burst out of a dozen defensive golems and drew brilliant trails through the silent air of the port. It would have been an amazing sight, had the shots not been taken in Hadrian's own direction. As everyone ducked for cover, however, the wizard would be the first to notice that the golems had not been aiming at the ship.

Half a second later, the Communicator exploded in a cloud of flames and power, launching scraps and debris all around. The blackened bust landed on the hard stone of the docks where it broke into so many little pieces. A pile of smoking junk was all that was left of the threatening golem. Their task accomplished, the Peacekeepers swiveled back into the grey warehouses standing just behind the docks and disappeared from view.

The captain peered from behind the ship's railing. "I'm still alive! And the ship doesn't have a scratch on her," he murmured, pleasantly surprised. Then, as an afterthought, he turned and made a half-hearted effort to see if any crew members were injured. None were. "These undead are nuts. We're setting sail back to Zeltiva, folks. Petch the cargo. Petch the mages. Petch it all up their rotting asses. If you want to get off, be my guest, young'un, but I'm not staying here a minute longer." The docks looked deserted now. Hadrian would get one opportunity to set foot on Sahova, but there was no turning back if he did. Then again, he had chosen to be a wizard. Petched up situations were his job description.

[Hadrian]

It was the captain's laughter that made Hadrian open his eyes and drop his arms, raised to ward off the shrapnel of the Communicator's demise. He wasn't quick enough or schooled enough to raise any sort of magical defense in time, and so he relied simply on human instinct, but it seemed that such would be sufficient for today at least. Dazed, he took in the rubble of the mad golem, the departure of the Peacekeepers, and the captain's ultimatum. "I'm staying," he said, with as much moxie as he could muster under the circumstances. "My bag?" A quick seaman called the task, and returned to throw the duffel up to Hadrian on the dock. He caught it in shaky hands, not sure what he would do now that his planned home for the duration was about to ship out, but not sure how long it would take to plan another research trip to Sahova, either. "Thanks, Captain," he said, the wind taken out of the sales of his sarcasm. He could threaten or bluff, mostly bluff considering his position, but there was no point. He would try to figure something out. Sink or swim. Readjusting his satchel and throwing his duffel over his shoulder, he started up the dock, hoping the next golem to stop him would be somewhat friendlier, or at least more capable of logic.

[Tarot]

It wasn't long before Hadrian made his second encounter of the day, but this time it came from above. It was a black dot in the sky at first, then it grew wider and bigger as it closed in on the docks, and the wizard saw that it was a large bird. A Wind Eagle, perhaps, the kind usually found in Wind Reach and basically nowhere else in the world. It flew in wide circles around the grey docks, and finally spiraled down near the location of the destroyed golem. The bird was clutching some fabric that looked like a red robe. It let go of the garment just before landing, then cast a brief look at the pile of rubble and junk. And then, it transformed.

Feathers turned into skin as the beast straightened and became bipedal. It wasn't the metamorphosis of the Kelvics, though - they dissolved into a shower of lights, this one was merely reshaping itself as if with a hammer and chisel. The beak shrunk back into the head, hair sprouted from the top, wings split at the tips and formed hands and fingers. Seconds later, a young woman, dark-haired and stark naked, stood where the bird had been, with a visibly alarmed expression on her face.

"Shyke," she hissed, "shyke shyke shyke." Kneeling down, she began digging among the scraps, ignoring the fact it was still burning. Indeed, the paleness of her skin and the dark rings under her eyes gave her away as one of the Nuit wizards of Sahova. She retrieved a small metal plaque from the golem's remains and held it up for inspection. It seemed to carry some numbers, an identification of sorts. "NOOO!" she whined, and threw it down in frustration. "Mine... Why did it have to be mine... I'm screwed."

She slowly turned her head to face Hadrian. "What did you do to my beautiful Communicator v2.24, you filthy human?" She pointed a finger accusingly, black tongue flicking over her lips and no thought given to putting on her robe despite having taken it with her. "It was perfect, perfect! Tested. Certified. Up-to-date. Congratulations, you just beat a foolproof device, what does that make you? A... a..." Her wit seemed to fail her at this point, and she snorted. "Something fooler than a fool. A once-in-500-years fool. You fool." And with that, she looked back at the golem's remains, with a distraught look on her face.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian sighed. Of course. He wasn't sure that the stories about Sahova were all true, but it certainly seemed that luck was running against him since his ship put to harbor. He knew little of Animation beyond the lore, but once his adrenaline had begun to simmer down, his conscious mind recalled the apparent logical error that had driven the automaton to its own version of a psychotic break. "I apologize for whatever part I played in your golem's destruction," he said diplomatically, "but all I did was identify myself and petition escort to the Citadel, which apparently uncovered some kind of error, something about corrupted directives, and it assumed I was an enemy despite my identification..." He didn't know much about Animation in practice, but he understood the basics of the theory, and his scholarly instincts liked to interrupt at the worst of times. He understood logic from his studies of mathematics and philosophy, but his recent experience led him to believe that golems were only able to plod along paths of logic while the human mind was also capable of intuitive leaps, associations, and other cognitive processes. Perhaps golems were too given a skilled enough Animator. Only then did he really notice that she was naked, so when he found his gaze descending, it required a quick jerk of his head upward to keep it on her face. And that black tongue. A morphing nuit, then, just like Isikais. Well, he hoped she wouldn't grow claws and shred him to death like the other nuit had done to that whore back in Zeltiva. "If you need to interview me for data relating to his malfunction, I am at your service. Otherwise, I would appreciate an escort to the Citadel so the next golem I meet doesn't assume me a foe as well."

[Tarot]

The Nuit did not blink, and that was perhaps the one thing that seemed disturbingly out of place in her hissy fit. She never, ever blinked. "Just listen to him!" she pointed a finger at Hadrian angrily, "Playing innocent like a good tourist. I'm surprised you aren't pretending not to speak my language." She delved back into the remains of the golem, finally retrieving a small metal box that appeared blackened by the explosion but still relatively intact. Still furious, she grabbed her robe and hastily put it on before shoving the metal box down an oversized pocket. "Let me be clear with you, Mr. Big Words, you aren't getting away with just that," she added, her voice slowly cooling off but not losing any of its accusing edge. "I've made golems like these for five hundred years without a single failure. Pristine record, you hear me? They don't call me 'Old Reliable' Rela over nothing, you know. And now of all times, when a poor Nuit can get liquefied into compost over much less, you pop up and crash my golem like that." She began circling Hadrian like a hungry beast, never stopping for a moment as she went on and on. "A Communicator has built-in thought limiters to keep it from tackling mental tasks it's not meant to perform. This keeps its thinking down to a level where we can predict its reactions with nearly 100% accuracy. That's Golem Security 101. What's more, a Communicator has no ethical dynamics. It just can't switch to being an enemy and cause the other golems to destroy it. It doesn't serve out of loyalty, but because it's the only thing it's been taught to do. It doesn't make any sense." "Frankly, I don't think you're smart enough to have found a way around that. There are certain risk factors, though. Did you hit it with a supercharged lodestone? Spray it with heavily acidic urine? Attempt to have overly rough sex with it?" She looked entirely serious as she paced around Hadrian like a vulture around a dying beast in the desert. There was no doubt that those examples had all happened before.

[Hadrian]

In the elder days of art Builders wrought with greatest care Each minute and unseen part, For the Gods are everywhere. -Longfellow He frowned, dark brows beetling with displeasure. Of course he knew that he should play apologetic to appease the native, but her pretension irritated him. She rattled off her credentials like some amateur trying to sound important and blaming him for the malfunctions of her magic. But no, no... He breathed deeply, in and out, and it afforded him the barest echo of the calm he got from meditation. It wouldn't do to be brusque and make an enemy when he had yet to make a friend, or at least a temporary ally. "Madam, I didn't lay a hand or a bodily fluid on your golem. You may verify that with the security automata if you wish." He spread his hands helplessly. "Or you can tell me what you want to tell other people should they ask what happened in order to maintain your reputation. I wouldn't want you to be liquefied." That was strange, though. He wasn't an expert on the Nuit by any means, but from what he knew by way of Isikais, the undying didn't exactly live. It took more to make them change drastically the way a living human might, and he had never heard that Mashaen was quite that given to a reign of terror. Those sorts of things didn't tend to last as long as Sahova had. Perhaps ... Well, he would find out soon enough what the lay of the land was if Old Reliable Rela didn't chew him a new one -- literally -- over the destruction of her Communicator v2.24. He tried to remain calm, not glancing nervously at her as she circled him, though he would have liked to. Now he rather wished he had studied the Flux before coming, or worked on his reimancy until he had a more reliable weapon in his work. As it stood, he was an indifferent hydromancer, but there was no way to go back in time that he knew of, so he would defend himself as best he could if it came to that. "Other than the malfunction," he added with guarded respect, "it was an impressive creation..." It wasn't an attempt to get on her good side, but merely the truth. If she hadn't come at him with such heated hatred, he might even ask her for some training in animation. Now ... not so much.

[Tarot]

Ironically, it was Hadrian's calm countenance, aiming at weathering the storm of Rela's anger, that infuriated the Nuit to no end. It was like someone getting caught red-handed with a bloodied knife in their hand and still pleading innocent. It was an insult to her intelligence. Then again, evil-doers tended to diligently confess to their crimes only inside works of fiction. Real-world criminals were ready to deny everything, all the time. The undead woman folded her arms across her chest and stopped to stare at the man, a mix of rage and anxiety on her face. "The only impressive thing about it is that it FAILED," she hissed, pointing a pale finger at the scholar. "We're going to take a good look at the logs, the two of us," she patted the pocket where she'd put the small metallic box from the golem's remains. "There's no way I can let you anywhere near the Citadel while I still don't have a good excuse for this disaster. Qiao will have me turned into compost for being an incompetent - and you too, just in case. He's maniacal about security these days." The woman motioned for Hadrian to follow her, robe flowing in the light saline breeze of the island. She opened a sliding door and walked into one of the bleak grey warehouses rising on either side of the harbor. A dozen Peacekeeper golems were lined up inside stalls placed at regular intervals; they appeared to be inactive, or in some kind of standby at the moment. "Close the door behind you," Rela ordered, not even bothering to check if Hadrian was following - he better be, or she'd make him. The Nuit stormed into one of the unoccupied stalls with a metal plaque reading "Maintenance" on the wall. This space did not contain a golem, though there were tools and instruments scattered all over the floor and almost bursting out a few old chests of drawers. Rela rummaged for a bit - swearing in common as well as the ancient tongue - and eventually found what she was looking for. It was a small device, shaped like a genderless doll without any facial features, only there was only the upper half of the body. The underside, as the Nuit picked it up, had a square slot in which Rela fit the metal box retrieved from the Communicator. "Rewind, one bell," she ordered, and the doll began to emit the sound of the breeze. "Forward, thirty chimes," Rela added, and soon afterwards the voices of people from the ship could be heard in the distance as it docked in the harbor, everything playing out faithfully to Hadrian's memories. The doll was replaying the sounds of the entire encounter. By the time it spoke the Communicator's final lines, Rela's jaw had long gone slack and revealed the Nuit's dark tongue. "What. The. Petch." "It was sabotaged. Petching thing was sabotaged. But when... how... and why?" She wasn't asking Hadrian in particular, and it was more of a whimper than a request. She could already picture herself fertilizing the earth of the Citadel's courtyard. And not as the gardener.

[Hadrian]

Thinking it prudent to go along with her, even as his equanimity seemed to further stoke her rage, he followed her to the warehouse. He gave the Peacekeeper golems as thorough a look over as possible while following her; there was always a chance he might learn something and even if the Goddess of Life despised Animators, he thought the knowledge worth having. If ever he became an Animator, he would likely try to make some sort of amends with the goddess. He didn't need enemies that he could avoid, especially divine ones. He was curious, though, about some of the things she said. "Is Lector Qiao in charge now or is he the wizard to whom you report?" These sorts of details might come in handy should Hadrian wish to survive his little jaunt to Sahova, which he did. Fortunately or unfortunately, Hadrian understood the ancient curses as well as the contemporary, but he ignored her for the most part, feasting his eyes on the golem technology all around him. Discreetly, he blinked his eyes until his auristic vision returned that he might get a better sense of what he was seeing, perhaps to replicate it in future. Watching the replay with her, he was supported in his claims and it seemed she was aware of that, although it gave her no pleasure and some amount of fear. He had never seen a Nuit afraid before, though of course he only had limited experience with them outside of today. But if she was desperate, then it gave him an opportunity, perhaps the first golden opportunity of his visit. There was no point in rubbing it in that he had been telling the truth; that would merely aggravate her further and offer himself up as a target for her rage. Before meeting Rela, he had assumed that all Nuit were generally cold-blooded unless a killing rage was upon them. He didn't want to be around for a morphing Nuit's killing rage; he had already seen Isikais'. "Madame, clearly someone is attempting to discredit and, perhaps, destroy you. Of course, you could destroy this box and its records, blaming the whole thing on me, but the only results of that would be my death and you living in fear of unknown saboteurs. Instead, may I offer my aid in getting to the bottom of this? With this course of action, you have an ally whose instincts of self-preservation will bind him to your cause, as well as keeping what is, at present, circumstantial evidence to your innocence that might become proof upon further investigation." Of course, he was taking a chance that he had surmised the situation correctly based on limited information, but sometimes in extreme cases when one could not act on an overabundance of information, one had to trust one's instinct and intuition.