[Inner Sanctum] Gifting Life or Something Like It (Hadrian)

[Jilitse]

Capital, he said. By its context it must mean he needed someone to pay for his research. "Ah of course, that always becomes a problem doesn't it. How expensive can magecrafting get?" Back in the days of the Royal Academy of Magic, there were a lot of people who funded magical research. Jilitse was reminded of her own duty to study and learn about Supervisors. Who funded Drainira's golem body? Where do you find a million mizas in post-Valterrian Mizahar? For a long while Jilitse looked dazed, staring ahead. She stood up and started to gather her pencil and paper.

"I intend to go over my design a few more times, and I would have to take notes, too," Jilitse told Hadrian without looking up. The turned her face to the book and started reading about the anatomy of the frog. She wanted to learn the most that she could and, hopefully, with enough gadgeteering skill she might be able to figure out how frog muscles work. Using a spring for the legs wasn't so bad, but the earlier design wasn't very accurate. Then there was the difference in physical structure. To be fair, Hadrian design's did not really hamper movement, but there was some thing to be said for precision. Jil was, to cut it short, not satisfied with their result.

Immersed in her scribbles, she started to draw another model of a frog. Over and over again she drew one design after another. Hind legs spread, joints analyzed. It looked good on paper, but none were feasible to make, Jil resisted the urge to put wheels onto the frog. It would defeat the purpose of her study, and not help her discover something new. Using too much wire would be expensive, and she did not have a forge to cast metal. Focusing, she willed herself back to the design. She needed to use something elastic, something that will allow the legs to spread and stretch. Jil noted that the body weight should be as light as it could, the earlier metal frog must have been straining under the composition of its metallic frame. A block of wood might be lighter. Maybe. Forget about aestheticism. Probably. Use screws and fasteners instead. Definitely.

Now, where was that drill? She rummaged into her toolbox and then walked to her small basket of junk. Four legs. This frog-like golem will have four legs. After examining the materials she will need, she brought the wooden parts back to the desk.

[Hadrian]

"Yes, magecrafting is quite expensive." He didn't sigh or roll his eyes; it was merely the fact of the matter. He had known the drawbacks of magecrafting when he had decided to devote himself to it. If he had trouble building capital, he could always go back and teach. That would be a source of income, and he could use the University's laboratories and supplies, cutting his overhead. There was also the networking available at the University; rich people knew where to look for creditable magicians. "The cheapest, simplest thing usually costs about a thousand golden mizas. The price rises almost exponentially from there for more powerful and intricate creations, so it also becomes a question of elegance and economy of design. You can manage the same effect in several ways usually. But the simpler, the less time, money, and energy required. I'll probably try to pick up an apprentice or three, also. Young, talented, and innovative. We'll see. In the meantime, I've looked into alternative means of income until I find a patron or become independently wealthy." Namely Malediction, the red-headed stepchild of Magecrafting. Or, perhaps, the red-headed twin who had fallen on hard times and a bad reputation. With his introduction into that discipline, he was aware of the greater danger and the lesser precision that came along with it being monetarily cheaper. When she started in on her designs again, he watched over her shoulder, figuring she would tell him to bugger off if he was bothering her. His mathematics weren't bad, so when he noticed something, he cleared his throat. "What about wheels?" he asked. "Or, rather, cogs. If you can find a talented craftsman, he can make you gears and such to increase the power of the legs to compensate for the weight of your materials. May I?" He snagged a clean sheet of paper from her collection and a wax pencil from his pocket and started calculating power and velocity and other fun things. He even drew her a simplified picture, though it ended up more complicated than he meant it to be: gears and springs and the whole nine yards. He was, however, rather sure it should work. In theory. "Well, if you know a talented craftsman..."

[Jilitse]

"You've seen too many Sahovan golems, Hadrian." She said, turning down the idea of using or putting wheels in the golem. Jilitse listened to the human, and applauded his design. "Cogs, wheels, clockwork. I'm bored with Sahovan golems," She reminded him, "I've been stuck with them for the last hundred years." She didn't sound happy, didn't sound mad. "While you have an interesting design, the only person I know who has enough skill to construct it would be Alistair de Grey, a non-magical person through and through." Of course there were probably other master gadgeteers out there.

She said, as mirthful as she could, "The man doesn't appreciate Animation, and I'd rather live another century and be my own craftsman than ask for his help." She took Hadrian's drawing and added, "He'd be dead and I'd be walking over his grave." Hadrian knew that Jilitse and Alistair had an inexplicable relationship. The Nuit's demeanor didn't seem like she wanted to consider Hadrian's suggestion. To emphasize it, she told him about her new plan.

"I'm going to do a little bit of drilling and fastening and screwing. Animation will do the rest." Her lips parted, humming to herself, "For now, I'll be using these wooden pieces." She started measuring and dividing two wooden sticks into eight pairs. Scribbling onto her plan, she filled the drawing with numbers and estimates. Two and a half marks, front legs shorter, hind legs longer. She took the jar with the frog and examined it. Creating everything using realistic measurements would probably have draw backs. She was sure that the pressure on the joints could be regulated by the tightness or looseness of the fasteners, allowing the limbs to stretch open of close. And of course, she needed to attach feet to make the frog able to stand upright. The body could be, well, just a block of wood. The Nuit had decided that she was aiming for the technical application and not aesthetics. Once she's mastered the limbs, she'd be able to turn blocks and cylinders into pretty things. A century or so, perhaps.

"Now if you really want to learn you better start ask me questions. Since I'm doing this the second time around, you'll probably get the swing of it soon and do one on your own." Jilitse faced Hadrian, a young man so eager to learn about everything.

[Hadrian]

He resisted his body's desire to shudder at the mention of Sahova and its golems. Part of the reason he wanted to learn anything of Animation was to know weak points and ways to exploit them. He was no battle mage, but if he could outwit and disable golems, he might survive longer. "Perhaps we both need to learn gadgeteering," he mused. "And I'm more interested in understanding the necessary forms for the high cognitive processes in golems. The..." He didn't want to say Drainira's name aloud. So far as he knew, she didn't have a form, which meant she could be anywhere, look like anything, and that was more terrifying than a battalion of Peacekeepers. "Anyway, I suppose it will be a while before that knowledge will be of any use to me, though it would be interesting to compare and contrast with the cognitive possibilities inherent to magecrafting and malediction." He cut his tangent short when she returned to the task at hand, Hopstop version 2.0. "Have you thought about hydraulics?" he asked. Again, he knew the theory more than the practice, but he began sketching a simple sort of hydraulics for the frog's hind legs. In this case, he figured the simpler the better because there was less chance for things to go wrong and fall apart and the Nuit probably wanted her creations to last as long as she did. "Or..." He started another drawing before finishing the last; he was not extremely talented, and his thoughts ran quicker than his hand, but he managed to get the idea out. "Lathes of wood, specially treated or else you'll have to replace them regularly, or bamboo... Bow them and harness the potential energy... like this." Sketch, sketch, sketch. And sketch some more until he had a rough outline of the idea. "Do you see? It's simpler than clockwork or hydraulics, but it would add more strength to the legs, and it's thin bits of wood so it's not heavy... "As for questions, may I help with the magical process this time as well as the construction?"

[Jilitse]

"Bamboo." Jilitse frowned, finally interested. "You have a good idea that I will save for later. I don't have that kind of lumber. Come to think of it, I'm not sure I've come across Bamboo." She whispered it again, "Bamboo. Sturdy wood, I suppose?"

Jil pointed to her small basket. "Unfortunately my current resources are limited. A few pieces of lumber and some scrap metal doesn't really provide me with a lot of options. If I were still in Sahova," she dreamily exclaimed, "I'd have all the equipment and materials I need at my disposal." The Nuit gloomily glanced around the empty Sanctum. "And since I'm only training, I'm not really after something that will last long. Hmmm." She narrowed her eyes, watching as Hadrian drew his version of the frog's legs. The Nuit would have shown her precious books on Animation to Hadrian, but they were safely kept in the Home. She didn't trust the young man enough to provide him with such important pre-Valterrian knowledge anyway. "You do have a good theory, and I would consider trying this out for another golem I have in mind. You should show me what Bamboo looks like some other time, so I can examine its properties." Hadrian seemed confident about it, but Jilitse wanted to find proof of its existence and then examine it before using it in a project.

"What I'd rather have you do is to make your own golem. If you want to make a frog, too, then do so." She was rather protective of her own experiment. The human had his share of apprentice-time for Jilitse. The Nuit moved the wooden parts away from Hadrian. Being a wizard, it was considered treachery to let someone else handle your project. Of course, the human was probably trying to be cordial. However, cordial apprentices or wizards do not exactly sit well with a Sahovan Nuit like Jilitse. She would immediately respond with hostility at the prospect of somebody modifying or taking over her work. Paranoia or not, Jil desired to be left alone with her pet project. As she had initially intended, she wanted to pursue the project on her own. Hadrian watching her was one thing, his offer for unrequited help was another. The young human was truly challenging her trust. "I can teach you to cover the basics, it's pretty much standardized. You're a beginner anyway. Your experience in Magecrafting may help." In what way, Jilitse was unsure.

She wrote down notes as she explained, "You start with creating the physical shell. Feel free to pick up stuff from that basket. There's not really a lot of useful things there." She scribbled more and said, "I want to do this one on my own." She tapped the wooden pieces on the desk.

Jilitse took hopstop's plan and instructed Hadrian the basic ritual set-up, virtually repeating all the preparation she did. The Nuit hoped he was paying attention, she didn't like repeating things. She then elaborated on the ritual process, "You first create a soulcore. It is like an empty sheet of paper, or a vessel. A container for the identity. This is usually patterned after a living soul. Precision is a key technique I find helpful. Shaping the soul is a method I prefer to do to ensure that the soulcore is captured within the item. The next phase is creating a Persona. You give the golem its basic directives, like recognizing your voice, or, as you have seen the application earlier, a kill phrase to make it stop or stop completely. This is also where sheer will and talent comes in. You focus on the characteristic of your source and pass it on to your golem. Since you're a beginner I suggest that you stick to one directive. Makes for good practice, and as such, simple golems will not have the capacity to burn the Sanctum down. We don't want that." She spoke without need for breathing, so her melancholic droning voice carried on, "For example, you want a frog to 'jump'. You will have to work with the memory, transfer this. Work with the concept of jumping, transfer this."

"The Astral Body is usually the last part to be made. You will teach your golem to use its own body. It's usually a hit and miss. By this time a golem usually responds to the directives you may have ingrained. It would jump if you tell it, too. If you get it right, your golem will work. If you don't it will go berserk and destroy itself." Jilitse smiled, "But who am I kidding, you know what I mean, right?"

[Hadrian]

"Bamboo," he said, drawing out a few pictures of it, a thatch of bamboo shoots, a close up on the sections of its stalks, the spray of leaves. "It's somewhere between a tree and a grass, I suppose. The tensile strength is just... yeah. There are different strains that grow in different climates. There might even be some on Sahova, though I guess you'd have to speak to someone in the know... It grows very fast. The baby shoots can be eaten. Well, I guess that's not a worry of yours." Hadrian paid close attention to everything Jilitse said and then, when she turned back to her own work, he settled in try his hand at it alone. Glancing at the poor frog, he didn't want to drain it of any more of its energies, but glancing elsewhere, he got an idea, then dug through her materials, finding what he needed. Taking a length of that copper wire, he wrapped it in a careful latticework around his finger, which, once he removed his finger, he closed into a little, hollow, bean-shaped body. Each end of the wire was coiled tightly on either side of the body. Setting it down, he took a piece of blank paper and began carefully tearing it into vaguely leaf-shaped pieces. When he had several of these, he secured them between the folds of the coils, splaying them out into wings, much bigger than the body, with a great enough surface area, he hoped -- he did some calculations in his head -- for it to fly. He scrawled basic circles onto another piece of paper, hardly straying from the example he had from Jilitse. As yet, he didn't have enough knowledge to tamper with glyphs in the process. The little copper-and-paper bug, which looked like some child artisan's attempt to make the love child of a fly and a butterfly went into the appropriate destination circle, and then he picked up a empty cup someone had left and went over to a corner, hunting for a fly he had seen earlier. After a few moments, he found one. After a few attempts, he caught it in the cup, his hand providing a makeshift lid until he put it down on his paper animation set up on the table, the fly trapped there. Hadrian glanced at Jilitse and her progress, and then he sat down thoughtfully before his work. Breathing in and out to counted measures, he brought his mind into a meditative focus that helped him with such things; with magecrafting, with malediction, and now with animation. When he was ready, he blinked the Auristics into his eyes so he could see what he was doing. The little fly's aura was buzzing erratically within its prison. His little handicrafted bug shimmered a little with a familiar energy, most likely from the thought and effort he had put into shaping it. He pricked his finger then, and pushed the cabochon of vermilion into the circle. The ink pulsed red in his vision, and then the djed began to move. Suddenly his awareness opened up beyond even the Auristics to include an intimate understanding of the fly and even the quality of the copper and paper that made up his soon-to-be creation. An unexpected side-effect with this sudden link with the fly was its attention span. It was a good thing he had meditated beforehand, so that he could maintain his focus for the work ahead. While digging through the information presenting itself in the form of the fly, he finally thought he had identified the pattern he needed. With mental hands he pulled at that, drawing it from the first circle to the second, to imprint upon the proto-golem. The only concepts he felt the need to impart were fly, stop, and die. He thought there should be a way to end it. Even if the 'life' of a golem was a matter of philosophy, he felt there should be a way to end it. After all, what if Drainira were lurking and turned it into a killer thing. Somehow. Never mind. He took a deep breath in and out, and then imparted unto the golem-fly everything he remembered about air and currents, and whatever information he could send down the link from the original fly to his construct. It had to be able to feel or else it would just flap its wings and not actually go anywhere. Finally, he took what he could of the pattern of the fly's astral body and imprinted it upon his creation, teaching its sleeping nervous system how it would have to control its twinned appendages and then... "Awake," he whispered even as his mental directive actually brought the thing to life. The copper wire flexed, the wings testing themselves much like a butterfly would. Part of him, so used to being schooled by his superiors, wanted to look to Jilitse for approval, but he would test the thing on his own first. "Fly," he said. The wings beat a few times, tremulously, getting a sense for the still air, and then they flapped so furiously that the paper wings made a shushing, rustling sound against the table until it was alight. It flew! It batted its wings against the air and fluttered around, aimless as a cloud. Hadrian laughed with boyish delight. Creation! It was simple, to be sure. A toy. But he had done it. He got to his feet to follow it around, watching how it flew and flew and flew, the only positive directive he had given it. "Stop," he said, and caught it carefully in his hand as it did, though its wings moved every once in a while in his hand. "I didn't teach it how to land," he said to Jilitse with a rueful smile as he brought it back to the table. He released the fly, which seemed content to rest where it was.

[Jilitse]

While hadrian worked on his own musings, Jilitse started to sketch in darker lines on her drawing plan. She marked the wood pieces and drilled holes in the proper places, carefully filing and smoothing the fringes of the hole she would make. It was different than having to create a golem in Sahova, where her gadgets involved metal pieces and pre-made wooden parts. She started by attaching the limbs to each other, creating two hind legs and two arms. After this she carefully measured, sawed, and cut and polished pieces for the feet, attaching them with wood glue and fasteners. As the last of the screws were twisted into place, Jil tested each limb, pulling and pushing, adjusting the tightness of the screws, and the testing the limit of the leg's angle. It took her a while to get this right, and Hadrian was well into his own animation ritual.

The body of the frog was a trapezoidal wooden block. After smoothing it, Jil measured, marked, nicked, and drilled holes to put the fasteners and joints and limbs. She secured the legs in place, tightening the locks on the hind legs and fine-tuned the joints of the arms. The result was crude woodwork pulled together by an up-and-coming gadgeteer. Not too shabby!

She turned to Hadrian and his fly. She examined his work and tried to scrutinize it as close as she could before it tried to fly away. "Fine handiwork," she nodded approvingly. There was however, a slight lash after a few chimes, "What did you aim to do when you do what you did?"

And then came a little philosophical challenge, "Animation was knowledge stolen from Kihala, goddess of life, by Yshul, goddess of thievery, with a little bit of information provided by Uldr, god of the undead. To what end, then do we wield the power to give life?"

"Do you reason out that it is for scholarly purposes?" She asked, wondering herself, "Do you use it to create a friend or an assistant? But where do you go after your first golem, your second, what do you create the next one for?"

A little added insight, "I built war golems, guard golems, protector golems, useless golems. But I was in Sahova for the last five centuries, a place where we had tried to over and over again recreate the magnificent powers that the Valterrian destroyed." As if talking to herself, she mumbled, eyes looking away, out into something out of this world, "I have been with the greatest golem since the Valterrian. I have lived with her for more than five centuries. And she is out there, aiding the god of manipulation, Sagallius."

"Could we say that she was the sum of all parts?" But she was talking about her own mission now, "That she is the highest form of golem technology there is? And tell me, do you wish to make someone like her? Do you wish to make a Supervisor?" Although her voice was dull, the accusation was there, "I only request that you always use the knowledge I have imparted to you wisely. That you should never give into making better and better golems just for the sake of fascination."

"Give them their purpose in life through well thought directives." She smiled, a little sardonic, "And always put a killphrase in any golem you make."

[Hadrian]

"It was an exercise more than anything," he admitted. She asked more questions, and he would have answered, but it seemed they were more rhetorical than asked out of any sense of true curiosity, so he kept his mouth shut, listening with his ears while his eyes looked over her new version of poor Hopstop. He even compared the two, seeing where improvements had been made and, possibly, where something had been lost. Sometimes the initial idea was better than successive attempts, though this new golem certainly looked more sophisticated. His split attention did not mean he was not giving due weight to Jilitse's questions. It was only that he had pondered these questions all the way from Sahova to Syliras while recovering from the various illnesses he had contracted while living among the dead and dying. Her attitude seemed to align with his for the most part, although he had little to do with the machinations of gods. The young enchanter had little love for Drainira, though he was curious. "I seek always to work with Eyris' blessing," he said quietly, not even sure if she cared, but it was true. He rarely felt like a Nuit took him seriously, or saw him as an equal creature. Though anthropologically, he understood where they were coming from, being functionally immortal, it was still strange to be a 'pulser' in the presence of the undead.

[Jilitse]

"Humans and their fixation to succeed in their endeavors under the intercession of gods and goddesses." Jilitse declared, toying with one of the frog's hind legs with a finger. She adjusted the loose screw and held up a hand to Hadrian, as if to motion for him to wait. She was going to perform another animation ritual: practice, practice harder, and harder. She began by drawing a circle, a shape that she is able to paint accurately. Another circle right beside the first, she placed the new frog gadget there. She went through the same procedure over again, pricking her finger to activate the ritual circle, dropping ichor then burning the flesh to seal the tiny wound. She mumbled a different set of incorrigible phrases, "Slice of wood and a splash of green; the air is your springboard and the grass is your kiln."

The soul core was easier to craft this time around, as there was a better imitation of a frog's anatomy. Jilitse molded the golem's limbs akin to the source frog's, copying the living creature's muscle memory such as jumping and reacting to stimuli. The first directive was to recognize the order "jump". Jumping forward, unless otherwise given a direction, like left or right. Jilitse gave it the concept of direction, front, back, left and right. The animator taught the golem how to lean to one side and skip in order to face a desired direction. She took her time in transferring these ideas before moving to the next directive, which was to recognize stimuli and "jump" when touched my anything other than the creator. After this, she added the directive to "jump" over small obstacles and things that might get across its way. Jilitse had to slowly teach the frog what an obstacle was - something that impede its path - and had to teach it the concept of jumping above and over things.

Hadrian, if he was once again observing the ritual, could see how Jilitse poured out all her concentration to her golem. She was stiff and immobile unlike earlier, but he could notice her eyes focused on the ritual circle, how her lips slowly mumble as she created the directives. The soul, if he would dare try to analyze the transfer, was stronger and more appealing than the first one Jilitse made. This was what the Nuit meant when she said she wanted to practice. There had to be an incremental progress in each golem that she made.

It was not long before Hadrian noticed that Jilitse was relaxing a little. The Nuit was transferring more information through the circle, copying and transferring the frog's strands of life. Chimes and chimes of natural instinct, except those that involved eating or desiring a natural habitat. "Glue the wood and grind the green," the Nuit sealed the kill phrase.

When she was finally done, Jilitse looked a little drowsy. The last ritual took a lot of effort: time, patience, and creativity. Poof! A muted explosion flickered in the silence. It signaled the end of her animation ritual. She sat and rested, oblivious to Hadrian.

OOCDo you wanna practice more? I'm done and we can wrap this up if you like.

[Hadrian]

It seemed that from her last pronouncement about humanity, she was through with Hadrian, but he was not quite through with her. Again he engaged his Auristics, taking a moment to adjust his mind to the increased level of information it had to process. He took some time to look around, to notice how the years of Akvin Kultra's work had changed the ambient energy of this place, how the walls and floor and everything had absorbed different frequencies of energy. Then he looked at Jilitse while she was concentrating, allowing himself to stare without being rude. The aura of a Nuit was an interesting thing: to his Vision, they never seemed quite to match with the body they inhabited, but that was likely to be expected. The aura did not grow and develop with the growth of their bodies. They didn't even live in them long enough to fully own them, he supposed, what with the natural wear and tear on even the best embalmed body. While he watched her ritual, he did his best to shadow-cast. If she wouldn't accept his hands on help, at least he could go through the motions. His hands traced the particulars of her circles in the air, he mouthed her incantations, and he watched with his augmented Vision what energies passed between her and her Animation ritual, observed the changes, and considered how he would have done it in her place. Surely his attempt would lack her polish and finesse, but he was confident that he could at least make a valiant and well-thought-out effort if he so decided. When the disturbance of the air and djed marked the end of her work and she did not stir, he waited in silence for a few minutes, but then, taking the hint, he prepared to leave. "Thank you," he said quietly. "It has been highly instructive. I shall take my leave now, though perhaps I will see you again before I leave Syliras." With that, he collected Hopstop v1.0 and his own butterfly and left her to her rest. END