All Her Fault (Solo)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

1st Day of Summer, 512 AV (Takes place after Tock gets home from her first Alchemy Class.) Tock’s baby was sick. It was breaking her heart. She didn’t know what to do. The last few weeks had been so busy with work, classes, and everything else she had going on that she hadn’t had the time to spare to fully delve into her research. She’d been to the library as much as she could, but it hadn’t been enough. Well she couldn’t take it anymore. Cutty needed to be fixed. Her was her baby, and he was sick, and he needed Mommy to fix him. She couldn’t take him to the University. Her professors would likely want to deactivate him. A malfunctioning Animated saw was a potentially dangerous thing, or so they would tell her. She couldn’t take the chance. She had to do this herself. So she had taken out as many books on Animation as she could from the library, and locked herself in her home. Cutty was sitting in the far corner, looking almost lifeless. Her other babies wouldn’t go near him. Bitey was huddled under the bed, and Naily was chasing Choppy around the house, nipping at his metal heels. The noise was a little distracting, but she didn’t have the heart to yell at them when their brother was sick. She had books stacked all over her table, and felt completely lost. Books really weren’t her thing. She felt completely overwhelmed. She’d been studying for hours, trying to sort through it all, but nothing was working. She sighed and slammed her face down onto the table, whimpering. Naily rolled over and tugged on her pant leg with the claw of his hammer. She reached down and petted him gently. “S’okay, baby,” she told him. “Yer brother’s gonna be jus’ fine, ‘e is. Don’tcha worry none...” She wished that she could stop worrying. She sat up and rubbed her hands across her face. This wasn’t working. She needed to think straight. Her eyes fell on her unused crutches in the corner. Unlike her babies, the crutches didn’t possess any ability to move on their own. They only worked when they were given direct commands. The crutches, and Grippy her extendable arm Automaton, didn’t possess their own consciousness. Tock got up and pulled the crutches out of the corner and set them by the table. She had finally stopped using them a couple of days ago, but she had something else in mind for today. She climbed up onto the table and positioned the crutches in front of her, then propped her legs up on the back piece. With a bit of maneuvering, she hooked her knees over the arm supports, then pushed herself off the table so that she was hanging upside down in the crutches. She sighed in relief and grabbed the book, holding it up to her face. The she realized she needed to flip it upside down, and adjusted it so she could actually read the pages. This was much better. For some reason, Tock always thought better upside down. Maybe her brain just didn’t get enough blood otherwise. She flipped through the book, until she found a passage that had something that finally seemed to put her on the right track. Unintentional Transfers One of the reasons focus and meditation are so important in the art of Animation is in order to prevent unintentional transfers. Unintentional transfers occur when an Animator transmits information into an Automaton without intending to. This usually comes as a result of lack of focus or concentration. Common examples of unintentional transfers include things like cravings and desires. For example, if the Animator were hungry and thinking about fruit, the Automaton could end up with an unexplained craving for fruit (which can be especially complex for the Automaton to reconcile, considering few Automatons are ever created with the ability to eat). Another example occurs when an Animator is fixated on a romantic partner. Thoughts of their romantic fixation can transfer into an Automaton during the Animation process, resulting in the Automaton imprinting on that individual with the same emotions. There have been recorded incidents of a flawed Golem turning on its creator out of jealousy, sometimes even killing them in order to possess the disputed romantic partner for themselves. Other examples of unintentional transfers include fascination with music, transfer of fears and phobias, or imprinting of the Animator’s physical or emotional state at the time of the Animation. Animators who were too excited or energetic at the time of the Animation could end up with a highly excitable Automaton that never settles down, or Animators that are sad at the time of the Animation could end up with a depressed Automaton. To avoid these side effects, Animation should always be done by an Animator who is in a clear state of mind, with the utmost focus and concentration. ... ...... “Oy, PETCH!” Tock shouted throwing the book across the room. It really was her fault! She lost her balance on the crutches and fell onto the floor. ”Owwww!” she shouted, rubbing at her sore head. Naily rolled over and nudged her head, which made her shout, “Ow!” again. His metal head hurt when he thought he was nuzzling her gently. “Shoo, you!” she whined, waving him away. Then she covered her face with her hands and began to cry. It was her fault. Kaeson had been right. Cutty was sick because Tock had been too exhausted and distracted when she made him. She’d been pulling such long hours, working so hard, studying so hard, and filled with so much activity and so little free time that she’d been worn out. And her exhaustion and lack of concentration had corrupted the programming. Her baby was sick and it was all her fault.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock lay on the floor for a long while, until her tears dried and she felt calm. Still guilty and ashamed, but calm. Naily was nuzzling her leg pathetically, so she lifted him up and hugged him to her chest. "S'gonna be okay," she whispered to him. "Mommy's jus' gotta think..." She needed to reprogram Cutty, and replace the corrupted pieces with fresh, clean bits from her own mind and soul. But first she had to find a way to isolate the bad bits. Otherwise she'd end up having to reprogram him fully, and she couldn't do that. He was her baby, and she loved him, and she wouldn't erase his whole mind and start over from scratch. That would be like killing him. She had never reprogrammed one of her babies before. She didn't know how. She got back up and started sorting through the stack of books again, searching for a solution. She knew it was possible to add new programming on top of the old, but that wouldn't be enough here. She needed to figure out a way to isolate the specific damaged parts of Cutty's mind, and only replace those parts and no others. She dug through the books, scanning page after page, searching for some kind of answer.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

After awhile of searching, there were only two solutions Tock was able to come up with. The first was Auristics. She was starting a class in that this week, but it would take her awhile to get enough understanding of it to use it for a proper diagnosis. But according to all of her research, it was an effective way to understand what was wrong with an Automaton. Auristics could read both the Djed that had been used in the creation of an Automaton, and in reading emotions. While it apparently couldn't read actual thoughts, she didn't need it to. Cutty's simplistic mind wasn't capable of actual thoughts. Just basic responses, and those were more equatable to emotions than anything else. If she could get a reading on his aura while he was going through certain commands, she could understand better what was happening. Then when he failed to obey a command, if she was reading his aura at the time it happened, she could get an understanding of why he wasn't listening. Maybe she would sense anger, or stubbornness, or something else that would explain why he would ignore her. Or maybe she would sense weakness or sickness that showed that he couldn't obey her. She would need the magic to be able to read the difference. The second method she found was trial and error testing. Running the Automaton through exercises to figure out what the flaw was. She found a whole book filled with standard testing procedures. This was something she could do on her own. She'd done this sort of thing before, with Boxy. An Animator could attempt multiple cause and effect experiments, and test a variety of stimuli. Recording when errors occurred and when they didn't could help narrow down the problem. "Okay, baby," Tock said, heading over to the corner and kneeling next to her sick Cutty. "Mommy's gonna figure out what's wrong witcha, aye?" She kissed the side of his saw blade, and closed her eyes, preparing herself for what she knew was going to be an emotionally trying afternoon.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Tock stood and moved over to the table, pulling out some paper and a quill so she could take notes on the process. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. She silently reassured herself that she could do this, then called Cutty over. "Cutty, stand!" she called. Her baby stood up on his four legs. So far, so good. The book said the first thing to do was go over all basic commands. If the flaw was somewhere in the programming if a specific command, it would show if she ran Cutty through several patterns. "Come!" she told him. He started trotting over. "Stop!" He kept on walking and ran right into her, his metal legs banging painfully into her shins. "Stop!" she shouted. He kept trying to walk forward, smacking into her. It felt like being beaten in her legs with metal sticks. Tears filled her eyes, but they weren't from the physical pain. "Stop, baby, stop for Mommy!" she screamed through her tears. Cutty ended up knocking her down onto her back. She screamed in anguish and horror as he trampled over her, his sharp metal feet slicing up her legs and arms. "STOP!" she screamed. He finally froze in place above her, the saw blade hanging precariously above her face.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

She lay there for a few moments, taking deep, slow breaths, her hands raised protectively over her face. Tears flowed freely from eyes that stared wide and unblinking at her out if control baby. After a few moments she crawled out from under him, rose with great care, and let out a shuddering breath. She was bleeding, but there was something more important to take care of first. She reached out with shaking hands and gently stroked the flat edge of Cutty's blade. In a trembling voice she whispered softly to him, "S'okay, baby. S'okay. Mommy knows ya didn't mean it. Mommy ain't mad, 'kay? Mommy ain't mad. Ya didn't do nothin' wrong..." Reassuring her baby was more important then tending her wounds. "Yer a good boy, Cutty. Yer a good boy an' Mommy loves ya..." Once she was sure her baby wasn't upset and knew it wasn't his fault, she took care of herself. She didn't have any bandages or anything so she just cleaned the cuts up as best she could, and pressed a cloth against the worst ones until the bleeding stopped. Then while holding the cloth against a cut on her arm, she sat on the edge of her bed and cried.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

After she calmed, Tock wrote down the results, including how many times she'd had to say "Stop" before Cutty finally listened. She then continued the tests, running him through a series of commands including walking him around, going through cutting motions (while she was a safe distance away), and getting him to both come to her and stay when commanded. After a long series of tests, she found no pattern to which commands he ignored or listened to. He seemed equally likely to freeze up on any command, and she couldn't discern why. She sighed, picking up the book and reviewing it once more. She'd eliminated any possibility that the flaw was linked to specific commands. The next recommended step was testing the way the commands were given. According to the book, when a flaw like this happened, it was sometimes linked to the Automaton's emotional state. An Automaton that had accidentally been imbued with the Animator's depression would sometimes only respond to cheerfully worded commands, or one that had been imbued with an Animator's lustful feelings would only respond to a sultry, seductive voice. Tock frowned and set the book aside. She certainly didn't want to talk sexy to her baby! Though she had to work through all the steps. If the flaw in Cutty's programming was in some way related to Tock's emotional state at the time she'd made him, then this might reveal that link. Since there was no pattern in the commands that showed the problems, she decided to stick purely with commands to stand and sit. Those were the safest commands she could give. She sat down in a chair across from Cutty, holding her paper on a wooden board in her lap. She then started commanding him over and over, "Stand, sit, stand, sit..." She started in a neutral tone of voice, marking down how often he obeyed or didn't. He seemed to only fail to listen an average of one time out of three, but she noticed a pattern that once he didn't listen to one command, he didn't listen to the next several either. She could get him to obey a few times in a row, then he repeatedly ignored her several times. Frowning, she recorded the results, and moved on. She tried pleading, asking him in a nice voice, and even saying, "Please." She ran through multiple sets of such commands, and noticed no difference in Cutty's behavior. Next she tried commanding him in a sad voice. That was easy. Sad was all she was feeling today. Yet there didn't seem to be any difference there, either. Next she tried to force herself to be happy, then angry. Nothing seemed to make any difference. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes to think. She thought back to the day in the woods, when she'd first noticed the problem. What had worked best then...? She opened her eyes and frowned. Cutty had seemed to respond when she yelled at him. "Cutty, sit," she told him. He obeyed. "Stand," she said. He didn't move. In her previous trials, he had taken anywhere from four to eight additional commands before he'd obey after a failure. She raised her voice, "Stand!" She frowned and shouted, "STAND!" He stood up. Tock let out a shuddering gasp of pure emotion, dropping all her papers and rushing over to hug him. She kidded Cutty's handle repeatedly and said, "Good boy, good boy!" She held him tight, tears starting to come again, though this time they were tears of relief. Finally, she was starting to figure it out.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Once she'd composed herself, she ran Cutty through a few more stand and sit commands until he froze again when she told him to stand. Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment to say a silent prayer for success, and shouted as loud as she could, "CUTTY, STAND!" Cutty jumped up as if startled, and shakingly rose to his feet. She frowned, watching him. The way he'd jumped like that... There was suddenly a pounding on her door. "Go away!" she yelled. Didn't people know she was busy? The pounding came again. Naily rolled over and pounded on the door in return, thinking it was a game. Tock sighed. She'd never get any work done this way. She stomped over to the door and swung it open. "What!?" she shouted in the face of the intruder, "Can'tcha done see I's busy!?" The person at the door was her annoyed (and annoying) neighbor, Jenn. Jenn was a young waitress at one of Zeltiva's taverns, and a student at the University. She crossed her arms and stared at Tock, blowing a puff of air from her lips to move a strand of her dark hair out of her face. "Can you PLEASE keep it down?" she asked. This had to be the hundredth time they'd had this conversation. "Oy, I done told ya, izza middle o' the day, an' now's when I's workin'!" she said, throwing her arms up in the air. "If'n I does 'er at night, 'en Old Lady Jenkins done whines all the time, an' if'n I does 'er inna mornin', 'en whiney Tara 'cross the street done says I's wakin' 'er kids up!" Tock's neighbors were so annoying. "Yes, and I work nights and have to sleep during the day," Jenn replied gruffly. "And your shouting just woke me up..." Tock just stared at the woman. Then her eyes went wide. "Oy, yer bloody brilliant, Sook!" she shouted, grabbing her flustered neighbor, hugging her tight, and kissing her several times on the cheek. Then, giggling with glee, she slammed the door shut and turned back into the house. She ran Cutty through a few more moves, until he froze again while standing. "CUTTY WAKE UP!" she shouted. He jumped, just like before, as if she'd just woken him from sleep. Tock had been exhausted when she programmed him. That was it! She fell to her knees and hugged her baby tight. She'd figured it out. She would still need the Auristics test to find out what parts of Cutty's programming had been affected, but now she knew what the effect was. Her exhaustion had seeped into him when she programmed him. He was programmed to be exhausted all the time. Her baby wasn't listening to her because he kept falling asleep.

[Arcane]

Rewards and Treasure! Experience Points +4 Investigation +2 Observation +1 Writing Lores Upside Down Thinking Animation: Unintentional Transfers Fault in Cutty's Programming Solution to Golem Diagnosis: Auristics Viewing Solution to Golem Diagnosis: Trial and Error Approach Horror of a Malfunctioning Golem Diagnosis of Cutty's Error: Sleepiness Miscellaneous None Comments Yep learning Animation without application would be theory, and that would be a Lore. It was painful to read the upheaval of emotions from Tock - but it is the good kind of pain, since your writing caused me to be somewhat emotionally invested in her tumultuous internal journey. Excellent portrayal of her feelings, and I applaud the weaving of an emotionally charged miniplot into what could have been just a dull diagnosis. Keep the good work up, your future is bright