A Serpent's Magic

[Sysylunryuu]

Winter 510, Day 54
Contents of the BackpackIt contains:1 Razor, Food for a week, a Waterskin, 100 mizas, a blanket, flint and steel, fishing tackle and hooks, and 100 feet of rope. All of this is stuff out of the starting package that I already had.
He'd left the training hall for a reason, and not just because of the growing crowd there. I'm leaving the desert Sysylunryuu thought, his scales scraping against the shifting sand Shasiva said something about a land of horseriding-people farther to the north, who kill no intelligent being, including Dhani...Maybe I could go there.Sysylunryuu shook his head in disgust with himself, temporarily stopping his trek toward the camp where he had first came in contact with humans. I wouldn't last a week in the open desert without supplies he thought, trying to think through it as he got closer and closer to the camp I'll need to figure out a way to carry supplies when I leave. I could never control a horse and I can't exactly joing a caravan, I would be slaughtered as if I were a snake.

Almost an hour later, Sysylunryuu arrived at the remains of the camp. Sand and time had all but eradicated the camp. All but a set of threadbare clothing, a backpack, and a single worn book had been blown away by the wind or buried by the ever moving sand, and the horse had presumably run off. What can I do to bring this with me? he wondered I better take whatever I can. The problem is, that isn't enough to keep me alive for a week, even if I do catch enough food to not starve. He shook his head in consternation, and pushed the set of clothing into a sort of nest around him to preserve heat, knowing the temperature would drop rapidly when night fell.

The next morning, he was leafing absently through the book, having propped it up, and was using his tail to flip each page. He was gradually starting to resign himself to not leaving the area, when he suddenly read a small footnote at the bottom of the page. It read "Animated creatures are mostly used for alarms or simple tasks such as lifting and carrying, however, more advanced creatures are capable of much more complicated tasks, such as...". The footnote went on to describe dozens of jobs for animated creations, but the beginning was the only part of interest for the dhani reading it. "Of courssse!" he shouted in snake-tongue, writhing joyfully among the desert plants "The backpack will work wonderfully! All I have to do is empty it out, give it a few sssimple commandsss like 'follow' and 'open' and it will work perfectly!". The snake man smiled and planned the entire thing out, realizing it would take at least a few days. After catching a small vole from a thicket nearby, he retired to the nest, already imagining his arrival in the grassy land nearby.

[Sysylunryuu]

The next morning, Sysylunryuu rose with the sun, stretching slowly as he slid out from his pile of clothes. Within minutes he remembered the plan and began to draw two circles, one larger than the other, in the sand, connecting them with a line in the sand. Slithering over to the backpack, he emptied it out before suddenly realizing something. The book had said something about senses...what had it been?

Before long the book was open and was being rapidly flipped through by an extremely worried snake. Within minutes he was staring at the page in disbelief. "An animated item can only do what it has been given senses for. If it has no eyes, it cannot see, and if it has no ears, it cannot hear. Gemstones or polished glass are usually used for eyes as..." Sysylunryuu was again stumped as to how to overcome this problem, and for almost an hour, simply sat there, stumped. Eventually, though, he had an idea. When emptying out the backpack, he had seen a small pile of gems fall out, and he immediately hurried over to the pile, selecting two particularly shiny ones to be his creature's eyes.

Thanks to a lot of effort and the razor that had been in the backpack, Sysylunryuu managed to create two slits in the back of the bag to hold each of the gemstones in place. When he had finally done this, it was already late afternoon, and he was tired. However, he drew up the circle again, creating a barrier of glyphs around it, and placed the empty backpack with it's gemstone eyes into the center of the second circle. Placing himself into the first, smaller circle, he came to the unpleasant part. Using the razor, he managed to get a tiny cut on his tail to bleed onto the circle, beginning the process. First, obedience Sysylunryuu thought decisively Then the commands, then the kill code. With that, he began to animate.

Conjuring up every bit of information about himself, the animator attempted to take the first step in animating the creature by creating the 'Soulcore' or the basis for the entire rest of the process. If something was going to go wrong thought Sysylunryuu grimly This would be the time for it

[Sysylunryuu]

Thankfully though, no unseen, unfelt hand descended from Ukalas to smite his attempt at a golem, and before long, the Soulcore had been created and the first sitting was over.

I suddenly see why there aren't more animated creatures around thought Sysylunryuu, panting as he curled up on the ground outside the circle The mental effort is enormous! Soon, though, he had carefully sipped a small amount of water from the water skin and was back in the circle. Obedience is doing whatever I say he thought, then struggled to recall and send every occurrence of obedience he had ever seen or heard. Images of smaller snakes cowering before a larger one, human heads bowing and turning, and Siku and Caiyha giving orders to writhing piles of snakes and dhani, their hands outstretched imperatively at their children. Before long, he was satisfied he had taught it all he could about obedience and orders.

Okay, the orders now he chose, nodding his serpentine head decisively, starting to focus on the first one. Following is going where I go, and this is what I will do when I want you to follow. He thought, transmitting a mental image of him flicking his tail forward smartly, then of snakes following snakes, people following people, and all manner of other types. In a few hours he was confident the backpack would be able to walk, and to follow him.

Moving on to stopping and opening now he said, and this time, the mental pictures were of him flitting his tail backward to stop, and flicking his tongue out 3 times in sharp succession to open it, with the memories to explain the motions and ideas.

By the time the sun was setting, he was nearly done. Just add a killcode as the book said and I'll be done he thought, mentally checking a box off a checklist. Here, he transmitted a picture of his tail smacking the ground twice in quick succession and an image of the backpack stopping, freezing in it's tracks, and being unfrozen by a third smack. This took almost an hour to adequately explain, and it was night when he felt the golem's programming was finally done. He put off activating it and shaping its astral body till the next morning, and returned to his nest of clothes and items, smiling as he imagined what the next day would hold.