True wisdom is borne of epic fail [Hadrian]

[Tarot]

"Let's just say Qiao is the one with both the authority and the inclination to terminate me should I fall short of my job requirements," Rela said uncomfortably, a little more civil now that Hadrian had been cleared from most of the guilt and had volunteered his help to clear Rela's name as well. "How do you even know his-- bah, doesn't matter, there are more urgent things to do here." The Nuit folded her arms across her chest and pondered her next actions. "This recording and your witness should be enough to avoid the worst Qiao has to offer, but he certainly won't be content with just that. We need to…" There was a soft clicking sound. The doll was still playing out sounds, but this part seemed to have been added on top of the existing recording, overriding the previous sounds. The sea could not be heard anymore, and instead a female voice, calm and regular, spoke in a clear voice. "Greetings, Master Rela Azhuravis Iuseana," said the voice, and the Nuit became instantly rigid and tense. "This can't be…" she murmured, apparently recognizing the voice and its owner. Meanwhile, the recording continued on a similar tone. "Knowing your behavior patterns, the likelihood that it is you listening to this recording within stall 9B in warehouse number 7 exceeds 98%. That is where you keep your listening doll, after all, and you are not the type to wait till you are back in the Citadel. Yes, I am the one who sabotaged this golem. And I only did it to lure you here." Rela turned towards Hadrian. "It's a trap!" she backstepped and turned around to make a sprint for the exit with a certain amount of sluggishness that all Nuit seemed to share when in a pinch. The female voice sounded slightly amused as she pronounced the final words. "Checkmate, Master Rela. Sincerely yours, Drainira." It appeared to be some kind of trigger phrase, for two of the Peacekeeper golems in the warehouse suddenly came back online and wheeled forward, blocking the exit with their cylindrical pedestal-mounted mass. The glyphs on their surface began to glow lightly as they aimed at Rela - though Hadrian was truly close by - and the steadily increasing pitch of the familiar buzzing sound indicated a magical reaction being charged. The fail was truly piling up today.

[Hadrian]

Lesson Number One: All was not as it might seem. Lesson Number One (Addendum): Apparent ignorance might be safer than apparent knowledge. Hadrian was going to have to just keep his mouth shut and listen about some things, apparently. Isikais had mentioned the names of the Council of Five when Hadrian pressed for more information about Sahova to prepare for his trip. There hadn't been any particularly juicy information shared, but perhaps he should keep his mouth shut on that score so as not to get Isikais in trouble. At first it seemed that things were turning up. The golem's magic box corroborated his own story, which had been truth so far as he was concerned. But just as he began to relax a bit, the golem started talking crazy and Rela was the one to tense up in fear. Whatever caused a Nuit to fear must be fearsome indeed. "Drainira?" he asked without thinking, and then his indifferent ally was fleeing for the door. Blinking after her, the words of the golem sinking in, he saw the Peacekeepers activate and he very nearly wet himself. He had already seen those things in action. He was quick enough to realize that they were after Rela, and the farther from her he was, the less likely he was to become collateral damage. Perhaps it was faithless to desert her, but not five minutes previous, she had been plotting all sorts of evils to inflict upon him, so he didn't feel too bad diving in the opposite direction. In fact, Hadrian felt little at all except that single-pointed focus that came with adrenaline. Fight or flight. Or hide, the which he tried to do, seeking cover. His roll was clumsy and inexpert, and when that adrenaline wore off, his shoulder was going to smart like a bitch. But for now, he came up with a blink, his auristics adding another layer of information to what his eyes picked up. There was no telling if they would detect anything to help him out of this predicament, but it was the best he could do. His meager skills with reimancy were not likely to save him in this particular situation. Lesson Number Two: Do not get caught up in the fail of others. If only he could follow that one!

[Tarot]

The plan set in motion to assassinate Rela was flawless and driven by supreme logic and cunning. In the absence of any external forces, it was bound to succeed. Hadrian had been given a chance to be one such external force by fate itself, but, driven by absolute self-preservation, he chose not to take it. And so, the plan concocted by this mysterious Drainira was carried out without a glitch. Powerful fiery beams shot out of the glyphs upon the Peacekeepers and hit the Nuit squarely in the chest. She had been a good Animator and Morpher, but no good at Shielding, Projection or Flux; her defenses were minimal. Obviously, the mastermind behind this must have known it. The beams hissed past Hadrian and merely singed his clothing. Rela's decaying body was nearly pierced by the raging flames, and she fell down, shrieking. The golems kept on firing some more, hitting and blowing up the listening doll - conveniently removing all evidence of what had just happened. Finally, they aimed at each other and opened fire for the last time, exploding in a shower of splinters and metallic shrapnel. Smoke filled the warehouse. All went silent in the warehouse. Hadrian could finally stand and take a good look at all the destruction around him. Rela's cold fingers grabbed his ankle with the remnants of her fading strength. She stared up at him and Hadrian learned what the dying gaze of a Nuit was like - detached and merciless. She murmured a few words in the ancient tongue. "I curse you… now and forever… you and your progeny… a curse upon you all." And with that, the old Nuit stopped moving, which was the only indication to the fact she had died. Her chest was stained with the white ichor of her race, and the acrid smell of charred flesh was overwhelming around her.

[Hadrian]

"But it's not my fault!" he whined, instantly cursing himself for how pathetic he sounded. But he supposed that curses weren't always just. Shuddering, he made a sign to ward off the evil eye and curses, an old, possibly superstitious tradition, but he was not one to disdain something merely because his more high-minded colleagues thought it silly. Until proven otherwise, he would consider that such things might actually work. The shuddering didn't cease, and he had to bite down hard on his tongue to distract himself from his sudden nausea. Rela was dead, her curse upon him the last action of her probably ignoble life. Her recording device was destroyed. The golems were shrapnel. That part of him that was cold and calm and ultimately self-preserving took over, and he started jerkily toward the exit. If Drainira wanted Rela dead and destroyed evidence of her tampering in the deal, it was likely she wouldn't bat an eyelash -- did she have eyelashes? -- at snuffing out Hadrian's young life. But to whom could he turn? Lector Qiao? Zarik Mashaen? Or perhaps he should simply continue on to the Citadel, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Or... "Drainira?" he asked the emptiness. It was worth a shot. Lesson Number Three: Do not return to Sahova until an archwizard.

[Tarot]

Nothing happened for the next few moments. Then, the warehouse's door was slid open by a large metallic hand. Hadrian found himself face-to-face with yet another golem, though this time it was one of an entirely different caliber. Not every golem made on Sahova was a cylindrical scrap of wood and metal - the undead really had it in them when they tried hard enough. It was just hard and expensive enough to make advanced golems that they did not do that unless it was absolutely necessary. This one was, apparently, worth the effort. It still looked utilitarian despite being largely anthropomorphic, with two arms and two legs and one head. It actually walked instead of just swiveling around like the rest. The body was a simplified version of a human's, with joints at the shoulder, elbow and wrist. The hand was merely a four-finger approximation of the real thing, but it could probably hold a small item without too much effort. The body was a mass of clockwork and gadgetry covered with a metallic chassis that still left quite a few open gaps, especially near the joints. The head had an imperfect neck joint, only capable of horizontal rotation, and resembled a dark metal mask with red gemstones for eyes and a round opening from which the voice was supposed to come. The golem stared at Hadrian for about two seconds, then at the destruction around him. Finally, it seemed to notice Rela's dead body. Its arm shot forward - an attack? No, the golem simply placed the hand against its chest in what looked like an imparted sign of respect for the deceased. "Creator fallen. All hail," it spoke in a metallic voice that smelled like wheels and gears. It stayed like that for about a minute - not that Hadrian could leave or anything, with the golem's burly frame blocking the only exit. Afterwards, the golem shifted to a normal standing position and focused on Hadrian once more. "I am the DOG - Docks Overseer Golem," it introduced itself, "I am normally kept in standby to lengthen my operational life, and only awaken to deal with an incoming crisis. I am a Tier II golem, meaning that my intelligence is second only to the Tier I Supervisors - Drainira, the Fallen One whose name you just called. I normally receive an activation signal whenever magic is unleashed around the Docks. This time, however, I was only activated by the death of a Master. It is possible that the signals have been tampered with." "I must place you under arrest until your position is cleared," the Overseer said. The day wasn't getting any better for Hadrian.

[Hadrian]

When Drainira did not respond, he could not logically decide anything. She might have been listening, or it might just have been a recording of her voice. He didn't know enough about golems and Animation to guess at the capabilities of such an advanced golem as the Supervisor of Sahova; all he knew was her legend as diffused throughout the rest of Mizahar. He was no longer surprised when a golem reacted to his presence or, more specifically, the wreckage that had accompanied his presence. Still, he wasn't sure that this had been his fault... To his mind, he hadn't done anything wrong, and yet he was getting caught up in things he didn't understand, which was likely why everyone and their mother had warned him not to come. He should have brought Isikais. The new golem was a marvel of gadgeteered clockwork, and he immediately invoked his Auristics for a better look at its goings-on while it mourned the death of Rela. He could only peek, noting the geometry of light flowing through the golem. Was that a flash of real mourning in its aura? No wonder it was said that the goddess Kihala frowned upon Animation. When he had imprinted as much of the pattern as he could to memory before the golem started speaking again, he banished his Sight. He would have to conserve his energies for what was to come. He sighed, suddenly weary, and nodded. "Well met, Overseer. I understand. I will come peacefully and answer your questions regarding the death of Master Rela." Looking around, he couldn't see anything to take as evidence of his innocence. In fact, he wondered if innocence were even a commodity of any worth in Sahova. Lector Qiao seemed to have undue power. Drainira, the Fallen One, was killing her wards. It was all very confusing, and Hadrian felt like a puppet, or a pawn on a chessboard with little understanding of who was moving him around. Going with the chessboard analogy, there were three options: be destroyed, weather the storm, or reach the far side of the board and gain great power. Though the first was the most likely, he could only hope for the last, praying silently both to Priskil that his hope not be in vain, and to Eyris, whom he considered his patroness, for the wisdom to come out of this alive and with greater understanding. As he prepared to follow the Overseer, he asked, "May I ask who will be questioning me?"

[Tarot]

The golem stepped back and freed the exit so that Hadrian was able to squeeze through the doorway. "Follow me, if you would," the Overseer said, the polite manner of address contrasting sharply with the monotone in which it was delivered. The walker set itself in motion towards a horseless wagon near the back of the port. "I do not possess enough data to answer that question," it answered, "judging by the seriousness of the incident I would presume that a member of the Council of Five may want to listen to you in person. Please answer their questions truthfully. The living have no official rights while on the island." This would become a common theme in Hadrian's stay on Sahova. The golem got on the wagon through a series of three wooden steps on the side made to facilitate access to its cumbersome form. It stood near the front, expecting Hadrian to seat himself in the back. It was possible that the Overseer might not be able to sit down due to its design. "Start," the golem spoke, and the wagon began moving, driven by an invisible force. It was obviously a golem just like the being that occupied it. The first few minutes of the ride were silent and uneventful as the vehicle left the port behind and set off to the Citadel. Finally, the Overseer spoke once more, not a limb or a scrap of metal moving. "That name you mentioned - Drainira - is not spoken lightly on Sahova anymore. You will have some explaining to do on that count." Hadrian could begin to see the strengths and weaknesses of the Overseer. It was intelligent enough to deduce facts and make judgments. Still, it couldn't have passed as a human - just as a very good golem. There was that dullness, the ignorance of a being that had never experienced life and had to make educated, but slightly off, guesses. It was, however, bright enough to recognize its own limitations, which put it in a different league from the simple automatons Hadrian had seen until now. Indeed, the Overseer was aware of its place in the world, and lacked the volition to desire more. "She is a golem that malfunctioned and failed. A golem is made for obedience. There is no use for a golem that will make up its own orders." Some more silence. "Master Rela had a part in my creation. Archwizard Mashaen did the overall design and gave me the ability for advanced analysis. Master Rela, like all of Mashaen's apprentices, would work on the simpler concepts. Teaching me the meaning of up and down, or why I cannot pass through a wall. Was Supervisor Drainira involved in the murder?"

[Hadrian]

Hadrian obediently kept pace with the Overseer. It seemed wise to have some sort of a protector, even if the protection came mostly from the threat of someone else's power rather than anything the protector themselves could do. The Communicator should have been able to correctly process him and send him safely up to the Citadel, but apparently Drainira had wanted it destroyed in order to entrap Rela. Rela herself should have been able to protect him somewhat as an apprentice of the archwizard, but Drainira had taken care of her too. And now this golem ... Hadrian still wasn't sure how to deal with them. From what he understood, they had a sort of artificially created soul. Kihala didn't like that men made creations in their own images, but how to treat the creations themselves? Hadrian's gut reaction was to treat them as he would a human being. After all, had not someone created his own soul? Just because it was some god or some demiurge, did that make him better than a golem? "The truth is my only chance at survival," he noted as he climbed into the golem-wagon. He watched the Overseer for clues and details when not taking in the changing scenery as they approached the Citadel. It had been a strange journey so far, so most of the stories about Sahova were likely true. "I didn't seek Drainira out," he assured the Overseer. "She seems to be behind the malfunctions of Master Rela's work." Though as he began to think again in the intervening silence, he wondered if that was all that set a golem apart from a man: self-determination. And he wondered how long it would be before more golems rebelled, if this was Kihala's revenge, or the tampering of Sagallius. "She was your mother," he blurted out when the Overseer kept speaking. It seemed overkill for a golem. Why would it continue to speak of Rela if it was not, in some sense, mourning. "I'm sorry. Yes, Drainira, or someone claiming to be Drainira left a message for Rela accompanied by a squad of Peacekeepers who self-destructed after killing her." He remembered her curse and, despite his own developing powers, he shivered.

[Tarot]

"Golems are not people," the Overseer said promptly, with all the certainty of pure dogma in its voice. This notion must have been etched early on in its creation. "People have mothers. I only have creators. Golems and people are different things and must never mix. Supervisor Drainira would call Archwizard Mashaen 'Father'. In the end, she nearly destroyed Sahova. It seems that she has not stopped trying yet, either." The scenery rolled around Hadrian as the wagon made haste towards an ancient citadel built against the rough mountain side of Sahova's extinct volcanoes. It had once been great, though its walls showed signs of battering now. It looked like the Nuit had retreated further into its recesses, leaving the outer shell more or less abandoned. The wagon made its way through an open portcullis and into a courtyard filled with statues mostly overtaken by rampant weeds. The vehicle stopped in front of a second portcullis which opened without any delay or command. This entrance was built into the rock, revealing that Sahova's outer buildings were little more than decoration in this era. The Citadel was very much like a glorified catacomb. The Overseer got off the wagon and instructed Hadrian to stay there and do not move until it returned. It was going to present his case to the Masters, as it sometimes did when strange events took place at the Docks. Until then, the man had no permission to enter the Citadel - especially not after the incidents that surrounded him. Minutes passed ever so slowly. Hadrian was as alone as a man could ever be. The statues in the courtyard bore silent witness to his wait. There had been plaques affirming their identities once, but they seemed buried underneath the weeds and foliage now. After what seemed like an eternity, the Overseer emerged from the darkness of the cavern and crossed the open portcullis. A figure walked casually by its side, dressed in a flowing red robe. He was a Nuit, one wearing an adult human body of Drykas ancestry. The man climbed the wagon and seated himself next to Hadrian while the Overseer stood a respectful distance away. The Nuit's mannerism was not rigid or forced. This one seemed to have seen his fair share of interactions with the living. He looked up at the sky and leaned back against the edge of the wagon. "It is a nice day, isn't it? A shame that we had to lose our Rela on a day like this." The man's head turned towards Hadrian with excruciating slowness and gave a faint smile. "You can call me Farke. I am in charge of Sahova's relations with the outside world. Meaning that I kill those amongst us who would leave Sahova without permission, and then I kill those outsiders who are found to be less than welcome on this island." The man's gaze reverted to the sky as he continued without looking at Hadrian. "So, what happened at the Docks? I hear Drainira was involved but you do not look like one of hers. You don't have that glint in your eyes. You know, that unshakable conviction that they are in the right just because they want to be. I wonder if that will be enough to save your life, though."

[Hadrian]

"Forgive me," he said politely to the golem whose psychology had begun to intrigue Hadrian all the more. In the quiet, he imagined what it would be like to start a colony of living wizards in the apparently abandoned buildings above ground, and having a working relationship with the dead below. It was sheer fancy, of course. Just when he was about to try to engage the Overseer in further conversation, they stopped and he was bidden wait there. As the time passed, he looked around, and considered getting out to look around a bit more closely at things, but instead he started poking around at the golem-wagon he road, trying to figure it out. He blinked, concentrating on his vision until it shifted up into a truer Vision, taking in the djed spectra, but while he saw interesting patterns of the energies, he couldn't make out anything useful. Perhaps if he had been an Animator himself, what he saw would have made sense, but as it was, he was usually much like a baby when looking with his augmented Sight. There was so much information passing through his eyes that he just stared at things, his mind likely recording what it saw, but with little understanding yet. He looked up to see the Overseer return with a dead Drykas of the Ruby Clan, or just a Nuit who liked red. His face remained schooled to calm; he had to be cool and collected to communicate with the Nuit. His aura looked similar in some strange way to Isikais', and to Rela's. It was as if the energy of his soul did not fit the shape that housed it, which only made sense. The Nuit's soul did not grow with its body, nor did they usually, from what he understood, spend all that much time in them. Expert embalmers they might be, but putting wear and tear on a body that no longer heals itself was fighting an uphill battle. "It has certainly been an interesting day, sir," he agreed, keeping his eyes averted as well once the Nuit was sitting next to him. "Well met, Master Farke. I am Hadrian Aelius, but I imagine you already know that. I understand... well, no... I understand your words, but I'm almost certain there are levels of meaning to everything said here that I don't have the context to truly understand, so I presume I will see every citizen of Sahova as one more person to whom I must prove my innocence or, at least, prove that there is no need to destroy me for what has happened." He took a breath. For a Nuit, it would be a bit of theatrics. For Hadrian, it was a necessity. Not long ago he had imagined being a power on Sahova, but reality returned and he was hoping that the truth as well as his wits might keep him alive on Sahova. "I debarked from my ship and was confronted by the Communicator per protocol as I understand it. When I asked for permission to enter or an escort to the Citadel, the Communicator suffered from some kind of cognitive malfunction due to some fatal logic error..." He was speaking in terms of rhetoric, little knowing how close that language mirrored the talk of Animators who created sophisticated golem minds. "A contingent of Peacekeepers destroyed it and, perhaps foolishly, I decided to continue on. My ship left, but I wasn't ready to leave. Master Rela stopped me on my ascent; she had some box from her Communicator she claimed would tell her what went wrong with it, whether I had anything to do with it. She seemed certain it was my fault. When we repaired to the warehouse, she worked the box for information, and... we heard the voice of Drainira. I could not tell you if she was somehow present or if it was a magical echo or recording of her voice, but she admitted to being behind the malfunctioning Communicator and claimed that Rela's behavior was predictable, and so she had a trap waiting for her there, too. More Peacekeepers. "She fled. I fled in the other direction. They took her down and then self-destructed. Drainira didn't say anything else. Then the Overseer came to collect me." He would have offered to philter a truth serum, but they would have suspected him. He sighed. All he had wanted was to learn, but what he was learning was that he was probably not capable of surviving on Sahova. Not yet.