Solo [Judgement Prep] Preparation is Key

[Pandaemus]

37th Fall, 513 A.V.
Workshop 23B, Gug Adjak

Sahova, Pandaemus came to find out soon after his arrival, was not a school of the magical arts. It was a dark, ever diligent workplace of research. The Nuits of the citadel had a diligence about their work that far surpassed the obsessed. For many, it was the entirety of who they were. Many a Nuit’s whole identity was found inside their lab. The dark, depressing place was a hub of intricate political strife, he saw from the few areas he had been permitted to in his visitor status.

Visitor status. That would all change soon. He would take his Judgement in three day’s time and either be raised to the lowly status of Apprentice, or else discarded. The undead heard the soft thump, thump, thump of his staff on the well worn stones of the Citadel halls as he set about revisiting the Workshop 23B. The ground floor was actually floor twenty, which made little sense to Pan. But he was not raised in the city, perhaps his ignorance stemmed from never visiting a building with more than three floors. Either way, Workshop 23B was five levels above the ground floor, and crowded with apprentices eager to prove themselves. For here on Sahova, it was success or death for an apprentice.

The Gug Adjak was the name of the towering pillar of tireless activity that represented the core of the research going on at Sahova. Floor after floor was crammed with large, though cramped, community laboratories and workshops. In each of these there were dozens of apprentices slaving away at magical rituals, gadgets to be animated, wonders to be crafted, and new and exciting creatures to force life into. The whole idea gave Pandaemus an aching in the pit of his stomach. How could he leave this treasure trove of knowledge if he failed his Judgement? He would rather stay here as a test subject rather than risk the roads of Mizahar as an undead. Pan glanced about suspiciously, face constantly being plunged into shadow and forced back into the grey light as he passed a line of high arching windows. He had better not think that particular thought ever again, lest someone read his mind.

The halls seemed a bit too narrow for his liking, having spent most of his life-all of his life, in inns and tents. Never had he set foot in a castle, let alone one of the most infamous structures in all of Mizahar. His fear had ebbed a bit, but his excitement had kept growing. It was a rush to watch so many work on such interesting things and his body was charged with anticipation for his own chance to work. He slid past a pair of Nuits conversing in hushed voices on his way up a staircase to the twenty-third floor. They seemed old, though there was no real way to tell a nuit’s age. Pandaemus’ eyes had slowly been opened up the the subtleties of his new race. If they looked at him in distain, they were relatively young. If they completely ignored his existence, they were older. When these two aged corpses walked briskly past him, it was like he became the slime covering the dark stones of the wall. He was nothing to them.

He heard a rustling as he approached 23B and moved again out of the way for a figure that came bolting out of the rough iron and thick wood doorframe. The smell of sweat accosted him as he watched the man thrust a piece of parchment out in front of him. He did not even glance at Pandaemus before running off down the way the flustered nuit had come. Sweat, a pulser.

Pulsers were, as far as Pan could tell, the few insane living people who chose to make a life on Sahova. Gods only know why any of them would. Even if their thirst for power was that great, he could see no way to survive in such hostility and blatant disregard for everything with a heart beat. He was glad he was dead and didn’t have to worry about living conditions. His small room was enough for him, considering he no longer needed sleep.

Sawdust and the tang of metals erupted into his mind as he entered the bustling workshop. Nuits and Pulsers alike bent over workbenches or knelt beside some construct. None had eyes for Pan. In fact, he had rarely been given the time of day here on Sahova. The undead newcomer thought ruefully to himself, that most likely won’t change for quite some time. In the far corner a stone faced Nuit sat in a simple chair with all the confidence of an emperor on his solid gold throne. Splayed out in front of him, atop a huge desk, were what looked to Pandaemus’s dead eyes to be ancient texts, and construct designs new and old. This was the Master of Workshop 23B, and for all intensive purposes, god in this room. And he reigned with a silent, unforgiving hand. Pan had never actually met the nuit, but saw how how apprentices interacted with him. He had, to date, completely ignored Pandaemus’ existence.

[Pandaemus]

The nuit was glad he no longer had the drawbacks of needing to sustain life. It clearly set the pulsers back here. Where a nuit apprentice could simply continue working, a living apprentice needed some sort of nourishment, as well as sleep. And the power that be here in Sahova were far down the path of immortality to appreciate such needs. It was like a machine itself, the citadel. Each tireless nuit was a different cog in the workings. It did not tolerate weakness, not did it condone laziness. This was a place for the zealously ambitious. Pandaemus had better get to work.

He moved toward a small desk that had been set aside for him with much complaining and acidic looks from the other apprentices. All of them had their own desks, but despised the idea of more competition. The desk was littered with a few pieces of parchment and a quill. Most of his work until then was represented in crumpled pieces of parchment in the corner of the desk. He replaced the candle in the low, earth dish with and lit it with a few strokes of his flint and steel. He needed more light, as he was not graced with a window nearby and the cloudy weather spitefully denied him the light of the sun.

What to make, what to make? He needed an idea before the judgement, which was only a few days away. Petch, he needed more than an idea by then. He needed an idea right now! He moved his gaze fervently around the room. He needed something utilitarian, something original. He needed to show the judges, all masters in their given art, that he would be useful. Men and women strained with tools on constructs, bent over desks with parchment and quill, and a few even drew circles on the ground for animation.

He had never made a golem before, but had assisted in many… similar projects with his former master. His mind took him far away, riding memory across the world to Ravok. A rainy day and Pan had been still alive. He slumped over a carefully drawn circle in the muddy dirt, arranging the decrepit body of a man. Meanwhile his master was nearby, readying himself for the animation. It was different in Sahova. They did not use corpses as far as he could see.

He did not have the skill to make a golem that could read or write. That was a level of intricacy he could only dream of as of yet. And making the shell of a golem was a complex process that he could not replicate with his current skill as well. But drawing animation circles? Perhaps that was within his grasp. Setting quill to parchment, he searched his memory for the fundamentals of animation. The directives, the soul core, and the shell. The laws that the makeshift mind of a construct abides by are the definitive portion of it’s functionality. He began to scribble down the directives he thought would be needed. He had to be careful not to over reach his ability here. Too many directives could end in failure at his level.

1) Obedience: Carry out all following directives when issued orders.
2) Survival: Avoid larger Golems, Pulsers, and units when not being issued orders.
3) Execution of directive 1. (The completion of two simple animation circles and a connecting line)
4) Follow and Stop.

The paper held within it the simple framework of his ambition, though did not seem wildly out of reach. But Pan was nervous when he stared down at the list. Such complexities would be a gamble for his skills. Would he be able to animate this thing when the time came? Would he be able to concentrate with all the undead eyes upon him? Care needed to be taken in this pivotal stage of his judgement. A careful tread was probably going to become the norm here on the isle of death.

He had heard whispers of apprentices gone missing, or simply being killed. The nuit masters would cast out failed alchemy and animation experiments into the Testing Grounds to be slain by the wardens, or else forgotten until they spring up to devour an unsuspecting apprentice. Such an end was not a fate the Nuit desired for himself. He foresaw a long and interesting sentience of exciting new discoveries and wildly thrilling power. After just a few weeks exposed to the inhabitants of Sahova he could feel the thirst for power beginning to take root deep in his soul.

What could the dead look forward to, except the acquisition of power. As a living, breathing boy he had simply dreamt of freedom from Thanadoros. A life of love, perhaps with children? He had seen the warriors of Ravok and the Wave Guard of Zeltiva. He had eyed them with envy and a begrudging respect. They lived a life not dependent on others, they had been people of personal strength. Pandaemus had dreamt of personal strength when his heart still beat. But now he was dead, a monstrosity to the mundane mind. Uldr was his patron, and he would have to find another route to the personal strength he had dreamt of. There would be no swinging of swords or wooing of maidens for this decrepit soul. He would walk the dark path of undead immortality and be thankful he still had his mind and memories. He would not find his destiny in the light, but grasp at it in the dark shadows of the world, where decent folk did not stride.

It was a thrill. The rush of toying with loosing one’s grip on his own morals was akin to standing atop a cliff, looking down on black waters. What had he accomplished to date? Nothing. What could he accomplish in the future, without the obstacles of common Mizaharian society. Well, that was an entirely different, and enticing, idea. He had watched in as students attended the university in Zeltiva. He had thought that could be the key to power, but it was just a shallow husk of what it could have been. It could have been Sahova. Where Zeltiva held a wooden stick out to you and spoke of the art of swordsmanship, Sahova threw you into a fighting pit with a dagger. You were either weak or you grew to become too powerful to fail. Pandaemus did not intend to fail.

Once the nuit had shook himself from his reverie, he became aware that the first step of his project was finished. He had a concept to work with! For many craftsmen, the idea was the hardest aspect to acquire. Once you had an idea, it was simply diligence and determination until success. But the mind’s hunt for inspiration was what made it a work of art rather than just another laborious task.

[Pandaemus]

Workshop 23B pressed on through it’s various projects. They were none the wiser about his breakthrough and he was confident none of them would have cared much for it anyway. Pandaemus rose from his battered and burned desk ready to start gathering materials. He needed a shell to house the soulcore of his construct. The Apprentices around him shuffled past him as if he was nothing more than a half finished construct, a soulless obstacle in their way. The Nuit wanted to ask one of them if there were any spare parts he could look through. But when presented with the moment of social opportunity, Pandaemus felt the words stop in his cold, dead throat.

It was one thing to be determined and ambitious in one’s own head, but to carry that into the Sahovan life was hard. When men and women died for their dreams on a weekly basis here, and so many of them seemed better qualified to survive than he, intimidation set into his soul. A distraction from their work might lead to confrontation and expulsion from the lab? Did an apprentice have the right to exile him from the workspace if senior Nuits already told him he could use this space for his Judgement preparations? It was a risk of the job, he concluded.

Pandaemus spent a few minutes roaming the workshop. He was not quite sure what he was looking for. Perhaps a timid looking apprentice? Perhaps an unguarded store of parts? He would know it when he saw it. But the nuit wandered around the workshop three times before realizing there were no timid looking apprentices here. And there was always someone hard at work with the tools at hand. He wondered if all of the Gug Adjak was like this at all times? Was this the life he could look forward to? Most likely.

But he had heard rumor that the master of Workshop 23B was looking to promote an apprentice and that could have something to do with these peons’ peerless work ethic. Pan would see apprentices stride briskly up to the Nuit’s desk and present their projects, or else diagrams or notes, with the electric energy of a person on the cusp of astounding origination. The timidly naive nuit decided it was time to step his game up. Boldness outdrew braininess for now.

He strode confidently up to the nearest apprentice. A pale female hunched over a nearby construct, attempting to screw a bolt into a metal plate with a rusted wrench and two rotten hands. He coughed to get her attention. It did not work. “Excuse me. Apprentice, might you know where there are any spare parts or pieces I might be able to use?” He asked, trying to only look at her for as long as he needed.

The nuit shot to her feet and spun to look at him. For a fleeting moment her eyes bore the respectful submissiveness of a inferior, but then anger flashed where nothing had been. “You aren’t one of the senior apprentices.” She said simply. Her mannerisms did not hint at a feminine persona. She actually seemed quite rigid, as if she had forgotten in her expansive state of decay what it was like to relax.

It was inescapably not a question. He was quick to respond before she thought him not worthy of her precious attention. “The master said I could use any of the resources here in 23B. Where can I find parts for my shell?” He was not quite sure he had approached the prime apprentice for his inquiry. This particular individual seemed singularly enraged by her inability to tighten that bolt. And Pan was no detective, but it looked as if she was about to take her anger out on the poor cadaver.

“What on this petching planet makes you think I have the time to guide a babe like you through your judgement? Hmm?” She raised a cold hand and pointed one jagged finger in his direction. Her anger seemed to gain a physical presence and sap the heat out of the air. It made him shiver subconsciously as he tried to avoid a confrontation.

“I-”

“You think out of all the people in here, I have the time to spare to help you? Get your idiotic head out of my face.” She demanded before squatting down in front of her project once again. He did not know what made him take the action he next pursued. It was not wise, and it would not gain him anything in return. Perhaps he still bore the youthful angst of a human male recently turned to adulthood. Or perhaps he took offense to being called an idiot. But either way his right mind would never condone the words he next breathed.

“Well you had time to yell at me about nothing, so clearly your time isn’t worth much.” And before he had finished his heart skipped a beat. He wasn’t the confrontational type, really. He had never, in all his years with Thanadoros, ever had a good reason to create confrontation. The cons would always outweigh the pros, and it leeched over into every other aspect of his life. It crippled him socially and he had never made any real friends. Perhaps his new slightly elevated status as an undead had rubbed off on his confidence.

The people immediately around them all stopped and looked back at him. Every gaze was positively gleefully scouring the idiot who had spoken back to the female apprentice. She apparently had a reputation for a temper. For her part, the nuit seemed to act accordingly. The best he could say about the onslaught of curses and threats was that it did not extend to a physical walloping. He might not recover from the shame of being beaten in the public place he had been preparing for so long in. His retreat was fast and without much regard for what lay around him. Someday he may be a wizard who demanded respect, but today he was a chicken to her fox.

“Hey, you.” The apprentice who beckoned him over was another female, though this time a wildly blonde Svefran girl with a happy circular face and thin frame. Her wide eyes shone bright with mirth and her thin mouth twitched in a half hidden smile. “Come over here.” She beckoned with a pale hand. Her words held the practiced authority that came from years of experience and comfort. This girl must be a senior apprentice, or at least must have been here a while.

Pandaemus approached her, this time his confidence was sapped and he merely didn’t want another agitated apprentice to pop her lid at him again. She sat in a wooden chair, leaning over the back to look at him. Her desk was lit by a stout green handle and the light danced across her work. Parchment lay scattered across the wooden space with designs of ambitious looking golem and wildly intricate animation circle blueprints. Stuff far beyond his basic understanding of the subject.

“You want parts?” She asked simply. Her laughter had all but died and now she was boring her eyes into him. He felt the familiar feeling of being judged, but this time it was subtly different. She was not just discarding him as inferior, she was seeing if he was worth helping. He tried to look like he was deserving of her help, but in all probability just looked nervous and slightly depressed. He did not want to beg.

“Yes, I need some things for my Judgement.” He explained to her. He went on to explain what he was doing and what he thought he might need. She listened patiently to his ramblings for a moment before coughing politely. His voice caught in his throat and he looked down at her confusedly. Was she already bored of him? Did she too believe him not worth her time?

“It would be easier if you showed me your sketches.” Her voice was patient and she even smiled a bit when she spoke the words. Her hand appeared and small fingers wiggled expectantly. Sketches. He did not have any sketches. And once that fact sunk in his embarrassment became hard to bear. He simply stared at her hand in dumbfounded amazement. Oh, the idiocy! He would not last here!

“I…I don’t have any sketches drawn up. I was going to see what I had to work with and then…go from there.” He trailed off lamely. His words seemed to hold all the elements of a idiot’s excuse. An amateur dancing around the feet of masters. He was going to get stepped on if he didn’t wise up.

She looked at him with her head cocked to the side, lips upturned in the kind of smile that hides surprise rather than amusement. “You don’t have any drawings of your model?” She rubbed a finger across her lips in thought. “How are you supposed to know what you need if you don’t…know what you are using?” She asked. The question did not seem the type that needed a response, more just to point out once again the idiocy of his mistake. “Come back to me when you’ve got a drawing.” She ordered. And with those last, powerful words, she spun back around and continued her work as if he has never been there.

He retreated like a wounded animal. If he still had blood to flow through his disgusting, dead veins it would be burning his face. Upon reseating himself at his own desk he felt a sudden relief. Good, he was back where he belonged and not embarrassing himself any longer. Well not for now.

The nuit refused to let himself glance around at the other apprentices hard at work. He could not let his own insecurities thwart his plans for greatness here at this crucial nexus in his existence. He dipped the nearby raven feathered quill into an equally obsidian inkwell and began his planning. In earnest this time.

[Pandaemus]

His thoughts were scattered and frantic with the rush of hostile social chaos that had hit him moments before. He delicately set quill to parchment before realizing he hadn’t really thought about a starting idea. Such fine parchment was far to valuable to waste space on idiotic mistakes, so the undead youth quickly lifted the raven feather quill from the surface. Black ink was a grim wound upon the face of the rough parchment. But only a small one.

Okay, I need some sort of transportation. Something to make the construct move. He glanced around the room, not wanted to spend time finding his own inspiration, but look and deduce what worked from other’s craftings. There were two constructs that had some sort of rudimentary legs, and both were eerily close to the master’s desk. He was sure they were the product of senior apprentices perhaps, but more likely a wizard doing a joint project with the master. More than likely they were only here for review. He needed something simpler, something easy.

The answer was not exactly a mystery. In reality most of the golems on sahova, or at least the common mobile ones, utilized a set of wheels are their mode of transport. He looked around at the other, less skillfully constructed automatons, and found that mostly they all had at least three wheels. He glanced down at his parchment and began to work. After three blotched attempts and a failed piece of parchment later he had a side and bottom view of a square piece of wood with four wheels attached with small iron nails in each corner of the plank. It was not much to say the least, and it was simply adequate to say the most.

But it was there, on the paper. And that was his first step. Okay now he needed some form of mechanism that could draw the circles. What could he use. Pan stared at the parchment for a long while, trying to hunt down some hidden genius within himself that remained masterfully illusive. What could a golem use to hold the chalk for a magic circle? Well, what do most people use? An arm, of course. Pan reached up and ran his fingers through his hair. The sensation was surprisingly odd. It was a mimicry of what it had been in life, but only just.

He was often struck by the simple, yet powerful, differences between what he had been, and the thing he was now. He did not sleep, but still experienced the inexplicable mental need for it, causing havoc within his mind. He still experienced emotion, but was finding it harder and harder to grasp the concepts of empathy and even more so sympathy. They were like water running through his fingers. There but fast draining to the dirt. He would have to write down some remembrance of the thrill of quaking emotions that meant he still retained some bit of life within him. The fact that the thought even stuck him was almost the saddest thing he had ever experienced. Pandaemus noted the morose reflection, then bent back to his work.

The arm. It would not be as complex as the humanoid arm, since it’s purpose was much simpler. It would have to lift the chalk off the ground, and then return it to the ground. So where to start. Perhaps some sort of simple rod attached to the base, a base he had not drawn up yet, and lowered via… a bolt through the and and into the base. This would only work if the base’s surface ran perpendicular to the ground. But that was no difficult feat. He sketched in a simple block for a base that would fit on top of the wheel rig. He did not make specifics for the block because he thought he could only use what he could find anyway. There was no need to be picky.

Pandaemus picked a new piece of parchment out and laid in neatly next to the first. Careful not to blotch the ink, he traced the ebon lines of his makeshift arm. A pole of some sort, and a long nail to bolt it to the base. Nothing to hard to perform. He was decently satisfied with the work. He carefully make another sketch of all three major parts connected as they would be in real life and began making his crafting notes and heights and lengths.

He carefully looked over the pages again afterwards and scrutinized his own work. He learned quickly with Thanadoros that Pan would have to be the hardest critic of his own work, or else the wizard would do it. And that sort of criticism often caused lingering pain for the boy. Memory flashed in his mind’s eye. The memory seemed to be stronger now in his undeath than before in his life. Less distraction from the dark shadows of his past.

He was suddenly fifteen again and had painstakingly written out the circles for Thanadoros’ summoning. It was dark in their old hut, and the window let in a sliver of the breeze, causing a high pitched whine. The real events blurred in his mind, though the repercussions of his mistake were vivid still. A flame across his hand and thick, vile words in his ears.

Whenever the old nuit had spit his venomous threats at him it had been in the ancient language. Some of his first lessons in the language were with his hand over a candle and the nuit’s black tongue near his ear. But the old cadaver was not nothing more than a corpse where once he had been a bit more.

Pandaemus shook his head to rid his mind of it’s dark reverie. The old kook was dead now, really dead! Pan had hated him all his life, and now was eerily close to walking down the same path his master had walked. That single thought made him hate himself more than anything Thanadoros had ever said to him. He was truly doomed to the same cold fate as the ancient corpse. …No, I am my own man. The choices I make will define me, not the ghosts of my past. Pandaemus had found he was convincing himself of this far too often of late.

The nuit gazed back down at his meager designs and stood to return to the Inartan apprentice. Hopefully she would be pleased with his work. But if she wasn’t he would just seek other means of acquiring his much needed materials. He walked his designs over to the Svefran woman, stopping behind her. He tried to cough to get her attention, but the sound was something hideous and surprising to him. How did a corpse with no breath cough? Like the death wheeze of a crocodile apparently. She turned with a troubled look on her face.

“Oh, hey Shrimp. What do ya got for me?” Her face held a warmth and a liveliness he had come to appreciate in the presence of so many cadavers. But it wasn’t the sort of warmth that is inviting, more of the scorching of a sun. He ignored the ignominious nickname and handed over his papers. “I’ve drawn up my initial ideas. What do you think?” He asked. The hesitation in his voice was obvious. He wasn’t sure he was prepared for another onslaught of mortifying criticism. The girl bent over the drawings, pulling her squat little candle closer without looking up.
“Hmm…”

[Pandaemus]

“Not bad for a beginner. Really…” She said, upon seeing the disheartened look in his eyes. “You are just missing a few vital details. Also, I really think you should use bigger wheels here.” She pointed a pink finger at the small circles he had designated ‘wheels’. He had specified inch radius wheels since he thought such small ones would be common and easy to acquire. “Perhaps make the wheels two inches in radius… you need something that can handle some of the old, rougher cobbles of the citadel.”

“Ah, and you said something about vital details?” Pandaemus asked lightly. His eyebrows went up as he gazed over her delicate shoulder at the drawings he had made. Arm, base, transport. What else did he need? Hopefully is was no glaring detail that would point him out as an obvious novice-

“You’re missing something for it to see what it’s doing, or for that matter a mechanism to hear your commands.” She stated matter-of-factly. Pan almost punched himself. Indeed those were obvious details! She motioned for him to approach and he stepped up next to her and bent to one knee. “See you need some sort of thin leather attached, probably to your base here, as a way for it to hear your commands. Really that won't be difficult.” She said, making a small note on the top of the base on his design in curling feminine letters.

It would not be hard. The nuit’s shoulders softened a bit and he eyed the girl expectantly. He was eager for her help now. She was not berating him nor assailing his intellect. A few months ago this would simply mean she was a polite person, here on Sahova is was a wonder to be remembered and reimbursed eventually. Someday, if he was an apprentice, he would have to pay this redhead back for her help. But today was not the day! “What sort of thing would I need for sight?” He asked apprehensively. He had never delved into such mechanics. Thanadoros’ experiments always involved more… biological subjects.

She tapped her brown and black falcon feather quill against her desk in what appeared to be a typical manner, judging by the blotched and faded ink in that exact spot on the worn wood. “Well… It’s always reflective. Glass, or jewels will work too. For your needs I’d say a few choice pieces of glass in the right spots. We’ve got lenses and leather sockets you can mount on your base. Maybe three of those would do nicely.” The girl assured him, her voice’s normalcy was comforting to his undead ears. She neither connived or plotted here. This was simply one craftswoman speaking to a craftsman about work. Hew hadn’t realized how used to the insidiousness he had become. A month and a half of Sahova had changed him in ways he had not thought possible.

“So is that it?” His words came out sounding a bit too eager for him. He did not want her to think him incapable or inapt.

She grunted and waved the parchment in front of him. “The parts you need are over there, in the wooden boxes behind that big golem with all the glyphs all over it… the metal one.” She stood for the first time and pointed across the room, closing one eye and sticking out a pink tongue. “Should have everything you need.”

“Thanks-” He said attempting to take the drawings back from her. She ripped them back out of his hand and scrutinized them more closely. “Hang on, Shrimp! Where is your gripper?” She asked in a bewildered tone.

Gripper? He had no idea what she was talking about. “My what?” He said, voice shifting with questioning. Was this some term he did not know, a common aspect of animation?

“How’s the golem going to hold your chalk so it can draw?” She asked him, knowing full well he had clearly overlooked yet another integral part of his design. Her red little caterpillar of an eyebrow danced upwards on her pale forehead.

“Petch.” The nuit muttered before he could stop himself. He had simply had enough self disappointment.

She laughed and the sound seemed so foreign in the dank workshop. Mostly the laughter in here was at someone’s expense, rather than the hearty warmth that now sounded from her lips. She did not make him feel like an idiot with it either. The sound actually lightened his mood a bit.

Turning around and sitting in the wooden chair once more, she armed herself with her falcon quill again. “Let’s see,” she began to scribble something on the parchment, but he could not see what. “That should do it. It will need you to replace the chalk once in a while, obviously, but should work well for what you want.” Her voice was light and happy.

Pandaemus took the parchment and looked down at what she had drawn. Her work, though quicker and seeming without as much thought, was far more beautifully drawn. Though it was only a leather strap nailed into the end of the arm mechanism and complete with a brass buckle, it was a very nice leather strap and buckle. “Thank you, apprentice. I’m grateful for your help and am in your debt.” Pandaemus said, and his voice reflected the sincerity of the words.

“Careful with debts in Sahova. They have a way of biting you in the arse when you least expect it.” The warning came out quickly and bitterly. It was far more serious than he would have expected. The girl flashed a smile and returned to her work. Pan was left with his drawings and a feeling that he had overstepped a certain boundary. Who had caused her so much bitterness? Truly, it was not hard to believe. Sahova was a place for the cold, and it helped to have a dead heart.

He looked around and spotted the huge cumbersome golem she had pointed out. As he wove between the various projects and apprentices, he finally felt good about this judgement for the first time. He was going to make it.

[Pandaemus]

After a failed attempt to move the huge metallic golem, Pan simple climbed around it and found in three wooden boxes of pieces all covered in dust and cobwebs. He brushed the grime off the boxes with disgust, face contorted. Clearly people did not find a use for this stuff too often. Hopefully he would find what he needed in here.

He lifted the thin wooden lids off of every crate and set them aside. The initial jumble of pieces in the crates seemed chaotic to his but upon further digging he found they were reasonably well sorted. One crate carried the mobility pieces, mostly all wheels of various sizes, attached to panels that could be nailed into something. Mixed in with the wheels were cheap glass pieced lenses all complete with leather sockets that could also be nailed in or attached to straps, and thin sheets of leather to be made into the hearing devices. He presumed that was all that was in the crate, because it was all he could find.

The next wooden box was home to many and varied pieces of wood and metal all jumbled together. Clearing these were parts to construct a shell. And the third held various nails, screws, small hammers and other tools to construct rudimentary golems with. Pandaemus eagerly set upon the boxes. First he found four identical wheels and quickly grabbed a sheet of thin leather. He did not know what size or how many lenses he should have so he decided to grab the first three he could find and then his arms were full.

The nuit, eager to get started and not wanting to make a return trip, placed the parchment with his designs in his mouth and clenched down on their corner with his lifeless lips. He reached into the middle box again and found a decent sized wooden block, a rectangular thing that could very well serve as the base. His arms were full and he had not the capacity to gather more supplies. The nuit made his way back to his desk quickly and dropped everything there unceremoniously. Then he carefully placed the parchment on the desk next to his scraps and returned to the boxes.

He found the rest of his required gear quickly and left, not forgetting the small iron hammer he had found in the previous trip. At the desk he began his hasty work. The first thing he did was turn his base upside down, which really didn’t matter since the thing was simply a rectangular block of polished oak. He measured out the exact center and then placed his wheel base on top of it. The edges of the wheel base were merely centimeters wider that the regular base. That could work. The wizard took the wheel panel, a slightly darker shade of wood and not as fine as the base, and placed it on a hastily cleared portion of the old desk.

Pan carefully lined all the wheels up in the four corners of the panel and picked up the hammer. It was a tiny, simple thing. The wrought iron end was thin but opened up into a small flat head dented with thousands of impacts over the years. The handle was wrapped in cheap leather. He found a few nails that looked about the right size and began to hammer them in gently. Pandaemus had never really used a hammer. He knew how it was used, or thought so, but he hadn’t actually practiced the mundane art more than twice or thrice in his short life, or even shorter unlife.

That being said, it was harder than he thought. He hit his fingers half a dozen times and in one spot cracked the edge of the wood a bit, but it would suffice. After hammering in all the wheels he attempted to turn the panel over. As his finger grasped the grained wood and flipped it, all the carefully attached wheels fell from it and scattered onto the desktop and cobbled floor of Workshop 23B. Pan stared, dumbfounded. What the patch had happened?

The nuit picked up one of the wheel and carefully placed it over the hair he had hammered in. The head of the nail was now, obviously, too thin for the holes in the wheel bracket. He would have to pull all the nails out and start over with wider ones… Pan growled and slammed a dead fist down on dead wood. It would have bruised the fleshy bottom of his hand if blood still flowed through his cursed veins. But it didn’t and he was just left with the lingering memory of a flash of dull pain. He rummaged at his leather belt for a moment before finding his eating knife. It was not remarkably long, nor remarkably sharp. In all actuality it was not remarkable in any way. The cheap iron and nailed wood was a simply design with only passingly adequate craftsmanship. But now that the nuit no longer needed to eat, he no longer needed to use the knife for meals. He began to painstakingly pick away at the thin nails. Inching each of them out fraction by fraction so he could replace them.

Finally, thirty minutes later, he had finished and was back where he started. He looked around. The workshop had become less active over the chimes he had been pouring over his work. People were now either at their desks writing, or else not in the lab at all. Almost no one was working on the floor, where all the construction and animation took place. Upon further scrutiny, Pandaemus found what he expected to be the reason why. The master of the community workshop, and the one who decided whom to promote, had left for some business elsewhere in the citadel. So their work ethic faltered when their fearless leader was not there to watch over them. How typical. Pandaemus could not blame them though, he was the same way with the crazed Thanadoros.

Pan could not afford such luxuries at the time though. He had an objective to complete, and an ever looming deadline.

[Pandaemus]

The new nails fit nicely as Pandaemus carefully hammered the last of them in and flipped the panel back over. He rolled it across his desk experimentally and was satisfied with it’s ability to roll back and forth. Pan examined it more closely and pressed his hand lightly down on the center of the panel. He didn’t want the thing to be too weak to carry the weight of the rest of the body. The rough wood of the panel seemed to hold up nicely, unyielding against the pressure of his arm.

The nuit leaned back and stretched. His small wooden chair creaked in the quiet lab. The nuit master had still not returned from whatever business he had and his apprentices were using his time away from his dominion to slow down and relax a bit. Pandaemus’ will to continue working was draining a bit. Like a river that dwindles into a gentle stream his drive to carry on was diminishing. He had been at it for nearly nine hours now, and it was close to being two days until his judgement instead of three. That looming fact, a dark cloud over his head, was the single threatening reason for his persistence.

The undead state the late Thanadoros had left him in was more than capable of continuing on without reprieve. The shattered foundation of his mental stability, however, had been very rocky of late and he often found he needed to clear his head with long walks down to the harbor, or else panic stricken anxiety attacks in the small cell of a room they had given him for rest purposes. It was clearly not meant to house the living, or anyone who cared about personal space for that matter. He had learnt that once one attained the rank of wizard they could have their own private lab. They were all small and cramped, but the privacy in a space that did not remind him of a hole in the ground would have been nice. That day was far too distant for the boy to be dreaming of now though.

Pan stood and moved his arms about, giving them a break from the inept tinkering they had been doing. His eyes needed something new to look at as well. He shifted his gaze back to where the svefran apprentice’s desk was, almost directly across the room. The girl was not there. Her empty workspace was clean and orderly, unlike his. Gone too, was the first apprentice he had asked for help. With her she had taken her golem. The mostly dark room only had windows on one side, and that was how Pan knew which direction was north. The little slits served as reminders of the wide world outside their little workshop. All faced the north and let in a pale grey light blemished with rays of pink and purple. Syna in all her beauty was setting, and Leth was beginning his reign.

The darkness of the workshop was fought back by the periodic candle scattered about on different desks. The warm orange light of the candles danced across stones in the wall and sent shadows scurrying. It trickled in the eyes of dormant and animated golems, making their visage more alive than ever. They were truly fascinating. Before Sahova, Pandaemus’ experience with animation was a grisly and horrifying thing. Thanadoros had always maimed or dismembered cadavers to use in his experiments and set them loose upon those that he did not both with killing himself. It was not the type of experience that would endear a craft to a young boy.

But this neat, painless crafting was something much more. He had seen the guardian golems. Towering constructs of awe-inspiring power. It could all be his, if he just dedicated himself. Pan sat back down and turned back to his seemingly endless work. The base was next to attach to the panel. Pan rolled his head forward and backwards. This was his way of replacing the now void need to sigh. He figured he still needed an expletive of exasperation. And this one was no worse than the next.

He picked up the thin headed nails he had used first for the wheel and began nailing them into the bottom of the panel, connecting it to the back of wooden block that was the core of his construct. The nails bit into the wood easily. The dull thump of his hammer on the wood sounded through the workshop louder than it would have a few chimes ago. The place was quiet and relaxed now, and his tinkering was the only carrying noise through the stone room. Once he had finished the last nail he turned the thing over and let it sit on his desk.

He then took the bit of leather, thin as membrane and perfectly square, and laid it upon his desk top. Once more he drew his knife. The iron blade had a few kinks in it now, from pulling out the nails of his first mistake. The undead crafter began to cut a smaller square piece out of the leather, one he planned to nail onto the top surface of the block of wood. Surely that would be enough to justify a proper hearing mechanism? The smallest of his nails would have to serve in pinning down the thin leather. He could not spare the larger ones which he may need for more serious use later. With almost two chimes practice with the hammer he more than aptly nailed the piece into place at the center of the top surface. He used one nail in every corner, and for good measure another in the middle of every side.

The nuit now turned to the wooden pole that would serve as his arm. The base stood roughly a third of a meter off the desktop, but the arm was almost a meter and a half long. He needed one that would be long enough to make a practical circle, one that could be used in another animating. That was the key to it all. The golem had to work.

Pandaemus turned his attention towards the leather strap on his desk and his choice of nails. But he could not merely hammer it onto the arm! He needed to make certain it was the right angle and the right length. He dropped the strap with brass buckle back onto his desk and stood in search of some chalk. He had never used chalk for animation before. Thanadoros had demanded he use the special inscribing paint and nothing else. But if chalk was the common medium of Sahova, it must work as well.

[Pandaemus]

Happening upon a particular misplaced piece of chalk, Pandaemus glanced about the almost empty workshop before snatching it from the desk. He hurried back to his own base of operation, all the while trying to act normal. He didn’t mind stealing from an apprentice. After all the person obviously was better off than he, and he needed the chalk a bit more than whoever it had belonged to. He spent no more time thinking of the theft except the little time it took to justify it to himself.

He wrapped the small buckled leather about the powdery chalk carefully, then marked the proper length with his knife. After undoing the buckle hastily he sawed away the excess strap. His supply of nails was dwindling dangerously low and he may have to make another run to the community chest of supplies. But no matter he could make do for now. Waste not, want not. Growing up a slave had taught him to value what little he did have. Becoming undead had taught him to value what resided in his mind far more than the materials he possessed physically. That was why the shell before him was slowly turning into something that could, someday, be a golem. And that was why it was raising his spirits as he made it.

He held the arm up to where it would connect to his construct. He wanted to get the angle just right so his golem would not fail. Perhaps the judges confiscated the product of the judgement, or let him keep it. Either way he wanted it to be at least somewhat useful when he was finished. At best he wouldn’t have to draw his own animation circles anymore.

He carefully kept the strap pinned to the pole with his white thumb while rummaging around his now chaotically messy desk for a few small nails. He found very thin ones barely an inch long and thought they would be adequate to hold the leather and probably weight of the chalk to the arm. He gently tapped the nails into the leather and kept up his slow, rhythmic onslaught until the nail heads pushed the leather in slightly, indicating it was tight against the wood. It was vital that the chalk did not fall from the golem’s grasp. It had no way of picking it up again.

Satisfied, he turned once again to his dwindling supply of components. Now the pile held nothing but a few various nails and the three socketed lenses. The end was in sight! He was nearly finished! The undead nuit stood and stretched again, just for the sake of giving himself some time to feel jubilant. The pressure of the judgement would soon be finished. Either to be replaced by the pressure of an apprenticeship, or the long lonely walk down the misty path to the Harbor. He hoped that if he did fail his judgement, it would not be the same crew picking him up. He could not stand to see those men, all of whom seemed to hate him, look at him with their amused smirks.

He could not find within his pile a nail long or thick enough to justify the axis of the arm. He would need to make another trip to the bin of discarded goodies to find himself another. He now walked through Workshop 23B with a confidence he had not possessed before. Perhaps now he saw himself as less of a intruder and more of a member of the little band of overworked apprentices. He had a project, like them. He had a purpose, like them. He simply fit in better when he was working hard, and not nothing them.

In the bin he reached straight down to the bottom corners with his fist and wiggled exploratory fingers in the dark crevices and chasms made by the bigger tools. His fingers were poked on several occasions. Being undead did have its perks, one being that he did not have to worry too much about little pokes and the possible sicknesses rust in the bloodstream would cause. For indeed, some of these neglected nails were little more than strips of rust. But he was able to find a long nail, perhaps five inches. When he felt his fingers wrap around it he yanked and it came free with his cold grip.

He inspected it quickly. This piece could quite possibly be the most important component to his shell, and he would not have it compromised by idiocy as he had so much that day. It was not rustled, and it was perfectly cylindrical, perfect for the rotating movement he would need it for. He held the arm down and began to nail the iron spike into the wood. The sharp tip parted the wood easily and Pan had it through in no time. He held it up so the tip of the nail, poking through the opposite side of the wood, rested against it’s appointed place on the block. With an eager move he brought the small hammer down on the nail. It struck and the shell rolled across the desk and almost fell off the edge. “Petch!” Pandaemus yelled and lunged after it. His fingers wrapped around one of the wheels just before it rolled off the desk. Relief washed through him as he groaned with well earned frustration.

[Pandaemus]

He angrily replaced the shell on the desk, perhaps a bit too hard. It had been his fault. Of course something with wheels wasn’t going to stay in one spot if you hit it with a hammer! He had just not been thinking. Too eager was he for the finished product that he had started rushing his work. With his severe lack of expertise in the subject, he could really not afford to rush through vital parts of the golem’s construction.

Pandaemus sat back and rubbed his eyes slowly. He had found this was almost like sleeping for him. The light pressure of his fingers took his mind off, well, off his mind! And the inky blackness made him forget the world for a few moments. Forgetting the world seemed to be just what he needed at the moment. Instead of the warmth of his skim on the smooth skin of his eyelids, and the comfortable press of fingers against soft eyes, he was left with the cold touch of a corpse’s hands on a corpse’s face. His eyes were large and bulged, even under his eyelids. A Cadaver. A cold, dead thing. That was what he was.

But…

But cold dead things had made this citadel. Cold dead things had struck fear in the hearts of the good, and bad, people of Mizahar. Sahova was famous throughout the world as the seat of magical power. And as a cold, dead cadaver he, Pandaemus the slave turned immortal, was on the very edge of attaining such power and infamy. Dead were dreams of rescuing fair maidens! Dead were his hopes of glory and a place in the songs of bards. He had to walk the path set before him. And long ago in a pavilion on Ravok, Thanadoros had bought his ticket on that path with one hundred and twenty five gold mizas. That was the price of changing one’s destiny. Or more accurately, that was the price of stealing one’s destiny and forging your own dark replacement.

He dropped the hammer down on the nail as he thought of his past. The trance was calming, though he thought back on hard times. Tears were for children, and Pan had not been a child in a very long time. I am in a place of great power. Perhaps someday boys in Ravok will know my name and pray they never meet such a fierce wizard. He realized he hoped it would be so someday. At first the trip to Sahova had been a desperate move to be accepted. Now it was an ambitious climb into the well of darkness that represented the amoral leap into djed use. He knew such things had a cost, but was willing to pay for greatness and an immortal name.

The sort of name that will be known someday, Pandaemus.

The voice of his former master startled him. It had sounded almost as if he was in the room with Pan. Just out of eyesight but watching. But it had just been in his ever destabilizing mind. He feared a dark worry for his own sanity.

The leather sockets were easy to nail in with the small iron pins. He placed the lens that would gaze in the directtion of the arm’s decent near the bottom of the block, where it could easily see the chalk. He drove the nails home in the leather with one or two strokes at the most. Practiced now in wielding the tinker’s hammer. When he finally got to the last lens, he rushed again. The hammer slipped and instead of hitting the third and final nail on the head, it shattered the glass of the lens.

“Petch! Shyke! Petching Shyking lens!” He curse vehemently under his breath. He slammed the hammer down three or four times on his desk. Damn desk. As the flare of red hot anger subsided, Pan’s dead eyes moved around the room, quick with shame. He felt stupid for hitting the desk. Really, he felt stupid for a lot of things, but the most recent occurrence was the unneeded and very public abuse of his workspace. Childish!

A few moments later the undead animator stared into the community box with some measure of inexplicable hatred. “This is the [i]last/i] time you and I will be seeing each other this day, crate.” He whisper in his most intimidating tone. He grabbed a new lens and stomped off. It had not been pretty, and it had not been dignified. Pan had needed an outlet for his anger, and the guilty party, himself, would just not do.

He took his time carefully placing the lens in it’s rightful spot on the same side of the block as the lower lens, but higher now. He also had on on the opposite side as well. The nuit really had almost no idea if it was redundant to have two lenses in the same direction, or if it would help.

The nuit finished the last lens and sat back in his chair staring at the construct. He racked his brain for the next step, the next phase of his construction. It took him a long moment of numb trance to realize he was done. The construct was finished! He straightened in the chair and grinned to himself. He reached up and gently experimented with the range of the arm. It seemed to work fine. He raised it so it faced straight into the air. Setting it down on the stone floor behind him, he stood and looked at it. He prodded the thing with a toe. It rolled across the floor smoothly. Pan walked over, bent and picked the thing up.

As he walked out the door of Workshop 23B a flood of other apprentices were just coming back to start their next tireless day of work. It was now two days until his Judgement. Finally he was prepared. He left the workshop without a word to any of the apprentices.

[Mirage]

Pandaemus

XP:
Gadgeteering: 5
Philosophy: 2
Drawing: 1

Lores:
Gadgeteering: Scetching a Design
Gadgeteering: The Idea

Additional:
This was probably one of the best solo threads I have ever read. Seriously I felt like I was reading a novel, and even though nothing big was really happening I was drawn in and could not look away! This is a job well done Pan, job well done! Can I assume you are animating the golem in the judgement?

Oh a few quick notes. There were a few small things in your thread that do not exactly conflict with the lore, but it is not expressly written. The Common Labs to not usually have a wizard over seeing them, and visitors do not get their own desk when they first arrive. In your thread, however, it really works well with the story so I believe I will let it slide . I did notice you seem to have aproblem with consistency. At the start of the thread the setting was on the 25th floor, but by the end we were on the 23rd floor. And the nice apprentice that helped Pan out, yeah she changed from a Svefra to an Inarta back to a Svefra lol. Keep an eye out for things like this from now on

IF you have any questions feel free to PM me. Continue on to your judgement!