The smart thing to do here was to turn around and walk away. I didn't know what these people were like, how they would react to an unbound golem or even one inhabited by a sapient. They might kill or enslave me, they might lock me in a cage to study or banish me to some far off wilderness. I still couldn't bring myself to leave though, if I was going to get answers to what my situation was this would likely be a good place to start. I might be able to come to an arrangement and get some employment out of this and start building up some money for emergencies or to buy some better materials for myself.

I was there for far too long as it turns out, just staring at the sign because someone walked out of the shop. They were about two feet tall, with short greying hair and a rough beard covering his face. He wasn't muscular but there was a wiry strength to his arms and his hands were covered in callouses from a life of working with them. There were multiple splinters in his hands that seemed to be working there way out on their own as he was healing and when he left his store he began staring at me as I turned to face him.

"What kind of lunatic lets a golem get into this state of repair, covered in rust, clearly badly built, how did they even afford to make you? Where is your master, I'm going to give her a piece of my mind."

His voice was high like a child's but held the weight of age behind it. The juxtaposition of the two things meant that it took far too long for me to realise what he was saying and in the time it took me to register his words he managed a short chant and a wave of his hand.

A golden light shot from his hand and enveloped me, covering my body for a moment and I could feel as it brushed the edges of my core, information seemed to seep out of me into the light and within a second the light gushed back into the man's hand. His eyes widened slightly and his mouth opened, he turned his head to look up and down the empty street. I shifted my weight on my legs and was just about to turn and run when he spoke, getting his keys out and fumbling with the door he had locked moments ago.

"Come inside, if a guard finds out you're unbound and unregistered you're gonna be in the middle of a shitstorm you'll be lucky to escape alive. Not that there aren't worse things than death mind you."

He turned his head again to look at my clearly about to flee form and scowled.

"Don't go running off, if you do that I'll have to get the guards involved myself and I'd rather not have that headache today, it's been bad enough."

I didn't run but at the same time didn't know if I could trust this man. If I went through those doors I might be walking into a trap, he might be lying to me, any number of things were wrong with this situation but something about the man struck me as honest. I don't know how much of that was because he looked like a bearded child but I got the feeling that he truly didn't want to cause me harm and sooner or later I was going to have to trust somebody, sure it would have been better if I'd had the time to learn something about the people around here but the cat was out of the bag now, so to speak.

I waited for him to fumble with the lock, I had just noticed that there were two handles on the door, one on the bottom and one in the normal place in the middle, I was tall enough and small enough I could use either but it would have been difficult for this man to use the higher handle. A moment later the door swung open and he gestured for me to go inside. Mentally holding my breath I walking into the entrance of the shop.

The floor was made of thick stone slabs that held my weight without the slightest bit of trouble. I had been causing a little damage to the stone on the pavements that I had been walking on and hoped I wouldn't get into trouble for it. The whole shop was a mess, there were wood carvings of every sort of creature I could think of covering tables that were strewn across the room, from birds to mice to cats and dogs to larger animals and humanoid shapes that were lined up along the walls. These were not mass produced and had clearly all been carved by hand, the craftsmanship was exquisite.

Not everything was a work of art though there were many that were clearly much more ornate than others but every carving was strong and would perform a function and in the centre of each was a hole, varying in size from carving to carving but clearly for the purpose of holding a core. None had a core in them, these were just hollow vessels but they were obviously bodies. There was the occasional metal body here and there but they were small and clearly, the person who had made them was not as proficient with metal as they were with wood. They were better than my body by far though.

A smug smile crossed the gnome shopkeepers lips as I paused to look around the rooms.

"I'm not usually one to fawn over my own work but it's impressive if I do say so myself. Now stop staring and move out of the way so I can come in off the street."

I nodded and stepped aside, letting the gnome come in and close the door. He rose a single eyebrow at my nod which I barely caught because he quickly schooled his expression. He walked around me and towards the counter, reaching behind it he dragged a small stool out for him to sit on and looked at me.

"Welcome to crafted creatures, I'm Ike, it's a pleasure to meet you. How about we teach you to talk and then you can tell me about yourself?"