Mino and Amelia took a train out of Beechhurst and into Highden, where Mino would take her new friend to a place she had never even heard of before: A golem dealership.

Amelia put on the nicest clothes she owned, a thin tartan shirt and a leather jacket, along with a cap and eyepatch to cover up the more obvious parts of her. She rarely had the chance to look fashionable without risking her clothes tearing up and getting blood stains, so she relished the opportunity to show off to no one in particular. Mino, on the other hand, wore the same sort of hand-quilted dress she always had on around the house.

Right in a plaza filled with businesses and restaurants, there was one central building, four stories tall and beaming with white and light gray paint. The walls felt slightly curved and smooth, even if that was not true; compared to the uniform, blocky shopping centers around it, this building looked like an outright art project. Its bright sign read only, “The Golem Store.” A place like this had no need for branding.

The golem dealership popped out of the scenery and invited all who passed by to stop and take a look. Today, Mino and Amelia were here to do exactly that.

For all of Amelia’s life, she had never known of golems designed specifically as luxuries or household goods. Every one she had ever encountered, including herself, was a warrior, a guardian, a protector. But here in front of her was an entire store that proved her prior experience wrong. All of Fleettwixt’s gilded luster was encapsulated in the marvel here.

Two pale white golems, the same color as the Golem Store building, marched around the front of the entrance in a soldierly fashion, perfectly in sync with one another at opposite sides of the door. They were not a showcase of golem combat prowess, but instead of the precision and style with which they performed their directive. And they attracted a healthy crowd of passersby who stopped to gaze at their frankly mesmerizing, seemingly unending march.

“Everyone loves golems in Fleettwixt,” Mino said. “I’m surprised you’ve never gone here before.”

“I’ve kept a low profile,” Amelia replied. Her lifestyle of violence and revenge did not lend itself well to stopping to watch the finer details of the city. She had seen the billboards and heard the radio commercials, but she had never truly stopped to consider the implications.

“Well, let’s go inside and see what they have to offer. It’ll be fun.”

“Alright.”

They stepped on the large rug at the entrance, and the two wide glass doors slid open automatically. The powers of mana were so vast in this city that they could be applied to something as mundane as walking into a building.

The Golem Store had a similar atmosphere to the rest of high-tech Highden. Just like the outside suggested, it had a clean, boastfully white sheen on every surface, with suit-and-tie-sporting employees stationed at every desk and exhibit, ready to answer customers’ questions. The suits were stark white, naturally.

Right near the entrance, a whole line of multicolored golem bodies stood, unmoving. They showed off the different materials used to create them, as well as the different body types. No soul gems yet, just the physical design alone. From cheapest to most expensive, they were made of clay, hardwood, granulated stone, hardened sand, carved granite, brass, cast iron, and like some strange dream, perfectly translucent dragonglass. There were other materials depicted that did not have physical representation, such as pykrete, lead, and even electrum, the gold alloy used in actual currency. Those, clearly, were far too expensive to bother with, since anyone who could afford them had other means of contacting golemancers.

These golem bodies stood six feet tall with large muscular frames, or in shapely slender forms, or even short and stout like a child’s. None of these meant that much, since golems naturally filled a bipedal shape and attracted the sediment around it to bond with its form—including Amelia herself. If anything, these models inhibited any golem put inside of them, because they were so finely sculpted that they had little to no room to grow. Aside from looks, shell golems simply had no benefits over conglomerate golems.

Mino had already wandered off without Amelia. She had spent so much time looking at the very first display that she forgot about her elf companion.

When Amelia turned around to scan the building for signs of her, she saw Mino engaged with one of the suit-wearing employees in conversation. By the time Amelia made it over to her, though, she had already finished.

“Guess what?” Mino asked.

“What?”

“I can’t even afford the down payment on a basic model lease,” she said with feigned glee behind her voice. “I would love a golem around the hostel, so very much. I mean, a simple one. If you run into some big money by any chance, please pay rent for the next, like, five years or something. Okay?”

“Will do.”

She clasped her hands together and put them against her cheek. “Thanks, Amelia.”

Then, she turned about-face and began walking further into the dealership. The way this place was laid out was more akin to a museum than a store, all a giant advertisement for a single product. Apparently, it worked well.

“My memory stretches back about fifty or so years,” Mino began, “but I can say with certainty that the golem craze was nowhere around until really recently. After that Great Hero with the spiky hair came through and defeated the Dungeon Core, golems just sort of exploded in popularity. I can’t even explain why it happened; it just did. Maybe the golemancers were bored of making soldiers to fight in the dungeon and now they got a chance to use their powers to help people?”

“They saw a profit opportunity,” Amelia said. “That’s all.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain it all by itself. I mean, look at this thing.” She pointed to a small, three foot tall golem body trapped inside a glass case and raised up to eye level. “Brand-new design. And a pretty amazing new ability.” She waved to it. “Hi, golem.”

The golem responded with a scratchy, muffled voice: “Hello.”

Amelia couldn’t help but jerk her head back. “It... speaks.”

“A little bit, yeah!” She turned back to the display golem. “How are you today?”

“I’m sleepy, thank you.” It sounded entirely intelligible, a near-perfect approximation of a glossal being.

“Aw, you’re tired. Want to take a nap?”

No response from the golem.

“Uh, want to take a nap?”

Still no response.

“It only knows a few lines, I guess,” Mino said with some disappointment. “It’s still super new, but the way things are going, I imagine we’ll have full-on conversational golems in five or ten years. That’s what I mean by the golem craze exploding. It’s all moving so fast!”

Amelia stared at the display golem and its working speech patterns. The unmistakable signature of one Dr. Ed Winback stared back at her. No one else in all of Sunwell could have created something so advanced with such limitations.

“The North Sunwell Company says it wants a golem in every household by the end of the decade,” Mino told her. “Maybe two, if they can afford it. Housewives get help cooking. Families can have gardens without the effort. Golems can solve mathematical equations and do your taxes for you. And they’re getting smaller and smaller as time goes on. We might get golems the size of your hand soon enough.”

Amelia raised her hand up to her face. She had large hands, so perhaps it was not the best comparison to make. But she understood the gist of Mino’s spiel.

Ed had talked so much about her dreams for the future, about a world where golems could become companions to the rest of glossal society. The disadvantaged could be lifted up into comfortable, rewarding lives, not by exploiting golemancy per se, but by using these powerful tools of life to help other life.

So many of the designs she dreamed up in their five years together were here at the Golem Store, in some form or fashion. A golem that could speak, wowing customers in a central display. A golem designed to be literally worn as a suit of armor, one that could help disabled people walk all on their own. There was no public sign that Ed was here, or even that she existed, but it was patently clear that her influence touched everything in this store.

Even so, something felt off about it all. Hollow, like Ed’s dreams had been realized in the worst possible fashion. The most cynically consumerist fashion, where golems became a home accessory to increase efficiency for those with means, rather than a boon to those whose lives deserved a better standard.

Amelia sighed. North Sunwell really did ruin everything, she thought.

Next, the two women found another interesting section of the store, separated somewhat from the fancy dealership displays by an open doorway. Past that, the walls were a yellow hue, the mana lights hung above were warmer, and even the tile floor was laid out in a different pattern. It was the same building and the same Golem Store, but with a less sleek atmosphere.

“What is this place?” Amelia asked.

“Oh, uh, I’m not sure.” Mino looked around, trying to confirm anything. She looked over to the many open tables, and the many occupied ones where golems stood beside employees discussing things with customers. “Ah. This is the maintenance quarters.”

“Maintenance, like repairs?”

“Repairing damage, health checking, and all that other complicated golemancy stuff.”

All of the things Ed used to do for Amelia and her modules, these golemancers did for their customers. If not for her very precarious position, she might have been able to ask one of them to help her with the mana processing issue that had put her out of commission for three days already. They did not design her, but if she were a stock model, they would surely know her directives. The whole process was essentially automated.

It all suddenly made sense. Everything clicked in Amelia’s brain as she continued to watch the employees, golemancers themselves, operate.

“I get it,” Amelia said. “I get all of it. People buy golems for one task, and then over time it starts to degrade, or the owner wants more out of it. So they come to the Golem Store, because their golemancers know the original directives.

“It’s ingenious. One designer perfects the directive scripts for a new golem, then teaches it to the lower level golemancers. They can mass produce a thousand golems of the same type, then customize them however the owner wants. And there’s no one else in the city who can compete.

“They’ve streamlined it all perfectly. They own the quorium mines, the mana factories, the city to market to, and even the golemancers. Every part of the process, and the North Sunwell Company has a hand in it. Golems are popular just because Sunwell has the resources to make it popular. Wow.”

Mino stood, mouth agape. “I’ve never heard you talk that much in my whole life.”

“Sorry,” Amelia said. Usually, the most she ever said was when she was about to kill someone and had nothing to hide. This was not one of those cases, but it was honestly pretty close. She looked Mino in the eyes and whispered, “I knew something was wrong with this place, and I just figured it out.”

Mino’s curiosity was piqued. “What is it?”

“Think about it. The rural countryside is pillaged and its people are brutalized to mine out new soul gems. Forests are burned and animals are slaughtered to meet the mana cost to fill them. All to meet the demand for a product. Golems are flooding the market, and can easily be rewritten into soldiers if need be. The North Sunwell Company is vile, and this store is a perfect emblem of it.”

“...Oh, okay, you make a good point.”

“I know.”

They quickly left the Golem Store after Amelia’s sudden realization. The air became too sour to handle.

“It’s hard, though,” Mino said, “to feel responsible. I guess we all are, though. We buy the golems, so the colony keeps producing them. And all the while, we get to cheerfully ignore what it cost to make them. Same for all the fancy stuff we have in Fleettwixt.” She shook her head slowly. “But there’s so much golems can do for us. I’m so envious just looking at the people who have them.”

“You shouldn’t be.”

“Are you sure? If I had just one golem, I could do so much more... I’d do river trips more often, I’d host game nights at the community center, I’d do dungeon tours every single week. It’d help the hostel so much, and it’d help all of Beechhurst, too! Just that little extra push would be so great. So I don’t think wanting a golem is so bad.”

Amelia considered this. “You might be right. But the system is still—wait a minute. Dungeon tours.”

“Huh?”

“You do dungeon tours.” She had completely forgotten.

Mino’s cheery face became outright ecstatic. “I sure do...!”

“How often?”

“Once every month or two,” she said. “Depends on the others. Always want to go when new guests come in, as long as they can afford it. I’m certified all the way to Floor 3, so we do whole day-long trips.”

She had an in. Amelia had a way into the dungeons. She could destroy the synth trade without even smuggling herself down there.

Amelia took one gigantic step up to Mino, so close it probably burst her personal bubble. But Mino did not move away.

“We have to do a tour,” she said. “As soon as I’m better.”

“Add a ‘please’ to that, and sure thing.”

“Please take me to the Manadhmeth Dungeon.”

Mino put her hands on her hips and winked. “Leave it to me. We’re going to have the best tour ever.”

Suddenly, these past three days felt less useless. They felt now like they were building up to Amelia’s ultimate triumph. Despite the pain and exhaustion, the world moved on an upswing for her. Now she just had to take her opportunity.