13 – New designs II

Paul’s next week was rough for Paul. Tessera convinced him to get up early, every single day. Even on Monday, the day of Ceres’ winter festival.

As Paul began to rise in time with the servants, the house adjusted around him. Margaret began to arrive earlier to help him get dressed, though she looked sleepier and ever so slightly dishevelled. Paul made sure to let her know that she could take a break in the afternoon, since she wouldn’t be needed. At breakfast Paul’s usual fried meat and hot stuffed buns were initially replaced by cold sliced meat, fruit, smoked fish fillet and bread slices. Then the hot buns came back for a few days, only to be replaced by a cold breakfast again on Tuesday.

Benjamin didn’t adjust his schedule (of course), but he did raise an eyebrow every time he walked into the breakfast room and saw Paul already lying at the table. On Monday Paul didn’t see his father at breakfast at all, and though he could have waited, and he really wanted to wait, the desire to see get war golem working was stronger.

In the privacy of the workshop Paul split his time between practising his spirit sight and building the golem.

Paul would sit a couple of meters away from the goat and try took peak into the spirit realm whilst Tessera peppered him with statements such as

⠀⠀⠀::In 772 AM Coerunta the Cannibal defeated king Toedhali at the battle of Adana ::,

⠀⠀⠀::In 1368 AM Alexander the Short-Lived captured the city of Tyre after a 6 month siege:: and

⠀⠀⠀::I prefer kittens over puppies ::,

challenging Paul to tell Truth from Lie.

Unfortunately no matter how often Tessera tried to explain to Paul the “proper” spirit sight technique, Paul couldn’t make sense of phrases such as

⠀⠀⠀::you must be in two places at once::,

⠀⠀⠀::streeetch your miinnd:: and

⠀⠀⠀::SPAN the bridge all at once. Why must you keep thinking as if you are merely one?::

The only thing Paul gained from hugging the goat (at Tessera’s suggestion) was a dirty shirt, and trying to look out of the goat’s eyes as well as his own at the same time proved –if that expression is even meaningful– to be even harder than looking out of his spirit eyes and his fleshy eyes at the same time. The only “technique” he had any success with consisted of consisted of jumping out of his body for as short a time as possible, pulling himself back again, and then trying to remember and analyse what he’d seen afterwards. This still significantly taxed his body, even though he took frequent breaks (in which resume his work as an apprentice golemsmith). He was sore and exhausted every evening.

His “technique” also didn’t allow him to examine anything in spirit space in detail, which made it rather hard to determine the tell-tale signs of a lie. So, Paul had to guess. By the end of the week Paul could guess correctly whether Tessera was lying over two times in three. (In contrast his accuracy was almost exactly 50/50 when he didn’t use his spirit eyes). On the bright side, this meant that his subconscious must have been able to make some sense of the uncomfortable glimpses of shape and colour. On the down side, unreliable lie detection still wasn’t a particularly a useful tool.

There where other thing Paul learned from these sessions. For example, he learned a fair bit of ancient history. He also learned that Tessera had quite the obsession with various Alexanders and their exploits in the 14th century. They included Alexander the Proud, Alexander the Defiler, Alexander the Heirless, Alexander the Spineless, Alexander the Slaver, Alexander the Fool, Alexander the G’asshopper, Alexander the Regicider, Alexander the Greedy, Alexander the Short-Sighted, and Alexander the King-Killer, among others.

◦◦ Alexander must have been a truly popular name ◦◦

Meanwhile Paul’s development of the war golem progressed to the point where he felt like he had to present it to his uncle and father.

Truthfully he was still uncomfortable with the result. Not being trained as an animator, Paul couldn’t awaken the rubies himself and this week had shown him just how much of a hindrance that could be.

Father hadn’t trained as a mage either, and had always depended on others to animate his inventions. Though the degree of dependence in those relationships had never really dawned on Paul. Until now.

◦◦ I really wish I’d swallowed my pride sooner ◦◦ Paul thought, as he gave his latest creation one last examination. In addition to the eye array, eight spear-legs adorned the final product, each a different design. The whole looked like a giant misshapen spider. With swords for feet.

Since the golem wouldn’t survive testing –a result of the single-us nature of the spear-leg attacks– Paul hadn’t even bothered to put a shield or a sword on top of the body.

Paul sighed.

At least he felt proud of the documentation he’d written. It contained sketches, notes, precise to-scale drawings, appendices, chapters, a title, footnotes, pictogram labels and references to said labels, tables, spaces left open for experimental observation, design notes, descriptions of experiments he’d already performed, and transcriptions of reference material. All the way down to the use of colour it closely followed his father’s style.

Carrying it made Paul feel warm and fuzzy inside. Though the fuzz might also be the stress.

◦◦ Let’s go ◦◦

:: All clear? ::

◦◦ William cleaned out the workshop ◦◦

::✔️::

◦◦ I checked it’s clean ◦◦

:: Good ::

◦◦ Specifically there’s no blood anywhere any more ◦◦

::✔️::

◦◦ I broke my spirit link with the goat ◦◦

:: No need to thank me for my help 😗 ::

◦◦ And William is taking the goat away to be processed ◦◦

::✔️::

◦◦ Poor beast. Despite everything, I’ll miss him ◦◦

:: Don’t worry, you’ll get another soon ::

◦◦ Is that everything? ◦◦

:: Have you locked the door? ::

◦◦ ✔️◦◦

:: Then let’s go see uncle Alfred♫ ::

◦◦ Let’s go ◦⌣◦