“Hello, Karie. Welcome to the world of the living!” Smiling at the golem, I watch her look around the room.

“He...llo.” She sounds it out, seeming to analyze the world piece by piece. She turns to Colt. “Hello.”

‘Huh, fast improvement. It’s a simple word but whatever.’ The enchantments that power Karie’s intelligence give her some basic words, but it’s almost like a computer. They take a second to boot up.

“So, Karie. Do you know the purpose I created you for?”

“My… purpose?” She tilts her head slightly.

“Yup, your purpose. I built you to help people build things or help us out here once we’re running a shop and restaurant.”

“Help. Build. Things. Shop. Restaurant.” Her speech improves as the runes inside her finally start to cycle enough mana.

“Yeah, those things. But, I made you smarter than your average golem, so I’ll only have you help if that’s what you want to do. It wouldn’t feel right otherwise.”

Karie looks around, seeming to consider what she wants to do.

Colt looks at me with slight concern. “Lucas, are you sure you just wanna go and give her free agency like that?”

“It would feel like slavery if I didn’t. She can walk and talk and do things. We’re fortunate that Lil P loves gardening and that Argo likes to fight. Speaking of which… Argo, why have you been so quiet?”

“She’s… pretty.” He sounds longing and I note his glowing golem eye has appeared to stare at her.

“Awww, do you have a little crush, Argo?”

“I do not wish to crush her, Lucas! I do not want to harm her!” Argo immediately sounds concerned and panicked.

“Uh, no. Argo, a crush is different from crushing something. It just means you really like her. Also, weren’t you saying she’s your sibling before?”

“She is too pretty to be my sibling now, Lucas. Tell me she isn’t.” He sounds scared that I won’t say she isn’t.

“Well, there was no relation before, so yeah, you’re not siblings.”

“Hooray!” He chirps happily.

“...So anyway, Karie. Have you made a decision?” Turning back to the golem, she stares at me.

“I wish… to help.”

‘She sounds… shy, almost?’

“Lucas! Can you let Karie hold me?” Argo practically vibrates in my hands with nervousness.

“Bold one, aren’t you?” Laughing, I walk over to Karie and show her Argo. It will be a decent test of her strength anyway, Argo is pretty heavy for his size.

“Hey, Karie. Think you could hold Argo for a second?” Offering her the anchor, she inspects him for a moment.

“Hold Argo. Yes.” She hesitantly grabs on to him and takes him out of my hands with ease.

It suddenly sounds like a kettle is whistling and the sound is coming from Argo. “H-hi. I-I-I’m A-A-A-Argo.”

“Hello, Argo. I am Karie.”

He seems to calm enough to not stutter, which is strange to me that a golem can even do that to begin with.“Yes! And I’m Argo! Wait, I said that. Lucas! Please retract me! I am embarrassed!”

Chuckling, I take Argo back from Karie and return him to my earring in his storage form. He mutters an almost silent thanks as he returns.

“Well, that was something. Karie, how about we go down to the city walls? I’m sure you could help out with building those if you want.”

“I want.”

Nodding to Colt, we head out of the room and Karie begins to walk after us. That motion comes from her golem core and some auxiliary enchantments on the legs which are basic to most golem animation enchantment sets, so it happens without any kind of awkwardness.

Her capacities are already improving now that she’s fully “warmed up”. Showing her how to operate the door, she tests opening and closing it a few times, learning the concept. She’ll likely need to open and close a lot of doors so I figure it’s an important skill for her to know.

While we walk to where the walls are currently being reinforced, I point out various things I notice to Karie and tell her about how she will build the walls. Using Geomancy and Floramancy, Colt gives her a visual of what she’ll be doing, just on a smaller scale.

By the time we reach the walls, we both feel she’s adequately prepared for the real thing. Gabe walks up to me as we arrive, greeting me and staring at Karie with curiosity. She garners looks from everyone around us and she seems to shrink in place.

“Lucas. They look.” Karie steps behind me, staring back at the people from above my head. She’s taller than me after all.

Gabe seems shocked but recovers quickly. “It… talks? It’s a golem, right?”

‘Oh, right. The people here are familiar with the crystal guards that lived in Brandon’s crystallized Portland. They never talked. The Construct Shop golem is somewhat of an outlier as well I guess.’

“Yeah, this is Karie. I made her to help out with the walls and eventually our shop once it’s open. Karie, this is Gabe. He’s really nice so you don’t need to be nervous around him, okay?”

“Hello, Gabe.” She leans out from behind me, meeting his eyes.

“Hi there, Karie. It’s nice to meet you. So you want to help out with the walls, huh?” His voice is encouraging, shifting to how one would talk to a child.

“Houses too.” The teal lights that make up her eyes flare brightly with what I sense is determination.

“Well, we could certainly use the help of someone like you.” He smiles at her.

“I help.”

Leaning in towards Gabe, I whisper to him. “She has an aspect of growth in her, so her speech abilities will grow over time. She’s programmed for this kind of work though, so she should pick up on it really quick. We showed her some miniature demonstrations already.”

He nods to me. “Don’t worry Lucas, she reminds me of my kids with how shy she is. You go work on your shop, I’ll send someone for you if there’s any trouble with Karie.”

“I’m just gonna stay for a few minutes to make sure she’s comfortable and tune up any enchantments if one is faulty or something if that’s okay.”

“Sure thing.” Gabe nods to me.

“I’ll meet you back at the house then, Lucas.” Colt smiles at me, clearly also somewhat uncomfortable with all the eyes on his green hair.

“Sounds good to me, see you there.” Squeezing his hand slightly, he flies off in a burst of wind.

‘I forget he’s pretty socially awkward sometimes too. Being Fae probably doesn’t help that. Too many eyes on him.’

Gabe is already chatting with Karie, who seems to be opening up to him slightly now that she realizes I trust him. She’s unfortunately only able to respond with simple phrases for now, her talking skills will have to grow over time.

We walk over to the current part of the wall being reinforced with magically shaped metal supports. Karie’s eyes glow brightly when she sees the familiar shape from Colt’s demonstrations and she walks over to one.

Picking up it, Karie holds it how we showed her to carry it and follows Gabe’s instructions on where to place it within the wall. Aetheric Supremacy activates and I watch the mana flows of her movements to make sure nothing is wrong with her enchantments.

Everything works as intended, so I feel happy with the result. Karie asks me to stay for a little bit, so I let her settle into the rhythm of the work for about ten minutes.

Once everyone sees how efficiently she’s getting the task done and that it’s giving them a break, they all become quite friendly towards her.

Everyone seems to recognize that she’s somewhat childlike and timid, so they’re on their best behavior around her, especially with Gabe and me standing and watching.

Karie comes up to me for a moment, looking as happy as the smile Colt made her face with. “Lucas. You leave.”

Laughing at her word choice, I turn to Gabe. “You okay with her staying and helping?”

“More than okay. She’s getting so much done. Those extending arms and legs let her reach places so much easier.” He seems genuinely pleased with the work Karie has done so far.

“Oh, she has a recovery aspect by the way. So if something happens to her, she should regenerate. Let me know though just in case the enchantments aren’t affected by the recovery. I might need to fix them or something.”

“Sounds good. I’ll walk her to your house after we’re done for the day. It’ll probably be night time, is that okay?” He glances up at the sky, noting that it’s just reaching midday.

“Yeah, no problem, I’ll make sure I’m still up. Lots to get done anyway. Just make sure people keep talking to her, okay? That’s the best way she’ll improve her speech.”

“No problem, Lucas. Thanks for having her help us. Golems are tireless, aren’t they?” He smiles as he watches Karie continue to mechanically lift and position metal struts into specified grooves in the wall where mages with Metallokinesis or Metallomancy shift the metal into place permanently.

“Yup. They don’t have muscles to get tired or anything. I made her core really mana efficient so the ambient mana around us should be enough. If she seems like she’s slowing down though just have some of the workers pump some mana into her.”

“Sounds good, thanks. Now you get going, I’ll make sure no one harasses her.” Gabe notices my hesitancy to leave Karie on her own and shoos me off.

“Alright, yeah, I should get back to the house. There’s a lot involved in properly stocking a shop.”

He nods. “I believe you. See you later, Lucas.”

“See ya!” Crouching into a stance, I decide to show off a little and flood myself with mana, activating Circuit Jump and Lightning Cloak as well as adding some knots to my legs.

Gabe yelps slightly as I boost away at speeds even I have a hard time keeping track of. Slowing down slightly, I bring myself to something manageable and dodge around people as I make my way back to my house.

On a whim, I walk inside as silently as possible, attempting to sneak up on Colt. He’s nowhere downstairs, so I continue to take advantage of my body-enhancing Perks and Dexterity to move as silently as possible.

Climbing up the stairs, I pad into my room as I hear water running in the bathroom. Coming up to the doorway, Colt is standing in the bathroom with his shirt off staring at himself in the mirror, frowning.

The strange part that takes me a second to realize is that his hair is the sandy brown it used to be before his Fae transformation. He’s glancing at his back in the mirror, running his fingers over the various scars that decorate it.

“Uh, Colt?”

He jumps, turning to me quickly. “Fuck! Jeez, Lucas, you scared me.”

“Oh, sorry… uh, what were you doing? Why is your hair back to its original color?” Stepping towards him, I lay a hand on his arm.

He shifts back slightly, letting my hand fall. “Oh, I was just uh, testing something Pasivier taught me about my Magickal Anatomy.”

“And that involved changing back to what you used to look like?” Raising an eyebrow at him, he frowns.

“Okay, I was just… reminiscing. I miss being human sometimes.” He runs his hand through his hair before it shifts back to the mint green indicative of his Fae race.

“And the scars?” Due to our growing up together, I remember how Colt got most of his scars.

“Well, my body is made of Fae magick now, so I could get rid of them but… I don’t know. I can’t bring myself to. I guess they remind me of what I shouldn’t become, y’know?” He traces one of the larger ones once more, it’s from a time when his father pushed him into a pile of farming equipment.

“You do whatever feels right, Colt. I’ll support any decision. Come here.” Pulling him into a hug, I embrace him tightly and he squeezes back just as hard.

A small wetness begins to form on my shoulder. “I don’t know why but all those people staring at me today just hit me. Maybe it’s because we had Karie too. She’s something they haven’t seen before but… the stares were still on me too. I’m different.”

Pulling away slightly, I keep my hands on both of his arms and look him in the eyes. “Colt, they’re not looking at you because you’re different. You’re their hero, they stare at me too you know. You just have green hair so they stare a little longer.”

“That’s… honestly not too helpful, Lucas.” He does laugh slightly, however.

Heat reaches my cheeks, I was really trying to be inspiring there. “I’m not the best at this whole consoling advice thing, am I?”

He smiles at me. “No, not really. But it’s the thought that counts, right?”

“I guess so. Hey, weird question but, wouldn’t your Magickal Anatomy make for some great disguises?”

“Uh, technically yes. I can change what I look like pretty significantly. Pasivier warned against it though. He did that for a long time once and even with pictures he could never get his original self quite right. I’m uh, not sure this is exactly the shade of green my hair was, to be honest.”

“It’s a very cute green, I like it.” Kissing him lightly, I let go of his arms.

“Thanks. For cheering me up. Even if you didn’t have the right words, the intent was there. What do the stares matter anyway? Why did I care about them? I have you.” He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand, clearing the remainder of tears away.

My heart melts and I hug him even harder. “You’re the best. I’m sorry I’m not great with my words sometimes.”

“You’re fine, Lucas.” He squeezes something else. “And also fiiiine.”

Chuckling, I push him away once more. “Okay, enough fun for now. We have work to do.”

“...I hate that you’re right. Pasivier probably has more magic lessons for me. I need to make us some more potions to sell too. Vitaleaf and magetongue grow fast, fortunately.” He glares at me jokingly.

“Oh, shit, I forgot to check my new Perk I got too. I got so distracted with introducing Karie to the world. Wanna see what it does with me?”

“Oh, sure. Let’s see it.”

Focusing on it, I bring my Perks menu up to the newest one for both of us to see.

Perks:

Extended Longevity

Description: Anything you create or apply will last slightly longer. Any potion you create, timed enchantment you set, buff you apply, or any other form of application that involves timing will be rounded up to the nearest minute. Intelligence increased by 2, Willpower increased by 3. +2 Intelligence and +3 Willpower per level up.

“Huh, that’s a bit basic. It still sounds pretty useful though. The stat bonuses are nothing to scoff at either.” Colt scans over the description of the Perk once more, nodding to himself.

“Yeah, I think it’ll be useful. In the end, that much extra time builds up to be a lot of value considering that things like potions come in doses too. Oh, right, I have a Perk Point to spend from Adept Enchanter too.”

Scanning the Perks menu and shifting it to just my Adept Enchanter Perks, I find that I have three options. Inscriber’s Elegance, which is already leveled up once, Rapid Inscription, which is quite useful, and Writable Flesh, which has proven useful for blacksmithing despite being an enchanting Perk.

However, it’s hard to beat Inscriber’s Elegance as that’s empowering three Perks at once. Especially because the main issue of Writable Flesh is the enchantment duration and Inscriber’s Elegance empowers that as well.

“Well, it’s hard to beat a fusion Perk, but what do you think, Colt?” Showing him the three Perks, he reads through each of them.

“Hmmm, Rapid Inscription is certainly a useful one, but that one already scales with your stats. I’ve seen you use Writable Flesh and it lets you handle forge-heat metals, so that’s pretty damn nice, even if the duration is low. But your main problem is definitely that duration, not any other factors.

“I don’t see Writable Flesh being super combat-useful. It takes too much time to set enchantments. Rapid Inscription would help there for sure, but then your options would be limited to basic general use stuff you can come up with. And even then you’d have to spend time menuing to load the enchantment in, right?”

“Yeah, I have Schematic Mind so I can just load enchantment blueprints into Rapid Inscription, but that still takes time as I have to go through a few menus. So I agree, Writable Flesh isn’t extremely effective in combat.”

“Yeah, and otherwise you can always just take a moment to reapply a heatproofing enchantment when it starts to fail. So I’d say Inscriber’s Elegance just wins out from a point of utility and that it’s all general, useful improvements.” He gestures to that one on the menu.

“Alright, true. I’ll upgrade that one.” Doing just that, I receive the expected notification.

You have upgraded the perk: Inscriber’s Elegance (+1)! Its innate abilities have been enhanced! Inscriber’s Elegance (+1) has become Inscriber’s Elegance (+2)!

Checking the Perk description, the enhancement has a new, small benefit of decreasing mana costs of enchanting. They were never ridiculously expensive to begin with, but now I wonder if I can sustain enchanting off my regen alone.

“Well, looks like I need to do some more blacksmithing. This enchanting upgrade will help me make even better stuff. Ilmarinen will be happy with me returning to it as well.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ve wanted to do some of my own experiments with alchemy after you spent so much time doing it.” He begins to walk out of our room.

“Wait, this will be helpful.” Tossing him the bottle of neutral slime from my hold, he catches it. “It’ll increase the dosage. Just be careful you don’t use too much. It cuts into durations if you do that. Oh, and a resonation aspect crystal will help everything immensely. I have a bunch so take these too.”

Taking all my spare resonation aspect crystals from my hold, I hand them to Colt and he stores them away.

“I still have a bunch of the crystals I had you make for me before, so I’m all set there for now. I’ll come in and get you if I need more though.” He leaves the room and I follow him.

We both walk into my forge and he takes the door into the alchemy room. “Save me if anything explodes?” He smirks at me.

“Of course. If you hear a bunch of cussing, I probably trusted a heatproofing enchantment too long.”

“Well, try to avoid that then. I like my Lucas unburnt.” He winks and closes the door behind him.

Chuckling, I pull out the list Cassandra put together for me. Feeling a bit more experimental, I decide to take on one of the weirder requests on the list. Smiling when I find just the right one, I turn on the forge and pick out everything I need. “It’s go time.”