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“Golem Animus!”
Nothing became something, awareness flooded in, and suddenly, everything was.
Button eyes wiggled, as they looked around at a cluttered room. A furry neck moved as a cloth-and-fur head twisted, using its newfound ability to look at things. It didn’t enjoy it, not precisely. If you asked it, and somehow gave it the ability to reply, then it could have told you that it didn’t know what joy was. It didn’t know much of anything.
It didn’t know that the hard thing it was sitting on was a wooden shelf. It failed to comprehend that the brown thingies lashed around its limbs that ran down through the holes in the wood were ropes binding it in place. It had absolutely no concept of books, which were the things that filled the shelves across the way. It couldn’t tell you that the oddly-shaped thing three slots down from it was a wooden hobby horse, or that the thing two slots down was a stuffed ragdoll, or that the black-and-white shape next to it was a taxidermied skunk.
Heck, it didn’t even know it was a toy teddy bear, a very old one as they went.
The other toys looked to it for answers, and it looked back, without the mental capacity to question or the vocal capacity to answer.
“There we go. Four should be a good test batch.”
The teddy bear swiveled its head forward again, to regard the speaker.
Any human who wasn’t currently wearing diapers and had a few years of experience under their belt could have told you that this was an older man. Worn, silver-haired, and haggard, he moved with a slight limp as he paced back in forth in front of the toy shelf. A tailor would have identified the many-pocketed apron and sturdy, patched clothes that he was wearing as artisan’s gear, specifically the garb of a fellow tailor. Scissors of varying shapes, spools of thread, measuring tape, and swatches of leather and fur poked out of the neatly-kept pockets. The man rubbed his neatly-trimmed silver goatee, and considered the now-moving toys with a critical eye.
He pulled a notebook from his pocket, and scribbled in it. The toys craned what necks they had to follow the sounds of the quill.
“Standard reactions for toy golems. Visual tracking, responsive to sound, limited movement... here, none of that.” He reached out as the loop started to slip from the teddy bear’s arm. It was wiggling, and without hands, the ropes were more of a formality. “Feisty one. Superior animation?” He cleared his throat. “Command golem! Be Still!”
The words echoed inside what passed for the teddy bear’s mind. It became still. It could not conceive of any alternative, nor could it want to, even if it had the ability to want in the first place. It could no more go against that command than it could breathe fire or turn itself into marmalade jam.
But at the time it had received the command, it happened to be pointing at a window. Something moved beyond... a tree branch, heavy with fruit, beset by birds.
The teddy bear was not the only watcher.
On the windowsill, rapt and staring at the birds with the lust for excitement and an ancestral urge for predation bred into its very soul, was a fat, yellow-eyed, black cat. Its eyes darted back and forth in the reflection of the dusty glass, following the bird movements with a passion and quickness far belying its rotund frame.
“Eye for Detail,” the man murmured. The teddy bear tried to look at him, but couldn’t. Be Still resonated within the core of its very being. It was a golem, and a golem could not go against the words that filled it.
“Yes... Hm. Interesting... two superior qualities, good. Same craftsman? Have to ask Mordecai next time.” More scratching. More notes.
Followed by a sigh. “No point in putting this off. Test seven, four subjects, two exceptional... here we go. Yorgum watch over me.” The man moved past the teddy bear’s vision, tucked away his notebook, and stretched out his hand toward the toys down the shelf. “Greater Golem Upgrade!”
The room pulsed with golden light, and there came a sound like mighty gears turning. The dust motes hanging in the sunlight seemed to pause, pulled together in geometric shapes before dissipating again. The teddy bear watched the cat glance back at the movement... then yawn, because the cat had seen it all before.
The flashy part went on for a bit, then died away to nothing. The man nodded, and mopped sweat from his brow, before turning a bit and repeating himself, with the same arm motions. “Greater Golem Upgrade!”
Again came the lights, and the flashing, and this time the man’s eyes went wide, as his worn face stretched into a smile. “Skill up? Good, good.” He moved out of the teddy bear’s view and wood scraped on wood, then something creaked. “Getting too old for this.” Liquid splashed against metal. The cat whipped its head around and made a sort of ‘blart’ noise.
“No, Pulsivar. This isn’t milk, and Celia would kill me if I fed you seventy-proof rum.”
The cat yarped again, until it was certain the man would continue to ignore it.
And after some time, the teddy bear found it could turn its head again. It looked at the man, and the toy didn’t have the words to say that he was sitting in a chair, scribbling notes, and muttering to himself. “Skill’s up to a nice even eighteen, now. Hopeful there, might finally be able to make it work. If I can get at least one functional subject out of this batch, I can move on to the next stage.”
Seeing nothing that made sense, the teddy bear looked back down the shelf, and saw the dead stuffed skunk looking back at it. But the other two toys, the hobby horse and the doll, were frozen, save for random tremors that rocked them every few seconds.
“Well! On with it, then,” the man rose to his feet again, and the teddy bear watched him walk over, and stretch out his arm once more. But this time he could see the man’s fingers moving on the skunk, tracing glowing symbols on its ratty hide that spread to cover the grisly little toy. “Greater Golem Upgrade!”
The teddy bear watched, as the light flashed again, and the dusty sunlight formed symbols to mirror those glowing on the skunk. It watched them sink into the taxidermy as golden light poured forth from its every orifice.
And the skunk fell still.
Then the man’s hand was on the teddy bear’s face, and words thundered forth, filling its being, filling it, blending in and becoming it—
“Greater Golem Upgrade!”
YOU HAVE ACHIEVED A RANK UP
YOUR SPECIES JOB IS NOW GREATER TOY GOLEM
ALL ATTRIBUTES +2
YOU HAVE GAINED THE INTELLIGENCE ATTRIBUTE
INTELLIGENCE +2
NEW SPECIES JOB UNLOCKED – BEAR
DO YOU WISH TO ACCEPT THE BEAR JOB AT THIS TIME? Y/N?
—and suddenly the world made a lot more sense.
The teddy bear realized that it could think. But right now all it was thinking of, could be summarized by its very limited, intelligence two mind, was what the heck are these squiggly things right in front of my face?
It didn’t recognize the words as words. It couldn’t read. They were just some sort of looming thing in front of it, that overlaid and blocked a good portion of its vision. And without the ability to answer the prompt, the words simply hung there, incomprehensible.
“There we go.” The man mopped his brow again, leaning against the shelf. “Woof. Takes it out of you. More sanity drawn at this level. Greater results? No matter.” The man stepped back, and spoke again. “Eye for Detail!” The teddy bear watched as the man’s eyes flashed gold for a second, then returned to normal. “Yes, all Greater Golems. Mental attributes successfully gained for all of them.” He frowned. “Odd that the bear’s intelligence is so low. Good wisdom though, oddly good. Form following function? Investigate later.” He flipped open his notebook and scrawled again.
Not that the teddy bear noticed, it was busy looking around the room with new eyes. New thoughts filled its head. It now had the ability to question, to wonder what things were, and why they were that way. And it found itself growing rather annoyed at the way the glowy squiggles kept getting in the way of its looking at things.
Snap, went the notebook. The man cracked his knuckles, eyes drooping, even more tired than he had been at the start of this whole event. “No point in putting this off. Sink or swim time.” He took a deep breath, and spoke clearly. “Form Party. Moment of truth... let this work!” The man rubbed his hands together, and looked to the hobby horse. “Invite golem!”
Golden light flared between them. The hobby horse looked back at him. It twitched slightly.
“No. Nononono... not another wasted run. Come on, it has to work. Invite Golem!”
The hobby horse just stared at him, with its painted eyes. And the man’s face sunk into his hands. “Damn. Just... damn.” He looked down the row, lips pressed into a thin line. “Ah well. Three more chances with this batch. If not this one, then sooner or later I’ll crack it.”
He turned back to the hobby horse. The bear turned, angling its head until it could see what he was doing relatively well, around the gaps in the glowy words.
“Waste not want not,” the man said. “Disenchant!”
The hobby horse evaporated into dust with a flickering yellow crystal dropping down to land in the pile. Just like that, the toy was gone.
The man swayed, then leaned against the wall, breathing hard. “Enough for one more, I think. Mmf. Might as well get this over as fast as possible. Invite Golem!” he barked at the ragdoll, and again the golden light flared...
And the teddy bear realized that if the man kept doing that, he’d eventually get to the teddy bear.
INT +1
To the bear, the words shifted for a second to display a much shorter, smaller bunch of squiggles, then faded away to return to the old familiar ones that had filled its vision for the last few minutes.
But inside its fuzzy skull, ideas started trickling in more freely. It was still relatively stupid, but now it was stupid at about one point five times the thinking speed it had before.
“You too, huh? Pity. And you’re double the intelligence, so it’s not that,” the man mused, as the ragdoll didn’t react to his invitation. “Goodbye, my dear. Disenchant!” Again, the toy turned to dust and crystal.
Though the teddy bear was new to sentience, and new to this whole concept of, well, things and existence in general, a notion formed in its newly-enlightened mind.
And the first thought to cross its mind that wasn’t a question, was a pretty simple one;
I don’t want to be dust.
The old man stared forlornly at the remnants of the ragdoll, shaking his head. “Such a waste. Status.”
He glanced up, nodded. “Close screen.” With those words he moved over to a pile of glassware on a nearby shelf. Collecting a pair of empty vials, he headed back and plucked the crystals out of the dust and put them into his apron pockets. The dust went into the vials. Though the vials were pretty big, he only put one pile of dust into each vial. “Stupid godsdamned nonsensical storage requirements,” he muttered, the lines on his brow creasing.
The teddy bear understood none of this. Neither the words, or the actions were comprehensible to its young eyes, especially with the job prompt in its way. Intelligence three really didn’t give it a lot to work with, there, and those words filled most of its vision in a really distracting manner. But Wisdom eleven was a bit better than the average golem, and the common sense the attribute bestowed was telling it that the break in the man’s routine meant the teddy bear wasn’t at risk of being dusted just yet. So it waited and watched.
The man tucked the vials away, and looked back to the skunk and the bear. “Sit tight. I’ll get to you shortly.” He reached out and patted them each on the head. “If it’s any consolation your essence will save me time and trouble with batch eight.” Then he moved over to the door, opened it, and walked out into the yard.
Now that was interesting! The skunk and the bear leaned forward as far as they could, to try and see the new place that the open door had revealed. But it shut before they could observe too much. Lots of green things, more brown things underneath them, and spiky green things poking out of the ground. Gray round thingies made a path leading to the door, and the man was walking up them to a really big brown bulky thing in the distance.
“Mrp!” The cat announced with frustration as the door shut in its face, seconds before it could get out. Its pudgy legs had cost it a bid for freedom, and it consoled its bruised pride by settling back down on its haunches and grooming itself.
The skunk and the teddy bear looked down at it from their post on the shelf. Then looked at each other.
That grooming thing looked kind of fun. The skunk twisted, trying to copy the cat, but the strings holding it down didn’t really give it the slack it needed to raise its paws to its mouth, and the one around its tail prevented it from pushing its neck down to them.
The bear, on the other hand, had been more hastily tied. And with its arms full of squishy stuffing, and no troublesome hands to get in the way, it managed to pop its paw-pads out of the string loops and touch them to its mouth. Which accomplished precisely nothing, because its mouth was a few sewn lines of thread. Rubbing its ears with its paws didn’t do anything either.
Well, they did do one thing. The bear didn’t exactly have much fine motor control yet, so it was pushing pretty hard. This jiggled it in place... and made the loose strings on the knots holding its legs wiggle under the shelf.
The cat immediately stopped washing, and peered at the motion. Slowly, it crept forward, acting as nonchalantly as it dared.
Then, when the string least suspected, it struck! A mighty leap, right onto the lower shelf—
—which, as it turned out, was just a plank of wood suspended atop three metal prongs nailed into the wall.
The cat’s twenty-five pound body hit the shelf at an angle, slid as the cat flailed wildly, and whipped right off the prongs, taking about fifty pounds of books, various tailoring tools, piles of fabric, yarn, and spools of thread with it.
In a supreme act of agility, the sort that it hadn’t managed in at least four years, the cat twisted in midair. His claws fully extending, legs flailing, one paw catching the dangling strings securing the teddy bear.
The lower shelf crashed to the ground, sending damn near everything flying in heaps across the workshop. And for a bizarre, timeless moment, Pulsivar the cat hung suspended, eyes wide open, as a sort of existential dread crept over the feline.
Because at intelligence eight, he knew pretty damn well what was gonna happen here.
And it did.
His weight pulled the strings down, causing the vastly underweighted top shelf to flip up on its prongs, then come crashing down to the tiled floor below.
Pulsivar gained a level in feline agility that day, and managed to avoid being crushed under the plank.
With a crash and a crunch, the shelf hit the ground, slamming into the two toy golems, before bouncing, rebounding, and ending up on its side. With a burst of something that wasn’t pain, but was definitely odd and unpleasant, the teddy bear watched a red number ‘4’ float past its vision.
The workshop fell silent again, save for the sound of feline slurping and frantic grooming. Pulsivar’s excuse was that nobody had seen it, nobody could prove nothing, and it didn’t matter anyway because the room was more interesting this way.
The teddy bear, now at a very awkward angle, pushed and shoved at the floor. And for some reason, there was a lot less resistance than last time. With one final heave it managed to clear out from under the shelf, turning back as it got loose to see the knots holding its legs in place entirely undone by Pulsivar’s little display of chaos.
LUCK +1
Not that it understood string, but it realized it could move now. And looking around at the mess, something told it that it might want to not be here when the old man found the state of affairs in the workshop.
But if it couldn’t be here, what did that leave?
There was a much bigger place through that moving part in the wall, it recalled that. Yes, it should probably go that way. That sounded good.
INT +1
So the little bear wobbled to its feet—
—and promptly fell over.
So it tried again, and fell over again. Finally, after about the eighth or ninth try, it managed to stay upright.
AGL + 1
Well, for all of two seconds, anyway. Fifty-two tries later it had gained two more points of agility and the ability to stand upright and move around without going head over keister.
Then the teddy bear turned to the door, and tried to amble that way.
But before it could get there, a racket nearby caught the teddy bear’s attention.
The skunk had evidently had a worse time of it. The poor thing was still caught by some of its ties, but its paws and part of its body were twisted out of joint. Though the teddy bear didn’t know it, the skunk had a sort of internal skeleton to it, a few sticks of wood and some wires binding them together. The force of the plank falling hadn’t been enough to break the sticks, but it had torn free a few wires. The effect was similar to what broken bones would be on a living creature.
And though the impact had at least gotten its upper body paws free, the string looped around its tail was still intact, and that kept it from escaping the plank.
The skunk shifted, trying to look at the teddy bear. It had squiggly letters filling its vision too, asking it if it wanted to accept the Skunk job at this time. But like the bear, it had no idea what they meant, and no way of answering the Y/N prompt one way or another. Finally the skunk managed to get the teddy bear focused in the gaps between its words. Its glass eyes sparkled with mute appeal.
And now came a moment that would have sent the old man into a dance of whooping joy. Lesser golems were unintelligent golems, incapable of sentience, empathy, or even the smallest awareness that anything existed that wasn’t them. And even if they had those things, lesser golems didn’t have the slightest speck of free will. They couldn’t act of their own accord, only react to their master’s commands.
But the bear, after a few seconds of hesitation, moved in to help the skunk. It didn’t know what it was, had no clue what the skunk could be, but it was just smart enough to realize that the skunk was in a bad situation and wanted out.
It also had been in a bad situation, and it had felt good to get out. Maybe the skunk would feel good too?
The teddy bear reached out, and closed its arms around the skunk’s bent paws.
Well, it tried to, anyway. When it pulled back, its arms slipped off of the skunk’s slick fur. The bear went back on his tail with a bump.
Undeterred, it got back up and tried again. And again. And again. But its stuffing was just too soft, and every time it tried to squeeze harder, the stuffing compressed. It couldn’t get a real grip.
Not until the ninth try.
DEX +1
Your Golem Body Skill is now level 2
Abruptly, the teddy bear found itself changing. The stuffing in its arms and paws thickened where it was trying to grab the skunk’s paw. Even though it didn’t have fingers, the pads on the end of its hands hardened and got more flexible.
And for the first time since it started this charitable endeavor, the teddy bear had a grip. So it did what it had been planning to do at the start of this mess, and pulled.
Strength four wasn’t much in the grand scheme of things. But the skunk was light, and the teddy bear was a bit more solid than he looked, thanks to his Golem Body skill. So he was able to tug the skunk forward, up against the strings securing it to the fallen plank.
Which worked right until the tight loop of the string constricted around the skunk’s body right at where the stick supporting its tail joined the stick supporting its back.
CRUNCH! The teddy bear and the skunk froze in shock, as a bright red number ’6’ floated up into the air and dissolved.
The teddy bear was perplexed.
The skunk was panicking. It had felt that, and knew on an instinctive level that particular sensation was bad.
So when the teddy bear started pulling again, and the string ground against the broken join, the skunk lashed out blindly, assuming that something was attacking it. Blinded by its class screen and the persistent prompt, it flailed with its limp claws and open jaws against the teddy bear. But with what was essentially its spine coming apart, and its own abysmal strength score, it didn’t manage to inflict any real damage. From nearby, the cat growled low in its throat as it watched the “fight,” tail lashing as red zeroes and ones floated into the air willy-nilly. Though the skunk’s claws and teeth were sharp enough to tear at the teddy bear whenever it did manage a good hit, the teddy bear was endowed with an armor rating due to its golem nature that vastly reduced the damage.
The teddy bear, blinded by his own screen, had no idea the golem it was trying to free was resisting. All it knew was that something was attacking it. It came to the conclusion that whatever had trapped the skunk was trying to stop it getting free. The teddy bear found that idea unacceptable! The skunk was clearly trapped and it needed to be free! So to save it, the bear endured the unpleasant ripping, and pulled with all its might!
CRIK-SNAP!
The skunk went limp, as its animus fled. Golems could not die, but they could certainly break, and this one’s animus had departed its shell.
And for his part, the teddy bear’s joy at freeing the skunk was tempered by the realization that it had freed only half a skunk. It put down the skunk’s upper half, and stared at it. Maybe it was just resting?
Then new words crawled across its view, briefly interrupting the optional job prompt;
STR +1
You are now a Level 2 Toy Golem!
All attributes +2
Suddenly, its head swam. Everything made more sense. Its thoughts swirled around it now, almost too much to manage. Some threshold had been passed, some bar invisible neatly limboed under, and concepts that were completely out of its reach now were a lot simpler now.
It looked down at the tail and lower half of the skunk, with sawdust spilling everywhere and wires and sticks poking out, where the strings had constricted and held it in place. And then it looked down at the upper half in its arms, sawdust leaking down to spill over the teddy bear’s legs.
The little toy knew sorrow. It had done a bad thing, even if it couldn’t figure out what exactly it had done. Slowly, carefully, the teddy bear put the upper half of the skunk next to its lower half, and tried to nudge them back together.
You are not a tanner. Seek out a trainer to obtain this job.
The letters flashed by—
—and the teddy bear still couldn’t read them. Six intelligence was better than the two it had started with, but it was still nowhere near what it needed to understand human speech, let alone read written words.
But since it didn’t feel any better, and the skunk didn’t start moving again, the little bear knew it had failed. Its ears drooped. Then they perked up again, as a rumbling growl echoed through the room, and ended in a hiss.
You are affected by GROWL! You take moxie damage!
The teddy bear watched as a green ‘6’ floated up into the air, then turned, looking around until the gaps around the letters on that job prompt obstructing its vision revealed the coal-black, fuzzy form of Pulsivar. The cat was puffed up to twice his normal size, slit-pupiled eyes fixed upon the teddy bear’s sawdust-covered form.
Pulsivar wasn’t entirely sure of the particulars of this situation or whose fault it was, (definitely not his though,) but he was pretty godsdamned sure of two things;
One was that he was stuck in this workshop until his hoomin came back, so he couldn’t escape.
Two was that he’d just seen that teddy bear straight up murder a fucker.
And to the cat, being in close proximity to such a threat was a call to action. His butt wiggled, his mouth stretched to show all of his needle-like teeth, and he hissed like a demon straight out of hell as he prepared to leap upon the biggest threat in the room...
The teddy bear turned golem’s level two brain was still woefully underprepared for, well, everything. But at intelligence six, it had finally evolved to the point where it could tell when it was in danger.
And right now, every instinct was screaming at it to run away.
The bear turned tail and fled, just as Pulsivar pounced! But the bear was a few seconds too late, and the heavy cat’s paws collided with the golem, knocking it sprawling across the floor, and into a set of bookshelves across the way. The triple-stacked shelves wobbled, and Pulsivar skittered across the tile, and tried to follow up his pounce with a proper mauling.
Books rained down from above, falling from their piles, and the bear watched with its button eyes as the largest of them wobbled...
...slipped over the edge...
...and fell right toward him.
AGL +1
They missed him by a hair, as he twisted to the side.
Pulsivar scrambled desperately to avoid the rain of books, whirled as his claws slipped on the slick floor, and tumbled in a heap into the bear, knocking him over and against the wall. A forlorn red ‘1’ floated up from the teddy bear as he was smushed between the cat’s butt and the hard wood. Pulsivar escaped any real damage, due to the fluffy bear’s padding.
The cat’s growl rang in the bear’s ears again, nibbling at his moxie. A green ‘4’ floated up, and suddenly his thoughts were a lot more scattered. For the second time in his existence, he knew fear.
So he grabbed for the nearest thing, which turned out to be Pulsivar’s tail.
And caught it.
DEX +1
The cat yowled in rage, and churned its back legs, trying to push away from the wall, trying to get its tail free from whatever had it. But the frightened teddy bear clung on like grim death, as the cat went lurching and skidding across the floor, slamming itself and the plush toy into the legs of the table, knocking over chairs, sending glass bottles and dirty dishes crashing to the ground in a rain of cacophonous destruction!
STR +1
But the golem hung on.
Your actions have unlocked the generic skill: Ride!
Your Ride Skill is now level 1!
Finally Pulsivar, using most of his remaining stamina, did a damned half-somersault and managed to get himself on his back, and the golem onto his belly. Laying in with his claws in a scratching, spitting fury, the big black cat ripped and tore with wanton abandon. Red numbers flew!
Twenty-one hit points later, the teddy bear’s grip finally slackened, as he was hurled away to skid across the floor, through the glass and pottery shards, before slamming into the already-battered table leg—
—and breaking it loose from the table entirely.
The leg hit a wall, rebounded, and shattered an urn next to the window. Ashes puffed out.
The table, down to two legs, promptly fell edge-first toward the prone teddy bear, who rolled as best he could—
—but not far enough. A big fat number ten drifted up into the air, as the table slammed into his midsection, trapping him under it. It would have crushed all the stuffing out of him, if his body hadn’t been toughened by the ritual that had made him what he was.
Your Golem Body Skill is now level 3!
The teddy bear lay there for a second, taking stock.
Pulsivar, thoroughly spooked by all the loud noises and breaking objects, relocated to a corner to lick his wounds. He stared at the teddy bear for a long moment, then slurped his paw and smoothed his fur back into place, activating his “Grooming” skill and healing the few scratches he’d sustained during his horrifying ordeal.
Then a scritching caught his ear.
The teddy bear was still moving.
Long rents in its fur, stitches cut, half of its stuffing on the outside, one ear gone, the bear was slowly rocking, trying to wobble the table edge free.
Pulsivar stared. He tried to groom himself again, but his paw was shaking, ever so slightly, and he botched the skill.
Finally the bear gave a mighty heave and a twist, and the round table rolled free.
STR +1
And with the magic ebbing from him, with damage crippling him and every atom of him aching, the bear. Stood. Up.
CON +1
Pulsivar growled again, but he was rapidly running out of moxie.
And the bear didn’t seem phased by it. The bear was beyond fear.
WILL +1
The words obscuring its sight were impossible to manage now, but the teddy bear was pretty damned sure that big growling thing in the corner was his enemy.
He was also sure that he was thoroughly dead, if his enemy came for him one more time.
The teddy bear looked around for something to help him out, and saw a possibility.
PER +1
It half-slumped, half-marched its way over to the fallen table leg.
Pulsivar, spooked now, but knowing that it was either him or the bear, puffed himself up and stalked closer, step by step, waiting for the moment of weakness, psyching himself up for one last pounce.
The teddy bear grabbed the table leg, wrapped its arms around it, and lifted. Stitches popping, one button eye half-off, legs flailing to keep upright on the tile, the bear managed to get the makeshift club upright
STR +1
And then he brought it down toward the growling mass of cat.
At least, that was the plan.
What actually happened, when the teddy bear tried to swing the table leg, was that his plush feet slid on the smooth tile floor, he fell backward, and the table leg shattered the window.
And that was enough for Pulsivar, thank you very much! His nerves were shot, his foe was supposed to be dead, and it had been a thoroughly crappy day. Nope, nope, no thank you, and now there was a way out, wasn’t there?
Two mighty bounds took Pulsivar up to the shelves near the window, and a third took the scaredy-cat out the window.
“Pulsivar! Bad kitty!” A strange voice shouted from outside. Anything more intelligent than the teddy bear could have told you that it was a female voice, a young one.
The teddy bear, on its last hit point, sat up.
Outside, the cat yowled in despair. “Oh good grief! What on earth possessed you... cat...” the old man’s words tumbled to a stop as he opened the door, and beheld the destruction of his workshop. He entered slowly, eyes passing right over the bear... until they fell on the broken urn, and the ashes dusted around it. “Amelia,” the old man whispered, gathering up the fragments of the urn with shaking hands. “Oh. Oh no.”
“Daddy? Is everything okay?” The strange voice asked from the doorway.
“Ah.” The man took a breath, then tucked the fragments into an apron pocket. “Yes. Everything’s fine, dear.” But he kept his face turned away from her, and mopped the tears from his eyes so she wouldn’t see.
“Oh you bad kitty. Look what you did!”
A red-headed girl, hair frizzy and tied back in a fiery poof, stepped into the room. She held the limp form of Pulsivar up to survey it, arms straining to heft the twenty-five pound cat by the scruff of his flabby neck. The cat stared mournfully at the mess that someone had made. Certainly not him. Couldn’t have been.
The teddy bear clambered to his feet.
And the girl squealed in joy. Immediately, she dropped Pulsivar who fled for dear life, ran over, and scooped the battered golem up in her hands. “Oh! Oh Daddy, thank you!”
Your Adorable Skill is now level 2!
“I... what?”
“For the toy golem! Oh you finally made me one and Pulsivar ripped it up! What a bad kitty! I can fix the golem, it’s okay right Dad?”
Her father cleared his throat, and scrubbed his face harder. “Er, give me a second...”
Excited, the girl started shouting one of her few spells.
“Mend!”
You heal 15 points!
“Mend!”
You heal 10 points!
“Mend!”
You heal 13 points!
“Mend!”
You are fully healed!
The teddy bear still couldn’t read worth a damn, but something had picked him up, and all of a sudden he felt much better. He turned his head around until he could make out a freckled, grinning face sitting under a massive pile of red hair.
“I can have him now, right? I mean you were probably saving him for a surprise or whatever, but I’m just glad we got here in time before Pulsivar wrecked him completely.”
“What?” The old man finally found his composure and turned, goggling at the sight of the teddy bear golem in his daughter’s arms. “Ah... technically he’s...”
“Finally, a golem of my own!” She held him out at arm's length and smiled.
The old man sighed. “Are you sure you want that one? He’s... threadbare.”
“Threadbear? That’s an awesome name!”
“No, no, T-h-r-e-a-d-b-a-r-e”
“Okay, that’s a dumb name. You didn’t name him did you? Because whoever misspelled his name like that was pretty stupid.”
“That’s not exactly what I—”
“Well, okay. I can work with it. So your name’s Threadbare, huh? Sweet!“ Celia hugged the little bear close.
And the bear, healed, feeling much better, safe from the horrible black growlmonster, hugged her back. It felt... right.
+1 CHA
“All right. Well, take him back to the house then, dear, just keep an eye on him. Let me know if he starts acting funny.” The old man shrugged. Every golem he’d tried a greater animation on had been useless. The ritual was flawed somehow, or there was some important thing he was missing, and he had no damned idea what it could be. But none of the golems had been dangerous, just clumsy and stupid. They hadn’t even been able to join his party, so he couldn’t apply his creator-specific buffs to them, to get them to the point where they were useful. He hadn’t ever run into this problem with lesser golems, so he had no frame of reference as to why it would be an issue with greaters, who should be superior by default.
So what harm could it possibly cause if his daughter played with the bear for a while? Less than that obstinate cat, he thought, looking around at the wreckage of his workshop.
Then he thought of the shattered urn, and a lump rose in his throat. “Go on and play dear,” he choked. “I’ll clean up here.”
Celia ran out the door, hugging Threadbare to her shoulder.
But from the shadow of the large pine tree across the yard, Pulsivar the cat watched with yellow eyes gleaming.
Some things could be tolerated. Some could not.
Pulsivar would have his vengeance upon that infernal toy.
