Bone Golem

"It lives?" were the first words I heard. A wave of will cascaded across my body, feeling every inch of it. Exploring my body as I did. "It has a will already? A will means it's alive! I created life! I am a genius! Genius! Slave, tell me how marvelous my genius is!" It was then that I realized that the sound was aimed to communicate with me. It seemed horribly inefficient. Why use sound when intent was all that was necessary? I finished scrutinizing myself and turned my awareness outside of my body, tasting the mana in the air to read the room. Stale, was the overall impression it gave me.

It was a nearly cubic room I could lay twelve of me from head to toes before my thirteenth was cut off at the ribs. One exit, no ventilation, no decorations. It was entirely empty apart from me, my creator, and the table I was laying on. I spread my will down the tunnel a bit, but it was as boring as the room. More so, even.

My body was placed on a circular table half again as wide as I was tall. I was right in the middle with an engraved circuit surrounding me. As I felt through the circuit, I could feel how inefficient it was. I took a moment to explore the circuit in detail, making sure my initial impression of its inefficiency was correct. I was, after all, created just now. It was possible that my understanding was flawed in some way.

The more I studied it, the more I was amazed it had managed to do anything, let alone create myself. There was leakage in the circuit itself due to the circle being slightly oblong. The imperfection caused the circuit to require a different structure to allow for it, but my Creator decided to ignore that. My creator followed the state of the table as well, which was pitted and worn slightly making the formation skewed into a more three dimensional image than it should be. Engraving was good, but he didn't get the depth perfect across the entire circuit. This reduced the efficiency to a remarkable degree, forcing the mana to fill a far thicker space than necessary. His sloppy engraving onto an imperfect object and following the slightly oblong shape of the stone table were merely the beginning of how horrible this circuit was.

The runes organized to direct the flow of mana into will binding and will suppression in the first circle were skewed slightly and scrawling surrounded them to barely manage to make up for the issue. The scrawl was entirely unnecessary if he'd simply gotten the runes right. The amount was ridiculous as well. He'd filled the whole circuit with the scrawl, slowing down the mana as it had to navigate such a complicated circuit, spilling more of itself out of the circuit for each superfluous motion. Will replenishment, will reinforcement, will repair, and mana infusion were in the second circle. The second circle had the same problems as the first. It was such a problem that a third circle would be impossible unless he was going to use far more than the ambient mana to power it. The biggest problem was that all of the runes were slightly skewed from how they should be. The scrawl showed he knew the problem but chose to fix it in the wrong way. The will suppression rune was turned almost a whole degree from where it should be. If it was where it should be I'd already be a mindless servant. Luckily for me, the second circle was constructed far more impressively than the first. The mana infusion rune in particular was almost perfectly aligned. As it was the only part of the circuit that was absolutely necessary for my creation, that was very fortunate.

Once I finished looking over the circuit, I decided to ignore both it and my creator. The circuit was far from enough to constrain me and my creator proved his worth with the pitiful circuit. I exerted some of my limited mana to build two circuits around me to break the shackles he intended to bind me with and to keep myself from being disturbed as I was much less certain of my ability to properly address the problems this creator had inlaid into my own construction. As he had made me, I would explode if anything struck me with too much force. I was also very limited in my potential growth. He hadn't included a core, so I couldn't store mana at all. Barely enough storage to walk without running out. Another problem was the same wasteful scrawl that coated me from head to toe. It was disgraceful that I be marred by such an inefficient circuit formation.

My creator had realized I wasn't going to answer him by now. "Slave! I know you have a will, so answer me!" As I rebuilt the horrible circuits I'd been created in, I realized that my creator was acting as if he couldn't read intent in the mana surrounding him. It suddenly made sense that he spent intent into the air to make sound rather than purely using intent to communicate. Was I even more different from my creator than I realized?

Another thing I realized was how slowly he processed information. I was finished fixing my body before he'd realized I wouldn't respond to the second demand. Perhaps he was a defective product. That would explain the horrible circuit he'd used to create me. Rage suffused his intent as he began gathering mana to reinforce the circuit I was lying in. I built a circuit to translate my intent into the sounds he was using. "What am I?" As I communicated, I explored his body with my will, only to realize that he was entirely different from myself. The core components could be comparable; my body was created from building circuits onto a structure similar to the one that held his body together. He was very different, though. Most of his body was made of flesh and blood. The consistency of what filled his skull was interesting, but the rest was useless for the management of will or the manipulation of mana. So much useless body. My body was much more efficient. My whole form was covered with circuits. He hadn't given me a core, but with one forming within my skull I would soon become a perfectly efficient being. He didn't have a core either, though he'd built a circuit within his skull that allowed for a fairly good ability to manipulate ambient mana. It was a far better circuit than he'd built around or on me. It didn't even have any of the inefficient scrawl. A core rune of control with a first circle of will expansion and will reinforcement. The second circle was vague, barely being formed at all. No runes, but the circle was almost finished. As I studied his circuit I realized how he was building it. No wonder his circuits were so inefficient, his own mental circuit was built to be incidentally expanded as he used it.

My creator finally registered the fact that I'd spoken. Self-aggrandizement flooded his intent. "Be amazed slave! You are a mana golem! Wait...that sounds dumb. You are a...bone golem! That sounds so much better." more self-aggrandizement flooded through him. "I invented you just now. Now, worship your creator as you should!"

Worship? This ineffectual worm dared demand my worship? He would have no portion of my will embedded within his own! Circuits sprang up around me, not the worthless fingernail-deep circuits my Creator made, but perfect circuits as thin as a single layer of mana. I created hundreds as rage suffused me. Before the circuits were even finished being created I already regretted it.

I'd expended all the mana my core had managed to collect, so I had to wait and watch as my Creator was hit dozens of times by crystalline bullets built of mana. Each bullet ripped through my Creator, leaving a hole I could fit my hand through behind as blood and viscera painted the wall. He actually managed to survive through the barrage. His ruined body crumpled to the ground as his intent read of shock and horror. Then it went dead. I had worried for a second that he could survive for long enough to retaliate. He had, but the horror had clogged his thoughts making the formation of circuits impossible.

The bullets weren't efficient. I'd been enraged, and a little cautious of this vastly more experienced being, so I'd released them in every direction. I knew before I'd finished that his pitiful circuit and reaction speed wouldn't allow him to create circuits fast enough to respond to my assault. Such a waste. Another consideration was the fact that had he not been paralyzed by horror he could have retaliated while I had no mana to defend myself with.

Rage was a terrifying thing. I would need to learn how to control that particular reaction. It was possible that I would only get such a reaction when a lesser being asked for worship, but I wasn't sure and next time I may not get as lucky. Controlling my rage was a definite must.

The cave was starting to crumble already by the time I acc.u.mulated enough mana to build another circuit. Since I wasn't in a hurry, I didn't have to use the ambient mana like my Creator would have. I built a simple repulsion circuit around myself to ensure my body was undamaged as the cave collapsed. Had I targeted my Creator like I should have, I could have left via the tunnel. Oh, well.