Bone Golem

Samantha remaining indisposed and Lagt taking over as leader was a much larger effect on the force than I'd thought it would be when I allowed her to take command. I'd merely wanted to give Samantha reason to see the error of her ways, but she wasn't learning much of anything. Instead, the army was rippling with confusion more with every revolution of the sun. Samantha's command had been disciplined and controlled, but distant. Lagt's command was the exact opposite, giving no orders except that they continue north while getting very personal in how she interacted with everyone in the army. Her ever-growing harem following her around all the time while Samantha hadn't even had a direct ȧssistant was also a distinct counterpoint. Every conversation with Lagt happened with hundreds of eyes on each party, eyes that were mindlessly fawning over one side for the entirety of it. She was much more welcomed as the commander, to her face, than Samantha had been. Even when she was working off of centuries of leading as Adrian the best Samantha had managed was obedience. Lagt had people that changed their lives to fit her tastes without directly asking for it.

Even after months of observation, I wasn't sure if promoting her was the right choice. Lagt constantly nagged people into exploring as much as they could into whatever they wanted. In her words, "The best way to worship our God is to become the best you he could make you into! Abandon petty differences! Abandon your pride! Only your self and our God exist! Let him form you into your best form, allow his influence to pass through you and become one with his will! Beyond body, open yourself to your self!"

The variances between individuals became much more pronounced, while at the same time lessening as they found others that were exploring the same aspect of themselves. Trgl's force had been my most fractured army, but not anymore. Lagt's form of division wasn't even a clean one, as each possible thing a member of the force could be good at was its own fracture leading to the creation of a web of impossible complexity over only a month. The force was becoming more fracture than whole, though the depth of the fractures may have been much less intense than Trgl's.

It may have been different if there were more priests in the army, more priests that weren't devoted to the brood construct. Those priests were looked at with scorn by many, despite the suppression. They also preached their method, but it was rare that they changed anyone's mind. Lagt was held as the commander and her words convinced many. This had both good and bad effects, as they became devoted to exploring the depths of themselves. Something good for me, information wise, but often not effective for the power of the army as a whole. It was the only force that was developing music, for instance. The other forces used music, but only the music that already existed in Adrian. Small changes to lyrics didn't compare to the vast array of music that had been developed by Lagt's force. They'd even managed to develop into different styles of music creation, creating more fractures beyond the fracture into the music creation part of the force.

This fragmented method of learning was interesting in how it interacted with the martial field, however. Their combat effectiveness and rate of becoming more combat effective were nowhere near any of my forces that focused on combat effectiveness, but they were growing a lot in the field of combat variety. No other force invented as many weapons, or ways to fight. The vast majority were much less effective than what they were based on, but they'd still changed the weapon in a significant way. No other force invented as much of anything as Lagt's force was looking to, if the trend continued. I spread the effective inventions around the rest of my forces, and that was a definitive value that Lagt as a commander added to my forces.

Their greatest flaw as a force was incorporating the goliath and necromancer forces, though. Maybe it was just a slower rate of incorporation, but as it stood there were two camps every night. The necromancers and their library were both extremely valuable as a source of circuit research for me, even if they still looked askance at the cannibals and received the same in return after a month of marching adjacent to each other. The necromancers were the first to notice the massive gap in what I taught, missing out on will circuits entirely, but they weren't included in the cannibals that would have cared. Some of the actual necromancers were even putting forward good arguments to spread research of will-related runes into the wider population. I rarely participated in the debates, so a lot of their points were entirely their own ȧssumption and wrong as a byproduct. They had managed to make me consider the option, though. Especially in the three cities that I'd finally finished taking that had delved into will-related runes.

Giving Lagt's army even more circuits and runes to try to figure out how to use wouldn't be effective, but developing a Conclave-esque research-sharing system that I spread to all of my forces could be very valuable. I had plenty of will to keep track of all the research going on in my population, but ensuring that all of it was used most effectively by my population was another matter. Especially as my population grew. A growing gap between the research of different camps would only increase redundancy, though I was learning that every time something was researched the particulars of how and why influenced what was researched next…

The necromancers' research on will-related runes was much more advanced than anything the Conclave had access to. Far beyond the research of the three cities within the Conclave that dabbled into will as well. To the extent that I began to doubt their claim that there wasn't a true necromancer civilization. It was surprising to me, but the cannibals had an extreme level of rejection to the idea that "exile" would be more accurate to the actual nature of necromancer caravans than "necromancer" would. A good portion of the necromancers I'd gained as proponents were as disgusted by golem-craft as cannibals and goliaths, though it was often the case that each one disgusted by golem-craft was disgusted for a different reason. Goliaths usually tied it to controlling inanimate matter being inherently evil as it was the flesh of something that used to be alive where cannibals were more concerned with being replaced by tyrannical necromancers or the uncertainty of what a soulless being thought about when they weren't being controlled. They didn't seem to understand that it was possible for something capable of movement to be incapable of thought. Though my own existence did point to their fears being reasonable as the advance of golem-craft would probably lead to more creatures like myself being created.

Every necromancer claimed to have left their city to explore on their own, and I knew they were telling the truth as I knew their entire lives, but they had records so old the parchment was literal dust held together with air circuits in case someone learned a parchment-repair circuit. Even those records, still laden with the intent to immortalize information, spoke of older records that had been lost. Records that, if I aged them correctly, were older than the Cannibal Conclave itself. Which was also impossible, as the Conclave had records that dated to a time when metal was commonplace while the necromancer records only mentioned metal as a material unique to goliath clans.

When I inquired to iron out the discrepancy, the answer was confusing; "Years become days and days become years when the sun is over the horizon." didn't make sense. What made even less sense was that the necromancer that said it didn't understand it either. None of them did. They'd heard the phrase, though. So I wasn't the only one confused with how the records portrayed time, and that was hardly comforting.

On the whole, confusing was the exact word I'd use to describe the necromancers. They weren't even a type of people defined by their race, the older records were from when the caravan was moving through goliath territory and before that was choker territory, reviled as necromancers for the entire time. The very oldest were from druids, but no cannibal records I had even mentioned that druids were something that existed. Maybe the druids were gone, the only records of them that remained being this very caravan of necromancers and their mobile library. The cannibal necromancers weren't simple either, they had been exiled from cities for reasons other cities would promote them. Many weren't even exiled for their own actions, but being attached to someone else that had "deserved" exile. They'd also met caravans that were filled with people that had been exiled for the exact opposite reasons and functioned entirely different from their own.

I had conquered the entirety of cannibal society, I thought, but apparently I was just scratching the surface. The Conclave was just the oldest magical order, and even that was in question now, but it wasn't the entirety of cannibal magic. That was both irritating and wondrous; irritating because conquering was the most tiresome part of interacting with another group and wondrous because every group seemed to have an entirely different way of seeing magic and that allowed them to discover different aspects of the whole of what circuitry was capable of. I was even seeing the difference a few weeks under a different commander could have on the particulars of research in this very army. The vast majority were struggling to catch up rather than testing the boundaries of the unknown, but even they were increasing the variety of rune combinations.

The goliaths, on the other hand, were much easier to understand. If I didn't know from the Conclave records what goblins were made for, I'd have thought they were the first attempt at making goliaths. There were many similarities in their circuitry. Unfortunately for the goblins, the goliath circuits weren't so flawed as to be impossible to advance past the fourth class. After the surprise and awe had worn off, the goliaths had sought out the goblins to understand how they'd progressed past their race's limitation. Apparently, the whole reason the goliaths were away from their clan was a quest to become colossi. They weren't sure if colossi were the fifth class creature that was venerated as the legendary ancestors with flesh of iron or the mythic creatures of more advanced classes that could crush chickens and dragons underfoot, but they hadn't gotten far enough in their quest for the difference to matter. Nobody in living memory had, apparently.

I hadn't thought humans had inborn circuitry, but goliaths proved me wrong. None could advance past the second class, though. They spoke and remembered being regular humans, skin as soft as flesh normally was, though they spoke of it like cannibals spoke of being children. As if advancing in class was their form of maturity, as it was for goblins. Their size put goblins to shame, though. Goliaths could apparently be as tall as eight pedes while still being in their "child" phase. All the silver-skinned giants that were with the necromancers were class two, though, so there weren't any shorter than ten pedes. Aughil was the tallest at fourteen.

I was also mistaken about their class. They were the first example I'd come across that cultivated body circuitry and circuitry within their will-core. The clashing leakage from the two sources amplified the effect, making class two goliaths with class three circuitry in their will-core seem much more advanced than they should be. They didn't seem to know it, but they probably could have advanced to the next class if they didn't have circuitry in their will-cores feeding on any mana they happened to consume. And leaking significantly more than the inherent circuits of their race by an extreme margin. Their inherent circuitry was even better than the goblins' or anything apart from quail and chickens.

At my offer to fix their circuitry each one dropped to their knees and skipped right over the zealot phase to enter priesthood, tears streaming down their faces. As the reaction was so disproportionate, I dove into their memories to understand. There was a reason metal was unique to goliath clans. Apparently, the metal was the flesh of their ancestors, only iron being worthy to work into armor and protect their descendents. The method to progress past class two had been lost to their clan for a very long time, meaning there had been no goliaths worthy to be the defense of their offspring for so many generations that only Aughil actually had enough to clothe himself entirely. Even he only had enough because Anhata sacrificed her share and both of them were children of declining lines. They were the only children of their parents who were only children of their parents, meaning four lines converged to a single one in any offspring they had. Four times the heritage of entire families, and Aughil could bȧrėly cover his frame with the flesh of his ancestors. The disgrace had made him try to let every other goliath in their party lead, but he was so obviously stronger than any of them that they all saw it as equally offensive to be his leader. A much more complicated system of honor than the cannibals had, it made sense that goliaths saw them as bȧrėly better than goblins. Why they were so willing to work with necromancer caravans was more confusing. I didn't quite understand the squeamishness around eating goblins, but they were also uncomfortable at the idea of eating anything with flesh that could be used to protect descendents.

Luckily, I'd asked before I actually fixed their circuitry. Had I reversed the order I'd have left pieces of their ancestors all over the ground when they advanced and outgrew their armor. When I did fix their circuitry so it didn't leak, an additional process I'd never encountered before was added into the process. Each one immediately dropped to the ground and dug their fingers into the earth. It didn't make sense to me until I realized they were drawing something out of the stone. Had I not noticed that, I would have been surprised by the silver skin of each goliath developing cracks before shattering as writhing flesh grew explosively as each one grew faster and more violently than any growth phase I'd seen before. The most surprising part was that their growth seemed to be determined by their ability to withstand the agonizing transformation rather than a bloodline or circuit-based method, stopping at their request instead of following principles they didn't need to understand.

The first to stop their growth was previously the shortest goliath, she only grew from ten to eighteen pedes. The copper flesh that bubbled in a pool around her hands before oozing up her flesh had already covered her from head to toe before Aughil had finished growing to twenty four pedes, let alone allowed his oozing copper pool to sheathe his bȧrė muscle in metallic flesh. An interesting aspect of the transformation was that Aughil seemed to hit upon the upper edge, as his growth had stopped long before the pool of copper had stopped growing. As a result, despite having significantly more surface area than the eighteen pedes Ouanra, his flesh was almost three times as thick. In fact, the larger the goliath, the thicker their flesh seemed to be.

Despite the violence of their transformation, they were far from done. The goblins had advanced quickly until they were ogres and only stopped because goblins didn't have a mana-accumulation system. Goliaths didn't have that particular flaw. They had a much more refined system for accumulating mana than I'd given to many of my early goblins. Unlike the goblins that wasted their intestinal space on redundant nutrient conversion or packing the space with more meat, goliaths crystallized their intestines and used their brains as the conduit for pulling mana into the system instead of requiring mana from their food.

I'd considered altering them, but they seemed to have every improvement I would add already. They were also full of growth-type circuits that weren't even slightly deformed yet, so I let them grow as they were supposed to. As a result, before Ouanra was finished clearing her space of silver debris she'd dropped to her knees screaming as her fingers dug into the earth and her brand new copper flesh started to crack. Seeing her example and looking around in panic for a second allowed them to realize how much larger they were than they had been. The formation expanded to ten times the size it had been as each goliath tried to give each other as much space as possible before they collapsed to the ground to start their own metamorphosis.

As the goliaths advanced in class, I was drawn to the metal debris their previous form had left behind. Looking closely, I could see that the circuitry that had been in the flesh while it was still part of the goliath had crystallized in a strange way. As if there was another circuit I couldn't see that was causing the circuitry to freeze in its current position despite not having the effect of an active circuit. I could also see that the earth was trying to reclaim the material but was being stopped. By something I couldn't see. Curious, I looked more closely at the iron that had been carelessly left on the ground. It was similarly resisting the earthy attempt to reclaim the material. Via no means visible to me. As I looked closer, though, I could see the broken remnants of circuitry. As if the frozen circuits in the silver had been beaten and broken but retained the look and feel as if they were active while not being active. It was such a strange material, this metal. I tried writing some circuitry in the metal, but whatever I built dissolved like it was never there. .

It definitely explained why metal was used as a protective material. Each piece had the inherent resistance to being deformed as the flesh of a class five monster. A class five monster built to be indestructible and unstoppable in their class. Whatever power had crystallized the circuitry was incredible, to have survived for so long that the entirety of a class five goliath's flesh could be separated so much that class two goliaths struggled to protect themselves with it. Especially since the armor was thinner than any of their flesh had been at class two.

Having explored the metal as much as I could think to, with intent dissolving in it trying to find runes would be completely useless, I focused my attention back on Aughil as he started his metamorphosis. It was a truly magnificent process. One that definitely was beyond my understanding. I could see the circuits, I could see their effects and how they grew. I could see the changes as the muscle altered to resemble the discarded metal of the previous layer more than the flesh of a cannibal. I could see as the bones seemed to crystallize into something else that could resemble the next phase as the earlier crystalline structures in his bones felt similar to the bronze pooling around his fingers now and the crystalline structures forming in the bones now resembled the armor that would now bȧrėly cover his loins. What I couldn't see was why. Where did his body learn what the metals were to pull them from the earth or air…or wherever it was before it was in the goliath. Where were those circuits? Why was there a limit on his growth, if he was consciously forcing himself bigger during the entire process? I'd had these questions before, the goblins also grew with a pattern that came from nowhere I could see, but I felt I was powerful enough now that I should at least be able to get a glimpse of the answer. What class of circuitry would be invisible to me? Class 11? Was will the perfect circuit, or just another level to a greater one as intent was to will?

I put aside unanswerable questions as Aughil stopped growing at forty two pedes. He was officially the largest of my worshippers. Apart from Katrice, of course, but Katrice was class seven. I now had enough data to guess at Aughil's future size, and if his circuitry didn't break down before he hit class seven he'd be two hundred and eighteen pedes tall. Goliaths were bigger than chickens…maybe not. Definitely taller, by an extreme margin. Even Ouanra was looking to be taller than Katrice at class seven, though she would probably be smaller overall. And tougher. I could only guess, but I thought it would take more stars to force Aughil at class five to submit than it took for Katrice. If his skin continued to thicken and harden as it was looking to, he may be able to survive an infinite number of stars. His class seven self would definitely require a different method to scratch his metallic flesh.