Chapter 4

After traveling for some time I found something new to understand the runes of. Plants were more similar to bones in circuit structure due to needing the whole circuit to fit within a specified range. I could spread my circuits as wide as I wanted in the earth, but plants had limits. Pitiful ones. I learned all of the runes I could think to test in the plants quickly. It was far less versatile than the earth or air. Still, it was interesting to finally have something new to understand. I continued trying random and ambient mana patterns as I moved deeper into the plant domain. Perhaps now I had a better chance of finding remains. I hadn't come across a plant with bones yet, but I had no reason to believe there weren't any.

As I went deeper into the plant domain I realized that while a specific plant may be less versatile than the earth or air, plants as a domain were far from as limited as I first thought. Given the varied number of plants, each with their own runes to learn, the divide closed entirely before widening the other way. Earth and air were homogenous, plants were not.

I made sure to discover all of the simple runes I could for every plant I came across, all the while searching for bones or creatures with them. My earth skull was useful, but much less efficient than a being should be for mere motion. It was causing my core to grow much less quickly than it should. Ideally, I'd be able to move without expending any mana at all, but I thought that was unrealistic. I was built off of a core structure, missing all of the implementation elements that the original creature would possess. They could probably move without the aid of mana, but I would need it. Given the pitiful accumulation of mana my Creator had, perhaps it was worth the trade.

I had long since become bored with plant runes by the time I encountered creatures with bones. They were smaller than my Creator, but there were ten of them. His mana accumulation, however, put them all to shame. One of them had a single pathetically constructed mana accumulation rune barely getting it a trickle within his skull, but the rest had no mana to speak of. Their wills were so weak a natural flow may be able to leave them will-less husks. They were no more saturated than the air around them. I approached, eager to learn how their bones would react to mana flows.

Once they recognized my approach fear saturated their wills. They all scattered except for two. Unfortunately for them, I wasn't about to let my new research subjects run away. The two that remained could be subjects willingly. Eventually, I'd figure out why they didn't flee. They weren't exemplary in any way I could see. Eight was enough for my purposes anyway. Crystalline bullets painted the nearby foliage with their heads. After killing them I realized that the skull may have different runes than any other bones, being the one that held the most interesting flesh, but I had two more subjects to test that idea on. I quickly gathered my new test subjects with brand new plant-based circuits. Grass twisted as it grew into long vines and wrapped around their ankles and delivered the bodies to me. I set to figuring out the runes to remove the flesh from their bodies so I could start learning how bones worked.

"Daddy, what's that?" the smaller living one had far less fear saturating her will than the larger one. It was mostly inquisitive. The sounds they used to transmit intent were different, but the method was the same as my Creator. Perhaps they were a different type of the same thing?

The larger one slapped the smaller one. "No questions. We speak when it wants us to." His will was entirely saturated with fear, such that the tiny ripple of regret and apology were barely there long enough for me to notice before being drowned. The small one didn't gain the fear the big one wanted it to, rather it gained pain and rage. Watching the will of others allowed me a fresh perspective, along with the implicit communication of intent, that allowed me to understand some of the influences I'd noticed in my own will. Learning what the influences on my own will were due to reading the will of others was quite convenient. It saved me from needing to experience them myself to know their effects.

My research continued uninterrupted until the little one was overcome with impatience. "What's it doing, Daddy?" it didn't wait to get hit again, and rushed closer to my experiments. The larger one didn't answer, the fear saturating its will rippled and it collapsed, will becoming extremely lethargic. Semi-death? I didn't know there was such a state. "What'cha doing, Mr. Rock?" the inquisitive intent turned towards me.

I responded the same way I'd learned to communicate with my Creator. Using intent to merely make a sound was a pitiful method of communication. Intent was so much better, maybe I'd teach the creature if it proved useful. "Learning how to manipulate bodies with mana runes." Frustratingly. As time passed it was altering the flow patterns that had an effect, making it impossible to learn runes. Apparently, the runes for fresh dead, non-fresh dead, and hard-skin dead were all different. How many more phases did flesh have before it stopped changing the mana flow reactivity? It almost seemed like something was intentionally messing with me, seeing as I could barely grasp a single flow pattern before it dissolved like no pattern existed. If it wasn't so easy to find patterns before they vanished into something different, I would have thought myself incompetent. "What circuits do you know how to make?" I gave up trying to learn the flow patterns as they changed before I could even start developing a rune.

"Crickets taste good. Does Mr. Rock have to make them? Glrt just eats them." the little one didn't seem to know the idea, otherwise my intent would have become whatever sound it associated with the idea. Could this being not know a single circuit? Perhaps it was the idea itself that wasn't translating.

What other idea could share space with the idea of circuits? I glanced at its will, but the thing was far too fragile to survive even the slightest probe into the internal space of its will. Instead I built a circuit between myself and it. "One of these. Do you know what it is?"

Surprise and delight flooded its will. "Ooh! Mr. Rock is a shaman rock. Mr. Shamrock, could you tell Glrt how to be a shaman? Glrt always wants to kill rabbits so easy like a shaman! Shaman Mgnk said Glrt was too stupid, dumb Mgnk." It kicked one of the corpses. The creature climbed onto my earth vessel. "Glrt will give Mr. Shamrock whatever it wants, Glrt promises! Please, Mr. Shamrock, Glrt's begging!"

At first, the idea held no merit. Then I thought of a few things that would give this being value. If it was equal or greater than my Creator, it could aid me. Unlike my Creator, this one was a blank slate. It had no knowledge of circuits or runes at all, so it could be made into a vastly superior being. In order for it to be useful to me, however, I would require access to its will. In order for me not to break it by accident, I needed it to not see me as a foreign will, but a master will.

"First, my name is Bone Golem. Second, I could allow you to learn if you worshipped me." The small creature didn't seem to understand me, so I decided to give a demonstration. The problem was how to show a creature with such a weak will anything related to the will. I needed it to give a portion of its will-core to me, turning itself into a sub-will of my own. How could I explain the will-core to this creature that only used will to keep foreign will out and speak? Oh, if it spoke that could work as a rune…kind of. It spent intent into the air, so if it moved its head in a rune pattern as it spoke, that would technically form a rune before the intent dissipated. Would it be enough to establish worship?

Another problem reared its head as I considered the problem. As I bashed down the chains my Creator made me with, I realized that if this creature had given me its will core the chains influence would have destroyed it long before I could regain control. Before I gained any worshippers I needed to fix the circuits that allowed my will to exist, but were built as a direct part of my chains. The problem was how to implement such a change. The only reason my will-core existed was because of the formation. I would need my will-core to exit before I could change anything, but exiting would cause my destruction.