Void Mana

Scrap

I pulled my cloak closer to myself, as I entered the merchant's shop. I had seen the merchant through the window. There wasn't anything that would make you think he was one of the powerful merchants, other than the gold rings he wore and the look he gave the beggars on the street. If I hadn't seen him personally kick one of the beggars out of the shop, he wouldn't have been one of my targets.

I had though, I walked into the shop with my head down and my cloak covering my face. "Hey!" I heard the merchant say, I sped up ignoring him completely. I made my way towards the rows of items placed on the shelves, escaping into them. "I said stop!" he hadn't, though I don't think it would have mattered to him anyway. Crouching down I pulled GG one through three out of my pouch and sat them on the shelf next to the block of steel.

"Grab this block and follow me as quietly as you can, don't let anyone see you move," I said. Just as I was about to stand up the merchant grabbed me from behind and started to drag me out of his store.

The golems following my command immediately froze, they waited until the merchant started dragging me to move. They grabbed the block and carefully jumped down with it. Them being made of wood made it so you couldn't even hear them moving. They began to rush after me clumsily. The important part was that they were coming after me.

Throwing me out the doorway the merchant began to speak "don't come in here again" he said. "Why I was just looking? I asked, refusing to tell me he turned around and started towards his desk. The golems chose this moment to sneak by him. Quickly I shoved them and the block into my pouch checking if anyone was looking. Thankfully no one was, after all, it wasn't an uncommon scene.

I now had the block of steel but I was missing the tools I would need if I was going to cut it to my liking, I was going to have to go to the crafters guild. Though they called themselves a guild they were really just a shop that lent out their tools for a fee.

Luging the golems and the steel block to the guild took only a few minutes as they were relatively close, only a few blocks away from the center of the market. Unlike the merchants' store when I walked in the employee greeted me and asked me what I would be using today.

I told the employee that I would like to use their CNC millers and a Cad program for a few hours. After a few minutes of negotiation, I would have to pay 7 value which I did in the form of copper wire that I had heaps of from my years scavenging at the junkyard.

Once I was in the back with the Cad and miller, I began to design the parts I wanted to be steel which was the limbs, head, and torso, the torso and libs would be hollow so I could fit wire and tubes through it. I also wanted four hands with a fifth hand coming from the back. Once my cad was complete I began milling the steel block.

A couple of hours later the parts were complete. I put all of the parts into my pouch. Thanking the employee I left and started heading back to the orphanage. On my way back to the orphanage I bought some meat from one of the merchants. It was getting a little late but I had plenty of time to spare.

Making my way back into the orphanage I gave the meat to the chef and continued into the sleeping room and onto my bed. There were still kids inside the sleeping room, so I couldn't go into the hatch without being seen. That was ok it had been a long day and I needed to catch up on sleep. Setting my pouch under my pillow I lay down.

Waking up, I felt refreshed and ready to create the perfect minion "cough" helper. early morning light shown onto my bed. Looking around I noticed all the kids were asleep "perfect" grabbing my pouch I carefully and quietly made my way into the hatch.

Turning on the light I began to pull out my things and set them on my desk. Pulling wire and tubes from my collection of stuff, I sat down and began to attach the different pieces of steel using the wire and tubes.

I had thought of a way to burn the runes onto the steel surface of the golem. I would use a simple pencil. The difference would be that my pencil would have the runes for fire, enhance, and a new one control. Control was a simple switch. It would allow me to turn a rune on and off. The same effect could be done by stopping the mana flow but this way it allowed the mana to be built up in the rune. Thus creating a small torch.

I repeated what I had done to the other golems this time adding a second void rune, this way it could be used to power any rune tools it had on it. I added a little knife as its bottom right hand. The knife would use the rune sharpen, which just sharpened the edge of a blade when mana was being supplied.

Its bottom left hand was replaced with a small torch, not unlike the one I was using. The hand on its back was given three finger-like appendages to help it hold things it was working on. It had four legs, each with a claw that could be lowered to the ground for traction and grip. I also added two double a batteries to the back of the chest, connecting them directly to the copper wires. The last thing I did was add a rune that the book originally had under "Homunculie and familiars" The rune was called bond according to the book this rune had taken many years to develop and was highly complex and hard to copy. It allowed the bonded 'me and my golem' to read each other's emotions and to a limited degree thoughts. It also made the bond completely obedient to the bonded, which wouldn't be a problem in my case as I was bonding with a golem.

As for the complexity, I cheated. I took a picture of the rune using an Instant camera 'which printed the picture' brought it to the crafters guild, copied it into the cad, and milled it straight onto the chest piece. The book said I would need to drop a bit of blood onto the rune before supplying mana and an electrical charge. Cutting my finger I let some blood drip onto the rune. I quickly bandaged it up, completely forgetting about the enhance rune.

All that was left was to power the void runes. And see if my modern take on runes works how I hoped it would.

Closing my eyes, I take a deep breath in and begin to pour as much mana as I can into the void runes. Activating the runes surprisingly didn't take all my mana. It was a lot but not enough to knock me unconscious, a bit woozy though. I leaned into my chair feeling the headache begin to ease up. Once it was gone I looked up. My golem was taking Its first steps, they were far more precise than any of my other golems. It looked up at me, and something I wasn't expecting happened. I got a mental image of myself beamed into my head. Along with a questioning feeling. "Uh ya. I mean yes, I am your master" It seemed to think on this before nodding.

Before I could react it moved over to the piece of bark with enhance on it and jumped over to me. I was momentarily startled by its quickness. Before I realized that it was pointing at my hand. I slowly lowered my hand down to it. It grabbed my hand and positioned the bark to my finger. "I'm sorry buddy but that won't wor..." My finger began to heal. I looked over to the golem only to realize that its second void rune was glowing "O".

He looked up at me and I looked down to him. He sent me a feeling that seemed to say "Better?" I lifted my finger up and it was healed "Ya better" I said.

He was better than I could have hoped for. I needed a good name for him, but I could only think of one "Your name is scrap"

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