Discussion and Getaway

A bolt of joy shot through Wanderer at the chance to be able to talk to another human, especially a child.

They immediately went to their most burning question, the one that had brought them to the bedroom in the first place.

“Why are you unable to leave your room?”, the Vessel asked in naivety, their lacklustre signs only just able to get the message across.

The moment the message was interpreted though, Wanderer felt as though they had picked the wrong question, as the boy sighed deeply and the hint of excitement that hid in their eyes faded.

“Do I look like I can leave my proctere, I can hardly walk to my desk, let alone go outside”, the youth exclaimed with a droning frustration, as if they had said these very words a hundred times.

Wanderer did have to admit, the boy certainly looked odd and now that they thought of it, likely not healthy, they just hadn't considered it was bad enough that they couldn't walk.

“Why are you unhealthy”, the Vessel signed, curiosity overcoming any sense of social cues that they had picked up over their travels.

“What do you mean why, I'm sick, krectelaro they called it, got it from my giokirelo”.

That just confused the Golem, what was sickness, how could you “get” it from someone else.

Was it like being wounded, somehow?

They signed their question and quickly received an answer, one that sounded just as confused as Wanderer felt.

“What do you mean, “What is sickness”” the boy exclaimed, “Have you never been sick before?”.

Only after shaking their head did Wanderer realise that the reason that they had never been sick before was probably because of they were a Golem, and that by stating that they had never been sick, they were almost confessing their true identity.

The child stared at Wanderer for a long moment, a deeper and deeper frown appearing on his frail face, until in an awful moment, he realised the truth and scrambled back, pinning himself to the headboard of the bed.

“Y- Your a Golem, a actual, real life Golem.” the child stated, seemingly without any expectation of answer.

Even if the Golem had a mouth to answer with, they wouldn't have been able to, as the boy quickly went on, speaking aloud to himself in mumbled panic.

“This isn't possible…. I must be hascuterlre……why, how.”

“Hah!, your not real, if you were a real Golem, I would be dead”, he exclaimed suddenly, with a smug grin, “Besides, you don't look like any of the Golems in my books!”

Strangely, Wanderer felt more hurt at being called not a Golem then they felt being rejected for being one, and they weren't quite sure how to act.

The child had begun spouting a hundred explanations of Wanderer's existence, causing the Vessel to worry that they had hurt them somehow, or increased their sickness.

Eventually, they figured it was probably time to leave, even if they hadn't talked as much as they wanted.

Wanderer reached for the handle of the door, but stopped themself, having a much better idea.

It would be unwise to sneak out through the house again, especially with the servant “just down the hall”.

It would be much quicker and safer for the Vessel to sneak out the massive window that rested just a few steps away.

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They made for the window, and after a moment or two of fiddling around, managed to open it.

“Your leaving?”. The child questioned, apparently having just realised Wanderer intention.

The youth seemed to have a penchant for putting the Golem in interactions where they didn't know what to do, because once again they didn't know how to react.

Wanderer settled for a simple nod.

“Well, uh, gerskario then”.

The Vessel jumped out the window, there was no point in making the situation more awkward than it already was.

After a short fall to the bottom, Wanderer was back in the garden, leaving as quickly as they came.

After a few moments of searching that would have been hours if they had moved, the Golem found Emio where they had seen them before, and disturbed them from their relaxation.

The Vessel no longer felt the safety they had first felt in the garden, now they knew that they could be seen, so they quickly returned Emio to their proper position, and left the engorged statues and miraculous fountains of the paradise behind.

They scrambled up the wall, and with one final glance at the boy, who was now staring from his window, Wanderer dropped into the street below.

Ironically, the crowds of people were now a comfort instead of the annoyance they once were, Wanderer enjoying anonymity that was provided in the horde.

It was still claustrophobic and loud, but the Vessel found that now they no longer had a hundred million worries cluttering their mind, it was almost endearing to see so many people having so much fun.

After removing themself from the mansion a little ways, the Golem allowed themself to put their thoughts aside for a second, all of their worries with their quest and the child shoved away, and just enjoy the crowd and explore the world around them, as they had been unable to do since they arrived in the city.

Now they actually observed the crowds, Wanderer was shocked at the sheer intricacy of the costumes around them.

They had thought they had taken it all in before, yet they could not be further from the truth.

The Golem focused in on a single costume, taking the form of some mix between a goat, man and bird.

The head, while in all certainty fake, was nearly so realistic that had it been able to move realistically Wanderer would have been fooled, a trait that was shared with the a hundred other nods to the biology of the monster.

The costume creator had added details great and small, from a tail of bird like feathers trailing out from back of the outfit, to the subtle bulge in the back of the costume, to mimic wings being hidden under a cloak.

And of course, beyond even the costume itself, the cloak that rested over the bestial shoulders of the ensemble stood out beyond all.

In comparison, even Wanderer’s own mantle fell short, the object that had once been a object of infinite beauty and majesty simply falling behind.

The cloth was woven in a hundred different fabrics, from brilliant gold to drowning blue, each stitch and seam forming a comprehensive pattern of incredible detail.

Yet as the Golem looked closer still, they found their initial inspection lacking, as the cloth was not merely a pattern, but a story as well.

Written in pictogram and symbol, a hundred different scenes played out along each line, each one only slightly different from the last in such a way that when the cloth moved, you could swear the people trapped inside the art moved as well.

And yet every story, every stitch, every hem all led toward a single figure, centred in the back of the cloak.

There, a depiction of the golden god that ruled the desert lay, the same god that was responsible for all the pain in the land, somehow responsible for the beauty of the design.

Wanderer tried not to think about it too much.

They turned their vision from the goat-man, eager to get their mind away from the subject, and instead tried to admire a different costume.

As if they had listened to the Vessel's wishes, a monster unlike any other came slinking down the road, chiming a cacophony from the many bells tied to it.

Unlike the goat-man, this costume made no attempt at appearing even remotely human, indeed it required almost twelve people to pilot it and moved in such a way that it demanded the attention of all around.

In many ways, it seemed some cross between a insect and a lizard, with shining chitin and shimmering scales interwoven.

It would have had the head of a mantis, if not for the four eyes on each side of its reptilian snout.

A hundred insectoid legs ran along side its spine, each waving its curved claws in the air as if grasping the wind itself.

The lizard wore a great cloak along its middle, following its curving body all the way to the end of the stinger on its tail.

The cloak was unlike the others they had seen, as it did not depict the cycloptian god only one time, but more times than Wanderer could hope to count, each depiction weaving into the pattern of another in one massive fractal.

In all the grandeur and pomp, the twelve figures underneath were almost hidden entirely, the bottoms of their feet and the poles that controlled the dragon out shone by every other element of the puppet.

Slowly, yet not slow enough, the serpent passed by, pridefully displaying its form to every festival goer who dared observe its splendour.

It went in the same direction every other person was, toward the centre of the city, where the trials had once taken place.

Wanderer went to leave them all behind and continue their mission, when they had a thought.

“If the trials are over, then why is everyone still moving toward the city centre?”

As it had so many times before, curiosity overtook the Golem and they followed the crowd, quest forgotten once again.