The golem, Lotte, stood. She wasn’t Cece’s finest work, but she wasn’t quite as drab as she was, although now she was realizing that drabness served another purpose. As Lotte stood, Cece came to realization that having her in her living space was going to be slightly…unnerving. She was clearly a golem, but she looked just human enough to begin reaching into the uncanny valley. Cece thought she would get used to it, but if not she might have to make it look either slightly less human, or entirely more convincing.
“Understood Cece, shall I begin cleaning.” Lotte said in a strangely mechanical voice.
“Uhh, sure? There’s not much to clean though. Oh! Stay out of my atelier though, I don’t want anything being moved in there.”
“Please designate your “atelier””
“Anything behind that door.” Cece replied, pointing down the long hallway to the other half of her apartment.
“Understood.”
With that the strange automata went rummaging through her home. Cece knew from looking at her inscriptions that it was how she familiarized herself with a given space and how it should look, as well as to find cleaning implements, appliances, cookware, and faucets, but still Cece couldn’t help but feel uncomfortable as she rifle through her cabinets.
“What better way to avoid one unfortunate situation that to charge headlong into another.” She muttered to herself while walking into the atelier. She could delay the inevitable if she wished, but Cece never did if she could help it, and she had seven beautiful souls to give to that negligent snake. She grabbed the souls from the safe she stored her most valuable reagents in, they looked like glowing marbles, perhaps a little larger, but the comparison was apt. They felt like glass too, although that was just sulfur magic keeping them in a condensed and material form. They were warm too, almost too warm to touch. While she was at it she grabbed her grimoires.
She used scribe’s eye to draw the devil of knowledge’s sigil on the ground without specifying an ink to use with it, so it used her own blood. She was glad that feature would serve some use, otherwise it would have gone neglected since the magic in her blood, as the rest of her body, was so low that it would be useless as a scribing ink. Still it felt strange to just have a portion of her blood leave her body all at once, it wasn’t particularly painful, but she felt a hollow ache in several part of her body.
“I summon thee, oh great serpent of knowledge, tempter of Eve. I beseech thee, grant me the power to learn what I desire. Grant me the knowledge divine.” It was less embarrassing to say it now that she knew it worked to get her where she needed, but it still felt quite melodramatic.
She closed her eyes and when she opened them she was in a familiar darkness. She walked forward her feet splashing. Looking up, there was her patron, as always on its obelisk.
“Welcome back, Cece. I do hope you’ve actually brought me a soul this time.”
“Thank you for having me.” She curtsied. “And you will be delighted to hear that I have.”
“Your etiquette loses its charm when you have cheated me twice, child.”
“I did not cheat you, I haggled you.” She smiled.
“Very well, I suppose you wish for another boon?” The snake hissed a laugh.
“Yes, If you would be so kind, perhaps multiple if possible.”
“There is nothing to stop that, besides your own discomfort with the process. I’m sure you know your limitations.” It taunted.
“Well one of us has to!” She chided the devil. She and it had had a long conversation on the results of her first boon.
“Strength always has a cost, and it is rare for one to leave this realm without pain.”
“Speaking of, what exactly is this place?” She asked. She had of course been curious since the first time, but there were too many competing questions to have asked it earlier.
“Information is never free.”
“Fine. Keep your secrets.” She resisted the urge to stick her tongue out.
“Nevertheless, take a look at your options, child.”
Cece continued approaching the obelisk, her feet splashing in the cool, but not cold water. Her choices were slightly different this time, so far they had never remained entirely the same. She had asked more questions the last time she entered this strange realm, and she had been informed, much more generously, that the boons depended on the person, what they could take, and more importantly, what abilities they already had. Cece had never been presented a boon related to magic, and she never would. She was however being presented with an improvement to scribe’s eye that she was absolutely going to take.
“Erase: Allows Scribe’s Eye to erase writing and restore writing media to previous form. Requires same material as media to fill in gaps.”
Even that snake could see her excitement.
“It requires four souls, but I must ask what is your purpose for it?”
“Information is never free.” She said smugly.
“Very funny, would you like to learn more about this realm in exchange.”
“No I want you to knock the price down by one soul.” She already had ideas about what this place was.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I will have to refuse, I doubt it is worth such a price.”
“I assure you it is, it’s something no one else in the world has seen.”
“You have my attention.” The snake replied greedily.
“Is that an agreement to the deal.”
The great serpent sighed. “Very well, though I’m sure I’ll regret it.”
“This.”, Cece said, while pulling out the cataclysm containing ruby from her bag. “Is a grimoire.”
The devil of knowledge’s eyes flashed red, strobing, light scanning and analyzing every micrometer of the stone, as a strange alien blare emanated around the two. Cece would have been frightened if she wasn’t hoping for a strong reaction.
“Extremely fascinating. You included the theory in that compilation you made me, but I hadn’t considered the true applications.”
“I’m glad you like it. Now I’ve finished looking at your boons and I’m ready to select them.” Cece stated, having weighed her options as she conversed with the snake.
“Of course, what are your choices.”
“Erase, calculation, and automated process.”
Cece had of course needed to get Erase. Money was an alchemetrix’s greatest friend and worst enemy, and even with her fortune she would run out of money eventually if she kept buying rubies, even making them was costly and difficult, requiring a great amount of magic reagents to form the heat and pressure needed to get it to crystalize. She would still need some ruby to fill in the channels that scribe’s eye burns through the material, but still it would keep costs down. That however wasn’t the primary reason. There was something far more significant to her that this ability could theoretically do, which was alter a scroll while it was acting. It was unlikely. Alchemetrixes had been trying to do something similar for centuries, altering a scroll was easy, but doing so while magic was actively burning through it was a failure in the making at best and mortally dangerous at worst. Still though, she owed it to centuries of alchemical studies to make the attempt.
Calculation was for far more practical reasons.
“Calculation: Allows the user to mentally perform complex calculations. Practice can improve strength.”
This would be useful in her work, but the real reason she chose it was her poor aim in her last fight with Solastria. Cece hoped that it would allow her to calculate the necessary angles and distances to hit a given target. Although her scrolls were strong and she could make explosives that could level buildings, mages always underestimated firearms. Perhaps because they were newer, or those who had them tended to advertise that they had them, she had always managed to catch at least one mage unaware with her revolver, as far as she was concerned the thing was her lifeline.
Automated process was an improvement on her daemonic mind, something she could actually already do on her own.
“Automated Process: Allows the user to designate mental routines separate from core consciousness. Practice can improve strength.”
It simply allowed her to splinter a part of her mind and perform the necessary action, independent of her main cognition. For example, the continuous logging and archiving of her memories. It wasn’t a revolutionary ability, but she thought it could make her life easier.
“Reducing the total by one, as promised, I will require six souls.”
Cece opened her bag and grabbed six of them, leaving the butler’s. She considered trying to find a cheap boon to spend it on, but decided that having an extra for next time would serve her well.
“Oh I see you’ve simply been holding out on me, I was worried my newest supplicant was unable to acquire any.” The snake said facetiously upon seeing the souls.
“It’s called being a smart business woman, your unholiness.” She mocked back, giving a little curtsy.
“Tss, tss” The snake laughed. “The deal is sealed, Cece. Come back soon.” It said.
Cece woke up on the cold floor of her atelier, and for a moment was allowed to be happy with her decisions. The universe saw fit to correct that transgression a moment later. She had assumed, or rather postulated, that boons with greater costs, that changed the body more, would hurt more. It made a certain amount of sense. Therefore she thought that her eye might hurt the most, and although it burned in a way that made her want to scoop it out with a spoon, what truly hurt was her head. Again.
It wasn’t that much worse than the first boon, perhaps only, 4% more. The number came unbidden to her, and with it a bolt of pain so searing that she wanted crack her own skull. She carefully did her best not to think of numbers, lest she be mentally assaulted again.
She could feel what was happening to her which was the most disconcerting. Parts of her brain were… crystalizing to put it simply. What were once fluid and organic nets of cognition were now ordered, geometric structures that put numbers in and returned numbers out. Other parts were of her mind she felt were strange circles, spirals, spirographs, it was hard to put into words, but the sensation felt like the mental equivalent of walking in place.
Cece, as always lacking in caution, decided to give these secondary portions of her mind something to do. She ever so gingerly, tried to associate the archiving process she had started and new structures, expecting a rush of pain, but instead felt a load taken off her mind that she didn’t even know she was carrying. The pain was still there of course, but she felt good enough to focus on the task at hand. So far the pain just seemed to be from the physical restructuring of her brain, but she hadn’t seen if it would similarly overload her with information. She squinted open her good eye, and immediately shut it as her mind was overloaded with calculations.
“The table is 3.43 feet or 41.16 inches or 1.045464 meters or 104.5464 centimeters away its position is at an 80 degree angle to you where you are the ce-” Her mind raced.
Luckily, this time around she had a lot more experience with manipulating her own mind. She focused on the crystalline structures in her skull and placed a mental filter on them, so that they would, hopefully, only activate when she desires. She pushed past the pain and hesitantly opened both her eyes this time and was greeted with blissful nothing. Or as close to blissful nothing as her mind operated at. Cece pulled herself to feet and leaning against the wall managed to enter into the other half of her apartment.
“Cece, do you require medical assistance.” Lotte said, broom in hand, upon seeing the girl stumbling through the door. Cece didn’t even know how the golem would go about getting her to a doctor seeing as Lotte had only ever seen the inside of her apartment and didn’t know where she was. She supposed the thing could try having an operator connect her to one, but she didn’t find any scripts that would let her use a telephone.
“No Lotte, I just have a migraine, could you help me get to my bed.”
“Of course, Cece.” The golem said, dropping the broom to the ground. She wasn’t strong enough to lift her up, but it was able to help stabilize her as she walked. She was impressed the thing maintained its balance, there weren’t many inscriptions for locomoting, so she assumed it must have been a product of its mechanics, she was impressed with Gustave’s work. She managed to get into her bed, and Lotte closed the curtains without asking.
“Do you require any food or drink, Cece.”
“No- Actually, could you make me some tea and eggs, Lotte?”
“Of course, Cece.” The golem started walking to the kitchen.
“Thank you!” She called to her back. It felt silly to thank a golem, but it felt right to her. If you were going to make something look like a human, you should treat it kindly.
She was already beginning to feel better, but once Lotte brought her food and tea, on a tray no less, she was only suffering a light headache.
“Here is your food, Cece.” Lotte said, gently setting a tray on her lap. Cece was delighted that she had put her preferences into her inscriptions already, the eggs were scrambled perfectly and the tea was as strong as possible.
“Maybe Sigmund was right about having a servant.” She conceded to no one in particular.