Troy was frightened when he woke up.

The ceiling was different.

A small thing, but it suddenly made the room feel smaller and his breaths insufficient.

Troy had held onto his new most prized possession through all of the chaos of the previous day and had managed to bring it into his room. Troy brought out Groblo, now a small ball of dirt the size of his head, with shaking hands and whispered the name of his only Skill into it.

“[Golem Creation].”

The ball of dirt slowly came into existence as a lumpy humanoid.

It unfurled outwards from its sleeping … no, Golems didn’t sleep. He knew that now just as he knew this Golem stopped existing the moment he stopped … what was the word? Channelling! It wasn’t real, not in the way he’d first thought when he saw it come into being. It wasn’t alive. It was just a puppet.

The ceiling got brighter as Troy lost himself in his thoughts. He used this one fact to shake him out of his thinking stupor.

Troy was confused, was he supposed to wake himself up? His mother or one of his siblings always woke him up. Troy sat up and looked around, squinting against the light of the dawn.

The house he’d been given to live in was larger than his cooking area back home, the biggest room in the house, able to hold Troy and his four brothers and his sister as well as all their aunts and uncles, who had all been home to celebrate Troy getting his Skill. He remembered several of his uncles telling him about their own apprenticeships, but Troy hadn’t figured it out on his own. Stupid. It was just like adults to do something like that. To tell him how great he was, before selling him off to an old man.

He’d been given away to a Master. He was an apprentice now.

But what was he supposed to do?

~

The Courtyard had Golems in it. That’s what his Skill told him they were and that’s what his Master had told him they were. So why did they look so scary?

They marched around the Courtyard, like soldiers with how perfectly in time they were. Their bodies were shiny like knights in armour but smoother. They were made of metal, Troy realised, something he hadn’t been able to make out in the darkness of the previous night. It was unlike the metal of his father’s tools however which was dark and bumpy. This metal was bright and flowed like liquid.

Troy stood in the middle of the square courtyard and watched as the two Golems marched in perfect timing. Groblo sat cradled in his arms, unmoving except when he willed it.

The boy’s legs got tired eventually, so he sat down and leaned against Groblo as he watched the Golems as they marched in perfect unison around the courtyard. He had Groblo get up and pick up a mound of dirt from the old man’s garden. He used the dirt to make Groblo a little bigger, the golem was a poor backrest at his current height.

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Troy wondered what it was he was supposed to be doing. His uncles and aunts had all been telling him how hard their apprenticeships had been at first. One of his uncles, Harry, showed him a scar that stretched from the tip of his finger to the bottom of his hand. He was a Butcher? Troy didn’t really understand what Uncle Harry did, but that scar had terrified him, and his father had laughed when he saw Troy’s reaction.

Most apprenticeships involved lots of moving stuff around and doing the jobs that no Master would willingly do. But this old guy had Golems! He’d walked through several hallways on his way to his room, the old man muttering to himself before swinging around to look at Troy with his bloodshot eyes every few minutes. Many rooms had branched off from the hallways, some filled with malformed golems with limbs far bigger than their bodies, some with identical Golems with bodies shaped like suits of armour. With all of those Golems at his disposal, what was Troy supposed to do?

He hugged his knees a little tighter as he recalled the tales told by the older kids. Tales of apprentices used as slaves … or worse.

Troy thought about running away. He wouldn’t be able to make it out the thick, metal doors. They were too heavy for him or Groblo, either way, he wasn’t getting out.

Groblo couldn’t help him escape. But maybe somebody else could?

Troy got up off the courtyard floor and walked over to where Groblo had dug up a mound of dirt. This area of land was no patch to grow vegetables like the one at home, there was just bright green grass growing on this stretch of dirt that ran around the inside of the courtyard walls. The old man probably wouldn’t care if he used more dirt than the tiny hole that he’d already dug for Groblo. Right?

Troy set the Golem to digging, he wanted grass-free dirt for this one, he didn’t know why, he just got a strong feeling that they would make the process harder somehow.

He wanted something with powerful legs for this one, Groblo had been built with stability in mind, he’d wanted the mud man to survive a few good kicks from the older kids. To stand tall under the power of the kicks and punches of children who loved to tear his creations down.

Troy shook his head as he reminded himself not to get lost in thought.

So he wanted a golem with powerful legs, and strong arms, it needed to be able to lift him for long enough to carry him over the wall after all. Did it need to do anything else though? Troy hesitated as he smoothed over a rough portion of the right arm. Maybe he didn’t need to make this golem with the same level of detail as Groblo. The sun was past its midpoint and it was likely his Master would look for him at some point if he wasn’t already.

Troy looked over the golem, it stood at the height of his chin, with mud packed into the shape of muscles on its arms and legs. It was still a little rough in places, and it had a crack that ran up the middle of one of the legs. He only needed it to carry him over the wall he reminded himself.

Troy took a few steps back and recited his skill.

“[Golem Creation].”

The golem didn’t move. Maybe he had to give it a name?

“I name you Muner. [Golem Creation].”

The golem didn’t move. Troy watched in despair as a piece of dirt flaked off of its head and plummeted to the ground. Groblo never had pieces of mud fall off of him, not once in the entire time Troy had had him digging for dirt. The Skill had failed. It wasn’t telling him what to do either, and it felt like a bad idea to try to force it to do so.

Troy kicked the ground in frustration. He sat down and thought. He picked up Groblo and looked him over from top to bottom. He looked over Muner.

He concluded that it was a lack of effort, he’d been trying so hard to make something that would last the previous time he tried to make a mud man. With this Golem he’d been too focused on making it fast.

Troy’s eyes widened as he remembered that the old man could arrive at any time. He scrambled to finish off Muner, trying to hurry while also trying to smooth out all imperfections in the golems exterior. After briefly trying for a human-like face, but only creating something hauntingly frightening, Troy settled on a smooth face, similar to the one he’d chosen for Groblo.

Finally, Troy stood back and looked over his Golem. It would work this time, it had to.

“[Golem Creation]”

Muner didn’t budge, and Troy couldn’t feel that mental link between himself and the golem, not as he could feel between himself and Groblo. Troy had spent hours now building this golem with Groblo, longer than he’d spent on any mud man before, he’d torn one of his nails off digging with his hands, and rubbed dirt and blood all over his arms and hands. He was exhausted from building this stupid golem that refused to work!

“Fuck this!” Troy yelled. He didn’t care at this point if the old man caught him and made him his slave, he just wanted this stupid golem to work.

“[Golem Creation]!”

“[Golem Creation]!”

“[Golem Creation]!”

“[Golem Cr-.”

“What exactly do you think you’re doing, boy?”