As he headed back to the castle, he had plenty of time to think. Kalia was right, he would be hard-pressed to keep up with her if she was a greykin. There was so much going on right now that he simply didn’t have time to sleep, eat, or relieve himself. So he was going to have to rectify that.

He made a beeline for the workroom as soon as he arrived. Once inside he locked the doors and sat in the chair at his desk. Soon the spell he had been building in his mind coalesced and instead of pulling out a bone for the focus, he simply channeled the spell into his finger and pointed it at his head.

A black ray speared through his skull and his head fell to the desk. He lay like this for only a second or two before his revival spell kicked in. He jerked back up and shook himself. “Ugh, that’s a weird one.”

He made a mental note that Death Ray wasn’t nearly as instantaneous as he thought it was. At least this spell had been mostly painless, some of the others he tested weren’t as nice. Norman had been adding Ethereal Binding to his spells and using them when he killed himself so he could get a better understanding of their effects.

Was it a bit macabre? Sure. But he learned a lot of useful information by testing his spells in this fashion.

After sucking down a potion to replace the finger he sacrificed for the spell, he cracked his neck and stood, reveling in the feeling of not being burdened by niggling little things like having to breathe or getting tired. There was a certain appeal to being undead that he missed. But he knew this period wouldn’t last forever so he needed to make the best of his time.

With his mind in full motion, he set about developing a spell. This is one that had been on his mind since he met the Gorfan head scientist, Mylara.

Although, he wasn’t going to start cloning himself. That was just fucking weird. And that woman was highly disturbed. No sane person decides to work for a country like the Gorfan Principality without having a screw or two loose. Sure she claimed each clone was her and had her full memories, but how would she even know? That was some existential bullshit he would prefer to avoid.

But he pushed thoughts of that woman to the back of his mind as he focused on his newest project. The spell he was building would need to contain a lot of his newest discoveries. Especially if he wanted to use it as he planned.

As he worked he started to run into issues almost immediately. Which wasn’t surprising given the base spell he was modifying.

It was the same issue he always ran into with Bone Horrors. Only this time he was trying to bypass the intent portion of the spell entirely. It seemed like the spell didn’t like that. Each test golem came out and started to cause havoc until he destroyed them and started over.

After his fourth failed attempt, he cursed and started pacing. “What am I missing!” He shouted into the empty room.

He had tried removing the portions of the spell that required intent, but the spell collapsed when he did that. And trying to imbue no intent was either impossible or he simply wasn’t capable of doing so. This is what led to the finished golem going nuts. They were purposeless automatons.

“No, there’s got to be some other way.” He paused in his pacing as a memory came to him.

When he had first decoded the Bone Horror spell, he had uncovered the Vessel Construct symbol during that research. He hadn’t played around with it much, because it worked as intended. But there was one state of the symbol he hadn’t ever discovered.

He quickly reconfigured the spell and looked at it with a frown. Using that last state made the spell no longer work. Which made no sense.

It’s the same issue he stumbled upon so long ago, and why he had simply skipped over it to work on other projects. But now that he had a deeper understanding of magic, he thought he knew what was missing.

The first thing he did was to try adding Soul Trap to the spell.

He was glad when that failed to work. If it had, he wouldn’t be able to use this spell as he intended. Although a golem that could trap a soul would be an interesting project in the future.

Seeing as that attempt failed, he went with Ethereal Binding next. It worked. But as soon as the spell was complete, it collapsed in on itself. Similar to how it failed when he tried removing intent. He even tried placing a living test subject inside the spell, hoping it would latch onto it. The spell did anchor itself to the creature, but it simply went berserk when he brought it to life.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

After he cleaned up that mess, Norman realized he wasn’t that surprised by the outcome. He should have expected it knowing what he did. Especially with his recent use of the Command spell. The small rodents didn’t have the mental capacity to operate what he was trying to build. Even if the test golem wasn’t much larger than a small dog. Their tiny brains simply weren’t developed enough to operate a more advanced body.

Those tests were failures, but he had another. He swapped out Ethereal Binding with Soul Anchor.

The spell worked again. Or at least it would work once he finished drawing it out. He grabbed another test subject and cast the spell.

When he took a step back from the newly constructed golem, he smiled. It stood there motionless, just as he had hoped.

With this success, he knew his plan was going to work. It just needed a bit more tweaking, and he would be there.

After a few tests, Norman did discover an issue with the golem. But he was able to apply a solution in the form of the Soul Resonance. He repeated the simple movement tests and nodded appreciatively as the construct completed each command without issue. The golem was functioning properly but wasn’t constrained by simple intent. It also wasn’t overwhelming the host soul, since the soul was only there to replace the intent, instead of controlling the construct.

It was a bit cruel to use a living creature in this fashion, but for these tests it was fine. Once he had the bugs worked out, he would simply be using a body-less soul.

What he was working on was bordering on soul magic. But in a very different direction to what he had done before. So he wasn’t worried about what he was doing here getting out. Especially since he wasn’t trying to modify, change, or break the soul he was working with. He was simply using it as an interface.

His testing went late into the night and through most of the next day, during which he did extensive testing. If his plan was going to work, he needed to know all of the limitations of these new golems.

And there were a few.

The hosted soul would simply remain motionless unless given an order. That was good for some things, but not so good for making them guards that could react to threats.

That was fine in this instance, but he realized he wouldn’t be able to use this technique to create smarter golems. His old Bone Horrors were far better in that regard.

The other limitation was power. Unlike a normal golem, this new one drained power even while remaining still. It required him to add Catalyst symbols to the spell. Which was fine. He had wanted to see how they worked with golems anyway.

Turns out one wasn’t enough. A soul-powered golem required three to run continuously while remaining stationary. A fourth needed to be added to power it for motion without it running out of energy.

In the end, Norman added six to the spell, although he could adjust that as needed. More would extend the duration with which the golem could remain active.

He was so focused on his work that he didn’t even notice Kalia had entered the room.

It wasn’t until she spoke up that he was pulled from his fugue state.

“What are you doing?”

He turned to blink at her in surprise. “When did you get here?”

“A couple of minutes ago. I didn’t want to disturb you but I really need to know what that is.” She pointed to the small spider-like golem that was slowly walking in circles.

“Oh, that. That’s just a golem I’m testing.”

“That is a golem?”

He looked at the grotesque abomination. He supposed he could see the confusion. Normally he hid the muscles and ligaments behind an exoskeleton of bone. But he was attempting something different. Norman decided not to mention that fact to his wife. She didn’t need to know her ring had living tissue inside it.

“Eh, it's an experiment. Not even close to a finished product yet.”

“Good. I don’t think I could handle those ugly things scurrying about. Although I'm sure Princess, Dante, and Lucifer would find them entertaining.”

“Speaking of, have you seen them lately?”

She snorted. “Princess was lying outside the door this whole time. She’s a bit upset with you, so you better give her some attention when you’re done. As for the other two, they are upstairs in the throne room.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “I know I’ve been neglecting them. I’ll make sure to spend some time with them soon. Once all of the madness slows down. I’ll make sure to spend some quality time with you as well.”

“Oh, I like the sound of that,” she giggled. “But not now. I just came to let you know the first five arrays are done. We are finding appropriate spots to place them. Or I should say Grobert is.”

“Good. Could you let him know to have one near Ashvale, but not too close? Someplace out about sixty miles should work.”

She looked at him strangely. “Why so far away? Wouldn’t it be easier to maintain it if it's closer?”

“If we have to maintain these arrays, we are already in trouble. No, I want it close, but far enough away that if something goes wrong, it doesn’t harm anyone.” There was going to be a lot of stored power in these spells. He didn’t want them anywhere near a populated area if he could avoid it.

“Alright… I’ll let him know. Do you want to be there when we deploy the first few?”

He probably should be, but he really couldn’t afford to waste the time. Especially if there weren’t nearby teleporters to travel to and from the sites.

“No. I don’t think that will be necessary. I can always check on them later once we have teleporters set up.”

She gave him a kiss on the cheek before turning to leave. “Don’t work too hard. Also, I set an alarm for you so you can join me for dinner. We can at least enjoy one meal together every few days while we work through this madness.”

He smiled at that. “I’ll see you at dinner.”

Norman finished up what he was working on and joined Kalia for a lovely dinner. It had been weeks since they had had time to just sit down and relax together. He wished it could last longer, but they both knew what was at stake. They shared an intimate kiss before separating and returning to their respective projects.