Many years ago, when Erlee Cogswit had started out as an engineer he’d been burning with passion, always seeking ways to better himself, studying, building and learning with the best of them. He’d gone to all the lectures, spent more time in his workshop and the forges than he did in his bed and his only ‘friend’ were the professors and his tools.
Suffice to say his personal life had been thrown under the wagon and then been left there to bleed out. He worked hard at his craft for nearly a decade before he got offered a job as the head engineer in one of the bigger mining firms that supplied Tinkerton with raw materials. He was to make autonomous mining golems and he’d gotten a team of 11 other engineers to help him do that.
On paper that was a great idea, but in reality, not so much. Because Erlee Cogswit had no capacity for being a leader whatsoever. The project ran for half a year in which Erlee’s apathy towards socializing turned to despair, then disgust and then… when they fired him ‘stole’ his notes and his work and went on to create a sub-Erlee-standards product turned to outright hatred and mistrust towards others.
Erlee left Tinkerton quickly after that to live alone in the unclaimed caverns far from the rest of civilization. He built a small hovel with a forge and a workspace and lots of mushrooms for eating and settled down.
He was happy for a time too, tinkering away in the darkened cavern. He sometimes went to the nearest town to sell some of his products to trade for food and ale and even the occasional book to pass the time. The passion that had driven him before left him though.
He didn’t care much anymore – he couldn’t really craft anything awe-inspiring without the great forges of the city or the inspiration Tinkerton bought with it, so he ended up making toys or ‘gadgets’ as he kept telling himself they were. He knew better though, he didn’t have money or materials to make anything greater. And so, he stagnated. He tried pushing the boundaries of what he could build, but he wasn’t driven any more, he didn’t find inspiration in failure or happiness in success, just bland disappointment in himself.
Erlee did not like it. Not one bit. So, he turned to the gods for guidance or at least a few of them, but his pleas came from a bitter and selfish place and weren’t answered for years. At this point, he prayed more out of habit than anything else, so it came as quite the surprise when he was offered a job, even from a minor god.
Aphiir, god of inspiration and invention, have heard your prayers. He offers you inspiration in exchange for a task.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
Quest: Build a golem to show your worth to Aphiir. Impress him and he will bestow life upon your creation and take you as his paladin.
Success: Blessed creation, inspiration, job: Paladin of Aphiir.
Failure: Do not accept if you plan to fail mortal.
Erlee Cogswit hesitated for only a second before accepting.
----------------------------------------
It was years later and Erlee had just finished the basics of his latest prototype before going to bed. He’d decided he would have to save up for some better materials before adding any other tools than the drill head. He’d used one he had nicked from DelVare’s Mining corp when he’d been kicked out many years ago out of spite, not that it would matter much to the company, but it was made of an orchalium-moonsilver alloy and it had maybe cost them a few gold, so it was still something.
----------------------------------------
Aphiir hadn’t been this nervous in decades, he wasn’t one for hiding things, but he had to make sure the soul construct would have time to become strong enough not to die when the other gods sent their paladins – and they would, it was just a matter of time he was sure. He appeared in the workshop of Erlee and took a look around. The gnome had done a marvellous job the last couple of years, trying new things and really putting in work. Problem was, the soul wasn’t compatible with any of the golems he’d crafted, it was yet too weak. His earlier inspection had put it at level 1 even with its insane endurance. There was a new golem body he was working on though, it was smaller, more toy sized than many of the others and most importantly it didn’t have a buttload of cool gadgets that would skyrocket the energy requirements. It was a sad but necessary thing. The god picked it up and carried it over to Erl- no Paladin Cogswit and prepared his ‘blessing’. To anyone watching it would hopefully just look like another run-of-the-mill blessing, even if bigger than normal – but he figured it would be hidden behind the fact that he actually took a paladin, it was a big risk for a minor god such as he and he didn’t need one per say… But he did need an excuse for where all his energy went. He pulled out the orb from his sleeve and inserted it into the golem body just as he blessed the gnome and the whole room was bathed in a soft silvery light without waking him. Aphiir stood there, almost waiting to be summoned to the Blooming Court, Phoria’s plane of power. But no summoning took him and he decided he’d best leave. But maybe the golem should too, he never wanted a nanny for it, he wanted it to succeed on its own. He disappeared from the house deeper into the caves and put down the golem gently. Then in an inspired moment he went back and broke a window, threw around some papers and opened some drawers he even stole a few silver pieces lying on a table and just for good measure knocked out the armed dwarf with a wrench just as he charged into the workshop to stop what the hell was going on.