Poetrak felt something was wrong. Ever since the Skysteel recovery quest had been taken, he’d felt a pit in his stomach. It was now so bad that he decided to recast Divine Imminent Incident. But it came back with the same, precise location of landfall, the same minimal impact on The Greenwood, and even the same expected journey length. The big picture was identical to the previous scries. The party mage’s mana expenditure was trending upwards, but that was to be expected. It couldn’t be what was concerning him because it wasn’t going to get much past four apprentice level spells. He wouldn’t doubt Rodney’s performance, he had quite the storied history. When he noticed that Larrik was going to suffer some kind of minor injury, he decided he was just getting paranoid and wasting mana. That was something only apprentice or journeyman seers should be doing, so he would need to work on trusting his skills more, as even still his apprehension still hadn’t completely died down. Like there was one more thing he was missing.

~~~

When the Soulsteel went bounding off down the hallway, still covered in water, Cole’s first instinct was to cast another Bind Gravity to stop it from running into any servants that might be wandering the corridors at such a late hour. He had however waited to see where it was going, as it had just gone to a lot of trouble to show its intelligence. It stopped right in front of his lab, but unlike when they had been leaving, it didn’t wait by the door for them.

“What’s it doing?”

“It seems to be looking at the Guardian Armor.”

“It’s not gonna try and fight them, is it?”

They both cringed at the thought of the Baron rebuking them for ‘letting a fight break out in his castle’, and ‘damaging expensive magical defenses.’ All because ‘they had neglected to put a leash on their new pet.’

However, as Cole did start to ready another Bind Gravity, the Soulsteel started to change. It grew much taller. It should have returned to its full size while it was down for a nap, but it certainly wasn’t this big when Cole had placed it in the Ignarium. By the time it was approaching Cole’s height, it now clearly possessed two arms and two legs. But the metallic sheen didn’t change, so whatever it was turning into mustn't have had skin. It wasn’t until it tried to turn, and promptly fell to pieces, that Cole realized what it had turned into.

The Soulsteel had just managed to pull itself back together, and was now putting its helmet back on. It took a second to get situated, before trying to stand up again. Cole could clearly see it had improved the armor’s joints, as it only seemed to be using a tenth the mana it had when it fell apart.

He pulled his handkerchief out of his pocket, and then proffered his now slightly insulated hand. It was met with a gentle grip, and Cole pulled it to its feet. It still seemed to teeter for a second, but then it managed to stand straight up. When it began moving its hand up and down, it took Cole a second to recognise a handshake.

“Master, are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Just, give me a minute. Can you take him into the lab and have him sit somewhere?”

“Yes, master.”

After getting its attention with a wave, Tommen opened the door to lead the still stumbling suit of armor inside the lab, but before Tommen could close the door Master Cole had one last thing to tell him.

“Give it a cane or something, I don’t want it to stumble into anything.”

“Yes master.”

~~~

I had wanted to keep doing more math, but by the time they had stopped talking about whatever it was they were on about, it had started to rain, and the packed earth was rapidly turning into muck. As the two of them led me back inside, they wiped their feet at the door. I was half tempted to shake off like a dog, but I managed to talk myself out of it. I had just gotten done convincing them I was smart enough to both do multiplication and understand mathematical variables, I didn’t want to ruin my hard work by immediately acting like a dog. They both were staring at me, as if they were expecting something new now that we were inside.

I had actually come up with an idea to achieve a more human form without having to try and make a face, that being something I had always dreaded in character creators. The hallway was mostly rugs, and those ‘not’ coffee tables you put against walls. But there was a pair of alcoves, positioned across from the laboratory we had originally left from. They each contained a suit of plate armor. I figured I was just a little shy of the amount of material I might need, as they both were taller than the wizard, but I wasn’t going to give up without trying. Copying them wasn’t difficult, but when I tried to turn back to the wizard and the kid to perform a formal bow, I felt myself come apart at the seams. I had neglected to make more advanced joints beyond what the armor in front of me possessed, and I had substituted the straps for light and dark mana weave, controlling extension and contraction respectively. What I didn’t expect was that as soon as I started putting a sideways load on my joints, the mana necessary spiked, and I lost all control. My form didn’t revert or anything, so I would just have to take the time to reassemble myself. If I lowered my new height, I bet I could make some ball in socket joints that wouldn’t put so much stress on the straps.

Using pale blue mana, I dragged my left arm back to my torso. It was slow going, and I once again promised myself I would need to make new, stronger mana again. I started with my shoulder joint, a cup in the torso and a ball at the end of the arm. I was able to design it to possess a far greater range of motion than the base armor could have managed, as I didn’t need to account for an arm being able to fit inside. I copied this to my other arm, and then modified it for my hips, as the knees and my elbows were already workable hinge joints. The U joints I made for my wrists and ankles required a greater supply of mana to keep stable, but with the load being transferred through physical material, and the balance being maintained by the paired black and white threads, I was able to move into a kneeling position.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

After the wizard helped me to my feet, the kid started leading me into the lab. I was slowly getting better at walking upright, but I was finding I had no natural balance. I knew that the ears had some kind of system that managed to sense acceleration, but I didn’t have time to think about how I could emulate that before the kid handed me a wooden walking cane. Testing it briefly, I found that as long as the tip of the cane was in contact with the floor, it would return to standing straight up.

The wizard hadn’t followed us into the room, so I would have to make do with asking the apprentice. He brought me further into the lab, stopping at a pair of desks in front of what must be a chalkboard. After he pulled one of the seats out for me, I sat down. It was a little small, at least until I started scaling myself down to fit properly. I was now only about half a foot taller than the kid, as opposed to before, when I was somewhere above the wizard in height.

I started my questions by trying to point at the staff. It took him a second to recognise that I was trying to ask him something, rather than just point it out to him. I took it and, while holding it so it didn’t quite touch the floor, I tilted it every which way. Then I simply let go, and as soon as it touched the floor it stood up straight.

~~~

Tommen was just as confused about this thing as his master was. When he gave it the walking stick, he didn't need to explain how to use it, it had just started walking with the stick like it had been using one for years.The enchantment on the staff was a simple one, called Stabilize, But it seemed to remarkably improve the Soulsteel’s balance. He had learned it about three months ago, halfway into his apprenticeship so far, and around the same time Natasha had left for her journeymanship.

Before he could get too lost in his thoughts, he noticed that the Soulsteel was trying to get his attention. It was pointing at the staff, as it now rested sideways on Natasha’s desk. He had to do a double take, as its current form was now much smaller than it had been. Before it had towered above even his master, but now it reminded him of how tall Natasha had been when she left. As it started trying to explain its question, Tommen snapped back to focus.

It seemed to be wondering how the staff managed to keep itself upright. Perhaps it even wanted to learn how to do it on its own? Tommen briefly went digging into his master's notes, trying to find the ones relevant to how the enchantment was constructed. Finding them, He grabbed a piece of chalk and started drawing.

“Okay, so, Here is the staff. It’s just a normal, if slightly magically conductive, wood.”

“Then we hollow out a section and implant a mana bead. For the Stabilize spell, we need one filled with Balance.”

“Once we have a source of Balance mana, we add these long mana struts. They will constantly stay in contact with the ground, but always try to return to their initial length.”

“There is a more advanced version that improves their performance on uneven terrain, but this is the basic version.”

Tommen was pleased. His verbal explanation didn’t seem to be registering, but it seemed to follow the chalk as he drew his explanation. The Soulsteel didn’t seem entirely satisfied, but before he could start trying to explain the more advanced versions, he started miming another question entirely.

It seemed to be pretending it was tugging on a string in his hands, but then it did a sort of slow clap, only to then go back to tugging on the invisible string. Tommen had a guess as to the question, so he turned back to the chalkboard.

“You’re saying you understand how to keep something in tension, like the rear strut would be if it’s falling forward, but you don’t understand compression, like the front strut would need to be?”

~~~

After he circled the front leg, I nodded. In the drawing, the staff was falling forwards. And while I understood that it was like a giant radio tower needing cables to hold it in place, he seemed to be implying the front legs were capable of also pushing on the staff.

He seemed to move to an entirely different topic at this point, but I just patiently waited. He must be going somewhere with this. After drawing two circles, he filled in one in completely, and to the other he added sun lines, like it was giving off light. He then took a line off of each and brought them to a third circle that he half shaded, with the other half having more rays of light.

This was what must be a mana recipe he was trying to explain to me, and as I spun the White and Black mana together, the new mana was a silvery gray. I tried making it into a sort of bubble level, but that didn’t seem to work well. When I tried making a plumb bob, it worked much better. The silvery thread hung down from behind my eyes, and as I walked it stayed perfectly perpendicular to the ground.

~~~

Poetrak was now enjoying his evening tea, listening to the rain outside. He was now absolutely sure he was missing something. He’d been informed that the adventurers had arrived around noon today, without any major injuries, all just as he'd expected. What he didn’t expect was that they would request an urgent audience, and Cole had left for it immediately. He had struggled through the rest of the meeting, doing some mild forecasting of when the next ideal time for some infrastructure project would come, or if the preparations for the upcoming hard winter would be sufficient. He couldn’t stop trying to guess at what could lead Rodney of all people to use an expedited request.

After the meeting had ended, he had expected for Cole to come and inform him of just how useless his divinations had proven to be, as he so relished doing. But as time went on, and he heard that Cole had dismissed the adventurers and then left for the training ground, he was at a complete loss. He had told a footman to inform Cole that he was going to come over and see what the fuss was about, but he still hadn’t gotten a reply. As the door was thrown open, He nearly choked on his tea. When Cole just slumped into the couch opposite of Poetrak, It seemed he was still in shock. After Poetrak managed to collect himself, he asked the question he knew would start an argument.

“So, what was it then?”

“I don’t know”

“How many times do I have to tell you, divination isn’t an exact science like your formulas. I’m-”

“I said I don’t know what it is.”

“Wait what?”

“It's Living Metal, and it’s already acting like Elder Soulsteel.”

“You’re being serious?”

“Yes.”

“Where is it right now?”

“It’s in my lab with Tommen. It's unbelievably friendly for Soulsteel, and I’m not worried about Tommen because it actively resists when foreign mana tries to enter.”

“Were there really no other complications on the way back? Is it what hurt Larrik?”

“No, he threw his back out trying to lift the peddler’s traveling stove back into the wagon without any help.”

“Why’d he do that?”

“The Soulsteel is drawn to fire, and it had jumped out of their packs and into their cooking fire when they stopped for lunch.”

“I see.” After a brief pause, Poetrak continued “Is that the only thing that went wrong?”

“No, Leona touched it with her bare hands.”

“She should know better than that?”

“It had turned into a serving tray, and she couldn’t help herself.”

“How did it resist foreign mana then?”

“It stopped the mana flow after three seconds, and it pulled itself out of her hand”

“Now that is most unheard of.”

“I agree. I also tested its mana control and its mana sight. It had highly developed mana sense, and its control is the same.”

“Hmmm.”

“It also filled a manabead for me.”

“I see why you said it was acting like Elder Soulsteel. Getting mana back out is normally like pulling teeth.”

“That was before it achieved artificial sight, and then started showing off its ability to do complex math.”