Aven wanted to go see the Creators, ask Master Fernon if his golem was ready enough to take back home, but he knew that his parents would chew him out if he left his chores unattended. So, Aven began his day the way he always did - with a trip to the village well.

In the light of day, the Nepol tribe was a sea of white spires in the rolling green grasslands. They kept their possessions light, moving from place to place when the mines ran dry or the water refused to soak into the wells, but with their golems they were never without manpower. He passed by an opening between tents that housed stacks of lumber, where Carpenters whittled away the logs that golems brought in an endless stream. They created the tent poles that needed to be sturdy in the face of strong winds, as well as the storage crates and buckets that helped both man and construct haul goods. Aven even saw a younger woman sanding down what appeared to be a bow, likely one that would be given to his parents to be strung up.

With the thought of his parents fresh in his mind, Aven squeezed past man and machine to make it to the golem-powered well, providing the one-armed automaton with his family’s bucket as the socket where it’s other arm was supposed wound the pulley embedded in it to draw the water up. While he had been around golems his entire life, for the first time he really examined the being of mana before him. How did it know when to start drawing the water? Could it tell the difference between a bucket and similarly shaped basket? And how did it wind the crank, if the crank was itself.

“Can you-” The hustle and bustle of the tribe around him reminded Aven that he wasn’t alone, so he checked to make sure that no-one was paying attention to the random child drawing water. While a pair of older women with golems carrying laundry gave him a glance, no-one else was paying any attention to the well. Calmer now, Aven began again. “Can you hear me.”

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The golem gave no response. If the sound of a filled bucket knocking against stonework as the construct filled his bucket was some sort of message, Aven couldn’t puzzle it out.

“My name is Aven. I am the son of Argan and Venita, both Fletchers. Do- Do you have a name?”

By the time he had finished introducing himself, the golem had returned to it’s default state. It neither blinked nor twitched as he waited for it to speak, the former ready to wait until it was needed again. Aven quickly realized he was talking to an animated pile of bricks, and quickly returned home in embarrassment.

The rest of his chores passed in a blur - sharpening arrowheads, mashing ingredients for the adhesive, cutting feathers to be made into fletchings - such that he missed his parents leaving as he agonized over his folly.

But with his chores done, the growling of his stomach could be held back no longer and forced him to focus on breakfast. With an assortment of bread, cheese and dried lamb in his stomach, the earlier embarrassment became nothing but a passing memory. What did stick out, however, was the status of his golem.

“Even if Master Fernon isn’t done with it, he should be able to tell me more about it. I hope that I can catch him before his lesson.”