117. Autonomous Lithic Creatures

Agatha was very angry at Mateo. Not because the man had actively wronged her, but he certainly had indirectly wronged her by making his appearance on the Agatecrafting classes. Now that Sergi had to teach the man how to perform basic inert golemancy, most of his attention was on the newcomer, which meant that the rest of the first lesson for the actual fourth-years was spent going stuff they had already been taught in self-study with the occasional advice.

“Hmm, this is very intelligent. Stupid, absurdly amounts of unmoored stupidity, but also highly intelligent,” Shayla mused at her side while she stared at a wall.

“What are you even doing?” Agatha asked her, having grown tired of practicing with the Embed command.

“Inspecting the agate circuits that control the academy’s systems,” the Intaksolfani responded without unlatching the eyes from the wall.

“You can do that from here?” The petite blonde raised a brow.

“Sure, the system is connected and exposed to the workshop, probably for maintenance. Do you not see it?”

Agatha looked at the wall, which was namely a massive slab of agate, but she couldn’t say she saw much beyond that. Just a repeating command all around.

“I just see lots of Target commands,” she mouthed.

“That is the system!” Shayla looked at her as if she was stupid.

“Mind elaborating on that?” Agatha squinted at the dark-skinned woman with undiluted malice.

“So, seeing that Sergi was not going to teach us, I borrowed some of his notes...”

“Borrowed or stolen?” The lithorist interjected.

“I thought you were above racial stereotypes, Agatha,” the lapiloquist stared at her.

“I did not even know that Intaksolfanis were known as robbers, I just knew that when you personally said borrowed, it might be a euphemism,” she crossed her arms.

“Okay, you know me well,” Shayla chuckled. “And the stereotype is not quite robbers but that we have no concept of private property. But no, in this case I do mean borrowed. I asked him for his notes. Where was I?”

“The Target commands.”

“Right, right. So, how do you think the whole system of the academy works? And I do not just mean the manual ones like faucets and sewage, but automatic ones too like the lighting.”

“Those are automatic?” Agatha squinted at the citrine-eyed woman. “I think you are gaslighting me; the term lamplighter exists for a reason.”

“I am not gaslighting you, but it would be very funny if I was,” she chuckled again, though now with a touch of a snort. “Lights were manually switched on at dusk by a designated staff member, that much is true. But in the current age, golemancy has progressed enough for that to be automatic for those who have the money to set it up. Which brings me to my actual point: the Target commands.”

“So all of these systems are just a big series of Target commands?”

“Actually... yes,” Shayla nodded. “Just Target commands upon more Target commands.”

“That is... stupid,” Agatha grimaced deep in thought. The more she marinated the idea, the less stupid sounded.

“But highly intelligent,” the dark-skinned woman smiled at her with her quartzy whites. “The Target command is one of the few ones that can detect changes and act accordingly to that. So not only it has an input that can be tailored, but can also produce an output of any desired size or type, making it able to activate other latent commands like Heat or Chill in faucets and water tanks.”

“Alright, I will admit that is genius, but... How much agate would you even need to create such repeating series of commands all over an infrastructure as expansive as the Skyscraper Academy?”

“Short answer? Lots. Slightly less shorter answer? Not as many as you would expect. Unlike any other command, you do not really need big, girthy veins of agate to produce a noteworthy result. You need a whole column of agate to produce a replica of daylight in a small room with Light. But for Target? You only need to update the inputs and the outputs, the potency of the signal is irrelevant whilst it is received.”

“Meaning that pebbles with Target commands could work, no need for massive veins,” Agatha bit on her fingernails as she pondered.

“Exactly,” her fellow golemancer nodded.

“But, either way, it would require tons upon tons, hundreds upon hundreds of agates with specific Target commands like ‘target this signal’ or ‘target the existence of this one command’ to work. That much work for activating lights automatically at nightfall is...”

“Stupid,” Shayla admitted.

“Yet highly intelligent,” Agatha completed the sentence. “I think I am beginning to understand why no one wants to be a golemancer.”

“Wow, it only took you a whole year of classes to understand!” The Intaksolfani spoke as if she were Sarcasm Incarnate. Which she might even be. “If anything, I am beginning to understand myself how well-remunerated I will be once I am a certified agatecrafter. I am just watering over the profits.”

“Right...” Agatha would be lying if she denied seeing an easy joke there, but she also knew the woman in front of her too well to know that she could turn the joke on her. “...As interesting as these systems of stacked Target commands are, I have to wonder when we will be taught about the Autonomy command?”

“Eh, give it a bit of time,” Shayla shrugged.

***

The answer to that question was one month. One infuriating month of waiting. Agatha could admit that perhaps – just maybe – she was exaggerating as thanks to Sergi’s notes and occasional advice she was able to further her knowledge on golemancy.

But that was inert golemancy, she wanted to learn animated one.

Surprisingly enough, she was the only one to hold that opinion. Shayla was more than happy enough to keep learning and practicing with Target commands. That was a part of the field Agatha hadn’t expected to be this deep. Perhaps the keystone of inert golemancy was Embed as that command was what made the discipline work in the first place, but she was also amazed how deep the whole field became thanks to a command as inconspicuous as Target.

The older I get, the more I realize that there are no useless commands, the petite lithorist thought to herself after Mateo had finally left Sergi free for her and Shayla to hoard. This revelation, however, wasn’t anything new. Most lithorists dismissed Duplicate as a useless command because they had enough agates to perform any series they desired, but Agatha was well aware that wasn’t the case. Maybe it was a niche synergy or an obscure effect, but all commands had their time in the agatelight from time to time.

“Okay, so Autonomy,” Sergi eagerly tapped the top of the workbench with his fingers. “How much have I told you about it?”

“That it depends on the innate behavior of our agates and that it allows us to create golems?” Agatha responded with a hint of doubt.

“That is all?” The golemancy teacher prodded for an answer, but as Shayla and Agatha exchanges void gazes, he realized that was, indeed, all. “Oh. Well. It seems I have not done as well as a job as I had hoped. Shame on me.”

And props to him for admitting that. Agatha was almost tempted to say that to his face, but the aging man had already the attention of two young women, there was no need to inflate his ego that much.

“For starters, let us proceed with the lobotomy I mentioned a while ago,” he said.

“Is... it really necessary to call it a lobotomy?” Agatha shuddered; she didn’t like the word in the slightest. Or rather, the mental image she associated with the word every time she heard it. Too much grey matter spilled.

“I am not a linguistic nor a physician, but I think they would agree that partially neutering the personality of an agate would constitute a lobotomy, so yes, I will keep using that term.”

“Ugh,” the petite lithorist groaned. “So what I need to do to... lobotomize my agate?”

“Nothing flashy, really. Before you apply the Autonomy command to your agate, you need to give it the Control command.”

“That is it?” Agatha squinted at her teacher.

“I told you it was not intrusive.”

“Yes, but... this is too simple be called a lobotomy, do you not think so?”

“Well, considering lobotomies were once done with gold chisels and hammers, I think they were simple to begin with. But we are digressing! There are far more sophisticated methods of agate cognition manipulation involving the usage of Target, and whilst I have seen you progress with such applications, they are not needed for these preliminary exercises. But if you feel that Control might not be enough, feel free to apply Amplify. So let us get...” He suddenly stopped. “Amplify to the Control! To the Control command! Do not apply it to Autonomy!”

“...right,” Agatha nodded slowly, having understood the first time where she should apply Amplify without the need of clarification. But that raised a question. “What happens when you give Amplify to Autonomy?”

Sergi sighed. “As such? Not much. It exacerbates the personality quirks of the agate, which could be problematic, especially considering the proclivities of your agate, Miss Malachite. But it also might increase the mental faculties of the agate. This is not a guarantee as it works on a case-by-case basis, but it could be dangerous if it tipped the agate’s intelligence from sentient to sapient.”

As interesting as it was to hear that, Agatha didn’t work to try it out. The idea of sentient agates already drowned her with panic, so she didn’t know how she would deal with sapient ones.

The blonde seamstress took a deep breath to calm herself, and she applied the Amplify Control series to her already-duplicated agate. If there was one saving grace of hiding her Seventh Stratum, it was that she always had an emergency Sixth Stratum agate at hand. It would be way easier to have it unsummoned, but that would mean that she would only have half of her agates summoned, which would go against the whole materialization and mindfulness lesson. And she really, really wanted her Strata to increase. After hesitating a bit, she finally gave her perfectly spherical agate the Autonomy command.

Duplicate Amplify Control Autonomy.

For the first time in her life, Agatha felt her agate wrestling against her control. Her lone sapphire would get excited from time to time, a mirror of her actual mental state, but this was different. It was independent. Fortunately, the Amplify Control series allowed her to state her supremacy over the perfect sphere that was her agate. Like an unruly horse, it tried to pull from the reigns, but no matter how hard they might pull, the reigns wouldn’t bulge.

She was safe.

But she couldn’t deny that the violence coming from her agate shook her. In a way, that violent cognition was part of her, even if it was currently independent. Autonomous.

“Everything under control?” Sergi asked with a hint of worry, and for a moment, Agatha was reminded of Mister Krugger.

“Y-yeah, perfectly fine,” she nodded. “But more like a lobotomy, it feels like putting a muzzle on a rabid hound.”

“Well, this field is very subjective, so it is not surprising everyone has different experiences and associations,” he dedicated her a soft and warm smile before adopting a more professional expression. “So, animated golemancy. The idea behind the field, as I have previously mentioned, is recreating the golems you might have heard in legend. These are normally presented as undead spirits haunting the living, but the golems this field aims for are a bit different. We are talking about autonomous lithic creatures that obey their summoner. Some sort of agatiferous servant, if that is easier for you to comprehend.”

“So a stone maid?” Agatha arched a brow.

“Sure, let us proceed with that notion: a stone maid. The field is still in its infancy, but so far, we have been able to create constructs that are closer to the definition of creature I have already stated.”

“Your chair is one, is it not?” Shayla interjected accusatorily.

“Quite perspicacious, Miss Belkadi, but not quite,” Sergi chuckled. “My chair did originally start as a golem, yes, but it did not take me long to realize that a method of transportation independent from my thoughts was not a shrewd idea.”

“Did you...?”

“No, the chair was after that. Obviously.” The teacher interjected before Shayla could finish speaking, but it didn’t take more than half a wit to understand what the conversation was all about.

“Uhm, do I need to keep my agate summoned?” Agatha interrupted. “It is a bit distracting to keep my agate from murdering you all.”

Unlike active or hyper-active series, the petite lithorist couldn’t say she was being mentally drained – perhaps due how Control and Autonomy interacting it, technically making it a passive series – but being pestered all the time by mental pulls was bound to exhaust someone, even if not in the typical lithorica fashion.

“If it is just distracting, then we are fine. If it were hard, that is a whole other subject,” Sergi snorted. “Consider it practice. If you want to perform animated golemancy, then you will be distracted for long periods of time. Having said so, can someone open that cabinet and take out the rocks that are inside?”

As the cabinet was one from the ceiling instead of one on the ground, Agatha threw a look at Shayla. The Intaksolfani groaned and stood up to open the cabinet. Perhaps Agatha could have used her agate to give herself some height or directly grab the items, but why should she do that when there were already tall people present? Shayla picked up a mound of rocks that seemingly held to each other and she dropped them unceremoniously on the workbench. There wasn’t anything notable about the mound – beyond the fact that the rocks were agates – but one of rocks had a distinctive socket on top of it.

“What are these?” Shayla asked while dusting her hands, purposely throwing a bit of dust on Agatha face.

“This is an inactive golem,” their teacher explained as he summoned an agate and held it on his fingertips. “So far you have only seen your own agates behave autonomously, but the field of animated golemancy is not strictly limited to just your own.”

He then pressed the summoned agate against the agate with the chiseled socket. They matched. Thanks to her growing knowledge of golemancy, Agatha could tell that the agate had the Control Autonomy series active and perhaps two free slots. I am beginning to understand how Hasel is able to tell Strata with just a glance. Agatha couldn’t say how she was doing this herself, it was just experience talking. Developed instinct more than a science.

Suddenly, the pile of agate started moving. The movements were at a snail's pace, but they were infinitely faster than the speed of your average rock. After a handful of seconds, the mound became erect and levitated above the workbench by perhaps a finger in width, maybe only half. A very weak display of the Float command.

“And now, this is an active golem,” Sergi explained.

Agatha couldn’t say this is how she expected golems to look like. For starters, it was small. Around the size of her torso, which that wasn’t saying much. Then, more than a lithic and humanoid undead, it was more like the pile of stones one might do when bored next to a river, with these excellent and stackable flat rocks. The ‘golem’ also had some protuberances that haphazardly looked like arms. They were just elongated stones that gave the illusion of arms, but judging from the way they levitated, it wasn’t the Float command but Control.

Wait! Control? The sight utterly confused her.

“Since when can normal agates be embedded with the Control command?” That went against what she had learned. Control needed of a controller to work, but agates worked on with inert golemancy were stupid and had no capacity of thought.

“Technically speaking, since always. You can always embed Control to an agate, the thing is if it does something at all,” Agatha squinted at the man with his technicalities. “But great insight, nonetheless. Yes, you are currently seeing the Control command at play even though there is not a summoner controlling the agate. Does someone have an idea why this is happening?”

“You are lying,” Shayla said cuttingly.

“Excuse me?” Sergi blinked repeatedly, the abrasiveness of the Intaksolfani catching him off guard.

“There is a controller,” she stated as a matter of fact. “Perhaps it is not the summoner of the agate, but there is an agate that has been summoned and now has control of the system.” The dark-skinned woman pointed at the top of the floating golem, where Sergi’s agate rested, almost looking like a small head on an oversized body.

“You would be correct, Miss Belkadi,” the chair-bound man nodded. “My Autonomy agate does indeed act as the controller here. This golem has some basic functionality, like some Target commands for agate-to-agate communication, Float for movement, and then Control on the extremities for cohesion and some basic utility, but that does not mean this is all the golem is limited to, as it still has some available command slots it might use.”

“So now the golem is completely autonomous?” Agatha asked as she looked at the agatiferous construct. It waved its ‘arm’ to her, which caused its unstable body to slightly wiggle around. While the movement was a bit cute, it also betrayed how weak the Float command on the bottom agate was.

“If I so desire, yes. But for many reasons, it is not recommended to give full independence to golems. However, through the connection with the Autonomy command you can give golems instructions, but they are limited in nature. I will be teaching you this year how to build a golem like this, but also how to be able to give more complex instructions. And for that, you will need at the utmost minimum four command slots, so you should progress a bit in your Strata, Miss Belkadi.”

“That will not be an issue,” Shayla smiled with a knowing grin. “I already have a handful of agates at the Fourth Stratum.”

Agatha wasn’t sure if she said it in that way to inspire envy, but if it were the case, then the petite lithorist was very amused. Perhaps there are more advantages to hiding my Strata than just satisfying my paranoia. A difference of two Strata might be surmountable, but that of three wasn’t as much.

“That is perfect then,” Sergi clasped his hands. “You, ladies, are quite the select students and I have hopes in you. Perhaps you will be able to craft a complex golem by the end of the year, not only in command comprehension, but also in utility.”

“We could have our own stone maids,” Agatha said enthusiastically with a grin of her own.

“A lofty yet marvelous goal, yes,” the teacher nodded. “Let us aim for you all to obtain your personal stone maids!”

The blonde lithorist squinted at the balding man as he spoke that last sentence with a bit too much zeal. But servants, huh? I wonder if this classifies as slavery...