Humans, being masters of the realm, apparently had the power to synch. That is to say, they could become themselves and whoever they wanted at the same time. The weakest form of that being to access someone's memories.
My memories, in this case. After I agreed to it, I had felt the human in my nape.
Because I was a clay golem and the stone tablet was not in the head.
And with those memories, the young woman was bound to have learned that what she called a skill was just a spell. Humans used to call it control. With the absurd quantity of mana overflowing from her, she could have cast it the moment she stepped into the realm - and probably before that.
This was a misconception shared by other humans and I could not figure out why because all of my knowledge came from them. But they were convinced that there was a world, and then magic in that world.
No.
For the sixth or seventh time, no!
There was magic! Period! And so the stupid skill from that stupid human system that stupidly told them to stupidly grind for stupid prizes was just a stupid way to cast spells! You did not need a skill to open doors!
And she could not say a thing to rebuke me because she had every fact laid out from my memories to shut her up!
"So can we go back to saving the realm now?!" I kept shouting in the middle of her improvised arcanum. She was stuck against the workbench, fearful. "Can we care about the mana drain and dead land instead of this inane, useless nonsense?!"
Seconds after I was done, she still expected me to hurt her. When she realized I would not, she calmed down, turned away and stayed there in silence to process what had happened. To calm down as well.
"It's not useless..." Her voice was still shaken.
"Say again?"
"It's not useless." She turned back to face me. "The system lowers mana consumption, so the synch skill is not useless."
The system's thresholds were pitifully low! I swore I was going to kill her!
... I was going to kill her... She had access to all of my memories. All of them.
All of them.
I stood there, a clay statue in her workshop, near the monster's corpse I had brought. What mind a golem could have, blank. My body turned away to leave.
"Bring me more monsters." She ordered me as I crossed the wooden frame. I did not answer.
What was wrong with me?! Apart from everything, I meant?
What kind of golem yelled at their master? What kind of servant would threaten them? Had her intrusion triggered some side effect? How could a tool's hands tremble?
She had a month before the realm claimed her life.
Outside, around the ship, the dungeon had turned into a luxurious jungle that choked mighty temples of stone and gold, their terraces glistening under a bright if not crushing sun. The air turned heavy and damp.
Monsters climbed from the vast pit all the way to the surface to hunt. I joined them and kept working all the way to the evening.
When I came back once more, the night had fallen. The first stars appeared in the dark sky.
The human was still deep at work, with the fluffy legged rapt pestering her at her side.
"I have pink stripes now! Look look do you see them? Look! Pink stripes!"
She slammed the table in frustration, turned to the beast, crouched and pat her head. That thing purred. "Good girl." The young woman muttered before getting back up. "Now go."
"Okay..." The rapt rubbed her rounded legs on the ground and finally left.
I could not get the felog into the room. The door too smal for that giant batracian. She gestured for me to leave it there.
"You should eat." I pointed out.
"Why." Her tone didn't imply a question.
"That's what humans do."
"I don't have time for that."
She didn't have time to toy with her system either, yet here she was, putting monster limbs in formol, grinding eyes and playing with acid, oblivious of the realm.
She was having... fun.
Looking at her from outside, through the air's vibrations, I could tell. Her stern look, her greased arms, the sweat and dirty chopped hair, she enjoyed it all. There was excitement each time she poked the empty air or lit a flame.
I had no more monster to bring, so she ordered me to go in the jungle and stay there to observe. I did as she asked.
Maybe she meant guard the ship, maybe she just wanted me far away. Still, I would not go so far as to lose sight of her. I would not lose another human.
And so I stood there, among the tall grass and trees, three layers of foliage blocking the sky from me. Yet I could still admire it. Two dozen stars shining on the cosmic ceiling and crossing them in its slow path, the tiny moon sphere.
A sky alive for the dead realm.
"I am listening." The human said.
She was still on the ship, still in her makeshift workshop but vibrations were clear enough for me to catch her voice. She had started to talk.
"What do you want?" She seemed tense.
I rushed back. There was no one around her and that meant nothing. I leapt back on the ship's deck and ran to the cabin. Some mist was dissipating at my arrival.
"Mistress!" I burst in.
She was alone and well, upset at my presence.
The mist was gone. Definitely a monster's doing. Of the monsters I knew, one bore a name and knew all about hiding and messaging to humans. Its name was Veleter.
"Don't listen to monsters!" I warned. "They..."
"I know." She cut me with an annoyed tone. "We synched. So save your breath."
Oh yeah. Through my memories, she had access to all of my knowledge. She knew anything I could teach her already. Also she knew golems had no breath.
"Fine." I conceded, then changed the subject. "It's past midnight. You need to rest."
"I'm not done."
"You need rest!" I got angry again. "If only to help your work."
She smirked, then rolled her eyes.
"Get me a sleeping bag."
I did not hesitate, seized her in my arms, bulked against the weight as she struggled but still carried her in the back, to the bedroom. She ended up on the thick mattress, protested some more then just sank in its softness.
Before I had even finished activating all the wards, the human was fast asleep.
I knew she was because that was when the synch ended. She had kept up control the whole time?! Just to raise her skill? She had watched me hunt, she had watched me look at trees. Look at the sky. All the while doing her experiments.
Each time I doubted a human, they proved me wrong.
My turn, then.
I did not understand the human system, the way that ancient arcane worked, but she had sent me look at trees and that human was nothing if efficient. So I restarted her experiments. I spent the night breaking, weighing and mixing at will, plants, monsters and relics alike.
If anything clay golems excelled at alchemy!
And when she woke up and tried to get out of the flurry of pillows she was met with me, my tray and the most nutritious breakfast I had conceived.
"Pudding," I exposed the content, "eggs, salmon, brioche, fruit and honey yogurt, croissant, tea and coffee."
She looked at it, rubbed her eyes then extended her hand to me and pronounced: "Synch."
She blinked.
Yes! I knew how to cast control too! We had been synched the whole night! And while I could not see her system, I could tell from her expression that it had worked.
The only downside being that it didn't train her skill, so I put the tray on her lap and moved my fist to break the link. She could now cast it on her end.
The human was so surprised that she agreed to eat.
"Hashal." She said after swallowing. Her hand still meddled with thin air. "I looked at it. It took a lifetime to find it. It would take another to break in."
For as much as I wanted to disagree, she was probably right. The cost just to get close to the humans' most vaunted secret had been too high already.
Hashal. The refuge in which humans had devised their exile. Where they had conceived Earth.
"Let's look at it differently." She twisted her wrist. "Given a mana drain of eight time ten to the power of minus six per second, that means a carrying capacity... But at an individual level, it reverts to a simple Malthus model."
I had no idea what she was talking about.
"We combine that with seals. Once mana is under global capacity, insulation rises." She took time to drink the coffee. "So, this whole time, you wait for humans to fall under the capacity, then use seals to make them last."
"What does that have to do with Hashal?" I deflected.
But she didn't pay me attention, still absorbed in her invisible system.
"Insulation. Then, summoning. There is a missing piece... Do I want to try it?" She paused, looked down and closed her eyes. Then rubbed her face. "What am I even talking about? That's the only way to make it to Bayankam."
She was positively all over the place.
"Go into the desert." She ordered me. "Find a place without mana and stand there."
"No."
The human looked at the clay golem that was not moving away from her bed.
"No," I repeated, "I am not leaving your side so you can talk with a creeping monster. You have my experiences, you know how dangerous this realm is."
Even for the absolute demigod currently lying before me.
She shook her head, pushed the tray aside and got up. A flick of the finger to change clothes. I had already sewn her new ones that she ignored.
"Stay on this ship then. Use anti-magic, deplete the mana around you as much as you can. And don't stop until I tell you to."
"You... fine! I'll do that."
Her instruction was to die of thirst in the middle of an ocean. Would she even be able to maintain her synch under those conditions? Maybe that was her point.
So she walked to her studies and me to the other side of the ship, in the cargo bay, away from the human circles to sit and start incanting. I was terrible at anti-magic and reluctant to even toy with it, knowing what lurked inside.
But a human's will was absolute.
The rapt-thing approached me on its small fluffy legs. It was joyful, it wanted to play, felt the lack of mana around me. Relatively speaking. As a monster, it would instinctively flee.
It tried to get close instead. To touch my knee and give me mana. "It hurts!" The rapt complained and kept trying time and again, until it found a way to just take it. No matter how hard it tried, it could not give magic faster than the realm filled her with.
Why?
But I let it do. Even if it breached my human's instructions, that thing hardly registered. After hours I was still failing in creating enough of a void. There was just not keeping that much magic out, the woman's aura was just overwhelming.
It was already the afternoon when I felt her leave the superstructure to walk on deck. That was my cue to rejoin her.
She saw me come out, groaned and looked away.
"I'm done with the lab. Go clean it."
"As you wish."
So I went in. But it was already cleaned up. That was the first red flag. The second was the message etched on the wooden wall.
I thought a golem would understand me but you are too distant. I will show you my world. I am going home. Don't follow me.
Back out and here she was, the young woman at the edge of the ship, facing the abyss below.
She was going to jump.