Tear A Path 181 Individuality

"I rarely am, plus I expected something along those lines when I saw all of you the first time." Thirteen said as she took in the design of the room, there wasn't much to speak of, a bed and a desk in a cramped s.p.a.ce. "So what exactly are you guys? Clones? Sp.a.w.ns."

"I think the best descriptions for us are golems... I see that got your interest." And it really did, Thirteen'd seen golems before. But she'd describe them more as blundering clumps of earth, the Grens looked nothing like a golem. She'd also never met a golem with a trace of intelligence, usually requiring the constant control of their user to even function properly.

"How..." Thirteen blurted out, unsure of what to make of the revelation.

"Well... we're also not exactly golems either. We're an amalgam, so to speak." Gren spoke as she looked up, imitating a person in thought. "Where are you from again? Teston? Aquodal? I'm sorry I'm only familiar with a few beast race kingdoms."

"I'm from Dracas, we were a tier 1 kingdom... almost tier 2 before the upheaval." Thirteen replied, a little embarra.s.sed.

"Oh... my creator's parents were from tier 6, in Domor if you've ever heard of it."

Thirteen wondered if she heard wrong, Domor? The city of Dreams? It was the tale every parent told their children while they were little. If you worked hard and achieved good grades in studies, you would be taken to Domor where life held no troubles of any kind.

"Don't think about it too much, even among the other tier 6s Domor was considered the weakest, we were the only kingdom that was built without so much as a single soldier of our own." Gren reminisced, "Though I remember we once had a remarkable tier 1 enter, the first of anyone from below the 4th tier to pa.s.s through our gates, I believe he shared your races features, then again that could've been a lifetime ago."

It was the kingdom of builders and thinkers, from weapons to any kind of commodity that made any aspects of present day life easy. Even if they had few fighters no other kingdom would risk offending it as they were the forefront of any kind of technology in their world.

They may win the fight and receive the new technology easily, but that would also mean cutting off all future developments. If a kingdom attacked them, even if they didn't fight back, the other kingdoms would probably stop the aggressor in their place.

"Anyway, even if you're from a tier 1 kingdom you should be familiar with mana right?"

"We only understood it as witch-craft, few at our level did not turn into monsters once they learned it. We mostly dealt with Tantra." She answered.

"Oh! must've been the backlash, few in the lower realms could really protect their minds from the corrosion." She explained how mana was related to aspects of the mind. When an unprepared person absorbs too much or grows too fast the strong powers would actually corrode the user

"Well some of the more battle junky kingdoms use Chi which is like the advanced version of that 'Tantra' you speak of... I think we have some manuals here but you probably shouldn't learn it without a guide, you could explode from the pressure..." Thirteen understood this clearly, even if they were limited to the resources and information of a Tier 1 kingdom it didn't mean they were ignorant of what was outside. It was just that like mana, the chi manuals were far too powerful, using them without a proper physical standard would cause the body to rupture.

Tantra was like a cheap imitation to chi. It got the job done which was to give its users power. But the difference between these two were like heaven and earth. Unfortunately since Dracas weren't able to use this resources even if they found it, any manual they found about chi were gifted to tier 3 kingdoms for aid

"Uh-hm! I think we got off topic." Thirteen reprimanded.

"Right! so Domor as you know, is the home to the iron dwarves, they were anything from blacksmiths, enchanters, alchemists you name it..." Thirteen listened intently, as if she was listening to a fantastic fairy tale. "My master's father was a enchanter, hence the ability to create golems, while his wife, her mother was a great mage, somehow they found a way to imbue some of their will to the enchanted golems, giving us a little of their knowledge, egos and thought processes which resulted in us taking their form."

"When the upheaval came, my creator was playing around in this invention of theirs which was evidently swept away, the lady was stranded all alone on this thing. My creator, their progeny surpa.s.sed their skills in that she could do alone, what they had to do together. She created us all by herself, for labor, for a.s.sistance, for a friend... but we weren't supposed to be alive this long, even our master's parents never kept a golem alive more than a week before reabsorbing the mana, because it takes a piece of the caster with it."

"And I think there were issues with the process, it didn't copy just her character as a whole, but instead took to more of whatever feeling was dominant at the time and imparted them into the golems. At the start, it was understandable if the dominant feelings would be fear, anger and a need for control in what was a reality that had spiraled out of control, but that's exactly how the older Grens turned out."

"So when that guy said it could've been you..." Thirteen spoke.

"Haaa... Emotions are a fickle thing, at one point you could be happy, and you could feel so broken in the next," Gwen spoke as she laid herself on the bed. "In a post apocalyptic world like this one, there was a lot more of the latter, so while a few of us did turn out fine, many of us didn't and we couldn't really blame them for the way they were born, because at the flip of her emotions we might've turned out just like them."

"As for our caster, with every piece of her she gave away, the less of herself there was while the character she implanted in us became ingrained into our bodies, our wills became stronger and by extension our dominant characters and individuality."

"So... you're saying that you've taken a life of your own and your older versions have now what? taken over your home?" Thirteen asked

"That and they've got my creator locked up somewhere in the upper levels." Gren207 stated.