Vivaforge

by SwordTune

Scala and Derette

Scala Island was my home and school. I was brought to the Sculptor school on Scala as an orphan, like many Sculptors before me, and trained to become a member of their order. The other students and I spent days of study for each topic, becoming a lifetime of studying poured into perfecting our control and understanding of Sculptor magic, just so we wouldn't die the first time we attempted Sculpting.

Sculptor magic is almost always deadly when used improperly. That's why even after years of study, I had not yet learned to sculpt a single creation. But that would all change after today. I stood in the Sculpting Hall, focusing the essence through my horn into the tiles before me.

"They say the first creation a Sculptor masters can define him for the rest of his life," Master Terran said. Given that Sculptors could live for centuries with the proper power and training, that statement had a lot more emphasis than usual. I had prepared my creation for over a month, cooking the basics in laboratory vats and testing the stability of the flesh over several days. Still, the judging looks of my master and my peers didn't help with the stress.

Five other students, five successful creations. As the final student to be tested, I was convinced Terran would score me the harshest. Of course, what unnerved me even more was Crimson Bud's creation. A Vallesh, a psychic creation even fully trained Sculptors admired. My little thing couldn't possibly compete with what he had performed.

I pooled more essence into the ball forming before me. The essence glowed and hummed, draining the aura from my body as well as essence.

All creations required magical aura as well as the essence itself, though Sculptors barely ever notice the aura draining, regarding themselves as being superior to the basic energy that all other mages depended on. Aura was raw magical power, used in nearly every spell, even Sculptor ones. Wizards and sorcerers measured their power in their aura. But of course, Sculptors treated it as a trivial matter.

That only made my gut drop further, since I could feel my reserves of aura draining rapidly into my creation. I tried my best to contain the sparks of stress from popping from the spell, but couldn't stop a few of them from leaking out. Behind Terran, I could hear Crimson Bud's snickering.

I forced the ball of essence and magic onto the Sculpting tiles, containing the surge of power within the tiles as the essence and aura fused in a flash of blinding blue and green. If it wasn't for the enchanted hooded robe I wore as a Sculptor, the light would have blinded me. Thankfully, the much of the light bent away from my face, repelled by the shadows of my green robe's magic, allowing me to control the formation of my Runner.

I began at the long, cat-like legs, building up the bone and muscle to its torso. I shifted the structure of the creation, taking away the need for a tail and putting that mass into its organs. I played around with the vitals, minimizing their size but increasing their effectiveness so that fatal wounds were harder to make.

The long slender body was hard to space out, but I managed to place all the organs in place before wrapping it in its thick skin and muscle. The head, with an over pronounced nose and ears, looked like a fusion of a cheetah and a large lizard.

I shrank its skull to give it more balance, focusing the rest of the essence into its venom glands. Like a viper, the Runner's fangs dripped with venom charged by magic. It activated on contact with air, becoming volatile with the energy packed into it. I focused the diminishing strands of essence into the fine muscles controlling the glands, making sure no venom would leak. With the power to dissolve flesh in seconds, my score would have been reduced immensely if my Runner could not control its offensive weapon.

It was done. My runner lacked fur or pigments -I honestly did not dare to distract myself with subtleties like that- but looked fiercer with its lean muscles partially showing through its skin. It was in total control of its weapons, and I was in total control of it.

Terran raised his horn, opening the vats around me. "The application examination has begun," he said, unleashing six spider-like creations onto my own. He teleported me to back of the shaping room.

The test was only for creations, so Sculptors would command their beasts to fight as they stood on the sidelines. Though, given the basic intelligence of Runners, I felt that I was controlling my creation rather than commanding it. I sent instructions telepathically through my horn, telling it when to claw, when to dodge, and when to spit its venom.

It fought messily, tearing up creation after creation with its claws and fangs. Finally, I told it to douse the final creation with its venom, leaving only a puddle of flesh on the tile floor.

"Well done Green Stone," Master Terran told me. "You passed. But work on your Sculpting technique, your Runner has six points where the magic is unstable."

That night of sleep was probably the first relaxing night I had had in years. Though I had to spend hours finding the instabilities in my Runner and correct them, I felt accomplished, regardless of what the others thought.

The rest was useful, because I was woken up far earlier than usual the next day.

"Master Terran assigned you to me for my next mission. Get up." The sun hadn't risen yet, but I didn't have to wait for my eyes to adjust to the dark to know who was dragging me along. Violet Thorn, a Sculptor Operator, needed an apprentice for her field work, and Terran evidently decided it would be me.

Preparation was a blur as I picked up my Sculptor robes and staff. The staff, a simple Sculptor creation, beamed with energy as I touched it with my telekinesis, collapsing it into my saddle bags. Like most Sculptor weapons, the staff was alive, magically charged with its own cache of specialized essence. It was able to cast powerful jolts of electricity with its essence, however its uses were limited. Wands and staffs, at least those made by Sculptors, always died after their essence ran out, either destroyed by the power channeled through them, or killed by the lack of essence.

"Hurry up, ferry leaves when the birds start chirping." Violet Thorn was mare of my age, though happily enjoyed being my superior. She was an Operator, ponies who worked as the eyes, ears, and hooves of the Sculptors, and reached the end of her training long before I had begun practicing my Sculpting.

She stood confidently at the gates of the school, eager to get out of the walls and into the open world. I was always curious what lied beyond the tiny villages of Scala, but never had the chance to venture beyond the small farming settlement that fed the school. Still, I felt uneasy leaving the island with only a Runner and my magic. The world was dangerous, full of rogue creations left behind and forgotten by past Sculptors, or desperate villagers too simple to understand power when confronted by a Sculptor. Yet Violet seemed to embrace the world for its raw power.

As an Operator, her training was filled with years of field work, combat training, and practice with battle magic. Most Operators trained with independent schools, only showing up at Sculptor schools to receive the most basic skills in Sculpting creations. With that kind of coursework, I suspected Violet had at least three years of field experience ahead of me.

We set off silently for the docks, passing the eyes of curious locals. Since the entire existence of the villages on Scala depended on the Sculptors, every pony was quick to pay attention to what came out of the school.

"I need to stop by one place before we get on the ferry," she said to me, levitating her saddlebags onto my back. "Get those on the boat and wait for me. It shouldn't take long."

I wanted to speak up, but decided against it. A lifetime of experience to get to know Violet, and I still couldn't predict what she would do. She always had a different attitude toward me whenever she visited for her Sculptor lessons. Sometimes, she would act like a sister toward me, other times she'd act as if I was an idiotic pest. More confusing still was her occasion bouts of flirtation , which left me convinced her sole purpose of coming to the school was to mess with me rather than learn.

I begrudgingly took our bags and headed to the docks to load them onto the ferry. I had my Runner in front of me, parting a path through wary merchants and travelers bartering their way onto boats to other islands. Among them I noticed another Operator and apprentice departing on a small sail boat south, likely to Erandril Island for a shipment of crystals and alchemical ingredients.

I stowed away our saddlebags in the hold of the ferry Violet had told me about, a ship appropriately named The Morning Run. I looked up at the early sky, still not yet lit by the sun, and reconsidered that assessment. It might as well still be night. I sat in my cabin with my Runner, reading over the book Master Terran had given to me after passing my Sculpting test.

Though poorly lit and constantly creaking from the wooden boards above, the cabin would have been an comfortable size if it wasn't for my creation resting by me. However I didn't want to destroy my Runner and absorb its essence only to have to go through the Sculpting process all over again later. According to my book, the first Sculpting was always the hardest, but I didn't want the extra work if I didn't need it. So I stayed cramped in my cabin with a two-meter long beast lying my floor.

Violet came aboard the ferry only minutes before the captain untied the ferry from the docks and set sail. I spent most of the time reading, brushing up on the fundamentals of forming proteins in my creations. However my bookish behavior didn't stop me from asking where Violet's assignment was taking us.

"Derette Island, two days east of Scala," was her reply. She pointed her horn at a book by her desk. "If you need to learn about something in the archipelago, those are my old notes from my days as a student. You're welcome to them, provided you treat them properly."

I did, and I read as much as I could so I wouldn't sound like a bumbling idiot when we reached Derette Island. It used to be a desert island, dry and inhospitable. The only life was the dry shrubbery and small animals living in the chaparral on the plateaus. As a result, the oldest settlements, now the largest cities on Derette, sprung up around the few watering holes and oasis on the island.

Fortunately, it became a Sculptor colony a generation ago and became a precious farming island. But more important still was the mines dug into the plateaus, mines filled with unusually rich gold and silver ore. With new crops created by the Sculptors, the island's population boomed, and mining production increased. At least, that's what the notes said. I suspected it wasn't the case anymore, if an Operator had to be sent to monitor the island.

Derette was about as hot and dry as I thought it would be. Even the magic of the Sculptors couldn't change that fact. The sun beat against the back of my robes, and under the sweltering heat I began to perspire. It was a strange feeling. Sculptor robes were designed to distance the Sculptor from the environment, offering protection from weather, danger, or almost anything else that could disrupt the delicate process of Sculpting. But those enchantments were not designed to face the extreme heat of the desert.

Violet didn't seem bothered by the heat. In fact, she seemed to enjoy the hike up the plateau as we traveled Derette's capital. The one thing she was bothered by was the abandoned mineshafts and the mining equipment littered across the area. Small rails for minecarts ran along the same path we took, and we could spot countless tipped over carts and wasted ore.

"How did the governor let this happen?" she asked herself. "When I see that Sculptor, he had better have a reason for all this."

"The governor's a Sculptor?" I asked. I didn't think my kind did anything outside of laboratories and Sculpting Halls. Most Sculptors had a short temper and were generally selfish, either by birth, or as a side-effect of the powerful spells they controlled.

"How much of my notes did you actually read?" Violet retorted. "Every colony island has a Sculptor governor in its capital. Our order would never let an outsider run such sensitive settlements."

That was true, Sculptor settlements were built on essence and magic, which made it impossible for any pony who wasn't a Sculptor to oversee it. Still I had assumed an Operator governed the colonies.

I tried to ask Violet more about the Sculptor government, but she stopped abruptly in the middle of the path, putting her hoof in front of me to keep me behind. "Something's watching us," she whispered. Her ears twitched, picking up things I wasn't attuned to, and honing in on the danger. She whirled around and jumped on top of me, pushing us both into the shrubbery on the side of the path.

A second later the fireball roared past our heads from a mine entrance. It was fire spit, and fortunately it missed the dry bushes and splattered onto a rock.

Fire spit meant our attacker was a creation. My horn glowed as I commanded my Runner to sniff out and attack the creation. Violet levitated her sword and dagger out of her saddle bags and followed my Runner to find the creation. I rose from the shrubs and trotted after them, following the growls of my Runner as it mauled the creation.

It came charging out of the mine, flapping its wings to shake off my Runner's venom. The creation was a large flightless bird, like an ostrich, with crimson red feathers. It beak was the scary part. It was the size of its head, with bowl like dip on the lower beak. As it screeched and puffed up its chest, I could see its glands pumping out a yellowish fluid into its beak. I rolled away instinctively as it spat at me, the fluid catching fire as it touched the air.

It shot into the mineshaft, hitting my Runner hard on its side. Violet ran out of the mine behind me and flung her dagger at the creation. The creation burst into flames as the dagger connected to its neck, rupturing the glands. As it burned, the essence it its body broke down the flesh, returning it to a puddle of its basic materials.

"There shouldn't be any creations on this island outside of the Servants," Violet said after examining the puddle. "There's no need for any fire creations, much less a Feuyr of this size."

I agreed, the presence of the beast would've been disturbing on any island, but from what I read about Derette, there was so little life or inhabitants, protection was left to a minimal. "This rogue probably won't be the last. That mineshaft looks like a perfect place for a nest or den, so there could be countless more lurking around."

Violet nodded, turning her attention back to hiking up to the capital. "We need to hurry Green Stone, I want to find out what happened on this island as soon as possible. Something's not right."

Most Sculptor colonies are built with lush life. Magic flows in their water ways, and their crops and livestock flourish from it.

But behind the walls of Derette's capital, Derette Prime, there was none of these traits. The dirt was as dry and cracked as the rest of the island, the houses were built from sandstone and rocks to preserve the limited trees, and the fields in the distance only had sparse vegetation.

I stood with Violet, waiting for the proper reception for an Operator. Violet, of course, needed no introduction to the capital, but it was customary for the governor to send his regards before the meeting. Finally, a special guard trotted her way over and greeted us.

"Welcome, Operator. The governor of Derette sends his best wishes and apologizes for the lack of formalities. The island heat has been hard on the farms lately, and our Servants are working their hardest to keep the economy afloat."

The guard was a mare, I noted, a rarity that only happened when a young filly shows great potential, or when the town shows great desperation. I figured her case was the latter. Special guards, more generally referred to as Specialists, were often captains of the colonial militia, sent by the Sculptor Order to train ponies to fight and guard.

Like Operators, they weren't technically Sculptors, though they often gained great favor for their loyalty and physical attributes. Sculptors usually never find time for physical training, after all, and needed hard-working muscle for menial tasks. In return, Specialists learned a great deal of Sculpting, at least enough to create threatening combat assistants.

However, even though this mare had the uniform and the symbol of a Specialist, I could feel that she lacked magical talent and training, and almost certainly knew nothing about sculpting.

"I want to speak to governor Werran immediately," Violet demanded. "The state of this capital is outrageous, and my commanders from Scala want to know why Werran hasn't sent his quarterly reports."

"Governor Werran, is uh," the guard stammered. "I think I should take you the Shaping Hall, Operator. You'll get your answers there."

Violet nodded, and followed the mare to the fortress built on the western side of the city. I trailed behind with my Runner, which was still limping from our encounter with the rogue creation, and took time to memorize what I saw of the capital. With the fields on the north side, houses and business looked to be centered in Derette Prime's south and east, with the market place adjacent to the city entrance.

Violet turned her head back and saw me gazing around. "Keep up Green, you're not excused from this meeting just because you're inexperienced."

I picked up my pace, but couldn't avoid seeing the scrawny livestock, and even scrawnier citizens. I knew what was happening was wrong. Sculptors were supposed to solve these kinds of problems, that's how we've earned respect for thousands of years. But from the looks of the whole city, the Sculptors seemed as vulnerable as any pony else.

I trailed into the Sculpting Hall after Violet, and the whole atmosphere changed immediately. It sunlight did not burn, for the fortress was built into the nearby plateau, and was kept comfortable underground. The air was not hot and dry, but cool and slightly humid. I could feel the magic resonating from the essence flowing through the pipes in the walls, feeding every section of the Sculpting Hall with the essential fuel.

One of these sections was the healing pool in the courtyard. Essence bubbled from it, healing anything that touched it, and for Sculptors, replenishing reserves of essence. My Runner followed me, instinctively heading over to the pool to lap up the liquid and repair the burns to its side. I reached in with my hoof and drew a small strand of essence into myself.

With my Runner linked to me, I was limited in how much essence I could store. It was perhaps the only limit a Sculptor routinely encountered. By controlling our creations with absolute power, we bound them to us with the essence we created them with. As a result, our bodies could not take in more until that connection was severed, either by destroying the creation or having it become a rogue. Of course, through focus, studies, and a lifetime of training, most Sculptors carried large enough pools of essence within them to care.

But I hadn't mastered my craft yet, and had to train my attention immensely simply to add that small strand to myself. It was a pitiful amount, and I was simply glad that none of the guards seemed to notice.

I heard shouting coming from the governor's meeting room.

"Why haven't I heard about this sooner!" Violet shouted. I rushed into the room to see what was going on. She stood in the center of the room, before the governor's desk, furious. I turned to look at the reaction from the governor, and realized why she was upset. The governors seat was filled by a young Sculptor apprentice, younger than me even, and not by Governor Werran.

"Who's this?" I blurted out.

Violet turned to me, all to happy to explain the ridiculous situation. "This child is telling me that his master, Governor Warren, died six months ago in a Sculpting experiment, and as the apprentice, he's been acting as governor ever since."

Him? I doubted he even had his first creation yet, and if so, how could he lead the colony from a fortress filled with dozens of creations.

Violet was clearly thinking the same. She turned back to the apprentice-governor. "How have you been maintaining the island for so long? I'm surprised this island's still standing with an inexperienced apprentice at its helm."

The apprentice, while small in stature and definitely limited in knowledge, did not take kindly to Violet's insult. "Miss Thorn, I'd appreciate if you did not question the hard work of my staff. Sculptor Checks and Specialist Yien have been helping me oversee the island's magic. As for my efforts, Governor Warren was determined to teach me his methods of leadership before touching the art of Sculpting. I can assure you, it's been a great help with controlling any unruly beings, citizens and creations alike."

"Nevertheless, you should have sent a message immediately after Governor Warren's passing," Violet continued, still frustrated with whole situation. "An apprentice cannot lead an colony for so long. Darette used to be a self-sufficient mining colony, but now it's walls are cracked and rogue creations fill its mines."

"We tried to send a message, but the rogues are worse than you think," replied the apprentice. "I believe you were lucky to have come so quickly. On normal days, every village on the island, including this capital, must lock its gates and deflect the hungry creations back into the wild. I would have loved to send a bird, but after countless attempts, we found that larger flying rogues were cutting off that option as well."

"Rogues? You have a Sculptor and a Specialist and you're afraid of rogues?" Violet exclaimed. She was incredulous, and for good reason. Specialists, and certainly Sculptors, were capable of destroying rogue creations with a single command, or even regaining control entirely. It was rare that any rogue could resist the will of a trained Sculptor.

I couldn't see much of the apprentice's face through his hood, but his glare at Violet had a resonating effect that I could feel, even if Violet was unmoved by it. "You've learned all you need to get the message back to Scala, Miss Thorn. If you'd like to face those rogues yourself, you're welcome to do so."

"Fine," Violet said, rather begrudgingly. "We'll leave as soon as we've rested and restocked our provisions."

The apprentice seemed to calm down slightly, and returned to a better tone. "I'm glad we could sort that out. I too am eager to see this island restored. As for your rest, I've allocated a guest house by the marketplace for you and your companion. I'm afraid you'll have to barter with the merchants for any materials you'll need, the drought came right before the harvest and ruined much of our crop."

Standing next to Violet, I could hear her grinding her teeth. But she simply smiled and nodded her head. "I'm sure they'll find a way to provide an Operator with what she requires." A guard opened the door and gestured Violet and I out.

"I don't trust any of this," she whispered to me as we walked back into the courtyard. "The island couldn't have been completely blocked off by rogues alone. They're hiding something. I want you to see if you can talk to Sculptor Checks, and Specialist Yien if you can, and see what they have to say."

"Why me?" I asked. Operators were skilled information gatherers, and worked great as spies. Sculptors, especially apprentices, were fairly inept at anything not magical.

"Because I'm in charge and they know it," she answered. "You're a Sculptor apprentice, every pony will understand if you want to talk to some senior members of the Order to learn some new tricks."

"I'll try what I can," I told her, but I had serious doubts I would find anything worthwhile. Still, learning something new sounded exciting after all the restraint and caution Master Terran exercised back at Scala.

We split apart, Violet headed to check on the house provided for us, and I asked a guard for directions to Sculptor Checks. I was directed down to the lower floors, laboratories that seemed to be carved from preexisting caverns under the plateau. The humidity doubled as I walked down the stairs, mostly from all the energy generated from the magic being used.

"You one of those two kids sent from Scala?" the Sculptor asked, barely glancing up from his desk. Judging by how he stressed his vowels, I guessed he was trained in a Sculptor school in the country side of one of the Prime Islands. Wellrod, maybe. It was the largest in the archipelago and had the wider tracts of farmland than any other island.

Wherever Checks was from, he wasn't local from any of small islands on our side of the Archipelgo.

"Yes. I'm a Sculptor apprentice here with an Operator," I told him as I cast my gaze around at the multitude of crystals in his lab.

"Yea, I know," he grumbled. "And your spitfire of an Operator sounds pissed as hell about this island."

He wasn't at the meeting, but he seemed to know exactly what happened. I opened my mouth to ask, but he cut me off.

"Save your breath lad, I've been asked many times by the locals." His horn glowed as he lifted a clear crystal rod off his desk. "Ever since Warren passed, my creations have been guarding these halls. I hear everything they hear, through this wand."

"A wand?" I asked, staring at the solid piece of crystal. It didn't have the slightest piece of organic material, and I could feel any essence coming from it. "But Sculptor wands aren't made from crystals."

Checks scrunched his face at my observation. "Bah! I'm too old for that pride the Order has. There are other wands that wizards use when they can't get a Sculptor's help. Why I should waste essence doing something a simple mage can do with a crystal?"

True, Sculptors often scorned normal magic, considering it beneath them. I never imagined a simple crystal rod could perform such a complicated spell.

"I also know why you're down here," the old Sculptor said. I froze. His tone didn't tell much of what he was thinking, but I was convinced my task was over before I could even start it. He stared at me menacingly and I felt like a wanted to just turn and leave. Sculptors always had that effect around their inferiors, either as a result of their power, their hooded robes, their demeanor, or all of it combined.

"Well, what are you waiting for? I'm not getting any younger, so ask away!"

"You don't mind that we think something's wrong with your island?" I was shocked he was so cooperative.

He hacked up a ball of spit and shot it into a trash bin by his desk. "The dry air's irritating and the dust gets all over my lungs. I already know it's a shit hole, and so do you. Besides, whatever you find out is between you and that piece-of-shit apprentice. Next question!"

Even for a Sculptor, his temperament was volatile. "Why haven't we heard from the island ever since Warren's death?"

"I don't care, that's why. And no matter how many times you hear that we've been trying, here's the plain truth: the governor's apprentice can barely Sculpt a seed, let alone a messenger creation, and Specialist Yien's got his head in the clouds and his dick in every place it's not welcome. Bastard only cares about what he can do to get more control, and that includes keeping a new governor away for as long as possible."

"You don't care? Ponies are struggling all over the island, and as part of the northern islands Derette's a crucial part of the Archipelago's economy!" I couldn't believe I was showing my frustration in front of a Sculptor who could turn me inside out and back again with a single look, but I simply couldn't accept that he wasn't lifting hoof nor horn to help his island.

Checks grumbled something to himself, probably a profane swear, before answering me back "And I've got one kidney left and a tumor growing out of my ass. The island can go fuck itself for all I care, I can't die before my research is complete. If helping the island could speed up my work I'd do it in an instant, but it's not, so here I am."

A tumor? Of all things, I wouldn't have expected a Sculptor to care about a simple tumor he could eliminate with a bit of essence. "Why don't you just heal yourself? Get rid of the tumor and Sculpt a new kidney, you'll have years added onto your life."

He spat again, this time with real hatred. "You ever read about all the times we've failed at Sculpting ourselves?"

I shook my head. He grumbled again and ripped a book its shelf and opened it to a page. He set it on a smaller table for tea, gesturing me to go sit. "You came to learn something. I hope you came ready to read."

I looked down at the book, which was causing the wooden table to creak a little from its weight. The Body and Sculpting, read the title of the section. I passed over the introduction and started reading the main content. Page after page, it was just summarizing dozens of experiments past Sculptors have tried and failed at.

One passage mentioned how a Sculptor thought having a second horn would double the power of his spells. He died from an imploded skull. Another passage described a Sculptor trying to dramatically increase his body's reserve of essence so he could Sculpt a giant twenty meters tall. He became a deformed figure spouting magically charge ooze.

And the list went on. A want for naturally armored flesh became an irreversible fugal growth. Extra limbs? He had no limbs. A faster metabolism? The Sculptor withered into leathery skin and fragile bones. After a few more pages, Sculptor Checks decided I saw enough to understand.

"Using magic on our bodies changes us in ways very few understand." He pointed to one of the things he had growing in his essence vats. "We become not unlike our own creations, inferior creatures with weak minds and weaker wills."

"That's it? You're just an overworked stallion with no concern for his responsibilities?" It felt wrong to condemn a Sculptor so many years my senior, but it just came out.

He sneered at me. "And you're an idealistic tool of the Sculptor Order. We both have our flaws."

I huffed at him. He was impossible to work with, even more so than Master Terran. "I suppose I'll get out of your mane then." I began trotting to the stairs before the old Sculptor threw a book at my head. I felt its weight and the durable leather binding; it was a Sculpting book.

"I told ya," he said, "Yien's sniffing everything out. You run into him, just nod and use that book as an alibi. If he even thinks for a second that you're snooping around, I won't hear the end of it. Now scat!"

I lifted the book into my saddle bag and picked up my pace. Checks was the kind of Sculptor no one messed with, and he still paid some attention to Specialist Yien. I made sure to move quickly and stick to the inconspicuous hallways.

Our accommodations were easy to find, since it was the only guest house by the marketplace. Scala was a mining colony after all, and not known for many tourist sights. It was not, however, one that I was eager to share with Violet. The main room was both a living room and bedroom, with a single bed and a sofa. There was a desk in the corner, barely big enough to read a book on, but I still tried.

On the desk, Violet had left a note. She went into the market to "gather supplies," but I guessed she wanted to ask the locals more about the past few months. I was confident she'd find something useful, so I left her to her gathering and focused on my book. Sculptor Checks had scribbled all over the text, crossing out sentences, sometimes entire paragraphs, and adding his own notes to the margins. No matter their personality, no one could deny a master Sculptor's skill, and Checks was no exception.

What would have taken a week to learn due to over-preparation and caution on Scala was summarized well enough to understand in just a few hours. I read through his notes voraciously. According to him, the version of the creature would be an improvement of the original while expending up to half as much essence.

I was eager to try it after the third reading. I wasn't sure if I had enough essence, but as I pooled my magic into a bubble, it became clear my body was growing accustomed to maintaining a Runner. After resting with a good read, I had recovered just enough essence for a simplified version of Check's creation.

The Volper formed quickly in the ball of magic, growing from bones to muscle. It was much simpler than a Runner, mainly because of its snake-like form. With no legs to worry about, I focused on the muscles, fine-tuning them into the right position. Like a cross between an electric eel and a viper, the Volper's only weapon was its fangs, charged with magical electricity. If its body was unbalanced, the power would distribute in the wrong ways and turn the creation into a bomb.

Once the fangs were in place, and the last drop of essence had drained into the creation, I looked at it with admiration. It was half the size of Checks's original plan, but I found it much more useful as I commanded it to curl around my foreleg. It was small enough to hide under the sleeves of my robes without much change in the shape, and would me perpetually charged from both my aura and the robe's.

Immediately, I tested the Volper's power as a weapon. I kept it on my foreleg, and simply pointed my hoof at the sandstone wall. I watched as its head peaked out from my sleeve and opened its fangs, firing two jolts of lighting at the wall. The sandstone was largely unaffected, save for two small scorch marks where the magic had struck, but I expected living things would not take as well.

I collapsed onto the bed, exhausted from the new creation. I knew Violet would come back soon and kick me over to the couch, but until she returned I let myself enjoy a mattress that didn't teeter when the waves rolled by. The solid ground was almost enough to keep me on the island and away from the ferry. I chuckled at the thought; maybe no one left because sea travel was horrible.

I dozed off. I was still in the bed, and Violet clearly wouldn't settle for the couch. For a moment, I hoped I had commanded my Runner to sleep by me with a dream. But I turned my head to find Violet comfortably resting against me in the same bed. I looked at the door where my Runner was waiting. It stared at me, and I stared back. Though its mind was merely an extension of my own, I still found a reason to justify myself.

It's not what it looks like, I mouthed to my Runner. But through its stare, I could feel my own mind judging me.

Violet's legs shifted slowly along mine as she gripped me like a body pillow. I supposed it was the comfortable fabric of my robe. It wasn't the first time I had slept in my robe, in fact, many Sculptors keep extra robes just to sleep in them. The robe was iconic symbol of the Sculptors, and many didn't want to part with their enchanted outfit.

Violet, however, did not fall asleep in her Operator uniform. In fact, she didn't sleep in any clothes at all. I couldn't help but press myself a little closer. She smelled of some kind of drink, like a fruity alcoholic beverage. I didn't want to know what she had done, I only wanted to get away before she woke up. Of course, every time I thought I could slip away, she reacted by holding me tighter.

"Your robe's so soft," she whispered. I didn't know if she was awake or just talking in her sleep, but either way it freaked me out when she started talking. "Warm too." She tugged on my robe like a blanket, pulling me along until I was on top of her.

"Um, Violet? Are you awake?" I whispered in her ear to make sure, but it seemed she didn't hear me. I decided to slowly force my way out of her grip. I needed some air.

With my Volper up my sleeve and my Runner trailing behind me, the guards and townsfolk gave me my space. I could hear the ringing of the blacksmith, working before the dawn. As I neared the fields to the north, I could hear the Servants working and the livestock feed. I was curious about the Servants.

On Scala, we learned that Sevants were the backbone of colonial labor. Menial tasks, like farming and mining, were usually left to the Servants. They were intelligent enough to perform a variety of tasks, but had no independence of their own. Terran even once said that without a command, some Servants would just stand around until they starved or went insane.

It was hard to describe what a Servant was, aside from that it was a very useful creation. Its limbs and body were pretty much that of an over sized monkey, with only minor changes for specific tasks. However, its head was closer to that of a dog, or perhaps a small bear. I didn't think Sculptors cared what Servants looked like, since they always wore the simple brown robes to signify their position.

Servant robes were styled after the Sculptor robes their master wore, which made it easier to distinguish who owned them. Even normal ponies could take one look at a Servant and let it perform its task. Like any other creation, Servants were simply tools of a Sculptor, and getting in the way of a Servant, or even daring to harm it, was a direct offense on the master.

I walked into the house on the very far end of the field. A barn would be a more appropriate description, as the only furniture were the bedrolls the Servants slept on and a table for them to eat from. There was only one pony among them, who I guessed was their handler. She watched me trot up to the building calmly. She must have been experienced with conversing with Sculptors, even if it was just to tell them that their Servants were fine and working hard.

"Hello Sculptor," the earth pony greeted me. "I suppose you're one of the visitors from Scala?"

I nodded.

"Well, then I would be pleased to report that our Servants have been working as intended." She handed me a chart. "I've logged their work hours and behavior each day, if you'd like to assess anything."

I took the chart and looked at it, acting as if I was qualified to judge Servant handling. Aside from basic discipline, I didn't know how to deal with Servants on a day to day basis. They were intelligent enough to act on their own if given vague commands, sometimes even demonstrating creative thinking to resolve emergency situations. As a result, their intelligence made them prone to becoming rogue, especially if mistreated or unsupervised by a Sculptor.

Though I didn't really understand the log, I noticed something else off about it. The front page summarized the performance of all thirty-four Servants, but I counted only thrity-three pages as I read through them. I flipped through the log once more and found where the page was missing.

"Where's Servant twenty-nine?" I asked. "I see twenty-eight and thirty, but twenty-nine's overview is missing."

Now the mare began to look like a pony talking to Sculptor. She immediately stumbled on her first words. "I- uh- they should all be there, I mean, I might have dropped it somewhere in this mess. You know Servants can get, right? Sometimes they get confused and move things around." She began looking in the corners for the page, but I knew it wasn't a matter of misplacement.

"Just tell me what the problem is."

She looked at me for a while, debating whether it was worth hiding the secret from me. Evidently, it wasn't. "Four months ago Servant twenty-nine began going rogue. Or at least, she wasn't acting right. She didn't go mad or run away, but she did start talking differently."

"She?" I asked. Creations didn't have genders; without genders, no creation could go rogue and reproduce with its own kind. It was the ultimate fail safe in case a number of creations got out of hand. The worst case scenario for a rogue infestation was a few troubling years before the rogues died from gradual deterioration.

The Servant handler looked concerned. "That was the first problem. Servant twenty-nine didn't want to be called an it. I found out one night when she began crossing out all instances of 'it' in my logs and writing 'she' over them."

"That was the first problem?" It sounded ridiculous. "You let it live after tampering with documents?"

Her eyes shook as she gathered her reason. "Please understand Sculptor, the island was only just recovering from the death of the governor. I asked his apprentice to deal with Servant twenty-nine, but he just told me to deal with it myself."

Of course he did. The apprentice wouldn't tell a non-Sculptor that he didn't have the skills to absorb a creation as advanced as a Servant. "So what did you do?" I asked.

"Just the standard procedure. Two days tied to a pole, no food or water." She looked down uncomfortably. "But after that, Servant twenty-nine got worse. She started calling herself 'Twine,' and insisted I do the same. She'd wake up before the other Servants and start working before I could give out the orders. The weirdest thing of all was how she spoke to me. It's sentences were complex and grammar was flawless. It was like I was talking to a pony."

That was certainly a shaking thought. Had the Servant suddenly gain intelligence, or had it only just revealed its talents? This intrigued me more and more as I thought about it. "So, what happened to Servant twenty-nine?"

I watched as the mare's eyes started to redden. "It was so terrifying, what it tried to do. After a week of its worsened behavior, I woke up early that morning to catch twenty-nine before it began its chores. I looked around the fields where she normally fed the livestock, but it wasn't there." She paused to catch her breath. "Out of no where it came up behind me with a knife from the kitchen and tried to cut my throat!"

I was perplexed. Servants were passive creations, made with no will to fight, even for self-defense. Though, with everything else the Servant had done, I shouldn't have been surprised. "And then?"

The mare was clearly disturbed with my minimal expression, but continued anyways. "After struggling with it for a few minutes, the Servant just ran off. It climbed up the side of the city walls and fled into the nearby plateaus."

"Is that so?" There was at least two whole hours before the crack of dawn. Violet was probably still asleep. Whatever she found out around town, I'd have to hear it when I got back. I thanked the handler for her cooperation and began trotting towards the wall.

The guards at the northern gate were at the end of their shift, and probably drowsy, but they still leaped to their hooves and opened the gate for me as I approached.

"Hold on!" shouted the handler. She caught up to me and gave me a small pouch. "If you're going to look for that Servant, you might want to have some of her favorite food with you. It's practically addicted to the pies they cook in the market, and I'm sure there's no pies out there in the wild."

I slung the satchel around my shoulder and thanked her once again. She happily accepted my gratitude and returned to her work as I carried on with mine. My Runner walked beside me as we followed the trail from the city and into the thick, uncontrolled shrubbery of the chaparral.