Open Chronicles The Golem Games - College of Elbion

[Gauss]

It was that time of year again. End of year, theses, alchemical creations, and design projects were all up for review. For some students at the College of Elbion this week simply a barrage of high-stress examinations, but for others it was the difference between becoming a first level Maester or remaining a simple student. Today was the most interesting day of finals week, the so called 'Golem Games'. Teams of mage students had spent the last year building golem chassis', enchanting their golems with the combat algorithms, and instilling all sorts of surprises for the other students. Today they would do combat in a double-elimination tournament. Students and common man alike would bet on which Golems would emerge victorious. Officers from nations abroad came with papers to sign mages to lucrative Golem-creating positions in service of wealthy kings.

All told, it was Gauss's favorite day of the year. Three of his last five researcher assistants had been recruited after performances in the Golem Games. Gauss floated through Elbion's grounds, inspecting the creations this year's batch of golem students had arrived at. Students and citizen alike gawked at Gauss's presence, but the mage paid them little mind. There were always gawkers when Gauss was about.

 

[Svjetlohod]

One of the first Golems that would fall under Gauss's observant gaze would be "Svjetlohod". The Golem was created by a team of relatively wealthy students called "The Mechanomages". Not only did they bring the actual body of the Golem but also several posters which detail the inner workings of it.

The most expensive feature by far, due to the rare stone the Golem is made of, is a well-structured chain of arcane mechanisms which enable the Golem to charge its energy pool by exposing the rare stone to sunlight. It is the first mechanism of its kind. As the tournament was held outside it could be clearly verified that this mechanism works by noticing golden reflections on the surface of the golem in it's "OFF" state, that would visibly flow into its chest cavity where the power core was located. Although the mechanism is new and innovative, it largely depends on the material chosen and its efficiency is nowhere near a grade that would make it cost-efficient.

Although sun-powered arcane constructs sound amazing, the team was much more proud of the most complicated feature of the Golem, the "Combatus algorithm".

The Combatus algorithm is a collection of thousands of arcane algorithms which, when combined, instruct the golem to behave in a sophisticatedly autonomous, mission-oriented way at the behest of its owner. At this point in time, the Combatus algorithm would be modular enough as to be able to take an input set of "missions" or a smaller algorithm that must effectively function as a "mission/s". Both methods have been tested although due to the numerous ways the latter may be constructed and a lack of time, all aspects have not been fully examined. The team was still eager to show off the modularity of this second method and has thus opted for a relatively simple "mission" algorithm that would be used for the battles of the tournament, which has been imbued with the following sentence of power by the lead Mechamage Benua: "Notice, Svjetlohod!", this would be the call of power for the identification mechanism which would be used to rewrite instructions, wiping would be rewriting them to nothing. Svjetlohod was a reference to a collection of abstract representations of the Golems entirety. "Upon your next awakening, you shall follow the following order of instructions, with reasoning!", the reasoning being a call to the second method of imbuing an algorithm instead of a dry order of instructions. "You must recognize, battle and defeat the Golem standing in the same ring as Svjetlohod! You MUST shut off if the calculated probability of winning is below the threshold under reference NO MORE or the Golem standing in the same ring as Svjetlohod has been defeated! End!", this would be the main "mission" call.

But, probabilities? To understand the full workings of the golem, one must delve deeper, and notice that the Combatus algorithm does not only work by blindly following and executing the orders given to the Golem. The Golem may simulate its environment by focusing magic "fuel" into certain parts of its body in an attempt to calculate the probability, cost and efficiencies of its next moves. The Golem may also keep a record of past events and iterate over them, in order to quick-note mistakes that it should avoid. These mechanisms come at their own cost too though, increasing which each further simulated step, linearly for the history search algorithm, and exponentially for the future prediction algorithm.

Summarizing, the Golem is a wonder of modern magical discipline, tinkering, enchanting and other, and is proudly presented at the Elbion College by the teams' members: Benua, Malgrid, Joshua, Tarelia and Salverin.

 

[Phillipa Ebonheart]

Phillipa was silently watching over the whole procession of this display of magical educations. As the Acquisitions Department's field operative, and the second over the whole department, students that had some capability to create strange or even magnificent creations were always of interest to the department that quietly headed the entire security of the college. The duty being delegated by the Five Circles of Masters long ago when the college was first established.

Well, the bottom three circles had handed down the duty since the first circle saw to the day to day operations of the college. Made up of numerous Maesters in order to handle the immense load of paperwork and sorting that came with it. The lot of them dealt with new students, organizing curriculum when asked for help and also reviewing rules and regulations.

Second circle saw to the weekly reports of the the professors and other staff to establish inter-department communication rather than isolate the departments from one another. Going between each department required a smaller group, but still equally large as most requests for an assistant from within the student body had been allowed to train the next group of possible Maester's to come.

Third circle saw to the requisition of materials for projects both benign and, well, not so benign along with the licensing and proper authorizations of such a thing. A much tighter knit circle of Maester's of incredible repute, this lot always had a nose in the business of those that called the college home.

The Fourth circle was seldom approached, as they oversaw the process of hiring professors and specific staff. The few dozen of Master Maester's that made up this group had served for some time, and always made sure to preen their favored replacements for years. They also oversaw the building projects regarding renovations to the college, assuring that nothing was out of place or in any way detrimental to learning.

The Fifth circle, the final ring of learned Master's within the college, were made up of member's that none other than the Fourth circle had seen. Made up of a group of highly skilled, specialized, and inhumanely powerful Master's of magic that seldom bothered with the affairs of the people beneath them. Rumors of their bodies no longer abiding by the typical bounds of mortality were abound with those that were in the know of the group. Most of the staff brushed the accusation off, but Phillipa knew better.

She had been called before the Fifth Circle once when the other Four circles had failed to make a final decision on what to do with her. The beings that oversaw the last word on her career had seemed like little more than withered old people that were wrinkled beyond reason and slowly pointed knobby and world worn fingers to one another while making light of each other in some regard.

They had been dismissive about her failure in routing the attacks on the college, citing that it had been a failure on everyone's part. Their cataracts lidded eyes were a show, the piercing gaze that peered beneath the flesh and bone of a being staring at the cursed item that was hidden away in her chest.

She had shuddered beneath their stare. Eyes that had beheld the fabric of the world as one might stare into the night sky and see the universe before them. They had paid for their sight, but had come away not completely human. The husks of human flesh they inhabited for presentations sake was far more unsettling for Phillipa than any one thing she had come across in her time as a Professor or in the field after some god-forsaken relic that had slaughtered innocents in the name of opening a portal for the almighty lord of chaos to spread his ire.

Peering at the students, the "professor" that floated about, and the golem on presentation did little to help remedy the memory of being looked over by the Fifth circle.

The use of sunlight to fuel the golem had her intrigued, but the thought of nightfall rendering it useless made her second guess the whole idea. Questions piled up in her mind as she watched quietly.

 

[Gauss]

"Lady Ebonheart. It is good to see you get a rest from the field." Gauss spoke as he spotted the raven-haired woman enter the vicinity. She was young, especially by Gauss's standards, but she had earned a reputation as an up and comer amongst the acquisition department. Their service wasn't quite Gauss's cup of tea, but it was very important to the college, so he tried to make sure to keep good relations with them.

"I'm about to do some inquiries on some of the projects. I'd be honored if you gave me a hand." He let out a chuckle. "I have so few after all." It was a poor joke, but one he'd been a routine of telling for quite some time. If Phillipa Ebonheart agreed he'd be delighted, but he wouldn't press on her time if she had other obligations. Gauss would then hover over to Svjetlohod's display. It had garnered a lot of attention among students and passerbys, and Gauss couldn't blame them. It was quite shiny.

"Mechamages? Am I saying that right?" Gauss addressed the students. "Professor Rossum and Professor Asimov have requested that any available faculty provide an analysis on the golems created in their class. Golems are very complex creations, requiring sound construction, ample power supply, and in-depth algorithms to ensure a lack of emergent behavior. I'd like to start with power management." Gauss declared, as each student would find an unblinking eyestalk dedicated to them.

"I'm going to first assume that your solar setup is more akin to a power battery than converter. Solar set ups are typically critiqued for poor efficiency, requiring a few hours charge to get an hour of use. How long does it take to get a full charge on Svjetlohod, and how long does a full charge last? Are there any alternative ways for a mage who didn't build this to power it in the field? What's to stop a rival army simply using it's mages to summon cloudy days and wait out this golems power supply?" Gauss began, not being hostile but also not holding back in his questions. Anything less would be a disservice to the students.

 

[Svjetlohod]

"Professor Gauss!", Benua would eagerly greet the many-eyed... Floating eye with a mouth. The Professor would approach their Golem, as would the students, and ask first of their teams' name. Benua would reply quickly, almost on his toes:

"Almost! To be more precise, our team is called the Mechanomages, but each team member is a Mechamage because we have quickly noticed that calling each Team member a Mechanomage would soon become tiresome, by that point, however, our name has already been filed and we had no way of changing it. Also, Mechamage Tarelia didn't tell us at first that she suffers from dyslexia, though we would find out soon enough!", Benua would laugh, not realizing his comment might be a little too straightforward, he was a slight social mishap. Dyslexic Mechamage Tyrelia would think of very slightly shaking her head at Benua's moderate blatancy, but having one of Gauss's eyes staring at she rather decides to leave it for later.

The professor would also inquire into the workings of the power system barraging them with multiple questions. Joshua would be the one to lead the answer since he was the lead designer on the issue.

"I would like to start by introducing you to the baselines of how our mechanism of magic power excitation is accomplished.", he would turn one hand towards the golem. "In short, the Golem is mainly composed of three different mineral aggregates, or as we like to call them, "rocks": Gheyanium, Jampium and Fallium. By melting down the rocks at specific temperatures, at specific speeds with a specific composition, we may achieve fine rock-rock combinations, mostly by using Gheyanium as a base and Jampium and Fallium as additives. Now, we presume that the inherent magical density of Gheyanium is greater than the magical density of Fallium, but lower than the magical density of Jampium. We know that even if we heterogeneously melt together Gheyanium and Fallium for example, and we leave the combination in the dark, that the magical density of the two will balance out non-uniformly, precisely the magic field will transition from a transient state which is the homogenous solution of the differential equation into a steady state of non-equal magic potential which is the particular solution. If we expose this heterogeneous combination to sunlight the magical density will increase, also not uniformly, the part of the rock with the higher magical capacity, in this case, the part with Gheyanium, will "charge" faster than the one with Fallium, because the Fallium "layer" will start exerting pressure on the magical energy stored in the Gheyanium layer. At the same time, part of the magical energy will be converted into heat and mostly radiated by Fallium, which is intuitive."

"Now, we have decided to smelt the golem in such a way that the outer shell of the golem is mostly composed of Gheyanium doted with a thin Fallium layer, and that the rest of the Golem is composed out of Gheyanium doted with Jampium, furthermore the concentration of Jampium increases as the power core of the Golem is approached, which is made mostly of Jampium. In this way, we create a sink for magical energy and optimize the flow of power into the core. Additionally, a thin layer of Merkite crystals is located between the Fallium and Jampium layers, which when triggered generate a repelling field. The Golem may now power the Fallium layer to prevent overcharging from malicious sources since no flow will penetrate the Merkite field, and in addition, the power usage of the Fallium field will additionally prevent it from overcharging. The reason why this system is special is that Fallium has such a low capacity that it severely shortens the transient period enabling for fast charging, even with the minimal amounts of energy absorbed from sunlight. Other users, may, of course, charge the Golem by directly transmitting energy to its outer surface, but the user must be cautious not overcharge it, although we did build in a safety fuse. I believe this would also answer your question about bad weather.", Joshua would noticeably lose breath but continue talking.

"About charging times, this thing can be charged manually in approximately 1-10 seconds depending on the skill of the user and charges automatically under the sun in one to an infinite number of hours, depending on the time of day, assuming constant sunlight. We know that the intensity of sunlight curve over time looks something approximately, without weather effects, as your distribution, and that the charging times starting from 1 hour inversely relate it. We have prepared a handy booklet with which you may then extrapolate the time based on numerous factors. Anything more? ... No, that would be it, that is in short how the system works."

The other team members would stare at Joshua.

 

[Kara Orin]

Kara stared at the golem she helped in creating. It was bulky with a metal shell. Bipedal. Very much humanoid in appearance. Runes covered the surface where possible.

“You sure will work?” asked Bernard, one of Kara’s teammates.

“No,” Kara replied as she looked over the runes with a frown.

“Aren’t you the rune expert?” Celeste questioned with a nasally screech.

“I don’t really know how to make golems,” Kara replied.

Plus, this was another extracurricular where Kara had to join against her will. This time, it was due to Kara’s habit of not checking in College library books back on time – by weeks at a time. Luckily for Kara, victory was not required to have her late library books be forgiven. Thus, Kara struggled to find motivation to excel in this task.

Yet there was one thing that interested Kara in this whole event. Her eyes locked on a specific rune. She traced her fingers over it to ensure its shape was as precise as necessary.

A thought crossed Kara’s mind – was what she was about to do even allowed in the Golem Games rules? She had not bothered to dig through the rules – she only relied on what the team leader conveyed.

“It looks like a golem, walks like a golem, might as well be a golem,” Trevor, the team leader, added as he knocked on the golem’s metal shell.

And it seemed that the team leader was willing to take a liberal view on the rules.

“I’m pretty sure what we’ve done in making this alone is worth a few recommendations from the Maesters,” Trevor added with a confident smile.

Backing away from the golem, Kara told the team, “It’s ready.”

 

[Phillipa Ebonheart]

Her eyes snapped to Gauss when they spoke to her. A small if forced smile as she gave them a respectful nod. "Not often I get even a short respite from my work abroad. However, the chance is always welcome. And a small chance to see the creative capabilities of our esteemed students in any manner of display is most certainly a splendid and agreeable distraction from the daily."

"Certainly, I would thoroughly enjoy seeing you work, and am more than able to lend at least a hand." She spoke, tacking a small joke about sight into her words with another barely there smile. Phillipa followed beside Gauss, eyes running up and down the golem on display.

She listened to the banter, not standing still however, taking the chance to stand near the construct and poke here and there before looking over the team. They were all promising mages, and in her own opinion, creators. The study of golems was not in any way dwindling, but for a time now had stagnated in it's advancement.

This was certainly a refreshing change of pace.

 

[Tonwee]

"Excuse me," Tonwee said quietly. His speech was slow enough that it took the mage in front of him a few moments to put it back together.

"Oh, right," the mage stood up and then clambered back over the bench to avoid Tonwee's shell. The tostudo continued down the row and then parked his bulk not far behind Phillipa Ebonheart . The wooden bench groaned in protest. He leaned his staff back against his shoulder.

"Oh, interesting collection this year," he muttered.

"Sorry, are you talking to me?" asked the next mage along.

"No," Tonwee replied plainly, with an impression of a smile. He often spoke slowly to himself, a habit he was never going to shake.

He wasn't a member of the college, but an independent shop owner. He had been in Elbion for over sixty years. His market stall business had grown to take place in a prominent street. He didn't make golems, but several of his components were out on display today. He wondered how many would be destroyed.

Golems were both a new and ancient art. Magical automotons had been perfected thousands of years ago in the Age of Wonders, but almost all of that knowledge had been lost. Tonwee had almost infinite patience and he had discovered almost no references to existing copies of books that could trace their lineage back that far. Something had happened to wipe that knowledge from the world and it was slow to rebuild from scratch.

Tonwee didn't mind slow.