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Golem

Tiga and his "siblings" are the only children to a man considering himself an acolyte of science.... Well, that's not entirely true. One could consider all of his creations, golems and automata, as Dr Nolla's children, but only Ein, Zwei, Tiga, and Vier had the ability to appreciate it. It was the sign of a true master artificer, of which there were only a handful, to give a creation true life, a soul... However, doing so was to give up part of one's self to their creation. In the beginning, that was all that Ein was: A badge of sorts. A small human made of cast bronze and imbued with a small portion of his creator's life force.

In the beginning, Ein was little more intelligent than any of the soulless slaves of magic and aether that the professor had created, but as the soul took hold, it began to grow. Adapt. LEARN. While still obviously not human, Ein steadily began to demonstrate free will, and personality.

That was the point when Zwei was crafted. A creation of curiosity, mostly, Zwei was crafted of a dense steel, to hold up to any kind of punishment he could be placed under. Ein was useful for small jobs, but his bronze frame couldn't withstand the heat or pressures that one would have to face when repairing the deep forges that he used to craft his constructs, and he was curious how a living construct would fare compare against the normal sort. Even though he had lost another piece of himself in the process, he felt that it was worth the learning experience and the potential gain...

... And he would not be disappointed. While the other constructs would often slag themselves in the molten metal, and would only do as instructed, Zwei never had an accident, and would make small modifications to the forges, and the mechanisms to make them more efficient. free will and the ability to think for oneself had its perks, it seemed. And for years, it was just the three of them...

But there was more than simple free will in those budding souls. They had intelligence. And more startling, emotion. They could feel, both physically and emotionally, and they eventually became a family... And that led to the creation of Tiga.

Tiga was the first creation of love that the professor had ever created. He had been an introverted man of science and creation before, living in his little world of mindless metal and stone creatures, before Ein, but now he found something he actually cared about. Tiga was the first to be crafted out of something exotic: Mithril silver. Nearly as strong as steel and far lighter, as well as resistant to fire and magics, he was made not as a tool, but something more elegant.

The story stays about the same for years, until years later. The brothers had all gone about their lives, becoming more and more alive as they grew, and growing more as they modified themselves to fit how they believed they should be, up until the last days of Professor Nolla. He had been an old man since before Ein's conception, and he had become far more human himself thanks to his 'children', but he realized that something was missing. He would craft one more masterpiece, a thing he had never realized that he'd wanted more than anything else: A daughter.

And so he worked once more, refusing aid from anyone in this task, save in procuring the materials that he needed. Gold, silver, and a few other materials went into his last labor of love, which he had decided would be a work of beauty. They all sensed things differently from living creatures, not needing eyes to see the world around them, sensing heat, moisture, aether and magic density passively, but he did not care: Vier would be the most human of any of them. She was made from iron and plated many times with gold, until he was convinced it would never simply wear thin, detailed with scrollwork of fine silver, and her eyes were solid amethysts, cut into perfect spheres by the finest jeweler that he could find.

Hair made of fine, woven gold, beautiful amethyst eyes, skin of fine silver and gold, and a doll-jointed body bearing as much human form and articulation as he could muster, Vier took the form of a beautiful, young elvan girl... Sadly, he would not be able to see her blossom into a real young woman. Ever since he gave life to Tiga, he had felt very weak, and he cursed his own weakness constantly, but he had his sons to help him, so he didn't suffer much, but he could not ask them to help him with this, and he gave the beautiful form in front of him life, one last time.

While it was not instant, this last creation was Professor Nolla's undoing. He became very weak, unable to walk or continue his work on regular constructs. rarely hungry, he became the image of death itself, gaunt and pale, but his children did the best they could to tend to him until the inevitable day when he could no longer hold out.

It had been less than a year since Vier had been born, and they all considered her the only one of them to have really been born due to the meticulous work that Nolla had put into her creation, and knowing what it meant for her. In his last days, he showed that he really did care for her, reading her stories and telling her about some of her brothers' more amusing slip-ups...

And then one day, he was simply gone. None of them had an easy time coping with the situation, and for a long time, they simply went about their lives as though nothing had happened. For this time, again nearly a year, the three brothers looked like machines, going about the same routines over and over. Vier was the one to finally break them out of this. She became curious about the outside world, and her brothers realized that all they knew was the workshop, and the forge. None of them had actually gone out into the world at any point.

After deliberation, they decided that three of them would leave while one tended to the workshop. Ein refused to let anyone but himself stay behind, saying that he knew the place the best and... It was true. He was the oldest, and through his modifications, he could at least service the forges. Zwei decided to act as Vier's protector since he was the strongest of the four siblings, and Tiga decided that he wanted to travel alone for a time. they all agreed that they would check in periodically (they could potentially life forever if they kept their bodies from breaking down, so the amount of time was insignificant as long as they knew the others were safe), and finally all went off their separate ways, not knowing what may lay ahead.



As a side note, Tiga wound up taking the cloaked form he bears now shortly after setting out. He was attacked in the wild, being mistaken for a monster, and was forced to defend himself. That same confrontation was also what damaged his voice.

Sword:

It is a rare metal called Electrum found only in the Lightning Elemental Realm, it was his fathers. It covers his entire body.