Vell had lit a candle earlier in the night, not for the light, but to hold back the darkness and signal to the librarian that someone was working in the archives.
Now it had burned low.
He hadn't moved from the long desk for hours. Another night spent hunched over ancient papers, yielding little to nothing.
He rubbed his eyes and swept the latest scrolls aside, careful not to crumple their edges. Dawn wouldn't be too long now.
His lesson would begin soon. He hadn't forgotten.
Not that he needed to prepare. Not really. But it helped—putting thoughts on paper, sketching out the path of the lecture before walking it; giving structure.
He pulled a fresh sheet toward him and scrawled across the top:
Golem Structure & Limitation
1. Size – Weight vs. Structure
They'll ask how big one can be, he thought, dipping the quill in ink again. Someone always does.
"How tall can a golem be, functionally?" They'd ask.
"As tall as you can support it," he'd say. Not a limit of ambition, but of balance. Of design. Like bridges. Or bones.
He could explain that the taller the golem, the more stress it places on itself. And that it wasn't just function that held them up, but magical force. A strong enough source of power could raise one as tall as a cathedral, or a mountain.
He let the pen hover for a moment before jotting down his thoughts.
2. Detail – Precision, Identity, Deception
And someone will ask how realistic they can make one.
Older students didn't ask as often. They already knew the answer, or they didn't indulge in as many fantasies.
He imagined answering with a demonstration. Drawing on the floor with a finger, forming the circle, calling up the shape, not a typical golem, but himself. A perfect mirror. Same look, same clothes, same colors, same behavior. Indistinguishable.
Like the student that made a sculpture of himself… just better.
"It can be done," he'd tell them. "Down to the finest wrinkle. Breath can be mimicked. Skin can be softened. They might fool your eyes, even your ears. But they're still puppets. Not people. And pretending is not the same as becoming."
He wrote that down too. Then added a note just for himself:
Revisit the ethics of mimicry. Make sure they understand the implications of almost-alive automatons.
The candle gave a final flutter and died.