Grandmaster Golem, Alchemist Extraordinaire

"At last! I've done it!"

Durri opened his eyes, squinting against the bright light.

"Do you see, Colfax? Do you witness my genius?"

Thoughts swirled slowly in Durri's head. The high-pitched voice speaking was not his own.

"They told me I was a fool, a war criminal, a pervert! Well, now I'm not only all of that, but a genius besides! Look how it's moving. I really gave a golem life!"

A golem.

Then the god-clerk's plan had really worked.

Durri was free from that horrible witch's curse.

So long as he stayed alive in this body, of course.

Durri opened his mouth. "Hello, there." He didn't seem to be restrained, so he sat up.

He perched on a metal table in the middle of a workshop with beakers and crystal balls and all sorts of magical things lying everywhere.

A tall, skinny man with a beard that reached his toes was hopping up and down in the middle of the room. He seemed to have a bathrobe on. "Ah! It talks! Colfax, ready the restraints!"

Beside the scrawny man, a creature who looked like a tiny rhinoceros standing on its hind legs cringed away. "Come on, Master! Look how big it is! It could crush my skull with one hand!"

Durri waved in a gesture of greeting, realizing that his new arm was, in fact, several times heavier than his human one had been.

"Look," he said, "I should clear things up before there's any confusion. I'm actually a human who was transmigrated into this golem form. Thanks for making this wonderful body, by the way. I highly doubt you intended for me to jump into it, but sometimes weird things happen and you just have to roll with them."

There was a huge and very magic-looking mirror nearby, and Durri turned his head to admire his reflection.

He stood about seven feet tall and had very stocky limbs. He had no hair, and the name "Mr. Golem" was written on his forehead. His eyes were made of green-blue gemstones, and his facial features were very simple.

And, of course, he was formed out of gray clay which gave his skin a smooth, almost damp appearance.

The appearance took Durri aback. It was jarring to look into a mirror and see... well, a body which was not the same human one he had seen in a mirror for the past thirty years. Yet, somehow, he felt the body suited him. There was a kind of rugged style to it which he appreciated.

His eye gems, as it happened, were the same color as his original human eyes had been. "Was nice of the god-clerk to keep my best feature!" he said.

The wizard who had created the body suddenly chuckled.

"Divine transmigration? A likely story! That's exactly what 'I' would say if I was a golem who'd just woken up and realized he was destined for slavery! And after all, I used a drop of my blood to give you life, so what 'I' would do is precisely what 'you' are doing now! Colfax, fetch my Wand of General Anesthesia!"

Durri rose, his weight shaking the floor. "My name's Durri Dell, and I'm 'nobody's' slave! Either you show me the way out, or I'm just going to start kicking down doors until I figure it out myself!"

The wizard licked his moist lips, staring Durri down.

Colfax scuttled back to the wizard's side and handed him a short stick with a metal ball at the end.

Durri lowered himself into a crouch, preparing to dodge some magical attack.

But then the wizard nodded.

"Well, I can't afford to replace my doors again, so I suppose I'll have to make another golem. Should probably use a drop of Colfax's blood this time. My new minion will be so spineless it'll do everything I tell it. Just like you, eh, Colfax?"

The rhinoceros creature whimpered and hid behind a table, staring at Durri.

'Well,' thought Durri, 'it's good that he saw reason. Not like that witch who got me into all this.'

Still getting used to his new form, which moved slightly slower than his old human body, Durri followed the wizard. He did his best not to crush the random objects which lay underfoot.

Just before they reached the door, Durri saw an empty glass bottle with a cork in it.

'Oh yes!' he thought. 'I have mastery over alchemy now. I can feel the knowledge swirling around in my head. The god-clerk wasn't just messing with me, it seems. Well, I'll need something to make potions in.'

Durri took the bottle.

The wizard gave him a strange look, but didn't ask him to put it down. "Right down this hallway. Take the last door on the left, then go down the stairway at the far end of the room and you can leave the tower without tracking your filthy feet across all my carpets."

Durri walked down the hallway and turned into the room. "Well, whose idea was it to make my feet out of clay, anyway?"

Then he stopped, for the room he'd just entered was very dark, and he couldn't tell where the stairs at the far end were supposed to be. "Do you have a lamp or anything-"

As Durri turned, the wizard let out a high-pitched shriek and jabbed the metal ball on his wand into Durri's side.

Durri flew to the ground and skidded several feet!

Moreover, he was completely paralyzed and could only look up at the dark ceiling!

The wizard kept laughing as he slammed the heavy door shut, locking Durri inside.

"Threaten me, will you? What an idiot. Well, I guess you were only born a few minutes ago. Keep working on your backstory, Mr. Golem. Maybe if you think of something more convincing, you can convince my friends not to dissect you tomorrow night. I doubt it, though. They might accuse me of crimes against humanity, but no one would look at you and consider you human!"

And so, minutes after being reborn into this new body, the one that was supposed to deliver him from a witch's curse of constant rebirth and painful death, Durri was trapped in a mad wizard's laboratory.

He possessed little more than an empty bottle and the magical knowledge of every alchemy recipe in the world.

Though he was paralyzed, Durri stared with passion toward the ceiling.

"I'm going to escape. Not only that, but I'll get my revenge against that swindling witch. And Mama, I swear I'll move you out of that miserable retirement home and buy you the mansion you deserve."

The sound of skittering insects answered him.

As well as a spicy smell, one that made Durri smile.

With the god-clerk's magical gift of knowledge, Durri knew exactly how he would escape.