The Runic Emperor Ch. 01

Prologue

The power of the Runic Empire had come from its unparalleled rune scholarship and golem technology. Their golems came in three types, the basic worker was just a carving with some basic runes and some magic infused water thrown on, they were good for some basic laborious tasks.

The second type of golem could have basic thoughts and could accomplish more complex tasks, a variety of meaning runes would be carved into its surface. Once "awakened" these runes would expand their influence across the surface of the golem, form a network of meaning or what the scholars called a "runic mind". Assembling a runic mind was a fine art, the runes often had complex meanings that were difficult to translate into the common tongue making designing a mind more like writing a poem. The first rule every novice knew was to avoid contradiction, a simple runic mind with an overt contradiction would kill itself shortly after awakening. As more complex minds were made it was harder to avoid minor contradictions but the wiser golems could often find a compromise to continue to function, although these were often unpredictable.

The third type of golem were regarded as wonders of the world, they could only be awakened with highly refined magic infused water, they would have both ability and meaning runes granting them both mind and magic and would gain the appearance of human skin. The common man would be unable to tell them from a human but scholars would probably notice their hyper-literal behaviour or crude movements. But in this age making one would be a pipe dream, there was simply no way to refined that much magic any more. The few that were made had long since shutdown from magic exhaustion. Still runic scholarship had continued regardless and the imperial library was full of runes supposed to put the old ones to shame. Theoretically these runes could make golems power weapons of destruction, but without the refined magic they were just mark in old dusty academic parchment.

Chapter 1

The young Emperor Psi the third franticly roamed the halls of the imperial palace searching for his older sister. He kept tripping over his long Emperor's robes designed to resemble runic scholars yet far grander. Like everything in the empire now they were pointless trappings for the sake of tradition, after just turning 18 years last month his education has finished and he knew nothing about the real world. The constitution which hadn't been changed in a thousand years declared all members of the imperial family must be educated as master golem makers, yet with the almost complete absence of refined magic they spent their childhood learning a useless skill! While the council forced him through this educational program, they never mentioned anything about the current political situation, he could write five different essays on the meanings of a single rune but couldn't tell you the political situation in the occupied territories.

Well that wasn't true any more, he could tell you the political situation, it was organised rebellion. Armies were marching to the imperial city to demand independence, or worse, kill him. They were but days away. His court, who had been keeping all this from him while he slept with his concubines and worked on his final thesis, a master golem. What a complete waste of time, since he had "known" he would never be able to animate it he just carved a fantasy concubine, tits the size of water melons with every single pleasure rune and feminine submissiveness rune carved into it with unparalleled skill, a masterpiece. The look on his tutor's face would have been worth all the times he had called him a smug brat. But all completely useless, not only because he was going to get killed but his examiner had fled the city with the rest of "his" court. He realised now the council had been content to let him fuck his life away while they ran the show. All the rituals and constitutional education was just to keep the trappings of legitimacy. After all, the emperor's position was all formally declared and the basis of their power.

"Tau!" Psi shouted as he approached the gardens. His sister was often here flirting with the sons of the courtiers.

He found his sister alone on a bench. "Where is everyone?" Tau asked.

"They've fled with their parents"

"Fled what?"

"There's an insurrection a few days away. Look, did you finish your thesis yet?"

"No, why? And more to the point why are you asking, we should be getting out of here! How dare they leave us like this!"

"Good, maybe we can salvage the work. Bring your golem to my lab"

"Shut up about the damn golem, we have to get the servants and flee to Dyadia"

"No, the insurrection is coming from Dyadia. Get your golem now! I have something that will change everything."

***

"What the hell is THAT thing? Oh of course, can't say I'm surprised" said Tau as she spotted Psi's thesis as she wheeled in her sculpture into the emperor's private study. "Still... very good work on the arse". "Now, why do you need my thesis when you clearly have one already".

"I'm going to make a General to lead my armies and... holy shit", Psi had only just noticed the size of Tau's thesis. It must have been seven feet tall, it was male... thank goodness, had huge muscles that made it look like it had plate armour under its skin. "This is perfect" he said as he started to examine it more closely. "hmm many runes have been carved in yet".

"I'm getting around to it goddammit" snapped Tau,

"No that's good, I need a fresh one, I already carved the runes on mine and I don't have time to start a new form from scratch. Besides, you can't have a General with tits that big, it will distract the troops". The runes on Tau's sculpture seemed to located around hefty mass at his crotch, as he read them aloud it became clear the intended purpose of this golem pleasure enhancer, pleasure enhancer, masculine arrogance/confidence. He glanced at his blushing sister.

"What? Should I read what you carved into balloon boobs here and embarrass our ancestors?" she said. "He's called Omega."

"It's OK, I can work with this, there's still plenty of space for what I want, wait no no no no!" He quickly got irate. "What the hell is this?" He pointed to a very complex rune just above the penis, he struggled to translate it "Pride in masculine domination of inferiors" He muttered. Complex runes were very difficult to speak of without over simplification of the real meaning. Psi had a library full of books that often only analysed a single rune. "I can't create a walking war machine with this, what if it kills me!"

"Since it's so near the crotch he probably more likely to fuck you" Tau laughed,

"This is no laughing matter, I spent two days on this" He turned his notebook to a page with an expertly calligraphed rune and pushed it into Tau's face.

"Pride in submissive obedience to the Emperor Psi" she muttered reading the rune.

"Why not just stick on both?"

"Too contradictory, how can it be dominant and submissive at once, it could destroy itself during the awakening, we have just one shot at this."

Tau pushed his notebook down and looked him in the eye. "OK I tolerated your madness long enough to see what you've been doing all week but why are you talking as if we can awaken this thing. There isn't enough magic if we gathered all the sources left in the empire!"

"Yes there is" he gestured her into the birthing chamber. There stood the birthing vessel that hadn't been moved, or washed in 100 years. She had seen such many times on tours around the ancient scholar labs. On the walkway above it however was a large vat with a blanket over it that had clearly been moved there recently.

They climbed up to the walkway and Psi started to pull off the blanket, she gasped and clutched her breast, inside the vat was a pool of water saturated with raw refined magic. Just the weak emissions it gave off was stimulated the tattoo runes she had made with the ink she 'requisitioned' from the calligraphy store rooms. The breast enhancer and anti-ageing rune glowed through her robe her cleavage seemed to grow yet remain weightless. She began to cross her legs as the pleasure enhancer on her crotch activated, fortunately her silk under garments blocked the glow. Her arousal grew as she considered the implications of the vat. This was a worth more than the imperial palace, a power source unparalleled in the world, they would be the greatest imperial family for 200 years.

Psi covered it again with the blanket, Tau spotted the huge erection under his robe, clearly, he has also been creative after calligraphy class, but this was not the time to mock him. "Where? How?" she asked.

"The postmen brought this into my chambers two weeks ago apparently it's been in the postmaster's headquarters with instructions to take it to the emperor if the imperial city is close to ruin."

"Wait. So, a treasure worth half the empire has been sat in the post office all this time and no one stole it or event thought to look. Bloody bureaucrats."

"Hey, those are my loyal subjects" he scolded her. "well except the postmaster general, he fled with the council. I'm not sure the general population knows about the rebellion yet." He turned back to the vat "there's only enough for one full powered golem, but if it's going to be ready in time, I need your help. All the other master scholars fled, your Omega and my ... concubine are the only forms fresh enough for awaken and I need a weapon of war, a General who will take my army and crush the rebellion." He said as they climbed down from the walk way to the Omega sculpture.

He picked up a pile of parchment and slammed them on the table, "These are the most powerful runes the scholars of the secret military have come up with to date. I don't need to remind you they are more powerful, and energy efficient than anything they had when the last level 3 Golem was made."

"They are also completely untested, if you can't control it is could destroy the city" Tau said.

"Which brings us back to your dominator rune. I can't let this thing loose without defined loyalties. Loyalty to ME!"

Tau thought how much of a prideful brat her younger brother was, the Empire succession rules only allowed male emperor's and he had been happy for the council to sap power away while he slept through his concubines and experimented with pleasure runes all day. This was the only time she had seen him give a damn about the empire, now he thought it was going to be taken away from him. But despite all his flaws he was correct, they couldn't release a powerful Golem without clear loyalties, every rune scholar knew that.

"Why don't we just put on the loyalty/adherence to the constitution rune" she said.

"They used to put them on every level 1 Golem since the first dynasty."

"And they stopped it when the lawyers kept talking them into betraying their masters" muttered Psi.

"But the mad Emperor Chi killed all the lawyers at the end of the last dynasty after getting the idea from that play, pretty much the only people who have seen the constitution are you me, and some of the high council. As I recall there's even a defined rank of High General in there, to be appointed to serve/submit at the pleasure of the Emperor. Just use that."

"We will have to risk it, now here are my plans, we can leave out these runes here since that space is already taken with your sex toy runes. If you do a good job and this works you can borrow him by the way."

"What a magnanimous Emperor you are" she said sarcastically.

"That leaves, strength, protection, rune empowerment/absorption, tactical analysis, leadership, basic history and some others. Don't touch the eyes, I'm going to carve them with this masterpiece myself." He pulled out a parchment from inside his robes. "The final rune of scholar Zhou" He said impressed "I can barely understand it, it means something like mind engrave, he was a complete genius."

"You snubbed his funeral!" Tau recalled.

"Give me a break I was thirteen and had just got my first concubine, and I couldn't appreciate his work until now".

They worked through the night in relative silence carving away at the huge stone figure.

***

"Just a little more", they pushed the finished sculpture into the birthing vessel and shut it in. "Now for the hardest bit. During the birth the behaviour runes will fight for dominance until an equilibrium is found and the runic mind emerges. At this part of the process, they are notoriously unstable and dangerous" said Psi.

"Yes, he will want to do a mixture of fucking, fighting and reading the constitution I imagine" said Tau sarcastic.

"Exactly, hmmm, go get a copy of the constitution from the library, I'm going to move all my breakable objects."

"And the fucking?"

"Well he was going to be your sex toy, get something nice to wear."

Tau sighed, her brother was obnoxious but he was right and she couldn't help but feel excited at the thought.

Finally, everything was ready. Tau stood there in her underwear and bathing robe as Psi started to drain the water into the birthing vessel.

"It should take 5 minutes for it to saturate the sculpture."

Soon they heard a tap on the vessel, this then turned into a load banging and then crack, the side was broke open. The now mostly inert water rushed out and was captured in drains.

Out stepped the golem, the rock service shimmer and was soon replaced with the appearance and texture of real flesh, hairless and without imperfection except for the faint marks of inscribed runes. The rune of its bald head flashed brown and out grew thick boyish locks of hair that stopped around his ears.

His eyes twitched as the masculine domination rune located just above his crotch began to flicker, his eyes then locked onto Tau who was doing her best impression of a school girl innocently emphasising her cleavage. He stepped up to her and lightly pressured her shoulder when his hand as if silently tell her to kneel. She was now at eye level with his cock that grew into an erection, it was more magnificent than she remembered having sculpting it, she wasted no time and took it in her mouth and began her best efforts on it. The masculine domination rune established a steady glow like it was satisfied. Tau continued to franticly suck, dead to the rest of the world.

It was now the loyalty/adherence to the constitution rune began the flicker, Omega face looked confused as he spoke for the first time "Reference missing".

Psi who has been watching in a silent awe until now suddenly sprang to life. He took the parchment with the written constitution and started waving it around. "I am the Emperor Psi, this is the constitution, I appoint you High General, that means you serve me, like it says here", he pointed to the paragraph, "Get it? It says the High General serves at the pleasure of the Emperor".

"Pleasure Emperor" the Golem repeated, he raised one hand and pointed it towards Psi's crotch, the rune in his palm glowed and an energy blast knocked Psi on his back. The shuddered and twitched violently, every pleasure rune on his crotch was hyperactive he thought he was cumming or maybe he was dying, whichever, after 15 seconds everything went black.