Nick's Workshop

Naiyu would hear alot of... unusual movement sounds from outside the workshop.

"Who's there?" A purple caster minion of all things opened the service door to the workshop, the larger golem door reserved for large visitors. The caster minion welcomed Naiyu and ushered her in.

"He.looo. Frieend." The caster minion said, shaking Naiyu's hand. Its voice was high pitched and monotone, and yet had the slightest inflection of friendliness.

"Target acquired." Suddenly, another purple caster minion came up to within four paces of Naiyu and waved its unpowered wand at her but no energy bolt emerged. Anyone would recognize it, seeing as the wand didn't have the energy crystal attached. Still, the caster minion waved and waved, at what seemed to be a much higher attack speed of 1.0, flailing about aimlessly at Naiyu.

"Terminating." It said, voice similar to the friendly minion's, but with a hint of... aggression?

"No! stop shooting. It's me." The other caster minion stood in front of Naiyu in the first minion's way, and the two were now engaged in a wand waving contest with each other.

The scene was quickly noticed though; at the far wall of the small workshop, two figures in purple robes were walking around a large iron golem on a raised catwalk, some pieces of the golem still scattered about its foot. One of them, male, spoke aloud.

"56! 57! Shut down."

"Function. Error." 56, the aggressive one, said, before nodding off in place, arms drooping, wand still in hand.

"Sleep mode activated." 57, the friendly one, also nodded off in place.

Nicholas slid down the ladder and huffed as he landed, removing his artificer goggles and leaving the large and thankfully inert stone golem. His assistant, a blonde woman in a plain purple robe, continued performing adjustments with an arcane matrix sphere.

"I'm terribly sorry about that, um... you see I'm trying to make the minions...smarter. Not sure if talking makes them smarter. I..I... I know what I'm doing, don't worry about it. I think. Anyway! I'm... I'm Nicholas... s..silver ranked... just got promoted... about time... I'm an artificer for the Institute... I don't get out much, so I don't know alot of people here. Then again its a big place... and everyone wears those robes and hoods... Oh, I must prattling. You are?" The man wiped his hands with a towel and offered one to shake Naiyu's with.

Once she had a good look at the interior of the workshop, Naiyu would note it was suffused in plain white light, the walls grooved to give the sense of space. All around were metal storage boxes, and the golem consumed a good third of the floor. More inactive minions were still in the corner, a hanging light over their transparent cases. Yet, there was organization and neatness in it- paperwork on the shelves was sorted and filed, while tools not in use were put away.

"Well. that's pretty odd. Everyone knows that wards are a pretty commonly used item in matches, and you can buy them with little trouble at the main Institute workshop without a problem." Nicholas explained, his stutter less prevalent once he talked about his field of expertise.

He went over to a storage box and opened it, pulling out a small white sphere with a smaller indentation where its 'eye' would be. "Since you're here, I'm assuming you want a customized ward or two?" He pressed the eye and it lit up with a soft blue light.

"These are my... mobile wards. Observers, if you will. They roll around, look around, and get around. Pretty difficult to notice too like real wards. I can change their colors, give them a few scripted lines to respond to your commands... even make them look like a small animal if you'd like." The little Observer Ward looked back and forth between Nicholas and Naiyu, making a few mechanical sounds.

And you can either use your own scrying ability, or control them with a view crystal.""

Nicholas pursed his lip left and right, wondering what to do with an even greener summoner than himself. The room was fairly quiet, with the occasional odd beep coming from the large stone golem, and then a low growl emanating from it, as well as the arms slightly moving. Zero immediately cleared the script matrix, causing the golem to once again become inert.

"Zero?" Nicholas turned around and asked.

"Error in. script. layer." A monotonous but female voice emanated from the lady in the coat.

"Let's sort the golem's script later. Do come down here and meet Naiyu. Naiyu, this is my assistant Zero." The summoner introduced the woman- who, up close, was clearly not human given how incredibly sleek her metallic body was, her face clearly having grooves running across her cheeks.

"Greetings. Bronze summoner. Naiyu. Welcome to the. Golem works. What patterns would you like." Zero extended a hand in a mechanical imitation of courtesy.

Zero then looked at the observer, touched it with a finger, then illusory patterns of a variety of designs began covering it- flowers, butterflies, leaves, kitten faces... and so on and so on. While Zero did these, Nicholas continued.

"Tell you what... why don't you take this observer, and try and run the test maze over here." The summoner pointed to a dining table that supported a small maze.

The test maze had a glass ceiling, so Naiyu had an overhead view of the mini-labyrinth. She could also see through the Observer's eye using the small crystal sheet that served as its control.

"Try it." He said, encouraging. Zero simply stared blinking a few times at Naiyu, waiting for her to begin.