Even though, in retrospect, the solution he was presented with was just the most logical conclusion possible, Seth was still having trouble wrapping his head around the actual concept of the thing that he was staring to intensely at, as if he was watching an alien stroll across the street in front of him.

Honestly, that might have been a little more believable than this, I mean what are the odds?

Walking through the market before him, without a care in the world, was a man. This man was normal in almost every way, except from of course the fact that he was only 2 foot tall and made entirely of clay.

But other than that, perfectly normal.

Naturally, there was the chance that this little guy was just a regular civilian with an unfortunate mutation, it's not as if they didn't have non-human appearing people within their numbers, Bob and Alexandra were prime examples. But there was simply something about its style of movement that tipped Seth off to its true nature.

It's movements were well practised, its walking so perfect in routine every single step it was as if it was a simple animation only a few seconds long played on a continuous loop. There was no fluid nature, no slight adjustments made from discomfort or the way your foot hit the ground.

It was, in a sense, robotic. Perfectly programmed into the little clay figure, Just like how Seth programmed his autonomous puppets. But this one was leaps and bounds beyond his.

While his simply carried out the programmed motions over and over, regardless of stimuli, this clay figure seemed like they were able to think, in some limited capacity. Choosing their programming based on what the situation needed. It was like comparing a robotic arm in a car factory to a full functioning, AI powered android.

Whoever it was that created this thing, and he was utterly sure it was created by someone, they had figured out what he had been trying and failing to. Whether it was by study or the simple luck of their mutation, it didn't matter.

Seth needed to understand how they were able to do it. He wanted to be able to combine the mind of the Spirit Animal with the body of a puppet and have them move independent of his orders.

His eyes ignited like two pure white suns, his eyes shining softly as he poured his mana into his eyes and turned his gaze towards the soul plane. Seth had hoped to find a series of threads, or something similar, to discover how the creator was controlling these clay figures, or any secret of their creation.

But instead of discovering a leash, all he saw was a small, yet perfectly healthy, soul nestled within the breast of the clay figure. It wasn't whole, not like most people and animals had.

If people had campfire sized flames, then this was little more than a candlelight. But it was something none the less, a budding soul that was, upon further inspection, bound in a cage formed entirely of a single set of runes repeating themselves over and over.

Runes made entirely of spiritual energy that wove around and around the soul flame, forming a circular chain that acted as a cage and kept the soul contained. Not just contained, but bound to the meaning of the rune itself.

It was a rune that Seth was intimiately familiar with, after all it had been integral in the creation of his 'Beast taming bracelet', a device that he seriously needed a more catchy name. But that was an issue for future Seth.

The rune in question didn't exactly have a direct translation, it didn't just mean 'slave' or something similar. This language rarely had such easy translations.

Instead it referred to, according to Seth's studies, the concept of servitude and a contractual bonding in reference to that service. But whether that was indeed a master and a slave, a pet and an owner or even a store owner and employee was dependent on the context the rune was implemented in and subtle differences in carving that could only be expressed best through a tone of voice.

Similar to this, and this.

Not that Seth could actually speak the language, but as far as he could see from the way it was written this contract leaned closer to an employee than a slave, with it being bound to the person it was eagerly trailing behind. It was a man that Seth had completely ignored previously as he had been so focused on the curious little doll.

He might have been the owner of the doll, or it's master in the contract, but Seth had a feeling that this man wasn't its creator. He couldn't explain it, it was just a feeling swirling deep in his guts that told him that the answers could just be one more question away.

So why hesitate to ask it?

Hurrying over to the man, who was just going about his daily business with the clay figurine in tow, Seth called out to him.

"Excuse me, Sir! Could you tell me where you got that strange clay doll?"

***

"Rania's U-shop-ti? I... I don't get it. Is it supposed to be a pun? Ah, whatever. That's not important."

Brushing off his confusion regarding the store's strange name, Seth stormed inside the building. It was one of the few shops that used a building, so whoever was running it must have been doing well for themselves.

As the door swung open, a chime of bones rattled to alert the owner to a customers presence, whilst Seth was immediately greeted with the sight of yet another one of the little clay figurines.

This one in particular was given clothes as part of its clay form, while the other had been just nude. If you could consider clay nude, that is. This figurine was dressed in ancient egyptian attire, at least what Seth considered ancient egyptian attire based on the few movies that he had watched.

Surely they would have no reason to be anything other than completely historically accurate.

But with the little skirt and head dress, he looked like a proper egyptian servant from ancient times.

Just as Seth was about to address the clay receptionist, a woman's head poked out from a room in the back and flashed him a radiant smile.

"Hold on, I'll be with you in just a sec."

As her head vanished back into the backroom, Seth closed his mouth, since he no longer had any reason to speak to the little doll, even if he was still curious to see if it could even talk. Then again, it was something he was about to discover with his own creations very soon, if all went to plan.

After a minute of clattering in the backroom, the woman finally made another appearance, this time as more than just a head.

She had mocha skin and dark hard that curled so loosely that it formed natural waves as it cascaded down her shoulders. She wore a dirty, clay covered smock just like a potter would wear, and her hand, which she was holding out for a handshake, was caked in dried up clay. Three guesses why that was.

"Hi there, My name is Rania. Are you interested in an Ushabti?"

"Ushabti? Oh! Oh... I get it now. Aha, Yes. You could say that, I'm very interested in your Ushabti and would love to learn all about them."

He clasped his metallic hand into hers, giving her a warm smile in return as he gently shook her hand. Finally, the answers to his query were finally in front of him. He just hoped that nothing would interrupt him before he could finish his studies.

Wait... that kind of thought process wasn't a flag, was it? Nah. It should be fine.

***

It had been a week since Lee had last seen Seth, when he had delivered him his usual supplies alongside those strange 'batteries' as the weird hermit called them, and in that time he hadn't really done much else.

He worked as a delivery boy, the same thing he had been before the world had ended. The only difference was instead of delivering pizza on a moped, he delivered weird stuff to hermits by bending the laws of space. So honestly not that different, really.

He wasn't the only one who worked for this service, they had others who had powers suitable for it, like flight and super speed, but there were also others who didn't have those specialist powers. It worked out pretty well though, creating a natural hierarchy of delivery speed and thus cost, with Lee naturally at the top.

Thus, Seth was basically his only customer and there was also the rare occasion he was tasked with bringing things to hunting parties or the like, so it was safe to say he had a lot of days off.

It was on one of these days off that he finally got around to doing what Seth requested of him, visiting the basement to establish a breach anchor. Which basically meant going to a place so he could picture it in his mind for teleporting later, it was all very banal and basic teleporter stuff.

And So, He found himself ambling through the castle's basement with a bored expression on his face. His feet scuffing against the floor as he idly slapped his hands against whatever he passed by, as he looked around and got a clear mental image of the place.

He was just about to leave, having wandered around most of the dungeon turned storage room, when he caught a door in the corner of his eye. Or at least, what used to be a door, as it was now just a pile of melted scrap metal that was half attached to the wall.

Curiosity got the better of Lee and he slowly made his way into the room, glancing around at the contents, or lack thereof. This was the only room in the storage area that was empty, although perhaps that was simply because it was because they had yet to overflow to this room.

However, it wasn't completely empty.

Lee tilted his head at the sight of a small, almost invisible crack in the air, as if the air itself was made of glass. It was so small, in fact, that Lee didn't actually see it with his eyes, and instead could naturally feel the disturbance in space.

It wasn't much of a feeling however, only a slight tickling on the back of his neck which explains why he couldn't feel it until he got this close. But it was there nonetheless.

He lifted a finger, which started to tingle like pins and needles, as he brought it closer to the crack in space. Perhaps, he could fix it somehow...

CCCRRCKK

With the worlds most gentle tap, so soft that it could barely be registered as a touch, Lee tapped his tingling finger against the tiny crack in space... and completely shattered the area around him.

Giant, ugly cracks cascaded all around him, ensnaring him like a spider-web as that slight tickle in the back of his neck became a blaring siren beating his brain with a baseball bat.

As he stumbled back, clutching his head from the sudden tsunami of overwhelming pain and sensory overload, another sound echoed throughout the room. Not the sound of glass shattering, but the faint, distant sound of something laughing.