Erectin' Annoyance//OPEN

As the sun sizzled and the wind breezed, another echo entered the soundscape. The pounding of nails, the buzzing of electric screwdrivers, the trademarks of construction. It would be slightly inconvenient to those looking to relaxing out in the school’s courtyard. If they followed the noise though, they’d find its source at Foresta’s front door, literally.

The iconic, finely crafted doors were fleshly plucked off their hinges and set on the neighbouring walls. The arch into the school was filled in by a massive blob of a creature, comprised entirely of sand. It stood on two massive stump-like legs, but had twenty sand tentacle arms, each equipped with a different tool. Some may recognize the being as a member of the campus police, Tem. Her gemstone eyes were honed on the framework of the front entrance.

Behind the sand golem and sitting on the steps leading to the door was Cade. Snazzy as ever with his trademark red vest, he was looking particularly bored. It became no more evident than when he yawned and turned to his co-worker, rubbing his eye while he was at it. “You know, we have a groundskeeper for this.”

“Peh. The groundskeeper has no eye for architecture. They’d sooner throw these out than put the time into restoring them. You meat bags have no appreciation for your own handiwork” the creature ranted as she gestured to the doors.

Cade turned his attention back to the field in front of him, allowing his head to fall into one of his hands. There wasn’t anything more interesting out there or anything. “So, what’s this stuff about you dying? Certainly doesn’t line up with all the times you bragged about being immortal…”

The sand creature let out a delightful hum. “Wonderful, isn’t it? My body is destabilizing. I should fall apart any day now” she spoke with the glee of a tween thinking of their crush. Just as she finished speaking, there was a sharp metal snap. A tendril withdrew from the construction zone and slithered to Cade’s side, dropping off a broken screwdriver. “New one” she passively commanded as another tendril came along and dropped off the broken bit.

Cade sighed, grabbing both of the broken bits and pasting them together. He focused all his attention to the little tool. Suddenly, a watery substance leaked out of the palm of his hand, taking the shape of the screwdriver that was placed before him until it became the perfect clone. He placed the newly cloned screwdriver into the grip of Tem’s tendril before it went back to work.

Jessica had grown fond of a small napping spot in the school courtyard, it was neither too hot or too cold due to the pleasant wind and nice amount of shade the surroundings provided. In fact she liked it so much that she was rudely awakened during a nap by some sort of loud noise piercing through the would-be peaceful courtyard area. The grating noise of electric screwdrivers and the incessant hammering noise that seemed to come in waves rendered Jessica's spot unusable.



Jessica frowned as she got up from her nap, rubbing some of the sleep from her eyes. She was having a pleasant dream of flying free over the clouds, until the sound of construction acted like an anchor, dragging her back to her actual body. Luckily though, she seemed to remain corporeal, so she didn't need to worry about not being heard when she inevitably decided to confront the people who ruined her perfectly decent sleeping spot.



She took a couple seconds to straighten her tangled hair and brush off any detritus that would have accumulated on her person before she set off toward the origin of the noise.



She was surprised to see that the raucous sounds originated at the front doors of the school and seemed to be caused by a rather large sand creature and a tall-ish man. One of them seeming to simply pass on objects to the other as they seemed to idly talk to each other.



She saunters over to the two with a slight smile on her face.



"With how loud this sounds, you'd think this place is under attack by some sort of evil electric screwdriver. What is happening here?"

She leans on the closest available object.

"Oh Hi, by the way. Probably should have said that first"

Cade’s gaze lazily followed the student stepping onto the scene. It certainly wasn’t the first, a giant sand monster ripping off the school’s front doors does attract some attention. Given that it was Foresta, it didn’t attract as much attention as one might think. With his fist placed firmly against his cheek, Cade responded to the young woman in kind. “What you’re witnessing is the antithesis of everything this school stands for. A gifted person being abused for their talents by a blackmailing thug.”

The golem audibly groaned. A pebble shot out from its back, blindly, but most assuredly nailing Cade in the back of the head. Not enough to cause any significant pain, but enough to make him rub his skull and turn to the giant in annoyance. “Blackmail” the creature sputtered in disbelief. “You should have been fired long before I got here. You were lucky to have someone to look the other way for you.”

While Tem continued to work unfazed by the newcomer, an emerald sprouted out of her back. It angled itself, like an eye, staring directly at the young lady. In the meantime, the tools that Tem was using were absorbed into her tendrils. Suddenly, all the separate appendages fused together until the humanoid figure wielded two titanic globs of arms. The golem used these beefy sand arms to latch onto the doorframe and commenced the removal process. It was like ripping out a tooth. Once the roots gave way, the titanic being held the structure over her amorphous bodice. The wood looked much grayer than it probably should.

“Wood rot” Tem answered simply, basically ignoring Cade’s answer to the student’s question. She proceeded to toss the structure across the courtyard rather haphazardly. She didn’t see anyone in that part of the field, so it was probably fine. “And a host of other problems. The Groundskeeper should be fired too. They were probably waiting for an accident to happen. Pitiful. Would have ruined a this expertly crafted door. And then I would have to write another report about a student getting injured. Bleh” the creature continued to complain.

The golem turned then, bending over the side of the staircase to collect the wooden beams resting there. Her sand arms stretched to forward to snag them into her grasp. All was well, until she brought them up to ‘chest’ level. Suddenly, her arms disintegrated, falling to the floor in front of her as two lumps of sand. Without proper support, the beams fell forward, smacking Tem directly in the ‘face.’ The golem’s stumpy legs weren’t prepared for the sudden strike, forcing her to stumble backwards, and ultimately tip over.

Cade continued to not pay any mind to what was going on, that is, until Tem’s shadow loomed over him. In a brief second of terror, Cade twisted his head upwards to see where the sun has gone, only to see the titan’s backside descending upon him at an accelerated rate. “Aw hell!” he loudly cursed as he stumbled to his feet and deftly dived outside of the golem’s radius.

The beast let out a bellowing cry as its body slammed against the ground, sand loosely spewing left and right upon impact. Tem’s humanoid shape disappeared into the dune that was left behind, her jeweled eyes were still poking out a bit in the rubble.

Jessica giggled a little bit at the sight of the young looking man getting pelted in the head with a rock. It was a bit cathartic in a way as she herself wanted to do something similar. Sadly, she had a feeling that if she acted upon her urge it would lead to unwanted trouble as one of the pair seemed to be a teacher and the other really wouldn't seem to care if a small boulder was thrown at them, much less a small pebble. 

It was definitely in her best interests that she lay low.

Jessica's eyes widened as she watched the door soar over into the courtyard, hopefully it didn't hit anyone as she really couldn't be bothered to answer questions about a possible flying door that was essentially "yeeted" across the courtyard by a giant sand... golem? 

"All this over wood rot huh?" She muttered to herself a bit annoyed.

As she was about to say something of a veiled complaint, She went nearly slack jawed as she watched the sand behemoth start to melt. First from the arms, then progressively to the rest of the body, the golem seemed to lose the ability to keep in a consistent form nearly crushing the man that was with them. Luckily though, the man seemed to dive out of the way in time.

She preformed a golf clap

"Mr. Blackmail I'd give that dive a solid five out of ten, it seemed to lack some grace though"

She then realized how passive aggressive she was being and sighed. She made her way over the man with a bright smile, offering a hand to him as a means to get up.

"Did the sand golem....die? That seems like an unfortunate way to go." Jessica asked benignly, not really caring about the actual answer or how it would be perceived. 

She turned her head to look at the gem eyes that seemed to lie there on the ground in the pile of sand. She was unsure if they still held signs of intelligence, but was interested to find out.

Tumbling rather violently against the grass, Cade landed elbow first and skidded for a good foot or two. A splash of sand sprayed over him for good measure. His dress shirt receiving unimaginable grass stains was the least of his concerns, as his head jolted up in search for the student that they were talking to just before the incident. She was close enough to possibly be harmed. When he did spot her though, she was merely standing where she was, clapping at his expense. This is exactly why he had nothing but contempt for the students of Foresta.

A sigh arose from Cade’s mouth. “At least someone’s having fun” he sarcastically retorted. Given the young woman’s demeanor so far, Cade had a brief pause at her hand’s offering. Was she being helpful this time or was there a hand buzzer he couldn’t see? Better yet, maybe she had electricity-based powers and he was in for a near death shock. Well, he couldn’t be worse off at this point, could he? He took the woman’s hand and helped himself back up.

Once Cade was back on his feet, he brushed himself off casually. He didn’t pay much mind to the mound of sand that Tem had become until the student questioned him of her wellbeing. Considering the feats of strength that he witnessed from her over the years, it wasn’t a present concern on his mind until he looked over to her inactive ‘body.’ His mouth fell agape then, unsure of what to tell her. How did one check the life of a golem? “I, uh, I don’t know…” he trailed off as his tone slowly became one of concern.

He slowly began to encroach on the sand golem, locking eyes with her gemstones. The longer the silence carried on for, the worse the pit in his stomach felt. It was oddly somber when he knelt down beside her cold dead emeralds. Something about them felt… wrong. Of course, being merely rock they didn’t give off a sense of life normally, but it seemed worse than usual.

As much as Tem was a constant thorn in his side, she was a part of his everyday life on the island. Not to mention that most of his friends were part of the campus security. Ever since Ms. Hickory left the island, crushing his heart on the way out, Tem was still there. Not to comfort him or anything, but having her around made him feel like there was a piece of Hickory left in his life. Slowly, Cade bowed his head, out of respect.

While he wasn’t looking though, the emeralds gleamed, like a light flickering on. They subtly moved around, like someone who passed out trying to collect where they were and what happened. The gemstones quickly locked onto the somber Cade. “Lemaire, are you crying?” she loudly pondered like a schoolyard bully.

Cade’s head shoot up in shock.

“Here, let me catch your tears” she added pleasantly before launching a spritz of sand into his face.

With a face full of sand, Cade put on a bland expression. He took a very deep breath through his nose. “She’s fine” he relayed to the young woman with nothing but contempt. With his eyes still firmly shut, Cade rose upright once more and walked a couple feet away to collect himself.

In the meantime, Tem’s eyes glowed with varying degrees of brightness as she attempted to rise once more, but wasn’t able to take much form outside of a small rounded hill. She looked like a limbless blob. Her eyes turned to the young woman. “Did you convince him I was dead? Hah, classic” the creature laughed heartily. “Hrn, doesn’t seem I’m quite there yet though. Oh well, there’s always next time. I’ll take life if it means I get to make Lemaire miserable.”

Jessica beamed as she watched the pair interact with each other. Despite the fact that she was rudely awakened by the horrid screech of metal on wood, she couldn't help but being pulled into the seemingly natural dynamic between the two. She was so engrossed in fact, she was a beat late in answering the seemingly sentient pile of sand's question.

"Oh 100%, Definitely knew that you were still alive. It was just funny to watch his melancholy" she said in a flat tone while forcing a flat look on her face. Soon after though, her face broke into a bright smile.

"Just kidding! I honestly had no clue, you had gotten me there as well. I wouldn't know how to determine if a golem had lost sentience. Though I did find Mr....."

She paused for a second seeming to consider something, then shrugging as if she had given up.

"...Lay-mar's look of surprise quite amusing.... no offense Mr. Lay-mere."

Jessica made her way over to the sand pile, a smile still present on her face as she looked at Tem's emerald eyes. She was oddly tempted to try and poke one and see if the golem would react. She would save that for later though as she looked back to Cade.

"Mr. Leigh-mare, you should be happy about having a person care about you so much as to defy death in order to make your life *that* much more interesting! Though a question comes to mind now that Mr....Ms.... Golem does not seem to be currently capable of fixing the door, how is this going to get repaired? Though as a personal positive, I probably could return to my nap if you cant finish. Mr. Lemaire do you think you can do it?"

She took a second to consider whether or not to provide assistance, but then realized that she probably couldn't return to her napping place if she really wanted to and also didnt really have anything to do currently in place of the nap.

"If you need help, I can definitely assist in the ways I can...probably"

The emerald eyes of the creature surveyed the land around her, searching for the stray mound of sand that used to be part of her body. Tem’s arms remained as static piles of sand by the door regardless of how hard she tried to will them back over to her side. This would be illustrated by her eyes glowing for a solid minute before they reduced in pigment once more. “Bleh. Why does death have to be so long and arduous?” she complained with the tone of a dissatisfied customer.

Tem’s blobby body turned to the young woman again, turret-style. “You weren’t the only ones fooled. If I was able to feel anything, I would have felt nothing at all. Like I was one with oblivion. It was nice” she mused lightly, like it was a trip to the spa. She turned her trifecta of eyes to Cade with haste. “Then I saw this one huddling over my corpse. You hear that, Lemaire!? Where was your fleshy god!?”

“I’m an atheist!” he retorted simply.

“Peh, only after I proved your feeble beliefs wrong” she disregarded with a roll of her gemstone eyes. Before she could return her vision to the young woman, she offered up a solution to their current dilemma. Tem had somewhat forgotten about the door, dying briefly and coming back to life did that from time to time. “The child is right. It is your duty to repair that door. You were the backup plan if I did end up dying.”

Meanwhile, Cade stood on the platform before the door, a hand over his face as he wiped away the last of the sand, he had speckled over it. A lot just happened, so he still needed to collect himself a bit. Not only did he narrowly get crushed by the sand golem, but he had feelings he didn’t know he had suddenly thrust upon him shortly after. Really, the sand in his face was only a minor issue, but kind of illustrated that his feelings were probably unfounded.

With every mispronunciation of his name though, it was becoming harder and harder to focus on simmering down. She had to be doing that on purpose, right? Tem had just said it in the correct fashion a moment earlier. Why did the world only seem to be interested in poking and prodding him?

Cade let out a sigh, gazing upward at the door to get a better impression of what was being asked of him. Given that the school was essentially a castle, that meant the doorway was naturally far bigger than the average door. In height alone, it was three times taller than he was. Not to mention, the doors themselves would probably need a crane to hoist them back into their original positions. He severely lacked the brute strength of a golem.

“How the hell do you expect me to do any of this?” he turned to the duo with a face of pure stupor and shrugged shoulders.

“Your short stature may be a problem… push me closer to the door, you can stand on my head” Tem offered simply.

Cade blinked absently, gazing at Tem’s amorphous body with continued confusion. “How the hell do I push you?”

Tem’s emerald eyes returned to the young woman. “Child, does your weak fleshy body do anything useful?”