Measure Twice

“Oh, no. This can't be happening! It can't!” Denwood scrambled around the construct, ruler in hand, toolkit slung over his shoulder. He remeasured every part of it three times over. This represented almost a year of work. His master project! How could something this simple go wrong?

Every part was designed, hand-crafted, and etched by Denwood himself. It was the absolute state of the art in golem engineering. Nobody had ever coordinated a hexapod before! This would make his name. But somehow – somehow! - one of the legs was off in its alignment. His carefully crafted control enchantments would be useless if the physical parameters weren't perfect.

What had he done wrong? How could he fix it? How long would it take?

A tap on Denwood's shoulder interrupted his frenzied work. His master, Kolrig, stood behind him, a smirk on his face. Gods, what must he think of Denwood now? What a disaster!

“Denwood,” Kolrig asked, drawing out the name for several extra beats. “What seems to be the problem?”

Denwood froze. How to explain? Was there any way out of this that didn't seem him booted back to apprentice? “I... um...”

“What you do is work yourself too hard, lad,” Kolrig said. “I think you'll find that this”- Kolrig pointed with his cane to one of the minor leg components - “is upside-down.”

Whipping around, Denwood nearly collapsed in relief as he spotted the tiny error. He wasn't sure what his expression looked like in that moment, but whatever it was it set Kolrig off into roars of laughter.