Helios
Lord Zee
DX3214
Vec
Aihtiraq
The Meek
Level 1 Demigod of Crafting (Machinery)
24 Might
The sojourner travelled from village to village within human territory. Wherever she went she joined in on whatever festivities were held, made merry, and admired the culture and local wildlife. In return, she fixed the tools of the villagers, and sometimes shared intricate devices containing cogs and strings and springs. Behind her she left these quirky devices, such as a mechanical toy for children, or a delicate device which seemed to track the passage of time, or occasionally more practical devices such as a loom or a miniature grain mill, although all were intricate and beautifully decorated.
And on her travels the sojourner learned much. She partook in the mortal cultures when it pleased her, and made these trinkets at a whim. She delighted in seeing the stone circles of the urtelem, and often riddled with urtelem. While she was repulsed at the Sculptors and the hideous transformation which had been forced upon them, she was even more shocked when Realta fell from the sky and vaporised many villages and people. Yet life carried on, and she continued on her journeys.
Today the sojourner was sitting by a river, with the water gently pouring over the rocks and the sunlight streaming through the leaves of the trees. In her lap she was fashioning a contraption from wood, twine, pebbles and a few precious scraps of metal. Her four arms worked together in an elegant dance, using tools and swapping tools with different tools from her belt as needed, skirting across the surface of the device, adjusting and modifying it.
And as she worked, a familiar voice called out. "Kinesis."
The sojourner looked up from her work and her face widened into a smile. "Father!"
Kinesis set her work aside onto a rock and stood up. Her four arms fused back into two as she hurried over to Teknall, who was waiting with arms open wide to embrace his daughter. When they released, Teknall spoke first.
"How have you been, my daughter?" he asked.
"I have have been well, father," Kinesis replied, "I have travelled to many places and seen many peoples. The humans have a great feel for aesthetic and art, although they still marvel at even the simplest of my creations. It often feels like I'm working some sort of magic among them even for my mundane creations."
"There is less distinction than you might think between magic and physics. Someone knowledgeable in either can utilise the underlying mechanisms to create wondrous creations. They simply become different means to an ends," Teknall explained.
Kinesis nodded, then asked, "And what have you been up to, father?"
"Since I turned back the Realta, I've been making designs for something big. Really big. I've also been making additions to civilisation. I've visited the dwarves down south. I've taught the Sculptors alchemy. And I'm planning a special new talent for the urtelem, although I'm still testing some of the finer details." Teknall didn't mention the stress of confronting Logos, or that thing he had seen through the Orb.
Kinesis nodded again. After a pause, she asked, "And how is Conata?"
"I've been keeping an eye on her. She's doing alright. She is growing in strength, maturity and independence. She is developing a nurturing and generous heart as planned, and has set out on a journey to find answers about herself."
Kinesis' face showed a twinge of sadness. "So she still doesn't know?"
Teknall shook his head. "No. She's discovered that she is a demigodess, although she still doesn't know who her parents are." As though anticipating Kinesis' next question, Teknall continued. "I will be sure to let her know in due course. But she has to experience some things for herself. A few years of relative struggle for an eternity of good character. You understand that."
Teknall glanced around, and his eyes settled on the workpiece Kinesis had left on the ground. Changing the subject, Teknall gestured towards it. "So what are you making today, Kinesis?"
"Oh, that." Kinesis strode over to it and picked it up. "It is a flying machine. You wind up the spring inside and the wings spin around to provide lift, with the contraption floating off the ground. It's not really strong enough to lift anything besides itself, but it is a good proof-of-concept."
Kinesis handed it over to Teknall for a closer look. He turned it over in his hands and inspected the materials. He observed that Kinesis had been making do with what resources she could find, and her choices for intricate mechanical work were severely limited with metal still being so rare. In spite of this, the carpentry was of excellent quality, and the inner mechanisms precisely engineered. And as was characteristic of Kinesis' work, it was full of embellishments and decorations which served no practical purpose other than to enhance the aesthetics.
Teknall handed the device back. "It is good. Have you considered making a full-sized version?"
Kinesis blushed at her father's approval. Then she answered, "I have considered it, although I'm not sure how I can build something so large with what limited resources I have."
Teknall smiled knowingly. "I've noticed that. Very few of the works you've left behind are any larger than what can be made in your lap. And with no permanent workspace or helpers, this is understandable.
"Yet even us gods often enlist assistance when creating things. Ilunabar and her marionettes and Divas. Toun and his slave hain in Cornerstone. And I've got plans for helpers for my big construction project."
"What is this special project?" Kinesis interjected.
"It's a secret," Teknall replied curtly. Before Kinesis could ask further questions, Teknall continued, "What I'm suggesting is that perhaps you could do with some kind of helper, something to assist you in the labour of creating things. Like the robotic arms you created within the Workshop."
Kinesis appeared excited by the thought. "Some kind of mechanical companion."
"Exactly. Something strong enough and large enough to harvest materials for your projects."
"Something with many arms to craft things with and for fine manipulation."
"Modular compartments for storing things."
"All terrain movement."
"Protective carapace."
"Able to make mechanical devices."
"Some heavy-duty tools for larger tasks."
"Elegant curves and an iridescent hull."
"Redundancy of parts."
Kinesis paused from the brainstorming and looked down at the leaves by her feet. She stooped down and gingerly picked up, with one finger, a millipede. "Something like this, perhaps."
Teknall considered the small creature for a few moments, before saying, "I think we have our design." He stepped back and gestured at the air, forming a black rift to his Workshop. "Let us create it."
They stepped through into Teknall's Workshop. The sounds of machinery filled the air, and the floor of the Workshop curved up over their heads, around the axis of the Stellar Engine Core. The main air lock hissed and clunked as it depressurised to release the latest batch of Stellar Engine Collectors.
The location needed no introductions, for Kinesis had helped build it. Without delay they got to work. Teknall made casts and presses to forge the metal parts, and began mixing together a couple of choice metal alloys for the machine. Kinesis fashioned what would become the mechanical innards of cogs and springs from brass. Teknall and Kinesis worked together to design and construct the legs for locomotion and arms for crafting. The automated construction line created the metal plating from a mithral alloy and plated in iridium.
All the parts slotted together without the use of bolts or rivets. The finished product was about 5 meters long and did indeed look like a giant metallic millipede. The iridescent sheen of the iridium plating caused a mosaic of beautiful colours to dance across the surface of the automaton. Hundreds of legs supported the many segments of the elongated body. Eyes and antennae gave useful sensory input. A pincer-like maw at the head and an assortment of manipulator arms folded underneath the body gave the machine the ability to modify its surroundings. For power, the machine was driven by divine impetus, keeping the cogs and springs perpetually turning.
The automaton clicked into life and scuttled across the floor, circling around Kinesis and Teknall. Kinesis giggled in glee, and Teknall simply smiled. "I think we're done here. Let us return to Galbar."
With a wave of his hand the rift opened up, and the three of them stepped through, back by the river where they had left earlier. The automaton scuttled ahead and twisted around the trunk of the tree, always moving, never keeping still.
"This robot should serve your purposes," Teknall said.
Kinesis bowed her head. "Thank you, father."
"It was a pleasure." Teknall looked around. "I should get going now. If you have any issues, don't hesitate to call."
"Farewell, father," Kinesis replied.
They embraced before parting, and Teknall patted the head of the automaton as he walked off.
~-====-~
Kinesis found the automaton to be most useful. There were compartments in which she could keep a cache of materials, tools and inventions. She had set up a special reclining saddle such that she could ride the millipede from place to place. And the millipede was a strong and dependable labourer, capable of felling a tree and chewing it into planks in minutes, or carving up a boulder into bricks, or digging ore out of the ground so it could be smelted. And it was decent at crafting finer objects too, able to make many small identical items and saving much time and tedium.
With the automaton's help Kinesis was able to try more ambitious projects. In one village she left a wagon, able to be drawn by a suitable animal. In another village she built a water mill, for grinding grain. The automaton, which Kinesis had named Jydshi, made a fine assistant, a skilled crafter in spite of its negligible sentience.
One night Kinesis set up camp under the roots of an old tree. The millipede wrapped itself up around the roots as Kinesis set up her bedding under the light of her electric torch. "So, Jydshi," Kinesis spoke, "what did you like about the last village?"
The robot looked to Kinesis when it heard its name, although it otherwise did not seem to react to the question.
"I thought their singers had beautiful voices. They were even kind enough to make a song for me," Kinesis said. She smiled as she recalled the words. "This is the story of our grain mill / which was gifted by a lady from over the hill. / She worked hard with her hands / and her face was the fairest in our lands."
Kinesis looked over to Jydshi, who seemed indifferent. Kinesis sighed. "Oh Jydshi. You're a great assistant, but you're so hard to talk to. You just stare at me blankly whenever I try. How I wish you could speak back to me."
In the heavens above, the stars seemed to wink at that fantasy. In the tapestry of light there were many wonders. The dark clouds were tufts of Zephyrion's beard, or perhaps just lumpy bits of the heavens that had curdled like milk. Between those bits were the stars; depending on who you asked, stars were the glowing souls of the ancestors, or the eyes of gods, or gateways to other worlds.
As Kinesis's gaze drifted upwards the tapestry of the heavens unfolded to show all those things, and then one more: bands of golden light lazily drifted across the sky. They were beautiful, but this place was far too south to see the aurora.
Something else was out there. It looked like a perfect sphere of that same glowing stuff as the golden wind above; it was a mote of light. It slowly drifted back and forth without a care in the world as it made its way towards Kinesis.
Kinesis stood up, in awe of the strange sight. She stepped out from underneath the tree to get a better view of the slowly drifting orb. Jydshi followed, scuttling across the ground and circling around the tree.
Like an oversized bubble the mote bobbed through the air until it finally landed upon the ground before Kinesis' feet. In an instant there was a flash like that of niter thrown into fire. A writhing mass of fire, water, and sand contorted into the visage of a most peculiar djinni, and then it spoke,
"How dost though, my goodly friends?
upon the wind nests
the prime, lachrymose portends
of one who longs for a wish.
beware - to wish is
to sip nectar deep; foolish,
for it may be sweet, or doom."
The sight of the strange djinni surprised Kinesis, for in all her travels she had never seen a djinni like it. Yet its words were even stranger.
"You offer wishes?" Kinesis asked cautiously.
"Life offers thee but one soul,
I give but one wish.
Be it your ankh, or coal
that would enflame your own pyre."
Kinesis tilted her head. "Why only one wish?"
From somewhere within the glowering mass of burning water and sand there seemed to emanate an air of bemusement, as if the djinni lord had never pondered such an obvious thing. From the depths of the chaotic inferno there formed an open hand that reached out towards Kinesis. It stopped not far from her face; however, in its every motion there was not even the slightest hint of malice, so becalming was the djinni's presence.
"Look unto this hand, witness
its ever humble size.
I spread my gift to many,
and it is a poor friend that
giveth too plenty.
When one drop is ruin or joy,
'tis best to not drink deeply."
"Just one wish, then..." Kinesis bit her lip in contemplation. "You can make Jydshi able to talk with me?"
"You would ask these questions then
drink of that wish's wine?
Pray the juices haven't been
soured by misfortune; She speaks."
Kinesis looked over at Jydshi, although from brief visual inspection the millipede appeared to be the same as before. When she turned her head back, the strange djinni was gone, with the only evidence of his passage being a little streak of golden light left in the sky.
Kinesis was slightly disappointed. She had expected the djinni to wave his hands and do some magic, for there to be at least some kind of show from such an extravagant elemental. But instead he had vanished.
"That elemental was quite strange," Kinesis said aloud.
Jydshi’s legs rippled as she adjusted her weight, freeing forward parts of her body to lift off the ground, forward legs cleaning her lenslike eyes. Her head turned almost ninety degrees to get a better angle for the optical care. Her antennae twitched and her mandibles opened, testing for the first time even if not the first time they were opened as such.
"Was he? I did not really meet them, nor have I met others really." Jydshi casually threw out those first words, perhaps of many.
Kinesis' head swung back to look at Jydshi, and her face expressed surprise for a moment before it changed to an excited grin. "Oh, Jydshi, you can speak! He did make my wish come true!"
Jydshi’s head turned again giving a cleaned eye a good view of Kinesis, and allowed her to reach the other eye. "I can speak!" Jydshi mimicked the excitement heard through the other demigoddesses’ voice.
Jydshi was distracted, her cleaning was ragged, at best. Since she could speak she had noticed something, the bugs moved along the ground as the grass waved in the wind, creatures twittered through the air but a wrongness pervaded all these things. The little critters that moved along could only provide their small movement to themselves. Although the grass waved in the wind, it was rooted in the unmoving earth.
That poor inert dirt and stone, trapped in itself. Well that wasn’t entirely true. admonished Jydshi, just to herself. She rippled her legs along her body, tapping the ground, giving it some small motion she could muster from her body, it wasn’t enough, it would need more.
Out of Jydshi burst a question, almost a whisper. "Is everything so terrible?"
Kinesis tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Jydshi continued in that almost whisper. "It is all so still." Jydshi finished cleaning her eye and lowered her frontal body back to the ground. "We will have to share with it."
"You like things which move?" Kinesis said slowly. A smile crept back onto her face, and she suggested, "We could make something which moves."
Jydshi paused before she made a noise like a giggle. "Can we do it? Let’s do it!" She then started to orbit Kinesis, in such a way to keep one of her eyes able to see Kinesis, in what seemed like excitement.
"Okay, I just need some materials," Kinesis said. She stepped towards Jydshi when she noticed that her cache of materials was lying on the ground under the big tree. Odd, Kinesis thought, Those were stored inside Jydshi a minute ago.
She didn't think too much about it as she sat down by the materials. Her two arms split into four and picked up her toolbelt where she had left it lying. "What shall we make? Another cart? A windmill? Perhaps we could build a flying machine."
Jydshi followed Kinesis over to the materials, after some initial confusion about where to head, she moved semi-continuously around Kinesis as was possible. "A Flying Machine! One to soar above! Yes, we will make that. That is a good plan. Yes!" Jydshi was able to conceal her excitement well.
Kinesis nodded. "We will need some more materials." Kinesis looked around, then pointed at a medium-sized tree. "That tree over there can be made into the structural components and other large parts." Kinesis then got to work on carving wooden cogs and pulleys for the device, which would form the basis of the moving parts.
Jydshi did not think much of necessity of gathering the materials, but did like the idea of gathering the materials. She scuttled over to the tree and inspected it, wind stressed the upper portions which that motion was distributed downwards into the grounding roots below halted in that stifling earth. Why need it stop... and reaching out she dug. Jydshi uncovered as much as she was able, and watched the tree move more freely, rocking in the wind.
Not enough. No, not enough at all. Jydshi moved around, both on the ground and around the trunk of the tree, inspecting its roots, trying to figure a way to free it for more movement. If it still stops, does it just lack enough motion? Jydshi moved down towards a root, a big one judging by the others, and lifted it and dropped it.
I can give it motion. She paused in her thought, changing course. I can move to give it motion. Motion to move, I can give it motion to move. Can motion move?
Jydshi focused, onto the motion of the trunk of the tree, onto the wind and its rocking. She paid attention to all this motion but instead of Motion to move something transference of the motion itself into this tree. And it moved, although hitting her carapace with a bunch of roots was not what she had in mind originally.
This time with more thought of control, and some thoughts of actually gathering like Kinesis wanted, she gave the tree motion. The roots reached up and began dragging the rest out of the earth, the branches shook themselves to be free of leaves. Jydshi darted up the tree sawing the branches off for later use, making use of her mandibles and their original purpose as saws.
Circumnavigating the tree in a flurry of cutting, made easy by branches moving clear of her own movement, it took only a few passes until the branches lay strewn on the ground. Back onto the ground once more, she amused herself bundling the branches as the roots freed themselves. The roots began dragging the whole tree, albeit slowly towards Kinesis and her work.
Kinesis looked over and saw the strange sight of the tree moving of its own accord towards her. That was most peculiar. She had just expected Jydshi to cut the tree down and chew it up into planks as she used to do. Yet, unless it was actually a dryad moving the tree, then this was some new power.
"How did you do that?" Kinesis asked.
"Well, it was very simple once I thought of it." Jydshi started to explain, "You see, I was looking at the motion of the tree and realized that it was constricted, well I freed it but then it didn’t move very much so I tried moving to move it and it moved some but then it stopped because it couldn’t move on its own, so I thought about it and tried to see if I could move motion into it which I could but then that wasn’t very good as it hit me by accident so then I had to control it more and-" Jydshi stopped herself after realizing that it wasn’t the most comprehensible thing to state all at once, so she finished quickly. "...And then I led it over here."
Kinesis gaped at the animated tree for a little longer. It seemed that, whatever the wish-granting djinni had done, Jydshi was given much more than the power of speech. After a pause, Kinesis finally said, "Well, um, okay. We're going to need to cut it into planks to make the flying machine from."
Kinesis then took one of the branches Jydshi had collected, cut it to length, and carved it into a drive shaft.
"Okay!" Jydshi happily scuttled back to the animated tree and looked at it, then happily scuttled back grabbed a saw and went back to the tree. She gave the saw to a root, prompting an arboreal horror sequence as they separated the bottom portion from the useful timber. As that occurred Jydshi moved up the tree in a mincing manner, once she reached the top she tore her way back down debarking the tree with her mandibles and useful manipulator arms.
Once debarked, and the horror fest over, Jydshi had the remaining bundled roots move out and begin sawing the trunk into planks. This was watched carefully by Jydshi as she did the same with her manipulator arms.
Jydshi, Kinesis and the animated bundle of tree roots continued working, creating the parts then assembling them. The end result was a large contraption of wood and rope. A rounded frame of wood formed the main body of the device, which was large enough to comfortably carry Kinesis and Jydshi. It had a flat floor of wooden planks, although the walls were an open frame. The frame stood on the ground with four wooden legs. An ensemble of wooden wings protruded from the top, side and a tail projecting from the rear. The largest of these wings were connected to series of gears and drive shafts which culminated at a wooden gearbox with a manually operated crank. The smaller wings were attached by ropes to a complicated set of levers and pulleys at the front of the peculiar craft. While the project had been ad hoc, the contraption still demonstrated a masterful level of craftsmanship, and its design was aesthetically pleasing as well as functional.
Kinesis climbed into the craft and sat in a seat facing the levers. "Let us try it out!" she declared excitedly.
Jydshi followed, scampering into position to move the pedals with her lower legs, allowing her to still look around some. She tried to form words before giving up after a few times of a devolving into excited giggling sounds and began to pump the pedals to bring motion into the machine. The wings on top of the contraption began to spin around, and the wings on the side began to flap. As Jydshi pedaled faster, the vehicle achieved lift, the wings pushing against the air to bring the vehicle into the sky.
Kinesis used all four of her arms to operate the levers. With her innate feel for the machine, she was able to direct the stabilising wings to keep the vehicle balanced and upright. It was not long before the vehicle hovered above the tree line. Kinesis pushed a few more levers, redirecting torque from lifting to forward motion.
And they were flying through the night sky, not as elegantly as a bird might, although they were just excited to have built a machine which could achieve this. As the trajectory stabilised, Kinesis pulled out her flashlight and illuminated the ground below so that she and Jydshi could take a better look at the landscape below them. Mostly it was trees, but there was the occasional animal which scampered away on hearing the noisy wooden beast flying through the sky.
As they flew through the night, they suddenly flew over a village. Although most people were sleeping at this time of night, the racket this machine woke many of the villagers. What they saw was the silhouette of a giant many-winged beast with a single glowing eye. Naturally, the sight invoked fear within the villagers. There were some screams and the sound of a child crying, although a few moments later the flying thing had flown past the village and headed into the distance.
Although no harm had been done, Kinesis was slightly shaken. She hadn't meant to be so frightful to the people below. She pushed levers and directed the vehicle to land in a place well out of sight of the village. "Perhaps that's enough flying for one night," Kinesis suggested.
Disappointed Jydshi slowed the pedaling and let the flying machine down. It had been so exciting and wonderful to be up with so much motion and then all the creatures on the ground had joined in too. Although not entirely sure why they were stopping, Jydshi had an exciting idea. As they landed Jydshi moved to Kinesis, eager to share her idea. "I had an idea. Instead of a person for the pedals which have to stop when they aren’t there, we could put something there that never stops. Then it would never stop even when someone isn’t there!"
This new idea lifted Kinesis' face into a smile. "That's a good idea. Like a gear that always turns."
She stepped out of the vehicle and scanned the ground around them with her flashlight. "We need to find a durable material to make it from, and an axle for it to rotate about."
The light settled on a patch of ground with rocks. She dug her fingers into the ground and lifted up two of the stones, each larger than a hand. She sat down, took out a hammer and chisel, and shaped the stones into two identical square blocks. With a drill she bore a hole through the center of each brick. From her scarce supply of metal she made a flat metal ring, which she placed between both blocks, spacing apart their stone faces. Then she took a metal rod and ran it through the holes of the blocks and the ring. The ends of the rod she hammered flat, so that the blocks would not slide off and the ends of the rod would sit flush with the stone faces.
Kinesis held the simple device by one block with one hand, and with the other hand she pushed the other block, which spun around along the axle. "Now we just need to make it move."
Jydshi watched for awhile, particularly the motion of the enfolding device rather than any particular aspect of its construction. She raised herself up on her lower body to reach up and take the device in her arms. Focusing in on the motion of the device, and its limitations, Jydshi became almost insensate to the world around her. She attempted to repeat what she had done before, and then go further than she had before.
The problem with what she had done before was that she had not fully understood how all the motion should work. Since this device was designed for motion in the first place it should be capable of more. Jydshi continued as the motion poured into the device, she had to restrict it to make sure it didn’t just shake the device apart. What was most important however was to make the motion not just given to the device, but to make it part of it. The motion needed to be as intrinsic as the blocks were of stone and the axle was of metal.
It was a success, although there was a slight problem. Jydshi had not thought of how to hold it in any sort of ease with constant attempted motion from the device, better to hand it back to Kinesis, she could figure that out.
Kinesis grabbed the device, held one of the two blocks and watched the other block rotate at a steady pace. With her other hand she attempted to grab the free block, but the torque was too great even for her grip to keep it still. Kinesis grinned at Jydshi. "Jydshi, it works! A perpetual motor, always turning. We could use it to drive any sort of device. What shall we try it on first?"
Jydshi watched Kinesis grapple with the device, mostly watching its movements. They were steady in a nice way, a good way. Ripped out of her reverie by the sound of her name, she listened and replied. "The Flying Machine!" While Jydshi chittered excitedly at accomplishing the primary task in making the machine fly permanently, testing things before doing them wasn’t her strong point.
"Well, if you insist," Kinesis responded. She climbed back into the flying machine. She dismantled the pedal system, made a few adjustments, then installed the perpetual motor. A lever among the control levers moved a wheel into and out of contact with the perpetual motor, and another lever exchanged gears to provide different gear ratios, allowing a variable amount of speed and torque to be acquired from the motor.
Jydshi climbed in after Kinesis, and with Kinesis deftly operating the controls the flying machine ascended once more. This time Kinesis took the vehicle higher, such that she had a good view of the surrounding landscape for some distance and the vehicle was less noticeable from the ground. From this height, Kinesis set the vehicle to fly forward.
"How is this, Jydshi?" Kinesis asked, looking over her shoulder at the giant iridescent millipede.
To say that Jydshi was not paying any attention at all would be false, she was dealing out a great deal of attention that was simply not directed in Kinesis’s direction. As the machine had risen into the sky and the ground and Jydshi’s limited ability to sense motion moved out of range of that paralyzed sphere Jydshi found herself in a near form of paradise. Everything she was sensate to was in motion to some degree or another, the machine and all its mechanisms and the air pushed by as they traveled, and countless other things she could only get the barest glimpse of before they moved away.
Surprised by a question, particularly not knowing what the question was Jydshi did the only logical action and immediately blurted out an answer to a question regardless of whether it was the one which was asked. "It is all moving, it is much better than the ground. All of it." Jydshi clattered her many legs across much the length of the machine as she could with her long body to indicate some of the better portions. Hopefully the question was about the machine.
Jydshi's bluff worked, for her answer appeased Kinesis. She turned back to the levers for a few moments and adjusted them, and the vehicle turned and began flying southwards.
"I have heard rumours about some strange changes happening to the landscape south of here," Kinesis said aloud. She added to herself, It was where father showed us the Julkofyr's Darkened Spires. Kinesis continued, "I was thinking that we could go and explore it."
Jydshi kept her attention focused on Kinesis and was rewarded for her diligence in conversation. "That is fine." Jydshi was beginning to settle back into her motion watching after the excitement had dimmed down.
Kinesis replied, "Good. Then let us go south."
The vehicle flew on, its wooden wings beating against the air, driven by the perpetual motor, carrying the two demigoddesses southwards.
