[Origin Cave]

So many questions, all of them so so deeply concerned for the poor little mechanic that seemed to have never expected such a reaction. He looked genuinely surprised, but it quickly shifted into annoyance. The long, bat like ears on his head folded back, as if to muffle all the voiced inquiries. "Well, yeah its been loud - I'm working! No fire, no injuries," he waved a paw, dismissively, don't worry yourselves with that. It's just this damn machine." He turned back towards the building, a bitter scowl pulling at his face. "I'm surprised you don't know it. It was all the rage and excitement back in the day, before we were so RUDELY invaded. And the machine was BROKEN."

Two hands came up to rub at his face as he groaned softly. Without any further care for what the gembound had to say, he turned away to trudge back into the building, leaving the door open behind him. The smoke was still trickling out, but the ventilation had helped the room start to clear. The mechanic continue to pout and lament as he walked, a very sudden shift from the exhausted annoyance of only seconds before. "How long, you ask? Oh, Cassiopeia is decrepit. I cannot even fathom the number of years! My masters are all but gone, aren't they? I had thought they might come by, but I work alone! Time has long passed since the rebels put me to sleep, but I cannot give up my work, it is what I was made for!" He stopped and stood up tall, his arms gesturing grandly to...something.

It was a machine, for sure, and quite a large one. Taking up the entire back wall of the building was a tangled collection of metallic pipes and valves and wires leading out from a large central pillar. A thick arm jutted out from the pillar, where it seemed like many of the wires and pipes seemed to lead, ending in a large container resting on supports. The bottom of this container looked like it opened up, but was currently shut tight.

The mechanic sighed as he stared at the machine, running a hand and grasping onto his spiky, electrified mane. "What do I even do about it? The power is gone!"

@Adi @Amesemi @Wilder @Howler @Archimedes

Archimedes studied the feverish technician, or engineer, or mechanic--he didn't know the difference, or even really what the words meant despite the fact that they tentatively floated through his mind. But his beady eyes flicked to the machinery, and he asked the obvious question in a mild tone: "What is that machine?"

For a moment he studied it, wondering at all the parts, trying and utterly failing to guess what any of them might in fact do. He then turned his attention back to the engineer, and--paws brushing briefly through his whiskers--asked a second obvious question. "May we ask your name..?"

It was obvious now that this was one of the cave's elder denizens, albeit not quite as impressive as some they'd met. Or rather, not quite as imposing; far be it for Archimedes to dismiss someone's potential based upon mere size. If anything, he imagined this fellow rat, or at least fellow rodent-adjacent-stranger, might have phenomenal power at his clawtips--if only it were functional.

Wilder was continuously looking over the creature, eyeing every part of his filthy, matted fur, but did not, indeed, detect any blood, bruising, or limping. Although he smelled like smoke and ozone, it didn't seem like there were any burns on his actual skin. Perhaps smoke caught in his fur, but nothing to be alarmed about. She relaxed a bit, the madness fading from her eyes. All was good here. But perhaps there was something else she could help with.

He seemed upset, after all, and physical injuries weren't the only thing she could help with. She tilted her head. "Machine? What do you mean broken?"

She followed him into the building, eyeing the massive metallic...thing in front of her. She opened her mouth to ask, but she was beaten to the punch. Her eyes flicked to the rat briefly and then back to the stranger.

He said something that made things fall into place - rebels. Ah...the rebels had broken the machine. She'd known that they'd gotten to Cassiopeia, but not that they'd caused enough havoc to break such a massive device, large enough to have somehow survived the many many years since the rebellion.

She frowned. "Well...what kind of power do you need? I can cast some spells, but I don't have any electricity magic unfortunately. Or...gemstones?" Oh, she did hope that he wouldn't need any of those.

[Origin Cave]

With a hand sliding over his face in exhaustion, the mechanic looked towards Archimedes, as if seeing him for the first time, his eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn't comment on the exceedingly short stature of this gembound, and it wasn't clear what he felt about the rat. "They simply called me Mr. Mechanic. They gave me no other name, nor have I needed anything else. And this," gesturing grandly at the machine again, "is the Hound-O-Mancer 3000!" He said it with such genuine awe and reverence, as if the other gembound should similarly feel as inspired.

"Oh, it was the greatest and hottest thing in valkhound creation! The process, industrialized!! Automated! The first build, of course, but they had little time to do any further work before the rebellion." He sighed, looking to Wilder now, a scowl once again curling his face. "Well, why don't I show you." He spat the last words, and also literally spat on the ground before turning towards the machine and crawling up the sides of the metal.

The gembound would watch an incredibly agile and well-designed climber as he, with a practiced ease, bolted up the side of the chamber in front of them and ran along the arm towards the central pillar. One hand reached back to snatch a screwdriver out of his toolbelt as he stopped in front of the metal panels. At a lightning speed, he whipped the screws right off of the metal and peeled open the panel. Immediately, smoke began to belch out of the chamber, but Mr. Mechanic seemed not to mind as he reached inside and pulled out a chunk of Oilstone.

It was ragged and chipped, and looked like it had broken off of something. He scowled as he held it up. "We had a nice reservoir in here, but those damn rebels broke it! Shattered it into pieces! And no matter what I do it won't start up again! FUCK!" In a sudden rage, he chucked the oilstone at the ground, where it landed with a loud clatter.

The mechanic sighed. "So. Yeah. If you can find me a better reservoir, however IMPOSSIBLE that will be, then I'll be forever in your debt or whatever."

The Gembound have been tasked with finding a new power source for the machine.

Wilder listened, nodding and considering things. A valkhound...machine? A machine to automatically create valkhounds? ...Weird. But also dangerous. If the machine was somehow fixed, they could have a lot more potentially deadly monsters running around. Her eyes trailed over the broken Oilstone and an idea came to her. She could still help this one out, as she deeply desired to do, but also give the caves a boon. Write over their old, bloody history with some of their own.

She blinked slowly and then looked back up. "Okay, Mr. Mechanic. I can do that." Well...she hoped she could.

She settled herself down, folding her legs under he chest and closed her eyes, calling for that ever-present gleam of magnolet in the corner of her mind. She hesitated for just a moment, wondering if something like this would give the same feedback as the last time. A "failed wish", but this wasn't her reaching for some conclusion she was wrong about, it was an objective thing - there was no right and wrong about it. So she continued - I wish this machine receives a new power source that won't corrupt the gembound it creates.

[Origin Cave]

As soon as Wilder's wish went through, everything in the room still for a moment. All the gembound in the room would feel a sudden energy surging through the air as the caves trembled. The floor and walls shook for a brief moment before a sudden radiant light burst from inside of the machine. The Mechanic squealed with surprise and stumbled back, catching himself before he fell. The gembound would see inside the panel where he had stepped away from - within was no longer a dark chamber filled with oilstone shards, but rather a pillar of very familiar, glowing turquoise stone, shimmering with rainbow and crawling with branches of swirling pink and gold. This piece of the Spire, now infused with magnolet, cast a brilliant light on the walls and chased away the last of the smoke, which no longer poured out from the machine.

...And then the machine began to awaken. With its new power source, a buzzing sound began to vibrate through its many wires and pipes, crackles of magic popped outside of its casing. The whole building trembled as it roared to life.

Mr. Mechanic stared at it with wonder, jaw open. Wh....what! How did you..." A paw reached forward towards inside the panel, as if to touch the crystal, but a snap of magic made him flinch back. His eyes widened and his expression quickly morphed into a wide, delighted smile. "Well this is new!! Oh, I can work with this! Thank you, stranger, thank you! I'll have to change some of the settings, I wonder if anything got loose during that, oh might have to move some of the wires in 8-7-B around, they're configured for Oilstone, OH!" He turned back to the gembound. "Crystals! Get me some crystals! We need to toss one in to see if it works! Don't care what it is, just get me some!"

Without waiting for their response, the mechanic turned towards another section of the machine, threw open a tiny access door, and disappeared into the pipes.

...Nevermind! The gembound have now been tasked with finding crystals for the mechanic. He did not specify whether they should carry life or can simply be inanimate rocks.

@Adi @Amesemi @Wilder @Howler @Archimedes

Archimedes watched with detached bemusement. The stranger was... frenetic. Their creation he found interesting, but in the "how much can I get for this if I steal it and sell it" sort of way.

And along the same lines, he certainly didn't work for free. He had some vague impression that the old caves--the timeline this "Mechanic" must have been from--had a hierarchy of some kind. But that was, mostly, long dead. And the intense search for living gemstones (or dead ones? He hadn't specified, Archimedes supposed) was rough for a creature as tiny as a Norway Rat.

"I assume there's an exchange of some kind for our help? -What are you offering, for our time?" he clarified, again briefly washing his whiskers.

His beady gaze darted briefly toward Wilder. He wasn't sure exactly what she'd done. He assumed magic of some kind. But he wasn't sure which sort would create pink and golden light; it didn't really matter, he supposed. Archimedes' gaze drifted to the machine again, and he found himself trying to remember what a 'valkhound' was.

She was glad to have helped and it seemed that nothing was lost on the machine, and the mechanic, by replacing the oilstone with skystone. Her ears folded back at the loud roaring of the machine, but she felt settled now, having helped this one out with his issues. She stared at the crucible, wondering what was going to be spit out of the thing. Surely not valkhounds anymore...

She glanced at Archimedes with a small frown - did he truly want to wring this guy out when he was asking for help? She, for one, had no problem turning around and leaving for a moment, opening up magical senses to grab for whatever was around - indeed, not far away was a purple banded jasper, brimming with life. Picking it up quickly, she returned it to the mechanic, stepping up close to the machine (a little closer then she really wanted) and set it down. "Will this work?"

The Mechanic was completely out of sight for a little while, faint clanging and thunking noises echoing from inside the machine, but eventually he came tumbling out of a different hatch, closer to the ground. He was slightly more grubby then he was before (although he was already covered with so much dirt and grim it wasn't really noticeable) and clutching more Oilstone shards in his arms, which he quickly discarded to the side. He looked down to Archimedes as he shut the hatch door. "Ah, well, I can offer my...gratitude? Uh, a chance to see this beautiful machine in action?" He shrugged and sighed. "If you don't want to help its fine I can go out and try to find something..."

But it was just then that Wilder returned with a crystal and he grinned wide, hopping down to meet her and taking the stone, holding it up to the light. "Perfect!" He bounded up to the central pillar and deposited the stone into a small chute and there was the click! click! bang! gaduum! of the crystal tumbling down. The light in the machine flared for a moment and a whirring sound began to start up. The entire thing shook violently for a second, and then chugged along with...whatever it was doing.

The Mechanic huffed, looking pleased. "Well, come back in a cycle if you want to see the kiddo that pops out. Thanks all for your help." Not that he turned to look at them again, staring up at his machine with joy and fondness, seemingly uninterested in the gembound any further.

The quest Factory Settings is now complete! Gembound may now exit or stick around further to speak with Mr. Mechanic if they wish.

@Adi @Amesemi @Archimedes @Wilder @Howler

The other rat... creature took so long to answer that Wilder had left and returned by the time Archimedes had his reply.

Archimedes glanced at her, but overall this had been a bit of an irritating waste of his time. A new machine, but it was little more than a noisy neighbor. And a cat who had no sense of capitalism.

Bah.

He shook his head and mounted his Charger, glancing back briefly. "If you require help from locals, we aren't too far off. We work, however, for pay," he explained. There was no sense in not leaving the possibility open, at least. A good businessman would hardly sever every tie, as unpromising as this one seemed.

With that he departed, rather wishing he'd sent someone else to look into this, instead.

exit Archimedes