Somewhere on the outskirts of the ancient city, amidst dark and haunted silence, a screen powered on.

It was a flicker, its glass cracked; it sat crooked atop a pile of rubble. Its slightly curved face, etched with dim, oversized green pixels, displayed a flashing message:

'INPUT REQUIRED.'

Alternating with this, simple illustrations of gemstones, gleaming with magic.

The rear of the screen was not flat, but boxy. A cube, black, with cables snaking down into the rock, held a slot with a gemstone long drained of color, its last flickers of power initiating this final message.

'INPUT REQUIRED.'

Throughout the city, a few smaller screens began to light up. Most were damaged, some were dead and did not light at all, and others were cracked or barely lit. All those that did light up pointed, with dying arrows, toward the screen left on its pile of stones.

It was asking for help.

'INPUT REQUIRED.'

---

The [Quest] Clockwork Dreams has begun. Anyone may join this quest, though Order characters might find themselves unwelcome. The next post will take place in six days' time, on July 1st.

She was here for gems, collecting what she could only hope were dangerous relics, long forgotten by others. Not many had been here yet, she noted. But why? The whispers of chaos were strong here, at least towards the temple. Maybe that was why, it was driving away the unworthy. She hadn't explored much of the place herself either, but she at least knew that much. There was importance here. History. She didn't care for it much, given her goals. It was a beautiful display of chaos and destruction as it was, a reminder of what she could do.

And yet... something lived. Something... asked?

The screen caught her attention immediately. Even a dim light was bright in a dark cave, after all, and the flashing text was hard to ignore. The words meant little to her, but the images were simple enough. Everything relied on gems, on magic held within them, and this screen, connected to a dying gem, was no exception. But why a gem? Why not hook it up to the cave-light generator? Well, that was not her mystery to solve.

She was alone, at least for the moment, and that made this her problem. It would be one kind of fun to break it, but the whispers were calm for the moment, and she felt more curious than chaotic. For now, at least. Maybe she could use it to her advantage somehow? Once she knew what it did. There was only one way to know, she guessed, and that was a stone. A stone with life. Which she had in her bag. But she needed those ones! She couldn't very well give life to her own cleaved stone after all, that would- Ah, well that would fix the problem.

Boy do I love liquid time

Samael was curious about this cave. Curiosity in itself was not unusual for Samael, as the fairy was rather intrigued by absolutely every thing. But there was an actual reason for his curiosity this time:

For according to Mirrikh, where Mirrikh had given life to a stone for someone in trade for a lesser's stone to add to their growing collection of stones. Samael was a bit relieved he had intercepted Mirrikh before the other could give life to the stone, even if Samael could admit to himself that he was curious what might result from the union of stone and magic in this case.

He was already very involved with taking care of Fafnir, after all. He didn't want to neglect Fafnir if Mirrikh had a full litter that hatched on time. Since Mirrikh had no interest in parenting, themself.

Still, it intrigued Samael that he did have a descendant growing somewhere in this particular cave, even if the child would never be in his care.

That was the initial reason he had come to this cave. But now, the arrows had caught his attention, and he had gone in the direction of the arrows, startled to find something with words.

"It says... 'Input required'," he informed the other gembound present, studying the object with fascination.

Sair

'Input required'

While like most gembound Sair had yet to understand text, the use of flashing images and the six-inch creature made the message clear. He'd been beaten to action, though, as a bear cleaved off part of their own stone to replace the dull one attached to the screen. It made sense, but he only hoped the other did not act too soon. He kept some distance, just in case, given how grumbly the bear had become now that others had approached.

"You can read?" He instead turned towards the smaller of the pair gathered in front of the blinking screen. It was a skill he would need to know, and soon, if he was to begin cataloguing his findings in the caves. "I am impressed!" He added with genuine enthusiasm, making small talk while waiting for something to happen. Perhaps once they found out what this new cave was about and what the screen did, they would have a tutor?

The cave was eerie, a mess of buildings that were once obviously well populated and broken chrysalises. He was as eager to explore as he was to leave.

"Speaking." Thinking. Doing.
OOC:

We don't know how to accept we're just a product of a chance /
And less like gods but more like plants

@Samael (direct speech)

Relic was deciding how she felt about this new area. It felt like deja vu from all directions. It had the lushness of Leo, and the feeling of adventure that Lacerta had brought (a comfort, strangely enough. With every quiet period her life entered a part of her feared that feeling would never come back). The ruins reminded her of Orion of course - but there was a... more organic past here. Like Canis, without the bones.

She preferred having the bones.

The blinking light drew her in, as it had a handful of Gembound already. One of them - a creature she had assumed to be a butterfly, but on closer examination was a strange, half-bald hybrid - seemed to understand the script on the screen. 'Input required'. She eyed the stones warily, along with the new piece the bear had cleaved from her own gem.

The bad vibes were immediate, if clouded by her previous experience with that spell. "Is that wise? We don't know what input it wants. Maybe there's like... A button somewhere." She scanned her surroundings to check, though Tema had already made her choice.

As Esther lands behind a group of strange gembound, they glance through the group. None of the other Forge members have arrived just yet. Perhaps this one will be up to Esther alone - as far as the Forge goes. It's not a big deal, though they'd rather have some backup just in case things go wrong. ...As long as they dont hurt any bystanders, it should be okay. Hopefully there'll be no fighting anyway.

A bear throws a gem into it - while Esther hears someone else read what it says aloud.

Input required? What the hell does that mean?

Now, Esther might not be the smartest creature out there, but they sure aren't dumb either. Perhaps the bear is right, a gem to give it probably will work. Gembound use them as a currency pretty often. They aren't throwing their own into the mix, though.

A button. Possible, unlikely they think.

They'll wait to see what happens for now.

Hecate's arrival was guided mostly by sound. She'd visited here frequently since the cave had opened, struggling to find any sign of its history, of magic or power that she could claim. She'd found, instead, only empty ruins.

The voices had drawn her, sound where there was usually only silence. Gembounds, here? She fluttered down, talons scraping lightly as she landed atop the screen, peering down at it. Jealousy rose in her, that she'd not arrived here first, hadn't seen this and solved it for herself and claimed what might come after.

A quick scan of the group told her that they didn't know much more than she did: that they were just as lost on the purpose of this screen as she was. She clicked her beak, both thoughtful and reproachful, and looked down at it.

"I will find out what it is," she declared primly, a spark of magic flowing from her to the device.

She didn't bother introducing herself, or asking the others' names. She simply didn't care.

Manticore had spotted the flashing screen from some distance off. It wasn't unusual, exactly--this place was half-dead (a good place to lurk though there was very little to eat), but he'd eventually drifted over nonetheless.

Wing-leather rippled as he landed, then folded those wings across his back, plodding closer. "What is it?" he asked, neither demanding nor deferential. He spoke as if he'd known these strangers all his life, though he was pretty sure he'd only met maybe one of them before.

But this looked like something interesting, if it'd already gathered a group. And his curiosity was piqued.

As the shard of gemstone slotted in, the screen flickered, then flared a little more brightly. The INPUT REQUIRED message vanished... and for a moment the screen was pale green, with a flashing cursor.

Then streams of text ran down it, and--abruptly--the entire rubble pile began to shift and move.

What pushed up from it was a body, connected to the monitor as if this was a face. The body was fully mechanical: a robot, of sorts, though the Gembounds would have never seen such a thing. Old, rusted metal was pitted with age, yet intact; a few cables, sheathed in white, ran between head and torso, or torso and limbs. That torso and those limbs were amalgamations: an approximation of a large, squat humanoid form, with seemingly random cogs and gears spinning up here and there.

An impression of a face appeared on the screen, simple lines and bright colors. Four eyes blinked. A long, thin mouth curved into a frown, and the creature pulled itself fully from the rubble pile that had buried it before grinding outward on stomping 'feet.' Its face swept over the group, as if examining them, though how it was seeing through a screen was anybody's guess.

Its voice came a moment later: metallic but soothing, even-toned and void of emotion. "Construct-Engineer Richard Alpha awakening. ...Power source insufficient. Gratitude expressed. New power source required." It paused, and looked slowly around at the ruins, a question mark blinking on its 'face.'

"Query: request units of time elapsed since deactivation."

Could a machine be... troubled?

---

Hecate's hindsight, begun just before 'Richard' moved, reveals a flash of a memory: a quiet place, maybe a workshop, given the semicircular tables around the room covered in gleaming gold-and-white machine parts. The monitor stood before her, blinking cursor, and a voice from it spoke: "Requesting input."

Another voice, deep and soothing: "You are Construct-Engineer Alpha. Your task will be to aid me in my work. To build. To create a new form of life. Are you ready to begin..?"

The vision at once faded, as the monitor beneath her lurched up from the rubble.

---

Construct-Engineer Richard Alpha is requesting a stronger power source, and also has questions. Gembounds may provide either or neither as they see fit.

New characters may still join this thread. The next post will take place in one week's time, on July 20th.

@Tema @Samael @Sair @Relic @Esther @Hecate @Manticore

feel free to request condensed tags by noting the characters that should be tagged together, if you like!

Insufficient? She wanted to rip her stone from it, to start plucking away gears and wires and show it what insufficient looked like. She had given it a part of her! What even was the thing, and where did it get off on calling a greater's stone, HER stone insufficient? She could have left right there.

But she had given it life, in some way, and she was determined to make use of that fact. "It is my stone that is powering you, Richard." What kind of a name was Richard? "I do not know how long you've been... deactivated." The word felt wrong to her, for reasons she could not herself understand. Was it like a chrysalis? Asleep, but alive? But it was a machine like the generator, and yet it spoke. It was no simple series of buttons to push and control. It had sentience, of some sort. Unfortunate. "But this cave was closed for a long time, longer than I have been alive." She continued, trying to make sense of her murky memory to give it some approximation. She'd slept so long that tracking her age had become impossible. Maybe... "50 cycles? If not longer. Much longer, given the looks of this place. What do you remember?" She was not one to sugar-coat things, not anymore. Least of all for a machine.

She would leave finding another power source to the others, still fuming over the idea that cleaving off a piece of her stone was not enough for the moving hunk of rubble and rust.