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[P] Run
Topic Started: Sat Oct 14, 2017 3:59 pm (631 Views)
Tinker
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"What's your family ever done for you?"

As he walked on his expression grew somber, mild concern furrowing his brow. He was quiet for a time, shooting longing looks at the clock tower. "I can't." Was all he said, muttered under his breath. The idea of breaking away from his family, abandoning them when he was supposed to be proving his worth seemed too much like a failure. Admitting defeat.

"I don't owe your gang anything. I'm here to do a job for my uncle. The 'guys'," he spoke the word as if testing out some new phrase "Don't matter. All that matters is the job happens. I don't like them." He kept his head down and rounded a corner.

She had always been dead. Always smelled of blood, always cold. Never felt her heart beating in her chest. He smiked at the thought, finding his own little humor in the thought. He liked the thought of that. Sometimes his own pulse felt like too much.

The neighborhood was unremarkable, neither middle or lower class. Only a few shops had any sort of sign or indication of the type of business they were. His was one of the plain spaces, a narrow office with only a small curtained window in front. Fishing a key out, he opened the door for both of them. Picking up a sparkbox, he lit a couple of lamps to see by.

The office wasn't spectacular or anything. Small clockwork parts littered several of the desks, along with an arcanotech device on a workbench and a counter up front to separate his space from the other people. He closed the little swinging door behind him, thinking nothing of the motion with Marion behind him.

Eshan approached a safe in the wall. Unashamedly covering the dial with a cupped hand and his body, he closed his eyes and spun, listening to the clicks and memorizing them, organizing them. After a moment he found the new random combination and turned the handle, depressing a hidden button on the handle to disarm the trap inside the door as he opened it.

Bending into the safe, he pulled out an impressive-looking device of dark metal. Four feet long, shaped roughly like a crossbow without any sort of bow. It was heavy, but he handled it expertly. Fishing out a leather case, he packed it away and slung the pack over a shoulder, dropping the old bag into the safe.

Adjusting the strap, he locked and rearmed the safe, turning to look at Marion.

"Please don't call me that. Maybe he will, if he knows you well. We can stop, we should have a little time." Looking around for anything they might need, he seemed to decide against it and leaned on a chair, looking at Mari's shoes.

"Is your family dead too? Is it hard to find food?"
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Marion
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"Believe it or not," said Marion, her voice sharp and cutting, "you actually can." After eyeing him for a moment, she began to shake her head. "You shouldn't do things you don't want to do. There are no obligations in this life."

It wasn't so much that she cared; in the end, Tinker would do whatever he wanted to do, motivated by family or guilt or whatever else could motivate an otherwise average citizen. He wasn't a criminal by trade or nature or desire; he was dragged into this by some important uncle. Tinker wasn't like the rest of them—wasn't like Marion. She was here because she wanted to be, because it was fun.

Because there wasn't much else she could do, which was very much not the case for Tinker. In the office, she picked up and inspected the various clock parts and pieces of arcanotech laying around. Eyes narrowing, she looked between Tinker and the evidence of his work. Halfwit, they called him. Stupid, idiot, she'd said.

That didn't seem quite right.

"My family is alive and well," said Marion, "unfortunately." She picked up a series of cogs and turned them over in her hand, examining how they fit together. "Is it hard to find food? Take a second and think. Would you let me take a bite out of you?" She scoffed. "Now, do you think anyone else would let me, either? No one trusts me. And they shouldn't, I guess. I don't trust me either."

Finally looking up, Marion regarded him with quizzical brows and skeptical eyes. Her gaze flicked to the case over his shoulder.

"You're smarter than you act, aren't you, Tink?" He'd asked her not to call him that. She'd heard him, but wasn't going to comply. She winked. "You say a lot of stupid crap, but you know about all… this." Looking at a couple other bits and scraps, Marion's brows lifted as she grew more and more impressed. "What is all this? Like, what does it do?"
Edited by Marion, Sun Oct 15, 2017 5:02 pm.
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Tinker
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"Maybe. If you were starving. I've never met a vampire before. That I know of." He was still hunched over, looking smaller still thanks to the long case slung across his back.

She said she didn't trust herself. He rolled the idea around in his mind, suddenly a little sad at the thought. He tried to trust himself. He knew what he was good at. Other people didn't seem to like or trust him much after meeting him.

"You have to try to trust yourself. Sometimes nobody else will."

Eshan watched Mari handling the pieces carefully, cataloging which ones she was touching too be cleaned later. He frowned when she called him Tink again, but didn't comment.

At the question, Eshan actually perked up a little. "They're my hobby. I can't work in the clocktower, but I can do this." He waved to the bench with the device.

"This one's the start of a miniature golem. These are modifications for my other bow." He showed her a modification to fire harpoon-like tethers to the clockwork bow in the safe. Tapping on the case strap on his shoulder, his smile turned into a grin.

"This is Ceures. He, or they, I think, is one of my favorites. I got a plan from a cousin of my uncle's. That over there is an aerosol-based liquid fire that will make fill a room with flash fire. Good for taking all the air out of a small room and suffocating anyone in it." He glazed over the half-spherical shells and small, empty vials.

"And these," he walked over to a desk by the front counter. "Are my..." he froze, seeing the corner of a green cloth folded over. "Pocketclocks." Pulling the cloth aside showed small scaled-down versions of the clock tower's face. They were well made out of basic metals, but had a great deal of charm even without precious metals. He tapped an empty space in the corner. "There should be another one." He pursed his lips, smile fading into a thoughtful frown. Clenching and unclenching his hand, he pulled the cloth back over them.

"I have a lot of ideas for toys. Just got to buy this space a little while ago so I don't have to live in the tavern anymore. It was okay and there was good food, but there were too many..." he rolled his wrist, looking mildly disgusted. "People."

Taking one of the small clocks in hand, he wound it and dropped it into a pocket. Hefting the case, he began blowing out lamps and walked to the door.

"Are we friends?"
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Marion
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Are we friends?

Marion laughed before she could stop herself. It wasn’t the guffaw of the warehouse; this laughter sputtered between her lips, surprised but no less cruel. So far it seemed that Marion couldn’t laugh without sounding wicked: her voice possessed a sharp, impatient edge, even when she expressed joy. This fit of laughter didn’t last as long as the warehouse, either; when she finished there were no tears to wipe from her eyes, and there was no doubling over at the waist.

But still, a grin remained on her face. Her eyes glinted as she regarded Tinker. Pushing open the door, she lead the way outside, and it wasn’t until they were securely on the streets of Balefire once again that she answered.

“You said I was rude and you didn’t like me,” she said. “So I dunno. Are we?” Shrugging, she guided him down the street, around a corner, and into the business district of Balefire. It wasn’t a particularly busy section of the business district, nor was it the most scrupulous of places. Though there were more signs here to label the different establishments, most were weather-beaten and even labeled with false names. It was sketchy, to say the least, but Marion seemed perfectly unbothered. She’d been here more than a hundred times.

“Wait outside,” she said, stopping outside a storefront simply called Max’s. It was well-lit inside, and at first glance through the glass windows of its front, looked as innocuous as a liquor store. Marion opened the door—a little bell rang as she did so—and went inside.

Max’s was, indeed, partly a liquor store, but all the alcohol was infused with blood. Bloodwines were especially popular, and a variety of them lined the walls. Stepping up to the counter, Marion slapped down a couple copper pieces.

“The usual, Max.”

Max, an ancient fellow with scaled skin, turned around and regarded her with a disinterested eye. “Prices have gone up, Mare.”

“What?”

“Gonna be at least twenty for human.”

Twenty?!” Marion’s voice grew high-pitched in her bewilderment. “Since when?”

“Got to cover the cost of my business, kid.” Max shrugged.

“That isn’t fair. You can’t just do that.”

“I can do whatever I want.”

Marion’s face flushed with heat. “Is elf less?”

“About the same.”

“What about—”

“They’re all gonna be too expensive for you, kid. I don’t want street rat clientele anymore. I’m catering to a better crowd.”

Marion fished inside her coat and placed one of the necklaces on the counter. “This should—”

“Don’t offer me things you’ve stolen—”

“I didn’t steal it, it’s my mother’s—”

“Like hell, kid.”

Marion’s face twisted with anger and disappointment. Stuffing the necklace back into her coat, she grabbed the cheapest bottle of alcohol she could find. It was more than she wanted to pay for something that would barely sate her hunger, but at least there was enough blood in it that it was edible. Better than nothing.

“Don’t come back, Mare,” Max said just as she reached the door. Marion turned and kicked at a stack of boxes close to the store’s entrance. Glass rattled inside. She’d broken something. Max’s expression turned dark. Marion walked out immediately, catching Tinker’s eyes and moving away too quickly.

“I liked your clock toys and stuff,” she said, trying to cut him off before he could ask questions. “Didn’t you need me to carry something? Do we need to go back?”
Edited by Marion, Sun Oct 15, 2017 10:02 pm.
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Tinker
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Eshan didn't respond to the question, following the girl and looking thoughtful about what she's said. It was true, she was rude and he didn't really trust her, but she wasn't as grating as most others he met and the brusque way she spoke was sort of endearing. He enjoyed bluntness. People would be far less confusing if they just said what they meant.

Nodding when instructed to stay outside, he memorized this particular street. It was one he hadn't wandered through in recent memory. Looking through the window, he openly watched the two of them argue and her putting her necklace back, though he wasn't able to make out what about. From the man's body language he didn't want to talk to her. Gathering she hadn't gotten what she wanted by the way she stormed out, kicking the boxes by the door, he avoided looking directly at her when she exited the building. It was harder to look at people when there wasn't something between them.

"Thank you. I do too. They're very useful. And yes, but we have to head to the estate first. A little bit of scouting to do." He started walking toward the nicer part of town, where many Lords kept their manors.

Stopping before they got to the actual district, he stopped byba sewer access shed, flipping a flap on the case he carried and retrieving a set of picks. Inserting them, he had the door opened in roughly as much time as if he'd had a key. Tucking his tools away, he opened the trapdoor to reveal a ladder.

"It smells, but it's the easiest way to avoid the Sheriffs." He waved her on as he began down the ladder. In the streets Sheriffs would patrol the higher houses on a schedule, but they would draw attention if they were seen at this hour. He didn't know if Marion could pass as upper class.

Down here, they only had the service golems to worry about.

"Why did you leave your family? Did your father tell you to leave?"
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Marion
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Twisting off the bottle's cap, Marion took a swig and at once her face twisted at the taste. It wasn't what she'd wanted. Blood was smooth and warm, and filled her mouth like luscious velvet. This cheap infusion of blood with alcohol was watery, not quite right in its consistency or texture. Furthermore it would get her drunk, and she didn't want to stumble around the estate with her feet uncoordinated and her eyes dulled.

Screwing its top back on, Marion plopped the bottle into a pocket for later. Her throat still burned unpleasantly with the poor aftertaste of what she'd bought. Her stomach twisted up, gurgling and empty. This she was used to, and ignoring her hunger would be easier in the sewer. Even so, Marion wrinkled her nose. Already, with just the door open, the noisome aroma of waste wafted up from the labyrinth below, and Marion hesitated in following him.

"The sheriffs aren't so bad," she said. The scent flooded her mouth as she spoke, clung to her tongue and the inside of her cheeks. "I've been arrested enough times. I know how to get out of it."

Half the time the sheriffs thought she was someone else when they brought her in. Some zakona with a similar face, apparently. The other half was due to her own delinquency. In the poorer parts of the city, the sheriffs dismissed her as a nuisance and little else. Here, though, approaching the manors and mansions where lords lived, she imagined they would treat her with far less lenience.

With an audible groan of disgust, Marion descended the ladder into the pit below.

"Why do you care so much about my family?" she snapped. She clenched her jaw, looked away from him. She felt that maybe she'd made a mistake in her tone, but she wasn't about to apologize. Why did he want to know? What could he even do with the information? Did it really matter if he knew? No one had wonderful parents or a wonderful family. All of them were damaged by people who should have loved them.

Marion sighed, relenting.

"Not in so many words," she said. "My parents act like they want me home. Sometimes I go back and mom cries because she thought something bad happened to me. My whole life she's been terrified for me and terrified of me, at the same time. They act like they don't understand why I don't like to go there. My dad used to lock me in the basement when I got hungry. I was a kid. I didn't know my hunger could kill them. I just knew they could feed me, that they kept my food in their bodies, and they never gave it to me. Instead they called me a monster and locked me in the dark and let me cry myself to sleep. Happy story, right?"

That was only the beginning. She didn't mention how he used to beat her. How he kicked her ribs. Kicked her in the nose when she clung to his feet. Her face was just a target to hit. Her father would claim it was all self-defense against a creature that wanted to eat him. And her mother only ever watched. Allowed it to happen.

She'd been a child. She couldn't have killed them. Strong and determined as she might have been, she'd been little, and certainly hadn't wanted to kill two people she loved.

"Why were you living at a tavern? Why not live with your uncle?" Marion's eyes narrowed. "Where do you get the money to live on your own now?"
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Tinker
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Her tone made Eshan flush, keeping his head down and going quiet for a time. He'd made her upset. From what he could tell it was an easy thing to do, but it was still something he avoided. The raised tone made him shut down, focusing on the job at hand.

The sewer tunnels had low ceilings and narrow walkways along the slow-flowing canal, with iron walkways along gates and flimsy boardwalks nearer intersections. The smell was pervasive, an entire city's waste being carried away, but the lanterns helped. Gated crawlspaces dotted the walls close to the floor, openings for service golems to move more easily.

Leading the way down the tunnel, he didn't show any sign of having heard her response or her questions, pointedly avoiding looking at her. He navigated the maze-like walls confidently, halting them as he spotted the glowing hulls of service golems ahead.

As they neared a gated area beneath one of the manors, he rested his case against the wall and unbuckled it, opening it to reveal his accelerator. As soon as he lifted it from the case his load was visibly increased.

Setting it against the wall stock-down, he folded the case in two. The leather bent back and folded into itself easily, the new opening revealing the ends of a number of rounded steel rods. Drawing one out, the steel rod reached from elbow to fingertip, runed all along the shaft and ground to a taper at the tip. Loading the rod into his accelerator, he fastened the case to his back securely so it fit like a quiver.

Hoisting the weapon was an effort, similar to an enclosed crossbow without the arms of a bow, instead functioning through powered repulsor runes on the interior. Holding it he could sense the elemental bound to the weapon, an unseen spike humming to the touch.

"My uncle lives in the guild. I'm not a member, so I can't live with them. But they pay me for my work." He shrugged. Money didn't mean anything these days. Between guild work and commissions from the shop he was doing well enough for himself.

"I failed my family. They wanted a normal son and tried to teach me to be better. I tried, but I don't think I understand what they want. I'm trying to be a good son, but I haven't heard from them." He brought them to the corner around from the locked gate, seeing no visible lock to pick.

Eshan stood waiting, motioning for Marion to wait. Checking his pocket clock, he nodded, wound another spring, and tucked it away to tick quietly in the background.

"I made you angry. I won't ask about your family anymore. I'm sorry." He'd offended her. She'd think he was weird, different. He'd punish himself later.

The punishments hadn't seemed to help him understand what he'd done wrong at first, but it was always when he made his father angry. He'd explained it was for his own good while making him select a whip. To teach him a lesson. Now that he was on his own, he had to keep learning.

It was the only way he knew to fix what was wrong with him. Hopefully he started seeing improvement soon.
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I'm sorry, he said.

"You should be." Marion's face twisted with a frown as she looked at him. Again she felt that she'd said the wrong thing, perhaps risen to an unwarranted degree of meanness. After sharing his experience with his own family—how he failed them, how they wanted a normal son—it was clear Tinker just wanted someone to relate to. Someone who had gone through the same thing he had. Marion knew all too well what it was like to be a part of a family that wanted a normal child. A part of her wanted to reassure him that he wasn't alone, but the cautious, skeptical part of her heart advised her to remain cold. He was smarter than anyone assumed. Between the devices in his shop and the accelerator strapped to him now like a quiver, there was something dangerous about him.

Marion didn't know how to trust him. Or how to apologize. Or how to relate to other people. Her whole life she'd been taught she couldn't be trusted, that she couldn't apologize enough times to make up for what she was, that she was so monstrous no one would ever be able to sympathize with her.

The fact that someone was actively trying to be her friend scared her. Marion couldn't let herself think that was what Tinker was trying to do. It was safer to think he was trying to glean information he could use against her in the future to manipulate or blackmail her.

Safer, but not easier. There was still a part of her that didn't want to be entirely friendless. Marion followed him through the sewer, silent for a long time. She stopped when he gestured she should stop. Waited when he gestured to wait. She didn't want to get caught.

"You should just forget about your family," she said. "They wanted a normal son, but they didn't get that. Whatever that means. You seem normal enough to me. They should love you enough that it doesn't matter. They should see their child when they look at you, not a problem to be solved." Marion looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She was speaking from a place of understanding. Did the rough edge to her voice mask the wisdom of her tone? "A family shouldn't be like that. You're trying and they don't even acknowledge it. You lived in a tavern, away from them, and now you have that little shop. Where you live. Away from them. Sounds to me like they just want to pretend you don't exist. Why should you keep trying so hard when they aren't trying at all?"

Marion kicked a pebble into the slow-moving river of sewage.

"I'm just saying no one should have to live like a dog at the door, wagging its tail, begging to be let back inside. They turned their back on you. Turn your back on them, too. They don't deserve the love you're giving them."
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Tinker
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Eshan took a knee, hefting the long accelerator bow at the corner of the tunnel. The walkway they stood on was only five feet from the canal flowing below, a single slip from a sickening swim. He remained silent through Mari's lecture, keeping his focus down the iron sight of the accelerator.

"Because I don't belong anywhere else. People don't like me. If my family doesn't take me, who will?"

Kneeling on the stone floor, his knee going wet and cold, he controlled his breathing. Moving ever so slowly he pulled one of the tapered rods from the quiver, swinging it forward and sliding it into an empty slot. Turning and sliding a bolt on the side drove the rod to the ready position.

Ahead, in the room locked away behind steel bars and a mage-locked gate, a figure emerged from the bottom of the stairwell.

A labor golem carrying a large chamber pot swayed as it carried its burden, approaching the gate thirty feet down the tunnel. A rune flared blue at its approach, opening ahead of the golem to allow it access to the channel. It bent forward, emptying the contents into the flowing water. Exhaling, Eshan placed his finger against the trigger mechanism and fired.

The accelerator didn't crack or make a snapping sound, just a heavy thrum as the steel rod was pushed through the repulsor runes, picking up incredible speed as it was fired down the tunnel.

It pierced the outer shell and the bismuth core powering the golem, dislodging the spike. The golem spun and crashed to the ground, rod smoking lightly as the several back inches protruded from its side. The energy powering the unit was released in a blast of electricity, running across the water's surface. Eshan broke into motion, removing the stock and case to fit it into the featherpack case. Slinging it over a shoulder, he moved toward the fallen golem at a jog.

"I have a couple parts I need you to carry for me." He pulled a set of tools out of the pack along with a canvas bag, working with professional speed to remove several mechanisms and the binding spike housing the elemental. Shoving them into the canvas bag, he hurriedly thrust it into Marion's arms.

"We need to get out of here the way we came. They'll have felt that energy release." Any explanation needed was quickly discounted as a sloshing sound hailed the arrival of the creatures that made their home in the sewer channels. Something large, with hide similar to that of an alligator with draconian features a brown-black color briefly surfaced, watching them with a yellow eye.

"Quickly, please." Holding the long case to him to keep it from jostling against the back of his legs, he began running down the walkway, the creature in the water not far behind as it fought the current.
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Marion
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Tinker shoved the canvas bag into her arms and told her to run.

"But I thought we were scouting—" Marion started. The sound of something emerging from the river of sludge cut off her words. Looking down into the wastewater, Marion met the golden eye of a reptilian creature that watched them with sudden interest. Nauseated and terrified, Marion's stomach twisted and the inside of her throat grew hot, as if she might vomit at any second.

Tinker took off running.

Marion didn't need to be told to follow.

Their footsteps echoed against the cylindrical walls and ceiling. Their shadows stretched across the dank floor, across the sewage. Not far behind them, a creature that could thrive in an environment of shit and piss pursued them with a predatory gleam in its eye. The canvas bag bounced in her arms. While running, Marion tried to adjust her grip on the bag, for she worried she might drop it or that its contents might spill out.

Tossing a glance over her shoulder, Marion saw another creature fighting the current to catch them. The two swam over each other, large bodies knocking against each other in the scramble for a meal.

"Tink, there's more!"

What could she do? He had an accelerator. She had a dagger, but it wasn't anything that could protect them against a massive reptile. Maybe she could sacrifice some caltrops if the creatures got close enough that she could throw the little spikes into their open mouths—

Ahead of them, at the end of a long hall, emerged the new green light of another service golem. A threat ahead, a threat behind—

"We have to go out another way!" she said. There were dozens of grates that lead to dozens of chutes that could carry them away.

"There's a ladder up ahead," she said. It wasn't the one they'd climbed down. She didn't know where it lead, except upwards. "Just climb it!"
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Tinker
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Sprinting to outrun the beasts on their tail, he refrained from cursing as he realized they had taken a wrong turn avoiding golems and being trapped by the beasts. Looking back to check up, he obviously looked first to the camvas bag to make sure she eas still carrying it, then at her.

He nearly tumbled into the water as his foot slid on a patch of slime. It would have been funny, if not for the great scaly bodies pumping along with their tails and gripping at stones with black claws.

Her cry to climb the ladder hit him and he didn't pause to think about where they might be, lost well and truly in the sewers.

This was why he preferred the streets.

His ascent was paused by the grate overhead being locked in place, a bolt mechanism built into the door. Scrabbling at his pockets, he nearly dropped the picks on Marion below as he jammed them into the lock and began working feverishly.

Below them the sounds of two great beasts pulling themselves from the currents and claws grating on stone rose to them in the tunnel. In the circular stone enclosure around the ladder, a massive form at least twelve feet long rushed past the hole, leaping for the service golem. Grating metal echoed through the tunnels as it bit down, followed by a splash.

The lock clicked and he bent his head, pushing against the trapdoor grate with his shoulders. It groaned open and he pulled himself up hurriedly and onto wooden flooring, waiting for Marion to pass through before slamming the steel door shut and turning the bolt home.

"I'm glad you're alive." He panted, leaning back against a crate in the small room. A loud, rhythmic vibration ran through the stone under them at regular intervals.

"I don't want to have to go back for another core. Swamp drakes are becoming a nuisance."
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Go go go,” she said. Tinker began to push the grate with his shoulders. Creatures growled below her. A snap of jaws ripped something else apart. Hustling up the last bit of the ladder so quickly that her head nearly collided with Tinker’s rear, Marion scrambled across the floor until her feet were a safe distance from the opening.

She dropped the canvas bag and leaned over it, palms pressed to the floor and head hung low between her shoulders. With each gasping breath she drew, her insides quivered.

“Oh, yeah, ‘cause if I died you woulda had to go back and get another,” she snapped. “Real nice, Tink.” Collapsing down, Marion laid with her knees tucked under her and the backs of her hands pressed between the floor and her face. The aftermath of panic slowly seeped from her body, and after a couple moments of cradling her body, Marion forced herself to sit up against a crate.

“You coulda told me what we would be up against,” she said. “I thought we were going to scout the Coher estate. I thought if we took the sewer we’d—I don’t know—emerge from a grate near the house, or something—you coulda told me there were swamp drakes.” Groaning, Marion pulled her hands down her face. Still nauseated, she pulled out the bottle from her pocket and took a decent couple swigs.

It burned. It didn’t taste quite right. It still wasn’t what she wanted. But it gave her stomach something else to worry about, and afterwards her mouth rejoiced with the faint, metallic aftertaste of blood. Capping the bottle, Marion began to look around their new surroundings to get a handle on where they were. It was dark. The floor was wooden. A few stacks of crates lined the room. Tilting her head back, Marion looked upwards to find that there was no ceiling above them—the world above them drifted into absolute blackness until, higher up than she could measure, the orange glow of lanterns illuminated large gears and cogs.

“Hey. Tink. Look.”

Beside the gears and cogs was the inner face of the clock tower, illuminated brilliantly by a large series of lanterns. There was a platform beside the clock, under all the gears, for workers to perform maintenance. The platform lead to a staircase, which crawled all the way down the wall to where they sat.

“Must be your lucky day.”
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Eshan watched her with a slightly confused expression. "Well... yes." He spoke as if she'd been stating the obvious. "It would be very inconvenient." He tucked his chin in, very poorly hiding a smile.

It might have been relief at escaping the drakes or maybe it was something to do with speaking to Mari for so much longer than he was used to, but he couldn't help but to wear a small smile, considerably less fidgety and tense than he usually was.

Seeing her drink from her bottle, he pulled his own flask out and took a similarly large swig or two. He didn't want to be rude. Coughing, he pressed a hand to the steady burn in his center. The young man gave a frown at the flask as he screwed the cap on tight, wondering why people seemed to like it so much.

"We were. That staircase behind the gate leads up to the estate. I needed parts from one of the house golems to get us through the gate. Is... is this a bad time to mention we'll have to go back down there tomorrow?" He frowned, his voice a little raspy from the brandy's burn.

Glancing up, he dropped the flask in his lap. His smile broadened, nearly beaming with his own internal light as he tried to stand. After a second he managed to shoot to his feet.

Where he promptly collapsed onto his ass.

Head swimming after standing so quickly with brandy searing its way through his blood system, he grunted as the crate crackled under his weight, but held.

"The clock tower! We're inside!" He seemed emotionally unruffled at having fallen over, getting right back up and moving toward the walkway. He deposited his accelerator behind a crate on his way, making generous use of the railing.

"Come on! Let's climb up to the gears!"
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Marion
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Marion burst out laughing as he fell into the crate. Growing up, she’d known a girl who received a puppy as a Midwinter gift. She’d been given a box to open, and as soon as she opened the lid, the little creature poked its head and paws up—Marion hadn’t been there to see it, but had held onto the story because it was sweet, the kind of thing she never would have received lest she kill the poor animal. But it was this puppy she thought of now, popping out of the box, excited to see the world anew, that she thought of as Tinker sprang up from the box toward the stairs.

“All right, all right, we’ll go,” she said. He was already far ahead of her by the time she stood. Tucking the golem parts beside the accelerator, Marion raced up the stairs behind him, stumbling a bit from the alcohol. Her head was just starting to swim with a pleasant daze. Missing a step in the giant staircase, and falling to her knees, Marion laughed uproariously—it filled the entire tower with sound—before picking herself back up and ascending.

At the top, the gears and cogs hung perilously above their heads, moving in slow motion as the clock’s minute hand ground its way forward. The platform was secured by a railing so that neither of them could fall over. Looking up, Marion watched the teeth of one cog intersect with the teeth of another, so that they rolled perfectly together.

Shrugging off her coat, Marion set it down and then walked around, inspecting the clock’s face and the different machinery. The minute hand clicked just outside the clock, and then lay on top of the hour hand. Less than a second later, a loud bell began to howl above them—even higher up than the platform—until it chimed to twelve midnight. The platform vibrated with the sheer force of the noise, and Marion had to clap her hands over her ears. Marion couldn’t see the bell, but she saw a separate, narrower set of stairs off the side of the platform that must have lead up to it.

“I guess this is pretty cool,” she said. She took another drink from her bottle, and this time left its cap off. She was too hungry. She needed to dull the pangs in her stomach with booze. “Is it everything you wanted it to be?”
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Tinker
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Eshan made his way up the walk stumbling and staggering every few steps. Despite his slightly impaired progress, he carried on with determination, eyes set on the clockwork high overhead. Her laugh made him peek back, but he only gave her a slightly confused look as she scrambled upright and followed after.

Reaching the catwalk between different mechanisms, he quickly ran from one to the next, a wide grin plastered on his face while he admired the work.

It wasn't that it was anything particularly complex; He built smaller versions back in the shop as a hobby. It was the scale of the thing, in the same way someone who loved boats might like to see one of the great Tarasian ships. Building something so useful to the city on such a scale was impressive all its own.

Leaning on one of the rails, he settled himself to look up at the semitransparent glass and the many lanterns lighting it. Small golems tended the lanterns and mechanisms, but didn't seem to pay them any mind.

The bell tolled and he started to panic at first, eyes going wide before clenching shut and his fingers plugging his ears, but slowly he began to grin as the tolling shook his body.

"I always wanted to come see the tower. Even after my family sent me out into the city to make my own way I wanted to visit, but couldn't make myself. I always felt like there was something better I should have been doing with my time." He dug in his pockets and found a small stone, setting it on the edge of the catwalk and nudging it off with the toe of his boot to watch it tumble down, bouncing off gears on the way.

"I think so." He looked around at this feat of engineering. He'd have given much to create something as great as this someday. Business was going well, but it was only supposed to be a means of showing his family he had what it took to survive. It was never meant to be a way to pursue what he loved. He didn't keep the pocket clocks covered out of any concern for theft so much as to hide his own guilt at giving into his hobby.

"I don't know what I should be doing." He blurted out. He fumbled for the flask, but it was emptied. He hadn't taken that much.

Sagging against the railing, looking up at the clock face, he pursed his lips. "I want to build new things. To leave the city someday and see what Cascadia has to offer. But I can't just leace everyone. If I leave, then everyone I know will know I failed and I'll be alone again. I enjoy my space, but I don't want to live alone forever."
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