Completed Ruadh Gu Brath (Ornea)

[Sal Mander]

Day 14, Fall of 514 A.V.

Rumors. Vicious beasts whose claws were long and sharp, able to ensnare any foolish enough to draw too close. But like a devious cat with an unfortunate mouse, rumors liked to play with their prey, toying and teasing, prolonging that moment until efficient claws made the killing blow. They prowled day and night, turning up in taverns, shops and even homes. Nowhere was off limits for rumors. They knew not the confines of walls and boundaries. They traversed the many languages of Mizahar, sometimes shifting and changing in their description, but the meaning always the same. Vicious beasts indeed. Yet for the sake of all kinds, there were those that trod the lands in search of these foul creatures, hunting them mercilessly, ready to administer judgement with one fell swoop of the sword.

Of course in the real world, this all meant one thing. Sal had work to do. If he had a kina for every rumor that came his way, well, he could certainly have upgraded from his current apartment. The real value of rumors though came in their truth. Sadly, most were worthless once all the outer shell of promise had been stripped away, like a magician revealing his secrets. But as far fetched and bizarre as some of them were, he still had to sift though them methodically and attentively for one simple reason. Sometimes they were true.

In this case it was a matter concerning a certain woman from Wind Reach. Those red headed maidens were by no means rare in Lhavit, but when it came to rumors of foul play, that made identifying them a little easier in more ways than one. True, trudging around the city looking for them the old fashioned way was technically a workable method, albeit a rather long one. But in Sal's case, he had turned to the more readily available records at the Cosmos Center to find what he was looking for. Anyone and everyone in Lhavit was registered, be it residents, renters, merchants and shop keepers. Even visitors were noted on arrival be it at the Aramanthine Gates or by the docks in the western part of the city. If someone came into the city of Lhavit, the Cosmos Center would know about it.

Of course the burning question for anyone who knew what Sal was up to was just why was he so intent on finding a woman from Wind Reach? The truth...or rather the rumor was that someone had been up to no good. The city's water supply was the focus of their ill doings, with words such as poison and tainted being thrown about. Quite why someone would want to poison the city's water supply was unknown to Sal. Some agent of evil perhaps, come to wreck havoc on the Lhavitians from the inside. Or maybe someone playing a prank? For now, Sal held as much faith in the rumor as he did in chocolate tea pots, but none the less he had to at least look into it. After all, how would it feel if that one time you passed up a rumor it then became true? Sadly, being in the information game, he could not take that chance.

So then, the rumor was that a woman heralding from Wind Reach but now recently living and working in Lhavit had sought to poison the water supply. Her description had unhelpfully been confined to one feature. She was a red head. A woman from Wind Reach with red hair. Sal was tempted to screw up the piece of parchment before him and toss it in the trash. Where do they find these people? he asked himself, pulling up an image of various people whispering to one another within cupped hands. Surely whichever genius had filed this report could have come up with something more than that. Could they not have noted the height maybe? Eye color? Any marks or tattoos? What were they wearing when the apparent witness was watching them carry out their heinous deeds?

No matter. He would just have to figure those important details out as he went. For now, knowing the woman had recently come to Lhavit for work, assuming even that tidbit of information held any truth to it, he had checked the records of the Cosmos Center for any recent arrivals to the city heralding from Wind Reach. Cross checking that information with recent hires by employers, he was able to produce a list of two names. It still bothered him that the source of this rumor knew the woman had recently come to the city, but was unable to piece together the basics of a description. But with only two names to check out, it would not have taken more than his afternoon.

Let's see. First up is Ornea, recently hired by Lucis and Lucis on a trial basis. Well that was easy enough. All he had to do was venture down to the blacksmiths and have a nose around. Of course, he could not just waltz in armed with his questions. If this rumor turned out to be true, which he strongly doubted it would, his inquisitions might scare off the woman. That would not do, so instead he would need to arrive there under a different pretense. Grabbing his coat, he put his mind to the task of coming up with an adequate story, perfecting its elements as he began the short trip to Lucis and Lucis.

[Ornea]

To the graderThis post has been edited due to the lore changes in Lhavit and the transportantion units in Lucis and Lucis in this thread are assumed to be mechanical gadgets, no animation.

Edward Luci was going to give his new trialist metalsmith Ornea instructions for today’s important casting work. She was waiting for him at the top floor of the house, in the gadgeteering atelier at Lucis and Lucis, where much of the more cerebral work of gadgeteering takes place. The atelier was situated right under the skyglass dome, a large and airy room full of draughting desks and many drawing implements. Ornea walked around and observed all this. It was fascinating, intriguing and enigmatic. She looked at the drawings in progress and tried to imagine the machinery.

A place for ideas and visions, she thought. Edward Luci and his firm was well known in Lhavit and highly respected. She could hardly believe her own good luck; instead of an ordinary metalsmith job making everyday metalwork, she had found this extraordinarily interesting job at this tantalizing gadgeteering firm. But, well, it was so far only a trial employment, and she was set on doing everything - everything - to succeed.

Edward arrived, emanating energy and inspiration in a way some would find unusual for a man of his age. Ornea was however used to her old employer being in full swing. “I’m reading up for a new project” he said enthusiastically as he put several books from the library on a desk nearby.

“This is one of the more challenging projects in my career, actually. The astronomes at the observatory has decided to order a new telescope. So far I’m of course only speaking with them and trying to understand their visions and what they want. This will take time and I’m not even sure yet if it’s even possible to craft what they are speaking about. I’m reading and I’m thinking. “ He smiled at Ornea. “If you turn out to be the right stuff for Lucis you may get involved in this project some day in the future. I call it Stargazer.”

Ornea nodded enthusiastically. Her employer was utterly charismatic when he spoke about his machine ideas, gadgeteering visions, and other inventions. It was like his mind never stopped coming up with more. She tended to become enthralled and carried away and join Edward Luci in his happiness over all the endless possibilities.

"But Stargazer is a future project. It hasn't even started yet. Let's speak about todays work instead."

Edward picked up a drawing. It wasn’t one of the most complicated drawings in the room, but it was definitely complicated enough for Ornea. It depicted a machinery inside a rectangular form, with many different parts which Edward called cogs. “This is what I want you to do today. We will go on to the specific parts soon, but first I want to show you how they are meant to fit into the total of this very simple automata. When it’s finished it will be what I call an STU. Well, you have seen them, so you know what we are speaking about. “

Ornea nodded. “A Luci STU” she confirmed. In order to show Edward that she was working hard at learning his business she added : “It’s a mechanical transportation unit moving on small, thick, strong wheels. To an ignorant bypasser I guess a STU would look like nothing else than a flat box on the floor. They come in different sizes for different ends and are used to transport things in the factory.”

Edward beamed at her. “Exactly! It’s part of our automated transportations, a quite intricate innovation in itself, in my opinion. And this is an improved new version, more exactly it’s called the Luci STU Rapido Five .” He went on to explain the finer details of the drawing to her, and Ornea listened with full attention.

Much of all the things Edward was explaining wasn’t really needed for making the cogs, but Edward wasn’t narrowly focused on cogs, he was speaking about the work he loved, his reason to exist. His hands with the many scars and stains gained during all his years working with metal and gadgeteering, moved over the drawing as he pointed out particularly interesting details to her and explained his thoughts in depth. The small figures written everywhere on the drawing were what he called the “dimensions”, which simply meant the measures, but he was a gadgeteer and used fancy words.

In order to try to learn more about the gadgeteering , Ornea kept repeating the things he said in her own words, made small summaries once in a while, and asked questions. Luci corrected her and answered her questions and didn’t seem to care about how much time this would take. She memorized his answers and added them to her budding knowledge about gadgeteering. They went on like this until Edward finally said it was time for next step.

He put a simple parchment with a nearly ready drawing of the cogs she was being tasked with crafting. “Here, check this drawing and complete it. The explanations of the STU took a bit longer time than I had expected. I had planned to finish it, nearly done actually, but I have to go now. But with all the information I gave you, you ought to be able to do this properly.”

Edward Luci was already on his way out from the atelier as he spoke. Ornea was now alone with Luci STU Rapido Five, the nearly completed drawing of today’s cogs to make, and the drawing tools the atelier offered. She hadn’t counted on being tasked with drawing. Ornea was inexperienced at it, but she trusted Edward Lucis good judgment. As he had left this task to her and seemed convinced she would be able to do it, she felt sure it must be very easy.

She did like he had said and checked the cogs drawing by comparing it to the relevant parts of the STU drawing. She reviewed all the dimensions, investigated every detail and made sure the figures were exactly right. She studied and compared every line and found that everything seemed to be right. So it seemed like Edward Luci had only wanted an extra check, for the sake of total safety.

She was about to put the quill away when she suddenly saw it. A small line in the STU drawing was missing on the cogs drawing. As it often can be, it had taken some time to dectect this small difference when comparing to seemingly identical drawings. If she hadn’t been so thorough when she did the check she would have missed it.

Now she took a quill and a ruler. Keen on doing this very small drawing job as well as she was able, she put the ruler on a piece of scrap parchment, dipped the quill in ink and drew a line. Ah, as she had suspected, there was a little bit too much ink and it stained parchment scrap she had used as tester. Good thing she hadn’t taken the quill to the drawing at once...now she placed the ruler on the real drawing and used it to guide the quill as she carefully and very slowly drew the line she wanted.

There. It was done. The drawing was complete, she had all information she needed and it was time for action. She took her drawing left the atelier, went down the stairs, passed by the archives and down to the ground floor. She walked past the technical library, a paper repository of the innovations and concepts the gadgeteers needed to make their fine creations, a resource coveted by many in the starry city and in other places.

She came out through the door and without looking back, Ornea left the light and airy gadgeteering building with it’s slender columns of radiant skyglass and pale marble façade. She headed to the fortress-like building where the huge water pumps of Lhavit were housed, as well as Lucis ongoing new projects and their own metalwork smithy. There she hurried to the foundry area and started at the first steps of metalsmithing, the preparations.

First of all she picked a thin leather string from a bypassing STU full of trash. She tied her read hair back with it, took a smith apron from a hook and put it on over her simple working clothes. She also rolled up the sleeves of her shirt up over the elbovs.

She was going to cast the cogs in molds and after they were cast she was going to adjust them to be exactly as demanded. So she looked through the stone molds in search of the molds best suited for the end. It was impossible to predict every cog of ever “dimension” and form, she knew this from the days she had worked her already. Instead they had a multitude of molds made in a way that would nearly always make it possible fo make a standard cog of nearly the right size and form an then adjust the cog after casting it. This kind of extra work moment and the need to think of gadgeteering too, made this job too hard and demanding for novices, but Ornea was competent enough.

After comparing molds and drawing, measuring the dimensions she settled for what she considered to be the best ones and put them on the floor. She was going to cast a square copper cog, a round brass cog and an oddly triangular cog of iron. They were relatively small items so she would only need to melt smaller amounts of metals, but as Edward Luci had told her : “It’s not average quality at high speed we go for here. It’s precision and high quality of every small thing. Quality and safety. Small things, big importance. “

She put on a pair of leather gauntlets Lucis kept among the equipment of the foundry. Ornea was now in full swing at the foundry in the main machinery and pump hall of Lucis. The molds were ready to use, the metals were put to melting and transport STUs and golems were passing by around her once in a while. She was focused on the work to do ; cogs, perfect cogs, and nothing else than cogs.

...

[Sal Mander]

Of course, cogs could only work when everything was in its right place, fitted perfectly and seamlessly, and all working together as a team to produce results. Throw a spanner in the works and the machine broke down. Sometimes that spanner was clear to see, a faulty part or technical glitch for example. But for more intricate machinery, such problems were harder to detect and fix. It was true that the real masters of gadgeteering where not those who just designed and built such wondrous creations, but were able to keep them running and diagnose any problems that rose up in the future. In that sense, gadgeteers were like doctors, the machines their patients, with oil for blood and cogs for organs.

Sal had a great deal of respect for gadgets and machines. His father had worked long ago as a machinist in Alvadas, long before moving to Lhavit and before Sal was even born. But he had often spoke of his work, weaving together descriptions of projects and undertakings that Sal as a child had found fascinating. While he himself had never had his hands on such tools, he understood the concept and workings of a variety of them, from calipers and micrometers to carbide cutting tools and lathes. His father had used one such lathe, featuring a system of pulleys and ropes that helped turn a large turret with jaws. Within these jaws could be mounted pieces of wood or metal, which could then be rotated continuously while different tools could be used to cut and fashion the pieces.

The very concept alone was amazing to Sal, who marveled at people's ability to come up with such devices and contraptions. In doing so, it afforded a sort of otherworldly aspect to everyday things. The idea of taking minerals and artifacts from the earth, then fashioning them into pliable substances that could then be manipulated into a myriad of designs, well, it was simply amazing. As such, the visit to Lucis and Lucis was something of a treat for Sal, creating a much needed silver lining in having to have come here at all. The true purpose of the visit was of course part of his investigation, albeit one that he held little faith in in terms of cold, hard truths. But perhaps like a piece of metal itself, he could mount it in a lathe and use his own tools of inquisition to fashion it into something that made sense and could be useful.

For a while Sal was content to simply walk around, taking in the sights and sounds, and smells of the place. Workers marched purposefully about with work to do, tending to various duties around the compound. Edward himself had departed earlier, having tasked Ornea with a project for the day. Sal's intention was to meet with the man, under the guise of chasing some administrative problem back at the Cosmos Center. But after a few minutes of searching, he concluded the man must have been elsewhere. No matter. Instead it afforded him the chance to nose around himself, to see this red head woman who was apparently employed here.

It had not taken long of course, since Sal had only to follow the red head woman he spotted across the compound, coming out of one building and heading towards the smithy. That inarta hair stood out like a red rose floating on a pond of milk. He kept his distance at first, taking care not to be seen himself while he weaved a path closer to where Ornea had gone. Like a predator he pressed on, looking around to ensure he had not caught the attention of anyone else. He felt sneaky, and almost chuckled out loud to himself when he realized what he was doing. Afraid she's going to poison you too, Sal? You fool. After all, why was he sneaking around like a rat? He was simply here to chase after a stupid rumor that was more than certainly a barrel of hogwash. Inartas creeping around and poisoning the local water supply? Shyke.

Shaking off the embarrassment of being foolish, he straightened his jacket and ambled into the smithy. While he had dropped the ruse of Lhavitian superspy, he would for now keep up the pretense of being there on official business. Which after all was not necessarily a lie. The lie was exactly 'what' official business he was undertaking. After all, he could not just march in and ask her outright if she was a saboteur with Lhavit's ruin in mind. No, what this situation required was a little finesse.

Inside was hotting up, the bellows ready and waiting to fuel fires of such intensity that even Ivak would have broken a sweat. Ornea had been pulling on an apron and rolling up sleeves when Sal entered, adding to that a pair of gloves by the time he had walked up behind her. He was about to call out to get her attention, when his foot decided to do it for him. There was a clattering sound as he struck a bucket, filled with water that splashed out all over the floor. When Ornea turned round, she would have seen Sal rooted to the spot, staring from her to the bucket with a frown on his face. "Well shyke. I'm so sorry about that," he said earnestly, while inwardly cursing himself for the less than graceful entrance.

[Ornea]

To the graderThis post has been edited due to the changes in Lhavit's lore where animation doesn't exist in Lhavit anymore. The thread held knowledge of golems at Lucis. But this has been replaced with just vague theoretical memories from brief info she got in her past, that makes Ornea fall victim to her own vivid fantasy and imgine Sal may be a golem.

Ornea was focused on her work. The cogs she was going to make were, as Edward had explained to her, something of an experiment with new mechanisms within the transportation unit they would be used in. She didn’t know enough about the gadgeteering yet to really get the importance of using different metals as well as different shapes and dimensions, but for now it was enough that she was competent at metalsmithing and able to carry out the casting process properly.

As this was the busy foundry area of Lucis and Lucis where work was going on every day it was out of question to let the furnaces go cold and have to spend days getting the heat up again. The coal fires in the foundry were regularly fed and kept alive, not at the very highest and most fuel consuming temperature, but hot enough to make for a smooth start of new jobs. In between the casting of more complicated items, ores were melted and separated from the stone in the blast furnace and cast into simple bars of a number of sizes, in order to make the production more efficient.

Thus Ornea had been able to start at once, and make use of already burning fires and ready-made bars of the metals she needed. The process was still at an early stage. Once in a while she leaned over the furnace she was using for the current job and supervised the slowly melting ores in their melting pots; bars of red copper, bars of black iron, and a mix of three smaller bars if copper and two smaller bars of zink to make the yellow brass, which was an alloy and not a natural metal.

Carefully, using a pole with an iron hook, she adjusted the melting pots a bit. From the side, she added some more coal in order to up the heat. This would not have been needed just for the copper and zinc, but as there also was iron involved, higher temperature was needed. Everything seemed fine. She felt the nice and comfortable feeling of knowing what she was doing and having things under control.

A sudden unexpected loud clattering sound behind her made her lose concentration. She put the pole with the hook at the side of the furnace and turned around, prepared to see one of the STUs, the relatively simple special transportation units, gone off track and crashed into something, or a metal part of some kind fallen to the floor. These kind of small accidents could happen, as she had already seen a number of times. The mechanical gadgets of the transportation system had their small flaws. This was also one important reason why Edward Luci was constantly working at improvements and new models, like the one she was involved in right now.

Water was spreading over the floor from a bucket that had tipped over. And behind that bucket stood a man, obviously. He stood like stood rooted on the spot, in an unnatural way. There was definitely something very special with him, but what? As this question turned up in Ornea's mind it took over and made her lose foucus.

She entered one of those temporary dreamlike states she had experienced once in a while all the time after the big overgiving in Winter 513 AV.

Memories of theory she had leartn during her studies of magic in Wind Reach when she was in her teens came to the surface of her awareness. It wasn't possible to know what had triggered this, but maybe it was the way the stranger just stood there and looked at her.

Anyways, now Ornea recalled bizarre facts she had learnt about magic that was unwelcom in Wind Reach. She had only learnt very little about it of course. She knew next to nothing about animation, but her teacher had found it right to mention it briefly. If Ornea remembered it right there was something named golems, a kind of automata that had been given magic life. It had been said that if they were really advanced they were even given souls and then they could be mistaken for humans.

A golem. Before she knew it she had thought it. It was a golem.

The thought shook her and she came to her normal senses again, seamlessly, too shaken to notice that her mind had drifted away for a chime. She told herself this must be total bullshyke and how could she even think such a stupid thing. She wanted to dismiss the wacky idea. But somehow she wasn't able. Wouldn't this be exactly the special way a golems would just to stand there when something happened outside the things they had been designed to be able to deal with?

No, she told herself. I'm fantasizing. It's impossible. It's stupid. It can't be a golem ! What would a golem do here? I'm just imagining this. But then she recalled how she had quite recently learnt how it actually WAS impossible to know if reality was reality or illusion. The robbery in Bright Lights had been full of that kind of stuff.

This thought led on to another thought. Iskiraya Mifune,the illisonist and robber had made Ornea reveal that the whole city could be in danger if something would happen to the pumps at Lhavit. And if Iskiraya could use illusions, why wouldn't she know about the magic of animation too? It COULD be a golem, sent by the illusionist to sabotage the pumps. It would be smart to send an automaton to do it, wouldn't it?


Thus Ornea found it best to start by taking it for granted it was a golem. Ornea didn’t say anything. She was going to pretend to not have suspected anything. Assuming it was a golem she decided to test him. Secretly. Or it, as this was her theory. Obviously it had been on its way somewhere with a bucket full of water for some end, and for some reason it had happened to drop it here. Petch. She approached it, picked up the bucket on the way and pressed the handle back in the potential golems seemingly passive hand, hoping it would cooperate.

When it came to the looks it was a quite human looking golem. It was a tall one; it seemed to be well over 6 feet, at least a foot higher than her. As far as she could judge, great effort had been put into making it look human, including a good face, short black hair and even a pair of hazel eyes instead of the standard devices.

An advanced golem. She would have expected it to function way better, but maybe the focus in the design had for some reason been more on appearance than on function. Ivak, it was uncanny how those eyes actually seemed to look back at her like the golem was alive for real and had an intelligent mind. Could advanced golems have minds? Thoughts? Feelings?

These speculations spoke volumes about her lack of knowledge about animation as well as her colorful imagination.

She had pressed the bucket handle into the golems humanlike hand and kept pressing it there (uncanny, this, how much it resembled a human being). Now she resolutely grabbed it’s arm. She was about to make it turn and march out of the foundry when it suddenly spoke to her. "Well shyke. I'm so sorry about that.”

Ornea stared. She didn’t know what to think anymore. Was this a golem or was it a man? If it was a golem it was truly advanced. If he wasn’t a golem but a man, he was a stranger she hadn’t seen at Luci’s before. In that case she would need to make sure his presence there was alright.

Ornea had felt worried about the safety of the water pumps all the time after that terrible seminar at Bright Lights, about the history of candle making. She had answered the lecturer Iskiraya Mifune’s questions about weaknesses because it had seemed required for that exercise about enlightenment. But she sure wished she had kept her mouth shut and not spoken her idea that the best way to sabotage Lhavit would be to damage the pumps or use them to poison the water. She wished she hadn’t said it, but she had, and now she felt like she had to watch over the locations and the pumps and protect them against evil.

It struck her that whether this was a golem or a man, this could also be some kind of employee test, considering she was on a trial employment. Perhaps they wanted to see what she would do if an advanced golem ran amok. Or maybe they were checking up how loyal she would be if a suspect intruder turned up and tried to find information about Lucis ongoing developments, or steal something, or do some other damage.

She could however not take the risk to insult a man by asking if he was a golem. Caste aware as she was, despite not being in Wind Reach any more, she automatically considered the social standing. It would be particularly bad to ask if he was a golem in case he was a human man and of some kind of higher rank, like a permanently employed crafter colleague of high skill.

Then again, the mere thought of asking if he was a real man was even worse. If the answer would be yes, this could become an extremely awkward situation. And if the answer was no, she would still not know if he was human, or if she was involved in a surreal conversation with an unusually advanced automaton.

Well. Endless and massive chains of analytical logics seemed to spawn in her brain these days as she observed and analyzed things and came to conclusions. The complexity of the situation was growing by the tick. Working at Lucis and being exposed the gadgeteering and the enthusiastic Edward Luci seemed to have started to affect her in unforeseen ways. She bet it was due to those drawings and how Edward expected her to study them.

Human or golem? She settled for not asking. Instead she would study him, or it, and find out more by observation and logical conclusions, without revealing that she wasn’t sure if she was dealing with man or machine. It would be just like when studying the drawings in Edwards office and try to figure out what they were about and how they worked.

“By all means! ” she managed to say in the heartiest of Inarta tone of voice, while she did her best to compose herself and seem unmoved. “Things happens!”

Her next step would be to let go of the bucket handle and his arm, in order to see if he would drop it, and if he would try to turn around stiffly, or make some other obviously mechanical looking movement, like an automaton that had been stuck on an obstacle. Then it would be easy case to conclude he was a golem.

If he would do or say something else, she would need to go on from there and test, observe and analyze more. If so, she would try to cautiously work her way towards an answer, while trying to avoid the risk of causing some embarrassing dilemma that could cost her the job.

...

[Sal Mander]

Sal mentally kicked himself for his clumsiness as the bucket emptied its contents over the floor. Not only had he not been looking where he was stepping - a foolish thing in such an industrialized part of Lhavit - but he had unintentionally made his presence known to what was effectively his target and source of his investigation. He readied himself for whatever tirade of words would come from the inarta, but instead she plucked up the bucket and shoved it into his hands with a sigh.

As she handed over the bucket, Ornea regarded Sal with a critical eye, making him at once feel like he was being summed up right on the spot. She gazed into his eyes in such a way that he felt like she was trying to see through them, at the working behind the eyes. She looked him over like...like a specimen, with no more emotion than a butcher picking out the next fat cow to chop up into steaks. It was disconcerting to be the focus of such attention, and Sal could not deny the feeling of discomfort that sneaked up his neck and tickled the hairs with devious and cruel fingers.

Suddenly she had hold of his arm, as though she was about to frogmarch him off the premises. He felt compelled to apologize about the bucket, hoping that by doing so would remedy this unfortunate situation. As he spoke though, she stopped rigidly, looking up at him again with an incredulous look on her face. His mind raced over his words, searching for any instances where he might have caused offense. But his mind drew blanks, and he realized that he was stood there staring right back at her. It was a confusing moment for both parties, holding each other's gazes but both thinking about very different things.

Again the inarta moved suddenly, releasing his arm and taking a step back. A change washed over her face as she spoke. "By all means," she said in an altogether more friendly sounding tone. Only, after she spoke, she stood there glued to the spot. This time, instead of that piercing gaze she had earlier cast at him, she seemed more...curious. Sal stood clutching the bucket, truly and honestly flummoxed by the whole ordeal and, for the first time for as long as he could remember in his life, at a loss for words.

Sheepishly, feeling like a naughty boy, he looked down at the bucket and figured that perhaps she was wanting him to refill it. That was all his mind could come up with for now, so glancing back up at her with a sort of confused look of his own, he awkwardly asked her, "Erm, where is the water?" He wiggled the bucket in front of him to emphasize his question, before looking left and right to see if there was a water outlet or well within plain sight. Unable to spot anything in the immediate area, instead he could only turn his attention back to the stunning redhead, waiting quietly for her reply.

[Ornea]

Ornea’s attentive gaze observed and followed every small movement Sal did, in order to gauge his degree of humanity or non-humanity. He seemed really human to be honest, and normally she would definitely have taken it for granted that he was what he looked to be.

But the way Sal stood clutching the bucket, staring mutely and sheepishly back and forth between her and the bucket struck her as pretty unusual. It looked like he wasn’t clear to him what was happening or what he was doing at Lucis. When he started to wiggle the bucket in front of him, looked to the left and to the right and asked where the water was and then just stood there waiting like he expected her to give an instruction, she really wasn’t sure what to think.

She was still fairly new at Lucis and didn't know exactly what she would find there. Most parts of the automated transportations were easy to identify as machines, like the Luci STU (special transportation unit) of older, simpler model which was slowly, slowly on it’s way towards them right now ; it looked like a big flat crate and consisted of a platform with a knee high frame around it in order to keep the transported goods in place. There were some machine parts on it, but she wasn’t able to see exactly what

Where is the water, he had asked. She studied Sal thoughtfully and analyzed the facts she had so far. It wasn’t only about what he had done and said. She was on alert and had also noticed what he had not said and not done. He hadn’t made any kind of attempt to introduce himself, tell her his name and extend his hand to her in a greeting. People used to do this, normally, she thought to herself. They don’t just turn up, kick a bucket, apologize, stare mutely and then ask where the water is, like they aren’t aware of the social situation at all.

All these facts could be seen as speaking for the possibility of him being a complicated mechanical being infused with a form of magic called animation. But she concluded this was so far just speculations.

Ornea knew next to nothing about animation. It was an unwelcome and disliked form of magic in Wind Reach and her teacher Ritva had only mentioned it briefly, like it was dangerous to even speak about it. But here in Lhavit it was different. Although Ornea felt really suspicious and not at all comfortable with the idea of given a similarity of life to machines, she had already understood that Edward Luci took great interest in crafting the kind of complicated automata that could be used for it, by a knowledgeable animator.

She hadn’t wanted to know so much about the dubious animation magic so she hadn’t asked much about it. But she had been told it could range between infusing just simple reflexes to infusing true life into an item, and even bind actual souls in order to create sentient beings made wood, metal, cloth and feathers, bone and stone. It was hard to say if beings made of materials that weren’t flesh and blood but had a soul ought to be counted as dead or alive. And there was the question of the soul. Where did the souls that were supposed to be used for animation come from in the first place?

This question was really uncomfortable. Animators had to get the souls from somewhere, and the only souls Ornea knew about were the souls of the living. Did animators steal souls to use for their magic, or how else did they get over the souls? And even if it was just about simpler forms of the magic, where did they get the life from? Where, and how? There seemed to be ample reason for being wary. Ornea shuddered inwards at the mere thought of it. Animation might be in use here in Lhavit and her own much admired employer might be involved in it as the maker of the machines and user of some of the animated things, but this didn’t mean Ornea had to uncritically embrace the idea of binding life or life-like traits onto objects.

Well, she could actually accept the transportation units and other obviously mechanical things being infused with a small amount of magic in order to enhance their usefulness. There was no denying it was efficient and comfortable with the Luci STUs that moved around in the buildings and offered easy moving of things from one spot to another. She even found them fun, secretly, though she used to conceal how entertaining she found it, when Edward energetically jumped up on a bypassing STU beckoned her to follow. He used to turn up the speed and send them travelling quickly to where they were going, while he used the “travel time” to speak with her about work issues. It felt fun to ride at high speed on a transportation unit, the same way it could feel fun to go at high speed on an eagle.

But now it wasn’t about a simple transportation unit.

She watched Sal. He looked totally human. The looks was what spoke for the human theory.

“Wait. Here” she said, speaking to him slowly, one word at the time. “Stand. Still.” She went over to the furnace she was using and had a look at the metal’s she was melting. She moved the melting pots a bit and studied the progress. The metals weren’t ready for casting yet. This wasn't so easy to see for people who weren't competent metalsmiths, but she knew what she was doing. The melting was an important step in the work. Ornea added more fuel to the fire. This done, she returned to Sal.

The slowly advancing STU would be there in a chime or a few. Ornea looked at the man (or potential life infused machine) and decided that the best would be to not send him to fetch water on his own. If it was a malfunctioning automaton anything could happen, and the next thing it did could very well be much more serious than spilling water. She had to supervise it. And it if he was a person it was best to not lose sight of him. He had asked for water, and she was worried about the pumps. Allowing somebody unknown to go near the pumps without anybody there to see what he was doing was out of question. So...they would go together to the water pumps, where the pumps for water directly to Lucis could be found too, and get some new water in that bucket. Then she would be able to study how he behaved around the pumps. She figured this could become quite revealing.

If nothing else would happen and stop this, she would grab Sals arm once again, with the slowly utterd words “Come. Here.” She would then to make him jump onboard the transportation unit, jump after, turn up it’s speed and head to the pumps.

...

[Sal Mander]

Sal was truly confused about the whole situation. If he had any sense, it had been stored in an imaginary bucket of his own, that Ornea had promptly kicked over with all her might. His sense now laid scattered across the ground, leaving the human with the urge to scratch his head in bewilderment. In truth, it was the inarta that puzzled him most. What should have been a simple case of apologizing for one's clumsiness, had in fact descended into a dual of curious glances and confused stares, coupled with unspoken theories that both entertained about the other. Furthermore, the crazy redhead had started talking to him like a foreigner who did not speak the native tongue very well.

She speaks to me like I were a dog, Sal thought to himself, mustering an image in his head of his own mutt, sitting and offering paws on command in return for the promise of treats. No treats for Sal on this occasion, though he did wonder what the woman's reaction would have been if he did just sit down and offer one of his hands. It was not as if the whole affair could get much more puzzling that it had already become.

Leaving him to ponder for a moment, Ornea set off back to where she had been working, prior to the whole bucket spilling incident. Sal watched her with a ravenous curiosity, deciding there and then that he had never come across such a strange woman in all his days. And there had been some strange ones indeed. That said, he could not help agree with himself that it was truly a shame she was 'maybe' a little crazy in the head. She was after all fair on the eyes. Not that Sal was one to rely on looks alone to forge his opinion on a woman. But with that said, it never hurt if they were cute.

Shaking his head in dismay at his wandering thoughts, he chastised himself for being such a man in such a moment, while also reminding himself of why he had come here to begin with. The rumor was that the inarta was planning some devious plot to meddle with Lhavit's water supply. In the employ of Lucis, this would indeed have put her in a prime position to carry out any sabotage she had planned. The fact that she had earned an apprenticeship to begin with meant she had won over the old inventor's trust, no easy feat in itself. So she was devious and clever, no doubt having used her charms to put herself in such an advantageous situation.

It was funny in a way. Earlier, Sal had given little to no faith in the rumors at all, most of which proved to be nothing more than idle gossip. But such was the woman's behavior so far, Sal's mind had started to create and form facts from thin air, feeding them with further imagined ideas of her evilness towards Lhavit, while finally having settled on the notion that she must have been - without a shred of evidence of course - the very villain those rumors had stated her to be. There really was no explanation for Sal's lack of judgement, made all the more baffling in that it was most uncharacteristic of him. He had been around people all his life, had learned to read patterns of speech, seek hidden meanings that dangled loosely between the lines, and ferreted out information and knowledge like a sniffer dog. Perhaps then, in this situation where he was at a loss to explain the person before him, his mind could only keep going back to that rumor for the basis of his assumptions. He would kick himself later when he finally got to the bottom of this, but for now he could not think of anything else other than that he needed to be on his guard.

Ornea was a villain. A viper, slinking in the tall grass waiting for the ideal time to strike. But he had the upper hand. He knew what she was, what she was up to. With the advantage of that knowledge, he would have the element of surprise. He just had to bide his time, wait for the opportune moment. Yes, that was it. The best form of defense was attack. She would not even see it coming.

By the time Ornea returned, Sal had already finalized his own devious plan. He would play along this charade, continuing to watch her every move and take as many notes in his head as he needed. More knowledge would only help him to further formulate his own cunning plan. He thought himself too clever for a mere apprentice. He had grown overconfident, and in doing so, he was getting farther and farther from the truth.

She motioned for him to climb aboard an approaching transport unit, which he did so swiftly and silently. Sitting on it, he decided to keep very still, his eyes looking ahead at nothing in particular. But he only wanted her to think he was just staring off into the distance. Instead he was listening, waiting, plotting. If he moved around or started talking, it might have caused him to lose concentration, especially since he needed it now more than ever. After all, she might have been planning to take him off somewhere and deal with him. But his ears were on alert, waiting for any sign or signal that she was preparing to strike. Such was his focus on the inarta that he hardly noticed when the transport unit arrived at the pumps. Instead, he merely sat still as a corpse, waiting to see what Ornea did next.

[Ornea]

They arrived at the pump area. It was full of huge machinery made of wood and metal and a mace of big water pipes. Edward had tried to explain to her how it all worked, but Ornea lacked the insights in gadgeteering, construction and whatever she would have needed to really understand it.

She would learn it later, but now now.

In comparison to what would have been considered advanced in the old world before the Valterran the machinery of Lucis was actually miserably primitive. Nonetheless it was the front end technology of the postvalterran time in Mizahar, and Edward Lucis was its brilliant inventor.

Now Ornea looked at the man with the bucket. He had followed her onboard the mechanical transportation unit and sat very still on it, his eyes looking ahead at nothing in particular, staring off into the distance, saying nothing. He has sat there still as a ...corpse. This did maybe speak for the automaton theory. But there was also something else, more subtle, that she hadn’t had time to notice until she had left the foundy and all the things there that had claimed her attention.

While they were on the transportation unit she had finally been able to focus on her odd companion and nothing else than him. He looked nice enough and despite the detached gaze and his general oddness there was something she reacted to, on a basic human level, as she identified him as a man and not an item. Once she was aware of this human meets human kind of feeling her agitation had prevented her from noticin before, it occurred to her that he wasn’t unappealing. Ornea suppressed this thought, displeased with herself, as she was unwilling to believe she could even think the word ‘appealing’ about a bespelled machine with a stolen soul. That would just be a nightmare and a horror. Well. She resolutely stopped herself from following this trail of thought to its bitter end.

Still...an inner voice nagged at her disturbingly; wasn’t she well on her way to start to share Edward Lucis fascination for gadgeteering and machines and wasn’t there a chance, however small, that she actually WOULD start to think an odd but human-like machine appealing? Edward liked machines ... and to be honest she was starting to like machines too, as this was inevitable at Lucis.

She decided to do some discrete tests. Treating him like an automaton had worked, but now when she analyzed this fact she realized it didn’t tell her anything. The way she had spoken could have been understood by a dog too, and certainly by a human. So his reactions so far had been worthless information for her. She would need to do something else. She must find an unsuspicious way to touch him so she could check the consistence and temperature, she thought. And she would do an intelligence test by giving him complex verbal instructions.

First she pulled off her smithing gloves and took his hand, seemingly in order to guide the confused ...person, to the tap where they were going to fetch the water. But she was in fact investigating how his hand felt. At least at the surface it felt warm and alive. Ornea squeezed it a bit, but felt no signs on hidden wood or cold metal beneath the flesh.

They reached the tap and she let go of his hand, as it would have seemed weird to stand there and hold it now when there was no excuse for it. To be honest, she had nearly come to the conclusion that he wasn’t a machine, and she had just been carried away. He had felt human. So, she didn't dare to dismiss the golem theory just yet. He was most likely just what he looked to be, a human man and not a golem. But she couldn't be totally sure, and even if he was human he was still odd. It still remained to figure out what he was doing at Lucis.

Ornea took a few ticks to admire a certain beautiful cast pump part not far from the tap. It was her first serious result from the metalsmithing job at Lucis. She was proud of it and it felt good to see the result of her own work be part of this fantastic machinery. She reached out and touched it with a feeling of true satisfaction. This nice piece of competent metalwork was hers, cast by her and polished and adjusted to high precision by her. “This one’s mine” she said in passing by. “A most important part of this machinery and it’s workings.”

But she couldn’t lose herself in crafting dreams now. Instead she turned to the odd man again. He was looking as absent as ever where he stood with the bucket and watched the tap. Ornea would now tell him to use the tap and get the water. The tap was actually made of two parts for safety reasons, so in order to use it you had to place the bucket under it, hold down a small lever with your left hand and turn the tap with the right hand.

Ornea explained this to Sal and added what Edward called this solution: “This is called a dead man’s grip” she said. “I guess it’s because it requires you to hold on to both the lever and the tap at same time. It could mean DEATH to have both hands busy and nothing to defend oneself with, if some wild animal would attack.”

If Sal would follow the instructions she would supervise him. Then her gaze would fall on a screwdriver somebody had forgotten on the floor and she would squat, pick it up and start to stand up again, now with the tool in her right hand. Assuming he was busy filling the bucket with water, she would maybe take the chance to do one more discrete touch test by putting her left hand on his back or neck, pretending to support herself while she got to her feet again. If she was lucky she might detect a heartbeat or pulse, she thought to herself.

...

[Sal Mander]

Be ready, Sal warned himself as Ornea disembarked from the transport device. This day had been a strange one, not just from the people that had filled it - namely a rather strange and curious inarta - but also because it was a day that Sal had not acted like himself at all. He would look back on this day and question both his methods and his state of mind. All he had to do was arrive at Lucis and Lucis, ask a few subtle questions and try to gauge if there was any truth to the rumors. Those rumors in question concerned the possible sabotage of Lhavit's water supply, located as it was at Lucis' establishment. The prime suspect had been the redhead, who also just happened to have found herself taken on there as an apprentice. All coincidence to the rational mind, but Ornea's strange reaction to Sal's arrival had somehow triggered in his mind a descent into, for want of a better word, madness.

Her peculiarities had led him to fan the flames of those rumors, creating the illusion that she was indeed the villainous entity behind the whole grand scheme to ruin Lhavit, (while having conveniently forgotten to come up with any reasons or motives as to why). Furthermore, he had now burrowed so deep into the idea that she was the villain, that he now genuinely feared for his life, having convinced himself that she was taking him somewhere to 'deal' with him once and for all, thus keeping her treacherous secrets well hidden.

But he was ready for such an attack, and was not about to be taken by surprise by some sneaky saboteur from Wind Reach. Those redheads had another thing coming if they thought Lhavitians were easy prey. A feeling of pride washed over him as he regarded his city fondly, further installing in him a sense of duty, since he could effectively become the hero that saved the city from certain doom. Not that he sought such accolades or plaudits. No, for him the real achievement would come from having mounted another successful investigation. That was, after all, his true job and duty in Lhavit.

His train of thought was interrupted when Ornea took one of his hands in hers. He was taken unawares by her actions and nearly pulled his hand back. But he had come too far now to break from character. He had been keeping his mouth shut and playing the part of a clueless simpleton, since she had opted to talk to him like he had no sense to begin with anyway. Even now, as she led him over to a water pump with a tap and lever attached to it, he felt like a blind man being led carefully across a busy street by some kind citizen. She held his hand and even gave it a squeeze for a moment. Her skin was warm against his, and he noticed that he was not uncomfortable with having his hand held by the woman, even if he was convinced she was about to kill him.

Once at the pump, she dutifully explained its method for working it, while then commenting on some nearby piece that she claimed to have made herself. But it was the next part that truly had his heart racing, fearing his potential demise was close at hand. This time it was not so much what she did, but rather what she had to say. Commenting on the fact that he was defenseless, with both his hands required for working the pump, he could not help but detect the hidden threat in her words. She's onto me, he concluded in dismay, realizing that his attempts to be clever had come undone, and that this was the end.

He glanced over his shoulder while he began to work the pump, noticing that she crouched down to the ground and plucked up something in her hand. His heart was hammering against its own anvil that was his chest, threatening to break through at any moment as beads of sweat began to run down his back. Then she moved forwards, a shimmer of something in her hand. A blade perhaps? This was it. She was about to strike. Her hand pressed against his neck, strangely delicate as if feeling skin for the first time, where instead he had expected her to grab at it violently while her other hand thrust into his side. For a brief moment Ornea felt Sal's pulse, frighteningly fast from the result of fear and adrenaline.

He had entered this situation in a heroic fashion, with ideas of uncovering her foul plot and saving the city. But now it was simply a matter of survival. He thought he was about to be murdered there and then by the prettiest inarta he had ever met, so self preservation kicked in with only one goal in mind. Get the petch out of there!

First he lifted his hand from the lever, grabbing at the handle of the now half filled bucket. As he lifted it, he began to turn his body so that he slipped away from her grasp on his neck. He saw now the sharp instrument in her other hand, and instinctively brought the bucket around in a wide arc to swipe at her with it. In doing so he had put his body into a spinning momentum. When the bucket strike flew harmlessly past Ornea, Sal found himself continuing the spin and losing his balance. He tried to steady himself with a few steps, while bringing the bucket out of its orbit, but instead he stumbled and fell a few feet away from where he had started. But this proved advantageous, having given him a few moments and a little space to act again. The bucket had fallen and emptied its contents for the second time today. But he did not hesitate to ponder on this. Instead he grabbed the bucket while clambering to his feet, before he hurled it straight at a surprised Ornea.

Sal did not even wait to see the result of his attack. Instead he had turned and began sprinting away as fast as his long legs could carry him. His heart already beating in his chest, it was now in his throat as he pushed himself forwards, feeling the burn and strain in legs that were not used to being pushed to such limits. Retracing the path the transport device had taken, he headed back towards the smithy, before turning hard and hurtling out of the compound and back onto the city streets. He never looked back to see if Ornea had given chase, instead throwing himself down alleys and turns in a bid to shake her off in case she was a few paces behind.

His sprint had deteriorated into a desperate run, sluggishly sidestepping some people while shouldering into others as his reflexes diminished. Then the chase came to an abrupt end, Sal finding himself clattering into something that knocked the wind out of his stomach. He felt the sky starting to spin, realizing that he was no longer running along the ground, but rather his feet were running through the air. Before his mind could conceive of the possibility of running upwards into the sky, his body did the opposite by coming to land harshly on the ground with a might thud. He lay there in a pool of misery and sweat, staring straight up at the clouds and feeling like he had just been rammed by an okomo. Several faces came into view, looking down with a mixture of concern and amusement, followed by a hand or two that took his and helped him to his feet.

Thankfully there was no redhead in view, instead just a crowd of people he had managed to run straight into. No broken bones or injuries of that kind, though his ego had taken a bit of a beating. But what really mattered was that he was alive and breathing, without any stab wounds or signs of attempted murder. However, there still remained the issue of Ornea. She had tried to kill him, or so he thought. But as he dusted himself down and caught his breath, the collision had seemed to knock out his earlier stupidity and senseless theories. He started to retrace the events that had passed, and started to realize that he had been too quick to come to his conclusions. Had she really been trying to kill him? It was hard to say if he was honest. On one hand, she had taken him off to a quiet area in the compound and stood a little too close to him with a weapon. But on the other hand, now that he thought about it, was that not just a screwdriver she had found on the ground? It would have taken some effort to kill a man with a screwdriver. Not impossible of course, but certainly a lot of effort if the man in question was fighting for his life. Furthermore, he had asked for a place to fill the bucket. Had she not simply just taken him to that exact place?

He shook his head, not sure what to think anymore. He could agree with himself though that she had been a most strange person indeed. It was in the way that she had spoke to him and gazed at him, as if not sure what to make of the man. But then he too had acted in such a way that maybe Ornea herself was thinking how strange he was. At the end of all that thinking, all he could say now was that he was intrigued by her, embarrassed by himself, and most of all no closer to having found answers to his investigation. While he could have renewed his hunt for answers, he decided that for now at least, he would let this one sit on his desk for a while before revisiting it.

Besides, he really needed the rest.

[Ornea]

It had all happened so quickly that Ornea hadn’t stood a chance to defend herself against the sudden bucket attack. The man had been moving so slowly all the time and she hadn’t been prepared for the sudden speed he had acted with.

One tick she had found and felt the telltale pulse of life that had told her the answer to the "man or machine" question that had been on her mind from the moment she had first seen Sal stand there, motionless and looking stupefied.

Next tick he had exploded into action, behaved like he was in a fight, hurled the bucket at her, turned around and ran.

The bucket wasn’t full, but there was still some water in it. Ornea tried to dodge it, but the man had had the advantage of surprise. All she accomplished was that the bucket hit her left shoulder instead of hitting her straight in the face, while she staggered backwards, stumbled on one of the pumps, lost her foothold and fell. The bucket fell with her, emptied it’s wet content over her and rolled away over the floor with a clattering, rattling sound of metal against stone and wood.

Ornea hadn’t been injured by the bucket, but when she fell, the back of her head hit one of all the machinery parts. She wasn’t knocked out, but for an uncertain number of chimes she felt dizzy and unable to do anything else that sit up very slowly and stare impotently after the running man until he disappeared out of sight and was gone.

She probed the back of her head carefully; right now she was mostly concerned with her own well-being and wanted to know how bad it was. There was a lump already, she could feel in under the hair, quite big and quite painful now when the first numb shock had left her. But there was no blood on her fingers, so it seemed like she had been lucky and whatever she had hit her head on had been made of wood and not of metal.

Sal had disappeared around a corner. For a few ticks she considered jumping on the Luci STU and pursue him, but she realized it would be futile. They had already used most of it’s mechanical power in order to get to the pumps. Now she would need to first turn the crankshaft a number of times in order to tense those springs Edward had explained how they drove the mechanical device. It would take too much time. There wasn’t even the shadow of a chance to catch up with the man now. And even if she had been able to do that, she was unarmed. The man was overall taller and bigger than her and had already attacked her; it seemed like a really bad idea to try to find out the hard way if he for one actually was armed and had some hidden weapon on him.

So.

The man had escaped, and now Ornea was left behind to deal with the implications of what had happened, shocked, somewhat injured and partly soaked. She got to her feet, still moving slowly as she was worried about the lump on her head. Now...she would walk back to the foundry and add some more coal to the fire. There was no need to ignore her job. Then...she would walk over to the building where she expected to find her employer and tell him everything about the incident.

Thoughts milled in her mind as she crossed the open space between the buildings of Lucis and Lucis, heading to the offices. She organized her memories, impressions and observations; maybe Edward would know something about a tall and nearly mute man who looked absent and could even be mistaken for some kind of automaton? He might be a known madman of sorts. She hoped so. In that case Edward would be able to turn to the Shinya with this. Otherwise all they would be able to do was keep their eyes open and try to detect signs of new intrusions.

The second scenario was an unpleasant thought, but she didn’t avoid it. There was no reason to not face it. An Inarta didn’t shy away from facing harsh reality. She just wished she had taken time to study details of the man, like the color of his eyes and such, so she had been able to give a better description. As was, she had been so focused on her suspicions about him being an automaton that she had mostly watched for signs of unnatural, unhuman things. Now she realized this had been counterproductive, as her description of the intruder was bound to be very vague.

She was upset, scared, and most of all furious. By the time she walked into Edwards offices and started to report to him the inarta was one small shortfused bomb of rage. Her voice was so thick with anger when she spoke that Edward had to ask her to repeat it all, and please in a calmer, slower way, so he had chance to get what it was about. After hearing her out this second time he concluded they needed to increase the safety at Lucis, and he would do, but alas her description of the intruder who had attacked her didn’t ring any bell.

Edward sent Ornea home for the day. He would complete the work she had started. And so she went home to her apartment at Solar Winds, where she took off her wet working clothes, just to realize she didn’t have anything else than far too elegant evening wear to shift into. Feeling totally surreal now, she donned her Lhavitian evening outfit. Laughing in disbelief at the whole situation and wondering if she was sane, she lay down on the canopy bed and stared up at the white cloth hangings above her. The lump in the back of her head throbbed dully. But she was happy to feel it there, as it told her the whole thing really had happened and wasn’t a product of her mind straying away in dreams.

She had physical evidence. The encounter with the not-a-golem had been as real as the robbery at Bright Lights. This meant more things might happen. The odd robber Iskiraya Mifune was maybe still around somewhere in Lhavit. The machine-like intruder was still around too. Ornea didn't rule it out that the two of them might be in league. If they were two, and not just one ... this was maybe not over yet, whatever it was. Well, it was maybe even just the beginnings.

The thought made her heart beat as hard and fast as the pulse she had felt on the unknown man right before the attack.

...