RP:A Steam-Powered Chicken

Part of the Repairing the Irreparable Arc

Summary: Kang and company seeks to improve their understanding of the clockwork mechanisms to replace Cass' lost wing. Muzo returns to offer aide and further enlightenment. Cass is exercising to regain her lost strength.

Lair of the Tinkers

Kang powerwalks back and forth overlooking the newest developments of the energetic tinkers. Since his last pamphlet came out, they've developed rudimentary clockwork chickens. Ticking and pecking fills the area. One might worry about how the perpetual ruckus would affect the recovery of the young avian girl, but she's awake and active, a small weight attached to where her wing had been torn off. She is calmly doing stretches and going through a complex ritual of daggerwork, reciting who knows what in a language spoken only by monsters, demons, and Kang.

Muzo appears abruptly with a "BOOM" in a billowing puff of acrid green smoke, coughing and waving away the fumes around himself. "Hack! Ghach! K-hugh-gha-khah! Khrm, gha. Phew!" Still waving with one hand, he squints from behind laboratory goggles, peering through the thinning fumes, trying to discern his surroundings. "Kang's place?" He asks for verification. Goblins, clockwork chickens, an avian, and, oho! There's Kang himself. The naga's face lights up, and he sets his goggles on his forehead. "Stopping back in. Wanted to see how things were coming along. Didn't think I'd forgotten about you?" Attention swings to the avian, and he leans around, trying to catch a glimpse of her eye.

Kang barks something out in Chthonic, and the girl immediately snaps to attention. She meets the naga's gaze with her good eye, and slowly her repaired eye swivels open like a camera lens. Not that the comparison would be recognized in this realm, or anywhere in Lithrydel. Cass switches to common for ease of communication. "Sorry, sir. Not quite used to the change in muscle usage." Her newly grown eye stares through the metal protection, firmly rooted in the damaged flesh. Various goblins makes changes to their designs during the interchange: adding teeth, adjusting gears, greasing joints, and in one case, adding a canister of black powder. Apparently the appearance of the naga had spurred the imaginations of Kregus' finest. Kang's top apprentice begins taking measurements. . .of Muzo. No one is quite sure why.

Muzo raises his brows in surprise and fascination at the sight of the ocular aperture, and he is about to slither over and give the avian a closer examination when, to his further surprise, he is being measured. Muzo straightens obligingly and twists at the waist, trying to get a fair look at what the goblin might be doing exactly. No matter. He'd spent enough time with the creatures to begin to gain at least some inkling of their peculiarly charming ways. "Good to see you on your feet!" The naga greets Cass with a grin and an eager nod. "Don't know if you remember or not but I was the one who, well," Muzo points at his own eye socket, "played my part in your recovery." The alchemist's attention then snaps to Kang. "Seem to have been busy!" Cautiously, he lifts the tip of his tail to lightly prod one of the clockwork chickens and, ah, whoops, upsets the wobbling automaton's equilibrium. It falls on its side. Muzo clears his throat. "Much advanced since our last meeting."

Kang said to Muzo, "We have you to thank for that. I have no idea what the paper you gave them said, but it sped up the learning curve by weeks, if not months, or years." The owner of the chicken that tipped rushes to set it right, while another who'd seen the incident offers a weighted ball on a string to solve the balance issue. They quickly get into a very accelerated conversation, argument, debate, again not sure if the conversation is productive or hostile. The female tinker with her measuring instruments continues to measure the naga, occasionally making notes. Kang explains the concept of scales to her and she stops, looking confused for a moment as the idea is processed. Once she arranges the new thought with the rest inside her head she begins making notes, occasionally asking for clarification from the Master Tinker. Cass remains at attention, knowing her duty lies with satisfying the naga who'd repaired her eye. "Many thanks, sir. The new eye works exceptionally great, perhaps better than the original."

Muzo blinks at the mention of a piece of paper, then suddenly, he gasps in recollection, grinning from ear to ear, or, well, from one side of his face to the other. "Yes, general ectoenthalpy tables," he reaches down to his hip to unclasp Formulae's bookstrap, and the spellbook immediately flutters up to begin lazily wafting through the air, playing the oversized butterfly as usual. "Had hoped they might be able to make use of it. Already made *unconventional* use of it." He tries to trace the wheels of the multislicer in the air. "Delighted to hear they're as enthusiastic as ever." Looking down, he spots one of the goblins following Formulae with his gaze, and the alchemist gives his spellbook a friendly tap on the spine. "Another for them, then, would you? Could let such industrious students go uninspired." Obligingly, the sentient spellbook quivers and shakes out another leaf of paper, covered in a fresh set of tables and diagrams. Muzo catches it midair. "Ah! Carnemalgem compatibility refrence. Here," he offers it to the waiting goblin who accepts it avariciously, turning it immediately this way and that in his grasp before prancing off, several others close on his heels. "Wonder what he'll come back with," Muzo muses earnestly. His attention returns to Cass. "Couldn't be happier to hear it." Slithering a little closer, he takes a peek, only to realize he's interrupted the chief student's careful measurements. Muzo gasps, "ah! Apologies!"

Kang makes a few suggestions to the tinkers still working on the clockwork mechanisms. Just then, the spark returns and zips around to examine the devices adding it's own flavor to the devices. While Kang is advising on the sharpening of teeth and adding stabilizers to tippy mechanical animals, the spark sears inverted runes of inverted sentience and purpose. Of course, no one takes any notice of this and the devices are only chickens. The first apprentice waves off Muzo's apologies and shakes his hand, thanking him for the cooperation. Cass looks over to Kang for any signal that the talking portion was over. She was eager to get back to her workout, she could feel how much muscle mass she'd lost during her initial recovery. Regardless, she stands perfectly relaxed, other than subtle periodic flexing of specific muscle groups. Tighten and relax, repeat and move on. Kang sketches a complex diagram on a scrap of paper and handds it to the goblin woman who had been measuring Muzo. She scans it, and then furrows her brow unsure what it means. Slowly, her brow loosens, then raises as she realizes what she'd been given: a diagram on how to install a boiler into the clockwork devices to make them perpetuate, or in goblin terms, "Keep going more!!!" In fact, she shouts exactly that before rushing to share this with the mass that had rushed out with the new Carnemalgam sheet. Lithrydel wouldn't know what hit them.

Muzo shakes the goblin's hand with somewhat apprehensive pleasure, then looks back to Cass. Sensing the avian's anxiousness, he nods to her. "Very pleased to know you're doing well. Please, don't let me interrupt more than I already have." Carefully, the naga slithers across the busy workshop toward Kang, doing his best not to bump into any of the goblins' creations as he goes. "Amazing progress," he notes again, having regained a bit of decorum, and he clears his throat. "Quite charitable, taking the goblins under your wing like this. Doubt anyone could have anticipated such advances. Deeply intrigued. Very curious to see how this improves their way of life." Looking behind himself, Muzo sees his tail stretching like a barricade across the floor, and before he can become an obstacle to be surmounted, he hurries to pull the limb toward himself, folding it neatly in a bundle. "Have not been as busy as I would like, lately," Muzo goes on, "and wouldn't mind volunteering at your academy here. Noble work, spreading knowledge, you know. Well, *of course* you know. Still, wanted you know know that it's something I believe in." Gently, the researcher wrings his hands, looking around the floor.

Kang finishes his rounds and gets back to Muzo. "We would sure appreciate you contributions." Kang tries to figure in the various unknowns that one of Muzo's background and interests could add to the equation, and judges it more helpful than harmful. Adjusting to new ideas is something Kang excels at. "Not that it's an academy. The tinkers offered to help." The few remaining goblins look proud at this aknowledement. "So I figured they should have all the resources at -my- disposal added to theirs, in order to best do the job they already wish to do." All true, just not the whole story. Cass returns to her stretches and daggerwork, reciting the lines she'd been taught, in Chthonic, like always. "The tinkers' interests lie in improving their toys. Any new ideas will be assimilated, I'm sure. They want to learn."

Muzo perks up at Kang's apparent acceptance. The naga had known it was a little presumptuous of him to offer, but still, it only seemed right. "Can call it what you will," Muzo laughs, for the snake is completely unsuspecting of any anterior motives. "Won't be fooled by your modesty, regardless. Plain to see that you are accomplishing the extraordinary. Surprised, truthfully," Muzo looks up at the sound of some of the tinkers returning, "that you haven't gone public." Two of the tinkers that had run off with the reference table have now returned. One is wobbling on what seems to be an overly elaborate pair of stilts, and the other follows him, noisily shouting directions and giving the stilt-walker an occasional push if he starts tilting too far one way or another. It's plain to see that they've incorporated some of the new clockwork into the artificial legs, and they're moving as much under their own power as anything else. The goblin mostly seems to be steering them about, if rather precariously so.

Kang pays little to no attention to the constant rushing in and out of the room. Much of the same had been going on for weeks, and increasing steadily. He does raise an eyebrow at the mechanical legs, but in the end let's it go as a product of technological ascension. It's what he'd been striving for, if not how. Shortly after the first group, the second group return, his prime apprentice in the lead. They are carrying an aluminum wing, with leather straps. Cass sees it and at Kang's nod, seats herself, lotus position. The goblins expertly connect the device to her back, cutting a little here so as to connect tendons to clockwork parts. Minutes pass, filled only by sporadic ticking, grinding metal, and "Better or worse?" Clockwork and goblin ingenuity combine to replace the lost limb. Kang doesn't expect the weights to be right, but he can make adjustments in the coming weeks. One last goblin, smaller than the rest steps into the room. He leans over with his own chicken and pops a sliver of wood into the beak. Immediately, it starts clucking and whistling as the boiler kicks in. Steam engines and clockwork had combined in the first step toward advancement.

Muzo watches as the spring driving the legs eventually goes lax, and when the last tock is ticked, the legs freeze up, and no matter how the two goblins try to keep the balance, eventually the stilts topple, knocking some of the apparatus asunder and sending gears, spring, and other bits of metal leaping away at odd angles. Undaunted, the two scoop up the pieces and rush to repairing and improving the contraption. Taking Formulae in hand, Muzo slithers from one tinker to another to another, jotting down notes of his own. Not about to begin barking instructions on his very first day, the researcher seems quite content as an observer, at least for now. When one of the goblins offers him an odd jumble of pipes and tubing, Muzo picks it up carefully, studying it in one had. "My laboratory setup?" Despite the very fresh addition of a boiler and pistons, it's no stretch to imagine a resemblance, and sure enough, the goblin nods emphatically. "Slice-a-ma-dice-its!" he points a little finger at a rather treacherously bladed flywheel spinning wildly on one side. Just as he nods, the bit of pipework gives a discordant "tang!" and spits a gout of steam out the top, narrowly missing Muzo's ophidian face. "Delightful." The naga mutters and he hands it carefully back.

Kang continues offering suggestions, which are mostly taken as law, but occasionally ignored with energetic explanations which almost never make rational sense. However, the preklek only overrules them when it comes to Cass. Her recovery is his top priority. If a goblin wants to use a stone with high amounts of sodium bicarbonate in a device that will soon enter into an area rich in peroxide mist, or use pure alkaline in an amphibious vehicle, who is he to stop them from trying? After all, goblins don't mind explosions. Cass flexes her new wing and slowly learns the new muscle commands for controlling it. The sensations are quite different, but she will learn them. Her training demands no less than her best efforts. Her recitation speeds up as sweat forms on her brow. New muscles are used, and older muscles are being forced back into use. At some point in her recitation a single word in common slips out: "Unbroken". Kang glances over and nods his approval. "Slow stretches, until your flexibility returns. Hurting yourself again helps no one."

Muzo discovers himself busy with one of the goblins and her mechanical chicken. Muzo has taken out some of his alchemical reagents, and he mixing a bit of this, a bit of that, and, much to the goblin's fascination, has drawn a sigil around the chicken that now gently pulses and glows with arcane energy. "...used as a base for carnemalgemous affixation, as prescribed by the data," he points to a copy of the chart that he'd handed to the others previously, "an permit a viable infusion for paraspontaneous generation." Thus explained, the researcher tips a few drops of essence and serum onto the chicken. Immediately, there is a bright green flash and a puff of chicken down that flutters around them like confetti. Where, moments before, stood a purely mechanical chicken, there now stands a misshapen, fleshy creature covered in patchy feathers. Bits of metal and gears protrude from its skin. Muze beams. "And there you have it. A carnemalgamous construct." Said construct gives a strained squawk from its metallic beak and quivers in a voilent spasm, turning its head a full 270 degrees. Giving the goblin a little bit of reagent to work with, the naga pushes himself aright just in time to catch the last bit of chatter between Kang and Cass. "Don't mean to butt in," he butts in, "but what *was* the nature of your initial injury, Cass?"

Kang stops what he's doing to listen to her reply. He'd heard several reports, and had figure out the rest on his own, but how would his charge view the events? The avian girl rises with barely a twinge. Having a wing -forged- onto your body is quite painful, but she will endure. "The caretaker for Gigi failed, and I thought I could stop her. I thought my training would be enough to contain her. I was wrong. I failed, and Gigi escaped." Tears escape from Cass's eyes despite her calm recounting of events. The pain hadn't broken her, the damage didn't bother her, but the thought of failing her caretaker, Dedicate Kang, was too much. He directs the tinkers to continue their work so he can go over to huis charge. "Gigi was too much for both of us. She is and has been taken care of. No loss, no permanent failure. We will recover." He wipes the tears away. "Remember our mantra, acolyte." She straightens herself and says one word. "Unbroken. I remember, sir." The preklek turns to the naga and explains a few bits. "I tried to domesticate something I shouldn't have. Never fear, you won't see the creature or any like it in your travels. Unless you decide to tackle the darkest portions of the Frostmaw wilderness, that is. Even those Frost Giants fear the creatures there. My own fault for not listening to the warnings."

Muzo observes the exchange in somewhat uncomfortable silence. For whatever reason, it hadn't occurred to him that the recollection of her injuries would be a painful narrative for Cass to relate. At the mention of Frostmaw, the naga immediately holds his hand up, palms outward. "Never worry," he quickly blurts, "never would dare make it that way. Don't trust the cold." Muzo holds up his wrist, indicating his veins with a tap. "Cold blood. Would rather not catch my death." At that moment, there is another green flash, and a splatter of metal, steam, and viscera. The goblin is sitting, still holding the freshly upturned vials of reagent and covered head to toe in the disintegrated bits of what was, moments ago, a flesh-machine chicken. Now, it is nothing more than a rather messy starburst on the floor of the den. "Setbacks to be expected!" The goblin cheerfully calls.

Kang removes his chainmail sleeve to show the naga his arm. Layers upon layers of scarring, punctures, and healing magicks. "It's not the cold that did this." He replaces the sleeve before the goblins can get too curious. He signals to an unoccupied goblin to grab a bucket of spirits to sterilize the floor again. Fleshy bits can cause so many problems if left unattended. He's sure they'll try it again, but at least they'll know to clean up after themselves. Kang's apprentice starts using wire-cutters to form diamond-ish shapes from a metal sheet, connecting them using several of the various techniques she'd learned under the preklek's tutelage. What she's attempting is still anyone's guess, but her energy and focus is unmatched.