Thing (Solo)

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

The next day, the eight of summer, Tock was finally able to regain use of her hand. If she were a different sort of person, she would have been irritated; she had spent the last week creating a replacement hand, only to have the use of her own hand returned to her before the project was complete. Except Tock still intended to use the extra hand. For one thing, she found that even with the magical healing she'd received, her hand was still sore and aching if she did much of anything with it. For another thing, she was quite certain she could find plenty of uses for a third hand. So after class in the early morning, and work through the morning and into the afternoon, she returned home to teach her new hand how to move. She rested, and meditated, and began the process again, transferring power from her soul into her creation. It was now time to transfer not thoughts, but muscle memory. She used her left hand, and found another wonderful aspect of the equalizing runes she had used on her Animation circles. Since the effect was one of balance and equality, and functioned like holding her soul up to a mirror, it also lent a balance between her left hand, and the artificial right hand. When held up before a mirror, her left hand would appear to be the right hand, and thus she could use her fully functioning left hand to work through the muscle movements, instead of having to use her still sore and aching right hand. She started with simple motions, one finger at a time, flexing and unflexing each one. The hand lying across from her, surrounded by a soft blue glow of Djed, mimicked the movements. Its wooden fingers curled and uncurled, then followed the motions as she made a fist, then opened her palm. She worked through the motions slowly at first, then with increasing speed as the hand learned. She flexed her wrist, and the hand shifted on its hinge. She closed her hand as if gripping a hammer, and the joints in the palm closed along with the opposeable thumb, forming a grip. She then flipped her hand over, walking her fingers across the floor to pull it from palm-up to palm-down. As the wooden hand flipped over, she worked it through finger tapping patterns, and mimed the motions of playing a piano (even though she didn't know the actual notes). She then flexed her fingers to push the hand up, so that it could learn to crawl across the ground like a spider. This took a lot of time and work, since she didn't know the best patterns of movements to use. Walking was something she did with her feet, not her fingers. She had to experiment, learning which fingers to move in which order for the most fluid motion. But as she experimented and learned, her creation went through the same learning process, working out the motions in mirror to her own.

[Minerva Agatha Zipporah]

Finally, on the ninth day of summer, she finished the process. The crew had the day off work this day, and she was able to start her Animation early in the morning. She continued working the hand through the movements it needed to know, working in some unique movements that she wouldn't normally use, but which would be crucial for the hand. She had to teach it how to flip itself over from front to back, since it wouldn't have an arm to use to shift its position. She taught it how to climb, by holding a wooden pole in her lap and climbing her hand up it. She let her arm go limp so that she had to work the fingers to pull her hand up. It was challenging, since it was so unlike normal human movement, but she kept at it, working through the motions again and again. When she finished, the artificial hand would be able to get itself from the floor to the table by climbing the legs, or crawl up Tock's own leg so she wouldn't have to bend over to pick it up. She also worked the leather belt through a variety of motions, teaching it to curl up like a snake, loop and unloop itself, hook itself through the buckle, and whip about like a tail. These motions took hours on end to teach it, since they were quite foreign to Tock. She ended up taking off her own belt to work it through the same motions she was teaching the Automaton, in order to have a better idea what she was teaching it. Finally she taught the hand how to hear through the strip of leather she'd installed as an eardrum, and how to see through the light reflected through the four glass eyes. When all was done, she thought for only a moment before deciding on the obvious name. "Handy," she said, struggling to pronounce it right. She snapped her fingers and sent the lifespark into the Automaton, bringing it fully into awareness. Not long after she finished, she ended up having a visitor. She decided to let her new creation open the door for him...

[Arcane]

Rewards and Treasure! Experience Points +1 Writing +2 Observation +2 Drawing +2 Carving +2 Gadgeteering +2 Glyphing +2 Meditation +4 Animation Lores Writing with an off-hand Drawing with an off-hand Exterior Anatomic Details of a Hand Recovering from a Hand Injury Building a Mechanical Hand Miscellaneous Ledger: -160gm, 2sm +Inventory: Gadgeteering Toolkit +Inventory: Leather Belt Holster +Inventory: Bag of Glass Pieces +Inventory: Handy the Animated Hand Comments "Plus it would always be handy to have an extra hand around the shop." Really??? *facepalm* Also... I see what you did there. What would poor Tock do when dear old Satevis is gone? I like the detail into creating Handy. Always remember, details are of the utmost importance in any creation/construction threads so that you can properly specify the workings of your creations. The only exception is when you have done it sufficient times to be well-versed in it - IE repetitive work experience. Feel free to place a detailed write-up regarding Handy and that Belt-Holster-thingy you made as per the previous stuff you made, you know the drill