[Infirmary] Little Monsters (Hadrian)

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on July 5th, 2012, 5:59 pm

Tock retrieved the puppets from her backpack, and used Grippy to gently place them on the high shelf above her bed. She couldn't normally reach without standing on the bed, but that was what the extendable arm was for. The puppets had to go on the top shelf because otherwise they would respond to any hand movements they picked up from her, and start moving on their own. The shelf was the safest place to keep them out of reach.

She holstered Grippy, lovingly stroking his handle, then called out, "Bitey! Come ta Mommy, baby! We done gots company." The spider didn't understand a single word she said, but was programmed to be drawn to the sound of her voice. Eighteen inches wide, with two inch long gleaming blades for fangs jutting from his wooden face, the spider of wood and metal crawled out from under the bed over to his Mommy. Tock scooped him up and set him on the table, petting him. He stared at Hadrian with four bulbous glass eyes, holding perfectly still like he was perched in his web, waiting to strike. "'Is's Bitey," Tock said. "'E's the oldest, innit ya, sweetie?" she leaned over to kiss the spider's head.

"Choppy, come say hi!" she called out. From the corner, an axe on stork-like metal legs waddled over, its sharp blade gleaming in the light. "'Is's Choppy, an' 'at's 'is brother Cutty," she pointed to the long woodcutting saw on four metal legs standing in the corner, "but 'e's not feelin' well, so's as 'e ain't gonna come say 'ello..." If she called Cutty over, he might not stop walking, and she had scars from being trampled by him. His programming was corrupted, and Tock didn't know enough yet to be able to narrow down the specific damaged parts of his mind. She couldn't repair him until she learned more.

by **Hadrian** on July 6th, 2012, 6:11 am

She didn't respond to his clarification, but she didn't seem to be angry anymore, so he supposed all was well. His eyes remained wide even as his senses were rather wide open to take in as much detail of their programming as was possible. And when she said Cutty was ill, he focused on the animated saw and felt some inconsistencies, but he had no idea, as yet, how to fix them. She was clearly his superior, but she didn't offend for her superiority. He remained somewhat at ease, although he was excited by what he saw.

"Bitey's soulcore came from a spider, I assume?" he asked clinically. "What of the others...?" There were so many questions to ask, but he crouched down to make the acquaintance of these, her children. He didn't know if any of them had been crafted from sentient soul stuff, but he was going to be on his best behavior, because most of them had sharp bits.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on July 6th, 2012, 3:42 pm

"Aye," she told him. "Real live one," she pointed up to the upper corner of her one wall, where an orb-shaped web still hung, somewhat decayed and broken. There had been a real spider in her house for a good week, before she had decided to use it as a template for Bitey, then set it free.

"Naily were a puppy," she said proudly. "'At's why 'e's so friendly. Most o' the rest came from their Mommy." She grinned wide. Her soul was inside her babies, and it gave them a special bond. She loved her family dearly. Talking about them was a good distraction from the depressing situation in the infirmary earlier.

When they finished the floor repairs, Naily and Handy came over, Naily nuzzling the stranger's leg like a puppy wanting attention. Lacking true emotions, he mimicked the behavior simply because it was programmed into him. Handy crawled up his mother's leg, using his little wooden fingers to grip the cloth of her pants, then strapped himself to her wrist where he belonged. He started tapping his fingers against her leg, another mimickery, this time of Tock's own unconscious habit.

"I's plannin' out somethin' a wee more complex," she said, gesturing to her walls. They were covered with drawings and blueprints taking up every inch of space, and even going up onto the ceiling. If he looked, Hadrian would find the sketches for all the devices he saw here among the drawings. But one wall in particular was dominated by plans for a mechanical wolf. The drawings ranged from sketches of real wolves, including anatomical diagrams she'd copied out of books from the library. Then there were sketches of various body parts both biological and mechanical, with lines and arrows indicating where each bone, joint, or muscle would be replaced with metal and gears. It was a long term project she had been working on in her spare time for months, and she still wasn't ready to start construction on this one yet.

by **Hadrian** on July 7th, 2012, 1:51 am

Hadrian nodded and absently petted Naily. Jilitse had used a frog for Hopstop, and Hadrian had assisted. Most of his little fluttering things came from moths or other bugs. Their bodies were delicate and intricate, but their minds were mere sparks of things, and their auras less complicated for it. That Tock was using mammals, and herself, was a testament to her skill. He worried that in using himself he would be too closely tied to them, or that he might damage himself, but he supposed it was a skill he would eventually acquire with time and diligent effort.

"Impressive," he said, though his eyes widened all the more for the fully articulated wolf model she had drawn. "Impressive," he said again.

Of course, he had drawn studies of the lammergeier based off of Ethan's raptor form in order to properly simulate it with Morphing, but not to this detail. Part of that was his lack of skill as a draftsman, and the rest that he had an intuitive understanding thanks to his facility with auras, which gave so much information.

He gave Naily one more pat, and offered to pick it up if it wanted, then walked over to peer at the wolf blueprint. So this was the level of detail he would need in order to progress in Animation and, he supposed, in his Morphing and other disciplines.

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on July 7th, 2012, 3:03 am

Naily would allow himself to be held, but he would be fidgety, rolling his wheels regularly. He had been programmed from the mind of a rather energetic puppy, and thus his default programming involved him moving around a lot. It wouldn't be long before he'd need to be set down again so he could race in circles around the little cottage, leaving wheel trails in the sawdust that covered the floor.

Tock followed him over to the wall and tapped on one of the drawings. "'At 'ere's gone gonna been my masterpiece," she said. "Tough part what wit' 'at, 'ough, done been makin' all o' the parts, aye? 'At's the real trick. 'Ere, look..." She lifted up Bitey and turned him over, revealing the gears on his belly. His legs kicked and writhed in protest, and upon close examination, Hadrian could see that the gears connected the legs to aid their motion. Each leg could connect to the gear scheme when it was 'raised' for motion, the gears coordinating the movement with a corresponding leg on the opposite side. It was how she had bypassed the limitations on teaching the spider to move with all eight legs at once. The motion of a spider as it crawled was a careful balance of which legs moved in which order, and if all the legs were completely disconnected, the coordination needed would have been far too complex. But the gears would allow the legs to coordinate, allowing a front left leg to move in perfect unison with a rear right, or vice versa.

Flipping Bitey back over and setting him down, she continued, "Wit'out the interconnected parts, 'ey don't move so smooth. Watch," she looked over to Choppy the Animated axe, and snapped her fingers to summon him to her side. He waddled over, his long, thin metal legs moving with a jerky motion. He gait wasn't anywhere near as smooth as Bitey's, because he lacked the same degree of interconnection. "When ya done wanna gets 'em fer ta move smoother, ya need more complex parts. But somethin' 'is big, it were too 'ard. I's workin' on 'at though. Oh, but oy, 'ere's other stuff whatcha can does ta 'elps 'em out, aye? Watch... Choppy, chop!" The axe swung back, and before it could finish the swing Tock called out, "Stop!" She then led Hadrian over, standing right in front of the axe, with no fear of it even though it was cocked back and ready to swing. "See 'ese 'ere?" she said, pointing at the coiled springs on Choppy's waist. "Adds torque, adds power ta the swing, aye? Wit'out 'er, 'e's not got so much force. But watch," she stepped just to the side, but still very very close and said, "Chop!" The axe swung forward with far more force than one would expect, the movement of the magical animation aided by the mechanical torque. The result was a swing far stronger than Tock's own arms could ever supply. "Stop!" she called out, preventing the axe from starting up for another swing.

"See?" she said to Hadrian. "'Ow ya builds 'em's as important as the magic, aye? Some blokes what dun realize 'at, an' jus' Animate up any ol' thing what as 'ey bought at a shop. I ain't done never Animated nothin' what I didn't build from scratch meself," she thrust a thumb at her chest proudly.

by **Hadrian** on July 7th, 2012, 5:39 am

When the wheels started spinning, Hadrian set Naily down, and perused the wolf model plans with laser-like intensity. But at her insistence, he observed the way she had made Bitey's legs work, and Choppy too. He understood torque and such, of course, but he nodded enthusiastically with each new discovery. Some little bits were ideas he had already had, though he wasn't sure how to actually craft them.

"Like the gait of a horse," he observed when she spoke of Bitey's legs. "Only with eight legs to worry about instead of four."

When all was said and done, he had to force himself not to nod anymore or repeat "Impressive," though, of course, it all was.

"If you would like help fashioning parts," he offered, "I would not mind doing so. I'm not as skilled as you, but you could give me the simpler work, the busy work, just to get some of it out of the way, which will speed up your process and give me some practice at it. Just a thought. No worries either way."

by **Minerva Agatha Zipporah** on July 7th, 2012, 6:10 am

She blinked at him, caught off guard by the request. "Ya wanna 'elp?" she asked, then shrugged. "Aye, sure. I could always use a extra 'and 'round 'ere. Ain't ready fer this one yet," she tapped on the wolf pictures longingly, "but what fer other stuff, I sure need whatever I can done gets."

"Whatcha knows 'ow ta does?" she asked him. "Woodworkin'? Smithin'? Gadgets? Magic stuffs... oy, right!" she slapped her palm against her forehead, remembering the fancy colorful lights he'd done that she had forgotten to ask him about, "'Ow'd ya done does 'at stuff up at the puppet show? Wit' the lights? Were mighty fancy, 'at were. Might like fer ta learn a trick like 'at 'ere o' 'ere, aye?" She didn't know much about any magics beyond the limited disciplines she had skills in. As experienced as she was in Animation, she was all but clueless about other disciplines.

"Maybe I shows ya some o' my tricks, ya shows me some o' yers, aye?" she said with a wink, smacking him on the arm. Who knew what this man might have to teach her, or how much it could help in her projects. Her biggest concern, of course, was still repairing Cutty. But she still didn't know what to do there. Yet she had plenty of projects he might be able to help with, in one way or another...

by **Hadrian** on July 8th, 2012, 7:50 pm

"A little of this, a little of that," he admitted. "Smithing, carving, drawing, painting... None of it enough to make a living, but I suppose I'll get the practice helping you. There's the magic, yes, but I would have to think how to make use of it other than assisting with the actual animation. I can work on smaller tasks to free you up for the more complicated things; that way I help you, and I get to watch things beyond my skill, which will help me learn. Equal exchange, right?"

He couldn't actually teach illusions, anyway, and he wanted to keep Ionu's grace and his skill with hypnotism to himself. They were mostly used to allow him to slip through potential problems without confrontation, but people would assume that he was attempting to bamboozle and hoodwink them all the time, which was decidedly not so. But perhaps if she was trustworthy, willing, and capable, and the occasion arose, of course, he might teach her something magical.

"Well," he said, "I should probably get going. This has given me a great deal to think on. If you need to get in touch with me, just ask for Hadrian Aelius at the University."

by **Cascade** on July 14th, 2012, 6:32 pm

Adventurer's Loot

Hadrian's Loot :

Minerva Agatha Zipporah's Loot :

That was refreshing to read... no doubt because you're both fantastic writers. Threads like this tend to make my day. If there's a follow up thread to this, I'm looking forward to see what type of things Tock and Hadrian can do together. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to PM me!