Deus ex machina?

[littlebluefae]

After a day of body-guarding for the miners, a coal-burning automaton sits in the middle of the tavern. Finding corners too dimly lit for the damaged vision lenses, it instead chooses one where the string of lights hang down from the rafter beam. The brilliance emanating from above is much better than a corner, but briefly it thinks about whether or not Project 424 could possibly emit more light for a workspace than what it could find in the tavern itself.

It bends over stiffly upon noting a CLUNK; picks up another rusted bolt and regards it with silence before placing it on the wooden table. Just as matter-of-factly, it over-turns the box next to it, emptying out all sorts of collected junk: spent shell casings from Anton's gun, fabric from a shoddily made curtain, spring coils discovered on the edge of town, and batteries.

It places the batteries aside, as they aren't something that could be attached to itself in a safe manner. The word 'pretense' runs across the mind-on-tape: as it was not (yet) a Mechanic, this would be the first time attempting actual self-repairs and modifications. This meant there was no 'safe manner', really, in proceeding.

There is the matter that it could do more harm than good to itself, true. But it was not concerned, for the Professor and the Beekeeper easily put it back together again after children would pull her apart. How much harder could it be to keep itself maintained?

Perhaps, if Father Carmichael was right, it could figure out how to build a soul receptacle. But for now, it is content to work on the outer casing. It begins by removing a shin plate, and then the actual leg from the plate down. Once on the table, it opens the book labeled 1138, digs around for a small screw-driver, and gets to work.

[Raven]

*the pale woman in white moves from her position leaning again the wall and moves now squatting next to the table as L.O.R.E. works the bits and bobs of the metal and mechanical devices, Raven watches wide eyed an expression of mystified wonder upon her face as the automaton’s hands work, eventually Raven looks up to L.O.R.E.’s face and pokes her own head with her index finger*

I can hear you.

*she puts her hand down and returns her gaze to the table, her eyes search the pieces and her expression turns to that of an almost sad one*

If it all got shatter apart… will it look… work the same if it gets put back together?

What if you didn’t know what it looked like before it went to pieces?

*she picks up a rusted, bent nail from the floor that was clearly not on the table before, she regards it with an obvious sadness in her eye holding it between L.O.R.E. and herself, as if to offer it to her*

What if it was never meant to fit in the first place?

[Project 424]

424 steps into Howard's Tap. Her lights flicker a little bit and a very slight smile echos over her mouth as she moves towards L.O.R.E. She primly sits down beside the red Automata and listens while she watches.

With a silver hand she reaches out towards Raven and her bent nail. With a soft kind smile she says, "Perhaps it had a purpose once, and now because she has grown that bolt is not necessary... She is upgraded." There's a moment's pause as the silver woman purses her lips in thought. "Its like when a hair falls out, no longer needed but another grows right behind it."

[The Nameless Fury]

He quietly sits at one of the tables against the wall. In one hand holding a book titled "Nikolas Revnik and the Gem of the Sky.". His other hand seems to be quietly taking notes.

[Emily Alice Thatcher]

Emily looks up from her mechanic's manual at another table. She appears to have been listening since L.O.R.E. sat down for the first time. Her brow furrows slightly as she listens.

Finally she gets up and walks silently, non-imposingly, toward the two automata and the pale woman. Keeping her eyes on the bent screw, she says, rather softly, "But how do you know what to replace it with, once a screw has fallen out?" She pauses, and then quieter still, "What do you do when you don't know where it fell, and all you want to do is replace it...but you don't know what's missing to begin with?"

[Raven]

*she slowly looks to the silver woman, her own sad expression melts away to one of an almost warmth, a small smile playing upon her lips, she raises slowly to her feet her newly found bent nail still held out in her open palm, her eyes raise to Emily’s the small smile vanishes but the warmth remains and she looks back to her nail*

Many fast questions met with slow answers.
Many songs left unsung….

*she tilts her hand and lets the small nail roll off and fall to the ground, boucing and landing somewhere underneath the table, she looks unconcerned, the distant look returning to her*

Many stories left unwritten…. For many things left undone.

*she sits done at a bench a few paces from were she once stood close to the Professor*

[littlebluefae]

L.O.R.E. pauses at the nail being discarded, then retrieves it. After staring at it for a moment, she bends it around in a circle, and places it on her left glove. "My EState has NO NEED FOR MIRrors. If a screw IS not missed, then IT IS Not missed. My estATE SEEms to ALways be in THE PROcess of 'FALLing aPART'. My eSTATE canNOT GROW, for I DO not have The PARTs neCESSary to EXtend my EState further vertical THAN BEfore... EVEN if I DID, that WOULD be A SAFEty hazARD, for MY FURnace canNOT power a DRASTIC CHANGE for long."

L.O.R.E. pauses again for a moment, as the sounds of mechanical machination from the inside move together. "So YES, it is true, RAY-ven. My esTATE WILL not LOOK EXactly as before. When one of FLESH makes rePAIRs, they DO SO, and IT TENDS TO be good as NEW. I am not as SKILLed, so YES, my estate will be DIFFerENT. UPGRAded." L.O.R.E. tilts her framed mask at Project 424. "I still DO NOT UNDERstand how this can apPLY to my estate; you have CERTAINly been IMPROVED ON. I do not think IT IS an imPROVEment for MY EState that is NEEDed, but many REpairs that can GRANT MY estate betTER FUNCtionality. To be fixed. I shall NEED any part I CAN FIND, BUT ANY PART I FIND THAT I DO NOT NEED--"

L.O.R.E. cuts itself off in mid-sentence, then places a small screwdriver on her face mask, tightening a loose screw. It tilts its mask to the right and left, then continues.

"...but any part I find that I do NOT need, I shall give freely to WHOMever asks first. For clearly they NEEDed it, and thus they have asked."

L.O.R.E. continues fiddling with the parts as she asks Raven a question: "The Professor AND the BeeKEEPer knew many stories AND many songs. A FEW are recordED ONto my mind-on-tape...Would you be WILLing to tell my EState a story to BE REcorded?"

[Raven]

*at the mention of her own name she slowly looks over to L.O.R.E. listening, a small smile playing across features as the red mechanical marvel spoke, at the question her face goes blank she mouths the word story as if in thought, she looks to the Professor and then the book in his hand, smiling widely she looks back to L.O.R.E. as if to say something, after a few moments pause… as if her mouth is trying to catch up with her head she nods and speaks*

Come on, come on, bonny Lynne; tell us, tell us where you’ve been
Were you up, were you down
Chasing rabbits ‘round the town
Come on, come on, bonny Lynne; tell us, tell us where you’ve been
Come on, come on, bonny Lynne; we’ve a bed to put you in
It is soft, it is warm
It will shelter from the storm
Come on, come on, bonny Lynne; we’ve a bed to put you in
Dear, Dear bonny Lynne sleeps the peaceful crib within
A mossy stone, a finger bone
No one knows but Lynne alone
Dear, Dear bonny Lynne sleeps the peaceful crib within.