RavensDagger

  Chapter Fifteen - A Body

  52nd Day of Spring - Year 1758 of the Golden EraThe shores of Yellowfield, the Sapphire Ocean, Draya Calyrex

  "Can't believe I'm working at this time of day at my age," Artificer Woodbone said as he walked ahead of them into the boratory in the lower decks of the Gentle Tidings. As he entered the room just ahead of Green, the mage snapped his fingers and a bracelet around his wrist glowed for just a moment before every light in the room came on at once.

  It illuminated a familiar space, the first space that Green ever remembered seeing.

  The boratory was a strange and eldritch pce to Green. Tools hung from the walls and there were several workstations filling up much of the walking space. The back of the room had shelves. Some of these were filled with books, and more were filled with small, esoteric devices and crates filled with raw materials.

  There had been concessions made, to account for the fact that they were onboard a ship. Braces and netting set up to hold things in pce, but under the dim light of crystalline bulbs hanging from the ceiling, Green could imagine this being in some deep, dark cave.

  "Brian," Artificer Woodbone said.

  The young man usually found near him perked up. He was at the back of the group, trailing behind Red. "Yes?" he asked.

  "Set up the puppets. We'll get this over with tonight," Woodbone said. Then he turned and eyed the three of them one at a time while his son slipped by and started to pull a chest out of a shelf at the back. "In a way, I'm your father. Though I think the true title ought to go to Magus Maldrak. What I made for you are bodies. They are well-crafted. Not my magnum opus, but nonetheless the result of four decades of cumutive study and practice. There are perhaps a handful of artificers better than I... perhaps I'm the best, now that Draya Calyrex has fallen. Hmph."

  Brian brought the chest next to a bed made of unfolding wooden boards that he quickly locked into pce. The chest was opened, and from it, he raised a form covered in a thin sheet which he pced upon the bed. It had human proportions, even under the sheet.

  "Did you name yourselves?" the old artificer asked.

  Green refocused on him, then nodded. "Yes? Green. Blue. Red. But... names are..."

  "Undignified," Blue said.

  "Yes," Green said.

  Red shrugged. "Don't care."

  "Hmph," Woodbone said. "Those names won't do, I'm afraid. 'Blue' here is correct. They ck the dignity required. For the bodies you have now, perhaps they are sufficient, but for my artifice? No, you need better."

  Brian swept the sheet off, and Green turned to stare.

  There was a body on the bed.

  It was a puppet's body. Long limbs of a pale wood, covered in faint engravings of leaves and branches. The joints were all silver and steel, again covered in engravings, but these seemed more purposeful, with runes carved deep into the metal.

  The proportions weren't quite human. The chest was perhaps a little too small, and the head was merely a faceless oval, with some slight carving to hint at a nose and cheeks. No hair, just a few metal bands running over the forehead. The puppet's eyes stared up at the ceiling, sightlessly.

  The puppet had no indications of gender. The hips were thin and narrow, the chest ft. It was perfectly androgynous in a way that made Green somehow more uncomfortable than if it wasn't.

  "This is you," Woodbone said, gesturing to her. "This body will be you, rather. It isn't just a lump of wood. Within are magical conductors, some of the most intricate joints you'll ever see, and a few tricks that I picked up here and there. The wood is dragon's oak. Wood from an oak grown while being fed dragon manure. The steel is dragon forged as well, keeping a tiny sliver of essence, and it is pted in unreactive silver, for resistance to magic and rust."

  "Pretty," Green said.

  "Hmph, it's pin. Expensive, certainly, but pin. Each of these are worth as much as a noble's carriage. Which is to say, a lot, but nothing someone like Magus Maldrak would hesitate to spend to get what he wants. No, the real magic is already in you."

  Green gestured to herself. "Me?"

  "All three of you. Your cores, and the essence you have. Using it previously empowered you, but these bodies you have now are waste wood and junk parts." The Artificer shook his head. "Whatever essence you absorbed previously did nothing to those bodies. From now on, however? This is magic wood and magic steel, wrapped around magical circles. Absorb essence, and it will react to your very souls."

  "What... what means?"

  He squinted. "It means that you will grow. Murder enough and you will grow strong indeed. How you grow? Well, that'll depend on the wants of your soul. Perhaps you will toughen yourself against harm. Perhaps you will move with greater dexterity, perhaps more strength? Or maybe your stolen essence will gather and unlock something else. Potential. That is what Magus Maldrak asked me, it's what enticed me to try this in the first pce. Potential."

  "P...potential," Green said.

  "Which is why," he said as he crossed his arms. "I can't accept you naming yourself something like Green. That name cks gravitas. It cks conviction. What will the world say when they hear whispers of Woodbone's greatest creation, and its name is Green? Hmph!"

  Green wished she could smile. There was something about this man, even with his gruff attitude and his rudeness, that made her feel like he was actually quite kind.

  "Okay," she said. "Not Green."

  "Yes. Something with a bit more grandeur. Or at least something more solemn," he said.

  "Is it truly so important, father?" Artificer Brian asked.

  "Obviously, yes," the old man said. "How about Dreadmourn? Or Noctivane?"

  Green tilted her head. "No?"

  "No. Those are rightly the names of some old mages. Come here, you. Lay down on this." He gestured to a free bed, and Green walked over to it. She turned, then awkwardly shuffled up and onto the bed. Brian moved over and helped her up, then a strap was run up and over her arms and chest, then her legs, locking her into pce. "Ah, maybe something thematic. Green... hmm, Verdigris? No, that's inappropriate. You ought not call yourself something that means 'rust.'"

  The man leaned over her, then he picked up a tiara-like device that he fit over his head. He lowered some lenses over his eyes, then reached over and grabbed some tools. They looked like chisels.

  "Green, green, green," he muttered.

  She jumped as he brought the chisel around and stabbed into the cask around her chest. A wrench ter, and wood splintered. The man continued to mutter, even as he carved into her.

  Green felt rising trepidation as she suddenly lost one leg, then the other. Then both men worked together and ripped her arms out of their sockets. It didn't hurt, but it certainly felt... vioting.

  "Ah! Here's that pesky connector," she heard him mutter.

  Then her world went dark, and all sound disappeared.

  All that remained was the impression that she was being jostled about on occasion. No warmth, no sound, no light. Green was in a limbo of pure nothing, unable to even cw away at the dark.

  She worried that she might be stuck here forever.

  Time moved on. Or perhaps it didn't. After the first few minutes, she lost the sense of whether things were moving on even in time.

  And then there was a bright burst of light, and she found herself staring up at the ceiling once more, though, not from the same angle, exactly.

  Woodbone's head came into view. "Move your eyes," he said.

  She moved her eyes left and right, catching sight of the other puppets in the corner of the room and the rest of the b. "How long?" she asked.

  Her voice was much the same, but she had the impression that the rest of her wasn't. There was a sharp pain, then a tingle, and she became aware of suddenly being in possession of a leg, then another.

  "Oh, an hour or so," Woodbone said. "This is going along well enough. Your first use of essence will smooth things out, but that'll have to wait until tomorrow. I have two more transfers to complete."

  "Okay," she said.

  "Ah, but I do have a bit of good news," he said.

  "Yes?" she asked.

  She was sat up, Brian pushing her from behind, then a section of the bed was locked at a higher angle. She could see the room better now, and her naked form. She was smaller than she'd thought, from seeing the puppet on the bed. A little smaller than her previous body, even.

  But this body was better. She turned her hand, slowly, and looked down upon it. This was no puck with fat, jointed fingers sticking out of it. It was an articuted hand. A palm that could move, a thumb with several degrees of articution, fingers that were long and delicate and which seemed almost human.

  Almost.

  "We continued to converse while you were out. The others even chipped in," he said. "Welcome to your new self, Viridian."

  ***

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