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From the start of the Arksynth Project, the Submaterium of Mirus had been working at capacity.

Even before the wyrms had finished constructing the labyrinth laboratory, Heartworm was there in the corridors, orchestrating designs for a labour force not yet born. Vakarlon attempted to plan alongside the avatar, as he could, until he realised that he was only a resource. From then on he relegated himself to assistance while he could. This was not the trickster's scheme. It only required him. And his death.

For all this, Vakarlon was still the most significant of the three deities who were to be harnessed, and the only one truly aware of what was going on. Jvan would not know until the work was done. Mammon was past conscious thought. So as Vakarlon rolled up his sleeves, fuelled and assembled swathes of the complex built for him with the eclectic bag of tricks that was his uniquely divine right, he kept an eye on the elusive avatar and its workers, and adjusted certain things to his liking.

Gravity, for one.

Heavy footsteps snapped back and forth, followed occasionally by lighter, faster ones. Locomotion had eased greatly since the technicians had stopped weighing less than a tenth of what they had on Galbar. Some ninety Sculptors had been offered salvation in Mirus, their telepathic link to Jvan surgically destroyed. Most had started to accumulate other equipment in its place. The size of the lab made communication by sound difficult, and while the sweethearts were diligent errand-runners, they could only move so quickly.

Sweetheart pods had been opened and samples had been cloned; About four hundred now fluted and piped their way through the labyrinth. Technicians en masse had learned how to whistle to them. That sense of  initiative was what separated the two classes of workers. No matter what the cultists had grafted onto themselves, their tools remained far inferior to the sweethearts, and the sweethearts were useless without them.

The crucial thing, of course, was that only Heartworm was able to attach this or that exotic appendage. It had always been quick, and now it was a veritably omnipresent nuisance, albeit a quiet and practical one. Since the horrific extent of the acalya scourge became visible, a second project had silently appeared in the laboratory's far wings. Vats of clones, bobbing in shallow baths. Between the two ambitions, it never stopped working. Even after disappearing into the mangrove with Sel Na Uo Na Tay and returning with a partially dissected demon, it had still yet to construct a replacement vehicle, and rode on sweetheart heads and Sculptor shoulders. To see a minor deity so overworked it had to be carried between rooms was curiously humbling.

Humility was necessary. What the technicians tested was no less than the clay of gods.

The early Arksynth prototypes were nearly inert, the compounds required to achieve desirable forms far too esoteric for use by mortals at their current level. That changed when demonic tissue began circulating among the synthesis feedstock. A touch of occult magic caused the reactivity of Arksynth to explode in bizarre patterns. Reagents that stimulated viable growth became commonplace, and universally anomalous. Mundane compounds could to undergo processes so unlikely in natural conditions as to be almost arbitrary in order to become stimuli. Only the countless number of these redundant absurdities made discovering any one viable. 

Scarcity fought eccentricity in a dilemma that soon characterised the project. At least both extremes resulted in a substance with quantifiable behaviour.

Testing the properties of Arksynth that did not stem from Jvan or Mammon was nightmarish. At best. The very nature of the traits being researched meant that predictable response patterns indicated failure. Qualitative examination of anomalies became the only remotely reliable means by which the Arksynth's effectiveness could be judged. Against all scientific precepts, the technicians were gradually granted absolute freedom to experiment by emotion and intuition. Ninety-seven Sculptor souls rejoiced.

Initial works were little more than tiny physical or chemical mechanisms- Kicking tendons strung on a rack, dishes that bubbled hydrogen in bright light. Divine intervention shunted these tinkerings far beyond what mortals could discover in the time they had. Headless Arksynth constructs began roaming the Submaterium, following simple contraction algorithms. Soft analogue calculators sprouted from walls like mushrooms, and strange fragrances wafted from things that wriggled in corridor puddles, some of them toxic. A once-human technician with nine eyes designed a fire lung that operated at the pull of a trigger.

There came a point where Help designed a prosthetic shoulder for miners whose arms had been stunted by childhood labour, driven neither by scientific imperative, nor artistic genius. They did it simply because, in Arksynth, the resource to do so had become available to them. Heartworm knew then that it was enough.

Silently it signalled Vakarlon to prepare for the end.

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