First, Dabbles went to go inspect the progress on Lifprasil's knights. This was an important job! He didn't want to let it wait any longer than breakfast.

There were over a hundred pods and more than a thousand Sweethearts tended them. Many were empty, and none were the same, for a Cosmic Knight is a strange thing indeed and is designed largely by its own soul. The exaltation process is ultimately as organic as its materials, no matter how many times one must go under the knife for it; No architect ordered the Sweethearts, and yet they were more than adequately instructed. The manufactory simply enabled the citizens of Alefpria to accept the consequences of their choice. There were no second thoughts. The 'synth had rejected those who held them.

"Hello, Knights!" said Dabbles.

A few hundred eyes opened in their gelatinous swill of fluid and looked towards the pile of cloaks, and a chorus of gargling, breathing and gulping sounds rang from the mortals suspended from the roof in various states of disassembly and 'synth injection. Himpledonk cooed back at them politely.

"Bghlrghlrghlrghlp, blblblblblghraaargk," said a knight whose face was being pulled off, her vocal chords visibly churning in a dripping mass of froth.

"Why, thank you! And you too, my dear. I love what you've done with that spinal column. Very jagged. You'll have spikes like a scorpionfish by the end of the week." Dabbles rested a spindly hand on a cartilaginous lever-joint as he chatted, and yanked it back down when he was done. It clicked wetly into its socket and the knight-to-be was lowered abruptly back into her pod, the last tendons attaching her jawbone to her head breaking with a snap.

"Ollenea?" asked Dabbles into the massive workspace, and a Sweetheart obediently bobbed towards him. "See that numbers eight, fourteen and seventy-seven don't overheat while their shells are growing in. Get Jonniggle, Lemmonskwat and Sulivan to help. Also make sure number thirty-one doesn't dry out. Poor lad still hasn't regrown his intestines."

The little technician whistled and darted off. Dabbles and Himpledonk inspected each knight individually over the course of an hour or two, making sure the grafts had taken and the biomechanisms were still working. No fresh recruit was scheduled that day, and as such Dabbles was otherwise free until the evening inspection.

"Goodbye, Knights!" said Dabbles.

One of the pods bubbled as an initiate's lungs collapsed and filled with fluid.

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