[center][img]https://img.roleplayerguild.com/prod/users/7f28c785-bb7c-4826-8dbd-4f45a4e28f0c.png[/img]
[color=Peru][b]The Great Artisan, Divine Mason, Builder of Civilisations
Level 5 God of Crafting (Masonry, Carpentry, Smithing, Alchemy, Armaments)[/b]
32.5 Might & 2 Free Points[/color][/center]

As Tauga and Keriss entered the Submaterium tunnels from the sky city of Metera, they were being scrutinised by an unseen God.

[color=Peru][i]Tauga and Keriss are heading for Heartworm. Tauga, Heartworm's proxy, and Keriss, Heartworm's potential next target. It is important that I find Heartworm before they do. The Well Labyrinth is a maze, and a very extensive one, but wherever Heartworm is it is somewhere connected to these tunnels. Tauga probably knows the way, although it is a long trip. That they are not using the Shadow Tunnels to travel faster are indicative that Heartworm's lair is, to some extent, isolated from the Shadow Tunnel network- not surprising, considering Heartworm's attempts at hiding and the apparent rivalry between Phi and Heartworm. I will need to leverage substantial resources to win this race.[/i][/color]

Teknall left Metera and arrived at one of the blood wells scattered across Galbar. Shadows which defied the sunlight shining upon them stretched across the entrance to the cave. The essence of Julkofyr from the shadows mingled with the essence of Mammon rising from the labyrinth, creating a faint divine stench.

Teknall stepped into the cave mouth and ran his fingers through the near-corporeal shadows. He tugged and stretched the shadows, felt the ripples in the submaterium, and peered into the inky blackness of the caves and how they blended dimensions between Galbar and the submaterium. [color=Peru]"So that's how this works,"[/color] Teknall muttered, [color=Peru]"Nothing with Mammon's touch can be free. No matter."[/color]

In a blink the scene changed to the surface of Auricolor, covered by the darkness of space, the stony landscape a sharp black silhouette against the starry sky. Teknall stretched out his hand, and the ground was illuminated by its own incandescent glow. The stone wept tears of liquid gold, which rose up and collected into an orb in front of Teknall. With another gesture, rocks shifted and a few gemstones shot up and orbited the golden orb.

The scene flicked back to the blood well, and Teknall set down the gemstones and the ten tonnes of gold near the mouth of the cave. Normally he would have acquired resources from the Elemental Siphon, but such conjured matter, while having all the physical properties of normal matter, lacked much of the submaterial value attached to matter which had existed in the Universe for billions of years. But minerals would not be a sufficient sacrifice. Mammon's trials demanded blood, and Julkofyr's flesh would only cover so much.

The scene shifted again to the Realm of Madness. Among the chaos of shifting terrain and weather was the ongoing conflicts between the innumerable demons which called this demiplane home. Demon blood, and other demon parts, generally had much greater submaterial value than the blood of many other creatures, and so was an extremely potent alchemical reagent. Demons were also extremely plentiful in the Realm of Madness, and had little other value besides fighting each other and the other denizens of this Hell.

A large demon, ten feet tall, with four arms and covered in horned purple skin, cackled as it beat a lowly imp against a rock. This was a prime specimen of a demon; powerful and cruel, having feasted on the souls of many hapless beings.

Its laughter was cut short when adamantine cables coiled around its limbs and lifted it from the ground. The demon thrashed against its bonds, but they only grew tighter, restricting the demon's movement until it could only roar. The imp who had been the demon's victim a moment ago limped away as Teknall stepped into view. The demon cursed at Teknall before the cables wrapped around its mouth and muffled its speech. [color=Peru]"Nothing personal. I have a toll to pay."[/color]

The scene shifted back to the blood well, a place where the terrain was static and the weather didn't change every two seconds. The gold orb reshaped itself into a golden octogram on the ground, with the gems at its tips.  The bound demon was maneuvered into position above the gold, and the cables anchored themselves into the ground. Teknall turned to address the tunnel.

[color=Peru]"Mammon's bones and Julkofyr's skin,
To Phi's prying ears, I seek your kin;
This labyrinth is a gruelling road,
So take me to Heartworm's abode."[/color]

In a blur of shining metal, a scalpel sliced across the demon's throat and its foul blood spilled upon the gold below. From his satchel Teknall took out a pressurised metal canister and threw it down on the golden octogram below the demon. The canister ruptured open and released a cloud of chlorine trifluoride, which caused the whole sacrifice to immediately burst into flames. With unholy vigour the flames consumed the sacrifice, and the noxious smoke wafted into the mouth of the cave.

The shadows around the mouth of the cave thickened substantially. Teknall stepped into the darkness, and there was a sensation like falling as the shadows surrounded Teknall's senses.

Teknall felt as though he was travelling at great speed, although when the sensation stopped a few seconds later he had no residual motion and there was no impact. The shadows wrapped around him receded, leaving only the normal darkness brought about by a lack of light. The brief jaunt through the Shadow Tunnels was disorienting, but Teknall was not so easily swayed.

A golden light was conjured at Teknall's fingertips, and revealed that he was inside a tunnel deep within the Well Labyrinth. The cold, damp cave walls stretched out in both directions, the walls relatively smooth. Behind Teknall the thicker shadows of the Shadow Tunnels clung to crevices and ripples in the stone, defying the efforts of his light to completely dispel them. At least, the tunnels were mostly stone, although they had strange metallic undertones. Faint, indistinct, and mildly distressing sounds lingered as echoes on the edge of hearing, demonic sounds to torment those who wandered the tunnels.

Yet the creepy ambiance was of little concern to Teknall. He was more interested in the hyperdimensional topology of the Labyrinth. It was the kind of twisted impossible geometry that would normally be attributed to Jvan or her avatars, although Teknall knew it to be the work of Mammon. Being so closely tied to the Submaterium, these tunnels were almost a plane of their own. Tunnels looped in on themselves without ever bending. There were intersections which could be travelled one way but led to a dead end when trying to return. Euclidean geometry had no hold here. Distance was an ill defined construct. This was a torturous web of passageways which all looked alike and which didn't have the decency to follow sensible notions of geometry.

While distance within the Labyrinth was poorly defined, Teknall could tell that he was a long way from where he entered. A god always knows to some degree where they are in the Universe, even if they are in a demiplane, and Teknall could tell that he was far from Galbar. Even without divine cues, Teknall could tell that the tunnel materials here were not quite native to Galbar, and gravity was noticeably weaker. Yet Heartworm's lair was no where in sight. The Shadow Tunnels, as he had suspected, had been inadequate to take him all the way to his destination. For all he knew, the shortest route there might be thousands of kilometers, although he suspected that he was closer to Heartworm's lair than to Galbar.

If the tunnels were simple, then Teknall might have been able to explore them manually. But because of the innumerable intersections and branches in the Labyrinth, that would have taken far too much time, even for a god, because it would have demanded traversing potentially millions of kilometers of tunnels. Nothing with Mammon's touch can be free.

Teknall had been travelling the tunnels while contemplating this and considering his options, when he felt another presence gnawing at the back of his mind. Shadows curled into tendrils, reaching and grasping. The demonic whispers grew into eldritch chittering. The damp air seemed to press down on Teknall with leaden weight. Teknall spun around, and could not find the source, but the nightmarish visions clung to the edge of his vision. He spun again, yet still the source eluded him. Taunted him. Haunted him. Closed in on him.

Then the tunnels were flooded with star-fire and the world turned white.

When the light faded, Teknall was standing protectively cocooned in his Mirror Armour with his arms wrapped around his head. Above him spun the Shard Conduit, spread out like a stylised star, the mote of fire in its core gently twinkling. Teknall tentatively lifted his head out of hiding and he looked around slowly. The tunnel walls around him had been molten and twisted. It still glowed cherry red from the heat, and lava dripped from the ceiling. There was no sign of the haunting shadows from seconds ago.

Hesitantly, Teknall unfolded from his protective stance and dematerialised his armour. His breathing was shallow, and his hands trembled slightly. He looked around again, this time with his own eyes, and still saw no sign of the nightmare. [color=Peru][i]Some foul vision concocted by Mammon's essence, probably...[/i][/color] Teknall told himself.

Teknall waved a hand above his head and the Shard Conduit folded like a concertina fan into nothingness. He wasn't keen on staying in these tunnels much longer. In a blink he was back at the point where the Shadow Tunnels had first deposited him. The Well Labyrinth was a gruelling maze, but not nearly powerful enough to prevent planar travel. Satisfied that he remembered the spot, Teknall departed from the Well Labyrinth and appeared on Galbar.

Teknall had a design in mind, but he needed a template. One of his brothers had already made a creation which performed a nearly identical function to the one he required. He just needed to adapt it to his own style.

It did not take Teknall too long to locate one of Toun's droningbirds, because they have the predictable habit of following the same charges. With swift hands and a firm yet controlled grip, Teknall caught the droningbird and clasped it between two hands. [color=Peru]"Apologies, Toun, but I need to borrow this bird for a few minutes."[/color]

Teknall stepped through a rift into his Workshop. He placed the droningbird on a workbench and released it with his hands, only to pin it down with invisible force. He would have preferred anaesthesia over restraints for the added flexibility it afforded, but since the automaton did not drink, sleep or even breathe that was not possible.

He then sat down next to the bird and skillfully dissected it, removing plates and inspecting components. Wings. Flight muscles. Legs. Skull. Control symbols. Telepathic link. Eyes. All important to the function of the droningbird, but they were of secondary interest to Teknall. The principle component Teknall wanted to understand was the siphon.

The siphon was a device which exploited aspects of the Codex's patchwork design in order to harvest a continuous supply of Astartean magical energy. It was a fragile contraption, and highly unstable if damaged, yet also extremely useful due to its ability to supply unlimited energy. Toun had managed to get the design down from the large and cantankerous prototype used in the White Giants to something small yet powerful enough to maintain continuous flight in an object that could fit in his hand.

Teknall took careful note of Toun's design for the siphon, including the Calligraphy used. Then he reassembled the droningbird and picked it up from the table. He checked over it once, ensuring that he had reassembled it to the same quality as he had found it. Then he released the droningbird through a rift back to Galbar, where he had found it previously.

With all the information he needed, Teknall sat down at a workbench and began assembling a machine. Elsewhere in the Workshop the sizeable group of Promethean Manipulators which now resided in the Workshop, together with the robotic arms integrated into the Workshop, got to work on rearranging some of the Workshop's manufacturing infrastructure. In particular, they assembled a dedicated production plant for plastics.

Teknall, meanwhile, worked on the prototype machine. He assembled a miniature magical siphon, made from mechanical parts with precisely embossed Tounic Calligraphy, with transducers to make it output electrical energy. It was not exactly Toun's design; Teknall had made substantial modifications to fit his purposes rather than the droningbird's and to allow for easier manufacture, but fundamentally it was the same device.

Teknall then worked on the other components. A lightweight hybrid supercapacity-battery pack would store energy and keep up with varying power demands. Four electric motors would convert electrical power into motion, with each motor attached to a set of carbon-fiber composite propeller blades. A set of optical night vision cameras and ultrasound echolocation sensors would provide information about the surrounds. A Calligraphy-engraved antenna chip would allow for unlimited-range telecommunication. A computer chip provided the drone the ability of thought and computation, at least to a simple extent. And the whole thing was encased in carbon fiber composite.

Teknall took a step back, and the drone buzzed to life. Its four rotors spun and lifted the drone off the workbench, and the drone hovered in the air. Including the rigid arms holding the rotors, the drone was about the size of a dinner plate. The siphon was able to provide enough power to suspend the lightweight drone in the air indefinitely under Galbarian conditions, and under weaker gravity the excess power would allow it to travel faster. Its sensory array provided information about the world around it, allowing it to navigate. The drone was even designed to be capable of operating underwater, at least to a limited capacity, so it would not get blocked by flooded tunnels.

Satisfied with the design, Teknall set the full manufacturing capacity of the Workshop to focus on creating these drones. The new plastics plant started churning out carbon fiber by the sheet. A very precisely calibrated machine, assembled by Teknall himself, was dedicated to creating the siphons. The Workshop whirred with the sound of machinery as it produced drones en mass.

As the Workshop manufactured, Teknall built another machine. It was, to external appearances, less impressive than the drones, but it was crucial to the drones' success. It was a reasonably sized computer, interfaced to a large Calligraphy-engraved antenna array with symbols matching those on the drones. It would be the brains of the operation. The drones, individually, were too small and low-powered to perform the complicated and memory-demanding computations required to map the Labyrinth. The drones would send their navigational data to this central computer, which would then process the information to generate a hyperdimensional map, and then inform the drones as to what route they should take.

It was a little while later when Teknall returned to the Well Labyrinth, at the exact location that the Shadow Tunnels had deposited him earlier. Beside him opened a rift in space, and from it poured forth the drones. Like a plague of locusts these mechanical contraptions buzzed through the tunnels and flew off in every direction. This swarm had hundreds of thousands of individuals, each one tasked with exploring the Well Labyrinth.

Teknall watched as the last of the drones exited the rift. This army of scouts would probably map the Labyrinth better than any of its other residents to date by sheer brute force.

[color=Peru]"I will find you, Heartworm. It's only a matter of time, now."[/color]


[hider=Summary]
Teknall watched Tauga and Keriss head into the Well Labyrinth to find Heartworm. This tells him that Heartworm lives somewhere connected to the Well Labyrinth. Teknall still needs to find Heartworm to talk about the nasty things it did to Vakarlon to make the Arksynth, and he intends to do so before Keriss gets to Heartworm.

Teknall's first option was to try the Shadow Tunnels. However, as a side-effect of being in Mammon's property, the Shadow Tunnels are not free to use. A sacrifice is required- an inadequate sacrifice will result in an incomplete journey. Teknall sacrifices about ten tonnes of gold and a large demon from the Realm of Madness. (When Vestec called for Teknall's help, he revealed the location of the Realm of Madness. Post with Vestec and Teknall is in the works. This post comes chronologically after that.)

Of course, Heartworm's lair isn't actually attached to the Shadow Tunnels, but Teknall still manages to get very far, and finds himself a long way from Galbar in the depths of a spooky Labyrinth, with hyperdimensional topology to make navigation even trickier.

As Teknall explores a bit, he is spooked by a nightmare and glasses everything in sight.

Teknall then comes up with a plan and goes back to his Workshop. He borrows design elements from Toun's droningbirds to create quadcopter scouting drones powered by magical siphons, all connected to a computer hive mind dedicated to mapping the Well Labyrinth. Teknall makes a few improvements to his Workshop to help produce the drones, mainly by adding a dedicated plastic production plant (free Alchemy action).

Teknall then unleashes hundreds of thousands of these drones into the Well Labyrinth at the point where the Shadow Tunnels had taken him, and they proceed to swarm and explore. (-1 Might (from Workshop) to create the drones and map the Well Labyrinth.)

(Not mentioned in the post, but production in the Workshop has switched back from Prometheans to Stellar Engine Collectors. Previous upgrades plus the presence of Prometheans in the Workshop gives a pretty healthy boost to production. And since 50 years/Turn is now canon, I can use that to extract a less arbitrary production number. Current figures equate to about one every 50 minutes.)

[b]Might Summary[/b]
[i]Before:[/i] 32.5 MP and 2 FP (13.5 MP reserved by Workshop)
[i]Spent:[/i] 1 MP (Scouting the Labyrinth)
[i]After:[/i] 31.5 MP and 2 FP (12.5 reserved by Workshop)
[/hider]

[hider=Status Report]
[code]++Stellar Engine++
Operational Status: Nominal
Collector Count: 10,000
Power Generation: 500 GW
Collector Output: 50 MW each
Collectors Needed for Total Star Coverage: 5.58E16
Dependent Systems:
*Teknall's Workshop
*Goliath
*Shard conduit
*Workshop Promethean Manipulators

++Teknall's Workshop++
Operational Status: Nominal
Might Output: 8/Turn
Might Reserved by Workshop: 12.5
Total Might Available to Teknall: 31.5
Freepoints Available to Teknall: 2
Manufacturing Outputs:
*Stellar Engine Collectors, 500,000/Turn[/code]
[/hider]