Member
The Great Artisan, Divine Mason, Builder of Civilisations
Level 4 God of Crafting (Masonry, Carpentry)
21 Might & 2 Free Points
The Meek
Level 1 Demigod of Crafting (Machinery)
12 Might
The workshop turned slowly in the void, reflecting the sunlight like some kind of silver flower. Unlike a flower, however, it was almost lifeless. It had pumps, fans and lights, but these were trivial machines, preserving the workshop in its catatonic state until it could be awakened. And that day of awakening had come.
Teknall had made sketches and designs for the final renovations, but the complete plan had been in his head for eons, and it was still as crisp now, if not even more detailed, than when it was when he had first conceived of the idea. His Workshop, a place worthy of his craftsmanship in its full glory. Not some makeshift stone slabs in the bottom of a volcano or on an isolated plateau, but a fully-fledged workshop with all the tools he needed, space and resources aplenty, and enough energy to start an industrial revolution a thousand times over. Recent affairs had forced him to rush its construction and leave it incomplete, but now there was time, and his Workshop could finally be completed. While it may not have the architectural beauty of the Celestial Citadel, and it may be even more removed from mortal eyes than the veiled city of Alefpria, its utility would outstrip them all, and from here Teknall could issue forth all new creations of his.
And now he had a helper, too. "If you want training in making machines, Kinesis, this is the best place for it. I hope to finish the final phase of construction now."
His Daughter smiled brightly and bowed her head meekly. "I am happy to help, father." She looked a bit jittery and exhillerated but her eyes shone with excitement to be usefull.
Central to the final phase of construction was finding a better way to harness the energy of the Stellar Engine. Direct flames were few in their uses. Heat engines, while fairly potent, were difficult to implement and feed. A new way was needed, yet who better to find this new way than Teknall? For had he not written down the Laws of this Universe, as given by Logos? Had he not overseen the writing of the Universal Blueprint, which the whole world obeyed? Indeed! He had scrutinised every Law from the very beginning, and had planned even before the world began how physics would allow the creation of technologies of all sorts. The solution was plain to him. It just needed to be implemented.
Teknall pulled out a particular set of sketches from the piles of blueprints and handed them to Kinesis. On them were depicted mechanical devices with pipes and turbines and axles and magnets and coiled metal wires. "Here, we need to build these first."
Kinesis stood at her father's side, carefully starting to inspect the designs and blueprints. The way her father had made her she was equipped to understand and internalise them right away on a deeply personal level.
As Kinesis studied the plans, Teknall went to the Elemental Siphon and opened the hatches associated with iron, aluminium, and a few other elements, and brought them all to the furnace and smelted them into useable metal.
"You want to make a higher form of energy, than the thermal one. A form that is more conveniently usable and can be readily harnessed where it is. Somewhat like divine power itself." she said looking back at him as she spoke. Then she pointed at the blueprint "If we where to cool the conductive parts as low as possible we would preserve more of this high energy."
Teknall grinned. "You are indeed a clever girl. Full cooling can come later, though. This system has more than enough throughput to supply our preliminary needs."
Kinesis nodded at her father. smiling back. An eager twinkle in her eyes. "You are of course right, father. It is not like this setup is in any way lacking. You won't mind me desigining improvements though when it is done?"
"Of course I won't mind," Teknall replied. "Your contributions are always valued."
The yound godling glowed pridefully after her fathers praise. Bowed her head again meekly and in the a slightly higher pitch than normal said: "Thank you father, this means a lot to me."
The Craftmaiden finally started her work, quickly fashioning all kinds of tools from the siphons very best materials, sometimes coating them with up to a hundred layers not thicker than a single atom to give them the desired properties. Then she ended up sitting crossleggedly on a small workstation she had fashioned wearing a setup of magnifying and sometimes polarising lenses on her head, her four arms a blur as they worked quickly on intricate parts. When bigger machine parts needed to be made she often just turned them out of sold blocks, adjusting her own size as she went to more easily handle them. It was eery to just see her alter her own body like this, but all in all she truely seemed in her element.
While Kinesis worked on the mechanical components, Teknall concocted metal-coated blocks of chemicals made from a wide variety of elements. These blocks were capable of holding potential and releasing it as work. He finished these rather quickly, and joined Kinesis in forging the mechanical components.
Once the components were all completed, Teknall took them and ascended to the Stellar Engine Core, where he began inserting them into the places where they had been allocated when the Core had been built, and he filled the pipes with working fluids, suited for the temperatures they would experience. As the assembly neared completion, the heat from the Core drove the turbines, which twisted the magnetic fields and forced electrons in coiled wires to flow, and enter into the blocks of chemical where they transferred their energy in chemical reactions, storing the potential for later use. It didn't seem like much now, but Teknall was visibly excited.
"Now, let us replace the fans, pumps and lights with the ones following these designs," Teknall said, pulling out more plans. "The current system is much too clunky."
"Can we keep a few parts of the old system operational, father? It is elegant in it's own way, and if you ask me deserves to be seen."
"If you wish," Teknall replied simply.
According to the designs, the new fans and pumps were not dissimilar to the turbines and metal coils which generated this strange new energy, yet they were intended to work in reverse. The new lights were made from semiconductors, crystals of various elements, with fluorescent coatings.
Kinesis took great care especially with the new lighting setups, working each in a far more artfull and intricate form than her fathers designs called for, each perfectly illuminated the room as much as it was meant to, but on closer inspection the perfected forms and crafty designs became visible, most of them based on perfectly straight lines and angles. Perfect indeed down to a molecular level, not a single atom seemed to stand out of line.
As the new devices were made and installed, the old pipes which funnelled tiny quantities of star-fire to the old devices were removed by Teknall and replaced with much thinner and more flexible metal wires, protected by insulating organic polymers. Then, as the new devices were installed, electrons flowed from the new accumulators in the Stellar Engine and pushed through the devices, emitting light or driving motors.
Once this was all done, Teknall took a step back and declared, "Behold! The power of electricity! The same forces behind lightning and nerves, driven by the Laws of electromagnetism, harnessed to perform useful work in just about any form imaginable."
"Electricity is a fine name for this high form of power." Kinesis said softly, she stood tall at his side, her magnifying glasses pushed up to her forehead, her chest swollen with pride of what they had created together.
"Indeed. Although the mortals probably won't have the infrastructure to use it for millenia, that doesn't mean we can't use it ourselves," Teknall said. "Now this was just a warm-up, preparation for the real work." He then pulled out a sheaf of papers and handed them to Kinesis. On it were designs for elevators, cranes, conduits, a machine of connected vessels and valves, and a huge robotic assembly line which would take up a third of the Workshop's floor space.
Kinesis sat down crossleggedly, starting to study the plans, she ran a finger over it as she did so internalising every nuance.
"Pick what you can build from these designs. Some of the machines are very big, so you can leave those until I return. I have another section to append to the Workshop, and that involves work outside so I'm doing that myself. If you need my help just call," Teknall instructed.
The first thing Teknall built was a pair of gigantic metal doors, stretching from the floor of the Workshop all the way up to the Stellar Engine Core, and partitioning off about a ninth of the Workshop. These doors would fold away, rather than swing open, and were incredibly robust, as well as being completely air-tight. Heavy-duty air pumps were inserted at a few points around the edge of the doors, which were strong enough to evacuate almost all the air from the partitioned off section.
His daughter did at first watch her father work, with keen interest for a short time, before going back to the plans and preparing to go to work herself.
She decided that the suspended walkway would be a good thing to work on first, so she gave some thought to what material she should be using for it, it would be nice to surpass her fathers expectations. Metal mesh would be a good material, strong and translucent and easy to make. What alloy or metal to use though? She could mix up any outlandish concoction, the siphon granting her any imaginable material right at her fingertips. She sat down crossleggedly in front of the great divine mesh, pondering this.
An alloy of the metals from Box number 51 and 80 was what she decided on, both had extreme properties that should even out nicely. 80 or Iridium with it's extreme hardness and endurance under most influences was too brittle, but with the added flexibility of 51 or Indium it should make a nice combination.
Kinesis got a small test amount of both and using the already present tools, found out that it was good to be using Teknall's Furnace, a mere mortal one would never have reached the temperatures necessary. She cast a small rod and left it for cooling all the while going back to the Blueprints. It would be bothersome to now start making all those metalbands for the Walkway grid and the wire for the suspension and pipes for the railing by hand...what was she a machine goddess for?
After finishing the doors, Teknall constructed motorised hinges and locking bolts, except these machines Teknall was making weighed many tonnes, and were of similar scale to the giant doors he had just built. He cast some of these parts in a mould of concrete, which he shaped from a large slab of concrete with his hands as though it were clay. For other parts he took hot metal and hammered it out on an anvil. When he finished these devices he carried them over to the region of the workshop he had recently partitioned off. He also brought over several similarly proportioned bolts and about a tonne of aluminium, adamantite and mithral, as well as a selection of large tools. Finally, he melted down a few tonnes of adamantine and spun it into thick cables, which he also brought into the partitioned section.
Once all he needed was in there, Teknall pushed a button inside the partitioned section. The doors slowly creaked and unrolled and unfolded until, about a minute later, they finally sealed with a thud. The pumps roared to life, and Kinesis would have felt the pressure in the room increase by a small yet noticeable amount. Eventually they slowed to a stop, as the airlock now had a vacuum instead of any air.
Kinesis curiously inspected what her father had build so far, inspecting the setup as it evacuated the air into the workshop. She smiled a bit, knowing that he had no real reason to keep air inside the habitat, it was like a show of fatherly love to see that he had build this first. It was time to go on with her own work. She started pulling a bigger array of materials from the Siphon again and went on building a mindnumbing array of tiny parts. As she assembled them it became clear that she was making one of the planned robotic arms for the assembly line. It was a bit more ornate than what the plans called for but basically a very servicable machine, with a load of tools mounted in a kind of revolver setup that allowed it to choose the right one for the job itself. Now she could just make it prepare all the parts for the walkway to her, but she would still need to supply it with its raw materials, which she deemed a bit tedious. She began preparing a modest number of simple Iron pipes and metal moorings, and a system of simple copper wires.
Outside, Teknall was unfazed by the lack of air, and began preparing the worksite. He inserted several of the bolts into the wall high above him, and from those bolts he hung the cables, which he fastened to all of the equipment he had brought and to the floor. Once everything was secure, Teknall took a circular saw that had a blade three meters in diameter and cut into the floor, tracing out a rectangle the size of the airlock. Due to the vacuum Kinesis couldn't hear the saw itself, but she felt the vibrations going through the floor, until Teknall finally finished cutting the rectangle and there was a great shudder which reverberated throughout the workshop as the slab of concrete fell free for a couple of centimeters before the cables became taught and stopped it.
All was going perfectly. Teknall used the saw to bisect the section of floor he had cut out. Then he lengthened the cables holding up the floor so it was beneath the rest of the workshop floor by a few meters. Teknall took a few moments to look around him. In one direction was the orange circle of Ull'Yang's red dwarf, which had an apparent size far greater than Galbar's sun. To the other direction was the aluminised face of the radiators, which reflected the star's light with intensity. The exterior environment was quite harsh, and not very scenic at all, so Teknall turned back to his work.
Meanwhile his daughter build a rail system along the workshops wall, leading from the siphon towards the metalworking area. It was not too much work to make the robotic arm able to run along the rail setup and get it's power via a small panthograph. The first task for the machine she gave it was to prepare a more diverse number of test alloy rods of various metal compisitions, but all based on Indium and Iridium.
She proudly watched as the machine sped back and forth doing her bidding. From siphon to furnace to casting, it was a pleasure to watch.
After a short while of watching the robotic arm work, Kinesis started to build a second one, this time a stationary version and set it up near the furnace and smithy, it would perform the next step of work, turning the raw cast pieces into their final form, or at least it would do so once she had decided on an alloy to use.
From resin she made from the siphon and sand that was still present from her fathers cement making kinesis prepared a further number of casting moulds. Into each she milled an intricate design. They all showed situations from the tour of galbar Teknall had given her and her sister. The Citadel. The Iron Range, the desert and the sea, the calender of stone, the venomwaeld and the deepwood. On each of them, often small and hidden, the divine family of her, Conata and Teknall could be found, curiously exploring the world. The artstyle was angular and elegant, reminiscent of art deco probably. With the moulds she would cast fittings to be inlaid in the metal newel posts holding up the railing on both sides of the planned catwalk every 3 metres.
Meanwhile, the locks, hinges and struts Teknall had made he installed, and the slabs of floor Teknall had cut out became a thousand tonne trapdoor. The excess metal he had brought was fashioned over the gaps to make the trapdoor airtight when closed. Once he was completely satisfied with the construction, he reentered the Workshop and, pushing another button, the thick concrete hatch slowly closed, being pushed against the centrifugal gravity of the Workshop. After two minutes of steady progress it closed with a heavy thud, and massive bolts slid into place to keep it closed. The airlock sealed once more, the air pumps whirred to life again, although not as vigorously as last time, letting air back into the air lock until it had reached the same pressure as the rest of the workshop. Only then did the metal doors open, as slowly as they had closed, and Teknall was back inside once more.
Kinesis had heard the Airlock coming to life again, or rather it's valve and pump system, so she eagerly waited for her Father. As the doors had opened she curtsied for him quickly. "Father I need an opinion from you." She softly said leading him to where she had set up a few dozen finished test alloy rods. "I have made a number of alloys for use as the contruction material of both the catwalk and the ladders, and I would like to know your opinion. Which one is best suited for the task? I think with your divine power it is much easier to check for the relevant properties, It would take me ages probably."
Three of the rods she clutched to her chest. "These don't need to be tested, they are just for aesthetically plating the more artistic parts I have planned." All three where magnificently brightly reflectant, though one was slightly reddish, one slightly yellowish and one slightly blueish. They where composed of about three forths of rhodium each, the rest made of adamantine, orichal and mithral respectively.
Teknall walked up to the test rods and glanced over them. Without hesiation he picked up one and handed it to Kinesis. "This alloy has the best properties for what you wish to use it for." He then turned his head to look at the rest of the things Kinesis had made so far. On top of her technical and problem solving skills, she had an artistic flair which she had probably inherited from Ilunabar. He nodded in approval. "You're doing a good job."
Kinesis felt like glowing with pride at the praise but just lowered her head respectfully, very nearly blushing. "Thank you for your help," she answered quietly as she took the test rod.
Teknall then left and took the two biggest vats he could find and took it into the new airlock. As though unsatisfied, Teknall got a few tonnes of metal and hammered out an even bigger vat, and then a second to follow it. Teknall then filled two of the vats with water made by burning hydrogen and oxygen together, and the other two vats with a mixture of compounds of oxygen, silicon, aluminium, iron and calcium, which became grey cement powder. He capped the filled vats with metal lids. Teknall then took large quantities of mithral and adamantine, smelted them down, and then ran the metal through a roller mill to form long rods and sturdy beams. These he also took to the airlock. Additionally, he took a large quantity of raw aluminium, and a fibrous insulating mineral made of a compound of magnesium, silicon, oxygen and hydrogen. He then closed the airlock behind him and, once it was sealed, opened it up to outer space, its contents falling away from the Workshop as its rotation flung them into the void.
When her father had left Kinesis went back to working on the catwalk. It did not take her long to set up the robot arms she had made to start producing the various alloy bands for the walkway. As her creations tirelessly did her bidding she took the time to cast her planned newel fittings herself, at least six from each mould. She then proceded to plate two of each with each of the three shiny alloys she had created, The number of fittings was of course too high for the number of posts she would have, but she wanted to try out each colour at various places and see how they looked.
For a moment, as Kinesis looked upon the pile of metal parts the arms had made, she contemplated to actually set up the entire catwalk by hand from this materials. In the end she decided against it, she really was quite a bit less willing to do this kind of work, one could say rightfully that she was lazier than Conata and Teknall.
Having the arms build the necessary parts to extend their rail system did not take long, Soon they where able to run all the way around the torus, just ending at the airlock's bulkheads. She also added three more robotic arms to run on the rail network. As she looked upon them assembling the catwalk quite quickly she contemplated building the assembly line next, it would make a lot of things easier. She quietly followed the arms assembling the catwalk, inspecting how well they had followed her instructions. The entirety of it was not welded anywhere, just crafted in a way that it could be connected like a puzzle with connections not dissimilar to wood joints in a house,
Meanwhile, if Teknall had been a mortal, the rotation of the Workshop would have been a great hindrance to his construction efforts outside. However, due to his divine command over the materials he worked, it was little more than a minor nuisance. He gathered the ejected materials to him and brought them to the rear of the Workshop, in its shadow. There he detached the portion of the radiators directly affixed to that face of the workshop, leaving the other radiators, and cast them aside for the moment.
Teknall gathered the metal rods to him and inserted them end-first into the workshop face, forming a circle 50 meters in diameter, 10 meters less than the Workshop proper, and sticking out 15 meters, 5 meters less than the width of the Workshop proper. Teknall took more rods, curved them, and attached them to the rods he had already placed, forming a cylindrical grid. To complete the mesh, he weaved the remaining rods onto the end of the cylinder, making it complete. To enhance the strength of this metal skeleton, he added the beams, which would be able to support the weight of the completed structure.
Teknall then drifted down to a point just outside the cylinder he had marked out. He was effectively stationary while the Workshop rotated slowly in front of him. At a gesture of his hand the lids were removed from the vessels holding the water and the cement and the cement flowed into the water, mixing to form liquid concrete, the vat rotating to help mix it. This concrete then flowed out to Teknall and with his hands he guided it into place in front of him, filling the voids between and around the metal mesh to form a one meter thick wall. As he laid the concrete, along the outer edge he mixed in the fibrous mineral to act as insulation. Simultaneously the aluminium melted and came to Teknall, and he coated it onto the outside of the concrete wall as it was laid. Instantly the aluminium froze, and it supported the setting concrete. Like a gigantic potter's wheel the Workshop turned, and Teknall continued to build the wall in this manner, the wall gradually growing higher with every rotation, until he finally reached the top and sealed it. The fruit of his labour was an extension to the Workshop, very similar to the Workshop itself, only slightly smaller.
Inside, when Kinesis had finished the system of catwalks and ladders, Kinesis inspected the construction plans again, scratching her nose thoughtfully. The Assembly line really seemed massive, and while it would be helpful, the robotic arms and rails she had already made where a boon to her already. In the end she decided on building the two planned elevators. There would just need to be a few adjustments, so she began drawing new blueprints and more detailed designs for them.
Kinesis took her time drawing and from time to time went to measure the planned positions of the elevators more precisely. To this end she first decided upon a measurement she had already aproximated with the catwalk, and crafted a huge amount of straightedges, rulers tapelines and even callipers, for use in the workshop. She took quite some time for this as she could not stop herself from intricate designs and finishes upon all the pieces.
When all her new implements where finished, Kinesis began her work on the elevators. Her first step was to have the robot arms prepare a new batch of metal rods, which she set up in scaffolds for the elevators. She also added rails identical to the ones the robot arms where running on, four for each elevator. Even though it was not likely with the small amount of centrifugal force for the elevators to fail in a dangerous manner she still added additional rails for the safety gear.
Certain that they would not need closed lifts Kinesis build the lift platforms next. She based them of the grid design of the catwalks, but reinforced them quite a bit and build them by hand herself, which did not take her terribly long. When she was finished she tested them nodding to herself very satisfied as she did a few readjustments, and relubricated a lot of the moving machine parts.
Outside, the walls were built and sealed, but they still needed to be filled. First he cut out a few small rectangles near the rim of the circle, and they would become personal airlocks to provide exterior access. Inside Teknall shaped what concrete he had left to form raised platforms and ramps up to where the doors would be, a few meters above the concrete floor. Then Teknall went back outside, where he reattached the radiator panels he had earlier detatched onto the back of the extension (they would need to get pipes extended and reconnected later). Then he collected the vats he had brought outside, took them back into the large airlock, and then reentered the Workshop through it.
Kinesis looked up at her reentering father when he came back, she was quite smeared by machine oil but beamed. "I am making progress." she said before adding, "but I was wondering if a gantry crane would be a good addition to the plans. The mobile arms are already quite a help, but a crane would be able to move bigger parts easier, and be especially useful when I build the chemical reactor."
Teknall nodded to Kinesis. "Ah, a gantry crane. Good idea. Go ahead."
She nodded and bowed; then going right back to designing her works to come. As it went her plans became quite elaborate and filled many a sheet of paper.
Teknall went to the forge and constructed pipes, small pumps, wires, lamps, air pumps, components for doors, and numerous other miscellaneous components. Each time he had built a few cubic meters of these components he pushed them all into a nearby small airlock and jettisoned them into space before continuing to work; the amount of parts he was building did not justify the use of the large airlock.
As Kinesis father worked alongside her, she took the time to watch him carefully over his shoulder, mentally taking note of each detail; he really was a different and magnificent kind of artificer. As she watched him forging all these parts and doodads she pondered how much of her own nature derived from her divine father. How much did in fact maybe derive from the Goddess invested in her making. Should she see her as a mother? Should she not? The woman seemed to take far less interest in her. Well strickly speaking this was not true, Meimu was a part of the Goddess after all, and seemed far more sympathetic to Kinesis, and caring too. Maybe she should search her out some time in the future.
After finishing his last batch of parts, Teknall himself exited out the airlock with the parts. He then brought all the parts, many of them already several kilometers away, and dumped them all inside the extension. Then he assembled them. Most of the pipes, and the liquid pumps, were attached to the exterior of the extension, and extended the radiator system so that the radiators were now coming out from the rear face of the extension. Inside, Teknall installed the airlock doors, properly sealing the interior of the extension. Then he installed the electric lamps along a scaffold at the axis of rotation, facing radially outwards. Fans and airconditioning was installed much like in the main part of the Workshop, even though there was no air here yet.
With the forges free for her own work again Kinesis and her retinue of robot arms started craftily working on the rails and then the gantry for the crane system. It took some time to build it in a way fitting the toroid chamber of the workshop.
Kinesis ended up constructing it from the same alloy, and despite at first wanting a very massive construction she in the end made it from a filigree truss of fine riveted rods. Each rivet bore a small inscription and in the middle of the gantry she added a rather imposing relievo depicting craftpeople of the various sentient species she had encountered on Galbar.
The last machines Teknall installed were three heavy duty air pumps, much like the ones in the big air lock. He pushed these through the wall between the extension and main part of the Workshop, the reinforced concrete melding around it to let it through without allowing any air to escape. Teknall then left the extension, went around the outside, and entered the main part of the Workshop. With a snap of his fingers the oxygen and nitrogen doors on the Elemental Siphon opened, and the newly installed pumps came on at low speed, gradually filling the extension with air. Once it was full and the pressures equalised, the Elemental Siphon closed itself off again, although the fans continued to gently circulate the air.
When her father entered Kinesis was already testing the crane by moving around some of the big crates the workshop sported. She barely paid attention to anything else as she made sure it worked well and added lubrication where needed on the moving parts, and proudly polished the purely aesthetical elements.
Teknall got the large circular saw and, opposite the Elemental Siphon, he cut a large curved rectangle out of the wall about 10 meters above the floor. This fell outwards and he slowly lowered it onto the ground. Revealed was an opening between the main body of the workshop and the extension. Teknall took the remaining parts he had built and filled in the opening with a heavy-duty door. It was not an airlock, but it was air-tight, so it would be a bulwark in the event of an decompression incident in either chamber.
Kinesis stopped as her father started with the more noisy work, watching as he dismantled the wall and installed a bulwark.
Soon before Teknall left the Workshop, this time disappearing to Galbar, Kinesis began drafting the chemical reactor. A good material would be glass most likely, maybe with some additives to make it more durable. She nodded to herself; making a few test pieces was a good way to go so she started melting quartz, soda, pottash, felspar and dolomite. Then she started preparing batches with different aditives. Lead was in some, Uranium and Radium in others. In a few she added Orichalcite, a carbonate similar to dolomite or calcite based on Orichalcum, which promised to yield favourable results.
After tinkering with a load of different mixtures she began blowing testpieces in earnest, actually by the sweat of her own brow. After her father had left for some time, and she had finished several hundred test pieces she got a bit distracted a bit though and began experimenting with coloured glasses and ceramics. She ended up building very artful stained glass window panes and lamps, most of them depicting some of the trees she had seen on Galbar, and had been told about that her father had made them. Those bearing fruit were especially interesting to her, with their potential for the advancement of sentient life and industry.
After some time, Teknall rematerialised inside the extension, bringing with him about 8000 cubic meters of soil and a few dozen choice tree saplings. This soil covered the extension floor to a depth of 4 meters, such that the doors were approximately level with the new ground. The introduction of so much extra mass at once actually caused the rotation, and thus the gravity, of the Workshop to decrease by a tiny yet perceptible amount.
Teknall then planted the saplings in the dirt. These trees would serve a dual purpose. Firstly, they would provide a source of wood, and several other organic compounds, all of which are difficult to manufacture from raw elements. Secondly, they would photosynthesise, converting carbon dioxide into oxygen, thus keeping the Workshop's atmosphere fresh. Dusting the soil from his hands, he returned to the main body of the Workshop.
Kinesis laughed shortly as she saw her father come back with the infant trees behind him. "You brought trees father." she quickly brought him a wet towel to clean his hands with bowing her head shortly. Then steered him towards her assembled testpieces. "I experimented a bit with glass and ceramics for the chemical reactor, father. Would you please help me which is best to use for which part?"
Teknall wiped his hands and put the towel down on a nearby bench. He walked along the arranged testpieces, visually inspecting them. He walked back along the row, and pointed to a few as he passed. "This glass will be good for the primary crucible and most of the piping. This ceramic shall be good for the high-temperature reaction vessel. These will be a good selection for the auxillary chambers. This can work for the high-stress piping."
Teknall thought for a moment, then stretched out his hand. The Elemental Siphon released a few kilograms of graphite powder, which coalesced into a ball hovering over his outstretched hand. His fingers tensed and the ball imploded, turning into a thick diamond disk in a flash of incandescent white light. It landed in the palm of his hand, although it was much bigger than his palm. Teknall took out his chisel and chipped a few slots out around the edge. He handed it over to Kinesis.
"Use this in the base of the high-temperature crucible, to let the heat in," he instructed.
Kinesis curiously observed the entire process, nearly envious of the divine command of matter. As she was entrusted with this perfect form she blushed a bit and lowered her head demurely. "Thank you father, I will put it to good use," she quickly mumbled before getting back to working. So she started by preparing a greater mass of the glasses and ceramics her father had deemed acceptable and suited for the tasks at hand.
Teknall mixed up some more cement and reinforcing rods, breaking up the earlier offcut of concrete for aggregate. He then constructed what was effectively a second floor, stretching for about ten meters from either side of the doorway leading to the plantation, reaching the elevators on either side. However, he did not build a concrete floor directly in front of the door. Instead, he forged a metal platform which would fit in the gap.
Then Teknall built a system of robust pulleys, motors and cables, and used a network of strong struts to suspend them over the gap in the raised floor, just higher than the height of the door to the plantation. Teknall then attached the cables to the metal platform, and at the flick of a lever the motors came to life and hauled the platform up and held it in front of the door. This was a lift between the Workshop floor and the plantation, capable of carrying large loads such as tree trunks.
Kinesis quietly worked, assisted by her robotic assistants, alongside her father on her own task. She created a dizzying array of glass and ceramic bulbs, tubes, decanters and vials. Also reactors and vessels and armatures to control the flow of liquid, or liquid bound chemicals.
Parts for storage and heating soon piled up, just as much as containers for mere physical processes like cooling and distillation. As she and her valets worked on constructing the parts, she sometimes started assembling them. For the bigger ones she used the gantry crane to manoeuvre them into position.
Working around the forges, Teknall took large sheets of corrosion-resistant metal and hammered them into large rounded tanks, with a capacity of about four hundred cubic meters each. He then coated the tanks in fibrous insulator, then with an outer skin of reflective aluminium. Each tank had an inlet and outlet valve. Into each tank was added an electric heating element, just in case the contents ever froze and needed to be thawed. He then took these tanks outside, via the large airlock, and strapped them securely to the outer rim of the extension, hiding in the shadow of the main body of the Workshop. He then ran pipes from the inlets and outlets of the tanks to the interior of the Workshop. The outlet pipes each had a refrigeration unit which could be used in the event that the contents of the tanks had boiled and needed to be condensed before use.
The craft maiden paused her own endeavors and shyly observed her father working on a not dissimilar task with just that much more elegance and rapidity. From time to time comparing it to the pile of gleaming amorphous material she was working on, at least until the god of crafting had left the workshop.
His daughter sighed and returned to her own work of assembling the chemical reactor. The joints between glass and ceramics parts were especially hard to set up in a lasting and efficient way; glass connections she could just heat and in a way melt into single pieces, but where the different materials met another way was needed. Thus she started experimenting again. The material would need to be softer to accomodate thermal stress and still be as chemically neutral as possible and still hold fast and tight without allowing leakage. She would need a lot of thought to do this, and in the end just sat down opposite the Siphon, scratching her forehead with one hand as she contemplated the various elements and their properties.
Most of the tanks Teknall filled with liquid water, an incredibly useful resource. He constructed a machine which would burn together hydrogen and oxygen gas to produce water, and included a condenser and heat pump to transfer the heat of reaction to the radiator system. One of the tanks, however, he filled with liquid nitrogen. While it could be used as a source of nitrogen gas, the main purpose was to have a readily available source of cryogenic cold. Teknall built a machine to condense nitrogen gas to supply to the tank, and also to keep it cold.
It was only when her father reentered the workshop that Kinesis had an idea. The airlock. It was all so easy, there was no way of creating a perfect seal between so different materials but containment was the important part. Right away she and the robotic arms began reworking the linkage points where glass met ceramics or two too different materials of each category met. She also started building another set of far smaller tubes and pressure tanks made quickly and easily from metal. Setting this up would only make the reactors dizzying tangle even more baffling and akin to a knot of yarn, but this would work.
What Kinesis had come up with was a kind of double chamber seal. A kind of chamber would be build around each endface and be pressureized with inert noble gas, which would not contaminate or hinder the chemical processes overly or be a problem if it leaked into the workshop. Her work really proved to be intricate but it would work like a charm, ensuring a good performance for the chemical reactor. As she had finished she stepped back, looking at this tubular cathedral of chemistry she had finished, hoping her father would approve of the complicated sealing technology.
Teknall, back inside the Workshop, melted down and poured out three heavy disks of solid adamantine, eight meters in diameter and one meter in thickness. Around each he attached low-friction chorundum bearings, so they could rotate. He also built a bracket for each of them with a system of powerful rare-earth magnets and electromagnets. He then cut slots out of the wall separating the Workshop and the plantation and inserted the disks into them, as well as behind the Core. The three disks were all mutually perpendicular, and their axes of rotation each pointed through the center of mass of the Workshop.
Around each disk Teknall built a sturdy frame of adamantine and concrete, and then he encased them in a shell of similar composition. As he did so, he extracted the air from the chambers containing the disks, such that the adamantine disks were suspended within a vacuum, held up by nothing but magnetic fields, with the axle bearings as a back-up.
Once he finished all three, Teknall activated them, and the reaction wheels began to spin up. The whole system was controlled by a sensor array on the outside of the Workshop, and would be used to correct the orientation of the Workshop such that it always pointed towards the sun, even as it orbited. It could also be used to change the rate of rotation of the Workshop, thus adjusting its simulated gravity. Finally, the wheels provided stability, such that the Workshop would not noticeably change rotation due to the activities within the Workshop.
Teknall then walked over to Kinesis and the chemical reactor she had constructed. It was an elaborate tangle of pipes and valves and bulbs and guages, a mixture of glass, metal and ceramics, all carefully and intelligently designed. He looked at his daughter, and was met by her expectant gaze. Teknall put a hand on her shoulder, gave a reassuring smile, and said, "You have done an excellent job, my daughter."
"If you say so I am sure you are right, I just hope that it will work as well as I hope," she said softly, giddy about her father's approval.
Teknall looked back at the large space in the Workshop which was yet to be filled. "Come now, let us finish it together."
He walked down along the space where the assembly line would go, the many robotic arms Kinesis had built stirring to life as though in salute. When Teknall got to the end, he called forth aluminium, silicon and oxygen from the Siphon and fused them into refractory bricks. He also called forth adamantine and shaped it into four sturdy pillars standing over five meters tall. On top of these pillars Teknall used the bricks to create a giant furnace, and connected it to the Stellar Engine Core so it could melt down metals and form alloys. The interior was partitioned into three sections, so three different metals could be smelted at once, and spouts came out the bottom so the metals could be poured out.
Kinesis followed, proud about what they had created so far. She kept back a bit as her father worked true wonders, not her own mere approximations.
Teknall then filled the furnace with steel, mithral and copper, and melted them down. A channel was made to take the copper to where it could be drawn out into wires and made into wire coils for electric motors. The steel and mithral was cast into meter-diameter rollers, jointed metal sheets, and heavy-duty suspension, which would be combined with the motors to make a gigantic conveyor belt.
As she saw Teknall prepare the wires she realized that they would be the raw material for the assembly line's motors. She asked her father if she should go ahead and start building them and the god just nodded.
Kinesis got started right away. Like a conductor she urged the robotic helpers into motion, having a few start preparing coils for the motors, while others made bearing balls out of other portions of the wires. She herself prepared new molds for casting the motor casings. Together her four own arms and the robotic servants made short work of it and it did not take them long to have all the motors the assembly line would need.
Under Teknall's direction, the gantry crane carried the large components into place, and the robotic arms arrayed about the assembly line linked the parts together. A large conveyor belt, 15 meters wide, ran for 50 meters from the blast furnace to a point just short of the chemical reactor. On both sides of the main conveyor belt was an auxillary belt, one meter wide, which would be able to deal with the construction of smaller parts and operate independently of the main line, or supplement it.
Once the conveyor belt was done, Teknall and Kinesis got together to make large machines which stretched over the assembly line. The robotic arms were versatile and excelled at fine manipulation, but different machines were needed for performing manipulations spanning meters.
Teknall forged metal beams and rollers and cast giant metal blades and presses. Gears and bearings and motors and axles were meticulously crafted by Kinesis. As Kinesis worked Teknall took the parts and integrated them into the structures, their work perfectly complementing each other's to form functional machines.
As the assembly line neared completion, another gantry crane was needed, specifically for the purpose of carrying away whatever the assembly line produced. This Kinesis built, as she had before.
As Kinesis built the new gantry crane, Teknall was inside the large airlock, constructing a static crane built into the Workshop and suspended above the massive trapdoor leading into space. A controlled means of lowering and raising things through this airlock was needed. A sturdy frame of adamantine was made, embedded deep into the walls and supported at many points. In this frame Teknall put giant pulleys and motors, and he spun hundreds of meters of adamantine cables for it to use. Kinesis made a few more robotic arms to go inside the airlock, which would guide the cables down at floor level and attach them to what was to be lifted.
The assembly line was finished. Yet it was useless until it gained access to the limitless resources of the Elemental Siphon. Together Teknall and Kinesis made a system of pneumatic pipes and valves which sprang forth from the Siphon and stretched to many of the machines in the Workshop. A network of wires carrying electrical signals allowed the machines to communicate with the Siphon and request however many of whatever elements they needed.
Finally, Teknall and Kinesis put their tools down and looked at what they had created. Father and daughter, they had created from their own hands a vast machine of divine technology. Robotic arms, conveyor belts, pipes, spotlights, electrical wires, catwalks, furnaces and more all combined in intricate ways to form the Workshop, yet by the careful planning of Teknall and the artistic touch of Kinesis it was all organised and aesthetically pleasing.
Standing beside his daughter, Teknall wrapped an arm around Kinesis and hugged her. "Look at the marvellous things we have built," he said. "You have done some terrific work."
Kinesis bowed her head demurely and simply replied, "Thank you."
Teknall squeezed Kinesis affectionately. "No need to be shy about it. At least half the pantheon would have been clueless as to how all this stuff worked, yet you picked it up like second nature. Not only that, you were able to expand and improve the plans in many places. I'm proud of. You should be too."
Kinesis smiled and hugged Teknall back. "Thank you, father."
They stood for a few moments longer, admiring their handiwork, before Teknall stepped to the side. "There is still one more thing which needs doing," he said. As he spoke, golden light began to radiate from him, and he slowly grew to almost twice his previous size. His voice echoed between the concrete walls. "This space is my Workshop. Such a sacred task is only befitting for a sacred place. The work is finished, so let this Workshop be whole."
The divine glow of Teknall's power expanded to fill every corner of the Workshop and suffuse through every beam and rivet. Furnaces flared. Tools arranged themselves on their benches. Pumps hummed. Saplings rustled and grew. The battalion of robotic arms stirred to action and the conveyor belt began to roll. All these things occured as Teknall blessed the Workshop in its entirety and made it truly his own.
The biggest change was that the assembly line was now active. Metal poured into a large hexagonal mould. Rollers and presses shaped the surface, and robotic arms installed coils and devices. The chemical reactor brewed up rocket fuel, which was bottled and strapped to the sides of the giant metal plate. When the Stellar Engine Collector reached the end of the line, it was collected by a gantry crane and carried into the giant airlock, where it would be ejected into space and fly into position around the star. And the cycle repeated, continually adding to the Stellar Engine.
Now, the work was truly finished. Teknall's Workshop was no longer simply a space where he could craft things. It was now special. It was now a part of Teknall. And it was only the beginning of countless wonders to come.