You follow Adele, wondering how serious she is, and possibly how experienced she is. The two of you reach a door and start descending a dark flight of stairs.

Upon reaching the bottom, a switch is flipped and light floods the area, painting a gruesome scene - a stone hallway with ten cells on each side. Each one crowded with emaciated men, sitting and lying in pools of their own filth, others consuming the disgusting sludge to drive away their hunger for just a moment. Several of the bone-thin men have their faces pressed against the iron bars that contain them, reaching towards you, calling for help in a deathly silence.







Another scene is of a man standing on a lush green field, the northern mountain ranges in the background. A grey cloak is over one of his arms, with his other hand resting on the hilt of a sheathed saber. Other scenes depict various beasts, some original occupants of the world, others that came from the corruption, and countless images of far away kingdoms and villages. It's quite an impressive gallery of paintings.

Adele leads you halfway down the hall before stopping, and you notice by now that the end is, well, a dead end.

The large paintings around you depict different scenes of the inside of Adele's mansion, though one of them stands out - a stone room lit by artificial lighting, filled with wooden racks and shelves holding an extensive collection of weapons and armor.

Adele: "So, take a guess!"


________________________________________


TRANSFERENCE COMPLETE

Byrnolf: "Could just give it a toggle."

Looks like Byrnolf is done with his nightmarish doll, and is working on some other components. The eyes are completed, just sitting on the table for now.

Byrnolf: "If you want, you can install that memory stone, I shaped the inside of the head to fit it. Use that spool of conduit to connect the eye and the stone together, eyes should pop right in. There's a fusing tool in the top left drawer behind me."

He motions his head towards the work table behind him that has drawers on both sides.


________________________________________


Man: "Uh, maybe? I'm kinda the wrong person to ask, but probably. Military grounds just east of here, command is the four-story building. Should be able to ask someone there."


________________________________________


YOU GET SLIGHTLY WORRIED. YOU GO BACK TO ONE OF THE GUARDS AND ASK HIM IF HE SAW WHERE MONK WENT.

Guard: "The girl in the towel? Went to the capital building."

WELL, AT LEAST YOU KNOW WHERE THAT IS. IT'S LIKE, A BLOCK AWAY.

You leave wordlessly, exiting the building and looking for the guest storage or whatever the guy called it. It's not far, and adequately named storage - just a building with a bunch of metal lockers. You find yours and pop it open - it wasn't locked, but all your stuff appear to be here.

Spear, scraps of leather armor... Well, at least your spear is intact. Your helm looks battered as well, out of shape and doesn't fit your head anymore. There's a small pouch that you don't remember owning. Opening it up, you find 8 gold coins.

Well, that's probably enough to buy yourself a fresh set of gear. There's some new clothes in the locker as well, and you change out of your medical shirt and pants and into the thicker clothing.

With your spear, new clothes, and a bag of coins, you head roughly east and quickly locate the four-story building.

A single armored guard is posted in front of the door, and he gives you an odd look as you approach. Might have something to do with the spear you're carrying.

Guard: "Need something?"


________________________________________


Adele: "Even better!"

She pulls on the painting of the armory and the entire section of the wall swings outward, revealing a dark room. The lights snap on, revealing... Well, an armory.

Except, not a particularly special one. Wooden racks of plain steel armor and various weapons. They're certainly fine quality, but not exactly, special.

The two of you head in, and Adele walks towards the wooden wall opposite of the painting-door. Pushing a seemingly random series of wood panels, they shift back about an inch. Using the newly exposed corners as handholds, she slides the entire wall over to the left, revealing the REAL armory.

A large room with bright granite walls and hardwood flooring, racks of dozens upon dozens of swords, halberds, spears, maces, knives, bows, crossbows, bolts, shields, and a large number of unique suits of armor. A series of shelves hold smaller individual pieces of armor as well as magic components like mana stones, focus stones, and other AM gizmos.

Adele: "Pretty neat, huh? I built the rooms myself!"


________________________________________


You find the fusing tool and carefully go about installing the memory stone and eyes.

The memory stone goes in easy enough - taking off the head, there's a near-perfectly shaped slot inside the skull, and some conveniently placed screws and plates that keep it in place. The eyes pop into the sockets, and you use the fusing tool to connect the conduit to the memory stone like what you remembered when you assembled a doll with Madenuuk.

The fusing tool is pretty simple to operate - hold some conduit together, press a button, and the tool spits out liquid conduit that quickly solidifies, binding things together.

By the time you're done, you look over at Byrnolf to see a collection of crude AM kinetic motors.

Byrnolf: "Maybe we should've built this to look like a turtle, since we'll be using a turtle spirit. Oh well."

You look at the swords and halberds.

They look like, well, ornate swords an halberds. Your constructor senses tell you that they're some fine, quality AM, and Adele motions for you to pick any up.

You grab one of the halberds at random - a shining silver one with "gold" inlays, creating detailed flowering artwork that blooms across the shaft.

Adele: "Any particular tastes? Some form stronger armor, others are faster, a few have unusual effects. The one you have is from a craftsman that is long dead. Nothing especially unique about its capabilities, but it's still a superb weapon."

You set the halberd down and look at the swords. Several of them are colored, others silver or grey. A brilliantly white one catches your eye, looking somewhat similar to Lucida.

Picking the blade up, it feels a bit lighter. The blade is more slender but a touch longer, and the crossguard is shaped like a pair of hawk wings. A name engraved at the base of the blade catches your eye -

ILLIGE

... Where have you heard that before?

Adele: "Chen Illige, she's a master constructor that lives far to the south-east. I've heard she's comparable to Matis Emiel. Speaking of, I have one of his works."

She takes another sword from the rack, one of the dull grey ones. Not the most eye-catching color, but the guard is finely sculpted to imitate a pair of folded, bony manticore "wings," with the pommel being the head with a red stone in its mouth.

Adele: "Not the best artist, but that's not what he's famous for."


________________________________________


Guard: "Very well. Take the stairs to the left, third floor, second office you see. Make sure you knock before entering, he's not always in the best of moods."

Adele: "Both the Illige and that Emiel one do."

She grabs a pair of some other grey ones, the two of them looking identical. The Caelum emblem is visible on them.

Adele: "These also boost magic casting, but by a smaller amount. Emiel's Bulwark swords, one of the most popular mass-produced construct weapons that can create armor. I've been trying to get my hands on the Rampart sword which is like beefed up version, but that one's a lot harder to find. Elizabeth's assistant, Linna Ziegel, has a Rampart."

She sets the Bulwark pair down and goes over to one of the shelves, grabbing two different gauntlets. One of them is thinner with delicate engravings, and the other is a bit bulkier and smooth.

Adele: "This smaller one boosts casting, and as for unusual, sort of, the larger one is a mobility construct. Materializes a temporary-AM armored horse that you can ride."

Those go back on the shelf, and she retrieves something that looks like a white wooden sheperd crook.

Adele: "This one isn't exactly useful, but it's, unique I guess. It flips things upside down."


________________________________________


YOU GO TO AND ENTER THE CAPITAL BUILDING AND WALK AROUND SEARCHING FOR MONK

YOU SEE HER IN THE KITCHEN? SHE APPEARS TO BE WEARING A MAID OUTFIT AND IS HEATING A KETTLE OR SOMETHING ON A WOOD STOVE. THE SMELL OF COFFEE IS IN THE AIR

Monk: "Wait, how do I know when it's done?"

Linna?: "When the sand timer is done."

THE MAID THAT LOOKS A LOT LIKE LINNA IS SITTING IN A WOODEN CHAIR OFF TO THE SIDE, READING A BOOK.

Monk: "I forgot to flip it."

Linna?: "Well, it doesn't smell done yet. Give it another three minutes or so."

Monk: "Alright. Oh, hey Vandolf."

THE MO- The Monk-Maid gives you a small wave.


________________________________________


You nod, and then head in. Stairs to the left, third floor, second door. A single hard knock on the heavy wooden door yields a response.

???: "Come in."


________________________________________


You start installing the motors, which is a bit more difficult than the previous job.

Byrnolf: "Sorta. Problem is that there's just masses of conduit running throughout the doll, how exactly does it know where to apply the forces? My guess is that the sequence in the memory stone takes that conduit network and sorta makes it represent the human nerve network, the pathways that cause electricity to flow through your body and control stuff, and the sequence is able to get the spirit to adapt it as its body using the conduit network as a rough map, an fine-tuning things after it figures out what it can and can't move.

Problem is, we won't be using nearly enough conduit, and we're using a turtle spirit. Easier to just specifically map the conduit to motors and give those input options to the turtle."

A little bit longer, and you have all the motors complete! Byrnolf seems to be finished with some other components.

Byrnolf: "Sound sensors and emitters, so it can scream at us."

He hands the parts to you.

Byrnolf: "Once you get those in, we'll find a turtle."