By Aldin

     I peer through the darkness falling softly on the city.  Tarant's smoky haze glimmers royalty and blood as the sun sinks behind the train depot.  Looking through twilight at the door.  I wait...

     "If you don't mind, I've some minor baubles I need to purchase while you examine that Contraption."
I nodded, still surprised that an Elf (a magician!) had wandered into my offices.  True, I had never discriminated against his kind.  But my line of business is generally uncomfortable to the gentle practitioners of the art.  He almost seemed to float out the door.  His gawky frame was completely at odds with the sculptured face.  I had noticed his eyes first.  Brown, hawkish orbs peering down from above a graceful nose and perfect lips.  But now he was gone for a time, and I had a new commission.

    The first question I have always asked about a device is "What?"  What is the purpose?  Here in front of me was a clever device.  One of the most intricate and complicated I had ever seen.  It had cogs and coils, gears and levers.  Perhaps a place to apply power?  Yes.  At the base were two poles.  I quickly unhooked the power source from my tea warmer (marvelous device!) and applied it to this new marvel.  How slowly time crept as I watched the gears begin to turn.  Teeth on cogs intermeshed as electricity coursed like blood through the veins of the tiny engine.  A hum began to build, faint, just audible.  But it did nothing else.  I should say that it did nothing I could observe.  It did not display motive power.  There was no ejection of smoke, fire or electricity.  No place to attach or insert anything.  It didn't do anything.  There was no purpose.  I refused to believe it.

    "What is the purpose?"  I looked into the tiny mirror in my office, seeking answers in my own blue eyes.  What I saw and felt were one.  Confusion of the mind echoed in the lines of my face.  Deep set eyes and shaggy black beard offered not a single clue.  It was time for a bit of libation.  I hastily scrawled a notice and fastened it under the name on the door.  Bragg Ost, Mechanician.  "Away doing research, back around 4."

I wasn't welcome at the local pub.  The walk down to The Stony Maiden always gave me a chance to think however, so I rarely begrudged it.  I thought about the Elf.  He said that he had uncovered a plot to separate himself from his possessions.  Apparently he was being stalked by ruffians.  Ruffians with an eye toward taking his wealth and perhaps even his life.  He had accosted one of them the previous day.  In his panic, the culprit dropped the very device the magician had brought to me.  And now it was for me to determine purpose.  I was baffled.

    "What hey, Bragg!"  And why shouldn't the bartender be pleased to see one such as I whose coin flowed freely?  "'Lo Jasper."  Whether the melancholy was in my voice or on my face didn't matter, Jasper immediately knew.  "Problem's a double?" he asked while getting out the shot glass and the single malt.  "Triple," I replied.  "Triple," he repeated, then sighed "at least you won't be takin' the whole bottle again."  Jasper could choose to be protective at the worst of times, but I let it slide for the friendship I bear him.  "Seen Giggle?" I asked.  I needed another mechanician to bounce this off.  "Not since he lost his eyebrows, but you might want to talk to the kid in the corner."

    The half-Elf kid was playing with pulleys on the table.  His mommy couldn't possibly be very happy with his career choice.  Still, it proved he had guts.  And guts implied character.  Plus it looked a lot like he had succeeded in making some interesting refinements to the pulleys.  "A slipping gear system that would let a halfling lift a horse, neat."  "And angled teeth to allow a Catch." He replied.  Putting aside the pulleys, I inquired, "do you know anything about devices which do nothing?"  He looked incredulous. "do nothing?  Without a mage present?  No, of course not." But that was the right answer anyway.

    

      There they are.  I see them in the gaslight.  Creeping slowly toward a door they know is guarded by powerful magic.  If I were closer I'm sure I'd hear a faint hum.  Complicated mechanics trying to cancel out powerful magicks.  Never suspecting my trap, they try the door.  The explosion briefly creates a second sun before Tarant falls into darkness once again.