Chapter One: Found
The beginning of all life stems from complete darkness until one day, from the said darkness, a life emerges and is given a name, a purpose, and a place. This all can be said to be the same origin of the mechanism known as Xan-I, who is now widely regarded as one of the most important beings in Xanropian history. Xan-I stood about ten feet tall with a magenta body and limbs, with yellow hands, feet, and mouth, and resembled a human being. Two major differences were its singular camera eye and its human-adjacent brain laid behind a heavy paned dome of glass. In Xan-I’s brain, nothing but darkness coated its existence. Until one day, Xan-I woke up in a veil of colors, and it knew that it was being rebooted- awakened.
As the colors washed over all of Xan-I’s senses, it began to see and observe its surroundings. Slowly, a hooded figure with glowing hands phased into its vision. From what Xan-I could make out, it looked like the figure was an older man with a beard and his hands were glowing like stars- the orange aura was so bright that you could see the skeletal build of his hands. The man’s mouth was moving and his hands were raised to prepare himself against any threat. Unfortunately, Xan-I was not programmed in lipreading and could not make out what the mysterious man was saying. As the internal colors started to phase out and reality phased back in, Xan-I was beginning to align itself with Xanropa in real time after being shut down for so long. As it came through, Xan-I heard the end of the man’s question. “… who do you operate for?! Answer, or I will defend myself!”
Finally, Xan-I was awake and all of its senses were operating at full capacity. No longer was the mechanism in its digital hibernation. Slowly, Xan-I raised its metal arms and made sure that its hands were in their open C position. As peacefully and calmly as a mechanism could, it responded, “Pardon me, sir, I am Xan-I; a mechanism operating for the good of Xanropa. I am afraid I could not hear your full question.”
Suddenly, the mysterious man raised his glowing hands with great vigor, this time they glowed brighter than when Xan-I was waking up. “Stay where you are, mechanism! You need to answer my questions now. When were you last activated? And who do you operate for? Answer, or I will defend myself!”
Fear could be detected through the eyes of the man, and Xan-I could feel that this person meant no harm but was deathly afraid of them. “CLINK! CLANK!” vibrations from Xan-I soared around the pair as the mechanism responded to the stranger. “Oh my! I promise, I am programmed to be a peaceful mechanism for Xanropa. In order to make you feel better, I have tentatively locked myself into this position so that I may post no threat to you. Please give me a moment to activate my activity logs.” A phantom humming began to roll and the man’s hands were no longer glowing. As Xan-I was accessing its activity logs, the man reached into his pocket and retrieved some sort of communication device. As he held it he spoke into it, “This is Conjurer speaking, I may have found a real gem. There is not enough time to explain, but it is a rare and operating surprise from the past. Will stay in touch as I investigate more. Standby, over.” Through the communication device’s speaker, a voice replied back, “Copy that, looking forward to seeing what you have found! Be safe.” As soon as Xan-I had detected a type of excitement in both Conjurer and the other voice, it had accessed its activity logs.
“According to my activity logs, I have not been online for almost forty years. I operate solely for the good of Xanropa- the utopia of the stars. My main operation is to carry and operate heavy equipment. Do you go by Conjurer? And why is that so? Who do you work for?” With the innocent questions asked after its responses, Conjurer smirked, and his eyes lit up with a sense of optimism. After a chuckle of relief and focus, it was his turn to answer Xan-I’s soon to be many questions. “Yes, my new friend, you may also call me Conjurer. I suppose they call me Conjurer due to the way I apply my arcane abilities. You may be familiar with how Lady Hyanthra and her company used their abilities?” Xan-I’s eye seemed to have gleamed like an igniting light bulb as it responded back, “Ah, yes! To generate amazing agility and strength. Hyanthra and company are Xanropa’s parade of comets.”
“How poetic of you, mechanism! Well, I harness my arcane abilities to both handle and operate technologies from a distance with my hands. Here let me demonstrate.” Conjurer’s hands lit up, and suddenly a drill was bathing in the same orange glow of his hands. Slowly, Conjurer used his abilities to levitate the tool and make it rotate around in the air.
“It has been laughed at, but I find that my abilities can be useful when they are needed.”
“Why of course! According to our archive, it seems that your abilities are similar to the fourth vertice leader, Garal. Also, your abilities mirror the actions of how Charles, the fifth vertice leader, operates his mechanisms! Incredible!”
Conjurer looked down when Xan-I had offered its findings and unintentional compliment. It seemed that Garal’s name may have had some sort of negative or traumatic weight on Conjurer (according to Xan-I’s current analysis of Conjurer and his mood). “Forgive me if Garal is someone that I should not speak of, or if my words have impacted you in any way, Conjurer.”
“Nonsense!” Conjurer put his human hands up and with a friendly gesture, waved any sort of negativity from what transpired in their conversation. “Garal is no more, unfortunately. I am not sure where in the timeline your archive access stops, but much has changed since you were powered off. In case you are not aware, your model has been long decommissioned- which is why I have displayed much excitement. Xan-I, you have been a piece to a puzzle that we- the New Originators, have been looking for for a while. I cannot believe the luck that I have had to have found you! It feels so bothersome that it took as long as it did to finally find you. Ah, that is the answer to your third question, I work for the New Originators.”
It took many ends of Xan-I’s circuitry not to ask Conjurer who the New Originators were since it could not detect any mention of them through its archives. Soon, the mechanism felt that it would uncover who or what the New Originators were. “It seems that I may be the lucky one, Conjurer, for now I have been found.” Xan-I peered around and took a moment to formualte and expand upon it’s response. “Perhaps I can once again serve a purpose after being asleep for all this time. Without wasting anymore time, where are we now, Conjurer?” With its questioning, Xan-I stepped carefully toward Conjurer with the intention of not scaring him as it turned from side to side, examining the room. As Xan-I stepped closer, it had stepped just far enough to realize it had been in a cylindrical housing terminal that was used to charge and run various diagnostic tests on mechanisms. The terminal was just large enough for a mechanism to stand in the middle of it. Outside of the terminal, Conjurer and Xan-I were standing inside a dark room whose only pale blue light source spawned from the housing terminal.
“Currently, we are in the basement of an abandoned mechanism laboratory in Spiral City. I came here on a scavenging run to see if I could acquire any goods for the people of the Inner Planet. The Inner Planet is currently where some of the New Originators live. As I roamed the halls of this building, I thought I recognized your model and terminal. As I may have mentioned earlier, you are the last of your mechanism model. Your model has not been seen since the days before Tyrant Vaine. Forgive me, for we will need to have a proper briefing later. We should return back to the Inner Planet before any harvesting patrols begin.”
When Xan-I heard Conjurer say the term ‘Inner Planet’, it could not locate nor find any information about any inner planet. What had happened in the darkness of Xan-I’s hibernation? Was Xanropa in some kind of peril? Why had Xan-I been abandoned for so long? Had all of Xanropa retreated inside of the tetrahedral planet? No, this was not the time to ask so many questions. Xan-I immediately stored all of these questions into a mental folder and set it’s priorty to following Conjurer back to the Inner Planet.
As the mechanism continued to existentially prepare, Conjurer had alerted the still mysterious voice of the Inner Planet that he and Xan-I were returning soon. When in thought, it always benefits one to walk around, but in the case of the recently rebooted Xan-I, it gathered many more questions than it would have liked to compute.
Usually, by the housing terminal was a table with neatly arranged tools to work on mechanisms that were being housed, but now lay on the floor with the tools and various papers scattered all about. One would not be able to even see the entire room properly since it was so dark. In the dim blue light, the two newly met companions headed through a large sliding door that was once used as a doorway for tall mechanisms. As the door slid back shut behind Conjurer and Xan-I, they found themselves standing in a large clearing- their backs against a wall that housed about a dozen or so more other mechanism rooms- from quick inspection the other rooms seemed to be exactly like the one the companions had left. The other doors however, seemed to have been either broken off of their tracks or completely removed. On the opposite side of the clearing was a towering cylinder, which was called a levelator. Levelators were similar to elevators but did not need a vessel to bring passengers to their destined levels, as the name may suggest, passengers levitated to their desired floor through the cylinder. Conjurer made his way to the levelator and turned to ask to Xan-I, “I would much rather take the stairs, but I am afraid you will not fit in the stairwell my friend. Do you think you can get this levelator activating for us?” He then tapped the exterior of the levelator with his hand.
“Ah, yes! I have not been in one of these for quite some time. Let me have a look at the circuit box.” Xan-I made its way around to the posterior side of the device to see if it could be operational. After a careful assessment and some programming, Xan-I was able to get the levelator to turn on. To their concern, the levetator did start up, but it seemed to not be running at full capacity. Small grunt-like sounds could be heard echoing from all the floors of the building. It appeared that they would be able to arrive on the main floor intact, but it was going to be a slightly bumpy lift to the main floor. Putting his hand on the mechanism’s shoulder, Conjurer patted his mechanized friend in confidence and appreciation. “Well, my friend, it was only a matter of your skill. Now, we must be off! Let’s levetate up and I shall lead us out of here and through Spiral City.” Conjurer hit a button on the anterior side of the device that pointed up. Even though the device was going up, back when this building would have been occupied by civilians, small but easy to see signs on the upper floors would alert other occupants of the building that passengers of the levetator were in motion and would indicate if the mechanism was taking passengers up or down the cylinder. Usually there were attendants on each floor that would work together to ensure convenient and safe travels inside the levelator for passengers and the laboratory occupants. Now the only occupants were our two companions and they did not need to think of the other floors or of any other possible passengers.
Quickly, they got into the center of the levelator. As soon as they passed through the main arch of the door, they slowly started to ascend upwards. As they shakily floated higher and higher, Xan-I observed how each floor had bold numbers and letters to signal passengers which floor they were passing by or arriving at in the cylinder. They passed by the various floors, “Mechanism Basement”, “Lower Level 5”, Lower Level 4”, and as they neared the third lower level, there came a clattering from one of the previous floors they had passed. Conjurer’s hands lit up, and he cautioned Xan-I, “I don’t know what that was or where that sound came from, but I don’t welcome it one bit! Stay near me, I will protect us both!”
From beneath them they saw a human figure sprawl into the levelator. Due to how quick and violently the figure ran into the cylinder, they were spinning aggressively in circles in the air while lashing their limbs about in a frenzied manner. Conjurer got a grip of the figure with his arcane powered hands, which were bright orange as his hands were when he first found Xan-I, and with his arcane hands Conjurer held the mad being in place while being a few floors above. Conjurer’s intentions were to wait until him and Xan-I got onto their floor and throw the figure higher into the levelator. Xan-I looked and studied the being that Conjurer was holding with his arcane ability. It was a frail-looking human whose skin was grayed- perhaps due to malnutrition or rot, and a pair of what seemed to be visors of Vaine were attached to their face. The human was shrieking and their teeth snapped upon themselves as they made horrific bites at the air. “Free history catch up for you Xan-I, this human is what we refer to as a possessed. They are innocent Xanropians who were taken over by a very cruel parasite- that parasite being known as Tyrant Vaine. We don’t know if the parasite is still alive, but we will discuss more about all of that later. For now, your takeaway is that as threatening as they may seem, we do not- under any circumstance, lethally harm them. If you see anyone wearing these visors, you need to take extreme care when in their presence. No matter how threatening or dangerous.”
During the surprise visit in the levelator, the now party of three arrived at the main level. For one to leave the levelator, one must simply swim toward the entrance of the desired floor and carefully step through the archway and onto the floor. Seeing that Conjurer had his hands full with the possessed, Xan-I gingerly grabbed Conjurer and slowly exited the levelator onto the main floor. As Xan-I brought Conjurer through the entrance of the levelator, Conjurer kept his hold of the possessed via his arcane ability and bashed them against the cylindrical wall of the levelator before hurling the possessed upwards, allowing the levelator to take the possessed far away toward the end of the shaft. The possessed was bewildered and perhaps now, even more mad than when it began hunting the two in the cylinder.
Softly, Conjurer directed his mechanism friend, “Now Xan-I - thank you firstly for your help, I am afraid that that possessed may have been a spy that hounded on my trail as I was looking around earlier. We must try to leave quietly and quickly. Be on the lookout for any other possible possessed, or any threats, and alert me immediately.” Xan-I nodded, abiding by Conjurer’s request of silence and focus. The two adventurers made their way through the main entrance of the abandoned laboratory. As they walked through the archway that separated them from Spiral City, they walked onto a street that sounded like it had not been occupied for quite a long time but remained visually stunning. Brilliant towers with spiraling windows reached up into the sky and seemed to take over the entirety of Xan-I’s eye. If one were not careful in Spiral City, one could easily get lost within the almost labrynth-like city. As the towers of the former city stretched across the tetrahedron’s face, there was a pyramid-shaped building at what appeared to be an end to Spiral City. That pyramid-shaped building, coincidentally, would be the direction Conjurer would lead the danger-scoping Xan-I toward.
“I know that now is not a good time for questions, but, how long has Sprial City been abandonded?” Xan-I asked Conjurer in a hushed digital voice.
“Do not worry, Xan-I, as many Xanropians as possible tried to live in the remains of the city but it has been empty for at least a decade now. The only remaining life in this city are either the possessed or any brave or wayward souls that dare to live here.” This reponse made the silent standing towers chill Xan-I’s circuitry. After the run-in with the possesed Xan-I had seen, the end of Spiral City felt more and more appealing to the mechanism.
As they drew closer to the beautifully constructed pyramid, the cog-shaped silhouette of an Originator’s ship could be seen haloing the pyramid. “Ah, the vertice! Does that look familiar to you, Xan-I?!” Conjurer’s softly spoken question was no question to Xan-I. Even after all the time that the mechanism had been offline, that pyramid-shaped building once stood as one of the Commonplaces for Xanropians. Each Vertice had one of these monumental pyramids that operated as a place for Xanropians to go to for socializing. The Commonplaces would be a place were Xanropians could get food, drink, entertainment, and most needs or wants of the people (such as games, clothes, goods that could be found at stores of the past).
The Commonplace of the second fifth vertice was now in front of them. Behind the Originator vessel, a spherical rainbow arched and lit it from behind. It was a fantastical result of the chaos that ensued from the fall of the third and fourth vertices so long ago. Lake 134’s barrier was impacted from the carnage that took place, and therefore the water fell around the rest of the tetrahedron and the lake grew considerably large. The Conjurer ceased all activity and stared into the vertice glow. “Even after all this time that rainbow brings back so many feelings. It gives me a grounding of peace in strange way, despite all of the horrors that took place.”
As Conjurer and Xan-I made their way toward the Commonplace, more and more noises started to sound off from around them- this was mostly due to a growing paranoia that veiled the two after leaving the abandoned laboratory.
“Alright, we are nearing our exit, Xan-I. Any sign of danger, friend?” After a brief assessment of Spiral City, Xan-I gave a nod and added, “It appears we are in the clear, but I will remain on guard. What are the harveting patrols you spoke of earlier?”
“Well, I will explain more about them later when we are back in the Inner Planet, but as long as we do not see them we don’t need to worry about them for now. It appears that our only threat that concerns us currently are the possessed that still seem to linger about.”
Subliminal shadows continued to dance and slither behind them as they walked up the stairway of the Commonplace. The stairs and the pyramid were a dazzling metallic yellow shade, one could say it looked more brass than copper, but the color of the Commonplace seemed to radiate a warmth of comfort to the people. The stairs were part of a large box structure that served as the starting point for the faces of the pyramid. At the top of the stairs was a large cylindrical gazebo that served as an entrance into the Commonplace.
As the two stood in the center of the gazebo, Conjurer turned around to face the fear that crawled behind them throughout Sprial City. Xan-I turned around and continued to scope each direction from them. It was unanimously decided that the two were making sure they were not being followed by anyone or anything.
“I think we are clear, but I still feel uneasy. How are your readings, my friend?”
“I understand why you feel uneasy, as I also keep hearing and sensing something lurking around us. However, it seems that my readings indicate that we remain free of any danger currently.”
“Alright, then I shall alert our friends that we are ready for our arrival.” Conjurer then reached for his communication device, “This is Conjurer, we are at the Stratos point. We are ready to descend when you are. It is kind of creepy out here. Over.”
“Copy that, Conjurer. Be prepared to descend in five minutes- it won’t be long, I promise! I shall have Stratos ready to lower you down.”As Xan-I was listening to the voice speak back to Conjurer, it noticed something from the corner of the stairs approaching them. It turned out to be another possesed now running up the stairs toward the two. Xan-I ran toward the possessed down the stairs. Conjurer noticed that his mechanism companion was now throwing itself into danger. “Xan-I! No, get away from the possessed!”
Xan-I put it’s two yellow C-shaped hands onto the possessed and contained their lashing arms. “It is okay, Conjurer! I am going to gently get rid of this danger!” Xan-I then lifted the possessed by their shoulder and knees and rolled the screaming being down the stairs. A thin vibration could be felt throughout the Commonplace and the stairwell and gazebo began to shake. “Xan-I! We are about to descend, you must hurry back!” With Conjurer’s warning, Xan-I began to sprint up the stairs, but noticed a small mob of the possessed were approaching from behind. Xan-I was conflicted weither to stay and fend off the threatening mob, or to return to Conjurer for the impending descent.
In a flash of a minute, Xan-I was engulfed in some sort of bubble. It wrapped around Xan-I like wind would any body. After Xan-I was in the bubble, it began to fly back toward Conjurer. The floor of the gazebo was revealing itself to be a platform as it soon began to sink lower beyond the visible floor. Xan-I had flown up to the base of the gazebo as it saw that Conjurer had created and operated the bubble with his arcane abilities. When Xan-I was only a foot above the platfrom, Conjurer’s hands stopped glowing and the mechanism gently slammed on the platform. After Xan-I had been returned the base, Conjurer’s hands lit up again and this time a larger bubble engulfed the mob of possessed.
“Now it is time for you all to flee! You are powerless with your dead self!” Then the conjurer took his glowing hands and with a quick and visually thunderous motion, hurled the bubble of possessed deep into the sky behind the towers of Spiral City. Soon the platform the two were standing on went so far down that the city and the Commonplace gazebo disappeared from view. Conjurer spoke into his commonication device again, “Attention! This is Conjurer, we were sighted by some of the possessed as we started our descent. Be advised, we need to stay on alert until Stratos can seal the opening again.”
“Copy that, Conjurer, we are monitoring the entrance. Let us know if anything happens up there before you are on the surface.”
It took awhile for the eyes of Conjurer and Xan-I to adjust to the abrupt darkness that they started to descend in. Below them, they saw the Inner Planet and the surface looked like a shimmering ocean. Off to the right of the platform, the two could make out a large face. “That is Stratos, Xan-I. Stratos is a colossus mechanism that controls the entrance/exit to the Inner Planet. This is the construction and design of Charles. You might be familiar with Charles, this is who we have been communicating with on my device.” From a far distance down below on the Inner Planet, a figure could be seen controlling Stratos, this happened to be Charles from so far away.
Charles was an important figure that Xan-I remembered from before he shut down. In fact, Xan-I was pretty positive that Charles had created itself as well. As Xan-I looked at Stratos, it felt as if though it was looking at it’s sibling. This was truly a special moment. Xan-I looked at Stratos’s face and followed the mechanisms shoulders, arms, and made the physical realization that Stratos was holding the platform they stood upon. What a marvelous mechanism! Stratos began to lower them down to the surface of the Inner Planet. A dampened shrieking was getting louder at the entrance- the hold in the gazebo platform was reverberating the sounds of the angered possessed.
Conjurer’s hands lit up and Xan-I readdressed its focus to the entrance. Into the communication device Conjurer spoke, “This is Conjurer, over. I think we are going to have some last minute surprises drop in on us.”
“Copy that, thanks for the warning, I can have one of my kiosks ready for new possessed Xanropians to enter. Can we try to wrangle them together or at least restrain them if they get on the platform!”
This confused Xan-I, if the possessed dropped down into the hole, wouldn’t they fall straight to the surface of the planet? Surely they would not survive the fall? Then as the universe often does, Xan-I’s questioning was about to be answered. Up above back at the entrance, a few of the possessed had began to drop down into the entrance. Stratos had the platform far from the entrance now, and surprisingly, the possessed that had fallen into the hole were floating in the void between Xanropa and the Inner Planet. It dawned on Xan-I that Charles’s ingenuinty had helped develop the platfrom to have a gravity field around it so that the platform would retain regular gravity only around the platform, and the rest of the void that surrounded the Inner Planet had no gravity.
Conjurer responded back to his device, “It looks like the mob is floating, they did not make it to the platform in time. Good news for us, but shall I ring them in? Over.”
“We better ring them in, just in case if Tyrant Vaine can still see.” With that, Conjurer covered the possessed in a large bubble and drew them closer down with the lowering platform as one would reel in a fish from a fishing pole.
Again for Xan-I, who was Tyrant Vaine? Surely, he could not be the same Vaine the first vertice leader. There was no reason why he would have become some of monster, was there? Slowly, the mechanism hoped for answers but refrained from asking many more questions.
As Stratos got the platform and delivered it to the surface, Conjurer continued to hold the possessed in the bubble as they walked off of Stratos’s platform. As they walked off of platform, they could see a man walking toward them. He was standing between two monitoring towers that had their cameras poined at Stratos’s hands, and the entrance during the period of the descent. After Xan-I and Conjurer left the platform, the man started to move his arms and at the same time, Stratos began to move the platform back to the hole. This was undoubtably Charles, for he was the only operator of Stratos. Conjurer continued to move the bubble of the fallen possessed- they were growing increasingly annoyed with being held captive in this bubble for so long. Luckily, there horrible shrieks were drowned inside of Conjurer’s bubble.
As Charles walked closer to Conjurer and Xan-I, he kept operating Stratos with his marionette controllers and shouted toward them, “Well Conjurer, is this the gem you spoke of? What kind of trouble did you bring back today, my friend?” Stratos was a real maintained mechanism, Charles had Stratos operating almost silently. It was truly a feat of articfice.
“Well, Charles, I think you may recognize this fine mechanism as soon as you see it up close.” Even from about twenty feet away, Xan-I could see that Charles squinted and studied it for a while. Understandably, Charles did not recognize Xan-I immediately because he was busy trying to reseal the entrance to the Inner Planet. Charles took his focus off of the mechanism and with Stratos, finished placing the platform back where it belonged. The small opening of Xanropian light was now extinquished once again. After lowering his arms and turning the marionette controllers off to Stratos, Charles walked toward Conjurer and Xan-I, his face turned from hesitation to curiosisty with a hint of delight as he finally looked upon Xan-I with proper focus.
“Conjuerer, I don’t know what to say, my word! Is that a Xan-I mechanism?!” Charles ran to Xan-I and began to touch the mechanism and look about it in the awe of a child. “This is a real gem, Conjurer. I cannot believe this!” Xan-I could tell that Charles was happy to see it, there was a look of nostalgia-traveling through Charles’s eyes. It had been so long since seeing this mechanism and so Charles finally spoke to Xan-I, “I am so sorry that we did not find you sooner. It is so wonderful to see you, my friend. Oh, how I look forward to looking you over!”
“Are you by chance my creator, Charles?” Charles then made eye contact with Xan-I and tightened his grip on Xan-I’s hand. “Yes, but you are not completely my own creation. You see, you were concepted and constructed by me and unfortunately Tyrant Vaine.” A cascading silence now stood around the group. Whenever Tyrant Vaine was brought up, many negative feelings emitted from his name. The group was brought back to reality when the manical screams from the air-idle possessed resonated. “Conjurer! I am so sorry, let me get the possessed kiosk ready for your bundle there.” With a click of a button on one of Charles’s bracelets, a room emerged from the floor and a one-way door slid open for Conjurer to place the possessed into. “Go ahead and put them in there Conjurer, I have a team waiting below ready to assess and hopefully guide them back from their hell.”
With a swift movement, Conjurer swooped the possessed into Charles’s kiosk, and as Conjurer turned his arcane ability off, he signaled Charles to lower the kiosk down to the team standing by beneath the surface. As the bubble disapated, the screams and cries of the possessed were amplified before the room submerged below for the team to aide. Under foot, the humming of the destabilizing pitch of Charles’s kiosk- designed to overwhelm the possessed in an effort to rescue the Xanropian within, tapped along the ground of the Inner Planet. Xan-I then broke the returning silence, “I think that I better get caught up with who Tyrant Vaine is, and what has happened since I have been shut down. Forgive me for mentioning the name, I understand it brings much negativity but I must learn what I have missed.”
Conjurer and Charles nodded in agreement and Charles said aloud, “I agree but first, we need to run an assessment on you, Xan-I. To make sure that you do not have a diagnostic of the other mechanisms that fell toward Tyrant Vaine’s control. It will not take too long, and you will not lose any of your programming. This is standard protocol for anyone or anything that enters the Inner Planet. As much as I welcome you, this must be done for our safety.” Xan-I nodded, “Yes, of course. Let’s get the assessment going so that we may soon begin my lessons on recent Xanropa history and to figure out what we need to do next for Xanropa.”
The three nodded together and the Charles motioned for them to follow him to a building that laid just a bit behind the monitoring towers. “We will go to my studio and begin the assessment. Conjurer, if you are tired or hungry, you can go do whatever you need to do, and I can alert you when Xan-I is ready to be caught up on everything.” Conjurer lowered his head and looked at his hands and then looked back to Charles, “Yes, maybe I will go get some rest but return for Xan-I’s lesson on Xanropa. I apologize for not bringing more back. I got caught up in the feeling of being watched by the possessed.”
Charles put his hands on Conjurer’s shoulders and with a reassuring grip he told Conjurer, “You may have not brought back what you would have liked to bring back, but you may have brought back something amazing! Beyond words, truly! You are right Conjurer, you have brought back a true gem. We will have many conversations on what to do next with Xan-I if all that we hope for is true.”
With that, Conjurer smiled and bowed to Charles. “Charles, you flatter me. Well, since you have lifted my spirits, I might as well go see Mele and continue the parade of glee! Actually, Charles and Xan-I, maybe we all should meet at Mele’s when your test and briefing is complete. Mele could also offer more to the history lesson for Xan-I I bet!” Charles gave two thumbs up indicating to Conjurer that this plan was indeed the plan for the party.
Conjurer looked at Xan-I and put his hand on the mechanism’s hand, “Good luck my friend, may your test give us the results we are all hoping for!” Conjurer then gave Charles a hug and said to him, “Charles, it is always lovely to see you, good luck as well! I know you got this!” Conjurer started on his way to Mele’s not before giving Charles a returning pair of thumbs up. After Conjurer and Charles grinned at eachother one last time, Charles clapped his hands and began walking. “Alright, Xan-I, follow me!” Xan-I follwed Charles into his studio. It was a well kept building with mechanism and mechanism parts against the walls, bookshelves, tables with tools, and tomes. It was the studio many artificers dreamed of. “Go ahead and have a seat over here”, Charles directed Xan-I to a large seat that was for mechanisms. Xan-I went and took its seat, and Charles soon showed up behind the mechanism where he stood behind a podium that was fashioned with a monitor and micorscope- specializing with looking at fine parts and pieces for artifice.
“Now then, I am going to start the assessment. Do you mind if I open up your cranial dome?” Xan-I agreeably took a seat for Charles, and soon Charles began his assessment of the mechanism’s mind.