We call this GROWTH 🤩

Age: 15

The project is coming along beautifully. It’s taken a long time, and we still have a long way to go, but everyday is exciting.

We’re making a mechanical servant. There is such a thing in the south called warforged that was made to use in battle -- with some mix of mechanics and magic to give them a kind of half-consciousness. But we are making this one to have a full consciousness! Mom is working hard on that part. Sometimes I think that she would work just as hard if no one had commissioned us at all. It's all about the discovery for her -- bridging the gap between life and machine. She is so passionate about it. Lately she has been getting frustrated though. I’m not totally sure why, but something about her tinkering and experiments is frustrating her. I try to help -- or at least get her to talk about it, but she gets so wrapped up in her projects she hardly looks at me. That's just how she's always been though. And I’m alright by myself.

Besides, I have plenty to work to do. My end of the project is the true artificery part. Building the mechanics of a life-sized, full motion, mechanical person. It’s incredible what you can do with science! And also frustrating sometimes. But It’s going well! Mother made me a headset to use to test the controls (That’ll be replaced by the consciousness she’s working on when it’s ready). The controls have been really hard to learn, but doing it little by little is working. I’ve gotten so far on the movement of the servant! It's not very pretty yet, but the range of motion and the fine motor abilities are coming along really well. Yesterday I tied a bow from a ribbon using the hands I built! The hardest so far have been the shoulder joints. Human shoulder joints have so few hard connections. Achieving the same motion in a robotic shoulder -- where hard connections are necessary -- is real difficult. So far it's going alright, and I’ve got it functional. I might just end up changing the whole design though.

Cable still keeps me company at my work bench. I think fish have been going missing. Mom hasn’t gone on one of her trips in a long time, so there haven't been any new fish. But even without counting them all, it just feels emptier in here. I have a few favorites that I would definitely notice if they were missing, and...all of those are here. So maybe I’m imagining things.

Age: 16

The Servant (that's what we’re calling it -- or her, I suppose, she will have consciousness after all) is almost ready! The mechanics of her body is my greatest achievement! I mean there are a million things I would still improve, of course, but you should see it move! The delicacy, and agility really do rival a human’s! This isn’t a clunky war machine, this is a work of art.

I am just working on the plates that will hopefully protect her inner workings. Today I finished her face. She looks as though she is wearing a beautiful mask to a ball, and a little crown of amber. I know, it might be presumptuous of me, but I’ve grown attached and I want her to feel beautiful in her body! Sure she’ll be a servant for a stuck up Lord, but she's more than that to me. Sometimes when I am wearing the headset and I close my eyes, I can almost imagine her body as mine.

There has already been word about making more of these creatures! Some even from far away! Word spreads fast, I suppose. I hope they will never be used to fight. It would be a waste of a beautiful creation, in my opinion.

The consciousness mom is working on has something to do with her fish. Her requests in my design have been to make water-tight containers taking up most of her chest cavity and her head. I have caught her experimenting with them. She has still been frustrated a lot. She is very worried about disappointing the High Lord. but she has been calmer lately. Perhaps she’s come to some kind of compromise. I mean, the consciousness of a fish would theoretically be easier to enhance and repurpose than a machine that's never been alive in the first place.. I’ve been very patient, but I can’t wait to see what she has come up with! We don’t talk a lot anymore. Maybe when this project is over, she will be more her old self again.

Age:16 (later the same year)

I am writing this on a napkin in the cold and dark of one of many cellars in High Lord Cavernille’s keep.

My mother, she -- I am --

Oh how I wish that I could cry! Maybe it would make this all go away!

I’m a prisoner. A prisoner in a body that isn’t mine. Strangely, the mechanical fingers with which I hold this pen are more mine than what has replaced my actual hand.

I have started praying, and I don’t even know to what god. I just hope that someone will hear me.

Mother came to the lab to watch me work with The Servant. It was a strange occurrence, but I put on a whole show for her, puppeting the mechanical body with my mind all around the room -- writing messages, dancing a bad waltz, organizing the lab.

Our project was almost complete. After her visit to the lab, Mother suddenly began to talk to me more. She showed affection, which, for her, was rare. I assumed it was because she had finally made a breakthrough, or perhaps that she was proud of me!

It was last Thursday when she came down the stairs to find me working late on the final touches. She touched my face and my hands, and told me she would miss me. I was confused. I had every right to me. But she wouldn’t answer my questions. She just reminded me to scribe every detail of my design into my notebook -- as she often did. I fell asleep that night at my bench.

A few hours later I was jolted awake by chanting. Colors danced all around the room, and my mother stood -- black hair floating around her -- a look I never seen before in her eyes -- her head back — reciting words I couldn't understand. I remember feeling horribly sick to my stomach. The world churned around me. I could feel the horrible magic gripping my skin, pressing me until the world was gigantic around me.

I am stuck like this -- a tiny scaly thing in a glass bowl -- just like one of the thousands of colorful prisoners we decorated our walls with.

Dear gods, I have thought so much about those beautiful fish. Were they -- are they -- like me? Has she been collecting -- people? I shudder to think -- Oh Cable! What can I do?

A few days have gone by. I have been performing my role as best I can. I have nothing to do but wait for an opportunity to run. Everyone is terribly impressed that something as simple as a fish can give consciousness to a human-like mechanical servant. My mother is wealthier than she has ever been. I imagine she is off on one of her trips to celebrate. Collecting more fish.

I feel so small and vulnerable. Had I any friend in the world, perhaps I would miss them, but -- I have always been so caught up in my work. To think I have spent years of my life crafting my own prison!

I have struggled in this body. It is not as simple as puppeting it around the room. I must peer out at a world too big for me now, and pilot hands that are not really mine. For I have lost mine.

I cannot feel the air around me — the pen in my hand or the floor beneath my feet. It makes me clumsy. I once marveled at this body’s abilities — claimed it could do all that a real flesh and blood body could. I feel foolish now. I am cursed to know too intimately how short my creation falls.

Oh how I long to cry.

Age: 17

I have escaped the High Lord’s keep. It wasn’t hard to slip away. I was playing well the part of a mindless slave, which meant the guards had no idea to look for me. I waited a few months so that I could formulate a plan – part of me waiting for some kind of sign. I also waited until I was sure I could move in these metal bones the way I needed to. I still struggle with them.

I am surprised to report that my mind has adjusted somewhat. I still cannot feel things – not directly – but I have a sense of pressure from the movement of the pistons and gears in my false body. Mother’s blue ichor — while not the consciousness-creating miracle she led me to believe it was — allows me to control this mechanical body, and transmits a small amount of sensation back to me. I suppose I have to thank her for that. She is a brilliant woman … a brilliant monster.

I often think back on the memories of sensations with… longing. The feeling of fabric on the skin. Hair brushing your arms and back. The touch of another’s fingers on your face. Even the pain of a hot pan.

I burned my fingers just a little the other day on the stove. The leather that covers my fingertips and palm was blacked in a line and smoked a little. I felt nothing.

The sign I was half-waiting for came two days ago. A delivery from my mothers’ workshop came to the High Lords’ keep. I knew my mother, having finished a project, would be off on one of her trips in a day or two from that time. So I waited.

I allowed two days to pass, and snuck out in the night. I stole clothes, hid my face in a hood, and climbed over the garden wall using some rope.

The house and lab were empty when I arrived. In constant fear she would be back to discover me, I took only a moment to look at the hundreds of beautiful fish in tanks that lined the walls. The room felt – haunted as it never had before. The fish swam back and forth in forlorn patterns. Cable hovered curiously in the middle of his tank as I approached. Feeling sick, I lifted my finger to touch the glass of his prison. He backed further into the foliage of his tank.

I had no way to take him with me, and no plan to even resolve my own suffering. I made a promise to him then, and to all of them, that I would be back to free them when I had found a way to free myself.

I knew my own clothing didn’t fit this new body. It was taller, and had broader shoulders than I used to. I searched for my notebook with the plans I had written for The Servant. They were missing. I did, however, manage to grab my journal, a knife, food to feed this tiny frail form, my boomerang, and some basic tools and tinkering supplies. Then I ran from that place – a room full of memories-turned-nightmares.

I am alone in the woods as I write this. My plan is to run south – where warforged are more common. I hope not to have to hide quite so much there. But more importantly, there is magic there. People who understand magic. If I have any luck at all, there will be someone who can help me.

How will I survive? Can I, as something not even considered human, find work? Make money? So many questions. I will lay this body in the dirt by the fire tonight, and hope the fire will warm the ichor.

I am happy, at least, to have my journal again. I suffered a great deal having nowhere to write, or draw out plans for my tinkering. For the first time in months I feel a little more myself.

Commissions are still very open! Ya’ll know you need art for that new online campaign you’re starting… *wiggles eyebrows*