CLOCKWORK FAERYTALE AU PLEASE EXCUSE ME AS I INDULGE MYSELF
Once upon a time there was a tower deep in a forest. It stretched to the clouds themselves, and deep underground, hiding many secrets within, daring adventurers to explore its depths and heights. Chief among those was the creature that owned it. A being with powers unimaginable, and a mind incomprehensible by mortal means. It built and built its single building empire, creating and disposing of its clockwork trinkets on a whim, sending its soldiers to nearby villages to steal whatever caught its interest.
One day a woman approached the tower, her eyes an icy blue, her hair the palest of blondes. She came without sword, without shield, without bow, and she stood before the entrance and made her will clear. The being at the top had taken her sister many years ago, and at long last she was there to retrieve her. The being above laughed so hard it shook the countryside like thunder, exclaiming that she would fall like all the rest, but the woman stood firm, and with an unwavering smile she stepped into the tower.
As is the case with such a place, where adventurers attempted to plunder its depths daily, the journey toward the top was perilous. Many a trap lay in wait: Slamming doors and spiked floors, horrible creatures with mashed features. But as it turned out the woman was not alone in her quest. Along the way she encountered the other beings that resided in the tower, people who had been tricked by the one living at its top, who wanted their own forms of justice.
A man trapped in a shell of clay and mud, with gauntlets that could not be broken by any means, who could make the very earth shake under his step. He had come to the being for a cure to his affliction, but was taken as a prize instead, kept alive only barely and made to fight other intruders that would disturb it.
A woman who had lost her arm and sought the great crafting abilities of the being to replace it. It held good on its promise, but numbed her emotions, turning her into a deadly warrior that struck from the shadows, a machine of death. Orders came through the very arm she had sought for, and its ever present drive was one that could not be ignored. Yet somewhere deep down she knew the injustices that had been wrought, the actions she had been forced to take, and a part of her cried out.
A being of metal with glowing green eyes, tapped into the underlying magics protecting the tower itself. She had been an original creation of the one residing at the top, but over the years she had grown a fascination for the humans that traversed the stairs and chambers of the structure. She saw their plight and searched for a way to understand it, to know the drive they felt.
A man, once human, who sought to change his fate. He had once been her, but only physically, and came to the being to find a way to make himself match what he knew to be true. The being smiled and granted him that boon in the form of an entirely mechanical body with the key of a clock sticking from his back, and a warning that if it ever wore down the light of life would flicker from his eyes. He was set to work, using a brilliant, observant mind to develop new magics to protect the tower, knowing that if he paused for but a moment his gears would wind down, and he would not move again
And finally, a woman, a thief who made it further than all the rest, using wits and stealth where brute force only got others killed. She was caught and caged, turned into another trinket she would have loved to get her hands on, and kept as an amusement for years upon years. Her voice was stolen from her, just as she had stolen from the being, and in its place was put a musicbox that played the loveliest of tunes but little else. She learned to speak with her hands instead, and hung in that gilded cage, waiting for a way out.
All of them became the woman’s allies, helping her to reach the top and confront the being. It turned to them, and the truth was laid bare as the woman saw her own face in its eyes. Her sister had never been stolen, it was her, taken long ago, a mechanical double left in her place. Molded and formed by the previous occupant, just as she had shaped the party facing her now. At last it was made clear, and as the mechanical doppleganger approached, she slowly fell apart, leaving the other five to stand in her place and strip away the powers influencing her true half, liberating her and themselves from its grip at last.
