Discord
09-04-2023, 03:54 AM
You are a TIMEWINDER, an ANCIENT race of clockwork constructs made for a purpose long forgotten. You are humanoid in stature, though rather bulky and worn down. You have a key that sticks out of your back through which you can be wound with, just out of reach of your own arms. All of your movements, your thoughts, your being, can only happen while that key spins. Otherwise, you lay dormant. You've lost thousands of years that way without even realizing.
Of course, time works differently for you. You have the ability to FREEZE TIME, as it were, and move through it with no difficulty. You can do this at any time, for no cost - but your key will still spin during this time. And you'll need someone else to wind you up again before it stops. You were built without the capability to wind your own key. A safety precaution, maybe.
Getting people to wind your key is difficult as you are REVILED by most people, even here. While most people in this desert were sent here for unfair or unjustified reasons, they seem dead set that you being here is only just. You are a monster from fairy-tales for them, too old for them to remember any of the details, but not old enough for them to forget the fear. They hardly see you as real, let alone as a person.
It's fine. Your colleague can always wind you up every morning. And that way you don't have to pay the goddamn people from the city to do it anymore.
That being said, your colleague! A "TYPICAL" "HUMAN" "WIZARD"... wizard school dropout, to be exact. Or at least, so he claims. You have your suspicions he's something a bit more complicated. Something you may have seen before, years and years ago, that you just can't place. Though, you don't interact with enough humans anymore to know the difference, you suppose. And whatever he is doesn't matter as long as he has arms that can spin a key.
...He does have more than that. He's been a great boon to the shop. His MAGICAL INCLINATION helps you with finding and defining curses on the objects you bring up from the depths, and his glamour spells have helped you to sell goods that you definitely shouldn't have been able to. Though, he seems hesitant to cast more than two spells in a day. Something about the magic growing more UNSTABLE the more he casts. You've never pushed him beyond one spell a day out of respect.
You've never asked him how he got here. Not that he's ever asked you. It's a touchy subject for most people.
Now, onto the actual meat of the story.
Today is a dreary day, much as every other day is in a land without a sun, only strange, ambient lighting. Your wizard colleague, Frederique, is winding your key like he does every morning. He's making a face that you've come to learn as
a grimace.
You tilt your head to inquire why. (Speaking would be too much effort at the moment.)
FREDERIQUE: ...Sorry, you're probably going to have to go down the canyon again today. What we've got just isn't selling.
You look to your supplies.
You have:
YOU: ...I don't know, it's as good of a stock as we usually have.
FREDERIQUE: Not for our buyers. If one of our regulars comes by and sees we haven't updated our stock in 3 weeks, they're just gonna stop coming. You're going to need to go.
You turn away from him. The last time you went scavenging, you fell dormant. You were using the faulty stopwatch and just...lost track of time. That's how you found - how Frederique found you in the first place. From the concerned look he'd giving you, you can tell he hasn't forgotten.
FREDERIQUE: I can always go with you if you need me to. Or I can go and you can watch the shop. Your choice. But one way or another, we're going to need more supplies.
What do you do?
Of course, time works differently for you. You have the ability to FREEZE TIME, as it were, and move through it with no difficulty. You can do this at any time, for no cost - but your key will still spin during this time. And you'll need someone else to wind you up again before it stops. You were built without the capability to wind your own key. A safety precaution, maybe.
Getting people to wind your key is difficult as you are REVILED by most people, even here. While most people in this desert were sent here for unfair or unjustified reasons, they seem dead set that you being here is only just. You are a monster from fairy-tales for them, too old for them to remember any of the details, but not old enough for them to forget the fear. They hardly see you as real, let alone as a person.
It's fine. Your colleague can always wind you up every morning. And that way you don't have to pay the goddamn people from the city to do it anymore.
That being said, your colleague! A "TYPICAL" "HUMAN" "WIZARD"... wizard school dropout, to be exact. Or at least, so he claims. You have your suspicions he's something a bit more complicated. Something you may have seen before, years and years ago, that you just can't place. Though, you don't interact with enough humans anymore to know the difference, you suppose. And whatever he is doesn't matter as long as he has arms that can spin a key.
...He does have more than that. He's been a great boon to the shop. His MAGICAL INCLINATION helps you with finding and defining curses on the objects you bring up from the depths, and his glamour spells have helped you to sell goods that you definitely shouldn't have been able to. Though, he seems hesitant to cast more than two spells in a day. Something about the magic growing more UNSTABLE the more he casts. You've never pushed him beyond one spell a day out of respect.
You've never asked him how he got here. Not that he's ever asked you. It's a touchy subject for most people.
Now, onto the actual meat of the story.
Today is a dreary day, much as every other day is in a land without a sun, only strange, ambient lighting. Your wizard colleague, Frederique, is winding your key like he does every morning. He's making a face that you've come to learn as
a grimace.
You tilt your head to inquire why. (Speaking would be too much effort at the moment.)
FREDERIQUE: ...Sorry, you're probably going to have to go down the canyon again today. What we've got just isn't selling.
You look to your supplies.
You have:
- A dozen eggs that still haven't gone bad, although the date on them reads for 500 years ago. Frederique checked them... they aren't cursed. If anything, maybe there's been some time fuckery? You'd have sold them by now, but at this point you're worried it'll give someone space-time food poisoning.
- A rock. It's a pretty rock, but not pretty enough to sell. And Frederique refuses to touch it.
- A hat that is impossible to be worn. Yes, even by inanimate objects. You suppose you could sell it as a sort of magic rug, as it just hovers an inch off of the ground most of the time, but its structural integrity does not lend it towards being sat on.
- A bookmark made of...human flesh? You're not sure why you even have it up for sale. Maybe if a necromancer ever rolls into town and wants only the tiniest strip of skin?
- A pocket watch that takes a second and a half for it to tick one second. You've tried many times to rewind it, but despite your own clockwork insides, you have no clue how clockwork works. Your own fiddling turned what used to be a mild inaccuracy to this. You still use it sometimes while exploring to keep time, but you do have to keep in mind that it's not accurate.
YOU: ...I don't know, it's as good of a stock as we usually have.
FREDERIQUE: Not for our buyers. If one of our regulars comes by and sees we haven't updated our stock in 3 weeks, they're just gonna stop coming. You're going to need to go.
You turn away from him. The last time you went scavenging, you fell dormant. You were using the faulty stopwatch and just...lost track of time. That's how you found - how Frederique found you in the first place. From the concerned look he'd giving you, you can tell he hasn't forgotten.
FREDERIQUE: I can always go with you if you need me to. Or I can go and you can watch the shop. Your choice. But one way or another, we're going to need more supplies.
What do you do?
![[Image: lil_lesbian.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/488528315485782026/1118298351616663633/lil_lesbian.png)
