Reflections on the Driven

This is just a short piece I felt like writing. It is a small portrait of three Fellows in the Convocation, the Tamer, the Constructor and the Immortal. The Constructor is one of my characters and has been rped, some might remember him from the Nexus Bait-and-Switch event I ran a while ago, whereas others will know him from an escort quest he gave to the Aurora Wolves. Writing on them is something I want to do more of, just waiting for the right inspiration to hit me. 
From the collected fiction of Iyokus Shatterstar 
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Deep in Ironforge, in an long abandoned chamber, a dwarf sits, surrounded by sheafs of paper. He was once a Twilight Cultist, but a chance reading of the last remaining copy of Agostin's masterwork in the Twilight Library of Heresies pulled him from the sect and sent his once-companions to the executioner's block. He thumbs through his notes, his gaze swapping from the sketches on the parchment to the rough rock wall in front of him. Behind him, a platter of food congeals and cools. It is startlingly cold in the chamber, a chill that bleeds from the walls. It is the cold of dark, open vistas, and it does not belong in the heart of a mountain. 
He seems pleased, and stands to approach the wall. The huge, perfectly geometrical spiral that has been placed beneath the surface of the rock continues the trends - his theories have been correct, communication continues. His fingers brush the surface of the stone wall, it has been rendered smooth and transluscent, but pulls at his skin and he knows from experience that it will be some time before it will be warmed. There is an edge of worry under his satisfaction though, the last turn of the spiral closes into a crude representation of an eye, something it has never done before. His craft is more art than science, the title he has taken a mockery of the delicate balance he walks in his work, only the leaps in his brilliant imagination allowing him to maintain contact for so long. 
Time passes. There will be discussion with his colleagues, requests made. Progress is everything. 
It is a workshop like thousands of others, filled to bursting point with machines and parts of no obvious function, some large, their golem-like bulk menacing the organic, some tiny, intricate fabrications that draw the eye. A pretty she-gnome flits around the room, her face set in a determined expression. Her hands move with a practiced knowledge, retrieving equipment and tools at the muffled instructions. She is precise and quick - nothing excites the passions of gnomes like a inventive mind, and her master sees things no one has yet dreamed of. 
She corrects herself, this is not entirely true; recently her master (and she does consider him hers) has focused his genius upon the works that have come before. She almost trips over a cable as thick as her thigh before righting herself. Sometimes his ambition leaves her breathless, though she works to hide it under her professionalism. She is honoured to even be a small part of the grand undertaking and those moments when he is tired from working all night and all day, when the glow of triumph lights his eyes, and the incessant echo of clockwork begins to fade... She slaps a tool into the gloved hand the emerges from within the bowels of the construct. Those are the moments which she works for now. 
Though her master has been gone more and more these past few weeks, and she knows how angry that makes him. She does not understand who has the power to demand he leave his project, for never do the mysterious others come to the shop. She hopes he will stay for longer this time, to her master, progress is everything. 
He is a night elf, and he sits placidly at the table in the human tavern in Stormwind. Occasionally he brings the glass of wine up to his lips, but the level of the rich, purple liquid never seems to drop. He has come from a library, a library where they do not allow you to remove books or take notes, for the contents are such that they merit constant supervision. This is no barrier for the elf, for his mind is like a steel cage, honed by centuries and millenia of training and brutal self-discipline. He parses over the facts of the treatise in his head, moving aside those sections which are irrelevant but contain information worthy of future consideration, and concentrates the full force of his intellect on the paragraphs and diagrams that pertain to his special interest. Lirosh was indeed a mage to be reckoned with, but more than that, her insights were both deep and revolutionary. 
The barman watches, slowly rubbing a dirty cloth into an ale mug, the elf has not moved for some time now, barely even blinked. He goes to extinguish some of the candles that still light the room. Even plunged in darkness, the pale-skinned night elf does not flinch. The shadows are, after all, from whence they came. 
Two words thunder through his skull; theory, practice. Long has he sought out theory, and now there are new resources at his disposal. Resources that he might bend to the practice of his craft. He has for many years worked with only his own force of mind and wit, but there is work to be done, and progress is everything.
Category:Story