SK-73

* Arc 1
* Arc 7

Official image of SK-73, drawn by @grace.pptx on Instagram

Official image of SK-73, drawn by @grace.pptx on Instagram

SK-73 is a Player Character of Arc 1 and Arc 7 played by John. His name is pronounced "Skeventy Three", like the number 73, but with a "SK" instead of an "S".

*This page contains no spoilers for Arc 7 in the Arc 1 infobox and up until the section "Between Arc 1 and Arc 7". After that, please proceed with caution.*

## Description

SK-73 is a breaking down robot with rust and extra holes in him, which he tries to hide with the brown cloak he wears. A crank sticks out of his back that can wind and works as his arcane focus. The only reason he does not overheat is that he casts Ray of Frost on himself at all times to cool himself down. When he is panicking, he uses more of this spell, and basically vanishes in a frostcloud. Otherwise, when in stressful situations, he can seem rather apathetic.

He is motivated by his need for knowledge, since he has too much mindspace to fill, and would consider himself "a librarian first and scholar second but never a wizard". He lives at the library of Summerview, where he technically doesn't work, but volunteers out of spite. The workers there avoid him, because he scolds them for not doing their job right. The library is the most important thing for him, and according to him, it is never "fine": there are always books to sort away and things to organise and work to do.

Instead of a spellbook, SK-73 has his memory cards, which also function as an extension of his brain so he can store actual memories on them. He has multiple of them, not all labelled, but unlike Kix, he can access information on them pretty fast once they are put in. Sometimes when he wants to think about something in more detail, he uses the cantrip Encode Thoughts to produce a physical copy of his thought, pass it around in his hands, and put it back into his head.

For the Arc 1 party, he behaves a bit like a cranky old grandpa, scolding them, complaining a lot, and repeatedly telling them how old he is. During combat, he prefers to stay out of the actual fight, because he is not a trained warrior, but a librarian.

## Backstory

SK-73 is one of the few Warforged in the world, and intended to be an automaton librarian, but he was too good at his job. As one of the SK Warforged, he is originally built by amethyst dragons, which is the reason he speaks Draconic. At some point, he leaves them, though, has no contact to them anymore, and is scared of meeting them again. Anything reminding him of his origins and creation is uncomfortable for him: the dragons that built him were never quite happy, and changed stuff about his body while he was already alive and conscious, which was a very uncomfortable experience at best. Thus, he is now scared of blacksmiths, artificers, or amethyst dragons the way that some people are scared of dragons.

At some point in his backstory, SK-73 has canonically spelunked.

According to him, over the years all the different events he witnessed just blend together and repeat itself.

## Character Arc

### Arc 1

SK-73 has his own motivation to find Aura: She is a librarian, has been missing from work for a few days now, and has the key to the backroom of the library with her. When he goes to the Rose and Thorn tavern to find out where Aura is and hears that she has gone to Thymore, he decides to find her to get that key. He needs it because he needs to sort away a book (the only copy of the third volume of "How to raise a Tarrasque") that belongs there in the restricted section. When he receives the copper key, he stands up straighter than before, and immediately after arriving back in Summerview, he goes back to the library to finally sort away that book.

Additionally, during the adventure, he found a new book (a journal about necromancy spells) that he can add to the collection of the library.

While SK-73 usually tries his best to stay as far as he can away from fights, even going so far to push others into the fight instead, he does make a solid attack against Damir Mortyss in the final fight.

His personal feelings towards the party members do not really change, but Deb and Sir Mister Person, who, prior to the adventure, were afraid of him, get a chance to meet and get to know him over the course of Arc 1 and change their minds about him.

The party calls him into the last room of the dungeon, where they face a dragon, because they know he speaks Draconic. Finding out that the dragon is Aura, he is surprised, but not too interested in her story, and instead mostly focused on getting the key. He wants to study the dragon egg a bit, and promises to be careful with it if he is allowed to do so.

After the adventure, SK-73 as well as all of the others reach level 4.

### Between Arc 1 and Arc 7

Skeventy does not change his lifestyle much after Arc 1. He continues to work in the library, organising it, and doesn't leave it in the two years between arcs. Because of this, he doesn't gain any more levels or learns many new spells, but he does get more experience with the abilities he already has: by the time of Arc 7, he has some more spell slots than other Wizards have at 4th level, and can upcast spells that don't traditionally get upcasted. Normally, he uses his spells for library work, for example letting his Mirror Images sort books, or carrying books around with Floating Disk like one would do with a library trolley.

He has essentially been named godfather of little Arthur Ashcreek, the dragon that hatched from the egg and who runs around the library often and adores the robot. SK-73 sees it as a kind of obligation to be nice to him, but also cares a lot about him, and immediately reacts to the sound of the child crying. He gets used to carrying him around.

Between arcs, he had little contact with his former party. Hope still regularly writes him, as she does to everyone, and secretly, he cherishes the letters and keeps them safely stored behind his desk, but never responds. Thavius visits once, for a short bit when he came through Summerview, and leaves a book with Skeventy that he had found on his adventures. Sir Mister visits once or twice before going off to other adventures with Deb.

### Arc 7

While working in the library, SK-73 somehow got even more worn-down. He lost his lower jaw at one point, and even though it did not limit his ability to function or speak, Aura yelled at him when he didn't do anything to change that, so he now wears half of a paper plate with a drawn-on smile in front of the hole where his jaw used to be; the paper plate was very expensive, and it was a gift that was specifically ordered for him. When taking the paper plate off, he reveals glowing wire and crystal where his jaw used to be, and the light flickering is the only visual indication of him speaking. Additionally, he has collected some more dust and some mildew on his cloak. He now carries with him the Ring of I'd Rather Not and the Wand of Small Inconveniences. He also has a little bottle filled with pure alcohol that he uses to degunk his gear, or spike the drinks of his friends.

Aura technically isn't his boss, because he does not officially work at the library, but still, she has some authority over Skeventy. She can stand up to the robot and he listens to her, and when she gives him a task, he fulfills it.

Still, he is not happy to actively engage in combat, but will do so if necessary to safe the people he cares about. A situation like this is also motivation enough for him to hand his library keys to Amara.

While he is not the most emotionally intelligent, and not a person his friends go to when they need to talk about their problems, sooner or later he also realises that his party members have some troubles. When Sir Mister and Deb finally start getting out what is between them, he casts Invisibility on himself and Hope to give them the space they need.

In the dungeon, the party finds a lot of drawings, schematics, and notes about dragons and SK models. SK-73 is quite unhappy about this, as he doesn't really want to have to face the dragons again and is a bit nervous about where all this information comes from. As they get to the final room, they meet Vastya, who claims that he is her robot. First, she tries to make his friends "hand him over", then she tries to persuade him into joining her, both with no success. After the fight, SK-73 tells the party that he does not know who she is or what she wanted, but he wants to find it out.

Also after the fight, Skeventy makes sure Arthur is okay, keeping him distracted when necessary, and making sure he is happy as well as safe.

Aura later tells them more about Vastya, and about who she is, but doesn't yet know a lot about what she tries to do, either. She does ask the party to follow her, though, and stop her plans to defeat the Pirate King. SK-73 is willing to join them and become part of their adventuring party.

### Soul Coinclusion

Just shortly after Arc 7, the party goes to bring back Thavius's soul coin to its rightful destination. To do so, they have to go through the room of lost things in the temple of Celestian, where SK-73 finds his lost jaw, still with the dents it had when he lost it. He reattaches it to himself to reclaim it, but still keeps the paper plate and simply wears it above the jaw.

## Trivia

* SK-73 is the first fullcaster John ever played, and his first character that is not a fighter.
* In Arc 1, SK-73 has 18 hitpoints.
* The inspiration for SK-73 was "beat-up Ultron (from The Avengers: Age of Ultron)".
* All the SK Warforged lore got talked about with John, who had invented these robots.
* Before Arc 7, Haley offered John as many spell scrolls as he wanted, to maybe increase SK-73's chance of survival in an adventure where the next higher character was level 8. John declined the offer and proposed the upcasting of spells that don't have official upcasting instead.
* He was the only guest to Aura and Amara's wedding.
* In Arc 7, Haley is being very lenient when it comes to rules as to how Skeventy is allowed to cast spells, as he is such a low level character.
* He does not like swimming, although water is no problem for him.