Padri Tiltfeather looked once more over the note the cutter had brought back from Pinion's Point, trying to see if Daniel had intended for him to interpret two particular sections in any way other than the obvious. It was written in an indirect way which was slightly annoying, though he'd forgive the vagueness if that was the case.

Soraso, leader of Threst, might have betrayed the Octyrrum.

Perhaps more shockingly, his ancestor Bekali could be alive. It wasn't unheard of for the family of high level Blessed to lose track of them over the years as they outlived their direct family, but Bekali had famously disappeared during her tenure as the Regent of Threst. It wasn't a large stretch of the imagination to assume Daniel had found her in the ruins, and it was established fact that the Regent of Threst could access that place through use of the region's Spoke.

Either would've been a compelling reason for him to go to Pinion's Point by themselves, and another reason Padri was scrutinizing the words this much was to rule out any possibility that the Artificer solely wanted his boot supplier to be in a closer locale. Yet, the word that Zolyra Rosescale had now permanently based herself out of that town added more credence to Daniel's words being true. It was either that, or they were the traitors.

There was one additional data point which, while this wasn't an empirical measure of proof, supported Daniel's side of the story. Yesterday, before the cutter had returned with Daniel's letter, the supposedly level 6 Druid and the Sojourn they sheltered had come into Aurus and shaken up the heights. It had been significant enough of a change in the view that Padri had gone outside his workshop to ask what was going on.

Put efficiently, Soraso had replaced the remaining members of apex flight with said Sojourn. The very top of the mountain city now had a cloud bank sitting on top which, if you consider that conjecture stated this was part of the level 6 gestalt's body, made for a considerable defense. Anyone attempting to reach Soraso or the courts would have to be able to fool the senses of a high level individual, and do so while within their body.

Panic wasn't quite the word that this sight caused among Padri's neighbors. For one, there was an aesthetically pleasing way the clouds combined with the vertical waterfall, and it had to be said that if the monsters tried the same trick again the one known as Zozar could crush most of them before they reached the city. And surely, Lagori Talongleam had betrayed his class when he'd made the unjust grasp for power. But, hold on, Threst was supposed to be the region for avianoids. Not to say other races were unwelcome, but surely this was getting out of hand?

Padri didn't ascribe much legitimacy to those complaints, mostly because he didn't care. Anyone who thought Threst was surviving the next century needed a lesson on population statistics, as well as regular statistics. There were not enough mortals to consistently repel the increasingly dangerous attacks made on the city. Not that Padri placed too much worth on conclusions drawn from limited data, but from everything he'd heard Threst was doomed. It'd take a decade or so before those on the order of Zolyra or Zozar would be worn down, but enough dragons and they'd falter.

So why make Threst the center of a kingdom? Padri saw the same flaws Ashier had and added another weight on Daniel's side of the scale. Soraso was smart enough to know the folly in this.

That brought him to what he was doing up late at night. The Engineer didn't make late night work a habit. The last time he'd gone without sleep was to confirm the Artificer hadn't been lying about his miraculous affix, and he'd regretted the urgency of his actions later. Control of one's life was important. A regular sleep schedule, exercise, mental engagement, and a sufficient diet were all needed to maintain long term health. Admittedly he was currently lacking on the last item, though the slowly escalating rationing wasn't helping.

Running to Pinion's Point wouldn't solve that problem, but from his prior interactions with Zolyra and Daniel, he could trust his work wouldn't be co-opted. He couldn't assume that focused effort by city leadership wouldn't allow another Engineer to awaken, one that they controlled. An innovator always had to be wary of those that would abuse their craft.

Losing the house would be a shame, but Padri had already stripped as much wood out of the interior as he could without drawing attention, or leading it to collapse. He did have Generate Material which gave him a workable amount of basic supplies every day, but this new means of creation had hungered for all he could give it.

Every modular core was a masterpiece of interlocking runed panels, and Padri took no shame in admitting he only half-understood how it worked. Whatever concepts were held in his class were complex, and he had barely delved past what innate knowledge he gained from awakening. Padri looked at the core in front of him and no longer saw a cutter, his take on Bekali's designs, but a future brighter than the light that had shone several nights ago.

It was how these cores worked combined with his feature Reverse Engineering that opened up possibilities he could have only dreamed of once. Padri could take an item crafted from any profession, be it a Craftsman, Artificer, or Arcanist, break it down, and then apply the magic within to a creation. It was how he'd converted the pathfinders into something that could give the cutters guidance.

There wasn't infinite variability in how he could manipulate this process, and in fact he had yet to figure out how to incorporate potions into his new class. Neither were all items useful, at least for now. He could take an enchanted sword and convert it into a weapon to be mounted onto a core, but there was no innate intelligence in the creation to guide the weapon in any meaningful way. Mounting it onto a cutter equipped with a pathfinder did point the sword toward the targeted location, at least, but the current benefits of such a design were limited.

Padri wasn't discouraged, as every limit he encountered was simply an obstacle he had yet to find either the tools or ideas to remove. One major hurdle had already been cleared after confirming a thought he'd had seconds after discovering what the first modular core did. A flaw in their design was that anything they carried also contributed to the mass limit. With the wood a cutter already needed to be flightworthy, and the penalty from incorporating the pathfinder as a magical item, it could not carry any person larger than a hatchling. Incorporating a Reverse Engineered bag of holding had solved the issue for nonliving material, but Padri had done something simpler to address the limit on living passengers.

He'd attached one modular core to another. It wasn't as simple as placing one next to another as a cores wouldn't accept that. Likely an internal check to prevent clever Engineers from stacking cores to bypass what their level normally restricted them too, but the gods had neglected to consider what would happen if Padri carved a wooden platform with slots for four cores and attached them like wheels to a cart.

Unfortunately, the full mass of the central platform applied fully to the mass limit of every core. However, when external weight was applied it was distributed evenly to every core. Mounting an item or additional material to an individual core that did not touch another also kept the applied mass on one side. There was enough excess in each core's mass limit that, with some tinkering, Padri was able to construct something that could carry him while guiding itself to where Daniel had bound the latest pathfinders.

That would have already been an exciting discovery if there hadn't been one more to ruminate on as he did final checks before attempting take off. Earlier, Padri had thought about the sword he'd tried to incorporate into a cutter. This had, of course, been the blade Daniel had sent along with the strange projectile weapon and letter. It was a passable weapon, no doubt level 1, but something had shocked Padri when he'd mounted the sword to the cutter.

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It hadn't applied the usual penalty for a magical item. In other words, the core only took the mass of the weapon itself, and he was almost certain the item hadn't contributed to the limit of magical items the core could house either. Padri wanted hundreds of these swords to keep testing with, and that was yet another reason to abandon all he'd known in Aurus.

It was time. Padri stood atop his carrier, two other cutters nearby ready to follow with the possessions he'd packed in them. The six modular cores were almost all of what he'd been able to make since discovering them. The process had a fair chance of failure and required over a day's worth of work, at least for the level 3 version. He activated the pathfinder on each cutter first, though they didn't immediately move. The magic within them couldn't find a way to Pinion's Point. That would soon change.

"Dismiss Tranquil Workshop," Padri said, bowing to sentiment as he otherwise didn't have to speak to end his enchantment. This would be the last time it was cast in this space. His house was no great family legacy, passed down through generations. His parents had lived here, but they were here no longer. Sickness and old age had done them in. Padri knew he didn't look it, but he was 76 years old. If anything they'd lasted longer than the average lifespan considering they'd both met their wall before attaining a class. He didn't need to preserve this place to keep his memories of them.

Besides, he'd used a fair amount of it to make what he was standing on. From furniture, doors, to most of the interior walls, all processed through Material Reclamation. Given that avianoid construction was already light by convention, you didn't need a Builder to know it was barely standing. Though, Padri was hardly sloppy in his work. He was talented enough that he had built a hallway with mechanical designs that could mimic Builder defenses when combined with what his former class allowed him to make. He knew exactly how the structure was going to collapse.

Part of it was already creaking, and he could hear it now that his enchantment blocking sound was dismissed. The sounds of night crept in as well, mostly of insects concealed about the neighborhood. Padri had what he would consider a more logical mind compared to most, and yet he couldn't still the nostalgia from the atmosphere as he activated the two pathfinders on the larger construct. Once, he had crafted to the chirps of crickets in the late evening before finding a power that allowed for a workspace of total concentration.

The last action he'd take here was to don what he'd done with the seventh modular core. This one had been made at level 2, solely due to how inconvenient the larger size required for level 3 cores was. He was sure he could solve this eventually, but Padri had only begun to read the first page of what was the grand textbook on cores. That the Octyrrum appended 'modular' to the identity of this one heavily suggested there were other variants he had yet to find too.

So much to discover. He'd isolate himself for centuries, but reality always found a way to intrude. Padri gave one last backward glance before he closed his workshop door, the only one left in the house as Tranquil Workshop had certain structural requirements to function. Then, he engaged several mechanisms within the hallway leading to it, conscientious to not let muscle memory guide his actions as he activated them in the correctly wrong order.

Only a few minutes. I should stay to make sure they release properly. Padri felt no need to rush. Political upheavals were literally changing the landscape around him, but he'd been careful not to let his work become public. All he had told the guild when severing his contract was that he didn't feel he could spare the time necessary any longer. Add a few carefully dropped hints about moving further hubward to neighbors and those he had professional relationships with, and it was completely believable he'd spent the time preparing to move. In a way, that was exactly what he'd done.

"Mr. Tiltfeather! It's rare to see you out this late," A voice called to him as he shut his front door. Resal, a tan-feathered owner of the house two doors down, who had no doubt just finished watching the sun set. They were on friendly terms, the man always making light of how much older he appeared despite being more than a decade younger than Padri. He had something else about the Engineer's appearance to comment on today. "My, that is, I haven't seen armor like that before. Something new?"

"Yes," Padri answered simply, walking away from his house to guide Resal from any risk of catching shrapnel. He knew the surrounding buildings would be safe with perhaps some minor cosmetic damage, but no one should be standing right up against the porch. "I'm hopeful this will prove to be superior to standard enchanted armor."

"Really?" His neighbor turned a close eye to it, slightly wider eyes peeking at the spinning core mounted on the center of his chest. A level 3 core would be too large to feasibly fit, but with a level 2 core only 25% larger than his fist, it could be fixed into armor without leaving too much of a weakness. The cores could be damaged if left unshielded, and even this prototype wasn't one he'd want to take into battle. Resal backed up after a few moments with a half-worried expression. "It's not dangerous, is it?"

"Not this part." The clock was still ticking on his house, and Padri was fond of the man. Who knew when he would see him next? "Take a step back, Resal." His neighbor obliged, further reducing the risk of harm at the same time. Padri nodded as he inspected what he was tentatively calling his modular suit, which mirrored the lamellar construction most in the region needed to protect themselves while flying. In the center of his chest it bent inward to accept the core, and off the back were connected two devices. Another discovery of his, parts could be connected to a construct without needing to directly touch the modular core so long as they were connected to something that was.

Carefully, Padri reached over his shoulder and moved one of them into position. The mechanical arm clicked into place, extended a sword far past where his hand ended. Its movements tracked with his shoulder, and would serve as an effective weapon should he convert his arms to wings. This was what had become of the sword Daniel had given him, and his other contribution was mounted to the other shoulder. "It is still a work in progress, but I have high hopes."

"I see." He didn't. Resal could appreciate armor and a blade, but he lacked the foundations to know what this seed could germinate into. At face value, weaponized armor that did not care for damage to individual parts so long as the core survived. However, if he could solve that fundamental issue that the pathfinder suggested there was a solution to, it would mean something else entirely.

Padri understood population statistics. Mortal kind could not birth and train enough Blessed to counter the flood of monsters that would come from the Crest. But what if they could build them instead? Golems existed, though as a quirk of high level classes rarely if ever seen outside Incursion Armies. With the right formulae, with the right form, could it be possible to build equivalent versions at his level?

"It is nice," Resal continued, oblivious to Padri's thoughts. "This chestpiece, it would go well on a desk. It's almost hypnotic to watch all those small pieces moving together."

"I suppose." Ten seconds, give or take. Padri pointed to the other man's porch in the distance. "Did you repaint?"

Resal turned his head. "Oh? No, not recently. How long has it been since we've had you ov-" At that moment, inside of Padri's house, the battering ram launched from one side of the wall. It was a mostly non-lethal trap that was otherwise hard to avoid and would wake up the block if fired, and tonight was no exception. The force from the bound mechanisms releasing rocked the structure and ensured its destruction.

Padri was already releasing a section of wood built into his lower left side, which constituted one of the additions that actually counted toward the modular suit's limit on magical items. Daniel had given him a sample of every item he could enchant earlier in their partnership, which had extended to shields. This wasn't something he could use while flying, but on the ground it fit over his left forearm. If in combat, Padri could have it bent to block attacks while aiming the projectile weapon on that arm with his shoulder.

Here, he used it to shelter his neighbor from any incidental scraps of flying house. He had no confidence in using any of this as he was not a fighter, intending only to give himself to means to defend himself in case he was spotted while in transit, but this was a simpler task. Rising from the wreckage were his two cutters and one larger vessel, already seeking out Pinion's Point. "I'm sorry, Resal, I need to be going."

"Padri, what, what's happening?" There wasn't time for this. Now, someone would certainly have noticed, but there was simply no better way to do this. Padri had intended to leave nothing of his work left in Aurus after deciding to abandon the city.

Instead of answering, Padri ran toward the nearest drop off point while touching the small pathfinder he'd built into the modular suit. It had no mechanism capable of generating enough lift to fly him to his goal unaided, but it would serve as a constant reminder of where he needed to go should he be separated from his other constructs. Landing on the platform supported by four cores a minute later, Padri spent one moment thinking of the past before letting it go and looking instead to the future.

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