As a broken hourglass heart Magellan (which he was called) couldn’t do much, but in one gentle moment he was back. in the form of a tiny, winged cube creature projected from a tiny deck of cards.
The card deck seemed to be just thin plates of a metal similar to titanium but the inscriptions on it we so tiny and complex it was like a magical circuit board stacked on top of many other clockwork circuit boards each one interlinked to become some kind of computer mainframe of magical symbols
By Magellan’s standards the mainframe was notably primitive compared to the one of his own time, but it existed here in a world that lacked both pluming and steal here was a computer mainframe hosting him in in a lite simple mode form
“Who are you?” Magellan asked
“I just go by the name the Mistress now. The old me is gone and I am just one of many tacticians on this grand stage?”
“How did you do this with just cards that behave differently is it some kind of alien technology nobody knows of”
“It is indeed made from the machine secrets of alien creatures. some I killed others I befriended, and on occasion I poured my mind through the most alien entities on earth so I could figure out how I could build a thing like this in this time and place.” the mistress soothed her diplomatic manner just like the ones who were the cyber security professionals he worked with.
“How did you get to me then. How could you of found me to know I was from a world like yours?”
“A friend gave me a ride back here. another friend helped me develop techniques for finding lost souls. And still other friends showed me how sigils could channel energies in ways similar to circuits. Then all my friends together helped me build this. They helped me find you and the one who came after you in your time. You we are my closest friend, and I found you and rescued you so we could save the world once again.” Th Mistress said.
“That doesn’t make sense how are you here Alice why would you follow me to this place?”
“The one we fought at home is a menace everywhere he needs to face justice, and I cannot do that safely where I was. Besides I am still home or at least a body of mine is speaking to my cards through a smartphone. I live a normal life there but when I dream, I enter a world where I become the true me. a thousand years can pass here and yet to the other me it would barley be even one dream. That false me that exists now it is only a novelty. My soul is here with you right now Magellan.” Alice said
“But why Alice”
“Because you were always my true friend and now, I have more friends, and these friends can rescue other friends.”
“Is that what you want Alice?”
“I want what I have always wanted, and that is to save the world.”
The conversations between Alice and Magellan were much gentler at that moment during Thunes early to mid-Iron age. in the next coming century Alice helped the lone druid and Magellan for a group similar to all of them who lost loved ones at that time they just called themselves the Sages triad, but the name never sticked.
Alice learned about cybernetics and the finer points of technology at the same time she developed her card deck and together all three of them built something much more sophisticated than a card deck, they built a claptromantic. which appeared to be a personal stopwatch that used an internal network of crystal rune covered with tiny ones and zeroes.
The claptromantic was a supercomputer from a universe where Alice had met Magellan firsthand. That world had special computer rings that could project interactive holograms. It wasn’t her home world originally but she got sucked into that world through a mirror when the hierophant’s forces found her in her native domain.
Needless to say the next fifty years was just spent learning new things Alice was an immortal superhuman genius and it didn’t take long for all three of them to work on designing a clock tower from there they designed a simple punch card computer than a 1970s era computer. and eventually they had the blueprints to build medieval era computer the size of England’s Big Ben.
They had no room and no recourses for it though so instead they worked one recruiting advanced networks of magical creatures of magical beings known for the intelligence and brilliance at crafting complex things. Gnomes, gremlins, goblins all had the option of joining the think tank, and eventually they suggested that Thunes clock tower Big Jen should be built in the permissive realm of Feyri where space, secrecy, builders, and recourses were always available for a price.
Begrudgingly they barter mechanical and magical secrets right and left in the hope that they could construct a system to build a mystical supercomputer that anybody with the proper blueprints could build with. Soon it was done.
There was a clock tower, and it could act as a CPU thus in response to this they built a city around it with other towers acting as hard drives and others acting as memory cards motherboards and so on until one city block in the heart of feyri could now host any advanced algorithmic program imaginable.
Yet this was no simple computer city this was like having an advanced orbital satellite with all the magic power of the sword Excalibur.
More than even that though it was an afterlife for all those poor sentient digital beings that got slaughtered in the world of Magellan.
It was a third home for the three of them that they couldn’t leave easily. However, they were not lonely their fey spirits bonded not to forests but to advanced computer cities manifested a digital wind in that realm. They were druids that could wild shape into complex radio signals and travel vast distances even between the planes to spread new messages and those messages went like this.
- Some beings have souls even though you disagree.
- Some beings have magic even though your incredulous.
- Some beings have friends you have neglected to count.
- Nobody just disappears
- Everybody goes somewhere and also, they come back from that somewhere also.
It was news greeted with as much incredulity as it was greeted with contempt. Regardless of that Alice commanded the minds of millions of slain digital beings all from a magical deck of cards.
In time every everybody worked together to build for Oberon the body of an unstoppable golem that could interlink with the clock work city. They also built a flying castle to act as a relay station to the clock work city called the clock work tower alley or CTA for short.
Soon even the flying castle was given floor that allowed her to function as a fabrication plant several more flying castles were built each as well with the power to do different things like walk run and fight Oberon controlled them all through his city in Feyre and the best part was that the castles could only be seen of the light of certain moons.
For centuries more the three developed their railway and soon the monks of destroyed digital beings now in elven bodies bedecked with circuit like runes trained long and hard until they could help create a railway system that could ensure heroes can win any fight.
These elven programs became known as the punch card monks after they were able to manifest celestial golden cybernetic components for their body including places for punch cards.
It was said that after a thousand punch cards were inserted into their system a martial arts routine could be created to defeat any foe. but far more than that this is how the punch card monks help out in maintaining the rail ways. and while most clockwork elves are punch card monks yet not all clockwork monks are monks of any variety
- They provide services and security to individuals on the train.
- They operate the train tracks, train station turntables and all moving elements with the mind of a thousand super computers and the magical care of a thousand Gurdian angels.
- They completely handle logistics like fuel recourses money and time.
- They design new types of trains while updating and repairing old trains
- they provide security around door trains and train stations also
- they help perform rescues for any abducted and injured passengers
- They provide backup support to every and any overloaded system.
The Punch card monks have answers to every question and solutions to every problem, provided you discipline yourself for them.
Signing up to join is easy but if after seven days you can still fight and have learned something then perhaps you will get a white belt and a name tag to hang on the wall.
