The Tireless Mechanic
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"Afternoon. Ready to offer my services. I'm an engineer. Finest you'll ever hire. Treat engines like my own children. Not that I have children. Too busy. Usually busy."[1]
The Tireless Mechanic is an engineer from London.
A Mechanical Marvel?
"Does he ever sleep? His eyes are dark-circled, but his hands are steady."[2]
The Tireless Mechanic is a talkative and somewhat scatterbrained engineer.[1] He does not sleep and takes a draught to compensate, which lets him retain his faculties[3] but leaves him exhausted.[2] To stave off sleep, he eats simple meals and refuses wine.[3]
In the past, the Mechanic's enthusiasm for engines led him to dream of them, and then of the Stone Pigs - the creatures that allow the Bazaar to travel the High Wilderness. The Pigs sleep for now, but the Fingerkings can breach their dreams. They recruited the Mechanic to steal a secret from the Pigs' dreams: the plans[4] for an engine unlike any other. Fascinated, the Mechanic stole the secret for himself rather than giving it to the serpents as they asked,[5] and he stashed the secret in Frostfound where the Fingerkings could not follow.[6] For his deception,[5] the enraged Fingerkings will hunt him the moment he sleeps and dreams of Parabola.[7]
The Mechanic wants to defeat his serpentine pursuers so that he may sleep again.[7] He also hopes to reacquire his secret[6] and use it to build an engine called the Fulgent Impeller,[8] which runs on the same forces that propel the Bazaar.[9] The Impeller requires a "heart" to function,[8] so the Mechanic contracted a mysterious Rubbery Man called the Unsettling Sage[10] to act as one when the time comes.[8]
