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."

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."

The Tireless Mechanic is a talkative and somewhat scatterbrained engineer. He does not sleep and takes a draught to compensate, which lets him retain his faculties but leaves him exhausted. To stave off sleep, he eats simple meals and refuses wine.

The Echo Bazaar

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 for an engine unlike any other. Fascinated, the Mechanic stole the secret for himself rather than giving it to the serpents as they asked, and he stashed the secret in Frostfound where the Fingerkings could not follow. For his deception, the enraged Fingerkings will hunt him the moment he sleeps and dreams of Parabola.

The Mechanic wants to defeat his serpentine pursuers so that he may sleep again. He also hopes to reacquire his secret and use it to build an engine called the Fulgent Impeller, which runs on the same forces that propel the Bazaar. The Impeller requires a "heart" to function, so the Mechanic contracted a mysterious Rubbery Man called the Unsettling Sage to act as one when the time comes.