VII
Dreams and Visions
Sarah usually understood the difference between dreams ripped from the depths of her mind and those that just skimmed the surface.
This wasn't one of those times.
Despite countless hours of meditation and prayer, learning how to channel her deity's power into a mortal form and her own considerably grounded ego, she couldn't make head nor tails of her current situation.
She 'awoke' with a jerk, sitting in what looked in every way like a bank-- a very boring, very sterile bank. The room was wide and long with dozens of windows spaced evenly in the farthest wall at predictable intervals. Behind each half drawn pane of glass was a smart looking young person in a strangely cut suit that looked overly formal but had none of the ruffles associated with nobility.
Long queues were lined up from each window with dozens of different people from all races filling in the space between the velvet ropes. Most of them held scroll cases with the traditional red and yellow ribbon of a sacrificial offering to the Great Inventor. They were holding tickets and a brightly lit board over each queue displayed a series of 8 digits or more under a dubious "NOW SERVING".
That's when it hit her.
Oh, bollocks.
There was a tingling sensation in the back of her mind that told her she may as well have been sitting in the waiting room to get into hell, but it was the Inventor's Workshop she was in. The administrative portion, at least. There was that tell-tale tang of machine oil in the air and salient mutters about one design or another. This meant she was probably in for something that was going to be infinitely less than pleasant. Maybe they had finally decided to strip her of her powers.
Sarah slumped in her chair and braved the harsh lighting in spite of the pounding between her ears that told her she had drunk too much. The pain was a minor reprieve from the soreness between her legs, but not by much. That was right, she recalled, the dusky skinned girl with the 'good girl' fetish. The toy had practically split them both in half when Sarah had climaxed. She would need to tweak the gearing ratio.
The chairs that filled her portion of the 'bank' were put back to back and stuffed with several different men and women of different humanoid races-- some attractive, some grotesque, most of them somewhere in between. All of them looked bored. Some goblins lined a trio of chairs nearby and when one would kick their feet out the other would do so when that first one's feet came back to a resting position. They continued on like this for some time while they fiddled with parts of what looked as though they would have made a crude crossbow.
It took her a moment to notice that everyone had something in their hands that they were occupying themselves with. She was the only one who didn't have anything. Sarah leaned over to her nearest neighbor and whispered, "Pardon my interruption, but isn't that a locking roller?" She pointed to a small tumbler on the gnome's lock box. "Shouldn't that be half-cocked?"
The gnome looked up at her with bemusement. "Yeah." He sighed, "Yeah it should be. It won't lock and I don't know why. Mother will be so disappointed if I don't make something this year! She's going to kick me out, and all I have to show is this box!"
"Well," Sarah found herself curious. "What's it do?"
"It's a tentacle monster trap!" When Sarah arched her brow, the Gnome kicked his feet out to scoot forward, looking left and right before leaning in conspiratorially. "Tentacles, you see, my lady elf, are a scourge on everything decent! No one knows where they come from or how they subsist! But! We know that they're a menace to everything pure and just! A threat to purity everywhere!"
Sarah nodded slowly, mulling it over. "So you want to trap them." She pointed to the box. "In something the size of a jewelry box."
He must have seen her skepticism because he pulled the box back protectively and patted it. "By the Inventor it will work!"
"I have no doubt, dear, but don't you think you would need something bigger?"
"Well. . ." the gnome trailed off, considered his box. "It's worked once, I don't see why I need something bigger."
"Oh?" This piqued Sarah's curiosity. She had never seen a tentacle monster before. "Can I see?"
He looked around skeptically. "R- Right here?"
"Why not? Seems we're not going anywhere for a while."
The gnome shrugged and reached for the latch just as a young woman in one of those strange suits opened the door to what served as the tellers' windows. She looked directly at Sarah before she said her name in a tangy eastern accent. "Inventor Kettar, this way please."
"Just a momen--" was as far as she got before a sharp pain pinched the tip of her right ear. A little floating clockwork orb had materialized beside her at some point and when she paused again, a tiny stick prod came out and stabbed her ear again. She ducked away and batted at it. "You win!"
Sarah skulked over to the woman who lead her through a catacomb of chambers so perfectly built that they had to have been prefabricated. Each one of them was a picture of perfect symmetry and spotless, sterile. Cold.
Each of the chambers was ringed with workbenches and clockwork animatrons that worked on devices of indiscernible purpose, each no bigger than Sarah's thumb. When one of them would finish its task, it would deposit it into a chute beside its table. All around them the hum of running machinery and the tang of sulfur and oil filled the air as they traveled down the wide spiraling arc of the chambers' pitch. They went deeper and deeper into the bowels of the mechanical plane until finally they arrived at a silver clad door marked 'Kettar'.
"Should I feel special?" Sarah smiled to hide her unease.
"No." The woman replied flatly as she swiped a metal card through a slot beside the door. It opened smoothly to reveal a tiled office with three pieces of furniture; a file cabinet made of metal, a desk made completely of iron and a chair behind the desk. The chair was unlike anything Sarah had seen before and when the girl deposited herself in it, she reclined.
"Capital. Wouldn't want to get a swelled head or anything." Sarah mused, slipping in with a dubious glance around.
"Miss Kettar, I'm required to make it clear that this is an official inquiry, anything said in this room stays here but will go on record, as will your cooperation or lack thereof." The woman motioned for Sarah to stand in front of the desk, reaching in and removing a paper file holder which she placed atop the desk. "Before we begin, do you have anything to say?"
