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| Publication Date: | October 4, 2017 | ||
Meet the Character - Proctor Luciana
The dictation of an imprisoned thief in the Clockwork City
- Transcribed words of Grimrald Brassbones:
- You really want to know how I wound up in here? Locked away in this cell like a broken fabricant? Two words: Proctor Luciana.
- She was an obvious mark: a Clockwork Apostle with a whole office and tick-tocks to spare! I refused the job at first. Too dangerous. But the truth is I'm a thrill-seeker at heart. Sometimes it's a virtue. Sometimes it's a vice. This time it was the latter.
- The first rule of thieving is to do your research! I spent months in the Archivox, sifting through old records, trying to find out who the Proctor was and where she came from. Lean offerings, let me tell you. I did learn a bit about her life in Tamriel. She was an Imperial Battlemage—one of Reman Cyrodiil's lieutenants. The histories say she burned a whole regiment of snake-men to cinders at the siege of Pale Pass. It earned her the Tsaesci title, "Xhiado Kas." The Flame Maiden. And that's just the start of it!
- According to some old factotum logs, she washed up on the city's "shores" millennia ago. She was dead when she arrived—had to be. I've seen the surgical charts. Her body was torn to ribbons! Sotha Sil put her back together again, but left most of her limbs on the operating table. She's a machine now, you understand? She never breathes, or eats, or tires. She just walks the halls and alleys of the city, looking for opportunities to bring down her hammer. I only tell you this so you understand why I didn't stand and fight.
- It all happened on a cool night in the Brass Fortress, just after the celestiodrome went dark. After a perilous climb up the side of the Clockwork Basilica, my mates and I stole into the Proctor's room through the ductworks. Dodging Factotum patrols, snatching up nosy skeevatons … everything was going to plan. She was out on patrol, you see? Wouldn't be back for hours. We were in the clear—or so we thought, anyway.
- We tossed the place, prying open mnemo-crates and wall alcoves as fast as we could. At last, we found it: one of the Proctor's custom animo cores. Her battery, see? It was a thing of beauty—wrought in heavy brass, covered in copper filigrees, and filled to the brim with geodic energy. We grinned like overstuffed kagoutis and turned to leave. That's when we saw her.
- She was standing there in the doorway, clad in her gleaming brass armor; hammer resting heavy on her shoulder. I put my cognitive compressors into overdrive, trying to assemble a credible excuse for being elbow-deep in her property. Just as I opened my mouth to speak, Murbal reached for his dagger.
- It all happened so fast. I remember a burst of white-hot light, then Murbal screaming. I looked over at Anton just in time to see his leg crushed by a hammer-blow. I fell to my knees and threw my arms up over my head, waiting for the cold embrace of oblivion—but it never came. Instead, I felt Luciana's cold metal fingers around my throat as she lifted me to my feet. I opened my eyes to see her glaring at me.
- "Seems you and I have a lot to talk about," she said. Then she tossed me in here with you lot.
- I'm bound for a few years in storage, I know it. But you still have a chance! Keep your gears clean and your chains taut, lads, because she's always watching. Always.