Memory Fragments: Probity

Erick's Robotics & Metalworks

This one is a little tale about Erick Elidor, the ruler of metal. He was a man of old age, yet everyone always remarked how he never looked a day beyond 50 years old. He was the embodiment of a perfect body and mind. He was fit, tall, and had an auburn glow for his hair; it was short, but it burned with the gleaming of the sun's rays. His work ethic was unmatched by anyone who dared call themselves workers of the future. Always perfect in his craft. Always on time and form, regardless of how tall a job could be. He always wore a classic business suit. A jet-black necktie with silver, diagonal lines adorned it while he adjusted it properly to his preferences. Nothing to remark on from his waist down, not really. Black pair of slick pants with a nice set of formal black shoes. But! He had gloves specially designed to handle melting-point temperatures. Unlike those of a blacksmith, his were fitted with technology capable of discerning even the smallest changes in a mineral's physical and chemical structure.

Thanks to those gloves, he worked in Clockwork's main plaza as a trader. He bought used metalworks or, sometimes, traded-in some of his own for rarer pieces. Regardless of where he got his stuff, he was always seen hammering away at the embers and sparks of his creations. Yes, Erick was not only a trader of metal junk, but he was also an inventor. He used to create many things from rusted scraps and renewed them for another purpose. Like making functional metal arms, equipped with all sorts of bells and whistles, for people who had lost one, or even both, of theirs. Legs, too, were proudly made by his name. Soon after gathering some acknowledgment from the local folk, he decided to make his metalworks second to his prosthetic inventions.

Those gloves permitted him to grab and bend any mineral he wanted and shape it to whatever he imagined. If someone needed a polymer of rare metals, but also wanted it to have the properties of other ones, Erick's gloves would tell him the exact components he needed to work on to meld and transform two seemingly rejecting metals together. He was able to circumvent things like galvanic corrosion between the elements he chose to work with and, thanks to that, create such unique and everlasting pieces of treasure. Well, I call them treasure, but they were nothing more than tools to be used for their intended purpose; that is, at least that is how he always saw his creations.

Many were the folk that asked him to make weapons veiled as tools for extreme jobs. Construction equipment, mining, big-scale farming, animal care, and fishing; things like those. Supposed scientific tools were asked of him because they would bring new revelations and inventions to the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics, and overall math-lab related stuff. A magnetic accelerator was once in the talks. Like some sort of fictional weapon, out of a child's mind, he was almost paid big sums of money for it in advance. But he refused outright, saying he would never make weapons outside of official military requests and patronage.

Oh the leaps and bounds he made with his brains and gears. A pen that absorbs the atmosphere's humidity to ink in whatever surface you wanted. Shelves that automatically sorted whatever type of books you put on them. Tea cups that kept their contents either warm or cold, depending on your tastes by playing with the termal energies' conversion, dissipation, interchange, and whatnot. I do not know the details of that one. The prosthetics or metalworks for his clients. Regardless of how little the work was, how simple or fleeting its impact was, there was no doubt Erick had a potential that no one ever saw for what it truly was capable of.

One day, he was out and about doing some errands. Carrying, alone, about 100 weights worth of scrap metal on his back. You would think that that is not possible without some sort of machine to help you with it, but no. He was that strong, but not really. You see, after the success he had, the demands and clients increased so much that he was often short of materials to work with. So, with what he had left, he created an exoskeleton suit, at least, that was the name he gave it, to help him carry more stuff at quicker times and easier trips to junkyards or the sellers' places. What really sets this one apart from his other "tools" is that, unlike any other, this exosuit of his was actually fused with his own body. Well, more like, attached to it as a complement or external equipment. He had made modifications to his nature. Experiments, to lift the workload he was now getting.