It had been quite a long time since Kale visited Antikythera and the Machinarium. It had been, perhaps, too long; the arm, merely a prototype, crafted by the goddess had been through many trials and suffered substantial abuse since then. It truly wouldn’t surprise Kale to find that sand and salt had infiltrated the joints and, to be honest, he was surprised none had locked up yet. The arm also had long, fierce scratches along the metal plates of the arm which was no easy feat by any stretch of the imagination; if one looked close enough, they may even find some small signs left from striking other hardy materials with a fist. Kale, of course, had a reasonable explanation for all of these things and more.

Blinding flashes filled the tumultuous skies above and cacophonous roars echoed as streaks of brilliant light reached down towards the metallic structures filling the landscape. A cobbled path branched out to mark safe passage between the pylons, ultimately leading to the Machinarium itself with its sealed doors hiding the ever-changing corridors within. This was where the pirate’s gateway, appearing as the eye of a raging storm, cracked the fabric of the air itself. He may have lost abilities when coming to this land, but there had been a few such as this that he’d managed to pick up once more.

The Fallen from another world was dressed per usual; barefoot with dark pants and white shirt. His right arm, the prototype, reached out to push open the doors before him. Scraping sounds came as the joints moved stiffly and with jerking movements. It was only to be expected, the arm had been used in ways even a god likely couldn’t have foreseen. The ball-shaped joints in the hand locked in place, palm open and fingers out in the same manner as they’d been when he pushed the door open, though thankfully the wrist joint was spared the same fate.

“Damn,” he said with a frown, “Shiloh’s going to kill me.” He paused for a moment as his thoughts briefly turned to Angela in an uncharacteristic manner, “Maybe you should be on standby; this could get ugly.”

With a heavy sigh, Kale slipped through the doors and into the world of Shiloh; Overseer of Luck and Fortune. By this point, he knew where he was headed regardless of whether the goddess noticed the arm or not, though of course she would; it would likely be one of the first topics brought up. With that in mind, he went straight for the nearest workshop. Once inside, he leaned against the wall beside one of the doors to wait.

The buzzer alerted her that somebody was here, and the familiar aura took her a few seconds before she could remember who it was. Honestly with how few visitors Antikythera received she should have memorized them by now, but it had been a hectic few months. She hadn't slept in forever, forgotten when was the last time she had even eaten, and needed to find that blueprint she was sure had been sitting on her desk before she had left. Finally, she found it. Not the blueprint sadly, but it was Kale. Shiloh was surprised to see him back so soon, as although she had promised to handle any repairs, she had expected her prototype to last a few lifetimes. Frankly she was more expecting the pirate stopping by to say 'hi' after several months of adventure. With Niall sleeping soundly in her desk drawer, Shiloh left Serenitas to meet him.

Finding him wasn't hard, though right away she noticed his body language was off and she was suspecting this wasn't just a courtesy call. "Huh, you're back early. So what brings you to this rain-soaked corner of the earth–" Her words were cut short the moment she noticed the massive scratches gouging into the dragon bone porcelain finish that had been glazed with a layer of resin, running deep into the lacriamium skeleton which was supposed to be the hardest metal in all of Revaliir. The joints looked battered, the articulation in the hand and fingers were most likely busted out of alignment, and a hundred other little minor details which set the misfortune deity off like a smothered explosion rune. 

"What…did…you…DO TO THE BLOODY ARM?!!?!!" She screeched, eyes livid with emotion. The storms outside intensified, punctuating her screaming with lightning flashes and thunder blasts. "DID I NOT SAY TO FOLLOW THE USER INSTRUCTIONS?! YOU DIDN'T FOLLOW THE USER INSTRUCTIONS!!! HOW IN GOD'S NAME DID YOU MESS UP SOMETHING NIGH INVULNERABLE THIS BADLY?!!" If she were a cat, all her hair would be standing on end. Her hands were on the pirate's shirt, shaking him senselessly as she was barely suppressing the overwhelming desire to bury him in a hole in the ground. "WHAT DID YOU DO?!! WHAT! DID! YOU! DO?!!" This was not 'normal wear and tear'! What had he been using the thing for, breaking rocks?! 

Kale knew the moment Shiloh realized the problem; her face went an angry red, the look in her eyes was like deadly fire aimed directly at him, and the screech she emitted was like nothing else Kale had come across in all of Revaliir. “It wasn’t my fault,” he started, though he never got to finish as she continued to rabidly scream.

The goddess, in her deafening outcries, mentioned instructions and the pirate latched on. “To be fair, you never gave me any user instructions,” he said, extending out the arms the locked joints in the hand were between him and the woman, “You just sent me out into the wilds and said not to break it and it’s not broken, just a bit stuck.”

He took the chance to press on, “So here’s what happened with that scratch. A good friend of mine might have forgotten to warn me about some mischievous creatures helping protect a guild hideout. Said creatures, the Little Ones, led me astray and tried to feed me to their elders… but the elder Little Ones aren’t so little. And they’re hungry… And mean… And they might have tried to eat me, starting with the arm. They didn’t like the taste and in my escape from their mouths, their teeth might have scratched the arm a little… Then I might have bent the plates in the fingers when I gave them an extra serving of ‘metal fist’ and knocked out a bunch of their skull-teeth… So you see, it wasn’t my fault.” Kale stared at the fuming goddess before him in silence for a pause that was perhaps awkwardly long given the dire situation he was in. He hoped against the odds that Shiloh wouldn’t mention the joints; those in the knuckles and hands specifically.

By this point, the goddess’ hands were wrapped in his shirt and she was shaking him like a rag doll. Kale had been so caught up that it hadn’t even registered until now, but he was starting to feel a bit dizzy and a bit sick from the constant jerking movements. The workshop had started spinning. He pulled away and took a second to let the room settle before giving in to the inevitable. “Alright, alright,” he started, “There was also the incident in Kurayo with the joints and other parts…” He knew she’d demand the details; chronologically ordered, too.

He cleared his throat and shifted his gaze away from Shiloh and recited, “In west Kurayo, neither born nor raised, in the tavern there I spent most of my days; chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool, drinkin' and sittin' alone on my stool, when a couple of guys, they were up to no good, started makin' trouble in the neighborhood. I got in one little (big) fight and some sand got in there, I said ‘Damn, I have to go see Shiloh for some repairs!’”

Weeks of exhaustion and frazzled nerves had taken their toll, but once Kale patiently reminded her–in between her violent shaking–that the arm was originally just a testing prototype, she calmed down. "…You're right. Sorry…ugh. I'm just so tired." Letting go of him, she rubbed her face with both hands. The dark circles around her eyes were easy to see and there was a slight twitch from her left eyelid likely from chronic insomnia. To be fair she was more upset that the prototype wasn't as indestructible as she had thought than him unintentionally damaging it from justified self-defense. "Well whatever those 'Little Ones' are, they probably were dragons since most things wouldn't be able to scratch resin-coated dragonbone porcelain. And as for Kurayo…well it's Kurayo. It's either hit or be eaten." She did narrow her eyes at the mention of sand, and she did promise him to fix it up in case this ever happened. "Alright, let's go." She opened a door to one of the workshops and waved at him to enter. "Get on the bench." 

The bench was more like a mechanical operating table, but for assembling instead of surgery. Once Kale laid down on the chair, she would move the arm to the side to get a better look at everything. Yanking a chain dangling from a free-standing light fixture, the clear crystal sphere began to glow once the stored electrical energy gathered from her lightning towers began to flow into it. Carefully extending the joints to test their current range of motion, her eyes narrowed into a glare again. She sniffed. "…Sand. How did you manage to get sand in here? And is that a hint of salt I'm smelling? What on earth were you doing to get this much sand into almost everything?! Did you swim through quicksand?"

He said he had gotten some in during a fight in the bar, but last time she checked–Kurayo's taverns weren't that close to the coastline. With a fine brush Shiloh started sweeping it off into a dustpan, intending to analyze the particles' composition later in case Kale didn't tell her everything. The worst part was how much got into every single nook and cranny. Things only went downhill from there, as the more she took it apart the more problems she found. That whiff of salt wasn't just her imagination–there were signs of corrosion on the lacriamium skeleton! So not only did he swim through quicksand, he apparently took a salt bath too!

It was a relief when the goddess stopped shaking him; Kale had thought the woman might inadvertently exchange his lifestyle for one far less enjoyable… which was saying something for him. Shiloh looked tired, perhaps exhausted was an exceedingly more fitting term; Kale was reminded of a certain creature often said to be wearing a bandit's mask. As things stood, he thought better of mentioning this for now. Instead he turned his focus to conversation.

"Yes," he said, "It's entirely possible; I've no idea exactly what their origins are, but they didn't exactly have a taste for metal. I made sure of that one. I don't know what it is about vampires and lycans, but they don't seem to like me in those kinds of cities. I'd thought things might be different here, but it seems my bad luck with vampires and lycans must continue." Catching the woman's eyes narrow, he quickly spoke, "I swear it wasn't my fault!"

As Kale took his place on the worktable, Shiloh moved his arm to the side for a better look at the entire construct. The goddess pulled a chain and a crystal device began to glow with electricity, reminding Kale of the glass bottles of dancing electricity he'd once used, bringing a momentary longing for simpler days and the pain that came with all the memories attached. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath to steady his mind. The past was long gone and very little remained aside from his memories, a few select gifts of power, and the wraith of his sister. He pushed these thoughts back down into the depths and finally reopened cold azure eyes.

The goddess had been moving his arm every which way, testing each joint for mobility and glaring as she sniffed the air. "To be fair," he answered, "I am a pirate of sea and sky; salt is everywhere in the air and sea. As for the sand, I'd rather not say. Would it help at all if I blamed Kiba?" This was only a half-truth; Kale knew his oldest friend was taken in by Angela and given some magic sand, but it was true that this sand wasn't from that creation of magic. Without a good answer aside from 'there's a lot of sand on beaches,' he'd decided to go for comedy instead. In truth, he'd been far more reckless of late and it had meant a bit more trouble along the coastlines than he'd care to admit.

The goddess was now sweeping sand from the arm and the joints, ensuring the grains made their way into a dustpan as though saving them. This, of course, could only mean a lecture once Shiloh actually looked deeper into it… and she would, too, that was absolute. The look that came over her face next was perhaps appall and anger locked into a battle for the ages to determine which would win out. The arm must have been worse than even he'd thought.

"Now, Shiloh," he started, "Whatever it is, I'm sure that someone of your great genius and skill can repair it and make it better than before. I mean, that's part of the purpose, right? I'm supposed to push the arm as far as I can, right? Test it, you know? Right?" He paused and nervously grinned. "I could blame Kiba again if that would help? Darn that bloke; if he weren't such a good friend, why I'd," he said, shaking his left fist at the air.

Like a sulking cat, she was quiet as she assessed the damage while Kale quickly tried to shift her mind off the track it was running on. "Yes…I did say that." She grumbled as she began taking the arm apart. As the pirate continued in his attempts at redirecting her attention, she looked at him with deadpan eyes unamused. She had heard of Angela's new champion after Serci had taken his leave. She remembered meeting Kiba at least once, and that was when she stabbed him with a healing shiv. "And what did he do? Bury you in a sandpit?" It was obvious her mood had slightly improved despite her scowling, since she was able to make sarcastic remarks. "How much magical sand did it take to get you neck-deep in it?" If he was anything like her, he was probably omitting a whole lot of details on what exactly happened and in what order. And as for the arm, he was right about that when it came to her craftsmanship. Like all of Antikythera's products, she never settled for second best. If it wasn't better than the previous model, then you were doing something wrong.

"We both know that I'm not going to press you for more information when you're not going to tell it to me straight. But mark my words, I'll get to the bottom of this 'magic sand'. Especially sand that manages to mess with something I made. Judging by the amount of damage you've accumulated on…everything–I'd say you'll need to wait a week at least before you're getting this back. Stupid corrosion…" The deity muttered under her breath. The lacriamium was going to be a pain to do since it wasn't exactly an ordinary metal. The rest she might be able to salvage using Tsukihigui to reverse the wear. "Just a heads up, if I can't fix everything I'll have to make it again from scratch. And that means redoing the psychic link between the prosthetic and your mind. Hopefully that's not going to happen, as that means I'll need another sample of your blood again." It was the most reliable way to ensuring its functionality without running the risk of a sudden malfunction. 

With the prosthetic completely removed, she attached a spare arm from the myrmidon maintenance room to Kale keep both his shoulders balanced. Even if it wasn't able to be controlled, at least it made it seem like not much had changed. While she was putting her tools away, the door to the workshop opened and something small and furry skittered across the floor. There was a white ferret with red eyes running by with a cog wheel in its mouth, and it jumped up to a bunch of boxes containing stray parts. It stashed its prize, then climbed down to run back out. Shiloh didn't seem surprised at it, even though it wasn't the same little bandit-masked ferret who she carried with her around often. In Kale's absence she had 'recruited' several more mustelids into the Machinarium's staff and they could be seen all over the place now. 

"So, aside from your scrap in Kurayo, getting chewed on by an overgrown reptile, and being buried by Kiba in sand–what other trouble have you been getting yourself into?"