SSD 5.17 - The Heart an Engine

Going to be on vacation for all of next week, so no chapter scheduled. Otherwise, things will resume after that. Also, I assume I was inspired by the season, and things became appropriate for Halloween. I hope everyone had a good one!

Flesh dungeon? No idea what you are talking about. You should know better than to believe wild rumors.

-Tesna Carcath, Mayor of Hakatas, shortly before the fifth cataclysm.

==Exsan==

Caden was not yet ready to help me.

He hadn’t even started on his own expansion of the dungeon, too busy cleaning up after an explosive expansion of life that come to dominate all his labs and gardens.

Absence makes the dungeon grow… wilder.

A few of my shards watched Caden as he worked in various places, trying to understand him better. Trying to understand how he saw the world. I would have said he cared too much about the little things, save that he had advanced far more rapidly than should be possible, for any dungeon.

Still more shards watched over the adventurers, especially the makeshift taverns where people played music. Scraps of song, scraps of speech, all were stored away, to feed a hunger that can never be filled.

Amusing, that Caden cannot understand people in this way.

It was simple enough, socialization. People hungered for it, and though it was filled for a time, it always returned.

I suppose his hunger for such is so low, that he doesn’t understand.

I didn’t share this particular hunger of humanity. I felt no desire to come down and speak with them. Even my presence had little to do with them. I craved the knowledge, the understanding, and the music. I did not need to share it, to recognize their hunger. To see how they would gorge themselves upon one another’s presence after delving into Caden’s dungeon. And then they would return the next day.

Desire, hunger…

Humanity is made of a multitude of these.

It was no wonder then, that Caden had understood so easily how to build a dungeon.

Better even than my instincts.

Not that that stopped me from trying to improve. I still had a shard dedicated to that, to creating rooms and trying designs. Occasionally I found something that I liked a bit better, but mostly it all was destroyed and remade again.

All of these things, worthy as they were of my attention, were not where the majority of my shards were occupied.

A sound like particularly angry cat screeched through my perception.

Internally, I sighed.

Music.

It seemed like such a simple thing, to make notes, and then combine them into patterns. Even then, I understood that the variations between instruments could create an almost infinite variety of sounds, which could then be combined into an even greater multitude of chords and then melodies, each branching out into the possible infinity of musical pieces.

All of this I understood.

Simply wasn’t expecting to have so much trouble with the first part.

Once again, a stone limb, anchored to a wall, drew a bow across strings, and again a phantom cat made its disapproval known.

I glared at the violin, willing it to work.

The problem, of course, was that I wasn’t actually sure what the problem was.

Recreating violins, and other instruments, had proven trivial, if I was merely referring to form. The form was easy, even if I was certain that none of these instruments was exactly like what they had been on Earth.

Still, while Caden was not a musician, in any real sense, he had once played an instrument in middle school. That was enough to have some basic understanding, and he had listened to plenty more. He had gone to concerts, he had watched videos. And I had that knowledge.

It wasn’t even close to enough to make something with valves, so normal trumpets, clarinets, and flutes were off limits for the moment, but enough experimentation would allow me to possess those, as well.

In contrast, a violin was a deceptively simply instrument.

A hollow bit of wood with another longer piece attached, and then strings ran across the top. Pegs could be used to alter the tightness of the strings, so the notes could be tuned. Then a bow sawed across the strings.

On Earth, the bow used horsehair.

I didn’t have any of that, but I had a multitude of creatures, many of which had fur or hair. It was easy enough to use that to make a bow.

Except, I couldn’t tell what I was doing wrong.

A hundred different designs for violins, each made with different varieties of wood, with different lacquers or wax imbued into the wood. The strings were of different types of material. Metals and a dozen odd varieties of animal intestine or tendons, perfectly formed for my purpose.

Except it isn’t perfect.

I hungered for music. To create it for myself.

Now all I hunger for is some damned progress.

A shriek was at least an improvement from early attempts, where violins had shattered under the pressure as I used them, or the strings had snapped. One particular hair, used in a bow, had cut straight through where the wood of the bow where it was holding it. I had set that material aside, for other uses later.

Going to end up like Caden.

In truth, if I hadn’t seen almost a thousand out of tune or cracked bell patterns I would have been even more frustrated.

Even something as basic at that, and Caden managed it only via brute force. At least some of the tests sounded like screams, those were almost pleasant… Could bait a trap with those.

There was a part of me, small though it may be, that was tempted to go to him for help. The two of us knew the same information, but he simply understood it differently. Each of us clutching the same piece of knowledge differently.

Only if I don’t make progress.

Torturous as it might be, changes were gradually made, and improvements found. If I was going to curse Caden for anything, it would be the capacity to feel boredom. The angle the bow touched the strings, the design or materials of the bow or violin, the speed the bow was drawn across, the strings, the force applied, the tension on the strings or bow. Each factor was easy to change, but with so many variables it was a challenge to properly get everything to work together.

In the end, even more details had been needed. I had managed to get a decent draw across the strings, but the sound was muted and flat, even when tried on multiple different violins. There might still be uses for that kind of sound, as it wasn’t terrible, but it also lacked the richness that ought to be there.

I discovered further ways to improve the sound, eventually. Holes needed to be cut into the hollow body of the violin, and once I had done that, I needed to alter the thickness of the wood, for I had it far too thick.

Studying something that resembled a lute, carried around by one of the musicians, had allowed some additional refinements.

Different parts of their instrument were made of different materials, the front a different wood from the back, for example. All these, and more, were incorporated until I had something that sounded like it matched what the sound ought to be.

Now I just have to figure out all of the fingerings.

It was likely to take even more time, though once I figured that out, I should be able to replicate them without issue.

At least tuning should never be an issue. I can recreate an instrument exactly, as well as the humidity and temperature.

I now possessed a violin.

If only all the other instruments were going so well.

Attempts at cellos, bases, and other stringed instruments were not going too terribly, as they were not too different from the violin, even if the details were significant enough to render completion at a different time. With shards working on those, it was only luck that determined the violin should be finished first.

Other things were not going so well.

Attempts at the most basic of horns, the bugle, and such, were completely stymied by the fact that they required lips to play. I could create a human form, potentially, but even with that, I didn’t actually know how to play one. And I still had no idea how the coiled mass of brass tubing would actually sound. Or even if I had constructed the mouthpiece properly.

Could I grow a pair of lips, then push air through them? Sure, but how to get them to vibrate properly, and prevent the lips from dying…

Could just recreate the lips, I suppose, set them to automatically repair…

Yet, I still had the same problem, how to get them to vibrate properly.

Should create vibration, just by having the air forced through… Could try different sizes of lips, with different amounts of air pressure and vary the amount of pressure holding the horn against the lips.

The attempts had not gone particularly well. The lips, dead and cold, had no tension, and forming an airtight seal with the stone around them had been a challenge. Also messy, though that had stopped being a problem after I tweaked things so that the blood was no longer created.

Eventually, I extended out smooth sections of flesh farther around the lips, which allowed for clamping down on the flesh with stone tightly. With a proper seal, at least the air was properly pushing through the lips now.

Still not the best.

Maybe try other orifices?

Hmm, or maybe electricity?

I had some electrical traps now. Possibly I could use those to tighten the lips enough to vibrate effectively, as the tension seemed important.

Regardless, my project to produce horns was still going better than any attempts at woodwinds. I had not idea how to produce the reed, or how to properly vibrate it, lips or no. Keeping it wet, at least, was trivial, I could even use real saliva, if it mattered.

Probably does, different levels of viscosity.

The horn project had at least managed to produce some kind of sound.

Flutes were not so bad, though, as they really just needed air to flow through or over in a certain way. Tuning bits of wood and metal to get the right sounds was a significant pain, but it was actually more on par with what had been done to make the bells by Caden. As they were, each producing only a single note, they were more akin to pan pipes, but that was fine.

A human needs everything compacted, so they can change the valves, but I can play a thousand instruments at once, even if each only plays a single note.

I was, in the end, immortal, and not merely a mechanical husk, like my false brethren. Whatever they could do, I could learn.

Were they curtailed by The System, or was I raised up by Caden… or both?

I was brought out of my thoughts be a sudden shout.

“Exsan, what the hell is this!?”

One of Caden’s avatars stood, precariously, inside one of the spheres where I had been trying to make horns, a light clutched in his hands. His gaze looked accusatorially at the various sections of lips, where flesh protruded from the wall’s smooth curve.

Somehow, I didn’t think he was actually wanting an explanation.

“I leave you alone for half a minute, and then I find you doing some… Frankenstein’s monster, eldritch horror bullshit!” Caden said.

I looked at the display again, trying to recontextualize.

The harsh light of the stone in Caden’s hand, combined with the grey flesh and the constant wheezing sound of air pushing through the lips almost made it seem like the dead whispering secrets.

‘I suppose it does have a certain horror movie vibe…’ I said.

“You think? What…” Caden paused for a moment, and his eyes went absent. “Wait, all of this is just to make music?”

‘I like music,’ I said.

“Hate to see what you’d do to things you don’t like.” Caden muttered. “Why not just… make this some other way? Why… flesh?”

‘This is how music is made… Plus I couldn’t think of anything else to use. Needed to make sure the instruments actually worked, before I made changes.’

Caden shook his head, then sighed.

“I mean, arguably, sure, this is how music is made, but why not just pay some people to try out the instruments as you made them?”

‘Huh…’

“It didn’t even occur to you, did it?” Caden asked, with another sigh.

It hadn’t. I could think of a number of reasons, now, why that was potentially a worse solution for the long term, as perfecting my methods would allow me to play and experiment at will. In addition, by controlling the variables I could ensure perfect results every time.

Apparently my silence was answer enough.

Caden leaned forward, examining the setup, and I joined him with my own phantom form, which was a vague humanoid mist. He looked me for a moment, raising an eyebrow, before returning his gaze to the wall of horns and flesh.

“Look like a ghost, when you don’t have a body. I mean, this isn’t terrible, as far as execution of ideas go. Still, you are using automatic repair to make all of this work anyway, why not just use a different material, like wax. Who cares if it would normally sheer with the vibrations? You could mold it to any shape, and then ensure it held in place. Hell, some of the waxier leaves could probably be used to make a framework to hold it together. Huh, wonder if an internal framework, of wires and such, could simulate the movement of the musculature?”

Once again, Caden was demonstrating that while we had the same knowledge, we looked at things very differently. Admittedly, that seemed to be at least a little because Caden was trying to avoid the use of flesh, which was the original medium for producing this type of sound.

“Don’t have any kind of rubber or latex yet, but those are natural products, right? Maybe some kind of alchemist?”

At this point, Caden seemed to be mainly muttering to himself, though I didn’t mind. The ideas had merit.

The automated testing I had started continued, and one of the horns finally succeeded, produced a low groaning sound as a spark twitched across a pair of suddenly pursed lips.

We both paused, for a moment, as a notification suddenly entered my awareness, waiting for me to seize it.

Caden slapped his forehead.

“Oh God, we better not have gotten some kind of title related to this.”