*Clank* *Clank* *Clank*
"Wake up! Wake up! Don't be a waste of scrap now!" Yelled the Engine with her fist slamming the bars.
Yesterday was a nightmare for the wanderers, and today it is still. With chains on their ankles and bars of indifference built in this depth, they spend the rest of their night sleeping inside the cellar with almost no lights but a glimpse of their soul. But worse, they were stripped of their clothes and left with only rags.
"Like the new looks? I hope you do. I can feel your freedom creeps within..." The Engine stands proudly and taunting.
"Can you at least give us something to eat than this...?" Cyrus throws the plate of mysterious soup onto the floor, spilling the contents.
"Such ungratefulness. Perhaps you favor your treat with those salad blessed by the holy water or some coffee brewed with precision and experience...?" She was taunting the wanderers.
Here, she stood before them in the cellar with only metal covering her entirely. She was the most metal among her citizens, branded as the leader of this town. A fist so deadly that she bent the metal's will into her shape. For the wanderers, this princess is not one to be messed with.
"You are all ugly and horrifying! Perversion to my head! Except for that little one...I think he looks cool." The Engine praises Charger.
"Hey, you stole my look! Now I'm no longer a metal man..." Charger yelled.
When the three wanderers were here, they were stripped of their clothes by the Engine's hand, forced to strive alone in the dark dungeon for an entire night, bearing the cold judgement and dust of indifference.
"Thanks for the darkness. But I'll be happy if I had my clothes on and I'm out of here!" Eve slams the bars back.
The Engine offered them lives for the cost of their design—their decency. Those ragged clothes are considered as the outsiders' trash and the carriers of failed permanence. A coat of a wise woman, a robe of a faithful man—all were sore to her works. People who lived here wore only receding metal and rags to cover what they called pride.
"Do you have to burn our clothes, too?" Cyrus fingers towards the ashes. Beside are the ashes of their previous clothes, burnt beside the hays by the will of the Engine to show them a newness in this town. It was considered disrespectful not to be bound by wearing much like the Engine, who appeared all metal but no apparel.
*Click* The cell was opened by the Engine.
"Get out. Time to show you outsiders some senses."
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Into her kingdom, they shall. Climbing the stairs of progress and out of the cellar of demise, the three wanderers met their eyes on citizens of trash and free wills. They laughed at their faces, even if they looked uglier, not because they were laughing at their designless form but because of their lack of pride.
"Look at those clothes..."
"What a flawed thinker..."
"Doomed by their design, they shall..."
"They will not survive the fall..."
Now that the librarian gets to see the town again through the dawnlight, she realizes how absurd this place is compared to many towns she knew. As the Engine said, there was no design within their society other than freedom. Thus, everything is only one's making.
"Embrace the impermanence. Alphiore is the town without permanence, and nobody shall remain the same. Not even me..." The Engine walks by her carriage, rolled by horseless power and moves by sparks as the prince was. The three wanderers are on the front, walking only by their chains.
"Then why the name if there's no design?" Eve differs again. She caught her hypocrisy by the words.
"In the face of total indifference, what would you give to the void to serve your presence as a contrast? What is the source of your house to be its denial?"
"What are your windows? Your doors? Your curtains? Your furniture? What is the foundation of your impermanence to begin with?"
"Can you truly called it impermanence if you held something within the past? Does the ever-changing deserves to be called a town if they have to rely on a name?" Eve differs.
"Oh, you silly fleshling nerd. The town constructed itself not by the bricks of labour and pain our freedom has promised but by the many names who participate against indifference to feel placed in the right place. We made our insides as we speak, not as we agreed."
"For if we tried defining our eyes by the window, we would spend our lives pondering only in it. But we made our windows anywhere in the house..."
"Then you shall be doomed to live in your glass house knowing you'll be shattered within." Eve dreads.
"Correct. But who's to shatter us when we have no bricks to throw?"
Those aren't towers, or skyscrapers, or facilities. These are houses, all built tall, like a tower under a human's will. Citizens are living as tall as they can, clashing with others for as long as they are alive and different from others. Alphiore is an unrealistic paradise where stagnance comes only from willpower, and structure is your imagination.
"What's with the tower...? It looks horrible..." Cyrus walked barefoot with his arms behind him, watching as the towers grew more and more tall.
"Oh, spoken by a man who sets a hivemind to his devotees. These houses are expanding by the human's imagination. Everyone wants to stay on the tower, turning high and become mighty so they could be noticed among the stars..."
"Who am I to limit those imaginations?"
"Imagination, you said? Can a sheep imagine himself superior to the shepherd? Can thousands of ants call themselves a god to one single human?"
"Society is not drifted by voice, but by the ideal. Everyone must have the idea and the force of reason. If a tower was built upon will, then falling is also their will."
"Then we fall as we will, tending our wounds with our lives, and we find a new, better tower to make that last even longer than before. For permanence does not limit us at once..." The Engine whips the wanderers.
"You crave the thought of design as your purpose, then you lose it and became a nomad. Perhaps you should ask yourself why did you will yourself to lose the only design you have?"
"Because I have the design. I do not lose it, I keep it. But what about you? What will you give to them in your designless and forever new?"
"I only compete in the world that didn't gave me choice. I made my choice by being different, building a tower so tall that everyone would notice me beforehand. There's no design, only the difference...I gave them my presence to set a ripple..."
"Difference? What difference do you make against these people? Do you call a winner a difference in a competition? Do you think these runners didn't run in the same finish line as you?" Cyrus differs.
"To call these an imagination is such a bluff if they are all tied to the making. You didn't create difference, you created competition and achievement. And you do not set a foot to create a new line, for you had to follow but the existence of competition."
"See, this is why you failed to understand, priest. But I'll show you more once we arrive in my tower."
But the citizens? Those clothes aren't permanent, but they loved it. They wear their metals with pride, each made of something new and gleaming. But they rusted so easily, for they do not tend their metals as a legacy. Here, nothing lasts forever, yet more a bargain than a harm.
"Are you seeing this, Charger? They think this place is a home for us! Nuts!" Cyrus argues.
"Are you kidding me? This match my hometown in Quasor! I feel like I'm in home now! So..." Charger differs.
The Tin Man could not be more indifferent, especially for one without holding permanence. No confinement has ever done him worse than the void of the night and the silence of a still. For him, prison binds only the physical but not the mind. Perhaps he fits this town more quickly than they thought.
"You do not have anything to say, tin creature?" the Engine faces towards the Tin Man. He appears indifferent until she calls him.
"Me? Why should I? I couldn't be more agree with you about this world. How can I not feel the free minds trying to strive? My reason to exist is here to make the difference of coming here..."
"If so the renewal continues, then perhaps there's relic of history and people who emerged to adapt with something new, unbounded by past design and restriction so that they make one difference."
"Permanence of design only makes progress difficult to attain. But perhaps a slight permanence helped us accumulate a new difference."
"Finally, someone with some sense...a few senses..."
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[The Tower]
Here in the tower of the Engine, a castle was built tall for her and her only. The wanderers are standing before her while she sits on her throne and ponders low for her new friends. The librarian finds her a unique adversary, just like how she found the Tin Man as her ally. Both are sharing their indifferences to the design, following the winds as they had spoken.
They were forced to wear these metals on their chests and waists like the citizens here. But they look horrendous, like lunatics and beggars to rely on these tin cans and scraps. Yet without it, they would be hunted down by the people like a monster or a witch. Yet still they are a freak.
"You must have been lost in the sea waiting to find a world where you can indulge yourself in the design of that...what is it called again?"She sat on her metal throne, accompanied by two of her guards.
"Library, my Engine. Library is what they used to spread 'truth' to weaken our contribution."
"Church, my Engine. For those who wanted 'reason' without free will."
"Blasphemous creation. I knew I did the right thing turning you down in this prison."
There are no books or symbols of commemoration here, only the statue of self-honor or workbenches with all her inventions within. Literatures create stillness in their peace, drawing people into the 'false sense of realization' and 'creation of hivemind' within the already peaceful paradise. But the librarian could only laugh at the Engine's foolwork.
"State your purpose to be here, outsiders. I may spare you if I could see more than your flawed design."
"We were stranded by the North ocean for long after our leave from the city of Gold Creek in Amsterdam. Many lives were claimed, except us..." Eve stands elegantly.
"During our voyage, we happen to be swept here for almost a day, hoping that we could survive in your town with a few resources before we leave into the north again. We were just surviving!"
"By prophesizing our doom on the high-ground, doomsayer?" The Engine ridicules Eve.
"Well, survival does require that we support many lives, too. It could have been a good way for us to thank you? Some of your people deserves to be reminded, too!"
"Who are these people to be without the knowledge of a wise one? Lost? Definitely..."
"But we wanted to expand as much as we could with our wisdom. Especially for those like you who needed it."
The librarian pleads for mercy, wishing to enlighten the people through her wisdom about the storm. But the town of Alphiore seeks no permanence of reason or wisdom, only the ever-moving shift and purpose that could reshape or reform new things. Such an illogical and unjust creation for the wanderers, yet it stood successfully and unharmed where they became its hostages instead.
"Nobody is lost here. Everyone is found...but you? You are in the fog with your head..." The Engine threatens.
"Aack...w-worth it..."
Even for a disaster that could be averted by a simple command, the town believes only the strength of shift and desire to set them forward. The Engine finds this answer insulting and almost has the wanderers for execution.
The Engine's grip is on the librarian's neck, slowly twisting her throat as she raises her upwards. The librarian suffocated, limited by her physical flesh compared to the metal-being before her. The smirk on that machine has never been more taunting and deadly.
"Wait! But we weren't hoping to ruin your town, too! We were just trying to help them. Don't we the free will also needed to act on our own?" Cyrus stood up and came to stop the Engine, setting the guards in a position.
"How are we supposed to strive in this paradise if we weren't allowed to share a side of our thought alongside? We are showing you our value for this town! For you said that freedom and imagination makes us, then this is our imagination."
"Should your rule...stands, we would've...been a deviant...m-more as a silent...one...than we are...to defy your...kingdom..." Eve states only a truth about Alphiore's rule.
"Isn't...isn't that...the rule...?"
The cleric came to save the librarian from her death without putting up a fight with the Engine and her guards. As the Engine hears such words coming from the mouth of a faithful one, she spares the librarian before she falls out paler than snow. It was a struggle, but it was the struggle of a researcher.
"Aagh! Ugh...*cough* *cough* You have a strong *cough* grip..." Eve regains her breath.
"Oh, you're doing good, friend! Glad you didn't overreact there!" Charger supports.
The reason behind the cleric's words outperformed her difference. But the real blow of this judgement lies in the librarian's intellectual within the rule of her freedom, a flaw she didn't anticipate. Her impermanence within society could not clash with the librarian's true and grounded facts whereas the cleric only happened to find luck in victory rather than a complete absolution. After all, the librarian only needed the irrefutable truth.
"Let us go! And we won't interfere around here anymore." Cyrus pleads.
"No, let us go! And we'll show you how we will uphold the truth." Eve objects.
"Yeah, do whatever they said!"
The Engine thought for a moment, mixing thoughts in her tower alone as her guards were watching the hostages. With spears pointed at their faces, the wanderers had no escape from their fate until her judgment was out. But the Engine wasn't the type of person to make someone's waiting.
"Alright, then. You shall live, but only by the best of your will." The Engine commands.
"Thank you! Thank you!" The three wanderers bows in gratitude.
"So, does that mean I get free scraps here?" Charger taps his fingers.
"I'll have a look around your town and see how many people I could make here...but I'll put away faith from this business!" Cyrus rolls his eyes with such idea.
The three wanderers were spared after a long talk, but the Engine wouldn't let them go easily. With her eyes perching on the librarian out of interest, she took her immediately as an opportunity. The soul of a curious human like her could entertain the metal-skinned princess in her tower of never-ending ideas.
"But for you, wise one. I have a few things to see in you." She grabs Eve's hand before letting Cyrus and Charger step off of the tower.
"Your curiosity is all about factual and truth, huh? But you had a spark for a nerd. You must've been someone who had always been curious..."
"Oh, so now you wanted to appease me?" Eve was irritated.
The librarian was met with a force of change through incomprehensible wisdom. The metal girl is metal from head to toe, with no flesh, but there's thought and life within. The Engine was someone who reminded the librarian why she was there.
"By the way, you dropped this...be thankful I didn't let my people trample it when they see a glimpse of it." The Engine offers Eve her book back. Dust and stain cover it, but it is still readable.
"Really? I guess you have a heart behind that metal skin of yours, scrap girl." Eve snatches.
Now the librarian felt a question surging through her head. The might of the ruler without permanence is beyond the truth and could only be dug by one's grasp for the conclusion. The librarian—as the only one who seeks the truth—takes the chance to see the world together with the princess.
"Please, call me Alpha."