The Watani Engine
"The temptation of immortality has led certain black-soulled sorcerers and amoral artisans to create this engine of woes, a tomb of unfeeling metal and glass. Even then, it is not a perfect immortality - subject to the whims and wishes of conniving wizards and thirsty warlords."
The Watani Engine regards the technology that surrounds ethereal clockwork engines that are used to perpetuate life, in an attempt to transcend the typical biological limits placed on the sapient living.
Description
The Watani engine is a specially designed ethereal engine, with soulbound wards and charms of compelling that are often utilized to control the engine once it is properly activated with the introduction and binding of a soul within. The process of empowering such an engine inherently destroys the soul's body and binds it to an artificial one.
Manufacturing
The manufacturing of a Watani engine is considered one of the most complex and demanding throughout the field of ethereal engineering, for it deals with the soul, instead of the more readily accessible Ether. The wards that are used to trap the soul and power the engine are of the highest levels of difficulty that a wardmaster can utilize - the slightest mistakes can result in fatal over-expressions of ether and destruction of the local environment.
Usage
It is an engine powered by the otherwise inextinguishable light of the soul - making it a true perpetual generator. Furthermore, with the correct charms applied, the engine can be utilized in a dynamic fashion, being installed within construct frames or golem frames to properly animate them, and for use as heavy labor or for loyal footsoldiers.
History
Potential Origins
The Wakazi Kingdom
"What a cursed man, leaving his legacy to stain our honor like this. It has been centuries, and his name still corrupts our otherwise proud history."
The Watani engine is often attributed to ancient artisan Ishiro Watani, who is credited with building the first engine and its displayed usage in front of the Juzu court in 891. King Gojiro Juzu, impressed with the potential to have legions of fearless automations with the same proficiency as his most veteran warriors, permitted Ishiro to utilize his resources in order to have a thousand-strong standing army of warriors by the next cycle of the seasons.
Ishiro, elated by recognition and spurred on by pride, exceeded King Gojiro's expectations - 2,000 Watani engines were ready by the mid summer of 892. Unknown to Gojiro, Ishiro installed the charms of compulsion to not respond to Gojiro, but to Ishiro himself, who also installed himself within a Watani engine that did not have compulsion charms installed, making him unique in his quest for "perfect" immortality in that he could not be controlled.
With his newly acquired "perfect" army, Gojiro proceeded to lay waste to the Allelands, promising bloodshed to honor Hacha for blessing him with such talent and military might. As his army marched forth, Gojiro wondered why they stopped and had their blades pointed at him, before feeling cold steel pierce his midsection, his eyes catching the grinning Ishiro coming into his sights and congratulating him for allowing the maddened inventor to take the blood of a Royal and command a new world order with it.
However, Ishiro was an inventor and artisan, and not a warrior: his surprise morphed to horror as Gojiro called upon his Authority, and effectively ripped the katana out of his own midsection - the blessing of the War God Hacha taking effect immediately and sealing the wound, before Gojiro stabbed the body of Ishiro Watani and pinned him to the ground. Before Ishiro could summon his engines to attack, Gojiro's court magi sealed Ishiro's command links, and properly established Gojiro as the rightful commander using his blood.
Gojiro explained to the now paralyzed Ishiro that he always had suspicions about the mad inventor plotting to backstab him, and thus had his own countermeasures, including having his spies monitor Ishiro's movements and obtaining the completed technical data to effectively reproduce Ishiro's successes without his involvement. Before Ishiro could attempt a jinx on Gojiro, the mighty king impaled his hand in Ishiro's chest, and ripped his engine out, watching the body accelerate in its rot until only metal rods and putrid flesh remained. Gojiro knew what to do with the engine, but had his magi interrogate and torture Watani until his eternal prison was ready.
Ishiro Watani's engine is still buried in the tomb that Gojiro prepared for him, detached from anything that may give him a body, and trapped in infinite suspension, never again to enjoy being among the living or interacting with the world. Archaeologists are still looking for the tomb of the namesake of the Watani engine, as are ethereal specialists such as the Mithambian Arcana Society's tactical magi, and the SEED.
The Serax
"Does this suggest that humanity created the Serax? Regardless of what the answer is, it cannot bode well for anyone with half a sensible mind - either we are the architects of our own undoing, or the gods are, or something more malicious is at play..."
The technology that is often attributed to human hands has also been discovered in large-scale Seraxi constructs, which has cast worrisome doubt as to the true origin of the inimical organic machines.
This discovery was made in 1889, after Battlegroup Altis was able to recover a wounded Seraxi Queen for capture and study. This marked a moment in which the Serax were studied in detail, which unearthed the existence of an engine eerily similar to a Watani engine inside of the Seraxi Queen's core. Its major differences were that the engine was constructed out of Seraxi-specific elements including Seraxi Deepsteel and Seraxi Deepglass, making it outrageously hard and impossible to disassemble without destroying the critical components on the inside.
Unknown to even the highest echelons of the Arcana Society, Adrienne Belfour was able to hook up the Engine to a translator, and the response that she received shook her to her core. Not only were the Seraxi confirmed sapient, but they were confirmed to have souls as well - if the soul of the Seraxi Queen attempting to initiate conversation with Adrienne indicated as such.
The fruit of this conversation went unrecorded, but the following day, Adrienne all but commanded the engine be returned to the Seraxi Queen's bio-mechanical body, and that it be released back into the wild, under the reasoning that its strong ethereal signal would draw fellow Seraxi directly into the heart of Mithambe to retrieve it. The Queen was released back into the Vinesian ocean, but not before Adrienne received an ethereal message in the back of her mind, expressing gratitude for allowing the Queen to return to its children.
Use in Conflict
The Allelands Conquests
In the early 900s, there were eyewitness reports of Wakazian forces, augmented with Watani engines, committing to the conquest of the Allelands, slaughtering the local resistances and offering the blood to Hacha, in the name of war. These reports are further supported by archaeological findings, haivng unearthed engine remnants that corroborate conquest battlegrounds and recovered maps.
The Louthian War
"By the Goddess, they're mass-producing them! Sending thousands of these so-called undesirables screaming into the furnaces, and enslaving them beyond death to deal death..."
The Louthian Imperial Army attempted to bolster their dwindling ranks with the enslaved souls of the thousands that were being worked to death in the Empire's purity camps. This plan was put to a halt by a raid team led by Lana Kilray and Sandri Ixvin, who destroyed the conversion furnaces and freed the thousands of souls that were trapped and bound to various engines. The schematics for the rapid separation and binding of the soul that is critical to the engine's functioning were destroyed in the raid, with the leading alchemists and magi attached to the project murdered by LFTA assassins behind enemy lines.
The Moume Lake Crisis
During the Moume Lake Crisis, specialists from the Sherland Ethereal Emergency Division (SEED) and the Mithambian Arcana Society were scrambled in response to rumors of Moumean rebels having access to Watani engines. Although the rumors were unfounded, the magnitude of the response was noted by other local authorities, and public knowledge of the prohibited device and its workings increased as a result.
The Thaxtedian Uprising
"2nd Wing is currently engaging hardened enemy infantry- scratch that! They're Engines! Pull up, pull up!"
Thaxtedian rebels were confirmed to have Watani Engines embedded within their ranks during the 1889 Thaxtedian Uprising, which gave them incredible staying power against Cleolinian ground forces and Valkyrie reinforcements. Cleolinian forces were forced to pull back when the Thaxtedian rebels received significant support in terms of hijacked drones and bolstered Watani Engine reinforcements, significantly outgunning Cleolinian gun squads and threatening Valkyrie flights with anti-aircraft fire.
Anti-Engine support in the form of combat specialists from SEED and tactical magi from the Mithambian Arcana Society arrived shortly afterwards, with significant commitment from Cleolinia's air forces and an entire Valkyrie wing. Significant military-grade resistance was encountered, which was answered in kind by Cleolinian battleships and Sifan-class light cruisers. The Thaxtedian Uprising is still ongoing, with increasing levels of casualties per day as the involvement of embedded engines has complicated the screening process for refugees.
The Falkner Square Massacre
"Drones? No, not drones - engines..."
The discovery of engines having been embedded in the cell that attacked and successfully killed the head and scions of the Mitfield family has raised alert levels throughout all of Vinesia. Further study conducted by the Mithambian Arcana Society unveiled that the engines utilized in the attack were of a new generation, alarming military strategists and ethereal engineering specialists alike.
Further light into the design and operation of the new generation engines was cast when disgraced knight Arthur Wisteria returned a year after the attack, having been able to track down one of the engine controllers attempting to flee back towards the unstable Thaxtedian plains. He was able to obtain schematics, functioning workings and invocations, and control wards and sigils that were used to command the new generation engines - thus securing his right as a Crown Knight by King Jacob.
Civilian Usage
"Authorizing Watani engines even for experimental usage?! Do you want the public burning down the Royal Court, your Majesty?!"
Because of the nature of the invocation used to power a Watani engine, further research into its non-combat applications has been banned throughout most of Vinesia's ethereal jurisdictions. Nevertheless, research has been authorized on a clandestine basis by a few authorities, and newer engines with reduced binding and link control - dubbed Watani derivatives - have been successfully tested and deployed among select members of the populace.
Jacob Silas Mitfield
"I may not have my original heart anymore, but I can feel the pulse of the Ether inside of me. It is not the same harsh pounding that came as before, but is more of a steady flowing stream now, welling within me and almost gushing out."
The most publicly known and advertised example of a Watani derivative in existence is the presence of Mithambian royal Jacob Mitfield. During the Steel Aegis Disaster, Jacob endured horrific ethereal injuries that would otherwise take his life, were it not for the timely intervention of Doctor Iris Arlenia throughout the ordeal. Nevertheless, the injuries inflicted to his mana core would otherwise permanently seal his Authority and gift, and cripple him physically; in response to this, the Mithambian Royal Arcana Society approached King Marcus and requested his authorization for an experimental surgery that would save Jacob's life and perhaps restore and heighten his combat prowess. With little in the way of alternative paths, King Marcus reluctantly approved the experimental surgery, with the entire process being overseen by the Crown Archmagus Ranier Siwalin.
The Watani engine derivative that would be installed in Jacob was a combination of the same technology utilized in a basic Watani engine, further enhanced with the manipulation hardware of the Ether-Matter Bridge Manipulator, and the inclusion of the heart of a Seraxi Queen. Despite the obvious risks of rejection and death, Jacob gave his consent for the surgery to proceed - during which most of Jacob's ruined internal organs were removed, and the engine - designated the Remaker Engine, Mark I - was implanted in the resulting cavity, reliant on the implantation of Jacob's soul to regenerate the damage and to restore his functionality. Much to the research team and royal family's delight, Jacob's soul took immediately to the engine and its properties, rebuilding himself and fully recovering.
"Unlike other engines, which keeps the soul in a form of stasis, yours seems to continue growing in strength and reach, my Majesty."
The Remaker Engine is often attributed to the sharp increase in the magnitude and reach of Jacob's workings and Authority, as well as the stabilization of his Emanation.
Legality
Watani engines are viewed as inherently abhorrent, due to the process of activating them and the subsequent abuses of power that are often attributed to their usage. For this reason, the knowledge of a Watani engine is restricted to enforcement and military personnel, and research or production of Watani engines is generally prohibited throughout the majority of Vinesia's ethereal jurisdictions.
The punishment for being caught in possession of an engine throughout Vinesia is often severe, up to and including capital punishment - the possession of an engine is associated with the intent to use it, which is effectively premeditated murder. The knowledge of an engine's construction is considered a top-level secret within most societies, and those who know how to make an engine are often abducted or otherwise silenced by state-supported forces to keep their existence and proliferation a closely guarded secret.
Only the Wakazi Kingdom and the Kingdom of Mithambe have been known to conditionally grant exemptions for research into the Watani engine technology to move forward.
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