Looking back at my life is kind of a funny task.

It makes me a bit
afraid to realize so much has passed, even though most of it feels like
yesterday. On the other hand, I recall every second on it’s own memory.
People are always begging for more time here in Ironborn City, where
everything is so busy and fast. However, the thing about time is that… if
you don’t make the most out of every moment, you don’t really need a
single extra second.

...

I was born in the capital of Ironborn at six and thirteen in the

morning, but unlike the name implies, I was made of anything but iron. My
bones are actually quite fragile, since I am a Kliren just like my parents. I
was risen by my father alone, a watchmaker named Raymond Schurke who
owned a shop called Ray O’Clock. He is a very emphatic and hardworking
man, which made him a great teacher as well. Supported by my early
curiosity, he knew well how to capture my interest and teach everything
about the traditions of his work, while still acting severe on my mistakes.
He always balanced his perfectionism very well.

Throughout my childhood, I had a difficult time making friends

outside. Our race is well known for being very captivating besides our
mechanical thinking, but growing up with my father wasn’t really the best
example of that. Besides all of his virtues and great teaching skills, he was
a total airhead for normal conversations, and always had the mannerisms of
a construct. Mirroring his behavior, I ended up becoming someone people
would call stoic and uninteresting, sometimes workaholic for treating my
mechanical toys as learning tools.

It was also rare for me to have childish interests or for me to like

spending time playing with others. Unlike most children, I noticed very
early just how much time I missed when losing track with such distractions,
and the sensation would bring me panic, as I wanted more and more time to
learn and enjoy new things. My father always tried to tell me to enjoy those
detours and make the most of it, but just like him, my head was always
floating too high for my own good. If I would allow myself to enjoy just
one second out with friends, hours passed in the blink of an eye. And for
someone who lived constantly around clocks, not having one at hand made
feel like the numbers floated away from existence. Nothing was worth
doing if I would lose my ground at the end, so in order to try and calm me,
my dad made a pocket watch just for me. It’s weird, but back then, I
already felt something like a déjà vu when receiving that watch, like a
connection deep within my soul.

...

I was twelve when I first met him, at exact four hours in a summer
afternoon. My father’s favorite customer and old friend: Sir Edward
Heisenberg. Heisenberg was an eccentric and rich lefou who, besides all
the hardships of his cursed body, was a successful owner of multiple
weaponry factories in Ironborn City. He was seeking for another
partnership with my father, after years since their last business. Apparently,
he had found a great purpose for my father’s specialty, which most people
dismissed. You see, his clocks were not mere cog pieces. He was a
chemical researcher above a watchmaker, and the watches were a sample
of his lifelong trial: trying to find a way to use alchemical fuel for a longer
and reliable lifespan in technologies.

From this point and onward, I spent a lot of time accompanying my

father to Heisenberg’s mansion. Besides being a cold and egocentric
looking man, he was like an uncle to me. We quickly became friends as he
was always very impressed by testing my knowledge, and at times I would
spend afternoons alone with him while my father worked. With puzzles and
fireplace stories, he would entertain me for hours with an incredibly rich
knowledge and wisdom behind his words. It was frequent that I would look
at my pocket watch and realize hours have passed in a conversation, and
yet this time I didn’t feel like it was wasted. It was no child play;
Heisenberg was truly a visionary with a lot to pass on in his legacy, always
thinking about the next great achievement. He dreamed with a future with
magic and technology combined, and praised my father for being one of the
great pioneers and supporters of this idea.

It was there that I also met David Carline, another lefou who would
visit Edward periodically for some meetings. With his white hair and
vibrantly green clothes, David was an even more impressionable figure
than Heisenberg at first glance, but no so grand on a long term. Being far
more sympathetic and playful, he always presented himself as merely a
mystic arts student. He had never done a single magic trick when I asked
him to, instead showing me a bunch of circles and complex occult science
that… honestly, I couldn’t understand a word. He was also very interested
on asking me what I was doing there in a daily basis, and I would gladly
explain the lessons I was absorbing from both my dad and Heisenberg.
Once, during one of his leavings, he told me:

“You should try smiling some more. You talk and act like a soulless
golem, but your eyes have more passion than you think”.

Back then, the comment made me more confused than anything, but
visit after visit, some of his cheerfulness ended up rubbing off on me. With
every few tries, I would get more and more talkative about my own likings,
and now that I also had the regular company of Heisenberg, I was
conversing far more with my father and him about the works I dreamed of.
I felt like standing between giants, and I wanted to grow and become one
too.

...

The interesting days of my adolescence were but in the beginning. At

age fifteen, around eight and thirty in the morning of my birthday, my dad
woke me up with a wheelbarrow full of presents. It was a bright start for a
day. In between all the tool kits, alchemical caldrons and mechanical
figures and toys, he gave me Judy. At that moment, she didn’t have this
name of course, but I already loved her enough to think of multiple options.
It was a golden musket projected by Heisenberg and crafted by Raymond.
Seeing my newfound interest on his friend’s job, my dad wanted to provide
me a great product that they could work together on, and she was the result.
However, during the afternoon, my surprise quickly wore off with some
frustration. We spent the rest of the day testing the weaponry with special
rubber bullets made for practice, and let’s just say that all the strength and
precision I built with the hammer didn’t help me to properly aim. Besides
having the dexterity to manage minuscule cogs and gear pieces, this wasn’t
a slow and patient work that I could use a clamp for. I felt like I was
wasting the gift they gave me, and the guilt and disappointment ended up
leading me to an idea.

In that night, with Judy on my room, I dismantled the whole weapon

and studied every single mechanism inside. When reassembling the object,
I made some modifications of my own that sadly ended up scratching some
of the gold. But well, fear not! With some green and red paint and a couple
of fake jewels, Judy was born, renewed to fit my own style. On the next
morning, my dad woke up to my shots in the garden. This time, I was
hitting the cans more often than not. With the trajectory of the barrel more
visible and the weight of the gold scratched away, it was far easier to
calculate the right angle for every shot. All I did was to give up trusting on
my arms and merely focusing on what I knew about the strength, speed and
power of the inner mechanisms. Moving targets were but a timing question,
one that I nailed even easier than the ones completely still.

My father cheered my success like I have never seen before. Which

isn’t too much, he was still a little bit clunky on his mannerisms. This,
however, only makes those moments even more valuable.

...

Well, I’ve learned quite bit up to this point. As I said, every precious
memory on it’s own. I practiced shooting every day since then, I worked on
my dad’s shop never denying any request, I was smiling at peace and
expressed my passions about my work, and I was cherishing every moment
given. As if we had all the time in the world. Of course, like most people,
some regrets were created along the way. I never had the normal and super
playful experience most children had, but I was still happy with how my
difficulties turned out. Like most people, some memories were also soured.
Yeah… but it’s still fine, right? After all, I wouldn’t be who I am without
them. Even if friends turn into enemies, even if the clock goes against
you… you still have to respect what they did for you, right?
...
It was time for my hardest lesson: how it is to live on a timer.

...
 Some weeks after my sixteenth birthday, my pocket watch had
broken after falling from my pocket, while I was picking some material
boxes in the morning. Since a had a lot on my list, my dad offered to fix the
watch himself. It was his first handmade gift after all, he wanted to be the
one keeping it intact. Heisenberg then came to visit us, more excitedly than
ever. He called upon my father, saying the time for a great discovery had
come. I really wanted to watch it at first hand as well, but my dad told me
to take care of the shop while he was out. Taking my broken watch with
him in his pocket, he ran out, following Edward to his mansion. On that
day, the afternoon flew by faster than ever. Without my usual watch to look
at, I didn’t even think at looking at the others around the shop, and the
night came with the realization that my dad and Heisenberg were still out. I
wasn’t nervous at all. Maybe a little bit. I still didn’t like to lose track of the
time I had always in my pocket, but I knew better how to be grateful for the
hours I spent doing what I loved.

After closing the shop, I went to the mansion to check what was
taking so long, and what was exciting Edward so much. When arriving at
the place, I was surprised to find none of the servants Heisenberg usually
kept around. I had to enter by myself, since no one attended. Getting a bit
confused, I started to wonder if they were off to another place, but it was
then that I heard heavy footsteps coming from the higher floors. Slowly, I
went upstairs and followed the sound towards Edward’s office. When I
opened the door, I felt like an engine was dismantled from my heart.

Both Edward’s and Raymond’s body were lying on the ground. Only
Edward seemed to have blood on it, enough for me to quickly conclude he
was dead. What was more disturbing, however, is that his blood was
soaking a magic circle drawn on the floor, one that I faintly recognized
from one of David’s works. The circle wasn’t doing anything, and the room
was a complete mess. My logical conclusion was that, whatever was it’s
purpose, it was already done. But why was Edward dead? And why was my
father lying beside him, without any signal of blood or breathing?

The heavy footsteps then echoed again, coming from the back of the
room. A mechanical sound accompanied every movement of the figure,
and his walk was both elegant and rusty, as if it didn’t learn how to
properly move yet. It was an adamant golem, one with a shape almost
perfectly humanoid, but entirely gray. He was holding my pocket watch,
which was now fixed and glowing with a strange green light.

“It is at the brink of success that they all cower, unable to bear the
weight of their achievements”, the golem said, with Heisenberg’s voice
coming out of it. As a chill went down my spine, hearing his pet phrase, he
continued: “Your father was this close of reaching this last step, but even
after pulling the curtain… he could not see my vision”. A heavy
disappointment was present in his tone, keeping his creepy puppet-like
walk towards me. As an instinct, I took Judy from my backpack and aimed
towards him.

“What have you done…” I asked almost on a whisper, too shocked

to carry any emotion on my voice. My mind was too busy putting the
pieces together. My third conclusion on the room was that Edward was not
actually dead. He was, somehow, alive inside that iron body. After my
question came out, before I could reach any other conclusion, the sound of
rusty wheels rolled along in the room, as a group of four other mechanical
constructs came forward, surrounding the golem who was Heisenberg. The
constructs were all different, each at the size of a dog or a horse. They were
all on four legs, legs that held wheels beside the horseshoes, and their
shapes were similar to wooden and mechanical toys. Just like the golem
and my pocket watch, their eyes were glowing with a faint green light.

“The impossible, the unthinkable, the… necessary, if you will.

Oliver, my coat please”. The golem responded, calling upon the butler’s
name with utmost class. I was expecting for Oliver, the old dwarf, to come
out from the shadows. But instead, one of the four legged beasts rolled
towards the coat hanger and grabbed the cloth with his mouth, bringing
back to Heisenberg. My fourth conclusion was too unsettling to even voice
it in my thoughts. “Thank you. As you can see, Taylor, I have been quite
busy. Yesterday took a long while to prepare the first showcase of my new
products. Like I said, not everyone accepts the sacrifice. Oliver was the
only one that didn’t resist too much, but as for the gardener and my two
maids… oh, the mess!” Wearing his coat and the top hat, he continued
rambling as I was frozen in fear. “I was really, really anxious to show this
to both Raymond and David. I owe them huge thanks for lending their
knowledge, specially your father. I thought he deserved to see it first, but…
well, what a shame. Lucky I was already planning to stab myself to
complete this work”.

Walking forward, he kicked his own body out of the way, completely
lifeless. The blood was coming out of a huge slash in his stomach caused
by a switchblade, my father’s switchblade. My fifth conclusion was taken,
and the sixth was still in denial before Heisenberg himself confirmed it:

“At least I could guarantee his place along my side. I always liked
this fancy watch of yours, and your father’s company was truly enjoyable.
So I thought… why not make both into a souvenir?” he dangled the pocket
watch in front of me.

A loud roar echoed throughout the room, coming from the weapon in
my hands. Without even realizing, I pulled the trigger with Judy at point
blank of his chest. In a lucky roulette of the barrel, a chemical fire bullet
was the chosen projectile, setting his entire upper body on fire. However, as
the powder faded in the air, two more horrifying realizations took place in
my mind: his chest wasn’t even scratched, and after staggering a step back,
the fire didn’t seem to have any effect on the adamant body. Raising his
head towards me, the golem’s eyes glowed more intensively under the fire,
with a chuckle coming out of him.

“Don’t worry. You will join us in a minute” he said, and as the four
beasts roamed forward, Heisenberg himself lunged towards me with his
body and coat still on fire, at a surprising speed. Since shooting another
bullet was useless, I took a step behind, but as I prepared to run, I tripped
onto myself and fell on my back. Raising Judy as a shield, I knew I had no
escape from death.

However, just as his flaming body was about to fall on me, a purple
fog enveloped my body, forming a tangible barrier before I was touched.
With the adamant body on top of me, floating above the barrier, I looked
upwards and saw the figure of David at the door, his hand extended with a
purple light coming out of it.

“GET UP, TAYLOR! THIS WAY!” he screamed while holding

Heisenberg, with the four beasts now almost surrounding me. Before I
could run, however, I grabbed the pocket watch from his hands without
thinking, pulling with all my strength until the chain broke. Taking the
watch – and my dad – with me, I finally stood up and ran alongside David,
who grabbed my hand to make sure I wouldn’t fall behind. Behind us, on
slow steps, Heisenberg got out of the room while the four beasts were now
chasing us at full speed. Wherever the golem touched, fire was set,
spreading through his curtains and carpets on a path of destruction. Without
looking behind, I hid the watch in my backpack and kept running. My
heartbeat was ticking fast enough to slow time.

...

Two days had passed until I was able to properly tell, in every detail,
what I had seen to David. I was at his house this whole time after running
away, holding the pocket watch in my chest without a word being said. I
was always terrible at expressing myself without logic getting in the way,
but this time the horror didn’t even let me open my mouth. A day after the
incident, we both heard the news about Heisenberg’s mansion on fire, and
his body found dead. We both knew right away they weren’t talking about
the adamant one, and with his name being now publicly diseased, only the
two of us knew the truth.

As I told David everything I could remember, I slowly stopped

myself while pointing out the circle I had seen in the room. But as if
reading my mind, he told me to finish before he could explain. With a lot of
pauses and self-doubt about my own conclusions, I finally finished telling
everything in twenty six minutes and fourteen seconds. David heard
everything with an unchangeable calm, not seeming surprised about
anything I told him. With a deep breath and eight seconds of a break after I
was done, he finally opened his mouth.

“You are not wrong about any of your conclusions, Taylor. It is as

bad as you think, and I’m sorry you are going through this but you need to
keep calm. Just like his soul was now transferred to an adamant body, your
dad is indeed stuck in this watch, running it with his own life force. You
know what that means, right?”

The panic took my throat again, barely taking out my words: “If the
watch stops… he will die?”

“Exactly. So before anything, make sure you take care of this thing.
Now, about the circle… yes, I did help him achieve this result” he
confessed, now with a guilty tone and look coming out of his eyes. “Just
like your father did, however I would say I’m far more responsible. I had
tasks much more suspicious to take under his orders, and the only reason I
pretended to see nothing is because my work was always neutral. This,
however, is pushing the line”.

“Not to mention, I also knew Heisenberg well far longer than

Raymond”, he continued, with me sitting completely still on front of him.
“We were both cursed on the same day, sharing the same weight and secret
behind our red flesh. After challenging a god’s domain during an
expedition, twenty years ago, we were both bound to age each year faster
than before, and to have our bones be turned into ashes in the moment of
our death. I was fifteen when this happened, as one of the many Odyssey
adventurers”, the lefou with white hair told me, and I felt like listening to
another fireplace story, one far too distant from our usual work.

“I ended up accepting my fate some years later, leaving despair aside

and coming back to live my… uncertain number of years left. I already feel
the damage with my constant fatigue, and Heisenberg was in a worst state
before… doing what he did. At his wish, I started using my arcane studies
to search for ways to cure our body, which led me to the soul transferring
ritual. At first, I wasn’t against the idea of letting him transfer his spirit to a
construct. However, I noticed too late that he had second intentions with
this, and is probably seeking something far greater and darker with this
path”.

As he continued explaining to me the complexities behind the ritual

and their work, my mind went hazy and I lost complete track of what was
happening. My head was still spinning around the fact that my father was
now at the palm of my hand, counting each second in an incessant ticking.
When would it stop? What if I got distracted and let it fall? What if
someone steals it? What if someone breaks it?

How much time until any of this happens?

“David. I can’t continue with this” I interrupted him, holding the

watch with both of my hands while looking at it. “I… there has to be a
way. There has to be. Something that could bring him back, something that
can prevent… any of this from happening”.
 David looked at the watch and took a deep sigh with the interruption,
answering me with his brutal honesty as usual: “I can’t prevent this. And I
don’t know if there is anyone who can. There is one fact about time that
Raymond and Heisenberg were both very stubborn upon: you can’t beat it.
There is no eternal fuel, there is no immortal body. They both will never
run from it, but unlike your dad, I have the feeling Heisenberg will keep
dodging this fact until he brings ruin to everything he touches. He already
has improved my research for turning this into reality, if there is someone
who could know how to revert this is him. And even that is a leap”.

“I will, however, help you” he concluded after a brief pause, pushing

a glimmer of hope back into my chest right after snatching everything
away. His calm and cheerfulness were slowly going back to his eyes, with a
more comforting and sympathetic light than his previous coldness.

“How…?”

“By using what us lefou are best at. I will curse you” he answered
while standing up, opening one of his many occultism books as if checking
a menu.

“Wait… what does that mean? Isn’t this… bad?”

Needless to say, I was a little bit lost.

“Heh, curses are often seen as the opposite of blessings, but in the
mystical sciences that is not quite true. The only reason I reached my
research’s specialty in the first place was because of this curse’s abilities.
You can see them as a secret path for power, something where it’s price is
so big that it can be used as a punishment. On that fateful expedition, I was
seeking that power myself”.

He then closed his book, looking at me straight in the eyes. “Now,

Taylor, I cannot pull Ray’s soul out of this object, but I can push yours into
it. At least, part of it, and if you wish so, I will try and take the more…
traumatized part in there. You do need some help here too after all” he
pointed at his own head, smiling to her. “And I’m sure your mournful part
is better off being close to your dad too. As time passes, both this part of
you and your dad’s memories will eventually lose consciousness of
themselves, but what matters is that you still have half of it in your body.
After you get to this point, the only way to bring your dad’s consciousness
back is taking him out of there. But, again, if he cannot talk or act, this
won’t make a difference for you”.

“Once this seal is made, your soul will serve as payment for a
protecting spell around the watch. Nearly nothing will be able to break it
once your soul is in there, and only a powerful magic will be able to
destroy it. The only ones who will be able to stop the watch are you… and
him. And you know, if this happens, he dies. I’m not sure what would
happen to you, but it’s probably not good either. Do you accept that pact?”

With my heart completely devoured by despair, the answer was

settled like a prayer. My words came with no hesitation.

“I accept”.

...

And… really, that’s it. I can’t fathom how much of a great job David
had done, because ever since then, it was like my spirit was anesthetized
inside my body, perhaps into an unbalanced point. On the following day
after that, and ever since then, the clock’s ticking is now quite literally
rooted deeply in my mind. I cannot turn it off, and I’m constantly aware of
what point in time I am at. Because of it, I’m also not afraid of losing track
of time anymore, being able to pay full attention at my work without
skipping forward at all. I spent another week at David’s house before
leaving, where we tested if there would be any drawback from the ritual. In
the meantime, we also made sure it was working properly by beating up the
watch. Not even the furnace could damage an inch on the clock.

After I left, I went back to the shop and crafted two more weapons
and bracelets as armor. With Judy and my equipment on me, I started my
journey to seek a cure from both mine and my father’s curse. My main goal
is still Heisenberg, since he will have the most chances at knowing the
antidote for what he created. Things started smooth in the first weeks of
traveling, but it was then that a bit of my horror came back from the watch,
as one single drawback finally kicked in with the spell.

My father – and presumably me too – was losing his self-conscious,

just as David warned. His response to that, however, was far more
consequential than I anticipated. The watch was now turning itself off from
time to time, with only me holding it together, and in sudden snaps, it
suddenly reached the point of completely breaking. By controlling the spell
with my mind, I desperately made it so the screws and pieces could be torn
off, opening the watch and quickly fixing it back up only to turn it on again
with my mind. After the first time this happened, part of the green glow
had diminished from the watch.

My dad was trying to kill himself, because he did not recognize who
or what he was. Since only me and him could break the watch at will, that
was the only logical conclusion I could reach.

Ever since then, with six months passed, this happened two more
times. Again, each time, the glow faded a tiny bit more, now being a lot
less perceivable in the light of day. I can’t tell how much of him is left, and
how much time I can let pass the next time this happens, but the thought
alone strains my heart enough for me to experiment a fraction of that old
despair, locked away in my soul. “Time cannot be beaten”, David said.
And he is right. I’m living on a timer.

Now, I’m currently roaming to Tarrin’s beach, where I heard rumors

of a talking and living boat being possessed by a ghost. I have my doubts if
this has anything to do with former Sir Edward Heisenberg, but if a soul
got trapped in there, then surely it can lead me to a good hint or help.

While traversing the country, besides the constant awareness of the

time passing by, I still hold onto my dad’s lessons. I know impatience and
despair will lead to nothing but mistakes. If you cannot beat time, join it
and enjoy it at the fullest, you never know how much you have left. And I
will enjoy every one of those detours, until I find my destiny.