SNAPCRAFT | Ch. 27 - Cassilex Conundrum
Added 2023-11-07 11:51:22 +0000 UTCSpring of 346, A.D.
Kai stood in the museum, in front of the maquette of the 162nd exams. He had a board beside him, where he was making a decision tree. He wrote on the board as he read from the trial runner log. He tried to discard all the emotion in the words of Cathy, that year’s trial runner. He wanted to strip the account to its bone until only logic was left.
“You’ve come quite a long way!”
Kai turned and found Sunny.
“Hey, Sunny.”
“You’ve done all the others so far?”
“Yeah. I do one a week.”
Sunny nodded appreciatively and looked back at the many other maquettes behind them. “Three years. I admire your consistency, my boy.”
“Well, I’m trying.”
“Neil would have been proud.”
Kai felt the name hit him hard like a hammer. It was the first time Sunny spoke Neil’s name since that day in the pyre. “Thanks.”
“Go ahead, boy, I know you have questions. It’s impressive that you have gone so long without trying to find the answers.”
“You noticed?”
She nodded.
“Were you happy?”
“We were, for the most part. You’ll see. A few years into a relationship, challenges start eroding it. We just couldn’t deal with some of them.”
“Is that a warning for Ariel and I?”
“Not a warning. Just some friendly advice.”
“What eroded you?”
“A broken promise.”
“Shortly before he died, Neil told me that his biggest regret was that he couldn’t keep his promise to you.”
“He did?” A tear rolled down Sunny’s face, but she wiped it away as if it was another smear of oil on her face. “Did he tell you what the promise was?”
Kai nodded.
“Sometimes, I wonder if it would have been different if he hadn’t promised anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe I could have endured being childless. If only he didn’t keep promising me he’d bring children to our home, maybe the disappointment wouldn’t have smothered us.”
Kai didn’t know what else to say.
“See you tomorrow at the bonfire.”
“Bye, Sunny.”
Kai stared at the board in front of him. He looked over his shoulder to see if Sunny was gone and flipped it. He grabbed a marker and wrote on the top of the board ‘Cassilex Conundrum’. Maybe he needed to strip down this problem to its logical bones and discard all its emotion—his and Alex’s. In the museum, the only sound was that of someone writing on the board.
*
353rd Daisy Exams, Round of 64.
After all, from up here, he had a privileged perspective on what was going on below. This time, he focused his full attention on the holes. He started from the assembly line to the cargo bay. Now that the sun was higher in the sky, Kai could see all the way to the factory floor.
So far, nothing out of the ordinary had presented itself to him. Kai looked at the clock. There was one hour left. He gave himself 40 minutes to finish capturing objects in the arena. This time, he wanted to leave himself the last 20 minutes of the snapping arena to think about what he would merge during the crafting stage.
He patiently worked through the rooftop, trying to find anything unusual. Finally, he saw something new. It was a room Kai hadn’t been to yet. He spared a look at the map. This coincided with the location of the labs. Now that he thought about it, when he was down at the labs, he hadn’t seen any skylights, and the ceilings were lower down there.
Could it be that the factory had two floors? Whereas he had visited the labs on the bottom floor, the room he was looking at had been hidden from sight. Kai jumped through the hole and landed with a thump. Thankfully, Daisy made it so trial runners didn’t phase through the floor. The thought of falling forever through a simulation of planet Earth caused shivers down his spine, but he shook the thought away and focused on what was around him.
The one hole that was open above this office was the one he had fallen through. It provided enough light to see what was in here, so he didn’t need to get his gaslamp out. It was an office, but one different from the ones he had seen below.
It had a wide cracked window providing a panoramic view of the assembly line below. It looked like the kind of thing a boss would do to keep an eye on the production and employees. That made him think that this was the manager’s office. The shadows of the factory had hidden this window well from him. He had failed to notice it from the factory floor. Judging the photograph he could get from up here worthless, he looked closer at the office itself.
A big meeting table was on its side, with two legs missing. There was also a board with blueprints pinned on it. Kai approached the board. The lines were faded, but they were still legible. As he read one of the blueprints, he gasped.
Gears (Uncommon)
[Gearwheel] + [Drive Belt]
Recipe book updated.
Daisy had hidden recipes in this office! Kai’s thoughts raced as he reviewed his experiences in previous arenas. Were there hidden recipes like this there? If so, he had missed out on some valuable opportunities. He went through the other blueprints, looking for any other recipes. Sure enough, as he scanned one blueprint after the other, he kept getting notifications.
Circuitry (Uncommon)
[Copper Wire] + [Console]
Recipe book updated.
Frame (Uncommon)
[Metal Sheet] + [Pipe]
Recipe book updated.
Power Source (Uncommon)
[Uranium] + [Steam]
Recipe book updated.
Kai studied all the recipes, and a suspicion started forming in his mind. This factory used to make something. Based on what he'd seen outside, it looked like it had been an electrical motor factory, but what if it wasn’t? These recipes looked like parts required to build a machine. What if he could recreate the machine by finding these ingredients and crafting them together?
As Kai read each of the components, he scratched his head. Everything that he’d seen in this abandoned factory was corroded beyond recognition. It was hard enough to find one piece of metal that could be salvaged. Where on Earth was he supposed to find a console? Or uranium?
No, there had to be a hidden secret here. These recipes may just be a general direction to aim for. He had already learned in previous rounds that there was more than one way to get to a card. For example, [Ash] could be made from burning all sorts of things. [Spark] could also be obtained from different recipes.
Maybe the objective here wasn’t to find pristine versions of these components. Maybe he had to find working replacements. Kai ran through the window and fell toward the factory line. From there, he raced toward the scrapyard.
When Kai had first seen the scrap piles, they seemed useless. They were made up of metals of different types, all strewn together chaotically, making it impossible for him to get a good shot of anything in them. But finding the [Dimensional Gloves] had changed things. Finding the recipes in the manager’s office had only strengthened his suspicions.
Now confident his opponent could not perceive him, Kai put on the gloves. As they lit up, he squatted and dug through a trash pile. There were pieces of broken bricks, rotten wood, and rusted iron so corroded that he couldn’t even tell what it used to be. After going through two piles, he finally found one of the ingredients mentioned in one of the recipes.
He held a coil of golden brown wire in his hands, covered in a green patina. Unlike iron, copper didn’t rust, it only developed a green patina that protected copper from completely oxidizing. The wire still seemed usable even after years of neglect. All he needed was to capture it. He swept the ground with his hand, clearing it from debris. After coiling the copper neatly, he placed it on the floor. He activated Flash to ensure he would get this card and pushed the button.
Copper Wire (Uncommon)
A malleable metal conductor made from copper with excellent conductivity properties.
Tries left: 10 of 20
1 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Kai grinned. It wasn’t just for the recipe he had discovered in the manager’s office. [Copper Wire] had a lot of potential in crafting. It was one of the essential tools for an electrician or an engineer to have in a workshop. He considered the card's usefulness and decided to take another shot.
Copper Wire (Uncommon)
A malleable metal conductor made from copper with excellent conductivity properties.
Tries left: 9 of 20
2 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Satisfied with the two new cards, Kai ran to the next pile. There was nothing. He kept going. After five more piles, he found something else. It wasn’t one of the cards that he had been looking for, but recognizing it from the practical lessons he had with Sunny, he decided to photograph it.
It was a smaller coil, barely used, with grey metal wire. The outside was in bad shape, but he pulled off the wire and found that some of it, closer to the center, was still in passable condition. He put it on the ground and leaned in with the camera.
Solder (Uncommon)
Used for joining or bonding components in electronics, plumbing, and metalwork.
Tries left: 8 of 20
1 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Solder (Uncommon)
Used for joining or bonding components in electronics, plumbing, and metalwork through soldering.
Tries left: 7 of 20
2 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 2
Happy with the results, he looked at the clock. He had forty-five minutes left and many shots to take. So far, he only had 1 of the 8 ingredients on the blueprints. As he kept going through the garbage piles, he found a few pipes, but they were cracked. He just threw them to the side. In the 11th pile, he finally found something that might be usable. It was a dented wheel that was rusty but solid. Kai doubted that he would find something better than this. He sighed and took a shot, hoping for the best.
Rusty Gear (Common)
A mechanical component showing signs of corrosion.
Tries left: 6 of 20
1 of 4
Hp: 2
Vp: 0
Yikes! This was barely serviceable as a card! It even had a stat line below other common cards. It only had two hit points and nothing else! Had he not seen the recipe in the manager’s office, he would have felt like crying, but knowing there was some sort of secret hidden here, he only felt like celebrating.
After three more piles, he found a pipe. It was the first one he found that wasn’t cracked and only rusted. He felt good about taking a photo of this one.
Rusty Pipe (Common)
A mechanical component showing signs of corrosion.
Tries left: 5 of 20
2 of 4
Hp: 2
Vp: 0
Kai laughed as he saw that his opponent had found a rusty pipe somewhere, taken a photo, and given up on getting a second one. He couldn’t blame her. These cards were complete trash. With this, Kai had gotten his hands on three of the eight necessary cards to reproduce the recipes. At least, that’s what he was hoping for. He had no guarantees that the rusty version of the components was good enough to produce the necessary result.
He was missing [Drive Belt], [Uranium], [Console], [Steam], and [Metal Sheet]. He left the piles at the scrapyard and ran past the warehouse and into the abandoned production line. He had seen broken conveyor belts here. Maybe, with the help of the dimensional gloves, he could find a way to get a belt in good shape.
Kai ignored all the belts on the floor. They were completely broken, and Kai was sure he wouldn’t be able to get anything out of them. He tried to look under every rock and broken piece of wood for a belt. Still nothing. He then turned to what was left of the machines. He took the gloves off and started sticking his head with the lamp wherever there could be a small cranny where a drive belt would fit.
As he was about to give up, he finally found something that might work. There was what was left of one very small motor and a gearbox connected by a dried-up piece of rubber. The gearbox and the motor were corroded beyond recognition, and Kai could only tell what it was due to the rubber belt and the layout.
The rubber looked dry but wasn’t cracked. It might work. He brought his other hand into the metal box, got the lens close to the rubber, and went for it.
Dried Drive Belt (Common)
A mechanical component showing signs of corrosion.
Tries left: 4 of 20
1 of 4
Hp: 2
Vp: 0
With this, he had all of the mechanical components. He took off toward the outside. Rushing through the arena with a shopping list was completely different from looking for things to photograph. Wherever he went, he had a purpose in mind. He just hoped he was fast enough.
Kai was back outside. The sky was brightening, but the sun's heat was still approaching. Kai looked at the web and smiled. He had made it in time. There was still dew in it. He got the spider out of the web, got his camera, leaned his eye against the viewfinder, and tried to draw as close as possible to a water droplet. It wasn’t an easy shot. He had to ensure the focus was on the water droplet, not the silk.
Water (Uncommon)
Transparent, tasteless, and odorless substance essential for life.
Tries left: 3 of 20
3 of 3
Hp: 3
Vp: 1
Kai felt a rush of bittersweetness. Even though his opponent hadn’t been able to capture the spider or the web, courtesy of Kai, she still got a hold of the other two [Water] cards. Thankfully, it was an uncommon card and not a rare one. It would be enough for what he had in mind. All that was left was to find a replacement for [Console] and [Metal Sheet].
Kai now sprinted to the center of the lab. As he arrived at the tiled room with the shiny engine at the center, Kai ignored it and moved to the console he’d seen before. The glass was cracked, and the console looked broken, but it was the only thing that he had seen in the whole factory that could pass as a console.
Broken Console (Uncommon)
An industrial computer that has stopped working.
Tries left: 2 of 20
3 of 3
Hp: 2
Vp: 1
His opponent had grabbed the two other pictures of the console. No problem. It looked like he would only be able to make one of whatever these recipes granted him. The last ingredient he needed was [Metal Sheet]. There was no clean metal anywhere in the arena. However, he had to settle with the next best thing. Scrap metal.
