Brassclad

"Aw shit, there's a brassclad. GET IT OUT OF HERE!"
"Where is it?!"
"It's the shiny loaf of bread in the corner, what in the hells else could it be, you bloody idiot?!"

— Hidden persons

 

Brazen

  In the dim light of a lamplit street, you might mistake a brassclad for a child's forgotten toy. Its body, no larger than a loaf of bread, is fashioned from gleaming brass, polished to a sheen by countless hands it never asked to touch it. Gears hum quietly beneath its segmented plates, the sound of a heart that never beats but never stops. Eyes like twin pinpricks of sapphire light gaze out with an eerie awareness. Some say they see too much; others say they see only what you don't want them to.   Brassclads are the unwanted offspring of cities, born from the alchemy of neglect, ambition, and forgotten promises; usually with some kind of mortal being rather annoyed at producing something they never intended to. They scuttle through the alleys, roofs, and forgotten corners, trailing the faint smell of oil and burnt dreams. Each one is unique - a patchwork of mismatched parts scavenged from the dreams of tinkers and thieves. Their creators, if they can even be called such, rarely remember making them. The brassclads simply are, as though the city spat them out to see what they'd do  

Oh, do they do things

  They are spies, messengers, and saboteurs, but never for themselves. Brassclads choose their masters with an unsettling caprice, showing loyalty only as long as it suits their unknowable purposes. Slip a brassclad a coin or a secret, and it may carry your missive through walls and locks, delivering it to hands you never even knew existed. Cross one, and it may decide to unspool the thread of your life, not with malice but with something far worse: indifference.   Children giggle and gossip at the idea of brassclads who gather at the stroke of midnight in the clock towers of ancient cities, their ticking merging into a symphony of unnatural precision. Some say they are recording the city's heartbeat, others claim they are writing its death knell. If you find yourself among them, they will not stop you. But they will watch, their sapphire eyes glinting like stars behind clouds, and they will remember.   To catch a brassclad is to invite it into your life, and brassclads do not leave willingly. Even if you smash one, its pieces will scatter, reassembling themselves elsewhere, in another shadow, under another sky. They are the clockwork children of the urban sprawl, and like the cities themselves, they live.