Standing limply in the open doorway was the body of a middle-aged man. His corpse was pinned in place by long metal spikes that had stabbed him from opposite directions. It seemed like he had been there for some time; his skin had started to dry and stiffen like leather. Oddly, there wasn’t much sign of rotting.

They gaped at what they saw for several seconds. “So much for your apprenticeship,” Miles lamented.

“He fell for his own trap?” Noninja gasped. “How could that have happened?”

“I hate to say this,” Clancy moaned, “but if we want to get into this room, we’ll not only have to move the body…but figure out how to disarm the spike trap.”

Noninja blanched. “Well, first things first.” He moved to the side of the door, eyeing the corpse uneasily. “At least he doesn’t smell bad.”

“Yeah,” Miles noted, tapping on him. “He’s not decayed so much as desiccated. Seems awfully strange.” He looked up and smiled. “But handy! If we can get the spikes to retract, I’ll take hold of him.”

Noninja groped the wall inside the door, pressing himself against the shafts of the spikes as much as he could. “I think I feel a handle! Let me try it.”

In his awkward position, he had to strain to turn the crank, but finally managed a turn; the spikes retreated one step. Miles got ready to catch the body. Noninja fought to move the crank, but finally, the spikes released their hold. As the body fell forward, the head tipped over and rolled over Miles’ shoulder, falling to the ground with a dull thud.

“Ew!” Lorarona reared back.

“Women.” Miles rolled his eyes. “Clancy, will you grab that for me?”

“Sure thing, pal.” Clancy scooped up the head.

“Can one of you go inside and look for a safety latch or something?” Noninja grunted, the strain in his voice obvious. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold this.”

Lorarona ducked inside quickly; a few seconds later, they heard a metal clank. “I think it’s secured.”

“OK,” Noninja announced, “relaxing now.” He did so; the spikes stayed in place. He sighed with relief. “Good work, team!”

Inside, they found a simply-appointed office with a desk, some chairs, two cabinets, and two chests. Papers were scattered across the desk. Miles carried the corpse to the chair behind the desk and sat it down. He pointed to Clancy and snapped his fingers; Clancy tossed him the head. He placed it on top of the neck, pushing down hard to force the stump into the cavity on the underside. He stepped back, admired his handiwork, and then slapped the head a few times; it stayed put. “Perfect!” he cheered. “He’s practically alive again.” His brow furrowed as he noticed something fall to the floor.

Noninja had already opened one of the chests; he pulled out several bags, each emblazoned with the name of a local bank. “Looks like undeposited receipts,” he revealed. “Fortunately for us.” Lorarona opened the purse of holding and hovered near the chest.

“These must be the good receipts,” Miles crowed, shaking a bag before tossing it to Lorarona. “Platinum pieces! Nothing but class.” He raised his other hand. “And this looks like the lobby dragon’s other eye jewel! They fell from his pockets.”

“These are a mix of project notes and invoices,” Clancy declared, rummaging through the papers on the desk. “Here’s something odd…well over half of them are for the same customer.”

“Who?” Miles asked, looking over Clancy’s shoulder.

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“Someone named Torun. He’s apparently delivering a lot of venerable theatrical devices that need to be repaired…and it seems, paying quite handsomely for the work.” He smiled as he raised one paper for the others to view, pointing at the signature. “Recognize the logo?” It was of the bard’s guild, as seen on the wand and on Lyle’s stationery.

“Excellent!” Noninja called out, still rummaging through the first chest. “Looks like we found our lead.”

“Sounds like Tintso was a really skilled operator,” Lorarona pined. “What a sad way to go.”

Noninja had managed to open the second chest. “More undeposited receipts,” he declared. “I like when they store all the money in the same place.”

“Torun’s invoices all have the same listed address,” Clancy explained. “Something called the Radiant Theater?”

“Radiant?” Lorarona looked perplexed. “I’ve heard that name somewhere before. I didn’t think it was still open.”

Clancy had moved on to searching the cabinets; Noninja finished storing the money in their bag. “Well, something is happening there. Maybe Torun is the new owner?”

“Or a squatter,” Miles pointed out. “Have you seen that part of the neighborhood? It’s so bad, the city will make you paint your hovel before they’ll condemn it.”

“Really?” Noninja asked.

“No,” Miles deadpanned.

Noninja’s only reply was a surly grimace.

“That’s good!” Lorarona chimed. “I like that! Can I use that in my act?”

“Knock yourself out,” Miles dismissed.

“These plans are incredible,” Clancy marveled. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“Anything you can use?” Noninja asked.

Clancy turned to look at Noninja, his eyes filled with wonder. “Not me. These are way beyond my skill level.” He returned to thumbing through the folders. “He’s accomplished a seamless blend of magic and mechanics…somehow powered by electricity.” He shook his head in disbelief as he continued to ponder what he was seeing. “He calls it ‘electromechanetics’. A huge number of unbelievably tiny switches, working together to accomplish incredible feats of logic.”

He rifled through a few more folders. “Generic mechanical brains, capable of accepting easily-modified instructions. Machine-readable memories, able to rewrite themselves! And all constructed from patterns, and built by…other machines!” He looked up, tears in his eyes. “Don’t you realize what this means?”

“Are you kidding?” Miles retorted. “All I heard was ‘envelope vanilla requisition sandpaper’.”

Clancy took a deep breath before continuing. “Let me try to explain it this way…you know how it normally takes a really high-level wizard to create a clockwork golem? And how there are endless ways it can go wrong? According to these plans, all of the parts could be produced by specialized machines, and then assembled. And that wouldn’t take a skilled craftsman, just a bunch of average ones, working on pieces moving down a conveyor belt. A single team could build a hundred such golems per day, and they’d be far more sophisticated than what we have now, much easier to make, and would only cost thousands, not tens of thousands! And at large enough scales…maybe only hundreds?”

He put his hand to his forehead, and held on to the cabinet to steady himself. “This would change everything…” He wiped the tears from his eyes and pondered Tintso’s decaying corpse. “The man was a genius.”

“And yet he was killed by his own spiked-door trap,” Noninja snickered.

Clancy turned toward the door. “Doesn’t make any sense, does it? Something must have really scared him.”

“Want to take his notes with us?” Lorarona asked brightly.

“We can’t,” Clancy moaned. “We don’t have the space. And a portable hole is still way too rich for our blood.” He closed the cabinets and patted them fondly. “Besides, I’m not worthy. It’d take me a lifetime to understand these…maybe longer.”

“Hopefully someone finds them and puts them to good use,” Lorarona mourned.

“I can only hope so.” He let out a sigh. “In any case, it sounds like we have our lead – someone named Torun, at the Radiant Theater.”

“Right after we finish clearing out this place,” Miles reminded.

“Of course.” Clancy approached the door. “I hope we find what scared him so much.”

“I hope we don’t,” Noninja muttered.

They exchanged worried glances as they moved on to the next room.