> Card-shaped or simply 'shaped', refers to any beast that is modified and maintained through the application of specialized cards. However, this nomenclature fails to capture a fundamental division within all living amblers: modern shaped, and the ancients.

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> Modern card-shaped fall largely into one main category: amblers. Modern ‘amblers’ (so named due to the dominant variants' awkward and plodding pace) are the animals that were adapted from the herds of non-specialized grazer populations (originally raised for their meat) that survived the Fall, largely due to their relative distance from cities and lack of dependence on card intervention. The term 'ambler' is also used to refer to older specimens that bear a similar fundamental nature to the commonplace herd animals with which most are familiar, though their connection to ancient creation often makes them fundamentally different beasts in practice.

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> Ancient shaped are those that persisted through the last Fall and have, with that unique origin, capacities that far exceed any modern amblers. It is thought that their numbers were once tremendous, with equivalent diversity; they formed the functional foundation of that lost civilization. These ancients included forms most wondrous, ranging from the graceful nimbles used for sport riding; to the titanic Walking Mountain.

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> However, through a combination of population collapse due to the tribulations of the Fall, and the loss of essential cards that were necessary to provide them their required care, facilitate breeding, or treat environmental causes of attrition, these survivors are now very few in number. Efforts made to recreate the wondrous strength, resilience, and diversity present in ancient shaped through modern breeding attempts are uniformly disappointing. The necessary cards and support systems are simply too great a height to re-ascend. It is perhaps a blessing that such efforts are fruitless, as a resurgence of the wanton ravages of the war-shaped—the murderous umbrars or the destructive trembors—is piece of the past best left to memory.

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> Excerpt from encyclopedic entry on Shaped.

After departing the sunroom, Jack finalized the remaining details with his father and made whatever final preparations he could. He would be leaving early the next day. To honour his impending absence, they gathered for a familiar family dinner.

There is a passion in familiarity. It is not the ardent desire of new lovers, or the fascination that novelty can bring, but rather the passionate comfort of routine. The smell of a favourite dish, prepared specially for you; the chips and cracks on an old mug, traced unerringly by blind fingers. Jokes and stories become a kind of prayer when they’re recited often enough, in the temple of a family.

And if, over the course of the evening, Jack fell too quiet at times, it was prescribed as the homesickness one feels only in good company soon to be left.

The following morning saw Jack standing at the front of his home. The cool morning air and pale light lent the street a calm that was being only softly disturbed by the early bustle of working people beginning their days.

This was the quiet that came before the shouts of hawkers, the cacophony of industry, and the chatter of commerce. Tradesmen prepared their tools, shopkeepers their wares, and labourers wound their way in a solemn quiet to their places of work.

All who were up at this hour were members of a congregation that knew little peace in their days, and so embraced the moments of contemplation circumstance gave them. Jack loved this mood of the city above all. He’d been absent from these early moments for some time and secretly rejoiced at the opportunity to rejoin the contingent of this early hour.

The dread of the risks he was taking, and the burden of their necessity were pushed to the back of his mind. It was easier in this moment of unrealized possibility to anticipate triumph, than to ever imagine the consequences of failure.

He walked, and the bustle of the city increased in measure with his journey. The flicker-step blur of couriers shimmered on their special rooftop routes, as they stepped out onto open air only to reappear across impossible gaps and land with practised ease, their unbroken stride frank testimony to their skill. Their lives and fortunes were measured in the quality of their endurance and speed cards and the quantity of dashes they could stuff into their decks.

Food vendors lined the streets and began their sales of brightbrew and quick breakfast meals. Nearly all people ate food prepared by vendors as food-related cards were an untenable source of bloat for decks optimized for demanding professions (only the wealthy were likely to maintain kitchens in their homes, the domain of hired cooks of course).

Leaving as early as he was, there hadn’t been time to get a breakfast from home and hunger was beginning to gnaw at him.

Jack stopped by a seller of savoury breads. Arrayed across their stall was a broad selection of raw ingredients which he chose from, the vendor grabbed handfuls of whatever he indicated and tossed them next to a ball of raw dough. When he was done, they quickly kneaded everything into the dough with well practised motion, before rolling it into a thick cylinder.

Prep-work done, they drew on a cooking card for the final step: the dough darkened to a golden brown even while it rose as the interior filled with air. The smell of fresh bread wafted to him as he was handed the loaf, which was only enhanced when he broke it open and a cloud of aromatic steam erupted out.

The interior was filled with everything he’d specified from the vendor, all perfectly cooked and interspersed as no baker he’d seen had ever even attempted. He might never have a meal quite like this again in his life, such was the bizarre variety of cards.

Chewing happily, he resumed his journey to the edge of the city.

Leaving the city meant passing through progressively unsavoury districts, kept at a distance from the residential areas due to their cacophonous industry or caustic smells. First would come the intricist workshops—the clockwork engineers who fulfilled the custom orders and assembled sophisticated contraptions, the most one would suffer in their proximity would be the gentle whirs of flywheels and ticking of gears.

Somewhere in this collection of engineers, with their oil-stained clever fingers, was Harmon. Likely worrying about Jack’s imminent departure.

The battery assemblies were curiously squat buildings, deeply set into the ground like little bunkers. Their exterior walls consisted of thick, reinforced stone. Incidents were rare, but the energies contained in the devices of their workshops were such that a major accident could see enhanced metal moving at speeds that made the air scream at their passing. Here was the nexus of all other specialist artisan’s work, where the individual parts of dozens of suppliers would come to be crafted into the vessels that powered all of Calamut.

Next the tensilists—the foundational crux upon which all other spring-industry rested. A masterful tensilist could increase the energy capacity of a spring by tenfold at least, with their masterpiece projects reaching much greater heights, though those only once or twice in their lifetimes. Their workshops were marked by the clear staccato pinging of stressed springs and the occasional shriek of failing metal.

After them were the foundry alloyists, who produced metals with unique, physics-defying properties. They kept tall smokestacks to release the noxious fumes of their experiments. Close to them were the springshapers forges, where the fundamental unit of all springworks were crafted. It was in their midst that the Tangle was located.

The core industries by this point were deeply interdependent. The aggregate of the Springworks could not survive without any one of them, and many would be useless without the others as each had grown so specialized. The cards supporting them had been developed over generations as apprentices learned from masters and carded in ever more sophisticated and particular ways—standing on the shoulders of their teachers.

As the body of knowledge around metals had grown—their shaping, the alteration of their properties, and their fundamental makeup—the intricacy of the cards had increased in proportion. It was impossible now to understand the complexity of any given industry without deep immersion within it. Many apprentices underwent a shift after they achieved sufficient focus to develop cards that gave them extrasensory perception of the materials they manipulated. Jack had spoken to some who had undergone that leap, those who described the fundamental structures of matter not as inert solids, but vast arrays of composite particles bound through abstract forces, endlessly complex and strange. ‘Springtouched’ was less pejorative than an expression of affectionate exasperation for those who touched reality at a different level, and struggled to explain to the uninitiated.

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At the very outskirts came the chaos of the mass grafters, dropstone towers, and the ambler pens. Those industries that supported the charging of spring-batteries and the re-purposing of energies into kinetic storage.

The thud-thud of weighty dropstones landing lent a strange rhythm to the area. At the edges of perception Jack could feel the vibration of their landings even through the absorptive capacities of their clay-lined catch sites. Even as he watched, a worker placed a set of batteries within their charge sites, stepping well clear before releasing the dropstone cached in the tower above. It accelerated rapidly, picking up speed until it came to a near-halt with a jerk. The last meter of the fall occurred as if through a medium much thicker than air—the collectors leeching the kinetic energy to rapidly charge the waiting springbatteries.

They would repeat this process several times until the spring-batteries were at full capacity, tipping the stones out of the catch to make room for another drop. The time intensive labour of lifting the stones back to the top of the tower would go on in the background, usually with amblers powering the constructs that brought them to such heights. The man waiting for the batteries would be on his way in just a few minutes, delivering them to households around the city. With this method, no one waited for more than a few minutes for a given battery to be charged, and the specificity of the cards involved meant the energy conversion was highly efficient.

Jack had ensured his exodus would pass by a living landmark that held a significant legacy for Calamut. Paying respects to Old Barrow before leaving on a dangerous venture was a tradition that extended back to the first days of the city, and perhaps even earlier.

It was said that you could tell an ambler's mood by their scent, if you knew the trick. Jack figured if that were true they would be some of the most emotional animals around. A typical ambler’s musk was a heady odour and Old Barrow could be considered particularly potent even among its kin.

Before Old Barrow even entered Jack’s sight, his smell wafted through the streets, distinguished in part by a heat that contrasted with the cool air. It smelled of old leather, earth, smoke, cracked stones, hot metal, and dried mushrooms.

Rounding a corner, he found himself at the edge of Barrow’s square. There, in the centre, was Old Barrow. He had one of the older, classic ambler body plans. Six legs, each as thick around as a tree trunk and proportionately squat; a densely muscled torso, which seemed to ripple with tension at each powerful stride. The face possessed the flat features of a herbivore, two small black eyes glimmered like onyx over his massive nostrils, flaring routinely with the bellow-like lung’s exhalation. His tremendous tusks stretched out a full two meters from his head, they never stopped growing, and each new generation of handler would be given a centimetre band around a tusk to carve and paint detailed patterns, marking their legacy even while they could see the worn remnants of their ancestors efforts fading away at the tip.

He was ancient, card-bred with lost techniques to reach such a size and live so long. He was rumoured to have lived through the last Fall.

His stride was what carried every drop of water in Calamut from deep below in the underground reservoirs up to the surface, and higher again to water towers in the city, where aqueducts and pipes did the rest to distribute it throughout.

All around Old Barrow were his handlers, approximately a dozen figures, minute only in comparison to their hulking charge. Jack had timed his arrival well, they were just about to turn him around in his track—a necessary measure when powering the great pump to keep either side from becoming overexerted.

He approached with respect, lifting a hand in greeting to the handlers rushing about, removing harness attachments, and massaging muscles with great wooden paddles. One gave him an inviting wave—geared as he was; they knew what he was here for.

He walked around to Old Barrow’s side, marvelling at the size of him. Even now, resting flat in his track, his shoulder was half again as high as Jack.

Jack slowed as he neared Barrow’s head, reverence setting his pace. He reached out a careful hand to the short, coarse-looking fur, only to be surprised by how soft it really was. Feeling a bit braver, he imitated the motion that he’d seen some of the handlers making, sweeping the fur up, and then scratching as he brought his hand back down.

A gentle warmth radiated out from the hulking form, like a tired fire settled into a bed of coals. A harufff of contentment came from Barrow, and from his position Jack could see one of their eyes slowly close.

“That’s good luck you know!” one of the handlers called down from above. “He only sighs like that when you get a good itch out of him. It’s good luck for any journey.”

Jack grinned. “I’m glad to hear it. I’ll be needing every bit of luck I can get from him,” he replied. With one last extra scratch for good measure, he set on his way.

He was walking down a side-street, when what he thought he recognized as a night-runner whistle from above caught his attention. He peered up, trying to spot if there was anyone passing by but there was no obvious sign.

Suddenly sensing a presence behind himself, he spun, ready to ward off anythi-

“You thought you could leave without saying goodbye huh?” Neavie asked, hands on her hips and a feigned glare in her eye.

She was wearing her work clothes, garb that Jack had never seen her in before. He felt oddly discombobulated by her blouse, but didn’t feel courageous enough to interrogate why.

Doubly attacked, deflection was the only recourse left to him.

“Seems a bit absurd, seeking someone out just to say goodbye. You’ve only just said ‘hello’, and then you’re already on your way.”

Jack knew he had the edge when Neavie flashed a quickly smothered smile.

“Well we wouldn’t want you to feel any more absurd than is typical, you have so much to bear in that regard as is,” she teased.

“Thank you for your consideration,” Jack paused, looking up at the sky, feeling a bit awkward. Being flippant here was too easy, and he knew he’d regret it if this was their goodbye. “I… I think I could make an exception, and give you a proper farewell,” he stumbled over his words, feeling himself flush.

“Oh,” Neavie blushed in turn, desperately looking down at her own feet in turn. “I guess I wouldn’t mind being an exception.”

Jack struggled for how to start, trying out possibilities in his head before discarding them as insufficient. Since when did talking to Neavie feel so fraught?

The silence was lingering too long. Maybe the silence had been going on forever? Had he ever spoken before, or was there just this, an awkward clutching at possibilities stretching out into infinity?

“Well!” he exclaimed loudly. Too loudly, if Neavie’ startle was any indication. Need to correct, apologize, no—pretend it didn’t happen. This is how normal people talk, you are normal. “Goodbye!” he finished.

Neavie was definitely looking at him now.

She was looking at him in a way that said; “That wasn’t normal what you just did, and we both know it. I don’t know if I’ll ever recover from how not normal that was.”

The tension in Jack broke at her expression of bafflement. He started to laugh and after a moment, she joined him.

“Sorry,” he eventually managed, “I don’t know where that came from.”

“It’s pretty rare that you’re the one at a loss for words. It was kinda nice to be on the other side of it, for a change.”

Jack merely nodded in reply, garnering another smile from her. But he was feeling the need to express something more.

“It won’t be much longer than the times I couldn’t make it out to the night-runs; you can just imagine that I’m trapped in that little study, still trying to card.”

She shook her head at that. “It’s not the same.”

“...No, I suppose it’s not.” Simple reassurances couldn’t do much, but it was also all that he felt he had. “But I will be back.”

It still wasn’t enough, he wasn’t saying what he felt, not that he knew clearly what that was. Just that this wasn’t it.

“Let’s start over,” he said, acting at this point on pure impulse.

“Huh?”

“We’re doing our goodbyes again, I won’t go like this, it has to be proper. Now give me a look like I’m the dirt beneath your shoe.”

Neavie managed bemused confusion.

“...Close enough. Alright, so your hands were on your hips like this,” Jack grabbed one of her hands and placed it back on her hip, “and then you-” rather than let him move away her hand only tightened on his hand. “A-a-and then you-you say.”

“You thought you could leave without saying goodbye huh?” she said it again, but quiet, almost a whisper; all while looking down at her feet.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” he answered, looking up at the sky.

That was how they said their goodbyes, looking everywhere but at each other.