Creating the Knight

Corvin sat at his workbench tapping his pencil against a blank blueprint page. He wanted to design a new puppet but his mind was drawing a massive blank. Every other time he created a puppet, his idea had come from the books on his shelf. This time, he had poured through his books several times over and nothing came to mind. It was frustrating for him. He could not believe that he lacked imagination to such a sad extent. Finally deciding that he was going to find no help there in his room, he got the idea to just go over to the village library. If his one little shelf had produced his first few puppets, a library should be an endless source of ideas for him to build upon. Corvin very nearly smacked himself for not thinking of this sooner.

He arrived at the library in good spirits. Having found most of his ideas in old stories that he had on his shelf, Corvin went straight for the shelves of fantasy books. He picked out as many books as he could carry that he thought had potential based on the title of the books. He sat at a table and skimmed his way through them, stopping to scrutinize any pictures the books had. The idea of a giant squid was kind of appealing to him, but he felt that the Doctor already had that type of fighting covered. He considered a large charging bull, but felt that the idea was too limited. Sure it could charge and probably very efficiently, but what else would the design itself be good for? He made several more trips to the shelves before he came upon the book that finally sparked the idea. It was one of the older books he had gotten so far. Its cover was crumbling in places and the pages were yellowed with age. Corvin opened it and read the summary at the beginning, and that was all he needed for the idea to come. The book was about a league of warriors named the Grey Knights who clad themselves in heavy protective armor. According to the book, these warriors were so powerful and so skilled with a sword and shield alone that just a handful of these warriors could take down an entire village. The story was fanciful and clearly a work of fiction, but it was just the idea Corvin needed. He would create his own knight in puppet form.

Corvin got home and began doodling on his blueprint pages. He wanted his knight to inspire every bit as much awe as its inspiration. Corvin decided that it would have to stand tall, taller even than Anima. He also wanted it to be thick and powerful looking. As for weaponry, Corvin found in his battles and training and sparring that he shied away from hidden weaponry more and more, instead opting for powerful direct weaponry. Keeping in line with this, he decided that he would design this puppet as he had the Doctor, with no secret weaponry. Not only did this make the puppet easier to control, but it also made it easier to create. This one in particular would not have any kind of complicated mechanisms to worry about. It would be a "what you see is what you get" type of design. To go along with the massive form of his knight, he decided to keep in line with the storybook knights and equip it with a massive sword and shield. He found that he was finished with the blueprint much more quickly than he had anticipated. As he looked over the design for flaws, he found himself doodling designs on the armor and weaponry of his knight. It was not something he had done with previous puppets, and not really something he had intended to do with this one, but he found that he liked the way the designs looked and decided there was no harm in trying it out. When the blueprint was finished, he scribbled some calculations on how much material he would need and made the necessary preparations for his work on the Knight to begin.

As before, the first thing he needed to do was gather materials. This was the easy part for Corvin. He spent hours grinding away the iron beneath the ground into sand for him to use to construct his puppet with. He slowly ground the sand and collected it into a pile. What used to be a chore for him, now grinding the sand offered a sense of relaxation. The soft rumble beneath his feet calming him into almost dozing. He had calculated how long he would have to go at this in order to get the appropriate amount of sand, and indeed it was no small amount of sand. Because of the sheer size of this puppet and its weapons, it would take the most sand he had used on a puppet yet. Even Anima had not required such amounts. Finally, after hours of gathering sand, the completed pile was sitting taller than he was at his full height. 

The next step was to form the necessary plates that would later be brought together to make the various parts of the puppet. It was tedious work for Corvin to do, but he relished in it. He knew that with every movement and every exertion, he was bringing his new puppet closer to completion. He would gather up some sand, form the shape he desired, and use his forge to meld the shape into a hard construct. Once out of the forge, the piece would be cooled, the density would be increased through pressure and more sand, and the process would begin again. When the piece was shaped and the density was to his liking, Corvin would set the piece off to the side. This procedure had to be done with the entire pile of iron sand, and the pile was taller than Corvin himself. It took quite a while for Corvin to get every piece done, and as he worked he found himself able to think and daydream. Yet again, he found himself dreaming of a time when he would be able to control an army of puppets. The idea of being able to control such a huge amount of puppets would surely take a legendary degree of focus. Someday he would obtain that legendary status, he just knew it.

Once all of the plates were created, he separated them into individual piles. Each pile represented the individual legs and arms, the torso, the head, the sword, and the shield. Just looking at the piles and all the work that was ahead of him caused much of Corvin's determination to leave him. Creating these things by hand by himself as opposed to simply giving money to the puppet creators at the shop certainly saved on money, but the task of doing it all was unbelievably daunting at times. Corvin thought back to when he created the Doctor. It was at this point in the process that he had felt most daunted then as well. He decided to step away from the project for a moment and take a break. Heading inside, he drank a bit of water while reading some of the story about the Grey Knights in an attempt to gain more enthusiasm for his project. He read about how the leader of the knights took on multiple S-ranked shinobi and defeated them all without so much as getting his armor scratched. Even Corvin had a tough time suspending his disbelief on that bit of fiction. However, the story did show that his puppet design, if anything like the legendary knights of his storybook, would make for an excellent guard puppet when needed, and at the same time would be capable of front line combat. Sighing heavily, he set down his book and went back outside to work again. 

Taking the individual plates for one of the legs, he held a couple of them together with his magnet release in the proper form and held the pieces within the forge. Once the pieces were set and cooled as one solid piece, another plate was added. It did not take much focus on Corvin's part to manipulate the iron with his Magnet Release. By this time his free manipulation of his was second nature and caused him no more strain than breathing. The heat from the forge had bothered him the first time he used it, but now it offered a certain sense of progress. Piece by piece, the plates were fitted together and molded until finally a massive leg was removed from the forge. It had the appearance of being armored just like the knights in his story were. He was well pleased with his work and set the leg aside.

The second leg went very much the same. The tediousness of fitting the pieces together over and over, making adjustments here and there, fixing the knee mechanism, bending the shin into a better position, and a laundry list of other tiny adjustments got Corvin into a sort of rhythm. His mind no longer daydreamed, nor did he find himself overly focused on his work. He merely knew what needed to be done and let his body go on a sort of autopilot to get it done. He finally removed the second large leg from the forge and made the final adjustments before cooling it and setting it next to the other leg. His calculations and measurements were spot on and the two legs were perfect mirrors of one another. He stood next to them and imagined how tall the finished product would be and it made him smile a bit. This thing was going to be massive, and if he kept it close by it would prove to be a most excellent protector.

The next step was the arms. Again, Corvin set the plates in their proper places and made sure the mechanisms worked properly. He liked to add as much detail into the fingers as he could. He felt that too many puppet builders let the fingers of puppets slack when it came to aestheticism. To Corvin, the fingers were just as important as the face. It made him giggle to think that as his puppet punched someone in the face, the last thing on their mind as the fist approached their face was the thought that the fingers on the puppet were really well made. He made sure that every mechanism worked perfectly the way he wanted them to. He was all to aware of how a faulty mechanism could cause untold problems for a puppet master. Even something as simple as not being able to grip properly could mean an opponent getting away or a weapon flying out and harming an ally. This puppet in particular was to have massive weapons that in the event the hand mechanism failed could go flying and kill an ally or himself. It was a risk not worth taking. He made sure the arms were able to move swiftly and smoothly with minimal noise. He again had to marvel at the size of the arms and began to wonder if he might have overdone it this time, but a part of him knew that aside from all of its other functions this puppet was very much about shock and awe. Finally satisfied that the arms were to his liking, he set them aside.

Corvin decided to get the torso next. The intricacies of the armor design he was going for had him worried about the fit of the arms and legs. The head could be made to fit rather easily and was not nearly as important. A huge amount of plates went into making the torso. The design alone practically doubled the time it normally takes him to form a torso. He was doing more than shaping it, he was crafting it. Corvin had to mold each piece and then had to make an unbelievable amount of tiny corrections that left him weary. The torso was broad and long, befitting a puppet of its magnitude. He had to make sure that every little detail of the mechanisms to hold the arms and legs on was absolutely perfect. It required adjustment after adjustment, but soon enough the piles of lumpy metal plates formed into the most intricate puppet he had designed yet. He ran his fingers over every detail, triple and quadruple checking various aspects of it. He marveled at his own design until he began to feel a little narcissistic. Finally satisfied with it, he set the torso aside.

The head was easy enough to build. The helmet design he wanted took careful measurements and no small amount of patience, but Corvin's ability to manipulate the metal through his Magnet Release made the task infinitely easier for him to the point that even at his age he could perform the tasks with the accuracy of a master craftsman. The helmet was a sleek design that he was proud of. It took fewer plates than he thought it would, and he used the extra metal for aesthetic purposes. Even though the head of this puppet would not be serving any functional purpose, the head of a puppet is what is most often looked at. He had to make sure that it was as glamorous and intimidating as every other part of the puppet. He again had to marvel at his work. There was a small part of him that considered making his knight a headless knight just to unnerve his opponents, but when he looked down at the work he put into his helmet, he just could not bring himself to part with it.

The end was in sight for the puppet. Corvin began work on the shield. He had set aside almost double the amount of metal it would normally require for a piece of this size, but Corvin had something new in mind to try. He set the necessary plates together and forged everything needed to get the rectangular shape that he had in mind for the shield. However, rather than stopping there, he continued to add plates and smash the metal together to create a much denser form of the metal than he had ever tried before. It took no small amount of effort to crush the metal into proper form, but with the right amount of effort and patience, finally the shield came together the way he had planned it. Now, rather than merely being another part of the puppet, the shield was a true shield having roughly twice the durability of the rest of the puppet. Now, when he raised the knight's shield, he could feel much more secure in its ability to withstand attacks. Even if an opponent could get through the shield, it was his hope that it would at the least slow them down enough that he could counter attack. He spent some time after this effort just doing aesthetic markings on the shield as a way to relax before starting on the sword.

The sword of the puppet was going to be massive. Not only would it offer great weight and reach that would come in handy in combat, but it also made for a great intimidation factor. Looking across the battlefield at a sword roughly the size of a man would hopefully be enough to set any man on edge. It was his hope that it would deter his enemies from getting too close without considering the consequences carefully. Setting the pieces for the sword came naturally and went quickly. For all its size, it was still a basic sword. Corvin spent quite a lot of time making the sword very ornate and beautiful, the envy of any sword wielder. He took a great deal of time sharpening the sword and making sure the sharpness was even throughout and that it did not undermine the toughness of the blade itself. When it was finished, he set it aside. Looking at it sitting there against the wall, he imagined the kind of strength a normal man would have to have to wield such a weapon and wondered if that amount of strength were even possible without some sort of ninjutsu to boost the strength of the person.

Finally, all that was left to do was assemble the puppet. This was arguably the most crucial part of building a puppet. Every latch and mechanism was checked multiple times and every connection was gone over with a tediousness that would drive some men mad. The arms had to connect to the torso in a way that would hold their weight and protect from harm, while at the same time allowing for freedom of movement. The legs needed every bit of attention and for the same reasons. The head of the puppet was less important, mostly there for aesthetic reasons. Even still, if parts of his magnificent puppet started flying off during a battle for no reason, not only could those parts be used as a weapon against him but his pride would be wounded beyond repair. Lastly, he equipped the sword and the shield onto the puppet. He was particularly concerned that the shield's weight would prove a problem, but the design of the arm and its mechanisms worked as intended. He connected his chakra threads to the puppet and had it move around, testing every little movement and listening for any undue grinding or clicking. The smallest noise could have indicated an imperfection that left unnoticed could cause havoc with his puppet over time. Satisfied, he gave the sword a few test swings, including slicing a training dummy clean in half. He lifted the puppet into the air and tried more rapid swings, and between swings feigned blocking with the shield to get a feel for the way in which the puppet moved. Dubbing the puppet The Knight, Corvin sat back and smiled as yet another puppet was added to his arsenal.

(WC: 3015, The Knight puppet acquired, +15 stats)

Le Approved!