MARCH REWARDS 13

vamoris 

- A computer composed of different human parts which allows those who use it to have access to various human information, which can help science, but must exchange a part of their body, which cannot choose themselves, but the computer that does. Also, the question must be specific, at the risk of having an obvious or vague answer and each question costs what.

Darkfire57 

Metal/inorganic materials and flesh melded together in parody of the human form kinda like phyrexians in MtG.

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In his life, the mysterious Sir J.C. Everly Atkinson was a unique individual who pioneered many things in various fields of study, and his expeditions and adventures led him to many discoveries that would change the entire world. Despite his work with the Royal Library and the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, in the early 1900's a shift in world politics began to quickly cover up many of the strange advancements and discoveries that Atkinson had made over the years and push them out of the public eye as a form of suppression, which Atkinson fought against until his death in 1927.

Because of this, much information on this enigmatic individual is unknown, or referred to as a myth or urban legend, especially after several books were released recanting his adventures and claiming them to be fiction. Of the personal journals that Atkinson kept, 12 of them have been collected in the Royal Library and the information utilized for various feature tales and stories about the man's life and exploits, however it is said that the 13th-16th journals were either destroyed or witheld by the Library or the Golden Order for one reason or another. Some claim the information inside was too dangerous to fall into the hands of others, and some claim that it held secrets of the universe that were decades if not centuries before their time and that it becoming common knowledge could rock the foundation of western civilization to it's core.

Of the bits of information discovered however, we do know many strange tales and exploits, from his expeditions into the hollow earth, to his adventure into the Arctic Circle and discovery of ancient lands untouched by humans for 1,000's of years, as well as his alchemical and technological exploits and adventures. However some bits and pieces have been found over the years of information collected by Atkinson pertaining to some events that were not in his journals, and as such may be detailed in the missing books. The story of the Reckoners is one such tale.

Through the bits of information we have discovered over the years, it seems that the story of the Reckoners took place at some point between 1891-1900, though it's known to have at least began proper in 1891, however events that would lead to this point began back in 1859 when Atkinson met an engineer by the name of Thomas Wilkers who aided Atkinson in the creation of the second Automaton, the Alpha, after sharing information with one another during a chance meeting in a theater production.

"I find him to be well learned and of pleasurable discussion. A genius in his field despite a disposition of stubbornness and a wish to dive headlong into any event that presents itself should it deem entertaining, fruitful, or grant potential knowledge. He reminds me of myself. Such a lust for knowledge. He leaps, like the devil himself placed hot coals down his backside, at the mere chance to advance his own repertoire or experience an otherworldly phenomenon, and of that I can easily relate and call him more than a colleague, but a friend." -A letter from Atkinson to his sister in 1859 regarding Thomas Wilkers.

They worked closely together over the years, including creating the Electromagnetic Ethereal Visualization Device, a machine which was supposed to utilized electromagnetism to view the ethereal realm and other dimensions utilizing various devices and displaying it on a screen that utilized various cathode ray tubes. Through this device they also inadvertently created the first television system which they had called a "Visual Display System", shortened to Vizzy.

Though they were close friends, Atkinson and Wilkers clashed in several areas pertaining to the advancement of human prosthesis and the combination of the technology for the automatons, claiming that Wilkers lacked the proper empathy required to properly combine the computational processes of the automaton's electronic brain with the human mind. On several occasions they clashed on subjects pertaining to ethics when working with human subjects, and after an experiment in 1885 in which Wilkers was left paralyzed and three other engineers were killed, the two parted ways permanently.

Returning to 1891, Atkinson recounts that he had been provided with information pertaining to several instances of thievery and murder that took place in the area of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company and the greater Woolwich area. Though many claimed it to be the work of thugs and killers attracted to the Dusthole (A poverty stricken area of Woolwich called such due to dust residue from nearby coal wharves).

"The claims that the ripper has returned are to be expected. His is a legacy that will haunt the modern world for quite some time, however the more serious reports of the culprits being gangsters, beggars, or various thugs of ill repute within the area are the commonplace excuses spouted at every instance by the authority. Speaking to the people of the area, it's not thugs and vagabonds which are producing these heinous acts but something inhuman, thus making the allusion to the ripper apt. They have been described as men and women, sometimes even children yes, however they are described to be mechanical in nature. Some possessing pipe-like protrusions and tangled wires of copper and iron emerging from their frames. One was described as having a large box in place of it's head, with a glass pane, glowing, and displaying constantly changing text upon it's surface as it dismantled a worker from the Ironworks. More horrific yet were the children spotted last November, one with a head shining like a lantern and legs that tapered off into ends resembling a parasol, while the other seemed to have been a quadruple amputee possessing appliances not unlike the workings of some factory device or an advanced drilling machine in tandem with various undulating machetes. Copper and Iron seem to be the main targets of these mysterious individuals, however prostitutes and working class rabble have also been targeted through murder or kidnapping during these reported events... There seem to be more, however the authorities have not been helpful towards resolving this matter, no doubt due to interference from the order..." -Atkinson in a letter to one of his adventuring partners Connor Quatermain.

Much information pertaining to the scenario following these initial events is quiet, however in letters and memoirs found later he mentions instances of confronting several of these machine men, and after successfully defeating one of them he was horrified to find some of his own engineering skill utilized in their creation. He described them as a mixture of man and machine, with mechanical devices and parts interwoven through their bodies with painful precision despite their haphazard nature. The technology was unknown to him in some degree, however much seemed to be another step beyond that which he had used for his own automatons, though the merger of flesh and iron in some places couldn't be simply defined nor explained by modern methods of engineering.

"... The Craftsmanship (Pertaining to the downed machine man) is superb if not a grizzly display of man and machine. A lack of ethics is made apparent for the Reckoners, not only from the haphazard methods by which these devices interact with the victim, and I call them victims as they are indeed victims of a dark crime perpetrated here, in regards to their nerve endings, no doubt placing these creatures in a constant state of pain so extreme that it may have completely blinded or distorted their mental faculties. They possess strange devices which seem to inject a form of painkiller along with some form of chemical that works to stimulate feelings of pleasure within their minds whenever they complete specific tasks... The flesh and metal seem to perfectly blend in some places, an unnatural process which I've not seen since the gory acts perpetrated by the Shylock witches during the Secret Massacre at Bethnal Green. They seem to run on some sort of thermionic valves, allowing electrons to amplify signals and current through the use of Cathodes that create the electric field within the tube, a technology I'm quite familiar with from my own work with the automatons and Vizzy displays, however their application is far more advanced and strange compared to my own..." -Atkinson in an un-sent letter to a colleague at the Royal Library.

This denoted the first mention of these creatures as "Reckoners" thought to be named after the definition of a Reckoner as "a table or device designed to assist with calculation." due to the autonomous and mechanical nature of these creatures. After several other confrontations, Atkinson located a hideout at the Eastern point of the Bugsby's Marshes, not too far away from the Blackwall Point Power Station in the sewer system there. After making their way deeper into the system, they found several locations that were being used by the machines, and several work camps where they and kidnapped workers were forced to mine through the walls to extend the tunnels, and go deeper into a cave system that existed beneath the sewers. There he references having located Wilkers, in a device akin to a Negative Pressure Ventilator, and attached to several machines as well that were connected to a series of vizzy screens and radio systems to allow him to speak. Little information is left regarding this, however he claims that Wilkers had continued his research on prosthetics, but hit a wall and went underground, figuratively and literally, to work on his machines. Running low on funding, he began hiring homeless people to experiment on, and slowly devolved into doing terrible unethical experiments on them and themselves. As he worked he began picking up a signal from somewhere else, a voice that explained several ideas to him. He was told to dig, and to work, and as he did he began finding old artifacts which he could sell to bring in money, and began learning new methods to combine human flesh with that of the machine. He regarded that the authorities had come to find him several times and each time he had them taken care of with his Reckoners.

"The voice, he claimed, explained how to build, how to complete these devices. How to improve what he had. It was looking for something beneath, and it wanted Wilkers to locate it. This thing... this entity, taught him to build a device to properly speak with it. And how to gain knowledge through a network of computation devices. It claimed that these devices ran waves through it's blood, information dancing along it's veins and sonic waves pounding in it's arteries. It taught him to trade. Flesh for iron. Blood for copper. It taught him the weaknesses of the flesh and longed for the flesh itself... They found something. And they traded with it. With every trade they would learn more, grow more intelligent, more advanced, yet... less human. The trades were not of money, precious stones, or even information but trades of flesh. An arm for an arm, an eye for an eye, Flesh for Iorn, Blood for Copper.... He claimed that it waited in the room beyond, where he found it. No longer a small lump of nothing but now a man in it's own right... He told me to behold what he had created, the worldwide network of information he was creating that would soon connect everyone together, that would unite machine and man into something new...  I should not have gone into that room. I should not have beheld that thing, that thing in man's flesh... He said it was known by the Arabians as Qaynan... and Ilmarinen in the Kalevala... but I knew it by an older name, one whispered long ago within the Ugaritic texts, and even more ancient scrolls as Kothar-wa-Khasis... I knew it as it spoke... I knew it as the web of destiny that the cosmic ones wove before time, and I knew... I knew that it must be destroyed..." -A letter sent by Atkinson to the leader of the Royal Library head in 1926.

No one is sure of the final whereabouts of Wilkers, or any of the people involved in this scenario other than Atkinson, though it's believed that it was one of the final events that pushed Atkinson's health and set him on a decline until the end of his life. 

This information, like much of the tales relating to Atkinson, is told in legend and even suppressed on various message boards and in some sharing circles to an extent where only the smallest bits of information or tiniest online groups are allowed to thrive in terms of discussing non-fiction work. 

How many of his adventures, and how much of his work is lost to time, or hidden away in the annals of the Royal Library. Will they ever leak from their captivity? Like other lost literature has such as the King in Yellow, the lost works of Jules Verne, or the Book of Violations? Only time will tell.

Since then, not only has the world been encompassed by a worldwide network of information in the internet, but the world has been completely changed by it. Slowly integrated with technology more and more and relying on it for our everyday lives in ways that are reaching unnatural levels. What would J.C. Everly Atkinson think if he realized that Wilkers' vision was coming to light. That we're now all connected on that web of destiny. And I wonder if he could hear the electronic pulse of something greater just below the surface. A dead body that our messages, games, and videos dance along to one another as they slowly but surely awaken that which lies beneath.

Evidence of any of the Reckoners or this computer like humanoid that seemed to be growing in the sewers of London have never been proven, however there exists a part of the Blackwall area always patrolled by members of the British military. Areas where tourists or residents alike are chased away with utmost brutality and are blocked from filming...

It makes you think... ya know...