Page 218 - Chronicles of Darkness

The gear constructs appear, spinning in midair. Once they constructs fly at a slow walking pace and briefly pause at 31 points,
appear, the constructs immediately stop spinning and fly in where several humanoid creatures with 16 long, many-jointed
precise, straight lines for between 40 and 700 miles. While fingers and six small compound eyes work on these constructs
they are flying, they are completely intangible. At their destina- with a variety of complex mechanical and electronic tools.
tion, gear constructs pause for two seconds during which they These creatures work constantly and all have a plug com-
become solid. They then spin rapidly for another two seconds ing out from the back of their bald, ovoid heads. These plugs
and vanish. When they appear and disappear, they are briefly attach to a single wire that runs along the length of the build-
surrounded by a rotating sphere of glowing light 12 feet in ing. Pulses of red-orange light regularly travel along this wire,
diameter. This glowing sphere is the visible manifestation of and fainter pulses flow down each of the dozens of cables
the doorways into and out of the stations that maintain and that attach the creatures to this wire. While plugged into the
recalibrate the gear constructs. These stations are all located wire, all of the creatures move in exactly the same fashion.
in Twilight. Gear constructs typically travel a single route every These gear workers ignore visitors unless the visitors disturb
five to 30 minutes and fly at approximately 80 miles per hour. them or the gear constructs. If someone does either, the nearest
All of the gear constructs moving along one route take
the same path, always appearing and disappearing
in exactly the same locations.
If left undisturbed, the gear constructs
continue to fly along their paths, and the
accident rate all across the world increases
because people occasionally see them. If the
rumors about the “blips” becomes wide-
spread — maybe someone captures one on
a smartphone video and it goes viral — the
accidents increase in frequency because
now drivers are looking for the constructs.
The gear constructs have been moving
in and out of our world for almost 60
years and will do so for many decades
in the future.
Linchpins

The best way to learn about the
gear constructs is to travel to
one of the maintenance and
recalibration stations they
travel to when they vanish.
Anyone who grabs onto a gear
construct when it is tangible
travels with it when it vanish-
es. Also, the rotating, glow-
ing sphere remains visible
for three seconds after the
gear construct has departed.
Anyone touching this sphere
sees his arm vanish into the
space where the gear construct
goes. Characters who are swift
can follow the gear construct
to its otherworldly destina-
tion. Characters who follow a
gear construct find themselves in
a building the size of a large ware-
house, located in Twilight.
Inside this building, characters see a
line of gear constructs slowly moving from
one end of the building to the other. The gear

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A Glimpse of Mesmerizing Complexity