“Amazing! Simply amazing!” Gimbobble muttered to herself as she poked through the damaged hulk of the mechanical contraption. “Master Wataru, could you open up its chest cavity a bit more please? I need to get a closer look at its internal workings.”

Jumah smiled slightly as he resheathed his swords on his back and bent down to the machine.  He placed his fingers inside the gash his sword had made and pried the metal armor open with a grunt of effort. The material was definitely much stronger than any armor he had encountered before in his travels. While his supernatural strength was enough to tear and bend the metal away from the gears and cogs of its internal workings, it was with a great deal of effort and the sharp metal bit painfully into his fingers.

Even before he had opened the gap significantly, Gimbobble was poking and prodding at the internal workings of the machine excitedly. Twittering like a school child and grinning from ear to ear. The fear of only moments past was obviously long gone from her mind. “My goodness! Look at this! They have used a size sixteen oscillating cog here for the drive mechanism.”

Standing up from the wreckage, Jumah pulled a clean cloth from one of his belt pouch and wiped the blood from his hands, inspecting them to make sure the wounds were closed, which would be a sign that the machine was either magically enchanted or bore a significant  silver content. He sighed as he inspected his perfectly healed hands. He wasn’t sure if he should be happy or not however. On the good side this meant that these machines could do him little lasting damage, although his Gnome charges would certainly be worse off. But on the bad side it meant that the contraption was capable of putting up a significant fight through the use of mundane materials, and that there could easily be more of them wandering around. In large numbers, they could amount to serious trouble for them.

With a sigh he tucked the soiled cloth back into his pouch and turned to look at the Gnomish porters who were shakily moving their rack of equipment closer to where Gimbobble was now pulling small pieces out of the metal corpse.

After several hours of waiting for the three Gnomes to finish their dissection, Jumah finally decided to set up camp for the night and busied himself with setting some blankets on the stone floor of the mine shaft and clearing a spot for a small fire over which he built a simple stew with some of the dried provisions they had brought along.

After much prodding he finally managed to get the trio to eat something before promptly diving back into their work even the two porters had seemingly forgotten their trepidation and showed a genuine interest in the project of figuring out the details of the mechanical spider.

Well into the night, Jumah moved over to the Gnomes and looked over their shoulders at the myriad or pieces and parts they had neatly strewn across the floor of the mine shaft. All of the parts were organized into piles that seemed to make little sense as Jumah poured over them, looking for some rhyme or reason.

One small pile contained several gears, or cogs, he wasn’t sure which, some small coiled springs, a few bolts, and one of the creature’s spindly legs that they had disconnected at the body joint.

Other piles bore similarly strange combinations of things and each time he saw them pull something new from the wreckage one of them would place it delicately in a specific pile after scanning them all momentarily.

Leaning in over the trio he sighed heavily, then waited a moment for them to ask him what was the matter. When none of them reacted he finally cleared his throat and spoke in a normal conversational tone, “You know. We should be moving on in the morning. It would probably be a good idea if you three got some sleep.”

“We can’t sleep. We’re in the middle of a comprehensive post mortem investigation into this machine’s internal functionality.” Gimbobble replied without taking her eyes off the gaping hole in its body.

“Be that as it may. I must insist that you all get some rest. Even if it is just one at a time for a few hours.”

“Nonsense. We Gnomes can go days without sleep when we are working on a project such as this!” She said proudly. This time she actually looked up at him with a twinkle in her eye. Jumah wasn’t sure if it was from the light of the lanterns they had brought, or some internal insanity specific to the Gnomish race that caused the glint, but he wasn’t ready, or willing to discuss the matter with her.

“Look. I am your guide and protector on this expedition and as such I must insist that you get at least SOME rest. If you are unwilling then as soon as you are done with your investigation of this machine, I will escort you back to Talanor and you can find yourself another guide.”

The look on Gimbobble’s face changed immediately from one of mischievous mirth to abject horror. “Oh! Oh no! That simply won’t do! You are the only person that answered my call. No one else wants to accompany us on this expedition!”

“Then I suggest that you heed my advice in the matter and take turns getting a few hours of sleep before we head out. I have no desire to keep you from your work, but we must all be able to act when the time comes and exhaustion is not a state that is conducive to that end.”

Eight hours later each of the Gnomes had reluctantly laid down for a few hours and at least closed their eyes. Jumah was certain that Gimbobble had not slept a wink as her hands had kept moving in the air above her as if she were manipulating and examining pieces of the mechanical spider. When she had ‘awoken’ she had immediately set about criticizing everything the other two had done while she was away from the project. She cast several icy glares in Jumah’s direction as he set about cleaning up the camp and getting them ready to travel again. He simply shrugged at her and kept on with his business.

Finally the diminutive Gnome proclaimed that they were done enough that they could move on, although she was still certain that there was more to be learned from the dismantled contraption. She had pulled out a strange silver box with a few faintly glowing crystals on its surface and numerous gears and cogs affixed to the sides that were spinning away continuously despite being disconnected from the spider’s body.

“What is that?” Jumah asked skeptically as she strapped the strange device to the gear suspended between the porters.

“It appears to be the source of the automation’s power. It seems to be drawing energy from these crystals using some form of light refraction across a wide spectrum prismatic spray that focuses specific wavelengths of light on a precariously balanced actuator that oscillates, thereby transferring the light energy into kinetic energy that drives a progressively increasing cascade of gears eventually resulting in the transference of said energy from this component into the body of whatever mechanical contraption it is imbedded.”

Jumah stared at the Gnome for a moment before clearing his throat. “So it’s a box that changes light into mechanical motion.”

Gimbobble glared at him with a ferocity that only the incredibly short are capable of mustering before turning on her heels and barking a few orders at the porters.

Jumah smiled to no one in general before moving to the front of the line and leading the way deeper into the darkness of the mines.