This Item Is Cursed. Remember to warn Customers.
This small brass clockwork insect tends to cost around 200 ae.
Description
The Clockroach is a pocket watch sized clockwork beetle. It has six jointed legs with small gears on the end and very small, almost invisible runes across the back of the watch. When you bond with the item, it nestles itself above the heart of the person bonded. Some speculate it embeds itself shallowly into the skin, but in reality it is magically embedded. The ticking is unable to be heard by the wearer.
Effects
The item ticks in perfect harmony with the wearer's heartbeat, instead of with time. It can sense extreme emotions and wiggles when they happen. Curse: When the wearer gets hit with powerful magic, they end up losing 1-4 hours of time instead of taking the damage of the spell. The wearer is unaware of what happens during the time lost, but everyone around them tends to recall the wearer being trance-like. After around 3 time-loss events, generally the wearer starts to hear the faint ticking of their own heartbeat through the item. It causes them to be vividly aware of their heartbeat, and subsequently, their mortality.
How I Obtained It
The Clockroach was first discovered in the ruined workshop of Horologist Thassarin, a genius time-mage who vanished mysteriously at the height of his research into chrono-mechanical fusion. His tower was located on an island along the west coast. Scattered across his crumbling study were various malformed timepieces and living automata, but the Clockroach alone was still ticking when the adventurers found it—sitting atop a perfectly preserved heart, still beating on the workbench centuries after Thassarin’s disappearance.
I created this piece as my first item in Ink and Ivy Apothecary. It spoke to me in a way I can only describe as it wanting to escape my brain.
About The Creator
I am a member of the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation of Canada, and I live in a small town in the Rocky Mountains in Alberta Canada. I love nature and all things green, but my real passion is my fantasy works.
You can also contact me at leashea.delorme@gmail.com
Wandering Works gathers pieces like this—the kind you don’t go looking for, but recognize and adore immediately when you find them. Strange, confident, and a little untethered. If this one stayed with you, that’s the path doing its work.
Thank you for being here 🖤
Is it passive or do you need to do something to activate it? Does it work on a countertop or does it need to be “attached” to a person? When the bearer dies does it find a new one? Assuming it absorbs the magic cast at it, if there is no magic being cast at it, does it absorb the essence of the bearer to keep functioning? So many more questions about this artefact. I want to do more research!!!
Love this. Seriously, I do.
This is wow. 😮 I would love to feature it as a guest excerpt on my YouTube channel. What say thee?