Cindy

As a hatchling, Cindy was already fascinated by machines. By gears and metals and all the crazy things that dragons could create from nothing. So it wasn’t a surprise when she announced that she wanted to become an inventor herself. She walked into the workshop as a fresh, wide-eyed apprentice, ready to create some of her own wacky inventions!

But being an apprentice is hard, as Cindy has since realized. She stares at the dishes, why is she doing chores again? It’s always the same. She never gets to do any inventing, not even any studying, while her master is around. He will tell her to clean and to cook and to do other boring housework that has to be done, but that doesn’t get her any closer to her goal. With a sigh, she continues the dishes anyway. Can’t let them pile up, she did that once before and that ended up badly. Who knew rats could get that big? Certainly not Cindy! As she places the last clean plate back into the cabinet, she hears her master’s voice call out to her: “I’m going out to meet with the guild, I might be cone for a few days!” Before Cindy can even wish him well, he closes the door behind her. Not that it matters, because this is what Cindy’s been waiting for! It’s time to tinker!

Cindy hurries back into the workshop and grabs her secret supply of scrap from underneath one of the tables. As she puts it up on the table, she notices a spider quickly scurrying away. It’s been that long? She pulls out her tools and her work in progress: a small mechanical rat. Totally inspired by the dishes incident. Cindy looks at her master’s workbench and sees a brightly glowing crystal, just lying there. Perfect! That should work as a power source! Finally, her first invention is finished! She grabs the crystal, which is humming with magic, and shoves it rather unceremoniously into the power slot of the rat. It barely fits, but the slot can be closed, so it fits well enough.

Cindy stares at her invention, and watches it whirr to life.