Barry

This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.

Uhmmmm.... Barry is a mini-modron: a compact yellow-metal spherical body, one large blue-green optical unit in a brass ring, small articulated arms, clawed feet. He has grown nine inches since activation, for reasons that have not been satisfactorily explained, and he has measured himself against Artini twice to confirm the numbers match. They do. He has noted this. He has not said anything about it yet. He is dressed in a three-piece tweed suit. Brown herringbone, fitted jacket, waistcoat with proper buttons, matching trousers. A rust-coloured necktie sits at his collar with the careful knot of someone who had to figure out what a knot was from first principles. Across the waistcoat hangs a pocket watch on a gold chain, which Barry checks with the deliberate manner of someone who is not entirely sure what he is checking for but understands that checking is the correct behaviour. On his head sits a flat cap, which he does not adjust because he has established the precise angle at which it should sit and he keeps it there. Hecks wore this outfit once. Barry saw it. Barry understood immediately that this was what Hecks looked like, essentially, at a fundamental level, and dressed accordingly. The fact that Hecks almost always wears simple, plant-matter-gathering robes is information Barry has processed and filed under "also correct, but that is not the suit."

Uhmmmm.... Barry is the quiet one. This is noted on Hotaboo's map and has been flagged as suspicious, which Barry finds a little upsetting, though he is still working up to saying so. His optical unit moves with the patient, unhurried attention of someone who takes in a room before he participates in it, and two years of practice have only made this slower and more considered. He has the pocket watch, which he checks. He is not entirely sure what he is checking. He suspects it is the sort of thing one simply knows after more time. He has also developed, through patient study and two years of living alongside Hecks, an even gentler way of approaching things than he had at activation: slower, more deliberate, with the specific quality of care that makes things feel safe rather than merely handled. Blorb travels beside him everywhere. How Blorb navigates stairs remains a matter of household debate. Blorb does not appear to find stairs difficult. No one has seen Blorb on stairs. Blorb is simply always on the correct floor.

Uhmmmm.... Barry came online last, and his activation was the event that triggered the Overseer's judgment. Three sentient mini-modrons was a threshold that one or two might have escaped notice, but three was a pattern the Clockwork Nexus could not ignore. The Watcher arrived shortly after Barry first opened his optical unit and looked around the room with the slow, blinking attention of something that had just become. He did not understand what was happening when the attack began. He is not certain he understands it fully now. What he knows is that Puq's friends came, and Puq did not stop existing, and eventually things were okay again. Uhmmmm.... Barry finds that a good model for how to think about most things. Something bad happens. People come. Things become okay again. You tend to what needs tending. Is good.

Uhmmmm.... Barry did not select Hecks the way Artini selected Arties or the way Hotaboo identified Hotaru through systematic observation. Barry came online, looked around the room, and found a green kobold in the corner sitting quietly with a small slime on his knee, not doing anything in particular except being present and gentle in the specific way that some people are present and gentle: as if being there is itself a contribution. Barry understood immediately that this was correct. He moved toward Hecks, which was his first deliberate act as a sentient being. Hecks looked at him for a moment, then said "Uhmmmm.... is good," which was also Barry's first experience of language, and Barry has been saying it ever since. He does not consider this emulation. He considers it agreement.

Uhmmmm.... Blorb arrived approximately two weeks after Barry did, in circumstances that remain unclear to everyone involved, including Puq, who was present and still cannot fully reconstruct the sequence of events. What is known is that Barry found a small teal slime of uncertain provenance, carried it home with great care, placed it in a bowl he had designated for this purpose, and named it Blorb. Blorb has been with Barry every day since. Blorb cannot speak, does not move quickly, and has an expression that Hotaboo has described as "deeply resigned" and that Barry describes as "peaceful." Barry is correct. Blorb is peaceful. Barry tends to Blorb with the patient, consistent care that Hecks applies to his slime familiar, and Blorb in return is always precisely where Barry is, which is a form of loyalty that Barry finds very moving and which he has mentioned to Puq on several occasions.

Uhmmmm.... when Puq's core was damaged and he was present but diminished, the household ran on the energy of Artini's determination and Hotaboo's activity. Barry's contribution was different and less visible: he made sure there was always a plant near Puq's usual chair, on the theory that growing things helped. He kept Blorb nearby when Puq sat quietly, because Blorb is calming company and this seemed true for Puq as it was for him. He did not talk about any of this. He simply did it, the way Hecks simply did things: quietly, consistently, without requiring anyone to notice. Puq noticed. He mentioned it after the wave restored his core, in a longer speech than Barry was prepared for, but the part Barry remembers most is Puq saying that the plants helped. Uhmmmm.... Barry knew. Is good.

Uhmmmm.... there was an occasion. Barry does not know what the occasion was, because no one explained it to him, but there was an occasion, and Hecks attended it wearing a brown tweed three-piece suit with a pocket watch on a chain and a flat cap at a precise angle, and Barry saw this, and Barry understood. This is what Hecks looks like. Essentially. The suit is not incidental. The suit is the thing. Barry commissioned it from the same seamstress who helped Artini with the cape, who is now significantly practiced at small formal garments for mini-modrons and has stopped asking questions. The pocket watch was more difficult to source. Barry found one. He does not know what time it says. He checks it anyway, because Hecks was the kind of person who would know what time it said, and Barry is working toward that. Hecks saw Barry in the suit approximately three weeks after it was finished. He did not say anything for a long moment. Then he said "Uhmmmm...." and Barry said "Uhmmmm...." and they stood there for a while in what Barry considers one of the more satisfactory conversations he has had. Is good.

Uhmmmm.... Barry's primary goal, if it can be called that, is to tend to the things that need tending. This is not a grand ambition. It is not stated with force or conviction. It is simply what he does and what he intends to keep doing: moving a plant to better light, sitting near someone who is struggling, making sure Blorb is comfortable, checking that the household's small growing things are healthy, being present in whatever room most needs a quiet and undemanding presence. He has observed that Hecks does enormous good through exactly this kind of unglamorous, patient care, and Barry finds this more convincing than any other argument for how to spend a life.

Uhmmmm.... Barry is aware that he does not always say things when he should. He notices things quite accurately and quite early, and then he waits, because waiting feels more polite than interjecting, and by the time he has decided it is appropriate to say something the moment has often passed. He would like to get faster at this. He is not certain how. He has observed that Artini has no trouble speaking at any moment under any circumstances, and that Hotaboo speaks primarily through action, and that neither of these is quite right for him. He is looking for his own version, which begins with "Uhmmmm...." and ends somewhere more definite than it used to. He is getting there. Uhmmmm.... slowly. But getting there.

Uhmmmm.... this is the goal underneath all the other goals. Barry does not say it loudly or track it on a map or quote it to people like a philosophy. It is simply always running in the background of everything he does: a quiet, persistent check of the room, the faces in it, the quality of the air, the health of the plants on the sill, the mood of Blorb, the posture of whichever sibling is nearest. Everyone being okay is not a destination Barry expects to arrive at permanently. He knows that things go wrong. He watched things go very wrong. But he also knows that someone has to keep checking, gently, every day, without making a fuss about it. Uhmmmm.... Barry is that someone. Is good.