
"Lord? Lord Caroux?... Are you listening?" "One moment... A perfect string of notes just flashed through my mind. I must write it down..." No one in Anchorite Spiral's council chamber would be surprised by this exchange, because Lord Caroux's rise to power... was itself an accident. When his father hopefully signed him up for the election, the young gnome was busy researching how to give his steam-powered bagpipes a more metallic, piercing tone. Forced onto the campaign stage, he neither debated policy nor showcased his research, but simply performed an impromptu piece on his clockwork lute before hurrying off. To his surprise, the performance, a fusion of industrial roars and beautiful melody, captured the voters' hearts, making the note-obsessed inventor an unlikely victor.
To Caroux, his lordship is but an abrupt interlude in a grand symphony, and he constantly tries to return to the main melody. To his subordinates, Caroux is approachable enough. When they report on official matters, their lord is always gentle and polite, never harsh — it's just that the floating mechanical tuning hand on his shoulder seems to have a mind of its own, always bouncing in the air, adjusting some non-existent frequency. And out of their sight, Caroux's fingers tap out complex, syncopated rhythms under the table. The moment a meeting is adjourned, he's off like a tightly wound spring, grabbing blueprints and rushing back to his laboratory — a place filled with tuning forks, resonance tubes, metal horns, and magic crystal ores. Here, he is the true "lord".
In this peculiar laboratory where notes and gears resonate, Caroux created the "Sonicboom Lute" — a masterpiece blending a popular instrument with gnomish flintlock technology. It can play elegant, charming melodies, or turn those same notes into howling sonic projectiles to bombard a target. As for its actual combat effectiveness... Caroux doesn't care, and neither do the gnomes of Anchorite Spiral. They've created more than enough devastatingly powerful weapons. Why not make room for a work of art? Perhaps it is because of such "unserious" pursuits that Anchorite Spiral, while not perfectly orderly, is forever vibrant with all kinds of novel creations.










































