Rizzrack could still heed the screams in his brain. He laboured, frenetically turning wrenches, twisting screws, constructing and carving and forging. Sleep escaped him; he only built. Months had gone by since he had locked himself in his uncle’s workshop, and his freedom was nearly complete. He massaged his back and shoulders as his eyes closed shut. He saw a blanket of flowers floating on the placid waves of Augury Bay before exploding into a cloud of pollen that silenced lives as it seized the lungs. He woke with a pungent start. For hours the rhythmic resonance of a whetstone filled up the shop as he honed a set of immense blades, his mind filled with pictures of strangling vines garrotting neighbours, strangling homes. The inundation of Augury Bay could not measure up to the brutal horrors the waters left to become established beyond the city walls. However, the saw-suit would make him physically powerful and safe he thought, allowing himself this sliver of optimism.