Pernicious Rosewood Brand stands at the gate on the hill, and let the oil drip from his revolver down to the shattered remnants of glass and stone beneath.

It had been a long, hard road to the abbey, his flesh torn by the steel-and-carbon demons of the Crackling Wastes outside the old spine of the dragon. Those mountains were blue, and tall, like great vertebrae thrust into the sky from some mouldering beast. In their shadow, cities had bloomed on the ruins, and memories from ages long ago ensconced in crystal were once more beginning to be discovered.

The knights were sent out, numbering only a few, and Pernicious Rosewood Brand was but one among their number, seeking out the fabled priories in which secrets were kept. Sir Archibald Hound, named for one of the ancient heroes, had been the first, finding the Esoteric Order of the Metronome in the ruins beneath an obelisk. Now the cities pealed with music, and the rhythm lent the guildsmen a steadiness to their craft to forge works and wonders anew. Lady Tolman, her carbon skin crafted in the image of one of the old goddesses from an illustrated scripture, had struck into the jungles of the south to uncover the Hermetic Society of Electronicists, and screens now filled the city, every one opening the day with her image.

The last knight had set out to recover time itself from the jaws of the eons, and his journey had been perilous. Beasts from the Dark Age and piston-limbed monsters controlled by the dead hand of long-ago generals assailed him, and were cut down by rifle and revolver anointed with the holy oil.

And now he stands before the oaken door, the abbey raised high above him. A single knock, a few words from an old tongue, and Pernicious Rosewood Brand enters the abbey where he aims to find the workings of the finest clocks, to restore civilization itself into a glorious shadow of the long-lost golden age.

The secrets of time he seeks, yet he finds only the blank and vaguely amused stare of a woman in hooded robes.

Well.

More of a grease-stained hoodie with coveralls on, a banner brightly stitched with Fuckin' Dildos: Is There Any Other Kind?

Knobbed rods of rubber and silicone, synth-skin and leather, secret tricks of the geneticists of eons past and good old-fashioned ironwork adorn workbenches and racks, and the knight clutches at his pistol ever more tightly. Where are the clocksmiths he seeks, the screens and dials and more? Where is the precise tick of time, amid this scattered flurry of... of...

Dicks.

His stubble drips with sweat and the rosy-cross tattoo of his order begins to prickle across his back, and when his eyes meet hers, Pernicious Rosewood Brand realizes he has battled through the salt flats, trudged with dusty cloak across the marshes of thinking matter, with the swamplights whispering of delights in the lattices. He has strode across the world, gun in hand and sand in his eyes, the old manuscripts sending him on a completely different quest by dint of an added letter. His eyes widen when he spies the carving across the door, scarcely noting the priestess's eager eyes drifting downward.

For this, in the Year of Our Lord Ten Thousand and Sixty-Nine, is the Ancient and Most Honourable Order of Cocksmiths.

Cocksmiths, he thinks, and the smack of head into hand can be heard for miles.

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