Urza - Monitoring Tolaria

“Machines, such as yourself. Gadgets, mainly. He’s got a whole mausoleum—um, that is, museum—filled with artifact creatures. You’ll be there too, soon enough. Master Malzra has a very active imagination and puts it to great use devising elaborate means to save himself a little bit of labor. He has created numerous devices to more quickly and efficiently cook the gruel and crackers, to more effectively limit the freedom of those under his command, to more completely defend all of us against external foes so that he alone can torment us.”

The silver man felt uncomfortable with this new line of thought. “External foes? What foes does Malzra have?”

“Oh, everyone is against him, or didn’t you know?” said Teferi lightly as they moved farther down the hallway. He idly conjured a small knife, whirled it deftly between his fingers, and then dispelled it. “At least that’s what Malzra thinks. He’s got clockwork creatures and actual warriors roaming the walls around the academy at all hours, and clay men tramping through the woods by the sea, and gear-work birds that spy on the island. I myself have never heard of a single real enemy, but Malzra spends so much time creating these machines and recreating them and perfecting them, there must be something more than psychotic paranoia at the root of it, wouldn’t you think?”

***

“Between them and our corps of sorcerers, led by Mage Master Barrin, the island’s defenses are complete,” Malzra said as he paced before the wall of schematics. Mechanical and biological troops were laid out in ink and paper in this private corner of the Hall of Artifacts. “Five hundred large-scale artifact creatures, seven hundred and fifty new falcon engines, a fleet of thirty ornithopters, and even a new dirigible.”

***

Time Streams, Chapter 1, 12