#servitor boran

this might be half the reason I started this series in the first place

Of course, we gotta start with the ruined tool

We can observe that at least one of the two claws used to hold the tool to Hornet's arm is disjointed, both the top plate and the spool are broken, and is overall pretty worn down, likely oxidized from the salt water nearby

We can see it has a chamber for canisters and two prongs, forming a channel

This tool can be repaired in three different places

"We can reforge the weapon" "With our own moldings"

Despite being able to reforge the spool into a functional state, she doesn't reforge the broken plating

Is the material too strong for her forge? or does the plate have something to it that can't be easily replicated?

Of course, she instead replaces the two plate segments with what she knows best: bells, perhaps with some inner carved runes, hymns to get the tool working as intended, or perhaps she doesn't

The result is a silkshot (silk + slingshot) with quite the meaty projectile

Huh, how curious, it looks like the shell canister is used as both an anchor around which a bundle of silk is spun and as a way to transfer kinetic energy to that bundle

The ring added to the end of the spool allows for a strong grip, needed for a heavier pull back

I also just now realized the two bottom prongs may serve not just to guide the "bullet" but also as anchors for the tension of the "slingshot" action

The silk bundle reminds me greatly of this Clawmaiden attack

Now, let's check with the architect

Even the skilled architect calls it an intricate artifact

Being more familiar with the craft of the First Children, they give it a plating closer to that of the original, but not the original plating; the spool is also completely replaced by cog and the smaller plate is reallocated as trigger

An understandable decision, as they do not possess a forge on their workshop

I do wonder thought, do they have red lacker hanging around? or is Hornet secretly carrying her own?

The resulting silkshot is one with revolver action born from the cog, allowing rapid fire of three projectiles

Once again, the now leaner canisters act as guide-seed for a more focused bundle of silk, no doubt because of the leaner plating

I'm noticing a pattern here

But this is still a far cry of the original silkshot, even beyond the fact that the spool was completely changed, so the questions asked with Forge Daughter remain

And like with Forge Daughter, they may or may have not etched runes into the plating to keep it from not blowing up

Finally, the original

Honestly, this one merits its own video (recorded by a friend, as I still don't have a save with it)

Well, that's a fucking laser, nothing like the bullets discussed before

...Or is it? the shot leaves a trail of dregs, the "smoke" is also a trail of even finer dregs, and it works with poison, which is also visible in the trail

Now, before I show screenshots of what's actually happening in there to reveal its secrets, and I've already said enough to gesture at the truth, let's look at an enemy from the area which has this exact same attack

Gotta love clever names like these, "service/servant + rotor"="servitor", "boran" from "bore" as in boring through the rock, drilling tunnels

"Able to fire a focused beam of silklight"

"Silklight? what the hell is that? the light from silk? that's just soul! silklight...fancy ass"

At face value, it just looks like this oversized lamp is focusing its light, likely made out of soul, into a beam

And you can actually see it focusing soul from its surroundings before firing, with the beam leaving a trail of soul particles afterwards

My first thought was that TC wanted to avoid using "soul" as a term as much as possible to make the final act 2 wish more impactful

But then I looked closer

Well, that's straight up a rune (or at the very least a spider's web) being shot

And yes, the silkshot uses this exact asset too

here are the raw sprites

Well that sure is silklight alright, silk shot in a stream at lightning speed, most definetively with the aid of a weaver rune etched into the now repaired plating, making it into essentially a high speed version of some silk skills, like an arrow in a rail gun

Fun fact the arrow looking sprite is called "web_shot_rail_beam_end0000"

The spiderweb-like impact is called "web_shot_rune_flash"

The shell canisters are called "Web_Shot_Bullets__0000_shot_casing_forge", "Web_Shot_Bullets__0001_shot_casing_architect" and "Web_shot_railgun_0000_casing"

So yes, this isn't a ray gun, but a rail gun, one powered with runes

Here's some of Hornet's spells as examples, with both sharp dart and silk spear using the needle as guide like how silkshot uses shell canisters (the pale nails here are enhanced by shaman crest, as indicated by the presence of blue tinted runes)

So the etchings of the plating segments would be something like...

Honestly, not one rune we see felt like a perfect fit (closest ones are still pale nails and silkspear though), so I made a custom design for fun

Doing this realized the two prongs probably are also etched with runes

It is also cute how the Boran lower body shares design elements with the silkshot, with the lil legs looking like the two claws that hold the tool to the arm

...and only after drawing and adding this do I notice the fine lines within the plating in the blueprint

This is probably missing detail because of how small it is on the screen ingame, runes are a lot more complex up close

I still gotta discuss the material of the weapon and the stuff regarding its original creation, but once again Tumblr's 30 images limit forces me to split the rest of it into a reblog

The rest of this post is in a reblog already

Ok so first of all, what's a spindle?

Ok cool so it is a tool to make thread out of fiber such as yarn; this reminds me of the mention of twined silk in the Greymoor workers lore tablet, which is probably what Hornet is doing during the animation

Twining shorter lenghts of silk to make them more potent / effective

(Fun fact: Widow's jojo ass poses are actually the same as Hornet while binding)

But...what kind of spindle? the shape of the shaft itself is not that unusual, but the whorl...that particular shape isn't really that of any whorl but rather seems to be a flyer, which you'd expect to see as part of a spinning wheel, even if it's seemingly missing the hooks that make it work properly

It seems that spool, spindle and bobbin are all treated as synonyms somewhat

So, how does Hornet use it?

She could be using it as a drop spindle

But this is rather clunky, and with the flyer aspect, the fact that beast and witch binds don't interact with her needle or arms at all, and the way it is designed similar to weaver spools (and how they dock together), makes me think the multibinder is affixed to Hornet's spool (or maybe to her tool pouch, I'm not sure if Hornet is even carrying a spool at the beginning of the game, the silk spool in the HUD could be representing her natural internal storage capacity)

Btw remember the canisters of silkshot and snare setter? and how the snare setter one looks like a spool? the shaft of the multibinder looks quite similar to the canisters of the silkshots

I don't think it's coincidence, given what I've already established about how silkshot works, as these canisters very much act as spindles for the silk bullets

I do wonder what proper Weaver spinning wheels and looms looked like, outside of that large loom in Deepnest's Weavers' Den

Maybe something like Seamstress' own loom?

It is pretty obvious this thing is emanating soul; the real question is how is it producing it

Does it have a silk core? a simple answer, it could be just that, same method that powers a Weavenest

I wonder if these silk cores are made out of dense, twined silk, like something made through the multibinder; both tools do share that same top design almost 1 to 1

However, I should note that Servitors (specially Boran) seem to be able to gather and focus environmental soul, even potentially form silk from it (Boran casting a silklight rune), which goes to explain how they can still be active, and weavelight could be functioning on a similar principle; Servitor heads are also used as heat lamps in Mount Fay

Funny how the smaller heat lamps are placed with the "eye" outwards, but the larger ones have it inwards (also fun how the smaller Servitors are called Ignis, as in ignition)

I wonder if the core of Servitors is actually weavelights

The tool itself looks like a lamp, but what it looks like on its original place...what function could it have had? is the glowing part facing inwards? the room itself doesn't look particularly unique

Maybe it really is just an unfinished lamp

Talking about silk and soul and lighting implements, it is very odd that Weavenest Atla has silkfly lanterns while also having rune ones

The shape of the frame also reminds me of the operation needles of whiteward and the bottom half of the silkshot tip; both imply injecting and therefore using the silkfly as a source of silk